epilogue: the future of african americans in u.s. higher education robert hall the contents of this thematic journal have been reviewed by numerous individuals prior to its publication for both substance and accuracy. many commented that once they started reading it, they could not put it down. personally, i appreciate the historical perspective provided. it was an educational experience that, as an historian i can appreciate. however, i am, as i am sure others who read this anthology will be, saddened when thinking of the continued struggles that challenge blacks in academe. who would think that it continues, at least on some fronts, to be so unpleasant? one is left reaching the conclusion that it is tough being a black professional anywhere. while reading this special volume of the journal, a couple of other questions come to mind. one is the use of the terms black and african american. is there a difference? to me there is. in the journal, at some points, the term black was used and at other times the term african american, when referring to the same group of people. in my opinion, the term black should be used. my rationale is based on the fact that many black people who live in the united states do not consider themselves african american. that is especially the case for blacks who come from latin america and the caribbean. it is not as if they do not acknowledge their african roots and take pride in them, but they do not consider themselves african; they see themselves as haitian, jamaican, or other ethnicity from the caribbean or latin america. they recognize that africans do not consider them as the "lost africans." history has also proven that white europeans were not the only participants in the atlantic slave trade. africans also had a role in the slave trade even though they had a different view of slavery. however, slavery in africa was not the atrocious experience that it was in the united states. the bottom line remains though, that africans, in some cases, did give away their own people with motivations of greed or survival. further, since the beginning of the slave trade to the present, africans have never really tried to identify with the people they gave away to the u.s. or the so called "lost africans." additionally, once one completes his/her reading of this volume, one feels a sense of frustration. hindrance after hindrance and crises after crises experienced by blacks in higher education have been chronicled. however, the real question is, what will be done to remedy these concerns? aside from these authors, are there other persons or organizations speaking out about these issues and attempting to remedy them? each of the contributors certainly sees the metropolitan universities as having a special role. are they being heard? have there been improvements in terms of the "struggle" that these authors began writing about over three years ago, just after the beginning of the new millennium? is there resolution or hope for the future? or simply idealistic thinking? 89 note: the author wishes to thank ms . frederique frage, graduate assistant, for her assistance in the finalization of this epilogue. author information robert hall is an associate professor at northeastern university in the department of african-american studies. he received his undergraduate degree from harvard university and his doctorate in history from florida state university. robert hall associate professor and acting chair department of african american studies northeastern university 132 nightingale hall boston, ma 02115 e-mail: r.hall@neu.edu telephone: 617-373-3148 fax: 617-373-2625 90 mu2006-7-090_page89 mu2006-7-091_page90 this second issue of metropolitan universities begins a series in which each issue will focus on a particular dimension of the institution. our selection of "challenges of diversity" as a start-off theme requires little explanation. students are the principal constituency of any college or university, and their rich but challenging diversity is a central characteristic of metropolitan universities. john jones, vice president for student affairs at the university of alabama at birmingham, undertook the task of guest editing this issue, and we are greatly indebted to him. his broad knowledge and experience at a national as well as institutional level enabled him to define a useful list of topics and to identify excellent authors. for metropolitan universities, there exists no clear demarcation between inside and outside, between campus and community. the reciprocal relationship that must exist between the institution and its environment is reflected in the alternating perspectives of the sequence of themes for subsequent issues of this journal. groups of articles focusing on the impact of the external environment on metropolitan universities-such as, in the present issue, institutional implications of the diversity of the metropolitan population-will be followed by issues exploring how institutions can contribute to their surroundings. don langenberg, chancellor of the university of maryland system, will be the guest editor of the fall 1990 issue, which will focus on the relationships of metropolitan universities to their communities. contributions will describe the metropolitan area, examine the nature of the interaction of metropolitan universities and their region, discuss their role as corporate entities, expfore their potential impact on the quality of urban life and treat, as well, the relationship of metropolitan universities and local government. the winter 1990 issue will again turn inward and focus on the professoriate of metropolitan universities. lee knefelkamp, senior associate at the american association of higher education (aahe) has agreed to be its guest editor. it will contain articles on the new and expanded definition of scholarship appropriate to metropolitan universities, on the broader array of skills needed by the professoriate of metropolitan universities and on the implications for the preparation of future faculty. other contributions will discuss the changes in faculty interests and activities during an individual's career, the effective use of part-time and adjunct faculty, and the special burdens placed on minority faculty. themes for subsequent issues of metropolitan universities will include the relationships of these institutions with public schools, the special challenges they face with regard to various aspects of teaching and 4 metropolitan universities/summer 1990 learning, and the contributions they make to regional economic development. two new features are introduced in the current issue. book notes provides brief descriptions of books of current interest'1o our readers. we welcome suggestions of publications to be mentioned in this column or to be reviewed in greater length in book reviews. forum presents expressions of personal opinion on important subjects. we invite contributions of 1200-1500 words, as well as shorter letters not to exceed 400 words. please share with us your reactions to published articles as well as suggestions for topics you would like to see discussed in future issues. we are also eager to receive items under the rubric of interactive strategies. but, above all, we hope that as the existence of the journal becomes more widely known, an initial trickle will soon swell to a steady stream of submitted articles on any subject germane to metropolitan universities, whether or not they fit into the theme of particular journal issues. please write or call me if you wish to discuss possible topics. ernest a. lynton 92 allerton street brookline, ma 02146 mu1990-summer-004_page3 mu1990-summer-005-page4 roger soder wayne c. booth. the vocation of a teacher: rhetorical occasions, 1967-1988. chicago: university of chicago press, 1988, 353 pp. as suggested by the title, we have here for delight and instruction some two decades' worth of speeches, articles, and journal entries. some of the nineteen selections are addressed particularly to students and teachers; others have as their audience university administrators, journalists, that amorphous "general public," or, as with the journal entries, the author himself. the questions to which booth returns, one way or another, are the perennial ones. what does it mean to be a teacher? what are our obligations as teachers? what should we know? how are we to talk about the idea of a university? there is much to mine here in this consistently high-quality collection. sheila slaughter. the higher learning and high technology: dynamics of higher education polley formation. albany: state university of new york press, 1990, 293 pp. the title is a bit misleading. we are not talking about high-tech in the sense of lasers and levitating trains. the focus here is on the workings and impact of the business-higher education forum, the collection of chief executive officers and presidents of major research universities, mostly american association of university administrators (aaua), that has since 1978 influenced higher education policy. although most of the attention is necessarily focused on the dynamics and politics of fortune 500 businesses and a limited number of universities, the lessons and cautionary insights that can be gleaned from this analysis of high-level joint ventures can be useful for those concerned about what is sometimes unwitting and sometimes unwarranted and always problematic intrusion in all types of higher education institutions. william d. schaefer. education without compromise. san francisco: jossey-bass, 1990, 153 pp. although the author is a professor of english at a major research university and former executive director of the modern language association, his observations on problems of higher education in this short volume apply to all types of institutions and disciplines. he joins the discussion on .such matters as the nature of liberal education; publishing versus perishing and the variants thereof; specialization; and the teaching of writing and the teaching of the humanities in nine nontechnical essays, all of which gently, but firmly, poke and prod. there is little emphasis on new sets of clever answers; rather, schaefer prefers to remind us what the questions ought to be. thomas cleary, ed. and trans. the tao of politics. boston: shambhala, 1990, 101 pp. (paper) selections are included here from second-century b.c.e. discourses by eight taoist masters on the arts of leadership, statecraft, and politics, conducted during a time of national reconstruction following centuries of warfare. the observations of the sages resonate across the ages. to wit: "if you stretch out a net where birds will fly by, it is only one eye of the net that catches a bird, but if you make a net of one eye, you'll never catch the bird." "cultivated people fear loss of justice; infantile people fear loss of material advantages. by observing what they fear, you can tell their differences." "no one stumbles over a mountain, but people do trip over anthills." shrewd, insightful, and sure to jar all but the most jaded. mu1991-spring-108_page107 from the editor's desk ernest a. lynton after a lengthy hiatus, the position of book editor for metropolitan universities is once again filled. we are delighted to welcome trevor colbourn, president emeritus of the university of central florida, historian of the american revolution, author of many books, articles, and reviews--and also ,\ former book editor some thirty years ago for pennsylvania history. dr. colbourn served as graduate dean at the university ofnew hampshire and academic vice president and acting president of san diego state university before becoming president of what was then florida technical university. he succeeded in changing the name of the institution to the university of central florida, and presided for eleven years over its steady development. we will begin to reap the fruits of dr. colbourn's labor with the next issue. another transition marks this issue: it is the last one jointly published by towson state university and the university of massachusetts at boston. continuing and indeed still deteriorating financial resources have forced the latter to terminate its financial support for the journal. towson state is now the sole publisher on behalf of the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. the coalition as well as the editorial staff of the journal are most grateful to the university of massachusetts at boston for its past contributions, and look forward to its continuing participation in coalition activities. our thanks go as well to karl beeler, associate vice president for student affairs at the university of missouri, st.louis, who has done a superb job as guest editor for this issue. our readers will benefit from the quality of his choices of topics and authors. as editor, i profited as well from the way in which he got all contributions in on time and with all t's crossed and i's dotted. that's no mean achievement, as any reader with editorial experience can attest! dr. beeler's overview describes the content and relationship of the articles; it requires no repetition. but two pertinent remarks are in order. one is an expression of pleasure at a first: one of the articles is co-authored by an undergraduate and a graduate student, and describes an interesting project designed and implemented by these two individuals. i am sure that other metropolitan universities have student-initiated projects and programs of particular interest, and would welcome pertinent manuscripts. 4 metropolitan universities/summer 1996 i want to share as well some thoughts triggered by several of the articles in this issue, especially the one by ken lawson and le vester tubbs stressing the need to relate international and multicultural education. as i have mentioned previously in these pages, i have long been concerned by our failure to take advantage of the linguistic diversity of our student body. indeed, we usually treat as a handicap what could so easily be a real asset: a student's knowledge of a language other than english. bilingual education in primary and secondary schools is most commonly viewed as a way of coping with linguistic deficiencies--i.e., inadequate familiarity with english--rather than being recognized for its potential to enrich both native english speakers as well as immigrants and others more familiar with another language. a few public schools in washington, dc, and elsewhere are truly bilingual in that all their pupils, whatever their origin, acquire mastery of at least two languages. the success of these institutions depends largely on having a student body with a variety of linguistic backgrounds. they capitalize on what others view as a problem. surely there is also more that we can do in higher education to turn an apparent handicap into an asset. two of the articles in this issue one by kim wilcox and carol koehler and one by douglas stutler describe imaginative ways of using student experience and expertise to enrich the learning process of other students. why can this not be generalized so as to take advantage of the linguistic abilities and cultural insights of students from diverse ethnic groups? wilcox and koehler describe the use of students as providers of supplemental instruction. stutler suggests using students' prior experience by having them function as learner experts. surely approaches such as these could be used to capitalize on the capabilities of students speaking languages other than english, thereby giving them a sense of pride and accomplishment while expanding learning opportunities for those speaking only english. improving the urban education pipeline nancy zimpher according to the organisation for economic co-operation and development, a european public policy think tank, the united states is one of the only nations on the globe where older adults are more educated than younger adults-we rank tenth among industrialized nations in the percentage of twenty-five to thirty-four-year-olds with an associates degree or higher (making opportunity affordable 2007). in a world where family-supporting jobs increasingly require postsecondary education, our failure to provide a globally competitive education to our young people-and especially our urban and minority youth-not only jeopardizes their futures, but the future of our country as well. ensuring student access and improving our k-16 educational pipeline are not just educational issues; they are national priorities. the coalition of urban serving universities (usu), comprised of thirty-nine public urban research universities from every region of the united states, has taken up the challenge. in addition to focusing the energies of its members on economic development and improving public health, the usu has set no less a goal than to advance the quality of urban education at every level from preschool to college. to do so, it has galvanized what it calls the urban educator corps, a partnership of research institutions and comprised of the deans of education schools and faculty leaders from its member universities. believing that solutions must be tested in the real world of america's urban neighborhoods, the corps is sharing what it learns from the partnerships its members create across the united states. this issue of metropolitan universities outlines the challenges that usu has identified and profiles the work of eleven of the corps member institutions. clearly the focus of the usu on advancing the quality of urban education at every level is both timely and critical. innovative and tested solutions are needed to strengthen our teachers and schools, educate all students, and equip them for success in postsecondary study and their careers. the power of urban universities is desperately needed to tackle the tough challenges of student dropouts and teacher attrition. as ken howey outlines in the first article, these tough challenges include both a student and teacher dropout crisis; an urgent need to improve the quality of teachers in urban schools; and widening racial, ethnic, and technological gaps between the teacher workforce and the students they serve. 5 6 the solutions that usu members outline squarely address these challenges, from the community-wide p-16 partnerships that address student access to innovative teacher preparation programs serving diverse neighborhoods, from mentoring programs that are transforming what is taught and how to pre-college programs with a proven record of success. the shared commitment of the usu members and the urban educator corps to take on these tough challenges is enhanced by the diversity of expertise and experience each university brings to this collaboration. each member institution is different-in the community needs to which it responds, in its access to resources and talents, and in the creative ideas it develops. it is from this rich well of diverse solutions that we will be able to improve america's urban education pipeline. urban serving universities members arizona state university california state university system california state university, dominguez hills california state university, east bay california state university, fresno california state university, fullerton california state university, long beach california state university, los angeles california state university, northridge california state polytechnic university, pomona sacramento state university california state university, san bernardino san diego state university san francisco state university san jose state university city university of new york, city college of new york florida international university georgia state university indiana university-purdue university indianapolis morgan state university north carolina state university the ohio state university portland state university temple university tennessee state university university of akron university of alabama at birmingham university of central florida university of cincinnati university of colorado denver university of houston university of illinois at chicago university of louisville university of memphis university of minnesota university of missouri-kansas city university of new mexico university of new orleans virginia commonwealth university wichita state university references making opportunity affordable. 2007. adding it up: state challenges for increasing college access and success. the national center for higher education management systems and jobs for the future. http://www.makingopportunityaffordable.org/publications/. author information president nancy l. zimpher is a past chair of the board of directors of the national association of state universities and land-grant colleges and serves as chair of the coalition of urban serving universities. she is the co-author and co-editor of books on university leadership as well as books on teacher education and urban education. she also has authored and co-authored many monographs, book chapters, and academic journal articles related to academic leadership, school-university partnerships and teacher education. nancy l. zimpher, ph.d. president university of cincinnati p.o. box 210063 cincinnati, ohio, 45221 e-mail: president@uc.edu telephone: 513-556-2201 fax: 513-556-3010 7 overview ernest a. lynton one of the striking characteristics of metropolitan universities is the paradoxical role of continuing education. on the one hand, our institutions can no longer maintain a valid distinction between "regular" education as provided on campus for mostly full-time, daytime, young students, and "continuing" education provided in the evening and/ or off campus, on a part-time basis, usually for older students. classrooms are filled with students of all ages, some full time, some part time; many "regular" programs are taught in the late afternoon or evening and some are taught off campus or beamed to distant places by telecommunication. to view continuing education as a distinct instructional category no longer makes much sense. yet, at the same time, the innovative and catalytic role of continuing educators is more important than ever as metropolitan universities increase their multifaceted interaction with their region. in most of our institutions, the professionals in continuing education have the experience, the skills, and the commitment needed to span the boundaries between campus and external constituencies. they can be, and usually are, invaluable in helping metropolitan universities serve the instructional and other intellectual and cultural needs of the region. how then does one conceptualize the role of continuing education? what approach is most conducive to engage the entire institution in its metropolitan mission? what organizational arrangements are most effective in implementing the optimal role of continuing education and of continuing educators? to what extent, and in what way, should continuing education move beyond its traditional focus on instruction so as to assist the institutional engagement in other, noninstructional forms of outreach? this issue of metropolitan universities has continuing education as its theme. thanks to the help of gordon "nick" mueller of the university of new orleans, and dan shannon of the university of wisconsin, milwaukee, this issue contains six very timely articles . dan shannon reconceptualizes continuing education as moving beyond instructional outreach to be facilitator, convener, or broker of other modes of university extension. he describes the characteristics needed to fulfill these expanded tasks, stressing the role of continuing education as the principal provider of access to the knowledge base of the university by the larger community. paul miller similarly sees continuing education as adding to its traditional role a strong emphasis on what he calls the restoration of primary citizenship. he suggests specific initiatives by which people can be educated about education so that the quality of local government and volunteer leadership can be improved, and science literacy and the utilization of knowledge for problem solving can be enhanced. joe donaldson and norma long both address the organization of continuing education within the university. donaldson argues convincingly that this question should be examined not only along the usual centralized/ decentralized dimension, but also in terms of institutional boundary and domain, coordination and integration. long provides overview 7 specifics as to how continuing education can be organized to have both a university-wide role while also maintaining a close relationship to the individual units of the institution. the contribution of joyce feucht-haviar and timothy scovill assesses the role of liberal learning in continuing education of practitioners. they argue that the most promising foundation on which to integrate liberal and professional material is the practice itself. the article describes pertinent strategies being implemented by the authors at the university of virginia. nick mueller describes the evolution of what began as a somewhat peripheral advisory group of business people into a very effective, action-oriented business/higher education council with a budget, a staff, and a substantial agenda. the council helps in extending the instructional resources of the university of new orleans to the community and in identifying problems in the city that the university may address. it has also been a successful advocate for higher education. the issue also carries two forum pieces. paige mulhollan speaks to the urgent need for a model of excellence for universities that are committed to a student body far more diverse and to scholarship far more inclusive than what has been the norm for traditional research institutions. richard hogarty describes an example of a university striving toward the new model: the university of massachusetts at boston. both pieces are welcome reminders that in spite of, and perhaps even because of, budgetary crises and fiscal restraints, metropolitan universities play an ever more important role in their communities. how much needs to be done is once again underscored by nicholas michelli' s review of two books, which illustrates the disastrous conditions of children's lives in the inner city. barry bull's book review emphasizes the extent to which much of current thought about higher education is still bound by traditional notions of the typical student. mu1992-fall-007_page6 mu1992-fall-008_page7 from the sidelines ernest a. lynton, editor emeritus time is running out legislative and other external rhetoric about higher education is sounding a theme that should profoundly worry the members of the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. more and more one hears the statement-expressed at times as part of a general bashing of the academy-that states need only two categories of four year institutions: one, or in some larger states, a small number of research universities. for the rest the public interest requires establishments dedicated only to instruction. that view is shared not only by a growing number of state legislators and some governors, but also by some heads of state-wide coordinating boards-as we in massachusetts know only too well, being subject to particularly strident and denigrating comments from the chairman of our coordinating commission. given those external threats to our existence as comprehensive universities dedicated to more than teaching, we can both individually and collectively as a coalition follow a number of strategies. one is to close our ears to all this pressure, to hunker down and hope that it will all just go away. there is always a lot of sand around into which we can stick our heads, and that has often worked in the pastperhaps it will work again. a second approach is to keep repeating our cherished mantra: research is essential to good teaching. no matter that no one has ever really demonstrated itexcept perhaps for advanced undergraduate seminars and doctoral instruction. no matter that it is difficult even for a committed researcher to demonstrate how the quality of a lower division composition course or even a literature survey is noticeably increased by the production of a monograph on an eliz.abethan poet. no matter above all that the public has long ago stopped buying that ateljioollt. all too often we continue to use it to justify faculty time and university resources spent on research. fortunately there is a third strategy-although the time may be running out to apply it successfully. it is to realize and to raise public awareness of that crucial statement in our collective statement of identity: ''we are dedicated to serve as an intellectual and creative resource to our metropolitan regions in order to contribute to their economic development, social health, and cultural vitality ... " many, indeed probably all members of the coalition are involved in a number of activities that contribute to this purpose. but many of them continue to be the result of individual faculty initiatives or, in some cases, the efforts of a school or i 00 metropolitan universities/spring 1998 department. that may not be sufficient to project to legislatures and the public at large our ability, to be the kind of intellectual and creative resource to which we aspire, and that we have the capability to do so precisely because we engage in research. we will need to develop more systematic and institutionalized mechanisms to ensure that the results of our research (and that which takes place elsewhere) is rapidly and effectively communicated to where it can be applied, made useful, and (not coincidentally) enhanced and enriched by the very act of application. it is a strategy to show, in very concrete terms, that by linking research to its application, the metropolitan university can indeed become a major resource to its community. and when the metropolitan community experiences how the university as a whole-as more than an aggregate of isolated activities-can enhance school reform, contribute to economic development, encourage technology transfer, help to create new enterprises and modernize existing ones, then there is reason to believe that this community will recognize that a regional university can and should be more than a teaching institution, yet through its emphasis on outreach and interaction, fundamentally different from the traditional research university. it would have been easier had we begun to do so a decade or more ago, but there still may be time to escape the false but widely held belief that four year institutions are either traditional research universities or teaching institutions. the implications of all this for faculty professional service are obvious. in the first place it must be properly recognized and rewarded-which in tum means well documented and peer reviewed. secondly, as suggested above, it must be institutionalized and systematized so as to ensure a whole that is greater-and more visible-than the sum of fragmented, uncoordinated efforts that are inevitable if academic outreach is left primarily to individual initiative. if we manage to establish ourselves as a collective intellectual resource, we may be able to escape the hobson's choice that now confronts: to be traditional research universities, which would misuse our capabilities, or to be limited-and funded-by our instructional function, which fails to make adequate use of them. time is running out-but i don't believe that we have any choice but to try. review essay john knox julius getman, in the company of scholars: the struggle for the soul of higher education. austin: university of texas press, 1992, 294 pp. reviewed by john knox, university of wisconsin-madison. yet another book on higher education, this one by a harvard-trained law professor. why should metropolitan universities readers care? "jack" getman's excellent memoir/critique in the company of scholars transcends the artificial boundaries of higher education and provides keen insight into the troubles and the triumphs of academia, whether you are an administrator, a professor, or even a graduate student in the physical sciences (such as myself). the broad reach of this book is due to getman's own extraordinary background and career. the son of intelligent but largely uneducated immigrants, getman attended the bronx high school of science, the city college ofnew york, and harvard law school (where he did not make law review, he is reminded repeatedly); was a teaching associate to famed sociologist david riesman; has taught labor law at harvard, chicago, indiana, yale, stanford, and now texas law schools; and in the 1980s served as general counsel and later president of the american association of university professors. in addition, getman brings to this book the perspectives of a political liberal with a clear affinity for those groups ignored by or disaffected with academia. his voice, therefore, carries well above the din of the numerous, fulminating conservative critics of higher education. the "struggle" getman outlines is the tug-of-war between elitist and egalitarian tendencies within higher education-a tension felt keenly by the child of immigrants at harvard law school, to be sure, but also illustrated by numerous stories and anecdotes getman has collected during interviews with colleagues from various fields. the book is organized into five chapters, entitled the attraction of academic life; the basic academic processes and the search for meaning; the relationship of faculty to academic institutions; the struggle for change; and special features of academic life. this somewhat loose structure permits getman to tell story after wonderful story from his and others' experiences, which address many of the topics discussed in the previous issue of metropolitan universities that was devoted to faculty roles and rewards. if you read this book, you will inevitably find yourself quoting these stories to your friends and colleagues! my own personal favorite involves a female assistant professor of french horn at indiana in the early 1970s who was manifestly terminated on the basis of her gender. getman served as her counsel, and recounts the following exchange between himself and the dean of the music school before the faculty board of review at indiana, as reconstructed from a tape of the hearing: getman: "have you ever heard the expression 'it takes balls to play brass?'" dean: "oh, yes ." getman: "is that a commonly used expression among brass players?" dean: "fairly common." getman: "would you say it reflects feelings of masculine superiority?" dean: "no, it's just an expression referring to the aggressive style necessary for good brass playing, a kind of pulsing virility which most brass instruments re94 metropolitan universities/summer 1994 quire." getman: ''you don't think that's sexist?" dean: ''no, not at all, because a woman might be said to play with balls." getman: "can you describe the last time you heard that expression applied to compliment a woman brass player?" dean: ''not offhand." whether the topic is gender discrimination, "tenured radicals," or the arcane rituals of faculty recruitment, getman has a story to tell which the reader may applaud or reject, but cannot ignore. f acuity, administrators, and even students at a wide range of institutions will thus identify with and learn much from getman's insights. but as with any great teacher, one learns ultimately by example, not so much from facts. getman's great example, as revealed in this memoir, is that of an accomplished scholar and teacher who resists all attempts to lionize himself, who is comfortable revealing his professional and personal missteps and epiphanies in wincing detail, and who confounds the easy political stereotyping of the modem academy by proclaiming, "i find myself almost as critical of academic liberals as i am of its traditionalists." to read this book is to be in the presence of a fully mature spirit a rare and energizing experience in academic settings . in the company of scholars now resides in my library alongside page smith's historical critique killing the spirit (penguin, 1990) and fredrick barton's acclaimed novel the el cholo feeling passes (peachtree, 1985) as testimonies to the notion that one can embrace pluralism and still think that something is terribly wrong with higher education. from the editor's desk barbara a. holland most people would agree that metropolitan institutions face unique challenges in the arenas of fund raising, alumni relations, public relations, and other university relations activities. our alumni are different, our communities are huge and diverse. we compete with dozens of metropolitan-based nonprofit organizations who depend on philanthropists for their resources. nationally, the nature of our students and alumni and the work of our missions can make us look a little different to major donors and foundations who are well-acquainted with more traditional institutions. however, we often find it difficult to develop unique responses to these challenges and, as in some other arenas of administration, we tend to rely on imitating the advancement models common to traditional institutions. can or should we change that pattern? when you look at the wave of organizational change across higher education, there is a massive amount of discussion (and variable amounts of action) on issues of change in curriculum, ''the undergraduate experience," faculty roles and rewards, and even in the characteristics of institutional missions. finance and administrative support functions have been the frequent object of various management reform strategies, such as total quality managment, quality initiatives, and continuous improvement, all meant to improve efficiency. an interesting question to pose is: "what's been the impact of the higher education change movement on university relations or institutional advancement units?" most people i have talked with respond to this question with a look of surprise that conveys something on the lines of "oh my, we forgot about reforming those departments!" then they quickly realize they know little about how to critically assess or improve the performance of these units. all most institutions do is count bodies and dollars, which in and of themselves don't reveal much about what techniques work and why. this phenomenon is not completely surprising, given that academic work is the very heart of the organization and our reason for being. however, as external public and private support becomes an ever-increasing proportion of institutional revenues, it may be in our self-interest to subject institutional advancement to a similar level of scrutiny. while there are massive bodies ofliterature and research on the core academic and administrative functions of higher education organizations, 4 metropolitan universities/fall 1997 there is no comparable scholarly exploration of the work of university relations . the functions of development, alumni, public relations, and like departments are often forgotten in university organizations. detached from key academic activities, they are not readily visible and do not seem to have daily impact on faculty and students. then comes the moment someone needs to endow a chair, build a building, publicize an important award, or cover a budget cut. the president, provost, dean, or faculty member needs and wants those units to operate quickly and responsively at the highest level of competency and cost-effectiveness. but what do we really know about the effectiveness of institutional advancement units, and are any changes or innovations needed to ensure success in the next century? although fund raising, image development, and alumni behaviors have been the sporadic subjects of some dissertations or occasional studies, and various centers or associations have collected statistics and other descriptive data about institutional advancement operations, serious research has been random and diffuse at best. much has been written about how to do the work of institutional advancement. little qualitative and quantitative research has been done to develop the conceptual bases and theoretical perspectives needed to critically review the performance of advancement units or develop new methods and strategies for effectiveness. a first and helpful step could be to coalesce existing research into an accessible and coherent body of work that can guide future studies. an important research issue for urban and metropolitan institutions involves the relationship of institutional mission and community context to strategies for institutional advancement. do traditional strategies work in large metropolitan regions, or must we use different methods? if so, why and what would those be like? the articles in this issue could be thought of as a set of institutional case studies that explore the fundraising experiences of metropolitan institutions . charles ruch, president of boise state university, has done an excellent job of building a team of authors who have critically considered their own institutional efforts and shared some lessons learned. within these articles are the kernels of important research questions that deserve thoughtful exploration if we are to continue to improve the outcomes of our institutional advancement programs. in this issue of metropolitan universities you also will find the announcement of the 1997-98 research grant competition funded by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. i hope that these articles on fund raising will inspire proposals to conduct research on questions regarding institutional advancement activities. now, get out there and raise some money! overview mark b. lapping the collection of papers in this issue of metropolitan universities combines the analysis of the field of urban studies together with assessments of a number ofuniversitycommunity collaborations. academic programs in "urban studies" or "urban affairs" constitute one of the important ways in which metropolitan universities have organized study and inquiry into the nature of the urban experience. though i am personally growing increasingly dissatisfied with the very notion of"urban" as opposed to "metropolitan" studies, such programs exist in one form or another in almost every metropolitan university. some programs have a high level of integration and have moved to realize their potential as a genuine "field of study." other programs are merely "menu" based and lack coherence and a specific intellectual direction. nevertheless these are important programs which often reflect the "urban" nature or sensibility of the contemporary metropolitan university. briavel holcomb, for many years the chair of the urban studies department at rutgers university, discusses how that program emerged out of a major institutional commitment to build a social science college which could respond to the tragic events and conditions which were behind the urban riots of the mid-1960s. highly personal, holcomb's account leads her to see how urban studies at rutgers has matured into an important part of critical studies. scott cummings, one of the nation's leading urbanists, and an editor of the journal of urban affairs, discusses the centrality of graduate programs in urban and public affairs to the modem metropolitan university. his is a thoughtful and critical assessment of some of the problems in realizing the potential of such graduate level programs. this analysis suggests some of the larger institutional issues as well as some of the idiosyncratic realities at his own institution, the university of louisville. the academic commitment to urban studies and urban communities is expressed in ways other than formal degree programs. over the years we have seen both the "rise and fall" of urban community centers. a number of these efforts have been reconstituted, while others have only recently been initiated. some universitycommunity collaborations are housed in one department or college. others are multiunit in nature and span several administrative units within a single institution. and still others tend to combine the resources of several institutions brought together to address the needs of a particular community. the point of departure for such projects may differ as well. sometimes the university starts the program while still at other times the initiative derives from the community. victor rubin's essay on the university-oakland forum traces the evolution of this highly successful and innovative program whose roots at uc-berkeley have not inhibited its capacity to bring in other institutions to address the needs of an important urban center. the forum has been able to grow and change to accommodate necessary conditions both within the structure of the universities themselves as well as the oakland community. ken reardon of the university of illinois discusses the ways in which applied student and faculty research in the planning and design professions can assist the citizens of one of the nation's most at-risk communities, east st. louis, illinois. reardon honestly assesses some of the barriers institutional, political, class, and racial which must be addressed in realistic ways before any university-commu6 metropolitan universities/spring 1995 nity collaboration can have a chance to build local capacity while simultaneously meeting the needs of the university. his concerns must be discussed rather than deferred. john thurber introduces us to the trenton office of policy studies (tops), a city-university partnership which, in a relatively short period of time, has been able to undertake a number of important programs and policy initiatives in a city which lacks a traditional research or four-year collegiate institution. new jersey's innovative thomas a. edison state college, which is located in trenton, serves as the key institutional sponsor of tops, along with the office of the mayor. tops has been able to bring together such diverse institutions as mercer county community college and princeton university, among others, to work with local corporations and institutions in an evolving public/private partnership to meet some of the needs of the trenton region. tops is adroit, pragmatic, and resourceful. john brain, director of the executive advisory board on higher education of baltimore county (eab), and publisher of metropolitan universities, helps us to understand some of the problems of building a new multi-institutional system to serve the needs of the baltimore-centered region. the eab has achieved a degree of national prominence in a relatively short period of time, in part because of the "baltimore renaissance" but also because of the ways in which the eab has used technology to build bridges while recognizing that competition rather than cooperation often defines the market culture of institutions within the same geographic area. michael paddle, a faculty member associated with the center for governmental studies at northern illinois university, describes ways in which metropolitan universities can respond to regional needs for workforce preparation and maintenance. he reminds us that a first step must always be to gather the necessary information about what the community wants. john mohan, professor and head of department of geography of queen mary and westfield college of the university of london, gives us the benefit of a comparative view of university-community relations in the united kingdom and in the united states. he has been a strong voice for greater community involvement of universities in his own country and spent a year in this country as a harkness fellow studying such relationships over here. critical of their limited extent in his country by comparison to what he found here, he nevertheless raises some searching questions about what he encountered during his visit. finally, in a very modest way i attempt to suggest a rationale for the emergence of "metropolitan studies" as both a field of inquiry and an overriding institutional commitment for metropolitan universities. rather than a blueprint for any particular program in metropolitan studies, the aim here is to generate discussion and debate on that form, its composition, and its very direction and relevance. from the editor's desk ernest a. lynton shortly before this issue of metropolitan universities went to press, the american association of higher education (aahe) sponsored the first of what are intended to be annual meetings of its new forum on faculty roles and rewards. the overwhelming success of the conference (with a capacity of 500 participants, it was overbooked and even so had to turn away more than one hundred individuals) is good news for metropolitan universities. it indicates that questions about institutional missions and about the nature of faculty scholarship are moving from the periphery to the center of attention in higher education. the level of discourse and the intensity of activity are rising. an introductory paper by russ edgerton, president of aahe, entitled "the reexamination of faculty priorities," was distributed to all participants in the aahe conference. in it, edgerton states that "[b]eginning in 1990 and accelerating in 1991and1992, presidents and provosts across the country have been charging task forces and committees to reexamine various aspects of the faculty reward system, from the tasks faculty are expected to perform, to ways teaching and service are evaluated, to the bases for promotion and advancement." action, as always, lags rhetoric, and to date there has been, at best, only a modest beginning toward bringing about the changes that are needed. what is most encouraging is that, at the institutional level, selfperceptions are starting to change. a number of prestigious researchoriented universities have initiated serious steps toward a greater emphasis on faculty scholarship in areas other than research. this move finds its strongest support among the younger faculty, who are likely to set the tone in the future. and among metropolitan universities and other comprehensive universities, one finds a growing recognition-and some sense of relief-that there is less need to be apologetic about multiple missions. indeed, multidimensional excellence encompassing all aspects of individual as well as institutional activities is emerging as a key slogan for all universities. increasingly, metropolitan universities find themselves leading the trend and setting the example for more traditional institutions. they are indeed emerging, as charles hathaway, paige mulhollan, and karen white stated in the first article to be published in this journal, as models for the twenty-first century. with the good news there comes, as always, some that is less encouraging: professional service continues to be largely neglected. both semantically and conceptually, most of the current conversation regarding a broader conception of faculty scholarship still focuses on teaching, with an occasional proforma nod to service. that usually comes in the first and the final paragraphs of a paper or presentation, with an elaboration on the enhancement, evaluation, and reward of faculty involvement in teaching in the middle. still lacking is a gut-level understanding of the role and importance of professional outreach. there exists, as yet, very little from the editor's desk 3 systematic exploration of the scholarship in professional service, its relationship to other forms of scholarship, and its significance as an integral part of faculty roles and rewards. professional service is still not getting full attention. that is bad news for metropolitan universities. what distinguishes our institutions most clearly from twoand four-year colleges is their ability to be a substantial source of expertise and knowledge transfer to their regional constituencies in the private and public sectors. this close and reciprocal relationship to practice and application also gives metropolitan universities a special edge as compared to traditional research institutions in providing preparatory as well as continuing education for practitioners. most metropolitan universities are fully aware of their interactive mission. they are deeply engaged ina wide variety of professional service activities through school-college collaboration, technical assistance to small-and medium-sized enterprises, consultancies and policy analyses to public agencies, and many other ways of ensuring the effective dissemination of new ideas and information. but they have, by and large, not as yet engaged in a systematic and thorough conceptualization of the role of the faculty in these activities. the tendency to lump professional outreach with on-campus committee assignments and community volunteer work persists. it is extremely important to disaggregate the catch-all term of" service" and to reach an understanding of the distinction between institutional or general citizenship, on the one hand, and professional service, on the other. we need to recognize and articulate the scholarly dimensions of the latter, its criteria of excellence, and how it should be evaluated and documented. metropolitan universities must take the lead in this undertaking; they must, as it were, catch up with the extensive and highly important work being done with regard to the scholarship in teaching. they must make sure that the ongoing work of the aahe forum on faculty roles and rewards focuses as strongly on professional service as it does on the teaching and learning function. indeed, metropolitan universities should work toward the day when the boundaries between the traditional triad of teaching, service, and research are recognized to be artificial and dysfunctional. the relationship among the three is becoming ever closer, with professional service enriching teaching, more and more applied research being carried out in a practice context, and most outreach activities containing a substantial developmental element. we are close to being able to say that there can be no professional service without a component of teaching, no applied research without a connection to practice, and no practice-oriented teaching without external experience. the fusion of the triad into a single, multidimensional activity is at the heart of what metropolitan universities are about. and it behooves these institutions to take the lead in focusing national attention on such an inclusive approach to faculty roles and rewards, with all aspects equally in the spotlight. metropolitan universities cannot afford to let the discourse slip into a dipolar discussion of teaching and research, with service as an afterthought. 4 metropolitan universities/summer 1993 in the near future we expect to publish a number of presentations from the national meeting of the aahe forum on faculty roles and responsibilities. the current issue addresses two themes. a number of articles continue to focus on the theme of assessment begun in the preceding issue, which also contained the overview by guest editor barbara wright. i would like once again to thank professor wright for her outstanding work, which she accomplished during the difficult time of reentry from her position at aahe to being a faculty member at the university of connecticut. the second half of the current issue is devoted to the theme: the international dimension. my deep gratitude goes out as well to president john shumaker of central connecticut state university, who found the time,inspiteofhisall-consumingtaskasheadofasubstantialmetropolitan university, to conceive, organize, and edit these articles. mu1993-summer-003_page2 mu1993-summer-004_page3 mu1993-summer-005_page4 from the editor's desk ernest a. lynton our intention from the beginning has been for this journal to be a truly international forum. the articles in this issue by dietrnar von hoyningen-huene, michael leszczensky, and michael lewis are the first since the contribution in our first issue of jean dore, mayor of montreal, to give reality to this intention. we welcome these contributions from other countries and intend to continue in future issues to broaden the geographic perspective of the journal as much as possible. in this age of increasing international contacts and exchanges, this perspective is important because of our readers' intrinsic interest in what is happening elsewhere in higher education. it is valuable as well because such contributions from abroad can help us to better understand our own system. comparisons and contrasts with developments in other countries place into sharper relief what we are and are not doing in our own. the three international contributions in this issue are of particular interest because they deal with categories of institutions in the united kingdom and in germany, respectively, which in many-though not all-ways are a counterpart to the american metropolitan university. just as we have, during the recent past, finally learned that not all universities either can or should be like harvard or madison, so also have our british and our german colleagues in academic institutions and in government come to recognize that there are important models for institutions of higher ed uca ti on other than oxford and cambridge-or even manchester-in the uk and other than tuebingen or heidelberg in germany. as the three articles show, the british polytechnics and the german fachhochschulen, like our metropolitan universities, recognize their mission to be regionally oriented and focused on the preparation of effective practitioners. polytechnics have moved, as well, toward accepting more part-time students and being responsive to broader educational needs, goals in which the germanfachhochschulen, as yet, are lagging. in germany and, to a lesser extent, in the uk, it is official policy to strengthen and to expand these newer sectors of higher education in the corning years considerably more than the traditional universities. given the nature of polytechnics and fachhochschulen, the articles by von hoyningen-huene, leszczensky, and lewis clearly contribute to the theme of this issue, which continues the theme of the preceding one: the role of metropolitan universities in regional development. andrew rudnick continued to function as guest editor for this issue, and it is more than fitting to express once again our gratitude for his invaluable contribution. two articles by david sweet as well as those by robert kraushaar and eric oldsrnan provide further u.s. perspectives on the theme. in the first of his contributions, sweet recalls the pivotal role of cooperative extension in relating the land-grant institutions to agricultural development. by drawing attention to this and posing the challenge of an analogous urban extension for metropolitan universities, sweet goes to the heart of the mission of metropolitan universities. he emphasizes that cooperative extension was and continues to be successful in agriculture to the extent to which it is informed by up-to-date research and, in turn, from the editor's desk 3 brings back to the laboratory the issues and needs of practice. by the same token, metropolitan universities can meet the challenge of being a major intellectual resource to their urban constituencies only to the extent to which their faculty and professional staff provide a two-way flow of information between the locus of research and the point of its application. metropolitan universities must be both metropolitan-that is, institutions responsive to the needs of their region-and universities-that is, institutions with a faculty of scholars whose applied research and professional outreach is based on the latest knowledge. only if both these dimensions are combined can metropolitan universities play as crucial a role in the economic and social development of their region through urban extension as land-grant colleges contributed to agricultural development through cooperative extension. sweet's first article describes several models for the relationship between cooperative and urban extension. in his second contribution he elaborates on one of these: the urban university program in ohio. in his article, kraushaar focuses on the highly important way in which our metropolitan universities can serve their constituencies by being sources of useful information aggregated regionally. urban and regional planners and policy makers need economic and other data that are horizontally structured (rather than structured, for example, by type of product), with location as a prime determinant. kraushaar describes specific ways in which the expertise and resources of metropolitan universities can contribute significantly to regional development by being sources of such information and by analyzing it in a timely and relevant fashion. oldsman addresses science parks as yet another dimension of potential contribution by metropolitan universities to regional development. such parks are not the panacea they once were thought to be by almost every community with a nearby university, but powerful developmental mechanisms under appropriate conditions that are described in the article. two further articles round out this issue. freeman hrabowski and james linksz describe the overlapping functions and interests of community colleges and metropolitan universities, and urge that the links between these institutions must move from articulation to true collaboration. betty hathaway and edward spanier provide useful information about the successful creation and operation of a day care center for children of faculty, staff, and students: a service that in metropolitan universities is not an amenity but a necessity. by the time this issue of metropolitan universities is distributed, the next one, with telecommunications as its theme, will already be at the publishers, and the one after that, on continuing education, will be well along in the final editing process. three subsequent issues are at various stages in the pipeline: one on professional education, one on assessment, and one on the international dimension. we continue to invite contributions on these and on other subjects pertinent to metropolitan universities. we would also welcome brief descriptions of innovative programs and projects to which the attention of colleagues in other metropolitan universities should be drawn in our column "interactive strategies." for suggestions and information, please call, write, or fax me at the address indicated on the inside front cover. mu1992-spring-003_page2 mu1992-spring-004_page3 from the editor's desk ernest a. lynton in the first issue of this journal, i invited our readers to submit articles as well as letters, opinion pieces, and brief announcements of interesting innovations. today i want to reiterate this invitation. my work as executive editor of this journal has been substantially eased by the signal contributions of lois cronholm, guest editor for this issue, of her predecessors, and of those who are already hard at work thinking about topics, lining up authors, and editing contributions for the next five issues. thanks to the experience and expertise of our guest editors, we have been able to identify highly knowledgeable authors willing to write articles for the journal. we have had no difficulty in generating enough contributions for each issue: indeed, in several cases we have had to hold over one or two items, and we anticipate a catch-up issue soon that will contain the accumulation of unpublished articles. i am most grateful to lois cronholm and all her fellow guest editors. with such capable assistance, the journal could continue to operate with a preponderance of solicited articles. but i believe that in the long run, the vitality of the journal as a forum for ideas and issues, and as source of information about innovations and initiatives, will be enhanced by carrying a greater proportion of contributed pieces. inquiries, suggested outlines, and even complete manuscripts have begun to land on my desk: their number should increase substantially. we intend to continue to use guest editors, but would like each issue to contain some unsolicited material. metropolitan universities can use a variety of articles. in the first place, the journal intends to be useful to its readers by providing them with ideas, information, and analysis pertinent to the operation of metropolitan universities. most of the articles in future issues of the journal, as has been the case thus far, will deal with specific functional aspects of metropolitan universities. we solicit critical descriptions of existing or suggested initiatives, be they programmatic, organizational, or procedural. new curricula, new modes of delivery, and new ways of interacting with external constituencies, of responding to student needs, of assessing educational outcomes, of evaluating faculty achievements, of marshaling resources across disciplinary and collegiate boundaries: these and many other topics are of interest to our readers. but please, tell it how it is, warts and all. a description of an actual example should inform the reader about the difficulties that were encountered, what could or should have been done differently, what lessons were learned, what some of the downside risks turned out to be. articles for metropolitan universities should be clearly distinguishable from a grant application or a public relations piece. forthcoming issues of the journal will have the following themes: regional development, telecommunication, continuing education, professional education, and assessment. subsequent themes are still in the planning stage. contributions on these topics are particularly welcome, but we are equally interested in articles on other pertinent matters. no one issue can cover its theme completely, and much can still be said about themes of past issues and the current one: diversity, community interaction, faculty, the school connection, and curriculum. and there are many from the editor's desk 3 other aspects of a metropolitan university that interest our readers. on any and all of these topics we also welcome brief oneto two-page descriptions of innovations to be carried in our column "interactive strategies." in addition to articles about operational aspects, we also are continuing to look for contributions that analyze and discuss the key policy issues facing metropolitan universities. most of our readers would agree that these institutions are committed to access and to outreach, but there exists a healthy variety of opinion as to the potential risks and the need for limits. is there a point beyond which access endangers academic quality; outreach lessens institutional integrity? most would agree as well that metropolitan universities are regional institutions, but how is that region defined? is metropolitan a buzzword implying an abandonment of the inner city, or does it reflect a recognition of the interrelation between urban and suburban? and then there are the challenges of diversity and multiculturalism that deeply affect almost every metropolitan university. the national debate has turned acrimonious and divisive: what to some is an appropriate and indeed essential effort to adapt curriculum and campus life is seen by others as the abandonment of intellectual standards and a surrender to what has come to be derided as political correctness and thought control. metropolitan universities must continue to engage this crucial topic through reasoned discourse. a number of articles in this issue and the previous ones have addressed important policy questions: we want more such contributions, reflecting various views. we welcome, as well, reactions to what has appeared in this journal in the form of letters to the editor or of op-ed pieces for our occasional "forum" column. we also welcome expressions of views about debates carried out elsewhere. such articles and other pieces should be thoughtful and well reasoned. but we won't flinch if they are also provocative, even somewhat contentious, because all who are involved in the effort of metropolitan universities to define their identities and priorities can profit from a healthy debate on the complex, multifaceted issues faced by metropolitan universities. just a few days before this column was written, the weekly news summaries of both the new york times and our local boston globe featured front-page articles about the current crisis of public confidence in higher education. the need to reexamine what we do and how we do it is becoming painfully obvious. it is particularly important to define, articulate, and implement the mission of metropolitan universities because, in many ways, they are the institutions most responsive to both the proximate as well as the long-range needs of our society. the continuing clarification and elaboration of the metropolitan university concept requires wide exchange of ideas and information and intense debate about pertinent issues. we urge you to join your voice to this dialogue by writing for metropolitan universities, and thereby strengthen the major contribution that this journal can make to meeting these needs. if you are interested in doing so, please get in touch with me by phone, fax, or letter to discuss possible topics and to receive detailed "guidelines for contributors." my address is: ernest a. lynton, 14 allerton street, brookline, ma 02146. my office number is 617-232-5046, fax: 617-566-4383. mu1991-fall-003_page2 mu1991-fall-004_page3 book reviews trevor colbourn, editor william g. tierney, ed., the responsive university (baltimore: the johns hopkins university press, 1998). 182 pp. $29.95. this is a forward-looking volume. as kent keith points out in the concluding chapter, "this book is about getting out of the box. it is about rethinking fundamental assumptions of higher education-assumptions that worked in the late twentieth century but can trap and immobilize our institutions in the twenty-first century." the five main chapters are stimulating in different ways. they hold together amazingly well, thanks to careful bridgework by each of the eight authors, who sought to relate their chapters to the others. the aim is to be "deliberately provocative." generally they succeed, although occasionally the reader is left wanting more (for example, how horizontal communication really can be improved) or is told too much (e.g., excessive detail on chicago university/school cooperation). in "listening to the people we serve," ellen chaffee clearly emphasizes the importance of customer focus and a serious commitment to professional development for both faculty and staff. chaffee (an experienced and current president of two campuses) says, in effect, "let's roll up our sleeves and see what we can do now"-solicit feedback and act on the results. she doesn't insist, as some other chapters suggest, that little can be done without reorganization first. students are indeed customers, we are reminded, even though the state is the major purchaser of collective services in most public institutions . tierney's chapter proposes that tenure as we have known it is soon to die. various alternatives include contracts, different approaches to determining salary, and posttenu re review. faculty members do need to be evaluated after they receive tenure, he affirms, and the evidence should be "formative as well as summative." stressing the importance of individual agreed-upon performance goals, tierney suggests that such statements should be prepared annually, not just when writing sabbatical proposals. "the reason for post-tenure review is fiscal. .. " he observes. might it not also be related to the improvement of instruction for the benefit of students? braskamp and wergin's chapter, "forming new social relationships," takes the reader deep into the real and often perplexing world of chicago's k-12 schools. faculty from many departments of two university of illinois campuses worked with local citizen school boards to address vital urban challenges: "external audiences are asking for a different kind of relevance from higher education," which is usually a learning as well as a service experience for faculty. all too often, the authors note, "the academy has turned inward for its character and sense of work and being. its separation from society has been conscious, deliberate and defining." a more desirable role would be when the university becomes ')ointly 94 metropolitan universities/spring 1998 responsible for reform in partnership with local schools, civic leaders, and parents .... when universities become engaged in such goals as urban revitalization, the universities themselves can become socially transformed." benjamin and carroll, both associated with rand, emphasize that institutional governance (they deal largely with the internal) "must change." in the context of effective reallocation of scarce resources, they insist that "higher education does not have a good track record," and is not good with difficult decisions. problems include a lack of agreed-upon criteria, insufficient pertinent and comparable data from different parts of the institution, and too many layers of governance. reporting goes almost entirely up and down, they note, as divisions and departments "tend not to be connected horizontally to collateral collegiate or administrative units." suggestions are provided for criteria to apply at budget cutting time. included are quality, centrality, demand and workload, and cost effectiveness. this reviewer was fascinated by the observation that what is needed is "a flatter, better networked, decentralized governance structure above departments and below much of current central administration .... " the authors predict that "layers of deans and associate vice presidents will probably be eliminated over the next decade. networks of faculty and administrators will replace them." they provide two charts and a table, but leave a lot of questions unanswered. peter ewell's chapter on "achieving high performance" succeeds in indicating how institutions must (and can!) become more effective both inside and outside. buttressing the chicago k-12 university lash-up approach, he states that it is time for us to "scrap the artificial boundaries" between universities and communities. societal contexts must be more than just "settings" for the application of scholarship or disciplinebased instruction. concerning public attitude and financial support, ewell reminds us that "academic and political leaders have been talking past one another for about a decade." this, he rightly opines, must change. do things have to get worse before they can get better? a huge irony? in ewell's words, "the lack of a visible quality problem means that higher education is simply not seen as broken enough to demand increasing attention, compared to such massive challenges as reforming elementary/secondary education or restructuring the nation's health care and criminal justice system." another thing to remember when seeking more support: it is not how hard the faculty work, but what results they get. on balance, this short volume can be a real success in making those of us in the academy face up to things we mostly know but often ignore. it is not a "how-to" book. it leaves much unsaid. but it is indeed a stimulator. we must be connected with many publics. "few people off campus believe that a university is self-justifying." rather it is outcomes and value added that we can provide. the responsive university, we are told, "will be a different kind of university from what is common today." various examples are included here. others will be defined by thoughtful readers. -e. k. fretwell mu1998-fall-095_page93 mu1998-fall-096_page94 the scholarship of engagement: enriching university and community by marcia a. finkelstein the past several years have seen a renewed emphasis on building bridges between higher education and communities outside academia. spurred by the kellogg commission (1999) report on "the engaged institution," even universities with little history of outreach are establishing centers, colleges, and administrative positions to promote and support partnerships with the public. of course, a commitment to outreach, or exporting knowledge from the academy to the community, is not completely new. for example, land-grant universities have operated with a mission that values public service that is now being re-interpreted and expanded to match more modem view of reciprocity and mutual benefit. since the mid-twentieth century, many public universities in large cities have claimed an "urban" or "metropolitan" mission of which the most distinctive element is an interactive, knowledge-based relationship between campus and community. what is new, and what the kellogg commission report stresses, is a widespread recognition that knowledge and expertise can also flow from town to gown. the term engagement has been coined to reflect this emphasis on the reciprocity of universitycommunity relationships. together, the participants address issues of mutual interest; together they determine the questions to be asked, the methodologies to be employed, and the means by which findings will be disseminated. increasingly,faculty are expanding their professional horizons by applying their expertise to problems beyond the university. in tum, they find their research, as well as their teaching, enriched by the collaborative process. innovative methodologies are explored; new ways of sharing know ledge are developed. the result is a growing appreciation throughout academia of the scholarly value of engagement. engaged scholars are expanding the perceptions of faculty roles and responsibilities and of the place of the community in higher education. the articles comprising this issue of metropolitan universities highlight efforts to make engaged scholarship central to academia. faculty and administrators committed to their communities examine the structures and strategies their institutions use to promote and sustain a culture of engagement. the examples are as varied as the universities and communities themselves. while some integrate engaged research and teaching into academic units or colleges, others establish centers or cross-college learning communities. what all the approaches accomplish is to dispel the notion of community-based efforts as separate from scholarship. 7 8 rosaen, fishman, and fear note that while the extensive focus on engaged scholarship is a recent phenomenon, engagement has thrived for years on the margins of university life. drawing from the experiences of scholars across michigan state university, the authors construct a model of the "engagement interface," exploring the dynamics of the processes that underlie successful university-community partnerships. the paper also offers an example of the university's commitment to engaged scholarship: a learning community of faculty who help each other navigate the engagement frontier. amen offers insights into the complexities of that frontier as he examines a failed effort at university-community collaboration. he describes attempts over a two-year period to forge partnerships among three community-based organizations and the university of south florida. amen examines the dynamics of the interaction, analyzing the roles played by the competing goals and conflicting decision-making procedures of each party. the inability of the groups to effectively partner provides lessons for others who are interested in applying their professional skills to public concerns. guidelines for universities seeking to establish successful engagement programs are provided. that the academy and the community both have much to gain from successful partnering is amply illustrated by shorr, rothman, and parks. using the temple health connection (thc) of temple university's department of nursing as a case study, the authors identify the institutional structures and resources that are required to support and sustain engagement. the reader learns how the temple health connection works with neighborhood groups to seamlessly integrate research, practice, teaching, and community needs. like shorr et al., schumaker and woods describe a program that scrves as a model of engaged scholarship. the college of public affairs and community service is helping to fulfill the university of omaha at nebraska's mission to be of the community, not simply in it. this interdisciplinary college promotes research and teaching partnerships with the omaha community. the authors use insights gleaned from the college's thirty-year history of outreach and engagement to explore the ingredients necessary for sustained collaboration. cope and leatherwood discuss the challenges of maintaining a university culture that embraces engaged scholarship as readily as it does traditional research. the university of illinois at springfield was founded on a mission of outreach and community service. with the school's recent incorporation into the university of illinois system comes a new emphasis on discipline-based research. the authors explore the difficulties of, and opportunities for, fostering a scholarship of engagement within the context of these changes. unifying a metropolitan university's research and engagement missions is the goal of the center described by finkelstein. the center for engaged scholarship at the university of south florida operates from the premise that all scholarly work has potential applications beyond academia. the center's activities help faculty to partner with community groups while also meeting the expectations of their departments and disciplines. finkelstein notes that efforts to bring faculty activities into the public arena hinge on universities recognizing and rewarding engaged scholarship. maser provides an example of how engagement with a public entity is incorporated into portland state university's undergraduate curriculum. the author details the development of a service-learning course that combines academic rigor with a community-based experience. as with the myriad engagement efforts profiled in this issue, the partnership is shown to benefit all participants. maser notes that the key to successful collaboration is uncovering community needs rather than imposing an agenda. together, the efforts recounted in the following articles provide a sampling of the many ways in which universities are bringing engagement from the periphery to the center of academic activity. a welcome consequence of the emphasis on engaged scholarship is a blurring of the traditional boundaries between research, teaching, and service (boyer 1990). as communities demand greater accountability, particularly from their public institutions, universities are integr~ting engagement into every aspect of faculty work. the result is a true reciprocity of effort and influence that enriches academic inquiry as much as it does the community. references boyer, e.l., scholarship reconsidered (san francisco: jossey-bass, 1990). kellogg commission on the future of state and land-grant universities, returning to our roots: the engaged institution (new york: national association of state universities and land-grant colleges, 1999). 9 92 joining evidence-based innovations with evidence-based dissemination james w. dearing one of the benefits of an applied research funding program such as those within the national science foundation's directorate for education and human resources is the reading and referencing across fields of study and application of ideas from diverse literatures for common social good such as stem teaching and learning. this benefit resonates across the articles in this issue of metropolitan universities. chemists learn from education scholars and medical educators. physicists learn from chemists and math education researchers. education scholars learn from management scientists. communication scientists learn from sociologists and cognitive psychologists. while specialists routinely build upon the work of others within their specialty, the present collection of articles reflects interdisciplinary sharing to a commendable degree. in one regard, however, this collective set of scholars and those organizations that fund them face a major challenge. while interdisciplinary scholarship on the topic of stem pedagogies are in evidence and the same can be said for the three articles concerning means of dissemination, it can also be said that scholarship-informed activity in pedagogical innovation and in pedagogical dissemination are not much conjoined. it is my opinion that evidence-based innovation and evidence-based dissemination belong together. here, i identify certain aspects of the four innovations and then of the three means of dissemination highlighted on the prior pages of this special issue. then, i suggest how evidence-based innovation and evidence-based dissemination might be brought together. evidence-based innovations in stem education. the four pedagogies presented in this issue share commonalities. first, each of these innovations presents potential adopters with a voluntary adoption decision; these are not, for example, policy innovations that if adopted would be compulsory for instructors to implement. none are top-down (aimed at administrators or policy makers with authority over instructors) or bottom-up (aimed at students to influence instructors); they are lateral-directed innovations from faculty-creators to faculty-adopters. each of these four pedagogies is grounded in published literature. they have been tested and shown to produce positive and valid internal results for improving student learning. each has demonstrated advantages for stem learning. each pedagogy has been implemented and externally validated at subsequent schools. each pedagogy explicates the causal reasons why it is effective. each encourages options in implementation to enable teachers to achieve a best fit between the pedagogy as innovation and the specific instructor style, classroom capability, and academic department context. each relies on workshops as a means of communicating its purpose and training faculty. as innovations, pogil, jiti, pltl, and case study teaching have real differences, too. pogil is a radical innovation; it espouses a philosophy of learning and instruction based in constructivism that is not normative for most u.s. faculty and teachers. pogil's compatibility with past and current practices of most faculty and teachers is likely low. pltl, which draws on some of the same literature, should be more compatible, while jiti and case study teaching are each considerably more compatible than pogil with the normative beliefs of most faculty and teachers and with their behaviors in the classroom. pogil is also a comparatively complex innovation compared to these other three. the instructor needs to learn more, philosophically and practically, to successfully implement the pogil approach to learning. jitt, in contrast, is very simple to grasp and almost as easy to implement. case study teaching, jitt, and pogil require little monetary expense, while the provision of grants to implement pltl gives us less certainty about its scalability. lastly, pltl seems more sophisticated than the other pedagogies in its means of dissemination. it involves multiple stakeholders all who are connected with faculty as potential levers for tipping faculty behavior in a new direction. evidence-based dissemination in stem education. workshops, campus-based centers for teaching and learning, and local informal opinion leaders are three means to accomplish the translation of effective pedagogies into broad use. a commonality across these three options for dissemination is that each currently exists. workshops are a regular part of the curricular improvement landscape in u.s. higher education. centers for teaching and learning, under various titles, exist on hundreds of college campuses. and opinion leaders are even more ubiquitous. they are our colleagues among us, in situ. this advantage of existence is not to be taken lightly. creating a new system or network to disseminate innovations can be expected to be time consuming and expensive. comparatively, these three means of dissemination are used to varying extents to spread evidence-based stem pedagogies. workshops are the most commonly used means to expose faculty to innovations, forming the basis for a majority of the dissemination proposals that have been funded through nsf' s education directorate, though the particular learning-centered approach described by connolly and millar is certainly atypical and likely a considerable improvement on the usual workshop approach of "teaching by telling." centers for teaching and learning are well positioned to serve both as information clearinghouses for alternatives to teaching and to host or co-host workshops for training purposes. identifying, recruiting, and intervening with local opinion leading faculty is almost never done in systematic ways for the purpose of influencing other faculty decisions about innovations in teaching and learning. yet its potential is clear if one attends to the evidence base about the key factors responsible for positive adoption decisions. the critical function of local informal opinion leaders is not the transmission of information to the skeptical faculty member, but personal influence through example setting and talking. there can be no doubt that means of dissemination such as these three can be combined to advantageand not necessarily at added cost-for those innovation sources or change agencies that seek pedagogical improvement in stem education. for example, social network 93 94 identification of opinion leaders can inform decisions about who should attend workshops and who-for subsequent spread to occur-should not. centers of teaching and learning can lend institutional legitimacy and provide access to faculty for both opinion leader intervention and the offering of new pedagogy workshops. bringing together evidence-based innovation and evidence-based dissemination requires that we think strategically the whole way through the planning of planned change. just as we want evidence as to the internal and external validity of the new pedagogies that we will communicate, so, too, do we want evidence in the process of communication-the means by which we will inform and recruit others to influence their near-peers in academic departments. in this way, the right innovations will be diffused, and in accelerated fashion. author information dr. james w. dearing tests strategies for diffusing evidence-based innovations and has published numerous articles, book chapters, and other text on diffusion of innovations. he has been a faculty member at michigan state university and ohio university and recently joined kaiser permanente, colorado, as a senior scientist with the clinical research unit. james w. dearing, ph.d. senior scientist clinical research unit kaiser permanente p.o. box 378066 denver, co 80237-8066 e-mail: dearingj@ohio.edu telephone: 303-636-3100 fax: 303-636-3159 mu2006-12-093_page92 mu2006-12-094_page93 mu2006-12-095_page94 until recently, professional accreditation standards have encouraged conformity and have not allowed much flexibility. the american assembly of collegiate schools of business has taken a lead in bringing about change. its new standards encourage institutional diversity and link faculty roles to mission. daniel e. costello accreditation: impact on faculty roles with the onset of the information economy, we are seeing the reorganization of business and government on a global scale. the challenges of the 1990s call for a new set of assumptions for how we do business, govern, and yes, how we educate. many of the assumptions underlying education today are a holdover from the earlier industrial economy. our paradigm of faculty roles, as ernest boyer ( 1990, pp. 9-10) observed, had its beginnings after world war ii, and evolved from the needs of the babyboom generation. accreditation bodies helped to define and maintain faculty roles in the emerging disciplines throughout the '50s, '60s, '70s and '80s. typically, accreditation standards have encouraged conformity, and have not allowed much institutional flexibility. will the groups that set these standards now resist the pressure for a reorganization of higher education? or, will they take the lead and provide the "paradigm shift" necessary in education to meet the needs of a rapidly changing information economy? there are encouraging signs that some will take a constructive approach. a case in point is the american assembly of collegiate schools of business (aacsb), the accrediting agency for nearly 300 business schools throughoutthe u.s. in april 1991, aacsb members overwhelmingly adopted new mission-linked accreditation standards and procedures that support institutional diversity in management education. these are illustrated in aacsb's new 1993 handbook entitled achieving quality and continuous improvement through self-evaluation and peer review. the most important new aacsb standard reinforces diversity of mission within aacsb member schools. in contrast to the past, diversity is now viewed as a positive characteristic to be fostered, not a disadvantage to be minimized. the handbook states: "the school should articulate its mission as a guide to its view of the future, its planned evolution, and its infrastructure and use of resources... each business school is faced with choices as a result of a wide range of opportunities and inevitable resource limitations. the development costello 69 of a mission requires decisions regarding these alternatives and the mission embodies these choices" (p. 9). in a recent article in the mba newsletter, allan bailey, president of aacsb, and dean of the college of business administration, san diego state university, identified four critical factors in the change process. those factors are: 1) the need to engage faculty in a new commitment to the importance of strategic academic planning; 2) a greater focus on the identification and involvement of stakeholders in academic planning; 3) the development of team-based organizational culture; and, 4) a focus on continuous improvement as a way of operating (1993, p. 2). a school's ability to meet the new standards will depend on how well it adjusts to these key factors. the new aacsb guidelines continue to have a number of traditional standards, such as faculty composition and development, curriculum content and evaluation, instructional resources and responsibilities, students, and intellectual contributions. diversity is encouraged by the requirement that a school's response to these standards be consistent with its particular mission. a careful review of each mission component as stated in the aacsb handbook (p . 9) reveals the following: m. 1: the school must have clear and published mission statement that is subjected to periodic review and revised as needed. the development and revision of the school's mission must be a part of a planning process that involves all of the key stakeholders, such as faculty, students, administration, alumni, and the business community. the result should be a highly dynamic and focused mission statement. m. 2: the school's mission must be appropriate to higher education for business and management and consonant with the mission of the institution of which it is a part. institutions of higher education, if they are to confront change effectively, must do a better job of managing institutional resources. for instance, the significant public policy issue -namely, faculty productivity -must be addressed within the framework of a clearly defined and accepted mission. m. 3: the school must specify the educational objectives of each degree program offered and identify the characteristics of students and other constituents served by each of those degree programs. educational objectives against which performance will be evaluated must be defined in concrete and measurable terms . market intelligence that includes geographical orientation of each degree program (local, regional, national, international) and types of students served by the programs is essential to the planning process . it calls for faculty to be proactive in confronting these changes rather than be reactive to them. m. 4: the school must specify its relative emphasis on teaching, intellectual contributions, and service. the school must be responsive to new expectations, both internal and external, and communicate a reasonable set of faculty performance standards -standards that are derived from the mission and not from the traditional discipline-based market standards. the focus on " relative emphasis" may contribute to the adoption of the professional portfolio as described by r. c . froh, p. j. gray, and l. m . lambert 70 metropolitan universities/summer 1994 ( 1993) as a more heuristic method of representing faculty work. m. 5: the school's activities must be consistent with its mission. the aacsb handbook (p. l) indicates that "accreditation review focuses on a school's clear determination of its mission, development of its faculty, planning of its curricula, and delivery of its instruction. in these activities, each school must achieve and demonstrate an acceptable level of performance consistent with its overall mission while meeting aacsb standards." the "mission-linked" accreditation standards of aacsb represent a fundamental change in the way business schools operate. the emphases on strategic planning, stakeholder participation, faculty teams, and continuous improvement, when combined form the bases for cultural change. this new culture will assist faculty in responding to the demands for greater accountability and productivity. the traditional responses of the '80s will not be adequate to meet the demands of the '90s. other accreditation bodies, hopefully, will follow the lead of aacsb in preparing for the future. suggested reading: achieving quality and continuous improvement through self-evaluation and peer review, handbook prepared by the american assembly of collegiate schools of business, st. louis, missouri, 1993. bailey, allan r., "bailey says the mba now faces a paradigm change." the mba newsletter, 1993, 2 (12), 1, 2, 11. boyer, e. l. scholarship reconsidered: priorities for the professorate. princeton, n.j.: carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching, 1990. froh, r. c., gray, p. j., and lambert, l. m. "representing faculty work: the professional portfolio." new directions for higher education, 1993, 81, 97110. mu1994-summer-069_page68 mu1994-summer-070_page69 mu1994-summer-071_page70 from the editor's desk barbara a. holland the usual autumn cycle of conferences and meetings offers the happy opportunity to catch up with colleagues on the challenges, strategies, and experiences of our continuing commitment to fulfill the metropolitan university mission. this year, i heard two broad themes in conversations with administrators and faculty from some of the member institutions of the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. a first theme was that many people are excited by the growing variety of successful approaches used to discover and deliver knowledge through effective university-community partnerships. a second theme was that we need to do a better job of explaining the metropolitan university and its mission to the rest of higher education and the public at large. the first theme is reflected in the content of this current issue of metropolitan universities. jill russell and richard flynn have assembled an impressive sampling of different models of cross-sector collaboration, which they define as partnerships that bring together large, formal organizational sectors, such as local government, business, schools, or higher education, to address critically important community needs with the coherence, efficiency, and effectiveness that only authentic collaboration can bring. this collection of articles is valuable in part because of their willingness to be reflective about what worked and what did not work in bringing the collaborative groups together and in designing strategies for action. the second theme is a growing concern about the fact that metropolitan universities are often subjected to misplaced criticism and are misrepresented by common measures of institutional performance in higher education. we are willing to be held accountable for our performance, but find that most existing measures do not reflect the goals of our mission or the characteristics of our students and faculty. this issue also contains an article relevant to this urgent challenge by steve chambers and arun sanjeev, who report a timely and important study of performance indicators and metropolitan institutions. drawing on the experience of wichita state university, they propose new perspectives on several commonly used performance indicators, such as graduation rates, that 4 metropolitan universities/winter 1997 typically fail to characterize metropolitan institutions and their students accurately. their results should inspire more focused discussion as metropolitan institutions struggle to find appropriate quantitative measures to represent the goals and characteristics of their missions. most states are now experimenting with incorporating performance measures and some are linking them to planning discussions and budgeting procedures. the problem is that the most commonly used measures of institutional performance are based on traditional institutions. we are often seen as failing to measure up to the traditional benchmarks of productivity and performance, despite the reality that these indicators do not reflect our students' goals and patterns of attendance or the range of community-university interactions that are central to the work of metropolitan universities. while we may believe, individually and collectively, that we should be judged by more appropriate standards, we have not yet presented a compelling, quantitative argument that is based on documentation of the unique features of the metropolitan mission. appropriate standards of quality and performance can be developed to track the objectives of metropolitan universities, but there is clearly an urgent need for us to conduct a quantitative study of our institutions so that we can build and sustain a valid national database illustrative of our distinctive goals and characteristics. at last, however, real progress is being made in developing an accurate statistical portrait of the characteristics of metropolitan universities and the attendant measures that can be used to assess our levels of performance appropriately. the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities has made a commitment to address these needs, both through attention at its upcoming conference, and in direct investment in research. the topic will be the subject of a major preconference workshop at the next coalition conference, february 22-24, 1998, hosted by the university of texas-san antonio, where i will lead a panel discussion on approaches to developing an accurate database on metropolitan institutions. the workshop's outcomes should include the identification of specific characteristics that most define our mission. the ideas generated in the workshop will also inform the work of a research group i have organized with the support of the coalition. this team of administrators, faculty, and institutional researchers is beginning to work together to document the key characteristics of metropolitan institutions, identify existing data sources, develop reporting formats and strategies that can be sustained over time, and design unique surveys and instruments. the project will take several 5 years, no doubt, but we are on our way to developing a valid, reliable, and sustained system for building an accurate portrait of metropolitan universities. the outcome of this work will be invaluable in helping to build a national understanding of the metropolitan mission, and in encouraging more representative assessments and rankings of institutional performance on local, state, and national levels. this work will require considerable experimentation, testing, and validation, if it is to successfully alter the strongly held traditions associated with institutional performance measurement. i encourage your participation in the upcoming conference and workshop and your support when the research team asks for your institution to take part in data studies and pilot tests for instruments and reporting formats. i plan to keep you updated on our progress in future issues of this journal, and welcome your ideas and questions through your calls or e-mail messages. this is an exciting project with important consequences for all of us. your support is essential to its success. metropolitan universities: who are we? we are located in or near the urban center of a metropolitan statistical area (msa) with a population of at least 250,000. we are universities, public and private, whose mission includes teaching, research, and professional service. we offer both graduate and undergraduate education in the liberal arts and two or more professional fields. the latter programs are strongly practice-oriented and make extensive use of clinical sites in the metropolitan area. the majority of our students come from our metropolitan regions. our students are highly diverse in age, ethnic and racial identity, and socioeconomic background, reflecting the demographic characteristics of their region. many come to us by transfer from community colleges and other baccalaureate institutions, many are place-bound employees and commuters, and many require substantially longer than the traditional time to graduate, for financial and other personal reasons. we are oriented toward and identify with our regions, proudly and by deliberate design. our programs respond to regional needs while striving for national excellence. we are strongly interactive. we are dedicated to serving as intellectual and creative resources to our metropolitan regions in order to contribute to their economic development, social health, and cultural vitality, through education, research, and professional outreach. we are committed to collaboration and cooperation with the many communities and clienteles in our metropolitan regions and to helping to bridge the socioeconomic, cultural, and political barriers among them. we are shaping and adapting our own structures, policies, and practices to enhance our effectiveness as key institutions in the lives of our metropolitan regions and their citizens. overview risk and shifting realities: college access and the 21st century student kristan m. venegas continuing to push an access agenda during a time of increased pressure on admissions and decreasing student aid options may seem risky, but few other choices exist for the student populations considered in this special issue. when this volume was first conceived a few years ago, the tenor for college access was much different than it is at the time of this writing. numerous spaces were up for grabs in traditional community colleges, four-year colleges, and universities throughout the united states. messages sent to students were that college was affordable and that lots of chances were available to find the right academic and social fit. the main focus regarding college access centered on issues such as information, mentoring, and academic preparation. the most often targeted audience within the realm of college access was low income, traditionally aged students, who typically were the first in their families to go on to postsecondary education. these students were thought of being squarely within a college-going "at-risk" category. just a few years later, we are confronting a shifted reality. the students that we once may have thought of as "at-risk" now make up much of the 17 .6 million undergraduate students currently enrolled-43 percent attend community colleges, 37 percent are enrolled part-time, 32 percent are working full-time, and 25 percent are over the age of 30. only 15 percent of currently enrolled undergraduate students live in residential housing and attend a four-year institution (applegate 2011). given these changes, the research within this volume no longer represents students who sit at the fringes of postsecondary education. instead these articles represent the multiple pathways of students who now make up what lumina calls the 21st century student (applegate 2011). in what follows, we share how this volume addresses applegate's concept of the 21st century student and consider the continuing role of information, resources, and academic preparation within the college access conundrum. traditional and nontraditional students are one and the same within this volume, smith's article on african american women and postsecondary education provides perspective on how "nontraditional" students make it through the academic pipeline. the article that i co-authored with huerta and sanchez details the kind of experiences that low-income latino male students encounter during their 5 6 journey to and through the college gates. in each of these examples, readers can glimpse into the obstacles that these students face, but they should see them less as stories of exception based on race or social class. these student experiences are no longer relevant to only nontraditional students, because in less than ten years, these students will be traditional students. access to information has not been resolved by technology though none of the authors in this volume focus specifically on the role of technology, glimpses of attention to this topic certainly are included. perhaps the strongest example of this issue is seen in the work of hallett and tierney. their article on homeless youth and social capital reaffirm the challenges that students face when trying to gain access to information about going to college. one could argue that for the student population in their study, the day-to-day maintenance of living was perhaps the greatest obstacle these students face. however, becoming "aged out" of the welfare system or living "doubled up" in a multifamily home, made these students invisible to numerous college information providers. of course, one can easily point out a number of other student populations, such as undocumented students in the united states, who sit on the same creaky precipice with little knowledge or few options on how to move forward. pema's co-authored article on access to college-going information offers a systematic exploration of how students access information to go to college. with a broad-based study to support it, this work also helps to set the stage for understanding how aspiring college students miss out on key information during their application processes. the pew foundation and others have shown that access to technology has increased steadily within the united states. yet, the ways in which we communicate with prospective college students to gain access to information has not kept pace. the nation must pay attention to the tremendous potential for a greater role of technology as a mechanism for interaction. academic preparation is always going to matter after students make it to college, being successful is the next most important and obvious step. colyar's article on the classroom experiences at a research i university helps to underscore just how critical academic preparation is and how that preparation connects to success in school. this may seem like an obvious connection, but again, considering the current emphasis at the federal and foundational level on college completion, the linkages between preparation and persistence factors that equal success are broken. academic preparation includes attitude and confidence as well as content knowledge and learning skills. hong and jun provide insights from a project focused on improving female students' persistence in math and science fields by increasing selfefficacy. such efforts are necessary if we are to overcome gender gaps and shortages in these fields. dobbs' article on enriched academic preparation via writing for college-going seniors underscores two key issues. first, that the k-12 system does not adequately prepare urban students for going to college, and second, that these gaps set these kids up for failure when they get to college. dobbs' article offers just one example of a wellformulated plan to assist these students, although it's not a plan that can be easily "scaled up" to serve the masses. and then, there is scalability . • • this core issue of scalability is likely where the next phase of college access will find itself moving. the college access and preparation community is adjusting to the need for greater evaluation and assessment of program impacts. critical examination of the effectiveness of college preparation strategies, like the ones mentioned by smith, dobbs, perna, and others in this volume, must be an on-going area of investigation. as an educational community, our capacity to serve students will depend on what we learn from these evaluations and how we use that information to develop better programs and resources that meet the needs of underprepared students with college plans. if we look critically at the current national agenda, we see the growing ambition to identify a large-scale implementable intervention that will solve access and completion problems. certainly, most of the authors in this volume argue to increase attention to program design on many levels. however, based on these works and others, this author is not convinced that these "big idea" or large-scale plans will lead to the change we hope to see. instead, targeted and specific interventions that are smart, dynamic, and flexible in their capability to take calculated risks may well be better able to meet the needs of an increasingly complex student population. references applegate, jim l. 2011. "graduating the 21st century student." presentation to the national academic advisors association (nacada). denver, co. october 4, 2011. http://www.nacada.ksu.edu/annualconf/2011/documents/drapplegateppt.pdf author information kristan m. venegas, ph.d., is an associate professor of clinical education in the rossier school of education at the university of southern california. she also serves as a research associate for the pullias center for higher education at usc. kristan m. venegas, ph.d. associate professor, clinical education rossier school of education 34 70 trousdale parkway, wph 604c university of southern california los angeles, ca 90089 e-mail: kristan.venegas@usc.edu telephone: 213-7 40-0507 fax: 213-740-2367 7 book review the challenge for urban public universities: a review of beyond the crossroads-the future of the public university in america authors james]. duderstadt and farris wwomack baltimore, md: johns hopkins university press. 2003. 256 pp. reviewed by karri a. holley in many ways, the urban public university in the united states is a remarkably adaptive institution. its response to social events over the past century helped define the national landscape. millions of returning veterans received a college education due to the gi bill. important advances in medicine and health have been developed by scientists trained at the nation's public universities. such institutions have "grown up with the nation," write duderstadt, womack, and ingraham in the book, beyond the crossroads: the future of the public university in america. "this extraordinary social institution ... has transformed the very society it serves" (9). how can the urban public university, which has long shown remarkable resiliency and flexibility in the face of change, adapt to the turbulent social and political forces of the twenty-first century? the question, crucial to those involved in higher education, is considered by duderstadt and womack in this provocative and engaging b<jok. the answer, according to the authors, is that change is possible and indeed imperative, and must be accomplished through an evaluation of the very nature of the urban public university. even compared to the massive influx of students post-world war ii and the turbulent atmosphere of the 1960s, public universities are confronted with complex and powerful social and political issues in the new century. the changing nature of funding, for example, forces urban public universities to consistently evaluate budget, tuition, and student aid. growth in state higher education appropriations was near zero in fiscal year 2003, due to declining state revenue and a shift in policy priorities. to fill the budget gaps, public universities increased student tuition and fees, an average of nine percent from 2001to2002 (aascu 2003). in addition, urban public universities face a burgeoning enrollment growth with a student body more diverse than at any other time in american history: a higher number of women than men (56% ), an increasing percentage of minority students (28% ), and 123 124 70 percent of first-time, full-time degree-seeking undergraduates receiving financial aid (nces-ipeds 2000). each chapter in beyond the crossroads defines an element of the changing social needs which affect the urban public university. the title reflects the authors' opinion that public universities have long passed the crossroads in terms of considering change. change is not an optional activity for administrators, faculty, students, and governing boards. instead, the true challenge is to ensure that such change is purposeful and strategic, rather than reactionary and defensive. the authors explore technology, market pressures, finances, university leadership, and governance as key forces driving change in public universities. the chapter on university leadership (chapter seven), for example, is written from the background of the authors' lengthy tenures as president and chief financial officer, respectively, of the university of michigan, and is the strongest of the book. in terms of leadership, the authors maintain that "the current environment on many public campuses today neither tolerates nor supports strong, visionary leadership" (130). many urban public university presidents may share this opinion, but are not in a position to verbally express it. the chapter proceeds to examine exactly why leadership is such a scarce resource for the public university. in large part, it is because of the complex nature of the institution. the constituents are many, the money is scarce, and the demand for responsiveness and change can be deafening. the book benefits from womack as a second author. womack, who served as chief financial officer of the university of michigan under duderstadt, provides a strong basis for chapter six, "financing the public university." in the attempt to meet diverse public demands and provide multiple programs for service to the community, public universities can be hobbled by what the authors label as "mission creep," a situation where "[an increasing amount of funds] are diverted away from academic programs to other activities" (105). the growth of the higher education periphery has resulted in a weakening of the academic core, especially for urban public universities. collis has identified a "paradox of scope," wherein the traditional mission of the university (academics) is blurred by the layered increase of peripheral activities (collis, in press). the paradox of scope is complicated in the urban public university, where there are multiple stakeholders and a lack of clear leadership involved in the governance process. it is little wonder, as duderstadt and womack note, that public universities are afflicted with a "growing epidemic of presidential turnover ... both a consequence of these problems and a factor that contributes to them" (132). if leadership is inherently a process concerned with fostering change, it is clear to see why leadership and change are so difficult in an urban public university (astin and astin 2000). duderstadt and womack contend that the inherent political nature of the public university governing board "not only distract boards from their important responsibilities and stewardship ... [but can also] trample on academic values and micromanage institutions into mediocrity" (151). the conclusion drawn by the authors is that the public university cannot survive in its present form. rather than compose a death knell, however, they conclude their work with two chapters on university transformation and the future. given the layered and complicated forces shaping public universities, how is change possible? the authors never claim that the public university is on the verge of extinction. "the most fundamental transformation," they assert, "involves changing the character and the mission of universities" (184 ). their recommended strategies include assessing the how and why of institutional activities. such strategic change offends those traditionalists of the university, who maintain that university trademarks such as departmental organizational structure and a core liberal arts education are essential to academic and social development. but such changes are meant to enhance, not destroy, what has always been essential to higher education. the urban public university's commitment to access, diversity, and knowledge is not called into question. instead, duderstadt and womack advocate protecting and preserving key institutional values, engaging the stakeholders, building alliances, and having the confidence to experiment. it can be difficult to experiment with a social institution with a centuries-old history that is one of the cornerstones of american society. experimentation, however, is imperative. "as society becomes ever more knowledge intensive, it becomes ever more dependent upon social institutions such as the university which ... educate people, and provide them with knowledge and learning resources throughout their lives," say the authors (207). the public university will be saved by adaptation and evolution. the challenge for such an evolution, however, is letting go of the traditional paradigm and structure of the university. urban public universities face a unique challenge in providing the best education possible for students while also working to support the infrastructure of their community. in doing so, the university is committed to using all of its strengthsresearch, public service, social awareness. such an effort dispels the "growing spirit of cynicism towards higher education" (156). if we are truly evolving into a society of learning, then it is the responsibility and the challenge of urban public universities to ensure their community is not left behind. 125 126 references american association of state colleges and universities with the national association of state universities and land-grant colleges, 2003 student charges and financial aid annual report (washington, dc: authors, 2003). astin, h., and a. astin, leadership reconsidered: engaging higher education (battle creek, mi: w.k. kellogg foundation, 2000). collis, d. "a paradox of scope: a challenge to the governance of higher education," in w.g. tierney, ed., competing conceptions of academic governance: negotiating the perfect storm. (baltimore: the johns hopkins university press, in press). national center for educational statistics, nces-ipeds enrollment in postsecondary institutions, fall 2000 and financial statistics, fiscal year 2000, retrieved october 1, 2003 from http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2002212 from the editor's desk ernest a. lynton the sky is not falling, but it is sagging here and there over the academic establishment. colleges and universities are not about to disappear, but they are facing increasing competition in areas in which they believed themselves invulnerable. if they are to continue to play a vital societal role into the 21st century, academic institutions need to take a long, hard, and self-critical look at themselves, to reexamine their values and their priorities, and to identify what needs to change, and what needs to be maintained. all of that appears self-evident to the leadership in most metropolitan and urban universities, already deeply engaged in such reexaminations and redirection. unfortunately, the realism displayed by these institutions is not as yet universal throughout the system of colleges and universities . many administrators and faculty members continue to be very complacent, myopic with regard to our internal shortcomings and all too ready to blame external ignorance and philistinism for waning public confidence. twice during the past two weeks i witnessed two examples of this ostrich attitude. the first followed a presentation by bob zemsky, the widely known editor of the pew policy perspectives and head of the institute for research on higher education at the university of pennsylvania. in what seemed to me to be both very clear as well as very persuasive terms, he warned his audience that the negative implications of declining public confidence were substantially aggravated by the rapidly growing competition faced by our colleges and universities by non-academic sources for many of their traditional activities. he called for a basic reevaluation of the role as well as the mode of operation of colleges and universities . even more recently, at another meeting, peter ewell, senior associate of the national center for higher education management systems (nchems) in denver, and widely known for his work on assessment, spoke of the dangerous gap between what is being said out there, and what the academic world is hearing. he warned of the danger of external regulation if we do not do the job ourselves, and called for renewed collective responsibility within colleges and universities in order to bring about necessary changes. he too, it seemed to me, was very clear in his focus on the need for the academy to take a good, hard look at itself. yet in both cases, respondents appeared to miss that point. a senior official of a state coordinating agency for higher education at one meeting, and the head of a major state university at the other, spoke in almost identical terms about the need to bring about better public understanding of our work and our achievements. in both cases there was some acknowledgement of the value of ongoing self-evaluation and continuing improvement, but the basic message, unmistakably and regrettably, was the same: our academic house is basically in order, and we should do a better job selling ourselves to legislators and the public at large. after all, both respondents said, higher education continues to be highly valued. of course it is, and we hardly need to belabor that. that is not the issue. consider health care: everyone surely believes in good health care -but a majority of the population questions the ability of the existing health care system to provide it. similarly, there are beginning to be voices out there which call into question whether colleges and universities, as they are presently constituted and operated, are the optimal providers of higher education. already both the private and the public 4 metropolitan universities/spring 1994 sector are turning to non-academic providers of advanced education, research, and technical assistance. that is the issue to which we need to address ourselves. there are proliferating non-academic sources of advanced instruction, even some with degree-granting authority. government and private sector laboratories and institutes are a substantial source of both basic and applied research. the number of consulting enterprises is legion. all these providers of various aspects of higher education exist because there is much demand for advanced instruction, pure and applied research, and technical assistance out there -and because a lot of clients are convinced that they can obtain what they need more cost-effectively and in a manner more relevant to their needs by going to non-academic sources. in his remarks, zemsky repeated the old story about the major railroads who foundered earlier in this century because they thought they were in the railroad business and did not realize that they were in the transportation business in which they were getting lots of competition from new kinds of providers. he made the same point about the management ofibm thinking of themselves as being in the hardware and software business when they really were in the information business. these are somewhat facile epigrams. but the underlying point is very valid: we need to tackle questions about the nature of our societal function, and how this is changing as a result of evolving societal needs, as well as new ways in which we can perform our tasks. in spite of the simplifications of the statements about union pacific and ibm, they provide one valuable lesson: even well established institutions can run into serious difficulties if they fail to realize that their roles have broadened beyond traditional bounds. with the advent of automobiles and later airplanes, transportation became more than railroading. fiber optics and satellite dishes, information highways and 500-channel cable, are expanding the information business well beyond mainframe and personal computers. similarly, the function of universities and colleges has expanded beyond its traditional bounds, and each individual academic institution must make its choices and set its priorities within a much broader range of activities. society today makes more varied demands on its academic institutions, but it also offers them a wider ranger of opportunities for action: a greater diversity of potential clients in a wider variety of settings for the instruction they provide; escalating targets for professional outreach and the dissemination of knowledge; and a mounting set of issues requiring the most sophisticated multi-disciplinary basic and applied research. thus the growing competition is offset by increasing opportunities, if institutionally and individually we have the flexibility and the initiative to take advantage of them. metropolitan and urban universities willing to reexamine and adapt their structures, procedures, and habits have begun to establish activities in which they have a clear comparative advantage over all non-academic competitors within their region. the mix of activities depends on regional conditions, and changes over time and from institution to institution. there are traditional activities as well as new ones; competitive instruction occurs in classrooms as well as by e-mail, independent study, and off-campus sites; departmental programs of instruction and research projects are supplemented by interdisciplinary ones. different faculty are beginning to be rewarded for different mixes of teaching, outreach, and research. all academic institutions need to engage in appropriate reexamination of their function, their values, and their priorities within this broadened framework. there is no need to panic, but certainly no room for complacency. let's stop telling each other that all would be well if only we could do a better job in public relations. 5 this issue of metropolitan universities reflects the essential role of the fine and performing arts in the interaction of metropolitan universities and their constituencies. what our institutions can achieve in terms of cultural enrichment of their region is every bit as important as their social and economic impact. this is well illustrated by the articles in this issue, and i am most grateful to dean alex sidorowicz of towson state university for his splendid contribution as guest editor. third conference of metropolitan universities the university of arkansas at little rock will host the third conference of metropolitan universities march 19 through 21, 1995 _ .. r metropolitan --·--universities tentatively, the conference will focus on clarifying the mission of metropolitan/urban universities and linking the reward structure off acuity to this mission. mu1993-winter-004_page3 mu1993-winter-005_page4 mu1993-winter-006_page5 mu1993-winter-007_page6 overview john h strange this issue of metropolitan universities contains a number of articles on technology and education that raise nine basic issues. first, there is the issue of equity. in this group of articles, only marcee martin, in her article "bringing technology to education: a view from the superintendent's office," identifies the equity issue as a serious one. but this issue concerns me greatly, and i would imagine many others as well. if educational institutions do not provide access for all to the new information technologies, and encouragement to learn to use these technologies, i foresee major redistributions of power and wealth that run counter to my personal value system. the new technologies are currently, at least to a very large extent, the domain of young white males. blacks are especially under represented in the access to and use of the most powerful new information tools. if the equity issue is of concern, where else will it be addressed than in the educational institutions of this country? second, post-secondary education is playing a key role in assisting secondary education to implement the use of technologies in instruction, with major finan_. cial assistance being offered by the federal government. mary poston tanner and frederick w. obear, in their article "realizing the potential of educational technologies: a challenge to metropolitan universities," outline the efforts that are currently underway in tennessee and through the university of tennessee at chattanooga. carol whelan in her article "innovative technology in louisiana" notes the leadership that the university of southwestern louisiana, through its educational technology review center, has provided in assisting schools to use networks and multimedia for instructional purposes. marcee martin questions, however, whether post-secondary education is paying as much attention to the use of technologies in their own domain as they are in the domain of others. she reports she has ended the payment of tuition for university courses for her teachers because higher education talks about using technology in instruction but does not practice it. charles connell in his article "information age challenge for metropolitan universities" details the efforts at the university of south alabama (usa) to look at technology in a larger instructional context and suggests that similar efforts at other institutions will be rewarding and beneficial. he does not mention the fact that the efforts at his own institution have not been implemented. in my article "a cultural revolution: from books to silver discs" i strongly imply that higher education is not adequately addressing the issue of internal reform in the area of technology. third, we find that a new effort has begun at the national level to engage higher education in the process of incorporating technologies into the instructional process. carol twigg in the interview titled "implementing a national leaming infrastructure," relates the efforts of educom to establish a national leaming infrastructure initiative (nlii), and invites educational institutions to be part of that ground breaking effort at change. the nlii seeks to generate new instructional software and faster and more powerful networks for the rapid transfer of multimedia data by encouraging the establishment of partnerships among universities, publishers, technology companies, and the public sector. educom's efforts offer some new and exciting possibilities for real change at the institutional level. fourth, multimedia are cited as a key part of the media of the future. in my article "a cultural revolution: from books to silver discs" i contend that the new 6 metropolitan universities/summer 1995 generation of listeners/watchers can possibly be transformed into listeners/watchers/authors through the use of multimedia. whelan describes uses of multimedia in louisiana, and cd products published by the cd press housed at her institution. robert kennedy, in the interview titled "technology and education: a view from the outside," describes how multimedia has captured the attention of educators at all levels, and how the internet is increasingly becoming a network of multimedia instead of text. connell notes the importance of including multimedia in the plans developed for new technologies, and martin is implementing a set of teaching strategies that make full use of new multimedia products. fifth, the internet can play a key role in education now, and the new networks that emerge will be even more important. kennedy, whelan and twigg describe in detail the powers of instant worldwide access to people and data as a learning tool. twigg and kennedy are especially convinced that the new, more powerful networks that we will have within fifteen years will lead us to revolutionary educational change. sixth, traditional methods for distributing information, including the book and classroom lectures, will be radically changed. in my article "a cultural revolution: from books to silver discs," i contend that books will be replaced by silver discs. although none of the other authors make so wild a prediction as that, whelan, martin, twigg, connell, and kennedy certainly set forth numerous reasons, and offer many examples, that support the general thrust of my argument. in an article in the october 1993 ascd update that came to my attention yesterday, karen peterson, technology coordinator for peakview elementary school in cherry creek, colorado, rep0rted that in her school students routinely use computers to prepare multimedia projects or presentations .... the addition of multimedia resources has also reduced the school's dependence upon textbooks as vital sources of information. we have no math, social studies, or science textbooks. maybe my prediction is not so wild after all! and libraries are becoming more electronic everyday. whether books totally disappear or not, it is a certainty that education must radically rethink how it collects, stores, provides access to, contributes to, and uses information in the instructional process. do we really need any more library buildings? seventh, the increasing use of video and sound is cited as a major development that will require new approaches in education. all of the authors deal with this issue in one form or another, and at one level of intensity or another. one special note that i would offer would be that last night one of my colleagues through the internet had live motion pictures of five people on his computer. only one of the five with whom my colleague was conversing had the appropriate equipment to send audio data live. one participant in this "conversation" ·was in france, another in belgium. the others were in the united states. my colleague was using a $1,500 computer, a $99 camera, and free software called cu-see me being developed by the advanced technologies and planning group of the network resources division of cornell university information technologies. the contact for information about the software is listproc@cornell.edu. demonstration sites include several science museums around the country, including the ithaca sciencenter and the exploratorium in san francisco. kennedy predicted interactive video and audio conferencing over networks within 15 years. early versions are happening now! the implications for worldwide conversations and learning are profound! eighth, all of the authors offer suggestions about how to get started. my two articles address this issue directly. kennedy does as well, especially when he chides me for not exploring the internet adequately. all the authors stress that read7 ing about these new technologies is not sufficient. you cannot stop with these articles. you must get out of your chair and use the new technologies yourselfl and i suggest in my article "seeking guidance about technology: whom can you trust?" that if you do not know enough about the new technologies to evaluate the advice you are being given about them then you may make serious errors in your decisions. i contend you have to use the technologies and imagine a very different future. ninth, all of the authors are excited about what is happening. they urge you to join in that excitement, to learn first hand what they are talking about, to think about what all this means for you and your institution. the old ways will not suffice. you are encouraged to help invent the ways of the future. overview nancy c. stoll and larry g. benedict two of the 1990 issues of metropolitan universities addressed topics particularly relevant to student life: diversity and community interaction. the articles in both issues raised important questions and outlined challenges for all campuses as they strive to respond to the increasing demands of multiculturalism and to the need to support and develop community. building on that foundation, in this issue we seek to address inamorespecificwaythechallengesraisedbycertainstudentpopulations and the role of organizational change as student affairs professionals respond to these challenges. in addition/ this issue extends the theoretical discussions of institutional approaches to multiculturalism. these articles are not only an extension of earlier topics presented in this journal. the content is also a reflection of the times. the national agenda has included discussions of new financial aid policies and alternative ways to manage student loan programs. the recent implementationofadalegislationhasemphasizedinstitutiona]responses to those with disabilities. considerable publicity has been given to president clinton's desire to increase community service and to link those activities to colleges and universities. the national context for these issues heightens the challenges to administrators at urban institutions as we seek to respond to these external pressures. in addition, budget cuts and downsizing, from which no college or university has been spared, have forced all administrators and academic leaders to examine priorities and stretch resources. changes in structures and roles are a natural byproduct of such struggles; yet it is not clear that out of largely fiscal agendas has come good thinking about organizational change. multiculturalism has continued to create opportunities for dialogue and growth but not without divisiveness and frustration. metropolitan universities face a future in which budget considerations will continue to impact decision making. they face a future in which the numbers of students will increase who are older, from single-parent homes, of a variety of cultural backgrounds, transferring from other institutions, and with significant financial need. in this climate the strategies for responsiveness fall heavily on the shoulders of the student affairs staff. the developmental approach1 common to student affairs professionals, takes time and patience under the best of circumstances. with the current issues, that approach is probably more important than ever, yet harder than ever to maintain. consequently, we believe that it is important to underscore the student affairs staff role in setting the agenda for the institution and defining the challenges that must be met. the range of possible topics for an issue on student life was enormous. the selections presented here represent a sample of topics and not an exhaustive collection of challenges facing student affairs professionals on campuses. all of these topics deserve more discussion and analysis than these few pages allow, but we believe they extend the discussion of student life issues and raise thoughtful considerations for all institutional personnel who care about the quality of campus life. overview 7 this issue begins with two articles that focus on organizational ch.ange and student affairs professionals as change masters. the first article is a dialogue that grew out of ongoing discussions held by the new e!lgland student affairs think tank, a group of senior student affairs administrators from a wide variety of colleges and universities in new england who meet regularly under the auspices of the new england resource center for higher education at the university of massachusetts at boston. the six participants discuss the need for organizational change in today's higher education arena and, from a student affairs point of view, highlight the skills and insights that chief student affairs officers can bring to institutional challenges. in a climate of competition for resources, the article underscores the importance of caring about structure and accountability. this is juxtaposed against a backdrop of values clarification on the part of staff and institutions and the attributes of the developmental approach that typically guide student services. this article is followed by a discussion of two institutions' efforts at organizational change in student services. the experiences at a small private campus, hampshire college, and those at a larger, more metropolitan, state institution, keene state college, provide useful case studies in both the theoretical and practical elements of restructuring operations and of redefining staff roles in an attempt to better serve students. two articles extend the discussion of organizational change to the area of multiculturalism. jane fried presents the concepts of milieu management/ campus ecology as viable and useful for institutions struggling with community development and conflict resolution. she emphasizes the need for student affairs professionals to be leaders in recognizing learning opportunities but cautions against using traditional programs and policies to respond to intergroup conflict. she explains the necessity for senior administrators and the president to be committed to creating an environment that affirms the value of many cultures and perspectives. annamarie melodia and j. herman blake raise the need for curriculum reform in liberal education as a means to create a sense of belonging and com.fort within a multicultural community. they assert the need for students not only to identify with the curriculum, professors, and their peers but to develop a sense of comfort that allows them to be actively involved in their education. through that active involvement comes a redefinition and re-evaluation of values and perspectivesstudent growth. financial aid and community service are discussed in articles that examine two institutions' approaches to expanding institutional goals and meeting student needs. patricia somers describes research on financial aid, which suggests that financial aid awards significantly influence enrollment and persistence in urban institutions. she proposes a formula for determining this impact. her findings indicate that, once an institutional assessment is completed, redirecting financial aid may have a positive effect on institutional goals. dennis golden, bridgette pregliasco, and michelle clemons focus on the importance of community service for the contemporary metropolitan university. they examine both the 8 metropolitan universities/fall 1993 philosophical and practical underpinnings of such programs and then go on to discuss the benefits that accrue to the students involved in such outreach efforts and to the institution itself, as well as discuss the contributions such efforts make to the local community. citing a variety of programs and initiatives at the university of louisville, the authors illustrate how a metropolitan university can create opportunities for volunteer service at all levels of the institution, in both the academic and co,urricular spheres, thereby enhancing student development, promoting an ethic of care within students, and adding to the quality of life in the community. the final two articles bring the discussion about student life issues to specific student populations. the two student groups-disabled students and community college transfers-comprise important portions of most metropolitan university student populations, and, as such, these institutions have the opportunity to be leaders and role models in the student service provided. richard harris, who has spent most of his professional life working with disabled-student services, identifies the challenges of serving students with both physical and learning disabilities. he particularly notes the areas in which institutions need to educate their community and to proactively plan for the inclusion and full participation of these students. he provides useful examples of the ways in which meeting the letter and spirit of the ada legislation provides both access and opportunity for students and the institution. barbara townsend presents research illuminating the difficulties community college students experience when they transfer to metropolitan four-year institutions. she references academic practices and describes the academic culture of universities that may hinder these transfer students as they strive to succeed in a four-year institution. her research offers suggestions for changes in practice by highlighting the need for both academic and student affairs administrators to consciously and consistently focus on the financial, social, and psychological needs of these students. the environment of higher education becomes ever more complex. this issue of metropolitan universities shows the changingnature of higher education institutions, focusing in many ways on issues that were not even items on the agenda ten years ago. the need for constant vigilance, ongoing reflection, and flexibility is demonstrated time and again in these articles. the successful practitioner needs to be able to recreate herself or himself on an ongoing basis and to be prepared to act quickly and creatively as new challenges arise. the experiences, wisdom, and insight demonstrated throughout this issue will hopefully inform such practice. from the editor barbara a. holland a primary purpose of the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities is to build a broad understanding across higher education about the "urban or metropolitan mission" as a distinctive type of institution. the universities that identify with this mission seek to be recognized as interpreting the classic features of a research, doctoral, or comprehensive university within the context of the intense shaping influences of their highlyurbanized regions. in other words, urban and metropolitan universities have all the characteristics of any university, but the intentional and unintentional impacts of a large metropolitan location means that those standard characteristics often develop unique dimensions and expressions that are the hallmark of a self-identified urban or metropolitan institution. over the years, many urban and metropolitan institutions have said, in various similar expressions: "we are not just in this city, we are 'of the city."' we tend to serve more part-time and stop/start students who balance work and family responsibilities with study, and may be the first in their family to go to college. most of these students come from and will remain in the region around the institution after graduation. such a student body has inevitable impacts on other features of the institution. learning environments are often flexible and emphasize convenience and efficiency as well as quality. the institution must give focused attention to strategies that promote retention and graduation. campus life and community present special challenges when few students live on campus and most are commuters. faculty roles are similar to those of any university, but the priority given to teaching, research, or service is spread more evenly across all three roles, and faculty can face diverse demands and competing expectations. the underfunded nature of these institutions also means that urban and metropolitan faculty must balance these multiple priorities with a heavy courseload and fewer graduate assistants. many urban and metropolitan universities rely heavily on part-time and adjunct faculty; however, their urban location can turn the reliance on outside faculty to a strength when they are drawn from top practitioners and leaders from community, government and business. the role of campus leaders focuses on the usual array of budget, personnel, program, and institutional advancement issues, but these activities are strongly influenced by external conditions and demands of the metropolitan region such as the state of the economy, the mix of business and industry, the nature of the work force, the demographics of the city, the priorities of civic, government and business leaders, and so on. urban and metropolitan executives are running a large enterprise that is seen by others as a key economic force in the region, and campus leaders are often expected to participate in planning efforts and programs addressing regional development issues. 3 4 all universities must attend to issues of town-gown relationships but urban and metropolitan institutions can find themselves caught up in a multi-dimensional web of complex neighborhood and regional relationships in which they have strong interests but modest influence. over time, scholarly agendas and academic programs become a reflection of the relationship between the campus and the city as the market demands of students and employers influence curricula and research. analysis does reveal a clear pattern of general institutional traits and attitudes that, at least in part, illustrate what it means to be an urban or metropolitan university. these are presented in table 1, which is based on my own years of research on institutions that self-identify as urban or metropolitan. taken individually, some of these traits could be found at institutions that do not identify with this mission; however, in combination, these are the standard hallmarks of a university likely to see itself as urban or metropolitan. taken in combination, these characteristics distinguish university life and work on an urban or metropolitan campus from others in more rural settings. this is not to say that urban and metropolitan institutions are all alike. one of the challenges in promoting a wider understanding regarding the urban or metropolitan mission, is that each university is a unique expression of its history, policy environment, funding patterns, and metropolitan context. for example, in this journal and the coalition we use both "urban" and "metropolitan" intentionally because some institutions perceive a strong resonance to one term over the other. this distinction usually can be explained by local and regional influences that shape the implications or interpretations of the urban or metropolitan label. analysis of institutional characteristics does not find a strong empirical difference between institutions that choose one term over another; the choice seems more based on history, politics, and personal preference. in sum, our urban and metropolitan institutions are alike in many ways, but also different in their interpretation, and both conditions are the result of our interaction with our environments and our students. imagine the difficult challenges associated with trying to articulate a common set of formats, definitions and reporting standards for urban institutions, and then working to formally document measures and indicators of institutional fit with those standards and features. this was the challenge taken up by the institutions participating in the urban universities portfolio project. in this issue of metropolitan universities journal, authors from the project reflect on their individual and collective experiences in a project that used a portfolio approach to describe institutional characteristics, programs, and outcomes. as they worked together and separately to explore the key organizational elements included in the portfolios, the project teams developed a keen awareness of the fundamental ways urban institutions see themselves in common, and sensitivity to the importance of documenting the differences. i thank the guest editor, susan kahn, and her colleagues for candidly sharing the rewarding and the perplexing aspects of the project. for those approaching institutional self-studies in the near future, this will be productive reading. these and other institutions and accrediting groups will continue to assess the utility of the portfolio format for institutional analysis and reporting, and the urban universities portfolio project team deserves our appreciation for their pioneer work in exploring this model. table 1. characteristics of the metropolitan or urban mission "we are not just in the city, we are 'of the city."' factors characteristics organizational leadership; policies leadership articulates metropolitan mission consistently to internal and external constituencies; intentional policies, rewards, and structures reflect mission external context, relationships, and networks campus plans respond to issues of region students primarily from smsa and alumni remain in area links with other institutions and collaborations address urban needs through research, teaching, and service community characteristics influence academic agenda infrastructure intentional approach to partnerships and purposeful community involvement in campus life organizational structure supports complex external relationships faculty roles and rewards definition of scholarship supports interactive relationship with community across all faculty roles credible and accepted system for evaluation and reward includes recognition of community-based work goals for academic quality consider impact on region 5 6 factors characteristics faculty composition community experts involved in academic agenda; criteria promote the appointment of faculty with nontraditional academic backgrounds; at least a third of the faculty are engaged in community service disciplinary approaches multidisciplinary teams reflect complex nature of urban issues and educational needs; teams evolve with external changes; involve students and community members in planning and implementation educational approaches learning experience is designed to serve students with highly diverse traits, goals and patterns of attendance; opportunities provided for community service; urban issues incorporated into curriculum barbara a. holland, "from murky to meaningful," in r.g. bringle, r. games, and e.a. mallory, eds., colleges and universities as citizens (boston: allen and bacon, 1999): 48-73. mu2002-09-004_page3 mu2002-09-005_page4 mu2002-09-006_page5 mu2002-09-007_page6 2 from the editor's desk the impact of technology on education is a major concern for almost every postsecondary institution in the nation what strategy to use, which vendors to trust, how far to go, and most of all, how to pay for it and keep it anywhere near up-to-date. for decades, we have been subjected to scary messages from peter drucker and others who proclaimed that the traditional campus would soon be a deserted place as vast crowds of students flock to learn at home, sitting at a computer in their pajamas and fuzzy slippers. at the same time, public and private efforts to start up large virtual universities, such as western governors' university, began their operations with great fanfare and publicity, and then found that enrollments quickly leveled off with a surprisingly modest level of student participation. again and again, states or institutions that make large investments to move a significant portion of instruction onto a technological platform find that, by an overwhelming number, the majority of users are their current students, not new students in remote locations. thus, the theme of this issue of metropolitan universities is distributed learning, a different concept than distance learning. the distinction highlights that perhaps the greatest immediate potential for enhancing learning at metropolitan universities is the greater efficiency, richness, and convenience media-based or media-enhanced education offers our students. this is an exciting vision for technology's impact on education of students that have some combination of the following characteristics: commuting, working, coping with family demands, enrolling part-time or stopping in and out across semesters. it does not require sophisticated surveys and studies to make it clear that our current students find that technology offers them the opportunity to use their time more efficiently, increase their interactions with faculty and other students, and enroll for more credits. distributed learning tries to make learning more convenient, accessible, relevant, and powerful by making the "place" where learning occurs less central in the learning process. my own suspicion is that for the immediate future, the greatest benefit technology offers metropolitan universities is the potential to help our current, campus-based students learn more, and more effectively, and perhaps even finish more quickly. however, we are often unprepared to capitalize on these benefits. we face a number of planning and implementation challenges, some of which our authors address. like many people who are, shall we say, "middle-aged," i must honestly say that i am far from knowledgeable about the features and issues of technology. recently, i went shopping to replace my 11-year-old home computer (you can tell from the time frame how hard i work to make sure i have the latest technology), and found myself making choices more on the ability of the sales person to answer my questions and guide me through the process than on the subtle nuances of hardware features. in the final analysis, all the choices seemed quite similar. many faculty and administrative leaders face similar challenges of limited personal knowledge when trying to make decisions about investments in technology and technology-related curriculum reform. in many ways, we are still struggling with the fact that the hardware/software/delivery systems available are so powerful and flexible that our imaginations have not yet caught up with the possibilities they offer for new approaches to educational delivery. at the same time, these technologies are also still so complex and require such specialized expertise, that few academics and administrators can develop more than a moderate level of expertise that would allow them to explore innovative strategies and truly think afresh about the role of media in instruction. the possibilities are more expansive than our own expertise. the campuses that seem to be making progress usually have the good fortune to have attracted a few key knowledgable individuals with deep expertise who can guide the organization in making efficient choices. we are often unable to compete effectively for the best technology management talent, given the overall shortage of labor in the high tech marketplace and our lower salary structures. the diverse levels of student skills also presents a set of complex questions and problems. many of our students enroll at our campuses having spent time in school systems that have better technology capacity than we do. as in all other challenges in higher education, the characteristics of the typical metropolitan university student body present us with special concerns that require different strategies than traditional campuses. fact is, not every student arrives prepared; some metropolitan institutions surveyed entering students, and were amazed and saddened to learn than fewer than half owned or had regular access to a computer. the demographics of our students mean some are going to arrive with little technology literacy or access that allows them to instantly take advantage of any technology-based instructional programs. others will arrive with great sophistication. our actions must address both populations. one of the ways this has impacted our campuses differentially is the greater need to balance the creation of innovative instructional programs with ensuring sufficient levels of services and resources to ensure equal access. the creation of adequate numbers of computer labs, including 2417 operations, is an expensive strategy that consumes enormous amounts of space and dollars for maintenance and upgrading. most campuses offer deep discounts to students on the purchase of computers, but even this leaves some students without access. an interesting model may be the greater integration of media services into every classroom, with different classrooms having different levels of sophisticated equipment to match instructional use. what good does it do for us to dwell on creating exciting and effective media-enhanced programs, if we cannot ensure students will have access? these very fundamental, practical matters continue to be daunting obstacles to moving forward and taking advantage of the efficiencies of technology in instruction. then there is the issue of developing sufficient faculty confidence, competence, and motivation in the world of technology. attention to the role of technology in instruction has largely coincided with the national renewal of commitment to quality undergraduate education and a shift from "teaching" to "learning." this simultaneous agenda has probably been fortunate because it enhanced the opportunity to advance the integration of technology in instruction, and, in particular, increased the importance of budgeting for faculty development in the area of instructional skills. many of our institutions now feature some form of a "center for teaching and learning" or other units focused on faculty development, and most of these have strong elements of programming aimed at increasing faculty skills in the uses of technology. these investments are essential. for too long our organizations have neglected professional 3 4 development for faculty beyond the self-directed opportunities for sabbaticals or summer study. new investments in skill enhancement for faculty ensure that, like our students, faculty have the opportunity for equal access to the exploration of technology and enhancement of their instructional approaches. whatever path we choose regarding the balance between media-based, media-enhanced, or high tech classroom-based instruction, our success will be almost entirely dependent on ensuring that every faculty member has the necessary skills to be effective in these learning environments. for the moment, given the needs and traits of our students and the size of our campus budgets, a strategy framed by a vision for distributed learning may be of greater impact and value than the notion of distance learning. the articles presented in this issue offer helpful case stories of institutional efforts to grapple with the multiple demands and dilemmas associated with distributed learning programs. the authors have done a good job of not only telling of their successful projects, but also revealing their struggles and frustrations. such candor increases the value of these articles to our readers, and i hope you find them helpful and informative for your own campus' exploration of the role of technology. our attention to this topic in the journal is long overdue, and its importance means it will likely reappear again soon. as ever, we welcome your comments, suggestions, and proposals for future articles and topics. barbara a. holland, executive editor iupui university college building, uc 3169 indianapolis, in 46202 telephone: 202-708-3061 e-mail: barbara_ a._ holland@hud.gov mu2001-winter-004_page2 mu2001-winter-005_page3 mu2001-winter-006_page4 muj 5 “universities as anchor institutions: driving change” the 2014 cumu national conference in syracuse, new york marilyn higgins syracuse university was thrilled to host the twentieth annual coalition of urban and metropolitan universities conference, october 5-7, 2014 on the connective corridor, a signature revitalization project that connects university hill with downtown syracuse. in keeping with the conference theme “universities as anchor institutions: driving change,” the connective corridor embodies strong working partnerships between syracuse university and local government, sustainable urban design, and leading-edge faculty scholarship and student engagement. it was exciting to hear colleagues from cities around the united states react to the corridor and engage in dynamic conversations on place-based strategies for urban revival. everyone seemed to enjoy those three beautiful autumn days in our newly flourishing post-industrial city. syracuse university’s chancellor kent syverud, then in his first year at syracuse university, inspired discussion on the importance of research excellence in creating transformative change within cities that host urban universities. with the goal of inspiring unique presentations and papers, the conference organizers selected these four themes as examples of how urban and metropolitan universities contribute to progress and change: • social entrepreneurs, a new model for urban sustainability • healthy neighborhoods by design • place-based reform of k-12 public education • creative placemaking, student engagement, and community revitalization. the resulting submissions depicted the diversity of anchor institution strategies that cumu members are engaged in throughout the country. keynote speaker jeff speck challenged conference participants to consider the immense social and financial impact of “walkability” on students, faculty, and residents of cities that are home to colleges and universities. his recent book “walkable city” quickly became the central topic of discussion among the presidents of member colleges and universities at the chancellor’s residence on sunday night. many conference participants enjoyed a performance at syracuse stage that evening. a panel discussion on “literacy, education reform, and urban revitalization” the next morning focused on the “say yes to education” program that has taken root in this area. “say yes to education” president, mary anne schmidt-carey, mayor 6 stephanie miner, and county executive joanie mahoney were joined by other civic and business leaders in discussing the benefits of collaboration when attempting to achieve major changes in systems within communities. the oversubscribed tour of syracuse’s near westside sparked the interest of most of the attendees and resulted in conversations centering on student engagement as a leadership opportunity. walking tours and receptions at the museum of science and technology and the nancy cantor warehouse gave participants the opportunity to exchange knowledge and enjoy syracuse’s armory square district. the neighborhoodthemed food stations featuring central new york specialties such as salt potatoes and dinosaur barbeque were exceptionally well received. concurrent sessions supported the conference themes well, and gave conference participants new insights into innovative program strategies and research projects derived from diverse urban contexts. jomella watson-thompson, assistant professor in the department of applied behavioral science at the university of kansas, was recognized at the conference as the 2014 recipient of the ernest a. lynton award for the scholarship of engagement for early career faculty. her conference paper opens this issue, and begins with her story of how her undergraduate experiences at jackson state university shaped her interest in an academic career that would incorporate methods of community-engaged scholarship. she is now an associate director in the work group for community health and development at the university of kansas, and in that research role she is using community-based participatory action research and evaluation methods to involve community partners in community-based intervention and evaluation efforts in the areas of adolescent substance abuse prevention, community violence prevention, positive youth development, and community capacity-building. her conference paper describes the exciting and effective, but also intensive efforts involved in the implementation of these research methods. community-based research methods require considerable time to develop relationships and sustain trust. for example, the cultivation of relationships may require activities of public service (e.g., serving on community boards) that are essential to creating the foundational relationships for research, but such service is not recognized as part of the research process. the intensity of engaged research is often the most effective method for studying community questions, but the nature of the methodology may mean a more modest output of traditional publications that may not be understood by colleagues. watsonthompson describes the importance of faculty mentors and peer networks in supporting young, engaged scholars and in educating colleagues about engaged research methods and practices. her article concludes with the presentation of a fourfactor model to help address barriers to engaged scholarship: institutional examination of community context and conditions; design and implementation of principles and models of engaged scholarship; institutional commitment for engaged scholarship at every level; and clear mechanisms for documenting and measuring the contributions of partners to engaged scholarship and the resulting public impact. 7 rebecca tekula, archana shah, and jordan jhamb from pace university describe how the university made “a strong commitment to the emerging field of social entrepreneurship by establishing the helene and grant wilson center for social entrepreneurship and positioning it uniquely at the university level, and not within a school or college.” the decision to make social entrepreneurship an institution-wide education and research priority is traced back to the founding principles and values of the university itself, which considers its ‘classroom’ to include the entire new york city metropolitan area. the wilson center also reflects the university’s recognition that 33 percent of arts and science graduates were taking jobs in the nonprofit sector. the authors provide readers with a useful analysis of the elements of social entrepreneurship as a field of study, including discussions of corollary concepts such as impact investing and the measurement of social impact. they offer a compelling case regarding the substantial opportunities this topical focus has generated in terms of innovation and effectiveness of teaching, learning, and research as well as community impact. the university’s partnership with impact america has positioned the institution as an innovative leader in engagement by turning the institution into a resource provider and incubator for the social sector. a creative and very different approach to social entrepreneurship is the subject of nic custer’s article. he describes the innovation incubator model developed at the university of michigan-flint which serves both businesses and nonprofit organizations. the aim of this integrated approach is to enhance these new enterprises to support the diverse and complex dimensions of social, environmental, and economic renewal. especially intriguing is that the start-ups supported in the facility are a mix of students and community members, all working and learning together to build their enterprises and develop connections that address a variety of challenges and opportunities in the region. the article provides useful insights into how the innovation incubator was conceived and how important decisions were made about choice of location, areas of focus, design of spaces and policies to frame the pathway for tenants. case studies illustrate the effects of the model as it begins to recruit a second generation of tenant organizations. a team of campus deans and several endowed chairs have described the university of nebraska at omaha’s (uno) strategy to create endowed ‘community chair’ positions as a catalyst for campus collaborations in stem. in exploring the unique opportunities for metropolitan universities as they seek to respond to the national call for greater production of stem graduates, uno recognized that they already had a strong history of partnership with p-16 education so they sought to create a new approach that would support new levels of collaboration and strategic innovation. first, uno made stem programming one of five strategic priorities, and then they decided to create a leadership team to lead the priority by establishing four ‘community chairs’ in different faculties with responsibility to initiate new work across departments. the paper describes the early effects of this strategy and some examples of the new interdisciplinary and community partnership initiatives that have arisen from the work of the community chairs. already, the concept demonstrates success as new, large teams of interdisciplinary faculty and community partners are working in new directions. 8 given the challenge of all metropolitan and urban universities to be involved in improving student success at every level of education, this article is a must read. the robust presence of access to the arts is certainly a key element of community success. as public funding for higher education has been reduced, some campuses have made cuts to arts programming and facilities. the tacoma theater project at the university of washington—tacoma (uwt) describes a creative university-community partnership that has developed new opportunities for campus and community audiences. author michael kula reflects on the development of the relatively young uwt campus and its academic programs. at a time when others might be reducing theater programs, uwt faculty asked: does our mission and community culture make it important to initiate one? “despite the larger academic and societal trends perhaps suggesting the contrary, as uwt began to consider theater arts as an area of strategic growth, the question facing the university quickly turned from if to how the university should move forward. how could or should the institution build a vibrant, relevant, and sustainable program in theater that both respected the university’s resources during economically challenged times and, at the same time, held the university’s mission at its center?” this exciting article describes the emergence of an innovative solution: a campus-community partnership that recognized the need to create more affordable access to theater productions and a greater diversity in the perspective of productions without reducing audiences for existing fringe theater companies with similar aims. since this is an article about theater, this introduction will not reveal the full plot of the creative solution uwt developed, but the title will give you a hint: “zipcar theater: the tacoma theater project as an anchor for audience development.” craig a. talmage, rosemarie dombrowski, mikulas pstross, c. bjørn peterson, and richard c. knopf collaborated on an article describing their research project in phoenix that asked three big questions: where is downtown, what is downtown, and who is downtown? arizona state university has created a successful downtown campus in recent years, and it has spurred growth and renewal. the research agenda, as described by the authors, explored “socio-cultural value in the heart of an urban downtown area through an applied community learning experience, which involved university students, faculty, and community members. the experience was spurred from a grant-funded initiative that sought to illuminate the stories of socio-cultural diversity in downtown phoenix, arizona.” the authors give a clear description of the importance of applied learning opportunities for large numbers of students, strategies for developing community partnerships, and framing the study project that became known as the “we are downtown” initiative. to explore the three main questions about downtown, a highly diverse, multidisciplinary team of students, faculty, and partners conducted interviews with downtown workers, residents, and passers-by to learn about the characteristics of the respondents and their views and perceptions of the area. as many cumu campuses are located in center city spaces, the article provides interesting reading about the deeper conversations and connections that developed during the project among diverse groups, and how that will inform the next stage of this innovative research and partnership project. 9 in their examination of town-gown relationships, gavazzi and fox (2014) drew on literature about marital relationships to analyze data gathered from a sample of community members living and working in three municipalities surrounding a midwestern regional university. using marriage relationships as metaphor, they developed a model of four types of relationships that can be used to describe the characteristics of typical campus-community interaction: harmonious, traditional, conflicted, and devitalized. the article provides useful insights into understanding, and perhaps anticipating, how good and difficult town-gown relationships can be understood, managed, and improved. toward the goal of greater success in student educational achievement, staten island’s three institutions of higher education – college of staten island/city university of new york, st. john’s university, and wagner college – have brought together their high school and community partners to form the staten island educational partnership. this distinctive “all-in” partnership across the island’s educational providers at every level has set a goal of 30,000 new college degrees awarded by 2025. the authors report that “college readiness for a stronger staten island is a direct outgrowth of staten island educational leaders’ participation in the 2013 cumu conference. the staten island educational partnership was formed in order to achieve the results sought by a similar coalition of business, government, higher education, pre-k-12 education, and community organizations in louisville.” the authors, representing dimensions of the partnership, share insights about the initial development of an organizing framework based on the principles of collective impact and provide useful insights to improve the educational partnerships of any metropolitan institution. finally, nicholas siewell, stephanie aguirre, and madhavappallil thomas describe their research on the extensive and unusually intentional community garden project in a neighborhood in bakersfield, california. the authors (one a professor from california state university, bakersfield and two community-based professionals who were also graduate students), recognized that while many universities launch partnerships to develop community gardens, there was a need for research that would seek to measure the impact on health and well-being of residents in the neighborhood beyond mere social activity and/or access to fresh food. their study looked at physical and mental health, social capacities, and the spiritual health of individuals and neighborhoods. if you think you understood the value of community gardens, this study will expand your awareness of its deeper impact on residential well-being. in summary, the 2014 cumu conference was a benefit to syracuse university through the opportunity it created to develop new friends and key contacts as well as gaining access to the vast expertise this event brought to our city. the articles in this issue offer a sample of the wisdom and innovation that was exchanged throughout the event. 10 author information marilyn higgins is vice president of community engagement and economic development, responsible for the connective corridor and near westside initiative, two urban revitalization projects that have leveraged $94 million in investment and engaged fourteen hundred students and seventy faculty in the city of syracuse. formerly the vice president of economic development for national grid corporation, she has successfully attracted businesses and jobs to communities across upstate new york and served on the boards of over twenty economic development and nonprofit organizations. marilyn higgins vice president community engagement & economic development syracuse university the warehouse 350 w. fayette street syracuse, ny 13244 telephone: 315-443-8052 e-mail: mrhigg01@syr.edu muj 147 for better and for worse: understanding optimal campus– community relationships through the lens of marriage stephen m. gavazzi abstract borrowing from marital research literature, a four-square matrix constructed from the twin dimensions of effort and comfort levels is used to describe a typology of campus and community associations. results from a study using the optimal college town assessment to measure community member perceptions on town–gown relationships are presented next, followed by a discussion of a mobilization cycle that situates such assessment efforts inside of an engagement strategy for establishing harmonious campus and community partnerships. during a marriage ceremony, couples typically take turns stating traditional vows to remain together “for better and for worse, for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health.” while this ritualized pledge often ends with the statement “until death do us part,” in practice only about half of all marital vows end with one spouse’s mortal demise. that is because modern marriage is based on the premise of free choice. and while it takes two individuals to give their consent in order to get married, it takes only one partner to terminate the marital relationship. the relationships that exist between institutions of higher learning and the communities that surround them resemble marriages in some striking ways. as will be discussed later in this paper, the relative health of those relationships seems to rest on some of the same factors that create strong marriages. that being said, town–gown associations differ from modern marital relationships in two very profound ways. first, campuses and communities are better described as an “arranged marriage” in which the partners seemingly had no choice but to be together. second, and relatedly, divorce is not a realistic option for the town–gown partners. the objective of the present paper is to utilize the metaphor of marriage in order to advance a discussion of how to best understand the characteristics of an optimal relationship between campus and community partners. following a brief overview of the town–gown literature, recent efforts to conceptualize and measure the quality of relationships maintained between municipalities and the colleges and universities that exist in their midst is reviewed. finally, various activities undertaken as a series of logically organized steps designed to influence the relative health of the town–gown relationship are discussed. 148 town–gown literature attention paid to campus-community relationships is on the rise, as evidenced by a number of recent books on town–gown topics (fox 2014; gumprecht 2008; kemp 2013). however, the literature seems to indicate a bit of mystery regarding the current state of affairs between institutions of higher learning and the municipalities that surround them. on the one hand, the glass is seen as “half empty” by some. for instance, bruning, mcgrew, and cooper (2006) stated that “historically, town–gown relations have been a source of difficulty, frustration, and annoyance for both the town and the university” (125). others, on the other hand, see the glass as more “half full.” one example of this latter way of thinking is fox (2014), who noted that “there is an important need to identify common issues and approaches . . . associated with having the college or university present. communities without a postsecondary institution simply do not have this as a factor in their galaxy of community issues, wants, needs, and opportunities. most wish they did!” (103). whether one adopts a more optimistic or pessimistic viewpoint on this subject matter would seem to align closely with the quality of the relationships that are experienced between campus and community representatives. until recently, however, there has been precious little consideration given to clarifying what exactly constitutes the optimal town–gown relationship. the present paper reviews some of the more recent work being conducted in this area, with the expressed intent of illuminating some of the key factors that contribute to more optimal interactions between institutions of higher learning and the municipalities that surround them. the marital metaphor: a brief overview of the town–gown typology the metaphor of marriage specifically and the image of interpersonal relationships more generally have been applied to town–gown relationships in previous writings, with the earliest identified reference coming from hill (1994). a decade later, bringle and hatcher (2002) discussed campus–community partnerships in interpersonal relationship terms, with special emphasis on phases (initiation, development, maintenance, dissolution) and dynamics (exchanges, equity, power) that helped to define those relationships. most recently, bringle and colleagues (clayton et al. 2010) have sought to better define certain qualities of partnerships that can arise within the multiple interacting dyadic relationships that exist in service learning and civic engagement activities. adapting early work done by cuber and haroff (1965) on marital quality research, gavazzi, fox, and martin (2014) asserted that two distinct yet related conceptual dimensions can be used to describe the quality of campus–community exchanges. the first dimension pertains to the level of comfort that higher education personnel and 149 community stakeholders experience inside of their relationship, while the second dimension centers involves the level of effort required to maintain the present state of the town-gown relationship. by combining the comfort and effort dimensions (see figure 1), four types of relationships are used to describe the characteristics of campus–community interaction: harmonious, traditional, conflicted, and devitalized. figure 1. a four-square typology of town-gown relationships the harmonious type—relationships consisting of higher comfort levels and higher effort levels—is the most optimal form of town–gown relationship as described by gavazzi, fox, and martin (2014). in marriages, harmonious couples tend to report the highest satisfaction levels, owing in large part to the fact that they contain partners who are working together in ways that define and enhance their relationship with one another. similarly, harmonious town–gown relationships are defined by the relatively high amount of activity that is directed toward the pursuit of goals that are of shared benefit to the campus and community. the traditional type—a combination of higher comfort levels and lower effort levels— is thought to be the default state of affairs for most campuses and communities according to gavazzi, fox, and martin (2014). while traditional couples report modest satisfaction levels, the partners typically have little contact with one another and often lead very separate lives. this is a marriage of convenience, also described as “passive congenial” by cuber and haroff (1965). the hallmark of the traditional town–gown relationship is the way that university and community representatives operate in largely autonomous fashion, often ignoring each other as they pursue their own individual goals. the conflicted type reflects relationships that are comprised of lower comfort levels and higher effort levels. cuber and harroff (1965) employed the term “conflict habituated” as a way of describing these less than satisfactory marriages that are defined by persistent fighting between the partners. lots of energy is expended on issues that seem to be beyond the reach of the partners to resolve. in corresponding fashion, conflicted town–gown relationships are marked by ongoing quarrels, often about chronic issues such as land use (sungu-eryilmaz 2009) and student misbehavior (fox 2012). finally, the devitalized type—a combination of low comfort levels and low effort levels—is used by gavazzi, fox, and martin (2014) to describe relationships with the least amount of overall satisfaction. in marriages, devitalized couples report high levels of disappointment along with the sense that something was “lost” along the way. this sentiment underlies the notion that all devitalized relationships formerly reflected qualities of the other relationship types. as applied to town–gown associations, some campuses and communities that once were locked in combat simply give up on each other and refuse to communicate at all. alternatively, a devitalized relationship can come about when hopes of a harmonious relationship are dashed repeatedly by the failure of one or both partners to follow through on promises and assurances. 150 development and piloting of the optimal college town assessment gavazzi and fox (2014) recently reported on the development of the optimal college town assessment (octa), a measure that operationalized and quantified the foursquare conceptual scheme offered by gavazzi, fox, and martin (2014). the octa was designed to evaluate perceptions of campus–community relationships as the combination of effort and comfort levels, capturing participants’ direct personal experiences of these two dimensions as well as their opinions about overall community sensitivities. on the campus side of the equation, the measurement of effort and comfort levels examines the relative contributions of each of four campus representatives: students, faculty, leaders/administrative staff, and members of the board of trustees. reciprocally, the octa taps into the relative contributions of four main groups of community representatives: business owners, non-profit organization leaders, government officials, and local school district administrators and teachers. a number of interesting findings were reported by gavazzi and fox (2014) from the analysis of data gathered from a sample of community members living and working in three municipalities surrounding a midwestern regional university. first and foremost, perceptions of effort and comfort were significantly related to one another. that is to say, greater contact between campus and community members on the whole was associated with increased satisfaction inside of the town–gown relationship. additionally, proximity played a prominent role in the amount of effort and comfort reported by community members who participated in the pilot study. simply put, when community members were geographically closer to the campus, they reported significantly higher levels of both activity and comfort inside of their relationships with campus representatives. gavazzi and fox (2014) also presented findings regarding some interesting group differences. for example, in a sub-sample of community members who had supplied information about their type of employment, the reports of perceived comfort levels were found to be highest among business owners, followed by non-profit leaders, and then educators. as well, results indicated that community residents consistently reported the most contact and greatest comfort levels with students from the campus, providing some evidence that the student body may serve as a key connecting point between the campus and the community. the town–gown relationship mobilization cycle the use of an assessment tool such as the octa takes the guesswork out of understanding the quality of the town–gown relationship by providing a standardized way of examining effort and comfort levels between and among various campus and community stakeholders. this sort of activity serves to create a baseline data-gathering strategy that can be repeated over time in order to mark progress in the development and maintenance of more positive and productive collaborations among higher education and municipal representatives. 151 there are thought to be a number of important activities that can take place both prior to and following such assessment efforts that can augment the understanding and enhancement of town–gown relationships. while these activities are interconnected, there is a logical sequencing that can provide valuable assistance in planning for and implementing an overall engagement strategy for campus and community partners. these activities are organized into a town–gown relationship mobilization cycle as seen in figure 2. figure 2. the town-gown relationship mobilization cycle the first step of this process involves awareness-raising on both the campus and in the community and focuses on basic questions such as, “where (and how) do we begin?” here, the mobilization cycle is activated by increasing knowledge of and appreciation for the importance of focusing on the town–gown relationship itself. of course, campus and community representatives will be all over the map in terms of readiness to focus on their relationships with one another. the common denominator, however, will be the recognition that the campus and community stand to gain much more by acting together than by standing apart. as gavazzi, fox, and martin (2014) noted previously, there may need to be a “therapeutic” component to this type of work, especially for those campuses and communities with conflicted and devitalized relationship histories. here, past disagreements and disappointments may need to be acknowledged by one or both parties before meaningful partnerships can be formulated. one particularly fitting framework for this sort of community conversation is that of zehr (2002), whose work on restorative justice principles introduces a process of “healing the harm” that allows various parties to move beyond past grievances and toward more constructive engagement. the second step involves coalition building, with particular attention paid to the identification of the primary campus and community stakeholders who will participate in various relationship-building activities. this phase of the mobilization cycle involves a determination of who will be targeted in local data gathering efforts, which should be strongly related to the partners that will be approached in order to get the amount of campus and community participation that is necessary to create a meaningful (and hopefully representative) sample. in parallel fashion, this step also should involve the recognition of intended audiences who will be asked to listen and respond to information generated throughout this process. data gathering represents the “middle ground” of the mobilization cycle. as the third step, it is preceded by activities designed to maximize access to key representatives on the campus and in the community. the ultimate success of this entire effort, however, rests on obtaining high quality data from the respondents themselves. much of the work on the octa to date has been aimed at standardizing the field’s understanding of the quality of campus-community partnerships. the octa items are available for use by individuals who are interested in the assessment of town-gown relationships, and over time will allow users to compare and contrast findings across settings and institutions. at the same time, this quantitative approach ideally should be balanced with the collection of more qualitatively oriented information. this latter effort would 152 be especially important in terms of developing a better understanding of the idiosyncratic needs and wishes of individual campuses and communities as they seek to better interact with one another. the fourth step of this process is centered on the interpretation of information that has been collected on the town-gown relationships. here, the quantitative and qualitative data must be organized, analyzed, and reported on in some manner that is both understandable and immediately applicable to the intended audience of campus and community stakeholders. this phase of the mobilization cycle should involve the creation of relatively straightforward and easy-to-understand reports on sample demographics, methods, and results of interest to varied audiences. in addition, wherever possible, graphs and other visual aids should be employed alongside text descriptions of the information. pictures are indeed worth a thousand words, especially for community stakeholders who typically are unfamiliar with research and evaluation jargon. the fifth and final step involves an evidence-based call to action, answering the fundamental question, “now what?” this last phase of the mobilization cycle focuses attention on the development of next steps in the process of engaging campus and community partners. one of the keys to success here is remaining data-driven; being led by facts (i.e., the survey results) instead of feelings (i.e., someone’s hunches, gut feelings, or recollections). on a related note, if the survey results end up raising as many questions as it answers, some further data-gathering may be in order. for example, perhaps a key constituent group was overlooked, resulting in the need for more quantitative data to be gathered from additional respondents. alternatively, even more attention might be paid to the collection of more elaborate qualitative information that would help to flesh out the initial quantitative findings. in this latter case, the use of focus groups would be an especially effective means by which to gain a richer understanding of town-gown relationship characteristics and pressing issues. conclusion this article began with a marital theme, and it is to the metaphor of marriage that we now return in conclusion. american journalist and author mignon mclaughlin has been widely quoted as noting that “a successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.” and like a fruitful marriage, a flourishing town– gown relationship will demand a lot of determination to keep seeing one’s partner as worth all of the work that is required to keep things moving in a positive direction. of course, such work is predicated on the notion that higher education administrators and municipal leaders are fully up to the task of creating and maintaining healthy and mutually satisfying interactions with one another. this requires both the requisite skill set that can make the relationship work over time, as well as the desire to do so. beyond questions of aptitude and aspirations, however, town and gown partners often as not are uncertain about where they stand in their association with one another at any single point in time. in the movie rocky, the story’s hero says to his girlfriend adrian: “i got gaps, you got gaps. we fill each other’s gaps.” essentially, the present paper has argued for a better understanding of how well campus and community partners are 153 seen as complementing one another. stated slightly differently, the more intentional examination of the current state of a given town-gown relationship is thought to be the first best step toward the optimal enhancement of that collaboration at ever more harmonious levels. references bringle, robert g., and julie a. hatcher. 2002. “campus–community partnerships: the terms of engagement.” journal of social issues 58: 503–516. bruning, stephen, shea mcgrew, and mark cooper. 2006. “town–gown relationships: exploring university-community engagement from the perspective of community members.” public relations preview 32: 125–130. clayton, patti h., robert g. bringle, jenny huq, bryanne senor, and mary morrison. 2010. “differentiating and assessing relationships in service-learning and civic engagement: exploitative, transactional, or transformational.” michigan journal of community service learning 16: 5–22. cuber, john. f., and peggy b. haroff. 1965. the significant americans: a study of sexual behavior among the affluent. new york, ny: appleton-century-crofts. fox, michael. 2012. “challenges of the town and gown relationship.” municipal world september 9: 23–26. fox, michael. 2014. town and gown: from conflict to cooperation. union, on, canada: municipal world. gavazzi, stephen m., michael fox, and jeff martin. 2014. “understanding campus and community relationships through marriage and family metaphors: a town– gown typology.” innovative higher education. doi:10.1007/s10755-014-9288-1. gavazzi, stephen m., and michael fox. 2014. “a tale of three cities: piloting a measure of effort and comfort levels within town–gown relationships.” innovative higher education. doi: 10.1007/s10755-014-9309-0. gumprecht, blake. 2008. the american college town. amherst, ma: university of massachusetts press. hill, bob. 1994. “for better or worse: a healthy union between town and gown makes each stronger.” syracuse university magazine 10: 28–31. kemp, roger l. 2013. town and gown relations: a handbook of best practices. jefferson, nc: mcfarland. 154 sungu-eryilmaz, yesim. 2009. town-gown collaboration in land use and development. cambridge, ma: lincoln institute of land policy. zehr, howard. 2002. the little book of restorative justice. intercourse, pa: good books. author information stephen m. gavazzi is dean and director of the ohio state university at mansfield campus and is a professor in the college of education and human ecology on the ohio state university’s columbus campus. his interests in the realm of higher education include both town–gown relationships and leadership issues that factor into the relative health of an academic discipline. stephen m. gavazzi dean and director the ohio state university at mansfield 1760 university drive mansfield, ohio 44906-1599 e-mail: gavazzi.1@osu.edu telephone: 419-755-4213 9 inclusive assessment: toward a socially-just methodology for measuring institution-wide engagement guiseppe getto and dennis mccunney abstract institutions are increasingly being called upon to collect large amounts of data to demonstrate community impact. at institutions with strong and wide-reaching public engagement/service missions, this expectation is even greater – both for quality improvement and for demonstrating regional transformation. despite these expectations, the decentralized culture of many campuses and lack of external incentives for individual faculty and departments can present significant barriers to telling a complete, representative, institutional story of engagement. this article explores the efforts of one campus to develop an inclusive assessment methodology in order to meet multifaceted institutional needs and navigate challenges. we take into account the particular dynamics of a specific campus culture to develop a process that is unique to the needs and particularities of our institution. at the same time, we hope that this methodology will demonstrate transferability to other institutions. public universities are under increasing pressure to justify outreach and engagement efforts through measurable, definable community impacts. at the same time, this call for easily-understood impacts can short-change efforts that involve qualitative, gradual, and harder-to-define outcomes. these qualitative impacts can include the perceptions different community partners have of the institution, the often messy process of partnership building, and the process of brainstorming issues that are of mutual import to both the institution and community members. at best, rushing to create measurable, institution-wide impacts on communities, risks sabotaging longterm, sustainable, reciprocal program development. at worst, it risks alienating community members from engaging in partnerships at all. engaged scholars and administrators cannot ignore the culture of austerity that is pervasive within public universities, however. we are expected to do more with less. we are expected to justify our efforts in all realms, not just those related to outreach and engagement. so, measurable, definable community impacts must be collected and reported in a timely manner. in other to meet both these needs – the need for slower, more qualitative assessments of community impacts and the need for quicker, more easily defined impacts – we introduce a methodology we call “inclusive assessment” that seeks to mesh qualitative and quantitative data collection within the same assessment effort in order to ensure inclusivity. 10 in order to fully explore this methodology, its limitations, and the opportunities it presents for new research into institution-wide engagement efforts, we reflect on our own experiences utilizing inclusive assessment at an engaged university with strong ties to its local community, a university that is also feeling the crunch of austerity. we begin with a literature review of assessment scholarship to identify trends around the development of more flexible, mixed-methods approaches to assessment. through these trends, we identify key precedents to the methodology of inclusive assessment. we then explicate this methodology and its key tenets. finally, we demonstrate the viability of this methodology by drawing on our experiences deploying it at our own institution. our ultimate goal is to provide other scholars and practitioners with best practices for meeting programmatic needs while continuing to thrive in difficult economic times. inclusive assessment: towards a new methodology more and more institutions are being expected to champion a “culture of evidence” around their community engagement efforts. with statewide governing boards and legislative bodies charged with making funding decisions according to campus performance, external pressures that demand accountability are felt on nearly every campus. these pressures seem particularly poignant in statewide systems, as one-size-fitsall models of accountability and performance often create friction when applied to local contexts and campuses (douglass, thomson, and zhao 2012). the evidence being called for can range from impacts on local community health indexes to quantitative measures of student engagement to numbers of community-engaged courses. in “a scholarpractitioner model of assessment,” erwin and wise (2002, 68) note that “assessment results are increasingly ‘counting’ toward institutional funding, state appropriations for higher education, governance, and reputation. in this high stakes environment, the quality and credibility of learning outcome data are becoming more sophisticated and complex.” to complicate things further, there is an ever-widening range of definitions in the field of community engagement. scholars and historians in the field note that practitioners – both early career and seasoned professionals—must navigate a “sea of definitions” when first engaging in this work (ikeda, sandy, and donahue 2010). while one institution may talk of service-learning and equate it with community-engaged learning, other institutions may talk of civic engagement and the democratic learning outcomes achieved by their students. this lengthy set of terms – understandably dependent on and arising from particular campus cultures – does little to provide a clear path for institutions to tell their own narratives of community impact. member institutions of the university of north carolina have engaged in recent dialogue about this challenge. a community and economic engagement report published by the unc system (university of north carolina, office of international, community, and economic engagement 2015) notes that “ongoing conversations continue...about what criteria campuses should use to assess and quantify their ability to engage the community. and while community and public service is now one of the five elements of institutional effectiveness in reaffirmation reports submitted to the southern association of colleges and schools (sacs) (standard 3.3.1.5), there is no agreement on how to define, measure, or improve university engagement” (p. 5). 11 this push for accountability measures has been presented from a quality improvement perspective. the availability of accurate data and accompanying analysis would, naturally, allow institutions to fill gaps in their overall community engagement strategy. as a result of this external call for accountability, many institutions have worked to develop common measures. this has led to some streamlining and efficiency. at the same time, it has encouraged institutions to engage in internal conversations about their own systematic collection of engagement data and the resources they put toward that effort. in 2013, university of north carolina president tom ross challenged campuses to remember their overarching commitment to the people of the state, saying, “community engagement and economic development are two critically important and closely interconnected strategies through which unc students, faculty, staff, and alumni contribute to the promotion of vibrant, healthy, sustainable, and safe communities in north carolina” (university of north carolina, office of international, community, and economic engagement 2013, 2). in order to meet the demands for an increasingly varied and metric-driven reporting system, we introduce a methodology we are calling “inclusive assessment” that seeks to counteract a focus on pure numbers with the use of qualitative engagement data. this informed use of qualitative data can further enable institutions to collaborate with community members. listening, as scholars in community-engaged research methods know, is a critical foundation for this work, and ensures the inclusion of “issues of identity and difference as a way of helping [engagement participants to] alter their personal and worldviews” (chesler and scalera 2000, 19). at the same time, as the creating impact in north carolina…unc engagement report (university of north carolina, office of international, community, and economic engagement 2015) recently suggested, “there is no agreement on how to define, measure, or improve university engagement.” inclusive assessment thus seeks to present a new model for defining the assessment of university-based engagement around three goals: 1. assessment goal 1: formulating cross-disciplinary teams for assessment 2. assessment goal 2: measuring activities versus impacts 3. assessment goal 3: formulating data collection processes in decentralized environments we explore each of these goals extensively below. they were articulated both through our own internal conversations working in a large, public university with deep community roots and through our growing understanding of the needs of scholars at other universities who seek more flexible, adaptable methodologies for conducting assessment. though this methodology was developed in the context of creating assessment goals at our own institution, we view these goals as benchmarks for an incipient methodology. by this we mean to indicate that after developing these assessment goals, we realized that meeting them would require a new methodology for assessment community engagement data. as we worked to meet these goals, we thus began to develop inclusive assessment as a means of understanding whether or not we had reached these goals. having met several of these goals, we now hope that inclusive assessment can be of use to engaged scholars at other universities trying to meet similar goals. 12 existing methodologies for assessment within universities are often underpinned by problematic assumptions regarding the relationship between campuses and their local communities and thus warrant the development of new methodologies. weerts and sandmann (2008, 74), for instance, tracked the ways in which universities often use a “one-way” model of knowledge creation when engaging communities, a model in which communities are seen as empty vessels to be filled with university-based knowledge. similarly, d’arlach, sánchez, and feuer (2009, 5) warn that when universities set out to assess their engagement efforts based on university-conceived goals, “community engagement becomes an end for the university and not a mutually agreed upon goal.” in a somewhat radical critique of using “scientific measures of success” to benchmark university-based community engagement, mathieu (2005, xiv) has argued that such approaches assume the “university [as] the controlling institution determining movements and interactions.” in the wake of such strong critiques of university efforts to measure the success of community engagement based on their own scale, inclusive assessment draws heavily on several established methodologies for empirical research that lend themselves to an inclusive, socially-just approach to data collection. focused ethnography, for instance, attempts to account for the “pluralization [sic] of life-worlds and the enormous specialization [sic] of professional activities [which] demands ever detailed descriptions of people’s ways of life and their increasingly specialized [sic] and fragmented activities” (knoblauch, 2005). an ethnographic approach incorporates “detailed accounts of the concrete experience of life within a particular culture and of the beliefs and social rules that are used as resources within it” (hammersley and atkinson 1995, 10). focused ethnography, as differentiated from traditional ethnography, is characterized by the use of “relatively short-term field visits” as opposed to the full immersion common to other varieties of ethnography (knoblauch 2005). similarly, inclusive assessment is developed on the premise that total immersion within the contexts being assessed is not always possible, especially at larger universities. rather than engage in long-term field visits, inclusive assessment seeks to collect contextualized data whenever possible in short-term visits to contexts that are neglected by large-scale assessment approaches. in this way, another important precedent for inclusive assessment is mixed-methods research, particularly what creswell (2014, 15) called “convergent parallel mixed methods” research. for creswell, this is “a form of mixed methods design in which the researcher converges or merges quantitative and qualitative data in order to provide a comprehensive analysis of the research problem.” similarly, inclusive assessment seeks to gain a more holistic picture of community outcomes by focusing on teambuilding across departments, the measuring of specific activities rather than impacts, and the collection of data in environments that don’t naturally connect with one another (i.e., university needs for accountability vs. community needs for activities that solve problems). in other words, rather than attempting to adapt our own institutional contexts to the needs of existing research and assessment methodologies, we attempted to adapt existing methodologies to the needs of our context by combining them into a holistic framework. 13 finally, this turn from a larger-scale view to a micro-view that attempts to capture the relationship between key engagement metrics (i.e., total hours of engagement, numbers of partnerships, numbers of projects, etc.) and more qualitative means of assessment (i.e., specific outcomes as articulated by both community partners and scholars, student perceptions of engaged teaching, etc.), also draws on qualitative case study methodology (miles and huberman 1994; stake 1995, 2000; yin 2009). inclusive assessment seeks to capture and describe a cross-sectional view of assessment data that includes numerical data that meets administrator needs, qualitative data that takes into account community needs, and a focus on the specific context from which all this data arises. by bundling this data into one multi-faceted case, powerful new insights are gleaned without sacrificing rigor and institutional outcomes. below we present our own institutional context to demonstrate the need for such a methodology and to provide a limited case for the development of this methodology. institutional context our campus has a long history of serving and engaging with the local community. originally a teacher-training school in north carolina, the institution grew up out of its local community and has striven to not forget its roots. indeed, the school touts its commitment to public service and regional transformation at almost every turn – in strategic planning documents, in mission statements, and in official university communications. there is also significant evidence that this commitment goes beyond talk, however. many faculty engage in community-based research projects. students regularly serve the local community through co-curricular volunteer activities, often contributing more than one hundred thousand hours to the community per year. and community outreach activities – from summer camps to literacy programs to nutrition education programs – fill university calendars. this culture of community engagement centers around the notion of “servire,” the university’s long-standing term to describe its mission which translates as “to serve.” official publications describe this commitment to public service as “ecu faculty, staff, and students working to improve communities in north carolina and beyond. our students, faculty, staff, and senior leaders all are integral parts of our community, and our community is an integral part of who we are at ecu” (east carolina university n.d.). this notion of campus and community being inextricably linked – and being integral to one another – creates a unique environment on campus. as such, the institution – by definition – cannot do its work if it is not engaged with and listening to its community. while there are inherent power differences between a large institution and a small, rural community, both institutional efforts to stay true to its mission and community pride help maintain a healthy partnership. much of our work on campus also involves a deep awareness of place and historical context. according to wilkinson (1990, 75), “our species thrives on the subtle, intangible, but soul-deep mix of landscape, smells, sounds, history, neighbors, and friends that constitute a place. an ethic of place respects equally the people of a region and the land, animals, vegetation, water and air.” in rural areas in particular, or in any 14 community where the power differential between campus and community is pronounced, community engagement mandates that university administrators, faculty, and students recognize the importance of place to community stakeholders. at our institution, we have explored ways to use the concept of place to collaborate with our local rural community in a variety of ways. this place-based awareness stems from two sources in our view. first, because the university speaks regularly of striving to live out its mission of service, that mission becomes less of an externally imposed mandate and more of an intrinsic identifier for the campus community. as the university chancellor states often in passing, “community engagement and service are in our dna on this campus.” when describing the culture and overall feel of the campus, many make mention of its connection to the community and region. second, the location of the university in a historically poor and marginalized region of the state makes the overall need for intentional sharing of university resources much greater. specifically, because our institution’s place-based service happens in a largely rural setting, relationships between faculty, students, administration, and community partners are fostered and nourished with this context in mind. the twenty-six counties in eastern north carolina have historically been some of the poorest counties in the entire state. thus, the need for strong, sustained partnerships that have identifiable outcomes and impacts in the community is a necessity. the university is the largest institution of higher learning in the region. thus, there is the recognition that not only is community engagement built into the fabric of the institution, but there are limited resources already coming into the community. greater responsibility is placed on the institution to be responsive to the community and its needs. assessment goal 1: formulating cross-disciplinary teams for assessment much can be said for institutions that figure out how to work across so-called “silos,” particularly when it comes to institution-wide assessment. being able to articulate a campus’ engagement narrative based on a seamless and efficient data collection system and subsequent analysis can be a daunting challenge. but many campuses take up this challenge with the hope of achieving this goal. a key part of this challenge seems to be the overall level of receptivity to collaboration and partnership with participants. that is, campus stakeholders must be able to see how their assessment work not only benefits their individual units, but also the institution as a whole. seeking and articulating shared purpose and common goals are significant challenges and opportunities. this means that when assessment is done in an atmosphere of support and mutual encouragement, individuals can approach the work as a team. noted assessment scholar and author trudy banta praises this kind of approach, saying “assessment is most effective when undertaken in an environment that is receptive, supportive, and enabling” (banta 2002, 62). our team-building efforts tried to keep this in mind as we built a cross-disciplinary team for assessing community engagement efforts. our institution undertook the challenge to build an assessment team based on both accountability and support. 15 at the invitation of our statewide campus compact office, a group of engagement leaders on our campus convened to attempt to develop this team. campus compact served as the initiating body for this work, having invited groups of institutional teams over the past few years to engage institution-wide assessment work. presented as a type of professional development activity for engagement leaders on campus, the initiative promised to provide guidance, support, and direction for each campus enrolled in the cohort for the initiative. further, the initiative brought together leaders from other institutions across the state, helping to continue to build a network of statewide engagement in higher education. leaders from our assessment office, health sciences campus, student affairs, chancellor’s community relations staff, and others were invited to join the team. these individuals were chosen so that a broad spectrum of university representatives would engage in the discussion. this group ranged from senior administrators responsible for school or divisional assessment reporting to institutional research staff to departmental representatives charged with “on the ground” assessment. as such, our evolving crossdisciplinary assessment team began the process by developing a project charter to clarify our aims. this charter was articulated in a bold manner. the charter reads: in an effort to support the mission of the university – ‘to be a national model for student success, public service, and regional transformation’—the objective of the measuring and monitoring community engagement (mmce) project is to successfully institutionalize a comprehensive measuring and monitoring system that will document ongoing initiatives and their impact across the university and communities of north carolina and beyond. mmce will also afford the university systematic processes for capturing, analyzing, evaluating, and disseminating community engagement data to inform and guide our decisions. reliable, valid, and accessible data will increase the university’s capability to more efficiently redirect institutional resources in an effort to respond to rapidly changing public and regional needs. additionally, mmce will allow the university to capture an institutional narrative of public service activities. much of the work of this group centered around identifying current data collection processes – annual outcomes assessment for units across campus, engaged research activities by individual faculty, and engagement metrics requested by statewide reporting systems. somewhat surprisingly, many of the individuals around the table were unaware of the extensive nature of our data collection across campus. similarly, many were unaware about just how these data had been used for either internal improvement or external reporting. the team-based approach allowed stakeholders from different divisions and reporting areas within the university to come together, to understand each other’s work, and to attempt to determine how to best use the vast array of data being collected. our goal was to move away from assessment as accumulating a “repository of information” to assessment as “thoughtful and structured change and improvement.” ultimately, we challenged ourselves to understand the mantra of “the mission is my mission.” 16 there is precedent for this type of team-based approach, particularly within decentralized campus environments. arcario and others (2013, 22) suggest that “the creation of a strong faculty-led assessment leadership team who are committed to an on-going process of thinking and rethinking the outcomes assessment approach” is critically important for each campus. thus, not only should the outcomes assessment process be continually evaluated, but the broader engagement assessment process should also be continually critiqued. our team-based working group attempted to do just that – identify current data collection and make thoughtful recommendations for how these data could be used to tell key parts of the institution’s story about its connection to the community. one important next step in this team-based process will be to include community partner voices. only internal campus stakeholders directed the work for this first iteration. community voices will help to further ground this process and provide important perspective. assessment goal 2: measuring activities versus impacts over the past several years, institutions have been expected to report engagement metrics. many universities collect student community service hours that serve as useful data for internal reporting and messaging. these hours and accompanying information on student placements within the community can provide interesting insight into trends in student engagement. moreover, there are a number of third-party data collection systems that allow universities to easily track their students’ engagement hours in the community. these systems allow for reporting on types of social issues in which students take action and total numbers of students who are self-reporting those hours as well as providing a snapshot of hours contributed to local community partner agencies. while the collection of these quantitative data can offer interesting information about student involvement, some questions exist about the overall usefulness of these data. further, there is lack of rigorous agreement at the highest levels of reporting on key definitions and concepts. the creating impact…unc engagement report (university of north carolina, office of international, community, and economic engagement 2015) suggests that: we know that the majority of our campuses have been designated ‘engaged universities’ under criteria developed by the carnegie foundation and a majority of our campuses have been named to the ‘honor roll’ of the national president’s higher education community service based on a different set of ‘engagement’ criteria. ongoing conversations continue at meetings of the association of public and land-grant universities about what criteria campuses should use to assess and quantify their ability to engage the community. and while community and public service is now one of the five elements of institutional effectiveness in reaffirmation reports submitted to the southern association of colleges and schools (sacs) (standard 3.3.1.5), there is no agreement on how to define, measure, or improve university engagement (p. 5). 17 with a multitude of criteria at the national level, campuses are pulled in different directions when it comes to deciding how to dedicate assessment resources. at large institutions, there are also inherent flaws in collection and reporting when data are largely self-reported. mechanisms exist to verify student participation in community engagement activities, but these mechanisms are never without error. therefore, these engagement hours only tell part of the story of student engagement. for the most part, they offer a surface-level view of student involvement and activities. our inclusive assessment strategy, then, takes into account this push for collecting and reporting on these metrics, but attempts to diversify this data with qualitative accounts. we couple these broad assessment and reporting measures with smaller, more focused efforts. for example, our institution has begun to collect narratives of community impact to highlight some of the qualitative aspects of student engagement. these narratives are sometimes used for larger external reporting. we have also used these narratives for internal “annual report” functions as well as institution-wide divisional reporting. these narratives are frequently used to highlight how we are working toward achieving objectives stated in our strategic plan. our next step is to find ways to catalog these narratives for easy access. unfortunately, with multiple internal reporting and data repositories – from assessment data warehouses to faculty performance portfolios to student engagement tracking systems – this goal is not without its challenges. further, qualitative understandings of data we collect on student service hours show what students learn from their experiences. we have developed an observation protocol to guide our assessment efforts for large-scale “days of service” activities. these observations are designed to capture data that might go unnoticed and unreported if only quantitative measures were used. for example, students might report on a survey instrument that their overall commitment to community was enhanced as a result of the experience of service. they also might report that they have a greater sense of citizenship, largely because of the interactions they had with local community. to add to this picture, observation data – collected by trained students – might describe actual student interactions with community leaders. these qualitative data show students asking questions, listening intently. other data might describe student body language during the experience. while the students might seem comfortable around their peers and working in small groups (as one would expect of first-year students), observation data might tell us that their interactions with unfamiliar contexts in the local community brought discomfort. to further add to the overall picture of this experience, student leaders are asked to collect student responses to reflection questions. during the service experience and shortly afterward, student leaders engage other student participants in a guided conversation. these conversations attempt to summarize student experiences – to let them voice their individualized “lessons learned” – with the goal of each student listening carefully to each other. once students are finished talking about their experiences, they aggregate their shared experiences into common themes. a closing activity with all participants – also led by day-of-service student leaders – involves 18 each small group sharing their compiled lessons learned and take-away themes. these themes are then used to draft an assessment report about the overall day. student affairs educators review the student reflections and select key quotes to share with community partners. again, these themes are compared with compiled survey data from an online assessment instrument. other examples come out of our alternative break programming within our division of student affairs. while each student is expected to complete a “service experiences survey” both before and after their travels, other qualitative measures are also employed. using a model borrowed from national public radio’s “this i believe” program, students participate in a closing reflection activity once they return from their trip. after collectively reviewing their reflection notes and daily journal activities, the student participants attempt to summarize their experience in a “now what?” framing. that is, as a group, the students make a statement about what they experience, what they learned about the community and/or particular community and social issues, and what they believe moving forward. in a sense, the exercise encourages students to make their commitment more concrete and sustainable. they state it publicly for other students, faculty, and administrators to hear at a closing ceremony for the program. this closing program provides a forum for students to articulate a public statement about their learning where they make a firm commitment to the community from which they learned. all of these assessment methods seek to paint a fuller picture of student learning through service. thus, while challenges exist about how service experiences and community engagement work can be categorized and classified, these diverse assessment measures are intended to provide a more holistic view. further, they can help provide a solid grounding for critiques against assessment efforts that only describe activities. while description of activity is important, this more holistic approach helps to further elucidate impact on students. additionally, the assessment results – and the process of generating and collecting them in public forums – allows students to hear about the learnings of other students directly. this can be a powerful exercise and enables students to teach each other about their experiences. thus, the assessment effort serves a twofold purpose: collecting program data for quality improvement and providing summative, public experiences for students to educate one another. assessment goal 3: formulating data collection processes in decentralized environments our third goal emerges as both an achievement and a work in progress. our hope is that we will continue to refine this goal as we develop staff – both professional and student – capacity in program assessment. one of the significant challenges related to the assessment of engagement work is that there are a variety of assessment “champions.” these champions do good work on campus and are committed to both ongoing quality improvement of their work and telling an important public service narrative. yet, these individuals are located within different divisions, schools, and departments. with different reporting structures, position responsibilities, and spheres of influence, these 19 individuals could very easily work in isolation within their respective areas. our engagement assessment team seemed to understand this challenge from the start. thus, our strategy involved identifying resources and assets at our ready disposal. those identified assets certainly included student leaders who are regularly engaged in community engagement work. they take seriously the programs they oversee, often infusing passion into them that no professional staff member could offer. many of those who are best poised to lead this assessment work are student staff members and student leaders. but student participants in community engagement programs can also add to the institution’s public service narrative as well. these students often carry remarkable stories of transformation, partnership with community agencies, and initiatives on specific social issues. our work involves making sure that these powerful student stories are heard and promoted. we took as our lead some of the outreach and process-building work that was done for our institution’s carnegie community engagement classification application. in reflecting on one campus’ efforts, assessment leader zuiches (2008, 44) suggested that it is important to “reach out to leaders in units on campus where programs are conducted and records are kept – a vital prerequisite on a decentralized campus. whenever possible, make the request in person. describe your need or word the survey instrument you use in campus-vernacular terms instead of the language of the carnegie framework.” because our campus had worked diligently to collect useful information for the carnegie classification in 2008, and subsequent re-appointment in 2015, we sought to build on the culture of assessment that was created through that process. what emerged was a renewed conversation about recognition and rewards for engaged faculty. a few empirical studies have been conducted into the work of civic engagement within the university and the specific role faculty play in this work (dey 2009; ellison and eatman 2008; o’meara 2012; ward et al. 2013). the focus of this literature has been describing and making intelligible how faculty contribute to civic engagement through their main activities (e.g., teaching, research, and service). of these studies, none have focused specifically on early career faculty, however, and the way these professionals develop identities as researchers vis-a-vis the scholarship of engagement. instead, the focus has been on establishing structures of inclusion for conducting civic work across disciplines, largely by describing successful examples of this work across a wide variety of disciplines. one of the most robust examples of this descriptive scholarship is ellison and eatman (2008, iv), who interviewed dozens of faculty at a variety of career stages across disciplines ranging from the visual arts to education. in their own words, their aim is to “propose concrete ways to remove obstacles to academic work carried out for and/ or with the public by giving such work full standing as scholarship, research, or artistic creation.” specifically, they seek to describe the work of engaged faculty across four “continuums” (2008, ix): •   a continuum of scholarship within which academic public engagement has full and  equal standing; 20 •   a continuum of scholarly and creative artifacts; •   a continuum of professional pathways for faculty, including the choice to be a civic  professional; and •   a continuum of actions for institutional change. their goal in describing these continuums is to map the many ways in which faculty create knowledge that is useful to partners beyond the university. ultimately, our efforts challenged us to further the work of scholars such as ellison and eatman (2008, ix) and others by more fully describing how stakeholders involved in community engagement deal with a variety of “conditions of knowledge.” in other words, we wish to understand how conditions within universities both influence, and are influenced by, engaged knowledge-making. we posit that these conditions of knowledge are affected and influenced by a variety of cultural factors within individual academic disciplines and units. perceptions of engaged and public forms of scholarship, particular emphases articulated by accrediting bodies, agendas and perspectives promoted by departmental leaders, and key thought leaders within fields – to name only a few – are all potential influences that impact one’s identity as an engaged scholar. further, by focusing on disciplines beyond the humanities and social sciences (e.g., the health sciences), our assessment work hopes to add a more inclusive scope to the work of engagement. these various efforts at building a system of data collection processes in a decentralized environment – from valuing the unique contributions of student leaders and participants in the assessment process, to building on previously established work patterns, to using this process to encourage us to think about the many ways faculty assess their engagement work – now have positioned us well. we are able to see with more clarity the gaps that exist on our campus and opportunities that may have not been capitalized upon previously. as the saying goes, “the destination is the journey.” this journey of building campus-wide networks to streamline data collection and analysis has shown us what next steps we might take in our journey toward inclusive assessment. conclusion more than anything, we hope to further a conversation regarding holistic, inclusive approaches to the assessment of university engagement projects. we invite fellow researchers and practitioners of engaged scholarship, teaching, and service to try out, critique, and help refine the methodology we are calling inclusive assessment. this methodology is simply an outcome of our own struggles to assess engagement in a manner that is fair to all stakeholders involved, including community members. it is also an outcome of our attention to the exciting engaged research happening at universities around the world. we hope to follow up this article with a case study that explores our methodology and its limitations within the scope of a specific engagement project and its attendant outcomes. our goal in this follow-up study will be to assess the strengths and 21 limitations of inclusive assessment as an empirical model for producing research findings as well as assessment outcomes. this new goal will undoubtedly cause us to reassess (pun intended) this model and its validity in a research context. some questions we hope to answer in this inquiry will include: what are the limitations of this model as a research methodology? can inclusive assessment as inclusive research produce outcomes for both scholars and local stakeholders? what needs to shift in our approach for this to happen? we present this next step here in hopes that other scholars will try out this methodology in various contexts as a tool for research, assessment, or both, and will create their own outcomes and inclusive models. as we develop this methodology within our own institutional context, we are very curious if it will be useful in other contexts, and if not, why? ultimately, whatever context fellow engaged scholars are operating in, we hope inclusive assessment will help them think about how to respond to institutional pressures without sacrificing the needs of community members. such an aim calls for more robust models for assessment and research that are flexible and socially just. references arcario, paul, bret eynon, marisa klages, and bernard a. polnariev. 2013. “closing the loop: how we better serve our students through a comprehensive assessment process.” metropolitan universities 24 (2): 21-37. banta, t. w. 2002. building a scholarship of assessment. new york: john wiley & sons. chesler, m., and c. vasques scalera. 2000. “race and gender issues related to service-learning research.” michigan journal of community service learning special volume (1): 18-27. creswell, j. w. 2014. research design: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. thousand oaks, ca: sage. d’arlach, l., b. sánchez, and r. feuer. 2009. “voices from the community: a case for reciprocity in service-learning.” michigan journal of community service learning 16 (1): 5-16. dey, e. 2009. “another inconvenient truth: capturing campus climate and its consequences.” diversity & democracy 12 (1): 10-11. douglass, j. a., g. thomson, and c. m. zhao. 2012. “the learning outcomes race: the value of self-reported gains in large research universities.” higher education 64 (3): 317-335. east carolina university. n.d. “ecu public service mission statement.” greenville, nc. 22 ellison, j., and t. k. eatman. 2008. “scholarship in public: knowledge creation and tenure policy in the engaged university.” syracuse, ny: imagining america. accessed november 7, 2014. http://imaginingamerica.org/wp-content/ uploads/2011/05/tti_final.pdf. erwin, t. d., and s. l. wise. 2002. “a scholar-practitioner model for assessment. in building a scholarship of assessment, edited by t. w. banta, 67-99. san francisco: jossey-bass. hammersley, m., and p. atkinson. 1995. ethnography: principles in practice. london: routledge. knoblauch, h. 2005. “focused ethnography.” forum: qualitative social research 6 (3), article 44. retrieved november 7, 2014. http://www.qualitative-research.net/index. php/fqs/article/view/20/43. ikeda, e., m. sandy, and d. donahue, 2010. “navigating the sea of definitions, concepts, and terms.” in establishing and sustaining the community servicelearning professional: a workbook for self-directed learning, edited by b. jacoby. providence, ri: campus compact. mathieu, p. 2005 tactics of hope: the public turn in english composition. portsmouth: boynton/cook. miles, m., and m. huberman. 1994. qualitative data analysis: an expanded sourcebook. thousand oaks, ca: sage. o’meara, k. 2012. “because i can: exploring faculty civic agency.” kettering foundation. accessed november 7, 2014. http://pitweb.pitzer.edu/cec/wp-content/ uploads/sites/54/2014/09/kettering-foundation.pdf. stake, r. 1995. the art of case study research. thousand oaks, ca: sage. stake, r. 2000. “case studies.” in handbook of qualitative research, 2nd ed., edited by n. denzin and y. lincoln, 435–454. london: sage. university of north carolina, office of international, community and economic engagement. 2013. “combined report of the community engagement and economic development metrics task force.” chapel hill, nc. university of north carolina, office of international, community and economic engagement. 2015. “creating impact in north carolina communities and the economy: unc engagement report.” chapel hill, nc. 23 ward, e., s. buglione, d. giles, jr., and j. saltmarsh. 2013. “the carnegie classification for community engagement.” in university engagement with socially excluded communities, edited by p. benneworth, 285-308. new york, ny: springer. weerts, d., and l. sandmann. 2008. “building a two-way street: challenges and opportunities for community engagement at research universities.” the review of higher education 31 (1): 73-106. wilkinson, c. f. 1990. “toward an ethic of place.” in beyond the mythic west, edited by s. udall, p. limerick, and c. f. wilkinson. salt lake city, utah: gibbs smith publishers. yin, r. 2009. case study research design and methods. 4th ed. thousand oaks, ca: sage. zuiches, j. j. 2008. “attaining carnegie’s community-engagement classification.” change: the magazine of higher learning 40 (1): 42-45. author information dr. guiseppe getto is an assistant professor of technical and professional communication at east carolina university. his research focuses on ux, content strategy, and the development of participatory cultures within communities and organizations. he has taught at the college level for over ten years, during which time he has consulted and formed service-learning partnerships with many nonprofits and businesses, from technical writing firms to homeless shelters to startups. dr. dennis mccunney earned a ba in philosophy from loyola university, maryland, a mdiv from boston college, and a phd in higher education administration from morgan state university’s school of education and urban studies. his dissertation research focused on the formation of student culture around civic engagement and activism. his professional interests include leadership development, service-learning, campuscommunity partnerships, social justice education, and qualitative research methods. guiseppe getto assistant professor of technical and professional communication east carolina university e-mail: gettog@ecu.edu telephone: 252-367-4364 dennis mccunney director, office for leadership and service-learning east carolina university e-mail: mccunneyw@ecu.edu telephone: 252-328-2802 24 muj 53 in like flint: how the innovation incubator at um–flint fosters social entrepreneurship in a city remaking itself nic custer with contributions by kimon criner, sara mcdonnell, and sherry hayden abstract this paper focuses on how the university of michigan–flint’s innovation incubator supports emerging for-profit businesses and nonprofit organizations through programming, business plan development, and ongoing mentorship. the incubator is especially interested in supporting start-ups that address key social issues in the surrounding community, including economic vitality. this goal aligns with the university’s mission, which emphasizes that engaged citizens can exercise some control over the social, environmental, and economic factors in the larger community. when people discuss flint, michigan, the first thing that comes up probably isn’t innovation, social entrepreneurship, and a growing economic ecosystem, but perhaps it should be. although the city has been a poster child for rustbelt deindustrialization thanks to films like roger and me and a consistent top spot as one of forbes’ most miserable cities in america, flint is making a slow recovery from a decades’ long recession. as part of a growing group of economic service providers in the city, the university of michigan–flint’s innovation incubator (in) is a gateway to resources available to help entrepreneurs develop, sustain, and grow their businesses and nonprofit organizations. in helps students and community members employ entrepreneurial principles to address social issues, including economic vitality. services include meeting spaces, wi-fi, business planning resources, a reference business library, workshops and conferences, mentoring, coaching, and referrals. qualifying um–flint student-owned start-ups are offered office space in the incubator. the co-working space is open to the public weekdays from 9:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m. all services are offered at no charge. currently seven student-owned businesses are housed in the incubator, while another thirty student and community members take advantage of in services. for-profit tenants include a technology and software development company, a graphic design firm, a music producer, and a technical writing company. nonprofit tenants include a theatre 54 company, a homeless female veteran resource organization, and a micro-grant funder. together the tenants employ eight people full-time and forty-six people part-time. essential to the university of michigan–flint’s mission is the belief that engaged citizens can exercise a measure of control over the social, environmental, and economic factors in their community. the office of university outreach, which oversees the incubator program, supports this mission by connecting campus and the community to support learning, collaboration, and partnerships. all projects and programs of the office of university outreach are considered against a series of values that exemplify the department’s own mission. these include being in service, building healthy relationships, justice and fairness, community-building, and economic vitality. in terms of the value of economic vitality, university outreach supports innovation and creativity and fosters a culture of entrepreneurship by working collectively to develop and retain talent that will contribute to a more vibrant local community. while other university outreach programs focus on social or environmental projects in the community, in is concerned with this notion of economic vitality and providing opportunities for individuals to rebuild the city’s economic base. in remains the only business incubator in flint focused on supporting social entrepreneurship, innovation, and creativity. breakdown of employment by tenant nonprofit and for-profit companies at the in name status full-time part-time dv technical writing, llc for-profit 3 5 epic technology solutions, llc for-profit 3 2 euro effex for-profit 0 2 flint soup nonprofit 1 7 moses music productions for-profit 0 5 our home transitional nonprofit 0 15 shop floor theatre company nonprofit 1 10 55 history of the incubator the innovation incubator is located downtown in a former office building owned by the university. the suite that houses in was originally the site of the michigan small business and technology development center from 2000 to 2008, when it moved its facilities across town to kettering university. in 2008, the office of university outreach began the incubator, which was originally called launch to help micro-businesses and give local start-ups a “hand up.” in 2009, launch was renamed the innovation incubator to reflect the change in focus to include social entrepreneurship, innovation, and creativity. the program satisfied the need for a gateway on campus for students and the community to receive business resources. it was also seen as a way for the students to better connect to the community and its available entrepreneurial resources. the nonprofit incubator is funded by annual grants, primarily from the c. s. mott foundation. financial support has also been provided by um–flint’s college of arts and sciences, school of management, and office of the provost. more than 55 percent of indirect costs are covered by the university including use of the northbank center office suites, utilities, phone lines, furniture, conference fees, mentoring costs, and staff time. the provost’s office provides financial support for an outreach staff member to serve as the faculty mentorship coordinator for the innovation incubator. the academic units, school of management, and the college of arts and sciences provide financial incentives to their faculty members to serve as mentors to entrepreneurs affiliated with the innovation incubator. as it investigates its own long term sustainability, in is seeking out additional financial support from local and national foundations and philanthropists. since 2008, eighteen student-run tenant businesses have graduated out of the program. while some of the entrepreneurs decided not to continue their businesses beyond this point, several others outgrew the available space and continued their ventures elsewhere in flint and places like detroit and new york city. the changing face of flint flint, michigan’s population peaked in the 1960s at approximately 194,000 and has been declining ever since. this decline, along with the associated loss of high-paying manufacturing jobs, has led to many of the social problems facing flint today. the 2010 census recorded the city’s population at 102,000, and it is assumed the city now has less than 100,000 residents. the average income per household is $33,029, which is $35,000 less than the national average of $69,821 (houseal lavigne associates 2013, 21). in 2011, the city’s unemployment rate was 25.6 percent and the city’s poverty rate grew to 41.2 percent. additionally, there were 2,337 violent crimes reported per 100,000 residents in 2012, and more than 1,600 separate structures have been damaged or destroyed by arson fires since 2008. 56 despite these factors, the university of michigan–flint has seen consistent growth in its student population in the past decade. for the eighth consecutive year, fall enrollment has reached an all-time high. enrollment for fall 2014 climbed to 8,574 students, an increase from 8,555 students attending in 2013 and 8,289 in 2012 (schuch 2014). this means that there are now more university of michigan–flint students than autoworkers in the city. before the 1970s, many flint residents were able to find high-paying jobs at gm without any need for advanced education beyond a high school diploma. the decline of the city’s automotive industry over the past four decades has precipitated a need for a more educated and broadly skilled workforce. in offers services to help build up the entrepreneurial skill sets of students and community members so they can positively contribute to local economic vitality. social entrepreneurship in their book, social entrepreneurship: what everyone needs to know, david bornstein and susan davis define social entrepreneurship as “a process by which citizens build or transform institutions to advance solutions to social problems such as poverty, illness, illiteracy, environmental destruction, human rights abuse, and corruption, in order to make life better for many” (2010, 1). this principle is commonly defined in practice by a focus on the “triple bottom line,” which considers not only a company’s responsibility to make profits but also to the social and environmental impact its business practices have. it is seen as a way to “maximize some form of social impact, usually by addressing an urgent need that is being mishandled, overlooked, or ignored by other institutions” (bornstein and davis 2010, 30). the university’s outreach focus on a “sustainable communities” model means that it supports learning, collaboration, and partnerships that emphasize either a social, environmental, or economic connection between campus and community. this departmental mission helps to inform the philosophy of the incubator program and, in particular, its focus on supporting social entrepreneurship and the triple bottomline concepts. in the context of the incubator, many of the businesses that receive coaching already have a social entrepreneurship element in their business idea or are responding to a community need they have identified. the nonprofits served by the incubator also work to advocate for a social mission. while not all of the business owners would describe themselves as “social entrepreneurs,” many of them demonstrate some level of social responsiveness or benefit in their business model. how in supports entrepreneurs many of the people who visit in are at a conceptual or early stage in their business and are in need of basic assistance and space to work. the incubator provides space to 57 meet and do work, basic business coaching, programming to increase the community’s knowledge base, and referrals to other service providers. those who demonstrate the need for more advanced mentoring can find that within the university’s school of management professors and through outside experts. these services provide a strong foundation for entrepreneurs to be successful by asking them to be responsible for accessing available resources as well as providing more direct free services such as coaching and mentorship to help them move their organization in the right direction. the incubator program doesn’t provide grades to its tenant or associate businesses. the amount of educational benefit the individual entrepreneur receives depends on how much work he or she is willing to put into the business. this provides a low stress environment for entrepreneurs to focus on their venture. while some of the businesses end up failing, in staff encourage clients to look at their failures as “productive failures” and valuable learning experiences for future endeavors. this personal reflection process can help potential serial entrepreneurs be more willing to start a new business after one idea has failed. there are three staff offices located within the in co-working space suite. the coworking space also includes a large classroom and lobby area available to the public weekdays from 9:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m. with free wi-fi access. this casual drop-in environment allows individuals and teams to utilize a workspace downtown at no charge, unlike other options such as coffee shops and bars that create a barrier to entry for some community members by requiring the purchase of a refreshment or other item in order to use the establishment’s wi-fi. the co-working space offers flexible seating arrangements that can accommodate groups of up to thirty-two people. coworking resources available to the public include white boards, a projection screen, a flat screen tv available for skype, social enterprise periodicals, and a reference library of business planning resource books. there are also mailboxes for tenant and many associate businesses in this main area. faculty and students meet in the coworking space to plan projects, especially when they involve community stakeholders. tenants also take advantage of the co-working area and frequently meet clients, funders, and board members in the space. this incubator’s location in downtown flint has successfully drawn community members to the campus and allowed university students to link up with a larger segment of non-student entrepreneurs. faculty are invited to use the co-working space for on-topic classes that involve community engagement, creativity, and innovation. faculty in education, visual arts, communications, and theatre routinely reserve the space for their classroom use, and often meet clients in the space. university outreach staff who work with faculty in civic engagement and service-learning courses often offer use of the incubator for the faculty’s classes. partners of university outreach who work collaboratively with the community are given preference on use of the space. 58 there are four shared office suites next door to the co-working space. these offices are provided to student-owned tenant businesses that show a need for the space. the businesses, which are at least half owned by a um–flint student, sign a memorandum of understanding (mou) which serves as a lease agreement for the office space. depending on the business’ needs, the office could be a desk or up to several workstations. this is based on availability of office space overall. currently, tenant businesses have realized a total net increase of fifteen fulland parttime employees compared to the previous year. during early 2014, one for-profit tenant business no longer needed the office space and changed status to an associate business. this year, two new businesses were also granted tenant status, one for-profit, and one nonprofit. the in now boasts seven tenant organizations in total, and at least forty associate businesses. in addition to physical resources, the incubator offers a variety of programming each year to help foster a greater degree of entrepreneurship in the community. this includes workshops, conferences, and competitions as well as coaching for business owners. students and community members are offered free workshops by the incubator, which are focused on important aspects of business such as organizational management, creativity, and innovation, and linking profitability, sustainability, and social entrepreneurship. the purpose of these workshops is to provide motivated clients with opportunities to gain additional knowledge that can advance their business or allow them to think about their company differently. in the past year, in has provided workshops in tax accounting, grant writing, intellectual property, and social entrepreneurship. many times these workshops are geared toward the needs and desires of associate and tenant businesses in order to offer them additional business education services. examples of social entrepreneurshipbased workshops include one led by tom root, a managing partner in zingerman’s mail order and co-founder of makerworks in ann arbor, michigan. root discussed his company’s triple bottom-line business model. other similarly purposed workshops have included a showing and discussion of the film, extreme by design, which documents how a stanford design class applied design thinking to create products that tackled daily issues and directly benefitted citizens in bangladesh, indonesia, and other third world countries. the incubator also hosted a session last year with dr. robert buckingham, a visiting professor, who developed eighty-one hospices in seven countries including the first hospice in the united states and a pediatric hospice for children suffering from aids. the incubator demonstrates the value of these business models by allowing successful social entrepreneurs to talk about their work. in addition to the workshops, in has held four annual inspire conferences on creativity, innovation, and social entrepreneurship. this conference is a way to both showcase local success stories and to also introduce larger ideas about the value of social entrepreneurship, and innovative and creative problem solving to participants. the most recent conference was held in october 2013. the inspire conference is 59 offered at no cost to students and community members and includes panel discussions and a keynote address. the keynote speaker in 2013 was professor michael gordon from the university of michigan ross school of business and author of design your life, change the world: your path as a social entrepreneur. the conference also showcased local entrepreneurs, crowdfunding projects, and a panel discussion with representatives from st. luke’s north end women (n.e.w.) life center. the center provides at-risk flint women with training as seamstresses and offers jobs to women who complete the training program. as a way to expand opportunities available to its clients, in has helped promote business competitions locally. the incubator partnered with michigan corps in march 2014 to announce two business plan competitions through the 2014 social entrepreneurship challenge. in addition to the statewide social entrepreneurship challenge, flint area entrepreneurs had a chance to win more than $60,000 in prizes and business training. the drive flint prize, flint’s first entrepreneurship prize for social innovation, awarded $2,500 to one local social entrepreneur as well as an impact investment fellowship, a four-month business training to further develop the entrepreneur’s ideas for investment. several of the incubator’s affiliated businesses who were already pursuing a social entrepreneurship idea were encouraged to enter the competitions. in 2014, the university of michigan–flint school of management also launched its first annual business plan competition. this competition is open to students who own for-profit businesses. the innovation incubator is partnering with event organizers to implement business pitch clinic workshops for competition participants. this will provide individuals with an understanding of the fundamentals of a good pitch as well as act as a sounding board for participants to get feedback on their ideas. in 2015, the michigan economic development corporation funded the green light business model competition, hosted by spartan innovations. finalists pitched their business idea at a local event in flint in january to win up to $5,000. the top winner in flint received automatic entry to a final competition in east lansing. this final competition provided $25,000 to the winner. an additional $50,000 worth of prizes was awarded to other top competitors. the majority of the innovation incubator’s tenant and associate businesses were unable to qualify for this competition because they needed to be a for-profit business that was incorporated on or after march 31, 2014. before in staff begin to work with a prospective client, the business owner is required to fill out a “tell us about your bright idea” pre-interview questionnaire online (which is less than twenty questions long) describing their business and its needs. staff then review the business idea and schedule an in-person interview with the entrepreneur. many start-ups need assistance with developing their business plans; the innovation incubator generally uses the business model canvas as a way to help them start that process. the canvas allows clients to put down on paper the elements of their business, such as value proposition, market segment, and revenue streams, and visually identify where the holes in their business might be. this technique is particularly useful when working with creativity-based businesses and other non60 business students. during these initial interviews, staff provide recommendations about aspects of the business’ strategy that could be improved and refer the entrepreneur to available resources in the community. these resources include business or nonprofit development courses through the michigan small business development center and b.e.s.t. (building excellence sustainability trust) project. the b.e.s.t. project is an organization that provides workshops and development courses for nonprofit board members, employees, consultants, and funders. these include fundraising, leadership development, financial management, and technology-related topics. some business owners have a social entrepreneurship focus for their start-up idea but don’t recognize the potential value in it. as part of the business coaching process, staff members offer insights about how to better market or direct the business towards its social aspect. one example of this is the gamerz den, a gaming and social space being developed by a um–flint student. the business offers an arcade-style space that also serves as a safe space for less socially adept young people. the business was inspired by the owner’s autistic brother who has trouble connecting with other people outside of video games. business owners who show a need for ongoing mentorship on specific aspects of the business such as marketing or financial plans can be paired with um–flint school of management faculty. several of the associate and tenant businesses are receiving more advanced mentoring with faculty about their business to prepare them for the next stage of development. there are many student groups also involved in learning about entrepreneurial skills and thinking in their extracurricular activities. these student groups include organizations like the entrepreneurs society and the engineering club. they provide students opportunities to test and create prototypes for student products, services, or business plans. the innovation incubator coordinates with the faculty advisors for these student groups and provides support when appropriate. as part of its outreach and marketing efforts, the incubator has held pop in open houses, which allow students and community members to tour the offices and coworking space while staff members explain the potential services they can offer. these events have helped to attract more associate business clients to the incubator for assistance on developing their for-profit and nonprofit organizations. strengthening the ecosystem the innovation incubator is also part of an informal countywide network of about seventeen entrepreneurial service providers known as the “ eteam.” the eteam, which stands for entrepreneurship team, allows nonprofit organizations that provide entrepreneurial support services to share information, referrals, and resources. the eteam is chaired by staff from the flint and genesee chamber of commerce and the local michigan small business development center. member organizations 61 include the flint area reinvestment office, goodwill industries, vetbiz central, metro community development, mott community college fablab, red ink studios, the local initiative support corporation, flint farmers’ market, kettering university, baker college, and others. the network meets monthly and communicates virtually online on a weekly basis to share program information and updates. the greatest value for the innovation incubator of belonging to this group is the large referral network it facilitates and coordinates. all eteam members are aware of each other’s programs and services and regularly refer local entrepreneurs to the appropriate service providers. this referral network is transitioning from an informal group to a more coordinated network, which includes joint marketing and branding. the first eteam marketing document is called the “flint city start-up guide.” this document provides a quick breakdown of where eteam members are located and what services they provide to the differing stages and types of businesses. this free and easy to use start-up guide is a way to break down barriers to discovering and accessing services in the flint entrepreneurial ecosystem. two members of the eteam, including flint soup, a nonprofit incubator tenant, have expanded networking opportunities for local entrepreneurs. they have begun offering a pop-up co-working space, which is a temporary makerspace and co-working space at the flint farmers’ market that draws entrepreneurs from ann arbor, detroit, and lansing. flint soup has begun offering bi-weekly innovation and entrepreneurship meet-ups hosted by various eteam member organizations. in addition, the eteam organizes an annual event in february called the jumpstart conference for local entrepreneurs and start-ups. this event draws business owners, inventors, and aspiring entrepreneurs to learn about the fundamentals of starting and running a business. it also allows for the various service providers to share the benefits of their programs with potential clients. the innovation incubator pays conference fees for associate and tenant businesses and um–flint students to attend this day long conference each year. the incubator held inspired michigan, a symposium of michigan business incubators in october 2014. this event allowed participating groups to re-establish a network of entrepreneurial service providers around the state and strengthen relationships. it also gave service providers the opportunity to share working knowledge and best practices including around issues of metrics and benchmarks. highlighted business case studies between november 2013 and august 2014, the incubator worked with more than thirty new community and student-owned associate businesses. these ranged from a prospective jamaican food restaurant and educational video production company to an online mail order clothier and festival organizer. several of the businesses and 62 nonprofits affiliated with the incubator have a socially-conscious element to their business model. for-profit examples there are a few key for-profit businesses the incubator has worked with in the past year that deserve to be highlighted for their innovative approaches and social focus. charma’s organic kitchen is an associate business owned by charma dompreh, a community member. her business produces sassy green chips, a healthy snack made from locally grown dehydrated kale and collard greens. she is a retired teacher who wanted to take on the issue of access to healthy food in “food deserts” or places where access to healthy, fresh food is extremely limited. she has been very successful in marketing her products through presentations and offering samples. she has consistently sold out of the sassy green chips, which she sells in $3 and $5 snack sizes as an outdoor vendor at the flint farmers’ market every saturday. she would like to be able to sell her products in local stores around flint to better address the problem of food deserts and increase the availability of low-cost healthy snacks. she has hired one part-time employee to help with sales. charma, who is also a certified raw food chef, recently received her retail food license and won the january 2014 flint soup micro-grant competition for her sassy green chips. she has made contacts with urban hoop house farmers in the area to have a year-round supply of kale and collard greens for her business. a hoop house is an unheated greenhouse that allows food to be grown throughout the winter months. um–flint student stephan mcbride’s business, gamerz den, is a video gaming and social space, which he would like to also cater toward creating a safe space for less social and autistic gamers. although the associate business was inspired by the student’s autistic brother, who only felt comfortable socializing with other people around video games, this idea was not evident in the business concept. in staff were able to show mcbride the added benefit of marketing the safe space element of the business during his initial intake interview. as part of the services offered to him, the innovation incubator arranged for mcbride to be mentored by a school of management professor as he develops his financial plan. mcbride plans to hire several local employees as the business expands. he entered the drive flint portion of the 2014 social entrepreneurship challenge, a business plan competition for michigan start-ups. linda kachelski, bfa communication, llc, is developing a mobile application that translates english to american sign language and vice versa through video relay. the main use of this associate business’ application is for general communication as well as 911 emergency services. as she develops her software, she will work with partners at the national registry of interpreters for the deaf and american sign language video relay services. kachelski believes there is a large market for this software. there are approximately 837,000 deaf and hard-of-hearing residents in michigan alone. she would 63 like to charge at least a quarter of her users $15 to download and use the application. this would allow her to cover her costs and help subsidize lower rates for other users. another great social venture associated with the incubator is a company being developed by um–flint student nick looney. the company will work with habitat for humanity to build and sell tiny houses, which are roughly defined as less than 200 square-feet. his company plans to hire homeless and at-risk individuals to build the houses and will contribute 10 percent equity in the company to the local habitat for humanity for use of their warehouse space and tools. he has completed his first test project, which is a shed built at the habitat for humanity warehouse. looney is in talks with a local architect and construction manager about gaining their involvement in the project. moses music productions is a tenant business of the innovation incubator owned by um–flint business administration student aleah moses. moses music provides songwriting and music production services to artists, and commercial jingles to companies for use in advertising. the business was started in may 2012 after moses attended the incubator’s workshop series the previous semester. her clients primarily request pop songs, but the company can create hip hop, rap, r&b, alternative pop, and other types of music. moses charges a standard overall product cost for the music and a percentage of the ownership rights. a social aspect of her company’s mission is to specifically inspire girls, who are underrepresented in the music industry, to realize that they can make it as producers and songwriters. she has produced more than fifty songs (full songs and instrumentals) mostly for out-of-state clients, many of whom she connects with online through her self-made website, www.lovemosesmusic.com. she recently launched beatphoria.com, which provides original music available for online leasing and licensing. her northbank center studio inside the incubator’s creative suite has served as her primary recording studio since it was renovated to provide soundproofing panels to improve recording quality. although she originally wanted her company to be picked up by a major record label, she is now leaning toward starting her own independent recording label, mmp records, in order to maintain more creative control. she also works as a contracted instructor for bangtown productions, which provides after school music classes for grade school students throughout flint and kalamazoo. in addition, she teaches at hamady high school, twenty-first century, and flint community schools. after the incubator was able to send her to a music industry conference in los angeles, moses began working with a major recording artist and is producing for flint’s own jon connor, who is signed to aftermath records, alongside dr. dre (ceo of aftermath records & beats by dre audio technology). epic technology solutions, llc, began in 2008 by providing application hosting and internet services for clients. this tenant business was started by brothers paul and eric knific, and paul’s wife, ashley, who are all um–flint students or alumni. they occupy an office suite at the incubator and receive mentoring through the program. 64 one of epic’s more socially minded projects was to develop software and a card system for the flint farmers’ market double-up food bucks program. this program provides an incentive for low-income people to eat more local produce. the software allows vendors to offer up to an additional $20 per day worth of free michigan-grown produce for customers using electronic benefit transfer cards (ebt). the double-up food bucks program has been subsidized by state and federal funds. today, epic has expanded operations and is increasing the efficiency of its computers by moving systems from individual dedicated servers to virtualization, which allows for more information to be hosted with less physical space. the company has five employees, and the owners have hired two interns. nonprofit examples in addition to these for-profit companies, there are a number of nonprofit organizations affiliated with the incubator that seek to solve social and environmental issues in the flint community. shop floor theatre company is a nonprofit organization that creates place-based arts and education programming “with and for people of all ages, experiences and backgrounds.” the group is run by kendrick jones, a um–flint graduate student and lecturer. this organization’s focus includes underserved and underrepresented communities in the flint area. shop floor was formed, after the success of the 2011 play, embers: the flint fires verbatim theatre project. this play was constructed in a verbatim style from interviews with community members, firefighters, and government officials about flint’s rash of several hundred arsons in 2010. shortly after this project, the group was awarded a $46,000 grant by the ruth mott foundation. the company joined the incubator as a tenant business in august 2012 and is headquartered in an incubator office suite. their next project was state of emergency, which was a similarly constructed and performed verbatim play about flint’s fiscal emergency and takeover by the state of michigan. in addition, shop floor began working directly with underserved communities in the flint area and training college-aged artists through an apprenticeship program. shop floor’s yearlong apprentice artist program included an in-school residency teaching ninety students at beecher ninth grade academy. the beecher school district is located in a low-income community, north of flint city limits. the struggling district had its arts programming cut in an attempt to reduce costs and stay out of state receivership. the apprentice artists brought poetry, theatre, and dance workshops to the freshman classrooms, which culminated in a student performance of their original work at the end of the school year in a neighboring school district. the company was awarded a $58,000 grant from the ruth mott foundation as well as funding from the community foundation of greater flint for its current 2014–2015 season. shop floor subsequently hired more college-aged artists and partnered with new york city-based the groovy projects to provide anti-bullying assemblies to beecher’s elementary and middle school students and work with high school students to create their own music video. there is one full-time employee and ten part-time contractors currently including writers, actors, 65 musicians, and a choreographer. shop floor also raises funds outside of grants through speaking engagements, university performances, and other services. another tenant business of the incubator, flint soup is run by recent um–flint graduate, adrian montague. this group holds monthly micro-funding competitions to support various community projects. the organization, which is modeled after detroit soup, charges audience members a $5 fee to attend the event. participants receive a light meal of soup and bread and then hear three or four pitches for community projects or small businesses. the audience votes on which idea they want to support the most. the winning idea receives all of the door money collected throughout the evening. by the time flint soup joined the incubator in may 2014, it had already hosted about eighteen months of competitions in the flint area. flint soup has generated $2,000 in individual donations, $30,000 from corporations, and 300 volunteer hours from members of the public since entering the incubator. flint soup fulfills a social role by supporting projects that benefit the city of flint but might not be formally structured or large enough to seek out grant or private funding. it also allows local people to have a choice of what their money supports. in addition to these values, the soup event brings together a wide segment of the community who might not otherwise be in the same room together or aware of each other’s work. our home transitional was founded by carrie miller, a um–flint student. her nonprofit organization provides female veterans with housing assistance and connects them with social services including job training. our home is a tenant business at the incubator and has received mentoring support from school of management professors. miller has enlisted a board of directors that includes several veterans and influential community members, including a team of grant writer volunteers. our home transitional is in the process of purchasing a three-story, ten-bedroom house north of campus. miller and her board are working to raise $50,000 to purchase the home. our home is working directly with the detroit veterans administration on the project. the group received a one-story, two-bedroom house as an initial project and made plans for occupancy in november 2014. miller said once one home is fully operational, large funders will be more apt to donate to the nonprofit. our home transitional recently has partnered with single veteran mothers assistance program and of impact, llc, two other veteran service organizations. the three groups have opened an extension office to provide more outreach services as well as financial management workshops at no cost to veterans. our home transitional also entered the michigan corps flint social entrepreneurship challenge for 2014. collecting metrics/evaluation of program in 2013, staff researched best practices of other incubators across the country to identify the most effective categories and methods of gathering data on the program. new methods were identified to better gauge the success of in’s clients. 66 four primary areas of data are currently the sources for information gathered about incubator clients: workshop and conference registrations, “tell us about your bright idea” pre-interview questionnaires, walk-in questionnaires, and routine updates of student-owned tenant businesses. the purpose of each questionnaire varies slightly, not all registrants have or need business assistance, and tenants are held to a higher level of reporting than others. a core group of questions was determined necessary across the various programming, and the means of collection has been reviewed for standardization. the “tell us about your bright idea” pre-interview questionnaire has been updated to ask that entrepreneurs better define their target customers as well as how their business will directly serve the community. the mou form for tenant businesses to lease office space has undergone changes during the last year. as part of the requirements for retaining the office space, business owners must participate in biannual meetings with in staff to discuss their business’ progress as well as attend specific workshops and training sessions. each tenant business owner is expected to attend at least half of the workshops offered by the innovation incubator each year and must participate in at least two of the following development opportunities: business training through the michigan small business development center, networking events at the flint and genesee chamber of commerce, industry conferences, b.e.s.t. project training, or business mentoring through school of management faculty. also each tenant business has to submit a written self-evaluation report about operations and updated financial information. this includes what projects they are working on, if they have hired new staff, needs to maintain business operations, whether revenue has changed in the previous year, financial needs and financial statements including a balance sheet, statement of income, and expenses and budget projections. questions involving shortand long-term organizational goals have been added to the self-evaluation in order to determine how the incubator can best assist businesses and nonprofits as they move forward. also businesses are specifically asked how many fulland part-time employees each business claims instead of generally how many people does it employ (with no distinction between fulland part-time employment.) staff have included a question that requires tenants to consider potential criteria for their business’ graduation from the in. tenant businesses are eligible to graduate out of the program if they have experienced sufficient growth to require more floor space than is available at the incubator, if the business has shown a quarterly profit greater than the quarterly value of the office space, if the principal owner has graduated from university of michigan–flint more than one year earlier, or if they no longer need the services offered by the incubator. tenants may also graduate earlier than this if the company is acquired by another firm or legal entity. this collected data is used in monthly reporting to the campus including the university outreach faculty advisory board and in the yearly university outreach annual report, as well as the yearly grant report to funders. the data is used in narratives about the 67 program through the university outreach blog and website and in other marketing methods. results are used to refine the services offered by the incubator. at each workshop and conference session, participants submit evaluations of the event. these evaluate course content, instructional materials and methods, administration, the course leader’s presentation, the venue’s appropriateness, whether a participant would recommend the course to peers, weaknesses of the course, suggestions for improvement, other courses the individual would like to suggest for future sessions, what the participant plans to do with gained knowledge and skills, whether it will make a difference in her work, how she learned about the event, and any additional comments. the data and comments are used in reports to funders, in reports to campus, and to shape and refine the services offered by the incubator to best fit its clients’ needs. strategic planning the innovation incubator has been performing ongoing strategic planning this year to better identify how it can positively contribute to the growing entrepreneurial ecosystem in flint and how it can best serve its clients’ changing needs. staff have engaged in a series of discussions about the future direction of the incubator and have decided to offer more resources to local entrepreneurs on its website so that the potential client can begin researching next steps before the first meeting with innovation incubator staff. the incubator is also investigating offering intake interviews online over skype with potential clients that cannot make it downtown to discuss their business. this would expand the reach of the incubator to a wider swath of flint and genesee county. in addition, the incubator is planning to pilot a start-up business boot camp in 2015 as a way to build up a cohort of local entrepreneurs. this multiple-week program would 68 meet once a week to discuss business concepts including the triple bottom line, working with the business model canvas, banking and financing, legal structures for corporations, and a pitch clinic. conclusion over the past year, in has increased its efforts to better serve entrepreneurs on campus and in the community. increased data gathering and establishment of new metrics have allowed staff members to take a critical look at how they are supporting businesses’ growth and how they can improve services. the incubator has maintained a strong programming focus around social entrepreneurship and related concepts and has seen an increase in the number of social entrepreneurship and community-driven ventures applying to receive services in the past year. the incubator is attempting to further reduce barriers to entry through working with community partners like the eteam to create new marketing materials and by hosting open houses and other events to increase awareness and use of the co-working space. staff expect that continued efforts to promote social entrepreneurship through workshops and conferences and encouraging socially-conscious elements in individual business models will assist clients in exercising some influence over the social, environmental, and economic factors in the larger community. references bornstein, david, and susan davis. 2010. social entrepreneurship: what everyone needs to know. new york: oxford. houseal lavigne associates. 2013. imagine flint master plan for a sustainable flint. flint: houseal lavigne associates. schuch, sarah. 2014. “university of michigan–flint hits record-breaking enrollment for eighth consecutive year.” mlive/the flint journal, september 18. http://www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2014/09/university_of_michigan– flint_h_18.html. 69 author information nic custer is a program assistant for university of michigan–flint’s innovation incubator. a flint native, he has worked as a journalist, editor, and business coach, and creates marketing and communications materials for the office of university outreach. nic custer innovation incubator office of university outreach university of michiganflint 432 n. saginaw st., suite 207 flint, mi 48503 e-mail: ncuster@umflint.edu telephone: 810-424-5454 70 30 abstract the case study method in the stem classroom clyde freeman herreid "active learning" where students are required to do something in the classroom rather than simply listen to a lecture has been repeatedly shown to be superior to the lecture method in advancing student learning. the use of case studies in the classroom is one of the most successful active learning methods of teaching science, technology, engineering and mathematics (stem). how this method evolved and is currently revolutionizing teaching has major implications for metropolitan universities where many students are non-traditional and at risk. what are case studies and what is case study teaching? i have asked virtually hundreds of faculty these questions and the variety of answers is staggering. the term case study is used by law and business instructors to describe real problems or situations that these professionals face; when these cases are analyzed in the classroom they are always taught by a professor holding a discussion with a class (leenders, erskine, and mauffette-leenders 2001). the term was used by harvard chemist james connant ( 1949) to describe how he lectured to students about major discoveries in science in great depth. in medical schools this is called problem-based learning (pbl) and occurs when physicians take a patient problem and present it to a small group of students and have them "puzzle out" a reasonable diagnosis. sometimes the situations are true; sometimes fiction. sometimes the cases are closed (there is a real answer to the question) and sometimes the cases are open (there are multiple possible answers). sometimes the cases are dozens of pages long and sometimes they may be a single paragraph. sometimes the cases extend over several days or even over a whole semester while sometimes they last only part of a class period. the variations seem endless. yet, i propose there is a true essence to case study teaching that is evident in spite of all the variations. it is this: cases are stories told with an educational message (herreid 1997). students learn better by understanding the material in context. case-based instruction is designed to engage students in thinking about theoretical, applied and deeper conceptual understanding (shulman 1992). but as i mentioned above, the story can be "told" using different classroom techniques: in discussion, lecture, or small groups. the many variations include problem-based cases, interrupted cases, debate cases, public hearing cases, role playing cases, team-based learning cases, trial cases, directed cases, and quiz-based cases-all with various strengths and weaknesses (herreid 1994, 1998a). but for clarity, let us focus on one method, the classic discussion approach. suppose that a teacher wishes to take up the question of what are the basic properties of life-a standard lecture topic in a general biology course. instead of reciting a boring list of criteria, the teacher can offer a case study about a recent discovery of "cells" in a meteorite from mars. this is a fictionalized account of the historical announcement by nasa on august 7, 1996 that they had strong evidence that life existed on mars. in the mars case, a young scientist, michael king, who is part of the investigative team, is doubtful that nasa should make that claim. yet the team plans to go forward with a press conference, and michael is thrown into a dilemma as to what to do. in the teaching of this case, i routinely ask the students first to list the specific claims that the characters are making, writing them on the board. then in a discussion format, i ask them to provide the evidence that is cited in the case. i follow this by asking them to list the characteristics that they believe identify life. this allows us to discuss the pros and cons of each and to see if the evidence that the nasa team is mentioning really addresses these issues. finally, i tum to the ethical questions that are involved in the case: is it appropriate to call a press conference before peer review has occurred, etc? and lastly, i ask the question, what should michael do when he does not agree with the team leader's decision and what might be the consequences of his actions? through this case, not only do students learn the basic characteristics of life, but they come to understand the difficulties in applying these criteria. and they learn a great deal more-perhaps the most important lesson-something about how the scientific process really works in the context of society. such revelations are especially appealing to the non-traditional and at risk students populating our metropolitan universities and community colleges. isn't it more valuable to teach students about virus biology using an aids case such as the tragic case of tennis star arthur ashe who contracted hiv by a blood transfusion rather than give an abstract lecture? what makes a good case? the key to writing a good case depends first and foremost on instructors having clear goals as to what they want the case to do and being sure that they craft the case to meet those goals. several hundred such cases and teaching notes identifying the case goals are published on the web site of the national center for case study teaching in science at http://ublib.buffalo.edu/libraries/projects/cases/case.html. when we analyze the characteristics of what makes a good case study in the eyes of a student, several criteria come to mind. the list for science cases is similar to the one developed for business students. the best cases tend to be short (perhaps three to four pages); have controversy, dialogue, interesting characters, a dilemma to be solved; and are contemporary, real, and relevant to the student with a clear pedagogical value (herreid 1997 /1998). 31 32 what do we know about case study teaching? in spite of its extensive use in law and business schools (williams 1992), case method in these arenas does not appear to have been seriously assessed. in contrast, the use of pbl in medical schools has prompted close scrutiny. more recently, case study instruction has received increasing attention as it has penetrated undergraduate college and k-12 classrooms. here are case study findings we can report: • a meta-analysis of over twelve hundred studies comparing the performance of students educated using cooperative learning strategies (including case studies) versus those taught by the lecture method showed that cooperative learning promoted greater learning and greater retention in verbal, mathematical, and physical skills. students enjoyed the experience more, had better attitudes toward the subject, developed better social skills, became more articulate, and became more tolerant of differing viewpoints than with the lecture style (johnson and johnson 1989, 1993). • hoag, lillie, and hoppe (2005) and lundeberg ( 1999) reported students believe that content is easier to remember and apply when using case studies, and they experience more enjoyment when using case studies in class. • an important meta-analysis examining forty-three research studies on problem-based learning in medical schools revealed a significant improvement in the clinical application of knowledge and higher order thinking (dochy et al. 2003). there were no significant differences in knowledge on standardized tests. however, when the assessment task was open-ended (e.g., recall, short answer, simulation, oral, essay) and/or when the assessment task measured critical thinking rather than basic knowledge, students in the pbl group showed higher gains in performance compared to the traditional group. essentially, the higher the level of knowledge and thinking required on the assessment task, the more likely that case study teaching will produce greater gains in student understanding. similarly, bergland and others (2006) reported that tests that require students to engage in higher order thinking, such as interpreting data from simulations and cases, generally produce higher performance among students than do traditional multiple choice course exams. • since small groups and active learning methods are generally used to teach cases, it is important to note that the literature (involving thousands of students) is especially rich in indicating that these approaches are demonstrably more effective than the lecture method in achieving learning and increasing motivation and positive attitudes toward stem subjects (hake 1998; udovic et al. 2002). importantly, "the positive effects of small-group learning were significantly greater for members of underrepresented populations (african americans and latinas/os)" (springer, stanne, and donovan 1999, 40). pitfalls in the implementation of case study teaching generally, faculty do not know what cases are, do not know how to teach with them, and do not know how to write them. these basic problems must be addressed even if we accept the virtues of the case approach. fortunately, faculty are increasingly becoming aware of the method as the literature grows, as workshops are hosted, and as word of mouth spreads. as they become knowledgeable, many teachers ask, "why are we using a technique (the lecture) that is demonstrably inferior?" they wonder if the lecture method of instruction is at fault when 40 percent of their students receive "fs" or "ds" or withdraw. they are ready for a change. the introduction of alternative methods of teaching meets with serious obstacles from the individual teacher, the students, and in some cases colleagues and administrators (herreid, 1998b ). teachers are afraid of the risk of failure, the increased time (after all, they have their tried and true lecture notes), and they don't know how to do it; the students-especially if they have been successful with the lecture method-will ask why they must endure being a guinea pig as a professor tries out an experimental method at their expense; and colleagues and administrators-they may have their input, particularly when a young untenured assistant professor is coming up for tenure. many lessons can be learned from the chaotic experience that occurred at duke university when they introduced their version of case teaching in the chemistry department without an adequate preparation of either faculty or students (herreid 2004). dissemination efforts for the case study method of teaching the united states has three major centers for the development of case study teaching. it is valuable to consider how these centers, these models, developed and how their successes have made an impact on teaching. the first two models originated in graduate schools and it is only recently that the case paradigm has penetrated in an important way into the k-16 classrooms. the harvard model and the discussion-based learning model. the century-long history of case study teaching in law and business schools gives us an exemplar of how the discussion case approach has spread throughout the world. it is hard not to argue that a large reason for its success is because "harvard does it, so it must be good." since its inception, faculty and students have left "the citadel" and carried the "word" like disciples into the academic wilderness. indeed, i first heard of the method from a professor of law from cornell who had received his law degree at harvard. another reason for its success in both law and business is that a collection of cases rapidly began to accumulate to share with fellow colleagues. within a dozen years after discussion cases were introduced into a course at the harvard business school, melvin copeland published his book of cases, marketing problems, in 1920. in december of that same year, his dean, wallace donham, spent $5,000 to set up a 33 34 collection of cases in a systematic way, proposing that copeland should focus on course problems for industrial management. copeland, together with young business school graduates, began searching for material on behalf of donham's organization, the bureau of business research. success followed rapidly and full-time staff were added to search and write cases. dean donham then actively began to stimulate the interest of his faculty in the use of cases. he held luncheon conferences where using cases were discussed (leenders, erskine, and mauffette-leenders 2001). another driving force was that students showed a strong preference for the case method. within four years a high proportion of harvard courses were converted from lecture to discussion. within twenty years dean donham solicited two million dollars for the development of cases with the result that today approximately two thousand cases in the harvard school are available for purchase. comparable numbers of cases are available at two other major case business centers. additionally, the harvard law school and the kennedy school for public policy have large numbers of cases for sale as well. the discussion based case study model has spawned several summary books and the model has made its way into other disciplines including fields such as teacher training and clinical psychology. harvard received a grant from the pew charitable trusts to disseminate the method across disciplines, which led to individual faculty promoting the method, including the development of a web site at the university of minnesota specializing in environmental and agricultural cases. the u.s. department of education fund for the improvement of post-secondary education played an important role in dissemination; they funded william welty and rita silverman from pace university for many years to run case discussion workshops for all disciplines. welty and silverman had a particularly important impact on teacher training, as they produced a book of cases devoted to the subject. mcmaster university and the problem-based learning model. in the late 1960s, the canadian mcmaster university faculty of health sciences established a new medical school with a novel curricular approach (barrows 1996). disappointed with the traditional lecture method, they wished to produce graduates that were lifelong learners, practitioners who worked well in teams, related well to their patients, and were excellent problem solvers who knew how to do literature searches. thus, they created the model that we know as problem-based learning (pbl) and graduated their first class in 1972. at nearly the same time, the college of human medicine at michigan state developed a pbl track and other newly established medical schools in the netherlands (maastricht) and australia (newcastle) introduced the method. additional schools with well-established curricula undertook the more daunting work of overhauling their programs. leaders in this reform were the university of hawaii, harvard university, the university of sherbrooke (canada), and the university of new mexico. today, dozens of medical schools use some variation of pbl. health professions such as nursing, occupational therapy, and physical therapy have caught the pbl fever and have produced a plethora of hybrid models of pbl. what were the driving forces involved in this movement? first, there was a basic disenchantment with the prevalent lecture method in the health-related professions. second was the enthusiasm of the first tutor/instructors of the method and the word of mouth spreading of the basic strategy. third was the willingness of mcmaster and especially the university of new mexico to eagerly lobby for the method by setting up visiting opportunities for teams of faculty from other institutions to see the method in operation. fourth, articles began to be written about the strengths and weaknesses of pbl along with questions of assessment. indeed, pbl is arguably the best examined pedagogical approach in education today. fifth, the dissemination of the approach got a great boost in the united states with the 1984 publication of the report on the panel in the general professional education of the physician and college preparation for medicine sponsored by the american association of american medical colleges. the publication touted promoting independent learning and problem-solving and reducing lecture hours (barrows 1996). pbl moved into the undergraduate sphere in a serious way in the early 1990s when faculty at the university of delaware heard about the method and contracted with the university of new mexico to assist them in setting up pbl courses at their institution (allen, duch, and groh 1996). this led to delaware receiving national grants from agencies such as nsf, the pew charitable trusts, and the u.s. department of education. as part of their proselytizing for the method they held national workshops and traveled extensively to other institutions as emissaries giving workshops. this has led to a network of hundreds of faculty who are using pbl, and the university of delaware has established a web-based clearinghouse for pbl cases. more recently, another major player in the undergraduate pbl movement is samford university, which has received funding from the pew charitable trusts to encourage pbl use across disciplines. several summary books have been published on the method in the undergraduate classroom such as wilkerson and gijselaers' bringing problem-based learning to higher education: theory and practice ( 1996). the national center for case study teaching in science at the university at buffalo. the use of cases to teach science at the university at buffalo was an outgrowth of a curriculum reform in the 1980s (herreid 1995). as part of that renovation, the university faculty devised new science requirements for all students. although two of the science courses were traditional, two were not. one of them, scientific inquiry, was devised to tell stories about how scientists actually went about their work; in a sense, this was a response to harvard chemist james conant's lament, after the second world war when he served as president franklin roosevelt's science advisor, that the public does not understand how science is actually done. this course focused on contemporary science problems (such as genetic engineering) and dealt with the science, social, and political issues involved. the method of instruction was to be discussion-based, a method of instruction that few science teachers were schooled to use. the second course, great discoveries in science, was story-telling focused around key moments in the history of science-clearly, a lecture version of case study teaching. 35 36 buffalo was successful in receiving an award from the fund for the improvement for post secondary education (fipse), administered by the u.s. department of education, to train faculty in the teaching of these courses. there was no precedent on how these courses were to be taught, and since they were to be for non-science majors, there was no built-in faculty constituency arguing that certain material had to be covered. over the next three summers the university at buffalo held workshops and discussions with faculty who were designated as instructors in these courses. outside experts in different styles of instruction were imported, among them william welty from the business school at pace university, a frequent workshop leader on the use of case studies. even after the grant ended, the university at buffalo continued to hold summer regional workshops for faculty on different strategies for instruction in science. in the early 1990s the university at buffalo received an nsf grant to train faculty in how to write and teach with case studies in science. these workshops were to be national in scope and five days in duration. a novel feature of them was that faculty would develop cases and teach them to a group of students that were hired to be critics. not only did the faculty gain facility with case teaching, but also large numbers of students were exposed to the method. by this time i was an enthusiast for the method and wrote a summary article for the journal of college science teaching, "case studies in science: a novel method of teaching," which was published in 1994. this led to the establishment of a regular column in the journal on case studies. also, we created a web site for case studies, a place where faculty could publish their cases and teaching notes (essentially lesson plans). these would be available free. it seemed clear that unlike harvard, which had a large clientele for case studies, we could not charge for this service as our audience was limited; few faculty knew about using case studies in science. two years later we obtained a grant from the pew charitable trusts which allowed us to continue our workshops, develop a national presence by establishing the national center for case study teaching in science, host an annual two-day conference, and with the co-operation of the journal of college science teaching, edit and publish an annual issue of the journal devoted entirely to case studies. this work has expanded under our current nsf grant for the dissemination of case study teaching, which allows us to also provide satellite workshops at other institutions, especially those serving student groups traditionally underrepresented in science. finally, in collaboration with mary lundeberg of michigan state university, a co-pi on our grant, we have seriously begun to address the question of assessment of the case method vis a vis the lecture method. the results of these activities are several: ( 1) well over a thousand teachers have been trained in the use of case study teaching in the sciences; (2) a large number of cases have now been published, not only in the journal of college science teaching, but also in other venues including other science education journals and in books; (3) over 250 cases and teaching notes have been published on the national center for case study in science web site, which are accessible free of charge. about two thousand teachers visit this site each day, half of whom are high school faculty who download the cases for use in their classrooms. the availability of such cases is especially important to faculty with heavy teaching loads who may not have time to write their own cases. ( 4) in two assessment surveys of 277 university and college faculty who tried out the case method after a training workshop, 97% reported students taught with cases learned new ways to think about an issue; 95% reported students took a more active part in the learning process; 93% reported students were more engaged in classes; 84% reported students in classes using case studies were glad case studies were being used; 89% reported students in the classes using case studies demonstrated stronger critical thinking skills, 83% were able to make connections across multiple content areas; 90% developed a deeper understanding of concepts; and 91 % were better able to view an issue from multiple perspectives (herreid forthcoming). lessons learned about dissemination there are some basic similarities among the three successful case center models: • prior to the adoption of the case method, there was a basic dissatisfaction with the lecture pedagogy; large numbers of students were not performing at acceptable levels. faculty were receptive to alternative ways to instruct. • students exposed to the new case methodology recognized its value to their education because it related to their life goals and careers-the cases were relevant to the real world, not abstract problems. • cases were made available to new instructors who wished to try out the case method. they either used cases written by others, or they were trained to write the cases themselves. large repositories of cases were rapidly established and made available either for purchase or for free. major web sites, journal publications, and books were developed by the centers. • faculty were trained in how to teach with cases primarily by attending workshops and conferences held by the centers along with teaching videos, cds, and dvds. • the flexibility of the teaching method was important especially as envisioned in the buffalo model. teachers could see that the method could be used within their disciplines. cases could be readily molded to meet their specific styles and needs. indeed, the fact that "the case method" is hard to define is a plus. defining it simply as "a story with an educational message" meant that faculty who felt they could not successfully use the harvard discussion or pbl models were free to invent alternative ways to tell the story. • money played a significant role in case development and dissemination. whether it was spent accumulating a number of initial cases and continuing to build large databases as with harvard or in running training workshops and conferences or publishing special case study issues of journals and books as with buffalo, money 37 38 was vital to success. the national science foundation, the u.s. department of education, and the pew charitable trusts, along with university support, were essential along the way. • finally, unbridled enthusiasm by early users of the method meant that word of mouth traveled far and wide. the case study method has had a long history but most of it has been in the sphere of graduate education. in the last fifteen years it has entered the k-16 classrooms. its success comes from the fact that the story line approach puts learning in context. the lecture method seems singularly inappropriate for most students, who do not memorize abstract facts well, especially when the facts appear to have no relevance to the real world. most students are not going to go into science. our first obligation should be to not tum them off to science, however, and the lecture method does just that (tobias 1990). it seems time that we recognize that there are better ways for students to learn. referentes allen, d. e., b. j. duch, and s. e. groh. 1996. the power of problem-based learning in teaching introductory science courses. in bringing problem-based learning to higher education: theory and practice, eds. l. wilkerson and w. h. gijselaers, 43-52. san francisco: jossey-bass. barrows, h.s. 1996. problem-based learning in medicine and beyond: a brief overview. in bringing problem-based learning to higher education: theory and practice, eds. l. wilkerson and w. h. gijselaers, 1-12. san francisco: jossey-bass. bergland, m., m.a. lundeberg, k. klyczek, d. hoffman, j. emmons, c. martin, k. marsh, j. sweet, j. werner, and m. jarvis-detz. 2006. exploring biotechnology using case-based multimedia. american biology teacher 68:77-82 connant, j.b. 1994. the growth of the experimental sciences: an experiment in general education. cambridge: harvard university press. copeland, m. t. 1920. marketing problems. new york: a. w. shaw company. dochy, f., m. segers, p. van den bossche, and d. gijbels. 2003. effects of problembased leaming: a meta-analysis. learning and instruction 13:533-568. hake, r. r. 1998. interactive engagement vs. traditional methods: a six-thousandstudent survey of mechanics test data for introductory physics courses. american journal of physics 66:64-74. herreid, c. f. 1994. case studies in science a novel method in science education. journal of college science teaching 23:221-229. herreid, c. f. 1995. science literacy by curriculum reform: suny at buffalo-a case study. in selected papers from the texas seminar on core curriculum 1993, 1994, 1995, 33-36. national endowment for the humanities. herreid, c. f. 1997. what is a case? journal of college science teaching 27:92-94. herreid, c. f. 199711998. what makes a good case? journal of college science teaching 27: 163-165. herreid, c. f. 1998a. sorting potatoes for miss bonner: bringing order to case-study methodology through a classification scheme. journal of college science teaching 27:236-239. herreid, c. f. 1998b. why isn't cooperative learning used to teach science? bioscience 48:553-559. herreid, c. f. 2004. why a case-based course failed: an analysis of an ill-fated experiment. journal of college science teaching 33 :8-11. herreid, c. forthcoming. assessment and evaluation of the case study process. in start with a story: the case study method of teaching college science, ed. c. f. herreid. arlington, va: nsta press. hoag, k. a., j. k. lillie, and r. hoppe. 2005. piloting case-based instruction. didactic clinical immunology course. clinical laboratory science 18:213-220. johnson, d. w., and r. t. johnson. 1989. cooperation and competition: theory and research. edina, mn: interaction book co. johnson, d. w., and r. t. johnson. 1993. cooperative learning: where we have been, where we are going. cooperative learning and college teaching 3 :6-9. leenders, m. r., j. a. erskine, and l.a. mauffette-leenders. 2001. writing cases. 4th ed., 190. london: ivey publishing, richard ivey school of business. lundeberg, m. a. 1999. discovering teaching and learning through cases. in who learns what from cases and how: the research base for teaching and learning with cases, eds. m.a. lundeberg, b. b. levin, and h. harrington. mahwah, nj: lawrence erlbaum associates, inc. shulman, l. 1992. toward a pedagogy of cases. in case methods in teacher education, ed. j. h. shulman, 1-30. new york: teachers college press. 39 40 springer, l., m. e. stanne, and s. s. donovan. 1999. effects of small-group learning on undergraduates in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology: a metaanalysis. review educational research 69:21-51. tobias, s. 1990. they're not dumb, they're different: stalking the second tie. tucson, az: research corp. udovic, d., d. morris, a. dickman, j. postlewait, and p. wetherwax. 2002. workshop biology: demonstrating the effectiveness of active learning in an introductory biology course. bioscience 52:272-281. wilkerson, l., and w. h. gijselaers. 1996. bringing problem-based learning to higher education: theory and practice. san francisco: jossey-bass. williams, s. m. 1992. putting case-based instruction into context: examples from legal and medical education. the journal of learning sciences 2:367-427. acknowledgements this material is based upon work supported by the national science foundation under grant no. 0341279. any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the nsf. author information clyde freeman herreid is a distinguished teaching professor, academic director of the university honors program, and director and founder of the national center for case study teaching in science at the university of buffalo. clyde freeman herreid department of biological sciences university at buffalo buffalo, ny 14221 e-mail: herreid@buffalo.edu telephone: 716-645-3020 fax: 716-645-2975 mu2006-12-031_page30 mu2006-12-032_page31 mu2006-12-033_page32 mu2006-12-034_page33 mu2006-12-035_page34 mu2006-12-036_page35 mu2006-12-037_page36 mu2006-12-038_page37 mu2006-12-039_page38 mu2006-12-040_page39 mu2006-12-041_page40 147 tracking culture: the meanings of community engagement data collection in higher education howard rosing abstract the essay briefly outlines the history of community engagement at depaul university in order to explore how and why universities and colleges are increasingly adopting data collections systems for tracking community engagement. i explore the question of why there is a growing interest in tracking engagement within the academy and suggest that dominant meanings attached to tracking behavior (e.g., recognition, marketing, budget legitimation) overshadow more critical and political rationales for documenting engagement, such as those that emerge out of aspiration to understand how higher education can play a role in promoting social justice and transforming communities. i argue that the latter requires a critical, self-reflexive, ethnographic approach to tracking that illuminates not only positive outcomes of engagement but also the inevitable challenges or failures of engagement that can limit student learning, faculty scholarship, and, perhaps most importantly, community benefit. the premise of this article is that higher education is moving through a cultural shift in respect to community engagement as a characteristic and practice that increasingly defines the identity of the academy and academic institutions. since the early twentieth century, ethnographers have shown that culture can be elusive unless one undertakes systematic ethnographic analysis through long-term empirical research in the field. the “field” is a social space with boundaries defined by those considered to be among the research population. the field is also a political and economic arena usually, but not always, outside the academy and on rare occasions within the walls of academic institutions – a kind of space for critical institutional self-reflection. the ethnography of higher education is an emerging scholarship that for the most part has not focused a lens on community engagement as a practice or form of higher education institutional identity-making. in what follows, i do not intend to produce an ethnographic study of community engagement in higher education. in a more limited sense, i call for further inquiry into what seems to me to be an evolving phenomenon centered on how we in the academy think about community engagement holistically in respect to its various meanings among faculty, staff, and students. this involves, i shall argue, detaching community engagement from its typical epistemological framework as a practice that supposedly involves institutions doing good for others who are constructed as underserved, needy, and vulnerable. my pursuit involves understanding community engagement beyond its strategic positioning for institutional marketing – one form of meaning production –and into the realm of serious critical ethnographic analysis. as a starting point, the article begins to take up the issue of how and why universities and colleges have started value tracking community engagement, a phenomena that i suggest is part of a broader shift toward understanding and valuing community engagement, especially integrated into curriculum and research, across academia. to pursue the above proposition over the long term will require understanding the meanings attributed to the concept of community engagement within the academy: that is, how it implies certain defined practices (e.g., service-learning pedagogy, community-based research, community internships, and other forms of engaged scholarship and forms of capacity building with agents typically constructed as external to institutions), all of which will need to be separately analyzed as components of the whole. moreover, as 148 i shall illustrate here for my own university, each higher education institution uniquely presents its own cultural expression of community engagement relative to its geography, history, and, perhaps most importantly, its social and political agenda (or “mission”) at any given moment. if the field site for the ethnography of community engagement in higher education begins with the institution of higher learning itself as a cultural creation, then one key topic of study is the myriad of meanings behind how and why universities and colleges seek to engage with external communities and, as this article begins to pursue, why there is a growing interest in tracking such engagement. how, when, and why each institution chooses to develop, track, and analyze community engagement activities, i submit, says a lot about its positioning within the social, economic, and political landscape more broadly. the article begins to take up the project of understanding the meanings associated with community engagement tracking as a practice in higher education. part one explores why tracking community engagement matters in higher education. this realm of inquiry is vast, given the range of types of academic institutions and the missions they supposedly engender. yet there are certain dominant discourses (e.g., institutional recognition, enrollment marketing, budget legitimation) that are articulated across universities and colleges and that emerge within dialogue at community engagement conferences, seminars, and workshops. the overarching question i grapple with is, “why community engagement tracking now?” even with the rapid expansion of community engagement in higher education in recent decades, up until this journal edition, there has been sparse scholarly activity exploring why institutions are developing community engagement tracking systems. very little is understood about the diversity of meanings attributed to community engagement tracking by those like myself who are in a sense “trackers.” as a consequence, the more dominant discourses on why institutions track or should track engagement overshadow more critical and overtly political rationales for tracking, such as those that emerge out of aspirations to understand how higher education can play a role in promoting social justice and transforming communities. the second section draws on the history of community engagement tracking at my institution, depaul university. this self-analysis is not presented for the purpose of marketing, though admittedly that may be an unavoidable, but rather to establish a framework for developing a critical analysis of community engagement tracking in higher education. the ultimate goal is to spur further ethnographic inquiry into the rationales for why, when, and how universities and colleges seek to understand comprehensively – through tracking – their own behavior in communities they seek to serve. a critical, self-reflexive, ethnographic analysis of community engagement in higher education, i contend, will produce greater transparency about the outcomes of engagement, that is, both the positive and negative or challenging results of institutionalized community engagement. i also suggest the need to incorporate community partners into tracking processes as a means to further illuminate avenues for understanding how academia can have a positive effect on the social, economic, political, and ecological issues that we seek to impact. why tracking matters the development of higher education community engagement in the united states during the 1990s and early 2000s reflected broader changes in the academy nationally and globally. the opening of university community engagement centers was symbolic of a cultural transformation whereby administrators, faculty, and students increasingly placed value on community engagement within curriculum, cocurricular programs, and research (welch and saltmarsh 2013). many such centers were endowed and named, illustrating unprecedented higher education material investments in community engagement locally and internationally. higher education community engagement had a social value: improving towngown relations, new venues for faculty scholarship, and a marketing tool for recruiting students to participate in a different kind of college experience infused with social meaning and the building of character. in business and leadership terms, community engagement and community engagement centers were a value-added component of educational institutions, part of rejuvenating identities as “engaged 149 institutions” (sandmann and plater 2009; holland 2001). centers varied by institution but shared a common role in the institutionalization of community engagement often becoming the community engagement assessors or repository for assessment materials (furco and miller 2009). those of us who joined such centers during this time period watched as financial and symbolic investments in community engagement produced institutional behavioral changes that redefined for many the purpose of a college degree and careers in teaching, research, and scholarship. higher education community engagement was not new to the late twentieth century, but certainly became more formalized and bureaucratized. an emerging engagement tracking culture was undoubtedly spurred by national recognition awards or rankings such as those published by the u.s. news & world report, the carnegie classification for community engagement, and the presidents higher education community service honor roll, among others. more and more institutions created, or in some cases purchased, instruments to track community engagement behaviors – quantitatively and qualitatively. the value placed on tracking is perhaps indicative of the maturing state of community engagement in higher education and the rapidly developing need for data to legitimate institutional investments in reimagining and reimaging institutional identities. community engagement, as i have suggested, has given new meaning to what it means to obtain a degree from, teach for, or conduct research from particular colleges or universities. such cultural transformation, as we shall see from the case of my own institution, generally occurred slowly in small increments as institutions realized the social, economic, and political value of engagement. the technologies of tracking engagement are the most recent material culture or tools produced through institutional investment in community engagement and reflect a desire to understand the complete landscape of community-based student learning and faculty research and scholarship, among other forms of engagement. the meanings attached to data collected and the reasons for collecting it require further analysis if we are to come to some sense of truth – beyond our marketing efforts – about why and how institutions structure engagement activities. the culture of tracking community engagement can be seen within the context of a wider set of economic factors that drive higher education. these are linked to competition for enrollment, research funding, faculty hires, and, perhaps most importantly, fundraising. undoubtedly, community engagement tracking cannot be detached from inter-institutional competition and the broader forces pushing the marketization of higher education (rhoades and slaughter 2006). from the standpoint of my work, for example, the vast majority of tracking data goes toward institutional recognition applications, marketing-style publications, and grant narratives. the economic pressures of the academy help to form the meanings placed on tracking data within specific geographic contexts. more and more, engagement initiatives in higher education can be understood as distinctly place-based and embedded in localization, regionalization, and/or internationalization agendas that illustrate how particular higher education institutions are responding to, and the products of, changes in the broader political economy. the recent large institutional investment in community engagement initiatives at places such as cornell and duke, for example, illustrates the value for institutions of pedagogies such as service-learning and of approaches such as community-based research. tracking validates such investments and can translate into further fundraising and marketing efforts as universities and colleges compete in an increasingly market-driven higher education landscape. given how important community engagement has become as a fundraising and marketing strategy, it is no longer a question of whether to include it as an institutional strategic goal but rather of how to do so and how to demonstrate outcomes. while fundraising, marketing, and the desire for recognition drive much of the value placed on community engagement tracking, practitioners like myself often assign alternative meanings to tracking behavior. that is, tracking as a cultural practice is not always driven by purely utilitarian motives. there are ideologically diverse politics of community engagement across the academy that produces alternative lenses from which to view institutional community engagement data. to this end, engagement activities in higher education may appear to be politically benign forms of serving when in fact such behaviors are 150 intricately tied to, for example, labor and immigration issues and to education and healthcare debates. a university that is partnered with an organization that supports undocumented immigrants through english (esl) courses, childcare, and youth programming is embedded in the politics of immigration. does the university track its partnership with the idea in mind that the institution is contributing to the well-being of undocumented immigrants? tracking in this manner can matter for different reasons; it says something about the politics of that institution and more broadly about the explicit social, political, and economic agendas of higher education institutions in relation to local and global issues. to be sure, as scholarship begins to explore and fully illuminate how politically embedded and diverse higher education community engagement initiatives have become, new forms of meaning will be placed on obtaining a degree from, teaching for, or conducting research at particular institutions. most importantly, tracking engagement publically in this manner could, in fact, leverage the support of higher education institutions for certain marginalized populations. so why does tracking community engagement matter now more than ever in higher education? clearly a desire for institutional recognition is an important rationale that is at the foundation for how we celebrate and affirm material investments in community engagement programs, offices, and centers. this rationale alone, however, misses a great deal of the values-oriented motivations for community engagement shared by many higher education engagement professionals. many of us understand the work as channeling institutional resources toward building greater capacity for our community partners to challenge injustice. in this regard, the importance of tracking has more to do with the radical transformation of higher education institutions into vehicles for positive social change (brukardt et al. 2004). this emerging cultural framework within the academy measures the central importance of community engagement by the impact universities and colleges have on communities. community impact is the goal and purpose of the work; student learning and faculty scholarship is absolutely essential and highly valued but a subsidiary outcome. tracking community engagement in the form of community impact is part of a desire to transform the purpose of higher education. given the academy’s colonial heritage and reputation for fostering a sense of elitism, those of us orchestrating community-university partnerships are sensitive to our work being perceived off-campus as another tool for universities to "use" communities to build academic careers and prestige. this is regardless of our self-prescribed values of respect for community voice and knowledge and rhetorical commitment to social justice. because we are in this liminal space between the academy and communities, we can see the explicit tendency for academics to perceive themselves as the most important producers of knowledge – knowledge that they then purvey to the world as self-prescribed experts. in a context like chicago, home to my institution and a city with a long history of community organizing and activism, higher education community engagement can receive overt pushback from communities. carelessly deploying tracked community engagement data without respecting the knowledge produced by communities with which we seek to engage can inflame such resistance and hinder future community partnerships. an institutional tendency toward self-interest in promoting how much we are “doing good” for others neglects how much community partners do to support engagement programming. in this sense, a greater focus on what the community sees as useful and relevant in tracking data could actually strengthen engagement practice and positively impact both campus and community. only in recent years have institutions begun to take seriously the act of documenting or tracking activities as they relate to community impact, and involving the community in such tracking is very much at an infancy stage. furthermore, it could be argued that we have yet to debate the value of tracking higher education community engagement for the purposes of truly auditing actual behavior. we have not, i would contend, critically analyzed the ethical obligation to tell the full story of our historical or contemporary institutional behaviors as it relates to communities impacted by the academy. instead, we generally track community engagement to illustrate what we perceive as our positive impact, ignoring concerns or complaints of our community partners or the damage our institutions may cause intentionally 151 or unintentionally. this perspective introduces the question as to what a genuine higher education community engagement tracking process looks like. i do not address this question here, but i believe it is one that needs to be pursued rigorously if we are to be honest about the role of the academy in communities and especially if the former is making institutional claims of contributing to social justice or positive social change. tracking therefore matters for a variety of reasons outside of institutional marketing, recognition, and budgets. how the academy documents community engagement in ways that move beyond institutional self-interest is of significant importance and there is a need, for example, to factor into data collection forms of dissatisfaction. such research is especially salient in geographic spaces where universities and colleges are embedded in urban and regional economic development processes that can marginalize populations that are ironically often the target of community engagement initiatives. in this regard, there may be an ethical relationality and responsibility that binds institutions to the task of understanding holistically the impact – good and bad – of engagement. carefully tracking how we behave in our community engagement activities, through a self-critical ethnographic lens can support a foundational value of the academy: seeking truth through knowledge. the first task may be to consider how our own university or college has established engagement tracking and to see how or whether involving community partners in creating and using tracking data can become a reality. in the long term, if higher education institutions are truly interested in authentic community-university partnerships that involve coplanning and co-implementation, tracking must become a part of our engagement, not just a product of it. community engagement tracking at depaul university: a tracker’s perspective i have been involved in higher education community engagement since the late-1990s when i began teaching courses that incorporated experiential learning. higher education community engagement was coming of age and during a time of unprecedented economic restructuring in the united states and globally. since the 1980s, the united states had embarked upon a neoliberal policy agenda embraced at varying levels by the reagan, bush, and clinton administrations through policies that led to austerity measures, deregulation, and privatization. as i experimented with service-learning pedagogy in introductory social sciences courses, literature emerged offering a critical perspective on community engagement and its apparent complicity with the policies of government cost-cutting in the social sector (e.g., petras 1997). to critics, retraction of public funding through reform of social programs, for example, and the concomitant promotion of community service, including service-learning pedagogy, were not coincidental (hyatt 2001). the political agenda, they would argue, was suppression of labor through austerity measures and the privatization of public resources while promoting service by individuals as a viable response to social problems. we were in higher education, hyatt argues, producing “neoliberal citizens” (2001). along with unfettered expansion of financial markets, spurred partly by electronic trading and growth in speculation and trade in derivatives, national policies supported skewing of capital accumulation toward a small percentage of the population, thereby increasing social inequality. the theoretical foundations for this political agenda were concretized in the academy in my hometown of chicago by the chicago school of economics and then tested internationally under the chilean dictatorship of augusto pinochet. eventually, these policies were applied across us federal, state, and local governments (harvey 2005). this was the political context within which i was trained as a critical anthropologist and within which i explored the pedagogy of service learning at depaul university in chicago. in the united states, economic restructuring during the 1980s and 1990s led to significant investment in redevelopment of the aging core of cities like chicago. since the 1970s there had been a channeling of capital – guided by municipal urban planning policies and through assistance from banks and the us 152 department of housing and urban development – into neighborhood revitalization schemes. enormous wealth entered cities in the form of investments in residential and commercial property, and entire neighborhoods were cleared. working class households and the businesses that served them were replaced with higher income residents and a commercial sector that reflected their interests. many urban higher education institutions were situated geographically within such gentrifying spaces where they took part in neighborhood transformation by acquiring property to expand campuses. concurrently, new forms of community engagement practice were developing such as service-learning pedagogy. an interesting irony emerged in relation to the role of metropolitan higher education institutions within the context of an urban redevelopment environment that removed the very people who were the target population that many universities and colleges sought to support through community engagement. when in 2001 i embarked upon a career in support of higher education community engagement at depaul, numerous chicago communities were in the midst of neighborhood changes; multiple battles were being fought over gentrification and decreasing access to affordable housing. the university, with campuses in the northside lincoln park neighborhood and in downtown chicago, was immersed in the transformation of the city. during the 1970s and 1980s, depaul faced the challenge of both watching and participating in the redevelopment of its surrounding neighborhood, a process that meant displacement of many of those who demographically fit the profile of those the university sought to educate and serve. by the 1990s, both lincoln park and loop campuses were in the midst of redevelopment. lincoln park in particular had been a dense working class mix of puerto rican, black, and white residents who increasingly found housing unaffordable. since the 1970s, depaul had expanded its physical footprint in the neighborhood, purchasing tracks of housing and redeveloping them into classrooms, student housing, and offices. as the university’s enrollment increased along with its physical size, lincoln park became even more gentrified along with most of chicago’s northside neighborhoods. the ramification of this process was the pushing of lower income populations to the west and south. within this context, i dived into building an academic community engagement program, connecting faculty and students to community partners in a city ripe with dynamic and, in some cases, volatile socioeconomic contexts. depaul was a unique place to build community engagement programming. founded in 1898 by the catholic vincentian order, the university’s central purpose was to educate those with the least access to higher education in the city. one of three vincentian universities in the united states that models itself after the life’s work of the seventeenth century priest vincent de paul, the university consistently prides itself on its mission which “places highest priority on programs of instruction and learning.” the mission statement also includes a succinct statement about community engagement: as an urban university, depaul is deeply involved in the life of a community which is rapidly becoming global, and is interconnected with it. depaul both draws from the cultural and professional riches of this community and responds to its needs through educational and public service programs, by providing leadership in various professions, the performing arts, and civic endeavors and in assisting the community in finding solutions to its problems. (depaul university office of mission and values) of particular note was the university’s openness during the early twentieth century to enrolling women (1911) and jews when quotas at other chicago area universities limited their access. most recently, the university’s leadership, including the president himself, has been active in supporting campaigns for the education of immigrants and their children. equally important, depaul consistently seeks to ensure a balance of economically and racially diverse students through enrollment and attainment strategies. these are only a few examples among an array of past and current university policies and practices where the university seeks to realize its mission. 153 during my early days at depaul, i noticed how the institution’s mission was regularly spoken about among faculty, staff, and students, especially in relation to first-generation students and community service but also as a tool to hold the university accountable to principles of social justice and fairness. notwithstanding depaul’s rapid growth during the 1990s and early 2000s, eventually reaching 25,000 students and becoming the largest catholic university in the united states, community engagement remained an important institutional focus. ironically, new investments brought the university into neighborhoods where displaced lincoln park residents relocated in search of affordable housing. in 1994, depaul opened the monsignor john j. egan urban center (euc) with grants from the john d. and catherine t. macarthur foundation and the chicago community trust. according to its mission, euc was to “extend opportunities for depaul, in collaboration with chicago communities, to address critical urban problems, alleviate poverty, and promote social justice through teaching, service, and scholarship.” the center’s namesake, john egan, a priest whose years of activism in chicago during the 1960s largely focused on affordable housing, reflected depaul’s commitment to social justice, notwithstanding the transformations in lincoln park. well known for his early work in chicago, egan returned to the city from a position at notre dame in 1982 and in 1987 took on leadership of depaul’s office of community affairs until his death in 2001 just a few months before my arrival (steinfels 2001). under the leadership of elizabeth hollander, former director of planning for mayor harold washington (chicago’s first and only african american mayor), the egan urban center flourished through federal and foundation grants. the university partnered with community groups in ways that leveraged depaul’s educational resources to directly support community development projects in housing, education, technology, and job creation within low-income communities. the center developed into two vibrant offices, one on each depaul campus, filled with community researchers, organizers, and engagement practitioners whose work became a vehicle for the university’s engagement with grassroots community organizers and development professionals. drawing on the work of the asset-based community development institute at northwestern university, the euc incubated programs and organizations that focused heavily on assisting communities to build capacity to address critical urban problems. by the time i arrived in 2001, euc had become the university’s force for supporting positive social change throughout many communities on the south, west, and near northwest sides of the city. until his death, egan himself continued to push forward on social justice campaigns (steinfels 2001). three years later, in 2004, an enormous statue of egan was erected in front of depaul’s lincoln park student center with the inscription, “what are you doing for justice?” ten years following the establishment of euc, depaul had not yet considered systematically documenting its own contributions to social justice by way of well-institutionalized community engagement programming. in truth, the statue of monsignor egan reflected decades of service and activism at depaul. unquestionably, there has been a strong ethos of community engagement among faculty, staff, and students since the university’s beginnings. indeed, the original purpose of the institution was to provide access to higher education to those least served. not surprisingly, the institution attracted and helped to form faculty and students that pushed for deeper institutionalization of social justice initiatives both on and off campus. during the 1960s, for example, african american students hosted a sit-in resulting in the creation of the black student union, and during the 1990s, latino students agitated for a center that resulted in the opening of the university’s cultural center to provide a safe meeting space for students of color and other underrepresented groups (now the center for intercultural programs). by the 2000s, strategic planning and increasing enrollment led the university to make additional institutional investments in co-curricular community engagement. this occurred through the university ministry office in student affairs that supported weekly student-led service groups, service days, and domestic and international service immersion trips among other programs. depaul’s largest financial investment in community engagement occurred just prior to my arrival in 2001 with the establishment of the irwin w. steans center for community-based service learning and community service studies. 154 the idea of the steans center partly emerged out of euc strategic planning to engage students in their community-based projects. institutional strategic planning during the mid-1990s also included development of an experiential learning course requirement in the undergraduate liberal studies curriculum (meister and strain 2004). one primary way to fulfill the requirement was for students to complete an approved course that integrated service-learning pedagogy, and in 1998, the office for community-based service learning (cbsl) was established with seed funding from the steans family. the office’s founding director, laurie worrall, who had been on the staff of euc, was charged with the goal of integrating service-learning pedagogy into depaul’s curriculum with a special emphasis on supporting the experiential learning requirement. worrall and her small staff proceeded to build depaul’s infrastructure to support service-learning course development. the office proceeded to build a momentum that would prove worthy of a five-million-dollar endowment from the steans family in 2001 and renaming of the office as the steans center. the endowment leveraged depaul to deeply invest in curriculum-based community engagement. just before i arrived, the university’s internal newspaper published its may edition announcing both the passing of john egan and the steans endowment. when i arrived at depaul, the steans center was just months old, and we temporarily shared space with the university ministry office’s co-curricular community engagement staff. although collaboration existed across euc, the steans center, and the university ministry office, the university’s three main community engagement units, comprehensive tracking of the institution’s engagement activities had yet to evolve. the work of all three units expanded rapidly and somewhat independently: euc building contracts for research, capacity-building, technical assistances, and evaluation with nonprofit partners; the university ministry office building opportunities for co-curricular service activities; and the steans center expanding the use of service-learning pedagogy. a need to build effective programming took priority over development of cross-unit collaboration that could theoretically improve impact on communities. we were not ready to think collaboratively about our institutional commitment to community engagement, let alone track it. i had not considered tracking depaul’s community engagement work until 2005 when laurie worrall, then appointed to the provost’s office as associate vice president for community engagement, began collecting engagement data for the first carnegie classification for community engagement application. worrall had recently completed a dissertation that would soon become a journal article on communitypartner perspectives on service-learning relationships (worrall 2007). given that this was one of the first such studies to listen to community partners in this manner, i can see in retrospect how and why my early work in service-learning was not concerned with understanding community impact. the following year in 2006, i was appointed director of the steans center and charged with completing the president’s higher education community service honor roll, a process that, unbeknownst to me at the time, would install me into the role of depaul’s primary community engagement tracker. my starting point for depaul’s community engagement tracking was patching together what university staff perceived as community service successes. the roll out of the carnegie classification in 2006, which worrall had successfully attained for depaul, coincided with the university’s new six-year strategic plan, vision 2012. i was asked by the provost’s office to align the steans center’s goals with those of the university’s strategic plan. the plan specifically embraced community engagement with language such as “engage the city of chicago to extend classroom learning,” “prepare students to be socially responsible future leaders and engaged alumni,” “promote leadership, civic engagement, cultural awareness, and personal and spiritual development,” and “become a university known for its students’ lifelong commitment to social justice and civic engagement.” the plan led to additional budgetary allocations to the steans center and community engagement in general, further expanding depaul’s reach throughout chicago neighborhoods. i completed the first president’s higher education community service honor roll application in collaboration with colleagues in the university ministry office. we collected data and stories from across 155 the university using emails and spreadsheets, a process repeated for several years. i also submitted applications to a variety of organizations to receive recognition awards from, for example, the jimmy and rosalynn carter partnership award for campus-community collaboration and the washington center higher education civic engagement award. vision 2012 had fostered university-wide collaboration to promote community engagement externally and internally and the associate vice president of student affairs established depaul engage, a network of staff and faculty from across the university who were involved in community engagement activities. through quarterly meetings of depaul engage and informal discussions across units, depaul began formalizing approaches to tracking community engagement. historically, it is often recounted by veteran university staff and faculty, depaul quietly engaged in a variety of community-based initiatives; these activities were seen as simply what the institution does; why it exists in the first place. this intrinsic sense of institutional character suggests why the university had not coordinated its community engagement efforts in a more comprehensive fashion. vision 2012 challenged depaul folklore and called for the university to “become a university known for its students’ lifelong commitment to social justice and civic engagement.” this objective was emblematic of how far the university had come in institutionalization of community engagement, provoking deeper questions about how much, where, and to what ends depaul was engaged with communities. as vision 2012 came to a close, these questions reemerged within a task force i co-chaired charged with making recommendations for the subsequent plan. the goal of the task force was to explore how depaul could further “engagement with chicago.” though vision 2012 spurred significant growth in community engagement at depaul, tracking activities remained at the unit level, and then a few others and myself collected data annually. in time, i began working with a representative from the president’s office who assisted in collecting the data. information was managed in a database at the steans center and distributed to other units upon request, typically for grant writing, marketing, and internal and external communications. the final version of vision 2018 (goal ii) would include language that called for the university to “deepen depaul’s connection with chicago, enriching students’ educational experiences,” to “strengthen partnerships with the city and the region, expanding our influence as an urban partner,” and to “achieve recognition as the city’s higher education anchor institution and the premier institution for chicago civic engagement.” even more than vision 2012, vision 2018 suggested depaul could no longer afford to quietly engage with communities for such a central component of its mission. tracking engagement seemed imperative. in the summer of 2013, the associate vice president of student affairs and i began coordinating the depaul committee on community engagement, an ad hoc group that brought together leadership of units, many of which facilitated community engagement activities. the group was asked to assist in improving upon cross-unit collaboration on community engagement initiatives and tracking the institution’s engagement was our top priority. the committee discussed moving toward an online platform where units would submit relevant data and information to a system that could efficiently build a profile of the university’s community engagement efforts. goal ii of the strategic plan, “engagement with the city of chicago,” and the pending call for community engagement reclassification by the carnegie foundation provided an impetus for our work. i began meeting with vendors of community-engagement-tracking software, attending sessions at conferences on tracking engagement, and initiating discussions with depaul’s information services about developing an in-house system. outside of our 2006 carnegie classification application, depaul had never comprehensively tracked community engagement activities, let alone their impact on faculty, staff, students, or community partners. during 2012-2013, a group from depaul participated in the american association of colleges and universities civic learning & democratic engagement collaborative with chicago area colleges and universities. the group produced a report that established a set of recommendations, including to 156 “establish and oversee effective processes for data and story collection related to depaul’s community engagement work for the purposes of documenting, reporting, and public relations needs” (chaden et al. 2013). completed in december 2013 and submitted to the provost, the report noted that the university was “under-utilizing and under-promoting significant university strengths and a unique and distinguishing mark of who we are”; and that a lack of a tracking system made it challenging not only for marketing, communication, and public relations, but also “for those within the university to collaborate with others in communities and with organizations where an established relationship already exists.” the latter reflected other depaul folklore stories about faculty, students, and staff from distinct units partnering with the same community organizations without even knowing it. as a result, the report concluded that “we are less effective than we might be (in our community engagement) if there existed a more transparent mechanism for sharing this information publicly.” the sentiment of this conclusion became clear to me as i completed the carnegie reclassification application and had to speak honestly about our need to better track engagement activities. after completing the application in spring 2014, i charged the steans center’s technology coordinator with creating a prototype for a university tracking system. the goal of the prototype was to allow us to begin to think through what was necessary to track university community engagement and to document the impact of the institution on communities. the starting point remained tracking activities or “projects” and not on incorporating an actual assessment of our impact on communities. by early 2015, i began using the system to prepare for the president’s higher education community service honor roll application and quickly learned that the value of this first iteration was limited. essentially, we produced a calculator that made it easier to generate community service numbers needed for the honor roll application. the system’s limitation clearly illustrated the need for larger institutional investment in tracking technology. in spring 2015, the university received the community engagement reclassification from the carnegie foundation, and shortly after, i worked with student affairs to submit a formal proposal to information services to produce a university tracking system. by the summer of 2015, the proposal was accepted and comprehensive community engagement tracking became a depaul priority. conclusion what will become of our emerging community engagement tracking culture at depaul? as we build, test, and implement a new system, how we choose to track engagement will certainly be discussed and debated, and the outcome will reflect where we position ourselves within the social and political landscape of higher education. discussions about the design of the depaul tracking system will be filled with meaning-making: what to include? how and why to include it? the verdict remains out as to whether future community engagement tracking and trackers at the university will holistically document and assess our successes as well as the quarks and blemishes that could build an authentic culture of tracking both in scope and content. the system under development will not only allow for tracking engagement activities across campus but also will include an application for maintaining a historical record of engagement outcomes that could in theory include achievements and challenges. there is also a proposal to formally recognize a depaul council on community engagement and part of the council’s charge will be to guide future development and usage of the new community engagement tracking system and how data is employed for assessment purposes rather than solely for institutional promotion and marketing. at the steans center, i intend to continue pursuing assessment and scholarship focused on dissatisfaction with community engagement as a means to improve our work. in 2010, we published an assessment project analyzing student dissatisfaction with service-learning pedagogy (rosing et al. 2010), and in 2014, we embarked upon a similar analysis of community-partner dissatisfaction (rosing et al. 2014). during the fall of 2015, we held focus groups with community partners, both to attain deeper feedback on engagement activities and also to produce new tools for collecting data on partnerships and determine the 157 impact they are having on community organizations and peoples’ lives. the focus groups solicited the cooperation of community partners in developing tracking and evaluation resources to further their interests and the interests of depaul from the standpoint of its educational and community engagement mission. through such efforts, i hope to build new forms of meaning from data that values accomplishments but also illuminates the realities we face as we struggle to understand what works best with various engagement efforts. i intend to draw on the product of the new community partner evaluation tools to tell stories about our work that incorporate all aspects, including when things go wrong or fail, and to publicize this data in a fashion that helps us to build a greater sense of trust with our community partners. to this end, planning is also underway at the center to incorporate evaluation data throughout our website and to include dissatisfaction results (complaints) from community partners, students, and faculty. as higher education institutions increasingly value community engagement as a characteristic and practice, there remains a question as to whether there will be truthful and transparent tracking and assessment of engagement; whether tracking systems will allow for self-reflexivity and critical analysis of engagement behaviors, and include perspectives from community partners. there is a need, as i have suggested, for deeper ethnographic inquiry into how those in the academy think about higher education community engagement and to move beyond tracking systems that only allow for easier promotion of how institutions do good for others. geography, history, and social and political agendas will surely continue to inform the meanings behind how and why institutions engage with external communities, as they have at depaul. why and how we in higher education choose to track such engagement within our respective sociopolitical contexts will say a lot about our motives and intentions. why tracking matters at depaul evolved on its own timeline for reasons that related to but existed beyond institutional recognition, marketing, and budget legitimation. collecting community engagement tracking data has become increasingly useful for understanding and deepening our role in chicago as a university that asks its students, faculty, and staff, “what are we doing for justice?” inquiry into rationales for why universities and colleges seek to comprehensively track community engagement remains in its infancy. future ethnographic analysis of community engagement in higher education will surely include a critique of institutional practices. in the end, i am convinced that such scholarship will produce greater transparency about the motivations and values that drive institutional engagement with communities. the longer term question persists as to whether the academy will move beyond the “who is the best” syndrome that seems to pervade through much of higher education community engagement tracking behavior; whether institutions will take up the challenge of documenting and publishing findings from engagement activities that build an authentic picture of impact on communities. this type of tracking will have to ask to what extent our practices in the community are hegemonic: for example, to what extent are we proliferating ethnocentrism among students and affirming notions of privilege in how we track and publicize our community engagement work; to what extent do we present our engagement outcomes as ahistorical and detached from current social, economic, and political issues, depoliticizing engagement in ways that mystify the complicity of the academy in producing structural inequality; and to what extent is our work impaired by tendencies to solve problems in communities rather than to deploy resources to honestly and transparently assist in building the capacity with our community partners. as i have sought to articulate, there is a value in telling personal stories that lead to deeper inquiry into our emerging community engagement tracking practice in higher education. an authentic tracking practice will require a different kind of data analytics; one where the conclusions drawn will allow for better decision-making, for verification of models or theories of engagement at the institutional level, and for comparative analysis across institutions about successful and challenging engagement practices. as we pursue development of a critical community engagement tracking practice, telling stories that unpack the good news as well as the challenges and controversial baggage of the past and present, we will likely 158 produce new meanings and a sense of humility and increased integrity attached to our institutional engagement profiles. perhaps the new meanings that emerge from this type of tracking culture will serve as some of the most effective institutional promotion that we can ask for. references brukardt, m. j., b. holland, s. percy, and n. zimpher. 2004. “calling the question: is higher education ready to commit to community engagement? a wingspread statement.” accessed august 31, 2015. https://www4.uwm.edu/milwaukeeidea/elements/wingspread.pdf. chaden, caryn, mark laboe, nadya engler, iman kort, jacqueline lazú, marisol morales, howard rosing et al. 2013. “maximizing the positive impact of depaul’s community engagement.” unpublished report from the 2012-13 aac&u civic learning & democratic engagement collaborative with chicago area colleges and universities, last modified december 17, 2013. microsoft word file. depaul university office of mission and values. accessed september 15, 2015. http://offices.depaul.edu/mission-and-values/about/pages/missionstatement.aspx. furco, andrew, and william miller. 2009. “issues in benchmarking and assessing institutional engagement.” new directions for higher education 2009 (147): 47-54. harvey, david. 2005. a brief history of neoliberalism. oxford: oxford university press. holland, barbara a. 2001. “toward a definition and characterization of the engaged campus: six cases.” metropolitan universities 12 (3): 20-29. hyatt, susan b. 2001. “service-learning, applied anthropology, and the production of neo-liberal citizens.” anthropology in action 8 (1): 6-13. kretzmann, john p., and john l. mcknight. 1991. building communities from the inside out: a path toward finding and mobilizing a community's assets. evanston, il: institute for policy research. meister, richard, and charles strain. 2004. "depaul university: strategic planning and service learning" in public works and the academy: an academic administrator’s guide to civic engagement, edited by mark langseth and william m. plater, 101-123. bolton, ma: anker publishing company. petras, james. 1997. “volunteerism: the great deception.” economic and political weekly, july 5: 15871589. rhoades, gary, and sheila slaughter. 2006. “academic capitalism and the new economy: privatization as shifting the target of public subsidy in higher education.” in the university, state, and market: the political economy of globalization in the americas, edited by robert r. rhoads and carlos alberto torres, 102-14. palo alto: stanford university press. rosing, howard, susan reed, joe ferrari, and nancy bothne. 2010. “understanding student complaints in the service-learning pedagogy.” american journal of community psychology 46 (3/4): 472-481. rosing, howard, helen rosenberg, anne stratham, and susan reed. 2014. “developing tools for understanding community partner complaints in the service-learning pedagogy.” paper presented at the international association for research on service-learning and community engagement conference, new orleans, la, september. https://www4.uwm.edu/milwaukeeidea/elements/wingspread.pdf http://offices.depaul.edu/mission-and-values/about/pages/missionstatement.aspx 159 sandmann, lorilee r., and william m. plater. 2009. “leading the engaged institution.” new directions for higher education, special issue: institutionalizing community engagement in higher education: the first wave of carnegie classified institutions 2009 (147): 13–24. steinfels, peter. 2001. “john j. egan, priest and rights advocate, is dead at 84.” new york times, may 22. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/22/us/john-j-egan-priest-and-rights-advocate-is-dead-at-84.html. welch, marshall, and john saltmarsh. 2013. “current practice and infrastructures for campus centers of community engagement.” journal of higher education outreach and engagement 17 (4): 25-56. worrall, laurie. 2007. “asking the community: a case study of community partner perspectives.” michigan journal of community service learning 14 (1): 5-17. author information dr. howard rosing is the executive director of the steans center for community-based service learning and community service studies at depaul university. he teaches in community service studies, geography, and the master's in sustainable urban development (masud). he is an affiliate faculty member in community psychology and co-directs masud. rosing is a cultural anthropologist who is actively engaged in scholarship on service-learning and community-based research as pedagogies. in addition to a number of articles, he co-edited (with nila ginger hofman) pedagogies of praxis: coursebased action research in the social sciences (jossey-bass, 2007). he holds a phd in anthropology from the state university of new york-binghamton. howard rosing irwin w. steans center for community-based service learning and community service studies depaul university 2233 n. kenmore chicago, il 60614 e-mail: hrosing@depaul.edu telephone: 773-325-7463 fax: 773-325-7459 http://www.nytimes.com/2001/05/22/us/john-j-egan-priest-and-rights-advocate-is-dead-at-84.html mailto:hrosing@depaul.edu 75 leveraging internal partnerships and existing data infrastructure to track and assess community engagement across the university valerie l. holton, jennifer f. jettner, jennifer l. early, and kathleen k. shaw abstract universities increasingly see community engagement as a means to achieve their mission. in order to assess the impact of these efforts, it is necessary to gather and analyze data from across the institution on community-engaged activities. this article presents a case study of virginia commonwealth university’s efforts in developing enterprise data mechanisms that track and assess community engagement across teaching, research, and service activities. we focus attention on the importance of internal collaboration and reliance on existing internal data mechanisms as key strategies. lessons learned and uses of the data are discussed. despite the value of community engagement enterprise data, few tools exist to support their systematic identification, tracking, measurement, and monitoring (adams, badenhorst, and berman 2005; greenburg and moore 2012; hart, northmore, and gerhardt 2009). this is due, in part, to the challenges associated with designing and implementing data collection mechanisms across large, complex institutions. feasibility constraints are often around lack of funding, personnel, and the decentralization of large, complex universities (furco and miller 2009; holland 2005). additionally, there are no standardized operational definitions or models associated with community-engaged activities and outcomes (furco and miller 2009; greenburg and moore 2012; holland 2001). to add further complexity, institutions often need both comprehensive campus-wide data as well as unit-level and project-specific data that provide more detailed information (greenburg and moore 2012). consequently, the data needed are multifaceted and complex, necessitating data mechanisms that must reflect this reality. this article presents a case study of virginia commonwealth university’s (vcu) approach to developing enterprise data collection mechanisms that capture information about its community-engaged activities. this is intended to add to the growing literature on this topic (furco and miller 2009; greenburg and moore 2012; hart, northmore, and gerhardt 2009; holland, scott, and grebennikov 2010; janke 2014). the aim in this article is to highlight vcu’s approach of leveraging the resources of 76 internal partnerships and existing data systems to track and assess community-engaged teaching, research, and service. the ability to collect this information internally is seen as an important first step in the larger effort to assess these efforts. the article begins with a brief description of vcu followed by a discussion of the approach used to systematically track and assess five types of community-engaged activities: servicelearning, student volunteer service, twelve-month employee volunteer service, community-engaged research, and community-university partnerships. the following section provides detailed information about the data infrastructure for the key university-wide community-engaged activities. the paper concludes with a discussion of how the data can be used and lessons learned. virginia commonwealth university virginia commonwealth university (vcu) was founded on a commitment to improve the health and well-being of its community through the education of its citizenry, development of new knowledge, and outreach. the founding schools of its two campuses were social work and medicine – both professional disciplines with an explicit focus on linking research and teaching to improve the quality of lives in the community. later, as the commonwealth considered the creation of vcu from these campuses, the wayne commission recommended the establishment of an “urbanoriented state university” with the following statement that evokes vcu’s founding public mission: “it has become increasing apparent that the conditions prevailing in our urban centers present many of our most critical national, state, and local problems. however we may view the social, political, or economic issues facing our nation today, we are aware that our future depends in large part upon the wisdom with which we attack and solve the dilemmas of our…cities….rarely has so challenging an opportunity to combine the free pursuit of knowledge in its own right with the ready availability of that knowledge for the enlightenment and enrichment of the larger community of which it is a part been presented to an institution of higher education.” report of the commission to plan for the establishment of a proposed statesupported university in the richmond metropolitan area, 1967 vcu institutionalizes its mission through its strategic priorities and resource allocation. notably, community engagement and regional impact is one of three themes in the university strategic plan and explicit language about community-engaged teaching, research, and service has been added to the university and unit-level promotion and tenure policies (http://future.vcu.edu). following its initial designation in 2006, vcu again received the carnegie foundation’s 2015 community engagement classification; one of fifty-four universities designated as being “community-engaged” with “very high research activity.” since 2007, vcu has also been recognized for 77 student service through the us president’s higher education community service honor roll, receiving “honor roll with distinction” in 2013 and 2014. vcu’s current strategic plan, the quest for distinction, emphasizes university-wide integrated planning, data-driven decision-making, and continuous assessment. central to this effort has been a focus on establishing a sustainable enterprise data infrastructure and sustainable processes and information that can support strategic decision-making. enterprise data refers to data that is shared across the many departments and units in the university (or organization). in the following sections we describe the efforts and the collaborations that were necessary to support the work, the specific data collection strategies, and provide examples of data collected. we begin by overviewing the key terms and concepts related to community engagement in use at vcu. development of terms and definitions as part of the university’s larger effort to institutionalize community engagement as a distinctive part of its identity, vcu’s council for community engagement (cce) led the initiative to identify and define community engagement terms. the cce, tasked with promoting community-engagement across the university, is composed of representatives from all university academic units, key research centers and institutes, and many of the support units. it was thought that this would contribute to a shared understanding of community engagement and associated activities as well as serve as the foundation for comprehensive data collection efforts. the process included a comprehensive literature review and small and large group discussions to refine the core elements of ‘community-engagement’ and related terms. once finalized, these terms were reviewed and approved by the president’s cabinet in 2013 (virginia commonwealth university 2013). it should be noted that vcu officially adopted its definition of service-learning in 1997 using a similar process. building upon the carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching’s definition (2006), vcu defines community-engagement as “the collaboration between institutions of higher education and their larger communities for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in the context of partnership and reciprocity. it can involve partnerships and coalitions that help mobilize resources and influence systems and serve as catalysts for initiating and/or changing policies, programs, and practices.” this definition and related vcu defined communityengagement terms, summarized in table 1, served as the foundation and key starting point for vcu’s efforts to collect data about the various community-engagement components. for each community-engagement activity described later, an effort was made to create operational definitions. collaboration among internal stakeholders was instrumental to those efforts. 78 table 1: vcu community engagement terms and definition term definition community a group of people external to the campus who are affiliated by geographic proximity, special interest, similar situation, or shared values. communities may share characteristics such as age, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation. partnership sustained collaboration between institutions of higher education and communities for the mutually beneficial exchange, exploration, and application of knowledge, information, and resources. examples are research, capacity building, or economic development. community the application and provision of institutional resources, knowledge, outreach or services that directly benefit the community. examples include music concerts, athletic events, student volunteers, public lectures, or health fairs. community the collaboration between institutions of higher education and their engagement larger communities for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in the context of partnership and reciprocity. it can involve partnerships and coalitions that help mobilize resources and influence systems and serve as catalysts for initiating and/or changing policies, programs, and practices. community the creation and dissemination of knowledge and creative engaged expression in furtherance of the mission and goals of the university scholarship and in collaboration with the community. community-engaged scholarship (ces) addresses community needs through research, teaching, and service in a mutually beneficial partnership. the quality and impact of ces are determined by academic peers and community partners. community the application of one’s professional expertise that addresses a engaged community-identified need and supports the goals and mission of the service university and the community. community-engaged service may entail the delivery of expertise, resources, and services to the community. community a pedagogical approach that connects students and faculty with engaged activities that address community-identified needs through mutually teaching/ beneficial partnerships that deepen students’ academic and civic learning learning. examples are service-learning courses or service-learning clinical practica. community a collaborative process between the researcher and community engaged partner that creates and disseminates knowledge and creative research expression with the goal of contributing to the discipline and strengthening the well-being of the community. communityengaged research (cer) identifies the assets of all stakeholders and incorporates them in the design and conduct of the different phases of the research process. 79 internal collaboration a primary tactic in vcu’s approach to the development of the communityengagement data infrastructure has been to identify and leverage existing internal collaborations among units that have strategic involvement in the particular area. these collaborations often arise when internal stakeholders see an opportunity to more easily accomplish a strategic initiative or project by sharing information, resources, and personnel effort. most of the project teams have been small and included members who had a shared interest in and understanding of data. these teams have been successful, at least in part, due to this shared understanding and commitment (franz 2005). the teams also relied on informal relationships and processes. these ad hoc internal collaborations are especially prolific in a complex organization like vcu, with fourteen schools and colleges and an academic health system (franz 2005; ghoshal, korine, and gabriel 1994; weick 1976). a second tactic was identifying and intentionally complementing work that was already underway. vcu has attempted to coordinate and communicate communityengagement efforts through the cce, but even this body of representatives drawn from across the university is challenged to keep informed of the wide-range of activities. one strategy that has proved helpful has been to ask project teams to develop and share talking points and project descriptions with others across the university. the university’s explicit focus on creating enterprise data infrastructure related to community engagement chiefly builds upon several ongoing, formal collaborations involving the division of community engagement (dce) and the office of planning decision and support, among other units. the dce leads and supports efforts across the university related to community-engaged work and is housed within the office of the provost and vice president for academic affairs. its mission is to mobilize university-community partnerships that generate innovative solutions to societal challenges and prepare our students as engaged citizens of tomorrow. a key function of dce is to monitor, assess, and celebrate the university’s success in deepening its engagement through its core mission and functions. the dce accomplishes that through efforts such as directing signature outreach programs; providing technical assistance and professional development for individual faculty and students; and overseeing aspire, a living-learning community that promotes community engagement through academic coursework and co-curricular experiences for undergraduate students. in partnership with the office of planning and decision support, the dce leads the development, implementation, and dissemination of data related to vcu’s community engagement efforts. the office of planning and decision support (opds), also housed in the provost’s office, provides the foundational structure for data-driven decision-making. opds pairs data and analysis with decision-making throughout the institution to identify information needed for decisions that are consistent with the university’s mission and strategic direction and to ensure that decision-makers have ready access to that information. the office has taken the lead in identifying institutional data “gaps,” 80 developing mechanisms and processes to collect new data, and vetting and standardizing data for internal and external use. in reviewing the accomplishments to date, we see that the reliance on internal collaborations as well as the balance of formal and informal collaborations has contributed to vcu’s success in these efforts. consistent with the principles of community engagement, these collaborations were approached as a way to value and benefit from the diverse expertise found across the university. similarly, the collaborations ensured that the initiatives were mutually beneficial both in terms of the data infrastructure and the outputs. this reliance on internal collaborations also supported the use of existing data infrastructure since many of the stakeholders were familiar with or actively using these systems. existing data collection mechanisms as vcu has developed its internal enterprise data infrastructure around communityengaged efforts, one consideration has been when (and whether) to alter existing enterprise data systems within the university and when (and whether) to develop or purchase an additional system (furco and miller 2009). the literature reflects the reliance on project-specific data collection mechanisms like one-time or annual survey tools to gather internal community engagement data (greenburg and moore 2012; hart, northmore, and gerhardt 2009; furco and miller 2009). there is also a growing availability of software systems specific to capturing internal community engagement data. for example, university of north carolina greensboro (uncg) is collaborating with treetop commons to build the community engagement collaboratory® (the collaboratory®), a cloud-based software application that tracks partnership and public service activities between universities and communities. additionally, digital measures’activity insite is a platform for collecting, aggregating, and reporting on all faculty activities, and they have added a model specifically for community-engaged activities (http://www.digitalmeasures.com). these are but two examples among many systems currently available to gather engagement data; this high level of activity signals the growing focus on data collection and impact analysis. vcu has prioritized the use of existing data collection mechanisms to collect community engagement related data from our faculty, staff, and students. this approach has proved to have multiple benefits. because many of the existing data systems are on a routine schedule and have mandatory completion requirements, they contain comprehensive population data – that is, data on all known instances of the activity across the university. for example, the use of the irb application to track community-engaged research means that all approved human-subjects protocols involving community partners can be identified. this approach of using existing systems also limits response burden since information does not have to be entered multiple times. finally, the inclusion of a few additional engagement related questions into existing mechanisms does not require the additional costs associated with the purchase and maintenance of a separate system. 81 in the following section, we present five examples of how vcu used internal collaborations to combine existing and novel data infrastructures (table 2). these examples relate to the three dimensions of the university’s mission: teaching, research, and service. for each, we provide some background information, the definition used, and a description of the data collection mechanism. we then illustrate the types of findings that are available through that mechanism and conclude with a summary of strengths and limitations. (see holton, jettner, early, and shaw 2015 for a description related to partnerships.) community-engaged teaching/learning: service-learning background. since 1997, vcu has officially recognized service-learning as a distinct pedagogy. it defines community-engaged teaching/learning as “a pedagogical approach that connects students and faculty with activities that address community-identified needs through mutually beneficial partnerships that deepen students’ academic and civic learning. examples are service-learning courses or service-learning clinical practica.” vcu views service-learning as an intentional teaching strategy that engages students in organized service activities and guided reflection. the service activities must benefit the community and, in combination with reflection and other classroombased learning activities, enhance the academic curriculum of participating students. successful completion of a service-learning course is reflected on official student transcripts. the dce is responsible for providing technical assistance to academic units and individual faculty members who design and offer service-learning courses. definition. the operational definition of service-learning requires the following three elements: (1) twenty hours of student service, (2) the service meets a communityidentified need, and (3) student reflection that connects service and learning. servicelearning courses are approved by the dce and are designated in banner. data collection mechanisms. service learning is tracked and assessed using three mechanisms: (a) web reports generated through the university’s banner system, (b) student surveys, and (c) faculty surveys. university’s banner system. approved service-learning courses are tracked by the university’s office of records and registration (registrar office) using banner, a higher education administrative software application that tracks student, faculty, and course-related information. once dce reviews and approves service-learning courses, the registrar office tags courses in banner as ‘srv lrn.’ the opds and registrar office were critical partners for developing automated and reliable web reports for service-learning courses. reports are available by semester and include the following information: student demographics, instructor demographics, and number of distinct courses and class sections by academic unit. 82 ta bl e 2. s u m m ar y of v cu ’s c om m u n it y en ga ge m en t d at a en te rp ri se s ys te m s d at a c om po ne nt in cl us io n cr ite ri a c ol le ct io n t oo l c en tr al iz ed a d at ab as e k ey c ol la bo ra to rs b r es po ns ib le p ar ty & t im ef ra m e d at a t yp e po pu la tio n vs sa m pl e d at a u se se rv ic el ea rn in g (s l ) c ou rs es o ff ic ia lly de si gn at ed a s se rv ic ele ar ni ng w eb -r ep or ts (s l co ur se s ta g em be dd ed ) b an ne rc r eg is tra r o ff ic e; o pd s fa cu lty re qu es t s l co ur se a pp ro va l; r eg is tra r o ff ic e ad ds s l ta g; se m es te r b as is d es cr ip tiv e da ta (# sl c ou rs es , en ro llm en t, st ud en t da ta , & fa cu lty de m og ra ph ic s) po pu la tio n tr ac ki ng & m on ito rin g; an d im pa ct o n st ud en ts st ud en t s ur ve y (s li m ) d iv is io n; a nn ua l ba si sd st ud en t pe rc ep tio ns sa m pl e im pa ct o n st ud en ts fa cu lty s ur ve y d iv is io n; a nn ua l ba si sd fa cu lty pe rc ep tio ns sa m pl e im pa ct o n fa cu lty st ud en t v ol un te er se rv ic e a ct iv iti es th at m ee t p re si de nt ’s h on or r ol l re qu ire m en ts em ai l r eq ue st s to id en tif ie d un it co nt ac ts in d ev el op m en t (r am se rv e) d st ud en t a ff ai rs d iv is io n; a nn ua l ba si s d es cr ip tiv e da ta (# of h ou rs , # o f st ud en ts ) sa m pl e tr ac ki ng & m on ito rin g 12 -m on th e m pl oy ee v ol un te er se rv ic e a pp ro ve d se rv ic e le av e re qu es ts fo r 12 -m on th em pl oy ee s el ec tro ni c le av e re qu es ts (c sl ca te go ry em be dd ed ) h um an r es ou rc es c h um an r es ou rc es in di vi du al pe rs on ne l; o ng oi ng ba si s d es cr ip tiv e da ta (# of h ou rs , # o f em pl oy ee s) po pu la tio n tr ac ki ng & m on ito rin g c om m un ity e ng ag ed r es ea rc h (c e nr ) a pp ro ve d hu m an su bj ec ts p ro to co ls ir b a pp lic at io n (q ue st io ns em be dd ed ) in te rn al r ev ie w b oa rd (i r b ) da ta ba se c o ff ic e of r es ea rc h pr in ci pa l in ve st ig at or ; o ng oi ng b as is d es cr ip tiv e da ta (# c en r , l ev el o f in vo lv em en t, pa rtn er c on ta ct ) po pu la tio n tr ac ki ng & m on ito rin g u ni ve rs ity c om m un ity pa rt ne rs hi ps sa tis fy o ff ic ia l de fin iti on o f “p ar tn er sh ip ” u ni t s ur ve y pa rtn er sh ip m ap d c c tr , o pd s d iv is io n; a nn ua l ba si s d es cr ip tiv e da ta (# pa rtn er s, c on ta ct in fo , f oc us a re a) sa m pl e tr ac ki ng & m on ito rin g a c en tr a li ze d r ef er s to m ec h a n is m s th a t co ll ec t u n iv er si ty -w id e d a ta . b t h e d iv is io n o f c o m m u n it y e n g a g em en t co ll a b o ra te d w it h t h e li st ed d ep a rt m en ts /u n it s. c e xi st in g m ec h a n is m s d n o ve l m ec h a n is m s 83 service-learning impact measure (slim). the slim is an online survey used to evaluate the impact of service-learning on students. developed by dce, the slim measures the impact of service-learning experiences on a variety of learning and behavioral outcomes. for example, the slim assesses students’ intent to continue serving, skills they gained through service-learning opportunities, and the extent to which service-learning was beneficial in developing awareness of local issues, increasing their ability to work in diverse groups, and understanding their own biases and privileges. at the end of each semester, dce emails the survey to all students enrolled in service-learning courses. slim is separate and distinct from the academic units’ course evaluations (virginia commonwealth university, office of servicelearning, division of community engagement 2014-2015; see slim report appendix for slim tool). online survey of service-learning faculty. faculty members who teach servicelearning courses are emailed an online survey to inform program evaluation efforts. developed by dce, this survey assesses perceived level of support and impact of service-learning on their teaching and scholarship. for example, faculty members are asked to what degree they perceive administration (e.g. president, their dean, committee chair) to be supportive of service-learning and what services provided by dce were useful to them. beginning this year, this survey will be conducted yearly (up from every two years). examples of findings. banner reports show that for the 2014-2015 academic year, ninety-two instructors delivered 117 distinct service-learning courses to 3,608 enrolled students. among the instructors, 71 percent were female, and 17 percent were tenured. according to the 2014-2015 slim report, the majority of service-learning students reported that the course helped them develop specific skills, such as working effectively in diverse groups and being more aware of their own biases and prejudices. qualitative data revealed that students generally perceived their service-learning experience to be positive and 31 percent indicated that they intended to continue to serve with the partner organization. faculty who had taught service-learning courses during the 2011-12 academic year (n=69) were surveyed, of which 77% responded. faculty members agreed or strongly agreed that they have been impacted by their service-learning/community-engaged activities in the following ways: 98% reported the classroom experience was enriched, 91% reported a strengthened sense of community, 89% reported they were more satisfied with their jobs, 82% saw their teaching improve, 62% had increased innovation in their scholarship and research, and 47% reported their research had increased relevance. approximately half of faculty members (53%) had generated a total of seventy scholarly products from their service-learning/community-engaged activities. in addition, the majority of faculty perceived leadership to be supportive; 88% described the president and provost as very or extremely supportive followed by students (79%), department chairs (76%), deans (67%), and colleagues (58%). (see virginia commonwealth university, office of service-learning, division of community engagement 2013 for full report). 84 summary. data from the automated web reports, slim survey, and faculty survey supports the development of high-quality, high-impact service-learning courses and provides the university with critical information about its service-learning courses that enables ongoing evaluation of the impact of service-learning on university-level priorities and promotes high quality research on service-learning. banner data combined with slim surveys have been used to compare various outcomes between service-learning and non-service-learning students (lockeman and pelco 2013) and to assess the differential impacts of service-learning on first-generation students (pelco, ball, and lockeman 2014). community-engaged service: student volunteer service background. the collaboration between the dce, university of student commons and activities (usca), and career services has been central to the university-wide effort to encourage and document student service. the usca promotes student volunteer opportunities and sponsors several signature volunteer events on campus (e.g., annual blood drive). they also manage student organizations, many of which also promote service and document their service through online self-report surveys. the career center promotes experiential learning (i.e., service, co-curricular experiences, and internships) as key to identifying and launching a career. the center is implementing a mechanism to track and assess these experiential learning opportunities and how they affect students’ career trajectories and impact local partners. one way that vcu tells the story of student service is through recognition by the us president’s higher education community service (phecs) honor roll (honor roll). the honor roll annually “highlights the role colleges and universities play in solving community problems and placing more students on a lifelong path of civic engagement by recognizing institutions that achieve meaningful, measurable outcomes in the communities they serve” (corporation for national community service n.d.). vcu has successfully applied for recognition since 2007 and achieved “with distinction” recognition in 2013 and 2014. definition. vcu defines student volunteer service according to the definition used by the honor roll as “activities designed to improve the quality of life of off-campus community residents, particularly lowincome individuals. community service activities may include but are not limited to: academic service-learning, co-curricular service learning (not part of an academic course, but utilizing service-learning elements) and other co-curricular student volunteer activities as well as work-study community service and paid community service internships. community service includes both direct service to citizens (e.g., serving food to the needy) and indirect service (e.g., assessing community nutrition needs or managing a food bank)” (corporation for national community service n.d.). 85 data collection mechanism. each fall the dce solicits aggregate student volunteer service data from key stakeholders across the university. units are asked to provide: (a) number of students engaged in community service, (b) number of students who did twenty hours or more per semester, and (c) total number of service hours. table 3 summarizes the service types and associated data sources. table 3. summary of student service data sources service type inclusion criteria contact data source data source characteristics servicelearning approved designated service-learning courses division’s office of servicelearning banner webreports university-wide internships/ practicums/ clinical education internships students engage in for academic credit various units across university internal database records maintained by individual units co-curricular activities service that is not associated with an academic course, but includes service-learning elements (e.g., reflection) usca & aspire director internal database records maintained by usca & aspire community federal work study (fws) fws located offcampus. eligible on-campus fws are positions in the library and recreation (service to students is allowable) federal work study coordinator human resources university-wide americorps americorps program americorps director internal database records maintained by americorps general community service service that benefits the community usca & miscellaneous internal database & sign-in sheets for miscellaneous unit service projects records maintained by usca and miscellaneous units 86 examples of findings. for the 2013-2014 academic year, 18,236 students engaged in over one million hours of service (see table 4 for more details). this was a 13 percent increase in the number of students who engaged in service and an 18 percent increase in the number of hours served compared with the prior academic year. table 4. overview of student service data student service 2012-2013 2013-2014 # students # hours # students # hours for academic credit (servicelearning, internships, co-curricular) 7,725 899,806 8,137 1,115,523 not for academic credit 8,412 208,978 10,099 200,657 total 16,137 1,108,784 18,236 1,316,180 summary. this mechanism allows for the tracking of unit-level, and some projectlevel, student community service. however, it is time consuming, likely underrepresents the number of hours, and only provides high-level information. in response to these limitations, representatives from the dce, usca, career services, opds, and vcu technology services are collaborating to develop ramserve, a data collection mechanism that will integrate data from various systems, and they also created a mobile application (and desktop version) for students to track and manage their service information. data from this app will be integrated with existing data mechanisms (i.e., banner and a newly-purchased internship database) to assess student impact and identify community partners. the app rolled this fall (2015). ultimately, this mechanism will be able to provide data to explore the following questions: •   what is the impact of these activities on student learning outcomes (e.g., retention,  gpa) and future employment? •   does impact, if any, vary by type of service experience (e.g., service-learning,  general community service), frequency, and quality? •   who are the community partners engaging these students, and what community  needs are being addressed? •   what is the quality of these relationships, and can vcu identify strategic universitylevel partnerships based on this information? community-engaged service: twelve-month employee community service background. the university promotes community service and the use of statesanctioned community-service leave to promote an institutional culture of service. vcu defines community-engaged service as “the application of one’s professional expertise that addresses a community-identified need and supports the goals and mission of the university and the community. community-engaged service may entail the delivery of expertise, resources, and services to the community.” 87 effective 2001, the commonwealth of virginia passed legislation that grants state employees up to sixteen hours of paid leave to provide volunteer services. at vcu, the department of human resource management (human resources) is responsible for interpreting and implementing this state policy. community service leave (csl) may only be used for volunteer activities provided to nonprofit organizations or for school assistance. vcu defines eligible agencies as public or private nonprofit organizations that are “engaged in meeting human, education, environmental, or public safety community needs.” a maximum of sixteen hours is available to all full-time employees on an annual basis, and is pro-rated for part-time employees (virginia commonwealth university, human resources n.d.) the dce promotes service opportunities and encourages the use of csl. definition. vcu defines community-engaged service as the approved use of csl as reported through the human resource department. data collection mechanism. tracking and monitoring the use of csl is managed through the vcu human resource department. employees request the use of their leave in the same way they request the use of other types of leave (e.g., sick, vacation). once supervisors provide approval, employees are able to received paid leave for volunteering during normal business hours. dce works with the hr department to provide regular reporting of the use of csl. examples of findings. information on the use of csl is quantitative and collected on a calendar year basis. in 2014, 1,452 vcu twelve-month employees used their community service leave hours, an increase of 4 percent compared to 2013. these employees provided a total of 15,522 service hours which represents an increase of 5.4 percent compared to 2013. summary. this mechanism systematically collects data on employees who use csl. however, anecdotal evidence indicates that this benefit is underutilized. the dce, in partnership with a local organization that specializes in linking people with volunteer opportunities, develops and promotes service and the use of csl. community-engaged research: approved human subjects research protocols background. prior to 2013, vcu had not systematically collected information on community-engaged research (cenr). this created challenges in establishing a baseline of activity against which to measure progress in increasing high quality, high impact cenr. furthermore, it was becoming increasingly important to key external audiences that vcu identify and track cenr. of note were the impending 2014 ctsa renewal and carnegie re-classification applications. in both applications, vcu wanted to highlight its commitment to cenr through, in part, the institutionalization a data tracking system as well as data highlighting the degree of community partner involvement in research. 88 a team representing the dce, office of research, and the federally-funded center for clinical and translational research (cctr), along with several established communityengaged research faculty developed a strategy to systematically identify cenr across vcu. the university’s institutional review board (irb) held the only known universitywide mechanism for collecting data related to research projects that might involve community partners. given that the main intent of the irb process is to protect human subjects, the addition of cenr-related questions had to be brief and align with the overall purpose of the review process (for more information, see holton 2013). definition. vcu defines community-engaged research (cenr) as “a collaborative process between the researcher and community partners that creates and disseminates knowledge and creative expression with the goal of contributing to the discipline and strengthening the well-being of the community.” it is operationalized as all human-subjects protocols approved by the institutional review board involving a community partner. data collection mechanism. the irb application asks the principle investigator (pi) to specify if community partners are involved in the proposed study, provide partner information, and indicate the degree of each partner’s involvement by categorical levels (adapted from khodyakov et al. 2013) (table 5). table 5: cenr questions included in the irb application is there at least one community partner* involved in the proposed study? (yes/no) if yes … please provide the following details about each community partner. if there are more than five community partners, please provide the following information on the five most significant community partners. if a community partner is a collaboration of multiple partners, please indicate the name of the larger collaboration and the zip code or country of the location where the majority of the research is taking place. •  name of the organization •  zip code or country of the organization which of the three statements below best describes the role of the community partner in the study? •   community partners only provide access to study subjects or project sites. they are not involved with study design, subject recruitment, data collection, or data analysis. •   community partners do not make decisions about the study design or conduct, but  provide guidance to the researcher about the study design, subject recruitment, data collection, or data analysis. •   community partners make decisions with the researcher(s) about the study’s research activities and/or help conduct those activities (i.e., study design, subject recruitment, data collection, and/or data analysis). *a community partner is an individual or organization that is not affiliated with vcu or vcu health systems (e.g., veterans’ administration health systems, a nonprofit 89 or ngo, a business) but who is engaged with vcu or vcu health systems in this proposed study. examples of findings. this mechanism revealed that fifty-nine cenr projects were carried out by twenty-one academic units and departments from july 2014-june 2015. sixty-five community partners were involved at different levels of engagement with the research project: 53% provided access to study participants or project sites; 22 percent provided guidance to the researcher about the study design, subject recruitment, data collection, or data analysis; 25 percent made decisions with the researchers about the study’s research activities and/or helped conduct those activities. the projects were conducted internationally and nationally, with 69 percent occurring in richmond, virginia and the surrounding area. thirty-seven percent of the cenr projects received some form of external funding. summary. this mechanism provides population data on all the irb approved (human subjects) community-engaged research across vcu. reports pulled from the irb application reveal information about the faculty who are conducting the research (e.g., name, home department), the partners involved (e.g., name, geographic location) and the research itself (e.g., title, intensity of community partner involvement, type of research). differentiating levels of partner involvement was determined to be highly valuable because it provides greater sensitivity in the measurement of the changes in the level of stakeholder involvement, thereby providing an impact measurement for the efforts to increase the degree of involvement of the community partner. it also provides flexibility in reporting since it satisfies the varying operational definitions of community-engaged research, with some emphasizing more integral involvement of partners in the research activities (stanton 2012). dce and cctr are developing a complimentary process for assessing cenr that includes a broader range of process, product, and outcome measures (calleson, jordan, seifer 2005; maurana et al. 2001). key assessment areas under consideration include evidence that community-identified priorities direct research activities, numbers of publications in peer-reviewed journals, innovative dissemination products, and improved community outcomes. discussion in an atmosphere of increasing demand for data to guide planning, inform decisions, and conduct impact assessments, vcu has used internal collaborations to create opportunities to gather enterprise data on community-engaged teaching, research, and service. through these collaborations, existing data mechanisms have been identified and, in some cases slightly adapted or paired with novel instruments to provide systematic data collection infrastructure on engagement efforts across the university. these efforts are part of the larger university effort to engage in university-wide integrated planning, data driven decision-making and continuous assessment, and allow vcu to take the next critical step in our assessments – incorporating the community perspective on and experiences with these efforts. 90 data are critical to university-wide planning efforts around community-engagement and regional impact. using the mechanisms described here, vcu can track key types of community-engaged teaching, research, and service across the university. this enables senior leaders to determine where additional resource investments or changes to organizational structure and administrative processes may be needed. a key to enterprise data infrastructure is the ability to provide clear, relevant information in a timely manner to the stakeholders to support decision-making. for instance, the data gathered through the faculty service-learning surveys have influenced the development of additional resources and professional development opportunities for faculty. the cenr data from the irb mechanism are being used to inform conversations about the possible need to provide more research coordination in specific geographic regions. to support decision-making, it is necessary to engage in continual evaluation of the mechanism to determine the quality and usefulness of the data. for instance, an evaluation is underway of the cenr data collection mechanism linked to the irb application. while a definition of community partner is included in the questions related to cenr, anecdotal reports have indicated that there is confusion over who or what actually counts as a community partner. some pis have indicated their assumption is that a community partner can only be a nonprofit organization. this may result in inconsistent reporting of partner involvement and may also overlook the involvement of critical partners. continuous assessment efforts target students, faculty, staff, and community partners and inform the evaluation and improvement of engagement efforts. data obtained from the service-learning mechanism informed recent dissertation research at vcu on the impact of service-learning on student retention, which has, in turn, begun the conversation about how to provide service-learning opportunities to those students who are at-risk of dropping out (lockeman and pelco 2013). feedback and insights from community partners inform the focus of professional development for faculty and staff as well as needed educational trainings for students. community perspective. a critical area under development is the assessment of the impact of community-engaged teaching, research, and service on our community in general and on our community partners specifically. vcu continues to explore and develop ways to incorporate the perspectives of community partners into the information gathered about these activities. for instance, as the number of servicelearning courses offered increases, it is important to understand the perspectives of our community partners who provide these experiential opportunities. similarly, as more faculty members seek to initiate and engage in research partnerships, feedback from community partners will shape professional development offerings to support mutually beneficial partnerships. to that end, we have included requests for information on community partners in each of these mechanisms (where possible) and are developing mechanisms to collect their feedback and perspectives. 91 lessons learned. several general lessons emerge from vcu’s experiences to date. one key consideration is the need to balance the constraints and purposes of existing data collection mechanisms with the information sought related to community-engaged activity. for example, the primary purpose of the irb application is to support the protection of human subjects. therefore, it was important to structure the additional questions in a way that both advance the reviewers ability to identify possible ethical risks while also providing information relevant to the efforts to advance high quality, high impact, community-engaged research. a second lesson is that it is important to communicate the importance of engagement and engagement data to faculty, staff, and students. it is necessary to shape this message to convey the importance to their interests as well as to the university as a whole. this message is particularly important in promoting the use of the voluntary mechanisms such as ramserv. the dce has developed several tools to promote awareness, including an infographic highlighting how community engagement data are used, a data dashboard on its website (www.community.vcu.edu), internal stories and blog posts that highlight community-engagement activities and data, and unit-level data reports. another key message is to highlight the existence and appropriate use of available engagement opportunities and data systems. for instance, significant efforts have been made to promote the availability of csl including a series of internal news stories to highlight how employees have used their time and an infographic outlining how to use the leave system. next steps. because of these strategies to integrate community engagement data into ongoing enterprise data collection efforts, vcu has embarked on an intentional conversation to identify a limited number of thematic areas in which engaged activity would leverage strengths and existing resources within vcu to meet specific community-identified needs or opportunities. an analytical review of a wide array of community-generated reports and strategic plans has been recently completed and will be used to engage members of the vcu and regional community in a 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regional priorities and opportunities.” virginia commonwealth university. http://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/ community_resources/. holton, valerie l., jennifer f. jettner, jennifer l. early, and kathleen k. shaw. 2015. “measuring community-university partnerships across a complex research university: lessons and findings from a pilot enterprise data collection mechanism.” metropolitan universities journal 26 (2). israel, barbara a., edith a. parker, zachary rowe, alicia salvatore, meredith minkler, jesús lópez, arlene butz et al. 2005. “community-based participatory research: lessons learned from the centers for children’s environmental health and disease prevention research.” environmental health perspectives 113 (10): 1463-1471. janke, emily m. 2014. “rekindle and recapture the love”: establishing system-wide indicators of progress in community engagement and economic development.” michigan journal of community service learning 21 (1): 31. khodyakov, dmitry, susan stockdale, andrea jones, joseph mango, felica jones, and elizabeth lizaola. 2013. “on measuring community participation in research.” health education & behavior 40 (3): 346-354. locke, terry, noeline alcorn, and john o’neill. 2013. “ethical issues in collaborative action research.” educational action research 21 (1): 107-123. lockeman, kelly s., and lynn e. pelco. 2013. “the relationship between servicelearning and degree completion.” michigan journal of community service learning 20 (1): 18-30. 95 lockwood, diana krajewski, jeffrey lockwood, elvira r. krajewski-jaime, and peggy wiencek. 2011. “university and community partnerships: a model of social work practice.” the international journal of interdisciplinary social sciences 6 (1): 39-46. maurana, cheryl a., marie wolff, barbra j. beck, and deborah e. simpson. 2001. “working with our communities: moving from service to scholarship in the health professions.” education for health 14 (2): 207-220. parent, christine, and stefano spaccapietra. 1998. “issues and approaches of database integration.” communications of the acm 41 (5es): 166-178. pelco, lynn e., christopher t. ball, and kelly lockeman. 2014. “student growth from service-learning: a comparison of first-generation and non-first-generation college students.” journal of higher education outreach and engagement 18 (2): 49-66. porter, mike. 2014. “vcu wins c. peter magrath university community engagement award.” virginia commonwealth university (november 4). http://www.news.vcu.edu/ article/vcu_wins_c_peter_magrath_university_community_engagement_award. roche, brenda, adrian guta, and sarah flicker. 2010. peer research in action i: models of practice. wellesley institute. saltmarsh, john, and matthew hartley, eds. 2011. “to serve a larger purpose”: engagement for democracy and the transformation of higher education. temple university press. sandy, marie, and barbara a. holland. 2006. “different worlds and common ground: community partner perspectives on campus-community partnerships.” michigan journal of community service learning 13 (1): 30-43. stanton, t. 2012. “new times demand new scholarship ii: research universities and civic engagement: opportunities and challenges.” journal of higher education outreach and engagement 16 (4): 271. tsai, wenpin. 2002. “social structure of ‘coopetition’ within a multiunit organization: coordination, competition, and intraorganizational knowledge sharing.” organization science 13 (2): 179-190. virginia commonwealth university. 2013. “vcu community engagement terms and definitions.” accessed august 3, 2015. http://community.vcu.edu/media/communityengagement/pdfs/about-us/cer-definitions-updated-8-28-13.pdf. 96 virginia commonwealth university. 2014. “vcu aspire annual report 20132014.” accessed august 12, 2015. http://aspire.vcu.edu/media/communityengagement/aspire/pdfs/vcu-aspire-annual-report-2013-2014.pdf. virginia commonwealth university, department of athletics. n.d. “vcu rising: the black and gold standard, 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school of dentistry. n.d. “oral health promotion and community outreach.” http://www.oralhealthpromotion.vcu.edu/. virginia department of human resources and management. 2001. “school assistance and service leave.” http://www.dhrm.virginia.gov/docs/default-source/hrpolicy/ pol4_40.pdf?sfvrsn=2. volkwein, j. fredericks. 1999. “the four faces of institutional research.” new directions for institutional research 1999 (104): 9-19. weerts, david j. 2011. “‘if only we told our story better...’: re-envisioning stateuniversity relations through the lens of public engagement.” wiscape viewpoints.” wisconsin center for the advancement of postsecondary education (nj1). weerts, david j., and lorilee r. sandmann. 2008. “building a two-way street: challenges and opportunities for community engagement at research universities.” the review of higher education 32 (1): 73-106. weick, karl e. 1976. “educational organizations as loosely coupled systems.” administrative science quarterly 21 (1): 1-19. 97 worrall, laurie. 2007. “asking the community: a case study of community partner perspectives.” michigan journal of community service learning 14 (1): 5-17. author information dr. valerie holton is the director of community-engaged research in the division of community engagement at virginia commonwealth university. in her current role, she leads and contributes to strategic initiatives that deepen and demonstrate the university’s civic mission. she leads the division’s involvement in building universitywide infrastructure to advance community-engaged research (cenr). additionally, she supports the development of the division’s and university’s capacity to track and measure the impact of vcu’s engagement. jennifer f. jettner, phd candidate, msw, works in vcu’s division of community engagement to support and advance cenr as part of the university’s strategic effort to align university-wide community engagement and impact. she assists in the identification of community-engagement data across the university, development of data infrastructure and systematic collection processes, and dissemination of these efforts through manuals, white papers, and manuscripts. her doctoral research interests include food justice, race and privilege, and the role of community gardens in promoting socially just sustainable food systems. she is also interested in the development of university centers that promote and coordinate interdisciplinary community-university partnerships for larger community impact around specific social issues. jennifer (jen) early, bsn, msha, rn, works in vcu’s division of community engagement to support and advance cenr as part of the university’s strategic effort to align university-wide community engagement and impact. she assists in the identification, development, and dissemination of cenr resources for faculty, staff, students, and community partners. early is a doctoral candidate in vcu’s health service and organization research program. her research interests include the role of academic health centers, their relationships with surrounding communities, and how they interact to impact community health. she also has research interests in how organizational structure impacts individual and organizational performance. as vice provost, kathleen shaw, mba, provides executive leadership for vcu around comprehensive and integrated data reporting and analysis, business intelligence, data information management and governance, and institutional assessment and organizational change initiatives. in addition, shaw directs the university’s implementation of its strategic plan, quest for distinction, and the measurement of progress toward achieving its strategic goals. 98 valerie l. holton director of community-engaged research division of community engagement virginia commonwealth university 901 west franklin street richmond, virginia 23284 e-mail: vholton@vcu.edu telephone: 804-827-2001 jennifer f. jettner division of community engagement virginia commonwealth university p.o. box 843062 richmond, virginia 23284 e-mail: jettnerjf@vcu.edu jennifer l early division of community engagement virginia commonwealth university p.o. box 843062 richmond, virginia 23284 kathleen k. shaw vice provost for planning & decision support virginia commonwealth university office of the provost and senior vice president for academic affairs 901 w. franklin st., ginter house, 201 richmond, va 23284-2527 e-mail: kshaw5@vcu.edu telephone: 804-828-6683 6uest editor civic engagement at traditional research universities franklin d. gilliam,jr. this issue is dedicated to the challenges and opportunities of developing civic engagement initiatives at traditional research 1 (rl) universities. 1 while such initiatives have been common for some time at other types of institutions, they are relatively new for major research universities. nevertheless, there is a growing national movement to conceive of civic engagement activities as an essential part of the rl mission. for example, in the fall of 2005 a group of senior administrators and faculty from research-oriented institutions met at tufts university to begin a more focused and collective dialogue about civic engagement. the result of that meeting was a case statement that lays out the argument for civic engagement as an integral part of an rl 's mission. 2 similarly, in june of 2005, president robert dynes of the university of california convened a meeting with key faculty and administrators from all ten campuses to share experiences and best practices related to civic engagement. 3 finally, campus compact and the leadership of the haas center for public service at stanford convened a symposium in the spring of 2006 focused on civic engagement and graduate education at research universities. 4 in all, civic engagement at research 1 universities has begun to play a central role in discussions about the future of higher education. our primary goal was to give voice to as many perspectives as possible. thus, the institutions featured in this issue represent a broad spectrum of urban-located rl institutions at different stages in the development of civic engagement on their respective campuses. moreover, there is a regional mix: contributions from smaller and larger schools, urban and less urban institutions, and publics and privates. the authors include university presidents, senior administrators, and a wide array of faculty and staff. the end result is that there are relevant lessons for a wide variety of research 1 we use the term rl not as a formal designation, but as a commonly understood descriptor of highly research-oriented universities. there is considerable debate about what constitutes a research university, and the nomenclature has changed recently. for more information on the carnegie classification system, visit the carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching web site at: http://www.carnegiefoundation.org. 2 the case statement is in draft form as of this writing; contact guest editor for more information. 3 symposium proceedings are available on-line from the center for studies in higher education at uc berkeley: http://cshe.berkeley.edu/publications/publications. php ?id= 128 4 more information in symposium papers can be found at the california campus compact web site: http://www.cacampuscompact.org/cacc_programs/pip_researchl/index.html 5 6 institutions. nonetheless, there are several common themes that run through all of the articles. four are particularly noteworthy: 1. success is significantly more likely if the president or chancellor is on board and supportive. 2. there must be a strategically placed central locus of activity headed by a visible senior administrator. 3. there must be a substantive connection to research scholarship. 4. both internal and external change will take time. patience, in this case, is indeed a virtue. the issue is kicked off with a piece by nancy zimpher, president of the university of cincinnati. president zimpher provides the "10,000 foot" view by focusing on the importance of incorporating civic engagement into campus-wide strategic planning processes. she details her experience leading institutional planning processes at the university of wisconsin-milwaukee ("the milwaukee plan") and at the university of cincinnati (uc/21), ending the article with a very insightful checklist of lessons learned. in the second piece, hartley, harkavy, and benson recount the university of pennsylvania's twenty-year experience with institutionalizing the engaged university. the authors offer a powerfully succinct articulation of the major impediments to institutionalizing civic engagement. they note that successful institutional change hinges on both ideological and structural reforms. they utilize penn's experience in west philadelphia as a case study to highlight the strategies, operations, and challenges of systemic change. hollister, mead, and wilson follow with an analysis of another mature civic engagement initiative-the creation and evolution of university college of citizenship and public service at tufts university. the tufts model, in a somewhat different vein, centers on the significance of active citizenship to the democratic ideal. in this regard the university college seeks to prepare students for a lifelong commitment to civic engagement. the article outlines how students, faculty, alumni, and the broader community come together to pursue the civic mission of higher education. the piece by vogelgesang, gilliam, o'byrne, and leal-sotelo details the initial years of a major civic engagement initiative at the university of california, los angeles. ucla is, of course, a large public university located in one of the country's largest cities. starting in 2002 with the creation of the center for community partnerships, the article describes the evolution of the "ucla in la" framework, the advancement of the concept of engaged scholarship, thinking behind the development of early programming, and the challenges of engaging a massive and complicated metropolitan region. like ucla, the university of illinois at urbana-champaign is a large public university. unlike ucla, it is located in a much smaller city. steven shomberg drills down to one of the core issues in the civic engagement movement-namely, promotion and tenure. in his article he describes a nearly twenty-year process of incorporating procedures and policies to accurately gauge excellence in civic engagement for evaluations of faculty dossiers . shomberg argues that civic engagement can be incorporated into the promotion and tenure process but cautions that change is likely to be incremental. next in the issue is a piece by michael crow, president of arizona state university and his collaborator kimberly loui. the article lays out the conceptual model for what they call the "new american university." the central premise is that significant social, technological, and demographic changes require that american universities must engage with and be engaged by their communities to improve civic life. crow and loui spell out the building blocks of civic engagement as they relate to their university's preliminary steps to operationalize their framework. in sum, this issue presents the challenges and opportunities facing leaders at rl universities as they embark on major civic engagement initiatives. the perspectives range from campuses with a great deal of experience to others just beginning their journey. the articles indicate the challenges and opportunities for both large and small schools, publics and privates, as well as those located in cities of varying sizes. we hope you enjoy reading them and that you are able to glean helpful lessons for your own civic engagement activities. author information franklin d. gilliam, jr., is associate vice chancellor of community partnerships, director of the center for communications and community, and professor of political science at university of california, los angeles. his research focuses on strategic communications, race, electoral politics and public policy. frank d. gilliam, jr. center for community partnerships 2333 murphy hall, box 951405 los angeles, ca 90095-1405 e-mail: fgilliam@conet.ucla.edu telephone: 310-267-5257 fax: 310-267-5237 7 mu2006-10-006_page5 mu2006-10-007_page6 mu2006-10-008_page7 the expansion of comprehensive metropolitan universities during the post-world war ii period has played a significant role in the educational, social, economic, and political development of every major city in the nation. the first issue of metropolitan universities provided an overview of several ways in which these institutions can respond to the needs of their regions. paramount among them, of course, is the extent to which metropolitan universities provide access to higher education for a highly heterogeneous constituent population and their success in dealing with the challenge posed by this diversity. that is the theme of this second issue of metropolitan universities. students at metropolitan universities span a wide range of ages and socioeconomic, as well as racial and ethnic, backgrounds. many enter higher education after working for a number of years; they tend to interrupt their studies one or more times, transfer from one institution to another, and attend on a part-time basis, all of which leads to an average of seven to ten years for students to earn a baccalaureate degree. metropolitan university students differ in their educational preparation, and most have significant family and employment obligations outside the university. furthermore, most metropolitan universities have a predominantly commuting student body. the diversity of the students at metropolitan universities creates a set of institutional obligations that need to be addressed. a common motif runs through most articles in this issue: the institution must adapt programs, services, and activities from the traditional model just as much as their students differ from the traditional norm. the institutional response must be pervasive and not consist of a set of distinct programs, one for each group, placed alongside traditional student affairs activities. what needs to be done and how it can be accomplished is discussed further in the articles that follow. a complex theme like the "challenges of diversity" can be discussed from many perspectives and by means of several different combinations of topics. we chose to begin with a series of discussions of issues that affect all the various groups and categories represented among the students at metropolitan universities: access, remediation, and retention. articles on each of these subjects are supplemented by subsequent discussions of three specific, but overlapping student groups: racial and ethnic minorities, older adults, and commuters. in the lead article, rhatigan and kelley provide a historical framework for access and diversity. they describe a growing national commitment to broad access during the past 125 years and raise the disturbing question of whether in recent years that commitment has begun to falter. wagner supplements the discussion of access by pointing out that a commitment to access must, of necessity, include a willingness to deal with deficiencies in 6 metropolitan universities/summer 1990 the preparation of incoming students. he offers suggestions for ensuring success. levitz and noel draw our attention to the important finding that the first three to six weeks of enrollment are instrumental in determining whether a student will want to remain in college or withdraw. the writers describe ways in which metropolitan universities can use this narrow "window of opportunity" to enhance retention. the subsequent articles by clay, murrell and davis, jacoby, coles, and rhodes and lamar focus on the adaptations that should take place in metropolitan universities in order to provide a hospitable and supportive setting for the education of racial minorities, older adults, and commuters. clay describes the difficulties faced by students of color on predominantly white campuses and suggests institutional strategies to create a more affirmative climate. murrell and davis discuss learning styles of adults. they stress the need for faculty and staff to become more knowledgeable about and sensitive to the different methods by which individuals learn. jacoby and coles both deal with the implications of the fact that most and, in many cases, even all students at metropolitan universities commute. jacoby suggests ways by which institutions can assess themselves with regard to their responsiveness to the student-as-commuter and provides recommendations for the enhancement of environments, programs, and services. coles reports the result of a study indicating substantial underutilization of student services by commuting students and recommends a number of organizational and methodological adaptations of campus-based functions as well as better use of the resources of the community . . rhodes and lamar describe ways in which cocurricular activities can better serve the needs of a diverse and largely commuting student body. like coles, rhodes and lamar stress the importance of reaching out beyond the confines of the campus in order to enrich the life of metropolitan students. rhodes and lamar also point out the need to adapt preparation and continuing education of student life professionals to enable them to deal with the challenges of diversity. the final piece contains knable's forum essay regarding the important question of verbal harassment. the author points out that free speech considerations must be balanced by an understanding of the degree of real suffering created by discriminatory remarks. she supports workshops and other ways of helping both minority and majority individuals come to grips with diversity but warns that there is no painless way of accomplishing this. we consider the articles in this issue not as the last word but rather as the first step in an ongoing exploration of the complex and multifaceted challenge of diversity. some dimensions, such as the importance of diversity among faculty and staff and the presence of many international students in most metropolitan universities have not been covered at all. overview 7 others can profit from further elaboration and discussion. descriptions of successful institutional adaptations that can be replicated elsewhere-as well as analyses of well-intended failures that may avoid similar missteps in other institutions-would be most useful. the editors invite articles, opinion pieces, items for "interactive strategies," and letters for publication in future issues of metropolitan universities. developing the theme for "challenges of diversity: students in metropolitan universities" and working with the contributors have been most enjoyable experiences. its real rewards will come through the impact in individual institutions and follow-up in these pages. john d. jones guest editor administrative science quarterly dedicated to advancing the understanding of administration through empirical investigation and theoretical analysis. the march 1990 issue of asq (special issue on technology, organizations, and innovation) includes: ''architectural innovation: the reconfiguration of existing product. technologies and the failure of established firms" rebecca m. henderson and kim b. clark "the alignment of technology and structure through roles and networks" stephen r. barley "the r&d boundaries of the firm : an empirical analysis" gary d. pisano the june 1990 issue of asq includes: "autonomy, interdependence, and social control : nasa and the space shuttle challenger" diane vaughan "measuring organizational cultures : a qualitative and quantitative study across twenty cases" geert hofstede et al. "do you get what you deserve? factors affecting the relationship between productivity and pay" alison m. konrad and jeffrey pfeffer special issue on organizational culture (sept. 1983) still available ($10.00 per copy} administrative science quarterly johnson graduate school of management, cornell university, malott hall, ithaca, ny .14853-4201 (607) 255-5581 published quarterly: march, june, september, and december back issues, 1981-present, available for $10.00 each begin a subscription with o forthcoming issue 0 the _ issue individual o $35.00 student (with proof of l.d.) o $25.00 institution o $62.00 u.s. dollars only additional postage outside the u.s. $5.00 -0 airmail, $25.00 0 o visa o mastercard no. ----------expiration date -----· o payment enclosed o bill me signature ·-----·--name _ _ . address city state ___ _ zip __ _ mu1990-summer-006_page5 mu1990-summer-007_page6 mu1990-summer-008_page7 mu1990-summer-009_page8 from tile editor's desk ernest a. lynton i am very grateful to deborah hirsch, my friend and colleague at then ew england resource center for higher education at umass/boston, and to jamie price and john martello, thus far only professional pen pals but, i hope, friends-to-be, for assembling the outstanding collection of articles on service learning in this issue of metropolitan universities. many of our readers already know, and many others will learn from these pages, that service learning, i.e., academically based outreach by students, is rapidly growing in colleges and universities throughout the country. it is, for obvious reasons, of particular importance to metropolitan universities. the articles on service learning presented here will be complemented in a forthcoming issue by three discussions of the use of action learning in professional education. as deborah hirsch points out in her overview, one can draw the same conclusion whether coming from the vantage point of service learning or from that of professional education: there is a growing need for strong links between metropolitan universities and their external constituencies, to the benefit of both. there is a second message, as well, that can be inferred from the perspectives of both service learning and professional education: that faculty engagement in professional service and outreach benefits the university as much as it does the external partners. indeed, as has been pointed out several times before in my own editorial remarks as well as in various other contributions to metropolitan universities, we need increasingly to see faculty professional service not just as a laudable exercise of individual initiative, but as an essential element of the collective mission at the institutional level and at the level of every subordinate unit. with this issue, metropolitan universities enters its seventh year of quarterly publication. the concepts and the vision that led to the development of the metropolitan university model and to the founding of this journal are emerging with ever greater clarity and importance. i hope that the many interesting, informative, and provocative articles that have filled our pages have contributed to this progress, and am grateful to everyone who has participated. mu1996-summer-005_page3 mu1996-summer-006_page4 book review lynette h willett dorothy siegel, campuses respond to violent tragedy. phoenix, az, the oryx press, 1994. college administrators hope that they will negotiate their careers without ever having to respond to a tragedy that affects the campus on which they work. as our society grows increasingly violent, our campuses follow suit and the likelihood of any campus remaining untouched by tragedy and human suffering grows smaller each year. dorothy siegel has been at the forefront of work about campus violence since 1986 when the campus violence prevention center was established under her leadership at towson state university in maryland. now ms. siegel has provided another important service for college administrators by collecting information from recent campus tragedies and calling from those instances many commonalities and much good advice for the benefit of readers. campuses respond to violent tragedy is a very readable book that is organized in a usable manner. in part i, ms. siegel selected eight different campus scenarios that demonstrated a variety of serious campus incidents: multiple off-campus tragedies; date rape; stranger rape; suicide; serial murders off campus; a highprofile athlete as assailant; and multiple murders in the classroom. through interviews with principle decision-makers, the author describes each incident from the multiple perspectives of people who were the decision-makers or affected in some way by the incident. this method of telling each campus story is very effective for two reasons. first of all, the reader receives a rich and detailed account of events because the picture that is presented is taken from many angles. secondly, the reader can use their own campus experience to relate to the police chief's version of the incident, in comparison to the resident director, the information officer, the president and other campus authorities. while each campus has its own character (and characters!), and each tragedy, its own set of circumstances, one can see many aspects of these stories that make the experiences of our colleagues applicable to our own situations. as an example, the perspective of the information officer in each story was remarkably similar: conscientious about relations with the press; concerned about institutional image; mindful of the need for accuracy balanced with a desire to assist reporters who must meet press deadlines. regardless of the circumstances of the situation, each person had a role to play that was, in part, dictated by title. for instance, in most of the examples in the book, the president of the institution was perceived as an effective part of an institutional response if they were visible at the scene of the emergency. ms. siegel provides chapter summaries that give the reader an overview of the successes and shortcomings of each institution's response to emergencies. these chapter summaries, combined with the advice in the closing section of the book will give campus administrators an agenda to use to prepare their own campus for tragedies that can strike unpredictably. additionally, the chapters that describe two institutions experience with hurricane andrew are very useful for disaster planning. the magnitude and pervasiveness of this experience is overwhelming to read, but the lessons learned can help other institutions prepare for disasters. willett 124 campuses respond to violent tragedy is a resource that can help campus administrators prepare and plan for events that defy planning. this book removes some of the fear and anxiety from the prospect of campus crises situations and replaces that anxiety with sound advice and preparation guidelines that can make campus responses more effective. a joint statement james b. appleberry and c. peter magrath the new aascu/ nasulgc office of urban and metropolitan programs american urban and metropolitan colleges and universities, by their mere location in urban and metropolitan centers, are governed by a mission which inextricably links them to the communities in which they reside. representing 87 percent of the nation's urban, 4-year public institutions of higher education, aascu and nasulgc urban and metropolitan colleges and universities are a resource and braintrust well positioned to serve as a dynamic force in the nation's urban and metropolitan communities. the community's need for education reform, skills, technical assistance, job-training, housing and urban redevelopment and the university's need to channel their energies and talents beyond the realm of theory into the world of human and community concerns, has encouraged the increasing development of college and university-community partnerships. the new aascu /nasulgc office of urban and metropolitan colleges and universities grows out of a longstanding joint commitment both associations have had to assist member institutions in improving their urban and metropolitan community linkages and in remaining at the forefront of national urban and metropolitan issues. dr. judith r. james, the new aascu /nasulgc director of urban and metropolitan programs, will report to both associations and provide staff support to the aascu council on urban and metropolitan universities and the nasulgc commission on the urban agenda. in addition, 8 metropolitan universities/winter 1993 she will work with the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities and other urban and metropolitan interest groups to coordinate the development of an agenda which addresses the diverse needs of aascu and nasulgc urban and metropolitan member institutions while working with urban and metropolitan interest groups under the auspices of other national associations such as the american association of community colleges (aacc), national association of independent colleges and universities (naicu), american council on education (ace), american association of higher education (aahe), the national association for equal opportunity (nafeo) and the national urban league. as we approach the 21st century, the greatest challenges threatening america's quality of life will have to be addressed from within that is, by the american people and in ways that have not been fully exploited. hence, in order to meet these challenges, everyone must be a participant in the problem solving process. as citizens of our nation's urban and metropolitan communities, the system of higher education is expected to strengthen cities in partnership with urban and metropolitan community members and organizations; coordinate with the public k-12 educational segment; contribute to revitalizing the economy by producing the "right" kinds of highly qualified manpower and contribute to the further training of the labor force in the context of rapidly changing technologies. moreover, urban and metropolitan institutions of higher education must promote and sustain greater social equity at a time when the more deprived sections of the population are hardest hit by educational, social and economic realities. aascu and nasulgc have recognized these challenges and are actively involved in developing and implementing programs and strategies to support urban and metropolitan institutional members in their effort to improve the quality of life in the nation's cities. the new aascu /nasulgc office of urban and metropolitan programs will provide the following services: identify and communicate state and federal budget and policy issues affecting urban and metropolitan institutions; provide technical assistance in developing and implementing advocacy strategies and advocate for urban and metropolitan institutions; develop a clearinghouse of resource materials on urban and metropolitan college and university-community partnerships; plan conferences and demonstration projects to encourage exchange of ideas on topics of interest to urban and metropolitan campuses; maintain effective liaison with major urban/ metropolitan-based professional groups; assist member institutions in enhancing community linkages in support of their urban missions. for more information, please contact: dr. judith r. james director, urban and metropolitan programs aascu /nasulgc, suite 700 one dupont circle washington, d.c. 20036-1192 (202) 293-7070, fax (202) 296-819 internet address: jamesj@aascu.nche.edu mu1993-winter-008_page7 mu1993-winter-009_page8 forum charles m. vest engineering education for a changing world i believe that engineering education must now return closer to the roots of engineering practice. i do not say this easily, because i have spent most of my own career at the boundary between engineering and applied science. starting in the late fifties and sixties, the engineering science revolution occurred. the remarkable tools of modern science, mathematics, and, later, computing became major components of what and how we taught engineers. the results were phenomenal and of great value to the nation and the world. we produced engineers capable of creating the revolution in computing and communications, developing vehicles to explore outer space, and leading in many ways in scientific and technological innovation. but the curriculum has been essentially unchanged for thirty years. it has, of course, been continuously improved and fine-tuned, but its basic structure and philosophy have been rather constant. the world in which engineering is practiced, on the other hand, has changed rapidly in recent years. take, for example, the decline in the united states' ability to compete in the world marketplace for many manufactured goods. the reasons for this are complex, but a major issue has certainly been the attitude of industry and of engineering schools toward the design and manufacture of consumer products. if we are to compete in the international marketplace, we need to place a new emphasis on basic engineering for design and production. we must, of course, do so armed with the tools that engineering science has provided for analysis and simulation, but we must instill a respect for-indeed a passion for-effective, efficient, and socially responsive design and production. in the process, we must recognize, teach, and participate in the development of the new techniques of lean production, total quality management, and continuous quality improvement. beyond these buzz words lies a core of important new concepts. we must expose our students to these concepts and to more teamwork, as well as educate them in the basic and applied sciences. we must prepare engineers who have self-discipline, analytical skills, and problem-solving abilities, and who are also prepared to work and lead in the management sector. to put it curtly, we need to educate students who combine the attention to precision, design, and manufacturing that is often associated with german and japanese engineers with the innovative and analytical skills that characterize american engineers. i want to strike a further theme that is very important in my view. all of higher education, and especially engineering education, requires a growing diversity of programs and of kinds of institutions ... .i believe that for too long we have all been striving for a single model-the comprehensive, ph.d.-grantingresearch university. 82 metropolitan universities/winter 1992 we need different styles of education to meet the needs of different students. we do not all need to be the same. similarly we need a wide variety of [programmatic] experiments ... and we need the flexibility to develop new educational approaches for the twenty-first century ... .i view the accreditation process of the accreditation board for engineering and technology as a hindrance to the educational innovation and experimentation that the nation needs. the process must become sufficiently flexible to promote change and experimentation, or it will be left in the dust. acknowledgment the following is excerpted, with permission of the author, from an address by charles m. vest to the american society for engineering education 1992 annual conference, june 23, 1992. the illusion of a conservative reagan revolution larry m. schwab this book presents a new and provocative perspective on the debate over the impact of the reagan administration. schwab denies the thesis that the 1980s has been a period of fundamental conservative change. he demonstrates how policy developments and the political system have actually moved in the opposite direction. "lawrence schwab's challenging, perhaps even plausible, thesis that there never was a conservative reagan revolution, demands the most serious response and counteranalysis from conservatives. if dr. schwab is correct, then the policy differences between republican and democratic parties from 1981 to 1989 were matters of detail rather than substance." -arnold beichman, research fellow, hoover institution isbn: 0-88738-413·7 (cloth) 243 pp. $21.95 order from your bookstore or direct from the publisher. major credit cards accepted. call (908) 932-2280. mj transaction transaction publishers department 492r7 rutgers-the state university new brunswick, nj 08903 transaction _________ ____. mu1992-winter-082_page81 mu1992-winter-083_page82 from the sidelines ernest a. lynton, editor emeritus donald a. schon (1931-1997) in an article in this issue of metropolitan universities, dean sengupta of the school of engineering at the university of michigan-dearborn deplores the fact that: [t]he notion that complex, inelegant problems that constitute the reality of engineering practice can contribute greatly to curriculum and research is difficult for some faculty to accept. at least several generations of faculty came into universities after the sputnik milestone when the paradigm of science was accepted as an ideal. simplicity and reductionism triumphed, and synthesis and complexity suffered. dean sengupta goes on to say that "[t]he centrality of practice in engineering education must be articulated clearly, repeatedly, and consistently .... " in recent years, the individual who articulated this centrality in all professional preparation most clearly and most brilliantly was donald a. schon, who died on september 13 at the early age of 66. his death is a major loss for anyone convinced that in this modem age a major role of the university is to engage actively and constructively in the ever more complex problems of contemporary society. the vast majority of the readers of this journal will be familiar with the reflective practitioner, published by don schon back in 1983, in which he describes effective professional practice as based on "reflection-in-action." this work is one of those seminal books that completely change the way people look at and understand matters, such as tom kuhn's the nature o/scientific revolution. one reads it and says, "of course! that's obvious! why didn't i think of that?" it has to be one of the most widely read and quoted books in social science literature in recent years. the concept of the reflective practitioner has entered the basic vocabulary of everyone interested in effective professional practice, in the preparation for such practice, and, increasingly, of everyone interested in the nature of knowledge. the wide impact of this book, reinforced and extended by many subsequent publications and by don schon's many lectures and workshops conducted both here and abroad, is because of the way in which he places the concept of the reflective practitioner into a broader context of the nature of knowledge and its sources. no one has presented more cogently the problem cited by sengupta, which don schon char154 metropolitan universities/winter 1997 acterized as the dilemma of "rigor or relevance." don also coined the vivid and unforgettable simile: a high, hard ground where practitioners can make effective use of research-based theory and technique, and ... a swampy lowland where situations are confusing 'messes' incapable of technical resolution. the difficulty is that the problems of the high ground, however great their technical interest, are often relatively unimportant to clients and to the larger society, while in the swamps are the problems of greatest human concern. central to this image is the recognition that effective practice in the swamp of the real world is inevitably a learning process. "when someone reflects in action," don schon states, "he becomes a researcher in the practice context." the corollary to this, of course, is that practice is necessary to learning. through his work, don schon contributed greatly to the efforts of individuals like sengupta to include hands-on experience as an integral component of professional education. but, of course, such learning can take place only ifthere exist systematic rules of evidence and inference that are quite different from those of technical rationality (as don called it), which operate in the high place of the laboratory but nevertheless are rigorous in their own right. don schon has called for a "new epistemology of practice" for the swamp-that is, a systematic and intellectually consistent way of dealing with the complex problems of the real world. each of these dimensions of schon' s work on reflective practice is of substantial significance. together they add up to a fundamentally new vision of the university, an intellectual construct that goes beyond operational definitions. what he has been saying to us is that the university-the principal societal mechanism for the advancement, dissemination, and application of new knowledge--can fulfill its function only by means of a symbiotic and two-way relationship with the society of which it is a part. let us think of the university as a learning organism, just like an individual practitioner or an individual student. don schon' s work forces us to realize that the university, like the practitioner and the student, must engage in reflective practice. it must focus as much on generating knowledge by means of research in the messy practice context as it has, traditionally, concentrated on finding knowledge in the shelter of study and laboratory. it must recognize that the flow of knowledge goes both ways between high place and swamp. no longer the city on the hill, it must be the intellectual highway linking the abstraction of the former and the reality of the latter. don schon' s work has provided an exciting and profound intejlectual framework for the mission of universities generally, and most particularly for our metropolitan institutions. he has contributed to many other fields as well, but for us this is his lasting legacy. from the editor's desk barbara a. holland around the nation, many of our large urbanized areas are engaging in regional discussions about their future vision. only a few large cities have a formal regional government. most metropolitan regions are made up of a large central city and/or county with many separate fringe communities and suburbs, each with their own governments and their own histories. my own region of cincinnati has almost 200 separate governmental units of towns and counties in the metropolitan area. often these separate entities find themselves wrestling with changes, problems, and opportunities that are not easily dealt with in isolation. increasingly, we understand that successful regional economies, good housing and schools, and safe, healthy communities depend on regional strategies and intergovernmental cooperation. cooperation can be a challenging task. urban and metropolitan universities have a key role to play in facilitating the discussion of a region's vision. at a minimum, our institutions can serve as neutral ground for convening different interest groups exploring areas of common concerns. more than this, our faculty, staff, and students are reservoirs of intellectual energy, information, and curiosity whose work can help answer critical questions about a region's condition and future possibilities. regional conversations can be prickly and difficult as separate communities strive to work together, and a good first step to accelerating cooperation can be working with a university to uncover facts and a measure of reality that can replace myths and perceptions. this issue of metropolitan universities looks at public policy institutes at urban and metropolitan universities. the articles reveal interesting patterns of the many competing forces that these institutes must manage when working with their metropolitan regions. our guest editors, ethan seltzer and rob melnick, have recruited authors who discuss many of the challenges, pitfalls and rewards of such efforts. placing the university in the middle of challenging and often controversial regional discussions puts special pressure on the institute to ensure objectivity, accuracy, and thoroughness in its research and facilitation roles. policy centers find themselves wrestling with topics such as understanding the role and interests of the university in regional decision-making (can we or should we always be neutral?), the borderline between faculty as researchers and as advocates, the balance among the many divergent perspectives of the community, and other key questions. some of the challenges of institute work are internal to the university. when faculty are involved in research or facilitation of economic and community development planning projects, what is the role of academic freedom? when do faculty members speak for the university's interests and when are they acting as scholars, and is the difference clear to the community? many of the articles also raise the issue of faculty rewards. partnerships between university and communities to facilitate regional thinking and planning are natural components of the metropolitan university mission, but are faculty appropriately rewarded for the time given to community service and community-based research? fae4 metropolitan universities/summer 1999 ulty work in public policy institutes is often labeled professional service, communitybased research, outreach, or other terms that are sometimes seen by the academy as less rigorous alternatives to traditional research. some of our authors discuss the special challenge of involving faculty in institute work when it is unclear what value the work will have in the context of the formal reward system. my own work has included research on faculty views of service, especially on what motivates them to engage in service activities, what rewards they expect, and how service relates to their teaching and research. interestingly, while many faculty express frustration that service is not always considered in formal promotion and tenure reviews, only a few identified the omission as the major obstacle to involvement in service activities. of equal or greater concern were the intensive amount of time it takes to engage in community-based projects, the extra effort involved in working with multiple external partners, the lack of adequate incentives, or concern about sufficient institutional commitment to the partnership. many faculty were found to be engaged in community-based research and service because they believe it "is the right thing to do," and they feel a responsibility to apply their knowledge toward the improvement of society and community. for these faculty, service has significant intrinsic rewards. whatever the individual beliefs and motivations of faculty "to engage or not engage" in community service such as the work of public policy institutes, we know we must create appropriate incentive and reward systems. given the diverse motivations of faculty, the best practice seems to be to offer a diverse array of rewards . readers interested in learning more about changing views of faculty rewards, and especially about approaches to the evaluation and rewarding of professional service, may wish to return to vol. 7, no. 4, and vol. 8, no. 1 of metropolitan universities, published in 1997. these two issues on faculty rewards offer both practical examples and new strategies for assessing the quality of community-based scholarship and for revising traditional reward systems. mu1999-summer-005_page3 mu1999-summer-006_page4 from the editor's desk ernest a. lynton the most cost-effective way of printing a journal is in integral multiples of sixteen pages, called an "envelope." (fold a sheet of paper three times to understand why.) when we ,edit material for this journal, it therefore often happens that at the last minute we hold over an article to a subsequent issue in order to remain within our usual limit of 96 pages. when that happens, any references to content in these editorial comments should also be changed. in our last issue, the former took place, but the latter did not, and "from the editor's desk" was all about an article by tony dickson which is actually appearing only in this issue. that's rather embarrassing, and i apologize. actually no reader complained, which either indicates a gratifying degree of forbearance, or else that no one reads these editorials. i do want to reiterate my pleasure at carrying a contribution from abroad, and am happy to report that at least two others are in the pipeline for probable publication in the next issue. i recently participated in two international conferences on higher education in amsterdam and in paris. i also spoke to a meeting of campus heads of the university of quebec. all three occasions showed once again the essential similarity of the challenges facing higher education in all industrialized countries. all showed as well increasing interest in the basic conception of a regionally oriented, regionally responsive, and regionally interactive university. many colleagues wanted to know about metropolitan universities, and i believe that a number of institutions in canada, the uk, and elsewhere will join the coalition once it opens its ranks to universities in other countries. this issue is devoted to the challenges of leadership in metropolitan universities. chuck ruch, president of boise state university, conceived of this theme and brought together an outstanding group of authors who produced excellent articles on various aspects of the topic. i am most grateful for his work. it is interesting to note that leadership is an issue on which there exist significant differences between universities in this country and those in most other countries. on the whole, the traditional european universities and their counterparts in a number of other countries have no tradition of leadership at any level except at that of the professor who holds a chair in a designated field in which he or she (mostly he) has substantial autonomy over both the research and the instructional program. the total authority of the traditional ordinarius or equivalent of the continental university has been attenuated in recent decades, but mostly by the creation of university councils rather than by giving more responsibility to deans of faculties or rectors/presidents of institutions. this has become a matter of current concern and debate because of a strong trend in most countries to decentralize systems of higher education and to reduce the micro-management of curriculum and other matters by a central ministry. as a result there exists a certain power vacuum between the national authority at one end, and the faculty at the other. many who are skeptical about innovation being generated at the faculty level see this as a barrier to change, while others view it as a good way to move toward the diversity and flexibility of response required by contemporary conditions. the debate is very interesting to an observer from the united states. 4 metropolitan universities/winter 1994 call for contributions metropolitan universities continues to welcome the submission of unsolicited manuscripts on topics pertinent to our eponymous institiutions. we seek contributions that analyze and discuss pertinent policy issues, innovative programs or projects, new organizational and procedural approaches, pedagogic developments, and other matters of importance to the mission of metropolitan universities. articles of approximately 3,500 words should be intellectually rigorous but need not be cast in the traditional scholarly format nor based on original research. they should be useful to their audience, providing better undertanding as well as guidance for action. descriptions of interesting innovations should point out the implications for other institutions and the pitfalls to be avoided. discussions of broad issues should cite examples and suggest specific steps to be taken. we also welcome manuscripts that, in a reasoned and rigorous fashion, are provocative, challenging readers to re-examine traditional definitions, concepts, policies, and procedures. we would also welcome letters to the editor, as well as opinion pieces for our forum pages. individuals interested in contributing an article pertaining to the thematic portion of a forthcoming issue, or writing on any of the many other possible subjects, are encouraged to send a brief outline to either the appropriate guest editor (addresses available from the executive editor) or tot the executive editor. letters and opinion pieces should be sent directly to the latter: ernest a. lynton 14 allerton street brookline, ma 02146 tel.: 6171232 5046 fax.: 6171566 4383 please share with the readers of metropolitan universities information about the interesting and innovative programs, projects,and policies on your campus from which other metropolitan universities can learn. we should once again like to carry a section on interactive strategies in each issue. · the purpose of this section is to draw attention to new ideas at an early stage of development. please send a brief description of up to 500 words, together with the name and address of an individual to be contacted for additional details, to dean karen a. white, college of fine arts, university ofnebraskaomaha, omaha, ne 68182; telephone: (402) 554-2509; fax: (402) 554-3436. from the editor's desk ernest a. lynton after a long hiatus, this issue of metropolitan universities once again carries a contribution from abroad. professor tony dickson, pro-vice-chancellor of northumbria university at newcastle, provides us with a description of recent changes in british higher education, where the statutory distinction between universities and polytechnics has been abolished. a note on nomenclature: in british universities, the chancellor holds a purely honorific position. the operational head of the institution is called vice-chancellor, and a pro-vice-chancellor is, therefore, at the second level of the administrative hierarchy. a description of the polytechnics by michael lewis in the spring 1992 issue of the journal indicated that these institutions share a number of characteristics with metropolitan universities in this country. the formal change of their status is therefore of some considerable interest because, as professor dickson explains, the unification of the british system could serve to strengthen the regional commitment of some of the former polytechnics but could also push others onto the treadmill of trying to be research universities. the article illustrates that other industrialized countries face very similar issues as does this country with regard to the mission and priorities of their universities. i am writing this a few weeks before attending two international meetings, one the annual forum of the european association for institutional research, the other the general conference of the program on institutional management in higher education of the organization for economic cooperation and development (oecd.) many of the topics to be discussed at both meetings are very similar to those on the agenda of any recent conference of aahe or ace: changing relationships between the state and universities; the university of the future; quality improvement versus accountability; less administration, more governance ? it all sounds very familiar. of course context and conditions vary from country to country, and the details of these issues vary accordingly. but it is in many ways precisely these variations which make it so instructive to obtain an international perspective on national issues. it highlights the differences between the challenges and concerns that are primarily local, and those that are generic to higher education at a time when all industrialized have brought about major increases in higher education enrollment and when a high level of usable skills and the effective dissemination of knowledge is everywhere crucial to economic and social health. we are gearing up to make a concerted effort to attract more contributions to the journal from our colleagues in other countries. the full name of the journal is metropolitan universities: an international forum, and take the second part of this title very seriously. we believe that contributions from abroad can be of considerable interest to our readers in the united states and that, by the same token, individuals in other countries would enjoy much of the content of the journal. because of the very real commonality of interests, steps should be taken to open the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities to affiliation by foreign universities. metropolitan universities and the schools, the theme of the current issue, is actually one in which the differences among countries may be greater than any similarities. the strong central control of primary and secondary education in many industrialized countries creates a setting in which local collaboration between a university and the schools has far less potential impact than it can have here. but from 4 metropolitan universities/spring 1994 a national perspective, the theme is one of extraordinary importance, and i am very grateful to nevin brown for the work he has done as guest editor. this is the second time that metropolitan universities has devoted an entire issue to collaboration with the schools: it is not likely to be the last. call for contributions metropolitan universities continues to welcome the submission of unsolicited manuscripts on topics pertinent to our eponymous institiutions. we seek contributions that analyze and discuss pertinent policy issues, innovative programs or projects, new organizational and procedural approaches, pedagogic developments, and other matters of importance to the mission of metropolitan universities. articles of approximately 4,000 words should be intellectually rigorous but need not be cast in the traditional scholarly format nor based on original research. they should be useful to their audience, providing better undertanding as well as guidance for action. descriptions of interesting innovations should point out the implications for other institutions and the pitfalls to be avoided. discussions of broad issues should cite examples and suggest specific steps to be taken. we also welcome manuscripts that, in a reasoned and rigorous fashion, are provocative, challenging readers to re-examine traditional definitions, concepts, policies, and procedures. we also welcome letters to the editor, as well as opinion pieces for our forum pages. individuals interested in contributing an article pertaining to the thematic portion of a forthcoming issue, or writing on any of the many other possible subjects, are encouraged to send a brief outline to either the appropriate guest editor (addresses available from the executive editor) or to the executive editor. letters and opinion pieces should be sent directly to the latter: ernest a. lynton 14 allerton street brookline, ma 02146 tel.: 6171232 5046 fax.: 6171566 4383 please share with the readers of metropolitan universities information about the interesting and innovative programs, projects,and policies on your campus from which other metropolitan universities can learn. we should once again like to carry a section on interactive strategies in each issue. the purpose of this section is to draw attention to new ideas at an early stage of development. please send a brief description of up to 500 words, together with the name and address of an individual to be contacted for additional details, to dean karen a. white, college offine arts, university ofnebraskaomaha, omaha, ne 68182; telephone: (402) 554-2509; fax: (402) 554-3436. faculty hiring and success guest editor: daniel wakelee attracting highly qualified faculty is a matter of importance to metropolitan universities. faculty hiring is a significant activity on any campus, but at many institutions facing declining resources, faculty hires now offer particularly precious opportunities to strengthen departments and reinforce areas of institutional priority. although the results of faculty hiring processes have significant impacts on universities, many of the processes related to this activity have been the subject of relatively modest detailed examination. while this issue of metropolitan universities focuses on faculty hiring and success, it is not a comprehensive study of faculty hiring. the articles in this issue offer perspectives about how candidate and faculty expectations, along with institutional resources and processes, can impact the longterm success of those hired to teach on our campuses. building a faculty of successful teachers and scholars involves more than making good decisions in the hiring process. it may be useful to consider faculty hiring less as an institutional function that begins and ends in any given academic year, and more as a multiyear process that requires the integration of hires into their new institutions by providing adequate resources to help new faculty succeed after they have accepted offers of employment, as well as acknowledging the broader goals of both new faculty members and their institutions. both candidates and those involved in hiring decisions must determine whether the skills and interests of candidates fit with the mission of the institution. it is important that candidates have a clear understanding of institutional expectations before committing to join the faculty at an institution where they (if successful) could spend much, or all, of their professional career. in "looking for the scholar-teacher," elizabeth say and stella theodoulou examine the critical importance of institutional mission in the hiring process. while faculty hiring can seem to be a routine, almost mundane activity, it is important to consider that hiring today occurs in the context of an academic labor market that is changing in a variety of ways. institutional expectations of new faculty in the key areas of service, teaching, and scholarship continue to evolve. similarly, if they wish to attract and retain new faculty members, departments and institutions need to be alert to changing expectations of newly hired colleagues about their experiences as members of the faculty. cathy trower and anne gallagher draw on data from the collaborative on academic careers in higher education (coache) database on job satisfaction and interviews with faculty at coache institutions to identify elements that are most important to the success of newly hired faculty in "trekking toward tenure." trower and susan walzer use data and interview responses from several sources to examine the tensions new faculty members face navigating between the demands of their faculty 5 6 roles and their own values and expectations in "crossing generational divides." they offer recommendations that institutions might pursue to reduce these tensions. other changes may influence the way searches are conducted. from the methods used to announce positions and recruit potential applicants to electronic systems used to receive applications, the physical (or electronic) technologies associated with hiring have undergone significant change in the past ten years. john ikenberry, andrew hibel, and robert freedman describe these changes as they examine the question of "how technology has changed (and will change) higher education employee recruitment." once a search is underway, the process used to conduct the search can have a substantial impact on its success. marilyn levine and martin schimpf examine recruitment strategies and best practices in "faculty recruitment in an era of change." for a variety of reasons, the on-campus processes used by institutions to select successful candidates appear to have changed less than other aspects of faculty hiring. "faculty hiring: one new campus approach" provides an opportunity to consider a process that differs from the traditional, departmentally based search processes that are the norm on most campuses. discussions of successful faculty hiring sometimes conclude at the point where a candidate has accepted an offer from the hiring institution. as several of the articles in this issue suggest, it is important to measure success using a longer-term lens. hiring new faculty colleagues means more than just completing the hiring process; it represents a significant, multiyear investment on the part of each department, the department's faculty, and the institution. beyond just attracting highly qualified candidates or even securing their hire, faculty success involves creating settings and resources that facilitate a successful transition from candidates to long-term productive teachers and scholars. tom otieno, paula lutz, and andrew schoolmaster examine the design and implementation of mentoring programs in "enhancing recruitment, professional development, and socialization of junior faculty through formal mentoring programs." drawing on the experience of a faculty development program on their campus, j ace hargis and phil gilbertson describe how a faculty center can assist with mentoring and orientation activities, as well as the faculty recruitment process itself. ed nuhfer, michael blodgett, steve fleisher, and john griffin focus on ways to support the teaching of non-tenure track faculty. although often overlooked, non-tenure track instructors conduct much of the teaching at many institutions. recognizing non-tenure-track faculty and finding ways to contribute to their development and success is important, given their important role on most campuses. as the information in the following articles demonstrates, the authors in this issue offer a range of ideas, information, and practical experiences that contribute to our understanding of faculty hiring experiences and how they can prove successful, for hiring institutions as well as for those who are selected to join the ranks of their faculty. author information daniel wakelee is associate dean of the faculty at california state university channel islands. he serves as chair of the committee on liberal arts institutions of the council of colleges of arts and sciences. daniel wakelee, ph.d. associate dean of the faculty california state university channel islands one university drive camarillo, ca 93012 e-mail: dan.wakelee@csuci.edu telephone: 805-437-8542 fax: 805-437-8864 7 ernest a. lynton frank newman, president of the education commission of the states, contributed a forum piece entitled "anatomy of the urban university" to the third issue of this journal. in it he listed four central issues facing the leadership of metropolitan universities. second among these, as perceived from newman's national perspective, is "the transformation of public education" in which "the urban university must get more involved." newman states: the greatest reform effort in the history of american education is happening right now. yet, with the exception of a handful of university people, the urban university is not playing a significant role. universities tend to assume that if "they" would just do "their job," then things would change. what needs to be done more broadly is to create coalitions of business and educators who understand their joint responsibilities to education at all levels. it is "all one system." perhaps frank newman's assessment of the inadequacy of the universities' involvement at this time is somewhat harsh. but most assuredly, he is right in identifying the issue as a critical one and in urging metropolitan universities to involve themselves much more than most do at this time. that is why this entire issue of metropolitan universities is devoted to school-university collaboration. it contains a set of articles that indicate both what can and should be done, as well as the great difficulties which must be overcome. we are exceedingly grateful to john goodlad, himself at the forefront of national efforts to foster university-school partnerships and to reform teacher education, for having undertaken the task of being guest editor for this issue, identifying topics and working with the authors. in addition, he has contributed an article that is much more than an "overview": it provides us with an ecological perspective within which all subsequent articles can be placed. in their aggregate, the articles in this issue have implications which go well beyond the basic theme of school-university collaboration. two clear messages emerge that are central to all aspects of the mission of metropolitan universities. one has been stated already several times in this journal, particularly in the previous issue on "the new american scholar." it is the urgent need to achieve greater congruence between institutional goals and priorities, on the one hand, and faculty values, commitment, and rewards, on the other. that is so central a matter to the success of metropolitan universities that it is likely to be raised again and again in the pages of this journal. 4 metropolitan universities/summer 1991 there is a second message of great importance to metropolitan universities that had not been articulated as often and as clearly until its appearance in several articles in the current issue. it pertains to the nature of the interaction that metropolitan universities must develop and foster with their external constituencies in all collaborative activities, be it with schools, with regional business and industry, with government offices, or with community agencies. outreach as such is not enough. the dissemination of knowledge as such is not enough. a one-way flow of ideas is not enough. an expert-client relationship is not enough. instead, as is so well described in this issue, one must fashion a real partnership, with a true dialogue to which each participant brings different but complementary experiences, knowledge, and perspectives. that kind of relationship is essential, but not because of some sentimental notion of equal worth and collegiality and "we're all in this together." effective collaboration among disparate constituencies requires a hardheaded recognition that no single participant brings to the undertaking all of the necessary knowledge and experience. each partner contributes a special expertise. one brings theoretical insights and a knowledge of the literature, another the craft knowledge of the practitioner, yet others, the know-how regarding organizational and managerial issues or experience in the political process. each of these contributions is essential to the proper formulation of problems and priorities, the assessment of alternatives and trade-offs, and the design and implementation of optimal action. in all of the metropolitan universities' many kinds of collaborative relationships with external constituencies-be it applied research and technology transfer in partnership with business and industry, policy analysis with government units, neighborhood development with community groups, or school improvement with school teachers and administrators-the potential for success depends on the extent to which the partial contributions of each partner can be combined and integrated into a whole greater than the sum of its parts. for faculty and administrators in metropolitan universities, the need for this kind of partnership of equals poses a formidable challenge that significantly increases the difficulty of their tasks. not only are they expected to break out of the traditional isolation of the ivory tower in order to work actively with external constituencies, but they must abandon, as well, the podium from which they disseminate a one-way flow of knowledge and, instead, work side by side with members of their external constituencies in genuinely joint explorations. let no one underestimate either the importance or the difficulty of this. not only does it represent a profound change in the way in which most academic professionals have been trained and socialized, but it affects, as well, their image of themselves. especially in these times of widespread financial hardship aggravated by a lot of bashing of higher education in books and in the media, many of our colleagues find some from the editor's desk 5 comfort in their sense of themselves as gurulike dispensers of knowledge. now they are being asked to bring to bear their knowledge in a very different manner, working with co-equals, each bringing different but equally necessary expertise. adding this new demand on faculty to the challenges of student diversity, the need for outreach, and the other complexities of the tasks that metropolitan universities have undertaken brings us back, in turn, to the first message mentioned earlier. these new challenges for metropolitan faculties and staff intensify the importance of bringing about a thorough revision of what academic professionals value, what is expected of them, for what they should be prepared, and for what they should be evaluated and rewarded. to date, metropolitan universities have barely begun to face up to that critical, complex, and difficult challenge. mu1991-summer-004_page3 mu1991-summer-005_page4 mu1991-summer-006_page5 mu1991-summer-007_page6 forum c. peter magrath universities and technology outreach "the modem achievements of skill, enterprise, and science, new ideas with germs of power, must be recognized, and diligently studied, as they have brought and continued to bring daily competition which must be met. if the world moves at ten knots an hour, those whose speed is but six will be left in the lurch." -sen. justin morrill (late 19th century) mr. chairman. on behalf of the 160 institutions of higher education that comprise the national association of state universities and land-grant colleges (nasulgc), i am pleased to submit testimony on h. r. 820, the national competitiveness act of 1993. we are gratified that president clinton has emphasized the importance of technology outreach to small and medium-sized industries in his economic stimulus package presented to congress on february 17, and we see h. r. 820 as a crucial element of that program. i believe, therefore, that the nation's public research universities are an important component of an integrated approach to enhancing the competitive position of u.s. small and medium-sized manufacturing industries in the global economy. the nation's public research universities can be effective in two of the major roles for a national technology outreach program: industrial modernization, bringing advanced technology to small and medium-sized manufacturers; and the ~evelopment of new products, processes, and jobs, many of them emerging from ~ovative university research. all that is needed is enough funding to "walk these innovations into the private sector," as germany and japan have done with their manufacturing technology centers. to help small and medium-sized companies, twenty-three state governments and more thanahundred universities have established technology transfer, industrial extension, and business assistance programs driven by private sector industry needs. current federal funding for these programs, while necessary, is not sufficient adequately to transfer technology rapidly and effectively. we believe that any plan to speed technology development, transfer training, ~d adoption and conversion by american manufacturers should involve universitymdustry linkages in anationalmanufacturing/industrial extensionservice modelled after the cooperative extension system. the morrill, hatch, and smith-lever acts that created this successful model based it on the essential linkages between ~versity basic and applied research, development and dissemination of progress~ve ideas and techniques, and federal, state, and local units of government. cooperative ~xtension' s linkages and base in the nation's great public universities provided the infrastructure and transfer mechanism that helped develop the unparalleled 90 metropolitan universities/fall 1993 productivity of american agriculture, the millions of value-added jobs and industries related to agricultural production, and today's exciting developments in new biotechnology enterprises. the universities already are making great strides inindustrialandmanufacturing extension,andaredemonstratingthatsmallandmedium-sizedindustriesthatwork with university programs are increasing their productivity, profits, products, efficiency, and jobs. the universities have established a strong infrastructure that includes basic and applied research and partnerships with small and medium-sized industries. in addition, universities are applying a concept of industrial extension that goes beyond technology transfer to include improvements in management, marketing, productivity, and worker training. here are a few examples: • connect, the university of california, san diego's extension program on entrepreneurship for high technology industries, fosters scientific and technical information exchanges, venture capital connections, worldwide links with potential partners, and education on legal, financial, and marketing issues for 170 emerging high-tech company members. • purdue university's technical assistance program has worked with more than eight hundred companies since 1986 to implement new and advanced technologies in product development, manufacturing methods, and industrial management. client evaluations show nearly $14million in capital investment increases, $6.4 million in cost savings, $106.7 million in sales increases, 447 new jobs added, and .499 jobs saved. • cornell university is completing a university-wide strategic plan for integrating a large number of highly successful applied research and extension programs for small and medium-sized manufacturing firms in new york state. another component is the cornell center for advanced technology in biotechnology, in which an extension agent matches small firms seeking new products with university scientists conducting research, resulting in the commercialization of discoveries. cornell' s industrial innovation extension specialists have servednearlytwohundredfirmsinoneten-countyregiononjointuniversity/ industry projects, ranging from laser fuel ignition to plastic injection molding and manufacturing plant and system layouts. the projects have resulted in successful product and process innovations, efficiencies, plant expansions, and new jobs. the significant advantage of locating industrial/manufacturing extension centers in higher education institutions is that the universities already are engaged in delivering extension services to industryutilizinguniversity research and expertise in engineering, science, and business. by placing the extension centers at public research universities, congress will be able to minimize start-up costs for new programs, thereby freeing up funds to be used to enhance programs, expand linkages, and coordinate existing resources in engineering, science, and business disciplines with a network of field agents. our vision for the future goes far beyond scattered grants for competitive proposals from a variety of agencies and institutions. instead, we envision a broadbased university response from a united front of research and extension, and a national network of universities engaged in coordinated activity that has national impact. such a network would integrate and share resources and information from magrath 91 all relevant sources, provide continuity .in programs, establish problem-solving linkages with industry, and provide focus and critical mass of resources that can be shared nationally. the elements for such a successful approach include the following: • a national coordinating mechanism and database to link specialized expertise and research from many sources (universities, federal laboratories, private-sector sources) dispersed throughout the country, along with a central clearinghouse for scientific and technical information. • university teams of faculty and field agents with expertise in many relevant areas, including engineering, small-business development, management, marketing, community economic development, and infrastructure and other fields. • a network of highly trained field agents to relate the needs of small manufacturers directly to appropriate university experts. • a central administrative structure in each participating university to: • coordinate statewide efforts, • provide a single-access point for industries, • draw upon and unite relevant expertise in many fields, • coordinate related programs that support community infrastructure and local government education, • provide linkages with relevant public and private agencies and organizations, and • couple university efforts with cohorts in the national network. mr. chairman. america's public research universities are eager to join president clinton and this committee to craft legislation that will provide stimulus for america's manufacturing and industrial sector. we offer our resources to the task and intend to work with the committee to integrate the nation's public research universities into the effort. note this article is a reprint of the author's testimony to the u.s. house subcommittee on technology, environment, and aviation on february 23, 1993. dr. magrath is president of the national association of state universities and land grant colleges. from the editor's desk ernest a. lynton every reader of this journal is painfully aware that higher education in this country is not only beset by unprecedented fiscal problems but faces, as well, an extraordinary and threatening degree of external criticism. one of the founders of this journal, george johnson, president of george mason university, an institution that has blossomed in recent years and benefited from strong local and regional support, is quoted in a recent issue of the chronicle of higher education as saying, "i am kind of overwhelmed. i have never been attacked from so many different points of the compass. i feel a little ineffectual and futile." the sentiment is likely to be shared by college and university presidents throughout the country. it is therefore a relief to come across a highly positive article about metropolitan universities in this country's leading newspaper. before this issue went to press, on august 13 the new york times carried an article by karen de witt headlined "universities become full partners to cities in the south." the article is datelined birmingham and features the university of alabama at birmingham-hence probably the inaccurate geographic limitation in its headline and some of its text. but that is less important than the article's strong affirmation of the mission of our urban and metropolitan universities. consider some quotes: when the university of alabama in tuscaloosa opened an extension [in birmingham] in 1936 it was ... a small offshoot in the city .... but today it is the university of alabama at birmingham, not its parent institution, that is the state's hotbed of ideas and progress . . . . . urban universities have become the economic generators in their cities. as their economic importance has grown, these universities ... have also increased their roles as community leaders, attacking social problems, preserving cultural institutions or generally filling the leadership role once played by business leaders. [they] increasingly replaced [textile, shipping, and manufacturing industries] as major employers and shapers of the new urban landscape. and they have played an equally important role in changing the character of the population around them, not only by providing employment but by making a college education more accessible to poor inner-city residents . . . . [u]rban universities ... have also changed the socioeconomic profile of people who get college educations. these excerpts are pleasant to read, and additional gratifying praise about urban universities can be culled from the lengthy times article. but the significance of the piece is not that it provides a pat on the backhowever welcome-in the midst of a barrage of criticism. too much of that criticism is justified. it is therefore more appropriate to take the article as a strong and welcome reminder that our highly urbanized from the editor's desk 3 country indeed needs a new category of higher education institutions that are committed to the intellectual, cultural, social, and economic development of their metropolitan regions. a second article in the new york times, on august 21, underscores this. headlined" a college's good-neighbor policy," the piece by william celis 3d describes the efforts of marquette university in milwaukee to help its immediate neighborhood, and mentions similar projects undertaken by cleveland state, san francisco state, and portland state universities. it could well have added the activities of occidental college in los angeles described in j. eugene grigsby's contribution to these pages, or the work of suffolk university in boston mentioned by daniel perlman in the first issue of metropolitan universities. every detail of the times article constitutes an affirmation of the "declaration of metropolitan universities" that we carry in each issue of this journal. the principles contained in the declaration add up to a new conception of the mission of universities, a conception implemented by the university of alabama at birmingham as well as by a growing number of metropolitan universities throughout the country. it is a conception that calls for basic changes from the traditional priorities and the conventional modes of operation of our universities. in his recent inaugural address, donald langenberg, as chancellor of the university of maryland system, made an eloquent call for such change. langenberg proclaimed the need for a thorough and selfcritical reexamination of what w:e are about and how we accomplish our tasks. we are caught up "in a whirlwind of change," he stated, and must make sure "that the revolution results in recreated and revitalized institutions." such institutions are described in the two times articles. both emphasize the extent to which metropolitan universities can be, as stated in the de witt article, "economic generators in their cities" and in surrounding regions, much as schools of agriculture have been for the country's rural areas. the role of metropolitan universities in regional development has been mentioned frequently in this journal. it provides the principal theme both for the current issue as well as for a subsequent one. once again i have been able to profit from a knowledgeable and imaginative guest editor to whom i am deeply grateful. andrew rudnick, president of the greater buffalo development foundation, accepted the principal responsibility for selecting topics and authors, and for providing an introductory overview. the articles that are contained in the present issue do not exhaust the various ways in which metropolitan universities can-and do-contribute to regional development. a second issue will contain additional articles on the theme, including a number of contributions from other countries where the need to redefine the mission of higher education has also been recognized. providing educational opportunities to a student body increasingly diverse in terms of age and origin is, of course, a major component of the contribution that metropolitan universities make to regional development. the times article that focuses on the university of alabama at birmingham places great emphasis on this task of metropolitan univer4 metropolitan universities/winter 1991 sities, as does our "declaration of metropolitan universities." this issue therefore also contains articles by morris keeton, by john schuh, rosalind andreas, and c. carney strange, and by john harris and donna ford, dealing with aspects of the student population at metropolitan universities. keeton, the country's leading prophet and missionary for adult education, shares with us his vision of metropolitan universities devoted substantially to the educational needs of older students. john schuh and his co-workers describe how greater involvement can enrich the educational experience of predominantly commuting students of all ages. harris and ford emphasize the need to be sensitive to significant experiential, contextual, and cultural differences between minority and other student groups. articles in a journal rarely have the eloquence of an inaugural address, or the simple directness of a well-written newspaper piece. but i hope that cumulatively the contributions to this journal reaffirm the call for change articulated so well by langenberg' s address and the two times reports, and that they provide assistance to all engaged in the necessary institutional transformation. mu1991-winter-003_page2 mu1991-winter-004_page3 mu1991-winter-005_page4 overview charles p. ruch fundraising for metropolitan universities fundraising is a series of disappointments, sprinkled with a few brilliant successes, most of which are unexpected. -author unknown while always faced with economic challenges, metropolitan universities are now confronting a very different funding environment as we move into the new century. just at a time when higher education needs to expand to meet critical societal needs, when enrollments are on the increase and tuition costs are under even greater scrutiny, the traditional sources of support for our institutions are on the decline. gone, if they ever were here, are the days when higher education was one of the top priorities for state support. health care, corrections, k-12, welfare, and workforce training are now state priorities competing with public higher education for an ever-shrinking public dollar. gone too are broad-based federal dollars supporting higher education. more and more, metropolitan universities will have to raise funds from the private sector if they are to continue to provide the range of services expected of them. fundraising by metropolitan universities, while not a new activity for some, is a function of increasing import for most. we come to this new challenge with all the opportunities and uncertainties that face the balance of our institutional life. hence, this collection of articles is a timely exploration of the many facets of institutional advancement and fundraising for our institutions. a cursory analysis of those metropolitan universities that are most active in private fundraising reveals that they build their achievements on several of the unique 6 metropolitan universities/fall 1997 characteristics of our type of institution. first-and foremost-is location. if capitalized upon, only the unique location of a metropolitan university gives it special leverage for fundraising. the many links into the community, the special relationships between the university and city leadership, and the powerful role the institution plays in the life of the community are all opportunities that can be supportive of institutional fundraising. the entrepreneurial nature of our schools provides yet another dimension that can be exploited in support of fundraising agendas. the capacity of a metropolitan institution to partner with community agencies, develop public/private ventures, and create joint projects, programs, or facilities are elements that can bring strength to our institutional advancement efforts. our mission to serve the unique needs of a metropolitan region gives us yet a third advantage in building a case for private support. yet, even with these unique characteristics, our institutions face unusual challenges as they seek to enhance private support. our commitment and location in a metropolitan area can give rise to a parochial reputation and a parochial attitude in both the institution and prospective donors. in addition, the relative youth of our schools, as compared with their sister institutions, has a direct effect on their ability to gain private dollars. metropolitan universities report that among their graduates they have fewer professionals in advanced positions-many are just beginning their careers. our alumni are younger and less affluent personally or influential professionally than alumni from other institutions. the institutional mission, characterized by a willingness to enroll the less affluent, encouragement of part-time student attendance, a welcome to the commuter student, and little attention to wide-ranging social clubs and greeks, can create a campus experience that creates few ties to the institution upon graduation. these alumni may be less inclined to be annual givers to the institution. finally, our roles as public institutions, our perceived lower institutional status, and our historical underfunded condition of experiencing ever-increasing needs are additional challenges facing the metropolitan university seeking larger amounts of private dollars. this issue includes seven articles describing various dimensions and experiences of metropolitan universities as they have moved into private fundraising activities. brownell and shrader (university ofnorth texas) begin with a broad overview ruch 7 of the application of what they view as "traditional" fundraising efforts at their institution. the importance of an institutional infrastructure to support fundraising activities, a strong alumni base, and team leadership all receive a thoughtful analysis. five of the articles, luck and walling (university of massachusetts boston), 0 'brien (university of new orleans), pattenaude and goettel (university of southern maine), ramaley and withers (portland state university), and walker and lee (university of arkansas at little rock), present case studies of institutional advancement strategies in these metropolitan universities. in sum, six strategies emerge as significant. first, all use their metropolitan locations as an advantage in making the case for private funding. because each city is different, no one strategy emerges. the proximity to other public and private institutions is one consideration. the nature of the state system of higher education is yet another defining aspect of location. however, all the contributors view their institutions as an "institution of the city"-a central point in their case statements. second, institutional advancement activities, marketing, public relations, and development are all enhanced through the process of seeking private support. conversely, without a long-range plan and activities to position the institution as a unique contributor to the community, fundraising is made more difficult. the "asking" for private funds is the consequence of a long, well-articulated program of activities designed to make the case for private support in the community. each article illustrates, although with different strategies, the evolution of this most important process. conversely, improved institutional image is a reported outcome of heightened activities in the fundraising arena. clear institutional priorities are viewed as imperative for successful positioning and advancement functions. having everyone soliciting the community for different needs is a counterproductive and dysfunctional strategy. fundraising success requires strong internal leadership to develop and articulate agreed-upon priorities. making sure all institutional advancement efforts focus on these announced priorities is an absolute necessity. fourth, tying fundraising to community initiative is a useful tactic. the 0 'brien and ramaley/withers articles provide solid examples of this advantage enjoyed by metropolitan universities at the university ofnew orleans and portland state university, respectively. several of the cases illuminate the use of formal public/private partnerships to support institutional goals and to gamer additional private support. 8 metropolitan universities/fall 1997 finally, like politics, all fundraising is local and personal. presidential leadership, both as community leader and institutional spokesperson, is critical. the team concept of institutional development is well documented in these articles. when public relations activities, marketing efforts, and fundraising efforts are coordinated and focused, success is evident. the concluding article points to an important element in the development equation: alumni. davies (boise state university) discusses strategies for building a strong alumni base when faced with a commuter student body and the absence of a strong campus social fabric. in sum, this issue presents the reader with a timely overview of the structure, strategies, practices, and issues surrounding this most complex and critical issue facing our institutions. 5 to what end? assessing engagement with our communities valerie l. holton urban and metropolitan universities are integrally connected with their surrounding communities. this is seen in how we teach our students, how we generate new knowledge, and how we value and engage in service. this is also seen in the increasing understanding of the role we play as anchor institutions that can intentionally contribute to the collective capacity of our cities. but how do we know if our efforts are making a positive difference in the lives of our students, employees, and communities? this issue of metropolitan universities showcases efforts by colleges and universities to measure some of the effects of their engagement with their communities through teaching, research, and service activities. this collection of articles reveals how institutions of higher education are developing frameworks and tools to aid in this process. the articles were selected for inclusion in this issue for two primary reasons. first, each article contains some evidence of the effectiveness of their approach, as well as identifies the challenges faced. second, each article reflects approaches that can be applied in other institutions. as the field of institutional research and effectiveness continues to develop, these articles can inform the practice among members of cumu and similar institutions. three themes emerge across the articles. first, the institutions represented here deeply value their engagement with their communities. this is important to understand, particularly when talking about data collection. none of them are seeking to merely collect data, but rather to collect data that will inform their practice, tell their institution’s and the community’s story, celebrate and recognize successes as well as areas for improvement, and engage in long-term planning that may deepen the impact. second, the efforts reflected here are largely driven by offices that focus on engaged activities rather than offices of institutional research. however, institutional researchers and their offices are primarily responsible for the institution-wide data that informs reporting, planning, and decision-making. the scope of institutional researchers is wide, addressing topics associated with admissions, curriculum, enrollment management, student life, and athletics. given their expertise, reporting responsibilities, and central role in providing information to support universityplanning and decision-making, it is worth exploring the connections between institutional research and the community engagement field and offices. third, the development of mechanisms that collect systematic campus-wide information on community engagement is challenging because of the multiple 6 constituencies involved and the diversity of models and strategies. campuses describe efforts to define engaged activities and identify measureable outcomes that make sense across disciplines and in the context of communities, and that can be aggregated meaningfully. but, despite the complexity of the process, all the authors see great value in the effort to identify and assess engagement efforts, whether that rests in the ability to enhance collaborations, improve practices, or deepen the value of engagement across the campus. getto and mccunny reflect on the effort at east carolina university to develop an inclusive assessment methodology in order to meet multifaceted institutional needs and navigate challenges. this methodology seeks to counteract a focus on quantitative approaches by proposing the use of a mixed-method approach that is intended to enhance the role and voice of community partners. perry, farmer, onder, tanner, and burton from western carolina university describe the development of a measuring, monitoring, and tracking system for faculty engagement, particularly as it occurs through courses. the paper provides insights into the development and administration of a survey to collect this type of information. using the kecskes (2009) community-engaged department rubric, stanton-nichols, hatcher, and cecil evaluate service-learning institutionalization within indiana university-purdue university indianapolis. they propose adding an additional dimension, social return on investment, to help academic leaders understand the benefits of investing in service-learning and more broadly in campus-community partnerships. virginia commonwealth university provides two examples of data collection efforts with an emphasis on using existing data. first, they describe a process of identifying internal partnerships as a way to track and assess community engagement across teaching, research, and service. holton, jettner, early, and shaw describe the approach, lessons learned, and uses of the data. in the second article, the team at virginia commonwealth university reviews the development and implementation of a pilot enterprise data collection process used to identify and describe external partnerships. they highlight findings from the pilot, how the information has been used, and recommendations for future systematic data collection efforts. janke and medlin explain how the university of north carolina greensboro has answered the question, “how do i get faculty and staff to record information about their community engagement and public service activities, partnerships, and contributions?” they present insights about who to talk with, questions to prepare for, and conversations that will increase participation from faculty and staff to report their activities annually. howard rosing of depaul university has contributed an essay to this issue that challenges campuses to be thoughtful and candid about their motivations and aims for gathering data that describes their community partnerships. he makes a strong case for more intentional attention to how we use such data to describe our role in community 7 impacts, which too often may only highlight what seems successful from the campus perspective. can we learn to use data to critique and improve our work? how can we recognize and honor the contributions of community expertise that clearly benefit our institutions? do we measure and examine what doesn’t work, and why, as well as what goes well? the final two articles focus on the collection and use of information in efforts involving partnerships. beckett describes towson university’s new partnership governance and new partnership support system. this includes a framework of four types of partnerships, their characteristics, evaluation expectations, and the support that will be provided by the university. the article also highlights how the information gathered through this effort supported the institution’s response after the 2015 riots in baltimore city. as part of a larger focus on community-university partnerships aimed at improving the sustainability and viability of its surrounding community, gannon university has launched the greeneriepa.org project, a web portal for environmental efforts in erie county, pennsylvania. bomberger and homan describe the development and ongoing operations of this community-based website and make recommendations for similar efforts. in conclusion, most urban and metropolitan universities are working to develop these data collection mechanisms and to create the infrastructure to use this valuable information in university planning and decision-making. this collection of articles advances the national dialogue and serves as guidance for other institutions who are also asking, “to what end?” author information dr. valerie holton is the director of community-engaged research in the division of community engagement at virginia commonwealth university. in her current role, she leads and contributes to strategic initiatives that deepen and demonstrate the university’s civic mission. she leads the division’s involvement in building a university-wide infrastructure to advance community-engaged research (cenr). additionally, she supports the development of the division’s and university’s capacity to track and measure the impact of vcu’s engagement. valerie l. holton director of community-engaged research division of community engagement virginia commonwealth university 901 west franklin street richmond, virginia 23284 e-mail: vholton@vcu.edu telephone: 804-827-2001 8 from the editor barbara holland the 2003 conference of the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities was organized around the theme "metropolitan universities: partners in the urban agenda." conference hosts at eastern michigan university did an excellent job of building a series of strong plenary sessions that developed the theme with input from several national experts on the conditions and challenges of improving the quality of life in america's most urbanized areas. concurrent sessions gave the nearly 200 conference participants the opportunity to share and exchange examples of effective strategies for linking higher education to urban economic development. this issue of metropolitan universities provides a sampling of conference sessions that illustrate the diversity of approaches institutions and experts are taking regarding the role of universities in cities. america is a highly urbanized nation with more than 75% of the population living in incorporated communities of 2500 or more. even the smallest metropolitan areas face challenging issues typical of urban contexts: economic stability, sufficient employment opportunities, and quality systems and services related to health, education, public safety, and culture. not surprisingly, cumu institutions are advanced examples of campus-community partnerships focused on these public concerns. at the same time, most institutional leaders would also acknowledge that we have much to learn about effective collaboration, so the conference was an excellent opportunity to learn about the latest information on urban conditions and strategies. the meeting theme was framed well by the first plenary session with bruce katz, director of the center on urban and metropolitan policy at the brookings institution in washington, dc. he shared recent analyses of the demographic trends affecting cities and suburbs across the nation, and made some observations about what these trends mean for public policy and for urban/metropolitan universities. in particular, he shared statistics on the majority-as-minority shift in urban regions, the continued growth and diversification of suburbs, and the consequential impacts on ec·onomic mix and job location. the new competitive cities agenda, as he described it, begins with a focus on fixing the basics: schools, safe streets, competitive taxes and services, modem infrastructure and a functioning real estate market. he concluded by illustrating some ways that universities contribute to the development of those types of assets in cities. anne habiby was the second plenary presenter and described the model for inner city development used by the initiative for a competitive inner city. like katz, she argued that universities are engines for city economies and reminded the audience that 50% of all universities are located in the urban core. in fact, she indicated that urban core universities spend nine times more on salaries, goods, and services than the federal government spends on urban job and business development! therefore, she urged the 3 4 coalition to use its influence and untapped economic potential to enhance life in urban america. you will find an article based on her presentation in this collection. recognizing that educational institutions make a significant difference to the cities/regions they serve, the final plenary featured three different perspectives on the role and future of the metropolitan university. james votruba, president of northern kentucky university, articulated the case for why metropolitan universities must be committed to community and civic engagement. he illustrated how a focus on building strong cities also builds academic quality and benefits students as well as the public. doug henton of collaborative economics noted that our institutions will only be as strong as the communities and regions they serve; therefore, we must be active "stewards of place" and work to strengthen every aspect of life in the area in which we are located. he focused in particular on four key themes that require a collaborative regional conversation: innovative economies that ensure opportunity for everyone; livable communities where people want to reside; community-based regionalism that promotes inclusive and equitable communities; and governance reform to make the public sector more responsive. government involvement was the core theme of dennis jones of the national center for higher education management systems (nchems) who made the case that metropolitan university leaders must work actively with state and local government officials to develop policies that both promote and fund the urban agenda. additionally, during the conference, 20 different panels, involving 82 panelists, were offered in four tracks: vision and resources, metropolitan issues, organizing for action, and teaching and learning. from these, several papers are included in this issue. the focus of all the discussions, as represented by these papers, was on "best practices" and lessons learned about universities and economic/community development that are relevant to the work of other metropolitan universities. for those of you who "crave" statistics, here are some interesting details about the 2003 coalition conference: • 16 presidents/chancellors attended • 20 vice presidents were present • 49 different institutions were represented • 10 associations/organizations were registered american humanics, incorporated the brookings institution collaborative economics, inc. initiative for a competitive inner city michigan campus compact national association of state universities and land grant colleges national center for higher education management systems national science foundation nonprofit enterprise at work united states department of housing and urban development in addition, kudos go to the conference team at eastern michigan university who, for the first time in coalition history, garnered substantial external support from nine corporate sponsors that provided funding to help the coalition celebrate the importance of urban higher education to our society. the corporate sponsors of the 2003 conference were: burt hill kosar rittelmann associates cannon design dell, inc. ford motor company hewlett packard oak hall tiaa-cref turner webct the 2003 conference was a great success on every level, and i want to add my personal thanks and congratulations to emu president sam kirkpatrick, his executive advisor martha tack and all the staff , faculty and students who contributed to meeting planning and implementation. the bar has been set high for future conferences! i also want to acknowledge martha's assistance in preparing this review of the conference program. to participate in these informative and innovative meetings, be sure to reserve the dates and plan to attend the 2004 cumu conference on october 2-5, 2004, hosted by pace university in new york city! in addition to having access to "the city that never sleeps," participants will enjoy a program featuring the theme "urban and metropolitan america: the new realities." these are very different times for all cities and metropolitan areas; and there is no better way to learn about them than by being in the city that often leads the nation in articulating solutions to many challenges of urban life. see you in new york city! 5 celebrating the contributions of .. ernest a. lynton 1926-1998 numerous colleagues have written us with their reflections on the impressive contributions ernest made to institutions, individuals, and higher education. from among the many communications received, some highlights are offered here as recognition and celebration of this remarkable individual. all of us in american higher education, and in particular, those of us in the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities, lost a dear friend and distinguished advocate with the passing of ernest lynton. all of us will miss the intellectual leadership he provided our coalition from its inception. ernest was a major leader in articulating the importance and the potential of the role of urban and metropolitan universities. and as the founding editor of metropolitan universities journal, he created the cornerstone of our coalition. ernest and his work may best be characterized as the glue that held the coalition together well enough for us to attract a growing membership, now including more than fifty u.s. and four british and canadian universities. we shall miss his ability to ask the right questions and, more often than not, propose answers that influenced our decisions for our own campuses. as our coalition forges ahead, we will continue to benefit from reflecting and acting on the example he set for us. -alfred f hurley chancellor and president of the university of north texas, and president of the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities 8 metropolitan universities/summer 1998 as publisher of metropolitan universities, appointed in mid1995, i had the privilege of knowing ernest lynton for a much shorter time than most of those who have written of him in this tribute. but i feel deeply grateful for the opportunity to have worked with him for nearly three years in that close and harmonious collaboration of editor and publisher so essential in the production of a scholarly journal. ernest was one of the most vigorous and vibrant gentlemen and scholars that i have ever known. his belief in the mission of the coalition was profound. the journal's existence and continued success are due in large part to his dedication, scholarly thinking, hard work, and commitment to fighting for principles-of the journal, of the institutions we all represent, and of scholarship in general. all of this he did with infallible good humor, diplomacy, and an exquisite sense of timing. as proof, he had the foresight to choose an able successor early in his illness, enabling her to apprentice on the journal long enough to take on full editorial responsibility without the slightest misstep. i shall miss ernie enormously, both professionally and personally. but he has given me and all of us that rarest of contributionshimself and his enduring accomplishments. -marilyn mattsson, publisher metropolitan universities: an international forum i first came to know ernest lynton in the summer of 1980 when i arrived on the doorstep of the national association of state universities and land-grant colleges (nasulgc) with the responsibility for organizing a division ofurban affairs for the association. when i settled into my office, my colleague sue fratkin gave me a very simple first instruction: "call ernest lynton." at that time he was vice president for academic affairs at the university of massachusetts and one of the leaders in the creation of the urban affairs division after a long political battle within nasulgc. from that first call until his death, ernest was a firm ally, mentor, and friend . what always impressed me most about ernest was his willingness-indeed eagerness-to push beyond the boundaries and beliefs that american higher education has so comfortably accepted for much of this century. that the urban and metropolitan university could be a legitimate model for higher education, that the most innovative academic leaders and leadership could be found far from the confines of an ivy league or land-grant university-these and many other ideas that seemed revolutionary when ernest first voiced them two and three decades ago-have become key concepts of the late 1990s. ernest was as steady and forthright as anyone i have known in his belief that the american university could change to serve its students, faculty, and the larger public more effectively. ernesf s last contribution to metropolitan universities bore the haunting title, "time is running out." in that essay, he was both warning us about the growing distrust of higher education, and reiterating his belief that the urban and metropolitan university is likely to be the key to recapturing the public trust. the finest tribute we can pay to his memory is to rededicate ourselves to the support and advocacy for these institutions for which he cared so deeply. -nevin c. brown the educational trust ernest lynton will stand out as the most inspiring model of professional creativity and integrity in my life. even in his last dayswhen his energy was diminished-he continued to pursue the issues of professional service and the challenges of documenting the related scholarship. he wanted to be certain that faculty would be supported and re.cognized for their contributions. he committed himself totally to that work, and to its potential to refonn higher education and enhance faculty roles and rewards. ernest was a powerful mentor and friend to me, and i feel immensely privileged to have known and worked with him. -amy driscoll portland state university s director of community-university partnerships, and collaborator with ernest lynton on the kellogg-funded professional service documentation project in his book with sandra elman, new priorities for the university, ernest lynton wrote about what a "new" university might be: "the 'new' university is an institution less clearly delineated than the traditional one; it is more interrelated with its surroundings, and it is in fact a part of the context in which it operates .... its faculty will include 9 i 0 metropolitan universities/summer 1998 practitioners who have learned to incorporate their experience into a theoretical framework, and conversely it will ensure that its academically trained professors will have opportunities for first-hand practical applications of their theoretical knowledge" (p. 163). we all had the opportunity to work with ernest lynton, who served as a senior associate at nerche, and he joined us in the design of the program on f acuity professional service and academic outreach. this program began by exploring what it means for college and university faculty to put ernest's ideas into practice. he always insisted that we focus on what he called "faculty professional service," and we sometimes wondered why he was so adamant about this term. but ernest was an experienced administrator and political analyst of higher education who knew that if "professional" were not attached to "service," it would be assimilated into the more familiar, and less valued, sorts of service-committee membership, disciplinary activities, and good works of various sorts. he wanted to underline the usefulness of expert knowledge and at the same time legitimate this way of thinking about it, and he understood that faculty work was the key to bringing higher education back into the public realm after a long period of separation. we will continue to strive toward resolving the issues he raised about how higher education might be changed to accomplish this goal. -catherine burack, zelda gamson, deborah hirsch, and sharon singleton new england resource center for higher education among all of the fine individuals involved with metropolitan universities journal and the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities, ernest lynton was a true leader in the field. he took the mission of the urban and metropolitan university seriously and promoted it in every aspect of his administrative and scholarly activity. perhaps more importantly, he unfailingly commended others for pursuing the mission in their work, thereby assuring that it would be carried into the new millenium. through his far-reaching insights, ernest embodied the spirit of the metropolitan university. he contributed time, energy, scholarly and administrative expertise, and most of all, his heartfelt dedication. -john c. hitt president, university of central florida overview alexander e. sidorowicz higher education, taken as a single entity, is the largest supporter of the arts and arts education in the united states. universities, especially those located in and integrated into metropolitan areas for decades, have provided direct support for fac· ulty in arts education programs. these faculty, as practitioners of their arts, and in pursuing their research, scholarly work, and creative activity, have in tum been significant contributors to the cultural and artistic scene of the cities and regions in which they live. because of the economic stress of the 1980s, as well as for mutually beneficial programmatic reasons, arts organizations and arts programs in public school systems have begun to form collaborative relationships with university arts programs at an ever increasing pace. through these relationships, the metropolitan university has become an even more thoroughly integrated partner in maintaining and developing the arts and arts education fabric of the surrounding region. because of this direct support, and through these collaborative associations, higher education has become one of the most significant patrons of the arts. this fact is at the same time unrealized and ignored by some, and recognized as important, if not crucial, to the life of the arts by others. let me note two divergent examples which occurred ia.st fall. · as part of the august 1993 meeting of the national council of the arts (nca), an advisory board of the national endowment for the arts, the arts education advisory council steering group presented its report. the steering group serves as a subcommittee to the nca. it was making its report in light of the fact that federal legislation had mandated in 1990 that 50 percent of any appropriation over $17 4 million be focused on education. in a somewhat startling statement, the head of the subcommittee reported that his presentation was about education in the arts and not arts education, and that the council should not trust the "educationists" with any appropriation. what a gratuitous slight to the musicians, painters, sculptors, dancers, actors, filmmakers, playwrights, composers, printmakers, video artists, and choreographers who make up our arts faculties -all, with few exceptions, dedicated to their art and their students, and supported by the institution to which they contribute their individual artistic expressions. in october of 1993, i was invited as part of a two-person team, along with twenty such teams from across the country, to plan a national conference on arts partnering. entitled "arts for universities and communities: daring to do it together," and funded by the nathan cummings foundation and the university of new mexico, the meeting brought together people from 19 states and 18 metropolitan areas who were involved in establishing collaborative relationships between universities and arts agencies or public school arts programs. the conference, in june of 1994, will be the first national conference to focus on arts partnering, and recognizes the need to form such relationships between university arts programs and arts presenting, producing, and educational programs in the region. i have listed further information about the conference at the end of this overview. the mounting of such a conference emphasizes that establishing collaborations, partnerships, and associations of this nature is an important strategy for the arts in universities. in the main, the articles in this issue deal with these relationships and the outreach mission of the arts at metropolitan universities, and detail both the results and the processes used to achieve them. 8 metropolitan universities/spring 1994 my article, the outreach role of the fine and performing arts, leads into those dealing with collaborations, and also analyzes the outreach activities that are a natural outcome of arts education programs in higher education: the production and presentation of fine and performing arts events; and the role of the arts in providing non-degree educational programs for people of all ages . i also point out that higher education, as a single entity, far outpaces the national endowment for the arts and private, corporate, and community foundations in its direct support of the arts and arts education in the united states. d. jack davis and r. william mccarter review their success in forming a collaboration with museums of the dallas/fort worth metroplex, arts councils, and regional public school systems. they also discuss the role of the visual art specialist as it relates to the classroom teacher, and provide successful models to incorporate visual art education into public school curriculum. kathryn martin also illustrates cooperative programs with school systems, and challenges us to make changes in university arts education programs in her article, the university and arts education. she notes that recent research at the university of illinois points to the fact that "high schools which stress the arts ... have stronger attendance, higher student test scores, and a higher percentage of graduates going on to higher education in comparison to other public high schools ... " in many instances, metropolitan universities can equitably share and benefit from the co-sponsored appointment of artistic staff, those who serve as educators to the university, and artists and performers to the community. rhoda-gale pollack clearly delineates the strategies and techniques to successfully share such staff and preserve the identity of collaborating partners. in his article, "the future by design: the donaghey project for urban studies and design at the university of arkansas at little rock," lloyd w. benjamin iii asserts that "urban grant institutions should focus on urban issues in their region just as land grant institutions address agrarian problems." he goes on to illustrate how the donaghey project has assisted small and large towns in arkansas to cope with problems inherent in development. philip arnoult and carol baish, in a collaboration: the artist's view, give us the view from outside the academy of an arts presenter who sought a collaborative relationship with a metropolitan university. they state that "by the mideighties, it should have been clear to everybody working in the non-profit arts world, that collaboration was a matter of survival. .. " in their analysis of developing and nurturing this partnership, they illustrate what needs to be avoided and what needs to be central in conceiving a collaborative venture. with the formation of a growing number of colleges of communication and fine arts, many of us wonder how we can achieve associations and relationships between these disciplines that go beyond the administrative convenience of grouping them together. in his article, cooperative programs between telecommunications and the fine and performing arts: a coalition for the 90s, joseph misiewicz relates a number of curricular successes and how collaboration between the fine arts and public radio and television stations can create a coalition that will thoroughly educate people for these growing channels of communication. involving students in these relationships is the key. in having john p. l. roberts, of the university of calgary contribute to this issue, we get a clear view of the economic crisis that exists in canada and the role of arts advocacy in mitigating its impact. he notes that," ... governments have difficulty in grasping the economic impact and the job creation aspects of the arts and overview 9 cultural industries ... ," and that this information is useful in influencing economyoriented legislators. those who might be interested in having members of their institution join in the conference, "arts for universities and communities: daring to do it together," should contact marcos t. sanchez, conference coordinator, college of fine arts, fine arts center, university of new mexico, albuquerque, nm 87131-1396; tel: 505-277-5553; fax: 505-277-0708. the conference is scheduled for june 24 and 25, 1994, at the university ofnew mexico. mu1993-winter-008_page7 mu1993-winter-009_page8 mu1993-winter-010_page9 editor's desk through the set of articles gathered by adrianna kezar, our guest editor from the university of maryland, this issue of metropolitan universities reflects on the many dimensions of leadership in higher education. our urban and metropolitan universities present special challenges for leaders because of the complex and interactive relationships between the institution and the metropolitan region. in addition to the usual issues of academic and campus culture, faculty and student perspectives, and governing board relationships, urban and metropolitan universities also must actively attend to community context and culture. campus neighbors, local government, business and community leaders, other educational institutions are only a few of the many different external forces that have an active and sometimes conflicted interest in the role of the urban or metropolitan university in the region. campus leadership in such a complex environment of diverse interests and expectations is assumed to be primarily the responsibility of the president or chancellor, and certainly the person in that role is expected to set the tone for town-gown relationships as well as for internal academic culture. however, when one looks over time, it is obvious that individual presidents come and go (the average tenure of a public university president continues to hover around 5 years) and the importance of other, natural leaders scattered throughout the institution is revealed. thus, the exploration of "leadership" issues in our academic institutions must consider both those individuals in official leadership roles, and those who provide leadership across the organization, with or without formal leadership duties. dr. kezar has gathered a powerful and useful set of articles that explore these different aspects of leadership and the impact of different leadership models and strategies. i thank her and the authors for giving us rich material that you will certainly find useful in your own institution's context. reading these articles reminds me of the work of another faculty member from the university of maryland, now retired, who is also a well-known scholar of leadership issues robert birnbaum. i met bob during my doctoral studies at college park and, like many other graduate students, i enjoyed frequent debates with him about the nature of leadership and organizations. he had a way of sparking truly lively discussions by taking an extreme position himself (at least we students saw his ideas as extreme), and defending his views with compelling arguments, strong conceptual frameworks, institutional examples, and clever humor! his 1988 book, how colleges work, summarized bob's strongly held belief that "leadership doesn't matter" because academic organizations have powerful "core tendencies" that are maintained by cultural traditions and behavioral norms that leaders can't really change. in the book, he describes four models of academic organizations, each with its own set of typical behaviors and decision-making cultures that require leaders to adapt their style to fit those behaviors and core traditions. if you haven't ever read how colleges work or you read it years ago, i recommend it highly to you. it delivers a powerful and challenging message in a 3 4 format that is enjoyable to read. (see also the marx brothers movie "horsefeathers" to learn the source of the mythical "huxley college" bob uses in the book to illustrate his different organizational models.) i have never shared bob's perspective that leadership doesn't matter or that leaders can't make a difference in the transformation and evolution of organizational culture, but he does have a point that academic organizations are incredibly difficult to change. reflecting on the evolution and maturation of many member institutions of the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities, it is easy to see examples of extraordinary presidents and chancellors who were the right leaders at the right moment to move those institutions forward. what these leaders seemed to have had in common was the ability to inspire their boards, faculty and students to take risks on new directions and ideas. in other words, these leaders inspired trust and confidence across the organization a sense of optimism and possibility. the coalition itself has been the beneficiary of dedicated leadership exerted by those who founded the organization in 1988-89, and by those who have played leadership roles throughout the coalition's young history. there are many individuals who have contributed to the formation and management of the coalition, but three in particular are retiring from their campus roles and the coalition, and deserve special recognition. since the mid-1990s, al hurley of the university of north texas, hoke smith of towson university, and don langenberg of the university of maryland were among the core officers of the executive committee of the coalition. smith and langenberg have retired within the last year, and hurley will soon follow with his retirement from unt in august. for their dedication to the mission of the urban and metropolitan university, we owe them tremendous gratitude. the coalition's influence, strong financial condition and membership base can be attributed to the work of these individuals and their other colleagues on the executive committee. in particular, i want to express appreciation to al hurley who was the chair of the coalition executive committee for the last eight years, and was a gracious leader in every respect. during his tenure as the coalition's chair, membership grew to an alltime high, the coalition's conferences were put on a regular calendar and were enhanced in both participation and quality, and the journal has grown and prospered. while building the coalition, he was also leading the university of north texas through a time of extraordinary expansion and development. in defiance of the low national average for presidential tenure, he served unt as president and chancellor for 20 years! during those two decades, enrollment grew from 18,000 to more than 27 ,000, and the endowment grew from $850,000 to more than $45,000,000. unt has become a major hub of postsecondary education in the dallas-fort worth and north texas regions. from personal observation, i can attest that al hurley's positive impact on the coalition, as well as on unt, came in large part from his strong commitment to courtesy and respect for everyone, a generous ability to give credit to others, and an extraordinary sense of optimism. i hope you will join me in extending sincere thanks and appreciation to chancellor hurley, and his wife joanna, for service to the coalition during its critical formative years, and in wishing them happiness in future endeavors. transitional leadership of the coalition executive committee, until new elections are held, is being provided by sam kirkpatrick of eastern michigan university, john hitt of the university of central florida, and jim votruba of northern kentucky university. please also mark your calendars for the next conference of the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities which will be hosted by simon fraser university, british columbia, october 4-6, 2002. an exciting program with international dimensions is planned, and the venue will certainly be wonderful as well. my own leadership responsibilities have changed recently also. my time as the visiting director of the office of university partnerships for the u.s. department of housing and urban development has come to an end after a wonderful 18-month experience. the hud grants for university-community partnerships are a vital resource for expanding the civic mission of our urban-serving institutions, and i encourage all coalition members to consider applying for these grant funds. because of their historic commitment to their metropolitan regions, urban and metropolitan universities tend to be successful in competing for these hud grants. the 2002 grant competition is currently underway, and full information about the preparation of proposals is available at www.oup.org. as i left the visiting role at hud, i began service as the director of the national service-leaming clearinghouse, which is funded by the corporation for national and community service and administered by etr associates. happily, this new position allows me to continue to encourage national interest in service and service-learning, and to explore the nature of community partnerships. the clearinghouse has a broad mission to expand service-learning programs especially across our schools, colleges and universities, community-based organizations and the tribal nations. check out the clearinghouse website at www.servicelearning.org and discover a vast reservoir of information resources to expand and strengthen service activities. i am also pleased and honored to continue to serve indiana university-purdue university indianapolis as a senior scholar, and as executive editor of this journal, metropolitan universities, which is based at iupui under the leadership of harriett bennett, managing editor, and her team in university college. thanks to all my coalition and iupui colleagues for their support and friendship, and for the opportunity to collaborate with all of you in the important work of building our urban and metropolitan universities as the leading models of engaged institutions. birnbaum, r. (1988). how colleges work. san francisco: jossey-bass, inc. 5 book notes bloland, paul a., stamatakos, louis c., and rogers, russell r reform in student affairs: a critique of student development. greensboro, north carolina: eric counseling and student services clearinghouse, 1994, 115 pp. as the authors of reform in student affairs: a critique of student development note, the "original intent [in writing this monograph] had been to construct an objective critique, one with balance and objectivity, as a result of our detailed examination of the history and literature .... "(p. viii). however, as the authors began the process of reviewing the historic and current status of the student development perspective, what emerged were questions about this dominant paradigm's foundations, goals, and methods. as a result, the monograph's purpose is to identify some of the important questions and issues about student development that have thus far remained unasked and unaddressed. in the final analysis, the authors suggest that student development, as a movement within student affairs, has been adopted largely without question. rather than continue along this path, we need to step back, be critical, be evaluative, and truly rethink the student development paradigm as the shaper of student affairs. this monograph is provocative, to the point, and required reading for student affairs professionals and other collegiate administrators involved with considering how colleges and universities can effectively work with students, both in and outside the classroom. the chapters lead the reader toward a reappraisal of student affairs. chapter i explores the unquestioned rise of student development as the guiding paradigm for student affairs. from this starting point, the authors continue in future chapters to examine what has been termed as student development theory, assess student development research, appraise the student development literature, and look at student development in practice. finally, they suggest that there are many avenues for research that ought to be explored to test the unquestioned assumptions upon which we have adopted the student development paradigm. it is through susan roberts campbell this evaluation and research that we can draw upon the strengths of student development models and redirect our student affairs efforts away from those principles and practices that are not useful nor applicable to our institutions. paulsen, michael b. college choice: understanding student enrollment behavior. ashe-eric higher education report 6. washington, d.c.: eric clearinghouse on higher education, 1990, 106 pp. from the perspective of academic administrators in higher education, the words for the 90's seem to be "recruitment and retention." with a few notable exceptions, while admissions offices continue to play a significant role in maintaining the quality of an entering class, the days of serving solely as institutional gatekeepers are gone. the changing demographics of the late 80s and early 90s as well as the projected slower growth in the traditional age population for the future have cemented that role change. instead, institutions and their representatives are searching for ways to be competitive, ways to find new markets and ways to improve the retention and graduation rates of currently enrolled students. while written in 1990, college choice: understanding student enrollment behavior, remains a current and practical work in helping professionals concerned about and/or charged with maintaining an institution's enrollment to go about their business in thoughtful, considered, and strategic ways. this short monograph reviews the relationship between understanding student enrollment behavior to the enrollment planning process. the author also reviews the limited research that has been conducted at the institutional, state, and national level and suggests that more needs to be done to continue to inform this area. he then places the concept of college choice within an institutional context, exploring how student and institutional characteristics interact in order to be able to develop an effective, strategic marketing approach. in this chapter, paulsen looks at those issues that have been termed as "critical" to 110 metropolitan universities/summer 1995 student decision-makingin particular, college costs. he also explores the enrollment patterns of non-traditional students, the segment that is predicted to hold the most promise for increase in the future. finally, paulsen explores the stages of college choice, including the traditional admissions concepts of search and application, the role of market research and some ethical guidelines for conducting marketing research. he pulls it all together by reinforcing the need to understand student enrollment, reviewing the implications for the current research and suggesting policy and research directions for the future. this is important reading for those interested in pursuing more than the enrollment "quick fix." in a continually-shifting demographic environment, it truly behooves institutions to carefully and thoughtfully development strategies that will hold them in good stead for the future. dougherty, jennifer dowling; kidwell, jillinda jonker; knight, donna malone; hubbell, loren loomis; rush, sean c. business process redesign for higher education. national association of college and uni~er­ sity business officers, 1994, 192 pp. as colleges and universities continue to struggle with the economic stress of the 90's, in addition to exploring ways to retain students and recruit new ones, they are also exploring ways to streamline their activities. the challenge, of course, is to find ways to reduce costs, to improve service to constituencies, and to simultaneously maintain a high level of quality. in business process redesign for higher education, the authors propose a model that provides institutions with the tools to do just that. as they define it, "business process redesign is ... a managerial approach that holistically incorporates institutional strategy, work processes, people, and technology to improve performance radically and to create sustainable competitive advantage by challenging and redesigning the core business processes of an institution using operational, technical, and change management in a unified way (p. 5):" they distinguish business process redesign (bpr) from total quality management by indicating that tqm is concerned with the status quo and involves continually improving existing processes through enhancement of performance. bpr, on the other hand, implies a need for radical change to close a perceived gap between an institution's current performance and the expectations of its current and prospective constituencies. the authors identify four concepts that are critical to bpr the first is that bpr is holistic in that it links "institutional strategy and visition to expressed customer needs" (p. 6). the second concept is process. bpr attempts to uncover the process that leads to the outputs of the organization, whether that be delivering goods or educating students. bpr is about "how the process can be designed to deliver the most value at the least cost" (p. 6). the third critical concept is technology in that bpr attempts to link redesigned process with the best possible technology available. finally, the fourth critical concept in bpr is change management. bpr, according to the authors, is designed "to bring issues to the surface and to develop organizational strategies to resolve these issues" (p. 7). beyond making the case for bpr, the authors in subsequent chapters provide a description of the methodology of bpr and the tools of bpr (one of these with which many are already familiar is that of benchmarking). the final chapter takes examples of successful bpr implementation from practice. the focus of these examples is on issues related to purchasing, physical plant management, admissions processes, scheduling, personnel records, and financial aid disbursement. business process redesign for higher education is an interesting publication. its arguments are compelling and the presentation is intriguing enough to capture the attention of even those most staunchly opposed to anything that might make even the most vague comparisons between higher education and business enterprises. indeed, this volume has been written specifically for higher education in recognition of its uniqueness. the challenges, implications, and lessons learned from community-based research: reflections from the field brian n. williams, guest editor community-based research: an overview community-based research is often defined as a participatory approach to the exploration, understanding, and application of knowledge. it values the active engagement of all participants in the various stages of the research process (minkler and wallerstein, 2003; nyden et al, 1997; israel et al, 1998). by design, this method has modified the traditional roles of the community and the researcher, reformed the dynamics of power in research relationships, expanded the types and applicability of knowledge, and redefined the objectives of research. community-based research uses a planned, systematic process to involve community participants as co-equals in defining, researching and addressing the existing problems facing the community (israel et al, 1998; nyden et al, 1997; gaventa, 1993; hall 1992). it recognizes community as a unit of individual, as well as collective, identity and builds upon the strengths and resources that are within community to foster its wellness and well being (israel et al, 1998). this approach seeks lasting societal change by stressing co-learning (wallerstein, 1999; israel et al, 1998). likewise, it places special emphasis on a diverse approach to the dissemination of findings (i.e., sharing of knowledge) to all partners or participants by including partners/participants in the dissemination process (de koning and martin, 1996; israel et al, 1998). these efforts ultimately seek to promote enhanced capacity building by all segments of the research and action community and encourage the development and prolongation of collaborative relationships that last beyond the typical funding cycle (israel et al, 2003). community-based research techniques share the same core principles. often designated or described as community-based participatory research (cbpr), action research, mutual inquiry, or participatory action research (par), these approaches to research and action embraces a hippocratic oath of sorts to "do no harm" in the pursuit and application of knowledge (minkler and wallerstein, 2003). but in order to abide by such a creed, community-based research goes beyond the confines and limitations of more hegemonic or orthodox approaches to research approaches which erect and support power imbalances and limit participation, interpretations and the exploration of community issues. 5 6 the philosophical and theoretical underpinnings of community-based research community-based research enjoys an emancipatory orientation and philosophy, which has been influenced and informed by the writings of habermas (197 4 ), freire (1970), and others. thus, it connects well with the more enlightening, empowering, and liberating theoretical conception of critical social science (fay, 1987) as well as the normative sponsorship thesis that advances the notion of the collective good will of communities (sower, 1957). likewise, it supports the customized application of jones' ( 1987) liberation theology thesis regarding the ethical use of religion as "legitimator and liberator" of those who are oppressed as well as hooks' ( 1994) notion of "engaged pedagogy" to expand the role, rules, status, and results of research. like jones (1987) and hooks (1994 ), critical analyses which offer practitioner implications, professional applications, and societal consequences, the community-based research approach to inquiry acknowledges its limitations, compensates for its deficiencies, and seeks to resurrect the good will and intentions of research through action. consequently, advocates of this approach see the added value in advancing systematic inquiry to the point where it is informed by both the community and the university. community-based research as "street-level" interactions in many respects, community-based research reflects lipsky's (1980) descriptions of the dynamic bureaucratic interactions that occur at the "street-level" and their resulting impact and effect on street-level bureaucrats. lipsky's (1980) account provides a relevant perspective on the discretion street-level bureaucrats need to generate and apply knowledge to resolve community problems. similarly, community-based research advances a streetwise version of informed scholarship; one that balances research and action, facilitates the transformation of passive research subjects to active research participants, and initiates a coactive research and problem-solving agenda. it does so by acknowledging that traditional research has been embedded in a single loop setting (schon and argyris, 1978) that generates "self-reinforcing systems of 'knowing-in-practice"' and inhibits individual, organizational, and community learning (schon, 1983). consequently, community-based research advances a "double-loop" learning approach to research and action (argyris and schon, 1978) thereby placing value on a co-active orientation to discovery by actively seeking to engage those who are not embedded in the same repertoire of professional skills and routines as coequals, partners, and participants (schon, 1983). this perspective advances a more grounded or bottom-up process in the co-production of research, action, education, and community well being (wallerstein and duran, 1997). furthermore, it disputes the traditional assumption that the highest level of expertise that can be brought to bear on research is conferred by the ivy-covered, hegemonic institutions that train and credential researchers. so where do we go from here? community-based research and its core principles have been offered as a more impacting and effective approach to explore and understand relevant community concerns and issues toward the facilitation of social change. this special issue contains analytical and descriptive papers which highlight the challenges (i.e., issues regarding bridging the class, race, language, culture, socio-economic, education and other divides), implications (for teaching, collective efficacy, tenure and promotion, community building, public trust, etc.), and lessons-learned (i.e., the practical, pedagogical, professional, institutional, etc.) from recent attempts to advance the community-based research approach against the hegemonic factors and forces that exist at the community and university levels. questions ranging from "how to define community" to "what actions must community-based researchers take at the personal and institutional levels to be better prepared to listen and respond to the silent language of internalized oppression and privilege" are explored. likewise, key findings and lessons from local, regional and national projects are offered as tried and tested beacons to guide individuals, organizations, and institutions as they sojourn down the path of community-based research efforts. references argyris, c., and d.a. schon, organizational learning (reading, ma: addisonwesley, inc., 1978). de koning, k., and m. martin, participatory research in health: issues and experiences (london: zed books, 1996). fay, b., critical social science: liberation and its limits (ithaca, ny: cornell university press, 1987). freire, p., pedagogy of the oppressed (new york: herder and herder press, 1970). habermas, j., theory and practice, trans. j. viertel, (london: heineman, 1974). hall, b., "from margins to center: the development and purpose of participatory action research, american sociologist 23 (1992): 15-28. hooks, b., teaching to transgress, (routledge, 1994). israel, b., a. schulz, e. parker and a. becker, "review of community-based research: assessing partnership approaches to improve public health," annual review of public health 19 (1998): 173-202. jones, w., "religion as legitimator and liberator: a worm's eye view of religion and contemporary politics," ed. richard l. rubenstein, the worldwide impact on contemporary politics (new york: paragon, 1987): 237-57. 7 8 lipsky, m., street-level bureaucracy (new york: russell sage foundation, 1980). minkler, m., and n. wallerstein,, "introduction to community-based participatory research," eds. m. minkler and n. wallerstein, community-based participatory research for health (san francisco: jossey-bass, 2003), 3-26. nyden, p., a. figert, m. sibley and d. burrows, eds., building community: social science in action (thousand oaks, ca: pine forge press, 1997). schon, d. a., the reflective practitioner: how professionals think in action (new york: basic books, 1983). sower, c., community involvement (glencoe, il: free press, 1957). wallerstein, n., "power between evaluator and community: research relationships within new mexico's healthier communities," social sciences and medicine 49 (1999): 39-53. author information brian n. williams, dpa, is an assistant professor in the department of public administration and policy, school of public and international affairs, at the university of georgia. brian n. williams, 204 baldwin hall athens, ga 30602 e-mail: bnwillia@uga.edu telephone: 706-542-7816 fax: 706-583-0610 forum donald n. langenberg we will a vision for a revolution like it or not, we are about to be caught up in a whirlwind of revolutionary change in colleges and universities across the nation, a movement that will reinvent the american university as we now know it. there are no innocent bystanders in a revolution, only victims and victors. everyone in our universities can and must play a crucial role in making sure that the revolution results in re-created and revitalized institutions. thirty years ago, when john kennedy delivered his inaugural address, the nation stood at a crossroads that, in historical hindsight, can legitimately be described as the beginning of a revolution: a social revolution that would inspire the world, and change forever the way we view ourselves, our fellow inhabitants of this planet, and our institutions. we would never be the same. today, american higher education stands at a similar crossroads. to believe that we can preserve the american university of the last half-century is to ignore the reality of a vastly changed world, and its expectations of us. to ignore that reality is sheer folly. to stand idly by and allow the tide of events to overtake us is irresponsibility of the highest orderirresponsibility to our profession as guardians of the relentless pursuit of knowledge, and to our many patrons and stakeholders, who rely on us to light the path of civilization. one of the great characteristics of the university is its stability. the university as an institution has withstood the tests of time: it is one of a precious few institutions that have survived, virtually intact, since the reformation. while empires and civilizations crumbled, humanity has looked to the university as a rock to which we could all cling in a sea of chaos and change. but that wondrous stability has become an encumbrance, an excuse to resist necessary change. in a swiftly evolving global society that waits for no institution to keep pace, we are in very real danger of becoming a historical anachronism, a bastion of arrogant irrelevance. our critics say, with more than a little justification, that america's colleges and universities have become self-indulgent; that we have, somehow, lost our vision and misplaced our priorities. we have rested far too long on our well-earned laurels. the american university is indeed unparalleled in the world. its product may indeed be the sole remaining commodity for which this nation can claim a trade surplus in the global marketplace. but for how long? our self-satisfaction is exceeded only by our slowness to recognize that we have neglected the most central aspects of our enterprise: we have ignored our obligations to our most important clients, we have bloated our administrative structures, and we have blithely disregarded an international movement emphasizing quality and results. if we were the bellwethers of change and progress we claim to be, we should have led that movement. instead, like aristocrats in a decaying civilization, we contented ourselves with pontificating from the sidelines. my friend and colleague at the university of pennsylvania, robert zemsky, puts it most eloquently when he says that we are coming to "the end of sanctuary" for higher education, the end of a time in which america's colleges and universities were sheltered from the cold winds that buffeted other institutions. today american higher education can expect to be subjected to the same critical scrutiny and demands for accountability that all langen berg 89 other institutions face. if we do not respond now, and vigorously, to these challenges, we risk becoming the subjects of political demagoguery and tabloid journalism. indeed, some of our sister institutions already have. with the perfect vision of hindsight, nearly all of us would agree today that we should have behaved differently in the decade of the eighties had we known what the nineties would bring to american higher education. the eighties brought extraordinary growth in resources and programs to colleges and universities across the nation. we had an opportunity, during those boom years, to focus our new resources in the most innovative and imaginative ways. we failed to do so. we used our newfound wealth to create new and sometimes questionable programs, without cutting out the old, the outmoded, or the mediocre. today we are paying the price. many of us are now thinking, and some are now saying aloud : "if only we had half of that money from the eighties to spend now. if only we had planned strategically then. if only we had resisted the temptation to seize every opportunity and, instead, invested selectively." my purpose is not to debate the question, "who lost american higher education?" it is to ask, and to answer, the question, "do we continue on our present path and invite decline, or do we choose a new path, one that will lead us to a reinvention of the american university, one that will make it again a vital engine of our society-an enterprise that is at once responsive and responsible to its citizens?" i believe the answer is obvious. we must choose a new path! to paraphrase the words of another penn colleague, claire fagin, we must learn to choose, not chase our future. as we contemplate the task before us, it behooves us to remember machiavelli's admonition in the prince: "there is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things. for the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order." we cannot afford to be lukewarm in our commitment to initiate a new order. nor can we afford to approach the revolution with fear-the fear of criticism or the fear of that which is new. with firm conviction, and with the firm intention to succeed, we will take a new path. no journey should begin without charting a course. here, then, are some marching orders. there are only five: first: educate. that is our primary business. indeed, in its broadest sense, it is our only business. in emphasizing the core values of nurturing minds, advancing knowledge, and elevating the human spirit, we dedicate ourselves to the essential business of higher education. what we are about is the creation, dissemination, and application of information and knowledge. our product is learning. second: do it right, the first time. in all that we do, quality will be our standard. this is the most fundamental transformation that we must expect from each and every institution and from everyone in it: to adopt "quality" as an essential characteristic of one's work, whatever it may be, and to create institutional cultures that place priority on educating and serving others over resource acquisition and elevation of status. third: go for results. collegial process is to be valued, but not as an end to itself. endless debate without action accomplishes nothing. show us the results you've achieved. set meaningful objectives, and evaluate your performance on the basis of whether you achieved those objectives. tangible outcomes, not process and methods, will bring eminence. moreover, we cannot talk about focusing on tangible outcomes without dealing with accountability and assess90 metropolitan universities/spring 1992 ment of performance. i find it supremely ironic-and hypocritical-that we who have learned how to measure the distance to the farthest galaxy and to predict the outcomes of future elections insist that we cannot measure our own output. we must change that. fourth: tear down the walls. we must break tired, old habits that inhibit creative and innovative solutions to new problems. we do too many things simply because "that's how we've always done it." we've always organized our colleges and universities into departments, schools, and campuses. our administrators, faculty, and staff have always carried titles that contribute to a hierarchical view of everything. we have discrete job descriptions; we work through committees; faculty and administrators see each other as natural antagonists. it's time to learn how to breach organizational barriers and find ways to organize ourselves in teams that focus on solving problems. fifth: simplify.we must work together to reduce the bureaucratic complexity and constraints that limit our ability to do what really needs to be done. we must begin to prune the thicket of policies, rules, regulations, and guidelines that threaten to smother our universities and every creative employee within them. too many rules intended to prevent everything bad from happening also keep anything good from happening. every time we enact one of those, we cut off one more route we could have used to solve a problem. rather than erect obstacles to failure, we need to create pathways to success. we cannot focus on results if we are mired in process and wallowing in red tape, regulations, and reports. these five guiding principles are intended to empower each and every member of our universities. an old chinese proverb says: "if you want one year of prosperity, grow grain. if you want ten years of prosperity, grow trees. if you want one hundred years of prosperity, grow people." we will grow people-not just ordinary people, mere time-servers and functionaries, but prophets, leaders, explorers, and builders. for this revolution, nothing else will do but revolutionaries. let us adopt as our rallying cry, "we will." without fear of criticism, we will seek what is right. with vigor and integrity, we will achieve national eminence. with the spirit and cooperation of family, we will succeed. in the year 1848, my great-great-grandfather left his native city of weimar and emigrated to america. i like to imagine that, as a small boy, he may have encountered in the streets of weimar one of its most distinguished citizens, a man from whom i would like to borrow my closing words. johann wolfgang von goethe wrote, "whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. boldness has genius, power and magic in it." i envision a revolution in american higher education. let us begin it. acknowledgment this column is adapted from the inaugural address of donald n. langenberg as chancellor, the university of maryland system, june 26, 1991. mu1992-spring-089_page88 mu1992-spring-090_page89 mu1992-spring-091_page90 ernest a. lynton the first substantive item in this issue of our journal is the declaration of metropolitan universities, a succinct and powerful statement of the nature and goals of the institutions that have given their collective name to the journal. to date it has been signed by the heads of forty-seven metropolitan universities; many more are likely to have done so by the time this issue has been printed and mailed. the declaration is being promulgated at a most appropriate time. the tasks to which metropolitan universities are committing themselves, the responsibilities they are assuming, and the priorities they are setting for themselves are steadily growing in importance and urgency as the economic and social problems of this country are deepening. and, in addition, all who are involved with metropo1itan universities must hope that the declaration will help to offset some of the mounting dissatisfaction with higher education in this country. the chronicle of higher education recently carried a story on the national conference of the education commission of the states under the headline: "state officials deplore higher education's resistance to change." one governor who in his state has been known as a supporter of higher education is quoted as warning that "the taxpayer, one of these days, is going to ask, 'why are we paying these people?'" frank newman, the president of e.c.s. and a contributor to this issue, admonished higher education leaders not to "dismiss the complaints as mere college bashing. 'this is the year that higher education is coming on the griddle.'" the chronicle further reported that "mr. newman and several other speakers said states should subject higher education to the same king of fundamental re-examination that they have given their school systems in recent years." it is of utmost importance that the higher education community itself assume the initiative in this re-examination. much of the external criticism is very valid, but much of it is oversimplified by looking only at the teaching function of our institutions. there is no question that this function needs to receive more attention. but universities, including metropolitan universities, can and should be more than teaching institutions. again to quote frank newman from the chronicle article: "what we're after is a higher education system that is more focused on teaching and learning, not less focused on research." nor, as far as metropolitan universities are concerned, less focused on technical assistance and professional service. only if metropolitan universities, singly and collectively, take the initiative in the re-examination of their goals and functions can they assure the realization of their full potential as major intellectual resources for their region and their country. the declaration of metropolitan universities is a major step in that direction. 8 metropolitan universities/fall-winter 1990-91 and so, we hope, is the creation of this journal. it can play an important role in the necessary self-examination and redefinition. the first three issues and what is already in the pipeline for coming ones provide, in our admittedly biased opinion, useful indications of how metropolitan universities can adapt their curricula, improve their teaching, adjust their procedures and structures, and enhance their external interaction so as to live up to the objectives stated in the declaration. assisting metropolitan universities in this task will continue to be the principal objective of the journal. but we must observe two caveate if we wish to be effective. in the first place, we must avoid being self-congratulatory. that's not easy-the individuals at the metropolitan universities who have taken the lead in defining and implementing new roles for their institution have much of which they can be proud. but in describing such achievements it is important to be self-critical and to discuss problems and pitfalls, mistakes and mishaps. no significant innovation has ever come about without some stumbles and some errors on the way. contributors to the journal should help their colleagues and would-be imitators to learn from mistakes that might have been avoided, precautions that should have been taken. those colleagues want to hear about the desert full of dangers that had to be crossed, not only about the promised land that was reached. secondly, metropolitan universities also need more external evaluation of what they are doing. how much impact are they having? are they meeting expectations or at least explaining why not, if these expectations are unrealistic or inappropriate? are they beginning to be recognized by their metropolitan constituencies as a truly substantial contributor to the region's economic and social well being? the journal must contain more outside voices, more contributions from individuals in the public and private sectors who are willing to critique as well as to praise, to tell the leadership of metropolitan universities what they expect from the institutions and why. the journal will keep these caveats in mind as it does its best to continue to contribute to the essential self-examination and evolution of metropolitan universities, and to their realization of the goals set in the declaration. the institutions' success in meeting this challenge will not only be of great benefit to their metropolitan areas and indeed to the country as a whole, but is likely, as well, to counter the current tide of criticism of higher education. mu1990-91-fall-winter-008_page7 mu1990-91-fall-winter-009_page8 guest editor stem innovations and dissemination: improving teaching and learning in science, technology, engineering and mathematics r. sam larson in 1999, the national research council published transforming undergraduate education in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology. this report stated that the understanding of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (stem) by most americans was inadequate for full participation in an increasingly technological world. the report proclaimed that we were becoming a nation divided into a technologically knowledgeable elite and a disadvantaged minority. business leaders have also decried the united states' declining prominence in science and technology. john j. castellani, president of the business roundtable, an association of corporate chief executives, says that the current situation "threatens to undermine our standard of living at home and our leadership in the world" (walters 2005). we see proof of these claims in our students. act scores in 2005 indicate that test takers are not prepared for first-year mathematics and science courses in college (hoover 2005). and we find evidence of these claims in our classrooms. it is not uncommon for universities to report that up to 50 percent of students in introductory mathematics and sciences withdraw or fail these courses. for students who succeed in these entry level stem courses, this is likely to be the terminal stem course they take-with a consequent precipitous drop in the number of domestic majors in stem disciplines. how can we respond to this crisis? we must improve undergraduate stem education. we know from years of research on education, both in stem and more broadly, that student learning is enhanced when students are engaged in the process of inquiry beyond the mere acquiring of facts. students need more than content knowledge delivered in traditional lecture methods. students need to learn problem-solving and critical thinking skills, as well as an organized understanding of fundamental concepts and practical skills in methods of inquiry. metropolitan campuses, private universities, large public research universities, and two-year colleges are all addressing ways to 5 6 improve stem education. the need to change how we teach may be more imperative at metropolitan and two-year institutions that enroll high numbers of students at risk for failing or withdrawing from science and mathematics courses. the national science foundation's (nsf) division of undergraduate education (due) supports faculty development of new pedagogies and models of instruction that strengthen stem education at colleges and universities. in this issue of metropolitan universities, we profile four stem pedagogical innovations, supported by due, that have proven effective in increasing student learning: jitt, pltl, case studies, and pogil. andy gavrin, associate professor of physics and associate dean of science at iupui, writes about just-in-time teaching or jitt. jitt uses probing questions via the web to help students prepare for class and to help faculty identify concepts students are grasping and those they are not. the faculty can then adjust their class period(s) to meet the learning needs of the student "just-in-time." pratibha varma-nelson, professor of chemistry and chair of the department of chemistry, earth science and physics at n ortheastem illinois university, tells us how peer-led team leaming (pltl) complements lecture-based classes. small groups of students meet weekly to work on carefully structured problems under the guidance of a trained peer leader. clyde freeman herreid, distinguished teaching professor, academic director of the university honors program, and director and founder of the national center for case study teaching in science, illustrates how case studies can be used to "revolutionize" teaching. cases are stories told with an educational message. case studies include facts, but more than that, students learn about the scientific process and see the relevance in the facts. richard s. moog is professor of chemistry at franklin and marshall college and project coordinator for the pogil project. he and his co-authors have developed, implemented and tested process-oriented guided inquiry leaming (pogil). students in classrooms and laboratories work in small groups on specifically designed activities that follow a learning cycle paradigm. each of these innovations is relatively easy to use in a classroom, each focuses on engaging students in the process of inquiry, and each lends itself to stem and other disciplinary areas. further, each has evidence of improved learning outcomes when the innovation is used. these are proven instructional strategies-they work! why, then, don't we find them, and other proven educational pedagogies and innovations, in more stem classrooms? the translation of stem education evidence into teaching practice and the achievement of broad impact proves elusive. certainly this is, in part, because of the challenges of generating any kind of change in an academic institution. anyone who has worked with faculty, or has been a faculty member, can attest to the challenges of encouraging faculty to change what they do and/or how they do it. but pointing fingers at faculty is simply insufficient. the dissemination of these new pedagogies, and others, is inadequate. dissemination of these innovations often times is the sole responsibility of the innovator-we find no evidence of complex dissemination strategies that includes innovators, associations, universities, chairs, and colleagues all of whom can be critical to the dissemination of an innovation. each innovator discusses efforts to disseminate their pedagogical innovations. three other articles examine other approaches to dissemination that may be more effective. mark r. connolly, researcher and evaluator, and susan b. millar, senior scientist, both with the wisconsin center for education research, describe the role that workshops play in disseminating stem instructional strategies. they point out that we know little about the effectiveness of this dissemination strategy and suggest ways to measure and increase impact of workshops on faculty teaching behaviors. kimo ah yun, associate professor of communication studies and center associate at the center for teaching and leaming at csu-sacramento, along with his colleagues, touch upon an underutilized means of disseminating stem instructional strategiescenters for teaching and leaming. ctls, individually and collectively, need to become more active and engaged in stem education and the authors suggest ways to do that. r. sam larson, assistant professor in the school of communication studies at ohio university, and gary meyer, associate dean and associate professor in the diederich college of communication at marquette university, suggest tapping into a largely ignored means of dissemination-opinion leaders. opinion leaders are individuals who informally influence our behaviors and attitudes. early evidence indicates that faculty are influenced by opinion leaders in their departments. the intent of this issue is to illustrate that we can address the national crisis in stem education through wider use of instructional strategies proven to be efficacious. these strategies or innovations are not costly and, we believe, are easy to adopt and implement. the barrier to large-scale impact is in our underspecified dissemination strategies. this connection is made by james w. dearing, senior scientist at kaiser permanente, in his concluding remarks, "joining evidence-based innovations with evidence-based dissemination." i hope that this journal issue devoted to stem innovations and dissemination becomes a launching pad for a much larger and multi-disciplinary conversation about how we meet the educational challenges explicated by the national research council; challenges observed daily on our campuses. 7 8 referentes hoover, e. 2005. act scores hold steady in 2005. chronicle of higher education a48 (september 2). national research council. 1999. transforming undergraduate education in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology. washington, dc: national academy press. walters, a. k. 2005. business groups warn of gap in science and math. chronicle of higher education a21 (october 5). author information dr. r. sam larson is an interim assistant director of the pioneer leadership program at the university of denver. at the time of submission she was an assistant professor in the school of communication studies at ohio university. her work focuses on alternative organizing structures, university-community engagement, and diffusion of innovations within and across higher education institutions. r. sam larson pioneer leadership program university of denver denver, co e-mail: rsamlarson@comcast.net telephone: 303-871-3528 fax: 303-871-3656 mu2006-12-006_page5 mu2006-12-007_page6 mu2006-12-008_page7 mu2006-12-009_page8 branch campuses as the new metropolitan universities by harold a. dengerink, guest editor branch campuses are not a new idea. jefferson originally conceived of multiple college campuses located such that all virginians would be within a day's ride of a higher education establishment. the commitment to such wide accessibility, however, is a more recent phenomenon in higher education, and many branch campuses now exist throughout the united states. branch campuses vary considerably and many exhibit traits of the so-called "metropolitan" mission. they include research universities and community colleges. some are freestanding institutions within a statewide system, while others are extensions of individual institutions. some are residential, some are commuter campuses, and some are accessed electronically. some are limited to upper division and graduate level programs, while others include programs at all levels. some are focused largely on continuing education while others concentrate on degree programs. some are located in close proximity to the originating campus (george mason) while others are separated by hundreds of miles (university of alaska anchorage). some were created by multiple institutions folding existing programs under a common shared umbrella (montana state university, university of alaska) and some were created as totally new endeavors (california state university channel islands). both public and private institutions have spawned branch campuses. despite this variability, there are some common elements. first, most branch campuses have a primary goal of providing access to students who would not otherwise be able to participate in higher education. these students, often referred to as place-bound, have difficulty accessing higher education that is offered on traditional, residential, or distant campuses. these students' inability to relocate in order to pursue an education may be an economic issue. when the cost of higher education includes relocation or commuting costs as well as tuition and room and board, it exceeds the reach of many who may be unwilling or unable to amass the accompanying debt. students who are returning to higher education, either to complete a previously interrupted academic career or to attain an additional degree, often come with educational impediments such as mortgages, car payments, jobs, spouses, and children. as a result, institutions and state legislators have located branch campuses in the new "urban villages" that develop in previously rural or ex-urban areas around major urban centers. second, decision makers have become aware that institutions of higher education serve purposes other than providing local degree programs; branch campuses also impact urban villages economically. place-bound students often remain in the local vicinity and become an important economic and cultural force. institutions also have economic impacts apart from the degree programs that they offer. imbedded in these programs may be research and development efforts that help to stimulate or assist local development activities. they are also important social and cultural resources that enhance overall quality of life for the community. 7 8 third, these new metropolitan universities are centers of academic innovation. they offer a place to practice pedagogical crafts in new ways. community members become important sources of information and instruction for the academic programs. private and public endeavors become important, real life laboratories for students. students themselves, because of their multiple roles, bring information, ideas, and issues into the classroom that can markedly enrich the academic experience. these campuses become ideal places to establish the engaged institutions described by the kellogg commission on the future of the state and land-grant university (nasulgc 1999). these campuses also face significant challenges. providing library services in a distributed environment is aided by the new electronic media, but doing so at an adequate level continues to be a challenge. student life programming requires very different strategies when the students have several other roles in addition to that of student. managing relationships with the local community presents new administrative challenges when the demarcations between "town and gown" are blurred. the relationships between the newer campuses and the parent institution are complex, dynamic, and labor-intensive. marketing or imaging efforts of the newer campuses can become problematic when the students or potential students appreciate the campus primarily for its convenience, while the institution sees itself as much more than an academic service station. the authors in this issue of metropolitan universities journal explore some of these challenges faced by new metropolitan universities. stocum sets the stage by providing a history of developments in american higher education. in addition, he argues passionately for a blended mission of scholarship, teaching, and community engagement for these new metropolitan universities. he strongly challenges the elitist division of resources that has favored the "flagship" universities. he does so not only on the grounds of fairness, but also pragmatism. he suggests that if higher education is to continue bringing the economic, cultural, and social benefits to our society, then the traits of newer, more responsive missions of higher education should be incorporated into the universities of the future. stocum argues the urban universities of today are models for the universities of the future. the most frequent topics of discussion among branch campus administrators relate to the interaction among the various campuses, particularly the relationship of the newer campuses to the ones from which they originated. dengerink suggests that the administrative and organizational structure of multi-campus universities should be dictated by the mission of the whole university, which must be crafted to integrate the separate missions of the component campuses. he suggests several hypotheses about organizational conditions that must be met for multi-campus universities to be successful. gray and chamberlain address a common policy issue facing public universities in urban settings. urban and metropolitan universities frequently find themselves sharing territory with other institutions that have similar or related roles. not surprisingly, policy makers frequently expect or even dictate collaboration among these institutions. the authors explain why such forced collaborations often fail. while they are generally pessimistic about collaboration in urban markets, they also suggest conditions that will favor successful collaborations. penney describes a collaborative effort from the boston area that appears to have met those conditions and experienced success. this voluntary collaboration among established institutions may provide a road map for those institutions that find themselves sharing educational service areas. the traditions of american higher education are intricately bound with faculty and their culture. thus, an important question relates to the characteristics of the faculty that serve these new institutions. nickerson and schaefer begin to address this question. the authors find that the nature of the faculty varies with the campus type. also, even though faculty at branch campuses experience a sense of isolation from their colleagues on the home campus, nickerson and schaefer observe that these faculty are disinclined to change their circumstances. a major logistical concern of new campuses is the provision of library and technology resources. wykoff raises the interesting possibility of combining these into a single campus resource. she discusses the synergy of these university services and outlines practical issues that mitigate against or support the integration of library and technology services. she also suggests that these new campuses may have the opportunity to create new structures, services, and solutions that would be more difficult to implement at larger, more established campuses. carwein, boyle, idstrom, and wark remind us that, as locally-oriented branch campuses, the people we serve go beyond the actual students on our campuses. community partners provide important logistical, strategic, and financial support. the authors chronicle a remarkably successful program of community relations that can be extremely helpful to developing and mature metropolitan universities. the individual articles in this issue of the journal are intended to provide discussion of some of the key questions that arise for the new metropolitan universities. those of us who have been immersed in these institutions realize there is no single solution to any of the concerns. there is no formula or cookbook. rather, a forum for exploration helps to highlight alternatives and creative solutions both for these new institutions, and for more established institutions as well. this edition of metropolitan universities offers such a forum. 9 overview robert l. caret and john d. mcmahon as we started our planning for this issue of metropolitan universities (mu), soon after the fourth annual aahe conference on faculty roles and rewards in january 1995, the overriding theme of the issue soon crystallized. we wanted to concentrate on the theme of "effecting change." we felt that much had been accomplished over the last several years, particularly from the time of the publication of scholarship reconsidered, by boyer in 1990. that seminal work, coupled with the momentum that the four aahe conferences had fostered, provided the philosophical base for such a focus. we have been talking about the need for and the barriers to change. we have also been debating the potential paths that might make change possible. in the course of this dialogue, many good ideas had percolated to the surface, and many had been affected. it was time to look at concrete examples of initiatives that had worked-initiatives that were beginning to shift the existing paradigm. we all recognize that higher education is going through one of the most dramatic upheavals it has ever experienced. this challenge, sparked by the increase in the cost of higher education to the student, shifting budget priorities at the state level, and a loss of credibility from a societal perspective, have placed us in a posture of reexamination-a reexamination of our mission and what we are involved with in achieving that mission. we are reexamining our own goals and our way of doing business. we are reexamining our own beliefs. and, where we find change appropriate, we are changing. this issue of metropolitan universities focuses on initiatives that have worked and have led to change. for each institution, an overview of the institutional context is provided, as is the process that was used. the articles describe the multi-year efforts that led to change at towson state university (mcmahon/ caret), syracuse university (shaw and lee), university of wisconsinwhitewater (shallenkamp ), portland state university (johnson and wamser), and georgia state university (abdelal, blumenfeld, and dressel). the reader 8 metropolitan universities/spring 1997 will find that, in each case, there were many false starts and many dead ends. similarities in the approaches and outcomes are also evident. perhaps most important to the success of all of the efforts was the need for "champions" who continually moved the agenda forward as a variety of institutional-specific barriers were encountered. institutional tenacity is an important component to a successful effort. the need for an increase in institutional productivity is a widely accepted component in the change we are undertaking. many are suggesting that there will be a need for us to improve productivity by as much as 25 percent over the next 5-l 0 years. what is unclear is how that goal can be achieved. again, a concensus appears to be building that focuses on learning productivity as the appropriate measure to track. the article by giles-gee and miyares provides the process used for many years by one state (maryland) to measure faculty work and productivity. the maryland approach still relies on traditional productivity measures (e.g., credit hour production/faculty member), but also begins to move us toward the more important measure of learning productivity. articles published in the subsequent issue of metropolitan universities will move into a dialogue on the broadening definition of scholarship, with particular emphasis on professional service and its importance as a change variable. several contributions will provide the contextual overview of the need and issues related to this broadened definition and understanding of this form of scholarship. as our institutions reinforce the need to be partners with their respective communities, these dimensions of faculty work take on greater import. and, the complexities associated with the evaluation of such work and approaches are legion. among the items in store for the next issue is a contribution by cohen that describes the approach being used at the university of wisconsin-green bay. another, by driscoll and lynton, includes a number of preliminary insights derived from a national project to develop adequate documentation. one by checkoway discusses the role of service in a research university. if any shift in roles and rewards processes on our campuses are to be successful, we will need to find ways to maneuver through these complexities and find acceptable paths to successful change. and we must broaden overview 9 our perspective beyond the work of an individual. an article by hiley approaches the issues surrounding the collective responsibilities of departments and similar units. the next issue will also contain a provocative forum piece by greenberg which asks whether tenure is any longer needed or desirable. he places the difficult questions before us. as we know, the issue is also being placed before us by society. it is necessary for us to address the question and to change as warranted: we owe it to ourselves and to the society we · serve. and, in a related contribution, jensen calls on the academic community to abandon its claims of difference when engaged in a dialogue about tenure and other matters with external constituencies. our goal with the current and the subsequent journal issues on the theme of faculty roles and rewards, as outlined earlier, was to provide the readers with the resources and help to effect change. we hope we have been successful. please share your thoughts with us. declaration of metropolitan universities we, the leaders of metropolitan universities and colleges • .• • reaffirm that the creation, interpretation, dissemination, and application of knowledge are the fundamental functions of our institutions; • accept a broad responsibility to bring these functions to bear on our metropolitan regions; • commit our institutions to be responsive to the needs of our communities by seeking new ways of using resources to provide leadership in addressing metropolitan problems through teaching, research, and service. our teaching must: • educate students to be informed and effective citizens, as well as capable practitioners of professions and occupations; • be adapted to the diverse needs of metropolitan students, including minorities and underserved groups, adults of all ages, and the place-bound; • combine research-based knowledge with practical application and experience, using the best current technology and pedagogical techniques. our research must: • seek and exploit opportunities for linking basic investigation with practical application, and for creating interdisciplinary partnerships for attacking complex metropolitan problems, while meeting the highest standards of the academic community. our professional service must: • develop creative partnerships with public and private enterprises that ensure the intellectual resources of our institutions are fully engaged in mutually beneficial ways; • include close working relationships with elementary and secondary schools aimed at maximizing the effectiveness of the entire metropolitan education system; • make the fullest possible contribution to the cultural life and general quality of life of our metropolitan regions. mu1996-summer-009_page7 mu1996-summer-010_page8 mu1996-summer-011_page9 mu1996-summer-012_page10 just-in-time teaching a. gavrin abstract just-in-time teaching (jitt) is an innovative pedagogy that enables faculty to increase interactivity in the classroom and engage students in learning. by creating a feedback loop between students' work at home and the classroom setting, time on task is improved in both quality and quantity. this paper includes an introduction to jitt and evidence of its effectiveness. it concludes with a discussion of our efforts to disseminate jitt since it was developed in the 1990s. introduction students, faculty and administrators disagree on many things, and the future role of technology in education is one of these. most agree that technology will change education; the disagreements lie in questions of how, when, and for good or ill. in this article, i will describe a rare creature: a use of technology in education that is widely recognized as beneficial by all interested groups. i have three goals in this paper. i begin by giving a rough outline of the jitt method, including its early development and the educational principles in which it is grounded. i also describe how we established the effectiveness of the method, both in improving educational outcomes and in improving students' attitudes about their classes. i then turn to a discussion of how this method has spread through the academic community since it was first developed in the late 1990s. the pedagogy is known as "just-in-time teaching" or jitt (novak, patterson, gavrin, and christian 1999; novak 2006). this name is intentionally reminiscent of the "justin-time" manufacturing process pioneered by toyota in the 1970s (monden 1998). gregor novak and i developed jitt at iupui, in collaboration with evelyn patterson of the united states air force academy. jitt is applicable to any field of study and may be adapted to cover a full range from developmental to graduate classes. it is a strategy founded on several principles of pedagogical best practice (chickering and gamson 1987). jitt encourages students to be well-prepared for class and promotes active learning. it helps faculty to identify their students' strengths, weaknesses, and learning styles. jitt also encourages writing as an integral part of the learning process. we evaluated jitt using a variety of qualitative and quantitative measures and sought to create a complete picture of our successes and failures. in the course of this evaluation, we have considered students' success rates in our classes, students' scores on measures of cognitive gains, self-reported data on study habits, attitude surveys, and student focus groups. this article includes examples drawn from our assessment 9 10 efforts. the results are positive and significant. in the introductory physics sequence at iupui, the introduction of jitt resulted in a 40 percent decrease in the number of students who dropped the class or received a grade of "d" or "f" (gavrin, watt, marrs, and blake 2004). jitt has also been shown to improve students study habits and to result in measurable cognitive gains (marrs, gavrin, and novak 2004). when we developed jitt at iupui and the air force academy, we were teaching introductory physics courses. since that time, jitt has been widely adopted in the united states, and it has scattered adherents in canada, mexico, israel, and several european countries. although physics is still the discipline with the largest number of jitt users, this preference is a bare plurality, with many instructors using jitt in the sciences, social sciences and humanities. we are aware of over two hundred faculty who have used jitt in over twenty academic disciplines at over one hundred institutions. indeed, we no longer have an accurate count of the numbers of faculty using jitt worldwide. overall, we regard the dissemination of jitt to be a success, though a moderate one. we are still working to expand adoption of jitt by other faculty members. principles of jitt the jitt method succeeds through a fusion of high-tech and low-tech elements. the high-tech elements center on our use of the world wide web (web) to deliver curricular materials and expand communications among faculty and students. on the low-tech side, we stress classroom interactions among students, faculty, and student mentors. the underlying process is for faculty to make rapid adjustments to address students' problems using feedback from the web and the classroom. we have reversed the common notion that technology should be used to replace or expedite classroom methods. rather, we use information technology to improve the classroom activities themselves. in a jitt course, work that students do at home is used to leverage the time they spend in class. the web is used as a communications tool. the key is a series of assignments called "warmup exercises." typically, there is some material students ought to read before a given class period. warmup exercises is an online assignment due before class that asks students to answer several open-ended, conceptual questions about the material that the instructor will discuss in class. even in a physics or math class, the warmups should be conceptual questions that require written responses, not mathematical calculations. in my classes, the warmup is due two hours before class, but others who use jitt vary this delay from one to twenty-four hours. one way to look at this is as a "reading quiz." many faculty members give brief quizzes at the beginning of class to encourage students to come prepared. warmups accomplish much the same thing, but with several advantages. one obvious advantage is that no class time is used administering the quiz, but other advantages are far more important. giving the reading quiz as a warmup-online and in advance-encourages students not only to read, but to think about the ideas in the reading, to connect them to their prior knowledge, and to apply them to a brief problem. when we first developed the notion of warm up exercises, this was all we had in mind-a method to encourage students to come to class prepared. when we started to read the answers students gave, we realized that the exercise was far more powerful. we found that students had profound difficulties understanding some ideas, whereas they easily grasped others. based on this observation, we began adjusting the amount of time we spent in class on various topics, giving more time to the areas that students had not understood. this is the origin of the phrase "just-in-time teaching." we make adjustments to the classroom presentation "just in time" for class based on the results of the warm up exercises. now the analogy to manufacturing is clear. in jit manufacturing, goods are produced in small quantities just-in-time to meet the needs of the distribution system, and raw materials and parts are ordered in small quantities just in time for them to be used in production. similarly, just-in-time teaching is more responsive to students needs, and classroom time does not focus on topics that students learn easily. students come to class better prepared for the subject, and faculty come to class better prepared for their students. these advantages alone justify the costs of implementing jitt: some basic technology infrastructure and the faculty time required to develop warmups. however, there is a way to take the method even farther. i usually take about a half hour before class and prepare one or two overhead slides with excerpts from the students' answers to the warmup questions. i bring these slides with me to lecture and use them as a "scaffold" for my presentation. instead of lecturing from my notes, i explicitly begin from my students "current state" and work to bring them from that state to my desired end. when i select the excerpts for use in class, i include work from many students, touching all students at least occasionally throughout the semester. i present the excerpts without attribution to a particular student, and i always make a positive comment about the work, even if i bring it up to highlight a mistake. this completely changes the mood of the class. rather than attending a lecture that starts from "scratch," my students participate in a discussion of what they need to refine their understanding of the subject. the class is inherently learner-centered and discourages passive note taking. creating and managing a meaningful discussion of new ideas is never an easy task. jitt allows me to start the discussion with my students' own words. even in a large lecture setting, i can often initiate a lively discussion with many students participating. students who prefer to "think a bit" before making comments can be included, as can students who are too shy to raise their hand. we often refer to this classroom setting as an "interactive lecture." one way to look at jitt is as a feedback loop linking the classroom with all other learning environments the students use. the web connects what students learn in the library, home and elsewhere to the interactive lecture. the classroom experience is 11 12 informed and improved by their work outside. what they learn in class becomes the basis of the next reading and warm up assignment. assessment of jitt iupui is an urban university with many of the problems typical of such an institution. almost all of our students commute to campus, and the vast majority work at least part-time. many are the first in their family to pursue a college education. as a result, iupui is deeply concerned with retention of students at every level. we calculated the dfw rate (the percentage of students earning a "d," "f," or withdrawing from class) for five courses taught using jitt in physics, mathematics, biology, and chemistry. in all cases but one, jitt had a substantial, positive effect on student success in these courses. as shown in table 1, when jitt is introduced students' success rates soar. this increased success rate may be attributed to many factors, including increased interaction among faculty and students, which has been identified by astin ( 1993) as a crucial condition for success in college. the improvement in performance may also be due to improved study habits. one of the key features of jitt is that students must read and consider new ideas before coming to class. as a result they are far better prepared. further, because jitt courses tend to have more frequent assignments than non-jitt courses, students are encouraged to spread their work more uniformly. students' self-reported behaviors in a jitt class in biology include increased preparation and a reduced tendency to get behind then "cram" at exam times. the only class in which jitt has not had a significant effect is the introductory chemistry class, where the result is positive, but is too small to ascribe to the introduction of jitt with any certainty. table 1: dfw rates without and with jitt without jitt withjitt course semesters dfw rate semesters dfw rate reduction in dwfrate physics i 5 47% 14 28% 40% physics ii 5 32% 14 19% 41% calculus ii 6 45% s 32% 28% survey of biology 3 27% 4 19% 31% chemistry intro 7 37% 2 34% 8% to measure the effect of jitt on cognitive gains in biology, we used the results from a twenty-question pre-class and post-class test, calculating an average improvement on each question. our measure of improvement is the average normalized gain defined by hake (1998). we found that students showed an improvement of 17% on test questions about concepts discussed in class, but not necessarily reinforced by any additional activities, and they showed an improvement of 21 % on test questions reinforced by homework problems. in contrast, students tended to show an improvement of 51 % on test questions reinforced by either warmup questions or cooperative leaming activities, and an improvement of 64% on test questions reinforced by both warmup questions and cooperative leaming activities. we also assessed students' attitudes about the use of jitt. they are overwhelmingly positive. in an introductory physics course, 88% of the students said warm ups were helpful. students gave a range of responses to why jitt was helpful including, "since i have a tendency to put things off, the warmups were a great way to get me to read ahead for lecture," and "it helps you to get an idea of the main points you 're going to talk about that day in lecture." dissemination of jitt we have worked to make others aware of our efforts using many conventional (and some unconventional) routes. the dissemination of jitt may be regarded as somewhat unusual, in that the first significant publication regarding jitt was a book, just-intime teaching: blending active learning with web technology, published by prentice hall in 1999 (novak, patterson, gavrin, and christian 1999). in addition to the book, jitt has been the subject of several peer-reviewed articles and conference proceedings (simkins and maier 2004; marrs, blake, and gavrin 2003). we have also disseminated jitt through electronic publications. the jitt web site, http://jitt.org, provides an overview of jitt goals and methods and examples of jitt materials. it also provides a link to a spreadsheet of faculty who have adopted jitt, their institution, discipline, and contact information. extensive jitt materials are also available on the webscience site, constructed by the author to disseminate the results of an nsf-sponsored project to adapt jitt to chemistry, biology, and mathematics classes. other web sites that contain substantial discussions of jitt include the project galileo site at harvard, the jitt economics site at ncat, and the geoscience-teaching site at carleton college (gavrin 2006; mazur 2006; simkins 2006; guertin 2006). most recently, gregor novak and evelyn patterson have gained funding through the nsf national science digital libraries program to establish a ji tt digital library (jittdl). the jittdl is under construction at http://jittdl.org. another fruitful route for dissemination of jitt is through talks and workshops. along with my collaborators, we have spoken about jitt at national meetings of the american association of physics teachers (aapt), the american society of engineering education (asee), and the american chemical society (acs). we have also given multi-day workshops at conferences hosted by project kaleidoscope, the nsf chautauqua series, and a series of "new faculty workshops" jointly hosted by the american association of physics teachers (aapt), the american physical society (aps), and the american astronomical society (aas). we have also given numerous talks at individual institutions. a partial listing of the talks and workshops we have given in recent years may be found on the webscience project dissemination page (gavrin 2006). 13 14 i recently conducted a survey of faculty in mathematics, physical science and engineering departments that i knew were using jitt. the survey was conducted online with potential respondents being solicited using an email that contained a link to the survey site. in all, 162 faculty were asked to complete the survey. of the 162 faculty members asked to participate, 52 responded, a response rate of 32 percent. the majority of respondents had two or more years experience using jitt. within the limited set of academic fields surveyed, physicists comprise a majority of jitt users. (of the 52 respondents, 27 identified their home department as a department of physics.) this is unsurprising, as jitt originated in physics, and early dissemination was focused on the physics community. the distribution of respondents by academic rank is also revealing: 14 identified their rank as assistant professor, 17 as associate, and 12 as full professors; 4 identified themselves as lecturers or instructors; and 4 identified themselves in other categories, including high school teachers and it professionals. this range nearly mirrors the distribution of ranks reported in the professoriate overall, though there is a slight under-representation of full professors (american association of university professors 2006). we asked respondents to "briefly describe how you first heard about jitt." the results are summarized in figure 1. "new faculty workshop" refers to a series of three-day workshops for new faculty in physics and astronomy, hosted by the american association of physics teachers (aapt), the american physical society (aps), and the american astronomical society (aas). these workshops have been held once annually since 1997, and one talk has been devoted to ji tt each year. project kaleidoscope (pkal) is a national alliance dedicated to undergraduate teaching and learning of science, mathematics and engineering. since 1989, pkal has hosted conferences and established faculty networks to advance its goals. jitt has been featured at a number of these events. online sources refer primarily to the jitt web site (http://jitt.org) and to information posted online pertaining to one of the workshops or papers. the results shown in figure 1 show that word of mouth is the most common way for faculty to learn about jitt. notable among the mechanisms shown here are the new faculty and pkal workshops. both of these methods target faculty members at the beginning of their teaching careers and seem to be particularly effective given that there have been far fewer of these than aapt conference talks and workshops. the findings suggest that faculty are most likely to adopt new pedagogical strategies when they first begin teaching, before they invest a great deal of time and effort in developing traditional materials and methods. figure 1. information sources jitt from a colleague aapt conference new faculty workshop project kaleidoscope other talk or workshop jiti book or article online other/don't recall -0 4 6 io 12 14 16 # of respondents we also asked respondents to list the positive and negative aspects of jitt. overall, the respondents stressed positive aspects over negative ones. we categorized 149 comments, of which ninety were positive and fifty-nine were negative. many of the respondents' negative comments were linked to comments stressing the positives, e.g., "when time is tight, it can be rough to use this. however, skipping the preview leaves misconceptions uncorrected." we list this as a negative comment under "increased faculty workload." nevertheless, it seems that the author of this comment did not intend for it to be entirely negative. several respondents provided student comments that echoed this sentiment. for instance, one student wrote "having the quizzes and concept problems daily was tough at times, but made me get more involved in the material." another compared the jitt experience to other courses: "i really like how you had pre-class quizzes that required us to read the chapter beforehand. that keeps us motivated to stay caught up in our schoolwork instead of falling behind like many of us have in other classes." figures 2 and 3 summarize the positive and negative comments faculty made. it is noteworthy that the negative comments were far more homogeneous. that is, a single category (increased faculty workload) accounts for almost half of the negative aspects; no such dominant category was observed among the positive aspects. 15 16 figure 2. positive faculty comments jitt improved classroom content or climate students better prepared/read ahead !l improved faculty understanding of students' capabilities l :~ ~ improved student-faculty communication improved student learning or attitude students better focused or motivated other 0 figure 3. negative faculty comments jitt 10 15 20 25 # of respondents increased faculty workload ······················!:: . . "th" . ·--·--· ;.:::; d1fficulties w1 1mplementation ~ increased student workload ·--·-· other student objections •••• ·~ ~ requires longer-range planning z other ·--·-· 0 10 15 20 25 # of respondents 30 30 one of the most dramatic successes in our efforts to disseminate jitt occurred at erskine college, a liberal arts college in south carolina. erskine is a small school of forty-two faculty members and about 580 students. at present, between half and threefourths of the faculty use jitt to some extent and many use it in all of their courses. this extraordinary adoption of jitt occurred during the late 1990s through 2001. i interviewed prof. william junkin, who was dean for learning and technology and professor of physics at erskine college. according to dr. junkin, jitt became widely accepted at erskine due to the convergence of several influences. erskine benefited from a large grant from at&t through the foundation for independent higher education. this grant provided substantial funds for professional development and the adoption of information technology at erskine (along with converse college, eckerd college, and king college). along with strong support from the administration, this gave faculty a "sense of pride in erskine as a leading innovator in the use of technology." another driving force behind the widespread adoption of jitt was the decision to use jitt as a common methodology in erskine's freshman seminar. this is a course taken by all students and taught by all faculty members in rotation. although each faculty member may "customize" his or her section of the seminar, some curricular elements are common to all sections. a faculty committee decided that all sections should use jitt to some extent. as a result, the entire faculty had to gain at least a moderate familiarity with jitt methods and technology. many faculty members decided, having used jitt in their seminar, to adapt the method to their regular classes. conclusions just-in-time teaching is a powerful pedagogical method that uses technology to enhance students' attitudes and academic performance. by using the web as a communications tool, it allows faculty to link the classroom experience to students' work at home in a way that encourages both students and faculty to be better prepared for class. jitt has been shown to improve students' cognitive gains and to improve student retention. through a variety of publications, web sites, and oral presentations, jitt has spread widely among faculty members in the united states and elsewhere, and it is popular among the students and faculty who have used it. faculty who have adopted it often feel that it takes more time than a traditional lecture, though they generally recognize that this extra time is beneficial to students. jitt could be, however, more widely used by faculty in sciences and other disciplines. the question is how can we more broadly disseminate this pedagogy? references american association of university professors. the annual report on the economic status of the profession, http://www.aaup.org/surveys/03z/zrep.htm (accessed march 10, 2006). astin, a. w. 1993. what matters in college: four critical years revisited. san francisco: jossey-bass. chickering, a. w., and z. f. gamson. 1987. seven principles for good practice in undergraduate education. aahe bulletin 39: 3-7. gavrin, a. webphysics, http://webphysics.iupui.edu/webscience (accessed march 10, 2006). gavrin, a., j. watt, k. marrs, and r. blake. 2004. just-in-time teaching (jitt): using the web to enhance classroom learning. computers in education journal 14 (2): 51-59. guertin, l. just in time, http://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/justintime/index.html (accessed march 10, 2006). hake, r.r. 1998. interactive engagement vs. traditional methods: a six-thousand student survey of mechanics test data for introductory physics classes. american journal of physics 66:64-74. 17 18 marrs, k. a., r. blake, and a. gavrin. 2003. use of warmup exercises in just-in-time teaching: determining students' prior knowledge and misconceptions in biology, chemistry, and physics. journal of college science teaching (september): 42-47. marrs, k., a. gavrin, and g. m. novak. 2004. just-in-time teaching in biology: creating an active learner classroom using the internet. cell biology education 3:49-61. mazur, e., galileo, http://galileo.harvard.edu/galileo/sgm/jitt, (accessed march 10, 2006). monden, y. 1998. toyota production system: an integrated approach to just-in-time. norcross, ga: he press. novak, g. m. just-in-time teaching, http://jitt.org (accessed march 10, 2006). novak, g. m., e. patterson, a. gavrin, and w. christian. 1999. just-in-time teaching: blending active learning with web technology. upper saddle river: prentice hall. simkins, s. jitt economics, http://www.ncat.edu/-simkinss/jittecon/jittpedagogy/ (accessed march 10, 2006). simkins, s., and m. maier. 2004. using just-in-time teaching techniques in the principles of economics course. social science computer review 22:444-456. acknowledgements the national science foundation supported this work through awards due-9981111 and due0333646. author information andrew d. gavrin is associate professor of physics and associate dean of science at iupui. his research interests include magnetic materials and physics education. andrew d. gavrin department of physics, iupui 402 n. blackford street indianapolis, in 46202 e-mail: agavrin@iupui.edu telephone: 317-274-6909 fax: 317-274-0628 mu2006-12-010_page9 mu2006-12-011_page10 mu2006-12-012_page11 mu2006-12-013_page12 mu2006-12-014_page13 mu2006-12-015_page14 mu2006-12-016_page15 mu2006-12-017_page16 mu2006-12-018_page17 mu2006-12-019_page18 process-oriented guided inquiry learning: pogil and the pogil project abstract richard s. moog, frank]. creegan, david m. hanson, james n. spencer and andrei r. straumanis recent research indicates that students learn best when they are actively engaged and they construct their own understanding. process-oriented guided inquiry learning ( pogil) is a student-centered instructional philosophy based on these concepts in which students work in teams on specially prepared activities that follow a learning cycle paradigm. the pogil project is a professional development effort providing various types of support for undergraduate instructors interested in implementing a more student-centered approach in their classrooms. introduction some few years ago i was looking about the school supply stores in the city ... we had a great deal of difficulty finding what we needed, and finally one dealer, more intelligent than the rest, made this remark, "i am afraid we have not what you want. you want something at which the children may work; these are all for listening." that tells the story of the traditional education ... it is all made 'for listening' (john dewey 1920, 31). since dewey made this observation early in the last century little has changed in the delivery of science instruction. the traditional model of teaching has been and continues to be based on textbook readings and lectures. in many of today's classrooms, there is little student-teacher interchange and almost no student-student interaction. one study has shown that about 80 percent of most classroom time is teacher talk (christensen, garvin, and sweet 1991). lecturing is based on a series of assumptions about not only the cognitive capabilities of students but also about how students learn. this methodology assumes that all students need the same information, presented orally and at the same pace, without dialogue with the presenter, and in an impersonal way. the instructor often assumes, many times without being consciously aware of it, that students learn the same way the instructor did and that they all have similar prior knowledge. many science faculty believe, based on their own experiences, that they are teaching effectively and students will learn if: 41 42 • the instructor covers the material using clear explanations. •the instructor organizes the course logically, and motivates and excites the students. • the instructor provides good resource materials. • the students work hard, take good notes, read the text in preparation for lecture, and practice by doing a lot of problems on their own. given these assumptions, it is not surprising that the traditional methodology for teaching is centered on the instructor, who lectures, explains, and models problemsolving techniques. textbook assignments provide further explanations, examples of problem solutions, and emphasize drill and practice. in this environment many students succeed by memorizing information and algorithms, but neither understand the relevant concepts nor develop essential thinking and problem-solving skills. this paradigm for instruction is based on misconceptions that effective teaching must be instructor-centered and that content and understanding can be passed directly from the expert (professor) to the novice (student) (johnstone 1997). although lecturing is an efficient way to present information, it does not necessarily result in efficient learning (d. w. johnson, r. t. johnson, and smith 1991; mazur 1995; zoller 1993). horowitz ( 1988) has shown that after about ten minutes of a typical lecture, 50 percent of the class is lost. george bodner of purdue university, in numerous presentations, has suggested that there are three situations in which the lecture is the most effective approach for the introduction of new material: ( 1) when only factual information, no conceptual understanding, is involved; (2) when there is no textbook available; and (3) preaching. in general, none of these apply in the context of undergraduate science education. recent developments in cognitive learning theory and classroom research results suggest that students generally experience improved learning when they are actively engaged and when they are given the opportunity to construct their own knowledge (lawson 1995, 1999). in contrast to the typical faculty assumptions mentioned above, much research indicates that most people learn best by: • constructing their own understanding based on their prior know ledge, experiences, skills, attitudes, and beliefs; • following a learning cycle of exploration, concept invention, and application; • discussing and interacting with others; and • reflecting on progress and assessing performance. based on research of how people learn, the "views of how effective learning proceeds have shifted from the benefits of diligent drill and practice to focus on students' understanding and application of knowledge" (bransford, brown, and cocking 1999). all of these ideas form the basis for a student-centered instructional approach in which students are guided to construct their own understanding through the use of small groups while also focusing on the development of important learning skills. what is pogil? process-oriented guided inquiry learning, or pogil, is a student-centered instructional strategy and philosophy. in a pogil classroom or laboratory, students work in small groups on specially designed activities that follow a learning cycle paradigm. there are three key characteristics of the materials used in a pogil learning environment: 1. they are designed for use with self-managed teams that employ the instructor as a facilitator of learning rather than as a source of information. 2. they guide students through an exploration to construct understanding. 3. they use discipline content to facilitate the development of important process skills including higher-level thinking and the ability to learn and apply knowledge in new contexts. the goal of the pogil approach is not only to develop content mastery through student construction of their own understanding, but also to enhance important learning skills such as information processing, oral and written communication, critical thinking, problem-solving, and metacognition and assessment. the key components of pogil-active engagement of all students through group learning, guided inquiry materials based on the learning cycle paradigm, and a focus on process skill development-are described below. active engagement and group learning being actively engaged and interacting with others is now recognized as essential for most students to gain real understanding and retention of knowledge. as described in how people learn (bransford, brown, and cocking 1999), a large amount of evidence now exists from all areas of science that unless individuals take an active role in what they are studying (including asking questions, engaging in dialogue and discussion, recreating ideas in their own minds, and manipulating and transforming them as needed in new contexts), the learning is not lasting and, generally, the ideas just disappear. complementing this recognition are the results from current research on learning showing that the acquisition of knowledge and its application are fundamentally social acts (christensen, garvin, and sweet 1991). thus, the use of small groups of students, interacting with each other as they try to understand new ideas, has a basis in research on cognition and learning. this is consistent with the large and growing literature on cooperative learning and its effectiveness. research documents that students working in learning teams learn more; understand more; remember more; feel better about themselves and others; have more positive attitudes regarding the subject area, course, and instructors; and acquire critical thinking skills, cognitive learning strategies, and other process skills that are essential to their development as independent learners. because students work together to construct understanding, reconcile differences, and share ideas and strategies, their performance as individuals, e.g. on examinations, improves. leaming teams are particularly effective for women and other non-traditional students in science because this 43 44 approach addresses the inhibiting feelings of isolation and competitiveness that many report. recently, cooper (2005) provided an excellent introduction to the use of small groups in the classroom and their effectiveness in science classrooms. the learning cycle the learning cycle is an inquiry strategy for teaching and learning that is based on constructivist principles. this approach and its effectiveness have been discussed in some depth recently (abraham 2005); a brief summary is given here. as described by lawson (1995), a learning cycle has three phases. the first phase is an "exploration" phase in which a learner seeks a pattern of regularity in the environment or data. a model, some data, a laboratory experiment, a demonstration, or a reading designed to raise questions or complexities that students cannot readily resolve on their own may be used in the "exploration" phase. students generate and test hypotheses in an attempt to explain or understand the information that has been presented to them. in the second phase, "concept invention" or "term introduction", a concept is developed from the pattern and a new term can be introduced to refer to the previously identified trends or patterns. by placing the "term introduction" phase after the "exploration" phase, new terms are introduced at a point when the student already has a mental construct in place to which a term may be attached. this contrasts with the typical presentation in a textbook (or lecture) in which terms are often introduced and defined first, followed by some examples of their use. in the final "application" phase, the concept is applied in new situations (abraham and renner 1986; lawson 1999). this phase generalizes the concept's meaning to other situations, generally requiring deductive reasoning skills. thus, a learning cycle experience guides students to develop a concept for themselves, imparting a sense of ownership and participation and providing epistemological insight into the nature of scientific inquiry. a brief example of a portion of a pogil activity based on the learning cycle and how it differs from a more traditional presentation can help clarify these ideas. consider the introduction of some basic ideas concerning the components of an atom in an introductory chemistry class. in a typical lecture, the instructor tells the students that atoms are composed of protons, neutrons, and electrons and that the number of protons in the atom is known as the "atomic number" and determines the atom's identity. the pogil approach to this content is very different. the students work in small groups (of three or four) on a specially designed activity, with the instructor serving as a facilitator who listens to the discussion and intervenes only when necessary. this activity might begin with a series of diagrams providing examples of a number of atoms, identifying the corresponding element and the number and location of the protons, neutrons, and electrons in each. through a series of guiding questions, the students would be led to recognize that all of the atoms with the same number of protons are identified as the same element (for example, six protons in the case of carbon). they would also note the correspondence of this number (6) with the number on the periodic table that identifies carbon. only at this point, after the concept has been developed, would the term "atomic number" be used to describe the number of protons in one atom of a given element. in this way, an "exploration" of the information presented in the diagrams allows each student to develop the concept that the number of protons determines the identity of an element; the term "atomic number" is then introduced following this construction. the "application" of this concept would be to use the periodic table to identify the number of protons characterizing other elements. there are two key aspects to the design of the pogil activity. first, the appropriate information must be included in the initial "exploration" so that it is possible for the students to develop the desired concepts. secondly, the sequence of guided questions must be carefully constructed to allow the students to reach the appropriate conclusion while at the same time encouraging the development of various process skills. typically, the first few questions build on students' prior knowledge and direct attention to the information provided in the model. the next few questions help promote thought to develop relationships and find patterns in the data toward development of a concept. the final questions may require divergent thought to find relevance or to look for the boundaries in generalizing students' new knowledge and understanding. thus, the questions build on each other in complexity and sophistication, leading student groups toward discovery of a chemical concept while also requiring (and developing) an array of skills. a focus on process one of the most important aspects of implementing pogil as an instructional strategy is to recognize that there are important learning outcomes that are independent of the specific course content. many, if not the vast majority, of post-secondary institutions indicate their mission, at least in terms of undergraduate education, is to produce independent life-long learners, who will lead meaningful lives and be contributors to the society in which they live.yet, for most faculty members, particularly those in the sciences, working toward this mission is not generally an intentional part of the instructional planning process-and certainly not at the individual class meeting level. a pogil approach, however, places an emphasis on the development of process skills that will help achieve these goals-or whatever other goals the instructor has in mind for that day or course, thus, the pogil philosophy is that the development of process skills (information processing, critical thinking, communication, assessment, etc.) is a focus of the classroom implementation; improving these skills will not only complement and enhance the mastery of course content for the student, but will also help achieve the overall goals of the institution. how is pogil implemented? there are a wide variety of ways that the pogil approach can be implemented, depending on such factors as the institutional culture, class size, the nature of facilities, and instructor preferences. a few successful models include replacing essentially all lectures with pogil sessions (farrell, moog, and spencer 1999), replacing one lecture session each week with a pogil session (j.e. lewis and s. e. lewis 2005), converting standard recitation sessions at a large university to pogil sessions (hanson 45 46 and wolfs.kill 2000), and using a pogil activity as part of each class meeting. in fact, every implementation of pogil is different, adapted to the unique institutional, departmental, and individual circumstances and goals inherently present for each instructor and course. however, as mentioned previously, there are several common threads in all of these implementations: • during the pogil activity, the instructor does not lecture, but rather serves as a facilitator of learning; •students work in small groups (usually of three or four) and they generally have assigned roles; • the activities have been specifically and carefully designed-usually based on the learning cycle paradigm-to be used in this context; they are not simply "hard problems from the end of the chapter" that the students work on together. when this situation is described to groups of faculty and administrators, questions that often arise include "what does the instructor actually do?" or "it seems as though the instructor doesn't do any teaching using this method. don't they just give the students a worksheet and have them figure everything out on their own?" in reality, the instructor has a vital role to play-making decisions about when to intervene, what to say, when to leave a group alone, when (if at all) to deliver a mini-lecture, when (and how) to have groups interact, etc., all based on instructor observations of the progress and dynamics of the class and keeping in mind both the content and process goals for the course and for that day's activity. thus, even if the instructor has not written the activity that the students are using, the manner in which the instructor implements the activity requires thoughtfulness and intentionality, knowledge and creativity. effectiveness of pogil the effectiveness of pogil in various courses has been assessed at a wide range of institutions (farrell, moog, and spencer 1999; hanson and wolfs.kill 2000; lewis and lewis 2005). in addition to these formal, published studies, a number of informal and unpublished evaluations of student learning outcomes have also been undertaken. in general, similar outcomes are observed independent of the type of institution, size of course, and course being studied. implementation in the classroom generally results in lower student attrition from the courses using pogil than courses using traditional methods (with attrition being considered earning a grade of "d" or "f" or withdrawing from the course), along with student content mastery that is at least as high or higher than that for students in comparable traditional sections. for example, one study of a full pogil implementation in general chemistry at franklin and marshall college compares the performance of over four hundred students taught using the pogil approach over a four-year period to a similar number taught in previous years using a traditional approach by the same instructors (farrell, moog, and spencer 1999). the attrition rate decreased from 22 percent (traditional) to 10 percent (pogil). the percentage of students earning an "a" or "b" rose from 52 percent to 64 percent. similar results have been obtained when pogil is used as a component of large lecture classes. in general chemistry classes at stony brook university, using a pogil approach facilitated by graduate teaching assistants in the recitation sessions for general chemistry resulted in students performing better on examinations, with the gains exhibited uniformly for low through high achieving students (hanson and wolfskill 2000). lewis and lewis (2005) studied the effect of replacing one of three general chemistry lectures each week with a peer-led team learning session using pogil materials at another large, urban university. they found that the students who had attended the group learning sessions generally performed better on common examinations. at a large, urban university in the southwest united states with a large minority population, a moderately-sized (seventy-seven students) first semester organic chemistry course was taught using a pogil group learning approach as the predominant form of instruction during the "lecture" meeting in a tiered lecture hall. the number of students withdrawing from this course prior to the final exam was reduced to 12 percent from a historical departmental average of 38 percent. in fact, in the particular semester of implementation, the traditionally taught section had a withdrawal rate of 4 7 percent. a common final exam was given to both sections, written exclusively by the "traditional" instructor, and all but one of the pogil students earned a passing score on the exam, as opposed to a failure rate of about 5 percent of the traditional section students-even though almost half of the traditional section students had already withdrawn and did not take the exam. when first hearing about pogil, many instructors are intrigued by the approach and can see its advantages, but are concerned that the pace of movement through the material would necessarily be significantly slower than for a lecture-based course. our experience is that this is not a problem. one measure of this is the performance of students on a standardized exam, comparing the average outcomes against those of students from the same institution who experienced a traditional approach. the 1993 acs general chemistry exam was used as a basis for comparison for general chemistry students at a small liberal arts college in the southeastern united states. from 1994-2003, in traditionally taught classes of about forty, the exam average was 56 percent, with the highest average in a single year being about 65 percent. in the first year of pogil instruction, the average was 68 percent correct (mcknight, pers. comm). this result is consistent with those obtained for an organic chemistry course at a mid-sized private, urban university in the same region. in this instance, the acs organic chemistry exam, a comprehensive exam covering the content of a standard full-year organic chemistry course, was used to compare the performance of students in a pogil organic chemistry course in the spring 2005 semester to the performance of students in two traditionally taught sections that same term and the performance of traditionally taught students from several recent years. in this case, the pogil course used the pogil methodology as the predominant form of instruction for all of the class time. the pogil students averaged in the 81 st percentile nationally, significantly higher than lecture students from that year (59th percentile) and lecture students from five previous years (64th percentile). these results support the notion that a pogil approach does not hinder students from mastering as much course content as would occur in a traditional instructional setting. 47 48 in general, students respond positively to pogil and find it effective in helping them learn and succeed. we hear this anecdotally from students and instructors from scores of institutions across the country, and we also have conducted a student survey to provide further support for this contention. a survey was given to several hundred organic chemistry students at six different institutions of various types and sizes, both public and private. almost all of the students in the courses volunteered to participate, with nearly four hundred responses from students enrolled in pogil sections at all six institutions and over three hundred responses from students enrolled in traditional lecture sections at two of them. a series of questions were asked concerning how well various aspects of the course enhanced their learning, or helped them develop important learning skills; in almost all cases, the pogil students indicated that they thought they had been helped more. of particular interest were the responses to the statement "i would recommend the method of teaching used in his course to a student taking this course next year." for the pogil sections, 80% of the students either strongly agreed (57%) or agreed (23%) with the statement (as opposed to being neutral, or disagreeing or strongly disagreeing) whereas for the traditional sections only 26% strongly agreed and 23% agreed for a total of 49% positive response. this difference is statistically significant to a very high level (p<0.0005). further details about the effectiveness of the pogil approach can be found at the pogil web site (http://www.pogil.org). the pogil project and the dissemination of pogil many who have attempted to implement new ideas in the classroom have found that bringing about change in the college science teaching community is not easy and requires more than desire and research-supported pedagogical ideas. there are compelling reasons for faculty to adopt a traditional lecture style rather than a more student-centered approach. lecture is the comfortable and conservative choice. new teachers are familiar with it from their own student days, and, more likely than not, it is the style used by most members of the department. without some support to help overcome the practical and psychological barriers of change, it is easy for faculty to maintain the status quo, justifying that decision with the logic that lecture must be an intelligent choice since it is the method used by so many intelligent faculty. factors that lead to adopting a new teaching paradigm include dissatisfaction with the current state of affairs, access to new information, experience with a new approach, an opportunity to meld the new approach with the needs of the learning community, and interaction with other innovators. faculty often attend workshops and learn about one particular aspect of student-centered learning, but have a difficult time solving the problems of adapting the approach to their own institutional setting. the pogil project aims to introduce and support the adoption and adaptation of the learning approaches described here to new and diverse teaching situations by taking the natural progression of change into account. we have created a multi-dimensional dissemination plan providing opportunities for engagement of faculty who are at various stages of familiarity and experience with student-centered teaching approaches. in addition to a workshop-style introduction to pogil, we have built a framework of support for faculty at all stages of the adoption process. dissemination of the pogil approach to teaching chemistry (and other disciplines) takes place through the pogil project, with financial support provided by the national science foundation (due 0231120). the focus of the project is on faculty development, helping instructors at the undergraduate level (and increasingly in high school also) find ways to better achieve the goals that they have for their students. we provide a variety of opportunities for faculty to learn about pogil and provide support for their continued growth as professional educators. one example demonstrates how the combination of activities and support mechanisms provided by the pogil project can produce substantial and effective changes at an institution. in june 2003, sally hunnicutt of the chemistry department of virginia commonwealth university attended the first pogil three-day workshop held at duke university. following this experience, hunnicutt described what she had learned to her colleague, suzanne ruder, who teaches organic chemistry. during the 2003-2004 academic year, hunnicutt and ruder implemented pogil approaches in their classrooms: hunnicutt used commercially available materials in a medium-sized physical chemistry course and ruder wrote her own materials and implemented them during a course with about 150 students in a tiered lecture hall. early in the second semester, at their request, a pair of pogil consultants made a two-day visit to observe them in their classes and make suggestions for improvements. over the next two years, they continued to interact with the project through telephone and e-mail consultations and presented their experiences at national meetings. ruder attended an advanced pogil workshop dealing with activity writing and classroom facilitation in may 2005 and served as a co-facilitator at an introductory three-day workshop in june 2005. finally, during the 2005 fall semester, individuals from old dominion university and from the university of south florida traveled to vcu for an on-site visit, to observe the classes taught by these two instructors as exemplars of pogil implementations. thus, in a little over two and a half years, these two colleagues transformed themselves from novices to pogil experts. similar transformations have taken place at institutions across the country. more information about the pogil project, and any of the project activities, is available from the pogil web site at http://www.pogil.org or by contacting the pogil office at pogil@pogil.org. references abraham, m. r. 2005. inquiry and the learning cycle approach. in chemists' guide to effective teaching, eds. n. j. pienta, m. m. cooper, and t. j. greenbowe. upper saddle river, nj: prentice hall. abraham, m. r., and j. w. renner. 1986. research on the learning cycle. journal of research on science teaching 23:121-143. bodner, g. m. 1986. a theory of knowledge. journal of chemical education 63:873. 49 50 bransford, j. d., a. l. brown, and r.r. cocking, eds. 1999. how people learn. washington, dc: national academy press. christensen, c.r., d. a. garvin, and a. sweet, eds. 1991. education for judgment. boston: harvard business school press. cooper, m. m. 2005. an introduction to small-group learning. in chemists' guide to effective teaching, eds. n. j. pienta, m. m. cooper, and t. j. greenbowe. upper saddle river, nj: prentice hall. dewey, j. 1920. the child and the curriculum. chicago: university of chicago press. farrell, j. j., r. s. moog, and j. n. spencer. 1999. a guided inquiry general chemistry course. journal of chemical education 76:570-574. hanson, d. m., and t. wolfskill. 2000. process workshops -a new model for instruction. journal of chemical education 77: 120-130. horowitz, h. m. 1988. student response systems. paper presented at the proceedings of the 6th annual conference on interactive instruction delivery, society for applied learning technology, warrenton, virginia. johnson, d. w., r. t. johnson, and k. a. smith. 1991. active learning: cooperation in the college classroom. edina, mn: interaction book company. johnstone, a. h. 1991. chemistry teaching science or alchemy? journal of chemical education 74:262-268. lawson, a. e. 1995. science teaching and the development of thinking. belmont: wadsworth. lawson, a. e. 1999. what should students learn about the nature of science and how should we teach it? journal of college science teaching, 401-411. lewis, j.e., and s. e. lewis. 2005. departing from lectures: an evaluation of a peerled guided inquiry alternative. journal of chemical education 82: 135-139. mazur, e. 1995. understanding or memorizing: are we teaching the right thing? cambridge, ma: harvard university. zoller, u. 1993. are lecture and learning compatible. journal of chemical education 70:195-197. acknowledgements the pogil project is supported by a grant from the division of undergraduate education of the national science foundation under grant number due-0231120. author information all of the authors are co-pis of the pogil project and have extensive experience using the approach in the classroom, giving presentations about pogil at regional and national meetings, and facilitating pogil workshops for faculty across the country. richard s. moog is professor of chemistry at franklin and marshall college and project coordinator for the pogil project. he has co-authored pogil materials for general chemistry and for physical chemistry. frank j. creegan is w. alton jones professor of chemistry at washington college. he has developed numerous pogil experiments in organic chemistry that are available from the pogil web site. david m. hanson is professor of chemistry at stony brook university. he has authored pogil materials for general chemistry and physical chemistry and served as an editor for pogil materials for various high school science courses. james n. spencer is william g. and elizabeth r. simeral professor of chemistry at franklin and marshall college. he has co-authored pogil materials for physical chemistry and is the 2005 recipient of the american chemical society's pimentel award in chemical education. andrei r. straumanis is assistant professor of chemistry at the college of charleston. he is the author of pogil materials for organic chemistry. 51 52 richard s. moog department of chemistry franklin and marshall college lancaster, pa 17604-3003 e-mail: rick.moog@fandm.edu telephone: 717-291-3804 frank j. creegan department of chemistry washington college 300 washington avenue chestertown, md 21620-1197 e-mail: fcreegan2@washcoll.edu telephone: 800-422-1782 x 7725 david m. hanson department of chemistry stony brook university stony brook, ny 11794-3400 e-mail: david.hanson@sunysb.edu telephone: 631-632-7917 james n. spencer department of chemistry franklin and marshall college lancaster, pa 17604-3003 e-mail: jim.spencer@fandm.edu telephone: 717-291-3807 andrei r. straumanis department of chemistry college of charleston 66 george street charleston, sc 29424 e-mail: straumanisa@cofc.edu telephone: 843-953-5275 mu2006-12-042_page41 mu2006-12-043_page42 mu2006-12-044_page43 mu2006-12-045_page44 mu2006-12-046_page45 mu2006-12-047_page46 mu2006-12-048_page47 mu2006-12-049_page48 mu2006-12-050_page49 mu2006-12-051_page50 mu2006-12-052_page51 mu2006-12-053_page52 165 supporting university community partnerships through shared governance and assessment kelsey beckett abstract university-community partnerships have always been an important part of towson university’s mission and charge as an anchor institution in the baltimore metropolitan region. after the recent unrest in baltimore, these partnerships are more important than ever. this paper will explore towson’s institutional partnership governance and new partnership support system, as well as how both helped the university respond after the riots in baltimore city. the future of partnerships at towson university will also be discussed. partnerships and relationships with the community are a major part of many universities’ missions and strategic plans, though that has not always been the case. as martin, smith, and phillips note, “historically, partnerships between universities and community organizations have either been non-existent or unconstructive; this state of affairs being the result of opposing philosophies and practices,” (2005, 2). they go on to note that despite this, the last ten years has seen an increase in the number and scope of university-community partnerships (martin, smith, and phillips 2005). this renaissance is likely due in part to the kellogg commission report, returning to our roots: the engaged institution. this report calls on public and land-grant institutions “to go beyond outreach and service to what the kellogg commission defines as ‘engagement.’ by engagement, we refer to institutions that have redesigned their teaching, research, and extension and service functions to become even more sympathetically and productively involved with their communities…” (kellogg 1999, 9). the kellogg commission notes that universities and communities should work together to address social and economic concerns (1999). since that report, others have echoed the importance of university-community partnerships in tackling the “wicked problems” of today. rittel and webber state that “now that these relatively easy problems have been dealt with, we have been turning our attention to others that are much more stubborn,” (1973, 156). they say, of the term wicked problems, “we use the term ‘wicked’ in a meaning akin to that of ‘malignant’ (in contrast to ‘benign’) or ‘vicious’ (like a circle) or ‘tricky’ (like a leprechaun) or ‘aggressive’ (like a lion, in contrast to the docility of a lamb),” (1973, 160). they go on to state that the characteristics of wicked problems are difficult to define and that the problems themselves are difficult to solve (rittel and webber 1973). there are several ways to approach these problems, however, and many possible solutions. 166 judith ramaley writes that higher education is approaching these wicked problems, saying, “the role of higher education is changing in today’s world because the world itself is changing, and complex problems confront us daily,” (2014, 7). she outlines an approach to addressing wicked problems that includes various disciplines, greater collaboration, and the involvement of new people who can bring fresh perspectives (ramaley 2014). ramaley also says, “the university must create new forms of infrastructure to support and sustain these new working relationships while encouraging faculty and students to seek out integrative and collaborative opportunities that address today’s complex problems,” (2014, 18). martin, smith, and phillips advocate moving toward a governance approach that involves the community to solve problems and uses new tools to achieve success (2005). bringle and hatcher also note how imperative it is to develop campuscommunity partnerships to address critical issues in the community (2002). these partnerships can “grow out of crises (e.g., natural disaster), be arranged through third parties (e.g., city government connects the campus and a community organization to work on a project), or occur through coincidence (e.g., both parties attend a meeting with a common interest),” (bringle and hatcher 2002, 506). morrell, sorensen, and howarth note that finding solutions to wicked problems works best if representatives from the university and the community work together to identify contributing factors and propose solutions (2015). partnerships aimed at helping to address these problems should be action-oriented, as well as research-oriented (morrell, sorensen, and howarth 2015). towson university (tu) understands the importance of university-community partnerships as well as anyone. tu was founded as the maryland state normal school, a teacher’s college, and partnerships have been an integral part of its mission and charge as an anchor institution in the baltimore metropolitan region ever since. tu recognizes that as a public university, major employer, and economic driver, it is our duty and responsibility to be truly connected and responsive to our community. after the recent unrest in baltimore in april 2015, this responsibility became even greater. background the sense of duty and the realization that towson could play a critical role in tackling pressing issues led the late president maravene loeschke to call for a more standardized way of tracking and evaluating the institution’s partnerships. prior to this, partnerships were being measured haphazardly, and faculty and staff were often asked for the same information from several different offices which caused frustration and pushback. this led to faculty and staff members feeling as though the information was not being used effectively and that their time providing this information was not valued. different types of partnerships were also (and still are) managed by different offices. the office of civic engagement and leadership focuses on service-learning, civic engagement, leadership, and sustainability initiatives. the office of community 167 service organizes and manages community service opportunities for students on campus. the office of partnerships and outreach works to connect community members with university resources, while also leading assessment efforts. this decentralized approach meant that each office was not always aware of what the others were doing, which meant that the university did not have a good grasp on what partnerships were happening, who was participating, what organizations faculty and staff were working with, the number of students involved, etc. under this charge, the university developed definitions for university-community partnerships and relationships, as well as a system of evaluation and support for faculty and staff members leading these partnerships and relationships. these new mechanisms have already helped tu quickly pull information about the institution’s work in baltimore city to provide to the governor’s office and the university system of maryland. defining university-community partnerships and relationships for towson university in order to determine the best way to manage and support partnerships and relationships at towson university, it was important to understand the role of partnerships, how they are defined, and the guiding principles behind them. towson’s mission statement highlights outreach to businesses, nonprofits, government agencies, schools, and health care organizations, while also emphasizing the role of applied research, community service, and student experiences outside of the classroom – characteristics found in the carnegie classification for community engagement for which the university has received recognition (in 2008 and 2015). towson university’s current strategic plan, “tu 2020: a focused vision for towson university,” also emphasizes university-community partnerships and relationships. one of its main underlying principles is community outreach. there are ten priorities for the institution, several of which are focused on partnership activities: •  innovation, entrepreneurship, and applied research, •  internships and experiential learning opportunities, •  a model for leadership development, and •  student, faculty, and staff well-being. to build on the charge laid out in the mission statement and strategic plan, the university worked to define what university-community partnerships and relationships are and what they mean to towson university. the working definition of partnerships that is used by the institution states, “partnerships at towson university focus on the collaboration and exchange of knowledge, expertise, and resources. our partnerships support the mission of the university, enhance the student learning experience, and are central to our identity as a community-engaged institution.” relationships, though they still include a university entity and an external organization, differ from partnerships in that they likely have a single purpose or goal and are often one-way. this distinction is 168 important because partnerships, in contrast to relationships, require more and different kinds of support from the university. towson highly values these relationships and partnerships and purposely seeks out relationships and partnerships that enhance student learning and the research and scholarship of our faculty, while dually having a positive impact on the education, economic vitality, and social well-being of our community. within these university-community partnerships and relationships are community engagement activities, community outreach activities, or both. tu adheres to the carnegie foundation definition of community engagement, which says, “community engagement describes the collaboration between institutions of higher education and their larger communities (local, regional/state, national, global) for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources,” (carnegie 2012). the university’s definition for community outreach states, “community outreach describes services that are carried out by the university for/in the community, rather than with the community.” institutional partnership governance to understand how partnerships are currently managed at towson, an explanation of the institutional governance structure must be provided. figure 1 shows an overview of the primary offices involved in managing community engagement partnerships and work. tu intentionally applies a decentralized strategy to support partnerships across campus. community engagement and partnerships are encouraged and supported by individual deans and vice presidents, but there are offices that were created to specifically manage and support different types of partnership work. the office of partnerships and outreach, in the division of innovation and applied research, was created to strengthen the ties between the university and community by supporting partnerships and serving as a point of contact for the community. this office has been allocated two full-time staff members and a student employee whose work is directly related to supporting partnerships. the office of civic engagement and leadership is in the division of student affairs. its responsibilities are in the areas of political engagement, environmental/ sustainability initiatives, and service-learning. there are three full-time staff members and numerous student interns and graduate assistants in this office. the office of community service within the student activities area of the division of student affairs focuses on identifying and organizing community service opportunities for tu students. community service has a full-time coordinator, as well as a graduate assistant. 169 figure 1. organizational structure – partnership management in addition to the aforementioned structures, a partnership working group was formed in fall 2014 at the behest of the president’s council. this group is made up of fifteen individuals from across campus, representing every academic college and administrative division. this group has three main purposes: 1. identify potential partnerships for consideration as university signature partnerships 2. review current partnerships across campus in order to identify opportunities to expand them or to connect them with other projects to create more extensive and expansive partnerships 3. review and evaluate approved university signature partnerships to ensure that progress is being made, that goals are being met, and that new goals are being set at specified intervals the partnership working group serves, in general, as a support and governing body for university-community partnerships. since there are members from all areas of campus, this group is able to identify where information is missing, where gaps exist, and what faculty and staff members may need in terms of support. the partnership working group also serves as a forum to discuss questions that arise from campus regarding partnerships. vice president, innovation and applied research office of partnerships and outreach office of civic engagement and leadership office of community service provost and vice president for academic affairs vice president, student affairs vice president, administration and finance and cfo president vice president, marketing and communications vice president, university advancement director, athletics 170 towson university-community relationships and partnerships support system getting to the point of developing and implementing a stronger support system for university-community partnerships has been a natural build for towson university. towson earned the carnegie classification for community engagement and outreach in both 2008 and 2015. improvement areas were identified by the carnegie foundation and included tracking and assessment of partnerships. to prepare for the 2015 re-application, a carnegie taskforce and evaluation subgroup were created to assess towson’s status with regards to evaluation of partnerships and what improvements could be made. these groups collected information from across campus about what faculty, staff, and students were doing and how different offices and units were measuring and assessing these activities. these groups were a precursor to the partnership working group. they were larger, to encourage more input from many different areas on campus. the partnership working group, in contrast, was convened as a smaller, more focused group. the university president, seeing that there were deficiencies in how the institution was tracking and assessing partnerships, called for one centralized data collection and support system. using a tool that was developed by the carnegie evaluation subgroup, baseline data about partnerships happening across the university were collected in spring 2014. the data revealed a number of partnerships that were not previously visible, further highlighting the need for a new system. the partnership working group was then convened in fall 2014 to further address some of the issues and challenges that the university faced regarding partnerships. the working group spent six months developing a support system for universitycommunity partnerships. the purposes of the system are to enhance the recognition of facultyand staff-led partnerships, identify towson’s partnerships and relationships, determine their scope, coordinate campus resources, and evaluate impacts and outcomes. the partnership working group reviewed the baseline data about tu’s partnerships to determine what partnerships were happening, what their characteristics were, and how they were currently being supported by the institution. from that information, the group recognized that there are different types of partnerships that range in size, scope, and purpose and that different types of partnerships require different levels and types of support. the purpose of defining different types of partnerships and relationships is not to place value on one type over another, but rather to group similar partnerships and relationships together in order to systematically determine how best to support them. the group outlined four types of partnerships, their characteristics, evaluation expectations, and the support that is needed for each type. a full chart of the partnership types appears below in figure 2. 171 it was important to the group to recognize both partnerships, as well as relationships. many activities done by faculty and staff fall into the “relationship” category, meaning that they may not be as robust as partnerships and may be more one-way, such as a community service project or working on a contract basis with an organization. however, the group felt that these interactions were just as important to collect information about and that to leave out relationships would be to ignore a whole set of partners and range of activities that are still central to the mission of the university. figure 2. partnership and relationship types type characteristics information collected and evaluation expectations support provided early stage collaboration •   an early stage  collaboration is an idea, conversation, or developing concept for a new community outreach relationship or partnership. the faculty or staff member may already be informally working with a community partner in hopes of developing a more defined relationship or partnership. •   as an early stage  collaboration is developed, basic information is collected from the lead such as the number of people involved (students, faculty, staff, external), the desired partnering organization, and the general purpose and goals of the eventual partnership or relationship. this information will be stored offline. •   once the idea has  progressed to a community outreach relationship or community engagement partnership, it will be added to the community partnerships database. •   identifying  additional potential collaborators both on and off campus •   resources for how  to get the partnership off the ground 172 community outreach relationship partners •   relationship  between a university entity (department, division, individual faculty or staff member) and an external organization in business, government, nonprofit, education, or the community. purpose •   most likely has a  single purpose or goal, including but not limited to grants, contracts, research, community service, or service-learning, internships. •   may or may not  directly involve students. timeframe •   may be a limited  amount of time or more sustainable. •   as new relationship is  formed, basic information is collected through the community partnerships database, such as number of people involved (students, faculty, staff, external), who the partnering organization is, timeframe, and the general purpose of the relationship. •   annually submit  outcomes and impacts. •   identifying  additional potential collaborators both on and off campus •   raising awareness  of the relationship both internally and externally •   assistance with  reporting the outcomes of the relationship 173 community engagement partnership partners •   partnership  between a university entity (department, division, individual faculty or staff member) and an external organization in business, government, nonprofit, education, or the community. purpose •   can be for a  singular purpose or goal or have multiple goals/ purposes and addresses student learning outcomes. •   there is mutuality  and reciprocity among all partners. timeframe •   timeframe will be  determined based on the purpose and goals of the partnership and may range from one semester to several years. •   once a new  partnership is formed, information about the partnership will be collected through the community partnerships database, such as number of people involved (students, faculty, staff, external), who the partnering organization is, timeframe, general purpose of the relationship, intended impacts and outcomes, and the intended student learning outcomes. •   in order to ensure  clear goals and roles within the partnership, a written agreement between the partners is recommended. •   annually submit  outcomes and impacts •   feedback from  community partners will be collected annually to determine their perceptions on the partnership and how it is progressing. •   identifying  additional potential collaborators both on and off campus •   raising awareness  of the partnership both internally and externally. •   assistance with  reporting the outcomes and impacts of the partnership. •   review of  partnership goals and progress •   inclusion in events  and publications such as annual reports and the tu showcase. •   partnership  information is collected and compiled into an annual report for the personal and professional use by the faculty and staff members involved. 174 university signature partnership partners •   partnership is  formed between the university (including stakeholders from more than one unit, department, college, or division) and one or more external organizations in business, government, nonprofit, education, or the community purpose •   partnership has  multiple goals/ purposes and addresses student learning outcomes. •   there is mutuality  and reciprocity among all partners. •   partnership  includes many types of activities, including community engagement and community outreach. •   partnership may  bring together several existing relationships and partnerships. •   partnership strives  to be a replicable model regionally, nationally, and/or internationally. timeframe •   partnership is longterm and sustainable over time •   once a new university  signature partnership is formed, information about the partnership will be collected through the community partnerships database, such as number of people involved (students, faculty, staff, external), who the partnering organization is, timeframe, general purpose of the relationship, intended impacts and outcomes, and the intended student learning outcomes •   partnership must  include a written memorandum of understanding of each partner’s goals and expectations •   annually submit  outcomes and impacts •   feedback from  community partners will be collected annually to determine their perceptions on the partnership and how it is progressing •   these partnerships  will be presented to the vice presidents of the university, along with an in-depth review of goals related to the partnership, in order to update them on progress and alignment with university priorities •   identifying  additional potential collaborators both on and off campus •   raising awareness  of the partnership both internally and externally •   assistance with  reporting the outcomes and impacts of the partnership •   review of  partnership goals and progress. •   partnership  information collected and compiled into an annual report for the personal and professional use by the faculty and staff members involved. •   inclusion in events  and publications such as annual reports and the tu showcase. •   partnership centrally  supported by the office of partnerships and outreach and the partnership working group. 175 the system was approved by the vice presidents in february 2015. the workflow of the partnership working group with regards to this new system and how the group relates to the president’s council is represented in figure 3. figure 3. partnership working group workflow the new system of defining partnerships was then introduced to the campus in a variety of ways. targeted presentations were given to the councils of each academic college as well as the leadership teams of each administrative division. these presentations outlined the background of partnerships at towson, how the system will help faculty and staff members with their own partnerships, and what the future of partnerships at the university looks like. communication was also sent via email and tu’s daily newsletter, which is sent to the entire campus. assessing and supporting partnerships along with the system which outlines partnership types, the role of the partnership working group, and how partnerships will be supported, the working group developed assessment tools. the assessment tools were created from the baseline partnership survey, using many of the same questions with some changes based on feedback from the campus. two surveys were created – a partnership/relationship record form and a partnership/relationship feedback form. the record form is filled out by faculty and staff members who are either starting a new partnership/relationship or who have not previously provided information about their partnership or relationship. the feedback form is an annual evaluation that is used to collect updated information about each partnership or relationship from the past year. the forms are currently administered through an online survey system which is maintained by the office of partnerships and outreach and then analyzed by the partnership working group. both forms are used for relationships and for partnerships. the record form is intended to be the more static information about a relationship or partnership and is completed only once. data collected through this form include who the partners are, the impact areas, what the intended outcomes are, and what the student learning goals are. the feedback form is administered annually and includes information such as the actual outcomes of the partnership or relationship, how many campus partnership leads submit information about partnerships through the partnership/ relationship record or feedback form partnership working group submits partnership review and university signature partnership recommendations to president’s council partnership working group reviews every submitted partnership to determine category and whether it should be considered for university signature status 176 hours were dedicated to it, how many students were involved, and questions about how the individuals felt about their experiences in the past year. the main goal of the data collection process is to evaluate impacts and outcomes. in the record form, the individual providing information is asked to identify the impact areas of the partnership or relationship from a pre-set list. since the list is pre-set, there may be instances where a faculty or staff member may not be able to perfectly match impacts, and in such instances, there is an option for the individual to specify the unique impacts of the partnership or relationship being recorded. in addition to measuring impacts, faculty and staff members are asked annually to choose the outcomes of their partnership or relationship from a pre-set list and to provide more in-depth detail about those partnerships or relationships. again, this list is not exhaustive, so there may not always be an exact match for the faculty or staff member to choose, but he or she can always specify their own outcomes and explain them in detail in the next question. the surveys are completed by the partnership or relationship lead. in the last collection cycle, the university received information about 169 partnerships and relationships. information will continue to be collected annually. this system has already helped to provide assessment and support for partnerships across the university. one of these partnerships is the northern map turtle partnership that towson has with the town of port deposit in cecil county, maryland. this partnership, which has existed for over seven years, focuses on four main areas: conservation, education, research, and economic development. it brings together resources and expertise to support the conservation of the northern map turtle, a state endangered species, and in doing so, to improve the economic vitality of the community, provide experiential opportunities for tu students, and promote eco-tourism. the northern map turtle partnership started with a tu biology professor’s research on the northern map turtle in 2008. in 2012, the professor wanted to get other areas of the university involved in the partnership with port deposit in order to address additional challenges and opportunities in the town. the office of partnerships and outreach met with him and the town to determine these needs and the best way to move forward. a memorandum of understanding was drafted and signed by both the town and the university. since then, the partnership has grown tremendously. it now includes several departments and areas on campus, including creative services, art services, the department of marketing, and the college of business and economics. the town is also renovating the jacob tome gas house, which will include a visitor’s center on the first floor and lab space for towson on the second floor. 177 the northern map turtle partnership is a great example of a campus-wide partnership that has been supported by the structures and systems of towson university. the office of partnerships and outreach acts as the administrative contact for the partnership so that the faculty member can focus on his research and the students he works with. the partnership, like all others, is evaluated annually to determine outcomes, challenges in the past year, student involvement, and more. this information helps those involved in the partnership to see what the current needs are and how it can grow in the next year. the support system can also help the university determine what types of support could benefit the northern map turtle partnership. partnerships today the data collection period for 2015 was held between may and july. during that time, faculty and staff members submitted information about 169 partnerships and relationships, compared with 97 partnerships and relationships submitted in 2014. eighty-five percent of these partnerships and relationships directly made a difference for the citizens of central maryland. the information presented below includes both partnerships and relationships combined together. these partnerships and relationships came from all academic colleges and administrative divisions and had a variety of impact areas and outcomes. the most common impact areas were: 178 these partnerships and relationships had a variety of outcomes, the breakdown of which are below: baltimore city case study in the midst of the 2015 data collection, riots occurred in baltimore in response to the death of freddie gray while he was in police custody. the unrest left certain areas of baltimore in ruin, with the west side of the city being hit the hardest. buildings were burned, stores were looted, and there was, in general, a great deal of destruction in those neighborhoods. governor larry hogan’s office and the university system of maryland (usm), seeing this violence and destruction, wanted to discern what usm schools in and around baltimore were already doing in the city. this would help them see what types of programs are already happening and how institutions may be able to work together to expand the reach of these partnerships. towson was wrapping up its partnership evaluation period, so it was the perfect time to collect information about partnerships in baltimore city. the president’s office asked for a report about partnerships that tu’s faculty and staff are leading in baltimore city and what activities are included in those partnerships. since faculty and staff members were already completing surveys about their partnerships and relationships, the office of partnerships and outreach was able to easily review that information to determine which were taking place in baltimore city. a question was even added to the partnership/relationship record form specifically asking whether the partnership did work in baltimore city, which helped to identify those partnerships. compiling this report yielded over sixty partnerships that faculty and staff are leading within baltimore city. that means that over 35 percent of tu’s partnerships are happening within the city limits. these partnerships were separated into five categories: educational efforts, jobs and trainings, health initiatives, recreational activities, and miscellaneous efforts. 179 the educational efforts category was by far the largest. the partnerships in this category range from arts education to stem initiatives to anthropology. the jobs and trainings category also includes a number of programs aimed at preparing students for the workforce, as well as providing training for individuals already established in their careers or interested in changing careers. a few examples of partnerships that towson is leading in baltimore city include: • city kids art program – the project goal is to bring at-risk urban youth from baltimore city to the towson university setting where they will have the opportunity to explore the arts in a teaching and learning partnership with art education and elementary education students. this is done through service learning in the “media and techniques” and “art and the child” classes. this program has an overarching goal to break down stereotypes and to encourage the urban youth to gain a vision for continuing their education at the college level. the program is in its twentieth year and continues to grow and expand. currently, all pre-service teachers are placed in city schools for their field experiences, and because of a generous grant from the national endowment for the arts, the program was able to hold an afterschool arts program in 2015. • sharp leadenhall community partnership – this partnership aims to assist community members in the south baltimore neighborhood of sharp leadenhall in its efforts to improve the community. it includes nonprofits, churches, and community groups. activities associated with this partnership include a concession stand before ravens home games to raise funds for local initiatives; a strategic community partnership with ame ebenezer, one of the oldest ame churches in the country; community clean-up days; and a walking tour of this historically black community that helped it receive historical status. • msde construction design & management curriculum – the maryland state department of education (msde) division of career and college readiness (dccr) has charged towson university (tu) and the maryland center for construction education and innovation (mccei) to establish a standardized, project-based curriculum for teachers and students in career and technology education (cte) high schools in the field of construction design and management (cdm). the project aims at developing a pipeline that would take students through high school and expose them to all aspects of the cdm industry with the purpose of developing skills that are transferrable to high level education as well as the maryland workforce. towson has enlisted faculty members, high school teachers, and industry professionals to develop this comprehensive, four-course curriculum. the curriculum exposes students to software that is already widely adopted by the industry, like autocad and revits. these partnerships, as well as the others that were identified, show the diversity of programs that towson is leading in baltimore city. the university has been committed to developing partnerships across impact areas, not only in central maryland, but in baltimore city specifically. these partnerships have the potential to help the city bounce back from recent events by providing education and mentoring for children, professional development and training for adults, and health initiatives for citizens of the city’s neighborhoods. 180 this information can also help the governor’s office and the usm determine where there may be opportunities for institutions to combine efforts. other universities in the baltimore area have different resources, so combining usm resources with other area university resources will help everyone have a larger reach and will impact more people. these partnerships have the potential to address the most current and pressing problems facing the baltimore city neighborhoods that were hardest hit by offering expanded educational opportunities and economic development. the new partnership/relationship support system allowed towson university to be especially responsive in a time of crisis. since the university’s partnerships were all contained in one database, the office of partnerships and outreach was able to quickly pull information about partnerships in baltimore city to provide to the governor’s office and the university system of maryland. this information is essential to the larger purpose of knowing how universities in and around baltimore are doing work in and supporting the city. there is a lot of work to be done to restore the parts of baltimore city where the rioting and unrest occurred. partnerships not only between the city and one university, but between the city and multiple universities, will be critical in helping to rebuild the city and provide opportunities for its citizens. as stated above, these partnerships cover everything from educational opportunities to economic development to health initiatives. by expanding these partnerships, towson and the other usm schools will have greater impact across baltimore city. the partnership and relationship information could be used also in future disasters or emergencies. as the university community becomes better acquainted with all of these partnerships and relationships, it will be easier to identify resources to be deployed. part of the problem in the past was the institution simply not knowing what faculty and staff members were doing. now that this information is in a centralized place, it is easier to access. future of towson’s partnership/relationship support system the current support system relies on online surveys to collect information. the results are then exported into an excel spreadsheet to be analyzed. the spreadsheet is large and unwieldy and requires a lot of work to compile a report based on the results. the results are also not currently kept online, so if someone from outside the office of partnerships and outreach or the partnership working group wants to see the results, he or she must request them, rather than being able to search them online. to address these issues, a new community partnerships database is being developed. this new database will allow faculty and staff members to submit information about 181 their partnerships directly to the system. this will allow faculty and staff to log in at any time to see their partnerships and their annual progress. they will be able to easily see information about their partnerships rather than having to go through an intermediary. in addition, general information about partnerships will be available online. internal and external users will be able to see basic information, such as a brief description, who the partners are, impact areas, and types of activities. users will also be able to search based on impact area and type of activity, making it easy to find partnerships that line up with their interests. the new community partnerships database will also make it easier to pull reports about tu’s partnerships. these reports will include information at both the partnership and the university level. for faculty and staff members, the new database system will be able to generate two different types of reports: a snapshot partnership report and an annual partnership report. the snapshot report will be a report about one partnership at a particular point in time. the annual partnership report will include information about the individual’s partnerships over time. both will show the outcomes, impacts, and student involvement in the partnerships. there will also be snapshot and annual reports at the university level. the snapshot report, like the single partnership snapshot, will provide information about tu’s partnerships at that particular point in time. the university partnership annual report will contain information about tu’s partnerships over time (number of partnerships this year vs. last year, etc.). again, both of these reports will outline the outcomes, impacts, and student involvement of the university’s partnerships. these reports will help towson university continue to get a better handle on the partnerships being led by its faculty and staff. anyone inside or outside of the university will be able to see the far-reaching impacts of these partnerships and where they are happening. towson was able to respond quickly to the request for information about activities in baltimore city, and the new database will make responding to requests, especially in times of crisis, even easier and more efficient. additionally, the partnership working group plans to develop a community feedback form, hopefully in time for the next collection cycle. this will be a survey, much like the partnership/relationship record form and the partnership/relationship feedback form, that will evaluate the role of the community partner in each relationship or partnership and how the community partner felt about its participation. the inclusion of the community voice will help with evaluation of towson’s university-community partnerships and relationships not only from an institutional perspective, but from the community perspective as well. since all of these partnerships and relationships are developed and implemented in collaboration with the community, measuring their input and thoughts is especially important. 182 conclusion partnerships continue to be an integral part of towson university’s mission and strategic plan. the university is making strides in standardizing and centralizing the processes associated with tracking and assessing these partnerships through shared governance. the new partnership support system, as well as the community partnerships database, will make it easier than ever to collect information about partnerships and generate reports. the system has already demonstrated its usefulness and responsiveness in the aftermath of the baltimore riots. towson was able to quickly compile information about its partnerships in baltimore city to provide to the governor’s office and the university system of maryland. moving forward, the system and database will allow the institution to easily pull reports about its partnerships at any time. having more comprehensive information will help towson have a larger reach and broader impacts through its partnerships and relationships. references bringle, robert g., and julie a. hatcher. 2002. “campus-community partnerships: the terms of engagement.” journal of social issues 58 (3): 503-516. carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching. 2012. “carnegie community engagement classification.” accessed july 27. http://nerche.org/index. php?option=com_content&view=article&id=341&itemid=92. kellogg commission on the future of state and land-grant universities. 1999. returning to our roots: the engaged institution. third report. washington, dc: national association of state universities and land-grant colleges. martin, lawrence l., hayden smith, and wende phillips. 2005. “bridging ‘town & gown’ through innovative university-community partnerships.” the innovation journal: the public sector innovation journal 10 (2): article 20. morrell, elizabeth, janni sorensen, and joe howarth. 2015. “the charlotte action research project: a model for direct and mutually-beneficial community-university engagement.” journal of higher education outreach and engagement 19 (1): 105-132. ramaley, judith a. 2014. “the changing role of higher education: learning to deal with wicked problems.” journal of higher education outreach and engagement 18 (3): 7-21. rittel, horst w. j., and melvin m. webber. 1973. “dilemmas in a general theory of planning.” policy sciences 4 (2): 155-169. 183 author information kelsey beckett is the partnerships and programs manager in the office of partnerships and outreach at towson university. she provides management and evaluation support for the university’s community partnerships and relationships and serves as a point of contact for community members and organizations looking to tap into the university’s resources. kelsey beckett office of partnerships and outreach division of innovation and applied research towson university 8000 york road towson, md 21252 e-mail: kbeckett@towson.edu telephone: 410-704-2678 184 muj 155 30,000 degrees: steps toward the formation of a staten island higher education partnership robert fanuzzi, kenneth gold, samantha seigel, christopher cuccia, michael kress, and sandy sanchez abstract in order to confront lower than average completion rates in new york city and to provide a strong economic and civic foundation for staten island, the borough’s three institutions of higher education, college of staten island/city university of new york, st. john’s university, and wagner college, have brought together their high school and community partners to form the staten island educational partnership. broadbased and cross-sectoral, the partnership has the goal of achieving 30,000 college degrees by 2025. the college of staten island/cuny, st. john’s university, and wagner college have joined together to create a cross-sectoral, borough-wide initiative – 30,000 degrees: college readiness for a stronger staten island. modeled after louisville’s “degrees at work: 55,000 degrees,” the 30,000 degrees initiative brings leaders in higher education, secondary and primary education, pre-kindergarten children services, nonprofit community-based organizations and social services, and government to form the staten island educational partnership – an organization and a vision that gives everyone a stake and role to play in improving college readiness on staten island. as we bring the staten island educational partnership into existence, we report as the working group tasked with this project on the outreach, organization, and organizational changes that have guided our efforts so far. we also reflect on the challenges and opportunities that lay ahead in creating a truly inclusive, borough-wide partnership that draws on the resources and responds to the challenges of growing a prosperous, educated workforce in new york city. although the work undertaken so far has brought the participating educational institutions closer together, we also believe that we are helping to bring higher education closer to its metropolitan context and setting, laying the groundwork for new models and narratives about the role and institutional growth of higher education in us cities. in this respect, we contribute our working group’s progress and the future work of the staten island educational partnership to the growing number of institutional initiatives by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities (cumu) member institutions who are actively trying to create a distinctly urban vision for higher education and college attainment that is rooted in the needs and resources of their metropolitan community. 156 the staten island educational partnership has a still more vital connection to cumu. its signature initiative, 30,000 degrees: college readiness for a stronger staten island, is a direct outgrowth of staten island educational leaders’ participation in the 2013 cumu conference. the staten island educational partnership was formed in order to achieve the results sought by a similar coalition of business, government, higher education, pre-k–12 education, and community organizations in louisville. the partnership and the 30,000 is, therefore, a statement about what investment and participation in cumu can accomplish. as more member institutions learn of similar initiatives throughout the country, we are happy to offer 30,000 as an example of an organizing, professionalizing potential that lies within cumu and its journal. origin of 30,000 degrees in 2013, representatives of the college of staten island, wagner college, new dorp high school, port richmond high school, and staten island technical high school attended the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities conference in louisville and learned about the work of “degrees at work: 55,000 degrees.” among the goals of degrees at work are the objectives “to improve the ease with which working adults access the postsecondary system; to increase the affordability of education; to promote the adoption of education-friendly programs, policies, and practices among louisville employers; to measure and report the completion rates of working-age adults who return to school.” the staten island participants at the 2013 cumu conference recognized the need for such an initiative in their home borough and the benefits that could be realized by expanding the traditional “feeder school” relationship between high schools and colleges to include k–12 schools, business, and community organizations. after the conference, president william fritz of the college of staten island and richard guarci of wagner college presented this vision to vice provost james o’keefe of the staten island campus of st. john’s university, and a three-college partnership was born. although meetings of university presidents and executives are not uncommon, this would be the first time that the three institutions of higher education on the borough of staten island were devoting resources and strategic focus to a shared agenda: improving college readiness in the borough the executives of the three colleges formed a working group composed of dr. michael kress, vice president of information technology and the economic development and civic prosperity unit for the college of staten island/cuny; sandy sanchez, director of the economic development and civic prosperity unit at the college of staten island/cuny; dr. kenneth gold, dean of the school of education for the college of staten island/cuny; samantha siegel, director of the center for leadership and community engagement for wagner college; dr. christopher cuccia, academic assistant vice president for st. john’s university; and dr. robert fanuzzi, director of civic engagement and public programs for st. john’s university. working closely with the high school principals in their core high school partnerships, the 30,000 working group moved quickly to establish a paradigm for their program goals and their methodology. the paradigm became summarized as a circular, mutually beneficial 157 relationship that drew not only on the traditional “feeder school” relationships but also on the middle schools that delivered students to the high schools, and the community centers and organizations that supported the students outside their schools. about the participating institutions college of staten island/city university of new york the college of staten island is a four-year, senior college of the city university of new york that offers exceptional opportunities to all of its students. programs in the liberal arts, sciences, and professional studies lead to bachelor’s and associate’s degrees. the master’s degree is awarded in eighteen professional and liberal arts and sciences fields of study. the college will now assume degree-granting authority of the doctorate in physical therapy, and this will become effective for students enrolled in the class of 2017 (beginning fall 2014). the college participates in doctoral programs of the city university graduate school and university center in biology, chemistry, computer science, nursing, physical therapy, and physics. the historic mission of the city university of new york (cuny) has been to provide both access to and excellence in higher education. the 2012–2016 master plan articulates “a steadfast insistence on the ability to serve students from all backgrounds, ensuring that each student has the opportunity to proceed smoothly through the educational pipeline to degree completion . . . and a dedication to the university’s urban setting.” 158 as the borough’s only public institution of higher education and the second largest employer on staten island, the college of staten island (csi) plays an integral role in developing sustainable campus-community partnerships. community engagement and service/experiential learning components are integrated values and fundamental principles of csi’s strategic plan. we actively work to instill the value of education and civic participation and are proud of our leadership role for staten island. furthermore, csi has committed internal university budget allocations dedicated to supporting institutional engagement within the community. under the auspices of a senior executive, the newly created economic development and civic prosperity unit has forged major inroads within the community, elected officials, educators, and civic and business leaders. st. john’s university in 1870, the rev. john loughlin, bishop of brooklyn, asked the vincentian community to establish an institution of higher education to serve a growing immigrant population. the result was st. john’s college on lewis avenue in brooklyn. the college grew into what is today known as st. john’s university, with four campuses in new york—queens, staten island, manhattan, and oakdale—and locations around the world. as a catholic and vincentian university, st. john’s applies its vast resources on behalf of those in need, combating the root causes of injustice and creating paths to a more equitable world. st. john’s university’s commitment to staten island dates to the late 1960s, when archbishop terrence cardinal cooke of the archdiocese of new york asked the vincentian fathers of st. john’s university to integrate notre dame college, a premiere but struggling small college that had been educating women since the 1930s, in order to maintain catholic higher education in the borough. with the new york state board of regents approval in 1971, st. john’s has been a vibrant educational force on staten island for more than forty years, presently serving more than 2,000 students who are enrolled in undergraduate and graduate degree programs. this unique campus, where the graceful buildings of the former ganz estate stand alongside state of the art technology centers, has graduated more than sixteen thousand students and continues to fulfill the promise of bringing together the academic rigor of a national catholic university with the vincentian mission, devoting its intellectual and physical resources to search out the causes of poverty and social injustice and to encourage solutions which are adaptable, effective, and concrete. consistent with its mission and history, the staten island campus of st. john’s remains focused on the aspirations of the ever growing immigrant population in new york city and the needs of the underserved and marginalized, including access to educational opportunities for nontraditional students. st. john’s university faculty and students explore issues related to poverty and social injustice, enhancing their studies with skillbuilding experiences, community-based research, and academic service learning in their local and global communities through the vincentian institute for social action, the 159 office of campus ministry, the office of global studies, the college advantage program, the scholars program, the school of education’s community engagement project, the office of adult & veterans services, and other programs and services. wagner college wagner college was founded in 1883 as the lutheran proseminary of rochester, n.y., working to prepare future lutheran ministers for admission to seminary. as the school grew in reputation and size, the new york ministerium, a lutheran church organization in control of wagner, recognized the need to find a new location. reverend frederic sutter, a graduate and lifelong supporter of wagner college, had established his own ministry on staten island in 1907. through sutter’s efforts, wagner college relocated to grymes hill on staten island in 1918. the new campus found a home on the thirty-eight-acre former country estate of nineteenth century shipping magnate sir edward cunard. wagner’s move to staten island ushered in a new era in the history of wagner in which the college became well known for its liberal arts curriculum and, as a result, grew both in its academic reputation and enrollment over the next three decades. today, wagner college is uniquely positioned as the only true, private, traditionally residential liberal arts college within the five boroughs of new york city. more than two thousand students in more than thirty academic programs and four graduate departments make up the wagner college community, which is ranked by u.s. news & world report among the top twenty-five regional colleges and universities in the northeast, continuing its tradition of academic excellence into the twenty-first century. keeping with its tradition of community engagement, wagner college is intimately connected to the greater community locally, nationally, and internationally. the mission of wagner college is to prepare students for life, as well as for careers, by emphasizing scholarship, achievement, leadership, and citizenship. wagner offers a comprehensive educational program that is anchored in the liberal arts, experiential and co-curricular learning, and service to society, and that is cultivated by a faculty dedicated to promoting individual expression, reflective practice, and integrative learning. wagner college achieves this mission through the implementation and enhancement of the wagner plan for the practical liberal arts, which was formally launched in 1998. this innovative and bold curricular framework is predicated on direct links between theory and practice. it builds upon wagner’s history of combining liberal arts and focused professional programs, coupled with our unique location and requires community-based learning for all students. the plan has, thus, ushered in a new vision of engaged student learning that is at once reflective and integrated, theoretical and practical. working to deepen the wagner plan, the port richmond partnership was developed in the spring of 2008 and is made up of representatives from wagner college, leading organizations, and institutions in port richmond and focuses on the areas of education, economic development, immigration, health and well-being, and the arts. the 160 partnership further demonstrates the wagner commitment to learning by doing and to rejuvenating a historically rich but economically distressed community. the partnership seeks to increase student learning, raise civic consciousness, and further sustain its impact and commitment to the local community. ralph mckee career and technical education high school ralph mckee career and technical education high school has been a leading representative of staten island in career and technical education (cte) for more than ninety years. mckee is like a private school, with small classes, committed faculty, secure grounds, and sophisticated technologies. led by principal sharon henry, mckee provides students with the knowledge, study habits, resources, and guidance not only to go to college, but also to thrive once accepted by equipping students with the skills and certifications to pursue career fields like drafting, graphic arts, cisco/a+ networking, automotive technology, cosmetology, and construction. today, as it prepares youth for key roles in the twenty-first century, mckee’s motto is, “mckee: college, career, life.” as a recipient of a bill and melinda gates foundation grant to start the advancement via individual determination (avid) program, mckee stands as the only avid certified cte secondary school in the northeast region. in 2013, it was one of thirteen schools to be awarded a bloomberg technology initiative software engineering program (sep), through which students are on a path to receive new york state certification as a cte designation on their high school diploma. other recent achievements include a first place in desktop publishing and design and third place in package design in the 2014 citywide graphic arts competition; both a first and third place finish in the 2014 greater new york automotive dealer’s association automotive technician citywide competition; second place finishes for both advertising design and architectural drafting in the 2014 skills usa new york city area 5 competition; and both first and second place finishes in desktop publishing and design in the 2013 citywide graphic arts competition. new dorp high school new dorp high school serves more than twenty-seven hundred students in grades nine through twelve. its student population is 51 percent white, 27 percent hispanic, 12 percent black, and 7 percent asian. seventeen percent are special education students, and 4 percent of students are english language learners (ells). more than 57 percent qualify for free or reduced-price lunch. the school is located on the east shore of staten island. principal deirdre deangelis has led the school since 1999. new dorp high school has implemented a variety of structural and instructional systems using data to develop school-wide approaches to improve student outcomes. through an inquiry approach, staff and administrators continually identify areas for growth and strategize possible levers for improving student outcomes. concerned about the school’s graduation rate, they divided the large, comprehensive high school into eight small learning communities (slcs in 2006), each with a specific career focus, a dedicated administrator, guidance counselor, teaching staff, and other support staff to create a personalized environment to better meet the needs of all students. 161 academically, they focused on writing as a growth area throughout the school based on analysis of student data. as a result, all teachers have been supported in explicitly teaching analytic writing in their content areas. with more than a 22 percent point increase in their four-year graduation rate since 2006, the results are starting to show. parents and families are key partners in new dorp’s turnaround—a widely used online grading and information sharing system keeps them updated and allows them to communicate with teachers regularly. port richmond high school the mission of port richmond high school is to provide students with individualized challenges, opportunities, and resources, to become lifelong learners and productive, responsible citizens. port richmond high school believes that all students can learn and achieve at a high level of expectation given the proper attention to their individual needs. principal timothy gannon believes that close community partnerships with colleges, universities, and local organizations help enhance students’ educational experience and provide them with multiple options. in 2013, 61.1 percent of port richmond high school students graduated in four years and about 50 percent of students graduated with a weighted diploma. overall, the school received a b for college and career readiness with around 75 percent of graduates taking academically rigorous classes and 43 percent enrolling in postsecondary classes after graduation. staten island technical high school staten island technical high school is among the prestigious new york city’s specialized high schools. the admissions process is highly competitive and based upon the specialized high school admissions test, which is taken annually by more than twenty-seven thousand new york city students. all ninth grade students receive an ipad to use in school and take home for four years via the 1:1 digital education initiative. the school’s college preparatory curriculum provides a robust and challenging experience through courses in science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics (steam), as well as the liberal arts and health and physical education, along with a cutting edge career and technical education program and extensive public schools athletic league (psal) opportunities for the scholar-athlete. staten island technical high school is one of our nation’s top high schools, with all core courses taught on the honors level and featuring one of the best college preparatory experiences across the curriculum, with a strong emphasis in steam education, and premier college and career readiness programs, producing the nation’s finest scholars, innovators and athletes. staten island technical high school was recently ranked sixth in newsweek’s 2014 list of america’s top high schools. one hundred percent of staten island tech’s graduates go on to four-year colleges and universities, including the service academies. the 293 students of the class of 2014 earned $61 million in college scholarships, with most students earning sixteen to sixty college credits via the school’s vast advanced placement program and dual-enrollment college accredited courses. pivotal partnerships with the college board’s advanced placement program, cuny college 162 now, suny university in the high school, st. john’s university college advantage, and the college of st. rose provide students with the opportunity to earn and graduate with fifteen to sixty college credits. over 60 percent of the faculty members teach ap and college-level courses. about staten island as the smallest of new york city’s five boroughs, staten island has come into sharper local focus and into national consciousness in the wake of super storm sandy. it currently ranks fourth among the five boroughs in the rate of college degrees by borough residents: percentage of borough residents with a baccalaureate degree or higher 2010 census data informs us that the percentage of persons aged twenty-five or over (2007–2011) who have attained a baccalaureate degree or higher is 28.9 per cent (136,040 degrees) of the island’s 470,728 residents. based on the analysis of staten island population growth and recent trends in higher education, a goal of thirty thousand additional degrees from the baseline 2012 census will require an increase of 2,128 degrees above the trend over the ten-year period from 2015–2025. also, based on the national average completion rate of 50 percent this would require an additional 426 college-ready high school graduates per year who choose to go to college (united states census bureau report 2014). 163 an extra opportunity and incentive for the staten island educational partnership to reach these goals is the 35 percent increase in the foreign-born population in the borough from the census years 2000 to 2010. according to the u.s. census bureau 2008–2012 american community survey, the foreign-born will number 97,369 out of a total population of 468,374, almost a quarter of the population. will staten island’s newest residents become part of the borough’s educational progress? the staten island educational partnership was formed with this challenge in mind. the staten island educational partnership made a close study of other relevant demographic trends that will inform its focus and outreach. using information collected from the 2012 american community survey and the 2010 us census, a report issued by st. john’s university found that other than the bronx and staten island, all the other boroughs will see increases in the ten to fourteen age group in 2015. the entire city will grow in population by about 5.2 percent. staten island will have the largest decrease in the ten to fourteen age group at –4.4 percent. overall, the fifteen to seventeen age population will decrease by about 6.5 percent around the city. white population will continue to decrease in the bronx, queens, and staten island and increase slightly in brooklyn and manhattan. staten island has the largest increase 164 in black population by 75 percent since 1990. black population will decrease about 2.6 percent in 2015 for all but staten island, where it will increase by 5.4 percent. asian populations will increase across all of the boroughs by 9 percent in 2015, with staten island having the largest asian population increase at 167 percent since 1990. hispanic populations have increased in population across the boroughs by about 35 percent since 1990, with staten island having a 204 percent increase in hispanics since 1990. in 2015, projections show staten island’s hispanic population increased by 16.5 percent. the population has increased across staten island by about 16 percent since 2000. the largest increases were in charleston (31 percent), tottenville (30.8 percent), and port ivory with about 26 percent. overall, population in staten island will grow by about 4 percent from 2010 to 2015, but the borough will see decreases in the ten-to-fourteen age population in the –4 percent range by 2015. since 2000, the ten-to-fourteen age population has decreased at a rate of about –3.5 percent over fifteen years. high school aged populations will reach their peaks in 2012–2013 and then will be followed by a long and gradual decrease in population throughout this decade. the fifteen-toseventeen aged population reached its highest point in 2010–2011, but decreases will be about –7 percent by 2015. according to the same st. john’s university report, the borough will see increases in the percentage of residents without a bachelor’s degree. the knowledge that the borough is lagging in college attainment and projected to continue to lag spurred the 30,000 working group to ramp up their outreach efforts to high schools to see if existing programs could be intensified or more strategically utilized (ross, cuccia, and hughes 2012). 165 college/high school partnerships underway st. john’s university has begun an in-depth partnership with mckee high school in the st. george neighborhood of staten island that implements the advancement via individual determination program. housed in mckee high school, the avid secondary program (grades seven through twelve) “develops learning, study, and academic behavioral skills that are essential to success in rigorous coursework. it acts as a catalyst for schools to develop a culture of college readiness for all students across the campus. in the avid elective class, students receive daily instruction and support to prepare them for college from a trained avid elective teacher. avid impacts students school-wide as academic strategies like writing to learn, inquiry, collaboration, organizational skills, and critical reading (wicor ) are taught in all classes by teachers who have been trained to use avid strategies in their specific content areas.” an essential part of avid’s program delivery are the college tutors, who “create a positive peer group for students” and help them “a sense of hope for personal achievement gained through hard work and determination.” working closely with high school students, college students provide the crucial mentoring and academic follow up that is necessary for the success of avid. st. john’s school of education faculty member professor kristin pitanza is the liaison and coordinator for delivery of the avid program at mckee, supervising students from the school of education and from the st. john’s university core class, discover new york. she reports that the close relationship between avid trained teachers and the st. john’s university student tutors is already paying dividends. the avid tutor sessions use college tutor facilitators to pose problems, lead inquiry-based learning activities, and to collectively develop solutions to the problems posed by students. the avid approach rewards the student who has the best question and helps others learn to develop similar problem-posing skills. students are empowered to become leaders and are made responsible for envisioning and performing higher level work outside the classroom. working together, content area teachers and college tutors are devising tutoring outcomes that will help the content area classroom and teacher reach their desired goals. by preparing students for more demanding tutoring questions, st. john’s university students and the content area teachers of mckee high school are preparing their high school students for success in college by modelling and demanding a higher level of performance and participation. st. john’s university students also learn about the motivational and programmatic challenges that lay ahead in the field of college readiness. principal sharon henry reports with great satisfaction on the working relationship and level of cooperation achieved so far between st. john’s university and mckee high school and looks forward to achieving tangible outcomes in college readiness as the program continues throughout the academic year. st. john’s university also administers the college advantage program in the following local high schools: curtis high school, miraj islamic school, moore catholic high school, monsignor farrell high school, new dorp high school, notre dame 166 academy, staten island technical high school, st. john villa high school, st. joseph-by-the-sea academy, st. joseph hill academy, st. peter’s boys high school, susan wagner high school, and tottenville high school. wagner college believes that comprehensive neighborhood partnerships are the most effective ways for institutions of higher education to align with like anchor institutions in order to achieve long-term measurable and sustainable community good. considered the cornerstone of the curricular framework, the wagner plan for the practical liberal arts/port richmond partnership seeks to develop collaborative programs that contribute to school improvement, economic growth, health care enhancement, and immigration reform. the partnerships play a significant role in advancing research and inquiry about pressing community issues and builds mutually beneficial curricular and co-curricular placements for wagner college students to broaden their experiences and strengthen a wide variety of community-based initiatives. community leaders first broached the port richmond partnership in 2008 as a way to augment wagner’s highly successful civic innovations program. a memorandum of understanding was signed in the spring of 2009, officially establishing the partnership. based on an agreement between wagner college and leading organizations and institutions in port richmond, the partnership was designed to extend wagner’s commitment to learning by doing and to rejuvenating an economically distressed community. over the past three years, the number of partnership organizations has doubled, and through regularly scheduled meetings, partners have worked together closely to tap into existing community assets by continuing to build significant, sustainable, and increasingly ambitious partnerships. to date, 30 percent of wagner college undergraduate students have at least one community experience through which they work with and learn from the residents of port richmond. the port richmond partnership offers the following opportunities: • curricularand co-curricular-based placements for wagner college faculty, students, and staff . • professional development activities for area students, teachers, educational personnel, and organizational leaders. • cooperative programs to forward school improvement, economic development, immigration reform, and health promotion efforts. • research, data collection, and dissemination. with a strong focus on college readiness, citizenship education, and school improvement, the education subcommittee of the port richmond partnership is the most profound example of community engagement work at wagner college. in 2010 marga incorporated conducted a year-long study of the wagner plan for the 167 practical liberal arts/port richmond partnership and found that more than twenty community partners across disciplines agreed that the educational partnerships were the strongest and most central way for wagner college to connect to the greater community. since 2011 around $500,000 of grant money has been received and distributed to augment education work in the port richmond community. the most profound example of this work is the port richmond partnership summer leadership academy for rising juniors at port richmond high school. wagner college launched the port richmond partnership summer leadership academy to increase the likelihood of at-risk youth going to college and graduating with a strong degree and moving on to a successful career. working in close partnership with the new world foundation, wagner college, port richmond high school, and project urbanista have designed a summer leadership academy for high school students residing in the port richmond community of staten island. this leadership academy is based on the civic opportunity initiative network (coin) model of increasing college access for students from underserved communities through programs that encompass the following key elements: increased access to higher education, effective mentoring, community engagement, and development and a commitment to advancing civic engagement and education as core aspects of democratic citizenship. during the pilot summer of 2014, twelve students from port richmond high school participated in a five-week summer academy at wagner college participating in courses as well as interning in the staten island community. it is anticipated that the summer academy in 2015, 2016, and 2017 will be held for the duration of seven weeks and will contain a maximum of sixteen students per cohort. sixteen of the academy graduates will receive full tuition scholarships to wagner college. the college of staten island, and in particular its school of education, has long worked closely with new dorp high school in the preparation of future teachers. new dorp hosts csi students in the teacher education honors society for field observations, new dorp teachers have joined as members of the adjunct faculty in education at the college, and teacher education students serve as student teachers at new dorp in many different subject areas. new dorp sits atop an extensive feeder system that includes three intermediate schools and twelve elementary schools. among these schools were many that also had lengthy collaborative relationships with the college of staten island. for example, ps 13, ps 14, ps 39, ps 57, ps 78, and is 49 are all stalwart collaborators in the field experiences of the teacher education students. the college’s work with ps 78 is of particular note. located in the stapleton neighborhood of staten island, ps 78 is a title i school serving large numbers of low income families. it is a site for the csi percy ellis sutton seek program, in which participating children are paired with college of staten island student tutors/mentors. these mentors provide homework assistance and tutoring services, using best practices drawn from reading, math, writing, and other academic areas. the tutoring is tailored to academic needs that become obvious during homework time and/or upon request by the student or school staff. in addition, seek offers leadership and financial literacy workshops. the leadership development workshops are based on steven covey’s 7 168 habits of highly effective people and cover principles of self-development, personal responsibility, goal setting, and team work. financial literacy is based on the principles of saving, spending, donating, and investing. with so many schools already intertwined with new dorp and csi, principal deirdre deangelis and dean of education ken gold gathered the principals of the new dorp feeder schools together at the high school on march 10 and april 25, and they subsequently met again at the college in july. the group of invitees gradually expanded as additional schools learned about the initiative and asked to participate. most notable was the addition of staten island technical high school. given its physical proximity to new dorp and the close professional relationship between the leadership of the two high schools, the staten island technical high school was also invited to join the working group and quickly became a central partner. all participants eagerly embraced the cradle to career concept that emphasized college graduation as a motivating goal. the meetings produced some animating principles and possible programs for the schools to establish, some in conjunction with the college and/or community organization. the principals articulated a need to address socio-cultural issues (e.g., imagining a future in college) as well as academic ones (e.g., preparing for a future in college). participants completed an interest inventory of activities and programs that they were currently running or interested in launching. some of these included career fairs, college information sessions, learning communities, internships, and parental outreach activities. the idea of structured school visits garnered the most immediate traction, with the principals interested in launching or expanding their efforts to acclimate students to the intermediate and/or high school that they would subsequently attend. two-way visits were envisioned, with students returning to their previous school to address younger students and with students visiting their next school to speak with the alumni of their current school. in this way, each school would send and receive student ambassadors. both new dorp and staten island technical have enlarged their school visit programs for the 2014–2015 academic year. achieving collective impact the staten island educational partnership took an important turn when it held is first community forum in may 2014. a large group of community leaders, elected officials, educators, and other stakeholders agreed in principle with the overall objectives of 30,000 degrees but desired a larger organizational structure that would allow them to work alongside the representatives of the three higher education institutions. betsy dubovsky recognized the opportunity to achieve a “collective impact” with the help of the nonprofit strive, and engaged strive as a consultant to grow the partnership beyond its current membership and to bring the organizational objectives into better alignment with the needs and capacity of the staten island community. as described by fay hanleybrown, john kania, and mark kramer (2012) in their stanford innovation review article, “channeling change: making collective impact 169 work, “ “collective impact” is an organizational strategy designed to maximize the value of cross-sector partnerships for structural, disciplined, rigorous activities that are also flexible and organic. in the parlance of collective impact, achieving 30,000 degrees requires first and foremost a system change in how higher education, pre-k– 12 education, nonprofits, government, and the business community work together. creating a broader, more inclusive staten island educational partnership is the first step toward achieving this borough-wide system change, and though the work of organizing can be tedious in the early stages, the resulting partnership will gather that many more stakeholders in what we intend to be a collective endeavor. without the coordinated leadership structure and organization, higher education and the various other sectors of borough life will continue to make isolated impacts and to generate programs that are limited to their expertise. collective impact strategy offers one sector to understand the impact of its activities on another sector and to assess the improvements that might be made to overall outcomes by aligning our information and efforts more closely together. with the help of the strive consultancy, the staten island educational partnership is working toward the broader organizational structure that embraces these five basic principles of collective impact: common agenda all participants have a shared vision for change including a common understanding of the problem and a joint approach to solving it through agreed upon actions. shared measurement collecting data and measuring results consistently across all participants ensures efforts remain aligned and participants hold each other accountable. mutually reinforcing activities participant activities must be differentiated while still being coordinated through a mutually reinforcing plan of action. continuous communication consistent and open communication is needed across the many players to build trust, assure mutual objectives, and create common motivation. backbone support creating and managing collective impact requires a separate organization(s) with staff and a specific set of skills to serve as the backbone for the entire initiative and to coordinate participating organizations and agencies. (hanleybrown, kania, and kramer 2012) 170 as we work through these organizational challenges, the members of the working group are particularly excited about developing strategies for attaining the first three articles of this agenda. of special interest is developing the “shared measurement” that will be based on the various ways that the participants in collective impact define their progress toward the common agenda. “mutually reinforcing activities” will arrive as we complete our inventory of what we are able to measure and contribute toward achieving our common agenda: thirty thousand degrees and a better educated workforce for staten island. conclusion on september 13, 2013, during nbc’s fourth-annual education nation summit, a gathering on the state of education in america, the united states secretary of education arne duncan announced that education in america is in “a real state of crisis.” findings of a study showed that american adults fare poorly in mathematical and technical skills needed for a modern workplace compared to their counterparts in most other developed nations (chuck 2013). nationally, college enrollment in 2012 declined by nearly a half million students compared to a year earlier, according to new figures released by the us census bureau, with students over the age of twenty-five leading the miniature exodus from higher learning (united states census bureau 2014). this information has special import for the educators who work in new york city’s least populous but most fast changing borough and its metropolitan institutions. although the members of the staten island educational partnership knew at the outset that our efforts would partner us closely with leaders of the community and k-12 education, we could have never realized the extent to which our efforts would engage us in prospects for the health, welfare, and development of our borough. each member of the working group brought an exceptional portfolio of program activities and initiatives to the effort as we began our work, but we already have achieved our own collective impact in realizing that we are actually doing each other’s work in a mutually reinforcing fashion: the education of staten islanders. never before have the stakes for this effort been clearer to us as we confront the costs of an uneducated workforce, high school drop-out rates, and lack of college attainment as well as to the prospects for the borough as a whole. while staten island continues to recover from the most destructive storm this city has ever seen, we take great pride in bringing equal focus and determination to an equally destructive problem that threatens to leave the borough behind the city’s and the nation’s economic progress. we are heartened in this effort by the contributions of a wide range of leaders and stakeholders who likewise realize that a college educated workforce is the work of us all. the best potential and strategic plans for a metropolitan college or university, we posit, will always have this fact before them. 171 references hanleybrown, fay, john kania, and john kramer. 2012. “channeling change: making collective impact work.” stanford innovation review. st. john’s university. accessed october 2014. http://www.ssireview.org/blog/entry/channeling_change_making_ collective_impact_work. ross, jerrold, christopher cuccia, and jonathan hughes. 2012. “st. john’s university staten island campus census trends for strategic planning.” unpublished report, last modified 2012. chuck, elizabeth. 2013. “us in real state of crisis.” nbc news. college of staten island. accessed october 2013. http://www.nbcnews.com/news/other/us-real-statecrisis-education-secretary-says-f8c11354527. united states census bureau. 2014. “statistical abstracts: education.” college of staten island. accessed october 2013. http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/cats/ education.html. author information robert fanuzzi, phd, is director of civic engagement and public programs and associate professor in english and american studies at st. john’s university. kenneth gold, phd, is dean of the school of education at the college of staten island/city university of new york (cuny). samantha seigel is director of the center for leadership and community engagement at wagner college. christopher cuccia, edd, is academic assistant vice president for st. john’s university. michael kress, phd, is vice president for information technology and the economic development and civic prosperity unit at the college of staten island/ city university of new york (cuny). sandy sanchez is director of the economic development and civic prosperity unit at the college of staten island/ city university of new york (cuny). robert fanuzzi, phd office of the vice provost st. john’s university 103 flynn hall staten island, ny 10301 e-mail: fanuzzir@stjohns.edu telephone: 718-390-4266 fax: 718-390-4347 172 25 a community-based activities survey: systematically determining the impact on and of faculty lane perry, betty farmer, david onder, benjamin tanner, and carol burton abstract as a descriptive case study from western carolina university (wcu), this article describes the development of a measuring, monitoring, and tracking system (the wcu community-based activities survey) for faculty engagement in, adoption of, and impact through community engagement practices both internal and external to their courses. this paper will outline the process for developing and refining the wcu communitybased activities survey and will highlight the goals and perspectives that informed the survey design, the approach to administering the survey across the institution, and approaches for generating buy-in from and recognition for faculty. clearly, an essential element in the equation of institutionalized community engagement is the professoriate, and faculty assessment of mutually beneficial outcomes is imperative. finally, this paper identifies the transferable lessons learned through the development, distribution, and assessment processes associated with this case and offers both the process and survey as resources to the field of community engagement and service-learning. this article, a descriptive case study of western carolina university (wcu), focuses on the development of a measuring, monitoring, and tracking system for faculty engagement in and impact through community engagement practices both internal and external to their courses. this survey is called the wcu community-based activities survey. as a carnegie community engaged classified university (2008, original classification; 2015, reaffirmation), the concepts, practices, and mechanisms for measuring community engagement are pervasive across the institution. these practices and mechanisms include systems for obtaining a clearer picture of the impact on the community and partners, the institution, students, and faculty. the focus of this article is not necessarily on the development of faculty in the practice of community engagement as much as it is the involvement and inclusion of faculty in the measuring, monitoring, tracking, assessing, and evaluating of the practices and impacts of community engagement work within an institution. when it comes to institutional adoption of community engagement practices, boyer (1990) identified faculty priorities in academic pursuits (e.g., teaching, scholarship and research, service, and engagement) as being essential for producing a greater spectrum of approaches and an improved awareness and reaction to the needs of society. 26 an essential element in the equation of institutionalized community engagement is the professoriate (ward 1996). considering that an institution’s faculty is such a large, productive, and integral variable of this equation, it is essential to know where and to what extent engagement is occurring across faculty members and their home departments, colleges, and whole institutions. while the practice and implementation of community-engaged pedagogies are pervasive at wcu, an organized, systematic approach for the measurement and monitoring of those practices was not customary until the 2010-2011 academic year. since then, great strides have been made to foster a culture that values the importance of the measuring, monitoring, and tracking of community engagement specifically from a faculty perspective. initially, an overview of the institution’s mission, vision, core values, and strategic directions as they align with the conceptualization of community engagement will be addressed. following this, literature pertaining to motivations of faculty and the underpinnings of community engagement assessment will be discussed. the wcu case will describe the theoretical underpinnings associated with the measuring and monitoring of impact and address the process for soliciting and incentivizing faculty participation. a description of how the survey was designed and the process that was implemented at wcu will be presented and transferable recommendations will be identified. this article will address one faculty-centered approach to information collection that has helped in the following ways: •   created an evidence-based standard or baseline of faculty engagement, •   prompted the development of a recognition program for determining and sharing  exemplar practices/cases, •   established a database valuable for future interdisciplinary collaboration, public  relations, reporting, and storytelling, and, •   framed much of the engagement work across campus in a clearer more well defined context. institutional context and framing a community-engaged institution to begin, a clear conceptualization of what is meant by the term community engagement must be identified. since wcu is a carnegie community-engaged classified institution, it is appropriate to frame community engagement through the following definition from the carnegie community engagement classification description. “community engagement describes collaboration between institutions of higher education and their larger communities (local, regional/state, national, global) for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity. the purpose of community engagement is the partnership of college and university knowledge and resources with those of the public and private sectors to enrich scholarship, research, and creative activity; enhance curriculum, teaching and learning; prepare educated, engaged citizens; strengthen democratic values and civic responsibility; address critical societal issues; and contribute to the public good.” 27 juxtaposing this definition with the relevant components of the wcu vision 2020 strategic plan demonstrates a clear connection between the university’s purpose, goals, and vision and the key components of community engagement being supported specifically through the carnegie application foundational indicator of ‘institutional identity and culture.’ the cornerstone of wcu’s vision 2020 (western carolina university 2012, 3) strategic plan is formed by the institution’s mission and vision. wcu mission: to improve individual lives and enhance economic and community development in our region, state, and nation through engaged learning opportunities in our academic programs, educational outreach, research, and creative and cultural activities. wcu vision statement: to be a national model for student learning and engagement that embraces its responsibilities as a regionally engaged university. in the foundational indicator of ‘institutional identity and culture,’ an institution’s mission and vision statement, strategic plan, and accreditation/reaffirmation documentation are identified as integral foundational imperatives (carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching 2015). driscoll (2014) found that of the 120 institutions classified as community engaged in 2008, 119 of them had an explicit connection between community engagement and their strategic plan. moreover, “in most cases, community engagement represents a substantive component of the plan with descriptions of an increase/expansion/enhancement of community engagement activities; particular emphasis for community engagement such as economic development, sustainability, and education; and/or support for increased faculty development and participation in community engagement” (driscoll 2014, 6). wcu’s strategic plan (western carolina university 2012) aligns with each of these descriptions (driscoll 2014) and serves as a fertile soil for cultivating an environment conducive for community engagement (see table 1). table 1. aligning wcu’s strategic plan with community engagement best practices driscoll descriptions community engagement represents a substantive component of the strategic plan with descriptions of… “… an increase/expansion/enhancement of community engagement activities;…” “… a particular emphasis for community engagement such as economic development, sustainability, and education;…” “… and/or support for increased faculty development and participation in community engagement…” wcu vision 2020 strategic plan goal 1.1: deliver high-quality academic programs designed to promote regional economic and community development. 28 goal 1.3: ensure that all programs included cross-curricula, experiential, applied, and international/global awareness opportunities for all students. goal 1.1: deliver high-quality academic programs designed to promote regional economic and community development (key curricular focus areas – creative arts, education, environment, health, innovation and technology, and recreation and tourism). goal 3.2: position the university as a key leader in regional economic and community development efforts. goal 3.3: align internal processes and reward systems to foster external engagement. a clear connection between community engagement and the mission of an institution is imperative. holland (1997, 9) recognized that many of the challenges experienced within institutions pursuing a formalized approach to community engagement were “linked to real or perceived misalignments of the campus mission and institutional actions regarding service.” these particular misperceptions, of which a lack of institutionally supported discussion and dialogue was cited as the most influential, led to confusion and “engagement anxiety,” and seemed to inhibit a more extensive and committed development of community-engaged practices across campus. stated more explicitly, “campuses with the most success in achieving their plans are those in which the plan is congruent with a broadly understood and accepted mission, and is articulated in the language of the campus” (campus compact 1996, 6). additionally, holland (1997) characterizes the highest level of integration of the mission as when “service is seen as a central and defining characteristic” for the university. according to driscoll (2008, 39), to be identified as a carnegie community-engaged institution, an applicant must demonstrate that its mission communicates “that community engagement is a priority.” the importance of campus-based support is clear, but it seems that a lesser degree of focus has been put on the influence of wider institutional systems on community engagement at member campuses. wcu is one of seventeen university of north carolina system institutions. as a member of the unc system, each campus is responsible for operationalizing the unc strategic plan, “our time, our future.” this document calls for an annual engagement report and community engagement is a key focus of the strategic plan and the annual report. the primary focus of this report is to identify the myriad ways that “unc campuses, students, and faculty are connected to and engaged with local/regional community partners via experiential courses and initiatives, research, and public service” (university of north carolina n.d.). this report is based on data submitted annually through the unc economic and community engagement metrics system (uncem). of particular value was the uncem’s delineation between community-based and community-engaged academic learning. simply stated, community-based is defined “broadly to include any type of course in which students are asked to work with community partners and/or in the community context” (janke et al. 2013, 2). the community-engaged definition is explicitly aligned with the carnegie definition presented previously. the emphasis on the measuring, monitoring, and tracking of community engagement at the unc system-level demonstrates that it is a priority. for unc member institutions, not only is it a priority to implement community-engaged practices, but to measure and monitor them. 29 these perspectives were pertinent to the value placed on the measurement and monitoring of faculty community engagement at wcu. the process of measuring and monitoring community engagement approaches has an inherent way of determining what is defined as community engagement. the mechanisms developed have a capacity for operationalizing and refining what is really meant when an institution claims to be community-engaged. we measure and monitor what matters most. in order to measure and monitor this phenomenon as an institution, what matters most must be determined and this juncture dictates when the true meaning of community engagement begins to take shape for each institution. faculty motivation for adoption of community engagement practices recently, the body of empirical research on faculty motivation for the adoption of community engagement has been framed through three lenses similar to astin’s (1993) input-environment-output (ieo) model. these modified lenses – individual factors, institutional factors, and environmental factors – are codified in this article as the individual-institutional-environmental (iie) model (o’meara 2013). these three factors serve as a frame for understanding the starting point for motivation and involvement of faculty in community-engaged activities. while the individual factors (e.g., gender) and environmental factors (e.g., disciplinary-based paradigms and epistemologies) are difficult or, in some cases, impossible to influence, the institutional factors (e.g., recognition/rewards) that incentivize or encourage faculty adoption of community-based activities and engagement can be heavily shaped and influenced by policy, strategic plans (mission and vision), and leadership. if a key motivation for faculty is influenced by recognition and rewards systems (gelmon et al. 2001), then it is important that an institution knows and understands where community engagement is occurring (and occurring well) on its campus. this approach can help promote a broader awareness of best practices, identify areas for improvement, clarify the goals and expectations of what community engagement looks like in practice (holland 2013), and provide high-quality assessments that can support institutions’ prudent investment into community engagement activities (waters and anderson-lain 2014). a key factor in fostering a culture for community engagement is faculty members’ perceptions of the rewards associated with this practice. approaches to measuring and monitoring community engagement within the faculty there has been a clarion call for more robust and, specifically, quantitative data collection mechanisms. mechanisms which can generate data that are comparable across institutions and that could contribute to “generalizations about practice, theory, and policy” within the field of community engagement (waters and anderson-lain 2014, 90). additionally, due to many compounding factors contributing to the understanding of community engagement and its impact, this area has consistently received greater attention over the past decade (see table 2). 30 table 2. contextual examples of various approaches to the measurement and monitoring of community engagement demonstrating resource/organization context citation carnegie community engagement classification national driscoll 2014 campus compact national & waters and regional anderson-lain 2014 university of north carolinastate (north janke et al. 2013 general administration community & carolina) economic engagement metrics community engagement highlights western carolina university institution farmer et al. 2014 compare this to the concern offered by van note chism, palmer, and price (2013, 208) that “particularly within the arena of assessing the impact of faculty development, both general faculty development studies and those on service-learning have used relatively informal methods, such as faculty satisfaction questionnaires, or have focused on issues other than authentic evidence of faculty growth and the processes that facilitate it,” and it is clear that more robust assessment mechanisms are necessary. this conclusion creates a situation that calls upon an approach that does not simply measure satisfaction of faculty in their community engagement endeavors, but seeks to include them as assessors of the impact, educational value, and personal significance associated with community engagement and its systematic measurement across campus. additional concern is demonstrated in a review of 121 campus compact member institutions’ online surveys being utilized to evaluate service-learning impacts for students, faculty, and community partners, where waters and anderson-lain (2014) concluded that the concepts of “professional development” and “impact/influence of scholarship” were not found in this review of surveys. the wcu community-based activities survey design can mitigate this specific gap and in conjunction apply gelmon and others’ (2001) assessment matrix for faculty surveys (gelmon and others’ 2001 matrix in connection with holland’s 1997 matrix will be reviewed in the following section as integral elements/resources in the development of the wcu community-based activities survey). when it comes to measuring and monitoring community engagement, holland (2013) offers the following pragmatic practices to consider when developing appropriate mechanisms: •  focused – trim and fit to purpose •  reinforcement of w institutional goals and strategies w external goals and strategies w any plans or principles associated with engagement 31 •  educational and developmental w reinforce best practice w encourage reflective practice •  useful – internal and external reporting •  linked to rewards, recognition, visibility, planning, and funding these specific factors offered by holland (2013), among others, have been considered in the development (and modification) of the wcu community-based activities survey. the wcu mechanism sought to “go beyond counts of participation…[or] satisfactions” (van note chism, palmer, and price 2013, 201) and to make a connection between a specific course; the clarity in course design and connection to established community-engaged pedagogy criteria; the associated benefits to the community and students; and the level of internal, external, and professional development support provided an individual faculty member. the process, underpinnings, and decision strategies that were made to develop the wcu community-based activities survey will be discussed in the next section. in conclusion, if community engagement is to become and remain a part of an institution’s culture, then it is imperative that effective measuring and monitoring practices are also adopted. when it comes to this type of information there is perhaps no other constituent group than faculty with as much stock and voice in community engagement’s pervasiveness, adoption, application, and ultimately impact in practice. a case description: developing, administering, and evaluating the wcu community-based activities survey this section outlines the process for organizing and structuring the wcu communitybased activities survey and demonstrates the special emphasis placed on establishing goals that informed the survey design, the approach to administering the survey across the institutions, and approaches for generating buy-in from faculty. goal of the survey the overall goal of wcu’s community-based activities survey project was to obtain a more complete picture of the institution’s engagement efforts in support of its vision “to be a national model for student learning and engagement that embraces its responsibilities as a regionally engaged university.” while community engagement is the highest standard of partnership, this survey sought to capture all community-based activities occurring within wcu’s faculty with the intent to determine which are classified as community-engaged. the survey results provided essential data for wcu’s 2014 carnegie community engagement re-affirmation application and the 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 uncem reports. the unc system now requires its 32 seventeen constituent members to complete annually the uncem survey which assesses the unc system’s “collective progress in community engagement and economic development.” additionally, specific findings from the survey have been disseminated among both internal and external audiences to increase awareness of wcu’s strong community engagement profile. how the survey was developed an interdisciplinary team composed of both faculty and administrators was charged with developing and implementing the wcu community-based activities survey, analyzing the results, and sharing the findings. the team included a faculty member serving in the newly created position of provost fellow for engagement, the director of the center for service learning, the director of assessment, and the associate provost of undergraduate studies. each team member’s perspectives and skill sets contributed significantly to the success of the project and serves as a powerful example of the advantages of interdisciplinary and faculty/staff collaboration. support was provided from the office of the provost, the office of undergraduate studies, and the office of assessment. the faculty fellow for engagement received either a one-course release or a stipend per semester. while the primary focus for this position initially was to lead wcu’s carnegie community engagement re-classification effort, helping create and manage the community-based activities survey was part of that process. as is good form for any research project, the team started by reviewing existing literature on measuring and monitoring community engagement. the team also identified and reviewed several other universities’ surveys related to faculty community engagement. the team’s next order of business was to heed the advice of hanover research (2011, 6) offered: “clearly defining ‘community engagement’ and specifying in detail what types of activities will be accounted for is essential to accurate data gathering and reporting.” this enabled the team to craft survey items that essentially underpin the conceptualization of community engagement. the wcu community-based activities survey utilized the carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching’s definition for community engagement (highlighted previously). wcu sought to track the range of teaching/learning and scholarly activities occurring under this umbrella definition, but also wanted to identify a “gold standard” or stage iv of community engagement specifically tied to the curriculum (see figure 1 and the listed criteria for description of what this stage includes). at the heart of the carnegie foundation’s definition of community engagement is the idea of mutual benefits and reciprocity for both university members and community partners. consequently, wcu sought to measure whether faculty members believed their community-based activities were resulting in benefits for both their students and their community partners, as well as for their own scholarship and learning. figure 1 seeks to break down each aspect of the definition of community engagement and from each individual’s responses determine at what stage each of their courses align (note: a separate survey of community partners and students served to help better understand this perceived benefit). 33 each faculty member received a specialized link to the survey that presented the courses they had taught during the semesters they were responding. at that point in the survey respondents were provided the opportunity to select the radio button that indicated each course’s alignment with the survey’s definition of community-based activities (e.g., for each activity where you and your students interacted in meaningful ways with community partners within the nonprofit, business, education, governmental, health-related, or other sector). if the radio button was not selected, then that indicated that the course had no integration of any community-based activities and the respondent would not have to respond to any of the follow-up course-based items. if the respondent selected the radio button, they would then complete five follow-up items that align with the stages identified in figure 1. to achieve this stage iv “gold standard,” faculty members needed to: •   indicate there was a community-based activity (and identify and describe the  community partnership), •  affirm and demonstrate that the activity was connected with learning outcomes, •  indicate that the student learning activity also included reflection, •  agree that the activity benefitted the community (≥5 on 1-10 scale), and •  agree that the activity benefitted the students (≥5 on 1-10 scale) (see figure 1). figure 1. a representation of each level and corresponding factor to the wcu community-based activities survey communitystudent reflection benefit to benefit to stage based activity & course project community partner engaged students   i  •        ii  •  •      iii  •  •  •    iv  •  •  •  • for example, a nutrition professor (dr. smith) teaches five course sections over the semesters under review. she selects two of the courses (nutr101 and nutr303) as having community-based activities associated with the course experience. for both courses, dr. smith answers five follow-up items. in the nutr101 course, dr. smith arranged for a panel of community and public health nonprofit directors to come to class and discuss the current state of affairs of nutrition in the local community. as a project in the course, the students were required to research a community nutritionrelated issue, connect the concepts presented by the directors on the panel, and provide a personal critical reflection on the congruence between the two sources (stage ii). as a more intensive example, in the nutr303 course, dr. smith arranged site visits to five different community and public health nonprofit organizations. she set up these partner sites before the semester began based on an explicit request from each partner. as an assignment at each site, a group of six students conducted an appreciative inquiry that resulted in an asset map of resources, opportunities, and partners associated with the partner organization. in addition to the asset map, each student group served ten documented hours at each site in order to better understand the extent 34 and type of work the partner organization provided in the community and completed a critical reflection assignment framed using clayton and day’s deal model demonstrating the benefit to the student (stage iv). in addition to determining a ‘gold standard’ (from the data collected in the survey) for community engagement tied specifically to academic courses, the team also sought to determine the degree to which faculty members’ course-based community engagement activities were tied to their scholarly productivity and professional development. through their review of 121 campus compact member institutions’ online surveys, this particular connection is one that waters and anderson-lain (2014) identified as important, but was not currently being measured or monitored. the holland matrix for community engagement (holland 1997) identifies four levels of community engagement ranging from level one, low relevance to level four, full integration across seven dimensions (mission; promotion, tenure, and hiring; organization structure; student involvement; faculty involvement; community involvement; and campus publications). as a point of clarification, holland’s matrix informed wcu’s survey design, but utilizes different language to describe the levels (holland) or stages (wcu community-based activities survey). moreover, holland’s work focused on the institution as a whole while the focus of this survey is the individual professor and respective courses they teach. while all of these dimensions are important, two of these dimensions – promotion, tenure, and hiring/faculty involvement – are relevant here. to achieve level four, or full integration in the promotion, tenure, hiring category, according to the holland matrix, “communitybased research and teaching are [would be] key criteria for hiring and evaluation.” wcu adopted the boyer (1990) model of scholarship in 2008. since that time, the institution has continued to refine and enhance its support for scholarship across the boyer model. wcu has an institution-wide definition of faculty scholarly work that uses community-engaged approaches and methods. this definition can be found in the faculty handbook and is included in the departmental collegial review document template provided to all departments by the office of the provost. while departments retain flexibility in how they recognize and reward scholarly products, the faculty handbook enjoins departments to recognize and reward faculty work in multiple areas of scholarship, including the scholarship of engagement. given the emphasis on and support for community engaged scholarship, both in the engagement literature and in wcu policies, the team devoted a section in the survey to measuring how much support faculty were receiving, both internally and externally, to pursue community engagement scholarship. the team also sought to arrive at a baseline measure of faculty productivity in community-engaged scholarship, including the “scholarship of teaching and learning,” since no institution-wide assessment of this variable had been conducted to date. after the team was satisfied with its draft, the survey was piloted with several faculty members from across the colleges who had expertise in both survey design and 35 community engagement. those faculty members provided invaluable feedback that was incorporated into the final version of the survey questionnaire which was first administered in fall 2013. how the survey was administered the first version of the survey was administered three times, with slight adjustments to the schedule to accommodate feedback from faculty. the first administration occurred in october 2013 and included all courses taught in the previous spring and summer semesters. the survey for the fall courses occurred at the end of the fall semester, just two months after the previous survey. the final administration of the first version was administered in june 2014 for the previous spring and early summer courses (see table 3). table 3. wcu community-based activities survey distribution overview survey 2a survey 1a survey 1b survey 1c (beta version) population faculty & faculty & faculty & faculty & surveyed instructional instructional instructional instructional staff staff staff staff semesters spring 2013, fall 2013 spring 2014 summer i & ii responding summer i & ii summer i, 2014, 2013 2014 fall 2014, spring 2015 time of october 10, december 13, june 19, april 13, semester 2013 – 2013 – 2014 – 2015 – administered november 1, 2013 january 21, 2014 july 11, 2014 may 15, 2015 incentive free coffee free coffee free coffee star project program in preparation for administration, a list of faculty and courses was built such that each row represented one faculty member’s courses. this data was then loaded into a qualtrics panel to use for distributing the survey. for the first two administrations, multiple sections of the same course were combined in an effort to simplify faculty data entry. the increased complexity and confusion created by doing this ultimately resulted in the decision to list all courses for the third administration of survey one (in the most recent administration, faculty with over twenty-five courses were contacted and asked specifically which courses they wanted listed, vastly decreasing the complexity of the survey). (for a more technical description of how the design of the qualtrics survey was done, please contact the lead author.) getting buy-in and inspiring people to respond to emphasize that the survey was an institutional priority and supported at the very highest levels of wcu’s administration, the team asked that the survey be released from both the chancellor’s and the provost’s emails with a cover letter signed by both. during the survey administration timeframe, wcu welcomed a new provost who 36 seized the opportunity to encourage faculty to complete the survey. the provost also asked the deans to encourage department heads to urge their respective departments to participate. department heads then encouraged their individual faculty to complete the survey. the survey team set a goal for 100 percent of faculty to complete this survey. this did not mean that we expected all faculty to have community engagement activities to report. rather, if a faculty member did not have curriculum-based community engagement activities to report, he/she simply needed to start the survey and click on the link indicating such. that constituted completing the survey. this option was provided to help distinguish between people who had no relevant activities to report versus people who simply didn’t want to complete another survey. as a minor additional incentive, a starbuck’s gift card and signed note of appreciation, sponsored by the office of the provost, was mailed to each respondent to the survey. this provided one tall drip coffee as a sign of appreciation from the institution (see the beta version section for a more robust demonstration of additional incentives that helped increase faculty commitment to complete the survey). the response rates for the first two administrations were 38.9% and 40.9%, respectively, but the response rate dropped dramatically, to 20.5%, for the third administration. the poor response rate for the third administration was most likely due to it being administered during the summer when many faculty are off-campus and not monitoring campus email. this survey administration was also only open for three weeks while the first two were open for four week, and it had only two reminders while the first two had three reminders. clearly, timing is an important consideration when administering surveys that include faculty respondents. building a beta version: processing feedback and crafting an improved mechanism after administering the wcu community-based activities survey three times, there was a substantial body of feedback that had been acquired from the survey participants. feedback was obtained through open-ended feedback questions offered at the end of each survey administration, through constant direct feedback to the design team, and through facilitated conversations with key faculty members (e.g., the provost’s advisory board for academic community engagement, former servicelearning faculty fellows, and other key constituents). this feedback was categorized into four themes and was the focus of the beta version modifications to the survey: 1. time commitment and survey length 2. repetition associated with course-based partner descriptions 3. clear incentives for faculty beyond simply tracking data, including recognition and reward 4. external-to-course community engagement by faculty 37 two consistent issues emerging from the feedback from faculty was associated with time. the first issue related to the length of time it took faculty to complete the survey, particularly given the frequency of the survey. many faculty members asked that the survey be shortened so that it would be less time consuming. the team discussed shortening the survey but ultimately determined that the data being collected was critical to the institution’s community engagement profile. the team determined the survey could be offered once a year (open from mid-april through mid-may), reducing the frequency faculty are asked to complete the survey from three times to one time, while maintaining the survey’s original purpose. also, the survey was left open for five weeks instead of four, including the three weeks before final exams, final exam week, and the week after finals. in this way, faculty members were able to respond to the survey during a window that best fit their schedule. the second time-based issue faculty reported was around the repetitive nature of reporting their courses’ community engagement partners, descriptions, and respective alignments which meant that many of the faculty who completed the survey and had more than one course integrating community-based activities identified that the community partners associated with their courses (read: course 1, course 2, course 3...) were typically the same, or at least similar. in this, faculty members were required to type and retype the same information 2-3 times. this issue was mitigated by adding a function to prepopulate subsequent course profiles with previously completed course profile descriptions, thereby reducing the time it took faculty to complete the survey. this was specifically valuable to those faculty members who were teaching 2+ courses with substantive community-based activities. one of the most complex issues realized in the development of the beta version of the wcu community-based activities survey was the clear connection and alignment associated with the incentivizing of faculty participation in a relevant and consistent way. for example, the simple distribution of a starbuck’s gift card or a raffle for an ipad did not seem to bring with it the cachet or intention the team wanted the survey (and its completion) to carry. the team realized that the incentive had to be something credible and seen as relevant to the work the respondents were submitting. this is how the star projects concept emerged and became a key component of the beta version of the survey. star projects indicate those exemplars from the faculty that specifically meet the following criteria in order to be considered: description and contact information of those involved in the project, including a mutually beneficial and collaborative community partnership; students must be clearly involved in a curricular or co-curricular manner; and intentional faculty/staff engagement and commitment must be evident. respondents submitted their star projects through 150-word project descriptions and were assessed by a committee of faculty and administrative staff. the top star projects were identified across the seven 2020 vision curricular categories of the institution (creative arts, education, environment and sustainability, healthcare, innovation and technology, recreation and tourism, and an open category) and each of the seven projects was awarded a $500 professional development support grant in connection with their engagement projects. each of these seven star projects are to be showcased on a monthly basis on wcu website’s homepage, and all seventy-eight identified projects are included within the “engagement at wcu” section of the webpage. 38 the survey team realized that some engaged projects were not being captured by the survey. specifically, by design, the survey was only capturing course-related community-based activities because respondents had to select courses that included an engagement component from a drop-down menu before being prompted to enter additional information for those courses. community-engaged activities that were taking place outside of courses were, therefore, not being reported. in order to remedy this, a section was added to the survey that allowed respondents to enter information for their non-course-based (or, external to course) community-engaged activities. ninetysix out of 284 survey respondents reported external-to-course engagement activities when this new survey section was piloted, thus allowing a more complete institutional profile of engagement activities and also providing clear recognition of those activities. the first administration of the beta version (april – may 2015) generated an overall response rate of 33.8% (though still short of the high of 40.9%). it is hoped that after the announcement and awarding of the seven star projects has been made public and the showcasing of the other seventy-one submitted projects on the engagement website, the faculty response rates to the survey will continue to increase. notably, through the beta version of the survey, wcu has increased its support for faculty who wish to pursue engaged scholarship and the wcu community-based activities survey is now an important mechanism in supporting and advocating this work. analyzing and applying the data the data that have been collected through this process has illuminated a substantial body of information that would have otherwise been unknown to unc-ga system administrators, wcu administrators, faculty, students, and the external community. while the focus of this article is to describe and illuminate the process associated with survey development, there were interesting data collected that provided insight into a range of areas in which the institution previously had no systematic knowledge. in particular, the number of intellectual contributions and the awards and recognition received by faculty related to their engagement activities were pleasantly surprising. through this survey, wcu administrators learned that there were eighteen unique peer-reviewed journal articles or book chapters published (or in press) by thirty-three different faculty in connection with their engagement activities. in addition, there were seventy-five presentations and sixty-seven creative works or projects. in total, over 60 percent of respondents reported scholarly productivity related to their community engagement activities. thirty-two faculty members reported having received at least one award or recognition, with nine of those reporting having received more than one, and nine reporting receiving at least one external award or recognition at the community, state, regional, or national level. these data are rich with information that previously existed in files and databases spread throughout the university, but now has been brought to light and connected with the university’s mission of engagement with the community. in sum, engaged scholarship emanates from all of wcu’s colleges, runs the gamut from creative projects to technical reports to peer-reviewed publications; addresses a wide range of community engagement issues; and benefits faculty, students, and community partners. 39 these findings were compiled as part of a summary of wcu’s carnegie community engagement re-application and distributed in the form of a full-color booklet to all departments and to new faculty during new faculty orientation, summer 2014. with the new, beta version of the survey, the university is able to showcase star projects using the faculty member’s own words, from over seventy-five submitted community engagement activities. this showcase is included on the university website and summarized in a fullcolor brochure and, like the findings from the first survey, distributed to all departments and to new faculty during new faculty orientation, as well as to state legislators, friends of the university, alumni, and community partners. in addition to being a dynamic tracking and measuring mechanism, the wcu community engagement faculty survey is now an important mechanism for also supporting and recognizing that work. lessons learned and next steps an overarching goal in this process of developing a systematic approach to monitoring and measuring community engagement from the faculty perspective was not only to seek information from faculty regarding their work, but also to educate and inform faculty of what is meant by community-based activities. additionally, the inclusion of faculty in the measuring and monitoring of community engagement has seemed to have sparked interest across campus. the gamut of projects identified as star projects in conjunction with those that were submitted for consideration serve as living examples of community engagement across the disciplines. the data collected seems to have generated a common experience around the meaning of community engagement. administration has facilitated forums where data from various student, faculty, and community engagement surveys are presented and discussed. the survey has served as a common point of discussion and is leading to a more informed understanding of our community engagement profile while creating a space for dialogue to occur. the seven potentially transferable lessons learned around survey administration consideration and associated benefits of survey use are as follows: table 4. selected wcu community-based activities survey considerations in design and benefits of implementation survey administration considerations associated benefits of survey use (the process) (the ends) align and inform the survey with the created the first ever evidence-based institution’s strategic plan, mission, standard or baseline regarding the extent of and vision faculty engagement obtain buy-in at the action level and prompted the development of a recognition include key faculty and staff in the program for determining exemplar survey’s development practices/cases obtain buy-in at upper-administrative established a database valuable for public level from the outset relations, reporting, and storytelling frame surveys using simplified language framed much of the engagement work as this can help clarify purpose and create across campus in a clearer, better defined, a consistent language around complex and more positive context topics (e.g., community-based activities) 40 administer the survey once a year systematic approaches of data collection, (maximum) and leave the survey open analysis, and dissemination (distribution) for response for at least five weeks brought the community engagement (minimum) conversation out of the margins and into an institutional-wide context increase response rates through simplified internal/external reporting appropriate rewards and recognitions, processes to the unc system (uncem but be systematic and intentional survey) (e.g., the beta version of the survey) disseminate high quality reports from provided opportunity for faculty and staff the data collected and showcase to empirically see, not anecdotally exceptional examples through website, imagine, the depth and breadth of the marketing, public relations, and other engagement profile and has helped put channels (respondents will want to see wcu’s community-engaged efforts within the outcomes) a larger perspective/context our next steps are to continue to modify the wcu community-based activities survey and administer it each year in hopes of consistently increasing response rates. the showcasing of the star project submissions is also an excellent way of explicitly demonstrating the great work in which a campus is engaged. finally, the most influential next step will be when the survey is embedded into activity insight/digital measures, a faculty database for annual faculty activity and evaluation, and all input variables can be included and collected on an ongoing basis. wcu is currently on a staggered implementation plan across its six colleges with two colleges coming on board each year with the digital measures software over the next three years. under these conditions the survey will not have to be distributed and open for a specific period of time because faculty will be able to simply input all of their information through the digital measures system. as noted previously, the measuring and monitoring of community-engaged approaches have an inherent way of determining what is considered part of the community engagement profile of an institution. the mechanisms developed have a way of operationalizing and refining what is really meant when an institution claims to be “community engaged.” this has been evident at wcu and the survey has been one of many initiatives developed in the past four years to develop a personal habit and campus culture of service, engagement, and learning. conclusion what we choose to measure matters. intentional, collective efforts to measure faculty members’ community engagement across an institution demonstrate commitment, value, support, and, perhaps most importantly, the idea that the doing of community engagement work is not only acceptable, but valuable. in this, the ends (measuring and monitoring) truly help justify the means (the doing of community engagement activities). the wcu community-based activities survey has not solved all of the challenges associated with community engagement at wcu, nor has it answered all of the questions. 41 essentially, the survey does not seek to provide all the answers; in fact, it serves as a key resource for our campus to ask more pointed, informed, and pressing questions – the types of questions that an institution would not know to ask unless it has this type of baseline information. the complexity of community engagement is consistently increasing, and the demand for informed measuring and monitoring practices and output has never been higher. simply stated, wcu now knows better than ever before where, what, and by whom community engagement activities are occurring across the complex campus. the system is developed and there are still modifications to be made, but when it comes to obtaining faculty perspectives and documenting the gamut of their engagement activities with the community, wcu is now more informed. being more informed is the first step to making better decisions. better decisions lead to a wiser use of resources, and a wiser use of resources benefits everyone. additional resources: •   qualtrics survey (link): http://www.wcu.edu/webfiles/oipe/community-based_ activities_at_wcu_faculty_survey-201405-201504.pdf. •   star projects (link): http://www.wcu.edu/about-wcu/leadership/office-of-theprovost/ugstudies/engagement-at-wcu/examples_of_engagement_at_wcu.asp. •   wcu carnegie report (link): http://www.wcu.edu/webfiles/pdfs/wcu_carnegie_ community_engagement_summary_report_2014.pdf. •   e-mail used to solicit response (link): http://www.wcu.edu/webfiles/oipe/ community-based_activities_at_wcu_faculty_survey_letter_ invitation_2015-04-01.pdf. references astin, a. w. 1993. what matters in college? four critical years revisited. san francisco, ca: jossey-bass. abes, e. s., g. jackson, and s. r. jones. 2002. “factors that motivate and deter faculty use of service-learning.” michigan journal of community service-learning 9 (1): 5-17. boyer, e. 1990. scholarship reconsidered: priorities of the professoriate. stanford, ca: the carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching. bringle, r. g., j. a. hatcher, s. jones, and w. m. plater. 2006. “sustaining civic engagement: faculty development, roles, and rewards.” metropolitan universities 17 (1): 62-74. bringle, r. g., j. a. hatcher, and m. j. williams. 2011. “quantitative approaches to research on international service learning: design, measurement, and theory.” in international service learning: conceptual frameworks and research, edited by r. g. bringle, j. a. hatcher, and s. g. jones, 275–290; iupui series on service learning research, vol. 1. sterling, va: stylus. 42 campus compact. 1996. “creating a climate for change: lessons learned from the 1991-1996 institutes on integrating service with academic study.” a report of the project on integrating service with academic study. providence, ri: campus compact. carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching. n.d. “carnegie community engagement classification.” retrieved from http://nerche.org/index.php?option=com_ content&view=article&id=341&itemid=92#ce%20def. carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching. 2015. “carnegie elective community engagement classification: re-classification documentation framework.” retrieved from http://nerche.org/images/stories/projects/ carnegie/2015/2015_reclassification_framework.pdf. driscoll, a. 2008. “carnegie’s community engagement classification: intentions and insights.” change 40 (1): 38–41. driscoll, a. 2014. “analysis of the carnegie classification of community engagement: patterns and impacts on institutions.” new directions for institutional research 162: 3-16. farmer, b., l. perry, d. onder, and c. burton. 2014. community engagement application highlights: carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching. cullowhee, nc: western carolina university. gelmon, s., b. holland, a. driscoll, a. spring, and s. kerrigan. 2001. assessing service-learning and civic engagement. providence, ri: campus compact. hanover research. 2011. best practices in measuring university-community engagement. washington, dc: hanover research. holland, b. 1997. “analyzing institutional commitment to service: a model of key organizational factors.” michigan journal of community service learning 4 (1): 30-41. holland, b. 2013. “monitoring and measuring community engagement.” north carolina campus compact webinars. janke, e., j. mcguire, d. bailey, l. blanchard, a. brenton, l. boney, s. daugherty, et al. 2013. “combined report of the community engagement and economic development metrics task forces: indicators for measuring the progress and impact of community engagement and economic development by the university of north carolina system.” retrieved from http://communityengagementtmp.uncg.edu/pdfs/ unc_system_trial_ce&ed_metrics_spring013.pdf. 43 o’meara, k. 2013. “research on faculty motivations for service learning and community engagement.” in research on service learning: conceptual frameworks and assessment: students and faculty, edited by p. clayton, r. bringle, and j. hatcher, volume 2a, 215-244. sterling, va: stylus publishing. university of north carolina. n.d. “unc engagement report.” retrieved from http:// www.northcarolina.edu/?q=engagement-report-2015. van note chism, palmer, and price. 2013. “investigating faculty development for service learning.” in research on service learning: conceptual frameworks and assessment: students and faculty, edited by p. clayton, r. bringle, and j. hatcher, volume 2a, 215-244. sterling, va: stylus publishing. ward, k. 1996. “service-learning and student volunteerism: reflections on institutional commitment.” michigan journal of community service learning 3 (1): 55-65. waters, s., and k. anderson-lain. 2014. “assessing the student, faculty, and community partner in academic service-learning: a categorization of surveys posted online at campus compact member institutions.” journal of higher education outreach and engagement 18 (1): 89-122. western carolina university. 2012. vision 2020: focusing our future. cullowhee, nc: western carolina university. author information dr. lane perry currently serves as the director of the center for service learning and is an affiliated faculty member of the human services department (college of education) at western carolina university (wcu). lane has presented and published extensively in the fields of community engagement, service-learning, global citizenship, and pedagogical approaches to disaster response. he currently serves as a board member of the international association for research on service learning & community engagement and peer reviewer for seven journals, and serves on the editorial board of one journal. most recently lane has been recognized as the 2015 north carolina campus compact civic engagement professional of the year and the 2015 co-recipient of the john saltmarsh award for emerging leaders in civic engagement. dr. betty farmer is an award-winning professor of communication and public relations at western carolina university. she coordinated wcu’s university-wide community engagement effort in dillsboro, nc as special assistant to the chancellor for dillsboro from 2009-2014. as wcu’s inaugural provost fellow for engagement during the 2013-1014 academic year, farmer led wcu’s carnegie community engagement re-application team. 44 david onder, maed, is the director of assessment at western carolina university where he oversees academic and administrative assessment and program reviews across the institution. he is a former k-12 mathematics teacher and works data analysis and programming projects into his job as much as possible. dr. ben tanner received a bs in anthropology from florida state university in 1999, where he specialized in underwater archaeology. he then completed a master’s at the university of maine in quaternary and climate studies in 2001 and a phd in geology at the university of tennessee in 2005. he has been a member of the faculty at western carolina university since 2005 and conducts research on biogeochemistry, wetland environments, and global climate change. dr. carol burton, a twenty-five-year veteran of higher education administration, has extensive experience in implementing and assessing institutional initiatives related to student-learning outcomes including civic literacy and liberal studies; supporting faculty engagement with the community via teaching, service, and scholarship; and academic program review. as associate provost for undergraduate studies, she has also directed wcu’s reaffirmation for regional accreditation and overseen two successful applications for the university’s designation as a community-engaged institution by the carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching. she currently serves on the steering committee for the american association of state colleges and universities’ (aascu) civic learning democracy education initiative. lane perry center for service learning western carolina university 254 memorial drive cullowhee, nc 28723 e-mail: laneperry@wcu.edu telephone: 828-227-2643 betty farmer communications department western carolina university 254 memorial drive cullowhee, nc 28723 e-mail: bfarmer@wcu.edu telephone: 828-227-3804 45 david onder office of institutional planning & effectiveness western carolina university 254 memorial drive cullowhee, nc 28723 e-mail: dmonder@wcu.edu telephone: 828-227-2580 ben tanner department of geosciences and natural resources western carolina university 254 memorial drive cullowhee, nc 28723 e-mail: btanner@wcu.edu telephone: 828-227-3915 carol burton office for undergraduate studies western carolina university 254 memorial drive cullowhee, nc 28723 e-mail: burton@wcu.edu telephone: 828-227-3019 46 muj 11 exploring community-engaged scholarship as an intervention to change and improve communities 2014 recipient of the ernest a. lynton award for the scholarship of engagement of early career faculty jomella watson-thompson abstract for most colleges and universities, community-engaged scholarship (ces) is a value that supports the public mission of academic institutions. however, shifting ces from a core value to a guiding principle requires demonstrable support and structural modifications to academic practices and policies. through this reflective paper, i will propose some considerations for how academic institutions may develop and support a culture of community-engaged scholarship to collaboratively contribute to meaningful and lasting improvements with communities. it is a great honor and blessing to be the recipient of the 2014 ernest a. lynton award for the scholarship of engagement of early career faculty. ernest a. lynton proposed, “we need to think of knowledge in an ecological fashion, recognizing the complex, multi-faceted, and multiply-connected system by means of which discovery, aggregation, synthesis, dissemination, and application are all interconnected” (1994, 10). community-engaged scholarship (ces) supports the integration of research, teaching, and service for community impact through mutually beneficial and reinforcing activities supported through community-academic partnerships. i am grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with knowledgeable, skilled, and committed community partners who meaningfully contribute to change and improvement in communities. the award process has occasioned the opportunity to reflect and further refine my approach to community-engaged scholarship as an early career tenure-track professor at the university of kansas in the department of applied behavioral science. through this paper, i will share my experience and distill what i have learned as a community-engaged scholar, as well as propose considerations for how to further advance the scholarship of engagement. 12 supporting community-engaged scholarship through research, teaching, and service based on cross-disciplinary training in behavioral psychology, community psychology, and urban planning, i was exposed to community-engaged scholarship in both my undergraduate and graduate studies by my faculty mentors, drs. jacqueline franklin at jackson state university and stephen fawcett at the university of kansas. as an urban affairs major at jackson state university in mississippi, i developed a strong commitment to supporting place-based efforts that involve and serve the community as the primary audience and benefactor of academic activities. then, through graduate studies at the university of kansas in urban planning and later in behavioral psychology (applied behavioral analysis), i began to understand the importance of involving the community in identifying and addressing community-validated problems of social significance. as a graduate student, i served as a graduate research assistant with dr. stephen fawcett and the work group for community health and development at the university of kansas (kuwg), and i am now an associate director with the research center. the kuwg promotes change and improvement in community-determined outcomes by providing capacity-building supports to individuals and groups in the community. for example, colleagues at the kuwg have collaboratively supported the development of the community tool box (www.ctb.ku.edu), a free online resource that provides more than 7,000 pages of practical community capacity-building tools available in english, spanish, and arabic. community-engaged research with the kuwg, i collaborate with community partners to support community-based intervention and evaluation efforts in the areas of adolescent substance abuse prevention, community violence prevention, positive youth development, and community capacity-building. through my affiliation with the kuwg, i was trained in community-based participatory research (cbpr) and evaluation (cbpe) methods as a graduate student, which now undergirds my approach as a community-engaged scholar. community stakeholders are equitably engaged as participants in all phases of the research process, including in the assessment and identification of the community problem; development and implementation of the intervention; review and interpretation of data; and in the communication and dissemination of information to key audiences. figure 1 presents an integrated framework that guides my approach to engaged scholarship based on the framework for collaborative public health action in communities (fawcett et al. 2000, 82) and the model for participatory evaluation (fawcett et al. 2003, 24). now, i train both undergraduate and graduate students in the use of these models to support the development and implementation of communitybased initiatives. through collaborations with community partners, i have empirically examined the implementation of both models in supporting community-based participatory research (watson-thompson et al. 2013b) and evaluation activities (watson-thompson et al. 2013a). 13 figure 1. an integrated model presenting the participatory evaluation framework for collaborative action that presents the five-phase framework for collaborative action and a six-step model for supporting participatory evaluation efforts with community partners. source: adapted from fawcett et al. 2000, 82; institute of medicine 2002, 186; fawcett et al. 2003, 24, and fawcett et al. 2010, 3. in the first phase of the model, community and academic partners collaboratively assess and prioritize community-level problems and goals to be addressed. the community problems are framed in a manner that allows diverse participation in addressing the issue across community sectors and multiple academic disciplines. the community partners also are engaged with academic partners in shaping the research agenda by collectively developing the research and evaluation questions to be examined. in this phase of the framework, the agenda for the collaborative effort to be supported through engaged scholarship is further clarified through the development and use of a logic model and strategic action plans. the logic model provides a visual summary of the intervention approach that will be used by the academic and community partner to address the problem or goal area. in the second phase, community and academic partners support targeted action in the community through community-based implementation of research interventions by community partners. in the third phase, targeted action leads to community and 14 systems changes, defined as new or modified programs, policies, or practices. community and system change serves as a key measure of how the environment is being modified to support improvements in community-level outcomes. as an ongoing part of the process, data are collected by community partners and collaboratively shared and reviewed with academic partners to understand how the initiative is contributing to improvements in prioritized community-level outcomes. community partners are trained in the use of the online documentation and support system (odss), a community-friendly web-based data collection portal developed by the ku work group to support participatory evaluation activities. the odss produces automated graphs and reports based on data collected in the system to enable community partners to easily access and use data to support a variety of research and practice activities (e.g., funder reports, board reports). the data are used by both community and academic partners to guide decision-making and adjustments in implementing community-based interventions. as an example, i work collaboratively with community partners, such as the aim4peace violence prevention initiative through the kansas city, missouri health department, to support community-participatory evaluation efforts to reduce homicides and firearm aggravated assaults in a priority neighborhood. based on a community-led assessment process, unresolved arguments and conflicts were identified to substantially contribute to homicides and aggravated assaults in kansas city, missouri. after reviewing appropriate violence prevention initiatives, community partners identified the cure violence (formerly ceasefire chicago) model as appropriate to adapt and implement in kansas city. the academic and community partners engaged jointly in developing a logic model and an evaluation plan to guide local implementation and adaptation of the intervention. the community partners regularly documented the implementation of community-level change activities facilitated by the initiative such as the implementation of conflict mediation trainings with youth in local schools or policy changes within the local government to support improved hiring processes for individuals with a criminal record. based on the evaluation plan, community partners regularly recorded the implementation of community facilitated intervention activities in the odss. between 2008 and 2013, the initiative collaboratively facilitated 186 program, policy, and practice changes in the community to support violence prevention efforts. the process and communitylevel outcome data recorded in the odss, including community change and behavioral outcome data, were regularly reviewed by both the community and academic partners to guide decision-making. the ongoing process of working jointly as community-academic partners to collect, review, and make sense of the data has resulted in program enhancements, which have contributed to improvements in community-level outcomes (i.e., reductions in homicides and aggravated assaults in priority area). after five years of program implementation, the two geographical areas prioritized by aim4peace, which historically experienced disproportionately higher rates of violence as compared to other areas in the city, experienced between a 42 to 50 percent decrease in the number of homicides. through the collaboration with aim4peace, we have engaged in a variety of community-guided research activities, including the co-submission and award of grants, co-authorship on published articles 15 (watson-thompson et al. 2013a, 2013b), co-presentations at both academic and community-based meetings, as well as the engagement of service-learning students in supporting aim4peace activities. reflections and challenges in supporting community-engaged research based on principles of community-based participatory research, it is critical to develop genuine and maintained relationships with community partners based on a shared agenda that is mutually beneficial. for many communities, particularly those in urban areas, it is necessary to develop relationships and research agendas that are not solely contingent on the researchers’ needs or the availability of grant funding. otherwise, short-term and sporadic community partnerships further contribute to community perceptions of academic mistrust. my mentor, dr. franklin, described this imbalance of academic-community relationships and power as “pimping the community.” fortunately, i had developed a core base of community partners and projects that were established prior to my tenure-track faculty appointment. however, even with already established community partnerships, ongoing dedicated time is required to support community-based research and evaluation processes, as well as to maintain trust and rapport. after community research partnerships are established, a substantial investment of time is required to maintain the relationships, which often takes the form of community-engaged service (e.g., serve on community boards, develop community reports). for faculty colleagues who evaluate community-engaged research activities for merit review or reappointment, promotion, and tenure (rpt) processes, the types of challenges experienced that may result in more modest publication schedules may not always be well understood. furthermore, there are often not departmental or more broad university models for how to evaluate community-engaged research activities to assess not only the scholarly, but as important, the public impact. although there are many benefits to community-based participatory research and evaluation, the advantages are often restricted by unparalleled university expectations and conditions for competing research obligations by faculty. one of the main benefits of community-engaged research is that it increases the likelihood for intervention effectiveness and sustainability by community partners. however, for many academic institutions, the primary indicator of research impact is based on traditional measures of the quantity of peer-reviewed journal articles, and scholarly impact based on article citations and journal impact factors. although there are some progressive colleges and universities that have supported community-engaged scholarship as a component of rpt processes, many academic institutions, particularly research universities, have not implemented clear contingencies that promote and incentivize engaged scholarship (saltmarsh et al. 2009, 29). furthermore, the development of community-friendly materials (e.g., assessments, evaluation reports) valued by community partners and demonstrated to have public impact often competes with the production of publications for academic audiences. although materials developed by community partners often can be converted to scholarly manuscripts for submission to peer16 reviewed journals, it can be a time-consuming process to adapt materials for multiple community and academic audiences. saltmarsh et al. (2009, 28) suggests that “community-engaged scholarship redefines what constitutes a ‘publication’ and redefines who is a ‘peer’ in the peer review process.” however, in my experience, many academic institutions and departments have not fully implemented this type of reciprocity in the assessment of community-engaged scholarship activities. additional challenges commonly experienced by community-engaged researchers are related to research methodologies, data collection measures and time periods. based on a community-based participatory approach, stronger experimental (e.g., randomized control trials) and quasi-experimental (e.g., interrupted time series with switching replication) designs may not be deemed appropriate by community partners. the result of less rigorous research methods may limit publications in journal outlets with higher impact scores (jacquez 2013, 19). for instance, in supporting violence prevention initiatives, randomization or delays in the implementation of the intervention with individuals or groups may be unethical. relatedly, community-based research outcomes often are best supported through longitudinal studies (e.g., annual rates of substance use, rates of homicides) which may limit the ability to rapidly produce publications. as an example, i co-led the evaluation of a five-year federally funded underage drinking initiative for the state of kansas through the department on aging and disability services (formerly social rehabilitation services). the key outcome measure identified by community partners was annual rates of 30-day alcohol use. during the study period, our team supported the publication of articles related to the community process (anderson-carpenter et al. 2014); however, the evaluation questions of interest to community partners focused on community-level behavioral outcome data over the five-year grant period. in another experience, a community partner achieved significant outcomes in reducing rates of a problem behavior, however, due to political reasons the partner elected to not publish or more broadly disseminate the results of the study, but used the data internally to examine, validate, and improve the initiative. community-engaged teaching as a faculty member in the department of applied behavioral science, the scholarship of teaching through service-learning and outreach activities is highly valued and commonly accepted. faculty mentors in the department both provided guidance and set precedence for innovative ways to integrate service-learning and outreach into the course curriculum. community-based teaching and learning are core components of all my courses including my community leadership, community health, and development competencies, practicum in community health and development, and community-based independent study courses. in each course, an array of service activities is offered that students can choose to support including direct service, indirect service, and/or participatory research activities. for instance, in my community development competencies course, students can engage in direct service through eight hours of service monthly for a total of 24 hours over the semester, or in indirect service by developing a grant proposal for a partner organization. students often have varying 17 histories and service experiences; therefore, meeting students where they are and allowing them to select from a menu of service opportunities within the course makes it more likely that they will maintain involvement in reinforcing types of community engagement longer-term. from my observations, a “one size fits all” approach to service-learning is ineffective (longo 2007, 131). students who complete the series of courses i instruct are provided with varied opportunities for diverse communityengaged learning experiences through repeated exposures and opportunities, which also contributes to establishing a behavior and history of reinforcement. through the course requirements, students are challenged to collaborate with diverse communities, groups, and populations. at the university of kansas, my home campus is located in lawrence, kansas, which may be considered part of the regional metropolitan corridor, but is located approximately 45 minutes from the urban core of kansas city. in several of my courses, students are challenged to participate in community efforts related to issues affecting diverse metropolitan communities and populations, which is often a novel experience for many students who are from rural and homogenous parts of the state. through the application of knowledge, students are reinforced by meaningful and immediate application of course content, which thereby enhances their understanding and commitment to community engagement. for instance, a student from kenya and another student from the cheyenne river sioux tribe in south dakota both received awards from agencies to support youth development efforts in their home communities based on proposals developed through supports offered in the community health and development competencies course. through community-engaged learning, opportunities are occasioned to enhance the knowledge, skills, and ability of not only students, but also community members and partners. the community tool box (http:// http://ctb.ku.edu/en) curriculum, developed by the ku work group and collaborative partners, is used to train both undergraduate and graduate students through community-based trainings and capacity-building technical supports with community partners. both formal and informal opportunities are occasioned to engage community members in community-engaged teaching and training. for instance, a graduate certificate in community health and development is offered to non-degree seeking students and community members through the graduate school and the department of applied behavioral science. furthermore, more informal community-based training and technical support often is provided to individuals and groups such as coalitions in the community often through not only teaching, but also community-engaged research or service activities. the training formats support product-based learning so that the students or community members trained contribute to developing materials such as a grant application, community project proposal, or community assessment, which further extend opportunities for community-engaged learning and service after the course is completed. engaged scholarship in teaching supports the involvement of practitioners in academia, which serves as a bridge for the university and the community. several of my research partners engage students in service-learning activities, which helps to ensure that community partners are able to reap the multiple and simultaneous benefits 18 of community-academic partnerships. service-learning provides the opportunity for students to sample community-based settings, professions, and occupations, as well as establish meaningful contacts and connections in the community. similarly, community engagement affords community partners the opportunity to informally influence student learning, as well as provides opportunities to access and train students who may be potential future employees. in some of my courses, community partners are also more formally integrated into the classroom experience as guest lecturers, panelists, and advisors or consultants on community-based course projects. for example, a community partner, who is a physician, has provided guest lectures on socioeconomic determinants of health and disparities. similarly, for student grant and project proposals, student groups meet with partner organizations periodically throughout the semester during class using skype to discuss project development. also, in my practicum courses, students are co-supervised by an instructor and community supervisor, who collaboratively provide guidance to the student in developing a community-based product (e.g., assessment). in my courses, community partners are provided multiple opportunities to evaluate student performance, as a component of a student’s grade, through both written and oral feedback mechanisms. furthermore, students are prompted to support ongoing critical reflection throughout the semester, which culminates through a service-learning and course reflection poster fair. often, community-engaged teaching activities may result in additional requirements and time commitments of the faculty to support the community-academic partnerships and responsibilities. for example, it is necessary for faculty to establish and maintain community relationships, identify and coordinate appropriate service-learning activities, and ensure student development of high-quality community products and activities, which often necessitates a more intensive process for student review, feedback, and reflection. reflections and challenges in supporting community-engaged teaching from my observations, community-engaged teaching may be most immediately impactful on students who otherwise may be considered at risk for achieving academic success. it has been evidenced that service-learning can increase self-efficacy (knapp, bradley, and levesque-bristol 2010, 238). for potentially at-risk students, communityengaged learning serves as a reinforcer and provides more immediate meaning and purpose to their coursework and academic experiences. for instance, in my community leadership course, there was a student who took the course the first semester after returning to the university from academic probation. the student indicated that upon returning she felt overwhelmed and had decided to leave college, but through courseengaged learning opportunities afforded through the course she found value and utility in her academic experience, which reaffirmed her purpose for completing college. although service-learning is an important learning goal for all students, communityengaged learning may be particularly important in the retention of racial and ethnic minority students (ward and wolf-wendel 2000, 272). service-learning may also 19 provide a dual-purpose as a student marketing and retention tool, in addition to supporting student learning outcomes. therefore, it is important to consider how to communicate and promote the importance of service-learning from the integrated perspective of other academic departments such as admissions, academic advising, multicultural affairs offices, and college/university career centers. although the basic concept of service-learning, as compared to community-engaged research or service, is more commonly understood and valued among university faculty and administrators, there is less consensus about how to assess the impact of service-learning courses on community and student outcomes. the majority of students are appreciative of the opportunity to engage in more applied learning formats. however, for some students, service-learning often requires a shift in the student paradigm for learning in a way that is not always immediately appreciated by all students, particularly for those for whom community engagement is novel or for those who have had prior adverse experiences. there are some students who do not embrace the challenge service-learning offers to move from the classroom to application in the community. each semester, there is always a subset of students who become intimidated by the fluidity in the course that allows for moving project deadlines if a community process such as collecting data or facilitating communityengaged processes takes longer than originally anticipated. when i first began teaching, this tension often frustrated me. after seeking consultation from colleagues in the center for teaching excellence, it became more apparent that student perceptions of their course and service-learning experiences should not be the primary indicator of instructor or course effectiveness. the director of the ku center for teaching excellence challenged me to identify other complementary mechanisms for assessing the purpose of the courses as it related to both student outcomes and community impact. community-engaged service as a community-engaged scholar, community-based service is often integrated into both research and teaching activities. the traditional distribution of research, teaching, and service as discrete activities is not often realistic as the faculty role and responsibilities are reinforced through interdependent and synergistic community-academic engagements. for instance, i serve on the executive and advisory boards for several community and faith-based organizations in the kansas city metropolitan area. through affiliation with the boards, i am able to broker just-in-time community-academic relationships and supports for partners, as well as provide community capacity-building expertise. furthermore, in several courses, i provide community partners with indirect consultation by guiding students in the development of grant applications, community assessments, and program evaluations. additionally, i often serve as a resource for academic colleagues who seek community credibility to connect or engage with different communities and groups. in general, community-engaged scholarship enhances the social capital of community and academic partners by facilitating the bi-directional exchange of information and resources for community benefit. 20 over the past couple of years, i have worked closely with community-based partners and students to develop a couple of service-based youth development initiatives which have supported the scholarship of integration and application. one initiative is lead up (leadership, education, and adolescent development for unlimited possibilities), which focuses on providing youth leadership and college prep training and support to racial and ethnic minority youth in eighth through twelfth grades. the initiative began to address immediate needs observed working with youth in the kansas city metro area who had very limited knowledge and guidance for how to prepare for life after high school. interestingly, it was noted that academic institutions were not accessible to many youth. even though the institutions were geographically available or within close proximity, many youth had still not visited an academic institution. furthermore, neither the youth nor the majority of parents had access to individuals in college settings or were knowledgeable of how to select an appropriate postsecondary option. lead up provides youth with biannual college visits, ongoing undergraduate student contact and coaching, positive youth peer networks, and parent supports. through the initiative, we partnered with multiple ku offices including the admissions department, mcnair scholars program, student money management services, the office of multicultural affairs, the department of applied behavioral science, and the ku work group for community health and development. the development of the initiative has provided rich undergraduate leadership and training opportunities, as well as research experience. based on the initial pilot of the program with a small group of african american youth from the kansas city metro area, the program was expanded to also include youth from the cheyenne river sioux tribe in south dakota based on the initiative and securement of a small grant by an undergraduate student, jordyn gunville. she thought the program could greatly benefit the youth from her home community and reservation, and she began to develop a proposal in the community health and development competencies course to expand the approach and population served through the program. after developing the proposal in the course, she submitted and received funding for the proposal. then, through a series of independent study courses, she and another undergraduate student supported the development and implementation of the initiative. the program approach is now being refined in partnership with community and faith-based partners both in the kc metro area including tabernacle community development center, inc., and made-men, inc., as well as with the cheyenne river sioux tribe title 1 program. ultimately, the goal is to develop and pilot an effective approach to support community-based college access programs. reflections and lessons learned in supporting community-engaged service although community-engaged service may seemingly be the most apparent form of engaged scholarship, at times there are misconceptions regarding its merit. from my experience, community-engaged service may be minimized and discredited as an appropriate form of scholarly service by those who are unable to distinguish it from general community service. boyer (1996) indicates that “a sharp distinction must be 21 drawn between citizenship activities and projects that relate to scholarship itself….to be considered scholarship, service activities must be tied directly to one’s special field of knowledge and relate to, and flow directly out of, this activity (22).” based on my work, i serve on executive and advisory boards and offer pro bono consultation for several community and faith-based organizations. generally, i provide capacity-building training and technical supports in community assessment, logic model development, strategic planning, and evaluation. often, students are also involved with me in providing the community and capacity-building supports, which allows them to begin gaining practical experience in applying community health and development competencies. in this way, community-engaged service supports the scholarship of application. although i still engage in more traditional forms of academic service, there are often competing time demands between community-based and traditional academic service activities. i generally participate in broader university service activities that may influence institutional practices and policies related to community-engaged scholarship. as examples of university-level service, i have served on the community engagement and equality working group to guide university sustainability activities, the leadership studies steering committee to inform curriculum development, as a departmental ambassador for the center for teaching excellence, and as a departmental representative for the ku advocacy corp, which pairs community agencies with academic departments to support advocacy and outreach. structural challenges and opportunities to support community-engaged scholarship although i am fortunate to work in a supportive academic environment, i have experienced some tensions in facilitating community-engaged scholarship as an earlycareer tenure track professor. initially, when i received my faculty appointment, i was guided by more senior faculty to create some dissonance in my community and academic activities. i received multiple cautions from a variety of colleagues to reduce community-engaged scholarship activities with the guidance of “do what you have to do now, so that you can do what you want to do later.” the subtle message being communicated was to ensure that i was maintaining my publication record, and then post-tenure i could enjoy the benefits of academic freedom (i.e., community-engaged scholarship). the discouragement by senior colleagues to not pursue engaged scholarship activities until post-tenure is common advice for tenure-track faculty (foster 2012, 22). the feedback from senior colleagues is not ill-intentioned but is rather an attempt to ensure the success and matriculation of tenure-track faculty in academia based on the structural system, which often may not have mechanisms to holistically evaluate ces as part of the rpt process. however, as a community-based participatory researcher with already established community partnerships and commitments, it was not appropriate to subdue community engagement activities. during my first couple of years as a tenure-track professor, the university of kansas was beginning to engage in preliminary dialogues regarding engaged scholarship for 22 public impact. since this time, there have been intentional efforts at the university of kansas to examine engaged scholarship as part of the institutional strategic planning process. for instance, at the university of kansas there were forums, planning sessions, and funding mechanisms to support interdisciplinary strategic initiatives, which did enhance collaboration and activity in the scholarship of integration. however, although engaged scholarship was conceptually embraced by university administration, there was not necessarily a clear and consistent definition and a mutual understanding of engaged scholarship across multiple levels of the university. in general, the linear view of faculty responsibilities was maintained in the structural systems, which results in the independent assessment of research, teaching, and service as discrete activities, which may limit fully understanding the integrated contributions of community-engaged scholars (saltmarsh et al. 2009, 32). i participated on several campus-based community engagement work groups that recommended strategies to translate and promote cultural practices within departments and units. the university has interest in supporting structural interventions and transformations, but it will take time to fully integrate various strategies for evaluating and promoting ces across multiple levels and systems. as an early career tenure-track professor, i would have been less likely to have embraced community-engaged scholarship if i had not been previously reinforced by meaningful ces partnerships and experiences as a graduate student and early career researcher. at pivotal times in my career, i received critical supports from the ku center for civic and social responsibility and the center for teaching excellence, which provided me with both collegial validation and a peer network of support as an engaged scholar. as an early career tenure-track professor, opportunities for external validation of ces, such as through the campus compact and ernest a. lynton awards, are also important in further recognizing efforts to advance the scholarship of engagement. the collaborative efforts supported by the new england resource center for higher education (nerche), the center for engaged democracy, and the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities has provided opportunities to extend my network of engaged scholars and supported an enhanced and renewed commitment to contributing to advancing ces. the lynton award also provided opportunities to broker communications with university leaders at ku, including chancellor bernadette gray-little and dean danny anderson, regarding the continued value of ces on campus, which also helped to further validate the merit of community engagement as part of the university mission. recommendations to further advance community-engaged scholarship based on my experience, i will propose some considerations for how academic institutions may further support a culture of community-engaged scholarship. figure 2 presents four factors or enabling conditions that may be helpful in addressing potential barriers to engaged scholarship. as shown in the model, first it is important for academic institutions to collectively examine the community context and conditions 23 that may promote or impede community engagement at academic institutions and in communities. next, colleges and universities should be proactive in developing, adopting, and implementing both principles and models of community-engaged scholarship. then, it is critical to demonstrate institutional commitment and support for community engagement at multiple levels of the university including within schools, departments, and other academic units. lastly, academic institutions should ensure clear mechanisms for documenting, measuring, and evaluating the collective contributions of university partners in facilitating engaged scholarship for community impact. figure 2. enabling factors or conditions that academic institutions can support in advancing community-engaged scholarship 24 examine the community and university context and conditions for disenfranchised communities and groups, particularly in urban areas, it is critical that academic institutions support conditions to sustain academic engagement and commitment in a place, over time, and across people. many urban areas have been characterized by historical disinvestment, which has resulted in inequities and disparities in outcomes including education, income, employment, housing, health, and safety. years of systemic inequities in conditions and communities cannot be ameliorated without a commitment of strategic investment in concentrated places over time. colleges and universities have the opportunity to be anchor institutions that “persist in communities over generations, serving as social glue, economic engines, or both” (cantor, englot, and higgins 2013, 20). universities are strategically positioned to serve as anchor institutions that bring interdisciplinary collaborators together through public and private partnerships (coalition of urban serving universities 2010). as anchor institutions, university-based community-engagement efforts cannot be here today and gone tomorrow, or we further perpetuate the negative histories already experienced in many communities, particularly in urban settings. for some academic institutions, such as regional major research institutions, there may be reluctance to commit to strategic investments in defined communities due to political constraints. however, the potential for community impact through interdisciplinary initiatives and community collaboration is minimized when there is a lack of university commitment and coordination of activities in prioritized communities. the prioritization of communities by academic institutions does not suggest that faculty, staff, and administrators cannot continue to engage in a variety of community settings, but rather that intentional opportunities are sought to coordinate commitment and investments in strategic places within and across communities. often, there are multiple faculty or researchers engaged in the same communities and working with mutual community partners; however, the academic supports and resources provided in communities are often uncoordinated, which limits the ability of colleges and universities to understand their collective contribution in supporting change and improvement in communities. urban communities provide rich opportunities for co-learning through ces because of the highly dense concentration of residents and organizations that can collaborate through university partnerships. it is important that academic-based faculty and personnel engage in collaborative processes to understand the setting, context, and conditions of prioritized communities in which they work or endeavor to engage. prior to involvement with prioritized communities and groups, academic partners should examine the community factors including the cultural, geographical, and political histories of the community. the academic partner should be immersed as the community learner with the endeavor to be “local,” which provides an opportunity for academicians and administrators not only to learn the community, but also to take the role as learner first. according to mark smith (1994, 125), 25 [being local] involves learning in detail about the participants [the community], their lives, their histories, and their relationships to one another. it includes learning the characteristics that define a place [or group]: family, neighborhood, community culture . . . . being local is a skill used for community connection, often between educational institutions and local communities. occasioning opportunities to learn about the community from and with community partners shifts the locus of expertise from the academic to the community partner(s) and will enhance the cultural knowledge and awareness of university personnel. however, such a learning process would require a commitment and investment of time from university faculty and administrators to permit the academician to be a learner first, which is not generally permitted by rpt and other constraints. it is also important to examine and understand the history of engagement in the community, including prior and existing community-academic partnerships and activities. for instance, in my community leadership course, students develop digital stories, brief multimedia narratives with community-based partners to document and promote their collaborative community leadership efforts. for some community partners, the digital stories have been helpful in both recording community and organizational history and communicating their successes to others. similarly, digital stories or brief informational videos developed with community partner groups through multidisciplinary service-learning collaborations could be components of new faculty, staff, and student orientations. developing and implementing ces principles and models for most colleges and universities, community-engaged scholarship is a value that supports their public mission. as a value, academic institutions recognize and communicate the importance of ces as important for supporting research, teaching, and service activities. however, for many campuses, shifting ces from a core value to a guiding principle requires demonstrable support and modifications to university practices and policies, particularly in regard to faculty reward systems. in 2014, the annual conference for the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities was held at syracuse university. i was delighted to receive the lynton award at a university that has institutionally prioritized and demonstrated the scholarship of engagement. however, for many institutions the scholarship of integration, which supports an interdisciplinary approach to engaged scholarship is yet evolving. ultimately, universities endeavor to contribute to improving population-level health and development outcomes such as poverty, violence, chronic disease, environmental justice, and a host of other issues. effective problem-solving to address the confluence of urban issues requires a multi-sectoral and interdisciplinary approach to address the interrelated factors that challenges health and development, particularly in urban settings. many of the efforts singly addressed by academicians in departmental silos 26 are synergistic with other research and service efforts also occurring in the same university and community. when university efforts in a community are uncoordinated, it poses a barrier to participation and collaboration by community partners. therefore, it is important to ensure conditions that promote a coordination of resources, internal and external information sharing, and systematic examination of university-based efforts to better understand collective contributions and engagement in communities. academic institutions should develop, adopt, and implement a framework for community-engaged scholarship that validates and supports an institutional approach. the implementation of a ces framework may assist in guiding academic institutions in the process of engaged scholarship. furthermore, the operationalization of ces activities may enhance understanding for both new and existing faculty for how to support, recognize, and evaluate ces activities. an institutional approach to ces, promotes intra-university collaboration across disciplines, faculty, and students, as well as with community partners. a university-level approach to ces promotes integrated and collaborative scholarship activities across disciplinary fields and units (e.g., student affairs, multicultural affairs, admissions) within the university. using the participatory evaluation framework for collaborative action to guide ces the participatory evaluation framework for collaborative action (see figure 1) was presented earlier in this paper. although this model has been used primarily to examine participatory evaluation and community change processes, it also may support community-engaged scholarship more broadly, particularly at the institutional level. according to cantor, englot, and higgins (2013, 20), “an essential first step in making the work of universities as anchor institutions stick is creating a model of reciprocal, participatory engagement.” the framework offers a process for systematically examining the collective contributions of ces in supporting improvements in prioritized community-level outcomes. in the first phase of the model, university and community-based partners are collaboratively engaged in determining the prioritized goals and issues to be addressed through ces. academic and community-based partners work jointly to assess the assets as well as needs or issues present in the community. as a part of the assessment process, multiple academic disciplines and community sectors are involved in the process of identifying, collecting, analyzing, and interpreting information. the mission and type of academic institution will influence the parameters for how the community of place is defined, which may be as bounded as a neighborhood, or as expansive as a state or region. the aim of the assessment process is to engage both university and community partners in determining the socioeconomic priorities to be addressed through ces. furthermore, the community needs and resources assessment can help to better ensure that faculty, staff, and students are meaningfully contributing to community-determined areas of support through engaged scholarship activities. based on the collective prioritization of goals, community and university partners 27 collaboratively name and frame the issues to be supported through ces. the way an issue is named and framed determines how it will be supported and by whom from the community and academic institution. based on a participatory approach, both community and academic partners contribute to identifying and examining appropriate research questions of mutual interest. the identification of institutional-level research interests is not intended to limit the autonomy of academic partners, but rather permits systematic examination of the collective impact of ces. then, the development of a logic model and plan by academic and community partners supports a coordinated ces approach. generally, a logic model summarizes the inputs including the resources and ces activities or strategies to be supported by both academic and community partners. based on the activities, the logic model also specifies related outputs and results, as well as the intended impact outcomes of ces activities. the logic model may be more fully explicated through the development of a community engagement strategic plan. the ces approach summarized in the logic model and related plan should be guided by multiple levels of community and campus participation including from community stakeholders, particularly from underrepresented or often overlooked groups, as well as students, faculty, and staff. in the second phase of the model, collaborative action is facilitated to support implementation of the activities and strategies identified through the logic model and plan. the activities supported in this phase by academic and community partners may include the implementation of research interventions, service-learning and outreach activities, and/or community-engaged service by faculty, staff, or students. targeted action supports the implementation of community and systems changes, defined as new or modified programs, policies, or practices. it is important that methods are identified to systematically document and measure both the community-engagement process and the implementation of community-level interventions. the systematic documentation of community engagement activities (phase two) and contributions to community and system changes (phase three) permits examination of how the academic and community environment are contributing to improvements in community-level outcomes. as data are collected from both community and academic partners regarding community engagement activities and outcomes, it is important to collaboratively share and review the data. then, the data should be used to guide adjustments and inform decision-making by both community and university partners. ultimately, community engagement activities and interventions supported through community-university partnerships are elements of a comprehensive multicomponent intervention to change and improve community conditions. however, academic institutions often do not take advantage of the opportunity to systematically examine the collective contribution of community-academic efforts in a strategic place. in the fourth and fifth phases, the implementation of community/system changes contributes to widespread changes in behaviors of individuals and groups (both in academia and the community), which results in improvements in community-level outcomes. the simplest, but possibly most commonly overlooked, aspect of the model 28 is then to ensure opportunities for community and academic partners to jointly celebrate and communicate successes to audiences and key stakeholders. the collaborative celebration of shared community-academic successes through mechanisms that are mutually agreed upon and collaborative reinforcement builds a positive history for ces. community-determined approaches for engaging community and academic partners through community-university collaborations have demonstrated effectiveness in improving urban conditions (coalition of urban serving universities 2010). demonstrate institutional commitment and support for ces the institutional history and commitment for investing in priority communities served by a college or university should transcend and endure past any individual administration, faculty, staff, or student. for example, when supporting service-learning student placements with community partners, as the instructor, i broker the student placements with community partners to ensure appropriateness of fit, support mechanisms for student and community partner feedback, as well as to maintain rapport with the community partners. although it requires more upfront time by the instructors, this support ensures that the relationship with the community partner is not contingent on any individual student. furthermore, i am also able to manage the placement of students with community sites to not inundate community partners with duplicative service-learning student requests. similarly, community engagement at colleges and universities is enhanced by coordinated university supports. then, the quality and value of community-academic partnerships and ces activities is not as contingent on funding mechanisms or individual relationships between academic and community partners. institutionalizing ces requires a university culture that supports and reinforces community engagement across multiple levels of the university system, including university administration, schools, colleges, and departments. although many academic institutions seemingly value engaged scholarship, there is a clear and persistent disconnect in its merit based on the academic reward systems, particularly at research universities. at colleges and universities where ces is a principle, community engagement is an institutional expectation, rather than option, and is apparent by structural processes such as in the annual merit and rpt processes. saltmarsh et al. (2009, 28) suggests that “community engaged scholarship redefines what constitutes a ‘publication’ and redefines who is a ‘peer’ in the peer review process.” for instance, the submission of letters for rpt tenure dossiers from community partners as peer experts would be an indicator of institutional commitment to ces. colleges and universities should identify and commit to structural changes (i.e., programs, policies, and practices) that support ces. foster (2012, 24) suggests that “structural interventions can come from campus units that value community-engaged scholarship, from scientific and academic leadership organizations, and from the federal government.” it is paramount to identify incentives not just for individual scholars but also for mid-level administrators such as department chairs who often influence 29 departmental practices and norms, including merit evaluation and rpt processes. for instance, group-based recognition and awards (e.g., honor rolls) for departments or units that support community engagement within academic settings may facilitate broader support and prioritization, particularly if the information were available to prospective students and majors. also, institutional supports such as ces post-docs or fellows who could assist faculty in developing or coordinating ces activities may offer a critical support that may enhance ces activities of multiple faculty within a unit. furthermore, permitting opportunities and supports for non-faculty staff to support community engagement activities may further permit a culture of engagement across multiple levels of personnel. for example, a campus that promotes a culture of community engagement may implement flex time policies that allow staff to engage in community advocacy and engagement activities. at the university of kansas, the majority of advocates in the ku advocacy corp, coordinated by the center for civic and social responsibility, are staff-level personnel. the ku advocacy corp pairs community organizations with university faculty, staff, and students to broker community-university engagement and advocacy supports. another clear indicator of campus commitment to ces is through program degree requirements. many four-year colleges and universities have successfully integrated requirements for community engagement, generally in the form of service-learning, as a core component of undergraduate training. similarly, over the past couple of decades, community colleges have increasingly integrated service-learning in the curriculum requirements (prentice and robinson 2010). however, there are often less direct requirements for ces as a core component and requirement of graduate training programs. it is strategic to expose and train graduate students in the process and importance of community-engaged scholarship as the next generation of engaged scholars, tenure-track faculty, and administrators. a longer-term approach to shifting the campus culture and perception of ces is to train future academic leaders and scholars in this area. for example, at the university of kansas, all doctoral students must fulfill research and responsible scholarship requirements as a part of the graduate program. although departments specify the criteria for satisfactory completion of this requirement, common elements are generally demonstrating competency or the completion of courses in ethics and responsible scholarship in conducting research. an example of an institutional change supporting ces would be to expand options to fulfill the requirement that include courses or experiences in community-engaged scholarship as an additional option or explicit type of responsible scholarship. document and evaluate ces contributions and community impact a common challenge experienced by many universities is how to systematically document and examine, across disciplines and interventions, the collective contributions of ces to support transformation in communities. often times, there are multiple and simultaneous campus-supported research and service efforts occurring within a concentrated community. although ces efforts may serve the same populations and 30 contribute to similar or complementary community-level outcomes, there is often not a centralized process for documenting campus-based inputs, including the investment of academic resources and activities supported in communities. therefore, academic institutions would benefit from regarding community-engaged scholarship activities as a comprehensive community intervention. the development and implementation of community-based logic models and plans are important for identifying the shortand longer-term outcomes intended to be impacted by ces, including knowledge and skill attainment, attitudes and perception changes, and behavior changes occurring in both the community and on campus. both the process and outcomes of community-academic partnerships are important to document and examine. for many academic institutions, ces-related activities such as servicelearning are at least noted in strategic plans at some level. however, it is often less clear how ces contributions and impact on student learning and community outcomes is measured and evaluated. although many colleges and universities recognize the importance of communityuniversity partnerships, it is less clear how to systematically evaluate the collective contributions and impact of community engagement. often times, communityuniversity partnerships are organic and develop incrementally over time based on individual faculty and/or staff interests, commitment, and resources. aggregate efforts to improve communities are generally not well documented or examined within and across academic units. a need persists to refine approaches for systematically examining both the process and collective outcomes of community engagement. systematic methods and measures of community engagement would allow both academic and community partners to understand the collective contribution of community-university partnerships in transforming communities. the reflective process occasioned by the lynton award application process and awardee presentations has provided me with the opportunity to reflect on how to enhance ces practice in my own work. an area that i am eager to further advance in promoting community-engaged scholarship at my academic institution, and more broadly in the field, is in the documentation and evaluation of ces activities. for example, in the courses i instruct, students complete service-learning activity logs and reflective processes through online discussion boards and poster presentations. however, i have not instituted a systematic data collection system to support the quantification and deeper analyses of student inputs and outcomes across courses and over semesters. similarly, for the participatory research collaborations that i support, i work with partners to systematically document their efforts to facilitate community change and service activities, but have often overlooked also documenting the academic inputs provided to community partners such as through capacity-building training and technical support. based on my work with the ku work group for community health and development, i am pretty well versed in developing community-level data collection and evaluation systems to document and measure the process and impact of 31 community-based interventions. for instance, our research center has supported a community-academic partnership with the local public health department to facilitate the implementation of a community health assessment and plan that is being implemented in the community through multi-sector collaboration. through this process, my colleagues have collaborated with the health department and community partners to implement a community-level data collection and reporting system to document community and system changes (i.e., program, policy and practice changes) and service activities being implemented across the community. the system provides a community accessible portal to record and analyze activities implemented by multiple partners, including the health department, public housing authority, and public schools, contributing to improving community-level health outcomes. our primary focus has been on ensuring that the community story and contributions to change and improvement are systematically recorded. however, we had not yet considered how to also support systematic data collection of the academic-based inputs in the community that may also be supporting the community transformation and improvement process. now, in this semester, i will begin to work with both academic and community-based partners to align documentation practices to permit a more holistic examination of both the community and university-based activities contributing to implementing strategies to support community health improvement. for instance, as a pilot project, i will modify the reporting practices in my courses to support integration with the community data collection system. by supporting a practice change in student service and outreach reporting in my course, we will at least be able to better understand how nearly 100 students contribute to supporting community health strategies and outcomes through community-engaged service activities. in the strongest form, ces can enhance the capacity, or collective skills, capabilities, and resources, of both academic and community partners. however, it is critical to continue to identify approaches to measure the community and academic impact of community capacity and change processes on both community and university (such as student learning ) outcomes. through intra-disciplinary collaboration, we have the potential to develop strong systems and approaches for examining the process and outcomes of community-academic partnerships. many disciplines such as community psychology, public health, education, applied behavioral analysis, social work, urban planning, and many more are well-positioned to contribute to our collective understanding of how to measure ces process and outcomes. there are already established constructs and measures for concepts such as community capacity, community and self-efficacy, community-based participatory research, social validation of goal attainment, and community change and transformation processes and outcomes, which could be adapted for this context. however, what is absent is not the ability to measure and examine ces, but the integrated framework that guides what and how we should measure our collective efforts to demonstrate and evidence collective impact and contributions to improvements in communities. 32 conclusion in addressing the plethora of health and development issues that often plagues our communities, we must continue to advance ces through the scholarship of discovery, integration, teaching, and application (boyer 1996, 17; lynton 1994, 11). in many communities, a confluence of factors, often related to structural determinants including historical and social policies and socioeconomic disparities in education, employment, housing, and access to resources, including social capital, continues to challenge the collective health and development of communities. despite the varied problems experienced in communities, there are many assets including human and institutional resources that are critical in addressing the social and physical ills that perplex our society. colleges and universities are key institutions that are uniquely positioned to contribute to addressing some of the underlying factors of structural and socioeconomic determinants. however, community partners are best positioned to reify and validate the importance, utility, and effectiveness of our interventions, which is ultimately evidenced by community adoption, implementation, and sustainability. i am reminded of the quote by george berkley that states, “if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?” in parallel, i now ask you, if we, as academicians, do good scholarly work that is published and academically reputable, but it is not shared, known, or implemented by practitioners in applied settings and in communities, then did our scholarly work ever really exist? based on an ecological perspective, the ability of colleges and universities to fulfill their research, teaching, and service missions is embedded within the process of supporting transformation and improvements in communities. academic institutions offer a resource-rich environment, with a hub of individuals committed to addressing some of our most complex societal problems. as academicians, we are expected to contribute to advancing knowledge that is shared with students and scholars in our respective disciplines. however, it is as important that we ensure that we are good stewards of our knowledge and resources, which means ensuring that our academic institutions most directly and immediately contribute to improvements in the communities in which we work and live. references anderson-carpenter, kaston, jomella watson-thompson, lisa chaney, and marvia jones. 2014. “using communities of practice to support implementation of evidencebased prevention strategies.” journal of community practice 22 (1–2): 176–188. doi:10.1080/10705422.2014.901268. boyer, ernest l. 1996. “the scholarship of engagement.” journal of public service and outreach 1(1): 11–21. cantor, nancy, peter englot, and marilyn higgins. 2013. “making the work of anchor institutions stick: building coalitions and collective expertise.” journal of higher education outreach and engagement 17 (3): 17–46. 33 coalition of urban serving universities. 2010. urban universities: anchors generating prosperity for america’s cities. coalition of urban serving universities. accessed october 1. http://www.aplu.org/netcommunity/document.doc?id=2761 fawcett, stephen b., vincent t. francisco, derek hyra, adrienne paine-andrews, jerry a. schultz, stergios russos, jacqueline l. fisher, and paul evensen. 2000. “building healthy communities.” in the society and population health reader: a state and community perspective, edited by alvin tarlov and robert f. st. peter, 75– 93. the new press: new york. fawcett, stephen b., renee boothroyd, jerry a. schultz, vincent t. francisco, valerie carson, and roderick bremby. 2003. “building capacity for participatory evaluation within community initiatives.” journal of prevention and intervention in the community 26 (2): 21–36. fawcett stephen b., jerry a. schultz, jomella watson-thompson, michael fox, and roderick bremby. 2010. “building multi-sectoral partnerships for population health and health equity.” preventing chronic disease 7 (6): a118. accessed january 14. http://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2010/nov/10_0079.htm. foster, kevin michael. 2012. “taking a stand: community-engaged
scholarship on the tenure track.” journal of community engagement and scholarship 3 (2). retrieved from http://jces.ua.edutaking-a-stand-community-engaged-scholarshiponthe-tenure-track/ jacquez, farrah. 2013. “demonstrating impact as a community-engaged scholar within a research university.” metropolitan universities 25 (2): 14–26. institute of medicine. 2002. “framework for collaborative community action on health.” in the future of the public’s health in the 21st century, 186–198. washington d.c.: national academies press. knapp, tim, fisher bradley, and chantal levesque-bristol. 2010. “service-learning’s impact on college students’ commitment to future civic engagement, self-efficacy, and social empowerment.” journal of community practice 18 (2): 233–251. doi:10.1080/10705422.2010.490152. longo, nicholas v. 2007. why community matters: connecting education with civic life. university of new york press: albany. lynton, ernest a. 1994. “knowledge and scholarship.” metropolitan universities, 9– 17. prentice, mary, and gail robinson. 2010. improving student learning outcomes with service learning. american association of community colleges, washington, d.c., 1–16. 34 saltmarsh, john, dwight e. giles, jr., kerryann o’meara, lorilee sandmann, elaine ward, and suzanne m. buglione. 2009. community engagement and institutional culture in higher education: an investigation of faculty reward policies at engaged campuses. information age publishing, inc., greenwich, ct. smith, mark. 1994. local education: community, conversation, praxis. philadelphia: open university press. ward, kelly and lisa wolf-wendel. 2000. “community-centered service learning: moving from doing for to doing with.” american behavioral scientist 43: 767–780. doi: 10.1177/00027640021955586. watson-thompson, jomella, marvia d. jones, jeffrey d. colvin, daniel j. schober, tracie mcclendon-cole, and anthony m. johnson. 2013a. “supporting a communitybased participatory evaluation approach to violence prevention.” journal of prevention and intervention in the community 41(3): 155–166. doi:10.1080/10852352.2013.788342. watson-thompson, jomella, nikki c. keene, daniel j. schober, and jerry a. schultz. 2013b. “enhancing the capacity of substance abuse prevention coalitions through training and technical assistance.” journal of prevention and intervention in the community 41(3): 176–187. doi: 10.1080/10852352.2013.788345. author information jomella watson-thompson, assistant professor in the department of applied behavioral science, has a phd in behavioral psychology and a master’s in urban planning. she conducts participatory research and evaluation in the areas of neighborhood development, positive youth development, and adolescent substance abuse and violence prevention. jomella watson-thompson department of applied behavioral science university of kansas 1000 sunnyside ave, 4001 dole center lawrence, ks 66045 e-mail: jomellaw@ku.edu telephone: 785-864-1563 fax: 785-864-5281 99 measuring community university partnerships across a complex research university: lessons and findings from a pilot enterprise data collection mechanism valerie l. holton, jennifer l. early, jennifer f. jettner, and kathleen k. shaw abstract as universities institutionalize a public mission, they seek strategies and opportunities to more deeply involve external stakeholders in all aspects of their work: teaching, research, and service. these partnerships support universities in their efforts to generate new knowledge, educate the citizenry, and to improve the well-being of communities. this case study reviews the development and implementation of a pilot enterprise data collection process to identify and describe partnerships across a large, complex, urban research university. it highlights findings from the pilot, how the information has been used, and recommendations for systematic data collection efforts. increasingly, colleges and universities are prioritizing a public mission that is grounded in the understanding that they are integrally connected to their community and are responsible to leverage their economic, cultural, human, and social capital to improve the overall health and well-being of individuals, families, and organizations within that community (bacow, kassim-lakha, and gill 2011; dubb, mckinley, and howard 2013; dworkin and curley 2011; holland 2005; weerts and sandmann 2010). in pursuit of this mission, institutions of higher education are increasingly emphasizing partnerships with community members and organizations (eddy 2010; johnson butterfield and soska 2004). mutually beneficial partnerships have the potential to enrich education opportunities for our citizenry and conduct and disseminate research that solves real-world problems while simultaneously enhancing the capacity of communities and community-based stakeholders to accomplish their goals (bacow, kassim-lakha, and gill 2011; dubb, mckinley, and howard 2013; dworkin and curley 2011; weerts and sandmann 2010). as colleges and universities craft mission statements and strategic plans that highlight this commitment to working in partnership to achieve social good, they face a growing need to develop specific mechanisms to identify, track, and assess not only their involvement with their communities and partners but also their impact. because most data collection processes focus mainly on instructional and academic aspects of the institution’s mission and work, existing enterprise data systems are being altered and 100 new systems are being developed to capture this information (furco and miller 2009; volkwein, liu, and woodell 2012). this article presents a case study of the development and implementation of a pilot process to identify and describe partnerships across a large, complex, urban, research university. central to this effort was the use of a standardized definition of partnership. we also highlight findings from the pilot, describe how the findings and process have informed other initiatives, and offer recommendations for systematic data collection efforts. context of the study this pilot project was undertaken at virginia commonwealth university (vcu), a large, public research university in a mid-sized, southern city. as a major research university with a broad array of professional and academic disciplines and an academic medical center located in an urban environment, vcu has prioritized its public mission. this mission reflects a commitment to enhancing the economic vitality and health of the entire region. it is among fifty-four institutions to receive “very high research activity” and “community-engaged” designations by the carnegie foundation. in building on its commitment, the university’s current strategic plan emphasizes community engagement as one of its top priorities and includes community engagement as a means to provide high quality learning experiences and advance excellence in research. role of community-university partnerships in the university partnerships expand the university’s capacity to educate our citizenry, develop new knowledge, and have a positive impact in our communities (boyer 1996). specific strategies can leverage the power of partnerships in and across higher education’s joint mission of education, discovery, and service while also contributing to progress and innovation from the community’s perspective. this dynamic is at the heart of the principle that community-university partnerships should be mutually beneficial. a few examples serve as illustration. to foster critical thinking and problem-solving skills, faculty members are encouraged to use experiential learning as part of their approach to teaching (berg-weger et al. 2007; buys and bursnall 2007; jarvis-selinger et al. 2008). many universities actively promote service-learning at the undergraduate and graduate levels and most professionally-oriented disciplines require students to complete supervised clinical placements or internships as a degree requirement. the provision of such experiential learning opportunities relies on sustained partnerships with community organizations. in addition to the benefits offered to the students, the partnering organizations can benefit through the partnerships. these benefits include enhanced organizational and community capacity, staff and organizational development, and improved client outcomes (blouin and perry 2009; gazley, littlepage, and bennett 2012; harris and zhao 2004; sandy and holland 2006). the involvement of stakeholders in the research process, broadly referred to as community-engaged research (cenr), is an approach that advances knowledge 101 generation and local or regional development (andrews et. al. 2012; ctsa 2011; ellison and eatman 2008; roche, guta, and flicker 2010; stanton 2012). by partnering with community members throughout the research process – from project planning to dissemination – universities can better address community-identified needs and produce innovative research that has measurable, real-world applications and impacts (berg-weger et al. 2007). when done effectively, cenr promotes an understanding of a community’s unique circumstances and experiences that create a framework for translating research into best practices that maximize impact (ctsa 2011; barge and shockley-zalabak 2008). in light of this, some prominent federal research funders such as nsf and nih now require engagement in their grant-making (israel et al. 2005). enterprise data collection regarding community-university partnerships as the size, mission, and complexity of the modern university has grown, so has the need for information to support its decision-making and to describe its efforts and impact. this dynamic store of information is commonly referred to as “enterprise data” (chirikov 2013; volkwein 1999). this pilot, described in detail below, was seen as an initial examination of how the university defined, tracked, and assessed partnerships, and to explore what, if any, additional resources were needed for future data collection efforts. at the time of the pilot there was a new strategic plan which created significant demand across the university for data. consequently, while the pilot gathered data across the university, it focused on exploring a limited number of significant partnerships within each unit as a way to both test a novel approach to data collection within the university as well as to explore whether there were existing enterprise data systems that could be altered to include partnership information or to determine if a new system needed to be developed or purchased (furco and miller 2009; holton, jettner, early and shaw 2015). furthermore, the pilot sought to explore how we could incorporate community partner perspectives into the assessment of partnerships. enterprise data on community-university partnerships can serve a variety of aims (church et al. 2003; scott and jackson 2005; volkwein, liu, and woodell 2012). the following were integral considerations to this pilot effort and are used later to frame how the findings have informed related efforts: •  assessing the enactment of the university’s engagement or public mission •   studying and analyzing the institution and its policies as they relate to partnerships  (e.g., risk management, resource allocation) •  presenting a positive image of the university •   creating and managing information repositories to encourage networking and  collaboration •  quality management of partnerships •   applying for national awards and recognitions (e.g., carnegie foundation’s  community engagement elective classification) 102 considerations for operationalizing community-university partnerships as with the development of any enterprise data mechanism, key concepts must be defined. in their review of benchmarks and measurements for institution-wide assessment of community engagement, hart and northmore (2011) assert that the diversity of partnerships and the “lack of precise definitions of important concepts” (p. 37) represent two significant barriers to systematic evaluation. we next highlight extant literature related to definitional issues considered in the development of this pilot project, including how these dimensions were operationalized in this pilot. the dimensions of purpose, process, and outcome, adapted from stanton’s (2012) consideration of community-engaged research, are used as the framework for the pilot. the purpose of a partnership refers to its intention and focus (stanton 2012). the intention of community-university partnerships can be considered both in terms of the specific aims of the work as well as the potential impact on larger-scale dynamics and issues in the community – that is, the partnership’s public purpose. for this pilot, vcu was mainly interested in how partnerships across the university supported elements of the mission (research, teaching, service, patient care), aligned with focus areas of the strategic plan (education, access to health, economic development, sustainability), and targeted geographic areas (local, state-wide, nationwide, international). an early suggestion was to restrict the focus of the pilot to include only partnerships that explicitly sought to achieve a larger public purpose. this proved to be a challenging criterion to define clearly because of the different ways each discipline views diverse research activities. for example, the distinction between basic and applied or translational activity often gives rise to the question of whether developing knowledge for its own sake or the sake of the discipline is sufficient to qualify as public purpose, or must the research also directly advance an additional aim such as improving social conditions. questions regarding public purpose emerge, too, when research is conducted on behalf of or in collaboration with a corporate partner (e.g., a pharmaceutical company) where immediate, direct benefit to the community may be anciliary to profit creation. similarly, some disciplines may elect to count only research partnerships that are conducted with and on behalf of struggling communities, schools, and nonprofits, while others include corporate-sponsored research as long as the overall intention is for the public good (e.g., life saving drugs) (stanton 2012). we resolved this core tension by counting research partnerships as long as the research process involved community (non-academic) partners (holton 2013b). more generally, therefore, we determined that inclusion of community partners in an activity advances a public purpose independent of the nature of the activity and its specific aims or impact. process refers to the type and extent of engagement between the partners (stanton 2012). some argue that the more collaborative and sustainable a partnership, the more effective the resulting scholarship and the benefits to society (holland 2005; minkler and wallerstein 2008), and others assert that differences in collaboration may reflect 103 the various needs of the partnering organizations (himmelman 2002). several measures of the engagement process have been developed. for instance, himmelman (2002) provides a framework to describe the degree of involvement between the partners that includes networking (exchanging information for mutual benefit), coordinating (altering activities for a common purpose), cooperating (sharing resources for mutual benefit and a common purpose), and collaborating (willingness to enhance the capacity of another for mutual benefit and a common purpose). mattessich, murray-close, and monsey (2001) offer a rigorous and comprehensive attempt at consolidating the empirical community collaboration literature. through a review of the literature and a meta-analysis, they developed the wilder collaboration factors inventory, which includes forty items in six categories: environment, resources, memberships, purpose, communication, and process and structure. each of these, however, require a depth of analyisis that was beyond the scope of the pilot. consequently, in this pilot we used the presence of a memorandums of understanding (mou) or agreement (moa) as indicator of the formalization of the partnership. mous/moas are often encouraged in partnerships as a way to outline many of the aspects related to process described above (norris et al. 2007; ross et al. 2010; thomas et al. 2009). outcomes refers to the range of products and impacts resulting from the partnership (stanton 2012). outcomes can include the development and dissemination of new knowledge or creative expression, increased capacity and influence, enhanced performance in pursuing the mission, and increased satisfication of stakeholders (brinkerhoff 2002; stanton 2012). outcome measures may also capture the resources leveraged through partnerships (e.g., people, physical space, equipment, funding), increased awareness and interest, or effects on project scope, efficiencies, costeffectiveness, and sustainability (partnerhips for environmental public health 2012). the larger social impact can also be considered; however, existing literature about assessing the impact of community partnerships typically focuses on one specific partnership rather than the aggregrate effects of diverse partnerships involving an institution, reflecting the challenges of assessing large-scale and collective impact through diverse partnerships across complex institutions and communities. king and others (2010) present one of the few standardized measures for the impact of community-university partnerships – the community impacts of research-oriented partnerships (cirop) measure – designed to assess five community-university partnerships at a single insitution. this tool represents one of the few attempts at a standardized measure of the impact of partnerships, although it treats individual partnerships as the unit of analysis. in this pilot, we used the resources exchanged as an indicator of outcome, as well as included questions to explore how outcomes might be assessed in other ways. pilot study development in support of vcu’s commitment to sustained, mutually-beneficial engagement with the community, the pilot inventory of community partnerships (picp) was envisioned as a first step determining how to systematically identify and document partnerships 104 across the entire institution. central to this pilot was the first university-wide application of the definition of partnership as “a sustained collaboration between institutions of higher education and communities for the mutually beneficial exchange, exploration, and application of knowledge, information, and resources. examples are research, capacity building, or economic development.” this term was defined by the university’s council on community engagement (cce) which includes representatives from all academic and major support units and is charged with supporting and advancing community engagement across the university. the cce undertook a year-long process to identify and define terms related to community engagement. these were completed and adopted by the university as official terms and definition, and subsequently used in this pilot (holton, jettner, early, and shaw 2015 for more details). several key units within the office of the provost and across the university collaborated to develop this pilot. this diverse project team brought a variety of perspectives on community-university partnerships and data collection to the planning and helped to increase the visibility of the effort as well as to garner the support of university leadership. the team had collaborated on prior data infrastructure-related efforts and included representatives from the office for planning and decision support (opds), center on society and health (a research center housed in the school of medicine with deep engagement with the community), divison of community engagement (dce), and the center on clinical and translational research (cctr) (funded by nih’s clinical and translational science award). it was determined that the division of community engagement would assume leadership of the project with the support of opds. this decision was in close alignment with dce’s mission and staff responsibilities and capacities. methodology at a meeting of the deans and university senior leadership, representatives from the dce and opds reviewed and discussed parameters for the pilot effort. following the meeting, the provost sent an email to the deans and university research center and institute directors asking them to identify one person to respond to the pilot data collection on behalf their unit (n=54). an online survey was then sent to the point of contact for all academic units and research centers and institutes using redcap (a secure, web-based survey application designed to support data capture for research studies), and follow-up semi-structured interviews were scheduled with all academic units and selected centers and institutes known to have a strong engagement focus. the purpose of the survey was to establish an estimate of the number of existing partnerships, describe strategic partnerships, and determine what processes units had in place, if any, for establishing and monitoring their partnerships. the purpose of the follow-up interviews was to elicit unit perspectives on their capacity to monitor their partnerships (e.g., challenges, successes) and to obtain recommendations for evaluating the impact of their partnerships. thirty-three unit representatives responded (61 percent) to the survey, which included all the academic units. twenty follow-up interviews were conducted with academic units and research centers and institutes. 105 the survey the questions were developed by the project team based upon the key data and information needs of the university related to its strategic plan. an effort was made to minimize respondent burden while also capturing sufficient detail to guide future decision-making. to that end, the survey consisted of two brief sections with closed and open-ended questions. in the first section, respondents were asked to estimate the total number of partnerships within their unit based on the university’s definition. in addition, respondents were asked to indicate in ‘yes/no’ questions whether their unit had formal processes for establishing and monitoring or evaluting their partnerships. follow-up open-ended questions were used to elicit brief descriptions of these formal processes (table 1). table 1. picp survey section one: unit partnerships & overall processes questions response items 1. based on the definition above [vcu’s partnership definition], estimate how many partnerships your unit has. open-ended 2. does your unit have a formal process for establishing partnerships? yes/no 3. please provide a brief description of how partnerships are established across your unit. open-ended 4. does your unit have a formal process for monitoring or evaluating partnerships? yes/no 5. please provide a brief description for how partnerships are monitored or evaluated across your unit. open-ended in the second section, respondents were then asked to identify and provide more detailed information about five “significant” partnerships of their choosing. similar to the approach of the carnegie elective classification for community engagement in 2006, this was thought to provide enough information to inform future efforts while reducing response burden. significant partnerships were defined as those that “enabled [their] unit to make significant contributions to strategic objectives that support the [university’s strategic plan].” respondents were also instructed to select significant partnerships that serve to meet at least one of each of the university’s core missions: teaching, research, service, and – where applicable – patient care. when there was more than one community partner involved in the significant partnership, respondents were asked to provide the following details regarding the relationship with the “main” community partner. additional information was requested on the geographic focus of each significant partnership, connection to themes in the university’s strategic plan, degree of partnership formalization (i.e., presence of mous/moas), and types and levels of resources exchanged. resources included physical space, financial, human capital, infrastructure or supplies, communications assistance, access to key stakeholder groups, access to data or research assistance, and other. 106 table 2 provides details about the questions and response items for the various description domains in section two of the picp survey. these questions were repeated for the five significant partnerships selected by unit representatives. additionally, respondents were asked to provide contact information for the community partners and for the faculty or staff member most involved with the community partner(s) (not shown in table 2). participants were instructed that community partners could be organizations or individuals. table 2. picp survey section two: unit description domain items for their significant partnerships partnership questions for specific description domains university core missions 1. which elements of the university’s mission does this partnership serve? (check all that apply) □  service  research  teaching  patient care partnership focus & alignment with strategic university goals 1. what key words best describe the focus of the partnership? __________________________________________________________________ 2. which [university strategic plan] focus area best describes the focus of this partnership? □  education  access to health  economic development  sustainability 3. (if education) what grade levels does your educational partnership serve? (check all that apply)  pre-k  k–5th  6th–8th  9th–12th  post high school geographic area 1. what geographic area does this partnership serve?  metro richmond  statewide  nationwide  international  other 2. (if metro richmond) what geographic area in metro richmond does this partnership serve? (check all that apply)  downtown  east end  far west  near west  northside  southside 3. follow-up question to above asked respondents to identify specific neighborhoods in the geographic areas specified in metro richmond. items not shown. partnership formalization 1. is there a current mou/moa between this community partner and your unit? □ yes  no resources exchanged 1. thinking about the past year, what types of resources did your unit provide/ exchange with the main community partner? (check all that apply)  space (meeting rooms, classrooms, etc.)  financial (funds transferred from your unit to your partner)  human capital (faculty/staff time commitment)  infrastructure/supplies (office equipment, furniture, etc.)  communications assistance (bulletins, photo lab, posters, e-mail support, other) 107  access to faculty/ staff/ students/ alumni  access to data or other research resources  other 2. thinking about the past year, what resources did the main community partner share/exchange with your unit? (check all that apply)  space (meeting rooms, classrooms, etc.)  financial (funds transferred from your unit to your partner)  human capital (faculty/staff time commitment)  infrastructure/supplies (office equipment, furniture, etc.)  communications assistance (bulletins, photo lab, posters, e-mail support, other)  access to community members  access to data or other research resources  other interview questions in order to obtain information that would inform future university-wide partnership data collection efforts, interview questions focused on unit-level infrastructure related to establishing and monitoring partnerships. in addition, unit representatives were asked to provide recommendations for evaluating the impact of partnerships at the university level. the semi-structured interview included the following questions: 1. in the inventory, it was noted that your unit [does/does not] have a formal process for establishing partnerships, and that it [does/does not] have a formal process for monitoring or evaluating partnerships. please tell us more about that. 2. based on what we asked you to provide, did you have some of this information readily available? what did you have to do to collect this information? 3. the [university strategic plan] states that [the university] will “[c]ontribute to the economic, cultural and civic vitality of the region and the world through collaborative efforts ….” how do you, and how might we, consider measuring impact of partnerships? 4. does your unit have the infrastructure necessary to systematically identify and describe community-university partnerships? if yes, please describe. if no, what resources would you need? what steps would need to be taken? 5. as we make recommendations for how to systematically identify communityuniversity partnerships, and ultimately tell the story of [the university]’s involvement with the community, what further thoughts or recommendations do you have? the interviews were conducted by two members of the project team: the project team leader and another who took notes. soon after the interviews were conducted, the notes were expanded or clarified as needed. the notes were then e-mailed to the respondents to check for accuracy. because this was an effort to develop a data collection system and not intended to produce generalizable knowledge, irb approval was not necessary. 108 findings and implications partnerships. in total, respondents estimated having more than 1,100 active partnerships with community organizations. interviews revealed that this was a gross and generally conservative estimate of the number of partnerships. this was generally due to two factors: a lack of data infrasture and diverse assumptions about the definition. most of the academic units did not have a centralized warehouse of data regarding partnerships; consequently, some used the number of internship locations as a proxy for the number of partnerships held within the unit. others sought to estimate the number of partnerships through an internal survey of faculty. interviews also revealed that respondents interpreted the definition of partnership differently. some units assumed that partnerships were restricted only to those with a specific focus on improving social conditions (e.g., partnerships with nonprofits, schools, etc.), while others were more inclusive of various types of organizations and purposes. establishment and monitoring of partnerships. of the thirty-three survey respondents, 36 percent indicated that their unit had a formal process for establishing partnerships, and 39 percent reported they had a formal process for monitoring or evaluating partnerships. formal processes for establishing partnerships varied. one unit described a steering committee that made decisions about partnerships, but for others, the formalization of the partnership process was largely dependent on the individual project. for units whose partnerships included service-learning or internships/clinical placements, the process was formalized in order to ensure both student and community member safety (e.g., background checks and liability waivers) as well as that student learning needs and requirements for professional licensure after graduation are met. none of the units reported that they had existing infrastructure to systemmatically collect and store information about all their partnerships. several reported tracking internship sites using spreadsheets or databases. furthermore, while most units included “service” as a part of their review of faculty, none of the units reported asking questions specific to partnerships in a way that would allow that information to be aggragated at the unit level. similarly, none of the units reported having a unit-wide process for systematically evaluating their partnerships. it should be noted, however, that the interviews also revealed a desire for data infrastructure that could be used to support the establishment, monitoring, and evaluation of partnership activities. description of “significant” partnerships. significant partnerships were defined as those that “enabled [their] unit to make significant contributions to strategic objectives that support the [university’s strategic plan].” the data on signficiant partnerships provided insight into how units defined and worked in partnerships. as discussed above, the defintion of partnerships can be understood by using stanton’s (2012) framework of purpose, process, and outcome. in total, 180 partnerships were identified as significant partnerships and were described by respondents as follows. 109 university core missions (purpose). respondents were asked to select which elements of the university’s core mission (service, teaching, research, or patient care) the partnership addressed or served. respondents could select more than one of these elements. most of the significant partnerships focused on more than one element: 29% of partnerships focused on one element, 39% focused on two elements, 21% on three elements, and 11% on four elements. partnership focus & alignment with university strategic goals (purpose). respondents were asked to identify the area in the university’s strategic plan that best described the focus of the partnership (education, access to health, economic development, and sustainability). approximately three-quarters (66%) of significant partnerships fell into a specified strategic plan area. of the partnerships that aligned with strategic focus areas (n=119), education was the focus of the largest number of the partnerships (56%), followed by access to health (34%), economic development (6%), and sustainability (4%). geographic area (purpose). respondents were asked to identify the geographic focus of the partnership. the largest percentage of the significant partnerships focused on the metropolitan area in which the university is located (46%), followed by 29% that were statewide, 5% that were nationwide, and 8% international. partnership formalization (process). respondents were asked whether mous/moas existed for their significant partnerships. approximately a quarter (29%) reported having an mou/moa for their partnerships. interviews revealed that the use of mous/moas or similar legal agreements is common for internships and clinical placements (particularly those in healthcare settings) and less common for partnerships initiated and managed at the faculty-level. resources exchanged (outcome). lastly, respondents were asked about the kinds of resources they had provided to their significant partners and about the kinds of resources they had received from their sigificant partners. table 3 presents university members’ perspectives of the various resources exchanged in their significant partnerships. overall, it appeared that similar types of resources were exchanged between partners with human capital and access to university/community members being the most exchanged, followed by access to research resources, communications assistance, space, financial, infrastructure/supplies, and other. the findings suggest that university members perceived that resources exchanged were approximately equal for the categories provided. in addition, the most frequently exchanged resources – human capital and access to university members – align with the literature as key benefits community partners cite as being valuable resources they receive from their academic partnerships (cronley, madden, and davis 2015; sandy and holland 2006; worrall 2007). 110 table 3. university perspectives on resources exchanged in significant partnerships (n=180) units provided units received resources to partners from partners n (%) n (%) human capital 101 (56%) 90 (50%) access to vcu/community members 91 (51%) 76 (42%) access to research resources 52 (29%) 61 (39%) commuications assistance 45 (25%) 47 (26%) space 37 (21%) 51 (28%) financial 36 (20%) 29 (16%) infrastructure/supplies 23 (13%) 31 (17%) other 11 ( 6%) 7 ( 4%) assessing partnership impact. the interviews explored the existing means of assessing the impact of partnerships from the university’s perspective and recommendations for university-wide impact assessment. as is common in other universities, respondents indicated an overall lack of systematic processes to assess the impact of the partnerships on students, faculty, and community partners (carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching 2015). many respondents noted that one of the main indicators of the success of a partnership is whether a community partner wants to continue the partnership, which has been suggested by gelmon and others (2001). for those units whose partnerships are based around student learning as well as community engagement, it appeared that some evaluation of community impact occurs as part of student evaluations; however, these were primarily related to student learning goals and experiences. a few common ideas and cautions emerged regarding how to assess the impact of partnerships at an enterprise level. the most frequent suggestion was to quantify the number of people served or the number of people who participated in or attended an event. however, it was frequently acknowledged that this would be a shallow impact measure and one that is difficult to interpret. another suggestion was to use job placement after graduation as an indicator, especially in professions that currently have high vacancy rates, although, this would be a measure of the impact of workforce preparedness for students and not a measure of impact on the community or partnership. for partnerships where direct services are provided to community partners, many suggested accounting for the monetary value of the services rendered. for instance, several of the health-related disciplines assign a monetary value to each procedure completed by faculty and students. similarly, a monetary value is often associated with volunteer hours (corporation for national and community service 2014). however, it was thought some partners may resist requests for monetary value or value of hours because they see monetary value as a shallow measure that is of 111 greater value to the university than the community partner (gelmon et al. 2001; sandy and holland 2006). it was also noted that providing community partners with an opportunity to evaluate the partnership would yield valuable data about the partnership’s impact. respondents noted that disseminating research resulting from partnerships in venues other than academic journals – for instance, a local newspaper or on a centrally located webpage – could serve as a key measure of partnership impact. finally, a few units suggested that providing community partners with an opportunity to evaluate the partnership would yield valuable data about the impact of partnerships. overall, there was a general concern about the challenges and difficulties of measuring the wider impact of community-university partnerships. most respondents saw impact measurement at an agency or partner level as feasible and valuable, but had difficulty conceptualizing a way to measure impact across the university. some of the respondents suggested that partnerships should be designed with impact assessment in mind so that a preand post-evaluation design could be used. one respondent suggested using community-level data such as census data or city or health department data, but noted the difficulty of that unless university efforts were targeted. discussion the pilot successfully tested the use of a standardized definition and instrumentation and enabled the university to develop a rough estimate of the total number of partnerships. it also provided a picture of how partnerships are defined across the university (i.e., their purpose, process, and outcome) and how units structure and engage in partnerships that support the university’s strategic plan. the work revealed opportunities for the development of enterprise data collection mechanisms and increased an overall desire for this kind of information by senior leadership as well as leaders in the academic units and community-engaged centers and institutes. an important consideration when reflecting on this pilot is whether its findings are useful to key constituencies. the pilot process and its findings have received attention and use within and beyond the university. an initial overview and report of findings were disseminated through a white paper that is publically available and was discussed at various university leadership meetings including the council of deans, vcu board of visitors, and the cce (holton 2013b). in addition, the pilot was presented at the annual meeting of the international association for research on service learning and community engagement (iarslce) (holton and agnelli 2013). as described below, the pilot process and findings also have been useful to various related efforts. the pilot confirmed prior research showing that data infrastructure is an important prerequisite for effectively capturing, monitoring, and assessing partnerships. respondents reported that information on partnership is considered valuable and could be used to enhance efforts to develop and support partnerships and to celebrate 112 the work that is being accomplished. it also confirmed that a critical next step is to collect information from community partners about the experience and impact of these partnerships. although respondents expressed an interest in gathering and using information on partnerships, no units were already doing so and none reported having existing infrastructure that could be easily adapted to collect this information. the pilot data are the best available on university-community partnerships at vcu, but this effort revealed a number of difficulties in collecting systematic data on partnerships across the university. a significant challenge was associated with the definition of partnerships. as noted above, despite efforts to clarify the definition of partnership, respondents reported holding different perceptions of the term that guided their responses. for example, some assumed that they should only report partnerships with a focus on social service missions and involving nonprofits (i.e., a larger public purpose beyond the involvement of a community partner). consequently, most of the data collected through the online survey focused on partnerships that addressed human and social needs in the surrounding community, particularly related to healthcare and k-12 education, and underrepresented workforce and economic development issues. these areas relate well to key foci in the university’s strategic plan; however, the findings suggest that partnerships without an explicit emphasis on public purpose may be underrepresented. additionally, the interviews revealed the lack of clarity around two key terms in the definition of partnerships: “mutually-beneficial” and “sustained.” one partner (i.e., the university representative) cannot solely describe whether mutual benefit exists. in considering future data collection efforts, it will be essential to gather input from representatives from all partnership members. this is feasible when gathering data at the partnership level but more challenging when aggregating responses at the unit or university level. since data collection mechanisms rely on individual faculty, staff, and administrators to respond, additional, separate, and distinctive data collection mechanisms would have to be created to solicit feedback from community partners and to ensure that the questions used to determine mutual benefit could be interpreted in the context of each partnership and also aggregated at higher levels. operationalizing the degree to which a partnership is “sustained” is similarly complicated. here, too, the interviews highlighted several considerations. for instance, can a partnership be considered “sustained” if it relies on time-limited funding? can a partnership between a faculty member and an employee of another organization that relies on their individual efforts, even if long-standing, be sustained, or must there be evidence that the partnership is formalized and adequately resourced to withstand personnel changes? does the work of the partnership need to continue uninterrupted, and if not, is it sustained if the activities occur only once or perhaps occasionally over a period of time? these and other definitional issues are important to consider and resolve in order to maximize the benefits of having enterprise data on community-engagement, such as partnerships. as illustrated below, we already have seen the power of having aggregate 113 information on partnerships – even with the limitations noted earlier. in addition to serving the intended purposes of the pilot, the information gathered has been folded into existing key institutional discussions and sparked others. the value of the data lies in the following: 1) they were collected university-wide, 2) they are the first available standardized data on partnerships, and 3) they were collected to meet the needs and interests of multiple university stakeholders. applying for national awards and recognitions. the data and the collection process were described in the recent re-classification application for the carnegie foundation’s community engagement elective classification both to illustrate partnerships across the university and also the efforts to develop enterprise data infrastructure. the data have also been used in a number of grants to illustrate the university’s engagement with our community, particularly in the strategic plan focus areas and geographic areas. telling vcu’s story. the dce has used existing resources and student interns to highlight the work being accomplished through specific partnerships identified in this pilot. these success stories have been shared through multiple outlets (e.g., the websites of the dce and others; vcu publishing outlets). this has helped to elevate and celebrate engaged activities, illustrate high quality community-university partnerships, and tell vcu’s story as an engaged institution. creating and managing information repositories to encourage networking and collaboration. an impetus for the collection of information about the geographic and focus of the partnerships was so that coordination and collaboration could be encouraged, particularly among the partnerships that focus on particular geographic areas. to that end, the dce has hosted opportunities for collaboration (e.g., interest groups, brown bags) for partnerships focused on selected neighborhoods in metro richmond. of particular note has been the use of this information to inform conversations about vcu’s engagement with a local school system and a neighborhood in which vcu faculty and students have a significant presence. as described in greater detail in holton, jettner, early, and shaw (2015), vcu’s approach to collecting engagement related data is to use existing systems and leverage internal collaborations. to that end, the dce has partnered with the university’s federally-funded center for clinical and translational research (cctr) to use vivo to share information about the partnerships and partnering organizations in a publically searchable platform. vivo is a publically searchable research-focused discovery tool that enables collaboration among researchers across disciplines. through the collaboration with the dce, vivo includes information on partnerships (e.g., geographic focus areas, topic focus areas, vcu, and non-vcu contact information) and the partnering organizations (e.g., website, geographic location, contact information). furthermore, the faculty profiles have been developed to allow researchers to indicate their interest in engaging stakeholders in their research. vivo is populated with the significant partner organizations identified through the picp and other efforts. the information included in vivo regarding partnerships is visually displayed in the interactive partnership map (http://communitynetwork.vcu.edu/partnermap). 114 the dce, cctr, and university relations have developed an interactive google-based map that showcases community partnerships and service-learning sites in and around the region. basic information on each organization and partnership is provided and visitors can search on key filters. the partnerships identified through this pilot are highlighted on the map, along with others that have been identified since then. similarly, the data and the process for collecting it has informed an effort lead by the vcu medical center to collect information on partnerships and activities through the health system specifically. studying and analyzing the institution and its policies as they relate to partnerships. approximately one year after the completion of the pilot, a presidential task force on vcu partnerships was formed to 1) review and propose definitions of partnerships to provide greater clarity with respect to the scope and authority of these relationships, including those that involve broader university investment or may warrant board of visitors (bov) awareness, review, or approval; 2) propose and recommend policy and processes for establishing, monitoring, and reviewing partnerships and mous that support alignment with vcu’s mission, reduce risks and opportunity costs, and identify strategic opportunities for greater investment; and 3) establish a dashboard and reporting mechanism that could be used with the bov committee to review and monitor vcu partnerships. the task force reports to the board of visitor’s governance and evaluation committee and included membership from leadership in the dce, office of development and alumni relations, athletics, office of research, global education office, university council, faculty affairs, and assurance services. while the work of the task force is on-going, the picp helped to start the conversation and provided crucial data in the early phases of its work. the pilot project revealed the use of mous/moas was inconsistent for partnerships across the university. given the potential for legal issues to arise, guidance documents were needed to clarify processes for review and approval as well as use of terms such as “partnership” that often have legal implications that may not be appreciated by faculty and community members. the dce has been in consultation with the office of university counsel to develop these guidance documents. the aim is to create a partnership agreement template for use by individual faculty that supports communityuniversity partnerships specifically. this will become part of a larger toolkit that includes guidance on the compensation of community partners in research and how to assess the quality of partnerships and its impact on students, faculty, and community (george, holton, and haley 2014). assessing the enactment of the university’s engagement or public mission. while the pilot accomplished its stated goals, it was only a first step in the overall goal of assessing the enactment of vcu’s public mission. given the size and complexity of institution, this is difficult to do across the university. the dce and the presidential task force on partnerships continue to explore how best to focus our partnership work, thereby allowing for strategic application of resources and evaluation of the quality and impact of these collaborations. one possibility explored was to focus on identifying key partnerships, much like the process through which vcu’s global 115 education office (geo) underwent. housed in the provost office, geo serves as the centralized support to coordinate the establishment, review, and reporting of all international academic partnerships. based upon review of annual reports, major funding awards, and careful deliberation, three university strategic partners have been identified. these include relationships that involve multiple units on both campuses, support a variety of activities, and coincide with strategic directions of the university. academic unit strategic partnerships are those partnerships that are largely involved in one or two academic units. while this remains as a consideration, the focus has shifted to selecting a few focus areas. this year vcu has embarked on an intentional conversation about the possibility of identifying a few focus areas that would leverage strengths and existing resources within vcu while also meeting a community-identified need or opportunity (holton and jettner 2015; holton, jettner, and shaw 2015). this conversation has begun with two convenings designed to engage members of the vcu and regional community in a shared conversation about benefits and costs of this approach as well as to start identifying potential areas of focus. as a result of this pilot, the university has engaged in critical conversations about the role of 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e., cameron wake, eleanor abrams, george hurtt, barrett rock, karen graham, steve hale et al. 2011. “building a model of collaboration between historically black and historically white universities.” journal of higher education outreach and engagement 15 (2): 35-56. worrall, laurie. 2007. “asking the community: a case study of community partner perspectives.” michigan journal of community service learning 14 (1): 5-17. author information dr. valerie holton is the director of community-engaged research in the division of community engagement at virginia commonwealth university. in her current role, she leads and contributes to strategic initiatives that deepen and demonstrate the university’s civic mission. she leads the division’s involvement in building a university-wide infrastructure to advance community-engaged research (cenr). additionally, she supports the development of the division and university’s capacity to track and measure the impact of vcu’s engagement. jennifer (jen) early, bsn, msha, rn, works in vcu’s division of community engagement to support and advance cenr as part of the university’s strategic effort to align university-wide community engagement and impact. she assists in the identification, development, and dissemination of cenr resources for faculty, staff, students, and community partners. jen is a doctoral candidate in vcu’s health service and organization research program. her research interests include the role of academic health centers, their relationships with surrounding communities, and how they interact to impact community health. she also has research interests in how organizational structure impacts individual and organizational performance. jennifer f. jettner works in vcu’s division of community engagement to support and advance cenr as part of the university’s strategic effort to align university-wide community engagement and impact. she assists in the identification of communityengagement data across the university, development of data infrastructure and systematic collection processes, and dissemination of these efforts through manuals, white papers, and manuscripts. jennifer is a doctoral candidate in vcu’s school of social work. her research interests include food justice, race, and privilege, and the role of community gardens in promoting socially just sustainable food systems. she is also interested in the development of university centers that promote and coordinate 123 interdisciplinary community-university partnerships for larger community impact around specific social issues. as vice provost, kathleen shaw, mba, provides executive leadership for vcu around comprehensive and integrated data reporting and analysis, business intelligence, data information management and governance, and institutional assessment and organizational change initiatives. in addition, shaw directs the university’s implementation of its strategic plan, quest for distinction, and the measurement of progress towards achieving its strategic goals. valerie l. holton director of community-engaged research division of community engagement virginia commonwealth university 901 west franklin street richmond, virginia 23284 e-mail: vholton@vcu.edu telephone: 804-827-2001 please address correspondence concerning this article to ms. holton. jennifer l early division of community engagement virginia commonwealth university p.o. box 843062 richmond, virginia 23284 jennifer f. jettner division of community engagement virginia commonwealth university p.o. box 843062 richmond, virginia 23284 e-mail: jettnerjf@vcu.edu kathleen k. shaw vice provost for planning & decision support virginia commonwealth university office of the provost and senior vice president for academic affairs 901 w. franklin st., ginter house, 201 richmond, va 23284-2527 e-mail: kshaw5@vcu.edu telephone: 804-828-6683 124 muj 71 community chairs as a catalyst for campus collaborations in stem neal grandgenett, nancy edick, dave boocker, hesham ali, angie hodge, brian dorn, and christine cutucache abstract strong collaborative partnerships are critical to the ongoing success of any urban or metropolitan university in its efforts to build the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (stem) career pathways so critical to our nation. at the university of nebraska at omaha, we have established a faculty leadership structure of “community chairs” that work across colleges to support campus priorities. this paper describes uno’s stem community chair model, including selected initiatives, impacts, and challenges to date. universities provide the intellectual fuel that drives innovation for a community, whether that community is a city, state, nation, or even a global one. metropolitan universities need to be particularly attentive to the community in which they reside, and to the priorities of that community, to help both the community and the university itself to thrive. one growing priority that is being shared by metropolitan communities across the united states, and by the country at large, is that of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (stem) education. there is a growing concern across the nation that we are not producing enough stem professionals to meet our needs, especially as compared to many other countries around the world. national reports, such as the 2010 rising above the gathering storm revisited, paint an alarming picture (national academy of sciences, national academy of engineering, and institute of medicine 2010), where the academic “pipelines” or pathways through universities to produce stem professionals are in relatively bad shape, facing some of the most daunting challenges for student recruitment, retention, and graduation among all campus majors (singer 2011). at the same time, stem workforce needs are expected to grow substantially (carnevale, smith, and strohl 2010). as careers in stem fields themselves advance, there is an increasing need to focus both the process of learning and the content learned for such ever-changing workforce needs (dostis 2013; national science board 2010). president obama, in a previous state of the union address, called the need to attend to stem education as a critical “sputnik moment” for our country (obama 2011). yet how does a metropolitan university, with limited resources but excellent community partners, synergize to contribute aggressively to both local and national needs in stem education? the national academy of sciences has suggested two key elements, stem pathway “innovation” and university collaboration with p-16 education (national academy of sciences 2010). further, organizations such as the 72 national governors association reinforce the critical need for effective partnerships that engage a p-16 conversation on stem pathways (national governors association 2011). metropolitan universities, with their typically close p-16 relationships, strong community partners in business and industry, and willingness for trying new educational strategies, may well be the perfect environment for creating the innovations necessary to rise to the challenges of stem education and to successfully recruit, retain, and graduate the needed stem professionals (barakos, lujan, and strang 2012; tyson et al. 2007). the university of nebraska at omaha (uno) decided to aggressively embrace this national imperative for stem education innovation by establishing a campus stem priority (one of just five campus priorities) and creating a new faculty interdisciplinary leadership strategy, called “community chairs.” the role of the community chairs is to work across colleges, lead initiatives, and build partnerships between the university and the community. funding community chairs became a key objective of uno’s capital campaign, which ran from 2009 to 2014 and resulted in capturing the community’s vision and passion for creating unique pathways to stem excellence. this article describes how uno approached this vision by establishing four community chairs to address the campus stem priority, as well as the successes and challenges to date and the next steps for this new interdisciplinary leadership effort. the community chair concept at uno to fully understand the concept and operation of community chairs at uno, it is important to first understand our metropolitan university and the community that we serve. this is important because, at its very heart, the community chair concept is about being responsive to the local community. at uno, that community is omaha, nebraska, and the surrounding urban area, which includes council bluffs, iowa, just across the missouri river. uno is the largest institution of higher education in this metropolitan area, which has a population of 865,000. uno itself is based in the middle of the city of omaha and offers 126 baccalaureate degrees, more than 60 graduate degree and certificate programs, as well as 9 doctoral degrees in a wide range of disciplines. uno has a total undergraduate student enrollment of 11,554 and a graduate enrollment of 3,037 (as of summer 2014). there is diversity at uno in the student population; 18 percent of the students are minorities, while 44 percent are firstgeneration college students. over the past five years, nearly 1 in 8 students were stem majors, or nearly 1,500 uno undergraduate students per year. challenges in stem education experienced across the united states are present here as well, and a review of uno data shows that among first-year first-time students declaring a stem major over the past five years, approximately 68 percent were retained at uno. retention rates for stem majors at uno are generally about 5 percent below campus-wide retention rates, mirroring national statistics (gentile 2011; ingersoll and perda 2010), where nearly 40 percent of undergraduate students eventually leave engineering majors, 50 percent leave the physical and biological sciences, and 60 percent leave mathematics (samueli 2010). 73 uno shares important stem interests with the city of omaha and the area p-16 school districts and has a particularly unique partnership with the omaha public schools (ops). this important community partner is by far the largest and most diverse school district in nebraska with a total enrollment of more than 50,000 students. of these students, 66.4 percent are minorities and 74 percent receive free and reduced lunch (omaha public schools 2012). the district represents approximately 30 percent of the state’s overall student population. in ops, there are more than ninety different languages and dialects spoken by students attending the district’s seven high schools, eleven middle schools, and sixty-three elementary schools. more than twothirds of all uno students come from the omaha metropolitan area, and of those, 34 percent are graduates of ops. in addition, more than 60 percent of the stem teachers in ops (and across the metropolitan area) have received their degree from uno. ops is continually searching for and hiring secondary stem teachers from uno, so the university is a critical contributor to p-16 stem instruction. to strive for the strongest link possible among uno stem initiatives, p-16 districts, and community partners (such as the chamber of commerce and local businesses), the first community chair was established relatively quickly. the role of this community chair was conceptualized in 2010, building upon the vision and generosity of a very important university benefactor, dr. george haddix. uno administrators and faculty, along with representatives from the university of nebraska foundation, collaborated with dr. haddix to define the community chair in stem education. as a former uno mathematics professor himself, dr. haddix was instrumental in founding a series of highly successful stem companies. through his university and business experience, he realized that faculty leadership was critical to innovation and believed faculty leadership positions could be structured to synergize interdisciplinary efforts that crossed departmental, college, and university boundaries. unique to this design was the collaboration of strong community-based partners that were essential to achieving the ambitious goals of community chairs. dr. haddix provided a generous endowment for the first community chair position at uno, with a focus on interdisciplinary stem education, and dr. neal grandgenett in the college of education was the inaugural recipient. this first position recognized the important role that a college of education, in direct collaboration with a college of arts and sciences, could provide in supporting educational innovations across a university campus. the name of the position also honored dr. haddix’s late wife, sally haddix, who was a well-respected elementary teacher in the omaha metropolitan area. the deans of the colleges of education, arts and sciences, and information science and technology then stepped forward to help lead the campus stem priority and to support the community chair in working across colleges on initiatives of significant interest to faculties in each of those three founding colleges. community chairs essentially establish groups of faculty and community partners willing to undertake bold and innovative initiatives to further a campus priority. a famous african proverb suggests that “if you want to go quickly then go alone, but if 74 you want to go far, then go together.” the overall vision of the community chair position is in many ways like that african proverb in that significant long-range interdisciplinary stem pathway efforts must be done in a collaborative way, across multiple colleges and community organizations. such efforts require bringing together the expertise of a number of faculty and community stakeholders. thus, first and foremost, the community chair concept centers around the idea of “community building” and creating “conditions that matter” on a university campus (kuh et al. 2005). in the role of community chair, the lead faculty member helps lead and synergize efforts that bring people together, helps people build a common vision for shared efforts, and mentors additional leaders to help the initiative grow and evolve. in so doing, the community chair essentially “chairs” collaborative efforts across colleges as an official university leader. in the initial conceptualization of these important positions, it was realized that the support structures for the community chair positions would need to be carefully designed to allow the chairs to quickly accomplish tasks across departments and colleges and to collaborate closely and aggressively with community stakeholders. it was felt that having the chair reside in a single department, but with responsibilities to involve multiple departments and colleges in undertaking projects, was the best approach. this single base of support was also seen as more helpful to the community chairs themselves, since being hosted by two departments makes it difficult for a faculty member to focus on leading high level tasks and essentially requires them to attend primarily to the routine operational efforts of both departments, rather than innovative interdisciplinary efforts. thus, the community chairs were designated to be a faculty member positioned in one department but empowered and tasked with the responsibility to build collaboration across departments in leading campus priority initiatives. the community chair position was essentially structured to have four key support elements, which included: 1) a monthly stipend, 2) a yearly revolving budget, 3) a reduced teaching load, and 4) priority access to the dean in the host college as well as to the deans in other colleges. community chairs are the highest-ranking chairs at uno and are designed to provide a strong incentive for recruiting, retaining, and rewarding distinguished faculty. the operational budget has a signature authority assigned to the community chair, with a required authorization of the dean in the host college. the operational budget of the community chair is to be used to support the stem initiatives facilitated by the position and directly support activities such as: hiring a student worker, covering meeting costs, supporting conference travel, funding receptions, hiring grant writers or similar consultants, holding mini-conferences, or bringing in stem speakers. the reduced teaching load encourages the faculty member to design and to teach new and innovative interdisciplinary courses that could serve as a model for other faculty members engaged in instructional innovations, such as distance or blended learning, flipped classrooms, or inquiry-based learning. for priority access to the deans, it was seen as both the responsibility and opportunity for the community chair to meet with the deans regularly, to update them on tasks, to request any needed college resources and support, and to generally request leadership help in crossing boundaries and meeting administrative challenges. at uno, three 75 deans were officially designated to oversee the stem community chairs (and the stem campus priority), including the deans of the colleges of education, arts and sciences, and information science and technology. the application process to become a community chair was designed to be a formal process, similar to that followed for other campus positions, requiring an application for the position and a university-based selection or search committee. this selection committee would typically include at least: a dean or their designate, two to three stem faculty members representing more than one college, and at least one stem community partner, such as a p-16 school district, business, or other community stakeholder. the candidates would submit a letter of application, a full vita, and a twoto three-page statement on their personal vision for the community chair position. for stable leadership, the community chair position was also designated so that it could be renewed every three years, provided that there was a successful review and a resubmission of the application materials. in addition to the three-year reapplication process, the individual holding the community chair position would be expected to submit a brief annual report of progress to the supervising deans. for community chairs that were endowed by an external donor, the community chairs would also report yearly to that important benefactor. four key characteristics of a community chair were identified—successful applicants would be 1) effective communicators; 2) strong in all three areas of teaching, research, and service; 3) interested and experienced in interdisciplinary work, and most importantly, 4) energetic and willing leaders. to establish a strong foundation for the community chair structure, it was decided that the first community chair would serve as the lead community chair and would, therefore, need to be an internal candidate who was both tenured and already engaged in community efforts, which would also help this first position to be an advocate for newer community chairs. the ability to effectively launch the chair concept with a strong and well-respected stem leader would create a foundation on which to build an outstanding team of community chairs across the stem disciplines. the intent was that later community chairs could be tenured or nontenured. each of the additional community chair searches would be designated as external searches, although internal candidates would also be welcomed. the first stem community chair: stem education as mentioned previously, the first community chair position at uno was to be filled by a college of education faculty member, within the context of a strong and close partnership with the college of arts and sciences, as well as periodic collaborations with other uno colleges, the university of nebraska system, p-16 schools, and community stakeholders. this position, with an internal search process of tenured faculty members, was designated by the title of the dr. george and sally haddix community chair of stem education to both honor dr. haddix and his wife and to specifically recognize that general “stem education” was the focus of the position. dr. neal grandgenett, a mathematics education professor with twenty years of service to uno and a strong teaching, research, and service record, was selected for the first community chair 76 position. the following were set as the expectations of this important position, which was targeted to be a model and catalyst for future community chair positions: expectations of the community chair in stem education • help to conceptualize and to advance stem education initiatives at uno. • mentor, encourage, support, and advocate for uno colleagues, including newer stem community chairs, in undertaking their own stem initiatives. • become a catalyst to stem efforts that go across uno colleges and departments. • help to build strong stem partnerships between uno and k12 districts. • lead a “stem leadership team” of uno/k12/community partners. • work on collaborative grant proposals to help fund stem-related projects. • strive to integrate uno stem initiatives with other wider university efforts. • contribute to research on stem assessment, evaluation, and program development. it was expected that this first position would help to facilitate focused and strategically planned stem education efforts across uno that would lead to higher quality stem teachers in the p-16 schools, as well as cross-campus partnerships. for example, one of the first initiatives that the community chair was encouraged to work on was a discipline-based pathway for teachers, particularly in the college of arts and sciences but with strong support from the college of education. this math degree teaching pathway would offer students the opportunity to earn both a mathematics degree and a teaching endorsement. students would graduate with a stronger, broader, and deeper understanding of mathematical content, and they would also be more likely to continue with graduate mathematics work that could support dual enrollment opportunities in the schools. this initiative, which was a priority goal of the funder, became the first signature work of the community chairs. the commitment to this initiative was essential to building trust and fostering the relationship with our funder. the success of this initiative was an important element that led to the funding of additional community chairs. details of this success are described later in the article in the section on the accomplishments of the community chairs. the second stem community chair: mathematics after the first stem community chair had been successfully in place for about a year, including efforts to clearly define the campus stem priority with a white paper that was later to become the foundation for a stem strategic plan, we began to pursue a second community chair position. at this time, it seemed critical to place a community chair position within the college of arts and sciences to help to synergize efforts with the community chair of stem education. in particular, new efforts on a mathematics degree teaching pathway were underway that would allow a mathematics education major to receive a mathematics discipline degree with a concentration in education for state certification. this initiative not only supported the vision of the funder, but it 77 appeared to have a growing potential for expanding the mathematics teacher pipeline in the local area and was of significant interest to ops and the surrounding school districts. a community chair based in the mathematics department could be helpful in curriculum changes needed to align the mathematics degree requirements with teacher certification requirements. the goal was for students interested in high school mathematics teaching to be able to get either a degree in mathematics, the current degree in education, or perhaps even create an opportunity for a double major. the second community chair was designated the dr. george haddix community chair in mathematics. an external search was conducted, including visits to conferences and postings to the american mathematical society, and eventually, the faculty search team selected an excellent external candidate, dr. angie hodge, who started the position in august 2011. this second community chair position, like the first, had a similar stipend, budget, reduced teaching load, and administrative access. this second position was designated to be either a tenured or non-tenured position, depending upon the applicant. dr. hodge’s upward trajectory, teaching, research, and service accomplishments were very impressive to the search team, even with just four years in higher education as an assistant professor. her former position at north dakota state university was a joint appointment in both mathematics and mathematics education, so she had the experience needed to lead efforts that crossed colleges. she was offered and accepted the position as a nontenured assistant mathematics professor within a tenure-track line. the designated requirements of this position included the following: expectations of the community chair in mathematics • provide leadership in setting up an effective program to increase the quantity and quality of high school mathematics teachers in the metro omaha area. • encourage, council, and support uno undergraduate mathematics majors to consider a career as a secondary mathematics teacher. • develop new outreach programs to encourage nontraditional students, minority students, and other students with mathematically rich backgrounds to consider becoming a secondary mathematics teacher. • work closely with the uno college of education, specifically the haddix community chair in stem education, to design an attractive and timely route for both mathematics majors and nontraditional returning students to become nebraska certified for teaching at the secondary level. • serve as a professional mentor for mathematics majors who express interest in considering a career in secondary mathematics education. • work closely with uno college of education faculty to enhance the preparation of secondary education mathematics majors within the college of education. 78 • work closely with other mathematics faculty in support of other departmental initiatives in mathematics education in pursuit of effective teaching of mathematics at all levels. • become a community resource for secondary mathematics by working with omaha area education groups such as the metropolitan omaha educational consortium (moec). • pursue and acquire additional funding to help implement and expand the above program. • become an active member of the national mathematics education community by attending meetings, making presentations, serving on extramural boards and committees, and in general publicizing the efforts and successes of uno to improve secondary education in mathematics. the two community chairs then worked on numerous initiatives as the stem priority continued to be synergized on campus, including a formal campus-wide stem strategic plan that is described later in the accomplishment section. one of the first combined efforts of the two community chairs was to establish a formal stem leadership team that included faculty representatives from each of the uno colleges and that helped to plan, prioritize, and undertake stem activities on campus. today (2014), the leadership team includes seventeen faculty members on campus who routinely attend meetings, help to chair initiatives and grant proposals, and generally work to operationalize the uno stem priority as it is described later in the article. the third stem community chair: computer science during this last year, two additional community chairs have been added to the uno stem priority effort. these two additional community chairs were brought on board by having a matched funding process, where a community chair in science was contributed by one donor, if another donor would step up to contribute a community chair in computer science, with the university contributing the two additional lines necessary to make the new positions. national searches were conducted, with internal candidates also encouraged to apply for the position. the first of these two chairs to be hired was dr. brian dorn, who assumed the union pacific community chair of computer science education in fall 2013. he was an experienced new faculty member coming from a tenure-track post at another institution, and he brought two existing nsf grants related to stem education with him to the new position. following the existing community chair format, this position was structured to provide leadership in computer science and information technology education efforts, further supporting stem education interests that were already surfacing in the computer science department related to improving undergraduate curriculum and pedagogy, p12 teacher training, and discipline-based education research in computing supported by external funding. the following expectations were established for this new community chair position: 79 expectations of the community chair in computer science • build relationships related to computer science and technology education across uno departments that improve stem instruction and attract more stem majors. • provide leadership in initiatives related to computer science education that might result in new computer science education courses, programs, and external funding initiatives. • work closely with the uno college of education in developing effective programs to increase the quantity and quality of elementary, middle, and high school computer science instruction. • build enthusiasm across the uno faculty in the pursuit of initiatives and grants related to computer science education at uno. • coordinate the vision of uno computer science education initiatives that connect to local schools and that encourage students to consider being a stem/stem education major at uno. • serve as a professional contact, advocate, or mentor for teachers who express interests in a career in computer science education. • become a community resource for computer science education by working with omaha-area education groups, such as the omaha public schools, metropolitan omaha educational consortium (moec), and other districts. • pursue an active teaching, research, and service agenda related to computer science education. • support synergy and potential collaborative efforts for statewide initiatives in computer science education by working with other nu campuses and faculty. the third community chair, with his focus of building computer science education, has already been very successful in initiating some bold efforts in computer science education in the first year of the position. in particular, new initiatives have been established for a supplemental endorsement in computer science education for practicing teachers, new graduate courses in computer science education, as well as significant computer science education grant-related initiatives. we describe some of these efforts in more detail in the general accomplishment areas of this article. the fourth stem community chair: science the fourth, and newest, community chair in uno stem education was established as the haddix community chair of science and was funded within the match agreement with the funding of the community chair of computer science, as mentioned earlier. an extensive external search was undertaken, with internal candidates able to apply for the position, by a search committee involving six stem faculty members and the associate vice chancellor of research. the selection process involved ads in national journals, personalized searches at national conferences, and a general review of rising stars in stem education across the country. 80 an internal candidate who was already becoming well known nationally and locally for her science education initiatives, with numerous grants as well as some impressive scientific research, dr. christine cutucache, was selected for the position. dr. cutucache completed all of her higher education across the nebraska university system, thereby providing opportunities for strong cross-campus collaborations. dr. cutucache earned her bachelor of science at the university of nebraska at kearney and a doctorate from the university of nebraska medical center. after completing her degrees, she taught at the instructor level in the department of biology at the university of nebraska at omaha. she was the first choice of the search committee and assumed her official status as the new community chair of science at the end of the spring semester of 2014. the expectations of the newest community chair position were established with wide input from leading stem faculty across the campus and formalized within the position description. those expectations now follow: expectations of the community chair in science • build relationships related to science education across uno departments that improve stem instruction and that attract more stem majors. • build a process synergizing undergraduate and graduate student enthusiasm, service, and outreach in the local schools and after school programs related to stem education excellence and support. • serve as a professional contact or mentor for stem majors who express an interest in a career in science and/or science education pathways. • work closely with the uno college of education faculty in developing effective programs to increase the quantity and quality of elementary, middle, and high school science teachers. • build enthusiasm and communication across the uno stem faculty in the pursuit of strengthening science-education-related initiatives and grants at uno. • assist in the strategic planning for an effective vision of uno outreach programs in science education that connect to local schools and that encourage students to consider being a stem/stem education major. • become a community resource for science education by working with omaha area education groups such as the omaha public schools, metropolitan omaha educational consortium (moec), and various private foundations interested in enhancing stem education. • maintain a competitive research profile in discipline-based education research (dber, a national research council priority). • pursue an active teaching, research, and service agenda related to science education within the context of the host science department at uno. 81 the newest community chair, based in the department of biology, quickly welcomed the duties of the position. due to her existing strong reputation and relationships with faculty across the uno campus, the chair started very rapidly to synergize and lead efforts in science education, using a variety of objectives consistent with the uno stem strategic plan. these efforts included further building a uno-based student outreach organization in stem education for local after school programs; developing a model “learning inventory” to investigate challenges with student recruitment, retention, and graduation refinements within a particular stem department; and various funding efforts, including successful funding for student outreach that partnered aggressively with the omaha public schools. these successes are described further in the accomplishments of the community chairs. establishing a wider stem leadership team as the four community chairs were added over the duration of the four years that the uno stem priority has been in place, a faculty stem leadership team was also steadily expanded and formalized. this team represents faculty leadership across the campus and includes faculty who are interested in leading stem initiatives and expanding interdisciplinary stem efforts, particularly in connection to stem education. as an administrative structure and approval process, the three lead deans of the stem priority (the deans of education, arts and sciences, and information science and technology) were established as an administrative oversight team, which works through the community chairs and regularly communicates with respective department chairs. in addition, the vice chancellor of research, a long-time champion of the stem concept on campus, is a frequent advocate, supporter, and mentor to the stem community chairs, particularly related to stem grant proposals. the current members of the stem leadership team are identified below (table 1). the committee is chaired by the community chair of stem education. a faculty member who also has an academic affairs assignment serves as co-chair, which allows for direct coordination with the office of academic affairs. an assistant chair status is also provided to each of the community chairs so they can easily coordinate among the faculty members both on the committee and leading initiatives across campus. members are recommended by the community chairs, discussed with the existing membership of the committee, and appointed by the representative dean of a college to help to represent the college. the committee includes a core group of tenured faculty who are well experienced at uno and who provide additional leadership when initiatives and committee decisions are particularly important or need to be made quickly. the function of the stem leadership team is to advocate, plan for, and undertake bold and synergistic efforts to support the uno stem priority and to work closely with uno colleagues and community partners to advance stem education at uno, in the metropolitan omaha area, in nebraska, and across the nation. table 1. members of the uno stem leadership team member uno position collegea committee role neal grandgenett community chair of stem coe lead chair, education core leadership neal topp professor, uno academic affairs coe co-chair, core leadership angie hodge community chair of mathematics a&s asst. chair, core leadership brian dorn community chair of computer is&t asst. chair, science core leadership christine cutucahe community chair of science a&s asst. chair, core leadership bob shuster department chair of geology/ a&s core leadership geography mark pauley senior research fellow, is&t core leadership bioinformatics scott tarry professor, aviation institute cpacs core leadership dana richter-egger director mslcb, assistant a&s core leadership professor chemistry vicki lentfer instructor, stem education coe member lulia podariu associate professor, physics a&s member sandy vlasnik lecturer, info. systems/ is&t member quantitative analysis scott vlasek director, aviation institute cpacs member michael o’hara professor, finance and banking cba member carol mitchell professor, science education coe member amelia squires uno stem outreach coordinator coe member rose strasser associate professor, psychology a&s member kris vanwyngarden graduate assistant coe student member note: administrative oversight and various approvals (such as budgetary expenditures) are provided by the deans in the colleges of education, arts and sciences, and information science and technology and, in some cases, by the associate vice chancellor of research. 82 83 a a&s = college of arts and sciences; cba = college of business administration; coe = college of education; cpacs = college of public affairs and community service; is&t = college of information science and technology b mslc = math-science learning center in addition to the stem leadership team at uno, there is also a group of about fifty faculty members across campus that collaborate regularly with the team on various efforts, such as grant proposals, outreach events, and various “steminars,” in which faculty with areas of particular expertise—such as inquiry-based teaching strategies, discipline-based education research, or stem outreach—deliver presentations to the uno stem community. selected collaborative accomplishments of the community chairs as mentioned previously, once appointed, each of the four community chairs worked quickly and collaboratively to plan, organize, and provide leadership for the evolving stem priority on campus. for almost all initiatives, subgroups of the stem leadership team also contributed significantly and often shared leadership on particular objectives. some of the key accomplishments of the community chairs and the stem leadership team are described below. stem strategic plan one of the most important accomplishments of the community chairs and the stem leadership team, was the stem strategic plan. this plan includes four goals, associated with efforts in teaching, research, service, and structures, that focus directly on the planning for an interdisciplinary stem context that has been shown to be critical for stem pathways in universities and within the context of the communities that universities serve (lansiquot et al. 2011; singer 2011). the goals associated with such pathway building and context were particularly structured in the plan to align well with faculty annual review categories (teaching, research, and service) as well as the need to build a stem priority collaborative base (infrastructures), which included various targeted strategies to work together better (such as the need for a stem outreach coordinator). each of the goals had a series of specific objectives as well as tables that include current status, indicators, and targeted benchmarks. the plan was completed in september of 2013 and took about eighteen months to put into place. it was the result of focused dialogue, as facilitated by an outside strategic planning expert and with assistance in the writing process from a technical writing consultant. the plan is now routinely referenced at stem leadership team meetings and is frequently used as the foundation for deciding which initiatives to move forward with and whether newly proposed initiatives align with that plan. it has also been a fundamental element in grant proposal submission and has been referenced in various grant proposals, as 84 well as by faculty members in their annual reviews. the stem strategic plan can be accessed at: http://www.unomaha.edu/stem/stem_strategic_plan.pdf. stem teaching pathways trying to do our part to ramp up the production of high quality teachers in the stem disciplines, the community chairs and stem leadership team worked on program pathways that would allow uno to graduate high school teachers that had a discipline-based degree in the content area and were still qualified to become a certified teacher. until this initiative, all teacher education degrees were exclusively from the college of education, regardless of the discipline. the new parallel pathways allow a student to graduate with a degree from the college of arts and sciences and to take each of the required teacher certification courses from the college of education within a specialized area of emphasis or minor. the new parallel pathways, when investigated, made quite a bit of sense for bringing in new students, without reducing the number of students in the college of education. in fact, as the courses were closely aligned, the majority of students are now able to easily get a double major. the parallel pathway for mathematics was the first program of this type; it has been very successful, graduating eight students over the two years since it was first approved, with nineteen students in the current pipeline (sixteen of whom will graduate with a double major). we have recently successfully added similar pathways in physics and chemistry, and we are now working on establishing similar pathways in biology and geology (earth system science). the mathematics program has been seen as quite innovative nationally, and an article describing the program was recently accepted for publication in the internally distributed mathematics and computer education journal (grandgenett, matthews, and adcock, forthcoming). supplemental endorsement in computer science and related coursework there is a well-documented critical shortage of computer science teachers (see astrachan et al. 2011). in addition, p-12 students typically lack access to educational experiences that expose them to both core concepts and career opportunities related to computer science (eg., coding, computational thinking) and this situation has received considerable nationwide attention among the academic community (csta certification committee 2013; wilson et al. 2010) and it industry professionals (http://www.code.org). as lead by the new community chair in computer science, uno is working to meet this challenge by developing multiple pathways to earn a state-recognized supplemental teaching endorsement for computer science and information technology. the first of these is an eighteen-credit-hour undergraduate program integrating fifteen credits of computing coursework plus a disciplinary teaching methods capstone course offered through the department of teacher education. this undergraduate pathway was 85 approved by the nebraska department of education and became official as of the fall 2014 academic term. concurrently, we are developing a graduate endorsement pathway and a new master’s degree in computer science education specifically targeting in-service teachers seeking to retrain or improve their foundations in computing. this effort requires new courses to be developed and proposed in the computer science department and some significant assistance and the refinement of a stem education methods course in the department of teacher education. we were recently awarded an internal university of nebraska system grant ($35,000) that will help plan for some of the courses to be offered online and to strategically plan additional graduate offerings for mathematics, science, and business teachers who want to cross-certify in computer science/information technology. nsf stem grants one of the more recent and exciting accomplishments of the community chairs and stem leadership team is newfound success in nsf grants related to the stem efforts and strategically planned initiatives for the stem priority. all of the community chairs are experienced grant writers, and when a faculty member begins to conceptualize a grant proposal to nsf related to stem, a community chair is quickly assigned to help mentor the faculty member and potentially to be on the seniorpersonnel team. this has resulted in the award of three recent nsf grants that grew directly out of strategically planned stem initiatives. for example, uno received in 2014 a $1.2 million student scholarship grant from the nsf’s noyce program that will now pay for 27 four-year scholarships for mathematics majors entering the program starting in the fall of 2014. uno’s computer science education team was also recently awarded a $1.1 million dollar grant from nsf’s innovative technology experiences for students and teachers (itest) program to collaboratively train middle school teachers and develop interdisciplinary lessons that integrate core computing concepts into existing middle school curricula. finally, uno is sharing another $900,000 itest grant with the university of nebraska at lincoln related to helping middle school teachers and informal educators (in after school programs) to teach stem topics using wearable technologies. in a climate of increasing competitiveness for securing federal grant funding, we feel these recent successes highlight the impact that a team/community-based approach can have on an institution. inquiry-based courses in stem disciplines stem courses are notorious, unfortunately, for problems with retention, as mentioned earlier. inquiry-based learning (ibl) strategies have been identified as a possible way to deepen content understanding, while building student retention in stem content courses (mcloughlin 2008; zitarelli 2004). ibl is a teaching method that engages students in sense-making activities. students are given tasks requiring them to solve problems, conjecture, experiment, explore, create, and communicate, which are skills stem professionals engage in regularly (dostis 2013; hoachlander and yanofsky 2011). one challenging and key stem course on the uno campus, as on many campuses, is introductory calculus. as lead by the community chair in mathematics, the effort to revamp calculus courses was undertaken both aggressively and systematically. we are now offering several new sections that include a foundational inquiry-based approach, where students discuss the bigger concepts of calculus, engage in thoughtful questions and computations, and make presentations in class, rather than just sitting in a traditional lecture. these sections have been very successful and have modeled the following improvements and benefits, many of which are also now being integrated into the planning for inquiry-based teaching courses: • 42.2 percent of students in non-ibl calculus received grades of d/f/w versus 20.3 percent in ibl calculus. • students who have been in ibl calculus are doing generally better in calculus ii. • daily presentations give students a chance to teach each other. • several classrooms have been renovated to include tables for group seating and white boards. • undergraduate learning assistants have been added to the ibl calculus classrooms. • mathematics faculty conduct regular meetings with other uno faculty about ibl techniques. • three uno instructors are attending national ibl teaching workshops. • a partnership has been established with the university of nebraska-lincoln, the university of colorado -boulder and the university of georgia to evaluate success of ibl. • uno faculty have had leadership roles at two national ibl workshops in the summer of 2014. • the description of ibl calculus sections has been modified to highlight active learning. the next inquiry-based learning course newly approved and underway is “inquirybased thinking in stem” for pre-service elementary teachers. this new course is approved as a general education science course and is offered at uno’s glacier creek preserve. in this important course, students engage in inquiry-based thinking to examine stem concepts related to prairie ecosystems, which is a major elementaryscience focus in schools in the omaha area. the course has nineteen students in this first offering and is going very well, with pre-service teachers conducting inquirybased earth system science activities that align directly with the science concepts that they will be teaching in the elementary schools. this approach directly confronts the national problem of elementary teachers being less interested in science than in other 86 87 areas of the curriculum, which is an attitude that is often passed inadvertently to their students (brown et al. 2011; national governors association 2011). the stem team working with the course is investigating the evolution of the science attitudes of the pre-service teachers in the course to see if there are any changes. stem learning inventories in order to help stem departments plan instructional reforms to improve stem pipelines, the newest community chair (science) has initiated a process to help guide the conversation within a particular department, starting with the department of biology. this process is described as a “learning inventory” in the stem strategic plan. in brief, the objective is to initiate a guided reflection and discussion amongst faculty on how students are doing within the coursework and to identify clear objectives for students to meet across all courses, to take an inventory of current practices across courses, and to target practices for improvement. this process includes: 1) review of enrollment, retention, and graduation data; 2) a review of space utilization and infrastructure needs; 3) a self-reflection by faculty using a guided rubric; 4) a review of syllabi; 5) discussion meetings with all faculty; and 6) input from an external consultant from the discipline who has implemented this process at an institution of similar size, enrollment, etc. in biology, it is an excellent opportunity to use a new educational reform report, called vision and change in undergraduate biology education: a call to action, which was produced by the american association for the advancement of science (2011). quite a few follow-up materials to the vision and change report have been designed for use by biology departments in reflecting upon needed reforms, such as a set of rubrics designed by the partnership for undergraduate life sciences education that can be used by departments to step through a reflective process on potential educational reforms that align with vision and change (aguirre et al. 2013). these materials are currently being discussed with leadership from the community chair of science, with full support from the lead community chair in science education, and with administrative support. the experienced faculty members engaged in educational reforms at other institutions are also making themselves available for conversations, and one of these external experts will soon be coming to uno to help to further reflect on the learning inventory process. the learning inventory effort has started very well in biology, and some of the materials are now also being shared with the uno department of chemistry, which has expressed interest in a similar reflection process and has formed a uno community of practice around chemistry education and supporting student success in introductory chemistry classes. the community of practice is a new faculty collaboration structure at uno, where faculty members meet monthly around a common theme and try to help each other to be more effective in university teaching, research, and service. another similar effort is being undertaken in computer science. the community chairs are well represented in several of these new campus communities of practice. stem outreach efforts as mentioned previously, bringing young people into stem pathways is critical for the health of the country (gentile 2011; national science board 2010). so part of the stem initiative at uno has been to work closely with the community and to participate aggressively in bringing youth into stem pathways, by contributing to both on-campus and off-campus stem outreach efforts and by making stem more “real” for students, which has been shown to be critical to students entering the stem pathways (hoachlander and yanofsky 2011) and for helping students become comfortable with stem content learning (brown et al. 2011). the initiatives associated with stem outreach are quite numerous, are led by various faculty teams, and are now coordinated by a new stem outreach coordinator. outreach events have included activities such as a four-week girls inc. eureka stem camp, where 60 middle school girls, mostly from minority and low socioeconomic families, participate in some exciting stem activities, including robotics, high-altitude ballooning, and digital media work. in addition, events and institutes have also been undertaken for p-12 teachers, such as the kiewit engineering day, where 40 teachers who teach engineering in the local schools joined 40 kiewit engineers as colleagues in professional development related to engineering instruction and outreach. in many ways, such outreach builds community partnerships, since the community often tends to synergize contributions around informal educational environments more easily than formal ones (jehl, blank, and mccloud 2001). uno also has participated in many different cityand state-wide events, such as the nebraska science festival, where nearly 600 students (including boy scouts and girl scouts) came to campus for a day of stem mini-courses and field based activities; or the statewide river city rodeo, where 300 students and teachers undertook rodeo themed robotics challenges; or the lights on after school event, which involved 1,500 students in the after school programs with access to twenty tables of interactive stem activities run by uno faculty and students. the challenges of establishing a community chair at a university in addition to the benefits related to establishing a community-chair-led effort for building the stem initiatives or other priorities on a university campus, there are also typically some challenges. first and foremost, there is the need to fund the community chair position or to modify an existing position to have the operational level and resources needed for establishing an effective community chair. at uno, we had the significant benefit of the vision and generosity of a major benefactor, dr. haddix, who helped us to start the program and then to use it as a match for further community chair positions. the yearly stipend, operational budget, and reduced teaching load are all real costs to an institution, to be either covered internally by the college or university or externally by a foundation or private donor. at uno, we had a mix of such contributions both externally and internally. as with any leader on a campus, it’s essential that community chairs have the operational budget they need to implement their vision and related efforts to best serve campus priorities. 88 89 additional challenges are related to identifying and hiring the correct faculty member for the position, either through an internal or external search. the person really needs to be a strong communicator, leader, and team builder who can have candid conversations with colleagues based on their own expertise. such expertise needs to be relatively broad and should include accomplishments in each of the three areas of teaching, research, and service. further, community chairs in many ways need to have both content (i.e., in-discipline) and pedagogical expertise, since their leadership may well be based in a specific content department, but they also will need to plan and build initiatives on new ways of teaching and learning in stem courses. as with any faculty position, these leaders must remain aggressive in their performance in teaching, research, and service, so the candidate that can best balance these needs while helping faculty to achieve their goals is necessary. moreover, there is a challenge with the sheer quantity of contacts and communications that need to flow through a community chair. those contacts, including e-mail, phone, and office visits, can be overwhelming, particularly for new faculty members, and colleagues need to assist that person by being fully aware of the challenges associated with leading initiatives that cross departments, colleges, and community partners. everyone needs to help the community chair to build the team they need and to undertake true reforms. the community chair must balance a traditional faculty profile but also serve as a major leader—it’s a balancing act. in addition, untenured community chairs may need to be helped to ensure that the initiatives that they choose to undertake will also help to steadily move them toward a tenure status. finally, the dean and department chairs working with the community chair need to support the chair’s leadership with periodic help in providing additional resources when needed, including help from consultants such as technical writers, grant development specialists, and community outreach coordination. for example, the awareness of the expertise and talents in the area of stem have resulted in uno becoming the “go to” institution for community events. the ability to create awareness, engagement, and action around stem initiatives has created tremendous momentum and activity in the omaha community, which is certainly aligned with our strategic goals. this has resulted in extraordinary opportunities for faculty and students; however, the demands on faculty time became increasingly challenging. therefore, uno administration partnered with a community agency to fund a stem outreach coordinator position. the next steps for the stem community chairs at uno the next steps for the stem community chairs, as the academic year moves into 2015, is to support faculty members interested in undertaking efforts as aligned with the stem strategic plan. stem-related grants are particularly becoming of interest to other faculty members, and the community chairs are looking for ways to mentor new faculty in stem-education-related grant writing. often, discipline-based faculty need some mentoring to be able to submit stem-education-oriented grants and to work through needed considerations, such as formal approvals by the institutional review board for the protection of human subjects. the community chairs are already doing quite a bit of grant-related mentoring, and this will no doubt continue to increase as faculty become more interested and the campus becomes more experienced. a major new priority for the stem community chairs, thanks to the hires of the community chair of computer science and the community chair of science, is to support efforts for discipline-based education research (dber). many faculty show interest in dber, as it’s a way for them to study their own best practices and to identify creative ways to best engage their students in the classroom. some example efforts include faculty investigating innovation in the instructional environment or curriculum of their department or discipline or investigating different types of pedagogical interventions and research-based course structures (national research council 2012). to complement the ongoing fostering of these initiatives, the community chairs are striving to help departmental reappointment promotion and tenure committees to realize how valuable this type of research is both locally and nationally. often this support includes a letter signed by the four community chairs to the faculty member acknowledging how critical improving stem education is for our country and the important role that dber is playing. it is becoming increasingly identified in the literature that dber can help to change the culture of stem departments to be more learning and student-success focused (anderson et al. 2011), thanks to visionary leaders across the nation who devote their work to dber. in addition, the stem community chairs are looking closely at campus outreach in stem and trying to help the university outreach organizations to undertake their own strategic planning efforts. for example, uno’s aim for the stars program, based in the department of physics, is hosting nearly eighty week-long middle school camps on stem topics and is now engaged with several of the community chairs to strategically plan for the future and to maximize the effectiveness of the curriculum for not only building student stem interest and content knowledge but also for encouraging students to consider uno as their institution of choice for later college enrollment. as the stem leadership team continues to expand its stem leadership efforts and as other faculty step forward to conceptualize and lead initiatives, coordination by the community chairs and the active support of their deans and department chairs is becoming increasingly important. this support will be aided by a new effort being undertaken to create a short report template that can be used to periodically report on the progress in the stem strategic plan and that can be shared with stakeholders in both uno and the surrounding community. conclusion the momentum and support for uno stem initiatives has continued to accelerate at a pace that has exceeded the expectations of all involved. the community chairs have been the key catalyst to this success. the development, implementation, and ongoing 90 91 refinement of the strategic plan has resulted in varied collaborations, from simple to complex, that have engaged an extraordinary number of faculty, university administrators, community leaders, and philanthropists. such collaborative efforts have helped to support evolving conversations about the potential for a new stem building at uno that would include innovative instructional facilities to help further support the evolution of stem education at uno and throughout our community. the community chair concept is perhaps not new to institutions, but it may well be a new approach for focused leadership at an institution for expanding the stem pipelines. our experience supports the notion that this challenging task depends upon a close collaborative and interdisciplinary effort, which fully engages community partners. the community chair allows the university to provide stem pipeline leadership and be in a position to build strong partnerships with local school districts, business and industry, the chamber of commerce, and the philanthropic community to accomplish what could not be accomplished without collaboration. such strategic collaborations certainly take a much more flexible form of faculty-level leadership than what is often seen at universities. the ability to transcend the various institutional challenges and silos that have been embedded in the stem educational pathways combined with community partnerships is a powerful recipe for transformational change. the opportunity to connect various units on campus has assisted us in attracting, supporting, challenging, and retaining students who are seeking an innovative educational model that offers various pathways to career opportunities. finally, at uno, we have been fortunate to be able to steadily establish a focused team for leading the campus stem priority that includes the four community chair positions, the seventeen-member stem leadership team of faculty members, three lead deans, and the many other engaged faculty, staff, and department chairs that have been so supportive of these many different efforts. the stem journey continues for us, and we are increasingly going together. references aguirre, karen m., teresa c. balser, thomas jack, katherine e. marley, kathryn g. miller, marcy p. osgood, pamela a. pape-lindstrom, and sandra l. romano. 2013. “letter to the editor: pulse vision & change rubrics.” cbe—life sciences education 12: 579–581. doi:10.1187/cbe.13-09-0183. american association for the advancement of science. 2011. vision and change in undergraduate biology education: a call to action. washington, dc: aaas. http://visionandchange.org/files/2013/11/aaas-vischange-web1113.pdf. anderson, w. a., u. banerjee, c. l. drennan, s. c. r. elgin, i. r. epstein, j. handelsman, g. f. hatfull, et al. 2011. “changing the culture of science education at research universities.” science 331 (6014): 152–153. doi:10.1126/science.1198280. 92 astrachan, owen, jan cuny, chris stephenson, and cameron wilson. 2011. “the cs10k project: mobilizing the community to transform high school computing.” in proceedings of sigcse ’11, 85–86. barakos, lynn, vanessa lujan, and craig strang. 2012. science, technology, engineering, mathematics (stem): catalyzing change amid the confusion. portsmouth, nh: rmc research corporation, center on instruction. brown, ryan, joshua brown, kristin reardon, and chris merrill. 2011. “understanding stem: current perceptions.” technology and engineering teacher 70 (6): 5–9. carnevale, anthony p., nicole smith, and jeff strohl. 2010. help wanted: projections of jobs and education requirements through 2018. washington, dc: georgetown university center on education and the workforce. http://cew.georgetown.edu/jobs2018/. csta certification committee. 2013. “bugs in the system.” acm. dostis, melanie. 2013. “degree alone not enough to prepare grads for workforce.” usa today, october 31. http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/10/31/morethan-a-college-degree/3324303/. gentile, james m. 2011. “it’s time to stem the loss of science and engineering students.” the huffington post, november 14. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jamesmgentile/us-math-and-science-education-_b_1086177.html. grandgenett, neal, michael matthews, and phyllis k. adcock. forthcoming. “teacher certification through the mathematics department: one institution’s journey.” mathematics and computer education 48 (forthcoming). http://macejournal.org. hoachlander, gary, and dave yanofsky. 2011. “making stem real.” educational leadership 68 (6): 60–65. ingersoll, richard m., and david perda. 2010. “is the supply of mathematics and science teachers sufficient?” american educational research journal 47: 563–594. doi:10.3102/0002831210370711. jehl, jeanne, martin j. blank, and barbara mccloud. 2001. education and community building: connecting two worlds. washington, dc: institute for education leadership. http://www.naesp.org/resources/1/a_new_day_for_learning_resources/ building_and_sustaining_partnerships/education_and_community_building_ connecting_two_worlds.pdf. kuh, george d., jillian kinzie, john h. schuh, elizabeth j. whitt, and associates. 2005. student success in college: creating conditions that matter. san francisco, ca: jossey-bass. 93 lansiquot, reneta d., reginald a. blake, janet liou-mark, and a. e. dreyfuss. 2011. “interdisciplinary problem-solving to advance stem success for all students.” peer review 13 (3): 19–22. mcloughlin, m. padraig m. m. 2008. “inquiry based learning: a modified moore method approach to encourage student research.” paper presented at the 11th annual legacy of r. l. moore conference, austin, tx (july). national academy of sciences, national academy of engineering, and institute of medicine. 2010. rising above the gathering storm, revisited: rapidly approaching category 5. washington, dc: the national academies press. http://www.nap.edu/catalog/12999.html. national governors association. 2011. building a science, technology, engineering, and math education agenda: an update of state actions. washington, dc: national governors association center for best practices. http://www.nga.org/files/live/sites/nga/files/pdf/1112stemguide.pdf. national research council. 2012. discipline-based education research: understanding and improving learning in undergraduate science and engineering. washington, dc: the national academies press. http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php?record_id=13362. national science board. 2010. preparing the next generation of stem innovators: identifying and developing our nation’s human capital. arlington, va: national science foundation. https://www.nsf.gov/nsb/stem/innovators.jsp. obama, barack. 2011. “remarks by the president in state of union address” (speech transcript). washington, dc: white house, office of the press secretary, january 25. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/01/25/remarks-president-stateunion-address. omaha public schools. 2012. district free and reduced-price lunch report 2012–13. omaha, ne: omaha public schools. http://district.ops.org/portals/0/research/ docs/statistical%20reports/freereduced/2012-13%20freereducedlunchreport.pdf. samueli, henry. 2010. “the need for stem professionals.” presentation made at the national academy of engineering’s stem summit 2010: early childhood through higher education, irvine, ca (february). http://www.slideshare.net/stemsummit/theneed-for-stem-professionals-dr-henry-samueli. singer, susan r. 2011. “stem education: time for integration.” peer review 13 (3): 4–7. tyson, will, reginald lee, kathryn m. borman, and mary ann hanson. 2007. “science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (stem) pathways: high school science and math coursework and postsecondary degree attainment.” journal of education for students placed at risk 12: 243–270. wilson, c., l. a. sudol, c. stephenson, and m. stehlik. 2010. “running on empty: the failure to teach k-12 computer science in the digital age.” acm. zitarelli, david e. 2004. “the origin and early impact of the moore method.” the american mathematical monthly 111: 465–486. author information dr. neal grandgenett is the dr. george and sally haddix community chair of stem education at the university of nebraska at omaha, based in the college of education. his background is in mathematics education and he specializes in interdisciplinary stem learning environments as well as teaches instructional methods coursework and data driven decision-making. dr. nancy edick is the lois g. roskens dean of the college of education at the university of nebraska at omaha. she has a background in p12 and university collaboration and served as executive director of the metropolitan omaha educational consortium. her teaching and research focus has been in the area of teacher quality, and she was founding director of uno’s cadre project, which was recognized by the u.s. department of education as one of “10 promising programs in teacher education” and the recipient of the “christa mcauliffe award for best practices.” dr. david boocker is the dean of the college of arts and sciences at the university of nebraska at omaha, and his academic interests are in english literature, specifically on the influence of john milton on american culture and society. he is a passionate advocate for the liberal arts, and is co-author of “making the case for arts and sciences,” published in deans and development: making the case for supporting the liberal arts and sciences (ccas, 2014). dr. hesham ali is the dean of the college of information science and technology at the university of nebraska at omaha, and his background is in computer science with a particular focus on graph algorithms, bioinformatics, and distributed mobile systems. he leads a bioinformatics research group at uno that focuses on the development of enriched correlation networks and their application in modeling systems biology problems. he teaches courses in bioinformatics algorithms and graph theory. dr. angie hodge is the dr. george haddix community chair of mathematics at uno and is based in the department of mathematics. her background is in mathematics education (inquiry-based learning, teacher education, and gender equity in the stem fields), and she currently teaches the calculus series and graduate courses for mathematics teachers using inquiry-based learning. 94 95 dr. brian dorn is the union pacific community chair of computer science education at uno and is based in the department of computer science. his research and teaching interests integrate computer science education, the learning sciences, and human-computer interaction with an emphasis on the design, development, and evaluation of novel socio-technical systems supporting computational literacy. dr. christine cutucache is the haddix community chair of science at uno and is based in the department of biology. her background is in discipline-based education research and tumor-induced immunosuppression; therefore, she strives to provide inquiry-based opportunities for undergraduates in the research lab, in informal education, and in the classroom. neal grandgenett dr. george and sally haddix community chair of stem education department of teacher education university of nebraska at omaha 6001 dodge street, rh 406p omaha, ne 68182 e-mail: ngrandgenett@unomaha.edu telephone: 402-554-2690 fax: 402-554-3881 nancy edick dean, college of education university of nebraska at omaha 6001 dodge street, rh 211 omaha, ne 68182 e-mail: nedick@unomaha.edu telephone: 402-554-2719 fax: 402-554-2879 dave boocker dean, college of arts and sciences university of nebraska at omaha 6001 dodge street, ash 280 omaha, ne 68182 e-mail: dboocker@unomaha.edu telephone: 402-554-2338 fax: 402-554-3296 96 hesham ali dean, college of information science and technology university of nebraska at omaha 6001 dodge street, pki 282h omaha, ne 68182 e-mail: hali@unomaha.edu telephone: 402-554-2380 fax: 402-554-3284 angie hodge dr. george haddix community chair of mathematics university of nebraska at omaha 6001 dodge street, dsc 227 omaha, ne 68182 e-mail: amhodge@unomaha.edu telephone: 402-554-3437 fax: 402-554-2975 brian dorn union pacific community chair of computer science university of nebraska at omaha 6001 dodge street, pki 174e omaha, ne 68182 e-mail: bdorn@unomaha.edu telephone: 402-554-4905 fax: 402-554-3284 christine cutucahe haddix community chair of science university of nebraska at omaha 6001 dodge street, ah 413 omaha, ne 68182 e-mail: ccutucache@unomaha.edu telephone: 402-554-2917 fax: 402-554-3532 from the editor's desk ernest a. lynton it is not good form for an editor to contribute a paper to her or his own journal. quis custodiet ipsos custodes?, which translates freely into "who edits the editor down to size?" a word of explanation is therefore in order. as some of our readers know, i have for many years been deeply concerned with, and variously pontificated about, faculty roles and rewards. most recently my work on this issue has been intensified in two ways. i have been involved with russ edgerton, clara lovett, and now gene rice at the american association for higher education in its forum on faculty roles and rewards. i am also working for ernest boyer on the preparation of a follow-up report to scholarship reconsidered. the working title of this second report is scholarship assessed, and it will focus on some of the issues mentioned in my article: the shared characteristics of all forms of scholarship, the common criteria of quality which can be applied, and the similarity of the necessary documentation. that is why clara lovett, guest editor for this issue, asked me to contribute and that is also why, in spite of being the journal's editor, i jumped at the opportunity. clara carried out her responsibilities as guest editor in spite of the fact that after being immersed for many months in the preparation for the second national conference of the aahe forum on faculty roles and rewards, she soon after this event assumed the presidency of northern arizona university. it is a great pleasure to express to clara lovett both a profound gratitude for her work on this issue and best wishes in her new position. with my article i am already taking up more than enough space in this issue with which we begin the fifth year of our quarterly publication. no editorializing, this time; only one brief comment about the theme of the issue. we all know that change in the academy is, at best, slow to the point of being imperceptible. but after attending the two national meetings of the aahe forum which have been held to date and noting both the numbers and the commitment of participants, after visiting many campuses and witnessing the growing attention to the nature of scholarship and the faculty reward system throughout the country, and knowing the astonishing circulation of scholarship reconsidered (well into five figures), i am convinced that we are witnessing the first stirrings of a real change. those who will be around at the tum of the century will, i am quite certain, witness then a marked difference from the state of affairs, say, in 1990. looking back, they will recognize that the nineties have been a decade of a marked reordering of priorities and values in higher education. but to make this optimistic projection come true, much work by many people is needed. i hope that this will happen, for without that reordering, the academy will be in great difficulties. mu1994-summer-004_page3 from the editor's desk ernest a. lynton it is a time of transition, within our small campus and on the national scene. at the micro level, this issue, the last of our third volume, marks the end of our association with transaction publishers. beginning with the next issue, metropolitan universities will be published by and at wright state university. we are happy about the move because it will consolidate and facilitate production. but we never could have started our new venture without the personal support and the technical resources of our partners at transaction. we are most grateful to irving louis horowitz, its president; to mary curtis, its publisher; and to all the members of its staff who contributed to the evolution of our journal. transition, of rather more profound significance, has taken place on the national scene. these remarks are written on the day after the presidential election. by the time they are published, bill clinton will have been sworn in and his initial program presented: a quarterly journal with a production time line of several months is not the vehicle for timely comments on current events. yet the potential impact of the change in washington on the fate of our metropolitan areas and hence on the role of metropolitan universities is so considerable that it must be mentioned in these jottings. metropolitan issues did not loom large during the campaign, but there is much reason to hope, and to expect, that they will receive substantially more attention from the new administration than they have had in the recent past. metropolitan universities will have increased opportunities as well as greater responsibility to be, as is our claim, major intellectual and cultural resources to our region. that intensifies the urgent need for these institutions to take a critical look at the institutional practices, structures, and policies so as to ensure that these facilitate, and do not hinder, the complex tasks ahead. paramount among the matters requiring attention is the quality of the teaching and learning that goes on, under our aegis, both on and off campus, inside and outside the classroom. assessment, a powerful tool in this undertaking, is the theme of the current issue of metropolitan universities . i am most grateful to barbara wright, who for three years directed the assessment forum of the american association for higher education and has now returned to the faculty of the university of connecticut. she has done a magnificent job as guest editor: indeed, she identified so many excellent authors that we are forced to hold over several contributions until the next issue. mu1993-spring-003_page2 a joint statement james b. appleberry and c. peter magrath the new aascu/ nasulgc office of urban and metropolitan programs american urban and metropolitan colleges and universities, by their mere location in urban and metropolitan centers, are governed by a mission which inextricably links them to the communities in which they reside. representing 87 percent of the nation's urban, 4-year public institutions of higher education, aascu and nasulgc urban and metropolitan colleges and universities are a resource and braintrust well positioned to serve as a dynamic force in the nation's urban and metropolitan communities. the community's need for education reform, skills, technical assistance, job-training, housing and urban redevelopment and the university's need to channel their energies and talents beyond the realm of theory into the world of human and community concerns, has encouraged the increasing development of college and university-community partnerships. the new aascu /nasulgc office of urban and metropolitan colleges and universities grows out of a longstanding joint commitment both associations have had to assist member institutions in improving their urban and metropolitan community linkages and in remaining at the forefront of national urban and metropolitan issues. dr. judith r. james, the new aascu /nasulgc director of urban and metropolitan programs, will report to both associations and provide staff support to the aascu council on urban and metropolitan universities and the nasulgc commission on the urban agenda. in addition, 8 metropolitan universities/winter 1993 she will work with the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities and other urban and metropolitan interest groups to coordinate the development of an agenda which addresses the diverse needs of aascu and nasulgc urban and metropolitan member institutions while working with urban and metropolitan interest groups under the auspices of other national associations such as the american association of community colleges (aacc), national association of independent colleges and universities (naicu), american council on education (ace), american association of higher education (aahe), the national association for equal opportunity (nafeo) and the national urban league. as we approach the 21st century, the greatest challenges threatening america's quality of life will have to be addressed from within that is, by the american people and in ways that have not been fully exploited. hence, in order to meet these challenges, everyone must be a participant in the problem solving process. as citizens of our nation's urban and metropolitan communities, the system of higher education is expected to strengthen cities in partnership with urban and metropolitan community members and organizations; coordinate with the public k-12 educational segment; contribute to revitalizing the economy by producing the "right" kinds of highly qualified manpower and contribute to the further training of the labor force in the context of rapidly changing technologies. moreover, urban and metropolitan institutions of higher education must promote and sustain greater social equity at a time when the more deprived sections of the population are hardest hit by educational, social and economic realities. aascu and nasulgc have recognized these challenges and are actively involved in developing and implementing programs and strategies to support urban and metropolitan institutional members in their effort to improve the quality of life in the nation's cities. the new aascu /nasulgc office of urban and metropolitan programs will provide the following services: identify and communicate state and federal budget and policy issues affecting urban and metropolitan institutions; provide technical assistance in developing and implementing advocacy strategies and advocate for urban and metropolitan institutions; develop a clearinghouse of resource materials on urban and metropolitan college and university-community partnerships; plan conferences and demonstration projects to encourage exchange of ideas on topics of interest to urban and metropolitan campuses; maintain effective liaison with major urban/ metropolitan-based professional groups; assist member institutions in enhancing community linkages in support of their urban missions. for more information, please contact: dr. judith r. james director, urban and metropolitan programs aascu /nasulgc, suite 700 one dupont circle washington, d.c. 20036-1192 (202) 293-7070, fax (202) 296-819 internet address: jamesj@aascu.nche.edu mu1993-winter-008_page7 mu1993-winter-009_page8 book review eisenhower at columbia author travis beal jacobs new brunswick, nj: transaction publishers. 2001. 354 pp. few college presidents have risen to the heights of becoming the nation's chief executive. woodrow wilson managed to do that for the democrats, and dwight david eisenhower pleased many republicans with a similar transition. but there were differences: wilson was widely known for his accomplishments at princeton; eisenhower was less well known for his academic leadership at columbia. in fact, eisenhower's tenure as president at morningside heights was widely seen as controversial and abbreviated, and his reputation was overshadowed by his political ambition and his military success. eisenhower at columbia is a study worth reading-somewhat flawed, perhaps a little too close in its focus, but very informing. jacobs was able to make very good use of personal interviews, oral history project interviews at columbia, and the dwight d. eisenhower library to develop this biography. jacobs, a senior history professor at middlebury college, traces eisenhower's triumphant return to the united states and his hesitant entry into the academic world. jacobs explores the problems confronting columbia university with the end of world war ii, including the limitations created by nicholas murray butler's extended tenure as columbia's seemingly permanent president, and the subsequent painful and uncertain quest for butler's successor. as james conant of harvard observed, the presidency of columbia was "a difficult job to handle on account of dr. butler really not handling it for some ten years." several college presidents improved their salaries by pretending an interest in butler's position. eisenhower at one time was genuinely interested in a leadership offer with the boy scouts, a situation he later regretted passing up. however, this was the same eisenhower who insisted that he was not the best qualified in his family (compared with brother milton, for example) to be a college president. in any case, he confessed he would prefer "a small school in a rural setting." new york city hardly met that requirement. furthermore, columbia was in a serious fiscal plight, and as the new president, eisenhower hated fund raising. butler, on the other hand, had known success raising money, but he died in 1947, having never met eisenhower. eisenhower began his columbia presidency in may 1948. the trustees had high expectations that eisenhower would bring major fund-raising success, a notion not shared by the new president. both were somewhat naive. the faculty did not feel consulted before or after the installation that took place the following october. eisenhower did not anticipate the many demands of his appointment, but he did work hard to cultivate the columbia football program and its coach, lou little. he visited 104 with the history faculty, but even so, this star-studded faculty group preferred adlai stevenson for president in 1952. eisenhower's growing flirtation with washington and national politics came at the expense of his college administrative duties, but not at the expense of his travels or his golf game. he failed to understand the total commitment that columbia needed from its president. and so, by 1951 he was already on official leave from columbia, serving as commander in chief for nato, and by 1952 his return to national politics was complete. jacobs believes that while eisenhower did not take the columbia position with the presidency of the united states in mind, the years on morningside heights helped prepare him for the white house. he remarked, "i found the work fun---or would have if only i could have concentrated without the distraction of other demands." his brother, milton, who served as president of three universities-kansas state, penn state, and johns hopkins-took the opportunity to make hopkins the beneficiary and recipient of dwight d. eisenhower's papers. the final and twenty-first volume will appear soon. ironically, milton had to remark that while his brother had sound educational values, he was "without experience with faculty, students, and a university. his influence on the total educational effort was not substantial." but, as jacobs observes, dwight eisenhower's appointment "had a dramatic impact on columbia and it was a publicity coup." reviewed by trevor colbourn president emeritus university of central florida 105 from the editor's desk ernest a. lynton i recently attended an international workshop dealing with innovation and regional economic development, held at the university of british columbia in vancouver. that not only provided me with an opportunity to visit, once again, one of the most beautiful cities on this continent, but also to gain a most interesting insight into current thinking about the topic of the meeting. in essence, science and technology based economic development has come to be recognized-in the words of one participant-as being lumpy. it does not occur uniformly across an entire country, or state, or province. rather, regions, and most typically regions including one or more metropolitan areas, are emerging as the central focus of economic activity as a result of the flow of goods, services, and investments, and-with ever increasing importance-the flow of information and knowledge. those regions that excel in this will be the engines of growth for the province, state, or nation of which they are a part. a major reason for the importance of regions in development in a knowledgeintensive economy is that the flow ofknowledge is not in one direction only. as i put it in a contribution to this journal last year, "knowledge is not an inert commodity, created in laboratory, library, or study, to be ... dispensed like a patent medicine .. . .it is dynamic, constantly made fresh and given new shape by its interaction with immediate issues and concerns ... the domain of knowledge has no one-way streets ... .it is everywhere fed back, constantly enhanced." as a result, development in a knowledge-intensive society is increasingly dependent on multiple and effective feedback loops linking those involved in research and development with those who deal with application and distribution of knowledge-based products. it requires a dense, multifaceted, and multidirectional interaction which is most effective when there is proximity. the new recognition of the pivotal function of the region of course reinforces the importance of the role of metropolitan universities. they are committed to working with and for their regional constituencies both in the provision of a wide variety of formal instruction to students of all ages and backgrounds, and in carrying out applied research and professional service in areas germane to the interests of their region. this makes them key components in the knowledge-centered infrastructure essential to regional development. the winter 1991 and part of the spring 1992 issues of metropolitan universities were devoted to regional development. they contained descriptions of a number of pertinent programs and projects. professor hans schutze of the university of british columbia, organizer of and substantial contributor to the workshop i have described, has agreed to guest edit a future issue of the journal that will place such activities within a conceptual context by describing current understanding of regional development. the issue will contain a number of articles adapted from presentations at the vancouver conference as well as other pertinent contributions. 4 metropolitan universities/fall 1995 the quality of community health is, of course, also a major factor in regional development, and one to which metropolitan universities can contribute substantially. i am grateful to david bell and dan johnson for their work as guest editors of the current issue that, thanks to them, contains a number of interesting articles on this topic. also in this issue are a number of other contributions of great interest to our institutions. one of these, by leslie wagner, head of leeds metropolitan university in great britain, strikingly illustrates the similarity of issues and challenges across national borders. we look forward to increasing contact with our colleagues abroad on matters of shared concern. i want to draw our readers' attention as well to the call for proposals for short term research projects on topics of direct pertinence to metropolitan universities. the call constitutes a welcome initiative by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities, one that is intended to serve the needs of its member institutions in additional ways. we look forward to the eventual publication of the research reports in the journal. with this issue we bid farewell and express our gratitude to its former publisher, john brain, who for more than two years took charge of the many facets of publishing the journal beyond the selection and content editing of manuscripts. we are all much in his debt. his responsibilities have been assumed by marilyn "matty" mattsson, whom we are happy to welcome. she has had much experience with publishing as managing editor of several technical and scientific journals, is a contractual writer/editor for several applied research organizations, and teaches in the professional writing program at towson state. mu1995-fall-005_page3 mu1995-fall-006_page4 overview andrew ]. rudnick guest editor in the pages that follow, we have compiled an initial set of interesting, focused, and serious articles on regional economic development and the various ways that metropolitan universities can, do, and should participate in the development process. public policy in this country has made communities increasingly responsible for their well-being, now and into the future; and more and more of those communities are metropolitan areas of primary and secondary size. as a result, perhaps no theme covered so far in this journal positions metropolitan universities more clearly as the 1990s urban equivalent of the agricultural extension service units of the land-grant universities created over a century ago. the impact on rural america of the land-grant institutions obviously was profound; with urban america now evolving (but probably not progressing) so rapidly, an equivalent form of comprehensive assistance and support is needed. in limited ways in certain urban areas, such assistance and support have come from metropolitan universities; however, the ways need to be increased and improved, especially because the communities need them more and more. in such a context, this issue on regional development is the first of two that have been conceived to bring together and relate actual "urban extension service" experiences, and to provide information, if not lessons, to other metropolitan areas and universities from those experiences. the particular ways in which metropolitan universities can participate directly and meaningfully in regional development have been varied. first, metropolitan universities are major institutions in their communities, possessing large pools of professional and technical expertise to help to address priority issues. similar to corporate headquarters (but positioned even better than corporations due to the universities' perceived respectability, neutrality, and lack of selfish economic motivation), metropolitan universities can be both the catalysts for bringing together and the glue for keeping together otherwise fragmented and/ or diverse groups that have to be together if complex development issues (that often have underlying political dynamics) ever are to be addressed effectively. two articles in this issue provide case studies of this role in two major u.s. metropolitan areas. mary ellen mazey' s article discusses the particular role wright state university has played in creating a regional approach to economic development planning in the dayton-springfield, ohio, area. robert caret and ted zaleski present a comparable view of the experience in the baltimore area of towson state university through its extended staffing commitment to a regional development planning initiative. second, metropolitan universities, again like major corporations, are institutions of the communities in which they are located. this means that their mere presence-irrespective of any formal programs-generates environmental, social, and economic consequences. these, in tum, 6 metropolitan universities/winter 1991 lead to a series of institutional responsibilities that go well beyond those entailed in a university's primary-le., academic-mission. gene grigsby' s article presents a case study of such a responsibility to the los angeles neighborhood surrounding occidental college, and of how the college has tried to deal with that responsibility. third, particular academic activities of metropolitan universities also have regional development impacts or potential impacts that go beyond their formal teaching, research, or service purpose. these programs also can be consciously used as formal parts of a regional development strategy. john naughton's article is comparably illuminating. it describes the outcomes of the increasing leadership role played by the university at buffalo medical school with its eight independent teaching hospitals and the effect that new role has had on the cost, marketability, quality, and accessibility of medical care in the greater buffalo area. and finally, as with any institution (especially one in an everchanging environment) that has to remain open to and capable of change if it is to continue to be vital and competitive, metropolitan universitieseven though relatively young in concept-need to evolve if they are to be as important to their urban societies as their land-grant university predecessors were to rural america. john melville's article presents carefully delineated scenarios as to whether and how that change can occur and what outcomes can be expected from each. the next issue of metropolitan universities also will focus on regional development. it will extend the perspectives contained in the present articles to other countries and will contain as well articles on urban extension and ohio's urban university program. in addition, the issue will present an assessment of the actual impacts of university research i technology parks on ongoing regional economic activity and consider ways in which metropolitan universities can meet the information needs of the community's regional development professionals who are increasingly interacting with their metropolitan university colleagues. mu1991-winter-006_page5 mu1991-winter-007_page6 from the editor's desk ernest a. lynton the theme of the current issue is education and technology. originally we intended this issue simply to carry a number of articles describing activities and programs illustrating imaginative uses of technology in metropolitan universities. i am grateful to john strange, long time friend and colleague, for having convinced me that such articles, however useful they may be, are not sufficient. i came to agree with him that it is appropriate to raise a number of fundamental questions as to whether the new technology constitutes merely more effective means to reach traditional ends in traditional settings, or whether we are into a much more fundamental change with potentially drastic implications for higher education. in his own article on the cultural revolution, and in other contributions he has brought together in this issue, john confronts the reader with these questions and i am convinced that because he does so, this issue of the journal is of unusual importance to our readers and to our eponymous institutions. my troubleand it is a personal one reflecting on me and not on the content of the articles is that being of the wrong generation, i acknowledge the questions but find myself unable even to attempt a response. i have given up my goose quill and am word processing these notes. i have even learned to use e-mail, but do so clumsily, easily stymied by unexpected problems. beyond that lies unknown and unexplored territory where i lack both sense of direction and sense of proportion needed to exercise proper judgment. i am on the wrong side of a generational gap that i will not be able to cross. i make a point of this not in order to emphasize personal failings, or to offer any excuses. rather, i do so because i suspect that many of our readers share my ignorance and bewilderment, equally unable to assess whether we are facing fundamental change, and, if so, whether it is toward a utopian vision or a dreaded nightmare. i hope that the articles on education and technology in this issue will, at least, convince them that there are very weighty issues to be examined, and that, in doing so, they need to call on the fresher perspective of the younger generation to whom the concepts in question are familiar and susceptible to sober examination. we cannot, as our generation is prone to do and indeed as i found myself muttering when first reading some of the manuscripts dismiss futuristic projections of the impact of technology as wildly exaggerated and not worthy of serious consideration. that is particularly important because of the message contained in another contribution to this issue of metropolitan universities: the forum piece based on the address delivered by governor tucker of arkansas at the recent national conference on metropolitan and urban universities held in little rock. it is a sobering text which once again underscores the need for us in higher education to reexamine our most basic purposes and processes. if in response we take a defensive posture, entering into a mode of denial, then we may be forced by external pressures into quite unacceptable changes or else we may become marginal and irrelevant, our place taken by other mechanisms and organizations. instead, we ought to take the initiative if we wish to adapt in ways consistent with our own values. and part of the reexamination that we should undertake is to explore the kinds of questions john strange and other authors in this issue pose for us. this issue contains, once again, a contribution from abroad. dr. wilson describes the extent to which educational policy in england is influenced indirectly but effectively by government funding methods . the details are specific to this coun4 metropolitan universities/summer 1995 try, but the overall message is of interest to anyone likely to be affected by the intended or unintended consequences of state and national fiscal actions. the article is part of our ongoing interest in making this journal truly an international forum for discussion of issues and interests that cut across national boundaries. the meeting in little rock featured a panel discussion with participants from canada and the united kingdom that indicated how much we have in common in spite of certain basic differences. because of that, a program committee consisting of presidents leon boothe from northern kentucky state university and don gerth from california state university at sacramento, provost blaine brownell from the university of north texas, and i are working with individuals in great britain to plan an international conference on metropolitan universities in 1996 or 1997. stay tuned: we will keep you posted. features relevant research cook, w. bruce and william f. lasher. "toward a theory of fund raising in higher education," the review of higher education 20 (fall 1996): 3351. although fundraising at public and private institutions has become critically important, it is still a relatively young profession and little has been done to explore its dynamics or systems in ways that would inform and improve practice. the value of the work reported in this research article is obvious when one considers that most of what is available to read on fundraising generally lacks much historical or theoretical perspective. the authors rightly point out that the majority of existing literature focuses on fundraising methods (how to), donor motivation, and the need for fundraising. critical, rigorous scholarly inquiry into the dynamics of fundraising is generally not to be found. this is not just another esoteric research issue; it is vitally important if higher education (and non-profit community-based organizations) are to be able to assess the outcome of their efforts, plan for improvements, understand the implications of their decisions and actions, and barbara holland, editor develop innovative strategies that respond to dynamic conditions. somehow we have developed the view that fundraising is like planning a party; there's nothing very scientific about it. however, with many institutions increasingly dependent on private support, growing competition for limited funds, and capital campaigns ranging up to a billion dollars, fundraising has become a serious and complex enterprise with high stakes. these two texans, an administrator and a faculty member, conducted a national qualitative study based on documents and interviews from 50 academic leaders. their article reflects a theoretical framework that represents fundraising as a social exchange process that is affected by four types of forces. the result is certainly a basis for further research on this important topic, but it also provides some information that can inform and improve practice, especially for presidents. cook and lasher begin with a probing historical review of the role of the presidential ceo in fundraising that succinctly presents the basis for their research questions. from their findings, 98 metropolitan universities/fall 1997 they offer 12 prerequisites for sustained namic relationship. for example, they fundraising, many of which are common can shape the choice of an institution's sense (e.g., prestige, wealth of donor new president. the expectations for a base), some of which are important points new president as fundraiser are shown to often overlooked, such as "public confibe a reflection of environmental and indence in higher education and the nonstitutional conditions that define the role profit sector generally." the authors expected and therefore suggest the perfound that not all institutions exhibited sonal qualities that should be present. instrengths in all the prerequisite areas, but stitutional factors will tend to dominate that capacity to fundraise was a balance at elite, prestigious institutions, and peracross the factors . in other words, weaksonal forces and skills will be more imnesses in some factors required greater strength in others. the article draws a distinction between success and effectiveness in fundraising: success refers to achievement of dollar targets and effectiveness includes an assessment of capability and potential as well. using the 12 factors for sustained fundraising, the authors could identify institutions that were able to be effective even though their presidents were not particularly fond of the fundraising role. a social exchange model of fundraising is presented that focuses on the interdependence between the organization and the donor who want to make an exchange with each other. the key portant as shapers of expectations for presidents at smaller institutions with less fundraising experience. the interaction of the forces changes over time. as presidents gain experience with the institution and the environment, the force of role becomes more and more dominant and they tend to spend more time on fundraising (a factor of growing confidence and competence). the authors hope that knowing the prerequisites for sustained fundraising and the systematic model of fundraising will help presidents and development officers to improve institutional preparedness for fundraising and build effectiveness through increased capacity and potential. their article is useful now, howactors (presidents, volunteers, deans, ever, in helping practitioners to move befundraising staff) are subject to four inyond thinking of fundraising as a series tervening forces: environmental, instituof fragmented or discrete cultivation actional, personal, and role. the model tivities that are controlled by the institushows how these forces influence the tion. instead, as cook and lasher show, actions and reactions of the key institufundraising is a dynamic process of enortional actors when donors make decisions mous complexity that involves the negoabout giving or not giving. the four intiation of a social exchange that is as imtervening forces are shown to have a dyportant to the donor as to the institution. from the editor's desk barbara a. holland the summer of 1998 was highlighted by a number of opportunities to discuss higher education trends and issues, all of which had implications for urban and metropolitan institutions. let me highlight three for you very briefly. first, i was pleased to participate in the start-up conference of an exciting grant program that may help expand our understanding of the mission of urban and metropolitan universities . the council oflndependent colleges (cic), with support from a kellogg foundation grant, has competitively selected eight of its private member institutions that have made an explicit commitment to the concepts of an urban mission, and exhibit many characteristics familiar to public urban and metropolitan universities . they not only provide high quality, responsive academic programming to citizens of major metropolitan areas~ they are also acutely aware of the potential impact their economic and intellectual resources can have on major metropolitan issues. through the kellogg grant program, these schools are exploring the external and internal implications of the urban mission through implementation or expansion of specific community-university partnerships, working individually and collectively to capture lessons learned that may serve as useful guides for other private institutions interested in community engagement. i believe that public urban and metropolitan universities will also learn much by observing how the complex issues of community involvement and metropolitan challenges play out in the setting and context of a private institution. some of you may have met representatives of the eight colleges when they attended the coalition conference in san antonio in february. a second highlight for me was the opportunity to participate in a challenging meeting hosted by robert diamond of the institute for change in higher education at syracuse university. more than fifty higher education researchers, presidents, provosts, deans, and trustees gathered for a three-day session that considered the question: what would be the curricular content and program design for a proposed "national academy for academic leadership?" in a rich and complex discussion we explored the pressures for change in higher education and the impact these might have on the preparation and professional development of academic and administrative leaders and faculty. bob diamond and his group are working on the idea of an academy that would provide diverse programs in support of institutional teams and leaders seeking to achieve academic change and mission distinctiveness. the discussions produced an understanding that pressures for change will not only affect institutions differentially, but that some are already changing and we can learn from their experience. many of the challenges faced by colleges and universities involve issues of higher education that have long been part of the working experience of metropolitan universities-yet another affirmation that the deliberate attention our institutions give to the characteristics of our missions and the measurement of outcomes 4 metropolitan universities/spring 1998 from our organizational strategies often become models for others. we look foiward to hearing more about this project from the syracuse group; such a strategy may accelerate institutional change across higher education through new forms of professional development and technical assistance. the third event of the summer was a major professional move in my life. from 1991-98, i had the opportunity to contribute to the strategic development of portland state university as an urban research university seen by many as a model for missiondriven change leading to significant academic and administrative enhancements. my work there was rewarding, especially as a member of the leadership team guiding psu through rapid but sustainable changes that have since inspired many other institutions to tackle reform. the psu experience taught me much about my own interests and changed my career directions in many ways, and i owe a great deal to many wonderful colleagues at psu. among other things, i learned that i truly love the creative and innovative aspects of organizational change. thus, this summer seemed the right time to accept new challenges in a new setting where i could help to make a difference in another institution's development. as of august 1, 1998, i serve as associate provost for strategic planning and outreach at northern kentucky university (nku). during 1997-98, nku's new president, james c. votruba, led the campus through a highly inclusive review of the "vision, values, and voices" that shape nku and its relationship to its region. nku identifies itself as a "learner-centered metropolitan university" and is building effectively on its already excellent reputation for teaching and learning. located in the greater cincinnati metropolitan area, nku is in the heart of an expanding regional economy with complex and changing educational and information needs. in addition, kentucky places a high priority on the development of its entire educational system as a way of creating a strong economy and a high quality of life. nku's potential to become a national model of the fully-realized metropolitan university is enormous, and the commitment of faculty, staff, students, and community is impressive. i joined nku to help facilitate the implementation of its strategic vision and action objectives, and to contribute to the enhancement of diverse external partnerships that respond to economic, social, and human development needs of the region. i will, of course, continue to serve as executive editor of this journal and to be active in coalition affairs. please make a note of my new address information on the inside front cover, and stay in touch! mu1998-fall-005_page3 mu1998-fall-006_page4 overview nevin brown the connections between urban/metropolitan universities and their l~al k-12 schools are arguably their most important interactions with the broader community. one can find several obvious reasons for the centrality of this connection--urban/metropolitan universities draw their students primarily from the public schools in their local areas, for example; moreover, most teachers and administrators in local public school systems are likely to be graduates of the colleges of teacher education within urban/metropolitan universities. other more subtle reasons may be as important, however, in this university-school connection--in particular, that efforts to improve the quality of public schools in the nation's cities and metropolitan areas depend to a significant degree on the intellectual resources available within the faculties of urban/metropolitan universities, as well as in the willingness and ability of these institutions to change their own ways of doing business, whether these be in methods of instruction, admissions procedures, and the like. the articles assembled for this issue of metropolitan universities offer a varied but, it is hoped, complementary set of viewpoints on urban/metropolitan university interactions with k-12 public schools. the moral imperative for the role ofhigher education in creating a better world for children is emphatically and clearly set out by one of the nation's foremost education leaders, ernest boyer. he urges that urban/metropolitan universities pay far more attention to the very earliest years of life of the nation's children--years which can play the most important part in the development, or lack of development, of a child's future educational achievement and opportunities for success. the education of the very young child has been the focus of only a few school-university collaborative efforts; boyer's call for action reminds the reader at the beginning of this issue that attention to all levels of education is, in the end, a compelling idea for universities committed to deepening their connection with local cities and communities. dr. boyer's article sets the stage for what follows. most if not all the articles take what might be called a k-16 approach toward school-university relationships--that increasingly the nation's public education system needs to be viewed as a single system serving largely the same clientele and oriented toward the same goals of increasing access to and success in high quality education for much larger numbers of students, particularly in urban/metropolitan areas. this approach is most explicit in the next two articles. kati haycock lays out a general case for rethinking the involvement of colleges and universities in k-12 public education, arguing that postsecondary institutions need to move from "helping" local schools via small projects affecting small numbers of students and teachers, toward more "systemic" approaches to education reform that link more closely and clearly changes in teaching and learning at the k-12 level with parallel changes and reformulations within colleges and universities themselves. my companion article (nevin brown) then discusses current efforts engaging urban/ metropolitan universities in six u.s. cities, stimulated by both a national foundation and a national higher education association, to develop mechanisms and strategies for long-term educational improvement from kindergarten through the baccalaureate degree. taking a k-16 approach to education can become a defining moment for the urban/ metropolitan university, both in terms of securing a distinctive image before the larger public in a city or metropolitan area or in giving the urban/metropolitan university a uniquely important role in the history of late twentieth-century american cities. robert smith provides a general overview of the ways in which interactions with k-12 education have shaped a particular role for an urban/metropolitan university in a small western city, while tennant 6 metropolitan universities/fall 1994 mcwilliams and barbara lewis view similar interactions in a mid-sized southern metropolitan area within the context of social change and moral imperatives which have reshaped that region during the past thirty years. to argue for a comprehensive, long-term, k-16 approach to education reform is not to suggest that more immediate actions cannot be taken or near-term benefits not found in the work urban/metropolitan universities do with local k-12 schools. recruitment and retention oflarger numbers of students, particularly those from minority populations, has been one particularly fruitful area for school-university collaboration. the contributions to this volume by arturo pacheco and james renick speak to some of the issues and problems, as well as benefits, that have been encountered by urban/metropolitan universities in texas and virginia. for urban/metropolitan universities to engage effectively with their k-12 counterparts, a number of institutional and internal questions and obstacles must be confronted. if the reader takes to heart the call for mutual "k-16" reform made in the haycock article previously cited, the investigation of the "infrastructure" for school-university engagement provided by lee teitel offers some initial observations and suggestions for internal structures which may be particularly helpful in ensuring its long-term effectiveness. all this is not to ignore, however, that urban/metropolitan universities have for a number of years already been engaged with k-12 schools in a wide range of collaborative programs, projects, and initiatives to improve the quality of teaching and learning. indeed, many lessons are already being learned from many of these efforts, including those which have focused on the improvement of the education and preparation of teachers themselves. some of the most widely known of these efforts have been the development of professional development schools involving the close cooperation of local school districts and many urban/metropolitan universities. jianping shen has obtained views from the field on the professional development school effort. these are not always congruent with those of the higher education participants and have interesting policy implications for universities seeking to initiate or deepen their engagement in this form of teacher preparation. nevin c. brown, guest columnist national association of state universities and land-grant colleges since 1984, the university of missouri-kansas city has developed the metropolitan area schools project (masp) to provide a focus for the university's collaborative programs with the metropolitan region's public schools. initially, the purpose of masp was the improvement of mathematics and science education in the greater kansas city area: to identify and prioritize math and science needs; to identify and use local resources to assist teachers and area school districts to address the needs; to identify and secure external funding for science and math educational improvement; and to develop a strong, cooperative network of educational, community, and business interests. the resulting mathematics and physics institute, established by umkc and four area school districts with local foundation and institutional funding, provides instruction to advanced high school students in universitylevel physics and calculus on um kc regional campuses. a second purpose of masp was the development of a superintendent's round table for fifteen metropolitan-area school districts (both central city and suburban). the round table enables superintendents to identify common problems and pursue cooperative projects in math, science, and related fields. in addition, the round table served as the inspiration for the kansas city consensus lnterdistrict cooperative task force, which has proposed the development of a comprehensive educational alliance to coordinate a wide range of collaborative programs in the two-state metropolitan region. for further information, contact: dr. deanna c. martin, director, center for academic development, university of missouri-kansas city, 5100 rockhill road, sass building, kansas city, mo 64110-2499. • the middle college high school is a unique collaborative program between laguardia community college, a unit of the city university of new york, and the board of education of new york city. the high school, located on the college campus, has tested the 197 4 hypothesis that a supportive collaborative relationship between a college and high school can significantly reduce the attrition rate of students considered to be potential dropouts. the middle college high school utilizes high school and college resources to reconnect youth with educational achievement. middle college students take all their high school courses on the college campus, are provided opportunities to take college courses, and are treated in all other ways as full members of the campus community. middle college faculty and staff are also considered an integral part of the host college. student self-image is improved, college is made a realistic goal, and motivation is therefore provided for students to complete high school. a career education program connects each student to the working world, enabling the middle college to use student work experiences to improve attitudes and skills. a strong counseling program connects students with peers and adults in the school com102 metropolitan universities/summer 1991 munity, providing an effective means for supporting students with educational and personal problems. the results of the program at laguardia have been dramatic: high rates of attendance by middle college students, low dropout rates (less than 7 percent), and high rates of transition to twoand four-year institutions of higher education (approximately 80 percent). with support from the ford foundation, the middle college high school model is being replicated at community colleges in a number of metropolitan settings, such as memphis, peoria, los angeles, and the san francisco bay area. there is interest, as well, in testing the model in a four-year campus setting. for further information, contact: dr. james e. lieberman, special assistant to the president for educational collaboratives, laguardia community college/city university of new york, 31-10 thomson avenue, long island city, ny 11101-9950. • one of the most wide-ranging interactive metropolitan programs is the university of rhode island/providence school department's partnership program. the partnership program was formed in 1978 under the auspices of the university's urban field center, an outreach agency of the cooperative extension service, the graduate curriculum in community planning and area development, and the providence school department. one early project of the partnership program was the development of elementary and secondary magnet programs in math and science, law and government, and international studies. a special program, project discovery, identifies fifthand sixthgrade students who are potential dropouts and provides them with summer programs in marine and environmental studies to build skills in math and science. in addition, there are special outreach and mentoring programs for the large number of southeast asian students in the metropolitan area and a guaranteed admissions program for early identification and support of minority innercity high school students seeking to enter the university of rhode island. the partnership program also includes a comprehensive dropout prevention collaborative that engages school, university, community, and business leadership to develop and coordinate social service delivery, parent education, and data collection to identify and serve potential dropouts at all points in the providence k-12 education system. the partnership program receives significant funding from local and national foundations. the program has been recognized by awards from the u.s. conference of mayors and the institute for educational research. for further information on the partnership, contact: dr. marcia marker feld, director, urban field center, university of rhode island, 22 hayes street, providence, ri 02908. mu1991-summer-102_page101 mu1991-summer-103_page102 from the editor's desk ernest a. lynton one of the characterizing dimensions of urban and metropolitan universities is their commitment to outreach. our statement of self-definition ''who are we?" states that ''we are strongly interactive. we are dedicated to serve as an intellectual and cultural resources to our metropolitan regions .... " hence metropolitan universities are all interested in bringing about greater attention to and better recognition of faculty professional service. in that ongoing struggle, there is good news, and there is bad news. the bad news is that "struggle" continues to be an appropriate term. professional service is still far from being widely recognized as an important component of faculty work, and is seen even less as a key element of institutional mission and collective responsibility. at the recent phoenix meeting of the aahe forum on faculty roles and rewards, the president of the national association of state universities and land grant colleges (nasulgc), an organization that should be strongly oriented toward outreach, spoke of the need to balance a focus on research with more attention to teaching and never mentioned institutional obligation to make its intellectual resources available to its regional constituencies. and the forthcoming national meeting of aahe, with its splendid theme "the engaged campus," doesn't have a single session explicitly devoted to professional service. there is still a lot of work to be done. fortunately, there is good news as well. our own urban and metropolitan institutions are forging ahead in placing increasing emphasis on professional service and outreach. in addition, a number of traditional state universities are making serious moves to include such activities into their institutional mission and to recognize them as important faculty activities. a very recent development of particular interest is the beginning of a convergence between two "movements" that, to date, have been quite unrelated. one is the push for greater emphasis on professional service in which some of us have been involved for many years. the other is the growing interest in what has come to be called "service learning," involvement by students in external activities in ways which not only "do good" but which also contribute to student learning. some initial contacts and conversations among individuals from both camps have taken place, and it is likely that in the near future a more formal convocation of interested parties will jointly explore how the two complementary goals can be pursued together. the connection is an obvious one. faculty involvement in professional service often provides excellent opportunities for student participation. to work with faculty members as part of a team in a joint undertaking gives an extra dimension to service learning. in addition, personal experience in the field makes faculty members far better qualified to mentor and guide student projects, even if unrelated to their own. the way in which one thinks about faculty professional service is being changed in a very basic way by the gradual recognition that it can enhance student service learning. for the first time, attention is being paid to the potential internal advantages of professional service. it continues to be a necessary and appropriate response to external, societal needs: coping with the accelerating pace of change, with increasingly complex problems, with the demands of a knowledge-intensive economy. but we are beginning to understand that there are substantial benefits, as 4 metropolitan universities/spring 1995 well, to the institution that makes professional service an important and valued component of its collective mission. these benefits go beyond the potential impact on service learning. widespread faculty engagement in outreach changes the campus environment and the teaching and learning process in important ways. greater faculty understanding of the uses of their discipline or profession helps to bridge the gap between theory and practice in the classroom. this is of particular importance for urban and metropolitan universities. their professional schools are committed to the preparation and continuing education of practicing professionals, and their students in all fields are preoccupied with career concerns. but the potential internal impact of an emphasis on professional outreach goes beyond its benefits to better preparation for effective practice. understanding the uses of the disciplines in the arts and sciences contributes greatly to one's ability to analyze complex issues and thus to be an effective citizen. therefore, as urban and metropolitan universities, we must make outreach a high priority in order to meet the needs of our external constituencies: but to enhance the quality of our education, we should do so even if these needs were absent. outreach benefits us as much as it benefits others. a final, very self-serving note in the "good news" column (at least it's good news for me): the aahe forum on faculty roles and rewards is about to publish a monograph i have written on "making the case for professional service." i hope that it will help to spread the word. the theme of this issue is very pertinent to the topic of professional service. mark lapping as guest editor has done a splendid job in assembling a cluster of contributions illustrating a number of substantial institutional outreach activities and discussing, as well, the closely related question of the role of urban studies programs in urban and metropolitan universities. he has performed his task of guest editing in spite of a transition from being the founding dean of the edward j. bloustein school of planning and public policy at rutgers to the even more demanding job of provost of the university of southern maine. we are grateful to him, and wish him well in his new position. university/community relationships constitute one of the challenges shared by metropolitan universities in different countries. metropolitan universities is pursuing its role as an "international forum" by carrying a british contribution to the issue theme. the issue also contains an interesting article on entry assessment by clark taylor from the university of massachusetts at boston, a forum piece by the president of washburn university, hugh thompson, and two book reviews. book notes vincent a. tinto. leaving college: rethinking the causes and cures of student attrition. chicago: university of chicago press, 1987, 246 pp. in leaving college, tinto reminds us that total enrollment in higher education 11 is predicted to further decline to an estimated low of 10.5 million in 1995 before increasing again in the later part of that decade." (p. 2) while institutions will experience this decline differently in response to this reality, there is a growing concern on our college campuses about student retention. by challenging administrators to come to operational terms with the notion of dropout and to reframe their thinking about departure as failure, leaving college helps administrators to think pragmatically about retention. tinto suggests that not all departures can be prevented and that students who do drop out are not deviants. he encourages institutions to view retention as secondary to a concern for the intellectual and social growth of students. this kind of thinking may be difficult for institutions faced with declining enrollments, but it is important thinking for long-term efforts. of particular interest to college administrators is tinto's chapter on strategies institutions can use to confront student departure. according to tinto, institutions must first clarify mission and goal statements, as these are the primary tools to be used in directing an institution's retention efforts. institutions must also recognize that not all students can be retained and use institutional goals to focus retention efforts for identified groups of students. in essence, tinto reinforces the notion that colleges and universities can't be all things to all people, and that administrators must focus their efforts on those students whom the institution wants and has the capacity to retain. it is for these students that colleges and universities should develop strategies to increase institutional commitment. the strategies he discusses relate to effectively integrating students into the college environment. leaving college provides university administrators with a scholarly grounding in the literature of student departure, presents tinto's own theory of individual departure from higher education institutions, and engages us in a solid discussion of institutional strategies that promote the retention of students. leaving college is a unique blend of theory and practice and, as such, is clearly an important piece of scholarship. ernest t. pascarella and patrick t. terenzini. how college affects students. san francisco: jossey-bass, 1991, 894 pp. how college affects students is an invaluable resource for college and university administrators, scholars, and researchers, and students of higher education. in this impressive work, pascarella and terenzini masterfully organize, review, analyze, and synthesize the major research on and about college students from the late 1960s through the 1980s. they organize their review according to four types of outcomes or ways that college may affect students (cognitivepsychological, cognitive-behavioral, affective-psychological, and affectivebehavioral). these four outcomes provide the general framework for the authors, who then also use a series of basic questions to guide the reader. each question addresses a kind of potential effect that college may have on students. for administrators, how college affec.ts students is a tremendous practical resource. the final two chapters provide a summary of the research findings presented in more detail in earlier chapters. the final chapter is a practical one. in it, pascarella and terenzini discuss implications for policy and practice of the research they review, making notations for the reader interested in exploring ideas and action plans in further detail. while pascarella and terenzini note the limitation of the present work as being focused only upon traditional four-year residential college students, this limitation pales in light of the contribution this work makes to research and practice. in terms of the former, by summarizing where we are, further research is focussed and stimulated. by reviewing implications for policy and practice, how college affects students challenges administrators to carefully and thoughtfullyevaluatetheirowninstitutions from a solid research perspective-and in so doing, guides administrators toward effective decision making regarding program alternatives. margaret j. barr and associates. student services and the law. san francisco: jossey-bass, 1988, 409 pp. i tis no surprise, as our society becomes increasingly more litigious, that colleges and universities need to be cognizant of the legal implications of their policies and practices. this is certainly true in student affairs. indeed, as barr in student services and the law comments, "responsible administration requires that professionals understand the legal implications of both their actions and inactions." (p. xv) student services and the law introduces administrators, and specifically student affairs administrators, to the basic concepts of the law governing higher education, examines areas of the law related to areas of book notes 93 particular high risk to student affairs practice, and then explores the law relative to specific areas of student affairs administration. this useful resource is divided into three sections. part i introduces the reader to basic concepts of the law and provides the general framework from which to understand the impact of the law on college campuses. of particular interest to student affairs administrators is the chapter that explores the applicability of the law to public and private institutions, highlighting the differences. in part ii, barr and associates take on critical issues facing student affairs and explore the legal liability of which administrators need to be aware. chapters 7, 8, and 9 should hold particular interest for most student affairs administrators as these chapters deal specifically with the family educational rights and privacy act (ferpa) of 1974, student conduct and discipline, and some of the major issues facing institutions related to negligence and alcohol. finally, part iii explores the law from specific areas of student affairs, such as residence life, admissions, counseling and health, as well as the management of student records and staff supervision. this useful reference is a tremendous supplement to w. a. kaplin's (1985) the law of higher education: a comprehensive guide to legal implications of administrative decision making. together, these works provide student affairs administrators with a comprehensive understanding of the legal implications of their work. susan m. roberts special assistant to the vice president for student affairs university of southern maine 96 falmouth st. portland, me 04103 from the editor barbara holland is the academic culture of urban and metropolitan universities different from that of other universities? such a question is not only controversial, but also difficult to objectify in ways that would support documentation and analysis. there is little doubt that the composition and priorities of faculty at urban and metropolitan institutions are distinctive in some ways and traditional in others. in addition, metropolitan working environments and student characteristics put unique pressures on academic culture and practices. at the same time, most of these faculty have as their only model the traditional cultural contexts and practices that emulate the "standard" approach to organizing academic life, departmental operations and the nature of faculty roles and rewards. the general stereotype of metropolitan universities is that their faculty communities consist of a high proportion of part-time and adjunct faculty, and tenure-track faculty who are highly diverse. many have traditional educational backgrounds, others became academics as a second career, and they all live and work as commuters just like the students. at some metropolitan institutions, about half of all undergraduate courses are taught by non-tenure track faculty, yet only a few campuses have implemented formal strategies for involving those faculty in the governance of the organization. these conditions are in part the result of the chronic underfunding common to these universities. more positively, these traits are also a reflection of the rich intellectual resources of cities where there is ready access to top leaders and professionals in business, government, community and cultural sectors. such experts enhance the learning experiences of students and the intellectual life of departments . . . if academic practices, policies, and personalities welcome these non-tenure track colleagues into the community of the institution. given these and other core characteristics, the traditions of academe that were invented in older, more traditional campuses are often awkward to translate into the urban and metropolitan university reality. for example, with classes spread from 7 am-10 pm, just finding a common and convenient time for department or committee meetings can be a daunting problem! faculty come and go at different times, and may not be housed or teaching in contiguous spaces that would promote informal interaction. part-time faculty may not even have offices or phone numbers, and usually come to campus only a few hours a week. full-time tenure track faculty are often pressed by heavy course loads and advising duties. building a sense of academic community in such an environment may seem nearly impossible. yet, in the face of these and other challenging conditions, faculty and academic administrators constantly strive to create a sense of an intellectual community, a common sense of mission, and a coherent agenda for scholarship and teaching. 3 4 at the core of this work is the need to address the issue of governance. internally, the challenge of creating and sustaining capacity for and commitment to shared governance is a work-in-progress at every academic institution. though defined in many different ways and enacted in many different forms, each academic institution seeks to build both process and commitment to shared governance that is the hallmark of an intellectual community. my own observation of many of our urban and metropolitan institutions is that the distinctive characteristics and conditions described above make it even more important that these campuses develop a clear consensus about the institution's mission and common expectations for how the organization will operate, share information, ensure consultation and participation, and make decisions. the most successful urban and metropolitan campuses (places with high morale, good faculty and student retention, innovation, achievement in teaching, scholarship, and engagement), are those where there is an obvious shared understanding of the organizational personality and priorities of the institution. such understanding is inevitably the product of hard and persistent effort by formal and informal leaders across the institution to open sustainable lines of communication and interaction, and to build a common vision (though rarely unanimous!). beyond this example of internal challenges, all universities are also shaped by external governance structures, practices, and personalities. external governance has a dramatic impact on an institution's sense of its potential and on its achievements. changes in the competitive market of postsecondary education make timely decision-making and adaptability ever more important. state laws and policies affect approaches to institutional decision-making and public access to decision-making. financial conditions (and stresses) also affect both the challenge and the importance of institutional capacity for making tough decisions efficiently and respectfully. urban and metropolitan universities are not unique in the need to understand the dynamic impacts of internal and external governance, but some of the nuances of their condition and context suggest a need for distinctive strategies and approaches. these few thoughts i off er on governance are but a slim representation of the complex issues academic organizations must consider regarding institutional governance and its evolving forms, challenges, roles, and impacts. in this issue of metropolitan universities you will discover recent works from leading higher education researchers who focus on governance. guest editor william tierney, wilbur-kieffer professor of higher education and director in the center for higher education policy analysis at the university of southern california, presents a set of essays on governance that explore both internal and external issues that affect institutional decision-making, leadership, culture, and flexibility. while drawing on national perspectives on the changing landscape of governance in higher education, the articles also offer insights into the particular contexts of urban/metropolitan universities. the authors include distinguished senior scholars in higher education research as well as emerging scholars who are shaping the future of higher education through their new perspectives. professor tierney is himself author of many books and articles that have informed and examined recent trends in academic organizations and cultures. for the readers of this journal, i would particularly suggest two works with great relevance to the issues of concern to urban and metropolitan universities: the responsive university (1998, the johns hopkins university press), and building the responsive campus (1999, sage publications). these are two essential works for leaders of urban and metropolitan universities seeking to understand changes in higher education organizations, including the growing commitment to "responsiveness" through engaged teaching and scholarship. collectively, the articles presented here offer an extraordinary analysis of key dimensions of governance, and diverse perspectives on future developments. in reading these articles one comes to understand that while academic governance obviously requires attention to leadership and decision-making structures, it also requires awareness of the practical and cultural contexts that shape an organization's capacity to build a "common understanding" among its members. professor tierney and his colleagues offer a timely review of current key questions around shared governance in academia, and the internal and external forces that influence its form and capacity. i hope you will find these useful in advancing your own academic organizations and governance practices, and that you will engage professor tierney and his colleagues in further dialogue on these important issues and questions. 5 trevor colboum editor book reviews belanger, e and d. h. jordan, evaluation and implementation of distance learning: technologies, tools and techniques (hershey, pa: idea group publishing, 1999). 245 pp. belanger and jordan provide a comprehensive overview of planning, implementing, and evaluating distance learning. their book serves as an excellent resource for institutions in the beginning stages of online programs as well as an effective evaluation rubric for more advanced initiatives. they begin by exposing the reader to assumed benefits of distance education and follow with a contin, gency model of synchronous and asynchronous environments by delivery location. the book's organization takes the reader through important program variables, distance learning technologies, media conversation, instructional design, deploying technologies, multimedia content, program implementation and evaluation. this sequence facilitates understanding distance education as a series of components, the interaction of which is more important than the individual elements. throughout the book, belanger and jordan supply their readers with important resources such as definitions, readings, and internet references. the authors present several theoretical models for summative and formative evaluations of distance education and develop a useful paradigm for scaling the appropriate mix of technology support and face,to,face instruction. the book concludes with three hypothetical case studies that focus on strategic course conversation and infrastructure evaluation. their examples present several data collection protocols and contain a model for cost benefit analysis. belanger and jordan provide a solid resource for considering the impact of distance education on students, instructors, and institutions. -charles d. dziuban patsy d. moskal 72 charles d. dziuban is director of the research initiative for teaching effectiveness at the university of central florida. chuck received his ph.d. from the university of wisconsin and specializes in applied multivariate and latent trait analysis. he is currently conducting an impact evaluation of distributed learning at the university. patsy d. moskal is the faculty research associate for the research initiative for teaching effectiveness at the university of central florida. she received an ed.d. from ucf and holds bs and ms degrees in computer science. patsy specialized in statistics, graphics, and applied data analysis. contact infonnation: dr. charles d. dziuban ms. patsy d. moskal educational foundations, ed245 college of education university of central florida orlando, fl 32816~ 1250 linda lau, ed., distance learning technologies: issues trends and opportunities (hershey, pa: idea group publishing, 1999). 252 pp. distance learning is often either little known or has an increasingly broad meaning. in distance learning technologies: issues, trends and opportunities, linda lau has created a collection of sixteen chapters that give insight into the diverse methodologies, approaches, and resulting issues surrounding distance learning deliveries in a variety of settings. whether the reader is a novice interested in discovering uses of distance learning or an expert practitioner planning for innova, tion, distance learning technologies: issues, trends and opportunities has useful examples and recommendations. no presumptions are made. no universal definition of distance learning is given. lau's commentary is minimal; rather, chapters progress from theoretical to conceptual approaches and finally application. distance learning takes various shapes and as such requires changes in thinking about teaching and learning. beginning with chapter one, many readers will agree with morphew's assertion that constructivism is the new paradigm for learning, but may disagree that most web,based learning employs behaviorism. in chapter two, purcell,robertson and purcell advocate a learner,centered approach including the use of feedback. their methodologies imply attention to process and faculty preparation contradicting an assertion made by nguyen and kira in chapter three that lnternet,based teaching is often unstructured. these authors do agree that institutional commit, ment is required to support distance learning in contrast to collections of individual faculty initiatives. institutional commitment may result in the change in a profile of an organization compared to mere distance learning events as described by berge and smith. frequently as distance learning programs mature at individual institutions, collaborative initia, tives emerge creating new issues that must be addressed. some institutions agree to collaborate on distance learning initiatives from the start. rayburn and ramaprasad illustrate some of the issues confronted by alliances in chapter six. the authors warn distance educators of the risk in joining alliances that may lead to undesired change in an institution's mission and identity. following this warning to guard one's mission is a series of nine elements (chapter seven) linking distributed learning activities with institutional strategic planning and program evaluation. the military has adopted the term distributed learning instead of distance learning. while no specific definition is given for distributed learning, similarities abound with distance definitions. schrum gives suggestions for ensuring student success as well as tips for designing the instruction itself for online delivery. citing increased attrition rates for distance learning classes, schrum calls for counseling students about required metacognitive skills and preferences. adrian follows along in chapter nine stating how students may have greater ownership of the learning process in distance learning courses when a tqm approach is used. appropriateness of technology used is also addressed through tqm. " ... quality management concepts serve as a template for the appli, cation of electronic technologies and distance learning" (p. 116) . the later chapters of distance learning technologies: issues, trends and opportunities provide case study examples of the use of particular distance technologies in settings ranging from a doctoral program at pepperdine university, digital video uses at west point, web,based training for marketing, and the first web 73 74 site for children in egypt based on the study little horus. lau has not attempted to elaborate on the issues or opportunities for the future of distance learning. distance learning technologies: issues, trends and opportunities speaks for itself and leaves the reader to decide what possibilities exist. barbara truman, davis barbara truman, davis is the director of course development and web services at the university of central florida, with responsibility for faculty and course development to create online courses and programs. barbara has a background in instructional design and has written and made numerous presentations on ucf's award,winning faculty development program. contact infonnation: ms. barbara truman, davis course development & web services admin 395,c university of central florida orlando, florida, 3 2816,2810 telephone: 407,823,3718 e,mail: btruman@mail.ucf.edu mu2000-fall-071_page71 mu2000-fall-072_page72 mu2000-fall-073_page73 mu2000-fall-074_page74 guest editors' introduction: international perspettives on community-university partnerships linda silka and robin toof universities around the world are changing. one of the ways in which they are changing is they have begun devoting resources to community-university partnerships. partnerships have become increasingly common as ways to address persistent problems in higher education, problems that include ivory tower isolation, research that too often fails to make a difference, students finishing college with little contact with the outside world, and the erosion of support for public funding of higher education. these partnerships take different forms in different parts of the world, and these collaborations face different obstacles from one country to the next. but, in all cases, these partnerships represent opportunities for universities to transform themselves to meet the challenges of the twenty-first century. part of what is intriguing about the work on community-university partnerships is that much of the literature is not found under "community-university partnerships"; it is published in disciplinary journals. environmental health scientists may be involved with and writing about partnerships, but they are not aware that faculty in education are doing the same. sociologists are engaged in partnership efforts, but they do not know that engineering faculty are struggling with similar challenges. faculty might be writing about methods used in partnerships (e.g., participatory research, communitybased research), but such writings remain unfamiliar to those outside the disciplines in which these articles are published. no core literature has formed that represents a shared body of knowledge. the result is that partnership lessons keep disappearing and must be relearned. this issue of metropolitan universities is devoted to sharing emerging developments in community-university partnerships in different parts of the world. the papers included here were written in response to a call for manuscripts that describe how community-university partnerships are being carried out in various parts of the world, place these efforts in the context of other trends in higher education, and consider the obstacles to and opportunities for community-university partnerships around the world. our contributors are from many different countries, cultures, and a variety of disciplines. thus, this issue presents diverse perspectives as well as writing styles. nevertheless, as these papers demonstrate, there is much to be learned from each other's efforts. the countries represented in these thoughtful, and sometimes provocative, papers include australia, brazil, great britain, indonesia, kenya, south africa, south korea, sudan, and the united states. some papers describe the efforts of entire universities to 5 6 build engagement practices through partnerships (portland state university in the united states and university of queensland in australia). some report on individual centers or individual programs and the benefits and costs of universities carrying out their engagement activities through a focused center (university of brighton, great britain, and university of texas el paso, united states). some papers emphasize innovative approaches that can get traction through beginning with individual classes or individual study areas. some focus on the challenges that result when universities traditionally viewed as elite institutions are now interested in engagement (brazil and south korea). in many ways these papers capture the paradoxes of partnership. some raise the question about the paradoxical nature of the roles that must be successfully enacted if partnerships between two such different entities as communities and universities are to succeed (south africa). some point to the fact that this is exactly what universities should be doing, but the reward structure does not support it (south korea). partnerships are deeply about locale. they are about working in the local context. so how can we learn from one another if our contexts, experiences, and approaches differ so vastly? this is indeed the challenge that these papers raise. it will be important to be able to think about the experiences and strategies in the sudan or south korea or south africa and formulate a set of guiding questions about when and how their lessons apply to those of us who work in other countries. we need to learn lessons from each other's experiences, but at the same time we need to be careful not to apply these lessons rigidly to completely different contexts. one of our tasks will be to understand what makes particular contexts for community-university partnerships similar or different. what are the prospects for a greater emphasis on community-university partnerships in higher education throughout the world? as these papers suggest, there is much promise in this approach. there is much that is likely to be beneficial, but there is also much that is challenging. and the challenges are not merely about resources. the challenges are about whether universities are intended to be places set apart from the ordinary, everyday problem solving or whether universities have a role to play in engaging communities to find solutions to the problems we face. there continue to be those in academia who see engagement as a dilution of the higher education mission. others see engagement as enriching and strengthening teaching and research. indeed, community-university partnerships are at the heart of this intellectual battle about the goals of higher education. throughout these papers we will see that these questions about higher education remain very much alive throughout the world as assessments are made of what universities are doing well and what they need to do better in the coming decades. author information linda silka is the director of the university of maine's margaret chase smith policy center and professor in the school of economics. she was formerly at the university of massachusetts where she was special assistant to the provost for community outreach and partnerships and directed the center for family, work, and community. professor silka has published widely on the challenges and opportunities of community-university partnerships and engagement and facilitated the development of many long-term partnerships between university faculty and community partners. robin toof, ma, co-director of center for family, work and community at the university of massachusetts lowell, has her master's degree in community social psychology and a certificate in regional economic and social development and is a doctoral candidate at umass boston in higher education administration. she has worked in the field of research and evaluation, community partnerships, program management, and facilitation for almost 20 years. linda silka margaret chase smith policy center 5784 york complex, bldg. #4 the university of maine orono, me 04469-5784 e-mail: silka@maine.edu telephone: 207-581-1553 robin toof university of massachusetts lowell center for family, work and community wannalancit mills, first floor 600 suffolk street lowell, ma 01854 e-mail: robin_toof@uml.edu telephone: 978-934-4678 7 from the editor's desk ernest a. lynton thanks to the tireless efforts of its guest editor, susan fratkin, this issue of metropolitan universities brings you an interesting and useful collection of articles on the implications of telecommunication for our institutions. some articles describe its use in collaborative programs linking schools and the university, others focus on the development of electronic networks, and some deal with continuing professional education for teachers, for physicians, and for engineers. one article provides a glimpse of the library of the future, in which emphasis is shifted from onsite collection to electronic access to distant materials. the article by robert wood on regional planning is not part of the issue's theme, but supplements it very well. to the discussions of technical modes of outreach, it adds a cogent description of a regional activity in which metropolitan universities should play a pivotal role. through all these contributions there runs a common theme: the modern university, and most particularly a metropolitan institution, must change its form in fundamental ways in order to provide the functions needed by society. the geographic range of its activities must reach well beyond the physical limits of the campus. that is hardly a new idea: it is central to the land-grant idea and was expressed by wisconsin's president van hise almost a century ago when he said that the borders of the campus are the boundaries of the state. but what for many decades continued to be not only physically but also conceptually peripheral activities have now begun to pervade the core of our institutions. when contemporary presidents like george johnson at george mason speak of "the interactive university," they no longer refer to the need for some add-on activities by an office of continuing education or an off-themainstream extension program. they conjure up a new vision of the metropolitan university, which in its entirety participates and contributes to a two-way flow of individuals, ideas, and information linking the institution and its region. that vision was articulated in the very first issue of metropolitan universities in the article by charles hathaway, paige mulhollan, and karen white. it is contained in the declaration of metropolitan universities, which has appeared repeatedly in these pages, and it has been elaborated in every issue of the journal. some issues dealt with the internal consequences of that interaction in terms of student diversity, curricular changes, and faculty challenges. other issues, including the last two with the theme of regional development as well as the current one with its focus on telecommunication and the article by wood, have described both targets and methodologies of outreach. all of this material, together with many articles slated to appear in future issues of this journal, is beginning to coalesce into a set of recognizable features of the interactive,metropolitan universityand todelineatewhathathaway,mulhollan, and white called an institutional model for the next century. the need for such a model is becoming more apparent by the day. the warning cries raised by a few of us over the years are beginning to be heard and heeded more widely. a recent front page article in the chronicle from the editor's desk 3 of higher education described the growing realization of many academic administrators that the current fiscal trauma, affecting so many of our colleges and universities, is not a temporary crisis to be met by appropriate belt tightening. it heralds a long-term change in society's attitude toward higher education and its willingness to support it, and it calls for fundamental changes" in the prevalent model and mode of operation of our institutions. metropolitan universities are making substantial progress in developing variants of the new interactive model in response to both shortand long-term needs of society. but such progress is, as yet, not adequately matched by progress toward equally necessary adaptations of institutional modes of operation. some encouraging signs exist. the publication of ernest boyer's report scholarship reconsidered has substantially raised awareness and discourse regarding the need to broaden the definition of scholarship and to adapt both the system of values and rewards governing faculty status as well as the ways in which we prepare future members of the professoriat. the journal issue on "the new american scholar" discussed some of these matters, and a subsequent issue on the topic has been scheduled. to date, however, little concrete change has taken place on our campuses. fundamental adaptation is needed, as well, in our modes of instruction which, at this time, are neither pedagogically nor financially effective. can we teach both better and less expensively, or is that an inherent contradiction? much is happening with regard to the use of computers in the classroom and even as a substitute for traditional, face-to-face instruction. a future issue of metropolitan universities will contain descriptions of some of the principal developments and assessments of their effectiveness and value to date. at this time it is still very difficult to assess the extent to which computers will succeed in bringing about fundamental and pervasive changes in our way of teaching-and indeed whether such changes, if brought about, will really be either pedagogically more effective, or more economical, or both, or neither. the necessary reexamination of modes of instruction cannot be limited to the potential of the computer. metropolitan universities, in particular, must take into account that they are characterized on the one hand by more mature students and, on the other hand, by a responsibility to help practitioners acquire and maintain their competence. they need to explore very different approaches to the current balance between didactic instruction and independent learning, and to find better ways to inculcate team work. much greater attention is needed, as well, to the proper utilization of prior and concurrent experience, and to the development of a more practice-based epistemology. the organization and administration of our institutions constitute a third dimension of necessary adaptation. it has, to date, received the least systematic attention, let alone concrete activity-except for the reactive changes triggered by drastic staff reductions. crisis management rarely leads to truly costas well as function-effective reorganization. basic rethinking of how we structure our institutions and how we manage them is needed not only in reaction to new fiscal realities, but also because now we are moving toward a new functional model, the idea of the interactive 4 metropolitan universities/summer 1992 university. the effectiveness of such a university is inhibited by traditional boundaries between disciplines, departments, and schools; between "regular" and continuing education; between fulland part-time student attendance (and perhaps between fulland part-time faculty); and even between credit and noncredit instruction. questions need to be raised as well about our current bifurcation of academic and student affairs, and about the often duplicative organization of the latter. even more fundamental are questions about the decision-making process and about how to combine an appropriate degree of administrative leadership and managerial control, the possible inclusion of new constituencies, and the essential participation of the faculty. to mention these problem areas is easy; to conceptualize alternatives without introducing new barriers and new duplications is very difficult. it is a task which urgently requires attention. metropolitan universities can contribute to this process by publishing thoughtful and provocative articles on pertinent issues: we continue to issue a standing invitation for such contributions. marguerite ross barnett 1942-1992 the editors of metropolitan universities mourn the untimely death of marguerite ross barnett, president of the university of houston-university park, a contributor to this journal and member of its editorial board. dr. barnett was a national leader in defining and furthering the role of metropolitan universities. mu1992-summer-003_page2 mu1992-summer-004_page3 mu1992-summer-005_page4 overview: the status of african americans in the academy dianne wright, guest editor the status of african americans in academe has been of concern to many in american higher education for almost two centuries. during the 1960s, the civil rights movement and the climate of social unrest of that era led to efforts to diversify higher education in the united states. unfortunately, however, after almost four decades of implementing policies designed to provide for more diversity in american educational institutions, we are still grappling with the issue of race and under-representation of african americans in all aspects of higher education in the united states. this volume provides historical perspectives and interpretations of current challenges. brian haynes opens the issue with an overview of the evolution and participation of black undergraduate students in the academy. the author places special attention on the historic events that have served as landmarks in this evolution. in the context of the 2003 u.s. supreme court decision involving race-conscious admissions at the university of michigan, abraham and jacobs analyze the current status of african americans in graduate and professional schools. the authors note there has been a rise in the number of african americans seeking degrees in higher education since the tum of the twentieth century. today this rise, at best, has stabilized and continues to be insufficient to meet the need for faculty of color among the professorate. by way of analysis, the authors note that though there has been a rise in the number of african americans seeking undergraduate degrees, over the last decade there has been a decrease in the enrollment percentage gap of african americans in graduate school. the southern regional education board's (sreb) 2000/2001 fact book on higher education, which draws data from several national sources, provides much of the information for this analysis. the authors conclude that there is a "pipeline" problem. strategies and recommendations are posed, highlighting the work of several of today's urban and metropolitan universities throughout the u.s. as well as that of the southern regional educational association (sreb) to address this pipeline issue. clara awe continues with a focus on the status of african american faculty in u.s. colleges and universities. numerous ·works are cited noting that historical accounts of minority scholars' exclusion from full participation in the academy is virtually absent from the standard histories of the united states and american education. concerns about the status of african americans within the professorate reached an all time high during the 1960s and 1970s. the civil rights movement and the climate of social unrest of that era led to efforts to diversifying the faculty ranks in higher education. much of this concern, however, has dissipated over the last twenty-five years. in the 5 6 dawn of the twenty-first century and over the past almost three decades of implementing policies to diversify the professorate, issues of race and under-representation of african americans in the professorate are as prominent as ever, though urban and metropolitan colleges and universities appear to be taking more of a lead in this area than the more traditional, rural, mature public and private research universities that have remained more inaccessible. wright, taylor, burrell, and stewart address issues of african american administrators and staff, beginning with the unique role that historically black colleges and universities (hbcus) have played in providing opportunities and going on to describe the impact of various court mandates, legislative acts, executive orders, and lawsuits. the writers describe the types of positions that african americans have been able to garner as well as concomitant sources of funding and/or support. the authors conclude by noting that the situation is not much better for african american administrators and staff (including african american women) as college and university persons of power and authority than it was three decades ago and that racial discrimination is what continues to hinder their progress. several urban and metropolitan institutions, however, are staying the course and are pointed out by the authors as examples to watch and follow. the thesis of wright's article is that the composition of higher education governing bodies, local boards of trustees, and state legislatures affects the internal functioning of education at all levels and, therefore, greatly impacts the results of policies affecting african americans in academe. an underlying focus here, as in earlier metropolitan universities journals, is related to the theme of higher education governance. wright contends that governance matters as higher education's leaders struggle with the myriad of challenges that will confront them in the twenty-first century. statistics reveal that urban and metropolitan colleges and universities, most of which are public, tend to have governing boards that are more diverse in terms of african americans and other minority individuals and, therefore, may not have the severity of legitimacy issues of some other institutions. other, more traditional, rural, mature, and oftentimes public and private research institution boards are challenged on the grounds that they are too homogenous to govern what have now become diverse institutions. harper and harper explore "institutions in transition" and focus specifically on the historically black college and universities (hbcus) and the changed higher education environment. as such, the authors note that hbcu s are being forced to reassess their missions and decide how best to serve their constituencies, which like their urban and metropolitan counterparts tend to include students who are economically, educationally, and ethnically disadvantaged, immigrants, first generation college students, and from diverse backgrounds. at the same time, urban hbcu s must continue to contribute to the shape and economic growth of urban areas, both nationally and around the world. robert hall focuses on the future of african americans in u.s. higher education. in this closing article, he notes that we are faced with some tough challenges, especially considering the current climate that does not consider an honest representation of african americans in all aspects of higher education to be a pressing issue. it is well documented that higher education in the twenty-first century is serving its most diverse population to date. this work traces the evolution of this diversity and features proposed strategies used by urban and metropolitan colleges and universities for turning around seemingly unsolvable issues of race and under-representation in academe. each of this volume's writers is currently involved in an ongoing process of navigating these seemingly troubled waters, with some degree of success, albeit still in many respects, a struggle. author information dianne wright earned a b.s. in psychology, a m.s. in counseling and human systems, and a ph.d. in higher education administration from florida state university. she served as equal opportunity office staff for the florida board of regents, state university system; equity coordinator for florida's state board of community colleges; and budget and policy analyst for the governor's office in florida. she also served as special advisor to the president for social justice at west virginia university. dr. wright earned a tenured associate professorship of higher education administration at the university of akron in akron, ohio, where she also served as coordinator of the graduate program in higher education administration and as the university's p-16 liaison. dianne wright, ph.d. associate professor of higher education administration higher education leaders program florida atlantic university college of education 2912 college ave davie, florida 33314 e-mail: dwright@fau.edu telephone: 954-236-1080 fax: 954-236-1050 7 mu2006-7-006_page5 mu2006-7-007_page6 mu2006-7-008_page7 from the editor's desk barbara a. holltlnd in january 1998, a conference was held that has advanced the understanding of the nature and form of complex university-community partnerships and of the role of the federal government in supporting such interactions. for the first time, the u.s. departments of education and of housing and urban development jointly sponsored a conference exploring the lessons learned from some of their grant programs that fund university-community partnerships. for two days, lively discussions took place among community leaders, government officials, university representatives, and public school administrators. clearly, there has been a dramatic increase in the use of collaborations to address the large systems that shape community life, such as the schools, health care, public safety, job creation, or social services. the decade of the 1990s has been a time of increasing awareness of the tnultidimensional, interrelated nature of the challenges and opportunities facing our nation's communities. a theme that grew from the conference discussion was the new, experience-based understanding that the probable effectiveness of economic and community development strategies is driven, in great part, by the involvement of the educational system at all levels. to see the growing integration of education with community and economic development, one need only look at some of the grant programs administered by the two federal departments hosting the conference. both agencies have sought to use federal support as a catalyst for encouraging local solutions to local problems, utilizing the convening capacity and intellectual resources of higher education institutions as a means to organize and sustain local collaborations. two programs intended to promote university engagement in community-based issues through partnership activities are the housing and urban development (hud) community outreach partnership centers (copc) and the urban community service program of the department of education (title xi). a study of the abstracts from the grant recipients yielded the following areas of emphasis. among 59 copc grants awarded from 1994-97 by the office of university partnerships at hud, 34 included one or more activities related to educational reform, school improvement, and student success. of these, 11 involved the creation of new or improved academic programs such as language education, math and science curricula, reading rooms, field trips, and experiential learning. ten included strategies to improve student success and retention; seven had components related to school-to-work programs. thirteen supported mentoring and tutor4 metropolitan universities/spring 1998 ing services for students. other educational activities funded by copc grants included parental involvement, technology education, links to social services, teacher development, and community involvement. the 34 grants that included elements of education also had some combination of one or more other grant activities more familiar to hud's more traditional interests: housing, community and economic development, job and workforce development, etc. the title xi grants have a longer history, beginning in 1992. taking the 32 awards funded in 1995 as an example, these grants from the department of education included 18 projects that did not have any specific component related to schools or education. many projects focused on other critical urban issues such as delinquency/crime/violence, health, community and economic development, housing, leadership development, community-based research, and environmental advocacy. clearly, the myriad issues and challenges related to improvement of the total educational system and the pursuit of effective strategies for community development and revitaliz.ation are increasingly understood to be interrelated. the ideas and models of university-community partnerships that were developed at the conference will be available in summer 1998 through a proceedings publication produced by hud and the department of education. it will be a valuable resource to all urban and metropolitan universities as we engage in more and increasingly complex partnerships with our cities. the two federal grant programs, copc and title xi, are relatively small in terms of the big picture of federal funding to universities, but for the institutions that have sought these grants, they have been key levers for achieving institutional transformation. federal support has helped to validate the scholarship of community engagement as an important element of the mission of many institutions, certainly of the urban and metropolitan institutions. title xi, in particular, is the only federal program that uses specific eligibility requirements to designate urban and metropolitan institutions as uniquely qualified to apply for funds. title xi has been sustained only through the coordinated lobbying efforts of several higher education associations (including the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities) and other advocates. unfortunately, only continuation funding has been available during the last two years. the hud community outreach partnership center program, which is the focus of this issue of metropolitan universities, was funded as a five-year demonstration project and will be up for review and renewal this year. these programs are key to ongoing efforts to build and sustain universitycommunity relationships that are the defining characteristic of urban and metropolitan universities. even if your institution has not received one of these grants, your campus has benefited from the greater visibility they have given to urban and metropolitan institutuions and to the growing value placed on university-community interactions. i encourage you to make sure that your congressional leaders are 5 aware of the importance of these programs as tools for linking education and community development strategies in response to the challenges and opportunities fucing our cities. in addition, we must continue to encourage, if not demand, the development of effective communications and logical relationships among different federal programs that have related purposes and goals. i want to thank mary ellen mazey, who has assembled a diverse array of articles for metropolitan universities that draw critical lessons from the experiences of some of the copc grant sites. to give all copc grantees an equal opportunity to contribute, the articles were selected through a peer review process. as director of the office of university partnerships at hud during 1997, mary ellen effectively raised the level of visibility of the copc program among institutions of higher education, and improved the network of communications and sharing among the grant projects. she was a major force behind the idea of this first joint conference between two federal agencies. her commitment to the program and to the promotion of community engagement as a defining aspect of urban and metropolitan institutions identifies her as a national leader in the exploration of community-university partnerships. metropolitan universities.i .u.....-..ri /~ " ....... ~d """'r--.. i ....... i i i --·-· metropolitan universities the quarterly journal of the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities "academic institutions are in a state of transition throughout the world this is a time of change, of stress and opportunity. the education of those who will lead the world in the twenty-first century is in our hands. " "if you share our deep concern about the future of higher education in the u.s. and other countries, you 'ii want to subscribe to metropolitan universities. we need not only your interest, but also your input on important issues . ... " "metropolitan universities aims to be provocative. to challenge readers to examine traditional approaches and propose innovative solutions. metropolitan universities also aims to be useful. we 're on the ground floor of the ivory tower. we want to express vision, but also to document what works. " -executive editor emeritus ernest a. lynton each issue focuses on an important theme in higher education today. if you are not currently a subscriber, call now for subscription information and a free examination copy! published for the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities by towson university publishing office: 7800 york road, towson md 21252 phone: (410) 830-3468 fax: (410) 830-3456 learning communities: foundations for student learning and engagement by frank e. ross and scott e. evenbeck leaming communities provide the context for student success by placing students in cohort groups often centered on their majors or on themes in which they have interest. in the recent report on the first ten years of the national survey of student engagement (2007), kuh and his colleagues stressed both the importance of students having a high impact educational experience in the first year (e.g., learning community) and participation in an educationally engaging activity with a faculty member in their major (e.g., undergraduate research, internship, service-learning, or study abroad) . as part of the liberal education: america's promise (leap) program, the association of american colleges and universities (2007) has developed a set of principles of undergraduate excellence which stress the importance of providing students with a compass or pathway for charting their course through the undergraduate years . hence, the learning community can be the context for setting the stage for entering students, giving them-in their first year-a preview of the options for engaged learning later in their collegiate experience as well as both the philosophical and practical reasons for planning such engagement. leaming communities represent a movement in higher education pedagogical reform that receives considerable attention. collaboration among various communities of practice, both within and across institutions, provides tremendous support for sustaining this work and brings it to the forefront of discussion in higher education. the washington center for improving the quality of undergraduate education, housed at the evergreen state college, is the center of activity in the development, enhancement and assessment of learning communities. the journal of learning communities research, housed at kennesaw state university, contributes to the scholarship of teaching and learning by providing an interdisciplinary forum to engage learning community researchers and practitioners. also, the national resource center for the first-year experience and students in transition, at the university of south carolina, provides considerable support to the national dialogue on learning communities through publications and other professional development opportunities. a national learning communities conference is convened annually by delta community college, harper community college, indiana university-purdue university indianapolis (iupui), kennesaw state university, and the metropolitan 5 6 community college of kansas city, and has become the largest national conference devoted solely to the discussion of learning communities in higher education. in november 2007, higher education professionals came together on the campus of iupui for the 12th annual national learning communities conference. the conference theme, "students at the center," provided a foundation for discussion of the critical role that students play in learning communities on campuses across the country. conference sessions addressed a wide variety of topics related to the impact of learning communities on student learning including: student-centered pedagogies, diverse students in learning communities, the co-curriculum, integration in the firstyear experience, undergraduate research in learning communities, assessment of learning community outcomes, the role of student mentors, and residential learning communities. it is critical for practitioners working with learning communities to assess and document their effectiveness in enhancing student learning and success. the 12th annual national learning communities conference provided many examples of this. the articles in this special issue of metropolitan universities journal are representative of that good work. lauren p. chism, sarah s. baker, michele j. hansen, and gayle williams discuss the benefit that first-year students at iupui receive as a result of participating in intentionally-linked academic support initiatives, including a bridge program, learning communities and themed learning communities. their data suggests that students experience positive gains in academic success as a result of enrolling in these mutually supporting programs. ellen r. belton and tracey f. lander describe a semester-long faculty development program designed to support learning community faculty at brooklyn college. these faculty members are successful in enhancing the learning and academic success of their students as a result of participation in this integrative development program. john ambrose, karen hauschild, and kathleen ruppe detail the powerful partnership between academic affairs and student affairs at north carolina state university. this collaborative work resulted in the first year college village, a successful first-year living and learning community that creates "a seamless learning environment that positively impacts student persistence towards graduation." ann gabbert, corrine peschka, and jackie spradley discuss the impact of developmental reading learning communities on students at the university of texas el paso, an urban commuter university with a non-traditional student body. juan carlos huerta, gale stuart, lauren chism, and michele hansen remind us that we all continue to evolve learning community programs as a function of assessment and research. they stress the need for multiple methods to describe accurately the impact learning communities have on student learning and success. articles in this special issue were chosen to represent the diversity of contemporary best practices that inform the current state and set the foundation for the future of learning communities work. faculty, staff, administrators, and students working in and with learning community programs will benefit from the strategies outlined here, all designed with intentionality to support student learning and success. references association of american colleges and universities and national leadership council. 2007. college learning for the new global century: a report from the national leadership council for liberal education and america's promise. washington, dc: association of american colleges and universities. national survey of student engagement. 2007. experiences that matter: enhancing student learning and success. bloomington, in: national survey of student engagement. author information frank e. ross, iii, ph.d. assistant vice chancellor for student life and learning indiana university-purdue university indianapolis campus center suite 350 420 university boulevard indianapolis, in 46202 e-mail: frross@iupui.edu telephone: 317-274-4431 fax: 317-274-2864 scott e. evenbeck dean of university college indiana university-purdue university indianapolis taylor hall 815 w. michigan streetuc 3165 indianapolis, in 46202 e-mail: evenbeck@iupui.edu telephone: 317-274-5032 7 5 sustaining innovation: capstones, curriculum, and community partnerships at portland state university amy spring portland state university (psu) is honored to have the opportunity to create this special issue of metropolitan universities. “curricular innovation: engaged capstones at portland state university” has offered psu the meaningful opportunity to reflect and identify some of the hallmarks that have contributed to the successful launch, evolution, and sustainability of the university’s community engagement efforts. this publication shares the story and the lessons derived from psu’s innovative general education reform, particularly in regard to the senior-level capstone which is the signature and culminating aspect of our community-engaged curriculum. articles also review complementary pedagogical practices and institutional policies, and some recent innovations in the engagement agenda at psu. this issue is meant to provide illustrations and lessons learned that we hope will prove useful to other faculty, administrators, and campus communities that wish to initiate or advance engaged learning and community-campus partnership activities within their curricular contexts. 2015 marks the twentieth anniversary of portland state university’s implementation of the capstone program. as one of the first and largest community-based education programs in the country, the capstone at psu engages upper-division, multidisciplinary teams of students in a six-credit course that collaborates with a community partner to respond to a community-identified need. with 240 capstone courses working with 130 community partners to engage 4,300 students in community-based applied learning settings annually, we believe we have discovered useful ideas and practices to share. these unique courses have served for two decades as the backbone of psu’s community engagement efforts and have proved to be a durable, sustainable, and effective model. on the occasion of this significant anniversary, we are pleased to share how this distinctive aspect of our undergraduate curriculum shapes teaching and learning for students and faculty, contributes to communities and community partners in meaningful ways, and has ultimately served as a catalyst for the expansion of community engagement that touches virtually all corners of the campus. historical and demographic context portland state university is a fifty-acre campus situated in downtown portland, oregon, enrolling more than 22,000 undergraduate and 5,600 graduate students. this urban-serving university celebrates its well-known motto, “let knowledge serve the 6 city,” by animating the student and faculty teaching and research experience with engagement opportunities that use a variety of learning and research models to link the campus community in partnership with community organizations for mutual benefit. in the early 1990s, psu reformed its undergraduate general education requirements to include a six-credit, senior-level, multi-disciplinary, community-based capstone course, situated within university studies, psu’s innovative general education model that features intentional pathways of tiered learning. in the capstone, students and faculty work with community partners collaboratively to respond to a communityidentified concern. in 1994, the article “a model for comprehensive reform in general education: portland state university” was published in the journal of general education; it provides the specific details of our unique curricular model that is the foundation of psu’s success as a leader in curricular innovation and communityuniversity partnerships (white 1994). on the national scene, the u.s. department of housing and urban development (hud) created the office of university partnerships (oup) in 1994 to promote the union of higher education and local communities (hud 2015). central to the mission of oup was the involvement of higher education institutions in the creation of jobs and healthier communities (hud 2015). oup launched several new grant initiatives that greatly increased national attention to the mutual benefit of campus-community partnerships. at the same time, psu was beginning to examine the role of communitybased learning in its new vision for a structured and challenging general education program. the intersection between the establishment of oup and conversations about how to bring community engagement alive in the educational experience of psu students greatly informed the initial development of the capstone program. more than twenty years later, community-university partnerships are at the forefront of teaching and research initiatives focused on community growth and sustainability for many higher education institutions around the world. anchor institutions are recognized by oup as exemplars of universities’ and nonprofit organizations’ commitment to local communities (hud 2015). significant engagement work ranges from small-scale projects with short-term objectives to larger projects carried out over several years and engaging students and faculty from multiple courses, schools, and colleges. the diversity of community-university partnerships reinforces the need to develop an understanding for the nuances associated with developing authentic relationships between communities and institutions of higher learning. there are remarkable examples of successful community-university partnerships in which the community and university work together to develop and achieve shared goals (cooper et al. 2014; sandy and holland 2006). over the many years of our community-engaged practices, psu faculty, students, and administrators have implemented this full range of partnerships and have learned how to support and sustain¬ individual course-level efforts as well as multi-year projects that engage a variety of community and university stakeholders. grounded in the foundational literature surrounding community-based teaching, learning, and research, and informed by effective engagement collaborations and practices over the twenty 7 years of our experience, psu has developed some expertise in these arenas, particularly relating to curriculum with the power and possibility to transform campus and community. therefore, this journal issue focuses on the story and model of our community-based capstone courses. included in this issue the articles included in this special issue of metropolitan universities detail some of the important lessons learned in partnership and curricular development that reveal the way engagement plays out in the lives of faculty, students, and community partners. twenty years of sustained, engaged pedagogy and research have informed how the university defines and forwards faculty professional support efforts, assessment practices, methods of partnership development, systems that support the varied curricular and co-curricular interests of students, and a diversity of projects that are variably suited for students depending on where they are in their academic development. partnership activities at psu began with the implementation of the university studies curriculum and, more specifically, with the offering of the community-based capstone courses. over time, partnership activities have made their way into university policy, faculty scholarship and research, and the overall student experience. we have honed our competence in offering community-based capstones and have more recently expanded our work to include community-based research, the development of an institutional commitment to strategic partnerships, focused partnership agendas that target work in geographically bounded communities, and the expansion of communitybased teaching using online learning platforms. these innovations in psu’s engagement work are only possible because of the powerful commitment to the idea that community engagement is essential to realization of the university’s mission. establishing and sustaining the capstone program initially catalyzed and continues to reinforce that message. “sustaining change: successes, challenges, and lessons learned from twenty years of empowering students through community-based learning capstones” outlines the essential building blocks that make the capstone program effective as one of the largest and longest sustained community-based education programs in higher education today. author seanna m. kerrigan expands on the historical and institutional contexts of the program’s design; describes structural and operational issues related to the program, including those involving staffing and budget; and offers nuts-and-bolts details involved in efficiently managing a program of this size and scope. in “connecting curriculum to community research: professional services, research, and teaching,” w. barry messer and peter collier describe a successful and longrunning partnership program with local governmental organizations. this program, which originated as a single pilot capstone course, has effectively engaged many students and faculty in community-based teaching and research in paid and unpaid roles that produce scholarly outcomes as well as useful outputs which inform regional waste management policy. 8 “cultivating community: faculty support for teaching and learning” identifies how the capstone program encourages internal community-building among faculty as a means to provide professional support for those who are teaching community-based courses. celine fitzmaurice highlights the ways that the program’s faculty support and assessment efforts align and inform individual professional growth and overall programmatic improvement. seanna m. kerrigan, vicki l. reitenauer and nora arevalo-meier describe lessons learned about “enacting true partnerships within community-based learning: faculty and community partners reflect on the challenges of engagement.” their article is based on the results of a qualitative study of faculty and community partner perspectives. interviews with these practitioners give voice to both the challenges of partnership and its rewards, and offer new insights on effective collaboration among faculty, community partners, and students. “putting impact first: community-university partnerships to advance authentic neighborhood sustainability,” by michelle l. holliday, tony defalco, and jacob d. b. sherman, describes how the institute for sustainable solutions focuses its partnership activities in geographically defined neighborhoods to create synergy among the efforts of numerous faculty members and students. in the spirit of their collaboration, this article is co-authored by a psu staff member, a psu graduate student, and a community partner. “to this day: college graduates on the lasting significance of relationality and experiential learning” describes a long-term partnership that has engaged more than 3,500 students in an intensive, transformative, educational experience with persons experiencing significant disabilities. grounded in the critical incident technique, ann fullerton and vicki l. reitenauer provide insights about what characterizes students’ most significant learning experiences in college and generalizes the applicability of these factors beyond community-based learning settings. “‘contagious co-motion’: student voices on being change agents” highlights a unique course among capstone offerings—one in which students select their own community partners and pursue projects related to those collaborations. the authors, vicki l. reitenauer, tetiana korzun, kimberly lane, and melinda roberts, include three students who offer their experiences and perspectives in their own voices, as they reflect on how a course can build on their personal backgrounds and interests in ways that propel them to heightened levels of leadership around social and political issues of their choosing. “online community-based learning as the practice of freedom: the online capstone experience at portland state university,” by deborah smith arthur and zapoura newton-calvert, describes initiatives that have launched online community-based courses and which continue to work toward the successes in student learning and engagement that mark face-to-face community-based courses. based on a comprehensive review of the literature around online learning, the authors reflect on 9 their teaching practices, lessons learned, and further opportunities for curricular development and community engagement in the online realm. “from capstones to strategic partnerships: the evolution of portland state university’s community engagement and partnership agenda” provides the framework of a recently developed partnership typology and an administrative structure that is being used on campus to systematically understand, organize, and manage partnerships within a highly decentralized campus context. written by erin flynn, the article includes a case study reflecting how the university is engaging a strategic partnership agenda through multiple units, schools, and colleges in collaboration with a large public utility. “beyond the university: an initiative for continuing engagement among alumni” describes a recently implemented pilot program that harnessed the enthusiasm students have for the community work they do in their capstones and moved them into supported roles as change agents in their communities in their transition from students to alumni. the authors, david osborn, jennifer alkezweeny, and kevin kecskes offer two theoretical models that ground this program and reflect on insights garnered from this of-the-moment effort. conclusion it is our hope that these articles will help the reader understand how the capstone program has served as a cornerstone of much of the community engagement work psu has done over the last twenty years. the bold and important decisions that were made back in the early 1990s, that resulted in undergraduate general education reform and the embedding of community-based learning into the requirements of nearly all students receiving an undergraduate degree from psu, have shaped a host of additional engagement activities. the ingenuity and enduring commitment of all those who engage in this work allows us to celebrate the sustained changed and continuing growth of psu’s engagement efforts. the lessons learned from this unusually large, effective, and sustained model of engaged learning may inform and encourage other institutions as they design engaged curriculum in the context of their mission. we, the guest editors of this issue (amy spring, vicki reitenauer and seanna kerrigan), deeply thank the authors included in this publication for their scholarly approach to teaching and learning, engaged research, and reciprocal partnership practices. special thanks to public administration graduate student nora arevalo-meier for her exceptional research contributions to many parts of this collection. we are grateful for this opportunity to reflect on this effective model of engaged learning and partnerships, and we hope readers will find applicable elements and ideas that will advance the community-university partnership movement on their own campuses. 10 references cooper, jonathan g., zeenat kotval-k, zenia kotval, and john mullin. 2014. “university community partnerships.” humanities 3 (1): 88–101. doi: 10.3390/h3010088. sandy, marie, and barbara a. holland. 2006. “different worlds and common ground: community partner perspectives on campus-community partnerships.” michigan journal of community service learning 13 (1): 30-43. u.s. department of housing and urban development (hud). 2015. “portland state university: partnering to serve the city of portland with knowledge.” retrieved august 27. http://www.huduser.org/portal/casestudies/study_08132015_1.html. white, charles r. 1994. “a model for comprehensive reform in general education: portland state university.” the journal of general education 43 (3): 168-229. author information in her role as community research and partnership director, amy spring works with psu students, faculty, staff, and community partners to facilitate and support the growth of community partnerships. she has spent a significant part of her career working on institutional change efforts related to engagement, while also facilitating faculty and student workshops focused on community engagement and coordinating recruitment of students and faculty to participate in applied community-based teaching. amy spring office of research and strategic partnerships portland state university po box 751 rsp portland, or 97207 e-mail: springa@pdx.edu telephone: 503-725-5582 4 from the editor barbara a. holland during the last decade, new conceptions of "teaching as learning" and "service as civic engagement" have fostered the creation of more distinctive campus missions and academic environments for students and faculty. perhaps this change is, at least in part, because long-term pressure on issues of institutional accountability and performance have inspired campuses to adopt more specific interpretations of faculty roles, student learning goals, and organizational values and priorities. after all, if one is to be held accountable, there is a great incentive to be clear about expectations and commitments. this issue of metropolitan universities journal features a set of articles that focus on the "scholarship of engagement" as a distinctive element of institutional missions, and explores the different approaches being used to promote greater faculty interest in scholarly work that serves both an intellectual and a public purpose. the articles were originally presented at the "university as citizen conference" held in february 2001 at the university of south florida. these manuscripts were selected through a refereed process as among the best papers focusing on the challenges of introducing, expanding and validating the scholarship of engagement. i wish to thank marcie finkelstein and her usf colleagues for creating both a great conference and this useful and informative set of papers for our readers. of course, readers of this journal know well that the idea of linking academic work to public purposes as a distinctive element of an institution's mission is not new or recent. urban and metropolitan universities have long held that while they have many basic traits in common with other universities of their classification type, their mission and priorities also are shaped strongly by their deep intellectual interaction with and attention to the characteristics of their region. the learning environments of their students and the academic work of their faculty are shaped in conspicuous ways by the issues and traits of the metropolis, and the future of campus and city are seen as intertwined. now, many other institutions are feeling enormous pressures to demonstrate they are contributing not only to the economic development of a region, but also to the enhancement of social fabric and community capacity through campus-community partnerships. today, public service, engaged scholarship, community service, or outreach programs are strategies of growing interest to institutions of all types. rising levels of national discourse, grant program participation, and affiliate membership groups (e.g. campus compact which has grown to more than 750 institutional members of all types) suggest an expanding interest in civic engagement as legitimate academic work, and as a tool for creating a more distinctive institutional mission. there's a lot of institutional experimentation going on, and the federal government, a few states, and many foundations are funding engagement projects to promote university involvement in communities. this does not mean that urban and metropolitan universities have lost their claim to engagement in civic matters as a distinctive aspect of their mission. in fact, the urban and metropolitan institutions may yet find they are entering an era where they are seen as advanced examples of engaged scholarship. achievement of new levels of prestige and recognition as institutional leaders in engagement efforts will depend on the creation of new methods for documenting levels of activity and commitment in order that institutional differences can be described accurately. the historic problem with engagement and the urban or metropolitan mission is that the scholarship of engagement has not been valued or legitimized by inclusion in ranking systems. however, as more institutions become involved, it becomes more obvious that engagement is not equally central to the mission of every institution, and there are important differences in the levels of institutional commitment to the scholarship of engagement as a core element of the academic culture of the campus. in addition, when funding is available there is also the probability that some institutions will give lip service to engagement in order to garner funds. how would a funder judge the level of an institution's commitment to the scholarship of engagement? there is clearly an urgent need to devise methods for articulating the core principles and qualities of this work in order to be able to distinguish among institutions regarding their level of commitment and the quality of their approach to civic engagement and partnerships. urban and metropolitan institutions have long understood that our existing systems for classifications and rankings are incapable of capturing and describing these important differences. too simply said, this is because current classification and ranking systems draw on measures that reflect the acquisition of assets, along with a few inputs and outputs in some formats. using mostly asset-based measures, the carnegie classification system, for example, was created with the intent that it be a tool to guide research and facilitate data analysis by grouping institutions with similar characteristics. what is needed instead is a multi-dimensional system that describes what institutions actually do with their assets. how do they use their assets, and what do those choices reveal about the institution's mission and academic priorities? institutions that cluster logically around one dimension shift to a very different group of peers when measured by another dimension. for example, although currently measured traits place them in the same carnegie category, the university of alabama campuses at tuscaloosa and at birmingham are dramatically different institutions along core organizational dimensions, such as their different interpretations of engagement and public service as elements of their campus mission and the associated impact on faculty roles. they also serve different student markets and accordingly have thought differently about learning environments, facilities, and services. research studies that fail to consider these kinds of in-rank differences must be considered oversimplified at best. in past editorial columns, i have reported on the carnegie foundation's interest in revising the classification system to make it more representative of the multiple dimensions of an institutional mission. the foundation envisions changing from the current single scale to a series of scales and indicators that will characterize instructional and service activities as well as research. in this approach, a particular institution will have several classification indicators, rather than the current single classification. through its grant to victor borden at indiana universitypurdue university indianapolis, the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities has been supporting some exploratory statistical work that will be helpful in the quest to develop indicators in areas that reflect unique aspects of the urban and metropolitan mission. the challenges we face in creating a method for documenting civic engagement activities and levels of mission commitment are many, but there is widespread commitment to doing the research necessary to overcome those challenges. there is no question that inclusion of scholarly engagement in carnegie, and any other system for clustering institutions, is long overdue and of urgent importance. certainly, this change will enhance the academic legitimacy of this work for some faculty who continue to hold reservations about the scholarly value of engagement. what is measured is what is valued. this need for greater legitimacy for the scholarship of engagement is a recurring theme in the articles in this issue of the journal. 5 6 what we must do to document civic engagement is to develop indicators for the levels of activity, types of activities, and degrees of centrality of engagement to the mission of the institution. a core challenge is that civic engagement is currently implemented in many different forms and interpretations. although interest in the scholarship of engagement is obviously expanding, it remains a reform movement that lacks standard intellectual constructs and cultural traditions similar to those used to describe faculty research and teaching tasks. there is no standard vocabulary public service, service, outreach, engagement and many other terms get used interchangeably in some settings and are defined with great specificity in other settings. service is a term that, in particular, has had many meanings and applications, few of which have carried much weight in traditional academic culture. in addition, engagement is by its very nature, a collaborative activity that is dependent on partnerships with individuals and groups external to the institution. institutional and community issues, histories, cultures, and capacities inspire different forms and approaches to engagement programming, and different forms of interactions. unlike research and teaching which are often individual endeavors, engagement calls for faculty to share project design and implementation with internal and external partners; thus attribution for project outcomes is rarely clear. case studies show that this diversity of approaches across engagement activities and institutions is not unimportant; it is strongly related to the effectiveness and sustainability of engagement activities. this core trait of variability must be considered in developing any approach to documentation. if a measurement strategy is to be useful for describing institutional effort with respect for local contexts, it must create general standards for comparability purposes while also acknowledging the legitimacy of diverse approaches. in this way, we will be able to understand and describe the differences in levels of institutional commitment without destroying the innovative elements that are essential to this work. a design for describing institutional commitment to engagement challenges our traditions of one-size-fits-all measures, and will not be an easy task. engagement is a powerful force for diversifying institutional missions and cultures, making it more difficult than ever to imagine accurate ways to cluster institutions into groups with common traits. however, we must persist because the era of institutional diversity is upon us; the age of imitation is over. some institutions have embraced this agenda; others have little interest or do not see engagement as valuable scholarly work for their faculty and students. other institutions say they are interested in engagement, but they are more interested in winning grants than sustaining a commitment to community partnerships. these differences are probably intellectually and culturally appropriate, based on mission differences, but without documentation there is no way to explain those differences, especially to those who would fund or otherwise recognize engagement programs. this variability is both a challenge to the development of measures, and proof that measures are urgently needed to create objective indications of effort and sustained commitment. promising directions for the next stages of research on the scholarship of engagement are evident in the articles found in this issue. such research will finally lead to recognition of a core element of the mission of urban and metropolitan universities. barbara a. holland, executive editor indiana university purdue university at indianapolis 815 w. michigan street, uc 3169 indianapolis, in 46202 telephone: 202-708-3061 e-mail: barbara_a._holland@hud.gov peer-led team learning pratibha varma-nelson abstract this article describes the peer-led team learning ( pltl) model of instruction and the critical components for its successful implementation and dissemination. it speculates about the future of pltl and reflects on the lessons learned by the pltl coalition as it evolved from a small consortium to a national network of about 160 faculty, fourteen hundred peer leaders and over fifteen thousand students from several disciplines, institutions and states. peer-led team learning workshop model recommendations to improve student learning are clear: integrate peer-to-peer interactions into the pedagogical design by including teamwork and emphasizing time on task (astin 1993; seymour and hewitt 1997). it is a distinct challenge for urban universities to implement these recommendations. urban universities tend to have a diverse student body of traditional students, returning students, and transfer students with varied academic backgrounds. many are first-generation college students lacking role models and appropriate mentors. a large portion may hold full-time jobs and some are raising families. moreover, english is a second language for many of these students. these factors contribute to high attrition rates in gateway math and science courses. the challenge to faculty is to keep good students engaged without leaving behind those who are less prepared. feedback from industry indicates graduates lack adequate communication skills and experience with teamwork. student concerns center around impersonal teaching methods, lack of mechanisms for smooth transition from high school to college or community college to university, and a general feeling of isolation that comes from not being part of a community of learners. the frustrations of both faculty and students can, in part, be traced to the over-reliance on the lecture model of teaching in class, which is commonly used in undergraduate science courses, and the lack of structure for encouraging students to work together. lectures have benefits, but they also have limitations related to lack of student involvement. one way of including peer-to-peer interactions into the structure of a course is through incorporation of peer-led team leaming (pltl) workshops to complement lecture (varma-nelson and coppola 2004; varma-nelson, cracolice, and gosser 2004). pltl links the use of a trained peer-leader with small group work and integrates these into the structure of the course. the pltl model preserves the lecture and introduces a new structure, a weekly two-hour workshop, where six to eight students work as a team to solve carefully structured problems under the guidance of a peer leader. pltl draws from the following four well-established areas of educational design and research: group learning, reciprocal teaching, educational theories attributed to vygotsky, and studio instruction (varma-nelson and coppola 2004). the 19 20 pltl model provides the mechanism by which students can verbalize what they already know and discuss how that relates to the newly acquired information and ideas. this provides a unique opportunity for students to construct new conceptual understandings that are often omitted in standard curricula (cracolice and trautman 2001). peer leaders are central to the pltl model. undergraduate students who have recently completed the course, have done well, and demonstrate good communication and leadership skills are recruited to serve as peer leaders. to be successful in this role requires more than content knowledge; peers must be carefully trained for this leadership role. the role of the peer leader is to facilitate group work for a team of students whose collective goals are to master the course content and learn habits of thought necessary for success in the discipline. the peer leader is neither an "answer giver" nor a substitute lecturer, such as a graduate student in a recitation or discussion session. peer leaders set by example the idea of honoring and respecting active participation by all group members. they are responsible for helping students learn more effectively in group settings, complementing lecture-based methods that are commonly used by faculty members during the formal class meeting. with time, the peer leader begins to distribute leadership activities to other individuals. the leader helps students build enough trust and understanding to communicate openly with each other, challenge each other, debate and discuss issues without being intimidated. once this community of learners is formed, feelings of isolation should be alleviated. peer leaders have expertise as recent successful learners of the subject matter, in that course, at that institution. since peer leaders are likely to have similar backgrounds as students, they form effective intellectual and social role models (rogers 2003) from which first-generation students may benefit. in addition, because they are familiar with and have succeeded in the institutional culture, peer leaders can help the students make a smooth transition from high school to college or help transfer students from community colleges adjust to the culture of the new institution. peer leaders can serve other important functions as well. they can serve as a bridge between faculty and students, helping the students understand the expectations and goals of the faculty for the course. faculty, on the other hand, can learn about special needs and concerns of the student body from the leaders. a peer leader provides a built in feedback mechanism, improving communication for all. the pltl model of instruction is well suited to address the needs of students at urban universities. workshops are an ideal place for students who come with various academic backgrounds to learn from each other. pltl provides a good environment not only for students to understand science and communicate with each other in the language of the discipline, but also to learn and practice communication in english. for students who hold full-time jobs and/or are raising families, pltl workshops help impose a rhythm on the course and provide a structured time for keeping up with homework and understanding the material covered in lecture. finally, pltl models instruction in the classroom the way knowledge is constructed in research groups, where students are taught to do "real science" (varma-nelson and coppola 2004). it is not remedial in nature and addresses the educational needs of both traditional and non-traditional students. the pltl workshop model is a robust model of instruction that has been successfully introduced in both twoand four-year colleges, as well as in research universities (www.pltl.org). although the model is most well developed for chemistry, pltl has also been successfully implemented in biology, physics, mathematics, and computer science courses. outcomes the results of the pltl workshop include improved retention and better grades for all categories of students male, female, majority and minority, commuter or residential (tein, roth, and kampmeier 2002; varma-nelson and gosser 2005). in successful pltl programs, students are more satisfied with their educational experience. the majority of students in pltl workshop programs state on evaluations that they would recommend the workshop course to their peers (gafney 2001). pltl workshops benefit peer leaders as well. for most students, serving as a peer leader is a transforming experience. all who serve in this capacity have the opportunity to develop team-building skills while gaining a deeper understanding of the content. in the words of one peer leader, "i am serving as a peer leader in three courses so i can review the material. this is a great way to review for the mcat." peer leaders have commented in surveys that it wasn't until they served as leaders that they realized how many gaps they had in their own understanding of chemistry and that being peer leaders forced them to reflect on their own strengths and weaknesses as learners. they also learn that there are many reasonable ways to solve a problem, not just the one that they have constructed. their relationship with faculty and the institution is also altered. they evolve from being recipients of instruction to being partners with faculty in the design of the instructional environment for their peers (varma-nelson and coppola 2004). with time, peer leaders become increasingly independent at performing the tasks of being peer leaders in workshops and often become interested in taking on other leadership roles or become interested in pursuing careers that involve teaching and research. recent research findings (gafney and varma-nelson 2002, forthcoming; tenney and houck 2004) point to the following gains when students take on the role as peer leaders: •increased content knowledge and better success in higher-level science courses. •increased confidence to pursue science-related careers. •an appreciation for different learning styles. • improved "people skills" and collegial relationship with the course instructor. 21 22 successfully implementing pltl over a decade of experience with the development, implementation and evaluation of the model and its dissemination result in the articulation of the following six components that are indispensable to successful introduction of pltl workshops into courses (gafney 2001). professors teaching the course are involved in the selection of materials, training and supervision of peer leaders, and they review the progress of workshops. the best results are obtained when students see tasks performed in the workshops as relevant to the overall goals of the course. for this reason, faculty who are lecturing in the classroom must be involved in the design of workshop and assessment materials, as well as the training of peer leaders. when faculty teaching the course do not stay involved in the development of the materials and training of peer leaders, positive gains generally seen when pltl workshops are introduced in a course are not realized. the workshop is integral to the course. lecture allows the professor to provide the expert's view of the subject, convey enthusiasm for the topic, model ways of thinking and analyzing, and transmit content to a large number of students, and therefore, should not be replaced with pltl workshops. rather, workshops should be an addition to the lecture, sharing the same goals. the purpose of workshops is to process ideas and develop a deeper understanding of concepts introduced in lecture. ideally, participation in workshops should be required as part of the course. the course goals and benefits of participation must be explained at the beginning of the course. when a new pedagogy is introduced, all stakeholders need to be educated about it. peer leaders are selected, trained and supervised to be skilled facilitators of group work. first-time implementers should recruit peer leaders from their existing classes. in subsequent semesters, recruitment of leaders will become easier, with existing leaders helping faculty recruit. the next task is to select a model for leader training that is best suited to the institution. whichever model is selected, it must include discussions on pedagogy, content of the workshop and group dynamics. the selection process and training of leaders is described in detail in peer-led team learning: a guidebook (gosser 2001). evaluation data (gafney 2001) show that leader training is not optional and faculty involvement in training is vital. without training, leaders become "answer givers" instead of facilitators. when faculty are not involved and they rely on a ta or a senior peer leader to do the training in their absence, there is a disconnect between what is occurring in the lectures and the activities in the workshop. between facilitating workshops, attending training sessions, and reflective journal writing, a leader typically commits six hours per week to pltl. it is recommended that leaders be compensated for their involvement in service hours, tuition waivers, credit, or cash. compensation for the peer leaders should be scaled to whatever work is the most appropriate comparison on campus (tutors, student aides, laboratory assistants). other benefits, such as priority registration status, may be provided to the peer leaders as well. it is neither beneficial to the leaders nor to the students for the peer leaders to work with the same faculty member and the same course repeatedly. the more experienced leaders should be encouraged to take on the role of a coordinator of leaders with responsibilities for recruiting and reading weekly journals and giving the leaders constructive feed back. they can also participate in training new leaders or other faculty, on campus as well as at other faculty development workshops outside their institution. workshop materials are appropriately challenging, relevant, directly related to material covered in lecture and designed for small group work. materials should be "titrated" to students' abilities, course expectations, and institutional setting. problems used to create workshop units should be difficult for most individuals to do alone, but not so challenging that a team cannot complete them successfully in a faceto-face setting. the best problems are the ones built around concepts that students have misconceptions about. the problems that students always have difficulty with on exams make good workshop problems. primary literature is also a good source of thought-provoking problems. solutions to the workshop problems should not be provided for the students or the leaders because the focus in a workshop is on the process of finding and collectively evaluating answers and then arriving at a consensus. confidence in the solution should come from debate and discussion just as it does in research, not from consulting an answer key. workshops are held once a week for two hours, contain six to eight students per group, in space suitable for small-group activities. a team of six to eight students and one peer leader provides a team large enough to ensure heterogeneity of ideas and diversity of intellectual abilities and resources without being so large as to prevent participation by all team members. in general, groups larger than six to eight are harder for a peer leader to manage and tend to take on characteristics of recitations, where individual participation can drop to negligible amounts and discussion can be taken over by dominant students (michaelson, knight, and fink 2002; sarquis et al. 2001). while two hours is the optimum length for a workshop and allows the group to engage in group activities, the project evaluations reveal that ninety minutes is also adequate. pltl is supported by the department and the institution with funds, course status and other support. support from the department chair, senior faculty and dean of the school are essential for successful implementation of pltl (sarquis et al. 2001). two types of support are necessary, financial and a faculty reward system that values good teaching. a detailed discussion surrounding institutionalization issues can be found in the pltl guidebook (kampmeier, varma-nelson, and wedegaertner 2001). 23 24 a model for disseminating pltl the goal of the pltl project leaders in 1998 was to design a comprehensive plan to disseminate the pltl model of instruction to undergraduate faculty teaching in mathematics and science disciplines. the dissemination model had to include the following features to be successful: ( 1) faculty development designed according to good pedagogical principles; (2) a self-sustaining mechanism; (3) a method by which new adopters might go through the implementation process in less time than was needed by the original group; and, ( 4) flexibility allowing for adaptation and local variation without undercutting the effectiveness of the model. dissemination of pltl had to be treated as a scholarly activity, not just a marketing effort. the design had to be unique and built around the critical components for successful implementation of pltl. besides faculty, two other groups needed to be educated-the learning specialists and the administrators who are responsible for the budgetary and infrastructure needs of the program. further dissemination of pltl required faculty and peer leaders forming partnerships. the perspective gained by peer leaders through their experiences as students in workshops, as well as facilitators, is unique and invaluable for the potential implementers. peer leaders are both recipients of and contributors to this pedagogy. their involvement in faculty development workshops allows faculty to experience the pedagogy, with faculty playing the role of the students rather than simply learning it in theory. keeping these factors in mind, a model of dissemination was designed (varma-nelson and gosser 2005) around activities organized into the following categories: • stimulating broad interest in the pltl model. • creating a deeper understanding of the pltl model. • assisting adaptation and implementation of the pltl model. • developing and nurturing an expanding leadership that, in part, would stimulate interest in others and feedback to the first stage. stimulating interest in the pltl model. activities included in this tier are presentations at national, regional, and local meetings; publication of a five-volume pltl series by prentice hall; as well as publication of a project newsletter, articles in peer-reviewed journals, chapters in books about teaching and learning, and construction of a project web site (www.pltl.org). the presentations and publications explain the model and stimulate interest and curiosity among those who are not familiar with the model. creating a deeper understanding. this tier of dissemination is for those who wish to learn more about the model with an interest in implementing pltl workshops in their own courses. activities consist mostly of workshops, which range in duration from three hours to three days. the content of the workshops is the same and designed to address the critical components for successful implementation of the pltl model. however, the time devoted to each topic varies depending on the length of the workshop. most of the three-day workshops have been part of the nsf-funded chautauqua faculty development program. while participants in these workshops were mostly chemists at the beginning, recent participants have come from all science fields. for example, a workshop was presented at the university of wisconsin, madison for thirty-two members of a computer science national consortium, which is using the pltl workshops to increase the number of female, minority and non-traditional students in their field. another workshop was presented to about fifty faculty at morehouse college where pltl workshops are being introduced in all the science courses. assisting with implementation. at this level, dissemination includes support for faculty piloting pltl workshops in their courses with financial assistance and mentoring from the pltl national project. the workshop project associates grant (wpa) program provided up to $5000 per course per institution and a maximum of $10,000 per department per institution to assist faculty and learning specialists in developing and implementing a pltl course at their institution. the rationale for this program was to initiate institutionalization on the campus by requiring matching funds and establishing a link with the pltl project through peer review and connection to mentors. as a result of these associations, the new implementer would not be isolated, but would become connected to a national network and have the support of an external coalition. at the conclusion of their project, the wpas are required to submit a report to our office. preliminary data in the reports indicate that most of the wpa recipients had attended a chautauqua course. of the 234 attendees at the chautauqua courses, seventy became wpas. it is clear that the majority would not have implemented pltl in their courses without the mini grants, for of the sixty-eight respondents, forty-eight said they would not have implemented pltl in their courses if the wpa grants had not been available. listed among the strengths of the pltl model were: "higher grades and lower attrition," and "the ability to add an active learning component without changing everything else in the course," and " ... a format which is both structured and flexible enough to be adopted." some of the challenges identified with pltl implementation were training of peer leaders, availability of workshop materials, funding, organizational arrangements and faculty involvement. while most of the proposals received were of high quality, some were not. it was surprising to learn how many faculty were not familiar with the process of writing and administrating of grants. a few expected the review process to be less rigorous than it was and were not pleased to receive negative comments from the reviewers even though the comments were meant to be constructive. the applicants always have an opportunity to respond to the comments. assistance was provided in every aspect possible through consultation with project faculty to help the applicant succeed in receiving the grants and implement the program effectively. developing new leadership. each year since 1999 the pltl project has hosted an annual leadership conference for new implementers to encourage interactions among 25 26 the initial implementers and the new adopters to create new leadership through planning and participation in project activities and to determine the future direction of the project. many faculty other than the founding group have organized symposia on the pltl model, presented posters, made oral presentations and presented workshops at the local, national, and international meetings. in addition, several have published papers in peer-reviewed journals. catalysts and barriers for disseminating and institutionalizing pltl forming a relationship with a publisher. published pltl materials have assisted the dissemination process. prentice hall has assisted dissemination by distributing complementary text copies. the guidebook and the handbook for peer leaders have been valuable for discussions at workshops and as materials participants can take with them for future reference. those implementing pltl workshops in disciplines other than chemistry have found it necessary to develop their own materials (varma-nelson and gosser 2005). some of these materials are posted on the pltl project web site. students. students who have been in workshops have proven very effective in convincing other faculty to adopt pltl in their courses. it has been our experience that faculty are more convinced by students' testimonies of the benefits of pltl than their colleagues' testimonies. department chairs. department chairs and administrators can be effective in bringing about change. for example, a department chair brought the entire chemistry faculty in his department and a learning specialist to a chautauqua course. this department has introduced pltl in all chemistry courses. some institutions have included pltl courses in their first-year experiences. barriers to pltl. barriers to dissemination and institutionalization remain the availability of materials, proper training of peer leaders, funds to pay the leaders, and faculty involvement. institutional culture and faculty reward system also play an important role in institutionalization as discussed earlier. even when pltl has been successfully implemented on some campuses it has failed to be institutionalized. thus, increase in retention and better grades are not enough for adapting a new pedagogy. factors determining whether pltl will be institutionalized are complex and are still being evaluated. future of pltt project funding from nsf for the project is about to end. the pltl project has a national presence, however, it is unclear how deep are its roots. many faculty at a variety of institutions and disciplines have incorporated pltl into their courses successfully. further dissemination of the model lies in the hands of current implementers. without major funding, dissemination at the local and regional level is the only practical approach. the decentralized project has a good chance of surviving because pltl makes sense intuitively and is firmly based in research literature about how students learn. it is relatively easy to implement and it produces results. it does not need sophisticated technology to be successful but sophisticated technology can be used in a pltl setting to do significantly complex projects. when done well, it has something for each of the stakeholders, better grades for students, better understanding of content for students and peer leaders, lower attrition rates and a leadership role for the good students. new adopters will decide the fate of pltl. how people incorporate pltl into their courses will depend on the problem they are trying to address. pltl has a sound theoretical background and can be used as a vehicle for deeper changes in a course or entire department. it provides a path for rethinking course content and pedagogy, the role of students, the relationship of students to the department, and students' role in the educational enterprise as a whole. references astin, a.w. 1993. what matters in college: four critical years revisited. san francisco: jossey-bass publishers. cracolice, m., and j. trautman. 2001. vygotsky's theories of education: theory bases for peer-led team learning. in peer-led team learning: a guidebook, eds. d.k. gosser, m.s. cracolice, j.a. kampmeier, v. roth, v.s. strozak, and p. varma-nelson, 94-102. upper saddle river, nj: prentice hall. gafney, l. 2001. workshop evaluation. in peer-led team learning: a guidebook, eds. d.k. gosser, m.s. cracolice, j.a. kampmeier, v. roth, v.s. strozak, and p. varmanelson, 75-93. upper saddle river, nj: prentice hall. gafney, l., and p. varma-nelson. 2002. what happens next? a follow-up study of workshop leaders at st. xavier university. progressions 3 (2): 1, 8-9. gafney, l., and p. varma-nelson. forthcoming. peer-led team learning (pltl): a study of former workshop leaders. journal of chemical education. gosser, d. k. 2001. the peer-led team learning workshop model. in peer-led team learning: a guidebook, eds. d.k. gosser, m.s. cracolice, j.a. kampmeier, v. roth, v.s. strozak, and p. varma-nelson, 1-12. upper saddle river, nj: prentice hall. kampmeier, j. a., p. varma-nelson, and d. wedegaertner. 2001. peer-led team learning: organic chemistry. upper saddle river, nj: prentice hall. michaelsen, l., a. knight, and l. fink. 2002. team-based learning: a transformative use of small groups. westport: praeger publishers. pltl web site. available online at http://www.pltl.org. 27 28 rogers, e. m. 2003. diffusion of innovations. new york: free press. sarquis, j. l., l. j. dixon, d. k. gosser, j. a. kampmeier, v. roth, v. s. strozak, and p. varma-nelson. 2001. the workshop project: peer-led team learning in chemistry. in student-assisted teaching: a guide to faculty-student teamwork, eds. j. e. miller, j. e. groccia, and m. miller, 150-155. bolton: anker publishing company. seymour, e., and n. hewitt. 1997. talking about leaving: why undergraduates leave the sciences. boulder: westview. tenney, a. and b. houck. 2004. learning about leadership: team learning's effect on peer leaders. journal of college science teaching (may): 25-29. tien, l., v. roth, and j. kampmeier. 2002. implementation of a peer-led team learning instructional approach in an undergraduate organic chemistry course. journal of research in science teaching 39 (7): 606-632. varma-nelson, p. and d. gosser. 2005. dissemination of peer-led team learning (pltl) and formation of a national network embracing a common pedagogy. in teaching inclusively diversity and faculty development, ed. m. ouellet, 503-518. stillwater: new forms press. varma-nelson, p., and b. p. coppola. 2004. team leaming. in the chemists' guide to effective teaching, eds.n. pienta, m. m. cooper, and t. greenbowe, 155-169. upper saddle river: prentice hall. varma-nelson, p., m. cracolice, and d. gosser. 2004. peer-led team learning: a student-faculty partnership for transforming the learning environment. in invention and impact: building in undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics education. http://www.aaas.org/publications/books_reports/ccli/. prentice hall series gosser, d. k., m. cracolice, j. kampmeier, v. roth, v. strozak, and p. varma-nelson. 2001. peer-led team learning: a guidebook. upper saddle river, nj: prentice hall. gosser, d. k., v. strozak, and m. cracolice. 2001. peer-led team learning: general chemistry. upper saddle river, nj: prentice hall. gosser, d. k., v. strozak, and m. cracolice. 2006. peer-led team learning: general chemistry, 2nd ed. upper saddle river, nj: prentice hall. kampmeier, j. a., p. varma-nelson, and d. wedegaertner. 2001. peer-led team learning: organic chemistry. upper saddle river, nj: prentice hall. kampmeier, j. a., c. c. wamser, k. d. wedegaertner, and p. varma-nelson. 2001. peer-led team learning: organic chemistry, 2nd ed. upper saddle river, nj: prentice hall. roth, v., e. goldstein, and g. marcus. 2001. peer-led team learning: a handbookfor team leaders. upper saddle river, nj: prentice hall. varma-nelson, p., and m. cracolice. 2001. peer-led team learning: general, organic, and biological chemistry. upper saddle river, nj: prentice hall. admowledgments this material is based upon work supported by the national science foundation, division of undergraduate education, course and curriculum development program through the following grants: nsf-due 99722457, nsf-due 0004159, and nsfdue 0231349 i would like to acknowledge the students, faculty and learning specialists from across the national pltl project for their participation in the development and support of the pltl model. special thanks to brian coppola, ashley bennett golomb and jack kampmeier for their thoughtful comments on this manuscript and the national science foundation, division of undergraduate education, for generous support for over a decade. finally i would like to acknowledge the continued support of my husband john, son suneel and daughter priya. author information pratibha varma-nelson is professor of chemistry and chair of the department of chemistry, earth science and physics at northeastern illinois university. she has been an integral part of the pltl project for over a decade and has contributed to its development, implementation, evaluation and national dissemination. pratibha varma-nelson, chair department of chemistry, earth science and physics professor of chemistry n ortheastem illinois university 5500 north st. louis chicago, il 60625-4699 e-mail: p-varmanelson@neiu.edu telephone: 773-442-5669 fax: 773-442-5668 29 mu2006-12-020_page19 mu2006-12-021_page20 mu2006-12-022_page21 mu2006-12-023_page22 mu2006-12-024_page23 mu2006-12-025_page24 mu2006-12-026_page25 mu2006-12-027_page26 mu2006-12-028_page27 mu2006-12-029_page28 mu2006-12-030_page29 185 the complexities of community-based websites ann bomberger and michelle homan abstract this article describes the development and ongoing operations of the greeneriepa. org project, a portal to all things environmental in erie county, pa. through regular input from community partners, greeneriepa turned into a much larger, long-term project than the faculty coordinators at gannon university, erie, pa, originally anticipated. we utilize eckerle curwood and others’ (2011) framework for planning long-term community-based learning projects to reflect upon community-based websites and to make recommendations. the world wide web turned twenty-five in the united states in 2014. it is now possible for anyone with an internet connection and basic computer literacy to make a website for free and post their content nearly immediately. cell phones are owned by 90 percent of american adults and about two-thirds of them access the internet through their phones (pew research center 2014). despite these changes in technological access, many people still have a conception of the web as a place to put information, pictures, or images up for others to consume (called web 1.0), rather than as an interactive, dynamic experience between web creator(s) and users (called web 2.0) or among users and their phones/apps (sometimes called web 3.0). this was certainly the assumption that we had going in to the greeneriepa project and that, occasionally, we still struggle with today. thousands of websites with broken links and outdated information exist. nonprofits and universities may contribute to the creation of such sites. small nonprofits sometimes do not prioritize updating web content or social media due to thinly stretched resources (mansfield 2012; mcmahon, seaman, and buckingham 2011; greenberg and macaulay 2009). some may not have adequate search engine optimization, making their sites difficult to find. additional reasons include lack of marketing professionals on staff (bennett 2014), insufficient levels of technological literacy (greenberg and macaulay 2009), and staff turnover. universities often use short-term grant funds to document and evaluate community-based learning projects (vogel, seifer, and gelmon 2010) and often do not have resources to maintain projects for the long term. given how search engines work, for websites to be effective today, they need not only concise, clear, regularly updated content, but frequent social media posts, a timeconsuming process for nonprofits and community-based learning project websites as well. this case study describes the collaborative experience of gannon university faculty members with eleven local environmental nonprofit partners to create and 186 sustain an environmental portal for erie county, pennsylvania – http://greeneriepa. org – showcasing accomplishments and pitfalls of the project. the site launched in 2012 and received 40,237 hits last year. project history and vision gannon university is located within the city of erie, pennsylvania, working in close partnership with the community to seek solutions to urban problems and to highlight community assets. in 2010, gannon launched the erie-gannon alliances to improve neighborhood sustainability (erie-gains) initiative to coordinate a series of projects aimed at improving the sustainability and viability of downtown erie and the surrounding neighborhoods. gannon is pursuing these projects by forming community partnerships and identifying community needs that align with strengths of the university. one of the goals of erie-gains is to enhance environmental awareness in downtown erie, a task charged to the erie-gains environmental sustainability subcommittee, comprised of a representative from the environmental nonprofit community, a large local business, the county health department, and various gannon faculty, staff, and students. in 2011, the subcommittee recognized a need in the region for a “green guide” website that would offer a one-stop site for all things environmental in erie such as information on recycling, parks/recreation, community gardens, green building resources, energy efficiency, and local businesses offering green products and services. many large cities and regions have green guides that help map community environmental assets and point users to environmental resources (for example, http:// www.growwny.org/ and http://www.seattle.gov/living-in-seattle/environment). smaller cities and rural areas, however, often do not have the resources to develop such portal sites, and already thinly stretched green nonprofits do not always have the infrastructure to get their own message to the public let alone bring together the messages of a variety of community stakeholders (mcmahon, seaman, and buckingham 2011). in order to meet the community need for an online green guide, greeneriepa.org was created. the site contains how-to articles (how to protect lake erie, how to compost) and profiles of community groups and projects (like the mending place, a project that teaches refugees how to sew and repair clothes while giving them a living wage). faculty members from the english and the environmental science and engineering departments, both a part of the erie-gains sustainability committee, applied for and received a grant from the erie community foundation to develop and launch the website. the scholarship of darby and her colleagues (darby et al. 2013) as well as others such as bell, carlson, martin, seblonka, tryon, vernon, foster, and worral that studies community partner perspectives notes the importance of long-term projects, greater faculty involvement, and greater student accountability. 187 the greeneriepa project has included substantial faculty involvement, both in community partner interaction and in student supervision and has been undertaken with an understanding of its long-term nature. the greeneriepa faculty viewed the creation of the site to be important not only for increased environmental literacy among the community but also for the impact on student learning. service-learning scholars have long touted the value of the “illstructured problem” that students in service-learning courses encounter. most of the world’s issues are very complicated and messy and require long-term, multi-pronged courses of action. long-term, community-based learning courses help students see themselves as part of a much larger team working on a complex issue. as michelle simmons notes (2010), “balancing civic engagement for students, useful documents for a community, literacy research for students and professors, and sustainability for our programs requires thinking of community writing projects in broader terms than a single course.” we also viewed this project as a valuable endeavor for student interns because of its interdisciplinary, “real world” communication challenge, and in its further development of technological, organizational, and writing skills. simmons further notes, “sometimes learning and understanding occurs between courses – in the spaces where students make connections among the work in one class with the work in other classes to form their understanding of literacy, writing, and communication.” site content and operations an important component of this project includes regular input, evaluation, and feedback from community partners. as tryon, hilgendorf, and scott (2009), sandy and holland (2006), and malm and others (2012) have noted, relationships, communication, and reciprocity are key to successful long-term university-community partnerships. once the first grant was received, an entire year was devoted to seeking feedback, organizing, and drafting the first phase of the site. three formal meetings were held with all community partners before and after the site launch along with numerous one-on-one meetings with specific partners. initial input was obtained at a meeting with eleven community partners. at this meeting, the goal of the project was discussed and community partners were asked to describe what features and content they would like to see on the website. this initial meeting was very helpful in identifying priorities and providing an opportunity for the community partners to become involved in various aspects of the project. a second meeting with the same group was held approximately six months after the website launch. this provided the opportunity for the group to review the site and offer interim feedback. much of the feedback was incorporated after this second meeting. one of the recommendations from the community partners was that it would be helpful to know when new material was added to the website. this resulted in the development and distribution of a monthly e-newsletter that focuses on a particular issue, drawn from the website content, and which highlights upcoming events, providing a direct link to the events calendar. due to community partner input, the site has other features that make it more dynamic and user friendly. in addition to the e-newsletter, we created a facebook site, 188 events calendar, videos, maps, and a twitter account, none of which were initially envisioned by the faculty spearheading the project. many of these features are run by student interns with supervision from faculty and community partners, resulting in some periods with a lot of social media activity and engagement and others with less social media engagement. we currently have 400 facebook “likes,” 211 e-newsletter subscribers, and 130 twitter “followers.” while those numbers are respectable, they are not as large as might be anticipated for our region. outreach and marketing must be a long-term part of any such project and has been one of our key struggles. our number of site visits has grown over time, but making this happen was much more involved than we initially anticipated. we have noticed in the last six months that we have gained more likes and followers even when we didn’t particularly try to reach out to the public in additional ways, a result that can occur with time and consistency. some of the articles and videos are created by students as service-learning projects in various writing classes, while other articles are written by paid interns or by community partners themselves. the faculty member teaching the writing class contacts the community partner in advance of the assignment to see if the partner would be willing to be interviewed and to critique the draft on a short time line. the professor also critiques drafts of articles and videos to ensure accuracy and quality (see assignment in appendix a for further details). in-class oral and written reflections are done at several steps of the process to help students think through the service-learning experience. at least once a year, the site is reviewed in its entirety to see which articles need to be updated. to ensure consistency across the website, a style guide was created outlining the number of words per article, approximate number of links in each article, content for each article, number of photos, etc. photos were used from either our community stakeholders, our interns, some volunteers, or creative commons, storing extras in a group flickr.com account. another key factor to increasing visitors to the site was to ensure that greeneriepa would be visible within search results related to environmental topics in erie, pa through search engine optimization (seo). however, just because a site exists and has good seo, does not mean that it will be found in searches. while the formulas google uses to rank search results change over time, currently some factors include the frequency with which a site is updated, number of dead links, how often other organizations link to it, and the frequency of its social media. having keywords not only in the seo but also early in the stories also increases web traffic. recently google has announced that will also take into account how mobile-friendly a site is in its ranking, and other changes to google’s search formulas will no doubt continue to be made. 189 factors to consider when embarking on a long-term, community-based project there are many factors to take into account when considering the development and operation of an ambitious community-based project. universities, unfortunately, sometimes assume that they have the capacity to fill a community need before doing a thorough assessment of the institutional, departmental, and individual will for the project (eckerle curwood et al. (2011). in this section we apply some of the questions developed by eckerle curwood and others (2011) to assess collaboration readiness for universities and academics embarking on community-based learning. we have quoted their chart in its entirety here, but only apply those most relevant to our project in the body of this article. we did not have this set of questions until we were years into the project, and it raises some challenging questions for us. would we have embarked on the project if we had realized all of the implications? we are not sure of the answer to that question. yet we do not mean these questions to dissuade future ambitious projects like greeneriepa; we just offer them because we think they would be useful in thinking through some of the complexities of community-based websites. collaboration readiness questions for universities and academics from eckerle curwood et al. (2011, 23) contextual factors 1. what is the current university commitment to community-engaged scholarship? a. university– does the university mission have a focus on community? how is community-engaged scholarship recognized in promotion and tenure processes? are appropriate vehicles for risk management in place? b. department– is a commitment to community-engaged scholarship central or peripheral to curriculum development and faculty time allocation? c. individual faculty members– what is the level of commitment individual faculty members have to community engagement? do faculty teaching the associated courses have the appropriate pedagogical background? 2. what type of resources are available for partnership formation and for the work of the partnership? has appropriate attention been paid to financial, space, and human resources? 3. what type of data management infrastructure is in place? does the data management infrastructure facilitate or impede the full participation of community partners in the research? 190 between-group factors 1. are there congruent visions and values between the university and community partners? is there a common language, or do you need to work to develop a common understanding and language? 2. have you identified communication processes appropriate to all partners? 3. do you have appropriate mechanisms for sharing power, responsibility, and authority with a community partner? what benefits will the community partner realize from the partnership? 4. what will collaboration look like for your groups? is there trust and mutual respect between the partners? is there a clear understanding of the resources and constraints that each partner brings to the table? is a memorandum of understanding in place? how will the success of the partnership be evaluated? within-group factors 1. how will you address resistance for community-engaged practice among students and faculty? 2. what mechanisms are in place for sharing power, responsibility, and authority among students? 3. how will you manage continuity of the partnership and the research project as students and faculty change? what is the anticipated level of turnover, and what effect might this have on the partnership? contextual factors: university commitment to community-based learning the greeneriepa project has had a fair amount of institutional support from gannon university. the university’s strategic plan lists in its vision statement, “innovative academic programs that are connected to community needs and focused on creating public impact” and “promoting student learning such that graduates embrace their roles and responsibilities as world citizens.” the greeneriepa project fits squarely with those goals, and so some funding and support from the university has been received. the offices of community and governmental relations, marketing, servicelearning along with the english, environmental science and engineering, and communications departments have all helped by allocating substantial time and/or funding toward the project. two work-study positions have been allocated to the project, and we have received three mini-grants from erie-gains and the provost’s office. we have not always received the kind of help that would be desirable in our ongoing marketing efforts, however; something that no doubt many institutions face when a project is no longer new. the support for community-engaged scholarship has been more mixed. gannon has long employed the boyer model in its evaluation of faculty, but only recently updated its institutional policy manual to include “scholarship of engagement.” as hoyt (2013) notes, scholarship of engagement “is an integrated view of scholarly activity 191 where research, teaching, service, and professional practice overlap and are mutually reinforcing. . . .instead of seeing ourselves as experts who produce knowledge for laypersons, we aim to generate and discover knowledge by way of collaboration” (hoyt 2013, 7). as a result, it challenges some of the assumptions of academic review processes. guest speakers and consultants like community-based research scholars barbara holland and cathy jordan have met with our faculty, provost, and tenure and promotion committees. this is an issue many campuses are struggling with, yet one that is making inroads in faculty review processes across the country. between-group factors: communication with partners as we mentioned earlier, community partners were and are regularly consulted in the formation and evaluation of the website. one of the challenges when working with many community partners – each with their own specific interests and agendas – is to keep them engaged and connected. developing relationships, a key to successful longterm service-learning projects, are more challenging when working with multiple organizations rather than a single group. greeneriepa faculty and students staff outreach booths at various environmental events to pass out brochures and promotional products (i.e., refrigerator magnets, pens) with the website logo and address. by participating in these outreach activities, faculty and students became better acquainted with environmental partners during down times. as a result we attended various partner activities and meetings to support and promote their initiatives. bringing an e-newsletter sign-up sheet also increased the number of visitors to the site, both from community partners and from the public at large, thereby increasing, in an admittedly one-sided way, communication. a user survey was created in surveygismo (http://bit.ly/gepasurvey) and emailed to partners, posted on the website, e-newsletter, facebook, and twitter pages about one year after the website launch. after repeated posts, a total of only twenty-two surveys were completed. approximately 55 percent of respondents reported visiting the website once per week or several times per month. all of the respondents indicated that they agree or strongly agree with the statements, “i would recommend greeneriepa to others” and “the information on the website is useful to me in my personal life.” some of the most helpful information came from the open-ended questions such as, “what do you like most about greeneriepa?” several respondents mentioned that they liked having all the environmental information available through one website. one respondent answered, “helped me compile a residential calendar on green tips and practices. i used both verbiage, ideas, and organizations within the calendar for our residents to reference. this was mailed to 28,500 households!” in response to, “what would you like to see improved?” a number of individuals reported that they would like to see improvement in the navigation and look of the website. over time, the faculty worked regularly with the staff at environment erie to request story ideas and names of contacts. environment erie is a well-established nonprofit in 192 the area that provides environmental outreach and education and provides resources to develop and promote environmental restoration projects. in 2014, environment erie and greeneriepa have been collaborating closely on a merger between the two sites, with organizers and interns meeting every other week. these regular meetings have increased collaboration on the e-newsletter as well. sharing power and responsibility with community partners initially, this was primarily a gannon initiative with a lot of feedback from a variety of community partners. over time, it has shifted more toward being a true collaboration between environment erie and gannon, although it is still an uneven relationship. how to allocate funds has raised some issues related to this new merger. since gannon initially was spearheading the project with feedback from community partners, external grant funds went to gannon resources, primarily in the form of student interns. a considerable portion of the greeneriepa project consisted of in-kind funding through volunteer hours and, later, two work-study positions. the first two external grants that we received went almost entirely to student intern wages to get the site up and running (one from the erie community foundation in 2011 and another from the pennsylvania department of environmental protection in 2014). graduate students fact checked, researched, proofread, and posted the articles, teaching themselves the web development software, google analytics, hootsuite and other programs. in 2013, a work-study student position was dedicated to the site, and in 2014, a second work-study position was added. faculty have been heavily involved in mentoring, organizing, and reviewing drafts throughout the process. faculty stipends had been built into one of the grants, but the faculty decided to divert the funds to student wages to help keep the project going. this lack of faculty stipend may dissuade some faculty from embarking on such an undertaking, but as others have noted, sometimes community-based learning faculty are motivated by things other than money. wade and demb (2009), for example, suggest factors for community-based learning can be institutional, professional, and/or personal. russell-stamp’s research at a teaching university (2015) further explored motivations for faculty involvement in community-based learning. while some grant recipients spend the money on professional website companies, we wanted to emphasize content and the development of our students’ skills. we used the website development tool weebly pro, which we were able to use for under $125 a year (there are free versions as well). there are a variety of such web development tools by different companies (wix, squarespace, etc.) and each platform has its strengths and weaknesses. as a result, the initial iteration of the site looked more “home grown” (figure 1) than the current website. the choice of a more visually centered platform, like wix, or the involvement of graphic design faculty, might have strengthened the aesthetics and formatting from the beginning. 193 figure 1. greeneriepa version created on weeby pro. with the merger of the two sites, environment erie wanted the greeneriepa site to match the environment erie site, requiring a move from the nearly free weebly pro site to a company that runs the environment erie site, at a substantial cost. this cost was paid by gannon university, the nonprofit partnership of erie, and environment erie. initially the idea of the cost for the site redesign gave the greeneriepa creators pause, but ultimately we agreed that this would be an important way to merge the sites and deepen collaboration. it also allowed us to have a calendar that can be filtered, a feature long requested by community partners, but which is not available in google calendar. finally, the redesign put money into a small local business. the financial contribution of all parties has been a testament to their faith in the value of the collaboration over the project. another financial point with differing opinions has been regarding whether there will be ads on the site. this was raised as a possibility from the beginning by community partners, yet it is something the involved faculty has resisted to avoid having to make 194 calls about whether a business is truly “green” or not based on its willingness to advertise. this has been a luxury that we have long avoided and one that we will likely have to face again in the future to help sustain the site. we have considered incorporating faculty from the school of business to help us chart a feasible, ethical financial plan, yet no decisions have been made at this point. within-group factors: collaboration within the gannon community we did not encounter much resistance from students and faculty about communityengaged practice, but we did have some challenges related to within-group factors in a variety of ways. as we hinted at earlier, we did not always have – and still do not – have some of the disciplines that would have been useful at the table. not only would it be useful to have school business faculty involved in the discussion, but the experts in graphics, public relations, and photography would also be valuable contributors. one of the challenges with large-scale projects is to figure out how much is do-able and what is not given the logistical challenges of passing multiple projects off, not only among community partners but among a variety of classes. at a small university such as gannon, collaboration is, in some ways, easier than at larger universities because of the culture, but in others ways more difficult in the sense that there is typically only one expert in a particular field, and if he or she is not interested in community-based learning, the collaboration is not going to happen. we also faced some internal challenges regarding emphasis on assessment by the university and community foundation. we were asked to define project outcomes that were measurable beyond numbers of website hits, something that is very challenging to do given the nature of our project. to illustrate, one of the initial project outcomes was that the website would increase recycling rates within the city of erie. we were hesitant to enact this as an outcome to begin with and as the project progressed it became obvious that this outcome was not realistic since recycling rates are difficult to measure over time, influenced by multiple factors, and even more difficult to associate with one activity. even an outcome such as “increasing the public’s awareness of recycling” is difficult to measure quantitatively. certainly a survey that queries website users about their knowledge can be conducted, but the difficulty lies in specifically linking someone’s change in knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors directly to website content. google analytics can track how many times one of our recycling pages was looked at (7,899 page views in the past year), but these are indirect measures. turnover issues student interns have also done a good job of mentoring one another, teaching each other skills and processes. so far there has been a relatively smooth transition from one student intern to another. the issue of staff turnover is more complex. the site almost completely collapsed when one of the faculty had to withdraw from the project, and shortly, thereafter, the main environment erie contact left his job. high staff 195 turnover is not uncommon in the nonprofit world, and while faculty turnover in academia is less prevalent, “life happens,” and creating plans to provide for a change in project coordinators is important to do (eckerle curwood et al. 2011). this is an issue we are making steps to remedy, but building capacity takes a lot of time. conclusion overall the website project has been a very positive experience on a number of fronts, including student learning and engagement, university-community partnerships, increased environmental literacy, and professional development of faculty. it has also been challenging in terms of the time commitment and resources necessary to maintain it for the long term. the framework developed by eckerle curwood and others (2011) allowed us to conduct a qualitative retrospective assessment of our project. we have refined this framework in order to develop a set of recommendations when developing a community-based website as noted below. factors to consider when developing a community-based website •   assess institutional support including financial resources and personnel necessary to  develop and maintain website on a long-term basis. •   assess faculty interest and ability to maintain the site on a long-term basis including  promotion/tenure issues. •   involve community partners early on in and throughout the development process. •   involve personnel who understand how websites and search engines work.  •   develop a long-term marketing plan to promote and increase awareness about the site. •   social media is an important component of websites. •   conduct periodic evaluation which may include website analytics, user surveys, and  community partner feedback. •   regularly update website content and ensure site and links are working properly. •   involve students in developing website content by incorporating components into  course assignments and through internships and/or work-study. appendix a greeneriepa.org assignment “real world” writing projects often teach audience, situation, and purpose more effectively because they have genuine, hybrid audiences and because people and situations are complicated. this assignment provides you with an opportunity to develop a document for your professional portfolio while teaching you about erie’s environmental assets and challenges. if published, as most of your pieces will be, you will also be taking part in a long-term project that helps erie residents learn more about the environment in their community. task: you will write a profile of a local environmental organization or issue. most of these pieces will be published on greeneriepa.org. which serves as a green guide to 196 erie individuals and businesses. greeneriepa highlights successful green initiatives in erie county while serving as a portal to local green organizations and opportunities. it provides how-to’s for individuals and businesses wanting to save money while helping the environment. due dates •   contact your interviewee today to set up an appointment (in person or by phone) to discuss the topic. do research to prepare for the interview and prepare questions. •   have an appointment set up by friday, feb. 6. •   read your contact person’s website, and be prepared to give a brief, informal  presentation about it in class. read your assigned articles from environment erie and greeneriepa. 2/10 •   thursday, february 12: rough draft due by class time. w email a copy to your contact person and cc prof. bomberger. w post in blackboard w bring in a hard copy to class. •   thursday, feb. 19: bring one hard copy to class for session on proofreading. fix any  errors found, and post in blackboard by 5 p.m. please hand in peer reviews in class and make sure i have the feedback from your community partner. grading criteria for profile •   all feedback from community partner was handed in and followed. •   engaging, relevant hook and conclusion. •   precisely focused on your topic, no extra material or words. •   shows a clear consideration of audience. •   engaging, precise prose. •   helps us understand what the organization does and why it is important. •   links to relevant other sources (their website and/or other). •   grammatically perfect. •   500-600 words. topics available for you to choose from: 1. destination erie updated article with an environmental focus: http://www. planerieregion.com/ contact person’s name, email, and phone number 2. pennsylvania’s energy loans – mainly web research, but some calling to verify if information is current. http://www.portal.state.pa.us/portal/server.pt/community/ grants_loans_tax_credits/10395 http://www.greeneriepa.org/pennsylvanias-energyloans-and-incentives-programs.html 3. update the jr. plewa article on environment erie site (it’s from 2011). contact person’s name, email, and phone number 4. environmental programming of erie zoo. contact person’s name, email, and phone number 5. this area’s chapter of the sierra club. http://www.lakeeriegroup.webs.com/contact person’s name, email, and phone number 6. presque isle audubon society. contact person’s name, email, and phone number 197 references bennett, roger. 2014. “how small charities formulate marketing responses to major reductions in income: a study of nonprofit contemporary dance companies.” qualitative market research: an international journal 17 (1): 58-76. doi:http://dx.doi. org/10.1108/qmr-10-2012-0045. darby, alexa n., frances ward-johnson, gabrielle newman, margot haglund, and tammy cobb. 2013. “motivation to collaborate: applying motivation theory to community organizations and universities working together.” partnerships: a journal of service-learning & civic engagement 4 (2): 119-136. eckerle curwood, susan, felix munger, terry mitchell, mary mackeigan, and ashley farrar. 2011. “building effective community-university partnerships: are universities truly ready?” michigan journal of community service learning 17 (2): 15-26. retrieved from http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/mjcsl/. gannon university. 2013. “strategic plan.” http://www.gannon.edu/newsworthy/ publications/strategic-plan/. greenberg, josh, and maggie macaulay. 2009. “npo 2.0? exploring the web presence of environmental nonprofit organizations in canada.” global media journal 2 (1): 63-88. http://www.gmj.uottawa.ca/0901/v2i1_greenberg%20and%20 macaulay.pdf. hoyt, lorlene. 2013 “introduction.” in transforming cities and minds through the scholarship of engagement: economy, equity, and environment, edited by lorlene hoyt, 1-26. nashville: vanderbilt university press. malm, eric, gabriela prete, james calamia, and stephen eberle. 2012. “the art of partnership: engaging individuals to empower a community.” partnerships: a journal of service-learning & civic engagement 3 (2): 78-98. retrieved from http:// libjournal.uncg.edu/index.php/prt/index. mansfield, heather. 2012. social media for social good: a how-to guide for nonprofits. new york: mcgraw hill. mcmahon, dave, samuel seaman, and john buckingham. 2011. “nonprofit adoption of websites and website types.” journal of marketing development and competitiveness 5 (6): 43-50. http://www.na-businesspress.com/jmdc/ mcmahonweb5-6.pdf. pew research center. 2014. “the web at 25 in the u.s.” http://www.pewinternet. org/2014/02/27/the-web-at-25-in-the-u-s/. 198 pitman, marc. “21 social media tips for nonprofits.” http://www.nten.org/ articles/2014/21-social-media-tips-for-nonprofits. russell-stamp, melina. 2015. “faculty use of community-based learning: what factors really matter?” michigan journal of community service learning 21 (2). sandy, marie, and barbara holland. 2006. “different worlds and common ground: community partner perspectives on campus-community partnerships.” michigan journal of community service learning 13 (1): 30-43. retrieved from http://quod.lib. umich.edu/m/mjcsl/.michigan simmons, michele. 2010. “encouraging civic engagement through extended community writing projects: re-writing the curriculum.” the writing instructor, may. http://www.writinginstructor.com/simmons. tryon, elizabeth, amy hilgendorf, and ian scott. 2009. “the heart of partnership: communication and relationships.” in the unheard voices: community organizations, edited by roger stoecker and elizabeth tryon with amy hilgendorf, 96-115. philadelphia: temple university press. vogel, amanda l., sarena d. seifer, and sherril b. gelmon. 2010. “what influences the long-term sustainability of service-learning? lessons from early adopters.” michigan journal of community service learning 17 (1): 59-76. wade, a., and a. demb. 2009. “a conceptual model to explore faculty community engagement.” michigan journal of community service learning 15 (2): 5-16. 199 author information ann bomberger is a faculty member in the department of english at gannon university. she researches and teaches digital communication and community-based learning. she also serves as the university’s honors program director. michelle homan is a faculty member in the department of environmental science and engineering at gannon university. her research interests and service-learning projects focus within the areas of environmental health and sustainability. ann bomberger honors program gannon university 109 university square erie, pa 16541 e-mail: bomberge001@gannon.edu telephone: 814-871-5366 michelle homan environmental science & engineering department gannon university 109 university square erie, pa 16541 e-mail: homan001@gannon.edu telephone: 814-871-5691 123 “contagious co-motion”: student voices on being change agents vicki l. reitenauer, tetiana korzun, kimberly lane, and melinda joy roberts abstract designed in response to students’ requests for a capstone where they could form their own individual partnerships in the communities of their choosing, effective change agent offers a structure for community-based learning that allows for high levels of student choice-making and agency. in this article, the authors describe the course; connect it to literature on grassroots change-making, integrative learning, and service-learning; and, through the inclusion of student authors, allow the sharing of insights in the students’ own voices. from the earliest days of the capstone program at portland state university (psu), a trickle of students would find its way to the program director’s office to ask how they could work with their own community partner as part of their capstone. some students wanted to parlay longstanding volunteer connections into their capstone, while others had new partnerships in mind that they wanted to pursue. the director would explain that capstones are courses, not independent study opportunities, and that each course came with a pre-selected community partner and a project furthering the mission of that community partner already in place. the director would acknowledge each student’s commitment to working for positive change in their community of choice and encourage the student to continue that engagement, while assisting the student to find a capstone course that would be a fit for their interests. after several years of fielding these requests, the program director had an idea: she would recruit and support a faculty member to propose a course that would allow students to form their own partnerships and complete projects connected to those partnerships while participating in a course populated with other students doing the same. collectively, the students would investigate theories and perspectives on change-making, drawing on their individual experiences as places of knowledgemaking, and would collaborate on a class-wide project. in this way, the effective change agent capstone was created. in this article, a longtime capstone faculty member contextualizes effective change agent within other capstone course offerings, offers information about the structure and approach of the course, and reviews relevant literature (including a text used within the course) associated with both the content and the import of this course. then, three students from effective change agent share about the challenges, the joys, and the takeaways from their experiences in the course. the faculty member then returns with concluding thoughts. 124 the effective change agent capstone offered each term since 2005, the effective change agent capstone currently carries this course description: this course is for students interested in being effective change agents for the public good. students are given the opportunity to create meaningful relationships with a specific community organization/partner of their choice and work towards effecting positive change within their working environment. students are supported and challenged to develop skills in building relationships and coordinating action grounded in evidence and deep personal understanding. through volunteering, class discussions, practices, reading, and self-observations, students explore the meaning of their work and the impact on both themselves and their community. service opportunities are structured to promote a sense of civic and social responsibility, provide exposure to diverse populations, implement effective communication practices, instill critical thinking skills, and present an opportunity to apply classroom learning with real world activities. (petzold 2015) during class sessions, students co-create the collective learning experience through completing presentations which address the underlying social context and meaning of their chosen work with their community partners, the histories and missions of their agencies, their community partners’ multiple stakeholders, and the impact of their service on those stakeholders, including themselves (petzold 2015). students also contribute their own blog and photos to a course website (http://ecapdx.weebly.com/) that has operated since early 2014 and serves to connect students of the course (and other interested visitors to the site) over space and time. students working in small multidisciplinary groups also develop collaborative presentations in which they connect their growing expertise in community engagement with the university’s general education goals (communication, critical thinking, appreciation of the diversity of the human experience, and social and ethical responsibility). the class-wide project requires students to work in multidisciplinary teams to complete a final product that is beneficial for capstone students to produce and useful for the community to receive (as with all capstone courses). class projects in effective change agent have included the establishing of a computer lab and lending library at an agency providing support to persons experiencing homelessness, creating a community garden at an elementary school and community center, and making critical improvements to a toy room at a program that serves children undergoing chemotherapy. relevant literature a variety of texts are incorporated into the effective change agent capstone, including the book walk out walk on by margaret wheatley and deborah frieze (2011). in this book, the authors provide case studies of seven communities around the world in which community members have “walked out” of oppressive ideological perspectives rooted in structural inequities and “walked on” to new ways of relating to the challenges within their communities in order to transform them (wheatley and frieze 2011, 4). 125 chapter titles suggest to the reader what sorts of perspective shifts wheatley and frieze will ask the reader to make: “from scaling up to scaling across,” for instance, invites the reader into the community of unitierra, mexico, and considerations of how small changes become large ones. for example, the authors focus attention on the red autónoma para la soberanía alimentaria (rasa or, in english, the autonomous network for food sovereignty), whose members collaborated in the invention of a bicycle-powered water pump that is helping to irrigate rooftop gardens throughout the region (wheatley and frieze 2011, 26). the growing of food apart from massmarketed production chains allows community members to practice food sovereignty as they plant, grow, and then eat what they choose to, rather than what is made available to them through sources beyond their sphere of influence. in keeping with the spirit of the invention, the spread of the water pump occurs through curiosity and shared interest, rather than through force. as the authors say, what rasa is up to is co-motion rather than promotion: spreading ideas through contagion rather than pushing people in a particular direction. co-motion is walking at the pace of the other, rather than at whatever pace you want to go. it is a horizontal movement that begins with being rooted in your own purpose and place, and then connects with others who are rooted in theirs. there is no monolithic approach to this work, there is no centralization of power, there is no ownership of ideas. instead, the network is engaged in continuous creation and re-creation, in self-discovery, and in adaptation. (wheatley and frieze 2011, 26) this description of rasa’s philosophy aligns with the approach of the effective change agent capstone. while students in the course may be serving with organizations that represent a wide variety of ideological and organizational perspectives on change-making, within the community of the class there is a decided emphasis on “co-motion” and the sort of “contagion” it can engender. in order to participate in this sort of contagious co-motion, students must enter a course either with a sense of self-efficacy already intact or with opportunities within a course to build it. the authors of the learner-centered curriculum assert that “most difficult to recognize and perhaps the most powerful belief that affects learning is the student’s belief in his or her ability, or self-efficacy” (cullen, harris, and hill 2012, 16). while some students certainly enter effective change agent as seasoned, selfidentified, and self-aware leaders, many others must discover their capacities for leadership through fresh experiences offered by the class on multiple levels (i.e., within the communities from which they come, the communities in which they serve, and the learning community created within the course) and through reflection on those experiences. the authors of this book note the importance of reflective practices in the learning process by referring to the work of jerome bruner (1996) and donald schön (1983) and quoting their commenter david scott (2008), asserting the primacy of a curriculum that is “an interactive process of assimilation, with the capacity of the human agent to reflect on what they receive from their environment and in the process change it” (cullen, harris, and hill 2012, 70; scott 2008, 115). in the view of these 126 authors, curricula composed of “community-building strategies, sharing power with students to develop learner autonomy, and ongoing assessment to monitor growth and to make learning an intentional activity” are best positioned to further students’ integrative learning and position them for their future endeavors (cullen, harris, and hill 2012, 62). in the service-learning literature, theresa ling yeh presented results from a qualitative study that examined the service-learning experiences of six low-income, firstgeneration students and asserted that service-learning empowered these students to “develop self-efficacy and autonomy by providing opportunities to engage in selfdefined and self-directed projects” (yeh 2010, 59). for instance, some students reported that their service-learning experiences “enhanced their knowledge and learning in the classroom, enabled them to further develop academic skills, and linked them to new educational opportunities” (yeh 2010, 55). others said that “their servicelearning experiences helped to bring their academic studies ‘to life’ by enabling them to personalize theories and concepts” (yeh 2010, 55). many of the students described how their service-learning experiences helped them to learn about themselves, their values, and their motivations, namely through the acts of engagement and reflection on engagement, and served as a turning point in their education (yeh 2010, 55-56). yeh contends that the service-learning courses the students completed may well have contributed to their persistence in college (2010, 50). students reflect on effective change agent in the following sections, three students from the effective change agent capstone lend their voices to this conversation. in analyzing and reflecting on their service experiences, these students share how they entered effective change agent from within specific communities, how they came to recognize new opportunities for their community-based efforts at making change, and how they emerged from those experiences at course’s end. as a framing device for their work, we have selected principles of effective changemaking from walk out walk on as the titles of their sections. first, biology and russian language major tetiana korzun’s experience tutoring students in the russian language immersion program at lane middle school speaks quite literally to wheatley and frieze’s assertion that successful change-makers “start anywhere and follow it everywhere” (wheatley and frieze 2011, 220). next, kimberly lane, a child and family studies major, addresses how operating from a sense that “we have what we need” (wheatley and frieze 2011, 221), “working with what is present, instead of what’s absent” (wheatley and frieze 2011, 92), and walking out of “a problem-based approach…and…on to a place-based approach to problems” (wheatley and frieze 2011, p. 94) allows us to experience abundance in both material resources and in human connection. finally, health science and community health education major melinda roberts shows us that “the leaders we need are already here” (wheatley and frieze 2011, 222)—and not only here, but are each and every one of us. 127 start anywhere, follow it everywhere: tetiana korzun and lane middle school my learning journey started in june 2006, when my family arrived in maryland from ukraine, and continued as we made our way to portland in 2012. my six years of working closely with baltimore’s slavic community always reminded me about my roots and made me feel closer to home despite the difficulties and obstacles i faced. the slavic immigrants i met after i moved to portland exposed all the pitfalls of living far away from my native land. here in portland, i clearly saw how russian and ukrainian immigrants and their children were and are progressively losing connections with their roots. the large and old slavic community of ukrainian, russian, romanian, and belorussian refugees and immigrants in the northwest was struggling to maintain its bicultural identity as it forgot its language and traditions. parents, having come to the united states as refugees, usually didn’t speak english. working in jobs requiring hard labor, and having few skills to communicate with the larger community, they became secluded in small russian native-speaking enclaves, literally isolated from the outside world. with so much of their own communication made through translators, lawyers, and other language-related service providers, parents pushed their children to be receptive to the english-speaking environment. in turn, i witnessed children, ashamed by their parents’ illiteracy in english, becoming even more separated from their families. while children became better english speakers at school and enjoyed a greater sense of being open to the world (compared to parents that stayed in the closed communities), their children’s lives at home suffered a lot. as their communication with parents lessened, their emotional connections and the intimacy that comes from those connections often got lost. based on my experience and observations, it seemed that the first immigrant generation struggles to adjust to everything new and the second generation fights to forget the past. having started there—as a ukrainian immigrant to the united states curious about how those in the slavic community navigate change across the generations—i started volunteering as a tutor in the psu russian flagship program, a four-year undergraduate program that permits students to receive a certificate of advanced proficiency in the russian language while completing a degree in any other discipline. there i met many students who were considered russian heritage speakers, but who, in fact, had poorer language skills than american students who had just started learning russian. when i became aware of the possibilities to pursue my own community partnership in the effective change agent capstone, i developed a project in conjunction with portland public schools and, specifically, lane middle school, which offers students a dual-language program in russian and english. ethnically diverse lane middle school is an educational home for 40% white, 25% latino, 17% asian, 10% african american, and 5% native american students, with roughly 80% eligible for free or reduced lunch. the school, serving a large number of historically underserved students 128 and immigrants from the states of the former soviet union, already has two classes of sixthand seventh-grade students participating in russian immersion, making it a perfect setting for my project. in my role at lane, i worked on school projects that prioritize learning about slavic culture and language, as well as strategic long-term planning focused on the expansion of the russian immersion program and its integration with the russian flagship at psu. on a daily basis, i created presentations and assignments, helped with homework, and set up group and individual mentoring projects to encourage students to stay in the immersion program and continue further education. in particular, the “think college” mentoring project exposed students to diverse perspectives and experiences on the pursuit of higher education, enhancing their confidence to navigate their futures. toward the end of the school year, i worked with students on a class project dedicated to the seventieth anniversary of victory in the great patriotic war. students were asked to interview members of their families and community and to collect unique war stories and photographs, which were then featured in a poster exhibition and presented in class. about three-quarters of the students interviewed their own elderly family members who had experienced wartime. these students shared how they had researched and developed projects that centered on personal family histories, rather than just presenting dull memorized facts from a history book. these presentations of the stories from the past heard by today’s young people tightened family connections and built new bridges across existing communication gaps. volunteering at lane was exciting and rewarding, but there were serious obstacles to overcome. one of them, the clash of russian and american cultures, raised questions about the diminishing of one culture while protecting another. this challenging tension showed me that multiculturalism and its opposite, assimilation, both have their own cultural costs. secondly, the immersion program, while having positive effects on the russian-speaking community by ensuring successful and sustainable development of bilingual students, was also a site of conflict involving both culture and religion, as public education came up against orthodox christianity. a large majority of students’ parents, who had been religious refugees in the united states, tended to be representatives of the more closed-off community revolving around the church, and they expressed concerns about the teaching of ancient world history and culture, including greek and roman mythology. these issues required an enormous amount of debate and discussion with parents and adaptations to the curriculum, and they have left many unanswered questions for me, questions that i will pursue as my studies and my community engagement continue. my capstone experience didn’t stop with getting a grade in the class. from where i stand at this moment, i see the opportunities of further engagement with portland public schools’ immersion program, which offers immersion education in mandarin chinese, japanese, and spanish, in addition to russian. as psu has majors in each of these languages, i intend to pursue the facilitation of further partnerships between psu 129 language undergraduate students and portland public schools. i’m not exactly sure where that facilitation will lead, but i’m prepared to “follow it anywhere.” we have what we need: kimberly lane & the confederated tribes of siletz, the confederated tribes of grand ronde, and the communities of people experiencing homelessness in west salem, oregon i never knew i would become a social worker. i never knew i would become a domestic violence and sexual assault victim advocate. i never pictured myself standing in front of groups of people armed with powerpoints full of statistics and my own powerful perspectives. i started this journey with big ideas and feelings about oppression. over the years i have grown closer to my own identification as a siletz tribal member and that really ignited my desire to be an agent of social justice education. i originally expected to volunteer with a portland-based organization like dignity village, a self-determined community of persons experiencing homelessness. but then my partner alex and i moved to west salem, a suburb in northwest salem, oregon, and immediately began experiencing implicit segregation via explicit classism, racism, and ableism. as we settled into our new community, we witnessed several instances of social injustice, identified the effects of gentrification, and encountered xenophobia. i brought those experiences with me into my capstone, where i chose to focus on tribal communities, communities of people experiencing homelessness and displacement, and communities experiencing gentrification and the resulting forms of oppression through the displacement and segregation caused by gentrification. the organizations i began my work with were my own tribe, the confederated tribes of siletz; the confederated tribes of grand ronde; and the community residents and people experiencing homelessness residing in west salem. i started out meaning only to volunteer at these organizations. by the end of the capstone, my relationship to the confederated tribes of siletz had changed from volunteer to contracted employee. my internship at the confederated tribes of grand ronde resulted in an expansion in the projects and issues i addressed, including the prevention of domestic and sexual violence and the support of two spirit persons. and my endeavor to start a community garden in west salem along the willamette river at wallace marine park resulted in developing not only a garden, but also a food pantry and community board within my own apartment complex to gain support and build alliances in my continued effort to provide people with access to healthy food. through the remainder of this reflection, i will focus on the food pantry, but information about my other projects is accessible through our course website (http:// ecapdx.weebly.com/community-gardens-and-food-shares-domestic-violence-andsexual-assault-prevention-program-two-spirit-support-group.html). 130 alex and i have been those people who could not afford real food at certain points in our lives. at the time, we felt ostracized by community gardens in our area because they were religiously affiliated and we were not. we felt like we shouldn’t have to exchange our identities as non-spiritual people in order to obtain access to a community-based resource. also, it felt like charity to have to ask to join a garden rather than being invited. we believed that many of the people in west salem also felt this way, and it turns out we were right. alex and i have no money. but we had lots of seeds and a bunch of corkboards lying around. so we put up a community message board and a sign jotted sloppily on white copy paper in permanent marker that read “food pantry: take and leave food.” we left some canned and boxed foods we had lying around in a storage bin. it didn’t look like much, but it was all we had. but within an hour there were about fifty pounds of donated food overflowing the storage bin. within another hour most of the food was gone, along with our bins. (lesson learned: make a sign about the bins not being up for grabs!) as i reflect on the meaning this course has had for me, i realize that what really drew me to it in the first place was the aspect of self-determination. i have always felt like volunteering was a great cause, but that doing it for short stints and letting others do the heavy work of identifying problems, problem-solving, and instigating change wasn’t true community action. taking on an injustice can feel intimidating and make working toward effective change seem impossible. this class allows students to try this out on their own while having grounded weekly support. hearing other people discuss their projects and causes was inspiring. i think we can often feel very alone in our causes and being a part of a group really combated those feelings. this experience allowed me to initiate several agendas within my own communities and to push for expansion within organizations i was already affiliated with. in this work, i was inspired to address not one but several issues in communities where members of target identities—indigenous, economically disadvantaged, two spirit— encounter oppression, identify the source of the structural inequality, and formulate a plan to enact change and incite awareness around these issues. taking on a task of this magnitude was scary for me, as it meant having to be self-disciplined in my time management, trust in my education and intellect, and interact with professionals as their equal. at the end of our course we were asked what metaphor comes to mind in relation to being an agent of change. i couldn’t think of an inspiring or creative metaphor. i couldn’t really think of a metaphor at all. what i did think of is what it feels like to be a genuine and true citizen. at times i felt like the queen of red tape, and other times i felt like a workhorse. mostly, though, i felt things changing. my outlook on life was changing. my partner and i were becoming just that—true partners—in every sense of the word. other people were starting to listen, share, and reach out, and we practiced listening, sharing, and reaching out, too. 131 having gone through this capstone and having the chance to initiate projects as i went along gave me a real sense of what it means not only to be an agent of change, but to be someone who works from their own moral center to effect that change. it is hard to move on from this class. a grouch by nature, i will genuinely miss what came to feel like a center of mutual support for so many good causes, so many examples of effecting positive change in our world. the leaders we need are already here: melinda roberts and the portland state university student alliance for ending rape a leader is just a fancy title for someone who isn’t satisfied with the status quo and refuses to be defined by it. in a way we’re all trying to change “what is” to what we think “should be.” who am i to change society? i believe desmond tutu put it best when he said, “if you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor” (brown 1984, 19). to me, choosing not to act is tacit approval of society’s inequities. through the effective change agent capstone, i expanded my role as a leader on campus to further develop the skills i need to be an effective health educator, community organizer, and ongoing agent of change, particularly around issues related to sexual violence. a cisgender biracial woman of native american heritage, i grew up poor and spent time in foster care. i am a first-generation college student who independently took on the decision—as well as the debt—to pursue my education. as a feminist, i am committed to asking different questions in the work to end sexual assault: that is, how can we stop perpetrators from victimizing others, rather than blaming the victim and assuming it’s a victim’s job not to be assaulted. for my capstone project, with the help of my community organization and pulling from my education as a health promoter and my role as a senator within student government, i developed a campus sexual assault prevention toolkit for student advocates and campus leaders. this toolkit reflects my experience as a student organizer to highlight specific issues surrounding prevention efforts and the need for policy reform. in the course of doing this work, i had countless conversations with individuals from all walks of life, and i met hundreds of survivors who told me about their experiences and the barriers they had faced as survivors, allowing themselves to be vulnerable in the hopes of preventing sexual violence from happening to someone else. hundreds participated in our campus events, signing cards and petitions, offering words of support, pushing for cultural competency training around sexual assault services, and participating in the review of psu’s sexual assault policy and the drafting of new recommendations. the sense of common cause i experienced within our class meetings led to incalculable benefits to my sense of well-being. it begins with a committed instructor who takes genuine interest in students’ individual projects, someone who can encourage people to participate in conversations and can teach how to facilitate those 132 conversations in the field. students need a sense of ownership, but they also need to feel the support of an instructor who is actively involved. the feedback, evaluation, and mentorship professors impart are extraordinarily beneficial; to be effective change agents, we need instructors who can help us process a diversity of topics and perspectives and develop the capacity to act. ground rules are critical. if the class doesn’t have them, it’s impossible for individuals to hold each other accountable, and that makes it harder to remain interested and invested. in every possible way it is important to maintain an atmosphere of learning while not tolerating hate. respect, understanding, and forgiveness go a long way to creating an atmosphere where we can explore concepts openly, without fear of reprisal, while also challenging oppressive views. in hindsight, i realize that in a lot of ways i was already a leader long before i thought of myself as one. i had started out my college career as a seemingly ordinary student who refused to accept the dominant culture’s support for domination and sexual violence. as i became more aware of the dynamics of interpersonal violence, i became more passionate about protecting my rights and the rights of those around me. we are all part of the human community, and, while injustice threatens us all, justice benefits just as many. as a result of working on this project, i learned about my capacity to empower myself and deepened my sense of self-determination. it’s easy to feel like one in an ocean of many and to allow that thought to dissuade us from attempting to change; in working on this project, however, i’ve seen actual success and that has positively affected my self-esteem. i gotten really good feedback from friends i developed along the way and felt supported by, as i supported the issue and them in return. at the same time, within the community, i’ve developed real connections with survivors, public officials, teachers, administrators, other student activists, and community organizations—a truly diverse set of stakeholders and individuals. these connections will benefit me, but, equally importantly, these connections make up a network that will continue to build and strengthen a community-based response to sexual violence, with or without me. conclusion the effective change agent capstone constitutes a place where grassroots changemaking; personal, academic, and professional skill-building; and integrative learning meet. as our authors attest, the investment made by students in course settings where their actions have consequences—not only to each of them individually, but to their learning communities, as well as to the larger communities to which they belong and which they serve—yields powerful dividends in many ways. for individual students, dynamic learning occurs at many points of intersection: in the integration of past experience with present forms of engagement and with future aspirations; in the recognition of the many teachers and forms of instruction offered by both the 133 community and the academy; and in the encounter between one’s own desire to make positive change and the recognition of the leadership skills that have been waiting to be put to use all along. for learning communities, courses like this serve as containers for both action and reflection, and as real-time examples of how the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. for the communities lived in and served by our students, the effective change agent course centers a vibrant experiment in “walking out and walking on” that makes real differences in our individual and communal lives. references brown, robert. 1984. unexpected news: reading the bible with third world eyes. philadelphia: westminster john knox press. bruner, jerome. 1996. the culture of education. cambridge, ma: harvard university press. cullen, roxanne, michael harris, and reinhold r. hill. 2012. the learner-centered curriculum: design and implementation. san francisco: jossey-bass. petzold, heather. 2015. “about the effective change agent capstone.” portland state university. accessed september 16. http://ecapdx.weebly.com/about.html. schön, donald. 1983. the reflective practitioner. london: temple smith. scott, david. 2008. critical essays on major curriculum theorists. london: routledge. wheatley, margaret, and deborah frieze. 2011. walk out walk on: a learning journey into communities daring to live the future now. san francisco: berrett-koehler. yeh, teresa ling. 2010. “service-learning and persistence of low-income, firstgeneration college students: an exploratory study.” michigan journal of community service learning 16 (2): 50-65 author information vicki l. reitenauer serves on the faculties of the women, gender, and sexuality studies department and the university studies program at portland state university, specializing in developing and teaching both discipline-specific and general education courses, including community-based learning experiences; building and sustaining community partnerships; facilitating relational faculty support processes; and co-creating faculty-led assessment practices. she has co-authored numerous works on these topics including learning through serving: a student guidebook for servicelearning and civic engagement across academic disciplines and cultural communities (stylus, second edition, 2013). 134 tetiana korzun grew up in cherkasy, ukraine, and graduated from cherkasy lyceum of humanities and law. at portland state university, tetiana double majors in biology and russian language with a chemistry minor and serves on the faculty of the department of world languages and literature as a peer-to-peer volunteer tutor. she also volunteers at peacehealth hospital emergency department, serves as a research and academic volunteer at oregon health and science university in the northwest clinic of voice and swallowing, studies the cognitive neuroscience of second language acquisition and bilingualism, and builds relationships and working connections within the slavic community. kimberly lane now works as a domestic and sexual violence advocate for the confederated tribes of siletz indians. she and her fiancé alex continue to keep in contact with the west salem apartments complex. melinda joy roberts is originally from the southern oregon coast. she graduated from portland state university in 2015 with degrees in health science and community health education in the college of urban & public affairs’ school of community health. as an engaged student on campus, she held two leadership positions: the first as the administrative liaison for the psu student alliance for ending rape, and the second as a senator with associated students of portland state university. vicki l. reitenauer women, gender, and sexuality studies portland state university po box 751 portland, or 97207-0751 e-mail: vicr@pdx.edu telephone: 503-725-5847 fax: 503-725-5805 63 enacting true partnerships within community-based learning: faculty and community partners reflect on the challenges of engagement seanna m. kerrigan, vicki l. reitenauer, and nora arevalo-meier abstract in the past two decades, the literature on campus-community partnerships as core components of pedagogies of engagement has grown exponentially. in this article, the director and a longtime faculty member of portland state university’s capstone program report on interviews conducted with ten faculty-community partner pairs, gleaning insights on both the challenges of and lessons learned through partnering. this research adds to the literature through its use of relational methods that bring the voices of interviewees to readers, revealing a depth of connection across the institutional divide. portland state university (psu) has developed the largest capstone community-based learning program in the nation, engaging more than 4,300 students in 240 capstone courses annually. at the heart of these community-based learning courses are campuscommunity partnerships and the engagement among students, faculty, and community partner stakeholders that results from these partnerships. the premise of partnerships in community-based pedagogical approaches rests in the belief that partnerships benefit the community, enhance learning for students, and deepen the teaching and scholarship of faculty. campus-community partnerships have been explicitly promoted since the 1990s, and since that time, much research has been conducted on the impacts to students of community-based learning. relatively little literature, however, details the lived experiences of the faculty and community members who create and sustain these partnerships. given the capstone program’s fundamental commitment to relationality in all of its operations (as detailed in previous articles in this issue, including those focused on capstone nuts-and-bolts and the ethos and practices of capstone faculty support efforts), we desired to learn from our faculty and community partners in ways that both reflected and deepened the relational processes by which we seek to operate. review of the literature as we began this work, we reviewed the literature on the principles and techniques recommended in the field (driscoll et al. 1998), incorporated the wisdom of scholars who have documented their insights on campus-community partnerships (bringle and 64 hatcher 2002), consulted existing frameworks for conceptualizing this work (cox 2000), and examined critical elements and characteristics of partnerships (leiderman et al. 2003; sandy and holland 2006). blouin and perry (2009) conducted interviews with leaders of community-based organizations, identifying several common obstacles to successful community-based learning from the community partners’ perspectives, including lack of preparation for students’ encounters with the community partners’ clients, communication breakdowns (or a complete lack of communication) with faculty, and drains on organizational resources to support student learners. more recently, morell, sorenson, and howarth (2015); littlepage, gazley, and bennett (2012); and curwood et al. (2011) have researched the impact of community-based learning on community partners, suggested models for mutually beneficial partnership, and offered correctives to university-dominated discourse on the value of communitybased learning through a variety of methods. given the psu capstone program’s fundamental commitment to centering relationality, reciprocity, and mutuality in its community-based courses, we chose to ground this research in qualitative interviews with both faculty and community partners, so that the insights shared in this article may be deeply informed by their voices. this current article extends a previous piece published by the authors (kerrigan and reitenauer 2012) which offers interviewees’ rich descriptions of the gifts in their partnership experiences. the contribution made by this article is the braiding of insights about challenges, lessons learned, and advice issuing from those lessons offered by educators on both the university and the community sides of the community-based learning equation. research methods in this section, we describe the methods used to gather and analyze data in this study. (the description here effectively reproduces the description that appears in kerrigan and reitenauer 2012, 131-132). since our primary interest was to learn about the lived experiences of our faculty and community partners as they engaged in campuscommunity partnerships, the authors of this study conducted in-depth interviews with ten capstone community partners and ten capstone faculty. our intention was to investigate the effects that capstone partnerships have on community partners and faculty members, as well as to gain insight into the qualities and characteristics of both exemplary partnership practices between postsecondary institutions and community organizations and the roadblocks that get in the way of high-quality partnering. the authors recruited fifteen randomly selected capstone courses for participation in the study. in order to recruit a randomized sample, the titles of all of the capstone courses listed in the student bulletin were entered into an excel file, then randomized within that program. the authors contacted the faculty member and corresponding community partner of the first fifteen courses selected through randomized sampling, inviting them to participate in the study. this letter was followed up with a phone call. out of the fifteen randomly selected courses, ten courses were included in the study, as this number of faculty-community partner duos agreed to complete individual in-depth interviews. there was no difference in the course pairings that chose to participate and 65 those that declined, outside of their availability and agreement to participate. both groups included capstones from a variety of topical areas, including courses focusing on k-12 public education, the environment, and services to persons experiencing homelessness. those that declined reported that their schedules did not permit their participation. the researchers chose not to go back to recruit additional participants, because the data analysis showed that the themes were consistent within these ten faculty-community partner pairings, thus saturating the themes. the two researchers engaged in separate analyses of the data so that themes could be confirmed and verified. the researchers employed creswell’s (1994) and patton’s (2001) protocols for data collection and coding and engaged in the process of data analysis as suggested by creswell (1994). the researchers first read through all of the interview transcriptions carefully to get a sense of the whole and to note initial ideas about the data. second, each researcher looked through the data one interview at a time and answered the question, “what is the underlying meaning of this interview?” next, the researcher made a list of the core underlying topics and clustered similar ones into topical themes. patton describes these initial stages of analysis as a process of identifying, coding, and categorizing the primary patterns in the data. the researchers then tested these themes by looking at the data to see if they could be organized according to these themes. patton (2001) identifies this as a process of content analysis, in which topics are defined and labeled. after organizing the data, the researchers categorized the data accordingly and looked for relationships between the themes in order to make final decisions about the themes and their coding. the data were analyzed and recoded until a coherent and comprehensive thematic analysis had taken place. the two researchers compared and contrasted their thematic findings and confirmed the results. in gathering data about the nature of these partnerships, the roles involved in them, and the positive and negative impacts, we hoped to capture the stories, the lessons learned, and the best practices informed by those lessons. as other articles in this issue address quite thoroughly the successes of various partnerships, this article will focus solely on the challenges identified by seasoned faculty and community partners, as they give voice to the hidden challenges of partnerships, which are often overlooked in the institutional promotion of community engagement. results throughout the interviews, participants spoke freely and with great interest about the ways their partnerships had begun, their thoughts and feelings about partnering, and the meaning contained within their collaborations. they shared their joys, successes, challenges, frustrations, and insights. through our analysis of the rich material provided by our interviewees, we identified that they offered insights regarding both stumbling blocks and advice for faculty, community partners, and students engaged in this work. for the purposes of discussion, we have organized the themes that emerged from the data in this way: 66 1. common stumbling blocks in partnerships   •   scheduling    •   aligning organizational timelines   •   communication breakdowns   •   focusing the partnership on high priority projects: “does the community really  need glasses?” 2. advice for future partnerships   •   advice for faculty: be engaged, listen, and act with humility   •   advice for community partners: be aware of the time commitment and  clarify priorities   •   advice for students: do the homework to be “in choice” about engaging in  community-based learning, be flexible, and be reliable each of these themes is discussed below. common stumbling blocks in partnerships scheduling. the first and most prominent difficulty documented through the interviews was scheduling. participants’ comments about scheduling usually referred to the enormous task of matching the schedules of students at a large urban university with the schedules and needs of community partners. most students at our institution work at least one part-time job, many are juggling childcare and family obligations, and almost all have multiple demands on their time, including their other coursework. faculty and community partners were unanimous that this was the primary challenge in their partnerships, as evidenced by the following quotes, the first from a community partner and the second from a faculty member: the challenge is getting the scheduling done. it’s getting the students, the tutors, placed. it’s very hard. we try to get it done at the beginning of the year. we wait about a month so the [public] schools can settle down…the hardest thing is getting their placement[s] done because they have these very, very different schedules…we get university students who have part-time jobs, who don’t necessarily live near the schools where they are tutoring…we work really hard at the beginning of each term when we have to place the tutors. the challenges come with scheduling and calendaring. [the community partner is] in the field four days a week, so i have [four] groups of capstone [students], each one dedicated to one day of the week. [the community partner is] out every day…coordinating a huge number of teachers and classes and volunteers, and they’re very good at it. in fact, sometimes i am amazed at how good they are at [it], but it always means that things are slightly bordering on chaos. the main difficulty is…scheduling. aligning organizational timelines. one component of the challenges related to scheduling is aligning the organizational timelines of the campus and the community. 67 the university’s course scheduling process is generally completed nine months before the course offering. most community partners simply don’t work that far in advance, don’t know the exact nature of their programming at that time, and can’t predict changes in staffing that far into the future. faculty and community partners seemed to accept this as an ongoing challenge and simply do their best to estimate the schedule that will work most effectively for all parties. as one community partner stated, i wish we didn’t have to set it up for the catalog so far in advance. it’s really hard when [the faculty] has to [plan] it almost a year in advance. we are not sure what we’re going to be doing a year from now. i mean we have a really good idea, but that’s a little bit difficult. of all of the challenges identified by both faculty and community partners, these two (scheduling in general and navigating the differences in the flow of organizational timelines) were far and away the most frequently cited obstacle in campus-community partnerships in capstone courses, which echoes a common theme throughout the research on partnerships. this connects directly to “the problem of time” (wallace 2000, 133) between university calendars and organizational experiences of time. this incompatibility is cited repeatedly as a major source of challenge to campuscommunity collaborations. communication breakdowns. a third concern in some of the partnerships was communication, often due to a change in staffing at the agency. when the primary contact person at an organization left, it was difficult to establish the same level of communication with the new community representative. frequently, the new hire didn’t know the norms, routines, and schedules that had been established for the partnerships. sometimes this was due to a lack of communication, and sometimes it became apparent that the new hire didn’t value the partnership as a high priority. faculty revealed that, from their perspective, the primary contact at the agency is the key to a successful student experience. when this person leaves the organization, faculty reported experiencing many unforeseen challenges: what ends up happening…is that you have your main contact and that main contact doesn’t communicate to the rest of the organization what’s going on. it’s remarkably changed since [my main contact] was replaced. the community partner wasn’t fully communicating and keeping other people in the loop…so my students felt like…outsiders when they were coming in and tutoring…they [have been] over there for two terms and some of them still feel like…outsiders….i’m working with the current contact on ways to remedy that. i think that the communication aspect is really important. working on high priority projects: “does the community really need glasses?” a fourth concern was expressed in terms of the effort it took for faculty and community partners to develop and sustain community partnerships. both faculty and community members detailed the amount of time it took to communicate in-person, over the phone, and via e-mail. at a deeper level, faculty and community partners documented 68 that the real underlying issue was making sure that the partnership was addressing the most pressing issues facing a community organization while furthering genuine and meaningful student learning. the time and effort allocated to partnerships was seen as deeply valuable when faculty, community partners, and students knew that the work in the community was real and was considered a priority for the community partner. faculty and community partners alike were passionate that the investment of time and effort made by community partners be acknowledged, recognized, and honored. both groups knew that the community partners’ time was incredibly valuable and, as a result, that faculty needed to be keenly aware that community-based projects must be deeply valuable to the community partner, as well as to students. interviewees from each perspective affirmed their beliefs that the processes used to determine what students did at the placement site had to demonstrate respect for the mission, values, resources, and needs of the organization. nearly every community partner and faculty interviewed stressed this point. the following quote illustrates the care with which one faculty member discussed this issue of valuing the community partner with her students: the three criteria [for the student’s final project] are that…[it] furthers the mission of the agency, [it is]…supported by the staff and folks of the agency, and…[it is]…something about which the psu students are really excited….it needs to be integrated with what [the community partner] believe[s] is a priority right now. i use this…funny example; students get it when i share the story. if you came to our house for dinner, you would see that [my partner and i] have lots of different kinds of glasses…handmade blown glasses, pottery glasses…that kind of thing…when my…sister came to visit…the second time, she…pulled me aside with the equivalent of a nordstrom bag [and] showed us that she bought us matching glasses, and she made a point to say “i know the last time that we were here, you didn’t have glasses that match, and i just wanted you to have these.” it sort of typifies that my sister missed the boat and that she was perhaps coming out of a loving place, but nevertheless is giving us something that we didn’t really need or want….i tell that story to students so that they can get the idea that you may think [the community partner] needs new chairs, but if they don’t think they need new chairs, then they don’t need new chairs….whatever ideas you were coming up with when you think about [whether] this idea furthers the mission of the agency, that is why our second criterion is in there, that it needs to be supported by the folks and the staff of the agency. i want the students to be doing something that is, in fact, meaningful and appropriate and desired by the agency. advice for future partnerships in sharing about the challenges they had experienced in partnerships, interviewees also easily related lessons learned through the ways they had addressed those challenges, and they offered advice out of those lessons to faculty, community partners, and students. in fact, interviewees were most keen to share these lessons learned in their 69 interviews, evidencing a clear sense that communicating these lessons could and would lead to improved partnering in their own and in others’ partnerships. advice for faculty. the first piece of advice for faculty, shared by both groups of interviewees, was for faculty to be engaged in the process of facilitating the connection between the students and the agency. community representatives had deep respect for faculty who were actively involved in the work of the agency before students were placed there. community partners reported that some faculty had previously volunteered, participated on the board of directors or other committee(s), or spent ample time at the agency before requiring their students to perform service at the site. this was seen as a tremendous asset to the partnership because of the deep understanding the faculty had regarding the mission, goals, and inner workings of the organization. agencies reported having had negative experiences with other institutions of higher education that had simply assigned students to volunteer for a set number of hours in the community but did not facilitate the connection, the logistics, or, especially, the relationship building necessary for a true partnership. one community partner strongly advised faculty in this way: be engaged yourself. know exactly what the students are doing. [my faculty partner] has even come and worked as a volunteer one summer to see what the experience was like to tutor. introduce yourself personally….it hasn’t happened with psu students, but…i’ve had people call me and say, “gee, my intercultural communication teacher wants me to interview some people about african refugees,” or they want us to set up a conversation partner thing, [and], “could you introduce us to someone from another culture?” that infuriates me….that’s a very hard thing for us to be able to do. you know you have to be able to create a relationship with the people with whom you are going to interact….so i find that…having this really good one-on-one relationship between the supervisor who is managing the program and the agency and the [faculty] is always a very good idea. this sub-theme of faculty engagement also included advice for faculty in building effective relationships with community partners. faculty suggested the benefit of occasional face-to-face meetings or lunches to develop the partnership and to “check in.” faculty usually tried to meet with the community partner in person to plan for the course and to debrief after the course was over. ongoing communication with the community partner via telephone and e-mail was advised throughout the term. experienced faculty frequently stated that it was essential to create systems for regular check-ins with the community partner. community partners concurred, saying that their number one piece of advice was for faculty to truly listen to what the community partners’ needs are and to balance that with student learning and curricular needs. this feels much better to community partners, in contrast to situations in which a faculty member or administrator goes directly to an agency with a concrete project already established seeking transactional access to the agency and its partners rather than true partnership. as one community partner stated: 70 i think the faculty has a really good handle on what he wants done. and i think he knows he’s working partially for us, and he’s willing to listen to exactly what we need and tailor his class to both our needs [and his], and that’s really helpful. we’ve had classes come in the past who’ve said, “this is what we are doing. can we do it for you?” and, well, we’re like, “well, you can, but it’s not that useful for us.” so it’s nice to have [the faculty] say…right up front, “what will be useful to you? finally, community partners suggested, in varying language, that faculty enter community partnerships with humility. there was a keen sense in many of the interviews that postsecondary educational institutions have a tendency to enter partnerships from a place of privilege, expecting that community partners will enter from a place of gratitude. community partners vastly articulated a preference for actual collaboration infused with a spirit of humility and reciprocity. as one community representative remarked: it definitely relates to other faculty that i’ve interacted with: at times they are a little presumptive. there is this [sense of], “oh, you should be happy that we are going to have students do things [for] your agency.” the difficulty in running a social service agency is that there is so much going on, [that] to absorb some projects can be difficult….there are some faculty that need to approach the organizations with a little more humility. not just assume that the social service agencies are going to be so grateful that they are going to bend over backwards for you. advice for community partners. experienced community partners and faculty also had suggestions for organizations considering partnerships with postsecondary educational institutions. the first piece of advice was to acknowledge that campus-community partnerships are time-consuming. most community partners were surprised how much time their partnerships required in order to plan the project, set up viable schedules with students, visit classes for guest lectures, maintain communication throughout the term with faculty, provide feedback to students and faculty, and plan for future collaborations. faculty and community partners believed it was essential to acknowledge that time commitment up front so that community partners can thoughtfully discern if they want to enter into partnership in the first place. several participants stated explicitly that community partners need to weigh the benefits the partnership might yield with the time it takes to work thoughtfully with students through community-based learning. the second piece of advice was to make sure the project has intrinsic value to the community partner. this emerged out of the first acknowledgement of the time involved in these partnerships; community partners must ensure that there is a valueadded return on their investment of time, energy, and other resources. partners were advised to be clear in defining their needs and expectations, as well as flexible and open to hearing innovative ideas for collaboration. as one experienced community partner suggested, 71 i think it’s important that it be useful for [the community partner]. make sure you state your case right up front…not the other way around. not the university coming to [the community partner], saying, “this is the project we are doing; will you be our client?” i think that’s probably the most useful thing for a community [partner]: be flexible, but it needs to be useful for you. third, if a community partner determines that a partnership seems valuable, they were advised to make sure they had mechanisms in place to manage student volunteers. this included having established structures to orient, train, supervise, and give feedback to students. these processes were described as essential components of effective campus-community partnerships. both faculty and community partners suggested that agencies most benefit from community-based learners when the agency is organized and has clear expectations for students. faculty and community partners both remarked on the unique nature of having college students serve in the community. community partners urged community organizations not to see students as simply “worker bees” or free labor, but rather to recognize students as learners and agencies as co-educators who have the power to inform their learners about important social and political issues. faculty encouraged community partners to understand the complex lives of and competing demands on the typical urban college student, including the many roles they play in juggling work and family commitments, which frequently require special considerations in the scheduling of their time. finally, faculty and seasoned community partners consistently advised new community partners to effectively communicate within their agencies, and with students and faculty. this advice paralleled the suggestion for faculty to be actively engaged in partnerships and to communicate effectively and regularly with their collaborating agencies. participants suggested that community partners communicate frequently and consistently within their organizations about the role of the students; communicate with students regarding their work and the community partner’s expectations around it; and communicate with faculty to keep all parties informed about logistics, insights, and potential changes in the partnership. advice for students. community partners and faculty had four essential pieces of advice for students: discern if this specific community-based project is a good fit in the student’s life at this time, be flexible, be reliable, and be open to different ways of learning and contributing to the world. faculty and community partners wanted students to take greater initiative in learning about the various community-based learning courses offered each term and to be “in choice” regarding how they wanted to spend their time rather than simply defaulting to a schedule-fitting course. this included taking stock of their interests, passions, desired careers, and schedules before registering for a course and beginning community work. the second suggestion was to be flexible and acknowledge that this is a real-world project rather than a lecture-based course or even a controlled case study in a laboratory. students need to know that in a true partnership, plans, staffing, funding, 72 and other elements may well change—and that all of these shifts require a high level of flexibility and adaptability on the part of students. one faculty member illuminated this need for flexibility as she described two different capstone course experiences: this is the real world. you cannot expect things to go according to a schedule. i just recently finished a capstone class where it became evident after the third week that everything that i had planned had to go totally out the window because of factors that i could not control with the community partner. and [the students] were really, really, very flexible about going with it. and it became the most [paulo] freire[-like] class i’d ever taught, because i had to stand up there and go, “okay, we were just confronted with this new problem. what do you want to do?” and we [had] a huge brainstorming session…and they…[came] up with solutions, and we…[came] up with a plan. i was… basically the facilitator of a staff meeting half the time. that’s what it felt like. my students were doing all of this really thoughtful work. [in] another class that i was teaching [with] the same community partner…the students expected me…to fix a lot of these problems they were experiencing….they didn’t understand….they kept on blaming the community partner for all these problems….you can’t change their nonprofit structure. [it’s vital] to really understand what you can control and what you can’t control and be flexible. the third request was for students to be reliable and professional. community partners were desperate to communicate to students how much they depend on students’ showing up and acting professionally. community partners talked about the importance of “real people,” “real issues,” and “real money at stake.” they were clear that they rely on students to serve clients, to teach children, to assist owners with their small businesses, and to register voters. each of these tasks requires students to take initiative while acting in mature, responsible, and reliable ways. in the words of one community partner, “be reliable. we really, really do depend on them. try to be as reliable and cooperative as possible….try to understand that the agency is not a university, that we’re not a school, that we’re not always available for them the way a teacher is.” finally, community partners and faculty simply asked students to be open to new ways of being of service in the world. they saw great potential for students to contribute their skills, serve as activists, become great teachers, get engaged, and make a difference in the community—but all of these hopes can be achieved only if students are open to moving beyond seeing the capstone as simply a requirement, to understanding it as an opportunity to learn, grow, and contribute. one community member encouraged students in this way: just be open. and recognize that there are different ways of learning. having the opportunity to learn experientially or learn via relationships can be very powerful, but in that you have to be very open to people who are different than yourself and not be too quick to judge even when you have some initial [difficulty]…. really take the time to reflect, to question, and [to] challenge yourself. 73 discussion we found the results of the study—the thoughtful and earnest comments of faculty and community partners who have, in some cases, been engaged in community-based learning for many years – to be revealing on several counts. first, in terms of both the tone and the content of the interviews, there was a deep sense of the human element in partnering, in the best possible way. interviewees spoke about the stakes involved in the partnership equation not only in organizational or institutional terms, but as individuals with their own interests and commitments invested in their partnerships. as reported in the earlier article focused on these data: when faculty and community partners were asked to describe their partnerships in a word or phrase, they used language such as “real,” “earthy,” “organic,” “a dance,” “good friends,” “a positive learning experience,” “a tandem,” “progressive,” “harmonious,” “inspiring,” “very stimulating,” “incredibly rewarding,” and “illuminating.” one participant said that his community partnership is “a give-give; i always learn and they always learn.” (kerrigan and reitenauer 2012) even in interviews directing participants to share the challenges and difficulties they had experienced in collaboration, there was a genuine sense of mutuality that emerged, which we might hope to find but which practitioners in the field know is not a foregone conclusion. indeed, participants offered examples of how avoidable breakdowns in partnerships had occurred because and when relationships had not been sufficiently established, and because and when communication patterns in the partnerships appeared to be merely transactional rather than intended to allow each participant to grow in knowledge and mutual respect for the other. this insight arose in interesting ways when participants discussed their advice for capstone students, as they endorsed the idea that capstone students would be well served to investigate their capstone options and understand their own personal and professional capacities, desires, and growth areas when choosing a course. in so many words, participants understood and articulated that community-based learning courses work best when all parties in them understand that they are engaging in an interand intrapersonal dynamic, a course full of moving parts (which is to say, human beings) that finds its fullest expression in an awareness of that relational dynamic and an intentional focus on it. a powerful expression of the fundamentally relational dynamic of capstones echoed through the interviews when both faculty and community partners discussed the implications to collaborating organizations when the university, for any reason, changes its commitment to an organization, whether through shifts in university priorities, low enrollment in or cancellation of courses, or other factors. community partners repeatedly voiced how much they come to rely on the presence of students who are fulfilling the mission of the organization and serving clients in both direct and indirect ways. both the community and the university need to be aware of this 74 dynamic of impact on capacity and be in constant communication in order to prepare for any fluctuation in the partnership. in their advice to other potential community partners, organizational representatives who participated in this study firmly communicated the need for agencies to insist that campus-community partnerships benefit them in ways that they self-define as beneficial, and they suggested that faculty (as representatives of their institutions) operate with humility and a true desire for mutuality. they also spoke movingly of their commitment to students and understanding that student learning can and must sit at the center of the community-based learning endeavor. in fact, even while discussing the structural difficulties of partnerships and the ways they reflect the structural inequities built into the institutional systems (resulting in the need for the services those organizations provide in the first place), community partners in this study revealed great enthusiasm for the community-based learning proposition and belief in the possibility of ever more-functional partnerships to emerge from genuinely relational practices. conclusion we find it quite notable that throughout the interviews faculty and community partners regularly spoke to the vital nature of supporting each other’s interests in the community-based learning paradigm. missing from these interviews was a sense of an unbridgeable chasm between campus and community. instead, even while giving voice to the challenges of partnership, both faculty and community partners expressed personal and organizational desires to work through those challenges, for the benefit of students, faculty members, community partners, and their constituents alike. throughout these interviews, both faculty and organizational participants chose anecdotes and used language that supported the idea that true partnership—a situation in which all parties freely choose to come together with mutually-understood needs and goals and communicate sufficiently to support the structures and processes developed to address those needs and goals—has been the form they have aspired to and which has best served all of the stakeholders in the process. further research into the tensions and challenges involved in building true partnerships—particularly in an unstable economic and political climate in which there is both much competition for funding and other resources and an increased urgency for community problemsolving—will help practitioners and students recognize and share ideas for how we, community members all, might come together with common purpose to co-create the world we want to inhabit. references blouin, david d., and evelyn m. perry. 2009. “whom does service learning really serve? community-based organizations’ perspectives on service learning.” teaching sociology 37 (2): 120-135. 75 bringle, robert j., and julie a. hatcher. 2002. “campus-community partnerships: the terms of engagement.” journal of social issues 58 (3): 503-516. bringle, robert j., and julie a. hatcher. 1998. “implementing service-learning in higher education.” journal of research and development in education 29 (4): 31-41. cox, david n. 2000. “developing a framework for understanding universitycommunity partnerships. cityscape: a journal of policy development and research 5 (1): 9-26. creswell, john w. 1994. research design: qualitative and quantitative approaches. thousand oaks: sage publications. curwood, susan e., felix munger, terry mitchell, mary mackeigan, and ashley farrar. 2011. “building effective community-university partnerships: are universities truly ready?” michigan journal of community service learning 17 (2): 15-26. driscoll, amy, sherril b. gelmon, barbara a. holland, seanna m. kerrigan, amy spring, kari grosvold, and m. j. longley. 1998. assessing the impact of service-learning: a workbook of strategies and methods. 2nd ed. portland, or: portland state university. kerrigan, seanna m., and vicki l. reitenauer. 2012. “transformed through relationship: faculty and community partners give voice to the power of partnerships.” prism: a journal of regional engagement 1 (2): 130-143. leiderman, sally, andrew furco, jennifer zapf, and megan goss. 2003. building partnerships with college campuses: community perspectives. washington, dc: the council of independent colleges. littlepage, laura, beth gazley, and teresa a. bennett. 2012. “service learning from the supply side: community capacity to engage students.” nonprofit management and leadership 22 (3): 305-320. morrell, elizabeth, janni sorensen, and joe howarth. 2015. “the charlotte action research project: a model for direct and mutually beneficial community-university engagement.” journal of higher education outreach and engagement 19 (1): 105-132. patton, michael q. 2001. qualitative evaluation and research methods. newbury park, ca: sage publications. sandy, marie, and barbara a. holland. 2006. “different worlds and common ground: community partner perspectives on campus-community partnerships. michigan journal of community service learning 13 (1): 30-43. 76 wallace, john. 2000. “the problem of time: enabling students to make long-term commitments to community-based learning.” michigan journal of community service learning 7 (1): 133-142. author information seanna m. kerrigan brings over two decades of professional higher education experience to her current position as the capstone program director at portland state university. in this role, she works collaboratively with scores of faculty, students, and community-based organizations to create partnerships for over 240 service-learning capstones annually. dr. kerrigan promotes the concept of community-based learning while publishing and presenting widely on issues related to this pedagogy, as well as civic engagement and assessment. she was named a rising scholar by the kellogg forum on higher education for the public good. kerrigan earned her doctorate in education in 2002 from portland state university. vicki l. reitenauer serves on the faculties of the women, gender, and sexuality studies department and the university studies program at portland state university, specializing in developing and teaching both discipline-specific and general education courses, including community-based learning experiences; building and sustaining community partnerships; facilitating relational faculty support processes; and co-creating faculty-led assessment practices. she has co-authored numerous works on these topics including learning through serving: a student guidebook for servicelearning and civic engagement across academic disciplines and cultural communities (stylus, second edition, 2013). nora arevalo-meier is a masters of public administration student in the hatfield school of government. she is specializing in global leadership and management. nora is interested in the analysis and implementation of public policies related to sustainable development, especially in developing countries. 77 seanna m. kerrigan university studies portland state university po box 751 portland, or 97207-0751 e-mail: kerrigs@pdx.edu telephone: 503-725-8392 fax: 503-725-5977 vicki l. reitenauer women, gender, and sexuality studies portland state university po box 751 portland, or 97207-0751 e-mail: vicr@pdx.edu telephone: 503-725-5847 fax: 503-725-5805 nora arevalo-meier mark o. hatfield school of government division of public administration portland state university po box 751 portland, or 97207-0751 e-mail: meier@pdx.edu telephone: 503-704-9634 78 metropolitan universities vol. 28 no. 2 (spring 2017), doi: 10.18060/21520 charting the future of metropolitan universities: the 2016 cumu annual conference mary ann villarreal at the height of pre-election anxieties and amid conversation among faculty and higher education administrators about how post-election policies would impact the efforts of higher education, the 2016 coalition of urban and metropolitan universities (cumu) held its annual meeting in washington dc. focused, as always, on higher education and community engagement, the 2016 conference gave particular emphasis to future needs and issues. these conversations are especially critical now, as urban and metropolitan institutions, regardless of type or size, increasingly face new social justice challenges both on their campus and in their local communities. these societal and structural disparities range from access to services due to rising costs of living to the impact of the national tone of racial and citizenship inequities that continue to deeply divide our nation. the conference theme “charting the future of metropolitan universities” brought together urban and metropolitan institutions committed to community partnerships and student success through forward building and forward looking initiatives. one of those partnerships honors the legendary work of ernest a. lynton, with the annual earnest a. lynton award for the scholarship of engagement for early career faculty. the 2016 recipient, mara tieken, ed.d, assistant professor and the associate chair of education at bates college writes in her essay, “the evolution of a community-engaged scholar” gives insight on her path from a rural teacher to a tenure-track position at an institution and her responsibility to continue to support others on a similar trajectory. equally important, tieken, brings to the forefront the importance of bringing rural communities into framework of community engagement, especially for institutions of higher education that have the resources to be good partners in developing policy. the call for papers for the annual conference issue attracted a diverse selection of manuscripts outlining promising practices, presenting successful case studies, and existing opportunities to cement the foundation of anchor institutions in their local communities. guided by the vision of the organization to strengthen “institutions that are developing new responses to the pressing educational, economic, and social issues of the day,” the manuscripts in this issue represent all those areas.(retrieved from http://www.cumuonline.org/). the topic placed innovation and strategic initiatives at the heart of the conversation. whatever institutional anxieties may have existed about the future of higher education at the turn of the election, the underlying message of the manuscripts revealed deep institutional commitments to serving communities. in his opening remarks at cumu, dr. blair ruble, vice president for programs at the woodrow wilson center, ruble asks “what does it mean for a city to be a place of promise?” we are reminded by ruble that this question is multi-layered when we overlay cities on regions and universities on cities. while the national politic focuses on threats of terrorism and acts of war, 4 urban campuses must not only remain vigilant to be a part of the national conversation, they must also ensure that their local and regional partnerships are built with purpose. ruble provides the united nations new urban agenda as a compass for universities to consider: “inclusive cities, safer cities, governance, economic development.” embedded in this issue are ongoing commitments to addressing many of those issues, such as the challenges that low-income communities face with housing, ongoing segregation of communities of color, and the continual polarizing demands of accountability without adequate resources. in this issue for several of the authors, this conference issue offered the opportunity to explore contemporary challenges. for instance, unable to ignore the fast paced increases in the cost of housing and the attention drawn by policy makers to address housing affordability and homelessness, judith a. ramaley, provides a detailed exploration of the demand and challenges that are inherent in portland’s housing crisis. significant to her work is the groundwork she offers for the bigger issue that urban and metropolitan higher education institutions must confront: the changing nature of institutional community service and civic responsibility. building on the scholarship of danah boyd, ramaley squarely captures the most significant questions that cumu institutions must ask themselves, “how do we stay relevant?” and “how do we change the way we collaborate?” ramaley argues that we must not only think and act differently, we must understand the problems from a diverse set of perspectives. along with housing challenges, communities face food insecurities in urban areas where developing models of sustainable action may not be apparent. michael r. schläppi, professor of biology at marquette university, shares detailed description of the development of the cooperative of the inititute of urban agriculture and nutrituion (ciuan) serves a platform for integrating interdisciplinary undergraduate research opporotunities that address “potential for community development and revitalization.” in his case study the result is an innovative practice that produces more than just rice, but a recipe to “pursue excellence for human well-being. staying within the jesuit mission, desiree zequero and erin doran also reflect on the complexity of the challenges imposed by competing demands imbedded in the urban-serving research university mission: how to best serve and utilize shared cross-institutional resources or developing consortium with like needs is key to creating an environment for successful faculty retention, lowing costs for student access, and increasing student completion. faced with two realities, the call by the colorado master plan for higher education to increase the number of college credentials by 1000, and the second largest attainment gap in the nation, metropolitan state university of denver had a daunting task. mark potter details the work of a cross-divisional team to create a data driven action plan to increase support and success at msu denver. for several campuses, campus centers have proven crucial to efforts aimed at linking campus and community. institutions seeking promising practices for creating a successful institutional5 wide center for community engagement are familiar with the university of nebraska at omaha (uno) barbara weiz community engagement center. the authors anthony starke, keristiena shenouda, and deborah smith-howell provide a detailed methodology to assess and measure the work of the center. the framework offered not only allows for institutional flexibility in defining terms, the authors provide recommendations for consideration that include creating a reciprocal relationship rather than a one-way design. the nation has suffered greatly for ignoring the economic, social, and political disenfranchisement of people of color, especially that of african americans, a reality that emerges poignantly across many urban campuses. when in the public eye and faced with the reality of the baltimore uprising and murder of freddie grey, universities must stay steady and build bridges for those left in the storm. at townson university, samuel collins, matthew durington and nicole fabrant, demonstrate the effectiveness of collaboration among faculty from three academic departments reflected on their responsibility to engage in a pedagogy that invited students and community groups. while the course allowed both audiences to reimagine the relationship between the institution and the community, the outcomes provided a basis for curricular reform with a focus on social justice. the racial crisis of baltimore is compounded by the economic depression of the region as evidenced by ronald williams and elgin klugh at coppin state university. their study frames the beginning of the development of the center for strategic ingrepreneurialship. building upon the evidence of impact that black owned business have on the outlook of youth, the authors lay out a strangely named innovative design to bring multiple partners to the conversation on revitalization. where ramaley began the conversation in the need to remain relevant or by conference guidelines “what are you doing right?” the issues ends on the pieces still unfinished or “what keeps you up at night?” william and klugh connect the ends with a novel socially responsible extension from a hbcu to the heart of the community in which it exists. 6 author information mary ann villarreal serves as assistant vice president of strategic initiatives at california state university, fullerton, the third largest university in the state, serving more than 40,000 students, the majority of whom are the first in their family to pursue a college degree. she designs and launches multiple projects, providing her the opportunity to build working relationships across the university. she works across the university’s nine colleges and six divisions to ensure all students have equitable access to both academic success and the path to upward mobility that comes with it. mary ann villarreal, ph.d. assistant vice president, strategic initiatives office of the provost california state university, fullerton 2600 nutwood ave., ste. 1060 fullerton, ca 92831 copyright © 2016 metropolitan universities vol. 27 no. 3 (autumn 2016), doi: 10.18060/21383 increasing the possibilities through shared spaces guest editor heidi lasley barajas in the 2015 state of the union address, president barrack obama stated that as a nation, “we are a strong, tight-knit family who has made it through some very, very hard times.” he continued by asking us to consider “who we want to be over the next fifteen years.” urban-serving institutions, along with our urban neighbors, have been through some very hard times, and continue to focus on our commitment to shared work for a more successful future. moreover, we pay attention and continually reflect on how we occupy the space in which we make decisions and do the work of campus and community partnerships. that is what being a tight-knit family is about—everyone deciding how to pull together, working with mutual respect for mutual benefit. and, although the context above is specific to the united states, many urban-situated institutions across the world share similar concerns and hopes. engaging with communities to focus on urban issues represents one way that higher education institutions are transforming into the 21st century. the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities (cumu) member institutions have made intentional and innovative investments in place-based and shared learning spaces. there is growing attention to the role that physical and practical spaces plays in our interactions with communities, particularly as we work to deepen those interactions and search for effective approaches to urban opportunities and challenges. understanding how we share space calls attention to (and aids in moving away from) transactional or episodic work toward sustained work with measurable results. and, our institutions have both distinctive and common approaches in our design, purpose and operations of spaces intended to enhance shared work and interaction between campus and communities. the articles crafted for this issue on shared spaces describe the structure, operations and funding for multiple ways of approaching the idea of shared space for shared work. in addition, those who contributed their stories have reflected deeply on impacts, successes, and challenges. my hope is that the experiences and lessons learned in the context of decisions and actions shared by these higher education institutions will help all of us in the work of our urban and metropolitan institutions. public engagement and engaged scholarship practices are gaining momentum in many universities, and the idea of shared spaces for this work may serve to increase the depth and impact of interactions in ways that respond to both campus and community questions and goals. all nine contributions to this issue include the idea of building shared physical spaces for shared learning. our colleagues from the university of british columbia have provided an interesting frame to approach the idea of shared spaces and learning. they assert that working at the boundary between university and community involves creating different kinds of spaces for knowledge production. in some cases, a place-based, physical space has been established to facilitate knowledge production. in other cases, a shared learning space occurs in some expected and sometimes unexpected spaces. each space has been built around the context of the institution and community as well as the needs of both. 3 the place-based approaches are both well established, as long as 17 years, and in new development, as recently as 2 years. the community university partnership programme (cupp) has been operating at the university of brighton since 2003. in this article, davies et al. discuss past and current approaches to the space needs of university-community partnership work and consider physical, relational, and virtual spaces in order to better identify what kinds of spaces are needed for collaborative partnership work to thrive. hynie, macnevin, prescod, rieder, and schwartzentruber describe how internal and external university changes create opportunities and challenges when attempting to build and sustain shared physical space utilized in campus-community work. the community engagement center (cec), a place-based center in proximity to york university has faced environmental changes. they explain that when such changes occur (policies, funding sources, government, new administrative leadership, etc.), those in the institution may begin to question whether or not a place-based center is the best approach to engagement work. the authors stress the importance of the cec maintaining its role as a bridge between the university and the community, a bridge that enables innovative approaches to achieving common goals, provides important educational experiences to students, and allows for an expansion of what is considered knowledge production barajas and martin explore the idea of liminal space in relation to fostering transformational scholarship and community trust in a place-based university of minnesota research and outreach-engagement center located in north minneapolis. lessons from the first five years suggest that attention to building a beautiful and accessible physical space is necessary but not sufficient for building strong community-university partnership. the conceptual and epistemological components of shared space proved to be equally important. this article shares how uroc developed and cultivated a liminal space between university and community that is just safe enough for everyone to feel discomfort and challenge. they found that being able to feel safe enough to be uncomfortable together is a critical aspect of shared space that seeks to transform the unequal access to knowledge/power experienced by communities of color in urban areas. towle and leahy discuss university-community partnership in terms of organizational structure and sustainability. the learning center, a place-based project established by the university of british columbia in 1999, provides a place in the community where ubc students and faculty, and community residents and organizations connect. the learning center provides an intellectual space that focuses on learning not service provision, and encourages the co-creation of new knowledge. towle and leahy discuss shared space in terms of physical, emotional and intellectual environments and share valuable lessons learned about each. in particular, the authors discuss the importance of co-creating shared values and principles rather than rules, which impacts the operation of the physical space and also the emotional and intellectual environments in which diverse groups participate the last place-based example is located on a university campus opening its doors in the last two years. woods, reed, and smith-howell describe the process of building the barbara weitz community engagement center (cec) at the university of nebraska-omaha. the cec on 4 campus space for the university’s outreach and engagement efforts includes its service learning academy and its rapidly expanding office of civic and social responsibility that provides shared space for over thirty nonprofit, government, university and student organizations. the cec offers a collaborative environment, hosts multiple community events, and provides an open door to the uno campus itself. the authors discuss 3 critical factors in building and sustaining the cec including building engagement into the fabric of the university, privately funded community chairs and other funding for engagement, and external recognition for engagement work through the carnegie classification. learning spaces not connected to a physical university building begin with the article by smitharthur and spring from portland state university. this article focuses on university/correctional institutional partnerships where incarcerated learners and university students engage in academic coursework together within the confines of correctional facilities. the concept of physical, intellectual, and social learning spaces is explored through three capstone courses offered within the university that are focused on writing and art workshops for juvenile inmates, civic engagement and civic leadership within both men’s and women’s correctional facilities, and gardening where students learn gardening skills from inmates at a women’s prison. while the experiences of the learners are important and described in this article, the lens used to describe these experiences is one that focuses on transformational learning. the authors describe the ways in which shared learning spaces can be transformative for both the learners and for the institution. hall and panarese from the university of massachusetts dartmouth discuss the notion of building community through the “building community project,” an interdisciplinary approach to engage in democratic dialogue utilizing mindfulness to improve educational offerings. the events brought together university faculty and students as well as individuals from the local community in an inclusive learning space to share different perspectives on educational processes. the authors highlight the outcomes and data from three events to encourage teachers to incorporate mindfulness in the classroom. intersecting this model with literacy and diversity, teachers are taught to build relationships with students who are then taught to build more effective relationships with their peers. the authors suggest that events designed to create safe and respectful shared learning spaces that connect ideas about teaching and learning among diverse stakeholders have the potential to bridge theory into practice. this article like others in this issue have indicated co-created knowledge involves shared spaces, shared understandings, and shared intentions. kinders and pope describe the partnership formed between the university of central oklahoma and the greater oklahoma city hispanic chamber of commerce. this article provides detailed information about the local context of the hispanic population, which has nearly doubled from 2000-2010, many of whom are immigrants. the purpose of the shared space partnership related in the paper is to provide acculturation, college-going, and business development opportunities to this growing population. the partnership has resulted in new services through the hispanic chamber provided by the university. in addition, creating this shared space inspired the university hispanic faculty association to deepen its role, has inspired new service-learning offerings, and other opportunities to enhance both university and community learning. 5 finally, luter from the university of wisconsin extension provides a discussion about the link between the work of school reform and neighborhood development. luter argues that placebased approaches in the literature are incomplete because the link between neighborhood improvement and school improvement has been ignored. the claim is that the concept of placebased school reform has not been clearly defined conceptually and developing that shared space could be an important approach to social change. he suggests that universities may sometimes forget they share urban space with communities and that leadership within universities is needed to co-create these shared spaces with the neighborhoods in which they reside. this special issue of metropolitan universities provides examples of how urban serving universities are reaching out to their geographic communities and working to create shared spaces. more importantly, universities are finding ways to co-produce knowledge with communities that lead to strategies for addressing pressing community concerns. it is exciting to know that these examples, along with many others across the country and the world, are discovering, reflecting and co-creating with stunning impacts. author information heidi lasley barajas is the executive director of the university of minnesota robert j. jones urban research and outreach-engagement center, which provides leadership on critical urban issues across the university. an associate professor and chair of the department of organizational leadership, policy and development in the college of education and human development, dr. barajas’ research and teaching focus on diversity and inclusion in educational institutions. metropolitan universities vol. 28 no. 1 (winter 2017), doi: 10.18060/21478 university influence in urban food systems guest editor julie m. fox introduction food systems have a great bearing on the quality of urban life (pothukuchi & kaufman, 1999). urban university influence on food systems begins at the highest levels and is strengthened by the collaborative commitment of diverse stakeholders. because of critical factors such as food security, potentially polarizing assumptions, and multiple stakeholder agendas inherent in food systems, urban universities are uniquely positioned to provide a foundation to advance learning and developments needed to make a significant difference in urban food systems. entire urban university communities, with a multitude of internal and external influences, are addressing food system opportunities and challenges at local, regional, and global levels. a variety of literature examines and portrays food as a complex interplay of cultural, economic, social, political, and technological forces (kniazeva & venkatesh, 2007). to address this complexity, urban university faculty, staff, and students are engaging with a variety of local community partners, neighborhood residents, global industry collaborators, alumni, donors, the media, and other public and private stakeholders. in addition to focusing on the fundamental need of feeding the growing world population, urban universities are recognizing the value of individual expertise and the collective capacity to nourish the people, the environment, and the economy. diverse perspectives have led to definitions of food systems that often include descriptors such as local, regional, global, community, sustainable, resilient, inclusive, equitable, healthy, or culturally relevant. each of the terms carries specific meaning and context. across campus, initiatives and conversations about food have the capacity to bring out the full potential of the university. from dining services and real estate to academic units, student life, advancement, engagement, and public relations, urban universities influence urban food systems. food systems feature characteristics of a complex adaptive system, both in structure and effects (nesheim, oria, & yih, 2015). in addition to single-factor interests, transdisciplinary investigation of food systems have progressed beyond compartmentalized approaches to explore multi-dimensional aspects, such as the ● national science foundation (nsf) investment of $72 million for innovations at the nexus of food, energy, and water systems; ● association of public and land-grant universities (aplu) healthy food systems, healthy people initiative linking research, extension, and academic programs that focus on integrating nutrition, health, environment, and agricultural systems; ● united nation habitat’s world urban campaign that provides insight on food security and sustainable urban development; and ● the food and agriculture organization of the united nation’s food for the cities community of practice with more than 2,500 members from 114 countries. 3 article overview this themed issue of metropolitan universities journal illustrates how urban universities lead and contribute to food system teaching and learning; research and innovation; outreach and engagement; and resource stewardship. the articles address multifaceted issues of food security, policy, production, culture, and justice. common themes emerging in this issue include the ● essential approach of collaboration; ● value of diverse voices and perspectives; ● influence of distinct urban contexts; and ● complexity of food system issues. in the first article, “planning for food systems: community university partnerships for food system transformation,” authors whittaker, clark, sangiovanni, and raja, make a case for deliberative food-system planning and policy rooted in collaborative and diverse partnerships that span public, civic, and private sectors. they emphasize that urban universities have both the responsibility and extraordinary opportunity to be a force of transformation in creating equitable community food systems by harnessing the integrated power of research, education, and civic engagement. their article illustrates the growth of food system education in the united states. they present two community university partnership projects in new york, providing urban and rural context. in the article, they discuss their participatory action research framework and summarize lessons learned about university collaborations in communities where they are not embedded. food systems and urban environments have shifted over time, as detailed in the “farming chicago” article. rosing and block explore higher education’s role in food systems in chicago, the third largest city in the united states. numerous examples demonstrate how individual urban universities and multi-institutional projects are building on the city’s extensive history of food production, advocacy, policy, and planning. one example includes development of the chicago higher education sustainable food systems network of university, community college, and technical school faculty and staff in the metropolitan area. another asset-based approach to food system support is the chicago urban agriculture mapping project that provides a public resource which also supports student learning and faculty research. in addition to collaborative research and community engagement, universities are working together on community-engaged curriculum that improves access to knowledge resources, technical assistance, direct research support, and certificate and degree programs. the deep history, current priorities, and vast network of players in the city, presents both opportunities and challenges as urban universities consider the large role they play in the local food system, as researchers, educators, community conveners, food buyers, and more. to better understand food-system change and inform food-system improvement efforts, neff, laestadius, dimauro, and palmer report on how oral history interviews with low-income, older adults near john hopkins university in baltimore, maryland were used as a teaching tool in an eight-week graduate course. as a result of this qualitative research, often marginalized voices were recognized, valued, and included in the discussion of priorities as food systems and urban environments continue to change. lessons learned extend beyond the initial investigation objectives, to include the value of student engagement with older adults in the community. 4 reaffirming the land-grant mission, the university of the district of columbia is building economic development capacity and quality of life in underserved neighborhoods through urban food hubs of the college of agriculture, urban sustainability, and environmental sciences (causes). o’hara reports these urban food hubs engage local partners and are designed to improve access to fresh food, address health deficits, and create jobs. each of the five urban food hubs addresses unique characteristics of the community and consists of urban food production, food processing, food distribution, and the management of waste and water. in addition to academic degree seeking students, causes reaches a large number of non-degreeseeking students through workforce development, certificate programs, and continuing education programs. while impact measures are still to be defined, this intense focused approach serves as a model for other urban serving universities interested in contributing to the triple bottom line of economic, social, and environmental conditions. in the case study about the ohio state university, fox analyzes the institution’s collective approach to urban food systems. food-system components explored in this qualitative research included teaching and learning; research and innovation; outreach and engagement; and resource stewardship. findings from this study indicate considerable collaborations, emerging impacts, natural tensions, and ongoing opportunities to continue maximizing university resources to advance the complex sustainable urban food system agenda. discoveries from this interpretive analysis can guide urban university leaders, from small and large institutions, to collectively make strategic investments aligned with all aspects of the university’s mission. the book bibliography by ritchie offer perspectives for a variety of urban university decision makers interested in urban agriculture, designing food spaces, and sustainability on campus. the reviews highlight the newest research and practical recommendations to meet growing expectations of the campus community to include urban food-system concerns in research, teaching, and service, as well as the overarching sustainability efforts of the university. conclusion urban university involvement in food systems is significant to sustainable urbanization. the articles for this issue of metropolitan universities journal were selected to provide a variety of perspectives for urban university leaders to better understand the broad scope of food systems and related factors. some of the studies focus on specific university solutions to community challenges, while others illustrate comprehensive approaches to food-system developments. authors share the importance of diverse perspectives and collaborative approaches. they address distinct urban contexts and the complex nature of food-system issues. all of the articles include constructive conclusions and applicable resources. relevant insight can benefit all urban university leaders. this issue of the journal can be used to create conversation around related topics. for example, a viable urban ecosystem extends beyond food systems to other issues that are closely related, such as rain-water and storm-water management; community green space; energy and material flow; and the integration of ecological, economic, social and human health factors (barthel, parker, & ernston, 2013; decker, elliott, smith, blake, & rowland, 2003; su, fath, & yang, 2010). members of the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities (cumu) can use these articles to reflect on current understanding and encourage one another to better appreciate and build upon 5 the impacts, face the challenges, and create new ways to come together to improve the many aspects of urban food systems. sustainable urban universities and sustainable communities depend on it. references barthel, s., parker, j., & ernstson, h. (2013). food and green space in cities: a resilience lens on gardens and urban environmental movements. urban studies, 52(7), 1321-1338. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0042098012472744. decker, e. h., elliott, s., smith, f. a., blake, d. r., & rowland, f. s. (2000). energy and material flow through the urban ecosystem. annual review of energy and the environment, 25, 685-740. https://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev.energy.25.1.685. kniazeva, m., & venkatesh, a. (2007). food for thought: a study of food consumption in postmodern us culture. journal of consumer behaviour, 6(6), 419-435. https://dx.doi.org/10.1002/cb.232 nesheim, m. c., oria, m., & yih, p. t. (eds.). (2015). a framework for assessing effects of the food system. national academies press. pothukuchi, k., & kaufman, j. l. (1999). placing the food system on the urban agenda: the role of municipal institutions in food systems planning. agriculture and human values, 16(2), 213224. https://dx.doi.org/10.1023/a:1007558805953. su, m., fath, b. d., & yang, z. (2010). urban ecosystem health assessment: a review. science of the total environment, 408(12), 2425-2434. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2010.03.009. resources association of public and land-grant universities (aplu) healthy food systems, healthy people, http://www.aplu.org/projects-and-initiatives/agriculture-human-sciences-and-naturalresources/healthy-food-systems-healthy-people national science foundation (nsf) investment of $72 million for innovations at the nexus of food, energy, and water systems, https://foodenergywater.wordpress.com/category/infews the food and agriculture organization of the united nation’s food for the cities initiative community of practice, http://www.fao.org/fcit/fcit-home/en united nation habitat’s world urban campaign, http://unhabitat.org/urban-thinkers-the-citywe-need http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0042098012472744 https://dx.doi.org/10.1146/annurev.energy.25.1.685 https://dx.doi.org/10.1002/cb.232 https://dx.doi.org/10.1002/cb.232 https://dx.doi.org/10.1023/a:1007558805953 https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2010.03.009 http://www.aplu.org/projects-and-initiatives/agriculture-human-sciences-and-natural-resources/healthy-food-systems-healthy-people/ http://www.aplu.org/projects-and-initiatives/agriculture-human-sciences-and-natural-resources/healthy-food-systems-healthy-people/ https://foodenergywater.wordpress.com/category/infews https://foodenergywater.wordpress.com/category/infews http://www.fao.org/fcit/fcit-home/en http://unhabitat.org/urban-thinkers-the-city-we-need http://unhabitat.org/urban-thinkers-the-city-we-need 6 author information julie fox, ph.d., is an associate professor with the ohio state university (osu) college of food, agricultural & environmental sciences and serves as an associate chair for the department of extension, leading osu extension in the city. she is part of osu’s leadership group focused on osu’s urban influence and mission. she has worked with osu since 1998 and began focusing on food system research, education, and service. julie m. fox, ph.d. department of extension college of food, agricultural and environmental sciences the ohio state university 2120 fyffe road, suite 25n columbus, oh 43210-1002 e-mail: fox.264@osu.edu telephone: 614-292-0456 http://u.osu.edu/juliefox https://twitter.com/foxosu https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-fox-208a7210 mailto:fox.264@osu.edu https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-fox-208a7210 171 beyond the university: an initiative for continuing engagement among alumni david osborn, jennifer alkezweeny, and kevin kecskes abstract in an effort to leverage students’ positive community engagement experiences as they transition to and become alumni, portland state university (psu) embarked on a pilot “continuing engagement program.” this article provides a rationale for this effort, an overview of the programmatic elements, lessons learned, and future engagement strategies. the authors situate the community engagement program (cep) in the current alumni engagement literature, share findings from the psu program, and hope to inspire additional creative thinking and action to support alumni and other community members’ persistent engagement for positive community change. there is tremendous potential for leveraging students’ college and university-based community engagement experiences as they transition to and become alumni. while much has been studied and written about the impact of community engagement on student learning (astin et al. 2000; musil 2003; colby et al. 2010; boyte 2008; and others), there is a dearth of research about how to sustain this community engagement for alumni. in 2012, while others in the field were also recognizing the absence of alumni in the student engagement conversation, portland state university (psu) launched a pilot program to explore ways to extend the transformative experiences of students in university studies capstone courses. program designers developed strategies to increase student motivation, skills, and agency to sustain their engagement as alumni and to encourage existing alumni to be more civically active. this programming, referred to here as the continuing engagement program (cep), consisted of a series of initiatives designed to support the ongoing engagement of students, alumni, community members and partners, and faculty in intentional, lifelong community-based work for positive change. quality programs, persistent engagement we are in an era of “wicked” unscripted problems that challenge our society and globe in new ways and require us, as scholar-educators, to support the development of our students to be high-capacity civic agents who can address the most pressing social and ecological issues present today (geary schneider 2015). responding to this need for deeper engagement, over the past three decades, the community engagement movement in higher education has shifted in focus from volunteerism to servicelearning to community engagement (harkavy 2015). there have been many positive impacts of this movement; still, there remain important opportunities to embrace and 172 expand institutional community engagement, defined by carnegie as “collaboration between institutions of higher education and their larger communities (local, regional/ state, national, global) for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity” (new england resource center for higher education n.d.). in their comprehensive review of three well-established postsecondary community engagement programs, mitchell, visconti, keene and battistoni (2011) determined that (1) students’ civic identity (knefelkamp 2008) developed in well-formulated undergraduate programs persists in their lives after college, and (2) that engaging in collaboration with others, specifically as a cohort, positively affects student learning. mitchell and co-authors (2011) cite several studies that demonstrate the need for persistent engagement, a sustained accumulation of community experiences over time, in order to deepen students’ knowledge of and commitment to civic action and leadership. the study determined that participation impacted career choice for over half of the students in these programs; indeed, the researchers found that at the time of the study 39 percent were in community-connected jobs and an additional 26 percent were employed in k-12 schools (mitchell et al. 2011). this study adds significant empirical weight to the increasing body of literature that discusses and explores the impacts of curricular community engagement in higher education (astin et al. 2000; musil 2003; colby et al. 2010; boyte 2008; and others). looking forward, mitchell and co-authors (2011) make a strong appeal for (1) developing engagement programs that go well beyond the current practice of one-time service-learning experiences in order to connect students with their civic passions repeatedly over time, in part by (2) helping students create more sustained cohort communities, particularly among themselves, as well as with off-campus partners (mitchell et al. 2011). portland state university— let knowledge serve the city psu has achieved widespread success with student engagement and is recognized as a national leader in service-learning/community-based learning (cbl) practices. nearly thirteen thousand students engage in cbl at psu annually; the university studies capstone program (the interdisciplinary general education program at psu that has been discussed throughout this special journal issue of metropolitan universities) (http:// capstone.unst.pdx.edu/) alone offers over 240 community-based, seminar-style courses partnered with 130 community organizations involving over 4,300 students annually. extending and deepening student interest and commitment to important public issues has guided psu’s capstone courses and other community-based learning efforts for decades (kecskes, kerrigan, and patton 2006; kecskes and kerrigan 2009; wiewel, kecskes, and martin 2011). however, until the inception of the continuing engagement program, psu had not tested the idea of systematically supporting alumni to continue their engagement after graduation. 173 the cep required planners to conceptualize engagement approaches on a larger scale than previously undertaken, given its goal of encouraging engagement among tens of thousands of psu alumni, 65 percent of whom remain within the metropolitan region after graduation (portland state university 2015a). building on the nearly quarter century of psu experience with community engagement, cep designers chose to focus on how to support the continuation of engagement of students as they transition to alumni, thus increasing civic activity in communities as well. specifically, designers aimed to a) connect current students to engaged alumni in theme-based communities of practice, b) provide training and support for both groups to engage in social change actions, and c) sustain continued engagement going forward by creating digital communities and providing other electronic information resources. alumni: an untapped resource for sustaining engagement while civic engagement efforts have been increasing nationally in scope and depth, these efforts have been largely focused on students currently enrolled in the university. vogelgesang and astin’s (2005) comprehensive national study clearly demonstrated that undergraduate community engagement activities were associated with stronger civic values and dispositions during the college years; however, their study also showed that, for some students, engagement activity just after the college years decreases. of the alumni who did continue to engage with the community postgraduation, this study found that most (82.5%) do so to help other people, while only 6.9% report working to change laws or policies. while helping people is honorable and important, the community-university partnership and engagement efforts at psu intentionally aim to move students beyond service activities toward a deeper contribution to community progress and systemic change. encouraging and facilitating the persistence of deep engagement for positive social change beyond graduation was the primary focus of the cep pilot project. much of the historic literature about “alumni engagement” focuses on fundraising. in the last few years, growing interest has emerged in viewing alumni as vital “public workers” (boyte, 2013). additionally, alumni have been envisioned as resources to enhance the education of current students, thus moving “beyond the tokenism and the momentary feel-good payoff of the standard alumni association day of service” (ellison 2015, 53). individual universities are exploring the idea of alumni engagement as community engagement, such as the princeton alumnicorps (http://home. alumnicorps.org/), st. olaf college’s “community connection” effort (http://wp.stolaf. edu/president/about-main-street/), rochester institute of technology’s focused community engagement effort for its alumni (as included in their 2015-2025 strategic plan, https://www.rit.edu/president/pdfs/greatness_through_difference_long.pdf), and others (http://www.citizenalum.org/membership/member-campuses-and-centers/). additionally, the kettering foundation has explored the potential benefits of alumni interaction with currently enrolled students in its 2014 higher education exchange publication, in which adam wienberg raises the question, “why not expose students 174 to alumni who are working throughout the professions to build meaningful lives where public work is infused throughout their work lives?” (boyte 2013, 39). the most prominent and wide-reaching alumni community engagement effort, “citizen alum,” was initiated in 2011 at a meeting for the american commonwealth partnership. citizen alum targets alumni as “doers, not (just) donors” and provides a framework for a national network of campus teams focused on “building multi-generational communities of active citizenship and active learning” (regents of the university of michigan n.d.). citizen alum aims to serve as a national civic engagement initiative, now reaching alumni from thirty colleges and universities around a “common goal of reframing their approaches to public engagement in ways that support robust intergenerational connections–civic engagement” (regents of the university of michigan n.d.). citizen alum cites five goals for this engagement: (1) deepen and broaden campus cultures of engagement, (2) enrich student learning, (3) support collegeto-life transition, (4) benefit alumni and the localities and regions where they live and work, and (5) value the civic agency, diversity, and creativity of alumni (ellison 2013). hearing the call for continued engagement concurrently with these national conversations, psu was developing its own innovations that align with and extend the national movement. while the primary focus of citizen alum seeks to highlight the experiences of alumni as points of reference and inspirational models of engagement, cep was designed to provide direct support (i.e., skill development, resources, analysis, etc.) in order to foster the continued engagement of alumni, as well as to formally connect current students and alumni in thematic communities of practice focused on creating positive social change. psu’s motivation for launching the cep was similar to that of the citizen alum initiative: both programs seek to “strengthen communities by identifying ways to support the situated lives of publicly active graduates who reside in them” (ellison 2015, 53). psu’s continuing engagement program was envisioned as part of a broader effort to create an integrative approach to community engagement within and beyond the context of university studies, psu’s general education program. the working hypothesis undergirding this initiative is that the development of lifelong change agents requires continuity of community-based activity in the curriculum from the first year onward. the cep was designed to provide that continuity for students around community engagement experiences that might otherwise seem fragmented. this conceptual framework and its associated set of activities support psu’s institutional goal of graduating empowered and activated citizens who have a well-formulated toolkit to act as change agents in the world. the overarching strategy of cep was to mobilize and create new connections among faculty, students, alumni, and community partners in order to sustainably address the most pressing issues facing our region. toward that end, and drawing on extensive community-engagement experience, cep developers sought to answer these questions: how can psu structurally facilitate and encourage the engagement of students and 175 alumni, who have previously completed community-based learning courses, in ways that will continue to catalyze their passion for community change-making? how can psu create resources to support their ongoing engagement? how might psu engage students and alumni through the use of new technologies and social media that encourage community engagement? building the foundation to lay the foundation of the program, initiative architects developed two models based on community engagement experience: “theory of agency” and “continuum of social change.” theory of agency before implementing the cep, it was necessary to identify and formalize a working “theory of agency.” guiding reflective questions included the following: how do people move from passivity to action? what are barriers to doing so? what motivates persons to act? what components are required for individuals to remain engaged in social change work on an ongoing, sustained basis? the working model (diagram 1: theory of agency) that was developed includes four critical components necessary for sustained participation in social change: •   examples: individuals must encounter examples of effective action. •   agency: there must be a (re-)discovery of personal agency; an understanding and an  experiencing of one’s actions as affecting and shaping the world in which we live. •   community: finding and actively building a sense of community with others is  critical to experiencing a collective space in which effective social change may happen, as well as receiving the support that is needed to sustain participation. •   analysis: a clear analytical lens must be developed, allowing for individuals and  groups to understand their successes and failures and to be able to reflect on them in generative ways. diagram 1: theory of agency what sustains our involvement? i n v o l v e m e n t ? wh a t s u s t a i n s o u r o f a g e n c y di s c o ve ry o f in v o l v e m e n t fin d c o m m u n i t y pa rt ici pat ion th at su sta ins de ve lo p a n a l ys is effective action examples of e n c ounter w ith 176 these four foci were utilized to establish cep components during the developmental phase. the program was designed to intentionally support ongoing community engagement as a counter-weight to one-time, or episodic, community engagement experiences. this theory and the underlying conceptual framework addressed below were developed through engaged reflection in an iterative, collaborative design process. continuum of social change to help students (future alumni) begin to understand the more complete set of engagement options open to them, the “continuum of social change” model was developed (diagram 2). this spectrum illustrates examples of engagement strategies, ranging from direct provision of social service to emerging grassroots forms of involvement, including social movements for change. diagram 2: continuum of social change continuum of social change this continuum helps us think about the different ways to be involved in social change. over time it is natural to move from one place to another along the continuum. sometimes it is necessary to shift your position to be able to do the work you want to do. different types of involvement are placed on particular parts of the continuum to reflect the places where they typically arise. however, it is important to keep in mind how they can shift and might be placed on different parts of the continuum depending on how we engage in them. n e w o r e m e r g in g o r g a n iz a t io n s & s o c ia l f o r c e s e x is t in g o r in s t it u t io n a l iz e d o r g a n iz a t io n s social movements one of the ways that we can think about social movements is as a network of emerging and connected community groups that are working on similar issues. they are one of the least discussed and most powerful forms of social change. some of the most profound social change we know of came about in this way. advocacy both large organizations and small community groups are involved in advocacy. this type of social change simply refers to advocating for an issue or on behalf of a cause or community. service many people are involved in service work through their work, place of worship or elsewhere. through service we accomplish important work and often assist communities impacted by social and environmental problems. community groups small groups of people working together in their communities are one of the most important ways to be involved in social change. historically, individuals in community working together have created both important social change and many of the organizations, institutions and nonprofits we see now. electoral engagement this is often the most commonly discussed form of social change. voting, volunteering, working for a political party or public service are all important types of involvement in our political institutions. 177 on the right end of the continuum, activities include attending events and volunteering or otherwise supporting the work of pre-existing organizations. this form of action is generally non-controversial, featuring little to no participation in significant decisionmaking or initiation of work or projects, nor significant ownership over work that occurs. at the left end of the continuum, actions generally include starting new groups or initiating focused action with other community members; issues at this point of the continuum may also be more contentious in nature. individuals tend to have a higher involvement in decision-making, and the innovative nature of the public work may require more of an individual’s agency and abilities (i.e., civic skills) to act upon and shape the world in which they operate. these forms of participation often take place within the context of new or emerging organizations and social forces. this is where the cep focused its engagement efforts. the theory of agency and the continuum of social change informed the cep’s approach and served to emphasize the dynamic nature of engagement as an individual moves around the spectrum, as their engagement in a particular issue is sustained and deepened, and/or as they encounter new areas for engagement. these two models were used as a springboard for discussing community experiences and supporting engagement with social issues at increasingly deep levels. building from these two models, programmatic elements of the cep were crafted to encourage sustained engagement along the continuum of change. program design the cep pilot evolved over a period of two years, beginning in 2012. while the primary motivation was to engage alumni, there was also a desire to enhance current psu students’ engagement experiences by improving their connection to engagementrelated resources and opportunities within and beyond the university, as well as to provide continuing education for community members seeking to deepen their own community engagement. elements of the program included communities of practice, workshops, a two-credit seminar, and the use of particular communication tools. these elements are discussed below. communities of practice in order to move beyond direct service to focus on continuing engagement that leads to community change, faculty, students, alumni, and community partners engaged in thematic groups called communities of practice (cop). building from community psychology theory, lawthom (2011) argues that cops can shed light on engaged relationships between community and university members. in general, cops are described as an aggregation of participants with common goals and practices who learn together by working collectively on matters of consequence. the cop was the overarching structure for supporting thematic continuing engagement work in the program. in ay 2012-2013, two cops, “educational equity/development” and “social justice/ engagement,” were initiated. the educational equity/development cop consisted of a cluster of five faculty focused on shaping curriculum to include a continuing 178 engagement focus (purposefully identifying how students could sustain engagement throughout their education and as alumni), developing cross-curricular products (such as common learning goals across their courses and common assignments), and identifying opportunities to engage alumni within their current classes (both directly and through social media). in the social justice/engagement cop, a group of students and faculty explored the theme of social justice. during ay 2013-14, three interns (one undergraduate student, one graduate student, and one alumnus) worked with the program coordinator to facilitate cops for students, faculty, alumni, and community partners. these thematic cops centered around issues of social justice and de-gentrification, transportation equity, and food equity. the interns added significant capacity to this work through meeting with faculty, facilitating cops, and otherwise assisting in program implementation. this resulted in heightened impact of the cops and an expansion of the model. for example, the social justice and de-gentrification cop engaged a group of a dozen students and community members in multiple meetings in which they explored plans for community engagement and collaboration. within their thematic areas, the interns also engaged with forty faculty via class visits and spoke to approximately four hundred students about these issues, while sharing their personal stories of engagement. each intern completed their own continuing engagement work within their cop theme. workshops observing that alumni and students need to be directly supported to develop their capacities for sustained civic engagement, skill-based workshops were designed on a range of topics. these workshops were advertised to students, alumni, faculty, local activists, and community members via departmental listservs and through the distribution of a printed resource guide. the majority of the workshop facilitators were experienced community leaders for social change. topics ranged from basic engagement strategies and structures, culturally specific topics, collaborative approaches, and leadership development. select topics included the following: •  so you wanna change the world: understanding social change  •  process as practice: honing your facilitation skills  •  legislative advocacy: when and how to turn a good idea into law •  weaving a strong web: values, agreements, and accountability culture for groups •  skills for strong groups and collectives •  getting in the way: ways for artists and activists to work together •  why should i care? stories for social change •  developing and sustaining a global perspective through solidarity and collaboration •   finding ourselves in charge: collective leadership and what we need to know to  build progressive movement in the pacific northwest •  building leaderful movements •  refugee and immigrant solidarity 179 two-credit seminar a two-credit seminar was developed to build students’ skills in transitioning from the highly structured and supported community engagement courses at psu to more autonomous and independent engagement. the description of the seminar is as follows: unst 407 skills for social change is a two-credit, 400 level seminar to support you and your continuing engagement in social change. the course is designed to build on previous and ongoing community engagement, such as that which begins in a capstone course. current involvement in some form of social change work (volunteering, community group, activism, advocacy, etc.) is required to participate in this course. this course is a space in which to continue the “what’s next?” conversation in regards to continuing to be effectively engaged in creating positive change in our world. the first half of the course will explore different understandings and analyses of social change, case studies, and skill-building opportunities that seek to complement the work you are engaged in outside of the course. the second half of the course will be designed based upon the needs and interests of the students enrolled. throughout the course we will create a space to reflectively look at and bring into the classroom the work we are doing so that we can create community to support one another in our continued engagement both at and beyond the university. (portland state university communities of practice for social change n.d.) participants were recruited to this seminar primarily through email outreach and distribution of a printed resource guide. the primary goals of the workshop were to provide a supportive environment to deepen community engagement skills and foster continued engagement. assessments of the seminars were consistently positive. in the second year of programming, the seminar was opened to alumni and community members at no cost. from this seminar, a new student-organized community engagement group developed, in which participants shared and received feedback on specific aspects of their social change work in ways that harnessed the collective knowledge and experience of the group. one participant shared confidentially that the experience created “a foundation to continue learning about social change...[giving me] the perspective needed to learn a lot from my future experiences in order to keep improving and developing my talents and perspectives.” communication tools complementing the cops and seminars were various tools supporting communication and the exchange of ideas connected to the cops and seminars. 180 • website the website (socialchange.pdx.edu) provides a virtual location for digital community to develop. included on this site are a blog platform for the sharing of information connected to the cops; a calendar of program workshops; a database of community organizations doing work connected to the cop themes; a listing of relevant onand off-campus community engagement organizations, books, and resources; and the resource guide (see below) in an online format. • listserv the cep listserv was created to enable targeted communication regarding events, cops, and the broader alumni engagement effort. • resource guide the “resource guide for continuing engagement in social change” (osborn n.d.) was developed to present the foundational framework pieces (theory of agency and continuum of social change) and resources for engagement beyond the university (i.e., the programmatic elements described above). this guide was written primarily for psu seniors completing their capstone courses in order to support their transition from students to alumni, with a target to engage them in the continuing engagement program. results over the first two years of implementation, the cep experienced enthusiastic interest and engagement from faculty, students, alumni, and community partners. for example, the educational equity/development cop engaged five faculty members. asking faculty to take on this new, innovative approach to collaboration required time that was in short supply. while some success resulted from giving small stipends to participating faculty as a way to initiate the work, it did not translate into sustained engagement despite their recognition of the high value of the collaboration and subsequent curricular engagement. in the second year, in which there were no stipends for faculty participation, the educational equity cop did not convene. the social justice and de-gentrification and other cops engaged several dozen participants and began a collaborative process among students, alumni, and community activists. while we believe there would have been significant interest in continuing this programmatic element, funding did not exist to continue to support the interns who convened the cops. therefore, the cops are no longer meeting, although some documentation of cop work is available on the program website (socialchange.pdx.edu). during the implementation period, over thirty-five skill-building workshops were delivered to over 525 participants. clearly there is interest among students, alumni, faculty, and community partners in the topics addressed by the workshops. to sustain program activity once financial resources were exhausted, three of the seminars were recorded and can be viewed on the program website. these online seminars have benefited an additional 329 individuals. the two-credit seminar was offered four times, involving forty-five students, alumni, and community members. 181 to date, the website has had 6,598 visits and thirty-one entries on the blog from participants. interestingly, 60 percent of the listserv membership’s 850 registered users are from non-psu email addresses. this may be an indicator of both community and alumni interest in the program. in addition, over four thousand copies of the resource guide have been distributed to psu students. while hard copies are still available at psu, the guide can also be accessed from the program website as an interactive document for alumni and the general public. lessons learned as can be the case with pilot programs, funding for the cep lagged compared to growing interest. the program is currently sustained through its website presence. program leaders recognize through reflection that there was valuable support offered for the development of these new models and strategies initially, but that much of the intensive programming needed to match participants’ interest will require additional infusions of resources. this work has sparked continued interest in alumni civic engagement at psu; as of this writing, for example, the current working draft of the 2015-2020 psu president’s strategic plan (portland state university office of the president 2015) includes a significant provision for attention to alumni engagement strategies. benefits the following components of the program functioned well and may be of interest to the national conversation on alumni engagement: “skills for social change” seminar. the semi-structured format of the seminar provided a critical opportunity for students to continue and to deepen civic engagement work as they prepared for graduation and alumni life. participants were students, alumni, and community members who were highly engaged and had some critical experiences that activated their civic agency but who needed on-going support to nurture and develop their engagement. use of student interns. the interns added tremendous value to the communities of practice. utilizing support in this way throughout the year added administrative capacity for cep and deepened onand off-campus connectivity. resource guide and communication tools. the resource guide and communications infrastructure were essential in making visible these new, and sometimes unexpected, opportunities, and reaching large numbers of students, alumni, and the public. challenges two things in particular did not work as well as anticipated by program designers. the communities of practice were a useful structural tool and began to take on a more dynamic life with the addition of the interns. however, they did not take on their full 182 form as quickly or effectively as hoped. the amount of coordination required to identify, recruit, and provide programmatic support for the students, alumni, faculty, and community members was a significant challenge. caution is also warranted regarding the website, digital cop engagement, and other online components. while essential and effective at some level, they are inserted into an oversaturated landscape of online resources and information, making it difficult for participants to find and use the resources. in addition, online resources can operate in conflict with and draw energy away from the important face-to-face direct engagement that is essential to ongoing community-based social change work. another primary challenge for this type of innovation is located in higher education’s intense focus on curricular engagement among current students. as noted earlier, alumni engagement has historically been approached as a fundraising endeavor, facilitated largely by development professionals who often oversee alumni association activities. new efforts to direct university resources to the community at large (as was accomplished through opening up the seminar and on-going workshops to alumni and other public community members) can be difficult in the context of traditional views of alumni involvement. however, it is clear that opportunities to foster collaborations with alumni and development offices by using engagement activities to deepen and cultivate alumni relationships are gaining interest and will continue to grow. hope for the future through the continuing engagement program, psu piloted approaches to extend the impact of civic engagement by encouraging and supporting continuing involvement of students as they become alumni. these nascent efforts may help to inform a field that is poised to take its next evolutionary steps at the same time that social and ecological issues on a global scale demand that higher education direct its intellectual resources towards addressing “wicked” problems. fortunately, civic engagement in higher education has evolved to a current, stronger position of acceptance as an important mechanism of scholarship and institutional strategy. perhaps this greater level of legitimacy, coupled with the desire to engage alumni beyond donor status, will be the basis for a concentrated agenda that responds even better to the challenges of the times in which we live. this initiative included the direct investment in supporting the continuing engagement of not only students as future alumni, but also existing alumni and community members. looking ahead, we at psu intend to explore areas that may be of interest to the larger civic engagement community interested in deepening alumni engagement. specifically, we anticipate the following: •   developing and maintaining an alumni speakers bureau (similar to that of citizen  alum), with individuals who would be available to address classes, speak about how they continued their engagement after it was initiated at psu (or elsewhere), and be available as mentors; 183 •   collaborating with community activists and organizers so that, with support from  faculty, they can write and publish on areas of their social change experience and expertise as well as interact directly with students and alumni; and •   exploring funding possibilities to design and implement mini-grants for students and  alumni that incentivize and support their joint participation in a variety of pre-existing social change and civic engagement opportunities in the local region and beyond. conclusion the community education program pilot expanded portland state university’s community engagement model to include continuing alumni engagement. the experience demonstrated the demand for this approach among faculty, students, alumni, and community members. students and alumni participating in the program offered insights through program feedback that the components they had participated in “ensure[d] that [i’m] able to stay involved in the long-term” and have “given me encouragement to feel empowered to help make the positive changes that i wish to see in my lifetime.” the continued expansion of community engagement beyond the university has the potential to create a more holistic student and alumni experience that can further empower individuals to be change agents in their communities. it also works toward ensuring that engagement begun in university-based civic engagement experiences becomes more of a lifelong pattern, an impact that amplifies existing programmatic outcomes. we have offered our experiment with the hope that others may learn, as we have, from our experience in and reflection on these efforts to help push and expand civic engagement in higher education beyond the university, and that it may be a resource for innovation and action in the challenging times in which we live. references astin, alexander w., lori j. vogelgesang, elaine k. ikeda, and jennifer a. yee. 2000. “how service learning affects students.” higher education. paper 144. los angeles: higher education research institute, university of california. http://digitalcommons. unomaha.edu/slcehighered/144 boyte, harry c. 2008. “against the current: developing the civic agency of students.” change: the magazine of higher learning 40 (3): 8-15. boyte, harry c. 2013. “reinventing citizenship as public work: civic learning for the working world.” in higher education exchange, edited by david w. brown and deborah witte, 14-27. dayton, oh: kettering foundation. accessed november 1. https://www.kettering.org/wp-content/uploads/hex-2013-boyte.pdf bringle, robert g., morgan studer, jarod wilson, patti h. clayton, and kathryn s. steinberg. 2011. “designing programs with a purpose: to promote civic engagement for life.” journal of academic ethics 9 (2): 149-164. 184 cohen, jonathan. 2006. “social, emotional, ethical, and academic education: creating a climate for learning, participation in democracy, and well-being.” harvard educational review 76 (2): 201-237. colby, anne, elizabeth beaumont, thomas ehrlich, and josh corngold. 2010. educating for democracy: preparing undergraduates for responsible political engagement. san francisco: john wiley & sons. ellison, julie. 2013. “civic engagement in the fourth dimension: the real time of real lives.” presentation at north carolina campus compact civic institute, elon, nc, february 2013. accessed november 1. http://www.citizenalum.org/wp-content/ uploads/2013/05/citizen-alum-presentation-red-march-2013.pdf ellison, julie. 2015. “happy graduation. now what? from citizen students to citizen alums. change: the magazine of higher learning 47 (1): 51-53. accessed november 1. http://www.changemag.org/archives/back%20issues/2015/january-february%20 2015/perspectives-graduation-abstract.html geary schneider, carol. 2015. “the leap challenge: transforming for students, essential for liberal education.” liberal education 101 (1/2). accessed june 25. https://www.aacu.org/liberaleducation/2015/winter-spring/schneider harkavy, ira. 2015. “creating the connected institution: toward realizing benjamin franklin and ernest boyer’s revolutionary vision for american higher education.” liberal education 101 (1/2). accessed june 26. https://www.aacu.org/ liberaleducation/2015/winter-spring/harkavy. kecskes, kevin, and seanna kerrigan. 2009. “capstone experiences: integrating education for civic engagement.” in civic engagement in higher education, edited by barbara jacoby. san francisco: jossey-bass. kecskes, kevin, seanna kerrigan, and judy patton. 2006. “the heart of the matter: aligning curriculum, pedagogy, and engagement in higher education.” metropolitan universities 17 (1): 51-61. kirlin, mary. 2002. “civic skill building: the missing component in service programs?” ps: political science & politics 35 (3): 571-575. knefelkamp, l. lee. 2008. “civic identity: locating self in community.” diversity & democracy, 11 (2): 1-3. lawthom, rebecca. 2011. “developing learning communities: using communities of practice within community psychology.” international journal of inclusive education 15 (1): 153-64. 185 mitchell, tania d., virginia visconti, arthur keene, and richard battistoni. 2011. “educating for democratic leadership at stanford, umass, and providence college.” in from command to community: a new approach to leadership education in colleges and universities, edited by nicholas v. longo and cynthia m. gibson, 11548. lebanon, nh: university of new england press. musil, caryn mctighe. 2003. “educating for citizenship.” peer review 5 (3): 4-8. accessed april 2. https://www.aacu.org/publications-research/periodicals/ educating-citizenship new england resource center for higher education. n.d. “carnegie community engagement classification.” accessed november 4. http://nerche.org/index. php?option=com_content&view=article&id=341&itemid=92 osborn, david. n.d. “resource guide for continuing engagement in social change.” university studies, portland state university, portland, oregon. pittman, karen, merita irby, joel tolman, nicole yohalem, and thaddeus ferber. 2003. preventing problems, promoting development, encouraging engagement: competing priorities or inseparable goals? washington, dc: the forum for youth investment, impact strategies, inc. portland state university communities of practice for social change. n.d. “skills for social change seminar.” accessed october 7. http://socialchange.pdx.edu/ portland state university office of the president. 2015. “let knowledge serve the city: the strategic goals of portland state university—2015-2020.” portland state university. accessed october 7. http://www.pdx.edu/president/sites/www.pdx.edu. president/files/sp%20public%20outreach%20draft%20%20%281%29.pdf portland state university. 2015a. “profile.” accessed october 7. http://www.pdx.edu/ profile/snapshot-portland-state portland state university. 2015b. “topic team report: community partnerships, engagement and civic leadership.” accessed october 7. http://www.pdx.edu/ president/sites/www.pdx.edu.president/files/cpecl%20topic%20team%20draft%20 for%20review.pdf regents of the university of michigan. n.d. “citizen alum.” accessed october 31. http://www.citizenalum.org/. vogelgesang, lori, and alexander astin. 2005. “research report: post-college civic engagement among graduates.” los angeles: higher education research institute, university of california. 186 weinberg, adam. 2014. “a vision for the liberal arts: an interview with adam weinberg.” in higher education exchange, edited by david w. brown and deborah witte, 31-41. dayton, oh: kettering foundation. accessed november 1. https://www. kettering.org/sites/default/files/product-downloads/hex-2014-final_0.pdf wiewel, wim, kevin kecskes, and sheila martin. 2011. “portland state university’s second (r)evolution: partnering to anchor the institution in sustainable communities.” metropolitan universities 22 (2): 8-20. author information david osborn teaches at portland state university and has been involved in a wide variety of social movements, including his current engagement in the climate justice movement. osborn created and launched the continuing engagement program at psu in 2012 to support the continued engagement of students, alumni, and community members in community-based social change. jennifer alkezweeny is the teaching, learning, and engagement associate for portland state university in the office of academic innovation. jennifer has over a decade of experience creating and institutionalizing community-based learning programs, providing professional development and coaching for faculty, supporting capacitybuilding opportunities for community partner organizations, and designing curricular service opportunities for students. dr. kevin kecskes is associate professor of public administration and serves as faculty adviser for the undergraduate civic leadership academic program. in addition he teaches graduate students in the mpa program in the hatfield school of government. previously, kecskes served at psu for a decade in the university-wide positions of director for community-university partnerships and associate vice provost for engagement. 187 david osborn university studies portland state university po box 751 portland, or 97207 e-mail: dosborn@pdx.edu telephone: 503-208-6775 jennifer alkezweeny office of academic innovation portland state university po box 751-oai portland, or 97207 e-mail: alkez@pdx.edu telephone: 503-725-2752 kevin kecskes mark o. hatfield school of government college of urban and public affairs portland state university po box 751-pa portland, or 97207 e-mail: kecskesk@pdx.edu telephone: 503-725-8136 muj 173 building sustainable neighborhoods through community gardens: enhancing residents’ well-being through university– community engagement initiative nicholas siewell, stephanie aguirre, and madhavappallil thomas abstract building communities through creative community garden projects is increasingly common and seems to create beneficial effects for participants. this study recognizes the need to understand the impact of gardens on low socioeconomic neighborhoods. by conducting a needs assessment study and establishing a community garden, we were able to study its impact on residents of a neighborhood in bakersfield, california. data were collected from residents and garden participants using surveys and focus groups. findings show overwhelming support for the garden and identify benefits of gardens on physical and mental health, social capacities, and spiritual health of individuals and neighborhoods. the study shows how such university community engagement initiatives provide a macro practice intervention framework for students, practitioners, and leaders. community gardens have become an effective tool able to aid in community building, increase neighborhood interaction and cohesion, reduce crime, establish neighborhood pride, and enhance neighborhood beautification. previous community garden experiments in new york and oakland specifically have shown several positive outcomes (correia 2005; cotel 2005). for example, the new york garden project donates more than seven hundred pounds of food to local soup kitchens and sells close to $4,000 worth of food to nearby farmers’ markets. the oakland garden has grown to become an alternate for vegetable shops and provides access to fresh produce at affordable prices. these projects show that community gardens are assets to their communities. additionally, community gardens are often used as “open air gardens.” open air gardens are classrooms located outside, in which students are encouraged to interact with nature. this interaction has been shown to be a powerful educational tool, as it motivates and engages students in their learning process (scott, boyd, and colquhoun 2013). some of these gardens are designed to become “open-air classrooms,” providing education to the public on many subjects, from gardening and nutrition to 174 physical education and personal well-being. the regular classes and events hosted at the gardens are for local community members (siewell and aguirre 2013). studies show that community gardens contribute to individuals’ physical benefits in terms of health, obesity, improved food choices (twiss et al. 2003; van den berg et al. 2010), mental health benefits for individuals and groups (stuart 2005), social benefits (alaimo, reischl, and allen 2010; beilin and hunter 2011; evers and hodgson 2011), spiritual benefits (unruh and hutchinson 2011), and any combination of these. several social benefits of community gardens are also linked to the sustainability of urban environments (beilin and hunter 2011) and to increasing the social capital and the value associated with a community or neighborhood (alaimo, reischl, and allen 2010). given these beneficial outcomes of community gardens, it is important to further explore this area by assessing the need for community gardens and documenting the impact of gardens on low socioeconomic neighborhoods and rural areas. against this backdrop, the current study focuses on the langston and jonah neighborhood situated in the greenfield community in bakersfield, california. bakersfield was recently named america’s hungriest city with 21 percent of the residents in kern county being food insecure (food research and action center 2013). the center for disease control and prevention (2014) indicates that kern county residents’ health is the worst of any county in california, and that “more than 60 percent of kern county’s population is considered obese.” in addition, 22.5 percent of individuals in kern county live below the poverty level (us census 2011). the kern county community needs assessment (2012) identifies kern county in the worst quartile for high violent crimes with a rate of 586.5 crimes per 100,000 populations (healthy kern n.d.). in view of the above, it is important to assess the need for community gardens and examine the positive outcome it could have on these neighborhoods. it is also evident from the literature that community gardens may contribute in some ways toward possible solutions to social problems, and they may have a salutary impact on building sustainable neighborhoods. this project was part of a university community engagement initiative in which graduate level social work students from california state university, bakersfield, worked closely with community members and local agencies to establish a community garden in a low socioeconomic neighborhood in bakersfield, california. several different agencies and individuals were involved in the creation of the garden such as nonprofit agencies, civic agencies, elected officials, and local groups dedicated to making their community a better place for all. this paper documents the findings of a needs assessment study and the successful implementation of a community garden project, as well as its benefits and impact on the surrounding neighborhood and those involved with its creation and maintenance. literature review an in-depth review of the existing literature shows that the benefit of community gardens is an area that is empirically studied by several researchers. although these studies are different and diverse in nature, scope, and methodologies, they can be 175 grouped into four categories or domains in terms of the benefits of community gardens, namely, physical health and well-being benefits, mental health benefits, social benefits and sustainability, and spiritual benefits. physical health and well-being carney et al. (2012) conducted a study in the united states to explore the effects of community gardening on produce consumption, food security, and relationships within families in a rural oregon community. their findings indicated that participants’ community garden involvement improved their overall health and that the produce intake of all participants increased significantly. the introduction of and involvement in local community gardens have been linked to an increase in physical activity and healthy lifestyle, as well as a reduction in health complaints among garden participants (van den berg et al. 2010; twiss et al. 2003). researchers have also examined the correlation between body mass index (bmi), demographics, level of physical activity, and other health-related factors. litt et al. (2011) showed a significant reduction in bmi for individuals involved in gardening activities. several other studies have reported similar findings documenting a decrease in obesity associated with gardening activities and community garden involvement (castro, samuels, and harman 2013; davis et al. 2011; zick et al. 2013). mental health in addition to the physical health benefits reported previously, the literature review also revealed a link between community gardens and gardening in general with improved mental health. for example, carney et al. (2012) found a relationship between stress reduction, increased relaxation, increased self-esteem, confidence, and a positive sense of passing time with gardening activities. studies by mecham and joiner (2012), okvat and zautra (2011), and van den berg et al. (2010) provide similar results. stuart (2005) suggests that gardening made adjustment to life in domestic violence shelters easier for residents, relieved stress, absorbed negativity, provided a peaceful retreat, and instilled hope upon participants seeing growth of plants. the study further indicated that nurturing plants and producing food provided empowerment, a connection to one’s cultural heritage, and is a cross-cultural unifier. along similar lines, gonzales et al. (2011) and unruh and hutchinson (2011) have shown that participating in community activities can decrease some symptoms of depression and provide purpose for individuals. gardening has also been associated with reducing the risk of developing dementia and has been shown to be effective at improving cognitive functioning among the elderly (fabrigoule et al. 1995; simons et al. 2006; thelander et al. 2008; tse 2010). social benefits and sustainability there are a few major themes emerging within literature discussing the benefits and impacts of community gardens on society and communities. these social impacts generally were measured in terms of sustainability, social capital, and specific social 176 outcomes associated with community gardens. “social capital” has been identified as an underlying theme that is often emphasized in the literature reviewed. in the literature (or in this context), it is conceptualized as a measure of the connectedness (or lack thereof) and relationships between both individuals and groups within a community (alaimo, reischl, and allen 2010; draper and freedman 2010). social capital, then, is a measure of both intrinsic and extrinsic value of a neighborhood, community, or region, as perceived by that area’s residents, be it individuals or groups within or outside the area. a recent study on intergenerational mobility in the united states identified a correlation between social capital and income mobility—those living in areas with greater social capital were more able to move into higher income brackets and, in some instances, overcome poverty (chetty et al. 2014). increased levels of social capital help individuals by providing them with protective factors in the form of strong social ties, which fosters positive growth of communities. alaimo, reischl, and allen (2010) found that involvement of residents in community projects such as community gardens increased the level of social capital by helping people make connections with their neighbors and by making them more aware of neighborhood organization. similarly, firth, maye, and pearson (2011) emphasized the effectiveness of community gardens in bringing people together and building stronger communities. the study reports that there are four ways that community gardens can create social capital: they get people to come together and provide a shared objective and purpose, which creates a sense of ownership and pride for participants; they provide a place for individuals in the community to meet, which allows interaction and community creation; the things that happen in the garden, i.e., growing, cooking, and eating food, are social activities that allow people to interact and bond; and gardens help link communities to organizations and political and governmental authorities (firth, maye, and pearson 2011). several studies have identified “sustainability” factors highlighted by community gardens affecting ecosystems and urban life style. beilin and hunter (2011) compared two community gardens in australia and showed how community gardens can contribute to the sustainability of a city as measured empirically via the victorian government-approved community indicator framework (the community indicators victoria, aka, civ). the study linked a sustainable community with the existence of community gardens in the communities studied by civ measurements. it was shown that increased biodiversity was among the ecological benefits of the gardens studied. similar findings were mirrored in studies done in the united kingdom and ireland (clavin 2011), berlin (colding and barthel 2013), and the united states (macias 2008). turner (2011) stresses the importance of understanding where food comes from in order to maintain sustainable cities and healthy lifestyle. additionally, turner discussed the idea of “embodied sustainability” as being the notion that we are not passive beings, but “actors in and on the world”; that “we know and produce the world through our bodies” (turner 2011, 515). community gardens are physical representations of this concept of being, and turner argues that this concept must be recognized in order to make community gardens successful in bringing about 177 sustainability through strong, vibrant communities and empowered individuals. a community’s ability to sustain itself is directly related to its collective health, strength, and viability. several other social benefits are cited in the literature. for example, evers and hodgson (2011) found that community gardens have benefits such as increased food security, increased self-efficacy of individuals, and enhanced positive relationships. reduction of local crime and neighborhood revitalization is associated with the findings of multiple studies on community gardens (gorman et al. 2009; henderson and hartsfield 2009; okvat and zautra 2011). additional benefits of community gardens discussed in the literature include expression of values and creativity, benefit of neighborhood beautification, an increase in community pride (flachs 2010; litt et al. 2011; okvat and zautra 2011), increased education about the natural world and food (flachs 2010), binding neighborhoods cross-culturally (stuart 2005), and empowering and building individual and social resilience for those involved in garden projects (henderson and hartsfield 2009; okvat and zautra 2011). spiritual benefits finally, there are some key spiritual benefits associated with community gardening. the deep connectedness fostered through gardening activities and cultivating the soil is a way to create strong bonds between gardeners and their communities, as well as an invaluable way for individuals to learn more about themselves. in flachs (2010), it was found that participating in community urban gardening helps one develop his or her own identity. the study reported that community gardening is a way to be creative, to express one’s values, and to make a positive impact on one’s community and the environment. similarly, gardening activities fostered a sense of belonging with the natural world (litt et al. 2011). this ties in with turner’s (2011) concept of embodied sustainability, which reflects many gardeners’ view that soil in their garden was an active partner in the growing process. similar findings were also reported by unruh and hutchinson (2011), whose results indicated that gardeners experienced a connectedness with their garden and a feeling of positive inner being associated with their gardening activities. an extensive review of literature on community gardens indicates that there is a dearth of empirical studies documenting the need for community gardens in lower class areas and rural suburbs with relatively high poverty and unemployment rates. this study focuses on such a neighborhood within the greenfield community in bakersfield, california, where there is a strong presence of underrepresented minority population. distinguishing it from most other research, this study focuses not only on assessing the need but also on documenting the impact after the implementation of the community garden. thus, the study links the assessed need and identified benefits with the impact of the garden on the community. in view of this, the objectives of the study are to assess the need for a community garden in the jonah/langston neighborhood, to identify the benefits of community gardens as perceived by neighborhood residents, and to assess the impact of the garden on the neighborhood. the three main research 178 questions related to these objectives are: what is the nature and level of participation of the residents in the community garden? what are the potential benefits of community gardens? what has been the impact of the community garden on the jonah/langston neighborhood? methodology the needs assessment study used a convenience sampling method. the selection of the sample group was based on participants’ willingness to complete a two-page questionnaire, which resulted in ninety-five participants who lived in the greenfield neighborhood near the corner of jonah and langston streets in bakersfield, california. the participants in the study lived within a mile radius surrounding the selected community garden site, and all participants were over the age of eighteen. the research protocol was approved by the human subject review board of california state university, bakersfield, prior to the commencement of the data collection phase. data were collected using a questionnaire, which was created in both spanish and english. a pilot test was conducted before the data collection in order to assure the quality of the instrument and the information acquired. the questionnaires were completed by the participants and collected by the investigators going door to door during march 2013. participants were asked to read and sign an informed consent form, complete the questionnaire, and return it to the investigators. the questionnaire consisted of questions on demographic variables, their willingness to participate in the garden, their level of participation, and their concerns about the community garden in their neighborhood. additionally, participants were asked to identify reasons to participate in the community garden. finally, a likert scale was utilized to identify how important selected benefits of community gardens were to study respondents. each respondent was asked to rate five different items on a one to five scale with “one” representing “not very important” and “5” representing “very important.” the collected data was checked for accuracy and was analyzed using statistical package for social sciences (spss) 21.0 software. to assess the impact of the community garden, data were collected using focus groups. two focus groups were conducted. one group consisted of two members and the other consisted of nine members. participants were individuals who either live near the garden, took part in creation of the garden, worked in the garden, or any combination of these. data were collected using a focus group questionnaire. the questionnaire was translated into spanish to collect data from non-english speaking participants. a spanish translator helped collect the data. the translator signed a confidentiality agreement to protect information covered in the focus groups and to protect the identity of focus group participants. the major themes explored in the questionnaires include the benefits and rationale behind community gardens, specifically in terms of the social and health benefits, and reasons to participate in community gardens. the focus group data was content-analyzed to identify major themes on the impact of the garden on the neighborhood. 179 findings demographic characteristics of the needs assessment survey out of the ninety-five respondents, 40 percent were males and 60 percent were females (see table 1). the ages of the study participants ranged from nineteen to seventy-one, with a mean age of 36.52. in terms of ethnicity, most of the participants identified as hispanic or latino (68.8 percent), while the remaining participants were either african american (12.9 percent), caucasian/white (12.9 percent), pacific islander/asian (1.1 percent), or other (4.3 percent). more than half of the respondents were employed (67.4 percent). out of the employed respondents, 56.7 percent worked in a full-time job, and 13.4 percent worked part-time jobs. however, a substantial segment of respondents did not respond to questions about current occupation. the top three occupations of respondents were sales, grocery, and cosmetology (10.5 percent), homemakers (8.4 percent), and health care, caregivers, and certified nurse’s aides (6.3 percent). additionally, 8.4 percent of respondents indicated that they were unemployed and/or disabled. with respect to their education, nearly half of the respondents reported high school education or less (49.4 percent), followed by some college (21.1 percent), college degree (14.7 percent), other (9.5 percent), trade/technology school (3.2 percent), and attending college (2.1 percent). table 1. demographic characteristics variables frequency valid percent gender male 38 40.0 female 57 60.0 ethnicity african american 12 12.9 asian/pacific islander 1 1.1 hispanic/latino 64 68.8 caucasian/white 12 12.9 other 4 4.3 employment employed 64 67.4 unemployed 31 32.6 education obtained high school or less 47 49.4 some college 20 21.1 180 attending college 2 2.1 college degree 14 14.7 tech/trade school 3 3.2 other 9 9.5 level of participation the data and findings showed that residents of the jonah/langston neighborhood expressed unanimous support for this project. over three-fourths of the respondent’s indicated that they were willing to participate in a community garden if one was in their neighborhood (77.4 percent), while the remaining respondents indicated that they preferred not to participate (see table 2). of those who wanted to participate in a community garden, 47.4 percent wanted to participate as a garden volunteer (i.e., use the garden to grow vegetables and maintain it), 15.8 percent wanted to participate as donors, and 1.1 percent wanted to participate as an educator, if possible. the remaining respondents either did not report a participation preference (18.9 percent) or reported other, e.g., garden maintenance (16.8 percent). table 2. participants’ willingness to participate variables frequency valid percent if there were a community garden in your neighborhood, would you like to participate? yes 72 77.4 no 21 22.6 a significant majority of the respondents (91.5 percent) did not report having any specific concerns about a community garden in their neighborhood. the remaining respondents reported having three main concerns about the community garden project being implemented in their neighborhood: vandalism and/or theft of garden equipment and property (5.3 percent), concerns about maintenance of the garden (1.1 percent), and other/unspecified concerns (2.1 percent). reasons to participate in a community garden reasons to participate in the garden were broken down into two main benefits groupings—health and educational reasons (see table 3), and social and recreational reasons (see table 4). the study indicated that opportunity to socialize (93 percent) and the opportunity to work and exercise (92 percent) were the main reasons respondents wanted to participate in a community garden. 181 table 3. health and educational reasons to participate variables frequency valid percent access to fresh vegetables yes 77 85.6 no 13 14.4 opportunity to work and exercise yes 83 92.2 no 7 7.8 education (i.e., learning about the benefits of community gardening) yes 76 85.4 no 13 14.6 table 4. social and recreational reasons to participate variables frequency valid percent save money on monthly food expenses yes 75 84.3 no 14 15.7 opportunity to socialize yes 83 93.3 no 6 6.7 additional recreational time yes 77 88.5 no 10 11.5 difficulty finding food in local grocery store yes 39 45.3 no 47 54.7 182 benefits of gardening the study further identified potential benefits of community gardens, and these included promoting community building, promoting neighborhood interaction, adding to neighborhood pride, adding to neighborhood beautification, and reducing neighborhood crime. the findings clearly indicate that respondents strongly consider these benefits as being important to them and to their community. although there are variations in the mean scores on the benefits of gardening, neighborhood beautification was rated as the most important benefit (see table 5). table 5. mean score analysis of benefits of gardening variables frequency mean promotes community building 95 4.26 promotes neighborhood interaction 94 4.36 adds to neighborhood pride 95 4.37 adds to neighborhood beautification 95 4.41 reduces crime 94 4.26 impact of the community garden focus group data was content-analyzed in order to assess the impact of the garden on the community and its residents. in terms of physical health benefits, several focus group participants pointed out improvement in participants’ and their family’s eating habits and lifestyles. for example, one focus group participant gave a personal account on how the garden is having a positive effect on her family, saying, “one of the things that the community garden has brought is that we are eating healthier, and we are showing our kids how to eat healthier.” for some respondents, the community garden has been a place to quiet the mind and meditate on the moment. one focus group participant claimed that “the garden is used as a therapy where we can come and forget about everything.” some participants felt that the garden has increased the value of homes in the surrounding area. one focus group participant stated, “real estate agents are talking about the community garden and how it affects the value of houses in the neighborhood.” further, some focus group participants noticed that many community residents are taking an interest in the community garden, as it contributes to the overall beautification of the neighborhood. nearly all the participants stated that they have observed or spoken with community residents who wanted to get involved. prior to being a community garden, the lot on which the garden has been planted was utilized for illegal activity including illegal dumping of trash. now, the community garden has been identified as a source of neighborhood beauty and pride. one participant noted, “there is no illegal dumping on site. it is very pretty, and it has definitely made the community nicer in general.” a few focus group participants have 183 noticed that the community garden has contributed to an increased sense of community, not only among individuals working in the garden, but also among individuals in the neighborhood. one focus group participant went on to state that “the community garden keeps us active and it brings families together.” several of the respondents also felt that the community garden has had an effect on the participants’ knowledge and awareness of sustainability practices. participants reported making more organic food choices as a result of participating in the garden. one participant stated how the garden is being utilized to teach residents about composting, stating, “here at the garden and as a group, we are using the things we take out of the garden to make compost.” community garden participants also reported that they are learning more about how food is grown and the local environment. another participant reported making more sustainable, eco-friendly choices, reporting of her family that, “we sometimes come to the garden walking, rather than using the car.” finally, the garden participants have plans to incorporate the garden into educational opportunities for the nearby elementary and junior high schools in order to further utilize the garden as an open-air classroom. discussion the purpose of the study was to assess the need for a community garden, identify potential benefits of community gardens, and to examine the impact of the community garden on the neighborhood surrounding the selected garden site. as expected, findings indicate that there was almost unanimous support for the garden among the study participants. clearly, people in this neighborhood considered a community garden to be an important addition and asset to their community. similarly, it is important to note that most of the respondents were able to identify benefits associated with community gardens. this implies that the residents in this area are aware of and possibly knowledgeable about the potential benefits of community gardens. for a significant majority of the respondents, important reasons to participate in this community garden were increased opportunities to socialize with neighbors and increased opportunities to work and exercise. this finding is congruent with several studies, which explored the benefits of community gardens on mental health (carney et al. 2012; gonzales et al. 2011) and building social capital in neighborhoods (alaimo, reischl, and allen 2010; firth, maye, and pearson 2011). while community gardens have been shown to effectively prevent obesity (castro, samuels, and harman 2013; davis et al. 2011; zick et al. 2013), involvement in garden activities has also been found to increase physical activity and healthy life style of participants (twiss et al. 2003; van den berg et al. 2010). additionally, most survey respondents reported that community gardening can provide them with additional recreation time and can save them money on their monthly food expenses. almost half of all respondents indicated that access to fruits and vegetables was not a problem for them. this may show that most of the people in the jonah/langston neighborhood surveyed in this study have access to fruits and vegetables. it may be 184 concluded from this result that the jonah/langston garden is perhaps desirable to respondents on a more social and ascetic level. as shown in flachs (2010), litt et al. (2011), evers and hodgson (2011), and okvat and zautra (2011), community gardens have the capacity to meet these needs while simultaneously increasing the pride community members have in their neighborhood. all the benefits identified in the study had a mean rating of above “four” out of a maximum of “five” in terms of importance. thus, findings show that there is no significant variation in terms of benefits of gardening. the mean score analysis indicated that neighborhood beautification was the most important benefit associated with community gardens. in this context, it is worthwhile to note that most of the benefits identified were social benefits that could potentially increase the social capital of the neighborhood. in this regard, alaimo, reischl, and allen (2010) found that creating a higher degree of social capital can lead to increased perception of responsibility for and connection to one’s community. this study also shows that community building is a benefit strongly desired by community garden members. in terms of the impact of the community garden, the focus group findings show that many of the benefits identified as desirable in the needs assessment study had come to fruition. focus group respondents also indicated benefits not explored in the needs assessment study but identified in the literature on community gardens. as reported by carney et al. (2012), van den berg et al. (2010), and twiss et al. (2003), the focus group respondents who worked in the garden reported that they had improved their eating habits and that they were leading a more active lifestyle. the focus group respondents also said that participating in the garden helped them quiet their minds and better appreciate the present. these themes are consistent with the findings of carney et al. (2012), mecham and joiner (2012), okvat and zautra (2011). study participants also identified key social benefits associated with community gardens. for example, individuals stated that the value of the homes in the garden neighborhood has increased. although it is unclear of a direct link between the increase in value and the garden, it is clearly evident that the garden is a prominent feature of the neighborhood, which adds to the overall worth of the community for residents and non-residents alike. participants also reported that the garden has helped bring the neighborhood together and that the garden promotes an actively involved community lifestyle. these findings are similar to those of evers and hodgson (2011), flachs (2010), litt et al. (2011), and okvat and zautra (2011), where they indicate a clear increase in social capital of the neighborhood benefiting individuals, families, and the greater community. additionally, the garden has become a place to learn about sustainability and sustainable practices (i.e., composting, buying locally and organically grown food, and learning about how food is grown). focus group participants also report that involvement with the garden has been a valuable learning experience that has helped teach participants about the origins of their food and the local environment. 185 limitations although the findings of this study add to the existing literature, there are some limitations. the study employed a convenience sample of residents living in the jonah and langston neighborhood in bakersfield, california. such a sampling method may not provide a cross-sectional random representation of the population living in the neighborhood, which in turn may limit generalization beyond the study population. also, the opinions and perceptions of people who live in this neighborhood may be different from other neighborhoods, which may limit the study’s ability to draw conclusions about other communities. the demographic composition of the sampled area is unique with a strong presence of hispanics/latinos. to this extent, the findings will likely dominate the opinion of one particular group. these factors serve as external threats to the generalizability of the study’s findings to other settings. conclusion the study and its findings reveal several benefits and implications for the jonah/langston neighborhood and for the larger community where the garden was established. this study and project were part of a university–community engagement initiative in which graduate level social work students worked in partnership with community members and local agencies to establish a community garden in a low socioeconomic neighborhood. social work educational programs can replicate such university-community collaborative models for engaging students in community practice. it demonstrates how such neighborhood development projects can be effective macro intervention learning tools for students, community practitioners, and community leaders. community problems are often complex, and it takes adequate resources and assets to rebuild and rejuvenate communities like the jonah and langston neighborhood. as shown by the literature and our findings, community gardens can be an effective tool to achieve varied community improvement goals. community practitioners and leaders can adopt such collaborative models as part of a plan to address community deficits and to increase community assets. this may play an important role in raising awareness of organic food and healthy eating. the garden has become a community gathering place, bringing families and neighbors together, which in turn has fostered a tighter-knit, stronger community. the study shows how the garden provides peace, 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author information nicholas siewell is a child and family therapist for henrietta weill memorial child guidance clinic in bakersfield, california. stephanie aguirre is a children’s social service worker for the county of riverside in riverside, california. this paper was part of a community engagement research project done while mr. siewell and ms. aguirre were master of social work students attending california state university, bakersfield. mahavappallil thomas is a professor at the department of social work, california state university, bakersfield. 190 nicholas siewell, asw, msw therapist henrietta weill memorial child guidance clinic 2001 north chester avenue bakersfield, ca 93308 e-mail: nbsiewell@hotmail.com telephone: 661-322-1021 stephanie aguirre, msw children’s social service worker county of riverside 10281 kidd street riverside, ca 92503 e-mail: saguirre21@yahoo.com telephone: 951-358-3000 madhavappallil thomas, msw, phd professor department of social work california state university 9001 stockdale highway bakersfield, ca 93311 e-mail: mthomas5@csub.edu telephone: 661-654-2470 muj 35 universities as intermediaries: impact investing and social entrepreneurship rebecca tekula, archana shah, and jordan jhamb abstract metropolitan universities are well poised in communities to be intermediaries among various actors involved in social innovation. pace university established one of the first institutes on social entrepreneurship. its unique position at the university level allows programming to transcend certain institutional challenges. the emerging field of impact investing is fertile ground for partnerships allowing the university to serve as resource provider, while benefiting from myriad opportunities for student and faculty engagement, experiential learning, and access. the emergence of social entrepreneurship has planted the seeds for an increasing number and variety of educational activities related to the field. as the world of social ventures evolves, from traditional charity to social enterprise and social entrepreneurship, the academic pathways provided must advance accordingly. careers in the social sector are growing, along with a clear demand for courses, programs, and learning experiences that equip students with the knowledge and hands-on experience needed to succeed in the field. a key learning outcome of social entrepreneurship education is the development of skills and acquisition of knowledge to mobilize resources from various institutional spheres (seelos et al. 2011). metropolitan universities are often well poised in their communities to act as intermediaries or hubs among the various domains and institutional actors involved in social innovation and to support the communities in which they reside. the true arrival of social entrepreneurship education took place only in the very early twenty-first century when a small but growing number of universities had started to support the social enterprise movement and the use of business practices in the nonprofit sector. while the emergence of social entrepreneurship planted the seeds for an increasing number and variety of educational activities related to the field, the question remained: how could a metropolitan university, with limited resources, build upon its strengths and partners to contribute meaningfully to social innovation? pace university, as an early actor in the domain, decided to make a strong commitment to the emerging field of social entrepreneurship by establishing the helene and grant wilson center for social entrepreneurship and positioning it uniquely at the university level, and not within a school or college. with an aim to support and connect with faculty, students, and alumni from across the university, the center was created with an eye to the truly interdisciplinary aspects of social innovation. the relevance of this positional strategy is underscored by pache and chowdhury (2012) who emphasize that while social entrepreneurs engage in activities 36 similar to all entrepreneurs, the context of their work is different and, therefore, requires an education that brings to bear distinctions and differences of three logics: social-welfare, commercial, and public-sector. however, in spite of this, the overwhelming majority of social-entrepreneurship/enterprise-education programs are based in business schools, with a core education program. background pace university evolved from thirteen students studying accounting in a rented classroom in 1906 to today’s diverse university featuring more than 13,000 students in bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral programs in six schools: college of health professions, dyson college of arts and sciences, lubin school of business, school of education, school of law, and seidenberg school of computer science and information systems. located on multiple campuses in new york city and westchester county, pace is a truly metropolitan university. the main new york city campus is located in the civic center of lower manhattan, an intellectual and cultural focal point for one of new york city’s most dynamic and revitalized areas. this location benefits from exciting opportunities and interactions between the university community and the lower manhattan community at large. pace new york city also includes a midtown center, located on fifth avenue just blocks away from grand central station and times square. this location hosts the masters in publishing degree program due to its proximity to major publishing houses. it also offers a selection of weekday and evening classes and certificate programs; the location is convenient for many working professionals. in mid-westchester, pace’s pleasantville campus and briarcliff location are set on 200 acres of rolling countryside where the university is identified as a preeminent institution of higher education. the pleasantville campus offers a broad range of undergraduate degree programs and graduate programs in nursing. in 1977, pace acquired briarcliff college, ten miles from pleasantville in briarcliff manor. residence halls, recreational facilities, and administrative offices are located here. pace administers these locations together and provides shuttle bus service between the campuses. lastly, pace’s white plains campus, located diagonally across the street from the white plains railroad station, is home to programs in business, public administration, and computer science. since 1976, it has also housed the pace university school of law, the only law school between new york city and albany. academic experiences at pace emphasize teaching from both a practical and theoretical perspective, drawing on the expertise of full-time and adjunct faculty members who balance academic preparation with professional experience and capitalize on the advantages of the new york metropolitan area to bring a unique dynamic to the classroom. additionally, civic engagement is deeply rooted in the fabric of pace’s culture. in 1956, the pace college board of trustees and faculty expressed their philosophy of education when they wrote, “the educational offerings 37 of the institution should be directed toward developing citizens who are able and willing to take leadership in business and related professions, and who are equipped to contribute to the larger community and of the nation.” today, at pace, every school contributes community service courses to the core curriculum. during the 2012–2013 academic year, more than 2,200 students enrolled in 117 sections and spent more than 55,000 hours in community service. pace students address issues in community service that often define their careers and our futures. in a broader context, the need for thoughtful well-educated leaders in a variety of nonprofit sectors is growing. nonprofits employ around 10 percent of the american workforce, and over 18 percent of the workforce in new york state (salamon, sokolowsi, and geller 2012). there are more than 1.6 million registered nonprofits in the united states. in 2010 public charities reported $1.51 trillion in revenue and $2.71 trillion in total assets (roeger, blackwood, and pettijohn 2012). pace university represents a microcosmic example of the nonprofit sector’s impact. in the last five years, 20 percent of all reported job and internship placements of pace students have been in nonprofits and government. furthermore, this data indicates that 40 percent of pace university’s dyson college of arts and sciences graduates find full-time employment in nonprofits and government, and 33 percent in nonprofits alone. what is the wilson center? in 2005, the helene and grant wilson center for social entrepreneurship was created to serve the nonprofit community and pace university. devoted to honing the risktaking spirit and managerial skills of nonprofit organizations, the center was launched with a pledge from helene and grant wilson, boston-area entrepreneurs and philanthropists whose charitable endeavors convinced them that entrepreneurial management can help social ventures increase their impact. the mission of the center is “to promote social change through entrepreneurship.” working across all disciplines, the center has endeavored to further this mission by serving the pace university community, social enterprises, and nonprofit organizations with education, research, communication, and advisory service. what is social entrepreneurship? social entrepreneurship is the process of pursuing innovative solutions to social problems (dees 2001). these novel solutions are “better than existing approaches (i.e., more effective, efficient, sustainable, or just) and the value created (benefits) accrues primarily to society as a whole, rather than private individuals” (phills, deiglmeier, and miller 2008, 36). for example, social concerns such as financial access for disenfranchised populations at the base of the pyramid have been addressed with innovations like microfinance. for social enterprises to form, these innovative solutions need to be scalable and sustainable. they need to create social impact in a financially sustainable way, by applying commercial strategies. furthermore, real social impact comes with scale—the 38 ability to affect large populations with the social innovation is also critical and plays into the viability of the social enterprise. social enterprises are typically hybrid organizations that can be structured as for-profit or nonprofits, with the mixed motives of balancing social and economic value creation (dees 2001). funding social innovation traditionally, social problems have been addressed by government funding or by charitable giving through foundation grants, individual giving, and corporate giving. while this pool of capital is substantial, it dwarfs the potential capital that could be harnessed toward investing in innovative solutions to persistent problems in our society. as of 2010, private contributions and government grants together made up less than 25 percent of revenue sources for reporting public charities (blackwood, roeger, and pettijohn 2012). if we examine the foundation data further, in the united states collectively, foundations have approximately $600 billion in assets (roeger, blackwood, and pettijohn 2012), however, only fifty billion dollars are spent on social problems in the form of grants to nonprofits. this amount meets the 5 percent qualified distribution (chen 2012) required by law, however, the other $550 billion in investment capital is largely dormant with respect to mission. we are seeing small changes; innovative foundations have started making program-related investments (pris) and mission-related investments (mris) to deploy more capital toward social impact. these instruments, while not formally defined, have the characteristics of a loan. pris are zero percent to below-market interest rate loans that must primarily serve a charitable purpose (i.e., social impact) (levitt 2011). pris are counted within the 5 percent qualified distribution minimum, and as such do not affect the $550 billion in assets held by foundations. however, pris differ from grants in that they are investments, and the principle is expected to be paid back. mris are also loan-type investments for social impact; however, they differ from pris in that they demand a market-rate financial return. like pris, the principle of an mri is expected to be paid back at the end of the investment period. the catalytic aspect of mris is that they do not count toward the 5 percent qualified distribution minimum, and as such are sourced from the $550 billion foundation assets, thus unlocking more foundation capital for social impact. while mris and pris remain marginal strategies amongst private foundations in the united states, there are some exceptions. one of these cases is the recent strategic shift of the f. b. heron foundation. in their 2011 foundation strategy, f. b. heron declared a move to deploy all their assets toward mission. over the past three years, f. b. heron has evolved from a solely grant-making approach, to making a combination of grants, pris, and mris, depending on the need and capacity of the intended organization or investment. through this progression, their goal is to have 100 percent of their assets deployed for mission. to quote the organization: “we no longer believe that the legal requirement of using just 5 percent of endowment assets to make grants, 39 while leaving the rest traditionally invested, is adequate to achieve the scale of social change we would like to see” (the f. b. heron foundation 2014, 1). an increasing number of foundations in the united states are making their first mris, which will in effect test this process in each individual operating structure. changing the ecosystem of a foundation is challenging; it requires a complete overhaul in the skill set of the personnel from traditional grant makers to investment analysts. with more assets invested and at risk, it also requires a robust risk-management system; both pre-investment rigorous due diligence and on-going risk management becomes crucial. from $550 billion to $210 trillion evolving foundation strategies have the potential to unlock over $550 billion in assets; however, private markets hold an estimated $210 trillion in assets (eighty trillion dollars in pension and institutional funds alone) (rockefeller foundation 2014). needless to say, unlocking private capital for social change has the potential to be transformative. the lack of funding opportunities is one of the major disadvantages social enterprises face. a conventional business can use its balance sheet and business plan to offer different combinations of risk and return to many different types of investors: equity investors, banks, bond funds, venture capitalists, and so on. not so for many social enterprises, but that is changing. an increasing number of social entrepreneurs and investors are realizing that social enterprises of all sorts also can generate financial returns attractive to investors. this realization can lead to a dramatic increase in the amount and diversity of capital available to these organizations. essentially, the insight is that one can treat the funding of a social enterprise as a problem of financial structuring. one such social finance innovation is social impact bonds (goldman sachs 2014). the evolution of impact investing social enterprises are increasingly tapping into this growing market of hybrid capital. in its early stages, a social enterprise can tap into more traditional philanthropic capital for grants and low-cost funding. these investors do not expect a financial return, but expect a social return. as the enterprise matures and is generating revenue, this will attract market-rate investors who expect both a financial and a social return. these hybrid investors, often referred to as impact investors, are typically crossover philanthropists, but increasingly include traditional investors seeking both measurable social and financial returns on their investments. according to the global impact investing network (giin), “impact investments are investments made into companies, organizations, and funds with the intention to generate a measurable, beneficial social or environmental impact alongside a financial return” (global impact investment network 2014a, 1). 40 measuring social impact today, in order to attract meaningful investment capital, social innovations must have measurable and reportable outputs and outcomes. anecdotes are no longer a sufficient means of demonstrating program effectiveness. as giin explains, “impact measurement is central to effective impact investing, as it demonstrates investor intent and legitimizes the industry with data on impact produced. good impact measurement generates intrinsic value for all impact investment stakeholders, yields data to mobilize greater capital toward generating impact, and increases the transparency and accountability for the impact delivered” (global impact investment network 2014b, 1). giin has done some groundbreaking work on impact metrics, in particular the establishment of the global impact investing ratings system (giirs), a system for assessing the social and environmental impact of companies and funds with its ratings and analytics approach (global impact investing ratings system 2014). giirs is intended to be analogous to morningstar investment rankings and capital iq financial analytics, and become the standard metric measurement tool. as it is adopted by more investors and social enterprises, it may catalyze the impact investment movement; this tool is intended to change investor behavior and unlock the potential of this new asset class. the wilson center is based on pace university’s lower manhattan campus. lower manhattan is the fourth largest business district in the united states, one of the fastest growing residential neighborhoods in the city, a popular tourist destination, and one of the main transportation hubs of new york city. as a neighbor to city hall and several city, state, and federal agencies, pace university has served as a community partner on a variety of important initiatives. to fulfill its mission, the wilson center adopted a four-pronged strategy, outlined below: inspired education this program area focuses on cultivating the next generation of nonprofit and social enterprise leaders. this includes leading and facilitating the development of curriculum for both noncredit and degree-granting programs at the undergraduate and graduate level. 1. leading up to fall 2013, the wilson center, in partnership with the dyson college of arts and sciences, was integral in the development and establishment of a minor in nonprofit studies. by spring 2014, more than 200 undergraduate students were enrolled in minor-eligible undergraduate courses, reflecting their interest in the sector. as of fall 2014, students enrolled in the nonprofit studies minor have majors in advertising and integrated marketing, political science, psychology, theatre arts, english literature, and history, to name a few, truly reflecting the cross-disciplinary interest in the field. this academic credential allows pace students to connect their passion for social impact into their career path and future planning. 2. wilson center advisors, fellows, and other faculty partners across several schools instruct a number of courses at the undergraduate and graduate level, including: 41 i. cs 643 mobile innovations for global challenges ii. fin 680/360 microfinance and small business financing in india iii. mgt 349 global sustainable development iv. mgt 678 advanced topics in management: social entrepreneurship v. paa 683 seminar in social entrepreneurship vi. psj 301 humanitarianism and international aid work vii. ws 305 philanthropy on a mission: women and change in the nonprofit sector 3. the wilson center supported the extension of the master in public administration program from the white plains campus, where it resided for thirty years, to the lower manhattan campus in order to meet the growing demand from the local nonprofit community. this program attracted twenty-three new students in its first semester. 4. the wilson center has a long standing partnership with united way of westchester and putnam counties. through this collaboration, pace’s westchester county campus provided eighteen continuing education workshops to over 224 nonprofit managers in the county this past year. these workshops also serve as a pipeline into pace’s mba and mpa degree programs. research to practice the goal of this program area is to support the creation of a diverse portfolio of recognized research projects related to social innovation, social finance, social entrepreneurship, and nonprofit management. faculty fellows are funded and supported in: 1) initiating and developing research studies, 2) promoting their work at talks and conferences, 3) submitting their research to leading publications and peerreviewed journals, and 4) applying for sponsored research grants from government agencies and private foundations. 1. sponsored research. each year, the wilson center funds four faculty fellows. a faculty steering committee sets funding priorities and selects candidates through a blind review process. selected fellows work on specific projects—generally case studies and academic research—related to the center’s mission. each recipient is awarded $5,000 and is supported by student research assistants. since 2009, this program has produced twenty-five research papers. 2. brown bag lunch research seminars. the wilson center hosts a series of brown bag lunch seminars which showcase past faculty fellow-funded research projects. for accessibility, the seminars are held during common hour and are webcast to the pace online community. 42 3. nonprofit and social enterprise research. the wilson center is a research and data resource for both local and national organizations, including the westchester county executive and local congressional representatives. the center also offers research support in service of the university; the economic impact report for pace nyc and the economic impact report for pace athletics were based on research by the center. center-based faculty and staff also actively write and publish relevant research. 4. digital commons initiative. the wilson center’s digital commons selected works series serves to maximize the visibility and impact of its research. this repository is home to many online journals including the pace environmental law review, the yale journal of health policy, law and ethics, and cornell university ilr review. works posted in the center’s series have had 2,475 full-text downloads since 2013. the leverage of these seed research grants is illustrated in the example of one past faculty fellow, professor christelle scharff of pace’s seidenberg school of computer science and information systems. she worked on innovative research exploring mobile technology for social change in africa. in addition to the faculty fellowship, the wilson center sponsored her attendance at a conference to present her work, which was also showcased at a student leadership forum on campus. her paper was published in the journal of the frontiers in education conference. from this, professor scharff created a course and launched a mobile app contest for students. consequently, dr. scharff received a fulbright fellowship for her work, and she is now chair of the computer science department. recognized voice the center aims to be a recognized center of excellence in the field of social enterprise, both internally at pace university and externally in the community. 1. external visibility. the wilson center is recognized by ashoka, echoing green, and the u.s. department of state as a thought leader in best practices in social enterprise and entrepreneurship. the center hosts a series of conferences and speaking events throughout the year as a platform to foster critical conversations with key stakeholders. these events are free and open to both the pace and new york nonprofit and government communities. these events include: i. pace-hitachi nonprofit forum: this annual free educational forum held on the white plains campus, hosts more than 150 attendees each year and is cosponsored by hitachi america, ltd. a significant number of students attend this event, and a career networking luncheon is served for students, alumni, and employers. ii. not-for-profit leadership summit: the wilson center is a co-sponsor of this full-day annual gathering of more than 700 nonprofit leaders in westchester. all pace university students are invited to attend for free. 43 iii. u.s. department of state social entrepreneurship panels and courses: the wilson center has an ongoing partnership with the u.s department of state and leads a panel or course on social entrepreneurship for international delegates through the state department visitors program; up to ninety delegates attend each year. iv. true partnerships discussion: the wilson center sponsors an annual event on the lower manhattan campus bringing together social ventures and their partner organizations and sponsors to discuss best practices for collaboration toward social impact. v. nyc nonprofit career panel: each year, the wilson center hosts a panel on social sector career opportunities. recent pace alumni working in the nonprofit, government, and social enterprise sectors return to campus and speak with students about their experiences in the sector thus far. students benefit from engaging with practitioners in the field and have a chance to network and connect with the alumni speakers. 2. internal visibility: to be a further resource to the pace community of faculty, staff, and students, the wilson center produces and publishes short ten-to-twelve minute teaching/learning modules on topics related to social entrepreneurship. these are made accessible to the pace community through the blackboard learning system and encourage faculty to import relevant modules into their course syllabi. wilson center faculty and staff researchers also guest lecture on relevant topics in-person in the classroom by invitation. 3. communications. the wilson center’s website provides an important connection to members of the pace university community and the social sector. the center’s website, weekly online newspaper, and related social media tools are used to engage students and alumni in activities at pace and in the community related to the center’s mission. 4. public relations. the wilson center is featured in the local and national press, with coverage of both research and program activity. for example, at the request of a local reporter, the wilson center recently led an analysis on the trends and issues faced by the large and growing nonprofit sector in westchester. the report served as two separate features in a local magazine and led to an invited presentation for congresswoman nita lowey. energetic community the wilson center goal of fostering a collaborative community of faculty, students, alumni, and practitioners is realized through a suite of experiential learning opportunities for students to enhance their education. the center offers several experiential programs: 44 1. summer funded internships: since 2009, the center has placed and funded seventynine full-time summer internships at forty-seven unique and innovative nonprofits and social enterprises in the new york metro area. interns in the program represent a wide variety of majors across pace’s six schools, with undergraduate and graduate students participating at nearly equal rates. each intern receives $4,200 in income for the summer, resulting in $373,800 in funding over the last six years. this year, the wilson center was able to expand the scope of the program into staten island and queens with restricted institutional funding. for the summer 2014 program, the wilson center received 216 applications for thirteen positions at hosts including the f. b. heron foundation, the national museum of the american indian, and the staten island economic development corporation. in addition to a salary, these students benefit from professional development and mentorship opportunities provided by their host organizations. 2. student run fund appropriations committee: eight student leaders allocate up to $84,000 in funding each year—approximately twenty internships—by reviewing and selecting intern hosts and positions. 3. student research assistants: the wilson center hosts two to three student research assistants each year who work on a variety of in-house research projects in collaboration with the staff. wilson center interns have a 100 percent graduation and job placement rate. 4. student sponsorship is offered for a variety of related and/or co-sponsored events and conferences off campus. 5. social ventures: the wilson center, in collaboration with the entrepreneurship lab at pace university, has helped launch more than ten unique student social ventures; winners have been awarded more than $26,000 in prizes. 6. a conversation on . . . : this speaker series has included leaders from sap corporate social responsibility, network for teaching entrepreneurship, first access, the f. b. heron foundation, and grameen america to name a few, on topics ranging from impact investing, technology, and social impact to conversations on best practices in nonprofit–corporate partnerships. these events are sometimes scheduled in partnership with faculty teaching a course on a specific, related topic, or as stand-alone events to foster interesting relevant conversation on the sector, sponsored by the wilson center. 7. social enterprise in residence: each year, the wilson center hosts a social enterprise in residence. the current in-residence organization is impact america fund, an early-stage giirs-rated equity firm that invests $250,000 to $2,000,000 each in high growth companies generating real financial returns while improving the well-being of underserved communities. their investments are focused on 1) health and well-being, 2) education, 3) essential services, and 4) financial security. 45 the helene and grant wilson center for social entrepreneurship at pace university plays a critical role in raising awareness amongst the student population about this changing sector. as a truly interdisciplinary institute, the center can engage students from across the university in these innovative opportunities. spotlight on the social enterprise in residence concept at pace university to understand the concept and operation of a social enterprise in residence program at pace university, it is important to highlight the aforementioned civic engagement focus of the institution. strong collaborative partnerships are critical to the success of any university in its efforts to build social innovation programming and pedagogy. at pace university, each year the helene and grant wilson center for social entrepreneurship brings a respected social enterprise in residence into the pace university community. the leadership of these organizations share experience and wisdom and help the pace community to understand the challenges and opportunities facing social ventures. leaders of social enterprises have shared how they started their organization, what they have accomplished, and how they plan to further their mission. the wilson family provided generous funds for the creation of the wilson center, and in the earlier years of operation, the center annually hosted social entrepreneurs in residence. these individual leaders would visit campus to share experiences and wisdom, helping the pace community to understand the challenges and opportunities facing nonprofit organizations and social change leaders in the community. the center launched the in-residence program in fall 2005, naming susan rodgerson as its first social entrepreneur in residence. rodgerson was the first of several social entrepreneurs that visited campus to share how they started their organization, what they had accomplished, and how they planned to further their mission. subsequent social entrepreneurs in residence include charles best, founder of donorschoose.org, and the macarthur “genius” award winner majora carter, founder of sustainable south bronx. busy as they were, these social entrepreneurs were able to visit campus for one or two days, and engage in, at most, two speaking engagements and some classroom time during their visit. while these engagements were met with enthusiasm, there was more demand than could be met for opportunities to learn from and interact with these individual leaders. thus, in early 2009, the advisory committee discussed and agreed to shift from an individual entrepreneur-in-residence model, to an enterprise-inresidence model. the aim of this new direction was to continue to attract nonprofit and social enterprise leaders from the new york city metropolitan area, while growing the in-residence opportunity to a more holistic and multifaceted perspective of social innovation. by partnering with entire organizations, we could provide relevant and accessible models for students and faculty while supporting and partnering with the 46 organization overall. while not restricted to an individual organizational leader’s schedule, it would be possible to identify more presentation and meeting times, collaborative programs, research projects, and other partnership opportunities convenient for the social enterprise leadership team, students, faculty, and staff. the social enterprise in residence program essentially was structured to have three key elements that include organizational representatives 1) giving at least one public talk and leading one seminar session in their specialty, 2) making a small number of guest presentations to pace university classes, and 3) hosting at least one pace university student as a wilson center funded summer intern. the process of selecting a social enterprise in residence was designed to be formal, requiring a nomination from an advisory committee member, a demonstrated existing partnership with the university or center, and a formal submission by the center directorship to the provost for approval. for stable partnership, the designation is designed to be renewed for one year, provided there was a successful track record in the initial year. current social enterprise in residence based on an existing collaborative partnership, the wilson center selected impact america as its social enterprise in residence for the 2014–2015 academic year. impact america is an early-stage giirs-rated equity firm that invests $250k – $2m in high growth companies generating real financial returns while improving the wellbeing of underserved communities and creating quality jobs in america. impact america invests in diverse entrepreneurs who are directly improving the quality of life in underserved communities, scaling businesses focused on four major areas: 1) health and well-being, 2) education, 3) essential services, and 4) financial security. kesha cash, founder and director of investments at impact america, had been actively engaged with pace university for several years prior to the nomination for social enterprise in residence. she served as a guest lecturer in a graduate microfinance class and in the encore career transitions program, and had met with and mentored several pace university students one-on-one. these early meetings and collaborations led to a joint research project, the state of black entrepreneurship in the united states, and a funded speaking engagement on these findings by rebecca tekula, director of the wilson center, at the launch of the historically black colleges and universities venture catalyst program at the united negro college fund’s annual capacity building conference. university role in impact investing university centers typically focus on a particular industry or field, and generally have a goal related to thought leadership and knowledge creation in that area. ideally, such centers also reflect a partnership of academia, government, and industry. impact investing as an emerging field is a ripe ground for the academe to play an active role, 47 offering resources and support during nascent development stages, whilst consequently developing opportunities for engagement, experiential learning, and access for students, faculty, and community. by positioning the university as incubator, whether formal or informal, centers can become a direct provider and intermediary of resources in an emerging field. furthermore, as the field develops, there is an immediate need for data, research, and analysis, which faculty and researchers are able to provide. conversely, impact investing is great fodder for case study development. students, at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, are also a key resource to new ventures as interns and part-time staff. in the case of the wilson center’s partnership with impact america, a multitude of high-impact educational practices have emerged. from the earliest days of the partnership, an opportunity was presented to develop an undergraduate student coauthored research report related to the demand for minority entrepreneur access to capital. this led to a funded presentation at the aforementioned conference. in this more formalized in-residence relationship with the fund, which itself is only in its first academic semester, the center has placed students in funded internships with impact america and the f. b. heron foundation, an important institutional funder making waves in the field. the wilson center’s growing presence in the field of impact investing in new york city has led to a number of new partnerships. the center recently engaged with the global impact investing network (giin), a neighbor in lower manhattan. giin’s s impact reporting and investment standards (iris) manager was one of three judges at pace’s annual pitch contest, bringing a social impact lens to the ventures being pitched. most recently the center hosted the director of clients and partnerships at first access, a new york-based social enterprise, to speak with graduate nonprofit management students and graduate computer science students. impact investing on campus impact investing has in effect become a theme of the wilson center programming in recent months. a social finance topic was selected for the center’s annual nonprofit forum, co-sponsored by hitachi america, ltd., on the westchester county campus. a panel event on impact investing was hosted on the new york city campus. identifying speakers for these events has proven relatively easy. the marketplace for academic partnerships has not fully developed for impact investing, thus, as early actors, the university has had great success tapping into the network of practitioners in the field. faculty and staff have used this access as a jumping off point to develop publications on impact investing and social finance. in response to the overwhelming demand to share this developing expertise with students and faculty, the center has begun to develop and test a series of teaching modules to share with faculty for import into their blackboard course shells. these modules are created in the form of echo360 recorded lectures paired with discussion-starter questions, discussion board postings, and even short writing assignment suggestions. 48 impact investing and social finance in general, has proven an effective, contemporary, and refreshing vehicle through which to view and carry forward the university’s community service and civic engagement roots. acting as a catalyst and supportive partner in this emerging field has allowed learning opportunities, and real-time access and cases for research and teaching. the innovation inherent to this field has proven a natural fit for engaging across disciplines; partners and opportunities abound which are compelling, accessible, and relevant for students from departments and majors as diverse as women’s studies, computer science, and finance. conclusion the social sector is changing and growing rapidly, and as such universities are challenged to innovate and keep current both curriculum and co-curricular activities, as they serve students on their path in the field. pace university was an early actor in this sphere, establishing one of the world’s first funded, staffed institutes dedicated to social entrepreneurship. the helene and grant wilson center for social entrepreneurship, and its growth and impact, has benefited from a unique position at the university level, which allows programming to transcend certain institutional challenges. the center’s geographic location in lower manhattan, which is the seat for many government agencies and social sector organizations, has further proven to be a great strength for building programs and partnerships in the field. while neither social innovation institutes nor in-residence programs are unique to pace university, the wilson center’s truly interdisciplinary approach and distinctive partnership with the impact america fund may well represent a new method and partnership pipeline. ideally, university centers reflect a partnership of academia, government, and industry. the emerging field of impact investing and social finance has proven to be fertile ground for partnerships that allow the university to serve as resource provider and supporter, while conversely offering myriad opportunities for student and faculty engagement, experiential learning, and access. positioning the university as incubator and supporter in emerging fields, and particularly areas of the social sector, which by nature are challenged to meet market failures, can prove duly rewarding: students and faculty are engaged in meaningful, relevant ways, and the university and curriculum are kept current on trends, challenges, and opportunities in the field. references alter, kim. 2004. “social enterprise typology.” virtue ventures llc. accessed november 12. http://www.virtueventures.com/resources/setypology. alter, kim, and vincent dawans. 2009. “the four lenses strategic framework.” virtue ventures llc. accessed october 15. http://www.virtueventures.com/files/fourlenses.pdf. 49 barr, s., kevin johnson, wendy kopp, and michelle rhee. 2008. “the role of social entrepreneurship in transforming u.s.a. public education.” the centennial global business summit. harvard business school. accessed august 22. http://www.hbs.edu/centennial/businesssummit/business-society/the-role-of-socialentrepreneurship-in-transforming-usa-public-education-2.html. blackwood, amy, katie l. roeger, and sarah l. pettijohn. 2012. the 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kingdom, spain, and the united states.” nispacee journal of public administration and policy 6 (2): 69–95. pache, anne-claire, and imran chowdhury. 2012. “social entrepreneurs as institutionally embedded entrepreneurs: towards a new model of social entrepreneurship education.” academy of management learning and education 11 (3): 494–510. phills jr., james a., kriss deiglmeier, and dale t. miller. 2008. “rediscovering social innovation.” stanford social innovation review 5 (4): 34–43. rahman, noushi, and rebecca tekula. 2014. “a replicable evaluation method of social entrepreneurship centers and programs.” emerging research directions in social entrepreneurship, edited by larry pate and charles wankel, 111–123. dordrecht: springer. rockefeller foundation. 2014. “remarks by dr. judith rodin at socap 2014.” accessed october 24. http://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/speechespresentations/remarks-by-dr-judith-rodin-socap-2014. roeger, katie l., amy blackwood, and sarah l. pettijohn. 2012. the nonprofit almanac 2012. washington, d.c.: urban institute. salamon, lester m., s. wojciech sokolowsi, and stephanie l. geller. 2012. “holding the fort: nonprofit employment during a decade of turmoil.” nonprofit economic data bulletin, 39. seelos, christian, johanna mair, julie battilana, and m. tina dacin. 2011. “the embeddedness of social entrepreneurship: understanding variation across local communities.” in communities and organizations, edited by marquis, christopher, michael lounsbury, and royston greenwood, volume 33: 333–363. bingley: emerald group publishing. tekula, rebecca, and archana shah. forthcoming. “impact investing: funding social innovation and related actors.” routledge handbook of social and sustainable finance, edited by othmar m. lehner, oxford: routledge. tekula, rebecca, joseph morreale, and jordan jhamb. 2014. “social entrepreneurship: the case of the united states.” social entrepreneurship: an alternative to the crisis, edited by parra, c., and c. ruiz, barcelona: j.m. bosch. wing, kennard t., katie l. roeger, and thomas h. pollak. 2010. “the nonprofit sector in brief: public charities, giving, and volunteering.” the urban institute. 51 author information dr. rebecca tekula is the executive director of the helene and grant wilson center for social entrepreneurship at pace university, where she is also an assistant professor of public administration in dyson college of arts and sciences. her research and teaching interests include social enterprise, nonprofit economics, and governance and performance in the social sector. archana shah is the associate director at the helene and grant wilson center for social entrepreneurship at pace university. shah has a bachelor’s degree in finance and french from the university of pennsylvania, and a master’s degree in economic development from new york university. jordan jhamb is a research assistant at the helene and grant wilson center for social entrepreneurship at pace university. an honors college economics student in dyson college of arts and sciences, he has co-authored several reports and articles on nonprofit economics and participated in the university’s federal reserve challenge team, which twice won the regional championships at the federal reserve bank of new york, and third place at the board of governors in washington, d.c. rebecca tekula executive director, helene and grant wilson center for social entrepreneurship assistant professor, dyson college of arts and sciences pace university 163 william street, 21st floor new york, ny 10038 e-mail: rtekula@pace.edu telephone: 212-346-1925 archana shah associate director helene and grant wilson center for social entrepreneurship pace university 163 william street, 21st floor new york, ny 10038 e-mail: ashah2@pace.edu telephone: 212-346-1326 jordan jhamb research assistant helene and grant wilson center for social entrepreneurship pace university 163 william street, 21st floor new york, ny 10038 e-mail: jordan.jhamb@gmail.com telephone: 212-346-1028 52 metropolitan universities vol. 28 no. 3 (summer 2017), doi: 10.18060/21544 supporting college students through peer mentoring: serving immigrant students matthew kring abstract metropolitan state university of denver (msu denver) immigrant services program enlists the support of peer mentors to provide holistic support to the institution’s immigrant, refugee, and english language learner (ell) populations. these peer mentors are highly specialized in their student employee role and are trained to provide academic and personal support. peer mentors support students with such issues as english writing support, scholarship applications, and connection to immigration resources. the immigrant services program at msu denver could not function without this student employment position. the student academic success center at the metropolitan state university of denver (msu denver) hosts a variety of programs that support students in persisting through college. these programs scale from supporting the student population at-large to targeting specific populations that have been identified to need specialized support. the immigrant services program provides support to a specific population of students at msu denver that includes immigrants, refugees, undocumented and deferred action childhood arrival (daca) students, and english language learners (ell). highly trained peer mentors work with students individually and as a group to support their transition to college and onward through graduation. keywords refugee, daca students, english language learners, support center background metropolitan state university of denver shares the auraria campus in the heart of downtown denver, colorado. two other institutions, the university of colorado denver, and the community college of denver, share this space and a select number of its resources. while this campus serves approximately 45,000 students, 20,000 attend msu denver specifically. the institution is a modified open-enrollment school guaranteeing admission to students over the age of 20 with a high school diploma or ged equivalent. msu denver (2016) is the most racially and ethnically diverse four-year institution in the state of colorado. over 90% of the students served here are in-state students, with a majority coming from the denver metropolitan area. msu denver started in 1965, and a key piece of the msu denver (2016) mission states that the institution provides access to education. as the institution continued to grow and serve the needs of the denver and colorado communities, many students from immigrant and refugee programs enrolled in college, earning access to education that many thought would never be afforded to them. to better serve these students, the immigrant services program was created 103 in 1980. for the first 30 years of the program, patti lohman, an instructor in the english department teaching english as a second language, started the program to specifically help students with english language learner needs. for the next three decades she would lead the program. the program served approximately 60-80 students each semester, walking students from their admissions process all the way through graduation. this program has located in a number of different departments on campus including, the english department, the office of admissions, and finally the student academic success center where it currently resides. immigrant services is a key piece of the main retention program on campus: the student academic success center. this center serves all students and provides support through a variety of methods. tutoring is available to all students and is provided free of charge. the supplemental instructions program provides peer leaders to help students in particular courses learn how to be better students. the scholars success program supports students receiving a scholarship to succeed in their courses and maintain their scholarship eligibility. the brother to brother program supports male students of color on campus through leadership, social engagement, academic support, and community involvement. the fostering success program provides comprehensive supports, similar to immigrant services, but does so for emancipated foster youth. the international student support initiative works with students on campus with f1 and j1 visas. finally, the transfer student success provides support and community for the transfer student population on campus, which is typically 65% of all msu denver students. all of the aforementioned programs work congruently to retain msu denver students and help them persist through graduation. this organizational structure allows the students in the immigrant services program easy and direct access to these programs such as transfer course credit approval or joining the brother to brother program. the target goal of these programs is to retain 80% of students. this structure allows the sharing of financial and staff resources under one center. for example, staff within the student academic success center have their specialties, but are cross-trained to assist students in other programs when those program staff are away or otherwise occupied. student staff can be shared as well. for example, sometimes tutors are able to come from the tutoring center and share their expertise with students in the immigrant services program. because this is all within one center, there is no adverse effect to program budgets or resources. also, on a budgetary theme, being part of a larger center allows for budgeting flexibility within the center to allocate financial resources to the program as needed instead of a defined, fixed budget. the student academic success center reports to the associate vice president of undergraduate studies, who oversees non-academic units. other offices in this reporting line includes the career center, access center (serving students with disabilities), the center for applied learning (internships and service learning), international studies, first year success, academic advising, and the center for individualized learning (individualized degree programs). again, this reporting line assists with access to services for students in the program. immigrant services program at msu denver immigrant services serves over 300 immigrant, refugee, undocumented, deferred action childhood arrival (daca) students, and ell students. the purpose of this program is to 104 provide the special and individualized support that traditional support programs, such as tutoring, a writing center, and academic advising, cannot support. this support is provided by a well-trained staff that include two professional staff members and usually three to five peer mentors. the unique needs of these students include support in navigating msu denver’s admissions criteria. admission is guaranteed for twenty-plus year old students with a ged or high school diploma. some students in this program may need support in passing accuplacer exams in english and math that prove they are college ready before they can take college-level coursework. immigrant services provides tutoring assistance to prepare for these exams through the peer tutors in the tutoring center. once admitted, and placed into college level course work, this population of students need support in navigating a number of administrative processes that can become more complex due to undocumented, immigrant, or refugee status. for example, prior to 2012, msu denver considered undocumented students to be out-of-state students and required them to pay out-ofstate tuition rates. however, since then, msu denver created a special tuition classification for undocumented students that lived in colorado. in 2013, the colorado legislature passed the asset bill, granting in-state tuition to undocumented students that graduated from a colorado high school and had attended three years prior to graduation (cotton, 2013). the immigrant services program helps students apply for this special tuition designation. paying for school as an immigrant, refugee, or undocumented student can be daunting. these students typically need support in filling out the fafsa and getting the required documentation. in addition, undocumented students are not eligible for federal financial aid, and many students at msu denver fear filling out the fafsa, due to their immigration status. to help alleviate this, msu denver created the dreamer application for institutional aid (daia). this allows students to apply and receive institutional and state aid that is available to them without requiring the fafsa. also, immigrant services helps students to apply for a number of private scholarships that are also available locally and nationally. recently, the student academic success center at msu denver has partnered with university advancement to raise scholarship funds for these students. financial issues is one of the top reasons students at msu denver do no persist to graduation. for students in this immigrant services program, this is often magnified by the limited resources available to them as a result of their immigration status. through alternative methods of funding, msu denver is able to help support many of these students financially, improving their educational attainment. as these students matriculate through college there are many academic support needs that are critical to their success. support is provided for english language learners by immigrant services. to serve these students one-on-one and correct common ell writing errors require staff that is specifically trained. in addition, these students are connected to a network of , who assist them individually with difficult course work including, but not limited to, math, science, engineering, business, social sciences, communication and arts and humanities. finally, msu denver has found that this student population, like most, needs social engagement and a sense of belonging. msu denver’s immigrant services program provides 105 activities and spaces for this to happen. in fact, these students have a designated “safe” study space within the student academic success center to study and congregate. furthermore, immigrant services also leads and supports programming to confront social and political issues, such as immigration reform, daca rights, and state-issued drivers’ licenses for undocumented people. in the past two years, msu denver has committed additional support, including financial and human resource, to help enlarge the immigrant services program from serving 80 students to over 300 and growing. professional program staff include a full-time coordinator and a fulltime specialist. the coordinator has a master’s degree in linguistics and provides direct tutoring to students, in addition to academic and personal advocacy. the coordinator supervises a full-time specialist who is considered more of a student-affairs generalist. he person in this position meets with students, plans events and programs, assists students with registration, connects with campus and community resources, and helps identify financial support. to support the professional staff, the coordinator hires, trains, and supervises a staff of five peer mentors. while the professional staff of immigrant services are critical to serving this student population, it is also true that msu denver could not serve over 300 students without hiring a well-trained, capable peer mentor staff. the student academic success center as a whole is dependent on a student staff of around 150, when counting tutors, supplemental instructors, front desk representatives, and peer mentors. immigrant services is one of many programs that use student peer mentors to provide direct services to students. brother to brother, scholars success, and transfer services also follow a similar model. student staff are an extremely cost effective way to serve students on increasingly tighter budgets at institutions. some staff are hired with funds from financial aid work study programs available, while others are paid out of the student academic success center program budget. this money is supported directly from tuition and dispersed through the division of academic and student affairs. this is not a program supported by student fees. the immigrant services program at msu denver works to recruit of student staff that reflect the population it serves. for example, the program hires students who are here under the previously mentioned asset tuition bill. some students are under daca status or are naturalized immigrant or refugees. the staff of the sasc emphasizes hiring of peer mentors that can, to some extent, empathize with the students they are serving. having gone through similar processes at the school themselves, these students are in a position to provide detailed and accurate information. also, students are recruited from the english linguistics department, as they are uniquely skilled to peer-tutor on the ell needs of the student population, with support from the program coordinator. once a student is hired as a peer mentor they are trained in specifically supporting the needs of the immigrant, refugee, undocumented, daca, and ell students they serve. this includes understanding different immigration and refugee status as it pertains to state and national residency. training covers focuses specifically on academic difficulties encountered by these students, specifically writing. also, the counseling center on campus provides a campus-wide peer mentor training at the beginning of the year. the coordinator of the program provides 106 ongoing supervision and feedback for the students to be successful and improve on their service to students. lessons learned immigrant services is a successful and growing program at msu denver because of the organizational structure of expert professional staff, combined with dedicated well-trained peer mentors. it is critically important to for this specific program to have a coordinator who understands english language learner needs, but also the ability to act as a student affairs generalist, while keeping informed on local, state, and national issues that have an impact on this student population. equally important, it is important to have a student staff that can connect with students, share common experiences, and build a community of learners. consistently over the past several years, immigrant services boasted a fall to fall semester retention rate between 80-90%, even while tripling the number of students served. the most recent fall to fall semester retention rate from the 2015 group of students served was 83.9% comparatively, msu denver’s fall to fall semester retention rate typically falls between 6570%. how does immigrant services help their students out-perform the student population atlarge, while knowing this to be typically a more at-risk student population? the commitment of staff resources to provide direct, intentional, and effective services helps this population find success at this institution. students have access to staff regularly, whether it is their peer mentor or one of the professional staff members. most importantly, the institution from senior leadership on down has a stated commitment to serving these students and providing access to education for all. peer mentoring works at msu denver in the immigrant services program due to a number of factors. one important factor is strong leadership from the program coordinator. the coordinator and specialist are experts in serving this population of students and their needs. mentoring also works because the peer mentors have clearly defined roles. they each have a case load of students whom they are asked to provide outreach and support. they are trained on the how-to of handling some of the unique situations that arise when working with students. however, peer mentors are not asked to provide support for which they are not trained, or services that which could be considered an inappropriate level of work to ask from a paraprofessional. students hired to be peer mentors also must possess the maturity to handle information of a sensitive nature. this is especially true when talking with students about their own or family immigration students. many undocumented students live in fear that they, or members of their family, will be deported. furthermore, peer mentors have access to other sensitive information, such as student grades and financial information. msu denver therefore requires student workers to sign confidentiality agreements and acknowledge they will take precautions to protect students ferpa rights. msu denver trusts the immigrant services peer mentor staff with this information, as it is critical to help the students assigned to them. a peer mentor must know if a student needs additional financial resources, or additional support in their classes. students hired for this position are given a high level of responsibility and trust. 107 furthermore, at msu denver, peer mentors are given opportunities to maximize their strengths and talents as student workers. for example, currently within immigrant services, one peer mentor is earning her degree in linguistics. she is ideally suited to work with students in need of ell support on their writing and speech assignment. another peer mentor is an excellent event planner and provides opportunities for social engagement as well as events that give students a forum to discuss issues pertinent to them. all immigrant services peer mentors excel at providing academic support and advocacy, helping students create study plans to succeed in their courses. this program is replicable on institutions that have a large immigrant, refugee, undocumented, daca and ell student populations. budget considerations must include the ability to pay full time salaries for at least one coordinator position, and to pay student staff at an hourly rate commensurate with peer mentors, tutors, etc., in similar programs on campus. additional professional staff positions can be considered according to size of population served. when possible, efforts should be made to work with the office of financial aid to help students receive work-study employment. this will help them to manage budget expenditures, especially when the program is combined with other programs within a center. beyond budget and staff support, another important consideration is space. this is another resource that is often competitively sought. from an equity perspective, msu denver works to make available spaces specific to students that may be considered vulnerable or at-risk. this can be difficult to navigate, especially as people look for spaces available for all students or question why a particular group is given a specific space. from an equity lens, msu denver provides a space for our immigrant students, as there are many places for these students that do not feel safe or welcoming. furthermore, peer mentors also need space to work, and privacy to hold personal conversations with students. it can be very difficult to get a student to open up about their immigration status or finances in an open area. msu denver works to create work environments where one on one conversations can take place confidentially. supporting immigrant students, especially those that may have an undocumented immigration status can be controversial for some. in setting up this program one must be prepared for criticism in serving this population of students. some will not see the benefit of educating some of these students, and will call into question the appropriateness especially at statesupported schools. at msu denver, these students are viewed as a vital part of the denver community, and serving these students meets msu denver’s mission of providing educational access to the city of denver and surrounding cities and counties. msu denver is committed to serving this population of students, now and into the future. the past few years of the program have seen growth in number of professional support staff from one to two, number of peer mentors from one to five, and number of students supported from eighty to over three hundred. continued growth of this program is expected, especially considering that this is a growing population in the denver metro area (denver public schools, 2015). while serving these students and encouraging their educational attainment is important, institutions must also acknowledge that state and federal laws and decisions have an impact on students’ desire and ability to complete school. therefore, program leadership must continue to have strong ties to community and awareness of how public policy affects the students served 108 here. in the future, it will also be important to consider resources and money that can directly support students such as grants and scholarships. relationships with university fundraisers and donors alike are a key piece to raising funds that students can use to complete their education. as the program continues to grow and expand, peer mentors will be a vital part of supporting an increasing number of students. the student academic success center will need to consider increasing budgetary support for hourly student workers. while this may affect budgetary support from other programs, it is important to continue the support and expansion of a program that consistently retains and graduates students at a rate that is above the institutional average. conclusion peer mentoring is a critical component of the educational experience at msu denver for many students involved in academic support programs, but especially those served by the immigrant services program. when implemented with a clear structure of training, duties, and understanding of student skill level, these programs can be highly successful in helping specific student populations persist year to year and continue to graduation. hiring qualified students for these roles is necessary. if peer mentors also reflect the population served, it can be a value added bonus in practicing empathy. peer mentoring also supports the notion that institution must find fiscally responsible ways to serve students. in times of budget constraints, hiring, training, and supervising student staff, can be an alternative to adding professional staff as long as work responsibilities are monitored appropriately. peer mentoring is a valuable student support model and will be a key piece of supporting students at msu denver now and in the future. 109 references cotton, a (2013) colorado governor signs bill for illegal immigrants’ in-state tuition. the denver post. retrieved from http://www.denverpost.com/2013/04/29/colorado-governor-signsbill-for-illegal-immigrants-in-state-tuition/ denver public schools (2015) october count report: 2015 english language learners. retrieved from: http://planning.dpsk12.org/wpcontent/uploads/2015/12/website_enrollmentreport_ell_2015 .pdf msu denver (2016) about msu denver. retrieved from: http://msudenver.edu/about/ 110 author information matthew kring is the director of the student academic success center at the metropolitan state university of denver. he has worked in the center for over seven years and worked in higher education for fifteen. matthew kring student academic success center metropolitan state university of denver 890 auraria parkway denver, co 80204 e-mail mkring@msudenver.edu telephone 303-352-7165 fax 303-352-3773 mailto:mkring@msudenver.edu metropolitan universities vol. 28 no. 3 (summer 2017), doi: 10.18060/21540 creating inclusive campus communities: the vital role of peer mentorship in inclusive higher education catherine lewis, dma abstract across the country, colleges are opening their doors to students with intellectual and developmental disabilities. at university of rochester (ur), we coordinate one such initiative called “transition opportunities at university of rochester (tour).” inclusive higher education at ur is based on the philosophy that access + support = success. in order to help our campus grow in intellectual diversity, we cannot simply open our doors to students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (idd).we must also provide support to help students thrive academically and socially during their college education. at the heart of tour are symbiotic mentoring relationships. when traditional undergraduates mentor fellow students with idd, they gain academic and teaching skills, greater disability/diversity awareness, and an understanding of how and why inclusive communities are valuable. in turn, students with idd find greater inclusion on their campus and invaluable academic and social skills that will launch them into self-determined lives as contributing citizens of their community. this paper will focus especially on the growth of academic inclusion on our campus, strategies for training and supporting undergraduate academic coaches, and stories about the impact of these peer mentoring relationships on traditional ur students, their colleagues with disabilities, and our campus as a whole. keywords disability, inclusion, higher education, mentoring, accessibility introduction: who belongs in college? we live in an exciting time. across the united states, scholars, activists, educators, families, and students are fueling progress around the accessibility of higher education. from programs that make college more affordable to initiatives that support low-income and first generation college students to pursue their postsecondary dreams, we are witnessing positive and impactful change in the higher education world today. but there are still some among us to whom the option of college is still rarely presented. students with intellectual and developmental disabilities (idd) have the lowest percentage of postsecondary enrollment of any category of people with disabilities (newman, wagner, knokey, marder, nagle, shaver, schwarting, 2011). only 23% of high school students with idd go on to attend a twoor four-year college. (grigal, hart, & migliore, 2011). but change cannot happen if we simply open the college door to students with idd. we must also 21 address attitudes and expectations around who belongs on a college campus. those of us working in inclusive higher education for people with idd are often confronted with the question, “what’s the point?”. might we be “wasting our time” (grigal & hart, 2010) offering college courses to students with these kinds of disabilities? as a person with a lifelong physical disability and a professional working in higher education for students with intellectual disabilities, the author of this paper will address this question by offering an alternate definition for the immense term ‘disability.’ disability is typically associated with deficit: a person with a disability is defined as someone “who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities, a person who has a history or record of such an impairment, or a person who is perceived by others as having such an impairment (ada, 1990).” the author openly acknowledges the challenges associated with disability. but disability is a rich life experience: something that has the potential to impact one’s life in positive and challenging ways. as such, it must not simply be classified as deficit or limitation. the author chooses to define disability as “necessary creativity.” for, no matter what type of disability a person experiences, navigating the world with an unconventional body, mind, or set of senses mandates that we become creative, flexible, and adaptable. disability—however it manifests—necessitates a creative approach to life. when considering access to college for people with idd, we must first embrace the assets and strengths of people who are intellectually diverse, but it is imperative that we also provide a supportive and accommodating environment for learning. the formula for successful inclusion is access plus support. peer mentorship plays a direct and significant role in making the college environment supportive and welcoming for people with idd. thanks to provisions in the higher education opportunity act (heoa) of 2008, colleges are beginning to open their doors wider (lee, 2009). the heoa contains provisions to provide funding, model demonstration projects on campuses, and a national coordinating center for inclusive postsecondary education (lee, 2009). as a result of this support, over 250 colleges internationally are currently supporting students with idd (think college, 2009). many of these initiatives involve strong peer mentoring initiatives (paiewonsky, mecca, daniels, katz, nash, hanson, & gragoudas, 2010). as we work to foster a more holistic, asset-centered understanding of disability on our campuses, it is helpful to take a card from sociocultural researchers norma gonzalez, luis moll, and cathy amanti. these scholars have researched and articulated a framework they call “funds of knowledge” (gonzalez, moll, & amanti, 2005). this concept begins with the presumption of competence; it shines a light on knowledgeable acquired because of, not in spite of, individuals’ unique social, cultural, and familial experiences and histories (gonzalez et al., 2005). moll is heartened by the recent trend among scholars to “use the concept [of funds of knowledge] and [adapt] it to their own realities” (moll, 2015). viewing individual experiences of disability through a funds-of-knowledge lens can yield powerful, perspective-changing results. how do all the aspects of our life interconnect and make a person who they are? how does the experience of disability flavor one’s academic and social behaviors, abilities, and strategies? what lessons— what strengths— might one’s experience of disability impart? the concept of funds of knowledge is at the heart of tour mentor training and preparation. when recruiting academic coaches to support their peers with idd, a primary consideration is avoidance of a charity mindset. instead, we search for mentors open to learning with and from their mentee. if mentors begin by presuming competence, the pitfalls of a deficit mindset, including negative impact on mentees’ sense of ability and possibility, may be avoided. 22 what does college look like for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities? students with intellectual and developmental disabilities choose to attend college for many of the same reasons other students do. as anyone who has had the opportunity to attend college knows, higher education is not simply about taking courses on a college campus. people come to college for many reasons: to immerse themselves in a field of study, to follow their passions, to become socially connected, and to explore careers. ideally, college culminates in readiness for the “real world.” but to be truly prepared upon graduation involves possessing more than academic skills. students must also have social networks to lean on, strategies for maintaining health and wellness, tools to be engaged members of their communities, knowledge of opportunities for continuing education, and skills to obtain and maintain employment. inclusive college initiatives offer students with idd explicit support and training in each of these areas. research has been done on the impact of college for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities in particular. students with idd who attend college… • increase their social networks and self-determination (grigal & hart, 2010) • earn a 73% higher income than those who do not go to college (migliore, butterworth, & hart, 2009) • are 26% more likely to get a job (migliore, butterworth, & hart, 2009) such multi-faceted initiatives truly do take a village, as the saying goes. we’ve seen the exciting benefits of partnership at university of rochester (ur) in our inclusive college initiative, transition opportunities at ur (tour). a history of transition opportunities at university of rochester (tour) since 2010 tour has been a partnership between: (a) rochester center for community leadership at university of rochester; (b) the institute for innovative transition at the warner school of education; (c) monroe #1 boces (an organization which provides special education services to students in several districts throughout monroe county, ny); and (d) lifetime assistance, inc., an adult agency that supports people with disabilities as they transition into adult life and pursue employment. fewer campus and community partnerships were involved when tour began twentyfour years ago. transition opportunities at university of rochester was launched in 1997 when a memorandum of understanding (mou) was established between university of rochester and monroe #1 board of cooperative educational services (boces). this agreement opened the door for students with idd to come to the university of rochester campus and participate in a transition-to-adulthood program taught by special education professionals from boces. at this time in tour’s history, the program had a dedicated, separate space on campus. students with idd received a rich education in independent living, health and wellness, and employment preparation. they had access to campus resources including the library, dining centers, and recreation facilities. but for twenty years, tour students were without access to the college courses university of rochester offered to its traditional 23 students. their transition and independent living education was of excellent quality, but decidedly separate from the rest of the campus community. a pivotal moment took place for tour in 2010, when university of rochester became one of fortyfour campuses nationwide to receive funding from a transition and postsecondary programs for students with intellectual disabilities (tpsid) grant awarded by the department of education. tpsid grants are designed to either expand existing programs for students with idd or develop brand new initiatives in colleges across the united states (grigal & hart, 2010). grant recipients are funded for five years and are charged with following the think college standards, quality indicators, and benchmarks for inclusive higher education (think college, 2009) developed by think college at university of massachusetts-boston, the national coordinating center for the tpsid grant project. these guidelines illuminate best practices for campuses with regard to the following areas: (a) inclusive academic access; (b) career development; (c) campus membership; (c) selfdetermination; (e) alignment with college systems and practices; (f) coordination and collaboration; (g) sustainability; and (h) ongoing evaluation (think college, 2009). a significant growth spurt occurred over the course of the five-year tpsid grant, as we worked to align with best practices and grow as an inclusive campus community. traditional college students have become more actively involved with and connected to tour since the outset of the tpsid grant. in 2010, rochester center for community leadership (rccl) developed a social mentoring program wherein traditional undergraduates were hired as paid mentors who facilitated participation in campus life. but after two years of this paid social mentorship model, undergraduates expressed interest in transitioning to an unpaid, student-led approach to increasing social inclusion for tour students. they helped tour critique “paid friendship” and suggested that students on campus had much to gain from supporting and getting to know tour students simply by being their friends. after several months of thoughtful planning, students at university of rochester formed and launched a university-recognized student organization called “people first initiative” (pfi). their mission is as follows: “people first initiative is an awareness organization that is dedicated to creating and fostering inclusion of individuals with disabilities on a social front. our mission is to create equal and reciprocal relationships between typically developing individuals and individuals with disabilities to reduce misconceptions based in prejudice. we believe that such relationships are mutually beneficial, and are the first step in creating an equitable society in which diversity of ability is celebrated” (about pfi, 2015). pfi hosts a number of different regular events on campus, from a disability-related speaker series to campus accessibility tours led by students with disabilities. in addition to general disability awareness, pfi students interact regularly with tour students, going with them to concerts and sports events, cooking meals together, and hosting a twice-weekly tour coffee hour at the campus starbucks, where all students on campus are encouraged to stop by and connect with students in tour. pfi has also collaborated with other disability-focused student initiatives on our campus, including ur chapters of national organizations like special olympics and eye to eye. from hosting a campus-wide campaign to end the use of the “r-word” to inviting their peers to a “share your story night” where undergraduates discuss their experiences of disability across their lifespan, students are raising the volume on conversations about disability and inclusion. student leadership 24 and collaboration is key in these awareness-raising, culture-changing efforts. ryder and mitchell (2013) studied the dynamics among peers in college and found that, “to discuss questions or concerns about their own ethical and moral thinking and the challenges they face, students turn to other students more often than they turn to faculty or student affairs personnel.” academic mentorship in both fall 2012 and spring 2013, a tour student asked to participate in a college course, something tour students had never done, historically. both semesters, rccl obtained approval from college administration and professors, and two tour students sat in ur classes. while the opportunity was meaningful for the students, they expressed significant concern about not having enough support to feel comfortable or successful in classes. as a response, rochester center for community leadership piloted a new academic coaching program, wherein undergraduate students were hired and underwent significant training in academic mentoring strategies, executive functioning development, the history developmental disability, and other relevant topics. coaches were paired 1:1 with a tour student whom they mentored and coached both in and outside the classroom for an entire semester. tpsid grant funding paid their wages. as illustrated in the tour college course access chart below, academic inclusion for tour students has increased exponentially since the initiation of a formal academic coaching program. figure 1. history of tour college course access. image owned by the author. 25 peer mentorship impacts both mentors and mentees in powerful ways. these benefits are captured in feedback received from both tour students and their academic coaches. tour students have shared these insights about working with peer mentors in their college classes: • “the mentors are a really good thing. during my college class, they break it down into steps. it’s really hard for me to take notes and keep up with my notes when the teacher is talking. but when i had my mentor, they took notes. so i only wrote down important things, and then compared notes with them. with their help i was better able to understand and succeed.” (2014, tour student interview) • “these are college classes and they’re hard. but you can use the mentors. you can’t keep interrupting the teachers during class when you don’t understand. but working with a mentor helps with any questions you have. every person is different. for me, anything academic is a struggle. but for someone else, it could be stressful meeting new people. you take it step by step. everything is going to be okay. there’s a lot of support around.” (2014, tour student interview) when asked to articulate what others should know about inclusive higher education and the benefits of mentorship, academic coaches shared the following points: • “people should know that being more inclusive makes higher education more open to new ideas, better possibilities, and different perspectives that help make us better people.” (2016, tour academic coach interview) • “inclusive higher education doesn’t just benefit people with disabilities, or even just the people directly involved, it benefits the whole community.” (2016, tour academic coach interview) • “mentoring is about a constant change in perspective on how you see yourself and society… mentoring is learning.” (2016, tour academic coach interview) • “people try not to look at our differences, and i feel like that is the greatest mistake any one individual can make… with our differences come unique perspectives and individuality.” (2016, tour academic coach interview) the ongoing development of tour during the 2014-2015 year the tour team focused heavily on planning for the conclusion of the tpsid grant, which occurred in october 2015. recognizing the vital nature of the academic coaching program that had thus far been grant-funded, the university of rochester approved a budget for rccl’s continued facilitation of tour academic coaching, including wages for student academic coaches and a new experiential learning course that is now mandatory for all coaches. the course is called “creating inclusive campus communities: disability, mentorship, and inclusive higher education” and covers topic areas including: (a) disability history; (b) disability legislation and policy; (c)universal design for learning; (d) establishing appropriate boundaries in mentoring relationships; and (e) strategies for supporting executive-functioning skill development. during the course, students are encouraged to engage in regular reflection and actively connect their mentoring 26 work with tour with the theoretical concepts and discussions they encounter in class. special consideration is given to authentically highlighting the voices of citizens and scholars with disabilities, both via guest presentations and assigned readings/viewings. another key step forward for tour has been the development of a tour student portfolio that codifies the specific requirements for completion of the program. all students enrolled in tour now have consistent requirements regarding college academics, campus social experiences, paid and unpaid internships, and independent living/transition education. this portfolio was first implemented during the 2015-2016 academic year, and required that every tour student take at least one college course per academic year. in accordance with this requirement, all tour students enrolled in at least one college course of their choice during the 2015-2016 academic year, and we expect a similar result at the conclusion of the 2016-2017 year. notably, about two-thirds of tour students have requested go above the minimum requirement and take one course each semester over the past two years. each tour student taking a college course is required to be paired with a trained and supervised academic coach. as part of their job, coaches must attend class alongside their mentee and meet for individual coaching sessions for at least one hour per week. since the implementation of the academic coaching program, we have had only a handful of faculty decline a request to place a tour student in their course. it is important to note that faculty have most often declined for capacity reasons (no spaces left in a yoga course or studio art class, for example). by and large, ur faculty have been extraordinarily receptive to including tour students in their courses. the support of an alwayspresent academic coach has proven vital in helping professors effectively navigate significant adaptions, accommodations, and behavior/engagement expectations in their classrooms. in addition to the logistical and practical benefits for faculty, the reciprocal benefits of mentoring in tour are best captured by highlights (see table 1 and table 2) from the feedback academic coaches provided at the conclusion of the fall 2015 semester (n=12). table 1. effects on understanding accessibility, inclusion, and experiences of students with disabilities • 100% of academic coaches surveyed agree or strongly agree that being a peer mentor has impacted their perspective on issues related to students’ with disabilities access to higher education. • 100% of academic coaches surveyed agree that being a peer mentor made them more sensitive to how higher education can support students with disabilities, intellectual and otherwise. • 100% of academic coaches surveyed strongly agree that being a peer mentor made them more aware of discrimination that occurs for students with disabilities, on campus and off. 27 table 2. effects on understanding of self and career options • 75% of academic coaches surveyed agree or strongly agree that being in class with their mentee has impacted the way they think about how they learn best. • 77.8% of academic coaches surveyed agree or strongly agree that being a peer mentor made them rethink their future career interests. • students surveyed indicated that they discussed their experience as a mentor to a student with an intellectual disability… o in their own classes (55.5%) o casually with friends (100%) o to recommend the experience to friends and peers (100%) • 100% of academic coaches surveyed rated their experience coaching a student with an intellectual disability as “very positive.” conclusion as the tour program has evolved and grown, our campus community has seen firsthand the powerful, symbiotic nature of mentorship. when traditional undergraduates mentor their peers with idd, they gain academic and teaching skills, greater disability and diversity awareness, and an understanding of how and why inclusive communities are valuable. in turn, students with idd find greater inclusion on their campus and invaluable academic and social skills that will launch them into self-determined lives as contributing citizens of their community. in addition to the notable impact on individual students, we are witnessing a culture shift throughout our campus community. recently, ur’s writing and speaking fellows program reached out to request a training for their tutors about tour and effective mentorship strategies when working with students with disabilities. as we dove into an overview of inclusive higher education on our campus, one student raised her hand. “i think there’s a tour student in my dance class right now,” she shared. “i didn’t realize he had an intellectual disability or that he was part of tour. i just noticed that he had a mentor in class and didn’t think much about it. we’re choreographing a dance right now and he’s in my small group. i just wanted to share that his ideas have been so creative… having him in our class hasn’t had any negative impact. it’s just a benefit. he’s made us more thoughtful, creative dancers.” here we find evidence of a funds of knowledge approach to disability. this student has not perceived her peer in terms of his impairment. instead, she has noticed his positive impact on the class dynamic and the ideas generated during group activities. anecdotes like this are powerful evidence of a shift away from a deficit model of disability toward embracing the disability difference as a valuable component of human diversity. 28 references about people first initiative. (2015). retrieved from https://ccc.rochester.edu/organization/peoplefirstiniative/about americans with disabilities act of 1990, pub. l. no. 101-336, §2, 104 stat. 328 (1991). gonzález, n., moll, l., & amanti, c. (eds). (2005). funds of knowledge: theorizing practices in households, communities and classrooms. mahwah, nj: erlbaum. grigal m., hart, d., migliore, a. (2011) comparing the transition planning, postsecondary education, and employment outcomes of students with intellectual and other disabilities. career development for exceptional individuals, 34(1), 4-17. https://doi.org/10.1177/0885728811399091 grigal, m., & hart, d. (2010). think college! postsecondary education options for students with intellectual disabilities. baltimore: paul h. brookes. lee, stephanie (2009). overview of the federal higher education opportunity act. think college. boston, ma: university of massachusetts boston, institute for community inclusion. migliore, a., butterworth, j., & hart, d. (2009). postsecondary education and employment outcomes for youth with intellectual disabilities. think college fast facts, 1(1). moll, l. (2015). funds of knowledge. retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aws0ybpgkke newman, l., wagner, m., knokey, a. m., marder, c., nagle, k., shaver, d., & schwarting, m. (2011). the post-high school outcomes of young adults with disabilities up to 8 years after high school. a report from the national longitudinal transition study-2 (nlts2). menlo park, ca: sri international. retrieved from www.nlts2.org/reports paiewonsky, m., mecca, k., daniels, t., katz, c., nash, j., hanson, t., & gragoudas, s. (2010). students and educational coaches: developing a support plan for college. think college insight briefs, 1(4). ryder, a. j., mitchell, j. j. (2013). measuring campus climate for personal and social responsibility. new directions for higher education, 2013 (164), 31-48. https://doi.org/10.1002/he.20074 think college. (n.d.). home think college: college options for people with intellectual disabilities. retrieved from http://www.thinkcollege.net/ think college. (2010). standards for inclusive higher education think college: college options for people with intellectual disabilities. retrieved from http://www.thinkcollege.net/topics/standards-survey https://doi.org/10.1177/0885728811399091 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aws0ybpgkke https://doi.org/10.1002/he.20074 http://www.thinkcollege.net/topics/standards-survey 29 author information catherine lewis serves as associate director, school and community relations, in the office of admissions at university of rochester. she previously held the position of assistant director, rochester center for community leadership at university of rochester, where she taught about disability, mentorship, and inclusive higher education, coordinated academic access and peer mentor supports for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities, oversaw a literacy tutoring program in partnership with rochester city school district, and advised undergraduate student organizations dedicated to political and community engagement. dr. lewis received both her master of music and doctor of music degrees from the eastman school of music, and studied higher education at university of rochester’s warner school of education. dr. catherine lewis, dma assistant director, rochester center for community leadership university of rochester 107c lattimore hall rochester, ny email: catherine.lewis@rochester.edu telephone: 585-275-8172 mailto:catherine.lewis@rochester.edu copyright © 2016 metropolitan universities vol. 27 no. 3 (autumn 2016), doi: 10.18060/21400 book review developing effective student peer mentoring programs (p. j. collier) 7.17.16 dr. daniel j. shipp peter j. collier’s book, developing effective student peer mentoring programs, provides a comprehensive review of college-based student mentoring programs and the associated rationales for utilizing them to improve student persistence and degree completion at today’s universities and colleges. he uses well-known streams of research that support the use of mentoring programs to engage students and increase the likelihood of improved success outcomes. collier goes further and focuses significant attention on the use of mentoring programs that have been designed to engage growing populations of first generation college students, underserved minority students, international students, and transfer students. through the use of relevant vignettes, collier and his contributors persuasively argue that mentoring programs should be considered as an important, cost-efficient variable in the development of a comprehensive undergraduate student success strategy for colleges and universities. in the early chapters, collier provides the essential framework to understanding the crisis of low graduation and retention rates confounding higher education today. this framework is important to helping the reader better understand the central question of this book: why and how to use peer mentoring programs to improve undergraduate student success. collier answers these questions and more in a series of organized explorations of benefits and best practices that can be used to guide the design and implementation of peer-mentoring programs best suited for the specific needs/goals of the individual campus. the book underscores the realities that while peer-mentoring programs are in vogue today at many higher education institutions, benefits to students can sometimes be limited due to unclear program strategies and goals. in an effort to address these issues, collier provides the reader with excellent examples of successful mentoring programs that include explicit strategies, goals, and evaluations. he also includes a “how to” section designed to help practitioners either improve their current program or develop a mentoring program for their campus population and identify program outcomes. this peer-mentoring handbook is organized in an easy-to-reference format that allows both experienced student success professionals and neophyte practitioners to find valuable information related to their work. the first four chapters complete a thorough review and discussion of the status of peer mentoring in higher education today. collier focuses the remaining chapters on how to design, implement, adapt, and evaluate a program suited for specific populations and outcomes. in today’s challenging higher education environment, identifying affordable tools and strategies that improve student outcomes are critical priorities for colleges and universities. collier’s handbook makes a substantial contribution to the field of student success by creating a valuable handbook that serves as a necessary tool for college-based practitioners charged with creating and managing peer mentoring programs on their campus. the book is an essential read for academic 179 and student-affairs professionals charged with organizing and implementing peer mentoring programs on their campuses. author information dr. daniel j. shipp is the vice chancellor of student affairs and enrollment management at the university of nebraska omaha. dr. daniel j. shipp e-mail: dshipp@unomaha.edu mailto:dshipp@unomaha.edu metropolitan universities vol. 28 no. 2 (spring 2017), doi: 10.18060/21508 mara tieken is the recipient of the 2016 ernest a. lynton award for the scholarship of engagement for early career faculty. the award recognizes exemplary community-engaged scholarly work across faculty roles. the scholarship of engagement represents an integrated view of faculty roles in which teaching, research/creative activity, and service overlap and are mutually reinforcing, is characterized by scholarly work tied to a faculty member's academic expertise, is of benefit to the external community, is visible and shared with community stakeholders, and reflects the mission of the institution. community engagement is defined by relationships between those in the university and those outside the university that are grounded in the qualities of reciprocity, mutual respect, shared authority, and co-creation of goals and outcomes. such relationships are by their very nature trans-disciplinary (knowledge transcending the disciplines and the college or university) and asset-based (where the strengths, skills, and knowledges of those in the community are validated and legitimized). dr. tieken was selected from an outstanding pool of finalists because her work exemplifies the award’s criteria. she approached her work with rural schools by validating the knowledge assets in the communities she worked with. dr. tieken undertook research that addressed social and racial justice and equity in those communities. she brought her students into a pedagogy shaped by participatory epistemology in which they and the community partners they work with are knowledge producers and active participants in building a wider public culture of democracy. and through integrating her faculty roles, dr. tieken contributed significant service with the partners she worked with. further, she is an agent for change on her own campus, working to create an institutional environment that supports community engaged scholars. dr. tieken’s emergence as an engaged scholar highlights the critical nature of deep relationships with community partners, the importance of making engagement part of the socialization and training in graduate education, the significance of mentors, and the ways that institutions of higher education cultivate scholarly innovation by attending to the kinds of commitments and structures that support, recognize, and reward community engaged scholarship. as an engaged scholar, she pursues community engagement to advance knowledge that can address global social issues as they are manifest locally, and as perhaps the best way to advance knowledge in ways that fulfill the democratic purposes of higher education. the lynton award is the only national faculty award for the scholarship of engagement. 2017 marks the 20th anniversary of the lynton award; it has been hosted since 1997 by the new england resource center for higher education at the university of massachusetts, boston. starting in 2017, the lynton award is sponsored by the swearer center at brown university in partnership with the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities (cumu). 8 the evolution of a community-engaged scholar mara c. tieken introduction i began my work in education as a rural teacher: i taught first on a remote island in the pacific, and then in a fifth grade classroom in rural vermont, and finally as a third grade teacher in the hills of tennessee. these were very different places and very different schools, with different demographics and geographies and economies and politics. yet, in all of them, i learned one thing again and again: these schools were vitally important to these rural communities. they shaped the communities’ children, of course, but they also shaped their social interactions, their political power, their economic prospects, their racial dynamics, their futures (tieken, 2014). people, both young and old, gathered at the schools and wrestled with school policy; they formed friendships and traversed racial boundaries; they debated school dress codes and determined curricular content. and, together, through crowded friday-night gymnasiums and long lines at fundraiser suppers and emotion-filled school board meetings, they argued for their continued existence. but these vitally important rural schools were often overlooked. despite constituting a third of all public schools nationwide (johnson, showalter, klein, & lester, 2014), rural schools are largely absent from discussions about policymaking and practice (isserman, 2007; schafft, 2016): researchers and lawmakers focus on urban and suburban schooling. this absence is conspicuous and, as many rural communities fight academic sanctions or consolidation policies to simply hold onto their schools (howley, johnson, & petrie, 2011; tieken, 2014), consequential. i wanted to help fill this gap, and so i left teaching for graduate school, hoping to keep one foot in rural communities—to remain engaged with rural communities—while also entering the world of academia and policymaking, to produce research and policies that reflected and responded to rural contexts. and this is, mostly, what i now do: i collaborate with rural schools, communities, and organizations in efforts to further educational equity across geographic, racial, and class boundaries. as such, my work is representative of a broader kind of scholarship generally known as community-engaged scholarship (ces), in which researchers collaborate with community partners to challenge the economic, political, and social structures that produce inequality (others use different names for these kinds of collaborations, including community-based research, publicly engaged scholarship, action research, and participatory action research). these collaborations vary in format and methods but are similar in their intent to generate knowledge relevant to social change agendas (strand, marullo, cutforth, stoecker, & donohue, 2003). the demand for this kind of community-engaged research is unmistakable, as scholars and practitioners increasingly call for research that actively engages communities (boyer, 1990, 1996; ladson-billings & tate, 2006; strand et al., 2003; tierney, 2013). there is a growing understanding that our society’s most pressing problems—widening income inequality, persistent educational disparities, inequities in access to health care, racially disproportionate 9 police practices—will only be addressed through research and practice with the communities who feel these injustices most acutely. colleges and universities can no longer survive as “isolated islands,” argued ernest boyer, past president of the carnegie foundation; instead, they must take on the responsibility of “our most pressing social, civic, and ethical problems” and become “staging grounds for action” (boyer, 1996, p. 21). yet, despite the urgency of these calls, many argue that higher education has not yet fully embraced its civic mission (saltmarsh & hartley, 2011). this failure can be seen in the challenges that continue to compromise the training and early careers of community-engaged scholars; without greater support for the development of scholars with the skills and values of community-engaged work, our ability to address these urgent social issues will remain limited. in this reflection, i share my own storyof how community engagement has grown increasingly important to my work and identity.i hope to show the evolution of a community-engaged scholar, focusing on three supports that helped nurture this shift: a strong community-engaged doctoral training, ideological and material resources, and an early-career opportunity for reflection and recognition. learning values: community-engaged doctoral training i left rural tennessee and arrived at the doctoral program of the harvard graduate school of education with a specific set of beliefs, motivations, and values: i felt that rural schools were essential to rural communities, that they were often disregarded by policymakers and researchers, and that this omission threatened the sustainability of rural communities. understanding rural schools and communities, in all their strengths and challenges, their particularities and commonalities, and then using this understanding to inform more responsive policies was a matter of educational equity. however, the motivations and values that had sent me to graduate school often seemed unwelcome there. most methods classes focused on “objectivity,” “unbiased analysis,” the documentation of flaws and weaknesses—and i was just too close to rural places. i was urged to separate myself, and i was taught a new language that would give me some distance: communities were “subjects,” their trust was “gaining entry,” their words were “data for analysis.” the structure of the academy seemed to reinforce these same power dynamics, with faculty as experts involving students in discrete parts of their various projects, all conducted at a safe remove from their “subjects.” i wasn’t alone: most doctoral students are trained to conduct short-term, relatively detached research projects on, rather than with, communities (strand et al., 2003). they are taught the superiority of academic knowledge over other forms and ways of knowing (boyte & fretz, 2011). they can experience hierarchical relationships with faculty (walker, golde, jones, bueschel, & hutchins, 2008), which they often replicate with participants. and they typically learn that a researcher’s role is to be critical, to focus on defects and failings (lawrencelightfoot & davis, 1997). many students feel forced to abandon their core civic values; others grow disillusioned with academia (stanton & wagner, 2006), and many never finish (walker et al., 2008). but i was lucky. two of my professors, mark warren and karen mapp, were beginning a research project that had two goals: to produce a series of case studies analyzing the work of communities organizing for education reform, while also developing and supporting a new 10 generation of community-engaged scholars. the project attracted a diverse group of doctoral students, with different professional backgrounds and racial identities and home communities, bound together by a shared value for social justice and a growing alienation from academia. over the next five years, we worked closely with six groups organizing for education reform to craft research questions, draft interview protocols, collect data, develop our analysis, and write and rewrite—all of which, for me, meant long periods of time back in the rural south, collaborating with a site organizing communities across the mississippi delta. this work produced a number of books and articles, including a match on dry grass: community organizing as a catalyst for school reform (oxford university press, 2011), and several public presentations, opportunities and publications that developed the field of education organizing and promoted these groups’ work. and, among the project’s fifteen students, the project also developed the skills and dispositions of ces: we learned how to build “horizontal” and collaborative research relationships, we grew fluent in articulating our values and telling the stories of how we came to this work, and we began to interrogate our positionalities as researchers by embracing diversity in background, perspective, and experience (warren, park, & tieken, 2016). it was challenging work to negotiate boundaries that come with the privileged position of researcher as well as to open oneself to honest self-assessment and critical feedback. but, through this work, we discovered that research could be a tool for social justice. finding a path: structural and ideological supports as i finished graduate school, i accepted a tenure track position in the education department at bates college, a small, highly selective liberal arts college in lewiston, maine. the position was a good fit for me, with a focus on teaching, generous support for research, and a location in a very rural state. bates also has a strong tradition of community-engaged work. the college’s mission is, in part, to develop students’ capacities for “informed civic action” and “responsible stewardship of the wider world,” and a rich network of partnerships link the college to the local community. in the education department, all classes have a community-engaged component; students work in classrooms or with nonprofits to provide tutoring, mentoring, and research. this fieldwork is facilitated by the college’s harward center for community partnerships, which supports faculty in developing community-engaged classes or research projects. during my job search, this orientation toward community engagement was not a characteristic i sought out; despite my strong doctoral ces training, i still tended to think of “research” and “teaching” as endeavors relatively disconnected from “community,” a problematic yet irreconcilable divide that was, ultimately, an inevitable characteristic of academic work. but after five-and-a-half years at bates, i have found that my work has grown more genuinely and consistently community-engaged, and so has my identity. my research is more responsive, more tied to questions generated in or with rural communities, more directly relevant to their organizing and development and policy work. i am better able to find ways of making my research useful, whether as an organizing tool (winning a waiver to arkansas’s consolidation law) or through material profits (using royalties to support local schools and community organizations.) my relationships with partners are deeper and richer, and collaborations in one area, such as supporting the organizing work of pittsfield listens in new hampshire, lead to collaborations in others, such as working with my school reform class to design a college 11 informational session and campus visit for pittsfield listens youth. i am more comfortable changing a project’s direction based on feedback: a long drive across the arkansas delta with a long-time partner convinced me that school closures, not school segregation, was the most direct and immediate threat to the sustainability of rural black communities, leading to shifting a research project to focus on these closures. my classes are more creative in their approach to fieldwork; my research methods class partners with a local community organization to collect data needed for program improvement and grant-writing—and wrestle with hard questions about communicating findings openly and respectfully. and this work feels more grounded, more closely tied to the values that once sent me to graduate school. this development in my work wouldn’t have happened at an institution without a commitment to community-engaged work or the infrastructure to support it. the harward center handles the logistics of community-engaged work, finding my students course-relevant placements for their fieldwork, and i can turn to their staff with an idea for a project,like creating a seminar on community-engaged, qualitative research methods. they in turn can help me find interested community partners with needs to fill. bates is also known throughout the state for its engagement, and i frequently field calls and queries from maine schools and nonprofits, often leading to productive research, teaching, and learning partnerships. continued opportunities to collaborate with students and community members have led to more consistent, intensive partnerships. today, the occasional, less engaged, more traditional research project or class feels somewhat irrelevant and inauthentic to the schools and communities i do work with. but, that said, this work still has its challenges. many are common across ces, such as its timeintensiveness or the disconnect between the academic reward system, which credits publishing in top-tier journals, and partners’ needs and goals, which typically require a very different method of dissemination (o'meara, 2011). others are more tied to bates’s small, liberal arts college context, including an intensive teaching load, considerable campus service expectations, few colleagues with related research interests, and no opportunities for collaboration with graduate students. and some relate to the rural nature of my work. historically, policy and reform have happened to rural communities, not with them, and many are often understandably distrustful of outsiders; collaborative relationships, therefore, often require even more time and work. for much of the broader public, rural schools do not hold the same appeal as urban schools, making it difficult to generate funder support or student interest. and bates is located in a city, and rural communities are, by definition, often at quite a distance; these relationships are travel-intensive, and the distance can prohibit involving students. reflection and recognition: an early-career award making my case for tenure this fall presented new obstacles, mostly around communicating the meaning and worth of community-engaged work. i struggled to find outside reviewers that understood this approach. and even within my institution, one with an expressed commitment to community engagement, most faculty take a more traditional approach to research and teaching, and i worried whether they will see the value in pursuing questions of importance to community partners, rather than ones dictated by other researchers. i also had to wrestle with the format for presenting my case, which requires separate statements on research, teaching, and service. my 12 work spans these categories, and dividing it as required seemed to undermine its richness and purpose. and so, like many community-engaged tenure candidates, i faced an audience unfamiliar with this approach and a process ill-suited to educate them (o'meara, 2011)—at a moment that will shape the rest of my professional career. at the same time that i was gathering my tenure materials, i was nominated by the director of the harward center, darby ray, for the ernest a. lynton award for the scholarship of engagement for early career faculty, awarded for connecting teaching and research to community engagement and involving communities in “public problem-solving.” to be nominated was gratifying but also daunting, for with the nomination came a lengthy application—a process that, when coupled with my tenure case, seemed overwhelming. but i soon found that pulling together the lynton award application was an experience wholly different from the tenure process, one that offered space for self-reflection and a connection to the field of ces. in asking me to rationalize my community-engaged approach, the application was an opportunity to share my “story of self” as a community-engaged scholar,to identify, explore, and explain the path that has taken me from teaching in rural k-12 classrooms to teaching, research, and partnership at a small college in maine and beyond. the application required a compilation of supporting letters from colleagues, students, and partners that testified to the horizontal, collaborative relationships i have developed, and its questions entailed an interrogation of my perspectives and values as a researcher. applying for the lynton award both affirmed and strengthened many of the skills i developed in my doctoral work; whereas my tenure case required justifying the messy interconnectedness of my work, this application expected and celebrated it. shortly before submitting my tenure materials this fall, i learned that i would receive the lynton award. it was a surprising, humbling honor. i am joining a remarkable, interdisciplinary group of recipients that have found creative methods to use their teaching and research to further issues of social and racial justice. this honor is also a gratifying recognition of rural work and the efforts of a vast network of teachers, students, organizers, and residents in rural communities across arkansas, maine, and beyond. this is an important distinction, as much recent ces has taken place in and around urban communities. becoming a community-engaged scholar i didn’t begin this work as a community-engaged scholar. rather, i began as a teacher, one that wanted to remain connected to the people and places she loved. i came to community engagement as a method of academic practice during my doctoral training, when i was disillusioned with traditional academic approaches to research and teaching. though this strong doctoral training allowed me to begin to understand research as a tool in the struggle for educational justice, i still didn’t see myself as a community-engaged scholar. it is only now, after another five years of doing this work that i have come to identify in this way. for me, then, this identity evolved, and its evolution was nurtured by three key supports. without a strong community-engaged doctoral training, i don’t think i would be an academic. this training showed me that research can be a tool for furthering educational equity. bates’s structural and ideological supports emerged from the school’s long history of community engagement, the education department’s norm of community-engaged teaching, and the harward center’s 13 assistance in arranging student placements and brokering community relationships. all these created an expectation of community-engaged teaching and set a foundation for my work to grow more engaged, to continue to blur the boundaries separating research from teaching, teaching from learning, and campus from community. a more recent support is the early-career award. the lynton application was an opportunity to explore this emerging community-engaged identity, articulate my values and connect them to my practice, and assess my skills and identify areas for growth; receiving the award is an affirmation of a newly comfortable identity. together, these resources have enabled me to commit and connect to bates’s surrounding city and, importantly, to continue to work with rural communities, exploring questions important to these rural places and their schools, sharing resources useful to their struggle for recognition and equity, and communicating their challenges, strengths, and experiences to others. it’s a very imperfect practice, and i am grateful to partners willing to open themselves to these complicated relationships, students eager to consider sticky questions of ethical research and teaching, and collaborators ready to tell me when i’m wrong. as i contemplate the next phase of my career, i anticipate new questions to explore and challenges to wrestle with: how does place—and, specifically, rurality—matter in community-engaged work? how will i continue this work through the next stage of my career, when i encounter new demands on my time and capacity? what will be my role in supporting and sustaining a new generation of community-engaged scholars? and if i get tenure, how will i negotiate its responsibilities, particularly the paradox of benefitting from an extraordinary privilege while also working to dismantle systems of privilege and inequality? i was lucky to enjoy the support of strong doctoral training, a wealth of institutional resources, and the opportunity to articulate and share my story; many doctoral students and early career scholars do not, and this absence threatens to keep academia removed from communities and, therefore, unable to address important issues of educational equity and geographic justice. but there’s nothing inevitable or necessary about this divide. with the right supports, we can live in both of these worlds.1 references boyer, e. l. (1990). scholarship reconsidered: priorities of the professorate. princeton, nj: carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching. boyer, e. l. (1996). the scholarship of engagement. journal of public service and outreach, 1(1), 11-21. https://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3824459 boyte, h. c., & fretz, e. (2011). civic professionalism. in j. saltmarsh & m. hartley (eds.), "to serve a larger purpose": engagement for democracy and the transformation of higher education (pp. 82-101). philadelphia: temple university press. 1 shortly before publication, mara learned that she would be granted tenure. 14 howley, c., johnson, j., & petrie, j. (2011). consolidation of schools and districts: what the research says and what it means. retrieved from boulder, co: isserman, a. m. (2007). getting state rural policy right: definitions, growth, and program eligibility. the journal of regional analysis and policy, 37(1), 72-79. johnson, j., showalter, d., klein, r., & lester, c. (2014). why rural matters 2013-14: the condition of rural education in the 50 states. retrieved from washington, dc: ladson-billings, g., & tate, w. f. (eds.). (2006). education research in the public interest: social justice, action, and policy. new york: teachers college press. lawrence-lightfoot, s., & davis, j. h. (1997). the art and science of portraiture. san francisco: jossey-bass publishers. o'meara, k. (2011). faculty civic engagement: new training, assumptions, and markets needed for the engaged american scholar. in j. saltmarsh & m. hartley (eds.), "to serve a larger purpose": engagement for democracy and the transformation of higher education (pp. 177-198). philadelphia: temple university press. saltmarsh, j., & hartley, m. (2011). "to serve a larger purpose". in j. saltmarsh & m. hartley (eds.), "to serve a larger purpose": engagement for democracy and the transformation of higher education (pp. 1-13). philadelphia: temple university press. schafft, k. a. (2016). rural education as rural development: understanding the rural schoolcommunity well-being linkage in a 21st century policy context. peabody journal of education, 91(2), 137-154. https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0161956x.2016.1151734 stanton, t. k., & wagner, j. (2006). educating for democratic citizenship: renewing the civic mission of graduate and professional education at research universities. stanford, ca: california campus compact. strand, k., marullo, s., cutforth, n., stoecker, r., & donohue, p. (eds.). (2003). communitybased research and higher education: principles and practices. san francisco: josseybass. tieken, m. c. (2014). why rural schools matter. chapel hill: university of north carolina press. tierney, w. g. (2013). beyond the ivory tower: the role of the intellectual in eliminating poverty. educational researcher, 42(6), 295-303. https://dx.doi.org/10.3102/0013189x13502772 walker, g. e., golde, c. m., jones, l., bueschel, a. c., & hutchins, p. (2008). the formation of scholars: rethinking doctoral education for the twenty-first century. san francisco: jossey-bass. 15 warren, m. r., park, s. o., & tieken, m. c. (2016). the formation of community-engaged scholars: a collaborative approach to doctoral training and education research. harvard educational review, 86(2), 233-260. https://dx.doi.org/10.17763/0017-8055.86.2.233 16 author information mara casey tieken is an assistant professor of education at bates college. a former third-grade teacher in rural tennessee, she studies racial and educational equity in rural schools and communities. she collaborates with schools and organizations throughout the rural south and northeast to foster better understandings of rural school/community relationships, rural college access, and rural community organizing and to promote educational justice across lines of race, class, and geography. at bates, mara teaches classes on school reform and racial equity; through fieldwork, her students partner with teachers, administrators, and youth organizations to expand educational opportunity in lewiston, maine, and beyond. mara c. tieken assistant professor education department bates college pettengill hall, room 304 lewiston, maine 04240 e-mail: mtieken@bates.edu telephone: 207-786-6064 mailto:mtieken@bates.edu metropolitan universities vol. 28 no. 2 (spring 2017), doi: 10.18060/21369 undergraduate student research opportunities and economic revitalization through urban agriculture initiatives michael r. schläppi abstract through interactions with the recently formed cooperative of the institute of urban agriculture and nutrition (ciuan), a catalyst initiative co-governed by community organizations and academia to engage in mutually beneficial research and teaching projects, marquette university in milwaukee, wisconsin, is supporting community efforts to bring healthy food to urban environments. this paper will discuss an innovative model, sustainable research and economic development model, to involve undergraduate students in interdisciplinary community-based research exploring pathways for urban agriculture and urban farmers markets to turn blighted properties into gardens, or rice paddies, as part of a larger metropolitan community economic development effort. keywords academic business model; community partnership; sustainable research introduction the october 2016 coalition of urban and metropolitan universities (cumu) meeting in washington d.c. had the theme of charting the future of metropolitan universities. the theme aligns with cumu’s focus on “developing new responses to the pressing educational, economic, and social issues of the day”. as a faculty member in the department of biological sciences at marquette university, a private urban and jesuit university in the heart of milwaukee, wisconsin, the author attended the conference for the first time and presented a seminar with the same title as this paper. it outlined a sustainable research and business model, using communitybased participatory methods, involving urban agriculture organizations in the vicinity of our university (22nd annual conference program, p. 18). community-based participatory research, also known as cbpr, is “a collaborative approach that equitably involves…community members, organizational representatives, and researchers in all aspects of the research process” (israel et al., 1998). the new sustainable research and economic development (sred) model incorporates: (a) undergraduate student-centric research; (b) community-based projects designed with urban community partners: (c) interdisciplinary interactions such as biology, economics, and engineering within the university; and (d) the potential for community development and revitalization. beyond being a replicable model that could be adopted at any urban or metropolitan university embedded in a community practicing urban agriculture, a desired outcome from this approach is to break down silos not only within the institutions of higher 38 education themselves, but also between the universities and their surrounding communities. it also introduces a methodology for academics to become less dependent on grant funding, at a time when such funding is decreasing and is therefore fiercely competitive. the sred model was created in response to the “strategic innovation fund”, a newly formed competitive grants initiative at marquette university, developed under the leadership of its president michael lovell. the strategic innovation fund provides seed funding to students, faculty, or staff to pursue entrepreneurial ventures (research and innovation 2016). this grant has a premise similar to what venture capitalists expect, which is that the funded projects become self-sufficient and sustainable beyond the funding period. the structure is uncommon for academic scholars who are accustomed to attracting research grants that, in order for funding to be renewed, require that objectives to be met, data be generated, and outcomes be published within the larger scientific community. thus, a main challenge for faculty is to develop projects that will generate revenues after the seed money runs out. two standard approaches to generating revenue include attracting extramural funding (the traditional route), or, convincing a business to investment into a follow-up project. however, as described in this paper, an innovative third approach is to develop a sustainable marketable product that generates revenue for reinvestment. the third approach can have many forms, but the sred model proposed here, focuses on three main pillars: community partnership, student research activities, and sustainable business development. the sred model has to have a research theme conducive to student centric research, and the research has to support the development of a commercial product that can be sold for revenues. because most research scientists are not familiar with the commercialization of a product or general business practices, the sred model is inherently interdisciplinary and requires strong dialogue between faculty and administrators who can mediate between different disciplines. the following overview involves student-centric research (mostly in the area of biology and agriculture), interdisciplinary collaborations on an urban university campus between different departments and colleges, as well as development of fee-based training workshops and a commercial product, both of which will provide revenue for reinvestment. the project is based on research activities investigating the cold-tolerance mechanisms of asian rice that will be translated to urban and suburban agricultural settings. the project will most likely lead to the development of cold-tolerant rice cultivars that can be commercially grown as a novel crop in wisconsin. further, the potential exists for asian rice to be grown on vacant city lots and on empty rooftops in metropolitan areas, which would promote community development and urban revitalization. sustainable collaboration with community partners the first pillar of the sred model, community partnership, is to establish a trusting partnership between academia and the community. in cbpr parlance, building a community partnership requires mutual respect, transparency, hearing community priorities, learning together, and taking collective action (blacksher et al., 2016). to implement a project using the sred model with equitable partnership of community partners, it is advisable for metropolitan universities and urban communities to develop a catalyst or incubator type of organization that brings 39 community partners and academia together on a leveled playing field, such as the university city green organization (james et al., 2010). in the innovative case in milwaukee, described here,, leaders from the thriving urban agriculture movement in the city (ghose & pettygrove, 2014), community organizations involved in food security/insecurity, along with representatives from urban academic institutions, came together to establish an institute of urban agriculture and nutrition (iuan), which was recently incorporated as a cooperative (apps.uwm.edu/iuan; see timeline). iuan is co-governed by academics and community organizations to guarantee equity of all participants. through iuan, marquette university formed a partnership with alice’s garden, a two-acre urban community garden located two miles from marquette, which is run by the university of wisconsin-milwaukee county extension system (broadway, 2009). alice’s garden nurtures families and organizations to reclaim and nourish cultural and family traditions connected to land and food. an online article by iuan chronicles how the cooperative identified common interests between a biologist at marquette university and venice williams, executive director of alice’s garden, in establishing a mutually beneficial program centered on bringing asian rice as a potential crop to urban gardens. and furthermore, it recounts how it facilitated the partnership between academia and an urban community organization (grow, 2014). introducing a new staple crop to alice’s garden, to help solve food access problems of the primarily african-american community it serves, was not the only objective for ms. williams. she was equally interested in bringing awareness to the history and culture of rice cultivation in the united states. for example, few people are aware that west african slaves who developed the gullah culture in south carolina also established commercial rice cultivation in north america (carney, 2001), and ms. williams considered this to be critical historical information to share with the community served by the garden. the collaboration between marquette university and alice’s garden started in 2014, when a group of urban gardeners, mentored by a marquette university scientist, built two raised-bedtype rice paddies. this became a prototype for the potential of urban rice cultivation in milwaukee. these paddies followed a design developed at marquette university to experimentally grow rice in approximately 20-square-foot raised beds, containing pool liners, on a rooftop of the department of biological sciences. at the same time, students of the bio 3406 “plant biology” course, gained a service-learning component, having been previously introduced to plant growth and development only through textbook and primary literature based case studies. the marquette university students are now an integral part of alice’s garden, tending one designated plot, as they collaborate with a group of resident gardeners to perform harvesting, weeding, and garden plot winterizing activities every fall semester. the raised bed paddies are now a showcase for rice cultivation, history, and culture, which is reinforced through community conversations at the garden during the summer growing season. these initial collaborative interactions, based on passion and mutual interest between community partners and university researchers, are crucial for developing a sred model, because they help develop valuable trusting relationships between the two partners, and set the foundation for building larger scale projects. it is essential that faculty members of metropolitan universities hear the community priorities (blacksher et al., 2016). furthermore, faculty must engage in research projects that are useful for and have a resonance in the community, thus ensuring mutually beneficial collaborations. in the case presented here, introducing community gardeners to a new and interesting crop with historical and cultural significance was the foundation that 40 took research activities out of the lab and into the urban setting. paired with service-learning activities, it built a bridge between academia and the community. it was a prerequisite for the next step, to discuss projects with fundable objectives. it was important for the current model that at least one part of the project had a sustainability aspect to allow the initial pro bono collaboration to evolve into new directions that require capital. in the case discussed here, research to develop cold-tolerant rice varieties not only gives urban gardeners a new crop, but also allows university students to sell this crop at local famers markets, and in local grocery stores, to generate revenues to fund future research. however, in order to cultivate rice and develop other deliverables that can be commercialized, lack of venture capital for infrastructure needs, such as critical hardware and software, can be limiting factors. therefore, grant funding is crucial for the success of this academic-community partnership model. in this case, the strategic innovation fund initiative at marquette university provided the seed funding to institute the infrastructure, and serves as a template for other metropolitan universities. student centric research with community partners the second pillar of the sred model is the involvement of undergraduate students in research activities. for a tuition driven metropolitan university such as marquette university, active involvement of undergraduate students in research and community partnership programs can be an attractive tool to recruit and retain talented students (cress et al., 2010). moreover, for a jesuit university such as marquette, student-centric research with community partners fits well into the university’s new 4-part strategic plan: pursuit of academic excellence for human well-being; research in action; social responsibility and community engagement; and formation of the mind and the heart. this sred model has the potential to advance metropolitan universities as highly ranked destination universities by attracting interested students into specific programs offered by those institutions. for instance, the sred model discussed here can serve as an efficient recruitment tool for students interested in interdisciplinary majors such as the recently introduced environmental studies major at marquette university. this new major integrates biological sciences with political sciences, philosophy, anthropology, and economy. marquette students participating in the described rice project will have the opportunity to put into action what they learn in the new major. the sred model will advance marquette university’s commitment to research and scholarship by promoting interdisciplinary student-centric research. furthermore, because of its first pillar to establish true partnerships between academia and the community, it will distinguish the university, following its path for its ethics, service, and promotion of justice through community outreach and training services. in the case of marquette university, it will define what is called “the marquette experience” as personally transformative and grounded in the practice of jesuit spirituality and pedagogy, by providing interdisciplinary study tools for students to examine their own lives in the context of the needs of the local community and the world. of course, the specifics of student-centric research projects as part of the sred model will be different for other universities and not limited to urban agriculture projects. it is advisable, however, to follow a three-year path to self-sufficiency if interdisciplinary research is the central 41 tenet of the project. in the example of urban agriculture, infrastructure needs have to be addressed in the first year, specifically, raised seed beds, garden plots, perhaps hoop houses, and for rice cultivation, paddies need to be built during the off season of the first year. other infrastructure needs include the procurement of farm equipment such as planting, harvesting, and crop processing tools. personnel needs must also be addressed in the first year. the model suggested here offers undergraduates paid internships to enhance their research experience without academic pressure. however, students should also be encouraged to enroll in independent study to get academic credit for the research they perform. an ideal situation is to engage sophomores or juniors in both paid internships and credit-based activities over the course of 2-3 years, which enhances their experiences inside and outside the laboratory. for a rice cultivation seed grant project, the specific three-year timeline is as follows: in the first year, participants purchased the necessary farm equipment, then constructed and tested two half-acre rice paddies. to do this, a collaboration with another community organization interested in providing healthy food to the urban community surrounding marquette university was established. the organization is called the fondy food center, because the farmers market it runs is on fond du lac avenue in close proximity to alice’s garden (broadway, 2009). fondy provides farm land located 20 minutes north of milwaukee to farmers who sell their harvest at its farmers market. the leaders of fondy share the vision that rice can be introduced to our urban community as a healthy staple crop, particularly when it is sold as brown rice, which, based on informal polling, is in high demand at the farmers market. a cohort of 10 biology and engineering student interns, fondy personnel, and contractors are hired in the first year to build two perfectly leveled paddies on fondy farm land. the students are selected from applicants responding to advertisements of the internship during classes and on university employment websites. the paddy construction part is done by a contractor with assistance from engineering students. the fondy farm manager instructs biology students in basic agricultural practices; a marquette university scientist teaches them rice cultivation practices. then, to ensure controlled flooding, water is pumped during the growing season from two holding ponds adjacent to the paddies. at the same time, small rice planting, harvesting, threshing, and rice hulling equipment is purchased to have the two paddies fully operational by the end of the first year. the equipment is mobile, so fondy provides a barn next to the farm for secure storage. because the first year requires a significant amount of capital investment for the sustainable rice business model, a team of 2-3 business student interns keep track of all costs involved, including student time commitments to estimate labor costs, contractor expenses, and equipment costs that will be incorporated into a general business plan (see below). in the second year, biology student interns perform research experiments on different rice planting methods, such as direct grain seeding versus seedling transplantation methods. they test how different planting densities affect yield. initially, students use a preselected, relatively coldtolerant rice variety, and also perform research in the lab and on the farm to identify genetic components that improve rice cold-tolerance through future breeding efforts. after harvesting and processing, students measure paddy rice yields during the winter months to determine best practices for rice cultivation, and incorporate this into the general business plan. these research activities lead to publications for students and faculty mentors in peer-reviewed scientific journals. simultaneously, engineering and business students assess the feasibility of building and selling small-scale electric hullers that could be marketed to prospective rice farmers. their 42 conclusions will be incorporated into a general business plan to provide different business options. in the third year, student interns continue their rice cold-tolerance experiments in one of the paddies and use the other to put the best rice cultivation practices into action to produce the first commercial harvest. this harvest will be sold to generate revenues to continue the project beyond the seed grant-funding period. business students will keep track of operational costs such a labor for rice planting, tending (fertilization, weeding, pest control), processing, packaging, and storage of rice before it is sold. students will also perform market research to determine competitive product pricing, the effect of promotional purchase incentives, and to track sales based on variables such as season of the year or ethnic holidays. these data will help assess how the urban community, for example, customers of farmers markets, benefit from this sred project, and how the community helps direct the project in this phase. establishing sustainable business models the third pillar of the sred model is to develop business models for student researchers and the urban agriculture community. the major sustainable aspect of the model is to continue research on a marketable product. in the case described here, the product will be cold-tolerant varieties of rice with high yield potential in a cold climate. such rice can be sold at urban farmers markets and local grocery stores and restaurants interested in reducing food production carbon footprints by providing locally grown food. however, interdisciplinary research presents additional opportunities for development of commercial products. for the rice project, collaborations with the engineering department may lead to the development of small-scale rice farming equipment conducive to urban agriculture. as an example, mechanical engineering students registered for senior design capstone classes can be mentored to design table top rice hullers that would be attractive to urban gardeners who want to process their own rice. after addressing intellectual property issues, such devices could be manufactured, sold, and even patented. another example is to involve student interns from the business school to develop several types of business plans that can be sold to prospective rice farmers. one plan would address the investment needs and potential returns for rice cultivation in urban gardens. another plan would address the needs and returns for small-scale suburban farming, potentially in association with a community partner such as the fondy food center. to put this into perspective, one acre of rice and appropriate farming techniques could yield up to 8,000 pounds of paddy rice, generating approximately 6,000 pounds of hulled brown rice. therefore, for the one-acre rice paddy used in the sred model described here, the main goal would be to generate at least 5,000 pounds of rice sold for an estimated $3-4 per pound to generate yearly revenues of $15,000-20,000. yields in urban gardens will depend on the square footage used for rice cultivation (for instance, 200 square feet might yield around 30 pounds of brown rice). another product could be a “kit” for urban gardeners who want to explore the option of cultivating rice in rooftop paddies, which would include the material to build the paddies, soil, rice seeds, a detailed cultivation manual, and fee-based access to rice hulling equipment run by marquette university students. 43 to promote economic revitalization opportunities in a community interested in urban farming, the sred model proposes development of not only business plans and cultivation manuals, but also workshops and training modules for residents seeking to supplement their income with rice farming. in the case described here, alice’s garden will be a hub for those training activities, and a new rice-farmertraining track is already offered through the garden’s outreach activities. the long-term goal is that interested gardeners and residents can register for fee-based training courses and workshops, after which they will also receive appropriate business plans and guidance on how to apply for loans to establish their own rice business. there will be an incentive for residents to use empty city lots and rooftops for such business ventures, which will contribute to economic revitalization, may boost property values, and will beautify the urban landscape (urban agriculture, 2017). another sustainable aspect of the sred model is that fee-based education, labor, and consulting services can be bundled with equipment sales, providing a pathway for farmer success, as well as additional revenue for project maintenance costs as well as reinvestment. for example, rice hulling can be offered to the rice farming community as a fee-based service. this can be beneficial for community partners, because they would not have to purchase relatively expensive equipment. it can also be a model for local entrepreneurs who decide to provide these types of harvesting and processing services to rice farmers instead of engaging in farming themselves. furthermore, a benefit for urban and metropolitan universities that provided the initial seed funding is that they would be entitled to claim some of the revenues generated after the funding period as indirect cost to cover administrative and research expenses the university might incur after the initial funding period. conclusions the three pillars of the sred model, using an urban agriculture framework, were presented at the 2016 cumu meeting on charting the future of metropolitan universities.incorporating feedback from the presentation, they are described in greater detail in this paper. the purpose of this paper is to present a model that can be adopted by any metropolitan university in the country, either in its current form or adapted to other research with the potential to generate a viable commercial product. for the city of milwaukee and state of wisconsin, rice is a novel crop that can be stored and sold during winter and has enhanced nutritional value if consumed as unpolished brown rice. through educational efforts in the urban agriculture center, and cultural hubs of alice’s garden and the fondy food center farmers market, a desirable outcome of this project is that locally grown brown rice will become an attractive alternative to less nutritional polished rice. this could have a positive impact on the public health of the community surrounding marquette university. to promote this, additional projects are planned, such as providing recipes for brown rice dishes during annual harvest fests at fondy, and offering cooking demonstrations during the winter months at local community centers associated with alice’s garden. another purpose for this paper is to demonstrate that the sred model for community-based participatory research, involving strong partnerships between academia and the urban community, is innovative not only in terms of the three pillars, but also through its 44 interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary aspects. it not only promotes research, but also provides students with skills to become social innovators, which is an important part of the tradition of many jesuit metropolitan universities, as well as all urban universities in this country. the particular project presented here will put into action the vision that through student centric research and development activities, a new green industry can be promoted in milwaukee and beyond that will not only bring new jobs, but also will impact the social, health, and economic aspects of underserved and underprivileged urban residents. the sustainable rice cultivation model described here has been developed specifically for the milwaukee community, but the sred model can be adopted by any metropolitan universities that work closely with their surrounding communities. this is innovative because the investments will return to the universities by attracting motivated undergraduates, paying student interns, and providing some indirect costs for laboratory-based research activities for future research projects. in the case described here, the model promotes research innovation for students, who will participate in cold-tolerance research and breeding efforts. it is hoped that their efforts will generate patentable superior rice lines for the cold wisconsin climate. the sred model not only provides paid student internships, but also for-credit independent research opportunities in biology, environmental studies, engineering, and business. this model allows metropolitan universities to sponsor faculty and students to go beyond the boundaries of academia to pursue excellence for human well-being through community engagement and research activities, while at the same time remains financially self-sufficient to continue training the formation of the mind and the heart of their highly talented student bodies. acknowledgements the author is grateful to daniel bergen (executive director, office of community engagement, marquette university), kimberly jensen bohat (director, service learning program, marquette university), and bonnie halvorsen (founding executive director, ciuan, university of wisconsin-milwaukee) for critically reading previous versions of this manuscript. their input and that of two anonymous reviewers was invaluable for improving the quality of this manuscript. references blacksher, e., nelson, c., van dyke, e., echo-hawk, a., bassett, d., and buchwald, d. (2016, summer). conversations about community-based participatory research and trust: “we are explorers together.” progress in community health partnerships: research, education, and action 10(2), 305-309. doi.org/10.1353/cpr.2016.0039 broadway, m. (2009, december). growing urban agriculture in north american cities: the example of milwaukee. focus on geography 52(3-4), 23-30. doi.org/10.1111/j.19498535.2009.tb00251.x carney, j. (2001). black rice: the african origins of rice cultivation in the americas. cambridge: harvard university press. https://muse.jhu.edu/results?section1=author&search1=erika%20blacksher https://doi.org/10.1353/cpr.2016.0039 45 cress, c., burack, c., giles, d.e., elkins, j., and stevens, m.c. (2010). a promising connection: increasing college access and success through civic engagement. boston ma: campus compact. ghose, r. & pettygrove, m. (2014). urban community gardens as spaces of citizenship. antipode 46(4), 1092-1112. doi.org/10.1111/anti.12077 grow. (2014). rooftop rice project connects scientist and visionary leader. retrieved from http://apps.uwm.edu/iuan/community-collaboration/good-food-cycle/grow/ israel, b., schulz, a., parker, e., and becker, b. (1998). review of community-based research: assessing partnership approaches to improve public health. annual review public health 19, 173–202. doi.org/10.1146/annurev.publhealth.19.1.173 james, p., maslin, m., pringle s.m., and van clief, b. (2010). university green: how urban forestry partnerships plant more than trees. metropolitan universities journal 20(4), 75-86. retrieved from https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/muj/article/view/20410 research and innovation. (2016). strategic innovation fund. retrieved from http://www.marquette.edu/innovation/strategic-innovation-fund.php urban agriculture. (2017). research: social, health, and economic impacts of urban agriculture. retrieved from http://ucanr.edu/sites/urbanag/research/ author information michael r. schläppi is an associate professor of biological sciences at marquette university. his research interests include the investigation of abiotic stress in plants using molecular, genetic, and genomics approaches. a major interest of his is to elucidate the mechanisms of cold stress tolerance responses in rice. michael r. schläppi, ph.d. associate professor department of biological sciences marquette university 530 n. 15th st. milwaukee, wi 53233 (414) 288-1480 michael.schlappi@marquette.edu https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.publhealth.19.1.173 metropolitan universities vol. 29 no. 3 (august 2018), doi: 10.18060/21465 metamorphosis inside and out: transformative learning at portland state university vicki l. reitenauer, katherine elaine draper-beard, and noah schultz abstract in this article, the authors (a faculty member and two former students) describe the trajectory that portland state university has taken over its history to institutionalize transformative learning opportunities within its comprehensive general education program, university studies. following a description of the institutional changes that resulted in the community-based, experientially focused courses at the heart of university studies, the authors explore one particular community partnership involving both a state agency and the national inside-out prison exchange program, dedicated to offering transformative experiences in which incarcerated and non-incarcerated students learn together inside correctional facilities. finally, each author shares a reflective essay about the personal transformation experienced through these inside-out courses and the implications of these changes on their lives. keywords: community-based learning; community engagement; general education; prison education; service learning introduction portland state university (psu), with its motto “let knowledge serve the city,” has built a reputation over the past two decades as a national leader in community-based and service learning. this mission dates from psu’s founding in 1946 as the vanport extension center to serve gis returning from world war ii in an area built to house shipyard workers in wartime (portland state university 2018). it developed further under the 1990-1997 presidency of judith ramaley, who understood the responsibility of the urban access university to be of a “distinctive institutional type… characterized by the nature and extent of its responsiveness to the research and educational needs of complex metropolitan regions” (ramaley 1996, 139). it would be a place where faculty, students, and community partners would collaborate both to provide unparalleled learning opportunities for students while also offering “a vehicle for the university to respond more effectively to societal demands” (ramaley 1996, 140). among the institutional transformations that resulted from ramaley’s presidency, and a key driver of continuing institutional and cultural change at psu and the recognition that has resulted from it, has been university studies, the comprehensive general education program. psu implemented this program in 1994, after a collaborative redesign process led by a group of faculty studying best practices in general education, as charged by the university’s administrative leadership. this faculty working group consulted the work of alexander astin (1992, 1993) on the importance of student and faculty contact, peer-to-peer learning, active learning, and community-based learning for students’ success, along with the then-current literature on student access to, and retention in, higher education. further, members of the committee met with portland-area employers in the public and private sectors to understand 44 more deeply the fundamental skills and capacities they expected psu graduates to bring into their workplaces. these employers regularly noted that graduates had developed significant bases of knowledge in particular subject areas, but that they were also lacking in their capacities to function effectively in interpersonal and team contexts across disciplinary lines (white 1994). following its year of study, the faculty working group proposed a four-year general education program centered on inquiry, interdisciplinary teaching and learning, application of theory in practice, and the development of the habits of lifelong learning. components of this model include freshman inquiry, a first-year theme-based course in which 36 students build a learning community over the course of the academic year while also engaging in 12-person sections of mentored inquiry led by an upper-division peer mentor. sophomore inquiry consists of singleterm inquiry-based courses centering on knowledge domains. students then choose to specialize in discipline-specific courses in the junior cluster that follows one of their sophomore inquiry courses. finally, the senior capstone, a 6-credit service-learning course, involves students in interdisciplinary teams working on a project in reciprocal relationship with a partnering community organization. in fall term of 1993, the psu faculty senate voted to adopt this university studies program. in 1994, multi-disciplinary teams of psu faculty taught the first freshman inquiry themed first-year courses (university studies 1998). by 1995, the first capstone senior-level service-learning courses got underway. more than twenty years later, university studies continues to evolve and adapt to meet the needs of psu’s increasingly diverse student body (kerrigan, 2016). university studies and the inside-out prison exchange program since its inception, university studies has invested in the development of mutually beneficial community partnerships. it has recruited and empowered its faculty to design courses that create the possibility for transformation on the personal, the interpersonal, and the community level. among these partnerships has been a connection with both the inside-out prison exchange program and the oregon department of corrections, in whose correctional facilities university studies offers juniorand senior-level university studies courses grounded in the inside-out model. founded at temple university in 1997, the now-nationwide inside-out prison exchange program situates college-level courses within correctional facilities to allow incarcerated and non-incarcerated students to learn from and with each other through dialogue, perspectivesharing, and collaborative project work. as the inside-out website asserts, higher education and corrections are among the most powerful institutions in the world today...individuals in both systems can often feel alienated, objectified, and pessimistic about the possibility of social change...the inside-out prison exchange program recognizes the social isolation that systems of correction and higher education can produce...inside-out is a form of education that enables incarcerated and nonincarcerated people to encounter one another as human beings. dialogue across social barriers is transformative and allows problems to be approached in new and different ways. the emphasis on collaborative learning invites people on both sides of prison walls 45 to take leadership in addressing crime, justice, and other issues of social concern. (the inside-out center, 2018) inside-out courses operate inside correctional facilities, with an equivalent number of incarcerated (“inside”) students and non-incarcerated (“outside”) students. for both inside and outside students, there is a boundary crossing at the heart of the endeavor, an encounter with “the other” that occurs on multiple levels. class sessions involve a high degree of interaction, with dialogue and discussion happening at the levels of both large and small groups, and are marked with a palpable internal dynamism that results from such engagement. drawn to the vision of the inside-out program, psu community research and partnerships director, amy spring, participated in the weeklong inside-out training required for all instructors working with the model in the early 2000s. following this training in philadelphia, ms. spring returned to oregon and began developing a partnership with the oregon department of corrections (doc). over the course of several years of work, invested in strengthening ties between oregon educational institutions (including the university of oregon, oregon state university, lewis and clark college, and clackamas community college) and the doc, ms. spring and her colleagues at psu and beyond began offering inside-out courses at a number of adult and juvenile correctional facilities in oregon. ms. spring designed and taught the first inside-out offering at psu, capstone course in 2006, and continuing at present. called “the inside-out capstone,” the course focuses on leadership and civic engagement and grounds itself on the fundamental inside-out methodology, a set of processes that prioritize dialogue, collaboration, and other learner-centered strategies. additional inside-out capstone courses followed (including “metamorphosis,” discussed below), taught by additional psu instructors trained in the inside-out methodology. courses offered by the departments of criminology and criminal justice, english, and women, gender, and sexuality studies followed. of these departmental courses, several, including “writing as activism,” discussed below, also fulfill the general education junior cluster requirement. the transformative power of inside-out in the following sections, the authors introduce you to two inside-out courses offered for general education credit at psu: “writing as activism: an inside-out course,” a departmental offering in women, gender, and sexualities studies that fulfills a university studies cluster requirement, and “metamorphosis: creating positive futures–inside-out at mclaren youth correctional facility,” a senior capstone service-learning course. in the junior-level “writing as activism” course, participants work intensively to develop their writing, individually and in connection with others, reading a variety of texts from a diverse range of authors, generating new writing in co-facilitated weekly writing workshops, serving as writing coaches with each other, and working collaboratively on a final project. the learning objectives for “writing as activism” include the following: • create and maintain a collaborative and mutually beneficial environment, and reflect on our successes and failures as a collaborative learning community; 46 • practice claiming—our educations, our choices, our voices, our words, our lives— both in and out of our classroom; • explore the places in which the solitary act of taking words out of our heads and putting them on the page intersect with the public act of using language to communicate with others; • recognize how each of us might choose to engage in activist practice through the mechanism of writing, as a tool for amplifying our individual voices, and for making social change in our spheres of influence and beyond; • act—through engaging as authors of our own work, as supporters of others’ writing, and as collaborators with each other on a community-based, writinginvolved project. the course description for “metamorphosis” similarly addresses the changes that students will explore in and through the course: how do i transform my own life? how do i transform my community and the world? this course provides an opportunity for a small group of students from psu and a small group of students incarcerated at maclaren youth correctional facility (mycf) to work together in a structured peer and collaborative learning environment to address these questions. each week, 12 psu students and 12 incarcerated young men will meet at mycf...students (both outside psu and inside students) will examine their own perceptions about personal and social transformation, and examine and develop their perceptions of themselves as agents of change. together we will study historical and contemporary examples that will help us understand personal transformation and social change. participants will have the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of a variety of social justice issues through readings, film and discussion. additionally, as a whole group, students will decide upon and complete a community-based learning project, addressing a social justice issue agreed upon by the participants. all students (inside and outside) will have equal ownership of and participation in the project, and will thus contribute to the positive transformation of themselves, their community and the world. (university studies, 2018) in the following section, a sample the student authors reflects on the transformative nature of their encounters through their inside-out experiences and the implications of the change they experienced in their lives going forward. the transformation, reflected “‘your one wild and precious life’”: katherine elaine draper beard, outside student, “writing as activism: an inside-out course,” and teaching assistant, “inside out prison exchange: grant writing for civic leadership” i wasn’t expecting to see them there, nestled in the grass. impervious to the twenty-foot fence crowned with razor wire, their tiny noses twitched as they scrutinized us. “wild baby bunnies!” a hushed voice exclaimed. i straggled behind the group as we moved toward the guard tower, unable to drag my eyes away from their small, still forms, seemingly so out of place. i felt 47 equally alien inside the stark prison, too brightly colored against the gray, blue, and white. once inside, we found the muted beige classroom and paraded awkwardly into the circle of chairs. the collective trepidation eased as we introduced ourselves. my sense of anxious apartness melted away as together we read aloud mary oliver’s (1990) the summer’s day: who made the world? who made the swan, and the black bear? who made the grasshopper? this grasshopper, i mean- the one who has flung herself out of the grass, the one who is eating sugar out of my hand, who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes. now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face. now she snaps her wings open, and floats away. i don't know exactly what a prayer is. i do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what i have been doing all day. tell me, what else should i have done? doesn't everything die at last, and too soon? tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? (oliver, 1990, p. 60) i settled into the routine, eagerly awaiting this class and lamenting how quickly the hours passed. my classes on the portland state campus began to feel monotonous, and i commenced a critical survey of disparities between them. it was not the lack of windows, or the security measures, or more industrious students; it was a sense of community and camaraderie, a shared consciousness of the value of our time together, and the weight of it. in his book pedagogy of the oppressed, a cardinal text of critical pedagogy, paulo freire writes; “knowledge emerges only through invention and re-invention, through the restless, impatient, continuing, hopeful inquiry human beings pursue in the world, with the world, and with each other” (freire, 2000, p. 72). traditional pedagogic indoctrination taught me to memorize and regurgitate, rarely to absorb and apply, engendering minimal curiosity. but each week passing through the sinister prison gates, stepping onto soil distinctly no longer the land of the free, i rediscovered the significance of education pursued for its own sake, not merely in pursuit of degrees and accolades. in ten short weeks we as a class examined what we knew about crime, justice, rehabilitation, and recidivism and took accountability for our erroneous ideas. we sought the political in each of our personal stories, and endeavored to put our experience into words. cautiously, we shared our writings, and we laughed together. judgment and prejudice receded as compassion and understanding grew. independently and together, we revised our ideas. there is no answer key or solutions manual for the acquisition of knowledge. questioning systems of domination, scouring our oppression-rooted beliefs and practices for inconsistencies 48 and inaccuracies isn’t easy. however, liberation from domination requires us to have sovereignty over our own thinking, to become introspective thinkers who can systematically scrutinize our culture and passionately strive towards personal and political progress. it is the essential and extraordinary power of transformative education to unshackle us--inmates, students, and professors--to enable us to be independent scholars, and to honestly ask ourselves “what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?” (oliver, 1990, p. 60) “resistance and healing”: noah schultz, inside student, [metamorphosis] my fingers scratched anxiously at the loose tape holding my notebook together. i had waited months for this class to start. the radio on the staff’s hip shouts out words dressed in static. every ear in the room perks up waiting for notification of the students entering the facility. one of the guys watching out the rusty window yells out “i see them, they’re coming.” half the class peeks out the glass to catch a glimpse of our new classmates. like shy kids, everyone scrambles to their seats before they can get caught looking. it felt kind of funny sitting in a college class. my earliest memories of school were scars. i had seen these institutions as oppressive environments that had stripped me of my sense of selfworth. i had hated school. i hated the way it made me feel. i knew i wasn’t alone in feeling this. there were a lot of other guys who had been wounded in similar ways. despite that we sat in a circle of chairs in a musty classroom. each one of us had a reason for what had brought us to the facility. each one of us had a reason of what had brought us to this classroom on this day. i had grown to see education as a way out. not so much school, but education. my curiosity was a ravenous dog hungry for anything and everything. when i heard about this class i rushed to get my name on the list. everyone wanted to be a part of it, but the seating was limited. i was in need of credits for the completion of my degree. in our facility online education was available for high school graduates who qualified for financial aid, or who had families who could pay for it. having a family who was able to pay for college was a rarity. i cannot speak for everyone else, but i knew why my two close friends and i were in this class. we had learned how to transcend the confines of oppressive environments through dissecting the structures that had been put in place. learning was the most potent form of resistance we had access to. we quickly came to find that what we had signed up for was much more than a few credits towards our degrees. the name of this class was “metamorphosis,” which is defined as an abrupt change or transformation. our professor, deb arthur, came armed with readings that challenged modern methodologies surrounding school systems, the ways in which we interact with our environment, and the corruption that leaches from the faulty structures built to further the marginalization of people who had little to say in the decision-making processes. the goal of this class was to encourage us to become active change agents in our community. each week we delved deeper into the material. it was the common cause that united a group of students from all different walks of life. as different as we may have been, we connected on many of the same things, from worldviews to favorite sports teams. many of us guys on the 49 inside have been separated from our communities for years. we had entered the system as teenagers and now sat as young adults. i was always curious as to how we measured up against the students on the outside. i wondered about the ways in which we were different as well as similar. i craved outside influence. i wanted so badly to feel connected to my peer group outside of the fences and walls that surrounded me. as the weeks went on the title of “inside” and “outside” student began to blur. it didn’t matter that we were incarcerated, what mattered was what we brought to class each week: a smile, a positive attitude, and a willingness to grind through the assignments and readings together. up to this point my classes had been taken solely online. the element of human connection was absent. never had i been in a class that pulsed with synergy. towards the end of our class we were given the task of coming up with a community project. we decided to plant fruit trees within the facility—a way to restore life to our environment and give back to our landscape. planting these trees was symbolic. it was a symbol of the growth we all had experienced together, but most importantly it was a symbol of the healing many of us received in a community of acceptance and compassion. “company”: vicki reitenauer, instructor, “writing as activism: an inside-out course” the bedside clock reads 2:42. i am wide-awake, eyelids like cartoon blinds rolling up, revealing the numbers on the digital display. before this moment i had been in what felt like a deep sleep, though my dreams were filled with prison: with the sounds of the double gate clanging open, clanging shut, clanging open, clanging shut. with the sinking feeling of being contained inside ironclad doors. with the anxiety of trying to understand what the officer in the control room is asking of me and to respond in the correct way. with the pressure of the gaze of my students from the university as i lead our way through these halls. with the pressure of the gaze of my students from inside this facility on those of us who have infiltrated their world. with the pressure of the gaze of the other incarcerated men who watch us stroll to the classroom, who look through the windows at us as they slowly pass by on their way to wherever they’re going, who watch us stroll back out and away. here in my bed, my brain jabbers. my heart breaks. it is somehow true that it has been all surprise and no surprise for me in entering and exiting this prison over the weeks of this course. i suspected i’d connect with the guys who are incarcerated here, believed i’d have no trouble seeing them as multi-dimensional, fully human, funny, brilliant, pregnant with possibility, profoundly and fundamentally more than whatever offenses they may have committed. that i might appreciate the fact that, had the circumstances of my life been different, i could easily be the one behind the bars. that perhaps i still could be. that, like so many of us on the outside, i have offended and, through the combination of privilege and luck, escaped being caught—and that escape means i sleep, or not, in my own bed every night. in the future, a inside student will write me a thank-you letter in which he will wonder whether, as a teacher, i had it all under control or whether i had no idea what i was doing and just somehow brought everybody along with me on that wave. next to his handwriting i will 50 handwrite yes. what else is there to do but hold a space for the possibility of encountering each other tenderly, respectfully, and gratefully? what else is there to do but imagine that we might understand something about caring for each other and ourselves through our encounter, something about compassion, something about power and its right uses? about the ways we are different, and also about the ways we see ourselves in each other, the ways we know ourselves through each other, despite and because of these differences? because we choose to, we create together a circle in which we all can be contained and to which we all might belong. because we choose to, we find a way to put our words to paper and then a way to speak those words out into the collective air. when the outside students and i exit the circle every monday and wednesday night, the prison is brightly, eerily lit. i imagine it to be always so, day and night, to never quite approach the darkness that settles around me in the middle of my own night. lying here, i imagine i have carried some of that electricity home with me, and that’s why i’m so entirely awake, so caught up in feeling myself back in classroom four. in the circle inside the classroom. i wonder who from the class might be up right now too, inside the prison and outside it. their brains jabbering, their hearts breaking. i imagine us in our en-widened circle, keeping each other company. conclusion the authors have sought to share the transformative power of encounter across multiple manifestations of difference and the larger institutional contexts in which these encounters occurred. they hope to have conveyed a sense of how psu and university studies has invested in curricular innovation and community partnership that results in change for individuals, for groups, and for the communities in which we are all situated. the work at psu continues, both to sustainably fund inside-out courses (as they are perceived to involve some funding loss for the university, given the reduced tuition charged to those inside students seeking course credit and the absence of tuition dollars entirely in the cases of those inside students not earning credit) and to institutionalize mechanisms to increase access to a college degree for formerly incarcerated persons. we the students and faculty at psu, who are moved and changed by transformative educational experiences such as these, are indebted to those visionary administrators at all levels of the university, whose efforts operationalize the processes by which these experiences may continue, grow, and flourish, in the interest of transforming ourselves and our world. 51 references astin, a. w. (1993). what matters in college: four critical years revisited. san francisco: jossey-bass. astin, a. w. (1992). what really matters in general education: provocative findings from a study of student outcomes. perspectives, 22 (1): 23–46. freire, p. (2000). pedagogy of the oppressed (30th anniv. ed.). london: bloomsbury academic. the inside-out center. (2018). problem statement. retrieved from http://www.insideoutcenter.org/about-problem-statement.html. kerrigan, s. m. (2016). sustaining change: successes, challenges, and lessons learned from twenty years of empowering students through community-based learning capstones. metropolitan universities journal, 26 (3): 11–31. retrieved from https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/muj/article/view/21103 oliver, m. (1990). house of light. boston, ma: beacon press. portland state university. (2018). portland state university history. retrieved from https://www.pdx.edu/portland-state-university-history. ramaley, j. a. (1996). large-scale institutional change to implement an urban university mission: portland state university. journal of urban affairs, 18 (2): 139–151. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9906.1996.tb00370.x university studies. (2018). metamorphosis: creating positive futures–inside out at mycf. portland state university. retrieved from http://capstone.unst.pdx.edu/courses/metamorphosiscreating-positive-futures-inside-out-at-mycf. university studies. (1998). university studies 1994-1997: a progress report. portland state university. retrieved from http://www.pdx.edu/sites/www.pdx.edu.unst/files/university%20studies19941997progressreport.pdf. white, c. r. (1994). a model for comprehensive reform in general education: portland state university. the journal for general education, 43 (3): 168–237. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9906.1996.tb00370.x 52 author information vicki l. reitenauer serves on the faculty of the women, gender, and sexuality studies department and the university studies program at portland state university, specializing in developing and teaching both discipline-specific and general-education courses, including community-based learning experiences; building and sustaining community partnerships; facilitating relational faculty support processes; and co-creating faculty-led assessment practices. she has co-authored numerous works on these topics, including learning through serving: a student guidebook for service-learning and civic engagement across academic disciplines and cultural communities (stylus, second edition, 2013). *vicki l. reitenauer women, gender, and sexuality studies portland state university po box 751 portland, or 97207-0751 email: vicr@pdx.edu telephone: 503-725-5847 fax: 503-725-5805 katherine elaine draper-beard is an undergraduate student at portland state university majoring in liberal studies. she is a fervent reader, a novice gardener, and an overprotective pet owner. she has participated in the inside-out program with portland state both as a student and a teaching assistant at columbia river correctional institution in northeast portland. she spends her free time indulging in candycrush, assisting documentary film production, and being of maximum service to adolescents in her community who struggle with addiction. noah schultz is a social innovator, public speaker, and poet/author who is passionate about bringing services to underprivileged youth. in 2009 he was sentenced to serve 7.5 years under oregon’s measure 11. he dedicated this time to personal transformation and education. while incarcerated, he attended his first inside-out class through portland state university and went on to graduate as a double major from oregon state university. he now works in portland, oregon, following his passion to implement change within the juvenile justice system. * corresponding author mailto:vicr@pdx.edu 125 a centralized strategy to collect comprehensive institutionwide data from faculty and staff about community engagement and public service emily m. janke and kristin d. medlin abstract “how do i get faculty and staff to record information about their community engagement and public service activities, partnerships, and contributions?” this article describes one institution’s strategies to collect comprehensive community engagement and public service data through a centralized system. beyond what metrics to collect, we present insights about who to talk with, questions to prepare, and conversations that will increase participation from faculty and staff to report their activities annually. the past decade has witnessed an increase in the number of requests of higher education institutions to report information about community engagement and public service activities, ranging from mandatory to elective. mandatory pressures include the university regional accreditations and requests from legislative or governing bodies for accounts of how the university is interfacing and partnering with and, thus, contributing to the public. for example, “community/public service” is a core measure of “institutional effectiveness” (requirement/standard 3.3.1.5) by the southern accreditation of colleges and schools commission on colleges, similar to other regional accreditations that require institutions to document the nature, scope, and intended constituents of the programs and public services provided by the institution (see north central association of colleges and schools, the higher learning commission, core component 1.b). some states and state systems are increasing requirements for information about institutional involvement with and contributions to communities. for example, in 2013, the university of north carolina (unc) system established annual reporting requirements across its sixteen campuses to “track progress in community engagement and economic development”; these indicators are published annually in a unc engagement report (see janke 2014 for a complete description of the criteria established for choosing metric areas). in massachusetts, the board of higher education has named civic education and engagement as the sixth goal of the state’s vision project in 2012, precipitating conversations about tracking and measuring students’ civic activities and outcomes. 126 increasingly, institutions are choosing to respond to elective opportunities to report community engagement and public service activities. hundreds of colleges and universities have applied to carnegie foundation’s elective classification of community engagement, the president’s national higher education community service honor roll, and the washington center’s higher education civic engagement award. hundreds of institutions complete campus compact’s national survey, and increasing numbers are submitting to the community-university engagement awards established by the association of public and land-grant universities (aplu) and the engagement scholarship consortium (esc), with support from the w. k. kellogg foundation. further, offices internal to institutions of higher education are experiencing a greater need for comprehensive portraits of how faculty, staff, and students are collaborating with and serving the public. telling the story of institutional engagement has become a key interest and activity within offices of university relations, development and advancement, and government relations (weerts 2011; weerts and hudson 2009) to achieve fundraising, friend-raising, and public recognition and fiscal sustainability goals. campuses that have been required to or that have elected to respond to requests for data related to campus-wide community engagement and public service activities and outcomes are familiar with the costs incurred, particularly the faculty and staff time to communicate, record, review, synthesize, and formally report information as well as the expense (both time and money) of adapting, creating, or licensing software systems to facilitate the collection, storage, and analysis of data. administrators tasked with developing the report also know the political costs associated: the cost-benefit analysis of asking faculty and staff to provide pieces of information not previously collected for what is often perceived as “administrative purposes.” given the increased demands for counting, accounting, and reporting on activities across nearly all areas of faculty work, which have increased the administrative portion of faculty workloads, administrators are asking, “how am i to add this to their load? what will be the cost in asking for this data?” a strategy to collect data centrally and comprehensively: a case example accounting and accountability across all mission areas of higher education, including public service and community engagement, are likely to continue to increase (holland 2013). therefore, it is essential to take a scholarly approach to developing a strategy to collect data if one is to gain adequate participation (or compliance, if mandated) in ways that minimize confusion, frustration, or contestation. it is also useful to learn from others who have attempted this work previously to identify strategies as well as challenges experienced. the authors of this article have been working to establish a strategy to collect comprehensive, institution-wide data on members’ engagements with and service to external communities since 2010 at the university of north carolina at greensboro 127 (uncg). while increased accounting pressures described above have certainly played a role in catalyzing institutional investment in data collection, uncg has experienced an acute and immediate need for quick, accurate, and precise data due to increased scrutiny and oversight of the unc system board of governors and decreased state appropriations for the unc system campuses. in particular, unc campuses have needed to quickly fill information gaps about who is doing what, where, when, and with whom across university-wide centers and institutes, but also increasingly in the curriculum as well. previously, uncg had no central system to track the full scope of institutional contributions offered by faculty and staff members’ activities and work with and for external constituents. tracking community engagement and public service is especially challenging at large, urban metropolitan universities, as is true for uncg which serves over 18,000 undergraduate and graduate students across seven academic units in over fifty academic departments. as context, it is useful to note that beyond the economic and political pressures described above, uncg had already committed itself to increasing support for community engagement and public service in a variety of ways. several key indicators of this commitment include the 2009-2014 uncg strategic plan, which explicitly supported community-engaged scholarship, civic responsibility, and community service as key goals. in 2010, the faculty had voted to incorporate explicit recognition for community-engaged scholarship in promotion and tenure policies throughout the teaching, research/creative activities, and service profiles. uncg was classified as a “community engagement institution” by the carnegie foundation in 2008, and was reclassified in 2015. in 2010, uncg appointed emily m. janke (author) to lead the community engagement initiative to establish a vision and plan for supporting excellence in community engagement. as a result of the process which included a thirty-member advisory panel with faculty, staff, students, and administrative and community leadership, the institute for community and economic engagement (icee) was established in 2012 with a full-time director (author janke) and graduate student (author medlin). one specific element of the 2009-2014 university strategic plan activated by icee was “to embed into existing [data documentation methods], and where necessary, establish new, systems for tracking and assessing the broad range of community-engaged activities, programs, and initiatives across the university” (icee 2013, 3). a second related element was to serve as the central communication hub for community engagement activities, relationships, resources, scholarship, best practices, and outcomes. this work included communications with academic affairs, student affairs, and administrative offices campus-wide to deepen, to make more pervasive, and to integrate community engagement into core academic work and systems for the purpose of advancing strategic institutional and community missions and goals. in recognition of the important and essential interconnections between scholarship, teaching, and economic, cultural, and community engagement, the director of icee reports to the vice chancellor for research and economic development in the office of research and economic development. 128 the strategies shared here were developed and have continued to be refined since 2010 by icee’s director and graduate student, who later served as a full-time staff member for two-and-a-half years. today, data collection continues under the direction of the lead author (now serving as part-time director and tenure-track faculty member with teaching and department responsibilities) and a twenty-hour graduate assistant. administration of campus-wide data collection has become more streamlined, though it still requires informed and proactive attention from administrative leadership, as described later in this chapter. while each institution will need to develop an approach that attends to its own unique context, structures, and dynamics, we discuss some key lessons learned, especially the value of creating person-to-person meetings that attend to the questions of why, what, and how as they relate to reporting community engagement and public service activities. insight #1: collect everything at one time to increase the feasibility of reporting data, the institute was committed to creating a single “ask” for data, compiling the various requests for data into a single form. to make the collection and reporting of community engagement and public service data most efficient, the institute staff reviewed all past, future, and likely requests for data about the university’s connections with external communities, including data needs for institutional accreditation, carnegie’s elective classification of community engagement, the president’s national honor roll for community service, and the university of north carolina system’s annual metric requirement. in tandem with this review, we also spoke with a number of units across campus that have responsibility for collecting and/or reporting information about various aspects of community engagement and public service, including the office of leadership and service-learning (president’s national honor roll for community service), the office of institutional research (unc system engagement report), and the office of assessment and accreditation (southern accreditation of colleges and schools). we also spoke with the undergraduate research, scholarship and creativity office to ensure that we were tracking relevant community-based undergraduate research opportunities. we reviewed existing surveys and databases used by offices internally to collect data to determine what systems we could adopt to make comprehensive university-wide data collection most feasible. over the years, faculty had experienced increasing requests for data from multiple offices that, while distinct from each other, seemed to many faculty as redundant of previous requests. because the full scope of an institution’s contribution to the public is the combination of community engagement partnerships and public service activities – and various requests and reports often require specific data that are often slightly different from each other (for example, whether to report student hours, faculty participation numbers, or location of the service by county) – the institute staff cast a wide net, collecting both community engagement and public service data. we used the term community engagement, using the definition provided by the carnegie foundation: “communityuniversity reciprocal partnerships that build the capacity of university and community 129 partners for mutually beneficial outcomes” (carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching n.d.). this term was defined and adopted at uncg as a result of conversations about promotion and tenure in 2010. likewise, we used the term public service to describe activities that were relatively more unilateral and unidirectional in the sense that the university provides services to the public, such as access to library services, lectures and other special events, community service opportunities, and access to facilities (kellogg commission 2001). the key distinction, we pointed out in all communications, is that community engagement requires the reciprocal exchange of knowledge enacted through partnership, whereas public service does not. collecting data about both community engagement and public service proved to be essential. it was critical to collect both types of activities if we were to tell the full scope of the institution’s contributions to the wider community. both forms of service and engagement provide significantly and meaningfully to the health, safety, and vibrancy of our communities. further, accreditations, awards, recognitions, and annual reports request information about activities that are done in partnership with communities, as well as those in which activities are provided to the community by the university. not least of all, it was important to demonstrate that each of these activities was valued at the university. in the earlier conversations we had with faculty related to the documentation and evaluation of community engagement in promotion and tenure policies and practices, we had identified the tendency for individuals to assign relative and dichotomous value between the two (“community engagement is more valuable than public service”). it was important that we collected both at the same time to indicate the importance of both as meaningful contributions to communities, even though each has different processes, outputs, and outcomes. partnerships may have elements of both public service and community engagement at different times and for different goals; and, the whole may be greater than the sum of its parts. insight #2: in-person meetings to create awareness and buy-in in our experience, we found that we needed to create an intentional plan – a plan that, in many ways, is reminiscent of community organizing practices. we needed to gain awareness, recruit allies, and encourage participation to our “cause.” we found that successful implementation of such strategies and data collection efforts required active leadership and constant and consistent communication from the top-down (e.g., provost to faculty) and “middle-out” (e.g., icee to administrative assistants and faculty). we started with senior academic leadership, and then moved to direct communication with department and program chairs and faculty. at the “top,” the provost provided key support to the data collection initiative in several ways. first, the provost invited the icee director to present the request and requirements for community engagement data reporting at the bi-weekly meeting of deans. at this meeting, the director presented requirements for the data collection (accreditation, recognitions) as well as opportunities to inform strategic connections and directions for the university – what could this data tell them, and how might it be 130 an asset to their own agenda? this meeting was important because it established awareness of the data collection initiative, as well as an opportunity to share the uses of the data – or why data matters. this top-down approach helped the deans to understand the importance of the data collection as a university initiative and provided important recognition of the context in which the provost later sent out an email request inviting all faculty and staff to participate in the data collection initiative. enacting a middle-out approach, the icee director authored an email that the provost sent as a formal university-wide request for faculty and staff to contribute community engagement and public service data. deans were instructed to share the request with department chairs and center directors and other staff whose participation would be required. in the letter, icee also requested working meetings with those individuals who would most likely be reporting or coordinating reporting efforts within the unit such as the associate dean of research, department chairs, and internship and placement coordinators. following this request from the provost, icee staff initiated direct contact with a key administrative leader within each academic unit asking for support to convene a meeting for their unit. the purpose of the meetings within each unit was to create a single and unified conversation about why the data was needed, what data was to be reported, and how to report data into the online mechanism. if one were to expect that a mandate sent by the provost (or even, the president or chancellor) were to be sufficient for generating widespread participation in a data collection initiative, one would be sorely disappointed and quickly disillusioned. meeting with each unit to discuss the content and process for data reporting was essential to recruit participation in this comprehensive data collection effort across the university. first, they were necessary for communication and information dissemination, given the variable responses of the deans with regards to coordinating conversations with key people within their units. for example, one dean sent an email with the request to key individuals within the unit and helped to launch the process by identifying a point person to help collect information unit-wide. in most other cases, icee staff members initiated contact with unit administrators directly (typically the associated dean of research and the internship coordinators) to prompt the meetings. this was essential as there were many cases in which department chairs were unaware of the request from the provost, although it is not clear whether the message was not sent by the dean or if the department chair had missed or misinterpreted the email request. regardless of the cause, direct and proactive communication between icee staff and academic departments was crucial. just as community organizers emphasize face-to-face meetings to generate awareness, understanding, and buy-in, we found that we needed to spend considerable time in conversation with those we hoped to participate in the data collection initiative. insight #3: prepare for the three essential questions: why, what, and how in our analysis of the first few meetings with executive leadership, as well as with faculty and staff who were to directly report or coordinate the reporting of community 131 engagement and public service data, we found that they followed similar arcs with regard to the questions and topics raised. these can be summarized into three questions: [1] why is this data being collected?; [2] what data is to be reported?; and [3] how are we to report this in a way that is accurate and feasible given limited time of the faculty and staff who do this work and know the data to report? we discovered that predicting and planning for these three overarching questions was key to introducing faculty and staff to the data collection initiative and to “convert” them from being unwilling skeptics who challenged the utility and reasonableness of the effort to willing participants who understood the value of their contributions – or why the “juice (data) was worth the squeeze (effort)” (janke 2014). answering the why “why do we/i need to report this information?” was the most frequent question we heard. before we discuss the various answers we provided to this question, it is important to understand the meaningmaking and motives behind this question “why?” in the first place. first, individuals who were asking “why?” wondered about who the audience was for receiving information, and more importantly, what assumptions that audience would make about this information – how might they use it? what aspects of this work will be most valued, least valued, or undervalued? our experience and scholarship on organizational management demonstrates that requests for information, whether they are ad hoc or integrated into ongoing reporting structures, are experienced as valueladen: individuals interpret information requests as indicators of what is valued by the entity asking for them (price, gioia, and corley 2008). thus, seemingly simple requests are interpreted by institutional members to be indicators of what they ought to be doing (or what someone else thinks they ought to be doing). for these reasons, data collection is important strategic work and must be handled carefully to minimize confusion, or worse, contestation, among those who are expected to provide the data. administration of data collection initiatives must attend to various dynamics, including how messages are sent, received, and interpreted by those whose participation is critical. second, understanding “why?” allows one to calculate an individual cost/benefit analysis. this will take my time, so what is the payoff? will this help me directly, or will this help the institution more generally? these questions relate to one’s individual identity and image within the institutional context: is my work valued as a member of this organization? how do i ensure that i present myself in the most positive way? as demonstrated here, data collection and reporting prompts meaning-making (price, gioia, and corley 2008). more specifically, asking faculty and staff to report information about their community engagement and public service activities encourages them to think deeply about this request in the context of other institutional initiatives and current events and leads them to consider questions about the value of this type of work. therefore, being aware of and proactively designing a strategy to address these questions is critical if faculty and staff are to be convinced of the value of their participation. although each conversation was unique given the characteristics, 132 motivations, and priorities of the unit, each tended to touch on several of the points described by janke and holland (2013) in “data matters!,” a two-sided flier developed to summarize the strategic benefits and uses of engagement and service data. in these meetings with key administrative, faculty, and staff stakeholders, we addressed the “why?” question drawing on various institutional priorities that might be of particular relevance to specific audiences. in this way, there was an element of improvisation, choosing what aspects would resonate with a group of people, while drawing on previously rehearsed ideas. other institutions may find alternative or additional touchstones that are effective with their various stakeholders. accountability. we reminded faculty and staff that while we have become accustomed to, and even accepted as necessary and as good practice, rigorous reporting, evaluation, and monitoring of teaching and research, recently increased attention and accountability has extended to the public service part of the university’s mission. in the past, institutions of higher education did not have to report on their contributions to the state, and therefore, annual reporting mechanisms do not routinely ask about these activities. an emphasis on engagement and service accountability has been reinforced as external recognitions such as the carnegie elective classification of community engagement, and the president’s national community service honor roll require reporting and monitoring of engagement and service data. accreditation changes, as well as expectations from the public and the unc system, have changed that for us as well. claiming the recognition we deserve. the phrase, “uncg is a best kept secret,” is heard commonly across campus from faculty, students, staff, administrator, and alumni. in our conversations, we point to the importance of this initiative as it collects immediately accessible and real stories to assist in claiming and receiving the recognition that institutional members believe is deserved but not yet realized. we remind faculty and staff that the data they report does not go into a filing cabinet in a locked room, never to be seen again, but instead, that we would ensure it was accessible by those allies on campus who were committed to helping tell their story. university relations staff are grateful to be kept up to speed on where innovative and exciting community-university projects are taking place, so that they can publicize them when and where it is appropriate. government relations staff are able to advocate on behalf of activities that are working to affect policy or systems at the local, state, or federal levels. generating revenue. claiming recognition for community contributions is especially important, we point out, to development and advancement officers to fundraise for teaching, research, and service. development and advancement officers have described to us the difficulty and frustrations they experience trying to keep a “pulse” on what exciting things are happening within the classrooms, the labs, communities, and other venues in which faculty, staff, and students are contributing meaningful work – work that others would want to know about and potentially fund. a central system that 133 collects information university-wide creates a conduit between faculty and staff to development officers that would not otherwise exist. as one colleague in development noted, “in university advancement, we create little ‘cheat sheets’ within the various units so that we know who to talk about or bring with us when we meet with potential donors who want to support a particular cause or activity.” further, demonstrating the contributions to the community has been an important tool in capital campaigns as universities must pursue increasing proportions of their budgets from non-state funds. other institutions, such as indiana university-purdue university indianapolis (iupui) and tulane university have both yielded successful capital campaigns drawing on their communities and regions as funders, beyond their alumni. likewise, comprehensive and accurate understanding of community engagement and public service activities helps faculty and professional staff to identify opportunities for interdisciplinary and cross-sector funding – an increasingly common and sometimes required component of grants, contracts, and awards. facilitating connections and collaboration. creating a “central mind” about the services and resources that are available from across the institution to the broader community is essential if we are to become more accessible to communities. uncg has always received calls from the community asking for help or for information, and too often those inquirers found themselves at a dead end, frustrated at the lack of care taken to help them, and giving up on working with uncg forever. we share this story with colleagues to emphasize that by collecting engagement and service data, we are better equipped to respond to requests for information or collaboration from the community. we are able to more quickly pull together interdisciplinary teams of faculty, staff, and students who may be able to inform a particular community topic or concern. further, we realized that while various units across campus were committed to many events or activities (such as camps, school workshops, etc.) that were open to the public, there was no central directory for community members to access quickly. we worked to centralize and curate this list of publicly accessible resources online (http:// communityengagement.uncg.edu/referral-desk), so that members of the community do not have to look across all websites to find information. at uncg, a referral desk was established in icee and has been used to receive and address over 150 inquiries from the community since it was first launched nearly two years ago. the community engagement and public service data provided by faculty and staff provides the essential foundation of information required to offer such a service. recruiting and retaining students, faculty, and staff. we found that in talking with prospective faculty and staff, they were considering the possible community organizations they could work with as part of their decision to choose uncg. collecting and showcasing engagement and service data allowed prospective employees the ability to examine the current activities that were taking place between faculty, staff, and students and the community and imagine what relationships they could build or what existing projects they could easily join. one prospective faculty 134 member shared that she had viewed the collaboratory® [online database of community engagement and public service activities] prior to her on-campus interview for a tenure-track faculty position. she shared that she identified specific people and partners that she was interested in speaking to, and potentially, working with, should she come to uncg. the collaboratory® thus helped her to develop very clear and specific questions about what could be possible at uncg and to envision a future for herself as a community-engaged scholar at uncg. this message resonated during our conversations requesting information, as it helped department chairs and other leaders understand how they could proactively shape the message being sent by their unit about both the rich relationships that are developed at the personal level with community and the supportive and inclusive culture fostered by the unit. similarly, students are increasingly viewing uncg as a place they can come to make a real difference in the world. uncg’s recent marketing campaign touted the tagline “do something bigger altogether” and frequently highlighted the unique experiences students could have at uncg and the work they could accomplish by partnering with and serving the community throughout their entire college career. strategic planning. related to recruiting and retaining faculty, staff, and students is the potential for engagement and service data to inform strategic planning initiatives. particularly, this data informs and clarifies goals for community engagement as a teaching pedagogy as well as an approach to research, creative activities, and public service, all of which serve to achieve key, institutional strategic goals. for example, what impact areas do we want to specialize in; be known for; and attract, recruit, and retain students, faculty, and staff in? do we want to establish a few deep, long-term, multi-dimensional and multi-stakeholder partnerships, or continue to maintain a lot of smaller and individual partnerships? how do our projects in community align (or not) with larger university strategic priorities and initiatives? how do faculty and staff activities and scholarly strengths align with community priority areas? how many of our students are being reached by the community, and vice versa? what are our targets for engagement? what forms of activity do we want our community engaged in with our students? research, assessment, and benchmarking. one clarification we routinely had to make during our conversations was that collecting engagement and service data was the important first step of an involved and longitudinal scholarly process. identifying the landscape of uncg’s activities in the community laid a solid foundation for more sophisticated research, assessment, and benchmarking strategies that would allow us to track progress toward some of the goals identified above. by knowing more about what community-university activities existed, we would then be able to establish some key common indicators across activities that would let us begin to talk about impact on a variety of stakeholders, asking questions such as: does community-engaged learning positively impact students’ academic, personal, professional, and civic development? do community-engaged research and other strategic initiatives improve faculty and staff productivity and retention? 135 having access to this data allowed uncg to begin to examine its role as a member of the community, contributing to shared initiatives as just one member at a larger community table. we hope to begin to understand how, if at all, uncg contributes to “moving the needle” on community priorities. for us to achieve this, we must move, as holland suggests, from collections of individual and coincidental activities to collective and intentional partnerships (janke 2014). having this engagement and service data allows uncg to begin examining questions such as: do communityuniversity partnerships improve the quality of life across a number of key community indicators like education, health, safety, or economic development? in almost all meetings, our response to the “why?” questions almost always includes a careful selection of the reasons addressed above. the order in which these uses are presented depends on the audience and the motivations that are likely to drive their willingness to enter records of their community engagement and public service activities. answering the what the “why?” questions were typically followed by the “what?” questions: what specific data are you asking me/us to report? what are your definitions of this work? as described earlier, icee was committed, to the extent possible, to creating a unified request within a single mechanism to collect information about community engagement and public service. this was done by identifying existing, as well as anticipated, reports, awards, accreditations, and other requests for data that are collected annually and regularly, or were fairly predictable given previous requests. therefore, the surveys and (later) database included descriptions of: •  basic project details such as description, dates, locations, and primary contacts •   information on the faculty or staff person submitting the data (department,  appointment, demographic information) •  partner/participant information (at the organizational and individual levels) •  areas of impact and forms of activity •  forms of student involvement •  assessment efforts related to the activity •  current funding •  resulting outcomes for the institution and for the community the biggest challenge across our conversations was to convince faculty, staff, and administrators that this level of detail was necessary and that by only asking for this data one time (and then sharing with all the other offices that needed the data) we were actually increasing efficiencies. we argued that while the time taken to input this data at one time may be significant, they were actually saving time and reducing redundancies in the long run. these requests for data will not go away, and we are doing our best to curate these into a single “ask.” curating frequently asked questions. throughout the meetings with faculty and staff we heard a number of questions that were asked repeatedly. for the sake of consistency, as well as efficiency, icee staff collected these questions asked at meetings and via email correspondences, wrote answers, and posted them as faqs 136 (frequently asked questions) on the institute’s webpage dedicated to the annual data collection initiative. from a technical perspective, there were a number of frequently asked questions about either content or process. intentionally collecting and posting these technical-related faqs online helped to streamline questions, thereby minimizing inquiries and time spent by the institute staff responding to them. the frequently asked questions website has been visited over two hundred times since its creation in march 2015, and visitors spent an average of five minutes on the webpage, suggesting that they found value in the content provided (icee 2015). these included data collection basics such as: •  who should report data? •  can i ask my administrative assistant to complete the information on my behalf? •  what if i have a lot of different activities to report? •  how is the data being collected? •  what office is leading the data collection effort? •  i worked with someone else on campus – how do i avoid duplication of reporting? •  i’m having trouble with the survey or database– who can i call for assistance? •  can i save a copy of my survey for my own records? •  who will have access to the data i report? •  what years of activity should i report? other questions were related to terminology and guidelines for what kinds of activities to report and how. these frequently asked questions included: •  what is community engagement? •  what is public service? •  who is “community?” •  who is a “partner?” •  should i report service on a community board, media interviews, or invited talk? •  should i report music, theater, dance, or other kinds of performances? •   should i report camps, public lectures, and other events made available to the public? •  should i report professional development or continuing education? •  should i report internships or practicums?  establishing responses to these types of questions were more challenging as they necessitated a degree of interpretation to categorize community engagement and public service activities as discrete, though often times related, activities. it was helpful, if not necessary, to our efforts that the director of the institute had previously been tasked by the provost to help establish definitional guidelines for community engagement and public service for the university in 2011. though never formally adopted by the faculty senate, they have operationally served as the university’s guidelines to define community-engaged teaching, community-engaged research/creative activity, community-engaged service, and public service. they are posted on the provost’s university-wide promotion and tenure policy and documents site (uncg 2010). they also explain the operational definition of “community” and “partner.” 137 whether institutions choose to collect data on internships, performances, camps, and community board service will depend on how the data will be used and by which units and offices. in all cases, we emphasized that the service must have been done as a uncg representative and not as an individual citizen. we have included the faqs and some of the responses at the end of this article (see appendix) to make transparent our choices. institutions may be well served by reviewing these, predicting additional questions, and generating and posting their own responses. answering the how once faculty and staff understood why and what information they were being asked to report, they tended to be much more amenable to the “how?” discussion: how do i report or oversee the reporting of data? what is the mechanism by which i record and share this information? therefore, our meetings with faculty and staff typically concluded by addressing the technical aspects of reporting data: timelines, mechanisms, etc. a sub-question was often attached to the initial technical question, which was: how do i report in a way that is feasible given the limited time and energy of faculty and staff? although faculty and staff tentatively, if not wholly, agreed to the importance of the data, they worried that the requirements of the comprehensive report would be too onerous, subsequently overwhelming faculty and staff time. therefore, a final point of discussion was to reiterate the institute’s commitment to making reporting easier in future years by adopting a single database system that will allow faculty and staff to duplicate and update existing activity records. survey systems do not retain information, thereby requiring re-entry of same or similar data each year. while it is beyond the purpose of this article to describe specifics with regards to administering the online tools used to collect data campus-wide, it is helpful to know that to facilitate a single, comprehensive, and feasible request for community engagement and public service activities, the institute has benefited from the use of two online systems at different times. first, we used a survey form using qualtrics software. this software has been useful because it allows for highly customized survey designs (such as branching using if/then logic to decide what series of questions to reveal, such as for community engagement versus public service data, or data from an individual project, versus data provided across projects in aggregate), and advanced reporting and analysis features. icee staff (authors) also have designed and used a relational database called the community engagement collaboratory® (licensed to treetop commons, llc in 2013). this system was designed and successfully used to collect data for several years. (it is currently under development by treetop commons with an expected 2016 release date). the collaboratory provided additional features and functions to those possible through use of a survey system, such as the ability to create a database in which projects and partnerships could be updated annually, and to provide a public, web-based platform to showcase community engagement project activities and partners. both qualtrics and the collaboratory database were designed to capture all 138 data required to identify and describe community engagement and public service activities at uncg, and serves as the basis for establishing more focused evaluation and assessment efforts. conclusion although attention to and pressure for information about community engagement activities and outcomes has increased over the past decade, there remains a high level of unawareness and, in some cases, resistance to providing information about community-university partnerships and public service activities. resistance to reporting is not simply a community-engagement issue, but a common faculty response to many external requests for data. increased monitoring and measuring, particularly when requested or required by external entities such as state governments, can be interpreted as challenges to institutional autonomy and academic freedom (dugan 2006). ultimately, collecting comprehensive campus-wide data requires support and buy-in from all levels of the university. in his scholarship on peace building, lederach (1997) describes the importance of a “middle-range leadership,” leaders who occupy the space between formal leadership and the grassroots activities of ordinary citizens. as administrators in a universitywide institute positioned with the office of research and economic development and reporting directly to the vice chancellor for research and economic engagement, we had access to individuals with formal positions of authority (namely, the vice chancellor, provost and chancellor), as well as to faculty and staff colleagues. applying lererach’s work to our approach, we found our middle-range leadership and middle-out approach (connecting to top and bottom) to be important for building a positive and sustainable system. lederach (1997, 41) states that such positions are effective because they connect the top and bottom levels; they are part of a broader network that links together various groups, academic institutions, associations or organizations; and they are “typically well recognized and respected within this broader network, and also enjoy the respect of the people from their own region.” our experience suggests that tracking community engagement and public service, and using the data to tell an accurate and comprehensive story of the institutions’ engagement, requires dedicated staff at the middle-range who are capable of providing clear and informed answers to the why, what, and how questions addressed above. this is particularly true in the early phases of establishing the system, as faculty and staff encounter these requests for the first time, making meaning of what is being asked, why it is being asked, and what it requires of them. our experience also suggests that establishing the mechanisms and protocols for collecting the data (e.g., survey, database) is time intensive, but once the system is in place, the amount of time required is greatly reduced. establishing new or refining existing strategies for comprehensive tracking and reporting – on any topic or metric – is a resource-intensive undertaking. in our experience, it required dedicated leadership from someone with administrative 139 authority and a connection to executive leadership, faculty leaders, and rank and file faculty in both tenure and non-tenure tracks. it also required day-to-day attention to technical and procedural details of the survey and database tools, the ability to update the faqs online, and the availability to serve as the first point of contact for questions related to the data initiative. though data collection conversations and reporting occurred year round, the spring semesters were the most time intensive for data collection as the annual deadline established by icee for submitting data was june 1 (to be sure to capture information before faculty left for the summer). throughout the year, icee staff curated a list and then later a database with details about partnerships that were not directly reported by faculty, but instead, discovered in conversations or via online announcements and publications posted in various venues including, research and alumni magazines, faculty and staff newsletters, on-campus research expo pamphlets, and uncg public and media relations sites. over time, we have incorporated work-study students to help serve in data capture and entry, which has produced the unintended consequence of raising their awareness and pride of the community-engaged and public service work contributed by their faculty, staff, and peers. this too is a significant outcome to consider as we continue to establish ways to involve students in data-tracking efforts. as we look to the future, we have identified the need to continually raise awareness, clarify, and update conversations about community engagement and public service (why, what, how) – across all stakeholders. this is particularly pressing in light of rapid turnover of administrators and faculty as the baby boomer generation continues to retire in large numbers (sugar et al. 2005). we also expect to continue to build and draw upon relationships with other offices including university relations, institutional research, enrollment management, development and advancement, and alumni relations, to facilitate updates and efficiencies across systems and activities. this is already happening at uncg and other campuses; capital campaigns (for example, indiana university-purdue university indianapolis), student enrollment initiatives (for example, tulane university), and alumni relations (for example, the citizen alum network) have been effectively advanced as a result of connecting to the university’s commitment to and activity in and with the community. at uncg, much of our early work has focused on working with university relations and creating systems to publicly showcase institutional engagement, particularly on the university’s website as a way to claim the identity and image of an engaged university through large numbers of projects and partnerships showcased (janke, medlin, and holland 2015). as a direct result of data collection efforts, uncg is now able to track and report community engagement and public service data more effectively and systematically. data collection efforts at uncg over the last four years have resulted in the identification of hundreds of community engagement and public service activities across every academic unit at the university as well as within the divisions of student affairs, athletics, and continual learning. analysis of the data showed that uncg has considerable strengths in four key areas: arts and culture for a vibrant community, education across the lifespan, economic engagement, and healthy communities (encompassing health, safety). as a direct result of this analysis, the vice chancellor of 140 research and economic development ultimately established a new statement to succinctly describe the value of uncg: “supporting healthy lives and vibrant communities.” at the start of faculty meetings, whether at the unit or department level, the icee director has presented summaries of the faculty members’ engagement to “hold up the mirror” to show them how engaged their faculty colleagues really are – and to own and build further on that engagement identity. faculty members are seeing their data used, and they are becoming better participants and partners in the data collection initiative. in addition to these quantitative outputs, the relationships built through this process have strengthened every aspect of the institute’s programming. each conversation about metrics provided an opportunity for staff to raise awareness around the institute’s other initiatives, and to speak with groups of faculty and staff to which we would not have otherwise had access. as a result, we have been able to gather feedback on current and future programming from diverse audiences, and have been included in more core administrative conversations than previous years, allowing us to continue to embed engagement as a core institutional strategy. this article moves beyond the conversation of what data to collect (see janke 2014 for an example of system-wide institutional-level metrics) to address the issue of strategies to collect data once the items have been identified. we illuminate the critical questions and sub-questions that are likely to be raised as a campus begins this effort, regardless of the specific data points requested or systems used to collect data. being able to foreshadow the questions allows the administrators collecting the information to create successful strategies to motivate participation, create a shared understanding, and avoid likely challenges as well as to proactively craft alliances and connections that can increase strategic use of the data provided by faculty and staff regarding their community-university relations and contributions. references carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching. n.d. elective classification of community engagement, classification description. dugan, r. e. 2006. “stakeholders of higher education institutional accountability.” in revisiting outcomes assessment in higher education, edited by p. hernon, r. e. dugan, and c. schwartz, 39-62. westport, ct: libraries unlimited. holland, b. 2013. “determining uncg’s destiny in the context of higher education change.” keynote address at university of north carolina at greensboro, greensboro, nc, september. institute for community and 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measuring systems.” manuscript submitted for publication. kellogg commission. 2001. returning to our roots: executive summaries of the reports of the kellogg commission on the future of state and land-grant universities. washington dc: national association of state universities and landgrant colleges. lederach, j. p. 1997. building peace: sustainable reconciliation in divided societies. washington, dc: united states institute of peace press. price, k. n., d. a. gioia, and k. g. corley. 2008. “reconciling scattered images: managing disparate organizational expressions and impressions.” journal of management inquiry 17 (3): 173-185. sugar, j., k. pruitt, j. anstee, and s. harris. 2005. “academic administrators and faculty retirement in a new era.” educational gerontology 31 (5): 405-418. university north carolina at greensboro (uncg). 2009. “vision and mission statement, strategic plan, 2009-2014.” retrieved february 17, 2011. http://provost.uncg.edu/documents/personnel/evaluationpt.pdf. university north carolina at greensboro (uncg). 2010. “university-wide evaluation guidelines for promotions and tenure. university of north carolina at greensboro. section ii.b.1.c.” retrieved february 17, 2011. http://provost.uncg.edu/documents/ personnel/evaluationpt.pdf. weerts, d. j. 2011. “if only we told our story better...: re-envisioning stateuniversity relations through the lens of public engagement.” wiscape viewpoints. madison, wi: university of wisconsin-madison, wisconsin center for the advancement of postsecondary education (wiscape). 142 weerts, d., and e. hudson. 2009. “engagement and institutional advancement.” new directions for higher education 2009 (147): 65-74. author information emily m. janke, phd, serves as the director of the institute for community and economic engagement at the university of north carolina at greensboro where she is also an associate professor of peace and conflict studies. she led the establishment of protocols, practices, and platforms to collect comprehensive, university-wide information at uncg, served as the chair of the university of north carolina systemwide initiative to create annual metrics for community and economic engagement, and served on the national advisory review board for the carnegie foundation’s 2015 application process for the community engagement elective classification. kristin d. medlin, mpa, served as a graduate assistant and then as the founding manager for partnerships and communications in the institute for community engagement at the university of north carolina at greensboro from 2011-2015. during this time, she helped to establish the protocols, practices, and platforms for collecting comprehensive, university-wide information about community engagement and public service. she is now the assistant director for postsecondary initiatives at treetop commons and is pursuing a graduate degree in educational research methodology at the university of north carolina at greensboro. emily m. janke institute for community and economic engagement university of north carolina at greensboro p.o. box 26170 greensboro, north carolina 27402-6170 e-mail: emjanke@uncg.edu telephone: 336-256-2578 kristin d. medlin treetop commons, llc 3001 charolais drive greensboro, north carolina 27406 e-mail: kdmedlin@uncg.edu telephone: 336-907-6921 143 appendix frequently asked questions posted on the institute for community and economic engagement’s website (2015). see more at: http://communityengagement.uncg.edu/2015datafaqs/. data collection basics •  who should report data? •  can i ask my administrative assistant to complete this information on my behalf? •  what if i have a lot of different activities to report? •  how is the data being collected? •  what is the deadline for providing data? •  who is leading the data collection effort? •  i’m having trouble with the qualtrics survey – who can i call for assistance? •  can i save a copy of my survey results for my own records? •  what about the collaboratory? •  how will the data i report be used by uncg? •  what “counts” and what doesn’t? •  what is community engagement? •  what is public service? •  who “counts” as community? •  who “counts” as a partner? •   for my activity, i worked with someone else on campus – should i be worried about  them redundantly reporting the same activity? •   we have an activity that happens between may 30th – june 30th, 2015 – should we  report this data? •  what kinds of activities should be reported? •   i oversee student co-curricular community service activities, events, or programs –  should these be reported? •   should i report my service on a community board, media interviews, or invited talks? •   should i report music, theatre, dance, or other kinds of performances? what about  public lectures, camps, or other events available to the public? •  i jury exhibitions for other institutions - should this be reported? •   i host a professional development/continuing education event available to the  community – should this be reported? •  i supervise student placements – should these be reported? •   i teach a project-based course in which my students complete projects in community  settings or in collaboration with community organizations – should these be reported? •   i’m worried about asking my students to report data directly – will i be able to  review it? •  are there any ferpa or hippa concerns with student-reported data? 144 select faq responses •  who should report data? w all uncg faculty and staff who have community engagement and/or public service activities. these activities may occur as part of your teaching, scholarship, community outreach, or professional programming work roles at uncg. w students may report data in special cases – please see the question on student placements and course projects below for more details. •   can i ask my administrative assistant to complete this  information on my behalf? w we have made it possible for others in your unit to provide information about your community engagement and public service on your behalf. this could include administrative assistants, graduate students, etc. please keep in mind that it will be difficult for these individuals to complete the survey on your behalf, as there are a number of required fields – and nobody knows your projects better than you! •  what if i have a lot of different activities to report? w this survey collects data on an activity-by-activity basis. please complete one survey per activity. each “activity” describes the key elements – who, what, where, when, and to what end – of a project, course, program, or other type of community-based or -engaged initiative. •  how is the data being collected? w data is collected via an online qualtrics survey that is available online here. •  who is leading the data collection effort? w provost dana dunn has asked the institute for community and economic engagement (icee) to lead the effort to capture descriptions of activities university-wide that are provided to, for, or with individuals, groups, and organizations outside of uncg through public service or community engagement efforts. •  how will the data i report be used by uncg? w we’ll be sure to share your great work with others. your data will help inform work not only with reporting, assessment, and accreditation, but also with university relations, development/advancement, university strategic planning, professional development planning, and convenings and referrals. by knowing who is doing what, where, and with whom, we’ll be able to connect people and organizations to each other who are doing similar work. •  what is community engagement? w community engagement is a process by which uncg works with community partners through mutually beneficial partnerships to co-create activities guided by collaborative, reciprocal co–planning and co–implementation. the exchange of expertise and ideas between academic and external community partners leads to co-creation of knowledge and activities that generate benefits for the academic institution, as well as benefits articulated by community partners. w visit http://communityengagement.uncg.edu/definitions/ for more detailed definitions of community-engaged teaching, community-engaged scholarship, and more! 145 •  what is public service? w public service is an activity through which uncg provides expertise, resources, and services to or for community individuals, groups, organizations, and the general public. external entities may invite, host, attend, participate, and even benefit from the activity, but the primary responsibility for the design, delivery, and assessment of the activity is shaped by the academic institution. it is important to note that personal volunteerism and professional service/service to the discipline, department, and institution should not be recorded as part of this request. •  who “counts” as community? w although uncg is certainly a member of the community, we use community to mean individuals, groups, and organizations external to campus. our community extends beyond the local to include regional, state, national, and global partners and may come from a variety of sectors, including, but not limited to, nonprofits, businesses, civic agencies, and schools. •  who “counts” as a partner? w we know that it can sometimes be difficult to determine who should be listed as a partner on your activity. consider these guidelines: w do not consider academic/disciplinary associations. w do not consider funding entities here, unless they are involved in the activity beyond providing dollars (e.g., planning, design, implementation, evaluation). you can identify funding entities in a different section of the survey. w do not consider patients, teachers, students or other participating individuals or sites as partners. w other universities and colleges can be involved, but should not be the sole participants or partners in this activity. •   we have an activity that happens between may 30th – june  30th, 2015 – should we report this data? w yes! we expect that there will be a few summer programs/camps that will take place during the last month of the 2014-15ay. while we are requesting that data be provided prior to may 30th for most activities (we need time to process and analyze all that data!), we will leave the survey open for those few individuals/ groups who need to report data on activities that happen in june. •  what kinds of activities should be reported? w keep in mind that the data reported here should only reflect work you conduct/ coordinate/represent as part of your professional role with uncg. while many faculty and staff serve in a number of engagement/service roles as a public citizen (e.g., coaching their child’s soccer team, volunteering at church, or involvement with philanthropic groups), uncg cannot share those activities as part of its overall impact. •   i oversee student co-curricular community service  activities, events, or programs should these be reported? w yes! this data is critical for uncg’s application to the president’s honor roll. for the purposes of this request, only student co-curricular activities that take place as part of an official uncg program or initiative should be reported (i.e., students’ personal volunteerism, or volunteerism that is not part of a uncg program or event, should not be included). co-curricular service information 146 should be reported by faculty or staff supervisors, advisors, or mentors as this ensures the veracity of the data. •   should i report my service on a community board, media  interviews, or invited talks? w this initiative collects institutionally offered programs, courses, and initiatives. while individual activities connected to serving on community boards, media interviews, invited talks, and expert testimony provide essential contributions to the community, we are not collecting this level of detail at this time (this data may be reported in faculty/staff annual reports). if these roles are connected to one of these institutionally offered programs, they may be identified within the activity record. •   should i report music, theatre, dance, or other kinds of  performances? what about public lectures, camps, or other events available to the public? w yes! rather than identifying each event individually, you may choose to report this data in the aggregate. examples include music, theatre, or dance performances; book readings; athletic events; speaker series/public lectures; or other recurring outreach events. for example, the university performing arts series is made up of fifteen events that are offered over the course of the year. you may choose to report each performance as a separate activity, or you may choose to complete one activity that summarizes the details of the entire series in aggregate. •   i teach a project-based course in which my students  complete projects in community settings or in collaboration with community organizations should these be reported? w yes! we believe that supervised student work in community is important to capture as it is a direct reflection of your teaching role at uncg. these courses vary in style – in some courses students focus on just one activity/partner, while in other courses, students split into teams and work with multiple partners on multiple projects. however, it is up to you to decide how meaningful this data is and how feasible it is to report. you might consider one of the three reporting options outlined in the question above. copyright © 2016 metropolitan universities vol. 27 no. 3 (autumn 2016), doi: 10.18060/21390 building community through shared spaces and intention maureen p. hall and christine m. panarese abstract present-day educational approaches in higher education and k-12 privilege only cognitive gains from students, who are sometimes only seen as test scores, while neglecting the development of the whole human being. this article documents three unique building community events at a public university in the northeast, which were designed to embrace the full development of human potential. these events were created to offer novel approaches to education, highlighting and operationalizing social emotional learning (sel) through mindfulness, literacy, and social justice. the documentation is two-fold: 1) to provide descriptions of each of the three events and the connections between and among social emotional learning (sel) and mindfulness, literacy and diversity, and 2) to provide an analysis of feedback data and a descriptive framework that makes clear the processes and theories underpinning the events, all of which may provide a beginning roadmap for others to replicate this important work. qualitative findings suggest that the integration of sel into classroom theory and practice may be one route to improving and humanizing education. keywords: social emotional learning (sel), democratic professionalism, mindfulness, literacy, social justice introduction this article tells the story of a unique case study in university outreach. the building community initiative brought together a diverse group of individuals from the local regional area, all of whom were interested in learning about new ways to improve education through caring, understanding, and respectful citizenship towards their own and others’ learning. at the center of this initiative is social emotional learning (sel), as referenced in the collaborative for academic, social, and emotional learning (casel). according to casel, there are five social and emotional competencies: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision making (as cited in dorman, 2015). likewise, success in education must involve an education of the “whole” person, which attends to students’ and teachers’ emotional and cognitive learning needs (waxler & hall, 2011). these building community events provided ongoing opportunities for educational stakeholders to discuss their own ideas, listen to others’ perspectives, and to collaborate on how the seven competencies of sel can assist in improving the present state of education. sel, as the overarching focus of these events, served as a guiding constellation of concepts on which organizers were able to craft three unique building community learning experiences for all stakeholders. 124 building community through mindfulness: where literacy and diversity intersect in this first building community event and all subsequent events, sel was at the center. experts shared presentations on theories of mindfulness, literacy, and diversity allowing participants to expand their awareness of educational processes. the first session was led by a neuroscientist who explained how mindfulness, as a brain-based process, can positively affect learning. the second session, led by an english professor and author who focuses on the power of literacy for learning and self-development. the third session was led by an english language learner (ell) guidance counselor who shared her own experiences as a non-native english speaker, as well as her experiences supporting ell students and families. information from participant feedback sheets collected at the end of this event provided guidance for the design of the second building community event. building community through mindfulness: knowing the self and connecting to others growing from the momentum of the first event, participants called for examples of sel theory into practice. the evening began with three keynote speakers who gave short talks on mindfulness, literacy, and community-building, providing a necessary a foundation for the breakout sessions. after these opening talks, participants were given a choice of attending bridging sel theory-to-practice sessions on the following topics: (a) exploring teachers’ inner landscapes through metaphors and poems, (b) literacy and social justice, (c) creating community partnerships, and (d) mindfulness and literacy. the goal here was to move beyond theory and have participants experience sel in practice. feedback forms from this second event were more detailed and there was some evidence that participants demonstrated self-reflection on sel in theory and practice. building community through mindfulness: bringing theory to practice for this third building community event, the sessions were held at a local community school. experts shared best practices and examples for how they utilize sel in a variety of settings. moving away from the breakout sessions, all participants were provided examples for sel theory into practice through the following sub-topics: (a) mindfulness, learning and the brain, (b) the power of deep reading and mindfulness in the classroom, (c) mindfulness and literacy: lessons from the field, and (d) social justice in education. the kind of feedback collected for this event was in the form of reflective writings on the value of sel and how it might influence teaching practices. review of the research social emotional learning (sel) research evidences the benefits of systemic integration of sel learning inside classrooms assisting students in the acquisition of skills that allow for better understanding and awareness of the self and others. further, sel learning focuses on helping individuals learn how their emotions influence their thoughts, choices and response actions towards others (brackett & rivers, 2014, salovey & mayer, 1990). “there is growing recognition at the local, state, and federal levels in the united states (us) and around the world that schools must meet the social 125 and emotional developmental needs of students for effective teaching and learning to take place and for students to reach their full potential.” (http://casel.org/research/sel-in-your-state/) for sel, the main focus is on developing skills that promote social and emotional learning (sel). sel is defined as the process of acquiring the skills to recognize and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, appreciate the perspectives of others, establish and maintain positive relationships, make responsible decisions, and handle interpersonal situations effectively. a growing body of research and literature supports the premise that effective sel programming is a key to children’s success in school and life (durlak et al., 2010; greenberg et al., 2003). sel, as a broad construct, has deep connections to mindfulness because it must be embodied, and it grows from self-knowledge and management of one’s own emotions to awareness of others’ perspectives and emotions. mindfulness is inextricably connected to sel; research on mindfulness interventions in k-12 settings is broadening the field and showing how attention to sel is a conduit for improved teaching and learning. for example, a range of studies on mindfulness evidence that both teachers and students build skills needed, such as emotional regulation, perspective-taking and emotional recognition (greenberg & harris 2012; shapiro et al., 2014). in the research study by schonert-reichl et al., 2015, the development of curriculum content and activities were guided by the research and theory in the area of mindfulness and its relation to well-being and positive psychology (e.g., clonan et al., 2004; lyubomirsky et al., 2005a, b). schonert-reichl et al.’s me program (mindfulness education), “mindfulness” refers to bringing one’s complete attention to the present experience on a moment-to-moment basis with a nonjudgmental stance. the four key components of the me program include: 1. quieting the mind—listening to a resonating instrument (chime) and focusing on the breath 2. mindful attention—mindful of sensation, thoughts, and feelings 3. managing negative emotions and negative thinking 4. acknowledgment of self and others. (schonert-reichl et al., 2015) literacy and sel deep reading provides a mirror for reflecting upon the self, and allows for the development of empathy toward others to understand both the characters in text and the human dimension in our modern society. deep reading of literature acts as the foundational stepping stone to develop and expand students’ comprehension of text and also acquire the life skills that allows them to apply this same skill set to interact and understand others. this type of emotional intelligence is critical for students to learn if they are to have a quality, positive and productive life (goleman 2013). deep reading and deep listening, as building blocks of education, are important for all levels. literacy skills are rooted in the individual’s ability to sustain focused attention, suspend judgment, and maintain present-moment awareness. mindfulness and sel 126 in connection with sel, mindfulness practices can help students to regulate their emotions, increase their attentional capacities, and create positive habits of mind (davidson, dunne, eccles, engle, greenberg, jennings, & vago, 2012; roeser, skinner, beers, & jennings, 2012; waxler & hall, 2011). mindfulness is just one way to bring the learners into the depth of the present moment and into a meaningful space created where all other distractions are put aside. kabatzinn’s (2006) work, for example, has shown that mindfulness, which focuses attention on the mind, body, and context of the here and now, can reduce stress in people’s everyday lives. mindfulness skill acquisition can provide the entry point for cultivating the practices and embedding students’ sel through the practice of deep reading and deep listening that facilitates the engagement of individuals in rich, collaborative discussions that lead to greater understanding of the topic material. diversity, social justice, and sel best practices in social justice in education involves the deep-seated belief that when all academic knowledge and skills are culturally and socially situated and made personally meaningful to students, engagement and interest increases (ladson-billings, 1994; noguera, 2000). as watson (2016) points out, “since learning is relational, educators must remember that we are not teaching content; we are teaching people. therefore, the identity and diversity of our students (linguistic, cultural, economic, social, ethnic, etc.) has everything to do with who we are and our ability to engage them affectively and effectively” (p. 3). teachers can be more success in teaching students from diverse backgrounds if they are culturally responsive and create learning opportunities that help students learn through their own cultural filters (gay, 2002). method participant recruitment the participants, numbering over 100 individuals, represented individuals from a medium-sized urban-serving university in the northeast that included pre-service, graduate students and faculty. the majority of these individuals were from the teacher education department of the university with about 50 percent of these individuals representing pre-service graduate level students. in addition to this group, individuals from the local community also participated in all three events, which helped to provide an inclusive learning space for sharing of the different perspectives from this diverse group of educational stakeholders. invitation by way of descriptive event brochures were made available using various media as the approach to solicit interest in attending each of the building community events. research design the adopted method for the collection, synthesis and reporting of the data using a qualitative research design to capture the rich, descriptive inner thoughts around the understanding and potential use of the sel concepts for their own as well as their students’ learning benefit. by using a qualitative study design, the authors were able to apply a deductive form of logic when synthesizing the three individual data collections (cresswell, 1994). 127 measures/procedures one of the obstacles encountered when trying to gather data from participants was the idea that data collected from each of the participants from the first building community event may not be available for the second or third building community events if the person did not attend all three events. for this reason, the authors’ intention for this research project was to structure it so that it would be iterative. using the information from each of the events the data collection tools were structured using the information gathered from the previous building community event. this necessitated the use of three connected, but different data collection tools: (a) satisfaction survey, (b) constructed participant responses focusing on learner needs, and (c) journal writing using structured prompts. these individual tools were administered to event participants at the conclusion of the final workshop in each of the event series. participants were asked to provide event facilitators with autonomous, open and honest feedback on the teaching and learning that had just taken place. participant comments were captured in written form and then coded at the conclusion of the events. this collection of data was synthesized and combined with the observation notes taken by panel experts, which led to the emergence of several critical themes as a result of the community-building events hosted at the university. this multi-source data was then synthesized using the online qualitative/quantitative analysis tool, dedoose®. by using this systematic analysis process, authors were able to craft a method for answering this study’s research questions from the rich body of information gathered from multiple sources that included separate participant feedback forms, facilitator field notes and structured journal entries from members of the building community event three. results as a result of these varied data collection tools, the reporting of the results from this series of building community events will be presented in three parts. data analysis from building community event one findings from the first event’s data collection and analyses indicated an overwhelming positive participant response in the desire for continued learning and implementation of the concepts of sel. this analysis prompted event facilitators to continue with the use of mindfulness techniques as a conduit for learning and growing a trustful, engaged community, as it provided a diverse group of participants with a common experience. mindfulness, as one of most basic ways of knowing, provided a route to self-knowledge and an individual’s construction of identity. these ideas about creating a community align with palmer’s (1998) concept that one must have knowledge of the self before constructing understanding and expressing any compassion for others. another aspect of common interest synthesized from the event one data collection was the request for classroom examples of sel implementation. lastly, analysis of the participant feedback tools found that while this initial building community experience offered them the opportunity to connect with and engage in compelling dialogue with individuals from different 128 areas of education, feedback also indicated that group members felt a greater sense of selfawareness, focus and agency to meet the learning needs of the students they served. as a result of the feedback received by respondents from this first building community event, facilitators structured the second event in this series (fall 2015) so that participants would be offered a choice of workshops focusing on the particular interests garnered from the first event’s data collection. data analysis from building community event two the second in this series of building community events, was developed to build upon participant’s knowledge of the neuroscience research around sel and how embedding the use of mindfulness can assist in student’s attainment of their learning goals by promoting students’ literacy skills, ensuring an environment that fosters and sustains social justice, and meeting the needs of individual learners. the emerging patterns of respondent feedback for this second event were concentrated on how the event learning could transfer into instructional practices to assist in the learning of marginalized students. for example, many participants spoke of their increased understanding of students’ diverse language needs. teachers need to “distinguish between times when their students are confused about content and times when they are simply having difficulty communicating their understanding,” one participant wrote that teachers “need to differentiate lessons in order to accommodate a variety of learning styles, cultural backgrounds, and language abilities.” while another participant wrote of a similar problem from the sel perspective, “students who have been made to feel stupid for the way they communicate their ideas will not contribute to classroom discussions. on the other hand, students who feel validated and understood become active members in the classroom community.” yet another participant stated “community flourishes when diversity is celebrated.” one participant, who disclosed he was studying to be a teacher commented that he would “ask his students to name their personal metaphors for learning so he can learn what works best for them.” he noted that in the middle and high school classrooms he has had experience in, “so many students learn differently, and if i can show that i care about them as a community, they may just learn better than they would otherwise.” data analysis from building community event three structured journal prompts were provided to all participants at the end of the third and final in this series of building community events. as a result of many participants reporting that they acquired additional skills that provided them greater internal insight and self-understanding, this finding helped to validate the measure of the effectiveness of the series’ content, delivery and participant learning. one participant noted, “i learned how to center myself and focus on the moment in which i was experiencing.” other participant responses centered on the collective experience and value of the learning as a result of mastering through practice the deep listening exercises. one respondent commented, “i now acknowledge the difference between listening just to wait for your turn to speak and actually listening to the person speaking to you.” naming a 129 personal metaphor for authentic reflective experiences that improve teaching and learning was another common thread found among event participants’ journal entries. one person poetically expressed that this learning experience had “led to insights” and described his learning as a wave. “at first, i recoil like i am building up my knowledge, then after a while i crash into the sands of confusion and wash over the lines in the sand and end up more knowledgeable than i was before.” one of the most compelling and transparent disclosures found in the third data collection was from a particularly reflective educator who wrote that he realizes that he “learns like a hammer – breaking apart the knowledge and understanding each piece,” but that he teaches “like a pile of legos® – i give all the pieces and expect students to put it all together.” this tension in discrepancy of theory and practice led him to reflect and bring about a new awareness as evidenced through this statement, “i could never learn from myself” thus providing him with critical insight with important implications for his ongoing growth and development as a teacher. this type of participant’s acknowledgement and shared self-insight in identifying one’s own preferred learning style and experiences in relation to their actual classroom instruction allowed authors to visibly understand his thoughts and thinking around the events’ learning. by making himself vulnerable and publicly challenging his own thinking to the members of this learning group, he allowed for others to validate his authentic entry into the instructional reflective practice and observe the development of the changes that will advances his teaching and his students’ learning. other findings in the themes from the analysis of participant journal entries for this last session in this series of community building events included a common feeling among the community for increased motivation and sense of agency. one teacher commented on the use of mindfulness to improve students social emotional and academic skills, “i can help kids understand how to listen to their classmates better and understand what they are reading.” another individual spoke more broadly on the “take away” value of this community learning experience and stated, “i can help to be a mentor and show [children] how powerful education and communication are…” yet another participant noted that the building community event “really encouraged me to a greater awareness of the benefits of literacy and mindfulness for all students. because of this, i have decided to emphasize and incorporate these ideas in my teaching.” as a result of these community building events, educators demonstrated by their disclosures during participation and feedback a self-motivated willingness to learn and adopt mindfulness practices for improving students’ social emotional and academic learning inside their classrooms. analyses of the data gathered from these events’ satisfaction surveys and journal entries indicated that nearly all educators who were in attendance expressed a desire for another building community event that would provide them with additional learning opportunities in the use of mindfulness practices as a classroom tool for assisting students in their self-regulation and learning. the above example of participants’ entering into undisciplined, voluntary, community facilitated examination of the “self” in a group environment diverges from dewey’s idea that human reflective processes that lead to learning are highly structured and are activated when an 130 individual begins to think about and gather additional information needed to solve a problem (bugg & dewey, 1934; dewey, 1938; rogers, 2002). this contrast in ideas leads authors to construct an alternate theory on the circumstance of when and how individuals come to reflect upon their inner thoughts that lead to the planning of their external actions. discussion the building communities initiative was created through the gathering of committed, diverse educational stakeholder groups from k-16 and from the local community. through participants’ conversations and connections across multiple subject matter disciplines, bridges were created through a shared goal of improving education. these events operationalize the model of democratic professionalism (dzur, 2010), which is a broad-based reform movement that aims to heighten civic engagement and promote active participants in a democratic society. in other words, when educators use their skills as professionals to bring people together around a shared goal for improving and humanizing education, they are acting as bridge-agents connecting the school to the community and the community to the school. sel was at the center of this initiative and manifested through mindfulness, literacy, and diversity. as part of the event debriefing process, an illustrated evolutionary process was created to assist others in the establishment of a foundation for building a community of committed, diverse educational stakeholders (see figure 1). the work of the building community initiative is ongoing, and these phases represented may be iterative and not necessarily meant to be linear or prescriptive. groups coming together must create spaces that are designed to fit their particular goals, along with their school and community contexts for learning. figure 1: phases in community building literacy, mindfulness, social justice, and democracy are also inextricably linked. in order to make informed choices and be active members in a democratic society, literacy skills are required. literacy must always be understood in context, with attention given to the larger social and political dimensions of that particular context. in a freirean (1987) sense, all literacy begins with the person’s lived reality and their current understanding of the world through their own words (freire and macedo, 1987). this ideal parallels palmer’s (1998) concept that a person who does not understand the self is unable to understand, reach, and teach others. phase i •like-minded stakeholders join together for a collective learning goals for diverse educational groups phase ii •like-minded stakeholders craft a plan of action to accomplish collective goal by generating the data to support reflective learning event design phase iii •embed sustainability commmunity of diverse educational stakeholders using cycle of ongoing reflection and development of campus, state, national and international learning events 131 conclusion in the foreword to contemplative practices in higher education, parker palmer notes that for many of today’s leaders, “expert knowledge—and the power that comes with it—has not been joined to a professional ethic, a sense of communal responsibility, or even simple compassion” (barbezat and bush, 2014, p. vii). palmer (1998) argues, “the growth of any craft depends on shared practice and honest dialogue among the people who do it” (p. 144). this shared practice of open, trustful dialogue that is preceded with the practice of mindfulness, an attention to literacy and diversity, opens people’s eyes to see their “truth” or mindful thoughts that guide their personal decisions and actions so they are able to see the “truth” in others and in the circumstances in which they live. in order to humanize education, shared spaces for dialogue and embodied learning are needed. approaches that celebrate sel in teaching and learning, approaches which value the development of full human potential, are also needed. the data collected from this case study suggests that building community events, ones designed to create safe and respectful spaces for sharing ideas about teaching and learning, holds potential for improving education and for bridging theory into practice. in addition, individual and group reflection may lead to growth in internal motivation for stakeholders. the discussions themselves, where all voices are heard and valued, can be a springboard for ongoing collaborative efforts needed to build a strong community, a place where new resources can be created and deeper connections can be made. these building community events provide hope; they are encouraging signs that transforming education is not only desirable but also possible on both an individual and group level where people from diverse backgrounds and interests can find common ground. people joining with each other, coupled with a consensus of intention to improve education, can produce real change—or at least a start on positive change. when people come together, such as in these embodied learning experiences provided by the building community event series, real progress can be made. in the case of this building communities initiative, the overarching focus was on sel as it is operationalized through mindfulness, literacy, and social justice. the best kind of community involves a true symbiotic relationship between schools and the community, where the schools’ needs and the communities’ needs are reciprocated. the interactions and conversations act as a springboard for ongoing collaborative efforts needed to build a strong community, a place where new resources and connections can be made. creating community takes time; individuals need time to get to know one another and feel affiliated, to create trust, and to discover shared goals. just as fear can be contagious, courage to transform education and build community can also become contagious. along with time, the creation of community calls for perseverance, action, and an ongoing commitment from the parties involved. freire, in his work empowers this idea and calls for people to apply their individual and collective thought processes to transform education by defining the term conscientization as “learning to perceive social, political, and economic contradictions— developing a critical awareness—so that individuals can take action against the oppressive elements of reality” (freire, 1970, 19). events that work to build community, when designed effectively, hold promise for improving and humanizing education. they involve shared spaces, 132 shared understandings, and shared intentions – all of which are needed for unlocking the inherent learning potential in all people. 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(2016). literacy is a civil write: the art, science, and soul of transformative classrooms. in r. papa, & d. eadens (eds.), social justice instruction: empowerment on the chalkboard. new york: springer publishing company. series on education, equity, and economy. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12349-3_27. waxler, r.p. & hall, m.p. (2011) transforming literacy: changing lives through reading and writing. bingley, uk: emerald group publishing limited. http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/9780857246288. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12349-3_27 http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/9780857246288 135 author information dr. maureen p. hall is a professor of education at the university of massachusetts dartmouth. as a teacher educator, her work bridges literacy, mindfulness, and service learning. her most recent work involves mindful literacy, which combines literacy with mindfulness and with social emotional learning (sel). her first book, transforming literacy (2011) was written with dr. robert p. waxler. she also has a forthcoming book, writing from the inside (equinox), which will be published in 2017. dr. maureen p. hall university of massachusetts dartmouth stem education and teacher development department 398-c, liberal arts building 285 old westport road north dartmouth, ma 02747 e-mail: mhall@umassd.edu telephone: 508.999.8211 dr. christine panarese is the assistant director for special education for boston public schools and an adjunct professor at the university of massachusetts dartmouth. dr. panarese is an active practitioner and researcher in the field of social emotional learning. she has received several grants for urban teacher professional development in the area of sel. she has also developed curriculum that embeds the concepts of sel for improving the teaching and learning of students with disabilities. dr. christine m. panarese boston public schools office of special education 2300 washington street roxbury, ma 02119 e-mail: cpanarese@bostonpublicschools.org, christine.panarese@umassd.edu telephone: 617.635.8599 mailto:mhall@umassd.edu mailto:cpanarese@bostonpublicschools.org mailto:christine.panarese@umassd.edu 122 volunteer program assessment at the university of nebraska at omaha: a metropolitan university’s collaboration with rural and spanish-speaking volunteers lisa l. scherer, victoria m. graeve-cunningham, sheridan b. trent, stephanie a. weddington, adam r. thurley, kelly a. prange , joseph a. allen abstract the volunteer program assessment at uno (vpa-uno), a faculty-led student group, partners with nonprofit and governmental agencies to provide free assessments and consultations to enhance volunteer engagement, organizational commitment and retention. three recent initiatives are discussed representing an intentional effort of a metropolitan university to extend love of place to love of state through outreach efforts to rural volunteers and to promote inclusivity to spanish-speaking volunteers by translating the vpa assessment into spanish. purpose the purpose of this paper is to provide a case example of volunteer efforts of students participating in the volunteer program assessment at the university of nebraska at omaha (vpa-uno) to make their community a better place. the initiatives described demonstrate how students and faculty at a metropolitan university can provide much needed service to the community while at the same time enhancing student professional development and civic-mindedness. this narrative will first provide a context for vpa-uno’s efforts, highlighting the important role of uno and the omaha community in supporting meaningful collaborations between students with the community. second, vpa-uno’s process will be described along with client and student outcomes. next, we will describe vpa-uno’s effort to extend love of place to love of state through outreach efforts to rural volunteers and to promote inclusivity among spanish-speaking volunteers. finally, these highlighted vpa-uno projects will be reviewed, noting key findings and underscoring the reciprocal benefits accrued to both the clients and to vpa-uno through these collaborations. importance of place the importance of place cannot be under-emphasized as uno nurtures a university culture that through policy and action promotes student-centeredness, academic excellence, and community engagement specifically, uno administration at all levels support curricular and co-curricular programming efforts that encourage and support relationships between students and community partners. furthermore, the establishment of the uno barbara weitz community engagement center has reaffirmed uno’s commitment to engagement, highlighting the importance of facilitating meaningful collaboration, by bringing community partners directly onto the uno campus. the building provides free space for campus and community events, as well as office space for thirty-three community and university partners. vpauno is one of the university partners housed in the community engagement center, benefiting from this collaborative space within a supportive metropolitan university culture. 123 community problem addressed a major problem confronting our communities is the struggle of nonprofit organizations to recruit and retain volunteers who are critical to their success and sustainability. nonprofit organizations have experienced a 25 percent growth rate within the last decade (urban institute, 2014), which has positively influenced society by advancing charitable causes, defending human rights, relieving the distressed, and preventing cruelty to vulnerable populations. with the downturn of the economy leading to budget cutbacks and an increase in demand for services (devita, 2012), nonprofit organizations depend heavily on volunteers now more than ever. national trends in volunteering paint a disturbing picture of an increasing gap between the need and the availability of volunteers. in 2012 alone, volunteers contributed 15.2 billion hours of work and saved $296.2 billion to nonprofits (blackwood, roeger, & pettijohn, 2012), yet only 25 percent of americans volunteered at least once, the lowest volunteer rate since the bureau of labor statistics began collecting volunteer data in 2002 (bureau of labor statistics, 2014). further alarming is the relatively low percentage of young adults volunteering, with those between the ages of twenty and twenty-four being least likely to volunteer (bureau of labor statistics, 2014). at the local level, omaha, nebraska is ranked first among the fifty-one largest metropolitan areas for community service (corporation for national and community service, 2013). however, the 35.4 percent of omaha citizens who volunteered between 2011 and 2013 fell far short of the needs of nonprofit organizations serving those in the community. thus, despite omaha’s relatively high level of volunteering compared to national norms, volunteer recruitment, engagement and retention remain top priorities. vpa-uno’s response to volunteer challenges the primary goal of vpa-uno is to serve governmental agencies and nonprofit organizations that utilize volunteers by providing a high-quality online assessment of volunteers and consultations to help organizations know how to best enhance volunteer engagement, commitment and retention. vpa-uno is one of six volunteer program assessment (vpa) chapters in the united states. vpa began in the fall of 2009 at the university of north carolina at charlotte by dr. steven rogelberg with the support of his graduate students, joseph allen and daniel bonilla. in june of 2013, dr. joseph allen joined dr. lisa scherer at uno, and vpa-uno was created. since the start of vpa-uno in june 2013, vpa-uno has served over eighty organizations and benefited more than 33,500 volunteers across the united states. many of these organizations have received vpa-uno services annually across multiple years, and the diversity of the organizations and the community issues they address is considerable. as a result of this broad spectrum, scherer (2014) developed a taxonomy of twelve different volunteer contexts to organize the community efforts of vpa-uno, consisting of the following areas: (a) youth mentoring and development, (b) arts and entertainment, (c) police, fire and emt support, (d) eldercare, (e) medical, health, and well-being (f) sustainability, (g) global and international services, (h) religion and spirituality, (i) animal welfare, (j) legal and advocacy, (k) literacy and education, and (l) poverty. the vpa-uno process is streamlined to minimize the time investment of its nonprofit clients. the volunteer coordinator or executive director invests approximately three hours to perform the following functions: (a) signs a letter of commitment, (b) completes an online screening questionnaire for background information on the organization and its volunteers, (c) emails the web link to the vpa-uno assessment to volunteers accompanied by explanatory emails provided by vpa-uno, and (d) attends a face-to-face or technology-mediated consultation with the team based on analyses of the assessment results. the vpa-uno survey assessment includes quantitative and qualitative feedback from the 124 volunteers. further, clients’ quantitative feedback is accompanied by information regarding how their results compare with data annually aggregated from the six vpa chapters, thus providing them with a national benchmark. analysts synthesize this information to serve as the basis for the consultation report and the recommendations. clients repeat the vpa-uno process annually to monitor their progress in improving their volunteer experiences and ultimately their engagement, commitment and retention. through this process, vpa-uno’s clients have the opportunity to get an inside look at the organization’s volunteer program from the perspective of their own volunteers. the results of the survey reveal how their volunteer program compares to other volunteer programs across the nation. national norms have been created for specific non-profit areas, such as animal welfare and volunteer police programs. variables that are measured include volunteers’ satisfaction with communication by the organization, volunteers’ engagement levels, what constraints the volunteers face in their roles, and demographic information such as volunteer tenure, employment status, number of hours worked per month, and frequency of volunteering. non-profit organizations can use the information provided by vpa-uno to highlight the programs successes and inform business decisions to improve organizational effectiveness and volunteer productivity. love of place = love of nebraska because vpa-uno is the only vpa chapter in the state, the program serves non-profit organizations across the state of nebraska. we recognize that there are many organizations in nebraska that serve both rural and urban areas, and many non-profit organizations exist in rural areas. volunteers are necessary in rural communities and a great resource especially to areas that may have less access to resources. therefore, vpa-uno has made a commitment to serve rural as well as urban clients in order to provide them with resources to maximize non-profits’ impact through their volunteer workforces. three vpa-uno initiatives to reach underserved populations in nebraska three initiatives were pursued to target rural nebraska and spanish-speaking volunteers. rural nebraska was the focus of two projects, with the nebraska court appointed special advocates (casa) association and 4-h of nebraska partnering with vpa-uno, and both efforts assessing volunteers across the entire state. as no vpa assessment initiatives among vpa-usa chapters had ever explicitly compared results for urban versus rural volunteers, the results of these two projects highlighted commonalities and differences between these two groups. the spanish-speaking project is ongoing and includes both urban and rural spanish-speaking populations and included translating the vpa-uno assessment into spanish. results and insights offered to the nonprofit clients as well as lessons learned by the vpa-uno team will be highlighted for each project to further emphasize the reciprocal benefits of these collaborations. background for rural initiatives rural communities face distinct challenges, including low employment growth and population decline (ers, usda, 2014). nationally, rural employment growth remained stagnant since the 2007 recession; from 2010 to 2014 employment grew by only 1.1 percent in rural america, compared with 5 percent in urban areas. two-thirds of non-metro counties experienced population loss from 2010 to 2013 due to outmigration, low birth rates, and an aging population. many young adults leave rural america to attend college and remain in urban areas due to the substantially greater pay rates for college graduates in urban versus rural areas. 125 beyond these barriers faced by rural communities, a shortage of volunteers, inconsistent volunteer infrastructure, and high prevalence of informal volunteering (points of light foundation, 2004) is particularly problematic. rural families experience isolation and poverty issues, such as lack of transportation, affordable and reliable child care, health care, and living wage jobs, which hinder their ability to engage in volunteer activities. rural communities tend to lack resources, collaboration, and investment in rural volunteer organizations, thereby impeding the capability for these organizations to thrive. further, the out-migration of young people in particular is straining the number of volunteers available and threaten the economic viability of many rural communities. to elucidate, 80 percent of students in rural nebraska rated their hometown as an average or above average place for a young person to live, yet barely half picture themselves living in the area in the future, even if career opportunities are available (nebraska community foundation, 2015). although urban organizations experience many of the same challenges regarding access and capacity, all indicators suggest that rural organizations tend to experience these hindrances at a greater magnitude. vpa-uno collaboration with the nebraska court appointed special advocates (casa) association the nebraska casa volunteer represented one of our two state-wide clients. casa volunteers interview foster children and families, review police and child welfare reports, and advise the court on decisions regarding placement all while remaining a stable adult figure in troubled youth’s lives. nationwide, there are nearly 1,000 casa programs in forty-nine states with more than 76,000 volunteers. the nebraska casa association consists of 656 nebraskan volunteers advocate for over 1,500 abused and neglected children in the twenty-two local nebraska casa programs. because over 2,000 children in nebraska still desperately need an advocate, casa’s goal is to retain and recruit volunteers and vpa-uno has helped by providing improvement feedback directly from volunteers. all twenty-two nebraska casa programs, which serve thirty-eight counties, participated in the free vpa-uno volunteer engagement survey. analyses were conducted to identify meaningful similarities and differences between rural and urban programs. specifically, the analyses focused on how the omaha and lincoln urban areas compared with the rest of the state. thus, the urban programs included the douglas, sarpy, and lancaster county programs and rural programs comprised of the remaining nineteen counties. using this classification, the urban category included ninety volunteers and the rural group included 104 volunteers. both urban and rural volunteers were mostly college-educated females. urban volunteers tended to be younger, more racially diverse, and were more likely to have an advanced degree, whereas rural volunteers were more likely to be retired and to have more years volunteering with casa. results: what nebraska casa learned from vpa-uno. based on vpa-uno assessment data, t-tests were used to compare casa volunteers with all vpa volunteers in the u.s. and to compare casa volunteers in urban and rural contexts. all data are presented in table 1. compared to national norms, casa volunteers in both urban and rural contexts were at or above national norms for the following dimensions: satisfaction with paid staff, satisfaction with communication from the organization, and a high perception of voice (e.g., extent to which volunteers perceived they were “heard” when communicating to higher levels of management). in contrast, casa volunteers in both contexts reported less competence and higher burnout compared to volunteers in other contexts across the u.s. although urban and rural casa volunteers shared many similarities, they differed in some key areas. ttests confirmed that the ratings for burnout, organizational constraints, and satisfaction with the volunteer coordinator and other volunteers were statistically significantly different between the two groups. specifically, burnout levels were substantially higher for rural volunteers, meaning that they felt more emotionally drained and frustrated by assignments than urban volunteers. second, rural volunteers 126 reported slightly more constraints than urban volunteers. third, rural volunteers reported even higher satisfaction with their volunteer coordinator than their urban counterparts, whereas urban volunteers were more likely than rural volunteers to report higher satisfaction with paid staff. the open-ended responses confirmed the pattern of results for satisfaction with coordinator and satisfaction with paid staff. , rural volunteers were more likely to list the director or volunteer coordinator as one of the top three strengths, whereas urban volunteers were more likely to list paid staff more generally as a top strength. fourth, the most striking difference between the two groups were the ratings of satisfaction with other volunteer colleagues; rural ratings were much lower than urban ratings. however, this result is less surprising when considering that 85 percent of casa rural volunteers reported their organization hosted social gatherings to promote volunteer interactions compared with only 62 percent of urban volunteers. table 1 strengths and growth areas relative to national norms and differences for urban and rural nebraska casa volunteers. casa strengths relative to national norms vpa-usa national norm urban casa rural casa perception of voice 54% 78% 83% satisfaction with paid staff 79% 93% 92% satisfaction with volunteer coordinator 86% 87%* 91%* casa growth areas relative to national norms competence 92% 82% 80% burnout 3% 5%* 11%* differences in rural versus urban casa volunteers satisfaction with other volunteers 5484 84%%% 67%* 84%* organizational constraints 6% 1%* 3%* note: * indicates a significant difference between urban and rural volunteers at the p < .05 level. recommendations to casa nebraska were based on the observed similarities and differences observed between rural and urban volunteers. because both urban and rural volunteers noted a critical need for more volunteers, vpa-uno recommendations focused on marketing efforts targeted to different age groups and volunteer location. because urban volunteers were more likely to list a need for increased interactions with other volunteers, the urban casas were encouraged to provide more opportunities for volunteers to socialize and become better acquainted with one another—adding social time following or 127 prior to required training and hosting celebratory events was suggested. due to rural volunteers concerns regarding the perceived lack of communication from court and other agencies (e.g., department of health and human services, guardian ad litems) to them, it was recommended that the casa local and statewide board examine methods for enhancing communication and determine accountability mechanisms to ensure better connections and cooperation between casa volunteers with child welfare and court employees to better serve the children in need. results: what vpa-uno learned from casa volunteers. in addition to providing the survey results to casa, the students working on this project learned about the nebraska casa association and better understand the role of casa volunteers in children’s lives. for example, prior to this research the team did not realize that over 2,000 children in nebraska still needed a volunteer advocate. although they may receive paid representation from a guardian ad litem, these professionals are often overwhelmed with cases and rely on casa volunteers who are able to provide a more individualized experience with the child. the dire need for casa volunteers across the state, in both rural and urban nebraska was sobering, highlighting the importance of volunteer recruitment and retention efforts. finally, through this research, the students witnessed the incredible dedication of casa volunteers to the organization’s mission. results clearly indicated the volunteers identified with the children they were helping and took their role very seriously. vpa-uno collaboration with the 4-h of nebraska the second rural vpa-uno outreach project focused on 4-h of nebraska. vpa-uno has supported 4-h of nebraska, which empowers youth to reach their full potential across ninety-three counties. 4-h programs across the nation have served youth for over 100 years through partnering young people with adult leadership. their symbol is the four-leaf clover, and the leaves represent four h’s: head, heart, hands, and health. 4-h approaches youth development by teaching practical skills such as first aid, woodworking, fitness, and gardening, as well as life skills such as serving others, critical thinking, and managing change. this vibrant youth mentoring program is offered in all ninety-three counties in nebraska and is served by 12,000 volunteers. statewide, they reach more than 140,000 youth each year, with one in three age-eligible youth in nebraska participating in a program. results from urban and rural volunteers were assessed to compare and contrast the samples and assess differences between the two groups. we found that urban volunteers reported significantly higher satisfaction with their contribution to the organization, higher satisfaction with their volunteer colleagues, higher satisfaction nature of their volunteer work, and greater feelings of competence compared to their rural volunteer counterparts. because these factors drive volunteer engagement, organizational commitment, and ultimately retention, it is critical to consider specific, targeted approaches to volunteer management in rural versus urban volunteer contexts. possible explanations for these differences in addition to implications for research and practice will be discussed. in partnership with the nebraska extension office, data from 4-h volunteers from ninety-three counties in nebraska were collected. urban volunteers were considered to be any volunteers serving in cass, douglas, lancaster, sarpy, saunders, seward, or washington counties, with rural volunteers classified as serving in all other counties. rural volunteers made up the majority of the sample with four-hundred and three volunteers responding from rural counties and fifty-three volunteers responding from urban counties. urban volunteers were 83 percent female and 17 percent male, with 77 percent of volunteers between the ages of forty-one and sixty. similarly, rural volunteers were 82 percent female and 18 percent male, but with a greater proportion of younger volunteers, as only 60 percent of volunteers were between the ages of forty-one and sixty. 128 results: what 4-h of nebraska learned from vpa-uno. the vpa-uno team compared the results for the nebraska 4-h volunteers with national vpa norms for all volunteers in addition to comparing and contrasting results for urban and rural volunteers. t-tests were used to examine these differences and all results are reported in table 2. consistent with national norms, 4-h volunteers in all contexts reported a similar level of constraints, recognition, satisfaction with contribution, and satisfaction with the nature of the work. differences between national volunteer norms and 4-h volunteers were revealed for satisfaction with paid staff and satisfaction with volunteer colleagues, with 4-h volunteers reporting significantly greater satisfaction than the national volunteer sample. in contrast, responses from 4-h volunteers concerning satisfaction with communication and role clarity were both slightly lower than national norms. regarding the comparisons between urban versus rural 4-h volunteers, some key differences emerged despite many similarities. specifically, urban volunteers reported feelings of greater competence and higher levels of engagement than rural volunteers. however, rural volunteers reported experiencing slightly higher levels of role ambiguity than urban volunteers. other significant differences included that urban volunteers felt more satisfied with their contribution to the organization, more satisfied with their volunteer colleagues, and more satisfied with the nature of their volunteer work. to further examine differences in the sample, open-ended responses were evaluated to identify trends. the main strengths reported by volunteers serving in urban areas included positive relationships among volunteers and generally enjoying their volunteer work. the most salient growth areas indicated by volunteers were a desire for more training and a pressing need for more volunteers. responses from rural volunteers were also examined more closely, with rural volunteers reporting that the greatest strength of the organization was the mission itself. that is, they were drawn to the organization and continued to stay because of its focus and commitment to developing youth. main growth areas reported by volunteers included that they needed more resources to complete their volunteer jobs, they desired increased communication from the organization, and they, like their urban counterparts, felt a desire for additional training opportunities. table 2 strengths and growth areas relative to national norms and differences for urban versus rural 4-h volunteers in nebraska vpa-usa national norm 4-h urban 4-h rural nebraska 4-h strengths relative to national norms satisfaction with paid staff 79 83 82 satisfaction with other volunteers 84 93* 87* nebraska 4-h growth areas relative to national norms role ambiguity 84 82 74 satisfaction with communication 80 74 75 129 differences in urban versus rural 4-h volunteers perception of competence 92 94* 83* role ambiguity satisfaction with contribution satisfaction with other volunteers satisfaction with nature of work 84 93 84 95 82 94* 93* 96* 74 90* 87* 93* note: * indicates a significant difference between urban and rural volunteers at the p < .05 level. these results provide the basis for further assessment to ‘drill down’ and examine not only why rural volunteers reported greater difficulty fulfilling their volunteer roles, but also what can be done to improve the experiences of both urban and rural volunteers in nebraska. specific recommendations to assist all volunteers with 4-h of nebraska included: (a) to help volunteers feel more confident in their roles, it is recommended that greater consistency in training opportunities, both individualized and general, be offered to all volunteers, (b) due to the many diverse and dynamic roles of volunteers serving 4-h, it is recommended that some flexibility in the training structure be kept, as a ‘one-size-fitsall’ approach is not realistic, and (c) to address volunteer communication concerns, it may help to use multiple forms of communication to keep volunteers informed (e.g., e-mail, newsletters, social media). results: what vpa-uno learned from 4-h volunteers. partnering with 4-h of nebraska provided students with opportunities to learn not only about consulting, but also about similarities and differences in urban and rural volunteers. some of the specific lessons students learned focused on volunteer needs and motivations. first, volunteers serving 4-h clubs tend to be incredibly skilled and are passionate about sharing their knowledge with youth. they are devoted to developing young people and in spite of constraints, continue to volunteer at a high rate to facilitate learning in their communities. a prevalent issue facing volunteers in 4-h is recruitment. that is, the recruitment of more volunteers to help out is especially needed in urban areas. although rural volunteers cited that they would welcome more volunteers into 4-h, it was identified as less of a concern. finally, 4-h volunteers on average find a high degree of meaningfulness in the work they do. although comprised of women and men, the majority of 4h volunteers have children participating or who have participated in the organization in the past, and enjoy volunteering in particular because it allows them to spend time with their children. vpa-uno collaboration with nebraska spanish-speaking volunteers translation of the vpa-uno survey into spanish was pursued to better serve any nonprofit organization with spanish-speaking volunteers, regardless of urban or rural location. of the 62.8 million people who volunteered last year, 15.5 percent of them were hispanics (bureau of labor statistics, 2014). though many among this group are bilingual, many still struggle with english and other prefer to talk, read and write in their native tongue. thus, to be inclusive and to give voice to this large group of volunteers, vpa-uno felt it imperative to start providing a spanish alternative to the english vpa-uno assessment. the vpa-uno spanish translation team consisted of three undergraduate student analysts, who spoke various dialects of spanish. students met twice each week for five weeks, first translating the survey into 130 spanish and resolving discrepancies. the survey was then retranslated into english, students meeting again to resolve discrepancies. the translation process was supervised by the faculty advisor and a graduate student assistant director to maintain the integrity of the survey meaning. to further validate the translation process, two spanish-speaking experts were consulted outside of uno to provide insight and check the survey for accuracy. two nonprofit organizations from rural nebraska that use spanish-speaking volunteers to better serve the spanish-speaking community are the platte valley literacy association (pvla) and the community center for hispanics (el centro hispano comunitario), located in columbus and schuyler, rural cities that have seen a 10 percent increase in the number of spanish speakers in their community over the last ten years. the pvla provides citizenship classes, family and adult literacy classes, spanish-language classes, and english as a second language classes. their mission is to improve literacy in their community. they utilize spanish-speaking and bilingual volunteers to work as interpreters, teaching assistants, and care for children. el centro helps spanish-speaking immigrants find an affordable path to citizenship by providing services at low costs to obtain the services they need. in order to provide these services, they rely on volunteers who are able to communicate in spanish. as many volunteer organizations across the country, pvla and el centro participated in the vpa-uno process in order to target their efforts going forward, ensure volunteer satisfaction, and improve volunteer retention. results: what vpa-uno learned from spanish-speaking volunteers and from the translation process. during both the survey translation and the ongoing data collection, several lessons emerged, highlighting the need for more targeted volunteer research. first, spanish-speaking volunteers were more likely to participate in informal volunteering, which includes participating in activities that directly affect their family and friends, such as school or church functions. they are committed to helping their communities, but do not consider their experiences assisting other community members to be ‘volunteer work’. thus, clarifying the definition of volunteerism was an essential first step in order to properly survey spanishspeaking volunteers. during translation, three spanish-speaking undergraduate analysts worked together to translate the survey. although all three students spoke spanish, the diversity of spanish dialects quickly became apparent as students worked to reconcile differences and improve question clarity. finally, when administering the survey to organizations with large populations of spanish-speaking volunteers, we discovered that although many volunteers speak spanish, the number of bilingual volunteers serving these organizations is increasing, and some spanish-speaking volunteers actually preferred to take the survey in english. data collection from spanish-speaking volunteers based on the vpa-uno assessment continues, but discussions and interviews with spanish-speaking volunteers and their leaders have also mirrored trends in the literature. consistent with vpa-uno’s qualitative findings, safrit and lopez (2001) found that volunteering among hispanic americans was driven by multiple factors including the influence of family, friends, community, and personal satisfaction and growth. other themes emerging from vpa-uno discussions are the importance of inclusivity and engagement of spanish-speaking people to promote volunteering and civic engagement. for example, nesbit and brudney (2010) found that engagement of young people, particularly hispanic and african-americans was associated with increased volunteering, civic and political engagement, and interest in a career in government or nonprofit service. similarly, a recent study by bortree and waters (2014) found that racial and ethnic inclusivity predicted the enhanced quality of volunteer relationships and a greater willingness to engage in future volunteerism. respectful dialogues between vpa-uno and partners with spanish-speaking volunteers and/or those serving spanish-speaking clientele are ongoing to better appreciate their perspective. though this quest is never really a stage one passes through, vpa-uno’s continued willingness to listen and try to better serve their needs have consistently resulted in positive steps towards greater understanding and collaboration. 131 conclusion vpa-uno continues to dialogue with community partners in both urban and rural contexts and embraces a mission of respect for diversity and inclusivity. though the vpa-uno assessments and consultations with nonprofit and governmental agencies are effective tools for improving volunteer engagement and retention, the team has learned that the most sophisticated technologies and metrics cannot supplant the importance of building relationships based on trust and reciprocity. moreover, vpa-uno’s goals of helping our community and enhancing deep knowledge cannot be realized without the support of a vibrant metropolitan university such as 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(2004). volunteering in under-resourced rural communities: final report. points of light foundation. retrieved from http://www.policyarchive.org/handle/10207/94. thomas, k. m. (2002). the role of service learning in training industrial-organizational psychologists. retrieved from http://www.researchgate.net/publication/242569764_the_role_of_servicelearning_in_training_industrial-organizational_psychologists. urban institute. (2014). center on nonprofits and philanthropy. retrieved from http://www.urban.org/policy-centers/center-nonprofits-and-philanthropy. u.s. census bureau. (2010). population by urban and rural and size of place. washington, dc: u.s. census bureau. retrieved from https://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/cph-2-29.pdf. youniss, j., mclellan, j. a., & yates, m. (1997). what we know about engendering civic engagement. the american behavioral scientist 40 (5), 520-631. doi:10.1177/0002764297040005008. http://www.nebcommfound.org/programs-research/new-initiatives/ http://www.siop.org/tip/april14/olien.pdf http://www.ers.usda.gov/media/155154/err78_1_.pdf http://www.policyarchive.org/handle/10207/94 http://www.researchgate.net/publication/242569764_the_role_of_service-learning_in_training_industrial-organizational_psychologists http://www.researchgate.net/publication/242569764_the_role_of_service-learning_in_training_industrial-organizational_psychologists https://www.census.gov/prod/cen2010/cph-2-29.pdf 134 author information lisa scherer, ph.d., is an associate professor in industrial-organizational psychology and has served as the faculty director for vpa-uno. she has received the uno outstanding teaching award, the uno outstanding graduate mentor award, and loves working with students to serve the community and contributing to the scholarship of engagement surrounding volunteer well-being and retention. victoria graeve-cunningham, ma, ms, mba, is an industrial-organizational psychology doctoral student at the university of nebraska at omaha whose research supports organizational effectiveness and employee engagement, satisfaction and retention. through her philanthropic work and service to vpauno as an assistant director, she strives to enhance nonprofit organizations and foster community engagement. sheridan trent is a graduate student in the industrial-organizational psychology phd program and serves as an assistant director for volunteer program assessment at the university of nebraska at omaha. sheridan’s research interests include volunteer retention, engagement, work-life issues, and burnout. stephanie weddington is a graduate student in the industrial-organizational psychology master of arts program at the university of nebraska at omaha and a senior analyst for vpa-uno. stephanie’s research interests include volunteer retention, engagement, burnout, emotional labor, and secondary traumatic stress. adam thurley is a graduate student in the industrial and organizational master of science program at the university of nebraska at omaha and serves as a senior analyst for vpa-uno and an associate for the center for applied psychological services. his interests include decision making and volunteer and employee retention, engagement, and burnout. kelly a. prange is a graduate student studying industrial/organizational psychology at the university of nebraska at omaha. she is pursuing research interests within the realms of collective impact, social responsibility, and community engagement. joseph a. allen is an assistant professor of industrial/organizational psychology at the university of nebraska at omaha. his engaged scholarship pursuits include the study of meetings among career and volunteer firefighters, investigating volunteer management challenges in nonprofit organizations, and the study of collaboration in the form of collective impact. 135 contact information lisa l. scherer department of psychology university of nebraska at omaha ash 347, 6001 dodge street e-mail: lscherer@unomaha.edu telephone: 402-630-6171 fax: 402-554-2556 victoria m. graeve-cunnigham department of psychology university of nebraska at omaha ash 347, 6001 dodge street e-mail: vcunningham@unomaha.edu telephone: 402-554-2292 fax: 402-554-2556 sheridan b. trent department of psychology university of nebraska at omaha ash 347, 6001 dodge street e-mail: strent@unomaha.edu telephone: 402-554-2292 fax: 402-554-2556 stephanie a. weddington department of psychology university of nebraska at omaha ash 347, 6001 dodge street e-mail: sweddington@unomaha.edu telephone: 402-813-6379 fax: 402-554-2556 adam r. thurley department of psychology university of nebraska at omaha ash 347, 6001 dodge street e-mail: athurley@unomaha.edu telephone: 402-554-2292 fax: 402-554-2556 joseph a. allen department of psychology university of nebraska at omaha ash 347, 6001 dodge street e-mail: josephallen@unomaha.edu telephone: 402-554-6017 fax: 402-554-2556 mailto:lscherer@unomaha.edu mailto:vcunningham@unomaha.edu mailto:strent@unomaha.edu mailto:sweddington@unomaha.edu mailto:athurley@unomaha.edu mailto:josephallen@unomaha.edu 136 kelly a. prange department of psychology university of nebraska at omaha ash 347, 6001 dodge street e-mail: kprange@unomaha.edu telephone: 402-540-1876 fax: 402-554-2556 mailto:kprange@unomaha.edu copyright © 2016 metropolitan universities vol. 27 no. 2 (summer 2016), 74-86, doi: 10.18060/21128 rewarding community-engaged scholarship: a state university system approach john saltmarsh and john wooding abstract the need for new and revised structures to reward new forms of scholarship is being examined nationally and globally. it is also being examined on campuses that make up the university of massachusetts system, all which are classified by the carnegie foundation for community engagement. this paper reports on the collective exploration by the five campuses of the university of massachusetts to understand whether the existing academic policies sufficiently and appropriately rewarding community engagement and publically engaged scholarship enact the core mission of the university of massachusetts to effectively generate knowledge, address social issues, and fulfill its academic and civic purposes. introduction to be candid, i believe that my ‘traditional’ scholarship alone (read: grants and papers) should be strong enough for a positive tenure decision. i am still deciding on how to incorporate my engagement work into the portfolio i put together. i would like to have it be a major part of my essays on my research, teaching, and five-year plan that form part of my package, but am still not sure if this is the best strategy. i will be putting these documents together in the fall, and my strategy is to wait and see how the landscape looks at that point in time, and act accordingly. these are the words of a faculty member in the natural sciences who is coming up for tenure review and is ambivalent about how to present her community engaged scholarship (ces). they capture the struggle over scholarly identity and the cultural politics of navigating academic systems, especially those that fail to recognize and support the kind of scholarship that defines the faculty member as a scholar. this is a common dilemma. it occurs on campuses across the u.s. when a new generation of faculty produce knowledge through new forms of scholarship encounter academic systems that fails to recognize or reward their work and prevents them from thriving as scholars. it may even end their academic careers. the value of civic engagement and community-engaged scholarship is widely acknowledged and frequently advocated by students and faculty at universities in the u.s and internationally. over the last several decades, recognizing the variety of forms of scholarly research and academic achievement has become commonplace on many campuses. in the u.s., the carnegie foundation offers a community engagement classification that assesses and validates community engagement as one critical measure of a university’s identity and success (driscoll, 2008; sandmann, 2009). many faculty stress community involvement, internships, and various forms of experiential learning in their courses and view them as critical components of a university education. across the country, numerous faculty engage in community-engaged research, work with local organizations, local businesses, and city and town governments, solve problems and help to collect data and information. additionally, there exists a considerable literature—by and for faculty—documenting the scholarship and pedagogical impact of civic engagement strategies and the promotion of community-engaged research (moore, 2014). too often, however, such activities are not rewarded or supported in the recognition and promotion process of faculty in higher education (saltmarsh, et. al., 2009; saltmarsh, et al., 2015; ellison & eatman, 2008). faculty and universities are still judged primarily by the research profile of their individual and 75 combined achievements. this profile exclusively rewards traditional models that assume that all valid knowledge of the physical and social world is obtained by faculty pursuing their research agendas, and getting validation for that work in the form of peer-reviewed publications, successful grant applications, and recognition in national and international discipline-based associations. while some universities are recognizing emerging forms of scholarship in ways that challenge this traditional model, there are powerful counterforces that undermine higher education’s commitment to community engagement. the decline in funding for state universities and the competition over fewer and fewer funding opportunities have pushed many institutions to return to a narrow model of excellence built on traditional ideas about academia’s function and role. increasingly, universities are engaged in a prestige race in which the winners are defined by the presence of star faculty (i.e., those who publish widely, obtain large grant-funded research projects, and who receive wide public acclaim for their research), and by their success at recruiting top students and placing them in high paying, high skill careers. administrators focus on encouraging these traditional activities as they seek funds from wealthy sponsors, alumni, foundations, and grant funding institutions to replace dwindling state support. the recognition of faculty committed to community engagement is often counterbalanced by institutional striving for higher prestige through narrow and restrictive measures of excellence. rewarding community-engaged scholarship as i’m sure you are aware, there have been recent reports issued by professional, academic organizations such as mla and aha, which call for senior faculty and administrators to update their institutional evaluations of digital/online publications, public scholarship, and written work generated by faculty’s civic engagement. i seriously doubt—based on the unofficial [departmental personnel committee] report i have seen—that these recent recommendations were considered, and thus my work in these three categories was not given adequate consideration under ‘research, professional and creative activity’. this is from a woman of color at state university to her dean in a memo prompted by problems with her promotion and tenure review. this situation points to a deep organizational problem, shared by many other universities. there are an increasing number of scholars coming into the academy, often much more diverse in every way from the faculty currently on campus, who have significant interest in emerging forms of scholarship: digital and web based publication and dissemination, complex interdisciplinary research projects, and community-engaged scholarship. at the same time, the reward policies don't provide criteria that value and guide the evaluation of these forms of research, investigation and problem solving activities now very much part of a new scholarship. when institutional policies are silent on engagement, they create disincentives for faculty to undertake community engagement across their faculty roles and often punish them when they do. silence perpetuates what o’meara has identified as academic “inequality regimes” of power, privilege, and oppression (2015). as tierney and perkins observe, “the professional reward structure needs to shift. institutions need a diversity of routes to academic excellence and some of them will pertain to being involved outside the ivory tower…academic work needs to have an impact in order to provide society’s return on investment…for that to happen, the reward structure and those practices that socialize faculty need to shift in a way that supports engagement rather than disdains it” (2015). at tulane university, with leadership from the provost and faculty, a white paper on academic review and engagement at tulane university was released in 2013 stating, “given the centrality of engagement to tulane’s mission and to the ongoing strategic planning process, we cannot continue to sustain a culture of academic review that is silent on engagement” (tulane university, 2013). this is a strong statement, stressing concerns by top administrators at tulane. this kind of leadership is extremely important as it is not enough to claim, as many campuses do, that faculty undertaking emerging forms of scholarship, like 76 ces, are getting through the reward and promotion system. when policies and criteria are silent on engagement, early career faculty are left to suffer the injustices of arbitrary and often capricious processes that cause real harm, personally and professionally – and institutionally. some campuses, and some campus leaders, will no longer be silent on engagement. at syracuse university, with strong administrative leadership and faculty commitment, the faculty and administration went through a fourto five-year process that led to a revision of the promotion and tenure guidelines resulting in language that explicitly incorporates community engagement into the reward policies of the campus. the faculty handbook now reads: syracuse university is committed to longstanding traditions of scholarship as well as evolving perspectives on scholarship. syracuse university recognizes that the role of academia is not static, and that methodologies, topics of interest, and boundaries within and between disciplines change over time. the university will continue to support scholars in all of these traditions, including faculty who choose to participate in publicly engaged scholarship. publicly engaged scholarship may involve partnerships of university knowledge and resources with those of the public and private sectors to enrich scholarship, research, creative activity, and public knowledge; enhance curriculum, teaching and learning; prepare educated, engaged citizens; strengthen democratic values and civic responsibility; address and help solve critical social problems; and contribute to the public good (syracuse university, 2009). similarly, as part of a strategic planning process, the university of north carolina at chapel hill (uncch) formed in 2009 a task force on future promotion and tenure policies and practices. the task force recommended that emerging forms of scholarship be considered in tenure and promotion processes. specifically: 1. faculty engagement with the public outside the traditional scholarly community should be valued and evaluated during the tenure and promotion process. faculty “engagement” refers to scholarly, creative or pedagogical activities for the public good, directed toward persons and groups outside unc-ch. 2. new forms of scholarly work and communication made possible primarily by digital technology should be included in evaluations of scholarship. 3. work across disciplinary lines should be supported. expectations of all involved parties should be articulated at the outset, and referred to as tenure and promotion decisions are made (university of north carolina-chapel hill, 2009, p. 2). in its academic plan 2011 unc-ch set forth the strategic priority of building engaged scholarship into the core culture of the campus. the plan stresses that …because the tenure and promotion policies and criteria for most units on campus do not recognize engaged scholarship, the university should adopt the recommendations of the may 2009 university-wide task force on future promotion and tenure policies and practices, which call for the inclusion of engaged scholarship and activities in departmental tenure and promotion policies and criteria. following these recommendations, each academic unit should review and revise its tenure and promotion criteria to include engaged scholarship and activities appropriate for their discipline (university of north carolina-chapel hill, 2011). across the country, many campuses are at some stage of reconsidering and revising their reward structures, providing recognition for new forms of scholarship and the scholars who are producing it. and 77 this is critical as new young scholars, with training, goals, and values significantly different from traditional models begin their careers in our academic institutions. and they will be the life blood of the future of the academy. the young scholar we quote at the beginning of this section is part of a larger phenomenon changing higher education: a substantial number of faculty doing ces, across their faculty roles, their disciplines, and their departments. the data on this is clear. for example, in the late 1990s, the higher education research institute at ucla, attending to significant trends in american higher education, added new questions to their faculty survey. a number of these were aimed at assessing faculty involvement in civic engagement in their scholarship and teaching, and their perceptions of the institutional environment‘s support for their work. in 2004-2005, these questions appeared for the first time. an example: the survey asked, whether, in the previous two years, the faculty member “collaborated with the local community in teaching/research?” in the 2013-14 survey, 48.8% of faculty at all undergraduate campuses indicated that this was, indeed, what they were doing hurtado, et al., 2011). at public university campuses 50.4% of faculty stated that they had undertaken such collaborations. among tenure track faculty, 51.1% said the same thing. the percentages are impressive: for female faculty it is 52.4%, for hispanic faculty 55.2%. and by all institutional types, all faculty ranks, both sexes, and all race/ethnicity groups, the data indicates increases in the percent of faculty indicating community engagement in their teaching and research in every dimension from when the question was first asked a decade earlier saltmarsh and hartley, forthcoming 2016). this is a significant finding. over half of all faculty claim to be engaged in community-based scholarship and engagement and yet very few of our institutions recognize, legitimate or reward these activities—or know how to. given our concerns about lack of real recognition for civic engagement at many of our academic institutions, the lack of understanding and recognition of new forms of scholarship (interdisciplinary, digital, community based, etc.), and the lack of support for younger faculty from diverse and multicultural backgrounds who bring to the academy innovative and creative approaches to scholarship, we have been exploring what has been happening at the campuses that make up the university of massachusetts system. in what follows we take a look at current policies, challenges and possible ways forward for this public university. we believe these issues and barriers to community-engaged scholarship at the university of massachusetts are typical of what is going on at most of our institutions of higher learning and the campuses within most state university systems. discussing them here, with some suggestions of how things might be improved, provides a means for developing further discussion about the significant issues facing advocates for greater and more authentic community-engaged scholarship— especially in institutions of public higher education. university of massachusetts across the five campuses of the university of massachusetts system, academic policies are specified in various documents approved by the board of trustees and through faculty union collective bargaining contracts. many of these documents are decades old or contain legacy language, reiterated through subsequent documents. changing this language typically requires discussions with union leadership, senior administrators, faculty, trustees and senior officers of the university system’s president’s office. it is a daunting process. the five campuses of the university of massachusetts system are amherst, boston, dartmouth, lowell, and the medical school; there is single system president and individual campus chancellors. the university faculty are fully unionized. the campuses have different bargaining units and the independence of each campus is cherished and protected. each has its own chancellor and provost. most of the policy documents articulate community involvement as an area to be recognized as part of a faculty member’s service obligations. this is typical and widespread—that is, community involvement is recognized as service activity, and in the context of a research university, the norm is that research and 78 scholarship and creative activity count the most, teaching and learning count less than scholarship, and “service” counts the least. none of the umass policy documents specifically articulate community engagement as a part of the faculty’s teaching role or research, scholarship, and creative work. there are signs of change: as is happening at other institutions nationally, some of the campuses in the system—in particular umass, amherst and umass, boston—are exploring ways to create policies that are no longer silent on advocating or rewarding ces. findings our concern for finding better ways to recognize the work of university of massachusetts faculty who pursue emerging forms of scholarship, including community engagement—and who encourage their students in community engagement—prompted a one-day seminar on the evaluation and reward structure for university faculty’s community engagement activities. the seminar was an opportunity to share current campus practices and processes for bringing about institutional change, to reflect on the state of current reward structures, and to consider ways to effect meaningful cultural change. the purpose of the seminar was to explore and examine a wide range of faculty rewards (including promotion criteria, awards, faculty development support, and policies at various levels) that provide incentives and recognition to faculty for undertaking ces. throughout our discussions, we considered community-engaged scholarship as the advancement of knowledge focusing on social issues through relationships between those in the university and those outside the university: relationships that are grounded in reciprocity, mutual respect, shared authority, and co-creation of goals and outcomes. such relationships are by their very nature trans-disciplinary (knowledge transcending the disciplines and the university) and asset-based (valid and legitimate knowledge exists outside the university). while the goal of “public scholarship” is for academics who create knowledge to move it beyond the ivory tower, the goal of “publicly engaged scholarship” is for academics to move beyond the ivory tower to create knowledge (saltmarsh and hartley, 2011). the need for new and revised structures to reward new forms of scholarship is being examined nationally and globally. it is also being examined on campuses that make up the university of massachusetts system. all of the campuses in the university of massachusetts system are classified by the carnegie foundation for community engagement, and at the time of the seminar were in the process of applying for re-classification. as a part of the re-classification process, campuses address the following question: “in the period since your successful classification, what, if anything, has changed in terms of institutional policies for promotion that specifically reward faculty scholarly work that uses community-engaged approaches and methods?” the central problem the seminar addressed is that most universities lack a system of incentives and supports for faculty who undertake (or are considering) ces addressing broad social impact. the policies and cultures that shape faculty behavior for career advancement have not kept pace with changes in knowledge production and dissemination. campuses are attempting to address new and rapidly changing internal and external environments, including (1) increasing the ethnic and gender diversity of the faculty, (2) creating space for new perspectives on advancing knowledge, and (3) addressing the need for organizational change so that universities are publically accountable and have greater legitimacy (sturm, et al, 2011). in such an environment, community engagement, publically engaged scholarship, and university-community partnerships are increasingly important ways for universities to effectively generate knowledge, address social issues, improve the human condition, and fulfill their academic and civic purposes. the central question was whether the existing academic policies sufficiently and appropriately enact the core mission of the university of massachusetts, an “integrated tripartite mission of discovery (a public trust), education (a moral vocation), and engagement (a societal obligation)” (williams, 2014). the 79 vehicles by which these issues are considered at umass are varied and diverse. we address several of them below. annual faculty reports. the existing process for reporting and documenting faculty activity is an opportunity to signal the importance of community engagement across faculty roles. annual faculty reports function primarily as a means for (1) collecting information about faculty activity on an annual basis, and (2) assessing faculty productivity for purposes of distributing merit pay. annual faculty reports also serve to define faculty workload and are properly shaped in concert with the union that serves as the bargaining unit for the campus. the example from the university of massachusetts, amherst, of having a committee of the faculty senate work with the union and the office of the provost to implement revisions to the annual faculty report, highlights the importance of this process as one way of providing recognition for community engagement. the revised annual faculty report at the university of massachusetts, amherst now includes community engagement as an area for reporting in teaching, scholarship and creative activity, and service. for faculty doing community engagement, they now have a way to report—and be recognized for—their community engagement across the faculty roles. the unit that serves as the voice of faculty governance on the campus (typically the faculty senate) can serve a role in the recognition and rewarding of community engagement. it is critical that community engagement, as core academic work, fall under the purview of faculty, and not be perceived as being imposed upon the faculty by administration. an example of this exists at the university of massachusetts, amherst, with the faculty senate council on public engagement and outreach, which is one of a number of councils of the faculty senate and is charged with coordinating engagement activities and policies. explicit policy criteria. while ernest boyer started a national conversation about reconsidering how we define scholarship in the 1990s, the conversation continues in new and perhaps more urgent ways. boyer raised the issue of interdisciplinary scholarship in 1990 (boyer, 1990), and the scholarship of engagement in 1996 (boyer, 1996), but didn’t foresee the prominence of digital scholarship in some disciplines and for some scholars. the key goal here is to open up space for new forms of scholarship to be adequately, appropriately, and fairly rewarded. none of these new forms of scholarship should be considered as additions to traditional forms of scholarship; if they are, then they will in fact be added on to existing faculty scholarly expectations. this creates a further burden on faculty already facing increasing workload and expectations. having community engagement specifically articulated in reward policies is essential. it may be that the most effective, short-term way for campuses in the system to accomplish this is through interpretive policy statements issued by the vice president for academic affairs (or provost) on the respective campus. there is no substitute for leadership on this issue from the chief academic officer. for instance, in its report, the university of massachusetts, boston’s working group to the provost articulates specific recommendations for how that policy document could be written. for the long-term, a comprehensive revision of trustee policy documents would be in order, as some of these documents date back to 1976. while policy revision is essential, it is not sufficient. campus leaders will need to have a long-term commitment to aligning policies across campuses (and across colleges and departments) and to provide professional development and guidance for (1) faculty in the tenure pipeline on how to present their engaged scholarly work, and (2) faculty on personnel review committees on how to evaluate communityengaged scholarly work, and for department chairs. research prestige. one of the seminar participants provided an observation that resonated strongly with participants at the seminar—that across the system, there is a “savage ambition” to keep elevating the research profile of each campus (based, largely, on faculty wining large federal and state grants or foundation support for their activity, and publication in prestigious journals), and that this striving can inhibit innovation and recognition of emergent scholarly work. too often, improving the “research 80 profile” means growing and supporting traditional scholarship while not recognizing the values of community-engaged research and scholarship. it is important that academic leaders, particularly provosts and deans, across the system nurture an academic culture that values community engagement as scholarship that raises the profile of campuses, brings about an understanding that community-engaged research contributes to broader social impacts across the commonwealth, and demonstrates tangible public accountability. campus and system leaders can advance community engagement as an added value to the university. national recognition, and community engagement as core faculty work, should be viewed as contributing to the prestige of the campuses and the system. such scholarship is valued, appreciated and understood by the commonwealth’s citizens and their legislators. an explicit and wellpublicized commitment to engaged scholarship and service to the community builds strong support among voters, political representatives and key administrators in the state. research grants. each of the campuses in the system provides internal funding opportunities for faculty research. the more campuses create funding opportunities for community-engaged research, and the more the campuses invest in these opportunities, the more incentives that are created for faculty to undertake community-engaged research; and for faculty already doing community-engaged research, they will find greater support for their research. an example of this kind of research opportunity is at the university of massachusetts, boston, which revised the guidelines for a longstanding “public service grant.” the revised guidelines now articulate and fund community-engaged research: as a public urban research university, one way, and possibly the best way, to foster outstanding public and community service is through community-based research and engaged scholarship…publicly engaged scholarship involves collaborative, reciprocal partnerships that couple university knowledge and resources with those of the public and private sectors to sharpen and enrich research to increase public knowledge and better inform community service (warren, et. al, 2014). scholarworks. each of the campus libraries has adopted scholarworks as a way of electronically disseminating faculty scholarship. scholarworks can be an important mechanism for highlighting community-engaged scholarship. an example of this is at the university of massachusetts, amherst, which has created specific search functions that compile community-engaged scholarship and at the same time provide a platform for faculty doing community engagement, making their work more visible. this is another incentive for faculty and another means for signaling to faculty that community-engaged scholarship is valued and taken seriously. chief academic officer leadership. as we have noted, in order for community engagement to be valued as core academic work, the provost plays a central role in providing the leadership for the recognition and support of community engagement, diverse faculty and to innovate diverse approaches to new forms of scholarship. if there is ambiguity about the value of community engagement or inconsistent messages about it from the provost, then deans, chairs, and faculty will be unsure about whether it is something they should embrace and advance. more than any other campus administrator, it is the provost who sets the tone for where community engagement fits as an institutional priority for faculty and how it will be valued. such a commitment can change a culture, as administrators and senior faculty recognize that these forms of scholarship are recognized, supported and rewarded. and changing the culture is critical. strategic plan. community engagement should be a clearly identifiable part of academic goals of the strategic plan for the campus. if community engagement is not included in the strategic plan, it will not be seen as an institutional priority, and if it is not an academic goal, then it will not be seen as the work of the faculty. beyond vague and lofty references to public purpose and civic commitment in mission statements, and references to the importance of the campus to massachusetts’s communities in the 81 campus vision statements, what is needed is the structuring of community engagement as core academic work as a priority with clear benchmarks for implementation. award for community engaged scholarship. at both the campus level and at the system level, one way to signal the importance of community engagement is through an annual faculty award. what currently exists is a set of awards that recognize excellence for each of the segmented faculty roles – teaching, scholarship, and service. these are important, but they do not capture community engagement and the way that community-engaged scholars often integrate their faculty roles doing engaged scholarly work across teaching, research/scholarship/creative activity, and service. historically, at umass, there are numerous examples of faculty receiving the “service excellence” award for their community service but without recognition that their service work with the community was linked to and improved their teaching and learning role, and that both their service and teaching were linked to their research. an award that recognizes excellence in community engagement provides an important public symbol, celebrating faculty who integrate their faculty roles in deep collaboration with community partners. recommendations based on the seminar discussion and in light of activities currently ongoing across the campuses that make up the university of massachusetts system, we proposed the following recommendations with the goal of improving and enhancing the reward structure for faculty who engage in community-engaged research and education. the recommendations were formulated for the university of massachusetts system. they are revised below to apply to any state system. 1. systems office. it is critical that the system president’s office embrace and advocate for the importance of innovative research and teaching and, in particular, for community-engaged research and education. academic work now embraces digital publications, social networks, public presentations, training and support for community activities with public, private, and not-for-profit institutions. in short, the array of activities now considered part of an academic career transcends traditional publication and research. in order to embrace these innovations and to recognize the value of community-engaged scholarship, we recommend that the system do the following:  review and revise system-wide documents that relate to faculty work and expectations throughout the system to insure that they recognize and explicate new forms of scholarship, research, and pedagogy.  the system president’s office should make the achievement of the carnegie community engagement classification visible as a demonstration of the public accountability of the university and as a way to advance deeper community engagement across the system. in light of this significant achievement and the value community engagement brings to the university as a whole, including the major contribution it provides as an indication to the wider public of the valuable role the university plays in contributing to the daily lives of people, we recommend that the system president’s office create an initiative on community engagement that encourages and facilities community engagement across the system. as part of the initiative, we would also recommend the following:  the creation of an advisory board comprising selected faculty from each campus.  sponsorship of the following activities: o an annual system-wide meeting on best practices for community engagement, showcasing current examples of innovative scholarship and community engagement. o an annual system-wide award for community engaged scholarship. 82 o an annual grant program to aid and stimulate community-engaged scholarship. o an annual professional development opportunity that would provide faculty and senior administrators from all campuses the chance to learn about innovative scholarship and community engagement. 2. campus initiatives.  the chancellor and provost on each campus should initiate a campus-wide conversation about community-engaged scholarship.  the chancellor of each campus should establish an annual award recognizing community engagement integrated across the faculty roles. such an award could be framed in this way: the chancellor’s award emphasizes community-engaged scholarly work across faculty roles. the scholarship of engagement (also known as outreach scholarship, public scholarship, scholarship for the common good, community-based scholarship, and community-engaged scholarship) represents an integrated view of faculty roles in which teaching, research/creative activity, and service overlap and are mutually reinforcing, is characterized by scholarly work tied to a faculty member's expertise, is of benefit to the external community, is visible and shared with community stakeholders, and reflects the mission of the institution. community-engaged scholarship (l) involves academic projects that engage faculty members and students in a collaborative and sustained manner with community groups; (2) connects university outreach with community organizational goals; (3) furthers mutual productive relationships between the university and the community; (4) entails shared authority in the research process from defining the research problem, choosing theoretical and methodological approaches, conducting the results, developing the final product(s), to participating in peer review; (5) results in excellence in engaged scholarship through such products as peer-reviewed publications, collaborative reports, documentation of impact, and external funding, and (6) is integrated with teaching and/or with service activities (warren, et.al, 2014, pp. 6 , 38. ).  the campus chancellor should support the attendance of the provost and, with the provost, academic deans, at the engagement academy for university leaders in order to develop leadership on campus-community engagement (http://www.cpe.vt.edu/engagementacademy/eaul/index.html).  the provost on each campus should work with the faculty senate (or faculty council) to establish a “public engagement council” as a faculty committee to advance community engagement on the campus. this can be modeled on the public engagement council of the faculty senate at the university of massachusetts, amherst.  the provost on each campus should work with the faculty senate and the faculty union to revise policy documents such as the union contract and annual faculty reports to specifically include community engagement as core faculty work.  the provost on each campus should issue a set of guidelines for the inclusion of community engagement in tenure and promotion such that community engagement is incorporated in each of the three categories considered in personnel matters concerning tenure and promotion—that is, scholarship, teaching, and service. it should be considered one important way to contribute to the university’s mission in each area, but not as a required practice for all members of the faculty. in other words, one significant way to contribute to scholarship in a field is through communityengaged scholarship.  the provost should work with the campus office for teaching and learning to offer workshops for senior faculty who serve on personnel review committees aimed at developing expertise in evaluating community-engaged scholarship. additionally, the campus office for teaching and http://www.cpe.vt.edu/engagementacademy/eaul/index.html 83 learning should offer workshops for junior faculty on documenting community-engaged scholarship in their tenure and promotion applications. conclusion we have noted above the ways in which faculty, research, and measures of recognition are beginning to change in academia. at the same time universities, particular public institutions, are under intense pressure to cut costs, adapt to expensive new technologies, promote the prestige of their campuses, and offer programs of study that enhance their students marketability in an increasing tight job market. all these forces tend to endorse and encourage traditional scholarship and rewards. although much has been achieved in promoting and recognizing both the diversity of scholarship and the value of community engaged research, there has been little change in the reward structures currently in place for faculty. campus mission statements, policy statements and collective bargaining agreements are still largely silent on these matters. in addition, senior faculty who make many of the judgments about promotion and tenure for faculty (the key reward structure on our campuses) are either unaware, uninformed, or hostile to the kind of scholarship many new, community-engaged faculty are undertaking. to change these things requires a change not only in the stated goals of systems, campuses, colleges and department but also the active promotion of these activities by system presidents, chancellors, provosts and all senior administrators. without a synergy of commitment and engagement, we will be unable to support and keep young innovative faculty, serve our students, enhance positive social change, or fulfill our mission to serve the society in which we live and work—the fundamental purposes of a public state system of higher education. acknowledgements the authors wish to acknowledge that the seminar leading to the findings for this article was funded with a grant from bringing theory to practice. the report for the funder was published as saltmarsh, j., wooding, j., & mclellan, k. 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(2016). the inheritance of next generation engagement scholars. in m. post, e. ward, n. longo, & j. saltmarsh (eds.), publically engaged scholars: next generation engagement and the future of higher education, sterling, va: stylus publishing. manuscript submitted for publication. saltmarsh, j., warren, m. r., krueger-henney, p., rivera, l., fleming, r. k., haig friedman, d., & uriarte, m. (2015 winter) creating an academic culture that supports community-engaged scholarship. diversity and democracy 18 (1). retrieved from http://www.aacu.org/diversitydemocracy/2015/winter/saltmarsh. saltmarsh, j., & hartley, m. (eds.). (2011). "to serve a larger purpose": engagement for democracy and the transformation of higher education. temple university press. saltmarsh, j. giles, d. e. jr., o’meara, k. sandmann, l. r., ward, e. & buglione, s. (2009). community engagement and institutional culture in higher education: an investigation of faculty reward policies at engaged campuses. in b. moely (ed.) creating our identities in service-learning and community engagement (advances in service learning research, vol. 9). charlotte, nc: information age publishing. sandmann, l. r., thornton, c. h., & jaeger, a. j. (2009). institutionalizing community engagement in higher education: the first wave of carnegie classified institutions. jossey bass. sturm, s., eatman, t., saltmarsh, j., & bush, a. (2011). full participation: building the architecture for diversity and public engagement in higher education (white paper). new york: columbia university law school, center for institutional and social change. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3824459 http://dx.doi.org/10.3200/chng.40.1.38-41 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/aehe.20014 https://www.aacu.org/diversitydemocracy/2015/winter/saltmarsh http://www.aacu.org/diversitydemocracy/2015/winter/saltmarsh 85 syracuse university. (2009). areas of expected faculty achievement: teaching, research, and service. in the faculty manual (18th ed.). retrieved from http://provost.syr.edu/faculty-support/faculty-manual/234-areas-of-expected-faculty-achievement-teaching-research-and-service/. tierney, w. g., & perkins, j. f. (2014). beyond the ivory tower: academic work in the 21st century. in g. shaker (ed.), faculty work and the public good. new york: teacher college press. tulane university. (2013). academic review and engagement at: a white paper for discussion (revised). retrieved from http://tulane.edu/provost/upload/academic-review-and-engagement-february-2013.pdf. university of north carolina–chapel hill. (2009). report of the unc task force on future promotion and tenure policies and practices (final report 5-8-09). retrieved from http://provost.unc.edu/files/2012/10/taskforce-on-future-promotion-and-tenure-policies-and-practicesfinal-report-5-8-09.pdf university of north carolina–chapel hill. (2011). academic plan 2011. retrieved from http://academicplan.unc.edu/. williams, m. (2014). remarks of vice president for academic affairs, marcellette williams, to the university of massachusetts board of trustees committee on academic and student affairs, june 4, 2014. warren, m., saltmarsh, j., krueger-henney, p., rivera,l., uriarte, m., haig friedman, d., fleming, r. k., yadira salas, d., & ramos, l. (2014). advancing community-engaged scholarship and community engagement at the university of massachusetts boston: a report of the working group for an urban research-based action initiative. boston: university of massachusetts, boston. retrieved from http://cdn.umb.edu/images/research/report_on_community_engaged_scholarship.pdf. author information john saltmarsh is the director of the new england resource center for higher education (nerche) (www.nerche.org) at the university of massachusetts boston as well as a faculty member in the higher education doctoral program in the department of leadership in education in the college of education and human development. he is the author, most recently, of the co-edited publicly engaged scholars: next generation engagement and the future of higher education (2016). john saltmarsh, director new england resource center for higher education (nerche) college of education and human development university of massachusetts boston 100 morrissey blvd. boston, ma 02125-3393 tel: 617-287-7743 email: john.saltmarsh@umb.edu john wooding is the former provost and vice-chancellor for academic affairs at umass lowell. he is the former chair of the department of regional economic and social development and currently a member of the department of political science. his most recent book, co-authored with kristin esterberg, is divided conversations: identities, leadership and change in public higher education. http://provost.syr.edu/faculty-support/faculty-manual/2-34-areas-of-expected-faculty-achievement-teaching-research-and-service/ http://provost.syr.edu/faculty-support/faculty-manual/2-34-areas-of-expected-faculty-achievement-teaching-research-and-service/ http://tulane.edu/provost/upload/academic-review-and-engagement-february-2013.pdf http://provost.unc.edu/files/2012/10/taskforce-on-future-promotion-and-tenure-policies-and-practices-final-report-5-8-09.pdf http://provost.unc.edu/files/2012/10/taskforce-on-future-promotion-and-tenure-policies-and-practices-final-report-5-8-09.pdf http://academicplan.unc.edu/ http://cdn.umb.edu/images/research/report_on_community_engaged_scholarship.pdf http://www.nerche.org/ mailto:john.saltmarsh@umb.edu 86 john wooding professor department of political science university of massachusetts, lowell 201b dugan hall 883 broadway street lowell, ma 01854 978 934 4257 john_wooding@uml.edu mailto:john_wooding@uml.edu 47 deepening the institutionalization of service-learning: the added value of assessing the social return of investment kathleen stanton-nichols, julie hatcher, and amanda cecil abstract strategies to institutionalize service-learning are well documented (furco 1996; holland, 2000). using kecskes (2009) community-engaged department rubric we evaluated service-learning institutionalization within a school at a metropolitan campus. as a result, we propose adding an additional dimension, social return on investment. this added dimension helps academic leaders to understand the benefits, for a variety of stakeholders, of investing in service-learning and more broadly in campus-community partnerships. implications and recommendations are offered to replicate this analysis. over the past two decades, american higher education has come to value servicelearning as an effective high impact teaching strategy (finley n.d.), and this teaching strategy is now considered a core component of community engagement (reich 2014). there is solid evidence of the steady growth of this pedagogy across institutional types (fitzgerald 2010) and disciplines over the past twenty years (campus compact 2012). in the united states, this growth is perhaps best captured through the carnegie elective classification for community engagement (driscoll 2008). yet, similar growth has occurred internationally, and understanding the variations of how this teaching strategy is institutionalized in higher education is an emerging area of comparative study (gelmon et al. 2004). as noted by holland (2000), the degree to which universities, schools, and departments are engaged in service-learning varies based on institutional leadership, type, mission, and resources. understanding the mechanisms that support the growth and institutionalization of service-learning at the campus level is well documented (bringle and hatcher 1996; furco 1996; holland 2000). there is less clarity as to the implications of growth at the departmental or school level. building primarily upon the work of furco’s conceptualization of institutional change, kecskes developed a rubric for evaluating departmental support structures for service-learning (kecskes, 2009). the current case study uses the community-engaged department rubric (cedr) (kecskes, 2009) to assess the level of institutionalization of service-learning within the school of physical education and tourism management (petm) at indiana university48 purdue university indianapolis (iupui). our initial goal was to assess our strengths, identify gaps, and make recommendations as to how to improve our work as a faculty going forward. however, with success and growth in service-learning in petm, there are new challenges and opportunities that we face. there is heightened emphasis on our campus (thus, in our school) to serve as an anchor institution to facilitate both community and economic development (taylor and luter 2013). decline in state funding has, in part, contributed to a stagnate budget to support community engagement at both the campus and school level, and within our school, we have limited faculty and staff resources to support service-learning. increasingly, we work within a context of increased emphasis on faculty research productivity. many faculty remain dedicated to using service-learning, yet we wonder to what extent our investment is producing returns for all stakeholders (e.g., students, faculty, administration, and community). prior to this analysis, we asked ourselves a set of fundamental and somewhat “nagging” questions: •   how do we track and know the scope of what our faculty is doing in terms of  service-learning specifically and community partnerships more broadly? •   how well are we currently doing, and what do we need to collectively do as faculty  to improve our practice going forward? •   has our investment in service-learning generated sufficient returns in terms of  benefits for various stakeholders (e.g., student learning, faculty scholarship, school mission, alumni support, community partners)? utilizing kecskes’ (2009) cedr, we examined school-based evidence to assess service-learning institutionalization levels in our school. cedr contains six dimensions: 1) mission and culture, 2) faculty support, 3) community partner support, 4) student support, 5) organizational support, and 6) leadership support. this rubric was previously utilized in other departmental analysis (beere, votruba, and wells 2011) and provided meaningful and accurate dimensions for evaluation. a further discussion of the cedr is provided in later sections of this article. characteristics within each dimension guided our assessment and helped identify steps to deepen our practice. subsequently, we discovered a critical gap in the cedr: no dimension existed within cedr to assess the “social return on investment” of service-learning, particularly from a campus-community partnership perspective. in developing the social return on investment (sroi), we specifically examined work done in canada which will be discussed in detail in the later part of the article (http:// www.sroi-canada.ca). the proposed dimension includes five components (i.e., community cohesion, quality of life, social networks and capacity building, social inclusion, health). we recommend that this new dimension be added to the kecskes’ framework, arguing its necessity, particularly in the context of competing demands for faculty time and increased community engagement. this case study presents an example of how schools can assess the institutionalization of service-learning as well as examine social return on investment. campus context for community engagement the school of physical education and tourism management is located on a campus that is highly engaged and recognized for its practice and scholarship on service49 learning. indiana university-purdue university indianapolis (iupui) is a metropolitan campus and this urban location affords opportunity for an array of campus-community partnerships. the campus is comprised of twenty-one different schools and includes a strong tradition of practice-based education across the professions. the campus has been recognized nationally (e.g., carnegie elective classification for community engagement, presidential honor roll for community engagement, u.s. news & world report) for its commitment to service-learning and community engagement. the campus mission of civic engagement, current strategic plan, annual performance indicators, and goals for undergraduate learning are well aligned with communitybased learning strategies. the center for service and learning (csl), now in its twenty-second year, is the centralized unit charged with cultivating a campus culture of community engagement among students, faculty, staff, and alumni. the csl now reports to the vice chancellor for community engagement and is comprised of nine full-time staff as well as graduate students to support program implementation, research, and scholarship. csl staff support the development of service-learning courses at the undergraduate and graduate level by working with faculty, academic staff, and instructional teams from each of the schools on campus. consultations with instructors focus on course design, assessment, reflection strategies, partnerships, and the scholarship of teaching and learning. consultations with teams of faculty focus on curricular change and sequencing courses within the program or major to reach targeted academic and civic outcomes. csl faculty development programs include workshops, faculty learning communities (e.g., boyer scholars, community partner scholars, public scholars), the engaged department initiative, and the engaged scholars roundtable series. csl conducts research on service-learning, civic outcomes, and partnerships, and each summer hosts the iupui service learning research academy to support scholarship and research on service-learning and community engagement (see www.csl.iupui.edu for further information). the csl offers a variety of funding streams to support faculty. these include curriculum development grants, travel stipends to support attendance and presentations at national conferences, and scholarship funds for service learning assistants through the sam h. jones community service scholarship program. faculty can apply for a service learning assistant to support them in implementing service-learning courses, conducting community-based research, or providing professional service to a community organization (see http://csl.iupui.edu for further information about these various programs). csl also manages the community-based learning inventory, and annually instructors are asked to upload information about their service-learning courses. this inventory provides important data about service-learning for both the campus and for each school (http://csl. iupui.edu/about/campus-reports/index.shtml). this data is used for annual reports and for understanding organizational capacity for service-learning. the inventory asks faculty to provide information on a) service-learning courses (e.g., number of students, service hours contributed, required vs. optional service component), b) community partners (e.g., name of organizations, types of services provided, zip codes), and c) instructional design and 50 implementation (e.g., faculty appointment type, reflection components, patterns of communication with community partners). annual report data from the community-based learning inventory was used to evaluate school-based institutionalization. the use of service-learning as a high impact teaching practice (finley n.d.) varies among faculty in each of the schools on campus, with the highest participation rates in the school(s) of business, liberal arts, and physical education and tourism management (http://csl.iupui.edu/doc/annual%20report/2012-13-highlights.pdf). according to campus data gathered through the national survey of student engagement, our students report higher participation rates than both our peer institutions and the national average (hahn and hatcher 2013). for freshmen at iupui, 56 percent report participating in service-learning compared to the national average of 41percent; for seniors 58 percent report participating compared to the national average of 48 percent. school context for service-learning the school of physical education and tourism management (petm) is comprised of two departments, kinesiology and tourism conventions and event management (tcem). the school has approximately 1,246 undergraduates with 944 in kinesiology and 302 in tcem. as students matriculate through the curriculum, they have multiple service-learning, community-based research, and scholarship of engagement experiences. as evidenced by data in the csl annual dean’s report, the school has considerable breadth and depth in service-learning courses and community-based participatory research (table 1). for example, in 2011-2012, kinesiology and tcem taught thirtyfour and twenty-six service-learning courses respectively, students contributed over 40,000 hours to the community, and courses ranged from entry to pre-graduation levels with the majority of service-learning courses offered at the 200 level (for most students their second year of coursework). approximately sixteen faculty, representing 53 percent of faculty in the school (e.g., tenured, tenure-lined, lecturers, clinical) teach servicelearning courses. faculty engaged with a diverse range of community partners and within a diverse range of community-based settings including public schools, nonprofit organizations, local businesses, and on-campus community programs. table 1. school of physical education and tourism management service-learning course by level. class level # of classes service hours 100 2 290 200 26 28,513 300 17 2,680 400 15 9,642 grad n/a n/a data for table 1 and the following tables was provided by the csl annual dean’s report, 2011-12. additional data collected for reaccreditation and program reviews in 51 2008 and 2011 was used in this analysis. data from these reports indicate that there is general consensus among our faculty that service-learning has improved student professional competencies, and the concept of service-learning “fits” well within both fields of kinesiology and tourism management. both kinesiology and tcem could be considered “service-oriented” fields to some degree. although broad in scope, aspects of each discipline align well with community engagement to support student learning. as an essential dimension to enact the mission and vision of the school, service-learning is a routine part of a larger discussion regarding student-learning outcomes and an ongoing aspect of curriculum planning. faculty members receive administrative support (e.g., graduate students) or funding for service-learning related projects. summarily, the dean and department chairs recognize the contribution that service-learning offers. kinesiology. kinesiology is a broad term meaning the study of human movement and is represented by disciplines such as physical education, teacher education, adapted physical activity, biomechanics, exercise physiology, and motor development. kinesiology majors seek degrees in teacher education or pursue post-graduation training in physical therapy, occupational therapy, sports medicine, or personal training. all kinesiology fields require specific clinical skills (e.g., exercise prescription, teacher competency) and many students are required to pass disciplinary certifications to pursue their chosen field. the kinesiology department offers on average seven service-learning courses per semester. these courses allow faculty to assess student knowledge, skills, abilities, and dispositions that are measured as part of their professional competencies. physical education teacher education students are evaluated on six professional standards while participating in service-learning, and those seeking a degree in exercise science must pass specific american college of sports medicine knowledge, skills, and abilities competencies. community-engaged learning settings allow kinesiology students to apply clinical skills (e.g., teaching, exercise testing) to a specific population and allows for broader measures such as disposition, instructional delivery, and cultural competence (peterson, judge, and pierce 2012; domangue and carson 2008). the ability to develop specific clinical skills is vital to kinesiology students’ career success. the department of kinesiology has worked with local public schools, family and children with disabilities, health care providers, and after-school programs. tourism, conventions and event management. “service” in the hospitality, tourism, and event professions is a common term, typically used to refer to an interaction between a guest/attendee and service provider (e.g., hotel front desk worker, restaurant server, cab driver). providing good service is a trained process that combines technical and interpersonal skills to ensure the visitor has a positive and memorable experience (powers and barrows 2003). according to koppel, kavanaugh, and van dyke (2004) the overall goal of service-learning is to broaden students’ understanding of the community and industry role in making any community a better place to live and visit beyond their immediate work environment. the department of tcem also aspires that students exhibit competencies that focus on problem-solving, teamwork, and conflict resolution (christou 2002). this requires that future professionals demonstrate, at a high-level, the ability to work with people of different races, ethnicities, and religions 52 and work within the context of local, national, and international societies. notably, while existing forms of experiential education put an emphasis on the technical preparation of students, service-learning adds a broader set of educational goals that are focused on the professional’s civic orientation to their work and lives. the department of tcem partners with the indiana state museum, indiana senior games, and other small destinations, event organizers, and groups bringing event tourism to indianapolis. community-engaged department rubric academic leaders are essential to advancing curricular change, but the buy-in from faculty within departments is fundamental to sustaining initiatives across time (langseth, plater, and dillon 2004). campus compact, a coalition of more than 1,100 colleges and universities, endorses the idea of departments as a critical force in institutionalization. through resources such as the engaged department toolkit (battistoni et al. 2003) and engaged department institutes sponsored by national and state campus compacts (e.g., california, indiana, maine, michigan, new hampshire, vermont), there was a shift in strategy and focus from individual faculty as change agents to the collective action of faculty through departmental change initiatives (kecskes 2006). the community-engaged department rubric (cedr) was designed to assess department level community engagement (kecskes 2009). the cedr has six dimensions abbreviated as mission, faculty support, community partner support, student support, organizational support, and leadership support. the six dimensions outline specific characteristics that articulate and define each dimension. four stages of the rubric (i.e., awareness building, critical mass building, quality building, institutionalization) allow for each dimension to be assessed along a continuum. the cedr is designed as a tool for teams of faculty to collectively assess present level engagement and to identify action steps to deepen the integration of service-learning into the curriculum. there are many examples of how others have used the cedr in both assessment and research. chadwick and pawlowski (2007) utilized this departmental rubric to study creighton university’s context and growth in service-learning courses. beere, votruba, and wells (2011) gave examples of how the rubric was used to measure faculty productivity, department engagement, and student progress. recently, eddy, randall, and schmalstig (2014) published a three-year report on service-learning effectiveness in stem fields at california state university (csu). using kecskes’ rubric, the csu campuses reported cross-campus integration of service-learning effectiveness highlighting course development, faculty research and presentations, and departmental grants. we found the rubric to be compelling for our use in evaluation of our school, in part, because of its previous utilization, but perhaps more importantly its holistic measurement of community engagement (e.g., community partners). evaluation of data took place within the framework of the school level. two authors are faculty in the school, and they were primarily involved in collecting, assessing, and evaluating service-learning efforts and data, although certain examples will be department specific. the two faculty are highly-engaged in service-learning pedagogy, were both boyer scholars through the center for service and learning (csl), and each 53 has been instrumental in navigating school and departmental curriculum changes to address community engagement. one has developed and administered two communityengaged clinical programs for the past twenty years and also serves as a senior scholar at the csl. the third author works at the campus level as executive director of the csl. the authors used a relatively unhampered operationalization procedure gathering and condensing existing data and generating new data for this analysis. data collected from a 2008 and 2011 program review were used as well as existing course, faculty, and community partner data from the csl inventory. all data were initially relevant whether the number of courses labeled as service-learning courses or the number of faculty-reported community partners. the authors also utilized existing resources, such as csl annual reports as well as collecting new evidence (e.g., student focus groups, administrator interviews). each cedr dimension included relative examples that schools could consider as evidence of meeting specific levels of the dimension. the authors examined evidence holistically before considering specific dimensional attributes and then discussed examples to determine where or if the evidence supported cedr dimensions and, if so, at what level. this process was repeated several times before coming to consensus on the final evaluation. social return on investment as we evaluated the school’s service-learning institutionalization, we noted that there were some aspects of campus-community partnerships not captured in the cedr. from our perspective, to capture community engagement benefits or mutually beneficial outcomes, the cedr needed an added dimension. strong partnerships with community organizations are the bedrock for effective service-learning (jacoby 2014). a full range of partnerships provides an essential network between students, faculty, administrators, community organizations, and residents to support and sustain good service-learning practice (bringle, clayton, and price 2009). like relationships, partnerships have a range of qualities, from transactional to transformative, yet working toward mutually beneficial outcomes is part of best practice in servicelearning course design (bringle and hatcher 2002). to capture the added and reciprocal value derived from campus-community partnerships through service-learning, we initially explored the concept of return on investment. return on investment (roi) is a metric used to evaluate the financial consequences of investments. in business, roi typically measures profitability by asking the questions, “what does a business receive in relation to what it spends?” or “do the returns and profits justify the costs and investments?” however, valuation metrics that are purely monetary in nature may not be the best measure for servicelearning investment because these values communicate cost versus value. for example, the csl currently uses the independent sector estimate for the value of an hour of volunteering, currently $23.07 per hour (independent sector 2014) to estimate the economic contribution of hours contributed through service-learning courses. while this is a useful proxy for economic value, it does not attempt to capture how the program adds value to the community organization. 54 we propose that a more useful metric for service-learning that captures added value is social return on investment (sroi). in the nonprofit sector, sroi is used to determine social, environmental, and economic impacts that an organization has on its community. according to the roberts foundation (http://redf.org/what-we-do/invest/), sroi analysis measures community changes that result from investment that are subsequently valued by organizations and people. what is markedly different about sroi compared to roi is the definition of return. emerson, wachowicz, and chun (unite for sight n.d.) state that social value or return cannot be reduced simply to economic or socio-economic terms; rather returns are defined through their intrinsic value. social value is created when “resources, inputs, processes or policies are combined to generate improvements in the lives of individuals or society as a whole” (http://hbswk.hbs.edu/archive/1957.html). improvements include products (e.g., community garden, tutoring program, website design) but is also about outcomes such as a community’s cultural identity, improvement in quality of life, and residential access to services where none was previously available. metrics of sroi are not easily reduced to economic value associated with investment. in fact, measuring sroi proves to be quite complicated. previous metrics of sroi focused on social entrepreneurship that focused on resource creation or processes that result in cost savings for public systems. others, like the new economics foundation (http://www.neweconomics.org/issues/entry/social-return-on-investment) have proposed examining an investment over a period of time in relation to capital structure that is developed to support the investment. this idea can be analyzed further considering cost-savings or value-added approaches (e.g., service being provided that only exists as a result of the social investment). driscoll, holland, gelmon, and kerrigan (1996) stated returns can also be university-based such as increased enrollment, better graduate placement, improved learning and scholarship, and increased media attention. although the metrics of sroi might be complicated, the lesser approach to not considering the added intrinsic value or improvement resulting from investment is equally unattractive. we argue that sroi is a useful metric for evaluating the level of school engagement and how service-learning contributes to social value and quality of life, and provides services in community-based settings that would not otherwise exist. sroi as a new cedr dimension social return on investment capitalizes on added value; change that when added is valued by stakeholders. it is a stakeholder driven form of evaluation and, therefore, evaluation metrics may vary. however, several resources emphasize stakeholder involvement, mapping outcomes, and establishing impact (http://socialventures.com. au/assets/sroi-lessons-learned-in-australia.pdf). because sroi is not currently considered in the cedr we propose adding this important dimension. our literature review on sroi surfaced many different metrics used to evaluate sroi, however, one stood out containing metrics for both campus and community engagement. sroi canada (http://sroi-canada.ca) identifies seven elements by which social return on investment can be measured: community cohesion, graduation rates, job placement, quality of life, expanded social networks, social inclusion, and improved health. after 55 careful consideration of these elements, we found replication amongst the observable metrics and condensed seven dimensions into the five dimensions described below (see table 4 for further information). for example, it seemed rather reductionist to consider only graduation rates in a single dimension when rates could be related to quality of life. similar to the approach taken by kecskes (2009) in the cedr, we identified characteristics that are representative of each sroi dimension. we have defined and described these elements below and table 4 describes elemental characteristics along the continuum. community cohesion represents the idea that people from different backgrounds can live together peacefully with decreased conflict and increased sense of community (http://www.cohesioninstitute.org.uk/resources/toolkits/health/thenatureof communitycohesion). schools or departments could measure how they assist community strategic development such as building community vision or relationships that are developed in the workplace, schools, and neighborhoods. schools could consider evidence such as faculty who sit on community advisory boards and use their expertise to facilitate decision-making. also included could be community-based participatory research projects whose purpose is increased cohesion. quality of life (qol) is defined as the general well-being of individuals and societies that can include social, emotional, as well as physical health parameters (http://www. healthypeople.gov/2020/about/foundation-health-measures/health-related-quality-oflife-and-well-being). characteristics of qol could include community programs that focus on mental health services or exercise programs that focus on physical wellbeing. as a metric, we argue that the canadian elements of graduation rates and job placement should be collapsed into qol. one could argue that community well-being is a direct result of individual well-being. schools could evaluate departmental community-engaged programs from an aspect of qol (e.g., medical students provide new outpatient services at community-based free clinics, health indicators of community residents improve as a result of a service-learning program), but could also report on more simple measures such as number of patients served or change in community health indicators. the third characteristic of sroi is expanded social networks. perhaps the most unique sroi characteristic, expanded social network capitalizes on helping communities build their social network profile. this may include website development, capitalizing on social networks to build advertising profiles, or helping increase awareness through social media campaigns. each of these possibilities may enhance the community’s ability to build their “capacity” through new relationships, social ties, or service growth. added to the cedr, schools may be able to identify substantial product measures to demonstrate expanded community networks (e.g., website development, social profiles, marketing materials, etc.). characteristic four, social inclusion, stresses individual inclusivity. according to cappo (2005), “inclusive society is defined as one where all people feel valued, their differences are respected, and their basic needs are met so they can live in dignity” 56 (http://www.healthyplaces.org.au/userfiles/file/social%20inclusion%20june09.pdf). the opposite of social inclusion is being excluded from social, economic, political, and cultural systems. social inclusion is fundamentally based the education of those less powerful (e.g., minorities, people with disabilities). we argue that social inclusion is linked to but distinct from qol measures. service-learning courses done in partnership with community organizations would focus on empowerment or addressing disparity issues. we propose that social inclusion has both input and output measures to reflect institutionalization. schools could help communities identify areas where social inclusion is lacking and build out partnerships to address such issues. the last element in the sroi dimension is health. for the sake of this proposed dimension, health relates to communities and individuals (e.g., global and specific). as with other dimensions of sroi, health has links to quality of life and capacity building. however, as a measure of social return, we propose that health be linked to disparities encountered by communities and individuals who benefit from campuscommunity partnerships. assessing institutionalization of service-learning to determine our school’s level of service-learning institutionalization we used kecskes (2009) community-engaged department rubric (cedr). assessment of institutionalization using the cedr occurs by evaluating evidence across four different stages or ratings: 1) awareness building, 2) critical mass building, 3) quality building, and 4) institutionalization. awareness building represents the initial stages of community engagement. faculty may be thinking about how best to conduct community engagement, but there is little to no departmental support (faculty, institutional, partnerships) for implementation. awareness building also suggests departments are not collecting community engagement data nor are they actively engaged in monitoring or assessing student engagement. faculty leadership is neither present nor represented in departmental review processes (e.g., tenure and promotion) and “influential faculty” (as noted in the rubric) are not involved in community engagement at this stage. stage two, critical mass building, is characterized by “movement towards” understanding of community engagement. for example, mission and culture characteristics suggest departments have a generally accepted notion of communityengaged teaching and service but not an articulate definition. a small number of faculty are involved in community engagement, and partnerships are building but not sustained. involved faculty have leadership roles within the unit and may also be involved in other national activities. as departments move toward stage three of institutionalization described as quality building, a distinct jump from “some to many” is noticeable. department mission directly mentions community engagement, faculty are involved in assessing 57 community-engaged activity and are also supported through funding sources and/or sabbaticals to perform community-engaged research. community partners are involved in departmental decision-making regarding community-engaged work (e.g., student involvement and assessment). lastly, quality building is also recognized in academic promotion and review. department promotion and tenure documentation explicitly states scholarship of teaching and learning or public scholarship, and there are wellrecognized leaders among the faculty. institutionalization represents departments that have a sustained level of engagement and involvement. departments at this fourth stage have a well-accepted definition of community engagement, and faculty, regardless of their personal involvement in community engagement, know and understand the benefits. promotion and tenure processes allow for advancement in community engagement, and systematic assessment and evaluation efforts regarding community engagement are continuous. institutionalization also represents efforts that are long-standing and supported by administration. the department highlights its community engagement in marketing materials and is celebrated for its engagement. students are involved at many different curricular levels and are recognized for their involvement in community-engaged activities. students may also be assisting faculty in research. at this stage, community partners can be provided incentives for involvement. finally, community-engaged faculty are advocates for their work, nationally known, and serve as leaders within the university or their field. we examined multiple pieces of evidence to evaluate the level of institutionalization across seven dimensions within the school of physical education and tourism management (petm). we reviewed campus data provided by the csl, data collected for reaccreditation and program reviews over the past seven years, information derived from two student focus groups, information from community-participant-focus-group data, interviews of ten engaged faculty, and an interview with the dean (see table 6 for sample questions). kecskes (2009) does not provide specific evaluation criteria for each ranking but rather gives examples of category content. therefore, we considered examples of not only campus-community involvement but partnership length, regularity of student involvement, length of student involvement, as well as other factors such as social capital and cultural capital generated through service-learning courses (flora and flora 2005). the following section summarizes our findings. as we examined our school’s community-engaged work, determination of the stage of institutionalization was based upon clear examples of a majority characteristics (or lack thereof). for each of the cedr dimensions (including the proposed addition of sroi), we provide evidentiary examples as well as recommended next steps to improve our community engagement practice. 58 table 2. estimated economic contribution by students in service-learning courses by department. department sections enrollment service hours service hours in dollars kinesiology 34 796 12,980 $282,834.20 tcem 26 883 28,145 $613,279.55 total 60 1679 41,125 $896,113.75 dimension i: mission and culture. based on the evidence reviewed, we evaluate this aspect of our school to be, overall, in the quality building phase of institutionalization. according to kecskes (2009), dimension one of an engaged department involves mission and culture supporting community engagement. based on the evidence, we concurred that our school’s mission statement and culture are indicative of a high level of institutionalization as evidenced by the following: “the iu school of physical education and tourism management capitalizes on its rich history and unique location in downtown indianapolis to prepare future leaders in kinesiology and tourism by translating theory into practice. the school’s distinct culture and unique combination of disciplines foster innovative research, learning opportunities, and civic engagement that enhance quality of life and economic development of local, national and global communities.” however, specific definitions of community-engaged teaching, research, and service have not yet been established within the school. although there is a campus definition of service-learning (bringle and hatcher 1996), the lack of a well understood definition of service-learning within the school has been an issue in course alignment with campus course coding policy (http://due.iupui.edu/center-for-coordinated-initiatives/iupui-riseprogram). taking the time to come to consensus on our definition could also centralize or highlight the school’s context of service-learning such that faculty engage with the same understanding of service-learning. the weakest component of our school’s mission and culture is collective self-awareness and action. institutionalization would suggest that our faculty collectively assess and evaluate engaged teaching, research, and service. assessment and evaluation of engagement is currently done individually or when needed for an outside body (e.g., program evaluation, reaccreditation). these types of assessments are not systematic or collective within our school. to move our school closer to institutionalization, our school would benefit from formal annual assessment of service-learning outcomes. with a clear school-based definition of service-learning, outcomes could not only be course-based but also mission-based. dimension ii: faculty support and community engagement. from the evidence under review, we rated this dimension overall as moving towards institutionalization. from faculty knowledge to involvement of tenured/tenure-track faculty, our school is 59 deeply committed to service-learning. our school promotion and tenure guidelines include service-learning (e.g., course development or program implementation) as part of teaching excellence. as a result of participation in several campus initiatives (e.g., grants, faculty development workshops) faculty are knowledgeable about service-learning and community-engagement opportunities. five faculty members have participated in the csl boyer scholars program and both kinesiology and tecm have involved teams of faculty in the engaged department institute. these opportunities have translated into scholarly presentations on campus and at disciplinary conferences as well as academic publications (judge et al. 2011; wang, fu, cecil, and avgoustis 2006). many faculty have received funding for service learning assistants and have successfully secured external grants to support service-learning programs and community-engaged research. dimension iii: community partner and partnership support. from the evidence under review, we rated this dimension overall as awareness building in some characteristics or simply “not done” in others. examination of community partnerships and community support yielded an uncomfortable awareness that while we have numerous partners, we do not collaborate in terms of community voice, access to resources, and incentives. our partnerships, in some cases, are much more structural (e.g., placement) than they are collaborative, and, therefore, may not yield partners sroi in terms of cohesion, quality of life, and perhaps other factors as well. partnership voice, shared resources, and recognition are not norms within our school. evaluation for awareness building and beyond suggests that engaged departments routinely recognize partners as well as form advisory committees that help shape and grow partnerships. while our school lacks formal recognition of community partners, many faculty are engaged in capacity building to support partners. for example, three communityengaged programs focused on disability and activity have formed an advisory committee that consists of community partners, faculty, and persons with disabilities. in this example, the committee is focused on increasing community programs and building funding sources. as a faculty, we need to focus our efforts on giving our partners more voice in terms of leadership and recognition. while individual faculty members collaborate, the school as a whole does not. our school could benefit from a continuous assessment and evaluation of community partnerships such as having a staff member that regularly assesses our numerous service-learning programs or forming an advisory committee that routinely meets with our dean to provide guidance and voice to our community engagement. dimension iv: student support and community engagement. we evaluate student involvement, leadership, incentives, and recognition to be institutionalized in our school. faculty commitment to service-learning provides students multiple opportunities (no less than one course per semester, typically in kinesiology) throughout their course curriculum. students can also receive undergraduate research grants to assist faculty with community-based participatory research. further incentives include sam h. jones community service scholarships and campus recognition and awards (e.g., iupui top 100 students, william m. plater medallion for civic engagement). 60 moving forward we could consider deepening our involvement by engaging more students in community-engaged research. this would align with the campus-wide community engagement urban health and wellness grand challenges research initiative. student involvement could be supported through undergraduate research funds or a new use of service learning assistants focused on community-engaged research. our school could also consider funding student research that assesses and evaluates programmatic outcomes of service-learning. dimension v: organizational support for community engagement. from the evidence under review, we rated this dimension overall as quality building. institutional support for community engagement work is readily available for faculty and evidence of this support is visible in the school. the dean, associate dean, and program directors provide monetary support, space allocation and/or assistance with community space, and course development. service-learning faculty are often supported by the dean and department chairs via course “buy-outs” and by graduate assistants for course and program management. where our school is lacking in organizational efforts is in the areas of assessment and evaluation, long-term engagement planning, continued faculty involvement, scholarship, and dissemination of engagement efforts. our weakness, in part, is due to lack of long-term planning. our community engagement perhaps superseded intention for these efforts. for example, engaged faculty report use of service-learning to enhance student learning and clinical skills but also see community connection necessary to build reciprocal learning relationships (bringle and hatcher 1996). as these relationships and learning opportunities expanded, neither faculty nor school administration developed plans for assessing and evaluating our long-term engagement as a school. we would benefit from strategic planning to develop specific goals and objectives as well as measurement criteria. faculty could also consider specific student learning outcomes that reflected engagement as related to our school’s mission. dimension vi: leadership support for community engagement. based on review of the data, our school is institutionalized in department level leadership, yet we have not yet extended that leadership to the national level. faculty find it difficult to extend their reach via campus and national work as teaching a service-learning course can be a timeconsuming endeavor. service-learning faculty are very familiar with publishing within their discipline, however, they lack the literature base within the field of communityengaged scholarship. the transition from disciplinary-based scholarship to scholarship on engagement can be very challenging. our faculty may also find it difficult to feel confident using their community-engaged activities to seek promotion, however, this is less of a school-based issue than a campus understanding of “promotable community engagement.” what is needed to encourage faculty leadership outside their discipline is the security that community engagement (or public scholarship) is supported by advancement (e.g., tenure and promotion) not just at the school level but at the campus level as well. there is currently discussion and assessment at the campus-level relative to promotion and tenure guidelines. a new faculty learning community for public scholarship has been convened by csl and academic affairs to examine how public scholarship can be more 61 entrenched in the tenure and promotion process rather than on the fray activities done by faculty but not considered worthy of scholarship. our school does support and encourage faculty advancement in community engagement but could offer more structured mentorship to encourage faculty to seek advancement in community-engaged scholarship. dimension vii: social return on investment. we rated this dimension overall as critical mass building with yet another emphasis on lack of formalized evidence/assessment processes to articulate our progress. however, our school does have several positive indicators of sroi specifically related to community cohesion, quality of life, and health. community cohesion, job prospects, social inclusion and improved health: kinesiology has partnered with three public schools providing physical fitness assessment and training for the local community. the success of this partnership resulted in investment from both school districts and outside funding to purchase fitness equipment. the success of the partnership also moved the school to hire a coordinator to organize partnership efforts. kinesiology will also celebrate twenty years of offering quality physical activity programming for individuals and families of individuals with disabilities. such programming has impacted over 1,500 individuals. our school also has two centers that will centralize some of our community engagement efforts. the kinesiology center is focused on public health issues addressing the continued need for affordable activity options and the tcem center is focused on building sports tourism in our local community. if realized in terms of community partners, research, and engagement efforts, both centers may enhance cohesion, network, and health as related to community returns. improved education levels: professional development has extended to student preparation as well. recently the department of kinesiology adopted a service-learning-based physical education curriculum. this newly formatted curriculum relies on service-learning programs and courses to build student disposition, content knowledge, and skills across the curriculum. the department of tcem also added a program outcome focused on civic engagement and tracking student growth in service-learning courses across the curriculum. conclusion conducting this analysis of the level of institutionalization of service-learning within our school was an invaluable process and will certainly impact the future of our school’s community engagement. the utility of kecskes’ rubric was instrumental in our understanding of engagement in terms of our accomplishments to date and our future direction. we used the six dimensions of the community engaged department rubric (cedr) to frame our analysis, in combination with the new dimension of social return on investment. together, this yielded very practical guidance for what we need to do to deepen and improve our practice in service-learning and community engagement in the future. we would recommend, if replicated, consideration of all types of data – qualitative, quantitative, and informal. curricular mapping and interviews of community partners are also highly recommended as significant data points. an undertaking of such 62 evaluation does require significant contribution from those involved but use of cedr provides an excellent framework for understanding, evaluation, and analysis. as we examined our investment in service-learning using the cedr, the question remained: did the investment yield value-added social returns? the answer is a resounding yes. our school has made significant long-term fiscal investments and because of the school’s service-learning commitment, our faculty, students, and community partners have benefitted. we have helped shaped institutional and community changes and have profoundly altered how to market our school and reward faculty. implications of this type of school analysis also exist for centralized units such as the center for service and learning (csl). oftentimes, a centralized unit is charged to advance campus culture for community engagement. rather than working one-on-one with faculty, a stronger organizational change approach would be tailor-made approaches for each school. as evidenced by this case study, a centralized inventory of community-based learning is one means to gather school-based data on courses, faculty, and community partners. this type of information is helpful to schools in terms of having output data readily available for reports, program review, grants, or scholarship. in addition, once a school has undertaken this type of intensive analysis, in partnership with the csl and our administration, we could more effectively identify targeted programs and initiatives to address identified gaps. the cedr (kecskes 2009) offers departments and schools generous criteria for service-learning and civic engagement evaluation. we found the rubric to be a very useful tool to assess service-learning investment and identify next steps for deepening engagement. in examining our own school, it was apparent our partnership investment had garnered returns difficult to evaluate with the cedr, yet when measured considering sroi, we found considerable investment with regard to cohesion and impact. perhaps measures of sroi effectiveness are reflective of our school discipline and culture. highly engaged schools and departments should consider cedr as an effective tool for evaluation, however, as written, cedr lacks the means for assessing social return on investment. engaged departments and schools may find sroi to be a useful additional means for thinking about investment and return when reporting on community engagement to various stakeholders. table 1.* school service-learning course offerings by level class level # of classes service hours 100 2 290 200 26 28,513 300 17 2,680 400 15 9,642 grad n/a n/a *data for following tables was provided by the csl annual dean’s report, 2011-12. 63 table 2. economic impact for service-learning courses by department department sections enrollment service hours service hours in dollars kinesiology 34 796 12,980 $282,834.20 tcem 26 883 28,145 $613,279.55 total 60 1679 41,125 $896,113.75 table 3. evaluation of school engagement dimension i: mission and culture dimensions school evidence stage mission engagement is included in school’s mission institutionalization and vision. definition of service-learning (sl) is included in teaching quality building communityexcellence but not defined as community engaged engaged teaching. school/faculty use sl teaching definition as provided by center. definition of cbpr is not specifically designed but critical mass communityrecognized as a research option, especially building engaged related to grant production. research definition of community-engaged service is not defined in critical mass communityour school; however, as a practice is building engaged supported for service allocation in promotion service and tenure. climate and sl is supported by campus and school. institutionalization culture collective selfinvolved faculty utilized sl to assess quality building awareness and pedagogical effectiveness, but the unit/school action does not engage in a “regular” practice. dimension ii: faculty support & community engagement dimensions school evidence stage faculty faculty are well-informed. institutionalization knowledge faculty faculty at all ranks engage. quality building involvement support is available via scholarships or and support other incentives. curricular sl is infused throughout the curriculum. institutionalization engagement faculty incentives are available through the university. institutionalization incentives administrative support is available. 64 promotion & sl is criteria in teaching excellence. quality building tenure recognition of faculty involvement is not well integration recognized at the university level. tenure-track eight tenure-track or tenured faculty are institutionalization faculty involved in service-learning. dimension iii: community partner and partnership support and community engagement dimensions school evidence stage placement and multiple community agencies with long-term institutionalization partnership agreements and partnerships; well-established awareness mutual multiple partnership agreements – some critical mass understanding formalized and long-term, others less formal building and commitment community we do not have any formal recognition of n/a partner voice community partner voice. community improving with center development and critical mass partner implementation of advisory committee building leadership community it is unclear that community partners have n/a partner access access to our school resources. to resources community we currently do not have any formal n/a partner mechanism for recognizing our community incentives and partners. recognition dimension iv: student support and community engagement dimensions school examples stage student because of multiple partners, students can institutionalization opportunities volunteer or be involved at any time. students often assist faculty with cbpr research. student awareness begins before entrance (summer institutionalization awareness bridge courses); introductory courses are also used to introduce importance of service-learning. student university has taken lead on recognition, and critical mass incentives and while faculty are encouraged to nominate building recognition students for university awards/recognition, the department does not have formal recognition. student voice, strongest examples are the sla scholarships institutionalization leadership, and available which allow for leadership; student departmental sla’s are seen as leaders by faculty, peers, governance and community organizations 65 dimension v: organizational support for community engagement dimensions school examples stage administrative dean, associate dean, and department institutionalization support coordinators are fully supportive of community engagement endeavors facilitating the university csl provides formal structures institutionalization entity to facilitate service-learning; language across university is universal evaluation & due to the amount of service-learning and assessment and assessment student/faculty involvement, this process is awareness beginning. building departmental efforts have begun toward thinking about short critical mass planning and long-range goals regarding engagement. building faculty for as strongly involved and committed as we n/a recruitment are to engagement, this is not used to recruit and orientation faculty. marketing recruitment materials, website, and visits all institutionalization capitalize on our engagement. dissemination of most faculty utilize their engagement for quality building community and scholarship or speaking to communities engagement about engagement opportunities. results budgetary support given to faculty through graduate institutionalization allocation assistant support; support given to faculty through center of service and learning dimension vi: leadership support for community engagement dimensions school examples stage department because we have evidence of faculty institutionalization level promotion and faculty have been promoted leadership based upon their work, engagement is influential but remains hard to create a space with a changing university mission. campus level at least three tenured faculty engage in critical mass leadership from leadership positions within the university and building departmental within their discipline. faculty national level discipline specific examples exist but unclear awareness leadership from if this furthers “service” or service-learning building departmental faculty 66 table 4. proposed dimension vii: social return on investment stage one awareness building stage two critical mass building stage three quality building stage four institutional ization community cohesion campuscommunity partnerships (ccp) intend to develop, but have not yet, a set of agreed upon community ideals that are valued. ccp have allowed for strategic mission and vision planning within the community, and efforts have help shaped sense of community ccp have structures in place to measure community cohesion. ccp have substantially increased community cohesion as recognized by existing relationships in neighborhoods, workplaces, and schools quality of life indicators (economic, social, physical) ccp have begun discussions regarding specific qol indicators (e.g., job placement, graduation rates). partners have identified specific qol issues that need to be addressed and evaluated as result of partnership ccp are regularly assessing qol as part of the partnership agreement. evidence exists that qol has improved as a direct result of partnership social networks and capacity building structure is not in place to network and build capacity as a result of partnership. ccp is building structure to identify significant barriers to capacity building ccp have identified and begun to assess ways to improve capacity building that can result from partnership. as a result of ccp investment and partnership, both community and department have increased capacity to serve constituents social inclusion social disparities exist within the community and have been identified by ccp. ccp have identified issues related to social inclusion that affect community ccp report less disparity in services as result of partnership ccp can identify specific social inclusion measures that have improved as a result of partnership 67 health health-related issues are not yet identified by ccp. health-related issues have been identified by ccp and are related to health disparities within the community or individuals health (as defined by partners) is significantly improved (e.g., economic, physical, psychosocial) and can be attributed to partnership ccp can identify specific health improvements that are attributed to partnership table 5. school examples of sroi dimension vii: social return on investment dimensions school examples stage increased • infused community or school-based/ critical mass community university-based programs building cohesion  • long-term benefits identified by community  partners   • campus-community partnerships repeated  and well established improved critical mass quality of life   • documentation of established programs and   building and work placement quality building   • long-standing programs have evidence of  qol changes with regard to physical activity patterns and engagement (length)   • research on tourism and participants affect qol  expanded social • long-standing partnerships have resulted in institutionalization networks and community coming to our school to engage capacity • “numbers” include both number of engaged building students, faculty, and partnerships social inclusion  •  partnerships have resulted in increased   quality building activity or tourism-related opportunity that have repeated demonstrated increases in qol health  • research/assessment has demonstrated by   quality building participating in ccp programs, participants and have improved health (specifically physical) institutionalization as a result   •  ccp programs have “physical parameter”  assessments which demonstrate that by engaging in partnership, changes are seen in health patterns 68 table 6. sample student focus group questions 1. tell us about your service-learning experience in the school. 2. what was meaningful to you about your service-learning experiences? 3. in what ways do you find service-learning helpful to your learning? 4. what could the school do differently to enhance your learning and service-learning? 5. is there anything more you would like to tell us about your service-learning experiences in the school? table 7. sample interview questions with the dean 1. how do you feel our community engagement has benefited our school? 2. are you supportive of continued growth of community 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tourism and quality of life – a longitudinal approach.” tourism today fall 2006 (6): 47-61. whitley, meredith a., and david s. walsh. 2014. “a framework for the design and implementation of service-learning courses.” journal of physical education, recreation and dance 85 (4): 34-39. 74 author information dr. stanton-nichols is an associate professor in the department of kinesiology. since 1996 she has organized two community-engaged physical activity programs to service families and children with disabilities. she is currently a senior scholar with the center of service and learning at indiana university-purdue university indianapolis (iupui). dr. julie a. hatcher is executive director of the center for service and learning and associate professor of philanthropic studies in the lilly family school of philanthropy at indiana university-purdue university indianapolis (iupui). her scholarship and research relates to community engagement in higher education, and she has responsibilities for leading this work of csl as a campus signature center. dr. cecil is an associate professor and chair of the department of tourism conventions and event management at indiana university-purdue university indianapolis (iupui). she is currently involved in overseeing the department’s community-engaged efforts. kathleen stanton-nichols department of kinesiology indiana university-purdue university indianapolis 901 west new york street indianapolis, in 46069 email: kstanton@iupui.edu telephone: 317-345-3429 julie hatcher executive director center for service and learning indiana university-purdue university indianapolis hine hall, suite 243 email: jhatcher@iupui.edu telephone: 317-278-3499 amanda cecil department of tourism conventions and event management indiana university-purdue university indianapolis 901 west new york street indianapolis, in 46069 email: akcecil@iupui.edu telephone/main office: 317-274-2248 telephone/direct line: 317-278-8569 71 enhancing the stem ecosystem through teacher-researcher partnerships william tapprich, neal grandgenett, heather leas, steve rodie, robert shuster, chris schaben, and christine cutucache abstract stem faculty at the university of nebraska at omaha (uno) have partnered with teachers and administrators in the omaha public schools (ops) to implement a teacher-researcher partnership program. this program establishes resources and infrastructure that engage k-12 science teachers in scientific research experiences. in the first implementation of this program, eleven uno faculty mentors, drawn from several stem disciplines, were matched with eleven ops teachers to conduct genuine research projects in support of their teaching. introduction science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (stem) education is a national priority for good reason. according to a 2014 report from the u.s. bureau of labor statistics, the number of jobs in stem areas will increase by about 1 million from 2012-2022 (bureau of labor statistics, 2014). at the same time, only 37% of u.s. high school students are ready for college-level science (american college testing, 2014) and u.s. high school students rank 23rd in science readiness and 30th in mathematics readiness among industrialized nations (national center for education statistics, 2012). obviously, the gap between stem educational preparation and career opportunities in the u.s. is alarming. the state of nebraska mirrors national statistics and highlights the persistent challenges for stem educational pathways and stem careers. an estimated 102,000 stem positions will be available in the state of nebraska by 2024 (alliance for science and technology research in america, 2015) while students in the nebraska public education system have continually been outpaced in terms of their academic performance in science and mathematics. currently, only 49% of k-12 students in nebraska are proficient in science (american college testing, 2014), only 42% of graduating seniors are ready for college science (american college testing, 2014) and students from low socioeconomic households and those of migratory families show alarmingly low proficiencies of only 13% (nebraska department of education, 2013). while the statewide statistics cause considerable concern, the challenges in omaha are even more significant. the omaha public schools (ops) district is by far the largest and most diverse school district in nebraska with a total enrollment of over 50,000 students. of these, 66.4% are minorities and 74% receive free and reduced lunch (nebraska department of education, 2013). the district represents approximately 20% of the state’s overall student population. in this highly urban district, more than one hundred different languages or individual dialects are spoken by students attending 7 high schools, 11 middle schools, and 63 elementary schools. when considering students within ops, the proficiency rate in science drops to 46% (nebraska department of education, 2013). the statistics are even more troubling for students who are eligible to receive school lunch at a free or reduced cost. across the district, less than 31% of these students are tested as proficient in science. at a time when the number of low-income students in ops is increasing by 2–3% per year, students receiving free or reduced lunch score 5– 20 percentiles lower in mathematics and science standardized tests than students not in this 72 program. proficiencies are even lower for black and hispanic minority groups; disaggregated achievement data from the standardized tests indicate that, compared to their white peers, african-americans generally score 10–20 percentiles lower, and hispanic students score 10–30 percentiles lower in standardized success measures in both mathematics and science (nebraska department of education, 2013). these numbers indicate a clear and immediate need to improve stem education and opportunities in stem for all nebraska students, particularly within ops. ops and uno are already very closely linked in the stem learning pipelines. more than twothirds of all uno students come from the omaha metropolitan area, and of those, 34% are graduates of ops (university of nebraska at omaha, 2015). nearly 60% of the secondary stem teachers in ops have received their degree from uno. thus, by working collaboratively with ops on stem initiatives, uno has the opportunity to catalyze stem reform that engages the entire k-16 educational system. since uno is not unique in this kind of relationship to partnering school districts in their local area, interventions at this metropolitan university that successfully address stem educational pathways and related needs in a diverse urban context will serve as a model for replication on a national scale. to advance the ops-uno partnership, enhance the stem ecosystem in the metropolitan area, and provide genuine research experiences for teachers and youth in omaha, faculty at uno have developed an innovative approach called the teacher-researcher partnership program (trpp). the trpp is firmly grounded in discipline-based education research (dber) evidence showing that stem learning is greatly enhanced by implementing inquiry-based strategies into the classroom, and authentic research experiences are among the most effective of these strategies (american association for the advancement of science, 2013). it is important to note that the trpp is complementary to an aggressive and comprehensive ops program called the k-12 comprehensive science teaching and learning project. the ops project has private funding to support a cohort of k-12 science coaches who assist science teachers as they synthesize professional learning opportunities into useable teaching tools, strategies, and lessons. the ops project participating teachers engage in intensive professional development that includes graduate coursework, research immersion experiences, and other individualized professional learning opportunities. the trpp led by uno is an exemplar of a scientific research experience for ops teachers as they benefited from systemic and programmatic support from both the trpp research experience and the ops project. this provides an environment of professional development synergy that increases the likelihood of positive change in the classroom. the ops comprehensive science teaching and learning project is a project in which scientific inquiry meets k-12 teachers’ professional development. the ops project has a long list of objectives, two of which are increasing student achievement in science and increasing teacher effectiveness. another major goal of the initiative is enabling students to conduct authentic scientific research. after less than a year of implementation, the project has eight active science coaches (the majority of whom participated in dber research at uno during the first half of 2015), thirteen teachers that completed a graduate-level uno course in scientific research methods and eleven teachers that completed the summer trpp. there are currently 52 ops teachers who have signed up to work with coaches on their individual classroom plans and to enhance their science instruction. this paper describes the overall organization, implementation and assessment of the trpp. as mentioned, in the first implementation year of this program, eleven uno faculty mentors, drawn from a variety of stem disciplines, were matched with eleven ops teachers to conduct genuine research projects in a 4-6 week summer session. these projects were supplemented by graduate level courses at uno, journal clubs involving all teachers and faculty mentors, and a capstone 73 research symposium where teachers presented the results of their research, and were scored according to a common rubric (by three anonymous participating teachers and three anonymous faculty mentors). results of the trpp, which are described in detail below, were extremely encouraging. for example, pre and post program focus group sessions of teachers suggested learning gains in the understanding of the scientific method and of scientific research, and post project surveys of teachers and mentors showed that the vast majority of participants intended to apply for the trpp next year. we also observed an increase in confidence in science and in scientific research by teachers that participated in the genuine research experience as reported by the focus groups. moreover, many teachers stated that they have chosen to implement lessons learned from the summer research experiences into their courses (whether that be a class-led project or working with smaller groups of students toward projects at the nebraska junior academy of science or local science fairs). in some cases, teachers and mentors are continuing to work side-by-side to implement lessons into the teachers’ classroom. overall, our year 1 results suggested that the trpp is a useful strategy for empowering teachers by giving them the tools, resources, and personal confidence needed to conduct authentic research projects with youth in ops. this contributes to the growing stem ecosystem in the omaha metropolitan area by actively promoting authentic scientific inquiry into earlier k-12 stages of the stem pathways. we hypothesize that these experiences will encourage students to be more interested and persistent in later stages when scientific inquiry is experienced at the university level. trpp implementation the trpp was developed as an integral component of the uno-ops partnership supporting the ops k-12 comprehensive science teaching and learning project. this project began in january of 2015 with the selection of the first cohort of k-12 science coaches and enrollment of k-12 teachers in a special graduate level course called discipline-based education research methods hosted by the uno biology department. with this backdrop, the trpp recruited mentors and teachers for the summer research program. students in the graduate course and ops science coaches were informed of the trpp summer program and encouraged to contact the trpp leadership team to express their interest in applying. after learning about goals and requirements of the trpp, eleven teachers applied, were accepted and committed to participate. for this initial implementation of the trpp, uno faculty mentors were recruited by contacting potential candidates from all stem disciplines, and explaining the goals and requirements of the program. eleven faculty mentors were identified. faculty mentors submitted an abstract of the research problem that teachers would address in their summer program and these abstracts were posted online. teachers were asked to review the abstracts and to submit a prioritized list of three potential mentors that they would like to work with in a collaborative scientific research effort. given the teachers’ requests, the trpp leadership team matched teachers and mentors, doing their best to respect the teachers’ top choice. after completing the matches, mentors reached out to teachers to establish initial communication, arrange preliminary meetings, discuss scientific interests and provide background readings and resources. teachers and mentors signed a joint memorandum of understanding that articulated expectations for both partners. the summer trpp program commenced with an orientation session involving both teachers and mentors. at this orientation, expectations of the program were explained and reiterated. the orientation for teachers included sessions on ethics, scientific misconduct and laboratory safety as required of other graduate students that participate in research at the university. the orientation 74 sessions also provided opportunities for completing personnel paperwork, obtaining campus identification cards, distributing keys and discussing parking strategies. finally, a pre-project focus group was completed for both teachers and mentors at the end of the orientation. after completing the orientation, each teacher began their research project, and began the minimum 20-hour per week schedule that was pre-arranged with their mentor. a research community involving all teachers and mentors was maintained in required once-per-week journal club meetings for both teachers and faculty. for the journal club, teacher-mentor pairs took turns finding and presenting a research paper and leading the discussion. the summer research project required a minimum of four weeks. the journal club continued for six weeks. teachers were provided full tuition remission for any summer courses in-discipline in which they enrolled, including an “independent research” course (biol 8020 at uno) at the graduate level. this opportunity helped to fulfill content requirements needed for any teachers pursuing master’s degree in a stem field or interested in eventually qualifying to teach dual enrollment coursework within the sciences. the summer program culminated with a virtual capstone research symposium reminiscent of the platforms used today by major scientific research societies-again emphasizing the translation of the work to a broader audience. this opportunity provides a “full-circle” approach to scientific research for the teachers by authentically sharing their work professionally as a scientist. this symposium was a poster session. teachers were responsible for developing their posters with mentor input and were provided with a template that identified major topics areas. posters were posted online and made available for viewing, posting comments and evaluation. each poster was formally evaluated by three teachers and three mentors, who were each selected randomly. mentors were excluded from evaluating their own teacher partner. all evaluations followed a common rubric developed collaboratively by the faculty principle investigators on this project. reviewers were asked to assign a score of “0” (not present), “1” (present; not well-described), or “2” (well-described/effectively communicated) on each of eight questions. questions included: 1) was the objective/hypothesis communicated clearly?, 2) were the methods that supported the hypothesis clearly articulated?, 3) were the major results or significant take home messages of the study clearly described?, 4) was the summary of the summer work conducted clearly articulated?, 5) what was (were) the major strength(s) of the study?, 6) what was (were) the major limitation(s) of the study?, 7) what would a future question based on this study be?/what would next steps be for this project?, and 8) was this poster effective at communicating science? we used a generalized linear model (with binomial family with log link) to compare the consistency in scores among questions from evaluation rubrics of the research symposium. due to the low prevalence of “0” scores (n=34), we lumped scores of “0” and “1” in the same category and compared the probability of those responses with the probability of 2’s among questions. similarly, “intermediate” responses of “1.5” (n=4) were rounded to “2” for all analyses except for calculation and comparisons of total score. rubrics with missing values on ≥1 questions (n = 9) were not included in the total score comparison. analyses were performed using the program jmp (version 10.0.2, sas institute, inc., cary, nc). we also asked mentors to provide information about what type of a mentoring strategy they used in the program with their mentee. specifically, faculty were asked, i.) “describe your mentoring style, ii.) demonstrate how effective this method of mentorship was with your mentee, iii.) do you intend to apply to this program in subsequent summers?, and iv.) were you able to mentor your teacher mentee in a fashion similar to your approach for mentoring undergraduate and/or graduate students?” responses from faculty mentors are summarized in the results section. 75 a post-project focus group was conducted separately with each of the teacher and the mentor groups. for the most part, the questions for the post-project focus group sessions were the same as the questions for the pre-project focus group sessions. small changes in the questions were necessary for a few questions. for example, the question “what do you expect to learn” in preproject focus group was changed to “what did you learn” in post project focus group”. results the recruiting and matching program implemented by the trpp leadership team produced a diverse array of stem research experiences for teachers. it also assembled a multi-disciplinary cohort of faculty and teacher colleagues for journal club discussions and capstone symposium participation. table 1 shows teacher-faculty matches, research area disciplines, and titles of projects. as indicated in the table, a number of stem disciplines were represented. the diversity of projects within disciplines further expanded the breadth of scientific experiences for teachers. table 1 trpp participants and projects. summary of mentored projects completed by teachers in the program. table overview: summary of projects completed by teacher-researcher pairs through the teacher-researcher partnership program. projects mentioned below were all performed during the inaugural year of the program. this summary shows the diversity of disciplines and projects available to teachers in the program. science teacher level stem discipline/department of faculty mentor project keyword middle school science biology stem education high school science biology insect immunity high school science biology rain gardens middle school science biology prairie mass high school science chemistry enzyme kinetics high school science geology mineralogy middle school science bioinformatics genome analysis high school science biology native bees high school science biology viral genomes high school science biology bat ecology middle school science biology cancer biology since this was the first year of a three-year project to provide opportunities for teachers within ops to participate in genuine research experiences advised by university faculty, the findings reported herein are based solely on this pilot year. however, the results for this first year were quite encouraging. specifically, we observed significant gains from the teachers in terms of content knowledge, ability and confidence in discussing science, and in their understanding of the scientific process as detailed by the four major findings presented below. firstly, we observed increased teacher voice and comfort in discussing science and pedagogical problems through the weekly journal club context. specifically, the journal club included methods papers for scientific protocols, discussion of the national academies press stem calls to action series “rising above the gathering storm: energizing and employing america for a brighter economic future” (committee on prospering in the global economy of the 21st century 76 2007, 1-30) and discipline-based education research articles focusing on integrating active learning strategies and authentic research experiences for both k-12 and undergraduate students in the sciences. candid observations of what worked and didn’t work in their scientific research endeavors and instructional efforts were openly discussed by both mentors and mentees. there were also several spontaneous brainstorming sessions on how to further research certain topics of particular interest, discussions of how to effectively frame a research question, and how to translate information accrued through the research experience back to the k-12 classroom and for research experiences for youth. each weekly journal club was well attended and mentors and mentees alike commented on the positive and supportive atmosphere for sharing science and the ability to learn more through reading peer-reviewed, primary literature articles in various stem disciplines. secondly, through the virtual research symposium, teacher mentees were provided the guided opportunity to share their findings via the poster presentation. in almost every case, this was the first time that the mentee had created a research poster presentation and shared it with others. as part of the learning process, both mentors and mentees alike scored the posters. the common scoring rubric contained eight questions and evaluative comments were encouraged. a perfect score for the rubric questions was 16. the overall total score mean was 13.1. interestingly, the mean score for mentor evaluators was higher than the mean score for teacher evaluators (13.6 vs. 12.5, p = 0.03). a summary of insights from evaluating three of the eight questions is shown in table 2. the probability of a high score ranged from 59% to 81% but was not statistically significant (likelihood ratio test, x2 = 13.14, df = 7, p = 0.069). specifically, there was consistency in the distribution of scores for questions 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, and 8 (p > 0.09 for all, probability of “2” = 6279%); however, scores of “2” were more likely on q5 (ß = 0.592 ± 0.30, l-r x2 = 4.43, p = 0.035; probability of 2 = 81%) and less likely on q7 (ß = 0.5043 ± 0.2512, l-r x2 = 4.0464, p = 0.044; probability of 2 = 59%) compared to questions 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 8. in summary, mentors reported higher total scores than teachers (anova, f1,35 = 4.83, p = 0.035). out of 16 possible points, mean total scores reported were 13.6 (± 0.34) among mentors, and 12.5 (± 0.37) among teachers. however, ordinal logistic regression analysis revealed that distribution of scores was consistent among mentors and teachers within each question (p > 0.05), except q5, where mentors were more likely to report higher scores than teachers (ß = -0.86, p = 0.036). table 2 poster scoring insights. summarized results from teacher and faculty scoring of the posters in the research symposium. table overview: the following insights were found from analyzing rubric scoring and comments from evaluation of the research symposium posters. this summary reports insights from three of the eight rubric questions. these questions most closely address scientific communication. rubric question score # of times reported comment summary 1.) was the objective or hypothesis 2 47 clearly written. easy to identify. thorough. justified. emphasized with special text formatting. well described. understandable. 77 communicated effectively? differentiated between multiple objectives and/or personal/overall goals. 1 16 addressed indirectly or partially. present but lacking in detail/required clarification. objective(s) stated but reasoning insufficient. objective(s) stated but inconsistent with results. addressed but not well integrated/did not flow well within the text. 0 3 lack of clarity, understanding, inclusion, and/or development 2.) were the methods that supported this study clearly articulated? 2 52 clear. easy to follow. thorough. descriptive. supported by supplemental material. few or no items missing/lacking in detail. reviewers suggest some changes in format, protocol, legend, flow, citation of references, and/or description of analysis. (*note: two reported values of "1.5" are included in this summary) 1 14 present but brief, unclear, incomplete, and/or lacking in detail or reasoning. ineffective presentation. terminology not defined or clarified. quantities and/or description of materials lacked sufficient detail. 0 0 n/a 3.) were the major results or significant take home messages of the study clearly described? 2 47 clearly articulated. well explained. well communicated with figure(s) and text. sufficient detail & explanations. figure informative, legends complete. results easily understood & significance described. addressed both scientific results and personal impact. few if any questions unanswered. (*note: one reported value of "1.5" is included in this summary) 1 18 present but lacked data, support, detail, strength, and/or left questions unanswered. project incomplete, so this topic was lacking. figure(s)/table(s) helpful but significance unclear, and/or more needed. take-home was identifiable but not emphasized. not well understood. 0 0 n/a none 1 focused on challenges more than discussion of results, but basic take-home was clear. thirdly, when we analyzed the specific type of mentoring taking place through the trpp by faculty survey, we observed that guided mentoring and apprenticeship style mentoring were used. specifically, the majority of mentors reported using a guided mentoring experience (71.43%; figure 1a) wherein they gave some background information, demonstrated how to do the science first, then let the mentee progress in the experiment until a roadblock occurred. the majority of 78 mentors reported that this guided mentoring approach worked well the majority of the time (figure 1b). most faculty indicated that they planned to apply for the program again in subsequent summers (figure 1c). lastly, just under half of mentors reported that they used the same level of mentoring for teacher mentees as they did for undergraduate students, but not graduate students (42.86%). a total of 28.57% of mentors reported that they used the same mentoring strategies for their teacher mentee as they do for both undergraduate and graduate students (figure 1d). figure 1. faculty responses regarding their usual mentorship style and subsequent mentoring strategy. (a) faculty mentors were surveyed to determine the type of mentorship style they conducted with their mentee. (b) faculty mentors were surveyed to determine their perceived effectiveness of their mentorship style/methodology that was deployed. (c) faculty mentors were surveyed to determine, at this time, how many are considering applying to participate in this program again in subsequent years. (d) faculty mentors were surveyed to compare how they mentored teacher researchers as compared with undergraduate and graduate students in their laboratories. lastly, we analyzed the transcripts of post-participation focus groups of mentors and mentees as compared with that of the pre-participation focus groups. the salient findings of these transcripts are described in table 3. specifically, the insights gained across all focus group responses during the post-participation discussion included the fact that teachers found scientific research to be much more collaborative and involved than expected prior to the experience. moreover, teacher mentees gained an understanding of data collection and error considerations in great depth 79 through the experience and commented on the importance of following protocols and taking accurate measurements so that the data are reproducible. other major findings included the recognition of the sheer amount of time that scientific research takes—many participants acknowledged the fact that it’s quite difficult to adequately address an authentic research question in just 4-6 weeks. faculty mentors commonly reported gains in the confidence of their mentees and increased communication with them as they appeared to become more comfortable with the collaborative research process—often recognizing that there may not exist a “correct” answer in the research process. mentees ultimately recognized the need to strengthen scientific inquiry across the grade levels to involve youth in more authentic research experiences. table 3 provides a summary of the pre and post focus group insights from both teacher mentees and faculty mentors. table 3 focus group insights. summarized results from teacher mentee and faculty mentor focus groups. focus groups insights (teacher and faculty participants) table overview: the following insights were found from four focus groups, one with teacher mentees before and after the trpp process, and one with mentor faculty before and after the trpp process. the focus groups were done separately. the questions were slightly differently in the focus group prior to the experience. for example, “what did you learn?” on the post focus group question set was stated as “what did you expect to learn?” on the pre-focus group questions. focus group questions (post) insights gained across the four focus group responses question 1. teachers: what would you define as “scientific research”? faculty: what would you define as “scientific research”? • [teacher pre] in the pre-project responses, teachers appeared to nearly “quote” from their science texts, stating the “scientific method” steps, and “the importance of making careful observations”. • [teacher post] in the post-responses, which varied significantly from the pre-responses, teachers talked more about that the research process being “collaborative”, “contributing to deeper scientific understandings”, “depending on replication”, and “involving careful field work”. teachers also emphasized the time needed “to do research right”, “avoid errors” and “taking time to allow for reasoning of results and interpretation”. • [faculty pre and post] in contrast, the faculty mentor responses varied relatively little from their pre to post responses, and emphasized “collaboration”, “following scientific methodology and protocols”, and “ultimately answering focused questions, and solving problems”. question 2. teachers: what did you learn during this shared research experience with your faculty mentor? faculty: what do you expect that your mentee teacher will learn during this • [teacher pre] in the initial focus group, teachers generally expected to learn very generalized skills, that again seemed to be drawn somewhat from a textbook statement, such as “how to collect data”, “how to do a lab journal”, “how the scientific method is used”, and “how technology is used”. • [teacher post] in the later focus group, teacher responses were much more personalized, and included thoughts that seemed to imply a more experiential perspective, including thoughts such as “it is difficult to do viable research in a short time”, “setbacks are common but contribute to understanding”, “introspection on errors is important”, and the need to “move away from cookie cutter labs” with 80 shared research experience with you? their own students. • [faculty pre] in the initial focus group for faculty, there was an expectation that teachers would hopefully “gain confidence and deeper insights into the complexity of research”, and also eventually “better model actual research” in their classes. • [faculty post] in post focus groups, faculty mentioned that they saw both the “comfort level and communication” of their mentee teachers increase, as well as their “general interests in the research being undertaken”, and a more “careful consideration of error”. question 3. teachers: what challenges did you have during this shared research experience? faculty: what challenges did you have during this shared research experience? • [teacher pre] teachers entered the summer trpp very nervous, and mentioned that they “felt out of their league”, they were worried about “disappointing the faculty”, or perhaps making the faculty member “babysit” them during the research process. • [teacher post] post summer focus group comments from teachers suggested a much higher comfort level in pairing with faculty. challenges centered more directly on logistical considerations, such as challenges in “scheduling”, “weather”, “pictures”, and “computer skills”. • [faculty pre and post] faculty expected and noted challenges relatively consistently between pre and post focus groups including: “short time duration”, “getting the teacher up to speed”, and generally a lack of an opportunities to involve teachers in “developing the project”. shared terminology use between the faculty and teacher was also mentioned as a challenge in collaboratively conducting the research. question 4. teachers: how do you hope to have this impact your classroom instruction? faculty: how do you hope to have this impact the teacher’s classroom instruction? • [teacher pre] teachers in the initial focus group generally mentioned somewhat holistic or “big picture” impacts in their classroom in “being able to share the science experience with students”, “bringing passion to the science classroom”, and having more “credibility with students”. very little was mentioned about teacher expectations for refining the scientific process itself or the scientific process for their students. • [teacher post] in the focus group after their trpp experiences, teachers tended to more clearly discuss refining the scientific process in their classroom, including “having students read scientific articles”, using “different methodologies”, “moving away from cookie cutter labs”, and “helping students to formulate and develop good questions”. • [faculty pre and post] faculty were again relatively consistent from pre-trpp to post-trpp focus group comments. they hoped that teachers would “be able to confidently teach and guide” their students and other teachers, “provide a direct link to hands-on curriculum”, “give better laboratory experiences” and “teach from a point of view of enjoying the discipline”, as well as having a “stronger belief in inquiry” in their classrooms. question 5. (post only) teachers: how did your confidence improve through the research process? • [teachers post] this question was only asked after the trpp experiences, and teachers in the post focus group talked quite a bit about how their confidence had increased including related to: “math/stats involved in research”, “doing it myself”, “equipment handling”, “understanding professional literature”, “scientific rigor”, “preparing students for college science”, and ultimately, “teaching inquiry in a real way” with students. 81 faculty: did it seem like your mentee became more confident through the process? what evidence do you have to support that? • [faculty post] faculty agreed that teacher confidence greatly improved over the trpp summer activities. faculty mentioned that they saw confidence improve in: “presenting scientific work”, “troubleshooting”, “instrumentation”, “discussing scientific work”, “communication”. in general, they felt that the teachers became much more confident in discussing the research and “answering questions” about the research process. question 6. teachers: any final comments? faculty: any final comments? • [teacher pre] the final “round the table” comments in the teacher focus group prior to the trpp experiences showed again that the teachers were very worried about the upcoming research experiences, and that generally felt somewhat “stressful”, with nearly all comments focused on that feeling. • [teacher post] in contrast, open ended final comments by teachers after the trpp never resurfaced any comments on stress or nerves, and instead reinforced the overall contributions of the project in numerous areas, including: “being more comfortable in lab settings”, “presenting data”, “bringing in scientific literature”, “the power of collaboration in science”, “letting students know that no one is perfect”, “the need to strengthen science inquiry”, “the need to reevaluate others work”, and “having a deeper understanding of actual science”. • [faculty pre] final comments in the initial faculty focus groups before the trpp experience did not mention nerves or concerns of any kind, and instead simply mentioned that they were excited to get started. • [faculty post] faculty comments in their final open-ended period of the focus group were very positive, and mentioned that for the first trpp go around “they were really pleased”, “they really liked communicating with the mentee”, and that “talking about teaching approaches was beneficial with my mentee”. faculty also mentioned a desire to further contribute to the k12 classroom, and wondered “how do we help them get the resources to do real science?”, “keep the connection going”, and insights such as “understanding the limits of public education was eye-opening”. finally faculty reinforced in several different comments that that trpp project “has shown its value”. conclusion as described, our results show that the first year of the trpp was a successful effort that brought k-12 teachers and university scientists together for an authentic collaborative research experience. the immersive discipline specific coursework and research experiences of the trpp provide a level of professional development that would seem critical for k-12 teachers for enhancing stem pathways as described in the introduction of this article and the national reports cited. by experiencing authentic research, teachers in the trpp developed a working understanding of scientific research and the related inquiry that they did not display at the beginning of the program. most importantly, teachers in the trpp began to adapt their research project into an experience that they could replicate with students in their own classrooms. the participation in journal clubs also led to a candid, thoughtful and positive discourse commonly practiced by scientists and added to the teachers’ confidence and camaraderie within a context similar to that of a scientific community. through a guided mentoring approach, as noted in the 82 focus group comments, teachers were better able to take ownership of their project, consider the accuracy of their measurements and data, make interpretations and share results, while having the ongoing support and encouragement of a university scientist, thereby increasing their confidence in the ability to complete the research project and to lead more authentic research experiences in their own classroom. by engaging k-12 teachers in such authentic research that can be translated to their classroom, the trpp enhances stem capabilities of teachers while also providing opportunities for k-12 youth to experience stem research. evidence shows that such experiences improve understanding of science and the scientific method, including the importance of iteration and that failure can be an acceptable and at times required step in the scientific process (american association for the advancement of science, 2013). early introduction of authentic research experiences will enable students to become more interested and persistent in the educational pathways that might lead to a stem career. the program we have developed seeks to enhance the teachers’ ability to provide the most effective and realistic stem experiences to their students. while our focus is on teachers, the true test of program impact will be the success of students. the collaboration that links the unobased trpp to the ops-based comprehensive science teaching and learning project has established a basis for sustained evaluation of these interventions and their influence on student preparedness. the overall goal for both uno and ops is improvement in student success. we will provide ongoing analysis of student preparedness as part of the uno-ops collaboration. in the end, evidence that our goals have been achieved will be provided by the achievement testing conducted by statewide agencies such as the nebraska department of education and national organizations such as american college testing and ultimately the interest and success of these students going into stem educational pathways and careers. we also expect to see an increase in inquiry-based instruction in ops science classrooms as identified by the evaluation measures of the comprehensive teaching and learning grant. we fully recognize the importance of local actions to address the national imperative in the united states to provide more experiential, hands-on learning opportunities in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. stem concepts and competencies can be infused in the classroom through genuine research experiences across k-16. these inquiry-based approaches are essential for understanding how scientific research works, to build confidence in participants in stem fields, and to better understand major concepts. while this is the first year of this project and results will be more robust as the program is sustained, we are increasingly enthusiastic that this program will lead to major gains for the teachers involved in the project and the youth that the teachers serve. through projects such as the trpp, we are building a stem ecosystem amongst university faculty and k-12 that contributes to the effectiveness of the stem pathways that will hopefully lead to the increased number of stem professionals that are so critically needed by our country. 83 references alliance for science and technology research in america. (2015). nebraska’s 2015 stem report card’ u.s. innovations. retrieved from https://www.usinnovation.org/state/pdf_cvd/cvd2015nebraska.pdf. american association for the advancement of science. vision and change in undergraduate biology education: chronicling change, inspiring the future. final report of a national conference organized by aaas with support from the national science foundation. retrieved from http://visionandchange.org/chronicling-change/. american college testing. (2014). attainment of college and career readiness. retrieved from http://www.act.org/research/policymakers/cccr14/readiness.html. bureau of labor statistics. (2014). stem 101: intro to tomorrow’s jobs. retrieved from http://www.bls.gov/careeroutlook/2014/spring/art01.pdf. committee on prospering in the global economy of the 21st century. (2007). rising above the gathering storm: energizing and employing america for a brighter economic future. washington, d.c.: national academy press, pp. 1-30. national center for education statistics. (2012). program for international student assessment (pisa). retrieved from http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pisa/pisa2012/index.asp. nebraska department of education. (2013). state of the schools report. retrieved from http://www.education.ne.gov/nssrs/resources.html. university of nebraska at omaha. (2015). the uno fact book. retrieved from http://issuu.com/uno-publications/docs/0068-quick-facts-book-final2/1?e=0/10830314. https://www.usinnovation.org/state/pdf_cvd/cvd2015nebraska.pdf http://www.act.org/research/policymakers/cccr14/readiness.html http://www.bls.gov/careeroutlook/2014/spring/art01.pdf http://nces.ed.gov/surveys/pisa/pisa2012/index.asp http://www.education.ne.gov/nssrs/resources.html http://issuu.com/uno-publications/docs/0068-quick-facts-book-final2/1?e=0/10830314 84 author information: william e. tapprich, ph.d. is the sophie and feodora kahn professor of biology at the university of nebraska at omaha in the department of biology. dr. tapprich is currently the chair of the biology department as well as a virologist and discipline-based education researcher. neal f. grandgenett, ph.d. is the dr. george and sally haddix community chair of stem education at the university of nebraska at omaha in the department of teacher education. dr. grandgenett is a discipline-based education researcher with expertise in the area of statistics and the evaluation of stem learning environments. heather leas, m.s. is the grant coordinator for the teacher-researcher partnership program in the department of biology at the university of nebraska at omaha. she is also the dual enrollment coordinator in biology at uno. steve rodie, fasla, pla, is the director for the center for urban sustainability at the university of nebraska at omaha. he is a professor of biology with interests and expertise related to sustainability and sustainable resources. robert shuster, ph.d. is the chair of the department of geography/geology at the university of nebraska at omaha. dr. shuster has a specialization in geology and conducts frequent fieldbased work with his students across the united states. chris schaben, ph.d. is the science supervisor for omaha public schools. dr. schaben is a past president of the nebraska academy of sciences, and the current president of metropolitan science and engineering fair inc. christine e. cutucache, ph.d. is the haddix community chair of science and assistant professor in biology. dr. cutucache is a tumor immunologist and discipline-based education researcher. author contact information: william e. tapprich, phd. department of biology university of nebraska at omaha 6001 dodge st, ah114 omaha, ne 68182-0040 email: wtapprich@unomaha.edu telephone: 402-554-3380 fax: 402-554-2641 neal f. grandgenett, ph.d. department of teacher education university of nebraska at omaha 6001 dodge st, rh 406p omaha, ne 68182-0163 email: ngrandgenett@unomaha.edu telephone: 402-554-2690 mailto:wtapprich@unomaha.edu mailto:wtapprich@unomaha.edu 85 fax: 402-554-3881 heather leas, m.s. department of biology university of nebraska at omaha 6001 dodge st, ah114 omaha, ne 68182-0040 email: hdleas@unomaha.edu telephone: 402-554-3459 fax: 402-554-2641 steve rodie, fasla, pla department of biology university of nebraska at omaha 6001 dodge st, ah114 omaha, ne 68182-0040 email: srodie@unomaha.edu telephone: 402-554-3752 fax: 402-554-2641 robert shuster, ph.d. department of geography/geology university of nebraska at omaha 6001 dodge st., dsc 261 omaha, ne 68182-0199 email: rshuster@unoamaha.edu phone: 402-554-2663 fax: 402-554-3518 chris schaben, ph.d. department of curriculum, assessment, and instruction omaha public schools 3215 cuming street omaha, ne 68131 email: chris.schaben@ops.org phone: 402-557-2450 fax: 402-557-2222 christine e. cutucache, ph.d. department of biology university of nebraska at omaha 6001 dodge st, ah114 omaha, ne 68182-0040 email: ccutucache@unomaha.edu telephone: 402-554-2917 fax: 402-554-2641 mailto:hdleas@unomaha.edu mailto:srodie@unomaha.edu mailto:rshuster@unoamaha.edu mailto:chris.schaben@ops.org mailto:ccutucache@unomaha.edu metropolitan universities vol. 28 no. 4 (november 2017), doi: 10.18060/21780 collective impact strategies: introduction to the special issue joseph a. allen, sheridan trent, and kelly a. prange the societal and cultural issues facing humanity are far greater than any nonprofit, for-profit, university, or government agency to address adequately alone. whether poverty, water shortages, socio-economic inequality, natural disasters with lasting effects, or any number of other challenges facing our communities, organizations must band together to secure the impact needed to truly create change.increasingly, communities are turning to collective impact as an approach that brings together the collective resources of multiple institutions to address a community-identified problem or need. while a somewhat new approach, there is a growing body of evidence of supporting the effectiveness of using the collective impact approach to addressing wicked problems (bridgeland et al., 2012; christens & inzeo, 2015; kania, hanleybrown, & splansky juster, 2014). as anchor institutions, metropolitan universities have a unique opportunity and responsibility to initiate and promote social change in a way that also advances their mission. unlike other institutions for higher education, metropolitan universities are most suited for targeting social change because of the type of communities they serve and their location within large municipalities. participating in collective impact is increasingly seen as one approach to this. this issue includes case studies and practical papers to prepare metropolitan university administrators, faculty, and staff to initiate, facilitate, and strengthen collective impact initiatives in their communities. what is collective impact? collective impact initiatives address a social issue by bringing together multiple stakeholders to achieve a common goal (kania & kramer, 2015). traditionally, organizations targeting the same problem work independently from each other. this frequently results in competition for funding and resources, duplication of effort, and, at times, critical issues left unaddressed (kania & kramer, 2011). a collective impact approach seeks to align the goals, priorities, strategies and resources of the separate organizations in order to drive change simultaneously. the characteristics of collective impact were first described by kania and kramer in the stanford social innovation review in 2011. although the term collective impact is used to describe many multi-organization partnerships, the following are essential criteria to be considered a true collective impact initiative (kania, hanleybrown, & splansky juster, 2014). • a common agenda among the stakeholders is critical to both addressing the larger wicked problem. • shared measurement systems enable the stakeholders to track and assess the impact of their efforts on the shared goal. • mutually reinforcing activities are efforts that interact in a meaningful way to create something greater than in the individual actions. 4 • continuous communication refers to the steady flow of information within and across partners in the initiative along pre-defined channels via preferred communication methods. • backbone support organization is the hallmark of effective collective impact initiatives. typically, one of the organizations in the collective impact initiative, the backbone support organization often provides a facilitator, project manager, data manager, as well as provide administrative support activities for the collective, such as grant applications, marketing, meeting planning, and communications. articles in this volume the articles in this volume represent many of the thought leaders on collective impact as well as how collective impact initiatives unfold across domains, problem types, and even countries. the issue begins with an overview of collective impact and the role of urban and metropolitan universities. smith, pelco, and rooke from virginia commonwealth university describe three paradigms of university-community partnerships (e.g., community engagement, anchor institutions, and collective impact). using these frameworks, they describe a case study of the bridging richmond partnership, highlighting the role of a university in supporting higher education in the local community by supporting local students and program promoting youth seeking education. drawing on a series of interviews, raderstrong and nazaire from living cities outline effective strategies and processes for using data at each stage of a collective impact effort to guide and assess impact. the next two articles highlight the role of student development in collective impact efforts. jones, croft, and longacre from the university of houston discuss the collective impact and ecosystemic approach to address student attrition at the university of houston. similarly, trent, prange, and allen, from the industrial/organizational psychology program at the university of nebraska at omaha, describe the efforts of a university organization to achieve collective impact in order to maximize the effectiveness of the organization’s mission. specifically, students in the industrial/organizational psychology program provide free volunteer program assessments to local nonprofit organizations under the direction of faculty from the university. ways in which the program resembles a collective impact effort, as well as the ways in which it differs, are discussed. they hope to demonstrate that even when efforts are not collective impact in their entirety, great impact can still be achieved. two of the articles highlight how collective impact efforts have the potential to target business and economic challenges. szarleta, from indiana university northwest, discusses a collective impact initiative to utilize social entrepreneurship to address wicked problems, with a university taking the role of a backbone support organization. lessons learned from the initiative so far are disseminated, as well as highlighting a research agenda for future collective impact efforts with universities acting as backbone support organizations. similarly, de chiara from the university of naples "l'orientale", italy, explores collective impact as a potential solution for environmental problems that result from the competitiveness of the economy (i.e. challenges of starting and supporting local businesses). the failures of two collaborative efforts involving environmental issues in industrial districts which utilized traditional networks, including the 5 environmental crisis of the ‘the land of fires,’ and the tannery district of solafra, are presented as case studies. finally, the issue concludes with two articles that highlight that collective impact efforts can and perhaps should be used for problems that are indeed unique to a given location and community. first, gwynne, director of the poche centre for indigenous health, discusses the application of collective impact to the wicked problem (i.e., problems which are considered nearly impossible to address) of providing aboriginal people in australia with adequate healthcare. three prominent health issues, including stroke prevention, improved access to allied health, and improved oral health care, are outlined, as well as the collective impact efforts made so far to address these problems and enable a higher level of collaboration community control. second, tooker, from wagner college, documents the use of collective impact to address heroin and opiate addiction on staten island. using a collective impact approach, a partnership between wagner college and community organizations is being leveraged to reduce the instance of youth substance abuse in the surrounding area. conclusion across these articles a lessons learned emerged in terms of collective impact efforts. these include the following: • collective impact efforts are adaptable to many different problems; • collective impact efforts serve both communities and institutions of higher education; • collective impact is useful across cultures for targeting issues of social change and need; • collective impact, as a framework, is not necessarily the best way to address community problems. we believe our readers will find the articles in this special thought-provoking and meaningful. further, we anticipate our readers will identify other unique and thematically oriented takeaways beyond those listed here. hopefully the information provided here will equip and spur others to enact change in their communities. 6 references bridgeland, j., et al. (2012). roundtable on collective impact. stanford social innovation review, 10(4), 25-29. retrieved from https://ssir.org/ christens, b. d. & inzeo p. t. (2015). widening the view: situating collective impact among frameworks for community-led change. community development, 46(4), 420-435. https://doi.org/10.1080/15575330.2015.1061680 irby, m. & boyle, p. (2014). aligning collective impact initiatives. stanford social innovation review, 12(4), 15-16. retrieved from https://ssir.org/ kania, j., hanleybrown, f., & splansky juster, j. (2014). essential mindset shifts for collective impact. stanford social innovation review, 12(4), 2-5. retrieved from https://ssir.org/ kania, j., & kramer, m. (2011). collective impact. stanford social innovation review, 9(1), 3641. retrieved from https://ssir.org/ prange, k. a., allen, j. a., and reiter-palmon, r. (2016). collective impact versus collaboration: sides of the same coin or different phenomenon? metropolitan universities journal, 27(1), 86-96. https://doi.org/10.1080/15575330.2015.1061680 7 author information * joseph a. allen is an associate professor of industrial/organizational psychology at the university of nebraska at omaha. he directs the center for applied psychological services, the volunteer program assessment, the center for meeting effectiveness, and the community engagement research center at uno. he co-chaired the coalition for urban and metropolitan universities conference in 2015, guest edited the conference issue that year, and recently served as the program chair for the engagement scholarship consortium conference in 2016. his consulting work includes more than 300 nonprofit and for-profit organizations, with particular emphasis on identifying and recruiting employees and volunteers. his scholarly works include more than 100 total publications in peer review journals, book chapters, and books. he also the editor of a forthcoming volume entitled, the cambridge handbook of organizational community engagement and outreach. joseph a. allen department of psychology university of nebraska at omaha 6001 dodge st. omaha, ne 68182 e-mail: josephallen@unomaha.edu telephone: 402-554-6017 fax: 402-554-2556 sheridan b. trent is a doctoral student at the university of nebraska at omaha, studying industrial/organizational psychology. her research interests include nonprofit management, community engagement, and volunteerism. she is also the assistant director for research at the volunteer program assessment at uno. kelly a. prange department of psychology university of nebraska at omaha 6001 dodge st. omaha, ne 68182 e-mail: kprange@unomaha.edu telephone: 402-540-1876 fax: 402-554-2556 kelly a. prange is a doctoral student studying industrial/organizational psychology at the university of nebraska at omaha. she is pursuing research interests within the realms of collective impact, social responsibility, and community engagement. she is also the assistant director of operation at the volunteer program assessment at uno and published her work in the metropolitan universities journal concerning collective impact. sheridan b. trent department of psychology university of nebraska at omaha mailto:awilmarth@miskatonic.edu mailto:awilmarth@miskatonic.edu 8 6001 dodge st. omaha, ne 68182 e-mail: strent@unomaha.edu telephone: 402-949-0227 fax: 402-554-2556 *corresponding author mailto:strent@unomaha.edu e-mail: 32tjosephallen@unomaha.edu32t e-mail: 32tkprange@unomaha.edu32t telephone: 402-540-1876 e-mail: 32tstrent@unomaha.edu32t telephone: 402-949-0227 metropolitan universities vol. 28 no. 2 (spring 2017), doi: 10.18060/21511 teaching baltimore together: building thematic cooperation between classes samuel gerald collins, matthew durington, and nicole fabricant abstract one year ago, baltimore citizens took to the streets to protest not only the death of freddie grey, but the structural inequalities and structural violence that systematically limit the opportunities for working-class african americans in baltimore. the protests, though, were not just confined to baltimore city. borne on sophisticated understandings of intersectionality and political economy, the moral imperatives from the baltimore uprising resonated with students at our university in baltimore county, where campus activists moved to both support the people of baltimore while using the moment of critical reflection to critique racial inequalities on campus. since students were displaying a holistic, anthropological understanding of race and inequality in baltimore, we decided to structure our classes accordingly and brought together several courses in the department of sociology, anthropology and criminal justice in order to examine the interrelationships between power, race, class, public space and urban development. we taught common texts, visited each other’s classes, and planned events that brought students together with community leaders in baltimore to discuss common concerns and to learn from each other. this paper reports on that experiment and suggests that a pedagogical model premised on drawing thematic linkages between existing courses is one way to address current events that impact us all while allowing students to direct the course of their own education. keywords baltimore uprising; community activism; campus activism; urban anthropology introduction as more and more universities have institutionalized civic engagement into their organizational structure, curricula and student experience, opportunities for partnership between universities and surrounding communities have likewise multiplied. in particular, urban colleges and universities have led the field in initiating programs in multiple sites across u.s. cities. of course, for many of us, these partnerships are not new and may be discipline-specific, although the institutional recognition of our community work as intrinsic to the mission of the university has been welcome. in particular, urban colleges and universities have led the way in emphasizing these linkages between their programs and numerous efforts underway throughout urban neighborhoods (brown-fraser et al., 2015; watson-thompson, 2015; talmage et al, 2015). however, the other side of the civic engagement equation—one where the community precipitates changes in the university—has been less explored. in other words, while we celebrate the many ways universities have been able to “do good” in their communities, alternative possibilities that create change on the campus itself are also possible--and even desirable. after all, civic engagement develops the desire and the capacity of our students to 91 intervene in their own communities, and their most immediate communities include our campuses. this possibility allows a space for a true reciprocity between the university and the community it wishes to serve. this case study describes our efforts, as three anthropologists at a state university just outside of baltimore, to develop community programs that explore community groups as change agents for our campus through an emphasis on connecting community activism with campus activism and with progressive initiatives from campus administration. the baltimore uprising home to numerous colleges and universities, baltimore is simultaneously the site of hundreds of college-led civic engagement projects from community gardening to mural-painting. so much so that many of the private, smaller universities in the baltimore region dedicate entire days to civic engagement where the student body en masse leaves the confines of the campus to go out into various communities. this often relies on scalability and institutionally based community engagement projects such as the united way project homeless connect where the goal is to serve thousands of citizens in one day through a resource fair with an equal number of volunteers to assist them. while these large-scale community engagement projects are commendable and provide students with a day of service, they are still unidirectional. it is the university via an institution acting upon the community providing a limited exposure to community issues. at the same time, numerous npos and ngos in baltimore work with diverse communities in the city on a range of issues. many of these organizations are smaller and provide the opportunity for longer and sustained research based community engagement possibilities for both faculty and students. one is not necessarily valued over the other, they just provide different ways to create a conduit between the community and the university. our argument is the latter provides more possibilities for the community to influence the type of engagement that occurs. that is, working with community activists with already active in their respective communities provides universities with pedagogically rich opportunities for engagement. on the other hand, going this route surrenders the terms of that engagement to community groups themselves. the community decides the type and means of university community engagement. in anthropology, this is what we strive for in collaboration; though interrogating power inequalities between university and communities, we invite interventions that gesture to alternative visions of community partnership. the baltimore uprising—that is, the protests, demonstrations and police actions surrounding the death of freddie gray—was a pivotal event for the city. it was also pivotal for our university. some area colleges sought to distance themselves from the unrest in baltimore, emphasizing their geographical (and social) distance from the demonstrations. as a suburban university just 1.6 miles from the border of the baltimore city, we were not “in” the demonstrations. but at the same time, our university was very much part of it, as an institution that had both historically contributed to the some of the structural problems that led to the uprising (e.g., hypersegregation) as well as a comprehensive, state university with deep ties to baltimore and to students who call baltimore home. for most of us, what was happening in baltimore was directly relevant to what we were doing. 92 in response to the uprising, faculty organized moderated conversations, teach-ins and other efforts to contextualize the baltimore uprising for the campus community. as they had for other world-changing events, faculty at our university sought to understand and to support both our students and the communities where we work through available channels of teaching and scholarship. while this put us one step closer to our students, particularly through a focus on social media, we realized that we also needed to recognize how students were connecting directly to the community and various social issues while circumventing the university structure. while social media allows the more nuanced and unfiltered access to social movements by faculty, it also provides a more direct channel of communication between students and activism. other groups on the towson university campus made these direct connections between the struggles in baltimore and the campus. as the assemblage of activists organizing under the networked tag “#blacklivesmatter” took to the streets of baltimore and many other cities around the world, students who had been organizing for change on campuses began to connect their own struggles to urban justice movements. that is, activism in cities across the united states not only inspired their support and participation, but it also stimulated a critical interrogation of the university as a site for both the reproduction of the status quo and an opportunity for resistance against that inequality. through the fall semester of 2015, campus protests and occupations proliferated, accompanied by renewed demands for reform at every level of the university, from administration to the structure of promotion and tenure, to student life and campus policing (white, 2016). on our campus, students occupied the president’s office for 8 hours before reviewing their demands,line by line,with our university’s acting president (campbell, 2015). in the end, they were recognized as one of the ‘persons of the year’ by time magazine (wood, 2015). we viewed this negotiation between the administration and our students as a truly amazing moment of progressive engagement on our campus, and one where campus activists, faculty, staff and administration all seemed to speaking the same language. the 13 demands our students presented are themselves indicative of the differences between this protest and other forms of student organizing. while much of the student activism over the last 20 years has been focused on specific interventions in the academy (e.g., introducing new curricula), the #occupytowson demands span the entirety of the university; they amount to nothing less than a wholesale interrogation of the university’s infrastructure, its governance, its raison-d’etre (lemonik arthur 2010). but more than this, the list connects issues of race, class and gender with urban struggles against oppression. in many ways, these activists are doing what we have advocated in our anthropology classes,i.e., moving between local and global issues across multiple contexts by resisting the compartmentalization of experience in silos of disciplinarity for a more holistic—and more critical—understanding (turner 2016). whereas some university administrators balked at student-led social movements and demands , leading to problematic consequences, towson university has received accolades for adopting a more progressive approach that finds students, faculty and administrators continuing to work productively together (chasmar, 2015). as of the spring of 2016, attentiveness continues to be directed at the list of demands created the previous year through a week-to-week analysis of the student newspaper on campus. in other words, the issue is not disappearing with graduating students. there is real momentum toward change. this is especially important for universities in urban metropolitan locales like baltimore, where the legacies of the social unrest from 2015 have yet to be resolved. 93 what people in baltimore were demanding--and what students connected with those demands in their own campus activism were asking as well--was something more like a “right to the city,” i.e., to live in a city that allows them to develop human and community potentials without pernicious raceand class-based inequalities. indeed, a year after the baltimore uprising, activists were still confronting the city’s systematic, structural inequalities. and while there are numerous,pressing injustices to be addressed, one of the most challenging questions we could ask people in power is simply that: where is the “right to the city” for the majority of baltimore’s residents? this does not mean the right to buy and consume in baltimore’s tourism spaces. instead, it is about heretofore marginalized peoples “fighting for the kind of development that meets their needs and desires” (harvey, 2013: xvi). and not just in the short term. as henri lefebvre wrote in the shadow of the paris commune, “to the extent that the contours of the future city can be outlined, it could be defined by imagining the reversal of the current situation, by pushing to its limits the converted image of the world upside down” (lefebvre, 1996 [1967]: 172). it is about imagining radical alternatives to the city, and, potentially, to the structure of the university. the intent is to re-forge it, in robert park’s words, into “the heart’s desire” for ordinary citizens, rather than for a handful of the wealthy and privileged. similarly, is it possible for the university to be refashioned by students and communities expressing the same desires? this is the challenge for universities and, particularly for universities in baltimore in the wake of the baltimore uprising. it is also a challenge for anthropology (our home discipline). despite the growth of a public anthropology, the field still often divides into a theoretical concern with power and politics, on the one hand, and an applied anthropology that packages its portmanteau methods for sale, on the other. in public anthropology, critical interventions are oftentimes uncomfortably grafted onto traditional, descriptive research, a sometimes grudging admission that anthropology may contribute to the public weal. but how do we forge a pedagogy that not only invites students to reflect on these issues, but that also demands that they acknowledge the work already being accomplished by community groups? the plan when we began discussions in the fall of 2015 about courses in the spring of 2016, the baltimore uprising and the #occupytowson movement were foremost on our minds. students who had not been active in either movement were struggling to make sense of the changing landscape, and we were eager to address their concerns in our classes. but how? on the one hand, we were loath to “co-opt” either of these social movements by representing them as something that our university (as an institution) had initiated; nor did we want to take anything away from the struggle and sacrifice of community leaders and activists. on the other hand, we could see in the political and social unrest real opportunities to link together people we’ve worked with over the years in baltimore with our university. we were trying to avoid the usurping of the political and social moment by the institution as it so often occurs. rather, we sought to speak alongside and not for or with our community collaborators. in fact, it suggested a moment when our university’s metropolitan orientations seemed to align perfectly with urban issues in baltimore--and it did so through the medium of our own students, who, mostly without our help, had recognized their own struggles in those of baltimore communities. at the outset, then, we were taking cues from 94 our students, who were making their own connections between university and city, between disciplines, between administration and faculty and, finally, between theory and practice. the process was undertaken by the authors to unite syllabi, their courses and themselves throughout the academic year of 2015-2016 to address these issues. it would see students sharing ideas and research projects, faculty visiting and team-teaching their courses and the development of experiential opportunities connected to curriculum. we retooled our courses to incorporate common readings (david harvey’s right to the city), and brainstormed about common activities that could unite three courses at a profound level. we didn’t want our classes to simply cooperate together for a single event. this was to be a more profound collaboration on several levels. not only were the courses complementary (a theory course, an urban anthropology course and a design anthropology course), but many of the same students were enrolled in each. all of these efforts were coupled with direct support from the university administration and student services to assist these efforts. and, after consulting with our office for student diversity, we decided upon the idea of a tour. but not without many reservations. for one thing, the idea of a “tour” of baltimore’s struggles is fraught with connotations of urban flaneurs and adventure tourism, and we did not want to add one more one-sided representation of baltimore as the city of “the wire” and “the corner.” instead, we envisioned something along the lines of our previous collaborations with community groups in different parts of baltimore (collins & durington, 2014). not, in other words, so much a “tour” as a series of pedagogical encounters with people, place and practice. and, since we were positioning community groups in baltimore as “teachers,” we worked with our university to provide compensation for people’s time, a practice that may raise ethical questions in research, but one that recognizes that people in our communities are our peers and, in the context of our work, deserve to be compensated as the professional they are. in our past experiences with our national science foundation research experience for undergraduates project ‘anthropology by the wire’ (http://anthropologybythewire.com/), we witnessed the empowerment that occurs when community members are put into the role of ‘educating’ college students on their daily lives and larger structural issues. since the tour was to take place early in the semester, we had to organize it before students had arrived on campus. drawing from our collaborative partners from our previous work in baltimore, we engaged different community groups, including members of an anarchist collective coffee shop, students involved in protesting a planned incinerator in their neighborhood, an activist fighting gentrification led by another university in east baltimore, and a housing activist fighting for fair trials for renters in the city. each stop saw students pile off the bus after being challenged by our colleagues on the bus during their travels. while it was unavoidable to create the spectacle of an obvious student group entering a community, particularly when you are standing outside of rent court in baltimore city, hindering traffic, it created a space of opportunity simultaneously. we were in the public, and the public responded in turn through curiosity and often joined in on the conversation. we also decided to have a debriefing session after the tour that could help students to take what they’d witnessed in baltimore and generate ideas for projects both in baltimore and on their own http://anthropologybythewire.com/ 95 campus. but since we were exposing students to the ways community groups can help create more democratic and more collaborative decision-making in urban development, we wanted to model those collaborative processes by challenging our students to plan the de-briefing panel. we only provided the venue: an open event space in an old church that was operated by a cooperative. over the first two months of the spring 2016 semester, students debated what they wanted to accomplish, whom to invite, and the format a discussion could take. how would they accomplish this formidable task, setting an agenda for not only their own work in the community, but for the university to pursue as it explores its responsibilities to baltimore? students ultimately decided on a range of community and campus organizers they thought would generate critical dialogue capable of interrogating the artificial separation of our university from the city around it. these included the leader of a community art center in west baltimore, high school students who had worked to defeat an incinerator in their south baltimore, a long-time member of a farming collective from north baltimore, and one of the student leaders who had led her colleagues in the #occupytowson movement on campus. they opted for brief introductions from all of the panelists, followed by question and answer with accompanying discussion. over february and march, they debated the format for the panel discussion, went back and forth with the participants they’d invited, and prepared flyers, posters and blog posts advertising the discussion. the courses as noted, there was a concerted effort by the authors to imbue their courses with similar materials and a curricular orientation that would allow students to create research based community engagement and imagine a number of different projects. students were given the opportunity to blend writing assignments in the three different courses, collaborate across courses on projects and design materials together. while this took an extra amount of work on the part of the faculty, once the students recognized that their professors were stepping up to create these possibilities, they responded with zeal. and, through the shared reading on the right to the city (harvey, 2013) they were able to apply this central concept to their various endeavors. the first course, anthropological theory, is a writing intensive capstone course for anthropology majors. students utilized the thematic for the semester to develop a theoretical orientation to applied urban anthropological research. for the design anthropology course elements of publicity were created by students with a thoughtfulness toward reaching not only the larger student body, but also citizens in baltimore. students were also given the opportunity to literally ‘design’ an urban-based research project. finally, our urban anthropology course ‘life in the city’ provided students with a comprehensive survey of literature in the field that they could then apply for review and application to their research projects. evaluations for all three courses demonstrated the impact the thematic had on students. additionally, we as faculty have imagined new possibilities for curriculum in our concentration while students have a more enhanced idea of how their various courses in anthropology inform one another. the tour 96 we had worried for weeks about buses. tour buses, we believed, were exactly the wrong image we wanted to project. of course, we were tourists of a sort, but “tourism” implies an inequality and a level of commodification that represented the exact antithesis of what we wanted to do. luckily, though, our center for student diversity had contracted out school buses for us instead, and we proceeded to baltimore neighborhoods as students. after all, we were there to learn from community activists. the tour would not have the university emblazoned vehicle descending on the community signaling voyeurism and a tour led by an outsider. rather, two old yellow school buses, the universal sign of a set of individuals journeying to a destination of learning, would take students to the city with two community activists outside of the university leading the way and challenging everyone throughout the entire journey. the first stop was at baltimore’s federal hill, a park overlooking the inner harbor, the model of baltimore post-industrial development policies and simultaneously the source of its growing inequality between, for example, highly-paid labor in finance, medicine and education and service workers unable to earn a living wage. it is also the site of one of the most informative urban musings on the city of baltimore from david harvey, a view from federal hill, that we utilized in our courses as a precursor to discussions of the right to the city (harvey, 2013). after that, we moved to curtis bay, a neighborhood in the middle of baltimore’s industrial hub, and one subject to severe, environmental pollution. despite this, free your voice, a group of mostly high school students living in the neighborhood, continue to fight for positive changes in the neighborhood, including efforts to reduce pollutants. from there, we continued into downtown baltimore, where we met with the right to housing alliance, a group that lobbies for fair housing in the city and assists residents in their efforts to fight unfair housing practices. after that, we moved up the road into east baltimore, where marisela gomez, a local activist in housing and public health, outlined the course of ruinous development policies in east baltimore, and the efforts of people and groups in the community to ameliorate those inequalities (gomez, 2013). finally, the group finished the tour at red emma’s, a coffeehouse cooperative that anchors the artist community in south charles village, where members of the red emma’s collective addressed alternatives to top-down development and gentrification. feedback students produced field notes on various platforms in the wake of the tour. their comments suggest the complexity of both the events they planned and student reactions. most noted the heterogeneity of community activists and projects. some, students pointed out, actively resisted a status quo defined by baltimore’s developmental imperatives, while others partnered with government in order to affect change. and yet, there were also threads of continuity. all of the groups worked to ameliorate problems experienced by baltimore residents in the wake of shifts in political economy and demographics over the past 50 years. all of the groups, whether working to stem runaway development or stop an incinerator from polluting an already distressed neighborhood, called into question baltimore's development strategies, specifically the “eds and meds” style of development embraced by many post-industrial cities in the united states. given the extent of disenfranchisement in many of the neighborhoods students visited, 97 they wondered about the possibility of resisting the “city-as-growth” machine, especially for people without access to both social and material capital (logan & molotch, 1987). students produced field notes on various platforms in the wake of the tour. these suggest the complexity of both the events they planned and student reactions. these questions shaped the follow-up panel discussion after the tour. this panel was strategically located off-campus to both bring our students further out of the university confines and meet our interlocutors in their own city. a number of questions guided this public presentation and panel. what does it mean to “really” collaborate with community partners? can college students be allies to grassroots community activism without co-opting a struggle for their own self-aggrandizement? in other words, can students facilitate the right to the city? how? and what about the problems of race, inequality and intolerance on our own campus? the questions students took with them into the panel discussion were ones that directly sought to bridge the activism they’d seen on their tour with their own commitments to social change and their postgraduate plans. it was strategic that students develop these questions prior to the event so that they were well thought out and related directly to their research projects in individual courses, and they vetted their questions with us and with the class. the pivotal moment of the evening was with one of their colleagues at the university. an activist and student named bilphena yahwon had been part of #occupytowson and urged attendees to both understand “intersectionality and oppression on different levels” and to “make academics accessible and relatable to people and communities” (yahwon 2016). her message: be an ally to these urban, social movements by working to support the activists on your own campus. and, if you have friends that are unaware of issues around race, class and what is happening in baltimore, educate them first as an ally. while we would like to think we garner respect from our students in our classrooms, we know that hearing from one of their colleagues and witnessing her concerted efforts to unite her studies, activism and identity was highly impactful. by far, this moment, where the students heard from their own, provided the epiphany where they were able to realize that they too could embody and enhance the activism they were witnessing all around them both in the city and on campus. outcomes we have documented student-level, program-level and university-level outcomes from our program. the most striking outcomes have been with our students, who have modeled the work of community activists within the scope of their own activism and career aspirations. we have witnessed students engage activism on campus and in the city as well as developing thesis and independent study projects ranging from analyses of lead-paint poisoning in baltimore to engaged work with local high school students on other issues of environmental justice. simultaneously, we were fortunate enough to have an editor for the student newspaper as one of our majors who also wrote an article after the tour to highlight what students were able to garner from the experience. students from the collective courses have also gone on to create a student activist group (that emphasizes the linking of allies to the #occupytowson and #blacklivesmatter groups on campus) called w.a.r.s. (white allies for radical solidarity). this latter development provides a space of pragmatic solidarity and diversity to be enhanced 98 among student groups interested in these topics and combining their research endeavors with activism. we have taken lessons learned from the thematic to create a renewed emphasis on curricular reform that focuses on topics of race and the urban for towson university’s ‘metropolitan’ core category. faculty have also become involved with a larger faculty/student/staff/administration group on campus formed around social justice initiatives broadly. this social justice “collective” has allowed us to plan larger initiatives, including a planned cooperative project around environmental justice (see below) that will span the university. the collective has also allowed us to begin to formulate larger, curricular transformations that build in engagements with community activists to the courses we offer our students. on the community side, the project has generated considerable good will with concrete consequences. universities in baltimore have (fairly or not) often been accused of swooping down on neighborhoods for abbreviated “performances” of civic engagement without followthrough: photos may appear on websites and in alumni magazines, but projects are not sustained, and relationships may rarely outlast the tenure of the staff in charge of civic engagement initiatives. but our approach is much more humble: we come to learn and to support the work communities are already doing. we have sustained our involvement in communities through additional programs, through grant writing and through supporting young people in communities through the college application process. we believe that initiatives like this build a different image of our university as a place where people try to help each other learn rather than a place where learning is dispensed. finally, we have been quite pleased to see university administrators formulate high-level goals, which are usually expressed as outcomes of programs that are either still in process or, more frequently, that have not yet been implemented. all entities are making a concerted effort to meet our students where they are and also guide them toward an orientation that sees the community driving and influencing the types of engagement that occurs from the university writ large. they have been generous with funding for next year, and have, moreover, worked towards structuring more permanent relationships with community activists through a variety of mous (memoranda of understanding). the next project in the wake of last year’s successes, we met over the summer with staff and administration to plan for this year. during spring of 2017, we will again tie together different courses around common themes, experiences and engagements with baltimore communities and activists, this time around the theme of environmental justice. with even more support from staff and administration, we are expanding to 10 faculty across 7 departments including the arts, sciences, health and the liberal arts. in order to accommodate larger numbers of students and their different schedules, we will have 3 tours spread out over 2 weeks, with a large briefing session before and a series of de-briefs afterwards. this will be the largest effort at our university (that we know of) to bring together students, faculty and staff around a common civic engagement theme. 99 whatever happens, we will strive to sustain this student and faculty-driven engagement at our university, cognizant that it will no doubt change with shifts in staff and institutional priority. conclusion this thematic experiment also provides us an opportunity to reflect on the notion of engagement by our university (and what model may be best for other universities) to create these opportunities for students, faculty and those they desire to work with collaboratively. like many of the institutions that subscribe to this journal, towson university is a member of the coalition of metropolitan and urban universities. also, like many institutions near or in urban spaces nationally, towson university underwent the carnegie classification process several years ago to be classified as a ‘metropolitan university’. the metropolitan university has since been eliminated from the carnegie classification model and an ‘elective community engagement classification’ has been created. towson university is currently one of the institutions that has gone through the process to be classified in this fashion as of 2015. in following the guidelines for this classification strata, towson has made a commitment to fulfill the following mandate: “community engagement describes collaboration between institutions of higher education and their larger communities (local, regional/state, national, global) for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity. the purpose of community engagement is the partnership of college and university knowledge and resources with those of the public and private sectors to enrich scholarship, research, and creative activity; enhance curriculum, teaching and learning; prepare educated, engaged citizens; strengthen democratic values and civic responsibility; address critical societal issues; and contribute to the public good.” (http://nerche.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=341&itemid=618) while towson has a strong civic engagement and student volunteer mechanism, the university is continually striving to model curriculum that fulfills the entirety of this mandate, particularly in the attempt to connect ‘research’ and ‘civic’ responsibility. the model that has been developed in this thematic experiment links faculty research, scholarship, curriculum and civic responsibility. what it also offers is a means to ‘address critical societal issues’ in a timely manner, while simultaneously creating a process for all of these factors to be driven by the community and students, more so than faculty. this reversal of the traditional process creates a different mode of agency where the guiding force is the community and students more so than the faculty and university. this provides an opening for a more enhanced mode of research based community engagement that might provide a space for volunteerism and civic engagement but goes much further. it demonstrates that there is also a space for much-needed advocacy on the part of the university, to stand alongside our community collaborators in a space of empathy that confronts dynamics of power. we believe this is a model for a reversal of the usual process of civic and community partnership. we offer the following guidelines for the possible implementation of similar projects amongst our colleagues: 100 1. we need to emphasize that the city and the university are intimately inter-related, that what happens in cities is simultaneously happening on your university, and that what we do on campus can—and should—address the problems of the urban milieu. 2. faculty bear the responsibility of linking together the agendas of our institution with those of our students. sometimes these agendas can diverge, but sometimes faculty can help to facilitate agreement. 3. faculty also need to step outside of their departments to enjoin not only other faculty, but staff and administration. doing so means inevitable shifts in the tenor of the original program, but also means that this will be a university effort with a strong interdisciplinary orientation. 4. networking between communities and universities can generate powerful educational experiences that can act as both opportunities and models for student involvement. 5. learning is more powerful when it’s compounded across both courses and the college experience. students learn by through integrated systems of practice. acknowledgements these curricular experiments were supported at every level of our university, but we would like to give special thanks to towson university’s center for student diversity, the office of the provost, the office of student engagement, the college of liberal arts and the department of sociology, anthropology and criminal justice. thanks also to our community partners in baltimore, and to towson university marketing and communications for documenting our journey in photographs. references campbell, c. (2015). towson u. president signs students’ demands after 8-hour protest in his office. baltimore sun 11/19/2015. retrieved from http://www.baltimoresun.com chasmar, j. (2015). towson university president signs black students’ demands after an 8-hour protest in his office. washington post. retrieved from http://www.washingtontimes.com collins, s.g. & durington, m.s. (2014). networked anthropology. new york, ny: routledge. gomez, m. b. (2013). race, class, power, and organizing in east baltimore. lanham, md: lexington books. harvey, d. (2013). rebel cities. new york, ny: verso. lefebvre, h. (1996[1967]). writings on cities. cambridge, ma: wiley-blackwell. leminik arthur, m. (2010). student activism and curricular change in higher education. burlington, vt: ashgate. http://www.baltimoresun.com/ 101 logan, j. &. molotch h. l. (1987). urban fortunes. berkeley, ca: university of california press. talmage, c., dombrowski, r., pstross, m., peterson, c. b. and knopf, r.c. (2015). discovering diversity downtown: questioning phoenix. metropolitan universities 26(1): 113-146. retrieved from https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/muj/article/view/20991 turner, d. (2016). how black students are saving higher education. journal of critical scholarship on higher education and student affairs 2(3), 6-7. watson-thompson, j. (2015). exploring community-engaged scholarship as an intervention to change and improve communities. metropolitan universities 26(1), 11-34. retrieved from https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/muj/article/view/20986 white, k. (2016). black lives on campus matter. soundings 63, 86-97. https://doi.org/10.3898/136266216819377002 wood, pamela (2015). towson activists, photographer devin allen honored in time magazine ‘person of the year’ issue” retrieved from http://www.baltimoresun.com. yahwon, bilphena (2016). remarks delivered at “shaping the city: diverse perspectives on the right to the city,” april 1, 2016. baltimore, maryland. https://doi.org/10.3898/136266216819377002 102 author information samuel gerald collins is an anthropologist at towson university in baltimore, maryland. his present work examines the urban as the confluence of people and social media, and looks to intervene in strengthening the ability of communities in cities to represent themselves. he is the author of all tomorrow’s culture: anthropological engagements with the future (2008), library of walls (2009) and, along with co-author matthew durington, networked anthropology (2014). samuel gerald collins dept. of sociology, anthropology and criminal justice towson university towson, md 21252 email: scollins@towson.edu telephone: 410-704-3199 matthew durington is professor of anthropology at towson university. he is the co-author of networked anthropology (routledge 2014) with samuel collins. his current ethnographic research focuses on housing, race and media methodologies in baltimore and southern africa. matthew durington dept. of sociology, anthropology and criminal justice director of international studies towson university towson, md 21252 email: mdurington@towson.edu telephone: 410-704-5256 nicole fabricant is an associate professor of anthropology at towson university. she is the author of mobilizing bolivia’s displaced: indigenous politics and the struggle over land (unc press 2012) and co-editor of remapping bolivia: resources, territory, and indigeneity in a plurinational state (school for advanced research global indigenous politics series 2011). her current ethnographic work focuses on the history of toxicity in curtis bay, maryland and youth movements fighting for environmental justice. nicole fabricant associate professor of anthropology towson university 8000 york road towson, md 21252 liberal arts building 3355 email: nfabricant@towson.edu telephone: 410-704-5221 www.nicolefabricant.com mailto:scollins@towson.edu mailto:mdurington@towson.edu mailto:nfabricant@towson.edu metropolitan universities vol. 28 no. 4 (november 2017), doi: 10.18060/21740 applying collective impact to wicked problems in aboriginal health kylie gwynne, annette cairnduff abstract aboriginal people fare worse than other australians in every measure of health, including in a ten-year gap in life expectancy, infant mortality, cardiovascular disease, dental disease, mental health, chronic disease and maternal health. despite sustained government effort, progress to improve aboriginal health has been very slow. the collective impact tool may offer a solution. this paper provides examples of the application of collective impact, to address the significant gap in aboriginal health and as a tool to enable community control. three case studies in aboriginal health demonstrate the stages and phases of collective impact to facilitate positive change. keywords: aboriginal health; collective impact; wicked problems; indigenous; cardiovascular disease; allied health; oral health introduction wicked problems are those that appear impossible to solve. they are complex, long-standing, seemingly intractable, and there are divergent opinions about the ways to address them (head, 2008; rittel and webber, 1973). wicked problems do not occur in a vacuum. they are enmeshed in wider social, cultural and political issues (head, 2008; rittel & webber, 1973; periyakoil, 2007; raisio, 2009). typically, governments and other organizations attempt to fix wicked problems through a particular lens or focus (such as housing, education or health) when, for real and lasting impact, these problems need multidimensional, dynamic and sustained solutions (head, 2008; rittel & webber, 1973; periyakoil, 2007). aboriginal and/or torres strait islander peoples (hereafter aboriginal) are the indigenous people of australia and comprise approximately 3% of the australian population. like indigenous peoples globally, aboriginal people bear an unacceptably high burden of disease (commonwealth of australia, 2016a; commonwealth of australia, 2011; holland, 2016; scrgsp, 2014). successive governments since the colonization of australia in 1788 have developed and implemented strategies and policies related to aboriginal peoples (australian law reform commission, 1986; commonwealth of australia, 2009; thorpe et al., 2016). these included removing aboriginal children from their families, disconnecting people from their land and culture and not recognizing aboriginal people in the census until 1967, which have led to significant inter-generational trauma and subsequent disadvantage faced by many aboriginal people today (australian law reform commission, 1986; commonwealth of australia, 2009). the disparity in health outcomes for aboriginal people results in a ten-year life expectancy gap between aboriginal people and other australians (commonwealth of australia, 2016a). australian governments agreed in 2008 to a long term initiative to close the gap in life 116 expectancy for aboriginal australians by 2030 (commonwealth of australia, 2016a; holland, 2016; marmot, 2008). this program, known as closing the gap, has specific health targets of infant mortality and life expectancy, as well as targets for social determinants of health such as education and employment (commonwealth of australia, 2016a; holland, 2016). closing the gap is monitored by the council of australian governments (coag) where the heads of each state/territory government and the prime minister meet to address matters of national importance (commonwealth of australia, 2016a). the closing the gap targets are: • halve the gap in mortality rates for indigenous children under five within a decade; • ensure all indigenous four years-olds in remote communities have access to early childhood education within five years; • halve the gap for indigenous students in reading, writing and numeracy within a decade; • halve the gap for indigenous students in year 12 attainment or equivalent attainment rates by 2020; and • halve the gap in employment outcomes between indigenous and non-indigenous australians within a decade (commonwealth of australia, 2016a; holland, 2016). despite bi-partisan support, funding, policy and national reporting, progress in closing the gap in health outcomes has been very slow. indeed, the only area where population parity has been reached is in the employment of university graduates (li et al, 2016). infant mortality remains almost double the rate of the wider australian population and employment at 47.5% compared with other australians at 72.1% (commmonwealth of australia, 2016a). in 2013, the australian government combined all aboriginal-related funding in a new indigenous advancement strategy with five areas of focus: jobs, land and economy; children and schooling; safety and wellbeing; culture and capability; and remote australia strategies (commonwealth of australia, 2014). this funding, the majority of which was already being used for aboriginal-related projects across the country, was subject to a tender process (i.e., one where organizations were invited to submit proposals for funding which were assessed against published criteria and successful tender proposals were awarded funding under the indigenous advancement strategy) which led to significant changes in the purpose and allocation of funding and in practice, program closures and development of new programs (commonwealth of australia, 2016b). despite these significant and sustained government action, the poor health outcomes of aboriginal peoples meet the definition of a wicked problem. it is wicked because it is seemingly intractable, long standing and complex, with no single solution. roberts (2000), describes three strategies to tackle wicked problems: authoritative; competitive and collaborative (roberts, 2000). authoritative solutions are prescribed by a small number of people who hold decisionmaking authority. competitive solutions are those where organizations compete with each other for limited resources by pitching their solution. collaborative solutions require stakeholder engagement in defining the problems and the solutions. initially, the australian government appears to have utilized what roberts would define as authoritative approaches by placing the solutions in the hands of a few senior government officials through coag and closing the gap. more recently, the government has used a competitive approach through the indigenous advancement strategy. the approach we adopted was collaborative and we selected collective 117 impact because of the consensus approach which aligns well with the decision-making approaches of australian aboriginal communities. rittel asserts that solutions to wicked problems need collaborative approaches that engage stakeholders in the planning processes (rittel & webber, 1973). collaborative approaches to aboriginal health have developed over time with an emphasis on community engagement and consultation. collective impact is more than collaboration, it provides a framework for bringing multiple parties together to define the problem and its complexities and priority, and to jointly develop, implement and evaluate multifaceted solutions (aragón & garcia, 2015; banyai & fleming, 2016; bryan et al., 2015; gillam et al., 2016; kania & kramer, 2014; kania & kramer, 2011). hanleybrown et al. (2012) identified three preconditions for selecting collective impact as the tool to address a complex problem: (a) strong and influential champions; (b) urgent issue requiring sustained response; (c) understanding of why existing solutions are not effective (hanleybrown et al, 2012). aboriginal health meets each of these criteria: (a) aboriginal leaders and elders are strong and influential champions for their communities, (b) aboriginal health is an urgent problem, and (c) we understand why the existing solutions in aboriginal health are not working (marmot et al., 2008). once the preconditions for selection of collective impact as a tool have been met, collective impact projects have three phases of implementation identified by hanleybrown et al. in 2012. the three phases of implementation of collective impact are demonstrated in this paper through three case studies, each at a different phase of implementation: (a) phase 1 initiating action, as applied in aboriginal cardiovascular disease; (b) phase 2 organizing for action, as applied in improving access to allied health services; and (c) phase 3 sustaining action and impact, as applied in oral health (hanleybrown et al., 2012). within each phase, the five stages of collective impact are utilized. there is a considerable body of evidence that the mainstream health system is ineffective for aboriginal people (bar-zeev et al., 2014; kildea et al., 2012; steenkamp et al., 2012) and that health services intended for aboriginal people must be tailored in order to achieve sustained and measurable health improvements. yet health care systems across australia continue to offer usual health care to aboriginal people (bar-zeev et al., 2012; gao et al., 2014; kildea et al., 2012; steenkamp et al., 2012). there are few examples of tailored services, most notably is the aboriginal community controlled health services sector, which as the name implies, are governed by, trusted and utilized widely by aboriginal people. however, aboriginal community controlled health services provide only a small and diminishing percentage of health care services for aboriginal people. most health care services for aboriginal people are provided by mainstream health services (panaretto et al., 2014). many aboriginal australians access the health care system only in the late stages of the disease process or in emergencies, due to fear, racism and distance from services (bainbridge et al., 2015; aihw, 2014). it is therefore vitally important in addressing the health care needs of aboriginal people that tailored, culturally safe care is available across all health care providers. our hypothesis is that a structured and shared process from conception, through to design, implementation and evaluation increases the 118 likelihood that health services will be utilized by aboriginal people and that, as a result, health outcomes will improve. potential consequences there is a long history in australia of non-aboriginal people defining the problems and solutions in aboriginal health (thorpe et al, 2016). collective impact provides a framework and process for engagement and power sharing with aboriginal people, and is particularly suitable because it begins with agreeing on the problem that needs to be addressed from the collective or community perspective. the potential consequence of this approach is that health outcomes for aboriginal people measurably improve, which is a worthy and important goal. this paper provides three examples of how the poche centre for indigenous health at the university of sydney worked alongside aboriginal communities utilizing collective impact to address wicked problems in three areas of aboriginal health. description/analysis/methods three examples of the application of collective impact to address wicked problems in aboriginal health are detailed in this paper: preventing stroke; improving access to allied health and improving oral health. the same processes as described in figure 1, were applied in each of the three examples. case study one applies phase one of collective impact, initiating action, in cardiovascular disease by detecting and treating atrial fibrillation and preventing stroke. a mixed methods pilot study is implemented to determine if the smart phone technology and software application (app) are effective tools for aboriginal communities to identify patients with atrial fibrillation (af) and facilitate access to further assessment and treatment. on average, aboriginal people develop af approximately 20 years earlier than non-aboriginal people and have a higher rate of associated co-morbidities than the wider australian population (katzenellenbogen et al, 2015; wong et al, 2014). risk factors for af such as hypertension, diabetes, chronic kidney disease, and rheumatic heart disease are all more common in aboriginal people and at a younger age than in non-indigenous people (aihw, 2014). 119 figure 1. collective impact stages as applied in three case studies in aboriginal health. a smartphone app with therapeutic goods administration approval which had already been proven to be effective in non-aboriginal people, was presented to aboriginal communities as a potential tool to reduce stroke. the communities (including health workers, community members and elders and leaders) were initially invited to consider participation in the project. those communities that agreed then participated in a series of meetings. at the meetings the resources each party would allocate to the project and how decisions would be made were discussed. in addition, the common agenda, measurement, mutually reinforcing activities, and communication processes were agreed and documented. the poche centre for indigenous health at the university of sydney assumed the role of backbone in partnership with community organizations. fundamental to the approach was that there would be no payment to people participating in the project (other than reimbursement for a registered nurse to collate the data). it was considered that unless there was inherent benefit to the communities such that they too would contribute resources to the project, then it should not proceed in that community. table 1 shows how collective impact was applied to this project. 120 table 1. elements of collective impact in preventing stroke in aboriginal people. common agenda shared measurement mutually reinforcing activities continuous communication backbone support preconditions for collective impact have been met: champions have been identified; cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death for aboriginal people and is therefore an urgent issue; and we understand why existing responses are not working. preventing stroke by identifying people with asymptomatic atrial fibrillation—a precursor to stroke—and facilitating access to assessment and treatment. discussion and development of the common agenda over a twelve-month period with communities across three australian jurisdictions to establish common agenda and the processes for achieving this including customized referral pathways and training for each participating community. local investigators from every site on the decision-making team. local aboriginal staff use the device and app to detect af. the app provides a diagnosis in 30 seconds. cloud based data directly from the app is available to all investigators. only local investigators have data linked to individual people in order to facilitate further assessment and treatment where this is indicated. training is provided for the local aboriginal health workforce in the device and cardiovascular disease health more broadly so that overall health literacy is an additional benefit to the community. aboriginal health workers trained to screen aboriginal people using a smart phone device and app to detect atrial fibrillation. each aboriginal health worker conducted 50 screens as part of the project and retained the device to use in their practice. patients with a non-normal result assisted to access further assessment and treatment. monthly meetings of the project decisionmaking team. aboriginal health workers and investigators meet formally and informally to implement and refine the process and to ensure the optimal outcome for patients and the study written letters of support were provided from each community once the common agenda, shared measurement and mutually reinforcing activities were agreed by all parties. information sheets and consent forms customized to each location to reflect community language, customs and beliefs. the poche centre purchased the equipment, acquitted the funding, arranged logistics, organized the meetings and supplied the technology. shared aspects of control: local people from each site are on the decision-making team, local health workers implement project as part of their existing roles, data held and owned locally and shared on request, identifying information is never shared, local leadership of implementation, and shared decision-making and approaches to dissemination of findings. 121 the research protocol for this study was significantly shaped by the collective impact process (gwynne et al, 2016). for example, the research team initially imagined a single participant information sheet incorporating pictorial elements. through the collective impact process, it was decided that each site required a customized brochure, incorporating local language and meaning, written in plain english and supplementary pictures, which not only provided information about the study for participants but also the consent processes and information about cardiovascular health. this shaped the training for health workers, as they needed to be competent and confident to explain the information in the brochure. this approach was more substantial and potentially more effective than a typical participant information sheet. a further feature is that the research team anticipated partnering with one organization at each site; that organization would coordinate the project locally. through the collective impact process, this was managed differently at different sites. at one site, five organizations took part in the design and implementation, at another site there was a single organization. each party to the collective impact process contributed resources and shared decision-making responsibility. specifically, in this project, local investigators led the data collection, held the data, and only shared the data when it was agreed by the project partners. data collection for this study is currently in progress and is expected to be completed in mid2017. the analysis and dissemination of the results will be coordinated through the established collective impact process. depending on the qualitative and quantitative findings, participating communities may wish to extend this project to examine the efficacy (including adherence) of treatment options for aboriginal people with af and track long term whether or not this approach impacts on premature deaths and disability as a result of af stroke. case study two demonstrates the application of phase 2 of collective impact, organizing for action, to improve access to allied health services. a mixed methods study to design and implement allied health services to best meet the needs of aboriginal people living in rural australia. allied health services include services such as physiotherapy, speech pathology and occupational therapy. after preliminary scoping discussions, semi-structured interviews gathered input from aboriginal organizations and community members across rural and remote aboriginal communities. early findings indicated the importance of local expertise to facilitate access to assessment and treatment, provide treatment, and assist families and health workers to navigate the service system for people requiring allied health services. a decision-making group has been established and resources pooled, and a common agenda has been agreed and documented. the first stage of demonstrating a local support model in the form of aboriginal allied health assistants (aahas) has commenced in five rural aboriginal communities. the aahas are employed regionally and funded from the pooled resources. table 2 documents our early progress. it has taken two years to get to this stage which reflects the lengthy process of engagement and shared decision-making when utilizing the collective impact approach. 122 table 2. elements of collective impact in improving allied health services for aboriginal people. common agenda shared measurement mutually reinforcing activities continuous communication backbone support preconditions for collective impact are met: champions have been identified; there are very limited allied health services available to aboriginal people in rural and remote areas which is impacting for example on early identification and treatment of issues such as coordination, speech and behavior in young children and effective management of chronic disease management; and we understand that reasons for the paucity of allied health services. improving allied health by designing service models with communities and demonstrating implementation. research team includes local aboriginal service providers 50% of the investigators on the research team are aboriginal and they are directly shaping the study design and implementation. semi-structured interviews with aboriginal people including families, service providers and community leaders. thematic analysis of interviews by the research led to the design of pilot model of aboriginal allied health assistant role. process and output data to be collected by the aahas as part of pilot study. demonstrate allied health assistant roles in five communities. local education, employment and local priority setting. development of a local skilled and supported aaha workforce that supports visiting allied health professionals weekly meetings with aboriginal allied health assistants. quarterly meetings with decisionmaking group. monthly meeting of project team for aaha project. the poche centre acquitted the funding, arranged logistics, organized the meetings and funded the research. shared aspects of control: local people from each site are on the decision-making team, aahas employed regionally and funded from pooled funds, data held and owned locally and shared on request, identifying information is never shared, and shared decision-making and approaches to dissemination of findings. a jointly owned document details roles and responsibilities within the project and is regularly reviewed and developed by the decision-making group. 123 the third case study demonstrates the application of phase 3 of collective impact, sustaining action and impact, to improve oral health. a longitudinal, mixed-methods study was developed and implemented using collective impact to design and deliver the best available evidence to reduce dental disease and promote oral health in aboriginal people. this study began with two communities and has since expanded to a further nine. the communities identified oral health as a thirty-year problem and were seeking local solutions (gwynne et al, 2015). the oral health of the aboriginal communities was significantly poorer than aboriginal people in other parts of australia, and non-aboriginal people locally and elsewhere (gwynne et al., 2016). governments had attempted to provide oral health services to these communities, however, an effective response had not been delivered (gwynne et al, 2015; gwynne et al, 2016). the poche centre for indigenous health was invited in 2013 to assist the communities in developing solutions to improve oral health and utilize a collective impact approach to achieve this (gwynne et al., 2015). local community organizations, schools, health care workers, community members, elders and other leaders came together to discuss and agree the common agenda and measures of success. they also agreed how and what resources would be pooled and what decision-making and communication processes would be followed. the measures themselves were discussed at length, as well as the process of collection, storage, reporting and access. during these early discussions, a temporary emergency dental service was established using a dental van at each of the two initial communities. this helped to build trust and also provided employment for local aboriginal people as trainee dental assistants (i.e., it is possible to work as a trainee dental assistant without a qualification in australia. once qualified, dental assistants have increased remuneration). once the common agenda and measurement had been agreed, the services were established at existing community facilities (schools, pre-schools and community health centers) and began the mutually reinforcing activities. in addition to being known and safe places, the community facilities provided reception, cleaning, power, waiting areas and other ancillary support which enabled the services to operate effectively. local employment and skills development were part of the common agenda and as such all trainee dental assistant positions were filled by local aboriginal people who were also assisted to complete dental assistant qualifications. the service is coordinated and delivered by local aboriginal people with the support of clinicians who live and work locally. the services have been operating for three years utilizing a collective impact approach as detailed in table 3. 124 table 3. elements of collective impact to improve aboriginal oral health. common agenda shared measurement mutually reinforcing activities continuous communication backbone support preconditions for collective impact have been met: local aboriginal leaders and elders are champions and decision makers in the project; high rates of oral disease are impacting on nutrition, overall health and self-esteem of aboriginal people and is an urgent priority for the community; and we understand why previously existing services were ineffective. improving oral health by providing comprehensive oral health services as close as possible to where people live and developing the local aboriginal oral health workforce. patient data held by local aboriginal organizations and shared with stakeholders on request. joint research project with local service and university investigators. joint analysis and publication of results. shared equipment and training; shared supervision by senior clinicians; and shared employment of staff. regional employment within existing health care services. assisting local aboriginal people to complete qualifications in oral health with a view to local backbone/ management overtime. formal meetings weekly with the joint teams. quarterly meetings with community members and stakeholder organizations about service outcomes and issues. annual research reports to communities. informal communication daily about service outcomes and issues. shared between the poche centre for indigenous health and armajun aboriginal community controlled health service both hold and acquit funding, armajun produces reports, shared training, each responsible for clinical governance at half of the sites. supply technology and other equipment. shared aspects of control: local people from each site are on the decision-making team, local dental assistants and coordinators manage and deliver the services from existing community facilities, data held and owned locally and shared on request, identifying information is never shared, and shared decision-making and approaches to dissemination of findings. a jointly owned document details roles and responsibilities within the project and is regularly reviewed by the decision-making group. the findings of this study to date have been promising. two published studies by irving et al report positively on the experience of the service from the community perspective (irving et al, 2016a) and the clinicians living in the communities (irving et al, 2016b). in addition, a paper 125 comparing this model of oral health care with a visiting service model over two years (2014 and 2015) found that this service model delivered 47% more treatment at 25.2% of the cost of a visiting service (gwynne et al, 2016). rationale/reflection/replication the ways we have applied collective impact align to the original work of kania and kramer (2011) and the subsequent model development by hanleybrown et al (2012). whilst collective impact is a relatively straightforward framework, it is complex and time rich to implement, and the approach permeates all aspects of the project. one of the great strengths and challenges of collective impact is transparency. this transparency is achieved through collective responsibility, pooled and shared resources, goals, reporting and evaluation, and focusses attention on the problems and their resolution through collective action. all of the parties to the collective impact projects described in this paper are accountable to each other for the process and outcomes, and collectively the parties contribute to achieving the common agenda and results. in all of the three projects, the poche centre for indigenous health at the university of sydney provides the backbone, either singularly or in partnership with an aboriginal community controlled health service. whilst there is an intention to transition the backbone role to community control over time, this currently is a limitation of our approach. it is our hope that as the approach becomes well understood, aboriginal community controlled organisations will initiate and lead collective impact projects. the case studies in this paper demonstrate promising progress and the next steps will be to cycle through the phases of collective impact, increase local sustainability and measure impact over time. the capacity to transition the backbone to local organizations and sustain the programs will be key markers of the efficacy of collective impact as a tool for tackling wicked problems in aboriginal health. given the similar health issues faced by indigenous peoples globally, collective impact may provide a tool for engaging effectively with indigenous communities to define problems and design, deliver and evaluate solutions. conclusion many solutions to wicked problems exist. they exist in research, communities, and in public policy, but the execution of the solutions and the customization of the responses requires a structured and shared process, such as collective impact. collective impact requires all parties to have a stake in the resources and decision-making, and assumes all parties have part of the picture which collectively contributes to the goals and the solutions. importantly, all parties have a part to play in designing, customizing and implementing local sustainable solutions. given the enormous disparities in aboriginal health and the failure of governments and other organizations to address this, collective impact provides one approach to define problems and develop solutions collectively. collective impact is a slow process, one of influencing and sharing resources and knowledge, one of trust and mutual accountability. yet when applied effectively, positive change can result. 126 references australian bureau services (abs). 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(2003). cardiovascular risk among urban aboriginal people. medical journal of australia, 179(3), 143-146. retrieved from https://www.mja.com.au/system/files/issues/179_03_040803/tho10633_fm.pdf thorpe, a., arabena, k., sullivan, p., silburn, k., & rowley k. (2016). engaging first peoples: a review of government engagement methods for developing health policy. retrieved from http://www.lowitja.org.au/sites/default/files/docs/engaging-first-peoples.pdf wong, c.x., brooks, a.g., cheng, y.h., lau, d.h., rangnekar, g., roberts-thomson, k.c., kalman, j.m., brown, a., & sanders, p. (2014). atrial fibrillation in indigenous and nonindigenous australians: a cross-sectional study. bmj open, 4 (10). ttps://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2014-006242 https://doi.org/10.1016/s0140-6736%2808%2961690-6 https://doi.org/10.5694/mjac13.00005 https://doi.org/10.1089/jpm.2007.9955 https://doi.org/10.1108/14777260910983989 https://doi.org/10.1007/bf01405730 https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2393-12-44 https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2014-006242 130 author information *kylie gwynne has thirty years of experience in the design, implementation and evaluation of human services for vulnerable australians. she has held senior leadership roles in service delivery, program development, system reform and public policy. currently director of poche centre for indigenous health, over the past four and a half years she has established a comprehensive program of research, service delivery, teaching, and service learning in rural and remote aboriginal health. kylie gwynne director, poche centre for indigenous health the university of sydney rm 223, level 2, edward ford building, a27 telephone: +61 2 9036 6494 m 0448483348 e-mail: kylie.gwynne@sydney.edu.au annette cairnduff has more than twenty five years of experience leading innovative social impact and social justice strategy, policy and programs for positive social change working across the education, community and government sectors. currently at foundation for young australians (fya), she leads the design and delivery of the organisations strategy for research, evaluation and partnerships. annette cairnduff gm research, evaluation and partnerships foundation for young australians telephone: 04122 18931 e-mail: annette.cairnduff@fya.org.au *corresponding author tel:+61%202%209036%206494 mailto:kylie.gwynne@sydney.edu.au mailto:annette.cairnduff@fya.org.au 25 reflection promotes transformation in a service learning course caitlin m. stover abstract the purpose of this paper is to outline the delivery of a master’s level, community/public health nursing service learning course that spanned a two semester academic year. the instructor of record created a reflection binder with selected assignments to facilitate the transformative learning process that occurred during the course. analyses of the reflection assignments demonstrated that isolated incidences of transformative learning occurred. one exemplar of the transformative learning process is presented. introduction for years, scientific research and public health campaigns focused on individual lifestyle as the primary etiology of poor health (freudenberg, 2007, p. 1). personal choice and behavior such as smoking, sedentary lifestyle, unhealthy eating, alcohol consumption, and use of illegal substances were funded public health interventions and were the focus of mass media communication that spanned billboards, radio advertisements, and healthy living websites. however, population health in the united states continued to decline, and as reported by robert wood johnson foundation commission to build a healthier america (2009, p. 9) for the first time, “americans are raising children that were more likely to live sicker and shorter lives than their parents.” this fact resulted in a paradigm shift. instead of “blam[ing] individuals at highest risk for ill health, even when their choices have been constrained by public policies and corporate practices” (freudenberg, 2007, p. 1), public health professionals emphasized that social factors within an individual’s environment were just as influential on individual health and health related behaviors/choices; thus, emerged the need to understand the social determinants of health (commission on the social determinants of health [csdh], 2008, p. 1; brennan-ramirez, baker, & metzler, 2008, p. 10; robert wood johnson foundation, 2008, pp. 16-17). the world health organization (2015) defined social determinants of health as, “the conditions in the environments in which people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age that affect a wide range of health, functioning, and quality-of-life outcomes and risks.” examples of social determinants include access to healthy food, adequate housing, good education, safe neighborhoods, and freedom from racism and other forms of discrimination (brennan-ramirez, baker, & metzler, 2008, p. 10). according to marmot and allen (2014) these factors are just as influential on individual health as biology and genetics. for example, adjusted statistical models demonstrated that white and black adults (65 years and older) living in midand highlydisadvantaged neighborhoods in alabama had a 60%-80% greater odds of having hypertension (buys, et. al., 2015, pp. 1183-1185). for those older adults who lived in highlydisadvantaged neighborhoods, 40% were less likely to have controlled hypertension (buys, et. al., 2015). disadvantaged neighborhoods were defined by the level of poverty and presence of a female head of household which are two major social determinants of health. additionally, participants who reported limiting their outdoor exercise due to fear of being robbed or attacked were more likely to be from mid to highly-disadvantaged neighborhoods. the possible cause and effect relationship between not exercising and higher odds of having hypertension cannot be overlooked for those individuals living in progressively more disadvantaged neighborhoods. the necessary focus on social determinants of health is apparent in the public health work conducted at the national level. healthypeople is a national initiative focused on improving the overall health of the nation. by identifying goals in various health indicators every ten years, the initiative strives to 26 document national trends towards improving health. the current initiative, healthypeople 2020, is founded on the roots of examining determinants of health, including those that are biological, physical, and social (u.s department of health and human services, n.d.). the four overarching goals of healthypeople2020 revolve around promoting optimal health in americans. nurse play a vital role in reaching these goals because of the focus on health promotion and creating social and physical environments that support healthy living lifestyles. when educating nurses about healthypeople2020, it is common to have students conduct a community assessment. by structuring this community assessment using the social determinants as a data collection framework, students are able to distinguish health patterns and trends that certain social groups exhibit, and direct health interventions at the appropriate social condition to improve health outcomes. the assignment also challenges the student to acknowledge barriers to health that are social in nature. social justice concepts such as discrimination, racism, and access to healthcare often emerge as major contributors to health related behavior and outcomes. the community assessment was the starting point of this transformative journey. purpose the purpose of this paper is to outline the delivery of a master’s level, community/public health nursing service learning course that spanned a two semester academic year, and consisted of twelve academic credits: six didactic credits and six practicum credits. this course was developed on the foundation of social justice concepts with an anticipated outcome of increased awareness of self within the broader society and greater appreciation of the impact of social factors on individual health. aggregated quantitative and qualitative data demonstrate the transformative learning that occurred for the students over the academic year. background it is important for nurses to acknowledge the relationship between various social factors and health in the individual and the community. nursing education that is grounded in social justice concepts (discussed below) with assignments that engage students in the reality of the community environment are likely to expose students to a way of living that is much different than their own. social justice bell (2007, pp. 1-2) wrote about social justice as being a vision where the allocation of resources is equitable among all members of a society and members of that society recognize their responsibility to self, their society, and the world in which they live. a critical review of the cultural and social self, with acknowledgement of how that self-identity interacts with the greater social structure provides a rich learning environment for the student to explore social justice constructs. nursing service provided in the community, with a social justice approach, “redirects the focus of service learning from charity to social change and connects awareness to action” (bowen, 2014, p. 53). students are guided to appreciate their service as more than just providing the community with help. instead, they are aware that their services are directly related to the social culture of the community and may potentially enact social change. this is the target of transformation. transformational learning adults develop assumptions, beliefs and values of the world that guide interpretation and action. family, culture, society, and the vast array of media messages regularly influence the development and revision of individually held assumptions. transformative learning is a process in which the adult becomes, 27 “critically aware of how and why our presuppositions have come to constrain the way we perceive, understand, and feel about our world; of reforming these assumptions to permit a more inclusive, discriminating, permeable, and integrative perspectives; and of making decisions or otherwise acting upon these new understandings” (mezirow & associates, 1990, p. 14). an instructor cannot guarantee that transformative learning will occur in a given course. as such, one distinct method for teaching towards transformation does not exist. the responsibility of the instructor is to provide an environment where transformation can occur. according to mezirow (1997, p. 10) this learning environment needs to provide a setting where events and situations challenge individual assumptions, there is a safe means for articulating individual assumption, there is an opportunity for critical discourse and continued reflection with an exchange of alternative views and perspectives, and there is plausible action based on the new perspective(s). service learning and transformation service learning is one pedagogical method used to facilitate transformative learning. service learning is a teaching and learning strategy that integrates meaningful service in a community with instruction and reflection to enrich that learning experience, teach civic responsibility, and strengthen community. according to eyler and giles (1999, pp. 1-22), there are four components to a successful service learning experience: (1) personal and interpersonal development, (2) application of the knowledge learned in class, (3) perspective transformation, and (4) developed sense of citizenship. when students are placed in a societal “context that challenges their prejudices, prior experience and assumptions about the world” (p. 17) they learn about themselves, and their relationship to the greater group (community, society, and world). transformation is aimed at engaging the individual beyond just the status quo of daily living. the engaged citizen is one who challenges the social norm by recognizing his/her role in changing the norm. this is extremely important for norms that have deep roots in social justice concepts. eyler (2002) attributes service learning to the development of an engaged citizen by achieving the following: 1. student interest is engaged by involvement in authentic service to the community, 2. students develop positive attitudes towards community engagement, 3. students develop a sense of personal efficacy and commitment, 4. students develop deeper understanding of social issues (or other subject matter), 5. students develop lifelong learning and problem solving skills, 6. students develop skills for community action and involvement, and 7. students develop post formal reasoning abilities necessary to deal with complex “ill structured” social problems (p. 519). as an engaged citizen, the status quo of inequities, especially those related to health, are examined, confronted, and changed for benefit at an individual and societal level. the courses described below aimed to engage six female master’s students in a public university community/public health nursing program. this project received approval from the institutional review board at the academic institution. the service learning course the master’s in community/public health track requires the student to enroll in a year-long didactic course and co-requisite practicum focused on developing knowledge and skills in community assessment, planning, intervention, and evaluation. each course is three credits: six credits in the fall and six credits in the spring. three practicum credits equaled 168 practicum hours, for a year-long total of 28 336 hours. the principles of service learning were applied to the practicum course to facilitate the link between classroom content and the community based service work. implementation each student selected a community to perform the practicum hours. this selection was generally based on interest and was facilitated by the connections already existing between the instructor and a community agency contact. selected communities covered a large geographical area and a diverse range of age, gender, racial, and ethnic demographics. the student group engaged with children and families across various housing and educational situations and addressed issues related to asthma, diabetes self management, anxiety and depression, sleep hygiene, and physical restraint management. in the fall semester practicum, the students focused on community engagement. the intent of engagement was to perform a comprehensive community assessment that collected social determinant data and identified strengths and resources of the community. data collection included epidemiological data and qualitative data from key informant interviews and focus groups. these data, along with recommendations from community members, informed the planning of a health-related intervention in the community. in the spring semester, the 168 hours of service focused on implementing and evaluating the health program that was planned during the fall. six graduate students were enrolled in the fall course, and five of the six students continued into the spring course. the remaining student applied for a leave of absence. assignments for the spring built upon the work conducted in the fall and the culminating project consisted of a poster presentation at the college of nursing annual scholarship day, a written evaluation paper, and a tangible giveback to the target community. all five students prepared a three ring binder with a descriptive outline of the program, print resources or internet links to electronic resources, a brief evaluation of the implemented program, and recommendations for the next program implementation. student reflection service learning courses rely on the student reflection to help to link the course content to the service activities. reflection is also a key tenet of transformative learning theory. reflection is the process by which individuals develop the capacity to develop cognitively and think critically (eyler, 2002, pp. 527528). the course instructor strategically embedded reflection exercises throughout the semester to meet both of these goals. during the fall semester, critical reflection was used as a mechanism to help students explore and understand their assumptions of social concepts and develop the comfort and competence to question their assumptions and how those assumptions directed their societal view and action. when assumptions are acknowledged and challenged, different perspectives are recognized as viable ways to solve problems. this process is important for community/public health nurses who work with a variety of social groups that may be unfamiliar to their own. student reflection is not a one-time occurrence and should not only be conducted at the end of the service learning experience. according to eyler, giles, and schmiede (1996) there are four c’s to facilitate effective service learning reflection: continuous reflection, connected reflection, challenging reflection and contextualized reflection. continuous reflection is an ongoing reflection that begins before the initiation of the service learning and continues through the completion. reflection prior to the service assists in preparing students for placement in the community. the creation of a learning contract where students identify learning goals and the evidence that will be needed to demonstrate their achievement is a common mechanism of pre-service reflection (eyler, 2002, pp. 524-526). during service, reflection addresses the direct experience on site and focuses on problem solving. post-service reflection includes 29 an evaluation of the service experience, and begins to transform newly gained experiential knowledge into existing knowledge. connected reflection is a purposeful method to build the bridges between learning content, personal reflections, and first hand experiences. challenging reflection focuses on looking at old questions with varying perspectives to answer and develop new questions that promote learning. contextualized reflection provides a meaningful interaction between the student, the activity, and the setting, and may involve the community members as a mechanism to explicate this meaning. contextualized reflection examines critical incidents that occur in the life of the student during the service learning experience (either in society or specifically affecting the student). these occurrences were examined for their influence on the service learning experience and were considered transformational if the student demonstrated that their perspective had some meaningful change. reflecting on the social structure of the environment can be uncomfortable and anxiety provoking forthe student. to prepare the group for the intimate reflection component of the course, the following statement was included in the syllabus and reiterated at the beginning of many classes. “this course will be most successful when all participants commit to develop a learning community in which the beliefs of all may be discussed in an open, civil, and respectful environment. everyone will be expected to consider multiple perspectives, engage in critical reflection, and take intellectual risks built on one’s confidence in the content. class activities will focus on critical analysis of (1) course readings, (2) research findings, and (3) class discussion. your personal experiences are important but require critical reflection and analysis. hence, the ability to interact with the material in a personal and self-reflective manner is essential.” fall semester reflection exercises in the fall, students completed six r assignments, with various levels of required reflection, to raise their self-awareness of cultural and social self-identity. see table 1for a brief description of each assignment. the instructor included these assignments to facilitate the understanding of self and the self within the greater social environment. tools with an asterisk (*) are found in the appendix of adams, bell, and griffin (2007). there were minor adaptations made to the process questions to make them applicable to the course content and the role for which students were being educated. tools with two asterisks (**) are located in the faculty toolkit for service learning in higher education (seifer & connors, 2007, pp. 32-41, 49-57). 30 table 1 description of reflection assignments to promote transformative learning reflection assignment description process questions directing reflection *social group membership profile and identity wheel the student reflected on belonging to the following social groups: ethnicity, race, sex, gender, sexual orientation, age, class, religion, ability/disability and other. the student determined whether belonging to the group is an advantage or disadvantage in society. advantaged status was defined as having access to resources, social power, and privilege within society. disadvantaged status was equated to experiencing oppression, being targeted and/or denied the resources, social power, and privileges of the other members of society. the student created an identity wheel. the wheel was segmented into “pie pieces” which represented the social groups that the student identified. 1. which of your social group memberships were easy to identify? 2. which of your social group memberships were most difficult to identify? 3. what questions are raised for you about your social group membership? 4. which of your social group status were easy to identify? 5. which of your social group status were most difficult to identify? 6. what questions are raised for you about your social group status? 7. how does the examination of your own social group membership influence the way you approach community health nursing? *privileges and disadvantages inventory thirty-five questions were answered using a true-false dichotomy. questions focused on many privileges awarded to certain social groups. for example, students are asked to answer whether they were teased, prevented from getting a job, accused of lying, stealing, or cheating, or had been a victim of violence based on race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, or gender expression. 1. what are your reactions to the process of doing the activity? 2. what are your reactions to identifying some of the privileges and disadvantages associated with some of your social group memberships? 3. what statements were particularly striking to you? why? 4. what questions about privilege and disadvantage are raised for you? 5. how was your experience of privilege and disadvantage the same or different from members in the community that you are working with? 31 *class background inventory ten questions directed the student to reflect on his/her class background by acknowledging the family source of income, housing environment, educational preparation, and priority values. students wrote about how these concepts influenced attitude, behavior, and feelings about community and community program planning. none. the exercise already had open ended questions. **worksheet guidelines for writing a partnership agreement memo the students completed this form prior to identifying their service learning goals. students were encouraged to complete this form with their community preceptor because it asked about necessary resources, key stakeholders, predicted challenges and other key concepts important in academiccommunity partnerships. none. the exercise already had open ended questions. **partnership assessment tool this tool is a resource of 56 questions used to measure the success of the academic community partnership. questions rated the strength of various qualities in the academiccommunity work. scores of 1 – 4: 1 = low and 4 = high. no additional questions were asked because the instructor worried that 56 questions may be burdensome and she did not want to increase. students were instructed to elaborate on scores with comments as deemed necessary. **student self assessment the student self-assessment used the course requirements and goals to assist the student to reflect on the extent to which they met them. the student assigned themselves a course grade with rationale. no additional questions were asked because the instructor worried that 23 questions may be burdensome and she did not want to increase. students were instructed to elaborate on scores with comments as deemed necessary. in addition to these assignments, each student wrote four journals describing a specific practicum experience. the instructions in table 2 (seifer & connors, 2007, pp. 88-89) were provided to the student in the course syllabus. the instructor focused on section four an indicator of transformational learning occurring in each student. 32 table 2 directions for journal writing please clearly divide each entry into the following categories. 1. date and hours worked 2. objective/description of your experiences what happened? write a factual account of the behaviors you observed that does not include your opinion. write at least 100 words. 3. interpretation/explanation now try to understand the behaviors you described above in #2. use principles and concepts from the course reading material and lectures in making your interpretations. 4. personal opinions/feelings and learning thoughts/opinions. interpret what you saw and heard today. what does it mean to you? use emotion words (i.e., happy, surprised, frustrated) to describe your feelings. what knowledge and/or skills did you acquire today? what did you learn about yourself? what did you learn about others around you? spring reflection assignments according to eyler (2002, p. 522), a high level of “reflective judgment can assist individuals to identify the ill-structured nature of social problems, frame them, resolve them, and understand the need to continually readdress the issue as conditions change and new information is developed.” after reading through the fall semester reflection binder, the instructor felt that the journal entries were not demonstrating the transformative learning that was seen and heard during classroom discussion. collectively, the students were applying the self and the self within the society into their practicum experiences. therefore, the instructor assigned more structured reflection questions in the spring semester course. each reflection had a due date. the instructor read and provided a written comment on the submitted reflection. the student was encouraged to address any comments made by the instructor before submitting the reflect ion assignment in the reflection binder at the end of the course. topics of reflection included the following: • conflict within the partnership. • minimally involved stakeholders, or stakeholders who dropped out of the partnership. • community members who made strong impression, either positive or negative, and why. • what was satisfying about performing the service? • how has the service affected your worldview and your professional relationships? • how has your understanding of the community changed? the student continued to write practicum journals per table 2. results at the end of semester one, students completed a service learning survey which assessed the impact of the service learning experience. after completing the fall semester, six students responded to the service learning survey. students were asked to rate their ability to engage in multiple community engagement skills and civic engagement skills. two sets of scores were calculated, the student’s self-reported skill prior to the service learning course, and the student’s self-reported skill post service learning course. a paired t-test found significant differences (p < 0.05) between pre-course mean scores and post-course mean scores. 33 table 3 significant findings (p < 0.05) from fall service learning survey community engagement skills pre course mean skill score post course mean skill score  identify needs and resources of the community  apply knowledge and skills gained to real problems/opportunities in my community  make connections between learning and issues/needs of the community  articulate the value of engagement to other members of the community communicate effectively orally and in writing evaluate and integrate information from multiple source 2.50 3.00 3.17 2.67 3.33 3.0 4.33 4.50 4.67 4.50 4.33 4.17 civic engagement skills  organize other students to take action on a community problem  create a plan to address the issue  get people to care about the problem  organize and run a meeting  find and examine research related to the issue  apply what i learned in my service learning class 2.17 2.50 2.67 2.67 3.50 3.00 3.50 4.17 4.00 3.50 4.33 4.33 at the completion of the spring service learning course, the students completed the same survey. the instructor directed the students to answer pre-course skill using a self-reported rating from the fall, prior to enrolling the service learning course and post-course skill ratings for when the academic year was over. as depicted in table 4, the group mean had a significantly higher score in many items correlated to community engagement and civic engagement skills. table 4 significant findings (p < 0.05) from spring service learning survey item n pre mean post mean 99% ci t df p-value (2tail) community engagement skills identify needs and resources of the community 5 3.0 4.4 -.27223 -5.715 4 .005 apply knowledge and skills gained to real problems/opportunities in my community 5 3.0 4.4 -.27223 -5.715 4 .005 make connections between learning and issues/needs of the community 5 3.0 4.6 -.47223 -6.532 4 .003 articulate the value of engagement to other members of the community 5 3.4 4.6 .52269 -3.207 4 .033 evaluate and integrate information from multiple sources 5 2.8 4.4 -.47223 -6.532 4 .003 34 civic engagement skills organize other students to take action on a community problem 5 2.2 3.2 .45594 -3.162 4 .034 create a plan to address the issue 5 2.6 4.2 -.47223 -6.532 4 .003 get people to care about the problem 5 2.6 3.8 -.27918 -6.000 4 .004 find and examine research related to the issue 5 3.2 4.4 .52669 -3.207 4 .033 apply what i learned in my service learning class 5 2.8 4.4 -.47223 -6.532 4 .003 quantitative results are important in determining the impact of an intervention. however, the qualitative information gathered from the student’s practicum journals and reflection assignments provides important data to support the transformational learning process that occurred. table 5 contains selected student quotes that are cross walked with the type of reflection (the four c’s) and the assignment that the quote was taken. table 5 reflection statements from students (fall) assignment 4-c component selected student reflection worksheet guidelines for writing partnership agreement memo connected “i am a little worried about being able to produce tangible results in the span of one academic year. still, i am more concerned with doing a project that is worthwhile to myself, my colleagues, my students and their families.” social group membership profile challenging “the most memorable piece to this event occurred at the end of the day when we were cleaning up. we obviously had too much food, so [name withheld] opened the doors to a number of homeless people that were walking around outside. they offered them warmth and food. we made up some [food] bags to take with them for their friends and family. one of the women talked to me about how she became homeless and her daughter of six years old would be so happy to eat so much tonight. one older homeless gentleman gave up some of his portions to another man who had two children to feed. it is unbelievable how your life can turn on a dime like these unfortunate souls. i walked away with a mix of emotions. i was impressed by the kindness and professionalism i saw here today and i was so much more appreciative of what i have.” identity wheel challenging “i never felt my class background played any part in my feelings, attitudes, etc. now as an adult, i can of course see how my ability to have hope of a good education, expectations to be treated with respect do come from my background.” privilege and disadvantage inventory challenging “this topic [i will never need to teach children in my life about racism for their survival] has not been on my list of big talks to have with my small children and it occurs to me now that many other families have had to have this discussion with children younger than mine.” 35 class background inventory challenging “the statement about feeling safe if police were present was striking to me. i had to think for a few moments about why it wouldn’t be. then i was thinking about the events of this week at my work. one of my students, a 20 year old, black man ran into an office this week. the student is tall and fit and, i guess, could look intimidating to someone who doesn’t know him. he has very little meaningful language and very slow processing time with verbal curs. needless to say, the woman who was in the office was extremely upset and reported the incident to the principal in the building. had one of our white students, female students wandered into that office, there probably would not have been an issue. little did that person in the office know that the student she met is never aggressive unless provoked. yet other students who “look” harmless can be very violent for reasons that you’d never guess…yes these are real life examples.” partnership assessment tool contextual “i enjoyed speaking with [name withheld]; however i was disappointed in the lack of detail that she could provide. i did not get the sense that improving sleep in college students was a passion of hers.” “i just wanted you to know that this am i have sent my 3rd email to [name withheld] at [location withheld] asking for dates and times i can start my project and asking for the ability to see the materials so i can build that curriculum. the previous 2 have gone unanswered so i hope she answers this one!” student selfassessment contextual “i initially entered this project with some hesitancy due to my lack of experience with juvenile diabetes, but i learned that i knew much more than i thought.” the reflection journals from the spring semester provided much more in depth self-analysis and application of course concepts to the service work. this was achieved by the instructor providing more structured reflective questions to the students. excerpts from reflection journals are presented in table 6. table 6 reflection statements from students (spring) connected “all of the women came with a child, most babies which i got to take care holding while the women did their art. i did find it a little difficult to babysit while running group, but on the other hand, i realize this is the reality of doing community nursing. “ “i think the longer you work somewhere or engage with the people somewhere the more comfortable you become and more like an insider you feel.” “i am definitely learning that no matter what you have planned, ‘rolling with the punches’ is necessary, what you want to do may not be what they want to do and ultimately the group is about them. 36 challenging “…in this class, there was a student who stood out to me who seemed to have sleep issues from his vague comments, mannerisms and actions. he made me wonder: how does a nurse make the transition from the tailored individual plan to trying to help a group as a whole? as a home care nurse, i go into homes, and i work with an individual and see success or failure. with this community geared program, i received feedback from the students, but i do not know if there was individual success.” “i am surprised by the extent of the services offered the residents of the shelter…it also surprised me how many women actually preferred living at the motel instead. they agreed that the shelter was more supportive and the benefit of the kitchen as well as reducing isolation, but appreciated the privacy of having your own space without really having to answer to anyone. i think of these people when i am driving down route 6 in [town] and seeing people walking to the nearby walmart or target to get their everyday needs met but due to the snow they have to actually walk on route 6 with their children in tow. i’ve seen them push their strollers out onto the busy street in frigid, wet, snowy weather and i can’t imagine that it is better than the shelter.” contextual “i made several attempts to engage in community activities with [name withheld] in order to gain trust and slowly build a relationship with the community but that was not always successful sue to schedule conflicts or poor weather.” “[name withheld] is also wanting me to do other groups such as personal hygiene and teaching use of feminine hygiene products. although the role of an advanced degree community nurse certainly includes teaching on all levels i’m feeling a little overwhelmed with multiple curricul[a] since i, of course, want to do my best at each one.” “the participants were asked to decorate the outside of as they present themselves to the outside world and the inside of the box as they truly feel on the inside…another woman surprised me with her box. she explained that her box was backwards. she stated she “had” to project herself as angry and hard so the outside of her box reflected that, the inside of the box was decorated with family and love because she felt she had to not allow others to see that part of her that was happy. i had fully expected all of the participants to create an outer box of happy, put together individual and the inside to be ‘chaos.’” table 7 represents the preduringand postcontinuous reflections that emerged from the practicum journals that the students passed in during the academic year. these examples are presented separately to exhibit the seven month journey of the students in their selected communities. table 7 continuous reflection statements practicum journals continuous pre “spending time going door-to-door provided me the opportunity for engagement with community members. once community members saw me walking door-to-door on several occasions they wanted to know who i was and shortly realized that i was there to help the community.” 37 during “although i am sure most of the families in the shelter have heartbreaking stories of loss and stress, i found, surprising that i was not feeling sad for them. i thought i would feel more pity. i was happy, smiling, the way people do when they watch children having fun. these children were no different than the kids my kids play with at the playground or in their schools. for this reason i am glad there is no real indepth interaction with the families, i will not be becoming familiar with the shelter’s inner workings and the stories of the difficulties and traumatic histories of these children. i want to be able to enjoy them having fun and hope that it helped them relax and forget for even just an hour and not give them pity, they get enough of that.” during “i observed a large number of students using cell phones while the athletic administrator spoke. it became more apparent that this is the younger students’ culture. cell phone use will be a competition in educational sessions. so, can cell phone use be involved in the [my education session, through poll applications?” “miscommunication and lack of communication seem to be dominating my semester, as i am sure it does in the real world.” post “i felt uneasy giving the program away. this feeling was unexpected…this group already had a full plate; are they going to put the effort into maintaining [program name].” “i have come to understand that although the project is very important to me, others may not consider it a priority.” “once it was over, i truly felt that it was fun, and i was disappointed that i did not have more presentations scheduled…my original plan did not work, and although i did not like it, i still had fun.” transformative learning exemplar of the five students that completed the academic year service learning course, there was one student who clearly demonstrated the process of transformative learning as evidenced through her reflection journals. her end of the year reflection is depicted in table 8, segmented by the stages of the transformation process. although her, “stereotypes and jaded experience” of the homeless population may not have been altered, the willingness to acknowledge, examine, and act upon these feelings are important steps in the transformative process. 38 table 8 transformation exemplar transformation student reflection statement knowing self and acknowledging biases and assumptions about the social world “i hoped my worldview would be more [a]ffected working with this population in this environment. working on a psychiatric unit for 12 years i have dealt with my share of homeless individuals, made homeless by many different circumstances, some poor decisions, some a series of bad luck. although i like to believe that i choose to see the good in people i have found this population in the hospital to be a bit entitled.” knowing self and acknowledging biases and assumptions about the social world continued: “i hoped that i would find that in the real world, in the shelter, i would find that these were hard working people, struggling to make a transition, to make their lives and the lives of their children better. many of the people i have interacted with at the shelter have struggled with being at the shelter. this week in particular however, i have seen that entitled attitude i am so used to. one woman who is 14 weeks pregnant was talking about how she thought being pregnant would get her to the front of the line for an apartment and was quite surprised when it didn’t. another was very upset when she fell, due to pain, and the shelter worker commented on how messy her room was. it was, unfortunately, not surprising to hear that she was feeling better only because another resident (the pregnant one) gave her an oxycontin.” reflection “reflecting on my worldview, which consists of stereotypes and jaded experience, reminds me that our system for dealing with the homeless population leaves much to be desired and hopefully we can learn from other countries who don’t seem to have the same issues we do in this country.” subtle change in perspective with a proposed plausible action to act on the social environment of homelessness and mental health illness “i’m very glad to have done this community work, it has validated, for me, the need for community mental health options for populations which do not consider their mental health to be a priority. although many have trauma, stress, and depression they have other priorities like joblessness and housing issues that take priority. when i complete my degree i hope having this type of experience will make me more marketable in an outpatient psychiatric setting, dealing with more of the community population and their untreated mental health issues.” actual action to promote change “i am able to subtly inject my values mostly by modeling. much the way i have seen the other shelter workers doing. we treat the children well and with respect, i insist that in my class participants treat each other with respect also. i try to show them that i am working hard to get ahead in life. i also show them that i am there, every week (weather withstanding) in order to have a good class for them. i do what i say i’m going to do and follow through with requests. 39 discussion in this master’s level service learning course, reflection assignments were completed by the students and analyzed by the instructor for demonstration of a transformative learning process. the use of a reflection binder at the end of each semester provided the instructor with ample data to analyze. in general, themes from the data were related to the more popular concepts of community engaged work, such as the importance of community engagement, collaboration with community partners, flexibility on the part of the planner, and the need for clear and concise communication. the student group struggled in the fall to demonstrate the higher-level thinking and critical analysis needed to determine if transformative learning had occurred. this improved in the spring semester. interpretation the small sample size of five students requires the reader to interpret quantitative data with caution. however, it is evident that the service learning course had a positive influence on the students’ abilities to develop community engagement skills and civic engagement skills. based on the qualitative data extracted from the reflection binder assignments, it appears that the selection of assignments and reflection questions were helpful to the students to meet the components of service learning, and when they were provided more directed reflection, isolated student statements alluded to a plausible transformation in thinking. for example, one student wrote, “i was extremely moved by the speaker’s honesty about his experience, and i wondered if the students would be too…i feel i understand that addiction is a disease; however, i still feel frustrated at times with individuals who are addicts. this session reminded me that addicts are people, and they are everywhere, including the campus of [name of institution withheld].” recommendations both service learning and transformative learning embed rigorous and quality reflection as part of the process. therefore, it is reasonable to assess for both service learning outcomes and evidence of transformative learning in the same course. however, one of the most challenging tasks for the instructor is to provide appropriate and useful reflection assignments as part of the course offering. in this first trial run, the instructor quickly realized that the student struggled to demonstrate, through their writing, the high level thinking associated with transformative learning. the instructor believes that having the more structured reflective questions in the spring semester provided more direction for the student to frame their thinking, and consequently their writing. the instructor will include more structured reflection questioning in the fall assignments, especially for the first few assignments since the student may have never been exposed to such type of in-depth critical analysis of self in relation to the world. these tenets have been reported by others in the service learning literature (eyler & giles, 1999; ash, clayton, & atkinson, 2005). transformative learning is not complete without the individuals acting on their revised assumptions. in the practicum course, the students were paired with a community based preceptor and the instructor of record communicated with the preceptor via phone and email and had one scheduled on-site visit in the spring. therefore, it is plausible that the students acted on their revised perspectives without the knowledge of the instructor and without documenting that specific incident. consequently, some evidence of service learning induced transformation was not available for analysis. in the future, the instructor will involve the community based preceptor in this active analysis of transformation by having each preceptor understand the process of transformation and employ methods of data collection. in particular, preceptor reported conversations between the student and preceptor and on-site observation will be added as evidence for analysis of learning. 40 conclusion several years ago, when this instructor read the editorial from lifestyle to social determinants: new directions for community health promotion research and practice, it became apparent that one avenue for social change in health belonged in academia. as outlined by freudenberg (2007), universities had four mechanisms to promote social change: “(1) academics can help reframe our view of lifestyle, (2) analyze the social processes that create poor health in order to identify new intervention opportunities, (3) engage more constituencies in health promotion, and (4) develop health professionals with new skills (pp. 1-2).” in this master’s course in community/public health, the instructor rooted the course in service 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(2008). overcoming obstacles to health stories, facts and findings. princeton, nj: robert wood johnson foundation. robert wood johnson foundation. (2009). the commission to build a healthier america. retrieved from http://www.commissiononhealth.org/. seifer, s. d., & connors. k. (2007). community-campus partnerships for health: faculty toolkit for service learning in higher education. scotts valley, ca: national service-learning clearinghouse. http://paperpile.com/b/oykzuz/zvfj http://paperpile.com/b/oykzuz/zvfj http://paperpile.com/b/oykzuz/zvfj http://paperpile.com/b/oykzuz/zvfj http://www.commissiononhealth.org/ http://www.commissiononhealth.org/ http://paperpile.com/b/oykzuz/ad8v http://paperpile.com/b/oykzuz/ad8v http://paperpile.com/b/oykzuz/ad8v http://paperpile.com/b/oykzuz/ad8v 43 author information dr. stover is an assistant professor and chairperson of the community department in the college of nursing at the university of massachusetts dartmouth. her teaching interests are social justice concepts related to the health of the community. caitlin m. stover, phd, rn, phcns-bc, cne assistant professor chairperson community nursing department college of nursing 285 old westport road north dartmouth, ma 02747 email: cstover@umassd.edu telephone: 508-999-8582 fax: 508-999-9127 mailto:cstover@umassd.edu metropolitan universities vol. 28 no. 1 (winter 2017), doi: 10.18060/21470 collective approach to complex food system issues, the case of the ohio state university julie fox abstract urban universities are uniquely positioned to make powerful and lasting contributions to the grand challenge of food security. to better understand the various dimensions related to the university’s role in food systems, this case study explores intentional linkages, significant developments, natural tensions, and emerging impacts at the ohio state university. discoveries from this analysis can guide urban university decision makers as they confront complex food system challenges. keywords food security, sustainability, engaged scholarship, university stewardship introduction urban university leaders are positioned to inspire and invest in collaborative solutions to emerging food system challenges. food fulfills nutritional needs, but it also embodies social, cultural, economic, political, and environmental significance (mcgirr & batterbury, 2016). food system issues, such as production, supply, marketing, distribution, access, health, consumption, and disposal of wastes, span the contexts of local and global; rural and urban; conventional and alternative (koc, 1999; lang & heasman, 2015; pothukuchi & kaufman, 1999). food systems are a priority of the ohio state university (osu). as one of america’s largest and most comprehensive urban universities, osu’s annual budget supports six campuses across the state, extension offices in all 88 counties, international collaborations, 18 colleges and schools, more than 33,000 employees, and 65,000 students. the university’s collective attention on food extends through all levels of the institution. this includes the board of trustees and university senate, down to faculty, staff, students, alumni, donors, volunteers, and other community members. their conjoint efforts involve them in (a) food system teaching and learning; (b) research and innovation; (c) outreach and engagement; and (d) resource stewardship (see figure 1). 95 figure 1. osu’s collective approach to food systems aligns with the university’s mission. navigating through the many aspects related to food systems with a university this size requires tremendous collaboration. as one of seven focal points, the osu food initiative directly involves academic units, dining services, advancement, and multiple centers and research institutes. individually, these resources make direct impact. collectively, they address the most pressing needs, such as sustainable food systems. despite many independent and collaborative hungerfighting efforts and an ohio agricultural industry worth $100 billion, food security remains a significant issue in the state. food security is a condition in which all community residents obtain a safe, culturally acceptable, nutritionally adequate diet through a sustainable food system that maximizes community self-reliance, social justice, and democratic decision-making (hamm & bellows, 2003). over the next decade, osu plans to invest nearly $125 million in food security, combatting this critical challenge from all disciplinary fronts as an integral element of osu president drake’s 2020 vision for the university. “we can solve critical issues of our time,” stated drake. “our collective efforts can and will transform lives.” during the timeframe of this study, food security and food systems have moved from key topics integrated into many projects to primary drivers of unified strategic initiatives. “wicked problems” such as food security, require a more collaborative, integrative, transparent, and inclusive model (fauvel & lake, 2015). many urban universities focus on multiple food system factors. for example, pothukuchi and molnar (2015) examined sustainable food systems at urban public universities, with a summary of curriculum, food gardens, farmers markets, dining services, and other indicators. barlett (2011) compared small, medium, and large university campus sustainable food projects as demonstrated through food purchasing goals, academic programs, direct marketing, and experiential learning. relevant literature reviews concentrate on food system components, such research & innovation outreach & engagement teaching & learning resource stewardship food systems 96 as urban agriculture impacts (golden, 2013). additional studies have been published in university reports and diverse journals centered on agriculture, social science, planning, policy, economic, and geography. this study (a) draws upon previous approaches; (b) expands to include elements such as advancement, cluster hires, and the role of university governance; and (c) examines mission-driven strategic investments related to teaching, research, engagement, and stewardship. the intent was to better understand the strategic shift of urban universities to a more collective approach to complex food system issues. methods case studies allow researchers to investigate contemporary complex phenomenon within real-life context (creswell, 2013; yin, 2011) and is often used in organizational research (hartley 1994). the case study described here explores how osu approached food system interests that contributed to the university’s vision as a model of a 21st century public, land grant, research, urban, and community engaged institution. to understand this case in its distinctiveness, the researcher’s approach was interpretive and analytical, rather than solely descriptive (merriam, 1988; stake, 1995). this approach was selected to illuminate contextual aspects of the situation to gather both agreed upon and diverse views (lauckner, paterson, & krupa, 2012). sources of data were collected through examination of the literature, document reviews, and observations during the five-year period of 2012-16. search indexes included proquest, ebsco host, web of science, and google scholar. nested boolean searches included “urban university and food systems” and “university food system teaching, research, engagement, or stewardship.” the researcher used the internet archive, the wayback machine to investigate historical website content (hackett & parmanto, 2005; murphy, hashim, & o’connor; 2007; thelwall & wilkinson, 2003). documents were evaluated and organized based on contributions in one or more components of teaching and learning; research and innovation; outreach and engagement; and resource stewardship. because the intention was not to isolate these perspectives, the researcher also noted the relationships connecting them. limitations of the study could be addressed through future research using multiple methods and a longer period to study of osu’s six campuses, 15 colleges, 105 departments, and more than 220 centers and institutes. food system teaching and learning a focus on food systems is integrated into teaching and learning across multiple disciplines through a variety of degree programs, courses, studio assignments, capstone projects, internships, education abroad experiences, special events, and other engaged learning options. each college, school, and center brings distinct specialization. increasingly, units are working collectively to advance learning through broader perspective. unique aspects at osu include a two-year associate degree option at the agriculture technical institute that can lead to undergraduate and graduate degrees at the university’s five other locations, experiential learning on a 261-acre urban farm on the columbus campus, and collaboration of multiple units to support a course aligned with the university’s sustainability goals (see table 1). 97 table 1 osu examples of food system teaching and student learning unit experiential learning college of food, agricultural, and environmental sciences various food-related undergraduate and graduate degrees agricultural technical institute, associate of science agroecosystems management program, endowed by the w. k. kellogg foundation waterman farm (261 acre farm on prime campus real estate) john glenn college of public affairs course on food system planning and the economy minor in food policy knowlton school of architecture 2013 symposium and exhibition for planning and design for new urban food systems college of arts and sciences translational plant sciences graduate program department of theater lab series that includes playing with your food the center for ethics and values university-wide compas conversations that address issues such as what it will take to feed an urbanized, climatechallenged world college of social work “follow the tomato” service-learning course multiple units capstone project on local food and sustainable food purchasing (in response to the university’s sustainability goals developed by the president and provost’s council on sustainability in 2015, which includes a goal of increasing production and purchase of locally and sustainably sourced food to 40% by 2025) food fellows pilot program aimed to educate interdisciplinary students about issues related to food, such as urban agriculture, food policy, and food insecurity international studies and the office of international affairs multidisciplinary undergraduate courses such as food, population, and the environment; and food security and globalization. education abroad experiences such as south africa’s sustainable agricultural system or european dairy science student life center thousands of students, faculty, staff, and community members learn about diverse food and culture through the annual taste of osu event hosted by international student organizations. additional emerging opportunities include world food day, world cities day, and other united nations activities during urban october. first year student experience buckeye book community brings together 7,000 incoming freshman and members of the alumni association through an author visit and community building dialogue integrated into academic and co-curricular settings. in the 2015-16 academic year, the featured book was the good food revolution. 98 teaching and learning with off-campus audiences osu fosters collaborations to advance food system understanding for all, not just undergraduate and graduate students. the university extends learning with off-campus audiences through continuing education, workforce development, extension, public media, and a p12 initiative to connect osu personnel and students with school-aged children and their families. osu faculty are involved in the world food prize and global youth institute, a program for high school student leaders engaged in the global fight against hunger. through television, radio, a blog, events, and online resources for educators and students, wosu public media informs and inspires people across the state (http://wosu.org). extension faculty and staff improve communities by helping others learn (mcgrath, conway, & johnson, 2007). as an example in one community, food safety extension education became an urgent priority after botulism killed one woman and hospitalized 24 others who had attended a church potluck. extension also provides community nutrition education through a variety of curriculum for diverse audiences. to help ohio citizens and community leaders learn about food systems, osu extension published “healthy food systems,” which is a guide to learn more about food production, food and business, food and health, and food and community. leaders are also learners. one of the many ways leadership for a 21st century food system is cultivated is through a national food system leadership initiative (fsli) program of the association of public and land-grant universities (aplu) with support from the w. k. kellogg foundation (www.fsli.org). with osu as a program partner and host for one of the three cohort sessions, university leaders focus on a holistic series of core leadership competencies of individual leadership; leading change within organizations; and understanding and influencing complex, diverse food systems. food system research and innovation during the five-year period of this study, osu continually ranked in the top 20 universities for total research expenditures (national science foundation) and research progressively developed through collaborative initiatives. with a total of $983 million in annual research and development expenditures and 80 research centers across 16,000 acres, it’s a challenge to adequately distinguish the percentage invested specifically in faculty-led food system research. there has been increasing investments through transdisciplinary discovery themes; food and agricultural research centers; and other innovations for economic, environmental, and social food system issues. discovery themes osu’s transdisciplinary discovery themes were launched in 2012 with the intent of bringing the full capacity of the university to address the world’s most pressing challenges. this provided an unprecedented opportunity for the university to come together to find durable solutions to longterm targets such as food production and security. the other broad areas of health and wellness; and energy and environment, also closely align with food system interests. discovery themes are funded, in part, through parking-lease payments. more than 140 new researchers are being http://wosu.org/ http://www.fsli.org/ 99 hired in diverse fields, such as anthropology agriculture, architecture, nutrition, social work, public health, engineering, and economics. faculty cluster or cohort hiring is an emerging practice as urban universities increasingly recognize interdisciplinary research and collaboration to address grand challenges facing society. osu president michael drake, joined other coalition of urban serving universities presidents to share new research on faculty cluster hiring and a set of best practices to support the use of this strategy for improving faculty diversity and institutional climate. food and agricultural research centers a commitment to collaborative research has remained a core value at osu, extending beyond formal initiatives such as the discovery themes. food system research and innovation centers include:  a vast network of agricultural experiment stations, some that have been around since 1887 as part of the ohio agricultural research and development center (oardc);  the food industry center, established in 1982 to improve food products and processes;  the center for applied plant sciences, formed in 2012 to connect teams of investigators from many disciplines; and  the food innovation center (fic), launched in 2010 to improve global quality of life by inspiring sustainable multi-disciplinary food solutions. teams launched by the fic have involved 380 faculty members, staff, and graduate students with combined scholarly output that includes more than 60 peer-reviewed articles and more than 80 professional presentations. the initial $1.9 million dollar investment in faculty research has resulted in almost $9 million in extramural support. in 2013, the fic funded an interdisciplinary team of researchers and community partners for a mapping the food environment project to address the complex issues associated with food insecurity and health outcomes. in 2014, osu’s center for regional and urban analysis, the local food council, the kirwan institute for the study of race and ethnicity, and the john glenn school of public affairs hosted a public listening session for individuals interested in working on mapping projects related to local food access. many academic disciplines and community organizations use mapping to provide a visual representation of food systems, to explore the nuances of food environments, and to inform future research, including geography, planning, public policy, public health, human nutrition, and epidemiology (sweeney et al., 2015). the fic also funds student innovations. for instance, garden express meal starters is a creation by students from food science and technology and human nutrition who shared an interest in combining good food science and social responsibility. they participated in the 2016 food fight competition sponsored by the food industry center through an alliance with the mid-ohio foodbank. dehydrated underutilized vegetable medleys and spice packets create an appealing, affordable, long-lasting, nutritious sauce when combined with hot water. they are intended to be the base of a meal when paired with other foodbank products such as noodles, rice, meats, broths, or breads. innovation for economic, environmental, and social food system issues 100 for the economic aspect of food systems, the osu food industries center provides technical and scientific services to companies. the department of food science and technology, links education, research, and product development in fully equipped pilot plants. osu’s center for advanced functional foods research and entrepreneurship (caffre) fuses expertise from food scientists, medical professionals, and policy experts that have experience working with industry partners. with a focus on “crops to the clinic to the consumer,” multidisciplinary research teams develop and enhance the availability of functional foods that promote health. one such product was black raspberry confections that have been used in clinical trials and sold at the café at osu’s james cancer hospital. caffre is one of several osu centers for research. from the environmental perspective, innovative food production is not enough for a sustainable food system. between 25% and 40% of food grown, processed, or transported is wasted in the united states each year (gunders, 2012). an osu professor of agricultural marketing and policy led a food waste collaborative team to help solve america’s food waste problem. the collaborative faculty are conducting research to identify patterns regarding how americans form attitudes on food waste and developing foodimage, an app to measure food waste from food photos. social issues are also critical. through community research partners (crp), osu partners with the city of columbus, united way of central ohio, and the franklin county commissioners, to strengthen communities. projects focus on topics such as food insecurity among college students, and food and nutrition as crp partners in the urban institute’s national neighborhood indicators partnership. ohioans are frequently involved with osu research. more than 100 citizen-scientists are helping with a pollinator study conducted by the department of entomology at ohio agricultural research and development center (oardc). these are just a few examples of osu investments in creating collaborative and focused approaches for faculty and staff leaders to influence food systems through research and innovation. findings are shared with the public through various methods and media, including university communications and the conversation, which was launched in 2014 as a multiinstitutional research reporting source. one example of an osu faculty member sharing their knowledge with the public through the conversation was a 2016 food security article authored by professors of anthropology and economics. similar to other urban universities, osu’s food system research spans multiple disciplines and engages students, faculty, and industry. unique aspects at osu include the substantial investment in transdisciplinary team science and significant influence from the arts and vast medical center perspectives. food system outreach and engagement community-university partnerships have taken many forms and have been recognized as a valuable contribution to both the academic community and cities (kotval, 2003). establishing connections between university and community representatives enables research to contribute to social change in food systems work (nelson & dodd, 2016; rojas, sipos, & valley, 2012; tanaka & mooney, 2010). at osu, an ever-emerging network of diverse partners involves faculty, staff, and students; local citizens and neighborhood groups; schools and libraries; public officials and agencies; private business and industry; non-profit organizations; and 101 philanthropists. engagement with these diverse collaborators has helped inform and shape osu’s food system teaching, research, and stewardship. in 2016, the association of public and land-grant universities (aplu) released a framework for the new engagement, specifically recognizing unique dynamics for universities situated in large metropolitan areas. for urban universities, diversity in the community and on campus presents a unique context. with the size and scope of the university and the city, engagement can sometimes be daunting. engaging diverse stakeholders is not always easy, especially when addressing the many issues surrounding food. food system definitions and expectations vary based of the perspective of academic disciplines, the focus of government agencies, the mission of non-profit organizations, industry agendas, geographic scope, grassroots citizen priorities, and cultural influence. competing interests and tensions are common within various aspects of the food system (campbell, 2004; levkoe, et al., 2016). osu has a long history of outreach and engagement (bromley & kent, 2006). working collaboratively is an increasing focus through osu’s office of outreach and engagement, the university’s extensive statewide extension network, and a college engagement council that connects college deans from all osu campuses. engagement is cultivated through individual food system projects, interdisciplinary centers, and at university-wide events. osu earned the carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching’s 2015 community engagement classification, acknowledging the university’s extensive engagement and recognizing osu’s mission, culture, curriculum and resources are structured to support high-impact community engagement. an example of extensive community engagement was the 2016 buckeye summit that convened approximately 600 members of “buckeye nation” to address food security. additional local events involved some of osu’s 530,000 alumni members, corporate partner personnel, and other members of the community. other engagement efforts include campus partners for community urban redevelopment, an interdisciplinary center established by osu in cooperation with the city of columbus to spearhead the revitalization of the university district. specific projects also engage the local community. for example, in 2013-14, multiple osu units joined citizens and community groups to explore how food could be a catalyst for urban neighborhood development. ongoing engagement opportunities can be found through volunteer.osu.edu, where community members, fans, and friends, alumni, and faculty can get involved with osu through a wide variety of commitments. food touches everything and is a foundation of an endlessly evolving enactment of individual and community relationships (counihan & van esterik, 2013). student engagement student engagement in higher education is a complex construct influencing the student experience and student success (kahu, 2013). students get involved with the community through internships, service learning, and other activities. a food system example is the buckeye food alliance food pantry, established by roommates and friends to improve food security on campus. osu students interested in social transformation can apply for the osu president’s prize, which provides two graduating seniors with vital connections and financial support to advance innovative ideas for change in their first year after graduation. one of the osu students who won a 2016 president’s prize received $100,000 to create an ohio state community garden to http://volunteer.osu.edu/ 102 provide produce to local food insecure families. another example of osu student engagement is pay it forward, an osu student cohort to help students become lifelong, civically-engaged citizens. faculty engagement faculty connections to food systems extend beyond classrooms, laboratories, and formal channels of engaged scholarship. faculty engage in food system activities, from direct community service to participating in community dialogue involving diverse, and sometimes competing values. the john glenn college of public affairs fosters networking for the representatives of ohio’s food policy councils. in 2013, osu professors served as panelists for a public conversation on food, farming, and the social, economic, environmental, and emotional aspects of biotechnology (gmos) and sustainability. in 2014, faculty with osu’s center for the study of religion joined others in a presentation series, “everybody eats: exploring food, flavors, and faith.” as faculty participate in onand off-campus activities, it’s essential for them to understand academic freedom and responsibility that differentiate between official activities as faculty and personal activities as citizens. osu extension with offices in all of ohio’s 88 counties, extension connects with urban universities throughout the state and across the nation. wide-spread interest in food and farming creates an opportunity for extension to provide leadership and expertise (sharp, clark, davis, & bean smith, 2011). for example, osu extension in cuyahoga county is a co-convener of the cleveland-cuyahoga county food policy coalition. nationally, extension professionals, working on community food systems, have collaborated through the extension community of practice (https://extension.org), joint council of extension professionals, and healthy food systems, healthy people, a collaboration of the association of public and land-grant universities. extension educators set the stage for stable relationships, inter-organizational linkages, and feedback loops upon which localized food systems could be built (dunning et al., 2012; gulati & gargiulo, 1999; ramasawmy & fort, 2011; sundkvist, milestad, & jansson, 2005). osu extension provides leadership for statewide food hubs, farmers markets, and the ohio farm to school program. philanthropy philanthopy is another way alumni and friends are engaged as osu tackles complex global problems related to food production and security. in 2016, a $5 million gift from an individual donor was the first contribution toward transforming the 261-acre waterman farm on campus into a more comprehensive research, learning, and outreach hub for the study of urban agriculture, food security, and food systems. osu’s garden of hope, also located on the waterman farm, helps cancer survivors and their caregivers understand links between health, nutrition, and the cancer-fighting properties of freshly grown fruits and vegetables. communityuniversity engagement is frequently evident in fundraisers that feature local foods and raise money to advance food system projects. in 2011, one week before the annual osu football game against the rival team up north, the two schools participated in a different kind of match-up as top chefs from each school engaged in an earth to table sold-out dinner competition to support 103 the culinary vegetable institute’s educational efforts with local schools. gifts and grants from corporations, foundations, and individuals are vital to osu’s focus on food systems. food system resource stewardship similar to other urban universities, creating a campus culture that embraces sustainability, communicates its benefits, and rewards innovation is a key initiative at osu. sustainable food systems are an integral part of stewardship developments (barlett, 2011). osu participates in a network of higher education presidents committed to climate change and sustainability actions (http://secondnature.org). at osu, the president and provost’s council on sustainability advises and oversees the integration of sustainable practices, programs, and projects. one of osu’s sustainability goals is to increase production and sales of locally and sustainably sourced food to 40% by 2025. this is a significant commitment, as the university serves 40,000 daily meals to diverse individuals interested in sustainably sourced, healthy, affordable, safe, delicious, culturally appropriate food that meets a range of food preferences and allergies. osu’s total annual food budget includes student dining, medicine, and event hospitality. as one of many large food purchasers, attention is also directed toward impacts in the larger community. excess food at osu is repurposed for use at a later date, donated to foodbanks, or turned into pulp to be used for renewable energy. in 2013, osu conducted an assessment of waste and recycling materials, which resulted in an expanded organics diversion program and a goal of achieving zero food waste by 2025. additional programs to donate food include a program created by the undergraduate student government, which allows students to take unused dining service credits in the last two weeks of each semester to buy non-perishable food to benefit neighborhood services. students have been actively engaged in osu’s food sourcing sustainability goal through shared governance, student life activities, a capstone course, research, and activism. research included a thesis on analyzing osu’s food purchasing system (kingston, 2015). student interest in food purchasing escalated into discontent and unrest, becoming apparent in #reclaimosu. disputes over definitions led to a 2015 student sit-in, demanding the university president sign the real food campus commitment. in 2016, students advocating for improvements in the university’s food system won $5,000 through plate of the union, a national grass-roots campaign calling for reforms to the nation’s food system. real food osu co-hosted a teach-in with defend our future and several other student organizations. osu administrators, faculty, staff, and student organizations continue to find common ground on definitions and practices that meet osu’s sustainable goals, student expectations, and multiple stakeholder agendas. food system developments and sustainability practices are influenced through osu’s shared governance of the university senate. universities need collaborative agents of change (bradshaw & fredette, 2009) and shared governance in higher education decreases conflict (delbecq, bryson, & van de ven, 2013). from the board of trustees to administrators, professors, dining services, and students, most university stakeholders commit to food system stewardship. complexities arise due to diverse sustainability meanings and measures. osu’s especially ambitious sustainability goals related to food purchasing and food waste challenge everyone involved in the university food system. a unique aspect at osu is the 104 involvement of shared governance through the university senate, which includes faculty, administration, and student representatives. conclusion food systems will remain a challenge as the world’s population continues to move to urban areas and grow to the projected 9.7 billion by 2050 (http://www.un.org). as food demands increase by 60 percent, urban university administrators, faculty, staff, students, alumni, partners, and other friends need to continue finding common ground for a sustainable future. as a land-grant, urbanserving, carnegie-engaged, research university, osu has a moral and civic obligation to engage in important issues on local, national, and international levels. key lessons learned through this study include the dynamics of a collective approach and the value of leadership. dynamics of a collective approach osu’s collective food systems approach aligns with the university’s mission, vision, values, and goals (see figure 2). progress is evident across the university as collaborators address the complexities of this grand challenge. this case study presents what was common and what was particular to osu’s collective approach to food system issues. most notably, were the strategic resource investments to collectively address complex food systems and the inclusion of advancement, alumni, and other perspectives. http://www.un.org/ 105 figure 2. examples of osu’s collective approach to food systems–align with the university’s mission. osu is exploring ways to capture and communicate shared impacts. many of the intentional collaborative efforts have been established in the past 10 years. discovery themes, for example, are still in early stages of development as new faculty test transformative approaches for food system teaching, research, and engagement. impact reporting will play an essential role in future investments. value of leadership food system leadership begins at the highest levels and is strengthened by the collaborative commitment of diverse stakeholders. urban universities are being approached by students, neighborhoods, city and county governments, and others to play an increasingly active role in addressing complex challenges of urban revitalization (sterrett, 2009). food systems enmesh linkages between metropolitan cities and rural countryside, with movement of people, goods, capital, and other social transactions, which influences rural and urban change (tacoli, 1998). urban universities can boldly lead divergent discourse on the multiple dimensions of food systems. leaders at all levels can advance food systems by asking questions for inclusive dialogue, leveraging unique urban university assets, respecting the distinct role of public and private interests, and recognizing the interdependencies of urban and rural; local and global; and conventional and alternative. osu food system stakeholders can continue to learn with other buckeye book community food system leadership initiative (fsli) research & innovation outreach & engagement teaching & learning resource stewardship food systems follow the tomato service learning course discovery themes’ initiative for food and agricultural transformation extension urban ag, healthy food systems, healthy people buckeye summit associate – doctoral degrees food innovation center food mapping team food waste collaborative team president and provost’s council on sustainability increase production and purchase of locally and sustainably sourced food to 40% by 2025 106 urban leaders, such as the national league of cities, and food and agriculture organization (fao) of the united nation’s “food for cities,” a community of practice with more than 2,500 members from 114 countries connecting research and practice on sustainable food systems and urbanization. food system leadership has deliberately been developed through projects such as the food system leadership initiative and the cultivation of systems leaders through the sustainable food lab global network, but there is tremendous opportunity to bring an urban focus and collective approach to food system leadership development. urban university leaders can make significant collective impact by uniting. many urban serving universities share a commitment to food systems and food security. universities can benefit from collaborating with one another to leverage unique assets and account for specific limitations of each institution. shared commitment, collective resources and diverse perspectives ensure that strategic priorities will continue to advance, even in the face of inevitable obstacles. during the five-year period of this study, the emphasis on transdisciplinary food system impacts has engaged multiple contributors to make significant developments. additional discoveries will emerge as urban universities continue to explore a strategic shift from individual projects to a more collective approach to complex food system issues and opportunities. references barlett, p. f. 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(2012). reflection on 10 years of community-engaged scholarship in the faculty of land and food systems at the university of british columbiavancouver. journal of higher education outreach and engagement, 16(1), 195-214. sharp, j.s., clark, j.k., davis, g.a., & bean smith, m. (2011). adapting community and economic development tools to the study of local foods: the case of knox county, ohio. journal of extension, 49(2), 1-12. article 2fea4. retrieved from http://www.joe.org/joe/2011april/a4.php stake, r. e. (1995). the art of case study research. thousand oaks: sage publications. https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-5871.12156 http://www.joe.org/joe/2007april/a1.php https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2007.00386.x https://doi.org/10.1177/1476750316656041 https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1007558805953 https://dx.doi.org/10.1111/juaf.12149 http://www.academic-conferences.org/pdfs/ecie_2011_best_phd.pdf http://www.joe.org/joe/2011april/a4.php 109 sterrett, s. a. (2009). planning and partnerships for the renewal of urban neighborhoods. journal of higher education outreach and engagement, 13(3), 113-130. sundkvist, a., milestad, r., & jansson, a. m. (2005). on the importance of tightening feedback loops for sustainable development of food systems. food policy, 30(2), 224-239. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2005.02.003 sweeney, g., hand, m., kaiser, m., clark, j. k., rogers, c., & spees, c. (2015). the state of food mapping academic literature since 2008 and review of online gis-based food mapping resources. journal of planning literature 31(2), 123-219. https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0885412215599425 tacoli, cecilia. (1998). rural-urban interactions: a guide to the literature. environment and urbanization, 10(1), 147-166. https://doi.org/10.1177/095624789801000105 tanaka, k., & mooney, p. h. (2010). public scholarship and community engagement in building community food security: the case of the university of kentucky. rural sociology, 75(4), 560583. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1549-0831.2010.00029.x thelwall, m., & wilkinson, d. (2003). three target document range metrics for university web sites. journal of the american society for information science and technology, 54(6), 490-497. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.10222 yin, r. k. (2011). applications of case study research. new york: sage publications. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foodpol.2005.02.003 https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0885412215599425 https://doi.org/10.1177/095624789801000105 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1549-0831.2010.00029.x https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.10222 110 author information julie fox, ph.d., is an associate professor with the ohio state university (osu) college of food, agricultural & environmental sciences and serves as an associate chair for the department of extension, leading osu extension in the city. she is part of osu’s leadership group focused on osu’s urban influence and mission. she has worked with osu since 1998 and began focusing on food system research, education, and service. julie m. fox, ph.d. department of extension college of food, agricultural and environmental sciences the ohio state university 2120 fyffe road, suite 25n columbus, oh 43210-1002 e-mail: fox.264@osu.edu telephone: 614-292-0456 http://u.osu.edu/juliefox https://twitter.com/foxosu https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-fox-208a7210 appendix documents from the following resources were reviewed and coded for content in one or more of the following categories: teaching and learning; research and innovation; outreach and engagement; and resource stewardship. agricultural technical institute, https://ati.osu.edu agroecosystems management program, http://amp.osu.edu association of public and land-grant universities (aplu), engagement and outreach, http://www.aplu.org/members/councils/engagement-and-outreach buckeye book community, https://fye.osu.edu/bbc.html buckeye food alliance food pantry, http://www.buckeyefoodalliance.org buckeye summit, https://buckeyesummit.osu.edu campus partners for community urban redevelopment, http://campuspartners.osu.edu carnegie classification of institutions of higher education, http://carnegieclassifications.iu.edu carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching’s 2015 community engagement classification, www.carnegiefoundation.org center for advanced functional foods research and entrepreneurship (caffre), https://u.osu.edu/caffre/food-centers center for ethics and values, https://cehv.osu.edu coalition of urban and metropolitan universities (cumu), http://www.cumuonline.org college of arts and sciences https://artsandsciences.osu.edu college of food, agricultural, and environmental sciences, http://cfaes.osu.edu community research partners, www.communityresearchpartners.org the conversation (food security article), https://theconversation.com/u-s-is-a-land-of-plenty-sowhy-do-millions-of-americans-still-go-hungry-55791 department of food science and technology, http://fst.osu.edu mailto:fox.264@osu.edu https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-fox-208a7210 https://ati.osu.edu/ http://amp.osu.edu/ http://www.aplu.org/members/councils/engagement-and-outreach https://fye.osu.edu/bbc.html http://www.buckeyefoodalliance.org/ https://buckeyesummit.osu.edu/ http://campuspartners.osu.edu/ http://carnegieclassifications.iu.edu/ http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/ https://u.osu.edu/caffre/food-centers https://cehv.osu.edu/ http://www.cumuonline.org/ https://artsandsciences.osu.edu/ http://cfaes.osu.edu/ http://www.communityresearchpartners.org/ https://theconversation.com/u-s-is-a-land-of-plenty-so-why-do-millions-of-americans-still-go-hungry-55791 https://theconversation.com/u-s-is-a-land-of-plenty-so-why-do-millions-of-americans-still-go-hungry-55791 http://fst.osu.edu/ 111 discovery themes, https://discovery.osu.edu everybody eats: exploring food, flavors, and faith, https://religion.osu.edu/events/food-familyand-faith-soup-nuts-abrahamic-traditions.-kickoff-series-everybody-eats-exploring extension, http://extension.osu.edu faculty cluster hiring report, urban serving universities, http://usucoalition.org/images/faculty_cluster_hiring_report.pdf food and agriculture organization of the united nation’s “food for cities,” http://www.fao.org/fcit/en food fellows, https://u.osu.edu/foodfellows/home food industry center, http://foodindustries.osu.edu food initiative, www.osu.edu/initiatives/food.html food innovation center, http://fic.osu.edu food system leadership initiative, www.fsli.org food waste collaborative, https://u.osu.edu/foodwaste garden of hope, https://cancer.osu.edu/blog/garden-of-hope-offers-survivors-wholesomecancer-fighting-foods healthy food systems, healthy people, http://www.aplu.org/projects-and-initiatives/agriculturehuman-sciences-and-natural-resources/healthy-food-systems-healthy-people internet archive, wayback machine, www.archive.org john glenn college of public affairs (food policy), http://glenn.osu.edu/research/food-policy joint council of extension professionals, http://jcep.org knowledge bank (local and sustainable food purchasing at the ohio state university: capstone course proposal), http://kb.osu.edu/dspace/handle/1811/76746 knowlton school of architecture, http://knowlton.osu.edu living culture initiative, https://u.osu.edu/livingculture local food action plan, https://www.columbus.gov/publichealth/programs/local-food-actionplan mapping the food environment, http://foodmapping.osu.edu national league of cities, http://www.sustainablecitiesinstitute.org national science foundation, rankings by total r&d expenditure, https://ncsesdata.nsf.gov/profiles/site?method=rankingbysource&ds=herd new engagement: exploring the issues across a spectrum, http://www.aplu.org/library/thenew-engagement-exploring-the-issues-across-a-spectrum/file office of academic affairs, https://oaa.osu.edu office of international affairs, https://oia.osu.edu office of research, http://research.osu.edu ohio agricultural research and development center, http://oardc.osu.edu ohio campus compact statewide non-profit coalition of 41 college and university presidents and their campuses, http://www.ohiocampuscompact.org ohio farm to school program, http://farmtoschool.osu.edu outreach and engagement, http://outreach.osu.edu pay it forward osu student cohort, http://payitforward.osu.edu p12 initiative, http://p12.ehe.osu.edu plate of the union, www.plateoftheunion.com president and provost’s council on sustainability, https://president.osu.edu/leadership-andcommittees/president-and-provosts-council-on-sustainability.html https://discovery.osu.edu/ https://religion.osu.edu/events/food-family-and-faith-soup-nuts-abrahamic-traditions.-kickoff-series-everybody-eats-exploring https://religion.osu.edu/events/food-family-and-faith-soup-nuts-abrahamic-traditions.-kickoff-series-everybody-eats-exploring http://extension.osu.edu/ http://usucoalition.org/images/faculty_cluster_hiring_report.pdf http://www.fao.org/fcit/en https://u.osu.edu/foodfellows/home http://foodindustries.osu.edu/ http://www.osu.edu/initiatives/food.html http://fic.osu.edu/ http://www.fsli.org/ https://u.osu.edu/foodwaste https://cancer.osu.edu/blog/garden-of-hope-offers-survivors-wholesome-cancer-fighting-foods https://cancer.osu.edu/blog/garden-of-hope-offers-survivors-wholesome-cancer-fighting-foods http://www.aplu.org/projects-and-initiatives/agriculture-human-sciences-and-natural-resources/healthy-food-systems-healthy-people http://www.aplu.org/projects-and-initiatives/agriculture-human-sciences-and-natural-resources/healthy-food-systems-healthy-people http://www.archive.org/ http://glenn.osu.edu/research/food-policy http://jcep.org/ http://kb.osu.edu/dspace/handle/1811/76746 http://knowlton.osu.edu/event/situating-food-planning-and-design-new-urban-food-systems https://u.osu.edu/livingculture https://www.columbus.gov/publichealth/programs/local-food-action-plan https://www.columbus.gov/publichealth/programs/local-food-action-plan http://foodmapping.osu.edu/ http://www.sustainablecitiesinstitute.org/topics/food-systems https://ncsesdata.nsf.gov/profiles/site?method=rankingbysource&ds=herd http://www.aplu.org/library/the-new-engagement-exploring-the-issues-across-a-spectrum/file http://www.aplu.org/library/the-new-engagement-exploring-the-issues-across-a-spectrum/file https://oaa.osu.edu/ https://oia.osu.edu/ http://research.osu.edu/ http://oardc.osu.edu/ http://www.ohiocampuscompact.org/ http://farmtoschool.osu.edu/ http://outreach.osu.edu/ http://payitforward.osu.edu/ http://p12.ehe.osu.edu/ http://www.plateoftheunion.com/ https://president.osu.edu/leadership-and-committees/president-and-provosts-council-on-sustainability.html https://president.osu.edu/leadership-and-committees/president-and-provosts-council-on-sustainability.html 112 president drake’s vision 2020, www.osu.edu/features/2015/2020-vision.html president’s prize, president’s prize, https://presidentsprize.osu.edu real food challenge, www.realfoodchallenge.org real food osu, https://www.facebook.com/realfoodosu student life center, http://studentlife.osu.edu sustainable food lab, http://www.sustainablefoodlab.org targeted investments in excellence (2006 – 2011) https://oaa.osu.edu/tie.html technology commercialization office, https://tco.osu.edu university communications, https://researchnews.osu.edu university senate, http://senate.osu.edu university vision and mission 2016, https://oaa.osu.edu/vision-mission-values-goals.html urban institute’s national neighborhood indicators partnership, www.neighborhoodindicators.org urban october, http://www.urbanoctober.org urban universities for health (cluster hiring), http://usucoalition.org/images/faculty_cluster_hiring_report.pdf student organizations, http://www.ohiounion.osu.edu/get_involved/student_organizations world food prize, https://www.worldfoodprize.org wosu public media, http://wosu.org http://www.osu.edu/features/2015/2020-vision.html https://presidentsprize.osu.edu/ http://www.realfoodchallenge.org/ https://www.facebook.com/realfoodosu http://studentlife.osu.edu/ http://www.sustainablefoodlab.org/ https://oaa.osu.edu/tie.html https://tco.osu.edu/ https://researchnews.osu.edu/ http://senate.osu.edu/ https://oaa.osu.edu/vision-mission-values-goals.html http://www.neighborhoodindicators.org/ http://www.urbanoctober.org/ http://usucoalition.org/images/faculty_cluster_hiring_report.pdf http://www.ohiounion.osu.edu/get_involved/student_organizations https://www.worldfoodprize.org/ http://wosu.org/ 2 love of place: the metropolitan university advantage: 2015 cumu national conference in omaha joseph a. allen, kelly a. prange, deborah smith-howell, sara woods, and b. j. reed the theme for the 2015 cumu national conference in omaha, ne was “love of place: the metropolitan university advantage”. the 2015 theme celebrates key elements that establish the identity of metropolitan universities and cumu as an organization. the theme recognizes the unique opportunities and benefits provided by metropolitan universities for students and communities. metropolitan universities provide students with enriching educational experiences while contributing to building and strengthening the community. these enriched experiences also support faculty and staff growth as members of the university and community. the theme encouraged conference participants to explore new pedagogical approaches, strategies for sustaining meaningful partnerships, and opportunities for successful engagement of the community by examining the transformative power of the relationships between metropolitan universities and their “place.” essential to this theme is the notion of stewardship and being good stewards of the communities that we live in, that bless our lives, our families, and our universities. the special issue devoted to the theme and notion of “love of place” provides an overview of the stewardship witnessed at the conference and then launches into the full article contributions that illustrate the “love of place” exemplified by the great presenters and the many initiatives occurring across the cumu. the conference experience the university of nebraska at omaha was honored to host the 21st annual coalition of urban and metropolitan universities conference october 11-13, 2015. this year’s theme, “love of place: the metropolitan university advantage”, grew from uno’s long-time institutional commitment to the city of omaha and its pride in being omaha’s university. of course, uno’s commitment and pride are shared by all cumu institutions. the conference included a variety of keynote speakers, sessions, panels, and the presentation of the lynton award. here we provide some highlights to help all remember the “love of place” experienced in omaha. opening symposium on sunday, october 11th, the opening symposium was conducted at the barbara weitz community engagement center (cec) on uno’s campus. panelists included barbara weitz, co-founder of the weitz family foundation, david brown, president and ceo of the greater omaha chamber of commerce, john scott, vice president of the william and ruth scott family foundation, and sara woods, director of the community engagement center. panelists discussed the community engagement center as an embodiment of the conference theme and as an example of metropolitan university engaging its community. the symposium was facilitated by b. j. reed, senior vice chancellor for academic and student affairs at uno. uno’s chancellor, john christiansen, provided a warm welcome to everyone who was able to attend and highlighted the purpose of the cumu conference, to learn from one another and have fun! with 300 attendees from 62 universities in 32 states and 3 provinces in canada, the opportunities for ideation and growth at this year’s conference were abundant. the chancellor commented on the conference theme, and as a part of uno he affirmed that omaha is an incredible place that has been transformed because of the remarkable things created by public/private partnerships, such as the community engagement center (cec). 3 the cec makes the community more accessible and salient to uno students, faculty and staff and at the same time provides resources to the community (e.g., meeting and event space at no cost, student volunteers) that organizations like omaha’s chamber of commerce have used assertively. b. j. reed kicked off the symposium by asking panelists to first speak to the challenges of building and maintaining the cec and the vision behind its creation. all panelists agreed that the building grew out of a smaller pilot in the early 2000’s to house nonprofit agencies as well as the lessons learned from the inception of a service learning initiative at about the same time. they noted that it was a difficult concept to communicate to potential donors because the idea is difficult to explain to people who are not familiar with the concept of metropolitan universities and community engagement or who had not had firsthand experience with the earlier efforts. once two key donors committed resources and others provided initial support, sufficient funding was raised to move forward with the project. however, now that the cec is built and functioning, people are beginning to see the vision in action and the value it provides to both campus and community. even though the building plan included adaptable and versatile space, creating and maintaining a flexible space and an adjustable plan moving forward to allow the cec to meet community needs has been another challenge for uno and cec sponsors. in addition, the ambiguity surrounding the concept of engaged space with dual purposes of community use and student involvement at a scale that had not been done before makes assessing the performance and outcomes of the cec very difficult. woods asserted that the values upon which the cec was built, such as reciprocity, communication, and collaboration, are the foundation of every decision and continue to drive the direction of the cec. the panelists then shared a few lessons that they have learned from the experience of creating the cec that would be transferrable to other metropolitan universities. one matter discussed was that having leadership at the university that has vision and buy-in to creating and improving community engagement is essential for creating lasting change. in addition, scott emphasized that being intentional and “serious” about creating a space like the cec will ensure that change agents can build something truly meaningful and powerful. the primary outcome gained by the cec is the interaction between students and the community that creates a cultural change on campus and integrates the university and the community. they also noted the importance of engaging potential donors in the process and concept of campus engagement so they can experience its potential on a first-hand basis. during the question and answer portion of the symposium, attendees were able to share their enthusiasm for community/university collaborations, discuss in more detail the staff infrastructure of the cec, comment on the future challenges in store for this kind of a building, and emphasize the role of the cec as a facilitator, not a driver, of community engagement. poster presentations following the symposium, a reception was held throughout the cec for attendees to connect and continue touring the building. in addition, poster sessions were held regarding the following topics: building and strengthening communities embracing community locally and globally facilitating and measuring transformation transformative academic programs and partnerships the posters generated insightful and collaborative discussions about how universities are demonstrating “love of place” by engaging with their communities and meeting their needs in creative ways. presenters shared examples of service learning, engaged scholarship, and community partnerships and how their efforts created beneficial outcomes for students, institutions, organizations, and communities. 4 lynton award the ernest a. lynton award was established in 1996 to honor ernest lynton and his “vision of faculty scholarly engagement as inclusive, collaborative, and problem-oriented work in which academic share knowledge-generating tasks with the public and involve community partners as participates in public problem-solving” (cumuonline.org). the award recognizes an early career faculty member whose scholarship in teaching, research, and service is connected to community engagement. more information on the award and ernest a. lynton can be found at www.nerche.org. the award recipient is selected by nerche and presented at the annual cumu conference. the recipient this year was dr. erick demeulenaere, assistant professor of urban schooling in the department of education at clark university. in his teaching, research, and community engagement, dr. demeulenaere demonstrates his commitment to “confronting inequalities and empowering urban youth to create change in their communities” (2015 lynton award recipient, 2015). panel of omaha nebraska leaders following the presentation of the lynton award, three omaha area leaders -arvin frazier iii, director of college possible; pete festersen, omaha city councilman; and lyn ziegenbein, director emerita of the peter kiewit foundation, discussed how metropolitan universities can partner with their communities to provide economic stability, a continuous flow of new leadership, and social capital. specifically, the panel examined the dual themes of economic development and workforce growth and how metropolitan universities could play a role in helping their cities attract and retain business and industry, as well as attract and retain a diverse and talented workforce. ziegenbein discussed the need for building social capital in communities by developing a strong base of community leaders and described the role she believed urban and metropolitan universities can serve in addressing this challenge. frazier, whose organization provides college mentoring and support to first generation students, discussed how metropolitan universities can provide greater support to underserved populations through deeper community partnerships, commitment to students at earlier ages, and better access to financial aid. special conference issue each year metropolitan universities journal provides a venue where full articles based upon the presentations at the cumu conference are published. more than 20 submissions were received this year for the 8 spots in the special issue. because of the wonderful interest from cumu conference participants, it was decided that an editorial board for the special should be assembled to assist with reviewing and managing the article selection process. the editorial board included deb smith-howell, paul sather, rosemary strasser, brian mckevitt, kathy lyons-oleson, sara woods, mitzi ritzman, and nancy kelley-gillespie. in addition to the board, an assistant editor, kelly prange, was enlisted to help with managing the review process and other tasks to ensure papers moved smoothly through the publication process. top paper award in an effort to increase interest in the special issue and to reward the great work being done by so many wonderful faculty and administrators in the cumu, the university of nebraska at omaha introduced the first annual “top paper award”, celebrating the best and most highly-rated submission for the special issue. the following process was used to decide which paper would receive the award. first, all papers were reviewed by editorial board members and other reviewers as a standard practice for the muj. during the http://www.nerche.org/ 5 review, raters provided ratings concerning the practical and theoretical significance of the submission, the fit of the submission to the conference theme, the appropriateness to the journal, the quality of the literature review, the quality of the research design (if applicable), and the overall presentation and communication clarity of the submission. second, the top five, highest-rated submissions were then discussed at length in a meeting of the editorial board and special issue editor. during that meeting, the strengths and merit of each paper was discussed and a final vote was rendered concerning which of the papers stood out above the rest. it is a great honor and privilege to announce that the first article of this special issue, the winner of the first annual top paper award, and the most highly rated paper from the submission review process, was written and submitted by judith ramaley, and is entitled “collaboration in an era of change: new forms of community problem-solving”. top paper spotlight collaboration in an era of change: new forms of collaborative problem-solving. ramaley’s article portrays how the digital age is changing our society and creating complex issues in our communities, which challenges metropolitan universities to adapt the way they approach higher education – that is, promoting a more innovative, collaborative, and competency-based scholarship framework (levine 2015; heifetz et al. 2009). she also explains how metropolitan universities can support community-based learning experiences for students by creating a culture of engagement and participating in collective impact efforts to solve community issues. ramaley gives examples of how portland state university has implemented programs to support psu’s commitment to helping students prepare for excelling in their professions and for solving the “wicked problems” their communities face. through multi-year, collaborative partnerships and a commitment to creating and sustaining an age-friendly university, psu demonstrates its promise to be a partner and a resource for their community while leading readers to reflect on the 2015 cumu conference theme, love of place: the metropolitan university advantage. articles in this volume reflection promotes transformation in a service learning course. stover, a professor in the college of nursing at the university of massachusetts dartmouth, describes the importance of the social aspects of health and social justice in determining the true health of individuals (marmot and allen 2014). she describes an exploratory service learning course that brought this issue to light for nursing students at a metropolitan university. most importantly, her paper describes the use of reflection activities that lead to transformative learning outcomes and provides an exemplary illustration of best practices in service learning. teacher training in urban settings: inquiry, efficacy, and culturally diverse field placements. mcglamery, franks, and shillingstad, professors at uno, offer expertise about preparing elementary education majors to confidently teach mathematics and science to culturally diverse students (buss 2010). they describe a field experience in which elementary education majors worked with female children at a camp to introduce them to stem topics. the college students’ self-efficacy was measured, and significant increases were found from pre-scores to post-scores, indicating that the field exercise and community partnerships are a potential solution to helping prepare effective teachers. the dynamics of university/city government relationships: it’s personal. curry, the dean of lifelong learning at simon fraser university, discusses the importance of university/city government partnerships for building love of place, yet the difficulties inherent therein (huxam 2003). best practices are described for reducing roadblocks and building trust between partners so that mutual objectives can be met and the community can benefit. 6 enhancing the stem ecosystem through teacher-researcher partnerships. tapprich, grandgenett, leas, rodie, shuster, schaben, and cutucache, from uno and omaha public schools, describe k-16 partnerships formed between uno faculty and teachers at public schools to conduct research. this longterm collaboration is a response to the national priority given to stem education. positive outcomes are anticipated for both faculty and students involved as this program continues. collective impact versus collaboration: two sides of the same coin or different phenomenon? prange, allen, and reiter-palmon review literature regarding collective impact, reiterating the importance of having a common goal, shared measurement systems, reinforcing activities, continuous communication, a backbone organization, and certain mindset shifts when solving our communities’ complex social issues (kania and kramer 2011; kania, hanleybrown, and splansky juster 2014). to delve deeper into the practice of collective impact, the authors draw comparisons from organizational psychology literature and conclude that collective impact is a specific form of inter-organizational collaboration. the university next door: developing a centralized unit that strategically cultivates community engagement at an urban university. holton, early, resler, trussell, and howard, from virginia commonwealth university, provide a case example of a unit within a metropolitan university dedicated to increasing community engagement. to do so, kotter’s (1996) model of organizational change was adapted to fit the structure and needs of a metropolitan university. through this change, virginia commonwealth hopes to create lasting change in their communities through cross-sector and crossdepartmental collaborations. volunteer program assessment at the university of nebraska at omaha: a metropolitan university’s collaboration with rural and spanish-speaking volunteers. scherer, graeve-cunningham, trent, weddington, thurley, allen, and prange, from the industrial/organizational psychology program at uno, describes the efforts of a student-led organization that provides volunteer program evaluation tools free of charge to non-profit organizations and provides professional development opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students. this unique organization has demonstrated love of place by translating their tools and outreach to rural populations to meet the needs of community partners. the authors stress the importance of building trusting, reciprocally beneficial, relationships with community organizations. conclusion as the conference summary and articles contained in this issue illustrate, “love of place” truly catches the spirit of the vision and aims of many metropolitan universities. these articles embody the combined efforts of administrators, faculty, staff, students, and community members in celebrating their unique “love of place” in their respective communities and universities. it is the hope of the entire editorial team, the cumu conference leadership, and the contributors to this issue that those who read the contributions will catch the spirit of “love of place” and perhaps engage further in building the universities and communities that lift us all. 7 references buss, r. r. (2010). efficacy for teaching elementary science and mathematics compared to other content. school science and mathematics 110 (6), 290-297. doi:10.1111/j.19498594.2010.00037.x. coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. (2016). retrieved from http://www.cumuonline.org/. heifetz, r., grashow, a, & linsky, m. (2009). the practice of adaptive leadership: tools and tactics for changing your organization and the world. boston: harvard university press. huxham, c. (2003). theorizing collaboration practice. public management review 5 (3), 410– 423. doi:10.1080/1471903032000146964. levine, a. (2015 september 18). time is right for colleges to shift from assembly-line education. the chronicle of higher education lxii (3), a27-28. marmot, m., & allen, j. j. (2014 september). social determinants of health equity. american journal of public health 104 suppl 4, s517–9. doi:10.2105/ajph.2014.302200. 2015 lynton award recipient. (2015). retrieved from http://www.nerche.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1520&itemid=581 http://www.cumuonline.org/ http://paperpile.com/b/oykzuz/o0ym http://paperpile.com/b/oykzuz/o0ym http://paperpile.com/b/oykzuz/o0ym http://www.nerche.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1520&itemid=581 8 author information joseph a. allen is an assistant professor of industrial/organizational psychology at the university of nebraska at omaha. his engaged scholarship pursuits include the study of meetings among career and volunteer firefighters, investigating volunteer management challenges in nonprofit organizations, and the study of collaboration in the form of collective impact. kelly a. prange is a graduate student studying industrial/organizational psychology at the university of nebraska at omaha. she is pursuing research interests within the realms of collective impact, social responsibility, and community engagement. b. j. reed is senior vice chancellor at the university of nebraska at omaha. in his over 30 years at uno he has written extensively on community and economic development and has been involved in engagement activities in omaha and throughout nebraska. deborah smith-howell is associate vice chancellor of academic affairs, dean of graduate studies, and professor of communication at the university of nebraska at omaha. her areas of specialization and research are communication education, presidential rhetorical, media coverage of the presidency and civic participation. sara woods is executive associate to the senior vice chancellor for community engagement and director of the barbara weitz community engagement center at the university of nebraska at omaha (uno). she oversees the daily operations of the unique 70,000 sq. ft. center, which houses over 30 partner organizations, event space, and uno’s signature outreach programs. she has an mpa from uno. joseph a. allen department of psychology university of nebraska at omaha 6001 dodge st. omaha, ne 68182 e-mail: josephallen@unomaha.edu telephone: 402-554-6017 fax: 402-554-2556 kelly a. prange department of psychology university of nebraska at omaha 6001 dodge st. omaha, ne 68182 e-mail: kprange@unomaha.edu telephone: 402-540-1876 fax: 402-554-2556 b. j. reed office of academic and student affairs university of nebraska at omaha mailto:awilmarth@miskatonic.edu mailto:awilmarth@miskatonic.edu 9 6001 dodge st. omaha, ne 68182 e-mail: breed@unomaha.edu telephone: 402-554-2262 fax: 402-554-554-4896 deborah smith-howell academic affairs and graduate studies university of nebraska at omaha 6001 dodge st. omaha, ne 68182 e-mail: dsmith-howell@unomaha.edu telephone: 402-554-4849 fax: 402-554-3143 sara woods executive associate to the senior vice chancellor for community engagement director, barbara weitz community engagement center university of nebraska at omaha 6001 dodge st. omaha, ne 68182 e-mail: swoods@unomaha.edu telephone: 402-554-3914 fax: 402-554-5904 mailto:dsmith-howell@unomaha.edu mailto:swoods@unomaha.edu metropolitan universities vol. 28 no. 3 (summer 2017), doi: 10.18060/21538 peer mentoring: a tool for serving the diverse needs of 21st century college students peter collier, phd portland state university higher education is changing even as it stays the same. what has stayed the same is the immense value of a completed college degree on both societal and personal levels. for society, increasing the percentage of the population with advanced educational credentials is associated with increased work skills, a stable economy, stable national, state, and local tax revenue streams, decreased needs for a range of social services, increased citizen participation, and perhaps most importantly, an informed citizenry capable of understanding and synthesizing complex information and critically thinking about important social issues. on a personal level, increasing the percentage of individuals with completed college degrees should be associated with higher standards of living, better health, and higher levels of feelings of self-efficacy and self-worth for a greater number/ percentage of americans. yet several aspects of the context of higher education are changing rapidly. unfortunately there are characteristics of 21st century higher education that actually make it harder for students to realize their educational goals and for colleges and universities to facilitate students’ efforts, including: 1. the college student population has become increasingly diverse over the past 25 years. as college degrees become more and more essential for obtaining desirable career/occupational paths, the percentage of high school graduates seeking these credentials also increases. non-traditional student groups increasing their share of the total college population in this period include: • student veterans, (u.s. department of veterans affairs, 2013) • first generation students, (i.e. those whose parents did not complete us college degrees) (collier, 2015) • immigrants and the children of immigrants, (baum & flores, 2011) • students with disabilities, (lee, 2009) and • students from minority racial-ethnic groups. (fry, 2011) issues associated with serving an increasingly diverse student body are particularly critical for urban/metropolitan colleges and universities due to both their missions and local populations. 2. there has been a continuing trend of decreased state-level funding of higher education. a 2016 center on budget and policy priorities report, “funding down, tuition up,” noted that, even after adjusting for inflation, funding for public two and four-year colleges is nearly $10 billion below what it was just prior to the 2008 recession (mitchell, leachmen & masterson, 2016). these changes in state-level funding have resulted in a combination of cuts in academic offerings and the number of professional student support workers 4 (e.g. advisers and counselors), along with increases in tuition. non-traditional students are disproportionately impacted by cuts in the number of available counselors and advisers due to their unfamiliarity with the culture of higher education. as state-level support decreased, colleges and universities were forced to rely on tuition for a larger and larger percentage of their operating budgets. in 1988, public colleges and universities received 3.2 times as much revenue from state and local governments as they did from students; in 2016 they only received 1.2 times as much support (mitchell, et al. 2016). unfortunately, wages did not increase at the same rate as tuition. between the 2007-9 and 2014-15 school years, tuition jumped nearly 30 percent while, in the same period real median income fell roughly 6.5 percent (mitchell, et al. 2016). the sharp tuition increases of the past ten years have only exacerbated a longer-term trend of a shifting a greater percentage of college costs to students and their families. there is also an equity issue that needs to be addressed as the increasing prices of tuition have disproportionately negative effects on access and degree-completion rates for low-income students and students of color (allen & wolniak, 2015). 3. there are costs to schools when students do not finish their degree programs. alumni are much more likely than degree non-completers to donate to their respective institution/alma mater once they are established in the work world. this means that students who leave school without completing their degrees represent a present loss of tuition and a future loss of donation-based revenue, chiefly in two ways: • students who do not complete their degrees cost colleges money by keeping them from recouping all their initial investments in orientation and support services. a sizable amount of colleges’ student processing and support costs are actually accrued during the first year. however, all the cost is not recovered until later in a student’s undergraduate career (collier, 2014). • while the potential revenue loss associated with any student dropping out is fiscally important for colleges and universities, the loss of students from specific subgroups is particularly critical from a revenue perspective. for example, student veterans are a fiscally important subgroup. they make up an increasing percentage of the u.s. college student population and bring with them federal educational benefits under the post-9/11 gi bill. colleges and universities have a vested financial interest in promoting veterans’ college success as congress is paying increased attention to the degree completion rates student veterans’. so colleges and universities are faced with a conundrum that is difficult to address, at least initially: how to support students—who share some common issues but also bring with them group-specific issues—and help them succeed academically and feel connected socially to their school, while lacking sufficient external resources to support all students through staff/facultybased programs. peer mentoring is a resource that college and university administrators and student affairs professionals can use to help address this issue. all of the articles in this issue share the 5 perspective that peer-mentoring works best as a compliment to university-based student support services. the first article in this issue, my own contribution why peer mentoring is an effective approach for promoting college student success, is an effort to provide some context for the remaining articles in this issue. this article examines three characteristics of a peer mentoring approach that contribute to promoting student success. the first two characteristics, cost and availability of a larger number of potential mentors, relate to the efficient allocation of resources. the third characteristic, the development between mentor and mentee of a common perspective on the college student role, subsequently affects perceived mentor credibility and the likelihood that mentees will actually follow their mentors’ advice. there are two related themes that connect the rest of the articles in this special issue. the first theme is that peer mentoring is a valuable approach that colleges and universities can use to help support the increasingly diverse 21st century student population. the second theme is that when colleges and universities implement peer-mentoring programs they must be prepared to address new coordination and infrastructure-related issues. perhaps the single defining characteristic of the current college-level student population is how many students from previously under-represented groups are now attending universities in their efforts to complete degrees. by tailoring their support efforts to the specific needs of distinct groups of students, peer-mentoring programs facilitate student academic and social success, and increase the likelihood of students’ connecting with the larger university communities. many of the articles in this special issue were selected as examples of best practices regarding targeted support for specific, previously under-served subgroups of college students (e.g. student veterans, students with disabilities, first generation, low-income, and immigrant students). catherine lewis (university of rochester), in her article creating inclusive campus communities: the vital role of peer mentorship in inclusive higher education, details the “transition opportunities at university of rochester” (tour) program that supports students with intellectual and developmental disabilities. she explains how the tour program focuses on helping these students thrive academically and socially during their college educations. an interesting aspect of this paper is a discussion of the reciprocal benefits of using peer mentoring to support inclusive higher education. student veterans are another group whose proportional representation is increasing on college and university campuses. michelle kees, brittany rsik, chrysta meadowbrooke, timothy nellen and jane spinner (university of michigan), in their article peer advisors for veteran education (pave): implementing a sustainable peer support program for student veterans on college campuses, describe the iterative development of a nationwide peer support program for student veterans, peer advisors for education (pave). pave uses trained peers to provide outreach, support, and linkage to resources to assist student veterans. mathew kring (metropolitan state university of denver) details how peer mentoring is used to support immigrant students in his article, supporting college students through peer mentoring: 6 serving immigrant students. the immigrant services program at metropolitan state university of denver provides support to a specific population of students at metropolitan state university of denver that includes immigrants, refugees, undocumented and deferred action childhood arrival (daca) students, and english language learners (ell). two of the articles in this issue describe programs that target first generation, low-income, racial-ethnic minority group students: jennifer l. smith (university of texas-austin), in her article innovating for student success: the university leadership network and tiered undergraduate peer mentor model,explains how peer mentoring is utilized in the university of texas’s large-scale university leadership network program. this article also examines the tiered undergraduate peer mentor model, utilized to support the success of first-year students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds, including a majority of underrepresented minority students. thomas e. keller, kay logan, jennifer lindwall and caitlyn beals (portland state university), in their article peer mentoring for undergraduates in a research-focused diversity initiative, describe the building university infrastructure leading to diversity (build) exito program. the build exito project is part of an nih-sponsored diversity initiative, intended to promote innovative approaches to research training for undergraduates from backgrounds traditionally underrepresented in the biomedical and behavioral sciences. using a “convoy” model of mentoring, this program matches student scholars with three mentors: (a) a peer mentor (i.e. advanced student); (b) a career mentor (i.e. faculty adviser); and (c) a research mentor (i.e. research project supervisor) in a coordinated effort to support students from their beginnings at community colleges through transfer to a four year university and associated research laboratory experiences in preparation for graduate-level biomedical training. the second theme of this journal issue is what are some best practices for coordinating multiple peer mentoring programs, both on the same campus and across multiple schools? selected articles share best practices and insights into the organization and coordination of multiple peer mentoring programs, serving different constituencies but still sharing some common organizational needs. allison mcwilliams (wake forest university), in her article wake forest university: building a campus-wide mentoring culture, describes how the wake forest’s mentoring resource center (mrc) uses a decentralized, consulting model to support a variety of peer mentoring programs. these serve diverse groups from first generation students to student leaders and honor society members. mrc facilitates mentor and mentee skill development by providing peer-mentoring programs with trainings, resource toolkits and evaluation tools. coordination of multiple programs is discussed in several other articles. matthew kring describes how the student academic success center at metropolitan university of denver coordinates multiple programs including immigrant services. other mu-d programs that use peer mentors to provide direct services to students include brother to brother that supports male students of color, fostering success that serves emancipated foster youth, and transfer services. 7 keller, logan, lindwall and beals introduce the build exito program, and describe how peer mentoring contributes to coordinated activities between community colleges, four-year universities and research settings. here, peer mentoring provides undergraduate research experiences to stem majors which are designed to increase students’ likelihood of graduate school acceptance and success. finally, kees, risk, meadowebrooke, nellet, and spinner offer an article on pave veteran-support program with a unique perspective on the coordination and infrastructure challenges this program experienced. itprogressed from a relatively local program (i.e. 3 michigan universities) to a national program represented on 48 campuses in only a threeyear time period. i want to sincerely thank all of the authors of the articles in this special issue for the time and effort they put into crafting the manuscripts for this special issue. i also would like to thank all of the other peer mentoring advocates, i.e. faculty members, student affairs professionals, alumni, and student mentors, who are doing the not-so-glamorous, day-to-day work of developing and maintaining college and university student support programs. keep up your good work. i’d like to acknowledge dr. nora dominquez, director of the mentoring institute at the university of new mexico (unm) and the guiding force behind the annual mentoring conference at unm for the past ten years. it was at that mentoring conference that i initially met several of the authors of articles in this issue as they shared their work, and the unm conference remains one of the premier venues for networking with peer mentoring practitioners. finally, the development of this special issue spanned the metropolitan universities editorships of both dr. barbara holland and dr. valerie holton. i want to express my sincere appreciation for all the encouragement and support i received in developing this project. peter j. collier, phd portland, oregon may, 2017 8 references allen, drew & wolniak, gregory c. (2015). exploring the effects of tuition increases on racial/ethnic diversity at public colleges and universities. chicago, il: aera annual meeting, p. 30. retrieved from http://www.aera.net/portals/38/newsroom%20%20recent%20research/exploring%20the%20effects%20of%20tuition%20increases%20on% 20racial-ethnic%20diversity%20at.pdf. baum, s. & flores, s.m. (2011) higher education and children in immigrant families. the future of children, 21(1), 171–193. https://doi.org/10.1353/foc.2011.0000 collier, p. j. (2015). developing effective student peer mentoring programs: a practitioner’s guide to program design, delivery, evaluation, and training. sterling, va: stylus publishing. fry, r. (2011, august 25). hispanic college enrollment spikes, narrowing gaps with other groups: 24% growth from 2009 to 2010. washington, dc: pew research center, 1-29. retrieved from http://www.pewhispanic.org/2011/08/25/hispanic-college-enrollment-spikes-narrowinggaps-with-other-groups/ lee, stephanie (2009). overview of the federal higher education opportunity act. boston, ma: university of massachusetts boston, institute for community inclusion. retrieved from http://www.thinkcollege.net/component/resdb/item/t-110/607 mitchell, michael, leachman, michael and kathleen masterson, (2016) funding down, tuition up: state cuts to higher education threaten quality and affordability at public colleges. washington, dc; center on budget and policy priorities. retrieved from http://www.cbpp.org/research/state-budget-and-tax/funding-down-tuition-up#_ftn33 u.s. department of veterans affairs. (2013, november). one million now benefit from post9/11 gi bill [press release]. washington, dc: office of public and intergovernmental affairs, u.s. department of veterans affairs. retrieved from http://www.va.gov/opa/pressrel/pressrelease.cfm?id=2490 https://doi.org/10.1353/foc.2011.0000 metropolitan universities vol. 28 no. 2 (spring 2017), doi: 10.18060/21509 “promoting cities as places of promise”: remarks at the annual meeting of the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities washington, d.c., october 23, 2016 blair a. ruble at the height of the cold war, soviet wags loved to tell ironic tales about their political leaders. communist party general secretary leonid brezhnev inspired a number of particularly endearing stories, which always somehow related to his being slightly at sea in the middle of the world events swirling around him. one such anikdot pitted the witless brezhnev against a wily richard nixon. brezhnev and nixon, it seems, were meeting in the white house when the american president decided to call god for advice. he summoned an aide, who brought a large white phone. a few moments after he had completed his consultation with the divine being, another assistant came in with a receipt. nixon approved the bill of some $20 million for the call. flying back to moscow, a furious brezhnev inquired of the cowering red army officers how it was that the americans could call god but he could not. he demanded that the entire soviet military research complex dedicate itself to establishing phone service with god. a few months later, it was time for nixon to visit moscow. the two leaders sat in brezhnev’s kremlin office. at a critical juncture in the negotiations, brezhnev summoned an aide, who brought a red phone that was even bigger than the white one nixon had used in the oval office. brezhnev dialed a number and had a brief conversation. a few moments later, an obsequious aide shuffled into the meeting with a receipt for just 2 kopecks (or 0.02 ruble). brezhnev was pleased, but perplexed. why, he asked his assistant, once the americans had departed, had it cost nixon $20 million to place his call, but he, the communist general secretary, had to pay only 2 kopecks? the subordinate quickly responded, “because calling the devil from moscow is only a local call.” paradoxically, this very moscow where hell was just a local call away also happened to be one of the planet’s most creative cities. internationally acclaimed authors were penning their best works; noble ballerinas were training; world-class actors were perfecting their craft; some of the world’s best mathematicians were arguing over equations. people with vast differences came and went every day jostling one another on streets that, indeed, resembled visions of dante’s inferno at times. moscow under brezhnev underscored the reality that creativity does not necessarily coexist with virtue. but with what does creativity co-exist? 18 whatever else brezhnev’s moscow was, many muscovites of the time believed it to be a place of promise. many of my friends arrived in moscow from lonely provincial towns scattered across a dozen time zones. for them, moscow was all about promise. living in and traveling to brezhnev’s moscow forced me to ponder the apparent contradiction between the gray and repressed existence of everyday life in the soviet union and the bright and impressive personalities who seemed to abound. i often have found myself drawn back to that vision of my moscow friends at the time that their bedraggled city was a place of promise. what does it mean for a city to be a place of promise? one lesson from soviet-era moscow is that we have to explore many different dimensions of urban life to answer that question. indeed, today—literally today, a sunday in october 2016—turns out to be a propitious moment for advancing holistic concepts of the city as places of promise. in trying to explore the notion of the city as a place of promise, let me begin with place. when we think any particular place, be it a metropolitan region, a city, a neighborhood, a university campus, or a rural town, there really is only one question that matters: would parents want their children to be here, in this place? think about it; such a simple question; a simple question requiring the most complex of answers. yet, this is a question that is so essential for thinking about how universities, cities, and metropolitan regions fit together. i would like to step back and offer a couple of very brief reflections about these connections by looking to the global context of your work. and when i say global, i mean global in the sense of the planet. i want to do so today in particular because this is an exciting moment for all of us who think about cities. just last thursday, the united nations concluded an important summit on cities that will shape much of what happens in, to, and with cities in the years ahead. that meeting in quito, ecuador marks the culmination of a multi-year un process that includes the approval of an “urban” sustainable development goal by the general assembly in 2015, and the adoption just a few days ago by all member states, including the united states, of a new urban agenda. what this means is that the united states government has just acknowledged an inclusive agenda for urban resilience as an international obligation. as i just noted, the united nations convened habitat iii earlier this week, as the next in a series of un convocations examining human habitat which have been scheduled to take place every two decades. habitat i was held in vancouver in 1976; habitat ii, in istanbul in 1996; while habitat iii just came to an end earlier this week. one of the lessons to emerge from habitat i and ii is that the state-to-state resolutions endorsed at those convocations largely fell out of view almost immediately following the fall of the last gavel. this time around the un decided to pursue a more lasting impact. the united states government was among the most outspoken un members advocating for action as well as words. 19 this process was aided by the simultaneous—yet distinct—process of establishing post-2015 sustainable development goals to follow on the millennial development goals adopted by the un in 2000. the new urban agenda just adopted by un members is intended to advance the objectives of sustainable development goal # 11, which exhorts member states to “make cities inclusive, safe, resilient, and sustainable.” in other words, make cities the sorts of places of opportunity where parents will want their children to be. more particularly, i want to highlight four dimensions of the new urban agenda that, to me, go to the heart of what you are about; namely their focus on: inclusive cities, safer cities, governance, economic development. on inclusive cities, while urbanization can provide potential for greater social inclusion, too often this is not the case. inequality and exclusion abound often at greater rates than the national averages. to combat the rise of urban exclusion there has to be: (a) a political commitment to inclusive development, and (b) a range of mechanisms to facilitate inclusion, including participatory policy making and enhanced transparency and accountability. you all can make a positive difference in how we move forward to make cities more inclusive. on safer cities, enhanced citizen security, be it crime prevention, protection from terrorism, or unsafe conditions, is highly dependent on all levels of government playing a leadership role. citizen empowerment is a key driver for action, which again leads us back to what you and your universities are doing. on governance, we can appreciate how governance is obviously at the very center of any urban agenda. the habitat iii process highlights the challenges of organizing governance and administration across fragmented metropolitan regions. once again, i know you see where you fit into these discussions and actions because you are dealing the complexities of divided jurisdictions all the time. on economic development, the complexity of the urban environment requires strategies which establish policies tailored to local conditions. ultimately, success in economic development requires defining and strengthening “a full portfolio of instruments that enhances economic development while supporting a high quality of life.” this is, of course, where you enter in as important catalysts for economic development. the habitat iii meetings ended last week with the united nations and its member states ratifying an urban agenda around these themes. the united nations and all its member states are now committed to an urban paradigm shift that will reshape the way we plan, finance, develop, govern and manage cities. how can all of us convert aspiration to reality? ultimately, the answer to only one question really matters: when parents ask if they want their children to live in this place at this time the answer is a resounding yes. the answer is more likely yes if the intellectual and developmental resources you all represent help make it so. it is only when we all embrace a holistic view of the city as a place of promise that we can move towards meeting the challenges posed by the un just this week, and posed by parents all over the world all the time. that is what all of you will be discussing the next couple of days. 20 in closing i want to return to the connection between the urban and the creative and make note of an article appearing in today’s washington post entitled “five myths about genius.” among the myths author eric weiner debunks is that geniuses can pop up anywhere at any time. he notes that there are “genius clusters.” these are certain places at certain times that produce what he calls a “mother lode of brilliant minds and good ideas.” he continues that “these places were, in some ways, quite different, but they also shared certain characteristics. for starters, almost all were cities. the density and intimacy of an urban setting nurture creativity. all of these places, too, possessed an outside degree of tolerance and ‘openness to experience’.” there is nothing more important to such cities than great universities such as those represented here this evening. thank you. 21 author information blair a. ruble vice president for programs woodrow wilson center e-mail: blair.ruble@wilsoncenter.org telephone: 202-691-4239 mailto:blair.ruble@wilsoncenter.org metropolitan universities vol. 28 no. 1 (winter 2017), doi: 10.18060/21481 urban agriculture and campus sustainability: recent books stephanie ritchie abstract food and agriculture meet an essential need of all humans and the details of how food is produced, distributed, consumed, and disposed is of increasing interest (hedegaard larsen, 2016). to meet the growing expectations of the campus community, many college and university decision-makers are including food and agriculture concerns as part of curricula, and in the planning, development, and sustainability efforts. this selected bibliography includes a selection of recently published books covering issues relevant to institutions of higher education on food, agriculture, and sustainability efforts. keywords urban farming, student farms, sustainability, higher education, food systems introduction this bibliography brings together books that discuss food and agriculture activities, either on campuses or in urban settings, to inform food and agricultural work on urban campuses. books selected cover farming activities in urban settings, and perspectives from administrators, educators, public officials, and others that share challenges of determining how best to integrate food production and other sustainability activities to successfully meet goals and expectations. together, this collection provides a broad overview of food and agriculture topics likely to be of most importance in an urban campus setting. this collection is organized into topic areas that cover urban agriculture, designing spaces for agriculture, and agriculture as part of greater sustainability efforts. each of the books included were published within the past five years, and provide background and deeper exploration of urban agriculture concepts for a reader interested in a comprehensive look at each specific topic. urban agriculture urban agriculture, at its most basic, is defined as the production of food (and other agricultural products) within a city. the books included in this section specifically focus of food production activities and the local food systems that encompass our urban areas. ladner, p. (2011). the urban food revolution: changing the way we feed cities. gabriola island, b.c.: new society publishers. xi, 291 pgs.: illustrations, map. isbn: 9780865716834 primarily written for public officials and planners, the urban food revolution: changing the way we feed cities covers the landscape of urban agriculture through a series of chapters that examine 114 the broad range of interrelated issues among food production, urban planning and public health. although intended to provide advice to decision-makers about what they can do to improve access to healthy food for their constituents, this book is particularly useful to those readers with no prior knowledge of food systems literature. using site visits and interviews with urban agriculture projects across the united states and canada, ladner characterizes success for proven and emerging urban agriculture strategies. the introductory chapters summarize the most pressing challenges of the current food system. later chapters focus on innovation that campus decision makers may find helpful as they plan campus food system and sustainability efforts. to conclude the book, ladner offers solutions that have worked at various levels of government including city and local levels that are likely to be similar and tied to campus-level food system decisions. these recommendations are particularly useful as peter ladner brings a wealth of knowledge about community-level urban agriculture from his years spent serving as a vancouver city councilor (2002-08). there, he worked with the vancouver food policy council, and as a fellow at simon fraser university centre for dialogue, researching and educating on the theme ”planning cities as if food matters.” here, he has deftly translated the ideas and academic research from the food and agriculture policy realm into an easily understood summary for each of the topics covered. additional sources of information are found in extensive references and notes for each chapter. supplemental information urban food revolution blog from peter ladner: http://www.urbanfoodrevolution.com/ urban food revolution presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugxakdsbxak food talks vancouver with peter ladner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iidpla5ivc reynolds, k., & cohen, n. (2016). beyond the kale: urban agriculture and social justice activism in new york city. athens, ga: university of georgia press. 189 p. isbn: 9780820349503 the purpose of urban agriculture often reaches beyond food production, to become a tool to create social and environmental change. from this perspective, urban agriculture is not only the food produced, but the socioeconomic, political, environmental, and other social actions that intertwine with the act of food production to impact individual producers, consumers, and communities. urban farms may be understood as tools to resist food insecurity, or spaces to reconnect to nature; they may be “safe spaces” for the oppressed, or places for the community to connect. these spaces, and the activities held within those spaces, impact food systems, as well as community development, community building, and community preservation work. through the lens of new york city, reynolds and cohen observe urban agriculture and its place in social justice movements. they provide a framework for analysis which includes critical race theory, theories of intersectionality and oppression, ideas about social justice work, and research and writing to support activism. they use interviews with people of color and other activists who do not resemble the white, middle-class couples often portrayed as the face of urban agriculture in media, to illustrate and embody themes across urban agricultural activism. 115 reynolds and cohen acknowledge that this book is an activist effort, while also recognizing their positions of privilege as “white, upper middle class academics” at yale university/the new school and city university of new york, respectively. their intention is to address a broader lack of significant discourse about injustices in urban agriculture and food systems. they hope that future discussions will include the voices of people of color and other marginalized groups. for administrators, staff, and faculty on campuses, the understanding that efforts to create, expand, promote or otherwise encourage urban agriculture may also indicate a social justice mission on the part of student and community activists, could be necessary to successfully support these projects. an urban agriculture project is not always just about food. beyond the kale offers clues to making urban agriculture projects inclusive, socially just, and transformative. more information about exemplary farms and projects highlighted in this book is available in the appendices as models for socially active urban agriculture projects. supplemental information beyond the kale project: https://beyondthekale.org/ urban food policy forum: beyond the kale: http://www.cunyurbanfoodpolicy.org/events/2016/9/15/urban-food-policy-forum-beyond-thekale-urban-agriculture-and-social-justice-activism-in-new-york-city beyond the kale: preliminary findings video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2i5id3hpbuy cockrall-king, j. (2012). food and the city: urban agriculture and the new food revolution. amherst, ny: prometheus books. 372 p.: illustrations. isbn: 9781616144586 food and the city: urban agriculture and the new food revolution opens with several chapters that cover the history and current state of supermarkets, the conventional/industrial food chain, and the role of the “eaters” in the food system including humans (consuming food), animals (consuming feed) and machines (consuming fuel). these introductory chapters are capped off by an examination of several crises’ that face agriculture–from climate change to reaching the “peak” of several natural resources. in contrast, urban agriculture is introduced as a panacea for all the failures of the industrial food system. a brief history of what cockrall-king terms the “new food movement” from the 1990s to today prefaces a series of chapters that tour various locales in europe and north america to detail the history and current work in urban agriculture. cities profiled include paris, london, los angeles, vancouver, toronto, milwaukee, detroit, and several in cuba. cockrall-king visited urban farms, gardens, allotments, balconies, and many other creative models of using urban space to grow food. she includes photos and interviews with individual growers, as well as information about the political and cultural setting these gardens exist within. these profiles will be of particular interest to those located in these cities or cities with similar characteristics. jennifer cockrall-king is a canadian food journalist, and as such, primarily uses this book to tell a story about the beneficial potential of urban agriculture. her passion for the subject is apparent, but no critical analysis of the proposed benefits is covered. a bibliography, chapter notes, references for further information on urban agriculture and a short glossary for concepts covered 116 in the text are included as supplementary material. these supplementary materials will be of particular aid to those looking to develop a basic competency with urban agricultural concepts and stakeholders. supplemental information jennifer cockrell king’s blog: http://foodgirl.squarespace.com/ food and the city: interview with jennifer cockrall-king: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jo7wcfgvpsa urban agriculture meeting demands in unlikely places: resistance is fertile presentation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlkdac4fpny sayre, l., & clark, s. (2011). fields of learning: the student farm movement in north america. lexington, ky: university press of kentucky. xx, 354 pages: ills. isbn: 9780813133744 retrieved from http://muse.jhu.edu/book/1980 serving as part history and part collection of present day case studies, fields of learning tells the story of past and ongoing efforts to incorporate land-based learning activities at student farms on college and university campuses across the united states and canada. fifteen case studies cover student farms from those with origins in their institutions’ agricultural training mission of the 19th century to present-day programs sprouted from a renewal of interest in food systems. student farms profiled exhibit both (a) opportunities for educational experience as part of a program by an accredited, degree-granting college or university; and (b) opportunities for students to lead or substantially direct farm activities. each case study offers insight into the varied paths and practices for successfully creating and maintaining student-run farms as parts of campuses with competing educational priorities, needs for space, and student experiential offerings. the book is concluded with a short chapter of guidelines for starting a student-run farm, with examples drawn from lessons learned in each of the case studies. laura sayre has extensively studied and written on the history of agriculture, especially the transmission of agricultural knowledge, community and collaborative activities in agriculture and the role of agricultural traditions in contemporary agriculture. her work as part of the rodale institute’s new farm, where she compiled a comprehensive database of student farms in north america, forms the basis for her insight into the range of student farms. dr. sean clark provides a case study from his student farm at berea college, as well as practical guidance for starting and managing a student educational farm in the conclusion. fields of learning will be a useful source of information for anyone involved in decision-making for student-run farms on a college or university campus. a variety of higher education institutions across the united states and canada from small to large, urban to rural, or public research to private liberal arts are highlighted by the case studies so that any type of college or university considering a student farm will find comparable settings and characterizations. an inventory of student farm projects with data for geographic area, size, products, organic certification, and marketing outlets is included as an appendix and will be helpful for locating nearby or student farms with specific characteristics. supplemental information 117 laura sayre: http://www.laurasayre.net/ dr. sean clark: https://www.berea.edu/anr/faculty-and-staff/dr-sean-clark/ designing spaces for food both of the books reviewed in this section examine the role of food production in public spaces. university and college campuses are public space for the campus community and often viewed as de facto public spaces by the surrounding communities and stakeholders, especially if they are part of a public institution. the reviewed books offer ideas about how public space for food production has functioned historically, in the present, and might transform in the future. nordahl, d. (2014). public produce: cultivating our parks, plazas, and streets for healthier cities. washington: island press. xiv, 204 pages: illustrations. isbn: 9781610915496 public produce: cultivating our parks, plazas, and streets for healthier cities is about putting food at the center of the urban environment. the “public produce” of the title is just that, produce grown on mainly urban public land for the free use by the public. nordahl ties the idea of “civic agriculture,” a system that fosters environmentally, economically, and socially sustainable agriculture focused on local markets and cooperative relationships, to the use of public land to grow food that meets these aims. nordahl suggests the use of public land for food production and he examines the perceived benefits and challenges in greater detail. first, nordahl addresses food security benefits regarding urban agriculture projects on public land, where the increased access to free, local food is seen as a tool to combat food distribution inequities. a look at the socioeconomic and health impacts of inexpensive industrial food versus whole (and often locally grown) food connects ideas about access to greenspace and healthy food options in urban settings to food production as an integral part of public health. after advocating public produce, nordahl addresses logistical concerns that those considering implementation of such a project hold. he provides examples of public projects that replace landscape plants with edible plants—pansies for plum tomatoes and grass for greens—on land owned by public institutions and freely accessible to citizens. each of these examples offer creative ideas that have been successfully implemented with varying degrees of scale, infrastructure, and support. nordahl also details gleaning (the harvest of excess food from farm fields after clearing for commercial sale) and foraging (the harvest of food from wild or unharvested public sources) projects in urban areas to showcase models for more equitable access to food and community building activities that can arise when groups of people come together to share in food access work. lastly, nordahl highlights how urban agriculture in public spaces functions as an education tool about food production, especially for those that only have little concept of how the food they find in a grocery store is grown. urban agriculture projects are considered not just as places for food production, but educational spaces where knowledge about food and its impact in the larger society may be taught, discussed, and transformed. 118 darrin nordahl works in urban design and planning, focused on using agriculture and transportation to transform public spaces and improve quality of life in urban settings. this book is recommended for those that make decisions about the use of land in public spaces, especially land owned by public institutions and governments. supplemental information urban farming pioneers: darrin nordahl promoting urban agriculture: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=av3ifgcyhme&list=ple4b6106ff2928807&index=3 darrin nordahl: http://darrinnordahl.com/ parham, s. (2015). food and urbanism: the convivial city and a sustainable future. london; new york: bloomsbury academic. 362 pages: illustrations. isbn: 9780857854520 in food and urbanism: the convivial city and a sustainable future, susan parham critically explores how food and cities are interconnected at different spatial levels: within private space, as part of urban public space, and at the peri-urban fringes. the first part of the book explores urban food spaces as part of the home. it focuses on the table as the center of food in our domestic space and extends to the design of the kitchen. it uses historical and sociological context to explore food practices around the table and within the kitchen. this initial section of the book also examines the home garden from the design and siting of gardens as food production spaces to outdoor dining and the use of gardens for food consumption rather than production. the next section features food and its role in public spaces, from outdoor farmers’ markets to street food and restaurant districts. this section also covers the rise of suburban development, and with it, the creation of supermarkets and shopping centers as sources of food, completely distinct from historical paradigms of food access. the history, decline, and recent reemergence of agriculture in urban green space is set into a discussion of changing ideas about land use and food resilience in a modern context. the last section looks at the periphery of urban areas including impacts on food production resulting from development at the city edge. strategies such as food and agri-tourism are highlighted as strategies to reduce impacts of urban sprawl. one chapter considers challenges of supporting food space in large urban areas including the emergence of fast food chains, food deserts, and planned (and often gated) communities. finally, the relation of larger regional food systems to urban food spaces, ties between urban and rural places, and how concepts such as slow food and regional food branding translate to local food systems, serve to unite ideas about food across spatial scales around urban areas. food and urbanism: the convivial city and a sustainable future is a dense work of scholarly literature from dr. susan parham at the university of hertfordshire’s centre for sustainable communities in the united kingdom. dr. parham has studied the relation between food and cities since the early 1990s. her long interest in this topic area has resulted in an extensively researched and comprehensive work on the role of food in urban space. this work is recommended for those that want to deepen their understanding of the historical and social 119 context for current urban agriculture activities. an extensive bibliography provides many additional sources of academic research into aspects of food, agriculture, and urban environments. supplemental information susan parham research profile: http://vuh-la-risprt.herts.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/susanparham(e4f5a6cb-f918-4754-9305-979fd2f8b8e6).html tvad (theorising visual art and design research group) talk you’re toast! with dr susan parham: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sji9csa0gcu sustainability on campus sustainability initiatives are often where urban agriculture activities are encouraged and administered on college and university campuses. the books reviewed in this section explore how to lead successful sustainability work across campus–from development projects to classroom courses. thomashow, m. (2014). the nine elements of a sustainable campus. cambridge, ma: mit press. xii, 236 pages. isbn: 9780262321570 based on the experience from the thomashow’s tenure as a college president, the nine elements of a sustainable campus, provides a model to meld a progressive environment and sustainability ethic with the practical challenges of leading a college. the book is organized into chapters for each of the nine elements: (a) energy; (b) food; (c) materials; (d) governance; (e) investment; (f) wellness; (g) curriculum; (h) interpretation; and (i) aesthetics. a brief history and orientation to the importance and academic thinking on each element is interwoven with anecdotes from the author’s own experience to place the reader at the moments when thomashow recognizes his agency in the sustainable transformation of his institution. creative suggestions to deal with challenges facing college and university administrators—from how to sustainably deal with deferred maintenance of aging infrastructure to looking at institutional finances through an ecological lens—follows for each of the nine elements. these suggestions are culled from both thomashow’s experience and the creative thinking from innovators in each element topic area. thomashow was president of unity college in maine from 2006-11, where he lead the transformation of the liberal arts college to a leader in sustainability science as informed by his long professional and personal interest in environmental issues and sustainability. at the writing of the book, thomashow was leading and consulting on sustainability for colleges and universities across the united states. administrators, facility managers, and other involved with the management and planning for university and college campuses may face similar challenges to thomashow’s in conceiving and implementing sustainable strategies to meet the ideal requirements of the students, faculty and staff, alumni, the surrounding community, other stakeholders, and the leaders themselves. his approach that the campus exists at human-scale—the right scale to experiment with and implement sustainability ideas—may encourage creative strategies within and beyond the borders of campus. 120 supplemental information antioch university environmental studies colloquium: the nine elements of a sustainable campus – mitch thomashow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fz_563oj2a0 american college & university presidents climate commitment (acupcc) on air #1: an interview with dr. mitchell thomashow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wixrk93zhja mitchell thomashow: http://www.mitchellthomashow.com/ barlett, p. f., & chase, g. w. (eds.). (2013). sustainability on campus: stories and strategies for change. cambridge, ma: mit press. xiv, 319 pages. isbn: 9780262019491 editors peggy barlett and geoffrey chase compiled two dozen case studies on several threads of sustainability at college and universities in the united states. this book traces more than a decade of sustainability work in higher education since their earlier book, sustainability on campus: stories and strategies for change (cambridge, ma: mit press, ©2004), showcased nascent programs on campuses. this book focuses on leadership and change as a part of each profiled institution’s ongoing story. many of the invited contributors are involved with the association for the advancement of sustainability in higher education (aashe). each case study is organized into one of the major themes: (a) leadership and commitment; (b) curricular transformations; (c) defining the paradigm for change; (d) institutional mission and culture of sustainability; (e) accountability; and (f) professional and personal transformation. in leadership and commitment, personal testimonies including wendy b. anderson at small liberal arts drury university, david whiteman at the urban university of south carolina, and various faculty at the historically black florida a&m university, detail the transformation of themselves and their campuses through sustainability efforts. as a counterpoint, julie snow at state college slippery rock university bravely details her slow start and failures and well as her eventual successes. in curricular transformations, new focus on local bioregions and global sustainability, and refocus from environment to sustainability, shifts the educational experience to future-facing challenges. william van lopik of the college of the menominee nation shares how a core course in sustainable development for all students provides education on not only on traditional sustainability topics like recycling or the natural environment, but also personal practices and the sustainable philosophy of the native american nations and people. the theme, defining the paradigm for change, explores creative models of organizing campus sustainability work. staff of the graham environmental sustainability institute at the university of michigan-ann arbor share initiatives for cross-campus student group coordination, campuswide sustainability assessment, and for-credit, student-instigated sustainability projects. e. christian wells of the university of south florida, reflects on using the metabolic view— thinking of the campus as a living organism with inputs and wastes—in a course project, that later expanded to a greater campus initiative. kapi’olani community college professor krista hiser uses brafman and beckstrom’s spider and starfish model to describe how their 121 decentralized network of faculty functions like a starfish in a non-hierarchical, leaderless model of a collaborative circle. the institutional mission and culture of sustainability theme unites multiple narratives from faculty and staff of a range of higher education institutions on their organizational history of sustainability initiatives. institutions profiled include spelman college, a historically black college for women, santa clara university, a historic jesuit university, warren wilson college, a liberal arts college with service, work and academic requirements for students, unity college, an experiential learning focused liberal arts college, and furman university, a southern liberal arts university. accountability is represented by a set of projects that use tools such as goals, standards, and administrative structures to demonstrate success of sustainability efforts on campus. sustainability strategic planning at yale university keeps sustainability efforts a priority of the administration to meet the goals of the plan as an ongoing effort. arizona state university and its school of sustainability tackles building an interdisciplinary degree program and developing core competency for sustainability research and education. the university of wisconsin oshkosh shares its commitment to becoming the first u.s. fair trade university, integrating its principles into not only campus dining, but curricula and student experiences. management of some university services at san diego state university by the associated students council, a student directed board, incorporates student led sustainability initiatives and institutionalized a sustainability advocacy within the organization. lastly, the professional and personal transformation section touches on teaching and learning processes that covers sustainability as a new approach to thinking and living. these reflective essays offer innovative methods to share sustainability knowledge. one advocates for reflection and contemplation as a cornerstone of a faculty learning community, which explores how to incorporate these practices into the classroom setting with the goal of deepening understanding. another reconceives learning as a living system which blurs roles between students and teacher, perception and assumptions, structured and sequenced, and thus the course becomes a series of collective learning experiences rather than self-contained, passive listening events. the last piece looks at teaching as a relationship, with self and with the earth, and developing a set of experiences to explore relationships within and between, therefore changing consciousness about those relationships. with a wealth of perspectives, settings, and experiences, this book is highly recommended for higher education leaders looking for new strategies and ideas for their own institutions. anyone interested in the intersection between learning and sustainability will find one of many parts of this book of interest. supplemental information campus sustainability month: http://www.aashe.org/campus-sustainability-month/ sustainability at emory: building community by going green (with peggy barlett): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxjiny8bqwk preparing students for a changing climate (with geoffrey chase): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tby_t0y4d4 122 references brafman, o. & beckstrom, r. (2006). the starfish and the spider: the unstoppable power of leaderless organizations. new york: penguin. barlett, p. f., & chase, g. w. (eds.). (2013). sustainability on campus: stories and strategies for change. cambridge, ma: mit press. cockrall-king, j. (2012). food and the city: urban agriculture and the new food revolution. amherst, ny: prometheus books. fontaine, m. (2014). student relationship management (srm) in higher education: addressing the expectations of an ever evolving demographic and its impact on retention. journal of education and human development, 3(2), 105–119. hedegaard larsen, m. (2016). eating the canary in the coalmine: thoughts and theories to explain the rising importance of food, events and agriculture/place as symbols and media of community and identity in post-modern societies. berkeley, ca: university of california berkeley, institute for the study of societal issues. retrieved from http://escholarship.org/uc/item/3nw1s6b2 ladner, p. (2011). the urban food revolution: changing the way we feed cities. gabriola island, b.c.: new society publishers. nordahl, d. (2014). public produce: cultivating our parks, plazas, and streets for healthier cities. washington: island press. https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-550-2. parham, s. (2015). food and urbanism: the convivial city and a sustainable future. london; new york: bloomsbury academic. reynolds, k., & cohen, n. (2016). beyond the kale: urban agriculture and social justice activism in new york city. athens, ga: university of georgia press. sayre, l., & clark, s. (2011). fields of learning: the student farm movement in north america. lexington, ky: university press of kentucky. retrieved from http://muse.jhu.edu/book/1980 thomashow, m. (2014). the nine elements of a sustainable campus. cambridge, ma: mit press. http://escholarship.org/uc/item/3nw1s6b2 https://doi.org/10.5822/978-1-61091-550-2 123 author information stephanie ritchie is the agriculture and natural resources librarian at the university of maryland, and previously lead librarian at the alternative farming systems information center at the usda’s national agricultural library. she has supported researchers in urban agriculture, helped create a usda urban agriculture toolkit, and currently curates a mendeley group on the topic available at https://www.mendeley.com/groups/4679531/urban-agriculture/ stephanie ritchie, mls agriculture and natural resources librarian william e. kirwan hall math building, room 1403l 4176 campus drive university of maryland, college park, md 20742 e-mail: sritchie@umd.edu telephone: 301-405-9153 mailto:sritchie@umd.edu metropolitan universities vol. 28 no. 4 (november 2017), doi: 10.18060/21746 moving toward a collective impact effort: the volunteer program assessment sheridan trent, kelly prange, and joseph a. allen abstract volunteers are essential to the operation of many nonprofits, but some experience challenges in retaining their volunteer workforce. the volunteer program assessment (vpa) seeks to address this issue by helping organizations to identify strengths, growth areas, and recommendations for improving volunteer experiences. to maximize the effectiveness of vpa’s mission, the organization is moving toward a collective impact (ci) approach. although not developed as a ci effort, the program currently exemplifies many of its characteristics, which have been instrumental in expanding reach to more organizations. we examine vpa’s alignment with collective impact and outline how vpa will continue to improve efforts. keywords: volunteerism; university programs; evaluation; industrial-organizational psychology introduction when utilized strategically, volunteers provide a critical support to organizations, such as assisting with fundraising efforts, collection and distribution of donated goods, youth mentoring, coaching, tutoring, administrative tasks, and general labor. according to the corporation for national and community service (2016), volunteers contributed 7.9 billion hours of service and saved $184 billion for nonprofits in the united states in 2015. volunteers are almost twice as likely to donate financially to their organizations as non-volunteers (corporation for national and community service, 2016). given the positive impact of volunteers on organizations, it is critical for programs to retain them. unfortunately, many nonprofit organizations experience significant challenges in managing their volunteers effectively, with approximately one-third of volunteers discontinuing service in the first year (davis, hall, & meyer, 2003), representing a loss of $38 billion dollars in labor (eisner, grimm jr., maynard, & washburn, 2009). thus, the declining rates of volunteerism across the united states are a growing problem for the organizations that depend on volunteer efforts for sustainability. in examining why volunteers leave, several explanations have been put forth by researchers. a study conducted in 2003 by the corporation for national and community service found a number of factors implicated in the discontinuation of volunteer service, most notably centered on a lack of adoption of effective volunteer management practices. for example, the only management practice widely adopted by volunteer organizations was that of providing regular supervision and communication with volunteers, with 67% of organizations indicating that they performed this activity to a large degree. however, practices such as offering training to volunteers, having written policies and job descriptions for volunteer involvement, and conducting recognition activities for volunteers were adopted much less frequently, indicating that the adoption of practices to help effectively run volunteer programs are limited and still represent a significant problem for many organizations. 66 in 2016, the president of the society for industrial-organizational psychology (siop), steve kozlowski, charged industrial-organizational (i-o) psychologists to use their skills to advance efforts supporting advocacy and community impact. the siop contains academics and practitioners with expertise in organizational development, human resources management, evaluation, and others that are relevant to the nonprofit management and development. one such initiative, the volunteer program assessment (vpa), was highlighted as an example of how i-o psychologists can have a substantial impact in their communities. established in 2009, the vpa is a collaboration between six universities across the united states with the common mission of improving nonprofit organizational effectiveness: (1) the university of nebraska at omaha, (2) the university of north carolina at charlotte, (3) the university of south florida, (4) george mason university, (5) the university of northern illinois, and (6) illinois state university. with the support of their respective universities, each vpa chapter has grown and developed individually. however, the overarching structure of vpa, along with its shared goals and mission, is capable of supporting a collective impact approach. many collective impact articles have highlighted the importance of developing collective impact efforts from the beginning of a project. however, we demonstrate that with a certain level of growth and collaboration, some organizations may develop into collective impact initiatives by necessity. by moving toward a collective impact approach, vpa has been able to serve more than 300 nonprofit organizations and made great strides in improving organizational capacity and volunteer satisfaction and retention. this paper describes how vpa, grounded within each chapter’s respective university system, has utilized the collective impact model to serve a greater number of clientele, serve clientele more effectively, and have a broader impact. in this article, we will depict the ongoing evolution of vpa from independent chapters to a unified set of organizations with aligned goals. we will briefly review the key tenets of collective impact, explain why a collective impact approach is valuable in this case, and discuss the steps vpa has taken in recent years to move toward a collective impact effort. what is the vpa? efforts to help build the capacity of volunteer programs are not new; there are multiple organizations that either distribute resources for volunteers, or help to build their capacity in other ways. one example of such an organization is points of light, a national group who assists nonprofits in a multitude of ways. these include connecting those interested in service with volunteer opportunities, highlighting tools organizations can use for recruitment, background checking, and training, and helping companies to launch volunteer programs for employees (points of light: what we do for nonprofits, n.d.). another organization providing similar services is the nonprofit association of the midlands, which distributes information to members about educational opportunities for program managers, provide managers with toolkits to address a variety of issues, and help to connect nonprofit leaders with others in the community (nonprofit association of the midlands, n.d.). in contrast to these approaches, vpa chapters are not independent organizations, but rather groups connected to their respective universities, which function as anchor institutions, providing spatial immobility, corporate status, scale, and a 67 common mission of social justice, democracy, and equity (fulbright-anderson, auspos & anderson, 2001). history of vpa vpa was founded by dr. steven rogelberg, dr. joseph allen, and dr. daniel bonilla, after their results of a study of animal welfare volunteers revealed a critically unmet need for assessment resources in the volunteer sector. continued and more recent investigations into the state of volunteering in the united states paints a similar picture, with the rate of volunteering decreasing each year (bureau of labor statistics, 2016). with the goal of addressing this problem, by providing program coordinators with feedback and key insights from the perspective of their volunteers, the vpa was launched in 2009 at the university of north carolina charlotte. the program continues to operate to this day, and has expanded to five other chapters across the united states. in 2013, dr. joseph allen brought the vpa to the university of nebraska at omaha. shortly after vpa began operating at uno, the organization applied for, and received, space in uno’s newly-built weitz community engagement center, a 70,000 square foot facility in the middle of uno’s campus. the center houses over thirty university and community organizations and provides nonprofit organizations with space to fulfill their missions and foster collaborations. with the new space, vpa-uno utilized its new resources by training more students in consulting practices, and has grown its client base by 300% in three years. what is vpa? vpa is a capacity-building and philanthropic organization dedicated to helping nonprofit agencies, consisting of industrial-organizational psychology faculty and graduate students, as well as undergraduate students from multiple majors in a single university. the vpa serves nonprofits by assessing the experiences of their volunteers to improve volunteer satisfaction, performance, and retention. using the results of the assessment, student analysts develop comprehensive diagnostic reports, prepare interpretations of these reports, and meet with leaders from client organizations to provide consultations and guidance for improving volunteers’ experiences. if these services were provided at market value, organizations might pay approximately $10,000 for the survey alone, excluding interpretation and consultation; however, vpa provides these services completely free-of-charge as a community service. in return, the vpa provides its students with the opportunity to gain skills and knowledge through experiential learning. the vpa gives both undergraduate and graduate students the opportunity to experience co-curricular service throughout their college career by applying the skills they learn in their classes to help volunteer managers. students have direct contact with volunteer program managers in their community and across the country, and they apply interdisciplinary knowledge from psychology, organizational development, business management, communications, technology, and nonprofit management. the vpa follows tenets of experiential learning and quality education practices such as: (a) reciprocity, in which both the receiver of the service and the giver of the service learn from the exchange; (b) reflection on their learning; and (c) giving students autonomy and voice in their learning (billings, 2006; 68 scales, roehlkipartain, neal, kielsmeier, & benson, 2006). students can utilize their current skills when working with clients and integrate new, practical knowledge about the nonprofit industry into their current understanding of their role within the community. because students give their time to each client for free, they also feel satisfied that they give valuable data and consulting services to volunteer programs that otherwise could not afford to buy those services. as previously stated, the program’s reciprocal nature ensures that all parties benefit from the exchange of resources. other vpa chapters have also developed in response to ongoing interest and demand in the program. in addition to vpa-uno, vpa began working with partners at george mason university, illinois state university, the university of south florida, and northern illinois university over the past few years (olien et al., 2014). development of a vpa chapter requires only interest from a university faculty member, and completion of a training process, which is provided by the founding vpa chapter in charlotte. in addition to training, the charlotte chapter also helps new chapters in setting up the vpa assessment, provides all necessary process documents for conducting the assessment, collects and manages data from all vpa chapters, and aids in the procurement of client organizations. there are currently six vpa groups operating across the united states, serving more client organizations each year. as vpa groups have expanded, keeping up with client demand as well as working out the most effective practices for maintaining the program has involved a considerable amount of collaboration between chapters. in addition to cross-chapter collaboration, vpa groups are increasingly finding ways to work more collaboratively with client organizations to best meet their needs. this necessary upsurge in collaboration has led to increasing discussion as to whether vpa groups would function more effectively by utilizing a collective impact approach, as well as whether vpa groups are in fact already utilizing a collective impact approach. table 1. kania & kramer’s characteristics of successful collective impact initiatives common agenda all participants have a shared vision for change including a common understanding of the problem and a joint approach to solving it through agreed upon actions. shared measurement systems collecting data and measuring results consistently across all participants ensures efforts remain aligned and participants hold each other accountable. mutually reinforcing activities participant activities must be differentiated while still being coordinated through a mutually reinforcing plan of action. continuous communication consistent and open communication is needed across the many players to build trust, assure mutual objectives, and create common motivation. backbone support organizations creating and managing collective impact requires a separate organization with staff and a specific set of skills to serve as the backbone for the entire initiative and coordinate participating organizations and agencies. adapted from kania & kramer, 2013 69 collective impact in the seminal article, kania and kramer (2011) describe collective impact as an emerging strategy to help address complex social issues more effectively. the benefit of a collective impact approach lies in that it reduces the amount of overlap between organizations attempting to address the same goal, and also allows for the sharing of information between different ‘actors’ to target an issue on different levels. their seminal article provided a definition of collective impact that included five key characteristics necessary for a successful outcome: (a) a common agenda; (b) shared measurement systems; (c) mutually reinforcing activities; (d) continuous communication; and (e) backbone support organizations. each characteristic allows actors from different sectors to work together to solve a specific social problem (see table 1 for definitions). an update by kania, hanleybrown, and splansky juster (2014) also described three important mindset shifts necessary for successful implementation of collective impact. these include getting the correct people involved to help a specific problem, having collaborators change the way they work with each other, and understanding that social issues relentlessly change and solutions must adapt to changes. although the term ‘collective impact’ is increasing in popularity, many agree that true collective impact initiatives which meet all five criteria are rare (kania & kramer, 2011), and that the term is sometimes applied to initiatives which do not fully meet the criteria (prange, allen, & reiterpalmon, 2016). reasons for the incorrect labeling may have to do with a lack of full understanding as to what is needed to carry out a collective impact effort, or a general lack of clarity as to the five tenets outlined by kania and kramer (2011). a precondition noted by some researchers is that many successful collective impact initiatives are designed and planned specifically to constitute a collective impact approach, with a heavy focus on assessment (parkhurst & preskill, 2014; prange, allen, & reiter-palmon, 2016). one important question, which has not yet been explored in case studies, is whether it is possible for an organization to move from a collaborative initiative to a collective impact initiative in order to have a broader impact, and what such a shift might look like. another question not yet answered is whether it is possible for a collaborative effort to shift organically into a collective impact effort over time. flood et al. (2015) noted in a recent case study that although key stakeholders did not intentionally seek out collective impact as a model for an initiative to address health issues in a neighborhood in san francisco, the approach was later noted by many to align closely with collective impact. furthermore, some researchers have noted that collective impact may simply be another form of inter-organizational collaboration (prange, allen, & reiter-palmon). why collective impact? multiple researchers have expounded the benefits of a collective impact approach. by taking a collective impact approach, social change agents/organizations can tackle a particular issue together rather than separately. by aligning their goals, methods, and evaluation in solving a social issue, multiple actors can be more effective in facilitating change than if they were each trying to solve issues without continuous collaboration. collective impact initiatives such as strive, shape up somerville, mars, and the elizabeth r. project, were cited as very successful examples, by kania and kramer (2011) in their seminal article on collective impact. flood et al., 70 (2015), researching the efforts in the health services sector, found collective impact to be extremely useful in attempting to address poor health and nutrition in a san francisco neighborhood. although researchers in general have articulated the benefit of collective impact through experience and theory, kania and kramer (2011) suggested that collective impact is likely most useful when addressing problems that are more adaptive. that is, collective impact can be most successful in generating solutions for social issues that are complex, in which the solution is not well-known or cannot be easily implemented. volunteer program effectiveness is one issue sufficiently complex to warrant individuals from different agencies working together. there are a few reasons for this. first, there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution to address program challenges. although volunteer programs have one thing in common (i.e., volunteers), they differ drastically in terms: (a) size, ranging from as few as five volunteers to thousands of volunteers; (b) staff, with some programs being entirely volunteer-operated and some having a large, dedicated paid staff; (c) type of service, with some volunteers performing administrative work, some volunteers engaged in fundraising efforts, some volunteers doing direct service, and some volunteers whose experiences include all of these types of service and more; (d) funding, as some programs are well-funded and some extremely limited,;(e) volunteer demographics, with some organizations comprised mostly of elderly volunteers, some mostly of college students, and some with more diverse volunteer populations; (f) volunteer manager capability, with some volunteer coordinators whose entire job is to ensure the volunteer program is running efficiently, and others who may only dedicate a small percentage of their time toward managing the volunteer program; and (g) board coordination, with some programs being accountable and having the support of a board, and others that do not. these, which are in no way an exhaustive list, render it extremely difficult to simply put out ‘solutions’ and recommend that all programs implement them regardless of their individual characteristics or ability to do so. additionally, it is impossible to take considerations like this into account without working closely with managers and paid staff at volunteer organizations to develop useful recommendations tailored to their program. this point has become increasingly salient for vpa chapters as the organization has evolved. collaborating with other chapters in finding ways to better serve client organizations has also been necessary, in order to tackle ongoing organizational challenges such as dealing with rapid program growth, modifying training procedures as necessary in response to student analyst feedback, and implementing new procedures piloted at different chapters to better address client needs. problems faced by one chapter are typically experienced at other chapters as well, so such an approach saves time and resources that can be better spent toward serving client organizations, which is crucially important for vpa chapters who typically have lengthy waitlists. thus, it is not so much a choice to begin relying on cross-sector coordination, which begins to resemble collective impact, to operate efficiently as it is necessary for program survival. 71 moving towards collective impact the six chapters of vpa are a collective of organizations trying to simultaneously improve volunteer program effectiveness across the united states. though the initial founding members did not envision vpa as a collective impact operation, continued functioning of the organization, as well as the need to serve client organizations as effectively as possible, have necessitated that the organization develop into a collective impact effort. to highlight the similarities and differences between vpa and more traditional collective impact initiatives, the various tenets of collective impact as well as how vpa aligns with those characteristics are discussed below. a common agenda the importance of a common agenda has been highlighted as critical by those utilizing collective impact (flood et al., 2015; hanleybrown, kania, & kramer, 2012). researchers studying collective impact to date have described achieving a common agenda as a potentially challenging but necessary activity involving the agreement of all stakeholders, which can include dozens or more organizations working in tandem (kania & kramer, 2011). volunteer program assessment groups share the same common agenda of improving volunteer program effectiveness. although there are differences by chapter with regard to the type of volunteer research conducted, what organizations each chapter reach out to, and occasionally the development of unique processes to address specific programmatic challenges, the core agenda remains the same and in alignment with previous collective impact efforts. different from these efforts is that vpa includes agreement of a common agenda among six affiliate organizations and the client organizations they serve, while other collective impact initiatives typically involve more stakeholders (kania & kramer, 2011). in spite of a reduced number of stakeholders involved with the agenda, throughout the expansion of vpa from a single university setting to six individual chapters, the need to reinforce a common agenda and continuously commit to the central mission of vpa has become more relevant of late, and is more difficult to accomplish from different physical locations. thus, in contrast to the beginning of vpa, reinforcement of a common agenda is now accomplished through several mechanisms. first, vpa chapters re-visit goals and align their purpose formally on an annual basis through a conference call with key stakeholders, an initiative started in 2013. in each yearly call, critical updates and information are shared, such as important insights, process changes, and collaborative progress with clients. in addition to the yearly call, it has become clear that chapters benefit even more from in-person interaction than simple phone calls. thus, starting in the spring of 2015, representatives from each vpa chapter attend an in-person meeting at the annual siop (society for industrial-organizational psychologists) conference, bringing together student volunteers from different chapters, as well as vpa faculty directors. the agenda of the annual conference meeting is to provide an update on client activities in the past year, discuss unique challenges that came up and how they addressed such challenges, and to share meaningful experiences. this in-person venue also allows for students and faculty from different universities to discuss their experiences together and share ideas amongst themselves. 72 in addition to these two formal mechanisms created to maintain a common agenda, vpa directors remain in close contact about ideas needed to stay on-track and improve the vpa process through email and phone contact, as well as by collaborating on other projects. several vpa chapters have also begun utilizing social media as recently as 2016, to share information and resources between chapters. some of the updates stemming from ideas discussed during the annual meeting have led to implementation of new initiatives at all chapters. these include expanding one of the vpa survey items about gender to better reflect gender identity concerns from clients, incorporating a post-survey satisfaction questionnaire to all clients to make sure we are meeting their needs and soliciting feedback, and updating job descriptions of key vpa personnel (e.g., student assistant directors and volunteers). these reforms were all incorporated into the vpa chapters throughout 2016. shared measurement systems there are three cross-chapter measurement systems used by vpa, which were in use at the founding chapter, and have been expanded to other chapters in the years since. first, all vpa chapters track the number of clients served each year in the same way, through the use of a client log spreadsheet which contains information about client organizations’ name, location, contact info, how many times the client has conducted vpa at their organization, and notes. this system is used to provide an update each year at the annual siop conference meeting. vpa chapters also use the same standardized vpa survey itself, which enables each chapter to track key indicators of client success such as volunteer satisfaction, volunteer engagement, and volunteer continuance. finally, in creating standards to assess impact, vpa chapters pool their data files every two years. the data is then compiled and then distributed by the founding chapter to create national norms. the advantage of having a national ‘standard’ is that chapters can use the information to compare meaningfully against new client’s vpa results and identify areas in which the organization’s volunteers are similar to other volunteers, as well as to identify areas in which the client organization’s volunteers are reporting lower scores. this shared norming system ensures that all vpa chapters have the same benchmarks against which to compare client results. due to the large amount of data collected from client organizations, a recent development in this area, which occurred in 2014, has been the development of specific norms by volunteer category. currently, vpa chapters have normative scores for volunteers serving in animal welfare, arts and educational groups, health and human services, and police, fire, and rescue volunteer organizations. these shared measurement systems are certainly in alignment with past collective impact approaches, which have included similar systems such as: (a) evaluating progress based off of previously developed and agreed upon criteria, as well as the same outcomes (e.g., strive, edmondson & santhosh-kumar, 2017; kania & kramer, 2011); (b) coming together to create shared definitions and understanding (e.g., calgary homeless foundation, hanleybrown, kania, & kramer, 2012); and (c) developing ways to measure success while taking into account the context of the evaluation (e.g., shape up somerville, parkhurst & preskill, 2014). 73 mutually reinforcing activities there is a high degree of overlap between the activities conducted at each vpa chapter, which is different from other collective impact initiatives that tend to involve more diverse activities (kania & kramer, 2011). although there are advantages to this approach, in that the activities of vpa chapters are inherently mutually reinforcing, ultimately this is not consistent with the vision of collective impact, which stresses different stakeholders with different sets of expertise, who are leveraging their individual strengths to create change. however, one redeeming factor is that each chapter has different strengths. out of these strengths, new ideas to improve best practices, and new materials to help track and keep organized, are frequently developed and shared. for example, some chapters have had more success in drumming up program interest than others, and strategies for identifying new client organizations to work with are shared with chapters that may be struggling. furthermore, having chapters in multiple locations across the country allows vpa groups to distribute the client workload by passing new clients to other chapters if a certain chapter is already at capacity for the semester. this allows vpa to serve as many clients as possible each semester. continuous communication without continuous communication, both formal and informal, the other tenets of collective impact such as maintaining a common agenda, utilizing shared measurement systems, and conducting mutually reinforcing activities would not be possible. thus, communication across vpa affiliates occurs in multiple ways (e.g., conference calls, in-person meeting, or emails) as well as multiple time points throughout the year. the different vpa chapters may serve different types of organizations, based on their geography and the major industries in their cities. for example, the chapter at north carolina at charlotte serves many animal shelter organizations. it has created a unique process to serve those clients, as well as distributed new information to other chapters in 2016 regarding the lessons they have learned about those organizations. even though the chapters may focus on different nonprofit industries and/or organizations, the continuous communication between chapters keeps them aligned. backbone support organizations. this is the main area in which vpa does not resemble a collective impact approach. although some affiliates have secured support from their universities (e.g., vpa-uno maintains office space in uno’s community engagement center) or grant funding (e.g., vpa uncc operates on a grant from the humane society of the united states), others operate on an entirely volunteer basis without any paid staff. given the important role backbone organizations play in maintaining collective impact efforts (hanleybrown, kania, & kramer, 2012; turner, merchant, kania, & martin, 2012), this lack represents a substantial challenge for the sustainability of vpa. thus, one of the main goals of vpa moving forward is to find consistent support for each vpa chapter to fund both students and program operating costs, or finding a common source for funding that could be split between the six chapters. the vpa and its chapters already have a core mission (i.e., agenda) and a clear strategy for how to go about increasing volunteer program effectiveness—through the use of surveys and 74 consulting that is given free-of-charge to organizations with volunteers (i.e., mutually reinforcing activities). the surveys we deploy with our client organizations are a perfect example of a shared measurement system, however, we need to improve upon our measurement by focusing on other outcomes of the vpa, such as student analyst learning and development. in addition, continuing to facilitate ongoing communication between the chapters will take effort. however, the most important action vpa can take to fully committing to collective impact will be to find a source or multiple sources of funding to cover administrative expenses. the impact of vpa through the use of collective impact practices so far, volunteer program assessment has made notable gains in improving nonprofit organizational effectiveness using several shared metrics, including program capacity, volunteer satisfaction, and volunteer continuance intentions. to date, vpa has conducted over 300 assessments, providing $4.5 million of in-kind services to nonprofits. the three areas in which vpa partner organizations have improved over time are described below as well as some examples of each metric. increased volunteer program capacity of partner organizations as vpa works with clients over time, we track their changes to provide a year to year comparison of each area of the survey. although it is not always possible for client organizations to implement every change or best practice that vpa recommends each year, we have found overwhelmingly that when organizations are able to devote time and effort toward addressing growth areas, such growth areas tend to improve. some of the documented efforts of client organizations as well as the resulting improvement found from the vpa survey are noted in table 2 below. 75 enhanced satisfaction of volunteers at partner organizations vpa collects several sources of information regarding volunteers’ satisfaction with their experiences, including satisfaction regarding their interpersonal perceptions with others at the organization, satisfaction with the flow of communication coming from the organization, satisfaction with the contribution they feel they have been able to make to the organization, and overall satisfaction with their volunteer work. an aggregated measure of satisfaction including several of these categories of satisfaction is included below, with most organizations finding that their volunteers experience increased satisfaction each year they have participated with vpa. table 2. program changes and score improvements organization type growth area time 1* score time 2* score changes made: music education youth development program recognition 60 90 began ending each concert/event by thanking all volunteers. personalized thank you notes written to all parent volunteers who went above and beyond during the season. nutrition and health education program perception of voice 69 86 shared the results of the vpa survey with volunteers and asked for feedback. regional foodbank perception of voice 44 66 shared the results of the vpa survey with volunteers and asked for feedback. youth mentoring and development program satisfaction with volunteer colleagues 86 99 brought volunteers together for volunteer appreciation luncheon incorporating vpa results and q&a session. youth advocacy program recognition 84 92 implementation of a new recognition program for volunteers. midwest hospital system satisfaction with paid staff 75 83 hiring of a specific coordinator to better support the program. *scores for both time 1 and time 2 are rated from 1 to 100. 76 figure 1. volunteers’ change in satisfaction over time. increased continuance intentions at client organizations finally, the vpa includes questions for volunteers about their continuance intentions regarding their volunteer position. we find that most client organizations who work with vpa have a substantial proportion of volunteers who intend to continue service each year, and that the longer client organizations work with vpa, the higher the proportion of volunteers who agree that they intend to continue working with each organization. this is perhaps the biggest indication of client organization success to date. 77 figure 2. volunteers’ change in intentions to continue over time. conclusion although vpa does not perfectly meet the definition of a collective impact initiative at this time, lacking fully the benefit of a backbone organization, it does closely align with four out of five of the characteristics identified by kania and kramer (2011). born of necessity in continuing to serve client organizations efficiently, steps taken to bring vpa chapters to a collective impact model over the past few years have resulted in positive changes for both the effectiveness of the vpa chapters, as well as allowed vpa to better serve a larger number of clientele. theoretically, we reinforce that although some efforts to address social issues may not begin as collective impact, over time they may evolve into collective impact by necessity. the future of vpa will involve greater efforts to meet a collective impact effort, with key goals including securing funding from backbone organizations, developing additional shared measurement systems to assess not only client outcomes, but student outcomes, and continuing to incorporate feedback from client organizations into the process to make it more effective. 91 86 78 84 87 78 92 87 83 88 92 82 96 97 94 89 94 89 50 60 70 80 90 100 youth mentoring program #1 grief counseling program youth mentoring program #2 poverty relief organization animal welfare organization #1 animal welfare organization #2 figure 2. volunteers' change in intentions to continue over time time 1 time 2 time 3 78 references bureau of labor statistics. 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(2012). understanding the value of backbone organizations in collective impact: part 1. stanford social innovation review – solutions – collaboration. retrieved from https://ssir.org/articles/entry/understanding_the_value_of_ backbone_ organizations_in_collective_impact_1. urban institute. (2004). volunteer management capacity in america’s charities and congregations: a briefing report. washington, d.c.: the urban institute. retrieved from http://webarchive.urban.org/uploadedpdf/410963_volunteermanagment.pdf http://www.siop.org/tip/april14/olien.pdf https://doi.org/10.1177/105382590602900105 https://ssir.org/articles/entry/understanding_the_value_of_%20backbone_%20organizations_in_collective_impact_1 https://ssir.org/articles/entry/understanding_the_value_of_%20backbone_%20organizations_in_collective_impact_1 http://webarchive.urban.org/uploadedpdf/410963_volunteermanagment.pdf 80 author information *sheridan b. trent is a doctoral student studying industrial-organizational psychology at the university of nebraska at omaha. she is also the assistant director of operations for volunteer program assessment at uno. sheridan’s research interests include volunteer retention, engagement, work-life issues, and burnout. sheridan b. trent department of psychology university of nebraska at omaha 6001 dodge street omaha, ne 68182 e-mail: strent@unomaha.edu telephone: 402-949-0227 fax: 402-554-2556 kelly a. prange is a doctoral student studying industrial/organizational psychology at the university of nebraska at omaha. she is also the assistant director of research for volunteer program assessment at uno. she is pursuing research interests within the realms of collective impact, social responsibility, and community engagement. kelly a. prange department of psychology university of nebraska at omaha 6001 dodge st. omaha, ne 68182 e-mail: kprange@unomaha.edu telephone: 402-540-1876 fax: 402-554-2556 joseph a. allen is an associate professor of industrial/organizational psychology at the university of nebraska at omaha. his engaged scholarship pursuits include the study of meetings among career and volunteer firefighters, investigating volunteer management challenges in nonprofit organizations, and the study of collaboration in the form of collective impact. joseph a. allen department of psychology university of nebraska at omaha 6001 dodge st. omaha, ne 68182 e-mail: josephallen@unomaha.edu telephone: 402-554-6017 fax: 402-554-2556 *corresponding author mailto:strent@unomaha.edu mailto:kprange@unomaha.edu mailto:josephallen@unomaha.edu turner, s., merchant, k., kania, j., & martin, e. (2012). understanding the value of backbone organizations in collective impact: part 1. stanford social innovation review – solutions – collaboration. retrieved from https://ssir.org/articles/entry/und... metropolitan universities vol. 29 no. 2 (may 2018), doi: 10.18060/21762 community schools and the role of university-school-community collaboration kathleen provinzano, ryan riley, bruce levine, and allen grant abstract public school districts are locally controlled and funded through local property taxes. funding schools this way perpetuates structural inequities in poorer school districts and as a result, students living in poverty have minimal access to critical resources that support student learning. community schools are resurfacing in many of these urban spaces as a mechanism for addressing the systemic and structural inequities plaguing students, schools, and communities. advocates posit that increasing student achievement requires addressing the needs of the whole child; conceptualizing schooling through this lens offers an expanded vision of what public education needs to be for many of today’s children. this paper aims to improve our overall understanding of community schools and highlights specific actions taken by community organizations and higher education institutions to create meaningful partnerships with public schools operating as community schools. the authors posit that collaborative and organically developed, grassroots relationships have the potential to alter the traditional dynamic between internal public school employees and external stakeholders, leading to school, student, and community transformation. keywords: community partnerships; integrated student supports; school-community transformation introduction quality education has the potential to promote social and economic mobility for some of the nation’s most disenfranchised students. unfortunately, not all systems are equal and worse yet, equitable. affluent parents have access to schools and resources that children on the lower end of the economic spectrum do not, creating a growing divide academically and in the long-term, economically (garland, 2013). the quality of education students receive largely influences their occupational choices and subsequent income level (hochschild, 2003). fortunately, evidence suggests that high-quality schools are enough to significantly increase academic achievement among the poor (dobbie & fryer, 2011), making it more likely for students to pursue postsecondary educational opportunities and improve their life trajectories. this is particularly salient for schools advancing a community-focused approach, because they mindfully address the effects of poverty and other out-of-school factors that contribute to gaps in student learning and achievement (fehrer & leos-urbel, 2016). full service community schools provide children with equitable learning opportunities, manifested through a strategy that addresses the needs of the whole child. students and families receive a comprehensive, integrated, and coordinated range of academic, health, and social/emotional services that supports improved outcomes for underserved children. 92 currently, there are over 5,000 community schools operating across 44 states and the district of columbia, serving over five million students, and the numbers continue to grow (coalition for community schools, n.d.). given the increasing popularity of community school initiatives as a community and education reform strategy, it is important for community-based organizations (cbos) and institutions of higher education (ihes) to improve their overall understanding of community schools and the services they provide. by doing so, they are better suited to offer resources to scale such initiatives. the purpose of this article is twofold; the authors provide a description of what a community school is. a detailed example follows of how researchers from one institution of higher education (drexel university), and one community-based organization (communities in schools pennsylvania) created a meaningful partnership to support a community school initiative in pennsylvania. this information was part of a presentation given at the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities (cumu) 2017 annual conference in denver, colorado. what are community schools and why do we need them? carefully designed educational programs with comprehensive school facilities are oftentimes absent in high-poverty school systems serving economically disadvantaged areas (min, anderson, & chen, 2017). deteriorating physical spaces, lack of relevant technology, and dated instructional resources are some of the challenges these schools face. as such, students attending under-resourced schools do not have the same opportunities to thrive academically and socially as their more advantaged peers. reforming public schools and their surrounding communities continues to be a central strategy for mitigating the effects of poverty on students’ well-being and academic performance in school (biag & castrechini, 2016). scholars and practitioners posit that schools offering direct services to address the needs of the whole child have a far greater influence on students’ ability to perform well in school (ladd, 2012) than singular reform initiatives situated in standards and standardization. not a new phenomenon, community schools are resurfacing in urban communities as a mechanism for addressing the multitude of challenges high-poverty schools and communities face. these schools leverage partnerships between the local school and community, and positively alter relationships between the school, families, and the community, more generally (fehrer & leos-urbel, 2016). large-scale community school initiatives are occurring in chicago, tulsa, and oakland, and the mayors of new york city and philadelphia have publically pledged support for scaling community schools in their respective cities (fehrer & leos-urbel, 2016). furthermore, recently enacted federal law (every student succeeds act [essa], 2015) includes the full service community schools program and other important provisions that advance community school strategies. moreover, the law includes accountability measures that extend beyond academics and supportive programs such as the 21st century community learning centers and the promise neighborhoods (roche, 2015). although a step in the right direction, more is required to support these types of endeavors. it is important to capitalize on the rare, bipartisan compromise essa rendered and for policymakers and reform advocates to reconfigure what an equitable education looks like, and community schools are just the strategy to do this. the coalition for community schools describes a community school as: 93 both a place and a set of partnerships between the school and other community resources. its integrated focus on academics, health and social services, youth and community development, and community engagement leads to improved student learning, stronger families, and healthier communities. children and families have an array of supports from community partners’ right at their school. communities and schools leverage their shared physical and human assets to help kids succeed (www.communityschools.org). working from this definition, the authors delved deeper into conceptualizing the ultimate purpose of education and identified how equity fits within that context. we view equity from the vantage point of student learning and development, as opposed to scores on high-stakes testing, or accountability. jordan (2010) stipulated that given the “overlapping and intersecting social policy arenas that affect education, the educational system cannot be fixed from within” (p.157). instead, broad-based approaches that address the overall needs of children (health, social/emotional, expanded learning), and the community must take the lead. the community school reestablishes the school as the center of the community. it provides community residents access to programs and services they otherwise do not have. community schools embody an equity strategy, removing barriers negatively influencing the well-being of students and families. the services offered give students and families’ opportunities, thus addressing the larger inequitable systems they contend with on a daily basis. according to angus (2009), it is important for policy and reform movements to support “schools forming respectful linkages with their communities, and embedding themselves within them, if they are to make a positive difference for currently less advantaged young people” (p. 40). growing recognition that problems occurring in distressed communities have direct implications on students, families, and schools served as the genesis for this piece. the authors posit that fullservice community schools can serve as the much needed, systems-wide reform aimed at engaging school and community resources. such collaborative and mutually beneficial partnerships might promote student, family, and community development. exemplar community school initiatives community schools are operating across the united states and have been for well over a decade. examples include, but are not limited to, the children’s aid society community schools, united way community schools, and university assisted community schools (see bronstein & mason, 2016; frankl, 2016; lubell, 2011 for a comprehensive list of community school exemplars). each is committed to improving educational outcomes for children by offering essential supports that promote learning and have an explicit focus on the relationship between the school and the community. funding and operations unfold differently in each community school, and each emphasizes different implementation priorities. however, they do have a shared vision for what an equitable school looks like and offer learning opportunities for ihes and cbos interested in involving themselves in the work. the children’s aid society the children’s aid society (cas) has had a longstanding relationship with the new york city department of education and currently operates twenty-two community schools throughout the 94 city. bronstein and mason (2016) report that cas community schools follow a lead agency model, with cas “serving as both a provider and broker of supports, services, and opportunities” (p. 56). in lead agency models, the community partner serves as the lead agency, providing the school with a community school coordinator who works jointly with school leadership to coordinate and maximize the array of services and service organizations funneling into the school and the local community. the lead partner manages any additional partners. children’s aid society community schools place a heavy emphasis on parent-engagement programs, and provide in-school parent resource centers staffed by trained parent coordinators. the coordinators engage in outreach with other parents and offer adult education classes and leadership institutes. this level of collaboration offers parents opportunities to become “funds of knowledge” (heers, van klaveren, groot, & maassen van den brink, 2016, p. 1023) in their community schools, and increases the presence and activity of those traditionally alienated from the school. empowering parents to lead and train other groups of parents makes use of the cultural resources parents from different backgrounds bring into schools. each cas community school looks different, but they all deem five critical elements necessary for success: (a) a strong instructional program; (b) solid professional capacity; (c) close parentcommunity-school ties; (d) a student-centered learning climate; and (e) leadership that drives change (http://www.childrensaidnyc.org/programs/community-schools). the children’s aid society, through the national center for community schools, also serves as a technical assistance organization for districts, schools, and community partners engaged in the work of community schools. united way community schools the united way is involved in community schools in multiple ways throughout the united states. in some instances, the organization operates as a funder or intermediary organization and in others as a lead agency. the coalition for community schools identified the united way of greater lehigh valley in pennsylvania as an exemplar in their community school approach. the agency works with four school districts in the lehigh valley, providing a fulltime community schools director and agency support to each community school. each united way community school coordinates on-site medical and dental services, school supplies, on-site vision services, a food bank, clothing closet, and housing resources to over 8ooo students and their families, with a particular focus on increasing third grade reading scores, kindergarten readiness, and successful high school transition (http://www.unitedwayglv.org/see-the-impact/education/communityschools). university assisted community schools pioneered by the netter center for community partnerships at the university of pennsylvania, university assisted community schools (uacs) engage with k-12 students in “community problem solving that is integrated into the school curriculum and extended day programs” (lubell, 2011, p. 15). the program engages students and community members by offering their programs in west philadelphia schools (https://www.nettercenter.upenn.edu/). bronstein and mason (2016) note that uacs provide the type of service linkage between schools and communities that enhances the quality of life in the community while simultaneously improving 95 the teaching, research, and service at the university, a mutually beneficial partnership. there are numerous uacs programs operating throughout the nation and each have different needs and resources. exemplary community schools also exist at the district, city, county, and state levels across the united states. frankl (2016) highlights the ongoing community school movements occurring in districts in austin, tx, baltimore, md, the city of portland and multnomah county, or, and in the state of kentucky. each of these sites report sustainable and transformational results. while community school strategies take different implementation approaches, there are multiple whole-child, research based strategies that are common amongst them. frankl (2016) stated that effective community school initiatives offer culturally relevant curricula, including project-based learning that tackles community-specific issues, and high-quality teaching that utilizes student data and choice to guide instructional decision-making. students and families also receive wraparound services offered before, during, and after school to help develop personal competencies. teachers and administrators adhere to positive discipline practices that include restorative justice techniques, and engage in authentic parent and community engagement that provides leadership and adult education opportunities for families. finally, community schools operate under the mantra of inclusive school leadership. at the helm of a community school is a principal who embraces leadership actions of students, families, and community members. the principal understands the importance of giving essential stakeholders a voice in decision-making that influences the scaling of community school initiatives. community schools implementing these strategies can reduce risky behavior, lower the dropout rate, and increase the academic performance of their students (heers et al., 2016). conceptualizing community schools as equity strategies will transform the local school and neighborhood, and provide students in under-resourced places with opportunities that support their success. obviously, this requires strong, collaborative partners. community-based organizations (cbos) and institutions of higher education (ihes) see the local neighborhood school as the core institution for community engagement, and as such can provide them with resources to advance their coordinated work. the following section describes how two such separate entities came together to support the community school strategy in one pennsylvania district. university and community based organizations partnering to advance community schools: the drexel-communities in school effort the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities (cumu) 2017 annual conference, the urban advantage, provided the perfect venue for researchers from the school of education at drexel university and leaders from communities in schools pennsylvania to present their coordinated efforts to create meaningful partnerships with public schools operating as community schools. the collaboration developed from a drexel-sponsored research initiative in one pennsylvania district, the pennsylvania community school district (pcsd). communities in schools pennsylvania was serving as a lead partner for several schools in the district, and soon a synergistic relationship emerged. preliminary results from the research study (discussed below) 96 led to coordinated efforts to support and scale community schools across the district. here are some lessons learned. research approach researchers from the school of education at drexel university engaged in a multi-year, multisite case study across five community schools in a large urban district in south central pennsylvania, the pennsylvania community school district (pcsd). the district has a longstanding commitment to community school development and implementation, hence the reasoning for its selection. the researchers sought to explore the community school phenomenon through an investigation of the relationships, both within the school, and between the school and outside partners. drexel scholars emphasized the distribution of challenges and opportunities associated with community school implementation. two research questions guided this study: 1. how are community schools implemented across five pcsd school sites? 2. in what ways are development and implementation efforts connected to systems-level goals for student and school improvement? methodology data collection began in july 2016 and is ongoing. the researchers relied largely on interviews from a purposeful sample of community school leadership, including the superintendent, five central office administrators, five building level principals, and five community school directors. moreover, they completed interviews with teachers and representatives from nine community service organizations. in addition, the researchers conducted focus groups with two parent groups. they also collected district documents, including parent survey data, attendance and behavioral data, and teacher turnover data. data analysis is ongoing, however early themes related to the role of universities in supporting and scaling community school efforts emerged, and the authors discuss these findings below. pcsd community context the pennsylvania community school district (pcsd) is a large, urban school district, home to demographically diverse residents of different racial, ethnic, linguistic, and cultural groups. over ninety-percent of students qualify as free or reduced lunch, and a majority of students identify as hispanic (any race). according to the most recent pennsylvania school performance profile data, the number of students receiving special education services at pcsd exceeds the state average. furthermore, the number of english language learners (ells) at pcsd greatly exceeds the state average. the district is home to nineteen schools, five of which function as fullservice community schools (washington middle school, adams elementary school, jefferson elementary school, madison elementary school, and monroe elementary school). community school implementation varies across each of the five sites. each school adapted the process to meet local context. the pcsd community schools did not emerge overnight. most began as an after-school program led by a community partner (i.e. boys and girls club, united 97 way), and scaled up overtime to include health and mental health services, food security programs, dental programs, adult training programs, and other comprehensive services to support and engage families. participants estimate that it takes approximately seven years to fully implement and scale strategies that positively influence school climate and offer students the range of services needed to be successful in school. preliminary finding relevant to cumu 2017: gaps in research and evaluation of community schools commonalities regarding how universities can support and scale up community school initiatives emerged across all five sites, specifically in areas related to research and evaluation. participants, namely the building administrators, expressed an interest in collaborating with faculty at institutions of higher education to coordinate evaluation efforts. community school strategies encompass a wide array of services. pinpointing how to measure their effectiveness on a host of indicators is incredibly challenging and the task may lie beyond the scope of the principal and community school director’s workload or expertise. this is especially important in the current high-stakes testing era characterized by unrealistic accountability standards and dwindling funds. furthermore, because full-service community schools rely on non-education funds, grants, and other nonprofit contributions, information related to their effectiveness is necessary for inclusion in future funding applications. although findings from the research are limited at this time, it is evident that high-quality research and evaluation of community school initiatives can serve as the mechanism for university researchers to engage with their local community schools. each principal they interviewed, along with the superintendent of schools and the community school director, indicated funding was a real issue for community school implementation and scaling efforts, including evaluation. faculty experts at ihes should seize this opportunity to work closely with the school to develop evaluation plans, which could subsequently lead to published works advancing community school funding support. this is especially important in pennsylvania, which lacks a fair funding formula. pennsylvania ranks 46th in the nation when it comes to the state’s share of education funding. the state relies entirely too much on local funding for schools (education law center, 2017). frankl (2016) urges that policy related to community schools should “explicitly outline that any new schools function as community schools…or, that every school with a specified percentage of students below the poverty indicator receive funding for a community school director” (p. 10). for this to occur, ihes have to engage in meaningful interactions with the local schools in their area. interacting with local schools in a mutually beneficial manner provides faculty at ihes opportunities to conduct seminal research, evaluation, and policy development related to community schools. faculty and school leadership can collaboratively identify particular areas of need, a critical step if the partnership is going to be meaningful and positive. because community schools receive offers of assistance from various community partners, it is important for universities to work in tandem with district and school leadership to offer coordinated services that both entities find meaningful and relevant. communities in schools pennsylvania: support from a cbo communities in schools (cis) 98 pennsylvania serves as the lead agency in four pcsd community schools. the organization is committed to providing students with a community of support intended to empower them to stay in school. each school has a school-based coordinator who connects students and families with community resources in the school. through programming, and the work of a cis coordinator, the organization leverages community resources that meet both the academic and non-academic needs of children in pcsd schools. according to bronstein and mason (2016), the primary elements of the cis model include: a site coordinator assessing the needs at the beginning of the year, the use of evidencebased community resources, a public health model with two levels of prevention/ intervention services, and a constant monitoring and adjustment over the course of the year to ensure service delivery is driving outcomes (p. 104). communities in schools is dedicated to including integrated student supports into the school, making them a sound partner for a lead agency in community schools. the level of services offered adhere to the early warning indicators to support students’ success and situated in a three-tiered system (see figure 1). tier 1 are the school-wide services available to students to foster a positive school climate. they are short-term interventions provided on an as-needed basis. examples include school-wide anti-bullying programming, or college and career events. tier 2 services occur in a group setting with students who have common needs, attendance improvement programs or academic tutoring interventions, for example. finally, cis site coordinators case-manage students who receive tier 3 services, and provided them with direct services such as academic interventions, behavioral interventions, and/or crisis interventions. figure 1: communities in schools (pennsylvania) model 99 significance of efforts drexel researchers and leadership from cis continue to work together to uncover obstacles and challenges to community school initiatives in pcsd. for example, drexel faculty found school leaders attributed a large part of the organic development of the community school with the work of community partners like cis. community-based organizations tend to have a stronger connection to the immediate needs of the community and serve as mediators between marginalized populations and institutionalized structures. this is particularly important in pcsd because most teachers and district employees live outside district boundaries. prior to community school implementation, they had little presence in the community outside their respective schools. this in no way discredits the hard work and dedication of pcsd staff to their students and families. rather, it calls attention to an overlooked fact relevant for schools looking to increase their level of engagement with parents and the surrounding community. annie, for example, a former community school director, stated that she needed to “create after school programs that were going to lure children and families into them.” she emphasized that asking the kids and the parents was easy for her because she is a lifelong resident of the neighborhood. people trusted annie in a way that they did not trust school employees at the time. this is important information for the district and cbos to know as they develop parent and community engagement efforts. sally, a current community school director, indicated that she and her principal are invested in efforts to shift staff’s perspective about parent engagement and have been doing “a lot of work around understanding poverty, trauma, and racism because those are factors in what our students bring with them to school.” as these anecdotes demonstrate, a relationship between a community school, the community agency that supports it, and an institution of higher education wanting to evaluate it, leads to opportunities that support their respective agendas and their shared vision for advancing equitable community school approaches. conclusion accountability measures over the past two decades have primarily focused on school improvement efforts and outcomes, devoid of meaningful collaboration with community partners and families that target whole-child development. collaboratively engaging with community schools at pcsd offered insight into how ihes and cbos can change the reform dialogue to one that advances genuine community partnerships, and supports a shared sense of responsibility for student success. researchers from the school of education at drexel university and communities in schools pennsylvania posit that community schools are a principal strategy for overcoming the devastating effects of poverty. ihes and cbos have an interest in supporting community schools in a way that makes the most sense for all involved. communities in schools as lead partner, coupled with concurrent research endeavors by faculty from the school of education at drexel university provided space for both entities to engage in meaningful collaboration focused on how to best support the community schools at pcsd. the partnership clearly advances individual (ihe, cbo, pcsd) interests, but more importantly it signifies the collective power groups have to advance shared short and long-term goals for community schools. 100 references angus, l. 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(2012). education and poverty: confronting the evidence. journal of policy analysis and management, 31, 203-227. https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.21615 lubell, e. (2011). building community schools: a guide for action. report prepared by the children’s aid society national center for community schools. retrieved from http://www.theoryofchange.org/wpcontent/uploads/toco_library/pdf/nccs_buildingcommunityschools.pdf min, m., anderson, j.a., & chen, m. (2017). what do we know about full-service community schools? integrative research review using nvivo. school community journal, 27(1), 29-54. roche, m.k. (2015). new federal education law boosts community schools. retrieved from http://www.communityschools.org/new_federal_education_law_boosts_community_schools/ https://doi.org/10.3102/0091732x09352898 https://doi.org/10.1002/pam.21615 102 author information kathleen provinzano is an assistant professor in the educational administration program. kathleen’s teaching, research, and activism derive from her commitment to social justice and equitable, systems-level change across urban and rural landscapes. understanding the synergistic relationship between teaching and scholarship, she believes in the importance of mentoring students as they engage in disciplined, reflective inquiry to address systemic problems plaguing their schools and communities. her research interests include contextually responsive leadership, leadership for learning, and the historical, political, and socio-cultural context of schools and communities. her work draws heavily from the intersectionality of class, race, and culture and she is currently investigating the influence of integrated supports on student learning and the school, parent, community dynamic in full-service community school settings. * kathleen provinzano drexel university 3141 chestnut street philadelphia, pa 19104 telephone: 215.895.6770 email: ktp37@drexel.edu ryan riley serves as the president and state director of communities in schools of pennsylvania and works in partnership with state and local elected officials, as well as community and business leaders to support and sustain services aimed at improving education across pennsylvania. prior to his current role, he was the vice president for development and marketing at easter seals serving washington, dc, maryland and virginia as well as the associate vice president of development and alumni relations at harrisburg university of science and technology. ryan riley communities in schools pennsylvania 1429 n. third street, suite 201 harrisburg, pa 17102 telephone: 717-233-4330 email: info@cisofpa.org based in washington, dc, bruce levine enjoys living in the nation’s capital and bringing to the school, perhaps, a slightly different perspective on education and urban matters. i think that is enhanced by the fact that i have lived several professional lives—practicing attorney, strategy consultant, and executive of several startups—before joining the faculty at drexel. bruce levine lafayette tower, suite 420 801 17th street, n.w. washington, dc 20006 mailto:ktp37@drexel.edu mailto:info@cisofpa.org 103 215.571.3460 telephone: 301.529.8469 email: bl63@drexel.edu dr. allen grant is an education change agent with a wide variety of experiences in k-12 and higher education. he has taught kindergarten, worked as a language instructor in spain, consulted as an ib pyp expert, and has held a plethora of leadership positions across k-12 and higher education. he is the past director of the louisiana virtual school and was policy expert and grants coordinator for the louisiana board of elementary and secondary education. grant is the academic head of the department policy, organization and leadership for the school of education. besides drexel, grant has worked at work at lsu, umuc and the southern university virtual learning environment. his research interests center around emerging technologies, community school models and most anything dealing with k-12 virtual schooling. allen grant associate clinical professor department chair for education policy and leadership programs one drexel plaza, room 112 3025 market st philadelphia, pa 19104 phone: 215.895.6232 acg48@drexel.edu * corresponding author mailto:bl63@drexel.edu mailto:acg48@drexel.edu muj 113 discovering diversity downtown: questioning phoenix craig a. talmage, rosemarie dombrowski, mikulas pstross, c. bjørn peterson, and richard c. knopf abstract applied community learning experiences for university students are promising endeavors in downtown urban environments. past research is applied to help better comprehend a community engagement initiative conducted in downtown phoenix, arizona. the initiative aimed to illuminate the socio-cultural diversity of the downtown area utilizing storytelling methods. the initiative leveraged three broad questions: where is downtown, what is downtown, and who is downtown? lessons learned from the initiative, its processes, and outcomes are showcased and reviewed. downtown is resurrection. the re-birth of the cool, the now. the happening, happening again. for the first time . . . from memory . . . from the sense of living the eternal moment. (jack evans, poet [dombrowski and talmage 2014, 3]) like the mythical phoenix, downtown urban areas have both risen and descended over the years, but still downtowns remain the vital epicenters of today’s communities (speck 2012). it is no wonder then that many of our colleges and universities are housed in some way or another in downtown areas because of their value (emenhiser 2012). while these downtowns may be relatively small in comparison to the entire urban area, they considerably contribute to the health of the entire urban or metropolitan area (sisko et al. 2014). thus, intuitively, we know that urban downtowns have value, but we need better measures of that value (mahoney et al. 2014). those measurements can be complex, because these public spaces do not only have economic or physical value, but socio-cultural value as well (madden 2014; ward 2007). applied community learning experiences may be quintessential tools for discovering value in urban downtown communities. in light of these notions, this paper explores socio-cultural value in the heart of an urban downtown area through an applied community learning experience, which involved university students, faculty, and community members. the experience was spurred from a grant-funded initiative that sought to illuminate the stories of socio-cultural diversity in downtown phoenix, arizona. a brief introduction to downtown phoenix the entire city of phoenix consists of an estimated 1.6 million residents and is the fifth most populated city in the united states (u.s. census bureau 2013; world population review 2014); however, less than 2 percent of its residents live in its downtown area. the entire phoenix metropolitan area is comprised of a population of 4.3 million 114 persons, making it the thirteenth largest metropolitan area in the united states (u.s. census bureau 2013; world population review 2014); thus, just slightly more than 0.5 percent of the metro-area’s population is found in the capital city’s nucleus. in many ways, downtown phoenix might epitomize the consequences of urban sprawl (speck 2012), but as one downtown university professor comments, “it’s starting to change, i see very real change” (waltz 2014). ten years ago, downtown phoenix rarely would see activity outside of traditional work hours unless there was an event at one of the two professional sports venues, or at one of its museums or theatres (hilton 2013; poore 2011). the area had somewhat of an indefinite artist community, and it was without a light rail system, university campus, and thriving city nightlife (hilton 2013). in 2006, arizona state university opened a satellite campus in downtown phoenix, which in the beginning drew more than a thousand students into the area (hilton 2013); now the campus and its programs have 11,500 students enrolled (arizona state university 2014a). the development of what would become a higher education district was coupled with the revitalization of arts districts and the emergence of boutique lodging and nightlife venues (i.e., bars, restaurants, and a bowling alley). a light rail system was built in the area, which connected downtown phoenix to uptown and midtown phoenix, mesa, and tempe, where asu’s original campus resides (hall 2008). what was once a blighted and high-crime region of the city now appears to be a vivacious place to visit, live, and work (e. scott 2012; waltz 2014). at least in the city center, much of the once noticeable blight has begun to evaporate since the introduction of arizona state university (hilton 2013) and because of the hard work of local artists and community leaders (stein, eigo, and kahler 2014). grants of up to $100,000 have been employed in the area to “put vacant, blighted properties to use and support the local arts economy” (gersema 2012). now, the downtown area hosts art walks, pub-crawls, farmers markets, and food trucks (hilton 2013). the issue of blight has been targeted by many in higher education, and through creative place-making, universities have helped transform areas with blight (grossman and roy 2014). many institutions have sought to become more socially embedded in their communities as a response to their ivory tower images (arizona state university 2014b; hall 2008). hall (2008) writes, “the idea is that a campus should become a vital part of the city and its downtown, sharing its challenges and helping it build a sustainable future through useful research and teaching.” the presence of a campus, however, does not guarantee vitality; engagement with and dialogue between university students, faculty, and community members through applied community learning experiences are essential for healthy partnerships. thus, what follows is a discussion of the importance of applied community learning experiences and a discussion of one of the first applied projects of its kind in downtown phoenix. however, the applied community learning experience is presented knowing that the actual number of these kinds of experiences in the area is unknown; an accurate portrait of downtown development through university-community partnerships remains needed. 115 applied community learning experiences “where you went to college matters less to your work life and well-being after graduation than how you went college.” (brandon busteed [gallup business journal, 2014]) applied community learning experiences for college and university students are essential to their future success in their work and personal lives (busteed 2014). a recent study by gallup found that experiential and deep learning, including semester or longer projects, are key to students’ success in their personal and work lives after graduation (busteed 2014). consistently, weingarten (2014) suggests that moderninstruction requires richness and depth in student learning experiences. thus, it is important that “students combine academic study with some form of direct, practical involvement, usually with a community close to the university” (bednarz et al. 2008, 87), which may include an urban downtown area. many colleges and universities foster appliedor service-learning experiences for their students, where students fulfill their coursework through activities in communities that help fulfill community needs. these activities serve to help students acquire important skills and knowledge that will help them in their work and community lives outside of their college and university and/or after they graduate. “service-learning and other outreach activities give students firsthand opportunities to apply what they are learning in their disciplinary studies outside the academic setting, thus promoting leadership, character development, cultural and community understanding, and self-discovery” (garber et al. 2010, 78). applied learning helps better the civic skills, the connectedness to the university, and the retention of our students (roy 2014). if the goal is to enable college and university students to apply their skills and knowledge in their own communities, then the strategies used to teach them should relate to their own life experiences (grossman and roy 2014). syracuse, new york mayor stephanie miner highlights this vital sensitivity: “we deposit all of our societal problems into our school buildings along with our children, and say to educators, teach them” (mahoney et al. 2014); thus, how we teach matters (busteed 2014). faculty members, therefore, play a key role in facilitating successful applied learning experiences in communities for students. first, faculty perceptions of civic engagement and service-learning appear to influence participation in those activities (hiraesave and kauffman 2014). these experiences also may be more inclined to help build strong personal connections between faculty members and students. second, busteed (2014) noted that emotional support shown for students—in particular, professors that instill an excitement about learning in their students and professors that care about their students—are significant to students’ success in their personal and work lives after graduation. in relation to both students and faculty, institutional commitment to applied learning is a necessity (hiraesave and kauffman 2014). 116 these learning experiences can transform into formal partnerships with a community, a community organization, or community members (pstross et al. 2013). university– community partnerships help students connect theory and practice (wilson 2004). they also help universities stay grounded in their communities, thus, answering ernest lynton’s (1983) call to “rethink our conception of the university as a detached and isolated institution” (53). powell (2014) implores that both neighborhoods with universities and universities in neighborhoods need to consider diversity in their work together: neighborhoods are home to diverse groups of residents who share a common place, but not the same degree of attachment to that place or the same sense of community. despite the increased interest in university–community relations, there is relatively little empirical research on intergroup relations in campusadjacent neighborhoods (108). thus, the intentional integration of the university into the community and vice versa is key to joint visioning and development, especially in urban downtown areas (waltz 2014). community members, however, still do not necessarily experience the same benefits as members of the university (blouin and perry 2009; lear and sánchez 2013). blouin and perry (2009) write, “the benefits to students are well documented, but the value to the community is less clear” (133). benefits to the community need to be thoroughly assessed and well documented; they should not be implied or assumed (lear and sánchez, 2013). therefore, sustainable university-community partnerships are founded in reciprocity and trust. stakeholders from both arenas need to collaborate as partners, and both partners need to seek ways to leverage each other’s strengths in community engagement work. furthermore, an ongoing commitment to the partnership must be established (davidson et al. 2010; holland and gelmon 2003; lear and sánchez 2013). thus, a key question must be kept in mind as community developer richard knopf notes: “how can we become incredibly integrated to actually reflect the vision of the community, instead of the vision of [the university]?” (waltz 2014). portraits of our universities and communities integration requires self-awareness, which may be more like portraiture than cartography. barbara holland (2014) emphasizes that we—university personnel who work to enhance community engagement—need a reasonably accurate portrait of the activity at our institutions. efforts have been made through the use of technological resources (e.g., community engagement collaboratory) to create and capture these images making up our universities (holland 2014), yet the same efforts need to be made in the larger communities that our universities serve. often our universities and communities seem as diverse as what we might see in a jackson pollack painting. where to start or what to focus on seem to stress our minds as we seek to construct more accurate portraits of our institutions and communities. holland (2014) notes that measurement may be one of the biggest deterrents of engagement, including the need to track different perspectives in our community 117 engagement work. thus, broad strokes are needed on the canvas to reveal the true diversity of our communities, our universities, and all the interwoven pieces between them. applied community learning experiences can be one of the paintbrushes we use for discovery and, perhaps even, development. the “we are downtown” initiative sit down with a good book, open your mind to experience something new, and use the experience to go out and change your own community. (alex stevenson, university student, [2014]) in the interest of integration and engagement, an initiative was proposed to arizona state university’s office of academic excellence through diversity. this initiative was accepted and was carried out through an applied community learning experience in downtown phoenix, arizona, that utilized university students, faculty, and community members. the aim was to highlight the stories of socio-cultural diversity in the downtown area through efforts initiated by university students and staff. the we are downtown initiative began as a small grant-funded project. the purpose of the grant offered by the academic excellence through diversity office at arizona state university was written as such: to provide our university community including students, faculty, staff, and local communities, with opportunities to explore and discuss together current and cutting-edge scholarly topics and issues, including but not limited to behavioral, societal, cultural, historical, scientific, and political perspectives, that advance an understanding of access, excellence, and inclusion from interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary perspectives. the goal of this program is to elevate the university dialogue across disciplines in order to educate our students and provide critical insights into the multidisciplinary opportunities and challenges in working with our diverse peoples and communities in the 21st century. (diaz 2013, 1) proposal responses were required to contain multidisciplinary teams and multidisciplinary methods. they were particularly encouraged to offer at least one community event to exhibit the university’s commitment to diversity and commitment to working with underserved professional and neighborhood communities. the parameters, though broad and somewhat ill defined, had great promise for the team. the multidisciplinary we are downtown team engaged students and faculty from three university schools: 1) the walter cronkite school of journalism and mass communication, 2) the school of community resources and development, and 3) the school of letters and sciences. they provided the following response: the we are downtown project seeks to amplify storytelling in and of the diverse communities in downtown phoenix. this effort will strengthen relationships between schools, faculty, and students at asu’s downtown phoenix campus and 118 individuals and private and public sector organizations in downtown. the many expressions of this story will be showcased in a summit that weaves connections between asu and the downtown communities, and offers the opportunity for the community to discover its soul. (knopf et al. 2013, 2) after formation, the multidisciplinary team grew to include other schools even after the grant was funded. the team was motivated to discover the diverse downtown story through an applied community learning experience, which was to conduct both traditional and nontraditional community-based research. undergraduate students in a senior-level tourism development and management course held at the university’s downtown phoenix campus were the primary surveyors for the more conventional research portions of the first phase of this initiative. however, the diverse downtown story was chronicled not only through traditional survey methods, but also through a studentdirected documentary film and sourced poems, writings, and photographs from university students and downtown community members. stories were assumed to contain the rich details of diversity desired. specifically regarding phoenix, yoohyun jung (2014) writes: people interact with things or other people, creating stories and leaving traces of those stories as memories in the minds of other people or the physical space of places they go. those bits and pieces accumulate in the pockets of this city, giving the people an experience more special than all the rest. thus, the team’s methods aimed to elucidate a portrait of downtown phoenix through stories of diversity. the essential questions downtown is the celebration of the city’s non-concealment of our very selves. (michael bartelt, university student and poet, [dombrowski and talmage 2014, 6]) an open process was agreed upon to paint the portrait of downtown phoenix from its diverse perspectives and through its stories of diversity. lees (2003) expresses the basic philosophy of this kind of process: urban revitalization initiatives must embrace diversity—cultural and economic, as well as functional and spatial. this diversity of different ‘diversities’ is often under-theorized, as are the benefits of, and relationships among, social and cultural diversity, economic diversification, mixed-use and multi-purpose zoning, political pluralism, and democratic public space. it is my contention that this ambivalence is not simply a smokescreen for vested commercial interests, but also provides opportunities for expressing alternative visions of what diversity and the city itself should be. (613) 119 the team established the three essential questions to guide the applied community learning experience: 1) where is downtown phoenix; 2) what is downtown phoenix; and 3) who is downtown phoenix? the team then reached out to community members, university students, and others to discover the variety of possible answers these questions. more specifically, the undergraduate students, who conducted the more formal research efforts, were asked to reflect upon their own answers to these questions. where is downtown? before surveying the community, the undergraduate students were asked in-class to respond by drawing on a paper map, “where is downtown phoenix?” the map pictured a geographic area that spanned three miles north and south and four miles east and west. the students drew their perceived boundaries of the downtown area on the paper map. the undergraduate students then went to their local friends, fellow students, family members, downtown residents, workers, and passersby on the street with maps of the general downtown area. they asked the participants to draw an outline of downtown phoenix’s boundaries. the maps collected were synthesized and organized by two undergraduate students not enrolled in the senior-level tourism development and management course to elucidate possible themes. as to be expected, definitions varied between individuals. out of the more than three hundred maps collected, four common responses emerged from the collection of answers. these responses are found in figure 1. figure 1. four common representations of answers to “where is downtown?” survey 120 the discovery of where was furthered through an open house event hosted by the university at its downtown phoenix campus. at the event, the we are downtown team asked more than sixty visitors to indicate on a map projected on a wall to answer the following questions by using sticky notes: • where is the heart of downtown phoenix? (represented by hearts) • where do you go in downtown phoenix? (represented by people) • where do you avoid in downtown phoenix? (represented by exclamations) • where is your favorite part of or place in downtown phoenix? (represented by flags) • where do you live in downtown phoenix? (represented by houses) the team using google’s map engine then captured the answers online, which are depicted in figure 2. figure 2. the notable places of downtown phoenix also to be expected, the heart of downtown phoenix seemed to yield consistent answers within a dense area of the map. the heart was found within the downtown phoenix 121 business improvement district’s boundaries, which helps corroborate this portion of the project’s findings (downtown phoenix partnership inc. 2014; hilton 2013). the center or heart included many of the individuals’ favorite places and places where they usually go. through informal conversations with event visitors, places individuals went and favored were noted to include sports arenas, restaurants, bars, historic neighborhoods, the university, and museums. the places that were avoided were noted as government agency buildings, abandoned areas with a lot of blight, and the local city jail. finally, the few persons who indicated that they lived in downtown did not live near the perceived heart or center, but still emphasized that they lived downtown. the undergraduate students then were divided into eleven teams and were asked to speak with additional residents, workers, and passersby in downtown phoenix. ten of the teams of three to six students focused on the different official, unofficial, and overlapping districts of downtown phoenix. these districts are depicted in figure 3. the districts were based on city of phoenix development plans (city of phoenix 2014b) and historic neighborhood districts (city of phoenix 2014a; historic phoenix real estate 2014). finally, one team specifically focused on elucidating the university’s downtown phoenix campus’ assets. figure 3. downtown phoenix’s overlapping districts what is downtown? two sub-questions were deemed necessary to better understand what is downtown: 1) what is a downtown?, and 2) what is our downtown? before surveying the community, the undergraduate students were asked in-class to reflect on and respond to the following question, “what is a downtown?” following this reflection, these students ascertained the appropriate human subjects training certifications before surveying and having informal conversations with downtown community members 122 and fellow university students around the question, “what is our downtown?” meanwhile, other students and faculty involved in the initiative gathered poems and photos from community artists and fellow students around these two questions as well. what is a downtown? the undergraduate students generated, in-class, their own definitions of downtown and downtown spaces before data collection in the community began. their definitions had both positive and negative connotations. the following are excerpts (dombrowski and talmage 2014) of their definitions of what is a downtown: a place of hustle and bustle . . . a place of business and a place where everyone can have fun. (13) where everything happens. (13) an area within a major city that has places to go, things to do. (13) rich with culture and has an abundance of shops and businesses. (13) a place that takes bits and pieces of surrounding environments in order to create its own unique experiences. (13) a place where the community goes to get together and enjoy sports and other events. (13) a city area that has a different vibe . . .not a suburb or a rural area. (14) where events and activities take place for locals and tourists. (14) an urban community. (14) the heart of the city. (14) oldest area of the city. (15) a corporate culture filled with monotonous jobs and daily activities. (15) traffic and expensive parking. (15) tall buildings, narrow streets, not very convenient for cars. (15) common themes appeared to include a central location, a place for the community (in general), government, businesses, and tourism. the more negative themes centered on parking and traffic. these definitions likely were influenced by the students’ 123 definitions of and personal experiences in downtown phoenix, which was examined using the question, “what is our downtown?” what is our downtown? then, the undergraduate students along with the help of faculty members also forayed into the downtown phoenix area exploring the question, “what is our downtown?” statements and poems were sourced from local downtown phoenix residents and stakeholders. the following are excerpts (dombrowski and talmage 2014) of their reveries of what their downtown is: downtown is the possibility of art for everybody.—elizabeth mcneil, poet (17) downtown has a key word that stands out . . .”own.”—leah marche, poet, writer, and community member (17) walt whitman would say it contains multitudes. i’d say it’s won my heart.—rd, poet, co-founder/host of the phoenix poetry series, university lecturer (18) my downtown is the blood that runs through my veins, it is a transfusion for a new phoenix—mike pfister, co-founder of collabx, musician, and university instructor (19) i chose to live downtown because i want to be centrally located and live in a culturally diverse neighborhood.—downtown resident (17) i live downtown because it is where my family has lived all my life.— downtown resident (18) downtown is becoming more diverse. before it was just businessmen and corporate industry, but now that [the university] has brought a student presence to the area, more people are attracted to living downtown. with the addition of the convention center, [the university] downtown, and places such as cityscape, there is a more diverse community within the downtown phoenix area.—downtown business owner (17) downtown allows me to express who i am through my work. it allows me to contribute to the urban and hip feel, the new vision of the downtown area.— downtown business owner (17) i see the future for phoenix being very bright. i have worked downtown for many years and have watched it develop for the better in so many ways.— downtown worker (19) these excerpts reflect the types of conversations the undergraduate students and the entire we are downtown team held with local community members. the what of 124 downtown phoenix appears to be fluid and dynamic, and diversity is only one part of the story. the outlook appears positive for future efforts for development, student engagement, and further discovery of diversity and inclusion in downtown phoenix and amongst its many stakeholders. who is downtown? downtown is a place where all different peoples, cultures, and communities can come together. (dombrowski and talmage 2014, 40) a city’s soul lies in the diversity that embraces cultures of all origin. (jung 2014) for development, it is crucial that appropriate leverage points for positive change are found (where). it is also necessary that community needs and assets be elucidated and the desired changes for development be agreed upon (what). but, it is equally important to consider who will be leading development efforts, who will be affected by any changes, who has a say in proposed and implemented changes, and who resides within or makes up the membership of a particular community (mahoney et al. 2014; talmage 2014). thus, community-wide data collection is core to our work (mahoney et al. 2014). to answer the question, “who is downtown?,” both traditional and nontraditional methods were used. a doctoral student examined u.s. census data bounded in the vicinity of downtown phoenix to explore the sub-question, “who is downtown phoenix?” other university faculty and students on the we are downtown team then utilized nontraditional methods, such as artistic and community-involved efforts, to address a second sub-question, “who are downtown phoenix’s stakeholders?” who is downtown phoenix? phoenix, you’ve given me all, and now i’m something. (dombrowski 2012) the doctoral student was able to capture the demographics of the downtown vicinity using the american factfinder search and data collection utility provided by the u.s. census bureau. census tracts (cts) were deemed as the best geographic unit for analyses because they did not overextend outside the designated urban downtown area like zip codes did. the census data revealed a useful portrait of the downtown area. census data summaries are provided below and in tables 1 through 7 as examples of the kinds of information that can be accessed and analyzed by students in their applied community learning experiences. eleven census tracts—ct(s) 1129, 1130, 1131, 1132.01, 1132.02, 1132.03, 1140, 1141, 1142, 1143.01, 1143.02—were included in the demographic investigation for this initiative (u.s. census bureau 2008–2012). these census tracts encompassed the same geographic area pictured in the where portion of this initiative; thus, these assessed tracts spanned three miles north and south and four miles east and west. selected 125 social, economic, housing, and individual background characteristics were downloaded and explored from the u.s. census bureau. the social make up of downtown phoenix consists of around 9,109 households and more than 22,000 persons. average household sizes amongst the eleven census tracts ranged from 1.23 to 3.71 persons, and the average family size ranged from 2.40 to 4.65 persons. single persons (more without children than with) make up the majority of households (just over 70 percent). there also appear to be more adult men than women in the area. the educational attainment of individuals appears almost to be divided into three equal categories: 1) residents without a high school education, 2) residents with a high school education, and 3) residents with a college degree or higher. table 1 illustrates social characteristics from the u.s. census bureau. table 1. the social characteristics of downtown phoenix total percent margin error social characteristic number of total of error* percent* total households 9,109 1,142 12.54% families 4,339 47.63% 1,020 23.51% families with children 2,301 25.26% 874 37.98% married couples 2,151 23.61% 834 38.77% married couples with children 896 9.84% 594 66.29% single fathers 583 6.40% 429 73.58% single fathers with children 286 3.14% 321 112.24% single mothers 1,605 17.62% 762 47.48% single mothers with children 1,119 12.28% 697 62.29% nonfamilies 4,770 52.37% 1,091 22.87% singles (living alone) 3,949 43.35% 1,002 25.37% singles (65 and older) 834 9.16% 374 44.84% households with children 2,607 28.62% 897 34.41% households (65 and older) 1,590 17.46% 552 34.72% total population in households 22,167 – 4,077 18.39% householder 9,109 41.09% 1,142 12.54% spouse 2,144 9.67% 829 38.67% children 6,672 30.10% 2,133 31.97% other relatives 1,975 8.91% 1,333 67.49% nonrelatives 2,267 10.23% 1,204 53.11% 126 unmarried partner 900 4.06% 614 68.22% total persons (15 and older) 20,426 92.15% 4,416 21.62% men 11,857 53.49% 2,603 21.95% women 8,569 38.66% 1,813 21.16% never married 11,124 50.18% 3,844 34.56% married (not separated) 5,101 23.01% 1,862 36.50% separated 672 3.03% 698 103.87% widowed 803 3.62% 716 89.17% divorced 2,726 12.30% 1,428 52.38% grandparents with children 88 0.40% 81 92.05% responsible for grandchildren 54 0.24% 73 135.19% total persons (25 and older) 16,251 73.31% 2,877 17.70% less than 9th grade education 3,277 14.78% 1,429 43.61% 9th to 12th grade education (no diploma) 2,044 9.22% 986 48.24% high school diploma or equivalent 4,635 20.91% 1,509 32.56% some college (no degree) 2,698 12.17% 1,021 37.84% associate’s degree 746 3.37% 600 80.43% bachelor’s degree 1,879 8.48% 942 50.13% graduate or professional degree 972 4.38% 557 57.30% *margin of errors and error percentages are based on a summation of the 11 census tracts’ error values. the economic characteristics of downtown residents show that from the just more than 20,000 population of persons 16 and older that there are slightly less than 10,000 persons in the civilian labor force. the unemployment rate for residents in the labor force is 13.28 percent. most workers drive their automobiles alone to work (62.10 percent); however, around a third of workers walk, take public transportation, carpool to work, or utilize other means (i.e., bicycle). also, around 30 percent of residents in downtown phoenix are without a vehicle to drive. the average commute time for workers ranges from 16.8 minutes to 28.2 minutes amongst the eleven census tracts. management, business, science, and arts occupations appear most prevalent, and the largest industry for employment is the educational services, and health care and social assistance industry. almost 80 percent of workers are privately employed, but almost 14 127 percent of earners are employed by a government agency. around 6 percent of workers are self-employed, and around 2 percent of workers work from home in the area. the median household income ranged from $15,767 to $39,046 amongst the eleven census tracts, while the mean household income ranged from $20,854 to $58,509. the percentage of all families whose income in the past twelve months was below the poverty level ranged from 13.0 percent to 63.3 percent (for all families) and 20.9 percent to 67.3 percent (for all people). around 23 percent of residents received food stamps or snap benefits. additionally, 30 percent of residents indicated they did not have health insurance, and it appears that 19 percent of children in the area were also without health insurance. tables 2 and 3 illustrate these selected economic characteristics from the u.s. census bureau. table 2. the worker characteristics of downtown phoenix total percent margin error economic characteristic number of total of error* percent* population (16 and older) 20,088 – 3,319 16.52% in civilian labor force 9,915 49.36% 2,192 22.11% employed 8,598 86.72% 2,058 23.94% unemployed 1,317 13.28% 930 70.62% in armed forces labor force 10 0.05% 152 1520.00% not in labor force 10,163 50.59% 2,800 27.55% total commuters (16 and older) 8,419 – 2,072 24.61% drive automobile (alone) 5,228 62.10% 1,586 30.34% drive automobile (carpool) 804 9.55% 591 73.51% public transportation (not taxicab) 649 7.71% 647 99.69% walkers 631 7.49% 444 70.36% other means 649 7.71% 584 89.98% work at home 458 2.28% 413 90.17% civilians employed (16 and older) 8,598 – 2,058 23.94% management, business, science, and arts occupations 2,838 33.01% 1,023 36.05% service occupations 1,975 22.97% 1,052 53.27% sales and office occupations 1,985 23.09% 1,059 53.35% natural resources, construction, and maintenance occupations 895 10.41% 690 77.09% 128 production, transportation, and material moving occupations 905 10.53% 599 66.19% agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting, and mining industry 115 1.34% 239 207.83% construction industry 530 6.16% 472 89.06% manufacturing industry 596 6.93% 480 80.54% wholesome trade industry 140 1.63% 206 147.14% retail trade industry 866 10.07% 667 77.02% information industry 328 3.81% 375 114.33% transportation and warehousing, and utilities industry 308 3.58% 348 112.99% finance and insurance, and real estate and rental and leasing industry 623 7.25% 504 80.90% professional, scientific and management, and administrative and waste management industry 1,233 14.34% 689 55.88% educational services, and health care and social assistance industry 1,632 18.98% 719 44.06% arts, entertainment, and recreation, and accommodation and food services industry 1,209 14.06% 810 67.00% other services except public administration industry 551 6.41% 462 83.85% public administration industry 467 5.43% 423 90.58% private wage and salary workers 6,836 79.51% 1,906 27.88% government workers 1,183 13.76% 655 55.37% self-employed workers (unincorporated) 547 6.36% 468 85.56% unpaid family workers 32 0.37% 168 525.00% *margin of errors and error percentages are based on a summation of the 11 census tracts’ error values. 129 table 3. the income and health insurance characteristics of downtown phoenix total percent margin error economic characteristic number of total of error* percent* total households 9,109 – 1,142 12.54% less than $10,000 1,995 21.90% 909 45.56% $10,000 to $14,999 1,192 13.09% 644 54.03% $15,000 to $24,999 1,713 18.81% 824 48.10% $25,000 to $34,999 987 10.84% 596 60.39% $35,000 to $49,999 1,017 11.16% 594 58.41% $50,000 to $74,999 830 9.11% 567 68.31% $75,000 to $99,999 556 6.10% 404 72.66% $100,000 to $149,999 584 6.41% 423 72.43% $150,000 to $199,999 154 1.69% 246 159.74% $200,000 or more 81 0.89% 178 219.75% receiving employment earnings 6,340 69.60% 1,187 18.72% drawing social security 1,970 21.63% 716 36.35% drawing retirement income 556 6.10% 387 69.60% drawing on supplemental security 662 7.27% 432 65.26% receiving cash public assistance 414 4.54% 339 81.88% receiving food stamps and/or snap benefits 2,130 23.38% 413 19.39% civilian noninstitutionalized population 23,924 – 4,543 18.99% with health insurance coverage 16,755 70.03% 3,552 21.20% with private health insurance 7,625 31.87% 2,142 28.09% with public health insurance 10,260 42.89% 3,084 30.06% no health insurance 7,169 29.97% 3,065 42.75% population of children (under 18) 5,991 25.04% 599 10.00% children with no health insurance 1,153 19.25% 1,259 109.19% *margin of errors and error percentages are based on a summation of the 11 census tracts’ error values. 130 there appears to be around 11,501 housing units available in downtown phoenix, and 79 percent of these units are occupied. only 26 percent of those are owner-occupied, while 74 percent are renter-occupied. the homeowner vacancy rate ranges from 0.0 percent to 26.6 percent and the rental vacancy rate ranges from 0.0 percent to 29.9 percent amongst the eleven census tracts. the median monthly owner costs $979 to $2,140 for those with a mortgage and $324 to $710 for those without a mortgage. the median gross rent costs ranges from $573 to $769 amongst the eleven census tracts. the average household size of owner occupied units ranges from 1.32 to 4.55, and the average household size of renter-occupied units ranges from 1.21 to 3.21. finally, the majority of residents appear to have moved into their current unit starting in the year 2000 or later. regarding the actual units, the median housing values range from $76,600 to $300,000 amongst the eleven census tracts. the largest proportion of dwellings are multihousing, consisting of more than twenty units. by proportion, most dwellings appear to have been built after the year 2000 or before the year 1940. the median room size ranges from 2.8 to 4.6 rooms, and most homes contain at least one or two bedrooms. finally, some housing units lack heat, lack complete plumbing systems, lack complete kitchen facilities, and are without telephone service. tables 4 and 5 illustrate these selected housing characteristics from the u.s. census bureau. table 4. the housing characteristics of downtown phoenix total percent margin error housing characteristic number of total of error* percent* total housing units 11,501 – 817 7.10% occupied housing units 9,109 79.20% 1,142 12.54% vacant housing units 2,392 20.80% 936 39.13% owner-occupied 2,380 20.69% 778 32.69% with a mortgage 1,701 14.79% 704 41.39% without a mortgage 679 5.90% 445 65.54% renter-occupied 6,729 58.51% 1,189 17.67% 1-unit detached dwelling 4,030 35.04% 866 21.49% 1-unit attached dwelling 513 4.46% 435 84.80% 2-units 1,043 9.07% 639 61.27% 3 or 4-units 1,341 11.66% 749 55.85% 5 to 9 units 778 6.76% 571 73.39% 10 to 19 units 929 8.08% 550 59.20% 20 or more units 2,762 24.02% 611 22.12% 131 mobile home 105 0.91% 223 212.38% built 2010 or later 150 1.30% 245 163.33% built 2000 to 2009 2,474 21.51% 852 34.44% built 1990 to 1999 1,115 9.69% 601 53.90% built 1980 to 1989 780 6.78% 492 63.08% built 1970 to 1979 663 5.76% 500 75.41% built 1960 to 1969 1,162 10.10% 690 59.38% built 1950 to 1959 1,257 10.93% 734 58.39% built 1940 to 1949 1,082 9.41% 614 56.75% built 1939 or earlier 2,818 24.50% 413 14.66% 1 room 1,488 12.94% 777 52.22% 2 rooms 873 7.59% 486 55.67% 3 rooms 2,826 24.57% 950 33.62% 4 rooms 2,944 25.60% 1,011 34.34% 5 rooms 1,815 15.78% 800 44.08% 6 rooms 677 5.89% 487 71.94% 7 rooms 369 3.21% 328 88.89% 8 rooms 311 2.70% 291 93.57% 9 rooms or more 198 1.72% 255 128.79% no bedroom 1,572 13.67% 781 49.68% 1 bedroom 3,598 31.28% 1,006 27.96% 2 bedrooms 3,626 31.53% 1,045 28.82% 3 bedrooms 2,061 17.92% 797 38.67% 4 bedrooms 493 4.29% 398 80.73% 5 or more bedrooms 151 1.31% 234 154.97% no heat 159 1.38% 223 140.25% lack of complete plumbing 60 0.52% 194 323.33% lack of complete kitchen 194 1.69% 249 128.35% no telephone service 920 8.00% 595 64.67% *margin of errors and error percentages are based on a summation of the 11 census tracts’ error values. 132 table 5. occupant characteristics of downtown phoenix total percent margin error occupant characteristic number of total of error* percent* occupied housing units 9,109 – 1,142 12.54% no vehicles available 2,718 29.84% 949 34.92% 1 vehicle available 3,954 43.41% 1,109 28.05% 2 vehicles available 1,916 21.03% 767 40.03% 3 or more vehicles available 521 5.72% 384 73.70% moved in 2010 or later 2,049 22.49% 833 40.65% moved in 2000 to 2009 5,387 59.14% 1,223 22.70% moved in 1990 to 1999 678 7.44% 437 64.45% moved in 1980 to 1989 549 6.03% 415 75.59% moved in 1970 to 1979 266 2.92% 269 101.13% moved in 1969 or earlier 180 1.98% 231 128.33% *margin of errors and error percentages are based on a summation of the 11 census tracts’ error values. downtown phoenix residents range in age from 24.4 to 40.6 years of age amongst the eleven census tracts. based on frequency, most residents appear to be between twenty to fifty-four years of age. around 10 percent of the population is 62 or older, and less than a quarter of the population is younger than eighteen. again, there are more men than women by proportion in the area. finally, the largest racial background observed is white, followed by hispanic/latino, black or african american, and other races. tables 6 and 7 outline the age and sex and racial/ethnic characteristics, respectively. table 6. age and sex characteristics of downtown phoenix residents total percent margin error resident characteristic number of total of error* percent* total population 25,572 – 4,660 18.22% male 14,206 55.55% 3,061 21.55% female 11,366 44.45% 2,715 23.89% under 5 years 1,586 6.20% 909 57.31% 5 to 9 years 2,162 5.72% 1,339 73.70% 10 to 14 years 1,398 5.47% 845 60.44% 15 to 19 years 1,591 6.22% 978 61.47% 133 20 to 24 years 2,584 10.10% 1,311 50.74% 25 to 34 years 4,939 19.31% 1,762 35.68% 35 to 44 years 3,836 15.00% 1,310 34.15% 45 to 54 years 3,313 12.96% 1,238 37.37% 55 to 59 years 1,075 4.20% 681 63.35% 60 to 64 years 1,099 4.30% 721 65.61% 65 to 74 years 1,347 5.27% 669 49.67% 75 to 84 years 427 1.67% 269 63.00% 85 years and older 215 0.84% 300 139.53% 18 years and older 19,580 76.57% 3,247 16.58% 21 years and older 18,227 71.28% 3,051 16.74% 62 years and older 2,594 10.14% 969 37.36% 65 years and older 1,989 7.78% 793 39.87% *margin of errors and error percentages are based on a summation of the 11 census tracts’ error values. table 7. racial backgrounds of downtown phoenix residents total percent margin error resident characteristic number of total of error* percent* total population 25,572 – 4,660 18.22% one race 25,295 98.92% 4,641 18.35% two or more races 277 1.08% 332 119.86% white 20,366 79.64% 4,398 21.59% black and african american 3,165 5.72% 1,687 73.70% american indian and alaska native 739 2.89% 789 106.77% asian 354 1.38% 415 117.23% native hawaiian and other pacific islander 22 0.09% 162 736.36% some other race 1,214 4.75% 964 79.41% hispanic or latino 14,701 57.49% 3,955 26.90% *margin of errors and error percentages are based on a summation of the 11 census tracts’ error values. 134 who are downtown phoenix’s stakeholders? we—the poets and artists and scholars—live in the heart of you, and your complex network of chambers and arteries and valves are our fodder.—rd (dombrowski 2012) it’s not what the city has to offer, but what you have to offer to the city.— michael bartelt (waltz 2014) we need to recognize the psyches and personalities of our urban communities (mahoney et al. 2014; ward 2007). both students and faculty recognized this notion as they reflected on this applied community learning experience. the team reflected in their chapbook, “demographics alone do not provide us with the tools we need to understand diversity, but the real question is, ‘who gets to decide what is diversity for our downtown?’” (dombrowski and talmage 2014, 41). this question might also be phrased, “who wants to decide what diversity is for our downtown?” consistently, mccann (2002) writes, “a major concern . . . in recent decades has been to analyze how and in whose interests local space economies are produced and reproduced” (385). thus, the posture assumed by the we are downtown team and the students involved in the applied community learning experience was that everyone deserves a say in the future of downtown phoenix (waltz 2014). one graduate student commented, “everyone has something at stake with downtown’s success” (waltz 2014). because of the aforementioned assumption and the large scale involved, the initiative and the team were left with a conundrum. the team reflected their posture in their chapbook: in our quest to better understand the diversity of downtown, what we discovered was that the more possible it seemed, the more impossible it became. and so what we discovered was merely the paradox of discovery—the impossibility of identifying diversity amongst diversity . . . ultimately, in order to discover the answer to who is downtown, you must first ask, who are you? (dombrowski and talmage 2014, 41) the initiative needed to be retooled and reinvigorated not only through selfand teamreflection but also through further conversations with downtown stakeholders in and about the downtown community. both reflection and change appeared crucial to the success of future applied community learning experiences. the chapbook and the community showcase events make cities exciting. everyday spaces can be successfully inviting.— jeff speck (2014) two mediums served as tangible products created from the applied community learning experience: 1) a documentary film; and 2) a chapbook. the answers to the broad essential questions posed by the team and the students were compiled into a 135 fifty-page chapbook. an electronic version was made available online on the university’s website (dombrowski and talmage 2014). two hundred printed copies were distributed at a community showcase in may 2014. the community showcase was held at a local film bar, which had an auditorium where patrons would be able to view movies. the location was chosen, because the bar fell within the found heart of the community and because the we are documentary (waltz 2014) was going to be unveiled at the event. doors opened for the event at 5:00 p.m. on a monday in may 2014. the event was publicized through press releases, emails, word-of-mouth from local community leaders, university channels, websites, and social media. over one hundred and fifty university and community members were in attendance at the event. each attendee received a chapbook, and a few of them received extras to pass on to others. two showings were offered for the documentary. the showings were followed by a q&a with the university student documentarian and the rest of the we are downtown team that were in attendance. of those in attendance, only ten persons were a part of the initiative’s team. lessons learned downtown is still the beating heart of phoenix.—we are downtown initiative facilitator and graduate student (waltz 2014) mediums the applied community learning experience despite its scale and limitations appeared to be a successful endeavor for students, faculty, and community members. the team found film to be a great medium for community conversations. the gathering to screen the film allowed diversity not only to be talked about and/or heard, but diversity also was seen by looking each other in the eyes and listening to each other’s conversations and comments during the q&a session. this is consistent with previous uses of film in and outside of classrooms to discuss community and social issues (lawler 2014). film as a gathering mechanism in research initiatives also helps answers lynton’s (1983) call to “reexamine the ways in which we disseminate the results of our work” (23). in general, critical analyses of media portrayals of downtown areas and lifestyles by students are useful learning experiences (liu and blomley 2013). the chapbook also was noted as a useful takeaway. there were no chapbooks left after the event ended. community and university members and leaders alike asked if they could take extra copies to their friends, family members, co-workers, and others they knew had an interest in the success of downtown phoenix. notably, emails came in after the event wondering when the chapbook and documentary would both be available for viewing online. within a couple of months, both were made available online. 136 conversations thus, the conversations and communication continued after the event. intrigue was established. the broad essential questions utilized in this applied community learning experience helped catalyze the community conversations during and after the event (pstross, talmage, and knopf, forthcoming). it was clear through conversations at the community event and reflections by the we are downtown team that the conversations held during the project did not sufficiently capture the entirety of diversity in downtown phoenix. for example, urban planning information, such as physical diversity was missing. more work was still needed to discover diversity, such as mapping downtown assets (kretzman and mcknight 1993), conducting psychogeography in the downtown area (coverley 2012), and noting the urban area’s walkability (speck 2012, 2014). overall, the project served well to discover the downtown style; however, new urbanism is not only about style but also about design (speck 2014). motivations from the outset of the project, the we are downtown team realized that they were essentially working without funding. the funds from the small-grant were designated for some personnel costs and the costs associated with the event. thus, proper motivation was essential for all those involved. extrinsic motivators are useful but usually are not the best approach with long-term projects (deci and ryan 1985; herzberg 1987; sachau 2007). with no money, the students needed to be pushed to perform well in their roles aside from the motive to achieve a high grade in the class. though anecdotal, the team noted that students who were able to participate (alone or in groups) autonomously and artistically contributed the most to this project. for example, the undergraduate students that decided to take pictures (for extra credit in the course) tended to be more excited about their project and more detailed and thorough in their work. not surprisingly, autonomy and interesting work are key to successful individual engagement in the workplace (herzberg 1987; sachau 2007). the graduate students and faculty involved were initially extrinsically intrigued by this applied community learning experience because it would help them develop professionally (i.e., potential publications) and make new connections within the downtown phoenix community. their motivations appeared to shift to more intrinsic motives as they began to become intrinsically interested in the idea of diversity and how to suitably conduct community research with undergraduate students and without a great deal of financial capital. the applied community learning experience moved these graduate students and faculty to remain involved as the university-community initiative looked towards its future. 137 stimulating interest in the interim after this first applied community learning experience finished, a few members of the we are downtown team stayed formally engaged in the community. for example, one doctoral student interviewed downtown community leaders and members about meaning-making in downtown. this helped stimulate interest in the initiative over the summer; meanwhile, overall, it was on a summer hiatus. but in the following fall semester, the team realized that time was not on their side. a great deal of public relations effort seemed to be needed to keep community stakeholders interested. communication went out to those previously involved to keep them titillated until the formal processes for the next phase of the initiative were designed and implemented in the spring semester. taking it a step further we must embrace change, because with change means opportunity.— chancellor syverud (2014, 2) changes were made to initiative by the team, so that future applied community learning experiences might succeed. the team realized there would likely be transitions in university and community leadership. the team also noted that any future applied community learning experiences needed to be even more locally adapted. local adaptation is necessary for authentic partnerships between communities and universities in community research efforts (mahoney et al. 2014). what was clearer after the first portion of this initiative is that a more pinpointed approach is needed for exploring diversity and for connecting university and community members and leaders. for example, recent conversations led by graduate students and faculty with community-based association leaders have shown that there is still a large disconnect between associations in the area. students and faculty through applied community learning experiences can access important community entry points that might be used for future assessments and to catalyze future conversations amongst area stakeholders. table 8 contains a list of eighteen possible entry points to discover diversity and inclusion in an urban downtown area. 138 table 8. entry points for exploring diversity and inclusion in downtown areas 1 city personnel 10 educational institution leaders, workers, and students 2 safety/emergency services personnel 11 nonprofit leaders, workers, and clients 3 faith-based association leaders 12 parks, recreation, and leisure workers and users 4 cultural/arts leaders and creators 13 mass media personnel (i.e. journalists and publishers) 5 community-based association leaders 14 underground media personnel 6 political association leaders 15 grassroots leaders and members 7 tourism leaders and workers 16 ethnic-based group leaders and members 8 big business leaders and workers 17 public service leaders and workers 9 small business leaders and workers 18 public transportation workers and users the theme for the next implementation of the initiative and its future applied community learning experiences has been changed to focus not only on diversity but now to explore the importance of inclusion and/or inclusiveness in the downtown phoenix story. the aim is to connect those disconnected to help strengthen the bonds between those already working together and to build bridges between those not yet connected in the downtown area. consistently, richard gaurasci (2014) notes that university-community partnership and engagement is an essential building block for an intercultural and interracial democratic society. conclusion downtown phoenix is ubiquitous; it’s where we meet, and it’s where create, but then we take what we create elsewhere, and so that mean’s downtown phoenix is everywhere.—rd (waltz 2014) there is much more to this mural than context and what meets the eye.—alex stevenson (2014) the applied community learning experience sought to discover what diversity is in the context of downtown phoenix, arizona. as with most endeavors, the experience left students and faculty members with more questions and opportunities than answers and action plans. academic initiatives, even those embedded in the community, seem more predisposed to this style, whilst local governments tackle searches for comprehensive solutions (mahoney et al. 2014). university initiatives like the one previously described can act as powerful experiences that motivate our faculty members, current students, and even alumni to continue to stay connected to and civically involved with our universities and our communities 139 (busteed 2014). thus, it may be more important in our community engagement work to focus on how and why the work is carried out rather than what was reported (busteed 2014; primavera 1999). finally, universities and communities together must recognize that “in the ecology of knowledge in modern society, efforts to enhance the utilization of knowledge are every bit as essential and as challenging as activities toward the creation of knowledge” (lynton 1991, 3). communities thrive on diversity (florida 2005; speck 2012). creative class expert, richard florida (2005), notes that both diverse places and diverse people attract talent (like students) to a city. he states, “talented people are attracted to locations that have a high degree of demographic diversity and are distinguished by a high degree of openness and relatively low barriers to entry” (100). allen scott (2010) proclaims, “the city is a powerful fountainhead of creativity,” (115) and diversity appears necessary to the city’s success. university faculty and students need to be a part of conversations regarding diversity, and applied community learning experiences can help start and sustain the dialogue between both 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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhjozwr_uv0. ward, kevin. 2007. “creating a personality for downtown”: business improvement districts in milwaukee. urban geography 28 (8): 781–808. weingarten, randi. 2014. “engaging hands and minds.” american educator 38 (3): 1. wilson, david. 2004. “key features of successful university-community partnerships.” in new directions in civic engagement: university avenue meets main street, edited by k. ferraiolo, pp. 17–23. charlottesville, va: pew partnership for civic change. world population review. 2014. “phoenix population 2014.” cities. retrieved from http://worldpopulationreview.com/us-cities/phoenix-population/. author information craig talmage, phd, served as the grant-writer and co-facilitator of the we are downtown initiative. he shepherded the traditional social scientific approaches described in this paper. rosemarie dombrowski, phd, served as the co-facilitator of the we are downtown initiative. she shepherded the artistic approaches described in this paper. richard knopf , phd, served as the grant manager and primary advisor of the we are downtown initiative. he directs the partnership for community development at arizona state university. 145 mikulas pstross and bjørn peterson served as support staff for this initiative and assisted with getting it off the ground. they assisted in establishing the research protocols and interpreting project findings. craig talmage partnership for community development arizona state university, mail code 4020 411 n. central ave., suite 550 phoenix, az 85004-0685 e-mail: ctalmage@asu.edu telephone: 602-496-0550 fax: 602-496-0953 rosemarie dombrowski college of letters and sciences arizona state university, mail code 0320 411 n. central ave., ucent 360c phoenix, az 85004-0685 e-mail: rosemarie.dombrowski@asu.edu telephone: 602-496-0633 richard c. knopf partnership for community development arizona state university, mail code 4020 411 n. central ave., suite 550 phoenix, az 85004-0685 e-mail: richard.knopf@asu.edu telephone: 602-496-0550; fax: 602-496-0953 mikulas pstross partnership for community development arizona state university, mail code 4020 411 n. central ave., suite 550 phoenix, az 85004-0685 e-mail: mpstross@asu.edu telephone: 602-496-0550; fax: 602-496-0953 c. bjørn peterson partnership for community development arizona state university, mail code 4020 411 n. central ave., suite 550 phoenix, az 85004-0685 e-mail: c.bjorn.peterson@asu.edu telephone: 602-496-0550; fax: 602-496-0953 146 copyright © 2016 metropolitan universities vol. 27 no. 3 (autumn 2016), doi: 10.18060/21392 place-based school reform as method of creating shared urban spaces: what is it, and what does it mean for universities? d. gavin luter abstract in this article, a layered conceptual framework for “place-based school reform” is presented as a way to link the concept of school reform and neighborhood development. because many universities have been involved in community-school-university partnerships, the university community engagement literature will be connected to this increasingly attractive concept that seeks to both improve academic outcomes and to link a schooling system to a neighborhood. implications for universities seeking to co-create urban shared spaces are discussed. keywords: school reform; university community partnership; neighborhoods; social inequality; community schools. introduction anchor institutions are an increasingly attractive framework to leverage large institutions in community development work in localities across the united states. by definition, anchor institutions are “large, spatially immobile, mostly non-profit organizations that play an integral role in the local economy” (taylor & luter, 2013, p. 8). higher education is one major anchor institution within localities across the country because of its ability to purchase large amounts of local goods and services, its role as a major employer, capacity for research and development, and contribution to the local tax base (harkavy & zuckerman, 1999). further, there is an element of “shared value” (porter & kramer, 2011) and ultimately shared space, when anchors engage in community development work. on one hand, the locality benefits when an anchor institution such as a university invests in a place through increased property values, more employment opportunities for residents, or increased prestige of the locality. on the other hand, the university is better able achieve its mission when doing such work, whether it is through educating students to engage in real-world problem-solving or through mission-driven public service activities. the anchor institution paradigm frames how universities seek to co-create new urban shared spaces with other social institutions within target places (harkavy & zuckerman, 1999; institute for competitive inner cities & ceos for cities, 2002), specifically neighborhoods (clinch, 2009). these “place-based” approaches linked to universities have not been complete up to this point because the literature and practitioners have failed to recognize the connection between neighborhood improvement and school improvement, given that school reform and neighborhood development are inextricably linked (benson, harkavy, & puckett, 2007; black, 157 1999; chung, 2002; shirley, 1997; taylor, 2005). in a similar way that neighborhoods act to “fix” residents in class positions across generations, schools perform a similar function. therefore, the issue of underperforming schools and underdeveloped neighborhoods should be addressed in tandem. the literature is thin on how exactly to link these concepts. further, the notion of bringing together school reform and neighborhood development facilitated by universities has been even further under theorized. this article seeks to push the theoretical literature further by contributing a thorough conceptualization of the concept of “place-based school reform” (pbsr) in order to expose everything embedded in this term so that practitioners and researchers understand how to best co-create new shared urban spaces with anchor institutions. pbsr is a new concept in the literature, distinct from community schools, because it frames school reform as something that attempts to address both internal-to-neighborhood conditions, as well as external-to-neighborhood conditions. many university administrators, faculty, staff, and students are increasingly involved in placebased approaches that include a dimension of school reform, such as promise and choice neighborhoods efforts. trying to create shared urban spaces is a complicated task in itself, but it becomes even more complicated when schools become involved because of the relationship between schools, neighborhoods/places, and social stratification (bowles & gintis, 1976; hauser, 1970). if university stakeholders are not clear on the frameworks driving pbsr efforts, there will be missed opportunities to do this work in a meaningful way that accounts for the structural forces that create underdeveloped neighborhoods and low-performing schools. this paper argues that school reform for so-called failing schools in underdeveloped neighborhoods cannot be reformed within the current paradigm of school reform in which many universities are involved, known as comprehensive school reform (csr), because these approaches ignore the structural forces that continue to (re)produce low-performing schools. in order to make this argument, this paper will clarify terms associated with place-based efforts, especially “neighborhood”, “comprehensive school reform”, “community schools”, and “place-based school reform.” if university administrators and their partners cannot clearly define neighborhood and other terms, then it will be difficult for them to work on place-based strategies that seek to link school and neighborhood improvement. while concepts like “community schools” and “place-based strategies” and “school-centered community revitalization” have been defined in the practitioner-oriented literature (e.g. children’s aid society, 2013; jennings, 2012; kronick, 2005; khadduri, schwartz, & turnham, 2008), “place-based school reform” has evaded such a clear conceptualization. the purpose of the paper is for university stakeholders to have a clearer sense of how they might actually go about co-designing a school improvement strategy that is in coordination with (or, is linked to) a neighborhood development strategy. it will be difficult, if not impossible, to create shared urban spaces with schools if university stakeholders involved with school reform continue to ignore the structural forces that have created lowperforming schools and underdeveloped neighborhoods this article presents a layered conceptual framework for “place-based school reform.” while the existing literature has provided clues to the nature and definition of this concept, an actual conceptualization does not exist. interestingly, the empirical research literature has essentially left this concept out of the research vernacular with the exception of some scholar/practitioners who have written about community schools (lawson & briar-lawson, 1997) and promise neighborhoods (hudson, 2013; miller, wills, & scanlan, 2013). first, “place” and 158 “neighborhood” are defined, drawing on urban planning and sociology literature. then, the paper explores why neighborhood interventions need to address issues internal to the neighborhood (within the control of residents and social institutions) and those external to the neighborhood (outside of the control of the residents). then, the dominant community schools intervention is critiqued because it cannot, as currently conceived, address the deep-rooted social structures that cause school poor performance. pbsr is then defined and conceptualized. this review of literature and concepts leads to several important reflection questions related to university involvement in school reform: what would it take for universities to become involved in these efforts to create shared spaces as authentic partners? what should universities take into consideration when entering into such community-school-university partnerships? why are universities uniquely positioned to enter into these arrangements? neighborhood and place the concept of place-based school reform cannot be understood without an examination of “place” and “neighborhood.” while this may seem obvious, the concept of “place” or “neighborhood” in the literature on place-based school reform is not well defined. indeed sociologists, urban planners, and geographers have defined “place” (gieryn, 2000; johnson, 2012) and “neighborhood” (jargowsky, 2005; sampson, 2012); yet no consistent definitions dominate. some school reform efforts are considered to be place-based if services are offered to neighborhood residents (potapchuk, 2013), but this is a shallow conceptualization because it misses the tight connection between the neighborhood transformation strategy and the school reform effort. just because services are offered does not mean that a school reform effort is linked to a “place.” while “place” on the surface means neighborhood or a particular physical geography within the city, the concept of place is deeper. neighborhoods are not necessary “places,” though it can be if there has been a process of placemaking (sutton & kemp, 2002). should universities attempt to assist in connecting school improvement and neighborhood development and create shared spaces, the definition of “neighborhood” needs to be clear. there are at least six different components to a neighborhood:  the physical (built) environment (chaskin, 1997): the start point in understanding the neighborhood as place is to know that the neighborhood geography is composed of buildings, houses, and structures, including shops and stores, vacant lots, and spaces that are in varying levels of physical conditions and organized in specific ways. collectively, these things form a physical environment and a visual image of the neighborhood.  the people (chaskin, 1997): this includes the residents, stakeholders, employees, elected officials, and visitors which are the people who live and work in the neighborhood and has responsibly for shaping and influencing policies that impact its development.  the organizational network (chaskin, 1997): this refers to the web of organizations that are found in the neighborhood, both formal and informal, which the residents create to help them grapple with myriad problems and difficulties, along with enhancing their social life. examples include formal coalitions and groups (block clubs, tenant councils) and informal associations (e.g. social groups). organizations reflect the idea of the neighborhood as a social unit that is organized through voluntary associations. 159  the institutional network (patterson & silverman, 2013): this network consists of all of the supportive services, including the schools and police, which are located in the neighborhood. here, it is important to understand their individual and collective impact on the development of the neighborhood. the institutional network plays a significant role in mitigating the challenges that residents face and solving the problems they encounter.  the neighborhood economy (informal and formal) (sharff, 1987; williams & windebank, 2001): this component is comprised of the combination of opportunities for residents to participation in the exchange of goods and services. the formal economy is the group of exchanges that happen in the regulated environment. these can range from when residents patron businesses and commercial establishments to opportunities for formal employment. the informal economy refers to the set of unregulated transactions that occur between residents in order to secure goods and services. one example is childcare provided by a friend who is paid in cash (under the table) or in another commodity.  the neighborhood proximities and access (maclennan, 2013): this is defined as ease of access to other city services and city institutions, both private and public. if residents must struggle to access city services or shops/stores, then this becomes an additional burden (the burden of “proximity”) that residents encounter because of the neighborhood space. places are socially constructed, multi-layered, and dictate certain life outcomes for its residents (gordon-larsen, nelson, page, & popkin, 2006). in other words, places are not neutral spaces that are fixed at one point in time. people derive meaning from a place based on everyday interactions with other people, with the built environment, with organizations and institutions, and with the economy (jorgensen & stedman, 2001). further, the place carries with it a reputation within the metropolis. when people living in an undesirable place disclose their place of residence, it can result in a stigmatization of the individual or group (wacquant, 2008). these stigmas sometimes even become manifest when residents from underdeveloped neighborhoods attempt to participate in the formal economy. job seekers from particular zip codes fight the stigmatization of being from that neighborhood, which may decrease their chances of securing a job. the specific neighborhood of interest in this study is an underdeveloped (rodney, 1972) neighborhood. one sociological definition of underdeveloped neighborhood is the spatial expression of social processes such as social exclusion, exploitation, abandonment, disinvestment, and racial stigmatization/domination (kasarda, 1993; sharkey, 2013). these places have been the result of decisions made in the development of cities and are byproducts of the capital investment and disinvestment process, thus they have been created by a series of forces beyond the control of one neighborhood (slater, 2013). in particular, underdeveloped neighborhoods have been sites where the results of the intersection of race and class manifest. for example, once banks partnered with governments to offer loans for home mortgages, some banks engaged in “redlining,” or the practice of not giving home loans to people of color, thus creating an exclusionary housing market (taylor, 2011). compounding the least desirable residential space is the economic oppression of blacks and latinos in the labor markets (bertrand & mullainathan, 2004; wilson, 1987). these limited resources prohibit low-income people from 160 enjoying the same comforts that middleand upper-class people have: maintain their housing units, be able to purchase extracurricular activities for their children, purchase (or have access to) high-quality health care, and have connections with institutions that help navigate life issues (duncan & murnane, 2014). underdeveloped neighborhoods can either be siloed or collective/unified. when considering the variety of groups (“communities”) of people and institutions within the neighborhood, it is important to understand the level of cohesion because it helps to show the neighborhood’s chances of being a desirable place within the city. distressed neighborhoods can also be siloed. in other words, groups within the neighborhood operate completely independent from one another. while there may be contact between groups through capital transactions (e.g. storeowner, customer), there is no unified sense of camaraderie. groups within the same space are in competition with each other for resources in the city (wilson & taub, 2011). institutions, while part of the neighborhood environment, are actually disconnected from the people, especially youth, living in the neighborhood which in turn makes individuals disconnected from the very institutions that exist to serve them (lewis & burd-sharps, 2013; roy & jones, 2014). unified communities, in contrast, are defined by higher levels of social cohesion and social capital (gittell & vidal, 1998). struggles of different groups as they attempt to improve their life and neighborhood conditions are thought to be common to everyone within the neighborhood. planning for the future of the neighborhood happens in conjunction with the many different groups (sirianni, 2007). groups within this particular place know and understand that improving neighborhood conditions cannot happen without a shared vision for a better place to live. while factors within the neighborhood are important to determining life outcomes for residents, individuals are beholden to forces from outside the neighborhood. it is important to make clear these distinctions because they dictate the appropriate policy responses and interventions that attempt to ameliorate the factors that contribute to the level of distress of a particular place. further, no strategy that seeks to fundamentally transform a place can ignore one category or the other, which is essential for universities to understand when they attempt to create shared spaces. essentially, comprehensive place-based strategies must seek to address both issues internal and external to the neighborhood if they have a chance at being successful. internal and external forces two distinct kinds of forces that shape distressed neighborhoods: internal and external forces (figure 1). with the addition of the internal and external lenses, it becomes more clear that within-building, or building-based, school reform models do not provide a sufficient framework to address the variety of factors that could impact student performance. these factors are hidden, though, when using the individual student or the individual school as the unit analysis. factors internal to the neighborhood suggest a set of factors that can hypothetically be manipulated in the context of the neighborhood environment. the “neighborhood environment” represents the set of factors, practices, and cultural norms that people (children and families) within neighborhoods directly see, hear, and breathe on a daily basis as they engage in public activities, referred to as microand meso-system influences (bronfenbrenner, 1979). internal factors are concerned with the happenings within a neighborhood on a daily basis that can be studied, measured, and potentially manipulated. a combination of individual, familial, 161 neighborhood and institutional characteristics are located internal to the neighborhood. when looking at neighborhoods through the “internal” lens, a particular set of interventions become apparent and necessary to overcome these challenges. for example, some interventions seek to increase individual family income in hopes that it will help child development, in particular school performance (duncan, magnuson, & votruba-drzal, 2013). the neighborhood effects literature has sought to explore the ways that neighborhoods exert an independent influence on the life outcomes of residents, thereby elevating the level of analysis to that of the neighborhood—not the individual. in the words of patrick sharkey (2013), these studies attempted to explore “the ways that structural disadvantage and aspects of social organization within neighborhoods can influence patterns of behavior within the boundaries of the neighborhood, thereby influencing the life course trajectories of neighborhood residents” (p. 20). however, the conceptual framework proposed here goes a step further and seeks to view external factors that actually shape the neighborhood environment as a result of processes that are independent of any one neighborhood. looking at the external environment, involves examination of the various mechanisms that shape neighborhoods, yet cannot be directly impacted by residents within a given neighborhood. these external components shape experiences and constrain choices of residents within neighborhoods, yet are not easily manipulated through traditional place-based interventions. these represent various social processes that usually result in the distribution of resources between neighborhoods and/or cities and contribute to the stratification between them. for example, the land tenure system and the private land market dictate the cost of land and therefore who can purchase and control the land. landlords further set prices that constrain who can live in their property. figure 1: path of social vulnerability 162 the “internal vs. external” framework suggests that place-based (internal) interventions will always be incomplete because they cannot penetrate the social processes (external) that have impacted (and continue to impact) neighborhood development (table 1). if a family’s level of social vulnerability is a product of both external and internal forces, then this level of vulnerability will not be fully addressed without both levels. sharkey (2013) calls for a “durable” urban policy in this country that would attempt to ameliorate social vulnerability, which would involve actions at all levels of government. this requires confronting the mass imprisonment paradigm, a history of urban disinvestment, and the unfriendly-to-low-wage-workers world economy, among other things. with the concept of place extensively explained, attention will turn to one particular component of a comprehensive place-based strategy anchored in one target neighborhood: place-based school reform. table 1 mechanisms of social vulnerability emanating from… internal to neighborhood external to the neighborhood people family / home o social capital o family structure o educational infrastructure (home, neighborhood) o family social characteristics (ses, educational attainment) social networks o peers o kinds of role models o risky behavior exposure o drug activity o prevalence of violence elected officials built environment housing quality crime / perceived social disorder social institutions medical facilities road conditions green space water purification systems environmental issues (as a result) institutions and organizations amenities (commercial activity, food policies (national, state, local) housing policy education policy (curriculum, school staff) health policy transportation policy welfare policy transportation policy political economy labor market hiring practices of companies financial institution locations across the metropolitan area criminal justice system anchor institutions (across the city and region) land tenure system governance city governance regional governance special purpose governments (housing authorities, utilities, school boards, etc.) social phenomenon racism classism mass incarceration 163 access, entertainment, gyms, etc.) education (schools / child care) community building institutions extracurricular activities available to children/opportunities available to residents anchor institutions (in n’hood) fire/police trash / recycling neighborhood economy jobs available formal sector businesses / commercial activity informal sector neighborhood proximity and access travel routes and modes physical location of neighborhood in relation to other city/private services environmental hazards of neighborhood location environmental degradation city planning history of development within the city community development efforts exclusionary zoning laws suburbanization city master plans other neighborhoods in the city metropolitan housing segregation residential mobility patterns ideology neoliberal progressive place-based school reform as mentioned earlier, both neighborhoods and schools act to “fix” residents in class positions across generations. the contribution of schooling to the reproduction of the current status and economic hierarchies (a process called social reproduction) has been documented in the educational stratification literature (bowles & gintis, 1976; entwisle & alexander, 1993; hauser, 1970; kao & stephen, 2003; weis, 1990). serious disparities in educational attainment and achievement have been documented between racial groups, with upper-income whites and asian americans experiencing more success and blacks and latinos experiencing less success in the educational system. these differences in educational attainment and achievement have an impact on later-in-life outcomes. the exact social processes that lead to educational disparities has been a source of considerable amounts of scholarship, but there is a broad agreement that school effects and neighborhood effects interact to reinforce one another (see figure 2). in other words, students from low-income / working class neighborhoods tend to go to school with children from similar backgrounds. because (a) school and neighborhood effects are conceptually difficult to unravel and (b) schools tend to reinforce (perhaps create) labor market disparities between racial and class groups, any attempt to improve one cannot be done absent the other. neighborhoods and schools are both subject to external pressures that are beyond their control. so, efforts that attempt to reform one of these entities are beholden to certain factors that they will not be able to change when working in isolation. 164 figure 2. basic path diagram showing how neighborhoods and schools impact child educational and social outcomes (inspired by hauser, 1970) because of the complexity of this task, it requires new models that can address both school and neighborhood improvement. there have been some school-based and school-linked interventions that attempt to address the observable symptoms that children carry with them to schools, such as community schools which are associated with school-based and school-linked services (kronick, 2005; lawson & briar-lawson, 1997). the children’s aid society (2013) considered a community school one that has a strong instructional core, expanded learning opportunities for enrichment, and a full range of physical health, mental health, and social services available to children and families. kronick (2005) conceptualized the theory driving what he calls “full service community schools” as collaboration between diverse stakeholders, a vision for promoting systems change between schools, community partners, and public systems, and preventing children from entering juvenile and criminal justice systems. these interventions are mainly service-based and ameliorative in that they operate with a theory of change claiming that students will be able to succeed academically and socially if they receive an intensive mix of service delivery (say yes to education, 2012). observable symptoms are stressed because any system set up to offer services to students who need it rely on the system’s ability to “diagnose” a student’s difficulty. if a system of service providers cannot tell (observe) a student is struggling with a particular challenge, it will go unaddressed. further complicating the issue, these systems sometimes lack the capacity to help all students who they observe struggling with a particular challenge. usually, community schools strategies operate within this framework because they operate individual programs usually at the building level. these efforts will sometimes reach out to parents of children to offer them services on an individual or case-by-case basis to families who show up to participate in these interventions. their theory of change does not involve the external policy /government (esp. school district, school choice policy, supply of schools) political economy (esp. labor market) housing market social phenomenon internal people built environment institutuions organizations neighborhood economy neighborhood proximity and access school curriculum school facilities teacher qualifications/exp eriences extracurricular school administration sorting/tracking course offerings child attitudes motivations academic performance academic attainment social and economic achievements 165 neighborhood because, as the theory goes, fundamental transformation of the neighborhood is not necessary if a student is offered an appropriate mix of services. these efforts are likely to fail because they do not account for all factors that impact educational achievement (see figure 2). while these efforts may produce a few “wins” in the short term (e.g. students who overcome neighborhood barriers), they will ultimately fall short of true transformation for entire populations of disenfranchised groups. these efforts are likely to fail because they ignore the root causes of the children’s educational difficulty: the neighborhood, which has been created by a long history of exploitation, disinvestment, racism, and uneven development. a new model will be required to jointly tackle the challenges of schooling and neighborhoods. this new model necessarily requires partnerships beyond traditional school professionals (e.g. teachers, administrators). this new model will require a change of thinking that conceptualizes the school as a neighborhood anchor—the driving force behind the improvement of the neighborhood. this new model is place-based school reform, which can happen with other anchor institutions such as universities. this new model of school reform would create a new kind of shared urban space between universities and schools. place-based school reform (pbsr) embraces the comprehensive school reform model because it acknowledges that inner-city school curriculum needs to be transformed. new pedagogical strategies will be required to transform how students learn, but it does not stop there. staff need to be equipped with different tools in order to teach in new ways that connect classroom learning to real-world problems. pbsr also accepts the service model because it acknowledges that students are facing difficult challenges that will require service interventions for families and children. service providers in schools and neighborhoods should be linked in order to provide a coordinated service mix. pbsr goes a step further by confronting the challenges faced in the neighborhood. the place-based school reform strategy is a comprehensive approach to improving a particular neighborhood’s educational infrastructure (taylor, mcglynn, & luter, 2013). the primary goal is not necessarily comprehensive school reform, as conceptualized in the literature. however, depending on the particular strategy, school reform may be a primary goal. such strategies are concerned with creating interactive linkages and connections between neighborhood-based institutions with the goal of bolstering the educational outcomes for all children. these strategies can be characterized by getting institutions to align their work (e.g. programming, supports) with the mission, goals, and policies of the local schooling system. it places education in a broader context than just the school building, though schools are seen as important neighborhood institutions that shape the consciousness of children attending it. instead, attention is paid to bringing together a multi-sector institutional collaborative anchored in a specific place, and these institutions commit to developing the educational opportunities for children in a particular neighborhood. institutions located within a particular neighborhood come together to offer their services to residents who live in a particular place. education happens through both formal programming and informal socialization of adults who live in the neighborhood, but also supportive and caring adults who work there. further, these strategies advance work alongside neighborhood-based community groups and residents to infuse the home environments with tools necessary to support education for children. examples of building educationally supportive home environments include desks in the home, a quiet place to study, a computer connected to the internet, ample school supplies, and someone in the family able to help children with homework. the commentary above is a vision created by using a pbsr lens. 166 schools cannot engage in this work alone so must examine the university’s role in creating shared spaces in neighborhoods using the pbsr approach. universities and place-based school reform approaches to addressing underperforming schools can be placed into at least two categories: internal-to-school and external-to-school (brighouse & schouten, 2011). internal-to-school reforms, sometimes called “comprehensive school reform” (csr) approaches, are associated with strategies within a school building that are “most likely to affect student achievement: curriculum, instruction, assessment, grouping, accommodations for struggling students, parent and community involvement, school organization, and professional development” (slavin, 2008, p. 256). external-to-school reforms, on the other hand, view that “background institutions” and the lack of social supports are the root causes of underperforming schools. therefore, approaches to reforming schools need to include community development, health services, childcare, adult education, and other social supportive services (noguera, 2011). up to this point, universities have mostly been associated with the internal-to-school reform efforts associated with csr. for example, success for all and talent development are two csr efforts driven by johns hopkins university. reading recovery is another similar effort driven by researchers at ohio state university. universities also have curricular materials they produce and sell to schools, such as the university of hawaii’s curriculum research and development group. these efforts operate under the paradigm of researcher/experts having knowledge that can be distributed to schools to address the issues “most likely to affect student achievement,” such as curriculum, professional development, and school organization. these efforts have been shown to achieve modest gains under certain circumstances and over long periods of time (borman, hewes, overman, & brown, 2003; borman, 2005), but are insufficient because the root causes of educational underperformance are deeper than the school can handle alone (noguera, 2011; rothstein, 2004), such as family background (goldhaber, 2002) and neighborhood context (crowder & south, 2003; sampson, sharkey, & raudenbush, 2008; sharkey 2010). as a result, universities looking to truly impact education reform might consider expanding their scope to consider more equity-minded school reform (renee, welner, & oakes, 2011) such as place-based school reform. the nascent movement of university-driven projects that seek to engage external-to-school efforts has struggled to gain a foothold in research, practice, and policy. probably the most notable example of universities attempting to link school reform and neighborhood development comes in the form of the university-assisted community schools (uacs) movement, driven by the work of ira harkavy (benson et al., 2007; harkavy, 1998). in this model, the university links itself to both the school reform and neighborhood improvement goals established by the school and neighborhood, respectively. however, and ironically given the deweyian public problemsolving framing of harkavy, this movement has paid decidedly more attention to the internal-toschool mechanisms of change. efforts that have attempted to incorporate neighborhood improvement explicitly into the work of the uacs effort (e.g. iupui, grim & officer, 2010; university of pennsylvania’s netter center for community partnerships; university of buffalo’s center for urban studies, taylor, mcglynn, & luter, 2013; university of maryland’s school of social work, olson, 2014) have experienced some successes and some challenges. these efforts 167 typically fall under the “community schools” “service delivery” (e.g. extra programs available to the public, additional supportive services) frameworks. in philadelphia’s case where the uacs model was linked to a broader effort by the university of pennsylvania to improve the west side of the city (known as the west philadelphia improvement corps), concerns have been raised about gentrification (etienne, 2012). these efforts might have benefitted from thinking about land use protections (see policy link’s equitable development toolkit, found online at http://community-wealth.org/content/anchor-dashboard-aligning-institutional-practice-meet-lowincome-community-needs). attempts to control against this kind of development can be found, for example, in the duke-durham partnership (found online at https://community.duke.edu/) and the durham community land trustees (found online at http://www.dclt.org/). conclusion for the place-based school reform movement to become commonplace in practice, changes in approach are needed. first, more universities might consider seeking out opportunities to build a neighborhood-linked school reform approach with existing partnerships in the community. seattle university’s choice neighborhood effort grew out of the university’s youth initiative that was looking to connect with additional partners. the seattle housing authority had been looking for ways to rejuvenate the public housing footprint, and then they connected with seattle university’s interest in advancing the youth initiative (see here: https://www.seattleu.edu/suyi/youth-initiative-in-action/engaging-neighborhood/choiceneighborhood-grant/). yamamura (2014) recalled that seattle university could not have done the work associated with the choice neighborhood effort had they not already developed relationships with the local housing authority and embraced a commitment to place. seattle university “was thinking about education in the neighborhoods before anyone thought about applying for a choice grant” (us department of housing and urban development, n.d., p. 3). buy-in and support from community partners for these efforts only goes so far, as yamamura also noted the importance of the broader university’s support—from the president’s verbal support to new funding sources available at the university to incentivize faculty to get involved. on the other hand, through dissertation research, the author (2015) studied a promise neighborhood effort in the northeast, which was geographically located adjacent to a major research university. the university’s involvement was minimal because that university had not previously built a major presence in that local neighborhood. an opportunity to create shared urban space was missed because sustained relationships were not part of the university’s history. second, place-based approaches might consider resisting the temptation to “fall back” on csr models. again, the author (2015) found that, when a promise neighborhood lead organization designed a school reform strategy to complement the neighborhood development strategy, they contracted with a university-based csr consultant from another state. the university-developed csr model was a curricular innovation centered on a new reading curriculum and intensive professional development for teachers. the strategy had little to do with linking neighborhood to the school. further, the consultant later pulled out of the effort. as a result, the lead organization resorted to trying to take the most talented students from the high school and get scholarships for them to private schools (the stated logic offered to explain this decision was because these schools guaranteed path to college and/or a career). this strategy arguably was tone deaf to the 168 surrounding neighborhood and seeking ways to link their school reform strategy to a broader neighborhood-based effort. third, universities might consider becoming more comfortable engaging in the everyday politics of the localities in which they reside. the education world is riddled with politics, making universities reticent to become involved. however, if universities want to create new shared spaces, where they attempt to link their work and identity with a comprehensive place-based school improvement effort, it is impossible to dismiss or avoid these political realities. in fact, even some community engagement literature has suggested that universities be considered neutral conveners of discussions and should avoid the perception that they carry values about how to proceed toward public solutions (kellogg commission 1999): “the question we need to ask ourselves here is whether outreach maintains the university in the role of neutral facilitator and source of information when public policy issues, particularly contentious ones, are at stake” (p. 12). creating the kind of school system that is rooted to a neighborhood requires that universities take a vocal stand on behalf of equity-minded policy that is willing to shift the “zone of mediation” (renee et al., 2009). fourth, universities might consider adopting an anchor institution mission (hodges & dubb, 2012), which is “the conscious and strategic application of the long-term, place-based economic power of the institution, in combination with its human and intellectual resources, to better the long-term welfare of the community in which it resides” (147). such an orientation also means a commitment to measuring progress toward social justice goals embodied by projects like the anchor institution dashboard, which can be accessed online (http://communitywealth.org/content/anchor-dashboard-aligning-institutional-practice-meet-low-incomecommunity-needs). this is all in the name of co-creating shared spaces with schools, with a vision for a more socially-just neighborhood. the university community engagement movement has been around arguably for over 100 years beginning with william rainey harper’s comments: “it is in the university that the best opportunity is afforded to investigate the movements of the past and to present the facts and principles involved before the public” (harper 1898, p. 686). school-university partnerships have been around since the 1980s (holmes group, 1986; goodlad, 1990). the broader, bolder approach to education has been advocating since 2008. the uacs model has been implemented since the early 1990s (benson et al., 2007). full service community schools rose to prominence in the mid-1990s (dryfoos, 1994). none of these ideas are new, but the field has yet to integrate the different perspectives. acknowledging that universities actually do share urban space with communities outside their walls is a bold step. it will require leadership within universities to co-create these shared spaces with a place-based frame, which ultimately moves cities in the direction of creating spaces that are democratically designed with equality and justice in mind. universities indeed need to be bold if they are to become meaningfully involved in school reform that actually has a chance of improving lives for the most marginalized members of our society. 169 references the aspen institute. 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(2014). developing the next generation of university-community engagement initiatives: promising practices and lessons learned from the seattle university youth initiative. http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/jevp.2001.0251 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0161956x.2013.834793 http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781848608375.n20 http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781848608375.n20 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2427.2010.01022_5.x 176 retrieved online at https://www.seattleu.edu/media/youth-initiative/files/results/impact/suyiwhite-paper-june-2014-pdf.pdf. 177 author information dr. gavin luter is executive director of wisconsin campus compact. in this role, his practitioner/scholar identity comes to life as he works with faculty, staff, and students to advance the civic mission of higher education. gavin's research has been dedicated to studying and creating models for linking school improvement, neighborhood development, and higher education reform. his forthcoming publications in the community schools journal and in the book exploring the community impact of research-practice partnerships in education examine the university-assisted community schools model implementation in knoxville, tn. dr. d. gavin luter executive director wisconsin campus compact university of wisconsin-extension (host institution) 780 regent street, suite 113 madison, wi 53715 e-mail: gavin.luter@uwex.edu telephone: 608-890-3224 mailto:gavin.luter@uwex.edu metropolitan universities vol. 29 no. 3 (august 2018), doi: 10.18060/21456 the role of the teaching and learning center in promoting transformative learning at a metropolitan university judith ableser and christina moore abstract with many potential community partners and a diverse student population, the metropolitan university has many opportunities to operationalize transformative learning, which involves a dramatic shift in one’s assumptions that has a lasting change on their perspectives. the challenge of identifying transformative learning initiatives and making these initiatives take hold across a campus requires administrative direction and faculty buy-in. a teaching and learning center (tlc) can guide and sustain such transformation by providing the pedagogical expertise to identify and evaluate transformative learning initiatives, offering a collaborative forum for implementing these initiatives, and serving as an embedded structure to protect initiatives over time. the literature on organizational change in higher education and transformative learning has not yet explored the role tlcs can have in these areas. this article offers a narrative of how a tlc promoted transformative learning through two initiatives: creating a universal design for learning (udl) initiative to had better include diverse learners, and increasing community engagement through collaborative interactions with the university’s new experiential learning center. this manuscript offers guidelines on leading, directly and collaboratively, such initiatives in a sustainable way, to assist other tlcs in meeting similar goals at their own metropolitan institutions. keywords: collaborative leadership; universal design for learning; community engagement; experiential learning; strategic planning; organizational change; change initiative introduction transformative learning involves a structural change, or paradigm shift, in the way students see themselves, and in their relationship to others, that involves disorienting dilemmas, critical reflection, rational dialogue, and action (mezirow, 2000, 1991; cranton, 2006; cranton & king, 2003). while transformative learning often focuses on the individual, it can also refer to the change process within a group such as a university that operate under “structures of assumptions” that shape their identities (mezirow, 1997) and their “relationships to others, the community, and the environment” (university of central oklahoma, 2016). with potential community partners and a diverse student population, the metropolitan university often has opportunities to operationalize transformative learning, including high impact practices, embodied learning and other strategies toward improving student learning. this article explains how one teaching and learning center has both helped transformative learning practices take root at a metropolitan university and helped the university undergo a transformation. the metropolitan university embraces the opportunities and challenges of serving its local communities, both by offering education to the city’s local population and by bringing the 54 benefits of that education into the surrounding community (laur, 2014). these missions make the metropolitan university a hub for diverse perspectives and community engagement, two opportunities for transformative learning experiences for students. cultivating these two opportunities into transformative learning experiences requires institutional change, which must involve senior administration as well as representatives from across the campus. with frequent changes in senior administration and other institutional changes along the way, a mid-level center on campus can sustain university change initiatives (kezar & eckel, 2002) and “assess the pulse of a campus” to be the driving force behind these initiatives (andersen, 2008, p. 41). a teaching and learning center (tlc) can guide and sustain such transformation: it provides the pedagogical expertise to identify and evaluate transformative learning initiatives; it offers a natural collaborative forum for organizing and implementing these initiatives; and it serves as an embedded structure to protect initiatives despite turnover in senior administration. this article offers a description of how our tlc, located at a metropolitan university in metro detroit area, promotes transformative learning through two initiatives: creating a universal design for learning (udl) initiative to better include diverse learners and increasing community engagement through collaborative interactions with our university’s new experiential learning center. guidelines and recommendations, outlined here, for how to lead such initiatives in a realistic and sustainable way will assist other tlcs to meet similar goals at their own metropolitan institutions. first, the tlc must carefully assess the mission, culture, and resources of the university at large and create their own strategic plan accordingly. the strategic plan helps the tlc identify how it can promote transformative learning implicitly, through initiatives that create learning environments conducive to transformative learning, and explicitly, through initiatives that support proven modes of transformative learning. in this process, the tlc can identify ways to support transformative learning initiatives in two types of leadership roles: 1) a directive leader, who initiates and provides the primary resources for implementing an initiative, and 2) a collaborative leader, who identifies existing leaders and resources beyond the tlc and brings them together to streamline a collective effort. our tlc’s leaders are taking a directive leadership role in promoting a universal design for learning (udl) initiative. universal design for learning implicitly promotes transformative learning by removing barriers to diverse learners and, therefore, improving opportunities for diverse perspectives to contribute ideas that challenge the norm. in addition, our tlc has taken a collaborative leadership role in our university’s community engagement initiative, a more explicit mode for transformative learning. background of oakland university oakland university itself has transformed into a more metropolitan, diverse, and community engaged institution. this midwestern doctoral research institution began in 1957 as a land-grant satellite campus of michigan state university oakland (msuo). it became a standalone institution called oakland university (ou) in 1963. originally, the campus was a small, rural community with a student enrollment of approximately 1,500 (oakland university, 2016). more than 50 years later, ou has grown to a student enrollment of just over 20,000 students (oakland university, 2016). its population of diverse students has also increased, but this diversity has seen more increase in its asian and international populations and is still a predominantly white institution (76%). table 1, which compares ou’s black and hispanic population with detroit 55 and pontiac, shows that while these two neighboring cities are comprised of black residents (52% in pontiac and 82% in detroit), only 9% of ou students identify as black or african american. table 1. demographics at ou compared to pontiac and detroit oakland university pontiac detroit race/ethnicity 2016 2010 2010 2010 white 76.1% 81.2% 34.4% 10.6% black, or african american 8.8% 9.3% 52.1% 82.7% hispanic, or latino 3.3% 2.3% 16.5% 6.8% ou data collected from ou’s office of institutional research. pontiac and detroit data collected from the u.s. census. this small campus nestled in the countryside found itself surrounded by geographic and demographic change. while the auto industry that made oakland university possible still thrives in the surrounding area, neighboring cities detroit and pontiac, are still recovering from industry changes. poised to evolve in many ways, oakland university is currently undergoing the task of deciding how it wants to transform with its surrounding area. ou is a member of the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities (cumu), whose members define themselves as diverse universities profoundly connected with their surrounding communities through partnerships, service, and resources (cumuonline.org, n.d.). this is one step toward the university’s mission to meet the carnegie community engagement classification, which it plans to do by better quantifying disparate community engagement already taking place on campus and adding signifiers such as cumu membership and larger community initiatives. due to its location, student population growth, and increased investment in community engagement, oakland university’s recent strategic plan makes a commitment to a metropolitan focus, diverse perspectives and ideas, and community engagement for learning opportunities. transformative learning at a metropolitan university since transformative learning can happen in a variety of environments, it is important for metropolitan universities to identify the transformative learning practices that best fit their campus and community identity. of the declaration of metropolitan universities’ six criteria for cumu membership (laur, 2014), our teaching and learning center (tlc) pinpointed two that are emphasized in our university’s mission: enhancing student success for a diverse population and engaging with the community. cultivating diversity through a diverse student population and diverse learning opportunities (methods, curriculum, etc.) is essential to transformative learning experiences yet difficult to achieve fully. higher education institutions continually struggle to take the value of diversity from talk and token cultural events to embedded change (keating, 2007). as a primarily white institution, where underrepresented minorities make up 14 percent of the student population (oakland university, 2016), the university is working to recruit more diverse students. but the 56 full benefits of diversity must be embedded in practice as well as population (nielsen, 2016). an important way to keep institutions accountable to diversity-related transformation is “to promote basic areas of excellence such as teaching and learning” (anderson, 2008, p. 37), meaning that true diversity must permeate what takes place in the classroom. such a classroom must “examine one’s assumptions” and create space “to engage in challenging dialogue” (nielsen, 2016, p. 53). it is also integral to define “diversity” in the broadest terms possible—race, sexual orientation, ethnicity, disability, among many others. as the authors will discuss in depth, universal design for learning principles reduce barriers to learning differences and life needs that come with diverse students. reducing such barriers frees students to engage in the difficult dialogues and dilemmas that is so integral for transformative learning. while diversity-centered transformative learning focuses on what happens on the campus, community engagement reaches beyond the campus boundaries. as the most defining value of metropolitan universities (cumu, 2016), community engagement is also a prominent part of our university’s strategic plan—one of its three main goals. the university is currently working to better measure and organize its current community engagement work, such as service learning initiatives, community partnerships, course designs, to earn the carnegie foundation’s community engagement classification, a motivator driving engagement initiatives at many universities (votruba et al, 2011). one embedded investment in community engagement came in the form of a new full-time experiential learning coordinator hired in june 2016, along with the opening of the experiential learning center in november 2016. our institution has recognized the opportunities to connect more closely with the community to provide transformative learning experiences for our students. our tlc is collaborating with the experiential learning center to offer faculty ongoing professional development and services. the teaching and learning center’s role now that oakland university has committed to student body diversity and community engagement through its mission, strategic plan, and resources, the challenge ahead is to fully implement these values in a way that, as the institution’s primary goal states, will “foster student success through a robust teaching and learning environment” (oakland university, 2015). the formal, initial support of these two values is not sufficient to ensure their success, as these changes take many years to become the fabric of an institution. a metropolitan university’s tlc is often the best agent to assure these initiatives continue on their path toward transforming the university (kezar & eckel, 2002), as its connection to faculty, staff, and senior administration helps it form productive, focused collaborations (english, 2013) and break down the silos that are often barriers to realizing change initiatives (kezar, 2014). while tlcs have limited staff and resources, their formal structure and role on a metropolitan campus equip them to connect the university’s initiatives to transformative learning practices and organize the campus community to sustain initiatives through their years of implementation. developing a tlc strategic plan in light of our university’s new mission statement and strategic plan, our tlc revisited our mission statement and created its own strategic plan to align directly with the three central goals in the university’s strategic plan. goal 1 in the strategic plan most aligned with the purpose of 57 our tlc: “foster student success through a robust teaching and learning environment with comprehensive student services” (oakland university, 2015). the center staff framed the strategic plan with student success at its core, by supporting the teaching and learning environment, and by collaborating with student services. for example, the center revised the teaching grant’s criteria to focus on course redesign to increase student success and created workshops and programs with student-support services. universal design of learning (udl) is a strong example of this alignment. the center also linked the other two goals of research excellence and community engagement whenever possible. for example, research excellence tied into the scholarship of teaching and learning (sotl), which the center supports through grants, faculty development institutes, and other programming. sotl satisfies both teaching and research excellence, as it is the work of faculty members collecting and disseminating data regarding what takes place in their courses. the university’s third goal, focusing on community engagement, advances through ou’s tlc’s collaborative efforts with experiential and service learning. while the process was work-intensive and tedious, a challenge in a center comprised of one full time director, an office assistant and two part-time staff, it put into order all of the ad-hoc collaborations, goals, and resources we had accumulated in the five years since the tlc’s opening. the reflection facilitated through this strategic plan led us to identify which transformative learning initiatives we could lead and how we would lead. as one of the smallest structures on campus, the tlc must be selective on what type of leadership it takes in university initiatives when it is already busy with its own programs and services. our leadership style breaks down into two categories: directive leadership and collaborative leadership. in a directive leadership role, the tlc identifies a need or opportunity for transformative learning at its university and pulls together resources to implement the change at the institutional level, including resources coming from the tlc directly. in a collaborative leadership role, the tlc promotes initiatives taking place across campus and facilitates discussion among staff better equipped to lead actions and invest resources. it is possible that many tlcs should work predominantly in collaborative leadership roles and only take on directive leadership roles when the tlc’s resources can simultaneously meet the university and center needs. universal design for learning: implicitly promoting transformative learning through diversity oakland university’s diversity council seeks to promote student success and embrace inclusion and diversity. ou’s tlc director, who serves on this council, explained to the council that universal design for learning is a method for meeting these goals. with the endorsement of the diversity council, the tlc decided to take directive leadership of the universal design for learning, a campus-wide initiative that not only supports but also capitalizes on learning differences in the classroom. in this way, the center implicitly promotes transformative learning by leading initiatives that improve learning for a diverse student body. universal design for learning (udl) is both a philosophical framework and set of guiding principles to increase access and reduce barriers to learning for diverse learners (cast, 2016; meyer, 2014; udl center, 2016). it gives more autonomy to students as to how they engage, demonstrate, and express what they have learned with more “flexible curricular materials” (ouellett, 2004, p. 136). 58 its origins stem from architectural design and the americans with disabilities act (ada) but has since applied to educational contexts as well. for example, ramps may have been initially designed to give increased access to individuals in wheelchairs, yet all of us who have transported a baby in a stroller, pushed a shopping cart, or pulled luggage across an intersection have benefited from universal design. udl guidelines involve providing learners with multiple means of engagement, representation, and expression (meyer, 2014). examples might include providing opportunities to engage in both class and online activities, offering both visual and text examples, and providing flexibility in demonstrating learning outcomes. flipped classrooms are a good example of a method for giving students agency over the lecture and content-delivery experience (smith et al., 2015). in addition, video-recording classroom sessions allows for students to review the material after class and take further notes on content covered that they could not write down in the allotted time. this supports learning for a wide-range of diverse students including international, underperforming learners, struggling writers, and students with life needs that prevented them from attending a specific session. udl serves the diverse student body integral to a metropolitan university’s identity (cumu, 2014) by supporting diverse learning and life needs. higher education’s diverse student population includes a wide range of abilities, challenges, and experiences (e.g. international students, english language learners, veterans, introverts, students with anxiety, long-distance commuters, working students, or parents). from a social justice perspective, udl principles and practices move beyond specific accommodations for those with identified disabilities toward supporting the much broader diverse population of today’s students who attend metropolitan universities (nielsen, 2016). for example, students from communities confronted with poverty and other social challenges meet significant barriers when arriving at our universities. only 37% of 12th grade students are reading at the proficient level (naep, 2015). udl’s inclusive practices can help support the large percentage of students who are non-proficient readers by offering guided reading with prompts and questions to focus readers’ attention to the salient and central concepts and using video and multimedia to complement extensive reading. while not eliminating the need for ada accommodations, it can reduce the barriers that often result in diverse students opting out of higher education. since transformative learning is associated with encountering disruptions and barriers, how does udl promote transformative learning when udl’s main goal is to reduce barriers? the lies in what type of barrier a learner encounters, and what is available beyond that barrier. the learning barriers that diverse students encounter in traditional classrooms prevent access to engaging with course content. by removing these procedural barriers, udl principles increase access for all types of learners, which increases access to the psychological barriers integral to transformative learning. diverse students are able to focus less on remediation and more on sharing and questioning ideas. for example, by providing students the opportunity to participate in class discussions online in addition to the on-campus classroom, more students will have the opportunity to contribute ideas, pose questions, and share diverse perspectives that challenge one another’s assumptions, whereas the traditional classroom discussion typically engages fewer student voices. moreover, by giving students more agency in how they engage, represent, and express learning, udl principles disrupt students’ assumptions of how to learn and of their role 59 in learning. referring back to the example of an online discussion, students may experience disruption and dilemmas when asked to demonstrate their learning in a way other than a traditional essay, or peer review a student’s work in an unfamiliar genre. udl principles ensure that all students have access to transformative learning experiences by removing barriers to diverse students and expanding perspectives of how learning can occur. as is always a threat to change initiatives related to diversity, it is important to emphasize that universal design learning is a gateway to richer, better ways of learning for all students, not just an antidote to “inferior” learning styles or “deficit and remedial provision” (ingleby, 2011; higbee, bruch & siaka, 2008). beyond valuing tolerance and accommodation, udl has the potential to provide “inclusionary frameworks” and “broader common ground” in the learning environment (keating, 2007, p. 10), outcomes often lacking in diversity initiatives. embracing diversity at an institutional level does not merely mean inviting minority students into majority cultural learning practices, but “widening participation” and “mainstreaming” diverse learning opportunities for all learners (ingleby, 2011; thomas, 2011). udl is a way to show that diversity is deliberately central to courses rather than merely featured in cultural celebrations that co-exist with unchallenged ideologies (keating, 2007; anderson, 2008; higbee, bruch & siaka, 2008). udl implicitly promotes transformative learning by challenging the ways students can consume, demonstrate, and apply course content. operationalizing udl at our university because we had finished our strategic plan in winter 2016, we could assemble a university-wide team on universal design for learning with enough time to research, discuss, and reflect on the opportunities and challenges for udl at our university. from this point, our tlc could take a directive leadership role in the udl campus initiative through the center’s programming, information resources, and collaborators. it is a relatively easy task for a tlc to provide workshops and training materials to introduce and teach faculty how to use udl resources and techniques. it is a much more complex task to transform an institutional culture to accept and endorse such practices based on long-held assumptions about who should attend university and who should succeed. to promote change beyond cohorts of faculty, the center organized a udl initiative team made up of faculty and students from different schools and staff from academic and student affairs including disability support services, office of diversity and inclusion, e-learning and technology services. this team explored ways in which udl principles could become part of the institutional and classroom culture. by including this range of perspectives and expertise, the tlc facilitated “the crossfertilization of ideas” that “has often helped to encourage the exchange of ideas and to loosen tightly held assumptions” in higher education institutions (kezar, 2014, p. 71). the team’s goal was to study and learn more about udl and then create a plan of how to introduce it to the campus at large. each member of the team met with different groups and committees across campus to introduce and discuss the initiative. the team discussed how faculty and the larger campus would receive udl’s principles. for example, some faculty might refuse to buy into recording their lectures. underlying this issue are larger issues of faculty who view “their adopted disciplinary theories and pedagogical practices 60 as largely immutable,” therefore finding it unnecessary to “interrogate and question their own assumptions, practices, and the corresponding or associated effects” (nielsen, 2016, p. 52). in this same vein, some faculty fail to “challenge underlying knowledge structures or conventional teaching methods” (keating, 2007, p. 11). any initiative to implement transformative learning structures in the classroom will require faculty to undergo the process of transformative learning as well by resolving a disorienting dilemma through rational dialogue and critical reflection. ou’s tlc set out to provide this opportunity through its programming and resources. the team’s work informed how we would organize some of our 2016-2017 programs around udl. ou’s tlc did this primarily through selecting a faculty fellow, a one-year post, to lead udl initiatives such as a yearlong faculty development institute (fdi), a scholarship of teaching and learning (sotl) grant, and a series of faculty workshops. the fdi structure brings together a cohort of faculty who want to study a teaching strategy to implement in their courses. fdis often prepare faculty to apply for the center’s sotl grants, which provide faculty $3,000 to create or redesign courses based on their research of higher education pedagogies and disseminate the results in a university session, conference presentation, or scholarly publication. since these sotl grants often include a university theme, this year’s grant application invited proposals focused on udl in addition to other student success strategies. lower-commitment opportunities to talk about udl include faculty workshops, which are open to the whole faculty, staff, and graduate student community. since these are the tlc’s established resources and programs, these efforts did not add extra work to our responsibilities. in any effort to transform a university’s culture, the common language used to communicate an idea is key (kezar, 2014). the phrase “universal design for learning” appeared in programming, but tlc staff also wanted to emphasize its key points: (a) the university team connected to udl; (b) udl’s link to student success; and (c) the resources available to faculty interested in evaluating their courses using udl principles. a vital component of this udl faculty development institute is that it establishes a cohort of faculty who become “early adopters” of the initiative and can serve as ambassadors across the campus to help transform the culture. these ambassadors were equipped with udl “quick notes,” a series of visual, brief guides to udl’s core ideas and strategies. the tlc disseminated these to the entire university community in university electronic communications and made available on our website on a specific udl page. creating a foundational guide like this is a significant piece to ensuring institutional changes take hold (kezar, 2014), and it ensured that all team and fdi participants used the same language and emphasizing the same points when sharing their work with other campus groups. the transformative learning impact of udl will be perceivable in the structure of class activities and assessment in the years to come. the implementation phase is only beginning, and tlc’s future work will analyze the impact and results. experiential learning: explicitly promoting transformative learning through community engagement while ou’s tlc made strategic efforts to initiate a campus-wide discussion about udl, community engagement was an initiative already often discussed across campus. in the example of the udl initiative, the tlc took a directive leadership role. since larger university 61 committees and sources beyond the tlc were leading community-engagement efforts, we took a collaborative leadership role with other centers and programs to promote community engagement through the lens of transformative learning. experiential learning (el) involves learning through direct experiences; learning by doing, and reflecting on those experiences (moon, 2004). kolb’s experiential learning cycle (1986) provides the foundation for el and includes the following four phases: having concrete experiences, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation. in higher education, el can link to the curriculum through academic service learning, volunteering, observational visits, capstone projects, internships and other forms of civic engagement. academic service learning (asl), a common type of el, involves achieving targeted course learning objectives by integrating meaningful community service and instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility and strengthen communities within credit-bearing courses (furco, 1996; national service learning clearinghouse, 2017). these community experiences provide robust opportunities for students to engage in transformative learning as they meet the challenge to see the world from a different and new perspective, which can create disorienting dilemmas requiring critical reflection, rational dialogue, and action (mezirow, 2000, 1991). this “experiential learning” category allows a university to better link community engagement to transformative learning theory, which research frames in the form of community-based learning (castañeda, 2008; roswell & davis, 2014), service learning (bamber & hankin, 2011; levkoe, brail & daniere, 2014), and experiential learning (isaacs, 2016; zull & fried, 2012). through these studies on transformations occurring through experiential learning, students report realizations on assumptions they never would have thought to question (castañeda, 2008), facing their own biases of immigrant populations (bamber & hankin, 2011), and the satisfaction of making real that which was learned hypothetically in the classroom (isaacs, 2016; zull & fried, 2012). a tlc’s partnership with the university’s community engagement resources better ensures faculty and staff will know how to help their students recognize and reflect on the transformative learning taking place in their classroom and communities. in the last 10 years, pockets of our university have pioneered academic service learning initiatives, from single course projects lasting no more than a semester to partnerships with high schools and nonprofit organizations still going strong and even growing. at one point the university had an academic service learning “office,” staffed with a graduate assistant and parttime work from a faculty member (plus two faculty fellows), but the one-time grant funding on which this office depended did not allow it the physical and staffing resources needed to be sustainable. years later, as the university named itself as a “preeminent metropolitan university” in its revised mission statement in 2015 and emphasized community engagement in its strategic plan, it established two large committees to determine how to bring together current community engagement efforts and built on these efforts. currently, the president’s webpage on the university’s strategic plan highlights community engagement, listing several projects across campus but focusing on the ou-pontiac initiative, “a sustainable, mutually beneficial relationship” between the university and neighboring city of pontiac (oakland university, 2014). pontiac, once a manufacturing center for the auto industry, has experienced shrinking infrastructure and poverty. ou’s president has repeated “our work in pontiac is vital to realizing 62 our commitment to becoming a preeminent metropolitan university.” the ou-pontiac initiative lists two staff members dedicated specifically cultivating this initiative and 28 ongoing projects from across disciplines. the ou-pontiac initiative is only one of many of other community engagement initiatives happening on campus falling under categories of service learning, internships, community education programs, and broader collaborations and partnerships. in order to accommodate disparate community engagement efforts through the lens of student learning, the university’s committee on community engagement sought to put these efforts under the umbrella of “experiential learning,” hire a full-time experiential learning coordinator to organize and develop these efforts (accomplished summer 2016), and establish a physical experiential learning center (elc) (accomplished fall 2016). promoting experiential learning at oakland university while the university is providing the resources and leadership to make community engagement flourish, a tlc can serve to help connect faculty to these community engagement resources and pave the way for faculty and student participation. often missing from the communityengagement movement in higher education is the embedded academic home that makes it possible "to garner resources and foster internal mobilization events that spark dialogue, critique, and identity formation," bringing together all scholars involved with service learning at some level through curriculum development, hiring practices, and professional development (butin, 2011, p. 23). ou’s tlc sought to initiate opportunities for faculty to engage in academic service learning prior to the establishment of the experiential learning center and now collaborates on an ongoing basis with the el coordinator to facilitate dialogue and provide a forum for this professional development. at some institutions, the experiential learning center (elc) is part of the teaching and learning center. at oakland, academic affairs decided that it should reside in the student success office. the main goals of this elc is to make connections and partnerships in the community and be able to provide opportunities for students to have community-based experiences through academic service learning, internships, volunteering, capstone projects, or other forms of civic engagement. the coordinator can work with faculty to help them design and develop service-learning courses and support and serve as a facilitator for community connections. prior to the establishment of the experiential learning center, our tlc offered numerous workshops, discussion groups, learning communities, and teaching grants that focus on redesigning courses using academic service learning to enhance student success. our workshops have introduced the concepts and best practices for asl and provided a case study and example of one very successful academic service-learning course developed by a faculty member. our discussion groups, or coffee and conversations, have encouraged faculty to share their experiences, highlights and challenges of implementing it in their courses. our yearlong learning community (lc) involves a cohort of faculty who are interested in gaining knowledge and skills in integrating service learning in a course. over the year, they plan and develop strategies that they can implement. they meet regularly to share their experiences and problem solve their challenges. the facilitator of this lc is actively involved in using asl in her courses and provides guidelines and suggestions. each year our tlc offers teaching grants for faculty to 63 redesign a course in order to enhance student success and engage in scholarship of teaching and learning by examining and reflecting on their own teaching practice and disseminating the results. faculty have won numerous grants for focusing on developing, implementing and analyzing the impact of asl. now that oakland has fully implemented the elc, there is ongoing collaboration between the tlc and the elc to provide professional development across the campus. the elc coordinator will run a series of workshops each year at our tlc and provide support for faculty who are working on teaching grants that include an asl component or other forms of el. in addition, the coordinator sits on our tlc’s advisory board and meets on an ongoing basis with our tlc’s director to explore different opportunities and initiatives. the challenge at this point is how to make sure our faculty know how to utilize the services available by having an elc. in turn, the elc’s coordinator wants to better understand better the faculty’s’ needs and how he can work with them. our institution’s faculty operate under an assumption of taking on the full burden of experiential learning experiences, maybe with the help of their colleagues and department if experiential learning practices such as service learning, volunteering, and internships are regular practices. since this is already a university-wide initiative, there is much to explore as to how community engagement via experiential learning will develop across schools and departments. such widespread change happens slowly, even with increased resources on campus. as the tlc promotes community engagement, its members have to accept this slower pace of change and continue communication with the elc and the faculty who are interested in helping facilitate transformative learning experiences through community engagement. ongoing collaborative efforts between elc and tlc to promote and support experiential learning resources, professional development, and other opportunities is enhancing transformative learning experiences at our institution. recommendations for tlcs to promote transformative learning at metropolitan universities “transformative learning” often refers to learning opportunities for our students. yet the journey that faculty, staff, and administrators must take to develop and implement transformative learning initiatives, such as udl and experiential learning, is also a transformative learning opportunity. creating a culture of udl and experiential learning at a university requires a deep structural change, or paradigm shift, in the way faculty and students see themselves and their relationships with others that involves disorienting dilemmas, critical reflection, rational dialogue, and action (mezirow, 1978; cranton, 2006). udl and experiential learning may require faculty to reconsider how they design activities, select texts, and assess learning outcomes—in short, the whole design of their teaching. the tlc can be a safe place to facilitate the dialogue and debate faculty need to undergo a transformation in how they teach. universal design for learning requires us to shed the view that only the “best and brightest” can succeed, and consider that all students have the right and potential to succeed if provided with increased access to diverse learning. although many may support this belief, some still feel that universities should “weed” out students early who struggle, or else should not provide a range of choices and learning options. 64 these difficult conversations need to take place in a safe and open environment with opportunities for debate and discussion grounded in evidence-based practice and effective, simple techniques for faculty to try to reflect upon, gradually. community engagement and experiential learning may also challenge our way of thinking and doing. faculty have to relinquish control over the content and instruction and embrace learning outside of a classroom and a textbook. this may also involve faculty rethinking how they spend their time; moving away from preparing lecture notes toward making community connections for their students. most tlcs are charged with helping faculty rethink and design their courses to improve student learning and leading and participating in transformative learning initiatives can increase a tlc’s impact on student learning. considering the circuitous, intensive process of promoting transformative learning initiatives, it can help if a tlc has a list of recommendations to plot out this process. in light of our experience leading transformative learning initiatives in a directive leadership and collaborative leadership role, we suggest the following recommendations for how to promote most effectively transformative learning at your metropolitan universities. 1. develop a strategic plan for the tlc that aligns with the university’s plan. this serves as the definitive guide to how all of your actions should line up with your priorities. tlcs need this structure because the university often asks them to take on ad-hoc projects and duties needed by the university, which makes it easy for the tlc to be a center for doing everything without strategic direction. if you also want your tlc to effect permanent change in the university’s teaching and learning culture, a strategic plan is required. research other strategic plans online, talk with other tlcs about their strategic planning process, bring in other perspectives to help revise the plan, and have it on hand to give to senior administration. 2. within the strategic plan, identify how the tlc can promote transformative learning both implicitly and explicitly. what transformative learning methods best fit your institution's identity and resources? which methods best fit your tlc’s expertise, resources, and passion? these questions, along with the data in your strategic plan, can help you pinpoint the transformative learning initiatives upon which your center may want to act. either the tlc can promote transformative learning explicitly by promoting practices specifically categorized as modes for transformative learning, or it can do so implicitly by improving conditions necessary to make these practices happen. 3. decide whether the tlc’s leadership will be in a directive or collaborative leadership role. the collaborative leadership role should be the default role since a tlc’s strengths and weaknesses best fit this role. since most tlcs have very limited resources, the collaborative leadership role is important for achieving feasible change, identifying what other resources on campus can take the lead and providing support accordingly. nevertheless, there are key opportunities to take the directive leadership role in a transformative learning initiative when the 65 tlc can align its programs and services with that initiative and when no other area on campus is equipped to take the lead. 4. follow research-based practices for institutional transformation to ensure transformative learning initiatives will take hold. institutional transformation undergoes similar challenges and realizes similar rewards to those found in transformative learning theory. transforming a university built on a slow-to-change culture is challenging, especially changes that require shifts in underlying, firmly held attitudes. these “second order changes,” as kezar (2014) called them, are so challenging that the research on successful institutional transformation at this deeper level is limited and mostly consists of “cautionary tales” (p. 62). fortunately, the impetus for higher education institutions means there is plenty of research on institutional change initiatives. some of these strategies repeated throughout the research include taking stock of the university’s mission and goals and gathering a committee and task force with broad campus perspectives to discuss challenges and make plans accordingly. furthermore, communicate these plans to the larger public, allow plenty of time and open forums to make everyone heard, and invite individual units on campus to interpret initiatives in ways that fit their individual expertise and identity (bolman & gallos, 2011; kezar, 2014; kezar & eckel, 2002; thomas & tight, 2011). in addition to existing research on higher education change initiatives in general, seek out research about change relating to the specific initiative you have decided to pursue. 5. move with participation from faculty, staff, and senior administration. while senior administration can change at any point, it is important to have that powerful ally to make real change happen. the support of senior leadership is essential to institutional transformation, but the “quantum leaps” that make such transformation a reality “come from those at other levels of the organization who recognize and seek organizational change” (andersen, 2008, p. 41). the other faculty and staff participants who are likely to stay at an institution longer are key to keeping momentum of an initiative going. choose a variety of perspectives based on discipline and experience with innovative teaching and learning strategies. it is helpful to include perspectives of optimistic skeptics who can tap into the objections that will likely come up, along with the initiative’s natural champions. 6. make this action visible. the committees and task forces represent many perspectives on campus. even if committee members have dutifully communicated their work to their respective departments, it is unlikely that all faculty and staff are aware of your initiative, or understand its importance. in order to continue the dialogue in a positive direction, the committee should plan how to inform the campus of this work. when your initiative groups are ready to share its core ideas and action plan, make guiding documents to disseminate to the entire campus. this is another key strategy toward institutional change, as it circulates the languages and ideas surrounding an initiative (kezar, 2014). these should be brief, accessible, and mindful of your audience. post them on your tlc’s website, display them in print at the tlc’s physical location (if one exists), and plan how you will promote them at related events on campus. work with your senior administrator to 66 plan how to deliver these guiding documents directly to each faculty and staff member through email or mailboxes. this dissemination of resources to campus community circulates the consistent language and ideas that are required to make cultural changes stick. it works best if these documents include an invitation to participate in related forums and professional development. 7. foster the germination of ideas through professional development. after all the committee’s and task force’s work on creating plans, much work remains to help faculty and staff members figure out what these plans mean for their departments, units, and individual courses: “[m]any of the important changes that are proposed within higher education will not occur unless sensemaking or organizational learning occurs” (kezar, 2014, p. 82). this “sensemaking” process is circuitous, ongoing, and the critical step from turning plans into reality. since the university is made up of autonomous bodies with disparate expertise and goals, sensemaking provides the structure and support to decide what these changes look like in their corner of the campus. this applies to optimists and skeptics alike. following transformative learning theory, help skeptics recognize disorienting dilemmas, facilitate rational dialogue, and critically reflect accordingly by inviting the campus community to open forums or through planned programming at the tlc. when facilitating transformative learning, whether in a classroom or faculty workshop, it is important to help learners move from reacting skeptically to uncertainty to transforming that uncertainty into a focused inquiry (english, 2013, p. 92). because the most vocal resistance often comes from those whose “cognitive schema” doesn’t accurately comprehend the initiative (kezar, 2014, p. 48), offering faculty professional development opportunities to learn about the initiative and work toward understanding improves the chances of gaining broader support. by facilitating a productive dialogue while teaching faculty about the research supporting the initiative, you increase the likelihood for acceptance, support, and implementation. 8. allow for time and patience, both from others and from yourself. it is easy to feel that once your committee has thoroughly researched and discussed the initiative and the task force has determined reasonable steps forward, the hard work is in the past. in reality, getting input from the campus community, revising plans accordingly, and working with individual units to execute plans is the longest part of the process. most higher education institutions do not allow for mandating changes down to every campus employee, and even if they do, such mandates would be impossible with the disparate roles and identities across campus. every unit must find its own way to enact the initiative, a process the literature refers to as “sensemaking” (kezar & eckel, 2002; kezar, 2014). the range of time the whole process takes can range from 3-5 years, sometimes longer, and throughout the process, there could be points where the initiative is at a standstill. while persistence is important to keep action moving, be mentally prepared for a long process. do not let frustration paralyze your motivation, sow doubt in your work, or rush to assign blame to one person or group. use moments of frustration to reflect on the process and determine whether delays are normal or require new action. even if all campus members are allies to your initiative, lasting implementation will be years in the making. 67 9. embrace the process of transformation as an outcome in and of itself. allowing for time and patience is easier when you embrace the journey of transformation itself. it is not a stagnant point in time but a recursive process in and of itself. the definition of the word “transformation” often includes the “process of changing” which suggests an ongoing, continual evolution. the awareness of the dilemmas, the critical reflection, and rational dialogue can create a rich experience for ongoing transformation that can keep us engaged and connected to the process. 10. transformative learning is not only for students; it can enrich the professional thinking and action of all faculty and staff on campus. transformative learning challenges, and yet benefits not only students, but all members of a campus community. faculty, staff and administrators can enhance their own beliefs and practice through ongoing critical reflection, rational dialogue and action, ultimately transforming the campus experience for all. conclusion transformation, by its very definition involves some kind of change. humankind is often resistant to change, fearful of the loss of control, uncertainty, feelings of the unknown, concern of our level of competency, potential for more work, resentment and the difficulty breaking old habits. the tlc can address these concerns with evidence and research-based practice and can help faculty and staff develop practical alternatives and solution. 68 references 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(2011). institutional transformation to mainstream diversity. in l. thomas & m. tight (eds.), institutional transformation to engage a diverse student body. (77–96). bingley, united kingdom: emerald books. united states census bureau. (2010). u.s. department of commerce. retrieved from http://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/pst045215/2665440,2622000 http://www.hrdmax.com/images/column_1325932983/mezirow%20transformative%20learning.pdf http://www.hrdmax.com/images/column_1325932983/mezirow%20transformative%20learning.pdf https://doi.org/10.1002/ace.7401 http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/ http://www.udlcenter.org/aboutudl/udlguidelines_theorypractice http://www.udlcenter.org/aboutudl/udlguidelines_theorypractice http://www.udlcenter.org/aboutudl/udlguidelines_theorypractice https://doi.org/10.1002/tl.20198 https://doi.org/10.1080/10665680490453977 71 university of central oklahoma. (2016). center for excellence in transformative teaching and learning. retrieved from http://www.uco.edu/academic-affairs/cettl/cettl-tl/index.asp. vidaček-hainš, v., divjak, b., & r. horvatek. (2011). mainstreaming blended learning to enhance the access, learning and retention of students from equity groups. in l. thomas & m. tight (eds.), institutional transformation to engage a diverse student body. (235–243). bingley, united kingdom: emerald books. https://doi.org/10.1108/s1479-3628(2011)0000006023 zull, j. e. & fried, j. (2012) transformative learning through engagement: student affairs practice as experiential pedagogy. stylus publishing. retrieved from http://www.ebrary.com.huaryu.kl.oakland.edu https://doi.org/10.1108/s1479-3628(2011)0000006023 72 author information judith ableser is the director of the center for excellence in teaching and learning (cetl) at oakland university. her phd is in curriculum and instruction from wayne state university. prior to serving as director of cetl, she was an associate professor in teacher education focusing on meeting diverse learning needs of students and evidence-based practices in teaching and learning. * judith c. ableser center for excellence in teaching and learning oakland university 275 varner drive rochester, michigan 48309 email: ableser@oakland.edu telephone: 248-370-2455 christina moore is the virtual faculty developer at cetl at oakland university. her undergraduate and graduate degrees are in english from oakland university. prior to her role at cetl, she was a special lecturer in writing and rhetoric. she has published in areas of learning technology, high impact practices, and teaching writing in higher education. christina m. moore center for excellence in teaching and learning oakland university 275 varner drive rochester, michigan 48309 email: cmamoore@oakland.edu telephone: 248-370-2499 *corresponding author copyright © 2016 metropolitan universities vol. 27 no. 2 (summer 2016), 19-35, doi: 10.18060/21124 intense, pervasive and shared faculty dialogue: generating understanding and identifying “hotspots” in five days emily janke, barbara holland and kristin medlin, mpa abstract once an institution has chosen to recognize and reward community-engaged scholarship in its universitywide promotion and tenure policy, what are some strategies for aligning unit and department policies as well? this chapter describes the path followed at the university of north carolina at greensboro to align policies across all units and departments. discussed are core strategies used to generate faculty support for community-engaged scholarship in promotion and tenure policy and practice, the themes revealed as a result of a weeklong dialogue initiative, and recommendations for continued improvement. introduction embedding community engagement in promotion and tenure policies is a key indicator of institutional support for community-engaged scholarship (e.g., holland, 2001; furco & holland, 2004; hollander, saltmarsh, & zlotkowski, 2001). such policies codify and perpetuate institutional culture. the interpretation of scholarship, particularly within the context of the promotion and tenure process, “defines the fundamental character of higher education institutions” (holland, 1997, p. 38). the presence (or absence) of promotion and tenure policies that recognize and reward community-engaged teaching, research, and service activities is a major factor by which faculty determine whether their work is compatible and consistent with institutional expectations for involvement and achievements in community-university partnerships (holland, 1995, 1997). o’meara’s (2002) study of communityengaged faculty found that faculty exemplars report increased satisfaction with work and their university. faculty whose universities had adopted policies that supported community-engaged scholarship found that they: (1) experienced greater congruence between stated rhetoric institutional service mission and reward systems; (2) viewed their service as a potential form of scholarship; (3) felt elevated importance of service as scholarship in reward systems; (4) perceived greater proportionality of faculty workload; and (5) believed their community-engaged work was legitimized. community engagement and organizational change scholars have argued that if institutional policies are to affect individual and collective practice, then they must become aligned with and embedded into the culture of academic departments (e.g., battistoni, gelmon, saltmarsh, wergin & zlotkowski, 2003; kecskes, gelmon & spring, 2006; furco & holland, 2004; holland, 1997; kecskes, 2006). it is possible to have policy change without cultural change. departmental culture change is essential, particularly as colleagues evaluate the dossiers of their peers for promotion and tenure. it is where the “rubber meets the road.” the review and revision of promotion and tenure policies in ways that facilitate fair and equitable treatment of community-engaged scholarship, among other forms of emerging scholarship, is particularly relevant and significant given demographic trends in higher education. higher education is in the midst of rapid faculty turn over as the baby boomer generation exits the academy over the next decade (sugar, pruitt, anstee & harris, 2005). if institutions are to attract and retain diverse faculty populations, they must reflect the expectations for legitimate and valued academic work of the diverse incoming faculty. many studies report the overrepresentation of faculty of color and women in the group of faculty involved in community engagement (e.g., aguirre, 2000; antonio et al., 2000; baez 2000; vogelgesang, jensen & jayakumar, 2010). 20 despite the increased calls for recognizing community-engaged scholarship and the faculty, student, and community benefits such an approach to scholarly work may bring, significant challenges remain, even on campuses that have expressed initial support for newer forms of scholarship. this article describes the efforts of faculty and administrative leaders at the university of north carolina at greensboro (uncg) to create a faculty culture in which community-engaged scholarship is seen as legitimate faculty work, and the quality of which can be assessed according to revised and aligned faculty promotion and tenure policies and practices. this required, among other accomplishments, the ability to establish common language and views of what constitutes high quality, community-engaged scholarship. in this article, we illustrate uncg’s institutional context and processes through which communityengaged scholarship was embedded across faculty roles (teaching, research/creative activity, and service) in the university’s promotion and tenure guidelines. this context is important for understanding the existing groundwork that was laid, and which likely maximized the success of the ensuing dialogues. next, we describe the development and implementation of a weeklong intensive dialogue process that knitted together existing language and conversations internal to uncg with information and legitimacy conferred through the external perspectives of a nationally-esteemed guest facilitator. we present several suggestions, based on uncg’s experience, to guide the work of other institutions to maintain systematic and informed efforts to move support for community-engaged scholarship from institutional rhetoric to collective practice and core academic culture. uncg case example an urban metropolitan campus located centrally in the state and embedded within the most racially and ethnically heterogeneous city of north carolina, the university of north carolina at greensboro (uncg) is diverse in many ways. over a quarter of its more than 19,000 students are non-white making it a minority serving institution, and over a quarter of undergraduates are older than 25 years of age. students come from 48 states and over 80 countries enrolling in programs offered by more than 50 academic departments within 7 academic units. grounded in a liberal arts educational approach, uncg is home to professional schools including health and human sciences, nursing, education, and business, as well as a large and well-respected college of arts and sciences and a school of music, theatre, and dance, and a recently established school of nanoscience and nanotechnology (jointly shared with north carolina agricultural and technical state university). uncg has long held the tradition of public service, first as the state normal and industrial school, second as women’s college, and now as uncg. this history influences the conversations today about the transitioning identity of the university. in the past two decades, in particular, the balance of teaching and research has shifted to the point that uncg is now categorized by the carnegie foundation as a fouryear, doctoral granting, research university with high research activity. faculty who have served at uncg for decades comment on how the identity of the university has shifted from one in which it was teaching centered, to now having considerably more emphasis on traditional prestige indicators such as grants received and scholarship published as books or in peer-reviewed journals. beyond the changes in the proportion of teaching compared to research in the tenure, review, and rewards systems and overall culture, they speak to the increased requirements for accountability, reporting, and other forms of university and professional service. uncg has also gained local, regional, and national recognition for its commitment as a communityengaged university, particularly in the past decade. the carnegie foundation recognized uncg as a community-engaged institution in 2008 and 2015, and many faculty, staff, and administrators have received individual leadership positions and awards. the support of faculty and administrative 21 “champions,” many who called for the establishment of a service-learning center on campus over a decade ago, have more recently led significant efforts to integrate community-engaged faculty work into the core of faculty culture through the university’s 2009-2014 strategic plan, as well as its promotion and tenure policies and practices. catalysts for promotion and tenure policy revisions a combination of forces served to catalyze faculty members’ efforts to revise the university, and ultimately unit and department promotion and tenure guidelines at uncg starting in 2008. at this time many strategic initiatives were underway on the campus and beyond. the general education curriculum was under revision, including discussions to include civic learning goals. the 2009-2014 uncg strategic plan was being written, in which engaged scholarship became a major goal with actionable plans. uncg applied for the first time to the carnegie foundation for the elective community engagement classification, hence undertaking a large institutional study of engagement. lastly, the unc system’s strategic visioning and planning process “unc-tomorrow” was underway, which asked universities to be responsive to the needs of the state in very direct ways. faculty champions. it is important to note that in tandem with this institutional momentum, several longtime faculty champions of community-engaged scholarship held consecutive and aligned leadership positions in the faculty senate and the general faculty, putting community-engaged scholarship and promotion and tenure on the agenda. rebecca adams, the chair of the faculty senate and the strategic planning committee, appointed an ad hoc committee on nontraditional scholarship to address the question of engagement. as an engaged scholar herself, adams knew the challenges engaged faculty faced with regards to not getting adequate “credit” for their scholarship. as the chair of the strategic planning committee, adams was also intimately aware of the unc tomorrow response planning document that asked universities to: (1) encourage faculty to address important societal issues, and reward them for doing that work well; (2) create incentives for faculty to engage in applied research, scholarship, and public service; (3) continue to support and reward basic research, theoretical scholarship, and creative activities; (4) make appropriate university faculty more accessible to small business owners, nonprofit organizations, k-12 schools, and community groups; and (5) continue to support the use of the tenure process as a way to validate that faculty candidates are highly qualified experts in their fields (unc tomorrow, 2008). the ad hoc committee worked systematically and thoughtfully to propose revisions to the promotion and tenure guidelines, considering the many perspectives that constitute the uncg scholarly community. they were also mindful that they wanted neither to convey that one form of scholarly activity was inherently more valuable than others nor that any individual faculty member would be required to engage in specific kinds of scholarship. ultimately their aim was to revise the guidelines to be inclusive. the chair of the nontraditional scholarship committee presented the process it would undertake to revise the guidelines to the faculty senate in november 2009. the committee was committed to addressing the issue of community-engaged scholarship in university policy, seeking input from informed engaged scholars, and reviewing the current guidelines to propose recommendations. the chair also provided some guiding definitions, as at that time there was no single or commonly shared definition of community engagement or community-engaged scholarship. however, having just recently received designation as a community-engaged institution by carnegie, the committee quickly moved to use carnegie’s terminology (i.e., “community engagement”) as its guide, and ultimately, definition (carnegie, 2015). over the period of the academic year, the committee consulted with many groups across campus, including chairs of the promotion and tenure committees, faculty senate, deans’ council, and executive staff, and held a well-attended faculty forum to describe the proposed changes. 22 the following year, the incoming faculty senate chair, laurie kennedy-malone, chose “promoting and sustaining scholarly engagement” as her leadership theme. she wanted to see the hard work of the nontraditional scholarship and promotion and tenure committees continued. as chair of the senate, she cofunded a qualitative study that was conducted by the lead author and a service-learning faculty fellow to examine the experiences of 14 community-engaged scholars at uncg (janke & hayes, 2010). the purpose was to understand their experiences at uncg, and specifically, (a) how they defined communityengaged scholarship; (b) their developmental journeys and scholarly products; and (c) their experiences with annual reviews, reappointment, promotion and tenure as engaged scholars. this study revealed that most of the faculty participants (1) brought their engaged practices to the academy through previous positions and professions; (2) experienced synergies by integrating their work with communities throughout their teaching, research, and service roles; and (3) received largely negative messages from senior faculty about the value of this work in promotion and tenure committees. some participants shared that they were discouraged from doing this work prior to tenure, and nearly all of them spoke of the need to do “double duty” – the need to have sufficient numbers and eminence within traditional forms of scholarship, such as peer reviewed articles and books, to achieve promotion and tenure, because other forms of nontraditional scholarly products (e.g., reports, programs, websites, etc.) would likely not “count.” speaker series. as chair of the faculty senate, kennedy-malone also co-sponsored amy driscoll’s visit to uncg in 2010 to speak with various faculty and administrative leadership about how to support community engagement in conversations in promotion and tenure policies and practices. like others national scholars before and following her (for example, patti clayton, george mehaffy, john saltmarsh, tim eatman, barbara holland, judith romaley, and nadinne cruz), driscoll urged uncg to take a scholarly praxis approach, iteratively engaging in dialogue and informed study of the process. she, like others, also encouraged the use of one integrated set of standards that cut across multiple forms of scholarship (e.g., glassick, huber & maeroff, 1997); a top-down and bottom-up approach; and the importance of open dialogue to surface underlying assumptions, fears, tensions, and commitments. throughout all of these conversations leaders were careful to emphasize that the proposed revisions did not in any way mandate that faculty “do engaged scholarship” (e.g., the provost in his introductions of speakers, faculty senate members in their opening statements in faculty forums and faculty senate meetings, and speakers themselves in their talks). rather, leaders reasoned, it simply ensures that it is recognized as a viable form of scholarship, alongside others. institutional definitions. in 2011, janke (lead author) serving as the special assistant for community engagement to the vice chancellor for research and economic development, and patti clayton, a visiting scholar working with janke at uncg, were asked at a dean’s council meeting by the deans and provost to draft a scholarly terms and definitions document. janke and clayton subsequently wrote a letter that was informed by faculty input (janke & clayton, 2011). the definitions were widely distributed, shared at faculty senate, and posted on the provost’s webpage that hosts promotion and tenure policies and forms. ultimately, a condensed version was included in the first volume in the excellence in community engagement and community engagement series produced by (what is now) the institute for community and economic engagement (icee) (janke & clayton, 2012). the volume provides suggested language that integrates past and current uncg discussions and policy with scholarly literature and national conversations. the goal of the volume is to address how community engagement may be achieved through the scholarly activities of research, creative activity, teaching, and service – and, how it may be defined within unitand department-level promotion and tenure evaluation guidelines, non-tenure track faculty guidelines, faculty annual reports, unit mission statements, and other documents and policies. in particular, the volume addresses the question of “what is community engagement?”, and “how are high quality community-engaged research, creative activity, teaching, and service distinct from community service or outreach?” 23 alignment among university, unit, and department policies. despite this progress, conversations about the alignment of unit and departmental policies and practices to the university-wide policy had not progressed. nearly every national guest speaker uncg hosted as part of the community engagement series emphasized that this vertical alignment was “where the rubber meets the road.” we believe this inertia was because faculty members make individual judgments and collective decisions about their colleagues in the context of their departmental, and to some extent, unit-level culture. if the department has not internalized and operationalized how to support documentation or evaluation of community engagement in a fair and equitable way, then it will not matter that a university-wide policy was created. aligning department to university policies was particularly critical for uncg in which policy structures and culture were (at the time) largely decentralized; department policies and practices were enacted autonomously with little oversight or intervention from the central administration. indicative of this decentralized culture, was the policy that a negative vote of a faculty candidate at the department-level promotion and tenure committee meant that the candidate was denied tenure without ever going through further review either by the unit or university committees. the provost changed this policy in 2009 as an effort to allow for greater coherence and more equitable review. this also helped to ensure that departmental decisions had to align with unit and university policies as well. leverage points. two important leverage points led to the development of intensive weeklong dialogues university-wide, and ultimately, the alignment of unit and department level policy to the university policy approved by faculty senate. one key leverage point was contained within the university’s implementation report for section 4.3 (uncg will promote an inclusive culture of engaged scholarship, civic responsibility, and community service (engaged scholarship)) of its 2009-2014 strategic plan. it was decided by strategic plan implementation committee members (including the lead author) that one piece of evidence for this goal would be the “# (number) of departments that have revised p&t guidelines to recognize and reward community-engaged scholars.” this, among other measures, such as number and proportion of faculty, staff and students participating in community-engaged scholarship, supported with internal funds for community-engaged scholarship, and participating in professional development for community-engaged scholarship, would constitute a measure of support for community engaged scholarship. the second leverage point was the legal necessity of aligning policies. promotion and tenure policies are documents that might be, and have been, used by faculty members bringing lawsuits against the university to challenge decisions to deny their promotion and/or tenure. discrepancies among policies at the various levels of faculty review could make the university vulnerable to future lawsuits of faculty who engage in nontraditional scholarly work and produce new forms of scholarship recognized in some policies but not in others. relevant topics within the policy that required consistent alignment included not only community-engaged scholarship, but also contracted work, directed professional activities (faculty who take on significant administrative appointments), and nonacademic audiences and nontraditional mechanisms to produce and disseminate scholarly work. both of these leverage points were raised on a phone call that included janke and holland. at the conclusion of the call the provost agreed to provide financial and political support for two events. first, a meeting with deans and executive leadership in spring 2012, and second a week-long visit the following fall (2013) to facilitate faculty dialogues. the provost asked janke and holland to act as the planner, conveners, and facilitators of campus-wide dialogues. inviting holland as an external speaker to work alongside with janke as an internal administrator was an important strategic decision. first, holland brought with her significant national and international experience and perspective as a full professor and having served in executive administrative positions in similar institutions. janke was able to interpret and translate uncg’s history and culture in such a way that the dialogues aligned with current conversations 24 and contexts. additionally, it was important that the dialogue continued through further documentation and dissemination, as well as through ongoing dialogues and consultation. dialogue design three streams of related conversations were developed for the weeklong intensive dialogue process: (1) faculty dialogue on evaluating community engaged scholarly activities and products; (2) faculty dialogue on documenting community engaged scholarly activities and products; and (3) executive leadership and deans’ council dialogue. we designed the dialogues to take place over the course of a week, creating an intensive time in which all participants (over 100 in total) received the same information at approximately the same time. this was intended to help create a sense of shared dialogue and to establish common views of the issues at hand, and possible strategies to address them effectively. inviting and preparing participants. the dialogue sessions, cultivating and rewarding the mosaic of faculty scholarly talents and contributions, were designed to explore the specific issues across disciplinary areas of the various units and discuss potential ways forward. in his invitation letter to the september dialogues, which went out to all faculty, the provost asked that all faculty who serve as department chairs or as reviewers of faculty candidates at the departmentand unit-levels make room in their schedules to attend one of the sessions. the sessions were customized for particular disciplinary areas, though to accommodate busy faculty schedules, each was made available to any faculty member from any discipline. to ensure that the sessions addressed relevant and immediate questions and concerns of the department and units, several faculty members across the units were recruited to help inform the preparation of the relevant sessions. in the sessions, evaluating community engagement scholarly activities and products in promotion and tenure, the participants were primarily individuals who served as reviewers who evaluate candidate dossiers, and department chairs who write letters contextualizing candidate’s scope of work and responsibilities. prior to and following all meetings, participants were asked to read three articles. we chose scholarship assessed: evaluation of the professoriate, a special report published by the carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching authored by glassick, huber and maeroff (1997) to draw attention to existing standards of high quality scholarship, regardless of discipline, and including community-engaged scholarship. we chose the journal article integration: evaluating faculty work as a whole by colbeck (2002) to draw attention to the integration of faculty roles and the joint production of teaching, research, and service. finally, generation x meets theory x: what new scholars want authored by trower (2006) raises awareness about generational differences among scholars with regards to expectations about faculty work and employment policy. using the scholarly approach of identifying relevant literature from which to inform our collective dialogue served to model the process through which faculty members could build on existing knowledge to create new policies and norms. guiding the dialogue sessions. each two-hour session began with brief introductions of names, departments, and titles. then holland engaged participants immediately in the questions: “when did you come to uncg? how are things different now from that time?” these two questions were useful in revealing the broad generational differences between colleagues, and surfacing differences in experiences, perceptions, and perhaps, expectations about the identity of the university (formerly a much smaller teaching-focused women’s college, now a considerably larger high research activity university), as well as expectations for faculty work (e.g., changes in research-teaching-service balance; changes in committee work, reporting, or administrative obligations). next, holland provided a brief discussion and presentation describing why community engagement is a strategy that matters for uncg in a global and rapidly changing environment as a means to ask participants to think carefully about their p&t environment and future success and reputation of uncg 25 (holland, 2012). participants explored evidence of community-engaged scholarship’s relationship to quality teaching and student learning and satisfaction, as well as research activity. holland reiterated the current generational shift, and the need to attract and retain faculty who fit the profile of this particular university. lastly holland emphasized that executive leadership needed to create a context for academic work, defining pathways of career progression, as uncg is guiding (intentionally or not) the mosaic of talent of their faculty. much of the two-hour session focused on discussing of common and persistent issues related to community engagement, which also echo those in other innovative and high impact practices. key points addressed were current developments in academe regarding demographics, funding, accountability, public and political support, interdisciplinary and cross-sector collaboration, and nontraditional forms of scholarly activity and scholarship; changes in faculty view of academic employment policy; and standard definitions and indicators of high quality scholarship, and community-engaged scholarship in particular. a key aspect of the session was to provide an applied experience wherein faculty participants were presented with a brief case study relevant to their field of a community-engaged scholars’ dossier. these included brief descriptions of the fictional faculty member’s research activities and products, curricular innovations, presentations on community engagement, local invited presentations, and community service. activities and products listed were variously traditional, community-engaged, and serviceoriented in nature to reflect the diverse and complex scope of faculty work that is likely to include many forms of scholarship. the intention was to create a concrete and shared experience in which persistent issues related to the documentation and/or evaluation of faculty scholarship could be raised and discussed. at the closing of each session, we discussed resources and next steps, and administered a brief survey to gain a better understanding of faculty perceptions about their ability to define, enact, and support community engagement across their academic roles. we shared the importance of coaching people who are enthusiastic about community engagement as a practice because it brings increased value to their work, but that they would need mentoring on being conscious about the importance of documenting this work throughout their academic careers. many participants expressed a desire for input on suggestions for reporting community-engaged scholarship in the online format, as the system required faculty to make distinctions among the three traditional categories that may not be truly accurate in portraying the full scope and quality of faculty activity and productivity. we offered the continued opportunity for departments to work with icee on these topics and provided some additional facilitation (which a handful did request). we pointed all participants to the icee website, where we continued to curate extensive p&t resources for faculty. linking senior administration to faculty dialogues. at the end of the week, holland and janke also met with executive leadership (chancellor, provost, vice chancellor for research and economic development) and members of the dean’s council (convened by the provost) in two separate lunches. these lunches happened at the start and the end of the week, respectively, as a way to inform the delivery of the materials, as well as to provide some initial, high-level reflections about the faculty dialogues. the reflections were general and broad enough that they did not disclose the identities of the faculty members, departments, or units. faculty members were made aware of the forthcoming luncheon with the deans, and the intention was to help inform them of key messages, as well as offer words of support and encouragement. results of the weeklong, intensive dialogue sessions participation in the eight faculty dialogues was broadly representative as it included individuals from 42 departments across seven academic units. participants (reported across multiple roles) included 7 librarians/catalogers, 11 assistant professors, 22 associate professors, 30 professors, 7 directors, 5 26 associate deans, and 3 deans. of these, 21 faculty held department chair positions, and 26 served on a promotion and tenure committee at either the department, unit, or university-level. changes in faculty work. the opening conversation about the length of time faculty members had been employed at uncg, and their perceptions of the relative changes over the years surfaced important differences that continue to affect the faculty rewards culture. specifically, faculty described the increased workloads due to larger classes, an increasing number of students to advise and mentor, technological changes (e.g., personal computers, email, reporting systems), and increased requirements to collect and report student outcomes. many also discussed the change in pedagogy and enrollment types from entirely residential to online courses, programs, and students. they described changes nationally and institutionally around research strategies and activities, naming changes in funding agencies and sources, increased emphasis on broader impacts of research, diversification of legitimate scholarly approaches and products, as well as venues for dissemination. they witnessed increased abilities (due to technological advances) and expectations to collaborate across departments, institutions, and sectors. not least of all, the faculty named changes in student, faculty, and staff demographics, and their varied and changing expectations about the role and functions of higher education. each of these beginning conversations throughout the week foreshadowed much of what holland presented with regards to the changing nature of the university, and hence, provided a touchstone against which to personalize and make concrete the changes occurring at uncg. evaluating new forms of faculty work. as the conversation turned to the definition, role and value of community-engaged scholarship as one form of scholarship that is changing culture at uncg, we found that, across all conversations with faculty in the various units, there appeared to be general acceptance of community-engaged scholarship as a legitimate strategy for teaching, research/creative activity, and service—as well as an understanding of the need to recognize, assess, and reward it. in this sense, faculty members stood behind the collective decision to write it into the university policy. faculty also expressed a desire to better understand how to assess high quality scholarship of all types, including, but not limited to, community-engaged scholarship. the implications for how community-engaged scholarship were operationalized within the policy to become practice were not yet entirely clear to many participants. while faculty across the dialogues generally supported the concept of community-engaged scholarship and viewed it as a legitimate form of faculty work, and 62 percent (48 total) of attendees reported having practiced a form of community engagement in the past two years, many faculty were still unsure about how to classify specific activities and artifacts related to community-engaged teaching, research/creative activities, and service. the question of “is it service, or is it community-engagement” was asked often, and was deeply explored in the dialogues in a way that has led to some new and shared understandings. we perceived a general consensus across faculty that community engagement should lead to both traditional and non-traditional scholarly outputs. however, many faculty expressed concern that nontraditional publications and artifacts are less likely to be reviewed positively by departmentand/or unitlevel peers. several senior faculty members spoke about their hesitancy to advise and mentor junior colleagues to do this work while yet untenured. even though the policy has changed, these faculty members felt that mindsets had not yet followed. documenting and sharing the dialogue themes soon after the dialogues, the lead author wrote and distributed a follow up (janke, 2012). the intention was to provide an overview of the dialogues while they were still “fresh.” we also wanted to facilitate an ongoing dialogue about the perceived opportunities and lingering challenges related to operationalizing uncg’s collective commitment to recognize and reward community-engaged scholarship. the dialogues were also instructive for the faculty senate scholarly communications committee – which was to host a 27 forum on the related topics open-access publishing, technology transfer, and community engagement in promotion, tenure, and post-tenure review processes. subsequent to the letter, janke, medlin, and holland authored and published the second volume of the excellence in community engagement and community-engaged scholarship titled, honoring the mosaic of talents and stewarding the standards of high quality scholarship (2014). in it, we presented key ideas presented within holland’s weeklong visit, as well as suggestions for next steps. the volume also included the voices of other national leaders in the field of community engagement who also visited uncg during the 2012-2013 academic year as part of the community engagement series. we asked them to share their thoughts on the changing landscape of higher education, and how and why this matters to uncg as we position ourselves in an economic, political, and social climate that is radically different from previous eras. the following describes four “hotspots” included in the volume as lessons learned by the uncg dialogues, and which may inform future efforts at uncg, and elsewhere, to support community-engaged scholarship. dialogue themes: four “hotspots”. following the meetings, the icee director and manager carefully reviewed extensive notes taken at each of the eight faculty dialogues to identify specific and key themes that seemingly functioned as barriers to the greater acceptance of diverse forms of scholarship, and to community-engaged scholarship in particular. issues raised in at least four of the eight dialogues were labeled as “hotspots.” we used the term “hotspots” drawing not on geology, but rather on hiking terminology, to describe those issues or questions that seem to “rub” up against one’s values or beliefs in such a way that, if left untended to, can result in blistering disagreements and conflict. an experienced hiker learns to stop and address the irritation (hotspot), before a painful blister occurs. similarly, it is wise for faculty and administrators to identify and address directly the concerns, fears or anxieties that can arise from policies that challenge traditional notions by accepting increasingly diverse forms of scholarly approaches and artifacts. while derived from uncg conversations, these hotspots are not unique to our faculty; they are echoed in national and international dialogues about communityengaged academic work as well. this is not only uncg’s journey, but a national and international one we share with others. these hotspots are important for informing future discussions, professional development, and strategic planning. hotspot #1: how to define and value community engagement and outreach/public service. we found that faculty lack of consensus in how to define and value community engagement and outreach/public service in the face of needing to steward the rigor of scholarship and the review process. the question of “is it service or is it community engagement?” continues to persist among faculty according to the dialogues. therefore, while community-engaged scholarship is codified in policy and many colleagues identify as community-engaged scholars, a common understanding of what it is and why it matters is not universal across faculty. community engagement and public service are definitionally distinct from one another, as defined by uncg and national standards, such as the carnegie foundation. although icee had developed, published, and presented the definitions at faculty senate and shared it widely in meetings and online, there was continued need to raise awareness about national conversations and concepts. we used the carnegie foundation’s (n.d.) definitions: community engagement describes collaboration between institutions of higher education and their larger communities (local, regional/state, national, global) for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity. public service/outreach describes activities and services planned and offered by the institution or its staff 28 to the community for public consumption (one-way activity) (kellogg commission, 2001). in all written and spoken statements, icee staff have emphasized that both community engagement and public service are essential to the university mission. hotspot #2. honoring the spectrum of scholarship. general consensus existed across faculty members attending the dialogues that community engagement should lead to both traditional and non-traditional scholarly outputs. despite this commonly held agreement, several faculty members attending the dialogues expressed concern that non-traditional publications and artifacts are less likely to be reviewed positively by departmentand/or unit-level peers. for example, how does one assess the “impact” of 5,000 “hits” on a website, a white paper that influenced a state policy or law, or a curriculum or business plan? how do these “count” relative to an academic, peer-reviewed manuscript or book chapter? across dialogues, faculty tended to express individual support, but that when making a collective decision, the support might be overshadowed and overcome by the lack of support from colleagues. further, faculty worried that agreements made at the time of hire or early on in one’s career about a nontraditional or community-engaged agenda might not be honored later on due to changes in personnel, particularly in department chairs and deans, but also faculty peers. one department chair shared, “the scariest thing i’ve ever done was try to mentor a new faculty member in which we talk this talk (supporting community-engaged scholarship), and the question of ‘when i go up for tenure will they walk the walk’ – you’re dealing with career decisions of someone young and junior.” part of the challenge expressed above is that some faculty reviewers do not feel fully prepared and skilled to fairly and accurately assess community-engaged scholarship. a series of challenging and persistent issues make it difficult to evaluate the quality, impact, and eminence of nontraditional forms of scholarship and reveal a need for further faculty development. faculty reiterated the problematic issues raised by drs. holland and janke in their presentation, including: nontraditional dissemination venues (e.g., online journals, blogs); attribution in truly collaborative and/or interdisciplinary work; identifying appropriate and qualified peers to evaluate scholarship; how to define what impact means and to what communities (internal disciplinary community/academic, as well as external community/public); and, how to appropriately include and evaluate contracts and consultations. these challenges were represented in comments such as these: “our biggest challenge to awarding and assessing community-engaged scholarship is … how we discern attribution, roles, and reaction of community when we’re not used to having non-academic voices giving us feedback on academic activity.” another faculty member said, “what’s difficult for me is, which is more important? what the (community) receivers report as impact versus (what) peer (academic) reviewers … say is impact. what is more important in community-based stuff? what are the respective weights?” the dialogues offered opportunities for participants to explore some of these issues, resulting in participants suggesting the need for further opportunities to learn more about how to evaluate the quality, impact, and eminence of nontraditional forms of scholarship. paper surveys distributed to faculty members participating in the dialogues supported this finding: approximately 75 percent of all respondents (n=84) felt “not able/prepared” or only “somewhat able/prepared” to assist or mentor a colleague to develop (70%) or document (77%) community-engaged scholarship, or to evaluate and assess the quality of community-engaged scholarship (teaching = 75%; research/creative activity=68%; service=75%). additional survey findings can be found at the end of this document. because there are two communities towards which the engaged scholar is expected contribute, the challenge of traditional ways of “counting” or giving preference to traditional modes and products over nontraditional modes and products is that it requires community-engaged scholars to do more work than 29 the “traditional” scholar. that is, s/he has to produce the same number of traditional articles, books, book chapters, and disciplinary contributions as her or his “traditional” colleague in addition to the nontraditional products/artifacts (white papers, program evaluations, videos, websites, etc.), expected to fulfill obligations to non-academic community partners. furco’s (2013) diagram on the measuring the impact of engaged scholarship shows that community-engaged scholars ultimately have two trajectories of impact: academic and community audiences. hotspot #3: stewarding the rigor of scholarship. faculty shared their desire to support engaged scholars through clear and equitable evaluation processes. however, many department chairs and mentors shared their concerns about how to advise on the documentation and evaluation of the quality, impact, and eminence of nontraditional forms of scholarship. the standards for high quality scholarship (see page 7) also apply to community-engaged scholarship. numerous scholars drew from the criteria presented in “scholarship assessed: a special report on faculty evaluation,”18 which have been adapted by respected networks and associations, such as the national review board for the scholarship of engagement and community-campus partnerships for health (ccph). these groups have established consensus on the common standards as applied to community-engaged scholarship, and provide concrete review criteria that can be used to clearly evaluate collaborative processes and nontraditional products. community-campus partnerships for health provides an especially helpful tool to help scholars evaluate both the process and product of community-engaged scholarship. ccph created ces4health.info, a free online mechanism for peer reviewing, publishing, and disseminating products of health-related community-engaged scholarship that are in forms other than journal articles and that address both process and product. specifically, to assess the quality of community-engaged scholarship, one must evaluate both the project process through which the product was developed and the product itself to determine whether it is of high quality. therefore, faculty candidates should present (and evaluators must review, in addition to the product or artifact) a reflective critique of the community-engaged processes that led to the development of the products listed/presented in the dossier to fully assess the quality of communityengaged scholarship. additionally, peer review should be assigned to community and academic reviewers who have relevant areas of expertise associated with the activity and its outputs. reviewers assess both submitted products and an accompanying application. by providing information in the application about the work or project that led to the development of the submitted product, as well as about the product itself, reviewers receive additional information on which to base decisions: project process evaluation: to evaluate the project process as to whether it meets the standard criteria for high quality, community-engaged scholarship requires the faculty member whose work/dossier is under review to provide a thick description of the goals, preparation, and methodological rigor, as well as the significance and presentation/dissemination of their engaged scholarship. project product evaluation: to evaluate products as to whether they meet standard criteria for high quality, community-engaged scholarship, a reviewer may examine the product as well as review the candidate’s narrative. in some cases, evidence of the methodological rigor of the product will be embedded within a faculty member’s narrative. for example, in the case of videos, curricula, or policy briefs, choices about the aims, design, approaches used are not likely to be described within the product itself, and therefore, evidence of rigor must be explained/provided in the faculty members’ narrative that describes this work. 30 hotspot #4: the three bucket problem. the “three bucket problem,” or how to disaggregate academic work roles that are increasingly experienced by faculty as integrated activities was expressed by some faculty as a frustration and a barrier to the accurate representation of faculty productivity, regardless of whether the work was community-engaged; others felt that the traditional divisions should be maintained. while faculty appeared to reach agreement that faculty roles are often and positively integrated, the format for submitting one’s dossier for review requires that faculty candidates make distinctions among the three traditional categories that may not be truly accurate in portraying the full scope and quality of faculty activity and productivity. community-engaged scholars, among others, may be disadvantaged in reporting and uploading documents into the online documentation system as it appears to force them to disentangle and differentiate integrative academic work which may be intentionally and/or necessarily integrated. questions about the relative importance (“weight”) of teaching, research/creative activity, and service as indicated by hiring, promotion, and tenure decisions were also raised in four of the seven dialogues. faculty discussed the changing identity of uncg and efforts to increase the amount of research, and particularly external funding. according to faculty, successful candidates for hire to a tenure track position, as well as promotion and/or tenure, must have not only an active and successful record of research/creative activity, but also of external funding. the importance of being an active and successful researcher and grant writer appeared to overshadow faculty members’ perceived ability to hire or reward faculty members whose scholarly portfolios do not meet that particular standard. a faculty member shared with his/her colleagues: “we’re a teaching university with a research identity and ph.d. programs throughout that give us labels of a ph.d. institution. it’s challenging. have to be both identities at 100 percent. there’s no way to do either teaching or research half way. research is important because of pubs, but the teaching is the work that is required.” another faculty member shared, “now in my department we make it explicit in hiring new faculty that we expect them to be an active seeker/attainer of external funds.” across the participants, there are differing views on the relative importance of attention to research/creative activity and teaching quality, in particular. at the same time, each dialogue ended with the majority of participants indicating a greater understanding of community-engaged scholarship as an integrative form of both teaching and research/creative activity. faculty self-perceptions about abilities and preparation. overall, our discussions aligned with a faculty survey about community engagement that was administered at each of the sessions. the survey was intended to provide a quick “temperature check” to identify general perceptions about communityengaged scholarship. our findings based on a 76 percent response rate showed that those who attended icee-sponsored events in 2012-13 felt most able/prepared to define service-learning and communityengaged scholarship, but felt relatively less able/prepared to design, document, evaluate, or mentor various aspects of community-engaged scholarship. the dialogues were instrumental to our ability to interpret these findings, and to establish some pathways for increasing faculty members’ capacity to do, support, and evaluate community-engaged scholarship. conclusion this article provides a richly descriptive narrative of one metropolitan university’s efforts to create deep and sustained cultural change that is embedded and codified in promotion and tenure policies. this is a journey that is increasingly shared with other institutions as they prepare for a future that is very different from the past, in many critically important ways. in the face of decreased public and financial support for public higher education, increased accountability requirements for performance outcomes, fewer student enrollments, and rapid turnover of faculty and staff, how does an institution make itself distinctive so that it becomes the first choice of the students, faculty, and staff that it wants to attract? how do we intentionally prepare for the culture shift that will emerge as the baby boomer “bubble” moves through 31 the academy and is replaced new generations of faculty? these individuals hold very different ideas of what scholarship is, what it means, how it is expressed, and how it should be evaluated. situated within the realities of these changing academic demographics, characteristics, and norms, prioritizing the alignment of promotion and tenure policies and practices in ways that support new and emerging forms of high quality scholarship is especially critical. change is coming, how are our policies and practices prepared to leverage this opportunity in strategically advantageous ways? as uncg faculty and staff began writing its recertification application in fall 2014, two years after the dialogues, uncg celebrated the alignment of all 54 departments, and all unit guidelines to the universitywide documents. several faculty members have continued to be tenured and promoted each year who practice community-engaged scholarship. and, formal conversations have led to the implementation of new language in some departments’ non-tenure track faculty performance expectations and reviews. uncg also has its own stories of faculty who were attracted to uncg because of the university’s explicit support for community engagement in promotion tenure policies, as well as within the departments’, units’, and institution’s culture and practices more broadly. other examples tell stories of faculty support, and indeed, encouragement for community-engaged scholarship continue as part of the uncg narrative and its institutional identity. for example, faculty who reviewed internal grants for faculty scholarship, on their own volition, have begun to “give more weight” for those who engage students and community partners in their scholarship. the practice and value of community engagement at uncg was expressed throughout the more than 40 listening sessions held by the university’s new provost in 2014 (uncg tomorrow, 2014). finally, results from the spring 2015 coache (the collaborative on academic careers in higher education) survey showed that uncg faculty rated satisfaction with its tenure policies and tenure clarity higher than faculty at selected peer institutions and at most similar sized institutions. these were listed as the institutions highest rated strengths, along with divisional leadership and departmental quality. although one cannot say that these processes and dialogues are the direct cause for the increased support of community-engaged scholarship and satisfaction with promotion and tenure guidelines and clarity, it is plausible to suggest that the years of informed and facilitated dialogue, documentation, and practice have contributed to the positive and supportive outcomes. the experience of uncg’s path towards greater institutional and cultural support for community engagement may be instructive to others that are already on a shared journey, as well as those who are yet to embark upon their own. here we share some suggestions gained through our own lessons learned. faculty and administrative leaders are encouraged to celebrate, as well as reinforce, the steps already taken to operationalize commitment to community-engaged scholarship in promotion and tenure policies and practices. operationalizing community-engagement has an unavoidable learning curve because nontraditional activities and artifacts challenge more familiar ways of documenting and evaluating scholarship. while one’s campus may have further to go on its journey to understand and operationalize community engagement as a scholarly method, progress is to be applauded as a way of creating positive forward momentum. campuses are encouraged to create open space for informed conversations across faculty ranks, departments, and administrative levels to foster shared understanding about the types of scholarly activities and contributions that are valued, encouraged, and rewarded, as well as the best practices for documenting and evaluating the quality, impact, and eminence of community-engaged and other forms of emerging and nontraditional scholarship of all types. dialogues are essential to surface latent questions, concerns, and even fears. without a common and shared understanding among faculty across all ranks and units, faculty tend to act conservatively choosing not to recognize newer forms of scholarship. questions about differentiated workloads and whether other senior colleagues value the communityengaged scholarship of junior faculty members remain hidden, and lead faculty to provide conservative 32 advice to candidates, and to be conservative in their own decisions. left unaddressed, faculty may unconsciously and unwittingly reinforce ideas and decisions that they do not actually hold themselves because of their perceptions of others’ views. additional and sustained rounds of informed dialogues can build further institutional consensus and clarity regarding a way forward. related to the second recommendation, it is important to provide informed opportunities to practice addressing known common and persistent issues prior to evaluating candidate’s applications. as was apparent in the dialogues, the “devil is in the details.” faculty, particularly those serving on promotion and tenure review committees, are encouraged to collect examples of nontraditional faculty work activities and artifacts -both community-engaged and other forms -and to use them for practice and discussion prior to reviewing the actual work of candidates. advances and evolutions in technology, as well as epistemologies and pedagogies, have greatly affected the ways in which scholarship is generated and expressed, as well as the nature and scope of its dissemination and impact. just as qualitative researchers take measures to maximize inter-rater reliability to ensure shared interpretations of data, committee members are encouraged to take measures that ensure fairness and equity when evaluating candidates’ dossiers. at a very practical and technical level, campuses are encouraged to evaluate the effectiveness of the online system for submitting candidates’ materials for promotion and tenure in light of faculty dialogues about the “three bucket problem.” across the dialogues, faculty discussed the challenge of separating teaching, research/creative activities, and service into separate areas, per the instruction of the guidelines and the structure of the online system. separation, it was argued, does not allow for an accurate portrayal of faculty work and, in some cases, prevents department chairs from presenting and faculty from documenting the full scope of their work productivity. the growing body of research on effective documentation of faculty work and the challenges of separating this work into different categories should be fully explored. finally, as preparations are being made for institutions’ desired futures, it is essential to capitalize on all existing assets. this includes the strengths and assets of senior faculty who will continue to hold significant leadership positions amongst the faculty and administration for the next decade. in the midst of the cultural shift, how do we support the engagement of senior faculty? what support might they need if they are to support a future that (like others of any generation) they cannot envision with certainty and which they certainly will not be a part of. inclusion, support, and development among all faculty is important to avoid cultural clashes that can lead to workplace incivility, resulting in wasted resources, not the least of which is time. ultimately, more attention must be paid to the professional development of senior faculty in the art and science of coaching. higher education models of mentoring, wherein senior faculty provide advice to junior faculty on how to “make it,” particularly through the process of reappointment, promotion and tenure, may be outdated and outmoded. new models of academic leadership would benefit from examining more facilitative, asset-based coaching approaches in which senior faculty are not leaders, but guides who practice appreciative inquiry and reflective listening, and who share thoughtful questions in an effort to help more junior faculty to build strategies and confidence to develop their own vision, planning, and prioritization for the future. asset-based dialogue and coaching approaches are skills that can be developed, and should be developed and practiced by all faculty as a way to facilitate difficult conversations in ways that promote positive interpersonal communication (stone, patton & heen, 2000; wilmot & hocker, 2001; reimer et al., 2015). these are democratic skills to be developed and practiced within the university, and which are core skills for community-university partnerships. 33 references battistoni, r. m., gelmon, s. b., saltmarsh, j. a., wergin, j. f., & zlotkowski, edward. 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(2002). motivation for faculty community engagement: learning from exemplars. journal of higher education outreach and engagement 12 (1), 7-29. o’meara, k., sandmann, l., saltmarsh, j., & giles, jr., d. (2011). studying the professional lives and work of faculty involved in community engagement. innovative higher education 36 (2), 83-96. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10755-010-9159-3 reimer, l., schmitz, c., janke, e., askerov, a., & matyók, t. (2015). transformative change. lanham, ma: lexington books. stone, douglas, bruce patton, & sheila heen. (2000). difficult conversations: how to discuss what matters most. new york: penguin. sugar, j., pruitt, k., anstee, j., & harris, s. (2005). academic administrators and faculty retirement in a new era. educational gerontology, 31, 405-418. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03601270590921672 trower, c. (2006). gen x meets theory x: what new scholars want. journal of collective bargaining in the academy 0 (1), 11. retrieved from http://thekeep.eiu.edu/jcba/vol0/iss1/11. vogelgesang, l. j., denson, n., & jayakumar, u. m. (2010). what determines faculty-engaged scholarship? the review of higher education, 33 (4), 437-472. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/rhe.0.0175 uncg tomorrow: unc tomorrow response phase i. (2008). retrieved from https://old.northcarolina.edu/nctomorrow/uncg.pdf. uncg tomorrow: emergent themes from stakeholder vision forums. (2014). retrieved from http://uncgtomorrow.uncg.edu/additionalplanningdocuments/emergent-themes/themes.php wilmot, w., and hocker, j. (2001). interpersonal conflict (sixth ed.) new york: mcgraw hill. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10755-010-9159-3 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03601270590921672 http://thekeep.eiu.edu/jcba/vol0/iss1/11 http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/rhe.0.0175 https://old.northcarolina.edu/nctomorrow/uncg.pdf http://uncgtomorrow.uncg.edu/additionalplanningdocuments/emergent-themes/themes.php 35 author information emily m. janke, ph.d. is the founding director of the institute for community and economic engagement at the university of north carolina at greensboro, and an associate professor in the peace and conflict studies department. her teaching, scholarship, and administrative roles explore and build upon multiple aspects of community and economic engagement, including community-university relationships and partnerships, institutional culture and change strategies, and the role of reciprocity, communication, and tension in collaborative relationships for public good. emily m janke, ph.d. 3710 moore humanities and research administration po box 26170 greensboro, nc 27402-6170 phone: 336-256-2578 email: emjanke@uncg.edu barbara a. holland, ph.d. is a researcher and consultant focusing on organizational change in higher education with a particular interest in the influence of community engaged scholarship on academic culture and institutional success. she is a distinguished professor of community engagement at university of nebraska omaha, senior scholar at indiana university-purdue university indianapolis, and adjunct professor at portland state university. she resides in portland, oregon barbara a. holland phone: 503-638-9424 email: holland.barbaraa@gmail.com kristin d. medlin, mpa served as a graduate assistant and then as the founding manager for partnerships and communications in the institute for community engagement at the university of north carolina at greensboro from 2011-2015. during this time, she helped to establish the protocols, practices, and platforms for collecting comprehensive, university-wide information about community engagement and public service. she is now the assistant director for postsecondary initiatives at treetop commons, and is pursuing a graduate degree in educational research methodology at the university of north carolina at greensboro. kristin d. medlin, mpa treetop commons, llc 3001 charolais drive greensboro, north carolina telephone: 336.907.6921 email: kdmedlin@uncg.edu mailto:emjanke@uncg.edu mailto:holland.barbaraa@gmail.com tel:336.907.6921 mailto:kdmedlin@uncg.edu copyright © 2016 metropolitan universities vol. 27 no. 3 (autumn 2016), doi: 10.18060/21384 exploring engaged spaces in community-university partnership ceri davies, nick gant, juliet millican, david wolff, bethan prosser, stuart laing, and angie hart abstract the community university partnership programme (cupp) has been operating at the university of brighton for the past 10 years. this article explores the different types of space we think need to exist to support a variety of partnership and engaged work. we therefore explore our understandings of shared or ‘engaged’ spaces as a physical, virtual and relational phenomenon in this context. keywords: placemaking; public engagement; participation; knowledge exchange; introduction the community university partnership programme (cupp) has been operating at the university of brighton since 2003. during this time, we have developed a mature understanding of the place and purpose of partnerships between staff, students and local, national and international communities. we support such partnerships to combine resources that make a tangible difference to the effectiveness of the community sectors, the quality of university education and research and the lives of local people. these are underpinned by our values of knowledge exchange, reciprocity and mutual benefit. for example, we have:  developed student projects whereby students work for part of their curriculum time with community organisations, reflecting on their experiences and values in end of year assessments;  supported academics to form long term partnerships with local groups who can benefit from their research and offer a practitioner and community perspective on areas of shared concern;  supported other universities throughout the uk and in other parts of the world to develop strategies for working within their own local communities, matching their local resources to key local priorities. we have continually contended with issues of space over this time and considerations of physical space have been important. questions of accessibility (can people find one of our different campus buildings, spread over five different localities?), familiarity (should we meet with partners inside our campus buildings or in spaces they ‘own’?), and practicality (how do university timescales and budget differ from community resources?), have all been significant. 7 however, the range and scale of our activities has also taught us that there are some pitfalls in being distracted by these questions alone. we think different types of space need to exist to support a variety of partnership and engaged work, physical yes, but also virtual and relational. in this article we expand on our thinking on this topic by using examples of the work for which cupp is responsible. we introduce the main functions of our team the helpdesk, community knowledge exchange and student community engagement and highlight the spaces and spatial considerations we associate with each of them. we also introduce findings from a piece of research cupp conducted in 2013 that looked ahead to the future of community-university partnerships. one of the main findings of this research was the need to imagine and create new kinds of space that could support changing collaborative practices between those involved. on the basis of these empirical examples, this article takes on the challenge of thinking about collaborative spaces of the future. we draw on theories of placemaking, public engagement and power and highlight how our collaborations with designers and design thinking can support us to imagine these spaces of the future. we conclude by considering what we have learnt so far about our mixture of experiences and look also to the future, to try to develop some principles of engaged space that can reflect different characteristics and pay attention to how the spatial practices they contain can support our community-university partnership ambitions into the future. throughout this article we interchangeably use the language of public engagement, social and/or community engagement but do not suggest these mean the same thing. we are aware of different nuances behind the terms, but it is beyond the scope of this article to explore them fully. (a more complete explanation of this in the uk context can be found in wolff et al, 2012 and nccpe n.d). cupp at the university of brighton cupp at the university of brighton was initially set up as an externally funded project, to explore what an engaged university might look like in a uk context. early encouragement from our deputy vice chancellor and chair of our original steering group was ‘define in the doing’ rather than spending too much time on definition in advance. this led us to explore, through a series of pilot projects, different ways of working, around the core principles of reciprocity and mutual benefit and ‘defining in the doing’ became a title for one of our later publications (cupp, 2013). learning from the work of other universities in the us and some early projects in the uk the project started by consulting with local voluntary organisations and community groups and forming a steering committee from local stakeholders. three years later and after responding to more than 500 local enquiries, the project was taken into core funding by the university, with community engagement written into the university’s mission statement and strategic plan. the resulting programme operates across the whole of the university, taking into account the different campus locations and working with academics from every discipline, through its three main functions. these are: 8  the community helpdesk as a single point of entry or access for external enquires, staffed by a development manager who can then broker requests and connect them to relevant personnel or other strands of cupp’s work;  community knowledge exchange (cke) which provides support to new partnerships in the early stages, bringing together different types of knowledge on an equal basis and overseeing the development of longer term communities of practice;  student community engagement (sce) which introduces experiential learning into the curriculum providing students with a practice based opportunity while making a contribution to a local organisation. helpdesk. the helpdesk was part of the original vision of cupp and was established within a year of the programme’s inception. it is a service, an access point and resource offered to those interested in developing community-university partnerships, and it is also a role, undertaking engagement activities and managing supporting processes and development (hart et al, 2009). as a simple function, it is an entry point for external enquiries from local community/voluntary, statutory and social enterprise organisations who wish to access the resources of the university – whether that be knowledge/expertise, research, funding, staff, students or facilities. however, the variety of enquirers, enquiries, myriad pathways and possible collaborations render its spatial dimensions complex, cutting across the physical, virtual and relational. universities increasingly have these entry points but the helpdesk is a particular model and approach to entering into engaged spaces. its closest equivalents include university of technology sydney shopfront (australia) and york university knowledge mobilisation service (canada). the helpdesk has developed from its early stages as research helpdesk, through to its current format as a community helpdesk offering ‘exchange, collaboration & partnership with staff & students’ (cupp, 2015). throughout, its operational approach has been driven by cupp’s values: it is responsive to local community need, strives to be accessible to all, guided by community engagement principles and aims for mutual benefit and exchange. this value-led approach influences the engaged spaces the helpdesk occupies, creates and is associated with. it has a pivotal role in cupp as the initial broker into engaged spaces and connects enquirers to the other strands of sce and cke. starting with often tentative and messy ides, the helpdesk allows for an exploratory space that can be envisaged as a journey that encompasses multiple spatial aspects. the role of the ‘third space professional’ described by whitchurch (2008) is useful here in illustrating the role played by the helpdesk manager in brokering or mediating projects, supporting and managing the challenges and intricacies of these movements through the physical, virtual and relational. it is this ‘third space’ that cupp often find itself occupying. community knowledge exchange. community knowledge exchange (cke) activities bring together the knowledge of local communities, voluntary organisations, practitioners and university academics to share their different understandings and perspectives on issues of common interest. we do this by focusing on developing and supporting partnership projects and communities of practice (wenger, 2000) between staff, students, and local communities. working together in this way means contributions can be made to meeting local community needs and bringing real issues into teaching and research. the principles behind community knowledge exchange include: 9  the equal status of different types of knowledge;  working together to identify and meet community needs in a sustainable way;  addressing inequalities and disadvantage;  building enduring relationships between local communities and the university. by encouraging academics, practitioners, and community members to work together our projects aim to share knowledge in ways that enhance the understanding of each partner and make a positive difference to the areas in which we live and work. a sample of some of these projects that demonstrate these aims includes a project that used campus green space to develop raised beds for vegetable growing. these beds were shared between staff, students and local residents in high rise flats with no access to a garden. this made the campus a physical space on which to gather and be productive. we have also supported work that has engaged with policy spaces, such as an action research project with lesbian gay bisexual transgender & queer (lgbtq) people working with public service on better access and provision. and finally, recent work between researchers and practitioners on issues of monitoring & evaluation has developed a growing set of relationships to exchange knowledge on the theory and practice of capturing and using data. student community engagement.student community engagement (sce) is the term we use in cupp to denote engaged spaces within curricula that enable students to work on live projects with community partners (millican and bourner, 2011). referred to in the us as 'service learning' and in some uk institutions as community based learning we feel the notion of service does not fit well with a uk audience, while community based learning has other meanings for community partners. sce for undergraduates generally takes the form of a period of practical work within a community setting carrying out a task designated by a community partner with some form of reflective evaluation submitted for assessment. as such sce extends the spaces for learning outside of the lecture hall or seminar room to a community setting, in which service users and community partners also have a role as teachers. taylor and fransen (2004) describe a shift in educator relationships in which practitioner, student, tutor and community member all become learners, doers and teachers. a key challenge within sce comes from the changing cultural practices, dress codes, language, and norms of behaviour that exist within these different spaces, and the ways in which these can be communicated to students in order for them to respond effectively. different spaces demand different levels of formality and professionalism, will have their own power dynamics and may be perceived differently by different partners. students who are asked to act as mentors to pupils in secondary schools, for example, can find themselves 'feeling' like children as they return to a school environment, while they are perceived as 'grown ups' by the pupils they work with. at post-graduate level where students are more likely to take on live research projects for a community group, misunderstandings can arise over the nature of research. to a community partner a research project could mean a positive evaluation rather than a piece of critical enquiry, and their time frames for completing these are invariably looser than the tight deadlines of the academic calendar. for 'third space professionals', challenges in brokering sce projects include 10 mediating between the different spaces, facilitating a closer understanding of the practices of each partner and managing what are often unrealistic expectations. theorising space in this section we offer a brief overview of how we have thought about ‘spaces’ in our work to date. community-university partnerships are spaces of participation and thus we cannot discuss space as a neutral grid on to which such activity takes place (massey, 1992). rather we have to be alert to what cornwall (2002) reminds us, that spaces for participation are not neutral but are shaped themselves by power relations, and that the concept of power and the concept of space are deeply linked. in this section we briefly highlight four ideas that we have drawn out at different times to reflect on the space in which we do our engagement work dimensions of public engagement. spatial concepts in the community-university engagement literature have not been given a great deal of attention in and of themselves. however, different types of space are implied in the seven ‘dimensions’ of public engagement identified by hart, northmore & gerhardt (2009, 14). the dimensions are:  public access to facilities;  public access to knowledge;  student engagement;  faculty engagement;  widening participation;  encouraging economic regeneration and enterprise in social engagement;  institutional relationship and partnership building. what these suggest are types of activity that relate to different aspects of the functions of a university. these alert us to the possibility that engaged spaces can take different forms. it is beyond the scope of this article to discuss the dimensions in depth, but we include them here as they help us demarcate the aspects of our cupp work within this broad field. as third space professionals we are negotiating and supporting activities in all of these different fields. however, within each of them power relationships are at play, and if knowledge is to be brought together on an equal basis an understanding of how power operates differently in different places is important. john gaventa’s (2005) work on types of participative space is useful in helping to deconstruct this. participative spaces. gaventa is interested in the workings of citizen democracy, the spaces for participation and the inter-relationships of spaces for engagement: “the places and levels where engagement might occur and the forms of power found within and across them” (gaventa, 2005, 9). he acknowledges the importance of space as a concept in the literature on power, policy, and citizen action, as well as its use to denote institutional channels or political discourse and social and political practices, (which he sees as “closed spaces”). he identifies policy spaces (moments and opportunities where citizens and policy makers might come together) as “invited spaces,” and those democratic spaces, (where citizens claim citizenship and take direct action) as “claimed or created spaces.” he sees spaces as “opportunities, moments and channels where 11 citizens can act to potentially affect policies, discourses, decisions and relationships which affect their lives and interests” (gaventa, 2005, 11). gaventa quotes cornwall to illustrate how the concept of space and the concept of power are deeply linked. “space is a social product… it is not simply ‘there’, a neutral container waiting to be filled, but is a dynamic, humanly constructed means of control, and hence of domination, of power” (lefebvre, 1991, 24, in cornwall, 2002). within the notion of space or place boundaries also become significant, determining who might enter and participate effectively within these and the social as well as the actual boundaries that delimit action. gaventa’s “powercube” suggests that within closed, invited and claimed spaces, a kind of invisible power operates. gaventa uses lukes (1974) to explain these as (a) pluralist, where contests are assumed to be visible and open; (b) hidden, where the views of certain interests and actors are privileged over others; and (c) invisible, where powerlessness is internalised and certain forms and ideologies are taken for granted. using the model of a rubik’s cube, his powercube becomes three dimensional, with different forms of space cross cut but different forms of power, which each operate within a third, broader spatial dimension that of the local, global or national sphere. gaventa's powercube provides a framework or a tool for analysis in looking at the workings of power and the spaces for engagement and as such is useful in understanding the dynamics of partnership working. like any framework, it is not definitive, the categories it cites can be cut differently and the interrelationship between them challenged. its value is in drawing attention to the spaces in which we might meet, the tensions that exist within the relationships we form and the different spheres within which a unit such as cupp might operate. it also reminds us that despite our focus on local partnerships, some of our work takes place on a national or global level. if we are concerned to change the culture of universities to facilitate a more effective response to the local environment, we become drawn into national and global debate and capacity building with other institutions. so it is to these spaces too that we have to pay attention. our ability to influence policy, to change working cultures or to prioritise different forms of knowledge, cannot happen within the locality alone. networks provide virtual spaces to facilitate national and international co-working. we we can choose to operate within them, but these are also subject to different power dynamics. the spaces in which we arrange our meetings, (community or university based, cafeteria or board room, virtual or involving travel) frame the behaviour that may take place there, and the different forms of power, particularly hidden, or internalised notions of power or powerlessness, can have a profound effect on the ability of different partners to participate. a partnership that brings together different forms of knowledge may be able to blur the boundaries between different spaces, bringing academics into claimed or created spaces, opening up formerly closed spaces to community members or co-creating new spaces where power might operate differently. communities of practice. a further way in which the notion of space becomes significant in community-university engagement is through work cupp and colleagues at the university of brighton have done in theorising communities of practice (cops) (see: hart & wolff 2006; hart, ntung et al., 2011; hart davies et al., 2013; davies, hart et al., forthcoming). we understand cops to be “groups of people informally bound together by shared experience and a 12 passion for a joint enterprise” (wenger & snyder, 2000, 139-140). this idea is located in the principle that learning takes place in the context it is applied and that knowledge is a coconstructed social process in cultivating social learning spaces (lave and wenger, 1991). given that our community-university engagement activities happen across different cultural, social, political and knowledge domains, we find cops a useful way to reflect on collaborative activity. it is an idea that is able to absorb more than one type of ‘expertise’ and provides physical and virtual spaces that people can come together. the cop literature draws attention to the different roles individuals might play in such a community at different times, as core or peripheral members as they move in and out of central involvement in the task. it is however the colocation of different practitioners, in physical or virtual space, that enables them to develop a more rounded understanding of an issue of shared concern. we expand further on how we have put cops into practice in the section on ‘exploring spaces’ below, however essentially cops are concerned with the opening up of shared spaces for learning between individuals with different forms of knowledge. the notion of place making, discussed below, brings together different groups in a shared learning process, but conceptually is more concerned with the way in which individuals might transform their physical environment in ways that are meaningful and democratic. placemaking. this now-pervasive term encapsulates broad practices relating to how people and communities transform the environments in which they find themselves, into the places in which they live (schneekloth & shibley, 1995), and is a further useful theoretical perspective on the use of space in community-university partnerships. johnson (2015, 25) discusses “placemaking as community engagement” where “place is produced through social, and socially contested, processes…is involved in the construction of social meaning and identification, and is part of — and constituted by — social and discursive practices” (røe, 2014, 501). she highlights how demarcation, the use and separation of spaces for engagement, can mark them out as symbols of struggle for power and resources. she quotes moore (2013) in stressing how “place – the geographic, cultural, social, and historic context –matters a great deal…when considering how and with whom a university partners in any type of community development activity” (76). the university of brighton has worked with the concept of placemaking to develop mechanisms to encourage people to become active (martin, 2003) in defining and determining the spaces they live in, using affordances offered by localism agendas and planning systems. significant changes in planning legislation (nppf 2000) and continued political devolution initiatives in the uk (dclg 2011) have sought to involve citizens in shaping the places in which they live, but until recently there have been few tools available to help them do this (cornwall, 2008; wates, 2014). there are a number of significant, composite issues facing the resilience and self-sustainability of local communities and the notion of placemaking highlights the importance of linking and connecting the different initiatives taking place in a particular area (franklin & marsden, 2015). the intention of these new policy initiatives is to introduce local residents to these issues and encourage them to engage with them in ways that are both locally and globally meaningful (manzini, 2009). http://eu.wiley.com/wileycda/section/id-302479.html?query=lynda+h.+schneekloth http://eu.wiley.com/wileycda/section/id-302479.html?query=robert+g.+shibley 13 community21, http://community21.org/ is a set of digital and non-digital tools for imagining physical space developed at the university of brighton using the work of academics, students and the public and community sector. as such it is a real university/community initiative and one example of placemaking in practice. it was built using a constructive design research approach (koskinen, zimmerman et al 2011) that situates objects, interfaces and spaces at the forefront of the processes of design research. working collaboratively on design (stappers & saunders, 2008; yong park, 2012) with community partners and stakeholders it provided an opportunity to cocreate tools for neighborhood planning. using a loosely based communities of practice approach enabled a range of stakeholders to become involved in designing tools and methods and in identifying their own research questions and priorities. the community21 digital platform is a virtual space which supports communities to engage with their role ‘as the architects and planners of their neighborhoods under localism’ (gant & gittins 2010). core cupp principles of co-design and co-production enabled the access of locally authenticated knowledge as well as visions and data relating to self-defined concerns. the tools that have been developed can now be made available for use by other activists and stakeholders while the data gathered has been significant in engaging the community (walters et al., 2011) and supporting self-organisation and networked action (sawhney, de klerk & malhotra, 2015). although community21 began as a set of digital tools, useable in a virtual space, this has since evolved into an additional physical, placemaker space which we explore in the case study examples below. gaventa’s powercube, wenger’s notion of communities of practice and these more recent theories of placemaking provide three different ways in which to think about spaces within community-university engagement and the ways in which we work within them. while upholding values of knowledge exchange, co-creation, reciprocity, and mutual benefit, it is important to recognise how the dynamics of power impact on bringing these into being. as third space professionals we often describe ourselves as “boundary spanners” (wenger, 2000) able to straddle the boundaries of both community and university spaces. however in doing so our work does not stop there. it is also important to ensure that those we are working with are also able to operate on an equal basis within the different spaces in which we choose to meet, are able to understand the significance of closed, invited or claimed spaces, and the dynamics of hidden or invisible power in the relationships we develop together. the following section looks at how our understanding of the importance of power, places and spaces plays out in three examples of our work. exploring spaces the cupp helpdesk. the helpdesk service deals with around 350 enquiries a year and processes have been developed to meet the volume, diversity and complexity of this need. a snapshot of 2014/15 shows that the majority of enquiries come from community/voluntary/charity sector/ (44 percent), but a significant amount are also from social enterprises (17 percent) and statutory bodies (10 percent). as a catch-all community helpdesk, enquiries also come from businesses (9 percent), individuals (13 percent) and internally from academics and staff seeking support around community engagement (7 percent). in terms of operational processes, an enquiry pathway shows how the helpdesk manager will take an enquiry through triage, signposting, investigating, brokerage and early partnership development. this could suggest that the http://community21.org/ 14 helpdesk’s spatial practice follows a linear and binary conception, whereby a request is responded to by bringing two separate entities into a relationship a contained solution-focused space (laing, 2015) . this may occur for simple one-off requests that require signposting or a tangible time-bound conclusion, however the range, diversity and changing nature of enquiries can also move us into multi-dimensional communities of practice that have very different spatial dimensions (ibid). a good example of this is an enquiry that came from three closely connected mental health peer support groups who wanted to find an academic who would partner on a funding bid that could help them gain an evidence base for their specific model and practice and ultimately gain future funding. this cut across disciplines of social sciences and health, as well as into an existing social mentoring research network and therefore led to a series of large meetings attended by peer support practitioners and academics interested in mental health/wellbeing, social mentoring, peer support and organisational models. here three separate enquiries that could each have resulted in single, binary relationships were brought together in one broader community of practice with the potential for a range of different relationships and future research projects. this example enquiry helps to illustrate the role of the ‘third space professional’ and the exploratory space opened up and held by the helpdesk. ideas for partnership, especially when related to research and knowledge exchange, can be messy, tentative and require interpreting and shaping in relation to the university’s offer and resources available. although, the service aims to be needs-led, interpretation and shaping by the helpdesk manager is required and expectations and misperceptions have to be managed. the helpdesk gives community partners the opportunity and position to ask. however the task is to also get them to think about what they can offer in a mutually beneficial partnership. this all has implications for the power dynamics at play in these brokered spaces. an academic interested in helping an enquirer also has to be supported to think through how this connects and can be embedded into their research and teaching. these are complex process for all to manage and can pose challenges around power, equity and influence as well as practical questions over the available time and resources to be invested. thus in the above example, the need expressed for evidence to secure funding has not yet been directly met and it has been difficult to identify funding that could satisfy both the community and academic outcomes desired. within this context, the third space professional attempts to facilitate co-exploration and exchange in ways that can be physical (creating accessible meeting places, sharing useful material resources), virtual (translation of jargon, avoiding miscommunication, starting to structure ideas as well as use of digital communications e.g. skype meetings) and relational (holding the space and relationships to keep the dialogue going, acting as a go-between). some of this spatial practice can include “taken for granted” tasks that stem from cupp’s values and community engagement principles and can range from as small as making cups of tea to not assuming any prior knowledge, valuing everyone’s contribution and asking facilitative questions in meetings. this spatial practice aims at creating next steps and actions that can sustain the engaged space further into the form of a sustainable community-university partnership. the engaged space that the helpdesk holds open reveals interesting spatial issues around time, action and the relational phenomenon of space. as touched on, a helpdesk enquiry may open up 15 an engaged space for a specific time-bound purpose. this could be for an event such as academic or student involvement in a one-off conference or the use of a university room/facility to host a community event. issues over access to university facilities and resources are a good example of how the exploratory nature of the helpdesk can open up and shape new spaces for engagement. the university’s room policy has been shaped in response to the requests that come through therefore in this way, the helpdesk allows for a question to be asked: can this space be used? can this part of the university become engaged? one enquirer asked could a social enterprise arm of a local youth charity that employs young apprentices take on painting and decorating contracts in the university; therefore this opened up the area of procurement as a potential engaged space. or it may be that an initial enquiry changes and transforms over time into a wholly new proposition for collaboration. the spatial aspects of the engaged space created through the enquiry therefore change over this continuum over time. with the latter, the helpdesk usually holds this relationship with the community partner as different forms of engagement (student/staff volunteering, sce, research, cke) and different areas of the university (schools/disciplines, support services) are explored. cupp has developed good ongoing relationships with the local sector and the majority of enquiries come from existing contacts. these relational spaces are developed and sustained in part through engagement activities undertaken by the helpdesk development role. these activities include physical presence at community events and celebratory showcase events that bring community and university partners together to better understand what is possible and trigger future possibilities. on our doorsteps, a seed fund within the strand of our work that focuses on community knowledge exchange, we have since 2010 been running a small seed fund, which supports the early stages of partnership working between academics and community organisations. the fund was originally known as on our doorsteps but was renamed the cupp seed fund in 2015. the programme is based on three main ideas: being a good neighbour; realising the mutual benefit achievable through communityuniversity partnerships; and focusing on activities within the immediate localities of university of brighton campus buildings. bids are invited annually from partnerships of university staff and community organisations for a sum of £5000 to fund projects which could meet these aims. the bids are considered against six criteria: the equality of the partnership; the degree of locality; the identification of genuine community need; the realisation of mutual benefit; the likelihood of a longer term partnership being established; and the volunteer opportunities involved. we are currently conducting a study of the 19 projects funded in the years 2010-12 which includes consideration of the significance of the physical locations of the projects and the related issues of the diverse roles of the participants one of the key defining features of this particular community engagement programme is already implied in its original title, “on our doorsteps.” more particularly a core aim of the programme is to focus on activities very close to the university campuses. this aim needs a little contextualising. the significance of this is not (as it might at first seem) so much an attempt to overcome any issues of the university of brighton being an ivory tower or a separate “castle in a swamp” (watson, 2007) as it is a reflection of the (now relatively unusual in the uk) mixed multi-campus nature of this particular university. brighton has five campuses spread across three separate coastal urban areas. the campuses are each very differently placed with regard to their physically adjacent communities. in the city of brighton and hove there are: a city centre grand 16 parade campus – opposite the royal pavilion and at the heart of the city’s cultural quarter; the moulsecoomb campus set in a mixed residential and light industrial area; and the falmer greenfield campus on the edge of the city, but close to some of its least affluent areas. in eastbourne the university buildings are situated in a ribbon cluster among some of the wealthiest residential parts of the town, while in hastings a new campus is being developed in the very heart of the centre of a town undergoing regeneration. brighton then is a university very much physically intertwined with a range of diverse residential and commercial communities. on every campus practical issues of getting on with the neighbours on big issues and small ones are therefore the stuff of daily life. the university has very high permeability. the seed funding programme was developed for a university with that particular characteristic. in practice the potential restriction of the requirement to work in close physical proximity to the university campuses has proved no inhibitor to enabling a wide range of types and subject matter of projects. this may, however, be a different matter if the university was on a single campus or less immediately adjacent to such a considerable diversity of residential and commercial districts. given the emphasis of the programme on physical proximity to the university campuses and the patterns of housing in the three coastal towns it is also not surprising that in about a third of the projects evaluated, university members involved were also local residents of the streets and districts which were the focus of the projects. this further blurred the distinctions as to what we might otherwise think of in terms of a binary partnership of two separate entities. many seed fund projects are concerned with physical proximity and represent permeability between different constituents. we also include here an example of a project which perhaps creates a “third space,” between academics, practitioners and community members his is the resilience forum, which had been running on one of our campuses since 2010 and became established in hastings through a seed funded project in 2014 and is also now run with youngminds, a national charity at their london headquarters. resilience in this context is the idea that people facing adversity can overcome it, whilst also potentially subtly altering, or even dramatically transforming, (aspects of) that adversity. jointly run by the university of brighton and a local community interest company boingboing (see http://www.boingboing.org.uk), resilience forums are communities of practice (cops) that are open to anybody with an interest in resilience research and practice. forums are free to attend and topics for discussion to date have included child protection, sociological critiques of resilience, hope, inequalities, reoffending, collective resilience and building resilience in practice. the forum is beginning to experiment with online participation and have had people skyping in. and after each session, forum materials are uploaded on the boingboing website (www.boingboing.org.uk) so that participants who couldn’t be there in person (either in the room or online) can access some of the learning. sometimes the forums are filmed and then the entire film is uploaded on the boingboing website. twitter feeds, facebook posts and blogs on the boingboing website distribute the learning in these other spaces. davies, hart et al. (forthcoming) give further consideration to how communities of practice are a useful approach to community-university activity. they note how cop theory offers some ideas and a language for trying things out in spaces where people are coming from lots of different backgrounds and experiences. in particular, how knowledge can be co-constructed, questioning http://www.boingboing.org.uk/ http://www.boingboing.org.uk/ 17 assumptions about what is legitimate knowledge and making us aware of the participative dynamics of the cop space. in the forum in hastings, the university in partnership with boingboing has been a key convener of people and services interested in the idea of resilience, which has included for example, academics, young people, youth offending teams and parent carers. the forums provide a space where different types of people are encouraged to exchange ideas and develop dialogue. on a pragmatic note, the university provision of physical space is a key factor here. resources and availability in the wider sector are often constrained. cops also often include individuals who can span different “worlds”, who are known as boundary spanners (see wenger 2000). they are those people who can broker and translate across different practice settings. we have previously identified the important role that these boundary spanners have in cop work (hart & wolff 2006; hart et al. 2013). in a more relational sense, this boundary spanning can also help to challenge notions of who has expertise as it is not always coming from the professional in the room. this is in contrast to other experiences those same individuals may have outside of the cop space. davies, hart et al (forthcoming) highlight that often, parent-carers and young people themselves may also hold expert views on what it means to work with the resilience concept in particular, which they may or may not realize they hold. as we introduced in the section on theorising space, this for us is an example that gives weight to the view that projects of this kind may be more usefully viewed as constituting a multidimensional community of practice. this not only brings together individuals and groups with different interests and skills but which also enables individuals to bring together their own separate roles and identities into a new unity. imagining the future and the place maker space initiative in 2013, to mark cupp’s 10 year anniversary, we initiated a small research project (10 down 10 to go) into the characteristics of the future of community university partnership working. this involved interviews with community partners and community engagement managers and practitioners, a half day symposium with focus groups for students, managers and academics and a literature review that took in a range of future scenario building exercises. the intention was to construct a vision of what community university engagement might look like for a university or community partner on a day in 2023. this could then be used to assess where we have got to, and what else we need to do to take things forward. certainly, that vision included an increased use of technology, and a blurring of boundaries between community and university as practitioners played different roles. still, four out of the five groups we consulted highlighted the importance of physical spaces inside and outside the university to promote exchange. this emphasised the need for flexible spaces that could offer accessible learning “like a public library” or a community café that could be owned by communities and university practitioners alike. people spoke about the need for “secure spaces,” “regular days for our neighbours where the university is opened up to the people in our community,” a “regular festival/conference focused on social justice and which moves between our site towns/cities, developed by an array of community people” (wolff et al., 2013, 10). 18 this did not come as a huge surprise. as this article has already illustrated, space has always been a key consideration for cupp, with constant debate about whether activity should take place inside or outside the institution, should take in claimed or invited spaces, or be a first opportunity to encourage people into our existing campuses (hopefully breaking down barriers for the future). however this study confirmed that space, both physical and “how it feels”, is likely to remain a crucial factor in successful community university partnerships and needs very careful consideration. since then, there have been a number of moves to create such a flexible, co-designed space in the different locations within which the university operates. among these is the community21 place-maker-space initiative—a physical room, in a central city location, specifically intended to generate collaborative debate and creative interaction between universities, the public and private sector and communities (farrell review, 2014). while the specification of such a space is still evolving, it will be used by university academics, students, graduate groups, planning officials, private companies and community members. along with community21’s practice based researchers, two new graduate enterprises who are working directly with communities to envision and design specific local environments using different digital tools and gaming software and local planners have already booked a range of consultation activities from this space. as a physical extension of the community 21 digital website it also forms part of a broader “makerspace” movement which offer communal craft and technology workshops which help form social bonds and develop new skills within communities through acts of making (hatch, 2014; halse et al., 2010). our work on the community21 digital platform demonstrated the role making can have in engaging different groups and communities (gant & duggan, 2013) through the fabrication of tools, objects and products. the place-maker-space provides the physical space and relevant software to enable groups to come together to develop collective visions for places making community and neighbourhood planning a more democratic process (dclg 2015). as such the university plays a significant role in engaging local communities and helping them to engage with and shape their locality in a way that is both creative and informed. (see making futures, 2015). examples of the methods we have used include:  the production of augmented reality techno-town-tapestries where “hard-to-reach” or disenfranchised groups can use animation apps to “characterise” problems or ideas in anonymous ways and communicate them back to the community through a publically accessible, intelligent interface;  minecraft (a popular computer game) which engages young people in the co-production of highly interactive, ‘gamified’ and realistic virtual simulations of their lived or imagined spaces that can be shared locally or globally (reckien & eisenack, 2010);  ageing apps and role play apps that visually illustrate someone’s own ageing process to elicit empathy in disconnected community members and enable the making of new maps and plans for greater cohesion. the community21 initiative with its digital and physical spaces provides an opportunity to codefine the challenges and concerns for research and practice with different urban and rural communities. from a university perspective, this process is invaluable in helping to ensure the continued relevance of our teaching and research in subjects such as design, planning, urbanism, 19 social science, geography etc. moreover it is also helping to redefine these subject areas away from static notions of disciplinary distinction, into inter-disciplinary and cross-disciplinary engaged activity that involves stakeholders, transcends boundaries and is responsive to changing contexts. through co-production and co-defined spaces we are able to make meaningful and useful applied place-based interventions, connecting communities (sawhney et al., 2015) for sustainability and resilience (manzini, 2015; horlings, 2015; frankin & marsden, 2015). together they illustrate how virtual and physical spaces both play a role in meaningful engagement. conclusion in more than 10 years of cupp’s work, we have learned to pay attention to the importance of space, virtual, physical and digital. we also ascribe importance to the relational: the way that power operates within different spaces and to the role we play as “third space professionals” or boundary spanners in creating tools and spaces in which collaboration can take place and mediating relationships within them. while we dispute the notion of a binary division between community and university, and recognise that students and academics are also community members, delivering and using community services, we acknowledge that culture and norms operate differently in community and university environments, and each has its jargon and ways of working. the nature and location of these spaces may vary, depending on the proximity of the campus to the city and the needs of the local area. however our research has indicated that spaces for engagement, both physical and virtual, are important; we need permeable boundaries though which different forms of knowledge might be exchanged (wolff et al., 2013). we argue that key characteristics for such space centre on three main considerations. these are location, participation and the digital. the first of these relates to whether activity should happen inside or outside of the university. bringing community members onto campus might be ideal for one event, whilst taking researchers into the community might be a preference for another, while we are looking to develop new permeable spaces no single location is ideal and a variety of spaces may be required to promote participation of variable location and size. in addition to this, each location has symbolic meaning and power implications that need to be acknowledged. a lecture theatre, for example, suggests the primacy of the expert and the relative passivity of the participants and would inhibit any attempt at collaboration or co-design. a university building is an invited space and its relative formality can inhibit the equal involvement of certain participants. with respect to participation, different engagement techniques are required. the place maker space for example, is specifically equipped with a range of hands on tools and software to maximize different learning styles. designers working across disciplines can help in the creative design of tools for engagement. this also leads us to emphasise the value of co-production in engaged spaces and this this aspiration is often a useful ‘test’ for accessible such spaces are to those who are normally excluded from the conversation. finally, our experiences point to the usefulness and importance of virtual spaces such as social networks, group conferencing, or interactive on line working spaces. we find this diversity offers 20 invaluable spaces for distance and international working. but the availability of individuals across time zones, connective reliability and people’s familiarity with technology all impact on a sense of power and agency. in our experience virtual spaces work best when blended with real meetings in physical spaces in which personal relationships have been allowed to build. by looking more deeply into theories of power and the interaction between space and power, into learning and the development of learning through communities of practice and into placemaking and the tools and processes that enable communities to influence the spaces they live in, we are able to appreciate the complexities of partnership working. this has enhanced our understanding of the spaces in which we work and made us mindful of the need to open up the more formal environments a university traditionally offers if partnership working is to thrive. we feel a key feature of our future work will be to develop new flexible spaces within which communities of practice can meet and learn together, in a way that combines the different forms of knowledge that reside in practitioner, academic and local communities. while the advancement and continued use of technology will provide us with more virtual tools and environments within which to collaborate we continue to think that new forms of physical space will also be important. references cupp (2013). defining in the doing. retrieved from https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-planning-policy-framework--2. cornwall, a. 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(2012). design process excludes users: the co-creation activities between user and designer. digital creativity, 23(1), 79-92. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14626268.2012.658814. author information ceri davies leads cupp’s programme of community knowledge exchange and manages a seed fund which supports academics and community partners to work together. she has recently submitted her phd which looked at the intersection of knowledge, power and participation in community-university collaborations. ceri has a background in the community & voluntary sector and currently chairs the board of an infrastructure organisation focused on community and voluntary action. ceri davies community university partnership programme university of brighton 108 mayfield house village way falmer bn1 9ph e-mail: c.davies@brighton.ac.uk telephone: +44 (0)1273 643004 nick gant is assistant head of school for research and social engagement at the university of brighton, school of art design and media. he is an award winning designer and published academic and as the cofounder of community21(.org) he works with fellow academic researchers, public sector organizations and diverse communities to collaboratively design tools for community engagement, resilience and sustainability. nick gant college of arts & humanities university of brighton grand parade brighton bn2 0jy e-mail: n.a.gant@brighton.ac.uk telephone: +44 (0) 1273 600900 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/14626268.2012.658814 mailto:c.davies@brighton.ac.uk mailto:n.a.gant@brighton.ac.uk 25 angie hart is professor of child, family and community health at the university of brighton and the academic director of its community university partnership programme. together with students, practitioners and community members, angie has published widely on community engagement and resilience based approaches to supporting children and families. she co-founded boingboing a not for profit organisation which supports resilience based practice (www.boingboing.org.uk). her resilience research profile is underpinned by professional and personal experience. angie hart school of health sciences university of brighton falmer brighton bn1 9ph e-mail: a.hart@brighton.ac.uk telephone: +44 (0)1273 644051 juliet millican is deputy director of the community university partnership programme. her research interests include student community engagement and the role of universities in conflict and peacebuilding. juliet millican c/o ceri davies community university partnership programme university of brighton 108 mayfield house village way falmer bn1 9ph e-mail: c.davies@brighton.ac.uk telephone: +44 (0)1273 643004 david wolff is director of the community university partnership programme. prior to this david worked in the community and voluntary sector in the fields of homelessness, advice and information services, project management and in the use of it. he has occupied roles as a service delivery worker, manager, director, researcher, teacher and consultant. david wolff c/o ceri davies community university partnership programme university of brighton 108 mayfield house village way falmer mailto:a.hart@brighton.ac.uk mailto:c.davies@brighton.ac.uk 26 bn1 9ph e-mail: c.davies@brighton.ac.uk telephone: +44 (0)1273 643004 bethan prosser is the community helpdesk manager at cupp and is the first point of contact for those outside the university wanting to access its resources. with a background in the community voluntary sector, bethan works closely with local community enquirers to broker partnerships around research, teaching and learning and the student experience. bethan prosser c/o ceri davies community university partnership programme university of brighton 108 mayfield house village way falmer bn1 9ph e-mail: c.davies@brighton.ac.uk telephone: +44 (0)1273 643004 stuart laing is currently emeritus professor of cultural studies at the university of brighton. he previously served for over 20 years as pro-vice chancellor and deputy vice-chancellor at brighton and, prior to that, as dean of the school of cultural and community studies at the university of sussex. stuart laing c/o ceri davies community university partnership programme university of brighton 108 mayfield house village way falmer bn1 9ph e-mail: c.davies@brighton.ac.uk telephone: +44 (0)1273 643004 mailto:c.davies@brighton.ac.uk mailto:c.davies@brighton.ac.uk mailto:c.davies@brighton.ac.uk 11 sustaining change: successes, challenges, and lessons learned from twenty years of empowering students through community-based learning capstones seanna m. kerrigan abstract more than four thousand students engage in the community-based learning capstone program every year by enrolling in one of 240 senior-level courses that culminate their undergraduate education. in this article, the author shares the context and history of the program, its foundational principles and processes, and the nuts-andbolts details of the ongoing operation of the largest community-based learning capstone program in the united states. each year scores of institutions of higher education contact the capstone office at portland state university (psu) to inquire about our nationally-recognized capstone program. each entity wants to know how portland state has implemented, sustained, funded, and assessed the largest community-based capstone program in the nation for two decades. the intent of this article is 1) to answer the most frequently asked questions about our model, with the hope of sharing some of our evolving best practices and 2) to continue a national dialogue on student community engagement and the value of culminating community-based learning experiences for undergraduate students. what is a capstone at portland state university? at psu, a capstone course is a required six-credit, culminating, general education course situated within university studies, psu’s general education program. each of these community-based learning courses typically takes place in an intensive one-quarter seminar-style format led by faculty drawn from various ranks within the university and from the community as adjunct faculty members. the capstone actively engages interdisciplinary teams of students with a community partner, where they collaborate within the community to address pressing societal issues and develop a final product that serves the community partner. every capstone is required to address the four university studies learning goals: communication, critical thinking, the appreciation of the diversity of the human experience, and social and ethical responsibility. one example of a psu capstone course is grant writing for environmental advocacy. in this course, sixteen students work in a collaborative learning environment with one 12 faculty member (who teaches the course in-load) and one community partner (such as the northwest outdoor science school, which engages school-age youth in activities to promote environmental awareness and literacy and participate in community problem-solving). students in this course experience lectures, discussions, and handson activities to learn the skills and strategies of grant writing, as well as relevant information about the importance of science education, environmental awareness, k-12 funding pressures, and equity issues in our schools. students research viable grant opportunities and write a real grant for their community partner. this type of partnership models genuine mutuality and reciprocity, as students learn about realworld issues, develop marketable professional skills, and critically analyze educational equity issues, while the community partner benefits directly in receiving a portfolio of targeted grant proposals for immediate use with a variety of funding sources. while the vast majority of capstone students at psu engage in richly interdisciplinary capstone courses, about 15 percent of our students participate in our largest capstone course, which is specific to the school of business administration. students with majors in finance, accounting, marketing, human resources, and real estate create business or marketing plans for an entrepreneur, company (frequently minority-run and/or small start-ups), or nonprofit that could otherwise not afford to hire professional consultants. in this capstone, students learn and apply essential business strategies content as well as deepen their understanding of complex community issues. community partners have been thoroughly impressed by the quality of work that the students complete in this course and confirm that they would not have been able to afford to access this expertise for their organizations otherwise. a growing number of our capstones work with incarcerated persons, partnering with a gardening program at a women’s correctional facility, writing programs for incarcerated youth, and an inside-out course that brings fifteen psu students together with fifteen incarcerated men inside the walls of a minimum-security men’s prison. in these settings, all participants interrogate and make meaning around “justice,” the possibility of change, and interlocking systems of oppression, and they imagine new ways of understanding their lives in the context of the prison industrial complex and the incarcerated persons who become invisible there. participants—whether they are capstone students coming in from the outside or persons incarcerated on the inside— engage deeply with course readings, discussions, and activities, as they deconstruct challenging issues of race, class, ability, and gender and how these factors impact the administration of justice in the united states. currently psu is fostering the creation of new capstone courses in which the students themselves develop the partnership and the project addressed within the capstone. in these courses, the goal is not to arrive at an independent study composed of one faculty member and one student, but rather a richly interdisciplinary course with sixteen engaged students all pursuing their own passions in the community and coming together in class sessions to investigate what it means to be an agent of change through the lenses of their individual partnerships. in addition to the individual projects that students engage in with their own community partners, they also collaboratively 13 decide on a collective project that they work on as a whole class community. selected highlights from this type of class are addressed later in this issue in the article “contagious co-motion: student voices on being change agents.” scale portland state engages over 4,300 students in about 240 capstone courses annually (http://capstone.unst.pdx.edu), with about fifty-five to sixty capstones offered each of the four quarters of the school calendar. the vast majority of capstones are seminarsize, face-to-face classes that connect directly with a community partner (usually located within forty miles of the portland, oregon metro region). we offer a handful of international capstones each year, in which our students travel internationally to engage in a community-based project that is accompanied with academic course work. while powerful learning experiences, we have found international capstones to be fraught with challenges around how to complete a meaningful senior-level project/final product while engaging in truly authentic relationship-building with persons across cultures. about ten capstones per term are offered fully online. about half of our online capstones involve grant writing, because we’ve found that this skill is particularly well-suited to being explored within a ten-week period in a virtual format. in doing so, we discovered how this course could engage students in deep and meaningful ways about social issues (environmental sustainability, youth opportunities, political advocacy) while simultaneously addressing our learning goals and meeting a real community need. online capstones courses are extremely popular for the student body at our urban university, where a substantial number of our students juggle complicated work and life demands. for more information regarding our online courses, see the article “online community-based learning as the practice of freedom: the online capstone experience at portland state university” elsewhere in this journal. history in the 1992-93 academic year, psu’s provost asked a group of faculty to study best practices in college general education programs. this faculty working group studied the work of alexander astin (1992, 1993) on the importance of student and faculty contact, peer-to-peer learning, active learning, and community-based learning. these faculty members studied critiques of higher education and responses to the criticisms, which led to important questions about what psu graduates should know and be capable of doing in the world. faculty also considered the literature on access and retention (gaff 1991). they held the import of this literature against the reality of the politics and budget implications of a distribution model relative to most departments on campus. members of the committee also spoke directly with employers in the private and public sectors to better understand what employers needed from our graduates. employers repeatedly praised the skills that our current graduates had developed in their particular subject areas, but also noted their weakness in functioning in interdisciplinary team contexts where they needed to engage in problem-solving across disciplinary lines (white 1994). 14 ultimately, the faculty working group proposed a four-year general education model that centered on lifelong learning, interdisciplinary teaching and learning, applied learning, and active inquiry. built into the model was a one-year freshman inquiry (frinq) experience with a peer mentoring program integrally woven in, in which courses of thirty-six students would break into mentored twelve-person discussion groups. the model continued with a sophomore year of inquiry (the sinq), which offered a wide range of courses across “clusters” of knowledge domains, followed by a junior year of deeper inquiry in one knowledge cluster. the final requirement of the model is the interdisciplinary capstone course described above. the unique aspects of the psu capstone (interdisciplinary, collaborative, applied, community-based) all made sense both in the context of the four-year curriculum in which it is situated and with the “urban university” that was clearly psu’s mission. judith ramaley, psu’s president at the time, saw the urban research university as a “distinctive institutional type…characterized by the nature and extent of its responsiveness to the research and educational needs of complex metropolitan regions” (ramaley 1996, 139). she envisioned a collaboration among faculty, students, and community partners in ways that would “provide a vehicle for the university to respond more effectively to societal demands” (ramaley 1996, 140). in addition to her framing of the urban research university, ramaley also left a legacy in the transformation of psus general education program with her advocacy of a learning organization culture (ramaley and holland 2005, 75). she championed “intentional change as a scholarly act” (ramaley and holland 2005, 75) and outlined five key strategies psu employed in the transformation: an accurate “framing of the question...taking the time to assess the current situation...approaching the challenge from a scholarly perspective, and learning from experience” (ramaley and holland 2005, 78). finally, ramaley practiced the values that she espoused and taught those around her “to accept and embrace the risk of not knowing how things will turn out” (ramaley and holland 2005, 84). in the fall term of 1993, the psu faculty senate voted 37 to 9 to implement this newly imagined general education program, dubbed university studies. in the fall term of 1994, the first freshman inquiry courses were offered and team-taught by psu faculty (university studies 1998). how did psu create such a comprehensive capstone program at this large scale? by fall term 1995, a director of the capstone program had been hired to recruit the faculty and build the community partnerships necessary to launch these senior-level courses. during the 1995-96 academic year, psu received a $250,000 donor gift for faculty and curriculum development, the majority of which was allocated to fund a process by which departments proposed large, long-term partnerships to house capstone courses. for example, faculty from psu’s college of urban planning and affairs proposed a partnership with the city of portland’s bureau of environmental services, which has been hosting capstones addressing water stewardship ever since. (see the article “connecting curriculum to community research: professional services, research, and teaching” elsewhere in this issue for details on this long15 running partnership.) engineering, which had previously engaged students in hands-on projects that were not connected to the community, proposed partnerships with trimet (a tri-county local public transportation provider). other schools and departments proposed partnerships with local k-12, social service, and organizations in town, and the building of community relationships flourished. this proposal process created significant buy-in from faculty and departments. here was a process by which faculty and departments were determining exactly what a capstone at our institution would entail. the faculty decided whom the university should partner with in the community, and how. there were no top-down mandates from the administration, except that the definitional requirements of the capstone (i.e., that courses must involve interdisciplinary teams of students engaging with the university studies goals while addressing a community issue and completing a product of benefit to a community partner) had to be met by every capstone course. the flexibility left ample space for creativity, curiosity, imagination, and academic freedom regarding what could be built. geologists imagined capstones focused on the wondrous rocks of the columbia river gorge and the public education programs that encouraged community members to explore them. historians developed courses that gave students access to original source materials from the founding of nonprofits a century earlier in order to create public history presentations and installations. many faculty were eager to propose courses that allowed students to delve deeply in applied learning settings in which they utilized their academic expertise, others were motivated by commitments to social justice, and many were inspired by a multitude of passions that could find particular fruition in capstone courses. the capstone program came to scale with the speed and strength that it did precisely because of the investment of faculty who had been empowered to contribute their experience and their passions to guide the development of the capstone curriculum and the partnerships which fuel capstone courses. by winter 1996, a capstone review committee was formed to vet the courses that faculty proposed. the proposal asked faculty to report on the strength of the partnership, the course learning outcomes and learning activities, and the strategies the faculty member would use to engage students around the general education goals (communication, critical thinking, the appreciation of the diversity of the human experience, and social and ethical responsibility). by spring 1996, five courses had been proposed, approved, and implemented, with students taking the courses as electives (since none of the first-year students who entered the newly-approved university studies in 1994-95 were yet in need of a senior-level requirement.) finally, in the 1996-97 academic year, twenty-five courses were officially launched and rigorously studied. program assessment psu’s faculty development center, then called the center for academic excellence (cae), provided leadership and expertise to implement and assess these capstones for the first six years of the program. a case study model was developed to conduct 16 in-depth interviews with faculty and students, focus groups of students and community partners, and classroom and community observations. all of the data were collected, analyzed, published, and used for continuous improvement, as well as for the creation of an assessment model for community-based learning (driscoll et al. 1996). there were many lessons learned from these early assessments. program administrators gleaned insights about faculty development, the benefits and challenges of community-university partnerships, and indicators and impacts of community-based learning on students. the most profound realization related to student learning was the recognition that simply immersing students in multicultural settings in and of itself did not automatically enhance students’ “appreciation of the diversity of the human experience.” interviews with students indicated that the community engagement certainly had the potential to enhance their appreciation for diversity, as many of them reported new insights and a feeling of “border crossing” when they entered new communities that they had not interacted with before. many of the learning opportunities were indeed framed as positive and mutual, and many students could detail the relationships they had built and how they had both learned from and contributed to the growth of others. unfortunately, there were also findings that showed that students often had their negative stereotypes reinforced and didn’t build their capacities for identifying, navigating, and transforming their fears of persons that they perceived to be different from themselves or of neighborhoods where they lacked comfort into a source of learning and growth. the impact of these data was powerful on the early administrators of the program, and it led to strong advocacy for the capstone program to hire an intercultural specialist who would work with faculty and students to unpack issues connected to racism, to reflect on cultural assumptions, to make meaning of intercultural dialogue throughout the capstone, and to provide skills to interrupt oppression in the classroom and in the community. this proved to be a huge learning moment for those involved in capstone and became the central work of most of the individuals involved in capstones for the next two decades. twenty years later, the program still dedicates funds to buy out the time of experienced faculty members to work specifically with faculty and students on diversity and cultural issues. over the years, this work has expanded from mainly focusing on race to include ability, class, sexual orientation, and gender identification and expression. the capstone program continues to assert that facilitating students’ growth around appreciation of diversity is the most fundamental and important work that we do. that work does not remain in a silo, but rather strengthens the teaching of critical thinking, social and ethical responsibility, and communication. as administrators gained experience in managing and assessing this program and faculty gained expertise in designing and teaching capstone courses and evaluating and improving their efforts, a group of practitioners collaborated to produce learning through serving: a student guidebook for service-learning and civic engagement across academic disciplines and cultural communities, originally published in 2005 and re-issued in a second edition in 2013 (cress, collier, and reitenauer 2013). in this text, the contributors share content, activities, and reflective prompts designed for 17 student participants in a variety of community-based learning experiences developed largely through the “laboratory” of the capstone program, along with other community-based learning courses at the university. additionally, see “cultivating community: faculty support for teaching and learning” in this issue for more details on the capstone program’s twinned assessment and faculty support processes. growth as other institutions have considered replicating the psu senior capstone, one of the greatest concerns that they raise is reaching the scale needed to graduate every student with this complex course involving a community partner and interdisciplinary teams in the community. psu had to move fairly aggressively in order to have sufficient courses for our graduating seniors under our revised general education plan. with twenty-five capstones developed by academic year 1996-97, we had enough viable models of capstone implementation to serve as guides throughout the university. the following year fifty capstones were offered, and the year after that one hundred capstones were available to students. by the 2004-05 academic year, two hundred capstones were offered annually. each large increment of growth included brand new courses and partnerships as well as an expansion in the number of sections of existing courses. community partners and faculty became excited by the possibility that we could offer an existing course more than once throughout the year. within the first five years of the program, it became the norm to develop a partnership with the expectation that psu would continue to work with the partner in predictable cycles throughout the year. capstone courses became increasingly popular in summer term—a “bonus” term at psu not considered part of the regular academic year—as students realized that summer term offered them the flexibility to focus on their capstone and community work while taking fewer credits than at other times during the academic year. summer courses that connected students with learning garden programs, environmental restoration efforts, and environmental studies of soil and water flourished. expansion of summer programs to community members with disabilities also became possible with students’ increased interest in summer capstones. as the program grew in scope and scale, it became feasible to schedule a couple dozen capstones that would simply take place once a year due to community partner and faculty capacity, alongside scores of capstones that recur three to four times per year, some (like grant writing) with multiple sections of students every term. partnership formation within psu’s highly decentralized system for the formation of community-university partnerships, collaborations with the community come together in a variety of ways. there is no one specified office that promotes or manages all of the institution’s community partnerships. instead, partnerships are fostered in dozens of units, such as the child welfare partnership, the psychology department, and the institute for aging. k-12 partnerships are abundant in our school of education and our child and family studies program. the school of social work hosts dozens of community partners that 18 serve as sites for its students required internships, while the college of urban planning and affairs nurtures a wealth of ongoing partnerships. the capstone office serves as a central hub for the development of capstone community partnerships, as well as the proposal process and the implementation and assessment of capstone partnerships and courses. the capstone office first initiated community partnerships by formally partnering with the united way. the united way was eager to serve as a community convener, organizing a series of roundtable discussions during which the capstone director met with eight organizations at a time for several weeks. the purpose of the original gatherings was for the director to communicate the requirements and definitional components of capstones (particularly the structure of these courses, involving interdisciplinary teams of students as opposed to individual interns, and the creation of a final product rather than simply the provision, on the part of psu, of volunteer labor), as well as to get genuine feedback from the community about the concept. overall, the community representatives were thrilled with the possibility of connecting with thousands of students, but also overwhelmed by the potential demands on space and staff time for the supervision of the students. we maintained ongoing dialogue and came up with many creative solutions, especially around the challenge of space. frequently students would do site visits at the agencies but performed the actual tasks of their project on campus. organizations’ concerns regarding staff time to support student engagement remains an ongoing challenge. ultimately, it does require an investment of staff time to guide students, so capstone courses partner with organizations that find the partnership mutual and beneficial to both the university and the agency. most agencies discover that engaging students expands their capacity to reach their mission and that an investment of time on their part is required to achieve this end. (see the articles “enacting true partnerships within community-based learning: faculty and community partners reflect on the challenges of engagement” and “putting impact first: community-university partnerships to advance authentic neighborhood sustainability” herein for more on the partnership experience.) the biggest surprise to most of our original partners was the depth of work that students could provide. instead of using students as typical volunteers who perhaps would answer phones or prepare an agency mailing, our students were engaged in oral history projects and events, the development of marketing plans, grant writing, and similar rigorous projects. each year scores of community organizations and individual community members continue to call the capstone office with an idea for a capstone course. all of these suggestions are documented and saved electronically. only a faculty member may formally propose a capstone course to the capstone review committee, so a central function of the capstone director is to serve as a liaison between the communityidentified ideas and faculty members. for example, the capstone office receives multiple calls each year from organizations wishing to partner around some type of marketing project. these potential community partners are connected directly with an experienced faculty member who serves as point person for the school of business 19 administration’s capstone. this faculty member then assesses the project and determines if it is more appropriate for a capstone in the school or for a master’s level project. the capstone director works extensively with community partners to help them navigate the complexity of the university and find the best fit for a partnership, even if that takes place outside the context of a capstone. students are also empowered to suggest ideas for community partnerships affiliated with capstones. students frequently come in with their own passions to serve a specific agency, neighborhood, or population. the capstone director explores ways to manifest the ideas that students promote. sometimes there is an easy link between the student’s idea and a faculty member who can formally propose a new capstone course. other times the capstone director links the student with a faculty member who is teaching a similar course to explore expanded opportunities within an existing course. when it is not possible to create or modify a course based on student interest, we explore the possibility of the student registering for a capstone that allows students to pursue their own community partner with other students who are doing the same. the vast majority of the time students are able to engage with the partnership that they are most interested in pursuing. finally, faculty members themselves frequently serve as the initiator of a capstone partnership. many of them come to the capstone office with an idea for a capstone. sometimes they already know exactly whom they would like to partner with in the community and simply need support in the proposal process. at other times faculty know what topic they want to teach, and the capstone director helps to locate an organization that will likely benefit from the idea. the psu capstone: nuts and bolts given the frequency with which faculty and administrators from other colleges and universities request information about the nuts-and-bolts operation of the capstone at psu, we offer the following as a reflection of our scaffolded programmatic structures and processes. proposal process the process by which faculty propose a capstone is intentionally rigorous, as it is the foundation for the high-quality teaching and learning that are the hallmark of these complex courses. the course proposal process has evolved into the first faculty development tool that we employ. in order for any faculty to teach a capstone course, the course must be approved by a faculty review committee. this review ensures that the course is intellectually sound, logistically viable, and pedagogically commendable, as well as that the course addresses a real community need and has been designed to facilitate learning around the university studies goals (communication, critical thinking, appreciation of the diversity of the human experience, and social and ethical responsibility). the proposal has two sections: the first addresses various aspects of the capstone, including the learning outcomes and the partnership, and the second explicitly asks how the faculty member will structure the course to address the 20 university studies goals. the questions contained in the proposal process are identified in the table below: table 1: capstone proposal form section i: general questions 1. title and description of the capstone. 2. description of the community issue and/or need that will be addressed by this course. 3. a list of the main learning outcomes for psu students. please explicitly show the connection between the appropriate university studies goals and each of your course learning outcomes. 4. a list of citations for the main course texts and readings that will be assigned. (include detailed publication information, including publication dates, publishers, journal volume numbers, page numbers, etc.). 5. description of the final product (i.e., presentations, websites, videos, brochures, reports, etc.) to be created by capstone students to address the community need. 6. a list of six academic majors that will benefit from this course and a phrase describing what these majors will contribute to the course content and the final product. 7. description of the relevant aspects of your academic expertise and professional background as they relate to the proposed capstone and development of the final product. 8. description of the steps you have taken to develop the community partnership. 9. if this is an online or hybrid course, provide a description of the steps you have taken to teach a course in this format. have you taught an online or hybrid course in the past? what training have you received in this area? how will you utilize an online format to deliver the course content, build group cohesion, and facilitate reflection on the service experience and the university studies goals? section two: university studies goals below you will find a description of each university studies goal. under each goal, identify how this proposed capstone will promote student engagement with this goal. •  inquiry and critical thinking: students will learn various modes of inquiry through interdisciplinary curricula—problem-posing, investigating, conceptualizing—in order to become active, self-motivated, and empowered learners. typical critical thinking objectives include awareness of connections among specialized areas of knowledge, integration of a variety of meanings or disciplinary perspectives in relation to a community issue or problem, reflection on prior experience in relation to new ideas and information, critical examination of the ways individuals perceive and respond to particular situations, and so on. provide a specific description of how critical thinking will be facilitated through the course project and learning activities: 21 •  communication: students will enhance their capacity to communicate in various ways (writing, graphics, numeracy, and other visual and oral means), to collaborate effectively with others in group work, and to be competent in appropriate communication technologies. capstone classes will provide opportunities for students to grow in their ability to communicate in at least one of these forms. capstone projects will provide an example useful for evaluating students’ communication abilities. provide a specific description of how communication skills will be developed through the course project and learning activities: •  appreciation of the diversity of the human experience: students will enhance their appreciation for and understanding of the rich complexity of the human experience through the study of differences in ethnic and cultural perspectives, class, race, gender, sexual orientation, and ability. this goal has to do with understanding and valuing the role of diverse realities in human experience. this understanding and valuing is thought to be enhanced when people examine wider ethnic and cultural perspectives within the united states, as well as throughout the world. provide a specific description of how the appreciation of the diversity of the human experience will be enhanced through the course project and learning activities: •  social and ethical responsibility: students will expand their understanding of the impact and value of individuals and their choices on society, both intellectually and socially, through group projects and collaboration in learning. considerations around social and ethical responsibility include creating livable communities, examining ethical and organizational challenges of the present era, and exploring the role of diversity in achieving social well-being. provide a specific description of how social and ethical responsibility will be catalyzed through the course project and learning activities: each proposal is reviewed by the five faculty members who compose the capstone review committee. committee members have all taught ten or more capstone courses and have rich expertise in pedagogy, course design, and facilitating diversity education. membership on the committee rotates every few years, so a variety of academic disciplines is always represented. each member of the committee votes on every proposal and makes one of three recommendations: acceptance, acceptance with minor revisions, or deferral. the chair of the capstone committee works extensively with the proposing faculty member to support their progress through the proposal process, and this support continues with courses that require minor revisions or that have been deferred for more significant redevelopment. assessment for continuous improvement the proposal process is one of the most significant elements of the success of the senior capstone at psu. it allows a high degree of flexibility in terms of the topics addressed, the faculty expertise involved, and the community partnerships engaged with, while also creating substantial quality control and alignment in the degree of reflection and other meaning-making pedagogical practices taking place in these courses. in our conversations with leaders from other institutions that have culminating academic experiences, we are often asked how we manage to keep this number of 22 courses from drifting away from the primary learning goals and intent of the capstone. the proposal process serves as that anchor and provides solid footing to then advance our assessment and faculty support efforts. a course is approved for six years. after that time, a faculty member may be asked to re-propose the course to make sure that it hasn’t significantly changed from its original proposal. throughout that six-year period, the course is consistently assessed, as well. after the proposal has been approved, faculty draft syllabi and consult one-on-one with the faculty support coordinator for capstones. having completed a successful proposal, faculty are already well on their way to creating effective syllabi, with clear learning outcomes, a defined community partnership, an explicit final product, and an articulation of how this course will cap a student’s general education at psu. now the faculty member is ready to teach the capstone. for each new capstone, the next step in both the assessment and the faculty development processes is a qualitative mid-quarter feedback session, which typically takes place in week three or four of the ten-week quarter. the mid-quarter assessment employed by psu is based on the small group instructional feedback technique suggested by angelo and cross (1993) and black (1998). this assessment is conducted in every new capstone course and in 20 percent of all continuing capstones. this process allows us to provide student feedback to faculty in a formative way and in a timely manner, so that faculty can actually make changes during the term to improve the course in ways that respond directly to students’ insights, and plan improvements for future offerings of the course. (for more description of the mid-term feedback process, see the article “cultivating community: faculty support for teaching and learning.”) over the years this process has been highly successful. it allows faculty to receive real-time feedback on their teaching, get an accurate pulse of where the students are in the course, and learn the concerns of the students in ways that protect students’ anonymity. the process also empowers students as active agents in their education to give constructive feedback and provides a safe place to state their fears or insecurities as learners in community with each other and with the greater community they are serving through their efforts. while the primary purpose of the feedback session is for individual course improvement, the data are also shared with the capstone director and analyzed in the aggregate to uncover the successes of the program and to document overarching challenges. this process also serves as a real-time mechanism to ensure that every capstone is indeed addressing the university studies goals and hasn’t drifted away from the intent of the capstone. typically, the data show that what is most commonly reported as helping our students in the classroom and preparing them for their community work is excellent facilitation of discussion related to the course content surrounding a real community issue, powerful guest speakers, provocative films and media addressing the community issue from new and multiple perspectives, role playing, and the engagement of the community partner in the course. 23 the most common changes suggested by students are the inclusion of greater clarity around structural elements of the course, more explicit examples of the final product, and more information earlier in the course about what is expected of the deliverable at the end of the term. during the mid-term feedback process we discover that many students are anxious at this point in the term, given that the capstone differs so fundamentally from any other course they have taken. by the mid-point of the term, students have begun to take in the dynamic and relational nature of the course; deeper learning and skill development begins. here is an experience in which their grade is not dependent on a mid-term and a final, but rather the quality of a product that will serve a genuine community need and the soundness of their participation that has contributed to the development of that product. students hunger to see prior examples of outstanding work produced by their peers. psu has presented about this assessment process at numerous national gatherings and received the council for higher education accreditation (chea) national assessment award for institution-wide assessment. what surprises most assessment experts about our processes is the level of trust that we have developed with our faculty at psu. frequently, when others in higher education hear of our mid-term feedback process, they remark that “our faculty would never allow that!” what we find at psu is that if the program administrators have built genuine relationships with the faculty and include faculty fully in our assessment processes, then data can easily be gathered in all courses and used for continuous improvement. the data collected in the mid-term review are completely available for faculty to use in their promotion and tenure packets, but it is never required to appear in the portfolio. experience at psu shows that the most important element of a strong assessment plan is trust among the faculty that administrators will use the data with integrity and not as a means of enforcing highstakes judgments or initiating processes to level punitive repercussions against faculty. in the last week of the quarter, an end-of-term course evaluation gathers data from students about their experiences in the course. students are asked to state their level of agreement on eighteen items, ranging from how strongly they felt that the community work helped them understand the course content to how well the course addressed issues of diversity. the evaluation form explores how strongly the students believe that the capstone benefited the community and the level of responsibility they felt to meet the needs of the community partner. the assessment asks students to report on how the course enhanced their ability to work on a team, to communicate effectively, and to problem-solve. faculty support and assessment personnel regularly compare the data from the mid-term feedback sessions and the end-of-term course evaluations to create a comprehensive view of the evolving dynamics of student engagement and learning throughout the ten-week term. finally, over the last ten years, portland state has explored a number processes by which to assess students’ written work in various forms. our purpose was to better apprehend student learning outcomes through direct assessment of student work products. for example, more than 80 percent of students report enhancing their communication skills in their capstone, but we didn’t know how and in what ways 24 they had enhanced these skills. the primary focus our first few years was on the final products delivered to the community partner. researchers tried to find evidence in the student work of individual student learning regarding communication, critical thinking, appreciation of diversity, and social and ethical responsibility, but the task proved to be too complex, primarily because most of the products had been produced by groups, with no way to isolate individual student contributions. next we tried using a common reflective assignment distributed in 25 percent of all capstones, believing that we could assess student learning along one of our goals each year, thus developing a complete set of data around our goals every four years. this approach was abandoned after a year or two because it was clear that the common reflective writing assignment was too generic to reflect the context and depth of genuine course-based assignments, which were situated within the real partnership and project that students had been engaging in all term. finally, we decided five years ago to have 25 percent of all capstones participate in a work sample assessment, whereby the faculty member generates an authentic assignment for their course that best addresses one of general education learning goals. (all of the courses address the same learning goal during any given year.) the faculty then collect student responses for that assignment, along with signed informed consent forms. faculty also submit the syllabus for the course and any contextual information regarding the course to best contextualize the course for reviewers of the work. originally, the analysis of these capstone course portfolios was conducted by a small team of faculty and assessment staff. the outcome of this assessment strategy was sound, and the results of our assessment finally approached the nuance and complexity required to understand student learning relative to four core goals across literally dozens of distinct courses that, while sharing core definitional and structural features, differ dramatically in the kinds of work produced by students. two years ago, in response to a desire on the part of faculty who had submitted portfolios for greater feedback on that work, an adaptation to this process was piloted. starting in june 2014, the faculty contributing materials to the assessment process become the reviewers of their colleagues’ portfolios in a fully collegial and reciprocal process. now, faculty contributors meet together before they finalize their assignments for the course. in these pre-assessment meetings, faculty share with each other about their courses and their partnerships, and they learn about the assessment process itself. following the collection of course materials, faculty come together in a full-day assessment session, in which they contextualize the materials they have submitted in small groups, participate in a group orientation, review the portfolios of their colleagues from their small group, and offer each other formative feedback about that material. faculty submit qualitative comments to their colleagues and a mixed quantitative/qualitative response directly to the program. this latter document indicates the degree to which the faculty member found the course to be reflective of the goal under review. 25 in this way, we have fully married a faculty support process to an assessment process (kerrigan and jhaj 2007), and the results have been galvanizing. an analysis of faculty evaluations of the assessment process itself reveals that faculty found their time reviewing each other’s work and the giving and receiving of feedback on portfolios to be deeply valuable and meaningful, with all participants affirming that the process felt both supportive of their work as capstone instructors and inspiring through the fresh ideas and approaches that their colleagues’ sharing provided. all of the qualitative feedback submitted by faculty confirmed that participants found that the process was helpful to them as practitioners, that it inspired them to spend more time relating to their colleagues for the purposes of both mutual support and inspiration for course improvement, and that many desired to see the process expanded both to include more colleagues and to extend this process into the future, so that they might continue to see and to reflect collectively on the ongoing course improvement that issues from processes such as these. (to view annual assessment reports developed as a result of the practices listed above, please see http://www.pdx.edu/unst/capstone-assessmentand-research.) one of the unexpected findings from the assessment of capstone courses in our first five years was how effective professionals from the community were at teaching capstones. students clearly articulated that the faculty outside the academy helped them bridge the theoretical knowledge in the classroom to real issues in the community, managed group projects and group dynamics skillfully, brought pressing social concerns in the community into the center of the classroom discussions, made the learning relevant in these culminating courses, and had scores of personal and professional linkages in the community that helped students network for the future (including contacts that led to informational interviews and job offers). as psu celebrates its twenty-year capstone anniversary, we recognize the contributions of all faculty, including the large number of non-tenure-track faculty, who have contributed to the student experience and our institutional community engagement efforts. within university studies in general and the capstone program in particular, a rich diversity of faculty from a variety of institutional and extrainstitutional standpoints are fully welcomed to contribute in programand curriculumbuilding ways and, in fact, have been a source of much of the success of the program throughout its existence. we have experienced it to be a positive change at our institution to have senior-level courses taught by faculty who are well positioned to prepare students for a wide variety of activities taken on by successful graduates (such as continuing community activism, community problem-solving, employment, and graduate school), regardless of faculty rank. for the capstone program at psu, it has been ideal to welcome a healthy mix of community practitioners actively engaged in this culminating educational course. while institutional mechanisms for rewarding these efforts through the promotion and tenure process continue to lag, our program and the committed faculty who actively build it every day find ways to encourage and support each other with meaning, care, and mutual respect. 26 funding, infrastructure, and staffing the task of funding this scale of community-based capstone courses is daunting to most visitors who study our program. due to the multiple-year phase-in of the university studies general education program following its approval by the faculty senate, we had time to plan and prepare for the costs. the good news—and the bad news—is that the capstone program is not only self-supporting but is actually a revenue generator for the university. for every dollar the capstone program generates from student tuition, it only spends approximately 90 cents (even factoring in the cost of space, energy usage, and institutional infrastructure); these surplus funds are absorbed by the university to cover more costly programs. the capstone is among the most costeffective programs at psu, as determined by finance and administration calculations. the good news is that this means there is little fiscal rationale to eliminate this highimpact practice. the challenge is effectively advocating for more of the faculty to gain employment over half-time in order to earn benefits. in many ways this staffing structure is a win-win, as professionals with full-time positions in the community (such as the education director of an environmental education program, the director of a community health program, and the director of community development program) can share their expertise in the university, engage their passion for teaching, give students real-world experience that it would be nearly impossible to replicate without their involvement, and keep overall cost for the institution low due to the absence of benefits provided in their compensation. in some cases, though, we find it ethically questionable to refuse to provide benefits to other faculty of practice who do not have full-time employment outside of the university. in general, the capstone program is run with very little overhead. our small infrastructure consists of a capstone program director, minimal clerical support to list the courses and answer basic student questions, and release time for faculty support specialists. we have found over the life of the program that committed resources for faculty support are essential. many faculty of all ranks state that they have received more support through the capstone program than from any other place at the university. for many, it has been the first time they have been genuinely invited to be part of a faculty learning community in which they have the opportunity to talk about their teaching, receive real assessment data that they experience to be useful to their teaching, and get consultation to support the development of their own best pedagogical practices. the capstone program provides course releases for three seasoned faculty members, and their cumulative release time is equivalent to about 1.2 fte of a non-tenure-track position. the necessity of faculty support to ensure highquality teaching and learning in these community-based learning courses cannot be overstated, as “cultivating community: faculty support for teaching and learning” in this journal illustrates. legal and liability issues one of the first tasks that the capstone director needed to address in 1995 was the issue of risk management. the capstone office and the oregon attorney general’s 27 office worked extensively to think through the issues involved and develop a plan to manage foreseeable risks. the issue of risk management is too complex to address in detail in this article, but a few of the lessons we learned were that handbooks for students, faculty, and community partners are a helpful means to name and address risks; a community partner agreement form is a useful tool to articulate the terms of a partnership and the plan going forward, in order to prevent challenges before a partnership begins; and group insurance coverage can be secured for students as one option to limit a university’s risk. psu provides a capstone handbook to every capstone student, faculty member, and community partner. the handbook defines a capstone and its goals and identifies best practices of service learning (such as the importance of high-quality orientation to the community, reciprocity, reflection, service, diversity, and feedback). tips are also provided to enhance healthy group processes and students’ capacity for navigating difference. the handbook reviews the roles of faculty, students, and community partners. basic legal concepts are addressed, as are suggestions for working effectively with a community partner. all participants are reminded of the student code of conduct and consequences of violations to that code. the faculty and community partner handbooks address issues pertinent to each of these roles, in turn. the capstone office promotes the use of a community partner agreement form for every capstone course. the purpose of the form is to clarify a multitude of elements of the partnership, such as who will orient the students to the community-based learning project at hand, who is supervising the students on site, and who will provide direct feedback to the students on their performance. it also addresses issues of authorship and rights to ownership of work products. finally, for more than a decade, portland state charged students $17 for group liability insurance in case any student did harm in the community and was sued. due to changes in the oregon university system, legal counsel determined that students no longer needed to purchase this insurance and that the risk could be managed without the insurance. all decisions for managing risk and liability at an institution of psu’s scale (and at our scale of community engagement) are handled by university legal counsel and risk management specialists. challenges over the last two decades, the rewards of implementing the senior capstone have far outweighed the difficulties, but in order to empower other institutions to implement meaningful culminating experiences, naming the challenges is essential. at psu there are four primary challenges that we grapple with continually, almost entirely related to budget: effectively advocating for funding in an era of performance-based budgeting, which includes the challenge of maintaining seminar-sized capstones; effectively advocating for hiring faculty of practice above .49 fte (so that they are benefitseligible); implementing and assessing online capstones to meet the demand for online degrees; and effectively funding an alumni engagement program. 28 despite its incredible efficiency, the capstone program is frequently threatened with budget cuts. the primary threat is to our seminar-style format. in the 1994 planning documents for capstones approved by the psu faculty senate, capstones were described as seminars with ten students per section. today most of our capstones are asked to enroll sixteen students per course. as real concerns mount regarding the cost of higher education and student debt, raising class size is one strategy frequently employed to cut costs. successfully advocating for the relational learning facilitated by these seminar-style classes is becoming increasingly difficult within the capstone program. the second challenge is advocating in lean budget times for an increase in the hiring of faculty of practice above .49 fte. university studies is not funded at a level whereby more of our faculty teaching capstones can apply for benefits-eligible positions. capstone administrators are perplexed that one of the most recognized capstone programs in the nation cannot secure the funds to pay the faculty teaching these transformational courses a livable wage with benefits. the capstone office will continue to work with new and veteran administrators at psu to explore the possibility of hiring existing adjunct faculty into more stable full-time non-tenure-track positions. the third challenge is effectively assessing online capstones to see if they are capable of creating similar transformational learning outcomes experienced by our face-to-face courses, and, if not, learning how to improve the design or, alternatively, how to engage online students in some type of hybrid capstone that still meets their needs for flexibility. psu is fortunate to have faculty deeply committed to effective online community-based education. these issues are more thoroughly discussed in the article “online community-based learning as the practice of freedom: the online capstone experience at portland state university” later in this issue. the final struggle is the aspirational challenge to fund an alumni engagement program that will facilitate the continued active participation of our graduates in the community post-graduation. psu is perfectly positioned to launch an alumni engagement program that could serve as a national model for post-graduation activism, as discussed in “beyond the university: an initiative for creating community-wide civic agency.” lessons learned after two decades of implementing thousands of capstone courses and engaging tens of thousands of students in the community, we have learned scores of lessons along the way. the top five that i encourage each institution to consider are the following: 1. community-based capstones are fundamentally transformational to students. when done well they change students’ lives and understandings. engage students and listen to their experiences. 2. community partners are the best co-educators that we could ever have imagined. they convey to students powerful knowledge in a context through which the students are most likely to remember the content for a lifetime. 29 3. faculty with experience in practice are tremendous human resources to create transformational learning courses that connect students with the community. seek out relationships with these unique faculty and create structures to promote them and honor their work. 4. faculty support and faculty learning communities are the most effective way to continuously improve the teaching and learning in capstones. these are essential to the implementation of this high-impact practice. 5. relational learning is at the heart of the transformational power of capstones. the most significant learnings that students report are those they experienced in relational ways. small classes that engage in collaborative learning are essential in culminating educational experiences. conclusion as the title of this article suggests, there is a tension involved in “sustaining change”— that is, in creating and maintaining the infrastructure to run a community-based learning program of this scope, founded on the very principles of change-making (within an institution of higher education, in the communities in which that institution is situated, and within the field of higher education itself), while remaining flexible enough to allow the program to adapt to the evolving needs of its constituents. the twentieth anniversary of psu’s capstone has afforded us an invaluable opportunity to look back at our founding, revisit our principles and processes, and recognize our debt to the literally countless numbers of students, community partners, faculty, staff, and administrators whose efforts have continuously constituted this program over the past two decades. sustaining change is a living process and an ongoing work in progress, and the remaining articles in this issue will offer additional views of the current state of that work at psu. more information about the portland state senior capstone program can be found online: •   general capstone website: http://capstone.unst.pdx.edu/ •   capstone course proposal, with an example: http://capstone.unst.pdx.edu/resources/ file/capstone-proposal-document •   faculty support resources: http://capstone.unst.pdx.edu/resources •   assessment reports: http://www.pdx.edu/unst/university-studies-assessment-reports references angelo, thomas a., and k. patricia cross. 1993. classroom assessment techniques: a handbook for college teachers. san francisco: jossey bass. astin, alexander w. 1993. what matters in college: four critical years revisited. san francisco: jossey-bass. astin, alexander, w. 1992. “what really matters in general education: provocative findings from a study of student outcomes.” perspectives 22 (1): 23-46. 30 black, beverly. 1998. “using the sgid method for a variety of purposes.” in to improve the academy, edited by matthew kaplan, 245-262. stillwater, ok: new forums press and the professional and organizational development network in higher education. cress, christine m., peter j. collier, and vicki l. reitenauer, eds. 2013. learning through serving: a student guidebook for service-learning and civic engagement across academic disciplines and cultural communities. sterling, va: stylus. driscoll, amy, barbara holland, sherril gelmon, and seanna kerrigan. 1996. “an assessment model: comprehensive case studies of impact on faculty, student, community, and institution.” michigan journal of community service learning 3 (1): 66-71. gaff, jerry g. 1991. new life for the college curriculum: assessing achievements and furthering progress in the reform of general education. san francisco: jossey-bass. kerrigan, seanna, and sukhwant jhaj. 2007. “assessing general education capstone courses: an in-depth look at a nationally recognized capstone assessment model.” peer review 9 (2): 13-16. ramaley, judith a. 1996. “large-scale institutional change to implement an urban university mission: portland state university.” journal of urban affairs 18 (2): 139-151. ramaley, judith a., and barbara a. holland. 2005. “modeling learning: the role of leaders.” new directions for higher education 2005 (131): 75-86. university studies. 1998. “university studies 1994-1997: a progress report.” portland state university. accessed september 2015. http://www.pdx.edu/sites/www. pdx.edu.unst/files/university%20studies1994-1997progressreport.pdf. white, charles r. 1994. “a model for comprehensive reform in general education: portland state university.” the journal for general education 43 (3): 168-237. 31 author information seanna m. kerrigan brings over two decades of professional higher education experience to her current position as the capstone program director at portland state university. in this role, she works collaboratively with scores of faculty, students, and community-based organizations to create partnerships for over 240 service-learning capstones annually. dr. kerrigan promotes the concept of community-based learning while publishing and presenting widely on issues related to this pedagogy, as well as civic engagement and assessment. she was named a rising scholar by the kellogg forum on higher education for the public good. kerrigan earned her doctorate in education in 2002 from portland state university. seanna m. kerrigan university studies portland state university po box 751 portland, or 97207-0751 e-mail: kerrigs@pdx.edu telephone: 503-725-8392 fax: 503-725-5977 32 copyright © 2016 metropolitan universities vol. 27 no. 2 (summer 2016), 2-5, doi: 10.18060/21122 recognizing engaged scholarship in faculty reward structures: challenges and progress claire c. cavallaro today, on campuses across the nation, there is a recognition that the faculty reward system does not match the full range of academic functions and that professors are often caught between competing obligations. in response, there is a lively and growing discussion about how faculty should, in fact, spend their time. – boyer (1990, p. 1) it has been a quarter century since ernest boyer’s scholarship reconsidered: priorities of the professoriate (1990) challenged higher education institutions to redefine scholarship and better align the faculty reward system with institutional mission. in that seminal report, boyer proposed broadening the definition of scholarship in order to better align faculty reward structures with the teaching and service mission of higher education. he proposed that faculty reward structures should recognize not just research (which he termed the “scholarship of discovery”) and publication, but also the scholarship of integration, application, and teaching. a few years later, he expanded this to include the “the scholarship of engagement,” meaning “connecting the rich resources of the university to our most pressing social, civic, and ethical problems….” (boyer, 1996, p. 21). boyer was not alone in promoting community engagement as a primary function of higher education, and the roots of this movement can be traced back to the 1980s with the founding of the campus compact in 1985 (glass & fitzgerald, 2010). the concept has been endorsed by several higher education organizations, including the american association of state colleges and universities (aascu), the association of public and land grant universities (aplu), and the coalition of urban metropolitan universities (cumu). a modest body of literature has examined various aspects of community-engaged scholarship (e.g., see fitzgerald, burack, & seifer, 2010) and resources have been developed to support institutional change. for example, imagining america was founded in 1999 as a consortium of colleges and universities devoted to creating “democratic spaces to foster and advance publicly engaged scholarship that draws on arts, humanities, and design” (http://imaginingamerica.org/about/our-mission/). in 2008, imagining america published a guide providing concrete advice to assist faculty whose work focused on engaged scholarship in the retention, promotion and tenure (rpt) process (ellison & eatman, 2008). despite widespread consensus regarding the value of community engagement, progress toward aligning faculty reward structures to support community-community-engaged scholarship has been slow, even among institutions that have attained the carnegie voluntary community engagement classification (giles, sandmann, & saltmarsh, 2010, pp. 161-176). the topic is especially timely as the baby-boom generation of faculty retires in increasing numbers, opening opportunities for a new, young generation that views scholarship and the faculty role in academe very differently. this generation is more likely to value new forms of scholarship, including digital and web-based publications, which traditionally have not been valued in retention, tenure and promotion policies. furthermore, women and faculty of color are more likely than others to be to community-engaged scholars, and as institutions seek to diversify the faculty, the need to recognize and reward this type of work has become more urgent. this special issue of metropolitan universities aims to examine institutional approaches to the recognition of community-engaged scholarship in faculty rpt policies and processes. the call for papers requested papers that would describe evidence-based approaches to defining and evaluating the quality of engaged scholarship, as well as analyses of the processes and outcomes associated with adoption and http://imaginingamerica.org/about/our-mission/ 3 implementation of engaged scholarship in rpt policies. we sought to identify: ways that institutions define engaged scholarship and differentiate it from (or integrate it into) the review of teaching, service, and conventional forms of scholarship; how engaged scholarship is presented and evaluated, including the extent to which it results in “traditional” outputs and who is defined as “peers” in peer review; challenges encountered and strategies that have been successful in achieving institutional change; and the outcomes and consequences, in terms of impact on institutional performance, academic culture, or impacts on faculty, students, and communities. the papers that comprise this volume provide a snapshot of policies, practices, and strategies for achieving change across a range of institutions. in the first three papers, we see efforts focused at a different organizational levels and institutional types: college (within a large comprehensive university), university (within a doctoral granting, research-intensive university), and the system (within a large state university system). in each of these cases, authors address both the need to change and align policies, and the need for culture change to support implementation. few higher education institutions have well-articulated personnel policies that would enable or support the recognition of community-engaged scholarship in the tenure and promotion process. changing personnel policies—as well as institutional culture—can be a challenging process that requires multiple years of sustained effort. kirtman, bowers, and hoffman describe a change-process that was initiated by faculty in a college of education at a large comprehensive university, california state university, fullerton (csuf), where i serve as dean. the case provides an example of how faculty can successfully initiate and drive an effort to change policies and institutional culture. consultation and negotiation, particularly with senior faculty who valued traditional forms of scholarly productivity, was a critical element, as was the collaboration and support from administration. the effort’s alignment with the larger institutional mission and strategic goals related to community engagement and diversifying the faculty were also supportive factors. pelco and howard describe the process of incorporating community engaged scholarship into faculty personnel standards in a research intensive university, virginia commonwealth university, where community engagement was well-established as part of the institutional mission. several champions, including the provost, vice provost for community engagement, and external consultant, were key to the success of this effort, which resulted in the revised rpt standards at the school and university levels. the authors note that a range of supports are needed and that policy revision is “just one step along the road to developing the campus climate that supports faculty for undertaking community engaged teaching scholarship and service.” this article provides illustrations of the kinds of myths surrounding engaged scholarship, and ways that such myths can be addressed within the context of a centralized change process that is aligned with the institution’s mission and strategic plan. policies that support community-engaged scholarship are essential but insufficient alone for institutional change. janke, holland and medlin discuss the change process in the context of a four-year, doctoral granting, research-intensive university with high research activity, university of north carolina at greensboro (uncg). similar to the csuf and vcu cases, the effort to revise personnel standards at ungc was tightly linked to a strategic plan (at the university level, in this case) and it employed both faculty and administrative leadership over a period of years to modify, align and implement policies that support community-engaged scholarship in the faculty personnel process. to address concerns with implementation of new university policy, a week-long dialogue process was launched with participation by faculty at all ranks, deans, and executive leadership of the university. the dialogues resulted in the identification of “hotspots” or issues that needed to be addressed in implementation, including: lack of consensus on the definition and value of community-engaged scholarship; honoring the spectrum of scholarship (traditional/nontraditional); stewarding the rigor of community-engaged scholarship; and the “three-bucket problem” of how to disaggregate academic work that is increasingly integrated into three 4 traditional categories of teaching, scholarship and service. this paper illustrates the need to create a space for dialogue among faculty at all ranks and administration, and identifies a range of concrete recommendations for addressing each of the “hotspots.” while the first three papers in this volume describe change initiatives at the college and university levels, saltmarsh and wooding explore strategies for change at the university system level, emphasizing the critical importance of senior leadership in creating and supporting substantive change in reward structures. this case example examines the current policies, challenges and possible solutions for the five campuses in this unionized public university system of the university of massachusetts. to reflect on current reward structures and consider ways to effect cultural change, the system held a one-day seminar that provided an opportunity for campuses to share practices and consider on a range of rewards that could serve as incentives and recognition for community-engaged scholarship. the paper identifies concrete recommendations for the executive leadership at the systems and campus levels to actively and publicly promote community-engaged scholarship by supporting changes in personnel policies, professional development, grants, awards, and other public recognition. notably, even while emphasizing the role and responsibility of senior leadership, saltmarsh and wooding reiterate the importance of collaboration with faculty leadership in both the faculty governance process (i.e., typically an academic senate) and the faculty union. the final papers in this volume include case studies illustrating institutional contexts that can support faculty as engaged scholars in the rpt process. lambert-pennington describes how three faculty members navigated the tenure and promotion process at the university of memphis, where university policy recognizes engaged scholarship, but alignment of department policies is inconsistent, on a continuum from “explicit to minimal to no mention of engaged scholarship.” the paper identifies several themes that were common across the three cases, including alignment of the faculty members’ departmental mission with the values of engaged scholarship; narratives that weave engaged scholarship across the three areas of teaching, scholarship and service; scholarly productivity in a range of traditional and nontraditional formats; and support from department and/or college leadership. lambert-pennington concludes by noting that although “it is possible to be awarded tenure and promotion as an engaged scholar under a range of departmental policies, going up for tenure in a department without clear criteria for evaluating engaged scholarship remains a risky proposition.” boehm and larrivee describe an institutional context where engaged scholarship is not explicitly defined in rpt policies that are specified in the collective bargaining agreement and not open to modification at the department or campus level. however, as described by the authors, at worcester state university, “engaged scholarship is so intrinsic to the mission of wsu and the type of scholars hired by the institution that it is not difficult for the deans to encourage faculty to produce such projects.” rather, the challenge at this comprehensive university lies in mentoring faculty in selecting and presenting their engaged scholarship, as well as in balancing the demands of a four-four (12 unit) teaching load with expectations for scholarly productivity. the paper describes two interdisciplinary projects that provide a rich context for community-engaged scholarship, as well as the benefits to community, students, and faculty, and the deans’ roles in mentoring faculty in using this type of engagement as part of their rpt portfolios. faculty who are committed to working as engaged scholars are likely be more successful in a context where the departmental or program mission is aligned with the values of engaged scholarship. peterson, perry, dostilio, and zambo describe how the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped), a consortium of more than 80 schools and colleges of education that are working to improve the design of the professional practice doctorate in education, promotes this type of context. cped-influenced programs aim to prepare scholarly practitioners who “blend practical wisdom with professional skills and knowledge to name, frame, and solve problems of practice…by collaborating with key stakeholders, 5 including the university, the educational institution, the community, and individuals” (cped, 2010). these programs attract faculty who are committed to community-engaged scholarship, yet institutional expectations for scholarly work in these (doctoral granting) institutions typically emphasize traditional epistemologies and forms of dissemination. the paper includes one faculty member’s description of her own journey as a scholar-practitioner after she accepted a tenure line position and subsequently navigated the tenure and promotion expectations at portland state university, an institution in the process of transforming its expectations to embrace a more inclusive definition of scholarship. the case illustrates the passionate commitment that many new faculty bring to their work as engaged scholars, and their potential as change agents within their own institutions and in the broader landscape of higher education. as a whole, this set of papers illustrates progress that some institutions have made over the past several years to support, recognize, and reward faculty work in community-engaged scholarship. most of the universities described in these papers have modified personnel policies to recognize community-engaged scholarship in the rpt process, and several cases illustrate how individual faculty have been able to navigate the process under varying rpt policies and conditions. several recurring themes appeared in the stories of successful institutional change as well as individual faculty cases: (1) alignment of community-engaged scholarship with the institutional mission and strategic goals; (2) a top-down and bottom-up collaborative approach to institutional change; (3) space and time for conversation about the difficult issues related to evaluation and recognition of community engaged scholarship; and (4) leadership and support from deans, provosts and presidents, both for institutional change and for individual faculty using engaged scholarship to make their case for promotion and tenure. challenges remain, however, in each of the institutions described in this volume, as well as in the field of higher education as a whole. as a new generation of faculty is recruited—a generation of faculty who deeply value community engagement and who are interested in new ways to disseminate their work—the importance of answering boyer’s call (1990, 1996) to redefine scholarship is critical. the rich detail and insights gleaned from these papers can provide valuable lessons for institutions that are working to answer this call, to align their faculty reward structures with their values and mission as metropolitan universities. 6 references boyer, e. l. (1990). scholarship reconsidered: priorities of the professoriate. princeton, n.j.: carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching. boyer, e. (1996). the scholarship of engagement. journal of public outreach 1 (1), 11-20. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3824459 carnegie project on the education doctorate. (2010). cped design concepts. college park, md: author. fitzgerald, h.e., burack, c., & seifer, s. d. (eds.), (2010). handbook of engaged scholarship: contemporary landscapes, future directions. volume two: community-campus partnerships. east lansing: michigan university press. glass, c. r., & fitzgerald, h. e. (2010). engaged scholarship: historical roots, contemporary challenges. in h. e. fitzgerald, c. burack, and s. d. seifer (eds.), handbook of engaged scholarship: contemporary landscapes, future directions. east lansing: michigan university press. giles, d. w., sandmann, l. r., & saltmarsh, j. (2010). engagement and the carnegie classification system. in h. e. fitzgerald, c. burack, and s. d. seifer (eds.) handbook of engaged scholarship: contemporary landscapes, future directions. volume two: community-campus partnerships. east lansing: michigan university press. author information claire c. cavallaro has served as the first sitting dean of the college of education at california state university, fullerton since 2006. previously, she was as professor and chair of the department of special education, and chief of staff to the president at california state university, northridge. cavallaro founded the chime institute, a national leader in inclusive education and was lead petitioner for the chime charter schools. she currently serves as a member of the csu deans of education executive committee and the board of directors of the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped). claire c. cavallaro, ph.d. professor and dean college of education california state university, fullerton p.o. box 6868 fullerton, ca 92834-6868 657-278-3411 ccavallaro@exchange.fullerton.edu http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3824459 tel:657-278-3411 mailto:ccavallaro@exchange.fullerton.edu metropolitan universities vol. 28 no. 4 (november 2017), doi: 10.18060/21743 the emerging role of universities in collective impact initiatives for community benefit jason smith, lynn e. pelco, and alex rooke abstract universities are increasing their efforts to more clearly demonstrate their social value. this article illustrates how higher education administrators can incorporate collective impact partnerships in their community benefit strategies. the article explores two of the more familiar paradigms for community benefit—community engagement and anchor institution. collective impact principles and practices are then presented. finally, a case study provides a tangible example of how one university’s role in a collective impact initiative transitioned in response to the community. we end the article with ten takeaways and an invitation for higher education administrators to identify their own learning and action steps that can help shift focus from proving to improving their institution’s value to the community. keywords: community engagement; anchor institutions; partnership; collective impact introduction administrators in today’s urban and metropolitan universities are feeling pressure to demonstrate tangible value to their host city and region (starke, shenouda, & smith-howell, 2017). urban serving universities (usus) have been a vital resource to their regions, but have not always publically demonstrated clear evidence of their regional contributions. as knowledge institutions, universities are well-equipped to study and report on their positive impact on the community. understanding, documenting, communicating, and better leveraging internal assets is important work. however, these approaches may not fully satisfy community leaders’ requests to demonstrate the value of an usu to a region. the university’s neighbors may not just be asking for the university to prove, but also to improve. many of america’s cities have experienced tremendous resurgence in recent years—renewals that metropolitan universities have helped to stimulate (trani, 2008). these cities have reasserted themselves, in ways that may require a change in the roles that universities play in their communities and how they partner with the community (cantor, englot, & higgins, 2013). this article first provides a brief overview of how universities have responded to the need to define their community benefit. the article then describes three community-university partnership paradigms: (a) the community engagement model, (b) the anchor organization model, and (c) the collective impact model. we then provide a case study that explores virginia commonwealth university’s role in the resurgence of richmond and the university’s leadership in the community engagement and anchor organization paradigms. the case study also describes the university’s pioneering work as a replication site for an emerging cradle-to-career community benefit framework. the narrative concludes with an invitation to higher education leaders to identify ways to improve their own institution’s community benefit efforts based on their reflection on this article. 10 historic roles of urban serving universities although urban serving universities are geographically situated within urban communities, for the past half century they have typically co-existed alongside these communities rather than collaborated with them (cantor & englot, 2014). in the early 1900s, american higher education gave priority to knowledge creation over solving social problems (fitzgerald, bruns, sonka, furco, & swanson, 2012). beginning in the 1940s and 1950s, higher education in the united states grew rapidly with the passage of the servicemen’s readjustment act of 1944 (i.e., the gi bill). universities struggled to keep up with growing student enrollments. they decentralized administrative and teaching tasks and hired large numbers of new faculty instructors throughout the 1950s and 1960s. these faculty were increasingly viewed as content experts within narrow areas of specialization that had little application to social problems and were disconnected from community context and input (fitzgerald, et al., 2012). the cold war and the country’s race to space led many faculty members into research laboratories and away from classrooms and communities. as these trends continued throughout the 1970s and 1980s, class-enrollment size increased. funding for public universities began to decline in the recession of the 1990s, as state budgets shrank and elected officials shifted their view of higher education from a public good to an individual benefit (hensley, galilee-belfer, & lee, 2013). by the late 1990s, university presidents, faculty members, and students began to question their university’s disconnectedness from its local community (fitzgerald et al., 2012). relationships between urban serving universities and the communities that surrounded them were often strained, as these universities had expanded during the previous decades by buying up real estate contiguous to their campuses and displacing local, often low-income, residents (cantor, englot, & higgins, 2013). urban serving universities around the country began to reach back out to the communities that surrounded them with community engagement initiatives during the 1990s and 2000s. because universities themselves still operated in a decentralized manner, early community engagement efforts often developed in silos, with individual academic departments and schools launching their own initiatives and programs. three paradigms for university-community partnership this section describes three approaches universities may employ to provide value to their host city and region, including community engagement, anchor institution, and collective impact. each of the approaches have their own emerging body of practice and literature. one of the contributions of this article is describing the paradigm shifts in university community benefit represented by the emergence of community engagement, anchor institution, and collective impact paradigms. the authors assert that university administrators may simultaneously incorporate ideas from multiple paradigms or may narrowly align with one. further, the authors believe that no one paradigm is more important than the others, and that the problem and desired result must inform the approach. misalignment of the felt problem and the selected approach is likely to cause stakeholder dissatisfaction. when dissatisfaction occurs, institutions may be tempted to lurch from one paradigm to another or to tinker at the edges of their current approach. 11 the authors caution that these types of responses can prevent institutions from adopting a critical problem-solving perspective that enables stakeholders to leverage value from all three paradigms. community engagement paradigm the community engagement movement emerged over the past three decades. the movement has come to include multiple activities such as service-learning, civic engagement, and communityengaged research. the founding of campus compact in 1985 represents a starting point for an emphasis on community engagement in higher education (butin & seider, 2012). by the 2010s, much had been learned about successful community-campus partnerships. reciprocity, exchanging things or services with others for mutual benefit, became an organizing community engagement principle. administrators began to express their interest in creating institutionallevel (versus academic department-level) approaches to university-community partnerships. universities created centralized offices of community engagement to lead, coordinate, and assess the impact of integrated, cross-disciplinary, and institutional-level efforts called for by the community. the carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching institutionalized the concept of community engagement by including it in their higher education classification cycle. carnegie defines community engagement as “the collaboration between institutions of higher education and their larger communities (local, regional/state, national, global) for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity” (https://compact.org/initiatives/carnegie-community-engagement-classification/). the term community engagement, even if used consistently across units within an institution, can be applied to a wide range of activities that may not meet the technical definition (starke, shenouda & smith-howell, 2017). this ambiguity makes a challenge for mapping, measuring, prioritizing results, and assessing value. community engagement offices focused their early assessment efforts on documenting the impact of community partnerships on outcomes traditionally valued by universities, such as the number and quality of scholarly products produced, as well as student learning outcomes. first generation community engagement research results suggested that some approaches were having a positive impact on important student outcomes, such as retention and degree completion (lockeman & pelco, 2013). only in very recent years have universities begun to think critically about how best to insure that university-community collaborations benefit community as well as university stakeholders. signs of internal malaise were beginning to be seen within the movement by the 2010s (butin & seider, 2012). the lack of conceptual focus, limited rigorous research, and uncertain community impact all contributed to current challenges within the movement. the higher education community responded in a few ways, by: (a) continuing to position community engagement as a broad umbrella; (b) attempting to re-ignite the movement with clearer conceptual clarity and goals; (c) institutionalizing community engagement in certificates, minors, and degrees; and (d) shifting investment to other community benefit paradigms. https://compact.org/initiatives/carnegie-community-engagement-classification/) 12 anchor institution paradigm the anchor institution paradigm of university-community partnerships, like the community engagement paradigm, developed during the early decades of the 21st century. urban-serving universities are described as anchor organizations because they are deeply rooted in their community. in 2002, in a ceos for cities report, michael porter used the label “anchor institutions” as part of a call to action. college and university leaders needed to develop strategic plans to catalyze economic development in their surrounding communities (ceos for cities with living cities, 2010). according to the democracy collaborative, “anchor institutions are placebased entities, such as universities and hospitals that are tied to their surroundings by mission, invested capital, or relationships to customers, employees, and vendors” (dubb, mckinley, & howard, 2013, p. 2). early university anchor institution efforts placed a heavy emphasis on real estate development and the development of retail and public spaces where they intersected with the neighboring community (ceos for cities with living cities, 2010). the anchor institution movement often defines itself in contrast to the community engagement movement rather than as a complement to it. in their paper titled, the anchor dashboard: aligning institutional practice to meet low-income community needs, dubb, mckinley and howard (2013) called for the creation of a new anchor mission community of practice. the authors state that, “an anchor strategy is more than the sum of individual community engagement programs; it is a mission developed to address tenacious community challenges, and implemented to permeate an institution’s culture and change the way it does business” (dubb, mckinley & howard, 2013, p. 1). over time, universities began to hire and purchase locally, to explore commercialization of their research, and to engage with the broader community’s economic development plans (ceos for cities with living cities, 2010). the anchor institution paradigm developed as a critique of the lack of institutional-level goals and indicators of community impact in the community engagement paradigm. business transactions were quantifiable, targets could be set, and social value was easier to communicate to local business leaders and elected officials. anchor institution initiatives appeared to move beyond the measurement of isolated programs and research projects to providing a framework for aligning institutional assets. anchor institution paradigm advocates believed their paradigm fundamentally questioned the substantial investment some institutions had made in “dollars and personnel toward discrete community programs” and stated that their paradigm was qualitatively different (dubb, mckinley, & howard, 2013, p. 1). central to the anchor institution movement is the focus on the use of two forms of metrics: (a) indicators of community well-being to focus institutional investments; and (b) measures that assess the institution's effort to improve the indicators. advocates of the anchor institution paradigm acknowledge that an anchor institution is not the only factor contributing to changes in community indicators. yet, a key focus of the paradigm is to help internal decision makers align individual institutional efforts, so that these efforts might better provide and demonstrate value to the community. collective impact paradigm beginning in 2011, kania and kramer introduced the concept of collective impact and defined it as “the commitment of a group of important actors from different sectors to a common agenda for solving a specific social problem”. the collective impact movement in begins with the 13 premise that the efforts of individual organizations and isolated programs are insufficient to address complex social problems. a focus on implementing isolated programs can obscure the need to fundamentally change the system, address policy, or improve practice. because the collective impact paradigm is less well known, we define and describe it below detail. both the higher education and nonprofit sectors frequently operate using an isolated impact approach (kania & kramer, 2011). individual organizations or research teams seek to demonstrate value by developing solutions for complex social problems that can then be scaled by expanding research-informed programs and interventions. national emphasis on randomized controlled trials (rct) as the gold standard for research also contributed to a higher education culture that seeks solutions that work in a closely controlled environment, but not necessarily in the complex community settings. according to kania and kramer (2013), “the greatest obstacle to success is that practitioners embark on the collective impact process expecting the wrong type of solutions” (p. 2). the success of collective impact initiatives depends on the existence of five conditions: (a) a common agenda; (b) shared measurement; (c) mutually reinforcing activities; (d) continuous communications; and (e) backbone support (hanleybrown, kania, & kramer, 2012). a common agenda begins with a shared understanding of the problem and a common way of solving it, which is developed through agreed-upon action from all participants (kania & kramer, 2013). power dynamics associated with resources, privileged forms of knowledge, credentials, and influence can create conditions within which anchor organizations may believe there is a common agenda when community partners do not share the vision. shared measurement includes agreed upon indicators and targets, as well as ways to measure efforts to ensure mutual accountability (hanleybrown, kania, & kramer, 2012). a focus on business measures and traditional forms of research might drive initiatives towards solutions that do not take into account the system in which the solution will be implemented or the practical measurement strategies that will be used to gauge improvement. this disconnect can block the development of mutually reinforcing activities. continuous communication strategies that are accessible to all partners build trust, insure a common purpose, align motivations, and create accountability for action commitments. the language and communication styles used in higher education, the business sector, social sector, and in local communities vary greatly, requiring ongoing translation of information to connect it to meaning frameworks for all partners. backbone supports, the fifth condition, refer to facilitation, data systems and analysis, communication support, highly structured problem solving methods, and the administrative functions that are needed to effectively coordinate the participation of multiple organizations. turner, merchant, kania and martin (2012) described six critically important functions that backbone supports facilitate: (a) guiding vision and strategy; (b) supporting aligned activity; (c) establishing shared measurement practices; (d) building public will; (e) advancing policy; and (f) mobilizing funding. by necessity or by design, backbone supports can be addressed through either a centralized (i.e., located in a single organization) or decentralized (i.e., located in multiple organizations) model. 14 surman (2006, 2008), urged collaborative partnerships “not to legally incorporate in any way. this...undermines the power dynamic of the group and creates an entity that will innately want to build itself to compete with its own members” (p. 10). rather than arguing for a single backbone organization, surman emphasized the importance of several organizing principles: (a) action teams or constellations are formed to address a problem and are creatively destroyed when the work is accomplished; (b) leadership is shifted between partners on a project-by-project basis; (c) a stewardship group is created that engages representatives of the partner organizations and provides vision as well as strategic direction; (d) partnership agreements are created to articulate the roles and responsibilities of different players; and (e) a secretariat function is provided by a third party organization or individual. surman equated this secretariat function to the role of an executive director for the partnership and indicated that when the secretariat or executive director came from within one of the partners, the individual would need to attempt to detach themselves from their own organization and take on a third-party, servant leadership role. putting the pieces together the three university-community partnership paradigms described above require different administrative structures, employ different strategies and processes, and often focus on impacting different community or university outcomes. as universities and their respective regional communities sought to collaborate during the first two decades of the 21st century, their efforts were often bogged down by the lack of an explicit shared understanding of the partnership paradigm or paradigms being employed. consequently, university and community leaders must understand the aims, benefits, and differences of each paradigm and discuss with each other the paradigm(s) being used. usu’s and their communities have often collaborated to reform education with the aim of positively impacting regional communities. however, the national landscape has shifted in the area of education reform, further impeding the success of university-community partnerships to impact community educational outcomes, because collaborating organizations often operated from different education reform perspectives. following the section below on education reform movements, we provide a case study that illuminates the path taken during the past ten years by one usu and its regional partners to address regional education reform. the case study focuses on the evolution of several different university-community partnership paradigms, including a collective impact paradigm, to improve educational outcomes across a metropolitan region. 15 education reform movements in the united states institutions of higher education have long been involved with education reform. education reforms are intended to change policies, processes, and practices to improve education outcomes and to address the needs of society, including workforce preparation. patterson (2011) describes three major waves of education reform in the united states beginning in the 20th century: the progressive education reform, equity-focused reform, and excellence reform waves. progressive education reforms began in the 1950s with the expansion of college access resulting from the gi bill and the nation’s focus on math and science achievement over cold war concerns. the civil rights movement of the 1960s marked a shift in focus to more equitable education access and the reduction of disparities in educational outcomes across citizen groups. this equity-focused education reform movement included programs, such as the federal government’s trio grants program (to increase access to higher education for economically disadvantaged students), and the higher education act of 1965 (hea) (pub.l. 89-329). in the 1980s, education reform focus shifted to excellence and accountability. the 1983 report, a nation at risk, raised fears across the country that the united states had lost its global competitive edge (patterson, 2011). education pipeline can be considered a fourth reform movement. pipeline reform emerged in the 1990s in response to a fragmented education system in the united states. early childhood, k-12, and higher education have historically been treated as three separate systems in the united states, creating isolation and misalignment that negatively impacts students. the all one system report by harold hodgkinson (1985) provided language to a new p-20 reform movement that would seek to smooth student transitions from preschool (p) to graduate school (20). the pipeline reform movement also represented a shift from a programmatic reform model to a systemic change model (edmondson & zimpher, 2014). by 2006, 46 states had articulated p-20 agendas or formed p-20 councils (lawson, 2010). these advisory bodies focused on aligning expectations for readiness, access, attainment, data integration, and funding. at a state level, the movement led to the creation of longitudinal data systems, completion programs and partnerships, and curriculum alignment initiatives. state p-20 councils were often advisory, initiated by an elected official, and lacked the supportive infrastructure. these conditions led to significant mission-related, political, legal, constituent, bureaucratic, and resource barriers for the councils (rippner, 2014). cross-sector councils that included partners from outside education also formed within communities and regions, and these cross-sector councils experienced many of the same barriers. the p-20 pipeline movement also sought to improve cross-sector coordination by creating what has sometimes been referred to as wraparound services (kania & kramer, 2011). unfortunately, the broader p-20 pipeline movement lacked unifying goals and often did not identify measurable results. it wasn’t long before the p-20 pipeline movement began to lose momentum. a fifth educational reform movement, called the relevance movement, emerged in the 2000s with a national focus on college and career readiness. societal concerns about higher education relevance and costs, and the rise of mid-skill jobs as the nation emerged from the 2008 great recession led to a renewed emphasis on the roles of community colleges, apprenticeships, and other industry-recognized credentials. p-16 or p-20 labels were problematic because they 16 reflected a bias towards four-year institutions as the ultimate educational path. in response, some reform groups began to call for cradle-to-career partnerships. however, the perceptions and focus of community leaders, who had been engaged with the p-20 reform movement for more than a decade, were more difficult to change than the movement’s name. the cradle-to-career partnership in cincinnati (strive partnership) received national attention following the publication of kania and kramer’s (2011) article on collective impact. in 2006, nancy zimpher, then president of the university of cincinnati, convened a cross-sector group of partners to discuss a new college readiness program. by the end of the meeting, the community leaders were in agreement that more programs were not the answer—the system had to change. what set this cradle-to-career pipeline group apart from many of the previous p-20 councils was that it established specific measurable outcomes that it wanted to improve, created shared and individual accountability to achieving those outcomes, and tapped a readiness from leaders to use their authority to accelerate change (edmondson & zimpher, 2014). strive partnership also funded a dedicated staff to coordinate those collective actions. jeff edmondson was hired as the executive director for the local partnership, and the partners began to discover what functions were needed to support this type of collective impact work, including data and communication management. cincinnati began to see early improvement in the educational outcomes of its students, and zimpher began talking around the country about what conditions were needed to enable a cradleto-career partnership to succeed. with only one emerging case study, replication was needed to build a robust framework. in 2009, three other communities were identified to test the cradle-tocareer pipeline approach to system reform with funding though living cities and from urban serving universities (usu). richmond, virginia was selected as one of those three pioneer communities. four pillars shaped this early work: (a) shared community vision; (b) evidencebased decision making; (c) collaborative action; and (c) investment and sustainability. the pioneer sites began to identify elements of civic infrastructure that were needed for the initiative to develop, and for their partnerships to emerge and mature. learning from success and failure was captured in a developmental framework that became known as the theory of action. strivetogether (https://www.strivetogether.org/), the emerging network of cities seeking to replicate the cincinnati framework for building cradle-to-career civic infrastructure, grew quickly. after several years of testing the theory of action, the strivetogether network implemented quality-assurance measures. communities that wanted to join the network were required to demonstrate that they had moved beyond an exploring phase of development. today there are over seventy partnerships, most of them anchored somewhere other than at a higher education institution. putting the pieces together significant evolution within the u.s. education reform movement has occurred during the last half-century. the most recent national education reform movement addresses societal concerns over college and career readiness and has been labeled the cradle-to-career pipeline movement. cradle-to-career partnerships have drawn national attention, because of the early improvements 17 to regional educational outcomes being realized in cincinnati, ohio, where a collective impact paradigm is being used to realize cradle-to-career education reform goals. the case study below describes the pioneering work of virginia commonwealth university (vcu) in the richmond, virginia using a cradle-to-career framework. the case study describes changes that occurred over a ten-year period in the university’s role as founder and universitycommunity partnership collaborator, and documents a shift in understanding and approach to partnership that exemplifies the collective impact paradigm. case study: richmond, virginia and virginia commonwealth university virginia commonwealth university (vcu) was an early participant in the community engagement movement, formally creating the division of community engagement (dce) in 2006. over the next 10 years, student service hours in the community increased from 346,526 to 1,462,854, with a 162% increase in service-learning class sections. across that decade, the dce supported faculty members in developing service-learning courses and community-based research projects. in 2012, it launched aspire, vcu’s first living-learning residential hall with a focus on community service. the division delivers community outreach programs through the mary and frances youth center, including a regional youth program quality initiative, and direct youth programs. the dce also created and still leads the university’s council for community engagement, which seeks to create a culture of community engagement across the university. vcu is recognized as a community-engaged institution by the carnegie foundation, and it is one of only 54 universities to be designated as “community engaged” with “very high research activity”. vcu also became an early participant in the anchor institution movement. the university has played an active role in identifying and refining national and richmond-specific indicators that can be used to align the university’s assets to contribute to measurable regional outcomes. vcu has long been recognized as an anchor in richmond, virginia. it has even been recognized in 2002 by ceos for cities and the initiative for a competitive inner city for using its presence in richmond to encourage urban revitalization. in 2006, vcu was ranked eighth in the top 25 “best neighbors” in the new england board of education report, saviors of our cities. today, vcu distinguishes itself as a “…premier urban, public research university…” with a mission to “…advance knowledge and student success…” through several commitments including “sustainable, university-community partnerships that enhance the educational, economic, and cultural vitality of the communities vcu serves…” (vcu strategic plan, 2011). for well over 100 years, the university has been deeply engaged with the community to address complex social problems. like in most institutions of higher education, these activities developed primarily through individual academic departments. the following figure provides a visual representation of some of transitions in the role of vcu in their community benefit efforts. 18 figure. timeline in university roles 19 vcu: evolving to include a collective impact paradigm already one of the city’s largest employers, vcu greatly expanded its physical footprint, degree programs, and student enrollment during eugene p. trani’s two decades as president (19902009). president trani was determined to show how a university could collaborate, particularly to catalyze economic development. from 1997-1998 he chaired the greater richmond chamber of commerce, and from 2001-2004 he chaired richmond renaissance, which focused on downtown revitalization (now venture richmond, http://www.venturerichmond.com/). trani (2008) urged public and private higher institutions to see higher education connections to communities as “essential to our core functions and are increasingly vital to our continued success as well as the long-term prosperity of the nation’s cities, regions, and states”. president trani, a founding member of the coalition of urban serving universities (usu), was aware of a living cities (https://www.livingcities.org/) grant opportunity. in 2009, vcu school of education dean bev warren submitted a proposal and richmond was chosen as an inaugural member of the education partnership implementation network. this network was based on the early success of the strive p-20 partnership, referenced earlier in this article, in cincinnati, ohio. the other three sites in the network were california state university, east bay; indiana university-perdue; and university of houston. this vcu presidential initiative, championed by dean warren, would require buy-in beyond the university. after securing the initial investment from usu and living cities, warren sought additional investment from the community. altria, the holding company for phillip morris with headquarters in richmond, had recently made significant investments in another national program to improve educational outcomes, entitled readyby21 (http://www.readyby21.org/). almost simultaneously, richmond became a project site for both fledgling models. resolute, warren secured initial investment from strive, readyby21, altria, the community foundation, and the jessie ball dupont foundation, for the p-20 partnership that would be called bridging richmond. warren began meeting with community leaders to introduce the concept and to invite them to join an executive council, a ceo-level board that would inform how to move bridging richmond forward. founding members included the superintendent of the richmond city public schools and presidents of the chamber of commerce, community foundation, community colleges, private colleges, and executives from large corporations. the executive council participated in presentations on the usu model as well as by ceos for cities, which was launching the talent dividend project to increase college attainment in the top 51 metro areas. from the beginning, the group was focused on improving economic competitiveness by working back from the business sector to workforce preparation. bridging richmond: 2009-2012 bridging richmond, “a metro-richmond p-20 partnership”, was announced in july 2009 in a high-profile, public event. at the time, virginia commonwealth university and the broader higher education community were still primarily operating from the community engagement paradigm. a few states and regional leaders were beginning to consider the implications of the phttps://www.livingcities.org/) 20 20 reform movement, while others were focused on the accountability excellence movement. consequently, the earliest expression of bridging richmond reflected this cross-section of stakeholder perspectives and paradigms. virginia commonwealth university established the division of community engagement in 2006 with a vision of becoming a national model for community engagement and regional impact. in 2009, the university was making strides towards integration of community engagement through teaching, research and outreach programs. when the university was accepted as an education partnership implementation network, university leaders created the p-20 partnership within the context of this community engagement paradigm. bridging richmond was initially housed within the center for school improvement, effectively creating a community engagement hub within the vcu school of education. being situated in a school of education center influenced the types of problems and solutions that arose. dean warren made the case for the new partnership in the spring/summer 2009 edition of the bridge, the magazine of the school of education. the letter from the dean that opened the magazine emphasized the “outstanding work of the school of education community” through new programs and leadership roles that foster strong partnerships”. as it stood in 2009, bridging richmond reflected a p-20 reform initiative that operated primarily through a community engagement paradigm. universities have historically played a key societal role in generating and sharing knowledge about best practices. these traditions led to vcu’s bridging richmond role as founder and early carrier of the p-20 reform vision. a shared vision or shared agenda had to be created. some of the community leaders who became involved with the bridging richmond initiative would later express the opinion that convening the initiative at a public launch under the bright media spotlight inhibited their ability to ask questions and fully understand the purpose, goals, and roles of bridging richmond executive council membership. vcu and the other inaugural members of the education partnership implementation network were simultaneously co-creating the partnership vision nationally while simultaneously trying to communicate that vision to local leaders from multiple sectors. establishing a centralized backbone model within the university was pragmatic because the university was the primary holder of the vision, and the ‘university as driver’ approach was consistent with the community engagement paradigm. this primary role of the university in the early days of bridging richmond impacted the role of the partnership’s first director. bridging richmond’s first director was the executive director of the vcu school of education’s center for school improvement. she was also the primary investigator for a $5.2 million federal grant to recruit, prepare, and retain school leaders in hard-to-staff schools. this first bridging richmond director retired after one year of fulfilling these multiple roles, and a second bridging richmond director was hired who also had considerable experience in the k-12 and higher education sectors. the role and skill sets of these first two bridging richmond directors aligned with traditional research faculty roles within the academy. systems within and beyond the university had considerable impact on bridging richmond’s early activity and challenges. the national convergence of the community engagement paradigm and p-20 reform movement has already been noted. regional leaders within the richmond community were being asked to apply two national collaboration models simultaneously (strive 21 and readyby21). the implementation of these two national collaboration models could be considered complementary. however, the politics and jargon associated with each of them made it challenging for community leaders to articulate a common agenda and vision locally across the two models. within vcu, president trani retired weeks after the public launch of the bridging richmond partnership, and president rao became the chair of the fledgling initiative. dean warren was named the interim provost in april of 2010 and became provost in april 2011. an interim dean for the school of education was appointed from april 2010-june 2012. bridging richmond quickly became thought of as the initiative of a former president during a time of significant university-wide and school of education specific leadership change. the second bridging richmond director resigned by the end of 2011. community leaders were impatient with what was perceived as getting caught up in process with no results. some sectors within the community continued to relate to the accountability and excellence reform movement. bridging richmond, a p-20 reform movement project, continued to be perceived as a vcudriven program with a bias towards bachelor’s degrees. the relevance reform movement was building, and additional emphasis nationally and regionally was being placed on the role of community colleges and post-secondary learning leading to associate degrees, apprenticeships, and other industry-recognized credentials. leadership churn and an emerging, rather than a clear and well-established, project vision meant bridging richmond lacked the energy and influence to change regional and university dynamics that were at the time being driven by individual interests, action, and recognition. it was time to reassess the vision and viability of the p-20 reform movement in richmond. bridging richmond: 2012-2014 virginia commonwealth university hired a consultant and a transition team was formed to determine how and if bridging richmond should move forward. the university also completed its strategic plan: quest for distinction: discover, impact, success. the new plan articulated university-community partnerships as critical and targeted k-12 education, health access, and economic development as key partnership focus areas. provost warren was able to connect the bridging richmond partnership to this new vcu strategic agenda, moved bridging richmond to the office of the provost, and launched a national search for a new executive director. in august 2012, bridging richmond was re-launched in another large public event. the p-20 reform language was intentionally dropped, and a new cradle-to-career reform language was emphasized. from 2012-2014, the nation and region lost momentum for the community engagement paradigm. businesses, hospitals, and higher education began to reinterpret the social contract in response to post-recession fiscal austerity. the university, and some community leaders, started to learn about the anchor institution paradigm. the community outside the university became interested in collective impact models and quickly launched several local collective impact initiatives. the accountability and excellence education reform movement remained a dominant frame, and leaders also began to incorporate relevance reform movement values. as part of a federal promise neighborhood grant application, community leaders had been learning about results accountability, as described in mark friedman’s (2005) trying hard is not good enough. the community focused on technical solutions, by purchasing licenses for population 22 indicator dashboards, as well as case management software for linking performance measures. the community had not invested equally in building trust and shared measurement for the shared data systems, and bridging richmond was able to fill that void. bridging richmond convened a regional data advisory committee with people from business, philanthropy, k-12, and higher education to select core, lagging education indicators for the partnership. bridging richmond partnership staff members developed impact frameworks for two of the new intermediaries that: (a) clarified the desired result and indicators; and (b) identified shared measures that could be used by multiple partners to align practices for shared action. the bridging richmond partnership also commissioned an economic study to identify areas of high occupational demand for the region through 2030. the partnership set a regional degree and credential goal based on the projected demand, and bridging richmond convened 31 partners to co-develop a department of labor (dol) grant proposal that focused on high school reform to address high demand for information technology and computer science occupations. job analysis and curriculum alignment across k-12, apprenticeship, and twoand four-year colleges continued even though the grant proposal was not funded. virginia commonwealth university, through the office of the provost, continued to serve as a centralized backbone for the partnership. during the period, the partnership staff grew to include an executive director, manager of evidence based decision making, and communications coordinator with funding for these positions coming almost exclusively from the university. the role of the university as anchor and primary investor allowed the bridging richmond to keep its doors open through multiple internal transitions and periods of limited local financial investment. vcu and community leaders began to explore the possibility of forming a separate 501(c)3, developed bylaws, and renamed its executive council a “board of directors” in order to shift the perception of bridging richmond in the community from ‘university program’ to ‘partnership’ and to improve financial sustainability. the executive director for bridging richmond now had one foot in and one foot out of the university. the executive director was responsible to a board of directors and executive council that had no fiduciary responsibility, and directly reported to the founder of the work within an institution providing fiscal agency, primary investment, and founding vision. during this period, the executive director’s role was to help the community develop a common agenda through shared measurement, demonstrate the relevance of the work by bringing multiple partners together to take shared action, and fund development. examples of this emphasis included cochairing a regional workforce preparation group for another emerging regional collaborative to propose a shared agenda for education and career readiness, and writing a successful lumina foundation community partnership for attainment grant. two significant systems dynamics were at play during this period. first, the system in richmond was designed to promote individual transactions and a competitive agenda that drove a direct service delivery expectation. shared accountability to results through aligned contributions from the partners was not the solution that community leaders were expecting. partners sought program proposals that might benefit their own individual organizations so that each could decide whether or not to participate and/or fund the initiative. otherwise, they preferred to work 23 on their own organizational improvement internally, without peer accountability through a partnership, or incursion from what was still perceived by many as a university program. significant system dynamics also existed within virginia commonwealth university. virginia’s funding for higher education fell by over 20% from 2007 to 2013, making it one of the lowest per fte student in the nation. the university had been rapidly expanding before and during this period. through the quest for distinction, the university had focused on improving educational quality, embracing diversity, developing the research program with substantial increases to external funding, pre-eminent academic programs, and growing the alumni base and engagement of the community. in july 2014, provost warren was appointed as president of kent state university. an interim provost was named, and one of his first charges was to identify ways the university could respond to significant state funding cuts. bridging richmond, an initiative started by a former president and provost, was one place where university cost savings could occur without impacting internal operations. presentations were made to the bridging richmond board of directors, calling on the community to demonstrate an increased investment or the university would reduce its financial investment by half. vcu appointed bridging richmond’s manager of evidence-based decision-making as the partnership’s fourth executive director after the third executive director left vcu to accept a position with the carnegie foundation. with prior experience in nonprofit administration, community health, and the faith community in richmond, the new bridging richmond director brought skills and relationships from sectors beyond higher education. in its first 4 years, the fledgling bridging richmond partnership had employed four executive directors. bridging richmond: 2015-2017 virginia commonwealth university’s interim provost charged the bridging richmond executive director with accelerating the partnership toward shared action and revising the partnership’s accountability structure to reflect vcu as the anchor and primary investor. in response, the executive director put forward three proposals to the interim provost and executive committee: (a) wind the partnership down over three months; (b) finish its largest grant and wind down over 14 months; and (c) identify a primary customer and champion for the next year to provide focus and value. regional k-12 school superintendents came forward to express interest in being a primary customer and bridging richmond champion for the next year, as they prepared for a regional equity summit intended to lead to shared action. vcu’s financial contribution to the partnership budget was cut in half, the bridging richmond’s board was dissolved, and all community leaders were considered for the positions on the partnership’s leadership council. consideration was based on their organization’s aligned actions or the funding their organization contributed towards shared action. vcu administrative leaders determined that bridging richmond was unique and valuable in its role as a neutral broker of community collaboration. the university provided a one-time cash payment to give the partnership time to implement its proposals. vcu hired a new provost in march 2015. the vcu office of planning and decision support and the division of community engagement developed a pilot anchor framework for 24 understanding the impact of the university in 2015. an anchor dashboard task force was formed and co-chaired by these same two offices. vcu celebrated the division of community engagement’s 10th anniversary in 2016. the division of community engagement also developed a partnership mapping program to better understand the landscape of university activity in the community and to better identify opportunities for matching community and university partners. after considering various administrative home options for bridging richmond within the university, the new provost selected the division of community engagement. vcu was simultaneously investing in the community engagement paradigm, anchor institution, and collective impact paradigms while seeking to clarify connections and roles between the potentially complementary approaches. bridging richmond continued to build on the momentum in the community for collective impact and results accountability. the partnership also obtained, for the first time, regional kindergarten readiness data for its early childhood coalition at the school-level, disaggregated by race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and sub-scores. these data allowed the early childhood coalition to target preschool quality interventions, based in a way that had never been possible with only district-wide scores. partnership staff developed shared data system prototypes for collective impact initiatives to coordinate middle school out-of-school time and college and career centers in the city schools. bridging richmond provided operational support for data use in one of the partnership’s coordinating organizations, and oversaw transition of the data to a third party vendor. the system used the shared measurements that came from the facilitation of the impact framework and allowed for connecting school and multiple nonprofit data. because of these accomplishments, the richmond city public school district invited bridging richmond to embed a staff member within the district to provide data support. federal financial aid information (fafsa) was made available in week-over-week and year-over-year dashboards at the high school level for the first time in the state. improvement teams were formed and provided with continuous improvement coaching to use the data, as well as policy advocacy to get virginia to receive the data at a student level. following up on the unsuccessful department of labor (dol) proposal, the partnership also continued to convene groups of employers to do job analysis on some of the high-demand technology careers, and it convened k-12 and higher education partners to work on curriculum alignment. the governor announced a high school redesign grant, and the superintendents built on the department of labor grant proposal. they folded the job analysis and curriculum alignment work into the committees that were formed when the grant was awarded. collaborative action networks were also formed to address chronic absence and elementary literacy. the partnership had moved to shared action and demonstrated the value of backbone functions. at the beginning of this period, vcu continued to serve as the anchor and centralized backbone for the partnership. as vcu also embraced an anchor institution mission, it became important to clarify the difference between the two roles. an anchor within collective impact is an organization that provides fiscal agency and other core functions for the partnership. the role of the university as the sole anchor for bridging richmond began to shift in 2016. there were new executives at the community foundation, robins foundation, and united way of greater richmond and petersburg, and they saw the value of the backbone functions. the bridging richmond executive director began meeting with each of these new executives to introduce the 25 decentralized backbone model and to identify what functions of the partnership each executive might be interested in leading. a nine-month facilitated group conversation followed that resulted in each institution/organization identifying aspects of the partnership they would anchor, and as importantly, what functions they would bless the others to lead. this process of transitioning to a collective impact paradigm was accelerated when bridging richmond’s senior data analyst was hired by a local community organization that had been receiving data support through the partnership. instead of assuming that a new senior data analyst should be hired at vcu, the four organizations were asked where (i.e., within which organization(s)) they wanted to build data capacity for the partnership. the partners decided that united way would become the primary fiscal agent, host the data infrastructure, and staff some of the partnership’s collaborative action networks. vcu would continue to host the executive director, be the secondary fiscal agent, and leverage the division of community engagement to align other university contributions as a partner. the community foundation took on leadership of capability building for the convening, facilitation, and leadership skills needed for collective impact. the robins foundation, a private family foundation, was well-positioned and interested in forming a policy action team. the partnership executive director role had fully transitioned into a secretariat or servant leadership role for the community leaders, and there was a core group of partners that no longer saw the partnership as a university program. the system dynamics during 2015-2017 exemplify the emergent, evolutionary nature of collective impact work. collective impact work cannot depend on a single visionary leader, organization, or single sector. in 2015, the bridging richmond partnership could have begun to wind down, returned to being a program within a university center, or been championed by any sector or group of community leaders. in 2015, five of the twelve leadership council members were superintendents, and they served as a magnet for the other members. during the period, all but one of those superintendents transitioned within or outside regional school districts. the new philanthropic leaders, who had become engaged because of the superintendents, began to become customers and champions of the work as school district leadership changes occurred. leadership transitions at vcu, and ambiguity about how the partnership would connect to other university priorities, provided a great deal of autonomy and urgency for the executive director to deepen the engagement of community partners. responding to multiple emerging collaborative initiatives that were priorities for community leaders provided bridging richmond with sustainable funding during the transition and proof of concept for the value of the backbone functions. if bridging richmond had treated the community as static, and failed to respond to any of these environmental conditions, the partnership would have likely become extinct. instead, multiple partners began to own the work and change a small part of the system in richmond. united way of greater richmond and petersburg redesigned their communications, community indicator project, and activities to better align to the cradle-to-career reform continuum. the robins foundation updated their strategic plan to incorporate partnership indicators and made changes to funding priorities. the smart beginnings early childhood coalition re-aligned with the bridging richmond partnership and began incorporating practices supported by the backbone organizations. 26 instead of a staff of one to three people at vcu, the bridging richmond partnership “staff” quickly expanded to include nine leaders from seven partner organizations, who began meeting monthly to align the work of their organizations and the functions of the partnership they led. alongside a more stable community leadership for the partnership, the current executive director has been in role for three years and worked for the partnership a total of four and a half years, whereas the average tenure for each of the previous three executive directors was 16 months. developing relationships, trust, awareness of multiple motivations, leadership without formal authority, and ability to navigate the politics of a regional system requires time and development of a unique skillset. while attribution of changes in lagging education and workforce indicators is not possible yet, there is considerable evidence that systems are changing in a way that could contribute to those desired results. ten takeaways based on our experiences at an urban serving university that has recently evolved a collective impact partnership paradigm, while continuing to use both the community engagement and anchor institution partnership paradigms, we offer the following ten takeaway observations. these observations are designed to help university leaders successfully engage with universitycommunity partnerships, particularly collective impact partnerships that realize beneficial outcomes for universities, as well as for the regional communities within which they operate. 1. urban serving universities have shifted from co-existing alongside their communities towards reciprocity, an exchange for mutual benefit. 2. while important, these transactions must be complemented with system transformations within the higher education context and in the broader community, if we are to realize improved social outcomes. 3. community engagement, anchor institution, and collective impact are three paradigms for university-community benefit that can be complementary if coordinated and applied to appropriate community and university problems. 4. the first major obstacle to a successful collective impact process are that partners expect the wrong type of solutions. 5. the second is that universities, as knowledge organizations, may overlook how their own research and community engagement norms impact the types of solutions they value and bring to the community. 6. the problem, desired result, and the current capability of partners to share leadership must inform the boundaries of roles and tasks for the university partner. 7. collective impact partnerships require strong backbone support functions that can be either centralized in one organization or decentralized across multiple partners. 8. historical and contemporary university-community power dynamics make it difficult for higher education institutions to serve as a neutral broker for collective impact. 9. if the university must host the executive director for a collective impact partnership, the institution needs to ensure that this leader is able to detach themselves from the university and take on a third-party, servant leadership role. 10. the executive director role in collective impact partnership requires sophisticated leadership skills to facilitate a shared vision, cultivate trust and peer accountability, navigate community politics, communicate across multiple sectors and leadership levels, understand the 27 motivations of and value to partners, build a cross-functional team, and use informal authority to mobilize partners for shared action. conclusion university leaders, particularly in times of fiscal uncertainty, may be tempted to “reduce investment in activities that are sometimes considered tangential to our core missions of teaching, research, and service” (trani, 2008, p. 1). particularly for urban and metropolitan universities, the mission of community benefit is not a luxury or a tangential activity, it is core to the identity of the institutions, valuable to the other core mission elements, and essential to the vitality of the surrounding communities. neither the communities nor the universities are static, but are always evolving individually and in relationship with each other. university and community leaders must embrace the paradox that kania and kramer describe as “combining intentionality (that comes with the development of a common agenda) and emergence (that unfolds through collective seeing, learning, and doing)” (2013, p. 8). universities are collaborating with community partners to increase their intentionality through anchor dashboards and community engagement efforts that identify clear results with measurable targets. understanding the current landscape of university-community partnerships is important work, as are efforts to more intentionally align existing and new university activity towards clear aims. at the same time, leaders must be vigilant to insure that predetermined solutions do not crowd out new ways of collaborating to address complex and adaptive problems. improving systems so that they move beyond incremental change to transform communities requires leaders who are comfortable with continually unfolding opportunities, strategies, and relationships, and who have the endurance to persevere through the inevitable periods of failing forward. without the founding vision and persistent investment of virginia commonwealth university, it is likely that bridging richmond would never have been created or survived the many university and community transitions that occurred. in this article we suggest that universities must embrace emergence and be as intentional about clarifying their role as they are in developing a common agenda. a key takeaway from this article is that higher education “need not always be involved in, much less at the forefront of, community engagement work” (whitney, harrison, clayton, muse, & edwards, 2016, p. 88). it is also important that university leaders be consciously aware that the current system is aligned to deliver the current results. intentional and thoughtful force must be applied to keep the system from recreating itself by shifting from isolated programs to isolated collective impact initiatives. we invite you to reread and reflect on the ten takeaways preceding the conclusion section, to add your own learning, and to identify specific actions that your institution can take to improve its community benefit in the next month, three months, and year. 28 references bridging richmond: a metro-richmond p-20 partnership. 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(2017). conceptualizing community engagement: starting a campus-wide dialogue. metropolitan universities, 28(2), 72-89. https://doi.org/10.18060/21515 surman, m., & surman, t. (2008). listening to the stars: the constellation model of collaborative social change. social space, (annual), 24-29. retrieved from https://socialspacemag.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/socialspace-2008.pdf trani, e. (2008). even in hard times, colleges should help their communities. chronicle of higher education, 54(36), a36. retrieved from http://www.chronicle.com/article/even-in-hardtimes-colleges/23564 https://doi.org/10.1080/1360080x.2013.825416 http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ed261101.pdf https://doi.org/10.1093/cs/32.1.51 https://doi.org/10.1177/0895904814558008 https://doi.org/10.18060/21515 http://www.chronicle.com/article/even-in-hard-times-colleges/23564 http://www.chronicle.com/article/even-in-hard-times-colleges/23564 30 vcu strategic plan: quest for distinction (2011). retrieved from https://quest.vcu.edu/ whitney, b., harrison, b., clayton, p. h., muse, s., & edwards, k. e. (2016). learning from and with community organizations to navigate the tensions of democratic engagement. michigan journal of community service learning, 23(1), 85-91. https://doi.org/10.3998/mjcsloa.3239521.0023.108 https://quest.vcu.edu/ https://doi.org/10.3998/mjcsloa.3239521.0023.108 31 author information * jason w. smith, phd, is the partnership executive director for bridging richmond and an administrative and professional faculty member in the division of community engagement at virginia commonwealth university. jason w. smith division of community engagement, bridging richmond virginia commonwealth university 901 west franklin street box 842527 richmond, va 23284 email: smithjw4@vcu.edu telephone: 804-828-3909 http://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-smith-469354a7/ lynn e. pelco, phd, is the associate vice provost of community engagement in the division of community engagement at virginia commonwealth university and holds a joint faculty appointment as professor in the vcu school of education. lynn e. pelco division of community engagement virginia commonwealth university 901 west franklin street box 842527 richmond, va 23284 email: lepelco@vcu.edu telephone: 804-827-8215 https://www.linkedin.com/in/lynn-pelco-b819613b/ alex rooke is the network coordinator for bridging richmond, hosted by the division of community engagement at virginia commonwealth university. alex rooke division of community engagement, bridging richmond virginia commonwealth university 901 west franklin street box 842527 richmond, va 23284 email: acrooke@vcu.edu telephone: 804-827-4581 https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandra-rooke-52297118 *corresponding author mailto:smithjw4@vcu.edu http://www.linkedin.com/in/jason-smith-469354a7/ mailto:lepelco@vcu.edu https://www.linkedin.com/in/lynn-pelco-b819613b/ mailto:acrooke@vcu.edu https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandra-rooke-52297118 metropolitan universities vol. 29 no. 1 (february 2018), doi: 10.18060/22167 equity and inclusion: expanding the urban ecosystem judith a. ramaley and tia brown mcnair as our nation grows ever more diverse, the need to ensure that our educational institutions are truly equitable and inclusive becomes more and more urgent. this sense of urgency plays out across a social and political terrain that threatens the very core of our identity as a nation. our growing diversity is seen by some as a threat to our national security and as the primary cause behind the displacements and angers being created by the ever growing differences that are dividing our country. our authors see our growing diversity as a much needed and valued source of energy, creativity and a vital contribution to our capacity to thrive in an especially challenging period in our history and are committed to creating educational environments where people of all backgrounds can thrive. articles in this volume inclusion the concept of inclusion has often been based on a model that typically devalues the lived experiences and backgrounds of underserved students as deficits that hinder their academic success, while the values, practices, and beliefs of the dominant culture have been elevated as the norm and the end goal of most inclusion efforts. in contrast, the concept of inclusion that you will find in these articles is based on an asset model, one that recognizes the talents and knowledge that all students bring to their college experience as contributions to a new definition of inclusion that understands the history and legacy of exclusion. inclusion of the kind envisioned in these articles means creating opportunities for people with different backgrounds and ideas to work together in new ways to address the complex, unscripted problems that our communities, our nation and the world face in today’s rapidly changing world. moral imagination working together requires both knowledge and empathy and what martha nussbaum (1997) has called a “moral imagination.” writing twenty years ago, nussbaum explored the realities behind our commitment to preparing citizens and what “a good citizen of the present day should be and should know.” she foreshadows the world we live in now as “inescapably multicultural and multinational (nussbaum p. 8).” all of us must learn to act with sensitivity and alertness as citizens of the world. (nussbaum, p. 8). from our beginnings as a nation, education has played a vital role in preparing a growing population drawn from many parts of the world to learn together, work together and solve their differences in mutually respectful and democratic ways. we have too often fallen short in our aspirations to achieve e pluribus unum. our situation today is especially frightening. as erika christakis (2017) wrote in a recent article in the atlantic, “across the political spectrum, americans have declared [our public schools] a failure. but we’ve underestimated their strengths—and forgotten their purpose.” the same can be said for our nation’s colleges and universities. increasingly, we are being considered by policymakers and families as a private 4 good, not a public resource. yet, we, too, serve a vital “nation binding” public purpose, to educate a diverse citizenry and to contribute knowledge and skill drawn from many cultures and experiences to the solution of the complex problems of our times. urban ecosystem our urban and metropolitan universities enjoy an especially complex and intimate relationship with the urban environments in which we live, learn and work. while institutions of higher learning were once enclaves separated from the community around them, our boundaries are now increasingly porous. the physical and social spaces that surround us offer a complex urban ecosystem from which we can draw an increasingly diverse group of students, all of whom will need to develop the skill to navigate a multicultural world, wherever they choose to go after college. we are being shaped by those connections as we seek to contribute to community building both as a good neighbor and as active members of our communities through partnerships and collaborations with other organizations. our own physical environments, our demographic profiles and our interests and purposes are shaped by our urban context. at the same time, our institutions often seem like kitchen middens made up of a complex collection of organizational philosophies and practices that have piled up over the years and that often represent the lives and perspectives of a different group of people than those who lead our institutions, teach in them and learn in them today. this issue of metropolitan universities journal is devoted to both conceptual models and practical experience applied to the task of creating equitable and inclusive learning environments that are linked in meaningful ways to the lives and concerns of the people we serve both on campus and beyond. inclusive excellence our urban colleges and universities have long reflected the experiences and interests of the diverse urban communities that surround them. increasingly, the world has come to us to be educated and to practice the habits of working together in new ways. in this issue of metropolitan universities journal, you will learn about ways that several urban campuses are creating equitable environments and providing learning that rests upon a foundation of diversity. diversity has become an essential ingredient in creating a meaningful education in a multicultural and multinational world and in supporting inclusive excellence (aac&u 2017a). there is much more to be done to reimagine how our colleges and universities, most of them designed and operated according to the expectations of earlier and less diverse generations, can educate for today’s world and draw upon the cultural assets and talents of all of the campus community in equitable and meaningful ways. these articles document a promising start to this effort. our campuses are becoming places where our growing diversity of background, experience and interests are becoming the essential ingredients of an equitable and inclusive community. the articles in this issue share an common assumption that our campuses and the communities around us are complex systems (cilliers 1998) where small changes can cascade through the community in unexpected and unintended ways, where the connections amongst the elements 5 that make up our campuses can interact in surprising ways or not at all, where we are increasingly influenced by and open to the world around us. design thinking in attempting to change the behavior of a complex human system, our authors make clear that attention must be paid to a number of critical elements involving both people and place and the culture we have created within our institutions. one way of doing this is to employ design thinking as a strategy for understanding, and then influencing, an organization’s behavior and culture (brown, tim 2009). this careful study and exploration sets the stage for creating the capacity to look at every aspect of campus life through an equity lens. our policies and practices, the design of our physical spaces and our use of social media all play a role in shaping our campus cultures and our responses to the new ideas and questions that arise when we become more diverse. these elements shape how we teach, how we design the curriculum, what we expect of ourselves and our students, the questions we ask as scholars, and the choices we make as educators. in this issue, you will see the challenging environment and landscape of higher education through the eyes of senior administrators, faculty members, students, faculty development experts and community members. all of these bring fresh perspectives to the task of creating a culture of equity and inclusion in higher education. in all of these approaches, you will see an interesting blend of deeper probing into how our minds work and how to practice new habits of thinking and action that draw people of different backgrounds together to work on problems that cannot be solved through a single discipline or social perspective alone. you will also see attention to the nature of the environment, both physical and cultural, in which these efforts are unfolding. frequent reference is made to concepts such as thinking of an institution as a complex system (cotter, 1998), the use of an ethical lens to examine how the policies and practices of an institution shape what is possible and what is difficult, to the challenge of addressing implicit bias and to the role of leadership and example as a powerful influence on what members of a community value and how they interact with each other and the impact of the growth of equity and inclusion on the experiences and choices being made by students. this issue’s manuscripts start with a broad, system-wide view of an institution and all of the complex connections and interactions that create and sustain its culture, then move to an exploration of what motivates each member of a campus community and how our unexamined and often implicit biases affect what we pay attention to, how we respond to others and what we consider to be important. the issue closes with a focus on how our efforts to become more committed to equity and inclusion ourselves is affecting our students and how they are using their knowledge and skill to address issues that matter to them. the path begins with frank golom’s article on whole system change. golom explores the reasons why we have made so little demonstrable progress in creating equity and inclusion, despite the fact that our campus communities and society as a whole have been growing more diverse every year. he argues that one explanation for our failure to change is that our approaches to diversity and inclusion overemphasize individual actors, attitudes and behavior. they fail to take into account the influence of larger organizational dynamics that favor some 6 actions and discourage others. golom goes on to offer three different frames through which to view our approach to campus diversity work—contextual, multilevel and complex systems thinking. zapata, percy and andrews provide a complementary way to think systemically. they describe how portland state university approached the task of updating its strategic plan. this effort took place in an environment shaped by a newly appointed governing board that was feeling its way, resource shortages created by reductions in state general fund support, enrollment swings and student activism in support of equity. an equity lens was used to test the likely consequences, including unintended outcomes of policy and strategic choices being considered as the strategic plan took shape. equity emerged not only as one of the five goals of the plan but also as a commitment to applying an equity lens to every significant campus decision. the authors offer an honest portrayal of how this process unfolded and advice for others who are considering taking the same approach. this example of explicit attention to the potential impact of every choice on the experiences and well-being of the entire campus community is being explored by other institutions as well and may provide a new and more intentional way to address the whole system change that golom calls for in his article. so far, we have looked at ways to adapt our traditional organizational cultures, policy environments and approaches to learning, in order to meet the needs of a changing student body and the increasingly complex social, economic and environmental problems that we and our graduates will face in the future in sharp contrast, michelle jones, the founding president of a brand new two-year college called the wayfinding academy, shares her experience in creating an educational environment from scratch. freed from many of the constraints of tradition and history, she and her colleagues are doing their best to avoid the limitations that institutions with much longer history are facing as they try to change their ways to promote equity and inclusion. the wayfinding academy is only in its second year and is therefore very much a work in progress. with the goal clearly articulated of taking an approach to building upon diversity to achieve true equity and inclusion, the next step is to explore how individual interests, beliefs, attitudes and skills play out in the context of the whole campus environment in which people interact with each other. the next two articles focus on the role of chief diversity officers as key campus leaders. president merodie hancock describes how she has sought to leverage the chief diversity officer role in creating an equitable and inclusive environment within suny empire state college, an institution whose role and structure have continued to develop since its foundation in 1971. empire state is nonresidential; its facilities are spread across the state in 34 academic centers. in this widely distributed environment, empire state hired its first chief diversity officer in 2016. hancock describes how today’s urban and access-oriented campus chief diversity officers work in partnership with the rest of the senior leadership team and faculty, staff and student leadership to educate communities on and off campus about the importance of a broader investment in building upon our growing diversity to create equitable and inclusive environments. she offers a powerful argument for the benefits of this approach in terms of increased educational attainment, greater civic engagement, robust economic development and more livable communities. 7 contrasting with the widely distributed structure of empire state college, carmen suarez, myron anderson and kathryn young take the reader on an exploration of how two different urban-serving universities, metropolitan state university of denver (a regional comprehensive university) and portland state university (a research 1 university), have begun to incorporate an equity perspective in different environments with a common overall urban-serving mission. many campuses, including these two, have chosen to embrace materials from the association of american colleges and universities (aac&u) that support the development of equity and inclusive excellence. the ability to compare and contrast the strategies used by these two institutions offers some insights into ways to address very different campus communities and the changing role of the chief diversity office in supporting these different approaches to meaningful institutional change. campuses vary in how they focus their efforts to draw upon the strength offered by diversity. andrew furco and kristin lockhart draw us into the context of the university of minnesota to explore how to create intercultural understanding. this approach offers insights into how to create a sense of shared purpose in a large and multifaceted environment. several different administrative and academic units are working to define, interpret and approach intercultural work. this is a case study of how two associate vice presidents, one responsible for addressing issues of equity and diversity across the institution, and the other responsible for advancing the institution’s community and public engagement agenda, worked together to build greater multicultural competency campus-wide. as is often the case, these two units had not actually worked together on a regular basis. in this story, we learn how the slow and sometimes painful process of learning to work together in new and more productive ways unfolded. these two units created a collective agenda by (a) taking the time to reconcile difference in both perspectives and intended outcomes; (b) defining the terms of engagement; (c) infusing new perspectives into the effort; and (d) accepting the inevitable tensions that arose due to differences of role, responsibility and experience. several of the articles in this issue offer wise and helpful insights into what it really takes to change a culture. this piece offers an especially helpful and informative insider’s view of the realities of undertaking this kind of work with the goal of achieving a culture of equity and inclusion and intercultural competence when everyone has a different idea about what each of these terms means in practice. once a campus community has figured out how to approach the task of creating equity and inclusion, they must deal with two critical issues. the first is the lack of meaningful connections across the campus community, what richard prystowsky, the former provost of lansing community college and now vice president of academic affairs and student services at marion technical college in ohio, calls the “structure of isolation common in our institutions of higher learning.” these are what others often call silos. the second is our failure to address our own implicit biases honestly and successfully, biases that further divide us into separate groups. prsytowsky offers a helpful primer on how to read a campus environment, work out how it operates and discover what interventions might shift how people work together, how they learn and what they value most. he describes the impact of implicit bias training on the curriculum, on campus policies, on faculty searches and promotion and tenure deliberations. he offers an example of how golom’s call to approach change as a whole system can play out in a different campus environment. 8 creating new connections and addressing our own implicit biases require fresh ways of reading the environment around us, as well as ways to explore the assumptions that we rarely, if ever, examine. balajee and todd offer a primer on how to slow down and focus on ways to build a new approach to seeing and experiencing the realities of our campus context and examine our own roles in shaping the campus climate and culture. their experiences with efforts to support equity and inclusion in other settings shapes their ability to see a campus from the perspective of “outside insiders” who are not bound by the unexamined patterns and expectations that academics take for granted. identity-consciousness kimberly costino takes us more deeply into the importance of faculty learning in creating an equity-minded institutional transformation and leads us through the steps along the way, approaches to the curriculum and the ways that faculty can be supported in exploring their own assumptions in order to foster their own identity-consciousness. this inquiry-based approach addresses how faculty members can probe more deeply into their own ways of understanding the world and the actions of others and their access to and use of power. this can then flow into understanding the institutionalized behaviors that contribute to alienation, inequity and failure to thrive in the academic environment, and the role that the campus culture and environment play in contributing to student success. finally, we wrap up this exploration with two articles that address the landscape of higher education from the perspective of students and recent graduates. mary ho and george sanchez describe the approaches that the university of southern california (usc) has taken to providing support for first generation students of color. the story is told through both an institutional equity-minded lens and through individual students’ experiences, and how they have been able to connect their educational experiences to issues they care about in the communities from which they came. this article paves the way to think about how the kinds of support offered by urban institutions like usc tap the remarkable assets of cultural knowledge, talents and commitments that first-generation students of color bring with them to college, and help students choose a focus for what they want to do with their new connections and knowledge. the result is a set of inspiring examples of how insights and learning can be put to use to benefit others. one example, bringing together learning and community engagement at usc, is the boyle heights museum of history and culture, a central point for the community surrounding usc as well as a training ground for the next group of professionals who will emerge from usc’s first generation college student community of color. as ho and sanchez describe it, civic engagement can disrupt traditional divides and open up new ways to celebrate and support the identity and distinctive character of a neighborhood and a broader community while preparing students to be engaged and mindful citizens who can use their education in responsible and creative ways. to bring the issue to a close, jacinta safford describes how interdisciplinary departments such as african american studies and women and gender studies and initiatives like those at usc can prepare scholars of color who are pursuing careers in higher education. she looks at these intellectual centers as incubators that teach participants how to navigate within our current university environments while working toward spaces of greater equity and inclusion. she ends with a challenge to all of us. 9 it is not enough to be diverse in representation—that is not the heavy lifting of diversity. rather, finding a common language that allows each of us to bear witness to the humanity in others is the real challenge, especially for colleges and universities (safford 2017, p. 7). conclusion the articles in this issue spark difficult, but necessary, conversations that lead to action. as you read this issue, we hope that you consider the following questions: what lies ahead of us as we undertake this journey towards nation building in an increasingly complex and interconnected world both locally and globally? what will our graduates need to know and how will they use what they know both in the workplace and in their own lives as members of a community, as family members, as mentors for others? what kinds of questions must we answer and how will we set about the task of answering them? how will our universities and society at large interact? will our role still be to serve a critical public purpose, the binding together of an increasingly diverse population into a meaningful democracy? we hope so! 10 references association of american colleges and universities (2017a). making excellence inclusive. retrieved from http://www.aacu.org/making-excellence-inclusive association of american colleges and universities. (2017b) resources for institutions concerned about equity. retrieved from http://www.aacu.org/centennial/bringtocampus/resources/equity christakis, erika (2017) americans have given upon public schools. that’s a mistake. retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/10/the-war-on-public-schools/537903/ cilliers, paul (1998). complexity and postmodernism. understanding complex systems. new york: routledge. cotter, maury. (1998) using systems thinking to improve education. about campus. january/february 1998, 2(6), 9-14. retrieved from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1002/(issn)1536-0687 dowd, alicia c. and estela mara bensimon. (2015). engaging the “race question” accountability and equity in u.s. higher education., new york: teachers college press. nussbaum, martha c. (1997) cultivating humanity. a classical defense of reform in liberal education. cambridge, massachusetts: harvard university press. metropolitan universities vol. 29 no. 1 (february 2018), doi: 10.18060/22173 equity, inclusion, and beyond: today’s urban chief diversity officer merodie a. hancock new forms and shapes of education are the necessary ingredients that can make the substance of education and educational processes more relevant to the individual and more responsive to the needs of society.” bonnabeau, richard f. (1996) “the promise continues: empire state college, the first twenty-five years keywords: graduation-rate disparities; inclusive campus culture; inequity in access; college completion; underserved students; pluralism in the classroom; stopor drop-out rate; campus gestalt abstract this paper, based primarily on the author’s perspective as president of suny empire state college, will explore the need for, and means of leveraging, the chief diversity officer’s role in creating an equitable and inclusive environment within the distributed world that is empire state college’s “campus” and, specifically, within suny empire’s urban environments. empire state college fills a unique role in today’s higher-education landscape. it was founded in 1971 by ernest boyer, then the chancellor of the state university of new york, to make education accessible outside the confines of traditional curricular and delivery structures, and to better meet the needs of new yorkers with locations, academic programming, and student services responsive to diverse communities and learners. today, empire state college continues to embrace and fulfill that mission, with individualized education as its cornerstone and nearly 18,000 undergraduate and graduate students in 34 academic centers around the state of new york, in several countries overseas and online around the world. the vast majority of its undergraduate students have attended at least one previous institution, are employed, and are likely to have family and dependent-care obligations. the college is purposefully nonresidential, designed to be where our students live and work. students can choose structured or individualized academic programs, depending on discipline, and have the options of classroombased, online, or independent study, as well as weekend residencies, or a hybrid of education delivery via these modes. introduction empire state college hired our first chief diversity officer for equity and inclusion in 2016, partly to respond to a system-wide policy but more to ensure we continuously grow and fulfill our mission. as a president, i believe pluralism cannot be achieved until an institution first accepts and integrates diversity into its fabric. with diversity can come equity and inclusion, and only when you have fully embraced all three can pluralism find its roots as a shared value. a good chief diversity officer—in partnership with the college president, provost and cabinet—can progress an institution through each of these levels to a point where mission is melded with practice, empowering all its students to grow and achieve economic independence as a way to 54 build and improve their diverse communities. yet, the work is never done. even for colleges founded on the premise of equitable and available education for all, the urban environment continues to change and colleges face new challenges daily that can quickly undermine even the strongest diversity, inclusion and pluralist foundations. the broader context with equity, accessibility, personal growth and self-empowerment for all learners at the core of its mission, empire state college reaches students in outlying rural communities, small towns, medium-size cities, and major metropolitan areas. it is sited strategically across new york to serve the more populous areas, where large numbers of suny empire’s students live and work, as well as the more remote communities, where conventional educational opportunities are limited. the college therefore prides itself on meeting students where they are, academically, professionally, personally, and geographically. the college’s presence within the integrated communities it serves creates a rich tapestry of students, faculty, and staff, who are diverse in age, race, religion, gender, sexual identity, socioeconomic and marital status, political affiliation, educational background, physical ability, as well as other characteristics, experiences, and cultural influences. the combination of empire state college’s dispersed footprint, inclusive mission and progressive outreach promote a vibrancy that embraces pluralism, not homogeneity, in its community and its pedagogy. as such, our goal is to ensure we constantly strive to improve and hold ourselves accountable to these standards in today’s fast paced, dynamic and often contentious world. the greatest proportion of suny empire’s student body resides in the most densely populated areas served by the college, particularly greater metropolitan new york, as well as buffalo, rochester, syracuse, and the capital region. therefore, while the chief diversity officer supports the college as a whole, we chose to locate this position within new york city where we have a significant amount of student and faculty activity. by virtue of location, these empire state college students reflect the demographics of many large urban centers in the united states, including a stronger presence (relative to nonurban areas within new york) of underrepresented groups within higher education. often, these urban groups reside in highly populated lowand middle-income neighborhoods with people of like backgrounds, with whom they share a language, values, food preferences, religion, social norms, customs, traditions, and other familiar and common interests and activities. these overwhelmingly minority and immigrant urban communities often have not yet acquired adequate social, academic, and financial capital. their neighborhoods, including their schools, often are under-sourced in terms of government allocated funds, infrastructure, and services, which discourages community activism that could steer positive change. this leads, instead, to a cycle of handicapping that drives academic, health, and political disempowerment, from generation to generation. to put this in terms of baseline academic impact, across the u.s., “only about one-half (52%) of students in the principal school systems of the 50 largest cities complete high school with a diploma. that rate is well below the national graduation rate of 70%.” (swanson, c.b. 2008. “cities in crisis: a special analytic report on high school graduation.”) the chronicle of higher education broadens this picture in its report on college completion, (http://collegecompletion.chronicle.com/state/#state=ny&sector=public_four), which, while not 55 broken down by largest cities, reflects the all-too-common racial degree-completion disparity. in new york state, in 2013, 44.7% of white students who first attended school full time graduated in four years, compared to 24.1% of black students, 36.2% of asian students, 22.6% of hispanic students and 28.2% of native american students. moreover, at the six-year mark, 63% were white, 46.8% were black, 67.9% were asian, 46.5% were hispanic and 48.2% were native american. while, technically, these and most other traditional college-completion studies exclude the majority of empire state college students, where students are largely part time and bring in transfer credit, the trends resonate all too painfully. combining high-school graduation rates within the nation’s largest cities with colleges’ graduation-rate disparities among racial groups, then factoring in the projected population growth of new york city, other large cities, and the collective growth of minority populations, makes clear that in order to make progress, the status quo must be disrupted. the historic pattern of inequity in educational access, resources, and achievement will further deteriorate the economic, social, mental, physical, and overall community health of america’s large cities. however, degree completion cannot be the measure of success without significant attention paid to how these underserved populations experience the u.s. education systems. the chief diversity officer can and should play a key role in planning and executing this productive disruption. successfully influencing the education-equity equation cannot be treated simply by what is often described as the “massification” of education through increased access. massification often is based on the assumption that a college degree will, in itself, level the playing field and eliminate other socioeconomic discrepancies. this simply is not the case. the diversity of current and potential college students is not representative of just race, gender and other common factors. rather, it comprises: (a) multiple native and home-spoken languages; (b) disparate levels of academic preparedness and confidence; (c) unequal exposure to the arts, travel, literature, politics, civic responsibilities, powerful or connected social contacts; and (d) more inequities that weave singularly and collectively through the common “check box” definitions of diversity. for academic attainment to have a long-term equalizing and empowering effect on populations that are currently underserved, colleges and their chief diversity officers must go beyond measuring degree attainment and address the need for equity and appreciation at the individual student level, at each stage of his or her academic and professional career. in much the same spirit that empire state college was founded nearly 50 years ago, the college still strives to break down rigid admission, curricular and delivery barriers. in the process we seek to challenge blatant and tacit beliefs within the k-12 and higher education orthodoxy. furthermore, we create learning environments that identify and thrive on student differences and reinvest in each college student as a capable and deserving individual learner. moreover, we seek to build college communities into living, learning classrooms that consistently promote the overwhelming benefits of pluralism. this work is not easy nor fast. it can only be achieved if we expand our expectations for the work of chief diversity officers beyond such tactical areas as compliance tracker, trainer, problem resolver, recruiter, student affairs and human resources expert, activities planner, legal analyst, grant writer and so on. more often than not, they are but one person, with little to no staff, resources, or direct authority. yet, at a minimum, they are expected to develop and maintain a college culture that proactively meets current compliance and regulatory standards. 56 more inspirationally, the new culture for which they strive must support and value diversity, inclusion, and pluralism throughout all aspects of the college’s environment. chief diversity officers often attempt to win a game where the players and rules keep changing. all too often, a new cdo quickly assumes a reactive tactical mode, spending time putting out fires and filing reports, rather than being able to focus on becoming an integral part of the college fabric, or sowing the seeds, through strategy and resource allocation, for sustainable, equitable, and inclusive learning environments that benefit both targeted populations and the college community as a whole. this matters in the long term and beyond the campus, because, ultimately, the college community flows into a larger society, within which the people who comprise it live, work, study, serve, volunteer, vote, spend leisure time, fuel the economy, and raise their children. the balance of this paper, based primarily on the author’s perspective as president of suny empire state college, will explore the need for and means of leveraging the chief diversity officer’s role in creating an equitable and inclusive environment within the distributed world that is empire state college’s “campus” and, specifically, within suny empire’s urban environments. meeting students where they are like other colleges, empire state college tracks recruitment, retention, and graduation rates across gender and race and, as part of a larger state university of new york initiative, is working to track similar metrics on multiple other self-declared personal identifiers. having this quantitative data is invaluable in identifying areas for further review. fortunately, the college’s data shows it performing better than many peer access institutions. unfortunately, the same way data can identify red flags, it can also lull campus leadership into complacency. college curricula are well thought out, comprehensive collections of learning objectives and experiences that help equip graduates for career growth and community engagement. however, as colleges build these curricula and strive toward common learning outcomes for all students, it is all too easy to build upon the fallacy that students will bring relatively similar sets of academic and life experiences, as well as learning styles, when they enter college. in part, this reflects the fact that, while faculty diversity is growing, it remains largely homogenous, populated by middleand upper-class traditionally educated scholars. as a result, the development, delivery and learning-assessment protocols of academic programs can be foreign to, and even at odds with, the interests and experiences of diverse and underrepresented student and faculty populations. even the bestintentioned educator cannot presume to fully understand a student’s or colleague’s unique life circumstances. most empire state college students are in their 20s, 30s, or 40s; many are first-generation college students, have a family, work, and aim to improve their economic and professional futures. institutions like empire state college that serve nontraditional students often assign a large portion of the blame for why students drop out and/or stop out to “life gets in the way.” this category encompasses numerous family issues, personal illness, job change or loss, competing demands for limited time and money, etc. it is also the category the college uses when the reason a student has left is not known. the “life gets in the way” bucket has become the presumptive excuse for situations perceived as out of the college’s control. moreover, “life gets in the way” is the dominant reason identified for dropand stop-outs within empire state 57 college’s urban, underserved student populations. therefore, it is critical that empire state college, and urban access colleges as a whole, assume a proactive and disruptive role and “get in the way of life” for these students. this is exactly where empire state college is focusing our efforts. collectively with the chief diversity officer, leadership, faculty and staff, we are striving to assist urban students effectively with each person at each point of contact, listening attentively to each student to understand, in detail, where they are and what challenges they may encounter. we are engaging a college-wide cadre of human resources who understand the many ways life can get in the way for these students, and systematically examining how the gestalt of the campus community can better support learning and student success for all learners. the double life of the urban student the current model of u.s. higher education vastly skews toward students, faculty, and staff from families where academic credentials are highly regarded and supported. perceptions and support structures are built around students who graduate high school and progress directly to college, where they study full time, as well as work or engage in extracurricular activities. their families and communities value a college education and typically provide emotional and financial support. educators often operate under the assumption that all students have this same support system. however, urban students are often commuters, work full time to pay their bills, and try their best to fit school into their already busy lives, commitments and responsibilities. they often live among relatives, friends and neighbors who might not understand, appreciate or support their academic aspirations. this creates the challenge of negotiating two worlds: the aspirational, upwardly mobile life of a student versus a home life that revolves around fitting in, traditions, family, or social responsibilities, and acceptance of the status quo. empire state college’s nycbased director of academic support describes this bifurcated life: our urban cohort students are commuters with a lot going on in their lives. they go to class and to work, where they experience diversity, and then go back home, where it’s ‘all greek’ all the time, as it was for me, or italian, or puerto rican, or whatever. it makes it very hard for them to engage in college life. in this vein, some suny empire students shared that they could not study at home and that their academic pursuits were not supported by family or friends. others shared that they are teased at home when they use “school” or “uppity” proper english, so they do not practice. for these students, one or two general education english requirements will not overwrite 30 years of improper english spoken at home and work. the urban chief diversity officer can help a college understand how this double life adds an additional level of pressure to students already at risk. colleges may need to build in purposeful conversation times, where new communications skills are practiced, while helping students understand the value of building these and other professional communication skills. similarly, assuming all students will be able to go home and complete their assignments or study with other classmates may be misguided. providing space and time for ongoing student interactions is vital in creating different types of inclusive support groups for urban commuter students. unlike the student’s home community that may (intentionally or unintentionally) undermine academic success, a healthy student peer group will push students to complete homework, discuss a topic 58 of interest, understand issues from other students’ perspectives, and provide needed encouragement if a member of the group wants to leave school. conversely, students with permanent or situational mental, intellectual, emotional, or physical challenges may not be comfortable disclosing their conditions, but may be more responsive to increased access to materials, faculty, and staff virtually, or in one-to-one settings. these types of considerations are understood by chief diversity officers, but, perhaps, not fully appreciated by others. traditionally, the chief diversity officer may not be asked to weigh in on building hours, design, staffing, and virtual resources; however, it may, in fact, be the one office that has the most global perspective on what is needed for this growing population of students. different ways of knowing and learning empire state college was founded on a purposeful faculty mentoring model and prides itself on knowing students as they are, while actively engaging them throughout all aspects of the learning process—though as noted, we challenge ourselves to continuously improve. a requirement in the admissions process is for undergraduate students to reflect, in a short essay, on where they have been academically, where they want to go and why and how they are going to make that happen. at empire state college, a faculty mentor is partnered with each student, from admission through graduation. these mentors go well beyond the traditional academic advisor role by reviewing the admissions essay and then working with each student to build the student’s degree plan. this plan will take into account what the student will study, what he or she may already know and, often, how he or she will overcome potential obstacles from their personal and professional lives. every faculty mentor is expected to have a sense of his or her students’ unique personal and academic goals, as well as personal and academic challenges. when the relationship works, it creates a mutually respectful relationship and establishes the cohesion that results in students feeling valued by the institution and continuously engaged in their education and the college. however on the rare occasion when it does not work, the student’s overall relationship with the college can feel unwelcoming, and both academic performance and the sense of inclusion may suffer. this is an area where the chief diversity officer is strategizing with faculty and college administration to identify improvements in the student-mentor match process, strengthen the college’s professional development resources and improve processes for early problem identification and mentor reassignment when needed. interestingly, the students’ perceptions and the college’s data agree that it does not matter if the faculty mentor shares an ethnic, racial, sexual identity, or other known group membership commonality. rather, the success of this mentor-student relationship appears to be based on something less quantifiable. according to a small sample of suny empire students, the success of the primary mentor relationship is frequently determined within the first or second meeting and is contingent on a shared sense of personal understanding, respect, and commitment to that student’s particular academic journey. in addition to access to faculty mentors, the college has created numerous other opportunities for learning support throughout the college. similar to the findings on the impact of the studentmentor relationship, internal research has found that positive initial meetings with learning support staff greatly influence the student’s willingness to continue his or her studies and stay actively engaged with the college. we believe these individualized faculty mentor and learning 59 support models are at the heart of the college’s consistently high student satisfaction ratings (per the act student opinion survey administered triennially for the state university of new york) and higher than peer completion rates. however, there is always room for improvement, particularly with underrepresented college completion populations. while other urban colleges may not share empire state college’s commitment to individualized learning, it is critical that they understand the multiple ways a student may learn and know. the potential lack of learning supports in college, primary and secondary school and, in some cases, the home environment often and mistakenly is conflated with students’ intelligence and capability. similarly, nontraditional and underrepresented students can be unconsciously assigned a “less intelligent” label by misguided faculty and staff. at empire state college, personal statements from students, as well as ongoing discussions with faculty and staff, help ensure each student is respected for his or her own ways of learning and knowing. in the words of one faculty member, the faculty must understand there are diverse ways of teaching students who have, themselves, diverse ways of knowing. we talk about students “pulling themselves up by their bootstraps”, well, we may have to give them the boots. our job is to meet his or her needs, level the playing field and treat everyone fairly. this doesn’t just mean global awareness of diversity, but also awareness of each individual’s differences and what he or she needs to know and how, as a mentor, to teach it. there may be differences in how students learn, based on what they already know or perceive, learning style or cultural information. access goes hand-in-hand with inclusion and that means helping people feel they belong and welcoming them, through open doors, into the urban ecosystem, which should include higher education. this is not something faculty members normally learn in their own education. the chief diversity officer can be a proactive force at new-faculty orientation and with ongoing professional development initiatives to help our urban faculty and colleges better understand how to level the educational playing field before the student even walks onto it. building appreciation while today’s chief diversity officers need to play a more proactive role in building and operating urban colleges by helping them identify strategies and resources to address diverse students at the individual level, the cdo also plays a vital role in educating the broader community on the social and economic values of inclusion, equity, and pluralism. at empire state college, the chief diversity officer strives to help faculty and staff understand how college policies, as well as college and individual practices, may support or undermine the learning goals of underserved and diverse students. from how the student is greeted, in person, on the phone, online or in writing to the hours we are open, the resources we use and the assumptions we make, the chief diversity officer should have a lens across the institution from multiple perspectives. as cdos too come from one background, our cdo engages other voices and perspectives across the college to broaden that lens and strengthen the college’s cultural awareness. as empire state college is a part of the suny system, the cdo also works with the president’s office as well as suny system offices and others to roll up the needs of individual students to a broader message of community and economic appreciation and empowerment. 60 conscious and unconscious biases exist in everyone and no one can ever fully appreciate the walk in another’s shoes, including and especially detractors who imply that inclusion and equity means lowering academic standards, taking resources away from the overall college community and/or making exceptions to learning expectations. colleges with strong access missions struggle every day to balance the increasing range of needs of incoming students with the goal of increasing degree attainment rates and strengthening the college community, while living in a world of limited resources. colleges such as empire state college always will roll out the welcome mat for diverse students and strive to improve completion rates, while maintaining the academic standards that make graduates proud and successful. paradoxically, when studentsuccess risk factors go up, as is the case for access-oriented institutions, public resources tend to go down. when colleges face declining budgets and increasing student needs, there is a tendency to focus on the homogenous majority to drive up student success metrics, while minimizing budget impact. those who lead colleges with access missions often speak of the challenge between staying true to the mission and meeting the budget and regulatory realities. it takes a certain alchemy to integrate the many paths a student may take before coming to the college with the set of learning outcomes and personal development he or she should have at graduation. the more heterogeneous the student population, the more challenging and rewarding this can be. despite the stress of tight budgets and demand for higher degree-completion rates, colleges cannot understate the value of diversity in strengthening college communities, graduates, and the workforce they enter. beyond increasing degree attainment, urban hubs of diverse student, faculty and staff foster the potential for incubators of pluralism, promulgating the value of coexistence and mutual support, while building an interdependent ecosystem. building on concepts of diversity, inclusion, and equity, college and university chief diversity officers should aspire toward another, more comprehensive level of opportunity, even beyond equity. this is an aspirational, though this author believes very logical, goal that the chief diversity officer cannot accomplish alone. however, they can identify and build on pockets of support. the argument can be made from social, economic, health, religious, and other fronts. the chief diversity officer should identify, understand and promulgate the collegeand society-wide value of inclusive and holistic student success. singing to the choir cannot be the primary tactic, though that is all too often the approach. the strategic cdo will work across the college community to understand the various perspectives and find areas of mutual value. from program and course design to extracurricular activities and professional development, urban colleges should be called upon to move the needle from equity to mutually beneficial, universally appreciated coexistence. this is yet another challenge to urban schools, the chief diversity officers who serve them, and the presidents who lead them. as campuses further integrate and better represent the world at large, the need has, perhaps, never been greater to go beyond opening doors to diversity, equity and inclusion and move to instilling the value of pluralism, in building societies, driving businesses, developing public policy, and more. presidents and chancellors must work together to collectively and continuously make this case from an objective, data-informed basis that ties equity, inclusion, and pluralism into lasting economic and community health. 61 conclusion today’s urban and access-oriented college chief diversity officers, in partnership with their presidents, provosts, boards, and councils, are responsible for continuously educating the extended academic, political, and professional communities on the broader investment value of diversity, inclusion, equity, and pluralism initiatives. educators have learned, repeatedly, that increased educational attainment empowers communities, drives civic responsibility, propels economic development and wealth, reduces crime and recidivism, improves personal and community health, powers entrepreneurism, and strengthens schools, and the list goes on. the chief diversity officer must play an important role in advocating both inside the college community and with external partners among the local and federal governments, employers, k12 school districts, and other civic organizations. investing in academic programs that meet students where they are can help the institution “get in the way of life” to offset the demanding commitments on students and alleviate some of the community pressures experienced by diverse populations. such action yields both immediate and long-term impacts that need the authentic and continuous support and understanding of civic, political, business, and academic leaders to succeed. institutionalizing this type of individualized equity-based programming and pluralismbased college culture will require a comprehensive strategy, time and resources, but as more and more educated students become leaders and employers themselves, positive changes will emerge. only then will cities disrupt the continuous, down-spiraling cycle of unequal representation and degree-attainment rates that exist between and within the nation’s multicultural population and will educational institutions begin to leverage and support diversity as a social and economic asset. if encouraged to undertake broader responsibilities, the chief diversity officer with the support of college leadership holds enormous power to help change socio-economic disparities in america’s urban areas. 62 references bonnabeau, r. f. (1996) the promise continues: empire state college, the first twenty-five years. virginia beach, va: the donning company publishers college completion: who graduates from college, who doesn’t, and why it matters. (2015) the chronicle of higher education report on college completion. retrieved from http://collegecompletion.chronicle.com/state/#state=ny&sector=public_four swanson, c.b. (2008, april 1). cities in crisis: a special analytic report on high school graduation. nclb implementation report: state approaches for calculating high school graduation rates. editorial projects in education. retrieved from http://www.edweek.org/media/citiesincrisis040108.pdf 63 author information merodie hancock is president of empire state college, state university of new york. she has dedicated her career to expanding access to higher education for nontraditional students via innovative classroom and residency-based, online, and independent-study learning across distributed campuses in urban, suburban, rural and virtual locations, as well as international borders, and for military and veteran students. hancock also established the first comprehensive, college-wide diversity, equity, and inclusion initiative at the college. merodie a. hancock president, empire state college, state university of new york 2 union ave., saratoga springs, n.y. 12866 merodie.hancock@esc.edu 518-587-2100 metropolitan universities vol. 29 no. 1 (february 2018), doi: 10.18060/22176 a systemically collaborative approach to achieving equity in higher education richard j. prystowsky abstract colleges and universities have long recognized the need to address inequities affecting students from underrepresented or underserved groups. despite efforts undertaken by dedicated individuals, large-scale, national change in this area has not been realized. in this article, we address two major factors underlying this disappointing result (the structures of isolation common in our institutions of higher learning, and the inadequate addressing of our own implicit biases) and offer a model of systemic collaboration aimed at ameliorating these problems so that colleges and universities throughout the nation can achieve the equity goals that have proved so elusive for so many of them. keywords: equity; diversity and inclusion; implicit bias in recent years, we have seen an increasingly urgent call to action for higher education institutions to meet the needs of underrepresented and underserved students. though disturbing equity gaps and related disparities have persisted for decades in our institutions, the increasing numbers of such students on our campuses has made it difficult for us to avoid seeing the problems faced by these students. inequity, long a higher education problem hidden in plain sight, in good conscience can no longer be ignored. (for excellent, trenchant explications of both the equity-related issues at stake and cogent ways of addressing these issues, see witham et al., 2015, mcnair et al., 2016, and ramaley 2014). in order to address this urgent problem, higher education institutions need to embrace “a paradigm shift in thinking about equity, diversity, and student learning” (mcnair et al., 2016). in this new paradigm, “campus educators understand and value the assets that students bring to educational experiences, as well as the importance of institutional change and continuous improvement to better meet the needs of students, whatever they may be” (mcnair, 2016). in short, instead of seeing underrepresented or underserved students’ underperformance or other struggles through a deficits-oriented lens, “equity-minded individuals reflect on their own and their colleagues’ role in and responsibility for student success” (bensimon, 2007). ultimately, as mcnair (2016) and mcnair, et al. (2016a), suggest, this paradigm shift should help colleges and universities enact “equity-minded” policies and practices, enabling them to become “student-ready” and thereby be well-positioned to help all students experience inclusiveness, a quality education, and academic success. operation 100%: committing to equity and inclusive excellence, and the problem of implicit bias the need, if not the urgency, to ameliorate the problem of persistent equity disparities in higher education is not new. however, despite the best intentions of many of our colleagues—in many cases, over the course of years—we have yet to witness industry-wide excellent results. to address this issue substantively, our institutions must enact radical, scalable, sustainable, comprehensive changes to our thinking and practices, however uncomfortable such changes 94 might be for us. without such introspection and concomitant actions, our good-faith, conscious intentions to create meaningful, lasting change could be severely undermined by our unexamined biases and initiative-crippling self-deception. such important,courageous self-reflection must occur within an institutionally supportive, trusting environment. for if institutions do not provide such an environment in which this difficult work is to be accomplished, even highly committed employees might feel defensive or even threatened, and could very likely stop engaging in the work. when i was provost at lansing community college (lcc), we faced the problem of low student retention and completion rates, a common problem in america’s community colleges. in response, we developed and implemented a bold, comprehensive, culture-changing initiative called “operation 100%.” i had introduced this initiative to the college after having observed persistently limited success, by faculty and others, with good-faith, yet often more or less isolated, attempts to address student success barriers. for example, dedicated faculty had been attempting to reform developmental education, an area that, nationally, is particularly prone to disparate impacts related to equity gaps. student affairs personnel had been working hard to assist struggling students (with tutoring and advising, for example). it colleagues had been trying to improve instructional delivery options. however, these and other efforts were not coordinated under a college-wide, unifying, centralized, integrated, comprehensive approach to addressing student success barriers at the college. thus their effects were limited. operation 100% presented the vision and outlined practices for just such a unifying approach. the goal of operation 100% is to ensure that every student in a certificate, degree, or transferpathway will succeed in realizing her or his educational dreams. emphasizing, and grounded in, collaboration among individuals across all areas of the college, this initiative has, among its outcomes, enabled cross-functional teams to design guided program pathways for all students and to begin designing a guided registration process that will keep students on track, and it has led to the hiring of a cadre of specially trained academic success coaches who, working with students and collaborating with college personnel, have the laser-focused task of helping students overcome non-cognitive impediments to the students’ success in courses and programs (prystowsky et al., 2015). indeed, operation 100% has galvanized the college and brought together colleagues from academic affairs, student affairs, it, financial aid, and other areas to work towards the common goal of helping all students succeed at lcc. as i led this culture-changing initiative, i found that colleagues from across the college were eager to join the effort. what became clear, as well, was the extent to which higher education is systemically structured to facilitate employees’ separation (or even isolation) from rather than their collaboration with other employees. for example, normally, we hire faculty to teach courses or sections of courses, to be part of a department, division, and school, and so on. we do not normally hire faculty to be employees of the institution, charged with cross-functional teamwork responsibilities. the same holds true for other employee appointments in other areas of the college. clearly, institutions need to divide workloads and assign responsibility and accountability accordingly. commonly, though, we find it difficult to break out of our silos. in leading operation 100%, i discovered that, because this initiative is grounded in the concepts and practices of cross-functionality and collaboration, it provides employees with a systematically solid way to work together towards the common goal of helping all students succeed. as i have 95 noted, colleagues from across the college were eager to embrace this opportunity. the problem, i discovered, was not that they had been unwilling to engage in this kind of comprehensive, collaborative effort or that, in more limited ways, they had not already engaged in collaborative work; rather, they had not yet been given the chance to do so by working towards achieving a focused student success goal in a college-wide, comprehensively unifying way. and yet, despite our enthusiasm, we also found ourselves faced with the discomforting data indicating that students from underrepresented groups were not performing as well as other students in, for example, key gateway courses or developmental education courses. looking at these outcomes through an equity-minded lens, we realized that we had to be honest with ourselves concerning the extent to which our own implicit biases might be undermining our efforts to be a student-ready college for all of our students. fortunately, having become involved with the association of american colleges and universities’ (aacu) “committing to equity and inclusive excellence” project, we were well positioned to carry out this examination. (for a sampling of aacu publications addressing the equity imperative, see aacu, 2015a; aacu 2015b, and witham et al., 2015.) for example, in discussing how to close equity gaps for african american and latina/latino students—the focus of our aacu work—we reminded ourselves that, in light of the united states’ history of racism, sexism, heterosexism, and similar societal ills, no one growing up in our country could likely escape the messages and influences of these problems. were we not to confront this problem in ourselves, then, we could jeopardize our equity-minded work insofar as we might limit our ability to see the extent to which our own attitudes and behavior could be contributing to the persistence of equity gaps for underrepresented students. key to doing this work well was our coming to terms with our own implicit biases, an endeavor that required us to understand that, compared to explicit biases, implicit biases are or can be especially problematic precisely because they are unconscious, not easily recognized, and thus difficult to address. as noted by researchers mahzarin banaji and anthony greenwald, even good people have hidden biases (banaji and greenwald 2013). we thus decided that we needed to take a deep dive into addressing this problem, lest we undermine our work with operation 100% by failing to close the equity gaps in student success that we were seeing. a number of us who were already familiar with scholarship on the effects of implicit bias thus felt that a good starting point would be for the college to engage in implicit bias awareness training. (for detailed information concerning lcc’s implicit bias awareness training in particular and the college’s diversity-related work in general, see prystowsky, et al., 2017a; prystowsky & heutsche, 2017b. for information on how other higher education institutions might use knowledge of implicit bias to effect meaningful, diversity-related change, see davies, 2016.) to maximize the benefits of this self-reflective work and minimize persons’ discomfort with it, we decided to hire an outside consultant who could lead train-the-trainer sessions for us. we also agreed to create and sustain an atmosphere of “no blame, no shame.” in such an atmosphere, we would work from intentionality and good faith. furthermore, we would support each other, even when—and sometimes especially when—our efforts were not producing desired results. as alluded to above regarding the need to create and sustain a trusting, supportive environment in which to carry out this work, we worried that, if persons confronting 96 their own possible implicit biases felt that they were being blamed or shamed, they could become defensive and stop engaging in the work. given this understanding, from general meetings open to all (such as semester-opening events) to smaller meetings with specific groups (such as search committees), from time to time we reminded each other that none of us is born with implicit biases, that both victims and nonvictims have learned and internalized such biases to greater or lesser degrees and in various ways, and that, without blaming or shaming, we needed to carry out our equity-related work in a supportive context. from my own observations in numerous meetings, colleagues responded well to this approach, engaging in the self-reflective work openly and honestly. implicit bias training we engaged the services of a consultant from “project implicit,” a research organization that contributes to the public’s awareness of hidden biases (see https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/). we involved our consultant twice. on his first visit, he worked with the “committing to equity and inclusive excellence” steering committee; on the second visit, he worked with advisors, support staff, and others from the college. for each training, i asked participants to prepare for the meetings by familiarizing themselves with project implicit and by taking one or more of the implicit association tests (iats) offered on its website. knowing that results from these tests might be disturbing (again, even “good persons” have implicit biases), i asked that participants take the tests privately. in his work with us, the consultant had us take a few of the tests as a group so that no one would feel personally implicated and vulnerable. perhaps not surprisingly, when the steering committee took the iat on race, as a group we associated “good” with whites more than we did with blacks and “bad” with blacks more than we did with whites. this result reinforced for us that even the steering committee for the college’s equity project—that is, the choir of the choir—could not escape the nefarious influences of racism in our culture. again not surprisingly, when the larger group of participants took the iat on race, the outcome was similar. the conclusion for us was obvious: none of us is immune from having implicit biases, which we needed to confront if we were to advance our equity-oriented work. faculty involvement to be as inclusive as possible in our work, we engaged in implicit bias awareness training with faculty, support staff, and others. i offer two examples here to illustrate the nature and outcomes of this work, the first of which involves faculty, and the second of which involves search committees. in lcc’s program review process, faculty analyzed data related to race and gender disparities in program enrollments, degrees awarded, and the like. in the post-review discussions, we then focused on examining the extent to which implicit biases might play a role in these disparities. the college is currently following up on these discussions with additional implicit bias awareness training for program faculty and staff and with annual improvement action plans that incorporate efforts to improve diversity-related outcomes—for example, efforts to strengthen the 97 recruiting of students, advisory committee members, and program faculty from underrepresented groups. at this point, the work is in initial phases of development; anecdotal evidence suggests promising results in addressing targeted concerns, though. impact of implicit bias training on the curriculum and campus policies and practices curriculum: faculty have been actively involved in other equity-minded and diversity-related efforts as well. for instance, during start-of-semester professional activity days, faculty led seminars on implicit bias barriers to student success and held a college-wide meeting on ways that lcc might continue to strengthen its work in committing to equity and inclusive excellence. seminar discussions involved ways to revise curricula, teaching methods, and assignments so that classes would effect inclusiveness along with high quality education. in a college-wide meeting, participants discussed ways in which the college as a whole could remove barriers to student success. for example, by making it easier for students to find academic and non-academic support, by revising payment policies that address the needs of firstgeneration, low-income students, and so on. still in the beginning stages, this work bodes well for student success at the college. it also has yielded professional development opportunities for faculty, who have expressed that they feel both energized by and supported in continuing to do the work. gateway courses the effects of our work are perhaps nowhere more apparent than in the exciting work being undertaken by faculty participating in the college’s newly developed faculty institutes, an outgrowth of the aacu-related equity work that has benefited from lcc’s ongoing implicit bias awareness training. led by the college’s chief diversity officer (cdo), these institutes focus on helping faculty understand how to maximize their efforts to engage at-risk students. because lcc’s retention data indicate that students from underrepresented groups are particularly at risk in key gateway courses (which lcc defines as courses having both high enrollments and high dfwi rates) the college initiated the institutes with faculty teaching these courses (accounting and history at first, with additional courses to follow). the cdo helps faculty learn how to engage in authentic communication with students, create alternative lessons that are relevant and meaningful to students, and the like. student evaluations indicate positive satisfaction, faculty feedback indicates enthusiasm and engagement, and course completion data indicate positive increases. lcc will continue to assess this work as it scales up faculty involvement in the institutes. the results thus far bode well. search committees to help ensure that lcc apply diversity awareness to its hiring processes, i led implicit-bias awareness training as part of search committee orientations. search processes at colleges and universities often result in “the appointment[s] of persons who look, think, or otherwise seem like the faculty and staff already employed by our institutions—despite the diversity training received by search committee members, and despite a professed institutional commitment to 98 diversifying the faculty and staff.” indeed, the “message often sent by the practical results of our thinking and behavior can be summed up as follows: ’it’s okay to be different, as long as you’re not’” (prystowsky et al., 2017a and prystowsky, 2008). as is the case with challenging what ronald takaki refers to as “the master narrative” underlying dominant culture thinking and practices, challenging the general and often unexamined mindset that “it’s okay to be different, as long as you’re not” has proved to be quite difficult (takaki, 2008). to help ameliorate this problem at lcc, i oriented search committees on implicit bias awareness, helping them both to understand its root causes and to see how they can keep biases from affecting the search process. some specific examples of this work follow. after reinforcing the notion that none of us is immune from having implicit biases, i asked that the search committee members see themselves as a confidential, trusting support network for each other as they engaged in their work to hire personnel. among the pieces of information and advice that i discussed with search committee members is that which reflects another key takeaway from the training that our consultant did with us at the college: to wit, that implicit biases are more likely to emerge when decision-making criteria are not clear. thus, i advised search committee members to be sure that they were working with clearly stated criteria. however, i also advised that they not be too restrictive in criteria development, lest they unintentionally undermine their efforts to be open-minded and inclusive during the search. for example, i recommended that, unless an accrediting body requires specific numbers of years of experience, search committees require that candidates have “experience” rather than a specific number of years of experience. this seemingly slight change can have major consequences in developing an applicant pool that widens the net of inclusivity for candidates from underrepresented groups. although this work, too, is new to the college, preliminary results are again promising. for example, search committees have revised interview questions accordingly and personnel are investigating ways to make initial applicant screening “blind.” by talking about cultural biases that favor individualism over the community, i helped search committees avoid constructing interview questions that could unintentionally either advantage or disadvantage particular groups of persons. in this regard, i assisted search committees with developing relational questions, which candidates from any culture ought to be able to answer and which allow search committee members to evaluate how a candidate might work with others to effect a common good (for a department, the college, or the community, for example). however, i also cautioned that search committees be careful about looking for “fit” in a candidate. not uncommonly, a search for “fit” leads to the hiring of persons just like the persons already employed by the college, even though other, less conspicuously “fitting” candidates might help the college grow in positive ways not yet recognized. one particular interview danger related to “fit” manifests itself in the still commonly asked question “why are you the best candidate for the position?” a candidate from a culture that emphasizes community and not individuality might be disadvantaged by this interview question, whereas a candidate whose culture promotes, for instance, rugged individualism might be advantaged by it. in any case, if we are honest about this all-too-common interview question, we would have to admit that no candidate could answer the question accurately who has not reviewed all of the applications first and somehow discovered that, objectively, she or he is the 99 best candidate. suffice it to say that this question is at least culturally biased and at most disingenuous. i strongly recommend that search committees never use it or any variant of it. there are other good equity-related recommendations for search committees to follow: for example, their asking open-ended questions and listening with an open mind, not predetermining the “right” answer to the question; and their having the candidate sit among the search committee members rather than at the head of the table (this arrangement helps to emphasize the importance of relationships, and it de-emphasizes a valorization of the self). different search committees at different institutions will need to develop equity-related questions and search practices appropriate to their own institutions’ needs. if they are guided by equity-mindedness, though, and if they are willing to address their own hidden biases, all search committees ought to be able to engage more consistently than before in fair-minded, equity-oriented hiring practices. conclusion lansing community college’s equity-minded, self-reflective efforts can be summed up by the vision statement for operation 100%, which derives from the college’s work to strengthen equity, diversity, and inclusion at the college: “100% success through 100% inclusion.” to be sure, this kind of work is sometimes challenging. however, given the potential for higher education to change lives and communities in dramatically scalable fashion, especially with respect to individuals and communities traditionally underrepresented in or underserved by our institutions, in good conscience we have no choice but to engage in these efforts. indeed, this endeavor is a matter of conscience, and our work in this regard is the work of justice. our students have entrusted us to help them achieve their higher education dreams. we have a moral obligation to help them—all of them—including, and perhaps especially, our students who have not been well served either by our society or by institutions of higher learning. to be sure, meaningful, lasting change takes time. but we cannot wait. we need to act now. on our campuses are entire groups of traditionally underrepresented or underserved students, faculty, and staff, whose individual and collective strengths and attributes are waiting to be fully realized. these fellow citizens can do so much to help enrich us all. in the final analysis, we need to ask, at whose risk can we truly afford to wait any longer—and at what cost to us all? 100 references aacu. (2015a). committing to equity and inclusive excellence: a campus guide for self-study and planning. retrieved from https://www.aacu.org/publications/committing-to-equity aacu. (2015b). step up & lead for equity: what higher education can do to reverse our deepening divides. retrieved from https://aacu.org/publications/step-up-and-lead banaki, mahzarin r & anthony g. greenwold. (2013). blindspot: hidden biases in good people. new york: delacorte press. bensimon, e.m. (2007, summer). the underestimated significance of practitioner knowledge in the scholarship on student success. the review of higher education, 30(4), 441-469. https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.2007.0032 davies, s.l. (2016, fall). driving campus diversity one decision at a time. liberal education, 102(4), 46-51. retrieved from https://www.aacu.org/liberaleducation/2016/fall/davies mcnair, t.b. (2016). the time is now: committing to equity and inclusive excellence. diversity and democracy, 19(1), 4-7. retrieved from https://www.aacu.org/diversitydemocracy/2016/winter/mcnair mcnair, t.b., albertine, s., cooper, m.a., mcdonald, n., & thomas major jr., (2016a). becoming a student-ready college: a new culture of leadership for student success. san francisco: jossey-bass prystowsky, richard j. (2008). it’s okay to be different, as long as you’re not. encounter 21(1), 37-39. retrieved from http://www.great-ideas.org/enc.htm prystowsky, r.j., koch, a.k., & baldwin, c.a. (2015). operation 100%, or, completion by redesign. peer review, 17(4), 19–22. retrieved from https://www.aacu.org/peerreview/2015/fall/prystowsky prystowsy, r.j, herrera, j., crowley, c., lowery-hunt, r., & fannon, s. (2017a). grabbing third rails: courageous responses to equity gaps. liberal education, 103(2), 44-49. retrieved from https://www.aacu.org/liberaleducation/2017/spring/prystowsky prystowsky, r.j. & heutsche, a.m. (2017b). facing ourselves, engaging our students: equityminded practices at work. peer review, 19(2), 25. retrieved from https://www.aacu.org/peerreview/2017/spring/prystowsky ramaley, j.a. (2014). educating for a changing world: the importance of an equity mindset,” metropolitan universities journal, 25(3): 5-15. retrieved from https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/muj https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.2007.0032 101 takaki, r. (2008). a different mirror: a history of multicultural america. new york: bay back books. witham, k., malcom-piqueux, l.e., dowd, a.c., & bensimon, e.m. (2015). america’s unmet promise: the imperative for equity in higher education. washington, dc: association of american colleges and universities. 102 author information for more than fifteen years, richard j. prystowsky has held administrative leadership positions at various community colleges, most recently at lansing community college, where he was provost. he is currently the vice president of academic affairs and student services at marion technical college, in ohio. previously, at irvine valley college, he held a dual appointment as a professor of english and humanities, teaching courses in writing, literature, and humanities, and specializing in holocaust studies. the author of a college-level writing text (careful reading, thoughtful writing), he has also published articles, given talks, or led sessions on a variety of topics, including education, diversity and inclusion, writing, literature and psychoanalysis, nonviolence, holocaust studies, and peace studies. for the entirety of his career, he has been a strong advocate for higher education’s enacting substantial policies and practices that advance the work of equity, diversity, and inclusion. he sees this work as integral to higher education’s commitment to helping create a well-educated, civically engaged, humanitarian-oriented citizenry. richard j. prystowsky, ph.d. vice president of academic affairs and student services marion technical college 1467 mt. vernon ave. marion, oh 43302 email: prystowskyr@mtc.edu telephone: 740-386-4150 135 online community-based learning as the practice of freedom: the online capstone experience at portland state university deborah smith arthur and zapoura newton-calvert abstract given the design of portland state university’s (psu) undergraduate curriculum culminating in a capstone experience, the dramatic growth in online courses and online enrollments required a re-thinking of the capstone model to ensure all students could participate in this effective learning model and have a powerful learning experience. in recent years, a number of capstone courses have been developed that are offered fully online. this article examines psu’s development of and institutional support for community-based learning (cbl) capstone courses in a fully online format. emerging best practices and lessons learned may be useful for other institutions seeking to integrate experiential elements into online learning at any level, including capstones. education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world. (paulo freire, pedagogy of the oppressed [new york: bloomsbury, 2000], 34) in recent years, in response to the growing demands of students and the desire of the university to design more online certificate, minor, and degree pathways for psu students, a number of capstone courses have been developed and offered in a fully online format. as part of this online course development process, program staff, administrators, and instructors have been exploring ways of translating what we have done for so many years in our rich practice of offering on-site community-based learning (cbl) courses to the online classroom without losing the powerful community partnerships, deep reflective opportunities for students, and social justice framework for teaching and learning. indeed, this work revealed that online cbl is positioned well to provide a platform for education “as the practice of freedom” as described by freire above. psu faculty worked to discover and develop online cbl designs that support transformative learning experiences and address the potential barriers to student access and student learning and engagement presented by capstone courses in an online format. clearly, online community-based learning has both challenges and rewards. this article examines the literature in this fairly new and 136 developing field, and looks closely at psu’s trajectory. potential areas for continued growth and improvement of online cbl are also identified. literature review as portland state university’s capstone program team began to realize how the institution’s strategic push toward increased online curricular delivery would potentially impact or alter a key pillar of our four-year core curriculum for students, we looked to the field for research regarding online community-based learning as an emerging practice. also referred to in the literature as service-learning, psu more frequently uses the term community-based learning (cbl). what we found was a small but important body of literature in this area starting in the early 2000s and extending to the present. our research questions were as follows: •  what best practices and challenges are documented in this emerging field? •   which of these models can best inform, support, and help us further develop our  current practices? •   what gaps are there in the literature that we may be able to address based on our  own experience in the capstone program? the themes that emerged were threefold: 1. the potential of online cbl to benefit a disrupted university that is grappling with digital learning in general; 2. limitations and challenges both on the administrative and faculty levels and in the online classroom itself; 3. promising practices and models (both administrative and instructional). because cbl online is such a new practice (or newly documented practice) and because the number of institutions and instructors attempting such a practice is small, we were able to conduct thorough research and were in the unique position of being able also to study current practice while simultaneously developing our own practices side-by-side. the position and role of cbl in our current disrupted university setting the intersection between cbl and “e-learning” can be articulated as an opportunity to expand the definition of “classroom” and disrupt traditional models of teaching and learning. carver and her co-authors (2007), in their article “toward a model of experiential e-learning,” speak to the potential of community-based learning to enrich and even challenge traditional modes of online instruction by asking students to connect to real-world locations and current issues in a way that is not insulated. while traditional models of online instruction often privilege the online mode as a place for publication or a place to experiment with communication, community-based or experiential opportunities may give online students an anchor as they experiment with having more agency (expected in most online courses) and taking more initiative over 137 their own learning experience. indeed, “successful learners are active, goal-directed, self-regulating, and assume personal responsibility for contributing to their own learning” (zlotkowski and duffy 2010). carver and associates outline a taxonomy of experiential e-learning that starts with “content sharing” and ends with “direct experience/action learning” (1997). while the authors describe the challenging nature of bringing these complex pieces together in the online classroom, they reflect that building the learning community is a key element in overall learner and class success and see experiential learning as a solution to the sometimes alienating or disconnected placement of the learner in an online learning environment that requires student agency without helping the learners connect to fellow students or to the outside world. hamerlinch and houle, in a 2012 presentation for the minnesota campus compact, echo some of these themes framing two different modes of online experience: passive/ apathetic (students as media consumers) or active/engaged (students as media participants and creators). they also point to attitudes of instructors about online instruction, citing a 2010 statistic from the chronicle of higher education article “faculty views about online learning”: 82.1% of faculty members (from sixty-nine colleges/universities, based on 10,720 faculty member interviews) view online learning as inferior to face-to-face learning. this attitude alone frames the way our institutions may view online learning even in the face of a push to digitize our curriculum and to invite more students to attend our schools and even earn their degrees via distance education. much like the carver and others (2007) piece, these authors emphasize a necessary social presence as important to successful engagement of students online; unlike the carver piece, these authors emphasize the social presence of the online instructor in their role as facilitator. with this focus on the faculty role, hamerlinch and houle also point to the need for traditional community-based learning or service-learning practitioners to re-envision what “service” can and should mean in an online space. echoing this theme, waldner, mcgorry, and widener (2012) describe online learning as a “facilitator rather than a barrier to service-learning” and state that “e-service-learning” holds the potential to transform both service-learning and online learning by freeing service-learning from geographical constraints and by equipping online learning with a tool to promote engagement (123). waldner and her co-authors describe an emerging e-service-learning typology with a spectrum of service learning, from traditional on-site service all the way to what they term “extreme e-service-learning,” which takes place entirely online. the importance of these pathways lies in the flexibility both for instructors and students of this potential teaching and learning model. in community engagement 2.0? dialogues on the future of the civic in the disrupted university, crabill and butin (2014) dig deeply into the tension and the possibility between the digital and the civic. this book is framed by the overarching question of the role of community-based and placed-based learning in higher education, which is becoming increasingly less place-based itself and more virtual. other questions raised include the issue of the heavy labor and deep relationships of cbl, in contrast to an online format that can trend toward the mechanical/impersonal. the question also arises: how does cbl transform online classrooms for the better or the worse? can 138 the disruption of technology in higher education serve as an opportunity to rethink civic engagement and the way we use it in our pedagogy? cbl may be the way to firmly ground online learning. limitations and challenges because this body of research and writing on online cbl is still young, there is a great sense of optimism and hope described in the literature that often details new courses running online and using cbl as a pedagogical framework. the extant literature also alludes to the challenges and limitations that face instructors, students, and institutions in this work. capstone courses are a required course for psu undergraduates, so both institutional and instructor motivation exists to undertake the heavy redesign and critical thinking processes required to create an effective online cbl course. in institutions where cbl is not required, faculty may be more hesitant to take on the demands necessitated by this process. these challenges can inform us in our own work and also point to future research that is needed on this emerging teaching and learning pedagogy. major challenges arise around the difficulty of moving beyond a simple translation of the face-to-face course into an online offering, the workload/time commitments of online students, the community partnership, geographical limitations, and technology training for all involved parties. again, since the research is still young, sample sizes and longevity of studies are still small or limited. strait and sauer (2004) offer some of the earliest research on models of e-servicelearning, with special focus on a model where students each have a different community partner. here, the challenge is managing each community partnership, verifying volunteer work, and supporting each volunteer in his or her unique work. another challenge in e-service-learning, as described by strait and sauer, is the selfselected student population in online classes and their personal work and family loads. they estimate that most of their online students work a forty-hour work week. similarly, waldner and others (2011) describe the challenge of online students who carry a heavy workload outside of the classroom and the often accelerated pace of online courses. carver and co-authors (2007) emphasize the challenge of breaking out of the traditional classroom course design, mindset, and teaching methods in order to liberate our thinking in online learning spaces for the best outcomes. they find this traditional mindset to be one of the most challenging obstacles. they point to the need for more instruction and facilitation around “agency, belonging, and competence” as key to facing and meeting these challenges. waldner, mcgorry, and widener (2010) note small sample size in online cbl (as is the case in much of the early research) and lack of comparison in outcomes between face-to-face offerings and their online counterparts. training for all involved parties (instructor, community partner, student) is recommended; again, compressed term 139 length and the increasingly busy schedules of students may prevent full participation in these efforts. technology barriers themselves, such as lack of adequate access to technology at home and lack of training in video/chat, can prevent full meeting of learning outcomes. promising practices and models gaytan and mcewen (2007) discuss effective models for assessment, encouraging multiple examples and examining the intersection between effective assessment and overall effective online teaching in a community-based course. using faculty and student surveys, the researchers conclude that (a) training for instructors specifically in online teaching techniques is a benefit to any online cbl course; (b) assessment is most meaningful when it comes in different modes (synchronous, asynchronous, peer, self, and instructor); and (c) assessment in online courses should be very timely, with a quick turnaround, so that students may draw the most meaning out of feedback. the authors recommend additional research into innovative uses of technology for assessment and increased student learning as part of the feedback loop. in “teaching and learning social justice through online service-learning courses,” a touchstone article by guthrie and mccracken (2010), the authors delve into the question of how to create a space to connect and collaborate on the deep level needed for a transformative learning experience online. they recommend on-site service, rather than virtual, and encourage instructors to make technology a focus of discussion in terms of its possible role in reflection, connection, and social justice work. malvey, hamby, and fottler (2006) found that the use of synchronous learning opportunities (video streaming and text-based chat rooms) benefited the learning community as a whole and deepened learning outcomes. and pearce (2009) adds an important piece to this puzzle with his study of non-geographically based cbl partnerships, focusing on using appropedia (www.appropedia.org) as a virtual space to collaborate and meet deeper community needs while being geographically dispersed. the role of the community partner in transformative online cbl is also examined in the literature. waldner and her co-authors (2011) present a case study in their article “serving up justice: fusing service learning and social equity in the public administration classroom,” describing a partnership with a local government agency as transformative to the way students engaged with and understood the course content through a social justice and cultural competency lens. a key recommendation is joint development of the content and the syllabus with the community partner and engaging the community partner in recorded or real-time learning activities/discussions. likewise, kane and lee (2014) encourage development of a close working relationship and good communication between the instructor and community partner, finding digital means of documentation of the work (video/photo). they use a digital storybook as the primary means for both reflection and documentation/verification of the actual community work. 140 historical framework of online capstones and institutional support for online cbl at psu in the late 1990s, psu established the extended campus center, located in salem, oregon, which offered online options for students to complete courses and degrees in the social sciences and liberal arts. over the years, this center was the primary administrative home for online course offerings. in 2013, because of what kaur (2013) described as “a consistent migration of students to online classes,” this center was officially closed in favor of focusing on university-wide support for online learning. a limited number of capstone courses have been utilizing technology for some time now. in the mid-2000s, courses began to move to a hybrid format, and a few additional courses began to be offered fully online. the earliest online capstone offerings were grant writing or media-based capstones, with the community-based element of the course happening online, as opposed to on-site. faculty with an interest in moving to an online format or creating a new course online developed these courses without much formal institutional support. technologies utilized at that time tended to be restricted to the learning platforms adopted by the university, starting with webct, then blackboard, and currently desire to learn (d2l). additionally, some instructors began to use youtube as a delivery platform. these online capstone course offerings were few, and the instructors designing and instructing them were in many ways “flying solo.” capstone faculty involved in teaching hybrid or online courses did, in fact, take advantage of some of the earliest online professional support opportunities offered by the university, including workshops supporting hybrid teaching and learning. however, even with the professional support that was available, so little was known then about teaching and learning cbl online that in many ways these early pioneers were breaking into new territory. in june 2013, the office of academic innovation (oai) was created at psu. prior to that time, technology support as well as teaching and learning support was available for faculty, but these services were provided by three separate and distinct offices: the office of information technology (oit), the center for academic excellence (cae), and the center for online learning (col). support for faculty teaching cbl online was available, but scattered. faculty members were often left to search out and familiarize themselves with new technologies on their own, reaching out to oit for technical support as needed and/or arranging separate consultation meetings with cae or col staff. following an extensive consultation process with faculty and staff across the institution, the new, comprehensive office of academic innovation was formed. under the direction of the vice provost and oai directors, oai provides leadership and support for campus activities that explore and promote excellence in teaching and learning, innovative curricular technology use, and cbl. many instructors who now teach online cbl courses found the merger of technology support with teaching and learning support into one office to be a very helpful development. oai supports 141 campus initiatives that respond to changing curricular and educational delivery models; improve student success; and value the importance of teaching, learning, and assessment. in practice, this includes offering frequent workshops for faculty focusing on a variety of new technologies, cbl course syllabi development, creating accessible course videos, timing and logistics for online and hybrid courses, and screen casting, to name a few. in addition to hosting these frequent drop-in workshops, from time to time oai offers the opportunity to participate in more intensive work groups, in which a small group of instructors work closely together, with a facilitator, on specific skills that support successful online cbl courses. oai instructional designers are available for one-onone consultation as well, and many faculty have found it helpful to work with an online course designer in the development of and the maintenance of their online community-based capstones. oai also boasts a robust faculty-in-residence program, through which a full-time faculty member is engaged with oai in a part-time appointment, in order to focus on providing leadership on strategic initiatives that are a priority for the university. in the past several years, these roles have included facultyin-residence for engagement, collaborating with oai to explore new modalities for online cbl, and faculty-in-residence for learning technology, collaborating with oai staff to explore innovative technology tools for student success, among others. finally, oai recently created the position of teaching, learning, and engagement associate to develop, implement, and evaluate teaching, engagement, and cbl programming sponsored by oai. this is a unique position that focuses on faculty support in both the implementation and assessment of cbl both in traditional and online settings. the development of oai and all that it offers is a great benefit to the whole campus, and faculty teaching cbl online courses are especially excited about this new office and the tremendous support and innovation it provides. also in 2013, portland state university launched its rethink psu project, to “deliver an education that serves more students with better outcomes, while containing costs through curricular innovation, community engagement, and effective use of technology” (https://www.pdx.edu/oai/rethink-psu). this initiative funded projects that would enhance online learning and the innovative use of technology in advancing and supporting student success and graduation rates. university studies (unst), the fouryear general education program at psu and home of the senior capstone, was awarded a grant to create online general education pathways. because of increased degree and minor pathways online, the capstone program anticipated increased need for online capstone offerings and asked instructors with strong course evaluations in on-site capstones to pilot online versions. from this initiative, in addition to positive outcomes at other levels of the university studies program, six new online capstone courses were developed. project facilitators worked closely with oai from project inception to completion. additionally, a point person for continued support of online pedagogy, an experienced capstone faculty member with extensive experience in teaching and learning online, is employed through university studies. 142 while there is a good amount of institutional support for online cbl pedagogy available from the wider university, oai, and university studies, additional supports could make online capstone courses even stronger. additional resources for technology for both faculty (including adjunct faculty) and students are recommended. faculty would benefit from a university-wide adoption of enhanced technology tools, such as voicethread to complement d2l. (currently voicethread licensure is offered to only a select few faculty). while a satisfactory “home base” for online courses, d2l does not allow for the deeper, face-to-face connection that other platforms can provide. the creation of a strong classroom community is enhanced with additional audio and visual options. also, it takes a substantial amount of time to develop and revise online courses in order to keep current with the latest technological advances. faculty would benefit from temporal and fiscal support to sustain this work. later in the article we address the need for better technology access and supports for students. these supports could include practice courses in order to familiarize students with the technology; clear, across-the-board expectations for what online learning is and is not; and better access to the technology tools necessary to engage in a deep level with online learning. online cbl would also benefit from an overall shift in institutional attitude about the validity of online learning. while rethink and the accompanying projects did a great deal to enhance positive attitudes about online learning, there are still segments of the psu campus, and indeed, many higher education faculty nationally, that view online learning as somehow less rigorous than, and inferior to, face-to-face learning, for both faculty and students, which, indeed, is not the case (hamerlinch and houle 2012). a closer look: case studies reporting live: a study abroad capstone reporting live is an international capstone course that, via blog, connects oregon middle school classrooms with study abroad students while they are overseas. grounded in peace journalism and intercultural competence theory, this capstone consists of a pre-departure orientation, ten weeks of interactive blogging, and a final in-person celebration with the partner middle school classroom when the student returns from study abroad (or online if the student remains abroad). as made clear on the course website, http://www.pdx.edu/capstone-reportinglive/: there are two program objectives. the first is to supplement middle grade social studies, language arts, and/or foreign language curriculum, and to support state learning standards with a fun and easy-to-use social media tool. the goal is to maximize experiential learning while minimizing outside teacher prep time. the other program objective is to enrich the overseas experience of the participating study abroad students. by framing these students as peace journalists and providing them a readership of young learners, the students are poised to approach their new context with sharpened senses and a critical mind. observation, asking questions, suspending judgment, building 143 relationships, and seeking out voices that are missing from the dominant discourse are all attributes of peace journalism, the practice of which will enable the study abroad students (and middle school students back home) to meaningfully connect across cultural difference. this online course was developed by a new instructor in 2011. the instructor had no online teaching experience but had a background in international conflict resolution, had studied online, had previously taught middle school students, and had lived and studied abroad. all of these lived experiences culminated in this course proposal to the capstone committee, which was accepted and supported. in this capstone, which operates in partnership with the office of international affairs education abroad office at psu, students must apply to participate. requirements to enroll include studying or interning abroad at time of participation and having regular access to the internet while abroad. beyond that, the application process examines study abroad destinations and logistics, a survey of previous travel experience, and an examination of online communication skills. a statement of intent is also required, which gives the student an opportunity to discuss why they want to participate, how they plan to engage middle school students, what aspects of their host country they think will most interest middle school students, and how their major will inform their reporting. all of this information helps the instructor to include students that are well prepared for this international learning-through-serving experience. in most cases, the instructor arranges partnerships between middle school teachers and the capstone students. there is an ever-evolving pool of participating classrooms, some of which have partnered with the program from the beginning and others trying it out for the first time. originally, all partner teachers were within the portland public school district, but the program expanded outside the city, and even the state, with the realization that partnerships between students and their own former teachers were much more robust and interactive. for students who work with teachers that they themselves had in middle school, there is an added personalized and special experience, an extra sense of giving back. students in this online cbl capstone are required to attend one in-person meeting together prior to the start of the term. this is the pre-departure orientation. as part of this orientation, the instructor invites previous participants to share their stories and experiences with the incoming students. this one face-to-face meeting helps students begin to feel connected to one another in this experience, which supports a strong sense of community among students throughout the term. additionally, prior to the start of the term, students are required to meet in person or virtually with the middle school teacher that they are paired with to discuss the upcoming term and the use of the blog in the middle school classroom. there are a great variety of classrooms that participate, so it is essential that capstone students learn and understand the unique needs and interests of their audience to enable them to successfully customize their blog. this pre-term meeting allows them to do that. 144 the cbl aspect of this course is almost entirely virtual. each week of the ten-week term, students are required to make a blog post, sharing stories about their adventures abroad and highlighting various aspects of culture and geography. the instructor developed the assignments for the posts around state standards for middle school learning in order to make the posts most useful for the middle school teachers. teachers engage their students with the posts in a variety of ways. additionally, capstone students are required to read a minimum of two of their colleagues’ blogs each week and respond to one another. this also contributes to a strong community feel among capstone students. in addition to their blog posts, capstone students are required to complete assigned readings and to reflect and respond in an online discussion forum utilizing the d2l platform. finally, at the end of the term, and upon the capstone students’ return home, there is a celebration with the partnering middle school classroom. these in-person gatherings provide valuable closure for both the classroom and the capstone student, allowing them to commemorate their learning experience together through cultural song, dance, food, and other activities. for those unable to return within the k-12 academic school year, students hold the celebration virtually, finding creative ways to make the experience special. the reporting live capstone is a successful offering, attracting full enrollment each term with study abroad students who want to simultaneously complete their capstone requirement. a review of the capstone students’ blogs (available on the course website) indicates that most capstone students find that the experience of framing their travel and study abroad in a way that is also informative and useful for middle school students and teachers enriched their own experience. additionally, course assignments are consistently updated to align with changing state standards. from the instructor’s perspective, the most challenging aspect of the course is managing the variety of community partnerships, which involve different teachers, schools, and districts. indeed, research confirms the challenge of a multi-community partner model (strait and sauer 2004). mobilizing hope capstone: engaged spirituality this online capstone course was developed in the summer of 2013, during the early stages of the rethink psu project mentioned previously which encouraged and supported the development of increased online capstone offerings. after thorough review of the course proposal by the capstone committee, the course was accepted, with the recommendation to work closely with other faculty and instructional designers from oai for assistance in developing the fully online course format. at the time that the course was developed, support for online cbl instruction was not yet established in a uniform manner, but was available ad hoc. the instructor worked individually with an instructional designer, as well as with the faculty-in-residence for community-based online learning in the oai, to become familiar with a variety of teaching and learning online tools and to develop the online course structure. despite several years of teaching hybrid courses using the d2l format, this fully online capstone was a new experience for the instructor (who at one point in time would have described herself as a “technophobe”). teaching fully online meant that 145 the instructor could not rely upon those once a week face-to-face sessions to build a relationship with students that she was familiar with in-person or through hybrid teaching. additionally, while the instructor was acquainted with and had been using d2l for a number of years in hybrid courses, she felt that the ability to engage with students on a deep level and to support them in engaging and collaborating with one another, as is required for successful and transformative online community-based teaching and learning (guthrie and mccracken 2010), would be limited by using only that tool. identifying and becoming adept with other technology tools that would allow for deeper engagement and relationship building was an initial hurdle. thankfully, other, more seasoned online faculty members were available for support and ideas. a series of work sessions one-on-one with the faculty-in-residence for communitybased online learning was also extremely helpful in this regard. the mobilizing hope capstone course asks students to examine and discuss their own spiritual traditions, beliefs, and wonderings, and use this set of traditions and beliefs as a springboard and a foundation for social justice activism on an issue of their choosing. additionally, this course empowers students to become involved in social justice work in the community, addressing a wide variety of issues and areas, depending on their passions and interests. students are required to develop their own partnerships and/or social justice projects and to work during the course of the term on these. as mentioned by strait and sauer (2004), managing multiple community partnerships can be challenging for faculty, but also has its rewards. the wide variety of cbl work allows students to examine varied content associated with that work and provides for a rich learning environment. as recommended by guthrie and mccracken (2010), the cbl is on-site in the community rather than virtual in this course. a great deal of work happens prior to the start of the term beyond typical course preparation. the instructor must assist with the development of, and approve, all cbl partnerships and projects. this requires that the instructor be in communication with students well before the start of the term (in fact, shortly after students’ registration in the course) to work with students in developing appropriate projects for the upcoming term, so that their cbl can begin at the start of the term. additionally, students must review and sign an assumption of risk and release of liability form for psu as well as a partnership agreement, the latter of which is also signed by the faculty member and a representative of the community partner, so all expectations and requirements are clearly delineated. two main technology tools for teaching and learning online are utilized in this course: d2l and voicethread. the combination of these tools seems to work well together, allowing for a basic course shell, or “home base,” with announcements, assignments, and similar items housed on d2l, and a deeper engagement with one another as a class community and with course material and content through voicethread. clear guidelines and structure are especially important in an online classroom space so that students feel connected and understand the flow of the course (palloff and pratt 2007), and the mobilizing hope capstone is set up with expectations that are the same each week. students are expected to complete roughly twenty hours of cbl over the course 146 of the term. each week, using voicethread (which allows for audio and video posting, along with a text option), students are required to report to the class community an update about their cbl for that week. in addition to their own report, students are required to reply to the postings of two colleagues, at a minimum, in a meaningful way: to support them, brainstorm an issue, congratulate them, ask a question, make a connection, or whatever makes sense in the context of that week’s blogs. voicethread is also used for the weekly discussion regarding the assigned readings. these discussions are asynchronous, and as previously mentioned, text, audio, and video responses are permitted, with most students utilizing the audio and video options. each week, as with the cbl reports, students are asked to respond by making an original post in response to the question(s) posed by the instructor, and then also to reply to a minimum of two colleagues in a meaningful way, referring to the readings in the discussion. finally, there is the group work aspect of the course. in small groups based upon the nature of their cbl projects, students find and post articles, videos, discussion questions, and other material, allowing them to delve deeper into the content of their particular social justice issue. these discussions take place on d2l. these smaller group discussions are surprisingly rich and diverse and are a favorite aspect of the course, based on student evaluations. the level of engagement of students in this online capstone has been impressive. while a few students each term inevitably fall into the “passive/apathetic” category (hamerlinch and houle 2012), the majority of students seem to appreciate the use of voicethread and engage quite well, as if they were in a classroom discussion. the only difference is that the discussion takes place over the period of a week, asynchronously, and from different places, free from geographical constraints, instead of over an hour in a classroom. from the faculty perspective, one aspect of this course that should be highlighted and celebrated is the fact that students are able to participate in so many different cbl projects in a variety of geographical areas, adding a rich dimension to the course discussions and student learning. for example, a student developed a partnership with an equine therapy group, developing a project whereby she brought horses into a youth correctional facility in oregon to provide equine therapy for incarcerated young men. another example involves a student who partnered with stand up 4 kids in houston, texas, for his cbl, working to end the cycle of youth homelessness. he had recently moved to texas and wanted to finish his psu degree, and this online capstone was a perfect fit for him. another student also had recently moved away from portland and needed to complete his capstone; he worked for an after-school mentoring program in california to engage in his community-based work. several students have completed the course from abroad, conducting cbl in another country. these diverse cbl opportunities from various geographical areas could only happen in an online cbl course, and they add richness to the course and to the discussion that is not found in a traditional cbl classroom. 147 this course could continue to be improved by developing more interaction and course involvement with each of the community partners. currently, there is interaction between the community partners and the instructor before the start of the term, at the set-up phase, and again at the close of the term, at the review-of-the-term stage, but an ongoing relationship throughout the term and participation in the course activities and dialogue, in general, is lacking and could add a rich element to the teaching and learning (kane and lee 2014). additionally, synchronous learning opportunities have not yet been incorporated into this course, which according to malvey, hamby, and fottler (2006) could serve to deepen the learning outcomes. social justice in k-12 education: addressing opportunity gaps and advocating for change the social justice in k-12 education capstone was transformed from a traditional face-to-face offering to a fully online model in winter term 2014. this course focuses on public conversations, policy, and practices surrounding the concept of “opportunity gaps” for students in the portland metropolitan area. in this capstone, we frame our exploration by looking at four wealth/opportunity gaps (international, racial, economic, and systemic) as students work in community education sites with the goal of ultimately becoming more deeply engaged in local and national communities through their social change work. the focus is on current local and national education issues, educational equity in public education, and hands-on and virtual tools for transformative social action. capstone students work either on-site, engaging directly with youth (recommended), or virtually, with an education advocacy organization (under special circumstances). the instructor, who has a longstanding partnership with several local organizations, arranges on-site cbl placements for students in the portland area. remote students completing on-site cbl, as well as students needing virtual online placements, are supported through various volunteer guides and search engines to find their own placement with a local education nonprofit or school, or with an education advocacy organization. students are given email and phone scripts in addition to information on other protocols for contact and modes of introduction/communication to assist them in connecting with potential community partners. additionally, the course is currently exploring a virtual relationship with the writing center at roosevelt high school in north portland. in all cases, on-site and virtual, a cbl agreement letter is signed and submitted to the instructor from the student and community partner. a mid-term email check-in and a final feedback form submitted by the community partner directly to the instructor are also required to verify and evaluate the cbl work. the students who register for this course are approximately 75 percent local and 25 percent outside of the portland metro area. because issues of educational equity are fairly consistent across states in the united states, it is often fairly easy to identify community partners in any state where a student may reside or any city outside of the portland metro region. thus, on-site volunteering is the norm for students outside of the local area. in general, two or three students each term choose a virtual option. 148 being able to incorporate students from multiple geographical areas and to embrace students who may have to volunteer via a virtual option (due to work, home, or other factors) encourages equity in access to this social justice topic and allows us to have a diverse student population (parent students, working students, and others) participating in a dynamic way. as with the mobilizing hope capstone, this online capstone course was developed through the rethink project’s “pathways” initiative. with over ten years of online teaching experience, the instructor was a strong candidate to bridge the gap between cbl and online learning and was able not only to develop this course but also to serve as a faculty-in-residence for oai, supporting other faculty during their online course development processes. while the social justice in k-12 education capstone was already an approved face-to-face offering, moving it online did require that a revised proposal be submitted to the capstone committee. instructors proposing to move a traditionally face-to-face capstone online are asked to detail changes to community partnerships, how reflection/group work will be incorporated online, and in what ways students will be provided ample spaces to discuss and engage with each other in the learning community. the capstone committee offers feedback and recommendations and is particularly careful in the approval process for online courses, as the program has been very strategic in creating its online offerings to the same standard of engagement as hybrid or face-to-face offerings. after feedback and approval from the capstone committee, the instructor worked with instructional designers at oai to create course modules and to discuss the “look” of the course. due to years of online experience, pedagogy training, and teaching, the instructor was able to design the course with little outside technical support. this background in teaching with technology has been invaluable to the success of the course and the ease of transition. even with a strong background and years of experience in teaching with technology, the instructor found the issues of making contact and setting up community partnerships early (before the term’s start date), creating multiple volunteer pathways/ community partnerships, and making space for a highly engaged discussion forum to be the most challenging aspects of the design process. because psu runs on a quarter system, it is a challenge to establish community partners with geographically dispersed students quickly. it is important to communicate with students both about their community work and about the virtual nature of the class before the term begins. this instructor created a virtual “toolkit” for students that resides on her blog, “pdx education action network” (www.pdxean. wordpress.com). the toolkit is password protected, and students are given access via a “welcome” email distributed to them upon registration for the class. inside the toolkit, students find information about the instructor, the history of the class, the context for community partnerships, the cbl agreement form, and a test forum for voicethread, the primary discussion tool in the course. students are also asked to contact the instructor prior to the start of the term, and a brief phone conversation orients them to the details of the course. the combination of the toolkit and early phone and email conversations to set up the partnerships and to discuss the way the course works gives students a running start to the course. 149 in terms of creating spaces for the deep reflection and discussion that is the heart of this kind of learning, the instructor uses a formula of optional synchronous discussion sessions three times each term in google hangouts and weekly asynchronous discussions using voicethread as the forum. the three synchronous sessions include the optional course orientation in the first week of the course, a community volunteer work check-in in the fourth week, and a cbl check-in and discussion of privilege in the seventh week. psu uses google as its email platform, so each student in the course has a gmail account and easy access to google hangouts. all students are invited to participate in an evening discussion from 8:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m. this ensures that most students are home from work and school and that parenting students have settled their children for the night. in the orientation session, the discussion covers the course syllabus, course components, tips for success, and ample time for introductions and a question-and-answer session. in the check-ins during weeks four and seven, there is a simple agenda, and the conversation evolves, naturally, around questions arising from the cbl work, feedback, the need for advice/troubleshooting, and so on. in general, two-thirds of the class participates in each google hangout. an alternative asynchronous voicethread forum for students who are unable to participate is also provided. the weekly discussion forums take place using voicethread. this tool allows students to post their thoughts not only in text form but also, and primarily, in video or audio form. the instructor facilitates the discussions in the first and second weeks of the course to model best practices. in the second week of the term, the class participates in a meta-discussion about what voicethread does best, as well as its limitations, and authors guidelines for discussions through this course. these guidelines are then used to assess engagement in the weekly conversations throughout the term. by the third week of the term, students begin to co-facilitate discussion by submitting their own prompts and serving as facilitators throughout the week, checking in each day to make connections, ask questions, bring in resources, and so on. because discussions are student-led, there is a higher level of engagement both from facilitators and participants. participating students want to support their peers in their efforts and feel more motivated by discussion that is arising from their fellow students. each facilitator submits a self-evaluation of engagement after their week of facilitation; the student discusses their strengths and areas for growth, in addition to how to be a strong participant in discussions led by their fellow students going forward. group work, another required element of all capstone courses, takes place in the form of the participating in community (pic) team project. while the primary cbl placements are arranged by the instructor, the pic is an opportunity for students to push themselves to grow and to act with mitchell’s (2008) three critical servicelearning goals in mind: building authentic relationships, redistributing power, and working from a social change perspective. these pic team projects can take very different end-product forms. all must include 1) a positive direct or indirect impact on kids/families to support educational equity in some way; 2) hands-on (face to face or virtual) engagement of people outside of the psu classroom; and 3) analysis of the process, the end result, and future possibilities for continued work/engagement. at the beginning of the term, students self-select into one of three umbrella themes 150 addressing school inequities. team composition is determined based on student schedules and availability. teams define their own project work, goals, and actions; past teams have initiated work with local nonprofits, libraries, schools, and grassroots organizations to take action on issues related to educational equity that are important to the team. the end product of the pic is a video story showcased within a blog post that is shared publicly on the course blog. common themes as indicated by these case studies, online capstone faculty agree upon some essential common elements and practices in their work. 1. faculty should expect to spend substantial preparation time prior to the start of the term, even more so than for a face-to-face course. early communication with community partners and students, distributing and gathering all the necessary paperwork, and familiarity with the best use of various technology platforms are all elements to be handled before the term begins. 2. online cbl students need access to technology tools and platforms that allow for deep engagement with each other, with the course material, and with the instructor. visual and audio contact develop stronger online learning communities. 3. online cbl students need easy and frequent access to personal communication with faculty. indeed, online capstone faculty often comment that they are more frequently and deeply engaged with and connected to their online capstone students than they are with students in an in-person classroom setting. a great deal of oneon-one communication takes place, both electronically and telephonically, and, at times, face-to-face. undoubtedly this requires a great amount of time and availability from the instructor throughout the term, but the rewards of this connection are great. assessment of online capstones: the student experience assessment of online capstone courses currently involves three aspects, including both formative and summative processes. as addressed in the article focused on faculty support, the formative assessment used is the small group instructional diagnostic, or sgid (see “cultivating community: faculty support for teaching and learning” in this issue). in an online setting, these feedback sessions happen using two different methods: (1) asynchronous group sharing by students in a voicethread forum or (2) a link to a student survey, whereby the link is provided to students, and the faculty member overseeing the sgid summarizes the feedback. some faculty members provide incentives for a certain percentage of students to complete the surveys. results are shared in an anonymous and general way with the faculty member, in order to assist them in strengthening the course and improving teaching and learning, as well as with the director of the capstone program and the director of university studies. instructors are encouraged to close the feedback loop by creating a space to debrief and discuss the feedback in order to strengthen the course through the end of the term. 151 additionally, in terms of summative assessment, students complete end-of-term evaluations, again in an online survey format. results are shared with the faculty member, the directors of both the capstone program and university studies, as well as with the assessment coordinator for university studies. the data are also considered when making decisions about future offerings of the course. finally, instructors are asked to participate in work sample assessments, typically every other year, as described in the above-mentioned article. data collected from 223 students who were enrolled in and completed online capstone courses during 2013-2014, indicates that psu is doing well in offering compelling and transformational online cbl courses and that there is also room for continued growth. with regard to the effective use of technology, over 63 percent of students agree that instructors use technology effectively to engage students. however, roughly 29 percent of students were at best neutral about the instructor’s effective use of technology to engage students, with the highest portion of those (15.84%) strongly disagreeing that technology was used effectively to engage students. clearly, there is additional work to do in training and supporting online cbl faculty to use technology in more engaging ways in their courses. likewise, a large percentage (over 65 percent) of students found their instructor to be easily accessible by phone, email, or through other means, while over 26 percent reported a neutral, or worse, experience in the accessibility of their instructor. if a quarter of students felt that they enjoyed less than adequate access to their instructor, this can certainly be improved upon. in terms of group work, over 70 percent of students reported neutral or better in terms of their experience working in groups. the highest percentage of students did feel that the group work in the online capstones helps them to feel connected to their classmates. however, roughly 20 percent had a negative experience with online group work. a common theme was that “group work is easier in person,” but, of course, in today’s world so much work and collaboration does happen online, so we should be doing a better job of supporting students in effective online collaboration. this is an additional place where continued faculty and course development support is needed. with a growing offering of online capstone courses, additional research and assessment are needed and would assist the online cbl courses to continue to work toward meeting the needs of students and providing rigorous and transformative learning experiences online. areas for growth: practices for equity in access to effective online cbl experiences the capstone faculty at psu are fortunate to have many avenues for faculty support and conversations about online learning as we embark on this process to increase our online cbl offerings. we are uniquely positioned to simultaneously participate in the disruption of what we have considered traditional cbl teaching and learning and have 152 administratively supported space to reflect on, challenge, and innovate our practices. yes, higher education is changing; the “disrupted university” is a place where our assumptions about students must change. scobey (2014) explores this topic in “technology, education, democracy: elements of an emerging paradigm,” calling us to question the meaning of the “public good” and the core belief that the goal of education is to emancipate our students in the face of efforts to digitize our curriculum and offer so-called access to all potential students. he challenges us to reframe our conversations about online learning to consider the implications of our use and promotion of emerging technologies while critically thinking about the many and sometimes conflicting realities in emerging technologies with and among our students. one of the most important pieces of our practice involves developing communities of practice; gathering with our colleagues to share, reflect, and innovate. these forums support practitioners, allow for the exchange of ideas to aid in the teaching process, promote the development of scholarship related to the work, and allow those who are interested but have little experience to learn from their colleagues. one of the forums for this collaboration took place in partnership with oai. in the last three academic years, we have co-hosted two reading groups with faculty, primarily from the capstone program but also from across the university, with the themes of cbl online (2013) and social justice in online learning (2014 and 2015). based on the experiences of our program directors, faculty, and students, we draw from the larger research base to select pertinent findings in order to answer and discuss bigger questions arising in our teaching practice. it is the 2014 and 2015 reading groups that allowed us the space and the time to really grapple with questions arising around access, equity for online learners, and social justice (both as a topic in our courses and as a practice in our university for our learners). the barriers to successful online learning that our students face are often directly related to technology training (whether students have been trained as consumers or as creators of technology), access to technology tools (e.g., up-to-date laptops), and the ability to form a real relationship with their instructor and fellow learners. in “democratization of education for whom? online learning and educational equity,” jaggers (2014) raises the basic question: are we really “democratizing” education with technology? beyond moocs (massive open online courses), how do online degree pathways and offerings improve access to higher education for students who would otherwise be unable to attend? and how can we in the capstone program, with a built-in social justice framework, start more conversations and practices that work toward serving our most underserved students? in a study titled “online learning: does it help low-income and underprepared students,” jaggers (2011) focuses on community college students in online courses and identifies three reasons why our most underserved students struggle in online courses: technical difficulties, increased “social distance,” and a relative lack of structure inherent in online courses (jaggers 2011, 19). while the university studies program at psu has a very strong and well-developed relationship with oai, support for instructors with technology, and a help desk for students, the issue of “social 153 distance” and any technology issues related to lack of access to updated technology tools are beyond the reach of our technical support. instructors themselves must seriously consider what course design elements can reasonably be developed and used by our students. the institution at large may be the only entity that could make change in terms of access to technology tools. jaggers also posits that providing tools for technology to students, offering courses to prepare students to be successful in online learning, and studying when/how online learning improves low-income student success are imperative next steps in providing true access. we can look to the literature to find additional practices that we must consider in order to better support low-income students, first generation students, and students of color. as social justice practitioners, it is imperative that we find ways to understand and integrate the research and our own experiences with students to provide social justice learning that provides access to those who need it the most. some best practices gleaned from the literature on this topic include the hiring of student advocates to engage with a caseload of students whom they support as they participate in their courses online (garcia 2006). these advocates are not technology experts but instead individuals with skills around mentoring, understanding university resources, and relationship building. in addition, garcia suggests integration of a practice of peer review by instructors of each other’s course shells prior to teaching their courses and throughout the life of each course (garcia 2006). jantz (2010), in her article “selfregulation and online developmental student success,” advocates for offering instruction on self-regulation for online success and incentives for students (including technology or financial incentives for completing training to catalyze success in online learning). finally, okwumabua and co-authors (2011), in “an exploration of african american students’ attitudes toward online learning,” indicate that we must address the roots of the digital divide and the lack of confidence in using technology to further academic learning, and engage in more work around showing students explicitly how technology can be a tool for research, connection, and even social justice work. through their online cbl teaching experiences, capstone faculty have found that the greatest challenges they face as instructors (beyond training in innovative uses of technology to connect with students) are not assisting students in meeting the learning outcomes of deep social justice learning, reflection, and working on real social problems, but rather truly serving students equitably, giving our most underserved students meaningful access to higher education and rich online educational experiences allowing room for social justice learning and thinking. if cbl and critical discourse around social justice issues are pillars of what is considered to be a well-rounded higher education experience, psu must offer rich cbl experiences to all of its online students. we agree with guthrie and mccracken (2010) that experiential education is at the heart of social justice pedagogy. these authors call us to consider the social justice framework as we apply it to our online students and offerings, stating that “teachers instructing curricula that involve multiple levels of learning are challenged to maintain their focus on the social realities demonstrated in their online classrooms and the ways in which they impact the integration of overall learning and the application of technologies” (guthrie and mccracken 2010). 154 conclusion the capstone program at portland state university is committed to “education as the practice of freedom,” as described by paulo freire. capstone courses offered in an online setting are no different. as online capstone faculty, we seek to provide course structures, access to technology platforms, and deep engagement with students that allow and encourage them to “deal critically and creatively with reality and to... participate in the transformation of their world” (freire 2000, 34). indeed, liberating our thinking and teaching from the traditional cbl in-person courses and classrooms and toward a different model for online learning spaces allows for the best transformational learning experiences for online capstone students (carver et al. 2007). finally, providing equity and access for underserved students is imperative for us as a faculty, and the next phase of our development must focus on additional practices and resources that we will consider and adopt in order to better address true educational equity through our online teaching and learning. we are grateful as a faculty for a visionary and immensely supportive capstone program director; a collaborative, innovative and reflective faculty; and the strong programmatic and institutional support that we receive. our guiding principle is that we must translate all of that into deep and transformative learning experiences for all students. references carver, rebecca, robert king, wallace hannum, and brady fowler. 2007. “toward a model of experiential e-learning.” journal of online learning and teaching 3 (3). http://jolt.merlot.org/vol3no3/hannum.htm crabill, scott l., and dan butin, eds. 2014. community engagement 2.0? dialogues on the future of the civic in the disrupted university. new york: palgrave macmillan. doi: 10.1057/9781137441065.0007. freire, paulo. 2000. pedagogy of the oppressed, 30th anniversary ed. new york, bloomsbury. garcia, maricela. 2006. “supporting first generation online students.” online student support services: a best practices monograph. http://www.onlinestudentsupport.org/ monograph/firstgen.php gaytan, jorge, and beryl mcewen. 2007. “effective online instructional and assessment strategies.” the american journal of distance education 2 (3): 117-132. guthrie, kathy, and holly mccracken. 2010. “teaching and learning social justice through online service-learning courses.” international review of research in open and distance learning 11 (3): 78-94. hamerlinch, john, and lisa houle. 2012. “service-learning in online courses: practical considerations and strategies.” presentation at minnesota campus compact. 155 “faculty views about online learning.” chronicle of higher education october 31, 2010. http://chronicle.com/article/faculty-viws-about-online/125200. jaggers, shanna smith. 2011. “online learning: does it help low-income and underprepared students?” community college research center. columbia university. eric (ed 219 025). jaggers, shanna smith. 2014. “democratization of education for whom? online learning and educational equity.” american association of colleges and universities, diversity and democracy 17 (1). https://www.aacu.org/diversitydemocracy/2014/ winter/jaggars. jantz, carrie. 2010. “self-regulation and online developmental student success.” journal of online learning and teaching 6 (4): 852-857. kane, jennifer, and jason lee. 2014. “the perfect marriage: community-based and online learning.” presented at the unfis academic technology innovation symposium, university of north florida, november 2014. http://digitalcommons.unf. edu/unfis/unfis14/presentations/8/ kaur, ravleen. 2013. “psu closes salem extended campus program.” psu vanguard, may 29. http://psuvanguard.com/news/psu-closes-salem-extended-campus-program/. malvey, d. m., e. f. hamby, and m. d. fottler. 2006. “e-service learning: a pedagogic innovation for healthcare management education.” journal of health administration education 23 (2): 181-198. mitchell, tania d. 2008. “traditional vs. critical service-learning: engaging the literature to differentiate two models. michigan journal of community service learning 14 (2): 50-65. okwumabua, theresa, kristin m. walker, xiangen hu, and andrea watson. 2011. “an exploration of african american students’ attitudes toward online learning.” urban education 46 (2): 241-250. doi: 10.1177/0042085910377516. palloff, rena m., and keith pratt. 2007. building online learning communities: effective strategies for the virtual classroom, 2nd ed. san francisco: josey-bass. pearce, joshua. 2009. “appropedia as a tool for service learning in sustainable development.” journal of education for sustainable development 3 (1): 47-55. portland state university. “office of academic innovation.” last modified 2015. https://www.pdx.edu/oai/rethink-psu. portland state university. “reporting live.” last accessed august 7 2015. http:// www.pdx.edu/capstone-reportinglive/. 156 portland state university. “rethink psu.” last accessed august 7, 2015. https:// www.pdx.edu/oai/rethink-psu. portland state university. “university studies general education online pathways.” https://www.pdx.edu/oai/provosts-challenge-projects-63. scobey, david. 2014. “technology, education, democracy: elements of an emerging paradigm.” american association of colleges and universities, diversity and democracy 17 (1). http://www.aacu.org/diversitydemocracy/vol17no1/scobey.cfm. strait, jean, and timothy sauer. 2004. “constructing experiential learning for online courses: the birth of e-service.” educause review online 1: 62-65. university studies program and center for academic excellence. 2008. capstone handbook. unpublished document last modified august. http://capstone.unst.pdx.edu/ sites/default/files/facultyhandbook8-12_0.pdf. waldner, leora, sue mcgorry, and murray widener. 2010. “extreme e-service learning (xe-sl): e-service learning in the 100% online course.” journal of online learning and teaching 6 (4): 839-851. waldner, leora s., sue y. mcgorry, and murray c. widener. 2012. “e-servicelearning: the evolution of service-learning to engage a growing online student population.” journal of higher education outreach and engagement 16 (2): 123-150. waldner, leora, kristie roberts, murray widener, and brenda sullivan. 2011. “serving up justice: fusing service learning and social equity in the public administration classroom.” journal of public affairs education 17 (2): 209-232. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23036112. zlotkowski, edward, and donna duffy. 2010. “two decades of community-based learning.” new directions for teaching and learning 2010 (123): 33-43. doi: 10.1002/tl.407 157 author information deborah smith arthur, ma, jd, developed and teaches the mobilizing hope capstone, and has been teaching capstones at psu since 2003. she is a former criminal defense attorney, and, in addition to teaching and learning, she is passionate about the intersection of juvenile and criminal justice and educational equity issues. zapoura newton-calvert, ma, developed and teaches the social justice in k-12 capstone and has been teaching capstones at psu since 2008. she is also faculty-inresidence for community-based learning in psu’s office of academic innovation and is committed to teaching, learning, and activism around removing barriers to educational equity in the portland metropolitan area. deborah smith arthur university studies program portland state university cramer hall 117 1721 sw broadway portland, or 97207 e-mail: debs@pdx.edu telephone: 503-725-5831 zapoura newton-calvert university studies program portland state university cramer hall 117 1721 sw broadway portland, or 97207 e-mail: zapoura@pdx.edu telephone: 503-725-5890 158 metropolitan universities vol. 28 no. 3 (summer 2017), doi: 10.18060/21449 wake forest university: building a campus-wide mentoring culture allison e. mcwilliams abstract this article describes recent efforts by wake forest university to develop a campus-wide mentoring culture to support holistic student development, to assist with the critical transition from high school to college to life after college, and to develop skills and practices that will be valued by employers and graduate schools. the article describes how the university’s mentoring resource center has been developed and uses a decentralized model of mentoring to support mentor and mentee skill development with online and in-person tools and strategies. the article in particular describes several key peer mentoring programs as examples of diverse program goals and participants that are supporting student transition and development. finally, the article looks at measures of success and lessons learned that can be applied in the future. keywords peer, transition, college student, network introduction higher education has always fulfilled a student development role as part of its educational mission. institutions have recognized over time the evolving needs of students transitioning from high school to college. similarly, campus models of developmental support have evolved to meet those student needs, particularly through incorporating peer mentoring programs. schools of all sizes and institution types have added peer mentors to existing support roles such as faculty advisors, residence life supervisors, and campus life coordinators. peer mentors are trained to advise and guide their younger counterparts in everything from course selection to navigating first-year transition to career choices. many of these peer-to-peer relationships are established through first-year experience programs aimed at diverse goals. these goals include: improving student success and persistence; easing the transition from high school to college; developing academic and social skills; building effective interpersonal relationships; exploring one’s identity, beliefs, and values; and as a result, increasing retention rates (sanft, jensen, & mcmurray, 2008). at wake forest university, peer mentors play an important role in our efforts to support holistic student development, to assist with the critical transition from high school to college to life after college, to develop skills and practices that will be valued by employers and graduate schools, and ultimately to develop a campus-wide mentoring culture. not only do peer mentoring programs support first year students, they also provide a developmental opportunity for the older students who serve as mentors and who gain critical skills for creating and maintaining interpersonal relationships. key to effectively fulfilling the role of peer mentor is a sound understanding of principles and theories of student development, and how those are enacted in practice. as daloz parks (2000) notes, traditional college-age students (those aged, roughly speaking, 68 18-25) occupy an interesting place as “post-adolescent-not-yet-full-adult.” these not-yet-full-adults are beginning to explore critical questions of purpose, vocation, and belonging (p. 65). more recently, arnett (2004) has labeled these “post-adolescent-not-yet-full-adults” as emerging adults. neither fully adolescent nor fully adult, it is a period notable for its exploration but also for its instability, in both work and relationships, and a time to develop “an ideology, a world view, a way of making sense of the world” (p. 144; 165). emerging adults, in each of these three areas (work, relationships, identityformation), are trying out possibilities and feel that they have “an unparalleled opportunity to transform their lives” (p. 8). but in doing so, they do not yet feel fully responsible for those lives, a criteria that they associate with the self-sufficiency and independence of adulthood. the transitions from high school to college, and then to life after college, are therefore also transitions from adolescence to adulthood. these are key formative times in individuals’ lives, when they discover personal beliefs, interests, values, strengths, and goals. it is a time of change and exploration that is for many a period of great excitement and opportunity. but it also can present challenges that seem overwhelming and that can lead to debilitating or destructive behavior and poor decisionmaking. as arnett (2000) notes, this period of transition is “a time in life when many different directions remain possible, when little about the future has been decided for certain, when the scope of independent exploration of life’s possibilities is greater for most people than it will be at any other period of the life course” (p. 469). in addition to the work of emerging adulthood and its associated challenges and opportunities, researchers have identified several key factors that impact student development in college. these include: quantity and quality of involvement and engagement in campus life; the values, beliefs, experiences, and perceptions that students bring with them to college; engagement with the physical environment and individuals on campus; a sense of compatibility with the institution; and perhaps most importantly, the influence of one’s social circle, which establishes norms for behavior and provides validation through inclusion, recognition, and acceptance (newton & ender, 2010, p. 40-43). student development research tells us that the student’s peer group can be the most important influence on his or her development, even to the point that he or she will change his or her values, beliefs, and aspirations “in the direction of the dominant values, beliefs, and aspirations of the peer group” (astin, 1993, p. 398). more recently, dennis, phinney and chuateco (2005) studied ethnic minority, firstgeneration college students and found that “peer support (or lack of needed peer support) is a stronger predictor of college grades and adjustment than support from the family” (p. 234). clearly, the influence of one’s peers holds particular value for the development of college students and further supports the importance of the peer mentoring role. the benefits of learning how to create effective mentoring relationships during college can reach beyond the college student experience. much has been written and said in recent years regarding the roughly 80 million members of the millennial generation, the last of whom are starting to leave college. by the year 2025, this generation will comprise 75 percent of the workforce. unlike previous generations, these young people realize that they can expect to have upwards of twenty or more different jobs over the course of their lives. a recent study by deloitte (2016) of young adults across 29 countries found that by 2020, two-thirds expect to leave their current employer. why is that? because these young people recognize that if their current employers do not provide the developmental, leadership, and growth opportunities that they are looking for, then for their own career development they necessarily will have to move on to the next position that does. however, 69 deloitte also found that 81 percent of those inclined to leave were more likely to stay five or more years at their current employer if they felt that they were receiving mentoring. another recent study by gallup found long-term connections to personal and career well-being if one felt that he or she had a mentor in college who “encouraged me to pursue my goals and dreams” (ray & kafka, 2014). the developmental benefits of effective mentoring extend beyond the college experience, but it is there that these future young professionals start to learn the skills and practices of creating effective interpersonal relationships and networks. whether formal or informal, mentoring relationships are traditionally thought of as one-to-one interactions that involve the delivery of guidance, feedback, and lessons learned through direct experience. historically, these relationships developed out of the apprenticeship model. in this model, an older, senior mentor passed on the wisdom of his experience to his appointed or anointed mentee, who would eventually take his place. over time, this image of a unidirectional (and paternal) model of mentoring has evolved, and now includes different forms of mentoring. a much more developmental approach is emerging, which places emphasis on the goals of the mentee as opposed to those of the mentor. also, as individual and organizational needs have changed, greater emphasis has been placed upon the value of personal learning and the need for robust, diverse developmental networks. mentors ask the mentee to take much greater responsibility for his or her own developmental path and to seek out multiple mentors to fulfill different needs over time (higgins & kram, 2001; de janasz, sullivan, whiting, & biech, 2003; de janasz & sullivan, 2004; lankau & scandura, 2007). mentoring of college undergraduates occurs at that interesting intersection where a youth population begins to consider adult questions and make adult choices. therefore, it necessarily must focus on several interrelated outcomes: (a) social and academic socialization to the higher education experience; (b) exploration and development of the potential self; and (c) identification of a future path that aligns with that potential self. mentoring is particularly well-suited to this work as “consistent support creates a safe climate in which students can take risks and do the work of developing personally and professionally” (johnson, 2007, p. 49). furthermore, by participating in effective mentoring relationships with peers and others, students begin to scaffold key skills associated with building developmental networks and continuing lifelong learning, skills that will serve them well in an interconnected world. ideally, these relationships would develop within the controlled and structured environment of formal mentoring programs. however, just because formal structures are provided, there are not assurances that mentoring programs will be successful in achieving these goals. formal mentoring programs single out a particular group for development to the exclusion of others. for the student population on university campuses, these groups tend to fall into one of three categories: those in need of social or academic help; those identified as having high potential for future leadership roles; or those who fall into a particular category such as underrepresented minority or woman or student-athlete. furthermore, because most colleges do not have the capacity or the resources to administer a formal mentoring program that will provide a mentor for every single student on campus. therefore, this sort of segmentation generally results in mentoring programs that target anywhere from 10-100 students and leave a significant population of students to find their informal mentors on their own. unfortunately, if undergraduates must identify and secure their own mentors, more often than not this 70 doesn’t happen or doesn’t happen well. if mentoring programs aimed at improving student success are established for only a select few, then the majority is denied that opportunity and support. at wake forest university we are building an interdisciplinary culture of mentoring that aims to achieve the interrelated outcomes of socialization, exploration, and identity-formation as well as building skills of interpersonal relationship-building and personal learning for all students. in june 2010, the university’s strategic plan led to the establishment of the mentoring resource center (mrc). the mrc plays a key role in supporting and building connections between students, faculty, staff, alumni, and the community to help align students’ passions, strengths, and interests with their goals and visions for what they want to accomplish while at wake forest and in their future careers. rather than manage a formal mentoring program for a select few, the mrc serves as a central office to provide training, support, recognition, and inspiration for all wake forest mentoring activities and programs. the mission of the mrc is to make mentoring a visible core experience and value of the wake forest community. the vision is to become a nationally recognized leader in higher education mentoring programs and practice. most importantly, we are shifting our understanding of mentoring from only occurring within a formal program to one of individual skill development and institutional culture change. in the sections that follow, we describe our model, some of our key peer mentoring programs that contribute to our students’ successful transition from high school to college to life after college, our metrics for success, and our future vision, and lessons learned. background wake forest university is a private liberal arts institution of 4,800 undergraduates with a total enrollment of 7,669, located in winston-salem, north carolina. at the heart of the campus is the teacher-scholar ideal, which encourages engagement with students both inside and outside of the classroom. this includes, but is not limited to, a long-held tradition of faculty-student advising, beginning with lower-division advisors who guide students through the first two years of college, at which point students transition to their major advisors. mentorship has long been part of the ethos and guiding principles of the university. over the past few years, wake forest has taken steps to institutionalize and further support this longstanding tradition and culture of student mentoring. in june 2010, the university established the mentoring resource center, which helps students think more deeply about their lives and make sound decisions. to accomplish this, the mrc provides training, guidance, resources, and support to formal and informal mentoring relationships across the campus community. wake forest’s mentoring philosophy is based on the importance of developing a network of supportive relationships. these provide guidance, feedback, and wisdom to help college students learn the skills of critical thinking, problem solving, and decision-making on their individual paths from adolescence to adulthood. we define mentoring as building a purposeful and personal relationship in which a more experienced person (mentor) provides guidance, feedback, and wisdom to facilitate the growth and development of a less experienced person (mentee). the mrc is a centralized office that operates a decentralized model of mentoring. the mrc does not administer any formal mentoring programs, match mentors with mentees, nor do we maintain a master database of available mentors. the reasons for this are two-fold: capacity and continuity. formal mentoring programs are high-resource initiatives. they do not have to cost a lot of money, but they do 71 require consistent oversight and administration. for this reason, successful mentorship programs typically reach no more than 10 to 100 individuals. for us to reach our goal of providing every student with the opportunity to engage in an effective mentoring relationship while they are at wake forest, it is essential that we build capacity for those relationships throughout the university. furthermore, with only one full-time and one part-time staff member, we will never be successful in accomplishing this goal on our own. therefore, by seeding formal programs in various departments, with identified leaders of those programs, we ensure that those programs will outlast the individual staffing of the mrc into the future. we also call the mrc approach a “consulting model” in that we consult with individuals across the university to support their efforts in developing mentoring programs and incorporating skills and practices of effective mentorship into their work. we will help anyone develop a mentoring program from inception to evaluation, including identifying potential mentors and mentees, helping with the matching process, providing training, and helping with evaluation. we firmly believe that mentoring programs develop best within the cultures within which they reside. it is also important that programs are created to meet the identified needs of their students; therefore, a professional mentoring program for business students will look quite different from a first-year transition program for first-generation students. as such, much of our work is spent building relationships and collaborative partnerships across campus to determine needs and opportunities to support the work of others. we do not step in and impose our standards onto any mentoring program or group. we do provide content expertise and support for faculty research proposals that have a mentoring component. as a resource center, a large part of our work is to educate the campus community on what effective mentoring is, and to provide resources to support that work. we conduct trainings for formal programs and for groups of informal mentors like residence life staff and our faculty fellows, who are non-residential tenured faculty who have committed to spend time in the first-year residence halls. we create and distribute handbooks, toolkits, and tip sheets through our website; we keep a regular blog and twitter presence, and highlight stories of effective mentoring from members of our community. in 2015, we developed a set of mentoring learning outcomes and associated strategies for both mentors and mentees. furthermore, we created self-evaluations for participants, in both formal and informal mentoring relationships, to assess their progress towards excelling in each of those competency areas. moreover, we have launched a quarterly e-newsletter, the mentoring minute, as a vehicle to distribute information and resources. in addition, each year in january, we celebrate national mentoring month as a point of focus for our entire campus community at the start of the spring semester. these are just some of the ways that we serve as an educational resource to our campus. the mentoring resource center was born out of the university strategic plan that was developed following the arrival of our current president, nathan hatch. that plan identified a need and an opportunity to elevate the role and value of mentoring on our campus. at the same time, the university created the office of personal and career development (opcd), where the mrc is housed, replacing the traditional, placement-oriented career services model with one that is holistic and focused on developing students’ abilities to be employable for life. by placing the mrc within the opcd, the university made a strategic decision to connect mentoring with this holistic, studentcentered, skill development model. the mrc staff directly report to the vice president, who in turn sits on the president’s cabinet. this reporting structure communicates the value of mentorship to our 72 campus from the highest level. twice a year, we convene a program coordinator council, comprised of the leaders of formal mentoring programs on campus, for professional development and sharing best practices. twice a year, we also convene a faculty/staff advisory committee. this committee provides guidance and feedback on the work of the mrc and identifies opportunities for further engagement and outreach on our campus. peer mentoring programs the mentoring resource center was specifically created to focus on undergraduate student mentoring. whether faculty, staff, alumni, or other students serve as mentors, the mentee focus stays on the student. this does not mean that other types of mentoring—faculty to faculty, students to youth off campus—aren’t happening on our campus; they most certainly are, and occasionally the mrc consults with and provides training for these efforts as well. but we feel that it is important for the center to focus on our mission of developing the interpersonal relationship-building, decisionmaking, and identity-building skills of students making the transition from high school to college to life after college, and creating a campus-wide culture that supports that work. one subset of the center’s work has to do with supporting peer mentoring programs and informal peer-peer relationships that promote student transition and engagement while they are on campus. individual program goals vary, and the structure of each program is organized to meet those goals. furthermore, over time, individual programs have made adjustments based on participant feedback about what seems to be working and not working within the programs. what follows is a brief overview of some of these programs, including the mrc’s role in their development and administration. as mentioned previously, wake forest has a long tradition of faculty-student advising, a relationship that starts prior to orientation in the fall, and extends throughout the undergraduate years, as the student moves from lower-division to major advisor in the spring of sophomore year. in addition to the assigned lower-division faculty advisor, each incoming first-year student is also assigned an upper-class-person student advisor. each student advisor is paired with a faculty advisor and approximately ten to twelve first-year students. the faculty advisor guides the first-year students through the college academic process. the student advisor assists with that process and serves as a peer mentor to these new students as they navigate the transition from high school to college. student advisors are expected to meet with their first-year students throughout orientation week and once a month throughout the first year of college. the roughly 150 student advisors are trained in recognizing first-year transition issues, developing effective peer mentoring roles, building rapport and trust, as well as supporting mentees’ academic efforts. a group of 8-10 experienced student advisors is selected each year to serve on the student advisor leadership council. this group establishes the program’s direction, recruits and interviews all applicants, delivers the training, and provides oversight for the successful implementation of the program each year. each leadership council member is responsible for 15-20 student advisors. the office of academic advising manages the program, with the mrc serving in an as-needed, advisory role. magnolia scholars and first in the forest are two programs that have been created to serve first generation students at wake forest. magnolia scholars receive scholarship funding to support their academic progress. all magnolia scholars and first in the forest students are provided with 73 dedicated support to help them navigate the transition to (and through) college. as part of this support, new students are connected with upper-class-person peer mentors who are also firstgeneration students. these peer mentors meet with the new students, one-on-one and in small groups, throughout the first year. the program is managed by the office of the dean of the college; the program director also mentors and advises each of the first generation students throughout their academic career. first year in focus is a peer mentoring program that was created by two staff members in the office of campus life who recognized that, even with all of the support and resources provided during the first year of college, there were some students who were struggling to find their place and to get connected with their peers and with the university. the program started as a men’s program only, and a small group of junior and senior men were selected to serve as peer mentors to those first-year males who self-identified as needing and wanting extra support. over time, the program was expanded to include female-to-female mentoring as well. each year, the program kicks off in early fall with a formal training session on peer mentoring and first-year transition needs and opportunities. the actual matching with mentees occurs on a rolling basis throughout the year, as first-year students decide that they need the program. for female students, in particular, some of these matches will not happen until early in the spring semester, following the annual sorority recruitment process. two of our formal peer mentoring programs are focused on issues outside of first-year transition challenges and opportunities. omicron delta kappa (odk), the honor society for outstanding seniors, has created a peer mentoring program with sophomores as part of its leadership and service missions. each year odk members and their sophomore mentees engage in formal mentoring conversations from mid-fall up to the major selection process in the spring. the sophomores are able to explore their future academic direction with someone who has been there before them. these conversations also allow mentors and mentees to talk about opportunities to engage with study abroad, student organizations, summer internships, and other on and off-campus experiences. the odk peer mentoring program is one of our programs that is led by a student. charge is a student leadership development program that operates out of our office of campus life. each spring eleven teams of seven first-year and sophomore students learn about leadership models, skills, and practices, and develop a project to address a campus need, which they present to senior administrators at the end of the semester. two upper-class-person mentors work with each team to guide the project research and development process. as well, these peer mentors facilitate the leadership development classes and lead conversations around building collaborative teams, effective communication skills, conflict resolution, and other topics. four experienced senior mentors provide overarching leadership to the program, including selecting mentors and mentees and designing and delivering the curriculum. the program operates out of the office of campus life. we of course have many other peer relationships that fall into more of an informal mentoring category, such as our residence life staff, or shorter-term formal relationships, like our pre-orientation programs. those in the informal category don’t necessarily serve as formal mentors to all of the students with whom they engage, but they use the skills and practices of effective mentorship in their everyday conversations and interactions. in our pre-orientation programs, upper-class-person mentors work with incoming first-year students over the course of the three or four days leading up to formal on-campus orientation in the fall, to help ease that transition and talk through challenges and 74 opportunities these students may face, as they make the transition from high school to college. program activities range from social justice projects to faith-based reflection to outward-bound type excursions and are open to all incoming students. another shorter-term formal mentoring program we have created is associated with one of our forcredit career courses. these half-semester courses walk students through identifying personal beliefs, values, strengths, and interests, understanding the world of work, creating a strategic job search plan, and making the transition from college to life after college. as part of the third course, strategic job search, students are given the opportunity to work with a young alumni mentor, to talk through issues of change and adaptability, thinking like an employer, and receiving feedback on job search documents. the mentoring relationship occurs over just three meetings and is highly structured. both mentors and mentees report increased understanding of their roles in the job search process and increases in personal learning. the instructor of record for the course manages the mentoring program and works with the office of alumni engagement to identify and recruit mentors. each of the aforementioned programs has been created and is administered by someone outside of the mentoring resource center. the mrc serves each program in an advisory capacity, providing support with training, guidance on administration, and evaluation. training typically covers: (a) a basic understanding of what effective peer mentors do and how to fulfill those roles; (b) a discussion of issues and needs related to student transition from high school to college; (c) principles of student engagement; and (d) an understanding of how to have a mentoring conversation. in 2015, we realized that we needed to do more than just tell people what skills effective mentors and mentees use; we needed to operationalize those skills into specific strategies and link them to expected best practices. therefore, we created a set of mentoring learning outcomes to identify these best practice competencies and strategies for all mentoring relationships on our campus, whether student, faculty, staff, or alumni. these mentoring learning outcomes are defined in the section below, and guide our training efforts. mentor learning outcomes build and support effective relationships. actively creates a supportive, intentional relationship with the mentee based on mutual trust, respect, and accountability that creates a safe space for the mentee to work towards personal learning goals. willingly discloses personal stories and lessons learned through experience. seeks out opportunities for intentional conversations that support the growth of the mentee. role models expected behavior for effective relationships. provide objective guidance and feedback based on personal experience. facilitates the mentee’s ability to create and work towards specific learning goals by providing objective feedback and guidance on goals and action steps, sharing lessons from personal experience, and serving as a connector to people and resources. facilitate reflective thinking. pushes the mentee to reflect on experiences by asking thoughtful, thought-provoking questions that seek deeper meaning and help the mentee to become more selfaware of strengths and growth opportunities. seeks out opportunities for intentional conversations that support the growth of the mentee. 75 take ownership for own personal growth and learning. the mentor serves as a role model for mentee growth and learning by employing practices of goal-setting, seeking feedback, and reflection for personal development during the mentoring relationship. mentee learning outcomes build effective personal and professional relationships. the mentee takes initiative in building and maintaining relationships with the mentor based on mutual trust, respect, and accountability. the mentee actively creates intentional relationships with more experienced mentors to support work towards personal learning goals. set goals for personal growth and learning. creates goals as framework for the mentoring relationship. owns progress towards accomplishing goals through process of taking action, asking for feedback, and reflecting on lessons learned for future application. ask for and receive feedback. the mentee openly shares progress towards personal goals with her or his mentor and actively solicits feedback on strengths and opportunities for growth. the mentee practices active listening and understands how to receive and respond to feedback in an appropriate manner that maintains relationships. reflect on experiences and lessons learned for future application. intentionally engages in selfreflection after taking action towards identified goals. mentee openly engages in reflective conversations with mentor regarding lessons learned and future application. in addition to the mentoring learning outcomes, we created a set of self-evaluation instruments that allow individuals to assess their progress over time in becoming more proficient at these practices. the self-evaluations allow for individuals to compare responses from the start of the relationship, mid-point, and the end of the relationship. additionally, we can pull and aggregate data across formal mentoring programs and share that data with the program coordinators which helps both them and the center think about how and where we need to improve our training and educational efforts. this serves as another data point for us as we assess mentoring reach and effectiveness on our campus, which is an ongoing challenge. each year on average 2300 participate in our formal mentoring programs across our campus, and 785 participate in formal training programs that we facilitate. this number does not fully capture all of the mentoring efforts on campus as many of those occur in that informal space. each formal mentoring program is responsible for doing its own program evaluation and can choose whether to share those results with the mentoring resource center. additionally, every other year our office of institutional research conducts the college senior survey (see table 1) and includes several wake forest-specific mentoring-related questions; an overview of those results is included below. 76 table 1. wake forest college senior survey: overview of questions related to mentoring. 2009 2011 2013 2015 to what extent did you have a person at wake forest you would consider your mentor (significant or very significant) 36% 47% 45% 56.8% how valuable was the mentoring experience for you at wake forest (significant or very significant) 45% 53% 46% 61.1% please rate your satisfaction with your ability to find a faculty or staff mentor (satisfied or very satisfied) 75.3% 79.8% 79% 81.8% what would have improved your mentoring experience at wake forest? training on effective mentoring practices n/a 6% 10% 9.4% more information on mentoring programs n/a 19.3% 24% 22.3% information on how to find a mentor n/a 26.6% 32% 30.1% more access to my mentor n/a 14.2% 11% 15.5% as these numbers demonstrate, there is always more work to be done. as we continue to grow programs and build the culture of mentoring on the wake forest campus, the mentoring resource center looks for additional ways that we can assess the reach and impact of mentoring efforts. perhaps more importantly, we continue to be focused on capturing and sharing mentoring stories that describe the sometimes life-changing experience that is a mentoring relationship. conclusion as we look to the future, we at the mentoring resource center are constantly and consistently focused on ways that we can continue to elevate the mentoring culture on our campus, to develop the critical skills of interpersonal relationship management in our students, and to seek new ways to share resources and tell stories of exceptional mentoring. since the center’s inception, we have focused on starting small, and piloting new efforts, in hopes of building big successes over time. we have also been very clear that any success the center has is dependent upon our ability to collaborate with partners across the university. in the coming year, we are looking to build additional partnerships with our campus life and residence life staffs as they seek to build new mentoring programs into student organizations and the residence life community. in the fall of 2016, we launched a mentoring certificate program for faculty and staff; in addition we will be piloting an alumni version of the program in the spring. we also are launching a redesigned website in the spring with a stronger focus on storytelling. one of the keys to our success has been the incorporation of mentoring into the mission, vision, and philosophy of the university. as noted previously, mentoring has always been part of what we do at 77 wake forest, whether explicitly stated or not. under the current administration’s leadership mentoring has been raised as an aspirational value and key strategy of the university. having the leaders of the university as champions for our work provides immeasurable support and a voice for us in rooms to which we might not normally have access. furthermore, our work is completely supported by external funding in the form of donations from students’ parents who believe in the value of what we are doing. this monetary support provides the center with a measure of freedom. this allows us to accomplish our goals in an environment that currently sees less money being put towards higher education programs, not more. assessment and evaluation is a constant challenge, not only because of the over-surveyed nature of our campuses, but also due to the difficulty in measuring impact of interpersonal relationships. many, if not most, effective mentoring relationships occur in the informal space, which often cannot be identified or quantified. it happens in a walk across the quad after class, or a shared meal in the campus cafeteria, or in brief exchanges on the intramural field. these “mentoring moments” are no less impactful or meaningful than those that happen within the formal structures of a mentoring program; often those impacts cannot be seen, measured, or identified until years down the road. it is because of this, and because we know that the ability to create effective interpersonal relationships is one that transcends our metaphorical campus walls, that we have become more focused on skill development than on the development of any one program. we are often asked if other schools or organizations can apply our decentralized, consultant model of mentoring. we firmly believe that they can, given the right support, adequate resources, and the willingness to create the model that works for that organization’s culture. mentoring, whether at the individual, programmatic, or institutional level, is a strategic intervention, and should always be deployed and honored as such. to try to apply a one-size-fits-all model does not do justice to the needs and the goals of the individuals who are participating and who will ultimately be impacted by that intervention. mentoring, we often say, is an awesome responsibility and one that should not be taken lightly. at the same time, it is an awesome opportunity to create meaningful difference in the lives of students, programs, and institutions. 78 references arnett, j.j. (2000). emerging adulthood: a theory of development from the late teens through the twenties. american psychologist, 55(5), 469-480. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.55.5.469 arnett, j.j. (2004). emerging adulthood: the winding road from the late teens through the twenties. oxford university press. astin, a.w. (1993). what matters in college? four critical years revisited. san francisco: jossey-bass. daloz parks, s. (2000). big questions, worth dreams: mentoring young adults in their search for meaning, purpose, and faith. san francisco, ca: jossey-bass. deloitte (2016). deloitte millennial survey 2016. retrieved from http://www2.deloitte.com/global/en/pages/about-deloitte/articles/millennialsurvey.html de janasz, s.c., & sullivan, s.e. (2004). multiple mentoring in academe: developing the professorial network. journal of vocational behavior, 64(2), 263-283. doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2002.07.001 de janasz, s.c., sullivan, s.e., whiting, v., & biech, e. (2003). mentor networks and career success: lessons for turbulent times [and executive commentary]. the academy of management executive (1993-2005), 17(4), 78-93. https://doi.org/10.5465/ame.2003.11851850 dennis, j.m., phinney, j.s., & chuateco, l.i. (2005). the role of motivation, parental support, and peer support in the academic success of ethnic minority first-generation college students. journal of college student development, 46(3), p. 223-236. doi.org/10.1353/csd.2005.0023 higgins, m.c., & kram, k.e. (2001). reconceptualizing mentoring at work: a developmental network perspective. academy of management review, 26(2), 264-288. doi.org/10.1353/csd.2005.0023 johnson, b.w. (2007). on being a mentor: a guide for higher education faculty. new york: lawrence erlbaum associates. lankau, m.j., & scandura, t. a. (2007). mentoring as a forum for personal learning in organizations. in t. d. allen & l. t. eby (eds.), the blackwell handbook of mentoring: a multiple perspectives approach (pp. 95-122). malden, ma: blackwell publishing ltd. newton, f.b., & ender, s.c. (2010). students helping students: a guide for peer educators on college campuses. san francisco, ca: jossey-bass, inc. ray, j., & kafka, s. (2014). life in college matters for life after college. gallup. retrieved from http://www.gallup.com/poll/168848/life-college-matters-life-college.aspx sanft, m., jensen, m., & mcmurrary, e. (2008). peer mentor companion. belmont, ca: wadworth, cengage learning. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.55.5.469 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvb.2002.07.001 https://doi.org/10.5465/ame.2003.11851850 https://doi.org/10.1353/csd.2005.0023 https://doi.org/10.1353/csd.2005.0023 79 author information allison e. mcwilliams is the director of mentoring and alumni personal & career development at wake forest university, a role she has held since june 2010. prior to her current role, she served as a faculty member at the university of georgia where she led leadership development, organizational development, and mentoring programs. she is a board member of the international mentoring association and has written and spoken broadly on the topic of mentoring. allison e. mcwilliams mentoring and alumni personal & career development wake forest university reynolda hall, suite 230 winston-salem, nc 27109 e-mail: mcwillae@wfu.edu telephone: 336-758-3741 web: http://mentoring.opcd.wfu.edu/ http://mentoring.opcd.wfu.edu/ metropolitan universities vol. 28 no. 3 (summer 2017), doi: 10.18060/21543 innovating for student success: the university leadership network (uln) and tiered undergraduate peer mentor model jennifer l. smith, phd abstract this paper highlights the innovative approach the student success initiative’s unit at the university of texas at austin is taking to increase undergraduate persistence and four-year graduation rates. specifically, this piece explores the large-scale university leadership network (uln) program and examines the tiered undergraduate peer mentor model utilized to support the success of first-year students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds, including a majority of underrepresented minority (urm) students. the article also reviews the critical role peer mentors play in helping to meet institution-wide goals and how they extend the reach of student support programs. lastly, best practices, challenges, and components necessary for program replication will be presented. keywords peer mentor, training, underrepresented students introduction the role of the undergraduate peer mentor serves as a substantial source of positive influence on fellow college students’ level of engagement and academic and nonacademic success. according to astin (1993), “the student’s peer group is the single most potent source of influence on growth and development during the undergraduate years” (p. 398). additionally, the role of the peer mentor has gone through an extensive evolution throughout the history of higher education. the role has progressed from offering primarily low-level clerical support to university staff, to tutoring, to now acting in the critical role of peer mentor to support undergraduate student success (hansen & johnston, 1986). peer mentor programs demonstrate the strength of the peer influence and ability to perform the mentor role because of institutional investment in quality supervision and training (sipe, 1996). this preparation, and the benefit of having more student paraprofessionals, extend the ability for an organization and institution to meet student success objectives. for example, peer mentors have the ability to meet with students with more frequency and thereby build rapport, creating an environment where student community can flourish. creating a sense of belonging encourages mentees to share more openly about successes and challenges, in turn fostering opportunity for mentors to provide guidance and resources, which promote student success. overall, a peer mentor program with clear structure and purpose, quality training, and institutional support can greatly increase student persistence and ultimately graduation rates (coles, 2011). 81 the university of texas at austin (ut austin) is taking great strides to provide academic, cocurricular programming, and financial support for all students, including the increasing number of underrepresented minority (urm) students. for the purposes of this article, urm students include african american, hispanic, low-income, and first-generation college students. current research strongly shapes efforts to increase student success at ut austin. the institution carefully examines student outcomes of low-income and first-generation students, in addition to urm groups and their performance at predominantly white institutions (pwi) in relation to historically black colleges and universities (hbcus) and hispanic serving institutions (hsis) (allen, 1992; cokely, 2000; flowers, 2002; harris, 2012). this area of research provides insight into creating academic and co-curricular atmospheres that create community and opportunity for success for urm students. research indicates low-income and first-generation students are at increased risk of failure in post-secondary education, due to a variety of contributing factors, such as academic preparation, demographic backgrounds, and other conditions. (walpole, 2003). engle and tinto (2008) suggest, “the problem is as much the result of the experiences students have during college as it is attributable to the experiences they have before they enroll” (p.3). their research demonstrates that low-income, first-generation students are also less likely to engage in activities that foster success, resulting in “lower levels of academic and social integration [which]…are inextricably linked to finances and financial aid” (p.3). engle and tinto go on to state that universities wishing to see an increase in success for low-income and first-generation students should provide additional financial aid and create structured programs and initiatives to ease the transition from high school to college. the university of texas at austin’s response to this research has resulted in the expansion of existing and creation of new student success initiatives. regarding urm populations, ut austin also examines the idea of academic self-concept. the “best predictor of academic self-concept for students attending hbcus was quality of studentfaculty interactions, [while] grade point average is significantly more important for the academic self-concept of african american students attending [pwis] than african american students attending hbcus” (cokely, 2000, p.1). ut austin is categorized as a pwi, with 44% of the student body identified as white (the university of texas statistical handbook, 2015). the literature also confirms that urm students exhibit reduced levels of academic success due to a range of pre-college factors, such as lower levels of parental or guardian education, academic preparedness, socioeconomic status, and ascribing to racial stereotypes propagated through media and other social constructs (allen, 1985; fry, 2011; strayhorn & terrell, 2010). researchers seek to further understand the lived experiences of urm students attending pwis. for example, dalhvig (2010) and strayhorn & terrell (2010) reported that african american and latino students describe their experiences on pwi campuses as “chilly” and “restrictive.” urm students and males in particular are not only seeking to acclimate to university life at a pwi where they may already feel isolated, but also report having to combat stereotypes as they are perceived as “threatening, unfriendly, and less intelligent” (cuyjet, 1997, p. 8). the tailored experiences that hbcus and hsis provide for urm students leads to increased academic success, student satisfaction, and development of student leadership opportunities (allen, 1992; fleming, 1984; flowers & pascarella, 1999). reddick (2006) suggests that pwis should “seek the assistance of historically black colleges and universities if these organizations truly desire to 82 support african-american students” (p. 15). more than 85% of african-american students enroll at pwis, and demographic forecasting indicates that the hispanic population will become the largest ethnic group in higher education in the near future (fry, 2011, reddick, 2006). it is clear that pwis need to determine how to create conducive learning environments for urm students. ut austin is actively working to create and implement innovative programming for urm students, designed to provide a holistic experience during their four years that includes academic and financial support, opportunities to develop professional and leadership skills, and peer mentoring. the university leadership network (uln) is the largest student success initiative at the university of texas at austin (ut austin), designed to support first-time-in-college (ftic) students from low-socioeconomic backgrounds (annual family income less than $60,000). one byproduct of serving low-income students is that 67.2% of the students are from underrepresented groups and 67.8% are also the first in their families to attend college (uln brochure, 2016). one of the most critical components of the program model is peer mentoring. uln has created a peer mentor model that shifts the role of the peer mentor relationship from solely academic success to one of long-term leadership and professional development. recognized as a pioneering incentive-based graduation program, uln’s program model has a focus on leadership, professional development, and experiential learning. these efforts have received national recognition in publications such as paul tough’s (2014) article, “who gets to graduate” in the may issue of the new york times magazine, and were featured on pbs newshour in the summer of 2015 (“why poor students drop out even when financial aid covers the cost,” august 17, 2015). this recognition has created excitement around student success and collaborative efforts to share best practices of the model. this article provides an overview of ut austin as an institution, the uln program as a whole, and a thorough review of the uln peer mentor model. the following section will provide an indepth analysis examining why the uln peer mentor model is ideal for increasing student success and present lessons learned through program implementation. lastly, this piece concludes with an outline of program and institutional components necessary for program replication and future vision for uln. background the university of texas at austin (ut austin) is a four-year, full-time, more selective, public institution with highest research activity. (carnegie foundation, 2015). ut austin was founded in 1882 and contains 18 colleges and schools. the student population is served by 3,090 faculty and thousands of staff members. ut austin as of 2015 has a student body of 50,950, with an undergraduate population of 39,619 students; (the university of texas statistical handbook, 2015). ut austin is also ranked 14th most innovative school and 18th among top public institutions (u.s. news & world report, 2016). as of fall 2015, ut austin’s undergraduate population is 44.4% white, 22.1% hispanic, 4.9% black, 19.9% asian, .2% american indian, .1% hawaiian/pacific islander, 2.9% multi-racial (2 or more, excluding hispanic and black), 4.9% foreign, and .7% unknown. although our hispanic population is growing, our black population has not yet risen above 5%. within the 83 2015 undergraduate student population there are 19,016 males (48%) and 20,603 (52%) females (the university of texas statistical handbook, 2015). ut austin is the flagship institution within the state of texas and is held up as a model for the state and the nation for creating and implementing innovative programs like the uln in order to increase undergraduate student success. one indicator of this success appears in ut austin’s participation in the university innovations alliance (uia). ut austin collaborates with a group of ten peer institutions focused on identifying and implementing innovative student success initiatives. this work was featured in a recent inside higher ed piece, “officials at 11 partnering institutions share strategies for helping students graduate,” (thomsen, j. 2015). uln staff presented the program and mentor model when ut austin hosted the uia representatives earlier in the year. history the creation of the uln was made possible by a dramatic change in how ut austin defines and prioritizes student success. the institutional culture shifted in response to an ambitious and publicly declared goal to increase the university’s four-year graduation rate to 70% by 2017. in 2011, when the goal was set by then-ut austin president bill powers, the university’s four-year graduation rate was 51% for its roughly 40,000 undergraduates. though this rate was the highest among public colleges and universities in texas, it was well below four-year graduation rates at some peer institutions like the university of michigan at ann arbor and the university of north carolina at chapel hill (national center for education statistics). focusing on four-year graduation as a top priority was supported at the statewide level as well. was the university of texas system leadership touted the 70% goal as an important step in the efforts of its institutions to improve graduation rates, persistence rates and the number of degrees conferred, as part of their commitment to make higher education more accessible to a greater number of students (cigarroa, 2011). targeting graduation rates as a focus for improvement also reflected the growing national concern over accessibility and affordability in college education when career and earning outcomes are increasingly tied to degree completion (baum, ma, & payea, 2013; the white house office of the press secretary, 2009). the mandate to raise graduation rates initiated a focal point for campus-wide efforts and provided unprecedented resources to create and scale up student success initiatives. to lead these efforts, the position of senior vice provost of enrollment and graduation management was created to be the “graduation rate champion.” this new leadership role was designed to bring together campus units across the undergraduate experience— admissions, financial aid, registrar, academic colleges, advisors, technology and facilities— toward the common goal of supporting student progress toward four-year graduation (ut news, 2012). david laude, ut austin’s senior vice provost for enrollment and curriculum and graduation rate champion, continues to teach undergraduate students as a professor of chemistry and also brings many years of previous experience creating effective programs for student success in ut austin’s college of natural sciences. to support the bold initiatives required for a leap forward in on-time graduation, the provost’s office designated yearly funds to provide for student success initiatives university-wide. the amount calculated to approximately $100 per undergraduate per year, a moderate sum that has brought about sizable improvements in student success metrics like persistence and graduation rates. leveraging existing practices and current staff in creative ways to implement innovative changes enabled a cost-effective transformation. 84 since the 70% graduation rate goal was set in place, the graduation rate champion has led a number of large-scale projects designed to support student success, impacting thousands of students yearly. ut austin created a student success initiatives team to implement and oversee these projects, working with numerous academic and co-curricular units across campus. some initiatives impacted institutional processes like advising and student tracking; these activities now include data-driven predictive analytics used to identify students likely to benefit from extra support through success programs or strategic advising. others focused on the first-year undergraduate experience: all first-years at ut austin now take part in a redesigned orientation experience, emphasizing academic expectations, and participate in small learning communities during their first semester. academic learning communities that apply research-based practices to support student success already existed on campus, but were expanded to support 25% of all freshmen, focusing on those identified as most likely to benefit from additional support to graduate on time based on predictive analytics. many of the improved programs and processes initiated by the push for improved success operate broadly and affect all ut austin undergraduates, but the most innovative is the university leadership network, a student program designed to remove non-academic barriers to success for those students who arrive at college with high financial need and less likelihood of graduating on time. since the four-year graduation rate goal was set in 2011, the graduation rate has risen by ten percentage points to 61% for students graduating in 2016, the university’s highest four-year graduation rate on record (the university of texas statistical handbook, 2016). the first-year persistence rate at ut austin rose from 91.8% in 2011 to a new high of 94.5% for students returning in 2014. furthermore, the most recent cohort of first-years achieved a 95.1% persistence rate in 2016. in 2016, moreover, institutional records were achieved by juniors and seniors as well. persistence after the second year reached a high of 91.9% for students returning as juniors, and the class returning as seniors raised the bar with 85.2% persisting. setting the lofty goal for a 70% four-year graduation rate in five years catalyzed a transformation in student success at ut austin that is making a difference for students and for the institution. program description the university leadership network (uln) program at ut austin is an undergraduate incentivebased scholarship program focused upon developing professional and leadership skills while achieving academic success that is consistent with graduating in four years. the uln student population consists of students with demonstrated financial need and who have generally come from under-resourced high schools in texas. uln’s mission is “to encourage and support students to graduate in four years and become leaders through professional and experiential learning opportunities that advance their education, communities, and lives” (uln, 2015). across the uln classes of 2017, 2018, and 2019 the average combined household income of uln students is less than $60,000 per year. additionally, uln serves a large number of urm students. across the previously mentioned three cohorts, 67.2 % of uln students come from 85 underrepresented groups and 67.8% are also first-generation college students. all uln students enter the program as first-time in college students and are selected from across all majors and colleges. each entering class consists of 500 students. as of fall 2016, uln serves up to 2000 students, with up to 500 students in each cohort (freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior). participating students earn an annual scholarship of $5,000, which is disbursed in monthly increments of $500 throughout the fall and spring semesters as program requirements are met. students who participate all four years in the university leadership network earn up to $20,000 in scholarship funds, which also leads to a decreased student debt-load. the initial funding for the uln program arose out of a onetime gift provided by the university of texas board of regents in 2013. when that funding had been utilized, the scholarships shifted to utilizing tuition set-aside funds. tuition set-aside funds operate by a formula, in which a percentage of every tuition dollar is set aside to be utilized for students qualifying for need-based financial aid. the external relations team within the provost’s office has cultivated relationships to fund scholarship, program, and operational costs. the houston endowment gave a significant gift of $8.2 million dollars to support three full cohorts of 125 students from the houston area and to fund a quarter of the program’s operational costs in the fall of 2015. the remaining funding for operational costs is provided through the provost’s office, as the program is a part of the student success initiatives unit housed within the provost’s office. all uln students participate in first-year academic learning communities in addition to their participation in uln. expansion funds provided by the student success initiatives has made it possible for all uln students to participate in existing successful first-year academic learning programs across colleges and units. the academic learning communities meet with students during orientation. during the academic year, they provide individual advising, access to no-cost tutoring and collaborative study, guidance from academic peer mentors throughout their first year, and access to sought-after and/or smaller classes. this partnership ensures that first-year students in uln have a firm academic foundation in addition to four years of leadership and professional development opportunities and guidance from the uln team. the directors and team members maintain collaboration across the leadership of academic learning communities, uln, and student success initiatives by meeting weekly to discuss ongoing initiatives, address challenges and changes, and to discuss new initiatives or resources that benefit student success. uln students have a campus reputation for their notable authentic leadership, professionalism, and grit. from their first day, uln students experience a culture dedicated to helping them learn to lead from where they are. participants begin their foundational year by attending the weekly leadership speaker series and small group meetings facilitated by their uln peer mentors. in the second year, students participate in exciting on-campus internships with campus partners from diverse units/departments across the university. during their third and fourth years, uln students engage in more tailored experiential learning opportunities such as study abroad, research, on/off-campus internships, or project-lead (non-profit project management program). graduating seniors present their four-year uln experience in group or individual presentations during the fall leadership showcase and conclude their final semester attending “next steps” programming events designed to ensure students are prepared for post-graduate lives in industry, graduate or professional education, and beyond. in addition to experiential learning, uln 86 program requirements include: (a) completing 5-10 hours of community service per semester in the ut/austin community; (b) engaging in self-reflection; (c) completing 25% of hours needed for their individual degree plan each academic cycle (fall, spring, summer); and (d) to remain in good academic standing (2.0-4.0 gpa) with the institution. the following sections focus on describing the uln peer mentor population, program, and training structure, and the unique shift from traditional peer mentoring to professional development coaching for underrepresented students with demonstrated financial need. uln peer mentor population uln peer mentors focus on serving as professional development coaches to first-year students in the program. our year-two coordinator also serves as the coordinator and supervisor for all uln mentors. the uln staff member facilitates training sessions, organizes detailed logistical aspects of the program and leads weekly training for lead mentors. uln peer mentors lead weekly small group discussion sections designed to allow our first-year students to apply and reflect on topics presented in their weekly leadership speaker series. reflection can involve small group discussion, individual journal reflections, etc. each peer mentor strives to develop the professional skills of first-year students and create a supportive community-centered environment. table 1. selected characteristics of uln peer mentors all uln peer mentors consist of successful second-, third-, and fourthyear uln students representative of all colleges. their participation as peer mentors counts as their experiential learning opportunity. within their peer mentoring experience, students gain valuable transferable 2015 – 16 uln peer mentor demographics asian 12 black 6 hispanic 47 white 6 foreign 4 multiracial 1 not reported 1 total 75 2015-16 uln peer mentor college breakdown architecture 2 business administration 3 communication 9 education 1 engineering 13 fine arts 5 geosciences 0 graduate school 0 liberal arts 12 natural sciences 27 nursing 4 social work 0 undergraduate studies 1 87 skills such as: leadership development, organization, interpersonal development, cultural competency, conflict resolution, group dynamics, etc. for the 2015-16 academic year, the uln peer mentor cohort (see table 1) consisted of 77 students (58 second-year students, and 19 thirdyear students). of that group, 24 mentors were male and 53 mentors were female. their cumulative gpa as a cohort was 2.93. the lead mentor cohort consisted of nine students (all third-year students). within this group, four were male and five were female. their cumulative gpa as a lead mentor cohort was 3.35. as our program serves students from all majors and colleges, our mentor population is also representative of that diversity. mentor selection mentor applications are open to all secondthrough fourth-year uln students. the recruitment process occurs during the months of february through april. to clarify, peer mentors are not student employees and do not earn an hourly wage. serving in a mentor role meets their experiential learning requirement in addition to other program requirements (service, academics, etc.) which results in their monthly scholarship disbursement. mentors are able to review the mentor position description on the online posting system. then the mentor coordinator and a small number of existing lead and uln mentors operate a booth at the spring uln internship fair. this provides an opportunity for prospective mentors to ask questions regarding the role of a uln peer mentor and to hear about the experiences and perspectives of current peer mentors. following the internship fair, students can submit an online application, resume, and letter of recommendation from a current uln peer mentor within the online posting system. prospective mentors are interviewed individually with a uln staff member and when possible also a current peer mentor. having a current peer mentor within the recruitment process has proven to be a critical ingredient in the success of our recruitment process. initiating the desire to hear the student perspective during the process creates a more diverse lens to review the candidates. typically, 100 to 150 candidates apply for the position to fill up to 80 available positions. program model the uln peer mentor model utilizes existing research, a nationally known training model, and the use of a tiered structure of leadership. although i direct the program, my previous experience as a mentor coordinator (eight years) and research background in the field of mentoring heavily influenced the uln mentor model as it is today. the sections below examine the theoretical frameworks that support the model, highlight the structure and influence provided by the college reading and learning association (crla) international mentor training program certification (imtpc) and training model, and lastly a careful look into the tiered structure of leadership within the mentor model. mentoring research from the disciplines of business and education have greatly influenced the development of the uln mentor model. within the field of business, the concepts of the psychosocial and vocational functions of mentoring are key in understanding the phenomenon. here the psychosocial function refers to the mentor offering “role modeling, counseling, confirmation, and friendship, which help the young adult to develop a sense of professional identity and confidence” (kram & isabella, 1985, p. 111). the vocational function highlights the 88 way mentoring creates an opportunity to provide “sponsorship, coaching, facilitating exposure and visibility, and offering challenging work or protection, all of which help the younger person establish a role in the organization, learn the ropes, and prepare for advancement” (kram & isabella, 1985, p.111). within higher education there is limited research focused on the experiences of peer mentors. my research explores the experiences of underrepresented undergraduates serving fellow underrepresented first-year students at a predominantly white institution (pwi). extending upon the work of moore and amey (1988), my research introduces a tailored operational definition of undergraduate peer mentoring: undergraduate peer mentoring is a relationship between a more experienced undergraduate student from an underrepresented population (typically older) acting as a role model, friend, and resource to a less experienced undergraduate student (typically younger) who is also from an underrepresented population. the aim of the mentoring relationship is to further the mutual development and refinement of both the mentee and mentor’s psychosocial and vocational skills in order to aid in their successful transition to college life (smith, 2014, p. 209). the definition highlights the reciprocity of learning between mentor and mentee and demonstrates the social exchange of skills and experiences that occur because of engaging in a peer mentoring relationship. additionally, this definition helps communicate the role of our peer mentors as professional development coaches as well as aids in the formation of mentoring curriculum and programming. student development theory is also foundational within the uln mentor model. for example, our team applies schlossberg’s transition theory (1984) as a point of reference when developing programming. this theory informs our practice for how individuals experience significant transition (e.g. going to college). specifically, schlossberg’s work identifies four components to examine during the transition cycle, which include situation, self, support, and strategies (goodman, schlossberg, & anderson, 2006). these components, known as the four s’s, are informative when considering how success initiatives create programming to support successful transition and promote opportunities for students to examine and assess their individual situation, how they feel, what support and/or resources are available to them, and what strategies could them employ to ensure they successfully navigate the transition experience. uln also draws on the work of foundational researchers in higher education who focus on student engagement and involvement in learning (astin, 1977, 1984), academic and social integration (pascarella & terenzini, 1977; tinto, 1975), social support (cobb, 1976, pearson, 1990; vaux et al., 1986), and developmental support (chickering, 1969; perry, 1970). high quality mentor training is a critical component of the uln mentor model. for practitioners in the field of peer mentoring and leadership, the best practice of providing consistent, ongoing, high-quality training is critical to success. training equips the mentors and ensures mentees receive a consistent mentoring experience. the crla imtpc certification model (crla, 2015) shapes the uln peer mentor training model. the uln program is working toward becoming a level-two crla-imtpc-certified program and utilizes the requisite training standards. uln peer mentor training includes two, day-long training sessions at the start of each semester in addition to on-going, one-hour weekly training sessions. the level-one (beginning level) mentor 89 certification training model includes a total of 15 hours of professional development training. this level of certification covers seven required topics: “the role of the peer mentor; peer mentoring do’s and don’ts; professional ethics for peer mentors; establishing rapport and motivating mentees; questioning and listening skills; preparing to study: organization, class analysis, and time management; campus and community resources.” additionally, uln selects topics for eight hours of training, which can range from resilience, to becoming a change agent, creating a resume, or interview skills, to professional communication (crla, 2015). in addition to the up to 25 hours of training, peer mentors also require 50-75 hours of face-to-face mentoring experience. returning mentors and lead mentors can receive additional levels of certification as they continue to acquire training and mentoring contact hours in subsequent years on the team. lastly, the uln peer mentor model employs a system of tiered leadership (see figure 1). uln students may apply to become a mentor after completing their first year in the program. once a student becomes a mentor, they undergo training to facilitate weekly discussion sections on a team of two to three fellow mentors, supporting 18 to 24 first-year students in the uln program. mentors attend weekly training sessions facilitated by fellow lead uln mentors. training sessions provide a consistent first-year experience, instill a greater awareness of the mentor’s leadership style, and develop a capacity to work collaboratively toward a common goal. uln mentors also meet weekly with their fellow small group mentors to plan how they will deliver training that provides first-year students time to apply and reflect on the week’s leadership speaker series topic. mentors also attend the first-year leadership speaker series, which provides positive role modeling and opportunity to set high expectations for first-year uln students. mentors then engage in activities during weekly mentor group discussions that align with the first-year leadership speaker series. those topics include, but are not limited to: resilience, leadership and ethics, self-branding, growth vs. fixed mindset (dweck, 2006), building successful teams, and developing a professional network. figure 1. uln tiered mentor model after completing one year as a mentor students have the opportunity to apply to become a lead mentor (8-10 positions available). lead mentors are returning peer mentors who assume additional training to support the peer mentor coordinator (year-two uln coordinator) and to learn to train their peers on the numerous training topics to deliver to the first-year uln year ii & peer mentor program coordinator lead peer mentors (8-10 students) peer mentors (75-85 students) uln first-year students (500) 90 students. the lead mentor training also takes place weekly. serving as a mentor or lead mentor meets the program requirement of engaging in experiential learning. all uln experiential learning opportunities give returning students a greater level of responsibility; therefore, lead mentors take on the added responsibility of mentoring a group of six to eight uln peer mentors. lead mentors facilitate weekly mentor-training sessions, support the coordinator, and assist staff at program events. selection of lead mentors involves an interview process that identifies mentors who demonstrate a high level of maturity, creativity, problem solving skills, and discernment in handling challenging situations. additionally, this year, the uln mentor coordinator has two additional uln interns who serve as liaisons to the peer mentor program. these are students who are interested in pursuing a career in higher education administration and whose primary role is to coordinate programming and communication between the first-year curriculum and the peer mentor programming. why the comprehensive program model of uln is successful the uln program goes beyond traditional models of student success currently observed in higher education initiatives. the uln model is comprehensive; it provides a four-year experience encompassing academic success through partnership with first-year academic communities, financial support in the form of a $20,000 scholarship, peer mentoring and curriculum all presented through the lens of developing leadership and professional skills. many institutions have stand-alone academic success programs, financial aid programs, and leadership and professional development programming. the student success initiatives unit within the provost’s office at ut austin has demonstrated that it is possible to bring together all of the components necessary to increase student success in the creation and implementation of the uln program. top leadership within the provost’s office created an institutional imperative centered on student success and increased four-year graduation rates, paired with resources to support such efforts. ut austin and the uln program are making significant gains in the arena of student success. this section will provide student success outcome data for ut austin and the uln program, insight into program best practices and challenges, necessary components for program replication, and vision of uln. ut austin and uln student success outcome data in 2011, the overall four-year graduation rate for ut austin was 51%, followed by a clear goal to reach 70% by the year 2017. as of fall 2016, the overall four-year undergraduate graduation rate has increased to a staggering 61% (the university of texas statistical handbook, 2016). ut austin is on track to meet its goal because of the efforts of the student success initiatives team, partnered with leadership from all colleges and schools, student affairs units, and the hard work and persistence of the undergraduate students themselves. combined efforts such as providing expansion funds to existing academic communities and success programs, creating an innovative student help desk, and the uln program, have all contributed to the overall goal of increasing retention and four-year graduation rates. across seven academic communities and success programs supported by expansion funds, the first-year cohorts have an average persistence rate of 92.3% (returning for their sophomore year), compared to the overall ut persistence rate of 91 95.1%. the 2017 uln cohort (returning for their senior year) is at 82.4% persistence, in comparison to 85.2% for the total ut 2017 cohort (ssi internal report, 2016). additionally, while many student-success efforts at the university of texas at austin have focused on keeping students on track to graduate by incentivizing behaviors consistent with timely progress, the university also recognizes the role of administrative barriers to reaching the goal of graduation. to help students who run into an administrative barrier to timely graduation, the student success initiatives unit created the graduation help desk. staffed by a team in the provost’s office, the graduation help desk team works alongside students to resolve conflicts affecting their goal of graduating. this includes course availability issues, petitions for transferrable coursework and other obstacles that typically prevent students from graduating. more than 500 students have been assisted since the desk opened in spring 2014. in that time, those seeking help have branched out to also include faculty, academic advisors, and other campus staff searching for ways to helps students graduate on time. the uln program has led to substantial student success. the average sat score across the 2017, 2018, and 2019 cohorts of uln students is 1123 compared to 1295 of the general entering first-year sat score for ut austin. the average predicted four-year graduation rate for those uln cohorts was 38.0% compared to 56.3% for entering first-year ut austin students, which is a difference of 18.3 percentage points. within the first three years, the uln program demonstrates promising results in the areas of persistence and progress towards degree. for example, data gathered in the fall of 2016 showed 93.9% persistence rate for the 2019 uln cohort (returning after first year in college) in comparison to 95.1% for the general 2019 ut austin class, a difference of just 1.2 percentage points. the 2018 uln cohort returned for their third year at a rate of 85.9% in comparison to the general 2017 ut austin class at 92.0%, a difference of just 6.1 percentage points. furthermore, uln students show timely progress toward the completion of their degrees. current uln seniors starting their fourth year, the 2017 cohort, have passed 101 hours on average compared to 106 hours passed for the total ut austin class of 2017. current uln juniors, the 2018 cohort, have passed 74 hours on average as they begin their third year, compared to 77 hours for the total 2018 cohort, an average difference of just one course. as a collective effort, the uln program has brought together institutional, academic, financial, leadership and professional development resources to create an environment to close the student success gap at the university of texas at austin. uln best practices and challenges as a newer program, it is imperative to engage in consistent formal and informal evaluation to gain feedback and create opportunity to identify best practices and identify challenges. the best practices and challenges for uln fall into organized into three levels: student, organizational, and institutional. this section highlights those three levels and provides specific examples of best practices and challenges. student level. at the student level, uln as a program has sought to bring resources together to provide a holistic four-year experience, create an environment of high support and challenge, and of role-modeling and encouraging the development of growth-mindset (dweck, 2006). teaching and encouraging a growth-mindset is a vital best practice within uln. in particular, our 92 programming and curriculum center on this concept, highlighting the idea that skills and abilities are not innate. with hard work, thoughtful practice, and individual reflection, you can greatly improve your skills and abilities in countless areas. additionally, the program’s curriculum has been informed by a collection of research brought together in paul tough’s text (2012), how children succeed. this meta-analytic text brings together the importance of identifying and training on topics such non-cognitive skills (heckman, 2001), grit (duckworth & quinn, 2009), and motivation (mischel, shoda, & rodriguez, 1989). staying current in research allows our programming to remain nimble to meet student needs. the training curriculum for uln peer mentors centers on these major concepts and ideas, which leads to reinforcement of the messages and content presented in the leadership speaker series. students understand that the institution and program have high expectations for them. from day one in the program, students are recognized as leaders on our campus. the senior vice provost, dr. david laude tells first-year students each year, “look to your right, look to your left…you are looking at the leadership of the state of texas.” hearing this from such a high level of authority makes our students feel pride that they are a part of unique community, one that is preparing them for a lifetime of leadership and success both in and out of the classroom. uln embraces the motto of “leading from where you are.” this phrase encourages students to engage in leadership now. leadership does not require a specific title, status, or age. there are always those above you, next to you, and behind you that are watching and waiting to see how you will lead. uln students are not future leaders, they are leaders. uln peer mentors bring this idea to life as they engage in leading as current students. they are actively taking advantage of training opportunities and time to interact with their mentees creating an environment where being a leader is natural, expected, and appreciated. just as best practices are important to acknowledge, an examination of challenges at the student level must also occur. our greatest challenge arises in the large number of students uln serves (up to 2,000). tracking program requirements like attendance, community service hours and experiential learning (10 hours per week) is a considerable task. each year, as the program has expanded to include a new class, our level of staffing and internal tools and systems have been pushed to their limits. for example, in year one (500 students total), taking attendance at the weekly leadership speaker series was initially addressed by using the i-clicker remote analytics tool. while the tool was effective, we were concerned about the student cost of purchasing the technology and cost for annual use. in the second year of the program, we utilized the expertise and local talent of biology professor dr. sarathi sathasivan. dr. sathasivan and his team created the squarecap mobile application, which we began using as our attendance and analytics tool. through exploration of different types of analytics tools, we determined that squarecap best met student needs and compatibly requirements to interface with our learning management system, canvas. although challenging in terms of learning new technology, squarecap met the needs of our students (low cost, ease of use, and mobile access) and our organizational needs (high level of technical support, robustness of the tool, and accessing real time data) making it the best fit for our program. additionally, feedback from our peer mentors was essential in gaining an understanding of the student perspective in utilizing these learning analytic tools as well. they were able to help us refine the use of these systems within the peer mentor weekly sessions as well as in regards to taking attendance and polling the group to check for understanding on content. 93 organizational level. at the organizational level, a key best practice for uln lies in creating a staff model to meet student-success objectives set by the institution in addition to meeting the needs of students served within the program. with great intention, the organizational structure of uln was created with specific positions with clearly defined roles and responsibilities. our current organizational structure includes a director, an experiential learning program manager, four cohort coordinators (one professional: 500 students), an administrative associate, and one graduate research assistant. the program model introduces the idea, and supports the benefits, of having multiple mentors (informal and formal). as students enter the program they work with our first-year coordinator, and as they transition from year to year, they work with a new coordinator trained to meet the needs of second-, third-, or fourth-year students. therefore, at the end of a student’s time in uln, their professional network will include four cohort coordinators, peer mentors, campus partner supervisors, and other experiential learning supervisors. staff and student thrive in the work environment, due to the careful creation of specific roles, with clear directives and boundaries. in regards to the human resources perspective, this simplifies the hiring process and helps the selection committee zero in on the job requirements and the skills, talents, and abilities needed to meet those job requirements as a team, the staff also engages in quarterly (at a minimum) team workdays held outside of the office (on or off-campus location) to focus on finding solutions to challenges facing our students, staff, or organization. these workdays also support an environment of problem-solving, opendialogue, vulnerability, trust, and critical thinking. they also provide time to engage in teambuilding activities that further challenge and support the growth of our organization at the team level. providing opportunity for meaningful professional development (attending/presenting at conferences, engaging in workshops, etc.) is also essential to maintaining a team dynamic and providing opportunities for on-going learning that will further equip staff in their roles. peer mentors also experience the importance of taking time to train, prepare, and to spend time team building. at the beginning of each semester, peer mentors attend an interactive day of training facilitated by the uln staff and lead mentors. this training focuses on reminding peers of their critical role in uln, preparing them with training and tools to be successful, and creating deeper bonds within the peer mentor community. the most prevalent challenge faced at the organizational level centers on staffing capacity and staff care. one challenge is found in the large number of students to each cohort coordinator. ideally, the cohort coordinators would know their students well. however, within the span of an academic year it is not physically possible to meet individually with each student, in addition to completing other job duties. coordinators are comparable to case managers in many ways. they are professionals trained to operate in triage mode. when coordinators meet with a student, they utilize active listening training to target identifiable problems (typically nonacademic challenges affecting academic performance) and to recommend resources to meet those surface-level issues. then, they continue a line of questioning to identify what might be at the root of these surfacelevel issues (e.g. missing class, depression, poor time management). our coordinators are not trained counselors; however, because they have built a rapport with students, they are able to create a space in which students share major life challenges/experiences they are facing (e.g. sexual assault, mental-health issues, depression, anxiety, family financial stress, etc.). furthermore, that shared trust between the student and coordinator allows our team to assess all 94 of the issues presented and to connect students with staff and resources on campus that will get them back on track academically and personally. often times, our peer mentors are our first line of defense. because of the frequency with which peer mentors interact with first-year students, they are the first to notice trends and changes in student engagement. peer mentor training instructs them to notify their lead mentors and/or peer mentor coordinator of such changes, which leads to faster connection to resources and help for the student. moreover, these interactions are necessary, valuable, and intense. it is important to ensure that staff members and peer mentors have access to resources to de-stress, share challenges they are facing, and to know when to ask for guidance when working with a particularly difficult student situation. this environment is created for our peer mentors in their weekly mentor training sessions. institutional level. it is only through institutional support and organization that uln as a program went from a vision to implemented reality. at the institutional level, through structures within the influential leadership and resources provided by the provost’s office and the graduation rate champion, uln as an incentive-based scholarship program is able to bring together units from across campus to provide a four-year experience that results in student success. uln depends on collaboration from many areas in order to function: student success initiatives in the provost’s office, academic and success programs, leadership from all colleges and schools, the office of admissions, the office of financial aid, development, the division of diversity and community engagement, the study abroad office, undergraduate research, as well as over 250 campus partners who supervise hundreds of uln on-campus interns, and offcampus partners. through the leadership of the provost’s office, all of these constituents have come together to collectively meet the institutional goal of a 70% four-year graduation rate at ut austin. the foundational belief that student success is of critical importance to the mission of the institution, and having that belief voiced and supported by the platform of the provost’s office has been critical to our success as a program. collaboration across departments and units is essential in meeting major student success goals. the directors of all of the academic communities and success programs who received expansion funds from student success initiatives, the director of uln, and the associate vice provost for student success, all meet weekly to communicate and collaborate. as a team, this group works to ensure smooth recruitment and placement of incoming students in academic communities and success programs, coordinate programming in an effort to prevent program overlap and content redundancy, and discuss current student issues and how their programs can address those challenges or bring attention to them. this collaboration results in everyone knowing how each program works and the populations they serve. it also creates a shared network of professionals, who work together to ensure that no students fall through the cracks. ut austin is a decentralized campus; however, when it comes to student success they are leading the way by collaborating across units to create an environment conducive to producing student success. challenges at the institutional level include establishing permanent funding for uln. with recurring costs of up to $10 million in scholarship dollars, creating and maintaining varying streams of funding is critical. as discussed previously, uln scholarship dollars are currently funded through tuition set-aside, significant gifts like the houston endowment, and some permanently endowed funds. the external relations team within student success initiatives is 95 working diligently to explore and create new sources of funding for programs like uln as well as academic communities and success programs. replication and future vision for the program as uln is now a four-year, fully staffed program with demonstrated success, the question of replication is commonly asked as representatives from other institutions visit ut austin to learn more about this innovative model. uln was created to function at a large, public, tier-one research university; however, the uln program model could be tailored to meet the needs of a variety of institutional types (private/public, research/teaching, etc.) as long as a core group of program components are maintained. first, replication of the uln model can only be successful at institutions that demonstrate a clear commitment to student success and increasing four-year graduation rates, specifically for diverse student populations. second, a commitment to collaborative leadership across units, colleges, programs, etc. is essential to implementing the uln model. this model relies on collaboration at the executive administrative level (president, provost, deans) in addition to the programmatic level (program directors, service unit directors, diversity unit, etc.). for successful implementation to occur, the institution must gather its key leadership and come together to create a comprehensive student success plan. as mentioned above, the uln model at ut austin was not intended for exact replication; however, the core components of the model that should remain intact aside from institutional and leadership commitment include: • student financial support over four years (scholarship), • focus on four-year graduation, • first-year academic support (provided through academic communities and success programs or initiatives), • intensive first-year leadership and professional training with ongoing training opportunities in the secondthrough fourth-years, • second-year on-campus internship opportunities, • service component, • mechanism for self-reflection over four years, and • institutional data analysis support. uln as a team is working to create clear outlines for the program structure, components, curricula, and resources required for implementation. these resources will be useful in engaging with institutions wishing to create a uln-like program to increase student success on their campuses. as a comprehensive program model, uln is moving the needle of student success at the university of texas at austin. uln is remarkably unique with a vast array of invested stakeholders: university leadership, students, staff, faculty, and campus and community partners. this broad collaboration results in the most extraordinary collective effort to create a shared sense of community and commitment to undergraduate student success. uln demonstrates how highly trained undergraduate peer mentors are critical. they extend the organization’s ability to 96 meet and identify student needs, create community, and deliver important content leading to leadership and professional development for first-year students. additionally, peer mentors gain valuable transferrable skills because of their experience, which increases their post-baccalaureate marketability in regards to entering the workforce or graduate and/or professional school arena. uln is thriving, entering new territory as it prepares fourth-year students for graduation and their path beyond the university of texas at austin. the “network” of uln is being constructed as we graduate our first class and 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(2003). socioeconomic status and college: how ses affects college experiences and outcomes. the review of higher education, 27(1), fall, 45-73. https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.2003.0044 https://doi.org/10.3102/00346543045001089 https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00911821 https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.2003.0044 101 author information jennifer smith serves as the director of the university leadership network (uln) at the university of texas at austin. as part of the university’s student success initiatives (ssi) unit, uln was created to increase four-year graduation rates. she was appointed to provide a unique student experience based on leadership, professional development, and experiential learning combined with the opportunity to earn a significant scholarship. jennifer was instrumental in the development and implementation of a number student success initiatives at ut austin, including the university leadership network, the texas interdisciplinary plan mentor academy, and the college of natural sciences peer leader academy. dr. smith received both her master of educational administration and doctor of educational administration from the university of texas at austin. jennifer’s research and practice center on leadership, incentive-based scholarships, undergraduate peer mentoring, and the experiences of underrepresented undergraduate populations. jennifer l. smith, phd student success initiatives the university of texas at austin flawn academic center (fac 334) 2304 whitis avenues austin, tx 78712 e-mail: jlsmith@austin.utexas.edu fax: 512-232-2800 mailto:jlsmith@austin.utexas.edu metropolitan universities vol. 28 no. 2 (spring 2017), doi: 10.18060/21516 charting ahead: navigating threats and challenges to the urban-serving research university mission desiree d. zerquera, ph.d., and erin doran, ed.d. abstract the higher education context that our cumu institutions must navigate is complex and begets challenges resulting from the distinct mission our institutions seek to uphold. the implications of these challenges give rise to impacts on everyone within the institution and consequently our constituents within the cities we seek to serve. bringing together literature, emerging research, and points from discussions at the 2016 cumu conference, this paper analyzes challenges and their implications and highlights the strategies being employed to navigate them. we consider the tensions inherent in the urban-serving university’s identity, the cost of serving urban regions, and the state structures that provide funding. all of these tensions have implications for commitment to mission, access for historically marginalized students, and the experiences of faculty within the institution. we also discuss strategic initiatives and efforts that reflect collaboration, strategic alignment, and innovation. this work is of value for those working within urban-serving universities, those who work to uphold their mission in higher education, and policy makers that shape the context of these institutions’ work. keywords mission management, strategic efforts, policy context introduction urban-serving research universities (usrus) play an important role within our nation’s cities and the achievement of educational and societal opportunities for our urban regions and inhabitants (zerquera, 2016). however, pressures from the broader environment present challenges to this mission, often to achieve more with less resources, or to take on new missions that fundamentally change the target student populations of an institution and its constituents. current pressures threaten the ability of these institutions to achieve a balance between providing access, especially to historically underserved student populations, and the types of external pressures that realign institutional priorities. these pressures include: (a) mission differentiation efforts; (b) resource competition; (c) performance-based funding criteria; (d) prestige expectations; and (e) faculty pressures to focus more on research than teaching and service. more is needed to better understand how our institutions are experiencing and navigating these pressures. drawing from literature, emerging research, and discussions among coalition for urban and metropolitan universities (cumu) members at the 2016 cumu conference, this paper seeks to explore current tensions on the mission of usrus. the purpose of this work is to explain some 47 of the ways these tensions have played out in institutions and policies around the country and to provide some of the individual and collaborative responses usrus have made in negotiating or reframing these tensions in service of their mission. lessons learned from these strategies and recommendations for how to chart ahead within this context are posed to challenge usrus to think creatively and strategically for the betterment of our cities and the students we serve. situating the mission of urban-serving research universities usrus serve their urban regions in a number of ways, with a key part of the usru mission to provide access to higher education for residents of its surrounding regions (barlow, 1988; grobman, 1988; hathaway, mulhollan, & white, 1990). in so doing, usrus play an important role in upholding the american dedication to providing educational opportunity (diner, 2012; elliott, 1994; rhatigan & kelley, 1990). research within the context of usrus typically involves a distinct process and approach to research that includes working with different constituencies to identify, define and solve urban problems through engaged research with their surrounding communities (barlow, 1998; soo, 2010). they contribute to the local economy by providing training in professional fields needed for the success of their region in a context that interweaves theory and practice (harcleroad & ostar, 1987; mulhollan, 1990). additionally, they contribute to solving the city’s problems by serving as a model institutional citizen within the city, centering concerns on urban issues, and acting as a center of political, economic, and cultural advancement (barlow, 1998; van der wusten, 1998). many usrus were founded during the mid-twentieth century, in response to urbanization, mass migration to urban areas, and the increased demand for higher education in the post-world war ii era (grobman, 1988; harcleroad & ostar, 1987; van der wusten, 1998). grobman (1988) develops a taxonomy of urban institutions based on their shared histories of founding, identifying two main types. the first set of institutions comprise what he calls secondary urban universities, which were institutions that long existed in metropolitan regions as either private institutions, seminaries, or teacher’s colleges and were converted into public, urban-serving institutions to provide access and develop their growing regions. examples include the university of louisville, a former seminary in the primary urban center of kentucky; the university of toledo, a former private arts and trades school in northern ohio; and the university of wisconsinmilwaukee and the university of texas at el paso, which were former normal schools devoted to teacher training. these institutions differ in their histories from those grobman identifies as primary urban state universities, which were established as new campuses where the conversion of a pre-existing campus was not possible or were created by combining disparate extension campus efforts from a remote state university to become one institution. examples of these institutions include indiana university-purdue university indianapolis, the university of illinois at chicago, the university of texas at san antonio, and the university of south florida. though these two groups of institutions differ in the conditions surrounding their founding, they share a common history of being established—or appropriated—out of a need by states to serve their growing metropolitan regions and meet increasing demands for access to higher education (grobman, 1988; harcleroad & ostar, 1987; van der wusten, 1998). as such, these institutions are distinct from many state colleges and the land-grant institutions “established as pastoral 48 retreats, as part of a general social hostility towards the city and its corruption” or universities established in urban areas that “more often than not were walled institutions within which an attempt was made to create a haven from the urban environment” (barlow, 1998, p.149). thus, the usru mission centers these institutions as being citizens of the cities they inhabit, providing access to higher education , and working with members in the city to identify and address social problems (zerquera, 2016). this mission rings true today, as demonstrated by cumu, which among other aims seeks to support the fulfillment of this mission within our nation's urban institutions. these foundational values are also evidenced within usru institutional missions. for instance, the university of texas at el paso (utep) has as part of its mission to fulfill the “role as an intellectual, cultural and socioeconomic asset to the region, offering programs to meet human resource needs and contribute to the quality of life” (utep, n.d.). further, the institution boasts that it “is committed to providing access and opportunity to the people of the el paso region and the state of texas” (utep, n.d.). however, this mission is wrought with inherent challenges and tensions. particularly within today’s higher education context, the awareness of these tensions, their implications, and how to navigate them, are essential for the continued enactment of the urban-serving mission. key areas of tension on the usru mission being committed to achieving the tripartite mission of higher education—teaching, research, and service—in ways that serve the surrounding city is a tremendous endeavor. this mission is filled with inherent tensions that are exacerbated by current policy discourse. we discuss three key areas where these tensions play out: the urban-serving identity, costs of serving an urban mission, and metrics systems misaligned with usru work. identity within a juxtaposed space the urban-serving philosophy of usrus has created several conflicts for these institutions. the association with the urban context brings about connotations and association (elliot, 1994), invoking “images of crime, squalor, [and] underprepared diverse students” (severino, 1996, p.292), that colleges and universities may try to reject. recasting urban institutions as metropolitan can be seen as evidence of an effort to disassociate with this connotation (severino, 1996). further, while the carnegie classification’s elective component of community engagement begins to speak to the distinct mission of usrus, these institutions are not perfectly captured within the carnegie system of classification. this absence only contributes to the already tenuous situating of usrus. additionally, rhetoric surrounding the usru movement has focused on comparing usrus to land-grant institutions, a comparison and has been important in the development of usru identity (severino, 1996). the ongoing investment and veneration of the land-grant colleges to the point of making them the prototype of public higher education has served to perpetuate the agrarian myth of higher education—a belief in the pastoral setting as being the ideal environment for college learning (rudolph, 1990; thelin, 2004). this has contributed to an ongoing dilemma 49 for usrus: with higher education’s “persistent fixation on the pastoral model, the urban university has always had difficulty being accepted as ‘the real thing’” (thelin, 1990, p.xv). thus, this has contributed to the “shaping [of] an institutional identity within a juxtaposed space rather than a reclaimed and distinguished one” (zerquera, 2016, para. 26). in turn, usrus are seen as less than, a perspective shared by potential students and state policymakers alike. thus, the identity of usrus has been continuously challenged, imposing tensions resulting from evaluating these institutions by what they are not instead of what they are. cost of the urban mission further, the problems that usrus aim to address through their service and research are large, difficult, and expensive (carnegie commission on higher education, 1972; cisneros, 1995; martinez & brawley, 2003; van der wusten, 1998). serving an access mission is costly. students from historically marginalized backgrounds tend to face inequities in the k-12 system, with structural barriers for students in schools that typically serve large proportions of students of color (hanushek, 1989; kahlenberg, 2000; noguera, 2003; teranishi, allen, & solorzano, 2004; yosso, 2005). the institutions of higher education that seek to serve these students then inherit the inequity passed on by the k-12 system (wagner, 1990; venegas, 2011). with expansion of the collegegoing population, increasingly, more and more students attend college who not only bring with them this k-12 background, but a host of various other intersecting barriers not always accounted for, such as low-income status, demands outside of school for work and family, and misalignment with the norms and structures within the college-going process (meyers, berling, & corcoran, 2012; venegas, 2011). serving these students requires institutions to be introspective and provide extensive services that support them to success. many institutions embrace this challenge, creating rich relationships with their urban communities and benefitting them in the process (englert, 1997; maurrasse, 2001). cumu institutions highlight, for instance, the use of extended education and outreach programs, which seek to ameliorate some of the challenges within k-12, foster stronger k-16 partnerships, and enhance not just access but success of historically underserved populations (moore, 2013; perna, 2011; perry, 2011; rousseau, 2007). still, the challenge is ever present. the complexity of these problems may beget political difficulties, and particularly within evaluative structures. performanceand prestige-based funding as discussed in the context of school equity previously, funding is a perennial challenge in higher education, and multiple scholars have noted that nationally, funding for higher education has fallen (dowd & shieh, 2013) and has no prospect of returning to previous levels (state higher education executive officers, 2014). national priorities that emphasize accountability with regards to student completion rates are positioned in conflict with the growing diversity of the college-going population (allen & allen, 2003; astin & oseguera, 2004; kallison & cohen, 2010). at the same time, the use of performance-based funding is rising (fain, 2014) with some 30 states that currently use some type of performance-based funding in higher education with 50 another four that are in process of adding that formula funding to their state budgets (national conference of state legislatures, 2015). previous iterations of such funding provided bonus funding to states while current performance funding is tied to the base funding that states allocate to its institutions (lahr et al., 2014). for institutions like usrus, performance measures may be misaligned with mission, especially when outcomes are the sole measure and certain inputs, like teaching and advising, are cast aside (dowd & shieh, 2013). performance funding is not the only state structure that impacts usrus. several states have adapted hierarchical evaluations of their state’s public universities, with financial rewards attached for those within higher tiers. for instance, in 2009, the texas legislature passed h.b. 51, a plan to incentivize public universities to strive toward tier one status by creating grants for such activities such as hiring research-oriented faculty, including endowed professorships (h.b. 51, 2009). the legislature noted that texas had only three research 1 (r1) institutions at the time and argued that the establishment of more r1 institutions could positively impact the state’s economic growth with more institutions that achieved the “highest research activity” designation from the carnegie classification. similarly, the state of florida recently adapted sb 1076 in 2013 and supplemented it this past year, which established metrics to evaluate the level of preeminence among its institutions (kumar, 2013). gaining this status enables institutions to be eligible for additional funding to support research engagements. earning such label requires institutions to meet a number of metrics set out by the state, which include size of endowment, graduation and retention rate, and incoming student grade point average and sat scores. another resource stream, the attraction of gaining such status must surely be appealing to institutions struggling to survive within the state’s financial context. however, the metrics evaluate activity that is somewhat disassociated from the usru mission. for instance, the research that is most recognized and supported within this lens is typically not practitionerdriven and engaged with community partners. similarly, the sat has been noted to be biased towards students of color and institutions that serve them are penalized in ranking systems that consider it (freedle, 2003). the observed and potential implications of these structures and the other tensions described are discussed at length in the following section. implications of tensions on usrus the tensions exerted on usrus surely have consequences on how these institutions make decisions in their effort to navigate the tensions and survive within the higher education context that may at times work against what they seek to do. the impacts, alluded to in the previous section, reach far into all aspects of institutional work. for this paper, we hone in on three areas in particular where implications have been observed: academic striving, diminished access for underserved students, and pressures on the work of faculty. academic striving the act of striving in higher education institutions is defined as “the pursuit of prestige within the academic hierarchy” (o’meara & bloomgarden, 2011, p. 40). this process can take on different actions including changes to admissions processes (crisp, horn, dizinno, & wang, 2010; 51 o’meara, 2007), how resources are allocated (morphew & baker, 2004; o’meara, 2007), and changes in mission (gonzales, 2013). striving has also been attributed to the attitudes and values of faculty, many of whom are trained within pastoral, research-intensive institutions and bring the norms and expectations of that campus setting to their new urban campuses that have different values around the meaning of their work (morphew, 2000; rhoades, kiyama, mccormick, & quiroz, 2009; walzer, 2010). striving, especially in institution that were previously broad access or teaching institutions, fundamentally changes the focus of the institution, usually toward research and selectivity (o’meara, 2007; o’meara & bloomgarden, 2011). as such, the active pursuit of prestige can be disruptive to various parties within the institution. it can have impacts on faculty attitudes around their work, conceptions of their identity as academics, and their work-life balance (gonzales, 2013; o’meara & bloomgarden, 2011). some research has extended similar impacts to the experiences of graduate students within these institutions as well (gardner, 2010). while striving is often internally driven, the context of the higher education environment may introduce conditions that contribute to prestige-seeking behavior. because of their mission and tensions described above, usrus have been noted to be susceptible to the value systems of research-intensive and more highly selective universities (lynton & elman, 1987; mulhollan, 1990) which differ in many ways from the aims usrus seek. this may also contribute to additional implications, such as access for marginalized students and experiences of faculty within the institution. diminished access for marginalized students many of the measures imposed on usrus evaluate on the basis of the academic preparation of incoming freshmen. performance-based funding, for instance, threatens the equity and access, especially when outcomes are the sole measure and certain inputs, like teaching and advising, are cast aside. for institutions like usrus, these labors to serve students may often result in fruits not considered edible for these evaluative systems. the pressures to meet metrics may have inequitable impacts on students being served. this is interconnected with a common approach employed by universities seeking to increase outcomes more quickly through increasing admissions requirements. in modeling increased admissions requirements at two texas urban striving institutions, crisp and colleagues (2010) found that traditionally underserved students are disproportionately impacted by changes to admissions requirements. one of the universities in the sample, the university of texas at san antonio (utsa) which is also an usru institutions, lowered its admissions rate from as high as 99% in 2004 (crisp, et al., 2010) to approximately 60% less than a decade later (chavez, 2013). in the plan that outlined these strategic changes, utsa overtly stated its efforts to increase success rates by excluding students previously served by their institution and whom they described as being less likely to succeed. as a result of the increased admissions requirements at utsa from 2013 onward and changes to the state developmental education plan (texas higher education coordinating board, 2012), the university did away with certain developmental courses, specifically the lowest-level 52 developmental reading course because students who tested at that level no longer qualified for admission to the university. should more usrus follow this practice, more students of color who are overrepresented in developmental education (bahr, 2010) related to high proportions of disservice in the k-12 sector (gandára & contreras, 2009; strayhorn, 2016) will be shut out of higher education opportunity at usru institutions. faculty pressures these tensions have implications for the work of faculty within usrus as well. as previously noted, while faculty themselves can play a role in striving within the institution, these pressures also become imposed on the work of faculty. certain emphases, such as those which might bring about preeminence at the state level, tends to push faculty work and resource allocation toward a greater focus on research and grant development (morphew & baker, 2004; o’meara, 2007). an increased focus on these aspects of faculty work tend to take away time from other parts of academic life, including service and community-engaged work. scholarship in the metropolitan universities journal has spoken to the importance of community-engaged research and service and the special place that urban institutions have to exchange with their localities (siewell & thomas, 2015; watson-thompson, 2015). work in this journal also calls for the greater recognition of the impact that this work has on communities (e.g., watson-thompson, 2015) and how it should be valued in tenure and merit structures for faculty (jacquez, 2014). a diminished focus on community-engaged scholarship threatens the viability of our cities and the role of higher education in society overall. navigating these tensions finding actionable solutions for complex issues in light of stagnant or decreasing funding is a challenge for institutions. in light of discussions at the cumu conference and ongoing research on usrus, the following areas were identified as examples of individual and collective institutions working around or in spite of policies that created tensions with their urban mission. consortiums while organizations like cumu and the coalition of urban serving universities (usu) reflect a shared commitment to upholding and supporting the enactment of the usru mission, institution-driven regional consortiums throughout the country have also been formed. while foregrounding different aims, these consortiums act to pool resources and influence from their states and maintain commitment to their urban-serving missions. for instance, the consortium of universities in the washington metropolitan area (cuwma), which was formed in the 1960s, boosts access and opportunity for students in the washington, dc area. the cuwma harnesses the geographic proximity of different types of dc-based institutions (e.g., two-year and fouryear, public and private) to create collaborations in teaching, advocacy, and research that benefit the entire metropolitan community (cavanaugh, 2015). importantly too, they advocate for the value of serving the greater washington, dc region and leveraging their shared commitment to do so. 53 this spirit of aligning with other institutions in effort to better enact a shared mission is reflected in more recent consortiums emerging in florida and california. the florida consortium of metropolitan research universities, reflects a collaboration across three urban universities in the state. all work together to increase retention and graduation rates, lower the amount of debt carried by students, and produce graduates that will meet the demands of florida’s economy (hodge, 2016). in its short time, among other accomplishments, the consortium has been able to garner state and foundation funding, which is shared across institutions to support initiatives around stem and career-readiness. another example is provided by the csu5, a collaboration between five california state university (csu) campuses in the los angeles area for the purpose of increasing workforce training and educational attainment of students (“about csu5,” n.d.). these institutions work together to tell the csu story as stated by a cumu conference attendee, meet demands from the state, and collectivize to garner funding to support shared initiatives. these consortiums provide examples of collaboration around shared goals to uphold the usru mission through collectivization. addition of engaged scholarship addendums to tenure packets as faculty are increasingly called to do work differently than before, some faculty have worked together to uphold their community-engaged focus. the intricacies of the tenure and promotion process can be difficult to navigate through a community-engaged lens. university faculty have taken it upon themselves to create innovative or supplement their institutional-wide guidelines with standards that better align with a community-engaged focus (e.g., kirtman, bowers, & hoffman, 2016). for instance, the university of windsor provides external reviewers a supplemental document that specifically outlines not just assessment criteria, but also provides a background framework to support the review of tenure and promotion candidates. by drawing on a strong framework, they advocate for reviewers to situate the evaluation of faculty within a community-engaged context. loyola marymount university has developed tenure and review guidelines that reflect a strong community-engaged focus, promoting the inclusivity of various types of scholarship. both institutions recognize the important role of public intellectualism and publication within journals that reach practitioners and community members directly. given the important role of faculty in shaping the tenure and promotion process, these examples demonstrate how faculty may claim of autonomy and enact creativity to ensure the support of the usru mission through the work of scholarship. access approaches practitioners and administrators on usru campuses are recognizing the shift in student demographics resulting from different measures of students’ qualifications. recent research, conducted by the authors, has investigated the efforts these campuses are taking to uphold access within this challenging context. one such approach described reflects a shared investment in strengthening collaborations with area community colleges. community colleges provide an affordable access-point into higher education for a variety of student populations, including many students of color, low-income students, and academically underprepared students for 54 students who might not otherwise have the chance to pursue a postsecondary degree or credential (cohen, brawer, & kisker, 2013; handel, 2013). through partnerships and articulation agreements, usrus can play an important role in boosting the degree attainment rate of their communities (handel, 2013). while community colleges themselves play a role in preparing students for transfer, usrus should mindfully create policies and procedures for supporting the successful transfer of students from one institution to the next in various forms, including registration, advising, financial aid, and services that help students navigate their new campus (bahr, toth, thirolf, & massé, 2013). the stories across usru campuses demonstrate an investment in collaboration, but the strengthening of these pipelines are essential to realizing their potential. in addition to leveraging local community colleges, practitioners found ways of circumventing metrics and utilizing other entry points. the collection of data that determine prestige rankings (e.g., u.s. news & world report) and performance measures are typically based on fall firsttime in college student admissions (ehrenberg, 2003). thus, usrus shared the usage of transfer admissions and spring admissions (referred to by one participant as the “access term”) to uphold access points for marginalized students. the circumvention strategy demonstrates ways our campuses are working strategically to navigate pressures and remain committed to their urbanserving mission. charting the future: the road ahead many of the pressures influencing change on usrus, such as decreased funding, are unlikely to improve. therefore, it is incumbent upon these institutions to develop ways to adapt in order to move forward in service to their missions and students. the aforementioned consortiums, especially the newer collaborations in california and florida, may be instructive to other usrus in the ways that multiple campuses can harness their collective strengths for advocacy, strategic planning, and in informing policies that support the usru mission rather than threaten it. what is particularly special about these efforts are the ways in which they foster collaboration among institutions, not competition. relatedly, usrus will need to think about ways they can strategically align themselves as individual campuses and as part of a network of campuses in the same urban space. policies that prioritize certain outcomes, such as workforce preparation and training as development by the csu5 consortium, illustrates how malleable usrus can be in relation to changing federal and state policy discussions. urban universities should also look among themselves to see where their interests converge and how individual contributions to a collective effort can improve the quality of education for an entire community. at the same time, usrus should also look to redefine their roles in a community, in order to adapt responsively to changing times. if necessity is indeed the mother of invention, the time is ripe for usrus to innovate their practices and policies in support of a community-based mission. a starting point for leveraging the collective power of usrus is in finding spaces to gather and exchange ideas. organizations like cumu, which are dedicated to the mission and sustainability of urban universities, can provide these spaces for sharing experience and ideas by strategizing conversations around the 55 most pressing issues impacting this sector of higher education. further, by facilitating partnerships with other organizations such as usu, usrus can find a collective voice for advocacy toward the creation of policies that honor the work urban universities do in support of their locales. conclusion within today’s context of increased accountability and diminished resources, the need to uphold equity is greater than ever. in this piece, we have argued that usrus are a distinct set of universities that serve a special mission. these institutions aim to be all things to all people in their respective urban regions, having the potential to fulfill the roles critics claim have been missing from higher education institutions—a return to teaching, relationships with communities, and conducting research of relevance to real societal problems (mundt, 1998). however, tensions in the usru environment make fulfillment of this mission challenging at times, as their identity is not fully captured or understood, there are diminished resources for the costly work usrus do, and performance metrics fail to appropriately capture the significant work of these institutions. the impact of these tensions are evidenced as they play out in institutions demonstrating pursuing prestige for the tangible and intangible resources it provides, diminished access for students from marginalized backgrounds, and pressures on faculty and their work. still, there is promise as evidenced in the ways usrus are navigating these tensions and innovating in our fight to preserve the role these universities fulfill. the stakes for usrus could not be higher. these institutions are “crucial to the fight to save our cities,” and have potential to transform society through this type of work and be mutually benefitted by it in the process (cisneros, 1995, p.2). thus, risking the usru mission jeopardizes the roles these institutions fulfill within society more generally. as institutions committed to this charge, it is important that 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(2016). urban-serving research universities: institutions for the public good. higher learning research communications, 6(2), https://dx.doi.org/10.18870/hlrc.v6i2.320 62 author information desiree zerquera is an assistant professor in the department of leadership studies at the university of san francisco. her research examines the structuring of access and opportunity in higher education. she is particularly interested in the structuring of access within urbansering universities and draws on her experience as a student affairs practitioner, policy maker, and engaged researcher to inform her perspectives. desiree d. zerquera, ph.d. (corresponding author) department of leadership studies university of san francisco 2130 fulton ave san francisco, ca 94117 email: ddzerquera@usfca.edu telephone: 415-422-2345 twitter: desiree.zerquera erin doran is an assistant professor in the division of higher education at iowa state university. her research examines the access and experience of latinx students in higher education and how institutions serve these students. she is particularly interested in how institutions respond to state policies and changing demographics in ways that promote culturally relevant practice at all levels of the institution from upper administration to individual classrooms. erin e. doran, ed.d. 2666a lagomarcino hall school of education-iowa state university 901 stange road ames, ia 50010 email: edoran@iastate.edu telephone: 515-294-3748 twitter: erindoran_edd mailto:ddzerquera@usfca.edu mailto:edoran@iastate.edu metropolitan universities vol. 28 no. 2 (spring 2017), doi: 10.18060/21512 student success for all: support for low-income students at an urban public university mark potter abstract although federal financial aid has increased in recent years, the costs of college tuition and living expenses have increased even more, leaving larger numbers of students with unmet need. restructuring of financial aid, however, is insufficient to address the problem of diverging attainment gaps between low-income students and their more advantaged peers. low-income students share patterns and traits that put them at greater risk of dropping out of college. in response, the lumina foundation published the report beyond financial aid, which identifies six strategies for supporting low-income students, offers examples of how those strategies may be implemented, and provides an institutional self-assessment tool. at metropolitan state university of denver, a cross-functional team of faculty and staff at msu denver gained considerable insight by using and discussing the beyond financial aid assessment tool. the action plan that emerged from the team’s work consists of five goals: (a) take advantage of easy wins; (b) use data to know our low-income students; (c) increase broad-based support for lowincome students; and (d) foster culture change; and enhance financial literacy. additionally, msu denver has leveraged partnerships to strengthen support for its low-income students as a natural extension of the university’s regional stewardship mission. keywords equity; attainment; partnerships introduction for metropolitan colleges and universities, meeting degree completion goals and closing the achievement gap increasingly means providing targeted support for low-income students. although federal financial aid has increased in recent years, the costs of college tuition and living expenses have increased even more, leaving larger numbers of students with unmet need. low-income students have seen their share of unmet need increase the fastest, while more aid has gone to more economically advantaged students in the middle and upper classes (engle & tinto, 2008; lynch, engle, & cruz, 2011). because low-income students, who are often also first-generation students, have fewer family resources to draw from and have greater unmet financial need in covering their costs of education, they are more at risk of dropping or stopping out before reaching their educational goals (chaplot, cooper, johnstone, & karndjeff, 2015). “student success” equates to students meeting their educational goals, which typically means obtaining a degree or certificate and gaining knowledge and skills for career-readiness or postgraduate studies. student success initiatives at colleges and universities aim to support students through graduation, so that they leave with a credential and are ready to pursue their postgraduate plans. as access to higher education has expanded, more and more students are leaving college before graduating; an estimated 37 million adults nationwide have some college credit 64 but no degree. many of these individuals, furthermore, carry student loan debt that creates additional economic hardship beyond what they began with as they entered college (“some college, no degree | american radioworks,” 2011). student success, thus, is critical to the postsecondary credential attainment that can lift low-income individuals into a more secure and prosperous life. the financial challenges that low-income students face in obtaining a college credential present a fundamental equity issue for higher education and for society at large. college attainment rates in the u.s. have only increased from 7% to 9% among adults in the lower income quartile since the 1970s. (cahalan & perna, 2015). furthermore, low-income students who enter college with above-average aptitude test scores have a lower graduation rate than more affluent students with lower test scores (new york times, 2012). because college degrees are so closely tied to earnings potential, the barriers to student success for low-income students perpetuate society's worsening inequality (“earnings and unemployment rates by educational attainment,” n.d.). restructuring federal, state, and institutional practices, to place a greater emphasis on need-based scholarships and aid, is part of the solution to increasing opportunity for low-income students. unfortunately, trends have run counter to that ideal, as, for example, “state grants not based on need have grown at triple the rate of need-based grants over the past 10 years” (lynch, engle, & cruz, 2011). more than changes to financial-aid practices is needed, though, to create equitable outcomes. low-income students, like first-generation students, share patterns and traits that put them at greater risk of dropping out of college. demographically, these students, on average, are more likely to be older, have a disability, come from a minority background, have dependent children or be single parents, and be financially independent of their parents. low-income students are also more likely than their more affluent peers to delay entry into college following high school, live off campus, attend part-time, and work more in paid positions off campus. although these traits or patterns are very much interrelated, each of them separately have been shown to be associated with lower levels of college completion (engle & tinto, 2008). for lowincome students who enter college without the support structures that their more affluent peers have, a seemingly minor life event, such as a broken-down car or a stolen laptop could be enough to derail their educational progress and cause them to drop out. understanding the challenges that low-income students face, in 2015 the lumina foundation published the report beyond financial aid, which identifies six strategies for supporting lowincome students, offers examples from twoand four-year institutions of how those strategies may be implemented, and provides an institutional self-assessment tool (chaplot, cooper, johnstone, & karndjeff, 2015). the report notes that more and more low-income students are attending college; identifying and offering support to those students are integral to achieving equity in educational outcomes. metropolitan state university of denver, a large, public comprehensive university in downtown denver, co, proudly serves a student body that is reflective of the students who are the focus of beyond financial aid. with modified open-admissions and a reputation for being the least expensive four-year institution in colorado, msu denver’s student body of 20,000 undergraduates is roughly one-third eligible for pell, one-third first generation, and close to 40% minority. in colorado, the master plan for higher education calls for increasing the number of college credentials awarded statewide by 1000 each year until workforce needs are met, with the goal of 66% of adults holding postsecondary credentials by 2025. colorado has the second 65 largest attainment gap across racial/ethnic groups in the nation, however, and the master plan for higher education acknowledges that the state’s college-completion goals will only be met by closing the attainment gap (colorado commission on higher education, 2012). with higher numbers of undergraduate students from underserved backgrounds than any other four-year institution in the state, msu denver has an outsized role to play in meeting the state’s completion goals. improving retention and graduation rates is thus a priority for the university, and addressing students’ financial hardship has been part of that work since an internal 2015 study found financial issues as one of the major reasons why students stop or drop out. a cross-functional team at msu denver gained considerable insight by using and discussing the beyond financial aid assessment tool. each member of the team, comprised of the associate vice president for undergraduate studies, the chair of the department of human services, and staff members from student engagement and wellness, financial aid, student academic success, and women’s studies and services, completed the assessment individually. then, over the course of three separate meetings, team members compared and compiled findings into an action plan. the team discovered that many of the supports described in beyond financial aid were already in place. however, the findings confirmed that more work needed to be done in order to ensure that more students would benefited from these services. the action plan that emerged from the team’s work consists of five goals. these goals align closely with the six strategy recommendations that frame beyond financial aid. at msu denver, we are seeking to: 1. increase support for our low-income students by exploring and taking advantage of shortterm easy wins; 2. use data to identify and support low-income students; 3. increase broad-based support for low-income students through efforts that are comprehensive, proactive, and intentional; 4. foster culture change that empowers students and creates safe spaces for students to ask for help; and 5. enhance student financial literacy and understanding of the financial implications of their choices. strategy 1: take advantage of easy wins beyond financial aid mentions strategies that the msu denver team thought could be developed as early and easy wins to bring meaningful support to low-income students. msu denver’s accounting department had for years partnered with local agencies to provide tax preparation assistance, under the voluntary income tax assistance (vita) program, at community centers throughout denver. each year accounting students gain hands-on experience applying tax law to the preparation of tax returns while providing a service to the community. the easy win that came in response to the beyond financial aid institutional self-assessment was to establish an on-campus site, centrally located and easily accessible to msu denver students, where eligible students could obtain free tax return assistance. approximately 100 individuals, mostly msu denver students, were assisted at this site during the 2015 tax season at a total benefit to them of $53,000. several students reported that as a result of this service they obtained refunds after thinking that they would owe money in taxes. this first year was so successful, both from a learning standpoint in the accounting department and from a student 66 services standpoint, that plans are underway to double the on-campus service for the 2016 tax season. strategy 2: use data to know our low-income students unmet need has often been cited as a major determining factor that affects a student’s likelihood of persisting (chaplot, cooper, johnstone, & karndjeff, 2015; lynch, engle, & cruz, 2011; “case study,” 2015). at msu denver, despite offering the lowest in-state tuition of any fouryear institution in colorado, 56% of the student body carries unmet need according to data pulled from student financial records from 2010 to 2014. an internal analysis conducted on these data did not demonstrate that a simple correlation exists between unmet need and risk of stopping or dropping out. on the other hand, a subset of students with unmet need—those between $1,000 to $2,000 of unmet need per year—did, according to the same historical data, dropout in greater numbers than either students with less unmet need or greater unmet need (talich, 2016). these findings suggest that a more complex interplay is at work between unmet need, a student’s socioeconomic status, students’ willingness to take loans to complete their degrees, and possibly other behaviors and traits that are associated with low-income students. further analysis shows that students from the lowest socio-economic status, those with an estimated family contribution (efc) of $0 to $649, and with unmet need in the same range of $1000 to $1999, have the highest likelihood of not persisting. msu denver students appear to reflect the first-generation, low-income, students identified in engle and tinto (2008) who are more likely to be minorities, begin college later in life, attend college part-time, and work full-time. we know, for example, that african american students at msu denver are the most likely (75%) to have unmet need, followed by latino students (65%) and then white students (50%). african americans and latinos are also most likely to be pelleligible, attend part-time, and take longer to graduate (metropolitan state university of denver, 2016). ongoing inquiry that disaggregates the unmet-need data by various groupings such as race, ethnicity, first-generation or age will enable the beyond financial aid team to refine its understanding of who our low-income students are, what the challenges are that they face, and how successful we are in making support services available to them. strategy 3: increase broad-based support msu denver has long recognized the mission-driven imperative to support a diverse student body that includes low-income students. since 2009 for example, the university has had a food pantry in partnership with the food bank of the rockies to provide food, in a confidential setting, to students in need. additionally, a team of staff and faculty worked over the course of several months to identify housing options and resources for students who were homeless or at risk of becoming homeless, and the institute of women’s studies and services provides referrals to students in need of housing, transportation assistance, low-cost child care, and public benefits. on the other hand, whereas this patchwork of supports and services exists for low-income students at msu denver, the beyond financial aid team that conducted the institutional selfassessment found that knowledge and use of the support services were minimal. in response, the beyond financial aid team has been working to create a map of resources for students, along 67 with information sheets for faculty and staff, in order to refer students effectively to support services. additionally, the beyond financial aid team has shifted focus in part from assessment and planning to rapid response. as such, the team works to ensure that the right kind of support is provided to meet shifting needs. as this team is evolving, the model of an “economic distress task force” described by munin and enos (2016) is providing a blueprint to help guide this work. strategy 4: foster culture change attention to culture is critical for ensuring that more low-income students receive support. msu denver’s beyond financial aid team is working to remove the stigma and create a climate in which students feel safe asking for help in financial matters. the team has expressed awareness of the need to publicize support for low-income students without using labels that could cause students to turn away. in order to normalize accessing support, the team is developing a resource guide for faculty and staff to be able to refer students who, on their own, may not find their way to services. additionally, msu denver is developing a social benefits screening service for students modeled on similar programs described in beyond financial aid (chaplot, cooper, johnstone, & karndjeff, 2015). effective spring 2017, a master’s in social work student intern position has been filled on campus to develop and maintain a comprehensive list of social benefit programs and community resources, meet students for intake to identify needs, and prescreen students for public benefits. although receiving public benefits is an intensely personal choice, we want to raise awareness of options and help students overcome barriers, if doing so means not leaving resources on the table that might contribute to a student’s success. strategy 5: enhance financial literacy college students face having to make multiple financial decisions each year that could potentially have serious long-term financial implications. the trade-offs of their choices are not always immediately apparent to them. for instance, a student may choose to work more in order to avoid student debt. however, they may in the process take fewer credit hours, and push graduation out further. moreover, they mayincrease the total cost of a degree while stretching out the length of time during which an adverse life event might prevent completion. these trade-offs weigh even more heavily on low-income students. in addition, if they are also first-generation students they may not have the experience or insight of family members to help them make those decisions. for all these reasons, financial literacy is a priority at msu denver. one message that has been at the center of these efforts is the “15-to-finish” message. students at msu denver are able to enroll in 13 to 18 credit hours for the same price as 12 credit hours. with data to show that our students who take 15 credit hours perform just as well, if not better than students who take 12 credit hours, we began a texting, email, and orientation communications campaign in summer 2016 to encourage students to think of 15 credit hours as the norm for full-time students (“data | 15 to finish,” n.d.; “study finds first-year students who take 15 credits succeed | inside higher ed,” 2016.). the outcome from this initial concerted effort was that 44% of the incoming first-time to college students enrolled in 15 credit hours. 68 additionally, the office of financial aid is taking proactive steps to ensure that students understand responsible student loan borrowing. msu denver has partnered with salt, a nonprofit organization that specializes in financial literacy and default management. students are encouraged to complete various financial literacy modules, and the office of financial aid is exploring ways to incorporate these modules into various financial aid processes. additionally, programs like first year success incorporate salt into financial literacy workshops. lastly, students now have up-to-date, on-demand access to their accrued subsidized and unsubsidized loan amounts and what they can anticipate as their estimated monthly repayment at their current borrowing levels. the value of partnerships chaplot, cooper, johnstone, & karndjeff (2015) recommend leveraging partnerships to maximize support for low-income students. community partners can be key to filling gaps in services and programs. community engagement is a priority at msu denver, as articulated in the university’s strategic plan. leveraging partnerships for the benefit of low-income students thus resonates as a natural extension of the university’s regional stewardship mission. examples of such partnerships include: (a) the work that msu denver does with the denver asset building coalition to make possible the vita program that provides students with tax return assistance; and (b) the partnership with the food bank of the rockies, of which the msu denver food bank is an affiliated agency. the possibilities for innovative partnerships extend beyond the examples provided in beyond financial aid. for example, msu denver completed a successful summer-bridge pilot in 2016 in partnership with the denver housing authority (dha). the dha provided federal workforce funding from its summer youth employment program. msu denver established itself as a work site, and identified offices on campus, where scholars, all of whom were fall admits transitioning from high school, could work. the scholars were paid to spend six weeks on campus prior to the start of fall semester. working on campus helped the scholars form meaningful connections to staff, faculty, and peers. the scholars also participated in college readiness workshops as part of their paid work. each of the 11 students in the pilot matriculated in the fall even though they all had multiple factors that put them at risk of summer melt. one scholar reported at the end of the program, as she was readying for the start of her first semester as a college student, that participating in the summer bridge pilot was the best decision she had ever made. not all partnerships, however, produce the desired results. under the goal of taking advantage of easy wins, msu denver had hoped that a partnership with a neighboring technical college might provide lowor no-cost automobile repair services to our students in need. the automobile repair services curriculum at the technical college, however, cannot accommodate on-demand repairs that fall outside its scaffolded lesson plans. although that partnership did not yield the service we had hoped it would, the beyond financial aid self-assessment process nonetheless identified car repair as a support service that our low-income students need, and our commitment continues to finding a solution. conclusion 69 the national imperative to close the achievement gap between low-income students and their more advantaged peers is gaining increasing attention through publications such as beyond financial aid (chaplot, cooper, johnstone, & karndjeff, 2015). much of the unmet need of lowincome students could be addressed by a commitment to restructuring financial aid and scholarships. unfortunately, at many institutions and in many states, the political will to shift aid and scholarships to need-based is simply not present (lynch, engle, & cruz, 2011). even if such changes occurred, however, low-income students would continue to face challenges that have a potential to derail them in ways that do not apply to their peers with more stable financial means. a much broader commitment is thus needed to provide the holistic support services that are necessary. msu denver is committed to the success of all of its students, and that commitment extends to low-income students who make up a significant portion of the student body. the process of putting the needed supports in place received a boost from beyond financial aid and will continue apace as long as achievement gaps persist at msu denver across income levels. success in supporting our low-income students will be achieved when we see those achievement gaps disappear; the work, on the other hand, will continue as long as low-income students see education as one of their pathways to improving their conditions. the author thanks lori kester for input into the content and editing of this article. references cahalan, m., & perna, l. (2015). indicators of higher education equity in the united states: 45 year trend report. the pell institute for the study of opportunity in higher education. retrieved from http://www.pellinstitute.org/downloads/publicationsindicators_of_higher_education_equity_in_the_us_45_year_trend_report.pdf case study: georgia state university. (2015, december 8). retrieved from http://postsecondary.gatesfoundation.org/georgia-state-university-case-study/ chaplot, p., cooper, d., johnstone, r., & karndjeff, k. (2015). beyond financial aid: how colleges can strengthen the financial stability of low-income students and improve student outcomes. indianapolis, in: lumina foundation. retrieved from https://www.luminafoundation.org/beyond-financial-aid colorado commission on higher education. (2012). colorado competes: a completion agenda for higher education. denver, co. data | 15 to finish. 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(2016). census fall undergraduate student profiles. denver: metropolitan state university of denver. munin, a., & enos, m. (2016). food, shelter, and success: mitigating risk for low-income college students. in v. pendakur (ed.), closing the opportunity gap: identity conscious strategies for retention and student success (pp. 126–144). sterling, virginia: stylus. new york times. (2012, december 22). affluent students have an advantage. retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/12/22/education/affluent-students-have-anadvantage-and-the-gap-is-widening.html?_r=0 study finds first-year students who take 15 credits succeed | inside higher ed. (2016, june 30). retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2016/06/30/study-finds-firstyear-students-who-take-15-credits-succeed talich, k. (2016). unmet financial need analysis. denver, co: metropolitan state university of denver. 71 author information dr. mark potter is associate vice president for undergraduate studies at metropolitan state university of denver. he holds a phd in history from ucla and has been a history professor and department chair at the university of wyoming as well as founding director of the center for faculty development at metropolitan state university of denver. he is responsible in his current position for multiple offices that advance student success and foster high impact practices. mark potter undergraduate studies metropolitan state university of denver campus box 48 p.o. box 173362 denver, co 80217-3362 e-mail: mpotte10@msudenver.edu telephone: 303-352-7331 mailto:mpotte10@msudenver.edu 79 putting impact first: communityuniversity partnerships to advance authentic neighborhood sustainability michelle l. holliday, tony defalco, and jacob d. b. sherman abstract this article profiles a partnership between the living cully ecodistrict and portland state university’s sustainable neighborhoods initiative. the case studies presented in this article explore how living cully leveraged psu assets to advance their goals, highlighting successes and lessons learned. this article also addresses how the partnership was formed, what makes the partnership innovative, the role of interdisciplinary/intercommunity organizational strategies, and how the community partner commits to urban sustainability and social justice. recently acknowledged by the u.s. department of housing and urban development for its commitment to community health, economic development, and urban sustainability, the sustainable neighborhoods initiative (sni) at portland state university (psu) collaborates with living cully, an environmentally marginalized neighborhood, to create multiple sustainable community engagement projects with students across the university (u.s. department of housing and urban development [hud] 2015). ranging from small-scale projects that have short-term objectives to larger projects carried out over several years, the diversity of community-university partnerships reinforces the need to develop an understanding of the nuances associated with forming authentic relationships between communities and institutes of higher learning. often the subject of scrutiny, previous community-university partnerships teach us that top-down approaches and power imbalances leave community partners with negative perceptions of the university system (strier 2010; suarez-balcazar, harper, and lewis 2005; maurrasse 2002). however, there are remarkable examples of successful community-university partnerships, employing a bottom-up strategy in which the community and university work together to develop shared goals (cooper et al. 2014; sandy and holland 2006). this article examines an example of a community organization utilizing the resources of a university to achieve its objectives and is co-authored by a university, community, and student representative who have all been engaged in the partnership. we will outline the development of this partnership and the main elements allowing it to strengthen over the past four years. specifically, this article will do the following: 1) provide a description of how two coordinating bodies (community partners and university institute) created an interdisciplinary and multi-level community organization approach to a partnership, 2) discuss how both parties developed a strong commitment to one another’s success, and 3) illustrate the depth with which the 80 community partner strives to achieve equity and social justice within its northeast portland neighborhood. key elements and benefits of a community-university partnership although varied in duration, location, and scope, there are several key aspects to every community-university partnership. since each partnership must effectively engage university personnel (i.e., students, faculty, and staff) as well as the community (i.e., organizations and residents), both the approach to and execution of the partnership are critical elements of the partnership’s success. previous research highlights mutuality as primary to the foundation of a good community-university partnership (jacoby 2003, 14; enos and morton 2003, 20-31). when applied in the partnership setting, the concept of mutuality extends beyond respect to include reciprocity in developing shared goals and objectives, and understanding the needs of both the university and the community (jacoby 2003, 14). in order to accomplish this, every stage of the partnership must rely on interpersonal factors such as mutual respect, communication, and trust (sargent and waters 2004, 311-313). with such a dynamic structure, including the initiation of the partnership, clarification of the nature of the project(s), and implementation and completion of the collaboration, creating and maintaining mutuality can be rather challenging (sargent and waters 2004, 311). given the propensity toward asymmetrical partnerships in which the university is presumed the expert, building trust and mutual dependence on one another can help foster a transformative relationship (strier 2010, 86-88; enos and morton 2003, 24-28). in a transformative relationship, partnerships move beyond instrumental and potentially limited project-based commitments toward engaging experiences with a broader scope beyond what may have been the initial focus of the partnership (jacoby 2003, 24-25). in this environment, both the university and the community partner are leaders within the partnership (jacoby 2003, 25). mcdonald and dominguez (2015) suggest that service-learning projects focus on defining the community and establishing a framework for the partnership. developing strategies for communication between faculty, students, and the community partner is one part of this process (mcdonald and dominguez 2015). to ensure that the overall success of the partnership and that community partner goals are ultimately met, it is vital to create clearly defined roles and responsibilities at the onset of the partnership and to understand the needs and perspectives of the community and its agencies (buys and bursnall 2007, 78-79; mcdonald and dominguez 2015). engaging in a partnership that evolves into a transformative, rather than transactional, relationship is a significant advantage to any community-university partnership. in addition to the potential to develop a long-term relationship, successful partnerships result in marked benefits to both the community partner and the university. focus groups with community partners and service-learning coordinators emphasize the direct impact that students are able to have in the community as a result of their 81 involvement in the partnership, the ability of nonprofit organizations to strengthen their capacity for service in the community, and the garnering of resources for organizational development (sandy and holland 2006, 35-36). in many cases, effective partnerships can lead to financial investments in the community (cooper et al. 2014). an enhanced and transformative learning experience is a noteworthy benefit of a fruitful partnership; analyses of the impact of service-learning on students indicates positive effects on student attitudes toward learning, sense of responsibility to the community, and leadership skills (fitzgerald et al. 2012; sandy and holland 2006; celio, durlak, and dymnicki 2011). the partnership described in this paper is the result of a longstanding relationship between living cully and portland state university. the nature of this partnership is outlined in the following text, through a description of both the partner and the university, and through discussions of previous and existing projects within the partnership. central to this partnership are the unique strategies employed by living cully to build assets within its organization and community through the utilization of the resources available at psu. the partnership: living cully and the institute for sustainable solutions at psu the following section outlines how the relationship, illustrated in figure 1 below, developed. chronologically, the article describes the formation of living cully and psu’s institute for sustainable solutions (iss) and then brings these two groups together in creating the formal partnership that exists today. with regard to the community, the cully neighborhood is located in northeast portland, oregon. one of portland’s largest neighborhoods (4.5 square miles and 13,300 residents), cully has clear environmental, economic, and racial disparities when compared to the city as a whole. residents in the cully neighborhood are more racially diverse than the city average and are significantly affected by a lack of environmental resources (i.e., parks and greenspaces), in addition to experiencing disparities in transportation and income. for example, households in some census tracts spend the majority of their household income on transportation and housing, contributing to high levels of food insecurity. children and families within the community often walk along busy, unsafe roads, and cully’s poor transportation infrastructure also has negative environmental impacts such as limited access to safe roads and walkways for pedestrian and bicyclists in the neighborhood. getting to know the community partner: living cully: a cully ecodistrict in response to northeast portland’s lack of environmental infrastructure and communities’ evident health needs, living cully was developed. “living cully: a cully ecodistrict” is a coordinated effort by habitat for humanity portland/metro east, hacienda community development corporation, the native american youth and family center, and verde to drive environmental investments into the cully neighborhood in response to existing community needs like jobs, education, housing, 82 and an improved quality of life. living cully uses an anti-poverty strategy, focusing on the needs of low-income people and people of color. living cully believes that sustainable development efforts focused on neighborhoods (i.e., ecodistricts) can be reconceived as anti-poverty strategies, a means to address disparities in wealth, income, health, and natural resources by concentrating environmental investments at the neighborhood scale, and as a means to prevent displacement of low-income people and people of color. similar to many cities, portland has a history of redevelopment that has displaced low-income people and people of color. living cully is working to write a new story by building wealth by, and for, low-income people and people of color without displacement. unlike efforts focused solely on fostering economic development, living cully can meet social service and community development goals by building environmental wealth, and can support greater cross-organizational collaborations by combining community engagement, environmental improvements, and economic development under one concept and in one single geographic area. living cully is made up of organizations that provide housing support for families in the community and educational support for the youth in cully. hacienda community development corporation (hcdc) develops affordable housing and builds thriving communities in support of working latino families and others in oregon by promoting healthy living and economic advancement. most hcdc residents earn 30-60 percent of median family income, below the poverty line. another living cully partner, the native youth and family center (naya), provides comprehensive wrap-around services to the native american community: after school tutoring, youth development, emergency housing, energy assistance, employment services, domestic violence prevention, homeownership support, and community economic development. an additional partner is habitat for humanity portland/metro east (habitat). with more than thirty years of experience in home construction, habitat is one of the only organizations consistently building and selling affordable homes, and has chosen cully for its neighborhood revitalization initiative, which is a block-by-block approach to building stronger neighborhoods. as the lead organization to living cully, verde has developed social enterprise programs and outreach-advocacy programs to ensure that low-income people and people of color benefit from sustainability investments. collectively, these four organizations have more than five decades of experience serving low-income people and people of color in portland. additionally, the organizations themselves have developed high-levels of trust among one another which has been facilitated by mission alignment around serving low-income people and people of color, their years of collaboration, and because the organizations are also primarily run by staff and boards composed of people of color. it is important to note that living cully is a collective impact initiative (kania and kramer 2011; hanleybrown, kania, and kramer 2012), which is a shared commitment of a group of important actors from different sectors (affordable housing, cultural identity, environmental wealth, home ownership) to a common agenda (sustainability) for solving a specific social problem (poverty) through collaborative, programmatic, and signature project activities. in this collective impact initiative, verde functions as the “backbone organization” (turner et al. 2012) helping to coordinate across different 83 stakeholders in order to execute on the following collaborative, programmatic, and signature project activities: collaborative activities: through collaborative activities, the living cully partners secure long-term resources to sustain and replicate living cully. examples include the living cully performance indicators, seventeen economic, social, and environmental metrics that measure collaborative outcomes and support scale and replication. programmatic activities: through programmatic activities, cully residents gain economic security and build capacity to design, build, and access new sustainable assets in the cully neighborhood. policy activities allow for driving anti-poverty investments into the neighborhood, mitigating gentrification impacts through a cohesive anti-displacement agenda, and reforming public agency practices toward explicit equity outcomes and partnerships. signature projects: signature projects is a growing series of leveraged investments in cully that combine economic, social, and environmental justice goals; examples include creating new parkland, green affordable housing, culturally-based habitat restoration, and alternative energy. getting to know the university: psu and the institute for sustainable solutions as noted elsewhere in this journal issue, over the past two decades psu has developed a strong reputation for excellence in community engagement and faculty-led programs across campus that bring to life the university’s motto, “let knowledge serve the city.” from launching one of the nation’s first senior interdisciplinary capstone service-learning requirements at a large public institution in 1996 to implementing graduate-level curricula that actively connect students with municipalities to advance regional planning projects, there are countless examples that demonstrate how psu is an engaged university. students, faculty, and staff take the motto at psu seriously. this is best reflected by our “community engagement” classification” in 2005—and re-classification in 2015—from the carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching community engagement (portland state university 2015). at the same time, both the city of portland and psu have garnered a reputation for sustainability excellence that continues to shine on the national stage. portland was heralded as the first us city to create a local plan for reducing carbon emissions in 1993, and as a site for communities that have literally shaped the city through a legacy of neighborhood engagement and effective organizational advocacy on livability issues (putnam, feldstein, and cohen 2003; bureau of planning and sustainability 2015). given the university’s connections with the city of portland, as described above, it is not surprising that over the past two decades psu has also developed a national reputation for excellence in sustainability. the institute for sustainable solutions (iss) plays a critical role in advancing sustainability at psu. iss is a hub for sustainability, supporting interdisciplinary research, curriculum development, student leadership, and 84 meaningful community partnerships that contribute to a just, prosperous, and vibrant future for our region and the world. iss administers the ten-year, $25 million challenge grant made to the university by the james f. and marion l. miller foundation in september 2008 which provides funding for iss-led programs and catalytic resources to other colleges and departments to integrate sustainability across the campus. by using sustainability as a driver for institutional innovation and excellence (sharp 2015a, 2015b), iss seeks to unleash the ability of higher education to better address some of the world’s most complex challenges in the region and beyond. in the context of community-university partnerships, iss has seen the tremendous opportunity to capitalize upon the interests and strengths of the university, city, and local nonprofit organizations to provide rich opportunities for research and teaching while rapidly advancing the sustainability of our region. to date, the primary approach for advancing partnerships across the university has been for each college, its different departments, and its individual faculty members to independently negotiate and sustain a variety of partnerships with public, private, and nonprofit organizations including teaching, research, or internship/practicum-based partnerships (portland state university 2015). while this approach has allowed myriad partnerships to flourish and for psu to grow a national reputation for its work, as a result, the university also faces challenges in understanding and communicating the impact and value of these relationships (see the article “from capstones to strategic partnerships: the evolution of portland state university’s community engagement and partnership agenda” elsewhere in this issue for more information.) additionally, the university’s dispersed approach to partnerships has presented barriers to the creation of opportunities in which psu faculty and programs from across different academic and administrative units can better coordinate and organize partnerships in order to more effectively collaborate with one another—and the community—for greater cumulative impact (portland state university 2014). the psu sustainable neighborhoods initiative recognizing the opportunity for using the miller gift to address these institutional challenges, in 2013 iss developed and launched the sustainable neighborhoods initiative (sni) to test a new model for how long-term, collaborative, place-based community-university partnerships could be leveraged for increased community impact while enhancing student learning by grounding oftentimes abstract discussions about “sustainability” in local sustainability issues. at its heart, the sni honors psu’s legacy of engagement and the region’s strength in sustainability by facilitating applied teaching, learning, and research opportunities that advance sustainability goals in portland’s neighborhoods. through the sni, the institute for sustainable solutions functions as a key piece of infrastructure that systematically focuses a portion of the university’s community engagement efforts into long-term, place-based strategic partnerships with different organizations working to advance neighborhood-scale sustainability efforts around the city. figure 1 illustrates the different components that entail the living cully-psu partnership and highlights how living cully and the institute for sustainable solutions serve as entities that organize and coordinate the partnership. 85 figure 1. mapping out the living cully-psu partnership institute for sustainable solutions-living cully partnership as administrators of the sni, iss works closely with these partners to identify important neighborhood challenges that the university might be able to support and then systematically connects faculty experts and motivated students with partners to co-develop research and applied projects that enhance the student experience and increase community capacity to strengthen economic resilience, promote social equity, and restore and enhance ecological systems. to ensure these partnerships benefit both the community and faculty and students at the university, iss staff function as a broker (brundiers, wiek, and kay 2013) between all parties, working closely with sni partners to first identify important neighborhood challenges that the university might be able to support through research and applied projects. after understanding local priorities, iss staff then return to the university and approach faculty who may have research interests that align with community questions or will be teaching courses that could serve as a platform for community-based learning projects. increasingly, iss staff also seek out opportunities to deliver on communityidentified needs by connecting with psu staff who administer student leadership programs, pitching projects directly to student groups, or creating internships or fellowships where students can work one-on-one or in small groups with sni partners outside the classroom. how the partnership was formed in launching the sustainable neighborhoods initiative, iss knew early on that it had significant work to do to develop new ways to engage stakeholders, both within the student activities and leadership programs verde student fellows and interns institute for sustainable solutions living cully hacienda cdc interdisciplinary faculty and student researchers native american youth and family center (naya) academic schools and departments habitat for humanity portland/metro east university studies hatfield school of government’s division of public administration toulan school of urban studies and planning school of business administration school of community health environmental science and management 86 university and the community. to better understand the community context, iss conducted informal research on neighborhood-based sustainability efforts, interviewing more than two dozen community activists, nonprofit leaders, and city of portland staff on the challenges and opportunities to working collaboratively across different organizations at the neighborhood scale. at the same time, iss felt it was important to quickly establish a working relationship with potential partners. to do so, for example, iss connected living cully with a psu course to explore some community-based learning projects and funded a graduate student in a paid internship with the community partner as early as september 2013 (table 1). the ability to financially support a student through an internship helped demonstrate the university’s value to a potential partner by increasing their capacity to advance their goals. to cultivate support within the university, iss convened an internal advisory board to provide governance and help launch the sni. this body consisted of supportive faculty and senior leadership with wisdom and experience in community-university partnerships, and it advised iss and helped refine the concept, connect with key stakeholders, and navigate institutional dynamics. based on findings from community interviews and guidance from the advisory board, staff and advisors were acutely aware of real and perceived imbalances of power that could exist between the university and community organizations, so iss determined that extending invitations to organizations to partner with psu would be a better approach to developing long-term, place-based partnerships than issuing a request for proposals. one reason for this was that an invitation helped balance the uneven power relationship that is naturally present between the university and community, particularly inasmuch as a community organization could readily decline our invitation to partner, or accept but on its own terms. before issuing these invitations, though, iss developed a list of attributes that it felt would be important for organizations to already possess and which would ideally already exist between the university and the community in order to collaboratively developing a unique type of community-university partnership. criteria included elements such as the pre-existing level of collaboration between organizations, their prior success, capacity to partner with the university, and previous level of experience working with the university, as well as whether or not their project ideas and research questions were ideal for student and faculty engagement. in november 2013, iss met with seven potential partners to let them know the institute was embarking on a new partnership agenda, seek their feedback, and obtain information about their organization on the aforementioned criteria, as well as their interest in working with the university. after reviewing this information and openly communicating with potential partners, iss officially launched the sustainable neighborhoods initiative in may 2014. noteworthy aspects of developing this initiative are listed below. critical elements for psu: •   the existing level of collaboration between different organizations focused on  neighborhood sustainability issues aligned well with psu’s desire to create partnerships with the community. •   staff at iss conducted community research and some psu organizational leadership  87 research to come to understand how to effectively construct a partnership. •   partnership criteria were developed, organizations were vetted, and potential partners  were asked to submit letters of interest regarding a partnership with psu. •   organizations submitted letters of interest, but took the opportunity to vet a potential  partnership with the university. •   the total timeline to develop and fully launch sni took approximately nine months. from the outset, it was clear that living cully was interested in partnering with psu but was also skeptical about the demonstrated commitment on the part of psu and iss, specifically, to equity and the requisite ability to work effectively with traditionally underserved communities. in their letter of interest, living cully insisted that they did not want the partnership to develop into a research project, one in which living cully became a subject for study by the university. living cully members reinforced the importance of being able to advance their agenda. in addressing their criteria for the partnership, living cully laid out the following expectations: critical elements for living cully: •   iss would need to be receptive to community needs. •   increasing the cultural competence of iss staff was paramount. •   overall, partnerships with the university should help living cully stakeholders  acquire additional resources to address poverty, gentrification, and displacement in their neighborhood. these conversations were important because they laid a foundation for trust and clear communication. while these high-level discussions were occurring between iss staff, internal advisory board members, and potential partners, on-the-ground collaboration continued through community-based learning projects and the iss-supported intern. focusing on the impacts: living cully and iss over the years table 1. summary of projects through the living cully-psu partnership, 2008-2015. department/course title/project format project focus project description(s) masters of urban planning; iss paid internships; health and social inequalities course antidisplacement development of a “not in cully” report that offers strategies for preventing displacement; evaluation of the mental and physical health effects of displacement. 88 iss paid internships; urban planning and environmental issues courses, business strategy capstone course land banking students on these projects conducted research on best practices in promoting affordable housing through public-sector “land banking.” additional research included policy analysis, financial modeling, and real estate identification. business strategy capstone course; urban planning and environmental issues course; environmental and ecological literacy course affordable housing in this project students developed a business/economic model in order to identify and prioritize properties that could be purchased to preserve low-income housing and/or redevelop to create additional affordable housing. additional projects included faculty and students engaged with the cully weatherization 2.0 project, which is an effort to braid local resources from community-based organizations and government agencies to weatherize homes in the cully neighborhood so that residents may not only enjoy a healthier place to live but also avoid displacement. business strategy capstone course economic development project in which undergraduate students conducted a feasibility analysis on a commercial aquaculture venture with living cully at the columbia biogas site. after reviewing market demand, talking with suppliers/buyers, exploring the legal and financial implications, as well as technical specifications about the facility, students advised verde that the return-oninvestment was low and wouldn’t be a financial success. findings have informed other efforts to launch new social enterprises. 89 public affairs program evaluation course; iss paid student sustainability fellows; iss-supported student research health a group of graduate students worked closely with living cully partners to evaluate how their delivery of communitybased services under the collective impact model can positively impact the health of local cully residents. a graduate student team reviewed the possible health benefits of living cully programs, as well as developed a process to evaluate any healthrelated performance indicators that living cully might track across their many programs. additional projects included submitting a grant proposal to kaiser permanente’s “healthy eating active living” request for proposals (funding tbd as of this publication). university studies senior capstone course; iss-supported student research youth and community education projects included facilitating work parties to maintain the tree canopy at the cully international grove, coordinating a bilingual book drive, tutoring youth, and organizing a cleanup of the grounds at rigler elementary school. in addition, students in the community health department conducted a photovoice research project with cully youth to identify safe/unsafe and healthy/unhealthy places in the cully neighborhood. urban studies and planning course; community-based participatory gis mapping research project transportation project engaged graduate students in modeling transit flow in order to inform community-led efforts to purchase and revitalize a strip club that was a blight on the neighborhood. iss-supported researchers have also worked with living cully to visualize community-collected perceptions on transportation and pedestrian safety issues in the neighborhood. iss-paid internship; iss-paid student sustainability fellow financial investments projects included extensive searches for additional funding for health and environmental infrastructure projects in cully. 90 student leaders for service paid internship; entomology club; university studies course; urban studies and planning environmental projects included support for the cully critter cruise project that included an interactive naturalist tour of four cully neighborhood gardens. participants were primarily local elementary-aged children and their families, and the volunteer teams were composed of various portland-area experts and enthusiasts of birding, entomology, native plants, mycology, and urban ecosystem sustainability. highlighting exemplary projects within the partnership in the past five years, the extensive partnership between psu and living cully has evolved to produce dozens of projects impacting numerous students, departments, and community organizations throughout portland. table 1 effectively, though briefly, captures these intricate relationships by giving an account of several projects that have been conducted since 2008. in the following section, three projects are highlighted as prime examples of service-learning projects in support of a community-driven agenda. the projects included here are divided based on whether or not the project was conducted by undergraduate or graduate students. in each description, we hope to capture the nuances in the project that would make the project replicable in a similar community-university partnership. each project speaks to the mission of living cully to enhance the existing environmental infrastructure in cully, provide avenues to mitigate the effects of displacement, and ultimately understand the needs of the cully neighborhood as described by its residents. in spring 2013, when the sni was still in early planning stages, living cully worked with a group of master’s students in urban and regional planning to create a roadmap of strategies to prevent displacement in the cully neighborhood. the students worked extremely hard over two academic terms in the community, conducting focus groups and one-on-one interviews and co-hosting town halls. in total, the students conducted thirty-seven interviews with community leaders and community engagement practitioners, three walking tours, four discussion groups, and two community workshops, and they received over one hundred survey responses from community members (banuelos et al. 2013, 37). the result was a comprehensive report, titled “not in cully: anti-displacement strategies for the cully neighborhood.” the depth with which graduate students were able to develop a report and connect to the community reflects the course faculty member’s ability to design their class in a way that met the needs of the community. they also did extensive research into the strategies and tactics that worked to prevent displacement in other communities around the nation. the extensive engagement and detailed analysis that the students provided was a resource the living cully organization did not have the time to research and produce, and this has proven invaluable to living cully’s ongoing effort to prevent displacement. any potential partnership would benefit from taking a similar approach to designing a course. 91 in 2014 and 2015, several projects worth noting were conducted in courses with both undergraduate and graduate students. in the spring of 2014, psu and living cully created the cully neighborhood youth project. the project was implemented under the supervision of faculty in psu’s community health department, psu graduate and undergraduate students, and hacienda community development corporation (hcdc). the primary purpose of the project was to collect and analyze visual and spatial data on how youth perceive their neighborhood. psu students led cully youth in walks around cully while the youth took photographs of places where they felt safe or unsafe and places that they felt were healthy or unhealthy. gis mapping was used to cross reference photos to specific locations in the neighborhood. as a whole, the project provided several lasting benefits to the community, partner, and psu students. (additional details regarding impacts are described in a subsequent section of this article.) this project is a great example of how university resources (i.e., gis mapping) can be used to enhance a community’s ability to inform its residents about important community needs. additionally, in 2015 living cully worked with a group of master’s students in public health to identify the health impacts of displacement. over the ten-week term, an interdisciplinary group of graduate and undergraduate students performed a literature review on the mental and physical health consequences of gentrification and displacement, while another student team identified potential funding sources for projects that could help to prevent displacement. subsequent to the completion of the project in 2015, iss provided a stipend for one of the students to work with living cully partner verde in writing a grant to improve health outcomes. having a student on this project was very valuable to verde, as securing additional funding allows for the ability to enhance the existing infrastructure in cully and continue to promote the health and well-being of its residents. subsequent to the completion of the project, iss provided a paid fellowship for one of the graduate students to continue to collaborate with verde over the next two academic terms in grant-related work to improve health outcomes. this provided value to the community by enabling living cully to extend their fundraising capacity, while offering the students real-world experience in a community setting. the graduate student worked closely with verde’s executive director to pursue two funding opportunities, and verde’s letter of intent was recently accepted, with the organization being invited to submit a full application, which is currently pending. as a whole, the initial commitment to a ten-week course evolved into a paid position for a student, offsetting costs for the community partner and accomplishing valuable work for the community as well as applying for additional funding. creating a cumulative impact: negotiating community and university needs while many community-university partnerships have exemplary projects to demonstrate as outcomes, iss plays a particular role in fostering cumulative impact with partners like living cully. the following section outlines how iss staff and graduate assistants function as brokers to intentionally connect the university and community, and details how—and why—projects were selected for an sni partnership. 92 as a broker, iss works with partners like living cully to develop and understand their priorities, which is rooted in the work that they are advancing to meet community needs. through a series of face-to-face conversations, partner priorities are defined, and university staff are left with a clearer sense of what may, or may not, make sense for an applied teaching or research project. with this understanding in place, iss staff engage faculty through several means, providing modest incentives to faculty who agree to work with iss partners. in some instances, iss facilitates faculty support workshops where faculty can meet with partners to hear about their needs, and in other cases iss staff independently seek out faculty with expertise or research interests in an area that aligns with a partner’s needs and pitch them on the potential project idea. in both of these cases, iss initially seeks to identify mutual interest and enthusiasm around a project, as it demonstrates possible alignment between university assets and community needs. if alignment does not exist, the lack of fit is acknowledged and the opportunity is shelved until a future date when circumstances might prove different. importantly, since the relationship between the university and community is grounded in a larger, long-term partnership (the sustainable neighborhoods initiative), organizations like living cully feel less pressure to work on each and every project idea that presents itself because they are not faced with scarcity, knowing there will be additional opportunities to work with the university in the future. in determining whether or not a project might make sense, a particular emphasis is placed on the following design elements. first, it is important to balance the need for student learning with a desire to provide use-inspired research (stokes 1997; crow and dabars 2015) or action projects that advance community impact. while the outcomes of research, an internship, or a course project are always uncertain, putting an emphasis on community impact at the genesis of a project helps ensure outcomes are useful to partners at project close. faculty are particularly adept at finding opportunities to deepen student learning no matter what the project; iss puts a particular emphasis on utility in order to ensure that partners may also benefit from the collaborative experience. second, in considering project utility, it is crucial to understand the resources necessary to support a successful project in relationship to its potential impacts. table 2. strategy screen for evaluating potential community-university partnerships potential impacts for the partner high 1. high impacts, low resources 3. high impacts, high resources low 2. low impacts, low resources 4. low impacts, high resources low high potential resources required by the partner (human, financial, etc.) beyond mutual interest and enthusiasm around a project idea, table 2 presents a framework that is used to help determine if a project makes sense to pursue and helps identify barriers that it might be necessary to reduce in order to make a project more viable. ideal projects are well aligned with partner priorities, and they present opportunities for high impact while requiring a relatively low amount of resources (time 93 or otherwise) from the partner organization (table 2, cell 1). viable projects are those where there is still alignment with partner priorities, but the risks and rewards are less clear (table 2, cells 2 and 3). impractical projects are those where alignment with partner priorities is not clear, or it is present, but the risks clearly outweigh the potential rewards. iss staff talk with partners like living cully to explore how a project fits within this framework, screening projects based on factors like potential deliverables; how deliverables align with partner needs; the skills, experience, and capabilities of the students that will work on the project; the faculty member’s previous experience with community-university partnerships; and the level of resources that might be required from the partner, such as the number of in-class meetings or frequency of communication with students. these factors are determined through preliminary conversations with faculty and partners and are also informed by the experience of staff that have supported faculty in community-university partnerships. together, these two criteria play a critical role in rethinking the nature of partnerships to privilege community outcomes—in short, to put community impact first. if there is relatively clear alignment between community needs and faculty expertise/ interest and the project makes sense to pursue, iss organizes a meeting between both parties to explore project ideas in greater depth. iss staff facilitate these conversations, asking probing questions to help stakeholders answer the following: •   what are the final project deliverables (physical products like reports, videos, etc., or  processes like community engagement, design charettes, etc.)? •   what does each partner need to get out of this collaboration (i.e., how does the project  relate to the bottom line of what partners and faculty are hoping to accomplish)? •   what are the learning outcomes for students involved in this project? •   what key resources or background information should students have early on in  order to be best informed about the partner and their project? •   why is this project important (i.e., how does this project help the community  organization advance its larger goals, and how does this project contribute to those larger outcomes)? through conversations, these questions are answered and both stakeholders (faculty and community partners) play a key role in refining and co-developing the projects, determining scope, and settling on mutually agreed-upon goals or outcomes. iss staff and graduate assistants then work to formalize answers to these questions in a project scoping document, which faculty typically provide to students early in the term to help them understand the context and expectations around the applied teaching or research project. once the project is in the hands of psu faculty, iss staff typically step into the background, supporting faculty and partners on logistics as needed (e.g., scheduling final presentations, troubleshooting miscommunication, and so on), while starting to cultivate the next round of projects that will begin the following academic term (in approximately two to three months). near the end of the term, iss lets students know about the opportunity to highlight their project on the institute’s blog, and works with partners and faculty to assess whether or not there might be options to continue to support the project after the term ends. 94 as a cross-university hub for sustainability, the institute has proven well-situated at working with a partner like living cully to start a project in the school of business administration, for example, and continue it in other schools, like the toulan school of urban studies and planning, as the project’s focus became clearer, the community context changed, and/or additional questions emerged that other disciplines could readily address. additionally, iss has leveraged the miller gift to create opportunities to enrich the student experience and add capacity to community organizations by supporting students in paid fellowships where they continue working on their project after the ten-week term ends. furthermore, aside from facilitating projects, iss has also deployed staff with expertise in communications, development, and assessment to work with partners, like living cully, to help tell the story of our collaborative work, fundraise around joint opportunities, and assess impacts on the university and community. in short, the institute for sustainable solutions plays a key role in advancing impact-oriented community-university partnerships, shepherding projects across the university, and leveraging assets and engaging new stakeholders in important community work, like making sure the university is an active and productive partner in collective impact efforts to alleviate poverty. impacts community impacts: partner organizations and the cully neighborhood the primary impact to living cully has been added capacity to deliver on communityidentified priorities. the community needs are great, and being able to add student capacity to support neighborhood projects has had real benefits. students engaged in community projects and research have helped living cully partner organizations execute programs, enhance projects, and thoughtfully approach the work in front of them. a consistent challenge has been living cully’s capacity to supervise projects. with help from iss staff, living cully has been able to learn what types of projects work best and share responsibility for supervision of student and faculty projects. regarding the community more generally, there have been a number of impacts. the photovoice project created significant effects for the community: the use of photovoice and gis mapping allowed the research team at psu to provide living cully with an idea of the youth perspective on the neighborhood, in addition to locating areas within the neighborhood that needed improvement to increase health and safety benefits for the community. in addition to the photovoice project, a group of students helped plan for and assist day-of with the cully critter cruise, a neighborhood event to educate young people about the biodiversity in the neighborhood. in a small but important way, the students helped make the project a success, enabling dozens of residents and forty youth to engage in an environmental education opportunity. the work on the “not in cully” report discussed in the previous section highlights a larger impact, where the road map that was developed with psu students is now being deployed through community efforts to prevent displacement. while living cully’s efforts are ongoing and there is no guarantee of success, the partnership with psu provided a key piece of analysis to inform the organization’s efforts. 95 specifically there have been two distinct types of impacts from partnering with psu. direct impacts refer to impacts that are explicitly related to the community partner (e.g., improving capacity or ability). indirect impacts refer to impacts that benefit the partner, but are more distal to the actual community partner’s structure, organization, or functioning. direct impacts. direct impacts of the partnership include the following: •   increased research capability (e.g., answering questions or researching issues that  living cully does not have the capacity to address); •   increased capacity to directly engage the community in surveys or community  events (e.g., students to assist with planning and day-of logistics for cully critter cruise); •   creation of a report entitled “not in cully: strategies for preventing displacement,”  a community-based set of anti-displacement strategies for the cully neighborhood, such as increasing community members’ knowledge of sustainable home ownership practices (such as energy efficiency) and increasing financial investments in the neighborhood to bring in job opportunities; •   market research and analysis to identify urban agriculture market opportunities for a  new social enterprise; •   providing paid interns to living cully to work on living cully projects (e.g.,  graduate students to help engage the community in anti-displacement strategies) and providing unpaid students to work on living cully projects; and •   graduate student helped to write a grant to apply for multi-year funding to develop  and implement the second phase of a living cully program to improve health in the community. indirect impacts. indirect impacts of the partnership include the following: •   increased capacity to apply for grants and secure additional investments in the cully  neighborhood; and •   increased competitiveness when applying for grants to bring in additional  investments in the cully neighborhood (as proposals are more deeply grounded in the research and literature). impact on the university impact on students. in an end-of-term evaluation, the value of one psu student’s community-based work was reported this way: “i think part of what living cully and the psu research team are trying to achieve is getting the community to work together and supporting them as they keep moving forward on the changes they want to see in their neighborhood.” in the 2014-15 academic year, psu faculty in eighteen departments collaborated with the four sni community partners through over forty courses that involved more than one thousand students. of all the students who responded to our evaluation surveys last year, 80 percent felt that the community partner project deepened their understanding of their course content, and 90 percent agreed that working with 96 community partners enhanced their understanding of local community issues. in its first year, the sni supported ten students in paid sustainability fellowships, collectively providing two thousand hours of service to their community partner organizations. in addition to supporting students in their partnership with living cully, fellows also support organizations such as green lents, a grassroots organization in southeast portland, which share a similar commitment to community sustainability as living cully. these fellows worked to maximize the ease of communication between all of the stakeholders involved, and also compiled data collected by the students in the classes, planned and implemented community events, and presented their work at psu and in the community. these fellowships provide students with substantive realworld experience to develop and expand their skills and an opportunity to build their professional networks. anecdotally, faculty also report that students have increased motivation when working on sni projects. they work harder and are more focused because they are motivated by the community partner’s mission and want to provide meaningful work that assists the partner in advancing their mission. the student sustainability fellows program emerged out of sni course collaborations with partners like living cully, stemming from the realization that ten weeks is not often long enough to create a lot of value for a partner and to make measureable progress on a community project. similar to an internship or independent study, this program provides opportunities for select students from sni courses to continue their work with sni partners following their original class, picking up where the class left off and extending these projects for an additional ten to twenty weeks. in the words of an iss student sustainability fellow, “the fact that students can get involved with a project like this through psu is phenomenal. opportunity is everywhere as long as you are willing to accept it. starting out in [an sni partner] class last fall, i would have never expected to have the chance to be so involved with my community while also developing professional experience and skills.” impact on faculty. one psu faculty member noted that “iss was instrumental in connecting the students to the community partners. without the sni we would have had several challenges, some as simple as coordinating a meeting time and location, and others as challenging as integrating coursework into ongoing projects. the sni model is something that can have broad appeal to faculty, students, and community members alike.” psu faculty also agree on the value and success of collaborating with iss and the sni partners. newly launched efforts to programmatically understand faculty perspectives show that 100 percent of the faculty respondents agreed that students learned skills through the project that they might not have learned in the classroom, and 91 percent of faculty agreed that partnering through the sustainable neighborhoods initiative provides more benefits compared to traditional partnerships at psu. typically, in these partnerships faculty are solely responsible for identifying partners and managing projects, and the community partnership often ends once the term is over. notable ways that the iss and sni collaboration has enhanced faculty experiences include: 97 •   increased access to community partners as a result of iss playing a brokering role,  stewarding the relationship to the community partner and helping to manage the project; •   increased ability to integrate social justice issues into the course curriculum; •   increased relevance and ability to use a hands-on approach to the classroom; and •   increased use of place-based pedagogies and diverse perspectives in the classroom. aside from larger program impacts, faculty who have worked with living cully on applied teaching and research projects have reported they valued the partnerships insomuch as they have created strong opportunities to integrate issues like race, class, and economic inequality into their courses in a real and meaningful way, contributing to student learning about important topics that otherwise might be overlooked entirely or only addressed through an academic case study. impact on the institute for sustainable solutions. through sni, iss has become an increasingly valuable resource to faculty and administration due to its role as a broker. sni has enhanced the university’s ability to demonstrate commitment to its motto. furthermore, the partnership with living cully demonstrates how sustainability is more than the dominant discourse of recycling, green infrastructure, and biking, and is instead multifaceted and fundamentally includes social and economic issues (i.e., race, class, privilege, discrimination, equity, etc.), which are areas where living cully provides significant leadership. while partners have yet to capitalize on extramural funding, the partnership also provides competitive opportunities to pursue collaborative funding and research since iss already has a strong relationship with the community partner in place. rather than seeking out a community partner, attempting to develop a relationship, and potentially forcing a partnership in pursuit of funding, with a mature partnership like this one, iss and living cully simply need to have a conversation about whether or not pursuing an opportunity makes sense for both parties as well as for the partnership as a whole. additional impacts to the university include fostering a shared commitment to reducing barriers to partnership work for faculty and fostering value in the sustainable neighborhoods initiative to further expand as an intellectual community of practice where faculty can gather around shared work, common practices, and a felt sense of belonging in an often siloed and disconnected institution. perhaps the most significant impact to the university has been the ability to create tangible impacts through the sni partnership with living cully and other neighborhood partners. together, the sni partnerships have served as a platform to develop and test a model for how a cross-university unit, like iss, can function as an effective broker between the university and community at large in order to better facilitate innovative city-university partnerships. through these efforts, staff and partners have realized firsthand the level of cumulative impact that is possible when university-community projects are curated and supported by a third party. recently, psu was named one of the most innovative universities in the united states; iss was listed as a contributing factor in psu’s innovation (pardington 2015). as the central portal and leadership hub for sustainability at psu, the institute for sustainable 98 solutions also seeks to maintain psu’s nationally competitive edge, which means staff must be thinking about how to continually improve upon the work at psu. as noted above, the sni partnerships have served as a platform for staff to test and learn about assessment and continual improvement, strengthening both sni and other isssupported programs, which enhances our reputation as a university and has a lasting effect on student and faculty recruitment and retention. finally, iss staff members find it personally rewarding to support local sustainability efforts and organizations like living cully. supporting local sustainability efforts by working with organizations like living cully is important because these partnerships help redefine how academia conceptualizes sustainability and ensures that issues like race, class, privilege, discrimination, equity, etc. are not only prevalently acknowledged and discussed in the classroom, but that they also remain central to the larger discourse on sustainability. iss staff have learned that it is critical to maintain an emphasis on the social aspects of sustainability, particularly since ample research shows how people from underrepresented backgrounds are most likely to suffer from poverty, lower educational attainment, and the disproportionate impacts of climate change, among other things. discussion: lessons learned and moving forward considering the partnership between psu and living cully, we believe the positive attributes of the partnership are the following: increased development of resources, clear communication between community and university partners, and increased involvement of students in real-world projects. the challenges, however, are more subtle at times and crucial to our success in the future as we seek to improve the partnership. worth discussing are challenges around establishing trust, remaining sensitive to the wisdom and agency of the community, honoring a commitment to support community leadership, and communication. in the initial stages of developing the partnership, there were evident barriers to building trust because the university was viewed as an outsider that did not represent the living cully community. as a predominantly white and middle-class organization, iss initially struggled to build trust with living cully. iss had to develop trust with living cully and show that the university would not enter the community without permission, nor leave in a year when administrators’ priorities shifted. common ground was eventually created in a shared commitment to equity and sustainability for low-income people and people of color, as well as an iss desire to support sustainability efforts as the community defined it. importantly, during this time iss remained sensitive to the wisdom and agency of the community, recognizing the limited experience of iss staff, as well as the larger university, in working with these populations. during these early conversations, it was also important for iss to make the commitment that the community would define the priorities and the projects, as opposed to students or faculty with a specific question in mind. throughout the partnership, communication has remained a critical element of the collaboration, as facilitating good projects between living cully and university students and faculty can prove to be difficult. the following summarizes significant lessons learned from the partnership: 99 •   the importance of the university’s recognition of the inherent power imbalance between  the more well-resourced university and less-resourced community organizations; •   the utility of having a strong community partner that has a clear agenda,  understands its needs, and sets boundaries in order to prevent the power imbalance between themselves and the university. for example, to help keep the partnership focused, living cully and iss staff talk frequently and reaffirm the community’s needs in light of new interest from faculty researchers or instructors looking for a project to supplement their courses, constantly vetting potential project ideas against community needs. living cully is not afraid to say “no” to an expert’s idea if it does not have a clear line of sight to their goals, in part because they know they will have a continued relationship with the university through iss; •   that said, there may be instances where it makes sense to pursue opportunities that  arise for students and faculty that do not provide direct benefits to the community, but instead offer indirect value, and vice versa; •   reciprocity between the university and the community partner must be nurtured over  time, but is more easily attainable through a long-term relationship; •   from the university perspective, balancing projects that respond to the needs of  the community partner while also providing a substantial learning opportunity for the students; •   through the history of the partnership, living cully has developed a stronger sense  of what to expect from course engagements. however, students often have limited prior experience with community-based learning, and as such, they have varied, and perhaps unreasonable, expectations when first encountering the ambiguity posed by any project. for example, students might start researching one question, but then have to pivot because the line of inquiry does not pan out or because the partner’s thinking changes in response to new information that presents itself in our dynamic world; •   communication between students and partners is another challenge, as students often  expect a high level of communication, or regular communication, which sometimes is not available given that a nonprofit partner is often juggling competing demands on its time; •   acknowledging that partners are incredibly busy (one person doing the equivalent of  two or three jobs functions is typical) and that the partnership engagements can be the item that partners make a lower priority when overwhelmed with grants, and projects, which are clear priorities; •   at times, faculty experience conflicting priorities in wanting students to pursue  their individual interests while also trying to deliver on community needs. this can mean that a professor has to provide students with more direction and guidance in order to ensure that the ten-week term is impactful for both the students and the community partner; •   the university’s ten-week academic term poses real challenges to delivering highquality projects or products to partners. deep impacts can often be realized by continuing a project from one course into another or by creating co-curricular opportunities (internships and volunteer experiences) for students to continue working on the project after the term has ended (see the article “connecting curriculum to community research: professional services, research, and teaching” in this issue for further thoughts on this); and 100 •   iss, faculty, and partners need to do a better job ensuring that all students reflect on  their community-based learning experience in order to make meaning of it and develop a stronger ability to communicate the value of the experience to others, including future employers. many of these lessons have begun to inform current practice. moving forward, living cully and psu are in the process of prioritizing focus areas to guide the partnership. together, partners are engaging in a series of conversations that will result in a clear framework for what psu and living cully will and will not work on together, which will provide a shared understanding that can be used to screen the viability of potential projects. these conversations will also help clarify each party’s commitments to the partnership, whether it be through contributions of financial resources, human resources needed for joint scholarship, or commitments to collaboratively seek extramural funding. in addition to lessons learned, reflecting on the partnership brings several questions to mind that may prove useful to other communities seeking to connect with a local university. regarding community organizations, the living cully-psu partnership demonstrates the ability of community organizations to use the assets in a university to meet community needs. other communities contemplating a similar partnership might want to ponder the following questions before entering a community-university partnership: how can community organizations similar to living cully be more intentional about using university partners to advance community agendas? what role should university institutions such as iss have in working to fill a potential gap between the university and the community? how can community organizations and universities resolve conflicts that arise during a partnership? how can partnerships maintain a level of reciprocity as the partnership evolves and continues as a long-term relationship? how might universities adopt a place-based approach to their community engagement and work to ensure that university efforts are better coordinated, or at the very least, informed of one another? conclusion contemporary examples of community-university partnerships have emerged out of a commitment to enhance the learning environment of students through engaged servicelearning and promote equity and social justice in the communities in which universities reside (fitzgerald et al. 2012; sandy and holland 2006). the partnership between living cully and portland state university serves as an exemplar in the realm of community-university partnerships in both parties’ willingness to confront evident differences (i.e., around class and race). the commitment of both partners to erasing the top-down approach in developing effective communication skills regarding the scope of their partnership and expectations has allowed for over one thousand students and several dozen faculty members to be engaged in a community-centered endeavor that has spanned several academic years and continues to date (strier 2010). iss has served as a third party, brokering this partnership to ensure that both living cully and psu are effective in promoting the health and well-being of the residents in the cully neighborhood (cooper et al. 2014). 101 these are just a handful of the lessons learned from the living cully-psu partnership that can serve to encourage future partnerships between universities and communities, hopefully fostering a new commitment to egalitarian partnerships with mutualistic goals and structures. these partnerships may then remain viable across time and create measurable impacts within the community and the university. as we look at the future of community-university engagement, the partnership between psu and living cully also illuminates the importance of university peer-to-peer learning communities about fostering community-university partnerships. what level of community and institutional transformation could be realized if a network of universities were to develop and work intentionally with their communities, sharing strategies, challenges, and lessons learned with both one another as well as their community partners? references banuelos, ricardo, brooke jordan, rebecca kennedy, danell norby, erik olsen, and cary watters. 2013. “not in cully: anti-displacement strategies for the cully neighborhood.” accessed august 6, 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yolanda, gary w. harper, and rhonda lewis. 2005. “an interactive and contextual model of community-university collaborations for research and action.” health education & behavior 32 (1):84–101. doi: 10.1177/1090198104269512. turner, shiloh, kathy merchant, john kania, and ellen martin. 2012. “understanding the value of backbone organizations in collective impact: part 1.” http://ssir.org/ articles/entry/understanding_the_value_of_backbone_organizations_in_collective_ impact_1. u.s. department of housing and urban development (hud). 2015. “portland state university: partnering to serve the city of portland with knowledge.” accessed august 27, 2015. http://www.huduser.org/portal/casestudies/study_08132015_1.html. 104 author information michelle l. holliday is a doctoral student in the sociology department at portland state university in portland, oregon. she holds a master’s degree in public health from drexel university, philadelphia, pennsylvania, with a research background in health disparities, social inequalities, and the impact of education policy on sexuality and mental health. tony defalco is the living cully ecodistrict coordinator for verde in portland, oregon, where he coordinates the nation’s first equity-driven ecodistrict designed to re-interpret sustainability as an anti-poverty strategy. he holds a master’s degree in natural resources planning and interpretation from humboldt state university, arcata, california. jacob d. b. sherman is the sustainability curriculum coordinator for the institute for sustainable solutions at portland state university. sherman holds a master’s of science in educational leadership and policy with a specialization in leadership for sustainability education from portland state university. michelle l. holliday department of sociology, doctoral student portland state university po box 751 portland, or 97207-0751 e-mail: mlh8@pdx.edu telephone: 248-214-0307 tony defalco living cully coordinator verde 6899 ne columbia blvd., suite a portland, or 97218 e-mail: tonydefalco@verdenw.org telephone: 503-889-0087 fax: 866-279-8719 jacob d. b. sherman institute for sustainable solutions portland state university po box 751 portland, or 97201-0751 e-mail: jsherman@pdx.edu telephone: 971-570-7167 fax: 503-725-2690 86 86 collective impact versus collaboration: sides of the same coin or different phenomenon? kelly prange, joseph a. allen and roni reiter-palmon abstract collective impact is a recently developed concept and approach to solving social problems that rectifies many of the issues associated with isolated impact. we compared collective impact and the formal definition of collaboration and made integrations between the two concepts. specifically, we explored effective assessment and facilitation methods and applied them to collective impact initiatives in order to facilitate more purposeful implementation of collective impact. we concluded that collective impact is a specific form of collaboration. introduction communities across the nation face complex social and economic problems regarding health, education, violence, pollution, and others (mitchell and shortell, 2000). to address these issues, communities need stable resources and sustainable solutions to create change. grantors and funders have sought out partnerships as a way to allocate resources to organizations willing to work together to address these difficult challenges (gallagher, 2014). as collaborations and social change initiatives have increased in the past 20 years, many terms have been used to describe the phenomena of organizations partnering and collaborating to impact the community, including community engagement, community involvement, civic engagement, service learning, volunteerism, coalitions, and community collaboration. although these sorts of collaborations are often the kind that funders seek, they are often characterized by a single organization trying to make the most impact with the fewest resources. this type of system is common in the non-profit world and is called isolated impact (kania & kramer, 2011). isolated impact results from grantors seeking to satisfy a specific goal when allocating funds: invest in the initiatives that use the least amount of resources to make the greatest impact. this traditional system produces programs that often have little to no measurable, lasting effects on communities and are only focused on the short term rewards and costs (kania, hanleybrown, and splansky juster 2014; kania & kramer, 2011). community leaders and organizations use trial and error in an attempt to find a more effective approach to solving social problems, and they may have found an alternative approach: collective impact (allen, miles, & sternberg, 2014; irby & boyle, 2014; kania & kramer, 2011; kania, hanleybrown, & splansky juster, 2014). the purpose of this paper is to provide a full definition of collective impact and identify the steps needed to carry out such an effort correctly and most effectively. in doing so, we will also attempt to compare collective impact to collaboration in a meaningful way, illustrating that collective impact is a specific form of collaboration, and bridge the science/practitioner gap. by tapping into the science of collaboration, we then provide suggestions for how to integrate a more collaborative framework into collective impact, particularly from an assessment perspective. collective impact collective impact is a new collaboration format designed to put an end to isolated impact and short-term solutions. this new approach to mending social issues was first explained using case studies and given a formal definition in the literature in 2011 by kania and kramer. in order for the inventive strategy to be 87 87 practiced and implemented, kania and kramer introduced the concept of collective impact and provided a definition in the stanford social innovation review: “the commitment of a group of important actors from different sectors to a common agenda for solving a specific social problem” (36). john kania, in an interview at the 2015 tamarak conference, mentioned that the idea of collective impact has existed in some form for decades, but now it is being re-branded with new language. most importantly, people are realizing that there is a need for a new form of partnership and are becoming more interested in learning how to make a continuous impact in their communities. people are searching for solutions, and collective impact may be the answer. according to kania and kramer (2011), efforts to collaborate amongst organizations have not produced the desired outcomes because they do not result in a sustained alignment of goals across the organizations. further, kania and kramer explain that the root of collective impact’s success stems from its key characteristics. their research has identified five characteristics of collective impact initiatives that lead to successful outcomes (kania, hanleybrown, & juster 2014): (a) a common agenda. this characteristic allows community members to align their interests and their resources in a meaningful and sustainable way. a common agenda is not only a common goal – it is a shared understanding of how to reach that goal and what the problem is. (b) shared measurement systems. assessment provides information about whether the initiative is successful. without a common agenda, it is difficult for collaborators to agree on what needs to be measured to define success of the venture. this step is complex, because no two organizations use the exact same measurements. however, in order to be able to report results and come to reliable conclusions, agreement on when and how the outcomes will be measured is essential (parkhurst and preskill 2014). (c) mutually reinforcing activities. cross-sector coordination (i.e. coordination between organizations that perform varying functions and a variety of services/products) does not require many organizations doing the same activities, but rather managing the expertise and strengths of each organization so that it can own a specific part of the project. however, each organization needs to be acting in tandem with the rest and in alignment with the common agenda. (d) continuous communication. continuous, regular, and structured communication has been identified as paramount in creating trusting relationships between collective impact participants. without the investment of a lot of time and conversation, the first two steps would be difficult to achieve. (e) backbone support organizations. the backbone support organization fulfills the role of facilitator, project manager, and data manager for the collective impact initiative (kania and kramer 2011). staff at the organization provides administrative support and coordination between all participating organizations to ensure that the project overcomes obstacles and moves forward. in this way, collective impact diminishes competition between social change initiatives through encouraging collaboration rather than isolated impact (irby and boyle 2014). these five characteristics are profound, difficult to attain, and, as research shows, worth the investment (parkhurst & preskill, 2014; stewart, 2013). relatively few social change initiatives can designate their collaboration as collective impact because its characteristics challenge organizations and community members to shift their way of thinking from traditional approaches. 88 88 collective impact mindset shifts collective impact is a new “buzz word” in the non-profit world. one of the potential problems with it becoming popular so quickly is that everyone will use the term without having a deep understanding of the challenges of implementing a collective impact initiative. further, many who use the term may not be fully aware of what makes it different from every other type of collaboration. organizations planning to use collective impact must understand how to use it correctly by intentionally putting in place the mechanisms for a successful collaboration effort described above. collective impact helps facilitate change in communities, and it does so in an intentional way (gallagher, 2014), which means organizations should employ collective impact initiatives by purposefully setting the stage for a successful collaboration. doing so requires leaders to reject traditional ways of thinking about social change. specifically, kania, hanleybrown, and splansky juster (2014) refine kania and kramer’s (2011) five characteristics by adding that three mindset shifts must take place within leaders and organizations to maximize the effectiveness of a collective impact approach. the first mindset shift requires getting the correct people involved to help a specific problem (kania, hanleybrown, & splansky juster, 2014). collective impact calls for cross-sector coordination, rather than isolated impact or a solution implemented by an individual organization. it is not just the number of organizations involved or the type of organizations that matters, but identifying the most well-equipped and well-positioned organizations to be engaged in the initiative (irby & boyle, 2014; bartczak, 2014). therefore, multiple organizations must be involved, but also the right organizations should be collaborating to facilitate the sustainability and longevity of the project. this shift also includes identifying meaningful collaborators who have personal experience with the social issue collaborators are trying to rectify. people who have experiences with the problem will be able to provide valuable insight as the collaboration evolves. sometimes, this mindset shift includes getting the target population involved with the process. the second mindset shift requires that collaborators change the way they work with one another (kania, hanleybrown, & splansky juster, 2014). this includes (a) the realization that the relational aspect of change is just as important as the rational aspect. the rational side of collaboration is important, but, just like in sales, sometimes it is not the enticing product or low prices that makes a sale—it takes a relationship built on trust. this shift also includes (b) trusting the structure of collective impact to guide a common agenda shared measurement systems mutually reinforcing activities continuous communication backbone support organization mindset shifts 89 89 partners’ solutions instead of finding one path to solving the problem and sticking with it. the structure of the initiative should enable people to interact and learn, and through that process, new ideas develop. because isolated impact has been rewarded in the past by grant funding agencies, it is difficult for organizations to focus on the total, collective impact rather than (c) take credit for their individual part in the process. doing so poses the risk that an individual organization may veer from the collective vision. the last mindset shift asks proponents of change to understand that social issues relentlessly change and our solutions must adapt to the change (bartczak, 2014; kania, hanleybrown, & splansky juster, 2014). previous collaboration efforts have focused on implementing pre-determined, replicable solutions. kania, hanleybrown, and splansky juster, (2014) assert that collaborators recognize the need for adaptation when they start thinking in terms of developing relationships and channels of communication for people to interact. this enables communities to think of their intervention as part of the larger context of the community and figure out how social change initiatives can fit together to instigate social reform. collective impact has distinct characteristics that set it apart from other partnering efforts focused on solving social problems (kania & kramer, 2011). the primary aspects that differentiate collective impact from other approaches include the emphasis on assessment and the need of backbone organizations (easterling, 2013). however, the feature of collective impact that makes it fundamentally different and more successful is that it adopts a collaborative, rather than a competitive approach to solving social problems. appley and winder (1977) called for a movement away from competitive approach where individual and isolated impact gives way to a new value system that includes collaboration. as trist (cited in appley & winder, 1977) states, “evidence is mounting that the individual by himself, or indeed the organization and even the policy by itself, cannot meet the demands of these more complex environments. a greater pooling of resources is required; more sharing and more trust.” forty years ago, researchers recognized a need for change and collaboration in order to have a fully functioning society. the time has come to put those thoughts and ideas into action. collaboration makes collective impact work collaboration and its corresponding values and best practices have become a precise discipline that has been studied by social scientists for decades in the realm of organizations (dibenigno & kellogg, 2014), leadership (finch, 1977), social work (bronstein, 2003), education (friend & cook, 1990), and as a general practice (wood & gray, 1991). practitioners in the non-profit, government, and for-profit sectors talk about collective impact as a form of collaboration, but does the practitioner definition match the scientific definition of collaboration? and, if so, are there scientific principles and findings that are applicable to the concept of collective impact and can be integrated into its definition and best practices? as previously stated, one of the goals of this paper is to bridge the science/practitioner gap by pulling together the two fields of study. to determine what characteristics and findings from collaboration research can inform how collective impact is understood, collaboration and collective impact will be compared side-by-side. collaboration as an academic discipline collaboration is defined as “a joint effort toward a goal” (harper, 2001, as cited in kolfschoten, vreede, & pietron, 2011), and collective impact is described as “the commitment of a group of important actors from different sectors to a common agenda for solving a specific social problem” (kania & kramer, 2011). kania and kramer’s conceptualization of collective impact fits the definition of collaboration, as multiple organizations are joined together to solve a social problem (i.e., a common goal). this ideal state of collaboration is reiterated in both sets of literatures, and some of the pitfalls are echoed within the research as well. for instance, in both collaboration and collective impact research, experts warn that the 90 90 goal may be shared, but the journey to the solution can be a source of disagreement and dysfunction (easterling, 2013; wood & gray, 1991). moreover, a common pitfall of partnerships is trying to follow multiple goals, or starting the project with one goal, and then organizations branch off in order to accomplish solitary objectives, which distract from the primary goal. when defining collective impact, kania and kramer (2011) point out this potential pitfall and identify practices to mitigate the risk of having multiple goals. for example, having a backbone organization keeps each partner accountable to their piece of the project, and warning organizations against taking credit for their individual actions prevents organizations from getting distracted from the goal. in the same way, collaboration experts recognize the importance of incorporating joint decisionmaking, having agreed-upon rules, and explicit voluntary membership, and even add those elements to refine their definition of collaboration (wood & gray, 1991). in addition, collaboration experts suggest that it is important to find ways in which individual goals can be tied to the broader group or organizational goals (briggs, reining, & de vreede, 2006). looking at the two definitions, we conclude that collective impact definitely fits into the academic definition of collaboration and is a specific instance of collaboration. given this conclusion, there are further comparisons and integrations that can be made between the two concepts. specifically, we compare collective impact and collaboration in terms of levels of analysis, assessment, and facilitation versus funder roles in order to facilitate a better understanding for the collaborative framework in collective impact initiatives. level of analysis collaboration has primarily been studied at the team level and at the organization level (e.g., between departments and teams) (sharfman, gray, & yan, 1991). there is less research on inter-organizational collaborations, which may be another name for collective impact. when changing the level of analysis from the team or group level to an inter-organizational level, the context shifts from the organization to the domain (wood & gray, 1991). in the same way, collective impact attempts to instigate social change rather than only organizational change or even individual change. perhaps an important question to consider is whether collective impact is simply a form of interorganizational collaboration. collective impact definitely occurs when multiple organizations interact. however, cross-sector coordination is also a critical component of collective impact. non-profit organizations work with government and for-profit organizations, and collective impact is most successful when organizations across fields and industries collaborate. an argument for cross-sector collaboration as a distinct, higher level of collaboration may be made. a new science may be forming, as there are opportunities to research the intricacies and characteristics of cross-sector collaboration. future inquiry into collective impact versus collaboration should consider the cross-sector characteristic and formally test whether the cross-sector characteristic is essential for success. a potential challenge to this is finding two collective impact efforts that are both similar in terms of goals/aims while different in terms of the inter-organizational partners. assessment assessment is essential to document and evaluate the success of collective impact and social change initiatives. parkhurst and preskill (2014) call for a different kind of measurement in collective impact than what is traditionally used to assess collaboration. this requires collaborators to start measuring the progress and process of change holistically instead of simply measuring the outcomes of single interventions. the four levels of a collective impact initiative are the following: 91 91 1. initiative’s context: anything that influences an initiative’s design, implementation, and effectiveness (e.g., economics, demographics, culture); 2. the initiative itself: the initiative’s design and process; 3. systems the initiative targets: the systems (e.g., public policies) and norms, or patterns of behavior (e.g., perceptions of community members) the initiative is trying to impact; 4. initiative’s ultimate outcomes: overarching goals of the initiative (e.g., decreasing childhood obesity rates in a city). approaching assessment of collective impact using this structure requires the involvement of multiple stakeholders because the full picture of social change can only be captured by multiple sources of information. evaluating these aspects gives stakeholders information from which to make decisions about the future of the collaboration. in contrast, many aspects of collaboration have been assessed in collaboration literature, such as satisfaction of participants, repeatability, participant commitment, and others. nabukenya, bommel, proper, and de vreede (2011) identified eleven core success indicators for collaboration, gave definitions for each indicator, and identified ways in which each could be measured (see table 1). when collaboration initiatives assess all 11 core success indicators, they get a robust picture of the success or failure of the initiative. this allows for the adjustment and improvement necessary prior to any further collaborations in a similar domain. taken together, the levels of collective impact initiatives and the success indicators for collaboration set forth a potentially comprehensive method for assessing overt collective impact initiatives that use crosssector inter-organizational collaboration. table 1 provides the definitions of the 11 core success indicators and a column that highlights how they map onto the four levels of collective impact initiatives. interestingly, many of the measures appear to capture more than one of the levels. table 1 eleven core success indicators by levels of collective impact initiative collaboration indicator description measurement means operationalization tools collective impact level satisfaction 
 an effective response with respect to the attainment of goals (process outcomes; and the process by which the outcomes were attained) the output achieved versus output planned (i) session outcome questionnaires with participants, problem owner, facilitator (ii) focused inter-views with problem owner and partici-pants ultimate group productivity 
 the outcomes achieved over the resources used in a collaborative process in order to arrive at satisfactory results (i) number (quantity), uniqueness and importance (of each unique) of contributions (ii) amount of resources used to get results (i) transcribing reports/data logs to determine quantity and quality of results from the process (ii) session process questionnaires with participants, and problem owner initiative repeatability different groups working on different collaborative tasks should produce similar collaboration patterns when they execute the process; i.e. the same process could be applied successfully in each workshop with different groups and focusing on different collaborative tasks (i) the extent to which the same collaborative task can be applied in different organizations; or, with different groups in same organization (ii) when it is domain focus within task; we measure the extent to which different foci in context (i) direct observations
 (ii) focused interviews with participants (iii) documentary analysis systems and context 92 92 of task, e.g. different types of incidents in irp, or different types of requirements in easywinwin, can be applied organizational adoption rate the extent to which organizational stakeholders easily get used to the collaboration process in their work practices how long it takes an organization to get used to the process or actually uses it (i) focused interviews
 (ii) documentary analysis initiative and systems the sustainability of deployed work practice the use of the work practice as the standard way of executing the task without ongoing support from experts outside the organization (i) practitioners executing the process themselves without external/expert facilitator help; (ii) the collaboration process being accepted/ adopted as the organizational standard process (iii) practitioners being able to fix the collaboration process when it is broken (i) direct observations (ii) documentary analysis initiative and context transferability the extent to which practitioners can be successfully trained in executing the collabo-ration process and understand how to execute it the collaboration process should not cause a high cognitive load on the practitioner while executing it (i) direct observations
 (ii) focused interviews with practitioners ultimate and systems creativity of participants’ contributions the identification of solutions that are feasible to implement, and fall outside the set of known solutions (i) new and unique solutions
 (ii) appropriateness and quality of solutions (i) transcribing reports/data logs to evaluate quality of results from the process by domain experts (ii) session outcome questionnaires with problem owner initiative perceived gain in collaboration process’ efficiency the degree to which there is perceived savings of the amount of resources required for attainment of the goal the actual resources used versus planned resources, e.g. time (duration), effort, costs, etc... (i) session process questionnaires (ii) focused interviews initiative and systems perceived gain in collaboration process’ effectiveness the extent to which there is perceived effort for a group to achieve its goal the quality of results in a traditional way of doing things versus quality of results in a new way of doing the same things; i) session outcome questionnaires with participants (ii) focused interviews with problem owner, and participants (iii) direct observations
 (iv) quantitative outcome analysis initiative and systems participant commitment the collaboration process should not be complex, and should be easily understood by practitioners, i.e. the process should be easy for the practitioners to learn and execute routinely number of times a collaboration process is executed by practitioners with ease e.g. being able to modify, make reviews routinely. (i) direct observations
 (ii) focused interviews with participants initiative and ultimate ease of use an assumption of an obligation to expend resources to fulfill the terms of a proposal (i) positive versus negative remarks towards accomplishment of the execution of the process; (ii) the willingness of participants to commit their time or resources (i) direct observation
 (ii) focused interviews with participants context for example, sustainability is likely an initiative goal as well as largely dependent upon the context in which the initiative takes place. as such, the assessment of sustainability would have implications for both levels of collective impact. collaborators can use the facets put forth by nabukenya, bommel, proper, and de vreede (2011) to guide their assessment of collective impact initiatives. in this way, it will be easier for partners to ensure that all aspects of the initiative are being captured by their evaluation of the collaboration. funders/grantors and the role of facilitator as previously mentioned, isolated impact has become the foundation on which grantors allocate funds to organizations (kania & kramer, 2011). following that system, grantees must demonstrate how their 93 93 organization will make the greatest impact with the smallest amount of resources, and it creates a competitive cycle in which non-profit organizations are pitted against one another and social change efforts are isolated from each other. in addition, non-profit organizations are being separated from forprofit organizations in their quest for solving social issues. collective impact calls for the goals of grantmakers to change; grantmakers must identify organizations who have a common goal when allocating funds. in addition, the role of grantmakers must also change. easterling (2013) points out that grantors are in a unique position to lead and organize collective impact partnerships because of their extensive knowledge of the many organizations relevant to solving the problem. in this way, grantors can act as a facilitator as the collaborations form and evolve to impact social problems (bartczak 2014). in collaboration literature, facilitation has been studied in its own right because facilitation and leadership are an essential part of collaboration (clawson, bostrom, and anson 1993). there are multiple dimensions of the facilitator role (clawson, bostrom, and anson 1993). the facilitator influences a collaborative effort profoundly, by acknowledgement and creating standards. however, training is needed to mitigate the facilitator biasing the group (griffith, fuller, and northcraft, 1998), just as it is important that the funders do not force organizations to collaborate in social change partnerships like collective impact (bartczak, 2014). collective impact experts also discuss the role of the backbone organizations to provide support and ensure collaborators are aligned toward the ultimate goal (irby & boyle, 2014; kania & kramer, 2011). therefore, collective impact calls grantors to become facilitators of collective impact issues – something that is easy to say but not easily achieved. a shift to collective rather than isolated impact must start with funding agencies choosing to allocate resources to proposals that offer a collective impact approach to solving problems. then, the role of grantors must also change to one of facilitation in order for the collective impact initiatives to be sustainable for the long term. conclusion in summary, collective impact is indeed one type of collaboration format, which is designed specifically to solve a multi-faceted and complex social problem by banding together multiple organizations from different sectors with a common goal. because this approach is relatively new, we have reiterated why it is important to be intentional when implementing a collective impact initiative to include all of its distinct characteristics – to ensure that the initiative is successful, sustainable, and an efficient use of resources. we encourage those who practice collective impact to understand what level of analysis their initiative is using, how they will measure and inform the future of the initiative, and who will act as the facilitator of the initiative. we also challenge grantors and funders to shift their way of thinking when allocating resources to organizations. going forward, it is important for practitioners in universities, non-profit organizations, and all sectors to continue refining the definition of collective impact and the best practices in organizing, implementing, and sustaining collective impact initiatives. finally, we have drawn parallels between collective impact and collaboration. collaboration has been studied extensively as a domain. there is much that we can learn from past research on collaboration and apply to collective impact. 94 94 references allen, l., miles, m., & steinberg, a., (2014 fall). achieving collective impact for opportunity youth. stanford social innovation review 12 (4), 20-22. appley, d. g., & winder, a. e. 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(1991). toward a comprehensive theory of collaboration. journal of applied behavioral science 27: 139-162. doi:10.1177/0021886391272001. 96 96 author information kelly a. prange is a m.a./ph.d student studying industrial/organizational psychology at the university of nebraska at omaha. joseph a. allen is an assistant professor of industrial/organizational psychology at the university of nebraska at omaha. his main research areas included workplace meetings, nonprofit and volunteer management, and emotion management in organizations. roni reiter-palmon is a professor of industrial/organizational psychology at the university of nebraska at omaha. her main research areas included creativity and innovation in organizations and organizational leadership. kelly a. prange department of psychology university of nebraska at omaha 6001 dodge st. omaha, ne 68182 e-mail: kprange@unomaha.edu telephone: 402-540-1876 fax: 402-554-2556 joseph a. allen department of psychology university of nebraska at omaha 6001 dodge st. omaha, ne 68182 e-mail: josephallen@unomaha.edu telephone: 402-554-6017 fax: 402-554-2556 roni reiter-palmon department of psychology university of nebraska at omaha 6001 dodge st. omaha, ne 68182 e-mail: rreiter-palmon@unomaha.edu telephone: 402-554-4810 fax: 402-554-2556 mailto:awilmarth@miskatonic.edu mailto:awilmarth@miskatonic.edu mailto:rreiter-palmon@unomaha.edu metropolitan universities vol. 28 no. 4 (november 2017), doi: 10.18060/21741 we’re all in this together: how one university drew on collective impact principles to advance student success in higher education bruce jones, maureen croft and teri longacre abstract student attrition rates in higher education are an ongoing concern in the u.s, and are costly to students themselves, colleges and universities, and the economy in terms of dollars and human potential. thus, the need to identify solutions to student attrition is pressing for both students who are enrolled in institutions of higher education today, and for multiple generations of students yet to enroll. this article discusses collective impact as a model of intervention at an urban university and the quest to promote institutional efficacy around student retention and graduation strategies in partnership with internal (on-campus) and external (off-campus) constituents. key words: student attrition; student retention; student graduation; low socioeconomic status; pell grant eligible interdependency of the ecosystem “we’re all in this together”, senator bill nelson (fl) affirmed as he soared into outer space at an estimated 18,000 miles per hour. in 1986, the u.s. senator had the privilege to serve as a member of the astronaut crew on board the challenger space shuttle. as he peered out the window of the space shuttle on its rapid ascent, his home state of florida quickly faded into a view of the united states. seconds later, the united states faded into a view of the planet. in his online bio, he writes “from that perspective, you can see how we’re all in this together . . . if we could just remember that, we’d sure get a lot more done” (nelson, 2016). an ecosystem, such as planet earth, is about interdependence. bronfenbrenner (1986), who is a pioneer in perspectives on ecosystemic approaches to understanding the dynamic between people and institutions, and hightower-weaver (2008), who subscribe to ecosystemic approaches to public policy making, discuss the value in recognition that components of an ecosystem are interdependent. a fully viable ecosystem is one whereby all parts of said system are in a harmonious state of success. in contrast, when one part of an ecosystem suffers, the entire system is adversely affected in some way. in this respect, think of the 1986 ukrainian, chernobyl nuclear plant disaster. evidence of the disaster showed up in parts of europe as the earth’s winds carried the deadly nuclear cloud across the earth’s atmosphere. suddenly, what was initially characterized as a u.s.s.r. problem became problematic for european population centers. consistent with the notion of the ecosystem, we know that human neglect and indifference in one part of the world can impact the livelihoods of individuals and communities thousands of miles away in other parts of the world. because of this, many of the issues that we face require collective solutions, which require multiple constituencies to be involved in the development and implementation of solutions. 54 education, as an educational ecosystem, is no exception to this rule (goodlad, 1984). the levels of efficacy of our educational systems impact the united states and the world. for example, in many of the nations’ urban centers, our public schools are often metaphorically, and in practice referred to, as warehouses, armed camps, preparatory places for prison, or dropout factories (castagno & brayboy, 2008; garcia, jensen & scribner, 2009; mckinsey & company, 2009; ream & rumberger, 2008; schott foundation, 2008). in american higher education, student attrition rates are a major concern as students drop out at unacceptable rates. such departures are costly to the students themselves, the colleges and universities, and the u.s. economy (carnevale, smith & strohl, 2010; dodge, mitchell & mensch, 2009). furthermore, this exacerbates the shortage of skilled workers: the georgetown university center on education and the workforce shows that by 2018, we will need 22 million new college degrees but will fall short of that number by at least 3 million postsecondary degrees, associate’s or better. in addition, we will need at least 4.7 million new workers with postsecondary certificates. at a time when every job is precious, this shortfall will mean lost economic opportunity for millions of american workers (carnevale, smith & strohl, 2010, p. 3). the failure to ensure that our education system succeeds results in tremendous social, economic and moral cost to our political economy (arum & lafree, 2008; coontz, 1992). the consequences of this failure manifest through the enormous loss of human potential. the children and students that we fail may have been the very children and students who could have made a life-altering discovery. these children and students could have been the next generation of university academics, scholars, key community leaders, and nobel prize recipients. furthermore, our lack of institutional efficacy in the education of economically poor children and students comes at tremendous cost to society’s level of mental and physical safety in the form of crime, prison construction, gated communities, unemployment, welfare and unabated poverty generation after generation (arum & lafree, 2008). obtaining a college education is a vehicle to upward mobility (baum, ma & payea, 2013; gupton & miksch, 2016). college-educated adults are more likely to be in a position to pass income and wealth (i.e., home ownership, investments, savings, or property) to a new generation of descendants. in this respect, our need to engage in collective problem-solving is not just about children and students who are with us today. this is also about the multiple generations of children yet to be born and students yet to enroll in our colleges and universities. lastly, we face a moral dilemma in the eyes of the world. it is difficult to face the world as a model of democratic ideals when housed in a political economy that is incapable of collective problem solving around the plight of children and adults who are in a perpetual cycle of intergenerational poverty. with specific regard to colleges and universities, what will be the role of university research, teaching and service as a means to address issues faced by low-income students and our communities? how will research, teaching and service interface and work effectively with institutions on and off-campus to ensure the success of all students, particularly low-income students? lastly, what practical and conceptual guides will drive the work of comprehensive efforts to reduce attrition and increase retention and graduation rates of students 55 on campus? these are key questions for the university of houston, which is cited as the second most student diverse campus in the united states (us news and world report, 2017). state and local context in response to facing low student progression to postsecondary education and disparities in degree attainment across demographic groups (national center for higher education management systems, 2012), the state of texas developed a higher education strategic plan aimed at increasing student success consistent with workforce needs and the goals of global competitiveness and economic prosperity for texas (texas higher education coordinating board, 2015). the strategic plan is ambitious in its goal: to increase certificate or degree attainment by citizens of texas, and to generate marketable skills among postsecondary education college and university enrollees. in order to accomplish this, the strategic plan recognizes that success is contingent on the combined expertise and resources of a diverse set of stakeholders working collaboratively to achieve increased levels of student success. as the fourth largest city in the u.s. and one of the most ethnically diverse, houston plays a key role in this endeavor. the total population for the houston metro area grew 26 percent from 2000-2010 with the african american population increasing by 26 percent and the total hispanic population rising by 55 percent during the same time period. additionally, 10 percent of the houston population is college-age (18-24), with projections that by 2020, hispanics will grow by 42.6 percent, and african-americans will grow by 12.7 percent in this age group. it is critical that houston’s diverse and growing student population be prepared to succeed in today’s global, high-tech, knowledge-based economy, which increasingly requires postsecondary education to ensure needed knowledge and skills (carnevale, smith & strohl, 2010). in harris county, texas, however, only 27.6 percent of the population 25 and older holds at least a college degree. furthermore, houston ranks 34th among the 50 largest metropolitan areas in the u.s. for the percentage of the population aged 25 and older holding a college degree. there are also differences in attainment across groups with college degrees held by 66 percent of asian immigrants, 39 percent of us-born anglos, 20 percent of us-born blacks, 17 percent of usborn hispanics, and 8 percent of hispanic immigrants (kinder institute, 2012). texas and poverty as a factor in texas an estimated 24.8 percent of all children live in poverty. this exceeds the national poverty rate, which stood at approximately 15 percent (kinder institute, 2012). in this regard, a large and growing number of postsecondary students face the challenges created by limited resources. approximately one in three american undergraduates receive a pell grant, and as a result, are considered a low-income (chaplor, cooper, johnstone & karandieff, 2015). these demographic trends pose challenges to the economic growth of our state and region. however, rising postsecondary participation in houston along with growing enrollment at houston area community colleges and universities present a tremendous opportunity to significantly increase degree attainment through collaborative strategic efforts. this opportunity is enhanced by a longstanding tradition of the university of houston of focusing on working-class citizens and a tradition of enrolling and serving low-income students. as it stands, forty-three percent of the undergraduate students attending the university receive pell grant assistance. 56 student success at the heart of university mission and goals the university of houston was founded in 1927 and today serves over 40,000 students with an estimated 300 undergraduate and graduate programs. the mission of the university of houston is as follows: “to offer nationally competitive and internationally recognized opportunities for learning, discovery and engagement to a diverse population of students in a real-world setting” (university of houston, 2017). the university mission statement recognizes three shared values. first, the university will meet the challenges of educating a dynamic mix of nontraditional and traditional students. second, the university will promote excellence within the context of basic and applied research and scholarship. finally, the university will identify and respond to the economic, social and cultural changes affecting the quality of life in the city of houston, the state of texas and in the world through its education, research and service. at the university of houston, and elsewhere in other institutions of higher education, student success is at the heart of its mission and goals. students who face additional challenges that interfere with the ability to progress towards degree attainment need additional support and clear pathways for graduation. the identification and removal of institutional barriers and the provision of extra support are difficult challenges for institutions of higher education to overcome. collective impact: using ecosystemic approaches to solving intractable higher education challenges as indicated earlier, an ecosystem is, in part, about the relationships between individuals and institutions in a given community or social system and the interdependent nature of these relationships (weaver-hightower, 2008). in many ways we can examine the efficacy of an ecosystem through our understanding of these relationships, with respect to how individuals and institutions work to bring shared goals to fruition. the ecosystemic approach to problem solving, from a conceptual standpoint, allows us to understand the need to approach issues that concern student retention and graduation from a broad university and community-wide standpoint. such a conceptual approach allows us (i.e., university professors, administrators, and staff, student representatives, key community constituents, community college, philanthropic and business sector representatives) to better understand the benefits of our interdependence, thus moving toward a more collective quest to become highly efficacious in the academic advancement of our students. this is particularly important given the resource shortages that we face coupled with the benefits of the intellectual capital that can arise from collaborative approaches to problem solving in the area of students and college completion. it is one thing to believe in something and another matter to actually engage in action toward what one believes. in this respect, the ecosystemic approach serves as the conceptual-base for our work at the university of houston while the basic tenets that are associated with collective impact serve as the practical-base for our work. these basic tenets provide the tools, guidelines and necessary steps for ensuring that we engage in the action that is necessary to actually promote, develop and implement a coordinated and shared community-wide responsibility for ensuring the success of our students. figure 1 (below) illustrates the relationship between the conceptual underpinning, educational ecosystem, and the practical guide, collective impact (kania & kramer, 2012), of our work. 57 figure 1. collective impact as a means to promote high efficacy in community-wide college completion efforts for students building a tool box of interventions that changes higher education through the use of collective impact the university of houston shares the recognition put forth in the texas strategic plan that statewide challenges require internal and external collaboration with the end goal of solving problems through incubation of ideas and the identification of scalable efficiencies (texas higher education coordinating board, 2015). as such, the university has actively sought out collaborative initiatives aimed at improving not only the educational outcomes of our students but also of all low-income students impacted by our collective efforts with institutions invested in ensuring better postsecondary outcomes for low-income students. the university of houston c o l l e g e c o m p l e t i o n i n s t i t u t i o n a l s t r a t e g i e s educational ecosystem conceptual underpinning – communitywide strategy national network of universities local community colleges individual campus departments (i.e., student affairs, admissions, financial aid, housing and academic affairs) local community groups non-profit education advocacy sector philanthropic sector collective impact practical guide – tool to plan, develop, and implement college completion strategies (kania & kramer, 2012) 58 strives to bring multiple on-campus departments and off-campus agencies and institutions together to address issues that focus on low-income student retention, persistence and graduation. in this endeavor, we are guided by the recognition that we are an educational ecosystem—we are interdependent and must act accordingly, if we are to maximize our effectiveness on addressing these issues. from a conceptual and practical standpoint, the notion of collective impact begins with the recognition that no one individual and no one institution can address the multi-faceted issues that we face. in a climate of unstable resources and failure to make appreciable movement in closing attainment gaps among students, the university understands that collective efforts to advance cross-sector institutional efficacy, and the shared knowledge and efficiencies associated with collective problem-solving endeavors, are likely the only way to make appreciable social progress and to ensure the success of low-income students. collective impact in action in higher education beyond financial aid beyond financial aid is a national initiative that focuses on increasing the efficacy of institutions of higher education in the quest to retain and graduate low-income students. the initiative has been launched at a select number of universities with the principle support from the lumina foundation. through this effort, a university-wide committee is working to identify barriers to achievement and possible areas for additional student support for low-income students. and, as a beta-test institution, uh is working to help the lumina foundation evaluate and refine the beyond financial aid assessment tool. oasis the education trust is a national, non-profit advocacy organization that promotes high academic achievement for all students, especially low-income and underrepresented minority students. their initiative, optimizing academic success and institutional strategy (oasis), aims to create a network between eleven regional, comprehensive institutions that serve large populations of underrepresented minorities. the network aims to expand on the use of evidence-based practices at their campuses and to share their data and insights with each other in order to narrow the college completion gap between white and underrepresented minority students. senior university leaders collaborate to analyze data and frequently communicate with each other in effort to develop best practices in student success. uh is an enthusiastic oasis institutional partner. completion grant project the association of public and land-grant universities (aplu) and the coalition of urban serving universities (usu) recently awarded the university of houston $50,000 to launch a pilot program to prevent low-income college students nearing graduation from dropping out. the university of houston was one of nine institutions to receive a grant. the grants are for two years and are funded by great lakes higher education guaranty corporation and lumina foundation. funds from the programs are used to strengthen the infrastructures in place to identify students close to graduation, who are at risk of dropping out due to inability to pay, and matching them with endowment funds in the form of completion grants. the grants are part of a 59 broader success initiative known as collaborating for change, which matches institutions with peer mentors for assistance, professional development, and form learning communities to work through challenges, opportunities, and other unexpected developments. with guidance from aplu, usu, and peer mentors, institutions that received funding work toward the common goal of promoting timely completion through financial support. collaboration and regular communication with mentors and other institutions has led to efficiencies in the grant award process at uh which are intended to increase the number of grants awarded to students. common progress measures across institutions are being utilized to assess the extent to which completion grants prevent drop-out and facilitate completion among recipients. houston guided pathways to success (gps) comparatively low levels of degree completion and differences across demographic groups threaten the economic growth of the houston region. however, rising post-secondary participation along with growing enrollment at houston area community colleges and universities provide a tremendous opportunity to significantly increase degree attainment through collaborative strategic efforts. to facilitate such collaboration, the university of houston is leading houston gps, which is a consortium of institutions, including other university of houston system campuses (uh-downtown and uh-clear lake) and the four major community college systems (houston community college system, lone star college system, san jacinto college district, and wharton county junior college). houston gps aims to develop a plan to accelerate college completion in the greater houston area. collectively, these institutions serve over 200,000 students and are a reflection of the diverse city and region that they serve. through houston gps, consortium institutions are implementing an integrated system of cohesive, interdependent strategies that include: (a) default pathways; (b) academic maps focused on 15 hours per semester; (c) meta-majors; (d) proactive advising; (e)workforce connections; (f)block scheduling; (g) co-requisite remediation; and (h) aligned mathematics. collectively, these strategies intend to increase and accelerate student completion and smooth two-year to four-year college transfer, while improving educational quality for houston area students. collaboration across houston gps institutions and with national experts has resulted in strong commitment to a common completion agenda and progress measures. applying the model individually and collectively, these programs exemplify the components (kania & kramer, 2012) of collective impact outlined in figure 1. in terms of a common agenda, improving college completion is an issue of national, state, and local concern and lies at the heart of each initiative. low completion rates and the presence of attainment gaps are commonly understood problems, addressed collaboratively by removing barriers to success faced by students. barrier identification is a focus of the beyond financial aid initiative while other programs focus on overcoming specific completion challenges. for example, the completion grant project focuses on providing funds for students with financial need to complete their degree within an academic year while houston guided pathways to success provides students with streamlined pathways to reduce excess credits, decrease time to degree, and increase completion. 60 these initiatives involve a number of collaborators including multiple institutions of higher education, national experts, and philanthropic organizations, all working toward a completion agenda. in doing so, collaborators in each initiative have agreed upon common progress measures designed to assess the impact of strategies implemented. for example, houston gps institutions have set five-year targets for the following common set of outcomes to track the impact of guided pathways to success strategies: (a) ftic graduation rates; (b) transfer graduation rates; (c) time to degree; (d) credits to degree; (e) ftic 1-year retention; (f) transfer 1-year persistence, (f) credit hour accumulation, and (g) completion of math and english gateway courses. agreed upon progress measures for initiatives are reported at regular intervals supporting a culture of accountability. also facilitating accountability are mutually reinforcing activities built into the structure of each initiative. clear plans of action, which include specific roles and responsibilities that align with the common agenda, guide program activities. for example, houston guided pathways to success involves the development of comprehensive institutional implementation plans, with identified units and positions responsible for carrying out each component within a specified timeframe. similarly, the completion grant project involves specific roles for institutional constituents associated with identifying potential applicants, assessing eligibility criteria, and matching applicants with grant funds. in addition, mentors involved in this initiative play a key role in guiding the implementation of completion grant programs across institutions participating in the grant program. mentoring roles such as this also support the communication component of collective impact, needed to ensure consistent and effective efforts toward the common agenda. monthly mentoring calls occur as part of the completion grant project. regular communications, including phone calls, site visits, and conferences, take place with the oasis and houston gps initiatives. collaboration that occurs as a result of such routine communications has led to a number of insights that support and enhance the implementation of strategies to overcome completion barriers. as one example, working with content experts throughout the houston gps planning process has facilitated the implementation of proactive advising practices, and assisted with the transition from developmental courses to co-requisite remediation. collectively, a number of organizations provided critical human, fiscal, material and knowledge (technical expertise) resource support to help ensure success in attaining programmatic goals. for example, the education trust provided a strategic vision for the oasis initiative, established a management and coordination team, facilitated communication with and between participating institutions, and created a process for institutional assessment and data collection. the lumina foundation provided critical financial support and technical assistance. the association of public and land-grant universities, the coalition of urban serving universities, and complete college america have played key roles in establishing effective organizational structures for our initiatives. conclusion as the university of houston and other institutions of higher education continue on their path to address student attrition while increasing student retention and graduation rates, there is the 61 promotion of a mindset that recognizes that we are all in this together: we are an ecosystem that consists of a set of people, communities and institutions that are interdependent. collective impact as a practical guide and the ecology metaphor, as a conceptual underpinning, are serving as a road map for the democratic selection of programmatic tools and the development and implementation of said tools that will help us to bring about a healthy and productive educative system. this is the kind of system that will help to ensure that our educative institutions are coordinated, united, and successful in the critical goal to promote the success of all students— particularly low-income students in the quest toward college completion. 62 references arum, 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(2017). campus ethnic diversity. retrieved from: https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/campus-ethnic-diversity weaver-hightower, m.b. (2008). an ecology metaphor for educational policy analysis: a call to complexity. educational researcher, 37(3), 153-167. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x08318050 https://doi.org/10.1177/003804070808100201 https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x08318050 64 author information *dr. bruce jones serves as the vice provost for academic programs at the university of houston. he has over 25 years of academic and administrative experience in higher education, as well as extensive experience working with philanthropic institutions across the united states on program funding strategies, strategic planning and evaluation. his research foci includes educational leadership and policy analysis in k-12 and higher education, cross-sector collaboration, school and community interrelations and cultural competence and educational evaluation and assessment. bruce a. jones office of the provost university of houston 203 e cullen building houston, tx 77204-2019 telephone: 713-743-2490 email: bajones4@uh.edu dr. maureen croft is the associate provost for strategic enrollment planning at the university of houston, where her principal responsibilities involve the development, implementation and management of undergraduate strategic enrollment planning. in this role, dr. croft leads efforts to develop strategic application, admission, enrollment and financial aid policies for undergraduates that serve to advance university enrollment and retention goals and reach targeted audiences. maureen g. croft office of the provost university of houston 203 e cullen building houston, tx 77204-2019 telephone: 832-842-8703 email: mgcroft@uh.edu teri elkins longacre currently serves as vice provost and dean for undergraduate student success in the office of academic affairs and is an associate professor of management at the c. t. bauer college of business at the university of houston. she teaches in the areas of business law, employment law, managerial communication, human resource management, and organizational behavior, and coordinates an internship program with the equal employment opportunity commission. teri has published scholarly articles on the topics of employment discrimination, employee selection practices, affirmative action plans, leadership, and academic internship programs. teri e. longacre office of the provost university of houston 203 e cullen building houston, tx 77204-2019 telephone: 832-842-8703 email: elkins@uh.edu *corresponding author tel:(713)%20743-2490 mailto:bajones4@uh.edu mailto:mgcroft@uh.edu mailto:elkins@uh.edu metropolitan universities vol. 29 no. 3 (august 2018), doi: 10.18060/21466 sustainability in management education: contributions from critical reflection and transformative learning claudine brunnquell and janette brunstein abstract this theoretical paper discusses how the assumptions of critical reflection (cr) and transforming learning (tl) can help develop reflexive professionals in sustainability within management. the central argument is that a purely pragmatic and technical conception in the teaching and learning of sustainability does not sufficiently contribute to the development of professional managers with strong sustainability principles and standards. therefore, it is important to employ cr and tl because they provide elements that contribute to advancement from the current teaching and learning approach, an approach based on problem solving, to another approach based on problem-posing. the reflections presented in this paper may provide elements that can help teachers, educators, university deans, and coordinators of management courses to rethink the way in which business schools, which are often the drivers for professional managers in metropolitan areas, are addressing sustainability education. keywords: problem-solving; problem-posing; reflexive professional; sustainability; management education introduction as early as the 1970s, national and international public policy documents showed some interest in issues related to sustainability education (wright, 2004). however, not until the 1990s did a number of intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations begin to disseminate statements in order to engage individuals, governments, and business organizations to act for the causes of sustainability. it was then that the theme gained more prominence and became incorporated and strengthened within academic institutions (thomas, kyle, & alvarez, 1999). literature shows no consensus regarding the definition or meaning of education for sustainability (kopnina & meijers 2014; zint 2011). it overlaps with other concepts, such as environmental education and education for sustainable development. thus, the authors shall consider these concepts as synonymous within this article. a 2003 report published by the united nations educational, scientific and cultural organization (unesco) viewed education for sustainable development as a learning process of how to make future-oriented decisions in the long term. such an education helps people understand the world in which they live, as well as its complexity and interconnectedness of problems, by developing new knowledge and skills necessary for a sustainable future. in recent decades, the literature has reported a significant number of educational experiences in sustainability (kearins; springett, 2003; svoboda; whalen, 2004; annandale; morrisonsounders, 2004; springett, 2005; collins; kearins, 2007; wals, 2010; wals e blewitt, 2010; 26 avarelo & mitchell, 2017; meghann et al., 2018). however, analysis shows that current education does not yet adequately respond (huckle & sterling, 2008; jones, selby, & sterling, 2010; leal filho, 2009; tilbury & wortman, 2004). these researchers acknowledge that environmental education, as it has been presented, does not achieve the expected results, nor has it been able to meet the growing complexity of the contemporary crisis. for sterling (1996, 2011), mainstream education is usually part of the problem because it encourages individualism, unsustainable lifestyles, and often egregious patterns of consumption, either directly or by default. therefore, there is a call for a paradigmatic shift to respond more adequately to socioenvironmental problems, including those faced by metropolitan areas. in the field of management, researchers such as kearins and springett (2003), svoboda and whalen (2004), annandale and morrison-sounders (2004), springett (2005) and collins and kearins (2007) state that current management education fails to meet the challenges of sustainability, with some suggesting an overall conceptual change to administration (banerjee, 2004; springett, 2005). this idea requires a new look at organizational theories, management practices, and the role of the manager and the professionals working within companies. in addition to sustainability’s many conceptual, institutional, and cultural challenges, raufflet (2013) and others question, for example, the potential of the curriculum and current pedagogical practices in administration courses to promote critical reflexive capacity in the classroom (alvesson & willmott, 1999; antonacopoulou, 2010) and to prompt students to think about sustainability from a more critical viewpoint (bevan, 2014; wankel & stoner, 2009). thus, it is necessary to rethink education for sustainability within the context of management (banerjee, 2004) in order to develop new knowledge, skills, and values in the discipline and to prepare competent citizens and workers who can contribute to sustainable metropolitan areas and to society in general. within this model, it is essential to apply teaching and learning approaches that will produce business professionals not solely focused on how to increase production and sales, but also on strategies to rethink ways of doing business and relating to different stakeholders. it is in this context that critical reflection (cr) and transformative learning (tl) might inform higher education’s development of graduates who become reflexive professionals for sustainability within the corporate sector. however, the question remains: how can the assumptions of critical reflection and transformative learning contribute to the development of reflexive professionals in sustainability within the management field? first, it is essential to review how the meaning of sustainability education in management is contextualized, highlighting challenges discussed in the literature. next, the article presents the major concepts of critical reflection (cr) and transformative learning (tl) theories, which will serve as the basis for discussions about the development of reflexive professionals in sustainability. to answer the research problem, the third part will present the main assumptions of cr and tl, discussing how they can contribute to the teaching and learning of sustainability in management. regarding pedagogical challenges, this discussion can bring theoretical elements that contribute to advancing the debate about what it means to develop reflexive professionals in administration. 27 additionally, this research serves as a model for researchers, teachers and coordinators interested in promoting a sustainable rationality in management courses utilized by business school graduates who are motivated and prepared to advance sustainability in metropolitan areas. education for sustainability in the management field the most common understanding of sustainability, within the context of organizations, john elkington (1997) calls “the triple bottom line,” referring to a company that contributes to sustainable development while simultaneously generating economic, social, and environmental benefits. this concept’s validity could become more apparent if companies did not limit their understanding to a utilitarian and functionalist logic, which ends up impoverishing the potential of the triple bottom line. this limited understanding of companies has some implications for the practice of sustainability within organizations. most companies end up reducing the idea of sustainable development to the concept of sustainable growth, placing the term “sustainable” only as a quality or adjective of growth, without necessarily questioning the implications of this growth for society as a whole (lélé, 1991). in addition, the principles of sustainable development under this perspective are understood from a pragmatic approach, focused exclusively on minimizing social and environmental impacts and on eco-efficient production (springett, 2005, 2010), thus assuming a more reactive than proactive character. consequently, the assumption of sustainability manifests itself as a moral mandate, a legal requirement, or an inherent cost of business development, “a necessary evil to maintain legitimacy and the right of an enterprise to function” (hart & milstein, 2004). the idea of sustainability often translates as a technical and legal problem inherent to any business organization in the world rather than a political and ideological position for democracy and inclusion (springett, 2010). the same logic also guides management courses. sustainability is already part of the curriculum, but is mostly understood and interpreted as a reaction to legal demands of the market, government, public policies, society, nongovernmental organizations, and other systems (bevan, 2014). yet, there is no change in the mainstream of management; it continues to reproduce a model and theories that contribute to the unsustainable stage of production and consumption in which humans currently live. why does this still happen? why is it so difficult to change the rationality of management education? many sustainability experts agree that business schools are institutions of power that have been built and marked by thinking that seeks to perpetuate a profit-at-any-cost mentality and which esteems the valorization of individual interests in detriment to the collective (springett, 2005; sidiropoulos, 2014). for this reason, there is an intrinsic difficulty when it comes to thinking about management education focused on sustainability because such a focus militates a new rationality in business school curricula, where values rest upon a logic that was not included in the teaching agenda until recent years. in the business world, a market that demands exclusively economic and financial results is so ingrained into the managerial mindset that near disbelief in other drivers generally diminishes any possibility of change within these courses. 28 in spite of the numerous efforts towards sustainability education (galea, 2004, 2007; kearins & springett, 2003; rauflet, 2013; wankel & stoner, 2009), several authors keep calling attention to the fact that education for sustainability in the area of management demands a paradigmatic change, which requires rethinking the role of companies in the world and forms of management (bevan, 2014; brunnquell, brunstein, & jaime, 2015; springett, 2005). changing paradigms in management means breaking with technical and pure functionalism, thus proposing a discussion of values for sustainability. this paradigm shift goes far beyond considering or simply paying attention to the social and environmental aspects in professional practice; it requires putting these aspects in the same hierarchy of importance as financial goals (springett, 2005; tilbury & wortman, 2004). it also involves changes to conception and behavior; for example: • questioning the coherence of companies’ actions, and observing the contradictions between what they do and their discourse; • observing and encouraging consistency between the behavior professionals as workers and as individuals, so their own consumption practices at home and within their families is consistent with sustainable practices they enact at work; • expanding the role of the manager, which should not be solely and exclusively to maximize profits for shareholders; • problematizing the responsibility of management theories and how they have contributed negatively to the social, economic, and environmental relations of modern society; and • questioning the meaning of the existence of the organizations. this is not an easy task; it involves dealing with conflicts, tensions, and paradoxes (brookfield, kalliath, & laiken, 2006). it requires asking the manager to review the expansion of the business, to produce less, and/or to give up part of the profit in favor of socio-environmental objectives, all of which go against most priorities within business strategy. it is in this sense that the task of management education should not simply exist to alert students to problems within sustainability or just to instruct them with tools that aim only to minimize negative social and environmental impacts, instead of work on values and proactive change for the common good (kuchinke, 2010). instead, a paradigmatic shift toward personal values and institutional structures is necessary for an ecological and social responsibility mindset development in management education (springett, 2005; sterling, 2011; sidiropoulos, 2014). courses in management education should act as spaces for reflection, leading students to question the current model of unsustainable management and to think about alternatives that are consistent with sustainability assumptions. it is in this context that researchers question the central assumptions of management theories and practices; doing so is considered fundamental in the process of paradigmatic change for sustainability (bevan, 2014; springett, 2005, 2010). therefore, they consider the theories of critical reflection (cr) and transformative learning (tl) as key constructs supporting the move to a new paradigm in the teaching and learning of management. 29 the meaning of critical reflection and transformative learning literature and studies (schön, 1983; antonacoupoulou, 2010; woerkom, 2004) widely debate the importance of critical reflection for professional practice, and it can still be difficult to even locate a formal definition for the term (kember, mckay, sinclair, & wong, 2008). critical reflection often appears as synonymous with other expressions such as reflexive thinking, reflection and critical thinking. therefore, it is necessary to understand what critical reflection means, and understand conceptual differences that appear in the literature. discussions about reflection as a formal process in education appear to have begun with john dewey, who is credited with the origin of the concept of reflexive thinking (kember et al., 2008; mezirow, 1991; schön, 1983). for dewey (1933), reflexive thinking is a process of knowledge construction sustained by action and reflection. in this process, students build knowledge on reflection upon action, after this action has already taken place. thus, each lived experience contributes to enriching the repertoire of experiences and previous knowledge that will serve as a basis for reflective thinking in future situations. dewey (1933) emphasizes that reflection is not only a sequence of units defined and linked together but also a consequence, with the result of this connection a continuous movement in search of a common end. reflective thinking is meant to arrive at an outcome, at a conclusion, suggesting the application of thought solves a problem. like dewey (1933), schön (1983) highlights reflection that occurs at the same time as the action (reflection in action). for schön (1983), reflection in action challenges professionals to not only apply acquired knowledge and continue to follow established and known rules and processes, but also to respond to new problems that arise in the daily life of their professions. such knowledge and techniques come from reflection in action, which mobilizes the individual to create new mental structures based on the evaluation of experiences previously lived. influenced by critical theorists such as jurgen habermas and paulo freire, mezirow (1991) makes a counterpoint to the ideas of dewey (1933) and schön (1983), positing that when these authors are talking about reflection, they are not necessarily speaking of critical reflection. according to mezirow (1991), dewey deals with reflection in the context of problem-solving, putting the consequences of action before thinking, so that humans know what they are about to face when acting. reflection then involves “a review of the way we consciously, consistently, and purposefully applied ideas in strategizing and implementing each phase of solving a problem” (mezirow, 1991, p.101). this process follows a hypothetical-deductive model, which is part of instrumental learning: identification and formulation of the problem, the search for evidence, hypothesis development, hypothesis testing, and its reformulation based on the researcher’s feedback. dewey understood this process as a critical investigation. however, mezirow (1991) points out that, while dewey's reflection ends in the formulation of an outcome as a form of conclusion, it only involves a review of the evidence supporting this conclusion (assertions taken for granted); therefore, it cannot be considered critical. for mezirow (1991), the problem of dewey's conception is that he does not explicitly differentiate the function or nature of reflection. for this reason, mezirow (1991) presents a distinction between the different roles of reflection: reflection on content, reflection on process, and reflection on premises. when faced with a situation, humans usually think about the content 30 of the problem (reflection on content) and the strategies and procedures to solve the issue (reflection on process). when the person questions the cause of the problem and why it exists, evaluating not only content and process but also norms, codes, common sense, ideologies, and paradigms that are taken for granted, he is reflecting on premises. the criticism of the premises is what mezirow understood as problem-posing, and involves picking up a problematic situation considered as certain and raising questions about its validity (mezirow, 1991, p. 105). reflection on premises is that which mezirow (1991) understands as critical reflection (cr). reflection refers to the act of intentionally evaluating the individual's action, whereas cr involves not only the nature and consequence of the action, but also includes the circumstances of its origin (mezirow, 1995). the first is based on the solution of problems (problem-solving oriented), and the second on problematizing the origin of the problem (problem-posing oriented). along the same lines, brookfield (1987) explains that critical thinking refers to the questioning of assumptions previously held to be true about how the world works. such inquiries prompt a thorough examination of what was previously unquestionable about ways of thinking and living. in this way, they intend cr to focus on power relationship and hegemony. while these are inherent processes to any human being living in society, cr involves questioning the power relations that allow and/or promote a set of practices. this kind of reflection can prompt the realization that certain practices generally perceived as natural, common, and desirable are, in fact, constructed and reproduced by self-serving interest groups who hold the power to protect the status quo. thus, cr focuses not only on “how to work more effectively or produce more” within an existing system, but also questions structures that support this system, evaluating morality and considering alternatives (brookfield, 2010, 2012). for mezirow (1991), while thoughtful action or reflection is part of an instrumental learning, critical reflection opens the possibility of transforming our perspectives. for this reason, the concept of critical reflection is at the core of the theory of transformative learning. transformative learning can be defined as “learning that transforms problematic reference patterns to make them more inclusive, distinct, reflective, open, and emotionally capable of change” (mezirow, 2010, 22). when people reinterpret an experience from a new set of perspectives, giving a new meaning to an old experience, observers can say that a transformation is taking place, or that learning is transformative. reflexive learning involves evaluation and reassessment of assumptions and becomes transformative whenever assumptions or premises are misleading and invalid. while instrumental learning (which does not involve critical reflection) refers to the process of assigning an old meaning to a new experience, transforming learning is the process of assigning a new meaning to an experience, new or old. in this sense, the fundamental dynamic of transformative learning is to make meaning, to create new meanings for an experience. this is only possible through critical reflection on premises (mezirow, 1991). finally, it is important to point out the professor/educator role in transformative learning. according to brookfield (1987), because critical thinking is a living activity, a process of thinking about new possibilities, others, such as faculty, can facilitate it. they can foster critical thinking in their students when they listen to students’ stories and experiences with empathy, act 31 as interlocutors, or help students create connections between actions and seemingly dissimilar thoughts, help learners to reflect on the reasons for their actions and reactions. in this way they may encourage the students to identify the underlying assumptions of their choices, behaviors, and decisions. this in turn may help students to realize that while their actions are delineated by context, they can be altered in order to be more congruent with the desires—in short, faculty teach transformatively when they provide students with the opportunity and space for reflection and analysis. critical thinking is not only an academic process that leads students to earn high grades, write good essays, and demonstrate hypotheses, but also a way of living that helps keep them safe when countless organizations (corporate, political, educational, and cultural) try to make them think in a way that serves only the organizations’ purposes and needs (brookfield, 2012). in the management context, the positioning of management to ensure ideological conformity without questioning the principles of the model of development is incongruous with the view of democracy and emancipation of critical educators (banerjee, 2011). the taylorist connotation, in which people are trained to manage others and achieve maximum productivity, does not match the social movement for democracy advocated by critical educators (brookfield et al., 2006). critical reflection within management education would require examining the inherent contradictions between capitalism (maximize profits as the prime objective) and democracy (emancipation and better lives for citizens), much of the study in this area tends to remain at other levels of reflection (reynolds, 1998), not reaching critical reflection. it is in this context that the theories of cr and tl impact studies related to education for sustainability in management education. the next section discusses how assumptions of these theories can contribute to the development of the reflexive professional in sustainability in the area of management. reflexive professional development for sustainability in management this article proposes that utilizing cr and tl perspectives in management education for sustainability requires questioning both supposed “common sense” as well as dominant ideologies perceived as givens. for graduates entering work and community life in the metropolitan area, with its interconnected web of corporate, political, educational, and social concerns, there must exist a space in their educational plan for a review of management models and the development of new responses. otherwise, the status quo will always remain. what kinds of questions may arise to create disorienting dilemmas for management students that can trigger transformative realizations? questions that can help students to make a qualitative leap, going beyond a purely pragmatic approach to sustainability education? the following examples have appeared in recent literature: • the meaning of business success: what does success mean in the corporate world when considering assumptions about sustainability? • how one evaluates the results of business actions: do quantitative indicators account for measuring business success? what qualitative indicators are important to incorporate into sustainability goals and targets? 32 • the meaning of risk: what is the risk in the corporate universe? economic risk only? what are other risks that management should consider, as well? • value creation: what nature of value are managers talking about and for whom? economic value only? • nature of business impacts: what are the impacts for nature and for people? how is one's business operating, and is it benefiting or hurting others? who is winning or losing with one's actions? • unidimensionality or multidimensionality of business objectives: does the company have multiple objectives, or is profit the sole objective? what logic prevails? • the reason for being a company: what is the purpose of the company? why and for whom does it exist? • power relations: who holds power to maintain the status quo? how do they attain and maintain the power? how do they persuade others to maintain their perspectives? for springett (2010, p. 80), “a critical perspective does not accept things at face value. takenfor-granted beliefs are to be challenged: they are contingent, have been constructed and can change. questions are asked about who ‘constructed’ things, how they are made, and why.” based on this idea, it is essential to differentiate the concept of the professional in sustainability from the reflexive professional in sustainability. the latter refers to that individual who will not only solve problems (problem solving oriented), but who will also question the problem (problem-posing oriented). figure 1 discusses the nature of such professionals. 33 source: prepared by authors figure 1. the sustainability professional: non-reflexive and reflexive. according to springett (2010), management departments should design courses to help students become aware of business activities, governments, and institutions that have been harmful to the environment and people. sustainability, in management and business organizations, should be examined through critical lenses, with the purpose of questioning the different discourses and relationships established between the company and its stakeholders. for springett (2003), without the examination between discourses and business actions, there is a risk of continuing to reproduce an unsustainable model and reinforce the logic of weak sustainability, which seeks to maintain a functional position that is at the service of sustainable growth, not development. management education should create paths to move to another logic, strong sustainability, which is political and progressive, aiming at development as a democratic force (springett, 2003). the concept of strong sustainable development emerges from nature's treatment of social equity and eco-justice. it is less instrumental and more participatory, aiming to contribute to “quality of life,” which presupposes a change in the dominant social paradigm. 34 it is important to clarify that this discussion neither minimizes nor disregards the importance of the instrumental, technological, and philanthropic actions from the companies in the teachinglearning process of sustainability. the consideration of more technical and pragmatic issues of order are necessary, emphasizing that education for sustainability should not be reductive (springett, 2010). to give an example, when analyzing experiences of management professors that included sustainability in their disciplines, brunnquell, brunstein, and jaime (2015, p.339) identify experiences that demonstrate approximations with the principles of cr and tl. this applies to those professors who: • indicated the intention to surpass traditional views of the subject, replacing them with others; • rendered administrators responsible for their decisions and led them to consider indicators that surpass economic and financial analysis; • added discussions on ethics, transparency, communication with stakeholders, and social justice to the traditional objectives of their subjects; • placed the evolution of the administration science within a historical perspective, based on the good and the bad of what it has provided for society, discussing its implications for contemporary management; • demonstrated a concern towards reviewing the role of administrators and the practice of management itself; • placed students in a position to confront a management model that indicated signs of exhaustion and invited them to think about the need for a new model, one that would take into consideration elements which until recently had not been part of the administrative function. the assumptions of critical reflection and transformative learning can contribute to the development of reflexive professionals in sustainability in the area of management (see figure 2). this, in turn, can reinforce and impel the formation of a generation of management professionals that is more committed to the common good, and less focused on eminently individualistic interests. assumptions of critical reflection and transformative learning: contributions to the formation of reflexive professionals in sustainability: • encouraging students to break with existing standards and beliefs; • presupposing a revision of students' assumptions, prejudices, and a questioning of our reason and practice; • requiring a change in the way students interpret the world, searching for new meanings, new understandings, and new ways of living. • overcoming the traditional management model, constructing new meanings for management practices; • educating the professionals to perceive the contradictions (in practice and discourse) in which organizational actions are immersed, as well as observing and comparing different conducts of companies; • putting sustainability as an essential value for the professional; 35 • requiring engagement in collaborative and systemic actions; • demanding a reflection on the students' ideas and beliefs, and the questioning of ways of seeing, of existing perspectives, of arguments and propositions, of common sense and dominant assumptions; • involving criticism of the assumptions upon which our beliefs are built and foster changes in the pattern of referrals of individuals; • implying an evaluation of what is being reflected, looking for similarities and differences between what is being experienced at a given time and previous learning; • demanding a positive, productive, and active relationship between teachers and students, based on interaction and dialogue; • developing students’ essential skills, sensitivities, and understandings to become critical and active reflexive individuals. • emancipating the individual, enhancing their role as change agent for sustainability; • rethinking the role of organizations in society. provoking deeper discussions of decision-making processes within management models utilizing practices that minimize sustainability-related problems; • discussing the social role of companies and their business models, proposing new business models; • educate skilled professionals in establishing relationships with peers from other areas of the organization, seeking to find solutions for sustainability problems; • overcoming teaching in sustainability anchored in a technical, instrumental perspective only; • working on the causes and consequences of unsustainability, enabling practitioners to understand and act on the political forces that nurture or impede the advancement of sustainability; • helping professionals to position themselves politically, but, at the same time, to be able to produce sustainable projects; • breaking with the students' apathy and helping students understand the organization not only as an economic force, but also a political one; and to develop its capacity for influence. source: prepared by the authors figure 2. synthesis of the assumptions of critical reflection and transformative learning and its contributions. developing reflexive professionals able to question critically sustainability-related issues is a growing global imperative, especially in urban environments. according to the united nation population projections, approximately 4.9 billion people will be living in cites by 2030 (undesa, 2006); with this increase in the number of people in cities, reflexive professionals advocating sustainability will be more important than ever to overcome sustainability challenges, launch innovations, and uncover opportunities. as stated by allen, gerwing and mcbride (2009), there are compelling reasons for universities serving metropolitan areas to mobilize their research and educational programs around sustainability challenges and to engage in sustainability-related partnerships relevant to their respective communities. 36 in metropolitan environments, where most businesses operate on the standard model of enhancing shareholder value as the prime objective, crand tl-centered business school instructional practices can be a lever for helping move the metro area to more generalized standards and principles of serving the social good and the environment as a necessary part of reaching the bottom line. conclusion the objective of this article was to discuss how critical reflection (cr) and transformative learning (tl) could contribute to the development of reflective professionals in sustainability within management education. to answer this question, it is imperative that sustainability education requires a paradigm shift (bevan, 2014; springett, 2005, 2010) that is necessary in order to construct another rationality in the business world. this rationality demands a revision of standards that, until recently, were considered acceptable and with which people are familiar, such as unsustainable production and consumption modes and prioritization of economic objectives. responses that are merely technological or pragmatic are insufficient for the imposed challenge. such responses are important, but they respond to specific and objective problems, usually those that stem from law or social pressure threatening the survival of businesses. in short, this kind of response from businesses and corporations does not contribute to moving towards more substantive changes. if there are not more critical looks at sustainability in organizations, there will be no change in beliefs, assumptions, conceptions, and values, and the corporative behavior will continue to reproduce only an unsustainable model of organization, in search of solutions to problemsolving, without questioning the problem itself (problem-posing). in this sense, the assumptions of cr and tl are necessary considerations in sustainability education, because they will help management professionals think about why problems exist: how do organizations contribute to the standards of the unsustainable life? what does it mean to be a sustainable company? what kind of business is acceptable in a society that is socially and environmentally just? what should business be? (springett, 2005), and so on. this task is neither simple nor lacking in mistrust and paradoxes. the strength of the idea of sustainability seems incredible to many, and much disbelief exists that it is possible to operate in a more sustainable way, pursuing other objectives besides maximizing profit for shareholders. therefore, to materialize this change, it is fundamental to foster a deeper, substantive thinking in students in management education courses, asking them to face disorienting dilemmas and question their assumptions. this practice will allow the future professionals to become reflexive about the theme, and to see sustainability in business through other lenses while thinking about new management possibilities. ultimately, the contribution that universities serving metropolitan areas can make to the quality of life in their community rests largely on developing graduates, who as a matter of course, act 37 on the realizations about sustainability they learned as a result of critical reflection and transformative learning in their management courses. the theoretical examination presented in this paper may contribute to future empirical studies in the form of action research, collaborative research, or other pedagogical/andragogical scholarship of both theory and practice. the main objective of such research should be to foster the development of teaching/learning strategies capable of promoting cr and tl for sustainability management education. 38 references allen, j. h., gerwing, j. j., & mcbride, l. g. 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(2010). third wave sustainability in higher education: some (inter)national trends and developments. in p. jones, d. selby, and s. sterling (eds.). sustainability education: perspectives and practice across higher education (pp. 55‒74). london: earthscan. wankel, c., & stoner, j. a. f. (2009). management education for global sustainability. charlotte: information age publishing. woerkom, m. van. (2004). the concept of critical reflection and its implications for human resource development. advances in developing human resources, 6 (2), 178‒192. https://doi.org/10.1177/1523422304263328 wright, t. (2004). the evolution of sustainability declarations in higher education. in p. b. corcoran and a. wals (eds.). higher education and the challenge of sustainability: problematics, promise and practice (pp. 7‒19). dordrecht: kluwer academic publishers. https://doi.org/10.1007/0-306-48515-x_2 zint, m. t. (2011). evaluation education for sustainable development programs. in w. leal filho (ed.). world trends on education for sustainable development (pp. 329‒348). frankfurt: peter lang. https://doi.org/10.1080/1350462990050306 https://doi.org/10.1108/14676371011077595 https://doi.org/10.1177/1523422304263328 https://doi.org/10.1007/0-306-48515-x_2 42 author information claudine brunnquell is a doctoral student from the graduate program in business administration at presbyterian university mackenzie. she has completed her master’s degree, studying issues related to sustainability education in business schools in brazil. her work is focused on teaching and learning process for sustainability, and development of reflexive professionals for sustainability in the academic context. *claudine brunnquell department of business administration universidade presbiteriana mackenzie rua da consolação, 930 são paulo, sp brazil zip code: 01302-907 e-mail: claudine.brunnquell@gmail.com telephone: +55 11 998882959 janette brunstein is professor and researcher of business administration at post-graduation program in business administration from presbyterian university mackenzie. her work focuses on education, learning, and development of competences for sustainability in both academic and organizational environments. during the last eight of her 10+ years in academe, she has coordinated projects within the national ambit, supported by organs in furtherance of the brazilian government’s aim to insert the thematic of sustainability into business administration courses. janette brunstein universidade presbiteriana mackenzie rua aimberé, 1775 – apto 41 são paulo – sp – brazil. zip code: 01258-020 email: janette@mackenzie.br telephone: 55 +11 995701140 * corresponding author mailto:janette@mackenzie.br metropolitan universities vol. 29 no. 1 (february 2018), doi: 10.18060/22170 equity-minded faculty development: an intersectional identity-conscious community of practice model for faculty learning1 kimberly a. costino abstract equity-minded institutional transformation requires robust faculty learning. research has shown that the single most important factor in student success is faculty interaction. positive, supportive, and empowering faculty interaction is particularly important to the success of female students, poor and working class students, and students of color, but most faculty are not prepared to offer the kind of support that has been shown to be most effective for marginalized students. if institutions are serious about equity and about transformation, then they are obligated to provide professional development that will support the learning necessary for faculty to fulfill these important roles and to support faculty financially or by buying their time to participate in it. an effective way to do this is to align such professional development with the urgent needs of the campus and their related campus-wide initiatives. this article describes a community of practice model of identity-conscious professional development that engages faculty in a scholarly approach to the science of learning and evidence-based teaching and curriculum development while at the same time insistently and consistently incorporating critical reflection on and exploration of how systems of power and oppression impact learning. we believe this faculty engagement is key to transforming our institution into a more equitable and inclusive learning environment for students and faculty alike. keywords: faculty development; faculty communities of practice; identity-consciousness; learning as social participation; equity-minded institutional transformation the role of faculty and faculty learning in equity-minded institutional transformation for more than ten years, the american association of colleges and universities (aac&u) has been working to help colleges and universities throughout the country transform themselves in ways that will better prepare all students to meet the complex demands of the 21st century. toward this end, the association has developed and promoted “essential learning outcomes,” as a “guiding vision” for learning in higher education, emphasizing the need for ongoing, authentic 1 participation in multiple communities of practice has helped me, in collaboration with many others, to develop the program for faculty professional learning described here. i was first immersed in a community of practice model of professional learning in my work with nika hogan and the california community college success network (3csn) on the threshold project and reading apprenticeship communities of practice. since then, i have worked with my colleagues on my own campus to adapt this statewide model for csusb’s transformation work. my most significant csusb collaborators include davida fischman, kirsten fleming, and qiana wallace. all of these colleagues have made significant contributions to the work described here. i am grateful for the opportunity to work with and learn from them all. 118 assessment of student learning at all levels of the university. this information supported the implementation of high-impact practices that have been shown to increase student engagement, to foster deep learning in students, and to therefore improve retention and graduation rates. more recently, it has launched the leap challenge, which asks universities to embed “signature work” into the curriculum in an effort to prepare students to productively address the unscripted problems that will characterize the world in the 21st century and beyond. as carol geary schneider (2015), the aac&u president who launched this initiative, put it, the best way to prepare students to create solutions in a complex world, the leap challenge affirms, is to actively involve students in working on problem-centered inquiry from the time they enter college (and, optimally, before) until they successfully complete their degrees—two-year and four-year degrees alike. the "challenge," then, is to prepare every college student—yes, every one of them—to engage complex problems and questions and to ensure that they develop facility in evidence-based inquiry, analysis, and decision-making. schneider’s emphasis on “every” college student, as well as the organization’s oft-used phrase “inclusive excellence,” highlights aac&u’s efforts to encourage colleges and universities to make attention to equity central to their transformation work. this means focusing explicitly on fostering both the willingness and the ability to understand the historical and systemic roots of students’ differing needs, and to respond effectively to those needs in ways that will ensure equality in outcomes and opportunity, as well as in access. indeed, much of the recent research and scholarship in higher education argues that improving student success, fostering deeper learning in students and increasing retention and graduation rates, cannot be achieved unless we create more equitable and inclusive institutions (elrod & kezar, 2016; pendakur 2016; mcnair et al., 2016). a substantial body of research indicates that the most significant factor in student success, particularly for students who do not enter the university with the kind of social and cultural capital most valued in academia, is faculty-student interaction (bensimon, 2007; kezar, 2014; pendakur, 2016; umbach & wawrzynski, 2005). with respect to classroom practice, research indicates that holding students to high academic standards, engaging them in culturally-responsive, student-centered, problem-centered, activelearning strategies, and providing ongoing formative assessment about their progress on learning goals and outcomes can have a significant impact on student learning and success. it also suggests that interactions outside the classroom, such as working on research projects, serving on committees together and chatting informally can be equally impactful on retention. according to pendakur (2016) the key ingredient in all of these interactions is faculty members’ willingness and ability to serve as “empowering agents,” in students’ academic lives. [empowering agents] call into question the race-blind, gender-blind standards of a meritocracy by naming and challenging the extant stratification in u.s. higher education [and who] leverage their positions and capacities to either directly transmit or negotiate access to highly prized, key forms of institutional resources, support, and opportunities while concurrently working to alter the institution from the inside. 119 building from the work of bensimon (2007), pendakur (2016) argues that serving as successful empowerment agents entails critically reflecting on one’s own position, power, privilege, experiences and beliefs, challenging deficit–minded representations of students, and recognizing, acknowledging, and building from the cultural and community wealth students bring with them to our institutions. while pendakur (2016) makes a convincing case for the effectiveness of these empowerment agents within his broader “intersectional identity-conscious approach to student success,” the ability to successfully serve in this capacity (and to integrate this approach in ways that are helpful to marginalized students) requires sensitivity, support, and expertise that faculty members do not necessarily acquire as part of their academic preparation. indeed, as bensimon (2007) points out, “institutions have difficulties producing equitable educational outcomes partly because practitioners lack the specialized knowledge and expertise to recognize the racialized nature of the collegiate experience for african-american and latina/o students and adjust their practices accordingly” (446). we are, therefore, obligated to provide the kind of professional development that will support faculty to develop this sensitivity and expertise as part of the work of institutional transformation. the purpose of this article is to describe a “community of practice” model (wenger 2000) of identity-based (pendakur 2016) professional development being implemented at california state university, san bernardino (csusb) that is intended to foster this kind of sensitivity and expertise among its faculty. rooted in the theory of learning as participation, communities of practice are groups of people who interact on an on-going basis, within a series of loosely structured learning environments, in order to deepen their knowledge about a particular topic. identity-based approaches to professional development seek to deepen participants’ understanding of their own and others’ identities in an effort to foster more equitable and inclusive learning environments. csusb’s identity-conscious community of practice leverages existing institutional initiatives and relies heavily on a faculty learning community model for depth of learning, while simultaneously offering multiple levels or tiers of participation in the community of practice as a whole. building from the assumption that because faculty are scholars, they must be engaged in a scholarly approach to learning, the model positions and engages faculty as learners, first by asking them to inquire into the science of learning and disciplinary habits of mind, and then recursively extending this inquiry into equity, inclusion, and exclusion. in so doing, it embeds attention to, and serves as a model for, the kind of curriculum and pedagogy that research suggests fosters inclusive excellence. the curriculum and content are structured in ways that reflect what research tells us about how people learn (bransford, et al., 1999; kober, n. 2015). it focuses on helping faculty think more metacognitively about—to become more consciously aware of—their own disciplinary ways of thinking and practicing and how to effectively apprentice students into these ways of thinking and doing (cousin, 2006; meyer and land, 2006; middendorf & pace, 2004). and it consistently and insistently incorporates critical reflection on and exploration of how racism, sexism, and other systems of power and oppression impact learning, exposing the ways that our interactions with students both in and outside the classroom can either work to create and maintain or to challenge and dismantle institutional and cultural inequities (bensimon, 2007; mcnair et al, 2016; pendakur, 2016; steele, 2010; yosso 2005). taken together, these strategies are gradually 120 building a campus culture that nourishes ongoing and transformative faculty learning about how to create more equitable and inclusive learning environments for students. institutional context csusb, a federally designated hispanic-serving institution, is one of 23 institutions in the california state university (csu) system. it serves approximately 21,000 students, the majority of whom are first-generation college-goers (80%), female (62%), hispanic (62%), and pell grant recipients (63%) (ir.csusb.edu). eighty-five percent of the student population comes from the inland empire of southern california, a diverse, economically depressed region that ranks last in terms of educational achievement among communities with more than 1 million residents (brown, 2017). in aggregate, the fourand six-year graduation rates for our students are 12% and 55% respectively. the fourand six-year graduation rates for white students are 21% and 59% and for students of color they are 10% and 53%. further disaggregation shows even greater disparity in outcomes for african-american students at 9% and 47%. such data indicates that csusb is precisely the kind of institution that needs to think about transformation in terms of equity and inclusion. it is a clear example of an institution that needs to proactively address the “opportunity gaps” for low-income students and students of color and to become the studentready campus its student population needs it to be. the equity-minded transformation work currently being undertaken at csusb is part of the larger csu system’s graduation initiative 2025 (gi 2025), which aims to add 100,000 more baccalaureate degree-educated citizens to california by 2025 (csu, 2017) and our campus’s local efforts to convert from quarters to semesters (q2s) in fall 2020. the two initiatives are related because the q2s conversion provides an opportunity for the faculty to completely rethink and realign the curriculum in more equity-minded and pedagogically sound ways. given that csusb is a predominantly female, minority-serving institution, explicitly addressing equity issues as part of the q2s curriculum transformation will undoubtedly work toward the goals of gi 2025. however, embedding attention to these concerns at the program, course, and facultystudent interaction levels in meaningful ways requires expertise regarding equity-minded teaching and learning that bensimon’s work suggests most faculty members to not necessarily possess. the q2s team has therefore leveraged the csusb administration’s need to meet the chancellor’s office gi 2025 goals to garner a significant amount of funding to encourage and support faculty to participate in professional learning opportunities intended to foster “equitymindedness”—defined here as a way of thinking and practicing that draws attention to and seeks to actively address patterns of inequity in student outcomes—as part of the quarter to semester curriculum transformation process. more specifically, faculty members can choose to convert their programs by adapting their existing program to fit the new semester calendar and requirements or apply for a grant to completely transform their programs. grant money is contingent upon faculty participation in learning opportunities that ask them to: a) study the scholarship regarding how people learn, including the impact that drawing on students’ cultural wealth has on learning; b) think metacognitively about their disciplinary identities and disciplinary habits of mind and how this intersects with other aspects of their identities, such as their race, class, gender, religion, etc.; and c) explore and implement equity-minded, evidence 121 based teaching practices that allow students to bring their various identities to these disciplinary habits of mind in ways that might work toward a more equitable and inclusive culture and society. before funds are dispersed, faculty must submit their new programs with a narrative that explains how the new program embeds equity-mindedness in its structure and how attention to equity in outcome, to closing the opportunity gap for poor students and student of color, will continually be assessed and addressed. to date, 80% of our programs have chosen to transform, which means that the vast majority of the faculty at csusb (including adjunct faculty members, who are also eligible for funding to participate in this community of practice) will engage in a significant amount of professional learning regarding equity-minded teaching by fall 2020. theoretical framework for our approach to faculty learning much research and scholarship in the field of professional development has indicated that the traditional model of one-shot faculty professional development workshops is not substantive enough to foster the kind of systemic, equity-minded institutional change csusb seeks. genuine transformation of this nature requires deep learning within and culture change among the faculty (beach & cox, 2009; cox, 2001; desrocher, 2010; and hubball and beach, 2004). the literature regarding the science of learning suggests that deep, transformational learning for faculty, like deep, transformational learning for students, requires actively grappling with concepts, ideas and problems, organizing one’s own knowledge and meaning-making related to these problems, and testing this new knowledge against one’s prior knowledge over a sustained period of time with multiple opportunities for feedback, support, reflection, and revision (bransford et al. 1999; kober, 2015). this kind of intellectual work is absolutely consistent with faculty culture. this is important because the research regarding how institutions change (kezar, 2014) suggests that meaningful change is more likely to come about if change agents intentionally work in ways consistent with the culture in which they are trying to make change. the approach to faculty learning geared toward equity-minded institutional transformation at csusb, therefore, is intellectually challenging, engaging and sustained; it acknowledges and leverages faculty members’ identities as disciplinary experts who are used to developing their own scholarly inquiries in an effort to contribute to the knowledge-base of their fields. in short, it assumes that if scholars in our institution are expected to engage and learn and grow, in terms of their ability and willingness to teach in equity-minded ways and to serve as empowering agents for students, then the professional learning in which they participate must position them as scholarly learners who conduct scholarly inquiry into equity-minded teaching and learning in order to contribute to equity-minded institutional transformation in meaningful ways, over an extended period of time. we have chosen to employ a community of practice model to structure our identity-based approach to faculty professional development and learning at csusb. research shows that they have been used effectively in educational, business, and governmental sectors to “steward” knowledge within organizations and, in so doing, to profoundly transform institutions (childs et al, 2011; cox, 2005; oeas et al, 2012; reed, 2014; wenger, 1999; and wenger et al, 2002). such effectiveness, however, largely depends on how they are designed. according to wenger et al (2002), in order for a community of practice to sustain and develop learning and to “steward” knowledge throughout the institution in transformative ways, the community of practice must be designed for “aliveness.” when designed appropriately, communities of practice are, and are viewed by the community, as relevant, valuable, and “alive” enough to continually attract new 122 members, while continuing to engage more experienced members in deeper ways (cox, 2005; oeas et al, 2012; reed, 2014; wenger et al, 2002). according to reed (2014), communities of practice are best cultivated by: “(1) allowing for organic evolution in their structures, (2) opening a dialogue among people with both inside and outside perspectives, (3) inviting different levels of participation over time and depending upon current topics, (4) providing both public and private community spaces, (5) focusing on the value of the community (likely both sharing problems and needs and building a body of knowledge), (6) combining familiarity and excitement, and (7) creating a rhythm for the community.” the identity-conscious community of practice model of professional learning at csusb was created with these design principles in mind. it is intended to embody the social theory of learning as participation and to raise consciousness about how identity, power, and institutionalized racism, sexism and other oppressive power structures impact learning, opportunity and success. csusb’s community of practice consists of a variety of professional development structures and activities—faculty learning communities (flcs), mini-conferences, book clubs, speaker series, peer class visits and observations, and roundtable discussions—that allow for differing levels of participation. however, all focus in some way on these two core concepts/learning goals: a) learning requires active social participation that inevitably structured by power dynamics and asymmetries; and b) institutional racism, sexism, and other forms of institutionalized oppression impact learning, opportunity, and outcome. how faculty interact with students matters to the kind of impact these forms of injustice ultimately has. however, while all of the aforementioned activities are offered as part of the overall community of practice, the primary structure for faculty learning in csusbs model is the flc. in “introduction to faculty learning communities,” cox (2004) defines flcs as groups of cross-disciplinary faculty who “engage in an active, collaborative, yearlong program with a curriculum about enhancing teaching and learning and with frequent seminars and activities that provide learning, development, the scholarship of teaching, and community building” (8). according to beach and cox (2009), when implemented with integrity, flcs, compared to other forms of faculty development, are “more (a) structured, (b) intensive, (c) focused on completing the deliverables, (d) focused on the social aspects of building community, (e) focused on the scholarship of teaching and learning, and (f) focused on the team aspect while developing individual projects” (as reported in desrocher (2010), p. 3). they break down silos, build community, provide a safe, supportive, and effective environment for faculty learning, and, in so doing, they have been shown to create the grassroots networks needed to create and sustain cultural shifts and systemic institutional change (beach & cox, 2009; cox, 2001; hubball & beach, 2004). while the flc structure is the core of our community of practice model, the variety of activities mentioned above is necessary to keep the overall community of practice “alive.” according to wenger et al (2002), “alive” communities generally have three main levels of participation (1) a core group of people who take on leadership roles by “identify[ing] topics for the community to address and mov[ing] the community along its learning agenda”; (2) an active group who attends meetings regularly and occasionally takes on leadership roles; and (3) peripheral members, “who keep to the sidelines, watching the interactions and listening to the dialogues among the core and active members.” rather than require particular levels of engagement or participation, successful 123 communities of practice create opportunities for semiprivate interaction and learning that still has impact and might ultimately draw these members into more active participation. within the csusb model, the roundtables function to introduce and attract potential faculty participants to the questions, ideas, and activities central to the community of practice. these functions provide a venue for the active members to share their projects with more peripheral faculty members. they emphasize the value of the work of the community of practice both to the faculty participants themselves, as well as to the institution more generally. similarly, full-day workshops serve to introduce faculty to the ideas and questions that will be more fully explored in the flcs, by allowing workshop participants to experience equity-minded, evidence-based teaching practices and engage in discussion about them before committing to the time the flcs demand. in addition to attracting new members, these activities, among others, such as brown bag lunches, also provide a way for faculty who have already participated in an flc to stay connected to the project and to share and develop their expertise, even if they are not participating in a different flc. the inquiry-based, identity-conscious curriculum given the active, participatory nature of learning and the commitment to scholarly inquiry that characterizes faculty culture, the two concepts at the core of our community of practice—1) learning requires active social participation that inevitably structured by power dynamics and asymmetries and 2) institutional racism, sexism, and other forms of institutionalized oppression impact learning, opportunity, and outcome; how faculty interact with students matters to the kind of impact these forms of injustice ultimately have—are not something we can simply tell faculty and then expect these ideas to significantly impact how faculty interact with their students both in and outside of their classrooms. instead, we must engage faculty in scholarly inquiry around four essential questions that will reveal and reinforce those two key ideas in deep and meaningful ways. the four essential questions that explicitly guide our entire community of practice are: 1. how does learning work? 2. how can we make our disciplinary habits of mind, the ways of thinking and practicing that contribute to complex wicked problem-solving visible to students and invite them into our disciplinary communities in ways that allow them to integrate the identities, values, and commitments they bring with them with the new ways of thinking and doing that they are developing at the university? 3. what are equity-minded, high-impact, evidence-based curricular design and teaching practices and how can we implement them in ways that engage how people learn, foster disciplinary habits of mind and build from the cultural wealth and connections to community that our students bring with them to their university experience? 4. how can we change the discourse about student learning and success from what students can’t do to what they can and will be able to do with our support, guidance, and apprenticeship? as the facilitators of the professional learning opportunities provide resources and activities that enable faculty to explore each of these questions (as well as the ones they develop on their own, in the context of their own needs and interests), they bring attention to the roles that identity and 124 power dynamics play in learning and in access to opportunity. they also ask faculty to reflect on their own identities, learning experiences, and access to opportunities and to bring the substance of these reflections to bear on the questions and curricular and pedagogical work they conduct as part of their participation in the community of practice. threshold concepts one resource the facilitators bring to many of our professional learning activities regarding curriculum and course design is meyer and land’s (2006) notion of “threshold concepts.” according to meyer and land, threshold concepts refer to the ideas or concepts that are absolutely core to the ways of knowing and doing in a discipline. mastery and use of these concepts is indicative of an individual’s membership in a disciplinary community; it identifies them as a disciplinary expert (as, for example, a historian, a mathematician, a chemist, etc.). conversely, if an individual does not understand these ideas well enough to use them, s/he cannot move forward in the discipline, will not be recognized as an “insider” within the community, and will be unable to credibly contribute to the field’s knowledge base. many of the professional learning activities, particularly the flcs, begin with a threshold concepts approach to curriculum design and pedagogy, because it is so intricately reflective of the research regarding how people learn. it engages faculty where their passion lies—in their discipline and content knowledge—and because by explicitly engaging the faculty members’ disciplinary identities, it provides a nice bridge to talking about student identity, what it means to be a community “insider” or “outsider,” what the markers are of “insiderand outsider-ness,” and what it entails and sometimes costs to become an “insider.” this then allows the facilitators and the participants to engage the more political and affective dimensions of learning, the role these dimensions can and should play in how we design our courses, assignments, and pedagogical approaches, and the impact they might have on the opportunity gap. the way the topic is initially introduced is to ask faculty to read about the notion of threshold concepts and then, in order to engage their background knowledge before discussion and to establish reflection as a norm for our work, we ask them to reflect on their own learning, to describe an “ah-ha moment,” or a shift in thinking. we also ask them to consider how and why such a shift was transformative and the impact this transformation has had on their identities, on the ways they see and interpret the world. the initial responses to these prompts are not usually very substantive, but participants revisit these same questions multiple times as we delve deeper into research about how people learn and the ways learning intersects with issues of power and identity. they also have the opportunity to develop them further throughout their professional learning experiences and to hear from other members of the community who may have considered these issues in a previous professional learning setting. after this reflection, participants work in disciplinary groups to identify threshold concepts in their disciplines. they brainstorm a list individually first, then come together as a disciplinary group to identify a common one to focus on, and then to work through the characteristics of threshold concepts. they then describe for the other groups outside their discipline what the disciplinary threshold concept they have chosen is (what it actually means), why it is “troublesome” for students, what is “counterintuitive” about it, what a students’ work might look 125 like when they are in the process of productively grappling with the idea, but have not yet mastered it, what pedagogical moves an instructor might make to foster such mastery, and why, when mastered, the threshold concept is “transformative” and “irreversible.” participant feedback from our flcs indicate that faculty members generally find this activity useful and engaging and are surprised to discover that although these concepts are central to their fields, they rarely address them explicitly in their courses and curriculum. they see this as a “problem” that is somewhat easily addressed. from here, participants delve more deeply into how these threshold concepts shape disciplinary habits of mind, the ways of thinking and practicing in a discipline using middendorf and pace’s (2004) “decoding the disciplines” model. more specifically, faculty participants reflect on their learning in graduate school and identify one assignment or project they needed to complete that was typical of the work they now do as a disciplinary expert, to describe how they approached the task (what they needed to do to address the task, how their approach evolved as they moved forward, etc.), and to identify what they needed to know, understand, and be able to do in order to engage productively in this work. once they’ve reflected individually, faculty members share their responses with a partner outside of their field in a structured “pair-share” activity. the listening partner is to focus on and ask probing questions about the language his/her partner uses and processes that s/he describes that are unclear. participants then regroup by discipline and share their responses and their experiences working with a partner outside their field, focusing on the similarities and differences in the task, approach, and required knowledge and skills, as well as on the language and processes their partners asked them to explain. these lists (of disciplinary problems, disciplinary ways of thinking and doing, and the knowledge and skills necessary to engage in this disciplinary work) form the basis for curriculum design, course design, signature assignments, supporting students’ successful completion of signature work, and/or whatever the focus of the faculty learning community might be. the shift to equity as noted above, in the process of engaging faculty in these explorations, attention is paid to identity and to “insider-ness” and “outsider-ness”; faculty participants discuss the distance that must be crossed in order to become an insider, what one must acquire and give up in order to cross this distance, how the distance—the quantity and the quality of it--came to be. participants further discuss how this often varies for different students based on their identities, and how we can best help students cross various disciplinary thresholds with dignity and without losing the connection to who they are and where they come from and who they would like to be and where they would like to go. in short, the flc members begin to broach the topic of the role identity and power (including institutional racism, sexism, and other –isms) play in educational access and outcome and in learning more generally. to support this exploration, participants are asked to describe, in a private, informal written reflection, how they think learning works, what supports it, and how these assumptions about learning are made manifest in their teaching practices. facilitators then introduce wenger’s social theory of learning as participation and various frameworks for and research regarding how people learn. they ask participants to discuss each theory/framework individually, to identify similarities and differences, and to compare them to their pre-conceived ideas about how 126 learning works. once they follow-up on participants’ questions and observations, they delve more deeply into the affective, social, and political dimensions of learning (bransford et al.’s first principle regarding the need to surface and engage the knowledge, ideas and assumptions students bring with them and schoenbach et al.”s “personal” and “social” dimensions of learning) and the role identity, power, and politics play in learning, opportunity, and “success.” to begin these discussions, participants read articles or excerpts from books regarding the impact various forms of oppression can have on learning and engagement. they also explore the “deficit language” that pervades so much of the discourse in higher education regarding working class students and students of color, and discuss the negative impact this can have on faculty interaction with students both in and outside the classroom. ultimately, the flc explores the question mcnair et al (2016) raise in becoming a student-ready college about what a “studentready college” might look like and what it would mean to value students’ cultural wealth, what they bring with them to the university, rather than to put the onus on students to be “collegeready” and to speak almost exclusively in terms of what they lack. in the process, faculty participants reflect privately on the ways in which their own identities and cultural wealth were or were not aligned with and valued in their own university experiences and how and why that might matter to the work they now do with students. establishing community norms engaging meaningfully in these conversations, going deeply enough to really uncover and engage honestly with some of the unconscious biases that shape how the participants think about and interact with their students, is not easy because it requires taking the notion of faculty as learners seriously. this means recognizing that people’s prior experiences and knowledge will shape how they interact, engage with, and absorb material and creating space for this knowledge and experience to be brought to bear on the conversation at hand. doing so often feels dangerous for different people, for different reasons. for example, we have had the experience where those who occupy more privileged positions deny or dismiss the ways that racism, sexism, and other systems of inequality influence learning, because they have not experienced it and/or because they cannot see it. even if no one in the group explicitly takes this position, those who have and continue to experience the exercise of unequal power structures often say they fear that such denial and dismissal will happen. experience has also shown that calling attention to the “deficit language” often used to describe students, to language many of the participants use and have used in conversation within the community of practice and elsewhere, can put some faculty members on the defensive, ultimately alienating them from the content and the community of practice. those faculty members who share identities and experiences with the students being described in those deficit terms, those faculty members who themselves have and continue to experience racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression, may also feel further wounded and alienated. losing members from either group (even if they stay, but disengage) means we limit the amount of genuine progress towards equitable transformation we can make as a campus. in order to avoid this fate, and to create conditions in which productive engagement is most likely to take place, the facilitators try to name and engage these possible tensions prior to going into these conversations. at the outset of all of the professional learning work at csusb, we establish “community agreements” for the work we will do together. these agreements, 127 generated in response to reflective prompts regarding participants’ best and worst learning experiences and what made them so, usually include things like “be willing to take risks”; “stay present/be here”; “don’t monopolize the conversation—watch your air time,” but on days when we know we are going to address the more difficult conversations about power, inequality, and social (in)justice, we intentionally revisit the community agreements we established earlier. we propose a version of the agreements that singleton (2016) argues are necessary in order to have the kind of productive conversations about race that bring about equity in schools. according to singleton (2016), participants in these conversations need to be willing to “stay engaged, experience discomfort, speak [their] truth, and expect and accept non-closure.” to help frame our conversations productively, then, we try to address the danger of disengagement upfront by proposing a variation on singleton’s agreements that we have found to be both productive and provocative. 2 we put the following six agreements on the board and ask the participants to reflect privately on what they think each agreement means and why they might be relevant to a conversation about the role racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression in learning, at our institution, and in the world of higher education more generally: 1. no shame 2. no blame 3. no guilt 4. call out “the ouch” 5. stay engaged 6. experience discomfort during the discussion of their reflections on these agreements, and before the facilitators ask if they can be added to the pre-existing community agreements, participants often share their fear or experience of saying or having unknowingly said the “wrong thing” or having been misunderstood and feeling frustrated and guilty. others have mentioned the frustration of needing to figure out whether and how to call out something they find racist or offensive in some way, of having to weigh both the personal and professional costs of “saying something” and then running the risk of, for example, being seen as or accused of being “ the angry black woman.” this then leads to a discussion of why it might be important in this context to try to push through this, to what it would take to “stay engaged” and to “experience the discomfort” in order to make genuine progress toward our goal of a being a more equitable institution. presenting these ideas and asking the participants to unpack them, before engaging in explicit conversation about the deficit language commonly used to describe so many of our students, creates a space to name what is likely to be in the air and something to point to as a way of opening a dialogue about what is happening in the room if/when things do get tense, but it still does not necessarily go far enough in preparing faculty members who are unfamiliar with a lot of the work around the role which identity, power and privilege plays in learning to engage at the level necessary to be truly transformative. 2 a version of this strategy was introduced to me by my colleague lauren servais at santa rosa junior college, who adapted it from the national seed project (https://nationalseedproject.org/about-us). https://nationalseedproject.org/about-us 128 identity consciousness and racial justice to help deepen participants’ understanding, then, we also explicitly frame the conversation about deficit language and cultural wealth with an exploration of the notion of identity-consciousness. according to singleton (2014), movement to a more racially just world requires that both people of color and white people develop racial consciousness, which entails a shift in thinking from “i don’t know i don’t know”/”i don’t know, but i think i do” to “i know i don’t know” to “i know i know.” thus, after the conversation about adding the additional community agreements, facilitators present singleton’s claim and ask the faculty participants to reflect individually on what each of these stages might mean, to provide examples that might fall under each category and why, and to make connections between this kind of consciousness and the work we do with students. they also ask participants to think about how such consciousness-raising might be relevant to other aspects of identity and/or to the intersections of our multiple identity positions. from there, we engage in an experiential activity in which the facilitator asks a serious of questions and the participants respond to each prompt3. the responses include: • i think most about this identity. • i think least about this identity. • i have the most fulfilling relationships with people with whom i share this identity. • this aspect of my identity makes me feel shame. • this aspect of my identity provides me the most access to wealth. • this aspect of my identity has had the strongest impact on how i see myself. • this aspect of my identity has had the greatest impact, positive or negative, on how others see me. • i feel the most at ease with this aspect of my identity. debriefing this activity as a whole group entails asking the faculty participants what they noticed, what was difficult and/or easy about the exercise, what, if anything, made them uncomfortable and why they think these things were so, and what they learned. they are also asked to link any insights they gained from this activity to the previous conversation about the importance of identity consciousness to a more equitable and inclusive institution and to the role that identity and power play in learning, opportunity and success. some of the most powerful insights have come from participants who are willing to share how difficult it is to admit to some of their colleagues that they have never thought about any of this before and how different it must be to move through the world feeling the need to (or being free of the need to) think about how others perceive you and trying to account for or subtly counter such unspoken assumptions. this has often led to conversations about dubois’ (1903/1996) notion of double-consciousness, the notion of unconscious bias, and back to steele’s notion of stereotype threat and the impact this can have on faculty interaction with students and student success more generally. these conversations also often lead to discussion about the ways unconscious bias is not only reflected in the deficit language often used to describe our students, but also in our own interactions with students and within interactions among the students in our classes. this leads to 3 this activity and these prompts were developed by my colleague evelyn knox. 129 a larger discussion of the role identity and power plays in classroom dynamics, in how we might structure the classroom, our syllabi, our assignments, and the moves we make in the classroom when we operate with more identity consciousness: what issues do we need to think about? what questions or issues do we need to address? in short, what can we, as instructors, do to dismantle the types of power imbalances that often prevent marginalized students from succeeding to their fullest potential? within the context of this conversation, we also revisit the notion of threshold concepts and their reflections about why these might be troublesome and/or why the irreversible transformation they bring about might be problematic for some students. we talk about ways to help students see and/or create connections between the identities student bring with them, the communities to which they already belong, and the disciplinary communities they wish to join and the work they hope to do. with all of these conversations in mind, we then ask faculty to identify an evidencebased teaching practice that they would like to study and implement, one they think might help students engage productively with the threshold concepts in their field and is consistent with what they now understand about how learning works in all of its complexity. we then support them to implement it in identity-conscious and equity-minded ways, by asking them to continually reflect on the following questions and discuss these reflections with other members of the community of practice: • what opportunities are you creating for students to engage in authentic disciplinary (and interdisciplinary) problem-solving? • how are you making the threshold concepts that shape these disciplinary habits of mind explicit? • how are you supporting students’ understanding of these concepts? how are you engaging the knowledge and assumptions they bring with them? how are you building from their cultural wealth? • what formative feedback and other pedagogical moves are you making to support the recursive nature of learning, as students attempt to cross these disciplinary thresholds? • how are you asking them to organize their knowledge and integrate their learning? • what opportunities are you providing for them to think metacognitively about their learning and to engage in metacognitive conversation? • how are you ensuring that all voices are included and heard in the classroom? • how are you inviting students into this work and helping them to see/imagine themselves as authentic, authorized members of the disciplinary community? • how are you helping them to see/make connections between who they are and who they wish to become and to navigate the conflicts inherent to this process? of course, all of this content cannot be fully addressed or explored in any one particular professional learning opportunity. thus, as noted before, we offer a variety of professional learning structures and activities within the overall community of practice: faculty learning communities (flcs), mini-conferences, book clubs, speaker series, peer class visits and observations, and roundtable discussions that allow for differing levels of participation, but all focus in some way on the ideas and questions outlined above. 130 impact it is too soon to measure the impact our community of practice is having on graduation rates and in closing the opportunity gap for poor students and students of color at csusb because much of the revised courses and curriculum will not be implemented until fall 2020, when the campus converts to semesters. that said, we are beginning to see evidence of the growth of such a grassroots network dedicated to equity-minded institutional transformation in the increased participation in the various professional learning activities that make up our community of practice. in the last year of the traditional “one-shot” workshop model of professional learning on our campus, the number of total faculty participants in professional learning opportunities was 107. the first year we began to implement faculty learning communities as part of a larger, more coherent community of practice model, the number grew to 176. the year we began implementing greater attention to identity, diversity, equity, and inclusion and their relationship to teaching and learning, the number was 193. in the last two years, since work on gi 2025 and q2s has begun, the numbers of faculty participants are 421 and 726 respectively. these numbers indicate our community of practice is very much “alive”, interest is growing, and participation is ongoing. in keeping with wenger’s idea of differing levels of participation, we are also now seeing many faculty members who participated in earlier flcs taking on leadership roles by facilitating their own flc and by participating in a “facilitator learning community,” an flc that explores best practices for designing and implementing faculty professional development. in addition to this increasing and ongoing participation in the community of practice, participants’ comments and reflections on their experience in our community of practice and the impact it is having on their teaching now, even before the semester curriculum work can be implemented, suggests that we are well on our way to transforming our institution into a more inclusive and equitable learning environment. when asked immediately after participation in an flc about their learning, participants noted that they had learned “strategies for fostering more equitable interaction and engagement of students,” “ways to think about bias and perspective differently and how this is relevant to [their] teaching,” and “how to teach for depth, rather than breadth, that it’s worth taking the time to get students to engage on a personal and interactive level.” two years later, when the same group of faculty participants was asked to reflect on how their work in the community of practice has impacted their work with students, we received the following comments: through exposure to issues of microaggressions, bias and understanding better what is meant by social justice, i find myself trying to address these issues in all of the classes that i teach. an example of how what i learned in the institute has affected my teaching is i now start every class talking about how different perceptions that result from our different identities and experiences are brought to the study of all phenomenon. i use the exercise we did for this in all my classes with an object from home. it tends to get all the students thinking about their own bias and it is a great place to start every class. the institute helped me to recognize that i am guilty of unconscious bias. as a junior faculty member, i am constantly reflecting on my own teaching practices and looking for ways i can improve. it was eye opening to see that my own unconscious bias can affect how i teach and how i may unknowingly exclude a group of students from a class 131 discussion. after the institute, i have tried to be more conscious of my behavior in my interactions with students. redesigning this course through scaffolding and approaching the design by working backwards through the big course learning outcomes has changed my perspective on how i teach all of my courses. i think it is important to have the big picture in mind and it is important for the students to get to the point where they can see the big picture. part of this big picture relates to what students should really get out of college and how each class i teach can contribute to this outcome. as a mathematics teacher, diversity has not always been a big part of my curriculum. however, this institute and the incorporation of ideas concerning diversity into the course redesign has really opened my eyes to the important opportunities i have to impart a perspective onto my students as they continue their journey to become more aware of their diverse environment and their actions within it. this, i feel, is such an important outcome for our students as they progress through college. thus, it really should be an important outcome for my students as they progress through my class. while these comments suggest that the faculty members, two years after their original participation in an flc (referred to here as the “institute”) continue to see an impact on their work with students, we realize these assessments are informal and indirect. one flc, funded by the national science foundation (nsf) widening implementation and demonstration of evidence-based reforms (wider) grant no. 1347671, was more formally evaluated as part of the grant work. the community was dedicated to studying and implementing evidence-based teaching practices in large stem courses and to developing a strategic plan for increasing the understanding and use of evidence-based teaching methods within the college of natural sciences. the external evaluation of this grant found that the project was: successful at creating an active and intensive faculty learning community […] all flc participants reported that the experience had been extremely valuable for them, particularly the community aspect of the flc. […] observations confirmed that flc members were actively using their chosen strategies in the daily implementation of their classes, as well as a variety of student learning support strategies and instructional techniques to meaningfully engage students in course material. […] the majority of students rated the piloted courses highly. in particular, most students felt that their instructor was well-prepared, responsive to students, enthusiastic about their teaching, and successful at creating an environment that was conducive to learning. […] flc members identified a number of changes in their students related to their ebtps (evidence-based teaching practices) including increased engagement, a more positive learning environment, deeper thinking, communication skill development, higher final grades, and more positive attitudes toward stem disciplines. the strategic plan developed as part of this grant by the flc members has led to a new five-year nsf improving undergraduate stem education (iuse) grant, which will extend the work begun as part of the wider project on evidence-based teaching. the new project will have a much greater emphasis on identity, equity, and inclusion and to closing the opportunity gap for students in the stem fields. funds from this grant will be used to evaluate the impact of the 132 project on student success. evaluation will help us to better understand, evaluate, and assess the impact of our identity-conscious community of practice on the institution as a whole and the extent to which it has transformed into a more equitable and inclusive learning environment. conclusion the work at csusb is predicated on the notion that robust faculty learning is required for equity-minded institutional change. the model described here stands in stark contrast to the “one-shot” workshop model that has historically characterized faculty development in higher education. indeed, csusb’s nascent community of practice for faculty professional learning asks the faculty participants to reflect on their own learning, identities, and experiences; to draw on these reflections to develop and research answers to these questions; to experience and engage in the kind of equity-minded, evidence-based teaching practices they are exploring; to reflect metacognitively on their engagement with these practices; to develop curricula and assignments based on this work in their own classrooms; and to give and receive feedback on these assignments and their implementation from facilitators and their peers. in the end, what unifies this identity-conscious community of practice is a desire to transform the institution into a more inclusive and equitable space. in this renewed institution, all students are prepared to bring their identities, interests, and experiences, along with multiple disciplinary lenses and approaches, to the unscripted questions, problems, and tasks that define the 21st century. in keeping with the theory of learning as social participation at the heart of community of practice model, we create space for faculty participants to co-construct the knowledge discovered, developed and shared within the community of practice. doing so, while modeling the kind of equity-minded teaching practices and interactions we hope our faculty will engage in with our students, is key not only to keeping the community of practice alive, but also to enabling it to function as a driver of the institutional change we hope to effect. 133 references beach, a. l., & cox, m. d. 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(2014). communities of practice: a tool for creating institutional change in support of the mission of the federal energy management program. federal energy management program, u.s. department of energy. schneider, c.g. (2015). the leap challenge: transforming for students, essential for liberal education. liberal education. retrieved from https://www.aacu.org/liberaleducation/2015/winter-spring/schneider https://doi.org/10.1002/tl.136 https://doi.org/10.1111/asap.12033 https://doi.org/10.1002/tl.142 135 schoenbach, r., greenleaf, c., & murphy, l. (2012) reading for understanding: how reading apprenticeship improves disciplinary learning in secondary and college classrooms. san francisco, ca: jossey-bass. singleton, g.e. (2015). courageous conversations about race: a field guide for achieving equity in schools. thousand oaks, ca: corwin. steele, c.m. (2010). whistling vivaldi: how stereotypes affect us. new york, ny: w.w. norton & co. umbach, p.d. & wawrzynski, m.r. (2005). faculty do matter: the role of college faculty in student learning and engagement. research in higher education, 46(2), 153-184. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-004-1598-1 wenger, e. (2000). communities of practice: learning, meaning, and identity. cambridge, uk: cambridge university press. wenger, e., mcdermott, r., and snyder, w. (2002). cultivating communities of practice: a guide to managing knowledge. boston, ma: harvard business school press. yosso, t.j. (2005). whose culture has capital? race, ethnicity and education, 8(1), 69-91. retrieved from http://www.tandfonline.com/toc/cree20/current https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-004-1598-1 136 author information dr. kimberly a. costino is director of semester conversion and professor of english at california state university, san bernardino (csusb). she has also served as director of csusb’s teaching resource center, as co-director of 3csn’s, “threshold project,” and as hub director for the california faculty collaboratives project. her research interests include literacy and cultural studies and critical race theory; she is particularly interested in the politics of literacy and access to higher education. kimberly a. costino csu, san bernardino 5500 university parkway san bernardino, ca 92407 email: kcostino@csusb.edu telephone: 909-537-7412 metropolitan universities vol. 28 no. 3 (summer 2017), doi: 10.18060/21541 peer advisors for veteran education (pave): implementing a sustainable peer support program for student veterans on college campuses michelle kees, phd; brittany risk, lmsw; chrysta meadowbrooke, ms; timothy nellett, ba; and jane spinner, msw, mba abstract student veterans have been attending college in greater numbers since the passing of the post/911 gi bill. although similar to other nontraditional students, student veterans face unique transition challenges that can affect their pursuit of higher education. many student veterans could benefit from dedicated programs to help them succeed in college, which in turn would enable them to secure employment in the civilian world. facilitating the success of student veterans also makes wise use of the financial and institutional resources invested in their education. peer support programs can help by providing an established community of other student veterans who can normalize transition experiences, offer social support, reduce stigma associated with help-seeking, and connect to useful services on and off campus. this paper describes the iterative development of a nationwide peer support program for student veterans, peer advisors for education (pave), which uses trained peers to provide outreach, support, and linkage to resources to assist student veterans. through a hybrid technology platform for training and program management, pave has been delivered on 40 college campuses nationwide and is well-positioned for larger scale national rollout. keywords peer support, military transition, peer program development, post 9-11 gi bill student veterans on college campuses campuses nationwide have experienced a vast increase in the number of veterans attending college in recent years, with over one million people using the post-9/11 gi bill during the four years after its inception in 2009 (u.s. department of veterans affairs, 2013). the number of student veterans using these education benefits is expected to continue rising, given that the population of post-9/11 veterans is estimated to increase to more than five million by 2020 (u.s. government accountability office, 2013). the need for programs that support student veterans and their unique circumstances will continue to grow as well. student veterans are in many ways nontraditional students (mcbain, kim, cook, & snead, 2012). older than their traditional classmates, they tend to have greater maturity gained through full-time work and other life experiences. nontraditional students may feel stronger intrinsic motivation for learning and perseverance than traditional students (bye, pushkar, & conway, 2007). however, nontraditional students often have more responsibilities to manage outside of the classroom, such as working, parenting, and caregiving, which may affect their coursework 31 and their engagement in the campus community (kimmel, gaylor, grubbs, & hayes, 2012). moreover, they also may need to refresh their academic skills and adjust to new educational technologies. in addition, other challenges faced by student veterans can set them apart from both traditional and nontraditional students in significant ways. veterans who transition from the military to college may find themselves in an unfamiliar and potentially isolating environment in which they have to learn to navigate the differences between military and academic cultures (rumann & hamrick, 2010). aside from the stresses common to college students, student veterans may also struggle with those found in the overall veteran population, such as economic uncertainty, changes in self-identity and relationships, physical injuries and related neurobehavioral symptoms, and mental health issues including depression and post-traumatic stress (institute of medicine, 2013; tanielian & jaycox, 2008; barry, whiteman, & macdermid wadsworth, 2014). the transition into college may be particularly difficult for female veterans, whose military and civilian experiences can differ markedly from those of their male colleagues (burkhart & hogan, 2015; diramio, jarvis, iverson, seher, & anderson, 2015). leveraging peers not all student veterans struggle in college, but among those who do, many hesitate to seek help due to concerns about stigma in both military and civilian contexts (bonar, bohnert, walters, ganoczy, & valenstein, 2015; elliott, gonzalez, & larsen, 2011). peer programs may help reduce stigma and other barriers to care for veterans (nelson, abraham, walters, pfeiffer, & valenstein, 2014; zinzow, britt, mcfadden, burnette, & gillispie, 2012) and are a good fit on college campuses, where peer programs are commonly used to help students with adjustment to college life and persistence in their education (shook & keup, 2012; swenson, nordstrom, & hiester, 2008). peer programs may help student veterans with the transition into college by connecting them with other student veterans who can offer information, resources, and a community of people who have had similar experiences and can offer social support (steele, salcedo, & coley, 2010; whiteman, barry, mroczek, & macdermid wadsworth, 2013). social support helps protect against the effects of stressors (cohen, 2004) and creates a sense of connectedness and engagement that are important to having a successful college experience (kuh, curce, shoup, kinzie, & gonyea, 2008; hausmann, schofield, & woods, 2007). student veteran peer programs harness strengths inherent to the military ethos, including camaraderie, the buddy system, structure, and a sense of belonging. student veterans already established on campus are also well suited to the task of helping other student veterans make the transition to academia; they can normalize the experience and provide local resources targeted to specific needs (diramio, ackerman, & mitchell, 2008). finally, peers who share common ground can help build trust and reduce stigma associated with seeking help (mead, hilton, & curtis, 2001; solomon, 2004). thus, peer programs such as peer advisors for veteran education (pave) can play a key role in promoting academic and personal success for student veterans on college campuses (kees, risk, meadowbrooke, spinner, & valenstein, in press). 32 peer advisors for veteran education (pave) peer advisors for veteran education (pave) is a peer support program that connects incoming student veterans with student veterans already on campus who have been trained as peer advisors. peer advisors assist other student veterans in navigating college life by providing a welcoming community and offering information and resources that can help address challenges they may encounter. pave has been developed in three phases and is currently implemented on 40 campuses across the country. figure 1. pave partner campuses in the united states. reprinted with permission. program model and program goals the main goals of the pave program are to: (a) ease the transition of student veterans from the military to college; (b) improve student veterans’ sense of belonging on campus; (c) identify health concerns in a timely fashion and connect student veterans with appropriate resources; (d) create a feeling of community and a source of support among knowledgeable veteran peers; (e) increase student veteran retention rates; and (f) improve student veterans’ academic performance. the pave program model focuses on three pillars: outreach, support, and resource linkage. • outreach: peer advisors reach out to student veterans on a regular basis throughout the academic year. the purpose of this outreach is twofold: to inform student veterans about pave and other veteran-related services and events, and to check in consistently with students to see how things are going. • support: through ongoing contact and shared activities, peer advisors create opportunities to discuss the student veteran experience, build trust, and ask if student veterans have any questions or concerns they could help resolve. peer advisors often establish camaraderie and credibility by providing information to address simpler needs first (e.g., orientation, parking, food, social events), which lays the groundwork for more personal conversations in the future. • resource linkage: peer advisors receive training about relevant on-campus and offcampus resources so that when a student veteran has a concern, a peer advisor can refer the student veteran to the best resource for their needs. training includes the concept of a 33 warm hand-off, in which the peer advisor creates a direct connection between the student veteran and someone at the referred resource, e.g., by calling ahead or going to the resource office together. pave is not a counseling or treatment program; the pave team uses a peer-based public health approach to foster credibility with student veterans and help overcome stigma around helpseeking. decreasing stigma is of special relevance to student veterans for whom concerns about being weak or needing help may get in the way of asking for assistance, which is crucial to successfully transitioning to academic life after leaving the military. iterative development of pave pave is part of the university of michigan’s military support programs and networks (mspan), a suite of programs addressing mental health and wellness for service members, veterans, and their families. pave emerged as a collaboration between the university of michigan depression center and department of psychiatry and student veterans of america (sva). the m-span team has an established history in developing and implementing peer programs in the military and veteran space. in 2008, m-span worked collectively with the michigan national guard, colleagues at michigan state university, and several vietnam veterans to develop buddy-to-buddy, a community-integrated peer program for post-9/11 service members and veterans (greden et al., 2010; dalack et al., 2010). recognizing the increasing numbers of veterans returning to civilian life and entering college, and noting the emerging issues with transition challenges, in 2012 the m-span team consulted with subject matter experts and reviewed recommended literature to further delineate issues and gaps in services specifically for student veterans. this exploration provided further evidence that stigma issues were a significant barrier to student veterans’ willingness to seek assistance, and that there was a lack of awareness about available services and how to connect to them. it was hypothesized that using student veteran peers who had “been there” would resonate with incoming student veterans, and that these peers could help overcome stigma issues and facilitate linkage to needed resources on campus and in the community. the development, implementation, and refinement of pave has occurred across three phases since 2012: (1) a pilot phase of early development and feasibility of pave at three michigan colleges; (2) a second phase of expanding and refining pave with 13 national campus partners; and (3) a third phase of developing a technology platform for training and implementation to deliver pave at an additional 30 national campuses. the following sections of this paper will describe each phase of implementation and provide an overview of changes in the program model, key components of training in the model, and strengths and challenges encountered. phase 1. piloting pave in 2012, pave was launched as a one-tier peer-to-peer model using existing local sva chapters to recruit and train peer advisors to work directly with student veterans. the program was initially piloted at three michigan colleges, and the pave team worked with the colleges’ veteran services coordinators (vscs) to recruit peer advisors on campus to lead the program. the intent was for peer advisors to engage student veterans on campus, conduct outreach 34 activities, provide peer support, and then connect student veterans with needed resources to help them succeed on campus. training peer advisors in the pave model training in the pave model is a critical component of the program, and one that has evolved significantly over time. in the pilot implementation of pave, the pave team went to each of the three campuses to conduct an in-person one-day training with peer advisors. during this phase, 17 peer advisors were trained on five key topic areas: (a) peer advisors’ roles and responsibilities; (b) communication skills; (c) referrals and warm hand-offs; (d) recognizing mental health problems and managing mental health emergencies; and (e) self-care. the peer advisor training built upon the strengths of student veterans as knowledgeable adult learners with lived experience and skills. pave trainers were culturally competent in working with military and veteran populations, either having been a member of the population themselves or having a professional background working with veterans. after the training, peer advisors were then supported by the pave team via phone calls as they engaged with student veterans on their campus. strengths and challenges one of the key successes of the early pave pilot model was the good fit of using peers with student veterans. student veterans were receptive to receiving help from their peers. peer advisors, also being student veterans, had a deep commitment to serving others and were invested in the program. the title of peer advisor was a deliberate and purposeful choice, due to the stigma commonly associated with the terms “peer mentor” and “peer counselor.” this model of engagement continues to be an effective outreach strategy, normalizing receiving assistance. another success of the program was the offering to campuses of a set model, grounded in evidence-based approaches for both engaging college students and supporting veterans, along with a training curriculum and on-going logistics and implementation support from the pave team. the pilot campuses wanted to do a peer support program for their student veterans, but did not know the key elements or strategies of implementing a program. pave filled that gap, and offered a tailored approach to fit their campus needs. several challenges emerged during the pilot phase of pave. first, it became clear that there were distinct functions that were necessary for program success. the peer advisors had to provide outreach and support to student veterans, and had to assume management of the program. without clarity on who would perform these roles across the group of peer advisors at a school, they struggled to take on both functions. furthermore, if one person in the peer advisor group was under-performing or not providing services within the scope of the role, it meant that the group had to figure out how to handle those issues, which were not easy tasks to execute among peers. moreover, peer advisors found it difficult to identify and engage the broad population of student veterans. at the time of the pilot, student veterans were not routinely tracked or identifiable on many college campuses. this early pilot yielded important information about program enhancements to incorporate into the next phase of pave. 35 phase 2. expanding and refining pave in mid-2013, pave partnered with sva at the national level to implement the program on additional campuses. sva was a natural strategic partner since pave and sva had the same primary goal: the academic and personal success of student veterans. furthermore, sva had established chapters on over 700 campuses with student veteran leaders as members, and these members could potentially serve as peer advisors. both organizations agreed that the introduction of an additional and distinct leadership role was an important element to add to the model. because taking on this role included a higher level of responsibility, student veterans on each campus who assumed these responsibilities would be offered paid stipends . campuses sought varied approaches to paying team leaders, including internal discretionary funds, external grant support, or work-study through the campus or va. this new role was designated the peer advisor lead, or pal. this role proved to be one of the most successful model shifts implemented. to more effectively distinguish their role and authority, the position was subsequently renamed team leader. this phase of pave thus included a two-tiered system. each campus had a paid team leader and a cadre of volunteer peer advisors who worked together with the vsc to implement the pave program. team leaders represented the on-campus program managers of pave and were essential in the day-to-day operations and success of the program. peer advisors were the core members of the pave campus teams and were responsible for direct outreach, support, and linkage to resources for student veterans. vscs became integral to the success of pave and worked closely with team leaders and peer advisors, particularly in the area of recruiting and training team members. vscs, who could provide continuity in pave from year to year, became the linchpin of the program. furthermore, after further outreach and training, faculty leads enlisted to support the vscs during times of transition, an innovation that evolved into the university champion role. nationwide, 13 campuses participated in this phase of pave, reaching out to more than 2,100 student veterans between august 2013 and august 2016. the top three areas of student veteran concerns, as identified in logs submitted by peer advisors, included education (e.g., class registration, academic issues, study habits, tutoring, writing assistance), benefits and claims (e.g., gi bill eligibility and enrollment, processing for va healthcare claims), and mental health (e.g., anxiety, depression, general stress, posttraumatic stress, suicidality, substance use). training campus teams in the pave model a pivotal part of the program involved in-person trainings in the pave model with all members of the campus teams (peer advisors, team leaders, and later in implementation, the vscs and university champions) at each participating school. the pave team conducted 56 trainings of peer advisors and team leaders, resulting in 262 individuals trained for those roles, as well as 2 trainings of vscs and university champions, with 17 individuals trained. peer advisors. the curriculum for the one-day peer advisor training consisted of modules covering the history of the model; the scope of the program and team member roles; the core 36 pillars of the program (outreach, support, and resource linkage) and best practice strategies for each; and skills training to help peer advisors meet their responsibilities as they assisted student veterans. for example, skills training included communication skills, team and community building, recognition of red flags, and role-plays to practice how to effectively refer student veterans to resources and what to do in the case of mental health emergencies. self-care was its own module, with a strong emphasis placed on peer advisors taking good care of themselves so they could support others. team leaders. team leaders also participated in the peer advisor training and received an additional one-day training designed to give them the necessary tools to plan, implement, and manage pave at their schools. the focused training included: (a) more extensive material about roles and responsibilities; (b) methods for successful outreach; (c) tips on building a resource network and making effective warm handoffs;(d) strategies for reducing stigma and barriers to care; (e)volunteer management; and (f) group facilitation skills. feedback from team leaders early in this phase indicated the need for more concrete steps and assistance with mapping out the plan for pave implementation early in the semester. this led to the development of a key program tool, the campus work plan, with a corresponding exercise added to the team leader trainings. pave trainers actively engaged team leaders in the development of a work plan customized to their campus, with detailed action steps for achieving program goals, including recruiting peer advisors, reaching out to student veterans, and building a network of veteran resources. veteran services coordinators and university champions. training materials for vscs and university champions changed to support their expanded role in overseeing the program on their campus. vscs and university champions attended a one-day in-person training in ann arbor, michigan, with 4 campuses grouped in a spring 2014 training and 6 campuses in a fall 2014 training. these trainings gave vscs and university champions the opportunity to connect with the pave team and to network with other pave campuses. the training focused primarily on understanding the pave model, key factors critical for model fidelity, and strategies for successful implementation. additional topics included how to facilitate local trainings with team leaders and peer advisors, and demonstration of online communication tools used in the program (e.g., reporting suite and program management software). implementation of pave after comprehensive training in the model, pave implementation began on the 13 campuses, with ongoing support from the pave team provided through a combination of large group conference calls with team leaders and individual calls with team leaders or vscs. the focus for these calls included reviewing essential program components, especially those related to the current implementation phase of the campus, and brainstorming strategies for success. as campuses implemented pave, they asked peer advisors to document their efforts in the program. peer advisors tracked their interactions with student veterans through a secure webbased portal, noting information about the needs addressed with student veterans and the type of referrals provided. team leaders submitted online bi-weekly reports to the pave team for review and discussion in the campus calls. bi-weekly reports contained information about 37 outreach activities; pave events and attendance; the pairing of student veterans with peer advisors; management and supervision of peer advisors; and connections made with faculty or other campus staff to talk about pave and its integration on campus. strengths and challenges pave campuses noted that they did not want to identify pave as a mental health program when promoting the program to student veterans, because of the stigma of mental health and the stereotype of student veterans as “broken heroes.” this stigma presented a potential barrier to engagement in the program and ultimately threatened veterans seeking access to needed resources. in response, the program model quickly shifted to a public health approach, with an emphasis on identifying any needs of student veterans, be it financial, housing, legal, academic, health, mental health, or others. early in this phase of implementation, campuses were also facing a challenge in engaging student veterans with the program. to address both stigma and engagement, pave launched a match process for student veterans and peer advisors, the opt-out model. in the opt-out model, pave matched all incoming student veterans with a peer advisor, unless they chose to opt out of the program. pave then became a universal and routine offering to all student veterans on campus, as opposed to a targeted program for only the “struggling” students. implementing the team leader position was a critical factor in the success of a pave campus team. team leaders have created resource networks, obtained buy-in from campus stakeholders, and served as the cornerstone of student veteran leadership on their campus. for many student veterans, the team leader position is one they can relate to and understand, given the similar leadership structure of units within the military. the team leader provides the direct support, guidance, and focus peer advisors are accustomed to, with peer advisors benefitting from the peer support provided by their team leader much in the way that student veterans do from the peer advisors. the team leader also proved crucial to day-to-day implementation of pave on the campus. with a program heavily dependent on the energy, drive, and commitment of its personnel, an effective team leader had the potential to shape and elevate their pave team into something new student veterans wanted to know more about, and participate in. while the centralized logging portal implemented during this phase greatly improved the documentation of peer advisor efforts, peer advisors reported that they did not use the system consistently to record all of their outreach and interactions with student veterans. some schools developed creative ways to increase logging, such as getting the campus team together at logging parties to eat pizza and back-log recent activities. it became clear, however, that another approach was needed in order to accurately and easily document the efforts of the program, and that perhaps logging could be done from smart phones or near real-time. succession and sustainability planning remained a challenge for campuses, even with the introduction of the team leader role. strong leadership by active student veterans in a given year resulted in a successful program for that year, but efforts at training the “next generation” often fell short, and once student leaders graduated, new program leadership was not guaranteed. schools found student veterans that had a positive experience with pave during their transition 38 were more likely to volunteer and become peer advisors later on. pave staff encouraged the schools to incorporate these student veterans into the sustainability plan to replenish peer advisors each year. the addition of 13 new schools and the expansion beyond michigan drove home another sustainability challenge for the program: the resource costs incurred by having pave staff travel to individual schools to conduct in-person trainings for the campus teams. scheduling also posed difficulties since most schools wanted to host trainings near the same time of year as they prepared for fall semester, resulting in a whirlwind of staff travel while also continuing to manage daily aspects of the program that required regular attention. one possible solution was to utilize a “train the trainer” model where vscs would hold the responsibility for training the next cohort of team leaders and peer advisors. however, vscs have many roles and competing priorities, with variable knowledge about the specifics of the pave program, so this too presented a challenge. it became clear that creating an online platform to make core training materials available at any time or location would benefit the program overall. phase 3. scaling pave with a technology platform the experience with the schools from the pilot and first phase of expansion confirmed that the enhanced pave model was effective in training team leaders and peer advisors to provide outreach, support, and linkage to needed resources for incoming student veterans at their schools. this led to planning how to scale the program, and whether it was possible to maintain the fidelity of the model and the high touch support to the schools, while increasing the number of pave campuses nationally. in this next phase of pave, a technology platform was developed and launched that allows for scalable training, tracking, and program management, while also expanding the program to an additional 30 campuses. technology platform working with experts in technology and health communications, pave developed a multi-level platform for that includes three components. first, a management console allows vscs and team leaders to manage the pave program on their campuses. it includes mechanisms to match student veterans with peer advisors, push out information to peer advisors electronically, and track trends and identify gaps in services. secondly, a mobile-configured, web-based tracking system enables peer advisors to more easily track their contact with student veterans.lastly, an online training course condenses the in-person training for peer advisors and team leaders to a set of interactive and engaging web-based modules. this integrated technology platform is self-sustaining and schools can use it as they continue to train new campus team members, and as new schools join the pave network. management console. the management console includes functionality that allows vscs and team leaders the ability to perform several key program tasks: securely upload student veteran information into the system and then match them to peer advisors and team leaders; invite peer advisors and team leaders to begin the online training; review peer advisor outreach efforts and interactions with student veterans; communicate with peer advisors on their work and suggest additional resources; upload and update an online resource guide compiled by their 39 team; and complete bi-weekly reports that are sent to the pave team to review. it also includes an embedded data collection tool that tracks usage of the system for campus team review. tracking system. the tracking system operates on a secured mobile-configured website, and can be accessed easily through a smartphone or a computer. through the tracking system, peer advisors can log outreach and peer support activities, and can access a customizable resource directory for local and campus-specific resources. after each contact with a student veteran, peer advisors track their activity on the site, and answer a series of brief questions about their contact with the student veteran, including whether this was a first-time or repeat interaction, what the contact was about (e.g., student veteran needs), and what resource was provided to the student veteran. past team leaders specifically requested a mobile-based application to reduce the barriers in tracking and logging program activity. this tracking information can evaluate impact and usage of the program and can inform individual campuses about their greatest student veteran needs and resources. online training site. the online training site includes a personalized welcome letter to each user to set the tone, and generate enthusiasm and buy-in. peer advisors can then access and complete the pave training modules (described below) at their own pace. in addition to the training modules, the site features a library of testimonial videos from peer advisors, team leaders, and vscs speaking to their experience transitioning from military to college and the impact the pave program has had on their campus. the training site also contains a toolkit, called the “pave backpack”, which allows easy access to program materials, tips sheets, and templates that will guide team leaders and peer advisors in successfully carrying out their roles. recruiting and onboarding new schools in this phase of expansion, the pave team worked closely with partners at sva and the department of veterans affairs to recruit and select campuses to participate in pave. through a robust screening and interview process, the pave team selected 30 schools based on presence of success factors identified from the pilot launch. these factors included: (a) the number of student veterans on campus; (b) the number and diversity of existing veteran-friendly programs; (c) thecommitment of the vsc to the program; level of interest from student veteran leaders; endorsement from sva or the va; and ability to meet the expectations involved in implementing the program. the pave team intentionally selected a representative mix of large public universities, private schools, and community colleges so as to garner data on specific challenges in each setting. upon selection as a pave partner campus, schools began the initial work necessary to launch the program in the fall of 2016, including completion of a memorandum of understanding (mou) between the school and the university of michigan. the pave team asked each campus to identify a 3-person campus team, comprised of the team leader, the vsc, and a university champion. teams then participated in a series of webinars designed to introduce them to the pave model and to start the pre-work for launching the program (e.g., welcome to pave; recruitment 101; tech walkthrough). 40 hybrid training model in its first iterations, pave delivered trainings in-person over the course of multiple campus visits. this approach, while effective, was very time intensive and not conducive to large-scale dissemination. thus, a hybrid training model was developed that includes a redesigned and more efficient in-person training for campus teams, an online training course with a series of interactive educational modules, and ongoing support from the pave team to insure model fidelity. in-person training for campus teams. during august 2016, 128 representatives from 40 colleges and universities (12 original pave campuses and 28 new ones) attended the national training conference (ntc). the training was an updated and redesigned 2-day in-person training which included general sessions for the larger group, and also tracked training sessions for participants from each role category of the team. tracked training sessions offered a unique opportunity for trainees to learn from each other and to form their own national peer group. the training also included protected time for the development of a work plan tailored for each school on what resources they needed to mobilize; how to recruit, enroll, and engage student veterans; and how best to manage peer advisors through team building. online training modules. as part of the process of converting the in-person training for peer advisors to a web-based platform, the pave team reviewed numerous modalities for optimized online engagement and learning preferences of our student veteran target audience. six online modules for peer advisors were developed and released, with an additional module for team leaders (see table 1 below). each module ranges from 10 to 23 minutes in length, contains an animated video using cartoons, and an exercise that tests a peer advisor or team leader’s ability to apply the material covered in the video. peer advisors and team leaders are required to complete the entire training before providing peer support to student veterans. 41 table 1. pave online training modules session module topics 1 welcome to pave program model and overview; roles and responsibilities; confidentiality 2 outreach strategies: how to connect with student veterans engagement theory; strategies to increase engagement; challenges of non-response 3 providing support through effective communication communication skills; barriers to communication; boundaries 4 resource linkage: how to make successful referrals building a resource network; creating a resource guide; warm hand-offs 5 mental health concerns: what to look for, how to help identifying red flags; combating stigma; handling emergencies 6 the importance of self-care recognizing signs of burn-out; reaching out for support; creating positive self-care strategies 7 being a great team leader roles and responsibilities; recruiting and supporting peer advisors; managing the program support from the pave team. the pave team provided ongoing implementation support to each school, including the technical assistance necessary to ensure full and correct usage of mobile and web-based tools. campus teams had access to pave staff during business hours and on a scheduled basis via phone, text, online chat, and video conference functions. individual check-in calls for campus teams allowed each team to discuss successes, challenges, and next steps, and to receive consultation and guidance from the pave team. the primary areas of focus for these calls were implementation challenges, recruitment and outreach opportunities, and timeline targets for the program. regular support calls with all campus teams increased peer support and collaboration across campuses. additionally, the team offered webinars to continue to train campuses on the three components of the pave technology platform. strengths and challenges a key success of the latest pave model centers on the robust and diverse use of technology for campus management of the program, training team members, and tracking activity of the peer advisors. the technology platform has had a significant impact on the number of schools that can be on-boarded to the program, and therefore the number of student veterans who can be served. in the first eight months of implementation of this phase of pave, pave campus teams reached more than 5000 student veterans. planners also designed this platform to be selfsustaining such that schools can continue to use all components of the technology in ongoing implementation of pave, with recruitment and training of new peer advisors, and enrolling of new cohorts of student veterans in subsequent semesters. 42 the management console allows team leaders and vsc to track and manage all aspects of the program from a central shared platform, from the point of matching student veterans with peer advisors, to tracking peer advisor activity, and building a resource database for the program. training of campus teams has also become more standardized and more efficient with the development on the online training modules. in the first six weeks of fall 2016, 318 peer advisors and team leaders completed the online training. more peer advisors completed training online in six weeks than were trained in-person over the course of 3 years. lastly, the tracking system makes it easy for peer advisors to track their activity in the program and to share this information with their team leaders and the pave team. while most partner campuses have had great success implementing pave, the first year is time intensive and sometimes challenging for schools. the length of time that it takes to embed a pave team fully on a campus averages about three semesters, and the need for a strong campus team is imperative. several factors seem to result in difficulties in implementation, including staff turnover at the vsc or university champion level, lack of administration buy-in, ebbs and flows in participation by team leaders and peer advisors, interpersonal conflict among campus teams, and inability to secure ongoing funding for the team leader role. some schools have been unable to implement pave effectively, due to these challenges. the pave team provides high levels of support continually after program launch to assist schools through these challenges in hopes of ultimate success. individualized support is provided to each campus along with the opportunity to connect with other schools who are also implementing the program. while training and program management tools are beneficial and needed, ongoing technical assistance and support from the pave team is also critical. campus teams have also recognized the value of the pave team’s guidance and expertise in problem solving throughout program implementation. next steps as described, pave has benefited from a multifaceted and iterative development process responsive to real-world feedback from partner campuses as they have implemented the program. the final product is a turnkey peer support program for college veterans that has been field-tested and found to be effective . it connects with student veterans, providing peer support, and linking students to needed resources on campus and in the community (kees et al., in press). the next steps for pave go in two directions: 1) increasing the pave network with more partner campuses; and 2) developing and disseminating online modules specifically for student veterans participating in pave. pave network growth the web-based platform for disseminating pave is virtually limitless, capable of supporting a vast rollout and scaling of the program at the national level. increasing the network of pave schools is a priority next step, with several potential directions under consideration. one approach is to replicate the most recent expansion efforts with the release of a new request for applications and engaging campuses around the country to launch pave. another possibility is to focus on regional expansion by selecting a specific state(s) and identifying a cohort of schools 43 in that area to implement pave. a third approach shifts the lens to community colleges, which are a common route for veterans making the transition to 4-year universities. data from the u.s. department of education indicate that 43% of military students attend community colleges (radford, 2011). six of our pave campuses have been community colleges and present unique challenges in implementing peer support programs because of factors often inherent to community colleges (e.g., more likely to be commuter schools, with short-term attendance, and challenges in establishing a community). the pave team has learned some important lessons in collaborating with community colleges, and is now in a better position to offer a successful peer program to this unique group of student veterans. each of these three expansion approaches require funding to maintain fidelity of the model, including attendance at the initial pave training and the ongoing support and technical assistance provided by the pave team. funding models under exploration include a fee-forservice model with schools, foundation grants, donor or corporate gifts, or research grants examining the longitudinal impact of the program. online modules for student veterans to date, the pave program focuses on training and support of the campus teams (peer advisors, team leaders, vscs, and university champions), with no direct engagement or materials for student veterans on pave campuses. campus teams have specifically requested additional resources to share with their student veterans. to this end, the pave team recently piloted an in-person “success course” for student veterans at two campuses. participants received the course very well, and yet, dissemination of the course as an in-person offering presents challenges for costs and sustainability. a next step for pave is to convert key components from this success course into online modules using the same interactive approach currently utilized in the online training for peer advisors and team leaders. the pave team will develop the existing materials for the success course in three areas: personal growth and development; academic success; and career preparation. peer advisors will be well in position to share this information directly with student veterans on their campuses, and the team expects them to have a positive impact on the academic and personal success of those students. conclusion veterans are returning to college campuses at the highest rate since world war ii, with a taxpayer investment in their education benefits reaching more than $20 billion since 2009 (u.s. department of veterans affairs, 2016). according to research conducted by the pave team’s partner organization, sva, more than 347,00 student veterans have earned degrees and certifications using the post-9/11 gi bill since 2009 (cate, lyon, schmeling, & bogue, 2017). in 10 years, more than 1.4 million student veterans will have earned college degrees. moreover, student veterans are doing well in school. student veterans have a higher gpa than the national average (3.35 vs. 2.94), and have a higher graduation rate than similar non-traditional peers (student veterans of america, 2017). 44 the best service we as a country can give to those who have served is to help them succeed. pave is a well-designed, field-tested, peer-to-peer approach that offers a strategic solution for institutions to better support the student veteran population, while also increasing student veterans’ connection to campus, decreasing stigma around help seeking, and providing linkage to needed resources. pave is a promising model for supporting student veterans on college campuses as they transition from the military to academia, and ultimately to successful employment. authors’ note initial funding for the design and piloting of pave was provided by the welcome back veterans initiative, which includes the robert r. mccormick foundation and major league baseball charities. phase 2 and 3 of further iterative development and national scaling received support from the bristol-myers squibb foundation. in phase 2, student veterans of america also received funding from the bob woodruff foundation and the wounded warrior project to enhance aspects of the training model. additionally, the robert r. mccormick foundation supported the development and implementation of the in-person course for student veterans. 45 references barry, a. e., whiteman, s. d., & macdermid wadsworth, s. 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(2012). connecting active duty and returning veterans to mental health treatment: interventions and treatment adaptations that may reduce barriers to care. clinical psychology review, 32(8), 741– 753. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2012.09.002 https://doi.org/10.1002/he.20002 https://doi.org/10.2975/27.2004.392.401 http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2011/rand_mg1083.pdf http://nvest.studentveterans.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/profiles-of-a-contemporary-student-veteran.pdf http://nvest.studentveterans.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/profiles-of-a-contemporary-student-veteran.pdf https://doi.org/10.1353/csd.0.0038 http://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/monographs/2008/rand_mg720.pdf http://www.va.gov/opa/pressrel/pressrelease.cfm?id=2490 https://www.va.gov/opa/issues/post_911_gibill.asp http://www.gao.gov/assets/660/656204.pdf https://doi.org/10.1037/a0031650 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cpr.2012.09.002 48 author information * michelle kees, phd is an associate professor in child and adolescent psychiatry at the university of michigan, has dual clinical and research without compensation appointments at the ann arbor veterans affairs medical center, and is a lead investigator with military support programs and networks (m-span). dr. kees is the principal investigator for pave (peer advisors for veteran education). she is also the principal investigator of homefront strong, a resiliency intervention for military spouses and children. michelle kees, phd associate professor, department of psychiatry principal investigator, m-span (military support programs and networks) university of michigan 2025 traverwood, suite c ann arbor, mi 48105 email: mkees@umich.edu web: http://m-span.org/ brittany risk, lmsw is the program manager for pave. she coordinates and oversees all aspects of the implementation of the pave program. prior to her work with m-span, ms. risk was a project manager at the department of veterans affairs on grants that focused on veteran mental health, substance abuse, and suicide. brittany risk, lmsw program manager peer advisors for veteran education (pave) university of michigan 2025 traverwood, suite c ann arbor, mi 48105 email: konarzbr@umich.edu web: http://paveoncampus.org/ chrysta meadowbrooke, ms is the research specialist for m-span, working on research and evaluation for pave and other military and veteran-focused programs. she has several years of experience on community-based health and clinical projects, performing both qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis. chrysta meadowbrooke, ms research specialist, m-span (military support programs and networks) university of michigan 2025 traverwood, suite c ann arbor, mi 48105 email: cmeadow@umich.edu web: http://m-span.org/ mailto:mkees@umich.edu http://m-span.org/ mailto:konarzbr@umich.edu http://paveoncampus.org/ mailto:cmeadow@umich.edu http://m-span.org/ 49 timothy nellett, ba is the program coordinator for pave. he oversees the day-to-day operations of the pave program, such as onboarding and supporting current partner campus. mr. nellett served in the united state marine corps for four years, deploying to iraq and afghanistan with the 1st battalion 6 marine regiment in support of operations iraqi freedom and enduring freedom. timothy nellett, ba program coordinator peer advisors for veteran education (pave) university of michigan 2025 traverwood, suite c ann arbor, mi 48105 email: tnellett@umich.edu web: http://paveoncampus.org/ jane spinner, msw, mba is project officer for strategic initiatives at the university of michigan depression center and department of psychiatry. ms. spinner oversees the design, development, and implementation of major projects and initiatives that address the mental health needs of special populations, including the portfolio of military and veteran-focused programs at m-span. jane spinner, msw, mba project officer for strategic initiatives project director, m-span (military support programs and networks) university of michigan 2025 traverwood, suite c ann arbor, mi 48105 email: jspinner@umich.edu web: http://m-span.org/ *corresponding author mailto:tnellett@umich.edu http://paveoncampus.org/ mailto:jspinner@umich.edu http://m-span.org/ abstract student veterans on college campuses leveraging peers peer advisors for veteran education (pave) program model and program goals iterative development of pave phase 1. piloting pave training peer advisors in the pave model strengths and challenges phase 2. expanding and refining pave training campus teams in the pave model implementation of pave strengths and challenges phase 3. scaling pave with a technology platform technology platform recruiting and onboarding new schools strengths and challenges next steps copyright © 2016 metropolitan universities vol. 27 no. 2 (summer 2016), 87-98, doi: 10.18060/21129 incorporating community engagement language into promotion and tenure policies: one university’s journey lynn e. pelco and catherine howard abstract this case study describes the campus context and process for successfully including community engagement language into promotion and tenure policies at virginia commonwealth university, a high research, urban public university. the paper also describes barriers our campus faced during the promotion and tenure policy revision process, especially myths that emerged surrounding communityengaged work in the academy. we describe key supports that facilitated a successful process, including the important champions who played roles on our campus. introduction colleges and universities across the country are recognizing the need to create campus climates that support faculty for undertaking community-engaged teaching, scholarship, and service. these activities address pressing societal needs, and a growing number of faculty members are already engaging in them. for example, a 2010-2011 faculty survey from the higher education research institute at the university of california, los angeles showed that 42.5 percent of faculty respondents had “collaborated with the local community in research/teaching” during the past two years (hurtado, et al. 2012). one important strategy campuses are using to create cultures that validate community-engaged research, teaching, and service is to shift the institution’s professional reward structure so that it explicitly recognizes this work. higher education promotion and tenure policies also serve the important role of socializing faculty members to the values of the institution, and in this way they reinforce institutional missions and strategic plans that include community or civic engagement language. o’meara, eatman, and petersen (2015) state, “…the promotion and tenure process reflects institutional values, aspirations, privileges, and power structures. virtually every campus enacting serious change with regard to curricula, technology, globalization, learning, or retention must also face the implications for promotion and tenure.” this institutional case study examines one university’s experience in revising its promotion and tenure policies to include community engaged forms of teaching, scholarship and service. our experiences through this process are in many ways unique to our own institution; however, we believe many of our experiences represent common steps through which other campuses have or will travel as they address the growing need to foster innovative, community-engaged approaches to faculty work within the academy. origins and context of community engagement at vcu virginia commonwealth university (vcu) has had a long tradition of urban community engagement. in 1968, the virginia governor signed into law the merger of two historic higher education institutions, the medical college of virginia (mcv) and the richmond professional institute (rpi). both institutions were born out of critical needs in the community and were located in the center of the capital city of richmond. this new university had the unique focus of filling the gaps of unmet higher education needs and of being urban-oriented with a concentration on meeting the needs of an urban population (bonis, koste, & lyons, 2006). as noted in the wayne commission report, “it has become increasing apparent 88 that the conditions prevailing in our urban centers present many of our most critical national, state and local problems… rarely has so challenging an opportunity to combine the free pursuit of knowledge in its own right with the ready availability of that knowledge for the enlightenment and enrichment of the larger community of which it is a part been presented to an institution of higher education.” (report of the commission to plan for the establishment of a proposed state-supported university in the richmond metropolitan area, 1967) both vcu and richmond have changed dramatically over the ensuing 50 years. for example, between 1968 and 2015, vcu’s student enrollment increased from 10,000 to 32,000 students, and the campuses grew to occupy 144 acres in the center of richmond. during that same period, the population of the city of richmond dropped from approximately 250,000 to 214,000; and like many other u.s. urban centers during this time period, richmond’s residents experienced higher rates of poverty and unemployment than did residents from the suburban communities that surrounded the city. consequently, the need for vcu to expand its engagement with its neighboring communities has grown across time, and the university has worked to meet that need. for example, by 1978 vcu had formalized support for its community engagement activities through the establishment of the division of continuing studies and public service, which in 2006 was renamed the division of community engagement (dce). the dce is administered from the provost’s office and is now led by a vice provost for community engagement who reports directly to the provost. the division provides support and coordination for community-engaged teaching, research and outreach activities across all academic units on both campuses and currently employs more than 20 full time staff members. in 2006 and 2015 the division led vcu’s successful applications to gain recognition from the carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching as a community engaged institution. commitment to community engagement is also evident in the university’s strategic plans across time. the most recent strategic plan, quest for distinction, was adopted in may 2011 and includes specific language and assessment metrics regarding the university’s goal to become a national model for community engagement and regional impact. developing campus-wide community engagement definitions annually, the dce co-sponsors a university-wide council for community engagement that engages 40 representatives from both academic and administrative units. council members are responsible for educating colleagues in their units about important university-level community engagement initiatives, distributing internal grant funding for interdisciplinary community-engagement initiatives, and recognizing outstanding community-university partnerships. during the 2010-2011 academic year, council members began to call for vcu to established shared definitions of important community engagement terms. it was clear to council members that faculty and administrators within and across units interpreted community engagement terms such as community, partnership, and community-engaged service in different ways. these different interpretations inevitably led to miscommunications and confusion about community engagement activities both amongst and across campus groups. as a first step, council members requested that the dce investigate community engagement definitions being used by peer institutions. during the summer of 2011, the vice provost for community engagement supervised a graduate student intern who conducted this research. the results were shared with council members in the fall of 2011 and showed that peer institutions used a wide variety of definitions for key community engagement terms. the consensus of the council that autumn was to craft and approve a vcu list of community engagement terms and definitions by adapting definitions used by peer 89 institutions and national organizations (carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching, 2011; clinical and translational science awards consortium’s community engagement key function committee, 2011; driscoll & sandmann 2011; glassick, huber, & maeroff, 1997; harter, hamellambert, & millesen, 2011; lynton, 1995; saltmarsh, 2010; the university of kansas beach center on disability, 2012; u.s. department of health and human services office of behavioral and social science research, 2011). throughout the rest of the fall 2011 semester, dce staff members along with several council leaders worked to create this list of vcu definitions for the following key community engagement terms: community, partnership, community outreach, community engagement, communityengaged scholarship, community engaged-service, community-engaged teaching/learning, and community-engaged research. drafts of the definitions were shared with the entire council membership via online repositories (e.g., blackboard) and all council members were invited to edit and provide feedback. by february 2012 the council for community engagement members had approved by consensus the list of terms and definitions. at that same time, as we will describe below, the vice provost for community engagement hired an external expert consultant to help campus leaders and members of the new ad hoc committee for the revision of promotion and tenure policies consider ways in which the university’s community engagement mission could be articulated in the university’s revised promotion and tenure policies. in concert with this work, the consultant provided feedback on the community engagement definitions, which were then presented to the provost who forwarded them to the president’s cabinet for their approval. the terms were approved in august 2012 and were added to the institutional data glossary maintained by the office of planning and decision support. the approved definitions (shown in table 1) were posted on the university’s website. ______________________________________________________________________________ table 1 vcu community engagement terms and definitions ______________________________________________________________________________ community a group of people external to the campus who are affiliated by geo graphic proximity, special interest, similar situation or shared values. communities may share characteristics such as age, ethnicity, gender, or sexual orientation. partnership sustained collaboration between institutions of higher education and communities for the mutually beneficial exchange, exploration, and application of knowledge, information, and resources. examples are research, capacity building, or economic development. community outreach the application and provision of institutional resources, knowledge or services that directly benefits the community. examples include music concerts, athletic events, student volunteers, public lectures, or health fairs. community engagement the collaboration between institutions of higher education and their larger communities for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in the context of partnership and reciprocity. it can involve partnerships and coalitions that help mobilize resources and influence systems and serve as catalysts for initiating and/or changing policies, programs, and practices. 90 communityengaged scholarship the creation and dissemination of knowledge and creative expression in furtherance of the mission and goals of the university and in collaboration with the community. community-engaged scholarship (ces) addresses community needs through research, teaching and service in a mutually beneficial partnership. the quality and impact of ces are determined by academic peers and community partners. communityengaged service the application of one's professional expertise that addresses a community identified need and supports the goals and mission of the university and the community. community-engaged service may entail the delivery of expertise, resources and services to the community. communityengaged teaching/ learning a pedagogical approach that connects students and faculty with activities that address community-identified needs through mutually beneficial partnerships that deepen students' academic and civic learning. examples are service-learning courses or service-learning clinical praticums. communityengaged research a collaborative process between the researcher and community partner that creates and disseminates knowledge and creative expression with the goal of contributing to the discipline and strengthening the well being of the community. community-engaged research (cer) identifies the assets of all stakeholders and incorporates them in the design and conduct of the different phases of the research process. ______________________________________________________________________________ revising promotion and tenure policies to include community engagement language in the fall of 2011, the university president charged a 19-member ad hoc committee to review and revise the promotion and tenure policies of the university. this ad hoc committee for the revision of promotion and tenure policies convened for the first time in november 2011. the provost instructed the committee to insure that the revised policy clearly aligned with the university’s new strategic plan, quest for distinction. the provost also required that the general criteria for promotion and tenure include community engagement language. to meet this requirement, the committee constructed a matrix that enabled tracking of the developing policy revision along the major themes of the university’s strategic plan. during the next three months, the ad hoc committee worked in subcommittees to collect information that would guide their work. these committees were the peer institution review subcommittee, the literature review subcommittee, and the vcu school-level promotion and tenure policy review subcommittee. each subcommittee utilized the matrix to map information it collected with the major themes of quest for distinction. because community engagement existed as a major theme of quest for distinction, this matrix approach insured that the ad hoc committee brought forward information related to community engagement language in the promotion and tenure policy revision. in september 2011, the vice provost for community engagement hired an external expert consultant to work with key campus stakeholders around the topics of community engagement in the academy and community-engaged scholarship. the consultant met on campus with deans to help them understand the nature and role of community-engaged scholarship within their disciplines. during the fall semester, the consultant also met with members of the council for community engagement and with the staff from the university’s center for clinical and translational research. finally, the consultant attended the fourth meeting of the ad hoc committee, which was convened in february 2012, to facilitate a discussion about community engagement and community-engaged scholarship. 91 the march 2012 meeting of the ad hoc committee included a large group discussion of the ideas shared by the expert consultant the previous month. a number of key questions arose from the group, and these are described in the barriers and myths section below. the ad hoc committee co-chairs sought answers to the committee members’ questions by shuttling between the ad hoc committee and various campus community engagement experts, including the vice provost for community engagement, the external expert consultant, and members of the council for community engagement. over the next few months, it became clear to the ad hoc committee members that the community engagement definitions developed by the council for community engagement during the fall 2011 semester should be utilized in the promotion and tenure policy revision. additionally, the ad hoc committee members came to the consensus that language related to community engagement would be incorporated into each of the three general criteria—scholarship, teaching, and service. specifically, the revised general criteria for promotion and tenure explicitly included community-engaged scholarship, community-engaged teaching, and community-engaged service as acceptable approaches to the work. the exact language included in the revised policy is shown in table 2. ______________________________________________________________________________ table 2 vcu promotion and tenure policies general criteria and criteria definitions for tenured, tenureeligible, and term (non-tenure) faculty members ______________________________________________________________________________ in order to ensure distinction in learning, research, scholarly pursuits and creative expression, and service, the following criteria shall apply in the evaluation of all tenured and tenure-eligible faculty members for promotion and tenure. for faculty members holding term (non-tenure) faculty appointments, the criteria shall be applied in the evaluation for promotion as appropriate to the individual faculty member’s special mix of duties. all faculty members’ work plans are developed in accordance with the faculty roles and rewards policy. faculty members holding administrative positions must meet the guidelines of their own academic unit. general criteria include: general criteria 1: appropriate credentials and experience. general criteria 2: demonstrated continuing scholarship and professional growth. faculty members should be continuously engaged in productive and creative scholarly activity in areas relevant to the goals and mission of their academic unit. they should make a substantive contribution to the body of knowledge in their discipline that reflects high standards of quality in creativity, scholarship and professional competence. they should demonstrate leadership and professional competence in independent scholarship and/or collaborative research that leads to the creation of new knowledge or creative expression. scholarship can be in the form of research and discovery scholarship, the scholarship of teaching and learning, or community-engaged research. research and discovery scholarship breaks new ground in the discipline and answers significant questions in the discipline. scholarship of teaching and learning includes applied research regarding various pedagogies, student learning, and assessment practices; development and dissemination of materials for use in teaching beyond one’s own classroom. community-engaged research is a collaborative process between the researcher and community partner at all stages of the research process. examples are community-based participatory and action research. general criteria 3: demonstrated quality in teaching. teaching shall be evaluated based primarily upon the impact of the faculty member’s teaching in programs relevant to the mission of their academic unit. faculty members must demonstrate mastery of their subject matter and at communicating this understanding to student learners; most fundamentally, faculty members should demonstrate that their 92 students learn. there should be evidence of the candidate's sustained commitment to classroom instruction, to inclusion of advising and availability to students as a component of teaching, to sustained effectiveness as a contributor to the intellectual development of students through devices such as course design, course material, curriculum development, and attention to other mechanisms of enhancing student learning. mentoring, and other forms of beneficial interactions between the candidate and learners, may be given appropriate weight as a part of the teaching criteria as determined by the academic unit. demonstrated quality of teaching may include community-engaged teaching that connects students and faculty members with activities that address community-identified needs through mutually beneficial partnerships that deepen students' academic and civic learning. examples are service-learning courses or service-learning clinical practicums. general criteria 4: demonstrated performance in service. faculty members are expected to give of their time and expertise for the betterment of their department, school and university, their profession and/or the broader community. service includes engaging in the application of learning and discovery to improve the human condition and support the public good at home and abroad. demonstrated performance in service may include community-engaged service, which is the application of one's professional expertise to address a community-identified need and to support the goals and mission of the university and the community partner. approved may 2013. ______________________________________________________________________________ by may 2012, the ad hoc committee had submitted its revised policy in a final report to the provost. during the fall 2012 semester, four open discussion forums were held on the campus so that stakeholders could respond to the proposed revision. additionally, public comments were collected via an online platform. the ad hoc committee met once more in december 2012 to incorporate suggestions from these forums into the document. no significant changes to the community-engagement language were made as a result of the public comments. the university’s board of visitors approved the new university promotion and tenure policy in may 2013. once the new university promotion and tenure policy was approved, each of the 12 vcu schools and its college of humanities and sciences set to work revising their own unit-level policy so that it aligned with the new university policy. during the 2013-2014 academic year, these academic units worked to update their policies and to have these reviewed and approved by the university promotion and tenure policy review committee. this committee consists of tenured faculty members who represent each school and who are appointed by the university president for 3-year terms. the committee was responsible for insuring that the proposed unit-level policies aligned with the new university-level policy. as of fall 2015, 11 of the 13 units had completed this review process and had approved unit-level promotion and tenure policies in place, while two units continue to work with the university promotion and tenure policy review committee on their revisions. of the 11 approved policies, 10 include language related to community-engaged teaching and community-engaged scholarship, and all 11 included language related to community-engaged service. copies of these discipline-specific policies are available from the authors. key champions throughout the process of developing university specific community engagement definitions and incorporating community engagement language into the revised promotion and tenure policies, several key champions immerged. these champions, through their expertise, political and social capital, were able to help shape the positive trajectory of the process. 93 these champions included the university provost, who insisted that the revised policies explicitly reflect the institution’s strategic plan, in part by incorporating community engagement language. the external consultant and the vice provost for community engagement played the important role of providing ad hoc committee members with real-time expert community engagement information, particularly information that benchmarked national community engagement trends and provided comparisons to both peer and aspirational institutions. the co-chairs of the ad hoc committee facilitated the successful inclusion of community-engagement language by diligently working to address committee members’ concerns and questions through ongoing dialogue with campus community engagement experts. as a group, the ad hoc committee was itself an asset because it included several members who were openly supportive of community-engaged scholarship, teaching and service as well as members who were receptive to the idea of widening the promotion and tenure policy general criteria to include a variety of high-quality approaches. an important champion was the vice president for research, who openly supported the recognition of a variety of scholarship methods. the vice president publicly stated that the most important criteria for determining what types of scholarship are acceptable were the quality of the scholarship and not the methodology used. these public statements helped to quiet small pockets of opposition to community-engaged research that arose both in the ad hoc committee and across the campus during open forums. barriers and myths the promotion and tenure policy revision process uncovered a number of beliefs and myths about community engaged academic work that existed on our campus and that needed to be dispelled before the policies would be revised to include community engagement language. these beliefs included misunderstandings about the definition of community engagement, the requirements for communityengaged scholarship, and the ingredients of institutional preeminence. many of our campus stakeholders initially held the belief that community engagement is a type of faculty service (i.e., service that occurs within the community). community engagement, they believed, is an important and valued form of faculty service that exists alongside the more traditional service types, such as campus service (e.g., college committee work) and professional service (e.g., professional organization leadership) and should, therefore, be ‘credited’ in the service category of the revised policies. faculty members and administrators across disciplines held this belief, including individuals from the social sciences, arts and humanities, stem disciplines, and from our medical campus. even when the community engagement definitions included both teaching and research activities, these individuals saw community engagement work as primarily a service activity. we used primarily educational strategies to debunk this belief, especially explanations, and institutional peer/national trend data, from campus and national community engagement experts such as the vice provost for community engagement and the external expert consultant. at one point during this educational process, the ad hoc committee entertained the idea that community engagement was unique enough to warrant its own fourth criteria category. again, our community engagement experts were successful in lobbying against this idea in favor of a more integrated approach that wove community engagement language into the existing three general criteria categories—scholarship, teaching, and service. a second set of myths that surfaced from the ad hoc committee membership involved the nature of community-engaged scholarship in the revised policies. members expressed concerns related to processes for assessing the quality of community-engaged scholarship and to the availability of funding streams to support this type of research. our community engagement experts addressed both of these concerns by providing the committee with specific examples for both assessment and funding. several members of the ad hoc committee from stem disciplines and our medical campus were concerned that including community-engaged scholarship into the scholarship category meant (a) moving 94 forward, every faculty member would be required to include at least some community-engaged scholarship products in their promotion and tenure dossiers and (b) all research projects would now be required to involve lay community members as co-researchers. these myths were somewhat easier to dispel than was the ‘community engagement equals service’ myth. two strategies were used to successfully educate committee members and to assuage their concerns. first, the ad hoc committee cochairs proposed including excerpted portions of the community engagement definitions directly into the revised promotion and tenure policies to clarify what the institution meant by terms such as communityengaged scholarship, community-engaged teaching, and community-engaged service. second, the cochairs proposed language for the revised policies that made clear the acceptable and optional nature of community-engaged work within the three criteria. this language involved phrases such as “scholarship can be in the form of…” and “quality teaching may include community-engaged….”. in these ways, the language of the policies made clear to readers that community-engaged approaches to scholarship, teaching, and service were acceptable, but not required routes to promotion or tenure. a final myth that arose, but that did not block passage of a final promotion and tenure policy revision that included community engagement language, is what we call the ‘local engagement negates preeminence’ myth. on a few occasions through the revision process, a small number of stakeholders expressed the opinion that an emphasis on community engagement would detract from the institution’s goal of national and international preeminence. we do not know how widespread this belief might be on our campus, but it is a myth we know must be addressed if our campus is to truly embrace a culture of community engagement. the idea that faculty members who teach, conduct research, or engage in service within and with local communities are detracting from their university’s goal to achieve national and international preeminence is an insidious and dangerous one. in a globalized and knowledge-based economy, the idea that working to address complex local problems is parochial may seem, on its surface, to have some merit. however, collaborative teams of university faculty researchers, students, and community members working on complex local problems hold the keys to unlocking solutions with worldwide applications. additionally, technology now enables these local community-university teams to work collaboratively with parallel community-university teams from around the world, making the local truly global. we believe that only high-quality community-engaged work that demonstrates impact will finally extinguish support for the ‘local engagement negates preeminence’ myth on our campus and at other institutions of higher education around the world. future challenges our institution has successfully completed the process of including community-engagement language in its universityand school-level promotion and tenure policies. for these policies to truly influence campus culture, we must develop and implement a continuum of supports. o’meara and her colleagues (2015) outline many of the strategies we must now develop at our institution to assist our faculty members, department chairs and deans, and the members of our promotion and tenure review committees in implementing these policies and supporting community-engaged faculty work. first, we must continue to educate all members of our campus community about how communityengaged academic work differs from traditional research, teaching and service models; and we must explicitly describe why community-engaged faculty work is valued on our campus. second, our university will need to develop criteria for evaluating community-engaged scholarship, communityengaged teaching, and community-engaged service; and these criteria will need to be applicable or adaptable across disciplines. we will need to provide both faculty members and administrators with examples of ways to document and evaluate high quality community-engaged academic work. while we recognize the importance of providing these types of supports for community-engaged scholarship, we want to emphasize that it is also critical to develop and implement similar supports for defining, documenting, and evaluating high-quality community-engaged teaching and community-engaged service. 95 regularly scheduled information sessions and professional development workshops targeted for specific campus stakeholder groups (e.g., department chairs, deans, promotion and tenure review committee members) can be effective formats for communicating the critical conceptual framework of communityengaged academic work. open access online toolkits are also useful resources to support the work of academic administrators and faculty members as these can provide specific definitions, procedural guidelines, case examples, and contact information for receiving assistance from campus communityengagement experts. when evaluating and rewarding faculty work, it will also be important for universities—including virginia commonwealth university—to increase the value of local impact so that it is afforded the same credibility in promotion and tenure reviews as national and international impact. o’meara and her colleagues (2015) emphasize that it is “important for policy guidelines to articulate the value of local partnership development and to make it clear that local impact is as important as international impact— and at all ranks. because funding sources are often considered in research-focused institutions and in stem fields, it is also helpful to signal acceptance of various kinds of funding sources as evidence of impact. otherwise, faculty members may be disadvantaged for attracting practice-oriented foundation grants, for example, rather than federal research funding.” we agree, and believe we will need to address this issue of local impact (e.g., the community-engagement negates preeminence myth) on our campuses in the future. 96 conclusions the process of incorporating community-engagement language into the revised promotion and tenure policies at virginia commonwealth university involved multifaceted supports and occurred incrementally over decades. the process was successful, in part, because virginia commonwealth university, as an institution, had established a long history of substantive community-engagement and had already incorporated community-engagement as a central mission in its strategic plan and administrative infrastructure. high-quality community-engaged faculty work was already visible on our campus and, therefore, recognized by members of the ad hoc committee for the revision of promotion and tenure policies. high-level campus administrators, especially the provost and the vice president for research, were outspoken supporters, and this fact also positively impacted the process. finally, the vice provost for community engagement and the university’s council for community engagement spearheaded a well-timed strategy for developing university-wide community-engagement definitions and for hosting an external expert consultant who provided further supports for our successful promotion and tenure policy revision. we recommend to other institutions working for the inclusion of community-engaged language in their promotion and tenure policy revisions that they assess how many of these types of supports they have or could put into place prior to the launch of the revision process. our experience has taught us that each of these supports played a critically important role in our success story. we urge other institutions to recognize promotion and tenure revision as just one step along the road to developing a campus climate that supports faculty for undertaking community-engaged teaching, scholarship, and service rather than as the successful end point. the impact of community-engaged language in an institution’s faculty reward structure ultimately depends on the quality and quantity of supports that institution provides to its members for deeply embracing that language. 97 references agency for toxic substances & disease registry. 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(2010). engaged pedagogy. in h. fitzgerald, c. burack, & s. seifer (eds.) handbook of engaged scholarship: contemporary landscapes for future directions 2010, pp. 331-352. east lansing: michigan state university press. saltmarsh, j., warren, m. r., krueger-henney, p., rivera, l., fleming, r. k., friedman, d. h., & uriarte, m. (2015). creating an academic culture that supports community-engaged scholarship. diversity and democracy 18 (1). retrieved from https://www.aacu.org/diversitydemocracy/2015/winter/saltmarsh. scholarship of engagement. (2011). evaluation criteria for the scholarship of engagement. retrieved from http://www.scholarshipofengagement.org/evaluation _criteria.html. the university of kansas beach center on disability. (2011). participatory action research. retrieved from http://obssr.od.nih.gov/scentific_areas/methodology/community_based_participatory_research/index.aspx . u.s. department of health and human services office of behavioral and social science research. 2011. community-based participatory research. retrieved from http://obssr.od.nih.gov/scientific_area/methodology/community_based_participatory_research/index.as. http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/communityengagement%20/pdf/pce_report_508_final.pdf http://classifications.carnegiefoundation.org/descriptions/community_engagement.php http://www.aacu.org/liberaleducation/2015/summer/o%27meara https://www.aacu.org/diversitydemocracy/2015/winter/saltmarsh http://www.scholarshipofengagement.org/evaluation%20_criteria.html http://obssr.od.nih.gov/scentific_areas/methodology/community_based_participatory_research/index.aspx http://obssr.od.nih.gov/scentific_areas/methodology/community_based_participatory_research/index.aspx http://obssr.od.nih.gov/scientific_area/methodology/community_based_participatory_research/index.as 98 author information dr. lynn e. pelco is the associate vice provost for community engagement at virginia commonwealth university, where she is also the director of service-learning and affiliate professor in the school of education. her research and teaching interests include high-impact educational practices and university student development. lynn e. pelco associate vice provost for community engagement virginia commonwealth university division of community engagement 901 w. franklin street p.o. box 843062 richmond, va 23284-3062 telephone: 804-827-8215 email: lepelco@vcu.edu dr. catherine howard is the vice provost for community engagement at virginia commonwealth university and associate professor in the department of psychology. she co-chairs the vcu council for community engagement and has focused on creating a culture of community engagement throughout the campus. catherine howard vice provost for community engagement virginia commonwealth university division of community engagement 901 w. franklin street p.o. box 843062 richmond, va 23284-3062 telephone: 804-828-8790 email: choward@vcu.edu mailto:lepelco@vcu.edu mailto:choward@vcu.edu 44 teacher training in urban settings: inquiry, efficacy, and culturally diverse field placements sheryl l. mcglamery, bridget a. franks, and saundra l. shillingstad abstract this study describes two years of findings with a unique field experience (teaching science inquiry activities to african-american girls in a summer stem camp) for preservice elementary education majors. it reports on the effects of the field experience, in conjunction with blocked science and mathematics methods courses, on preservice teachers’ scores on the science teaching efficacy belief instrument (stebi-b), as well as their rankings of their course experiences with regard to science selfefficacy. introduction what is culturally responsive teaching? geneva gay (2012) defined it as using cultural characteristics, experiences, and perspectives of ethnically diverse students as conduits for teaching them more effectively. to do so requires a number of commitments, including developing a cultural knowledge base, demonstrating caring and building learning communities, communicating with students from diverse ethnic and cultural groups, and responding to ethnic diversity in the delivery of instruction (p. 106). for u. s. preservice teachers, most of whom are young, white, and from middle class families (barnes, 2006), acquiring these skills can be a challenge, especially if they have little or no experience with children from cultural backgrounds different from their own. on the way to becoming culturally responsive teachers, they need two basic experiences to start with: one is simple exposure and interaction time with students of different ethnic groups and/or cultures, and the other is successfully teaching content knowledge and/or skills to those students. the challenge of culturally responsive teaching is even greater when preservice teachers are dealing with a content area in which they often feel they have little expertise, such as science. elementary school experiences serve as children’s introduction to science and science exploration, so it is vital that they experience positive science-learning outcomes. such outcomes are unlikely, however, if teachers hold negative attitudes about science or lack confidence in their ability to teach it. in offering students the kinds of experiences that will help them to become more culturally responsive, the benefits of a community partnership in teacher training can hardly be overemphasized. urban community settings, whether in schools or elsewhere, offer vital points of contact between preservice teachers and the culturally diverse students they will be teaching. they also allow preservice teachers experience with a key feature of culturally responsive teaching, that of selecting participation structures that reflect students’ ways of knowing and doing, rather than their own. as elizabeth kozleski (2010) recommends, teachers should put themselves in situations where they are not dominant or are a noticeable minority, to recognize how this feels and to “sit with the discomfort” (p. 6). in working with groups of mostly black students, our mostly white preservice teachers had the opportunity to experience such a situation, and to consider how it affected their self-efficacy for teaching science. this study explored the effects of a unique field experience (teaching science lessons in a summer stem camp for predominantly african-american girls) in conjunction with blocked science and mathematics methods courses, on the scores of preservice elementary teachers on the science teaching efficacy belief instrument (stebi-b). it also explored the preservice teachers’ rankings of their course experiences with 45 regard to science self-efficacy. data collected during two years of the summer camp program are reported here. during each of the two summers, the preservice teachers participated in a field experience with eureka-stem!, a summer camp designed to promote stem education. the camp is held yearly on the campus of a mid-size urban university, and is offered in cooperation with omaha girls, inc., a community support program for girls. most of the girls who participated in the program were from singleparent families with annual incomes below $30,000. most were african american, but african (somali), latina, and asian girls also participated. perceptions of science and efficacy for science teaching preservice elementary teachers historically have negative perceptions regarding science education and science learning, as well as reduced understanding of scientific principles (buss 2010). research suggests they often have had negative experiences while learning science, and as a result may express a low level of interest in it, or undervalue its relevance to their lives (bleicher & lindgren, 2005; watters & ginns, 1995). this reduced level of scientific engagement can result in a lack of efficacy about presenting science lessons (bergman & morphew, 2015). compared to other elementary content, such as language arts, preservice elementary teachers exhibit lower efficacy ratings for science and mathematics, possibly due to their lack of knowledge. they often feel uncomfortable and sometimes unable to teach these subjects effectively (buss, 2010). the combination of previous negative learning experiences and lack of knowledge can lead to negative emotions, attitudes, beliefs, and values, all of which may affect teachers’ ability to learn, and later to teach mathematics and science (cassel & vincent, 2011; yürük, 2011). the important task of creating positive science-learning outcomes for children that will serve as the foundation for science performance in later grades cannot be accomplished if elementary teachers hold negative attitudes toward science education. outcome expectancy refers to the belief that effective teaching affects students’ learning positively, whereas self-efficacy refers to the belief in one’s own ability to teach effectively (bandura, 1993). both are necessary if preservice teachers are to view science teaching with confidence. bleicher (2006) explored both elements in a science teaching methods course based on nurturing conceptual understanding and confidence; following the course, preservice teachers demonstrated significant increases in personal self-efficacy and outcome expectancy, as well as in understanding of basic earth science concepts. bergman and morphew (2015) found that a single semester science content course designed specifically for elementary preservice teachers, that emphasized not only content but also strategies for promoting inquiry-based learning, resulted in significant increases in participants’ selfefficacy and in their outcome expectancy for teaching science. the relationship between teacher efficacy and successful teaching outcomes has been widely studied. teachers with higher self-efficacy have high expectations for their students, set more ambitious goals for them, and effect greater growth (allinder, 1995). they also spend more class time on academic activities and focus less on discipline than do teachers with lower self-efficacy (tschannen-moran & hoy, 2007). in contrast, teachers with negative attitudes toward science are most likely to use avoidance tactics when teaching science content; thus, they spend less time teaching science-related topics and are less able to stimulate a positive attitude towards science in their students (jarvis and pell, 2004; osborne, simon, and collins, 2003). this leads to decreased outcome expectancies for their students’ understanding of material (leonard, barnes-johnson, dantley, & kimber, 2011). 46 field experiences and science efficacy requiring a field experience in a science methods class is a common practice. preservice teachers learn recommended science teaching methods, and receive direct feedback about their own effectiveness in real classroom situations. cannon and scharmann (1996) observed higher teaching efficacy among elementary preservice teachers who had experiences in field placement classrooms than among those who did not, and a review of studies on the challenges faced by new science teachers (davis, petish, & smithey, 2006) concluded that field experiences not only contributed to understanding science instruction and teaching efficacy, but also helped preservice teachers learn to anticipate their students’ ideas. swars and dooley (2010) observed increased self-efficacy after the opportunity to work directly with children and teach them science activities, and further observed that preservice teachers attributed their work with the children to the increase in their self-efficacy beliefs. this is particularly relevant to the present study because the field experience in swars and dooley’s (2010) study involved working with children who were predominantly ethnic minorities (65% hispanic, 20% african american, 8% asian, 4% multiracial, 3% white) and nonnative english speakers. efforts to address achievement gaps in science among ethnic minority students, particularly girls, have been a focus of interest among science education researchers for some time (buxton 2006; carlone, johnson, & scott, 2015; fraser-abder, atwater, and lee, 2006); the field placement in the present study was designed specifically for ethnic minority girls. in helping preservice teachers prepare to teach science effectively at the elementary level, particularly in urban environments with students from diverse backgrounds, three kinds of support appear to be crucial. support for science content knowledge, training in inquiry methods, and experience with real students all are needed to produce effective elementary science teachers who can engage students, particularly those from groups underrepresented in the sciences, in meaningful science activities. this study reports the effects of a science methods class that included all three kinds of support on preservice teachers’ science self-efficacy. research questions the university students who participated in this study were engaged in learning highly interactive, inquiry-based science teaching methods. since practicing teachers with high self-efficacy are more likely to use such methods, we wanted to see if learning and practicing them, even in a 4-week summer class, would result in improved science self-efficacy. another reason for exploring self-efficacy in this context was that the practicum experience for the class took place in a summer camp designed specifically to empower girls and interest them in stem careers. we thought it likely that the experience of providing at-risk girls with an encouraging atmosphere for doing science would have a positive impact on the preservice teachers’ confidence as well. a variety of issues related to inquiry-based pedagogy (some reported elsewhere) were explored with these students. this article focuses on our exploration of their expressed self-efficacy after taking a science methods class with a unique field placement setting. self-efficacy was measured with the two subscales of the science teaching efficacy belief instrument (stebi-b), science teaching outcome expectancy and personal science teaching efficacy belief (enochs & riggs 1990), as well as by student rankings of class experiences. as such, our research questions were as follows: 1. how does the science methods class affect science teaching outcome expectancy scores for preservice teachers? 2. how does the science methods class affect personal science teaching efficacy belief 47 scores for preservice teachers? 3. how do preservice teachers rank their experiences in the science methods class with regard to their science self-efficacy? although it is possible that teaching science concepts to actual students for the first time could affect selfefficacy negatively in some students, our prediction was that the combination of training in inquiry-based science education with a unique field experience designed to be positive and supportive for at-risk girls would result in increases on both subscales of the stebi-b for elementary education majors. we made no specific predictions about how our participants would rank their experiences in the science methods class. setting the summer school experience for both years of the study, the preservice teachers were all registered in ted 4340/4330, blocked science and mathematics methods courses taken during a summer term. the courses taken were required for all elementary majors to complete, and no effort was made to recruit or allow for self-selection into the summer block. all the elementary education majors who enrolled in the course block were due to student teach within two semesters of completing the ted 4340/4330 block. the field experience for the preservice teachers enrolled in ted 4340, the eureka-stem! camp served as their required field experience. the four-week summer camp experience is designed to introduce at-risk female students to stem education in a positive college setting. topics for the camp included robotics (working with ceenbots), an introduction to programming and coding, financial literacy, physics, biology, chemistry, engineering and mathematics. university faculty, staff, and graduate students planned and executed the summer program, which also included physical education and swimming. science classes were part of the program, and each preservice elementary teacher was required to teach a series of four science lessons to a small group of girls. although these students were in middle school, their science content knowledge was estimated to be 2-3 years below their grade levels, as reported by our community partners. thus, the science content taught ranged from 6th to 8th grade level. the preservice elementary teachers were divided into teams of three. each team was required to teach 4 class sessions of 90 minutes each. the 90 minute classes were divided into 330 minute segments. each team was assigned a thematic science topic and given four to six science lessons to adapt and teach to their small (2-3 students) group of middle school girls. each team set up their science lessons in a center format. the groups of middle school girls rotated through the science centers, spending 30 minutes at each assigned center. the teams of preservice teachers were instructed to adapt the lessons to three 30minute sessions, and to expect to teach the lesson of the day three times, with each preservice teacher taking a turn at leading the lesson. the four teaching sessions lasted 90 minutes each. the teacher candidates also turned in a written science lesson plan and science journal reflections after teaching each 90-minute session. other class assignments and activities used to address efficacy the preservice teachers were immersed in a science methods course designed to teach inquiry as a pedagogy to assist students in learning science. the components of the course and assignments are described below. while inquiry pedagogy is not the focus of this article, it is necessary for the reader to 48 recognize that in order to be successful at teaching science, preservice elementary teachers must understand inquiry and its application to science teaching. therefore, we were interested in which parts of the course influenced the preservice teachers most with regard to their science teaching efficacy. the class assignments used to address efficacy were the same for both years, and included: 1. what is inquiry? (pre-assessment). an open-ended question was posed and pre-service elementary teachers wrote about their understandings of inquiry-based science instruction. 2. science biography (self report). pre-service elementary teachers reported on the courses they completed in high school and college science and mathematics, and described the type of learning experiences they had in these courses. 3. faculty presentations. faculty gave presentations on inquiry-based teaching methods and engaged the preservice teachers in discussion questions about inquiry-based instruction in science. 4. participation in inquiry labs (six labs total). each week for the four weeks of the course, the preservice elementary teachers performed inquiry-based labs in class. following the field experience, the in-class labs resumed. 5. inquiry reflection paper. after reading several articles on teaching science using inquiry, preservice teachers wrote a paper indicating their understanding of inquiry-based instruction. the paper was completed during the third week of class. 6. field-based teaching of inquiry-based labs (structured level) in a college setting. the pre-service teachers taught inquiry based science labs to middle school students for two weeks, with a total of four lessons taught per pre-service teacher. 7. preservice elementary teachers constructed inquiry-based labs given only researchable questions (guided level). after the field experience and during the last week of the course, preservice elementary teachers were given questions about science and asked to design an inquiry-based lab experiment for elementary age children to complete. they were expected to select the researchable question, phrase the question, identify the variables, and write the procedure for the experiment. subsequently, they performed the experiment, gathered data, graphed their data, and reported their findings and conclusions. method participants participants in year one were 27 undergraduate elementary education majors (2 males, 25 female) who were enrolled in blocked science and mathematics methods courses taken during a summer term. participants were all caucasian students at a medium-sized urban university in the midwest. participants in year two were 20 undergraduate elementary education majors (1 male, 19 female) who were enrolled in the same methods courses during a summer term at the same university; there were 19 caucasian students and one hispanic female student. as described earlier, the field component of the courses involved working with primarily african-american female middle-school students who were enrolled in a summer stem camp held on a university campus. in year one, the camp participants were 60 girls ages 11-14; 4 were african (somali), 3 were latina, 1 was asian, and the remainder were african american. in year two, the camp participants were again 60 49 girls ages 11-14; 5 were african (somali), 3 were latina, 1 was asian, 1 was caucasian, and the remainder were african american. instruments the preservice version of the science teaching efficacy belief instrument (stebi-b), (enochs & riggs, 1990) was used in both years to assess students’ self-efficacy regarding science teaching. this widely used instrument measures two subscales, personal science teaching efficacy belief (13 items) and science teaching outcome expectancy (10 items). a re-examination of the instrument’s reliability and validity (bleicher, 2004) established that the two subscales were homogenous, with factor loadings comparable to those reported by enochs and riggs (1990), and concluded that the basic integrity of the stoe and psteb scales were upheld, supporting the continued use of the instrument. participants rate their beliefs on a 5-point likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). each subscale contains both forward-phrased (“i will continually find better ways to teach science”) and reverse-phrased (“i will not be very effective in monitoring science experiments”) items. in a more informal measure, during the fourth week of class, the participants were asked to rank each of the seven components of the course (listed above) in terms of its influence on their self-efficacy in teaching science. the three most highly ranked activities were then reported. procedure in both years, the stebi-b was administered to all the students on the first day of class, before any content was covered and after introductions were completed. students then participated in the field experience and other efficacy-related course assignments, as described above. at the end of the 4-week session, the posttest administration of stebi-b occurred on the last day of class, following the class session but before the last exam. since all elementary education majors are required to take this methods class, random assignment to this class or to some other methods class was not possible; therefore, a quasi-experimental, within-groups design was used to compare self-efficacy scores between pretest and posttest scores in each of two separate years. results we first calculated the internal reliability of the stebi-b instrument as a whole for our sample, using the pretest scores. the cronbach’s alpha for the measure was .80, indicating a good level of instrument reliability. paired samples t tests were then used to evaluate differences between pretest and posttest scores for the two subscales of the stebi-b, science teaching outcome expectancy (stoe) and personal science teaching efficacy belief (psteb). table 1 illustrates the results observed for the two subscales in year one. on the stoe subscale, the difference between pretest and posttest scores was significant, t (26) = 2.12, p = .04. on the psteb subscale, the difference between pretest and posttest scores was also significant, t (26) = 3.18, p = .004. using an eta2 formula for a paired samples t test, a large effect size of .15 was obtained for the stoe subscale and an even larger effect size of .28 was obtained for the psteb subscale (cohen 1988). 50 table 1 paired samples t-tests with pretest and posttest scores on science teaching outcome expectancy and personal science teaching efficacy belief subscales of the stebi-b, year one. subscale n mean, sd pre mean, sd post t(26) p effect size* stoe 27 36.48 (3.30) 37.85 (3.46) 2.12 .04 .15 psteb 27 47.93 (6.60) 51.33 (4.58) 3.18 .004 .28 stoe scores out of 50 possible; psteb scores out of 65 possible *eta2 values: .01 = small effect, .06 = moderate effect, .14 = large effect (cohen, 1988) table 2 illustrates the results observed for the two subscales in year two. on the stoe subscale, the difference between pretest and posttest scores was again significant, t (19) = 3.16, p = .005. on the psteb subscale, the difference between pretest and posttest scores was also significant, t (19) = 3.90, p = .001. using an eta2 formula for a paired samples t test, a large effect size of .35 was obtained for the stoe subscale and an even larger effect size of .44 was obtained for the psteb subscale (cohen 1988). table 2 paired samples t-tests with pretest and posttest scores on science teaching outcome expectancy and personal science teaching efficacy belief subscales of the stebi-b, year two. subscale n mean, sd pre mean, sd post t(19) p effect size* stoe 20 34.90 (3.79) 38.15 (4.42) 3.16 .005 .35 psteb 20 43.70 (5.22) 48.65 (5.61) 3.90 .001 .44 stoe scores out of 50 possible; psteb scores out of 65 possible *eta2 values: .01 = small effect, .06 = moderate effect, .14 = large effect (cohen 1988) in addition to the administration of the steb-b, the preservice elementary teachers were asked to rank the course components, based on the influence each component had on their efficacy about teaching science. in year one, the field experience was ranked highest, with 98.2% of the preservice teachers indicating it was the most useful aspect of the course in influencing their self-efficacy. the second most influential component of the course was the opportunity to do inquiry labs in class, with 94.7% of the preservice teachers ranking these labs as the second most influential component. the third most influential component of the course was the opportunity to design inquiry labs when given a science question to explore; 90.4% of the preservice teachers ranked it third overall. in year two, results were very similar to year one. the field experience was again ranked highest, with 97.9% of the preservice teachers indicating it was the most useful aspect of the course in influencing their self-efficacy. the second most influential course component was again the opportunity to do inquiry labs in class, with 96.2% of the preservice teachers ranking these labs as the second most influential component. the third most influential component of the course was again the opportunity to design inquiry labs when given a science question to explore; 89.9% of the preservice teachers ranked it third overall. discussion as our results illustrate, field experiences and other aspects of professional development do not have to be lengthy to have an impact on preservice teachers’ self-efficacy. even after a four-week summer course 51 that involved only 360 total minutes of student contact, the teacher candidates in both years of our study showed marked improvement in both outcome expectancies and personal self-efficacy regarding science education. thus, our prediction about the positive effects of the course on students’ self-efficacy was supported. such effects have been observed with even briefer professional development opportunities for practicing teachers (nadelson, callahan, pyke, hay, dance, & pfiester, 2013), but the participants in our study had less training and far less experience with children than practicing teachers do. what components of the summer experience are most likely to be responsible for such strong gains in selfefficacy? the students’ own rankings provide the best answers to this question. for both years, the field experience was ranked as the most useful experience for the preservice elementary teachers with regard to self-efficacy. teaching science to at-risk middle school girls provided an opportunity for the preservice teachers to face and work through their fears and concerns about teaching science. working with students from a variety of different cultures and ethnic backgrounds may have offered these caucasian teacher candidates some challenges to their beliefs about teaching science to diverse groups. but the opportunity to experience authentic science teaching using inquiry methods, with the training and support to do so successfully, clearly helped them to overcome their doubts, not only about their personal self-efficacy, but also about their beliefs that the effective teaching of science can influence student learning. swars and dooley (2010) reported similar results with preservice teachers who taught science to ethnic minority and nonnative english speaking children. the preservice teachers in their study demonstrated increased personal science teaching self-efficacy following the opportunity to work directly with children on science activities, and they attributed their work with the children to the increase in their self-efficacy beliefs. by our participants’ rankings in both years, the second most useful component of the course with regard to efficacy was the opportunity to perform inquiry-based science labs. preservice teachers were given multiple labs to complete and analyzed the results. they first completed the labs as an elementary school student would experience them, and then reflected on the content and pedagogy used when completing the lab. thus, they had the opportunity not only to practice inquiry themselves, but also to review content they will need to teach science in the elementary context. the third most useful aspect of the course (chosen by the preservice teachers in both years) was the opportunity to design inquiry labs for elementary age students to complete. after the field experience, preservice elementary teachers were given questions about science and asked to design an inquiry-based lab experiment for elementary age children to complete. they were required to select the researchable question, phrase the question, identify the variables, and write the procedure for the experiment. subsequently, they performed the experiment, gathered data, graphed their data, and reported their findings and conclusions. in completing this last phase of the course, the preservice teachers, who had already used inquiry based science labs to teach children science, were further challenged to explore inquiry from the design perspective. the act of designing their own inquiry lab also proved to the preservice teachers that they were indeed capable of teaching science to children, and they also understood at a higher level the nature and purpose of science inquiry. most science methods classes include field experiences in regular classrooms. our results suggest that this is not the only environment possible for building the confidence of elementary education majors about their ability to teach science. a field experience that provides exposure to students who are very different in ethnicity and culture from teacher candidates, combined with strong support for learning science content and designing inquiry-based activities, can also result in improved self-efficacy. 52 limitations of the study one possible limitation of this study is that the preservice teachers presented their lessons to the science camp participants in small groups (two to three children) as opposed to the larger groups found in typical classrooms. it is possible that this almost one-to-level of interaction was less difficult and gave them more confidence than would have been the case in a regular classroom setting. our future research will address this issue by comparing the results we found here with those of students who take the same methods class during a regular school semester, in a culturally diverse school setting. another issue that could be addressed in future research is the long-term impact of field experiences; do the increases in self-efficacy reported by the preservice teachers remain with them as they move into more advanced methods classes and student teaching? this would be difficult to assess, given that the preservice teachers continue to have training experiences that could contribute to their self-efficacy, but it is nevertheless an interesting question. future research will also need to address the actual gains in science content knowledge experienced by the preservice teachers. their experiences in designing inquiry labs, for example, may have impacted not only their confidence but their actual understanding of scientific concepts. this research reports only effects on preservice teachers, not on the students with whom they worked. this is because the science camp experiences involved multiple activities with a variety of adults besides the preservice teachers. the science lessons provided to them were only one part of a fulltime, four-week program. thus, effects on the eureka campers could not be attributed only to the experiences designed and presented by the preservice teachers. conclusion it is common for preservice elementary teachers to exhibit lower efficacy ratings for science and mathematics than for other elementary content (buss, 2010). finding ways to improve preservice teachers’ attitudes and confidence early in their training is crucial to providing an appropriate introduction to science exploration for elementary students. this is especially true for elementary students from minority groups underrepresented in science, and for those at risk for achievement gaps due to poverty. as noted earlier, two basic experiences are needed for education majors to begin the process of becoming more culturally 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(2011). the predictors of pre-service elementary teachers’ anxiety about teaching science. journal of baltic science education 10 (1), 17-26. retrieved from education research complete. 55 author information sheryl l. mcglamery is a professor of science education and co-director of the office of stem education in the department of teacher education, college of education at university of nebraska at omaha. she holds a phd from florida state university in science education and has research background in teacher development and the enhancement of stem learning. bridget a. franks received her phd in educational psychology from the university of nebraska – lincoln. formerly on the faculty of university of florida, she is currently an assistant professor in the teacher education department at the university of nebraska at omaha, where she teaches courses in human development and research methods. saundra l. shillingstad is a professor of teacher education in the college of education at the university of nebraska at omaha. she holds an edd from kansas state university in educational administration and leadership. sheryl l. mcglamery professor of science education department of teacher education college of education 406 roskens hall university of nebraska at omaha 6005 university drive north omaha, ne 68182-0163 e-mail: smcglamery@unomaha.edu telephone: 402-554-3525 fax: 402-554-3881 bridget a. franks assistant professor of educational psychology department of teacher education college of education 406 roskens hall university of nebraska at omaha 6005 university drive north omaha, ne 68182-0163 email: bafranks@unomaha.edu telephone: 402-554-2763 fax: 402-554-3881 saundra l. shillingstad professor of teacher education department of teacher education college of education 406 roskens hall university of nebraska at omaha 6005 university drive north omaha, ne 68182-0163 email: sshillingstad@unomaha.edu telephone: 402-554-2807 fax: 402-554-3881 mailto:smcglamery@unomaha.edu mailto:bafranks@unomaha.edu mailto:sshillingstad@unomaha.edu metropolitan universities vol. 29 no. 2 (may 2018), doi: 10.18060/21756 direct care workers pathways program: a strategy for seamless academic progression linda s. larrivee, stephanie m. chalupka, marilyn a. cleary, and cherie l. comeau abstract nationally, there is a great demand for systems that meet the needs of local employers as well as develop tools and training for their incumbent workers. concurrently, demand for healthcare professionals is growing and projected to continue for the next decade. worcester state university created the “direct care workforce development program” to offer a pathway for nontraditional-aged students in direct care positions to advance to higher-level jobs with family sustaining wages. direct care workers (dcws) (e.g., patient care assistant) encounter challenges in a quest to continue their education. they may be non-native speakers, lack a foundation in basic numeracy skills, or lack experience with technology. therefore, dcws require many support services for success in professional health-studies programs. in response, a partnership emerged between an urban medical center, state university, and labor union to provide academic pathways for dcws to progress in careers through higher education. two cohorts of dcws from the medical center enrolled in the program, which provided courses totaling nine college credits. career maps, containing action steps towards goals, and individual coaching helped dcws define their aspirations. many workers who completed the program matriculated into two and four-year professional programs, while others plan to do so in the future. keywords: nontraditional students; academic partnerships; academic pathways; intrusive advising; incumbent workers; healthcare professionals introduction nationally, the demand for direct care workers is growing rapidly. experts expect this growth to continue for the next decade at a much faster rate than other professions (the lewin group, 2008; occupational outlook handbook, 2017). direct care jobs, for the purposes of this paper, are defined as certified nurse assistants, medical assistants, homemakers, personal care and home health aides, and licensed practical nurses. these jobs represent the front line of health care delivery in communities and offer entry-level access points to health care careers for many adult and traditional-aged students who aspire to advance to higher-level jobs paying family sustaining wages. students interested in healthcare careers often begin in non-credit training programs and, with a modest amount of post-secondary training, can progress along career pathways to higherlevel careers in allied health and nursing. however, the workforce that seeks these jobs presents many challenges (khatutsky, weiner, anderson, akhmerova, & jessup, 2011). candidates may not be fluent in english, may lack a foundation in basic numeracy skills, and have little or no experience with the application of technology as a tool for health care delivery. a strong cultural awareness of the communities these students seek to serve can offset these deficits. therefore, this workforce presents both 105 challenges and opportunities, requiring an array of support services to become ready for success in job training programs. creating a true workforce on-ramp, benefitting both current and prospective workers in need of basic skills training, to prepare for entry into and retention in the direct care workforce, requires considerable work. it begins with forging career pathways from the local community that lead to job-training programs and on to credit-bearing degree and certificate programs at community colleges. an additional area of consideration is the high turnover rate among the direct care workforce (bowers, esmond, & jacobson, 2003), which affects the quality of patient care and increases the cost of workforce acquisition and training (brannon, barry, kemper, schreiner, & vasey, 2007). new approaches to the development of workforce pathways, transferrable credentials, consistent definitions of core competencies, and supportive leadership training are necessary to motivate and support the entry-level workforce to persist in their current jobs and progress to other opportunities in the healthcare field (alexander, wegner, & associates, 2004). direct care jobs represent entry-level access points to higher education for many adult and traditional-age students (institute of medicine committee on future health care workforce for older americans, 2008). curriculum and career pathways, based on industry-validated job competencies, consistent across the taxonomy of direct care jobs and health care delivery settings, are necessary to develop and sustain the direct care workforce pipeline. such pathways, codified in standards and regulations, can provide for portability of job competencies (knowledge, skills, and abilities) among different entry-level training programs and jobs. it may also provide for alignment of outcome expectations between education and employer partners. this framework can allow seamless progression of both traditional-age and adult learners from foundation skills training, such as english language and numeracy, through entry-level workplace skills into college-level certificate and degree programs leading to sustainable, living wage careers. it will also offer the flexibility to provide students with options for entry, exit, and re-entry points along the education/career pathway. development of such an aligned curriculum and career pathways system requires collaboration across community-based training organizations, higher education institutions including community colleges, employers, labor organizations and industry associations. the community college system has made considerable progress in developing stackable and accelerated programming for high demand industry sectors, including healthcare, through credit bearing certificate and degree programs. however, opportunities exist to expand the transferability of credit between non-credit and for-credit programming. just as credit transfer is a priority for students who progress from 2-year to 4-year programs, it is equally important that non-credit training “stack” for-credit coursework, certificates and degrees. this approach provides portable building blocks and seamless academic progression that reinforce student learning outcomes and progression to higher levels of education and careers. these clearly articulated pathways, stackable credentials, and complementary support services that align and reinforce the partnership between levels of the direct care/allied health career ladder are strategies that reinforce student retention, completion, and worker progression in direct-care careers. 106 partnership and project worcester state university (wsu) along with university of massachusetts memorial health care (ummhc), the largest employer in central massachusetts, and the state healthcare and research employees’ union (share), which represents the direct care workers (dcws) of ummhc, collaborated to develop and implement an innovative educational program. the partnership designed this program to provide seamless academic and career pathways for dcws to progress in their careers through higher-levels of education provided by the universit y on ummhc campuses. with nearly 13,000 employees, ummhc is the largest and most comprehensive health care system in central and western massachusetts. ummhc faces difficult challenges as a complex multi-institutional system in developing and maintaining opportunities for employment and career growth for the people of central massachusetts. ummhc employs over 1,000 dcws. the designers of the program discussed in this paper intended to build a dcw pathway that allowed a seamless progression of students from foundation skills training through college level certificate and degree programs leading to sustainable, living-wage careers. this program offered flexibility for students, through options for entry, exit, and re-entry points along the education/career pathway. the project provided a seamless academic and career pathway for dcws to progress in their careers through higher-levels of education. project objectives included: (a) plan, develop, and implement a dcw readiness certificate delivered by wsu on the ummhc hospital campuses to t wo cohorts of 20 students; (b) develop effective academic success and retention strategies for students in the program; (c) increase the number of dcw in central massachusetts on a seamless pathway to career advancement; and (d) demonstrate positive impact on dcws. this last objective would document decreased employee turnover, increased retention, increased employee engagement, increased worker commitment to quality, and improved job satisfaction. to meet the objectives, participants developed four research questions as follows: 1. what role did support strategies implemented as part of program play in academic success and retention of first two cohorts? 2. will the increased accessibility and support provided by a worksite approach f o r dcw education promote an increase in the incumbent w o r k f o r c e able to advance their education? 3. what are the identified barriers to enrollment and incentives to persist in the program? 4. will increased accessibility and flexibility provided by this approach combined with student-support services and advising/careercoaching promote successful completion of the program? major activities major activities of this project included: • development and use of new/returning students support services including intrusive advising and career coaching by wsu faculty on the ummhc campus; 107 • diagnostic testing, (e.g., accuplacer for math and reading and tutoring; • a strategies for academic success (sas) course to build college readiness skills for dcws, establishing a positive learning environment, building supportive connections among newly-enrolled adult students, and promoting confidence in the student's ability to achieve academic success. • the project designed sas to equip students with knowledge and resources to meet program expectations and achieve academic outcomes; • an online tutorial to assist students in gaining the needed skills for college-level writing and grammar; • he 400: interpersonal communications course, which incorporates soft skills into dcw curriculum. these skills include, but are not limited, to communication, conflict resolution, communication within teams/groups, and professionalism; and • he240 and 242: perspectives on writing and learning from experience i a n d i i . through these learning activities and support systems, students were able to earn up to 27 college credits in all: nine credits earned in he 240, 242 and he 400, as well as up to 18 college credits through the completion of a portfolio that they could complete on their own after the course work was completed. the structure of college-credit bearing courses provided a significant savings of both time and money for the dcws. throughout the program, students met regularly with their academic advisor/career coach to make academic decisions about courses, college-level examination program (clep) tests, and to navigate the unfamiliar territory of the university. all students completing the direct care worker pathways program developed an individualized career ladder plan or "career map" with "on and off ramps" for educational pathways leading to career goals. description of cohorts recruitment efforts centered on distributing a brochure specifically created for this program. initially, there were attempts made to hold information sessions, but potential students did not attend. instead, worcester state university staff handed out the brochures at tables set up in the cafeterias at two of the hospital’s facilities. staff scheduled dates and times with the shift times of dcws taken into account. when individuals expressed interest after reviewing the brochure, the staff at the table asked them to complete a survey, which gathered basic contact information as well as some general background details about their educational attainments. wsu staff followed up on the inquiries. students gained admission based on their designation as a dcw, as identified in the grant, and on whether the program would serve to benefit their career goals. the first cohort began with 18 students, of whom 10 completed the program. students for cohort 2 won admittance in a similar manner as above. the second cohort began with 22 students, of whom 17 completed the program. benefits to students intrusive advising showed itself to be an important aspect of the program and a benefit to all students. intrusive advising is a proactive approach that has been shown to be an effective tool to enhance student retention (e.g., rodgers, blunt, & trible, 2014; sutton, 2016). aspects of 108 intrusive advising include advisors’ early connection with students, frequent one-on-one meetings between a student and an advisor, and a supportive system of encouragement and guidance regarding obstacles that that may hinder a student’s progress in the program. frequent two-way communication is encouraged; it usually takes place through a combination of meetings, emails, texts, and phone calls. intrusive advising allow students to feel comfortable with the advisor and helps the advisor anticipate the student’s needs and be able to suggest strategies to address the needs. students are encouraged to reach out to the advisor at the first sign of difficulty. in this way, advisors may address problems early, before they become insurmountable. each week on-site advising was available to all dcw students at their place of work. the academic advisor/career coach met with students by appointment. students were also encouraged to call or email the advisor in between meetings if they needed additional support. if students missed consecutive classes, the advisor contacted them to encourage them to return to class and to offer assistance in resolving any barriers to attendance. students were encouraged to discuss their courses, possible future academic plans, opportunities to obtain credit for prior learning, and issues of navigating the unfamiliar territory of academia. during the one-on-one meetings, advisors asked the students to update their career planning maps (appendix). the career-planning map was a tool developed to guide students through the process of figuring out their career plans and figuring out how to achieve them. special consideration went into to figuring out work-school-family balance issues. students learned through their participation in this program the critical importance of making time for their academic pursuits and making school an important priority in their lives. the academic advisor/career coach served as a sounding board to help students determine how to make quality time in their daily lives for their academic pursuits. an additional benefit to students was the incorporation of a credit course that addressed soft skills development, specifically related to the development and improvement of communication skills. the students all took the everything disc ® workplace assessment and each student received a personalized profile that identified their preferences and tendencies when interacting with others. students gained an awareness of their communication style and the ways that style could both contribute to and prevent a positive working environment. students learned about how others have styles that are different from their own and the importance of being able to adjust to other styles. furthermore, students learned how to be better problem solvers and apply a process to resolving conflict. classes required the students to engage with each other and activities were created that allowed for conversations about how the topics covered played out in the workplace. students learned to apply the concepts learned to the workplace and reflect on how situations could have resulted in different outcomes with their newly learned information. in addition to the student-support services and customized curriculum noted above, there were also financial benefits to attending this program that dcws would not have received in other programs. a grant from the massachusetts department of higher education provided funds that supplied the textbooks and materials for all students in this program. these funds also enabled wsu to offer a small monetary completion incentive to all students who successfully finished the program (passing all three credit-bearing courses and developing a career map). 109 ummhc provided additional financial benefits to the program’s students via an adjustment to their tuition benefit policy. generally, students are eligible for a tuition reimbursement ranging from 50% (part-time employees) to 80% (full-time employees) from ummhc upon completion of a course including a required grade of c or better. however, for this program, ummhc agreed to pay their portion up front so that the students only incurred 50% or 20% of the cost, respective to their employment status. these financial benefits aided in reducing a potential barrier to enrollment and provided motivation for students to enroll and complete the program. program evaluation the project management team met monthly to evaluate the effectiveness of program components including, but not limited to, marketing and recruiting efforts, academic success and retention strategies, on-site advising, efficacy of academic support services, curriculum design and implementation, and student course evaluative feedback. the direct care worker pathways program faculty met monthly with the project staff to review curriculum development and implementation, as well as formative and summative student data. this mechanism for regular review of evaluation feedback from university/employer/labor partners, as well as students, provided opportunities for ongoing continuous quality improvement. results what role did support strategies implemented as part of dcwrp play in academic success and retention of first two cohorts? one hundred percent of survey respondents (n=27) described support strategies as either “extremely important” (66.66%) or “very important” (33.33%) in their ability to persist and complete the program. will the increased accessibility and support provided by a worksite approach f o r dcw education promote an increase in the incumbent w o r k f o r c e able to advance their education? college enrollment data for share employees in 2015 (based on tuition reimbursement request to ummmc human resources) compared to 2016 enrollment trends revealed a significant increase (28%) in the number of share direct care workers applying for college tuition benefits. what are the identified barriers to enrollment and incentives to persist in the program? survey data of dcws who completed the program (n=27) indicated the following as potential barriers to enrollment (respondents were asked to select “all that apply”): • financial burden (96.29%) • family responsibilities (81.48%) • lack of confidence in ability to succeed academically (74.07%) • work schedule (37.03%) 110 • transportation (40.74%) • other: lack of time (55.55%); caring for relatives (18.51%) ; caring for children (3.7%); too busy (3.7%) will increased accessibility and flexibility provided by this approach combined with student support services and advising/career coaching promote successful completion of the program? survey data of dcws who completed the program (n=27) indicated the following as factors that promoted their successful completion of the direct care workers pathways program (the survey asked respondents to select “all that apply”): • support from my employer/ummhc (96.29%) • accessibility/location of classes at my worksite (88.88%) • flexibility/courses scheduled around my work time 81.4% • support provided by advisor/coach (77.77%) • affordable cost (70.37%) • support provided by faculty (44.44%) • support from cohort (37.03%) • completion incentive (18.51%) additional results retention in the program increased from the first cohort (cohort 1 = 55% completion) rate) to the second cohort (cohort 2 = 77%). this increase in retention was likely due to responses to challenges noted and discussed below in “challenges.” in addition, 26 of the 27 individuals (96%) who completed the program continued their employment at ummmc. finally, 24 of the 27 individuals (89%) who completed the program opted to continue their education either at wsu or at a local community college. challenges participant recruiting: recruitment presented an unanticipated challenge as our partner share was unable to participate in recruiting in the manner that we hoped. share indicated that information sessions at the hospital were not the preferable method to recruit for the program. they instead suggested that we recruit at tables outside of the cafeteria at each of the three hospital campuses. share was, in fact, correct in their recommendation as among the 12 information sessions that we held (at lunchtime and immediately after work) only one employee attended an information session. the “tabling” events were highly successful but the opportunity to communicate sufficient information to applicants was limited. while all information was very carefully detailed in the program brochure and in all written communication, we still had students who were unclear about the goals of the program at the time they enrolled. in recruitment activities for cohort ii, after applicants indicated their interest in enrolling, each applicant had a 50-60 minute intake interview. the purpose of this interview was to assure that 111 the applicant was clear about the goals of the program, as well as how the program could assist them to meet their own professional and personal goals. in some cases, students in consultation determined that this program might not be the best option for them. for example, we had applicants in cohort ii who had already completed all pre-requisites for admission, completed accuplacer testing, and were already on the waiting list for quinsigamond community college (qcc) nursing program. it was clearly preferable for these students to remain at qcc. our recruiting for cohort ii occurred at the same time that share was preparing for contract negotiations. in addition, several key share organizers were away for much of the summer for vacations and conferences. while we were unable to alter the timeline for our activities, ummmc was able to provide significant support for our recruiting activities. an additional challenge in the area of recruitment related to the start time for classes. cohort i consisted almost entirely of pcas. however, cohort ii had five lpns drawn to the worcester state university lpn-to-bs program. these lpns work in ambulatory settings. as such, they were unable to participate in a course with a 4:30 class time most convenient to the pca participants. the start time for the strategies for academic success program shifted to 5:30pm, to enable the lpns to participate. in addition, because we had two faculty members assigned to he 240 and he 242 (faculty students ratio 2:22), the decision was made to divide the class into two groups to accommodate those who were unable to arrive for a 4:30 start time. managing advising needs: while certainly predictable, cohorts i and ii consisted almost exclusively of students with almost no exposure to higher education and very significant personal issues. to meet the needs of these students, we were required to more than double the advising/coaching time dedicated to each student. most students had no previous exposure to higher education and they did not understand that many academic majors had required courses/specific degree requirements. to emphasize the importance of meeting with the advisor and completing the career maps, some class time was set aside for the advisor to visit the class. other student issues ranged from childcare, family illness, indebtedness, eviction, and intimate partner violence. academic abilities: the writing ability of the students varied, and was lower than expected. as a result, instructors spent significant time reviewing basic grammar requirements and the concept of application. students required more time than expected to develop their writing skills because of the academic expectations of the college-level credit courses. although they all write in one form or another for their jobs, academic writing brought out the limitations of their ability in this area. the instructors in each of the courses provided direct feedback to each student and spent additional time to develop the writing skills of the students so that they would be prepared for future academic courses. student career choices: our program came designed with pathways and reserved seats in several health professions programs at wsu. these seats, reserved for students who had successfully completed the direct care workers pathways program included our most selective programs: nursing (four pre-licensure and four lpn-to-bsn); occupational therapy (four); communication science disorders (two); and public health (two). however, we had no students interested in the reserved seats in any program except nursing. rather, every student in both cohorts had indicated their desire to study nursing or a program other than the ones with saved 112 seats. we invited representatives from central massachusetts community colleges to visit class and describe opportunities for continuing studies in a variety of health careers including radiologic technology, surgical technology, and respiratory care. we also worked with our longterm partners at qcc who agreed that, beginning in spring 2017 and fall 2017 (based on the entry calendar for each of the program listed below) qcc would save a number of spaces for students from wsu and the direct care worker pathways program in the following programs. one place in spring and one place in the fall would go to participants in the associate degree in nursing program. two places would go to students in the practical nursing evening program. one place went to the surgical technology program and one place to the respiratory care program. summary and recommendations several key elements contributed to the success of this program. first, establishing partnerships was critical to the success of this program. all of the grant partners shared a common goal to assist the direct care incumbent workers to have the opportunity to improve their skills in order to advance professionally at their current workplaces. once all of the partners agreed to this common mission the partnership became very united and student focused. second, flexibility was necessary to assure student retention and completion. because of the many life challenges that adult learners face along with the lack of experience with and/or readiness for higher education, it was important for all partners to maximize their flexibility. the establishment of a second class illustrated one example of this willingness to adapt during cohort 2. this second class met later to accommodate students’ work schedules. this scheduling issue, arising just before implementation, came as a surprise, but due to the cooperative nature of the partnership, we made changes quickly to promote the success of the participants. another example is that as we found that students had difficulty writing at the level required, we put in place more instruction, feedback, and supports during and after the classes. third, intrusive advising helped students find their pathway. from the profile of the students, it clear that a standard advising model would not be sufficient. they needed a more intrusive advising model to work with them closely to guide them through both the academic and administrative processes of academia. the student advisor worked with the students at their workplace on a weekly basis. the advising sessions covered course work and career planning, creating a work/school/life balance plan, and mapping an academic success plan. we contacted and offered assistance to students who missed more than two consecutive classes. students also were encouraged to contact the advisor by email or telephone between advising appointments as needed. during advising sessions, students worked on career maps. the career map document served as a tool to help students refine their academic and career aspirations and create a concrete plan to achieve those goals. fourth, all partners in the project noted the time commitment. because of the high-touch, frequent-touch nature of this student population the time commitment for the partners was substantial. the students also needed to devote a fair amount of time per week to their studies. the academic rigor of the classes was significant and required a substantial investment of time from the students and faculty. 113 finally, roles needed to be defined early. it was critical to the success of the grant to have well defined roles of all participants. having this conversation at the outset of the grant implementation allowed the work to proceed seamlessly all team members understood their roles and responsibilities within the parameters of the grant. this understanding was instrumental when changes needed to take place. overall, the collaborative effort by all of the participants was especially important acknowledgements the authors would like to thank the following groups for their partnership: massachusetts department of higher education (through the nursing and allied health initiative: direct care workforce grant), university of massachusetts memorial health care, and the state healthcare and research employees’ union (share). 114 references alexander, wegner, & associates (2004). health care industry: identifying and addressing workforce challenges. u.s. department of labor, employment, and training administration: washington, dc. bowers, b., esmond, s., & jacobson, n. (2003). turnover reinterpreted: cnas talk about why they leave. journal of gerontological nursing, 29(3), 36-43. https://doi.org/10.3928/0098-913420030301-09 brannon, d., barry, t., kemper, p., schreiner, a., & vasey, j. (2007). job perceptions and intent to leave among direct care workers: evidence from the better jobs better care demonstrations. the gerontologist, 47(6), 820–829. https://doi.org/10.1093/geront/47.6.820 bureau of labor statistics, u.s. department of labor, occupational outlook handbook, healthcare occupations, on the internet at https://www.bls.gov/ooh/healthcare/home.htm (visited october 28, 2017). institute of medicine committee on future health care workforce for older americans (2008). retooling for an aging america: building the health care workforce. washington dc: national academies press. khatutsky, g., weiner, j., anderson, w., akhmerova, v., & jessup, e. (march, 2011). understanding direct care workers: a snapshot of two of america’s most important jobs. u.s. department of health and human services, washington dc. the lewin group (2008). a synthesis of direct service workforce demographics and challenges across intellectual/developmental disabilities, aging, physical disabilities and behavioral health. washington, dc: the lewin group. rogers, k., blunt, s., & trible, l. (2014). a real pluss: an intrusive advising program for underprepared stem students. nacada journal, 34(1), 35-42. https://doi.org/10.12930/nacada-13-002 sutton, j. (2016). anticipating concerns of the adult learner: accelerated path to a degree and intrusive advising. community college journal of research and practice, 40(5), 456-458. https://doi.org/10.1080/10668926.2015.1059779 https://doi.org/10.3928/0098-9134-20030301-09 https://doi.org/10.3928/0098-9134-20030301-09 https://doi.org/10.1093/geront/47.6.820 https://doi.org/10.12930/nacada-13-002 https://doi.org/10.1080/10668926.2015.1059779 115 appendix 116 author information linda s. larrivee, phd is the dean of the school of education, health, and natural sciences at worcester state university where she oversees ten academic departments and five centers. she has published numerous articles in refereed journals and edited texts and has spoken extensively both nationally and internationally on the subjects of second language acquisition, emergent literacy, phonological awareness, and psychometric considerations in assessment as well as the relation between language development and reading development. her most current research is in the scholarship of teaching and learning. * linda s. larrivee, ph.d. dean of the school of education, health, and natural sciences worcester state university 486 chandler st. worcester, massachusetts 01602 telephone: 508-929-8333 email: linda.larrivee@worceser.edu stephanie m. chalupka, ed.d., is a professor of nursing at worcester state university. she also holds an appointment as a visiting scientist in environmental and occupational medicine at the harvard t. h. chan school of public health. she is a researcher and educator in the fields of public health, environmental health and occupational health. she is a recipient of the university of massachusetts president’s award for public service for her work with refugee and immigrant families. dr. chalupka formerly served on the united state environmental protection agency’s children’s health protection advisory committee. she was inducted into the national academies of practice as a distinguished scholar in recognition of her research to reduce and prevent harmful environmental exposures and health risks to children and underserved, disproportionately impacted, low income, minority, and tribal communities and to support community efforts to build healthy and sustainable neighborhoods. stephanie m. chalupka, ed. d. professor, department of nursing worcester state university 486 chandler st. worcester, massachusetts 01602 telephone: 508-929-8680 email: stephanie.chalupka@worcester.edu marilyn cleary is the assistant dean of the division of graduate and continuing education at worcester state university in worcester, ma. she has worked with non-traditional student populations for over 11 years. she has a bachelor’s degree in biotechnology and a master’s degree in business administration, both from worcester polytechnic institute in worcester, ma. she is currently pursuing a doctoral degree in educational leadership from northeastern university in boston, ma. mailto:linda.larrivee@worceser.edu mailto:stephanie.chalupka@worcester.edu 117 marilyn cleary, m.s. assistant dean of the division of graduate and continuing education worcester state university 486 chandler st. worcester, massachusetts 01602 telephone: 508-929-8299 email: marilyn.cleary@worcester.edu cherie l. comeau is the senior manager, leadership & organizational development at consigli construction in milford, ma. cherie has over ten years of experience implementing training programs for companies in a wide variety of industries and has worked in higher education as a director and manager of workforce development. cherie earned her bachelor's degree in psychology from dartmouth college in hanover, nh, and her master's degree in business administration from the isenberg school of management at the university of massachusetts at amherst in amherst, ma. cherie is currently pursuing her doctor of education (edd) in organizational leadership at northeastern university in boston, ma. cherie l. comeau senior manager, leadership & organizational development consigli construction 72 sumner street milford, ma 01757 telephone: 508-458-0282 email: ccomeau@consigli.com * corresponding author mailto:marilyn.cleary@worcester.edu mailto:ccomeau@consigli.com copyright © 2016 metropolitan universities vol. 27 no. 3 (autumn 2016), doi: 10.18060/21391 oklahoma city’s emerging hispanic community: new partnerships, new successes mark a. kinders and myron l. pope abstract the university of central oklahoma’s new strategic plan sought to increase its connection to the emerging hispanic community in oklahoma city. simultaneously, the greater oklahoma city hispanic chamber of commerce was seeking a higher education partner. this case study describes resulting new programs for hispanic students and businesses. the relationship inspired the newly formed uco latino faculty & staff association to connect uco to the hispanic community while providing greater opportunities for hispanic student success. keywords: university of central oklahoma; greater oklahoma city hispanic chamber of commerce; latino faculty staff association; latino community development association; college-going hispanic students. introduction if oklahoma city is anything, it is a mirror of the trends in the past 15 years that has seen a near doubling of the hispanic population in america’s metropolitan areas. the context for the partnership described in this article may best be set in the context of the demographics of the sooner state’s capital city and the nation (barker, 2012; borgerding, 2012). a u.s. census bureau report (2014; see also, barker, 2009) indicates that of 620,602 oklahoma city residents, some 17.2%, or 106,743 hispanics, call the state’s largest city their home. of those, about 80% are of mexican heritage. from 2000-2010, the community’s population increased by 88.4%. that proportionate concentration slightly trails the u.s. average of 17.4%, but nearly doubles the oklahoma percentage of 9.8% hispanics among its 3.87 million residents. one-third of oklahoma hispanics are immigrants (brown & lopez, 2013; see also, llopis, 2012). in addition, hispanic owned metro businesses exceed 7,660 enterprises, or about 4.1%of all city businesses (greater okc hispanic chamber 2015a; lopis 2012). that percentage nearly doubles the state rate of 2.3%, but lags behind the u.s. average of 8.3% by more than half. in 2007, the last year reported by the u.s. department of labor bureau of labor statistics (2014), okc hispanic-owned business generated $1.7 billion in sales receipts and employed 8,940 paid employees. according to the hispanic chamber, statewide latino purchasing power tallies $6.2 billion, with 763% growth in the past decade. 137 nearly one in five children under the age of 18 in the okc metro are hispanic. this is reflected in oklahoma city public schools, which since 2000 has experienced a doubling in the enrollment of hispanic children. hispanic students comprise 49.6% of the 40,400 young people in the state’s largest school district as shown in figure 1 (neu, 2014; see also institute for child advocacy 2013; postsecondary education opportunities, 2012). figure 1. distribution of oklahoma city public schools students by language what also exists is a clash between multiple cultures. hispanics are now the largest minority population in oklahoma, exceeding the enrollment of the 39 federally recognized native american nations and tribes in what was once “indian territory.” hispanic community leaders explain the growth surge by citing oklahoma city’s family-friendly atmosphere, neighborhoods free from gangs unlike major metro areas in adjoining texas, and business opportunities in one of the nation’s healthiest state economies. the oklahoma legislature, however, has passed some of the most restrictive immigration laws in the nation, with some legislators contending that hispanics are not acculturating into mainstream society quickly enough (lavandara & sabo, 2011). even with restrictive laws, an estimated 68% of immigrant youngsters in oklahoma are hispanic, with oklahoma city public schools indicating that 43% of its households speak spanish as the primary language. this latter statistic suggests the relative newness and importance of immigrants to the okc community. language challenges in part have affected the success of oklahoma city public schools, as shown in table 1. further, the metropolitan policy 138 program at the brookings institution (wilson, 2014), reported an increase from half to threequarters in the number of 16-64 year old hispanics in okc who had limited english proficiency. wilson (2014) reports that 79.7% of okc metro hispanic households speak spanish as the primary language, ranking okc no. 17 among the largest 89 metro areas. 139 notes: oklahoma elementary students are assessed in reading, mathematics, science, and social studies. oklahoma middle schools students are assessed in reading, mathematics/algebra 1, science, social studies/ geography/u.s. history, writing. oklahoma high school students are assessed in english ii and iii, algebra i and ii, geometry, biology i, u.s. history. table 1. oklahoma city public schools hispanic trends, 2014 characteristic okcps failed state student performance tests: hispanic majority passed state student performance tests: hispanic majority total schools enrollment 40,383 hispanic students 49.6% bilingual students 19,465 percent of households with primary language other than english 43% native american tribes and clans in student body 67 percent of students eligible for reduced lunch 26,186 act average score okcps: 18.4 ok: 20.7 u.s.: 21 elementary schools 14 12 56 middle schools 4 3 16 high schools 0 5 16 140 this paper describes the emergence of a shared-space partnership between the university of central oklahoma and the greater oklahoma city hispanic chamber of commerce. its purpose is to provide acculturation, college-going, and business development opportunities to the hispanic community. this convergence was the coincidental simultaneous strategic planning initiative of uco to expand its reach as a metropolitanserving institution and the hispanic chamber’s planned physical plant expansion in which it sought a higher education partner to advance its educational and business services to its member and larger community. this partnership resulted in new services directly provided within the chamber by uco and the energizing of the university’s latino faculty staff association to play a significant role in fulfilling the idealized partnership to the benefit of both organizations. partnerships like these between universities and their communities have grown significantly over the past couple of decades (vidal, nye, walker, manjarrez, romanik, corvington, ferryman, freibert, & kim, 2003). there are numerous influences. these reasons include the need for communities and campuses to collaborate because of limited resources available to address complex community and social issues, an increased effort by higher education to develop a civic purpose in alignment with the community, and because many funding entities require multi-agency collaboration as a condition for fiscal support (harkavy, 1999; holland, 1999; holland & gelmon, 1998; walskok, 1995); zlotkowski, 1999). scholarly literature is consistent in highlighting that hispanic students face additional challenges when it comes to being successful in college. torres (2006) notes that there are challenges to these students in terms of navigating two cultures – their native culture and the culture of the university. others have carried this finding further and noted that issues of culture shock and cultural incongruity are major inhibitors to hispanic student success (castellanos & jones, 2003; gloria & kurpius, 1996). cabrera, nora, and castaneda (1993) found that those hispanic students who have adequate financial resources to afford college have reduced stress and consequently are able to focus more on being successful. further, rivera and monzon (2013) used the concepts of cultural, economic, and human capital as a framework for assessing those factors that contribute most to hispanic college student success, and they discovered that these factors could be enhanced through more engaging programs and services. the programs that have been developed by uco use this lens also to ensure that hispanic students are successful. uco metro “equity mindset” strategic plan the university of central oklahoma has long been engaged with the metro’s hispanic community through partnerships with numerous educational and social agencies. these efforts were intentionally increased during the institution’s strategic planning process in 2013 that resulted in the seven-year plan, vision 2020 (uco, 2013). in its previous planning process in 2008, uco initiated a deliberate course to set itself apart from oklahoma’s other 24 public higher education institutions by pursuing designation by its governing boards as the state’s only metro-serving institution. 141 the impetus for the designation was uco’s dramatic growth to 17,200 students, with a history dating back 125 years as oklahoma’s first state public higher education institution as a state normal school. in 1894, the school was located in the undeveloped community of edmond, which has since blossomed into a northeastern suburb of oklahoma city. in 2013 cnbc ranked edmond, with a population of 100,000 and of whom 55 percent of its residents hold a bachelor’s degree, as the most livable suburb in the united states. uco is the only four-year public higher education institution located within an oklahomadesignated metropolitan area. during the strategic planning process, uco president don betz reinforced uco’s commitment to the concept of an inclusive “equity mindset” (ramaley, 2015; see also, leiderman, furco, zapf, & goss, 2002). in serving the ten-county metropolitan area. “we will accomplish this objective through building intentional partnerships with business, industry, government, non-profits, and educational institutions. these partnerships will enable us to draw upon the exceptional talent of our faculty, staff, and students to collectively address critical issues and opportunities” (uco, 2013). as more than 100 faculty, staff, and students engaged in a metropolitan area “deep dive” as part of the strategic planning operationalizing process, they reversed the typical strength/weaknesses/opportunities/threats (swot) process to tows. the former is the traditional planning process that can emphasize assessing the internal organizational structure to provide direction for an expansion of existing programs. by focusing on the external environment to evaluate its needs and opportunities tows adds the additional dimension of identifying new programmatic development and implementation. uco teams conducted secondary research in an extensive environmental scan of all metro social, educational, and business issues, and then engaged over 80 external leaders in individual or panel interviews to mine their insights and gain their advice. three general observations emerged from the 2013 environmental scan: 1. uco should “be bold” in extending its service presence throughout the tencounty metropolitan area. this comment acknowledged recent expansions by uco into the heart of the oklahoma city’s downtown area with focused academic and service programs in music, performing arts, and business assistance. uco’s expansion is inspired by the “stewards of place” movement by its primary higher education association partner, the american association of state colleges & universities to align its programs in response to the needs of its service area. 2. the growth momentum of the hispanic community was palpable with extraordinary impact on the oklahoma city public schools system. in the previous 10 years hispanic student enrollment grew from a small percentage to comprise half the enrollment in the state’s largest school district. this trend foretold dramatic changes in the composition of future college-bound students and workforce graduates. 142 3. no public four-year institution maintained a footprint south of interstate 40, which served as the boundary—both geographically and psychologically—to the downtown area of oklahoma city and its south side. uco was encouraged to provide greater educational and outreach services to residents in the southern half of the city, which is increasingly being dominated by the hispanic community. growth of the greater oklahoma city hispanic chamber of commerce the nexus for uco’s expanded footprint in south oklahoma city occurred in 2014 with a proposal from the greater oklahoma city hispanic chamber of commerce. president and chief executive director david castillo approached uco to serve as the underwriter to develop a conference center and classroom in the chamber’s new facility. founded in 2000, the chamber expanded to include more than 400 members and had twice outgrown space provided to it by non-profits and a technical school (greater oklahoma city hispanic chamber of commerce, 2015b). in 2013 the chamber purchased and began redevelopment of an office building located in the heart of the hispanic community in southeastern oklahoma city, located some 19 miles from uco’s suburban northeastern edmond campus. castillo, a former technical school educator and former okcps school board member, approached uco in 2014 to sponsor the complete rebuilding of the conference room. over the subsequent months, uco staff consulted broadly with the chamber, advising overall on information technology, color schemes, and finishing materials for the entire facility. the university funded the remodeling and outfitting of the conference/class room as shared space. uco agreed to provide $25,000 per year as a sponsorship for a renewable, two-year contract. funding was provided through the office of academic affairs. uco’s customized education department anticipated that as its service expanded into traditional academic programs, tuition revenue would offset the sponsorship fee. uco provides the additional service to the chamber of providing access to the classroom’s state-of-the-art technology for the chamber’s operational activities. through this arrangement, uco has access for classes, seminars, and workshops in a classroom/conference room that was branded to uco’s bronze and blue color scheme and logo. “it’s been a great relationship since then and we see a bright future ahead of us,” said castillo (personal communication, november 23, 2015). based in part on castillo’s and the chamber’s leadership insights into the hispanic community’s family-oriented culture, business, and education needs, uco has responded through numerous programs and consulting services. for example, castillo noted that hispanic entrepreneurs seek to start businesses but required assistance in such small business fundamentals of choosing an economically viable enterprise with training in business planning, finances, and marketing. as the hispanic community continues to mature in its business development, castillo predicted greater diversification and growth of its business community. uco has 143 historically offered free small business development seminars to the hispanic community taught by bilingual hispanic staff, such as carlos amaya, an hispanic small business development specialist and member of the uco latino faculty & staff association, with 15 years of experience at uco. with castillo’s advice, uco is assisting the chamber in surveying its membership to determine the scope of workshops its entrepreneurs require. there clearly are needs and demands for those services, as reported both by the hispanic chamber and the brookings institution (wilson, 2014). the chamber shows the hispanic okc workforce is split into five sectors: services (27%); natural resources, construction and maintenance (24%); sales and office occupations (18%); management, business, science and arts, (17%); and production, transportation, and material moving (14%). language and education challenges are also impeding the workforce development for a significant portion of okc hispanics, according to brookings (wilson, 2014). more than 58,000 hispanics who have limited english proficiency (lep), making okc the no. 11 metro of the 89 largest in the u.s. in that category. among those, over 55% have less than a high school education. nearly three-quarters of leps are employed, with 25% primarily working in construction. their median annual earnings of $22,000 substantially trails the estimated 2014 mean wage of $40,850 for oklahoma, reported by the u.s. bureau of labor statistics (2014). the hispanic chamber found that overall hispanic median family income in oklahoma city to be $34,774, while the statewide average is $45,339. (the u.s. average in 2013 was $53,046). in the sponsorship contractual agreement between uco and the chamber, the university has access to the shared space on evenings and weekends to offer classes, business seminars and college preparatory workshops. these programs are heavily promoted by the chamber to its membership and community. college-going and scholarship sessions are attended by students and their parents, often overflowing the room’s capacity, as shown in figure 2. the chamber uses the conference room during the daytime and occasional evenings for its membership meetings and chamber subcommittee planning meetings. because uco is continuing to develop its class and workshop programs to fill out its access schedule, the agreement between the two organizations enables the chamber to use the conference room for its own purposes if the room is idle. 144 figure 2. hispanic students and their parents attended a gates millennium scholarship application workshop in november. conducted by the university of central oklahoma, the workshop was held in the uco conference/classroom located in the greater oklahoma city hispanic chamber of commerce. the workshop was one of many addressing college opportunities as well as business development offered through the facility. programs often are delivered bilingually. photo provided by uco. 145 student engagement the new presence of uco at the hispanic chamber over the past two years has also provided numerous opportunities for engagement with hispanic k-12 students, with more programs to be launched in 2016 based on the best practices reported by other institutions (excelencia in higher education, 2015d). the impact has been significant, according to barry lofton, uco executive director of admissions. this includes in 2015 a 21% increase in the number of uco’s hispanic first-time freshmen and transfer students, from 388 to 409, and a 13% increase in all underrepresented groups from 1,328 to 1,499 students. this follows on 10-year growth from 2000-2010 with an 82% increase in hispanic students as uco’s overall student population grew by 26%. the increase in hispanic enrollment also reflects national trends, according to the pew research center. in a 2013 report, it noted that hispanic high school graduates for the first time enrolled in greater proportion than did majority students. that analysis also reported the third straight year of hispanic enrollment growth nationwide (lopez & fry, 2013). there clearly is room for substantial growth in the number of college-degree holders in okc. the hispanic chamber (2015) notes slightly more than 14% of okc hispanic community members hold a twoor four-year or graduate degree. that new population also represents some challenges, with 39% of first-time hispanic students not declaring a major, which places them at greater risk because of reduced connection to campus. further, with a majority being the first in their family to attend college, these students also are lacking the safety net of family members who can draw on their own college experience to offer advice. the magnitude of this challenge will only increase without a direct, compelling response by higher education institutions. the u. s. census bureau projects that the number of school age hispanics will grow by 166% by 2050 compared to other populations. this growth will cause a significant increase in the number of students from hispanic backgrounds who are college or workforce ready by 2020 (jenkins, 2009). research predicts that second generation hispanics, who are typically children of immigrant families, will represent 23% of the labor force growth between 2000 and 2020. considering this reality, workforce training and career opportunities are essential to ensure hispanics are able to acquire positions beyond low-skill, low-paying jobs. additionally, act, inc. (2009) and blankenship (2010) have indicated that although the number of students has increased by 60 percent since 2005, the number of hispanic students who have demonstrated college readiness in all four subject areas of the act test is only 10%. most hispanic students who make it to higher education either choose to enroll at community colleges (crisp & nora 2010) and urban public universities (oseguera, locks, & vega, 2009). working to establish structures to support these students is critical for colleges and universities. the work of uco contributes significantly to this effort to increase hispanic student enrollment and success. currently, no oklahoma institution is included among the more than 600 hispanic serving institutions (hsis) whose student bodies include more than 25% hispanic population (excelencia in education, 2015a, 2015b; hispanic association of colleges & universities, 2012). three oklahoma institutions are considered “emerging” with more than 15% of its 146 students of hispanic origin, but none is a public four-year institution. uco projects it will reach emerging status by 2018. the impetus for enrollment growth and strategies at uco is through the division of student affairs, with many programs offered at the hispanic chamber facility. for example, uco office of undergraduate admissions regularly collaborates with the aspiring americans, inc., to provide helpful information to undocumented students and families. uco is now linked to that organization, which seeks to assist undocumented students to attend college. the programming at the hispanic chamber is varied and focused on assisting students to become college ready. general workshops focus on strategies to complete college admissions and financial aid applications, as well as mock interviews to assist them with scholarship interviews. additionally, special gates millennium scholarship application workshops are conducted by uco staff for parents and students. funded by the bill and melinda gates foundation, each year 5,000 of these scholarships are awarded to student from under-represented populations to attend any accredited college or university. grant awards are based on the cost of attendance at the selected institution and financial need after accounting for other grants and scholarships assistance the students receive. finally, a steps to becoming a broncho workshop is offered which provides general assistance to help admitted students to uco feel more comfortable with enrollment steps. other hispanic student recruitment activities and initiatives to strengthen and build partnerships are substantial. new partnerships have been developed with aspiring americans, inc., the league of united latin american citizens, and integris southwest medical center. existing partnerships that have been expanded include those with the hispanic chamber, okc public schools, and the latino community development agency (lcda). these efforts have focused on many best practices, including stanford university’s bridge project, which was a six-year national study focused on analyzing gaps in high school exit-level policies and college entrance policies. this research demonstrated that there are significant gaps that exist for parents and students regarding this transition, and consequently indicated that these gaps could be over come through three primary actions. first, students, parents, and educators must receive accurate, high quality information about becoming college ready as early as possible in middle and high school. second, students should be provided with access to institutions that serve the majority of students as they provide the greatest benefit. finally, articulating to students that getting to college is not the hardest part, but it is only the start. the ultimate and most important goal is to be successful in college (venezia kirst, & antonio, 2003). these strategies have been the guiding force for developing programs at the hispanic chamber. through its efforts, uco has experienced a significant increase in the number of hispanic student applications as part of the outreach at the hispanic chamber. during the spring 2016 semester, the institution witnessed a 32.6% increase in hispanic enrollment compared to just five years before (uco institutional research, 2016). impact on other uco hispanic community outreach efforts 147 engaging with partners who represent the communities of minority students can provide a vital linkage in mentoring opportunities for students. it also provides an opportunity for the institution to learn more about these communities and create conversations to assist in the development of strategies to enhance student success (walshok, 1995). uco has worked diligently to develop these collaborative efforts which have accelerated significantly from face-to-face relationships by the uco/hispanic chamber partnership. since the partnership was formed, uco hired three additional bilingual admissions recruiters. since their arrival, uco has expanded its outreach on campus and at locations across the metro in existing programs and has added many more. its community outreach, working with the office of undergraduate admissions, has been to participate in super saturdays at oklahoma city public schools to talk about college opportunities, latino community development association scholarship nights, community celebrations such as “fiestas de las americas,” the hispanic chamber expo and career fair, providing weekly spanish language campus tours for hispanic families of prospective students, and providing spanish translations for recruitment publications and marketing in spanish language media. with uco participation in more than a dozen programs across the metropolitan 10-county area, the university increased its engagement in numerous settings. to familiarize parents with uco and the process of admissions and enrollment is critical in the decision making for hispanic parents who may not possess english as their primary language. a monthly spanish language campus tours for prospective students and families has resulted from the partnership because of the recognition of this need. this need was identified through the presentations at the hispanic chamber where many parents had challenges in comprehending the english only workshops for their children. in 2014, 45 students and five families participated in these main campus tours in edmond. through this collaboration, uco also expanded its prior relationship with the okc latino community development agency (lcda). our representatives visited ap spanish classes in local high schools to provide admissions and scholarship information. also, uco participated in the lcda scholarship night and mentoring program, where our team provided information in spanish to the hispanic community regarding financial aid and scholarships. these opportunities did not exist prior to the collaboration with the hispanic chamber facility programming, so the visibility of uco was significant in enhancing this relationship. uco has been active in the hispanic community during several major events. 2015 was the second year that uco participated in the fiestas de las americas held in the historic capitol hill business district. this annual hispanic event attracts thousands and boasts some of southwest oklahoma city’s best flavors, educational and social services, and shopping experiences to its participants. uco received a special invitation to participate due to our hispanic chamber collaboration. also, uco representatives were asked to participate in the dia de los niños (day of the children) at the hispanic chamber. recruitment office personnel and a uco latino faculty & staff association (lfsa) volunteer served on the planning committee for the festival and volunteered as stage managers for the entertainment portion. uco office of undergraduate 148 admissions also staffed a recruitment booth per a request from hispanic chamber staff members who felt that the attendees would benefit from uco’s presence. latino faculty & staff association acts as advocate and liaison a major asset in ensuring cultural transitions, student success, and a bridge between uco and the metro hispanic community is the uco latino faculty & staff association that includes 35 members. formed in 2013, it has especially ramped up its activities following the objectives arising from vision 2020 to expand uco’s relationship to the okc hispanic community, and that has certainly been evident in programming at the hispanic chamber. formally recognized by the president’s cabinet in 2014, its mission, in collaboration with the uco community, is to support the success of hispanic faculty, staff, and students at uco by advocating for efforts, programs, and policies that promote an understanding of hispanic issues within the university. they have embraced the notion of outreach to the hispanic community in the metro. following a 21% increase in hispanic student enrollment at uco, other institutions are now using uco’s lfsa activities as a model for their own programs. uco lfsa also has expanded its outreach activities in the metro to strengthen its relationship with the hispanic chamber by active participation in networking events, with tango public relations, the primary hispanic marketing firm in the metro to grow its business community, the latino community development agency, and aspiring americans, inc. the extensive presence of lsfa members and other uco employees at these events has drawn the continuing comment from hispanic community members that “uco is everywhere,” renteria mendoza reports (personal communication, november 15, 2105). the lfsa members have been engaged in other outreach activities on and off campus. members partnered with the uco center for excellence in transformative teaching & learning and the office of diversity & inclusion to sponsor a student panel that addressed issues and concerns faced by hispanic students. they also have assisted in hiring three bilingual staff members for community outreach and student recruitment positions for uco. finally, to ensure that their voice in conversations about diversity on campus, uco lfsa is represented on the university diversity committee. the alliance’s members have encouraged the institution’s leadership to initiate a formal institutional membership in the hispanic association of colleges and universities (hacu) to ensure that uco is linked to this national network. presently, it is the only okc metro institutional member to this organization. lfsa members have attended the hacu annual conference to harvest best practices to strengthen uco’s plan to hire diverse faculty and staff, and to expand upon services provided to students on campus. many of the best practices promoted through hacu focus on collaborations between institutions of higher education and the community, so this membership will be beneficial in enhancing our strategies with the hispanic chamber. the organization has also collaborated with the division of student affairs to host a workshop by aspiring americans in spring 2015, and has been actively working with this organization to assist current and incoming hispanic students to be retained and graduate. there is special 149 attention provided to the estimated 60 undocumented students attending uco. undocumented students do not qualify for federal or state financial aid, including student loans, and pay their tuition out of pocket. in conjunction with the uco foundation and aspiring americans, has awarded matching scholarships to current students, and is raising funds for an endowed scholarship. as many students who are participating in hispanic chamber of commerce workshops sponsored by uco are undocumented, the collaboration has provided these students with the additional support needed to better understand the matriculation process and access resources to be able to afford college. lfsa hispanic success initiative among the most intensive projects engaged in by the lfsa is a new, ongoing team of three faculty and three staff who are members of lfsa, working with the office of diversity and inclusion, to pilot a program to foster an environment that promotes the success of hispanic students. the program targets increasing retention and graduation rates, fostering greater appreciation for hispanic cultural heritage, and connecting hispanic students to the community through mentorships and service-learning experiences. this hispanic success initiative results from uco experiencing a 36.8% increase in its hispanic population over the past five years, to an enrollment of 1,434 hispanic students in fall 2015. students have expressed the need to connect with each other, with uco faculty and staff, and the greater oklahoma city metropolitan community. hispanic students have also stressed the importance of exploring and developing hispanic cultural identity. at uco, the average hispanic gpa in fall 2014 was 2.83 (2.63 for hispanic men; 2.95 for hispanic women). through the uco student right to know cohort, 70% of hispanic students in 2013 were retained from first to second year, which was about 5% higher than the average for all incoming srtk students. however, the difference in the retention rate does not translate to higher graduation rates; 37.9% of hispanic students in the 2008 srtk cohort graduated within six years compared to 37.5% of the total 2008 srtk cohort. even within the hispanic transfer student population, only 57% of the 2008 transfer cohort graduated in six years compared to 54% for the overall population. this lag in performance in retention and graduation rates by hispanic students still significantly exceeds that finding of hispanic college students nationwide, with a 15% graduation rate (krogstad, 2015a). as a percentage of the population, hispanics still represent just nine percent of all u.s. college degree holders (krogstad, 2015b; see also, excelencia in education, 2015d). the hispanic success initiative seeks to increase the retention and completion rates of uco’s hispanic students, along with increased confidence and a sense of belonging. this will be accomplished through several initiatives. first is a combination of learning opportunities associated with uco’s student transformative learning record (stlr), both curricular and non-curricular experiences that infuse the ace value rubrics throughout the curriculum and all student activities. second, it provides experiences that foster development and exploration of identity through activities that foster connections between students, faculty and staff, and the okc community, including community leaders. third, a mentoring component is provided in which each participant is paired with two other peers as well as one faculty or staff mentor. 150 the hsi initiative uses the integrated knowledge portfolio process created by dr. melissa (2015; see also, peet, lonn, gurin, boyer, matney, marra, taylor, & daley, 2011) from the university of michigan, ann arbor. the uco research team, comprised of faculty and staff, will examine the impact and benefits of the curriculum on the participants’ sense of belonging in postsecondary education and their identity. the research team will also examine the effectiveness of the program overall and will share the outcomes with other institutions of higher education. fifty-one students were selected for hsi from 64 applications that were received and a total of thirty-nine students decided to participate (76% participation rate). of the thirty-nine students, 63% are from low-income backgrounds and 75% are first-generation students. other participant characteristics are: 55% first-time, full-time freshmen; 30% are transfer students; 67% are females; 33% are males; average high school gpa for freshmen students is 3.54; average cumulative gpa for non-freshmen students is 2.84. the hsi has the support of various entities across campus including the division of student affairs, division of academic affairs, division of public affairs, center for excellence in transformative teaching and learning, college of education and professional studies, and the hispanic american student association. the hsi program is directly tied to uco’s partnership with the okc hispanic chamber. the hsi team has built a component where students are connected to leaders in the community by brining community leaders as role model speakers to students, as well as through a servicelearning project. lfsa’s connections that have been made through the partnership with the hispanic chamber will be capitalized on through this program. additional considerations and conclusion like many metropolitan areas across the nation, oklahoma city is experiencing an unprecedented and unpredicted growth in the size of its hispanic community. through its strategic planning process, vision 2020, the university of central oklahoma conducted a “deep dive” environmental scan of the ten-county metro employing a tows (threats/opportunities/weaknesses/strengths) format that focused on unmet metro needs and opportunities. the exercise synthesized university community thinking to place greater emphasis on serving the hispanic community, whose children now represent almost half of the enrollments in the state’s largest public school system (perry & menendez, 2011). by coincidence, the greater oklahoma city hispanic chamber of commerce was seeking a partner as it sought to renovate a new headquarters facility to provide a classroom for business classes and collegegoing information to the hispanic community. the new partnership cemented the relationship between the two organizations in ways previously unexpected. some of the significant outcomes were a substantial increase in hispanic students enrolling at uco, increased business services outreach and college-preparatory workshops delivered on site at the hispanic chamber, expanded networking with continuous interactions through other scheduled social events affected by the recruitment of uco provost john barthell to the chamber board of directors. this was further cemented by the emergence of the uco latino faculty & staff association as a critical 151 linkage to the chamber, hispanic community, and on campus for the recruitment, retention, and personal and professional growth of uco students of hispanic heritage. as the collaboration continues to grow, there will be many other opportunities to strengthen this partnership. the addition of academic classes and potentially academic programs at the location by uco will allow affordable and accessible options for many who live in the community. also, as an institution committed to the notion of being stewards of place, uco plans to create service learning opportunities for its students through the hispanic chamber. the opportunity to conduct programming to enhance cultural competencies for these students, as well as faculty and staff, is another opportunity. the burgeoning relationship exemplifies the innovation that occurs when two distinct organizations unite to enhance their communities through shared spaces. the future opportunities seem limitless considering the capacities of the two current partners and potential additional partners who can work together to create solutions for the metro citizens of hispanic backgrounds. hispanic chamber executive director david castillo summed up the strength of the relationship by saying “the best is yet to come” (personal communication, november 23, 2015. references act, inc. 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(2006). bridging two worlds: academia and latina/o identity." in castellanos, j., gloria, a. m., and kamimura (eds.), the latina/a pathway to the ph.d.: abriendo caminos, edited by, m. 135-147. sterling, va: stylus. u.s. census bureau quick facts. 2014. oklahoma city. retrieved from http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/40000.html. university of central oklahoma. (2013). vision 2020 executive summary. retrieved from https://www.uco.edu/central/strategicplanning/files/ucostrategicplanningsummary.pdf. university of central oklahoma office of institutional research. (2016). spring 2016 demographics book. retrieved from http://www.uco.edu/academicaffairs/ir/files/2016%20spring%20demo%20book.pdf. u.s. bureau of labor statistics. (2014). may 2014 state occupational employment and wage estimates: oklahoma. retrieved from http://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_ok.htm. venezia, a., kirst, m., & antonio, a. l. (2003). betraying the college dream: how disconnected k-12 and postsecondary education systems undermine student aspirations, final policy brief. stanford, calif.: the bridge project, the stanford institute for higher education research. vidal, a. c., nye, n., walker, c., manjarrez, c., romanik, c., corvington, p., ferryman, k., freiberf, s., & kim, d. (2003). lessons from the community outreach partnership center program: final report. washington, dc: the urban institute. retrieved from https://www.huduser.gov/publications/pdf/lessons_complete.pdf. walshok, m. l. (1995). knowledge with boundaries: what america’s research universities can do for the economy, the workplace, and the community. san francisco: jossey-bass. wilson, j. (2014). investing in english skills: the limited english proficient workforce in u.s. metropolitan areas. retrieved from http://www.brookings.edu/metro. zlotkowski, e. (1999). pedagogy and engagement. in bringle, r. and duffy, d. (eds.), colleges and universities as citizens. boston: allyn and bacon (pp. 96-120). http://dx.doi.org/10.12806/v14/i4/i1 155 author information mark a. kinders is the uco vice president for public affairs, with responsibility for state, federal, community, local government, and business relations. he was the cabinet coordinator to uco’s strategic planning process resulting in vision 2020, and he coordinated implementation of uco’s sponsorship of the classroom/conference room at the greater oklahoma city hispanic chamber of commerce. mark a. kinders, ed.d. (corresponding author) office of public affairs university of central oklahoma 100 north university drive adm 104 edmond, ok 73034 e-mail: mkinders@uco.edu telephone: 405-974-5562 fax: 405-974-5560 myron l. pope is the uco vice president for student affairs, with responsibility for departments that provide opportunities for student development and enrollment management services. he has been instrumental in leading the campus’ strategic enrollment management processes and in developing collaborative programming in the oklahoma city metropolitan area that are conducive to student recruitment and success. myron l. pope, ed.d. office of student affairs university of central oklahoma 100 north university drive adm 213e edmond, ok 73034 e-mail: mpope5@uco.edu telephone: 405-974-5370 fax: 405-974-3825 mailto:mkinders@uco.edu mailto:mpope5@uco.edu metropolitan universities vol. 28 no. 4 (november 2017), doi: 10.18060/21739 collective impact approach: a “tool” for managing complex problems and business clusters sustainability alessandra de chiara abstract environmental pollution occurring in industrial districts represents a serious issue not only for local communities but also for those industrial productions that draw from the territory the source of their competitiveness. due to its ability to take into account the needs of different stakeholders, the collective impact approach has the potential to address these problems, whereas single actors may not have the resources. the implications of the paper are addressed to institutions for industrial policies which individuate potential courses of action for developing and strengthening clustering-based approaches, as well as implementing viable policies in support of the sustainable competitive model. keywords: collective impact; sustainability; industrial districts; social welfare; multistakeholders sustainability and the collective impact approach: the importance of relationships facing environmental problems and implementing sustainability plans requires a relational approach for obtaining concrete results. relational approaches are quite clear in their different theoretical guidelines related to sustainability: at the firm level (i.e., corporate social responsibility [csr]), the relational approach explains its implementation process and refers to obtainable benefits at organizational, customer, and society-based level (trust, reputation, motivation, commitment, transparency, etc.) (orlitzky et al., 2003; porter and kramer, 2006; perrini et al., 2006); at the production-line level, it refers to the management of relationships within the supply chain (carter & jennings, 2002; reuter et al., 2010); at the network and system level it refers to the positive impact on the entire community (hemmati, 2002; zadek, 2006; caroli & tantalo, 2011). collaboration with institutions, communities, and businesses is crucial, especially at a time of limited economic resources, private and public alike. therefore, the creation of networks and the development of new synergies are the key premises to improve efficacy and efficiency of operations. the collaboration with different stakeholders contributes to accessing innovative potential that exists within the cooperation (tencati & zsolnai, 2009), and increases the value and quality of processes and outputs (dallocchio et al., 2010). collaboration also allows the participation of small and medium-sized businesses (smes) (speence & schmidpeter, 2003). for these actors, relationships and stakeholder engagement are vital connectors and amongst the best viable approaches for sustainability development. smes should engage in responsible conduct due to their strong ties to the local system (harvey et al., 1991; perrini & tencati, 2008), while the ability to develop harmonic and trustful relationships with stakeholders remains the basis of their long-term performance (spence et al., 2003). 102 above all, the engagement of various stakeholders assures an increased level of sustainability within the entire supply chain or local system, with a positive impact on the whole community, while preventing the unethical misconduct of others from undermining the efforts. stakeholder engagement plays a crucial role in two respects. in the decision-making process, it allows for the inclusion of different variables and needs and the choice of sustainable initiatives and polices to satisfy the expectations of all parties involved. furthermore, in the processes of implementing decisions and strategies, engagement provides a powerful means to ensure a positive spin-off for sustainable development. this relational approach allows for the creation of common visions and missions, reduced environmental impact, and an application of rules within each organization, providing higher standards for working conditions (fichter & sydow, 2002). while it is true that the multi-stakeholder approach has become the indispensable pillar of sustainability strategies within supply chains, networks, and local systems, very often collaborative interactions are not sufficient. for example, in the presence of complex problems, engagement often fails (kania and kramer, 2011). in the collective impact approach, it is argued that engagement should evolve from an informal to a more collaborative-based approach with a well-defined organizational structure. managing change in terms of complex problems, such as pollution or social unease, has prompted this approach to define projects based on a regulated engagement, so as to effectively contribute to the well-being of the community (hanleybrown et al., 2012; kania & kramer, 2011). this approach underlines that “large-scale social change requires a broad cross-sector coordination” and a commitment by “a group of important actors from different sectors to a common agenda to solve a specific social problem” (kania & kramer, 2011, p. 36). this perspective stresses that the different types of traditional collaborations, such as the funder collaborative, public-private partnerships, multi-stakeholder initiatives, and social sector networks organizations, have failed in the attempt to solve complex social problems. the collective impact approach refers to a type of collaboration that solicits a separate organization (or organizations) with specific sets of staff skills, shared tools, and a structured process to create a common agenda. this perspective identifies the need to create a backbone structure with a dedicated staff to cope with complex issues or adaptive problems, i.e., the education reform, rehabilitation of polluted sites, improvement and protection of health of the community, etc., and other factors preventing single enterprises from enabling change. establishing a centralized structure should prompt the involved parties to implement a common agenda through a structured process that identifies the sub-objectives and strategies, shared tools, communications means, and measuring results systems (kania & kramer, 2011). the model suggested by the collective impact approach starts with the identification of some pre-conditions to establish the required contributions and work phases, which are divided into three major stages (figure 1). the first stage focuses on defining the initial preparation related to the group composition, history of the territory or community, and database collection. the second stage refers to the definition of a backbone structure, the creation of a common agenda with specific objectives and strategies, promotion of the community engagement, and implementation of measuring procedures. the third stage deals with the pursuit of actions for the implementation of objectives and strategies, community engagement monitoring, and effective feedback processes. 103 figure 1. pre-conditions, components, and phases for the implementation of the collective impact approach (adapted from hanleybrown et al. 2012) members’ behavior is fundamental in the collective impact approach. kania and kramer (2011, p. 39) state that the success of this approach “is not merely a matter of encouraging more collaboration or public-private partnerships. it requires a systemic approach to social impact that focuses on the relationships between organizations and the progress toward shared objectives.” they add that the “expectation that collaboration can occur without a supporting infrastructure is one of the most frequent reasons why it fails” (kania & kramer, p. 41). collective impact approach for sustainability in business clusters sustainability is also an opportunity to build collaborative interactions and partnerships between public and private actors, which can enhance competitiveness of a local system. establishing a special bond among economic, institutional, and social systems appears an essential precondition not only to manage an area with a complex problem of pollution, but also for enhancing its territorial specialization and distinctiveness. the identification of sustainable paths, capable of re-qualifying local processes and products and of boosting local economy and improving its competitive advantage, can be investigated by way of the collective impact approach. this perspective is applicable to those areas where economicproductive tissue has the characteristics of a milieu, that is to say, a high concentration of phases of collective impact phase i initiate action: form cross-sector group, make case, facilitate community outreach , identify key issues and gaps phase ii organize impact: create infrastructure, common agenda, engage community, establish shared metrics phase iii sustain action and impact: facilitate and refine, support implementation, continue engagement, report progress components for success (conditions) governance and infrastructure (backbone support) strategic planning (common agenda, mutually reinforcing activities) community involvement (continuous communication) evaluation and improvement (shared measurement) pre-conditions influential champion (or small group of champions) financial resources urgency for change 104 production systems which has strong ties to the socio-cultural features of a territory (beccatini & sforzi, 2002). the set of natural conditions characterizes a given territory, and all permanent socio-cultural aspects rooted in a specific geographical area are due to the historical evolution of their inter-subjective connections and ties to local environmental ecosystems (beccatini & sforzi, 2002). actors, resources, activities, and relationships are thus the territory’s core elements, which has led the territorial dimension to progressively emerge as a significant key of interpretation to how production is organized and implemented in different contexts. the influence of the territory on business competitiveness has been widely investigated in the theoretical debate i.e., the classical economy, the theory of business clusters, the international marketing and territorial marketing researches. these theories have examined all salient aspects from different angles, and agreed on the undeniable value and power of the territory over business competitiveness. in the idea of business cluster, there is an interconnection between economic production and socio-cultural conditions, which significantly contributes to business profitability. in current times, the renewed interest in clusters appears to have its grounds in its role as a development vector for local economies. in debate, the relationships between “businesses, external economies, and economic development” and technologies, spillovers, agglomerations, and regional economic development have been extensively investigated (feser & bergman, 2000). business clusters are integral parts of the territorial heritage since they mirror the area in which they are embedded. at the same time, places reflect the specific characteristics of a productive business network, thus, the comparative advantage arising from the specific resources of the area in line with sustainable strategic approaches would not only foster district upgrading and businesses/local system competitiveness, but also strengthen the district interconnected relationships with its cultural background (beccatini, 2000). where the territory is strongly influenced by the presence of an industrial district, and in turn the district is conditioned by the socio-cultural features of a territory, the collective impact approach could intervene in: • defining a strategic plan with a common agenda for the implementation of sustainability projects created for the social and economic development of the area; • determining the participation of economic, social, and political actors with the establishment of a backbone structure; • promoting communication and measuring procedures. the single parties have an important role but they need to join together to pursue a common project; for this aim the collective impact can be a useful approach. companies have the capacity to exploit the relational, social, and cultural fabric of their places of production. they can use their relationships and social capital to create a unique network abounding with cultural traditions and expertise in each different territory. however, within districts, the common geographic relationships must evolve toward a relation-based and shared management approach. common social roots, competences, and knowledge sharing may 105 reinforce social interactions, but this transition does not occur automatically when considering the overall competitive network of business clusters relationships. clustering activities, when relying on a high level of productive business interdependence and relationships based on trust, turn out to be an asset for the implementation of sustainability plans aimed at improving district performances, local system well-being, and enterprise competitiveness. it is equally true, however, that significant governance concerns and considerable problems arise in the adoption of suitable tools to foster engagement. similarly, institutions have an equally important role of balancing the differences of all the actors so that the network constitutes an effective resource for local development: some authors note that “local solutions of civic-engagement and self-regulation are playing an increasing role in guaranteeing successful interaction in everyday-life” (spence & schmidpeter, 2003, p. 96). the institutions aim to develop policies and services for companies and to value the networks and territory’s aptitudes and inclinations (iannone, 2007; barile et al., 2013), as well as to create conditions so even small-sized companies can increase their contribution to the common good (bennett, 1999). public institutions need to play an active role in the civil society and trigger a learning process that will facilitate the adoption of sustainable behavioral patterns (rivoli & waddock, 2011). local authorities should find the right balance between legislation and appropriate actions to pursue. this enables districts and production centers to adopt sustainable competitive models, not only for their own benefit, but also for the well-being of the community as a whole. in this respect, the viable sustainable approach of local business clusters is crucial as it sets the scene for regular output and activity upgrading, which, in turn, will boost production competitiveness. institutional governance standards of conduct should enhance local expertise as well as the distinctive features of every single process to create those unique competitive models capable of contributing to the social and economic development of the entire community. finally, research has emphasized the important role of the community in shaping business behaviors and calls upon local authorities to re-establish or enforce new regulations (calvano, 2008). therefore, the work of institutions must function alongside the work of the companies that are connecting with other economic actors and institutions to benefit from their social capital. for sustainable development of an area, it is necessary to consolidate relationships between companies and local systems, connecting the company and the local environment (iannone, 2007; pilotti et al., 2013). the collective impact approach can enhance engagement on a local level, pursuing economic competitiveness and social welfare. both of these benefit from a relationship of mutual conditioning. it is not only necessary to create cross-sector public and private partnerships, but also to initiate a systematic approach focused on the relationships between different stakeholders and a progression toward shared goals. some experiences: the failure of traditional networks this paper reports the experiences of two cases that describe the failure of traditional networks in the presence of a complex problem of pollution in areas where significant industrial districts are located. the first case refers to the environmental crisis of an area in the south of italy, called the “the land of fires,” which has created serious difficulties for the structural stability of many agro106 food businesses, and indeed, the entire community. to face this problem, businesses have promoted a network involving other economic actors of the area, as well as local public institutions. despite many efforts over the years, this network has failed. the second case refers to the experience of the tannery district of solofra in the south of italy which has planned a significant environmentally sustainable project, described as an eco-label scheme for the district of solofra. though there are many certified eco-labeled businesses in the district, the project is failing due to both a lack of funding and, above all, the lack of a welldefined and structured governance for planning and implementing the district’s sustainable development. these two cases highlight critical elements that led to the failure of the traditional networks, and collect the reflections of the actors involved and managerial problems of the engagement. it is believed these difficulties could diminish or even disappear if management of the cooperation is organized according to the approach of collective impact, especially after the setting of a backbone support and a common agenda. the environmental crisis of the “the land of fires” the case of the area named agro caleno, located in campania (italy) and belonging to the territory recently named “the land of fires” due to the fires that are lit around the area’s mounds of waste, suggests some considerations. a succession of environmental and health crises has afflicted this area, creating serious difficulties for the structural stability of many businesses that produce protected designation of origin (pdo) food items, as well as the entire community. after the waste emergency, the dioxin crisis of 2008-2009, and the new environmental crisis, it was immediately clear to businesses in the territory that it would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, for a single actor to manage these difficulties. rather, solutions must be found within the supply chain (i.e., the network), particularly by involving local institutions. the research developed demonstrates the strong strategic importance of the decision to create a network addressing the consequences of environmental problems faced by businesses in agro caleno (de chiara, 2015). the network, devised by a group of buffalo and agricultural businesses, has promoted the creation of a plan of conservation and development of the regional landscape of the agro caleno area, which has gained the approval of many municipalities in the area. in 2011, the plan was turned into the document memorandum of understanding, (protocollo d’intesa per la valorizzazione dell’agro caleno-basso volturno-sud garigliano e del water-front della provincia di caserta), primarily aimed at the economic growth of the area, together with social progress and enhancement of cultural heritage. however, while it was found that there is a considerable level of cooperation, the network has not produced the estimated results, and the memorandum was not followed by a concrete process of action implementation to achieve agreed-upon objectives. the research collected different considerations of the stakeholders involved. local companies believe it is important to strengthen the action of the network to which they belong through meetings with district municipalities and to reaffirm the desire and need to give life to a 107 redevelopment project that is supported by technical and local administrations. local municipalities consider provincial and regional policies to be sophisticated procedures; local institutions were found to believe that the shortage of funds means that neither the transparency, nor the feasibility of the territorial reorganization is guaranteed. in addition, the research found a lack of effective coordination between the different initiatives and interviewees declared that national and regional plans constitute only positive intentions and assumptions of measures. thoughts of the local community are contained in an interview with roberto saviano, a famous italian writer who has often addressed the issue of environmental pollution in campania, published by la repubblica (20 march 2014). he has described the work of the inter-ministerial commission (which was demonstrated in the report entitled results of technical research for the mapping of the territories allocated to the agriculture of the campania region) as unsatisfactory, using the word “minimizing” to describe the operations undertaken by the government, stating that “it is clear that the step taken in these first few months of work is only a small initial one to understand what has happened and continues to happen” (saviano, 2014). it seems clear that different actions have been carried out by the various parties acting independently. lack of coordination and joint planning has resulted in an unsolved problem. research results corroborate the hypothesis that in the face of complex problems (e.g., environmental pollution) and consequent crises faced by businesses that use the land as a productive factor, it is not sufficient to develop sustainable initiatives and collaborate with economic actors, industrial associations, and the local authorities. resolving these crises requires more than cross-sector public and private partnerships; rather, it is necessary to initiate a systematic approach focused on the relationships between different stakeholders and progression towards shared goals. in this context, the collective impact approach could be applied to determinate the participation of economic, social, or political actors with the establishment of a backbone structure. furthermore, by applying this approach, it should be possible to create a dedicated structure that could guarantee the participation of different actors. moreover, it would enable the activation of a shared decision-making process, marked by precise phases, which could generate coordinated initiatives in the interest of all the parties. as noted in the survey, companies have combined to form the confagricoltura campania, an entity representing all professional agricultural organizations in campania. this entity could be the link between economic operators and institutions and, according to collective impact approach, could be an influential champion, able to resume a fruitful dialogue with local municipalities and define a more structured project to raise awareness on issues related to land and the environment involving local governments. furthermore, it is believed that a clear definition of the different steps for this approach’s implementation could assist its development by local institutions. the tannery district of solofra the tannery district of solofra has represented one of the most interesting industries in southern italy for a long time. the origins of tanning activities in campania date back to the 16th century, when the production system had its own structure and possessed 51 tanneries overall. today, in 108 this area, there are about 600 operating businesses, 500 of which are mostly micro or small-sized enterprises (0-50 employees), while less than 100 are medium enterprises (51-250 employees). legal recognition of the solofra tannery district was granted by the regional resolution no.70 on june 2, 1996 but research has shown that a path towards the creation and recognition of the district has not been conclusive (de chiara, 2016). in actuality, the full operation of the district and a strategic implementation of its committees has never officially been approved; thus, all initiatives conducted by the district and for its development are transferred to public institutions or rely on the commitment of single entrepreneurs who strive to pursue viable actions. in the area of sustainable development, research, consistent with thematic areas as indicated by iso 26000 guidelines, highlights the major fields of concern on environmental issues and the community’s engagement and development. this particular attention to the environment may be the result of the district’s inner nature, namely its core businesses, whose impact has been reinforced by the presence of small businesses in the chemical industry and growing public concern about sustainability issues. the district’s most significant environmentally sustainable project is titled “an eco-label scheme for the district of solofra.” the project earned the homogeneous production area certification, issued by emas, making its objectives prominent in southern italy (the tannery district website). the project’s major objectives are to: • create the best environmental conditions for the leather district • achieve the homogeneous production area (hpa) as a first step towards the emas certification for the entire district of solofra • re-launch the image of the district, allowing the operating businesses to improve international competitiveness through marketing actions focused on reducing the impact of their business practices on the environment. the project, funded to point 4.3 campania’s regional operational program 2000-2006, sets as its primary objectives the creation and promotion of an eco-label for the tannery district of solofra based on a method consistent with regulation (ec) no.761/2001 governing the voluntary uptake of single organizations to the community’s eco-management and audit scheme (emas). the project engaged several stakeholders in campania who collaborated to create a committee composed of the chamber of commerce of avellino, the campania region, the province of avellino, arpac, and other trade associations, such as asi consortium of avellino, and select labor organizations of avellino including cgl, cisl, and uil, and the handmade organization of avellino, cna, as well as technical and scientific bodies (universities, cnr, the institute for experimental leathers), the river sarno body, and the district municipalities. the leading committee has been entrusted with multiple tasks, including the definition and implementation of the district environmental policy, the orientation of the environmental management system, research into funding sources, the selection of partners for carrying out the 109 program in all its stages, the drafting of rules for the voluntary labeling method, and the designing of the eco-label logo for the district of solofra. at present, 25 companies have the eco-label, but the project stopped due to lack of funds, and research justifies businesses’ reluctance in exploiting the eco-label model due to poor market gains. ideally, the adoption of the eco-label should have made businesses eligible for tax incentives or additional scores for tenders, but this has never been the case, not even in the notice of internal competitions issued by the chamber of commerce, thus explaining the lack of business interest in eco-label programs. the absence of a unified and legitimate representation of a district governance has clearly influenced the possibility for businesses to create long-term policies and project planning development. despite this absence, the environmental project has triggered a virtuous circle on a territorial level that managed to bring the local community closely in-line with district practices. in particular, the research singled out a few initiatives implemented by the district to benefit the community in which it operates. first, the eco-labeling initiatives may be interpreted as territorial marketing actions. a dedicated website for the district allows enhanced eco-label visibility to attract a broader number of businesses operating in the territory that can keep up to date with the project developments, namely new eco-labeled certified businesses, as well as performance results, news, conferences, and events. furthermore, an interactive cd-rom explaining eligibility for eco label certification and an informative leaflet indicating eco label advantages has been produced and is available. both the cd-rom and leaflets have been made available during the events organized by the chamber of commerce and/or trade associations. sustainability initiative management within the tannery industrial district of solofra cannot rely on a decision-maker institution, as the district lacks a well-defined governance. the survey clearly shows that the district entrusts occasional committees with the task of developing and implementing sporadic projects, but the presence of a large number of firms in the district and the relevance of its production activities on the local community requires the definition of a small group of stakeholders who can decide on development strategies for the district and local systems. this group must be representative of various economic, political, and social sectors, but also, within the supply chain, of the different economic and structural characteristics of businesses, compared to the activities of the chain over which they are presiding. research suggests that the collective impact approach could be useful in defining a backbone structure and all subsequent aspects concerning the engagement of relevant members. this structure is essential to pursuing a sustainable development of district and of the local community. the business cluster examined is a typical made in italy district; it clearly enjoys a competitive advantage on an international level due to its strong ties with the economic and cultural heritage of the territory. however, this recognized advantage should be further strengthened by drawing on the adoption of collaborative approaches and sustainable competitive models, which will enable both the district to upgrade its production activities while reducing the pressure of competitive low-cost policies from developing countries, and also to anticipate and meet the increasing needs of the ethical market. 110 industrial district development means social upgrading and, thus, public institutions need to play an active role in civil society to trigger a learning process (rivoli & waddock, 2011) that will facilitate the adoption of sustainable behavioral patterns. by applying the collective impact approach, institutions should become influential champions and contribute to strengthening clustering approaches based on solid governances. the setting of a specific structure, or a leadership room, should allow the active participation of major components, namely district representatives and various actors in charge of the different phases and processes in the tannery supply chain. this structure should define the rules of the decisionmaking process and serve as the backbone for the entire initiative while coordinating participating organizations. finally, for the situation described in this case, the identification of specific phases necessary for the implementation of the collective impact approach appears to be a useful path to address the work of local governments. conclusions the cases evaluated witness a failure of the traditional network and reaffirm that even if there is willingness to solve an environmental problem and constitute publicprivate partnerships, actions are not sufficient and the implementation of the collective impact approach could have better results. it can be surmised that the distinctive nature of this approach is not ascribable to single elements, as certain pre-conditions (influential champion and financial resources) and conditions (governance and infrastructure, strategic planning, community involvement, evaluation, and improvement) are, which would assure the success of public-private partnerships. in fact, many of these elements are widely debated within the research as an issue of districts’ and networks’ governance (schmitz & nadvi, 1999; nelson & pritchand, 2009; hemmati, 2002; gereffi & lee, 2016). rather, within the definition of a process, articulated in pre-conditions, conditions, and phases of implementation, appears the distinctive element of this approach that can represent a guarantor function, so that choices can be taken and implemented in the interest of all. another important aspect of this approach, in order to produce consistent and effective results, is to stress that all stakeholders must be aware that they need to completely change their own behavior to create a solution to serious problems. the collective impact is a new collaboration format designed to put an end to isolated impact and short-term solutions’ (prange, allen & reiter-palmon, p. 86), but the question is: are the principal actors ready for this change? do local public institutions understand the importance of reexamining the issues? the questions are still open, perpetuated by the issue of 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(2003). assessing social capital: small and medium size enterprises in germany and u.k. journal of business ethics, 47(1), 17-29. https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1026284727037 tencati, a., & zsolnai, l. (2009). the collaborative enterprise. journal of business ethics, 85(3), 367-376. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-008-9775-3 zadek, s. (2006). the logic of collaborative governance: corporate responsibility, accountability, and social contract. corporate social responsibility initiative working paper no.17. cambridge, ma: j.f kennedy school of government, harvard university. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0305-750x%2899%2900072-8 https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1024176613469 https://doi.org/10.1023/a:1026284727037 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-008-9775-3 114 author information alessandra de chiara is an associate professor of management and business administration, ethics and market at the university of naples "l'orientale," italy. she obtained a master's degree and a ph.d. in business administration at the university of venice, italy. her scientific activity is mainly dedicated to the in-depth study of sustainable strategies, corporate social responsibility, internationalization processes of enterprises, knowledge management and social mechanism, and small and medium-sized enterprises. alessandra de chiara, ph.d. human and social sciences department largo san giovanni maggiore, 30 napoli, 80100, italy e-mail: adechiara@unior.it telephone: 390816909449 39talessandra de chiara 39tabstract 39tkeywords: collective impact; sustainability; industrial districts; social welfare; multi-stakeholders 39tsustainability and the collective impact approach: 39t46tthe importance of relationships collective impact approach for sustainability in business clusters some experiences: the failure of traditional networks conclusions references 39tauthor information 53 cultivating community: faculty support for teaching and learning celine fitzmaurice abstract emerging approaches to faculty support are moving away from a “fixing” model to a “relational” model. in this article, the author describes a program of faculty support that places trust and community-building at the center of its efforts. the result is a program in which faculty members engage in a peer-to-peer approach to mentoring, professional exchange, assessment, and reflection. on a recent spring morning i found myself conversing with a portland state university (psu) capstone faculty member over tea. we had met at a popular coffee shop at the edge of campus with large windows looking out on tree-lined park blocks. the cafe has become a favorite meeting place for students, staff, and faculty at psu. it has a relaxed yet vibrant feel to it—the kind of place where faculty and students meet to catch up on each other’s lives or work on a project together. my meeting with this particular faculty member marks a typical scene for faculty support in the capstone program. a new faculty member comes into the program, and a relationship of trust and collegiality is gradually built with faculty support facilitators. over time, the faculty member feels comfortable enough to request a coffee date or meeting to check in about her course. inevitably, the conversation winds toward the peculiar challenges and rewards of teaching, an exchange of ideas about new classroom resources or techniques, or the intersection of one’s personal and professional life. by the end of the meeting, plans are made to meet again, and each person departs with a short list of items to send the other—a group learning assessment, a community partner evaluation form, or even a list of wildflower hikes to recommend. this is the nature of faculty support for teaching and learning in the capstone program at psu. while the work is ultimately about supporting transformative teaching and learning, the process by which we accomplish this is an unprescribed mix of community building, attention to each instructorʼs individual gifts, mutual support in the face of challenges, peer training, and a healthy dose of reflection and celebration. faculty support structure the faculty support structure within the capstone program is an ever-evolving organism designed to meet the emerging needs of faculty in the face of educational change. this flexible approach relies on the willingness of seasoned faculty members to step into faculty support roles as the need arises. in the early years of the capstone program, its director recognized the need for a particular brand of faculty support for 54 capstones. in addition to the services provided by our universityʼs central teaching and learning center, she envisioned an “embedded” approach for capstone faculty that provided a range of support options which would address the specific needs of educators teaching community-based learning courses. with the support of the director of university studies (psu’s general education program, the senior level of which is the capstone), the capstone program secured initial funds for a half-time faculty support position to be held by an experienced capstone faculty member. over time, the staffing structure has expanded to include three part-time faculty support coordinators who carry paid contracts, and an additional group of seasoned faculty members who assist with faculty support in fulfillment of their service obligations to the university. the paid support team recently saw an increase in fte with the introduction of online capstones. as of this writing, one of our faculty support facilitators focuses all of her efforts on assisting faculty in the development and implementation of online capstones. together, this faculty support team reviews course proposals, visits capstone classes to conduct student feedback sessions, plans and facilitates workshops and retreats, and meets one-on-one with faculty members to provide targeted support or simply reflect on their teaching practice. a key characteristic of the faculty support team is that all members are actively teaching in the classroom. this allows them to serve as both colleagues and mentors in the faculty support process. currently, this structure supports the instructors in over 240 capstone courses offered each year. the courses span a wide range of topics and teaching approaches, including face-to-face, hybrid, and online course designs. capstone faculty represent a range of disciplines and are made up of tenured faculty members, non-tenure-track instructors, and adjunct instructors. the “flow” of faculty support proposal development and review faculty support in our program takes many forms. an often overlooked but particularly effective component of our overall faculty support structure is the course proposal process. our director often says that faculty support begins when a person walks through her door to share an idea for a new capstone course. in the capstone program, faculty have the opportunity to propose their own capstone courses based on their particular interests and awareness of community needs. a committee of five capstone faculty members reviews proposals on a quarterly basis with an eye to what will make for a successful course. before the proposal even reaches the committee, however, individuals are encouraged to meet with the chair of the committee to review the proposal draft. the chair works with the faculty member to develop a strong proposal and shares feedback from the committee once the review process has taken place. more often than not, the committee recommends that the proposer revise portions of the proposal before receiving full approval for the course. suggested revisions reflect the committee members’ collective knowledge of the common pitfalls associated with teaching capstones. by requiring proposal revisions, the committee members use their expertise to support the proposer in designing and delivering a successful course. 55 pre-course preparation once a course has been approved, the committee chair meets with the instructor to orient them to the capstone program and the many resources available to instructors. this orientation includes a new hire checklist, an overview of various support services on campus, an introduction to psu’s learning management system, syllabus construction techniques, and a review of best practices for community-based learning. faculty members are also introduced to the capstone faculty handbook and the capstone website at this time. as the first offering of the course approaches, the committee chair again offers to meet with the new instructor to review the initial syllabus for the course. mid-term feedback sessions each new course is scheduled to receive a mid-term feedback session halfway through the first offering of the capstone. this is also conducted by the committee chair to provide continuity in the support process. the mid-term feedback session is a central component of our faculty support program. each year, every new course and a random sample of our ongoing capstones receives a mid-term feedback session. the approach we use for these class visits is based on the small-group instructional diagnosis process or sgid (angelo and cross 1993; black 1998). the sgid is a formative assessment strategy that allows faculty members to gain teaching insights from students’ comments and to make mid-course adjustments as needed. at the start of this process, the facilitator of the sgid meets with the faculty person to hear about the dynamics of the course from the faculty member’s perspective. the facilitator then schedules a thirty-minute visit to the class to invite students into dialogue about what is going well and what could be changed to improve the course. this session takes place while the faculty member is out of the room. at the end of the session, the facilitator compiles the students’ comments and again meets with the faculty member. in this meeting, the facilitator shares the students’ aggregated responses and offers assistance to the faculty member in making sense of the results and initiating changes to the course. in this way, faculty are invited to get useful information about students’ experiences in their course while it is operating, which also models for students what it looks like to ask for, receive, and implement formative feedback. faculty often report deeply meaningful experiences with the sgid. in one memorable example, the seasoned facilitator scheduled to conduct a feedback session had a very difficult time connecting with the faculty member for their pre-session conversation. finally, after a number of failed attempts to set up a meeting with the instructor, the facilitator went to his office hours, and the two discussed his course and how he was experiencing it. the facilitator described the feedback process in detail to the instructor and asked if he had any suggestions to make for how she might best facilitate the process with his students. during their fruitful post-session conversation, the professor apologized for having made himself difficult to reach initially, saying that he had never experienced a positive interaction with a colleague relative to assessment, nor 56 had he ever before felt seen as an instructor, let alone encouraged to open himself up to formative feedback and collegial support for the purposes of improving his teaching (about which he cared very much). ongoing faculty support: workshops, retreats, and brown bag sessions each year, one of our faculty support professionals gathers a team of capstone instructors to plan and facilitate a one-day fall workshop that focuses on skill-building. themes for past events have ranged from syllabus development to fostering dialogue in the classroom to teaching for hope and change. at this event, all participants are invited to share their ideas for upcoming faculty development events, including any sessions they would like to lead. in the spring, we host an annual retreat that combines reflection and celebration with a service project to support us in “walking our talk.” last yearʼs event found us cleaning and sorting books for a local childrenʼs literacy campaign. our host for the day was a community partner who shared with us the challenges of providing summer reading resources to bilingual students at the neighborhood elementary school. the day opened with a poem and ended with a lunch reflection in which faculty exchanged successful teaching strategies from the past year. between these two events, we offer monthly brown bag sessions focused on relevant teaching topics. these sessions are often led by instructors in the program who have a particular strategy, tool, or body of research to share. finally, with the rise of hybrid and online courses, we have worked with our universityʼs central teaching and learning center to develop a series of workshops to foster best practices for community-based learning in the online format. (see “online community-based learning as the practice of freedom: the online capstone experience at portland state university” in this issue for more information about online capstones.) sample brown bag topics include the following: •  “working with multilingual students” •  “experiential activities for use in the classroom” •  “content and process: how we teach is what we teach” •  “supporting final project teams” •  “designing powerful reflective writing prompts” •  “a framework for anti-oppression training in the classroom”  •  “the instructor’s role in surfacing intersecting identities”  •  “anytime one-on-ones: a responsive approach to faculty support” sometimes, despite everyone’s best efforts to prepare for success in the classroom, a crisis arises. in our program, faculty are encouraged to reach out for support at the first sign of trouble in the classroom. this support usually takes the form of an impromptu meeting. over the years, many faculty members have knocked on the office door of a faculty support facilitator without an appointment to request a few minutes of support. 57 together, we review the issue, think collaboratively about how to respond, and plan for next steps. if the issue calls for additional support from another office on campus, we use this time to reach out to the appropriate individuals. in some cases, this has involved a longer-term strategy of hiring an outside expert to advise our faculty on a particular challenge that many faculty are facing. faculty often come back to report on the resolution of the issues or to ask for continuing support. above all, faculty members are assured that a challenge in the classroom does not reflect negatively on their teaching performance. in fact, addressing issues as they arise in capstone courses is viewed positively within the program, indicating an instructor’s commitment to effective teaching in the dynamic environment of a community-based learning class. therefore, it is far better to reach out for help early than to endure the challenges of an unmanaged crisis over the course of the term. faculty support through course evaluation and program assessment the sgid sessions described earlier are just one component of a larger evaluation and assessment framework within the capstone program. this framework includes formative and summative approaches designed for one purpose—to improve teaching and learning. at every step, the program reminds faculty that this is not a punitive process. rather, the program strives to implement an assessment and evaluation approach that first establishes the trust of faculty and then allows the evaluation and assessment approaches to serve as a continuous improvement strategy. at the end of each academic year, members of the faculty support team engage in a robust analysis of program data to evaluate the capstone program and inform faculty support efforts moving forward. the data we draw on include a large sample of student comments from final course evaluations, as well as all of the mid-term feedback session summaries. two members of our team work together analyzing each set of data. separately, they analyze the data for themes and then come together to generate a written summary of their findings. this summary often serves as a roadmap for faculty support offerings in the following year. for example, if the data suggests that students find many syllabi to be confusing, the program might offer a fall workshop session focusing on syllabus design. recently, we have experimented with a new approach to assessment that involves faculty members engaging directly in the assessment process in small learning communities. a central component of our program is a set of four learning goals that are common to each university studies course: communication, critical thinking, appreciation of the diversity of the human experience, and social and ethical responsibility. faculty members from a variety of courses are recruited, and sometimes compensated, when funding allows, to develop a portfolio that examines the presence of that goal in their course. the portfolio includes a copy of the course syllabus, a sample assignment that addresses the goal, and examples of student work related to the goal. once the portfolios have been submitted, the faculty members meet to review each other’s materials, to share feedback, and to engage in dialogue about what they have 58 learned from each other’s approach to the goal. since the purpose of this assessment process is not to critique each other’s work, but rather to learn from each other, and because the facilitator of these sessions stresses the constructive, even generative, goals of this work, faculty have offered praise for what they have experienced and are taking away from these processes. in the anonymous written feedback on the assessment process that participating faculty completed at the end of this year’s session, for example, one instructor indicated that the process had “re-affirmed a sense of value in sharing with colleagues.” another reported that they had gained an “appreciation for [the] assessment process.” one participant, in response to the question “how will you use your takeaway(s) in future settings?” wrote, “i’m heading to my office right now to note changes to my syllabus and assignments,” with a second indicating that they would “continue to come to gatherings such as this to share, analyze, review, and learn from each other.” a powerful effect of this process has been the relational ties that are emerging from bringing together faculty who might not otherwise interact. faculty development from the inside out a unique aspect of our faculty support program is the integration of reflective approaches that help instructors explore and nurture their individual gifts as educators. we began down this path with a series of faculty book groups focused less on the mechanics of teaching and more on the nurturing of a set of values that provide the foundation for our practice. the books we have used include the courage to teach: exploring the inner landscape of a teacher’s life (palmer 2007); teaching with fire: poetry that sustains the courage to teach (intrator and scribner 2003); and walk out walk on: a learning journey into communities daring to live the future now (wheatley and frieze 2011). (for more on this last text and its use in the “effective change agent” capstone, see “contagious co-motion: student voices on being change agents” elsewhere in this issue.) while these book groups center on reading a particular text, the gatherings often serve as a springboard for innovative teaching and programming which transcends the book’s themes. for example, a conversation that took place in one of the teaching with fire sessions spurred one faculty member to develop a new program to support students in their continued engagement with social change work beyond graduation. this unique program (expanded upon in the article “beyond the university: an initiative for creating community-wide civic agency” in this issue) drew on a website, a group of peer mentors, a series of mini-courses, and the passion and expertise of community change agents to support students to continue their social change work following the completion of the capstone. the walk out walk on book group created a space where faculty could consider ways to courageously transform teaching and learning. an interest in further empowering students to take charge of their learning led some of the book group participants to form an affinity group that has explored various approaches in participatory pedagogy, including self-grading. our work with the courage to teach led to the development of a faculty retreat series based on this text and other writings by parker palmer. two decades ago, palmer 59 developed a retreat method based on the courage to teach which he piloted with k-12 teachers. the retreats proved successful in supporting the vocational vitality of these teachers, and a nonprofit was established to formalize the “circle of trust” retreat approach. today, the center for courage and renewal (http://www. couragerenewal.org/) supports facilitator training in this approach and sponsors hundreds of retreat series designed for individuals in a variety of professions each year. since his initial work with k-12 teachers, palmer and a network of trained facilitators have adapted this retreat approach to support university educators and a variety of service-oriented fields. two years ago, our program enlisted the help of a trained “circle of trust” facilitator to launch a retreat series for our faculty members. the series was titled “the art of teaching: working from the inside out.” in each of the past two years, approximately fifteen faculty members have gathered for a series of four day-long retreats over the course of the academic year. the retreats are held off-campus and provide a space for faculty to slow down and reflect on their professional roles. the overall focus of the retreat is to help our instructors nurture authenticity, integrity, and a sense of vitality in their professional roles. each retreat session explores a particular theme in depth and includes time for individual reflection and collegial conversations. sample retreat themes have included “balancing our gifts and limits,” “paradoxes of teaching and learning,” and “planting seeds for professional growth.” lessons learned in the capstone program, we’ve learned many lessons from experimenting with relational approaches to faculty support and engaging with the challenges in teaching intensive community-based learning courses as they arise. while many of these challenges have pushed us to improve on our approaches, other challenges have remained “sticky” problems. in the conclusion to this article, we will address the gifts that have emerged from this relational approach to faculty support. in the meantime, here are some of the challenges with which we continue to grapple. the capstone program’s faculty support efforts are constantly evolving as we adjust for mistakes and respond to the shifting educational climate in higher education. an ongoing challenge that we face is robust attendance at all of our faculty support events. given that university educators teach at different times of the day, it is difficult to find a time for a faculty development session that matches everyoneʼs calendar. to respond to this, we constantly rotate the day and time for faculty support events such as our brown bag sessions. we also post handouts from these sessions on our capstone website so all can access them. over the years, this website has grown to host a large number of resources shared by capstone faculty for the benefit of their colleagues. the website allows for peer-to-peer training to continue outside of the confines of a scheduled faculty support event. the website also hosts useful forms and a set of capstone handbooks (for faculty, students, and community partners) which serve as official guides to the program. 60 since our instructor pool represents a mix of tenure-line, non-tenure-track, and adjunct instructors, we find varying degrees of participation in faculty support events based on the professional demands faced by each rank. for example, a tenure-track faculty member who is preparing for her promotion and tenure process may not be able to make time for additional meetings, no matter how helpful. similarly, adjunct instructors frequently juggle positions at multiple institutions, so they may be less likely to find themselves on campus on the day of a particular faculty support event. to address these challenges, our paid faculty support professionals work hard to nurture relationships with individual instructors and to extend personal invitations to events when appropriate. despite our best efforts, we will never reach everyone, but at least we can ensure that everyone is warmly welcomed into our community. finally, the very nature of capstone courses requires that faculty facilitate deep engagement with some of the most critical issues facing our communities and our society today. as a result, faculty must develop the skills to help students engage with each other around extremely complex issues. unlike a traditional lecture course, capstones invite students to take the driver’s seat in their learning process by sharing their own lived experiences and individual perspectives as they relate to course themes. as one might imagine, this can get messy at times. much of our faculty support effort focuses on helping faculty members develop the skills to support diverse teams of students, to gently but effectively interrupt various forms of oppression, and to create a “brave space” (arao and clemens 2013) where a variety of perspectives can be aired with safety and integrity. as our student body grows and diversifies, we face new challenges that influence the design of our faculty support efforts. in recent years, faculty have asked the capstone program for support in learning more about the range of students we serve. for example, faculty have requested programming related to supporting transgender students, responding to behavioral outbursts in the classroom, engaging effectively with students experiencing mental health issues, and navigating difference in the formation of student project teams. in these cases, one faculty member’s request benefits our entire faculty community by generating an event in which an outside expert shares information with us and faculty members have an opportunity to learn from each other’s experiences. as the context for teaching and learning shifts, the program must be flexible enough to respond to emerging topics, needs, and concerns as they arise. conclusion over the past twenty years that the capstone program has been in operation, a relational approach to faculty support has yielded a variety of positive outcomes for faculty. rather than speak for them, we would like to leave you with the voices of our faculty members as they speak to the impact of our faculty support efforts on their professional practice. the following quotes, received through confidential personal communications on our faculty support approaches, address some of the main themes in the feedback we have received from faculty and the outcomes generated by our community-centered faculty support processes. 61 •   faculty express a very real sense of camaraderie as a result of the program’s focus  on community building: i am very grateful for the spirit of camaraderie and openness established in the seminars. what i didn’t expect, and what i have greatly come to appreciate, is that my capstone colleagues and mentors have created a work culture in which this kind of engagement and compassion extends to faculty as well. •   a collaborative approach to faculty support allows faculty to play an active role in  their own professional development. [the program] has created opportunities for faculty to come together and share ideas and provides avenues for furthering our own education and strengthening our teaching skills. •   continuous input from faculty allows the program to provide “just in time” support  that is responsive to faculty needs and desires. the professional development workshops, after an attentive ear to participant requests, provide relevant and valuable assistance on several levels. in these workshops i have learned and then utilized practical strategies for serving and challenging a diverse student population, meeting the university studies goals, building community in my classroom, and enlivening my curriculum. •   faculty support efforts inspire faculty members to take risks and to grow as educators. i can count on [the program] to create a welcoming, professional space that allows me to identify and work toward my latest growing edge. •   the program’s efforts to develop trust with faculty pay off in their willingness to  seek help when challenges arise. in general, i am accustomed to working very independently and shy away from too much input into what i do. those barriers have fallen significantly....the leadership and direction have allowed me to feel comfortable enough to ask for help when needed. at the end of the tea date with the faculty member i described at the beginning of this article, i casually mentioned that i was working on a draft of this article. this faculty member had participated in various forms of faculty development in her two years with the program and was eager to share her reflections on our approach to faculty support. when i asked her how she felt the faculty support program had impacted her professional practice, she shared the following: “i have never experienced this level of faculty support at other institutions. this program is based on sharing ideas, on mentorship, and includes many opportunities to reflect on our work. the atmosphere is so encouraging and is rooted in personal connections” (n. kono, personal communication). 62 for every faculty member who shares a comment like this, there are surely others who fall through the cracks of the program’s faculty support efforts. but the work continues, with an ongoing commitment to building individual relationships with each faculty member, to cultivating a strong sense of community among our faculty, and to honoring the unique gifts and challenges that each of us bring to this work. references angelo, thomas a., and k. patricia cross. 1993. classroom assessment techniques: a handbook for college teachers. san francisco: jossey bass. arao, brian, and kristi clemens. 2013. “from safe spaces to brave spaces: a new way to frame dialogue around diversity and social justice.” in the art of effective facilitation: reflections from social justice educators, edited by lisa m. landreman. sterling, va: stylus. black, beverly. 1998. “using the sgid method for a variety of purposes.” in to improve the academy, edited by matthew kaplan, 245-262. stillwater, ok: new forums press and the professional and organizational development network in higher education. intrator, sam m., and megan scribner, eds. 2003. teaching with fire: poetry that sustains the courage to teach. san francisco: jossey-bass. palmer, parker j. 2007. the courage to teach: exploring the inner landscape of the teacher’s life. 10th anniversary ed. san francisco: jossey-bass. wheatley, margaret, and deborah frieze. 2011. walk out walk on: a learning journey into communities daring to live the future now. san francisco: berrett-koehler. author information celine fitzmaurice teaches capstone courses and serves as a faculty support facilitator in the university studies program at portland state university. she is also a trained “courage and renewal” facilitator. she has facilitated experiential education and retreat programs in a variety of academic, international, and wilderness settings for over twenty years. celine fitzmaurice university studies portland state university po box 751 portland, or 97207-0751 e-mail: celine@pdx.edu telephone: 503-725-8260 fax: 503-725-5977 10 collaboration in an era of change: new forms of community problemsolving judith a. ramaley abstract campuses are developing new ways to respond to complex social, cultural, economic and environmental problems by adapting their educational approaches and their scholarship to address a changing world order. at the same time, government agencies, nonprofit organizations and businesses are embracing collaborative approaches to community problem-solving. these collaborative approaches, on and off campus, are creating new forms of university-community engagement that will require us to rethink the nature of the societal roles we play and how we generate knowledge, create an inspiring educational environment, and assist our students in acquiring the knowledge and skills they will need to work effectively with others to address the complex societal problems that they will face throughout their lives. introduction in this article, we will examine some recent examples from the greater portland metropolitan area in oregon that offer insights into new forms of collaboration and collective action that involve faculty members, students and community participants. we will consider the creation of sustainable neighborhoods, the development of an age-friendly environment and the changing pattern of interactions among community-serving organizations, both governmental and non-profit and how the curriculum and the research work of faculty and students are contributing to these new relationships. our nation’s colleges and universities have gone through a number of transitions in their roles and responsibilities and in their approach to educating their students. the pressures for change have always been shaped by a combination of new generational values and expectations and social, economic and environmental changes in the world itself. as rudolph put it in his class text on the american college and university, war, declining enrollments, the sudden instability of whole areas of knowledge, dynamic social and economic changes—these and a multitude of other developments have often thrown the american college back upon itself and forced upon it a moment, perhaps even an era, of critical self-assessment and redefinition (rudolph, 1990, p. 110) today’s societal context offers an especially challenging blend of cross-generational change combined with the emergence of a pattern of complex, multi-faceted problems that require new forms of collaboration, knowledge creation and shared responsibility both within our institutions and within the context of our relationships with the communities we serve. our colleges and universities, regardless of mission, are being called upon to educate our students to become the kind of people who can create sustainable communities in which individuals of all backgrounds can thrive in today’s world. in this paper, we will look at some of rudolph’s “other development” and how campuses are both helping to shape the capacity of communities to work together and are, in turn, being shaped themselves by those experiences (ramaley, 2003) in ways that enhance their ability to prepare their students and their communities for a world of complex social, environmental and economic change. from repertory to improvisational work in a recent essay in the chronicle of higher education, levine (2015) captured the gist of the transition 11 that we are undergoing. as he explains it, our nation is “making a transition from a national, analog, industrial economy to a global, digital, information economy.” industrial economies focus on common elements that unfold over a predictable timeframe. think of a repertory company in the theater where the performers follow a script, plays are performed on a defined stage that separates the actors from the audience, every part is defined and there is a formal ending to the play. information economies are more like improvisational theater where innovation and discovery play a key role, the audience can become performers as well. the action may weave through a space that does not look like a formal theater. the story that develops and the outcome and the process of achieving that outcome are variable. the audience is often left wondering what might happen next and will probably be invited to participate in shaping the story. we are all familiar with how the industrial model applies to education. it defines a 12 year sequence of schooling (a script) followed by an idealized four year college degree comprised of a prescribed number of courses of a set length (semester or term) followed by graduation (the end of the play). the roles in this play are defined as are the tasks to be performed. teachers teach and students learn. the phrase often used to describe the role of the faculty member in this play is “sage on the stage.” levine (2015) summarizes succinctly, “in education, [the assembly line] translates into a common four-year undergraduate program, preceded by 12 years of schooling, semester-long courses, credit hours and carnegie units.” the coins of that realm are seat time and individual courses selected from a menu of options rather than a coherent sequence of increasingly demanding and consequential learning experiences. heifetz, et al. (2009) explain the tools and tactics for changing our organizations for a changing world, the kinds of challenges we face are not solvable by well-researched, well-practiced technical expertise. these unresolved dilemmas require adaptive strategies. “what is needed from a leadership perspective are new forms of improvisational expertise, a kind of process expertise that knows prudently how to experiment with never-before-tried=before relationships, means of communication and ways of interacting that will help people develop solutions that build upon and surpass the wisdom of today’s experts (heifetz, et al., 2009, 2-3). since the publication of greater expectations in 2002 (aac&u, 2002) and the emergence of the liberal education and america’s promise (leap) portfolio a few years later .followed by the leap challenge in 2015 (aac&u, 2015), efforts to rethink the undergraduate curriculum and the experiences that accompany it have led to a shift of emphasis from teaching to learning and from individual courses and requirements to increasingly integration of learning over time. this path is structured around the study of increasingly complex problems and increasingly collaborative efforts that bring faculty, students and community members together to learn together, work together and address “real world problems.” in some ways, this approach is improvisational and more likely to prepare graduates to work in an increasingly collaborative and networked environment. in this model, anyone may play the role of teacher or learner at different times and knowledge is developed through collaboration in which participants learn with and from each other. unlike the assembly-line or industrial model, the support structure for this kind of learning must be adaptive rather than technical (heifetz, et al., 2009). the goal of this shift in the enactment of what it means to be educated is to prepare “intentional learners who can adapt to new environments, integrate knowledge from different sources, and continue learning throughout their lives (aac&u, 2002, p. xi).” while foreshadowing the realities of today’s world in which our graduates will use their education in new ways, greater expectations focused largely on the adaptations taking place in the colleges and universities that participated in the studies and conversations that led to the report. the societal changes that were generating the need for new approaches to the curriculum, to faculty and student work and to relationships between the campus community and society 12 as a whole were an important but background element. in this paper, we will look at those societal changes in the foreground and explore some examples of the complex interactions and collaborations that are now emerging between increasingly networked communities and the colleges and universities that interact with those environments creating a culture of engagement working in an adaptive mode requires deep cultural and structural changes in all of our organizations, including our colleges and universities. over the past twenty years or so, postsecondary institutions have been slowly embracing a culture of engagement that supports the new kinds of relationships and collaborations that will be needed to address the big questions that characterize the challenges of our era. colleges and universities that thrive in the 21st century will adapt their approach to leadership and engagement with broader issues of society (ramaley, 2014a). this will entail rethinking the roles and responsibilities of faculty and staff, the opportunities they provide for students to contribute to collaborative solution-finding and the ease with which all members of a campus community can work across disciplinary and organizational boundaries to create the kind of shared expertise and responsibility needed to participate in adaptive leadership and solution-finding. the patterns that are emerging suggest what these more interactive and cross-disciplinary institutions will look like. they will begin to connect with a rapidly growing network of cross-sector collaborations (bryson, et al., 2015) within society at large. the components of a reconfigured internal community will increasingly create greater capacity to connect to the elements of more collaborative external environment. these growing connections between higher education and other community-based organizations and groups will begin to reflect and support a true culture of engagement both on campus and beyond. on campus, the characteristics of a culture of engagement will open up access to innovative and relevant educational programs, new research interests and sources of information gathered both from the work of the academic community and beyond. these capacities will be supported by a broad array of partnerships that address social, economic and environmental issues, a growing capacity to integrate efforts across the campus and new forms of engagement within the university along with new policy choices that will support and invest in engaged scholarship and collaboration. these changes will result in a more collaborative approach to both learning and scholarship. these shifts in culture, working relationships and expectations will create new capacity to work on big questions that will have a measurable impact on the quality of life locally and globally through a focus on health, culture, economic stability and resilience and the environment. community responses to an emerging set of problems in the past decade, the challenges facing communities as well as the capacities that are emerging to address those challenges are leading to new ways of thinking about the role of collaboration within and across organizations that comprise the sectors of a community (e.g., business, public, nonprofit, educational) and the role of citizen participation in identifying and then working on complex societal problems that are shaping the quality of life, both locally and globally. in their text new public governance, douglas morgan and brian cook (2014), capture the basic shift that is going on in communities through the lens of the role of government in the public sector. morgan and shinn (2014) describe two contrasting approaches to rethinking the role and structure of local government that began to emerge in the 1980s. one path led to the concept of “a smaller and less intrusive government that reduced regulatory and fiscal burdens on individuals and property owners (morgan & shinn, 2014, p. 3).” this approach resulted in a move toward less government influence in the community and the expectation that other sectors both private and non-profit could provide services more efficiently and at lower cost to taxpayers. this shift in thinking has opened up two models of government, a business or market-based 13 model referred to as new public management (npm) and the other “a collaborative approach to the provision of public services, working with partners within and across the public, nonprofit and private sectors (morgan & shinn, 2014, p. 3).” this second path, called new public governance (npg) blends some of the market-based elements of npm with a value structure that supports collaboration to seek the larger public good. both approaches focus on reducing the size, scope, costs and inefficiencies of the older model of government but they approach the challenge in different ways. as might be expected, the emergence of npm has created problems for higher education as colleges and universities are being asked to justify the value of their educational model in strictly financial terms (ramaley, 2013; humphreys, 2013). institutions are being asked about how long it takes to earn a degree, what an education costs and how much debt students will accumulate as well as what salary a new graduate can earn. the npg model, in contrast, is based on a value platform that defines the role of government as a vehicle for promoting the public good. the means for accomplishing this is to create ways to facilitate “the generation of implementable agreements among wide-ranging stakeholders (morgan & shinn, 2014, p. 5).” this philosophy is generally more attractive to colleges and universities who are seeking to prepare their students for a changing world and who see their role as a contributor to the public good through their scholarship and the educational experiences they offer as well as through their preparation of active and engaged citizens who are well prepared for the workplace and who will contribute to the communities in which they live. for this purpose, public good equates to the quality of a college degree (humphreys, et al., 2015). as the 21st century unfolds, campuses are increasingly expanding their approaches to engagement with the broader community and focusing both on a culture of engagement within their own campus communities and in the context of different forms of collaboration with various community partners. these relationships are expanding to include coalitions and networks made up of several organizations that are working together on common goals. to the thoughtful taxonomy developed by sockett in 1999, we now must add a new set of collaborations that link universities to the growing networks of participants working together to pursue a shared goal. these collaborations are cross-sector and are often referred to as collective action or collective impact models (kanter, et al., 2005). collective impact and wicked problems higher education institutions have long played roles in building healthy communities. in the past twenty years, these efforts have been collected under the term of civic and community engagement. a decade ago, rosabeth moss kanter, rakesh khurana and nitin nohria (2005) prepared a working paper entitled moving higher education to its next stages: a new set of societal challenges, a new stage of life and a call to action for universities. after reviewing the adaptations that higher education has made to address changing societal needs in the past, kanter, et al. (2005) lay out a clear vision of what lies ahead. as they point out, “new eras bring new challenges (kanter, et al., p. 10)”. along with the expected disruptions in the economy and the workplace that generates new demands for technical and adaptive skills, “a class of problems of another order of magnitude also appears today, which calls for new approaches and new leadership: societal challenges involving well-being and the social infrastructure. (kanter, et al., p. 1011).” these problems are not as new as we often make them out to be but changes in the world order, including the forces of globalization and the impact of technology “tend to exacerbate them, make them more visible and/or increase the urgency of addressing them (kanter, et al., p. 11).” kanter, et al. (2005) build their emerging problem set from a harvard business review global survey that kanter conducted in 1991 (kanter, 1991). the survey gathered information from 12,000 managers from 24 countries who agreed on four key issues that must be addressed in order to improve “the state of the world.” the issues 14 were global poverty, global health, basic education and degradation of the environment. in the intervening years, these issues have grown ever more challenging and have influenced the quality of life in communities across the globe. addressing these kinds of “wicked problems” (weber & khademian, 2008) will require new leadership skills, new ways of learning, new ways of working together across organizational, social and economic lines and new ways of drawing upon insights from many disciplines. this new pattern addresses many perspectives and a demand for cross-sector solutions that are shaped by what archon fung (2015) calls “the democracy cube.” the democracy cube raises three key questions: 1) who participates? (2) how do they communicate and make decisions? (3) what influence do they have over the resulting public decisions and actions? to this trifecta of questions, we might add a fourth: who decides what matters most? wicked problems can be described in a number of ways. according to camillus (2008) who drew upon earlier work by rittel and weber (1973), these kinds of problems (1) involve a range of stakeholders who have different values and priorities, (2) have origins in a tangled set of interacting causes, (3) are hard to come to grips with or make sense of, (4) continue to change as we seek to manage them and (5) have no clear or familiar solutions. these problems unfold in “a diverse and mutually interacting ecology” (fung, 2015, p. 514) of people and organizations and require a great deal of boundary crossing to bring together ideas and resources from multiple sources. to capture the experiences of a diverse community and to tap resources that otherwise might be ignored, new forms of interaction amongst citizens, government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and the business community are being created to support new approaches to community development (fung, 2015, p. 515). as fung (2015, p. 517) explains, complex and wicked problems require “multi-sectoral problem-solving” and ways to remove the barriers to “pooling knowledge and coordinating action” through the formation of networks that connect organizations together. these networks are built on the basic concept that the solutions too many of society’s most pressing problems today will require tapping into the expertise and ideas of different parts of the community and different disciplines. solutions to multi-faceted problems must be designed in an adaptive way rather than chosen from a repertoire of well-researched and welltested technical solutions (heifetz, et al., 2009). kania and kramer (2011) launched a new generation of thinking about collective efforts directed at complex problems in their series of articles on the concept and practice of collective impact. the components that characterize an effective collective impact model built up through networks of interaction amongst the participants in solution finding and action are (1) a common agenda arrived at through a thoughtful process of exploration and interaction, (2) shared measurement systems and a willingness to look honestly at the evidence collected, (3) mutually reinforcing activities that draw on the strengths and interests of each participant, (4) continuous communication amongst the participants, and (5) a mechanism for backbone support that facilitates the building and maintenance of the relationships needed and the capacity of all participants to act knowledgably and in cooperation with the others. these kinds of collaborative solution-finding efforts will be unlikely to generate equitable and inclusive outcomes so long as “those advantaged by political, economic, or social circumstances exercise undue influence to secure policies and public actions that reinforce their economic or political positions (fung, 2015, p. 519).” this fact reinforces the importance of rethinking how we define partnerships, who we choose to partner with and how we will draw these experiences into our curriculum. building a curriculum around a succession of explorations of increasingly complex problems and the introduction of integrative and applied learning as a culminating or capstone experience offers an especially powerful example of how colleges and universities are adapting to the ways that their graduates will be called upon to use their education in the future (aac&u, 2015; the leap challenge). integral to these curricular 15 reforms is a growing emphasis on ways to produce educational environments that are equitable and inclusive in order to prepare a more diverse group of graduates for the roles that they must play in the future as professionals and as active citizens and to engage a more diverse group of organizations and neighborhood groups in problem-solving (dowd & bensimon, 2015; ramaley 2015). the challenge for our institutions in order to prepare a differently educated citizenry and to play meaningful roles in community-building, colleges and universities must model informed and collaborative ways of learning and working together within their own institutional context as well as through their interactions with the broader society of which they are an integral part (ramaley, 2014b). the path toward a more interactive and collaborative approach to collective action will have implications for every aspect of our campus culture and practice— the nature of our curriculum, our expectations of our graduates, our approach to learning and teaching, the nature of our scholarly agenda, the ways that faculty and staff careers unfold, the structure of our institutions and how we will support our capacity to accomplish our mission. the path that lies ahead offers both challenges and opportunities for regaining a core role in working with others to shape life in our communities. connecting to collaboratory networks: the sustainable neighborhood initiative in portland, oregon the institute for sustainable solutions (iss) was established in 2008 when an oregon-based foundation, the james f. and marion l. miller foundation, made a $25m challenge grant to portland state university (psu) to integrate sustainability across campus and to prepare students for change-making careers. since that time, iss has served as a university hub for sustainability. it does so by supporting interdisciplinary research, curricular development, opportunities for student leadership and meaningful community partnerships that “contribute to a just, prosperous, and vibrant future for our region and the world (institute for sustainable solutions (iss), 2015).” iss approaches programming and relationship building guided by two key principles: (a) learning happens everywhere and (b) a commitment to translating research into action in close collaboration with community partners. psu has used the iss to begin to link together those community networks with a growing collaborative environment within psu itself. it is clear that sni is adding an additional element to the carnegie (2015) definition of community engagement. the carnegie definition emphasizes the concepts of (a) collaboration, (b) mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources and (c) a context partnership and reciprocity. these components inform the more complex forms of university-community collaboration such as sockett’s systemic and transformative approaches. in these collaborations, “the parties share responsibility for planning, decision-making, funding, operations and evaluation of activities and…each institution is transformed through the relationship (sockett, 1998, p. 77).” these kinds of relationships have developed further since sockett developed his classification model. the focus is now more on the effects of these working relationships on the community and less on the partners themselves. in may 2014, iss formally launched the sustainable neighborhoods initiative (sni). the sustainable neighborhoods initiative builds on portland state’s legacy of community-based learning and the interest and enthusiasm among psu faculty and students to work on projects in portland neighborhoods that will make a difference in the lives of people who live there. the initiative pairs psu classes with a small number of portland neighborhoods for multi-year relationships that will match university assets, expertise, and energy with specific neighborhood sustainability initiatives and community expertise. the sni provides students with rich opportunities to develop meaningful community connections and gain valuable work experience. a lot of progress has been made in the year 16 since sni began. the entire effort depends upon the fact that neighborhoods in the portland area have been developing collaborative systems to address issues of importance to their communities. although the sni is still quite young, one of its core goals is to match up the interests of faculty, students and community members but also to begin to help iss shape the internal community that makes up psu itself and to promote a culture of collaboration and resource-sharing and mutual influence than spans departments, schools and support units in ways that open up new ways to work together, learn together and address complex problems. it is never easy to shift the value structure and culture of a large institution. one way to move beyond individual efforts to a more institution-wide effort is to set up hubs like iss and its newer offspring, sni as a means to make connections and open up pathways to collaboration. consider the following project that was completed in the first year of sni, the maiden court community orchard in the outer southeast neighborhood of lents in portland, oregon. the public administration program offered a section of introduction to civic engagement each term. for three consecutive terms, students in that course participated in a partnership with a local organization called green lents to create a shared community vision of a new community orchard. the students canvassed over 1300 homes in the neighborhood and talked with 260 local residents about the project and invited them to participate in planning efforts at community design meetings. this effort added much needed capacity to the local grassroots organizations who did not have the capacity to do this kind of community outreach on their own. at the same time, the project provided a practical learning experience for the students by providing them an opportunity to apply concepts of civic engagement that they were learning in their coursework and to begin to understand firsthand the challenges that community leaders face. similar projects took place in two of the other three neighborhoods that constituted the first cohort of portland neighborhood that signed on to the sni project—the south waterfront market area bordering the psu campus (soma) and the cully neighborhood in portland’s northeast. one focused on building a miniature park (a “parklet”) in the neighborhood surrounding portland state where people can gather and interact. the other created a map of biodiversity in the cully neighborhood in cooperation with several community groups and residents of cully. the map will be used to promote science literacy and environmental awareness among the young people in the neighborhood. responding to generational transitions: the age-friendly university the concept of an age-friendly university interacting with an equally age-friendly community offers another example of ways that new forms of collaboration and networking can create greater capacity to address rapidly emerging societal challenges. the story begins in 2002 when the world health organization (who) (2002) began to focus on the development of age-friendly cities. that year, the who organization estimated that between 2000 and 2050, the proportion of the world’s population over 60 years of age will double from abo0ut 11% to 22%, a total of over 2 billion people. of those individuals, 395 million will be over the age of 80. most of those people will be aging in the world’s cities. based on its active ageing framework developed in 2002, who proposed eight interconnected domains that can help to identify and address barriers to the well-being and participation of older people in the life of an urban community. the eight domains are community and health care, transportation, housing, social participation, outdoor spaces and buildings, respect and social inclusion, civic participation and employment and communication and information. the who’s global age-friendly cities research project included 33 cities in 22 countries. portland, oregon was the only u.s. city that participated at that early stage. 17 portland’s contributions to the who project were supported by research conducted by psu’s institute on aging (ioa) the institute identified urban features that make cities age-friendly, features that are barriers to age friendliness, and offered suggestions for changes that could improve the experiences of older adults. in 2010, the who created a global network of age-friendly cities, subsequently renamed the “who global network of age-friendly cities and communities.” a core concept of this working definition of age-friendliness is the focus on people of all ages. in the past decade, efforts to create age-friendly environments have focused either on the specific needs and interests of older adults and the impact of an aging population on the economy or on the concept of multigenerational interaction and the participation, health and well-being of people of all ages in a shared environment, either within an organization or in a community. the components of an age-friendly community are similar to definitions of a sustainable or healthy community (institute for sustainable communities, 2015). in both models, all of the main community functions are aligned to create a high quality of life and active civic engagement in which a cross section of the community contributes in meaningful ways that generate significant capacity to adapt to larger social, economic and environmental changes. both approaches include three core elements—a healthy climate and environment, social well-being and economic security. portland’s path to age-friendliness and portland state’s role psu’s institute on aging (ioa) was invited by the who to join its global age-friendly cities project and conduct the original baseline research on portland’s age friendliness. the ioa approached then mayor sam adams to request that he and the city council commit to becoming more age friendly and apply for membership in the who’s global network. mayor adams agreed, but in exchange asked for ioa staff to serve on his portland plan advisory group, which they did. once portland was designated as a member of the network, the ioa formed an advisory council for an age-friendly portland and work began on drafting the portland action plan, with strategies and action steps identified for each of the eight domains (expanded to 10 in portland, to pull apart civic engagement and employment and community and health services). in 2008, the multnomah county task force on vital aging released an action plan in the form of a report entitled everyone matters: a practical guide to building a community for all ages, which guided this work, along with the baseline study and other relevant data and reports. as who explains, “making cities more age-friendly is a sound investment. supportive and enabling environments enable older people to stay independent longer and in turn cities and communities benefit from the contributions older people have to offer.” a focus on age-friendliness can enhance inter-generational social relationships and bonds and facilitate community integration and benefit people of all ages. in april 2012, the city of portland’s portland plan (2012) was adopted. the plan seeks to make portland “prosperous, educated, healthy and equitable.” the plan includes a section entitled portland as a place for all ages (p. 24-25). that section, which was prepared by the portland bureau of planning and sustainability, addresses age-friendliness. however, the elements of age-friendliness that were included in the plan make no mention of education or the economic impact of older members of the community. the focus is essentially on the needs of older members of the community rather than on their contributions to the community, although the document quotes the who definition of age-friendly cities and is entitled “portland is a place for all generations.” ioa staff drafted the action plan for an age-friendly portland, members of the advisory council then reviewed it and provided comment, and ioa revised and submitted the action plan to the city council. 18 the city council accepted the action plan in october, 2013. since then, ioa has continued to coordinate the advisory council and has staffed the working committees formed with overseeing the implementation of the plan. although there has been little funding specifically for this age-friendly work, a $1 million gift provided by two psu alumni has provided funds to support student and faculty efforts in support of the age-friendly agenda. the board of county commissioners of multnomah county passed a similar resolution to the city’s in october 2014, accepting the areas of the city’s action plan but requesting that the plan be modified to be appropriate for the county. ioa is supporting that plan also. psu itself has endorsed the age-friendly effort but is still exploring the question of how it can become a model for agefriendly education and multigenerational engagement and how it might draw upon more of its intellectual and social resources across the institution to contribute through its scholarship, educational programming and community collaborations to portland’s effort to become a model age-friendly city. in 2013, psu picked up the age-friendly theme again along with a focus on psu’s role in promoting the development of portland as an age-friendly city. several briefing papers were prepared that outlined the demographic changes underway both globally and in oregon. one of those papers entitled portland and the new longevity, issued in july 2013, laid out a portrait of what a new aging agenda might look like and why and how portland might lead the way in developing that concept. the paper explored three themes: rethinking work, engagement and aging; enhancing age-friendliness; transforming health and social services through new technology. building on this briefing paper, the team then prepared an argument for the role of psu in contributing to the formulation and enactment of a new aging agenda within an age-friendly context. the second prospectus proposed a plan entitled tapping portland’s hidden asset rethinking aging, longevity, engagement and equity. the report described the changing age demographics as a “whole new game moment” and proposed a scenario in which age-friendly cities will emerge as “more desirable, successful and economically viable than those that are not.” in the report, the authors laid out a strategy that would position the portland region as a world leader and proposed the use of the collective impact model with psu as the backbone institution to link existing partnerships and create greater momentum for moving toward the goal of becoming an age-friendly city served by an age-friendly university. in january 2015, the dean of the college of urban and public affairs (cupa) at portland state university submitted a prospectus for a “big idea” for the next psu comprehensive campaign. the prospectus outlined ten components of a university-wide plan designed to make portland state university an age-friendly campus built on a platform of inter-generational collaboration and mutual learning. these elements match up well with an earlier set of principles for an age-friendly university developed by dublin city university (2014). the concept of age-friendliness articulated by dublin city university is broad-reaching “to encourage the participation of older adults in all the core activities of the university, including educational and research programs.” the components include promoting personal and career development in the second half of life, promoting intergenerational learning, designing online educational opportunities for older adults, including the interests and needs of older adults in the university’s research agenda, to promote participation by older adults in a broad range of university programs and to engage with the university’s own retiree community and, finally, to ensure regular dialogue with organizations representing the interests of the ageing population. in march 2015, a consulting firm, econorthwest that focuses on ways to build a thriving economy in the pacific northwest and aarp oregon, co-sponsored a gathering of community leaders from every sector of society to talk about the economic and social impact of the changing age distribution in both the metropolitan region and in rural oregon. this was followed by a breakfast meeting for a similar mix of community leaders on september 22, 2015 to “challenge business and community leaders to explore how to engage with the 50+ population to strengthen the economy.” as one participant put it, “it is time to shift from the metaphor of a silver tsunami to the idea of a silver reservoir of talent, energy and social and 19 economic resources.” these efforts to generate interest in the implications of changing demographics have been reinforced by articles in the local media. the next step will be to prepare a white paper that makes the case for the social and economic benefits that older adults contribute to oregon. at this point, portland state steps in as a partner with econorthwest to develop and then promote the case. the academic deans at psu have met to talk about research activities, curricular treatments of aging and multigenerational topics and to identify and foster current partnerships across the colleges that address some aspect of age-friendliness. this discussion could be especially helpful in assessing psu’s efforts in the following three components of dublin city university’s principles and can form a prospectus to be considered as psu’s next comprehensive fund-raising campaign is developed.  to ensure that the university's research agenda is informed by the needs of an ageing society and to promote public discourse on how higher education can better respond to the varied interests and needs of older adults.  to recognize the range of educational needs of older adults (from those who were early schoolleavers through to those who wish to pursue master's or phd qualifications).  to promote intergenerational learning and facilitate the reciprocal sharing of expertise between learners of all ages. conclusion the story of building a culture of age-friendliness in portland, oregon spans over a decade. the lessons offer insights into how portland state university, a university built on a traditional academic structure consisting of colleges and departments and with a strong commitment to the concept of let knowledge serve the city must rethink its own internal culture and ways of working together. how will the university mesh its people and ideas with the growing cross-sector efforts being developed within the broader metropolitan community to address complex problems and opportunities in our region? these two examples offer some lessons. the initial impetus for creating an age-friendly environment centered on one node within psu, namely the institute on aging, which began to work with who soon after the turn of the century. from this point, connections between the university and local government provided a channel to engage the city of portland and then multnomah county in exploring the opportunities and challenges created by an aging population. at this point, the path is becoming much more reciprocal as both the university and the community work to build a thriving intergenerational culture. critical to this shift in emphasis has been the interests of key academic leaders, who have embraced the value of linking psu as an age-friendly university to the effort to convert public opinion from a concern about a silver tsunami that we cannot afford to a silver reservoir filled with potential and opportunity. psu already is involved in long-term projects that address some of the most important aspects of life in the greater metropolitan area today. there is much to learn from our own local experiences in putting together a collaborative approach to addressing large scale, complex societal challenges. might the concept of age-friendliness with its emphasis on creating portland as a place for all generations become an element in each of the four identified thematic areas that guide decision-making at portland state? those areas are (1) sustainability; (2) cradle to career; (3) community health; and (4) economic development. all that would be required would be to expand the second theme of cradle to career to include the career interests of people aged 55-79 or older. the institute on aging is continuing to serve a supportive role. expanding the backbone to include additional components of psu across all four themes could strengthen the ability of psu to support additional community-based collaborations that link an 20 increasingly collaborative culture of engagement internally with the growing cross-sector patterns that are starting to shape portland’s future. as the pattern of cross-sector collaboration become more common and as leadership and approaches to more equitable community representation gradually adapt to the challenges of working across institutional and community boundaries, the early efforts of institutions like portland state to create a transdisciplinary academic culture and to practice new forms of communication and working together will intensify. as this process unfolds, more options will open up for university ideas, people and expertise to contribute more meaningfully to the creation of sustainable communities where people of all backgrounds can thrive. 21 references age-friendly portland advisory council. 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(2014). the foundations of new public governance. in d.f. morgan and b. j. cook (eds.) new public governance. a regime-centered perspective (pp. 3-12). armonk. ny: m.e. sharpe. ramaley, j. a. (2003). seizing the moment: creating a changed society and university through outreach. journal of higher education outreach and engagement 8 (1): 13-27. ramaley, j. a. (2013). seeking more high quality undergraduate degrees: working with policymakers. peer review 15 (1). retrieved from http://www.aacu.org/peerreview/pr-wi13/ramaley.cfm ramaley, j. a. (2014a). the changing role of higher education: learning to deal with wicked problems. journal of higher outreach and engagement. 18 (3), 7-21. ramaley, j. a. (2014b). education for a rapidly changing world. in h. c. boyte (ed.). democracy’s education: a symposium on public work, citizenship, and the future of higher education (pp. 91-98). vanderbilt university press. ramaley, j. a. (2015). educating for a changing world: the importance of an equity mindset. metropolitan universities 25 (3): 5-15. rittel, h. w. j., & webber, m. m. (1973). dilemmas in a general theory of planning. policy sciences 4, 155-169. doi:10.1007/bf01405730. rudolph, f. (1990). the american college and university. athens: university of georgia press. sockett, h. (1998). levels of partnership. metropolitan universities 8 (4), 75-82. http://www.pdx.edu/sustainability/iss http://repository.upenn.edu/think_tanks/8/ http://www.aacu.org/peerreview/pr-wi13/ramaley.cfm 23 world health organization. (2002). active ageing: a policy framework (report no. who/nmh/nph/02.8). retrieved from http://whqlibdoc.who.int/hq/2002/who_nmh_nph_02.8.pdf?ua=1. http://whqlibdoc.who.int/hq/2002/who_nmh_nph_02.8.pdf?ua=1 24 author information judith a. ramaley is president emerita and distinguished professor of public service at portland state university. she previously served as president of the university of vermont and president of winona state university as well as assistant director of the education and human resources directorate at the national science foundation. judith a. ramaley mark o. hatfield school of government college of urban and public affairs portland state university portland, oregon 97201 email: jramaley@pdx.edu metropolitan universities vol. 29 no. 3 (august 2018), doi: 10.18060/21491 exemplary models of faculty-driven transformative diversity education initiatives: implications for metropolitan universities chaunda l. scott and jeanetta d. sims abstract diversity and diversity education are driving forces in metropolitan universities that seek stronger alignment with nearby metropolitan statistical areas. as a result, many metropolitan universities wish to engage in diversity efforts; however, they often lack the resources for doing so. in addition, institutional efforts are often the result of administrative-originated programs of diversity impact rather than faculty-driven curricular and co-curricular efforts (scott & sims, 2016). in this case study, the authors offer two faculty-driven diversity programs with a proven record of accomplishment as models of transformative learning practice for faculty and institutions to replicate. the programs have been in existence for more than 10 years and have benefited both the students and universities alike. keywords: transformative learning; diverse voice conference; oakland university; diverse student scholars; university of central oklahoma; undergraduate student research introduction “true diversity remains a struggle for many colleges.” —(“diversity in academe,” 2016) metropolitan statistical areas (msas) typically include large populations of people who represent a diverse set of identities based on age, ethnicity, race, religion, sexual orientation, and other areas of identification. metropolitan universities, which are educational institutions located near msas, are challenged with adequately accomplishing workforce diversity learning, which involves equipping students with core workforce diversity competencies (see lahiri, 2008 for a model of seven core workforce diversity competencies with associated proficiency areas). many authors have previously summarized the facets of workforce diversity programs, curriculum, and degrees needed in higher education (see scott & sims, 2016 for exemplars of current and future workforce-diversity efforts in higher education). moreover, overall workforce diversity learning in academe has not kept pace with corporate counterparts (scott & sims, 2014). the authors argue that metropolitan universities, in particular, have a unique opportunity to address the void of students’ professional readiness for workforce diversity and the dearth of programs that build students’ workforce-diversity competencies. through the lens of transformative learning, this manuscript discusses two impactful programs (diverse voices conference and diverse student scholars) that enable students to transform their understanding of others from different identities and of workforce diversity itself. diverse voices conference is a supportive forum for students, faculty, professionals, and community members hosted at oakland university (ou). diverse student scholars is a robust program of undergraduate 109 research engagement housed at the university of central oklahoma (uco). both are facultyfounded initiatives that stem from the scholars’ commitment to directly contributing to workforce diversity learning. this paper begins with a review of transformative learning theory and diversity initiatives in higher education. then a discussion of the value of faculty-driven efforts introduces a summary of two diversity program exemplars. finally, the paper offers the implications for metropolitan universities tasked with equipping students to contribute in msas. the role of transformative learning theory mezirow’s (1991) transformative learning theory explains how adults learn from their experiences. the theory proposes that learning occurs when individuals make meaning of an experience, which gives breath to that experience. it helps individuals to understand their past, current and new experiences. mezirow defines meaning in the context of meaning perspectives, which he defined as the “habits of expectation” that serve as the “interpretive codes” through which meaning is made (p. 4). mezirow’s (1991) theory offered the following four ways that learning can occur: (a) learning can take place when one explains an existing meaning scheme; (b) learning can occur when one acquires new meaning schemes in the form of new knowledge and attitudes; (c) learning can take place when one acquires new skills that fit into one’s existing meaning perspectives; and (d) learning can occur when one can alter meaning schemes when experiences no longer support a current attitude, belief, or a point of view. according to mezirow, individuals reflect on the triggering assumptions that supported the previous view and modify the meaning schemes. as time passes, meaning perspectives may evolve through an assortment of changed meaning schemes. a key facet of how learning can transpire is through perspective transformation. this occurs when one experiences a major life experience (such as a death, illness, or loss of a job), which mezirow called a disorienting dilemma. according to mezirow, a disorienting dilemma can cause individuals to reconsider their existing meaning perspective, which can bring about a change in that perspective (mezirow, 1991). the final facet of learning offered by mezirow (1991) is emancipatory learning, which uses reflection to identify and challenge distorted meaning perspectives. “emancipatory knowledge is knowledge acquired through critical self-reflection and supported by communication with others that allows one to test the insights [they] have acquired through reflection” (p. 87). by engaging in the process of critical reflection and rational discussions with others, adults can develop meaning perspectives that are more inclusive, diverse in perspectives, and integrative of experience. though mezirow’s work has been challenged, expanded, and modified through the years (see dirkx, mezirow, & cranton, 2006 and kitchenham, 2008), it remains a central seminal work on explaining learner transformation. for purposes of this manuscript, learning from experience involves altering one’s meaning schemes and changing one’s meaning perspectives, possibly through both gradual accumulation of changed meaning schemes and perspective transformation. thus, mezirow’s (1991) theory of transformative learning is a useful basis for understanding 110 how faculty-driven diversity initiatives at metropolitan universities can contribute to transforming student’s knowledge, skills and abilities in the areas of human diversity and workforce diversity. next, this manuscript discusses the importance of these types of diversity education initiatives in higher education institutions. the importance of diversity education initiatives in higher education institutions according to the american council on education (2012) “collective diversity among institutions is one of the greatest strengths of america’s higher education system” (para, 8). institutions of higher education appear to agree as many have adopted (need a verb: elevating, expanding, embracing, etc) diversity as a core institutional value (citation). these institutions are supporting the integration of diversity practices such as diverse recruitment efforts for students as well as faculty and staff at all levels, diversity courses, diverse student services and diversity programming. the institutions’ main rationale for this increased emphasis on diversity is the realization that all students today need exposure to diversity through learning and social activities so they can be prepared to live, work and thrive productively and respectfully in a diverse global society. additional reasons supporting the need for diversity in higher education institutions offered by the american council on education (2012) include: • diversity enriches students’ educational experiences by being exposed to students from diverse backgrounds. • diversity promotes personal growth and a healthy society by dismantling preconceived negative views about cultures and ethnicities that are unfamiliar. • diversity strengthens communities and the workplace by preparing students to be contributing members of society. • diversity enhances america’s economic competitiveness by developing the potential of students from all cultural backgrounds the center for american progress (2012) also offers several reasons why diversity is important on university campuses. first, rapidly changing demographics in our society have made it clear that higher education settings need to be prepared to serve and educate a growing number of minorities. second, diversity helps all students by enhancing their cultural awareness, social skills, academic attainment and their diverse relationships. third, changing demographics in our society also implies that unbiased practices in higher education settings help to afford opportunities for all students to succeed academically. as the demographic make-up of society continues to evolve, metropolitan universities should aim to mirror this demographic shift. in this way, all of their students will better understand the important role diversity plays in their lives as a college student and beyond graduation. given the increased importance of diversity in higher education, student-focused diversity initiatives become an integral and valued part of the college student experience. these initiatives can play a vital role in providing evidence of the much-needed diversity deliverables capable of generating new meaning schemes or altering existing schemes. in addition, student-focused diversity initiatives can help generate emancipatory knowledge and perspective formation. next, this article discusses the value of faculty-driven, as opposed to administrative-originated diversity initiatives. 111 the need for faculty-driven diversity initiatives in metropolitan communities faculty are key threads in the fabric of higher education institutions. thus, faculty play a pivotal role in advancing workforce diversity learning. in institutions where we have served, faculty are credited with driving curriculum decisions in degree programs, and many individuals will leave the ranks of faculty to work in administrative leadership where they will exert key influence over shaping institutional mission and vision. thus, in addition to the distinctive roles faculty fill in higher education institutions, we contend that faculty, more so than administrators, are uniquely suited for advancing diversity initiatives in higher education, particularly in metropolitan areas. though not as proportionate as desirable, the diversity of faculty in institutions of higher education is often greater than the diversity of administrative leadership in the same institutions. “changes in the demographics of individuals in academia, particularly in the faculty and administrative ranks, have been much slower than anticipated (whittaker & montgomery, 2014, p. 264);” however, the presence of a more diverse faculty positions this group to make a greater contribution in the area of diversity initiatives. faculty-driven diversity initiatives have a greater likelihood of sustainability since faculty are more prone to commit to the time investment, resource engagement, and external funding submissions needed for the continued support of the diversity programming that they create. faculty often build their careers around an investment in their students, in programs of research, and in their disciplines. the ability and desire of faculty to link their personal academic interests to diversity initiative engagement enables the diversity programming to grow with faculty. next, faculty-driven diversity initiatives, unlike administrative interests, often stem from creative teaching and research ideas or activities arising from the interests of faculty. this results in a direct connection between diversity initiatives and key academic functions of the metropolitan university. diversity-linked research and teaching efforts can increase course enrollment, improve in-classroom student learning, and stimulate student learning beyond the classroom. when teaching becomes a part of diversity initiatives, faculty become engaged in a central institutional function that links their diversity activities to tenure and promotion. faculty-driven diversity initiatives have the potential for greater heuristic value and metro-area impact. the stimulation of academic clusters, centers, or institutes enable faculty to collaborate when guided by similar interests. these types of temporary or permanent faculty initiatives may focus on teaching, research, or other areas linked to a metro-area need. for purposes of this manuscript, interdisciplinary academic clusters involve interdisciplinary teams of faculty who have made a commitment to pursue a common area of interest in an effort to fulfill a metro-area need (see sims, 2015). for examples of cluster-initiated activity, see dartmouth college and oakland university as examples. the authors contend that student-focused diversity initiatives that are developed and sustained by faculty are ideal and desirable for institutional engagement with metropolitan communities. faculty-driven initiatives are more likely to persist after implementation. they have a greater potential to link to academic functions of institutions and of informing tenure and promotion 112 processes. finally, faculty-driven initiatives can spur interdisciplinary interactions that foster broader levels of engagement and impact. here, this article highlights two faculty-driven diversity initiatives. two exemplary models of faculty-driven student diversity engagement given the importance of diversity education initiatives in higher education as well as the benefits of faculty-driven diversity initiatives, this section provides an overview of two diversity initiatives developed by faculty for the purposes of stimulating student engagement and transformative learning. both programs occur at metropolitan universities with the intent of having an impact on workforce diversity learning. though they are distinct, both represent the main functions of faculty scholarship and engagement through their emphasis on teaching and research. example one: the diverse voices conference in 1998, dr. chaunda scott developed the diverse voices conference (dvc) on paper as an innovative, experiential, and extracurricular higher education initiative. the goals of the dvc are to provide higher education student presenters, renowned scholars, professionals and community members with a supportive forum to speak out in support of valuing all aspects of human diversity and engage in dialogue on real world diversity issues annually. moreover, the dvc expands diversity education beyond the classroom into a town forum-like setting to broaden the dialog on the importance of human diversity and workforce diversity in our society (scott, 2014). the founder was inspired to develop the dvc following the realization that higher education students have limited opportunities to discuss and learn from the real-world diversity issues they see on television and read about on the internet. this is partially due to the sensitive nature of many real-world diversity issues such as race, sexism, ethnicity, racism, immigration and homophobia to name a few. moreover, the majority of faculty members who teach diversity courses have not been educated and trained on how to lead and manage such sensitive discussions in the classroom; this is because diversity education and training was not a part of their academic studies. in an attempt to address this diversity education issue in higher education, in 1999, oakland university (ou) in rochester, michigan launched its first dvc. ou is a predominately-white metropolitan “student-centered doctoral research institution that encourages faculty-driven and student-engaged research, scholarship and creative activities” (oakland university mission, 2017). the total student population at ou stands at 20,020 (oakland university fast facts. 2017). because ou supports the development of faculty-led innovative pursuits that engage students, especially in the area of diversity, the dvc has continued to flourish for nearly two decades towards advancing diversity education, student-centered work. as a unique annual program, the dvc always takes place on a saturday morning on ou’s campus in a large auditorium from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., which does not compete with weekday class times and thus allows more students as well as faculty, staff, professionals and community members to attend. the dvc is also free to attend, open to the public, and funded by ou at the rate of $1,500-$3,000 annually, which includes in-kind support. to date, 60 ou students from diverse backgrounds have presented at the dvc over a 15-year period, and more than 4,000 113 diverse students, faculty, staff, professionals and community members have attended a dvc during this period. the dvc design takes away the fear of being “graded” so that students can fully connect with, participate in, and enjoy the dvc experience. dvc utilizes a variety of cultural influences such as poetry, music, singing and dance performances to enhance the learning experiences of all attendees. additionally, each dvc concludes with networking opportunities and refreshments. in terms of impact, the dvc provides an opportunity for students to revise their human diversity and workforce diversity meaning schemes and habits of mind (mezirow, 1991); through the oneday event students advance their diversity consciousness as it relates to the development of new positive ways of understanding human diversity and workforce diversity concepts and issues. moreover, the dvc advances student learning in the focused areas of human diversity and workforce diversity while promoting community engagement, networking opportunities critical thinking, and professional presentation skills. several parents of dvc student presenters over the past 15 years have also stated that they enjoyed having an opportunity to observe their child in the role of an intellectual orator. the dvc has received numerous awards including: the diversity champion award presented by the race relations and diversity task force of birmingham/bloomfield, mi (2005); the advisor of the year award presented by oakland university (2007); the presidential diversity award presented by oakland university (2008); and the educator of the year award presented by the niagara foundation – michigan chapter (2015). in 2015, the dvc model was introduced at cape peninsula university of technology (cput) in cape town, south africa as a premier faculty-driven, student-centered diversity initiative that can be replicated and utilized to advance diversity programming at cput as well as at other higher education institutions throughout south africa. at each of the past 15 dvcs, the organizers have distributed a feedback survey at the end of each conference. the purpose of the survey is to assess the effectiveness of the program by measuring the extent and modes to which the the program influenced the students, both presenters and attendees. the survey data also serve efforts to revise, improve, and create future student-centered diverse voices programs. although the survey goes to every person in attendance, the student feedback is most important, because the focus of the dvc is on ou and michigan higher education students furthering their awareness and understanding of human diversity and workforce diversity. key student suggestions from recent survey data involve adding more student speakers, more refreshments and more student-led cultural entertainment from ou and the greater detroit metropolitan community. within the next three years, organizers plan to expand the dvc into a full-day saturday conference. within the next five years, ou intends to expand the dvc into an international student-centered diversity conference. an international conference would require that operating costs of the dvc increase by as much as $3,000-$5,000. based on the success of the dvc to date, if the dvc becomes an international initiative, students from all backgrounds will continue to attend, participate and learn about the importance of valuing human diversity and workforce diversity. the dvc international opportunity can further result in student presenters and student 114 attendees alike being better informed and more prepared before they graduate on how to live, work and play more respectfully and productively in our multicultural world. example two: the diverse student scholars program the work of diverse student scholars began in fall 2007 with dr. jeanetta d. sims’ appointment to a faculty position in the marketing department of the college of business at the university of central oklahoma (uco). dr. sims saw the need to link faculty endeavors (see sims, 2011, p. 36-37) related to research and diversity with the institution’s academic mission on transformative learning (see barthell, chen et al., 2013 and barthell, cunliff et al., 2010). diverse students scholars began, accordingly, as a mostly undergraduate interdisciplinary research program of student engagement that permitted the faculty member’s program of research in the areas of workforce diversity, strategic communication, marketing, persuasion and social influence to serve as the foundation for scholarly inquiry with students. diverse student scholars started with just a single student enrolled in an independent study. eleven years later, the program has now grown to involve more than 60 students, with as few as one to as many as 21 students engaged in research projects in a single semester. through ongoing research project involvement, diverse student scholars seeks to increase the presence of women and people of color in higher education through exposing more students to a key element of faculty academic life – research. in addition, a key desire is to accomplish this through engaging students from different identities to work on various research projects linked loosely to the faculty member’s existing program of research. the three-fold mission of diverse student scholars involves: (a) engaging students in the research pipeline process; (b) enhancing students’ cognitive, affective, and behavioral skills for both research and professional career preparation; and (c) cultivating students’ abilities at interacting and working with people from different identities. along with the institutional emphasis on transformative learning, diverse student scholars has grown in tandem with uco’s institutional focus on undergraduate research specifically. in 2015, uco won its bid to host the 2018 national conference on undergraduate research. through the institutional resources and opportunities provided in faculty appointments, diverse student scholars has received funding through faculty on-campus research grants, student on-campus research grants, on-campus student transformative learning record (stlr) grants, and an oncampus transformative learning scholar appointment. from these university-level resources, diverse student scholars has persisted amid a college of business culture with low levels of undergraduate research engagement in comparison to other colleges on the uco campus. the low level of undergraduate research engagement among professional schools, like schools of business is not unique to uco but represents a national trend (see sims, shuff, neese, lai, lim, et al., 2016 and the council on undergraduate research quarterly summer 2015 issue). this makes the diverse student scholars program unique in its ability to accomplish student-driven interdisciplinary research engagement in a business college. the work of diverse student scholars typically aligns with the academic calendar and takes place outside of the typical classroom and course structure environments. by research project, the diverse student scholars founder meets with students in one-hour meetings each week. the 115 research work concentrates on moving various projects from ideation and design to submission for either client presentation, conference presentation, or journal publication. between weekly meeting times, students are responsible for completing assignments and performing tasks related to project design, data collection, upcoming presentations, or other research work. metro-area companies and non-profit organizations have been involved in research projects through students working on projects funded either by grants or through students engaging in projects that develop into conference presentations. diverse student scholars students have presented co-authored research at an international conference (in cape town, south africa), national disciplinary conferences (national communication association, marketing management association, north american management society, and greenleaf center for servant leadership), undergraduate student research conferences (national council on undergraduate research), and state-wide conferences (oklahoma research day), along with local metro-area presentations. since the program’s inception, 100% of diverse student scholars students (who have worked in the program for one semester) have made at least one co-authored conference presentation. collectively, diverse student scholars students have achieved over 25 funded student grants, 5 funded faculty grants, more than 80 conference presentations, more than 29 research independent studies, nearly 20 proceedings and journal publications, and 3 national conference top paper awards. this level of research production enables students to showcase their professional and career preparation on their vitas and résumés. sims, anderson, neese, and sims (2013) provide a summary of the impact of diverse student scholars on students’ affective, cognitive, and behavioral abilities. the outcomes of student impact also include increased professionalism, increased contacts/networks, responsiveness to deadlines, and improved self-efficacy (sims, le, emery, & smith, 2012). additionally, diverse student scholars students are better able to integrate knowledge, work in a team, and use research databases (sims, le, & smith, 2011). students of color who were first-generation students with diverse student scholars have reported the outcomes of learning to be a role model and learning to be more persistent because of their engagement in diverse student scholars research (sims, anderson, & murray, 2012). the representation of students involved in diverse student scholars has been more female (56.82%) than male (43.18%) with a higher level of involvement among black/african american (15.91%), asian (9.09%), and caucasian (63.64%) students when compared to the uco student diversity composition percentages of these racial/ethnic groups (sims, shuff, et al., 2016). numerous dimensions of diversity (e.g., race, ethnicity, gender, religious, sexual orientation, etc.) have appeared among the different identities associated with students engaged in diverse student scholars. at its 10-year anniversary, the founder has accomplished a number of goals with diverse student scholars with some goals remaining. along with serving in an elected position as a council on undergraduate research (cur) councilor, the mid-range goal of establishing a web presence for diverse student scholars (www.diversestudentscholars.com) was recently accomplished. the website can be a resource for other metro-area faculty and institutions. fittingly, an undergraduate student research assistant funded from a uco student transformative learning record (stlr) grant completed the website design work. future efforts associated with diverse student scholars involve identifying additional external avenues of sustained support for both student projects and conference presentation travel as well as completing a comprehensive http://www.diversestudentscholars.com/ 116 evaluation of both program impact and workforce diversity competencies (see sims, shuff et al., 2016 and lahiri’s, 2008 model) among students at preand post-graduation. an additional aim is for the founder to provide more resources and templates from her work with diverse student scholars to other faculty to assist their efforts in replicating the current model or developing new models of student research engagement. overview of impact from two faculty-driven diversity programs at metropolitan universities through a teaching focus (diverse voices conference) and research focus (diverse student scholars), the two faculty-driven diversity programs offer unique examples of improving metropolitan university engagement with metro-area communities and organizations. table 1 summarizes the key features of both programs of impact for replication and consideration by other metropolitan universities. though distinct and differing in their execution, both programs offer opportunities for student transformation. both programs also seek to foster a greater level of workforce diversity learning through advancing key workforce diversity competencies. table 1. key features of two faculty-driven diversity programs at metropolitan universities areas of impact diverse voices conference undergraduate and community forum in its 15th year diverse student scholars undergraduate research engagement in its 11th year www.diversestudentscholars.com evidence of transformative learning yes yes diversity education teaching yes no diversity research no yes extends diversity learning beyond the classroom yes yes faculty-student engagement yes yes relationship-building yes yes professional skill-building yes yes team-building skills yes-for presenters yes faculty-student time commitment bi-weekly meetings for six months weekly meetings by project throughout the academic year metro-area engagement yes through a one-time forum yes through research and funded projects frequency one forum per year continuous projects avg. annual funding $3,000-$5,000 varies by local vs. out-ofstate keynote speaker fees $3,000-$10,000 varies by number of students involved and conference travel a key aim of this manuscript has been to introduce the diverse voices conference and diverse student scholars as faculty-driven programs capable of influencing student transformative http://www.diversestudentscholars.com/ 117 learning at metropolitan universities. “two major elements of transformative learning are critical reflection, or critical self-reflection, on assumptions and critical discourse, where the learner validates a best judgement” (kitchenham, 2008, p. 105). table 2 offers evidence of transformative impact from the self-reflections and discourse of students who have engaged in the two programs either as attendees and presenters (for the diverse voices conference) or as research assistants (for diverse student scholars). table 2. sample evidence of transformative learning impact from two faculty-driven diversity programs at metropolitan universities diverse voices conference evidence of student transformative learning impact diverse student scholars evidence of student transformative learning impact “wow … the diverse voices conference was great! it reinforced the workforce diversity concepts we are learning in dr. scott’s workforce diversity course.” “i have enjoyed being a student, but the additional events and activities that i’ve done have really enriched my educational experience. in fact, i feel like i’ve learned more, and i understand the things that i’m learning now, because i’ve had these experiences – especially, the research.” “it was an outstanding student centered learning experience. i learned a lot about how the presenters understand human diversity – along with how i understand human diversity.” “i’ve had the benefit of having someone sit and teach me step-by-step what to do. i believe every student should have the opportunity to participate in research and gain these experiences if at all possible. it makes a huge difference.” “what i liked most about the diverse voices conference was the student presenters – which were my classmates. they were so well spoken, polished and professional. they all have encouraged me to work on becoming a better speaker and advocate in promoting human diversity understanding.” “these experiences beyond the classroom have made a lasting impact allowing me to explore cities, meet new people, and understand other cultures in a capacity that i would not have otherwise experienced.” “all of the presenters the student presenters, faculty presenter, keynote presenter, along with the interpreter, singers and dancers provided me with some interesting viewpoints to consider regarding how to further my diversity learning along with what i can do to help eradicate racism in society!” “it is an undervalued opportunity for students to get more out of their education…working on research teaches you three important skills that are crucial things employers look at when hiring: responsibility, communication, and teamwork.” source: sims and scott (2016). 118 implications for metropolitan universities metropolitan universities can hasten their diversity efforts by linking institutional diversity efforts with faculty-driven diversity initiatives that promote student engagement. institutional efforts leveraged with faculty commitment can result in student transformative learning. achieving this level of productive impact among metropolitan communities does involve key considerations; many of these are discussed in this section. various types of resources must provide support and funding for faculty-driven, student-centered diversity initiatives. metropolitan universities should consider financial support as well as release time for faculty who have demonstrated expertise and a sustained engagement in diversity initiatives. faculty-driven programs that have a three-year proven record of accomplishment of success should become established on a more permanent basis. in addition, a professional development stipend may be useful to assist faculty in further advancing their diversity knowledge for the implementation of student-centered initiatives. a travel budget could support faculty and student travel, to present program success at local, national, and international conferences. along with resources, metropolitan universities will need to encourage the building of relationships through beyond-the-classroom programs of impact. this manuscript offers two exemplars based on community outreach and research. beyond these programs, other institutions may develop additional student-centered programs, and the extent that they are faculty-driven will permeate greater success. an additional implication for metropolitan universities is to engage in pockets of thought leadership related to metro-area needs and key diversity issues. this provides an immediate opportunity for faculty to have an additional outlet for their skills and abilities beyond the classroom while also forging direct linkages to racial and ethnic groups within the metropolitan area. finally, an additional consideration is for metropolitan universities to link faculty-driven diversity initiatives to institutional tenure and promotion processes. student-centered programming that aligns directly to faculty promotion processes provide an extra incentive for faculty engagement; however, diversity initiatives placed in the realm of work that is not linked to tenure and promotion become a barrier for faculty engagement. conclusion in a time when diversity has become increasingly important in higher education, metropolitan universities are stretched with sustaining relevant, student-centered diversity programming that links the institution to the metropolitan area. this article has offered two faculty-driven diversity initiatives that have successfully accomplished workforce diversity student engagement and transformative learning for a combined total of 25 years. the hope is for these two exemplars to spur more 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(2016). diverse student scholars: how a faculty member's undergraduate research program can advance workforce diversity learning. in c. l. scott and j. d. sims (eds.). expanding workforce diversity programs, curriculum, and degrees in higher education (pp. 62–73). hershey, pa: igi global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-0209-8.ch005 whittaker, j. a., & montgomery, b. l. (2014). cultivating institutional transformation and sustainable stem diversity in higher education through integrative faculty development. innovative higher education, 39, 263–275. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-013-9277-9 https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-0209-8.ch005 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-013-9277-9 122 author information chaunda l. scott is an associate professor and graduate coordinator in the department of organizational leadership in the school of education and human services at oakland university in rochester, michigan. additionally, she is the diversity and inclusion specialist for the office of the dean. in 2013, she was named one of the top 25 education professors in michigan by online schools michigan. in 2015, she was a fulbright specialist scholar in cape town, south africa. chaunda l. scott associate professor graduate coordinator-master of training and development program department of organizational leadership diversity and inclusion specialist – office of the dean school of education and human services oakland university 2200 squirrel road rochester, mi 48309-4494 email: cscott@oakland.edu telephone: (248) 224-9057 or (248) 370-4171 jeanetta d. sims is assistant dean in the jackson college of graduate studies and professor in the marketing department of the college of business at the university of central oklahoma where she teaches courses in marketing and communication, and is accredited in public relations (apr). she has received university and national awards for her teaching (in 2014, 2012, and 2009) and for her scholarship (2018, 2017, 2016, 2013, 2012, 2010, 2009, 2008, and 2006). along with numerous publications, she is co-editor of the annual uco transformative learning conference proceedings, the journal of transformative learning, and developing workforce diversity programs, curriculum, and degrees in higher education. *jeanetta d. sims assistant dean, jackson college of graduate studies professor, department of marketing transformative learning scholar university of central oklahoma 100 n. university drive edmond, ok 73034 email: jsims7@uco.edu telephone: (405) 974-2805 or (405) 974-3478 *corresponding author mailto:cscott@oakland.edu mailto:jsims7@uco.edu metropolitan universities vol. 28 no. 2 (spring 2017), doi: 10.18060/21510 creating a university driven “ingepreneurial” ecosystem in west baltimore: a strategy for rust belt revitalization ronald c. williams, ph.d., and elgin l. klugh, ph.d. abstract the legacy of deindustrialization and associated underemployment continues to plague many former industrial communities. in these spaces, universities serve as anchors providing gateways for individual economic empowerment, and as ‘brain centers’ charged with generating solutions for societal problems. this paper explores the development of the center for strategic ingepreneurship (csi) at coppin state university in baltimore, maryland. strategic ingepreneurship is seen here as a practical, innovative, solution-based approach to address underperforming job creation. the center will serve as a university-based entity to facilitate the development and dissemination of ingepreneurial knowledge and skills through research, teaching, and practice. keywords entrepreneurship; anchor institution; socioeconomic trajectory; community engagement; deindustrialization “there are risks and costs to action. but they are far less than the long-range risks of comfortable inaction” (john f. kennedy, n.d.) introduction like many former industrial hubs, baltimore city’s current landscape includes communities suffering the effects of disinvestment, joblessness, poverty, crime, and an aging housing stock. these issues are particularly manifest in predominantly african american neighborhoods, where they are compounded by a history of discrimination and lower economic resiliency. concurrently, portions of baltimore city are thriving as the city continues to court businesses, develop its downtown tourist industry, and emerge as a “technology hub” drawing highly educated and highly skilled workers seeking to live in the city. the familiar result is a gentrification that creates invisible, slowly expanding lines separating domains of urban, young, metropolitan, multicultural but mostly white professionals, and predominantly african american, indigenous enclaves largely disconnected and disenfranchised from economic growth. in fact, the two worlds exist in such proximity that many have the common baltimore experience of turning a corner or traveling one block and feeling as if they have entered a different world. 104 the 2015 baltimore uprising drew much attention to economic disparities, specifically within the context of west baltimore. subsequently, researchers and granting agencies increased efforts to address the range of complex social problems negatively impacting the city’s poorest communities. coppin state university (csu) is among those entities striving to improve conditions in the community. this paper presents the csu center for strategic ingepreneurship as a strategy leveraging existing programs to address the complex social problem of underperforming job creation. ingepreneurship—the act of infusing ingenuity into an entrepreneurship and business development process—refers to the formative structural and educational environment that nurtures successful entrepreneurship activities for those starting from positions of poverty and deprivation. this center will serve as the core of a job creating, ingepreneurial ecosystem, composed of a wide array of stakeholders committed to improving socioeconomic trajectories of west baltimore residents. although economic and social measures illustrate a portrait of severe poverty, direct observation exposes the existence of an unregulated, entrepreneurial subculture that can be nurtured, legitimized, and augmented to enable job creation. the existence of an ingepreneurial ecosystem, sustained by long term, mutually aligned, centrally coordinated relationships between academia, corporations, public sector agencies, funders, mentors, and support services, will provide a venue for aspiring ingepreneurs interested in changing current socioeconomic characteristics of west baltimore. west baltimore urban scholars have long studied the damaging effects of the shift from manufacturing to administrative and service employment in american cities (kasarda 1989, 1992;, wilson 1987, 1996). cities, like baltimore, that experienced tremendous population growth as mid-twentieth century manufacturing powerhouses, lost many of the jobs that attracted and sustained working class families. as a result, residents, who once knew industrial employment as a clear pathway to a middle-class standard of living, now lead the state in such indicators as overall poverty, child poverty, senior poverty, individuals living below 200 percent of the poverty line, residents receiving temporary cash assistance, children receiving temporary cash assistance, percentage of the population participating in food supplement programs, and the percentage of children who participate in the free and reduced price meals program (md alliance of the poor, 2014). data specific to the two communities adjacent to coppin state university (the greater rosemont and greater mondawmin communities) reflect the realities of the city at large. of concern are the high numbers of children growing up in poverty, the high number of vacant and abandoned properties, the high unemployment rate, and the significant rate of juvenile arrests for violent offenses. the primary problem is the shortage of that which facilitates socioeconomic mobility: high performing public schools and jobs. 105 (table 1) poverty indicators of greater rosemont and greater mondawmin neighborhoods indicator greater rosemont greater mondawmin % african american 96.6 96.2 median household income 30,865 38,655 % households below poverty line 21.7 14.6 % children below poverty line 43.1 30.5 % vacant properties 16.3 12.0 juvenile arrests for violent offenses per 1,000 residents 21.6 22.0 unemployment rate 22.2 20.6 high school completion rate 79.0 88.4 (baltimore neighborhood indicators alliance, http://bniajfi.org) as part of the equality of opportunity project, chetty, hendren, kline, & saez (2014) explore factors correlated with intergenerational mobility. specifically, they find that “[h]igh mobility areas have (1) less residential segregation, (2) less income inequality, (3) better primary schools, (4) greater social capital, and (5) greater family stability” (p. 1). given the statistical characteristics cited in table 1, it may not be surprising that, when calculating the percentage gain/losses of adulthood earnings for children in low-income families relative to growing up in an average place, baltimore city ranks at the bottom of the list of one hundred (100). more specifically, for “children growing up in families at the 25th percentile of the national income distribution” each additional year in baltimore city appears to have a -0.86% impact on adulthood earnings (chetty & hendren, 2015). this is particularly relevant for communities immediate to csu wherein high numbers of children are growing up beneath the poverty line. concentrated disadvantage experienced by west baltimore residents can be quantified on the neighborhood level in many ways (i.e. intergenerational mobility, levels of unemployment, availability of healthy food options, number of liquor stores, crime rates, or housing values). due to its direct impact on quality of life in the community, and the availability of data, crime has been a central focus of such discussions. criminological literature presents empirical support of the relation between concentrated disadvantage and crime (krivo and peterson 2000; m. r. lee and ousey 2005; parker 2004; parker and mccall 1999). in her research, however, karen parker (2015) explores issues of concentrated disadvantage and crime by investigating the correlation between african american entrepreneurship and youth violence. parker (2015, p. 21) reports: [w]e find that the presence of black business was a significant predictor of the change in black youth violence between 1990 and 2000, but the growth in black firms with paid employees did not significantly contribute to the change in youth violence over time. thus, we find additional support in our temporal models that actual employment appears less significant to black youth violence than the 106 cultural component that comes with the growing presence of black-owned businesses in u.s. cities. that is, black businesses serve an important function as role models and source of mainstream culture to urban youth in the community. these findings indicate that a simple numerical increase in the number of jobs does not automatically cause a decrease in youth violence. rather, shifts in the cultural environment engendered by the presence of african american-owned businesses proved to have tangible and intangible benefits that should be further explored. parker’s findings concerning the impact of african american-owned businesses is highly relevant to west baltimore. prior to integration, west baltimore was renowned as a business and cultural mecca for african americans. unfortunately, the advent of integration occurred as deindustrialization was actively eliminating the blue-collar jobs that sustained local businesses. collectively, these forces dispersed and economically depressed a once captive population, greatly contributing to the current situation wherein low levels of african american business ownership are correlated with high levels of youth violence. west baltimore residents seeking to finance business ventures have historically faced challenges in obtaining institutional support. during segregation, formal institutional lending was largely unavailable to the african american entrepreneur. this created a tenuous situation for business owners, resulting in higher rates of failure. at that time, in lieu of, or in addition to, personal and family capital, the west baltimore resident with an idea could turn to the likes of william adams (a.k.a. little willie), the head of a local numbers running operation. he generously supported entrepreneurs, due to his desire for a stronger and more economically resilient african american community (cheshire 2016, p. 93). today, institutional lending is much more available; however, individuals starting from positions of poverty still face structural barriers that result in an over-dependence on personal capital and a weakened resiliency. discussing the current state of african american business owners, parker (2015, p. 23) writes: these business owners are largely dependent on their own personal or family capital for start-up funds, where their access to external capital relative to nonminority-owned businesses is significantly limited (bates 1993; boyd 1991; butler 1991). this often leads to higher rates of failure among minority-owned businesses, which will only continue to fail at higher rates without greater institutional support. understanding this reality and the racial discrimination that shape it are critical to overcoming this structural barrier. furthermore, in more practical terms, providing assistance to minority-owned businesses, such as technical training, information on how to seek out loans, programs on how to run a business, developing accounts, and building assets, could reduce barriers faced by minorities when seeking financial capital or start-up funds (see also robb & fairlie 2009). parker’s suggestions for reducing structural barriers to african american entrepreneurship are in-line with the vision and goals of the center for strategic ingepreneurship. additionally, the 107 potential positive impacts for the community would add to coppin state university’s efforts to effect quality of life improvements for residents of west baltimore communities. coppin state university as a west baltimore community anchor coppin state university has a strong history of service to the west baltimore community. from its early twentieth century beginnings as a training academy for african american teachers, to its present status as a comprehensive university with a variety of undergraduate and graduate program offerings, the institution has prioritized community engagement and service. like many urban universities, a stated commitment to community engagement is weaved into csu’s mission statement and institutional objectives. the mission statement proclaims csu as an anchor institution “committed to community engagement” (csu mission statement, n.d., para. 2). in june 2014, the city of baltimore formally acknowledged csu’s role as a community anchor in the baltimore city anchor plan: a community and economic development strategy. csu was also recognized by the united states department of housing and urban development (hud) as a leading hbcu demonstrating best practices “in implementing community and economic development activities in low-wealth communities in the same year (https://www.huduser.gov/register/hbcu_anchors.html). (figure 1) city of baltimore 2014, p. 4 108 a major community engagement initiative has been the csu urban education corridor. the goal of the corridor is to create a pipeline of educational opportunity that can potentially support students from preschool through the doctoral degree. to this end, csu operates a preschool on campus, maintains a partnership with rosemont elementary/middle school, and operates the coppin academy high school on the csu campus. reportedly, rosemont elementary/middle is now “one of the highest achieving schools in the state of maryland,” and coppin academy “is the highest achieving non-selection high school in the city of baltimore” (http://www.coppin.edu/schoolofeducation/uec). other community engagement efforts include collaboration with the coppin heights community development corporation (rodwell & klugh, 2014), partnerships with local healthcare agencies, and a host of other activities coordinated and performed by csu employees and students as representatives of the university. through various initiatives, csu strives to be an institution that integrates community engagement efforts in its operations in a way that develops human capital in the surrounding community. this is particularly important in a community wherein concentrated disadvantage prevents so many individuals from financial and educational achievement. from the perspective of institutional competitiveness, csu’s community engagement efforts also work to mitigate an unfavorable environment that could serve as a detriment in recruiting students, staff and faculty. csu currently enrolls a student population close to three thousand. this population is over eighty percent (80%) african american, almost fifty-percent (50%) residents of baltimore city, and largely in need of financial assistance (coppin state university 2013 – 2020 strategic plan, p.8). geographically, csu sits within a financially challenged community that is over ninetypercent (90%) african american. however, a synergistic relationship between the university and the community cannot be taken for granted; although there are significant grounds for racial and economic solidarity (klugh, 2016). as such, csu strives to actualize gavazzi’s (2015) definition for a “harmonious type” town–gown relationship, “defined by the relatively high amount of activity that is directed toward the pursuit of goals that are of shared benefit to the campus and community” (p. 149). the university’s slogan, “nurturing potential, transforming lives,” speaks to the critical function that the university performs in uplifting the knowledge, skills, and abilities of its students, several of whom come from baltimore’s poorest communities. given its location, student population, and existing community engagement efforts, csu is well-positioned to advance an ingepreneurial ecosystem. existing k-12 education and community partnerships provide avenues to involve west baltimore residents within a broader network inclusive of business and public sector resources, academia, and other support services that, together, can cultivate cohorts of aspiring ingepreneurs. on the individual level, opportunities for financial education and economic empowerment will greatly improve socioeconomic trajectories. on the community level, cultivating a critical mass of aspiring ingepreneurs can potentially deconcentrate disadvantage and affect cultural shifts to improve attitudes, perception, and overall quality of life in the community. a case for a diverse “ingepreneurial” ecosystem 109 ingenuity is the ability to approach rapidly evolving complexities in unique ways while producing marketable products and services. the emphasis is on encouraging freedom of thought and process with a goal of achieving marketability. the solution to the under-performing job creation and education systems depends on the development of a system of strategic “ingepreneurship.” ingepreneurship, a term coined by ronald c. williams, is the act of infusing ingenuity into an entrepreneurship and business development process. while 20th century theorist such as joseph schumpeter, carl menger, ludwig von mises and others were advocates of innovation in creating new industries, the concept of ingepreneurship is informed by their work and calls for an even greater emphasis on structural opportunities that foster ingenuity. structural opportunities are evident in the need for “wraparound” support that facilitates vibrant innovation. wraparound has been defined as “an intensive, holistic method of engaging with individuals with complex needs (most typically children, youth, and their families) so that they can live in their homes and communities and realize their hopes and dreams.” (regional research institute, school of social work, portland state university, 2017) the traditional processes of entrepreneurship and business development involve a progression from opportunity recognition to exit or expansion (table 2). however, these clearly defined steps fail to address the complex social needs of many who are attempting to navigate the road to successful entrepreneurship from positions of extreme poverty or socioeconomic deprivation. opportunity for engagement is key in the process of building a robust ingepreneurial ecosystem. engagement should begin early in the educational process and reach into all segments of the community. relationships with a variety of institutions within the community are also essential. families, religious institutions, financial institutions, community organizations, and businesses are necessary to build an environment that will nurture the potential of emerging ingepreneurs. it is important to note that all ingepreneurs are entrepreneurs, but not all entrepreneurs are ingepreneurs. ingepreneurs engage in the activities that define them as entrepreneurs; but the primary difference in their activities is related to the extent to which inventiveness is encouraged, valued, and expected while building environmental supports to address issues such as housing, healthcare, personal finance, and hunger as quality of life concerns. ingepreneurs are naturally excited about the creative process, and the creative process is meant to be a collaborative stages of entrepreneurship and business development (table 2)  idea or opportunity recognition  planning  resource identification  launch  growth  adaptation and opportunity exploration  exit or expansion (entrepreneurial life cycle, 2015) http://rri.pdx.edu/ http://www.pdx.edu/ssw http://www.pdx.edu/ 110 process. ingepreneurs also understand that new businesses are birthed and ultimately grow in climates of unrestricted creativity. therefore, an ingepreneur is: a person who engages in entrepreneurial activity with an emphasis on the innovative aspects of enterprise development while infusing creativity into every phase of the entrepreneurial, business development process. ingepreneurs demonstrate a concern for influencing the socioeconomic trajectory of members of a select geographic or demographic community. strategic ingepreneurship integrates entrepreneurship and ingepreneurship through a process of educational and practical experiences. the experiences utilize a collaborative process of “playful ingenuity” (hewing, 2014). this type of free-wielding, collaborative engagement is integrated into each stage in the entrepreneurial process to encourage exploration of a broad range of options for providing products and services to consumers. the process turns playful ingenuity into purposeful practices for entrepreneurial profit. ingepreneurial socialization is one of the objectives of strategic ingepreneurship. strategic ingepreneurship is most valuable in the context of deep socioeconomic disadvantages. it is the process by which members of impoverished communities become proficient in methods of socioeconomic advancement generated by personal ingenuity. moving members of economically depressed communities from unregistered to registered economic opportunities will require significant cultural training, education, and development. members of such communities have often lacked exposure to opportunities that would provide knowledge of the fundamentals of business start-up and growth. therefore, the successful model for strategic ingepreneurship will include three basic elements:  socioeconomic trajectory  entrepreneurship  playful ingenuity it is also important to recognize the necessity for diversity in developing ingepreneurial systems. diversity does not only occur by way of inclusion of all stakeholders within an urban community. for the purposes of this introduction to ingepreneurial systems, it is important to bring attention to the value of familiarizing those in urban areas with the socioeconomic realities of those in rural areas (myers, 2001). those in urban areas will benefit by knowing that socioeconomic disparities resulting from de-industrialization are not just urban issues. those in rural areas will benefit by becoming familiar with the elements of urban economic realities. the inter-regional ingepreneurial exchange will assist in changing perspectives and broadening views of socioeconomic deprivation. the centralized location of baltimore provides opportunities to exchange and interact with rural communities that share socioeconomic commonalities with urban communities. the differentiating factors in many cases are limited to the concentration of african americans in urban communities and the concentration of non-african americans in 111 rural communities. the factors that have led to the conditions and the consequences are often the same. the center for strategic ingepreneurship (csi) csu currently delivers many programs involving community engagement and development. improving the delivery of the programs and solidifying the csu’s position as the nucleus of a university-based innovation hub requires the implementation of a structural framework in which these existing programs reside and are presented to the community. the center for strategic ingepreneurship (csi) will serve as a university-based entity that will facilitate the development and dissemination of ingepreneurial knowledge and skills through research, teaching, and practice. serving as the nucleus of ingepreneurial activities across the campus of coppin state university, the center will increase the understanding of ingepreneurial activity in urban settings, while using the modified entrepreneurial concept as its framework. csi will certainly share some commonalities with university-based entrepreneurship centers, particularly those in urban, deindustrialized areas. however, the uniqueness in the csi’s mission is consistent with the distinct identity of coppin state university and the environmental realities of west baltimore. the university’s “institutional identity statement” describes the school as “a historically black institution (hbi) within the university system of maryland that prepares students with the mission of meeting the challenges associated with urban communities” (csu mission statement, 2015). the center’s primary target population includes members of the west baltimore community, baltimore city public school system students, graduates of baltimore city and baltimore county public school systems, and coppin state university students and stakeholders. the organic framework represented in the ingepreneurial ecosystem will enable csi to assist in preparing constituents to return to their communities as socioeconomic change agents by infusing the community with knowledgeable and skillful job creators and innovators who are familiar with its unique challenges. (figure 2) ingepreneurial ecosystem 112 as the nucleus of ingepreneurship initiatives across campus, the csi will provide direction across disciplines and advocate for multi-disciplinary approaches to business development. coppin state university provides a diverse array of academic programs in business, healthcare, science, technology, social science, art, and humanities that are conducive to interdisciplinary 113 approaches to ingepreneurial development. the multi-disciplinary approach will provide opportunities that transcend industries and infuse ingenuity into all areas of interest. one of the barriers to ingepreneurship is the individual organizations’ lack of sufficient resources to provide wraparound support, entrepreneurship education, and space availability. comprehensive ingepreneurial development requires community collaboration. organizations that provide “participative spaces” (davies et al.) for emerging ingepreneurs are one of the greatest contributors to the development the ingepreneurial ecosystem. open works baltimore is one example of a provider of participative space and collaboration. open works is a makerspace that provides affordable membership access to a plethora of tools, technology, workshops, and expert staff (http://openworksbmore.com). open works and coppin state university entered into an unprecedented agreement in 2016 making coppin the first public hbcu to have a formal agreement providing: (1) opportunities for students to interact with and mentor young people in the context of “playful learning and informal exploration,” learn about basic business administration, and learn about emerging maker business sectors, (2) opportunities for faculty to engage in research and externships related to the role of makerspaces in the business context of baltimore city, and (3) space for the csi dataworks baltimore program. (eichensehr, 2016) open works is ingepreneurial by virtue of its focus on community engagement and access, its instruction in entrepreneurship, and its provision of space for innovation. the csi will also facilitate the success of aspiring ingepreneurs by serving as a catalyst within the regional ingepreneurial ecosystem. the regional ecosystem includes all entities that have an proposed strategic ingepreneurship programmatic emphasis (table 3) social trajectory  banking services  understanding credit  basics of investing  home ownership  community engagement  educational options  career development entrepreneurship  business plan competitions  certificate programs (youth, academic community, business community)  pipeline programs (k through 12)  incubator program  start up conference  summer ingepreneurship academies  exchange programs (urban rural initiative)  pitch competitions  executive certificate programs  speaker series  csi alumni  technological ingepreneurship  collaborative research  publications  workforce development initiative  internships  annual conference playful ingenuity  play 2 profit forums  collaboration in the clouds http://openworksbmore.com)/ 114 interest in business development. in addition to organizations such as open works, stakeholders may include government, schools, other universities, private sector businesses, non-profit organizations, investors, banks, financial institutions, entrepreneurs, community organizations, and students. a july 2010 article in the harvard business review by daniel isenburg (2010) titled, “how to start an entrepreneurial revolution,” proposes that “entrepreneurs are most successful when they have access to the human, financial and professional resources they need, and operate in an environment in which government policies encourage and safeguard entrepreneurs.” this is essentially the climate the csi will foster for emerging ingepreneurs. a healthy and productive ingepreneurial environment requires an innovation hub for stakeholders engaging in activities who will promote business development and growth. the ingepreneurship center will be a hub in communities that often lack the vital elements for economic growth. entities that are not routinely attracted to urban communities with economic indicators well below regional averages will be more likely to coalesce around the activities of an established center associated with an academic institution. the result is a platform for collaboration among institutions within the ingepreneurship ecosystem. the potential for collaboration helps minimize risks and assure organizations that institutional support and engagement will be sufficient for sustained growth. the structure of the csi programs will be aligned with the three main components of ingepreneurship: social trajectory, entrepreneurship, and playful ingenuity. one programmatic emphasis includes life skills training that will enable participants to manage personal affairs in a way that will facilitate financial well-being and advancement. there will also be an emphasis on learning and understanding corporate culture. experiences that develop entrepreneurial knowledge and skills will be offered in several formats with an emphasis on infusing inventiveness and innovation into all learning activities (table 3). it is important to utilize sound instructional design practices that are compliant with proven pedagogical and andragogic conventions, such as the revised bloom’s taxonomy, to ensure that learning is taking place, while employing creative and project-based learning models to encourage innovation by participants. regardless of whether the format is workshops, conferences, or research projects, all activities will include assessment and outcomes-based data on the performance of the csi and its learning community. the “play 2 profit” forums and use of collaborative software will also provide space in which participants are able to collaborate and engage in practical experiences that encourage creativity. playful ingenuity is a primary catalyst for ingepreneurial effectiveness. assessing ingepreneurial transformation a march 2015 kaufman foundation report titled “measuring an entrepreneurial ecosystem” by dane stangler and jordan bell-masterson identifies four indicators, each with three measures, by which ecological assessments of entrepreneurial activities can be achieved (table 4), including 115 current programs that are associated with each of the kaufman measures. the measures may also have implications for determining return on investment within an ingepreneurial ecosystem. table 4 csu ingepreneurship activities by kaufman measure indicator measure possible sources current csu activities density new and young firms per 1,000 people census bureau, business dynamics statistics (bds) data works @ open works program (business intelligence data program) business innovation showcase entrepreneurship certificate program economic inclusion conference at coppin (eicac) share of employment in new and young firms census bureau, bds sector density, especially high tech national establishment time series (nets) fluidity population flux internal revenue service homeownership workshops economic inclusion conference at coppin (eicac) community walking labs labor market reallocation quarterly workforce indicators (qwi) high-growth firms inc. 5000 and nets connectivity program connectivity under development economic inclusion conference at coppin (eicac) times community services inc. speaker series spinoff rate possibly: crunchbase; linkedin dealmaker networks private databases, including capital iq diversity multiple economic specializations quarterly census of employment and wages (qcew) economic inclusion conference at coppin (eicac) global entrepreneurship week activities mobility equality of opportunity project immigrants american community survey (acs) 116 the current csu activities that directly influence the kaufman measure are programs such as the: (1) data works program at open works (recently granted $25,00 from a major financial institution), (2) certificate in entrepreneurship, (3) economic inclusion conference at coppin (eicac), (4) global entrepreneurship week, (5) community walking labs, (6) business innovation showcase, (7)volunteer income tax assistance program (vita), and (8) csu fuel/renew youth ingepreneurship proposal. this is not an exhaustive list of csu programs, but represents those that more directly influence the ingepreneurial ecosystem and contribute to the indicators defined by the kaufman foundation. the current density of the west baltimore community in which coppin is located provides an indication of the current state of the entrepreneurial ecosystem and a baseline for future progress toward development of ingepreneurs. there are only two businesses in the 21216 postal code that employ between 100 and 249 employees. sixty-five percent of the employers employ between one and four employees. the average annual payroll of all businesses within the postal code is $34,519.00 (us department of commerce, 2012). incubation and business development through the csi will help to increase the commercial activity in the community and ultimately improve all indicators. measureable outcomes are better assessed when baseline data is readily available. one of the indicators of entrepreneurial ecosystem vibrancy is “fluidity,” which refers to the inflow and outflow of workers and entrepreneurs within a geographic region (bell-masterson, 2015). it should be noted that the overall decline of the baltimore population would generally suggests that the outflow of population has far exceeded the inflow. recent census data reveals a slight decline in population (the road to 10,000 families, 2015). entrepreneurial activity helps to balance fluidity by facilitating a cycling of the population that is reflective of fluidity, i.e. new and emerging job opportunities that strengthen the healthy expansion of the ecosystem’s capacity and yield. the measure of connectivity is critical in determining the well-being of the ecosystem. the kaufman report suggests that “programs, companies, and individuals, and the connectivity between them is another gauge of entrepreneurial vibrancy” (bell-masterson, 2015). this presents a tremendous challenge in terms of business partners that are physically located in certain urban neighborhoods like coppin’s. it is important that the connections expand beyond the immediate geographic area. while governmental and corporate partners may not have facilities within close proximity of the university, it is important to extend connections, even if they are at times virtual. coppin has a demonstrated history with virtual lectures involving industry leaders from around the country. diversity of ethnicity, nationality, and industry are just a few indicators that will assist in creating entrepreneurial and ingepreneurial vibrancy. the greatest contributor to diversity is quality of programs. participants of all backgrounds are attracted to quality that is differentiated from the established norm. the ingepreneurship model is designed to accomplish that goal of excellence in the context of differentiation. the uniqueness of the coppin state university, its community, and the symbolic value of the “oasis” motif occupied by coppin sets the university apart. its institutional uniqueness and legacy contributed to its selection as an anchor institution 117 by the mayor’s office, baltimore city anchor plan. “the baltimore city anchor plan calls on city agencies and local institutions to discuss how they can share goals and resources to address public safety, business and the quality of life in the city” (green, 2014). conclusion we are at a pivotal juncture in the social and economic evolution of our nation, particularly regarding the shift from an industrial economy to a techno-informational, service economy. the development and appropriation of labor has not followed the demand. while many economists make assertions about the driving forces (i.e. technology, globalization, the waning influence of unions, etc.), the result is that the bottom 90% of the population have experienced decline in real income since the 1970s (kruggman, 2004). this reality is evident in large segments of the population that have not retrained or migrated to meet new workforce demands, particularly in urban areas where manufacturing employment and educational opportunities were plentiful and provided pathways to higher standards of living. another aspect of this reality is the similarity between the economic disparities in urban areas and rural areas such as baltimore and the appalachian region. the case for strategically building ingepreneurial ecosystems has never been more evident. those who are well-prepared to fuel an economic resurgence through small business development and growth must be deployed in the economy with the same avidity as educators during the first half of the 20th century. it is this national call to action that will help transform the existing educational infrastructure, entrepreneurial spirit, and sense of community pride into a new system of socioeconomic advancement and prosperity. locating the center for strategic ingepreneurship in the heart of the west baltimore community provides a model that may be replicated in other urban centers. this model presents a unique, comprehensive approach for improving the economies of the areas most devastated by shift away from manufacturing jobs and by the slow pace with which real solutions are emerging. the benefits include, but are not limited to: 1. restoring the socioeconomic legacy of a growing middle class; 2. building institutional collaboration between business, academia, and other community stakeholders; 3. establishing proactive approaches to systemic socioeconomic issues; 4. developing a new inter-regional model for ingepreneurial development; 5. leveraging the intellectual credibility of universities that have longstanding and trusted relationships in minority communities; 6. forming models of assessment that address the uniqueness of struggling communities and commonalities between communities that are not usually compared. at csu, current programming includes the csi data works program at open works, the certificate in entrepreneurship, the economic inclusion conference at coppin (eicac), the global entrepreneurship week activities, the volunteer income tax assistance program 118 (vita), the community walking labs for developing west baltimore business intelligence, the student business innovation showcase, and the csu fuel/renew youth ingepreneurship proposal. additional programs are also in the conceptual stage. these program, and our community goodwill established by the 117-year institutional legacy, will enable csu to continue its contribution to 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(2014). collaborative constructions: constituency, power, and engagement. metropolitan universities, 25(2), 72-88. retrieved from https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/muj/article/view/20574 the road to 10,000 families. (2015, march 27). the baltimore sun.retrieved from http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/editorial/bs-ed-baltimore-population-20150327story.html wilson, w. j. 1987. the truly disadvantaged: the inner city, the underclass and public policy. chicago: univ. of chicago press. wilson, w. j. 1996. when work disappears: the world of the new urban poor. new york: alfred a. knopf. author information ronald williams is the interim dean of the coppin state university college of business. he received his ph.d. in management and organization from george washington university in washington, d.c with concentrations in organization behavior and development and the management of science, technology and innovation. under his leadership, the csu college of business was named as one of the 2015 top 50 small business programs in the country by the business resource guide. ronald c. williams, ph.d. interim dean, college of business coppin state university coppin state university 2500 w. north avenue baltimore, md 21216 e-mail: rwilliams@coppin.edu telephone: 410-951-3452 fax: 410-951-3487 elgin klugh is an associate professor in the department of criminal justice & applied social and political sciences at coppin state university in baltimore, md. an urban anthropologist, his primary areas of interest include community revitalization, cultural landscapes, heritage, and african american history and culture. elgin l. klugh, ph.d. (corresponding author) associate professor criminal justice & applied social and political sciences coppin state university 2500 w. north avenue baltimore, md 21216 e-mail: eklugh@coppin.edu telephone: 410-951-3529 fax: 410-951-3045 mailto:rwilliams@coppin.edu mailto:eklugh@coppin.edu metropolitan universities vol. 29 no. 1 (february 2018), doi: 10.18060/22179 strategic planning to advance equity on campus: a case study at portland state university marisa zapata, stephen percy, and sona andrews abstract propelled by many factors, including a newly appointed board of trustees responsible for governance of our university, resource shortages, and enrollment swings, portland state university embarked on a strategic planning effort in 2014 with the intent of reunifying a divided campus and creating a bold vision for moving forward in the next five years. while committed from the start to goals of diversity and inclusion, the planning process itself generated greater awareness of and commitment to equity—a bolder vision of empowerment that creates a responsibility to understand and mitigate negative, but often unintended consequences of, campus decisions and action—particularly as they impact groups that have experienced institutional racism and injustice. equity emerged not only as a goal, with intendant initiatives for action, but also as a commitment to conscientious ongoing attention to decision-making that embraces utilization of an equity lens. key words: justice; empowerment; equity lens; unity introduction one would be hard-pressed to find any university that does not have, or is not currently developing, a strategic plan. such plans help an organization define its vision, mission, values and priorities. a plan provides an organizational north star and outlines measurable goals. if done well, a strategic plan is a useful tool for not only large-scale change, but also to guide an organization’s day-to-day decisions, ensure accountability, and evaluate progress. often, strategic plans and their execution fall short of expectations. individuals often feel time and money were spent, but they are skeptical that little will change and it will be business as usual. portland state university’s (psu) recent strategic planning process and plan implementation is an example of how a well-executed planning process pushed a university to better define its awareness of and commitment to equity as a strategic priority of the institution. this article describes the state of governance; enrollment, budget and campus climate leading into psu’s strategic planning process. that is followed by an explanation of the use of an equity lens. we conclude with the implementation of the equity lens and reflection on the process. backdrop for psu’s strategic planning process portland state university had an opportunity in 2014 to create a new strategic plan. the last comprehensive strategic planning process was completed in 2011, culminating in a 2011-2015 strategic plan. it was time, based on the traditional five-year strategic planning cycle, to create a new plan. more importantly, psu had experienced significant changes in governance, enrollment, state support and campus climate since the 2011-2015 plan’s inception 29 (described in the sections below). these changes made it imperative for the campus to comprehensively review its position, consider its unique value proposition and brand, and create a strategic plan relevant and appropriate to its future. participants in various strategic planning sessions, including those organized for varied campus stakeholder groups, were asked questions to get at the branding dimension. this included questions and conversation about what makes psu unique and for what qualities and achievements does psu seek to be known for in the local and higher education communities. the vision statement created for the strategic plan captures much of our aspiration: “portland state university leads the way to an equitable and sustainable future through academic excellence, urban engagement, and expanding opportunity for all.” governance prior to 2013, portland state university was one of seven public universities in the oregon university system (ous). in 2013, the legislature passed senate bill 80 (oregon legislature 2013), establishing independent governing boards for oregon’s public universities. psu’s board was vested by law with the power and authority to govern the university and to exercise all powers and authority of the university as set forth in the laws of the state of oregon. the new board directed psu president wim wiewel, in the fall of 2014, to initiate a campuswide discussion about psu's strategic directions, resulting in a new strategic plan. the board’s resolution stated (psu board of trustees 2014), “the plan should be completed by the end of the 2014-15 academic year, or early fall 2015 at the latest, and should be a high-level strategic plan rather than a detailed work plan. the plan should build on psu's historical role and strength and its current vision and mission.” the board made clear its wishes to be involved in the planning process through representation, regular updates, and consultation. enrollment and state support a look into enrollment trends and state support help tell part of the story of what was occurring at psu over the past decade or half a decade. psu saw an increase in student enrollment of 20, 026 to 29,818 from 2010 to 2016. this growth in new students was intentional as a result of psu’s urban access mission, but done at a time of great fluctuations in state funding (figure 1). 30 figure 1. the lack of predictability in state funding, and the growth and later subsequent flat or declining enrollment, created significant challenges for the university. the university also saw a change in the ethnicity of students in the five years leading up to a new strategic planning effort. this was a purposeful effort by the university as part of our urban serving mission and recognition of the changing demographics in our region. the growth in students who identified with an ethnic minority (figure 2) increased 33% from 2010 (5,710 students) to 2014 (7,643 students). figure 2. 5,000 10,000 15,000 20,000 25,000 30,000 $0 $10,000 $20,000 $30,000 $40,000 $50,000 $60,000 $70,000 $80,000 $90,000 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 fa ll h ea dc ou nt d ol la rs in 0 00 's enrollment with state support actuals state support enrollment 2,780 1,484 1,298 1,602 1,484 1,906 1,966 2,016 2,179 2,308 5,710 6,748 6,999 7,395 7,643 19,422 19,505 19,211 18,276 17,496 5,000 10,000 15,000 20,000 fall 2010 fall 2011 fall 2012 fall 2013 fall 2014 total enrollment fall 2010 fall 2014 declined to respond/other international student ethnic minorities white, non-hispanic 31 campus climate morale on the psu campus was at a low in the winter of 2014. the university had to make budget reductions due to declining enrollment, state funding levels at an all-time low in 2012 and 2013, and increased operational costs. the campus administration and the psu association of american colleges and universities (aaup) were in the midst of very protracted collective bargaining negotiations. there were differing opinions about shared governance roles and understanding of the budget. the administration and union came to an impasse during the negotiations and the psu aaup membership voted to strike. the contract was settled before a strike occurred, but it signaled a level of campus disharmony between faculty, staff and the administration. it was not clear what the underlying differences and goals were among faculty, staff, students and administrators. the 2014 strategic planning process was seen as a vehicle to create a collective set of values and vision for the university and improve campus climate. there was significant concern, even skepticism, that a planning effort would unite the university or would tear us more apart. the need to mitigate those concerns led to an intentional planning process from inception through implementation—one aimed at bringing the campus together through an inclusive and authentic process. one voice, one plan the board of trustees resolution stated, “the plan should be developed with involvement from internal and external constituencies such as the faculty senate, student senate, represented and unrepresented employee groups, the psu foundation and alumni association, and key external stakeholders.” the university administration publicly committed that the process would be defined by open communication, high involvement, transparency, and a drive toward alignment. a large convening of faculty, staff, and student representatives and administrator took place and there was agreement that we needed to improve relations and work together. in spring 2014, 85 people, including faculty, staff, students, administrative leaders, and trustees convened to take a unifying first step in developing psu's next strategic plan. the collaborative structure of the day was “an important early precedent for how the plan will be developed in the months ahead.” participants were provided with an immersion toolkit (psu toolkit 2015) to access relevant information and questions. the strategic planning effort was organized through the president’s office with direct involvement throughout the process by president wiewel, administrators, faculty, staff, students, alumni and members of the board. coraggio group, a portland-based consulting firm with significant higher education experience, was selected to facilitate the planning process. the university hired a project manager to support the extensive administrative and coordinating efforts of the planning process. creating diversity in leading planning efforts a diverse, 30-member strategic planning development team (spdt) was created to provide overall guidance to the development of the new strategic plan. careful attention was given to 32 determining the membership of the committee to create as diverse as possible membership, with diversity reflecting stakeholder groups, demographic composition (including race, ethnicity, and gender), and experiences in university life. the team was led by a dean, and included faculty (tenured, tenure-track, non-tenure track, and adjuncts), staff, unions, graduate and undergraduate students, administrators, a member of the board of trustees, and alumni. this group met every two weeks for two hours over several months and took its leadership charge very seriously, overseeing both process and the development of the evolving strategic planning document. six-months into the process another set of teams, what we termed “topic team,” were created. they were given responsibility to create reports on the findings and recommendations around eight key themes that had emerged in a variety of listening and conversation sessions. the eight themes included: student learning and academic success; innovative research, scholarship & creative activity; equity, opportunity and access; campus climate; faculty roles & structure; organizational excellence and financial stability; and global excellence. each topic team included members of the spdt in addition to many other members of the campus community reflecting diverse roles within the university. still later in the process during the summer term, a writing team was created to craft a preliminary draft of the plan based upon the work, idea generation, and synthesis that took place during the academic year. the team was composed of the spdt chair, two faculty members, two staff, and three students. the preliminary draft was shared with the strategic planning development team and campus community for comment and revision to in the ensuing fall term. the plan was completed and approved by the board of trustees in december 2015. a key element of the strategic planning process was extensive outreach. multiple strategies were used to gain both input about elements important to the plan, as well as to emerging goals and actions. these efforts included presentations and consultation with governance groups including the faculty and student senates, listening sessions with other campus groups (e.g., meetings with department chairs, collective bargaining unions), open town hall meetings to which all members of the campus community were invited, and a web-based program to receive input. perhaps our most innovative, and fun, outreach method was “strategic ice cream,” two events created primarily to reach the campus student body. at these events, a large-scale rendering of evolving strategic plan elements was presented. students were invited to place notations on plan elements and then were given coupons to obtain a free ice cream cone at the adjacent ben & jerry’s (a social enterprise preparing youth from disadvantaged backgrounds about employment, leadership, and entrepreneurship). over 800 students participated in one or both ice cream events. these outreach activities provided opportunity for thousands of people to participate in the strategic planning process. in total, there were 3,802 official comments recorded during the planning process (870, students, 469 faculty, 438 staff and administrators, 142 alumni and community members, and 1883 who did not identify). this outreach was designed to provide multiple opportunities for people to become involved and specifically sought out opportunities to interact with as many members of the campus community as possible. it covered campus interest in delving deeper into equity, privilege and fairness of outcomes. 33 the university spent 14 months to create the new strategic plan. the use of an equity lens was a defining part of the planning process, the plan and its implementation. adoption of an equity lens in campus strategic planning toward the start of the strategic planning process, with the membership of the strategic planning development team (spdt) identified, the planning process was launched. this included meetings with campus constituencies. early in these conversations, a faculty colleague in the school of social work, dr. charlotte goodluck (a colleague who exemplified a life-long dedication to social justice and healing), asked a question which caught the planning team a bit off-guard: “were we intending to use an equity lens as we embarked on our strategic planning endeavor?” while the school of social work was already using such a lens in its own strategic planning, the concept was not widely understood or appreciated by the spdt or the consultants engaged in the process. after further conversations where participants came to better understand the concept of equity lens, consensus emerged that we should indeed broaden our planning work to explicitly employ an equity lens. the positive response to dr. goodluck’s question could have been anticipated. portland state has a long history of community engagement, consistent with its motto: “let knowledge serve the city.” the lion’s share of this engagement focused on advancing life quality, public policy and governance in portland and oregon, and much of this work included a social justice dimension. in addition, the concept of responding to inequality was sweeping across the community at the time strategic planning at psu began. this community attention grew, in large measure, from a report by psu’s professor anne curry-stevens, senior research assistant, amanda crosshemmer, and the coalition of communities of color which dramatically highlighted substantial disparities between whites and people of color in the county in which the city of portland is located. this report found that, “today in multnomah county, too many people of color face severe social and economic exclusion” (curry-stevens, cross-hemmer, and coalition of communities of color, 2010: 6). the propensity to endorse the use of an equity lens in campus strategic planning was also fostered by the recognition that local governments in the area were already at work using an equity lens (for example multnomah county’s equity and empowerment lens and city of portland racial equity goals and strategies). the work of these governments provided insight to the creation and application of an equity lens. similarly, the region’s largest philanthropic foundation, after suspending grants for a year of introspection, reorganized its entire giving program around the concept of equity. the meyer memorial trust’s mission was reestablished in 2016 to become: “grounded in a vision of a flourishing and equitable oregon, meyer is committed to investing in change at the systemic level to ease inequities and disparities.” see https://mmt.org/. finally, and importantly, campus community members recognized that oregon’s record in race relations has often not been a positive one. a recent article recognized portland’s progressive reputation, but also noted this reputation ignores the fact that “racism has been entrenched in oregon, maybe more than any state in the north, for nearly two centuries” (semuels, 2016). many faculty at psu were committed to undoing injustice and expanding the community’s progressive reputation to include equity and positive race relations. 34 from commitment to equity lens development fortunate for the campus, extensive expertise regarding utilization of an equity lens was available both among faculty colleagues as well as leaders in public and nonprofit organizations in the greater portland region. the first step in moving forward was identifying members of an equity lens team that would guide the creation and application of such a lens as an integral component of the strategic planning process. the team was composed of faculty across the campus who had expertise with equity issues and who themselves represented substantial diversity, along with a representative from multnomah county government. multnomah county, in which the city of portland is located, is a leader in creating and utilizing an equity lens in policy making. as this new team commenced conversations, a critical question arose: how should we focus the equity lens? on the one hand, this work often targets the realm of populations of people who have been traditionally marginalized in american society and governance. the university has a responsibility to serve, support, and empower faculty, staff, and students from all such marginalized groups. on the other hand, it was recognized that race is a pernicious and longstanding source of marginalization. it was argued that including race together with all other marginalized populations would dilute attention from the persistent impact of race on equity and social justice. after further conversations, it was decided that we would form two parallel and interacting equity lens teams, one focused directly upon race, the other attuned to marginalization of people based upon gender, ability, lgbt, veteran status, and tribal sovereignty. this two-team strategy was intended to ensure focused attention upon race as an equity imperative, but also include other forms of marginalization that have reduced opportunities and bred discrimination. the next step to implement the equity lens into strategic planning was to create a guide to instruct participants about the intent and practice of using the lens. our guiding document for using an equity lens in campus strategic planning can be found at: https://www.pdx.edu/president/sites/www.pdx.edu.president/files/strategic%20planning%20equ ity%20lens_final%20-%20may%2012.pdf. this guide borrows heavily from the multnomah county equity and empowerment lens and from the protocol for culturally responsive organizations by ann curry-stevens, marie-elena reyes & the coalition of communities of color. this work in creating such a guide was handled by an 11-member team composed of campus and community representatives. the guide laid out several “guiding principles” for using an equity lens: 1. psu has a commitment to erase racial disparities in society and advance social justice. 2. at psu, equity is given the same emphasis as other university priorities. 3. psu is committed to ensuring that its strategic plan reflects the interests of those most affected by our decisions: our students, their future employers, and the service users, customers and/or communities they will ultimately serve. we endeavor to support all students to reach their fullest potential and wellbeing. 35 4. psu is cautious of making decisions on behalf of marginalized communities and aims to directly include these communities and their advocates wherever practical. decisions to not include these stakeholders need to be justified. 5. psu aims to create a strategic plan, and the processes that lead up to it, that maximizes the benefits for communities of color and for other marginalized communities. the guide also provided a list of questions that should be considered during planning and decision. together, utilization of these questions and their answers represents application of an equity lens. these questions included the following: people • who is affected—positively, negatively, or not at all—by the elements of this part of the strategic plan and what are the specific advantages and/or barriers to each group? • how have we considered environmental justice in this (initiative/plan element)— that is, how will these initiatives support the rights of all people to live in a healthy environment? • how have we adequately ensured that our operational processes are inclusive, and that the elements of the process have not created barriers to meaningful participation? • which stakeholder groups would we like to have included but were unable to facilitate? place • based on psu’s social, physical, and cultural location, how does this process compensate for access limitations of various stakeholder groups? • how have we modified our process to support access by marginalized community stakeholders? process • how does this (initiative/plan element) foster the development of processes that address barriers to inclusion and contribute to the development of community capacity? • how are our processes supporting the empowerment of communities historically most affected by inequities? • how are processes ensuring that participants’ emotional and physical safety needs are addressed? • how are processes supporting participants’ need to be productive and feel valued? • how are our processes building ongoing community capacity for involvement with psu (beyond the strategic planning process) by those communities historically most affected by inequities? • how are we using this opportunity to contribute to the leadership development of those from marginalized communities? • what types of biases have influenced the work of the groups and how have these been identified and addressed? • what improvements to team processes can you support for naming and identifying unaddressed bias? • what have we learned about effective empowerment practice that we recommend being continued by psu in other program and initiative development processes? • what recommendations do we suggest for the future work of psu? 36 power • how will this (initiative/plan element) support the empowerment of people from historically marginalized communities? • what are the specific ways that this (initiative/plan element) is expected to reduce disparities and advance social justice? the guide concluded with a description of how implementation and documentation should be conducted as well as a set of definitions for key concepts related to equity and social justice. organizing processes to incorporate an equity lens into planning with both a commitment and guide to practice in place, the next step was to infuse use of the equity lens into the overall strategic planning process. this was accomplished in multiple ways. 1. the strategic development planning team received instruction on the purpose and application of the lens, with the expectation that discussions and decisions would be informed by application of the equity lens as outlined in the guide. 2. the eight topic teams were trained in the utilization of the lens and instructed in templates provided to record their recommendations to include equity-based considerations related to each proposed recommendation. 3. one of the eight topic teams was organized expressly around equity, opportunity and access. this team embraced the full meaning of the equity lens and focused on strategies that would strengthen the capacity and impact of the university to consistently and persistently pursue equity and social justice. 4. the two equity lens teams—one focused on race and the other on other marginalized groups—reviewed the work of the spdt and the topic teams as work was done to design recommendations for the strategic plan. the teams, therefore, represented a second-level equity lens consideration of decisions and recommendations created during the planning process. it is useful to note that this approach represented both horizontal and vertical application of the equity lens. while one team looked specifically at focused strategies to promote equity and justice (the vertical dimensions), all other teams were expected to consider equity issues in the specific areas they were exploring (the horizontal dimension). using the equity lens in practice while intentions were good, implementation of the equity lens work was a challenge. we were imperfect, we struggled with sufficiently embedding the equity lens consistently at all stages of the planning process, and mistakes were made. we tried to be flexible, respond to concerns, and modify planning processes and timelines as appropriate. while faculty and staff were pleased to see the creation of the equity lens teams, the members of the teams expressed frustration at the fact that the lens was created well into the development of the plan. nearly all the members of the two teams were from historically marginalized 37 communities, and knew well the possibilities of tokenization. still, the team members also saw the opportunity to integrate equity thinking into the psu strategic plan for the first time. concerns were expressed to the writing team that in turn responded in detail about what could be changed mid-process and what could not be changed, an important step in process transparency. in particular, the equity teams pushed to have the timeline for writing the plan delayed so that the equity work could be better integrated into the planning process. while the time line could not be extended for long, the writing team did pause any decisions about specific initiatives until the equity lens teams were able to fully organize and review documents. the project support team, in response to the concerns raised by the equity teams, laid out a clear process for the equity teams’ perspectives and participation would be integrated into the writing process including review processes and guarantees of not finalizing the writing team work until the equity lens teams were able to review all the components of the plan. initially, the two equity teams met separately; however, the members realized that several people of color came with intersecting identities and were assigned to the team not focused on race. the team members on the team focused on other historically marginalized groups spoke about their commitment to racial equity. in the end, the groups joined to complete their work. while the groups ended up working jointly for the duration of the process, they agreed it was important to begin their work separately and discuss what it meant to keep racism foregrounded. the timeline and work plan for the strategic plan presented several challenges for the equity lens teams. first, with much work already completed, the team members faced functioning as equity “police,” reviewing work for whether it met the teams’ expectations for equity considerations. the team members were not enthusiastic about this role, and worked to offer solutions when they pointed out problems. to accomplish this, the equity teams reviewed each set of ideas presented by the other topic teams. they then raised questions about the equitableness of the proposed actions. finally, the teams offered other issues to consider within the given topic area based the teams’ knowledge areas. these questions and suggestions were then routed to the topic team or the writing team, and from there included or rejected. from their work, the equity lens teams had significant impact on the final plan. specific plan elements were modified or changed. for instance, in early plan documents, the equity, opportunity and access topic team proposed including study abroad as one of their core actions. the equity lens teams discussed that study abroad may be an important goal to further student international experience and expose students to diverse set of people and perspectives. however, study abroad in and of itself was not about equity. the equity lens teams proposed moving study abroad to an area outside of the section focused on equity. in the final strategic plan, study abroad is discussed under goal 1: elevating student success. reflecting the vertical and horizontal approach to equity discussed earlier, each topic area also includes a separate set of equity considerations. for instance, under goal 2: advance excellence in teaching and research, there are four initiative areas. equity issues are addressed in three of them including proposed actions such as identifying ways to evaluate teaching that do not rely solely on student course evaluations which research has shown disproportionately negatively rate women and faculty of color, and to ensure research areas that received limited funding opportunities are supported – research areas that often include racial foci. then, the goal includes 38 a discussion of general equity concerns that cut across the initiative areas. for instance, the equity lens teams proposed: “consider differentiating psu in the marketplace by re-branding our scholarly outputs to reflect specific values related to equity, collaboration, and reciprocity— that are community-based and partnership focused” (p. 11). the new strategic plan addresses equity directly as a result of the attention to equity in our strategic planning process, the final plan itself embraces equity as an ongoing goal of the institution. further, it commits the campus to using an equity lens in campus decision-making and planning. the plan speaks to equity in the following ways: 1. statement of commitment: “we commit to equity as a foundation of psu’s excellence. we define equity as ensuring everyone has access to opportunities necessary to satisfy essential needs, advance their well-being, and achieve their full potential. our aim is to address the roots of inequities, including but not limited to racism, homophobia, sexism, ableism, classism, and the intersections of these inequities. we commit to inclusion of historically marginalized communities and those underrepresented in higher education. we commit to ensuring that equity is integral to all elements of this plan–in its design, substance, implementation and the metrics used to measure progress.” 2. one of four core values: we promote access, inclusion, and equity as pillars of excellence. 3. goal 4 of the plan: expand our commitment to equity: objective: create an environment at psu that is open, inclusive and committed to diversity, and ensure that all students and faculty embrace culturally-responsive teaching and learning. three initiatives of the goal: (1) create a more inclusive campus, (2) promote diversity through hiring and retention, and (3) define and measure diversity learning outcomes. part of this work discusses the development of an equity lens to be used in campus decision-making, and is discussed in more detail elsewhere in this focus issue as well. 4. equity lens considerations: each of the five goals of the plan include an “equity lens” section which identifies some key equity issues potentially associated with implementation of the goal. for example, the following equity lens considerations were identified for the elevate student success goal (number one in the plan): a. recognize that disparities in the retention and graduation rates of underrepresented students necessitate an investment in culturally-responsive advising. b. support faculty to understand equity issues to foster better relationships with historically marginalized and underrepresented students. c. develop academic experiences, including community-based learning that use universal design, accessibility and appropriate accommodations to ensure an equitable and inclusive learning experience for all students. these markers in the new strategic plan demonstrate full embrace of equity as a campus priority and a commitment to sustaining attention to and achievement of greater equity in campus life, learning, collegial relationships, and community engagement. 39 lessons learned, reflections on replication there is a great deal to be learned from the planning process. after the equity lens team concluded its work, several members submitted a short “minority report” that detailed reflections, concerns, and lessons for future work on the psu campus around equity. based on the authors’ reflections, the equity lens team report, and input from other process participants, we offer nine lessons to promote an authentic engagement around equity lenses. • bring in equity at the start. while the equity lens teams believed that the inclusion of equity at any point was a worthwhile activity, the members saw lost opportunities for better equity integration and capacity building across the campus to do equity work. integrating equity across topic areas where people have not previously thought about equity takes time. ideally, integration should also include a learning or training component. in some areas, people may not have thought about inequity before. those individuals must be introduced to the concept of equity, why it matters, and how to identify inequities. otherwise, campuses risk creating a team of highly specialized equity “police,” and miss the opportunity for all campus members to begin thinking equitably. incorporating equity early on would also allow participants to develop their own equity lens approach for the consideration of ideas and proposals for the plan. • process transparency. participants in planning processes should be able to easily identify how their input was used in a plan. if it was not incorporated, then participants should understand why their ideas, recommendations, or concerns were not included. generally, those who often asked to do equity work are people from marginalized backgrounds. their ideas may often be pushed aside or ignored for other ideas offered by people from majority communities. in addition to issues around marginalization, cross-group learning can only occur if people are able to understand how an idea was interpreted, or why it might be better addressed elsewhere. a commitment to this type of transparency provides several logistical issues – namely how to keep track of suggestions, in this case, across writing teams. we suggest using something simple like a spreadsheet where recommendations are logged and how those recommendations are addressed is tracked. • organization and alignment. if recommendations are to be taken seriously within the plan, then the timeline must include space for equity issues to be considered. careful organization and scheduling to align preparation of findings and inputs from the equity lens teams into discussions and decision making regarding the contents of the strategic plan must occur. all plans end up off schedule at some time; however, many people underestimate the amount of time applying an equity lens can take when utilizing the tool is new when people are unfamiliar with it. • involving the “right” people. questions were raised a number of times during the planning about leadership and participants in process. efforts were made to be as inclusive and diverse as possible, however, we had to also accept that composition of the university leadership team and the faculty was not as diverse as we would have liked for some of the conversations. by integrating equity thinking earlier into the process, a better 40 mix of people might have been included in the process. at the same time, sometimes individuals need to learn how to do equity work in smaller groups. if part of the goal of incorporating equity includes building capacity amongst participants new to equity work, then process conveners must think carefully about when and how to bring people together to with different knowledge bases and experiences with equity work. different people may be the “right” people at different points of the process and the work. • listen and reflect. the equity lens does not make decisions for you. rather, it serves as a guide to think about and consider how equity matters in a particular decision. those people who commit themselves to equity work can offer significant insights into the inequities surrounding a decision. for those less familiar with equity issues in general or the specific equity concerns for a given topic or community, the most important thing to do is to listen carefully to what the lens reveals and reflect on the solutions that are being proposed. • difficult conversations: opening the door to authentic conversation about equity means that opportunities are made available to people from traditionally marginalized groups to tell their story, report on experiences with discrimination and injustice. these conversations may be difficult in the sense that emotion, anger, and vehement reflections can emerge (patterson et. al. 2012). such conversations should be encouraged and supported; those whose background has afforded privilege need to listen to and learn from the experiences of their colleagues who have experienced oppression. • explicit attention to process: one area where those organizing the strategic planning process fell short was in carefully weaving equity lens consideration and review into the process. as we worked to accommodate many timelines, working groups, and stakeholders, there were times when we did not sufficiently include within the planning process the opportunity of the equity lens teams to review emerging findings and recommendations. while unintentional, these process failures raised substantial concerns among equity team members who became concerned that our intention was not authentic and whether work was truly valued in the process. while we overcame most of these concerns, they could have been avoided if we had been more attuned to including the equity teams consistently and explicitly throughout the process. • timelines: equity work takes time. when that equity work is new to participants, it will take even more time. plan to go off the time schedule. part of authentic and good equity work requires working through racial bias, known and unknown. equity work demands that new data be examined, and difficult conversations be had. inclusive processes include flexible timelines (quick and feldman, 2011). unfortunately, the psu strategic plan process timeline was not radically adapted to accommodate the thorough equity work many of us could envision. while the equity lens teams, as well as the writing team, worked hard given their time frame, more and better work, especially around building long-term capacity for equity work, could have occurred. • bring in expertise when it is lacking: the psu campus was fortunate to have a number of people with experience in developing and using equity lenses. this took on additional 41 importance as the consulting firm confirmed that they were not experienced in addressing equity issues. if campus expertise is lacking in applying an equity lens, and if you cannot identity a strategic plan consulting firm with equity experience, we recommend bringing in additional outside support to ensure equity fully infuses your plan. implementation once the psu strategic plan 2016-20 was finalized and given approval by the board of trustees, the real task began: taking action to implement and assess progress toward strategic goals. responsibility for organizing implementation of goal 4 of the strategic plan was vested in the 80-member diversity action council (dac) composed of a diverse array of faculty, staff and administrators. the work of the council is supported by the campus office of global diversity and inclusion. taking its responsibility seriously, the dac has crafted a new diversity action plan for the campus, known as the diversity, equity, and inclusion plan. the title change was intended to identify our commitment to equity as well as to diversity and inclusion. the plan includes a variety of strategic actions intended to advance the individual goals in the plan. an important element of implementation will be supporting faculty, staff, and students across the full array of campus units to utilize an equity lens in decision making and planning. our approach is not to project one standard plan for people to follow. instead, individual units are encouraged to create their own equity lens, appropriate the realm and impact of decisions made by the unit. to support each units’ development of an equity lens tool, the office of global diversity and inclusion developed a guide to walk them through the process of creating an equity lens (zapata forthcoming). the guide, written broadly for institutes of higher education, includes an overview of what an equity lens is, and provides a sample lens and questions to consider for each part of the lens. two real-life examples from applying an equity lens are included in the report, one from the psu strategic plan process described in this article, and the other from a portland local government. the guide provides five hypothetical examples for using the lens drawn from decisions and activities commonly conducted on university and college campuses. as our work at psu moves forward, we are excited to track how the equity lens is used and informs campus decision-making, another key initiative area from the strategic plan. conclusion portland state’s experience in using an equity lens as an integral component of strategic planning represents an early adoption of the use of an equity lens approach to advancing inclusion and equitable outcomes. signs are afoot of awareness in other universities about the value of explicit attention to equity as a fundamental component of strategic planning in higher education. evidence of this assertion can be found in multiple quarters including grand valley state university’s strategic plan for inclusion and equity (n.d.), the strategic planning for equity, inclusion and diversity toolkit published by the university of california-berkeley (n.d.), and presentations at multiple universities about equity lens applications (for example, a presentation by equity alliance of the north coast (n.d.) entitled “advancing equity through a racial lens: putting theory into action at humboldt state university. 42 at portland state, we have found utilization of an equity lens to substantially advance awareness of and attention to equity in strategic planning. we hope that our experience may be useful to others. our next step, one to which we are committed but which will require sustained energy, is utilizing an equity lens on an ongoing basis to inform decisions and policy making at our university. we believe commitment to and evaluation of this equity lens work will help us demonstrate what effective work to advance equity looks like, something we hope will inform university practices around the country. 43 references city of portland racial equity goals and strategies. 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(july 2016). “the racist history of portland, the whitest city in america.” the atlantic. retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/07/racisthistoryportland/492035/ university of california-berkeley (n.d.) the strategic planning for equity, inclusion and diversity toolkit. retrieved from: http://diversity.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/academicstrategic-toolkit-final.pdf) watson, jamal eric. (2016). “an equity lens: portland state university is emphasizing diversity as a shared responsibility.” diverse issues in higher education. 22-23. zapata, marisa. (forthcoming). making and using an equity lens at campuses of higher education, portland state university office of global diversity and inclusion. 45 author information * marisa zapata is an assistant professor of land-use planning at portland state university. as an educator, scholar, and planner, dr. zapata is committed to achieving spatially based social justice by preparing planners to act in the face of the uncertain and inequitable futures we face. she is especially concerned about equitable planning for uncertain futures in highly diverse communities, and studies how equity lenses can help policy-makers create more just places and institutions. marisa a. zapata, phd portland state university toulan school of urban studies and planning urban center, 370h email: mazapata@pdx.edu telephone: 503-725-8770 stephen percy is the dean of the college of public affairs and professor of political science at portland state university. previously he served as dean of the college of public affairs at the university of baltimore and as professor of political science and director of the center for urban initiatives and research at the university of wisconsin-milwaukee. his interests include university-community engagement, public policy implementation, and disability rights policy. stephen percy portland state university office of the dean email: spercy@pdx.edu telephone: 503-725-4043 sona karentz andrews served as portland state university’s provost from july 2012 – august 2017. prior positions include the vice chancellor of the oregon university system, provost and vice president for academic affairs at boise state and faculty appointments at the university of minnesota-twin cities, university of wisconsin-milwaukee, boise state university and portland state university. her areas of experience include innovation; strategic planning and implementation; leadership development; university budget models and policy development. sona k. andrews portland state university email: sona.andrews@pdx.edu * corresponding author mailto:mazapata@pdx.edu mailto:spercy@pdx.edu mailto:sona.andrews@pdx.edu copyright © 2016 metropolitan universities vol. 27 no. 2 (summer 2016), 36-49, doi: 10.18060/21125 engaged scholarship: (re) focusing on our mission lisa kirtman, erica bowers and john l. hoffman abstract although the mission statements of most comprehensive teaching institutions of higher education include serving as a resource for the global and local community, the tenure and promotion process typically does not recognize these community partnerships as research endeavors, even when the nature of the work is firmly grounded in sound empirical practice. this paper shares the process a faculty task force undertook to gain consensus and incorporate language on engaged scholarship within the college’s personnel document. the process took four years and included five steps: (a) establish a definition of engaged scholarship grounded in scholarly literature, (b) gather practice-oriented information regarding best practices as well as faculty perceptions of engaged scholarship practice, (c) create policy language for department personnel documents, (d) generate consensus among faculty for the policy language, and (g) submit final documents to the university personnel committee for approval. the paper concludes with a discussion of implications for policy and practice. introduction perhaps at no prior time has it been more important for college and university faculty to partner with schools, communities, and other stakeholders in shared efforts to improve the quality of education throughout the educational pipeline from birth through college and beyond. for example, consider the high school dropout rate in the state of california—the context for this paper. nearly one in five (19.2%) of the high school students who began in the 2009-2010 school year did not graduate in 2013. the corresponding dropout rate was considerably higher for populations such as latinos (23.6%) and african americans (31.9%), students from low-income families (24.6%), students from the families of migrant workers (24.2%), and students in special education (37.8%) (california dropout research project, 2015). in order to address these concerns, a variety of educational scholars and practitioners have called for greater attention to educational partnerships (leonard, 2011; maurrasse, 2001; person et al., 2014; rodríguez & conchas, 2009) as well as data-informed decision-making (campbell & levin, 2009; mandinach, 2012; moss, 2007). many california universities have missions that would seemingly address these issues. according to the mission statement of california state university fullerton (csuf), “we are a comprehensive, regional university with a global outlook . . . our expertise and diversity serve as a distinctive resource and catalyst for partnerships with public and private organizations. we strive to be a center of activity essential to the intellectual, cultural, and economic development of our region.” however, similar to most universities, the csuf tenure and promotion structures at the beginning of this project did not reward community partnership work as a scholarly research endeavor, even when those practices reflected sound empirical practice. instead, this type of work would have been classified as service. when studying tenure promotion practices, green (2008) found that service carried equal weight with teaching and scholarship for just 16.2% of a sample of 154 graduate school deans. when discussing this finding in a historical context, green noted, “the scholarship role has become even more salient in tenure and promotion decisions during the 21st century and teaching and service roles have become less influential” (p. 125). thus, whereas many college and university faculty members are potential valuable partners to schools that wish to make greater use of data to inform decision-making, the incentive structures for these faculty 37 do not reward this work, even when that work aligns well with the mission of the institution and the needs of the community. beginning in 2010, the college of education at csuf began preliminary work on a strategic plan to refocus college efforts on its mission and the mission of the university. among the outcomes of this process were strategic initiatives aimed at (a) strengthening partnerships with regional schools and community colleges, (b) promoting just, equitable, and inclusive education, (c) extending work related to educational technology, and (d) revising faculty roles and responsibilities to better tenure and promotion structures with the mission of the university and the college. a central component of the latter initiative was adding “engaged scholarship” to the tenure and promotion process. by adding engaged scholarship to the tenure and promotion process, faculty would be able to enact the mission through their work and be a distinctive resource to improve education for california’s children. in this paper, we will delineate the four-year process that culminated in 2015 with the adoption of engaged scholarship by the college as a whole, and its incorporation into each of the sets of department personnel standards within the college of education at csuf. the focus of this paper will be on how the engaged scholarship task force, which consisted of faculty representatives from each of the college’s five departments (and the authors of this paper), generated consensus among more than 100 faculty members in defining engaged scholarship and recognizing it under the umbrella of scholarship within the tenure and promotion process. we will organize the paper around five steps or phases of the process, followed by a discussion of potential implications for policy and practice. whereas the beginning of each step was sequential, there was significant overlap in the steps. the five steps are as follows (see also figure 1 below): (a) establish a definition of engaged scholarship grounded in scholarly literature, (b) gather practice-oriented information regarding best practices as well as faculty perceptions of engaged scholarship practice, (c) create policy language for department personnel documents, (d) generate consensus among faculty for the policy language, and (g) submit final documents to the university personnel committee for approval. figure 1. steps taken to establish engaged scholarship overview of the task force’s work in fall 2011, the college of education created the “faculty roles and expectations strategic planning task force” (hereafter, faculty roles committee or committee). the committee consisted of five faculty members, one from each of the college’s five departments: (a) elementary and bilingual education, (b) secondary education, (c) special education, (d) literacy and reading education, and (e) educational leadership. at the time of formation, two of the five faculty were tenured full professors, one was a tenured associate, and two were non-tenured assistance professors. the faculty roles committee was 1. define engaged scholarship 2. gather information 3. create policy language 4. generate consensus 5. obtain final approval 38 broadly charged with the task of aligning the college culture and expectations for all faculty, staff, and students to consistently reflect the college vision. more specifically, the committee was asked to develop guidelines to streamline the content of the portfolios submitted by probationary faculty during periods of review and to identify means of recognizing and rewarding engaged scholarship within the tenure and promotion process. step one: define engaged scholarship as a first step, the faculty roles committee worked to either identify or generate a definition of engaged scholarship for the college. given the broader context of the college’s strategic plan, the committee also aimed to connect engaged scholarship to the related initiatives of educational partnerships and of just, equitable, and inclusive education. this step served to be one of the most extensive for the entire process, but it also helped to ensure that the work was firmly grounded in scholarly literature. in the end, it also led to a stronger foundation for the definition of engaged scholarship. educational partnerships. the theory and practice of community engagement is not a new conversation. in 1996, boyer proposed that universities broaden the definition of scholarship. he argued that “the academy must become a more vigorous partner in the search for answers to our most pressing, social, civic, economic and moral problems” (p. 19). additionally, numerous studies (leonard, 2011; maurrasse, 2001; person et al., 2014; rodríguez & conchas, 2009) have clearly indicated that university and community partnerships can make a difference in educational improvement and change. this same body of work acknowledges that in many communities, institutions of higher education are important and powerful untapped assets and these partnerships are hard to sustain. to encourage partnerships that can bring about real change, university faculty must become more involved in their surrounding communities. one way to support these relationships is to create a faculty reward and evaluation system that takes high-quality community based work into account. the creation of such a system would be “a critical step in moving a campus toward engagement” (campus compact, 2010). in addition, boyer (1997) argued that colleges and universities must change how scholarship is recognized and rewarded. he argued that there must be a focus on using research findings and innovations to remedy societal problems. this work also clearly aligns with current efforts of the american association of state college and universities (aascu) toward becoming “stewards of place” (aascu, 2002). the literature on “stewardship of place” suggests that “the publicly engaged institution is fully committed to direct, twoway interaction with communities and other external constituencies through the development, exchange, and application of knowledge, information, and expertise for mutual benefit” (aascu, 2002, p. 9). the adoption of an engaged scholarship policy would answer this call to action. just, equitable, and inclusive education. the literature related to just, equitable, and inclusive education (jeie) is expansive. among the most often-cited works from the past 10 years that influenced the work of the faculty roles committee were the writings of adams, bell, and griffin (2007), banks (2010), delgado and stefancic (2012), spring (2011), and yosso (2006). these works collectively align well with the prior emphasis of community partnership as they define social justice work in terms of action and collaboration. notably, bell (2013) has argued, “the goal of social justice education is full and equal participation of all groups in a society that is mutually shaped to meet their needs” (bell, 2013, p. 21). this directly speaks to ideals and principles of partnership and collaboration. continuing to speak to social justice education, bell (2013) also stated “social justice includes a vision of 39 society that is equitable and all members are physically and psychologically safe and secure” (p. 21). in the context of higher education, this includes faculty of color feeling safe and secure in their work, specifically review processes for tenure and promotion. however, faculty of color have often asserted that their scholarly and creative endeavors are not fully valued by peers who have secured tenure and advancement based on work that is established using dominant norms (smith, 2009). to this point, scheurich and young (2002) have argued that the “current range of research epistemologies—positivism to postmodernism—arises from the social history and culture of the dominant race . . . [and] reinforce that social history” (p. 231). later, they noted, “epistemologies and research that arise from other social histories . . . are not typically considered legitimate within the mainstream research community” (p. 232). this is especially relevant since the epistemological foundation for the research of many asian americans, african americans, latinos, and native americans assumes greater levels of connection to family and community than is the case for dominant epistemological paradigms (collins, 2000; hofer, 2010; krupat, 1993; yosso, 2006). thus, engaged scholarship may also serve to open doors for greater creativity and inclusivity within the realm of that which is defined as scholarly activity for the purposes of tenure and promotion. defining engaged scholarship. as previously noted, disconnect currently exists between “pursuing community-based scholarship….and institutional tenure policies” (ellison & eatman, 2008, p. 5). further, engaged scholarship practices are consistent with those that have been identified as contributing to the recruitment and retention of faculty of color and women in underrepresented fields (ellison & eatman, 2008; smith, 2009). after reviewing additional literature addressing engaged scholarship, we identified common themes of engaged scholarship leading to a commitment to “public good” (campus compact, 2010, p. 5) and encouraging partnerships that bring about real community change. drawing on these themes, the faculty roles committee examined numerous definitions and was prepared to generate its own. however, the committee ultimately settled on the following, which the new england resource center for higher education (n.d.) published to its website. the committee agreed that this definition addressed each of the previously noted areas of importance: engaged scholarship is defined by the collaboration between academics and individuals outside the academy knowledgeable professionals and the lay public (local, regional/state, national, global) for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity. the scholarship of engagement includes explicitly democratic dimensions which encourage the participation of non-academics in ways that enhance and broaden engagement and deliberation about major social issues inside and outside the university. it seeks to facilitate a more active and engaged democracy by bringing affected publics into problem-solving work in ways that advance the public good with and not merely for the public. step two: gather practice-oriented information shortly after initiating the process of reviewing scholarly literature, the faculty roles committee began a process of reviewing tenure and review policies of other institutions and exploring the perceptions of faculty within the college of education at csuf. after securing support from the dean of the college of education, the committee contracted eduventures to interview college of education deans across the country and review tenure and promotion policies at other institutions that may serve as a model for csuf. the committee took upon itself to collect policies from other institutions from the california state university system as well as from other regional colleges and universities. though eduventures identified some interest from their interviews with deans, they also uncovered concern that long-standing practices and attitudes in academia would make it difficult to recognize engaged scholarship within tenure and promotion practices. this concern was also present within the literature (henderson & buchanan, 2007). in the end, the committee was not able to identify any strong models of recognizing engaged scholarship that had been adopted at other colleges or universities. 40 whereas the review of best practices was somewhat disappointing, most of the data gathered from college of education faculty at csuf was promising. the faculty roles committee conducted informal focus group interviews with the majority of college of education faculty members during a retreat in january, 2012. most professors at the ranks of assistant, associate, and full were interviewed separately, though one focus group consisted of a mixed group that cut across all ranks. the feedback was generally positive, especially from assistant and associate professors. among the emergent themes, faculty were excited about (a) the potential impact on schools, (b) increased efficiency in getting results into the hands of practitioners and educational leaders, (c) greater inclusivity of research paradigms, especially for faculty of color, (d) the alignment with the research-to-practice orientation of the college’s doctor of educational leadership program, and (e) the fit of engaged scholarship with the mission of the college of education. faculty concerns centered primarily on the issues of ensuring quality, addressing peer review, and obtaining wide dissemination of findings. after being asked about their perceptions regarding the engaged scholarship project, faculty were invited to brainstorm potential means for implementation. from the portion of the focus groups emerged the idea of replacing one traditional scholarly article with an engaged scholarship project, an idea that would later prove to be critical in obtaining college-wide consensus. after the focus groups were completed, faculty were invited to continue to provide feedback through a college-wide open form, department meetings, and a college-wide survey. step three: create the policy language though faculty had shared concerns about peer-review and dissemination during focus groups and in department meetings, these concerns did not appear to be “deal breakers,” so to speak. members of the faculty roles committee had rather adeptly challenged the objectivity of both concepts. though generally supportive of the peer review process, many faculty in the college had experienced situations in which reviews had been highly subjective or biased, or situations where the review process was not fully blind. further, in terms of dissemination, several faculty noted how some of their most influential and frequently cited works were not peer-reviewed. thus in the end, few faculty seemed highly concerned about broadening the concept of scholarship by expanding the notion of dissemination or reconsidering who counts as “peer” in the peer review process. that said, faculty concerns regarding ensuring quality and rigor were more complex. the compromise. in light of data from focus groups, surveys, and departmental meetings, it was apparent that the faculty in some departments were more ready to push the bounds of engaged scholarship while others were more reticent regarding the concept. after consulting with several senior-level administrators, it also became clear that significant divisions within the college of education could compromise the entire project once it moved forward for university-level approval. in that context, the faculty roles committee determined to pursue common language for the entire college of education, which the various departments could then adopt and cite in their personnel standards. the common language would also serve as stronger statement to the university regarding the importance of engaged scholarship. with an eye toward the eventual goal of college-wide support for a singular policy statement, members of the faculty roles committee began to consult with faculty members who had shared significant reservations during the focus groups. as noted previously, the issue of quality and rigor emerged as the primary concern. senior faculty members in particular were concerned about potential perceptions of the college lowering its standards or of faculty securing tenure without first demonstrating core-level skills necessary to maintain a research agenda. this is where a compromise emerged. as context, each of the five departments in the college rated teaching, scholarship, and service as “inadequate,” “progressing,” “good” or “excellent” during the tenure and promotion process (some departments additionally included a rating of marginal, adequate and 41 inadequate). to secure tenure or advancement, faculty were generally required to be “excellent” in teaching and “excellent” in either scholarship or service with the third area minimally “good.” faculty who wished to secure early tenure or advancement in rank had to secure “excellent” ratings in all three areas. as a compromise, it was agreed that all faculty members must secure the minimum requirements for “good/progressing” ratings using traditional peer-reviewed works. after faculty members have met the minimum threshold, they could then use an item (or multiple items) of engaged scholarship to earn a rating of “excellent.” although several members of the faculty roles committee were concerned that this compromise could perpetuate the perception that engaged scholarship is less valuable or rigorous than traditional scholarship, the compromise also presented a means to secure support from the vast majority of college of education faculty as well as from each of the five departments. policy language. once the committee had negotiated the compromise with several key faculty members, finalizing policy language became a relatively straight-forward process. the faculty roles committee prepared a document that began with the new england resource center for higher education definition of engaged scholarship followed by the following policy statement (for clarity, all policy language is presented in italics): a meaningful, high quality, engaged scholarship project, as defined per the criteria that follow, may be substituted for one high quality peer-reviewed publication for the purpose of meeting department standards for a rating of excellent in scholarly and creative activities. engaged scholarship cannot be used to achieve a rating of good or lower. to further address concerns regarding quality, the following five criteria were established and included with the policy statement: 1. a clear rationale of the need for the work addressed and for the strategies and/or tools with which the work is carried out (the plan must be supported by evidence-based practices). 2. work should have a conceptual or theoretical basis; i.e., is conducted within the context of existing peer-reviewed knowledge. normally, this is accomplished through a review of related work in an area showing what has been done in the past and providing a rationale as to why additional work is needed in this area. 3. multiple forms of evidence shall be provided by the faculty member that demonstrate both the quantitative and qualitative impact of the project. a clear impact on a district or community partner is required. these could include letter from partners, data collected, etc. 4. a description of the evaluation process and outcomes that includes: research questions informed by and situated within the literature; an analysis of findings that are contextualized within the particular community, district, school, or classroom needs and the discipline; implications that illustrate the practical ways in which the project shaped or is shaping lived realities for the better; directions for future work. evaluation results and implemented changes based on this evaluation must be completed and disseminated before the faculty member can submit this work for the rtp process. 5. evidence of dissemination activities and feedback from stakeholders must be included. dissemination may be accomplished in various ways, including formal presentations to partnership groups and reports for partners. in the absence of formal peer-review, the faculty roles committee recognized that departments would need guidance in terms of evaluating the quality of engaged scholarship items. the following language was included in the policy document to address this concern: the faculty member must make a case for why this work should be accepted as engaged scholarship. engaged scholarship and traditional scholarship include a theoretical basis for the work. the quality of traditional scholarship, as determined by the retention, tenure, and 42 promotion process, is typically evaluated by peer review journal dissemination. the quality of engaged scholarship is evaluated by the impact on community partners. department personnel committees will review submitted evidence to determine whether a given project is compelling and consistent with the definition of engaged scholarship. faculty are encouraged to submit multiple forms of evidence, and assure any letters of validation refer concretely to practices of engaged scholarship and reflect the criteria and standards of engaged scholarship as outlined in this document. lastly, because of the newness of engaged scholarship and the potential impact on junior faculty, the following statement was added near the end of the policy document: pursuing an engaged scholarship project is something that may be undertaken by junior faculty members. however, faculty should be advised that they will need to establish themselves as researchers primarily through the publication of peer reviewed articles/books. while an engaged scholarship project adds strength to a faculty member's scholarly record, it does not replace the requirement for scholarly publications. step four: generate consensus after drafting the policy document, it was imperative for the faculty roles committee to achieve consensus across the college that would lead to formal adoption by each department of the engaged scholarship policy. though noteworthy attention had been paid to communication regarding engaged scholarship throughout the process, quite a few faculty had retired and several others had been newly hired since the launch of the effort. further, there had been turnover among several department chairs. thus, in addition to the policy statement, the committee generated the following table to help clarify the role of engaged scholarship as related to traditional scholarship and service. table 1 comparison of engaged scholarship, traditional scholarship, and service engaged scholarship traditional scholarship service  co-constructed inquiry (with community partners)  individually or coconstructed  no or limited inquiry or faculty initiated inquiry  theoretical basis for decision-making  theoretical basis for decision-making  no or limited theoretical basis for decision-making  systematic plan for evaluation that includes evidence of continued improvement/change based on evaluation.  analysis of findings  no evaluation or one time evaluation  multiple and broad public dissemination  publication or scholarly presentation  no dissemination/limited dissemination  verifiable community impact, resulting in an intellectual and imaginative work that yields a “public good” product (ellison & eatman, 2008)  possible or no indicated community impact  possible or no indicated community impact 43 in spring 2014, all five departments voted overwhelmingly to adopt the engaged scholarship policy language. however, this adoption was pending final university-level approval of the policy. step five: obtain final approval in fall 2014, the engaged scholarship language was added to each of the department’s personnel standards. these five documents, along with the engaged scholarship policy, were submitted to the university’s faculty personnel committee (fpc), which oversees department standards. in november, the fpc identified three areas of concern. the first concern was somewhat technical in terms of refining the language in the personnel standards of the five departments to better align with university policy. the second issue involved dissemination of the work. specifically, the fpc argued that dissemination needed to be broader than simply reporting findings to the partner school or institution. thus, the fifth criterion for evidence of quality for engaged scholarship was revised to read as follows: “evidence of dissemination activities and feedback from stakeholders must be included. dissemination must include a broad audience.” lastly, the fpc indicated that they were not comfortable with the idea that an engaged scholarship project could also lead to a peer-reviewed publication. the committee indicated that this policy would allow for a single project to ultimately be counted twice. in response, the faculty roles committee noted that faculty members may count certain types of funded grants as publications, and those faculty may also publish peer-reviewed journal articles from the grant. in such situations, the faculty is allowed to count both the grant and the journal article as publications. the faculty roles committee suggested that the university should allow for the same standard for engaged scholarship. this argument was acknowledged and supported by the provost. once these changes were addressed, the changes and the documents were forwarded to the provost. the provost made suggested changes which were discussed above. the college of education’s documents were approved by the university in june of 2015 to begin fall 2016. discussion in hindsight, the five steps of the process used to incorporate engaged scholarship within institutional policies align well with many models for leading change generally (kotter, 2012; martin, 2002; trice & beyer, 1993) as well as those written specifically for higher education (kezar, 2013; tierney, 1999). though an in-depth analysis of the change process extends beyond the purpose of this paper, the attention of the faculty roles committee to organizational culture, communication, compromise, building consensus and a shared vision, and socialization were all keys to the success of the initiative. for this particular process, careful attention to grounding the concept of engaged scholarship within scholarly literature was critical. trice and beyer (1993) noted that changes that affect organizational culture “involve a break with the past; cultural continuity is noticeably disrupted” (p. 395). when applying this idea to higher education, tierney (1999) noted, “the leader needs to be able to develop the sense that changing structures do not destroy core beliefs. structures change; core ideologies undergo contextual interpretation but remain in place unless found false” (p. 52). several faculty members— notably full professors with long histories at csuf—expressed concern for watering down scholarship and lowering standards. by grounding the concept of engaged scholarship within scholarly works which addressed engaged scholarship as well as the associated concepts of partnership and just, equitable, and inclusive education, the committee assuaged many of these concerns. further, a large number of faculty across all ranks were drawn to the idea of engaged scholarship because of how it aligned with the mission 44 of the college and the university. thus, engaged scholarship was a reinterpretation of a core ideology—a refocusing of scholarship on the university’s core mission. communication was also a critical component of the change process. whereas the committee allocated specific attention to how it would deliver messages regarding engaged scholarship, the listening component of the communication process was most critical. though we would not describe this process as a full “cultural study,” martin’s (2002) conception of the role of listening fits well with the committee’s process: cultural study . . . [involves] a willingness to look beneath the surface, to gain an in-depth understanding of how people interpret the meanings of . . . manifestations and how these interpretations from patterns of clarity, inconsistency, and ambiguity that can be used to characterize understandings of working lives (pp. 4-5). the point is, that for as hallowed a concept scholarship is and considering the central role it plays to the work of faculty, it is also a concept that is often not well-defined or understood by the very faculty who so revere it. this became increasingly clear as faculty almost simultaneously promoted the value of peerreview while challenging its objectivity. this type of listening also opened the door for the policy compromise that proved central to building broad consensus within the college for the inclusion of engaged scholarship. on the one hand, if a highquality engaged scholarship item carries the same rigor and value as a traditional work of scholarship, why should it not count toward a rating of “progressing”—the minimum level standard for scholarly productivity among probationary faculty? on the other hand, if engaged scholarship is not as rigorous or valuable as traditional scholarship, why should it carry the same weight as traditional scholarship in moving a faculty member from a rating of “progressing” to “excellent” in scholarship? tierney (1999) used the metaphor of a “tango” when describing leadership, noting that it is a “comparative, reciprocal process” (p. 50). the members of the faculty roles committee felt strongly that a high-quality item of engaged scholarship should carry the same weight as a high-quality item of traditional scholarship within the tenure and review process. that said, the committee was also willing to allow space for a reciprocal process that would lead to adoption of the policy, even if it involved a somewhat ambiguous understanding of the ideals of scholarship and engaged scholarship. while the compromise strategy was successful in building consensus that led to approval of the engaged scholarship policy, a word of caution is in order. scholars such as scheurich and young (2002) and smith (2009) have noted that privileging traditional scholarship inherently communicates messages of the “value” for traditional, western epistemologies over and against the worldviews of many people of color; among others. this process reinforces structures that marginalize and oppress faculty of color in academe. we have presented engaged scholarship, with its connections to community and practice, as a still limited, though potentially more inclusive scholarly umbrella. to the degree that this is true, the compromise enacted to pass the engaged scholarship policy leaves in place elements of an oppressive structure. if engaged scholarship is not fully equal to traditional scholarship, then neither are some of the cultural and epistemological worldviews included under this umbrella. this concern is among the next steps that will need to be addressed as the new engaged scholarship policy is put into practice. in fact, knowing that there is still some professional development that needs to occur on this process, the college has decided to spend the spring 2016 semester educating all faculty and in particular, department personnel committees, on the newly included criteria of engaged scholarship. some considerations as the college moves forward with this new process in fall of 2016 include; addressing guidelines for both reviewers and submitters, delineating what will be accepted as documentation of 45 impact on area schools and communities, and the need to generate a “database” of engaged scholarship projects that would be accepted. overall, the college of education at csuf is hopeful that this move to include engaged scholarship as part of the tenure and promotion process will lead to better alignment of the university mission. in addition, by implementing this change faculty will be allowed to use research findings and innovations to remedy societal problems (boyer, 1997). finally, by embracing the idea of “stewards of place” (aascu, 2002) the college can better address issues of just, equitable, and inclusive education by making a stronger impact in the community and forming true two-way partnerships with our constituencies. 46 references adams, m., bell, l. a., & griffin, p. 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(pp. 221-242). new york, ny: state university of new york press. smith, d. g. (2009). diversity’s promise for higher education: making it work. baltimore, md: the johns hopkins university press. spring, j. (2011). the american school: a global context from the puritans to the obama era (8th ed.). new york, ny: mcgraw hill. tierney, w. g. (1999). building the responsive campus: creating high performance colleges and universities. thousand oaks, ca: sage. trice, h. m., & beyer, j. m. (1993). the cultures of work organizations. new york, ny: prentice hall. yosso, t.j. (2006). critical race counterstories along the chicana/chicano educational pipeline. new york, ny: routledge. author information lisa kirtman, ph.d. is a professor and the associate dean for the college of education at california state university, fullerton (csuf). she joined the faculty in 2000 after completing her ph.d. at uc berkeley. during this time she has served on numerous committees and worked as the chair of the department of elementary and bilingual education for 5 years. she has also published fourteen articles in peer-reviewed journals and has presented her work at various local, regional, and national conferences. dr. kirtman was an elementary and a middle school teacher prior to her work at csuf. her research interests include faculty development and support as well as mathematics education. lisa kirtman, ph.d. associate dean college of education california state university, fullerton 2600 nutwood ave, suite 500 fullerton, ca 92831 (657) 278-5901 email: lkirtman@exchange.fullerton.edu erica bowers, ed.d., is an associate professor and chair of the department of literacy and reading education in the college of education. for the past seven years she has also served as the director of the csuf hazel miller croy (hmc) reading center which serves striving readers from the local community. her research agenda includes struggling readers and assessment practices, academic language, and english language learners. she joined the faculty at csuf in the fall of 2006 after completing her ed.d. in literacy and language at the university of southern california. she serves on the board of the california reading association as the state liaison to the international literacy association. for the coming academic year, 2015-16, dr. bowers will serve as the chair of the planning, resource, and budget committee (prbc). prior to her work at csuf, dr. bowers was an elementary school teacher, district trainer and reading specialist for more than 15 years. pr. erica bowers, ed.d., associate professor mailto:lkirtman@exchange.fullerton.edu 49 department of literacy & reading education college of education california state university, fullerton 2600 nutwood avenue, suite 570 fullerton, ca 92831 (657) 278-3497 ebowers@fullerton.edu john l. hoffman, ph.d., is an associate professor of educational leadership at california state university, fullerton where he also serves as the director of the doctor of educational leadership program and the chair of the department of educational leadership. before transitioning to faculty, john spent 10 years working in administrative roles in academic and student affairs, seven of which were as a dean of students. he has experience in the development of theory-informed programs that enhance the success and retention of students of color; early interventions addressing student wellness and achievement; and the assessment of student learning in the co-curriculum. john has received professional awards from western association for college and university housing officers (wacuho) for his diversity and leadership work as a dean of students and from the national association of student personnel administrators (naspa) for his professional mentoring efforts. his research interests focus on assessment and accountability, professional competencies in student affairs and higher educational leadership, and professional development and mentoring. john earned his ph.d. in higher education policy and administration from the university of minnesota. john l. hoffman, ph.d. director doctor of educational leadership program chair department of educational leadership california state university, fullerton 2600 nutwood avenue, suite 520 fullerton, ca 92831 (657) 278-4023 jhoffman@fullerton.edu mailto:ebowers@fullerton.edu mailto:jhoffman@fullerton.edu copyright © 2016 metropolitan universities vol. 27 no. 3 (autumn 2016), doi 10.18060/21387 the learning exchange: a shared space for the university of british columbia and vancouver’s downtown eastside communities angela towle and kathleen leahy abstract the learning exchange was established by the university of british columbia (ubc) in 1999 in vancouver’s downtown eastside (dtes). the challenge has been to create a shared space for learning exchanges between two very different communities: a research-intensive university and an inner city area most commonly depicted as a place of hopelessness. the learning exchange provides an interesting model for how shared spaces can work to bring benefits to both to individual community members, students and faculty, as well as to the university and community organizations. it provides a place in the community where ubc students and faculty, and dtes residents and organizations connect, pursue common interests and learn from each other with a long-term goal of bringing about social change. examples are given of the ways in which attention is paid to the physical, emotional and intellectual environment and the synergies that occur in shared spaces. based on our experience and lessons learned we identify important principles for creating successful university-community shared spaces. keywords physical environment, emotional environment, intellectual environment, asset-based community development introduction the mission of the learning exchange is to engage, inspire and lead two very different communities to work and learn together: the university of british columbia (ubc) and vancouver’s downtown eastside (dtes). the dtes, often referred to as ‘canada’s poorest postal code’, is noted for its open drug trade, single room occupancy hotels and high hiv infection rates. these combined and seemingly intractable issues have contributed to the common discourse of the dtes as a ‘place of hopelessness’. ubc is a research-intensive university located 13 kilometers away, making it physically and, some would argue, psychologically distant from the dtes. however, having a meaningful presence in the dtes is consistent with ubc’s strategic plan, and grounded in the idea that universities can, and should, be more connected to the critical issues facing communities. located in the heart of the dtes, the learning exchange has developed as a welcoming, informal and lively shared space where ubc students and faculty, and dtes residents and organizations connect, pursue common interests and learn from each other and, in so doing, increase community and university capacity to act for positive change. in this article, we describe the university and community context, trace the history of the learning exchange, and describe the diverse learning activities that occur. we 68 then describe the physical, emotional and intellectual shared spaces, and give examples of the benefits to the university and the community, and the synergies that occur. finally, we discuss lessons learned and identify general principles based on our experiences, and outline future directions. the university of british columbia ubc is a public research university with campuses and facilities in british columbia, canada. ubc's vancouver campus is physically separated from the city by sea and a forested green-belt. founded as an independent university in 1915, it is the oldest institution of higher learning in british columbia and enrolls over 60,000 students each year, mostly in the faculties of arts, science, medicine, applied science and the sauder school of business. the university consistently ranks among the top three research universities in canada and among the 20 best public universities worldwide. the university manages the second-largest research budget of any university in canada (over $550 million annually). in terms of research performance, high impact universities 2010 ranked the university 30th out of 500 universities, and second in canada. ubc is a member of universitas 21, an international association of research-led institutions, as well as being the only canadian member of the association of pacific rim universities, a consortium of 42 leading research universities in the pacific rim. the university’s commitment to community engagement began under the leadership of president and vice chancellor martha c. piper who in 1998 launched trek 2000, the university’s blueprint for the millennium. the concept of getting students involved in community-based activities was central to trek 2000, inspired by the writing of peter drucker who argued that universities should be preparing young people to take on social responsibilities as part of their roles as participants in the knowledge society (drucker, 1994). drucker’s argument underpinned president piper’s vision of ubc’s responsibility to prepare students to be ‘global citizens’ and was the motivation for the establishment of the learning exchange (see below). subsequently, under president stephen toope the commitment of ubc to serve and engage society to enhance economic, social and cultural well-being was confirmed in the 2009 strategic plan, ‘place and promise: the ubc plan’ (university of british columbia, 2009) in which community engagement is stated as one of three core commitments alongside student learning and research excellence. vancouver’s downtown eastside the dtes is the historic heart of vancouver and has a diverse, mixed and predominantly lowincome population. as defined by the city of vancouver, the dtes consists of seven adjoining neighbourhoods each with a distinct character, population, built form and land use (city of vancouver, 2013). for example, gastown, vancouver’s founding neighbourhood is a major tourist attraction. it borders the oppenheimer district, the heart of the low-income community, which has the greatest concentration of community services for vulnerable people, including insite, canada’s first supervised drug injection site. strathcona, one of the oldest residential neighbourhoods in vancouver, was for many years a working class district but is now undergoing gentrification with rising housing prices. chinatown is one of the last remaining large historic chinatowns in north america, though traditional connections have weakened as more recent 69 generations have improved their circumstances and moved into the suburbs. the dtes is situated and linked to the city’s founding indigenous communities, including the musqueam, tsleil-wauthuth and squamish first nations; other major ethnic groups include japanesecanadians, chinese-canadians and african-canadians. 64% of dtes residents speak english as their main home language; chinese (including both mandarin and cantonese) is the next most frequent. more than half of the residents of the dtes are dependent on income assistance support, pensions, or charitable and social services. many groups are considered vulnerable because they experience greater risk to health and well-being than the population as a whole. these groups include the homeless, seniors, low-income singles and families, sex workers, drug users and people with disabilities or mental illness. in addition to poverty, the challenges they face include safety, adequate and affordable accommodation, unemployment, poor nutrition, poor health, low self-esteem, a lack of well-being and connectedness, and dependency on social services and charity. public perception of the dtes as a place of hopelessness and danger has been shaped by the prevailing negative discourse in the media. newspaper reports highlighting injection drug-use and/or hiv /aids in the dtes have contributed to the stigmatization of the area, adding to repeated derogatory descriptions of the dtes such as “an enclave of filth and desolation” as well as metaphors of the dtes as a war zone (woolford, 2001). visitors to vancouver and ubc students, especially international students, are often cautioned not to go to the dtes. however, the dtes is also often regarded as one of the more close-knit, caring communities in vancouver, and has a rich architecture and culture, the highest concentration of artists in the city, and a history of political activism (hasson & ley, 1994). there are, unsurprisingly, conflicts between the different communities in the dtes due to its heterogeneity. for example, some people in chinatown feel stigmatized by the homeless people and open drug trade on their door steps, and have lobbied for the revitalization of business and higher-end housing to attract customers in ways that the affordable housing advocates feel is exclusionary. these tensions make the dtes a complex and highly charged place, where working towards possible solutions is challenging, since people do not necessarily agree what the problems are. because of the multifaceted social and health-related problems, and a concentration of services in the area, a huge amount of research has been done in the dtes, especially by ubc researchers. however, the prevailing perception among local people is that little has changed as a consequence. the research appears to benefit researchers rather than the community, giving research a poor reputation. history of the learning exchange the learning exchange originated from the commitment to community engagement made as part of ubc’s trek 2000 visioning exercise. initial consultations in the dtes in 1999 about how ubc could best develop a community presence revealed a range of opinions about the university’s plans, including some skepticism and resistance. in fall 1999, the ubc learning exchange trek program was initiated to introduce student volunteers to non-profit organizations and elementary schools in the dtes. a year later the learning exchange opened 70 its original storefront, offering free computer access as part of a federally funded network of dtes organizations to bridge ‘the digital divide’. this occurred against the backdrop of the vancouver agreement (anon., 2010) involving all three levels of government, initiated to address the serious social and economic situation in vancouver’s inner city at time when many in the community and the university were calling for a more integrated, holistic approach to concerns related to the dtes. from 2001 to 2006 the learning exchange expanded its community-based programming and student experiential learning opportunities. activities included the development of computer training workshops for residents and an innovative english-as-a-second-language (esl) conversation program, designed by ubc graduate students in collaboration with local residents; a variety of free courses, talks and events were developed in collaboration with faculty and community partners. in parallel, the learning exchange championed the development and integration of community-service learning (csl) into academic programs at the university, which eventually led to the creation of the ubc-community learning initiative. in 2008 the learning exchange moved to a larger location, enabling significant expansion of the computer training and esl programs, as well as providing an off-campus base for staff working with inner-city schools engaging with university students. in 2011 the university moved the ubc-community learning initiative out of the learning exchange in order to position the responsibility of engaging students in the community more broadly within the university. this severed a major link between the learning exchange and the university. the position of an academic director was created with the charge to re-establish and grow the direct link between the learning exchange and the university campus. since 2012 there has been an increase in the profile and activity of the learning exchange in both university and dtes communities. in 2015-16 campus and community groups' space usage quadrupled, including a six-fold growth in community-based researchers' usage. summary of activities, participants and outcomes current activities the learning exchange provides year-round, core programming for community members (patrons) and students, in addition to providing an open-drop in environment for unstructured individual or group activities. the core programs are designed to respond to community needs for digital literacy and english language skills, and improve the daily lives of people in the dtes through personal development and building social networks. the core programs also provide hands on, experiential learning opportunities for ubc students. learning activities. to respond to digital literacy needs, the computer drop-in program provides computer access and support four afternoons per week. structured computer workshops and tutorials on basic computer skills and programs provide instruction on a weekly basis. the contributing through computers (ctc) initiative trains members of the community to lead workshops with their peers, on site and at community partner locations throughout the dtes and beyond. the esl conversation program trains and supports local residents as peer facilitators to lead conversation sessions that help people learn english and about canadian culture and the 71 local community. a new initiative, seniors thrive, helps seniors learn english and also promotes health and well-being by facilitating social connectedness and participation in learning. the learning lab offers a range of social, arts, and cultural activities and special projects and events that are appropriately scaled to support people in moving past their comfort zones, without too much pressure, while inspiring them to pursue learning in a safe environment. it responds to the growing needs of dtes residents who access the drop-in space and who are eager for more engagement and learning, but reluctant to join groups due to previous negative experiences with structured learning. although the core programming is coordinated by members of staff (university employees), students support and participate in these activities as paid student-staff program assistants (co-op and internships) of 6 or 12 months duration or as part of in-depth course-based activities such as practicums, assignments or projects. for example, economic students run an ‘econ café’ on hot topics in the dtes, and medical students design and deliver workshops on health-related topics to seniors. students also participate in one-off learning experiences, including orientations to the dtes and asset-based development theory and practice. learning objectives for students doing course-based activities are varied but most often related to translating theory into practice (the realities of the ‘real world’), asset-based approaches, social justice, cultural safety and the social determinants of health, and specific skills such as relationship building, communication, and group facilitation. many students also volunteer at the learning exchange, sharing particular skills such as facilitating a language class, or co-facilitating esl classes with peer facilitators, or working with staff and patrons to gather information and create learning resources. community-based research. support for community-based participatory research and knowledge exchange is a recent and growing part of our work. the ‘making research accessible’ initiative addresses the problem that organizations and individuals in the dtes are often unable to access the primary literature. licensing agreements for electronic journals limit access to ubc faculty and students, and as a consequence people in the community are often dependent on government reports or other secondary sources. we have created a database that contains over 600 peer-reviewed journal articles and phd dissertations published since 2010 and a list of 40 primary investigators with active projects in the dtes. in partnership with the ubc library we are exploring ways to make this information available to the community through a searchable open access repository. we also collaborate on knowledge exchange events, bringing researchers together with members of the community. participants community members. each of the core programs has a group of patrons who have attended regularly and consistently over a number of years. in addition, there are patrons who come for a short time, get what they need (information or a skill) and then move on. newcomers hear about the learning exchange through word of mouth ‘on the street’. as the learning exchange has become more established as part of the community we have become recognized by local people and agencies as a ‘safe place’. increasingly, patrons come to us through referrals from the many different service agencies in the dtes (over 100 in a 20-block radius), either because they need specific skills such as computer skills or english, or because there is an expectation that the learning exchange staff can help them find their way or take time to work with them. 72 the patrons who participate in the core activities reflect the diversity in the neighbourhood. 30% of drop-in programs are frequented by indigenous people, many from across the country who are urbanized or who recently left their reserve. a high portion of men frequent the drop-in. many of them at one time worked in the resource industries as loggers or tradesmen but with the changes in the work economy are unable to find work. many older chinese women come to the esl program having worked for most of their lives in the garment industry, often doing two jobs and therefore putting off learning english; now as seniors they have more time to learn and want to connect socially. there are fewer women at the learning exchange and overall in public spaces in the dtes, likely due to the threat of violence that many women experience, and the real or perceived lack of safe places for their children. the discomfort that women feel at the learning exchange has decreased in recent times, but we are not currently set up to provide child care, which continues to be a barrier. students and faculty. most students come to the learning exchange by applying for advertised student-staff or graduate research assistant positions, or as part of university courses. student participation as part of a course requires involvement of their instructors and this has grown over the past few years as a result of targeted faculty engagement, especially in disciplines related to health, education, social sciences and arts. students who come as volunteers often do so as a result of experiencing a class or tour of the dtes, or may find us through the website. as with the dtes community, word of mouth and referrals are important ways of widening participation among the university community. outcomes. learning exchange staff keep records of the numbers of patrons attending the various activities in order to demonstrate that we continue to meet needs and for the purpose of reporting to donors. for example, the computer drop-in program supports 45 individuals each afternoon, while the computer workshops provide instruction to over 350 individuals per year. in its first three years ctc has trained 150 facilitators, engaging more than 30 community partner organizations, and directly impacting almost 700 basic computer skills learners. the esl conversation program runs 30 concurrent conversation sessions a week; each year 80-100 peer facilitators are trained and there are 500 esl learners. beyond collecting numbers, there are challenges in evaluating the impact of participating in the activities on individual community members who may be wary of sharing the sort of personal information which would allow us to track their progress over time. in addition, program staff are often too busy implementing programs and supporting peer facilitators or students to also document participation systematically. recently we have involved graduate students to assist with evaluation of the core programs. for example, a group of masters of public health students taking a course on program evaluation developed practical and innovative ways to capture the impacts of the learning lab program. their evaluation plan was then implemented over the course of a year by a graduate research assistant. another group set up an evaluation framework for the seniors thrive initiative which has formed the basis for a three-year evaluation component that runs in parallel with, and informs, its implementation. innovative and participatory program evaluation approaches, including arts-based methods and theatre, have been used successfully to gather, present and disseminate information about impact and lessons learned. 73 similarly we track student numbers as an indicator that we are meeting a need for experiential learning experiences. in the 2015-16 academic year over 200 students participated in in-depth learning activities and another 250 students participated in one-off learning experiences or as volunteers. we have anecdotal evidence of the impact of these experiences and that students are meeting learning goals through informal and formal feedback sessions, exit interviews, and reflective writing done for course work. in collaboration with a research team from the faculty of education, we are about to embark on a more systematic, qualitative study of the student learning experience which will involve interviews, focus groups and a survey. organizational structure the learning exchange director reports to the ubc vice-president external who is responsible for a cross-functional, enterprise-wide, portfolio that engages with external stakeholders. the director has a core team of 6 full-time staff and acts as a managing director, responsible for overall administration, program development, fundraising and community partnerships. an operations manager oversees the facility, infrastructure and day-to-day administration; an operations assistant plays a pivotal role supporting university and community groups in sharing the space. each year 8 to 12 student-staff are hired to work alongside the four coordinators responsible, respectively, for digital literacy, esl, learning lab and student learning activities, with overlapping responsibilities for the drop-in, special events and unit-wide activities. the academic director reports to the ubc provost and vice-president, academic, linking with the academic leadership and individual faculty and their departments. the position also provides supervision to a part-time evaluation specialist and graduate student assistants who support evaluation and community-based research activities at the learning exchange. in 2009, the university provided ongoing core funding to the learning exchange in recognition of its contributions to ubc’s vision. 80% of the learning exchange budget comes from university general operating funds, the remainder from donor support for specific initiatives. shared spaces for learning literature summary several bodies of literature underpin our work at the learning exchange and contribute to the creation of effective shared spaces for learning. for the purpose of this article, we define shared space as having three components: a physical place, an emotional place and a conceptual arena or intellectual space (torjman, 2006). our philosophy is based on a capacity-building, asset-based community development (abcd) approach, modelled after john mcknight’s work at the asset-based community development institute at northwestern university’s centre for civic engagement (www.abcdinstitute.org/).the abcd approach intentionally focuses on individual and collective strengths, as opposed to deficiencies, in order to build individual capacity and group capacity, including the capacity of students, faculty and researchers at the university. typically, service 74 organizations have not drawn on the strengths of communities and are more likely to see their role as intervenors, conducting needs assessments and developing programs to bring what is missing. these well-meaning organizations often create unintended outcomes that miss or diminish the things that are going well, and undermine the sense of community competence (mcknight, 1995). given its geographic location the learning exchange, by definition and through its collaborations with local partners, is a place-based initiative with locally-based programs and activities. place-based approaches have emerged as a means of addressing seemingly intractable, complex issues like poverty, with its interacting causes, within a local context of unique conditions (bellefontaine & wisener, 2011). placed-based work engages participants and groups from a wide range of sectors and organizations, in an attempt to develop a more coordinated response from multiple actors, in order to affect the roots and effects of the particular issue within its geographic space. the learning exchange is an example of what hart and wolff (2006) refer to as a university-community partnership rooted in a sense of place and a commitment to engage with issues of locality. community engagement presents particular challenges for research-intensive universities. if it is not to be a marginalized activity it needs to be defined not just in ethical or educational terms but must speak to the most fundamental roles of the university in society: discovery and creation of new knowledge (ostrander, 2004). it also requires new frameworks to help university leaders conceptualize linkages to community in ways that account for institutional complexity, recognize traditional forms of scholarship and foster reciprocal relationships with community partners for mutual benefit (weerts & sandman, 2010). in this context the learning exchange is a specific model of engagement that, through its staff, fulfils the multiple boundary spanning roles conceptualized by weerts and sandman (2010), namely community-based problem solver, technical expert, internal engagement advocate and engagement champion. its activities not only facilitate shared learning between university and community, but discovery of new knowledge. the creation of shared spaces for university-community learning is a therefore a form of boundary work in which staff act as brokers between the university and community cultures, and the stereotypes which university and community hold about the other break down as they cross boundaries (hart & wolff, 2006). in the context of service learning in higher education, mcmillan identifies boundary workers as agents who assist participants make new connections across communities of practice (in this case the university and community), enable coordination and, if experienced, open new possibilities for meaning and therefore learning (mcmillan, 2011). both hart and wolff (2006) and mcmillan (2011) recommend the use of wenger’s (1998) elaboration of boundary work and ‘communities of practice’ as a particularly useful conceptual framework for community-university engagement. the physical learning environment the learning exchange has several distinct types of space, each with its own character, which can be summarized as: welcoming spaces for informal drop-in activities (individual or group); classroom spaces for structured group learning; quiet spaces for reflection (individual or group). 75 the main open space, accessible from the street, provides two valuable amenities for patrons: computers and coffee. patrons, students and faculty can drop in and just sit on the side lines if they choose. the space has a flexible layout for multi-tasking usage and fosters both active participation (learning by doing) and watching (learning by observation). computer stations can be moved out to create a large space for performance, knowledge exchange events and community forums. artefacts that have been produced at the learning exchange are displayed on the wall, as well as indigenous art (house-post). a maker space for art and craft work and cultural programming has been created from a converted carport. this serves as a transition space between the alleyway and building interior, which can feel more comfortable for people who live on the streets: the door to the back lane can be kept open to blur the boundary between inside and out. the drop-in area operates as a self-serve space: patrons can sign themselves in and make their own coffee, there is a phone available for anyone to use without asking permission, and patrons can print up to 5 pages a day (though this is not strictly enforced). there is a private washroom instead of the open public washrooms usual in the dtes. people are encouraged to do things for themselves and everyone (staff, students, patrons) uses the same amenities (coffee, washrooms, cleaning materials, etc.) creating a sense of neighbourliness and helping to keep the space clean in high traffic areas. classroom spaces for structured learning are accessed by a wide staircase from the drop-in area. there are closed rooms of different sizes, fitted with tables and chairs, intended as spaces for doing things together as a group: intentional learning and co-tasking. doors to the rooms mean that people cannot move in and out of the spaces so easily as in the drop-in area. the rooms are used for regular programming, including all esl classes and arts activities. there is an open area in the middle of the floor which is a flexible space, similar to the drop-in. on the top floor there are two large meeting rooms, offices, work stations, and a kitchen which are open access for staff, but otherwise by invitation. the controlled use of the space and usage protocols allow for more sensitive, quiet, focused or reflective work and bestows more trust on the users. the meeting rooms are used by outside community groups for planning, retreats or research. for example, a research study, the aboriginal women’s initiative healing circle, found it to be a safe space, reassuring and conducive to emotional work, away from the hubbub of the street level and drop-in. office space is also provided to community groups on a time-limited basis. one of the meeting rooms functions as a staff lounge for team-building and staff development activities. the emotional learning environment physical spaces alone are not enough. equally important are the relationships, cultures and practices that occur within the space. these arise from our capacity-building, asset-based philosophy, and are articulated in the key values and principles that inform our work and form a foundation for shared understanding (see table 1). table 1. learning exchange key values 76 inclusion: we welcome all individuals and groups in everything we do. we engage and empower members of the local community and the ubc community to exchange ideas and knowledge. collaboration: we develop productive relationships and partnerships that are mutually beneficial. we inspire innovation and change by bringing together people with different perspectives. celebration: we recognize it takes courage to overcome the risks of learning. we celebrate and support every step, large or small, that leads to greater awareness, understanding, and action. learning: we honour all kinds of knowledge and expertise including lived experience. we foster lifelong learning through reciprocal and experiential opportunities. pragmatism: we are flexible in creating an environment for people to make concrete, useful differences in their learning and lives. sustainability: we take a long-term approach to relationships and operations—building capacity for the future while meeting the needs of the present. learning exchange staff are skilled at making everyone welcome and encouraging increasing levels of participation. the terminology used by learning exchange staff, students, faculty and volunteers seeks to build more equitable relationships. for example, we use the term ‘patron’ or ‘community member’ rather than ‘client’ which implies a one-way relationship of receiving only. staff know patrons and students as individuals, and encourage them to take the next step, take a risk, and celebrate successes. they know when a seemingly small step, like just having a conversation, is actually a huge step for a particular individual. patrons get many chances; if they need to take a break for a few days or weeks they are still welcomed back. in contrast, typical public access programs (e.g. for housing or employment) expect regular attendance, there are penalties for non-compliance and no second chances. the intellectual learning environment the shared physical and emotional spaces promote reciprocal learning between patrons and students. despite the distrust of formal education and the real barriers some patrons face due to low levels of literacy in all its forms, many are very knowledgeable about the community, are well read, and interested in passing on their knowledge. activities are organized in ways that ensure contributions come from all directions; the university is not positioned as the provider of answers or handouts. some examples of how patrons and students learn from and with each other include: patrons who are digital literacy facilitators show other community members how to use word or a useful app; patrons help economics students learn about institutional poverty by sharing their stories and experiences; a graduate student in arts learns from patrons about the use of theatre as an intervention for self-expression, enriching his thesis on theatre as a therapeutic intervention; an undergraduate student assists a new peer facilitator to deliver an esl session at the start of the program. multidirectional learning can provide a more thorough picture of the complex issues and possible solutions facing communities. for example, at a legal access forum, 77 university faculty and patrons all increased their understanding of the ways in which the legal system creates barriers, by providing both a studied perspective and a lived one. shared space as a community asset beyond the core programming and learning opportunities provided through the university, the learning exchange has become a highly valued and trusted part of the dtes community, evident in the number and diversity of groups who collaborate with or work independently in the learning exchange space. use of space includes hosting special events on hot topics such as social justice or collaborations with the dtes literacy roundtable. many arts and cultural groups hold volunteer recognition events, cultural celebrations and board meetings. the city of vancouver holds community planning meetings on topics ranging from bicycle lane development to community economic development. orientation materials and mechanisms allow independent usage, after-hours access, and increased ownership of the learning exchange space by community organizations such as the vancouver asian heritage month society, an arts and culture organization that builds community by sharing and celebrating asian arts, cultures, and contributions. the vancouver native health society (vnhs) has used the space to conduct research interviews and has collaborated on knowledge exchange activities to present and dialogue with people in the dtes about the findings of research projects. there are practical reasons they approached us: we are neutral space away from their ‘service’ environment; we provide free space so they can use their funds to work with the vulnerable community they serve; we can help promote the event and invite our patrons who might not be connected to vnhs. synergies that happen in shared spaces: two examples the learning exchange has provided backbone support to the binner’s project, a local, grassroots movement that works to promote and destigmatize informal recycling done by binners (street-level waste recyclers who collect cans and bottles) and improve their economic opportunities. in 2014, binners participated in the coffee cup revolution, one of the events to mark the learning exchange’s 15th anniversary, recycling thousands of discarded coffee cups in return for a deposit to draw attention to paper cup waste. the event led to a more engaged partnership with the binners project. binners initially used the carport and over time moved into other spaces within the learning exchange facility. graduate students in population health, and undergraduate students in social work, urban ethnography and economics have contributed as part of their course work and as volunteers with support from the learning exchange. urban core is a longstanding association made up of over 40 active agencies and over 100 member organizations dedicated to improving life for some of the most vulnerable citizens in the dtes. the learning exchange is an active member of urban core and has facilitated community-based research, participated on committee projects and events, co-chaired meetings, and helped to connect to and facilitate student projects on critical issues, on behalf of both urban core and its member organizations. for example, the learning exchange engaged and supervised a graduate student research project to map the income-generating activities of local organizations (pilarinos, 2015), paving the way for more interest in students being active participants in urban core’s work. 78 discussion – lessons learned the physical space a variety of shared spaces, formal and informal, individual and group, allow for different levels of commitment or readiness for engaging in a heterogeneous community. unlike the usual places in the area frequented by patrons, the physical space affords privacy (e.g. washrooms). the selfserve model, based on an expectation that people can manage themselves, is in contrast to many other agencies in the dtes where service users have to wait in line. the result has been to promote a sense of respect for and shared ownership of the space, which in turn leads to greater communal responsibility for what happens in the space. we have found that the way space is configured is important: small changes can make a big difference to behaviour. as an example, the computers in the drop-in area were originally arranged in one long line on each wall with space in between. people had their backs to the room so no-one could see their faces. staff were not able to see what the patrons were feeling, but they could see what was on the screen, which left people exposed. when the computer space was reconfigured into islands of three computer stations, people were in proximity in a shared space, but not so close that they felt unsafe. people (patrons, students and staff) can now choose to connect or not. in another example, relocating a course, the urban ethnographic field school, from the university campus to the learning exchange resulted in increased interactions among students, and between students and patrons, which in turn led to a greater quality in their reflective essays. divisions in the dtes community are deep and there need to be ongoing efforts to bring people together. for example, there are two distinct populations of patrons who participate in activities in the drop-in at street level and in the more structured classes on the second floor. we have needed to develop strategies to overcome the divide and create deliberate linkages between the spaces. these include rotating staff meetings through the different spaces, integrated training of facilitators who lead the different learning activities, and putting on events that appeal to both groups, including field trips which take people out of the space and their usual routines. students also create important links between the spaces. emotional environment personal relationships are fundamental to the successful use of shared spaces for learning but require careful attention to managing boundaries. students who work or volunteer are provided with orientations that include boundary training. we have found this to be especially important to ensure female students can develop and maintain healthy relationships with the mainly male drop-in population. staff expertise in supporting different learners in the space is key, but the work can be challenging and demanding. attention is paid to staff well-being and the creation of a supportive staff environment, including frequent check-ins and debriefs. team building activities include deliberate meetings, such as weekly huddles, program-specific retreats, ‘lunch and learn’ sharing of work in progress or the results of projects, and mental health and wellbeing workshops led by staff. these latter led to the identification of the need for planned social occasions outside of work as well as more spontaneous celebrations of work-related 79 achievements or birthdays. the success of these activities in providing a supportive work environment is demonstrated by low staff turnover and the desire of many student-staff to apply for new positions after their initial appointment ends. working from values and principles has proved to be more successful than having rules. at one stage in the learning exchange history rules were posted on the wall, which gave the wrong impression of the place as an old-fashioned school environment. they have been replaced by staff talking to people about problems, referring to values and norms rather than rules. staff are able to unobtrusively monitor what is happening in the space at all times and can intervene in a low-key manner if needed. intellectual environment education is the common goal that brings people together, and the learning exchange promotes both learning of the head and of the heart, in itself a form of shared space. people in the community want to be critical thinkers and intellectually stimulated; students and academics want to be touched by the heart. the heart brings people together, highlighting the importance of creative approaches to shared learning. probably one of the most important results of shared spaces for learning exchanges has been the demystifying of others which occurs through working and learning alongside strangers. we find that patrons, students and faculty are surprised by the unusual mix of people at the learning exchange, disrupting expectations, including the assumptions they have about a university space in the community. students comment that they start to think more critically about commonlyheld assumptions about the dtes and issues such as poverty, housing and health. shared learning leads to transformative learning. as patrons make the transition from being learners to being facilitators of other’s learning, they gain transferable skills, confidence and a sense of self-worth. we also have numerous examples from students of the profound impact of their experiences at the learning exchange. one of the consistent themes is how the concepts they hear about at the university become real when they see them enacted. for example, social work students taught in the classroom about ‘meeting people where they’re at’ have discovered what that looks like in practice, the meaning and the complexities. a graduate student in education discovered insights into her position as a participant researcher and about the difference between ‘promising practices’ and ‘best practices’. other students speak to the impact on their personal lives or career aspirations. we see many students dispirited by their university experience who re-discover their passions and motivations to learn through their learning exchanges. implications of a university-community shared space we have discovered several consequences of the fact that the learning exchange is a university space in the community, some of them unexpected. our location in the heart of the community not only provides a different learning environment to the campus, but breaks down traditional university silos. students from different disciplines who would not normally interact (including medicine, social work, economics, sociology, counseling psychology and education) are able to 80 share learning, for example, through the ‘lunch and learn’ sessions, work together on projects such as the development of an ethnodrama, and are encouraged to support each other by assisting with orientations and boundary training. graduate and undergraduate students move out of their usual hierarchical (teaching assistant – learner) relationships. because the learning exchange staff are university employees, they have the needs of students in mind and can provide a supportive environment for students who might feel uncomfortable in the neighbourhood. they are able to match students with activities or groups that provide a learning experience yet ensure that the scales do not tip too far away from the goals and interests of patrons. they are also able to support community-based experiential learning in agencies in the dtes which are stretched to provide their basic services and would not otherwise have the capacity to accommodate students. we are also able to provide support for faculty through providing space and equipment for classes and research, and connections to organizations in the dtes, for student placements and projects. we provide tours and workshops on the dtes for international programs at ubc trying to educate students about vancouver beyond the tourist perspective, for example students in a teaching english as a second language exchange program between the faculty of education and ritsumeikan university in japan. as a non-traditional learning environment we provide faculty with a place to expand their range of teaching skills with learners other than university students. similarly students from the faculty of education teacher education program are placed at the learning exchange for their community field experience course that provides beginning teachers with an enriched awareness and expanded understanding of the diverse settings in which education occurs. as a university we are seen to lend some ‘positive distance’ that government agencies, health authorities, or social service providers cannot. being part of a university means we tolerate varying points of view in the pursuit of knowledge, important in the context of an environment that has many divisions. we are able to bring people together who might not otherwise connect. boundary spanning making shared spaces work the learning exchange is both part of the dtes community and part of the university community, and aims to be a change maker in both places. learning exchange staff act as brokers between the university and community cultures. for example, the need to change the discourse at the university about the dtes, and the need to change the discourse about the university in the dtes, positions the learning exchange in the role of cultural broker, translating the interests, ways of working and cultures. our processes and policies need to be democratic, nimble, flexible, pragmatic and adaptive, in contrast to the university culture which is hierarchical and bureaucratic. the language we use in our communication needs to speak to both academic and community audiences. creating effective shared spaces requires a lot of balancing to manage the many tensions of working at the boundary between university and community. we have found a need to monitor the ratio of patrons and students so that we do not overwhelm community members and upset the delicate balance we are trying to maintain. we need to relate both to those who talk about social justice and advocacy (often in the university) and the activists (the doers in the community). we need to manage the power dynamics, and the balance between academic activity and community relationships. we need to create spaces for different ways of knowing and thinking about 81 knowledge and learning in academia and the community. we need to balance control versus messiness to create a learning environment rather than a free-for-all. we need to juggle the ongoing tension between the community rhythm and academic rhythm, between being available and open to the public while finding time for the reflection that adds the scholarly depth to our work. the future property development and gentrification, the need to increase income-generating activities, food security and environmental concerns, and other local, national and international concerns, mean that we need to continue to be responsive to the changing landscape of the dtes. in addition to adapting and sustaining our current shared spaces for learning, an increasingly important aspect of our work is to create shared spaces for research and scholarship. we believe that it is important for the learning exchange to connect community engagement to knowledge creation to normalize, institutionalize and thus sustain ubc’s commitment to the dtes. the city of vancouver recently embarked on a community-driven process to develop an area plan that has resulted in the identification of a number of priorities including improvements to well-being, places, community economic development, and arts and culture (city of vancouver, 2015). the plan also articulates a need for more shared spaces where residents are connected and engaged, including areas where neighbours can access green spaces, maker spaces and public realm spaces that include the area’s most vulnerable populations. we expect this recognition of the importance of shared spaces to lead to further opportunities for collaboration between the learning exchange, the dtes and the city of vancouver. conclusion the learning exchange offers three types of shared spaces: physical, emotional and intellectual. it provides a clean, accessible building in the heart of the inner city with a variety of spaces for the university and the community. it provides a safe and welcoming space that promotes a sense of belonging to a diverse set of users. it provides an intellectual space based on a common vision, shared values and goals that focuses on learning not service provision, encouraging the sharing of different forms knowledge, and the co-creation of new knowledge. references anon (2010). the vancouver agreement. 2020-2010 highlights. government of canada, government of british columbia, city of vancouver. retrieved from http://www.vancouveragreement.ca/wp-content/uploads/va2010_report_0810_15.pdf. bellefontaine, t. & wisener, r. (2011). the evaluation of place-based approaches: questions for further research. ottowa, on, canada: policy horizons canada, government of canada. retrieved from http://www.horizons.gc.ca/sites/default/files/publication-altformat/2011_0074_evaluationpb_e.pdf. 82 city of vancouver. (2013). downtown eastside local area profile. vancouver, bc: city of vancouver. canada. retrieved from http://vancouver.ca/files/cov/profile-dtes-local-area2013.pdf. city of vancouver. (2015). downtown eastside plan. city of vancouver, vancouver, bc, canada. retrieved from http://vancouver.ca/files/cov/downtown-eastside-plan.pdf. drucker, p. f. (1994). the age of social transformation. atlantic monthly, 274(5): 53-80. hart, a., & wolff, d. (2006). developing local ‘communities of practice’ through local community-university partnerships. planning research and practice, 21: 121-138. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02697450600901616. hasson, s., & ley, d. (1994). the downtown eastside: ‘one hundred years of struggle’. in: neighbourhood organizations and the welfare state. toronto, canada: university of toronto press, pp. 172-204. mcknight, j. (1995). the careless society: community and its counterfeits. new york, ny: basic books. mcmillan, j. (2011). what happens when the university meets the community? service learning, boundary work and boundary workers. teaching in higher education, 16(5): 553-564. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2011.580839. ostrander, s. (2004). democracy, civic participation and the university: a comparative study of civic engagement on five campuses. nonprofit and voluntary sector quarterly, 33(1): 74-93. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0899764003260588. pilarinos, a. (2015). dtes information hub survey project. retrieved from http://ledlab.ca/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/dtes-information-hub-survey-project-fullreport_branded.compressed1.pdf. torjman, s. (2006). shared space: the communities agenda. retrieved from http://www.caledoninst.org/publications/pdf/603eng.pdf. university of british columbia (2009). place and promise: the ubc plan. retrieved from http://strategicplan.ubc.ca/files/2009/11/ubc-pp-layout-aug2012.pdf. weerts, d. j., & sandmann, l. r. (2010). community engagement and boundary-spanning roles at research universities. journal of higher education, 81(6): 702-727. wenger, e. (1998). communities of practice: learning, meaning and identity. cambridge, uk: cambridge university press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511803932. woolford, a. (2001). tainted space: representations of injection drug-use and hiv/aids in vancouver's downtown eastside. bc studies, 129, 27-50. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02697450600901616 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2011.580839 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0899764003260588 http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/cbo9780511803932 83 author information *angela towle is the academic director of the ubc learning exchange. she is also an associate professor in the faculty of medicine, senior scholar in the centre for health education scholarship and co-director of patient and community partnership for education. her scholarly work has focused on the involvement of patients in the education of health professionals, including research into community-university partnerships. angela towle ubc learning exchange 612 main street vancouver, british columbia canada v6a 2v3 e-mail: angela.towle@ubc.ca telephone: 604-408-5164 fax: 604-682-6807 kathleen leahy is the managing director of the learning exchange. she has over 25 years’ experience in community development through non-traditional forms of education in montreal and vancouver, working with groups of people experiencing marginalization. these experiences of working across boundaries in community-based settings have greatly informed her community-university engagement work at the learning exchange. kathleen leahy ubc learning exchange 612 main street vancouver, british columbia canada, v6a 2v3 e-mail: kathleen.leahy@ubc.ca telephone: 604-408-5164 fax: 604-682-6807 http://www.learningexchange.ubc.ca/ *corresponding author mailto:angela.towle@ubc.ca mailto:kathleen.leahy@ubc.ca metropolitan universities vol. 28 no. 1 (winter 2017), doi: 10.18060/21471 planning for food systems: community-university partnerships for food-systems transformation jennifer whittaker, jill k. clark, sarah sangiovannni, and samina raja abstract the united nations estimates that by 2050, more than 66% of the world’s population will live in urban areas. in the face of continuing urbanization, how will communities meet the fundamental need for good food? what kinds of public policies, structures, and systems will ensure equitable and just access to food? we argue that urban universities have a responsibility and an extraordinary opportunity to help create equitable community food systems by amplifying community-led planning and policy to strengthen such systems. drawing on case studies involving the university at buffalo state university of new york system and its community partners, we describe the ways in which community-university partnerships can leverage policy change to support stronger food systems. we conclude with lessons for such partnerships: the importance of building lasting relationships for policy change, shoring up community capacity, understanding the benefits and burdens for universities and communities, and reimagining universities’ responsibilities to their regions. keywords community-university partnerships, buffalo, chautauqua, urban planning, regional planning introduction the united nations estimates that by 2050, more than 66% of the world’s population will live in urban areas (united nations, 2014). this urbanization will be accompanied by extraordinary challenges and opportunities. the impact of urbanization will be especially evident in community food systems, or the soil-to-soil network that enables food to be grown, processed, distributed, and delivered to urban residents. even today, communities’ food systems are failing to keep up with societal needs. globally, 793 million people were estimated to be chronically undernourished in 2015, with most food insecurity concentrated in developing countries (fao, ifad, & wfp, 2015). the food systems of more industrialized nations are not serving people well, either. many countries are facing the twin challenges of prevalent food insecurity and a rise in diet-related chronic disease, often concentrated in the same neighborhoods and population groups. in the united states, for example, 14% of households were estimated to be food insecure in 2014 (coleman-jensen, gregory, & singh, 2015). how will communities meet the fundamental need for good food, in the face of continuing urbanization? what kinds of public policies, structures, and systems will ensure equitable and just access to food? urban universities have the choice to purposefully engage with, react to, or remain apathetic to these questions. 8 we argue that urban universities have a responsibility and an extraordinary opportunity to help create equitable community food systems, especially by amplifying community-driven efforts to transform local government planning and policy to strengthen such systems. such deliberative food-systems planning and policy is a fairly new practice within the profession of urban and regional planning, although local governments have increasingly begun to use planning and policy to shore up food systems (raja & diao, 2016). we define food-systems planning as a set of future-oriented, place-based, and dynamic activities that strengthen a community’s food system through the creation and implementation of community plans and policies, which are often but not always recognized or led by local and regional governments (raja & whittaker, forthcoming). individuals and organizations engaged in food-systems planning identify the opportunities and challenges within communities’ food systems, gather input from stakeholders and deliberate on the best responses to challenges, and facilitate and implement actions to improve the systems. in a well-functioning system, all community residents can be food secure, farmers, food entrepreneurs, and employees can have economically secure livelihoods, and food is produced with environmentally sustainable practices (raja & whittaker, forthcoming). at its best, food-systems planning and policy processes are rooted in collaborative and diverse partnerships that span the public, civic, and private sectors (raja, hoekstra, delgado, & veenhuizen, 2016). urban universities can play an important role as partners by harnessing the integrated power of research, education, and civic engagement to shore up communities’ food-systems planning and policy processes (clark et al., 2015). many urban universities are located, and embedded as anchor institutions, in communities where the fault lines within food systems are most exposed. indeed, many are stepping up to help rebuild sustainable food systems. a recent study maps the many ways in which universities have begun to engage in the sustainable food-systems movement, through curricula, establishment of on-campus community gardens, farmers’ markets, and other activities (kameshwari pothukuchi & molnar, 2014). few of these activities, however, explicitly focus on creating, amplifying, or buttressing plans and policies that can create more equitable food systems. we argue that urban universities are well-positioned to help, and responsible for helping rebuild food systems through community-university partnerships focused on food-systems policy and planning. university support for food-systems policy and planning is especially important, because community food advocates and food entrepreneurs have neither the mandate nor the resources to pursue policy change. moreover, short-sighted policies often constrain community advocates and entrepreneurs seeking to rebuild food systems. for this reason, we argue that universities can play an important role in amplifying and supporting community-led policy processes to create more just food systems. we draw on the experiences of the university at buffalo (ub) state university of new york (suny) system and its community partners, to describe ways in which community-university partnerships can leverage policy change to support stronger food systems. ub is the largest and most comprehensive research institution within the public suny system (the state university of new york), the largest university system in the u.s., and is home to 13 schools and colleges, including suny’s only school of architecture and planning, the locus of the work described in this article. ub enrolls nearly 30,000 students in undergraduate, graduate, and professional programs (university at buffalo, the state university of new york). although numerous academic units and faculty at ub are involved in food-related scholarship, teaching, and civic 9 engagement, this paper focuses on the community-based food-systems planning and policy efforts of the school of architecture and planning. engaging in food-systems planning and policy through education the planning profession aims to create places where people can lead healthy, full lives (raja, born, & kozlowski russell, 2008). planners shape land use, housing, economic development, community development, and, increasingly, community food systems. until the early 2000s, similar to the food-blind manner in which planning was practiced, university education for planners neglected concerns about the food system. in 2004, only nine programs in the country were reported to offer a course on food-systems planning (hammer, 2004). following recent trends in communities and professional planning, university planning programs are increasingly teaching about food (greenstein, jacobson, coulson, & morales, 2015). in 2013, the authors conducted a survey of the 73 accredited planning programs in the united states, to gauge their offerings for food-systems planning education. the survey was conducted by telephone. initial phone calls were made to staff members in departmental offices. depending on the recommendations of departmental staff, follow-up calls were directed to chairs of departments, administrative professionals, planning faculty, or alternative staff members. each planning program was called up to three times. fifty-five of the 73 programs responded. findings from the 2013 survey suggest a great deal of variation in the extent to which food is being integrated into planning curriculum. representatives of twenty-two programs (40%) reported offering graduate-level, stand-alone courses on food-systems planning in the form of seminars, a sharp increase from reports by hammer (2004). thirty-three programs (60%) reported that food is included as a topic in other courses. finally, a small proportion (7.27%) reported offering studio courses, or intensive practicums, on food-systems planning (see figure 1). the department of urban and regional planning at ub is one of the few schools in the country that offers stand-alone courses and practicums on food-systems planning, and beginning in 2016-17, the department launched a formal graduate specialization in food-systems planning. at least one other program at wayne state university integrates research, education, and engagement through its seed wayne program, founded and led by a planning faculty member (pothukuchi, 2012). several other programs—including the pioneering program at uw-madison, which was among the earliest to offer coursework in the area—continue to advance food-systems planning education. despite these promising developments, food-systems planning remains far from mainstream planning education. 10 figure 1. food-systems education offerings in accredited planning programs. universities can play a key role by developing and improving food-systems planning education, especially by offering studios on community food-systems planning/policy change (mendes & nasr, 2011). planning studios, often required in planning programs, are a longstanding pedagogical tradition in the united states and globally. typically, in a high-credit-bearing course, students work in a team guided by a faculty instructor to prepare plans (or reports) in response to a real-world community problem (frank, 2006). students learn the art of planning through the process of preparing a plan for a community client. a studio is more than an opportunity to blend scientific knowledge (episteme) and technical knowhow (techne); it is an opportunity for students, faculty, and community clients to exercise the aristotelian idea of phronesis (flyvberg, 2001), or practical judgment, in response to a community problem. by co-articulating problems and co-producing knowledge and solutions, students, faculty, and community clients create a dynamic community of practice (wenger, 1998). for students, a studio is an opportunity to hone their skills as planners in a real-world context. for the faculty member, aside from presenting a rich pedagogical model, the studio is an opportunity to form or deepen relationships in the community. when related to the faculty member’s own research area, the studio can also seed lasting action-research partnerships, as illustrated in the case examples below. importantly, studios can result in research-based plans for community clients. community partners or clients can use the planning reports to guide future programs, as a basis for grant applications to implement projects, and to advocate for policy change. 11 case examples of community-university partnerships focused on planning and policy for food systems the cases presented here draw largely on the experiences of the food systems planning and healthy communities lab at the university at buffalo, whose research focuses on communityled planning and policy to reduce inequities in the food system and to facilitate healthier communities. this interdisciplinary research group, which includes the authors of this article, comprises graduate students, undergraduate students, and researchers working with the principal investigator (pi), a faculty member in the department of urban and regional planning. siemiatycki (2012) describes the multiple roles of planning scholars (and their teams), including: (a) scholar as independent outsider; (b) scholar as public planner; (c) scholar as contractor; (d) scholar as community-based planner; and (e) scholar as activist. blending these roles, the pi and the lab have a decade-long history of action-based research (greenwood & levin, 2007) on community food-systems planning and policy within the city and surrounding region of buffalo, new york, and an emerging history of working nationally and globally. we present two case studies, one of buffalo, new york, and one of chautauqua county, new york. the varied geographic locus of activities, within ub’s urban backyard and in regional rural areas, presents challenges and opportunities, which we explore. growing food policy in the city of buffalo, new york as a post-industrial great lakes city, buffalo, new york has risen and fallen as a leader in the global food system. during the 19th and early 20th centuries, buffalo was the number-one grain port in the world, host to mechanized steam-operated grain elevators that moved 300 million bushels of grain each year from the midwest onto ships that passed through the erie canal to markets on the atlantic seaboard (raja, picard, baek, & delgado, 2014). the opening of the st. lawrence seaway in 1959 rendered the canal obsolete. combined with a decline in other large industries, the city faced significant, ongoing economic decline through the end of the 20th century. today, the city’s population is 260,000, roughly half its former size. with a poverty rate of nearly 30 percent, persistently high unemployment, and a deteriorating neighborhood environment, the city has struggled to rebound. simultaneous to the drastic decline in manufacturing, the city lost a key anchor institution. in 1968, ub, the largest public university in new york state, broke ground for their secondary campus in a suburb of the city, an expansion that moved the majority of the university, including sports arenas, cultural events, research centers, and student housing, outside the city (university at buffalo the state university of new york). as a result, the university’s positive economic impact accrued largely outside the urban core. a 2007 study reports that university operations, living expenses of employees and students, and visitors’ economic contributions generate about a billion dollars to the region (university at buffalo regional institute, 2007). while suburban areas of the region thrived, the city of buffalo did not reap similar benefits. nearly 40 years later, today ub is reconsidering its role in the city by investing in its two city campuses: a downtown medical campus that will host a new medical school and an urban campus in the north of the city. this urban campus will continue to house multiple professional schools, including the 12 school of architecture and planning, which has a celebrated tradition of working in the city of buffalo (biemiller, 2015). the university has cultivated relationships with community organizations, and these partnerships integrate education, research, and civic engagement activities to strengthen food-systems planning and policy. the ub food systems planning and healthy communities lab collaborates with the massachusetts avenue project (map) and grassroots gardens of western new york, two non-profits working to rebuild and strengthen the city’s food system. established in 1992 by a coalition of residents, map formally incorporated in 2002. map’s programs, which are primarily focused on building capacity of city youth, include farm education, youth enterprise development, mobile food markets, and community education and policy outreach. through this programming, map engages and trains about 50 high-school aged youth annually. grassroots gardens western new york (ggwny), also established in 1992, enables community-led efforts to enhance quality of life through the creation and maintenance of community gardens. facilitating a growing, determined network of more than 2,000 community gardening activists tending more than 100 community gardens, ggwny empowers residents and serves as a channel for strengthening the food system. collaboration between the ub food lab and these organizations originated in the early 2000s, with conversations between ub faculty and organization staff about their shared passion for rebuilding communities’ food systems. the partnerships with these organizations have grown to include mutually reinforcing activities spanning education, research, and community engagement to effect change, including policy change, in buffalo’s food system. as is common in community-university partnerships focused on food systems (campbell, 2004), the ub food lab’s policy work often begins with educational activities to engage university students. the pi of the food lab, as part of her university teaching obligation, offers semesterlong intensive planning practicums, also called studios or workshops, during which students prepare a food-systems plan or policy report in partnership with a community client such as a not-for-profit organization or a local government agency. one of the first food-focused planning studios offered by ub was in 2003, during which students prepared food for growth, a neighborhood-scale food-system assessment and plan in partnership with map (almeida et al., 2003). the plan, which received regional and national awards from the american planning association, documents opportunities and challenges in the food system on buffalo’s west side. key strengths of food for growth are its problem formulation, analyses, and recommendations drawn from the lived experiences of neighborhood residents, experiential knowledge of map staff, and academic rigor of the ub team. map has since implemented many recommendations from food for growth, and the research has helped map to “focus its programs and resources in effective ways to address food security and advocate for systemic solutions (almeida et al., 2003).” similar courses at ub have increased students’ practical experience in food-systems planning while providing student-generated knowledge to inform local municipal planning and policy. ub’s queen city garden plan, resulting from a 2009 graduate course, complemented food for growth’s emphasis on community engagement by providing a course of action for the city of 13 buffalo’s community gardens task force. incorporating the results of intensive community visioning sessions, the queen city garden plan assessed the state of buffalo’s community gardens, evaluated legal and regulatory frameworks, and provided a comprehensive community gardening plan. most important, the goals and objectives established in the community sessions guided the plan (barton et al., 2009). the report laid the groundwork for several municipal resolutions in support of community gardening in buffalo. in erie county, which is home to the city of buffalo and additional municipalities, the countywide agriculture preservation plan was informed by room at the table (conley et al., 2011), a food assessment developed during a 2011 planning practicum on behalf of the erie county department of environment and planning and the american farmland trust. room at the table provided recommendations to strengthen the food system by rejuvenating the local farming sector while promoting residents’ health and fostering economic development. most recently, invest in fresh, developed during a 2013 planning practicum, provided guidance on promoting healthy food retail in small urban and rural areas in collaboration with a rural health network in chautauqua county, a rural county in the western new york region (attard et al., 2014). again, the requirement of participatory community visioning sessions and emphasis on residents’ lived experiences helped the studios to identify and propose food policies based on local food-systems practices and experiences. just as the ub food lab provides education for community members and organizations, the lab and the wider university have benefited from hands-on, community-based education that grounds students and faculty in food-systems planning and policy ideas that are otherwise abstract. this outside-the-classroom experience happens through numerous activities: for more than a dozen years, map and ggwny have generously hosted students from graduate classes; staff members participate as seminar speakers in courses and provide feedback on student work. purposeful interaction with food organizations’ staff inspires and motivates students and embraces a key premise of successful community-university partnerships: everyone has knowledge to teach, and everyone has something to learn (holland & gelmon, 1998). although the educational activities described thus far are essential, they alone cannot sustain food-systems policy/planning change. adoption, implementation, and evaluation of foodsystems policies and plans require a long-term horizon––sometimes more than a decade–– whereas educational activities, including intensive studios, tend to last for about a semester. therefore, educational activities must be supplemented by research and capacity-building partnerships that continually shape, implement, and evaluate local government planning and policy for stronger food systems (campbell, 2004). in buffalo, educational activities to support food-systems change are supplemented by participatory action research partnerships (greenwood & levin, 2007). for example, the ub food lab and map have partnered on an award-winning participatory action-research project that has lasted for more than 12 years (raja, picard, et al., 2014). in addition to guiding and evaluating map’s programming, the results of this participatory action research generate new scholarship on food-systems planning (raj, raja, & dukes, 2016; raja, breinlich, & kallas, 2010; raja & diao, 2016; raja, picard, et al., 2014; raja, raj, & roberts, forthcoming; raja & whittaker, forthcoming), form the basis of long-term policy change in the 14 city and region (raja, hall, et al., 2014), and serve as model for planning practice nationally (neuner, kelly, & raja, 2011; raja et al., 2008) and globally (raja et al., 2016). to make research accessible and purposeful for policy makers and planners, the ub food lab publishes short policy briefs that summarize findings from traditional research articles (whittaker & raja, 2015) and prepares briefs and plans on pressing food-systems issues in buffalo and the surrounding region. for example, as a member of the healthy kids, healthy communities-buffalo (hkhc-buffalo) coalition, which also includes the local organizations map, ggwny, and public-sector agencies, the ub food lab used buffalo-specific data to develop policy briefs focused on food systems and healthy communities (delgado, norton, & raja, 2013; neuner, gooch, & raja, 2012; neuner, hall, & raja, 2012; neuner et al., 2011; neuner & raja, 2010a, 2010b). the university led the research, while community partners selected indicators and participated in data collection, development, layout, and dissemination through trainings. resolutions and laws that support stronger food systems were developed and adopted based on this collective effort. for example, the work of the hkhc partnership led to the creation of the buffalo and erie county food policy council, the second food policy council to be legally recognized in new york state. more recently, a larger coalition that included the university developed a regional sustainability plan, one region forward, which includes a section on food (raja, hall, et al., 2014). the first regional food plan for buffalo and surrounding counties (raja et al., forthcoming), one region forward examines the broader region’s responsibility to farmers and rural producers, who are key partners in planning just urban (and rural) food systems. urban food-systems policy is most likely to be developed and implemented when it is supported by a diverse, unified, and informed community coalition (raja, picard, et al., 2014). universities are especially well equipped to prepare individuals, via timely training and education, to be policy change agents in their own neighborhoods. in buffalo, recent examples illustrate this potential. within the last five years, local and regional government agencies in the buffalo region launched multiple planning processes, including one to overhaul the city’s outdated landuse plan and zoning code, and an effort to develop a regional sustainability plan for a bi-county area; the prior land-use plan, zoning code, and regional plan were largely food blind, with little reference to the community’s food system (raja, picard, et al., 2014). a coalition of community partners and the university responded to this window of opportunity by training residents, especially youth, to bring food-systems concerns into the planning processes. for example, the ub food lab trained city youth working with map to design and conduct food assessments to inform planning processes, and these young people conducted extensive neighborhood trainings for residents on zoning and planning. the youths' assessment informs local policies, including the region’s first formal plan that includes a focus on food systems (raja, hall, et al., 2014). collective education and learning can (and should) be extended to a larger community beyond the individuals and organizations directly involved in the immediate community-university partnership. the potential for policy action is amplified when both the university and community co-organize and co-facilitate such outreach into a larger community coalition. for example, the food lab, map, ggwny, and other organization jointly hosted two buffalo food policy 15 summits, which included public lectures, seminars, and workshops held in the community and at the university. successful university-community partnerships also lay the groundwork for deeper collaboration among other university and community members (reardon, 2000). in an effort to widen and deepen partnerships on food-justice issues in buffalo, in 2016 the food lab and map cofacilitated a workshop that explored strategies by which university-community partnerships can work more effectively. attendees included pairs of university faculty and their community partners, who discussed problems in the food system as well as challenges and opportunities for addressing these problems by working together. this form of reciprocity creates more sustainable relationships between communities and universities (bloomgarden, 2013). buffalo’s experience in using planning to strengthen the food system is premised on a collaborative partnership among community members and researchers at all points in the planning/policy process. building on schon’s (1984) idea of “problem setting” before problem solving, researchers develop and articulate questions by actively listening to community concerns (schon, 1984). community residents play a role in deciding data-collection methods and are trained to gather data. by taking part in the writing of plans, policy briefs, and journal articles, community residents help to translate and disseminate research to wider audiences more effectively. importantly, community organizations in buffalo play a key role in holding accountable those involved in food-systems policy work. for example, a group of community organizations recently organized the people’s food movement, to judge the degree to which formal assessment and planning processes actually reflect residents’ aspirations. these collective actions, which are simultaneously formal and informal, civic and political, collaborative and confrontational, ensure that policies, laws, and local government actions intended to strengthen the food system adhere to community visions and are grounded in research. growing food policy outside the (urban) backyard in recent years, the ub food lab has begun to engage in supporting food-systems planning across the country via a comprehensive project that seeks to integrate food into urban, regional, and rural planning practices. the growing food connections (gfc) project (growingfoodconnections.org), which partners with cultivating healthy places, the ohio state university, american farmland trust, and the american planning association, seeks to build the capacity of local governments that aim to use planning tools to reduce food insecurity among low-resource residents, while improving the viability of smalland medium-sized farms. the project emphasizes integrated knowledge development through three key domains: research, education, and practice. thus, university partners, professional planning practitioners, and community partners concurrently learn and adapt their practices. although knowledge generation within this project is iterative across the three domains, here we focus in-depth on one portion of the gfc project—our participatory action policy research—that builds the local governments’ and community stakeholders’ capacity to use planning and policy to simultaneously improve food and farm security. the gfc research framework rests on the idea that county governments and municipalities are (and can be) prepared to use planning and policy to address their food system through actions 16 unique to their particular geography and community. indeed, many local governments already actively engage in innovative food-systems planning work, while many others are, with guidance and support, primed for change. in the gfc project, we identify these two types of communities, those actively engaged in food-systems planning and those primed for change, as communities of innovation and communities of opportunity, respectively. the gfc model (raja et al., in press) hypothesizes these two types of communities may be able to learn from each others’ experiences, to strengthen their food systems. by providing a domain for joint discussion both within and across communities and then encouraging direct action through practice, the communities of innovation and communities of opportunity are developing shared repertoires of resources and solutions. research, capacity-building, and technical support to the local governments of communities of opportunity are partially premised on observations, lessons, and challenges happening in communities of innovation. the sharing of lessons learned in our buffalo and erie county-based work to facilitate community and university engagement as well as nationwide community-to-community engagement and education has yielded rich knowledge of how universities can partner with communities in distant regions. the cyclical process of learning and sharing, seeking partnerships, building relationships, and increasing capacity has generated the lessons described below. currently, the gfc project draws on research on more than a dozen communities of innovation (raja et al., in press), which were selected, from about 300 communities nationally, for their local governments having played significant planning or policy roles in strengthening smalland medium-sized agriculture and improving food access for low-resource consumers. this knowledge development is transferred, through the participatory research actions described below, to eight new counties identified as communities of opportunity. in these counties, a thriving agricultural sector exists alongside high food insecurity (raja et al., in press). communities of opportunity were selected through rigorous quantitative and qualitative methods to identify the complex notion of a community’s opportunity for public policy change. by ranking all 3,141 counties in the united states, based on an aggregated index measuring high potential for food production and high food insecurity, the gfc team selected a subset of counties where increased capacity for policy suggested the most potential for long-term change. in addition to a county’s ranking in the index, the selection process included a significant qualitative assessment to understand communities’ readiness for engaging in collective action. eight counties across the united states were invited to participate as communities of opportunity. these are dougherty, ga; cumberland, me; douglas, ne; chautauqua, ny; polk, nc; wyandotte, ks; and dona ana and luna, both in nm. the eight selected communities represent different census regions of the country and vary along the urban-rural continuum. because summaries of the in-depth work happening in each community are beyond the scope of this article, we focus on chautauqua county, ny, a rural county where our depth and duration of experience (about four years) are more limited than in buffalo. chautauqua county was selected as a potential community of opportunity for its high ranking on the index of agricultural productivity and high food insecurity, in addition to its strong propensity for policy movement and action. the partnership with gfc was finalized when chautauqua’s political leaders committed to addressing food insecurity and farm viability through planning and policy. the 17 county’s close proximity (approximately an hour southwest of buffalo) allows further opportunities to develop deeper organic relationships. the ub food lab and partners are learning new lessons as we extend our work into a rural, agriculture-based community that displays different challenges and opportunities than those in the city of buffalo. chautauqua county has a vibrant agricultural base enhanced by its location along the shore of lake erie, which affords a relatively warm microclimate ideal for fruit production. the county, which includes two small cities and numerous small towns, is home to 1,515 farms, the second highest number in the state of new york. the majority of the county’s farms are smalland midsized and face viability challenges resulting from a changing agricultural industry, an increase in principal farm operators, labor shortages, and lack of regional infrastructure to support smallscale diversified production. food insecurity is high among seniors, minority populations, and low-income families, but strong social stigma toward social safety-net programs has resulted in underutilization of snap, tanf, and similarly designed programs. chautauqua county’s government supports the efforts of healthcare organizations, civic organizations, and private enterprises to support and protect their valuable agricultural assets and to provide opportunities to increase food security (whittaker & raja, 2016). the gfc project is not the first time that ub has worked on food policy in chautauqua county. modeled on the ub food lab’s relationship with the buffalo-based massachusetts avenue project, an educational component (the planning practicum) served as an initial university investment that laid the groundwork for the ub food lab and chautauqua county organizations to come together. invest in fresh, studio work on establishing healthy food retail in jamestown (completed in 2013 for the chautauqua county health network), provided baseline datacollection and relationship-building opportunities. when chautauqua county representatives nominated their county to be a gfc community of opportunity, the pre-established connection (in addition to their ranking on the index) allowed planning work to proceed at a quicker pace than in other communities of opportunity. the gfc team prepares local governments in communities of opportunity to engage in foodsystem policy efforts through capacity-building activities that vary based on pre-existing local government capacity. for example, at the beginning of the project, the team conducted day-long intensive workshops for community representatives at the american planning association national conference. these workshops exposed community of opportunity representatives to food-systems planning practices unfolding in other places and provided opportunities for professional development and networking. in addition to providing opportunities for capacitybuilding outside the community, two-day visioning workshops in each community laid the groundwork for the creation of steering committees. recognizing diverse values and experiences, gfc organized workshops in each location based on principles of equitable civic engagement. these workshops prepared steering-committee members and local government officials to consider how their policy work affects diverse populations. frequent webinars conducted by food-systems planning practitioners provide learning opportunities across communities of innovation and communities of opportunity. such capacity-building opportunities are especially meaningful for governments and organizations with scant resources for food planning. 18 working across multiple communities with varying geographies, resources, and histories presents challenges in integrating teaching, research, and engagement. the different timelines of communities, universities, and funders intensify these challenges. drawing on our experiences, we share a few lessons. challenges and lessons for urban universities’ engagement in food-systems planning and policy shape the end from the beginning effective engagement in food-systems planning requires relationships that can endure for the time required for the ideation, development, and implementation of food policies and plans. how relationships in the planning process are seeded is crucial to their success and sustainability. as noted, the relationship between the ub food lab and community organizations began with conversations among faculty and staff about shared interests in food and community development, and was strengthened through the launch of the first formal food-planning studio. in both buffalo and chautauqua county, the studio set the stage for rich, long-term relationships, forming an ongoing community of practice (wenger, 1998). when communities have limited or no opportunity to partner on a studio, the lab and its partners seek to work when there is an explicit invitation from the community. without being embedded in or invited by a community, universities have limited ability to support food policy/planning over time. yet, being outside a community may also allow a university partner to perceive challenges or shortcomings that would be otherwise hidden to an insider. build capacity for planning process before preparing a plan cultivating community-university partnerships for food-systems policy change is a timeintensive process that requires a deep, long-term investment to foster trust (raja, picard, et al., 2014), particularly if universities’ and communities’ interests do not always align. overcoming this misalignment requires robust groundwork, sustained effort, and a focus on mutual benefits (clark et al., 2015). universities can help to translate community desire for specific outcomes (e.g., community food security) into a policy agenda. furthermore, providing the right tools to empower a community to lead a policy and planning process themselves rather than having universities lead processes or agendas for a community, requires the development of skills, capacity, and understanding. such an undertaking cannot be rushed. to this end, helping communities learn to lead or engage in a planning process, rather than to prepare a plan, may be more crucial in the long run. recognize benefits and burdens for communities for community organizations, working with university partners on food-systems policy is an opportunity to amplify their work. such partnerships also afford professional development, especially for organizations and individuals from smaller communities. nonetheless, engaging with universities can be burdensome, and community partners have been exploited in such partnerships (niewolny et al., 2012). furthermore, as noted above, community organizations typically do not have a funded mandate to engage in long-term food-policy work. to make the 19 most of such a partnership and achieve transformational change, community partners’ short-term and long-term missions (e.g., fighting food insecurity) must align with the university partners’ policy/planning goals (e.g., policy change for food insecurity) (kecskes & foster, 2013). additionally, community organizations are a source of local knowledge (scott, 1998) yet are rarely recognized for their expertise (niewolny, et al., 2012). to address this problem, the ub food lab invites community partners to be co-authors of published works, whenever possible. recognize benefits and burdens for universities engaging in planning/policy efforts to shore up food systems is unquestionably rewarding for faculty and students. universities benefit by having a positive societal impact on the knottiest of problems. students are inspired by working on issues that matter in communities. engaging in these planning/policy efforts, however, places a burden on university constituents, especially early-career faculty. early-career, tenure-track faculty are penalized because engaging in foodsystems planning requires significant time (mendes et al., 2011). furthermore, as many earlycareer faculty members have discovered, civic engagement in food-planning processes or development of food-systems plans, with no attendant or subsequent journal publications, is typically not recognized as peer-reviewed scholarship during tenure review. urban university leaders can help to overcome institutional barriers (whitmer et al., 2010) by reformulating tenure guidelines that consider the development, passage, and implementation of food-systems policies and plans as civic scholarship. to be sure, these policies must be vetted through peer review in much the same way as traditional scholarship, but failure to recognize the development of foodsystems plan/policies as a valued outcome for early-career faculty will continue to undermine the translation of knowledge for societal good. moreover, it is challenging for university faculty to engage in food-systems scholarship and civic engagement because these activities often transcend academic units. fortunately, the leadership at ub offers significant support, at multiple levels, to support food-systems scholarship, education, and engagement. for instance, in 2015, the university made a multimillion dollar investment to create transdisciplinary university-wide centers, one of which, the community of global health equity, explicitly supports a focus on food equity globally (university at buffalo the state university of new york, 2015). without flexible funding and vision and commitment from university leadership, long-term faculty engagement in food-systems policy and planning is difficult if not impossible. reimagine responsibility in terms of a larger region food systems are rarely contained within an urban or rural area. urban areas provide markets for rural communities, and rural communities are often sources of food and natural amenities for urban areas. in western new york, for example, stronger food-systems linkages between the city of buffalo and chautauqua county could serve to strengthen the region as a whole. the false conceptual divide between urban and rural areas hinders the development of policy ideas that support an integrated regional foodscape. therefore, food-systems planning efforts require linking with and investing in regions across the rural and urban continuum. thus far, however, the predominant discourse in food-systems planning and policy draws attention to planning 20 innovations in resource-rich urban areas such as seattle, portland, and madison, while overlooking possibilities in rural areas and in small cities (bedore, 2012). as anchor institutions, urban universities also reach well beyond the confines of the city boundaries in which they are located. it is well documented, for example, that universities are key actors in their regional economies (drucker & goldstein, 2007). universities shape the rules and trajectories of regional economic and social outcomes (gertler, 2010). from a practical standpoint, universities are also key actors in the food system. these institutions purchase food; generate food waste; employ food-system workers; feed students, faculty, and staff; and if they are land-grant universities, they likely have farms in the region. using the region as a frame for action (kloppenburg, hendrickson, & stevenson, 1996), urban universities have the ability and, indeed, the responsibility to transcend boundaries. working across communities, universities can help regional partners to envision just, equitable community food systems, and support regional transformations. conclusion planning and policy to strengthen community food systems is a fairly new idea for u.s. communities and their local governments. many communities, including post-industrial cities and rural areas, often do not have the resources to engage in planning efforts for food systems. these same communities are also home to food-justice organizations that 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(1998). communities of practice: learning, meaning, and identity. new york, ny: cambridge university press. whitmer, a., ogden, l., lawton, j., sturner, p., groffman, p. m., schneider, l., . . . killilea, m. (2010). the engaged university: providing a platform for research that transforms society. frontiers in ecology and the environment, 8(6), 314-321. https://doi.org/10.1890/090241 whittaker, j., & raja, s. (2015). how food policy emerges: research suggests community-led practice shapes policy. in s. raja (ed.), translating research for policy series: growing food connections. buffalo, ny: university at buffalo. whittaker, j., & raja, s. (2016). bridging divides: opportunities for connecting farmers and underserved consumers in chautauqua county, new york. in s. raja (ed.), exploring stories of opportunity. buffalo, new york: growing food connections, university at buffalo. author information jennifer whittaker is a research associate with the food systems planning and healthy communities lab at the university at buffalo, suny. she conducts research on the role of local government policy and planning in facilitating sustainable food systems and healthy communities in rural america, as part of the federally funded growing food connections project. prior to joining the food lab, jenny served as the program and outreach coordinator for grassroots gardens wny. jennifer r. whittaker department of urban and regional planning university at buffalo 233 a hayes hall buffalo, ny 14214 e-mail: jrwhitta@buffalo.edu telephone: 716-829-5571 jill k. clark, ph.d., is an assistant professor in the john glenn college of public affairs at the ohio state university. her research focuses on agrifood system policy and practice, centering on community and state governance of food systems, the policy process, and community engagement. she is active in the ohio network of food policy councils, the johns hopkins food policy network, and the centre for sustainable food systems. she is also a co-investigator of the growing food connections project. jill k. clark john glenn college of public affairs http://www.buffalo.edu/provost/signature-initiatives/communities-of-excellence.html http://www.buffalo.edu/provost/signature-initiatives/communities-of-excellence.html mailto:jrwhitta@buffalo.edu 26 the ohio state university 210n page hall columbus, oh e-mail: clark.1099@osu.edu telephone: 614-292-2548 sarah sangiovanni is a graduate of the master of urban planning program at the university at buffalo, suny, where she also served as a research assistant for the growing food connections project in the food systems planning and healthy communities lab. she is currently a doctoral student in clark university’s graduate school of geography, where she focuses on the areas of nature-society relations, urban geography, and urban political ecology. sarah sangiovannni the graduate school of geography clark university 950 main street worcester, ma, 01610 e-mail: ssangiovanni@clarku.edu telephone: 631-576-6178 samina raja, ph.d., is an associate professor of urban and regional planning and an adjunct associate professor of community health and health behavior at the university at buffalo, suny. her research, teaching, and civic service focus on the role of planning in building equitable food systems and healthy communities. she is the principle investigator at the food systems planning and healthy communities lab and the principal investigator of the growing food connections project. samina raja (corresponding author) department of urban and regional planning university at buffalo 233 c hayes hall buffalo, ny 14214 e-mail: sraja@buffalo.edu telephone: 716-829-5881 mailto:clark.1099@osu.edu mailto:ssangiovanni@clarku.edu mailto:sraja@buffalo.edu metropolitan universities vol. 29 no. 2 (may 2018), doi: 10.18060/21770 it’s not about “us”: express newark prioritizing the public good victor davson, anne schaper englot, chantal fischzang, tamara fleming, and nick kline abstract publically engaged scholarship demands new ways of working within and outside of the academy. systems within the university reward faculty for individual achievements. this approach militates against working on collaborative projects because of the difficulty of explaining and quantifying one’s contribution. the culture of academia further inhibits potential collaborations and undermines even the most altruistic faculty, who are socialized to devalue the experiential, place-based knowledge of a community partner and encouraged to adopt a self-concept as “the” authority. but if universities are to honor their commitment to the public good, the public must be prioritized in the academic value system, which ought to encourage new modes of thinking that recognize the legitimacy of the expertise of community partners and place value on collaboration with them. from the community perspective, there is often a lack of models for successful collaboration, with engagement by universities more often than not taking the form of exercising eminent domain or parachuting in to “fix” a problem and then abandoning the community. community members carry with them skepticism that the university’s only use is as a source of hand-outs rather than a source of the kind of agency afforded by true collaboration. keywords: community engagement; arts and culture; faculty roles and rewards; anchor institution; social design; third space introduction in this article, we examine two questions: first, what role can university leaders play in supporting faculty who are interested in publicly engaged scholarship and building trusting relationships with community members? secondly, what role can university leaders play in supporting community members who are interested in publicly engaged scholarship and building trusting relationships with faculty? in examining how express newark came into being and how it weaves into each of our stories, we hope to provide insight and offer alternative perspectives on seeding a college culture of social practice and social justice through the arts in an authentic university-community collaboration. our work each day involves breaking down resistance to culture change; creating comfort with collaboration; and building a structure within and without the university that supports these goals. 75 each of the authors, anne schaper englot, victor davson, nick kline, tamara fleming, and chantal fischzang, play an integral role in the telling of this story. schaper englot, the university co-director of express newark, sets up the what, where, how, when of the project. davson, the community co-director of express newark situates the project within its historical context of the university/community relationship. kline describes his practice as an artist and how he worked to achieve tenure as construction of express newark and his project the shine portrait studio was nearing completion. he describes how, as a young assistant professor, he was told not to pursue a social practice because it could not be quantified on form b. fleming, a community partner in shine portrait studio, describes her experience shaping shine with nick, and their collaborators and community partners, colleen gutwein and tinetta bell; and fischzang describes the changing tide at rutgers university–newark where her journey towards tenure and promotion takes place within a changing environment, where the institution recognizes the value of engaged scholarship. this change affords her the latitude to create a fluidity between her teaching, her design practice, and her work in the community. this is not to say that publicly engaged scholarship is not a risk for a young professor. while the promises have long been promoted by the likes of eminent scholars such as the late ernest boyer, the perils are also equally well-documented by committed scholars such as sarena d. seifer, kristine wong, sherril b. gelmon, and miriam lederer, who wrote that “…faculty roles are changing, but the faculty promotion and tenure system has not kept pace. for a number of reasons, promotion and tenure issues are a significant barrier to the full range of communityengaged scholarship (ces) in which faculty link their research, teaching, and service with communities (bialek 2000; nyden·2003; institute of medicine 1995; gelman and agrekippenhan 2002; seifer 2003; huber 1999). express newark, a third space—schaper englot express newark is a third space—an arts center and incubator, where the university and the community come together with equal voice. we begin the story here, because without an understanding of the term “third space”, and the framework it provides, the story would be incomplete. a third space is best described as a space “…of interaction, where established and often unequal relationships of power and expertise can be shifted to acknowledge what each member of the partnership brings to the table” (cantor, englot, p., higgins, 2013). the foundational concept was to co-create express newark with artists and arts organizations in newark so that ownership was truly shared. third space theory originated in the work of homi bhaba, and developed further in the work of other post colonialists and cultural geographers such as paul routledge. it delineates the native’s first or home space and the colonizer’s imported second space. third space is a kind of hybridconsciousness where the colonized can retain aspects of native/first self, while assimilating the useful technology of the second space. bhaba’s primary concern is the articulation of this concept, and its manifestation in text. routledge, on the other hand uses the third space as a guide to applied research in the form of activism or publicly engaged scholarship. 76 we recognize bhaba’s original proposition and take as our project the exploration of the third space’s potential to open the doors of the university, when codified in physical space. these two approaches may be understood in terms of a theory/praxis distinction. the distinction grows deeper in the work of our colleague paul jargowsky, who has written about the architecture of segregation (jargowsky, 2018). similarly, the work of susan sturm, who has written about the architecture of inclusion (sturm, 2006), inspires her readers to move beyond a conceptual or geographic definition of third space, and to imagine how to break down brick and mortar barriers to the equal access. the importance of this work cannot be emphasized enough, when every day brings to light new scholarship that uncovers the depth of structural racism in america (rothstein, 2017). urban public universities cannot fulfill our public mission unless we learn to invite in all our citizens and learn from their experience. we must share our cultural resources, grow from the meeting of our minds and hearts, and provide access to higher education so that we can work alongside people in our cities. we believe that in order to create lasting change, we need to enact what nancy cantor and peter englot have called for: building “real civil infrastructure” in order to “build long lasting collaborations and trust…key to promoting the social infrastructure collaboration that came from commitment to shared space and discussion.” this necessarily involves “faculty and students but, just as importantly, professional staff nurturing this ecosystem and keeping it going by feeding new people into new projects all the time.” (cantor, n., and englot, p. 2015, p.77) therefore, architectural space is not just a catalyst, but it is essential to enacting the third space. this is what we have defined as creative placemaking, with academic artists in dialogue with newark artists and community partners trying to think through the process of how to create a literal third space, an architectural third space. now that express newark is open, we are focused not just on opening the academic project to accommodate our activist agenda, but on creating a radical paradigm where the process of disruption is in fact the project. we bring (what the academy would consider) outsider knowledge in so that we can benefit from a wide-angle lens on the work, which is to question, present, and represent the world. in other words, we are interested in the disruption of the traditional academic project in order to effect transformational change. in our art/knowledge production, we must continually rethink systems, so that the art/knowledge collaboration we create keeps the third space at the center. the process is in fact the goal, not just a vehicle for enacting artwork or scholarship. bringing express newark back to bhaba, university and community members engage in the messy project of collaboration, engaging in difficult dialogues, expressing our different knowledge and histories. we are not likely to reinforce each other’s assumptions, so our perspectives broaden and our knowledge becomes enriched. in so doing, we subvert the presentation, reification and dissemination of theoretical (read colonial) art/knowledge to create a more democratic society. the faculty and staff of rutgers university–newark built a tradition of engaged scholarship over decades of work in the city. in fact, this was one of the things that attracted nancy cantor to accept the position of chancellor in 2014. thus, it was not surprising when the strategic 77 planning process—which was highly consultative including visits to each department, town halls, charrette groups comprised of faculty, staff, alumni, students, and community members— yielded a goal of being a university that was of newark, not just in newark. over and over again, the notion arose that the university could not fulfill its public mission if it remained cut off from its city. while it was important to acknowledge and build on successful engagement work, there was still much effort needed to break down remaining barriers, especially those that were created during the unrest of the 1960s (more on that later). for our story, two key interactions occurred during the listening tour. chancellor cantor was presented with a plan by the interdisciplinary department of arts, culture and media (acm) to create a space in downtown newark to house their social practice. the initial proposal was envisioned by three people. professor nick kline, a photographer interested in portraiture had partnered with local photographers to embed students in the community as social agents who worked with newark residents to create self-representations of their unique stories. the university’s paul robeson art galleries under the leadership of anonda bell, chief curator and director, had the employment of newark artists a core commitment. not only did the gallery have a tradition of showing local artists, but they also trained local artists to be artist educators who were paid to design programs and workshops based on the gallery exhibits, which were delivered to diverse audiences of school children, senior citizens, the differently abled and offsite for the incarcerated. finally, ned drew, professor of graphic design led a project called the design consortium, where faculty and students worked together in a design studio to realize branding and graphic identity for not-for-profits in the city. the proposal imagined a space for engagement outside the ivory tower of bradley hall, where the arts were housed, the space would be in the downtown where engaged scholarship, where their social practice could live. concurrently, chancellor cantor and her team were consulting the important anchor institutions in newark. prudential corporation—an anchor founded over 150 years ago which had stayed in the city of newark when other companies were fleeing to the suburbs—approached the university with a proposal for rutgers-newark to be a partner in the redevelopment of the hahne & company building. hahne’s was a turn-of-the-century department store, which had been boarded up with plywood for over thirty years. many attempts had been made over the years to redevelop the beautiful brick and limestone structure, but finally the right team was in charge, and with the signing of whole foods as the first anchor tenant, the project was poised to become a multipurpose building with retail and commercial tenants as well as 160 apartments at both market and affordable rates. in order to balance the equation, another anchor tenant was needed before the banks would release the next round of funding. schaper englot came to ru-n as what is known in the academy by the unflattering term: a “trailing spouse.” previously, she had achieved the rank of full professor in the state university of new york, at a small ag & tech college where she taught for 18 years and served as a department chair and elected faculty leader. she landed in rutgers-newark’s acm department to teach architectural history in the art history program, initially as a tenure track a professor without tenure, but with the potential to apply for tenure. she started as a participant in the development of express newark, and ended as co-director owing to her professional background in architecture, her experience as an academic leader, including having developed several degree programs and overseen the construction of an academic building, and the administration’s 78 confidence in her understanding of the goals of enhancing engaged scholarship embedded in the strategic plan. this has come at a cost, however, as she has had to set aside a book project that is important for tenure, so the dean recommended her appointment be changed to a professor of practice where the co-directorship is her area of practice. express newark, a university–community collaboratory, was born. the project hired architects, who completed a visioning document in august of 2014. the university’s strategic plan includes a summary of this vision. it was unveiled in september, then in october chancellor cantor presented the plan and the visioning document to the board of governors. the board of governors approved $25 million in capital funds for the development of express newark and the rest is history. it is safe to say that never in the history of the university has any project proceeded with such expediency. the “express” in express newark is not meant to connote “fast” but rather the idea of the city expressing its soul, but in terms of the speed with which the project was realized, it is apt. express newark is one of the key initiatives undertaken by ru-n as anchor institution work in the arts and culture and it is embedded in the strategic plan. it was made possible because the university allocated resources to support a rich educational experience for students, to support faculty and staff that have been engaging the community as part of their practice, and to support the city’s arts ecosystem. why this important, why is it needed? in order to answer these questions, we need to step back and examine the context dating back to 1960s when newark became a majority black city—the architecture of exclusion was palatable. contextualizing the university-community relationship—davson though the university's administration had overtly stated that the campus was a public space and everyone from the neighborhood was welcome, it is hard to imagine that local residents actually felt that way. everyone agrees from the outset the university's architecture was not conceived with the surrounding community in mind. below the observation deck that once connected conklin and boyden halls at the entrance to the new campus, for example, one can see the darkened passageway that ushers the visitor from the street, up the stairs, to a place of light and higher learning. instead there existed a real psychological—and physical—gate, enforced by police, then from the late 1970s, through campus security. (giloi, e., personal communication, october 7, 2017) davson joined the express newark team as a consultant. he is an artist and the founding director of the locally and nationally celebrated center for contemporary art, aljira, which he had run for over thirty years. in that time, he developed his skills in organizational development and management through participation in many well-known training programs, including the executive education program at the getty center. davson set the standard for leaders of small to midsize arts organizations in the city. he also witnessed the evolving relationship between rutgers university–newark and the surrounding community. like rutgers university–newark, the primary concern of the city’s anchor institutions tended to be oriented towards their own rather than the community’s interests. davson recalls an anecdote where sam miller, a revered past director of the newark museum, famously said, “the newark 79 museum is a great museum—it’s a pity it’s in newark”. throughout the 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s the attitude of the rutgers university–newark arts faculty in the newark arts scene remained ambivalent at best. they came to newark to teach and then returned to their practice in new york. they viewed the local scene as parochial and were in turn viewed with suspicion by newarkers. one exception was the director of the paul robeson gallery, alison weld, a predecessor of anonda bell. ms. weld curated a show of davson’s work in 1988 along with the work of artists mel edwards, bill traylor, and norman lewis. notwithstanding such isolated conciliatory gestures, the university remained, essentially, inwardly focused and hostile, especially towards black men. this is not a surprise, considering that the university seemed not at all concerned about blacks (nor the puerto-ricans/hispanics and portuguese for that matter) who made up 85% of the central ward where the newark campus was built. at that time, blacks were definitely the largest demographic in newark, making up 34% of newark’s population. italians and jews were around 20% of newark’s population at that time but they did not live in the central ward "...the university really had its eyes on other demographics, and not at all on blacks living in the neighborhood that was used for the campus." in 1967, only 1% of the student body (across all three rutgers campuses) was black. the low enrollment of blacks created a sense of mounting frustration in the community and on campus. in 1969 the situation came to a head with the takeover of conklin hall by ru-n’s black organization of students. the administration resolved to do better and as a result, but in 1969, that number had risen only to 3%. small but significant gains, including the hiring of black faculty, continued. (giloi, e., personal communication, october 7, 2017) today the student body is among the most diverse in the nation (u.s. news and world report, 2017), with black students numbering around 18%. the progress is real. however, with 35% of the population still living below the poverty line, and the college attainment rate at close to 18% the city is still very much in recovery mode from the 60s. many newark residents have yet to benefit from the current renaissance in development of projects, such as the hahne & company building. davson sees express newark as a direct response to this history of exclusion, and as a countermeasure that puts university resources to the purpose of the community. practice, presentation and perception—kline at the 2007 cumu conference nick kline’s presentation included a digital montage of a portrait photography studio occupying an empty storefront in newark, nj. shown for the first time, this was to be the cover image of a proposal to the rutgers university–newark administration, ps newark. portrait studio newark proposed a pop-up photography studio that brought students, off-campus, into deeper engagement with people in the city. kline didn’t know that during his presentation, rutgers provost steven diner was in attendance, and afterward offered a storefront space that the university owned as a possible site for the project. as it turned out there were three empty storefronts available, so kline initiated relationships with the director of the campus art gallery and a professor of graphic design for site-specific projects. while these proposals never took off at this location, they became a foundation of express newark. 80 kline’s practice as an artist includes photography, installation, artists’ books, and socially engaged art. as michael henderson points out, “under a variety of names, ‘social sculpture,’ ‘socially engaged art,’ ‘collaborative arts,’ ‘new genre public art,’ or ‘social practice,’ has become a prominent form in the twenty-first century.” (henderson, p. 98) kline’s art practice builds on artists work, such as joseph beuys, the german artist who “...developed a theory of social sculpture, “centered on the belief that the concept of art could include the entire ‘process of living’—thoughts, actions, dialogue, as well as objects—and therefore could be enacted by a wide range of people beyond artists” (jordan, 2013, p. 145 quoted in henderson, p. 98) kline’s work is rooted in portraiture that bears witness to the spirit of place, people and trauma. it addresses the personal and communal impact of loss and the power of resilience. kline’s work in portraiture is both literal and conceptual, some of it is exhibited in art galleries while other works are utilized as advocacy in human service contexts, or in educational settings such as public libraries. his extensive and productive practice and significant exhibit record, comprised the portfolio needed for kline to achieve tenure last year. he was among the group of academics across the country who had to achieve tenure despite, not because of his engaged artistic practice/scholarship. this is not surprising as tim eatman and julie ellison, leaders of imagining america, artists and scholars in public life, found when they studied this issue in 2008. eatman and ellison state: “…tenure and promotion policies lag behind public scholarly and creative work and discourage faculty from doing it. disturbingly, our interviews revealed a strong sense that pursuing academic public engagement is viewed as an unorthodox and risky early career option for faculty of color.” (eatman, ellison, p. iv). for these reasons, their groundbreaking study, and the recommendations they provide, have become a road map for working toward creating tenure and promotion policies that will fairly value engaged scholarship and social practice. further analysis has been undertaken by a variety of groups including the coalition for urban and metropolitan universities which in 2016 devoted an entire issue of metropolitan universities journal. of particular relevance is claire cavallaro’s “recognizing engaged scholarship in faculty reward structures: challenges and progress” which begins with boyer, and builds upon eatman and ellison then draws upon subsequent work by saltmarsh, sandmann, giles and others to describe the present landscape. also of interest is lisa krissoff boehm and linda s. larrivee’s article on mentoring junior faculty. there, the authors discuss the key role played by deans at their university who are deeply connected to the community and can therefore facilitating and encourage this work. embedded reappointment, tenure and promotion policies that facilitate and encourage publicly engaged work have been established at a number of institutions including syracuse university. at rutgers university–newark, the work has begun. solicited by the deans offices, each department has convened working groups that have defined quality engaged scholarship and social practice and have listed criteria so that it can be recognized. these definitions and criteria are under review by the appropriate university committee. this is the first step toward creating policy that we hope will become institutionalized. in addition, a new office of pedagogy, professional development and publicly engaged scholarship (p3) has been created to support graduate student and faculty development. this work will only continue as initiatives like p3 and 81 the honors living and learning community (hllc) develop further. this last is a residential community focused on “local citizenship in a global world” whose inaugural dean is tim eatman. kline is deeply connected to the work of hllc and p3 and co-taught courses under its rubric based on his artwork in which he investigates odd or unexpected subjects such as: (a) a photography series of people sleeping in their cars; or (b) the prevalence of men wearing striped shirts in disaster scenes as depicted by photojournalists; (c) an installation in which he striped an entire former church by flipping over sets of white boards, revealing the brown cedar color underneath; or (d) a collaborative project of books made of glass. the work guides the viewer to reconcile seemingly ordinary objects or situations with socially-charged contexts, and in doing so to engage that viewer in a conversation about difficult topics. in some cases, like the glassbook project, or shine portrait studio, kline’s “hand” as the artist isn’t present. with shine, he collaboratively created a portrait photography studio based in downtown newark, nj, that reimagines the tradition of local “main street” studios as a new and hybrid educational and community“owned” facility. davson, accurately related kline’s intentions for shine when he stated: “this portrait studio builds on the legacy of an emancipated population empowered to construct its own identity and document its own history... and is rooted in the history of newark and the struggle of the african american community to construct its own identity.” this project imagines a space that attempts to counteract the negative narratives told about newark from the media and non-residents. it demands that kline’s artistic gesture is one of facilitation, creating structures of access, and deeply held cooperative spirit with the community. in the field of contemporary art, social engagement is a common genre. it is embraced by many artists as a means of expression. in many cases, artists embrace it to be more direct in impacting change in the world. some artists act from a sense of frustration that mere representation of political, social, and other injustices, in the photographic sense, is not adequate or urgent enough. socially-engaged art is progressive, and frequently lives and functions within a public sphere or context that is far removed from the art gallery context. while embraced by the art world, kline met resistance to this art form from within academia, while on a tenure-track. the message from a dean was clear: pursue traditional gallery exhibitions, awards and critical reviews, and if this collaborative type work is submitted it wouldn’t be considered for tenure. the standard form 1b had not accommodation for this type of work. as a result, kline pursued a dual track of both traditional exhibitions as well as engaged work. during his tenure-track process, the rutgers university–newark administration changed and kline found increasing support. actually, there was an urgency for this type of work from the newly appointed chancellor nancy cantor, who kline credits for guiding his thinking toward equity and co-building with community partners. as such kline’s initial proposal shifted from the students doing for people in newark, to creating a badly needed resource. at the core mission of shine is a working portrait photography studio that facilitates and supports the expression and self-representation of the newark, new jersey community. it is a cutting-edge photography studio with state-of-the-art equipment and technical support free to use for newark-based artists, photographers, stylists, fashion designers, entrepreneurs, and the entire creative community. 82 kline was awarded two course releases to run shine, and he was allocated equipment and program funds to support the collective work he and his community partners were undertaking. community partnership development—fleming tamara fleming is a long-time resident and small business owner in newark. she is a portrait and lifestyle photographer for corporations, non-profits and small business owners. she prides herself in providing real and relevant images that companies need to reach their target audience. in 2007, under a company she co-founded called firsteye mediaworks (dba femworks), she launched her business in the heart of newark nj and spent many years working with the community to create an impact and change the perception of the city. fleming works with women and young girls, using the camera as a vehicle to work through areas such as self-esteem, body image, self-confidence including a focus on community. her program, expozher: personal development through photography, has been implemented in africa and haiti, immediately following the 2010 earthquake which killed over 200,000. she has also for many years captured visual stories of the lgbt community. one exhibit, entitled “newark leaders: the lgbtiq portrait project” was launched during the kick-off of rutgers “queer newark oral history project” in 2012. the exhibit was a way to see and hear the struggles, passions and unwavering commitment of the lgbtiq community in newark. a featured participant of the exhibit, rodney gilbert, founder of yendor productions, was quoted saying “it wasn’t initially through my sexuality, but my experiences as an african-american male that subconsciously affected me as i discovered coping mechanisms to build my self-esteem. in my adult years, those experiences regarding race in america and abroad became parallel with my sexuality.” (gilbert, r., november, 2012) during the presentation at cumu, fleming shared a story of her donating her services to support a local organization. in the presentation, she showed a slide featuring a behind-the-scenes clip of a recent photo shoot. fleming was contacted by a newark-based non-profit called “eyes like mine”. this non-profit provides services to individuals who are visually impaired. the organization’s founder needed professional photos to support the marketing and branding of its annual event, “dancing with the blind”. in the behind-the-scenes (bts) clip, the mayor of newark (who performed in the show), was captured practicing his dance moves with his dance partner during the photo shoot. fleming, along with colleen gutwein and tinetta bell, were all hand-picked, highly recommended community partners who worked with nick kline to shape the space and programming for shine over the course of more than a year. in frequent meetings around the development of shine, they discussed the program’s purpose and how it supports the chancellor’s strategic plan. community partners are in place to ensure that the newark community will reap the benefits of having a state-of-the-art studio in its backyard. during the planning session, wearing hard hats while walking through the shell of this historic building, the group would share options, thoughts and concerns about the development, knowing that their viewpoint would be heard and considered. 83 the building is complete. already a great many powerful collaborations and projects have been created by artists who use the space for both professional, personal and artistic goals. community partners and the public have access to space, equipment and technical support, as well as access to a growing network of artists, who range from the novice to the expert. the community partners are confident that upcoming programming will inspire the community and bring new artists into the spectrum. to date, shine has hosted a multitude of artists. newark fashion designer, marco hall has held photo shoots in the studio to the photography. dr. deborah willis has curated a major photography exhibit of deeply engaged work. fleming feels her work & contribution as a community partner will provide better opportunities for building authentic and sustainable relationships with the community and the university. practice + teaching + service = scholarship—fischzang like kline & fleming, through her teaching practice at rutgers university–newark and especially in express newark, chantal fischzang has been able to pursue co-building and social engagement through her practice and teaching. she arrived at ru-n in the fall of 2012, right after completing her masters at pratt institute in communications design. first hired as a nontenure track assistant professor, after her first review, she transitioned to the tenure track and she anticipates applying for tenure in 2022. she focused her thesis on ways to define the design practice through a social lens; a new approach to design—social design. social design, as fischzang describes it, breeds a new type of designer; one who functions with aptitudes formulated beyond formal training. it can be better understood as an approach to life. former aiga & winterhouse institute president william drenttel, in his forward for andrew shea’s designing for social change, describes the activity as “inherently pragmatic and resultsoriented, simultaneously humble and ambitious, and fundamentally optimistic and forwardlooking.” (shea, drenttel, p. 06-07). andrew blauvelt, former director of graduate studies and chair of the graphic design department at the college of design in north carolina state university, explains the concept further, in his article “towards relational design,” published in the design observer. the designer of today must become an enabler and catalyst of action/experience/thinking/feeling inspiring action through open-ended platforms of participation. he also acknowledges that the audience member (of today), in turn, is “a social being, one who is exhaustively data-mined and geo-demographically profiled,” (blauvelt, 2008) and is the vessel, as fischzang concludes, that should guide our problem-solving process and solution seeking direction. in the years since the completion of her thesis, chantal fischzang continued to dedicate her work to the notion of social design, involving her clients, audiences, partners & students, into cobuilding design solutions in both her professional practice and her academic career at ru-n. she integrated human-centered design (hcd) principles into her practice and teaching. hcd is a holistic approach that infuses the design process with both empirical and empathic research, untraditional field-work, and experimentation to understand people’s behaviors. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/north_carolina_state_university 84 the hcd model is predominately employed and put forward by stanford university’s d.school, and adapted into a business model called design thinking, by professor david m. kelley,founder of the prominent design consultancy firm ideo. it allows designers to articulate the problem as well as a solution, through combining creative principles with sociological fundamentals, in order to design deliverables that satisfy a people-first work ethic. the mission of design thinking, as expressed by kelley’s partner and ideo’s ceo tim brown in his book change by design, is “to translate observations into insights and insights into products and services that will improve lives.” (brown, p. 49) through this type of practice fischzang has engaged in projects that improved her designmaking and education practice. not only did these projects raise public awareness of social justice and environmental responsibility through design, but through the projects she has strategically explored the way those topics, values and methods can be applied in her classroom. practice one of the most important aspects of fischzang’s professional development has been the collaborative process. human-centered design processes tend to be more effective when corroborated by a collaborative dialogue. this linkage between socially engaged design and collaborative practice has become more and more relevant in recent years. bruce mau, a key innovator in the realm for social change through design, has stated in his book massive change, that “design is the human capacity to plan and produce desired outcomes.” that planning and production of outcomes is better founded and more democratic when it is informed by a collaborative and/or participatory process with the audience. he also states that collaboration is necessary because “the space between people working together is filled with conflict, friction, strife, exhilaration, delight, and vast creative potential.” highly charged social issues are best addressed in design through a process of thoughtful exchange among designers and experts from other fields. cited by stephen j. eskilson in his book graphic design, a new history, in a section about the new “citizen designer,” mau proposes “a new commitment to cross-pollination and collaboration…” (eskilson, p. 417), as a model for cultural transformation. collaborative design practice with a human-centered approach is how fischzang defines her journey towards tenure and promotion. for the past five years, fischzang’s work has been mostly collaborative. fischzang is co-founder of intracollaborative (intra), a partnership of 5 practicing designers and educator that came together based on a strongly shared belief in design as an agent of change and they continually look for ways to extend the principles of their academic pursuits into local environments and communities, working jointly to unravel complex issues and develop design materials aimed at social education and reform. with intra, she has worked on various publicly funded and pro bono projects around nyc. through this work, as well as part of other collaborations, fischzang has received various design https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1?ie=utf8&text=stephen+j.+eskilson&search-alias=books&field-author=stephen+j.+eskilson&sort=relevancerank 85 awards, grants and has exhibited her work at the cooper hewitt smithsonian design museum. practice + teaching + service at ru-n, fischzang found a clear intersection and productive exchange between her career focus, her role in the classroom and her service to the community, through service learning. therefore, she continued to investigate ways in which social contexts can be applied to the fundamentals of graphic design: image, word and message-making through different mediums. in class, as it is in the practice of design, the process is as important as the final solution. fischzang asks her students to stress the relevance of how their process has allowed them to discover what the result is going to be as opposed to working towards a pre-established outcome. ultimately, this prepares students to find a way to align their future clients’ goals with their own responsibility towards the audience. in 2007, katherine mccoy, co-chair of the graduate design program for cranbrook academy of art, and best known as one of the apostles of postmodernism and new wave in communications design, was also cited by eskilson in his citizen designer segment. she condemns the fact that many design programs have trained students to suppose that “political and social concerns are either extraneous to our work, or inappropriate.” in her essay rethinking modernism, revising functionalism, she further points out that “deeper concerns” that shape her design work and philosophy, are “the audience’s interpretation and participation in the construction of meaning.” (mccoy, p. 49) encouragingly for fischzang, her experience bringing in these concepts, has been well-received at ru-n’s arts, culture and media department, where fischzang’s teaching has served as a platform to apply her practice. since her arrival, her intention has been to reshape design education by ensuring that students understand the significance of context in their work as well as the way formal, conceptual and theoretical aspects are applied. based on aiga’s designer of 2025 report, design students must be prepared to consolidate the demands of multiple stakeholders, while assessing the impact of their work on socio-cultural environments. emily gosling, senior editor for aiga’s eye on design, writes “what that essentially boils down to is accountability: designers now more than ever need to justify their research and outcomes, and be aware of potential issues around representation, interpretation, and dissemination of products and images.” (gosling, 2017) consequently, fischzang has worked to define how social design proves to share an inherit connection between design practice, teaching, and community engagement. she has further explored this relationship by applying these notions to senior courses and the content for the student’s bfa portfolio exhibition. her system has involved design thinking as a methodology that focuses on a human-centered approach to design-making and empathy as a strategy for students to understand how people feel to move them through their work. for instance, a student who was in the process of defining her capstone project—the content for her exhibition—was suffering from anxiety to the point where she was paralyzed and could not produce. she was visiting the campus counseling center and they encouraged her to continue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/cranbrook_academy_of_art https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/cranbrook_academy_of_art 86 working without having to define the work. fischzang and the student defined this process as “mindless making.” fischzang advised the student to make use of this experience and create promotional materials for the counseling center by employing the same approach/effect. as a result, the student created a campaign called relief project which involved a series of posters that engaged the audience into the physicality of the poster, to participate in the making of it and contribute to its meaning. as the audience (students) participating in threading, coloring and a tearing (reductive collage) of the posters, they actively covered the word “anxiety,” and all that was left was the word “relief.” practice plus teaching plus service equals scholarship chantal fischzang considers herself “a beneficiary of a new environment at ru-n that recognizes the value of this [publicly engaged] pursuit.” professor ned drew, the director of the design program at the acm department, and one of the spearheads of the initial conception of express newark, drew both fischzang and their colleague, jennifer bernstein, assistant professor of design, into building a framework for service-learning their partnership sought to create a program that could engage design students with the newark community. together they cofounded two partner programs at express newark: the design consortium & visual means. these programs are part of the acm department’s graphic design curriculum. they are design courses that function as design studios where graphic design students, partake in real-world problems and offer design solutions for community organizations, researchers, activists and educational institutions in newark and beyond. the design consortium’s inaugural project at express newark was the express newark identity system. this is a project exemplifies the complete dynamics of their collaborative process clients become their partners and students and faculty work together as a team. the express newark branding process immersed the design consortium into four semesters of identity development, in which faculty took turns to tackle specific components of the project during each semester. fischzang and bernstein first offered a collaborative brainstorming workshop where all stakeholders (faculty, staff, students and community members) contributed to the initial concepts for the identity. the next phase involved establishing a visual concept through branding, led by jennifer bernstein. the following semester, ned drew’s class refined the logomark concepts and extended them into a cohesive brand system including a robust brand guideline publication and an initial phase of the building's signage that was later fully addressed by bernstein’s second term in the process. later, fischzang led her class into applying the brand system into marketing extensions such as stationery, custom merchandize, communication materials, social media implementation and participatory executions, including elements for the en opening that allowed for the public to engage in a reflection of the en identity. fischzang and kline were part of a faculty committee that wrote the criteria for tenure committees to review engaged scholarship. fischzang will be the first faculty member in the acm department to test this new definition. through express newark, the university is embracing and defining community engaged scholarship by supporting faculty, like kline and fischzang, to make use of the arts to communicate with/for/about the community. 87 conclusion in a very real sense, express newark is a fulfillment of the university’s public mission. university leaders at rutgers universities–newark have played an essential role in supporting faculty who are interested in publicly engaged scholarship through a number of key efforts. for the faculty in the arts the investment in building express newark at a site that was outside the footprint of the university, and in a public building, was perhaps the most definitive. in the addition to the custom-built space, the chancellor’s office funds an operating budget for the project which pays for programing and staffing. members of the leadership team have partnered with faculty and community members in fundraising and grant writing. the express newark team is continually brought in to talk at important events with key stakeholders in education such as the anchor institution task force, donors, alumni, and the middle states commission. the dean’s office and the hr office have worked extensively with us to imagine structuring positions in a way that supports our work, and at the same time that works for community artists who work as teachings artists, preparators, and gallery attendants. the legal and procurement arms of the university have worked with us to imagine new forms of contracts that are appropriate for artist residencies of varying lengths. in this way, they are supporting community members who are interested in collaborating with faculty to produce publicly engaged scholarship and building trusting relationships with the university. a key part of building trust between the university and the community was to hire a community codirector, a key step in assuring the community that the university was serious about creating equitable and meaningful partnerships. when davson first joined the team, he was engaged to provide a reality check for the project. specifically, he matched the goals with outcomes and perceptions. he was to write a report, which would culminate in a mission statement for express newark. davson’s report was undertaken with bell and schaper englot assessing the capacity of local arts organizations who might be potential community partners in express newark. as the research for the report progressed it became clear that in order for express newark to be believed as a third space by the newark arts community, the partnership would need to extend to the leadership. as co-director davson has a direct impact on ensuring equity is more than an abstraction at express newark. one of the most significant aspects of the project is that the university is transferring wealth and agency and in doing so, shifting power to members of the community who understand how to most effectively deploy those resources. davson has been hired for an extended period to serve as the co-director of express newark and is a true partner in personnel and programing decisions that shape the budget. each and every day he and schaper englot engage in meeting with community artists, activists and organizations who wish to create programing and partnerships in express newark. they also meet with faculty and students to discuss future projects and the strategic direction of different initiatives. in a short period of time express newark has developed into a vital part of the arts ecosystem awarding sub-grants, honoraria, and stipends to artists-in-residence, employing artists as cultural workers teaching, curating, administering projects. daily we collectively work to fulfill the promise of our mission statement. express newark is a conceptual framework and an interdisciplinary learning space where artists and community residents collaborate, experiment, and innovate in partnership with rutgers university–newark faculty, staff, and students to engage in creative practice, foster democratic dialogue, and promote positive transformation. 88 references aiga educators, (2017, august 21). aiga designer 2025: why design education should pay attention to trends. retrieved from https://educators.aiga.org/wpcontent/uploads/2017/08/designer-2025-summary.pdf bhaba, h. (2006/3). le tiers-espace: entretiens avec jonathan rutherford. multitudes, 3(3) 95107. http://doi.org/10.3917/mult.026/0095 blauvelt, a. (2008, march 3). towards relational design. design observer. retrieved from https://designobserver.com/feature/towards-relational-design/7557/ boyte, h. (2009). civic agency and the cult of the expert. dayton, ohio: the kettering foundation. brown, tim. (2009). change by design. new york, new york. harper business. cantor, n., englot, p., & higgins, m. (2013). making the work of anchor institutions stick: building coalitions and collective expertise. journal of higher education outreach and engagement, 17(3), 17-46. retrieved from http://openjournals.libs.uga.edu/index.php/jheoe/article/view/1036 cavallaro, c. (2016). recognizing engaged scholarship in faculty reward structures: challenges and progress. metropolitan universities journal 27 (2) p. 2-5. retrieved from https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/muj/article/view/21228 https://doi.org/10.18060/21122 dewey, j. (1916). democracy and education: an introduction to the philosophy of education. new york, new york: the macmillan company. eatman, t. k., & ellison, j. (2008). scholarship in public: knowledge creation and tenure policy in the engaged university a resource on promotion and tenure in the arts, humanities, and design. imagining america: artists and scholars in public life tenure team initiative on public scholarship. retrieved from http://imaginingamerica.org/wpcontent/uploads/2015/07/scholarshipinpublicknowledge.pdf eskilson, s. (2007). graphic design: a new history. new haven. yale up. p. 417. gilbert, r., (november, 2012). personal communication with tamara fleming, november, 2012. giloi, e. (2017, october 7). newark rhythms project, personal communication with victor davson. giloi, e. (2018). newark rhythms. newark: express newark press. https://doi.org/10.18060/21122 89 gosling, e. (2017, october 25). what will a designer + their job look like in 2025? aiga, eye on design. retrieved from https://eyeondesign.aiga.org/what-will-a-design-job-in2025-look-like/ gilbert, r., (november 2012). personal communication with tamara fleming, november, 2012. giloi, e. (2017, october 7). newark rhythms project, personal communication with victor davson. giloi, e. (2018). newark rhythms. newark: express newark press. jargowsky, p. (2015). the architecture of segregation: civil unrest, the concentration of poverty, and public policy. washington, d.c.: the century foundation. mau, b. (2004). massive change. london. phaidon. mccoy, k. (1994). rethinking modernism, revising functionalism. in bierut, m., drenttel, w, heller, s. & holland, d.k. (eds.), (pp. 49-50). looking closer: critical writings on graphic design. new york: allworth press. rothstein, r. (2017). the color of law: a forgotten history of how our government segregated america. new york, new york: liveright publishing corporation. routledge, p. (1996). “the third space as critical engagement,” antipode, 28:4, p.399-419. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8330.1996.tb00533.x seifer, s.d., wong, k., gelmon, s.b., and lederer, m. (2009). “the community-engaged scholarship forhealth collaborative: a national change initiative focused on faculty roles and rewards,” metropolitan universities journal, 20(2), 5-21. shea, a. drenttel, w. (2012) forward. designing for social change. new york, new york. princeton architectural press. pp. 6-7. sturm, s. (2006). the architecture of inclusion: advancing workplace equity in higher education. harvard journal of law and gender, 29(2), 247-344. retrieved from http://harvardjlg.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/sturm.pdf u.s. news and world report. (2017, september 11). campus ethnic diversity–national universities. retrieved from https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/nationaluniversities/campus-ethnic-diversity https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8330.1996.tb00533.x 90 author information victor davson, is co-director of express newark; founding director, aljira, a center for contemporary art. a graduate of pratt institute, davson has had a successful decades long art practice and a thriving gallery which has contributed to the careers of many under-represented artists and curators including frank bowling, carrie moyer and okwui enwezor. davson holds a bfa from pratt institute and has done advanced study at nyu and the getty center. (victor.davson@rutgers.edu) chantal fischzang is an assistant professor of design at rutgers university–newark and a director of the design consortium and visual means. fischzang holds an mfa from pratt institute in communications design. (cf360@newark.rutgers.edu) tamara fleming is a photographer and a founding community partner of shine portrait studio as well as an entrepreneur and owner of tamara fleming photography she was also co-founder of firsteye mediaworks (dba femworks) a marketing communications firm in newark, nj. (info@tamaraflemingphotography.com) nick kline is an associate professor of photography at rutgers university–newark and is the founding director of shine portrait studio as well as an artist with an international exhibition record. kline holds an mfa from cranbrook academy. (domkline@newark.rutgers.edu) *anne schaper englot is co-director of express newark and professor of practice of architecture and humanities at rutgers university–newark. schaper englot holds an m.arch and ph.d. from syracuse university. (anne.englot@rutgers.edu) all authors can be reached at this address: express newark 54 halsey st. newark, nj 07102 848-445-0544 * corresponding author it’s not about “us”: express newark prioritizing the public good abstract publically engaged scholarship demands new ways of working within and outside of the academy. introduction express newark, a third space—schaper englot contextualizing the university-community relationship—davson community partnership development—fleming practice + teaching + service = scholarship—fischzang conclusion references aiga educators, (2017, august 21). aiga designer 2025: why design education should pay attention to trends. retrieved from https://educators.aiga.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/designer-2025-summary.pdf 39tbhaba, h. (2006/3). le tiers-espace: entretiens avec jonathan rutherford. multitudes, 3(3) 95-107. http://doi.org/10.3917/mult.026/0095 39tblauvelt, a. (2008, march 3). towards relational design. design observer. retrieved from 39thttps://designobserver.com/feature/towards-relational-design/7557/ 39tgilbert, r., (november, 2012). personal communication with tamara fleming, november, 2012. gilbert, r., (november 2012). personal communication with tamara fleming, november, 2012. metropolitan universities vol. 28 no. 3 (summer 2017), doi: 10.18060/21539 why peer mentoring is an effective approach for promoting college student success peter j. collier, phd abstract both hierarchical (e.g. student-faculty member or student-adviser) and peer (e.g. student-student) mentoring are recognized as best-practice strategies for promoting college student success. formal mentoring programs utilizing both approaches can be found on many campuses. in the current institutional context of scarce or stagnant resources, college and university presidents and administrators face the challenge of determining which mix of programs to support even though little comparative research on the effectiveness of these approaches exists. this article examines three characteristics of a peer mentoring approach that encourage its greater use. the first two characteristics, cost and the availability of a larger number of potential mentors, relate to concerns about the efficient use of resources. the third characteristic, development of a common perspective, relates to questions concerning the relative effectiveness of different mentoring approaches. peer mentors and mentees are more likely than participants in hierarchical mentoring relationships to share a common perspective with regards to how they understand and enact the college student role. differences in perspective impact the process of student identity acquisition, perceived mentor credibility, and the likelihood of mentees following their mentors’ advice. higher education researchers are urged to conduct studies exploring the relative effectiveness of both approaches and how to best combine approaches in complimentary ways to help administrators make informed decisions. keywords perspective, retention, modeling, credibility, identity introduction within higher education mentoring is increasingly seen as a high impact strategy for promoting student success. while the nature of college student mentoring relationships may vary depending upon who provides mentoring support and institutional context, the fundamental goal is to help students stay in school and complete their degrees in a timely manner. what is mentoring? according to the national academy of sciences: “mentoring occurs when a senior person or mentor provides information, advice, and emotional support to a junior person or student over a period of time” (as cited in lev, kolassa, & bakken, 2010). the mentor is typically older and definitely more experienced in the institutional/ organizational context, and draws upon her experience to guide and support the mentee’s efforts to advance within that same context. within 10 higher education, several different forms of mentoring are used to facilitate student success. mentors can be more experienced peers, faculty members, support staff, and/or alumni. kram (1983, p. 617-8) developed a dual function modeling of mentoring that distinguishes between career functions (e.g. coaching, sponsorship, exposure-and-visibility) and psychosocial functions (e.g. role modeling, counseling, acceptance-and-confirmation). while kram’s initial work focused on mentoring within business contexts, there is support for the dual function model within the higher education literature on mentoring (crisp & cruz, 2009; schunk & usher, 2013). for college students, career development can be thought of as academic support and includes mentors promoting academic success and facilitating mentees’ efforts to complete their degrees. role modeling is an important aspect of psychosocial support (brown, davis, & mcclendon, 1999; davidson & foster-johnson 2001). mentors help less experienced students better understand the college student role (palmer, hunt, neal & wuetherick, 2015) and how to use that knowledge to achieve important goals such as completing their degrees (collier, 2015, p. 37-8). hierarchical and peer mentoring hierarchical mentoring for college students involves individuals from two different social positions, such as faculty member–student, adviser–student, or counselor–student. this is similar to a mentoring relationship in a business context where a senior manager mentors a junior staff person. although kram’s (1983) original work in mentoring research focused on hierarchical mentoring, her later research identified how mentoring functions are slightly modified in peer relationships (kram & isabella, 1985). peer mentoring describes a relationship where a more experienced student helps a less experienced student improve overall academic performance and provides advice, support, and knowledge to the mentee (colvin & ashman 2010). unlike hierarchical mentoring, peer mentoring matches mentors and mentees who are roughly equal in age and power for task and psychosocial support (angelique, kyle, & taylor, 2002; terrion & leonard, 2007). although a peer mentor may or may not be older than the mentee, there is a considerable difference in each one’s level of college experience. benefits of mentoring undergraduate students both hierarchical and peer mentoring have been shown to positively impact traditional indicators of college student success such as average gpa, credits earned, and retention (campbell & campbell, 2007, pp. 137, 143; colvin & ashman, 2010, p. 128). in addition, researchers have established that both approaches facilitate new students’ adjustment to campus (pascarella & terenzini, 2005; ruthkosky & castano, 2007) and increase students’ satisfaction with their universities (tenenbaum, crosby, & gliner, 2001, p. 326; ferrari, 2004, p. 303). despite the evidence of the positive impact of mentoring, there has been little research done comparing the relative effectiveness of hierarchical and peer mentoring. for a new-to-college undergraduate student experiencing the confusing adjustment to college, the outcomes derived from a mentoring relationship are more important than the mentor’s social 11 position. on the most basic level, the mentee is a pragmatist. she is grateful if mentoring can help her succeed and make sense out of the new and complicated university reality. the student does not care if the mentoring support comes from a student professional, a faculty member, or a student peer. however colleges and universities cannot afford to be quite so pragmatic. many schools incorporate multiple forms of mentoring as part of a coordinated effort to better support students. while they know that mentoring is effective for promoting college student success, they also need to be concerned with issues of efficiency, e.g. how easy or difficult will it be to set up specific programs and what levels of resources will be required? the next section examines several characteristics of peer mentoring relationships that make this approach attractive for colleges and universities trying to support students and promote retention and graduation. advantages of a peer mentoring approach there are three relevant advantages of utilizing a peer mentoring approach: cost, availability of a relatively larger number of potential mentors, and increased likelihood of mentees following mentors’ advice due to sharing a common perspective. cost there are certain core aspects of developing and implementing a program that must be budgeted for, regardless of which mentoring approach is used. these include: • staffing: salaries of workers who will coordinate and supervise the program, • program space: costs associated with physical space including furniture and computers, • information technology (it): development and maintenance costs associated with on-line delivery of mentoring (e.g. on-line resource libraries, discussion groups), the creation of program website or facebook page. • mentee recruitment: cost of outreach to potential mentees (e.g. postage, printing informational materials and applications), costs associated with initial meetings and mentee orientation, printing costs associated with mentee program materials. • recruitment and training of mentors: cost of outreach to potential mentors ,costs of delivering mentor training including the preparation and printing/copying of relevant materials, food and beverages (typically lunch plus morning and afternoon beverages), printing costs associated with mentor handbooks. • general program administration: costs associated with telephones, copying, office supplies, printer including print supplies, program completion certificates, developing program database. • mentee program activities: costs associated with attending on-campus sports and cultural events, catering costs for any social events that bring together program mentors and mentees. • evaluation: costs associated with data collection (e.g. printing forms), storage of evaluation data, and analysis. on-line mentoring programs will need to budget additional it resources for evaluation. (collier, 2015, pp. 102-3) 12 peer mentoring programs typically are less expensive then than hierarchical mentoring programs that use faculty or staff mentors for the same purpose (cerna, platania, & fong, 2012). in the current institutional context of increased benefit costs for full-time employees, peer mentors represent a cost-effective way colleges and universities to meet educational goals and address retention issues (minor, 2007 primarily due to differences in mentor compensation costs. schools can generate savings by compensating peer mentors with a variety of resources (e.g. stipends, credits, textbook scholarships) that mentors value but that still are much less costly than full-time employee salaries and benefits. minor (2007, p. 65) suggests that colleges looking to develop cost-effective peer mentoring compensation strategies should consult with mentors about which resources are more valuable to them in addition to working with offices of academic affairs to creatively use existing resources like course credits. availability of potential mentors a second relative advantage of employing a peer mentoring approach has to do with the availability of a larger number of potential mentors. on any college or university campus, there are relatively greater numbers of experienced students potentially available to serve as peer mentors than available faculty members and staff. this has nothing to do with differences in their respective levels of commitment to helping students succeed at college. instead, faculty and staff members must address multiple job demands that in many cases limit their availability to participate in formal mentoring programs. however just because large numbers of experienced students/potential mentors are present on college campuses does not guarantee these students will chose to participate in peer mentoring programs. motivation is an important consideration. many peer mentors report they initially got involved in peer mentoring programs out of a desire to give back to other students and return the support they received when they were trying to make the adjustment to college (bunting, dye, pinnegar & robinson, 2012). effectiveness the third relative advantage of employing a peer mentoring approach has to do with the development of a common perspective with regards to understanding and enacting the college student role. peer mentors and mentees are more likely to share the same perspective with regards to how they understand and enact the college student role than participants in hierarchical mentoring relationships. differences in perspective impact the process of student identity acquisition, perceived mentor credibility, and the likelihood of mentees following their mentors’ advice. “perspective” is defined by collin’s english dictionary as, “a specific point of view in understanding or judging things or events especially one that shows them in their true relations to one another” (2015). the shared student-peer mentor perspective on how to appropriately enact the college student role is based in the difference in how role identities develop in peer and hierarchical mentoring relationships. development of a college student identity. success in higher education is not simply a matter of students demonstrating their academic abilities. students transitioning to the university from high school, community colleges, or even other different educational systems, must all learn a new 13 role or a new version of the role, college student. individuals develop an associated identity when they internalize an understanding of role and use it to direct thinking, acting and interacting with others (stryker, 1968; burke, 1991). for college students this involves efforts to understand instructors' expectations and effectively apply their own academic skills to those expectations (collier & morgan, 2008). both hierarchical and peer mentors promote college success by helping new students learn the college student role. one way roles are learned is through interactions with others in complementary roles. for students this typically means interacting with faculty members or advisers in hierarchical mentoring relationships. in these interactions, students gets information from faculty members or advisers about how they think the student role should be enacted. students then try to live up to those expectations. the other way roles are learned is through role modeling. in a peer mentoring relationship, new students first watch more experienced student mentors use role-related knowledge in the form of problem solving scripts to deal with a range of college adjustment issues. mentees are then provided with opportunities to practice enacting the role themselves while receiving feedback from mentors to further refine their performances. hierarchical mentoring of undergraduate students does not involve role modeling. a faculty mentor is not modeling the college student role when sharing ideas with an undergraduate student mentee on how the student should study for an exam to earn a good grade. instead, what is happening is that the mentor is sharing knowledge of faculty members’ expectations of undergraduate students. the faculty mentor is not a student, yet the mentor is sharing an understanding of the standard that faculty use to judge the quality of their interactions with undergraduate students. clearly this is very useful information and serves as evidence of the mentor’s relatively higher level of expertise. mentees who can turn this information about expectations concerning their behavior in one class into effective interactions with other faculty members have a better chance of college success (collier & morgan, 2008). with peer mentoring, the situation is different. compared to the complementary faculty and undergraduate student roles of a hierarchical mentoring relationship, with peer mentoring only one role is involved. the mentor and mentee both share a common identity and a common perspective on how to best enact the college student role. beyond shaping understandings of things and events, perspective impacts the meanings a person assigns to the actions and motivations of both one’s self and others. differences in perspective affect how mentees interpret mentors’ motivation. credibility. differences in student identity acquisition in mentoring relationships, specifically whether role modeling does or does not occur, may have an impact on mentees’ interpretation of mentors’ actions. how mentees interpret mentors’ motivation for their action has an effect on perceived mentor credibility. the social-psychological concept of credibility is a useful frame for understanding why peer mentoring may be relatively more effective than hierarchical mentoring for supporting college 14 students. the person who sends a message is called the message source. mentors are message sources. a message source’s credibility is a critical element in the process of persuasion (pornpitakan, 2004). credibility is made up of two components, expertise and trustworthiness. expertise refers to the source’s degree of knowledge of factual information associated with the issue in question; trustworthiness refers to the degree to which the source is perceived as being likely to accurately share this related factual information (hovland, janis, & kelley, 1953). the source’s perceived self-interest influences the relative importance of trustworthiness and expertise (mcginnies,& ward, 1980). imagine you are receiving information from someone who is trying to convince you of the superiority of one type of computer versus another. from your perspective, when the source is a computer salesman who has a great deal to gain if you are persuaded, then even though the salesman has expertise, it is much more important for you to find someone you consider trustworthy. if, on the other hand, when the source is a friend who has nothing to gain from your compliance, then your friend’s relative level of computer expertise takes on a greater importance. on the other hand, your friend might be trustworthy, but if that friend doesn’t know much about computers you are unlikely to be persuaded by his or her recommendation. there is a credibility-related issue that may arise in hierarchical mentoring relationships. when a mentee is not sure of the mentor’s motivation for sharing information, that mentee might discount some of the potential benefit of the mentor’s shared expertise. in a hierarchical mentoring relationship, the undergraduate student mentee is being asked to accept the mentor’s advice because of the mentor’s acknowledged higher level of expertise. the mentor is viewed as knowing what’s best for the student, like a manager knows what’s best for a new employee, or a parent is knows what’s best for a child. however, since the mentor is obviously not a student it may be unclear to the mentee whether the mentor’s expertise-based advice is based on the mentor’s past experiences as a student or based on how the world appears to work from the perspective of the mentor’s current role as a faculty member or student affairs professional. the mentor clearly has expertise, but when credibility is considered, the key question becomes, ‘is the mentor trustworthy?’ for a new-to-campus college student, it may not be clear why the hierarchical mentor is taking the time to help; maybe helping is just part of the faculty member or staff person’s job. the student may not be completely clear on what to expect from someone in a faculty member or staff mentor role because of a lack of familiarity with those roles. with peer mentoring, the situation is not the same due to a difference in role relationships. compared to the complementary faculty and undergraduate student roles of a hierarchical mentoring relationship, with peer mentoring only one role is involved. both the mentor and mentee share the college student role. in this case there no longer is an issue with the mentee struggling to understand the mentor’s motivation. the peer mentor is seen as trustworthy because the peer mentor is a college student, the same as the mentee. the mentor’s motivation for helping is assumed to be the same as the mentee imagines he would experience when he helped another student; one student helps another because they are in the same boat. even if the mentee knows the mentor is being compensated for participating in the mentoring relationship, the near-peer nature of the mentor-mentee relationship causes the mentor to be seen as more similar to the mentee than faculty members or staff. in a peer mentoring relationship, the goal is assisting the mentee in becoming more expert in a role she and her mentor already share. 15 the peer mentor has a high level of expertise, based on previous success in enacting the mentee’s current role because she is already an upper division college student. the mentor models the role of a successful college student by sharing her knowledge of faculty members’ expectation for students, along with time-tested personal strategies that the mentor has used in successfully meeting those expectations. the peer mentor is seen as highly credible. the mentor’s expertise and relatively greater level of trustworthiness provides an unambiguous message to the mentee that following the suggested strategies will most likely lead to mentee success because these strategies have clearly worked in the past. this is how the development of a shared common perspective on how to enact the college student role between the mentee and her peer mentor. therefore, because role modeling is present in peer mentoring relationships but not in hierarchical ones, and importance of similarity on trustworthiness and credibility, peer mentoring may be relatively more effective in mentoring undergraduate students due to student mentees’ perceptions of peer mentors as being more credible. mentees’ interpretation of mentor motivation affects perceived mentor credibility that in turn affects how likely a student is to follow her mentor’s advice. mentees who follow their mentors advice are more likely to be successful, so sharing a common perspective about how to enact the college student role seems to be associated with student success within higher education. however because there is no research that directly compares perceptions of credibility for hierarchical and peer mentors with the same populations of students, the argument that peer mentors may be viewed as more credible by mentees remains a hypothesis. conclusions this article explored three characteristics of peer mentoring relationships that make this a viable approach for promoting college student success. two of these characteristics have to do with issues of efficiency: cost and the availability of a greater number of potential mentors. the third has to do with \ effectiveness: how differences in how role identities are acquired and whether a common perspective develops, impact perceived mentor credibility and the likelihood of a mentee actually following her mentor’s recommendations. both hierarchical and peer mentoring are effective approaches for promoting college student success. both types of programs can be found on many campuses. as colleges and universities look to build upon their current efforts to facilitate student success through mentoring support, it will become increasingly important to pay attention to issues of effectiveness and efficiency. higher education researchers can assist institutional players make informed decisions by conducting studies that explore the relative effectiveness of both approaches or how to best combine approaches in complimentary ways. 16 references angelique, h., kyle, k. & taylor, e. 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(1968). identity salience and role performance: the relevance of symbolic interaction theory for family research. journal of marriage and the family, 558-564. https://doi.org/10.2307/349494 tenenbaum, h. r., crosby, f. j., & gliner, m. d. (2001). mentoring relationships in graduate school. journal of vocational behavior, 59(3), 326-341. https://doi.org/10.1006/jvbe.2001.1804 terrion, j., and d. leonard. (2007). a taxonomy of the characteristics of student peer mentors in higher education: findings from a literature review. mentoring & tutoring 15: 149–64. https://doi.org/10.1080/13611260601086311 https://doi.org/10.2307/349494 https://doi.org/10.1006/jvbe.2001.1804 https://doi.org/10.1080/13611260601086311 19 author information peter j. collier is the director/principal investigator of dr. peter j. collier consulting, a research shop that provides design and evaluation support for college student mentoring programs. dr. collier has extensive experience in developing and implementing peer-mentoring programs targeting first-generation, international and other under-represented group college students. his most recent book is developing effective student peer mentoring programs: a practioner’s guide to program design, delivery, evaluation and training, published by stylus press, sterling, va. peter j. collier, phd professor emeritus sociology department portland state university 1721 sw broadway suite 217 portland, or 97207 email: cfpc@pdx.edu telephone: 503-975-8818 mailto:cfpc@pdx.edu copyright © 2016 metropolitan universities vol. 27 no. 2 (summer 2016), 7-18, doi: 10.18060/21123 promoting a culture of engaged scholarship and mentoring junior faculty in the reappointment, tenure, and promotion process at a ‘teaching first’ university lisa krissoff boehm and linda s. larrivee abstract this paper analyzes the processes and outcomes involved with mentoring junior faculty in the reappointment, promotion, and tenure (rpt) process at a comprehensive state university and creating a culture supportive of engaged research. although the university in this case study is governed by a collective bargaining agreement that prohibits the development of new written policies on rpt, the deans and other academic leaders can promote significant change through cultural means. the article will examine: the place of engaged scholarship within the reappointment, tenure, and promotion processes of the university; the university’s commitment to a cross-institutional research approach; the mentoring of faculty conducting innovative community projects; the university’s recent strategic plan initiative funding of collaborative cross-college and community projects; partnership with the city of worcester’s department of public health on applied scholarship related to five domains of public health currently established as the focus of efforts by the city and the region; and the innovative cityspeak devised theater project. at this state university, strong leadership helped support a deepening culture of engaged teaching and scholarship and helped faculty negotiate the road of rpt. introduction mentoring junior faculty in scholarship and research and its place in the reappointment, promotion, and tenure (rpt) process at a comprehensive state university with a tightly-held and long-term focus on teaching can be a challenge, especially when faculty members must also teach twelve credits each semester, advise students, and provide service to their departments and to the university. worcester state university’s (wsu) faculty is governed by a faculty union and a collective bargaining agreement (cba) that provides a basis for calculating workload as well as an outline of tenure and promotion review requirements. this cba governs all nine of the institutions within the state university system in massachusetts and is periodically updated. because wsu relies on this cba, and local faculty and administrators cannot alter the language of rpt, local deans who support engaged scholarship and teaching must assert leadership in fostering this culture and must continually mentor faculty who take on this type of work. the deans must mindfully mentor within the bounds of the cba, which would even preclude direct education of the promotion and tenure committees on best practices for engaged scholarship, or guidelines on how such work can be assessed. wsu has a strong history of local, urban leadership and now seeks to be a model for other institutions and a champion of local and regional partnerships. but it must make strides to promote engaged scholarship culturally rather than via direct policy change. cultural change, as other assert, is the most important aspect of the move of institutional support of engaged scholarship (eckel, 1998). wsu, established in 1874, has a lengthy history of interaction with its urban community, having begun as a normal school educating teachers for the area’s public school system in 1874. the commonwealth of massachusetts first established the institution as the worcester normal school in 1874, with the express purpose of preparing educators for public schools within the community. as the city’s population grew rapidly following the civil war, the institution faced climbing enrollments. during the depths of the great depression, the normal school became worcester state teacher’s college and moved to its current location in the leafy, residential western corner of the city. the residential setting can be challenging in 8 that transportation is now more vital for continued engagement within the city’s central business district. new commitments to a college consortium bus system (wsu is a member of heccma, the twelve member higher education consortium of central massachusetts), will help ease this problem. in 1963, the teacher’s college adopted a liberal arts and sciences focus, and the word “teachers” was removed from the college’s official name. due to its many graduate programs and offerings, worcester state college became worcester state university in 2010 (http://www.worcester.edu/our-history/). changes in institutional perception stemming from the 2010 adoption of university status came rather rapidly. long-term faculty worried that added pressures to publish would follow. would the rpt process be drastically changed via administrative fiat? because the cba governed all aspects of the process, no drastic, one-way change could occur. however, the real impetus for greater focus on research came from the faculty members themselves. with regular retirements and a growth in the faculty numbers, the majority of faculty members were recent hires. given the current reduction of the size of ph.d. classes in many fields, highly qualified candidates with strong teaching and research portfolios applied for teaching positions at the university. the faculty wanted to work on their scholarship in addition to teaching, and to have their research count strongly in the rpt process. the cba structure entails that faculty going up for rpt be assessed on teaching, advising, research, and university/community service. faculty members who may have some unevenness in their portfolio assert that the strength of one area counters some weakness in another. engaged research, as it can testify to strengths in multiple categories—with research being the most obvious category, but also including teaching, advising and university/community service—can notably improve an rpt dossier. much of this research had an urban bent, which coincided with the university’s location. in 2014, the city of worcester was the second largest city in new england, after boston, with a population of 181, 045 (suburbanstats, 2015). the university’s largest group of students hails from worcester county. the university’s fall 2013 student profile stated that the institution had 4,115 full time undergraduates, 1,441 part-time undergraduates, 153 full-time graduate students, and 738 part-time graduate students, for a total headcount of 6,447 (wsu, wsu fact book, 11). wsu is categorized as a “master’s m: master’s colleges and universities (medium programs)” institution by the carnegie classifications. the university’s mission statement reads as follows: “worcester state university champions academic excellence in a diverse, student-centered environment that fosters scholarship, creativity, and global awareness. a worcester state education equips students with knowledge and skills necessary for lives of professional accomplishment, engaged citizenship, and intellectual growth.” the 2015-2020 strategic plan, approved by the university’s board of trustees in october 2015, asserts that “engaged citizenship” is a core value of the institution. the plan’s architects, drawn from throughout the campus community, established the second overarching goal of the strategic plan as the quest to “leverage our distinctive strengths, both to enhance our reputation and to prepare our students to lead, serve, and make a difference in the world” (wsu strategic plan). given the communitybased focus of the institution, academic leaders understand that many faculty members will take part in engaged scholarship, and that this form of scholarship is likely to constitute a significant portion of the research presented within their reappointment, tenure, and promotion portfolios. presently, engaged scholarship is not explicitly defined at wsu within the cba. because academics currently use a number of terms and definitions to describe the concept of community engaged scholarship (e.g., ahmed & palermo, 2010), confusion abounds regarding what counts toward tenure and promotion in this area. given institutional history, engaged scholarship is so intrinsic to the mission of wsu and the type of scholars hired by the institution that it is not difficult for the deans to encourage faculty to produce such projects. however, faculty often need guidance with (1) what counts as engaged scholarship, (2) how to present this work within the context of their other scholarship for http://www.worcester.edu/our-history/ 9 reappointment, tenure, and promotion, and (3) how to write and present their engaged scholarship at a wide variety of academic conferences. wsu’s academic affairs division is divided into two schools. the school of education, health, and natural sciences (ehns) is comprised of ten academic departments and the school of humanities and social sciences (hss) is comprised of eleven departments. both schools embrace wsu’s commitment to a cross-institutional approach. examples of the cross-institutional approach include a partnership with the city of worcester’s department of public health on applied scholarship related to five domains of public health currently established as the focus of efforts by the city and the region, as well as the interdisciplinary cityspeak project, a joint effort by the department of visual and performing arts and the urban studies department. academic administrators have encountered some problems in building a culture which values engaged scholarship. these problem areas have included cross-divisional clashes and a lingering culture in which research agendas were somewhat suspect. both these sources of conflict have abated in recent years. these themes are explored in more depth below. by working closely together, the deans of both schools have proactively sought to assuage these issues by working closely with individual faculty members and in group meetings devoted to discussions of ways in which faculty can think about what it means to be a community engaged scholar (blanchard, et. al., 2009). creating a culture devoted to engaged scholarship almost all faculty members at wsu receive their doctorate degrees at r1 institutions. therefore, acclimating new faculty members to the particular demands of a career at a teaching-first, comprehensive state university presents challenges. this kind of institution may be an unknown quantity for many new faculty members. thus, the deans and other academic affairs personnel developed a series of events to assist newer faculty with the transition to this institutional culture type. the fall semester begins with an open house to welcome new faculty members, at which the school deans outline the demands placed upon them and provide information on where new faculty members can go to ask questions. after this event, the school deans meet with new faculty members individually and in small groups to extend the mentorship in ways particularly fitted to individual disciplines. in a partnership with wsu’s center for teaching and learning, small, interdisciplinary research groups provide additional support. the mentorship process regarding the junior faculty’s scholarship expectations is complex, due to the university’s origins as a teaching institution and its continued commitment to offering the highest quality classroom experience to students. in all faculty evaluations, teaching will always rank highly. however, students also expect that classroom experiences are informed by the professor’s continued research portfolio. undergraduate and graduate students desire the opportunity to conduct research with faculty members, thus expect mentorship from experienced professors. indeed, in many undergraduate fields of study, students who do not engage in research as undergraduates have little chance of entering into graduate programs, particularly doctoral ones. wsu supports these research efforts with competitive grants funded by the university’s advancement office. similar to other institutions across the country, wsu’s academic administration faces a complex dance with the faculty union as to what scholarship expectations can reasonably be made of faculty at an institution with a four-four (twelve credits per semester) teaching load. the deans’ explanation that strong research and strong teaching go hand in hand—particularly when the research is community-based and can involve the students—is an attempt to ease worries about managing competing demands. despite the excellent preparation of the tenure-track professors, newly minted doctoral-level scholars have difficulty with the balancing act necessary to keep an active research agenda afloat while teaching four classes per semester. worries abound. anxieties are eased by focus on practicalities and the 10 emphasis of positive role models. the deans of both schools themselves shouldered heavy teaching loads while making strides in scholarship; it is important that deans have shared in this experience. in their leadership, the deans are able to draw on examples from their own personal background of balancing researching and teaching, and tying the two together by involving undergraduates and graduate students in research projects. academic leaders must lead by example and previous experience; without such experience, the exhortations to produce research can ring hollow. the deans seek to create a climate that recognizes the importance of civic engagement and the sharing of process and completion of research projects with campus peers. a renewed project of “shared scholarship,” co-sponsored with the active campus center for teaching and learning, highlights scholarship produced on campus, as do small, on-campus conferences such as the women’s studies miniconference. full-time faculty members from all fields are welcomed, as are adjuncts. deans share scholarship achievements via weekly or semi-weekly “dean’s notes.” campus marketing is included on its emailed dean’s notes distribution so that recent community scholarship, and indeed scholarship of all types, can be highlighted on the university’s website. the deans serve on the communications working group, and thus are able to stress the importance of engaged scholarship to a broad cross-section of staff working on campus communications. some achievements are posted within the area of the outward facing website titled “noteworthy”, while others, most often those that involve community or globally engaged scholarship, are featured on the front pages of the university website. for example, one faculty member has worked as a leader of the armenian genocide study group, producing engaged scholarship that has ramifications for worcester’s large armenian immigrant population as well as global impact. his work was featured on the front page of one of the university’s publications. at present, worcester state does not set strict guidelines on the types or numbers of publications that would constitute a minimum standard for tenure. however, according to the faculty union contract, all professors are expected to have an active research agenda and to provide evidence that their scholarship has, in the words of the cba, "quality, significance, and relevance" as judged by peers in their field. research cannot be "desk drawer" research, but must be accepted by peer-reviewed conferences, organizations, and publishers who are known to be highly respected in the scholarly realm. because of the cba’s strong institutional importance, like many institutions with a union contract, wsu cannot develop more articulated documents that strictly define assessment measures for engaged scholarship as other institutions have done. nor are figures like journal impact scores used in the rpt process. (boyer, 1990; saltmarsh, 2009; gelmon, 2013, holland, 2012). in addition to assisting professors looking to maximize engaged scholarship for publications and conference publications, the deans encouraged professors at the university to blend engaged scholarship with their teaching. in a teaching first institution, preparing for class, teaching courses, and grading constitute the majority of a professor's time. deans’ efforts are well-spent mentoring faculty in engaged scholarship and teaching. this is especially true when the institutional mission relies on the continued connection with the local and regional community. at wsu, through provost support, the creation of centers as vehicles for entrepreneurial efforts and vehicles for funding has helped support this commitment to mission. for example, the center for stem research and practice supports faculty scholarship related both to individual science faculty members who work with graduate and undergraduate students in laboratories and/or the field, as well as for scientific projects that address the needs of the community such as examining the microbes in the soil in local playgrounds. efforts to link engaged scholarship with the university's mission broadens opportunity for funding. taking time to establish institutional clarity on mission, and the place of engaged scholarship within the rtp process, maximizes funding opportunities. outside funders appreciate the clarity of mission that established centers bring to a university. deans can help solidify the scope of engaged scholarship projects by supporting the articulation of new centers and the establishment of well-articulated yearly 11 goals. at wsu, many centers report directly to the appropriate dean. center directors receive course releases to run centers and can use this work as part of their reappointment, promotion, or tenure materials. the cityspeak project cityspeak is worcester state university’s project to work with the city of worcester and address urban issues through the arts. the project derived from conversations with urban residents from a wide variety of backgrounds. many of these urban residents do not have a traditional place at the table. due to their youth, poverty, immigration status, ethnicity, advanced age, and other factors, their viewpoints are not routinely sought in policy setting. worcester has recently entered a quite tumultuous period, as residents of the city confront racial discrimination. the events in ferguson, missouri in the late summer of 2014 resonated with many urban dwellers inside the central massachusetts city. the cityspeak begins with dialogue and culminates in devised theater pieces that allow for further dialogue and deeper reflection. the act of the dialogue is in itself therapeutic and produces new knowledge. but by inviting policy makers to the theatrical events, and sharing with them the fruits of the events—research, films, scripts, photographs—theater can influence policy decisions. in this way, art acts as a megaphone, increasing the impact of community voices. art brings community awareness to urban issues and creates a forum for producing solutions that many can support. the department of urban studies and the department of visual and performing arts (vpa) are engaged in a collaboration to research, prepare, and produce a piece of devised theater, also tentatively titled “cityspeak” (i.e., the name of the entire collaborative project as well as the name of the theatrical production) that engages the local community to help identify urgent city-wide issues and provide a forum for their discussion and resolution. money from the strategic plan implementation fund (spif)— the project was awarded key seed monies ($9,970) from the spif fund and is seeking additional funding from outside sources—is assisting the program in developing a collaboratively taught series of three courses in order to enable wsu students to engage multiple community partners in authentic ways, collaborate in focus groups, interviews, and discussions, analyze responses, and ultimately create a fullyrealized theatrical production capable of traveling to audiences outside wsu. a key portion of the project includes a photographic exhibit documenting the themes reflected by the voices collected from the city. additionally, funds will be used to document the process for use in conference presentations that will reach multi-disciplinary audiences to gauge the impact of this project as a model for community planning through artistic engagement. in terms of the strategic plan, this proposal fulfills the following goals: 1) the project channels scholarly creativity in new, exciting, and potentially important directions; 2) the team will serve as a dynamic, valued partner with and resource to worcester, the region, and the world. partnering with the university’s sister institution, the university of worcester, england, will give the project a global component. as an interdisciplinary project developed collaboratively in the departments of urban studies and vpa, cityspeak represents an innovative approach to collaborative teaching. through this project, students will be able to develop creative scholarship by fusing interdisciplinary approaches to urban issues and devised theatre in order to affect local policy and civic change. as with creative, communitybased work like the tectonic theatre company’s laramie project or sojourn theatre’s work on artsbased civic dialogue, the play(s) can have resonance outside the community as well. it can provide a model for other communities to conduct similar projects (kaufman, 2001). the work builds on northwestern university professor and founding director of the sojourn theater, michael rohd and the center for performance and civic practice, which “aims to make visible the power 12 of the arts to demonstrably increase civic capacity.” (www.thecpco.org.) the center works on behalf of the non-arts partner and thus advocates and capacity builds for the community (rohs, 1988). this project brings together two hss departments in an interdisciplinary collaboration. this partnership is made even more interesting due to the fact that these departments are already interdisciplinary, in and of themselves. the vpa department combines visual, performing, and musical artists and theorists, while the urban studies department features public policy professors, anthropologists, social workers, city planners, and historians. “cityspeak: a new, interdisciplinary model to address urban issues through the arts” will use theater to help identify urgent city-wide issues and assist in resolving these problems. as we attempt to situate our university at the heart of the city of worcester, creative projects such as these will be essential. this work will also help to bring us closer to our sister institution, the university of worcester, england, as they may launch similar initiatives, drawn from our model. the use of theater as a method for exploring urban issues is a unique idea, and one that has rarely been tried in such a selfconscious way. cityspeak is well positioned to establish the university as a leader in such resultsoriented, community-based theater, and arts-based community planning. such an approach is inherently innovative for both vpa students/practitioners and urban studies students/practitioners because it combines the different approaches to ask new questions of new audiences, in the hopes that the answers are more comprehensive than either could get on their own. the public nature of the stakes of both a fully-realized theatrical production derived from real-world civic issues with the potential to impact public policy will inherently motivate students to strive for academic excellence. the unique natures of the individual departments (urban studies and vpa) make such a collaboration possible and fruitful. with no other department like it in the mass higher ed system, urban studies necessarily combines rigorous research with field work to understand the complexity of our increasingly urban world. similarly, vpa, with its interdisciplinary core, creates an academic environment that focuses on the connections between scholarly pursuits and applied creative work in order to bridge the scholar/practitioner divide in the arts in higher education. in conversations with the faculty members and the dean, the dean was able to highlight ways in which the project was a community engagement initiative and a scholarly endeavor for the faculty members, as well as an innovative teaching methodology. in other words, in this particular case, a professor of history and a professor of theatre were able to combine forces to produce a highly complex and innovative community engagement project that they also were able to present at scholarly conferences in their respective fields. bringing the two approaches together in this project leveraged the resources of both faculty members, while helping students develop fundamental twenty-first century skills, including interdisciplinarity, critical thinking, empathy, real-world problem solving, and how to be an actively engaged citizens of their local and global communities. in the end, cityspeak will contribute to wsu’s reputation as a valued and vital community resource, while also cultivating a sense of community and cultural life on campus for our faculty, staff, students, and community partners. cityspeak projects provide excellent teaching opportunities which can be documented for rpt. it also serves as a living laboratory, and provides fodder for scholarly publication the faculty can use in their rpt applications. it did take direct mentorship for the faculty involved in the project to see the work as engaged scholarship, and to consider the myriad ways the work of community engagement can be translated into assessable products suitable for rpt. the dean’s intervention however, not only established a pipeline for further grant funding, but also a slew of publication opportunities that could take a career to take advantage of. wsu and the worcester department of public health: chip in action. in the university’s school of ehns, a multifaceted project was launched by the dean that led to nearly endless opportunities for engaged scholarship for professors throughout the institution. the dean brought her knowledge and connections of city plans to bear in building these opportunities. in 2007, officials from the massachusetts http://www.thecpco.org/ 13 department of public health set five strategic priorities that they determined best reflected the underlying challenges facing 21st century public health. this report became known as the community health assessment (cha). (massachusetts department of public health, 2010). individual urban communities within massachusetts (note that all communities in massachusetts are legally within towns) established goals in line with the cha. the communities sought to provide important information of the health of massachusetts’ residents. the city of worcester’s department of public health (wdph) developed its community health improvement plan (chip) to both improve the health of central massachusetts’ residents and to provide data to support the improvement. table 1 displays the program’s five domains: table 1 wdph community health improvement plan: domains name goal domain 1 healthy eating and active living create and environment and community that supports people’s ability to make health eating and active living choices that promote health and well-being domain 2 primary care and wellness create a respectful and culturally responsive environment the encourages prevention of chronic disease, reduction of infant mortality, and access to quality comprehensive care domain 3 behavioral health foster an accepting community that supports positive mental health and reduce substance abuse in a comprehensive and holistic way domain 4 violence and injury prevention improve safety, reduce violence and injury, and inform public perceptions by educating and mobilizing the community around effective, targeted prevention and intervention domain 5 health equity and disparities improve population health by systematically eliminating institutional racism and the pathology of oppression and discrimination by promoting resources in the community, and significantly reducing the structural and environmental factors that contribute to health disparities (greater worcester chip annual report, december 2014) the council on linkages between academia and public health practice, a coalition of twenty national organizations, sought to further academic practice and collaboration in order to assure a well-trained, competent workforce and a strong, evidence-based public health infrastructure. the council accomplished this by strengthening existing links and establishing new connections between academia, public health and the healthcare community; developing and advancing innovative strategies to build and strengthen public health infrastructure; and supporting workforce strategies for continuing public health education. the wdph is replicating evidence-based best practices from this national model through unique partnerships in the worcester community, such as the one with wsu. national research shows that creation of an "academic health department" provides benefits for partnering institutions and the communities they serve as a result of these affiliations. examples of these outcomes include: increased capacity for performing core public health functions and meeting community health needs; an ability to maximize and target the use of scarce resources; additional and better qualified professionals providing public health services; public health graduates better prepared to enter the workforce with a solid foundation and skills in public health theory and practice; and improved public health for community 14 residents. the work at wsu came to fruition with the financial support of a number of organizations, including the greater worcester fairlawn foundation and health foundation of central massachusetts both of which funded the wsu project known as chip in action. the collaboration between wsu and the wdph addressed the need for expertise and manpower to conduct research, manage community surveys, implement evidence based strategies, and create collaborative community-based projects that ultimately advance the goals of the five domains within the wdph chip plan. wsu faculty and students examined the needs outlined by the wdph to create a systematic approach for creating programs and solutions that support the health and wellness of the greater worcester area. the mission of the wsu-chip partnership was to develop urban leaders who focus on health and wellness through service. the innovative project was built on an interdisciplinary approach, with oversight by the dean of the school of education, health, and natural sciences (ehns). a wsu-chip fellow provided year-round support to further the wsu-chip mission. during its first semester, twelve faculty leaders (representing ten academic departments) worked with individual students, small teams of students, and entire classes of students. the faculty leader and students focused on one of the five domains as described in the wdph chip plan. working with the wdph, the faculty leaders identified areas of research to develop work plans and activities in the community. the structure included: domain i-healthy eating and active living: health sciences, public health, urban studies, world languages, and psychology; domain ii-primary care and wellness: nursing, community health, world languages and biology; domain iii-behavioral health: health sciences, psychology; domain iv-violence and injury prevention-public health; and domain v-health equity and disparities: nursing and public health. to date, this partnership has created a variety of projects. these included: table 2 departmental partnership projects student involvement department 1 department 2 domain health sciences psychology 1, 2, & 3 group nursing urban studies 1 group and individual biology nursing 3 group and individual world language psychology 4 group urban studies* health sciences 4 group health sciences communication 4 group business health sciences 2 & 5 group and individual urban studies health sciences 1 & 2 individual psychology health sciences and world languages 1 group psychology 2 group health sciences urban studies 5 group 15 to highlight one example, after a university-wide open meeting hosted by the deans to explain the concept of community based research related to the five domains of the chip, two professors in the biology department developed a project for a microbiology class, whose students were all from the nursing department. the class project “adopt a microbe” required that each student select a microbe that caused a disease in humans, specifically one that is often a problem for college-aged students such as meningitis. each student researched the microbe and the class developed brochures to inform their peers about signs of the resulting disease, prevention of the disease, and when to see a doctor. this project fit well with the “primary care and wellness” domain listed in the chart above. the brochures were shared with the wsu community through its health department as well as with the wphd. however, some of the students became so interested in their subject that, together with their professors, went a step further. in studying their selected microbes, ones that caused sexually transmitted diseases, they realized that many of their peers were not well informed about the issues. together with their professors, the students collected data about such issues as students’ knowledge and use of safe sex practices. the data was used to develop an educational program, which again was shared with the wphd. the dean was able to support the students and faculty members by providing summer stipends, materials for the projects, and money to travel to conferences to present their work. thus, the project benefitted the community at large, the students (by developing research and presentation skills necessary for either graduate school or careers), and the faculty members who could add these presentations (and hopefully publications) to their curriculum vitae and rpt applications. conclusion with devoted leadership from the university president, a clear understanding that the university wishes to promote partnerships between the university community and the public sphere, and long hours, focus, and encouragement by university deans, faculty can share vital knowledge with the broader community while at the same time deepening their scholarship. although the wsu projects remain in their early stages, faculty are beginning to see how they can use the data collected through community-based research projects to author pieces for traditional journals. not only, then, do community-based projects offer innovative teaching opportunities, they also foster opportunities to publish. community-based research is time intensive, but can yield great rewards. faculty who invest the time can garner high teaching evaluations alongside data for peer-reviewed publications and presentations. faculty members are now using community based research projects in their dossiers for personnel actions. publications resulting from community based projects may venture away from traditional manuscripts. the deans have worked closely with faculty members to challenge their ideas of scholarly output. the deans encourage faculty members to think about the needs of the community as well as the needs of the students and the traditional requirements for tenure and promotion. for example, one of the deans spoke to an untenured faculty member about a request from the wdph for information on childhood obesity. the faculty member was able to design a classroom based research exercise, which in turn was presented at two scholarly conferences both on the topic or childhood obesity as well as on the topic of innovative teaching. the community benefitted when the research projects were presented to the community in a format available to teachers and parents of young children. in addition, materials developed by students during the project were translated by other students into spanish, making the materials that much more accessible to the community at large. overall, the deans actively seek ideas about community needs and help faculty members understand the relevance of those needs to their teaching and scholarly work. many faculty members had thought in narrow terms of scholarship, but with support from deans, now think about how their engaged scholarship and innovative teaching methods themselves are relevant to share with peers in conferences and 16 publications. indeed, many scholarly professional journals now include sections on pedagogy, which in this university’s case is viewed favorably within an rpt application. the deans also encourage faculty members to write about and present innovative teaching methodologies. faculty members now seek to present their experiences at conferences, write manuscripts on their community engaged teaching methodologies, and write guides on the nuanced processes developed during their work to inspire other academics employing similar methodologies. therefore, where once scholarship was viewed as an esoteric enterprise, faculty members can think about the relevance of their work to the greater community. note: the work in this paper has been supported by the greater worcester fairlawn foundation, the health foundation of central massachusetts, and the strategic implementation fund of worcester state university. the authors would like to thank drs. thomas conroy, ellen fynan, roger greenwell, sam o’connell, nicole rosa, and henry theriault, whose work is highlighted above. 17 references ahmed, s.m., & palermo, a. s. (2010). community engagement in research: frameworks for education and peer review. american journal of public health 100 (8), 1380-1387. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.2105/ajph.2009.178137 big apple playback theatre. building community one story at a time. retrieved from www.bigappleplayback.com. blanchard, l.w., hanssmann, c., strauss, r.p., belliard, j.c., krichbaum, k., waters, e., & seifer, s.d. (2009). models for faculty development: what does it take to be a community-engaged scholar? metropolitan universities: an international forum, 20 (2), 47-65. boyer, e. l. (1990). scholarship reconsidered: priorities of the professoriate. princeton, n.j.: carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching. eckel, p., hill, b., & green m. (1998). on change: en route to transformation. washington, d.c.: american council on education. gelmon, s. b., jordan, c., and seifer, s. d. (2013 july/august). community-engaged scholarship in the academy: an action agenda. change 45 (4), 58-66. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00091383.2013.806202 holland, b. (2012). community-engaged scholarship: your teaching, research, and service reconsidered. lecture presented at university of louisville. louisville, ky. kaufman, m. (2001). the laramie project. new york: vintage books. rohd, m. (1988). theatre for community, conflict, and dialogue: the hope is vital training manual. portsmouth, nh: heinemann press. saltmarsh, j., giles, jr., d. e. ward, e., & buglione, s. (2009 fall). rewarding community-engaged scholarship. new directions for higher education 2009 (147), 25-35. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/he.355 suburban stats. (2015). retrieved from https://suburbanstats.org/population/massachusetts/how-manypeople-live-in-worcester. worcester state university. (2014). our history. retrieved from http://www.worcester.edu/our-history/. worcester state university. (2014). worcester state university strategic plan. retrieved from http://www.worcester.edu/strategic-plan/. http://dx.doi.org/10.2105/ajph.2009.178137 http://www.bigappleplayback.com/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00091383.2013.806202 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/he.355 https://suburbanstats.org/population/massachusetts/how-many-people-live-in-worcester https://suburbanstats.org/population/massachusetts/how-many-people-live-in-worcester http://www.worcester.edu/our-history/ http://www.worcester.edu/strategic-plan/ 18 worcester state university. 2003. wsu fact book. worcester, ma: worcester state university printing and publishing. author information lisa krissoff boehm is the dean of the school of arts and sciences and professor of history at manhattanville college in purchase, new york. the author of urban histories, including the latest, america’s urban history, boehm previously served as interim dean of humanities and social sciences at worcester state university, professor and chair of urban studies at worcester state university, and senior associate dean of academic affairs and professor of history at emmanuel college. lisa krissoff boehm, phd dean of the school of arts and sciences manhattanville college 2900 purchase street #316 purchase, ny 10577 lisa.boehm@mville.edu linda s. larrivee is the dean of the school of education, health and natural sciences at worcester state university in worcester, massachusetts. she previously served a professor and chair in the worcester state university department of communication disorders. larrivee has published articles in refereed journals and edited texts and has spoken both nationally and internationally on the subjects of psychometric considerations in assessment as well as the relation between language development and reading development. she also is active in the scholarship of teaching and learning. linda s. larrivee, phd dean, school of education, health, and natural sciences worcester state university worcester state university 486 chandler street worcester, ma 01602 508-929-8257 linda.larrivee@worcester.edu mailto:lisa.boehm@mville.edu mailto:linda.larrivee@worcester.edu metropolitan universities vol. 29 no. 1 (february 2018), doi: 10.18060/22177 the heavy lifting of diversity: a need for scholar administrators jacinta r. saffold abstract technological innovation and new economic terrain of the twenty-first century has called for higher education to re-examine how interdisciplinary ethnic studies and minority serving programs are positioned in the twenty-first century. this essay considers the utility of spaces like black studies departments and programs like the mellon mays undergraduate fellowship within the structure of liberal arts education today from the vantage a recent graduate. in the wake increasing hostility towards minority students and unfavorable media coverage of incidents on campus, colleges and universities must consider how rolling back minority-focused academic and programmatic offerings alongside dramatic increases in contingent faculty and administrative staff hiring has left cultural voids. as liberal arts educators grapple with narrowing budget constraints and changing campus climates, the call for higher education employees who understand why disciplinary and programmatic offerings are tied to campus climate, and how to use such resources, grows louder. scholar administrators, in their ability to straddle the historic dividing line between faculty and staff, can help usher in a type of diversity that allows each student, faculty, and staff person to bear witness to the humanity in others, which ultimately is the heavy lifting of diversity. keywords: diversity; scholar administrator; contingent faculty; minority programs introduction as a beneficiary of spaces won by college student activism during the civil rights era, my place in academia is more than forty years in the making. i am the intellectual product of liberal arts education, two african american studies departments, and several diversity and inclusion initiatives. in reflecting on my scholarly “up-bringing,” i have come to understand that the lessons i learned on how to survive and thrive in liberal arts spaces as an african american woman were just as important as the academic training i received. i was fortunate enough to matriculate through departments that demanded students who would aspire to be more than diligent researchers, brilliant writers, and uncompromising knowledge producers. my professors unhinged the rigid boundaries of academic disciplines, so that i could freely explore the interconnectedness of history, literature, culture, politics, and beyond. in handing me intellectual freedom, african american studies has also called me to produce scholarship that has meaning outside of the halls of academia, that can make the world a better place, and that will, in turn, free others from intellectual restrictions. african american studies at emory university, the university of massachusetts amherst, and other colleges and universities were the result of undergraduate student protests and positive administrative responses during the late 1960s (bradley, 2009, p.112; hine, 2001, p.51; christian, 2006, p.698-700). demands for the inclusion of voices from the african diaspora in 154 all sectors of liberal arts education was an outgrowth of a national discourse on civil liberties. the spirit of the civil rights protest tradition influenced how newly formed afro american, africana, and african american studies programs designed their curriculum. many black studies1 departments adopted a scholar-activism approach to training students and made community engagement an integral part of the curriculum plan (kershaw, 2003, p.28). the scholar-activist, by design, expects african american studies scholarship to perform double duty, by meeting the same academic standards as longstanding disciplines and move discourse beyond the academy forward on issues effecting people of color. the expectations of interdisciplinarity, especially for junior faculty coming from activist-forged departments, are further compounded by race, gender, and other socially constructed differences. minority and interdisciplinary scholars focused on minority communities often struggle to reconcile their scholarly motivations, responsibility to outside communities, and expectations set forth by their college or university. having institution personnel who work at the cross section of scholarly research, teaching, and administration can help ensure junior faculty are not forced to make reductive choices among their competing obligations. scholar administrators can ensure that interdisciplinary departments and diversity initiatives achieve enough autonomy to withstand the changing priorities of the current administration.2 further, crosscutting employees can help colleges and universities see the value of interdisciplinary and minority faculty add outside of traditional tenure expectations. colleges and universities need scholar administrators. the concept of a scholar administrator has been quite reactionary to this point. higher education professionals who have spent their careers at the intersection of teaching, researching, and administration are heralded as scholar administrators and celebrated for their ability to provide gap services the university had not realized it needed at the close of their careers (barthwal, 1991; blegen, 1960; billard & ferber, 1991). however, the demands of twenty-first century higher education are pointing towards a need to intentionally train phds to cross boundaries as a means of uniting institutions over the long-held faculty and staff divide to actually obtain sustainable and comprehensive employment in higher education. when colleges and universities have incidents of hate or discrimination, interdisciplinary departments like african american studies, women gender & sexuality studies, and chicana/o studies usually support the university through the crisis by creating additional lectures, seminars, and special courses. most of this extra labor goes unacknowledged when university administration informs the public about what steps have been taken to address the incident and ensure that such occurrences will not continue. if nooses are found hanging from trees, the university will point to a recently formed council on diversity and inclusion.3 if a university is 1 black studies is used here as an umbrella term for the various kinds of departments that study people of the african diaspora. 2 black studies and people of color initiatives often live or die based on the level of investment the current dean, provost, and or the president has in diversity. 3 on may 1, 2017, several bananas were found hanging from nooses at american university with the words “harambe bait” and “aka free” written on the side. this was interpreted as a racially motivated crime in response to the election of the first african american woman student body president. american university president, neil kerwin stated that, “there will be a campus community meeting on tuesday, may 2 to discuss the incident at 12 155 shamed for not taking strong disciplinary action against sexual assault, the university will convene a committee to address sexual assault on campus.4 interdisciplinary departments intentionally offer additional support to the campus to ensure that the university or college has a tangible and very public response to improper occurrences on campus; most of which is left out of press releases or university-wide communications.5 minority and interdisciplinary faculty are often expected to serve on steering committees to address underlying forces that created the crisis. the offices of such faculty have also become sanctuaries for major and non-major students to unburden themselves of the baggage these incidents induce. these functions are not automatically viewed as academic labor and do not neatly fit into tenure portfolios. in fact, the additional steps interdisciplinary departments take to address issues are not usually acknowledged by the university in any formal way. so, faculty of color, particularly those housed in interdisciplinary departments, are expected to produce scholarship that has double functionality and perform more service, so that the university can do the work of dealing with intolerable injustices, while delivering a similar quantity and quality of scholarship and students enrolled in classes as all the other disciplines on campus. the consequences for failing to meet these impossible expectations are also higher than other disciplines, simply because interdisciplinary programs and departments are almost always the last to be funded and the first to be rolled back or eliminated during economic downturns (rhodes, 2016; rooks, 2006). holding interdisciplinary programs to ambitious standards is not the issue and should, in fact, be the expectation. however, many interdisciplinary programs are often held to different and competing standards that force faculty to shrink from their original purpose; african american studies departments choosing between scholarship and supporting student activism, for example. until colleges and universities begin intentionally aggregating their expectations for scholarship and service to equitably reflect the purposes and expectations of different disciplines, interdisciplinary departments and the students, communities, and wide publics they serve will suffer. scholar administrators act as interlocutors who can ensure that the unique expectations of interdisciplinary programs are not lost or forgotten. economic pressure compounds the unequal labor distribution among faculty, by simultaneously pricing many americans out of higher education and dramatically reducing the number of available tenure track faculty positions for teaching at liberal arts institutions (kelsky, 2015, p.7). the american association of university professors has reported that, “the share of fulltime tenured faculty has declined by approximately 26 percent since 1975, while the share of tenure-track faculty has declined by nearly 50 percent” (2017, p.4). the economic and noon in kay chapel. members of the president's council on diversity and inclusion (pcdi) will be in attendance.” (http://www.american.edu/president/announcements/may-1-2017.cfm) 4 in 2014 dartmouth college was accused of mishandling sexual harassment and violence cases on campus. in response, the college created an initiative, “moving dartmouth forward” which is “aimed at eliminating high-risk behavior and increasing inclusivity while strengthening dartmouth’s longstanding commitment to leadership in teaching and learning.” (http://forward.dartmouth.edu/) 5 for example when black and brown students had racial slurs written on their dormitory doors at the university of massachusetts amherst in 2014, the w. e. b. du bois department of afro american studies hosted a series of open dialogues in the malcolm x cultural center (housed in the largest on-campus living community), designed and taught special seminars on race and difference through the residential academic programs (rap) academy, and held a special training session on how to discuss difficult subjects in african american studies course with graduate teaching assistants. none of these activities were listed in the university-wide communication from the chancellor detailing how the university would respond to the incident. 156 employment crunch in higher education is also indicative of wider employment shifts in the united states. the twenty-first century has ushered in the use of smart technology that has radically reduced and restructured employment needs across occupations. specific to higher education, this has led to the establishment of contingent positions like adjunct professors, visiting lecturers, and postdoctoral teaching fellows, in lieu of traditional tenure track opportunities. in 2016-2017, “faculty members on part-time appointments continued to make up the largest share of the academic labor force,” with an average annual total pay of $20,508 according to the 2016-17 annual report on the economic status of the profession. financial squeezing from students unable to afford tuition6 and cuts to fiscal operating budgets is forcing colleges and universities to be more creative in their approach to hiring employees. for faculty of color, who are already overburdened with unrecognized service to the profession, this can mean amending the adage of twice as good to three times or more.7 contrarily, if employment reconfigurations in higher education are done with deliberate emphasis and by people who recognize the value of cross-cutting service work performed by minority faculty and interdisciplinary departments, these transformative people and spaces can finally be moved from the periphery of our colleges and universities to the center. this shift has the potential to truly transform liberal arts education in the twenty-first century. as many colleges and universities begin to rely more on contingent faculty to answer shifts in the higher education employment landscape, there must be critical oversight on the effectiveness of this strategy. further, colleges and universities must be willing to revamp structures if they are proven ineffective. in 2014, the institute for research and study of accreditation and quality assurance reported: whereas full-time tenured and tenure-track faculty were once the norm, the professoriate is now comprised of mostly non-tenure-track faculty. in 1969, tenured and tenure-track positions made up approximately 78.3 percent of the faculty and non-tenure-track positions comprised about 21.7 percent. forty years later, in 2009, these proportions had nearly flipped” (2014, p.4). on average, part-time lecturers—the largest group of contingent faculty members—earn $16,700 from teaching alone per year compared to an average of $67,000 per year for the lowest rank of tenure track faculty (griffey, 2016). in addition to a grave reduction in pay, contingent faculty hiring is often an informal process devoid of job security. these contingent faculty positions often leave the employee on the brink of poverty, in a constant state of flux, and makes the cost of earning the requisite master’s and/or phd for collegiate teaching a bad investment. these positions cannot be long-term solutions for colleges and universities, because job instability and being embarrassingly underpaid will cause our colleges and universities to lose the brightest and best new advanced degree holders to tech start-ups, non-profit organizations, federal agencies, and large business corporations. as for the university, temporary and underpaid teaching positions serve to further isolate already siloed departments, programs, schools, and colleges (umber, 2014). 6 according to mitchell, palacios, and leachman, the average annual published tuition has risen 28 percent from 2007 to 2014 (“states are still funding,” 10). 7 the adage explains that people of color must be twice as good as their peers to get half as far. 157 due to the increase of non-tenure track academic positions, the employment crunch has increased the competitiveness of the tenure track job market and severely truncated the kinds of scholars that universities and colleges are looking to hire (mitchell, palacios, & leachman, 2014). colleges and universities are more unwilling than ever to take a chance on brilliant scholars who are looking to push disciplinary boundaries. instead, many institutions are simply looking for the cheapest way to instruct students, which often neglects to foment the process of discovery that is at the heart of liberal arts education. rejections of full-time faculty are losses of scholarly creativity and reductions in areas of academic expertise, especially for interdisciplinary subjects, which are felt campus-wide every time an institution is admonished publicly for failing to meet the specific needs of its various minority groups. colleges and universities seeking to revise employment structures to increase efficiency in liberal arts education must promote creative and comprehensive problem-solving among their faculty and staff to ensure that all student needs are met. it is through creativity in employment configuration that higher educational professionals will strike a balance between meeting financial constraints and providing the best education for the world’s future leaders. increasingly, faculty members engaged in interdisciplinary or ethnic area studies scholarship are being jointly appointed to two or more departments to encourage multidisciplinary approaches to complex questions. joint appointments are also very practical responses to the money crisis (patton, 2015). new faculty members often have service obligations to multiple departments, programs and/or centers that are affiliated with their home department(s), in addition to their teaching and research duties. for junior faculty of color, the service load is often further exacerbated by supporting minority students and minority-serving programs. many of the service roles new faculty are asked to fill were once defined as staff roles. this conflation of faculty and staff roles is potentially dangerous in its willful ignorance of overloading junior faculty and making coveted tenure more elusive. however, the broadening of faculty responsibilities has the potential to make desperately needed cross cutting connections around campus. these multidisciplinary roles allow for campus communities to unify across the great faculty, staff divide that has kept many of our colleges and universities from reaching their fullest potential. the concept of integrating faculty and staff duties is positive, but only if colleges and universities are careful not to overburden employees. diversity and inclusion programs for students often face similar points of contention on college and university campuses. my path in academia was forged by programmatic spaces that specifically bridged economic, social, and experience gaps for students of color.8 some spaces were intended to be safe spaces to ensure that students of color could convene without retribution, others were designed to help us stay connected to our various communities outside of the university, while others attempted to alleviate stressors that traditionally prohibit academic success for minority students. student groups like ngambika, a step9 and community service organization for freshman women of color at emory university, and multi-ethnic achievement 8 programs for supporting african american students’ unique challenges and needs was directly connected to student protests for the creation of black studies departments in the late 1960s (bradley, 2009, p.115). 9 stepping is rhythmic form of movement and music derived from synchronized hand claps and foot stomps that is popular among black greek letter organizations and african american college students. 158 programs like the mellon mays undergraduate fellowship (mmuf),10 are often created in vacuums. often, these initiatives are housed in ethnic area studies departments, multicultural centers, or diversity offices and are designed to partially remove negative variables that disproportionately impact students of color, to alleviate the added pressure on students of color, and encourage academic success. the woodrow wilson foundation has reported that, “doctoral education’s diversity record is poor” generally. one of the foundation’s recommendation for improvement is to bolster communication among programs for academic diversification. in addition to strengthening cross dialogue among programs like mmuf, mcnair scholars, and gates millennium scholars, i contend that these programs need to be better integrated into the core of hosting college and university. keeping such programs at the margins or as an offshoot of one department has the potential to devalue the work of these initiatives. such programs often struggle with becoming fully integrated into the college or university because diversity is not necessarily always mandatory or the expectation for excellence throughout campus. diversification programs that help minority students, faculty, and staff navigate the politics of race, gender, and class are some of the biggest incubator spaces on campuses across the country. interdisciplinary departments and diversity programming are often vibrant and inclusive spaces that are also insular from the tumultuous climate of the wider university. these programs risk teaching participants how to operate in the kinds universities we would like to see—that are diverse and inclusive—rather than the ones that currently exist. diversity and inclusion programming beneficiaries are often sent into collegiate settings that lack the foundation to support them. though the incubator method has been established as the industry standard, this model is one born of resistance rather integration. resistance is tiresome work that is not sustainable. an independent study conducted by researchers at the cornell higher education research institute, indicates that mmuf has not made a measurably significant difference in minorities obtaining the phd. however, the study also states that participating in mmuf has improved the quality of experience for minority students in doctoral programs. this is further evidenced by the mmuf 25th anniversary report claiming that mmuf participants finish their doctoral programs up to three years faster than the national average. for programs like mmuf to live up to their mission of increasing diversity in the professoriate, our colleges and universities must first see the value in diversification and agree to intentionally work toward ensuring that there is room on department faculty rolls when minority candidates complete the phd. according to brad rose consulting, “gaining and sustaining support from, and recognition by, host institutions” is one of the major challenges mmuf faces (13). mmuf, and programs like it, need to be streamlined with the stewarding of the college or university, so that supporting minority students through academic training is not another burden only managed by overworked minority faculty and under-resourced interdisciplinary departments. streamlining will require the help of faculty and high-ranking administrative staff. this kind of work is ripe for scholar administrators. the goal should be to make our campuses so diverse and inclusive that special support programs are no longer ancillary but an integral thread in the university’s fabric. to achieve such equity, 10 the mellon mays undergraduate fellowship specifically addresses underrepresentation in the academy by helping minorities acquire doctoral degrees in the humanities and social sciences. http://www.mmuf.org/about/mission 159 we must shift how minority students, faculty, and staff are received by the wider university rather than training them to resist the pressures of being different in a collegiate setting. admittedly, this an incredible, utopian even, undertaking. having designated appointees who understand the import and have the will to fight for the reconfiguration of unequitable policies on campus in positions to make real changes to antiquated processes for the college or university is one step in the right direction. research shows that colleges and universities have begun to hire more administrative staff (hurlburt & mcgarrah, 2016; mcelroy, 2017). this shift has been characterized as adopting corporate business models for operating liberal arts institutions. when a growing administration is coupled with an over-reliance on contingent faculty, the university model becomes lopsided and dysfunctional. according to the american institutes for research study on contingent faculty, private four-year colleges and universities realized the largest decline in instructional spending of all tuition types. the report also determined that constraining faculty compensation modestly impacted overall employee spending (hurlburt & mcgarrah, 2016). many colleges and universities are simply shifting their dollars from highly trained faculty to high-level administrators. this war for resources between faculty and staff leaves the students underserved and with hefty tuition bills. rather than choosing between faculty and staff—both of which are essential to operating our colleges and universities—we must consider how these two roles can overlap or merge. making efficient personnel decisions will allow our schools to have the best administrators, brightest scholars, and a reduced operating budget. the time has come for higher education to begin training our graduate students to be scholar administrators. the role of scholar-administrators demands (and opportunity calls for) people who can fill non-traditional roles aimed at integrating the various sectors of a college or university. we are living in a global society that values connectedness and efficiency. it is the duty of our colleges and universities to help the people of the world learn how to talk across difference. it is not enough to be diverse in representation—that is not the heavy lifting of diversity. rather, finding a common language that allows each of us to bear witness to the humanity in others is the real challenge, especially for colleges and universities. 160 references the andrew w. mellon foundation. (2013). report of the andre w. mellon foundation, 2013. retrieved from https://mellon.org/media/filer_public/a6/51/a6515255-46f3-4b6f-9b4ab1f1d0ef1205/awmf-ar-2013.pdf shulman, s et al. (2017, march-april). visualizing change: the annual report on the economic status of the profession, 2016-17. academe, 103(2), 4. retrieved from https://www.aaup.org/file/fcs_2016-17_nc.pdf barthwal, c. p. (1991, april-june). professor p. n. masaldan: scholar, administrator and a humanist. the indian journal of political science, 52(2), 279-281. retrieved from https://www.ijps.net.in/ijps_publication.php billard, l. & ferber, m.a. (1991, may). elizabeth scott: scholar, teacher, administrator. statistical science, 6(2), 206-216. https://doi.org/10.1214/ss/1177011828 blegen, t.c. (1960, june). solon justus buck: scholar-administrator. the american archivist, 23(3), 259.262. https://doi.org/10.17723/aarc.23.3.r002351385235312 bradley, s.m. (2009). black student power: the struggle for black studies. in harlem vs. columbia university: black student power in the late 1960s. university of illinois press. christian, m. (2016, may). black studies in the 21st century: longevity has its place. journal of black studies, 36(5), 698-719. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021934705285939 curtis, j.w. & thornton, s. (2013). here’s the news: the annual report on the economic status of the profession, 2012-13. academe, 99(2), 4. retrieved from https://www.aaup.org/sites/default/files/files/2013%20salary%20survey%20tables%20and%20 figures/report.pdf griffey, tr. (2016, september 2). decline of tenure for higher education faculty: an introduction. the labor and working-class history association. retrieved from https://www.lawcha.org/2016/09/02/decline-tenure-higher-education-faculty-introduction/ hine, d. c. (2001). black studies: an overview. in n. norment, jr. (ed.), the african american studies reader (pp. 50-57). durham, nc: carolina academic press. hurlburt, s. & mcgarrah, m. (2016). cost savings or cost shifting? the relationship between part-time contingent faculty and institutional spending. retrieved from http://www.air.org/resource/cost-savings-or-cost-shifting-relationship-between-part-timecontingent-faculty-and institute for research and study of accreditation and quality assurance. (2014.) an examination of the changing faculty: ensuring institutional quality and achieving desired student https://doi.org/10.1214/ss/1177011828 https://doi.org/10.17723/aarc.23.3.r002351385235312 https://doi.org/10.1177/0021934705285939 161 learning outcomes. chea occasional paper. retrieved from https://www.chea.org/userfiles/occasional%20papers/examination_changing_faculty_2013.pdf kelsky, karen. the professor is in: the essential guide to turning your phd into a job. new york, ny: three rivers press. 2015. kershaw, t. (2003). the black studies paradigm: the making of scholar activists. in james conyers, jr. (ed.), afrocentricity and the academy: essays on theory and practice, (p.27). jefferson, n.c.: mcfarland & company, inc. 2003. mcelroy, w. (2017, june 16). administrative bloat on campus: academia shrinks, students suffer.” the james g. martin center for academic renewal. retrieved from https://www.jamesgmartin.center/2017/06/administrative-bloat-campus-academia-shrinksstudents-suffer/ mitchell, m., palacios, v., leachman, m. (2014). states are still funding higher education at prerecession levels. center on budget and policy priorities. retrieved from https://www.cbpp.org/sites/default/files/atoms/files/5-1-14sfp.pdf patton, s. (2015). how joint appointments stall the careers of ethnic-studies professors. chronicle vitae. retrieved from https://chroniclevitae.com/news/994-how-joint-appointmentsstall-the-careers-of-ethnic-studies-professors prenovitz, sarah j. et al. an evaluation of the mellon mays undergraduate fellowship’s effect on phd production at non-uncf institutions. cornell higher education research institute. retrieved from https://www.ilr.cornell.edu/sites/ilr.cornell.edu/files/cheri-wp-161.pdf rhodes, dawn. (2016, september 6). black studies struggle at state universities under current fiscal climate. chicago tribune. retrieved from http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-african-american-studies-college-majormet-20160905-story.html rooks, noliwe. white money/black power: the surprising history of african american studies and the crisis of race in higher education. boston: beacon press. 2006. rose, brad. program review: the mellon mays undergraduate fellowship (mmuf) program. brad rose consulting, inc. 2007. retrieved from https://bradroseconsulting.com/wpcontent/uploads/2012/10/mmuf-program-review.pdf umber, a. [pseud.]. (2014, august 20). i used to be a good teacher. retrieved from https://chroniclevitae.com/news/668-i-used-to-be-a-good-teacher the woodrow wilson national fellowship foundation. (2005, may). diversity & the phd: a review of efforts to broaden race & ethnicity in u.s. doctoral education. retrieved from http://www.uky.edu/ie/sites/www.uky.edu.ie/files/uploads/diversity%20%26%20the%20phd%20a%20 review%20of%20efforts%20to%20broaden%20race%20%26%20ethnicity%20.%20.%20..pdf 162 author information jacinta r. saffold is a mellon acls public fellow at the association of american colleges and universities where she serves as the associate director for diversity, equity, and student success in the office of diversity, equity, and student success. her work focuses on building truth, racial healing & transformation campus centers with colleges and universities across the united states. she has been researching critical issues at the cross section of race, gender, and culture for more than a decade. jacinta r. saffold, phd associate director for diversity, equity, and student success mellon acls public fellow association of american colleges & universities email: saffold@aacu.org metropolitan universities vol. 29 no. 2 (may 2018), doi: 10.18060/22343 aligning academic offerings with industry needs and facility construction, while making space for relevant public private partnerships (p3s) vicki l. golich, sandra haynes, erin hillhouse, and david pfeifer abstract metropolitan state university of denver (msu denver) has been educating students for colorado’s urban workforce for over fifty years. the following case study of msu denver’s new aerospace engineering sciences (aes) building reveals the roles played by partnerships among universities, faculty, and local civic and industry leaders in creating new curricula and facilities. the new advanced manufacturing sciences (ams) curriculum and specialized labs will be “game changers” for manufacturing in colorado, because they provide flexible makerspaces that encourage the iterative, changing interaction among students, faculty, and industry essential in an evolving economy. nurturing such places for collaboration fosters self-sustaining curriculum enrichment. keywords: curriculum-workforce alignment; architectural planning and design; alternative revenue streams; project funding introduction colorado’s state assembly established metropolitan state university of denver in 1965 to educate colorado residents. it is the only public, four-year, “access” institution of higher education (ihe) in the state to this day. as a statutorily defined “modified, open enrollment” ihe, msu denver accepts any prospective student, who is 20 years old or older and holds a high school degree or ged. msu denver is a commuter school with no residence halls. over 90% of its students come from the eight counties surrounding the city; nearly 100% are coloradans. almost one-third of the students are first-generation and pell-eligible. well over half are transfer students and the average age is 25. over 42% of msu denver’s student body are underrepresented minorities and over 26% are hispanic, which closely mirrors the demographic changes in the region. the campus is also colorado’s leader in educating students of color in stem (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields. until 1976, msu denver occupied leased space in downtown denver. students and faculty ran across major thoroughfares to find classes, earning the mascot name “roadrunners.” in the mid1970s, the state assembly decided to create a single campus footprint to serve as home to three public ihes: msu denver, the university of colorado denver, and the community college of denver. colorado purchased 150 acres in the auraria neighborhood for the campus. the auraria higher education council manages the shared facilities and grounds. although, theoretically, sharing key spaces makes sense, the council designed auraria to serve 15,000 students, and, by 2007, enrollments on the three campuses had grown to 40,000-plus students. 136 funding perversely, as these enrollments grew, state funding of higher education across the country entered a steep decline with the 2008 “great recession.” colorado followed the same path, affecting every aspect of higher education operations, including deferred maintenance and new capital projects; colorado now ranks 47th in state funding for higher education (sheeo, 2017, p. 47). adding to the overall funding dilemma, msu denver is the least well-funded by the state, compared to all other colorado public ihes. this inequity exacerbates the fact the msu denver charges the lowest tuition and fees in the state (see table 1). table 1. 2017–2018 msu denver state funding, tuition, and fees compared to other colorado public institutions of higher education institution of higher ed state support tuition & fees/ semester @ 15 hours* tuition & fees/ year @ 30 hours* metropolitan state university of denver university of northern colorado university of colorado (system) colorado state university (system) $3,495 $5,262 $4,805 $6,431 $3,676 $4,773 $5,629 $5,760 $7,353 $9,545 $11,258 $11,519 * unlike other ihes in colorado, msu denver’s tuition and fees includes a “window,” so that a student can take up to 18 credit hours for the same cost as 12 credits. space needs in 2007, msu denver reviewed its facilities master plan to explore how it might maximize space and teaching capacity. as a result, msu denver recommended—and the auraria campus partners agreed—to build “neighborhoods” on the edges of the campus footprint. each ihe would still share specific-purpose buildings (e.g., the library and theatre spaces, as well as centrally located general classrooms). now, each ihe could address unique campus needs. of course, with state funding constrained, each campus would also have to think creatively about how to pay for new facilities. for its first project, msu denver built its own facility to provide critical, wrap-around student support services in a “one-stop-shop.” the student success building (ssb) is home to everything from admissions to academic advising, the bursar’s office and financial aid, tutoring and supplemental instruction. the ssb also provides office space for senior leaders on campus and is home to the center for advanced visualization and experiential analysis—a decision theatre used by the community and campus. the administration worked with the students to develop a bond fee paid by students to finance ssb’s construction and maintenance. second, as a national collegiate athletic association division ii campus, msu denver must maintain a certain quality and quantity of facilities for its various athletic teams. thus, the regency athletics complex (rac) was born. this unique facility provided a naming (philanthropic) opportunity. perhaps more importantly, the rac connects the campus to its 137 community in significant ways: the baseball, softball, and soccer fields are available for use by little leagues and community clubs, as is the surrounding track area for walking or jogging. by 2016, msu denver had added 450,000 gross square footage to the university’s inventory, creating more space for programs bursting at the seams for offices, classrooms, and labs. public-private partnerships (p3s) as the name suggests, p3s involve a collaboration between at least one public and one private entity to implement and sustain a mutually beneficial, long-term project. p3s come in a wide array of shapes and sizes depending on the goal of the project and the engaged partners. msu denver’s first foray in to the world of p3s came through its hospitality, tourism, and events planning (hte) program. as faculty engaged with industry professionals in the area, they learned that the hte curriculum needed to include a greater focus on hotel management and craft beer brewing and management. the result? the campus now boasts a full service marriott springhill suites® hotel and a restaurant attached – literally – to the hospitality learning center, 26,000 square feet of classroom and lab. this partnership generates a separate and new stream of revenue to the campus, yielding $2 million in 2017 to support scholarships and other campus needs. similarly, the increasingly popular interest in craft beer brewing led to two new degree programs, one in beer brewing and one in brewpub operations. a p3 with tivoli beer company garnered more space in existing buildings no longer shared with the other campuses along with a modest revenue stream in a third p3, msu denver collaborated with the detroit institute of music education—yes, in detroit, michigan—to offer students degree programs in all aspects of the music industry. this p3 has already grown to include a denver location, plans to launch new campuses around the country, and promises to generate yet another new stream of revenue. a new opportunity: advanced manufacturing msu denver has long had curricular strengths and faculty expertise in aviation and aerospace sciences, engineering, engineering technology sciences, industrial design, computer information systems, and computer science. therefore, when then-president barak obama launched an initiative in 2014 to increase manufacturing in the united states, the faculty were eager to explore how msu denver could contribute to the enterprise. the manufacturing sector was booming in colorado, particularly in the aerospace industry, where it is second only to texas and surpasses florida. in consultation with industry leaders, msu denver faculty decided to develop an advanced manufacturing degree program. this multi-step process began by appointing a recently retired faculty member from industrial design, dr. ken phillips, to lead the process. dr. phillips was selected for this role because he is highly respected by both faculty and industry leaders. 138 second, the university created an aes advisory board, which included representation from lockheed martin, jeppesen, and the colorado advanced manufacturing alliance to determine specific employer needs. the university invited these and other corporations, which later joined the team, because of their interest in aviation, aerospace sciences, and advanced manufacturing. employer comments centered on the following: • manufacturing job openings were increasing in number, but often went unfilled due to a lack of appropriately educated workers. • available curricula focused more on training for lower level jobs via apprenticeships. however, manufacturing jobs were changing in nature and required a different kind of education—one more focused on greater technical expertise (e.g., 3d printing and computer aided manufacturing) and on developing essential 21st century skills (e.g., teamwork, critical thinking, written and oral communication, and problem solving). • since colorado ihes were not offering the needed curriculum, mid-level positions were often filled with highly educated and costly engineers recruited from out of state; turnover was high as more advanced positions appropriate to their education became available. third, faculty and administrators toured the local advanced manufacturing companies, which expressed interest in the evolving program by responding to an invitation to participate in its development. msu denver needed to understand more completely what careers would be available upon graduating with this new degree. fourth, they identified, and then toured, three of the best manufacturing educational programs, ivy tech, purdue, and university of illinois. finally, the team conducted two surveys of involved companies regarding job-ready skills needed so they could create a state-of-the-art curriculum. the surveys yielded a strong response, with the following highlights: • unanimous support for an ams degree program, with “essential 21st century skills” development embedded throughout. • consistent need for professional level personnel with a non-engineering bachelor’s degree in ams in the next 5-10 years. • overall interest in employees who had hands-on experience with the type of equipment they would be using at work. • strong desire for their employees to complete the degree via multiple pathways – technical training, apprenticeships, twoand four-year degrees. a faculty committee set about creating a curriculum responsive to all the information collected from corporate interviews, trips, and surveys. the curriculum development team was led by dr. phillips; other team members included dr. sandra haynes, then dean of the college of professional studies; dr. joan l. foster, dean of the college of letters, arts and sciences; dr. jeffrey forrest, chair of the aviation and aerospace sciences department; dr. szuzsa balogh, faculty in civil engineering technology; dr. abel moreno, chair of the computer information systems and business analytics department; drs. aaron gordon and jerry shultz from 139 computer science; dr. duane swigert from electrical engineering technology; dr. ted shin, chair of industrial design; drs. ming li he and devi kalla from mechanical engineering technology, and dr. debbie gilliard, chair of the management department. the collaboration yielded an advanced manufacturing curriculum for a baccalaureate degree with multiple pathways to completion. once the curriculum won approval, the university launched a search for a permanent director of the advanced manufacturing sciences institute to oversee the ongoing work in the aerospace and engineering sciences building, with a focus on coordinating the efforts of all housed in the building. dr. robert park now serves in this position. creating the right spaces to leverage the collaborative opportunities among local aerospace and advanced manufacturing industries and msu denver’s related academic programs, the university initiated the aerospace and engineering sciences building project in 2013. originally, msu denver envisioned a funding model equally divided among the state, the university, and philanthropy or other private investments, with each sector contributing $20m toward an overall project budget of $60m. however, by early 2014, when it was time to begin the architectural design, the university had not secured financial commitments from the private sector. the focus on advanced manufacturing during this early period may have contributed to the lack of private sector commitment, because this industry relies so heavily on relatively new, small companies. partnerships for the project would likely not yield foundational-level donations from one or two big companies; instead, msu denver would have to look for a larger number of smaller-scale relationships. to fulfill the p3 vision of the project, the partnerships would have to involve a broad group of companies and to engage the specific needs of each company on a one-on-one basis. this meant that the architects had to design a building for an advanced manufacturing curriculum not knowing how much, if any, philanthropic donations would support the final product. the university engaged the denver architectural firm anderson mason dale architects (amd) to lead the design effort. the emphasis on smaller-scale, alternative partnership opportunities necessitated a rethinking of the architectural project delivery process. the traditional design process is linear in nature, with distinctly separated phases, characterized by one decision leading to the next. typically, a project begins with a list of space requirements based on program needs, which becomes the basis for the subsequent design phase. however, the funding levels for the aes project were indeterminate at the outset, and the small-scale partnerships targeted by the project were inherently messy: they involved modifying individual spaces to react to different needs from different companies. opportunities needed to be quickly test-fit with the architecture so that msu denver could determine whether the opportunity was worth pursuing. remaining nimble became the core goal of the design process since a linear, sequential process would not apply. amd responded with a flexible approach that overlapped programming and design so that the two activities occurred simultaneously, allowing each activity to influence the other in a nonlinear, iterative way. if an industry partner, such as lockheed martin or hartwig, suggested a certain programming need, amd quickly evaluated related design implications for msu 140 denver’s consideration. equally important, if the design unearthed a unique way to utilize a space, that programming opportunity was presented to industry for consideration. innovative partnership opportunities the fluid programming/design process that amd and msu denver prototyped made possible a variety of previously unimaginable innovative partnerships. for example, the project created opportunities for small advanced manufacturing companies to lease business space in the building. by designing the building to be extremely efficient, the project stretched the budget to provide for a whole floor of unfinished shell space. late in construction, prospective tenants approached msu denver with interest in occupying this space. at the time of publication, tenants have leased 100% of the space. the first to agree to terms was york space systems, which makes uniquely designed small satellites. york will establish its satellite production facility and a mission operations center in its leased space. with mentorship from york experts, students will have the opportunity to help design, engineer, and manufacture the satellites. they will also get to operate the spacecraft on orbit and learn how to analyze collected data. those leasing space get access to university testing equipment and student labor, and the university gets an ongoing revenue stream plus access to critical experiential learning opportunities for students. to date, other entities leasing space include ambient energy, eyassat, and the colorado advanced manufacturing association (cama). another example of innovative partnerships in the project is one that developed between msu denver and hartwig, a distributor for advanced manufacturing equipment. hartwig proposed to loan equipment to the university if, in return, the company could tour potential buyers through the building to see the equipment in use. amd tested this concept within the building design, and with msu denver established what became the advanced machines and robotics hall, at the front of the building, to house the equipment and act as a showroom for hartwig. today, the hall houses $2m worth of hartwig equipment, which will be cycled out on a regular basis, so the university gets access to the most current equipment for students, as well as relief from recurring equipment costs. hartwig benefits from being able to showcase its newest models for potential buyers and from building familiarity between students and the equipment they will use as they matriculate into the workforce (see figure 1). 141 figure 1. aerospace & engineering sciences building advanced manufacturing activities. advanced machines and robotics hall acts as showroom for hartwig equipment. a third partnership leverages the prominence of the site in the city into a shared identity between msu denver and the aerospace company lockheed martin. the project site lies along an arterial entry into downtown denver–auraria parkway. according to a 2014 traffic study, auraria parkway carries 27,000 vehicles per day, which equates to almost 5 million viewings per year of the site. in the early stages of design, the university asked that the façade oriented toward auraria parkway visually link msu denver with the aerospace industry. rather than using signage to make this connection in a literal way, amd proposed that the high-visibility site utilize a two-story student lounge space to house a super-scale aerospace artifact displayed to passing commuters. msu denver and lockheed martin collaborated to build a half-scale orion spacecraft mock-up fabricated by students using 3d-printers, which now hangs in the space (see figure 2). the deepened relationship between msu denver and lockheed eventually became formal with a $1m gift from lockheed to seed the advanced manufacturing curriculum in the building. 142 figure 2. illustrative drawing of façade facing auraria parkway: orion spacecraft links msu denver with lockheed martin, manufacturer of the spacecraft and the forum creates studying and working space for students location, location, location—influences building design as previously noted, the msu denver aes building capitalizes on an extraordinary site. the building announces its program to those arriving into and leaving downtown denver. thousands of motorists a day pass the side with the city of denver as a backdrop. msu denver is an urban university and the site for the aes building sits precisely on the edge between the campus and the city. these two aspects of the building site drive much of the primary organization and character of the building (see figure 3). ½ scale orion mockup forum student space 143 figure 3. aerial view of site. the northern half of the building consists of a series of laboratories, shops and instructional spaces, which present science learning on display to those passing on auraria boulevard. the southern edge of the site is the campus edge, the more pedestrian oriented and walkable edge of the site. it is here that the primary student/campus entries occur, and where faculty offices and the advanced manufacturing center are located. joining these two edges and the plan is a core of instructional spaces and building support zones on all levels (see figure 4.) figure 4. typical upper level plan site classrooms offices laboratories forum 144 at the west end of the building, a ‘forum’ space and a large two-story student lounge and commons, both two-story spaces, look out to the west, to the mountains of colorado’s front range in the distance. they provide the beacon and iconic view of the nature of this building for all to see: the orion mock-up in the two-story student lounge on levels three and four, and the “forum” on levels one and two for students to study, lounge, listen to special speakers, and other activities. the advanced manufacturing center on the south side of the building is a highly active and interactive student hub of learning and making. it anchors a gallery where student work is fully on display and where one can see students engaging the robotic equipment in the advanced manufacturing hall or the 3-d printers of the maker spaces, or testing materials in the structural materials testing labs. this gallery opens up to the campus with overhead garage doors such that in pleasant seasons (most of the year in colorado), the building can be opened up and invite much active pedestrian traffic to and from the campus, celebrating student life and learning and activity (see figure 5). figure 5. gallery the buildings material palette echoes the fabric of existing buildings in the msu denver neighborhood. dark ironspot brick masonry is the primary building material. a textured limestone anchors public points of entry, beacon-like stair towers, and the advanced manufacturing hall. clear anodized aluminum panels trim public points of entry and canopies 145 and projections from the building, lending a machine-like quality and precision evocative of the nature of the work going on within (see figure 6). figure 6. building exterior the completed 117,000 square foot aerospace and engineering sciences building boasts 90,000 square feet of innovative learning spaces and specialized laboratories that support specific skills and technical expertise. many of the labs on the first floor have glass walls, which give visitors a peek into the world of advanced manufacturing. designed with collaboration in mind, the building also has plenty of gathering space for students, faculty, and industry personnel to work together. three large doors on the south side can open to create an indoor/outdoor classroom or event space. the learning spaces and labs are equipped for experiential learning by students working side-by-side with their faculty. having access to the hartwig equipment translates to a highly relevant and targeted educational experience in advanced manufacturing. revenues from the leased spaces will help to maintain the building, while the corporations and organizations “living” in those spaces will add depth and breadth to critical student experiential learning opportunities. the academic departments that moved in to the aes building vacated some thirty-seven thousand square feet of space that is now available to other programs, which are at full capacity with student growing demand (e.g., nursing, nutrition, and other allied health programs). msu denver is currently planning how to backfill these spaces. conclusion in today’s higher education reality, institutions must develop curricula to meet the needs of the 21st century workforce. this requires constant communication among campus faculty and administrators, as well as with local industry and civic leaders. in addition, learning spaces must be adaptable to 21st century pedagogy that incorporates the latest technology, connect students to 146 the “real world,” and include hands-on experiences. where possible, new facilities should be open to creating not only traditional revenue streams—e.g., naming opportunities—but also continuous revenue streams via leases, the production of goods and services, and other innovative partnerships. to create such facilities, it is important to collaborate with architectural firms that are willing and able to adapt their planning, designing, and building processes to meet these needs. this case study provided insight in to one such partnership. msu denver has experienced great success with a variety of p3 opportunities. each is unique in its partnering strategies, yet each serves the goal of both enhancing student learning and generating additional revenue streams for the university. in some cases, as with the hotel and hospitality learning center, the revenues add significant resources to support scholarships and other university needs. in others, as with the dime collaborations, the revenues are more likely to offset the costs of delivering a very expensive curriculum. msu denver will continue to pursue p3s; they have proven their value to student learning and the budgetary bottom line. some future p3s may follow similar constructs to those already in place; others might be innovative in nature. the university welcomes each. 147 reference state higher education executive officers (sheeo) (2017) shef: fy 2016 – state higher education finance. boulder, co: author. 148 author information vicki l. golich is provost and executive vice president of academic and student affairs at msu denver. she oversees curriculum development and delivery, as well as all wrap around student support services and information technology services. she is actively involved in space planning across the university. * vicki l. golich, ph.d. academic and student affairs metropolitan state university of denver 890 auraria parkway campus box 48, p.o. box 173362 denver, co 80217-3362 telephone: 303-615-1900 email: vgolich@msudenver.edu sandra haynes served as dean of msu denver’s college of professional studies from 2003 to 2017. in that capacity, she lead or was highly involved in the development of several major p3's on campus, including the hotel and hospitality learning center, a brewing program, the new athletics complex, one world one water center, and the aerospace engineering sciences building. she subsequently served as msu denver’s deputy provost and oversaw all of academic affairs. she is currently chancellor of washington state university tri-cities. sandra haynes, ph.d. chancellor washington state university tri-cities 2710 crimson way richland, wa telephone: 509-372-7000 email: sandra.haynes@wsu.edu erin hillhouse is a senior associate at anderson mason dale architects (amd). he joined amd in 2006 and has 20 years of experience with an extensive background in large and complex projects for higher education. since joining amd, erin has developed a focus on facilities for engineering education. he has led significant projects of this type at several universities. several publications, including metropolis and architectural review, have recognized erin’s projects for design excellence. erin hillhouse senior associate anderson mason dale architects 3198 speer boulevard denver, co 80211 telephone: 303-294-9448 email: ehillhouse@amdarchitects.com 149 david pfeifer has been a partner at anderson mason dale architects (amd) for 15 years. he has worked extensively on higher education campuses throughout colorado and the rocky mountain west. on the auraria campus in downtown denver, home to msu denver, david served as the design principal for amd on the msu denver’s aes building, the auraria higher education center science building addition and renovation. he is the principal in charge on the university of colorado denver student commons building (completed) and student wellness center (under construction) on the auraria campus. david pfeifer principal anderson mason dale architects 3198 speer boulevard denver, co 80211 telephone: 303-294-9448 email: dpfeifer@amdarchitects.com * corresponding author 159 from capstones to strategic partnerships: the evolution of portland state university’s community engagement and partnership agenda erin flynn abstract portland state university’s (psu) reputation as an engaged, urban-serving university continues to distinguish it both nationally and locally. key partnerships with local, public, and private partners provide students, faculty, and staff with remarkable opportunities to contribute to the physical, social, and economic development of the portland metropolitan region. this article traces the evolution of psu’s engagement and partnership agenda and shares lessons learned by psu as it seeks to better coordinate and centralize key components of its vast engagement and partnership portfolio. this reflection describes why and how psu created an office of strategic partnerships and the role of the newly formed psu partnership council, and explores the challenge of striking a balance between the grassroots level of engagement and partnership activity and the need to take a larger, institution-wide view. portland state university’s (psu) motto, “let knowledge serve the city,” exemplifies the institution’s commitment to community engagement and partnership. for over two decades, community engagement and partnership have been distinguishing characteristics of psu’s mission, strategies, and operations at every level. historically, the clearest manifestation of this commitment has been the senior capstone requirement. the capstone is the culminating, senior-level course in psu’s university studies general education program, consisting of teams of students from different majors working together and collaborating with one or more community partners to complete a project addressing a real-world problem in the portland metropolitan region. community engagement and partnership emerged as a centerpiece of the psu faculty and student experience due, in part, to the university’s central, urban location. psu anchors the south end of downtown portland, occupying fifty city blocks. it is a dense urban campus within walking distance from city hall, most major downtown employers, and a short bike, bus, or car ride from myriad government agencies, businesses, and nonprofit organizations. proximity was not the sole factor driving community engagement, however, as psu evolved from a teaching college established in 1952 as part of the gi bill to a full-service research university offering a range of graduate certificates and degrees. by the mid-1990’s, engagement and partnership, grounded in the capstone requirement, were celebrated and highlighted as a strategic 160 advantage by senior administrators who sought to forge a distinct identity for psu as an urban-serving research university (ramaley 1996, 1997). since ay 1992-93, when the capstone requirement was established, many other forms of community engagement and partnership have taken root across the university. examples include a large body of professional service and sponsored research delivered by various colleges and institutes across campus to a range of local, county, and state government agencies, particularly in the health, education, and social service fields; a wide range of partnerships with local businesses and industry related to workforce development (e.g., internships and employment); and continuous professional application opportunities for fine and performing arts students with local nonprofit organizations. more recently, a significant body of engagement and partnership work has emerged related to city and regional planning and environmental sustainability. “civic leadership through partnership” for the better part of the past twenty-five years, the vast majority of psu’s engagement and partnership work was initiated by individual faculty members, staff, and/or administrators who had personal relationships with nonprofit, business, and government leaders. historically, the engagement and partnership agenda relied on individual rather than institutional relationships. in 2008, when wim wiewel became the eighth president of psu, he established five guiding themes for the university, one of these being “provide civic leadership through partnerships.” as a scholar of city-university relations, wiewel was well versed in the concept of universities as “anchor institutions”—that is, large, place-based organizations (public or private) advancing long-term, strategic goals related to urban innovation, economic and workforce development, community health, education reform, and real estate development in metro regions (initiative for a competitive inner city and ceos for cities 2002). upon arrival, he charged psu to do the following: •  lead as a civic partner •  deepen engagement as a critical community asset •  demonstrate leadership in regional innovation  •  serve as an anchor institution in the metro region to deliver on these goals, wiewel established the new executive-level office of strategic partnerships (osp), organizationally situated within research and strategic partnerships (rsp). in addition to raising the research profile of the university, rsp was created to develop and advance “strategic partnerships” and serve as a front door for community engagement. psu defines strategic partners to be business and civic partners that typically involve multiple colleges and tap into a range of university assets, including faculty research, student labor, workforce development units, contract research and service, demonstration projects, and planning and development initiatives. these multi-faceted partnerships require coordination, management, and regular reporting due to the complexity and strategic and political import of the partners. 161 three strategic partnerships had been identified and were under development in some shape or form when the office of strategic partnerships was created in 2011. these included intel, portland general electric (pge), and oregon health and science university (ohsu). getting organized what became clear upon creation of the new office of strategic partnerships in 2011 was that psu had little institution-wide understanding of its partnership landscape. two decades of active partnership development had led to a tremendous amount of engagement and activity, but there had been little structured attempt at cataloging, documenting, or measuring the quantity, quality, or impact of this activity. while the capstone program had developed a structured process for tracking community partnerships and courses, other forms of engagement and partnership were not formally tracked or documented. the formation of osp highlighted the need to develop a more comprehensive and systematic method for understanding and tracking partnership activity. another realization was that the lack of protocol regarding outreach to strategic partners had resulted in a mishmash of overlapping requests from psu to partners. partners complained about the lack of coordination within psu and expressed the desire for a “one-stop” point of contact that could vet requests and help partners navigate psu. a first step for the newly formed office was development of an inventory methodology to enable internal and external stakeholders to quickly see the nature of an existing partnership. the inventory process included a five-year look at the following: •   identification and documentation of all sponsored research and service activity  between psu and each partner •   identification and documentation of all workforce development-related activity (e.g.,  internships, number of alumni employed by partner, and curriculum-related engagement with partner) •   capstones courses sponsored by partner •   philanthropic gifts and in-kind sponsorship from partner •   key faculty and administrative relationships with partner the process of creating strategic partnership inventories proved challenging and timeconsuming because of the highly decentralized nature of the required pieces of information. building a comprehensive inventory required data collection from multiple units on campus, extensive face-to-face interviews with relevant faculty and staff, and fact-checking with partners. the inventory process quickly revealed that “strategic partnerships” were composed of myriad formal and informal partnerships and relationships (e.g., research, technical assistance, service, capstones, internships, demonstration projects, philanthropy, etc.), and that it was extremely difficult to capture all related activity. this realization led to a broader, university-wide effort to better categorize, coordinate, and communicate psu’s partnership agenda writ large. 162 development of the “psu engagement and partnership spectrum” in the fall of 2013, osp teamed up with psu’s office of academic innovation (oai) to tackle several interrelated engagement and partnership challenges. oai is responsible for grounding curriculum design and faculty support for the development of community-based learning courses. a “challenge statement” was circulated among deans and key staff, and a series of interviews was held to determine how to best forge collective solutions (office of research and strategic partnerships 2013). the “challenge” was articulated in the following way: despite deep experience and expertise in community engagement and community-university partnerships, psu has yet to organize, cohere, measure, or communicate its partnership agenda effectively. year after year, psu administrators struggle to answer basic questions about community partnership and engagement. psu’s inability to readily gather information to answer these questions is problematic on multiple levels. it presents challenges for students who seek information about partnership-based courses; for faculty who seek to conduct partnership-based scholarship; for department chairs and deans who want to publicize accomplishments associated with partnership-based teaching and research; and for senior administrators who are frequently asked by the media, legislature, and donors to share partnership stories, data, and outcomes. because of the decentralized growth of partnership activity at psu, the people who do this work are often isolated within their colleges, units, and divisions. faculty and staff fail to identify synergies with others doing similar work; duplication of effort and outreach occurs as a result. this is both inefficient and unproductive as partners often complain about psu’s lack of coordination regarding community outreach. the current state of partnership also creates challenges for external stakeholders seeking to recruit students and/or work collaboratively with the university on critical issues. external stakeholders aren’t clear how to navigate the tangled web of departments, colleges, and administrative units that make up psu. external stakeholders must often make multiple contacts within the university before they find the appropriate individual who can provide relevant assistance. structured interviews with representatives from all seven of psu’s colleges revealed that the word “partnership” was being used to describe everything from a one-day student volunteer project to multi-year research projects with state agencies. to gain a full accounting of the partnership landscape, it became clear that a more nuanced understanding of community engagement and partnership was required. through campus interviews and inventory work, partnership patterns emerged that led to the development of a partnership typology (figure 1). the goal of the typology was to 163 clarify the major categories of engagement and partnership at psu and to begin to build an institutional view of partnership activity. figure 1: psu engagement and partnership spectrum the following definitions were developed to clarify each category: • community engagement activities in this category engage students and faculty in co-curricular student work or community-based teaching, learning, and research activities. these partnership activities are typically initiated and sustained by an individual faculty member or student group. • professional development ongoing professional development opportunities and partnerships occur at the college and department level. these opportunities may be required for degree completion or may be designed to produce “work-ready” graduates. this category includes practicum (required for graduation/certification), structured internships, and professional application. • research and sponsored projects a significant share of psu’s research and sponsored projects portfolio consists of long-term research and professional development partnerships with state and local government. these partnerships are characterized by research and program evaluation, database development, service delivery, staff training, and professional development. • strategic partnerships strategic partnerships typically involve multiple colleges and tap into a range of university assets, including faculty research, student labor, workforce development, contract research and service, demonstration projects, and planning and development. community engagement course-based professional development work-based research & sponsored projects contract-based strategic partnerships strategy-based community-based teaching & learning student employment & professional application state & local research and service institutional priority business & civic partners 164 psu partnership council launch in the fall of 2014, with support from the president and provost, psu launched the psu community partnership council. utilizing the engagement and partnership spectrum as a unifying framework, the psu partnership council was charged with the following: the general purpose of the community partnership council is to fulfill psu’s goal of civic leadership through partnerships. specifically, the council seeks to better organize, coordinate, and report on significant partnership activity. in addition, the council will identify administrative barriers that prohibit successful implementation of partnership activities and seek to address them. the council will identify, organize, and leverage psu assets and expertise to deliver on regional strategic partnerships that include, but are not limited to, urban sustainability, economic development, educational reform, and community health. the council is intended to act as a value-added, campuslevel forum for identifying strategies to enhance the overall psu climate for growing and sustaining community partnerships (office of research and strategic partnerships 2014). the overarching goal of the partnership council was defined in the following way: psu seeks to be at the cutting-edge of “community-university” engagement and partnership work nationally. while honoring the personal relationships upon which many partnerships are built, psu seeks to build campus infrastructure and support systems that lead to greater standardization and an ability to more readily assess and communicate the impact and value of this work. the end goal is to provide more consistent and better engagement and partnership opportunities to more faculty, staff, students, and stakeholders (office of research and strategic partnerships 2014). the associate vice president for strategic partnerships and the dean of the college of urban and public affairs were appointed co-chairs of the community partnership council. council membership consists of twenty faculty and staff representing each college. the committee membership intentionally does not include students or community partners. recognizing that many of the initial challenges identified with psu’s unorganized partnership agenda had to do with the lack of systems from within psu, council leadership decided to limit the initial sphere within which the work would be done to committee members drawn from psu faculty and staff. committee members were identified using the following criteria: 1. at least one representative of each school or college at psu; 2. both faculty and staff with experience/expertise in partnerships, including faculty members from different ranks; 3. directors of centers and institutes that engage in research, sponsored projects, and/ or professional development; and 4. representatives of varied disciplines and approaches to partnerships to promote diverse perspectives on engagement issues. 165 in year one, community partnership council members self-organized into teams organized according to the psu engagement and partnership spectrum categories. each team explored and identified challenges and opportunities related to their specific aspect of engagement and partnership work, and the teams each produced a briefing paper that identified strategic actions to advance their work. a significant amount of the first-year agenda became a component part of a campus-wide, five-year strategic plan that places partnership and engagement at its core. building strategic partnerships: a bottom-up, top-down approach gaining a comprehensive view of psu’s partnership activity and establishing the engagement and partnership spectrum helped organize the work, clarified the ways that partnerships were playing out across campus, and distinguished the role of strategic partnerships as a distinctive form of psu partnership. strategic partnerships are not separate from psu’s traditional partnership and engagement work. in fact, they are typically composed of all of the partnership and engagement activities represented on the engagement and partnership spectrum. these partnerships are unique because they cut across multiple colleges and require a level of central coordination to ensure that various units on campus understand institution-level partnership goals, and interdisciplinary teams may be formed to deliver on these goals. strategic partnerships encompass bottom-up and top-down activity simultaneously; they are composed of myriad discrete partnerships knit together with intention and governance to advance the articulated strategic goals of psu and the partner. unlike individual departments or colleges, osp takes a university-wide view of engagement and seeks to facilitate efficient matchmaking between strategic partners and campus units to increase the quality and quantity of engagement between psu and strategic partners and to measure and communicate the overall impact of portfolio activity. in addition to the three original strategic partners identified when the office was established (intel, pge, and ohsu), psu has identified four additional strategic partners that meet the criteria outlined in the engagement and partnership spectrum. these include portland public schools, multnomah county, metro regional government, and technology association of oregon. today, osp is working with each of these partners to advance a coordinated, strategic, and mutually beneficial relationship. in the following section, one of these strategic partnerships is examined in depth. pge-psu strategic partnership psu’s strategic partnership with portland general electric is a good illustration of psu’s strategic partnership approach. psu and pge have been working with focused intention on this partnership as a strategic partnership for five years. the level of communication, coordination, and engagement grows each year as the partnership develops and delivers results. pge is oregon’s largest electric utility, serving 840,000 customers in fifty-two oregon cities. the company headquarters is located a few 166 blocks from psu. recognizing a history of collaboration in applied research, psu’s president and pge’s ceo signed a memorandum of understanding (mou) in 2010, pledging mutual commitment to showcase psu and pge as regional anchor institutions and leaders in renewable energy and urban sustainability. specifically, the mou stated that pge and psu would do the following: •   build on the region’s reputation for green leadership by developing and  implementing innovative demonstration projects; •   capitalize on the portland metro region’s leadership position in urban innovation  and sustainability; •   leverage existing strengths, capacity, and expertise, and align research and  philanthropic investments. the lofty goals contained in the mou did not provide an implementation road map for the pge-psu strategic partnership. in fact, the partnership stalled the first year, as there was little clarity among the initial team about how to move forward, alongside no record of what the university and pge had actually done together in the past. in august 2011, the partnership publicly kicked off, to great fanfare, with the opening of “electric avenue,” an all-electric, one-block street on the psu campus that featured free electric vehicle battery charging and a range of charging stations. electric avenue was a demonstration project created by psu, pge, and the city of portland to highlight the city’s commitment to transportation electrification. the demonstration site has been a great success, as measured by press coverage, new product rollouts, and local use. but other aspects of the partnership failed to get off the ground. for example, psu was not able to deliver on an anticipated electric vehicle research agenda, as it could not identify faculty with a research focus on transportation electrification. likewise, a planned “sustainability center” at psu that was to be financed through state bonds and would feature pge smart grid technology did not materialize. these challenges were exacerbated by the fact that osp had not yet been established, and psu had not designated a lead staff person to manage the pge-psu partnership. when a new associate vice president for strategic partnerships was hired at psu in the spring of 2011, three key steps were taken to set the partnership on the right track: first, a formal governance structure was established, with designated members from both psu and pge assigned responsibility for setting goals and moving the partnership forward; second, a comprehensive inventory of how pge and psu work together (on research; community-based learning, including capstones; philanthropic giving; and boards and committees) was conducted; and third, clarity regarding psu’s faculty expertise in renewable energy and power engineering was established, and hiring plans were shared. through a disciplined process of quarterly meetings, documentation, and regular communication, the pge-psu strategic partnership began to take shape, deliver consistent results, and build momentum. a turning point in the partnership was the appointment of a new faculty member in the engineering school with expertise in 167 power engineering and a passion for applied learning. another faculty member was hired to build psu’s power engineering program, which quickly became a centerpiece of the partnership, as pge provided financing for a new power engineering lab. the lab was created to provide a real-world engineering setting for students. within three years of its founding, the power engineering lab had secured over $500,000 in sponsored projects and research grants from pge. in june 2015, the pge-psu strategic partnership held a five-year review session. the partnership has evolved dramatically and is producing strong results for both institutions. the strategic partnership has resulted in twenty-six sponsored projects (involving five psu departments) with a dollar value of approximately $730,000; eight capstone projects involving thirty-two students; and an electric vehicle demonstration project and conference series that has garnered international attention. the next iteration of the strategic partnership will work on a regional energy workforce continuum and smart grid research and development. the evolution of the pge-psu relationship over the past five years illustrates the power of a campus-wide, coordinated approach to engagement where appropriate. by gaining a clear understanding of the discrete ways in which pge and pge already partnered (e.g., in capstones and through sponsored research), establishing an accountable governance structure, and establishing ambitious and mutually beneficial goals, the pge-psu partnership has delivered more significant results and more value to students, faculty, and pge than a decentralized approach could have yielded. the strategic partnership has provided pge with strong confidence in psu and its ability to be responsive to its needs. this, in turn, has resulted in greater financial investment by pge in the partnership and psu. lessons learned the office of strategic partnerships is now beginning its fifth year. the experience of building central capacity to support and advance university-wide strategic partnerships has been challenging, but ultimately rewarding, as the results of better coordination, communication, and higher expectations between psu and partners are realized. on a daily basis, osp must navigate and balance the tension inherent in more centralized documentation, reporting, and communication, and the highly decentralized and individual nature of relationships between faculty, staff, and partners that yield the real, day-to-day results of partnership. sometimes the centralized aspect of strategic partnerships can be viewed as threatening. while the intent of osp is to advance partnership work occurring at the unit and college level, faculty may suspect that osp is trying to take over the work and/or claim credit for it. building trust with faculty and staff who have spent years cultivating relationships with partners is key. an important step in building trust is to meet with individual faculty to learn about their work and to make clear that the goal of strategic partnership is not to claim credit for faculty work but to enhance and build upon it by bringing additional resources to bear in the form of staff and organizational capacity, resources, and relationships. 168 engagement and partnership activities are an important contribution of urban-serving universities. at many universities, however, it is difficult for internal and external stakeholders to navigate the partnership landscape. today, public universities are under considerable pressure to demonstrate results, not just in terms of graduation rates but in how they contribute to the vitality of their metropolitan regions. engagement and partnership is a demonstrable way that universities create value. as more and more urban-serving universities seek to build, improve, and communicate their engagement and partnership agendas, we offer the following lessons learned: • make partnership and engagement visible it is critical to make partnership and engagement work visible and transparent to internal and external stakeholders. because the information required to do this is very often decentralized, a data collection process needs to be established and put in play. to start, form a team of people who are responsible for key aspects of partnership and engagement and work to define common categories. at psu, we developed the engagement and partnership spectrum to facilitate organization of the agenda. begin regular reporting at established intervals to gain a quantitative view of partnership. • tell the partnership story build capacity for regular storytelling to capture the qualitative and inspirational aspects of the engagement and partnership work. psu is currently working to launch a partnership newsletter for consistent and regular reporting on the engagement and partnership work across campus. an easy-to-access website with all relevant partnership information is also central to partnership infrastructure. • engage faculty and staff in the partnership capacity-building process gaining the trust and buy-in of faculty and staff requires respect for all aspects of engagement and partnership work. build trust with faculty and staff by bringing them into the partnership capacity-building process and keeping them informed about what you are doing. recognize and celebrate all different types of partnerships, as each has an important role to play for students, faculty, partners, and the institution as a whole. acknowledge and honor the work of individuals who have built discrete programs. strategic partnerships are additive, not competitive. done well they strengthen existing programs and bring more resources to bear. • strike a balance between centralized and decentralized roles and responsibilities a centralized partnership function is critical for certain aspects of the partnership agenda (e.g., campus-wide coordination, documentation, reporting, and matchmaking). strategic partnerships are arguably best led through a central office, but recognize that the vast majority of partnership and engagement work will occur at the level of individual faculty, departments, institutions, and colleges. do not try to control all aspects of the engagement and partnership agenda. it is not possible or desirable. regarding strategic partner outreach, it is desirable to have some type of communication protocol and/or to work through a central office. partners can become annoyed when random requests are made that are not part and parcel of agreed-upon goals. 169 • delight partners by exceeding expectations build trust with partners by being responsive, communicating regularly, and following through on commitments. partners often complain that universities are hard to work with. change their perception by exceeding expectations. conclusion the highly decentralized and entrepreneurial nature of universities creates challenges for building partnership capacity. at the same time, without some level of central coordination, documentation, and communication, it is extremely hard for internal and external stakeholders to understand what is happening in the partnership realm or to measure impact. this is important for public universities, in particular, as they strive to demonstrate their value to the community at large as well as to legislative bodies. with the psu community partnership council as a key structure bridging bottom-up, topdown approaches, psu has continued the strides it has made in striking a balance between grassroots engagement work and institutional-level, strategic partnership work. references afshar, anna. 2005. “community-campus partnerships for economic development: community perspectives.” federal bank of boston/public and community affairs, discussion papers 2. buys, nicholas, and samantha bursnall. 2007. “establishing university-community partnerships: processes and benefits.” journal of higher education policy and management 29 (1): 73-86. holland, barbara a. 2002. “every perspective counts: understanding the true meaning of reciprocity in partnerships.” keynote address presented at the western regional campus compact conference, portland, or, april 17. initiative for a competitive inner city, and ceos for cities. 2002. “leveraging colleges and universities for urban economic revitalization: an action agenda.” boston: initiative for a competitive inner city; ceos for cities. accessed september 22. http://www.icic.org/ee_uploads/publications/uifinal.pdf. office of research and strategic partnerships. 2013. “challenge statement.” portland state university. unpublished internal document. office of research and strategic partnerships. 2014. “partnership council charge.” portland state university. accessed september 22. http://www.pdx.edu/partnerships/ council-charge. peters, scott j., nicholas r. jordan, margaret adamek, and theodore r. alter, eds. 2005. engaging campus and community: the practice of public scholarship in the state and land-grant university system. dayton, oh: the kettering foundation. 170 ramaley, judith a. 1996. “large-scale institutional change to implement an urban university mission: portland state university.” journal of urban affairs 18 (2): 139-151. ramaley, judith a. 1997. “shared consequences: recent experiences with outreach and community-based learning.” journal of public service and outreach 2 (1): 19-25. sandy, marie. 2008. “more communication, collaboration needed, say community partners in nation’s largest study. compact current, winter. http://www.compact. org/current/ issues/2008_winter. wiewel, wim, and michael lieber. 1998. “goal achievement, relationship building, and incrementalism: the challenges of university-community partnerships.” journal of planning education and research 17 (4): 291-301. author information erin flynn, phd, is associate vice president for strategic partnerships at portland state university. prior to joining psu in 2011, she served as urban development director at the portland development commission, the city of portland’s economic and urban development agency. erin flynn research and strategic partnerships portland state university po box 751 portland, or 97207-0751 e-mail: eflynn@pdx.edu telephone: 503-403-9886 metropolitan universities vol. 29 no. 3 (august 2018), doi: 10.18060/22500 transformative learning ed cunliff and jeff king transformative learning, like the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities (cumu), has experienced substantial growth during the past few decades. the original research conducted by mezirow (1975), who is considered the originator of the transformative learning theory, was focused on individual change: women who had been out of the workforce and were reentering. the experience was challenging in many ways, as issues of self-concept, existing frames of reference, and assumptions were beginning to change. mezirow described the process as a structural reorganization: something that necessitates reconceiving concepts of self and one’s relationships (mezirow, 1978). students in higher education are voluntarily placing themselves in an environment they hope is safe and that provides them with paths to a better life. at its simplest level, for the traditional student, the transformation would be from adolescence to adulthood. if that is not a “disruptive dilemma” as mezirow terms it, then what is? older, non-traditional students, though, are often seeking a career change of some sort, such as the women reentering the workforce who mezirow focused on for his initial research. mezirow’s work is often viewed as being psychological in orientation and hence not seen as addressing social change, but this can become a “chicken or the egg” discussion. which comes first, personal change or social change? what the authors in this volume do is present strategies in which both the community and the individuals involved have equal opportunity for transformation. george kuh (2008) came to the idea of high impact practices from the perspective of student engagement. recognizing that not all student learning occurs in the confines of the classroom or lab, kuh identified ten particular engagement activities that helped students’ learning (some now number these at 11, with the addition of e-portfolios to the list; watson et al., 2016). amongst these activities are service learning/community-based learning, internships, and capstone projects. all of these approaches to student development, learning, and success can and do connect strongly with the city and regional areas served by metropolitan universities. kuh’s concepts fit well with the concept of transformative learning. they suggest that student learning benefits by participation in activities that take students out of the classroom and into the community in some fashion. the early work of mezirow is now viewed more broadly and links with the activities that carry students to learn outside of the classroom. for this issue of metropolitan universities, we focus on how institutions are helping large numbers of students to transform from adolescents to professionals in a field, or to re-design their lives through formal education. as guest editors, we (ed cunliff and jeff king) are gratified to be contributing an article about how our institution, the university of central oklahoma, came to transformative learning (tl) as a focus in helping students learn. as oklahoma’s only metropolitan-serving institution within 4 the regional university system of oklahoma, understanding the history of a successful and ongoing tl initiative that has been operationalized in an evidence-based process can be important when seeking natural alignments between a teaching/learning approach to which a university commits and the potential for such an approach to serve metro partners and the community to the best degree possible. we offer this in hopes it can provide some guideposts for other institutions who decide to travel the tl path. every metropolitan area needs “professional managers with strong sustainability principles and standards,” as say brunnquell and brunstein in their article. metropolitan realities in the 21st century are such that a sustainability ethos is requisite for the continuation of the city and region. quality of life can be threatened in the absence of widespread managerial expertise in, and commitment to, sustainability. ensuring such ethos and skill in this segment of the workforce naturally falls to metro-serving institutions, from which these managers and managers-to-be will graduate. the authors pose an intriguing idea about transformative learning-focused sustainability education within schools of business that moves from problem-solving to problemposing as part of a critically reflective process that will help ensure that metro-serving institutions produce sustainability-minded future managers. reitenauer, draper-beard, and schultz write about "the transformative power of encounter" in their description of portland state university's inside-out prison exchange program situated within the psu university studies program. sharing personal stories of transformation from an "inside student" (incarcerated), an "outside student" (psu junior), and the psu faculty member teaching the course, this article describes the history, institutional decisions, and activity that led to launching and maintaining inside-out participation, and—in the words of those changed by the experience—the program’s transformative impact. the role of the teaching and learning center at metropolitan universities is central to the development of a transformative learning focus in the curriculum and co-curriculum. partnering with agencies in the metropolitan area, in service to that end, is a win-win for the university and the metropolitan community. ableser and moore describe how oakland university increased community engagement via its experiential learning initiative as well as helped faculty and staff become more practiced in tl strategies by implementing a universal design for learning (udl) approach. full of recommendations and tips, this article is both descriptive and prescriptive for success with tl at metro-serving institutions. metropolitan state university denver was the host of the 2017 cumu annual conference, and golich, haynes and kreidler, from msu denver, provide an excellent example of how an institution can forge connections to benefit stakeholders. they describe how they have worked with employers to develop opportunities for students and to connect with economic drivers in colorado. the approach they have utilized is to look first to the employers and discover their needs and then to match the academic and student work to help fill that gap. this shift is an important change in perspective for working with our metropolitan communities. layne, kidwell and carney describe a capstone course that helps students transform through a program that connects them with real world problem solving in the agricultural and food service industries. the connection they describe helps students obtain some of the skills that might be 5 difficult or impossible to get solely in the classroom setting. this is an opportunity for students to better transfer learnings to work environments, and also helps faculty and industry create stronger communication systems and bonds. sims and scott offer insight into diversity programs from two different universities. they address issues in diversity that are part of metropolitan areas in highly replicable fashion. the transformative nature of the programs are well-founded in transformative learning theory, and are described with clarity, thus facilitating replication. both programs are strongly driven by faculty initiative and are managed in self-sustaining models that allow direct benefits to students and to the institutions. we are grateful to metropolitan universities editor valerie holton, phd, for offering us the opportunity to co-edit an issue on transformative learning in metropolitan universities. having started our separate careers during an era when “town and gown” was the phrase used to describe the relationship between higher education institutions and their home communities, it is exciting to now be in an era where collaboration and mutual benefit are the focus. 6 references kuh, g. d. (2008, september 30). high-impact educational practices: what they are, who has access to them, and why they matter. washington, dc: association of american colleges & universities. mezirow, j. (1975). education for perspective transformation: women’s reentry program in community colleges. new york, ny: center for adult education, teachers college, columbia university. mezirow, j. (1978). perspective transformation. adult education, 28(2), 100-110. https://doi.org/10.1177/074171367802800202 watson, c. e., kuh, g. d., rhodes, t., light, t. p., & chen, h. l. (2016). editorial: eportfolios — the eleventh high impact practice. international journal of eportfolio, 6 (2), 65-69. retrieved from http://www.theijep.com/pdf/ijep254.pdf https://doi.org/10.1177/074171367802800202 http://www.theijep.com/pdf/ijep254.pdf 7 author information ed cunliff is professor of adult and higher education at the university of central oklahoma with a consulting practice in transformative learning and authentic leadership. ed’s seeks to help learners achieve their goals, which he accomplishes through teaching/facilitating learning in the adult and higher education program at the university of central oklahoma. teaching and research interests include adult learners, applied research, transformative learning, managing adult education programs, and the organization and administration of higher education. ed cunliff department of adult education and safety sciences university of central oklahoma 100 n. university drive box 206, ctl 221 edmond, ok 73034 email: ecunliff@uco.edu telephone: 405-974-2972 jeff king is executive director of the center for excellence in transformative teaching and learning at the university of central oklahoma. he also leads the student transformative learning record (stlr) initiative, which is comprised of the processes, tools, and infrastructure uco employs to operationalize transformative learning. as part of his stlr duties, jeff works with other institutions who have adopted or adapted stlr to their own campuses, missions, and cultures. jeff king center for excellence in transformative teaching and learning university of central oklahoma 100 n. university drive box 212, ctl 205 edmond, ok 73034 email: jking47@uco.edu telephone: 405-974-5544 mailto:ecunliff@uco.edu mailto:jking47@uco.edu metropolitan universities vol. 28 no. 4 (november 2017), doi: 10.18060/21744 capacity building for social innovation: a collective impact approach ellen j. szarleta abstract business, nonprofit, and government institutions generally agree that a vibrant economy is critical to addressing the multi-faceted, complex issues faced by urban communities. yet, despite significant targeted efforts aimed at revitalizing economic activity over the past few decades, the state of many communities remains unchanged. a collective social entrepreneurship model, focused on building social entrepreneurial capital networks, is proposed as a complement to more traditional models focused on building individual capacity for social entrepreneurship. this article contends that one way universities can play a role in building social entrepreneurial networks is by serving as conveners. the lessons learned from a university-community initiative suggests that a collective impact framework and university leadership in a convening role, can support and inform the use of the social entrepreneurship approach to more effectively address issues of economic vitality. keywords: collective social entrepreneurship; convener; wicked problem introduction the issues facing communities, particularly urban communities, often elicit demands for action (baum, 2000) and positive social change. these demands create challenges for universitycommunity partnerships grounded in relationship-building processes including divergent expectations regarding communication, decision making and authority (prins, 2005). addressing the immediate and pressing concerns of communities, while building mutually beneficial relationships requires more than modifying existing process; it requires innovative solutions based in systems change, e.g., such as reframing issues. the urgency to confront issues such as economic vitality provides universities and communities with an opportunity to combine the theories of collective impact and social entrepreneurship to leverage place-based knowledge to build community capacity for defining, implementing, and evaluating change. this article examines the role of a community-university social entrepreneurship initiative in building collective capacity for long-term economic vitality. building on the theory of collective impact, and incorporating tenets of social entrepreneurship, the early lessons of an urban farm initiative suggest that community demands can be better addressed when a network of social entrepreneurs adopts a collective impact framework. the experience also suggests that, by creating and supporting a collective approach to social entrepreneurship, the community is empowered to work toward tackling wicked problems through the lens of collective action. 82 the context communities in northwest indiana, as in many blighted, urban areas, face substantial obstacles to economic development including high rates of poverty and the loss of an industrial base. these once thriving urban areas are now recognized across the country as context for "wicked problems" (rittel, 1973). iu northwest, a regional campus of indiana university, is located in gary, a city characterized by conditions of extreme poverty and industrial decline. gary, in is also burdened with conditions commonly associated with wicked problems, or problems that are resistant to resolution as a result of their characteristics (rittel & webber, 1973). rittel (1973) first characterized these types of problems with 10 or 11 properties. conklin (2009) later condensed these wicked problem properties (2009) to six: • the problem is not understood until you have developed a solution, • there is no single stopping rule, • solutions are not right or wrong, • each wicked problem is unique and novel, • every solution is a “one-shot operation” with consequences, • alternative solutions are not a given. the socio-economic conditions in the city of gary, like those in many urban industrialized areas, set the context for a myriad of wicked problems. approximately, 38% of gary’s residents, 89% of which are african american, live in poverty. the city’s poverty rate (census, 2014) exceeds that of the county (18%), the state of indiana (15.4%) and the united states (13.8%). the city of gary, founded by united steel corporation in 1908, was once the anchor of economic vitality in the 7-county northwest indiana region, and the second largest city in the state of indiana. gary is now the 5th largest city in the state, experiencing dramatic population losses in the last 40 years (census, 2014). in the early decades following the city’s establishment, both the city and the region were proud of their “industrial pre-eminence”—the economic foundation of prosperity (federal writers project, 1939). today, communities take pride in resilience in the face of significant challenges. the community’s resilience is evidenced in part by the number of businesses in the city; more than half of all business in lake county, indiana are now located in gary (5,700 of the 9,843 businesses in the county); 69% of the city’s businesses are black owned. while the number of smaller businesses is impressive, the city’s economic resilience is limited by socio-demographic conditions. per capita income (in 2013 dollars) is roughly $16,000, or approximately 2/3 of the state per capita income level. the median value of home is less than half of the median value in the state and the city’s home ownership rate is 53% compared to 70% in the state. in a city of 78,000 people, 28,000 individuals make up the labor force and 25,000 are employed (indiana labor force estimates, august 2015). education levels of residents further limit economic opportunity. among those aged 25 and over, only 12.3% possess a bachelor’s degree, making the prospect of attracting high-earning positions to the city a significant challenge (census, 2014). the statistics cited above tell the story of a city plagued by factors believed to contribute to urban decline. another statistic, the number of businesses in the city, suggests an untapped 83 source of socio-economic capital that can be leveraged for urban renewal: small business. the city of gary is home to over half of all business in lake county, indiana, and more than half of all businesses in the county employ 1-4 individuals (4,862 of 9,843). small businesses are powerful agents of social change (mair & marti, 2006; aldrich & zimmer, 1986) and have the potential to advance local social interests previously unrecognized by larger corporations. yet, in the city of gary and in the region, economic development nevertheless falters. this poses many interesting questions, including: how can community-university partnerships harness the economic potential of individual entrepreneurs to effect transformational community change? to begin answering this question, two models, social entrepreneurship and collective impact are examined. social entrepreneurship while social entrepreneurship has enjoyed wide recognition for its successes (mair & marti, 2006), a widely accepted definition of the phrase in academic circles does not yet exist. two decades ago, the literature focused on distinguishing business entrepreneurship and social entrepreneurship based on social-value creation. venkataraman (1997) states that under business entrepreneurship, social wealth is a by-product of economic value, while the focus of social entrepreneurship is on social value creation. more recently, seelos and mair (2005) argue that the boundary between business and social entrepreneurship does not lie in the distinction between profit motive and altruism, but suggest that the motivation of social entrepreneurs is one of not only doing good, but also doing well and pursuing personal fulfillment. internationally recognized social entrepreneurship initiatives include professor muhammad yunus’ work empowering women in bangladesh. the grameen bank, founded by yunus, provided credit to the poor by removing the need for collateral, and created a banking system based on trust, accountability, creativity and participation (yunus, 2007). as of october of 2011, the grameen bank had 8.349 million borrowers, 97% of whom are women. (yunus, 2017). more recent efforts, such as kiva, the first online peer-to-peer microcredit marketplace, facilitate entrepreneurship across the global by leveraging the financial resources of similarly minded individuals. operating outside the united states since 2005, kiva began funding loans to small us-based business owners in 2012, introducing a significant innovation in the field: social underwriting or banking based on character. this program has now sourced more than $25 million in new loans (sahni, lanzerotti, bilss, & pike, 2017) with such generally accepted success it is clear why social entrepreneurs are seen be vital to the production of social capital. however, an important limitation of social entrepreneurship is the limited ability to capture the value that is created particularly in areas where enterprise is focused on meeting basic needs (seelos & mair, 2005) as the capacity to earn profit is constrained by lower levels of income. mair and marti (2006) suggest that embeddedness, as a mindset, is particularly limiting in areas where the pool of resources has run dry. in such areas, the positive effects of embeddedness, e.g., the ability to leverage relationships to access resources, are outweighed by individual entrepreneurs’ diminished willingness or ability to take on a challenge. collective social entrepreneurship, an emerging concept in the literature, is one vehicle for overcoming embeddedness. 84 collective social entrepreneurship montgomery, dacin and dacin (2012) define collective social entrepreneurship as collaboration among stakeholders for the purpose of applying business principles to solving social problems. the value of collective social entrepreneurship, as opposed to individual social entrepreneurship, lies in its potential to bring about the institutional arrangements that will support transformative, as opposed to transformational change. these forms of change, explained below, are distinct in both their process and their outcome. transformational change is a familiar concept to organizations in all sectors. strategic planning, commonly undertaken by businesses, government, and nonprofits, is one process used to effect a transformational change. this form of change is both pervasive and intentional. it occurs over a period of time and if successful, strongly influences institutional culture (eckel & kezar, 2003). notably, the outcome of this process is a change in the internal functions of an organization with the goal of supporting its historical purpose or mission. for instance, in the business sector, transformational change leads to an overhaul of strategy and organizational restructuring (bess & dee, 2008); in education, transformational change may take the form of alternative methods of teaching, research and service, while preserving the institution’s focus on all three areas (holley, 2009). the frame of reference, in both cases, remains unchanged while internal functions are reorganized to improve outcomes consistent the organization’s existing frame of reference. transformative change, on the other hand, requires the development of new frames of reference (mezirow, 1997), or the habits of mind or points of view that help us to understand our experiences (moore, 2005). unlike the process of transformational change, where existing frames of reference are preserved, transformative change seeks to expand knowledge in a way that leads to new frames of reference. at the same time, the process recognizes and seeks to balance the tension between those who seek to modify existing practices to address issues as opposed to a collective reframing of the issues. a transformative change approach was recently adopted by the united nations in developing the latest set of united nations sustainable development goals (sdgs), published in 2015. in framing the new sdgs the issues of sustainable and inclusive societies were addressed at a more fundamental level, including the questioned use of science and technology policy for meeting social needs. (schot & steinmueller, 2016) the policies emerging from the use of this frame challenge the long-held assumption that science, technology and innovation, as defined to date, are compatible with social welfare and progress. a deeper set of questions, addressing both social goals and innovation processes emerged and policy makers thinking, was broadened beyond support for r&d while encourages the development of a greater set of views and alternatives (schot & steinmueller, 2016). in sum, a transformative change frame examines systems and their embedded thinking processes. it also facilitates a deeper understanding of the interconnectedness of, for example, social and economic systems. employing this frame in the context of wicked problems, such as sdgs, and economic vitality, provides communities and universities with an opportunity to overcome a mindset of embeddedness. 85 collective social enterprise, if well-functioning, has the capacity to create new knowledge and new frames of reference resulting in transformative learning experiences and change for communities. community-university partnerships supportive of collective enterprise networks can leverage these experiences and move beyond incremental approaches to transformative approaches to tackling wicked problems. however, well-functioning networks of socially minded businesses are not always present in our communities, and overcoming a mindset of embeddedness requires a willingness to think beyond individual gain. it is not enough, as is the case of businesses in gary, to have large numbers of individual entrepreneurs functioning in a resource-limited area with a mindset of embeddedness; rather, if harnessed collectively and supported, the interests and talents of socially-minded entrepreneurs have the potential to overcome this mindset and more effectively identify and address complex, interdependent issues. collective impact, a transformative change approach to effecting social transformation, offers one practical approach for building such networks and universities can play a role. figure 1. collective impact in support of collective social enterprise. this figure illustrates the relationship between collective impact, collective networks, and collective social enterprise. collective impact is a framework for tackling deeply entrenched and complex social problems. it focuses on making collaboration work across sectors and citizens to achieve significant and lasting social change. it calls for multiple organizations or entities to abandon their own agenda in favor of a common agenda (kania, 2011). in the collective impact model, the process and the results are emergent and not predetermined, resources are uncovered, learning is continuous, and adoption occurs simultaneously among the organizations involved (kania & kramer 2011). conveners or backbone organizations support collective impact initiatives as they coordinate and manage participants in a manner that supports fidelity (kania & kramer 2011). their common activities include: (a) guiding the vision and strategy; (b) supporting aligned activities; (c) establishing measurement practices; (d) building public will; (e) advancing policy; and (f) mobilizing funding (turner, merchant, kania and martin, 2013). collective impact collective networks collective social enterprise 86 engaging in these activities also brings challenges, particularly when managing networks addressing “wicked” problems. so while, as weber and khademian (2008) note, networks are good alternatives to existing systems for developing public policy, managers still face significant challenges. the advantages of networks, including their flexibility, efficiency and innovative ways of organizing that accomplish collective goals are documented in studies by powell, (1988), aldrich and zimmer, (1986), borgatti and cross (2003); and van bueren, klign, and koppenjan (2003). the literature suggests that collective impact, supports the formation of collective networks. (figure 1). however, the literature has not significantly addressed the management of networks including the challenges that emerge when addressing “wicked problems.” turner et al. (2013) offer insight on network management in the context of collective impact, but there work remains to be done in this area. as noted above, collective social enterprise can be thought of as collaboration for the purpose of applying business principles to solving social problems (montgomery, 2012). the collective impact framework and the collective social enterprise share an assumption that collective action is a vehicle for transformative change. both embrace a social movement that challenges the existing frame of reference. they are distinct in that collective impact offers a structured approach for collaboration while collective social enterprise focuses on the application of business principles to social issues. this paper provides an example of how, together, collective impact principles and collective social enterprise concepts can be employed to address the challenge of economic vitality in urban and metropolitan areas. specifically, the collective impact framework offers the process and structure to enable the formation of the collective networks necessary for collective social enterprise. in this case study, we discuss how, using the collective impact model, iu northwest has played a role in facilitating the development of a social entrepreneurship network that is in the early stages of creating a new mindset for addressing food insecurity while advancing k-12 educational experiences. the study provides an example of how the collective impact framework, supported by a university convener, fosters a network of shared knowledge and contributes to the growth of collective social enterprise. case study: advancing collective social enterprise indiana university northwest is a non-residential regional campus of indiana university. the campus of more than 5,600 students is located in gary, indiana. it offers both undergraduate and graduate degrees in more than 70 campus and hybrid degree programs. serving 7 counties in the northwest corner of indiana, the campus seeks to enhance the quality of life of the most diverse, urban, industrialized region of the state (iu northwest, 2017). the campus values collaboration with external partners, other educational institutions, and the northwest indiana community, and identifies community engagement as a strategic priority. as a result the campus engages in community-based collaborations supportive of research, teaching and service. 87 the campus’ path to advancing collective social enterprise, using the collective impact model, began more than 5 years ago. prior to 2012, faculty with an interest in social enterprise engaged in conversations with individual entrepreneurs and business organizations, seeking information and knowledge on this new form of business practice. during the 2012-2013 academic year a more systematic exploration of social entrepreneurship was undertaken when the campus participated in the “leadership iu” – an indiana university leadership capacity building initiative. the iu northwest “leadership iu” team made up of three faculty members and four city of gary municipal administrators, together identified a critical community need—food insecurity—and explored the potential of social entrepreneurship models for improving economic vitality in the city. the team focused on developing a strategy for increasing awareness and understanding of the social enterprise as a way for individual businesses to meet community needs, including identifying goals and priorities related to coursework and internship opportunities. however, the initiative, while useful for building a stronger university-city relationship, remained in the planning stages. one of the most important lessons learned from the leadership iu initiative was that advancing individual social entrepreneurship training would require broader community support and a larger network of social entrepreneurs. individuals and organizations, without significant resources, were unwilling take the risks essential to advancing a new form of enterprise, or as mentioned earlier, the mindset of embeddedness limited opportunity. without significant community recognition of the need for and value of social entrepreneurship there was limited incentive for the university and the community to commit scarce resources. the leadership iu team determined that a broader base of support was needed and alternative models, including those of collective social entrepreneurship should be explored. the campus continued this work by broadening a campus-secondary education partnership in the area of urban farming, to explore the development of a collective social enterprise. food insecurity: growing k-12 social entrepreneurs the initiative began with a school-based 4-h garden project. in 2013, the director of an afterschool 4-h urban garden project approached the campus seeking guidance on ways to connect the 4-h garden project to science and math learning objectives in elementary and middle school classes. a pilot project was implemented, and teachers soon began the process of integrating garden activities into their academic lessons. soon thereafter, teachers, administrators, parents and community members became increasing aware of the food and nutrition needs of students and the community. the project expanded quickly, and the 4-h program acquired poultry in the second year, despite the lack of housing for hens. momentum for the expansion of the garden into an urban farm had taken hold. in the midst of increased community and school interest in addressing food insecurity, and student learning through an urban farm initiative, the campus remained engaged in the process of partnership building including, at one point temporarily providing needed space for farm activities. this show of commitment by the campus opened the door to the next phase of the project: the creation of collective social entrepreneurship network that would support transformative change in the school and in the community. the university: the collective impact model 88 defining the university’s role in building the collective social entrepreneurship network required reflection and planning. specifically, a formal evaluation of stakeholder readiness to move beyond collaboration to collective impact was undertaken. the first step required an assessment of the initiative’s readiness for collective action. o’neil and griffiths (2011) suggest there are 5 types of assessments that can assist in determining readiness. the choice of an assessment method depends on many factors including the type of information available and resources that can be expended to advance the initiative. often what is assessed is the initiative’s readiness for the five elements of a successful collective impact initiative. these five elements are: • common agenda, • shared measurement, • mutually reinforcing activities, • continuous communication, and • backbone support. assessing the readiness of the 5 common elements begins with an examination of the common agenda, commencing with the questions, “what exists among the partners?” and “what is desired?” in the present case, the emerging social partnership members included the charter school (teachers and administrators), 4-h program leaders and administration, university faculty and administration local business representatives, and interested community members including the school’s founder. we observed signs of effective organizational pairing, a phenomenon consistent with successful partnership formation (seitanidi, koufopoulos, & palmer, 2010) and agenda setting. successful pairing originates in early interactions that are sustained over time. collaborating organizations, as in the instance case, do not rush into the partnership in order to capitalize on partnership benefits while overlooking costs. the university, for instance, was engaged on a limited basis (e.g., occasional meetings, hosting poultry) for more than one year, prior to providing formal training on social entrepreneurship and engaging in program development. the literature also suggests that effective pairing requires participants to engage in systematic planning and preparation (jamali & keshishian 2009) in the development of mutually reinforcing activities. in the present case, the partners had in fact invested time in the process of identifying organizations with the potential to develop a shared common agenda bringing different but essential sets of resources to the table (seitanidi et al., 2010). this method of tacit partnership formation is an indicator that the initiative was ready for a collective impact approach to building social entrepreneurship networks. the activities undertaken, including a social entrepreneurship workshop for students and business community members, combined university-school-business resources in an effort to increase awareness and build interest in collective social enterprise, while fostering the development of a social enterprise network. the researcher, using the five conditions of successful collective impact initiatives as a guide, undertook an assessment of the initiative’s readiness for action. after reviewing information and consulting the partners it was determined that 3 of the 5 conditions were present: (a) the partners engaged in continuous conversations over a two-year period; (b) they developed a common agenda to address food insecurity and k-12 business learning; and (c) participated in mutually 89 beneficial activities over the course of their engagement. two conditions however, were not yet satisfied: backbone support was limited, and shared measurement was not occurring. significant challenges lie ahead, but the role of the university also became clear, and a decision made to support the initiative in the role of convener. the university: backbone organization the need for a backbone organization and for shared measurement could be met if the university transitioned from collaborator to convener. if the university were to embrace the role as convener, it needed to take responsibility for the six activities identified by turner, merchant, kania and martin (2013) as common to backbone organizations: • guide vision and strategy, • support aligned activities, • establish shared measurement practices, • build public will, • advance policy, and • mobilize funding. to determine university’s readiness for assuming the role, the researcher conducted a review of the university’s convening role in prior community-university initiatives. the university’s community engagement center, over time, had successfully served as a leader in 5 of the 6 activities, including guiding vision and strategy, establishing shared measurement practices, building public will, advancing policy and mobilizing funding. in many cases, our involvement consisted of a subset of these activities, e.g., in a recent community-building project the university facilitated visioning and strategy sessions while building public will. however, serving as a convener meant expanding our role and breaking new ground. the university in this role would assume the full set of activities. in addition, resources would be dedicated to developing the capacity to support partner-aligned activities. the university realized this to be a significant challenge, particularly in the face of a long tradition of balkanized local government, competition among nonprofit organizations, and a staunchly market-based private sector orientation. this was also, however, an opportunity to build community capacity to overcome these barriers with the support and interest of the partners in the urban farm initiative, and align a collective social enterprise network, which would be essential for transformative change to take place in the region. effectively supporting the aligning activities of the partners would not only help accomplish more specific objectives for the initiative. it would also foster a network of social entrepreneurs that, over time, would create new social and economic infrastructure. the first opportunity for alignment came in the area of collective education and awareness. a workshop, created by the university’s community-university engagement center, brought together small business leaders with charter school students studying social entrepreneurship. the workshop goal was to help build a collective network of experienced business professionals wanting to explore social enterprise concepts, with youth learning about social enterprise in and educational setting. noting that the best social alliances involve intensive educational efforts and 90 require learning on the part of both partners, (berger, cunningham, & drumwright, 2004) the university designed the workship to foster the reciprocal transfer of, on the one hand, practical small business development skills, and on the other, deep insight on and experiences with wicked problems facing youth. the motivation of both of these groups was to improve the overall quality of life in the community through innovative approaches, and effective alignment supported these intentions. the workshop served to bring two groups together that might not otherwise recognized a shared interest, while building the collective capacity of the network. approximately 30 people attended, the majority of whom were high school students. together, teams of students worked with a small business owner to develop a new social enterprise concepts or, alternatively, provide feedback on existing ideas for addressing pressing social concerns with business methods. feedback from the workshop was obtained. participants welcomed the opportunity to interact with one another. business leaders found inspiration in student ideas, and students valued the experience of local business leaders. these observations are supported by the results of a survey of participants. as a result of the workshop’s success, the local chamber of commerce financially supported a social entrepreneurship training workshop open to the business community, providing education to an even larger and more diverse set of potential business partners. the university’s effective support took the form of organizational planning, space, and relationships, of school-business sector activities. this in turn helped spur the development of a social entrepreneur’s network that could work to create a strategic plan, one that would set specific goals for expanding the urban farm while deepening student learning in high school business classes. strategic planning provided a second opportunity to align partner activities. the success of the previous workshops and classroom activities, as well as strong community interest, led to the request by community partners to develop a strategic plan. from the beginning of the strategic planning process, the university recognized that cross sector collaborations are complex, consisting of inherent contradictions (kanter, 1999), and fraught with conflicts resulting from incompatible objectives, ideas and values (selsky & parker, 1997). however, a review of participating organization missions suggested that realizing shared values and a shared vision would be possible. the organization mission/purpose statements contained phrases such as, “develop a sense of reciprocal obligation,” “develop the knowledge, skills, work attitudes and habits,” “foster local and regional economic development,” and “prepare young people to be leaders in their community…through hands-on experiences.” the process began with a visioning session—often a challenge in well-formed organizations. however, in this case, facilitation by the university not only brought the core group of partners together, but also revealed a need to expand the network. in an initial meeting of five partners, a vision statement was created and later shared with the leadership of each of the individual organizations. as the partners had been working together on separate but related small-scale initiatives, the visioning process essentially was a formalization of the shared interests expressed publically as a collective social enterprise. each representative participant was then able to take back to their organization a vision for social change, which could be used to encourage choices 91 leading to transformative actions. martin (2000) identifies this type of organizational transformation as one mode of social change. simultaneously, over the course of the next year, momentum for the urban farm grew and the high school business enterprise class formed a student-run business. students leveraged existing business relationships and established connections with local businesses in need of fresh eggs; a fledgling collective social enterprise was formed. the strategic plan, facilitated by the university, identified key partnerships that would be required to sustain the social enterprise, as well as an approach to integrating learning objectives associated with team building and leadership into the business curriculum. thus, the support provided by the university, serving as a convening backbone organization, permitted the partners to navigate the complex obstacles of boundaries both between and within organizations. by convening a network of individuals and organizations interested in creating a strategic plan, the university enabled its partners to focus on bringing resources, knowledge, and expertise to the table. they identified unique solutions and explored whole-system innovations, such as student-based social enterprise embedded in a high school curriculum. the university’s role as a convener was to champion the initiative, in a way that permitted partners to navigate both internal and external obstacles and boundaries (dorado & vaz, 2003). in the present case, the university’s support in the planning and community education and awareness obstacles contributed to the initiative’s success in the initial critical stages of collective enterprise formation. even with the support of the university, the process of network creation, both internally and externally continues to be challenged by the disparate views of stakeholders and competing goals and priorities. in the context of a wicked or complex social problem, the convener serves to convince others to address issues jointly, initiate challenge and build social capital (dorado, 2005; svendsen & laberge, 2005). this role is vital to collective social entrepreneurship. lessons learned in the present case study, the seeds of transformative change initially lay in the hands of a small number of passionate local leaders seeking to address a wicked problem characterized by urban food insecurity and the need to improve k-12 educational experiences. the loose affiliation of participants, and absence of experience in social entrepreneurship and network building, limited the partner’s ability to move forward. after careful review of available resources, as well as an assessment of the benefits and challenges of university participation, the university determined that it might best serve as a convener. conveners build the community’s capacity to define issues, identify innovative solutions, and implement a coordinated approach to addressing community concerns. universities possess the skills, knowledge and expertise to undertake initiatives (often without community participation), but a transformative approach requires a different frame of reference. as a convener, the campus assumed the role of capacity builder. it supported partners as they sought to identify and facilitate collective activities, create networks, engage in transformative change, and ultimately seek social progress. this role employed the existing skills and resources of the university, e.g., 92 facilitation, critical thinking, while also providing opportunities for research and student learning. this initiative is a first step in improving our understanding the university’s role as convener for collective social enterprise. from the experience, we also learned that by borrowing key concepts from collective social entrepreneurship and collective impact models an environment characterized by conditions that support transformative change can be created. these conditions include: • clearly identified community-identified needs, • socio-political infrastructure, • community education efforts focused on the topic of collective impact, • community willingness to adopt a collective impact model, and • support from university institutional leadership. to build a network supportive of transformative change, it was helpful to assess the challenges posed to managers of “wicked” problems. these challenges have been categorized as: (a) the need for a broad knowledge bases from both inside and outside of the network; (b) the need to develop useable new knowledge to solve problems; (c) the need to create shared knowledge that facilitates cooperation and the continuous transfer, receipt and integration of knowledge that supports the development of long-term problem-solving capacity (weber & khademian 2008). it is this last challenge—the creation of shared knowledge—that points to the need for the development of long-term problem-solving capacity that focused the work in this case study. it also provided the university with the opportunity to identify a new role in community engagement initiatives. through a process of critical reflection, universities can compare their capacity to the long-term problem-solving capacity identified by weber & kahdemian (2008) as necessary for transformative change. the case study provides one example of how a campus engaged in a process of critical reflection, and arrived at a decision to serve as a convener, in the context of “wicked” problems. it is also important to note that the campus recognizes the need to further explore the potential for serving in this role in the future and to evaluate our effectiveness. in the instant case, the campus assumed the role of convener, facilitating the collective’s functioning as opposed to serving in the role of partner. conveners build capacity. partners work is focused directly on addressing the wicked problem (e.g., food insecurity or k-12 educational improvements). by contrast, the role of convener is focused on building the capacity of the partners to address the wicked problems through collective action. acting as facilitator for the collectives’ functioning positioned the university as a convener and collective capacity builder. what was learned in the present case is that regional universities can assume either role. in the past, the campus efforts were dedicated to partnering with the communities and sharing expertise, financial and other resources. in the present context, the university engaged in activities that supported network building, while the community partners defined problems and identified solutions collaboratively. 93 what is known is that the absence of effective backbone support from conveners is the number one reason why collective impact initiatives fail (turner et al., 2013). community-based research and teaching clearly can place (and has placed) the university in the role of partner. higher education has successfully participated in mutually beneficial and reciprocal relationships that have transformed communities. this article suggests that by using the collective impact model to guide activities in the role of convener, universities can be employed in an alternate way—not as a partner, but as a collective capacity builder. universities serving in the role can realize benefits and face challenges. as a convener, universities can find rich opportunities for research, teaching, and service. conveners are in a unique position of providing not only the support needed, but determining the type of support that will best advance the participants’ collective goals. researchers can contribute to a plethora of emerging topics, because the work in collective impact and collective social enterprise is relatively recent, and many issues remain to be explored. for example, there is room to contribute to conversations on whether or not social entrepreneurship is a discipline, on the role of social entrepreneurship networks in promoting long-term change, and on the value of applying a collective impact framework in the social entrepreneurship context. students, guided by faculty can examine and participate in the role of convener acquiring skills in listening, facilitation, needs assessment, and project management and implementation. ultimately, these experiences can enrich and inform the community-university relationship for the benefit of both partners. the case study explores a regional university’s approach to assessing the potential for and usefulness of this model for advancing social entrepreneurship in the context of “wicked problems.” we assert that this framework is not only useful to understanding the challenges of network management, but also to the assessing a regional institution’s role as a convener/network manager. significant work, however, remains. for example, additional studies could be conducted exploring the university’s success in the convener role, including assessment of the conditions for institutional readiness, and how its effectiveness would inform decision making and implementation. social entrepreneurship, or innovation focused on solving a social problem, or “social capitalism” can offer opportunities for revitalizing communities. currently, however, the capacity for social entrepreneurship and capacity-building efforts are limited in northwest indiana. increasing awareness and knowledge of social entrepreneurship will both be important to economic revitalization, and to long-term economic vitality. next steps the collective impact model provides a framework for universities as they assume the role of backbone organizations in collective social enterprise (axelrod & dubb, 2010). in this case, the work is firmly entrenched in the early stages of applying the collective impact model, guiding vision and strategy, and simultaneously supporting aligned activities towards addressing the wicked problem of food deserts and economic vitality. in the next phase of the work, the campus will identify best practices for supporting aligned activities emerging from the collective social enterprise network as well as assessing the existing social enterprise network capacity. to date, 94 the activities identified by the network in support of collective social enterprise include developing a full-scale urban farm plan, as well as spinoff businesses e.g., a student-run restaurant. one longer-run goal is to develop, in collaboration with the university, a high school/university curriculum that supports learning in support of sustainability principles. a pilot curriculum project was conducted in the spring of 2017. as a convener, the campus will continue to identify and implement methods of building network capacity. one proposed activity is to have the network develop shared measurement practices for outcomes and indicators. the university will guide the network through this process while simultaneously identifying funding opportunities. this interconnected process assists partners in understanding the value of shared measurement, not only for the purposes of improving process and outcomes, but also for obtaining the financial resources so needed in addressing “wicked problems.” conclusion transformative change can and should be supported by the community-engaged universities located in environments beset by the “wicked” problems of both urban decay and economic stagnancy, particularly when these environments contain limited social and human capital. the literature from the fields of social enterprise, collective social enterprise and collective impact informs development of innovative approaches to transformative change—specifically the development of networks. as is evidenced in the literature (hausmann, 2015; heinze, banaszak-holl & babiak, 2016; phillips, lee, ghobadian, o’regan & james, 2015), social entrepreneurship networks can provide tools to communities seeking to address economic and social issues. the structures inherent in such networks support interactions that provide the social mechanisms needed to lower the probability of failing and enable the knowledgeable actors to change structures, (hausmann, 2015) thus facilitating transformational change. these networks ultimately simulate collective impact and sustainable social innovation (hausmann, 2015). the value of conveners to these networks is unmistakable. collective impact participants believe that without these organizations, the collective would revert back to a small group of stakeholders making decisions for the community (hanleybrown, kania, & kramer, 2012). particularly in the early stages of collective impact initiatives, backbone organizations play an important role in guiding vision and strategy, while supporting aligned activities (hanleybrown et al., 2012). collective social enterprise initiatives, as relatively recent developments in social change practice, may lack the resources and capacity to collectively develop vision, strategy, and support the activities chosen to effect social change. collective impact offers the university a role in the process, consistent with a university’s expertise and knowledge. this paper suggests that a systematic method of determining the readiness of a university to serve as a convener of collective social enterprise networks can lead to valuable contributions to addressing “wicked” problems. by supporting the alignment of collective activities, as determined in a cross sector partnership, and subsequently changing its role through the collective impact process, the university can assist in developing the social capital that is often 95 missing when undertaking 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(2017, august 28). grameen bank. retrieved from http://www.grameeninfo.org/about-us 100 author information ellen szarleta is the director of the center for urban and regional excellence and professor in the school of public and environmental affairs at indiana university northwest. her research is focused in the areas of civic engagement, community-university partnerships, public sector decision-making processes, and sustainability. ellen szarleta center for urban and regional excellence school of public and environmental affairs indiana university northwest 3400 broadway mp 2117 gary, indiana 46408 e-mail: eszarlet@iun.edu telephone: 219-980-6698 mailto:eszarlet@iun.edu references copyright © 2016 metropolitan universities vol. 27 no. 2 (summer 2016), 50-58, doi: 10.18060/21126 promoting engaged scholars: matching tenure policy and scholarly practice katherine lambert-pennington abstract this article explores what an uneven embrace of community engagement means for faculty as they apply for tenure and promotion. it closely examines how three faculty members (including the author) from different departments framed and discussed their engaged scholarly contributions in the presence or absence of departmental guidelines on engaged scholarship. their experiences and success reveal the influence of departmental context on decisions to include engagement in faculty evaluation criteria and the importance of finding strategies to mitigate the absence or underdevelopment of guidelines. introduction over the past twenty years, many colleges and universities have embraced community engagement as a key element of their institutional mission and culture. this move represents a shift from an isolated ivory tower model of teaching and research to a connected model of knowledge dissemination through various forms of scholarship and public service (boyer, 1996; lynton, 1995). becoming an engaged institution is a process of transforming how universities relate to their respective communities (saltmarsh, giles, et al., 2009; holland & gelmon, 1998) and how they view key roles of faculty—research, teaching and service (fitzgerald et al., 2012; bringle & hatcher, 2000; holland, 1997). incorporating community engagement into tenure and promotion criteria is a tangible way to strengthen the institutional culture of engagement and encourage faculty and student involvement in engaged research and learning activities (o’meara & braskamp, 2005; holland, 1997, 2005; o’meara, 2005). while such changes are key to aligning institutional rhetoric and practice (moore & ward, 2010), the processual and often bureaucratic nature of policy changes often take time to trickle down to the departmental level, resulting in an uneven embrace of community engagement across departments. this article explores what an uneven embrace of engagement means for faculty as they apply for tenure and promotion. in the first section, i consider the history and process of incorporating engaged scholarship into university of memphis tenure and promotion policies and the degree to which engaged scholarship been incorporated into departmental guidelines. findings suggest that while departmental adoption of guidelines for engaged scholarship runs the gamut from explicit to minimal to none, a number of community-engaged faculty have successfully been tenured and promoted. within this context, i closely examine how three faculty members (including the author) in the college of arts and sciences successfully utilized engaged scholarship in framing and discussing their scholarly contributions. their experiences reveal the influence of departmental context on decisions to include engagement in faculty evaluation criteria and the importance of finding strategies to mitigate the absence or underdevelopment of guidelines. adjusting tenure and promotion policies the university of memphis began its evolution as a community engaged institution in the early 2000s, under the leadership of president shirley raines, who encouraged faculty to build partnerships to support the university’s mission as a metropolitan serving university (cox, 2010). during this period, a group of faculty representing departments and colleges across the university worked with the provost to establish a university-wide engaged scholarship award and revise the university’s tenure and promotion policies 51 to include engaged scholarship. revisions to university-wide policies resulted in engaged scholarship subsuming the scholarship of application. it was described as: add[ing] to existing knowledge in the process of applying intellectual expertise to collaborative problem-solving with urban, regional, state, national and/or global communities and results in a written work shared with others in the discipline or field of study. engaged scholarship conceptualizes "community groups" as all those outside of academe and requires shared authority at all stages of the research process from defining the research problem, choosing theoretical and methodological approaches, conducting the research, developing the final product(s), to participating in peer evaluation. departments should refine the definition as appropriate for their disciplines and incorporate evaluation guidelines in departmental tenure and promotion criteria (university of memphis faculty handbook, 2006). my analysis of departmental tenure and promotion guidelines reveals that twenty-three departments across six colleges and schools have explicitly incorporated engaged scholarship into their tenure and promotion guidelines. within the college of arts and sciences seven of nineteen departments/programs identify, define, and include criteria for engaged scholarship under scholarship/research. of the thirteen remaining departments, two retained the language for the scholarship of application and the remaining eleven refer to community outreach under guidelines for service. these policy changes, or lack thereof, form a continuum of incorporation from explicit to minimal to no mention of engaged scholarship. while the revised guidelines make an important distinction in mode and approach to doing research— community-oriented, collaborative in nature, and sharing authority (o’meara & rice, 2005)—they also clearly maintain the applied scholarly goal of using intellectual expertise to solve practical problems. thus, the uneven recognition and adoption of engaged scholarship at the departmental level may result from confusion over the difference between applied and engaged scholarship. or it may reflect varied disciplinary practice with regard to research methodologies. many of the departments that have incorporated engaged scholarship are professional and applied programs, like earth sciences, anthropology, and social work. additionally, if departments did not have faculty pursuing an engaged scholarly agenda, they may have not seen the need to revise their guidelines to reflect the unique challenges, products, and time involved in doing engaged scholarship. consequently, as the three case studies below attest, some faculty pushed for and benefitted from revised guidelines, while others found themselves applying for tenure without clear departmental criteria for recognizing and evaluating their community engaged activities. building a case for engaged scholarship one dossier at a time in the cases below, i examine how three faculty members navigated departmental guidelines with different levels of inclusion and specificity with regard to engaged scholarship to build successful tenure and promotion dossiers (two promoted to associate professor and one promoted to full professor). for each case, i describe the overall departmental context, including tenure and promotion guidelines, and then draw on candidates’ written research, teaching, and service narratives (with their permission) to discuss how the candidate describes his/her engaged scholarship practice and documents the impact of his/her work. case one: explicit guidelines – department of anthropology (assistant to associate, 2013). the department of anthropology has a national reputation as an applied anthropology program and over the last decade has hired faculty with the expectation that they would broaden their research interests to include local, community based research projects. when the candidate in this case (the author) was hired in 2007, senior faculty, who were also active on the university’s engaged scholarship committee, explained the applied focus of the department in terms of engaged scholarship. by the beginning of her 52 second year, the candidate was involved in two community-based projects: one in partnership with a senior faculty member in city and regional planning and the other led by a departmental colleague that had been hired at the same time. the two junior faculty members recognized the tensions inherent in doing engaged scholarship: the tenure clock versus the time involved in building trusting, reciprocal partnerships; and the expectations of peer-reviewed publications versus highly localized reports for community partners. consequently, prior to mid-tenure review, junior faculty members requested clarification on how engaged scholarship would be evaluated in light of guidelines that primarily defined scholarship and research in terms of the scholarship of application and evaluated it on the basis of receipt of grant/contracts, peer reviewed journal articles, and participation in professional meetings. the resulting conversations highlighted the need to update the guidelines to better reflect the range of scholarship being undertaken by faculty members. the faculty made three key revisions. first, language was added to link the university’s mission as a metropolitan serving institution and its commitment to community engagement to the department’s mission to produce scholarship “that seeks to serve its urban, regional, state, national, and global communities” (anthropology, 2009, 2) carnegie foundation and university of memphis definitions of community engagement and engaged scholarship were designated as attachments to the guidelines. second, citing barker’s taxonomy (2004), an explanation of engaged scholarship as consisting of “research, teaching, integration and application scholarship that incorporates reciprocal practices of civic engagement into the production of knowledge” was added to the section on evaluation of research and scholarship (anthropology, 2009, 6). third, and relatedly, a list of products was added to the criteria for evaluating the scope of a candidate’s scholarship: f. the cluster of products that come out of sustained community engagement, which could include, videos, exhibits, events, gis maps, websites, and/or reports. the department may draw upon one or more national standards in evaluating engaged scholarship (e.g., national review board for the scholarship of engagement). (anthropology, 2009, 7). additionally, language was added to encourage candidates to provide evidence of the impact of engaged scholarship, including media coverage, letters from community members, and/or policy change. the candidate in case one drew on several elements of the revised guidelines, particularly those related to various types of research products and impact of research, as well as demonstrated links between her research, teaching, and service roles. her research narrative describes a mix of traditional and engaged scholarship; early funded research and peer-reviewed publications were related to her dissertation, while later projects and publications grew out of local collaborations. in discussing her engaged work, the candidate carefully describes the process behind each engaged scholarly project, including the methods employed (participatory action research) and the roles of community partners, other faculty, and students in shaping and carrying out the research. the candidate returns to student involvement in her teaching narratives, where she describes her pedagogical approach to service learning, the ways community partners and projects are connected to her classes and the products that result from those interactions (e.g. neighborhood social service directory, map of cultural assets in the community). beyond the research projects, the research narrative also details the “constellation of products” that resulted from engaged research, including traditional peer-reviewed journals, book chapters, and funded grant proposals, as well as policy documents, community reports, and mobile workshops. as evidence of a peer-review process for community reports and policy documents, the narratives highlight their public dissemination through presentations to local professional organizations and the memphis city council, availability on community partner websites, and at community meetings. the research narrative also describes the impact of these projects, citing local news stories, recognition from local and federal agencies, like the white house office of faith-based and community partnerships, tangible changes that 53 resulted from the research (supported by letters from community partners), and awards that the projects or the faculty member received. finally, the candidate’s service narrative links her outreach to regional and national networks created through engaged scholarship projects and research interests. for the candidate in case one, the incorporation of engaged scholarship into departmental guidelines was important from both a structural and cultural standpoint. the process of revising the guidelines codified departmental support for engaged scholarly activities and brought policies in line with faculty practice. additionally, it helped clarify what and how the work would be recognized. importantly, she was also able to exchange ideas and share experiences with her fellow junior colleague. outside of the department, the candidate’s research partner, who was an experienced engaged scholar, actively mentored her, helping her to chart a pathway and timeline for moving non-traditional products to peer-reviewed publications, and identify possible publication outlets. case 2: minimal guidelines department of city and regional planning (assistant to associate, 2011). in the early 2000s the department of city and regional planning (crp) was largely a grant/contract funded technical assistance and research center with a long-standing graduate program. over the course of the decade, crp transitioned from a culture of technical assistance to a culture of engagement. this change was prompted by several separate, but reinforcing, dynamics. crp became part of a newly formed school of urban affairs and public policy (suapp). faculty revised tenure and promotion guidelines in 2003 to reflect the department’s renewed academic mission. additionally, the retirement of a long-time faculty member created the opportunity to hire a junior faculty member (the candidate in this case) that could enhance the academic profile of the department. with the new hire, the dean changed faculty contracts from 12 to 9-months, which aligned with the academic calendar and the practice within the college. finally, the department hired a new chair (in 2008) that was well known for promoting engaged scholarship at his previous institutions. while these dynamics suggest the emerging importance of engaged scholarship the department, the guidelines in effect when the candidate went up for tenure in 2010 outlined two primary forms of research: disciplinary research, “which is characterized by an aim to advance knowledge in the particular scholarly concerns of the planning profession,” and policy research, also labeled as scholarship of engagement, which is “characterized by an aim to provide information and analysis immediately useful to policy-makers in dealing with development problems of urban and regional areas” (city and regional planning, 2003, 6). the former encompasses the scholarship of inquiry, integration, teaching, and creative activity and evidence includes (in order of importance) peerreviewed publications, papers published in conference proceeding, and papers and presentations at professional meetings, and innovative course designs disseminated through other venues and technical reports. the latter encompasses the scholarship of application and evidence includes (in order of importance) peer-reviewed products such as planning reports or contracts and non-peer reviewed products that are widely disseminated, technical assistance, and evaluation (city and regional planning, 2003, 7). the candidate’s tenure and promotion narratives reflect department’s process of transitioning from a contract and technical assistance orientation to an academic community-engaged approach. his early scholarship focused on disciplinary research published in peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes, and the pursuit of contracts and grants to conduct policy related research. the candidate completed most of this work solo, which was the department’s customary practice of “expert for hire.” since engaged scholarship was not elaborated in departmental guidelines, the candidate identifies engaged scholarship as a third area of research activity. he aligns his embrace of engaged scholarship with the university’s mission statement and its community engagement classification by the carnegie foundation. he also underscores the mutually beneficial nature of engaged scholarship and the importance of student involvement. the latter allows him to link engaged scholarship with the three faculty roles. the research narrative lays out the methodology, rationale, significance of each engaged scholarly project to the discipline and the department, noting relevant products throughout. these include traditional 54 products such as grants, peer-reviewed publications, conference presentations, and other publicly disseminated products such as reports, mobile workshops, and appearances on local news media. the service narrative links key departmental service and community outreach activities to community-based research projects and teaching. for example, in his role as supervisor of a geographical information systems (gis) lab, the candidate was able to extend its use beyond the university through a youth in planning project. area teenagers were trained on hand-held gis devices and created interactive maps and blogs using the gis lab. his teaching narrative describes how curricular and pedagogical changes connected student learning with engaged research projects and community partners over the course of several semesters. for example, students in a class focused on the role of creativity and arts in community development drafted a concept paper on using music and musicians as a tool for community building. the relationships and knowledge the candidate built with community organizations during the class led to a formal collaboration, grant funding, additional courses working on the project, as well as publications and national recognition. although engaged scholarship was only minimally part of the department’s tenure and promotion guidelines, the candidate developed a research agenda and reputation as an engaged scholar over the course of his time as assistant professor. the impact of his work on memphis was emphasized in letters from community partners that described both tangible (additional grant funding) and intangible (a deeper sense of community and publicity for the neighborhood) benefits of their relationship. additionally, the candidate received mentoring and support from the head of suapp, who envisioned the school as an important point of connection between the university and the community, as well as the department chair, who put together an external review committee well versed in engaged scholarship. case three: no mention of engaged scholarship department of psychology (associate to full, 2014). hired in 2006 to lead and administer a center for research on gender and inequality, the candidate in case three had a joint appointment in psychology and women’s studies. the candidate’s primary duties as the director of the center were to bring together interdisciplinary teams of faculty to address community identified research needs and work with community partners to secure funding to undertake the research. the dean strongly supported the center’s collaborative approach to research and its partnerships with local and regional community organizations and government agencies. as a teacher, the candidate initially taught courses in the women’s studies program, but began teaching gender focused courses in the psychology department when women’s studies was dissolved. the candidate applied for promotion to full professor in the department of psychology, which has strong focus in clinical psychology and externally funded applied research in education and learning, gambling, language, and trauma. departmental tenure and promotion guidelines (department of psychology, 2010) reflect a traditional research, publication, and grant orientation and do not mention engaged scholarship. detailed descriptions of criteria for and evidence of faculty activities include peer-reviewed journal publications of an empirical and conceptual nature and grant activity, especially awarded grants and primary investigator (pi) designation. the candidate was concerned that her portfolio of work, particularly in the context of the mission and goals of the center, did not conform to the psychology department’s expectations. with urging from the candidate, the dean recommended that her tenure and promotion committee be interdisciplinary to reflect the nature of the center; it included faculty from anthropology, public health, and public administration. additionally, a committee from psychology reviewed her case. prior to submitting her dossier, the candidate sought out examples from faculty at the university of memphis and elsewhere, including the narratives discussed in cases one and two, and received guidance from her research collaborators who were full professors. engaged scholarship provided a way for the candidate to frame her work both within the context of the center and the department of psychology and demonstrate an integrated program of research, teaching, and service. her narratives carefully navigate the seemingly disparate expectations posed by her role as a center director and the psychology department’s tenure and promotion guidelines. she begins by 55 contextualizing the center’s mission within the college of arts and sciences and the university, with an emphasis on the university’s role as a metropolitan serving research institution committed to interdisciplinary and engaged scholarship and its carnegie foundation designation as community engaged. the candidate then links her approach to working collaboratively with the community to promote interdisciplinary empirical approaches to understanding social inequalities and advocating for change with her shift from an applied psychology approach to engaged scholarship. she specifies this change as one that emphasizes collaborative research and problem solving with community and regional impacts, rather than theory driven research. the candidate’s research program summary identifies three intersecting strands of research, describing the focus, application(s), and research projects that support each strand and publications. her specific research program descriptions identify key collaborators and agency interlocutors, the roles they played in helping to frame the research questions and methodology, and the interventions that resulted from the collaboration. the descriptions also reveal a balance of peer reviewed articles, external grants, conference presentations, publically disseminated reports and policy impacts, as well as recognition by a national disciplinary association, and almost continual grant funding. the candidate’s service narrative further elucidates her reputation and the impact of her work, focusing on the leadership positions she has held on a national advisory board, a national disciplinary association, a national public health agency, as well as with local and state government agencies and non-profits. while the candidate’s teaching narratives demonstrate academic and intellectual links to the center and to her research program, her description of her work with graduate students from diverse disciplines is explicitly linked to several of her communitybased research projects. the candidate’s dossier provides ample evidence of engaged scholarship as practice; from collaborative research development based on community partner needs to training students in community based participatory research to wide dissemination of knowledge. supporting documentation included letters from community partners that spoke to the depth of their relationship to the candidate (and the center) and the importance of their work together to the programs and policies that affect them. an additional form of support came from strategically chosen external reviewers that could evaluate the many facets of the candidate’s work, including engaged scholarship. these three cases share important characteristics, many of which are best practices noted by jordan, et al. (2009). first, the candidates represented departments or centers with missions that aligned with the purpose and values promoted by engaged scholarship. second, each candidate’s narratives demonstrated the integration of engaged scholarship across their research, teaching, and service roles. third, their scholarly productivity covered a cross-section of scholarly—peer-reviewed articles, reports, and funded grants. moreover, in two of the three cases, the collaborative nature of engaged scholarship was key to explaining the significance of interdisciplinary research and publications. finally, all of the candidates had assurances from departmental and/or college leaders that the university valued engaged scholarship. conclusion: do tenure and promotion policies make a difference? while the cases presented here suggest that it is possible to be awarded tenure and promotion as an engaged scholar under a range of departmental policies, going up for tenure in a department without clear criteria for evaluating engaged scholarship remains a risky proposition. candidates risk not being able to effectively demonstrate the significance of their work, particularly in cases where departments do not value interdisciplinary publications or service learning. likewise, review committees may not be able adequately distinguish between applied and engaged scholarship or assign appropriate value to the various written and creative products that can result. while choosing external reviewers with engaged scholarship expertise can mitigate this, guidelines have to allow for the possibility that a reviewers might 56 come from outside of the discipline. as the number of faculty seeking to do engaged scholarship grows, departments that have yet to incorporate community engagement into their guidelines will need to do so. insistencies in tenure and promotion policies related to community engagement are evidence of the growing pains associated with becoming an engaged institution. it will take effort on all sides, from pretenure faculty actively advocating for incorporation revision to departmental policies as well as encouragement from provosts and deans, to ensure that university policies, structures, and practices are mutually reinforcing. acknowledgements many thanks to joy clay, tom nenon, ann harbor, david cox, and ruthbeth finerman for their insights into the history of changes to tenure and promotion process at the university and to charlie santo, lynda sagrestano, keri brondo, and kenneth reardon for sharing their experiences as engaged scholars. 57 references anthropology department tenure and promotion guidelines. (2009). retrieved from http://www.memphis.edu/aa/resources/facres/tenurepromotion/docs/guidelines/anthropology.pdf. barker, d. (2004). the scholarship of engagement: a taxonomy of five emerging practices. journal of higher education outreach and engagement 9 (2), 123-137. boyer, e. (1996). the scholarship of engagement. journal of public service and outreach 1 (1), 11-20. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3824459 bringle, r. g., & hatcher, j. a. (2000). institutionalization of service learning in higher education. journal of higher education 71 (3), 273-290. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2649291 city and regional planning tenure and promotion guidelines. (2003). retrieved from http://www.memphis.edu/aa/resources/facres/tenurepromotion/docs/guidelines/city_planning.pdf. cox, d. (2010). history of the scholarship of engagement movement. in h.e. fitzgerald, c. burack, & s. seifer (eds.) handbook of engaged scholarship: contemporary landscapes, future directions (vol. 1: institutional change, pp. 25-38). east lansing, mi: michigan state university press. department of psychology tenure and promotion guidelines. (2010). retrieved from http://www.memphis.edu/aa/resources/facres/tenurepromotion/. fitzgerald, h., bruns, k., sonka, s. t., furco, a., & swanson, l. (2012). the centrality of engagement in higher education. journal of higher education outreach and engagement 16 (3), 7-27. holland, b. (1997). analyzing institutional commitment to service: a model of key organizational factors. michigan journal of community service learning 4 (1), 30-41. holland, b. & gelmon, s.b. (1998). the state of the “engaged campus”: what have we learned about building and sustaining university-community partnerships? aahe bulletin 51 (2), 3-6. jordan, c. m., wong, k. a., jungnickel, p. w., joosten, y. a., leugers, r. c., & shields, s. l. (2009). the community-engaged scholarship review, promotion, and tenure package: a guide for faculty and committee members. metropolitan universities 20 (2), 66-86. lynton, e. a. (1995). making the case for professional service. forum on faculty roles & rewards. washington, dc: american association for higher education. moore, t., & ward, k. (2010 fall). institutionalizing faculty engagement through research, teaching, and service at research universities. michigan journal of community service learning 17 (1), 44-58. o'meara, k. a., & braskamp, l. (2005). aligning faculty reward systems and development to promote faculty and student growth. journal of student affairs research and practice 42 (2), 369-386. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.2202/1949-6605.1474 o'meara, k. a., and rice, r. e. (2005). faculty priorities reconsidered: rewarding multiple forms of scholarship. new york, ny: jossey-bass inc pub. http://www.memphis.edu/aa/resources/facres/tenurepromotion/docs/guidelines/anthropology.pdf http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/3824459 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2649291 http://www.memphis.edu/aa/resources/facres/tenurepromotion/docs/guidelines/city_planning.pdf http://dx.doi.org/10.2202/1949-6605.1474 58 o’meara k. a. (2005 august). encouraging multiple forms of scholarship in faculty reward systems: does it make a difference? research in higher education 46 (5), 479-510. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11162-005-3362-6 saltmarsh, d., giles, jr., d. e., ward, e., & buglione, s. (2009). rewarding community‐engaged scholarship. new directions for higher education 2009 (147), 25-35. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/he.355 author information katherine lambert-pennington is an associate professor of anthropology whose teaching, research, and community engagement focuses on identity, social inequality, power, community building, and social justice in australia and the united states. she has helped co-lead several interdisciplinary efforts to support engaged scholarship at the university of memphis, including the urban transformation initiative and the strengthening communities initiative. she currently serves as the co-chair of the university’s engaged scholarship committee. katherine lambert-pennington department of anthropology university of memphis 316 manning hall memphis, tn 38152 email: almbrtpn@memphis.edu telephone: 901-678-2080 fax: 901-6782069 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11162-005-3362-6 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/he.355 mailto:almbrtpn@memphis.edu metropolitan universities vol. 29 no. 1 (february 2018), doi: 10.18060/22169 transforming higher education through organizational meditation: a story of the executive learning series on equity & empowerment sonali s. balajee and joshua todd abstract equity, diversity, and inclusion are frequently on the lips of higher education professionals yet we struggle to infuse these concepts throughout the academy as evidenced in challenges recruiting faculty of color, graduating students of color, and hostile environments reported by students. the authors posit that this is because, to date, most efforts focus on transactional engagements like training and recruitment to achieve racial equity when what is also needed are transformational strategies that fundamentally shift how higher education is envisioned. this article describes the executive learning series on equity & empowerment (elsee), which works not to just promote these values but to embody them and transform the academy (and those within it) through a deeper set of interventions, emphasizing the integration of holistic health, spirit based practice, mindfulness, and other practices of decolonization. keywords: decolonization; racial justice; transformation; leadership introduction this article could not exist without the spiritual, intellectual, physical, and emotional labor already expended by those who came before us. to mirror the process we use in trainings, which integrates a healingand trauma-informed approach (yatchmenoff, n.d), we want to start by acknowledging that labor as well as the violence and loss on which all of higher education and indeed this country are built upon. we honor the indigenous peoples of this land who live here and whose homes were forcibly and violently taken so we could call this land oregon/united states/ours. we honor the indigenous, african, and caribbean peoples who were enslaved and murdered in order for our economic system to survive. we acknowledge the broader movements for social, racial, gender, and economic justice that informs our knowledge. an important part of context-setting is to ground our narrative in a few key terms and processes of focus. at its core, the executive learning series on equity & empowerment (elsee) and the equity & empowerment lens with a racial justice focus (e&e lens or “the lens”) works to identify the existence and perpetuation of colonization, whiteness, and racism at the individual, institutional, and systemic levels, while also highlighting areas to expand and enhance that are moving in the direction of racial equity (balajee, 2012. p. 8 & pp. 62-68). colonization can be defined as a system and set of processes that define how knowledge, material, and aesthetic resources are organized and distributed, and what ways of being are rewarded and institutionalized. this occurs in three primary ways: the expansion and conquering of land, the elimination of difference (assimilation), and the owning and production of knowledge deeply connected to geography and politics (de oliveira andreotti, 2015). decolonization, while putting forth clear strategies at times, can be a messy, nonlinear process, which seeks to interrupt harm, deconstruct existing frames and structures that perpetuate harm 104 and injustice, and elevates alternate frames and strategies that run counter to the status quo and colonization (de oliveira andreotti, 2015. p. 22). decolonization occurs via the presence, and commitment to, deeper critical analyses, elevating the connection between spiritual wellbeing and social wellbeing, as well as what john powell (2011) calls spiritual suffering and social suffering and engaging and leading with multiple ways of knowing and being (to name a few). while working to achieve equity within higher education, we must also acknowledge the history of higher education in the united states as a tool of colonialism and a producer of knowledge used to maintain slavery and white supremacy, not deconstruct and subvert it (wilder, 2013). in acknowledging this history, our approach is shaped into one that strives to not just provide training as a transaction (you give us time, attention, money—we give you strategies, knowledge, solutions) but indeed to guide personal and institutional transformation so that higher education can more deeply fulfill its public purpose and generate equity and justice, instead of reinforcing inequity by elevating only a narrow understanding of what constitutes knowledge and scholarship. the e&e lens must also be acknowledged for its limitations, being birthed within a public bureaucracy which had to consider what politically was acceptable to include in the tool and was challenged in how to deeply include the necessary connection to spirit and spirituality. we must acknowledge our own limitations as authors. we are limited by the restricted field of vision we inherit from our socialization, privilege, and lived experiences. finally, there are limitations to this format both the written word and limited space which do not allow us to go deeply into all of the knowledge and concepts necessary to fully implement transformative strategies centered on justice and equity. the elsee, as well as key foundational assumptions of the lens upon which it was based, prioritize the practice of a holistic worldview and frame, the representation of the relational worldview, embodied by many communities of color (balajee & cross, 2012). this frame puts forth a vision for health that incorporate all aspects of life (the physical, emotional, mental, contextual [socioeconomic, cultural, family, experience with oppression, etc.], spiritual [connection to wholeness, sense of purpose and meaning, what brings breath]), and promotes a way of being that emphasizes balance, sustainability, and spirit-led practice. the purposes of this piece are to: (a) provide a counter-story to racial equity education based in colonized practices; (b) share a working case-study of a growing transformative racial equity effort in higher education; (c) show how other ways of knowing and being can be embodied in academic spaces; (d) elevate belonging, mindfulness, decolonization, integrity, spirit-led practice, and transparency. to these ends we have chosen a more conversational tone for this article, one that values the use of first person, and one that reads as if we were in the room speaking with each you. throughout this piece, we also highlight how we have used multiple perspectives and methods of communication that prioritize visual and inward communication and reflection (de oliveira andreotti, 2012). we also will “lift the pedagogical veil,” (balajee & todd, 2016) a term we coined but very much influenced by bell hooks (1994), to not just share our learnings but share why we are sharing them in the way we are and the reasons behind those choices. 105 we invite you to sit with multiple, at times conflicting, ideas and allow them all to be true and not true simultaneously. we invite readers to engage with multiple forms of media for making meaning, including art, both verbal and nonverbal expression, ritual, and text and open this piece with these acknowledgements as a way of both maintaining the humility necessary to do the work of racial justice, and embody multidimensionality (de oliveira andreotti, 2015. p. 25 & 27). as authors, we are not experts, only conduits for sharing experiences we have had facilitating institutional change efforts within higher education. we invite you to critique us, challenge our assumptions (and yours), and hold our truths even when (especially when) they disagree with yours. we invite you in. sonali’s story: what the lens is and is not, history of the lens the e&e lens was borne as part of an emerging field of racial equity analyses and transformational initiatives within local governments. fifteen to twenty years ago, public health departments such as those based in louisville, ky, and boston, ma, began to conduct equitybased mapping in their communities according to zip code. the mapping confirmed that life expectancy varied in many places by zip code, and that decreased life expectancy could also be connected to the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age, also known as the social determinants of health (balajee, 2012 pp. 6-7 & p. 54). these social factors or determinants are largely responsible for systemic inequities, which are unfair, avoidable, and represent systemic differences in population outcomes. in 2008, the multnomah county health department (based in portland, oregon) joined other jurisdictions that had already begun this work by officially investing in and carrying out a health equity initiative, heavily focused at the time on creating an equity impact review tool (eirt) that measured the impact of decisions towards equity, conducting 'undoing institutional racism' training sessions for leadership, and conducting a baseline assessment of current equity efforts in all departments (multnomah county health equity initiative, 2009). i became program manager of hei in 2009; between 2009 and 2011, the development, piloting, and implementation of an eirt was my primary focus of work. while leadership supported the creation of such a tool and put forward initial resources to staff the effort, the organizational culture did not support the actual conditions necessary for mindful decision-making, datagathering, analysis, and follow-through. instead, speed, efficiency, and brevity in the use of such a tool and treating the whole process as a “checklist” were valued, resulting in several initial failed attempts to achieve more racially just outcomes and outputs. what saved this effort was the intentional public outreach done by a key department leader, who offered to invest time, energy, and resources into doing a deeper dive, to pilot the eirt in a more meaningful way. this deeper dive, protected by an authentic champion in leadership, was conducted by working in three more pilot projects with “early adopters,” using an expanded version of the eirt, providing greater staff support in facilitating equity-based conversations around the use of the tool, and having an evaluator document and analyze the process, identify what was missing, find where harm was being perpetuated, and determine what worked well to get at different results. at the same time, i began to engage leaders from communities of color and other experts from various disciplines. the leaders from communities of color told me that they didn’t see their 106 values, their models, and practices reflected in the tool. mental health professionals from portland state university also critiqued the work, saying that there was no mention of mental health as an outcome, nor was it considered to be a real impact of unjust and unfair decisionmaking processes and practices (balajee & lindahl, 2012). to address these areas of critical feedback, taking the lead from terry cross, the now former executive director of the national indian child welfare association, i integrated the representation of the relational worldview. the relational worldview leads with a paradigm, outcomes, and practices calling for elevating spirit and mental well-being, alongside physical, socioeconomic, and cultural well-being when doing equity analyses (balajee & cross, 2012. pp. 70-74). the equity and empowerment lens and the 2014 expanded materials (available online at https://multco.us/diversity-equity/equity-and-empowerment-lens) were created and grounded in these critiques. multiple disciplines inform the lens, and are included as white papers within the document such as quality improvement (balajee & johnston, 2012. pp. 79-82), mental health (balajee & lindahl, 2012. pp. 89-93), traumaand healing-informed content (balajee, 2014), empowerment theory (balajee & wiggins, 2012), and more. between 2012 and the time when i left multnomah county in 2016, the e&e lens was introduced and applied in a variety of settings. these included a transformative community school system, a probation program and system in the department of community justice, a capital improvement plan, and more (balajee, 2013). in the last two years of my time at multnomah county, i and other staff began to see the need to deconstruct and revamp the lens. we sharpened the level of analysis to include questions that sought to address where colonizing behaviors and practices existed, and emphasizing the need to integrate traumaand healing-based approaches. josh, in his role as executive director with campus compact of oregon, continued to learn from me about the lens—the most transformative ways to apply and embody it—and the ways it hindered improvement of processes, policies, relationships, and structures. in 2014, josh decided to begin the first elsee cohort, and hired me to help him develop and facilitate it. the lens was radical at the time, for where and when it was born, but once i left government, josh and i had the opportunity to think through how to more deeply integrate the foundational pillars of racial equity work, including decolonizing theory and practice, spirit-led strategies, racial healing, and concepts like belonging coming out of the haas institute in berkeley (2016). while the e&e lens and other racial equity analyses, tools, and processes, help begin the conversation, analysis, and process of transformation, they can be limited by bureaucratic conditions that continue to devalue mindfulness, healing-informed approaches (w.k. kellogg foundation, n.d.), critical thinking, cultural responsiveness (curry-stevens, reyes, & coalition of communities of color, 2014), spirit-driven practice, and addressing white supremacy culture (okun, 2001). we built upon what the lens puts forward, critiqued and improved its capacity-building strategies, with colleges and universities as part of the group learning process, and strove to integrate mindfulness and spirit-led discussion and practice as much as possible. what we have found in elsee, and what i have found in my numerous years doing equity work within government, is that what people have stated they have feared or actively disengaged with the most (integrating reflection, mindful and spiritual practice, critical analyses, and fellowship), https://multco.us/diversity-equity/equity-and-empowerment-lens 107 they end up yearning for and benefiting from the most. with this in mind, the elsee was created and started from a place of deep integration between mind, body, spirit, and environment. campus compact of oregon’s elsee, adaptation from government to higher education campus compact of oregon is part of the national campus compact movement which has worked for 31 years nationally and 21 years in oregon to support higher education institutions to more fully live out their public purpose through the advancement of community engaged learning, civic engagement, and service. as part of campus compact of oregon’s new strategic plan, launched in july of 2014, the compact sought ways to support member institutions’ efforts to improve their programs, practices, and policies to address educational inequities. the first significant investment was the creation of the elsee as a neutral convener of public and private institutions, as well as 2-year and 4-year institutions. this year-long, cohort-based, professional development series was created to help institutional teams develop a more nuanced understanding of race, racism, power and privilege as it impacts and shapes student and staff outcomes, and to provide training on how to apply an equity lens to institutional decision-making to prevent further harm and improve outcomes for students, faculty, and staff of color. we created an application which incorporated a shortened version of an organizational assessment for equity created by the coalition of communities of color (2014) in partnership with ann curry-stevens at portland state university. we required that the teams include at least one staff at the vice-president/provost level or higher, who had authority to create institutional change, and at least one student-facing member who knew the lived experience of students of color and first-generation students on campus. much to my surprise half of our member institutions applied (we had 20 members at that time). we created a learning cohort of 8 institutions and within the cohort were seven presidents. the first cohort was made up of chemeketa community college yamhill valley campus (led by campus president jim eustrom), marylhurst university (led by president melody rose), pacific university, portland community college (including all four campus presidents suzanne johnson and then lisa avery, sandra fowler-hill, karin edwards, and jessica howard), portland state university, southern oregon university, umpqua community college, and warner pacific college (led by president andrea cook). we would go on to host a second cohort, which launched in september of 2016. this cohort included blue mountain community college (led by president cam preus), chemeketa community college main campus (led by president julie huckestein), concordia university-portland, mt. hood community college (led by president debra derr), oregon coast community college (led by president birgitte ryslinge), and warner pacific college (back for a second year with an all faculty team). at the time of this writing, the members of the third cohort are preparing to go into retreat. these include green river college (led by president suzanne johnson), the oregon higher education coordinating commission (led by executive director ben cannon), mt. hood community college (led again by president debbie derr), warner pacific college (back for third year with a team of student services staff), and willamette university. grounding the series in the lens provided a rich foundation for the work but also unique challenges in translating a tool intended for government into one focused on higher education. in 108 my experience, government tends to elevate technical skills and prioritizes results and action over scholarship and knowledge creation. the lens, as it was created, provides many tools for bureaucrats to analyze decisions and critique investments and has several white papers which describe foundational assumptions and paradigms. however, in a higher education setting these would not be considered scholarly, peer-reviewed publications. co-founder of black lives matter, alicia garza, has often stated the importance of both good theory and good action in the work of racial equity, and the connection between the two (2016). we have found through our years of practice that the former, theory and concepts, is often not given the necessary time and space to develop; government most often prioritizes what is deemed as 'strategy' or 'action'. equity analyses and reflections call for a critical inquiry-based approach that seeks to identify, unearth, address, and heal root causes of racial inequity and suffering, while enhancing and promoting creative alternatives that bring about greater wellbeing and health (johnstone & macy, 2012). being able to address such root causes in their various manifestations requires strong theoretical understandings; conversely, being able to put forward alternative practices and strategies requires a similar grounding in key principles and practices. another serious hurdle we faced was owning our own knowledge and wisdom we had developed over almost two decades in this work because of the cult of expertise and credential that exists within higher education. neither sonali nor i hold doctoral degrees. sonali has accepted a label given to her by others as a public intellectual (who ascribes to non-traditional methods of learning and knowing) but i spent most of my career in community organizing and youth development actively rejecting any attribution of myself as an academic. yet i found myself the executive director of a network of higher education institutions about to lead a year-long professional development series on equity for highly educated academics. in journaling (one form of mindfulness practice), i was struck by how much i had internalized the way that we needed to “teach” because we were working with a higher education audience. in government and community work i could be funny and casual but somehow as we approached the elsee that felt unprofessional. i realized how i defined knowledge and what knowledge was valuable had been colonized. i had one narrow definition of valued knowledge. sonali understood deeply the need for us to incorporate both scholarly journal articles but also blog posts, art, imagery, music, movement, and meditation. when we sat down to plan our first session of elsee, sonali said firmly that we had to open the day with a meditation and that we would meditate throughout the day together. i worried that we had seven presidents in the room and if i asked them to take deep breaths and meditate as part of a professional development session that not only would they not take the rest of the content seriously but that it could jeopardize their membership in campus compact. sonali won the day with the simple argument—we know mindfulness is required; how can we do the heavy lifting of equity work if we don’t build that muscle? we did meditate, and continue to at every elsee session, multiple times per session, and in fact it was the presidents who most frequently said that was one of their favorite parts of the elsee. they so infrequently have time to take a breath—to reflect deeply, deliberately, slowly, and with intention on something. the thing i most feared became what they cherished and most needed. it took being vulnerable for that to happen, on our part and theirs. vulnerability is critical to achieving equity. 109 lessons learned we gleaned rich data from these first two elsee cohorts, as we lived out the struggle to embody racial equity and empowerment principles, apply a decolonizing lens to our content and processes, and integrate more spirit-driven and mindfulness practices. the following are a few of our key learnings here; it’s not [just] about the quick fixes. applying an equity lens is a long term, iterative quality improvement process not a quick fix or one-time intervention. while there are many shorter-term strategies that need to occur, addressing the root causes of racial inequities demands a more holistic, planful, and systemic approach. shorter-term strategies need to be set in context within this larger frame, and additionally analyzed for how they perpetuate the very issues we seek to dismantle and interrupt. the language of “quick fixes” or “quick wins” has also been used as a way to settle for more “band-aid” types of strategies, and keep the focus away from identifying deeper issues of power, and the perpetuation of white supremacy. we have to develop a tolerance for process and a willingness to go slowly. inequities have developed from hundreds of years of violence, ignorance, and neglect. to think we can fix them within a 5-year strategic plan is hubris at best and foolishly naive at its core. racial equity and empowerment require the practice and integration of mindfulness practices. to effectively work toward racial justice in any field we believe it is essential to practice mindfulness (chodron, 2013). we must develop the skills necessary to see our own thoughts, as they are happening. to witness our thoughts before or in the process of creating emotion and be able to choose our response instead of just reacting is what we mean by mindfulness and can include meditation, connecting with nature, self-reflection, journaling, or artistic expression in many forms. mindfulness practiced at the individual level (reflection, spirit-led work, breath work, meditation, silence, arts creation, etc.) and at the institutional level (group and team reflection, equity analyses, etc.) bring about greater focus, resiliency, attention to and willingness to make the deeper more transformative shifts necessary to bring about sustained change (johnstone & macy, 2012. pp.28-33). mindfulness can also happen at both an individual and institutional level and at its core the e&e lens is just that, an institutional meditation. in living systems, there is a converse relationship between tension, and the ability to receive vital information (butler-detman, 2017). in groups, teams, interpersonal relationships, and within individuals themselves, mindful approaches and strategies can help ease and even prevent tension, allowing for necessary information (both quantitative and qualitative) to enter, be meaningfully considered, and to positively lead to more just decision-making. a commitment to developing a more nuanced understanding of race, racism, power, privilege and whiteness is required, at each of the various levels these exist (individual/ interpersonal, institutional, community, systems). to do this work requires a deep dive into the scholarship of critical race theory, especially for white participants for whom conversations about race and racism have for too long been seen as issues for people of color. understanding whiteness, how and why it is created and maintained, and centering ourselves in why this work matters to us and how racial inequities harm us is central as is decentering whiteness so that other ways of being and knowing can be highlighted, elevated, and celebrated. 110 expect resistance to the work and expect it to look differently for participants who are white and those who are people of color. over the many years we have engaged in institutional change efforts we have seen consistent and predictable resistance to the work of advancing equity and racial justice. we have also developed a partial framework (see table 1) for how this resistance shows up based on our positionality (placement within the constructed social/racial hierarchy): table 1: resistant responses to the work of engagement when asked to engage in this work, white participants can respond with disillusionment that boils down to “i already took that diversity class once, i know all this” but for people of color who have engaged in this work for years the disillusionment comes from engaging in efforts where colleagues bring ignorance or outright disbelief that these issues of inequity are even real. we haven’t found clear solutions to disillusionment. people have to be willing to engage but tapping into metaphor, narrative, movement, and art seems to spark renewed engagement. this connects to the next form of resistance which is framed very well by robin diangelo’s concept of “white fragility” (2011) where discussing issues of race makes people feel uncomfortable but what they share is that they are feeling unsafe. the lack of confidence and experience talking deeply about racism feels unsafe and those who force the conversation are creating “unsafe environments” when really it is perfectly safe just deeply uncomfortable. for folks of color, though, they must choose when they engage to expose themselves to further trauma, microaggressions (sue, 2007) and pain so resistance can be a reasonable avoidance of further trauma. the importance of a multicultural training team is critical here. i can say things to white people that sonali would get push back on. sonali can say things to people of color that is trusted and heard differently than when it come from me as a white man. another form of resistance from dominant culture perspectives can be the cult of expertise which devalues knowledge and lived experience based on the credentials the speaker holds or even where the credentials come from (“oh, you got your degree at xyz college, i wonder what a scholar with a more rigorous academic background might say about your findings…”) for targeted identities the resistance can come in the form of tone-policing or minimization. being accustomed to combatting flat-out racist or uninformed thinking, we can attack an idea before deeply engaging it because it is presented in a way that triggers those past experiences. we can also choose to go along to get along and mask our own unique perspective and lived experiences 111 because we don’t believe they will be valued by the institution, a process called minimization (hammer, 2008; okun, n.d.). one form of resistance shared by both is also a manifestation of white supremacy culturea focus on action, more is more (okun, n.d.) so many participants will resist a call for spiritguided practice, mindfulness, or other decolonizing practices with requests for checklists or “deliverables” and evaluate efforts as just a “bunch of talking.” it takes courage and institutional will to avoid this trap. in both cohorts of the elsee usually by the third session there would be calls for us to move into “action.” the challenge is understanding that reflection, analysis, and meditation are the “work.” finally, and probably the most detrimental form of resistance, is invulnerability. as we mentioned, vulnerability is crucial if we are going to create change. for dominant culture participants, when things get too hard vulnerability looks like complete disengagement and shutting down (brown, 2012). participants may stop responding or they may “vote with their feet” in which they stop attending sessions or have schedule conflicts come up when meetings have been planned. for participants from targeted identities, invulnerability can be a form of protection. to be vulnerable is to open up to the possibility of being harmed. for many people who have experienced multiple, recurring harms from racism and white supremacy, selfprotection can be a reasonable and expected form of resistance. the moments of “spiritual hydration” and going slow are required to be able to sit with these painful moments. these are just some forms of resistance we have witnessed. we invite you to consider in a quiet moment how have you experienced these and demonstrated resistance in the past. lifting the pedagogical veil/breaking down hierarchy: we have talked about how we lift the pedagogical veil in our training by inviting the participants into our thought process and sharing with them the choices we made before they entered the room. this helps to dissolve some (though not all) of the hierarchal power inherent in the facilitator/trainee dynamic. it is also a way to model teaching techniques which can create more dynamic and equitable classrooms (hooks, 1994). additionally, requiring elsee teams to have both an upper executive-level staff (many times the president) and a student-facing staff member was intentional and a powerful strategy. in institutions, moving towards racial equity requires multi-disciplinary and multi-level teams (balajee, 2012. pp. 18-19). this helps break down hierarchical silos, and also drives the effort to be accountable to multiple perspectives. this helped inform leaders with the knowledge of the lived experience of students and those without positional authority became more involved and felt uniquely valued. it created opportunities for rhetoric and reality to be bridged. arts engagement shifts how we view knowledge art has the power to help us undo harmful ways of relating to each other. it allows us to not only value certain perspectives over others, but also promotes multiple voices and forms of wisdom to inform our efforts. when deliberately curated art can help us lead with voices that speak truth to power, decentering paradigms of conquest and assimilation, and may not be present or as present in formal academic literature. yinka shonibare’s work, the british library (2014) viewable at https://www.turnercontemporary.org/exhibitions/yinka-shonibare-mbe, does both. his work includes 6000 books, covered in colorful wax fabric (seen as a symbol of pride in parts of https://www.turnercontemporary.org/exhibitions/yinka-shonibare-mbe 112 africa), with each book spine holding the name of an immigrant to britain, poignantly highlighting the multiple voices that did, indeed, contribute to british society. in this stunning work, he helps us view ‘knowledge production’ in a different and necessary light, helping us recognize and realize that this vast society that has colonized so many would benefit from leading with and not subjugating the myriad of voices who have tirelessly made contributions through the years. we invite you to sit with this work and reflect on the following: where do i contribute to holding one form of knowledge more valuable over another? how can my institution or group incorporate multiple paradigms and voices in curriculum /instruction/administration? what do i feel when i view this work? conclusion over the course of the past two and half years, campus compact of oregon’s executive learning series on equity & empowerment has endeavored to move the conversation about improving outcomes for faculty, staff, and students of color into new and deeper territory. the systems and structures which generate and maintain inequity must be challenged. higher education as a sector was built by and on these systems and structures so if, as a sector, it is committed to advancing equity and justice, a grand reimagining of higher education must happen. the elsee and the lens which it is built on, propose just one approach and working model to reimagine higher education,one grounded in spirit-led practice, infused with art, breath, music, and silence,dependent on developing the skill of multi-dimensionality, and one which models, supports, and promotes a holistic vision of health. the work necessary to see true improvements on equity must be at a personal, institutional, community, and systemic level. through the elsee we have learned that the work cannot only focus on quick fixes and tangible results but must invest in transformative ways of engaging which ask us to change not just what we do but how we do it and how we do it together. we must do better on developing what france winddance twine calls racial literacy (2004), so all faculty, staff, and students understand race, racism, power, privilege, and whiteness, using the scholarship of critical race theory as a guide. we must expect resistance and understand where and why it manifests. we must incorporate mindfulness and meditative practice into both our individual lives but also our institutional structures so that we can more fully and clearly see ourselves, our thinking, and our reactions which all lead to our policies, practices, and programs. we must work to break down hierarchy, if not in institutional structure, then in institutional practice, so that all within our college and universities can bring their full selves to the task of achieving equitable educational outcomes and racial justice. we have to continue learning, the journey is never done. equity is an iterative and nonlinear process of quality improvement, which includes problem definition, analysis, reflection, action, and evaluation and can be maddeningly complex. we invite you to share your thoughts and learnings with us as we all work towards a transformed academy that promotes equity, justice, and holistic wellbeing for all. we hope to partner with you in this cycle because in the words of james baldwin (1962) “...a higher level of consciousness among the people is the only hope we have, now or in the future, of minimizing human damage.” 113 references balajee, s. s., et al., (2012). equity and empowerment lens (racial justice focus). retrieved from https://multco.us/diversity-equity/equity-and-empowerment-lens balajee, s.s. & cross, t. 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(n.d.). white supremacy culture. changework dismantling racism workbook. durham, n.c. retrieved from http://www.cwsworkshop.org/pdfs/carc/overview/3_white_sup_culture.pdf powell, j. (2011). racing to justice. bloomington, in: indiana university press. shonibare, y. (2014). the british library. retrieved from https://www.turnercontemporary.org/exhibitions/yinka-shonibare-mbe sue, d. w., et al. (may-june 2007). racial microaggressions in everyday life: implications for clinical practice. american psychologist, 62(4), 271-286. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0003066x.62.4.271 wilder, c. s. (2013) ebony and ivy: race, slavery, and the troubled history of america’s universities.: new york, ny: bloomsbury press. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203700280 https://www.turnercontemporary.org/exhibitions/yinka-shonibare-mbe 115 winddance twine, f. (2004). a white side of black britain: the concept of racial literacy, in ethnic and racial studies,. 27(6), 1-30. https://doi.org/10.1080/0141987042000268512 w.k. kellogg foundation. (n.d). retrieved from https://www.wkkf.org/what-we-do/racialequity/truth-racial-healing-transformation yatchmenoff, d. (n.d). intro to trauma informed care. [powerpoint presentation]. retrieved from, https://traumainformedoregon.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/intro-to-trauma-informedcare.pdf https://doi.org/10.1080/0141987042000268512 https://www.wkkf.org/what-we-do/racial-equity/truth-racial-healing-transformation https://www.wkkf.org/what-we-do/racial-equity/truth-racial-healing-transformation https://traumainformedoregon.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/intro-to-trauma-informed-care.pdf https://traumainformedoregon.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/intro-to-trauma-informed-care.pdf 116 author information sonali sangeeta balajee is a national and international consultant on transformative practices in equity and racial healing, and senior fellow through the haas institute, uc berkeley. sonali led innovative racial equity and justice initiatives in local and national-alliance-building governmental projects for 13 years, including serving as lead author of multnomah county’s equity & empowerment lens with a racial justice focus, which describes how to apply equity and empowerment principles to projects and practices in various sectors. sonali sangeeta balajee senior policy fellow haas institute at university of california: berkeley independent consultant email: sonali.s.balajee@gmail.com *joshua todd is campus compact of oregon’s executive director and an adjunct professor at portland state university. mr. todd worked within government for 12 years as a youth organizer and policy advisor for the city & county of san francisco and multnomah county, oregon. mr. todd brought his experience training on issues of racial justice and equity to campus compact four years ago to help improve institutional practices, policies, and ways of being that support equity. joshua l. todd executive director campus compact of oregon 620 sw 5th avenue, suite 910 portland, or 97204 email: josh@oregoncampuscompact.org telephone: 503-406-3575 *corresponding author mailto:sonali.s.balajee@gmail.com mailto:josh@oregoncampuscompact.org sonali s. balajee and joshua todd abstract keywords: decolonization; racial justice; transformation; leadership introduction sonali’s story: what the lens is and is not, history of the lens campus compact of oregon’s elsee, adaptation from government to higher education lessons learned arts engagement shifts how we view knowledge conclusion references author information sonali sangeeta balajee senior policy fellow haas institute at university of california: berkeley metropolitan universities vol. 28 no. 2 (spring 2017), doi: 10.18060/21515 conceptualizing community engagement: starting a campus-wide dialogue anthony starke, keristiena shenouda, and deborah smith-howell abstract institutions of higher education are increasingly compelled to produce evidence that illustrates their contribution to society. in this age of demonstrating value, self-assessment is critical for urban and metropolitan universities. this study will explore the design and implementation of a landscape analysis—phase one of an in-depth self-assessment—at the university of nebraska at omaha (uno). this process is intended to help universities gain a better understanding of how community engagement is conceptualized and institutionalized on their campus. a thorough understanding of the meaning of, and linguistics associated with, community engagement is imperative for the creation of community engagement measurement and assessment mechanisms. the authors will share the methodology and key findings, which include the discovery of domains of community engagement and acknowledgement of a spectrum of engagement. keywords landscape analysis; interviews; data collection introduction as nebraska’s metropolitan university, the university of nebraska at omaha (uno) has a longstanding tradition of engaging with its community. uno’s mission highlights its desire to develop and maintain “significant relationships with our community” (university of nebraska at omaha, 2012). in order to actualize that vision, the campus leadership has established community engagement as a university-wide, strategic goal. though slight variations in formal definitions may occur, it has been widely accepted that community engagement in higher education consists of reciprocal and mutually beneficial partnerships between institutions of higher education and their community. the advent of the carnegie community-engagement classification solidified the following definition as the industry standard: community engagement describes collaboration between institutions of higher education and their larger communities (local, regional/state, national, global) for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity (new england research center for higher education, n.d.). while uno subscribes to the carnegie foundation's definition of community engagement, in practice, acts of engaging the community vary greatly and take many forms. correspondingly, scholars continue to probe this definition’s capacity “to respect the diversity of institutional contexts and approaches to engagement” (driscoll, 2008, p. 41). recognizing the importance of 73 the language used to describe town-and-gown partnerships has become of increasing interest as institutions of higher education attempt to measure their impact (charles, benneworth, conway & humphrey, 2010). aligned with that trend, the goal of this article is to discuss the process employed by uno to capture an understanding of how community engagement is conceptualized and institutionalized across the campus. the uno case and broader trends in community engagement measurement in recent years, higher education institutions across the united states have shifted their focus by stressing the importance of assessment of community engagement initiatives and measurement of their impact1. throughout the past decade, uno has made significant advances in the field of community engagement. uno was one of the original institutions to receive the carnegie foundation community engagement classification in 2006 and was reaffirmed as a community engaged institution in 2015. furthermore, in 2014 uno was the recipient of the presidential award for the economic opportunity category of the president's higher education community service honor roll. uno has also built the state-of-the-art barbara weitz community engagement center which is fully dedicated to advancing community engagement. these victories have heightened the desire to measure uno's impact on the community. while for some reporting purposes data has been collected on an ad-hoc basis at uno, relatively little is known about the full range of community engagement activities. similar to other higher education institutions, uno faces difficulties in documenting and systematically gathering data about its community engagement activities, and lacks a campus-wide data tracking and assessment infrastructure (holton, jettner, early & shaw, 2015; holton, early, jettner & shaw, 2015; janke & medlin, 2015). other challenges facing community engagement measurement practices in higher education include: (a) a dearth of methodologies that include the perspectives and insights of various groups of stakeholders (getto & mccunney, 2015); (b) acquiring consensus across campus on a clear definition of community engagement (perry, farmer, onder, tanner & burton, 2015); and (c) capturing the multiple dimensions of community engagement (stanton-nichols, hatcher & cecil, 2015; kolek, 2016). in an effort to advance the understanding of community engagement and how it is institutionalized on campus, the uno community engagement cabinet issued a charge to establish a framework for the measurement and assessment of community engagement. for uno, community engagement is one of the campus’ strategic goals with the underlying assumption being that all units incorporate community engagement into their various functions whenever possible and appropriate. however, as the campus administration made attempts to comprehend those engagement activities, the challenge became the vast array of diversity within the context of the single institution. the commonly accepted definition of community engagement is broad in its scope and limiting in its ability to guide measurement, assessment and evaluation efforts. the understanding of community engagement has inherent implications for 1 see metropolitan universities journal. (2015). to what end: measuring engagement with our communities, 26 (2). 74 community engagement data collection (rosing, 2015); therefore, it was concluded that each unit’s perspective must be considered in the development of a comprehensive, university-wide understanding of community engagement. methodology the team tasked with creating the initial institution-wide framework for community engagement measurement and assessment quickly encountered a linguistic challenge. the term “community engagement” was used to describe and label a plethora of activities. while the term was used consistently across units, its application to activities was inconsistent. the team concluded that prior to developing measurement and assessment mechanisms the first priority was to comprehend what community engagement meant for uno and its many offices, colleges, schools, and departments. there arose a need for a practical method of acquiring these diverse perspectives from within this large and fragmented organization. the result was a landscape analysis, a geological approach to the study of an assemblage of diverse spaces with varied “size, shape, composition, and history” (wu & qi, 2000, p. 1). while there are multiple techniques for conducting these analyses, the primary aim of the approach is to produce generalized knowledge about the whole assemblage based on observations and knowledge acquired from its parts (fahrig, 1991). not unlike geo-spatial landscapes, universities are large organizations composed of different units with distinct purposes and a common goal, mission and/or vision. though landscape analysis is primarily used in the hard science discipline of geology, a sociological application was the aim for this project. because a landscape analysis is a research design and therefore amenable to a number of techniques and methods of inquiry, it is suitable for achieving the goals of this project. the uno landscape analysis used a purposive sampling technique, which consisted of identifying key uno leaders, administrators, faculty, and staff who are aware of the many community engagement initiatives. non-random sampling was used because the research design is both qualitative and exploratory (shields & rangarajan, 2013). participants were identified by the office of academic affairs, which has considerable responsibility for supporting uno’s community engagement goals and is instrumental in collecting and reporting data for external community engagement award applications. some participants were chosen based on the institutional knowledge of the academic affairs staff who have worked with these individuals to collect community engagement data, while others were selected based on their job title, its associated tasks, and their administrative purview. the study also included snowball sampling as a means of identifying additional participants. at the end of each interview, participants were asked to identify others whom they felt would be able to offer additional insights about their unit’s community engagement activities. for instance, deans may have a general awareness of their college’s community engagement activities but someone else may handle the day-to-day operations of that college’s community engagement function. the difference in perspective from general oversight to daily operations provides a more comprehensive understanding of the units’ community engagement interpretation and their methods of data collection. in this first phase, 28 interviews were conducted with 32 75 participants. a post-hoc analysis identified five types of participants within the sample based on characteristics of individual interviewees (i.e., responses and responsibilities) (see table 1). table 1 participant descriptions participant type description # of participants campus leadership provide leadership and general oversight for all campus divisions. 6 deans administrative leaders of colleges. 8 coordinators work in or across units to cultivate and manage partnerships with the external community. 5 frontline implementers responsible for the day-to-day oversight and operations of various projects and programs within a unit or division. 10 data technicians perform a data management function (e.g., collection, recording and/or retrieval) within their respective unit. 3 semi-standardized interviews were used to collect data (see appendix a). the interview protocol asked questions about the institutionalization of community engagement at uno as well as traditional and non-traditional community engagement data collection. the protocol was approved by the office of academic affairs. it also incorporated feedback from community engagement expert barbara holland, ph.d. after pilot interviews, protocols were reevaluated and the questions were simplified. each interview was conducted with two interviewers. protocols were modified at the discretion of the interviewers based on their perceptions of time constraints and priority of research goals. interviews were conducted simultaneously with two interviewers in either the participants’ offices or at a location of their choosing. immediately following each interview, the interviewers debriefed and discussed the concepts, themes and other points they felt were significant during the interview. within forty-eight hours of each interview, field notes were compiled into one cohesive document and both interviewers conducted initial readings. although the interviews were the primary data source for analysis, the researchers also examined the participants’ websites, each unit’s mission statement if available, and follow-up documents provided by the participants. taken together, these interview responses and other documents supplied a rich and robust text for qualitative analysis. codes were identified based on words and phrases found within the text of each interview. the codes were taken from text based on frequency of use and relationship to other text. text were coded by one interviewer using maxqda software and the analyses of the data took place in consultation with the research team. 76 the data were analyzed using an inductive, open coding approach. this process began with open coding, which berg and lune (2012) describe as holding interpretations and answers as “tentative at best” (p. 364) until the coding is completed and they are “present in the text or supported by it” (p. 365). the thematic coding process was iterative and resulted in axial coding wherein relationships were identified and connections were made between various codes. multiple sources of data were used to ensure trustworthiness. this triangulation technique entails “using different methods as a check on one another” (maxwell, 2013, p. 102). by using multiple interviewers, field notes, and document analysis, researchers attempted to mitigate the limitations of each method. as with any research study, this study is not without its limitations. a major flaw of purposive selection is that it biases the participant sample. although purposive sampling is desirable for this type of study, it limits the scope of perspectives. in particular, faculty, students, community and other stakeholders are not represented in these findings. additionally, given the goals of this study, data technicians have extensive expertise; however, that group is vastly underrepresented in this sample. all of the technicians in this study were identified through snowball sampling. although identifying other data technicians must be a priority in future research, this may present challenges: there may only be few data technicians employed, and often data technicians have titles that do not indicate any link to data collection and reporting. findings as was expected, different units conceptualize community engagement differently. the following analysis provides a typology of the major themes presented in the conceptualization of community engagement. the typology includes 15 frequently occurring themes which have been divided into three domains (i.e., internal, process, criteria) (see table 2). the themes were emphasized by various participants when asked to define and describe community engagement. the themes are products of open coding and the domains are results of the axial coding technique. moreover, the themes and domains are not mutually exclusive. accordingly, when speaking of community engagement, some participants used themes from one or more of the domains. table 2 domains of community engagement domain internal process criteria engagement is: a tool for student development with excess benefits to others. based on the conditions surrounding the activity. assessed based on an awareness of the product, its benefits and the process. themes social interaction/involvement social responsibility responsiveness facilitation outreach reciprocal/mutually beneficial partnership 77 belonging meaningfulness/critical thinking access diversity/inclusion collaboration communication knowledge development/learning information and resource sharing internal domain for some participants, community engagement has an internal focus, student focus which highlights its features and aspects. more specifically, these participants view engagement as a tool for student development with surplus benefits to the community. of primary concern is:  encouraging students to become active and involved citizens;  helping students to understand that what they do is about more than just their own achievement;  consideration for how students are growing and learning and what skills they are developing; and  ensuring that students have an awareness of what they are learning through those experiences. the four themes within this internal domain of community engagement are: (a) social interaction and involvement; (b) social responsibility; (c) belonging; and, (d) meaningfulness and critical thinking. table 3 internal domain internal domain definitions description social interaction/ involvement activities that provide opportunities for participants to engage with others, preferably a diverse group of people. “they're meeting new people. they understand that they’re helping the world in doing this” (participant 18). social responsibility activities that emphasize the importance of creating a sense of accountability; a commitment to a group or cause outside of one's self. “it’s not just about learning material and books and stuff, it’s about learning how to exist in a much larger world where, hopefully, we are all working towards a greater good” (participant 15). belonging activities that facilitate an students’ understanding as being part of her/his community or member of a larger group. “community engagement is a sense of belonging. in some ways shared existence and also a sense of reason for that, like wanting to be with these other 78 [emphasizes sense of place] people… [students] need to find a safe place to be in a community that will validate what they are doing, who they are becoming” (participant 18). meaningfulness/ critical thinking activities that promote and facilitate reflection where students are becoming aware of the impact of a contribution. “it’s about meaningful contributions to local and global communities” (participant 23). process domain when asked to define and give examples of community engagement, some participants emphasize the driving forces behind engagement. these participants speak of the process of community engagement. in these instances, engagement is defined based on the conditions surrounding the activity, which include: responsiveness, facilitation, outreach, access, and diversity/inclusion. table 4 process domain process domain definition description responsiveness address the changing needs of a community. community engagement requires colleges and universities to be attentive to what is going on around them. it requires them to be receptive to community needs, then and only then can they assure that they remain relevant within a society. it also means recognizing that yesterday’s, today’s and tomorrow’s goals may not be the same because those needs change. (participants 5, 7, and 27) facilitation survive as a conduit to encourage the coming together of people to solve issues. “we provide a safe space that allows people to come together, express how they feel, generate new ideas and settle disagreements” (participant 13). outreach actively working to build relationships with audiences external to the campus. “getting uno students, faculty and staff to be involved outside in the community and what they are doing” (participant 13). 79 "it involves educating others about what we are about, so they know, what we do, what we have to offer, and why it is important." (participant 8) access intentionally designating and/or using university spaces and making university resources available for the use and enjoyment of external audiences. in order to be engaged, we need to make our campus open and available for the community to come in and work and collaborate. (participants 11 and 13) diversity/ inclusion ensuring representation of a broad-range of opinions/ideas and audiences. [emphasis placed on people] “in order to solve community problems we need to draw and use a wide range of audiences and expertise” (participant 11). criteria domain the third group focuses on the criteria for engagement. for this group, engagement is assessed based on an awareness of the product, its benefits, and the process whereby it was created. here, if the outcomes meet certain criteria, then the activity is considered community engagement. table 5 criteria domain criteria domain definition description reciprocal/ mutually beneficial equity in benefits and burdens among stakeholders. “it’s about both giving back to those who have given to us and providing a benefit for everyone” (participant 2). “it’s doing work with rather than to or for” (participants 28). partnership a relationship in which all stakeholders have equal status, rights and opportunities. “i think engagement is successful when everybody feels like they are included – and actually bring things to the table when we initiate efforts and stuff… so for us engagement is really defined by a very active role of the partners” (participant 16). collaboration intentionally and strategically working together to produce a “we have to constantly find new ways for different people and organizations to come together” (participant 12). 80 desired and agreed-upon outcome. [emphasis on the mode or method of coming together] communication sharing ideas and feelings among stakeholders. "it entails clarifying goals among all stakeholders" (participant 21). knowledge development/ learning opportunities to apply knowledge and/or develop some new understanding of a phenomenon or its context. "it's about the application of knowledge, not just pure discovery" (participant 7). information and resource sharing promote open access to knowledge. “alignment of university resources and community needs” (participant 26). this also entails making scholarship and research available. (participant 9). “bridging the gap between campus and community. it is about how to connect campus, research, resources, faculty, and staff to the community and vice versa” (participant 12). in addition to this newfound understanding of the domains of engagement, further analysis of participant responses to the second set of interview questions about community engagement data illustrated the following: 1. across campus, participants define and conceptualize in varied ways. 2. the term community engagement is used across campus to refer to both service as well as the (technical) carnegie definition of community engagement. 3. some participants expressed frustration when they perceived their work was not fully appreciated as community engagement. 4. senior administrators have consistently expressed value of all types of engagement, referring to both traditionally ‘service’ and ‘volunteerism’ activities, as well as curricular engagement. 5. participants involved with predominantly service activities placed a strong emphasize on the importance of reflection and learning. 81 these specific findings led to the spectrum of community engagement, which is discussed in the following section. there we argue that service and the technical definition of community engagement are part of the same spectrum. all activities aimed at engaging the external community for the purpose of advancing the public good are part of this spectrum. both ends of the spectrum are valued, although it is recognized that specific aspects of the technical definition of engagement yield a higher return on investment. additionally, specific changes in project design can move service activities more towards the technical engagement side (e.g. purposeful reflections). the aforementioned domains and their subordinate themes directly relate to the descriptions provided by the participants when capturing the essence of community engagement. it is believed that the spectrum of community engagement can be further developed into a matrix, and the domains and themes derived from this research should inform the matrix to ensure alignment in terminology and language. discussion parallel to other higher education institutions, there is no uniformity to the conceptualization of the term ‘community engagement’ at uno. community engagement reflects a dichotomous view in which ‘community service’ and ‘community engagement’ are considered two separate principles. at uno, value is ascribed to both service and engagement. service is considered as done to or for a community, whereas engagement is aligned with the carnegie foundation’s definition and is done with a community. an analysis of the data suggests moving into an understanding that the label ‘community engagement’, as used in various institutional documents, refers to a spectrum which incorporates service on one end of the spectrum and community engagement (as defined by the carnegie foundation) on the other end of the spectrum (see figure 1). there is, therefore, a difference between the commonly-used label of community engagement and the technical definition of community engagement. by making this distinction explicit, the institution takes a more inclusive approach to the practice of community engagement, which reiterates the value for all service and engagement activities. further, this nuanced understanding of community engagement provides the institution with an opportunity to engage in project design conversations which could move community service figure 1. 82 activities towards community engagement. rather than taking a zero-sum approach, activities can fall anywhere on the community engagement spectrum, and relatively simple project design changes would allow community service activities to move towards community engagement— which deriving from the findings, is the desired trend and outcome. for instance, curricular engagement by nature is more aligned with the technical definition of community engagement. interestingly, divisions that are traditionally more aligned with ‘service’, such as athletics and student affairs, are taking intentional project design steps towards ‘community engagement’. examples are the intentional focus on student reflections (athletics) and the incorporation of cocurricular assessment plans (student affairs). the community engagement spectrum is an aggregate-level depiction of various community engagement dimensions, including:  context (need)  knowledge (learning, reflection, exchange of information)  outcome (product, benefit, impact)  operation (transactional, space, resources) these dimensions can be structured into a matrix, in which each dimension is rated, based on the extent it correlates to various levels of community engagement (technical) criteria. further, these dimensions are important components in the project design of community engagement initiatives. in recognizing that the gains associated with the technical definition of community engagement are higher, the university can engage in conversations on how to make intentional changes in the process/project design that would allow the project to be elevated to engagement. although external versions of the community engagement spectrum exist, it is important not to impose an external matrix on an institution, but rather to have the spectrum and the matrix emerge from within one’s own institution. this will allow the institution to incorporate the terminologies and themes used across campus, which will increase campus buy-in to the matrix while providing ownership and accountability. figure 2. project design/process 83 a crucial benefit in the proposed community engagement spectrum approach is the institution’s ability to leverage project design and processes as mechanisms to elevate activities to higher levels of engagement. analysis of the data indicates that the existence of active external partner(s) is a criterion for the institution to engage in this process. for example, community service can be conducted without collaboration with an active external partner (e.g. students donating food items to a food pantry). although the partnership does not need to be formalized, its existence is a prerequisite in the institution’s ability to elevate service activities towards engagement. after all, the essence of community engagement (technical) lies in it being done with rather than to or for the community, which by definition forces the partner to play an active role in community engagement. this increased level of collaboration with a community partner is an important component of the project/process design that can be leveraged to raise community service to community engagement. alterations to the project design/process would have the following implications for the earlier identified matrix dimensions:  context o to what extent is the need/problem/issue/project identified through mutual decision-making? o to what extent does the need/problem/issue/project reflect the diverse perspectives of the various partners?  knowledge o are all partners active participants in knowledge production? o is active reflection and learning occurring?  outcome o are all stakeholders benefitting/impacted?  operation o are all partners actively involved in the various aspects of the project? o to what extent are partners working together on the various aspects of the project? building upon the previous example of students donating food items to the food pantry, once a partnership between the university and an external community organization is embraced (e.g. the local food pantry). simple collaborations will allow this act of service to move towards engagement. for instance, instead of a one-dimensional relationship where students donate food items, a representative from the food pantry could educate students on issues surrounding hunger. this simple change in project design will increase the benefits for both students and the community partner, and take the project a small step towards engagement. conclusion the obstacle that lay ahead of the project team was, in essence, a linguistic challenge. the extant literature on community engagement offered a definition of community engagement that was too ambiguous to provide clear guidelines and boundaries for developing all-encompassing measurement and assessment strategies. in practice, community engagement had become an 84 ambiguous term at uno, used by all while meaning different things to different people. the landscape analysis found that at a conceptual level, different stakeholders were using the term to speak of various facets of the many activities they consider to be community engagement. thus, the objective here is not to redefine community engagement, rather it is to grasp how stakeholders are using the term and what attributes they use to identify the perceived essence of the term community engagement. conducting a landscape analysis has been the equivalent of a ‘pulse check’ for uno, providing in-depth insight on the various perspectives about community engagement across the university. this is a prudent imperative, given the status of community engagement as one of the campus’ strategic goals. as an approach to inquiry, the landscape analysis allows the university to critically reflect on the current state of its community engagement and take deliberate and informed action to strengthen those efforts. moreover, the approach is both neutral and exploratory. strategic research design elements, including semi-standardized interviews, selection of interviewers, use of multiple interviewers, purposive and snowball sampling techniques, and the provisional nature of the interview protocol resulted in rich data. furthermore, the findings presented in this article have provided a firm foundation for future research regarding community engagement measurement and assessment. by broadening the scope of the university’s definition of engagement—and mining the nuances in uses of the term ‘community engagement’—the university is better positioned to operationalize the construct and develop measures. drawing on existing knowledge of community engagement, this research builds upon the campus’ current conceptions and practices. the discovery of domains of engagement has established a common language that tears down the walls which once existed between units and disciplines. the domains of engagement help solve this linguistic dilemma by providing a lexicon of more precise attributes of community engagement. the spectrum of engagement is a conceptual tool that gives greater understanding to the nuances of engagement. it delivers a method for modifying and transforming service projects that desire to be more engaged. though not discussed in this article, the landscape analysis enhanced uno’s overall knowledge of community engagement data. it has allowed the university to re-examine existing data sources. it has also allowed uno to map data sources which were believed to exist of which lacked concrete awareness. further, the landscape analysis exposed the existence of data of which there was no prior knowledge. based on the recommendations from the landscape analysis, the uno community engagement cabinet commissioned a community engagement measurement group made up of representatives from multiple units. this group is tasked with facilitating data collection, analysis, and reporting—including developing rubrics and metrics for categories along the engagement spectrum. the only effective communication is shared meaning. as a result of this landscape analysis, the university has begun a critical dialogue to understand the many understandings of community engagement across campus. whereas other institutions are likely to discover different themes and domains after conducting a landscape analysis, this method of inquiry still provides an approach for starting a fruitful dialogue. 85 references berg, 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(2012). campus strategic plan. omaha, ne. retrieved from http://www.unomaha.edu/plan/our_plan.php wu, j. & qi, y. (2000) dealing with scale in landscape analysis: an overview. geographic information sciences, 6(1), p. 1-5. https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10824000009480528 https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-4244-2 https://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10824000009480528 87 appendix a part i: institutionalization of community engagement 1. how does your unit both conceptualize and actualize community engagement? a. what does community engagement mean in your unit? b. to what extent is this reflected in your unit’s mission/vision? c. what criteria do you use to identify engagement? d. are there faculty, staff, or students in your unit that exemplify a commitment to community engagement? 2. does the unit have adequate infrastructure to support community engagement? please explain. 3. are there incentives and rewards that support faculty in community engagement? a. is the ability to lead in the community engagement arena a criteria for the selection and evaluation of unit leaders, considered in tenure and promotion decisions, faculty/staff recruitment and/or staff evaluations? 4. is community engagement built into the curriculum? a. are there courses that regularly/always include a community experience (e.g., practicum, internship, capstone, etc.)? 5. in your day-to-day operations, is community engagement part of your unit? a. are the unit’s faculty/staff and students active and visible in the community’s educational, civic, and cultural life? b. is it based on the discretion of the faculty member? c. to what extent is the unit’s leadership encouraging the addition of a community engagement component? 88 part ii: community engagement traditional and untraditional data collection 1. what types of community engagement activities are your students and faculty undertaking? 2. does your unit keep track of these activities? a. if yes, what types of information are you gathering? b. how is it being recorded? c. is this information gathered on an ad hoc/sporadic basis or is it more regular/systematic. 3. what types/specific reports are you generated based on this information? a. what do you do with these reports – what is their purpose? b. are there specific reports or types of report you want to generate, that you are currently unable to generate? i. what type of information would you need ii. suggestions as to where we should begin to start collecting this information? 4. what information do you think others are gathering, that might be relevant for our research? 5. in what ways can the office of academic affairs improve sharing or highlighting your unit’s community engagement? a. how can we go about making sure that the office of academic affairs is aware of this information? final question 6. is there anyone else that you would suggest we talk to, in order to gain a better understanding of your unit’s community engagement activities? 89 author information anthony starke, mpa, is a doctoral student at the university of nebraska at omaha. anthony holds bachelor of science degrees in psychology and human services from old dominion university as well as a graduate certificate in nonprofit management and master of public administration degree from virginia commonwealth university. anthony works as graduate research assistant for the uno office of academic affairs where he assists with measurement, assessment, evaluation and research pertaining to university-wide community engagement. anthony m. starke, jr. university of nebraska at omaha 6001 dodge street, cpacs 113b omaha, ne 68182 e-mail: astarke@unomaha.edu telephone: 402-554-2773 keristiena shenouda, msc, is a project specialist at the office of academic affairs. she leads the community engagement measurement and assessment group. keristiena is also responsible for community engagement reporting, data gathering/analysis, and award applications. she holds a master’s degree from the university of london. keristiena shenouda university of nebraska at omaha 6001 dodge street, eab 203 omaha, ne 68182 e-mail: kshenouda@unomaha.edu telephone: 402-554-2364 deborah smith-howell, ph.d., is the associate vice chancellor of academic affairs and the dean of graduate studies. dr. smith-howell is a member of the uno engagement cabinet and has administrative oversight over the service learning academy and community engagement reporting. she holds a ph.d. from the university of texas. deborah smith howell* university of nebraska at omaha 6001 dodge street omaha, ne 68182 e-mail: dsmith-howell@unomaha.edu telephone: 402-554-4849 *corresponding author mailto:astarke@unomaha.edu mailto:kshenouda@unomaha.edu mailto:dsmith-howell@unomaha.edu metropolitan universities vol. 29 no. 1 (february 2018), doi: 10.18060/22174 fighting for equity and community in an urban research university mary ho and george sanchez abstract the equity lens evaluates institutional barriers that prevent students of color from gaining access to resources for college success (bensimon, 2005). the first-generation college students at the university of southern california are 16% of the total student body and students of color comprise two-thirds of this population. since 2008, how to support first-generation college students of color in their academic achievement and college success once in college has expanded the discussion beyond access. by evaluating institutional structures through the equity lens, the response has been to create intentional academic and social programs for firstgeneration college students of color that bridge the academic and student services divide. through descriptions of actual programs and stories from students affected by these programs, this essay will discuss innovative approaches to serving first-generation students of color at predominantly white universities. keywords: first-generation college students; students of color; equity lens; institutional support; faculty of color iris v entered college a confident, working class latina who had been an environmental activist in high school.1 iris was a strong student from south gate high school, a largely latino high school in southeast los angeles county, and she entered the university of southern california (usc) as a full scholarship student and a topping scholar, a competitive scholarship program that provides additional support to first-generation college students. but iris’ first year was difficult, academically and personally. struggling in science courses, she began to doubt her own abilities, and most of her courses seemed far removed from the realities of her own urban family and community life. at the end of that first year, iris was unsure whether usc had been the right choice for her, and she wondered what she was going to be able to do with the disjointed education she was receiving. the office for diversity and strategic initiatives (odsi) of the usc dornsife college of letters, arts & sciences oversees programs that generate success for first-generation and underrepresented minority students like iris. the two authors of this essay ran this office together and established programs that utilized the equity framework developed by bensimon (2004, 2005) to fully serve this burgeoning population at usc. although usc is an expensive, private university, it strives to create access for large numbers of first-generation college students. currently about sixteen percent of usc’s eighteen thousand undergraduates are the first in their families to go to college, twenty one percent are underrepresented minority students, and one out of four are eligible for the federal pell grant program. initially, most of the efforts were focused on creating access to the university. more recently, the focus has shifted to providing 1 psuedonyms are used throughout this essay to refer to actual students described. 138 programs that enable first-generation student of color to succeed, bridging the divide between academic and student services. the discourse on equity is complex in the higher education setting. equity in education is focused on creating systems that address unequal education and resources for students of color due to institutional discrimination, racism and bias. the equity framework developed by usc professor bensimon is a new paradigm, which moves the conversation away from the deficient framework to analyzing systems that create barriers for students of color (bensimon, 2005). there are four dimensions in this framework: (a) access, meaning conditions of how students of color gain access to resources, programs, scholarships and services, (b) retention, meaning retention of students of color; (c) institutional receptivity, meaning the scorecard measures of institutional support for students of color; (d) excellence, meaning the integration of access and achievement, to understand how they may prevent students of color from getting the best education possible (bensimon, 2004, 2005). in this essay, four such programs developed by usc’s odsi will be featured. a study-abroad program done in partnership with a student service organization for first-generation college students was the first program developed. a course for career planning for first-generation college students enabled a wider group to benefit from reflection and strategies to connect curriculum with career choices. a broader first-generation student task force was created to pull together academic and student service providers from throughout the university to collaborate on best practices and connect with a larger number of students, including a welcoming dinner for newly arrived first-generation students and their families. finally, a civic engagement model helps first-generation students connect to communities like the ones they come to campus from, and establishes direct connections that bridge academic learning and community networking for student development and advancement. in the development of all these programs, the input of first-generation students of color was critical in program implementation and revision. often, dornsife odsi was trying to address real issues of educational inequity between students based on race and/or income that led firstgeneration students of color, often low-income, to make certain decisions about their education that did not lead to student success and achievement. odsi directly promotes equity by fashioning programs that meet this learning gap, but also directly engages students of color in making academic decisions that broaden their outlook on what is possible to achieve academically, personally, and related to their careers after college. study abroad for equity and success study abroad would not normally be perceived as an area to promote educational equity because of its costs and limited reach. but at usc, university officials pride themselves on creating global leadership among the student body, and global issues are regularly part of on-campus curriculum discussions. students from low-income backgrounds who have not travelled before arriving at usc often find themselves left out of these academic discussions, and trying to compete with high-income students were traveling abroad is viewed as commonplace. because usc often provides resources for low-income students to travel abroad in organized programs, this effort was established in concert with a student scholarship fund and program to promote the 139 concept of learning around the globe through travel, reflection and research, connecting the local interests of students with global concerns and problem-solving. the norman topping student aid fund (ntsaf) supports about one hundred students throughout their undergraduate years. along with the dornsife odsi, they partnered to create a high-impact program that would affect iris’ trajectory of achievement for the rest of her undergraduate career. the japan summer immersion program (sip) was developed by the topping program and the dornsife odsi, to give students like iris an immersive three-week study abroad experience that would capitalize on her student strengths, encourage her to do research, and relate the new experiences of study abroad in japan with topics more related to experiences that were already familiar to her. in short, this is a program that started with student strengths, not deficits, and capitalizes on usc’s commitment to create global leaders that can take on world problems, but explicitly for first-generation students of color that can blossom in a supportive, collaborative experience abroad. iris was accepted to this program in her sophomore year and took part in it during the end of that school year in the “maymester,” a time still linked to the spring semester but after final exams when the course can be the student’s sole focus. this arrangement was critically important for these low-income students because it did not require additional financial aid for tuition beyond their regular yearly packages. iris decided to do research on environmental issues in japan, and both read about japanese environmentalism and asked questions to japanese faculty members about issues of pollution and water safety. in her presentation to the group, iris showed, through photography, how decisions to publicly utilize the rivers that moved through urban kyoto as areas that could bring families together for leisure activity and reenergize night life, could be contrasted to the lack of use in her native south gate. there, neglect had allowed environmental pollution of its waterways and kept the largely latino public from making use of the potential beauty of the nearby river. it was a masterful performance that brought academic confidence back to iris, and reconnected her to the political and social interests she had before usc. this project helped iris decide to major in history, law & culture, an interdisciplinary major in dornsife college, and set her on a path to write a senior honors thesis on the history of environmentalism in south gate. the japan sip also encouraged her to do semester abroad in brazil as a junior, something that over eighty percent of students who have participated in sip have also done. iris is poised to graduate at the end of fall 2017 with honors and go on eventually to law school or graduate school in environmental studies. the japan sip program was established to apply an equity framework to first-generation college students from underrepresented minority backgrounds at usc through high impact practices related to study abroad and research opportunities. when the program was started in 2010, statistics on study abroad participation at usc indicated that first-generation college students were at least twenty percent less likely to participate in traditional study-abroad programs. because of funding availability for studies abroad in general at usc, and specifically funds available to norman topping scholars, the offices involved knew that this gap was not a result simply of lack of funds by low-income students. rather there were deeper issues that kept students like iris from participating in study abroad opportunities in traditional programs. first, the rough start of her academic career at usc meant that a minimum 3.0 gpa requirement often left excellent students from participating in traditional study abroad and research programs, even 140 if they were the individual students who might benefit most from these experiences. secondly, students who came from low-income backgrounds and families in which parents did not go to college shied away from leaving campus for experiences abroad because they did not understand how it might benefit their own academic and career trajectories. rather than see these obstacles as deficits in the student’s training or desire for studies abroad or research, the japan sip program concentrates on the particular experiences and perspectives these students possess that would enhance the overall experience for them. these experiences could be put in service of promoting achievement that would benefit the educational trajectory of students of color for their entire time at usc. it was critically important that the japan sip would involve fourteen underrepresented minority undergraduate students who were part of the same fellowship group, along with a team of instructors who were all well-versed on academic success strategies for first-generation college students of color. for most undergraduates selected, this would be the first time they travelled outside the united states or their nation of birth; for some, it would be their very first time on an airplane. japan was selected as a non-western nation that had substantial ties to los angeles, the home of the university of southern california, and as a country that was safe to travel for foreigners. for many of the latina students for whom this was the first time traveling away from home, and especially for their parents, safety concerns were serious issues that kept them from venturing into study abroad. unlike other programs, we involved the students’ parents and families into the planning, by both meeting with them ahead of time so that they could get a taste of what they children would learn and experience, and also setting up a blog so students could post photographs and reflections each day while we travelled abroad. the blog made it easy for family members to follow our progress in japan, while encouraging many younger siblings of the students to want to pursue college at least in part for the opportunity to study abroad like their older brothers and sisters. as in iris’ situation, the research component of the japan sip was essential for each student to integrate the study-abroad experience with their own academic and personal interests. almost none of the undergraduates had ever taken an academic course on japan or east asia, so it was important for each of them to work on a topic that had salience with their previous interests, and develop a cross-national comparison that would allow them to explore the topic in a region that was new to them. each of them worked closely with a faculty mentor, often striking up a relationship with a professor that was new around a topic of mutual interest. furthermore, graduate research assistants helped them focus their research, and develop skills in “research on the go” that would be useful as travel in japan commenced, including ethnography and interviewing techniques, participant-observation, and photographic documentation. each student wrote reflections after each day of touring, lectures, and sight-seeing in japan, and from these initial reflections each was able to craft a research paper and presentation upon their return. for most this was their first research experience. they learned that with attention to detail and their own observations and constant writing, they could craft an analysis that would have interesting things to say about a society that was new to them. moreover, connecting that research to future courses they could take in their respective majors was a critical component that made the impact long-lasting in their academic maturation. japan sip also broke down barriers between academic and student affairs. having a critical mass of faculty of color is important in a university. faculty of color play a vital role in undergraduate 141 education because they add value to students and to the university. according to umbach (2006), faculty of color are more likely to interact with students than their white counterparts, and faculty of color bring a richer experience to the classroom through their contributions of diverse perspectives and pedagogical approaches (antonio, 2002; umbach, 2006). faculty of color also apply more interactive and collaborative teaching with the students and integrate diversity exercises and activities in their courses when compared to white faculty (umbach, 2006). although the student body is increasing in diversity over the last 30 years, the faculty of color population has reflected insignificant changes (antonio, 2002; umbach, 2006). dornsife odsi operates in an academic unit and was led by a vice dean for diversity, george sanchez, who is also a full professor in history and american studies & ethnicity. each of the four japan sip trips to date involved ph.d. students as academic advisors, who helped the undergraduates craft their ideas and provide feedback on their research and writing. this team collaborated with student affairs professionals that knew the students intimately and provided continuity between the japan sip course and the life the students led before and after the maymester experience. the faculty and ph.d. students are important role models for the students, and connect them with other faculty members upon their return from japan. indeed, according to the extensive feedback provided by the undergraduates who have participated in the program, the fact that this collaboration was led by scholars of color and student affairs professionals of color made the instructors more approachable. this aspect allowed undergraduates of color to ask questions they were unlikely to ask of other faculty members, just because of their academic interests. unique pathways to career success japan sip was only the first initiative promoted by dornsife odsi to go beyond access approaches to reach low-income, first-generation students of color at usc for student success. first-generation college students are a population that has lately received more attention from the university of southern california, but the conversation on support for first-generation college students dates back to 2008. dr. george sanchez identified first-generation college students as a population on which he had an interest in focusing, when he was appointed in spring 2008 as vice dean for diversity and strategic initiatives in usc dornsife college of letters, arts and sciences. initial data collected by the dornsife odsi in 2008 indicated that first-generation college students at usc faced unique challenges to succeed that were different than those faced by other usc students and different than those faced by first-generation college students at other colleges and universities. unlike the situation at other universities, there seemed to be no gap in graduation rates between first-generation college students and those whose parents did attend college. first-generation college students had the same six year graduation rate over ninety percent as other students, and a similar four year graduation rate, close to seventy-five percent. while there was not a “graduation problem” to address, it did seem clear that many firstgeneration college students approached their college graduation without a clear direction of what would come next. through countless conversations with graduating seniors, dr. sanchez and the dornsife odsi developed an approach to help first-generation college students better prepare themselves for career success early in the undergraduate years. 142 a 2-unit sophomore seminar in “pathways to career success for first generation college students,” to be taught by dr. sanchez, was begun in fall 2013. it was aimed at sophomores and juniors in all majors and all schools who were the first in their families to attend college. utilizing intense publicity to low-income students through student organizations, transfer student activities, and university offices, combined with a process of clearances before enrollment, the course was limited to students who were the first in their families to attend college. between forty and fifty students enrolled each time the course was offered each fall semester. the first part of the course was intended to allow students to feel at ease as first-generation college students by discussing initial reactions to usc and its wealth, as well as reading personal accounts of students from similar backgrounds negotiating university life, such as the autobiography of supreme court justice sonia sotomayor. one group that particularly appreciated this section of the course were transfer students from community colleges in their first or second semester at usc, who were often in shock over the privilege they saw among their classmates and the assumptions of privilege by certain faculty members they had witnessed. the second half of the course introduced students to services provided at usc for students to explore career options. for students who had worked consistently since they were teenagers, the notion of unpaid internships to advance careers was a foreign, confusing subject. yet many needed to take unpaid internships to explore the potential careers and to avoid fatal mistakes of planning towards a career that they did not know and would find out they did not enjoy. usc had only nine career counselors at their office of career services, and would often send students to explore options online, but first-generation college students often needed one-on-one counseling about career options and pathways of exploration before they committed. as a result of these discussions, students often changed their majors or made other academic changes to their trajectory because they had not realized that they had more freedom to choose among subjects that they connected to, rather than thinking that there was only one path to obtain financial security through college attendance and graduation. one of the most challenging issues for many first-generation college students of color was how to balance obligations to families with personal desires for intellectual growth and academic excellence. this class created a “safe space” to discuss these often contradictory impulses for undergraduates trying to plan out their lives. at one level, many students confessed that they were sending substantial portions of their financial aid home to support family finances while they were in college, just like they had with earnings as teenagers to support family economies. others continued to act as translators for monolingual non-english-speaking parents dealing with landlords or medical professionals, spending as much as time on these actions as they would on a part-time job. both activities kept students from fully immersing themselves in the high impact practices that would lead to student success in college. the course allowed them to strategize alternative approaches to balancing family obligations with academic commitments and college experiences. other balancing acts with family obligations required new commitments to career exploration and discovery. one student who enrolled in the fall 2013 course was mitzi g, an undergraduate communication student from northern california. both of mitzi’s parents were undocumented immigrants from mexico, and mitzi successfully worked hard to legalize both parents’ status 143 while she was an undergraduate student. but mitzi also returned home each summer to help her father with his gardening business like she had throughout high school. in her major of communication, she realized that summers were often the time when other students were taking advantage of valuable internships to establish themselves in their careers. after a heart-to-heart discussion about her options, mitzi confessed that her dream was to work for univision, the spanish-language media empire affiliated with nbc-universal. the sophomore seminar course had visits to several employment and internship sites embedded as part of the curriculum, including one to nbc-universal. dr. sanchez encouraged mitzi to approach them about possible internships at univision, and talk to her parents about how critical this would be to launch her own investigation into career paths in communications. mitzi successfully approached nbc-universal and was able to secure an internship at univision the following summer at the end of her sophomore year. dr. sanchez had raised funding, which allowed low-income students to take unpaid internships, dedicated for students who take the course. this resource was able to financially allow her to take that initial summer experience. that opportunity led mitzi to paid internships with other media companies, both big and small, but almost always spanish language or latino-oriented organizations or departments. when mitzi graduated from usc annenberg school of communication in 2016, she was offered a coveted position at facebook, in a new division looking to increase the company’s presence among latino-oriented businesses, both in the united states and in latin america. her outward, gregarious personality and her academic success in her courses, coupled with her substantial experiences as an intern for multiple companies put her in a prime position upon graduation for work in her intended field. success in a field she loved, not just graduation from college, was her goal from the start, and the course was able to get her set up for that pathway. mitzi now returns to the course every fall semester to talk to current students about the importance of internships in setting new career pathways for first-generation college students. she explains that internships are one of the few ways that students can learn first-hand about the culture of companies and the skills necessary to be successful in a work setting that requires a college degree. students listen intently to these real experiences, which often have a greater impact on them than professors or staff encouraging them in the classroom or reading about why high-impact practices are important. graduates who take the course as undergraduates become a new network of contacts for first-generation college students anxious to meet someone like them, who has used their education for career success. while the sophomore seminar for career success and the japan sip affected a significant set of first-generation college students of color at usc, the dornsife odsi also searched for ways to affect the larger culture at usc and reach a greater number of students. this required new networks of faculty and staff professionals, who could collectively affect the culture of the university of southern california, by emphasizing best practices. most importantly, the university needed to be pushed to recognize first-generation college students as a population that needed an equity framework, to make the best use of their college education for academic and career success. moving beyond established ethnic centers and departments of ethnic studies, the first-generation college student task force would be established to organize and publicize best practices for first-generation students at usc, particularly students of color. 144 first generation college student summit and task force the first generation college student task force was formed in 2013, with the core mission of creating programs and evaluating existing structures through the equity lens. the first generation college student task force initiatives work to serve all first-generation college students at usc however students of color comprise of two-thirds of the first-generation college students. the total population of first-generation college student is 16% with transfer students making up one-third of this population. in fall 2016, thirty two percent of first-generation college students were hispanic/latino, twenty-one percent were asian, and six percent were blackidentified. the intersectionality of being first-generation and being a student of color is complex, due to the student having to carry both identities of being the first in their family to attend college and being a racial/ethnic minority at usc. since the formation of the first generation college student task force in 2013, the initiatives under the task force have grown and expanded. five committees were formed under the task force to meet specific programmatic goals and needs: • data and assessment committee was formed to focus on first-generation college student data, assessment and research in order to developed strategic initiatives addressing issues of access, retention and support for first-generation college students of color. • the first generation college student parent programs committee was formed to develop programs to support parents of first-generation college students. • the first generation college student summit planning committee was formed to plan a summit for students, faculty and staff at usc. the summit reframes the conversation on access and opportunity for first-generation college students through education. • the first generation college student gathering committee was formed with the goal of educating faculty and staff about the first-generation college student identity and how their roles at the university can engage and support students who are the first in the families to attend college. • the task force and committees focus on institutional structures and gaps which prevent first-generation college students of color from academic and college success. the conversation on excellence for first-generation college students of color, through the lens of the equity framework, is only productive with vital staff partners at the table. informal initial conversations with staff who themselves identified as first-generation were followed up by formal appointments to university-wide committees that for the first time took first-generation college students as their prime focus. staff partners from the undergraduate programs office are members of the task force and committees. the conversation around excellence for firstgeneration college students of color generally centered on academic and research opportunities, but started with the very first experience that students had on the day they began at usc on move-in day. feedback from first-generation students of color directed the development of several efforts of the task force. students shared that many of their parents were not comfortable on campus, and often did not come onto campus until their student’s graduation day. indeed, parents who did not attend college often dropped their children off on move-in day without attending any event 145 sponsored by usc orientation officials, leaving their children alone in dealing with initial experiences in university housing or first meetings on financial aid or academics. many firstgeneration college students expressed surprise that other parents were there to help their children with move into the dorms, and asking important questions of university officials, making them feel behind other students even before classes started. so the task force decided to begin each year with a welcome dinner for first-generation college families on move-in day, keeping parents on campus and reaching out to each family to celebrate this important day with other parents and undergraduate students experiencing college for the first time. beginning in summer 2015, the task force sent invitations in multiple languages to families, welcoming them to usc and inviting them to stay for a collective dinner at the end of move-in day. staff, faculty and advanced undergraduates of color were there in august 2015 to sit at tables with families that had come to drop off their children at college. in addition to a dinner for over 300 individuals, the provost of the university welcomed these families to the “trojan family” and a panel of advice for parents was organized by the task force, including a firstgeneration faculty member, staff member, undergraduate student, and parent of a usc undergraduate. new usc parents and families were able to ask this expert panel questions about usc undergraduate life, college academics, and financial aid. dr. george sanchez, dornsife vice dean for diversity, delivered a passionate welcome to the university, stressing the journey of excellence that had gotten their students into usc and celebrating their accomplishments to date. the importance of this welcome was made clear when the parents of alejandra f came up to dr. sanchez at the end of the 2015 family welcome dinner. alejandra’s family was from coachella, california, a rural area in the desert about 125 miles outside los angeles. alejandra is the oldest child in the family, with three younger brothers, and she was a star student and valedictorian of coachella high school. her parents are both mexican immigrants who had worked their way up from farm labor. their border community remains highly differentiated by race and class, with rich desert communities like palm desert, sitting next to very low-income communities like indio and coachella, dominated by mexican immigrant families. attending usc was a dream that alejandra was able to achieve, and this was the first time her parents had ever stepped on any college campus. “senor sanchez, i want to introduce you to my daughter, alejandra, who is starting here at usc,” said mr. franco said in spanish as they met. “i want to ask you to personally take care of my daughter. can i entrust her to you?” this sort of introduction and transfer is uncommon for most university deans and faculty. however, it is a common way, a very personal way, that a working-class latino parent would place responsibility for his blessed daughter in the hands of a university official. “i will do my best to take care of your daughter,” answered dr. sanchez, knowing that this was a solemn promise. the father then turned to his daughter alejandra and instructed her to stay in touch with dr. sanchez. after a firm handshake between the entire family and dr. sanchez, alejandra said goodbye to her parents, who then drove back three hours to their home base while alejandra spent her first night in her college dorm. what resulted from a successful welcome reception for parents of first-generation college students is the creation of the first generation college student parent committee and an 146 institutional partnership with usc parent and family engagement. usc parent and family engagement traditionally caters to legacy families and families of non-first-generation college students. families who attend the welcome reception can attend trojan family weekend for free. odsi covers the fee at a discounted rate from parent and family engagement. the partnership with parent and family engagement reframes the conversation on access and inclusivity for parents and families of first-generation college students, particularly parents and families of low-income students. as a follow-up to her parents’ introduction, alejandra regularly checked in with dr. sanchez during her first semester in college, coming in for advice about her classes and discussing her transition to college life at usc. this mentorship situation may have been initiated by alejandra’s father, but it blossomed because both individuals lived up to the promises they had made. in her second semester when she started looking for on-campus employment, sanchez offered alejandra a job in dornsife odsi, and alejandra began meaningful employment, working on issues to insure success among diverse undergraduate populations. in her academic work, alejandra explored several majors, but finally settled on the new contemporary latino and latin american studies major, an academic program launched through activities by dornsife odsi. because she landed well at usc, alejandra had a strong academic record after three semesters at usc, so she applied to the mellon mays undergraduate fellowship program, a research program aimed at creating new faculty by identifying talented undergraduate researchers. with a strong interview in front of a team of faculty, alejandra was selected as a mmuf scholar, focusing on research on the cultural transfer in border communities, hoping to apply to ph.d. programs and eventually become an interdisciplinary faculty member. alejandra, supported by her immigrant parents, successfully made the transition to usc in part because the task force for first generation college students had decided to set up a process by which parents who did not go to college could be introduced to key staff members they could reach out to address their questions and concerns. later in fall 2015, when usc student leadership had protests over racial tensions on campus—like so many other campuses that semester—these first-generation college students and their parents had contacts they could utilize to address their specific concerns. one of the demands made by students that semester was an increase in faculty of color and greater attention to the needs of students of color by the usc administration. in reaction, the university demanded that each of the nineteen schools at usc establish diversity liaisons, who could listen to the issues of students, faculty, and staff of color and push their respective administrations and usc central administration to respond to these concerns. these school diversity liaisons have become a new set of potential advocates for meeting the needs of first-generation college students of color. the equity framework assesses conditions of how students of color gain access to resources, programs and scholarships and measures institutional support (bensimon, 2004; bensimon, 2005). the equity framework for first-generation college students is applied by educating those who have influence with students and influence at the university. the first generation gathering committee’s primary goals are to educate the staff and faculty community on the first-generation college student identity and to have them reflect on how their units or departments may prevent first-generation college students of color from succeeding due to institutional barriers. in fall 2016, the first generation college student gathering committee worked with the data and 147 assessment committee to present data on first-generation college students to the usc diversity liaisons. the diversity liaisons are charged with addressing and meeting the university’s diversity goals in their academic schools. the data presentation was paired with a best practice presentation. this new consciousness on the needs of first-generation college students is now taking root throughout the nineteen schools that make up the usc campus. civic engagement disrupting traditional divides another institution that has been established at usc to positively affect success for firstgeneration college students of color is the usc center for diversity and democracy (cdd), also run by dr. george sanchez. the cdd was established to combine the issues of diversity in higher education with democratic civic engagement in the communities surrounding the university of southern california. as a center for civic engagement, the cdd hopes to modernize traditional “town and gown” discussions, which assume that the university “gown” is worn by high income white faculty and students at a research university like usc, while the “town” is not embedded in university cultural life through low-income first-generation college students that come from immigrant and racialized backgrounds, including those from urban communities surrounding the university. as a research center, the cdd hopes to support academic research by faculty and students that directly contributes to the civic engagement literature and public programming that takes into account the growing diversity of student and faculty populations in the university environment and addresses the new american “public”, which is often rooted in racialized communities that often do not speak english and are relative newcomers to u.s. society. over the past decade, the cdd has engaged in several creative civic engagement projects, each of which centrally involved undergraduates of color who were the first in their families to attend college. in 2010, the cdd celebrated the one hundred year anniversary of the beginning of the mexican revolution in los angeles, a city where half of its population comes from mexico, with a friendly competition to write “a corrido of los angeles.” students from middle and high schools throughout southern california could submit songs they had created through any music genre that celebrated the history and culture of los angeles, as long as it told a story in the “corrido” tradition. over thirty entries were submitted, and a group of university faculty and community partners selected the top ten to perform live with the grammy-award winning urban group, ozomatli. after a powerful and moving rehearsal with the group, students performed their original songs for parents and teachers at the auditorium of the los angeles county museum of art, which had a related mexican revolution exhibition that families could attend. another program funded by usc’s good neighbors grant is “history in a box,” which involved undergraduate researchers developing “boxes” of artifacts and lesson plans for elementary schools in boyle heights, a working class latino neighborhood adjacent to the usc health science campus. the cdd partnered with the breed street shul project to carry out this work, a project of the jewish historical society of southern california working to restore the most important synagogue in the neighborhood as a community center for the current population. working with all first-generation college students of color, dr. sanchez, with the aid of graduate research assistants, guided undergraduates through research to shape an “immigrant” box that introduced third and fourth graders to the variety of immigrant groups that have made up boyle 148 heights in the past. the undergraduate researchers place a yarmulke in the box to represent jewish immigrants, a small bento box to represent japanese immigrants, and so on, while preparing lesson plans for elementary teachers that allowed them to further explore the history of these groups with their students in class. teachers in boyle heights were so enamored by the boxes and lessons that they asked the “history in a box” team to develop other boxes that explored science subjects like pollution in the neighborhood or the los angeles river, and culture boxes like one that explored the musical diversity among boyle heights population in the past. in the wake of the election of donald trump to the u.s. presidency, a candidate that called out mexican immigrants to the u.s. in derogatory fashion and sought to send many of boyle heights residents out of the country, the cdd decided to pursue a new project directly related to teaching the history of boyle heights to the local population. the boyle heights museum of history and culture (bhm) is a project of the cdd in collaboration with casa 0101, a community-based theater in boyle heights founded by josefina lopez, the writer and producer of the awardwinning play and movie “real women have curves.” in addition to the current strains in the urban neighborhood, due to the changes in immigration policy brought about by the trump administration, boyle heights is also in the middle of a gentrification process that is putting its local residents at risk of displacement and homelessness. the bhm project hopes to use the history of its own neighborhood to provide guidance for local residents and to teach local history to residents who are often newcomers to the forces that have long been at work in los angeles to create disharmony and oppression, as well as the collaborations and coalitions that have fought back for community preservation and empowerment. usc undergraduate students of color are critical components in the formation of this history museum, and the research they do is central to the public history that is being formed in boyle heights. one such student is kathy p, who joined the group as a freshman student, after beginning at usc from granada hills, a suburban neighborhood north of los angeles. kathy is the daughter of two immigrant parents from ecuador, and her journey to usc has been challenging for a set of reasons that are both unique to her but also representative of the diversity of the urban experience at schools like usc. before going into her senior year in high school, kathy institutionalized herself due to severe depression, a result of hiding the fact she was gay from her parents (she also suffered abuse from her partners.) this institutionalization forced kathy to become a ward of the state, and almost kept the ‘a’ student from starting her senior year in high school. because of help from a latina nurse in the mental institution into which she was assigned, kathy was able to find the words that got her released, although the courts committed kathy to lgbtq therapy with her mother. after she got into usc, kathy needed to find a supportive community for her burgeoning identity as a latina lesbian, as well as continued therapy. kathy took advantage of trojan guardian scholars (tgs), a program of the dornsife odsi for foster care youth, previously homeless students, and those that have been wards of the state. in particular kathy was able to take advantage of an on-call counselor/mentor, provided by tgs, who was a counselor in training at the usc school of social work. moreover, this put her in touch with dr. sanchez, and he eventually became her academic mentor. he first worked with her to change her major from international relations to gender studies and contemporary 149 latino and latin american studies because kathy expressed an interest in majors that allowed her to continue to explore her complex and emerging identities. secondly, kathy explicitly wanted to become a professor, so dr. sanchez hired her as his research assistant for his academic work and the bhm project. kathy applied as the only freshman applicant to the mellon mays undergraduate fellowship program, and so impressed the faculty selection committee that she was accepted as only the second freshmen in the last twenty years to become a mmuf scholar. kathy is now working on her individual research on latina lesbian history in los angeles, as well as her work-study job on archival research for the boyle heights project. institutional programs such as the trojan guardian scholars supports former foster youth by approaching access to resources through an equity lens. the staff coordinator assesses and evaluates the program each year since its launch in 2013, to ensure that barriers preventing scholars from gaining access to resources for college success are removed. the staff coordinator works with a set of staff from vital student support service departments across usc to ensure that their life experiences are integrated when they meet with the scholars. recently, kathy travelled to washington d.c., along with seven other undergraduates and two graduate students as part of the research team for the bhm project. these students explored smithsonian and other museums to concentrate on how material objects, photographs, and archival materials become narrative objects for public history. they applied this knowledge to constructing the first exhibition for the boyle heights museum in fall semester 2017 on mexican repatriation, deportation, and unjust banishment of u.s. citizens of mexican descent from boyle heights during the 1930s. all the students have been doing archival research in the los angeles area during 2016-2017, and now translated this work into a public history exhibition. and each of the students involved is latina/o or african american, from immigrant and working class backgrounds, and also each is a student who wants to make a difference in his/her community by introducing historical research for public consumption. conclusion the boyle heights museum of history and culture is a training ground for the next set of professionals that will emerge from usc’s first-generation college student community of color. like the other projects mentioned in this essay, this work at the university of southern california has prioritized the academic and personal strategies for success among a unique group of undergraduates that represent the future of academia in the twenty-first century. the equity approach, used in all these projects, attempts to respond to the dynamic gifts that these students bring to the campus that both challenge the university’s traditional approaches to learning, as well as enhance the setting with new perspectives and trajectories of success. the japan summer immersion program, the sophomore seminar for “pathways to career success for first generation college students,” and the larger initiatives launched the first generation college task force, all work to push an equity agenda at usc. these programs have been largely successful in transforming the lives of current and past low-income undergraduates who are the first in the families to attend college. together with faculty, staff and student members of the usc community, these efforts have broadened the atmosphere of inclusion on the campus and led to the institutionalization of 150 critical programs for change. the university of southern california continues to change as attempts to meet the changing needs of a more diverse student body in the twenty-first century, and the dornsife office for diversity and strategic initiatives, as well as the usc center for diversity and democracy, have led the way on campus for new, creative ways to meet this challenge. our philosophy has been to make usc more responsive to being a critical institution for los angeles itself, and to become a leading innovator in diverse student programming across the nation for a twenty-first century student body. 151 references antonio, a.l. (2002). faculty of color reconsidered: reassessing contributions to scholarship. the journal of higher education, 73(5), 582-602. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2002.11777169 bensimon, e.m. (2004). the diversity scorecard: a learning approach to institutional change. change: the magazine of higher learning, 36(1), 44-52 https://doi.org/10.1080/00091380409605083 bensimon, e.m. (2005). closing the achievement gap in higher education: an organizational learning perspective. new directions for higher education, 2005(131), 99-111. https://doi.org/10.1002/he.190 umbach, p.d. (2006). the contribution of faculty of color to undergraduate education. research in higher education, 47(3), 317-345. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2002.11777169 https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2002.11777169 https://doi.org/10.1080/00091380409605083 https://doi.org/10.1002/he.190 https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2002.11777169 152 author information dr. mary ho is currently the assistant dean for diversity and strategic initiatives in dornsife college letters, arts and sciences at the university of southern california. she received her ed.d in educational leadership from the rossier school of education at usc in 2016. her doctoral dissertation was on chief diversity officers and their impact on campus climate. in addition, she received her m.a. in higher education administration in the steinhardt school of education, leadership and technology from new york university and her b.a. in political science from the university of california. in her spare time, she enjoys traveling, running and eating. * mary ho, ed.d dornsife college office for diversity and strategic initiatives university of southern california 3518 trousdale parkway los angeles, ca 90089 telephone: (213)740-4689 email: maryho@usc.edu dr. george sanchez is professor of american studies & ethnicity, and history at the university of southern california, where he also recently served as vice dean for diversity and strategic initiatives in the dornsife college of letters, arts & sciences. he is the author of becoming mexican american: ethnicity, culture and identity in chicano los angeles, 1900-1945 (oxford university press, 1993), and co-editor of three other books. professor sanchez has served as president of the american studies association in 2001-02, chair of the national advisory board of “imagining america: artists and scholars in public life" from 2007-2011, and president of the pacific coast branch of the american historical association in 2015-16. he received the inaugural equity award from the american historical association in 2011 for an individual who has achieved excellence in recruiting and retaining underrepresented racial and ethnic groups into the historical profession, and was nominated by president barack obama to the national council for the humanities in 2016. sanchez received his b.a. in history and sociology from harvard university and his ph.d. in history in 1989 from stanford university. he was born in boyle heights to two immigrant parents from mexico and was a first-generation college student. george j. sanchez department of american studies & ethnicity university of southern california 3620 s. vermont avenue kaprielian hall 462 los angeles, ca 90089-2534 telephone: (213)740-2426 email: georges@usc.edu *corresponding author mailto:maryho@usc.edu mailto:georges@usc.edu umbach, p.d. (2006). the contribution of faculty of color to undergraduate education. research in higher education, 47(3), 317-345. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2002.11777169 copyright © 2016 metropolitan universities vol. 27 no. 3 (autumn 2016), doi: 10.18060/21385 the morning after: stakeholder reflections on the sustainability of a community-campus engagement center in the changing environment michaela hynie, wanda macnevin, cheryl prescod, barry rieder, & lorna schwartzentruber abstract most analyses of the success and sustainability of community-university engagement initiatives focus on the university environment. we explore the impact of changes in the larger social and political systems on the community as well as those within the university on the meaning and use of a shared community space. the york university-td community engagement centre (cec) is a storefront facility for research and teaching shared by york university and the janefinch/black creek community, a richly diverse, suburban, underserved neighbourhood in toronto, canada. the physical space facilitates and sustains the community-university partnership in this region. as representatives of the community and/or university with strong ties to the engagement centre, we review changes in both the institution and the larger political context in which the university and community navigate their relationship. we also reflect on how these changes play a role in determining community and university priorities, the value of their relationship, and the availability of resources. community-university initiatives emerge in environments that provide opportunities for shared activities and the development of a shared vision. however, the sustainability of a community-university initiative is strongly influenced by broad environmental changes, requiring self-reflection, trust, communication and innovation. keywords: community-university partnerships, community engagement, engaged scholarship community-engagement initiatives emerge when they align with community and university priorities and visions. these initiatives can take numerous forms (martin, smith, & phillips, 2005). one strategy of supporting a range of community-engagement initiatives is the creation of a shared physical space within the community. the acquisition and maintenance of space is a major long-term investment. its establishment may be even more influenced by environmental opportunities than other engagement strategies. a successful partnership also requires ongoing adjustments to, and reflections on, the changing socio-political environment. there is generally recognition that partnerships develop against a backdrop of a longer historical and political context (martin et al., 2005) but they exist in a socio-political environment that continues to change. these changes can affect communities and universities differently because of their unique social and political locations and the respective value and meaning of the partnership can change (kassam & tetty, 2003; suarez-balcazar, harper, & lewis, 2005). this can result in friction that can surprise or disappoint one or both parties and which can make the ongoing commitment to this shared resource more difficult to support. however, it can also create new 28 opportunities, bringing in new dimensions of collaboration, and new shared goals and visions. this paper will explore the impact of changes that support and/or challenge the sustainability of a specific shared space, a community engagement centre, as the community and university negotiate these changes and their relationship. weerts and sandmann (2010) argue that successful ongoing community-university engagement requires boundary spanning: the creation of bridges between institutions and their partners. boundary spanning activities are most successful when they are complex and multilayered, and include the sharing of resources (mcnall, reed, brown, & allen, 2008). these resources need to be seen as belonging to both/all parties and be shared equitably, rather than being seen as belonging to one party and charitably donated to another (bringle & hatcher, 2002; martin et al., 2005). the genuine sharing of a physical space in the community by university and community can not only be an instantiation of boundary spanning, but a foundation on which to build other forms of boundary spanning activities, and so may contribute in important ways to the sustainability of the overall partnership. the york university td community engagement centre (cec) is a shared space that forms a complex multi-layered bridge between york university and the black creek jane-finch community. the cec itself is both one of the valuable resources being shared and a facilitator of the sharing of other valuable resources. it is a resource that came into being as a result of environmental opportunities, and that has been influenced by ongoing changes in the institutional, community and political environments. weerts and sandmann (2008) note that environmental opportunities include (a) the presence of champions at the community and university level with strong social capital who support the collaboration, (b) favourable institutional and governmental policies that facilitate engagement; openness in both communities to putting energy into new collaborations (whether through positive experiences that pull for closer ties with the university, or increased awareness of needs that push community members and agencies to seek new solutions to challenges, the latter being particularly sensitive to the changing socio-political environment), and (c) the availability of funding to allow for the establishment and maintenance of the infrastructures necessary for success. while these may be necessary elements for the establishment of engagement initiatives, it also provides a useful framework for considering the evolution of a partnership over time. the paper draws from a number of university and community documents, studies and reports, focus groups conducted during the 5-year evaluation of the centre, and focused discussions held with staff and community representatives who have been deeply involved with the centre since its inception. the paper begins with a description of community and university contexts, and then presents changes and events across the course of the 8 years that the centre has existed as opportunities and challenges to the sustainability of the engagement centre. context the jane-finch/black creek community. the city of toronto has a number of distinctive characteristics that provide the larger context in which the jane-finch/black creek neighbourhood is situated. toronto is the largest city in canada and the capital of the most populous province, ontario. in 2011, the city of toronto had a population of over 2.6 million people but the greater toronto area had an overall population 29 of 5.6 million. in that census, 51% of toronto residents were born outside of canada, and approximately one-third of those had arrived in the last 10 years (city of toronto, 2013a). almost half of the residents of toronto (49%) identified as visible minority, with 12.3% of the total population identifying themselves as south asian, 10.8% as chinese, 8.5% as black, 5.1% as filipino, and 2.8% as latin american. toronto has a higher rate of low-income individuals and families (19%) than the rest of canada, and the rest of the province of ontario. those neighbourhoods reporting the highest concentrations of families living with low income also have the highest concentrations of visible minority residents, immigrants, lone parent families, and unemployment, highlighting patterns of social exclusion and structural determinants of inequality (city of toronto, 2011). the global recession has increased unemployment, with a 29% increase in numbers of families and individuals receiving social assistance from 2007 to 2010, and increasing pressure on the community agencies who supported them (city of toronto, 2011). toronto has challenges in terms of affordable housing; almost one in five households (19.8%) pay more than 30% of their income on rental fees (city of toronto, 2013b). almost half (45%) of toronto residents rent their homes and most renters live in high-rise apartments. there has been a building boom in the city, but approximately 70% of the new housing units have been high-rise apartment buildings. with less than four percent of new buildings having apartments with three or more bedrooms, families in toronto face particular challenges in finding affordable housing (toronto city planning, 2016). as a result, the suburbs and outer suburbs have seen rapid growth, and many newcomers settle outside of the downtown core. the jane-finch/black creek region, a suburb in the northwest part of the city, reflects toronto’s rich diversity, and the factors that have pushed newcomers out of the city core, but also has unique characteristics. the jane-finch/black creek neighbourhood straddles the intersection of three toronto city wards. relative to the rest of toronto, the three wards within which the neighbourhood is situated have a younger population, with a higher proportion of children under the age of 25 living at home. the wards also report lower levels of education and a greater percentage of the community born outside of canada, ranging from 59% to 64% (city of toronto, 2016). the jane-finch/black creek neighbourhood resembles the wards it resides in on many measures. about 70% of the community identifies as visible minority. reflecting the structural barriers to employment for immigrants found across the city, this neighbourhood also has an average income that is about 10% lower than that of toronto overall (city of toronto, 2003). it has even lower incomes and a higher proportion of lone parent families than the larger region, in part reflecting the presence of several high rise public housing units at the corner of jane and finch that have low income as a prerequisite for tenancy (city of toronto, 2003). while not dissimilar from its surrounding region, the community has been singled out for negative media representations, and has struggled to redefine its public image and bring attention to its many strengths and assets (jane finch tsns task force, 2015). jane-finch, in particular, has been associated with “guns, gangs and drugs” (pagliaro, 2013). this stigmatized identity is a source of frustration and results in a transferal of stigma onto community residents (james, 2012; joyette & oda, 2005; narain & kumar, 2013). the social construction of the neighbourhood through negative racial stereotypes and a crime and security lens has also shaped the direction of 30 government initiatives in the neighbourhood and justified what residents perceive as overpolicing, along with ineffective and intrusive revitalization strategies (jane finch tsns task force, 2015). importantly, it erases the community’s strong and vibrant history of civic engagement and activism. the many assets of this richly diverse neighbourhood include the numerous agencies, community groups and arts projects who collaborated in a range of community initiatives. sorrow and anger over the death of three year old breanna davy in 1999, slain by a stray bullet in a shooting, brought community and local agency representatives together into a new initiative. community representatives initiated consultations with staff from the city of toronto, the housing authority and police services to discuss public safety and the need to strengthen physical and social infrastructure (rieder, 2005). one major outcome of this meeting was the development of the black creek west community capacity project. the community capacity project is a three-phase community needs assessment (city of toronto, 2003). phase i focused on the collection of information about the population and the services available in the community. in phase ii, there were community consultations with representatives across multiple sectors including community residents, businesses, faith leaders and agencies. phase iii has focused on the development of an action plan to respond to issues raised in a sustainable and coordinated way. an important aspect to this initiative was the focus on community capacity; that the consultation process also recognized the importance of documenting the ability of the community to build on its strengths, and that it led to an action plan for change (rieder, 2005). these action plans included engagement with local organizations concerned with education at all levels (primary to tertiary), and building and strengthening employment opportunities, including employment at the local university, york university, which is one of the neighbourhood’s largest employers. another action plan was creating opportunities for meaningful engagement of community residents in decision-making and implementation on community issues. these action plans describe a community that is proactive in seeking and defining meaningful partnership with their local university partner across multiple dimensions of engagement. york university and community engagement york university was established in 1959 as a second university in toronto; it is now one of four. it is a comprehensive university with 11 faculties, almost 47,000 undergraduates and close to 6,000 graduate students, making it canada’s third largest university (york university, 2015). the university’s keele campus was founded in 1965 in what was then farmland in the northwest of the city, next to the jane-finch/black creek neighbourhood. the university identifies social justice, diversity, accessibility and fairness as defining values, therefore creating a fertile setting for the development and sustainability of a community engagement initiative (york university, 2010). in 2006, york university received a ten-year gift of $1 million from the td-canada trust bank that allowed it to establish a deeper relationship with the jane-finch/black creek neighbourhood through increased community engagement. the choice of jane-finch/black creek for the location of this centre reflects the recognition that york university is part of the geographic neighbourhood, and has had a long presence in it. there have been numerous individual partnerships between community residents and agencies, and university members and programs 31 (york university, 2009) but the initiatives have lacked coherence and visibility. the gift was made to establish a visible, pan-university engagement centre with a goal of promoting “accessibility and social justice through meaningful and transformative community/university partnerships.” in 2008, following a consultation process with community residents and agencies and with york university community members (york university, 2007), the york universitytd community engagement centre (cec) was formally opened in a shopping mall at the intersection of jane street and finch avenue. the receipt of the gift that supported the establishment of the cec dovetailed with an impetus to strengthen community engagement at york altogether. in 2009, york university released the results of a consultation process that coincided with the establishment of the cec and focused on community engagement. one outcome of this initiative was the documentation of the long history of engagement of individual faculty members and programs with jane-finch/black creek agencies and community groups, particularly in the area of education (york university, 2009). the consultations led to a 2010 white paper in which york defined itself as “canada’s engaged university”. the university explicitly included community engagement as part of its strategic plan, and made a commitment to integrate community engagement into all three areas of scholarship: research, teaching and service (york university, 2010). the york university-td community engagement centre (cec). the cec is a storefront facility for research and teaching that seeks to promote and strengthen the relationships between york university and the jane-finch/black creek community by facilitating collaboration and resource sharing, in service of mutual goals. the cec is expected to benefit residents, students, faculty and the university as a whole by (a) utilizing the strengths and assets of residents’ knowledge/expertise to enhance student learning experiences, (b) addressing and reducing barriers to full participation in postsecondary education for community residents, (c) facilitating the development of new community/university collaborations, (d) enhancing the depth and breadth of new and existing collaborative research partnerships; and (e) promoting civic engagement opportunities. the yorkgate mall in which the cec is located is at a transportation hub in the region, with several bus routes crossing at the intersection and a large amount of free parking. a bicycle path leads from the mall along a greenbelt to the university, which has created easier access between the university and the centre. it takes approximately 30 minutes to walk this distance. the mall also houses seneca college’s yorkgate campus (offering academic upgrading and two-year diploma programs in practical nursing and for social service workers). york university and seneca college are co-located inside a suite of offices with both shared and individual spaces but separate storefront entrances and signage. the collaboration between seneca and york in sharing this space increases the flexibility of the space to meet both community and university/college needs. the mall also houses the black creek community health centre, and the spot (a program of the jane/finch community and family centre with youth-focused programming), therefore creating opportunities for collaboration with community agencies, as well as several local businesses and a large food store that bring residents into the mall on a regular basis. the physical space for the cec includes a large reception area, which has two computers for use by community residents and various information about the university, 5 small offices, and one large 32 meeting room. the meeting room is used for cec meetings but is also booked by community agencies and resident groups, as well as university classes and programs, for initiatives that further the mutual goals of the cec. the ten-year gift pays for the rent and maintenance of the space to the local mall. in addition matching funds are provided from the president’s office to cover salaries of the staff: a manager, a community projects coordinator, and an administrative assistant, plus a number of placement students and work/study students, which are on-campus positions for students who demonstrate financial need. although the matching funds come from the president’s office, the cec reports to the vice-president academic and provost. the original governance of the cec included an executive committee, and five working committees: program (including two subgroups: access and public education, and interprofessional education); evaluation; research and knowledge exchange, finance and fundraising, nominations and outreach. the goal was to have each committee comprised of equal numbers of community residents and university faculty, with community resident and university member co-chairs. finding community residents who were able to participate during workday hours, and university members and agency representatives who could participate during evening hours, was challenging. thus, keeping an active membership on all committees was difficult. after four years, the structure was simplified into just three committees: research and evaluation; experiential education; and access and public education, and the executive committee was eventually replaced by an advisory committee. the cec is not the only pan-university community engagement initiative at york university. a separate initiative, the knowledge mobilization (kmb) unit, also exists at york university and supports partnerships for research collaboration and knowledge exchange, with an emphasis on the region to the north of york university. the kmb unit, established in 2005, focuses on research alone using a knowledge broker model. knowledge brokers bring together organizations and university faculty who are seeking research or community partners, respectively. once the initial introduction is made, the kmb unit steps out of the relationship. other kmb activities focus on communicating information about york research to non-academic audiences, for example by creating and posting plain language summaries of faculty members’ work. in recent years, the kmb unit has joined researchimpact, a national network of knowledge brokers supporting a similar model of community engagement and knowledge exchange (http://researchimpact.ca/kmbinaction/). the kmb unit is administered by the office of the vice president research and innovation. the cec, with its education mandate, is administered by the office of the vp academic and provost. although united under a shared strategic plan, the different offices have different priorities. the result can be that activities between these two university initiatives are not always aligned and could potentially be seen as competing. integration between these two initiatives therefore depends to some extent on communication between the two vp offices. joint initiatives and collaboration since its inception, the cec has provided space and opportunities for collaboration and joint initiatives between university and community. in some cases, the community leads these http://researchimpact.ca/kmbinaction/ 33 initiatives, with the university playing a supporting role as a partner, or one of many partners. in some cases, they are initiatives led by university, in partnership with one or more community organizations. finally, some are truly joint initiatives, developed in collaboration between university and community. there have been a number of different kinds of programs and activities offered at the cec since its inception. an evaluation at the five-year point of the cec identified activities within each of the areas of the cec goals that reflect the ways in which, by virtue of its central location in the community, this shared space acts as a bridge between members of the community and university, supporting multiple goals and functions. activities that enrich student experience: the cec has been used for undergraduate and graduate courses from several faculties: education, health, environmental studies, and liberal and professional studies. these courses have an emphasis on community engagement (e.g., community-based research) or community issues (e.g., urban planning). by physically situating the classes in a community location, students are immersed in the environment and processes that they are studying. the cec has also facilitated a number of experiential education opportunities, where students gain real world experiences through placements or internships with local supervisors, participated in research projects with community partners, or engaged with community members in more limited interactions, such as through interviews with community agency staff. the cec’s physical presence in the community and the relationships forged in the governance of the cec have helped to draw attention of both university and neighbourhood community members to these possibilities. the cec has also organized on-site student led clinics for community residents providing supervised professional services such as annual tax clinics, and a legal aid clinic, thereby using the community space for activities that bridge student learning objectives but also provide direct services of interest to the community. activities that reduce barriers to post-secondary education for residents a program that precedes the cec, now housed within it, is the bridging program for women, a program offered by women’s studies as an alternative route to accessing secondary education for women over the age of 21. the bridging program allows women who do not have the prerequisites for university to take one of a select number of university courses to explore the possibility of university study. those who attain a b or higher are eligible for acceptance to york university in several undergraduate programs. having the program offered in a shared community space increases its physical and psychological accessibility, thereby facilitating access to higher education for community members. in addition to the academic bridging program for women, the cec also offers regular information sessions for community residents about application procedures and financial aid offered within the storefront space, and support for transition programs in high schools. information is readily available in the reception space of the cec. the cec staff also participate in regional and city networks on university access, ensuring open communication about the 34 needs of community residents, local policies that affect educational access, and university policies and procedures. activities that support new collaborations the cec has been instrumental in supporting community projects and initiatives, and bringing together community and university partners with shared interests and needs. for example, the black creek micro-lending program is a community-university initiative supporting local individuals and businesses to access small amounts of funding to establish or support entrepreneurial activities. community residents and university faculty and students, with funding from a university grant (low, yip, & visano, 2008), developed this program collaboratively. for the not-for-profit sector, york university funded the catalyst grants program, providing small amounts of funding (maximum $10,000) to sustainable projects led jointly by community residents/groups and york university members that met community needs. these initiatives engage both community and university in collaboratively defining, documenting and building capacity in the community. the good food market was a farmer’s market, created in response to a lack of affordable fresh food in the neighbourhood. the good food market ran during the spring, summer and fall in a space situated at an intersection in the community that is just outside of the university boundaries. the good food market included not only fresh fruits and vegetables but also local crafts and locally prepared foods. the choice of a location closer to the university was intended in part to meet a secondary goal of the market. this farmer’s market was not only to provide fresh food locally, but also to encourage more york university members to shop in the community, thereby creating another bridge for sharing resources between community and university. the development of collaborations is also supported through knowledge sharing activities. these take place in public spaces within the yorkgate mall in order to engage and reach out to community residents and meet community goals of better coordination and accessibility of local information. the cec has organized community events that included presentations of a range of community and university partnership activities and projects. the cec has also engaged in a number of strategies to share information about the community—generated by the community— highlighting the positive aspects of the jane finch/black creek community. the knowledge sharing activities include information fairs and presentations. agencies, research partnerships, and university information are shared to ensure communication of information and research findings, foster opportunities for new initiatives, and increase the impact of existing projects. activities that encourage depth and breadth in partnerships. in addition to supporting new initiatives, the cec has helped to build longer-term and larger networks of relationships that can be sustained across multiple initiatives. consistent with the notion of complex and multilayered boundary spanning activities (mcnall et al., 2008), many include research, community action, and educational opportunities. for example, assets coming together (act) for youth was a multi-year, multi-sectoral collaboration between community members and researchers that is funded by a federal research grant. act for youth addresses 35 negative portrayals of youth in urban communities that focuses on the jane-finch/black creek community. another example is the connecting the dots conference for jane-finch and york u partnerships. this one-day conference, initiated by the cec, brought together residents, agency representatives, students, faculty, and staff to reflect on relationships, perceptions, and challenges, and to foster mutual understanding in the development of future partnership opportunities. this conference not only supported and motivated reflection on the nature of the community-university relationship between york university and the jane-finch/black creek community, but also led to a commitment to ongoing support for mutual understanding, through the development of a credited course where york students can obtain a contextual understanding of the neighbourhood provided by community and resident leaders. showcasing university programs in the community although not highlighted in the evaluation, the cec has also participated in a series of activities that have increased community residents’ knowledge of university activities working with or relevant to the community. as with the knowledge sharing activities described above, these made use of the common spaces in the mall in which the storefront resides. included among these are performances by york university fine arts students in the yorkgate mall for black history month, and a university fair held in the yorkgate mall to showcase student placement and research opportunities. the latter provide information not only about the activities of york university students but also of local agencies, issues and research initiatives. opportunities and challenges in a changing context and implications for shared spaces a number of social and political events have occurred that shifted the goals and priorities of the university and community in ways that had an impact on their shared initiatives and shared spaces, either directly or indirectly. many of these emerged through discussions with stakeholders of the cec in preparation for this paper. others grew from consultations with community and university stakeholders, which have been documented in formal reports. policies affecting collaboration: institutional, municipal, provincial changes in the regional and municipal context. in 2005, the city of toronto and united way, toronto, launched the toronto strong neighbourhoods strategy. the intention was to invest in community infrastructure in communities most in need of support, with an emphasis on security and safety. thirteen priority neighbourhoods were identified; the jane-finch/black creek neighbourhood was among them. in 2012, the city engaged in community consultations that broadened the scope of social factors and desired outcomes taken into consideration (the black creek community capacity project). in 2014, the city launched the toronto strong neighbourhoods strategy 2020, which led to the identification, in 2014, of neighbourhood improvement areas, those neighbourhoods with the greatest inequality in outcomes across five domains: economic opportunities, social development, participation in decision-making, physical surroundings, and healthy lives. 36 the two toronto communities receiving the lowest values on the neighbourhood equity scores were both within the jane-finch/black creek region. the community responded with the jane finch toronto strong neighbourhood taskforce, again with a focus on community consultation that put community visions of improvement front and centre. york university and the cec played a growing role in community organizing around the original community capacity project, and played a key partnership role in the community response to the toronto strong neighbourhoods strategy 2020. the ability of york university to contribute to this response, and to see itself as part of the community, was an important step in the growing partnership between the community and university. changes in the provincial and institutional context. york university’s formal support for community engagement in its strategic plan aligned with a greater interest by the provincial government in the role of postsecondary education institutions in community engagement (ministry of training, colleges and universities, 2012). a provincial discussion paper released in 2012 identifies community engagement as one of the goals of research and teaching activities undertaken by postsecondary institutions, and a mechanism for ensuring high-quality student experiences. at the time, this was seen by many as an opportunity to increase the visibility and support for the cec. however, the definition of community engagement, and community partners, is very broad in the university vision. it includes a range of entrepreneurial educational experiences and partnerships, including business and government partnerships and co-op learning experiences. while community residents welcomed initiatives supporting the development of business and employment opportunities, (e.g., the black creek micro-lending program, low et al., 2008), they also express concern that a neoliberal view of engagement can shift energy in the area of community engagement to engagement in business and government ventures (e.g., jane-finch tsns working group, 2015; joyette & oda, 2005). thus, the engagement may lose the focus on the development of the broader range of community capacities and assets. in 2013, the university launched an experiential education working group to support the university’s goal to improve the quality of the undergraduate experience through experiential education (york university, 2013). experiential education (ee) is defined as a pedagogy that utilizes concrete or hands-on learning experiences to support meeting learning objectives. in essence, it is putting theory into practice. the current shift to interest in ee, both on the part of the province and the university creates opportunities to highlight the strengths of the cec, since the cec fosters ee experiences. however, as the working group noted, ee can also be achieved with meaningful classroom exercises and experiences and may therefore not require involvement of the physical space of the cec. concern has been raised by some stakeholders that community engaged ee experiences are time consuming and expensive, compared to classroom experiences. although classroom experiences may not capture all of the benefits of community experiences for students, if the only goal of ee activities is enhancing student experience then in times of fiscal restraint they may not be seen as an important investment. awareness of the range of ways that ee can contribute to the larger 37 initiative of community-university engagement needs to be included as part of the ee agenda and is one the strengths that the cec brings. this also highlights the differences between the cec and the knowledge mobilization unit (kmb), described above, which is also a place-based community-university engagement initiative but one that operates under a very different model. the kmb focuses on the large region north of the university, but is physically located on the university campus rather than in shared space. the kmb unit organizes activities in the community, such as meet-and-greets between community and university researchers. however, most activities are episodic, the region it works in is large and so activities are offered in different parts of the region to increase access. continuity of activities is thus not necessary, the way it would be for courses or student placements, and after the initial introduction, activities take place in a range of different spaces and no longer involve the kmb unit. the more focused and episodic nature of the kmb activities means that the kmb initiative does not require a permanent space and its presence on campus allows it to easily align with university driven priorities and activities. another issue internal to the university is that including the cec in on-campus activities can be more challenging because it requires travel by the staff from the off-campus site. the manager makes regular trips to campus to participate in meetings and activities but this also takes her away from the cec. this may raise some challenges for including the cec in all relevant university initiatives and this, in turn, may create challenges to the integration of cec activities and university priorities overall. the cec activities are integrated at the level of the particular activity (e.g., individual courses, internships, research projects) but these individual activities may vary in how well they are integrated into the university’s strategic plan or goals. thus, the presence of a shared space in the community strengthens and facilitates university engagement in community priorities, but may also present challenges for the initiative’s engagement with university priorities if policies are not in place to ensure the cec is kept informed and included. openness, trust and communication historic tensions exist in the relationship between the jane-finch/black creek community residents and the university, and these resurfaced in consultations with community residents undertaken as part of the community capacity project. residents expressed frustration in general at the disconnect between the high frequency with which they are consulted, studied and policed and the low rates of positive outcomes for residents (joyette & oda, 2005). some of the former two activities have been attributed to york university initiatives by faculty, students, or both. this is a caution to university members to refrain from “doing research on” the community. it highlights the mistrust created by a history of research that has provided no benefit to community residents but is seen as promoting the careers of the researchers through publication and grants, a complain that has often been raised in the context of community based research (e.g., minkler, 2005; shields & evans, 2008). since its inception, the cec has been active in promoting community-based research in genuine partnership with community, supporting these research initiatives with funding, showcasing local examples of research partnership, offering a range of in-kind support to local research partnerships, and developing tools and activities to support collaborative research. this includes the connect the dots conference described under joint activities. nonetheless, some frustration remains and many university community members 38 are still unfamiliar with partnership approaches to research. finding spaces to air these issues is an ongoing and important issue. despite the number of positive interactions being generated by the cec and other communityuniversity initiatives, members of the university still reflect the stigmatizing perceptions of the jane-finch neighbourhood that are prevalent in toronto. students in particular are seen as holding racist and stigmatizing views of the neighborhood, reflecting the stigma and racism that exists in the city overall; for example, during new student orientations, incoming students are warned by their peers not to cross the bridge into jane-finch (narain & kumar, 2013). these negative stereotypes were apparent when, in 2012, york university was struggling with negative image issues of its own. following highly publicized acts of violence on campus, violence on the university’s keele campus was a topic of discussion in the media. the editor of the student newspaper wrote a piece in which he accused residents of the jane finch neigbhourhood of being responsible for the acts of violence and assault that had occurred on york’s campus. community groups in jane-finch/black creek expressed anger, disappointment and frustration and the sense that the university did not do enough to respond to these remarks (jane finch action against poverty, 2012). given the long history of mistrust that has existed between the university and community, events such as these can do a great deal of damage to the development of trusting relationships. these challenging relationships with the university can also result in a lack of real engagement of community residents in cec leadership and activities. the existence of a shared space is both symbolic of bridging the distance between the community and the university, but also provides opportunities for positive interactions between the respective members of these groups that may help build trust between them. the active participation of york university in the community capacity project, organized in response to jane finch toronto strong neighbourhoods strategy taskforce and other community collaboratives, built trust and created opportunities for the kind of open communication needed to address past and ongoing tensions. moreover, the action plans that emerged from these community collaboratives made explicit community goals and facilitated alignment between university and community priorities. the location of the cec in the community supported the participation of york university in these activities as members of the jane-finch/black creek community, and facilitated their ability to identify and support shared community goals. an example of this is how the cec has collaborated on taking up the community goal of improving physical and green spaces in partnerships with the faculty of environmental studies and the faculty of health, among others, through teaching and research collaborations that actively took place within the community. the development and fulfillment of these many common goals provides the opportunity for the partnership to move the agenda and the partnership forward by strengthening the bridges between university and community. champions in the university and community the development of community-university initiatives requires the availability of both human and financial resources (weerts & sandmann, 2010). these are equally important in ensuring the sustainability of these initiatives. moreover, the presence of champions may be an essential component in ensuring that sufficient funding continues to be directed to the initiative to allow it to thrive. 39 a faculty dean was the initial university champion of the initiative when the financial gift was received. when the dean moved into a higher executive office, the cec moved with her. this shift into a higher office created more visibility for the cec within the university, but also put the cec into competition with other initiatives for the time of administrators. as a relatively small unit, and one that has been described by some stakeholders as a “boutique project,” it requires a great deal of commitment by university champions to keep it moving forward when there are so many other pressing issues to be dealt with. the activities of the cec require administrative attention but there is also a need for ongoing financial commitment to staffing and maintaining the physical space that holds and defines these activities. the presence of community champions, both at the agency and resident level, is equally important for the sustainability of the cec. a number of agency leaders have remained committed to supporting the cec since its inception, but some have moved on to other jobs, and others anticipate leaving in the next two to three years. it is not clear if the next wave of agency leadership will be willing or interested to offer the same support. ensuring and nurturing the next wave of community champions will be critical to the success of the cec going forward. junior staff in community agencies tend to move positions relatively frequently, changing jobs as programs lose or win funding, or as new opportunities emerge, and typically, they will move out of the neighbourhood. sustaining champions among less senior staff may therefore be difficult because of the turnover. the increasing burden to provide services with the economic downturn also means greater pressure on community agencies to deliver services directly and less time for staff to participate in initiatives that do not have direct benefit to clients and community residents. this too may undermine building new champions among community agencies. funding challenges and opportunities through partnership partnership in general can bring new resources to both the institution and the community. the jane-finch/black creek neighbourhood is relatively new and, as such, has a high proportion of relatively recent community agencies, and with relative recency comes smaller budgets (cf., lo, 2011). community agencies and residents note an ongoing under-resourcing of the community, and continued structural barriers to overcoming local challenges. the agencies have tremendous strength in the diversity of their staff, both in terms of ethnocultural and linguistic diversity, and provide a range of programs to high numbers of residents. however, with limited resources come limitations in the ways in which they can participate in initiatives beyond delivering their own programs (city of toronto, 2003). competitive applications for short term funding for projects undermines the ability of community agencies to work together, even when collaboration would be the best strategy. the university can address some of these challenges by creating opportunities for collaboration and bridging some of the uncertainty in program funding. the cec has supported collaboration between students, faculty, local agencies and community residents to help coordinate community responses to policy changes (e.g., the toronto strong neighbourhoods strategy) and has helped bridge programs through the small catalyst grants program described above under the activities section. the ability of the cec to respond to community needs by offering some services through student led clinics, like the tax clinic and clasp (community & legal aid services 40 program) helps support both students and community agencies in ensuring that community residents have access to needed resources in a predictable way. importantly, in this neighbourhood a major challenge agencies raised is space to provide the programs they offer, both in terms of simple availability and in terms of costs (city of toronto, 2003). the cec has been able to provide space for community programs, which is a valuable contribution to the community and has helped to foster relationships between university and community members through repeated interactions. the value of being able to share this resource, and the frequency with which the community makes use of it, is an important part of the cec’s success in being visible and valued in the community. with a large body of students and faculty engaged in social science and humanities research and teaching, several strong professional programs, and a very large undergraduate body, york university has been characterized as a large liberal arts institution, which is both a strength and a challenge for the institution (york university, 2015). the challenge comes from the larger grants awarded to science and medical research, and the risks of being identified as a “teaching institution,” which can jeopardize its research and graduate studies activities. the advantage comes in the form of opportunities to develop large collaborative initiatives in the social sciences, a strong grounding in participatory methods and philosophies, and in thus defining itself as distinct from more “medical” approaches to issues of health and well-being. increasingly, the national funding agencies have been encouraging large partnership grants, often in the social sciences and often with a focus on partnerships that engage community partners. the cec has facilitated the development of applications and supported these partnerships. an example of this success is the act for youth project, which secured a $1 million community university research alliance (cura) grant from the social sciences and humanities research council (sshrc). as funding is increasingly focused on larger grants to larger partnerships, the presence of trusting and long-standing relationships that address social and community issues can benefit both the community and the university. other funding challenges. as noted above, community engagement is not just a means of improving student outcomes and benefiting the community, but also as a mechanism for increasing funding to the university. partnerships can bring financial resources to the university through increased grant revenue; however, the presence of partners who can bring their own large resources to the partnership can make other engagement opportunities more attractive to the institution. the jane-finch/black creek community is not york university’s only neighbour and thus not the only potential local partner. while the other universities in toronto are situated in the downtown core, or to the east and west of the city, york university is situated to the north, and is the local university for york region. york region, north of toronto, is a rapidly growing community of 1 million people who are often overlooked by the other toronto universities and eager to partner. compared to the jane-finch/black creek neighbourhood, york region is larger, has greater resources, and provides opportunities for partnership with larger organizations, industry and governmental agencies. as noted earlier, the kmb unit focuses on building research partnerships with this region. 41 working in york region can be more rewarding for the university not only because of the greater resources of community partners in the region but also because of political interest. politicians in the city of toronto may not be focused on the jane-finch/black creek neighborhood or the cec activities in it, but the municipalities in york region are very excited about opportunities to collaborate with york university. the city of markham and the region of york have both donated substantial sums of money towards the development of a york university campus in markham, a small city north of toronto that will serve the york region. there are clearly much greater opportunities in the north for resources that arise directly from these partnerships. a bigger question regarding funding arises with respect to the 10-year donation that has been funding the cec. it is not clear whether the cec will be able to continue without the external funds that had been available through this gift, nor whether another source of funding will be available. sustainability for other initiatives in the university has depended on their ability to meet their mandate but also their ability to attract external funding. the loss of the cec would be weaken the relationship that the university has been building with the community however, who already mistrust the university’s long-term commitment. it may be difficult to sustain the existing initiatives should the cec close. such a closure may result in widening the already wide chasm between the university and a community that still has some mistrust of the motives of institutional interest. conclusion the york university-td community engagement centre is shared space that exemplifies the notion of boundary spanning. the cec emerged at a time when community engagement in teaching and research was a provincial, and thus a university, priority. its establishment was made possible by a one-time donation. maintaining a shared physical space is highly visible and makes a strong symbolic statement about the importance of the relationship between the community and its neighbouring university. however, staffing and maintaining a physical space in the community is costly, and questions can be raised about whether this approach to community engagement is sustainable as interests, and funding, shift over time. these concerns speak to the importance of viewing the cec in terms of its broader boundaryspanning role. the goals of the cec explicitly include teaching, research, and civic engagement, thus creating rich and diverse bridges between the community and the university. over time, the cec’s presence in the community has facilitated open communication between the university and the neighbourhood, created opportunities for the sharing and development of mutual goals, and facilitated ongoing communication and collaboration across numerous dimensions. it has created meaningful and unique educational experiences for university students, increased access to education for community members, enhanced sharing of knowledge and resources, and has attracted additional funding and resources to both the university and an historically underserved community. sustainability for the cec may depend most heavily on the on-going commitment of champions within both the community and university. the cec has demonstrated an ability to enhance education, research and civic engagement for both communities but these contributions must be 42 kept visible and be valued. the ability of the cec to continue will require capacity and willingness on the part of the community to continue to engage in the governance and collaborative opportunities and on the part of the university to support the costs of maintaining and investing in the space. it seems unlikely that many of these initiatives could continue without the presence of a physical space in the community that can host, organize and make visible collaborative initiatives. planning for the next great challenge in the future of the cec, namely the end of the donation that supported its creation, may be the next environmental challenge that the community and university must face together. references allahwala, a., bunce, s., beagrie, l., brail, s., hawthorne, t., levesque, s., von mahs, j., & spotton visano, b., (2013). journal of geography, 112, 43-57. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00221341.2012.692702. beaton, b. 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(2002). campus-community partnerships: the terms of engagement. the journal of social issues, 58(3), 503-516. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/15404560.00273. citynews (2012). jane-finch residents protest york u newspaper. retrieved from http://www.citynews.ca/2012/09/19/jane-finch-residents-protest-york-u-newspaper/. city of toronto (2014). toronto strong neighbourhoods strategy 2020—recommended neighbourhood improvement areas. social policy analysis and research. retrieved from http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2014/cd/bgrd/backgroundfile-67382.pdf. city of toronto, 2013a. backgrounder: 2011 national household survey: immigration, citizenship, place of birth, ethnicity, visible minorities, religion and aboriginal peoples. retrieved from http://www1.toronto.ca/city_of_toronto/social_development_finance__administration/files/pdf/n hs_backgrounder.pdf. city of toronto, 2013b. backgrounder: 2011 national household survey: income and shelter costs. retrieved from http://www1.toronto.ca/city%20of%20toronto/social%20development,%20finance%20&%20 administration/shared%20content/demographics/pdfs/reports/nhs-backgrounder-incomeshelter.pdf city of toronto (2012). backgrounder: 2011 census: age and sex counts. retrieved from http://www1.toronto.ca/city_of_toronto/social_development_finance__administration/files/pdf/c ensusbackgrounder_ageandsex_2011.pdf. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00221341.2012.692702 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1540-4560.00273 http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1540-4560.00273 http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2014/cd/bgrd/backgroundfile-67382.pdf 43 city of toronto (2011). profile of low income in the city of toronto. social development, finance and administration division. retrieved from http://www1.toronto.ca/city_of_toronto/social_development_finance__administration/files/pdf/p overty_profile_2010.pdf city of toronto (2003). phase i report: black creek west community capacity project. policy and research, city planning division. unpublished report. james, c. e. (2012). life at the intersection: community, class and schooling. winnipeg, canada: fernwood publishing. jane finch action against poverty (2012). open letter protests excalibur editorial. https://jfaap.wordpress.com/2012/06/05/open-letter-protests-excalibur-editorial/ the jane-finch tsns task force (2015). community response to the toronto strong neighbourhoods strategy 2020: what neighborhood improvement looks like from the perspective of residents in jane-finch. unpublished report. kassam, k. a., & tettey, w. j. (2003). academics as citizens: collaborative applied interdisciplinary research in the service of communities. canadian journal of development studies, 24(1), 155-174. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02255189.2003.9668902. low, e., yip, g., & spotton visano, b. (2008). designing a microcredit program for the black creek west community: a survey of lending needs. unpublished report. martin, l.l., smith, h., & phillips, w. (2005). bridging “town and gown” through innovative university-community partnerships. the innovation journal: the public sector innovation journal, 10(2), 15 ms pages. available at http://innovation.cc/peerreviewed/martin_bridging%20town_partnerdships_final4v10i2a3.pdf mcnall, m., reed, c., brown, r., & allen, a., (2008). brokering community-university engagement. innovative higher education, 33(5), 317-331. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10755008-9086-8. minkler, m. (2005). community-based research partnerships: challenges and opportunities. journal of urban health: bulletin of the new york academy of medicine, 82(2), suppl. 2, ii3-ii12. http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jurban/jti034. ministry of training, colleges and universities (2012). strengthening ontario’s centres of creativity, innovation and knowledge. retrieved from https://www.tcu.gov.on.ca/pepg/publications/discussionstrengtheningontariopse.pdf. narain, s. & kumar, r. (2013). connecting the dots student orientation: best practices for janefinch & york u. partnerships. conference report. http://www1.toronto.ca/city_of_toronto/social_development_finance__administration/files/pdf/poverty_profile_2010.pdf http://www1.toronto.ca/city_of_toronto/social_development_finance__administration/files/pdf/poverty_profile_2010.pdf http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02255189.2003.9668902 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10755-008-9086-8 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10755-008-9086-8 http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/jurban/jti034 https://www.tcu.gov.on.ca/pepg/publications/discussionstrengtheningontariopse.pdf 44 pagilaro, j. (august 31, 2013). jane and finch: toronto’s most dangerous place to be a kid? the star. retrieved from http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2013/08/31/jane_and_finch_torontos_most_dangerous_plac e_to_be_a_kid.html. rieder, b. (2005). community capacity action plan for the black creek west community. unpublished report, community capacity building project. shields, j., & evans, b. (2008). knowledge mobilization/transfer, research partnerships, and policymaking: some conceptual and practical considerations. policy matters no. 33. toronto: ceris – the ontario metropolis centre. suarez-balcazar, y., harper, g.w., & lewis, r. (2005). an interactive and contextual model of community-university collaborations for research and action. health education & behavior, 32(1), 84-101. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1090198104269512. toronto city planning (2016). housing occupancy trends, 1996-2011. retrieved from http://www1.toronto.ca/wps/portal/contentonly?vgnextoid=20e941471e2d0510vgnvcm100000 71d60f89rcrd&vgnextchannel=1e68f40f9aae0410vgnvcm10000071d60f89rcrd. weerts, d. t. & sandmann, l. r. (2010). community engagement and boundary-spanning roles at research universities. the journal of higher education, 81(6), 632-657. retrieved from https://ohiostatepress.org/jhe.html. york university (2015). york u at a glance, 2015. retrieved from http://about.yorku.ca/files/2015/02/york-at-a-glance-2015.pdf. york university (2014). strategic mandate agreement 2014-2017 between the ministry of training, colleges, universities, and york university. retrieved from http://vpap.info.yorku.ca/2014/04/strategic-mandate-agreement-2014-2017-between-theministry-of-training-colleges-and-universities-and-york-university/. york university (2013). a case for change: experiential education integration at york university. experiential education working group. retrieved from http://avptl.info.yorku.ca/files/2013/10/2013-10-30-ee-a-case-for-change-draft-forconsultations.pdf. york university (2009). inventory of community engagement. the office of university events and community relations. unpublished report. york university (2007). york university partnership with black creek west community: consultation report. satellite strategic planning committee. unpublished report. author information http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1090198104269512 http://vpap.info.yorku.ca/2014/04/strategic-mandate-agreement-2014-2017-between-the-ministry-of-training-colleges-and-universities-and-york-university/ http://vpap.info.yorku.ca/2014/04/strategic-mandate-agreement-2014-2017-between-the-ministry-of-training-colleges-and-universities-and-york-university/ 45 michaela hynie is a faculty member in the psychology department at york university and former co-chair of the york university-td community engagement centre research and knowledge exchange committee. she engages in community based teaching and research in the areas of social inclusion, migration and health. in 2007, dr. hynie founded the program evaluation unit of the york institute of health research to support community capacity in evaluation and strengthen university-community partnerships. michaela hynie (corresponding author) department of psychology york university 4700 keele street toronto, on m3j 1p3 canada email: mhynie@yorku.ca telephone: 416 736 2100 ext. 22996 webpage: http://health.info.yorku.ca/healthprofiles/index.php?dept=&amp;amp;amp;mid=12603 wanda macnevin is the outgoing director of community programs (retiring) for the jane/finch centre. she has worked in the jane-finch community for over 40 years as staff of the jane/finch centre and for the black creek community health centre, initiating multiple programs and services while maintaining a commitment to community development and resident engagement. she is a long-time community activist/resident, author of two books, served on community boards and received numerous awards in recognition of her work in the community. wanda macnevin director of community programs jane/finch centre 4400 jane street, unit 108 toronto, on m3n 2k4 canada email: wandam@janefinchcentre.org telephone: 416 663-2733 ext. 243 cheryl prescod is the executive director at the black creek community health centre and has an academic background in health sciences. she is instrumental in developing partnerships between community residents, agencies and academic institutions that work to build individual and community capacity. cheryl has a wide range of experience in community development and advocacy, working with diverse populations or children, youth and adults. cheryl prescod executive director black creek community health centre 2202 jane street, unit 5 toronto, on m3m1a4 mailto:mhynie@yorku.ca mailto:wandam@janefinchcentre.org 46 email: cheryl.prescod@bcchc.com telephone: 416 249 4594 barry rieder, b.s.w., m.t.s., hon. d. s. litt. has been the community minister at the janefinch community ministry since 1995. although his formal training is in social work and theology, much of his learning and education has come from years of work with various communities and organizations. in 2006 barry received city hall for outstanding achievement award in the area of social justice. in 2009 he received a honourary doctorate degree of sacred letters from huntington university for his years of community service barry rieder jane-finch community ministries 107 – 36 marsh grassway toronto, on m3n 2x4 email: jf-com-min@rogers.com telephone: 416-747-5616 lorna schwartzentruber is the manager of the york u -td community engagement centre. for over 20 years she has worked locally, nationally, and in the north on community building initiatives. her work has included the implementation of a community informed primary prevention project for children and families, work on issues of northern development and indigenous rights, training and facilitation, and coalition development. she has been working on university and community engagement in particular for the past 4 years. lorna schwartzentruber manager, york university td community engagement centre york university suite 232a, yorkgate mall, 1 york gate blvd. toronto on m3n 3a1 canada email: lornas@yorku.ca telephone: 416.736.2100 x20349 webpage: www,cec.info.yorku.ca mailto:cheryl.prescod@bcchc.com mailto:jf-com-min@rogers.com mailto:woolrich@yorku.ca metropolitan universities vol. 28 no. 1 (winter 2017), doi: 10.18060/21463 interviewing baltimore older adults about food system change: oral history as a teaching tool roni a. neff, linnea i. laestadius, susan dimauro, and anne m. palmer abstract urban food systems have changed considerably over the past half century. older adults’ descriptions of place-based, personal food system history can help inform student learning and may contribute to expert understanding of food system change. structural and social shifts in food purchasing and consumption contribute to diet-related disease and loss of historical food cultures in cities. modern efforts to improve food systems are rarely informed by history, despite the potential benefits. students performed oral history interviews with baltimore older adults. transcripts were analyzed using an inductive grounded theory approach. interviewees described a shift from food they perceived as natural and healthy to food seen as lacking freshness, with additives and poor flavor. many mistrusted the food industry including retailers. some emphasized benefits of modern changes such as reduced preparation time. despite low incomes, interviewee concerns went well beyond food prices. we describe and reflect on insights from the oral histories, while presenting a case study of the use of oral history in graduate education. to our knowledge, this is the first paper describing oral history with older adults focused on the food system. keywords history, food culture, qualitative interviews, student project introduction older adults have a historic vantage point on social, economic, and environmental changes. engaging with this population can offer valuable perspectives for students and researchers. today’s older adults have witnessed dramatic shifts in the food system (the system encompassing all aspects of producing, distributing and consuming food, everything that shapes those processes and that results from them, and all of the related relationships). since 1950, the food system has grown increasingly industrialized, with larger and more globalized food businesses and fewer small farms (mclaughlin & gomez, 2015). options for consumer convenience have expanded, and many processed foods are now formulated to meet flavor, shelf life, and food safety goals (cavender, 2015). americans spend a far lower share of disposable income on food than they did 50 to 100 years ago (usda ers, 2016), though the food prices are much higher (church & stewart, 2013). social changes over the past half-century, including changes in population dynamics, urbanization, women in the workplace, and level of parental influence over what children eat, have profoundly affected our diets. 48 over the lifetimes of today’s older adults, urban environments have also changed greatly. in 1970, baltimore, maryland had nearly one million residents. today baltimore’s population is around 620,000, following decades of declining jobs in heavy industry, increased job opportunities in the suburbs, and demographic movement toward suburbs facilitated by car ownership and transportation networks (u.s. bureau of the census, 2014, 1995). the city’s postwwii racial composition also shifted significantly, as african americans migrated to baltimore from rural areas in the carolinas and elsewhere in the south as part of the great migration. meanwhile, redlining and fear caused many whites and later, middle class blacks to leave the city (pietila, 2010). today baltimore is 63% african american (u.s. bureau of the census, 2014). as industrial jobs disappeared, poverty increased, bringing with it social challenges. as in other urban centers, many baltimore supermarkets had closed or moved to suburban areas by the 1980s, due to factors including the need for more land to support larger stores and parking lots, reduced profit margins in urban areas, crime, and perceptions of crime (eisenhauer, 2001). this loss of supermarkets reduced access to fresh, healthy food. while baltimore still has many small stores, their characteristics have changed. historically, such stores tended to specialize in fresh foods like produce, baked goods, or meats, whereas today they provide mostly processed and convenience snack foods. such changes have resulted in an urban food environment, both in baltimore and nationally, characterized by limited fresh food access and high prices. these changes constrain opportunities to eat healthfully for many urban, low income residents, particularly those with low access to transportation and limited mobility (gittelsohn et al., 2008; morland, wing, & diez roux, 2002). today 25% of the city’s population lives in areas characterized as food deserts (buzcynski, freishtat, & buzogany, 2015). despite these challenges, multiple studies suggest that low-income older adults are interested in eating fruits and vegetables, particularly farm-fresh produce. they also tend to make good use of services that make healthy food affordable and accessible, such as farmers market coupons and mobile produce trucks (kunkel, luccia, & moore, 2003; johnson, beaudoin, smith, beresford, & logerfo, 2004; smith, johnson, beaudoin, monsen, & logerfo 2004; abusabha, namjoshi, & klein, 2011; middleton & smith, 2011). older adults, therefore, may represent valuable allies, partners, and a resource for food system change. oral history in graduate education adults aged 65 or older are the fastest growing segment of the u.s. population; by 2030, they will constitute about 19% of the population (song, simon, & patel, 2014). much can be learned from their insights about the past and present, and their thoughts as to what should be prioritized, moving forward. oral history is one approach to gathering this information. the oral history association defines oral history as “a field of study and a method of gathering, preserving and interpreting the voices and memories of people, communities, and participants in past events” (oral history association, n.d.). this method has been used in education from primary through graduate levels (sitton, mehaffy, & davis, 1983; oral history association, 2009; ritchie, 2015; donald & tribbey, 2002). 49 the oral history project we describe was performed in each of three years as part of the johns hopkins bloomberg school of public health graduate course, baltimore food systems: a case study in urban food environments, taught by roni neff and anne palmer at the time of data collection. this community-engaged eight-week seminar course included field trips to a supermarket, emergency food provider, urban farm, and peri-urban farm, and featured guest speakers from throughout the city food system. to further ground the students’ understanding, many of the readings presented qualitative research and other documents providing in-depth insights on food systems. for their mid-term assignment, students performed oral history interviews with low-income older adults in east baltimore to learn how this population perceives changes in the food system and to better understand what members of these older generations see as the most significant challenges and opportunities for change in today’s food system. the findings were so compelling that after the first year we sought irb approval to make the assignment part of a formal research study, which was performed from 2010-12. this study addressed the following research questions: (a) how do interviewees perceive today’s food system? (b) how do they describe changes in food and the food system since their childhoods? (c) how are their current dietary attitudes and behaviors rooted in past experiences? and (d) what do they see as top priorities for food system change in baltimore? our goal in this paper is to share insights from older adults’ comments about food and related cultural issues, and to discuss oral history as a pedagogical tool. future analyses will examine their comments on food access and procurement. methods student assignment and training data collection took place during the aforementioned eight-week course annually from 2010-12. students received training in oral history interviewing, performed readings on the method, and practiced with each other in class. a number had taken additional coursework on qualitative methods. the students received training in research protocols and ethics for working with human subjects, and completed the collaborative institutional training initiative (citi) training module on human-subjects research. the assignment protocol detailed steps as described below. subjects course faculty established a relationship with a nearby residential senior center. the center provides oneor two-bedroom apartments to persons aged 62 or older with a maximum income of $30,000 for one person or $34,250 for two people. apartments have fully equipped kitchens, enabling meal preparation. the center is located in a baltimore neighborhood that in 2011 was 87% african american with a median household income of $18,522 (baltimore city health department [bchd], 2011). the neighborhood was classified as a food desert, with relatively low access to fresh foods and high access to energy-dense foods (the johns hopkins center for a livable future, 2012). in 2011, it had a fast-food density of 10.9 restaurants per 10,000 residents (more than 4.5 times the city’s fast-food density); a carryout-restaurant density of 34.9 per 10,000 (nearly three times that of the city); and a corner-store density of 10.9 per 10,000 (just 50 over the city’s density of 9.0 per 10,000). based on active transportation time for able-bodied adults, the nearest supermarket was 14 minutes away by foot—an important measure because 60 percent of residents in the area lack vehicles (bchd, 2011). heart disease and cancer rates were also above the city’s already-high rates (bchd, 2011). many interviewees had lived in the immediate area before moving into this residence, while others had lived elsewhere in baltimore. participants had to be at least 65 and lived in the baltimore, md area for at least 25 years. recruitment was performed annually from 2010-12 by a staff contact who publicized the project and the opportunity for residents to sign up for interview time slots. the contact screened out individuals who might have difficulty completing the interview due to physical or mental health problems or english language competency. the contact also reserved a room where interviews could be conducted privately. data collection and student data analysis procedures student investigator pairs conducted semi-structured 40-60 minute interviews exploring topics including food-related beliefs, preferences, behaviors, cultural influences, and food access and availability. the instructors sought ideas for additional questions from the class each year, but the guide remained similar. table 1 provides sample questions. student investigators were encouraged to follow the flow of the conversation so long as it remained generally on-topic, and to provide follow-up probes to elicit details. they were instructed to avoid personal questions, topics likely to cause discomfort, and information that could be deemed confidential. a teaching assistant or the instructor was available during all interview time slots in case a problem arose. table 1 sample interview questions what kinds of foods did you eat when you were younger? how have your/your family’s diets changed over the years? how much time did you/your family spend on food preparation in the past? where did you get the food that you ate when you were younger? did you have a garden? what is good/bad about the food environment now? what do you think is needed to improve today’s food environment? student investigators audio-recorded and transcribed the interviews verbatim. individual identifiers were not collected. we obtained oral consent from all participants. each participant received a $25 gift card. we maintained confidentiality by asking the site contact to assign interviewees anonymous codes, and placed these on sealed envelopes. the johns hopkins bloomberg school of public health institutional review board (irb) classified the project as exempt (protection of human subjects, 2016). in 2011 and 2012, we received irb approval to share interview transcripts with interviewees as a keepsake, and most took advantage of this option. 51 students summarized the interviews in five-page papers and five-minute in-class presentations. in both, students were encouraged to (a) focus on the material they found most interesting; (b) focus on that which their interviewees chose to focus most; and (c) to include direct quotes wherever possible. each also provided a half-page (and single-slide) reflection on insights from the interviews. the current analysis used only the interview transcripts rather than these student summaries. current study data analysis procedures interview transcripts were coded by instructors and two research assistants using an inductive grounded theory approach. this approach identifies broad thematic categories that emerge from data through a rigorous and iterative process of initial and focused coding (charmaz, 2006). three transcripts were selected for independent initial line-by-line coding by all authors. initial codes were used to develop a preliminary coding scheme consisting of focused codes organized into thematic categories. four additional transcripts were then coded independently by all authors to ensure consensus and consistent application of the coding scheme. definitions and exclusion/inclusion criteria were developed for each focused code. after discussion and additional refinement of the coding scheme, each transcript was coded independently by two authors. pairs met to discuss their coding and address any inconsistent coding decisions. throughout the coding process, the coding scheme evolved as new codes emerged from the data and existing codes and themes were further refined. transcripts were re-coded as necessary to reflect these changes. all coding was conducted using atlas.ti (scientific software development gmbh, berlin, germany). findings twenty-six interviews were performed with older adults living in east baltimore in the spring semesters of 2010, 2011, and 2012. two transcripts were omitted for audio-recording problems or administrative reasons, leaving 24 for analysis. interviewee ages ranged from 65 to about 86 at time of interview, with a mean of about 72 (meaning they were born during the mid-1920s through 1947). nine interviewees had lived in baltimore their entire lives, and five had arrived in the 1940s to 1950s. others had lived in baltimore intermittently or full data on residential history were not collected. some interviewees suffered from health conditions including asthma, allergies, broken hip, diabetes, or hypertension. most were female and african american. interviewees described many changes in the food system between their childhoods and today. overall they thought that the quality of the food system had declined. the changes they discussed fall into four categories: a) valuing the flavor and tradition of fresh foods; b) concerns about flavors and risks introduced by food additives and processing; c) changing food preparation habits; d) limited interest in food origins and limited trust in the modern food system. in addition, (e) participants described their top priorities for food system change. valuing the flavor and tradition of fresh foods nineteen of 24 interviewees described a reduction in food freshness, and many considered this to be the biggest change in food between their childhoods and today. many said they preferred the 52 taste of fresh foods, particularly foods coming directly from farms or gardens. most thought that food today in general did not taste as good as it had in their childhoods: you can really tell the difference. back then the food was good; it was natural. now, like i said with all this food and stuff, that’s frozen … it just doesn’t have the same taste to me. (interview #6) everything has changed! see ya’ll don’t know anything about that ‘cause you’re coming up in this era so you gotta take what you can get. see back in our day everything it was much, much better. the food tasted better, you know? (#25) beyond inferior taste, many felt that less-than-fresh or canned food had reduced nutritional value, though they generally did not mention specific nutritional changes of concern: “they should take some of the things they put in the cans, out of the cans. because i think when they put it in the cans, they’re losing something. the protein or the nutrients or something.” (#13) many interviewees spoke appreciatively and nostalgically of food produced on farms or gardens. twelve indicated they or their families had farms or gardens during their childhoods, while three currently had gardens. some urban-dwellers spent childhood summers with rural relatives. for several interviewees, farms or gardens were the primary or nearly only food source in childhood. some also described fishing and hunting as providing significant food in the past and/or as being regular pastimes then. those who had these experiences commonly emphasized they saw rural fresh food as preferable to foods purchased in urban areas. for example: in the country the fruit was fresh fruit, because it’s raised out—you could go look out and look at the trees and see apples, grapes, peaches, pears, and—fruit is better in the country than in the city, because it’s fresh. (#7) interviewees also commonly contrasted meats purchased and consumed during their childhoods with today’s pre-packaged meats. in addition to those whose families purchased meats from nearby butchers, many recalled a shopping area where their families selected live chickens that were slaughtered on the spot. others had observed animal slaughter in rural areas. most valued the freshness of these meats, with one describing it as “an altogether different taste than the chicken that you buy in the store” (#20). at least one described it, however, as “almost too fresh; i rather like the one that come from the market, already cured.” (#25) many noted their families had intentionally sought out fresh foods and described going out of their way to obtain food fresher than the norm even at that time, whether from the docks, public markets, gardens, transported by rural relatives or other sources. many of their families engaged in home food preservation in their childhoods, and interestingly, they generally associated these foods with freshness rather than categorizing them as canned or frozen: “we didn’t have frozen foods back then, you know, everything was fresh … she [interviewee’s grandmother] would can string beans, tomatoes, corn, okra, whatever.” (#6) despite frequent negative remarks about industrially preserved foods, many interviewees indicated that they currently used their freezers for food preservation, particularly to enable them 53 to have the foods they wanted, of the quality they wanted, between shopping trips. some also appreciated canned and/or frozen foods for their relatively low prices and convenience: there’s a whole lot of things that cost a whole lot. except for cans. i like canned goods. i like the fruits they have now. i can go to the dollar tree and buy canned foods for $1 a can. (#9) concerns about flavors and risks introduced by food additives and processing the second-most frequently raised issue, discussed by 14 of 24 interviewees, was the increased use of additives and chemicals in both food production and processing, contrasted with what were sometimes referred to as “natural” foods. many went on at some length on the topic and repeatedly returned to the theme, and five interviewees identified additives as the aspect of today’s food system that they would most like to see changed. most commonly, interviewees referred generically to “chemicals” or did not name the additive of concern. for example: like with the purdue chicken i just bought, they say it’s no additives in it, a whole lot of stuff is not in it. they tell you on the package what has not been given to the chickens. so, i love me some chicken. (#24) the most commonly specified additive was sodium, followed by hormones and growth promoters, preservatives, injections, grease, and pesticides. often interviewees validated their statements by indicating that others too spoke of these issues. in discussing their perceptions of changed food flavor, interviewees frequently singled out meats. they generally did not specify the types of changes they experienced, though one did say meat today was more “chalky” and “crumbly,” and not as juicy as it had been in the past (#6). another described it as “gritty” (#26). an underlying theme in discussing additives was mistrust of food producers and manufacturers, although this was not always articulated directly. for example, one noted, “you don’t know what those people have put in [food]” (#24) and another explained, “i don’t know what chemicals they’re putting in the ground or in the hot house.” (#6) in most cases the implication was of using additives to increase profits for producers or manufacturers, regardless of consumer impacts. about half of those mentioning additives discussed their effect on flavor, commonly implying the perceived change in flavor was an indicator something was not right with the food item itself, not just a source of personal displeasure: “and i bet you ask any person around their 60s or 70s and they will say the same thing. it’s a difference in the taste now. it’s maybe something they do to it.” (#25) despite displeasure with the flavors many associated with additives, there were also a few comments indicating that interviewees enjoyed processed foods high in additives, but avoided them for health reasons – for example, “i haven’t stopped eating the junk altogether, but i just try not to overdo it.” (#19) in particular, multiple interviewees indicated or implied they saw processed foods as unhealthy due to sodium and/or fat content. many were also concerned about health impacts from additives used in food production, although most expressed generic concerns. a few specifically mentioned hormone disruption, though not necessarily by name: “the girls is looking like women...they coming out, they developing fast and everything.” (#8) 54 in some cases, statements about current additive use seem to be rooted in direct childhood farm work knowledge contrasted with perceptions of today’s farm production methods: the food back then had to be healthier, because these days they put all this stuff in them and feeding them, back then they gave them stuff that was good for them to make them better. but these days they put stuff in the food that makes a baby chicken into a chicken in three months. now everything is strange, the food. think about it. everything is growing fast, the vegetables, the fruit. used to take longer than a day to grow things and took a lot of work. now they have machines, back then it was just our hands. (#20) surprisingly, given this interest in food produced without additives, few interviewees mentioned organic foods. one implied that organic food was desirable, but that the price is “so high you can’t afford it” (#6). table 2 summarizes concerns about additives across interviewees. table 2 reported concerns about food additives category concern perceived reason for use “chemicals” and other generic additives (14 comments)  health problems including high blood pressure and children “act[ing] crazy”  poor taste, different taste  fast plant/animal growth rates  profit for producers  lack of oversight  healthfulness  faster cultivation salt (11)  salt is hidden (need to check labels)  unhealthy (high blood pressure, short term physical symptoms, not medically permissible) hormones, growth promoters (7)  unnatural effects on food  unhealthy  different taste  premature female development  poultry size  faster animal growth  faster production fat, grease (6)  affects preexisting health conditions  unhealthy  “clogs up” arteries  good taste preservatives (5)  poor taste, different taste injections (4)  poor taste, different taste  to get it to market  “purify” food items other additives mentioned: pesticides (2); unspecified additives (3); miscellaneous additives (4); potassium in apple juice, “pumped up stuff,” vitamins, water, wax (1 each). changing food preparation habits interviewees frequently commented on changes in dietary patterns since their childhoods, with emphasis on today’s consumption of processed and prepared foods, and on the decline in cooking. nostalgia for their mothers’ cooking was frequently couched in terms of healthfulness. 55 when praising the healthfulness of their childhood foods, no interviewee commented on fat and salt in traditional southern cooking (though a few did mention this in context of foods others prepared for current social gatherings). generally, the interviewees seemed to be saying their mothers had done nutrition, cooking, and shopping the “right” way: “well my mother did all the cooking. nothing like mother’s cooking. she always made sure it was nutritious and had the food groups.” (#15) several discussed the substantial time their female relatives had invested in food preparation. with perceptions of this time-intensive and healthful cooking style as a baseline, many criticized today’s mothers for not cooking as they and their forebears had, for their lack of cooking skills, for being “lazy,” and for not providing healthy food to their children: “lot of them lazy today now too. nobody cooking every day, they … what they like, their chicken boxes, chicken and french fries, and children are happy. and that’s fried, all that grease and all.” (#22) several also acknowledged the challenges faced by modern families and expressed sympathy for this generation not having the opportunity to experience home cooked meals. for example, one stated, “because their parents are working and don’t have a lot of time–they buy fast food, get prefixed snacks, personal pizzas … i see that as people missing out on lots of things, like the old down-home recipes.” (#5) another said, “people are out of jobs, not having money to feed the family. it has been a rough road if you do not know how to cook from scratch and buy all the stuff.” (#3) many interviewees also recognized that changes over time, including the increased number of women in the workplace, had strengthened the value of speed and convenience: women are working now. back when i was a younger girl, most women didn’t work, they were home raising their children. well, things got so that the incomes needed mom and pop to work so then mother was gone out to work then the older sister started preparing the food, or … [bought meals, or] ate later. everything has changed, it’s changing every day. (#22) finally, despite the judgments expressed about eating convenience foods and despite their general preferences for fresh food, interviewees varied greatly in their own consumption of processed and prepared food. some said they preferred to make their own meals due to health, flavor, or habit. others avoided cooking because they thought they were not effective cooks. many who indicated they consumed convenience food provided motivations that highlighted the mobility, financial, and health challenges faced by older adults. one expressed relief at not having to cook and noted: “now, i have gotten a little older and i don’t feel like standing over that sink cutting up greens and washing them, that takes up a lot of time.” (#24) another interviewee noted as a benefit of processed food that some could be purchased in measured portion sizes that were helpful in controlling food intake and avoiding food waste when cooking for one. finally, a few said advances in processing enabled them to obtain reduced-calorie or low-sodium versions of foods they enjoyed. limited interest in food origins, and limited trust in the modern food system many interviewees like shopping at farmers’ markets, but none indicated they valued these markets for the chance to learn about the origins of their food; rather, they appreciated the food’s freshness. many expressed past or current preferences for particular farmers market vendors, 56 markets, or stores, often because they regarded the food as relatively fresh and thus trustworthy. this freshness was linked to the trustworthiness of a known seller rather than a trustworthy farm. problems with food quality were viewed as systemic and there was generally not a sense that knowing the food’s origins would increase trustworthiness. a few also expressed mistrust of government oversight of the food system, for example: “this so-called watchdog called the fda isn’t up to it. it doesn’t make sense.” (#5) with the exception of those who grew their own food, interviewees had little specific knowledge of where their food originated, either today or in their childhoods. nor did they seem concerned. for example: “how would i know where it was grown at? … all i know is i could go to the store and get it.” (#21) interviewees often expressed mistrust of store or food company business practices. several thought their neighborhoods had lower quality foods than those “farther out,” such as in baltimore county, and voiced concerns that retailers were motivated more by greed than by serving customers properly. some noted stores they would not patronize due to poor food quality or unsanitary conditions: they giving us poor choice meats and things and go and charge us like its high price. and people my age know the difference, or they better know the difference. (#26) “people need to stop being so greedy, and trying to sell you defective food, food that has been in the market too long. the expiration date has passed, and they expect you to buy it. they are so greedy over money. (#5) interestingly, while such discussions might seem to be “about” food safety, food safety concerns were rarely discussed directly, and interviewees did not indicate worries about foodborne illness. indeed, several stated they thought the overall food supply was safe. though food safety risks were objectively far higher during their youths than today, no respondent mentioned past concerns about foodborne illness or a change in food safety over time. top priorities for food system change interviewees were asked to identify their top priority changes for improving the city’s food system, including themes covered in our companion analyses, such as access and cost. table 3 presents responses from 17 interviewees, including four who indicated two top priorities. other interviewees did not clearly identify top priorities. the last column indicates priorities about which speakers spoke passionately, separate from the question about their top concerns. this column demonstrates the primacy of additives and food freshness among interviewee concerns, even compared to issues such as cost and access. 57 table 3 most important priorities for improving baltimore’s food system priority top priority (#) other mention (#) address additives/processed foods, and foods that are less natural or fresh 6 4 reduce food cost 5 0 improve access 3 3 address greed by those in the food industry 3 0 reduce fast food use/availability 2 0 return to old ways generally 1 0 improve food taste 1 0 increase nutrition education 0 3 discussion reflection on oral history as pedagogy and relevance for other institutions. this project provides a case study of the use of oral history to enhance student education. a key goal in the baltimore food systems class is to bring the challenges and opportunities of an urban food system alive for students. we seek multiple opportunities for engagement, including tours, discussions with guests, shopping in community-based stores, and service-learning projects. oral history has many benefits for education. it gets students out of the classroom and contributes an additional dimension to learning by encouraging them to have in-depth conversations with real people about issues meaningful to them. interviews thus help bridge the cultural divide between local low-income older adults and graduate students who have often come to the city only for their degree programs, and who commonly have middle and upper middle class backgrounds. it also reminds students that in efforts to make change, there is no substitute for talking directly with those who may be affected, including seeking out those who are often ignored. the project further benefits students by advancing their skills in interviewing, listening, qualitative research, teamwork, and research ethics. over the years, both students and older adults have told us how much they valued this experience. as such, the project could contribute to a more positive perception of the university among community members. finally, and as evidenced by this study, oral history projects can also generate valuable data for dissemination and the furthering of scholarly and public understanding of often marginalized voices. the method presents several challenges. first, sending students out to perform oral history interviews involves a level of trust in their respectfulness, appropriateness and capabilities. it is usually not possible at the time of class planning to know what the students will be like, and even with known students, problems can occur. for example, one year with a different oral history assignment, we received feedback that a student had been inattentive during the interview, insulting the interviewee. the situation turned into an opportunity for student learning, and the interviewee appreciated we took her concern seriously. we encourage interviewees to let us 58 know of any concerns both through the site contact and the consent form. another challenge lies in building adequate interview skills in a course with a different focus. the skill of avoiding leading questions has been especially challenging to our students. we address this with longer practice opportunities during training. lastly, there is the concern about what messages students take away from the experience. precisely because the personal stories learned through oral histories can be so powerful for students, it is important to remind them that the comments of their interviewees may not be generalizable. on the logistical side, given our interest in the students finding local lower income older adults to speak with for this assignment, we felt it important to arrange the contacts for them. it can take some effort to identify and establish a relationship with a person having the right connections and interest in facilitating the effort. logistics of scheduling interviews may also be complicated. in other oral history assignments we have given, such as with family members and schoolteachers, it was easier to find interviewees and students, since they had already developed their own connections. discussion of findings this study focused on the following questions: (a) how do the interviewed older adults describe food system changes since their childhood? (b) how do they describe today’s food system? (c) how are their current dietary attitudes and behaviors rooted in past experiences? finally, (d) what do they see as priorities for food system change in baltimore? we believe this is the first study examining older adults’ views of food system change or perceptions of today’s food system. overall, the older adults described a dramatic shift from a food system they viewed as relatively natural, healthy, and communal, to one they perceive as providing food lacking in freshness, with poorer taste, replete with additives, and that enables people to avoid home cooking (which they see as healthier than eating prepared and processed foods). among the most frequently reported changes was a decline in food flavor. many interviewees described mistrust of food producers, processors, and purveyors today, in contrast to a seemingly unquestioned trust in the past. not all food system shifts were viewed unfavorably. in particular, some valued the opportunity to avoid or reduce unwanted time spent on food preparation and to purchase packaged foods in small portions or formulated with benefits such as reduced sodium. the older adults generally recognized the social changes that have contributed to today’s food system, and some questioned whether it is possible to go backward toward the food system of their childhoods. yet, their priority list essentially reflects a desire to, at minimum, incorporate valued qualities of their childhood food system into a future food system. older adults and the flavor of modern food. might the ubiquitous reports of changed food flavor be rooted simply in the older adults’ altered senses of taste with age? although sense of smell and taste may decline with age in some people, particularly those in poorer health, (sulmont-rossé et al., 2015), we believe for two reasons this is not the sole explanation for the results of this study. first, there is objective support the changes these older adults perceive. studies document differences in flavor as foods age (gray, gomaa, & buckley, 1996; kader, 2008), as well as for meats and dairy produced from pastured animals versus others (urbach, 59 1990; priolo, micol, & agabriel, 2001). additionally, cultivar selection has shifted over time from those chosen for flavor or nutrition, to those that can produce the highest yield or that are most resilient to the time and physical requirements of the modern food distribution system (davis, epp, & riordan, 2004). second, it is notable that the older adults focused much of their discussion of changed food taste on meats, seconded by fruits; if their senses of taste had changed, presumably this would affect their perceptions of all foods. preferences for freshness and naturalness. today’s food system is dominated by processed and prepared foods, particularly in low-income areas such as the baltimore neighborhood where these older adults live. such foods have often been formulated for palatability, with extensive taste testing – and many consumers find them difficult to resist (kessler, 2010). it is notable, then, that although the older adults valued some of the convenience attributes of these foods, they generally did not indicate they preferred processed foods to fresh and home-cooked foods based on flavor. the preference for food that is fresh, natural, and home-cooked may have multiple roots. first, there is personal nostalgia and the lifelong norms and preferences shaped by childhood diets. to date, only a few social science studies have examined older adults’ food preferences, attitudes, and behaviors (koehler & leonhaeuser, 2008; song et al., 2014; mckie, macinnes, hendry, donald, & peace, 2000; monturo & strumpf, 2014; smith, kromm, brown, & klassen, 2012; falk, bisogni, & sobal, 1996). resonating with our findings, those studies commonly emphasize the importance of childhood in establishing lifelong approaches to food, and in developing ideals for eating patterns. it is notable that as our interviewees idealized the southern cooking of their childhoods, none mentioned the high fat and salt content as a potential negative. rather, such cooking was seen as beneficial to health because the food was fresh and home-cooked. some said they had had to give up some traditional foods they loved due to fat and salt content – but these discussions were never linked to questioning childhood diets, perhaps because resultant health conditions were not evident. cultural nostalgia is another contributor to interviewees’ preferences for fresh, home-cooked foods. biltekoff (2010) writes “our reverence for nature and things that seem natural is closely connected with a related belief that life was healthier and more wholesome during a ‘golden age’ in which people lived on the land in rural or farm areas, worked hard, and ate hearty meals that were cooked by a devoted mother and enjoyed at the family table.” these associations with naturalness came through strongly in our interviews. it may be that, in being linked with nostalgia, such cultural views might be stronger in older adults than in others. indeed, it is possible these historically-focused interviews unintentionally primed interviewees toward personal and cultural nostalgia and thus toward such associations. third, rural roots may have affected this preference for many of those who grew up eating fresh and natural foods from farms, gardens, and hunting. beyond personal nostalgia, the connection may also have been conceptual, as food choices can reflect identity. southerners in baltimore and other northern cities experienced much pressure to assimilate. some, mostly from the middle class, did assimilate, but for many southerners (and presumably others from rural areas as well), their rural roots became a point of identity and pride (zeiderman, 2006). for them and their children, an affinity for fresh foods, associated with rural farms and gardens, might become 60 part of their identity. at a deeper conceptual level, zeiderman quotes williams (1973): “the pull of the idea of the country is towards old ways, human ways, natural ways.” a fourth reason for the interest in freshness and naturalness is that these qualities are associated with health, both by nutritionists and in popular discourse. similar to our findings, in a qualitative study of healthy food perceptions among african americans of diverse ages, about a third of 33 participants indicated organic and “natural” foods are healthy, and about a sixth expressed the complementary idea that “chemicals,” “artificial things,” and “preservatives and additives” are unhealthy (lucan, barg, karasz, palmer, & long, 2012). by contrast, many consumers view technology in food as ‘unnatural’ and ‘artificial.’ trust in the food system. the interviewees exhibited substantial mistrust of food producers, processors, and sellers in today’s food system. this mistrust seemed to be rooted primarily in the idea that businesses would prioritize profits over flavor, nutrition, or safety. as reviewed by zachmann and ostby (2011), nearly all the academic literature on trust in food focuses on concern about illness risk. while in this older population illness and the other possible impacts were certainly risks, the underlying emphasis was more about being wronged. the emotion underlying the mistrust was more frustration or anger than fear. a similar attitude was identified in a group of scottish older adults (mckie, macinnes, hendry, donald, & peace, 2000.) several factors could contribute to this mistrust. first, trust is relatively fragile and can be damaged more easily than built (slovic, 1993). negative focusing events including food safety scares receive more media attention and notice, and are given greater weight, than positive events (slovic, 1999). indeed, recall of food safety events is a top determinant of consumer trust in food, although recall and concern fade with time (de jonge, van trijp, renes, & frewer, 2010). many consumers also distrust technology use in food production, seeing it as “unnatural” (knox, 2000; lusk, roosen, & bieberstein, 2014). risk perception is further affected by many factors including a person’s relative social position, with women and minorities perceiving greater risk than white men (slovic, 1999). there is extensive evidence of racial and ethnic differentials in trust levels, commonly attributed to historical and ongoing discrimination experiences (smith, 2010; taylor, funk, & clark, 2007). experience of neighborhood disorder can further affect trust of a “generalized other,” both directly and because it affects feelings of powerlessness (smith, 2010; taylor et al., 2007). further contribution to mistrust occurs through direct experience of bias, as well as parental preparation for bias. some studies focus specifically on trust in businesses; however, there is only limited demographic segmentation within such studies and little evidence to date of trust differentials by race (adams, highhouse, & zicker, 2010; lang, 2013). more specific to trust of food, one study among low-income consumers identified widespread concern about risks generated throughout the food system (webber, sobal, & dollahite, 2010; webber & dollahite, 2008). as with the overall trust literature, there are relatively few studies of trust in food segmented by demographics. particularly relevant here, knight and warland (2004) examined sociodemographic variation in consumer concerns about multiple types of food safety risk. they found that african americans and those over age 65 held greater concerns about all types of risk than did others, though the relationships were not always statistically significant. 61 the authors suggested these groups may perceive themselves as facing greater vulnerability to hazards than others—in the case of the elderly due to their age, and african americans due to discrimination. correspondingly, this sense of risk could be linked to a sense of control; these populations and those in our interviews may have relatively little control over the foods they eat and hazards therein. strengths/limitations we discussed the strengths and limitations of the oral history method above. this project has several additional strengths. it is the first study to examine older adults’ perceptions of the food system and of food system change. the qualitative data collection and grounded theory methods were beneficial in an exploratory study, aiding in characterizing the subjects’ underlying perceptions and views. additionally, because the study incorporates data collected across three annual offerings of the course, subject responses are unlikely to be unduly influenced by issues in the news at a particular time. there are several limitations. first, those at the senior center who chose to be interviewed may have been more interested in food and nutrition than others. as in other qualitative studies using convenience samples, it is not possible to generalize broadly about the findings and their applicability. second, it is possible there were secular changes over the three years of the study. third, older adults’ perceptions, particularly of past food experiences, were dependent on their abilities to accurately recall those experiences. fourth, while all of the (mostly graduate student) interviewers had received training, some had taken prior coursework or had more native skill as interviewers than others. in a few cases, interviewers asked leading questions. we sought to filter those from the data by coding them as such and excluding them from analysis. in addition, complete demographic data also was not collected due to inconsistently asked questions. consequently, we may not have captured differences in how a person interacts with the food system based on factors such as gender, race, age, or education. we also note that while it is common in oral history work to share participants’ identities because the stories are specific to their lives, for the purpose of this student assignment and ease of irb approval, we chose to present the results anonymously. a repository of food system oral histories performed with older adults would be a valuable future project. conclusion older adults are witnesses to history, and they have important insights to share. this study provides a chance to listen to one group of them and an example of oral history as a class assignment. while some might assume the main concern among these primarily low-income older adults would be food prices, interviewees also reported strong concerns about freshness and additives, mistrust of food producers and sellers, and an overall dismay about the state of the food system being passed on to their grandchildren. interviewees described priorities for food system change that, importantly, dovetail with many of the priorities embraced by food system reform advocates. while we have considered a number of 62 motivations for the perspectives of older adults, it is important to note many of these views are shared by a growing segment of the u.s. population. interventions to improve access to farmfresh produce, such as the usda senior farmers market nutrition program and programs to support price reductions in fresh and unprocessed foods, could go a long way toward addressing some of these older adults’ largest frustrations. additionally, improved governmental investment in oversight of both producers and retailers might also be valuable in responding to the older adults’ concerns and in reducing the extent of mistrust. older adults’ experiences provide valuable knowledge of food-systems change. their insights are tied to direct experiences with another type of food system, one that shares qualities with the food system many advocates would like to see. having lived through those times, they also recognize limitations of the food system of their childhoods, including gender roles and time required for food preparation. drawing out this knowledge through interviews enabled students to connect with and learn from the experiences of a different generation, and gain a fresh perspective on the vast changes our food system has undergone in the last few decades. this is a clear asset to the education of public health students who will in many cases work to shape policy and programs upon graduation. older adults, in turn, told the interviewers they enjoyed sharing their experiences with a younger generation. by engaging in oral histories with older adults, educators, interventionists, and other advocates can ensure that they are recognized as valued and important contributors to systems change. references abusabha, r., namjoshi, d., & klein, a. 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(2006). ruralizing the city: the great migration and environmental rehabilitation in baltimore, maryland. identities: global studies in culture and power, 13(2), 209-235. https://doi.org/10.1080/10702890600698629 author information roni neff is an assistant professor in the department of environmental health sciences at the johns hopkins bloomberg school of public health. she directs the food system sustainability and public health program in the johns hopkins center for a livable future. she co-created and continues to teach the baltimore food systems course, and edited the textbook, introduction to the us food system: public health, environment, equity. wiley/jossey-bass: 2015. roni a. neff, phd (corresponding author) center for a livable future johns hopkins bloomberg school of public health 615 n. wolfe st., suite w7010 baltimore, md, 21205 e-mail: rneff1@jhu.edu telephone: 410-614-6027 https://doi.org/10.3168/jds.s0022-0302(90)79067-4 http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-expenditures.aspx http://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-expenditures.aspx https://doi.org/10.1080/19320240802243266 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appet.2009.11.015 https://doi.org/10.1080/07341512.2011.548970 https://doi.org/10.1080/10702890600698629 mailto:rneff1@jhu.edu 67 linnea laestadius is an assistant professor of public health policy and administration at the zilber school of public health at the university of wisconsin-milwaukee. she is a former clflerner fellow with the johns hopkins center for a livable future. linnea i. laestadius, phd department of public health policy & administration zilber school of public health university of wisconsin-milwaukee 1240 n 10th st. milwaukee, wi 53205 e-mail: llaestad@uwm.edu telephone: 414-227-4512 susan dimauro is a program associate with the sustainable agriculture and food systems funders. she is a former research assistant with the johns hopkins center for a livable future. susan dimauro po box 483 summerland, ca 93067 e-mail: susiedimauro@gmail.com telephone: 805-698-6154 anne palmer directs the food communities and public health program at the johns hopkins center for a livable future and is a research associate within the department of health, behavior and society in the johns hopkins bloomberg school of public health. she co-created and formerly co-taught the baltimore food systems course. anne m. palmer, maia johns hopkins center for a livable future johns hopkins bloomberg school of public health 615 n. wolfe st., suite w7010 baltimore, md 21205 e-mail: apalmer6@jhu.edu telephone: 410-502-7577 acknowledgements the authors sincerely thank two groups of people who were essential to this project’s completion: the older adults who contributed their time, stories and insights; and the student interviewers from the baltimore food systems class, 2010-12. those students are: qadira ali, patrick baron, stacy blondin, jennifer bobb, mia cellucci, yun sang cheah, patricia clay, megan clayton, susan cohen, kristen cooksey, michael crupain, marian dickinson, aliza fishbein, laura flamm, laura fox, anne fresia, lauren gibbons, aileen gleizer, travis hobart, vanessa hoffman, laura hopkins, sarah khasawinah, valerie kirby, jesse kurtznicholl, diana lee, katherine lee, anthony mazzola, comfort onyiah, anna pollock, melissa poulsen, alana ridge, tiffany riser, katherine robb, jessica schaeffer, allyson scherb, nakiya mailto:llaestad@uwm.edu mailto:susiedimauro@gmail.com mailto:apalmer6@jhu.edu 68 showell, joni sliger, remle stubbs-dame, alex tenaglio, scott thorpe, arielle traub, rachel trusty, john tyler, gena upshaw, gandhi vallaparu, jocelyn wagman, eddie yuxuan wang, andrew wilbur, ellen wilk, charissa williar, rachel yong, and anthony zei. we also thank the staff of the senior center for arrangements, and erin biehl for her edits. metropolitan universities vol. 29 no. 1 (february 2018), doi: 10.18060/22171 building a university-wide agenda for intercultural competence and understanding: lessons learned at the university of minnesota andrew furco and kristin nering lockhart abstract furthering intercultural competence in higher education requires colleges and universities to establish an intentional, mission driven strategic plan that embeds intercultural understanding and practice across the institution’s work. to secure broad-based buy-in and support, this plan needs to consider the various ways that different units within the academy define, interpret, and view intercultural work. for large, complex and multi-faceted colleges and universities, building this plan can prove daunting as different parts of the institution will ascribe different meanings, purposes, and intentions to intercultural advancement. in this paper, administrators from the university of minnesota, who represent units that are highly engaged in intercultural competence work, share some of their struggles and lessons learned in their effort to build a comprehensive, campus-wide strategy to grow intercultural advancement. the administrators initiated this campus-wide strategic work following their participation in an international conference focused on intercultural competence. since that time, they have developed recommendations for the foundational work required to establish a common university-wide framework and comprehensive plan for institutional intercultural advancement. keywords: public engagement; equity; diversity; inclusion inspiration and good intentions with one of us serving as an associate vice president responsible for addressing issues of equity and diversity across the institution, and the other serving as an associate vice president responsible for advancing the institution’s community and public engagement agenda, discussions about the importance of intercultural competence have long been familiar to us. for the associate vice president for equity and diversity, having inter-culturally competent faculty, staff, and student body is essential for securing a culturally sensitive and welcoming climate for our university’s diverse, multicultural community. for the associate vice president for public engagement, having inter-culturally competent faculty, staff, and students is essential to ensure effective, high quality practice when engaging the university in partnerships with diverse external community constituents. while the issue of ensuring high intercultural competence among our respective stakeholders has remained central for both our offices, we found ourselves engaged in few, if any, focused cross-unit discussions or collaborations on the subject. in 2011, we serendipitously learned about an international conference focused on exploring the intersection of community service-learning and intercultural development in diverse settings, and we began to consider how we, as senior university administrators, might use the event to join forces and develop a university-wide agenda for advancing intercultural competence and 78 understanding. our belief was that such as agenda would bring greater attention to and demonstrate the importance of securing intercultural understanding among our faculty, staff, and students. set in the idyllic city of siena, italy, this international conference, hosted by siena italian studies and international horizons, ultimately provided a space for us to examine intercultural competence through a fresh perspective. while the conference focused on exploring intercultural issues in service-learning and university-community partnership work, it brought to the fore the importance of an intentional, strategic agenda focused on securing intercultural competence campus-wide. intercultural competence does not manifest automatically within college campuses. it needs to be attended to through carefully crafted professional development opportunities (deardorff, 2009). as we learned at the siena conference, intercultural competence cannot be achieved unless there is an institutional culture and intentional action that genuinely support its cultivation and development. participation in the conference provided us the opportunity not only to articulate, reflect on, and explore our respective perspectives on intercultural understanding, but it enlightened us on how our respective perspectives, while similar in some respects, were quite distinct. the public engagement-focused work, for example, emphasizes issues of developing the intercultural competence of students, faculty, and staff so that they can successfully navigate the cultural, ethnic, and disciplinary obstacles to the advancement of effective community-partnered work. in this regard, having intercultural competence is important for ensuring that partnership transaction is conducted with quality (e.g., high impact work that has mutual benefits). in contrast, the equity and diversity work focuses on building a community within the university that embraces, nurtures, and takes advantage of the lived experiences, talents, and world views of those holding diverse, and often multiple, identities. here, intercultural competence is important to establish a campus environment that allows the individuals who research, educate and work within it to belong and to thrive. while the externally focused public engagement perspective and the internally focused equity and diversity perspective differed in their emphases and orientations, both spoke to the university’s core value that excellence is achievable only in an environment that fully supports engagement with those from diverse cultures and with differently informed perspectives. as we began to learn more about each other’s approach to intercultural issues, it became clear that to build a university-wide agenda focused on building intercultural competence, we needed to deepen understanding of the nuances of intercultural work within each of our function areas. in addition, our presence at the siena conference also exposed us to unique intercultural issues that are prevalent in international service-learning experiences. with internationalization as another strategic goal of our institution, we brought in the university’s associate vice president for international programs to join our effort. by the end of the conference, we agreed to form an intercultural development group— intercultural competence work group—that would bring together the various units and key stakeholders from across the institution for whom intercultural competence and understanding are essential to their work. after a period of planning and development, we invited and gathered 79 colleagues from across the institution to explore interest in and the viability of building a university-wide agenda for advancing intercultural understanding. toward a collective agenda from the start of our journey, it was clear that structure, history, size, culture, and politics of our institution, the university of minnesota, all influenced the ways in which intercultural work is operationalized within units. as with any institutional change initiative, embracing the essence of the institution, its identity and sense of what it wants to be, would be key to building an institution-wide agenda for intercultural understanding. the first set of phases of the group’s work can be characterized as the discovery and unpacking phases during which we spent much time in exploring the definitions and diverse purposes of intercultural work, and the shared goal of creating an institution-wide agenda for supporting the system-wide growth of intercultural understanding. the university of minnesota is a multi-faceted public, land-grant research university in the midwestern part of the united states. it enrolls more than 55,000 students across five campuses that each have unique strengths, missions and identities. to establish an institution-wide agenda requires the genuine and full involvement of key administrative and academic units engaged in intercultural work across the university. in order to be sustainable, intercultural advancement could not be the work of only some units or programs, but rather needed be part of everyone’s work. therefore, while the various intercultural work being done across our institution was rich and often rooted in long standing deep partnerships, we were sure that with an intentional, strategic, and collective effort, we could leverage greater impact from all of the resources invested in these efforts. the group was led by three associate vice presidents (public engagement, equity and diversity, and international programs) responsible for managing university-wide senior-level offices for which intercultural work is central. we convened representatives from key units from across the system who we felt were engaged in intercultural work, beginning with administrators involved in public engagement, equity and diversity, global programs and student affairs.1 there was strong consensus among group members that the institution was in need of a university-wide agenda focused on building an institutional culture that saw intercultural understanding as central to the university’s work. in fact, there was support from the group and great excitement at the prospect of having an intercultural advancement agenda in place. phase i: reconciling differences it did not take long for us to realize that the path to our intended outcomes would be more complicated, require more effort, and take far more time than any of us anticipated. we learned very quickly that the participating units did not operationalize intercultural work in the same way or viewed intercultural competence through the same lens. we spent the first part of our group’s work learning about the nature and extent of each other’s intercultural work, with the shared purpose of finding a way to build a university-wide agenda to advance intercultural 1 over time, other members of the university community from administrative and collegiate units asked to be included in this work, and were considered critical partners in this effort. 80 understanding. as we considered how best to go about engaging the various units and developing with a cohesive, common agenda for intercultural advancement, we identified the specific intercultural-related needs and challenges that we faced at the university and within our respective units. it was during this exploration that the process and prospect of establishing a university-wide agenda began to unravel as the cultural, structural, and historical contexts of the university strongly influenced the ways in which inter-culturalism was perceived and operationalized in different units. during this initial phase, five steps proved important in reconciling the differences among members’ perspectives and viewpoints on the subject: (1) defining terms and concepts; (2) agreeing on a new term to define the group’s work; (3) building greater cross-unit alignment; (4) securing administrative support; and (5) questioning the validity and value of standardized assessments used in intercultural work. defining terms and concepts as each unit representative shared the different frames, lenses, ways of thinking regarding his/her intercultural work, we grappled with the question: “how can we build an institution-wide agenda that leverages our common goals without compromising or devaluing our individual frames and perspectives on intercultural work?” for some time, our group struggled mightily to hone the definition of “intercultural competence”. what exactly did we mean by this term? our discussions focused not only on the term ‘intercultural’, but also on whether ‘competence’ was even achievable, or whether intercultural competence should even be set as an aspirational goal. indeed, the definitional issues surrounding the meanings, purposes, and focuses of intercultural competence presented the greatest challenges to our group’s work, causing us to substantially shift directions as the work proceeded. it should be noted that, in hindsight, it was the work of unpacking the conceptual messiness of the different interpretations of intercultural competence that ultimately strengthened the group’s commitment to establishing a campus-wide agenda and to building stronger relationships across administrative units. through a series of robust discussions, which included the engagement of the group’s members in a half-day retreat, five primary frames for intercultural development emerged (see table 1). each area, while focused on a different set of goals, promotes the development of intercultural competence. table 1. intercultural competence development frames frame focus intercultural communication understanding how people from different countries and cultures act, communicate, and perceive the world around them. equity and diversity securing equal opportunities, access, and representation within and across identified cultural, social, and religious groups. social justice securing the fair and proper administration of laws and the equal treatment without prejudice to all persons, 81 irrespective of ethnic origin, gender, possessions, race, religion, ability, sexual orientation, status, etc. social change leadership development preparing leaders as change agents for society’s most challenging issues. cultural interfacing interacting with (rather than reading about) new and different cultures in meaningful ways that promote one’s deep understanding of cultural norms and nuances. one or more of these development frames resonate with, and are a central part of the intercultural work within, the three overarching, organizing units of our agenda-setting group — equity and diversity, public engagement, and international programs. agreeing on a new term given that each member of the group had preconceived views on what intercultural competence entailed, it became clear to us that the term itself was problematic, since when used, it would anchor the group members’ thinking to the particular perspectives with which they were most familiar. we encouraged group members to model intercultural understanding by asking them to work to better understand what was at the core of other members’ intercultural competence perspectives and frames. to do this, we dispensed with the term “intercultural competence” and agreed to move forward to develop an agenda for a new construct that would be named at a later time. building greater cross-unit alignment within the units represented in the work group, there was much activity underway focused on enhancing intercultural understanding. this suggested that the university was making noteworthy and significant investments to support the issue. nevertheless, the group agreed that despite robust unit-level efforts, the university lacked cross-unit collaborations that could be used to reinforce mutual goals and promote greater impact through collective action. the group also agreed that the institution needed to bring greater awareness and visibility of our group’s work, demonstrate a more visible institutional commitment to the issue, and provide more widespread support for moving the agenda forward. while the group acknowledged that the decentralized structure and culture of the institution challenged our capacity to build a coordinated and unified agenda, it saw much potential for achieving greater impact through cross-unit (horizontal) alignment and partnerships. to achieve this within the group itself, we encouraged each group member not only to share the intercultural work of his/her unit, but also to explore more deeply how the different units represented in the group define and interpret intercultural issues. securing administrative support our group came to realize that efforts that require more cross-unit alignment, which could transcend institutional siloes, need to be intentional, consistently nurtured, and evaluated. the group acknowledged that an institution-wide intercultural advancement agenda requires having an engine that drives the effort and gives it the fuel and power it needs to go the distance. it was 82 important to the group to see their discussions as not just another set of meetings, but as an effort that would have true institutional impact. one way that we (as the administrative leaders) sought to demonstrate the importance of the group’s work was to provide direct staff and financial support from our offices to facilitate the group’s next set of tasks. this support symbolized our continued commitment to the effort as a valued, university-wide strategic initiative. it also helped the group members see that they would have access to the necessary staff support (e.g., staff to coordinate and schedule the meetings, to document the group’s discussions, etc.) so that their valuable time would be spent on building the agenda. securing this administrative support proved to be an important practical and symbolic mechanism that helped recommit members to the group in ways that helped move the agenda-setting work forward. our efforts were also buoyed by the encouragement and support we received from the university’s president and the senior vice president for system academic administration. questioning standardized assessments another issue that helped propel the group’s work forward had to do with how to best assess individuals’, the group’s and the institution’s intercultural competence. some members of the group were very invested in using standardized instruments. they believed that these tools opened the door for conversations with colleagues and provided a means to engage previously unengaged members of our community in self-reflection. however, others were concerned that the use of these established assessment tools made the work seem simple, easily achievable, and led to “intercultural competence lite,’” because the assessments focused on knowing one’s score from the assessment, rather than focusing on what one needed to do to advance his or her intercultural understanding in an ongoing way. there were also discussions about the limitations of most instruments, suggesting that existing instruments lacked comprehensiveness because they tend to view intercultural issues from a limited set of perspectives. most instruments do not take into account other important, relevant perspectives. while the group agreed that it was important to have metrics in place, we could not agree on the scale, scope, or nature of the metrics for intercultural competence that would be most appropriate to use on a university-wide basis. however, as the group migrated away from using the term “intercultural competence” to define its work, we agreed that it would be advantageous to have several metrics in play to capture the group’s broad-based understanding of intercultural issues. phase ii: infusing new perspectives as the group’s work and discussions continued, we arrived at a point where we began to engage in circular conversations, revisiting previous conversation without moving the agenda forward. we became concerned about where the group’s work was headed and how to keep everyone invested and engaged in the effort. we brainstormed various ways to operationalize more strategically the group’s work so that we could move our intercultural agenda building work forward. during the second year of our group’s work, there was an opportunity to engage a group of professionals at the university not involved with intercultural work to collect data and 83 information that we could use to guide our discussions. we seized this opportunity to bring in an outside, neutral perspective that could help provide us some new ways of looking at intercultural issues. this group — participants in a program known as the presidents emerging leaders (pel) — is composed of mid-level professionals interested in growing their own leadership capacity. their work is actualized by group work in which they are engaged in new initiatives on campus. we engaged and worked with one pel group to help us identify a set of recommendations for moving forward the university’s agenda for intercultural competence. the pel team worked on a relatively short time table and was charged with two tasks: (1) to identify contributions that the university can make to support development of individual’s intercultural competence; and (2) to assess prevailing attitudes across the university community on diversity, engagement and internationalization as they pertain to the development of intercultural competence. the pel team began benchmarking research at peer institutions focused on developing a campus-wide intercultural agenda. after significant effort, they were unsuccessful in finding another higher education institution in the united states that was immersed in this agenda-setting work. surprised by this finding, the pel team continued to look for examples at other institutions from which we might learn. but in the end, they were unable to identify any. the pel team then designed and administered a survey on the largest of our five campuses to assess the participating community members’ understanding of and involvement with intercultural issues. this survey served as the basis for the pel team’s analysis and recommendations report to our working group. of the 758 professionals identified as participating in intercultural work, 43 percent (n=317) responded to the survey. when asked to describe the nature of their intercultural work, 74% of respondents to this survey item reported being directly engaged in some type of diversity-related work (see table 2). table 2. nature of respondents’ work nature of work n =265 research, teaching, learning about diversity & engaging the community 31% disability and diversity issues 22% communication of information and educational opportunities in both international and diverse environments 21% community engagement regarding health, social, and human issues. 14% outreach to external communities 12% total 100% responses to other questions on the survey revealed that the primary focus and goals of intercultural work varied substantially among respondents. for example, one quarter of the respondents said that the primary goal of their work is to advance internationalization and address globalization issues; their approach to intercultural work is informed and shaped by national, ethic, language contexts. in contrast, another quarter of the respondents reported that they see their diversity work focused on bridging gaps by building bridges between groups and 84 units from different parts of the campus; these respondents acknowledged that there are multiple perspectives to intercultural understanding, and that their approach is intentionally focused on helping units understand the different perspectives and lenses through which they conduct intercultural work. in sum, the survey findings revealed that, while many individuals at the university are immersed in intercultural-related work, their views toward intercultural understanding is influenced in large part by the perspective of the unit with which they are affiliated. when considering respondents’ primary unit affiliation (public engagement, equity and diversity, or international programs), their perspectives on intercultural understanding were informed by and generally aligned with their respective unit’s focus. for example, respondents working with the office for public engagement tend to have a community-empowerment perspective on intercultural understanding while respondents working with the office for equity and diversity have more of a social justice and equity focus. those who work with the global programs and strategies alliance office (international programs) tend to have a more nationally situated cultural view of intercultural understanding. phase iii: accepting the tensions four significant tensions emerged from our discussions, cross-unit education, and survey analysis. inclusion vs. cultural appropriation in our attempt to be an inclusive and understanding group, we inadvertently found ourselves engaged in what we term here as “offensive cultural appropriation”. cultural appropriation is the adoption of some specific elements of one culture by a different cultural group, when not engaged in shared cultural exchange (rogers, 2006). it can manifest in dress, artistic representations, language, or social behavior. individuals in our group sought to appropriate into their work the others’ definitions or perspectives about intercultural understanding to honor different points of views. however, because the definitions or perspectives are highly situational — that is, their meaning are shaped by the nuanced contexts in which they occur — transporting them to new community or cultural contexts can result in establishing new meanings that are significantly divergent from those originally held. for example, the application of the construct of social justice (e.g., securing the fair and proper administration of laws and the equal treatment without prejudice) in one setting can be viewed in another setting as a perpetuation of injustice. equal treatment does not equate to equity of outcomes; some might need something more, or something different, to achieve equitable outcomes. while some might see the provision of different levels or kinds of treatments to achieve equitable outcomes as a form of social justice, others might see this as socially and ethically unjust. acknowledging and accepting the fact that inter-culturalism will manifest differently across different contexts, and with those with different histories and world views, is essential to building a university-wide agenda for intercultural understanding. 85 individual vs. group our group struggled mightily to determine where to draw the lines around what we identified as “culture”. as a term embedded in the word “intercultural”, we sought to unpack what was meant by “culture”. is culture defined by groups and communities (e.g., by race, ethnicity, gender, gender expression or identity, sexual orientation, ways of thinking)? or is culture an individual construct that is defined by one’s own interpretation? similarly, is it acceptable to have each member of the group (and the university) have his/her own definition of culture, or should there be a campus-wide set of understandings as to what we mean by culture? these were some of the questions that came to the fore for which we found no answers. ultimately, we acknowledged and accepted the fact that the concept would remain amorphous and that we would focus on issues concerning both the individual and the group. connecting identity to inter-culturalism as we unpacked the issues of culture and subculture(s), our group realized that identities held within a subculture, particularly those that are marginalized, are key to understanding issues of culture. however, our group realized that issues of identity are generally absent from much of the literature on intercultural development, perhaps glossed over for the sake of making intercultural competence and development issues more simple and understandable. for example, issues of identity were not addressed adequately in most of the assessment instruments we discussed that measure intercultural competence and/or development. yet, when engaged in various conversations about intercultural issues, whether it was through the lens of public engagement, equity and diversity, or international activities, the discussion of identity was prominent and necessary. this suggested to our group that more needs to be done in the field to link issues of identity to the intercultural advancement agenda. difference vs. commonality one of the main tensions in our discussions was how to best build commonality of understanding and practice across our cultures as we seek to build an institution-wide agenda for intercultural advancement. how much does focus on building a common agenda enhance or challenge our process? does building a common agenda impede our ability to engage in critical thinking skills and to compare, understand, and appreciate the different values held across different cultures? does developing a common agenda perpetuate a form of assimilation that preferences a dominant perspective or set of values? these were just some of the questions that emerged as our work on intercultural advancement began to take shape. we acknowledged that these kinds of questions would continue to be central to our discussions and would surely engage us in deep and difficult conversations. phase iv: refreshing the agenda the external input and feedback we received from the pel team clarified for us the importance of bringing a new, fresh perspective to our group’s work. such a perspective ultimately stretched our individual and collective thinking about what an institution-wide agenda for advancing intercultural understanding should encompass. to reflect this new phase of work, the group 86 changed its name from the intercultural competence work group to the collaborative for intercultural advancement (or cia). this new name reflected the realization that building intercultural “competence” is just one piece of a multifaceted matrix of issues that need to be addressed if our institution is to build a comprehensive intercultural agenda. with this new name came a new mission to reflect the shared goal of “advancement”. the new mission statement became: building a university that fosters the capacity for students, staff, and faculty to work intentionally across cultures and contexts in creating inclusive, equitable, and reciprocal community and university partnerships for advancing the institution’s mission. the work of the cia thereafter focused on achieving this mission through specific attention to addressing issues in four areas: faculty issues; staff issues; student issues; and communication and assessment. subgroups were created to work through the particular leverage points in each area to further the group’s new mission. in articulating the next steps for the cia, the members agreed that the advancement of intercultural understanding is not a time limited endeavor. rather, it is developmental in nature and needs to be considered and cultivated on an ongoing basis. also important was the acknowledgement that the work needs to go beyond western and global northern views, and incorporate perspectives from multiple cultures, nations, and regions of the world. the members also acknowledged the important role that language plays in the development of the agenda. certain terms (e.g., social justice) may be interpreted very differently by different stakeholders, depending on the nature of the stakeholders’ work and their frames of reference. lastly, the group asserted that issues of intercultural advancement must be approached with an intersectional lens, and encompass all salient identity issues as well as the nuances for those with multiple identities. with this new mission in mind, the group’s agenda is poised take our university’s intercultural work to the next level. although the work of the cia remains unfinished and continues, many lessons have been learned about what it takes to build an institution-wide agenda focused on advancing intercultural understanding. we hope that these lessons can help other higher education institutions interested in developing a campus-wide agenda for advancing intercultural understanding prepare themselves for the initial discovery, unpacking phases of the work, and addressing issues that arise. key lessons learned during each phase of our work, we learned many important lessons. as more higher education institutions seek to advance intercultural understanding at their institutions, the following considerations may prove helpful in furthering their efforts. 87 the importance of a campus-wide initiative as we have described, we learned that there is wide-range of intercultural development work underway throughout our university. yet, despite these various independent efforts, the institution lacked a campus-wide focus for advancing intercultural understanding. this supports the belief that broad-based intercultural advancement among faculty, staff, and students does not happen automatically (deardorff, 2009). rather, it requires an intentional effort and attention, through the establishment of a robust, campus-wide initiative, which brings together the various intercultural efforts by engaging key stakeholders in unpacking the various conceptualizations of the inter-culturalism, and organizing the conceptualizations into a cohesive institutional plan. institutions engaged in such efforts should pay special attention to bringing together individuals and groups who have diverse perspectives and/or who do not necessarily agree on intercultural issues. acknowledging that there is a broad range of perspectives, and ensuring that all perspectives are considered in the development of the institutional plan, is key to building a strong institution-wide plan to advance intercultural understanding. establish a trusting and safe space for the intercultural agenda to be successful, it is important that a safe space is established in which all stakeholders feel free to express their views no matter how much those views might differ from others. this space must be one that focuses on listening and understanding. it must embrace difference and dissonance. creating this space was one of the key factors that allowed our group’s work to advance because it helped engender a culture of trust that genuinely values every members’ voice and participation. we also came to realize that creating this safe space actually required the group to practice intercultural understanding. some individuals can find it quite difficult to speak openly and freely about sensitive issues in front of their professional peers, especially when senior administrators or other supervisors are present. having a space for individuals to express themselves without judgment or criticism becomes key to be being able to do the deep dive that is necessary to unpack the complexities of intercultural understanding. one the important lessons learned in this regard is to not avoid discussions about different perspectives, contested language, or difficult issues and to take the time necessary for all to feel heard and to learn from one another. in our group’s work, differences of opinion were valued and seen as opportunities to educate the group and to garner greater understanding of the complex character and core of intercultural understanding. to this end, institutions that form work groups to build an institution-wide intercultural understanding agenda should consider the extent to which the group itself models the best practices that it is attempting to advance. honor existing work given that most of the participants in our group had had extensive experience with intercultural issues, it was important to honor the existing experience, expertise, knowledge, and understanding that the individuals and their units brought to the table. the goal of developing a campus-wide agenda was not meant to supplant existing work, by establishing an intercultural agenda that focused on a specific set of principles or practices. rather the goal was to take stock of the wide range of existing work, assess the differences and similarities in approaches, acknowledge the contribution of each effort, and develop a comprehensive agenda that embraces 88 all of the work, in ways that leverage the institutional impact to deepen understanding across the institution. bring in outside perspectives the use of the pel team helped our group to provide a mission check and feedback about our group’s work. it is not difficult for such work to become biased as the perspectives of those with the loudest or most influential voices sway group members’ opinions and viewpoints. bringing in a team that provides a neutral perspective can prove beneficial to keeping the group grounded in the established mission, and if necessary, help align the group’s work to its original intended goals. this external team can also provide data and evidence about the group’s process and offer an honest assessment of the group’s successes and limitations. such feedback is a launching pad for infusing new ideas into the group’s work. view intercultural understanding as a strategy, not a goal at one point in our group’s work, we began to lose sight of why we were engaged in the effort. we were so immersed in trying to understand each other’s perspectives regarding intercultural understanding that our goal had turned to defining intercultural competence, development, and understanding. however, we arrived at a point where we started to question why we were doing this work and why establishing a campus-wide agenda for intercultural understanding was important. through this reflection, we reaffirmed and re-anchored our group’s focus to our initial goal: creating an institutional agenda for intercultural understanding for the purpose of strengthening the quality of relationships that members of the university held with each other and with various external partners and communities. if we achieved these stronger and deeper relationships, our university would be able to enhance individuals’ and groups’ sense of belonging, secure a more inclusive and accepting institutional climate, and further the impact of the university’s community engagement, equity and diversity and international programs efforts. in sum, keeping these broader goals front and center is essential for maintaining the initiative’s institutional value and for realizing the initiative’s contribution to advancing the institution’s overarching mission. acknowledge the limitations of campus-wide efforts despite senior leaders’ support for developing the agenda, and despite the participation of committed and knowledgeable campus stakeholders, our experience with the work group suggests that the real leverage for change takes place within the individual units for whom intercultural work is primary and central. as our effort revealed, the operationalization of intercultural work is widely distributed and situational. while a campus-wide (or institutionwide) effort can provide guidance and expectations, it is less likely to be able to set influential institutional policy or to affect actual practice. such impact will likely depend on the extent to which the individual programs legitimize and promote intercultural advancement within the work of their units. in the end, the leverage for real change does not reside at the campus level, but back within individual administrative and academic programs and the individuals within these programs who operationalize intercultural practices every day. 89 give it time lastly, perhaps the greatest lesson of all, is that establishing and cultivating a robust institutionwide agenda for advancing intercultural understanding takes a great deal of time. since the initiative is about changing the institutional culture, it requires staying the course over time and throughout changes in leadership and personnel. it requires digging deeply into complex and sensitive issues, and the work necessarily will expose many of the institution’s shortcomings and limitations. the discussions and process are often difficult and challenging. in the end, however, it is being able to stay the course to work through these challenges that will bring the institution to a new level of intercultural understanding. looking to the future the effort we undertook has catalyzed additional conversations about the importance of understanding the different frames and perspectives that undergird intercultural understanding. specifically, we have seen the implementation of a series of forums that are engaging different stakeholder groups, both within and outside of the university, in critical conversations about a variety of intercultural issues (i.e., race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, class, language). these conversations have taken the form of scholarly presentations, debates, roundtable discussions, invited speakers, artist renderings, and theatrical and dance productions. examining the issues through multiple forums and modalities has proven effective in attracting a broader range of stakeholders to the conversation. these critical conversations appear to have also engendered a greater comfortability among some who have previously found it difficult to hold frank discussions on intercultural-related issues. the increased polarizing rhetoric we are finding within our society has made it even more crucial for our higher education institutions to provide much needed spaces for groups and individuals to reflect on their intercultural understanding, attitudes, and behaviors. moreover, with the discourse and debates becoming increasingly political, there is an urgent need for higher education institutions to provide education, training, and skills development on how to build and strengthen one’s intercultural competencies and understanding. as we had learned from our work, such competencies and understanding do not manifest automatically. intentional, concerted, and strategic efforts that engage faculty, staff, students, and key administrative units are required in order to secure an institutional culture that genuinely embraces and values interculturalism. as deardorff (2009) reminds us, building such a culture within higher education institutions takes strategic commitment and time. as our university’s commitment to this important work persists, we continue to search for the nodes of opportunity that we can leverage to further the intercultural advancement agenda. conclusion we realize that we were, and are, engaged in work that needs to be done slowly, patiently, and with the understanding that the how is as important as the why and the what. and while our goal to work with university partners engaged in fostering intercultural awareness and understanding to support the development of competency in others, our work to date has in large part involved deepening our own intercultural awareness across our own different fields and philosophical 90 approaches to the work. it is our hope that in sharing the story of our journey thus far, others will be encouraged to take on the challenge of establishing bold agendas for advancing intercultural understanding at their institutions, and secure on their campuses a foundation for deep intercultural understanding that enhances each institution’s mission and maximizes the potential for the success of all members of the community. 91 references deardorff, d.k. (ed.) (2009). the sage handbook of intercultural competence. thousand oaks: sage publications. rogers, r. a. (2006). from cultural exchange to transculturation: a review and reconceptualization of cultural appropriation. communication theory, 16(4), 474-503. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2885.2006.00277.x https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2885.2006.00277.x 92 author information andrew furco is associate vice president for public engagement at the university of minnesota, where he is also a professor of higher education in college of education and human development. his research focuses on studying and assessing the role of community engagement in educational systems (primary, secondary, and higher education) in the united states and abroad. prior to arriving in minnesota, he served for 14 years as the founding director of the service-learning research and development center at the university of california, berkeley. * andrew furco office for public engagement university of minnesota 110 morrill hall 100 church street, s.e. minneapolis, mn 55455 email: afurco@umn.edu telephone: 612-624-6876 kristin nering lockhart was the associate vice president for equity and diversity at the university of minnesota and worked on social justice issues related to diversity, inclusion, equal opportunity and affirmative action for over 30 years in the legal field, with corporations and nonprofits, and in educational arenas. kris was an administrator working on equity and diversity issues at the university for over 18 years. kris lockhart email: lockhart@umn.edu *corresponding author andrew furco and kristin nering lockhart abstract keywords: public engagement; equity; diversity; inclusion inspiration and good intentions toward a collective agenda phase i: reconciling differences table 1. intercultural competence development frames phase ii: infusing new perspectives table 2. nature of respondents’ work phase iii: accepting the tensions four significant tensions emerged from our discussions, cross-unit education, and survey analysis. phase iv: refreshing the agenda key lessons learned conclusion references deardorff, d.k. (ed.) (2009). the sage handbook of intercultural competence. thousand oaks: sage publications. author information * andrew furco kristin nering lockhart was the associate vice president for equity and diversity at the university of minnesota and worked on social justice issues related to diversity, inclusion, equal opportunity and affirmative action for over 30 years in the leg... kris lockhart email: lockhart@umn.edu metropolitan universities vol. 28 no. 4 (november 2017), doi: 10.18060/21742 what does it take for practitioners to use data to change behavior in collective impact? jeff raderstrong, janay queen nazaire abstract the use of data to track and manage progress is critical to a collective impact initiative achieving results or understanding impact. yet, little research has been done to determine how collective impact practitioners can effectively use data. this article—including a literature review, semistructured interviews with experts on performance management and collective impact, as well as living cities’ experience with over 70 collective impact initiatives—outlines five steps for practitioners to grow their initiative’s capacity to use data: agree on the data; find the data; present the data; discuss and learn from the data; change behavior and share responsibility. keywords: community change; continuous improvement; cross-sector partnerships; database management introduction collective impact initiatives need to use data to inform decisions, drive direction and manage progress (kania & kramer, 2011). the continuous use of data grounds the collective impact work and illuminates for partners when and how they should change their behavior to achieve results. the use of data for collective impact can be thought of as a continuous “feedback loop” to support behavior change and influences systemic change in communities to create large-scale social change (boyea-robinson, 2016). living cities’ experience with over 70 collective impact initiatives has shown that embedding a data-driven feedback loop can be challenging. there are many challenges associated with using data to change behavior, but they all fundamentally come down to questions of the capacities, skills, and discipline required to manage a data-driven process. to better understand what it takes to use data for collective impact, we interviewed 17 experts and practitioners on performance management for collective impact. background living cities, a collaborative of 18 of the world’s largest foundations and financial institutions, approaches all of its field-level research based on the needs of grantee partners in 105 cities and metropolitan areas across the us. these efforts focus on a variety of content areas, from education and economic development to workforce development and health. a majority of time is spent with grantee partners identifying areas of needed support to achieve large-scale community change. occasionally, there are similarities across geographies and content focus, since challenges are similar for the different collective impact initiatives. therefore, living cities invests resources in identifying solutions to those challenges. 33 living cities was one of the first organizations to encourage the use of a collective impact framework through its funding initiatives (kania, hanleybrown, & splansky juster, 2014). within our support of collective impact initiatives, we have explicitly focused on investing and supporting the use of data to achieve large-scale community change (living cities, 2016). among other approaches, living cities has used the results based accountability (rba) framework, to help collective impact practitioners think through their outcomes and necessary data to track progress of performance over time (friedman, 2015). rba helps collective impact initiatives develop a framework for measuring, tracking, and managing performance against large-scale results. while the rba framework and associated tools were helpful to collective impact leaders, it became clear there was a need for greater understanding of how to invest in the capacity of collective impact initiatives to effectively collect, use and manage data throughout the lifecycle of the initiative. methodology exploring what capacities are required to use data for collective impact occurred in four different stages. the initial stage consisted of an online literature review, which used keyword searches of data and performance management for collective impact, which all were written after the original collective impact article was released in 2011. the review found 19 articles and online resources, and we identified themes across these articles. several focused on performance management within the context of the social sector (park, hironaka, carver, & nordstrum 2013; zhang & winkler, 2015; gillespie, 2014; walker & moore, 2011), as well as several examples of performance management case studies within the context of collective impact (edmondson, 2014; perkins, 2014; strivetogether, undated; kuhlmann, 2016). however, there were few examples of research that explicitly focused on exploring what collective impact practitioners need to invest in to effectively use and manage data within the context of collective impact. with this baseline understanding from the literature, the research expanded to a second phase, comprised of interviews with practitioners located in geographies around the country, as well as intermediary organizations that support collective impact initiatives, such as funders or research organizations. this group had representatives in positions ranging from research assistants to executive directors of programs or organizations. less than a quarter of the interviewees were receiving direct funding from living cities at the time. living cities conducted semi-structured interviews with 17 different individuals with experience on using data to achieve social outcomes and/or experience leading and/or supporting collective impact initiatives (figure 1). some of these interviewees had experience with tracking and using data to achieve social outcomes, but not necessarily through collective impact, and some of these interviewees had experience with collective impact but not necessarily tracking and managing data. some had experience with both (i.e., for a full list of first and second round interviewees, visit: https://www.livingcities.org/work/data-collective-impact/about). several follow-up interviews or email exchanges were conducted with these interviewees to obtain further feedback on the research presented in this article as it was developed. 34 1. what capacities do you think are needed to use data in collective impact? 2. in particular, what capacities do you think are needed to use data for continuous improvement in collective impact? 3. what challenges have you seen for using data in collective impact? 4. what are some potential solutions to solving these challenges? 5. what are good examples of ci initiatives using data well? 6. other resources? figure 1. initial interview questions. after completing the literature review and gathering data from the first set of interviews, we synthesized major themes and drafted a first iteration of the actions needed to use data while undertaking a collective impact initiative. the third phase of research consisted of additional semi-structured interviews with practitioners of collective impact to better understand how the elements apply to the exercise of collective impact in communities. five semi-structured interviews were conducted with seven practitioners to obtain their feedback on the elements, as well as to capture stories from their work, to better understand the application of each part of the elements (figure 2). these practitioners were all either currently or formerly involved in a living cities-supported collective impact initiative, and they also worked with or for a backbone organization in some capacity. these practitioners had indicated an interest in learning more about using data for collective impact, and had experience doing so. we framed the elements as “steps” in that interview protocol to help practitioners conceptualize how the elements would be applied to their day-to-day work. 1. we’ve identified 5 basic steps for how to use data in collective impact to achieve a shared result: a. agree on data: agree with partners on population metrics that track to a shared result, as well as program-specific metrics to understand how programs are contributing to changes. b. find the data: if the data exist, figure out how to access them. if they don’t, figure out how to develop them. c. present the data: take the data and make them digestible, understandable and actionable. d. discuss the data: the data will tell a story—determine what’s behind that story and, more importantly, what to do about it. e. change behavior and share responsibility: make sure everyone in the collective impact initiative is actually changing behavior based on the data. 2. do these steps resonate with your work? is there something missing? 3. what are the roles and responsibilities you’ve seen required to complete some of all of these steps? 4. what are the main successes and challenges you’ve seen? 5. what are other challenges and opportunities you see for using data in collective impact? 6. what resources or tools have been most helpful for you to encourage your partners to share and/or use data? figure 2. subsequent practitioner interview protocol. 35 the fourth and final phase of this research was to translate the research findings into an online blog series on livingcities.org to further validate the elements with a larger body of collective impact practitioners. the blog series ran over the course of four months and was marketed towards collective impact practitioners around the country. digital metrics from the blog series show that the elements presented generally resonates with the experience of collective impact practitioners. almost 600 people have subscribed to the blog series through an e-newsletter service, and the blog posts over-performed other blogs on livingcities.org, with one blog being the most read on the website during the series time period, and three blogs being in the top ten most read blogs. results from the research, we found five different elements necessary for effectively using data for collective impact: agree on the data; find the data; present the data; discuss and learn from the data; change behavior and share responsibility. within each of these elements, the research also identified many different “capacities” that collective impact initiatives need to invest in to use data effectively. because interviews focused mostly on performance management and measurement techniques, use of quantitative data dominated the discussions. however, the use of qualitative and “lived experience” data is critical to collective impact (raderstrong and boyearobinson, 2016). any absence of findings on qualitative data in the discussion below is only because the best use of qualitative data for collective impact is outside the scope of this research. the remainder of this paper will explore the five elements and each subsequent capacity required to strengthen a collective impact initiative based on what it takes to implement those elements. these elements were presented as linear “steps” in the blog series, but should be viewed as dynamic actions that can occur throughout the lifecycle of an initiative. investment in an element can be seen as independent from the others, but there are intersections in each element that requires consideration of the others. focus on one area may also surface issues in another, requiring collective impact leaders to shift resources to invest in new or different capacities. discussion: five elements for effectively using data for collective impact agree on the data agreement on what data is needed is a foundational element to using data for collective impact. this first requires establishing a “shared result,” (a term often used in living cities programmatic support) or “common agenda” (kania & kramer, 2011). this shared result is the “north star” of an initiative and should be ambitious but attainable, such as reducing unemployment by 10% in 10 years (raderstrong & perkins, 2015). with this shared result in place, a collective impact initiative can then build out a “data-driven feedback loop” to track progress towards achieving a shared result (figure 3). the feedback loop consists of five components: key drivers; 3-6 and 6-10 year outcomes; a shared result; and strategies. key drivers are metrics that collective impact initiatives use to measure the impact of strategies, programs, activities, and systems. outcomes are measures that illustrate changes in the 36 population. the outcomes are divided up in to 3-6 year outcomes and 6-10 year outcomes to allow the collective impact initiative to think of its work in phases. some progress can be seen early through changes in data, and some progress can only be seen after several years. strategies are a coherent collection of activities, ideas and programs that drive changes towards a shared result. figure 3. data-driven feedback loop. collective accordance of the metrics for a collective impact initiative’s data-driven feedback loop requires an intensive focus. to secure this agreement on what data to track, a collective impact initiative should invest in three different capacity areas: facilitation skills; research and analysis skills; and a framework for continuous improvement. facilitation skills. a strong facilitator is required to get all partners to agree on the initiative’s shared result, and the best measures to track that shared result. often collective impact initiatives will use an outside individual or contractor to facilitate an initial meeting or set of meetings to come to agreement on which metrics will make up their data-driven feedback loop. but maintaining this agreement on measures requires on-going relationship management as the collective impact work evolves, so if collective impact initiatives rely on an outside facilitator, they should supplement that individual with their own capacity to manage on-going relationships. research and analysis skills. to get agreement on data, collective impact initiatives need to start with an initial list of measures that have been tested and verified in specific focus areas, such as obesity rates or high school graduation. using these initial measures as a starting point can help the facilitation of agreement discussed above. many initiative partners already have a sense of what measures make sense, but some basic research skills are needed to find and analyze a reasonable list of initial measures. 37 the identification of appropriate measures should arise through the collective knowledge of the partners. depending on the agreement of the members, the initial identification of measures may occur through the efforts of the backbone organization, a data committee, or from a discussion of all the partners. for instance, the seattle/king county member of the integration initiative, communities of opportunity, has created a data committee made up of staff from partner organizations that have research and data analysis experience. this committee was pulled together after the initiative agreed on an initial framework for their data-driven feedback loop, but the members have been able to go deeper in this framework to revise the measures as needed. an approach to continuous improvement. the science of continuous improvement is another fundamental part of using data in collective impact (park, hironaka, carver, & nordstrum 2013). there are many different tools and approaches to continuous improvement and collective impact initiatives need to pick the “right” approach for them based on local context. living cities uses several different approaches to continuous improvement. it uses results based accountability (rba) with our integration initiative sites as a way to set up the data-driven feedback loop, explained above. rba in particular helps collective impact initiatives connect the longer-term outcomes to the programmatic metrics or key drivers. living cities’ prepare learning circle sites have used the a3 tool for their continuous improvement processes, which incorporates another continuous improvement method called “plan, do, study, act.” the a3 tool is designed to produce data to be fed into a data-driven feedback loop, so collective impact initiatives relying only on the a3 tool can miss the bigger picture of their work. some other initiatives have used six sigma, such as the strive partnership. this approach has been popular in large corporations, particularly those focused on manufacturing and industry, but can require a lot of quantitative capacity to implement successfully. find the data finding needed data was one of the most common challenges cited in interviews. all interviewees touched on this challenge in some way or the other. not surprisingly, this challenge is well documented in the literature (strivetogether & data quality campaign, 2015; nnip, 2014; gillespie, 2014; parkhurst & preskill, 2014). there are seven different elements a collective impact initiative can invest in to strengthen their capacity to find necessary data: 1. leadership buy-in and support; 2. a data inventory; 3. data sharing agreements; 4. a dedicated staff; 5. surveys; 6. a data partner; and 7. a software platform. 38 leadership buy-in and support. the strong healthy communities initiative in newark, nj has navigated a data-driven culture shift. they are accessing and sharing data with partners, but are struggling to get data they can use for forward-looking, strategic decision-making. much of the data they have access to, particularly from public sector partners, is compliance focused. for example, they know how many students are chronically absent from school, but not the reasons why they are absent. the lack of these strategic data has become a big barrier to achieving their collective impact goals. getting the “right data” to achieve goals requires commitment from leaders of your collective impact initiative to share data from their work with the other partners. oftentimes a commitment to using data for improvement requires fundamental shifts in the culture of an organization (gillespie, 2104), at staff levels from programmatic up to executive leadership. a data inventory. an unfortunate reality is that even with agreement on what data is needed, it is likely that data will not exist. for example, the network for economic opportunity, a member of the integration initiative, decided they wanted to track the number of working-aged african american men earning family sustaining wages. as they began to look into collecting data, they realized they couldn’t really track this metric, and instead chose multiple proxy measures , including non-employment rates, labor force participation rate, and average wage. one way to solve this is to create a data inventory, a list of all the data needed, and how to potentially get it (queen, 2016). lack of data shouldn’t slow down an initiative’s use of data, but instead inform where an initiative should invest resources in finding and/or creating data. data sharing agreements. formalizing data sharing relationships can set specific expectations for partners and help ensure a collective impact initiative gets the data it needs. for example, the integration initiative member from detroit shared data across several different partners, but often would get data in the form of pdfs, and not the more usable excel spreadsheet files. developing what’s called “data sharing agreements” can help set expectations—like when to share data and in what format—early on in the life of your collective impact initiative. the national neighborhood indicators partnership (nnip) outlines four elements of successful formalized data sharing agreements: (a) general introduction; (b) data transmission and content; (c) handling and release of data and analysis; and (d) procedural/contractual issues (nnip, 2014). partners need to be held accountable to the data sharing agreements they sign. the strong healthy communities initiative example outlined earlier shows how even with data sharing relationships set, partners may not provide necessary data nor exercise the discipline necessary to use it. maintaining this type of accountability requires dedicated staff to manage data-centric relationships. dedicated staff. because the continuous collection of data requires significant staff capacity, creating staff positions to manage data collection and analysis can help manage data more effectively. however, this can be challenging since data capacity is often under resourced for level of expertise needed. dedicated staff for collective impact are usually housed within a 39 centralized backbone organization, but do not have to be. the neighborhood developers (tnd), the managing partner of chelsea thrives in massachusetts, was able to work within funding constraints to meet data needs by engaging an existing tnd staff member on the creation of data dashboard and monitoring tools. that individual has since moved on, and the position is in the process of being filled. melissa walsh, director of chelsea thrives, one interviewee for this paper, said her experience building out their staffing for data management “highlights the importance of strong data systems and the need to train additional program staff on those systems. effective systems building, documentation and sharing of knowledge are crucial for transitions and ultimately for sustainability.” collective impact initiatives often employ a data manager or two who are devoted to the process of using data and continuous improvement. these positions are often the first hire after the initiative director (collective impact forum, 2013; strivetogether & data quality campaign, 2015). because collective impact initiatives are often underfunded (strivetogether, 2013), this dedicated staff capacity is usually held by the initiative director for interim periods. yet responsibility for use of data should not fall solely on the dedicated data staff of an initiative or the backbone organization. a central function of the collective impact approach is for individual partners to take responsibility for changing their own behavior (edmondson, 2015). while dedicated staff can help facilitate this behavior change, ultimately partners need to hold themselves accountable to the use of data as well. more on this will be discussed in the “change behavior and share responsibility” section. surveys. when the network for economic opportunity realized that the data they needed—more information on the needs of the city’s large numbers of unemployed african american men— didn’t already exist, they decided to create a survey to generate that data. the survey not only created a new data-base of information not previously available to new orleans or their partners, it revealed some unexpected results that helped inform their overall planning (landrieu, 2014). the neo team illustrated that primary data collection is an option for practitioners. surveys can help collective impact initiatives access both qualitative and quantitative data that provide greater context. communities of opportunity in seattle/king county has used the white center community development association’s community survey as a data source to provide qualitative context to their work reducing health disparities in suburban areas. results from this survey, and other community data efforts, successfully helped make the case in the state legislature for why an under-resourced neighborhood should be absorbed into the city of seattle. one tool to support data collection is the spark policy institute’s “right now” survey. communities of opportunity used this tool to surface emerging opportunities, concerns and partner needs, particularly for those not comfortable sharing at in-person meetings. as members got to know and trust each other, the initiative began using the survey as a way to organize observations during meetings. the initiative staff used the data from the survey to take advantage of timely opportunities and inform decisions that addressed concerns of partners. a data partner. some collective impact initiatives have found it helpful to work with an external data partner—such as a university—to support their data collection or development. almost all 40 collective impact initiatives have a partner with some additional research or data capacity at least nominally involved (parkhurst & preskill, 2014). but monique baptiste-good, the executive director of the strong healthy communities initiative, said in an interview that, in her experience, relying on a third party data partner is most useful when an initiative has a large amount of data to analyze. the data partner can interpret what the data are “saying.” if the data partner is instead developing or creating most of the data to the initiative, rather than gathering it from other sources, that partner could have too much control over what data is used in the data-driven feedback loop and what isn’t. like with any partner, a data partner should have a specific purpose for being engaged in the collective impact initiative and should be included in planning conversations early on (raderstrong & gold, 2015). a software platform. focusing on creating a software solution first can cause more trouble than it’s worth. efforts often stall when people spend too much time looking for software, and not enough time trying to use data to improve their activities. many collective impact initiatives equate the use of data with the need for some kind of software infrastructure, but this oftentimes is “work avoidance” (heifetz & laurie, 2007) to push off making decisions around what data needs to be tracked and how to track it. chelsea thrives is working with approximately 25 partners to track and share data for the chelsea hub model, an innovative community mobilization model, which is a specific strategy within chelsea thrives. to do this, they use something that comes standard on most personal computers: microsoft excel. based on interviews and living cities’ experience, most collective impact initiatives rely on excel or other basic software tools. if a collective impact initiative is considering using a more complicated software option, it should weigh the pros and cons of the tool very carefully before making the decision to invest in it to increase their initiative’s capacity (zhang & winkler, 2015). present the data most people cannot consume raw data, nor do they have the time or capacity to do so. to effectively use data, collective impact initiatives must make them more digestible. there are three areas that collective impact initiatives can invest in to increase presentation capacity: (a) analytical skills, (b) artistic skills, and (c) framing analytical skills. the network for economic opportunity, our new orleans partner in the integration initiative, is managing several projects with the goal of increasing employment rates of african-american men. they’re accessing and using data for each project, and some projects have more accessible data than others. instead of providing raw spreadsheets of data to their partners, the network spends time analyzing and consolidating these data into more easily digestible graphs and charts (figure 4). 41 figure 4: example of a graph from the network of economic opportunity. making data presentable in this way usually requires some moderate level of analysis. a base understanding of statistical processes can help synthesize data into a more presentable form. usually the data manager, discussed above, fulfills these analytical functions. the network for economic opportunity has several individuals across city hall fulfilling data management responsibilities in various ways. some spend time securing data from partners, and some spend time “massaging” data to make it more presentable. data should be used to encourage partners to make changes to their work to achieve better outcomes. the process of statistical analysis with the process of assigning meaning to the data should not be conflated. these are two discrete steps, and the latter is crucial to do in collaboration with partners. artistic skills. presenting data is much more of an art than a science. communities of opportunity, the seattle/king county member of the integration initiative has a lot of data on its work to reduce health disparities. they have found that presenting data in ways that connect two or more abstract concepts together can take partners past observing data to action. for example, maps are visually compelling way to connect inequities with people and places. individuals quickly relate to the data when they see how their neighborhoods rank on several indicators (benjamin, 2007). turning numbers and raw data into a visualization can help partners connect the dots in compelling, actionable ways (pettiross, 2015). nadine chan, the assistant chief for assessment, policy development, and evaluation in seattle and king county, worked with data related to employment using excel charts and graphs to quantify disparities. however, when she later converted the data into a simple infographic using the free resource piktochart (figure 5), https://piktochart.com/ 42 partners spent more time looking at it and asked more questions about the data, showing that they connected with the data in new ways. there was a renewed urgency around working on strategies to increase employment rates to improve poverty in their community. this shows not only the need for creative presentation, but also the value in presenting data repeatedly in different ways to get the information to stick with people. figure 5: sample of an infographic from communities of opportunity. the infographic was created by nadine chan of king county to present her data in a visually compelling way. 43 framing. the examples of visually appealing data show how powerful data can be when presented in a way that “tells a story.” in particular, disaggregating data through a variety of factors can help tell different stories. for example, figure 5 has employment rates broken up by region, but also by race. disaggregating by race in addition to place gives the data a different meaning that if it was only disaggregated by one factor—it shows that in king county, employment does not vary much by region, but it does by race. if partners were to look at the “place” data alone, they may not think there would be much of a problem with employment disparities in their region. but the “race” data clearly shows that black residents clearly are not able to access employment opportunities at the same rates of other citizens. a combination of visual presentation and creative formatting can drastically shift a conversation around data. organizing “data walks,” where graphs and charts are placed on walls, have been shown to encourage discussion and help people absorb data in new ways. the urban institute has done extensive research on the usefulness of data walks to facilitate community-based changes (murray, falkenburger & saxena, 2015). discuss and learn from the data the fourth element in our initial framework was “discuss the data” to highlight the need for collective meaning-making by the collective impact partners (gold, 2013). however, in our discussions about the initial framework and subsequent blog posts, it became clear that learning from the data was just as important as the act of discussion. to increase an initiative’s capacity to discuss data, we found investment was needed in two areas: ● facilitation skills, and ● an understanding of assumptions about the problem being solved. facilitation skills. a strong facilitator can help partnerships come to an agreement about what the meaning behind data in the same way facilitation is required to secure agreement on what data to use. a facilitator should understand how to shape a conversation about data so that other members of the collective impact initiative understand what they are looking at and why that matters, as well as feel empowered to make their own conclusions. mark friedman, who pioneered the results based accountability framework discussed earlier, has developed seven different questions to ensure performance accountability that can help collective impact initiatives guide their discussions around data (friedman, 2015): 1. who are our customers, clients, people we serve? (e.g children in a child care program). 2. how can we measure if our customers/clients are better off? (performance measures about client results – e.g. percent of children with good literacy skills). 3. how can we measure if we are delivering service well? (e.g. client staff ratio, unit cost, turnover rate etc.). 4. how are we doing on the most important of these measures? where have we been; where are we headed? (baselines and the story behind the baselines). 5. who are the partners who have a potential role to play in doing better? 44 6. what works, what could work to do better than baseline? (best practices, best hunches, including partners’ contributions). 7. what do we propose to do? (multi-year action plan and budget, including no-cost and lowcost items). our partners at the network for economic opportunity in new orleans have monthly discussions about data and progress to inform on-going work. due to data accessibility challenges, they haven’t been able to bring a lot of quantitative data to these meetings. instead, they rely on qualitative updates from partners to move their work forward while simultaneously working on accessing data. they can move their continuous improvement process forward by using anecdotal evidence and “lived experience” while they resolve some of their data accessibility challenges (klaus, 2014; mack, 2014). an understanding of assumptions. each partner in a discussion about collective impact will have his or her own assumptions about the work. partners may hold assumptions (correct or not) about any number of things– from the cause of problems to how to solve those problems. any conversation about data should involve a conversation about root causes of problems. if there isn’t an understanding of why certain problems exist, it’s unlikely that an initiative can determine effective strategies for solving those problems. our prepare learning circle sites have gone through a factor analysis process to determine root causes that influence their ultimate shared result, which helped them better understand why and how strategies may fit in to their datadriven feedback loop. in discussing assumptions, practitioners often find that equity, particularly racial equity, surfaces. many of the root causes of problems, are, at their core, issues of systematic and institutional racism. the entire field of collective impact is recognizing that racial equity needs to be a fundamental component of the process of applying collective impact principles (schmitz, 2014). an equity lens should be applied to all the elements to using data for collective impact (williams & marxer, 2014), but it’s often in this element where equity conversations are most important. change behavior and share responsibility changing behavior and sharing responsibility is the most critical element to actually achieving the central goal of collective impact: creating systems level changes in communities (kania & kramer, 2011). if an initiative invests in capacity in all of these different elements but cannot hold partners accountable to changing their behavior (edmondson, 2015), then it is unlikely the initiative will achieve their shared result. ultimately, partners should own their own data and hold themselves accountable to changes (hanleybrown, kania, & kramer, 2012). to help partners reach that place of shared accountability, collective impact initiatives should invest in the capacity of four areas: ● dedicated staff, ● an action plan, ● programmatic staff buy-in and support, and ● evaluation capacity. 45 dedicated staff. the process of holding partners accountable requires continuous follow-up and relationship management. directors of collective impact initiatives, as well as data managers, often take on the responsibility of following up with partners to ensure they execute on their action commitments. the collective impact forum has created a set of resources to outline common responsibilities for dedicated staff of collective impact initiatives. the three roles it outlines are “executive director,” “project coordinator” and “data consultant.” of the three, all have responsibilities that require holding partners accountable to various aspects of collective impact. most of the responsibility falls on the executive director, which has responsibilities such as “providing regular reports on progress against goals and indicators” to the steering committee and “cultivating excellent working relationships...in a way that can inspire collective action without formal authority” (collective impact forum, 2013). an action plan. collective impact initiatives often fall prey to one of the most frustrating parts of working in teams: people don’t do what they say they will do (bain pillsbury, undated). an easy way to hold partners accountable to their action commitments is through the use of an “action plan.” there are many ways to create an action plan—gantt charts are a popular resource—and the process for creating a plan is similar whether it is done for a project specific to an organization or one that needs coordination with partners. the essential components of an action plan should be: ● the task, ● who is responsible for the task, and ● a timeline for completing a task. figure 6 provides an example of an action plan from all hands raised in portland, or. 46 action steps deliverable person(s) or group(s) responsible implementation timeline date completed resourc es needed start stop a) compiling / creating useful tools for educators complete sector reports re: (1) types of careers in construction & manufacturing, with wages, and (2) industry needs / labor market projections 2 final sector reports wsi 2/29 [wsi] complete career pathway guides (1 for construction, 1 for manufacturing) 2 final career guides wsi 2/29 [wsi] develop 2-page career pathway visuals/infographic (1 for construction, 1 for manufacturing) – planning committee review mid-march – pull from existing websites info-graphic ahr 4/1 4/20 finalize a proposed set of content for use at event (infographics, websites, videos, student stories) – planning committee review mid-march wsi 2/29 4/22 finalize the packet/toolkit for all attendees: externship overview (jesse); action plan template (nate); administrator infographic (jesse); takeaway card and contact list (nate); pathways graphics (nate); posters (reese); playing cards (jesse); pdu certificates (jesse) ahr/wsi 4/8 4/22 test messages and tools for clarity, relevance and cultural appropriateness planning committee 4/15 n/a revise, finalize and print tools final printed tools ahr / wsi 4/21 4/25 distribute awareness tools broadly through networks of superintendents and others – targeting middle & high school administrators & school board members ahr / wsi 4/26 5/6 figure 6. sample action plan from all hands raised. 47 programmatic staff buy-in and support without getting everyone on board, the use of data can’t be integrated at all levels of a collective impact initiative (gillespie, 2104). there will always be one “problem” group or one organization that doesn’t pull its own in terms of follow through in changing behavior. our partners at chelsea thrives have seen how shared ownership and use of data can have real impact on the lives of the people they serve to reduce poverty and improve mobility. a team of their service providers meets monthly to assess risk factors of different families. much of their work previously felt like “triaging,” according to chelsea thrives executive director melissa walsh. but once they were able to come together as a group with shared data on clients, they were able to effectively prioritize which clients should receive which services. if the partners agree, based on two to eight factors, that a family has a high level of need, they will coordinate amongst themselves to deliver those services. evaluation capacity. evaluation is distinct from performance management. evaluation is the process in which an organization assesses its programs effect on a target population, whereas performance management is focused on the improvement of programmatic or organizational processes (walker & moore, 2011) and impact on customers (friedman, 2015). although this article has focused primarily on the elements to implement performance management in collective impact, evaluation of the effects of collective impact is an essential part of understanding what large-scale changes are happening in a community as a result of collective impact efforts. several entire articles have been written on evaluating collective impact to guide practitioners in understanding what impact their efforts are making on their communities, and why (preskill, parkhurst, & splansky juster, undated). collective impact initiatives should invest in both formal and informal evaluation methods (preskill, parkhurst, & splansky juster, undated). if an initiative doesn’t know if it is actually changing the lives of the people, it could do more harm than good. at living cities, we build in time and capacity to evaluate all of our programs, especially the collective impact initiatives we support. with our integration initiative, we conducted an extensive evaluation that highlighted a number of recommendations to improve the program (living cities, 2014). one of the major ones was to create a planning year to help set the stage for collective impact, something the working cities challenge adopted as well. conclusions achieving large-scale change through collective impact requires the use of data to understand progress and measure impact. yet management of data can be one of the most challenging aspects of collective impact, or any community change initiative. for practitioners to effectively use data for performance management, they must invest in the capacity of their initiative across five different elements: agree on the data; find the data; present the data; discuss and learn from the data; change behavior and share responsibility. this article presented lessons learned and examples that speak to each of these five elements. yet many questions remain regarding how to best equip collective impact practitioners to build 48 capacity across these five elements. to achieve the true promise of collective impact (that is, large-scale community change), funders and intermediaries like living cities can and should explore more deeply what it takes to use data to change behavior in collective impact. further refinement on the research presented here, particularly focusing on the use of qualitative data for collective impact, will only strengthen the collective impact model as it evolves and is applied 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(2015). four components of a shared result that creates enduring change. retrieved from https://www.livingcities.org/resources/301-four-components-of-ashared-result-that-creates-enduring-change schmitz, p. (, 2014 december 22). the culture of collective impact. huffington post. retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-schmitz/the-culture-of-collective_b_6025536.html strivetogether. (2013). funding for the backbone organization in collective impact efforts. retrieved from http://www.strivetogether.org/sites/default/files/images/funding_to_support _the_backbone_final_updated.pdf strivetogether & data quality campaign. (2015). data drives school community collaboration. retrieved from http://www.strivetogether.org/sites/default/files/st-dqc-data-drives-schoolcommunity-collaboration_web.pdf walker, k. & moore, k. a. (2011). performance management and evaluation: what’s the difference? child trends. retrieved from http://www.childtrends.org/wpcontent/uploads/2013/06/2011-02performmgmt.pdf williams, j. & marxer, s. (2014). bringing an equity lens to collective impact. retrieved from https://collectiveimpactforum.org/sites/default/files/ equityandcollectiveimpact_urbanstrategiescouncil.pdf zhang, s. & winkler, m. (2015). navigating performance management software options. retrieved from http://www.urban.org/research/publication/navigating-performancemanagement-software-options https://doi.org/10.1080/15575330.2015.1130072 52 author information *jeff raderstrong is a senior associate at living cities, where he supports the organizational learning process. previously he worked on living cities collective impact portfolio, which is a network of over 70 different collective impact initiatives around the country. jeff raderstrong living cities 1040 avenue of the americas new york, new york 10018 email: jraderstrong@livingcities.org phone: 646-442-3236 dr. janay queen nazaire is a leader, collaborator, and bridge-builder with a fierce belief in the right of all people to live their best possible life. as an associate director at living cities, she coaches city leaders to collaborate across sectors for powerful social justice results for people on the ground. she contributes to the strategic vision of living cities and empowers staff to work to improve the lives of low-income people. janay queen nazaire, ph.d. living cities 1040 avenue of the americas new york, new york 10018 email: jqueen@livingcities.org phone: 646-442-2915 *corresponding author mailto:jraderstrong@livingcities.org mailto:jqueen@livingcities.org programmatic staff buy-in and support kuhlmann, j. (2016). data dashboard keeps users, student outcomes at the center of the conversation. retrieved from http://www.strivetogether.org/blog/2016/03/data-dashboard-keeps-users-student-outcomes-at-the-center-of-the-conversation/ living cities. (2014). the integration initiative three year evaluation report. retrieved from https://www.livingcities.org/resources/282-the-integration-initiative-three-year-evaluation-report pettiross, j. (2015). why the time-tested science of data visualization is so powerful [blog post].. retrieved from https://www.tableau.com/about/blog/2015/11/why-time-tested-science-data-visualization-so-powerful-45705 williams, j. & marxer, s. (2014). bringing an equity lens to collective impact. retrieved from https://collectiveimpactforum.org/sites/default/files/ equityandcollectiveimpact_urbanstrategiescouncil.pdf author information metropolitan universities vol. 29 no. 2 (may 2018), doi: 10.18060/21758 cultivando respeto (cultivating respect): engaging the latino community arcela nuñez-alvarez, marisol clark-ibáñez, ana m. ardón, amy l. ramos, and michelle ramos pellicia abstract this article addresses an innovative approach to connecting an urban university with the surrounding neighborhoods comprised of latino immigrants, who represent potential new students or current students’ family members. the national latino research center (nlrc) uses popular education, culturally informed, and linguistically relevant strategies to engage diverse latino communities in the northern region of san diego county in california. methods of engaging the latino community include cultivating long-term relationships, responding to time-sensitive community crises, facilitating inter-generational connections, presenting material in a culturally informed and relevant way, providing hands-on experiences with civic engagement, and growing partnerships within the university and among non-profits. preliminary findings described a two-year study on civic engagement testing the effectiveness of a spanishlanguage curriculum based on popular education offered (free) to members of urban and rural low-resourced latino communities. the center statistically correlated latino community members’ experiential learning, participating in social media, and voting with gains in civic engagement knowledge. keywords: civic engagement; immigrants; university; popular education; human rights introduction many urban universities have existing latino or emerging latino communities. they represent current or future students. finding meaningful ways to connect with the latino community becomes a vital goal to the growth and relevance of the university. how do universities engage the local latino community in meaningful and sustained ways? this article shares findings from a community program that was based on respectful, strength-based and human rights framework. this article also shares preliminary research findings that illuminate the efficacy of the approach. the national latino research center (nlrc) is an academic center chartered at california state university san marcos (csusm). csusm has distinguished itself as a forward-focused institution, dedicated to preparing future leaders, building great communities and solving critical issues. with nearly 14,000 enrolled students, it is the only public four-year comprehensive university serving north san diego and southwest riverside counties. the university is committed to creating a diverse and inclusive environment. the nlrc began in 1998 with the mission of promoting scientific and applied research, training, and the exchange of information that contribute to the knowledge and understanding of the rapidly growing u.s. latino populations. the nlrc has long-term advocacy and educational experience with the latino community in san diego county, specifically youth and issues surrounding culture, education, health, and civic leadership. 119 csusm serves the region known as north san diego county, which encompasses cities along the ca-78 state highway. the ca-78 corridor stretches from the coastal city of oceanside into the inland city of escondido and crosses the cities of vista and san marcos. the region’s population of 653,852 is comprised of almost 40% latinos, of which 90.9% are of mexican origin (u.s. census bureau, 2011-2015 american community survey 5-year estimate). statement of need civic engagement among latinos and latinas lags far behind white, asian, and african american counterparts across every form of participation in california and nationally (garcia bedolla, 2012; abrajano & alvarez, 2010). latinos in san diego are disengaged from civic life and have the lowest voter count and rate of voter turnout (equality alliance of san diego county, 2011). simply put, latinos are the most “civically alienated” group and the “least likely to be broadly engaged” (sullivan & godsay, 2014). although researchers have well documented individual experiences that motivate civic engagement, possible links between latinos’ cultural backgrounds (e.g., familial connections, geographic locations) and civic engagement are not commonly empirically studied. we theorize that civic and political participation is a continuum, rather than a finite catalog of activities. the civic engagement continuum ranges from individual to collection action, single events to ongoing civic activities, charitable or goodwill activities, such as helping organizations and neighbors, to more socially-conscious efforts, such as advocacy and community organizing that address institutional and structural inequalities. current studies of civic and political participation in the united states typically measure traditional forms of engagement, such as voting, political campaigning or contributing to political campaigns. these studies typically find higher civic engagement by non-immigrant and middleclass populations. therefore, the focus on traditional measures gives the impression that latinos and latinas are apathetic to participate civically and politically (stoll & wong, 2007). in recent years, a surge of interest in studying nontraditional forms of engagement, in which noncitizens and nontraditional voters regularly participate, such as faith-based and social service volunteering, parent engagement in public schools, and transnational civic engagement has fueled the field. researchers underline that participation in nontraditional activities or civic events strongly predict civic involvement of latinos and latinas (ebert & okomato, 2013; martinez, 2005). therefore, engagement in community activities or school events can be predictors for future civic engagement. responding to previous research described here, the national latino research center created a suite of classes to help latino community members of any educational background gain experience in both traditional and non-traditional forms of civic engagement. theoretical foundation the nlrc bases its work upon tara yosso’s (2006) theory of cultural wealth, a strength-based framework that highlights the importance of beliefs and practices originating from the family and culture. yosso developed the cultural wealth theory as a response to the deficit model 120 perspective, often practiced in social service institutions, that views low-income people of color as having insufficient cultural capital to succeed. deficit model thinking attributes negative social conditions to a person’s cultural background; for example, the belief in the sleeping giant, defined as a lack of latino political engagement despite growing population. the nlrc specifically utilizes yosso’s six types of cultural wealth capital to understand the strengths that latino families and communities already possess: (a) aspirational (hopes and dreams); (b) linguistic (power of storytelling); (c) familial (working as a collective); (d) social (working with neighbors); (e) navigational (street smarts and survival skills); and (f) resistance (encountering and dealing with oppressive conditions). therefore, the nlrc conceptualizes members of the latino community as having incredible assets to participate in civic engagement. its curriculum operationalizes yosso’s cultural wealth theory, and this research study reflects a strength-based approach. figure 1 shows yosso’s (2006) cultural wealth model. figure 1. cultural wealth model universidad popular—the people’s university for the last ten years, the nlrc has coordinated a free community class called universidad popular. it is a unique and successful model of community education that originates from years of working side-by-side with community members and local leaders. universidad popular uses popular education pedagogy; it presents the material through a culturally appropriate and responsive lens in english, spanish and bilingual formats, which resonate with participants’ histories and lived experiences. popular education is a pedagogical model based on paulo freire’s (1970) approach of dialectic interchange and kinesthetic learning. an essential element to the model is of empowerment and connecting students’ learning with their role in creating positive social change. yosso's cultural wealth model aspirational capital linguistic capital familial capital social capital navigational capital resistant capital 121 a hallmark of universidad popular is that entire families attend and share learning together. the program recognizes the importance of the extended family and the need for a comprehensive approach to education and political integration (wilkin et al., 2009). research shows that students who learn in a family setting do better in school and develop stronger civic values (kahne & sporte, 2008). there is no requirement of formal education attainment or grade level for adults or youth to participate in any of the universidad popular classes. the collaborative nature of the universidad popular model has led to exciting developments across a broad range of topics that further enhance the lives of hundreds of community members. first, junior up emerged when the children of those who were taking traditional universidad popular clamored for their own classes. junior up students learn in a blend of english and spanish with a focus on youth empowerment. second, homie up began when parents who were taking universidad popular courses expressed the desire for their sons and daughters (who were incarcerated) to experience such rigorous, exciting and comprehensive material. for the last eight years, homie up has offered a correspondence course with curriculum based on popular education pedagogy. over three hundred incarcerated students take part, most of whom are serving long terms or life sentences. homie up has students in every state prison in ca and 13 federal prisons. third, after learning of family struggles around loved ones after their release from prison, dr. nuñez-alvarez developed a course called cultivando liberación (cultivating liberation), which focuses on successful re-entry. a residential drug facility offers the course for those on parole. this curriculum focuses on reintegration and includes hands-on activities in community gardens, along with a focus on health and wellness. additionally, universidad popular has added more programs. cultivando salud (cultivating health) strengthens family and community to understand and reclaim indigenous notions of food, health and culture. cultivando sabiduría (cultivating wisdom) focuses on elders: their health, wellbeing, civic engagement and social needs. cultivando dignidad (cultivating dignity) offers a human-rights curriculum that serves immigrant community needs. finally, cultivando liderazgo (cultivating leadership) brings to life the principles of democracy and the role of civil society in shaping government and policies to create change. taken all together, the various universidad popular classes have included members of the latino communities in the san diego north county who have diverse needs, experiences, and interests. families learn together in universidad popular 122 the cultivando liderazgo intervention the nlrc designed an intervention to increase latino civic engagement. the eight-week cultivando liderazgo course drew upon known best practices for organizing a civic education curriculum (bahmueller & quigley, 1991). the nlrc delivered the intervention by providing linguistically and culturally relevant civic engagement curriculum and presenting it in a collaborative, highly participatory pedagogical style. cultivando liderazgo builds upon community strengths, consisting of the knowledge and lived experience of individuals and families. the corporation of national and community service funds this research. cultivando liderazgo involves latino youth, parents, and elders and works with individuals, families, and extended families. additionally, participants often bring along to classes their neighbors and friends from other cities. the cultivando liderazgo intervention builds upon an eight-week curriculum founded on the principles of popular education. the program teaches civic engagement through a civil and human rights framework utilizing culturally appropriate materials to present content in a bilingual (english and spanish) and multicultural format. figure 2 shows cultivando liderazgo’s conceptual model. figure 2. conceptual model for cultivando liderazgo cultivando liderazgo participants differ in age, educational levels, language abilities, and professions. one of the target outcomes is for participants to improve their attitudes about civic engagement and increase participation in nontraditional and/or traditional forms of engagement. a coalition of nlrc staff, csusm students, community volunteers and csusm professors organize the course and deliver the pedagogy. all educators receive intensive training from the nrlc leadership team on popular education pedagogy, ethics, and cultural sensitivity. the logistics are coordinated at the university offices of the nlrc but the courses hold their classes in community centers, library-meeting rooms, and other donated spaces throughout north county of san diego. 123 an essential element to the universidad popular model is of empowerment and connecting students’ learning with their role in creating positive social change. additionally, helping latino students gain cultural and social capital is an explicit part of the curriculum (segura et al., 2001). table 1 shows features of the curriculum. table 1. features of cultivando liderazgo curriculum education is free and open to communities in san diego county. classes meet weekly for two-hour periods at convenient times and locations. formal education is not a requirement for participation. students participate in traditional forms of civic engagement, serving as poll workers during election seasons, and doing voter registration. students participate in nontraditional forms of engagement, becoming peer-educators after completing the course. cultivando liderazgo brings to life the principles of democracy and the role of civil society in shaping government and policies to create change. the core elements of the curriculum derive from the u.s. citizenship exam that focuses on civics education and u.s. history. cultivando liderazgo curriculum: (a) connects students’ lives to government structures; (b) enacts democratic processes to enhance political knowledge and interest; (c) teaches about civil and human rights and exercising civic roles and responsibilities; and (d) introduces students to the functioning of local government via meetings with local representatives and visits to local civic and community forums. eight lessons in cultivando liderazgo curriculum are summarized in figure 3, below. figure 3. universidad popular’s cultivando liderazgo • (1) physical and cultural geography of the u.s.; history of the united states. • (2) foundations of government principles of democracy. and people’s role in shaping government and policies; significance of independence and the u.s. constitution. we the people: history and democratic foundations • (3) ) system of government basic requirements, roles and responsibilities of the three branches of government along with the election process. • (4) executive, legislative and judicial branches of power. • (5) functioning of local government. no taxation without representation: structure of government • (6) individual rights and responsibilities • (7) civil rights and voting • (8) meeting elected representatives a more perfect union: individual rights & responsibilities 124 research methodology two hundred and fifteen participants completed the baseline survey at time of enrollment (t1), and all completed the follow-up survey at the end of the eight-week course (t2), with a 100% response rate. this paper represents data on the initial analysis of a representative sample of participants, to display the preliminary effects of cultivando liderazgo (the community engagement model and intervention). the research project is in its third year and has concluded the last stage of data collection (t3, which is 3 months after t2). data collection the study examines the effects of cultivando liderazgo on levels of civic engagement of individual youth and adults. it used a mixed-methodology approach (quantitative and qualitative). at the individual level, the project examined effects of the curriculum on reported levels of engagement and types of engagement. among adults (parents and grandparents), researchers tested effects on reported levels of engagement and types of engagement happening within the family. the focus was on the collection of process data, consistent with civic engagement standards, to determine whether the curriculum reached beyond the classroom, achieved desired effects, is potentially adoptable in other communities, was implemented with fidelity, and whether effects can be maintained over three months. procedure. trained bilingual and bicultural research assistants followed strict research protocols in implementing participant assessments, which consist of completing participant consents and conducting structured questionnaires in an interview format. each participant received a twentydollar incentive for completing each assessment interview. assessment interviews followed, via the phone, online, or in person at a time and location convenient for the participant. the study was comprised of eleven cohorts. cohorts were in different locations throughout the county to make participation accessible to residents in suburban (vista, san marcos, escondido) rural areas (valley center/ramona, fallbrook) and remote rural areas (pauma/pala). these locations are feeder communities to the university. this report summarizes findings from six out of eleven cultivando liderazgo cohorts. we will analyze the remainder in the near future. assessment protocols. all participants completed a comprehensive assessment questionnaire conducted as a structured interview that includes questions about demographic characteristics (including socio-economic indicators and family history), knowledge and attitudes toward civic engagement, volunteerism, civic and political participation activities, and a civics quiz. we cultivando liderazgo class in vista, california 125 administered the assessment tools in english and spanish, depending on the language preference. the majority of the questions came from the united states census supplemental surveys on civic engagement, voting and registration, volunteers, computer and internet use. the civic knowledge and attitudes section provided a profile of participants’ perceptions of civic engagement including personal beliefs toward civic engagement, opinions of elected officials and government, government concern for people, government accountability, and trust in government. the civic participation section includes indicators from a national sample to reflect civic actions compared to national trends. it measured civic values, motives, and behaviors. civic indicators include questions about community problem solving, volunteering group membership, and participation in charitable cause; electoral indicators include voter registration, voting, and involvement in political campaigns; indicators of political voice including contact with public officials, contact with news, and participation in protests, signing petitions, and canvassing. we created subsections in the survey to measure youth, parents, and immigrants. we also had qualitative open-ended questions in the surveys to allow participants to describe other local civic events that emerge and that are unique to their regional location. figure 4 shows the structure and timeline of the assessment. figure 4. timeline and structure of cl survey quantitative analysis quantitative data were entered in a standard statistical program (statistical package for the social sciences: version 23) and analyzed using standard statistical procedures. the totals for specific assessment items may not equal the overall sample size if some respondents left that cl survey timeline baseline (t1) at enrollment post test (t2) at end of course extended post test (t3) three months post course cl s ur ve y se ct io ns demographic profile civic engagement knowledge & attitudes civic & political activities civics quiz 126 item blank. each data analysis and display presents the number of participants that responded to each item (e.g., sample size). descriptive analysis (i.e., response frequencies) of each item also appears where appropriate. researchers applied various statistical tests based on the specific research question under scrutiny. findings noted as “statistically significant” are based on a p-value less than or equal to 0.05, and indicate that compared groups were different from one another in a statistical sense, and the difference is unlikely by chance alone; significant findings are noted with an asterisk (*). though many participants completed the baseline (t1) and mid-point (t2) assessments, it is important to note that tests of significance are sensitive to sample size, such that the larger the sample size, the easier it is to show a statistically significant difference between two factors. when a significant difference between factors is found, other metrics should be explored to better understand the nature of the difference including the mean or median, standard deviation, and effect size (when calculated). the authors calculated effect sizes to explore further the impact of the program on participant knowledge. the effect size is the magnitude, or size, of an effect. it is useful to include as it provides a “practical” or “meaningful” context to the difference between factors indicated by statistical significance (i.e., something can be statistically significant, but not meaningfully different). the range for effect sizes is typically from 0 to 1. specifically, for this project r=0.2 is considered a 'small' effect size, 0.5 represents a 'medium' effect size and 0.8 or greater is a 'large' effect size. civic knowledge gains participant knowledge at baseline and post-test assessment. one of the ways that this study tested the efficacy of the cultivando liderazgo curriculum is by directly testing the participants’ civic knowledge by administering a civic quiz at four intervals: (a) before the intervention (t1); (b) immediately at the end of the intervention (t2); and (c) three months after the course ended (t3). the following section describes the results of the civic quiz at the baseline and post-test assessment; the third assessment has yet to undergo analysis. each participant completed a 25-question civics quiz at baseline, at the end of the course, and three months after taking the course. table 12 shows the statistical significance of each question in the civic quiz at baseline (t1) and post-test (t2). overall, results show significant improvement and knowledge gains for all participants. overall quiz performance reveals a 10 percent gain in civics knowledge: 76 at baseline to 85 percent after the completion of the class. in every single measure of the civic quiz, there was improvement. civic knowledge gains by cohort, language, and technology. the cultivando liderazgo classes took place in a variety of locations: suburban, rural and remote. one of our goals was to understand the role of place or geography on latino civic engagement. for the purposes of this 127 report, we analyzed the results of the civic quiz on a variety of factors, such as region, language, and access to technology. fidelity to the cultivando liderazgo intervention maintained at high levels at each implementation site. meaning, the cohort leaders or instructors did not have individual class impact. therefore, differences in cohort may result from internal characteristics (e.g., access to technology, age, gender) of the cohorts themselves. while all cohorts made significant improvements in their civic knowledge, the place of residence influenced knowledge gains. the pauma/pala cohorts, located in a remote area of the region, had significantly less knowledge at baseline (61.8) than other cohorts but made the largest gains (12.6+). the san marcos cohort demonstrated a near ceiling effect. they already test high at baseline assessment (83.2) and so did not have room to make large gains (9.1+). one explanation is that the san marcos site’s participants were mainly educated youth. vista had a baseline of 75 and increased their civic knowledge by 7.6 percent. escondido, a suburban site, had a baseline of 72.8 and an increase of 8.9 percent. future analysis will analyze additional factors contributing to the differences by region/cohort. language. we believed language mediates civic knowledge gains. therefore, we created a composite score for english and spanish language fluency and use. the higher the score the more the participant uses each language. these new language scores were analyzed using bivariate correlations. table 2 shows that results revealed that language is significantly related to gains on the civic test. table 1. effects of language spoken in knowledge gain r=-.16 p<.05 the more spanish spoken the lower civic knowledge at t2, but not at baseline (t1). r=.40 p<.0001 the more english spoken the higher the civic knowledge score at t1 and t2. technology. ‘having technology’ we defined as having a smartphone, tablet, or computer with access to the interest. cohort differences may link to technology. having technology and access to technology, such as access to a library with computers that have free access to the internet or having access to public wi-fi mediate the civic knowledge gains. table 3 indicates that technology and access to technology correlate significantly to gains on the civic test. table 2. effects of access and use of technology on knowledge gain r=-.34 p<.0001 the more technology the participant possesses the higher their civic knowledge at t1 and t2. r=.43 p<.0001 the more access to technology the participant has, the higher their civic knowledge at t1 and t2. action & knowledge: measuring diverse forms of civic engagement. we also tested to see if various forms of political and civic engagement (as recorded at the baseline data-collection 128 stage) affected their civic knowledge. this research project uniquely captured changes in patterns of traditional political involvement (e.g., voting, volunteering for candidates or political organizations, contributions to campaigns) and in nontraditional civic engagement activities (e.g., grassroots efforts aimed to shape local initiatives or produce positive social change at the community level) among latino adults, elders, and youth. while voting is a crucial aspect to civic engagement, this study captures diverse civic behaviors of latinos during presidential elections in 2016 and measures of community grassroots organizing, social justice activity, volunteering, and other forms of civic engagement. table 11 displays the civic engagement measures that we created to understand correlation to civic knowledge. to further explore the underlying factors associated with traditional and nontraditional civic engagement behaviors, several questions from the assessment were combined to create a subscale of seven domains to test for statistical significant to each factor examined; this is important to create more stable estimates and reduce experiment-wise type i error. a type 1 error represents the probability of rejecting a finding when in fact it is true, also known as alpha α. the scores from each domain as calculated as the average of all behavioral indicators described in table 4. table 3. measures of traditional and nontraditional civic involvement score indicators total engagement score was computed for all participants who reported on traditional forms of volunteerism. signing petitions, volunteering for a political organization or political candidate, participated in a protest, march, or demonstration, etc. parent volunteerism score was computed for participants who identify as parents. volunteering at child’s school, for child’s classroom, attending school events, etc. volunteerism barriers score was computed for participants who reported barriers to political engagement. needing childcare, needing someone to take care of my home responsibilities, lack of transportation, limited english, etc. voter engagement score was computed for participants who are eligible to vote. registered to vote, voting in national/local elections, planning to vote, etc. transnational connections score was computed for participants who identify as immigrants to the united states owning property in their country of origin, sending money to country of origin, having knowledge of country of origin’s politics, etc. transnational civics score was computed for participants who identify as immigrants to the united states and reading/listening to news about issues regarding country of origin, attending rally in u.s. about country of origin issues, contributing to campaigns for country of origin, etc. social media political engagement score was computed for participants who reported using social media. following elected officials, political candidates, and public figures in social media platforms (e.g., facebook, twitter, instagram, etc.) these seven forms of political involvement were computed for each participant and were analyzed using a bivariate correlation. based on the initial assessment (baseline), the gains in civic knowledge are correlated to total engagement scores, voter patterns, and social media 129 political engagement scores. figure 5 shows the scoring cluster with significant correlations. we will analyze these effects further once t3 is collected. figure 5. correlations of civic engagement on civic knowledge discussion the findings on the impact of cultivando liderazgo are promising. first, the students showed significant improvement on their civic knowledge through engaging in hands-on activities. the curriculum derives from on a popular education model that values lived experience and "learning by doing," and focuses on learning for social justice. participating directly in democracy, such as signing petitions, volunteering, protesting, and voting the students' s made a powerful and significant impact on the participants' civic knowledge. while the authors measured traditional media, such as watching the television news (in spanish and english) and reading the newspaper, the participants' social media engagement about politics significantly and positively correlated with their civic knowledge. social media also represents a tangible and relatively cost-free way to engage community members in civic engagement. social media participation is a newer form of civic engagement (smith, 2013), so our findings are likely to make a strong contribution to the field. these preliminary findings do p<.05 p>.05 p>.05 r=23* r=22* r=.26* civic knowledge is positively related to total engagement score civic knowledge is positively related to voter patterns civic knowledge is positively related to social media political engagment score civic knowledge is not related to parent volunteerism score civic knowledge is not related to transnational connections score civic knowledge is not related to transnational civics score 130 not support the “clickivism” or “slackivism” thesis that argues online political engagement is fleeting and does not translate into offline political participation, such as voting (howard et al., 2016). rather, our research supports de zuñiga and colleagues’ (2012) study that seeking information and news online supports offline political participation and civic engagement. they found social media fosters the democratic process and increases participants’ social capital. researchers have also written about the ways that social media (e.g., youtube, twitter, facebook) have allowed marginalized groups to embark on powerful social justice campaigns (atony & thomas, 2010; byrne, 2013; valenzuela, 2013). there is an exciting opportunity for our study to extend the understanding of latinos, social media and civic engagement. for example, latinos have the highest rate of facebook usage, compared to whites and blacks, and use youtube for news more so than whites (krogstgad, 2015). we look forward to exploring the data with additional statistical testing. conclusion this research study is the first of its kind conducted with latino communities in san diego county. although local efforts to engage latino communities in this region are not new, the implementation and study of a culturally and linguistically relevant civics curriculum grounded on popular education pedagogy is a novel initiative. cultivando liderazgo intentionally cultivates the participation of vulnerable and hard-to-reach communities. cultivando liderazgo has had a far scope in san diego county. hundreds of community residents, elders, youth, families, and students have participated in the project, as research participants or research assistants. above all, study findings show promising results for the importance of using a respectful, strength-based and human rights framework and begin to illuminate the efficacy of the approach 131 references abrajano, m.a. & alvarez, r.m. 2010. assessing the causes and effects of political trust among u.s. latinos. american politics research, 38(1),110-141. https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673x08330273 antony, m.g & 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(2014). reimagining diversity work: multigenerational learning, adult immigrants, and dialogical community-based learning. metropolitan universities, 25(3):47-66. retrieved from https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/muj/article/view/20581 yosso, t. j. (2005). whose culture has capital? a critical race theory discussion of community cultural wealth. race ethnicity and education, 8(1), 69-91. https://doi.org/10.1080/1361332052000341006 https://doi.org/10.1002/ncr.90108 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-7379.2007.00104.x https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764213479375 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1460-2466.2009.01421.x https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/muj/article/view/20581 https://doi.org/10.1080/1361332052000341006 133 author information arcela nuñez-alvarez is research director of the national latino research center at california state university san marcos where she works on community-based participatory action research projects focused on civic literacy, education, incarceration and environmental justice. * arcela nunez-alvarez, ph.d. national latino research center california state university san marcos 333 s. twin oaks valley road san marcos, ca 92096 telephone: 760-750-3503 email: anunez@csusm.edu marisol clark-ibáñez is a full professor in the sociology department at california state university san marcos. she is the faculty director of the national latino research center where she works on applied research projects in the community, on such topics as civic engagement, education, immigration, and incarceration. marisol clark-ibáñez, ph.d. california state university san marcos 333 s. twin oaks valley road san marcos, ca 92096 telephone: 760-750-4631 email: mibanez@csusm.edu ana m. ardón is an applied sociologist examining and addressing historical, racial, political and socio-economic disparities in latino communities through the lens of intersectionality, critical race theory, and applied action research. she is a researcher at the national latino research center at california state university san marcos focused on youth empowerment, education, and civic and political education. ana m. ardón, m.a. national latino research center california state university san marcos 333 s. twin oaks valley road san marcos, ca 92096 telephone: 760-750-3505 email: aardon@csusm.edu 134 amy l. ramos is professor of psychology in the department of behavioral sciences at grossmont community college and research associate at harder and company community research. she evaluates cultivando liderazgo research for the national latino research center. amy l. ramos, ph.d. department of behavioral sciences grossmont college 8800 grossmont college drive el cajon, california 92020 telephone: 619-644-7562 email: amy.ramos@gcccd.edu michelle ramos pellicia is an associate professor of hispanic sociolinguistic and applied linguistics in the department of modern language studies at california state university san marcos. she is a research associate of the national latino research center. michelle ramos pellicia, ph.d. department of modern languages studies california state university san marcos 333 s. twin oaks valley road san marcos, ca 92096 telephone: 760-750-8006 email: mramos@csusm.edu * corresponding author 56 the dynamics of university/city government relationships: it’s personal joanne e. curry abstract the rich potential of university/city government relationships is often overwhelmed by day-today conflicts over everything from planning and land use to transportation and noise. such disputes—even a single, unresolved incident—can create an enduring narrative of antagonism that undermines the relationship ongoing. leveraging recent doctoral research contrasting two case studies, this paper discusses the importance of history and context and describes management processes that can build trust and lead to a mutual strategic purpose. introduction universities and their host city governments share a love of place and both are increasingly interested in the potential for universities to serve as crucial anchor institutions in urban and metropolitan areas. universities can assume a variety of roles in economic, social and cultural development and collaborations with city governments and community organizations can be mutually fulfilling. however, many researchers warn of the perils in collaborations. huxham (2003, 420–421) comments that “making collaboration work effectively is highly resourceconsuming and often painful. . . . don’t do it unless you have to.” harkavy (2000, 3) reflects that “to make the case for university/community partnerships is easy to do. the hard thing is to figure out how to do it. the hardest part of all, of course, is to actually get it done.” these statements resonate with those of us who have been involved in creating and sustaining partnerships. their conclusions are also supported in the management literature on interorganizational alliances, the public sector literature on collaboration, and the higher-education literature on university-community engagement. in this paper, i will use the results of recent doctoral research involving a comparative case study of a canadian university, simon fraser university, and two of its three host city governments. i will explain how the context of the university and each city, the record of historical incidents, and the created story of the university/community relationships can continue to influence the relationship between a university and a city government. the paper also identifies the management and communication processes that are important. two factors, the impact of the relationship between the university president and city mayor and the importance placed by city representatives on less formal interactions, will be highlighted as being among the greatest surprises from the research. the paper concludes with a list of the practical implications for city governments and universities. the characteristics of the two case study cities is summarized in table 1 (curry, 2015, 50). this research included a literature review, extensive archival research, and twenty-six in-person interviews with university and city representatives at various organizational levels as well as with leaders of third-party organizations. the findings from the literature as well as the perspectives and voices of those interviewed are used throughout this paper. 57 table 1 profile of sfu’s host cities municipality city one city two population (2011) 223,218 468,251 avg. annual growth rate (2006– 2011) 10.1 percent 18.6 percent percent of population age 20 and below (2011) 19.8 percent 26 percent avg. family income (2011) $61,023 $60,168 jobs per resident worker (2006) 1.30 0.69 foreign-born residents (2011) 50 percent 41 percent business tax base (% of overall base) (2010) $98,202,458 (52.2 percent) $65,779,849 (31.5 percent) population 20 years & over with university degree (2006) 29.5 percent 16.4 percent sfu student population resident in city (2013) 6,387 (21.3 percent of total) 4,373 (14.6% percent total) sfu faculty & staff resident in city (2013) 1,705 (25.3 percent of total) 478 (7.1 percent of total) city governments and universities: an unusual relationship the relationship between a university and its host city is substantially different from other interorganizational alliances commonly explored in the literature. university/city relationships can span centuries and university campuses are uniquely permanent elements in the urban fabric. even over a short period of time, key participants in those relationships can change with great frequency, given election cycles and fixed-term positions for many university senior administrators. universities are also highly decentralized. the interaction between universities and external entities can occur at various levels of the institution, including at the level of the president’s office, through departments and research centers and also at the level of individual faculty and staff members. the stance of city governments towards its dealings with external organizations and the dynamic of the working relationship between elected city officials and staff can also affect the relationship. another impact of the long-term nature of the university/city relationship is that changes in the strategic purpose that can occur over time (koza & lewin, 2000). this is in contrast with private-sector inter-organizational alliances in which the strategic purpose may be known from the outset and usually is the impetus for entering into the alliance. thus, with university/city 58 relationships, both organizations need to develop processes to adjust to changes and to take advantage of emergent opportunities and strategies. my recent thesis (curry, 2015) contrasted two case studies to illuminate how university/city relationships can go beyond being a transactional or operational focus and evolve to a partnership that is strategic and “transformational” (goddard & kempton, 2011; petter, et al., 2015). transactional activities and low-level disputes, such as a challenging zoning submission, can create stresses that discourage the development of a higher-level partnership. on the other hand, a more strategic partnership can help resolve transactional activities, as small issues are more likely to be dealt with positively if the partnership is viewed as strategic and long-term. the increasing interest by both city governments and universities in expanding roles and activities in regional economic development (benneworth, 2010) can create the opening to redefine a university/city relationship. the goal of my thesis was to understand the “doing of collaboration” and the specific management processes that are important for developing and maintaining (or re-establishing) trust and for building confidence in the university/city collaboration. in related research, wagstaff (2013, 9) had distinguished between the structure and process of collaboration – the “way things are done.” he identified the importance of paying attention to “the more subtle and nuanced aspects of the partnership that ultimately contribute to the quality of the relationship. there is a requirement for relationship building, flexibility and creativity, cross-cultural skill, patience and perseverance. . . . it is in the less clearly differentiated, more ambiguous relational aspects of the partnership that the seeds of success or failure are sown.” thomson and perry (2006) have also identified this area of activity as a gap in the literature, calling for further research to make sense of “the black box of collaboration.” the influence of history and key incidents and when he comes, you see . . . he’s stepping [on]to some ice that he’s never seen before, but underneath it is the legacy of this relationship….it’s right there, and he has to find out…what was underneath the ice in a place where [he’s] never been. (faculty member) within the bureaucracy of the city, i think there were long memories; [that] would be my guess. and maybe there were blow-ups over some of the things we did up here . . . there was somebody there who wanted to drag the anchor for quite a while. (former university president) as the literature suggests (davies, 1998), and as these two case studies support, when it comes to the potential for collaborative success between a university and its community, context is everything. the history of the university/city relationship is especially relevant in affecting the success (or failure) of joint economic development activities and even the willingness to pursue a deeper collaboration. the case studies in question were with two different cities. in the first (city one), the relationship dated from the founding of the university in 1965, whereas the second (city two) concerned a campus that was just over a decade old at the time of the research. these two cities had vastly different local economic contexts. city one was completely confident of its ability to attract economic activity, irrespective of its relationship with the university (“we got a guy with a big stick, and he beats off the businesses we don’t want. . . . i mean, it sounds a 59 bit cocky, but it’s a bit true. . . . this place attracts business, and you really can be a little bit picky and choosey as to which businesses you facilitate” [city staff member]). city two, on the other hand, was managing a negative public perception, primarily due to safety concerns, and a corresponding challenge in attracting businesses. this—and the absence of any historic grievances with the university—meant that the city government quickly recognized the initial benefit of the university’s presence in rebranding the city and attracting investment. in the case of city one, the fifty-year history featured long periods of peaceful co-existence and lack of appreciation for one another interspersed with a few episodes of significant conflict. the history was carefully documented in the thesis using archival research, internal and external correspondence from the office of the president and newspaper articles of announcements and controversies. the documentation revealed ups and downs—and “ins and outs”—as one or both partners made efforts to nurture the relationship. periods of inactivity would be followed by the arrival of a new president or mayor who would reach out to correct past irritations or advance initiatives that had stalled due to a poor relationship. these efforts often resulted in a resolution, after which a long period of peaceful co-existence was the norm. the correspondence, and interviews with those involved during the past several decades, revealed several themes. first, in the university’s early years, there was a constant struggle and resistance to municipal governance authority. university officials believed they should be able to build or make use of their campus lands without interference from the city government, whereas the city government was unsure of how to manage their new resident university: the view of the university was that we could do whatever the hell we liked. and there was kind of arrogance on the part of the university. . . . [when we started to deal with them in a more kind of equal way and respected that they [the city] basically had the authority . . . when we finally kind of accepted that then worked on that, i think our relationships were really quite good. (former university president) another theme was the belief among university representatives that the city government did not understand the role of a university and lacked appreciation of the university’s contributions of time and funding and its potential role in economic development: they have absolutely no appreciation whatsoever of the significance of the university to the municipality. (william g. saywell [university president], to bob anderson [director of community economic development centre, personal communication, august 10, 1989). the research also revealed the fundamental and enduring impact of key negative incidents. absent a formal mechanism to track the university/city relationship, critical information was “lost” in the university’s institutional memory. for example, the city’s original donation of over 1,000 acres of land on which the university was sited was forgotten over time. more than twenty years after the original donation, the city repurchased some of this land, at a cost of ten million canadian dollars, in order to dedicate the land for park purposes. this resolution came after a very public and bitter battle, during which the university resisted reducing its land holding, given uncertainty about future needs. only through this research has many of the current generation of university officials become aware of the original donation and the need to acknowledge the city’s original—and significant—contribution. the continual lack of acknowledgement of this donation, and likely other smaller incidents, contributed to the enduring story of a negative and unproductive relationship. and while the long 60 serving mayor has come to terms with the cost of the land repurchase, the public battle appears to have left scars and reduced trust. while the dispute in this case was a large one, discussions at practitioner conferences suggest that a series of smaller incidents can have a similar result. memories, which can fail at critical times, can equally prevail over long periods when there are old wounds or even just vague recollections of mistrust or resentment. these can come to define the relationship in a way that is difficult to change. the importance of the story of the relationship currall and inkpen (2002) state that there is a socially constructed shared history between organizations that constitutes a collective orientation. in the city one case study, the dispute over the lands and subsequent indifference to the needs of the other organization engendered a shared impression of a poor relationship. this dominant narrative masked periodic small successes (“there is a history where we work together, but it doesn’t get a lot of play. it is more known in-house” [city mayor]). the legend of a poor relationship became a barrier in itself; staff in both organizations lost interest in identifying joint initiatives and there was no visible support from the leadership to take risks to pursue collaborative programs. to move forward, it was suggested that the organizations needed to change the narrative: change the story. the hope is that the view [that the city wasn’t] fully compensated for the land has been overtaken by the fact that [there] is a successful community on the mountain [and] they benefit from the developing infrastructure and growing tax base. . . . we are not footloose. we are rooted here. we have to make it work. so even when it isn’t working, it’s working. (third-party chief executive officer) stop thinking it’s adversarial. so, you know, how many meetings have you and i sat in and listened to the senior administrators at the university [complain about] [the city]. stop it. as long as you do that, you perpetuate it and it’s them and us. so we are in this together, we don’t have to like the players to want to work together to an outcome that benefits everyone. . . . break that cycle. (unattributed) even in the city two case study in which the city-university relationship was trumpeted as vital and successful, interviewees recognized the importance of a positive narrative: “it’s important to create that environment and to really demonstrate that there is a good working relationship. i think from that, people will realize that we have been working together, we are working together, and we’ll continue working together.” (city mayor) the cultural divide given the challenges and perils facing a university/city government relationship, it is easy to see how relationships falter so frequently. in addition to fissures resulting from historical conflicts, the cultural divide can hamper understanding between the parties. senior leaders from cities and the university highlighted this divide: i think a lot of politicians are uncomfortable in the presence of academics…. and so you’re seen as [a] bit of an exotic creature in the minds of people that you’re dealing with in city hall, even though many of them are more sophisticated and more talented than you are. but there [has] always been this distance… (former university president) 61 many universities are not the best partners. they are used running their own show. they are used to being a senior partner. . . . i think that can undermine or contaminate relationships with municipalities. on the other hand, municipalities may not fully appreciate or understand the needs of universities, and that can cause difficulties too. (university president) they [city governments] manage themselves really well. they did not need a university or anybody else who felt kind of uppity to suggest to them what their relationship ought to be like. (former university president) [it’s] not easy for every peasant to be part of the olympus [referencing mountaintop location of university and socioeconomic distance] (unattributed). if you are naturally inclined to be academic, you tend to associate with people who come from that kind of background. if you are more inclined to be a people person . . . then you tend to be more interested and engaged in that kind of area. (city mayor) this cultural divide needs to be bridged and a commitment to collaboration can help to create the appropriate level of expectations for the relationship. committing to collaboration and setting expectations holland (2005) summarizes the principles and characteristics of effective university/community partnerships published by several organizations. the common elements include attention to communication patterns and relationships of mutual trust, respect, genuineness, and commitment. my research supported the importance of these principles and characteristics in the two case study relationships. it takes commitment to overcome historical conflicts and bridge the cultural divide. given the barriers, universities and cities need to ensure that someone is advocating for the collaboration. this is especially the case when excessively low or high expectations are pointedly counterproductive: really, maybe the relationships don’t have to be great. maybe it’s enough that the kids get their education, they get their degree; they chug off to a job whether it is in burnaby or vancouver or timbuktu and maybe that’s enough. (former university senior staff member) the level of expectation about the benefits of a collaboration is important. abodor (2005) found that trust-building can be a self-fulfilling prophecy in which initial expectations affect behavior and trust. there is an optimal level of expectations. expectations that are too low, or too high, can be counterproductive. this vicious circle can also be expressed differently: the lack of commitment and limited interaction block familiarity, preventing the university from understanding the needs of the cities and discouraging cities from harnessing the university’s intellectual and physical resources and its worldwide network. lacking a track record of success, neither party is inclined to aim higher or take risks. well we have this center for community economic development, can it be useful? (faculty member) representatives need to be assigned to nurture the relationship, especially in the early days (“there needs to be someone else who chooses [the city].” [third-party chief executive 62 officer]). the commitment to assign personnel needs to be long-term. given the tendency for a dominant narrative to undermine the impact of intermittent small successes, the level of interest and involvement has to be sustained. the worst starting point is to interact only when a decision is needed on a planning issue. city and university representatives highlighted the importance of visibility and frequency of contact: when i came on board, i guess that i was shocked [about] how bad the relationship was. . . . i remember the councillor was telling me, “jeez, you know, the only time we ever [see] the university is when they come down off the mountain and want something from us, and once they [get] it, they go up and don’t come back.” and that was a pretty standard comment that i heard. (former university senior staff member) and in all fairness, i mean, a lot of people commute. . . . their world revolves around getting off the mountain at 4:30. . . . i mean, if we’re a university that wants to be part of the community, engaged as [current president] has talked about, you have to have boots on the ground. you can’t really do it online or from 9:00 to 5:00. (former university senior staff member) you have to work at it; it’s like any relationship. i mean, the city is very sensitive when you disappear for a while. . . . i wouldn’t say it’s insecurity—that’s too strong of a word—but if [you] go away for a while, there’s a tendency of them to think . . . they don’t really need us anymore. (former university senior staff member) mutuality—the two-way nature of the collaboration—was a theme that arose in the interviews. often the starting point is for one organization to assist the other in an area that is not in their immediate self-interest. enos and morton (2003, pp. 20-41) outline a “self-to-shared interest” continuum that moves move from a transactional partnership with discrete objectives to a transformational relationship, in which partners are able to empathize and accurately represent each other’s interests. as you move closer to transformational along the continuum, interpersonal relationships are deepened and significant risks are taken as institutional relationships are tested, resulting in mutual learning. the importance of trust-building trust in a university/city government relationship must be built over time and the process is never permanent or complete. huxham and vangen’s (2005) trust-building loop was useful in explaining the unique situation of each case study relationship. there must be adequate trust for parties to be willing to take a risk and initiate a collaboration. as expectations are based on past behavior, huxham and vangen suggest beginning with modest and realistic immediate-term goals to reinforce trusting attitudes and build the foundation for more ambitious collaborations. in situations where lack of trust might frustrate an ambitious collaboration, my research identified the need for an on-ramp to the trust-building loop. the on-ramp or transitional phase is necessary to resolve past conflicts, demonstrate commitment and support taking risks. a key feature of the on-ramp is encouraging responsiveness to the needs of a collaborator. a record of responsiveness, especially when not based on self-interest, demonstrates the institution’s commitment to the collaboration. in the city two case-study (featuring the newer, 63 more productive relationship), senior leadership helped to create an environment in which staff at all organizational levels were encouraged to be open, responsive and approachable – reaching out to individuals in the other organization for their expertise and support. sustaining trust is crucial – and difficult – as incidents occur, the environment changes, and primary representatives are replaced. the challenge is to sustain the trust-building loop by attending to the dynamics of collaboration and making constant adjustments in response to changes. huxham and vangen (2005) identify the management processes used to sustain the loop, including: managing dynamics; managing power imbalances; nurturing the collaborative relationships by paying attention to the management of communication; credit recognition; joint ownership; varying levels of commitment; and resolving conflicting views on aims and agendas. the relationship between the university president and city mayor establishing a good relationship between the university president and the mayor (or in some cases, the city manager) is often believed to be crucial to the relationship between a city government and university. the relationship therefore has to be with the president [as] the symbolic ranking counterpart. so if that relationship . . . is kind of like the chinese saying, you know it’s the mandate of heaven, [if] that relationship is blessed, then other good things could follow. . . . everything else is a reflection of how good the mayor and the president get along. do they play golf together? (faculty member). establishing a sense of personal connection and trust was actually very important to greasing the wheels. i mean, at the end of the day, things were going to be treated very professionally and very technically and very openly in terms of the zoning approvals and all the rest of it. but the establishment of the direct personal relationship and then of that liaison committee that met regularly was a very good thing. (former university president) however, in the two case studies, a good mayor/president relationship did not always advance or deepen the organizational relationship. in one case, a very close and collegial relationship did not translate into more support for joint projects or create a greater desire to pursue opportunities. in another case, a tense relationship between the mayor and president was mitigated as other senior administrators assumed primary liaison roles. however, in both cases, periodic involvement of the president or mayor was helpful and their lack of presence was noted: they always sent a flunky, they always held back. . . . you need senior people involved—the president/vice-presidents and mayor/deputy mayor if this is a priority item. (unattributed). in the city two relationship, multiple layers of interaction were established during the first decade to pursue joint research projects and a variety of social and economic initiatives. these relationships emerged between and among a city manager, a campus administrator, a faculty dean and department head, as well as between individual faculty and staff members. in all cases, there was frequent contact and mutual support. despite this layering of fruitful relationships, leadership from the mayor and president was still felt to be important to encourage interaction, acknowledge the relationships as a priority, and publically celebrate successes. it was, therefore, a significant benefit for the mayor and president to be visible at key points in the process and seen as supportive. 64 personal relationships and the importance of informal interaction in both case studies, interviewees stressed the importance of personal relationships and of the relatability of the respective organizations’ representatives. this “soft tissue” of the relationship acted as an additional connector across and between more formal structures and interactions. [we] had become friends over the years, and we spent an hour bullshitting every time we get together, talking about various perspectives on . . . our kids and all of those things. . . . there are people who are more inclined to hang out. (city mayor). is there somebody across the table that you can phone up outside of the structure and say, “what about this?” . . . if you have the relationship, then you can make things happen. now you may have to have a structure which formalizes the relationship. but you hopefully build the relationship inside of that structure. . . . the structure is a tool . . . but it doesn’t make the thing work. (former senior staff). who do you schmooze [with]? who do you actually have a regard for on the other side of the table who’s going to be straight with you? even if it’s off record—outside of….a formal setting—but can you phone them and say, “this is what we’re thinking about. before we float this, what’s the deal?” (former senior staff). that organizational structure doesn’t matter a damn. has nothing to do with outcome. the only thing that matters is connections. . . . but you can’t get people to talk; you can’t get people to even negotiate, which was the history of failed non-negotiations with [the city] largely on the [the city] side, because you didn’t have the personal connections. . . . you couldn’t create an organizational structure that could do what [a well-connected university senior administrator] could do as a person walking in the door, having a martini with somebody. that’s the way it works. (former senior staff) that’s the truth in all areas of life and in business. it’s true too that you get relationships where a couple of people hit it off, they like each other’s company, they tend to be more willing to talk candidly, they get past issues quicker, you know, where you’ve got to more stand off this relationship and where you’re not so engaged . . . you don’t get as much done. . . . you tend to be more willing to listen or more willing to be able to work with. (city mayor) my study supported the need for liaison people—boundary spanners with the appropriate skills and mandates. boundary spanners or knowledge brokers are frequently cited in the literature as important to the success of collaborations (atkins et al., 1999; meyer, 2010; weerts & sandmann, 2008; reichert, 2006; williams, 2002). for example, it is invaluable for the university to have people who can recognize the city’s needs (and ability) to utilize the university’s research capacity. the relatability of individuals should also be considered when assigning the liaison role. in addition to being able to identify opportunities, liaison people should also be adept at reaching back into the university or city and, in some cases, at convincing people to participate. there was some disagreement in research findings on the importance of less formal, social interactions. while university officials were inclined to see informal get-togethers as timewasters or as occasions to avoid, lest they get caught having to manage sticky issues, city 65 representatives valued these occasions as good opportunities to get to know one another and to raise issues and opportunities at an informal level. city staff also preferred this approach in that it sometimes saved them from including an untested issue as an agenda item in a formal meeting and/or raising it before the mayor and council: it’s the conversations—that liaison committee of groups of two and three standing around chatting before we sat down to dinner. to me that’s where the work gets done. . . . and if we have to endure either the president of the university or the mayor or me going on about how great we are and all the wonderful things we are doing. . . . that’s a small price to pay for the opportunity to be in a room with people who are focused on the issues and projects that affect all three parties simultaneously. so skip the dinner. meet, have cocktails, chat after, done! (unattributed) my operating style is pick up the phone, wander down, drop in, show up, have conversations. scheduling meetings—suddenly there’s the need for an agenda, suddenly everybody is a little more sensitive in both what they reveal and what they don’t. (thirdparty chief executive officer) while formal liaison committees can be useful mechanisms to ensure that time is allocated for discussion, the two case studies provided evidence that such committees do not guarantee that fruitful discussion will take place and are not always an effective management mechanism. short, informal interactions can be beneficial and are particularly highly valued by the city participants, supplemented by more formal meetings to fully discuss any issues that arise. committees that involved other stakeholders from the city appeared to be more valued than bilateral committees. summary of findings on critical management processes my research delved into the “black box of collaboration” to understand the various factors that influence collaborations and the range of management processes that are useful in building and supporting relationships. the history and context along with informal interactions and the mayor-president relationship were highlighted in this paper. while the research produced a great deal of nuanced understanding, some of which is elaborated upon in this paper, this paper focused on four major findings: 1. history matters: like trust, the record of history builds slowly, but whether it turns into a foundational stone on which to build, or a millstone straining at the institutional neck, depends upon whether the details of history are recorded and remembered accurately and, even more, whether conflicts and injuries are resolved openly and in good faith. stories—good or bad—endure and may define the relationship. 2. context matters: although lessons can be universal, every relationship is unique and every city (and every university) has its own set of challenges and opportunities. whether on the university or city side, the best way to advance goals and avoid problems is to make the effort to understand the context of your collaborator. 3. encouragement cascades from the top: university presidents and city mayors possess great capacity to lead by example. the president/mayor relationship doesn’t have to be warm, friendly or supremely close, but both parties should understand that they set the tone. if there is a commitment to put effort into the collaboration, the leaders can create 66 an environment of openness and responsiveness. interaction should be encouraged at multiple levels of the organization through a combination of participation on existing committees and initiatives and special-purpose structures. 4. good institutional relationships depend upon good personal relationships: in organizations as complex and multilayered as universities (and cities), there are many potential points of contact. it is crucial to support the ability of key liaison people to span boundaries, solve problems and maintain goodwill. success flows from frequent personal and informal contact and from attention to trust-building processes that seek mutuality, set expectations, attribute credit, and encourage adaptability. recommendations to cities and universities the following are the practical recommendations for universities and cities that wish to build successful collaborations: take into account the history of the relationship. document and understand the history of the relationship and recognize that there are different interpretations of that history. negative incidents should be identified and addressed to the best ability of both parties. this will allow each organization to be open to strategic opportunities and responsive to the other institution. ensure that this history is communicated to new employees. at minimum, accept and maintain a positive and respectful relationship. if the relationship’s history has not allowed for trust to be developed or repaired and if a strategic project or strategy of mutual interest has not been identified, it is still desirable to achieve a respectful, peaceful coexistence. a range of communication mechanisms, including participation of both the university and the city in third-party organizations such as boards of trade, can help to identify common issues and possibilities for joint projects. establish a culture of openness and responsiveness. demonstrating responsiveness to the needs of a collaborator is a major factor in building a successful relationship. senior administrators in both organizations should strive to create an environment in which staff at all levels feel encouraged to be open and approachable to their counterpart to identify and respond to opportunities. both organizations must be prepared to work at the collaboration and to build the necessary relationships and processes. demonstrate relevance and identify a valued university role and shared purpose or vision. has the university established its relevance? what is the “why” of the relationship? does the city understand the opportunities and areas in which the university can contribute? building understanding can take time and many small demonstrations of relevance are needed, especially when attempting to harness the power and benefits of a research university. it is crucial to understand the context of the university and city and how this might assist the university in determining the optimal roles in economic, social, and cultural development. build trust over time. set appropriate expectations, celebrate and attribute successes, take risks, and assist without the need to realize a short-term benefit (for example, in some areas of advocacy that assist the other organization). repairing a relationship marred by conflicts and disputes is different from starting afresh. if both parties are committed to resetting a troubled relationship, start with small projects to gain confidence and build trust. it is likely that disputes will arise with greater contact. some existing liaison structures and relationships may provide 67 relief but a dispute-resolution process (such as guidelines for the appointment of a joint or external mediator) should be discussed in advance. communicate regularly using a number of approaches. make sure there are one or more designated liaison people or relationship managers who are relatable and have the appropriate skills. make use of third-party organizations and venues in which the university and city are part of a larger group of business and community. consider cross-committee appointments, liaison committees with a mandate appropriate to the goals of the relationship, and other mechanisms— but only when they have a purpose. periodically reflect on the health of the collaboration and review formal liaison committees and management structures. an unnecessary committee or meetings that is seen as useless does not further the collaboration. encourage and develop multilayer points of sustained contact. pursue roles and activities that deepen the reach and impact of a university’s teaching, research, and community engagement missions. student involvement is generally a safe starting point, but connecting to the research enterprise has great impact. a commitment to community engagement as an institutional mission or campus mandate is useful. it creates a positive environment to encourage this contact. it also can support the case for allocating people and resources to the collaboration. conclusion collaboration and the processes that support it are resource-intensive but beneficial for cities and universities pursuing mutual strategic objectives. joint initiatives in areas of importance to the city and its residents, whether in economic development or addressing environmental or social issues, can move a university/city relationship from transactional to transformative. even in cases where a mutual strategic objective has not yet been identified, a peaceful, respectful relationship is beneficial for resolving transactional issues. openness, responsiveness and demonstrated relevance on the part of both organizations builds trust and confidence. it is through this kind of communication and relationship-building that city governments and universities can best identify and respond to emergent opportunities and find a strategic mutual purpose. the result can be a virtuous and reinforcing cycle as early successes strengthen the commitment to collaboration and the willingness to dedicate resources. this, in turn, creates greater collaborative capacity, leading to more interest to cooperate and to take risks for the betterment of community and place. 68 references abodor, h. 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(2008). building a two-way street: challenges and opportunities for community engagement at research universities. the review of higher education 32 (1), 73–106. doi:10.1353/rhe.0.0027. williams, paul. 2002. the competent boundary spanner. public administration 80 (1), 103-124. doi:10.1111/1467-9299.00296. 70 acknowledgements the support of simon fraser university and the cities of burnaby and surrey in conducting this research is acknowledged. my thesis supervisors from the university of bath, drs. ammon salter and john davies, have been instrumental in my research. i also thank richard littlemore for his editorial skills and acknowledge the early inspiration of warren gill in selecting my thesis topic. author information joanne’s practice and research over the past two decades have focused on community engagement and university-local government partnerships. this is the first article based on her doctor of business administration research at the university of bath where she was awarded the richard and shirley mawditt prize for outstanding dissertation. joanne curry dean (pro-tem), lifelong learning vice-president, external relations (acting) simon fraser university 515 w. hastings st. vancouver, bc v6b 5k3 e-mail: joannec@sfu.ca telephone: 778-782-5138 mailto:joannec@sfu.ca metropolitan universities vol. 29 no. 3 (august 2018), doi: 10.18060/22324 using public private partnerships to accelerate student success vicki l. golich, sandra haynes, and steve kreidler abstract metropolitan state university of denver (msu denver) has used various ways to craft curriculum that directly meets employers’ and students’ needs in key economic drivers in the state of colorado. moving beyond the standard industry advisory councils used in many, especially professional programs, the institution has consulted with industry leaders prior to building facilities and developing curriculum to ensure industry needs are met. as msu denver faculty collaborated with their industry partners, they worked to embed both content and skills throughout the curriculum to ensure alumni were prepared for this 21st century workplace. additionally, msu denver has honored past experience and on the job training of employers and employees in a way that many four-year institutions have resisted. keywords: workforce; curriculum; public/private partnerships introduction over 80 years ago, john dewey (1933, p. 35) challenged the academy to think seriously about student learning versus faculty teaching: “[t]here are teachers who think they have done a good day’s teaching irrespective of what pupils have learned.” ever since, the quest was on to try to understand how students learn, how teachers know what they have learned, and what instructors need them to learn. research on pedagogy, assessment, and curriculum development now abounds. pedagogy a critical transition in higher education pedagogy came with the recognition that teaching as the “sage on the stage” was less effective than facilitating learning as a “guide on the side,” an idea popularized by king (1993; see also stice, 1987). work in the classroom shifted from a facultycentered to a student-centered approach, with the focus on student learning rather than faculty teaching. faculty roles and responsibilities have been evolving ever since (fabry et. al., 1997; harris and bell, 1990). a key element in this transition was to move to active learning strategies designed to engage students in their own discovery of knowledge, as they are required to learn by doing (boehrer, 1990-91; chickering & gamson, 1987; ewell & jones, 1991; mckeachie, et. a., 1986; pascarella & terrenzini, 1991; umbach & wawrzynski, 2005). indeed, “fifteen years of neuroscience, biology, and cognitive psychology research findings on how humans learn offer this powerful and singular conclusion: ‘it is the one who does the work who does the learning’” (doyle, 2008 quoted in zakrajsek & doyle, 2012, p. 7). according to mezirow (1991), learning does not occur without the creation of meaning. this constructivist theory called transformative learning holds that learning occurs via the learner’s 74 interpretation and reinterpretation of their experience. instrumental learning occurs through solving problems and completing tasks and communicative learning occurs when the student can express what they have learned as well as how it has shaped their feelings and desires (mezirow, 1991). transformative learning builds on the work of carl rogers (1969) who posited that learning is meaningless without experience. cognitive understanding is inadequate without experience (e.g., one can understand the process of surgery in great depth while at the same time being loath to allow a surgeon without experience to operate.) faculty and researchers seeking to improve student learning quickly realized and systematically discovered that students benefited greatly from frequent feedback on their performance, as well as frequent faculty-student interactions (bridging the gap, 2015; busteed, 2015; chickering & gamson, 1987; ewell & jones, 1991). metropolitan state university of denver (msu denver) faculty engage their students in working collaboratively to solve a problem, create/innovate a product, or design a strategy for real world applications. for example, dr. aaron brown from mechanical engineering technology and his students worked with revision international on a community development project in the westwood neighborhood of denver where the average household income level is $18,000 a year. dr. brown and 12 students designed and built solar heaters constructed from soda cans, two-by-four lumber, plywood, and computer fans for a total cost of about $30. these units saved about $25 a month on heating bills, a huge savings for families in that income bracket. they installed five demonstration units in westwood then held a workshop to teach the community how to build their own. dr. brown has been approached by the governor’s office about statewide implementation and also by the u.s. institute of peace, part of the u.s. state department, for international implementation. additionally, aviation and aerospace students competed with universities all over the world in the analytical graphics inc. (agi) university grant competition. our students, under the supervision of professor jose lopez, used agi’s satellite tool kit for archaeoastronomy to visualize and analyze ancient monuments’ astronomical alignments. their effort, the first time anyone has ever used stk for this purpose, won them honorable mention in this worldwide competition. this learn-by-doing approach to pedagogy has been successfully graduated students into lucrative careers in local and national high demand fields. assessment the assessment of learning underwent a revolution in the 1980s and 1990s when regional accrediting agencies started to focus on learning outcomes (e.g., what did students learn and how does one know that) versus learning inputs (e.g., quality of library holdings or faculty credentials). institutions of higher education realized that they must demonstrate students are graduating with both content knowledge and the skills needed to be successful in the workplace. harris and bell (1990) were among the first to call attention to the need for assessment to be “organized with the learners as the main audience for the results” (p. 94). with an emphasis on students as learners, faculty require assessment tools that will help them know when students have not fully understood key concepts or content. then faculty can work to ensure that students are integrating, synthesizing and constructing their knowledge “in ways consistent with the discipline and the professional pathways on which they [have] embarked” (meyers and nulty, 2009, p. 565.) 75 tom angelo and patricia cross (1993), whose work relates closely to transformative learning, inspired a new and effective approach to assessment, through their development and adaptation of classroom assessment techniques. this approach helped professors “obtain useful feedback on what, how much, and how well their students are learning,” as a result, faculty can refocus their teaching efforts to increase the effectiveness of student learning (angelo & cross, 1993, p. 3). at msu denver, all degree programs have some kind of culminating senior experience or capstone course—typically grounded in a “real world” experience or issue—that enables faculty to assess what students have learned, both in the disciplinary content and about how to work with others to solve problems. curriculum development as with pedagogy and assessment, curriculum development is best done intentionally, with a focus on how to engage students purposefully in their learning. a substantial body of research demonstrates that students learn best when they are introduced to a topic or concept; use that information by participating in a variety of activities; and, then, apply their learning to a real world issue related to their interests (see, e.g., asiala, et. al., 1997; jankowski, 2016; meyers & nulty, 2009; wiggins & mctighe, 2005). the association of american colleges and universities identified eight high impact practices that faculty should consider as they create curriculum. these include first-year seminars and experiences, common intellectual experiences, learning communities, writing-intensive courses, collaborative assignments and projects, undergraduate research, diversity/global learning, service learning/community-based learning, internships, capstone courses and projects (aac&u, 2017; jankowski, et., al., 2009; kuh, 2008). faculty create the most relevant and engaging curriculum when they do three things: (a) consider the endgame: (b) determine what they want their students to know and be able to do once they have completed the curriculum; and (c) scaffold the needed content, to build sequenced courses. this is so that content knowledge increases over time and integrates the intellectual and twenty-first century “soft skills” so desperately needed in the workforce throughout the curriculum. consider the endgame. consult with those who know what is needful, that is, the potential employer(s). given that curriculum is the purview of faculty, iterative conversations between faculty and industry members led by faculty are vital to the creation of a workable and sustainable curriculum for both parties. topics of conversation need to include what students will need to know and be able to do once they graduate with a degree in this program. then faculty can begin thinking about what kind of course sequencing makes sense (and is feasible), and when to encourage students to participate in internships or service learning activities. scaffold the needed content. as faculty develop curriculum, they need to pay attention to how they build content and skills knowledge on work completed in previous courses, and how courses prepare students for future learning (see figure 1). 76 figure 1. learning outcomes hierarchy adapted from golich, 2000, p. 17. integrative learning. once again, intentionality is critical here. knowledge and skills “…must be developed in, and then applied across, multiple contexts – in different courses, in a variety of disciplines, using a range of modalities” (newman et al., 2014). faculty must work to develop instructional materials that foster the active student participation in learning “…guided by knowledge of what students know and can do, rather than by assumptions about what they should know and should be able to do” (mcdermott & shaffer, 1992, p. 1002). this is the essence of transformative learning: active problem-solving on meaningful tasks. the goal is to ensure that students understand the relevance of course content to their degree program and that they are learning those 21st century soft skills along the way in every course—and, ideally, through coand extra-curricular activities as well. new curriculum and program development. msu denver has developed systems to align new program, degree, and curriculum development to align closely with workplace demand and experiential learning (see msu denver graduate program approval process, 2017). recent program growth in hospitality, brewing, aerospace, and advanced manufacturing have been developed through intensive review of expected job growth and gap analysis of supply of qualified employees in our primary service market. the use of state of colorado documentation (colorado workforce development council, 2016). 77 application of theory msu denver has used the practices described above to create curriculum that directly meets employers’ and students’ needs in key economic drivers in the state of colorado and the country. many msu denver academic departments use industry advisory councils to ensure their curriculum is up-to-date and to meet accreditation standards, particularly in its professional programs. to develop new curricula, faculty have worked iteratively with industry leaders – prior to building facilities and publishing catalog copy – to ensure industry needs are met. in each case, these conversations have confirmed the need for “t-shaped professionals” in the workforce – people who can solve increasingly complex problems in various work environments (aac&u, 2007; bajada & trayler, 2013; eisenbach et. al., 1998). employers need to hire people who have both deep knowledge in content and discipline (the vertical part of the t) and the ability to operate effectively across disciplinary boundaries with critical skills such as communication, teamwork, critical thinking, problem solving, leadership, empathy, cultural awareness, creativity and innovation: the horizontal stroke of the t (what is the “t”?, 2014). as msu denver faculty collaborated with their industry partners, they worked to embed both content and skills throughout the curriculum, to ensure alumni were prepared for this 21st century workplace. additionally, msu denver honors work experience and on-the-job training of employers and employees in a way that many four-year institutions do not. the institution provides credit for prior learning via a portfolio review process that grants academic credit for field courses. military block credit transfer is allowed through the american council on education (ace) military guide recommendations for formal courses and occupations offered by all branches of the military. currently, msu denver is working to accept apprenticeship and journeyman credentials for academic credit. integration of public private partnerships (p3’s) to enhance student learning outcomes while the use of p3’s has become commonplace within higher education in relation to infrastructure and capital facilities, which have dedicated revenue streams (bernstein, 2016), it is rare to find these partnerships used to create or advance student learning opportunities as the most important reason to create said partnership. msu denver has expanded the concept of p3’s primarily to drive program development rather than as a revenue source or replacement, though some projects do contain the positive aspects of new facility development as an outcome. this occurs by-the university working with p3 experts in the field to deliver curriculum in an alternative format for current students and those already working in their respective fields. below are examples of these endeavors. hotel and hospitality learning center a crowning jewel of the auraria campus and msu denver is the springhill suites by marriott and its accompanying hospitality learning center (hlc). msu denver developed the facility to meet employers’ needs for a well-educated workforce in the number one economic cluster in the state, hospitality. the facility is a public-private partnership, built with industry input and in conjunction with sage hospitality, a major hospitality development and management company 78 headquartered in downtown denver. the institution’s interactions with sage and other major hospitality firms such as stonebridge companies, revealed the need for operations talent in the industry, from front-desk personnel to kitchen managers to general hotel managers. all agreed that experiential learning, coupled with theory, was the best way to educate this type of future employee. a once-small major has now doubled in size, and the curriculum has morphed from a single major with concentrations into four distinct majors. in this case, the curriculum needs, as described by hospitality industry partners, reframed our program and the hotel’s operational net income has paid for over 30,000 square feet of new learning facilities attached to the hotel itself. brew pub and brewing operations building on the success of the hotel and hlc, tivoli brewing approached msu denver to help create a curriculum for students interested in brew pub and brewing operations, a growing market in colorado and nationally. the owners’ vision was not simply for another brewpub, but a pub that would participate in helping the industry thrive, by providing well-educated owners and staff to the brewing and pub industries. as a result, tivoli brewing company now operates a full brewpub operation on campus where msu denver students serve as brew masters for the company. their learning spaces are co-located with the brewpub itself, for a fully integrated experiential academic program. advanced manufacturing sciences institute in answer to president barack obama administration’s call to revive the manufacturing industry in the united states, msu denver set out to determine what the manufacturing workforce needed. manufacturing has changed dramatically in the past decades and the talent needed has likewise changed. aerospace in the second leading economic driver in the state of colorado and manufacturing is the largest sector in this industry. msu denver’s administration identified the top aerospace manufacturers in the state and invited them to a brainstorming session prior to the development of any curriculum for an advanced manufacturing program. these conversations revealed that a broad-based, interdisciplinary, t-shaped curriculum was necessary to meet the needs of a changing workforce. engineering skills were only part of the equation. management, computer, and design skills were also important, as were “soft-skills,” such as critical thinking, communication, computational reasoning, and teamwork. to meet these needs, msu denver created the advanced manufacturing sciences institute (amsi) to promote cross-disciplinary collaboration and a curriculum that requires students take courses in a wide array of subjects as well as specialize in a specific area. this new vision for advanced manufacturing led to the need for a new dedicated facility. due primarily to the industry/faculty cooperation in creating a leading-edge curriculum that included 22 entirely new courses, the state of colorado invested $20 million to assist in the construction of a $50 million aerospace and engineering sciences building. industry partners have contributed to this facility, state-of-the-art technology and equipment has been donated, and four firms have signed leases in the facility to increase their interaction with our faculty and students. 79 construction project management once again, success begets success. industry approached msu denver asking for an expansion of the manufacturing curriculum to include trades that often begin with apprenticeships rather than formal higher education. it is often in a company’s best interest to promote from within when looking for management talent but the type of education needed for these positions is often lacking. most trades have rigorous apprenticeship programs that lead to journeyman’s credentials and workers do not seek higher education to move beyond their trade. upon examining switzerland’s model of combining work, apprenticeships, and higher education, the institution created a pathway for journeymen to matriculate into the institution with 30 credit hours granted for apprenticeship and journeyman credentials. this valuing of past experience makes it possible for trades people to gain the education needed to advance in their industry without “starting over.” conclusion transformative learning takes many forms and begins with excellence in pedagogy. active learning techniques, conveying relevancy, and assessing outcomes are critical to effective and lasting knowledge and skills. at msu denver, such pedagogy starts with the end in mind and moves backwards to ensure curriculum infused with the knowledge and skills students and employers need to be effective in the rapidly changing 21st century workplace. conversations with industry partners all indicate that specific skills are indeed necessary but it is what learned while practicing that is most important to for the current and a largely unknown future job market: teamwork, communication, problem solving, leadership, and critical thinking. 80 references angelo, t.a., & cross, k.p. 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(1987). using kolb’s learning cycle to improve student learning. engineering education, 77(5), 291-–. umbach, p.d. & wawrzynski, m.r. (2005). faculty do matter: the role of college faculty in student learning and engagement research in higher education, 46(153), 153–183. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-004-1598-1 what is the “t”? (2014). east lansing, mi. retrieved from http://tsummit.org/t. wiggins, g., & mctighe, j. (2005). understanding by design. alexandria, va: association for supervision and curriculum development. retrieved from http://www.myilibrary.com?id=93304. zakrajsek, t., & doyle, t. (2012). follow the research. in learner-centered teaching (pp. 7– 20). sterling, va: stylus. https://www.msudenver.edu/media/content/graduatecouncil/gradapprovalprocess%202%203%2017.pdf https://www.msudenver.edu/media/content/graduatecouncil/gradapprovalprocess%202%203%2017.pdf https://doi.org/10.1007/s11162-004-1598-1 http://tsummit.org/t http://www.myilibrary.com/?id=93304 83 author information vicki l. golich is provost and vice president of academic and student affairs at metropolitan state university of denver; she also oversees information technology services in this role. in 1992, she was selected to be a pew faculty fellow in international affairs and participated in a two-week workshop at harvard university’s kennedy school of government where she learned about actively engaging students in their learning by using case studies. she began her administrative career as the director of the faculty center at california state university san marcos; in this capacity, she has delivered workshops on case teaching, globalizing the curriculum, and assessment all around the world, and published several articles on the same topics. *vicki l. golich academic and student affairs metropolitan state university of denver 890 auraria parkway denver, co 80209 email: vgolich@msudenver.edu telephone: 303-556-3040 sandra haynes is deputy provost of academic and student affairs a position that oversees all academic affairs units at metropolitan state university of denver. prior to accepting this position, she served in the dean’s position in the college of professional studies at msu denver for 13 years. knowing the importance of maintaining accessible public higher education in an era of shrinking budgets, haynes has focused her efforts on seeking alternative sources of funding for msu denver via public-private-partnerships and interdisciplinary programs that meet community and workforce needs imperative to generating resources, establishing community partnerships, and providing students with excellent teaching and learning experiences. sandra haynes academic and student affairs metropolitan state university of denver 890 auraria parkway denver, co 80209 email: hayness@msudenver.edu telephone: 303-552-7322 steve kreidler is the vice president for administration at metropolitan state university of denver (msu denver) a position that oversees all business and operational functions for the university. previously he served in the same position at the university of central oklahoma. his career includes an extensive background in economic and business development and the creation of public private partnerships inside and outside of higher education. msu denver has received numerous awards for their activity in partnerships and kreidler has made multiple presentations at conferences and workshops across the nation on this topic. mailto:vgolich@msudenver.edu 84 steve kreidler administration and finance metropolitan state university of denver 890 auraria parkway denver, co 80209 email: skreidl1@msudenver.edu telephone: 303-605-5307 *corresponding author metropolitan universities vol. 28 no. 3 (summer 2017), doi: 10.18060/21542 peer mentoring for undergraduates in a research-focused diversity initiative thomas e. keller, kay logan, jennifer lindwall, and caitlyn beals abstract to provide multi-dimensional support for undergraduates from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds who aspire to careers in research, the build exito project, part of a major nihfunded diversity initiative, matches each scholar with three mentors: peer mentor (advanced student), career mentor (faculty adviser), and research mentor (research project supervisor). after describing the aims of the diversity initiative, the institutional context of the build exito project, and the training program model, this article devotes special attention to the rationale for and implementation of the peer mentoring component within the context of the multi-faceted mentoring model. keywords peer mentoring, diversity, research training introduction building university infrastructure leading to diversity (build) is an nih-sponsored initiative to promote innovative approaches to research training for undergraduates from backgrounds traditionally underrepresented in the biomedical and behavioral sciences. the ultimate goal is for these students to diversify the nih-funded research workforce of the future (valantine & collins, 2015). mounting evidence suggests the importance of diverse perspectives for enhancing the quality of research, improving the provision of health care, and addressing pervasive health disparities (mcgee, saran & krulwich, 2012; mitchell & lassiter, 2006; valantine & collins, 2015). although nih has a long history of supporting research and training programs for researchers of diverse backgrounds, scholars receiving major nih research grants still are not representative of the general population (ginther et al., 2011). the build initiative addresses this challenge by not only supporting student trainees but also developing faculty capacity and institutional infrastructure to “transform the culture and efficacy of biomedical research training and mentoring” (enhancing the diversity of the nih-funded workforce, 2016). the build initiative focuses on primarily undergraduate institutions (including several metropolitan universities) that fit a specific eligibility profile. first, these universities serve relatively high proportions of undergraduates from traditionally underrepresented populations, including racial and ethnic minority students, students with disabilities, and students with histories of severe social and economic disadvantage. second, these universities have limited nih funding but show the potential to develop greater research capacity. finally, these universities do not include medical schools but have established partnerships with researchintensive medical centers. ten institutions meeting these criteria have been awarded build funding to develop and implement sustainable strategies to foster student engagement and 51 persistence in the biomedical and behavior sciences. an expectation of nih is that the funded programs employ approaches shown to influence students in pursuing science career trajectories, such as incorporating research inquiry into coursework (bangera & brownell, 2014; weaver, russell & wink, 2008), providing meaningful undergraduate research experiences (hunter, laursen & seymour, 2007; lopatto, 2007; russell, hancock, & mccullough, 2007) and supporting students through quality mentoring (wilson et al., 2012; zaniewski & reinholz, 2016). thus, build faculty development efforts generally aim to support pedagogical innovation to bring lab and field work into courses, increase opportunities for faculty to engage in and publish biomedical research, and provide coaching on the effective mentoring of undergraduate students. the build initiative is one component of nih’s larger enhancing diversity in the nih-funded workforce consortium focusing on scientifically driven approaches to fostering diversity (valantine & collins, 2015). the consortium also includes the national research mentoring network (nrmn), created “to develop best practices for mentoring, provide training opportunities for mentors, and provide networking and professional opportunities for mentees” (dhhs, 2013, p. 4). nrmn provides consultation, curricula, and training to augment the mentoring programs offered by the build program sites. another organization, the coordination and evaluation center (cec) at ucla, was established to provide operational and data coordination and support for the consortium, and to conduct a longitudinal evaluation of the build and nmrn programs. its goal is to promote a collaborative environment across build sites, nmrn, and nih and to work closely with build leadership to ensure successful completion of all consortium objectives (coordination & evaluation center at ucla, n.d.). to facilitate flexibility and adaptation, build awards are actually cooperative agreements that call for frequent interaction with nih program officers in the administration of three separate but interlocking funding mechanisms supporting: (a) student trainee financial packages (stipend and tuition remission); (b) research enrichment activities for students; and (c) institutional and faculty development initiatives. as a common fund initiative from the nih director’s office, the build awards support the training of biomedical, behavioral, social, clinical, and translational researchers across a range of disciplines and topics as broad as those funded by all nih branches. build exito program one of the build grantees is the exito project (see richardson et al., 2016). exito means “success” in spanish and stands for enhancing cross-disciplinary infrastructure and training at oregon. the build exito project represents a partnership of eleven institutions in geographically diverse locations. the primary grantee is portland state university (psu), a major public urban university with a historic emphasis on accessibility and the largest and most diverse student enrollment in the state of oregon. the research-intensive partner is oregon health & science university (ohsu), a comprehensive academic health center located just miles from psu that features patient care, medical education, and an extensive world-class research portfolio. to provide integrated educational pathways for students, the build exito network also incorporates four community colleges that contribute a large number of transfer students to psu. these are chemeketa community college (salem, or), clackamas community college (oregon city, or), clark college (vancouver, wa), and portland community college (portland, or). in addition, build exito includes several 2-year and 452 year institutional partners that span the pacific rim region: american samoa community college, northern marianas college, university of alaska anchorage, university of hawaii, and university of guam. the institutional home for build exito at psu is the center for interdisciplinary mentoring research (cimr), a university-level center under the auspices of the office of research and strategic partnerships. cimr was established in 2010 with seed funding from the provost awarded through a campus-wide rfp designed to identify a cross-disciplinary theme that could organize existing faculty strengths to pursue external funding. cimr addresses mentoring across the lifespan via innovative and rigorous research, education and knowledge transfer, and partnerships with organizations providing services. the university investment in cimr provided the existing faculty network, staffing, and infrastructure to facilitate an application to nih for a build planning grant. a core team of four cimr faculty and staff submitted the planning grant proposal. this team consisted of: 1) the director of the psu school of community health and director of an nih-sponsored bridges to baccalaureate training grant, who identified the rfa and became the principal investigator; 2) a professor in the psu school of social work and director of cimr; 3) the chair of bioinformatics, assistant dean for admissions in the medical school, and director of education and career development for the oregon clinical and translational institute at ohsu; and 4) the center coordinator for cimr. receipt of the sixmonth planning grant permitted this team to develop and refine the program model, recruit collaborating colleagues in additional fields, identify and reach out to prospective partner institutions, and prepare the extremely lengthy proposal that ultimately resulted in the $23.7m, 5year build award. the scholar training model for the build exito program offers an integrated set of experiences along a pathway leading to graduate education and careers in research. employing a cohort-building approach, groups of eligible students are recruited and selected through a competitive application process during the spring of their first year in college and continue in the program through graduation with a bachelor’s degree (either transferring from 2-year partner institutions to psu or maintaining enrollment at original 4-year partner institution). in addition to providing opportunities for learning the concepts and developing the skills necessary to become a scientist, the program addresses the multiple psychological, social, cultural, and financial factors that often pose barriers for students from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds pursuing biomedical majors (gazley et al., 2014; hurtado et al., 2007). for example, evidence suggests that academic persistence and success for underrepresented minority students in science is associated with overcoming prejudice and stereotype threat, developing an identity as a scientist, developing a sense of science self-efficacy, having peer social support, and engaging in campus activities and opportunities (chang, sharkness, hurtado & newman, 2014; chemers et al., 2011; syed, azimitia & cooper, 2011). consequently, the build exito scholar training program focuses on four domains to provide holistic developmental support and promote successful preparation for post-graduate education: (a) supportive environment; (b) enhanced curriculum;(c) research experience; and (d) multi-faceted mentoring. supportive environment. as a model demonstration program, build exito works to transform systems within and across partner institutions to better address the personal, social, 53 academic, and financial needs of all students, particularly those who have traditionally encountered institutional barriers. for students selected into the program (referred to as exito scholars), the program fosters a supportive community of scholars and provides numerous supports at the individual level. the program begins with participating scholars from all partner institutions attending a weeklong orientation at psu that features a series of activities and events designed to explore and define research interests and build a sense of camaraderie within the cohort. during the academic year, scholars participate in weekly enrichment sessions that cover a range of topics relating to academic success and career development but also provide opportunities for socializing. the exito center at psu provides an on-campus “home base” for the program and serves as a hub connecting scholars to project staff and advisors, various resources, opportunities to work with peers, and other activities and events that support learning and foster a sense of shared purpose and community. scholars also are connected with a variety of campus opportunities and services, including research fairs, student groups, cultural centers, tutoring services, and numerous other resources. in addition, exito scholars get to work one-toone with an exito-specific academic advisor and financial aid advisor who have a special understanding of program expectations and opportunities. finally, it is worth noting that the resources available through the build award permit compensation packages for scholars for time spent in exito training activities. enhanced curriculum. the build exito program features several curricular enhancements to support the development of undergraduates as researchers. build exito curriculum development staff work with faculty at each partner institution to support inquiry-based teaching approaches. this joint effort incorporates research projects into selected first year courses to inspire interest in science. after being selected for the program, exito scholars take a required gateway course that addresses research methods and the responsible conduct of research. exito scholars also participate in summer intensive research experiences with workshop curriculum that sharpens their research skills. in their senior year, exito scholars are expected to complete a student-initiated capstone research project or thesis project. in addition, as noted above, exito scholars participate in regular enrichment workshops and training seminars throughout their time in the program. build exito also works with schools and departments with relevant majors, such as biology, chemistry, psychology, social work, and community health, to support scholars in these disciplines, with a special emphasis on making sure credits and content align for exito scholars transferring from partner institutions. research experience. a centerpiece of the build exito program is the opportunity for scholars to gain research experience as contributing members of research learning communities (rlcs), headed by leading researchers. exito rlcs engage undergraduate students in meaningful research activities on externally-funded, faculty-directed studies across a range of health-related fields (e.g., biomedical, behavioral, social, clinical, and translational research). though rlcs vary in structure and composition, a typical example includes one or more established principal investigators who have participated in major federal studies and have collaborates with other colleagues, such as faculty co-investigators, fellows, post-docs, and graduate students. exito scholars are embedded within these mentor-rich communities in paid internship placements to work as part of the research team. during the summer and academic year, scholars spend concentrated time working to observe, learn, and contribute to important research projects while in their rlcs. 54 multi-faceted mentoring. build exito offers each scholar a convoy of support along the pathway to success. a team of mentors strives to meet the multi-dimensional needs of students from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds embarking on a demanding research-oriented career trajectory. there are three distinct mentoring roles in the build exito model, and each reflects a different perspective, has a different set of priorities, and offers a different mix of skills and support. career mentors are faculty members who offer advice on academic and career planning and goal setting. peer mentors are advanced students who facilitate connections to campus and help scholars to navigate the student experience. research mentors work with scholars within their rlc’s to teach them skills, supervise their work, and provide feedback about continued growth and development. these mentors are integrated into the student experience at developmentally appropriate stages and provide crucial support on a successful pathway to research. a rationale for this mentoring model and an examination of the special role of peer mentors are presented below. rationale for multi-faceted mentoring model for exito scholars to pursue post-graduate education and become biomedical researchers, they must attain their undergraduate degrees and prepare for future research opportunities. therefore, the build exito program focuses both on educational persistence and on research preparedness. conceptual models of student persistence and success emphasize the importance of academic integration (adapting to educational environment) and social integration (engaging with others) in student college experiences (kuh et al., 2006; reason, 2009). similarly, research preparedness develops through research integration (participating in research experiences) (shaw, holbrook & bourke, 2013). accordingly, the build exito program matches each scholar with a set of three mentors who can provide support and guidance in the academic, psycho-social, and research domains by virtue of their roles as faculty, peers, and researchers. a multi-faceted mentoring model increases the chances of addressing the various factors associated with the success of exito scholars. the scholars resemble most undergraduates in having multi-dimensional needs for support, including psychological and emotional support, assistance acquiring academic subject knowledge, guidance on goal-setting and career paths (nora & crisp, 2007). according to wallace, abel, and ropers-huilman (2000), students benefit from more than one mentor with whom to share their social, cultural, and academic concerns. in similar circumstances, graduate research trainees and early career academics seek out multiple sources of mentoring to meet their distinct functional needs for support (de janasz & sullivan, 2004; keller et al., 2014). research from a variety of career settings indicates that having a larger and more diverse constellations of developmental mentoring relationships is associated with greater career satisfaction and success (higgins & thomas, 2001; packard, walsh & seidenberg, 2004; van emmerik, 2004). furthermore, gaining experience with multiple mentors and colleagues can be particularly helpful as team science is increasingly emphasized in research (guise, geller, regensteiner, & raymond, 2016). in the build exito model, faculty who serve as career mentors are encouraged to adopt a student-focused orientation. in the process, they establish a relationship characterized by a strong connection, authenticity, commitment, and genuine concern for the scholar (schreiner, noel, anderson, & cantwell, 2011). based on understandings gained through the relationship, the 55 nature of mentoring activities, conversations, and assistance can be determined by the circumstances, interests, and goals of the scholar. the mentor can offer a faculty perspective on a range of topics. most are academic, such as advising about courses and majors, discussing career options, identifying scholarships, or strategizing about study skills. others could be social, such as resolving roommate conflicts, addressing work-school-family balance, handling a personal crisis, or planning for school breaks (e.g., kendricks, nedunuri, & arment, 2013). facultystudent mentoring with this type of multi-purpose orientation has been shown to have positive effects on gpa, credits earned, and retention (campbell & campbell, 1997). each exito scholar is assigned a primary research mentor when placed in a research learning community. mentors have been identified as crucial in the success of undergraduate research experiences (linn, palmer, baranger, gerard & stone, 2015). research mentors provide direct supervision and guidance as exito scholars gain first-hand knowledge about designing, conducting, and communicating the research of the rlc. compared to the student-oriented focus of career mentoring, research mentoring is project-oriented, placing priority on completing tasks necessary for conducting the research. in this respect, the mentoring reflects an apprenticeship in which the mentor instructs the scholar on research protocols and procedures, initially providing clear expectations, guidelines, and orientation to the project. then, at a later stage, the mentor helps the scholar develop the traits, habits, and perspectives of a scientific researcher (thiry & laursen, 2011). through frequent contact and joint work on the project, research mentors also help scholars to gain confidence in their research skills and develop a science identity by observing and exploring different research roles (shanahan, ackley-holbrook, hall, stewart & walkington, 2015). exito peer mentors are advanced undergraduate students, typically seniors, who provide personal support and serve as guides to student life and academic success (e.g., zaniewski & reinholz, 2016). peer mentors facilitate social integration by helping exito scholars connect to campus cultural activities, groups, and programs as well as navigate university services such as housing, financial aid, and recreation. in addition, the peer mentors share personal insights and counsel scholars on how to take best advantage of exito courses, resources, and research experiences. the build exito peer mentoring program employs a “near-peer” approach, in which a student is matched with a mentor who shares a similar background but already has navigated a pathway to the type of success desired by the mentee (terrion & leonard, 2007). such a mentor is likely to have strong credibility with the scholar (hill & reddy, 2007). as a role model, the peer mentor provides a concrete example that someone from a similar background can achieve what the scholar aspires to do (wallace, abel & ropers-huilman, 2000). exito peer mentor expectations although peer mentors in the build exito program are intended to provide psychosocial support and foster social integration in the academic setting, the role is nevertheless multidimensional and responsive to the circumstances of the scholars. mentoring centers on a personal relationship and to a certain extent is determined by the needs and interests of the individuals involved. for example, research suggests that peer mentors can adopt several different roles, such as coach, advocate, liaison, or friend (colvin & ashman, 2010). taking a holistic approach in providing support, peer mentors can promote mentee growth in multiple domains, including 56 academic skills, career decision-making, connectedness, maturity, health and well-being, and aspirations (ward, thomas & disch, 2012). concretely, peer mentors have been shown to help mentees with coursework, organization and time management, campus resources, social issues, stress, and finding employment (zaniewski & reinholz, 2016). in the build exito program, the initial training for peer mentors explicitly notes certain domains in which they might assist their scholars. a listing of these domains with examples of mentoring activities within each was prepared for the initial peer mentor training. prior to sharing the list, peer mentors did a training activity that involved generating their own ideas about ways in which they might support exito scholars. these two lists, presented side-by-side in table 1, provide a good indication of the expectations for exito peer mentors. table 1. activity domains for peer mentoring developed by program staff developed by peer mentors substantive interests discussing research interests, projects, and findings talking about disciplines, majors, and/or courses networking with researchers and prospective mentors discussing professional societies and conferences general knowledge and skills working on writing and communication skills helping with proposals and/or manuscripts discussing study habits building confidence in research skills and abilities student life (opportunities, support, problem-solving) connecting with campus services and resources problem-solving practical issues (e.g. registration, financial aid, transportation) discussing balance between school, work, and family discussing experiences related to personal background/history (e.g., gender, race, first generation) consulting about difficulties with courses, instructors, employers, mentors, etc. substantive interests new ideas and avenues for exploration helping find a field that matches research interests research topics general knowledge and skills helping with time management helping with prioritizing advising on posters and presentations helping students learn “strategic sharing” learning how to approach faculty forming an academic strategy (e.g., study plans) advising on what to do if you don’t like a class helping when scholars don’t know how to communicate with faculty or research mentors modeling self-advocacy education/career development helping mentees who are first generation to explain research pathways to parents thinking outside of the box – realizing other options having 2nd thoughts about major student life (opportunities, support, problem-solving) 57 talking about social/recreational opportunities on campus (e.g., clubs, sports) discussing community engagement and service opportunities helping with work/school/personal life balance presence! just being there and available to talk offering practical advice for dealing with obstacles or frustrations being a friendly familiar face being a confidant facilitating problem-solving or finding guidance being a willing advocate helping with boundaries and when to say no recognizing diversity and differences guiding students to opportunities providing information about jobs helping cope with set-backs or rejection when applying for scholarships or opportunities helping overcome fear and anxiety over academic situations supporting with self-care connecting with resources on campus offering encouragement getting to campus (travel issues) finding extracurricular activities being a friend! implementation of peer mentoring component implementation of the build exito peer mentoring model is based on recommended practices for program operations (collier, 2015). the core elements of the program—recruiting, hiring, training, matching, supervising and monitoring of mentors—are described briefly below, with specific references to activities in the first year of the project. strategies for the ongoing evaluation of the program also are noted. recruiting mentors. several priorities were established for the selection of exito peer mentors, including a preference for backgrounds and experiences aligning with program goals as well as personal qualities generally associated with successful mentoring (terrion & leonard, 2007). in the first year of the program, we sought advanced and academically successful students (seniors) from diverse backgrounds who had experience in research settings. we also wanted mentors who could interact with scholars in an engaging, positive, and supportive manner. given this particular profile, we focused recruitment efforts on attracting applicants from other programs promoting science equity and inclusion for traditionally underrepresented students (e.g., mcnair scholars, louis stokes alliance for minority participation, bridges to baccalaureate). we also conducted outreach through psu’s multicultural student services, posted to listservs and social media, and sent personalized emails to students recommended by faculty. we also used a mailing 58 list of students that had contacted build exito and expressed interest in participating in the program but were ineligible due to their more advanced status. hiring mentors. peer mentor applicants completed an online application that included questions about educational background, transfer student experience, research experience, prior mentoring and advising, leadership, and academic honors. applicants completed three short (300 word) essays on (a) academic and career goals related to interest in biomedical, behavioral or social science research career pathways; (b) ways in which their own personal histories prepared them to support students from diverse and underrepresented backgrounds; and (c) what skills and qualities they possessed that would help them be successful in the role of a mentor for build exito. applicants also provided a letter of recommendation and a transcript. we received 25 applications, and 19 were selected for 20 minute interviews that included questions on motivations to be a mentor, experience with research, skills for successful mentoring, and experience helping other students. we also asked applicants to describe how they had “bounced back” from a setback, learned from a mistake, and dealt with overcommitting. using a scoring rubric for the application and interview, we hired 15 peer mentors as hourly student employees. each peer mentor was expected to work 10 hours per week during the academic year. training mentors. the new peer mentors received 8.5 hours of pre-match training, divided into three sessions. training included the following topics: exito project overview; overview of the exito mentoring program; mentor policies and guidelines; introduction to the exito mentoring support network (emsn); mentoring roles; aligning expectations; effective communication; career directions; and ethical situations. peer mentors who were unable to attend the trainings due to class scheduling conflicts received one-on-one training. training materials for peer mentors were adapted from a widely used curriculum, designed for training academic research mentors of undergraduates in stem and biomedical disciplines, entitled entering mentoring (pfund, branchaw & handelsman, 2015). three members of the build exito leadership team attended a train-the-trainer workshop through the national research mentoring network (nrmn) to prepare them to use the training curriculum. in addition to the entering mentoring curriculum, training activities on responding to difficult mentoring situations were adapted from the psu university studies peer mentoring program. after matching, additional training consisted of a two-hour session during spring term of the academic year. this training included debriefing mentoring successes and challenges as well as preparation of mentors to have an end-of-year conversation with each of their mentees. in subsequent years of the project, we also elicited their suggestions for improving the program and modifying the mentoring model, so that exito scholars eventually could serve as peer mentors to incoming cohorts. matching mentors. each peer mentor was matched with between three and five exito scholars. peer mentors from psu were matched with scholars from psu and from the partnering community colleges; the other 4-year partner institutions hired and matched peer mentors for their own campuses. matching was based on several factors, including academic discipline, research interests, and transfer student experience. in addition, at psu, we held a “speed” acquaintance event, in which pairs of peer mentors and scholars had 5 minutes to speak one-toone, with everyone rotating through 5 different pairings. at the end of the event, we asked participants to indicate three mentors/scholars they particularly enjoyed meeting. supervising mentors. the exito mentoring coordinator supervised peer mentors. as a baseline, peer mentors were expected to meet at least every other week one-to-one with each of their 59 scholars. contacts with scholars at partner campuses could occur via videoconferencing, phone or email. although not required, a strategy that proved very effective with several peer mentors was emailing scholars weekly. peer mentors also were encouraged to participate in exito scholar enrichment activities offered regularly throughout the academic year. in addition, peer mentors assisted with other program functions that involved student contact, such as outreach and recruitment activities. in particular, peer mentors contacted students who had started but not finished applications to provide individual encouragement and coaching on completing the application process (e.g., castleman & page, 2015). monitoring matches. a central tenet of the build exito mentoring program is that making good matches is not sufficient; each mentoring relationship should have ongoing monitoring and support from the professional program coordinator (keller, logan, zell, lindwall, beals, 2016). an innovative online platform, the exito mentoring support network (emsn), supported by america learns, is used for maintaining regular communication with all mentors and scholars in the program. each participant has an individual esmn account with an associated profile that contains relevant characteristics, such as personal demographics, program status, institutional affiliation, and academic discipline. the profile also identifies each mentor matched to a particular scholar, and vice versa (e.g., a mentor may have multiple scholars). on a monthly basis, each participant (both mentor and scholar) receives a scheduled email prompt to enter the emsn system. on the landing page, the participant sees general program announcements and news updates. after logging in, the participant responds to a set of questions about each mentoring relationship. certain consistent questions elicit basic tracking information about the nature and development of the mentoring relationship, such as the amount of hours of contact, the types of mentoring activities, and the quality of the relationship. other questions can be customized to obtain specific information about the mentoring relationship or topics relevant for program improvement. use of the emsn system is an efficient means of tracking and monitoring the large number of exito mentoring relationships across multiple, widely dispersed institutions. the questions are designed to generate information about whether particular relationships are positive and productive or whether they are struggling and need support. emsn allows the mentoring program coordinator to view and respond directly back to comments and questions noted in participant logs. thus, it is easy for the program coordinator to suggest strategies and solutions and provide ongoing encouragement, advice, and guidance as needed. in addition, each account compiles a cumulative record of completed logs, so participants have access to a historical record of their relationships. closing matches. in spring term of the academic year, peer mentors were trained on match closure procedures and were provided with an “end of year conversation guide.” goals for the end-of-year mentoring conversation were to: (a) celebrate the relationship; (b) reflect on what did and did not go well; (c) work with the scholar to help prepare them to get the most out of their future mentoring relationships; and (d) to discuss expectations for the future after the closure of the formal peer mentoring relationship. the guide included a number of reflection questions designed for both the peer mentor and the scholar to complete prior to their final meeting. evaluating the program. the build exito mentoring program is subject to extensive evaluation. each build site participates in the cross-site, consortium-wide evaluation 60 conducted by the ucla coordination and evaluation center and also carries out a site-specific evaluation. all evaluation activities are designed to: (a) measure the success of exito in meeting build hallmarks for success; (b) engage exito faculty and staff in ongoing process improvement; and (c) contribute to knowledge on initiatives that further the success of underrepresented students in biomedical fields. a mixed-methods approach involves use of surveys, interviews, and institutional records to obtain data regarding the experience of scholars and mentors. with respect to the mentoring program, the regular and customized emsn log questions permit the identification of participant needs, relationship trends, and program issues. specifically, both mentors and scholars report on their amount of contact, the nature of their activities, and the quality of their communication, use of time, and overall relationship. the profiles make it possible to compile and analyze the data in the aggregate or for specific subgroups to yield program insights. thus, the mentoring program gains valuable real-time feedback that can be used to address emerging concerns or to promote quality improvement. in addition, the emsn system is useful for required program evaluation and reporting purposes. data from the logs is consistent and centralized. thus, it can be used to verify and summarize the nature and extent of mentoring activities across the multiple institutional sites. again, the profiles permit comparisons and analyses based on a variety of relevant personal characteristics and program factors. the site-specific evaluation includes a quasi-experimental design to compare exito program scholars to other students on dimensions such as academic performance, self-efficacy, science identity, research productivity, and educational plans. the annual scholar assessment for the evaluation also includes established measures of mentoring relationship quality. finally, to gain additional insights about the peer mentoring component of the program, several focus groups have been conducted with peer mentors and scholars. peer mentor program challenges and changes challenges. as intended, emsn logs, focus groups, interviews, and staff observations generated a wealth of feedback regarding the first year of build exito peer mentoring program implementation. overall, peer mentors and scholars tended to report positive mentoring interactions and valued their participation in the program. however, several important challenges were identified, and these are noted briefly below. • it was difficult for a single mentoring coordinator with multiple program responsibilities to train and supervise such a large number of peer mentors. • peer mentors and scholars often had difficulties arranging meetings and reported that trying to schedule their contacts was time-consuming and frustrating. • cross-institutional mentoring relationships (i.e., peer mentor and scholar at different institutions), particularly those over great distances, had problems connecting due to communications challenges (e.g., different time zones, unreliable internet) and the inability to meet in person. • because build exito was a new program and many components were just being solidified, including the curriculum and the sequence of milestones and expectations for scholars, peer mentors struggled with understanding program features and meshing their role with the program. 61 • the three-mentor model created some confusion regarding the specific role and purpose of the peer mentor and raised the possibility of overlap across mentoring relationships. • scholars sometimes felt overtaxed in trying to keep appointments and maintain relationships with three mentors. changes. entering the second year of program implementation, several modifications were made to the peer mentoring component of the build exito program to address the challenges identified and to accommodate a new and larger cohort of scholars. the most significant change was to integrate the peer mentoring with the weekly enrichment workshops for exito scholars. peer mentors now work closely with a faculty member to organize and deliver the workshop sessions, which all scholars are expected to attend at a consistent time every week in the exito center. this approach has some distinct advantages. for example, mentors can count on having regular contact with their scholars without needing to spend time arranging appointments. in addition, peer mentors have a more clearly defined role through their involvement with the workshop content. with the structure provided by the workshop, they can bring their student perspective to the topics presented and then continue the conversations and activities with their mentees after the sessions. for scholars, too, the mentoring relationship is built in the context of an activity they already would be doing, so it doesn’t seem like extra time is required for “one more” mentoring relationship. given that much of the mentoring now occurs in this routine group structure, each mentor is matched to a larger number of scholars (10-12). as a result, fewer peer mentors were hired and the supervisory burden was reduced. each peer mentor has half of their scholars at psu, and the other half at one of the community colleges. matches were made at the time of the scholar orientation, so the mentoring relationship could begin to develop over the summer. in addition, scholars from partner community colleges (including american samoa and northern mariana) were able to meet their mentors in person at the orientation. in the new framework, peer mentors are still expected to have individual, one-toone contact with their scholars a few times each term in addition to weekly check-ins by email or text message. conclusion undergraduates from backgrounds traditionally underrepresented in higher education can benefit from a convoy of support on the challenging 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(2016). increasing stem success: a near-peer mentoring program in the physical sciences. international journal of stem education, 3(1), 14. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-016-0043-2 acknowledgements this article and the project it describes were supported by awards from the national institutes of health (ul1md009596, rl5md009591, ul1gm118964, rl5gm118963). the content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the national institutes of health. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2011.592937 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-4560.2011.01709.x https://doi.org/10.1080/13611260601086311 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10956-010-9271-2 https://doi.org/10.1108/13620430410559160 https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.2000.0026 https://doi.org/10.1038/nchembio1008-577 https://doi.org/10.1186/s40594-016-0043-2 66 author information * thomas e. keller is the duncan & cindy campbell professor in the school of social work at portland state university. he also is the director of the center for interdisciplinary mentoring research and the co-principal investigator for the build exito project. thomas e. keller school of social work portland state university p.o. box 751 portland, or 97207 e-mail: kellert@pdx.edu telephone: 503-725-8205 kay logan is the coordinator of the center for interdisciplinary mentoring research and the coordinator for the mentoring programs in the build exito project. kay logan center for interdisciplinary mentoring research portland state university p.o. box 751 portland, or 97207 e-mail: log@pdx.edu telephone: 503-725-9680 jennifer lindwall is the communications director for the build exito project and a doctoral student in applied psychology at portland state university. jennifer lindwall center for interdisciplinary mentoring research portland state university p.o. box 751 portland, or 97207 e-mail: lindwall@pdx.edu caitlyn beals is a program coordinator for the build exito project who supports the mentoring program. caitlyn beals center for interdisciplinary mentoring research portland state university p.o. box 751 portland, or 97207 e-mail: cbeals@pdx.edu telephone: 503-725-9281 *corresponding author mailto:kellert@pdx.edu mailto:log@pdx.edu mailto:lindwall@pdx.edu mailto:cbeals@pdx.edu this article and the project it describes were supported by awards from the national institutes of health (ul1md009596, rl5md009591, ul1gm118964, rl5gm118963). the content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent ... metropolitan universities vol. 29 no. 4 (december 2018), doi: 10.18060/22683 48 creating dangerously eric demeulenaere abstract universities and scholars have long wrestled with the types of impact they want their work to have on the world. this narrative explores the challenge of impact from the perspective of a recently tenured professor reflecting on his case for tenure and his struggle to fit his activist scholarship within the genre of the tenure case, which requires candidates to explain their work and its impact. through an examination of this struggle, the author identifies three challenges that universities need to confront if they want to enable more community-engaged scholarship: 1) the problem of expertise, 2) the problem of genre, and 3) the problem of focus. if and when the academy begins to address these challenges, the author argues, activist scholars will no longer have to hide the nature of their community engaged work and their scholarship will be able to better reach larger audiences beyond the academy. keywords: activism, engaged scholarship, tenure, community-engagement, academia [excerpt one] i locked up the school building as i walked out with some of the teachers. we had just completed four hours of our final evening of student portfolio exhibitions. tomorrow we were taking all our students to a water park to celebrate the completion of our first year as a new high school for social justice in oakland. it had been both an exhausting and gratifying day. students showcased their yearlong learning in front of families, teachers and fellow students in their advisory classrooms. i enjoyed seeing the students’ nerves on display and the beaming smiles of parents. one of the parents smiling was karen robinson. i had come to know her through several conflicts involving her son, deshawn, throughout the year. we had worked well together through these challenges, and i had grown to really respect her and deshawn. deshawn's strong “street” sensibilities did not prevent him from earning all a’s and b’s in part because of her discipline and deshawn’s effort and intelligence. i shared a smile with her monday night as deshawn presented his research on buddhism and connected the insights of what he had learned to his own life. it was a triumphant conclusion to our first year. deshawn’s mother drove home allowing deshawn to hang out with his friends from the neighborhood. some conflict ensued with another youth. later that evening, deshawn caught the bus heading home. unbeknownst to him, the youth involved in the earlier conflict had followed him home to address his earlier 49 humiliation. as deshawn placed his key into the gate of his apartment complex, the shot rang out. a bullet ripped through deshawn’s neck. somehow, he managed to crawl up the steps to his second floor apartment where he collapsed and bled to death in his mother’s arms. . . . my scholarship is born from pain. i, in the words of bell hooks (1994), “came to theory because i was hurting…. i came to theory desperate, wanting to comprehend—to grasp what was happening around and within me. most importantly, i wanted to make the hurt go away” (p. 59). [excerpt two] my scholarship is born from rage—rage against a world that allows deshawns to be murdered. deshawn is not the only student i have buried. i have worked with so many other youth who, though physically alive, have had their dreams and hopes dashed in a myriad of ways. i never sought to be a scholar. even after earning my ph.d. in education in 2003, i worked to open a school for social justice. i wanted to be involved in the creation of radical social change. however, the deeper i entered into such activist work, the more i was compelled to theorize and explore the complexities and contradictions of this work. the reality of urban america pushed me to research, theorize and write. i could not remain silent. in the words of albert camus (1961), “today, everything is changed and even silence has dangerous implications…. to create today is to create dangerously. any publication is an act, and that act exposes one to the passions of an age that forgives nothing.” as it was for camus, this current social reality compels me to create dangerously. in her book create dangerously, edwidge danticat (2011) writes “[authors possess] the desire to interpret and possibly remake his or her own world. so though we may not be creating as dangerously as our forebears—though we are not risking torture, beatings, executions, though exile does not threaten us into perpetual silence—still while we are at work bodies are littering the streets somewhere” (p. 18). when i look at the state of education in this country, when i think of deshawn, or trayvon martin, or mike brown, i can see that these are indeed dangerous times. as a scholar, therefore, i seek to create dangerously. to create dangerously, my work must not only examine and ponder the realities of urban violence, poverty and racial oppression, but also seek to address these realities. these realities pose many questions: why do our urban youth live lives filled with so much violence, poverty and racial oppression? how do these social toxins shape young people’s development? why do schools fail to confront and address these social realities? in addition to examining the existing realities, my work must also explore what could be. how can we change schools to confront these realities? what does effective teaching and youth development look like in urban communities? 50 these are dangerous questions. they are not simply intellectual pursuits. these questions also lead to other dangerous questions. who am i to think i can address these questions? how does my own social location shape my ability to consider and address such social realities? what does it mean to engage in such scholarship from a place of privilege as a white male, middle-class academic? antonio gramsci argues that most public intellectuals view themselves as distinct from the structures that create and maintain social inequities, but are instead complicit. gramsci called for the rise of new counter-hegemonic intellectuals who work to transform the ideological and material conditions that maintain inequity. these new counter-hegemonic intellectuals, gramsci asserted, “can no longer consist in eloquence … but in active participation in practical life, as constructor, organizer, ‘permanent persuader’ and not just a simple orator" (gramsci, 1971, p. 10). these new transformative intellectuals cannot simply offer revolutionary ideas removed from concrete participation in the lives of the people they seek to liberate. this was the final version of how i began my research statement for tenure. one of my academic mentors reviewed my initial draft, which had an even longer opening story, and cautioned me against opening my statement this way. while she appreciated the words and intention of this opening, she was concerned that i had used over half of my three-page limit to tell stories and i had not yet mentioned my research. further, she had read many tenure cases and she had concerns that reviewers might not respond well to this divergence from the norm. i eventually cut the introduction down to the version above, but i decided i needed to keep the introduction, long as it was, mostly intact. perhaps this was a silly risk for a document intended for a small audience of reviewers. however, i had just recently read edwidge danticat’s (2011) book, create dangerously, and i was deeply enraged by the numerous deaths of black youth at the hands of police and vigilantes and the movement for black lives inspired me further. it was a time to take risks, i felt. i wanted to situate my work as a scholar within the pain and rage that fueled it. i had also just spent time trying to quantify the impact of my own academic writings based on citations and journal impact factors. however, this quantification felt inadequate to me. did it really reflect the true impact of my work? the first academic article i published featured two young brilliant and creative former students of mine who i followed from middle school into the first couple of years of high school in san francisco. they taught me so much about the creative identity performances african-american youth had to play to achieve success in troubled city schools. yet one of these students, mike, would be shot and killed before he graduated high school. how do i talk about the impact of my work, in terms of how many other members in the academy have read or cited it, when no knowledge i had developed through countless hours of work with mike had made an impact on preventing mike’s violent death? i wanted my work to matter in the lives of students like deshawn and mike, and indexing the articles i had written and their reception by academics seemed remarkably inadequate by contrast. therefore, while i wanted to achieve tenure, it seemed minor compared to what was happening around me. i felt an 51 urgency to give voice to that in my tenure case. taking risks, especially such a small one as gaining tenure, therefore felt important. more urgently, i wanted to be more engaged in work that mattered in the realities of the youth and families with whom i worked. gramsci’s words haunted me. was i, like so many of the public intellectuals that gramsci identified, fooling myself into thinking i was engaged in the “active participation in practical life” in the communities where i worked? did i, all the while, remain a “simple orator” professing in classrooms and publishing in obscure journals read only by other academics? how could i think about, write about and engage in scholarship that mattered in the lives of the youth and families with whom i had the privilege to work and learn? of course, it was not lost on me that edwidge danticat and albert camus became more widely known and read for their fiction rather than their more academic non-fiction. what could i do to construct knowledge that did not simply get recorded in academic journals and pad my own curriculum vitae, but instead became knowledge that mattered in the lives of the youth with whom i worked? at the time, i had created a non-profit with community artists called n-cite community media that engaged worcester youth in critical media literacy and developed them as counter-hegemonic film-makers and storytellers. we taught them to critically read the ways that they were misrepresented in the media and then gave them the skills to develop documentary films that offered counter-narratives to, as our motto stated, “disrupt the dominant narrative.” at n-cite community media, we took cohorts of youth to develop films from concept through post-production. n-cite youth wrote, directed, produced and edited documentary films. our youth produced films based on their own life stories. they made films that addressed issues like youth immigration, colorism, youth homelessness, refugee youth and body image. we hosted multiple screenings at conferences and film-festivals and in schools and churches. our youth presented their films and talked with thousands of audience members. for instance, for our film on youth immigration, we presented to not only general audiences, but we also held special screenings with local and federal politicians, including a screening at the massachusetts’ state house hosted by the state senate president. the process of developing and presenting these films had various impacts on the youth involved. we watched some of the youth completely transform their life trajectories. indeed, i am currently concluding a youth participatory action research (ypar) project with a few of the youth graduates from the program in which we document the impact the n-cite program had on the youth. yet what was the impact on the audience members? that is more difficult. just as i can count downloads or citations on my articles, i cannot address how people read my writings and how the articles affected them. similarly, while i can count the number of people in the room for a screening, it is difficult to assess the impact the film screening had on audience members. nevertheless, i do know that the people who watched these screenings included youth, college students, church members, politicians and other community members who are much less likely to read an academic article on the subject. therefore, i know, at least, that the films are reaching folks beyond the academy. the commitments i make to my work as a community educator and organizer and activist for social change at times comports wonderfully with my work as an academic, but often there are conflicts and challenges to my activist commitments and my work as an academic. in a 52 forthcoming book, the activist academic, my co-author and i trace our journey towards tenure as we try to reconcile the challenge of merging our work as activists with that of being new academics. below, as a recently tenured associate professor, i briefly explore three of these challenges: (a) the problem of expertise; (b) the problem of genre; and; (c) the problem of focus. the problem of expertise my writing about my work in the previous two paragraphs reads in the first person singular. yet when i am writing about my work in n-cite community media and the films we have produced, i cannot really say “i” anymore or call it “my” work. certainly, i am coordinating and facilitating a program that brings in youth to learn how to make films and to tell their own stories. i organize and help to teach in the program. i provide feedback and guidance along the way. i help to edit and make suggestions throughout the process. nevertheless, i have co-run the program with a powerful community filmmaker and youth worker. even more importantly, the youth conceive and pitch the ideas for these films. the youth go through a collective process to select the film topics. moreover, the youth share their stories. in addition, the youth film, direct and manage the sound on all the shoots. they write the questions and conduct the interviews. finally, the youth do most of the editing as we collaboratively stitch the film together. i help facilitate the entire process. i certainly deserve the production credits i have for each film. nevertheless, how does this appear on my curriculum vitae and how will (or should it) count towards the assessment of my scholarship in terms of promotion? how much of this should count as “my” work? in the youth participatory action research investigation that i am completing with a team of five youth, we have produced both a film about n-cite and are finalizing an academic article. as part of the interviews that we conducted, the youth suggested, and i consented, that the interviews would flow better if i were not present at the interviews with the other youth. these youth interviews are the bulk of the data we collected and the footage we shot. while i initiated this project, the decisions we made were taken collectively, and the youth did the majority of the work, including library research and developing and writing the conceptual frameworks, the findings, and much more. this raises questions about authorship. who is the lead author? who holds the authority and expertise? how do colleges value my contributions to projects like this? how should they? this is even more complicated when thinking about the valuing of my contribution towards youth-created documentary films. whose expertise comes to shine? i am not an expert on colorism or youth immigration. indeed, we sought out experts to help us understand these ideas in creating the films. i learned a ton in the process. yet i only learned so much by following the lead of the youth in our program. in the academy i earn my salary for being able to “profess” about my areas of expertise, so what does this mean for my identity as an academic to be developing work that regularly positions me as a student outside my “area of expertise?” how do i represent myself in this collective knowledge construction? on one level, i can position myself as an expert on the process: the pedagogy of creating these collaborative working teams that tell counter-stories through film. does that mean that i only earn credit with what i write about the process? what about the films and writings that the youth teams produce? engaged scholarship 53 led by members in the community creates challenges about our notions of expertise that remain fundamental to the way academics are constructed. the problem of genre the problem of authorship or producer/director-ship is, of course, only the first of the challenges. the second, as is clear when you are working with film as an academic, is the problem of genre. in the academy, particularly in the social sciences more broadly, the types of produced works that are most privileged are journal articles and books. thus, there is a huge question of what can count as knowledge products for advancing our academic careers. a documentary film might reach broader and more diverse audiences; should it count as part of my academic research portfolio? until recently, i assumed my youth filmmaking was a separate area of work that did not go on my curriculum vitae, or if it did, it was part of my community service, not my scholarship. however, a couple of years ago i presented some clips from a film i helped to produce at a conference. in the conversation that occurred after my talk, dr. john saltmarsh argued that the films deserve recognition as a part of my scholarship. since then, i have added them to my curriculum vitae, but i wonder how committees reviewing my work perceive them. should i have included a film dvd as part of my portfolio for tenure? the problem of genre exists even when we are not talking about different media like film and radio. it occurs in other writing projects as well. in many community-centered projects, activists who are also academics are members of teams who complete writing tasks as part of community organizing projects. for instance, i wrote several grant proposals for n-cite community media. i also did the writing to secure the non-profit status. more recently, i have worked with a team of community educators, artists and parents to develop an innovative proposal for a new secondary school in worcester. i was heavily involved in writing the school proposal and its business plan. should these writings remain in the domain of service? do they ever cross over into scholarship? how do we begin to answer these types of question related to genre? furthermore, even within writing for more academic audiences, the question of genre arises not only in the mediums through which we communicate, but also through the style of writing. in my own efforts to avoid using “the masters’ tools” (lorde, 1984, p. 112) i have striven to write in an accessible language that situates my own subjectivity within my words. this means i rely heavily on narrative, including my own personal narratives. however, university faculty too often deride the use of personal narrative as lacking intellectual rigor or not being academic. in my first book, my co-author and i got through the reviewers by writing every other chapter as a narrative followed by chapters that were more traditional academic writings that provided a critical analysis of the more narrative (and engaging) chapters. indeed, in our introductory guide to how to read the book, we offer a secret: readers can concentrate on the narrative chapters alone, and learn quite a lot. in our follow-up collaboration, we developed a form of writing that we came to call critical coconstructed auto-ethnography. the book conceptualizes, in a new way, the meaning of research, teaching, and service for activist academics, along with chapters that are devoted to critical theory, academic collaboration and mentoring. rather than present these ideas in a traditional academic writing, the book is a narrative written in seven chapters with each chapter 54 representing a year in our lives as we entered the academy and moved towards earning tenure. the narrative captures conversations between us in cafes, living rooms, at conferences and over skype. we seek to not only address intellectual ideas, but also capture the pace of life as academics with families: our family members become secondary characters in the narrative of the text. we wanted to capture together the intellectual ideas we wrestle with as academics, but to do so within the realistic pace of our lives amidst the regular struggle to marry our new academic selves with our activist commitments and the challenge to maintain our obligations to our families, our students and our universities. additionally, we wanted to make the book even more humanizing and capture the conflicts, the teasing, the humor and the love that is also a part of our relationship. we actually began writing this book not long after we both moved our families across the country and entered academia. it was initially a cathartic form of writing. that is, it helped us process and reflect on all of the struggles we had encountered, as we became academics. slowly, the writing evolved into a passion project for us as we began to consider turning it into a book. then we struggled to find a publisher willing to embrace it. on the one hand, it seemed to be too broad in scope, with too much personal narrative, to appeal to academic presses. on the other, it was too broad and academic for mainstream presses who publish books by malcolm gladwell, paul tough and the like. furthermore, the co-authorship and intellectual ideas pushed it outside the memoir genre. we still do not really know how to define its genre. after over four years of trying to get it published, we were about to just give up on it, but fortunately another press forwarded our proposal to a new publisher who is willing to take a risk on us. this struggle speaks to the problem of genre that we face in the academy. now that we are going to get it published, we will get to see how the book will be reviewed by academics and how, and even if, it will be considered as part of our portfolio of work as we seek future promotions. there are clear boundaries on the types of knowledge that are valued in the academy. this is not only a challenge for when we venture outside writing and into more accessible formats like films or podcasts, it also includes problems of genre and style within the written word. the problem of focus diversifying expertise and genre relate to the more general problem of focus. when i wrote my statement for tenure, my advisors told me that i needed to capture my scholarship into a single area or maybe two areas of focus. attempting to unify my diverse writings into a single area of work, i wrote: as a scholar of urban schooling, my research has focused on culture change in and out of schools to transform the social and material realities affecting urban youth. my research, grounded in sociology and cultural studies, examines the social and cultural dynamics that enable or prevent learning, reform, and youth development to take hold (demeulenaere, research statement). re-reading the statement again, i am struck by how in attempting to try to fit my work into a singular focus, i offered a very broad and vague statement to create unification. this was even before i tried to include films about immigration and colorism into “my 55 scholarship.” the challenge of focus faces every engaged scholar who really values the voice and expertise of the community members with whom they work. my own partnerships in the last decade have included working with schools leaders to enact school wide change. our collaborations include: (a) running critical inquiry groups with school teachers; (b) co-teaching critical pedagogies in a public high school; (c) coordinating an anti-racist youth organization; (d) organizing parent coalitions; (e) developing and teaching in a critical media literacy and youth film production program; and (f) working with parents, educators and artists to develop a new school for arts-based social justice. aside from the critical inquiry group for teachers, i neither initiated nor led any of these projects. i helped to facilitate them and learned a ton from my involvement in them. indeed, my learning became the basis for much of my scholarship. however, throughout, i was following the lead of others rooted in the community members who expressed a need to create change, often at very different levels and very diverse sites. i have worked in elementary schools, in high schools and in out-of-school programs. i have collaborated with school leadership and schoolteachers and worked directly with youth as a teacher, youth worker, and mentor. i have worked at grassroots organizing, whole school change, social policy change, and state and federal reforms. i have worked to shift material realities as well as focusing on shifting the ideological roots that construct and maintain social inequality. this diversity of engagements is held together only by a commitment to critical engagement with social problems and the development of trusting relationships with community members. my relationships with different people (teachers, youth, school leaders, community artists), who identify different community problems to tackle, have led me down very diverse paths. these shifts of focus are not valued in the academy. we are supposed to have a long career with a singular focus. however, to maintain this focus implies that academics always set the agenda for their research. they are the leaders determining the participants and the research questions. if they team up, they team up with other academics in their same field. one of the questions i often get when i present at conferences is how i came to develop my interest in social justice. no one asks this in the question and answer period, but by young scholars who come up afterwards to talk. this question is always puzzling to me. the question implies that working for social justice is like choosing your field of research. however, i do not usually call or refer to my work as social justice work, as if that is a field or a category. the work i do grows out of developing trusting and caring relationships with people, which inherently involves sharing their pain and struggles. when the people you care about are hurting and there is a way we can do something about it, you just act. i usually figure out how to make it into research secondarily, after i have learned something. in addition, sometimes, to the detriment of my academic career, i recognized that the story is not meant to be shared (tuck & yang, 2014). activist academics committed to engaging with and following the lead of the community cannot dictate that the focus of their work address their needs within the academy and be situated within their areas of focus. to capture that reality, i included a brilliant quote by 56 carter g. woodson in an early draft of my research statement, which i regrettably removed in favor of my attempts to make my work seem more focused. here is how i framed it in that early draft: my scholarship and work, then, in the eloquent words of carter g. woodson, situates me as a servant of the people engaging in transformative work: you cannot serve people by giving them orders as to what to do. the real servant of the people must live among them, think with them, feel for them, and die for them…the servant of the people, unlike the leader, is not on a high horse trying to carry the people to some designated point to which he would like to go for his own advantage. the servant of the people is down among them, living as they live, doing what they do and enjoying what they enjoy. he may be a little better informed than some of the other members of the group; it may be that he has had some experience that they have not had, but in spite of this advantage he should have more humility than those whom he serves” (woodson, 1933, p. 131) thus, i strive to be this new counter-hegemonic intellectual, a servant of the people. while i removed this from final my research statement for tenure, i wish i had not. indeed, i wish i felt i could have presented myself with greater humility. while i strive to listen and follow the guidance and expertise of the community members with whom i a privileged to work, in my statement for tenure i instead tried to present myself as a community leader. i also strove to construct a narrative that would unify the diverse projects i worked on into a single focused narrative. challenging this need to center ourselves in our community-engaged scholarship, some of my community-engaged colleagues and i have worked to create a new major on campus centered on community-engaged scholarship for students. in this new major, community, youth, and education studies (cyes), students advance through a threecourse sequence to develop their own praxis-projects in community spaces in which they are situated. despite our push to have students listen to their community partners and develop change projects in deep collaboration and consultation with community partners, we have to repeatedly remind them to listen and learn rather than try to lead their communities “to some designated point to which [they] would like to go for [their] own advantage.” while engaging our students in community-engaged praxis projects, we also sought to create this interdisciplinary major to be a space for faculty committed to activist scholarship to build, support, and improve our own efforts as community-engaged scholars. stepping into leadership in this space has been both humbling and rewarding as we continue to “make the road by walking” (horton & freire, 1990). i opened this piece claiming that my insertion of a narrative at the beginning of my research statement for tenure was an effort to take a risk. perhaps the real risk would have been to admit that i am follower more than a leader, a listener more than an orator, and a student more than i am a teacher. maybe that is just the reality all of us face who try merge our community-based activist selves with our academic identities. perhaps we have to speak differently depending on the audience and the expectations there. yet i wonder what it might be like if i did not have to hide my activist identity within the 57 academy, and i could be fully transparent as both an academic and activist, whether i am at an organizing meeting in a church or preparing my case for tenure. 58 references camus, a. (1961). resistance, rebellion and death. (j. o’brien, trans.). new york, ny: alfred a. knopf. (original work published in 1960). dandicat, e. (2011). create dangerously: the immigrant artist at work. new york, ny: vintage books. gramsci, a. (1971). selections from the prison notebooks (q. hoare & g. n. smith, trans.). new york: international publishers co. hooks, b. (1994). teaching to transgress: education as the practice of freedom. new york, ny: routledge. horton, m., & freire, p. (1990). we make the road by walking: conversations on education and social change. temple university press. lorde, a. (1984/2007). sister outsider: essays and speeches. new york, ny: ten speed press. tuck, e. & yang, k. w. (2014). r-word: refusing research. in d. paris & m. t. winn (eds.) humanizing research: decolonizing qualitative inquiry with youth and communities (pp. 223248). thousand oaks, ca: sage publications. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781544329611.n12 woodson, c. g. (1933). the mis-education of the negro. washington, d.c.: associated publishers. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781544329611.n12 59 author information eric demeulenaere, ph.d. associate professor, urban schooling, department of education jacob hiatt center for urban education clark university worcester, ma 01610-1477 telephone: 508.421.3750 email: edemeulenaere@clarku.edu dr. demeulenaere earned his m.a. (1999) and ph.d. (2003) in the social and cultural studies program at the university of california at berkeley's graduate school of education. he taught middle and high school for eight years, and co-founded and led an innovative high school in east oakland focused upon social justice. https://www2.clarku.edu/departments/education https://www2.clarku.edu/departments/education mailto:edemeulenaere@clarku.edu creating dangerously eric demeulenaere abstract universities and scholars have long wrestled with the types of impact they want their work to have on the world. this narrative explores the challenge of impact from the perspective of a recently tenured professor reflecting on his case for tenure and... keywords: activism, engaged scholarship, tenure, community-engagement, academia [excerpt one] i locked up the school building as i walked out with some of the teachers. we had just completed four hours of our final evening of student portfolio exhibitions. tomorrow we were taking all our students to a water park to celebrate the ... it had been both an exhausting and gratifying day. students showcased their year-long learning in front of families, teachers and fellow students in their advisory classrooms. i enjoyed seeing the students’ nerves on display and the beaming smiles of ... one of the parents smiling was karen robinson. i had come to know her through several conflicts involving her son, deshawn, throughout the year. we had worked well together through these challenges, and i had grown to really respect her and deshawn. d... deshawn’s mother drove home allowing deshawn to hang out with his friends from the neighborhood. some conflict ensued with another youth. later that evening, deshawn caught the bus heading home. unbeknownst to him, the youth involved in the earlier co... my scholarship is born from pain. i, in the words of bell hooks (1994), “came to theory because i was hurting…. i came to theory desperate, wanting to comprehend—to grasp what was happening around and within me. most importantly, i wanted to make the ... [excerpt two] my scholarship is born from rage—rage against a world that allows deshawns to be murdered. deshawn is not the only student i have buried. i have worked with so many other youth who, though physically alive, have had their dreams and hope... i never sought to be a scholar. even after earning my ph.d. in education in 2003, i worked to open a school for social justice. i wanted to be involved in the creation of radical social change. however, the deeper i entered into such activist work, th... in her book create dangerously, edwidge danticat (2011) writes “[authors possess] the desire to interpret and possibly remake his or her own world. so though we may not be creating as dangerously as our forebears—though we are not risking torture, bea... to create dangerously, my work must not only examine and ponder the realities of urban violence, poverty and racial oppression, but also seek to address these realities. these realities pose many questions: why do our urban youth live lives filled wit... these are dangerous questions. they are not simply intellectual pursuits. these questions also lead to other dangerous questions. who am i to think i can address these questions? how does my own social location shape my ability to consider and address... antonio gramsci argues that most public intellectuals view themselves as distinct from the structures that create and maintain social inequities, but are instead complicit. gramsci called for the rise of new counter-hegemonic intellectuals who work to... as a scholar of urban schooling, my research has focused on culture change in and out of schools to transform the social and material realities affecting urban youth. my research, grounded in sociology and cultural studies, examines the social and cul... re-reading the statement again, i am struck by how in attempting to try to fit my work into a singular focus, i offered a very broad and vague statement to create unification. this was even before i tried to include films about immigration and coloris... aside from the critical inquiry group for teachers, i neither initiated nor led any of these projects. i helped to facilitate them and learned a ton from my involvement in them. indeed, my learning became the basis for much of my scholarship. however,... these shifts of focus are not valued in the academy. we are supposed to have a long career with a singular focus. however, to maintain this focus implies that academics always set the agenda for their research. they are the leaders determining the par... activist academics committed to engaging with and following the lead of the community cannot dictate that the focus of their work address their needs within the academy and be situated within their areas of focus. to capture that reality, i included a... my scholarship and work, then, in the eloquent words of carter g. woodson, situates me as a servant of the people engaging in transformative work: you cannot serve people by giving them orders as to what to do. the real servant of the people must live among them, think with them, feel for them, and die for them…the servant of the people, unlike the leader, is not on a high horse trying to carry ... thus, i strive to be this new counter-hegemonic intellectual, a servant of the people. while i removed this from final my research statement for tenure, i wish i had not. indeed, i wish i felt i could have presented myself with greater humility. while i strive to listen and follow the guidance and expertise of the community members with... challenging this need to center ourselves in our community-engaged scholarship, some of my community-engaged colleagues and i have worked to create a new major on campus centered on community-engaged scholarship for students. in this new major, commun... i opened this piece claiming that my insertion of a narrative at the beginning of my research statement for tenure was an effort to take a risk. perhaps the real risk would have been to admit that i am follower more than a leader, a listener more than... camus, a. (1961). resistance, rebellion and death. (j. o’brien, trans.). new york, ny: alfred a. knopf. (original work published in 1960). dandicat, e. (2011). create dangerously: the immigrant artist at work. new york, ny: vintage books. gramsci, a. (1971). selections from the prison notebooks (q. hoare & g. n. smith, trans.). new york: international publishers co. hooks, b. (1994). teaching to transgress: education as the practice of freedom. new york, ny: routledge. horton, m., & freire, p. (1990). we make the road by walking: conversations on education and social change. temple university press. woodson, c. g. (1933). the mis-education of the negro. washington, d.c.: associated publishers. metropolitan universities vol. 30 no. 2 (june 2019), doi: 10.18060/22787 95 community engagement vs. racial equity: can community engagement work be racially equitable? arien b. telles abstract the literature on the transformation of higher education institutions into engaged institutions identifies the great potential this transformation can have on higher education’s ability to address pressing social issues. however, engagement work frequently operates in white racialized spaces and within systems that perpetuate racial oppression. a lack of critical reflection on this phenomenon may lead to racially inequitable or racially exclusive institutional transformation. if an understanding of racial equity work within community engagement does not occur, we run the risk that the transformation into engaged institutions will include some and not others, and those decisions will likely fall along racial lines. the purpose of this article is to identify and discuss four key findings based on a critical analysis of the ways in which the literature on transformation via engagement addresses issues of racial equity. the analysis leads to a discussion of the implications of the lack of connection between racial equity and community engagement. most importantly, the overarching question of my own future research in this area is not if there is racial equity work taking place in community engagement initiatives, but how racial equity work is done in community engagement initiatives. keywords: institutional transformation; engaged institutions; critical analysis; educational equity introduction the literature on the transformation of higher education institutions into engaged institutions identifies the great potential this transformation can have on higher education’s ability to address pressing social issues (alter & book, 2002; bridger & alter, 2006; fitzgerald, bruns, sonka, furco, & swanson, 2012; holland, 2001, 2005; inman, 2004; kellogg commission, 1999; ramaley, 1996, 2002, 2009, 2014; spanier, 2011.) however, a lack of critical reflection on how engagement work operates in white racialized spaces (barajas & ronnkvist, 2007; moore, 2008) and within systems that perpetuate racial oppression (dowd & bensimon, 2015; feagin, 2006) may lead to racially inequitable or racially exclusive institutional transformation. without an understanding of racial equity work within community engagement, we run the risk that the transformation into engaged institutions will include some and not others, and those decisions will likely fall along racial lines. one example of the consequences of not examining how engagement work operates within higher education institutions is the connection between faculty-of-color retention and their ability to work with communities. in her discussion of the important role connection to community played for faculty women of color as they attempted to surmount isolation, marginalization, and hostile campus climates, turner (2003) described the tension faculty of 96 color feel between service contributions they feel are important, but not valued by the institution. she found that “many faculty express a need to serve their communities and a continuing commitment to do so even if such service does not factor in as an important part of the faculty reward system at their institutions” (p. 122). this connection between the success of faculty women of color and the connection to their communities questions how much of the community service being done by women of color faculty could be considered engaged scholarship, yet was considered to be service by the institution. engaged scholars have called for significant shifts in promotion and tenure (boyer, 1990; bridger & alter, 2006; blanchard et al., 2009; cherwitz, 2010; fitzgerald et al, 2012; kellogg commission, 1999; lambert-pennington, 2016; o’meara, 2011; saltmarsh & wooding, 2016). however, there has been little research conducted that explicitly connects changes to promotion and tenure policies and practices to facilitate consideration of engaged scholarship, and the impact those changes have had on faculty of color tenure and promotion outcomes. this is only one example of a potential consequence of not considering racial equity in community engagement work within institutions of higher education. by not addressing the historical and current-day racialized exclusion, and the inequitable educational outcomes occurring because of it, the institutional transformation that community engaged scholars and administrators seek will not likely come to fruition. thus, critically analyzing how racial equity operates in community engagement initiatives within higher education institutions is crucial to higher education’s ability to transform into equitable spaces. it is important to recognize that the work in this piece developed because of my own positionality. specifically, in both my academic and professional work as a latina in higher education and as someone examining racial inequity in educational contexts, i connect language such as tokenism and marginalization with the ways in which students, staff, and faculty of color describe their experiences in higher education institutions. however, i came across similar language during a recent review of the literature on the connections between community engagement and institutional transformation in higher education. instead of this language connecting to the experiences of people of color, the literature made numerous statements about the ways in which higher education institutions marginalized the work of community engagement. for example, in their discussion of the importance of institutionalizing engagement into higher education institutions, fitzgerald et al., (2012) suggested that to “avoid tokenism” (p. 23) is to make engagement central to higher education institutions. in her discussion of the longstanding practice of community engagement in higher education, holland (2009) stressed that, “questions persist as to whether the practice survives only at the margin of academic organizations” (p. 86). rosean, foster-fishman, and fear (2001), in their discussion of the value that engaged scholarship provides to higher education stated, “we acknowledge the presence of engagement work at the margins within the academy and argue for wider recognition and more explicitly valuing of its contributions” (p. 11). to see language that held such strong racialized meaning for me used in a context completely removed from any reference to racial inequity in the literature on engaged scholarship gave me pause. the purpose of this article is to call attention to the need for a critical analysis of racial equity work within community engagement in higher education institutions through an identification of four key findings based on an analysis of the ways in which racial equity appears in the literature 97 on the transformation of higher education institutions into engaged institutions. the research question guiding this study is: how is racial equity addressed in the literature on higher education institutional transformation into engaged institutions? the remainder of this article addresses the research methods and data analysis, findings, and a discussion regarding implications of the lack of connection between racial equity and community engagement. in addition the article will discuss next steps to continue to examine critically the connection between racial equity and institutional transformation via community engagement work. method qualitative content analysis is a process that “involves the simultaneous coding of raw data and the construction of categories that capture relevant characteristics of the document’s content” (merriam, 2009, p. 205). qualitative content analysis provides a way to generate themes specific to the research question, allows for a connection between use of keywords and the context under which keywords are used, and allows for an ability to make meaning of the connections among research question, keywords, and contexts (patton, 2002). i initially began the data-gathering process using the body of literature on higher-education institutional transformation into engaged institutions. it was this body of literature that inspired my question about its treatment of racial equity. much of the literature comes from the perspective of senior level administrators, who argue that the role of administrators is vital in aligning institutional transformation with community engagement (liang & sandmann, 2015; sandmann & plater, 2009). for this study, i determined it vital to understand how the literature on transformation into engaged institutions from the perspective of administrators addresses racial equity. there were 42 articles written between 1997 and 2016 that had appeared in a literature review about the institutionalization of engagement. these same articles formed the basis for this study to explore the ways in which this body of literature addressed racial equity. the literature was searched both by reading each article, as well as by using a search function for keywords. recognizing that terms used to refer to racial equity would likely be different, i expanded the keywords used to search for references to racial equity. these 13 keywords were race, racial, racism, racist, equity, equality, equal, diverse, diversity, minority, minoritized, culture, and cultural. data were recorded in a spreadsheet that included one column for the article, one column for each of the keywords, and one column for each of the contexts of the keywords. for example, ramaley (2009) used the term “diverse” four times and “diversity” once in her article, referring variously to diverse points of view, diverse talent, diverse communities, diverse perspectives, and human diversity. therefore, the data entered in the column for term used were “diverse” and “diversity”, and the data entered for the context columns were “communities” “perspectives” “abilities” and “people”. preliminary findings from the analysis indicated there were limited references to racial equity in this body of literature, but led to some concerns that this might not be an accurate assessment. i had recently attended a conference specific to community engagement. several sessions focused on the work of chief diversity officers, diversity initiatives on campus, and the role race played in societal issues. my preliminary findings, however, did not reflect this recognition of the 98 importance of diversity work. therefore, it was important to expand this study to understand better how the field of community engagement referred to these terms on a larger scale. i was interested to see how leading journals that published articles on community engagement addressed racial equity. i selected two journals to examine: the journal of higher education outreach and engagement, and the metropolitan universities journal. i conducted a keyword search within these journals for articles using the terms “diversity” “diverse” and “racial equity”. the preliminary findings from the analysis of the literature on transformation into engaged institutions indicated that “racial equity” was not a term often used, yet the terms “diversity” and “diverse” did appear in this literature. thus, i chose to use the terms “diversity” “diverse” and “racial equity” when looking for articles in these two journals. articles identified through a keyword searches were analyzed by both reading and via a search function, just as was the initial data. articles published between 1997 and 2016 in the metropolitan universities journal yielded 64 related articles. articles published between 1997 and 2016 the journal of higher education outreach and engagement yielded 20 articles. analysis once the data gathering process was completed, similar terms and contexts were collapsed as appropriate. as shown in table 1, specific terms were collapsed into one term, and the contexts for the use of each term were also collapsed. table 1. final keywords and contexts collapsed from original keywords and contexts final keyword original keywords included final context original contexts included diverse diverse, diversity community community, society, populations race race, cultural, culture, minority, minoritized thought/institution thought, discipline, action, institution, process racism racism, racist students students, populations, changing demographics racial racial faculty faculty, populations equity equity unconnected initiatives unconnected initiatives equality equality, equal findings much of the literature stressed the need for institutions to transform. however, little discussion took notice of racial equity. the ways in which the body of literature on transformation into engaged institutions, as well as the way articles in leading journals that publish communityengaged work addressed racial equity, is important to consider, as it contributes to the ways in which higher education institutions think about, understand, and act on transforming into engaged institutions. there were four key findings of my analysis of this literature. the first 99 finding is the lack of reference, explicitly, to the term “racial equity” in this body of literature, which prevents an examination or discussion of the role racial equity has in institutional transformation. the term most often utilized within this body of literature is “diversity”, thus necessitating a change from focusing on racial equity to focusing on diversity. the second finding in this analysis is scholars writing about engaged work tend to address diversity in terms of diversity of discipline or diversity of thought. for example, johnson and wamser (1996) discussed the need for the scholarly work of faculty to be diverse, an approach where faculty strengths work collectively, as opposed to individually, to meet the research, teaching, and outreach expectations in higher education. similarly, rosean et al. (2001) provided important institutional steps to support faculty from a variety of disciplines in their engaged scholarship in order to move the work of engaged scholarship out of the margins of academia. fear, sandmann, and lelle (1998) provided a useful framework to understand the diverse ways higher education has institutionalized engagement by focusing on where within the institution engagement has been incorporated (e.g., realigning institutional mission, or restructuring faculty reward systems). likewise, jaeger, jameson, and clayton (2012) argued that the diverse activities of faculty creates the best learning environment and productivity, particularly at landgrant, research-intensive universities. all of these articles addressed the importance of having diversity in faculty work and areas of expertise, which is an important perspective to take in engagement work to prevent engagement from becoming synonymous with particular disciplines. the third finding is that authors discuss diversity in terms of racial demographics, most often of community demographics and student demographics within higher education institutions. while checkoway (1997) refers mostly to diversity in higher education in terms of disciplinary approach, he also briefly addresses the needs of diverse communities and the mistake higher education makes when there is a lack of alignment between higher education goals and diverse community needs. cantor, englot, and higgins (2013) describe the importance of establishing anchor institutions, or institutions that serve as a community place-based organization that are the as “social glue, or economic engines” (p. 20), and that have mutual benefit and reciprocal partnerships as the foundation of engaged work between universities and communities. although establishing anchor institutions is vital to sustain community-university partnerships, the racial diversity addressed by cantor et al. is the diversity embedded in the community. the racial diversity referenced in these examples focus on particular populations that are either external to or are students within institutions of higher education. cortes (1999) identified four diversity topics that will be most salient in the 21st century: affinity groups, facilitating constructive intergroup relations, modification of identities, and restructuring curriculum. he argued that these diversity topics would become increasingly important, because of quickly changing student demographics. the fourth and final finding is specific to diversity work internal to institutions of higher education, yet has no connection with community-engagement work. for example, butler (1990) described the experiences of african american faculty in higher education and provided suggested ways for faculty of color to survive and thrive in higher education. butler also cautions administrators against expecting faculty of color to tend to all diversity initiatives on campus. yet, no literature links these experiences and the work happening in community engagement. 100 similarly, king, barnes, and hitt (1999) provide invaluable insights into the importance of ongoing faculty development in order to create a better understanding of diversity issues within higher education institutions. however, it fails to connect this need for development to the work of community engagement. edwards and montague (2014) conducted interviews with racially diverse community members who had been a part of the community engagement initiatives a specific institution. they found that community members overwhelmingly thought the university was doing a good job of recognizing and engaging in issues of race relations within the community, but that the institution could be more diverse. pointing out a lack of racial diversity within the university provides important insight into the need for more people of color within institutions of higher education. however, this reference to demographic differences did not connect the work of engagement with the work of diversity. this group of scholars all focus on racial diversity internal to higher education institutions and are published in a journal dedicated to engagement, yet all focus on the experiences faculty of color within higher education with no connection to community engagement or engaged scholarship. this sort of attention to the topic of racial diversity within the body of literature on transforming into engaged institutions shows promise. however, the lack of connection between the work around racial equity and the work around engagement leaves me skeptical of the ability for engagement to transform higher education institutions into spaces and places that truly consider communities to have and produce meaningful and valuable knowledge through their own expertise. in the midst of conducting this analysis, i attended a conference on public engagement, which focused on looking at the role of publicly engaged work in addressing pressing social issues. the experience at the opening plenary mirrored, almost exactly, the findings in the analysis of the ways in which the literature on institutional transformation addressed issues of racial equity. the plenary featured six panelists who represented the ways in which community engaged scholarship addressed community issues. all six panelists were white and all were from science or health-based fields. at the end of the session, an audience member asked, “where are the faculty of color and indigenous faculty who are also doing engagement work?” the panel responded to the question, but never addressed the question directly. they stressed that they knew that having a diverse group of people was important because diverse people represent other ways of knowing. one panelist quickly stated that 40% of the research team were people of color without providing additional information about what role they played on the team. two panelists added that community members provided racial diversity on the project, and one asserted that everyone on the team brought great diversity to the table. lastly, the panel facilitator, who was a white high-level administrator who represented the engaged work of the university, stated that the central office (which was hosting the conference) offered workshops on decolonizing methodologies to those who were interested in learning about that topic. yet this individual failed to connect this optional workshop with the question about the lack of racial diversity within community-engaged work. the inability of the panelists or of the highlevel administrator moderating the panel to answer the question about the lack of faculty of color and indigenous faculty represented in engagement work at the institution is troubling, and it represents, on the surface, one of the issues at hand. although troubling, the historical and current-day experiences of people of color within higher education institutions may explain the 101 demographics of the panel of engaged scholars. their experience may also provide an explanation as to why the panelists were unable to answer a direct question about the lack of racial diversity in community engagement. however, because there is a gap in the literature that directly connects racial equity with community engagement initiatives in higher education, we cannot be sure. even though demographic representation is a good place to start when attempting to understand and address racial inequity, relying solely on racial diversity cannot address educational inequity along racial lines (dowd & bensimon, 2015). thus, the ways in which community engagement impacts people of color within institutions of higher education continues to be unexamined. my observation at the public engagement conference is not the first time thoughtful observers have called into question the lack of racial diversity within community engagement. simpson (2014) argued there was lack of attention to systemic issues of inequity and injustice within the civic engagement work in higher education; “in the context of social issues that are profoundly entrenched and complex, the scholarship of engagement does little to sustain even an awareness of these issues, let alone consideration of their resolution” (p. 82). my own observations and experiences at various community engagement conferences, events, and workshops support this conclusion. similarly, hernandez and pasquesi (2017) argue that it is not possible to make substantial changes outside of higher education if the institution continues to lack racial equity within itself. additionally, strum, eatman, saltmarsh, and bush (2011) assert that in order to have full participation in the transformation of higher education institutions, building an architecture for both community engagement and diversity is critical, as the two fields need to come together to inform, support, and grow with one another. nevertheless, the literature connecting racial equity to community engagement within higher education institutions is still lacking, leaving community engagement initiatives critically unquestioned and unexamined. discussion i have found that the literature addresses diversity instead of racial equity. its authors conceive of diversity as difference in thought or discipline. the literature isolates the importance racial demographic diversity to community and student populations, and addresses diversity work within higher education institutions as important yet unconnected to community engagement work. in terms of the lack of focus on racial equity, addressing diversity instead of racial equity within community engagement work prevents racial equity, specifically, from obtaining exploration in the work of community engagement. dowd and bensimon (2015) found that “discriminatory sorting occurs through structures and practices that are so thoroughly institutionalized that they seem normal (to many) until we ask why racial inequities in outcomes are occurring so routinely and prevalently” (p. 1). it is imperative to understand the ways in which community-engagement work may, intentionally or unintentionally, facilitate routine discriminatory sorting, which requires a narrowing in focus from the generality of diversity to the specificity of racial equity. furthermore, by focusing on racial equity instead of diversity, we can continue to highlight the importance of having diversity of thought and diversity of discipline without diluting the conversation about racial equity. in other words, focusing on racial equity indicates exactly what we are intending to analyze, as opposed to diversity, which can mean several different things to different audiences. 102 by focusing only on student or community racial demographic diversity, racialized spaces and practices within higher education institutions may go unrecognized, unaddressed, and unchallenged by community engagement scholars and practitioners. much like the earlier example of the connection between engagement and women faculty of color, we do not yet understand the ways in which changing policies and practices specific to recognizing community engagement work may affect tenure and promotion of faculty of color. lastly, by not connecting internal issues of racial equity with internal work of engagement, higher education institutions run the risk of continuing to move forward with a transformation that, at its core, is exclusionary to faculty, staff, and students of color, which is the opposite of what i argue engaged scholars believe to be central to transforming into engaged institutions. take, for example, my experience at the public engagement conference where the plenary panelists responded to an inquiry about the lack of faculty of color and indigenous faculty representation in the same ways the literature addressed racial equity. i omitted from this example that the faculty on this panel represented projects awarded institutional-level grant money for continuing to do work that addressed pressing social issues. in fact, a critical mass of faculty of color at this institution are also engaged scholars (personal communication, 2018). if we knew better how racial equity and community engagement connected in this example, we might question why this group of people won selection to represent their work on this panel. what were the racial demographics of those who applied for this grant funding? what were the racial demographics of those awarded and those who were not? what were the racial demographics of persons involved in the projects? what were the racial demographics of those who served on the review board for the grant? these are only some of the important questions needed to unpack the connection between community engagement and racial equity at this particular institution. conclusion although this literature analysis has shown a lack of attention to racial equity work, i believe the field of community engagement is ready to analyze their own practices in terms of racial equity. from the beginning of this field, there has been ongoing and critical analysis of how higher education is transforming and what the intended and unintended consequences might be for this transformation. although this analysis has not included connections between racial equity work and community engaged initiatives within higher education to date, there is still a willingness to learn. the fact that the literature on institutional transformation has addressed diversity at all indicates that scholars understand, at some level, that diversity plays an important role in community engagement. however, the discussion only circles the issues of racial equity internal to institutions of higher education, lacking the connection needed to make the argument that racial equity is an important component within engagement initiatives. this gap in the literature opens up the opportunity for empirical investigation into the ways in which engagement initiatives within higher education consider racial equity. in addition to the recognition that diversity and engagement are somehow connected, it has become clear both through my own review, as well as comments from scholars within this field (sandmann, 2008; sandmann, jordan, mull, & valentine, 2014), that much of the published 103 work in this area includes descriptions of model programming, innovative approaches, and critical opinion pieces from revered scholars. what is lacking in this field is empirical research and theory development. thus, a focus on empirical research and theory development is an important aspect of connecting racial equity and community engagement as we move forward with this work. as the literature has indicated repeatedly, knowledge and expertise does not just exist in traditional manners within higher education. in the context of future work, this means that just because peer-reviewed journals have not published it does not mean no one is doing such work. in other words, there might be great work and attention paid to issues of racial equity in community engagement initiatives internal to higher education, but no one has written about it yet. thus, the focus of my future work in this area is not a “gotcha” adventure; it is quite the opposite. i have recently proposed a study that focuses on the ways in which institutions of higher education address racial equity in their community-engagement initiatives. race is pervasive and has been foundational to the way our society, including higher education institutions, functions (feagin, 2006; dowd & bensimon, 2015). the question is not if, but how racial equity work goes on in community-engagement initiatives. by failing to address issues of racial equity within higher education, community-engagement initiatives may result in engaged institutions that continue to operate as racially exclusionary spaces. it may prevent a critical consideration of how policies and practices are meant to strengthen the institutionalization of engagement could continue to produce racially inequitable outcomes in higher education. in addition, much like a buffer block prevents trains from moving past particular points on a track, the lessons we are learning from our community partners through our community engaged work may be prevented from being utilized within our own institutional communities if we are unable to critically analyze the role of racial equity within our own work. if we are prevented from taking our lessons-learned from communities into our college or university communities, we may be doing a great disservice to our community partners and our desire to recognize multiple ways of creating knowledge. 104 references alter, t. r., & book, p. a. 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(2001). the citizen scholar: joining voices and values in the engagement interface. metropolitan universities, 12(4), 10-29. . retrieved from https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/muj saltmarsh, j. & wooding, j. (2016). rewarding community-engaged scholarship: a state university system approach. metropolitan universities, 27(2), 74-86. https://doi.org/10.18060/21128 https://doi.org/10.18060/21126 http://openjournals.libs.uga.edu/index.php/jheoe https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9906.1996.tb00370.x https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/muj http://openjournals.libs.uga.edu/index.php/jheoe https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/muj https://doi.org/10.18060/21128 107 sandmann, l. r. (2008). conceptualization of the scholarship of engagement in higher education: a strategic review, 1996-2006. journal of higher education outreach and engagement, 12(1), 91-104. retrieved from http://openjournals.libs.uga.edu/index.php/jheoe sandmann, l. r., jordan, j. w., mull, c. d. & valentine, t. (2014). measuring boundaryspanning behaviors in community engagement. journal of higher education outreach and engagement, 18(3), 83-104. retrieved from http://openjournals.libs.uga.edu/index.php/jheoe sandmann, l. r., & plater, w. m. (2009). leading the engaged institution. new directions for higher education, 147, 13-24. https://doi.org/10.1002/he.354 simpson, j. s. (2014). longing for justice: higher education and democracy’s agenda. toronto, on: university of toronto press. spanier, g. b. (2011). renewing the covenant: ten years after the kellogg commission. journal of higher education outreach and engagement, 15(3), 9-13. retrieved from http://openjournals.libs.uga.edu/index.php/jheoe strum, s., eatman, t., saltmarsh, j., & bush, a. (2011). full participation: building the architecture for diversity and community engagement in higher education (white paper). columbia university law school: center for institutional and social change. retrieved from https://surface.syr.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=ia turner, c. s. v. (2003). incorporation and marginalization in the academy: from border toward center for faculty of color? journal of black studies, 34(1), 112-125. https://doi.org/10.1177/0021934703253689 http://openjournals.libs.uga.edu/index.php/jheoe http://openjournals.libs.uga.edu/index.php/jheoe https://doi.org/10.1002/he.354 http://openjournals.libs.uga.edu/index.php/jheoe https://surface.syr.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=ia https://surface.syr.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=ia https://surface.syr.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=ia https://doi.org/10.1177/0021934703253689 108 author information arien b. telles department of organizational leadership, policy and development university of minnesota 206 burton hall 178 pleasant st. se minneapolis, mn 55455 telephone: 651-308-7991 email: atelles@umn.edu arien b. telles is a ph.d. candidate of higher education at the university of minnesota in the department of organization leadership, policy and development. her research interests include community engagement, engaged scholarship, equitable institutional practices, and issues of racial equity and racialized spaces within the context of higher education. she is currently working on a dissertation that focuses on the ways in which community engagement addresses issues of racial equity. 105 to this day: college graduates on the lasting significance of relationality and experiential learning ann fullerton and vicki l. reitenauer abstract in the past twenty years, much research has been conducted into the effects of community-based learning and service-learning on students, but studies into the longterm impacts that persist after graduation have been fewer in number. in this article, the authors share perspectives from portland state university alumni on the lasting significance of their participation in a community-based learning course that has been operating continuously for more than two decades and the key features of significant learning experiences more generally. one of the first capstone courses to be designed and offered at portland state university (psu)—and the longest-running capstone at the university—is “learning from and about persons with significant disabilities,” referred to in this article as “learning from persons.” since 1993, more than 3,500 students have completed “learning from persons.” in the course, students prepare for and then spend two weeks as student-counselors with individuals with significant disabilities in an outdoor camp program. most students who choose this course have never before formed a relationship with a person whom they perceive to be so “differently-abled” than they are. in the final reflections they complete for the course, many students comment that the course was both one of the best and one of the most difficult things they had ever done, as they articulated the ways they accepted and met their responsibilities as student-counselors. through these final reflections, the instructors and staff involved in “learning from persons” hear every year about the powerful, even life-changing, experiences that capstone student-counselors have during their two weeks at camp. but do these changes constitute the sort of transformative learning that community-based practitioners know is possible through this pedagogy and teach toward in their courses? one purpose of this qualitative study was to determine the relative meaningfulness of the community-based learning experience that is the “learning with persons” capstone, both in and of itself and as one among many learning experiences students encounter during their undergraduate careers. this article is based on a qualitative research study conducted with twenty psu graduates who completed the “learning through persons” capstone. what follows is a description of both the community and the pedagogical contexts for the course, a brief overview of relevant literature, a description of the methods employed by the 106 researchers, a discussion of one set of findings and the implication of those findings, and some concluding thoughts on the “learning from persons” capstone and its power as a model of inclusive community-building. the community context of “learning from and about persons with significant disabilities” the “learning from and about persons with significant disabilities” capstone is offered through a partnership between psu and the mt. hood kiwanis camp, inc., of oregon. the partnership was formed in 1972 as a practicum experience for special education teachers and in 1993 was expanded to support the capstone course by a special education professor (and lead author on this article) who herself enjoyed a longstanding relationship with mt. hood kiwanis camp. as a thirteen-year-old, she began volunteering and working at the camp and today identifies this as a formative experience in which she developed confidence and the ability to work in teams with others, and which eventually led to her career path. the lessons this now-seasoned professor brought with her from that lived experience from many years ago included the understanding that building reciprocal relationships with persons with significant disabilities is essential for respectful, authentic, and meaningful engagement to be possible across differences related to ability. this informed every aspect of the development of the original capstone proposal and continues to inform the design of the course today. the pedagogical context for “learning from persons” as one of the many dozens of options that students have for their self-selected senior capstone course, “learning from persons” appeals to students for a variety of reasons. a small proportion of the students are preparing for careers in education, including special education. some students have familial relationships with persons with disabilities or have worked or volunteered previously in settings with persons with disabilities. the majority, however, seem to choose the course because of the convenience of its scheduling—requiring a commitment of two weeks in residence at camp, with a weekend break in between, during the summer, when many students have greater flexibility in course scheduling—and because it seems like a fun and easy way to complete one’s capstone requirement. although many students are initially attracted to the course because of convenient scheduling, all students engage in an application process through which they learn what the course requires of them, complete a selfassessment, and discuss the course with faculty or graduate assistants before they enroll so that they may make an informed choice to register for the course. on average, students from more than thirty different undergraduate majors enroll each year. given the intensely immersive nature of this capstone experience, students must be fully oriented and supported to plunge in and work through the challenges that await 107 them at camp. additionally, students need repeated opportunities in a variety of settings and formats to reflect on what they are experiencing, to connect these experiences to past experience and already-held knowledge, and to transmute these experiences into new learning. several components of this course converge to provide students with the opportunity to build relationships with persons who are differently abled, to explore the social constructs surrounding dis/ability in our society and the way those constructs create particular realities for persons with disabilities, and to reflect on the current and possible meanings of their developing awareness. one month before the on-site phase of the course, students attend a full-day orientation in which the faculty and community partner provide an overview of expectations for the students as camp counselors, the learning goals for the course, and the fundamentals of effective camp counseling. students then read about the experiences and perspectives of persons with disabilities through first-hand accounts, coupled with scholarly material that employs a critical disability lens. students complete online modules to ensure that they have reviewed and that they understand important information about their role as counselors. their final preparation before they come to the camp is to write a pre-camp reflection paper, in which they contrast their own lived experiences with those recounted in a young person’s first-hand account of living with disability, recall and describe how students with significant disabilities were treated in their middle and high schools, and share their current career aspirations and their connection to this capstone course. at the start of their scheduled course section, students arrive at mt. hood kiwanis camp for two days of on-site training that includes practicing counseling skills, team building to create a community of counselors ready to help each other, and engaging in simulation activities that give insight into what people with physical, sensory, and neurological challenges often experience. each capstone student is then assigned to serve as the counselor for one or two camper-participants. after the training, the camper-participants arrive with their families or caregivers, and the capstone students have an opportunity to ask questions and gain more information before the caregivers leave. students are organized into groups of eight studentcounselors. a masters-level, experienced teacher, working as a counselor-supervisor, along with an assistant, continuously coaches and supports the eight-person groups of student-counselors individually and collectively throughout their two weeks at camp. additionally, the on-site faculty member also meets with student-counselors, rotating between the groups and checking in periodically with each individual studentcounselor. in addition, all of the camp program staff (many of whom began their involvement at mt. hood kiwanis camp as psu capstone students), who lead the various outdoor activities, are also responsible for teaching and coaching the capstone student-counselors. no matter how extensive their preparation has been, many students worry that they will not know what to do or how to communicate and connect with their assigned camper(s). the aforementioned coaching and support, along with modeling from 108 supervisors, helps students confront their fears, move through them, and quickly establish a comfortable person-to-person relationship with the camper-participants. as students gain confidence and form relationships with camper-participants, a second wave of learning occurs, in which students observe and reflect on the many individual ways that people with significant disabilities overcome personal challenges to live, play, and interact with others. such experiential learning can be a powerful tool for increasing students’ ability to navigate across difference, but only if students have repeated opportunities to reflect on what they are learning and connect that knowledge to larger contexts. at night, after the camper-participants have gone to bed, supervisors meet with their student team to discuss approaches to challenges they are experiencing and reflect on what they are learning about persons with disabilities. studentcounselors have an opportunity to practice understanding, respecting and valuing the role of diverse realities through this practice. after sharing and reflecting on these experiences, discussions then move to broader topics such as the issues faced by families supporting a child with disabilities; the problems within the foster care and community service systems; the disability rights movement world-wide; barriers in education, employment, and housing; and the right to self-determination. supervisors guide student-counselors in making connections between what they are learning each day alongside their camper-participants and these broader political and social issues. at the end of the student-counselor’s first week of camp, the student completes a selfassessment, a feedback tool that was collaboratively designed by faculty and camp staff, then meet with their counselor-supervisor to review their ratings and receive the supervisor’s feedback. the student and supervisor collaboratively define goals for improvement and enhanced achievement for the student-counselor for the second week. at the end of the second week, the supervisor completes an evaluation and holds a final conference with the student. after students return home from camp they write a post-camp reflection paper. they begin by re-reading their pre-reflection and consider how their views have changed after the two-week counseling experience. they also reflect on what they have learned about themselves and about groups that society views as different, and they identify what they are taking from this experience and how they might use their learnings postcamp. the student’s final reflection paper, combined with the evaluation completed by the supervisor, is used to determine the student’s final grade in the course. after completing the course, many students want and need to continue processing the experience and do so in several ways. the counselor-supervisors and the students they supervised get together informally for a reunion in late summer or fall. the entire camp community (staff, counselors, camper-participants, and their families) is invited to participate in a fundraiser in september. students also connect with faculty back on campus. 109 a psu undergraduate is employed as a social media manager for the “learning with persons” capstone, and the course facebook page and blog provide a place to connect throughout the year. some students, camper-participants, and their families report that they stay in touch for many years. students also often report they made lasting friends with their fellow student-counselors. literature review numerous studies have confirmed the positive impacts of community-based learning on participants. bamber and hankin (2011), for example, use transformative learning theory to investigate impacts of service-learning. through a meta-analysis of eleven studies, warren finds that service-learning also “increased multicultural awareness and enhanced social responsibility” (2012, 59) in participants. pelco, ball, and lockeman (2014) offer a complex picture of the beneficial aspects of service-learning for a majority of students alongside the differential impacts experienced by students from varying demographics and the resulting differences in perspectives on their experiences. although there are numerous qualitative explorations of the impact of communitybased learning courses during the experience or immediately afterwards, few qualitative studies have examined if and how course-embedded community-based learning experiences continue to influence graduates’ perspectives or actions. kerrigan (2004) interviewed twenty graduates three years after participating in a variety of required capstone community-based learning courses in their senior year. in this study, some graduates described how the course had enhanced their communication and leadership skills, appreciation of diversity, and ability to operate effectively in new communities. others gave examples of tangible professional skills that had contributed to their career development. still others described a continuing sense of social responsibility and sustained volunteerism after graduation. kiely (2005) found that, one to eight years after college graduates had participated in an international service-learning course, each participant experienced one or more forms of perspective transformation (e.g., moral, intellectual, spiritual). similarly, but at the k-12 level, laursen, thiry, and liston (2012) reported that graduates who had been engaged in a science education outreach program one to eight years earlier reported positive outcomes in personal development, management skills, teaching, communication, and career-related skills. newman and hernandez (2011) studied the long-term effects on alumni mentors for a long-running service-learning course focused on personal and vocational development opportunities for urban youth, finding that the service-learning experience “appears to have long-term positive effects on young adults’ attitudes, intentions, and behaviors involving their learning experience, career selection, career preparation, skill development, and community service involvement” (2011, 44). finally, in determining the methods we would use for data collection and analysis (explored in greater depth below), we chose to use the critical incident technique described by bycio and allen (2004) and critical event analysis described by bowie, 110 pope, and lough (2008). these approaches allowed us to mine interviewees’ responses to questions about their most significant learning experiences through probing for rich descriptions of those experiences and then analyzing their responses for themes and patterns. methods in this article, we contribute to the rich literature on community-based learning through a study of the long-term impact of “learning through persons,” as catalyzed by responses to questions regarding graduates’ most significant learning experiences in college. use of the critical incident technique allowed us to extract insights about the relative importance of this community-based learning experience within the numerous other learning experiences graduates had had in college. the interview method used in this study was a modification of the critical incident technique described by bycio and allen (2004) and critical event analysis described by bowie, pope, and lough (2008). during the interviews, participants were first asked to describe their three most significant learning experiences in college. then, for each experience, they were asked what was meaningful about that experience for them, and in what ways that experience has impacted their life after college. by asking this question first, before any reference was made to “learning from persons,” the researchers were able to explore how salient service-learning was among all the learning experiences that occur in college. if a respondent listed “learning from persons” among their top three significant learning experiences in college, the interviewer furthered the discussion of the impacts of this course with a number of additional questions about its long-term significance. in the cases in which interviewees did not list this course originally, the interviewer asked respondents directly about the “learning from persons” course and the meaning it held for them, both at the time they took the course and in the intervening years. potential interviewees were initially located through the psu alumni database. at the time of the study, more than three thousand alumni composed this group of graduates who had completed “learning from persons,” with about 60 percent of those being possible participants because a) current contact information was available, and b) they had given permission to be contacted by the university. stratified random sampling was used to identify sixty potential participants from three time periods (2-5 years after they had completed the course, 6-10 years, and 11-16 years). potential participants from each time period were randomly selected, called, and asked if they would be interested in participating in a forty-five-minute phone interview about their college experience. if a potential participant could not be reached or if that person declined, the next randomly-selected graduate was called. at the time of the interviews, four participants (19 percent) had completed “learning from persons” 11-16 years prior, eight (38 percent) had completed the course 6-10 years prior, and the remaining nine (43 percent) had completed “learning from persons” 2-5 years prior. the twenty interviewees had completed eighteen different majors during college, 111 including business, biology, art, and graphic design, to name a few. a thank-you in the form of a twenty dollar gift card was issued to each participant after the interview. the interviewer conducted twenty phone interviews with participants. interviews were audio-taped, and each was transcribed for analysis. the researchers then analyzed the data contained in the transcriptions according to the processes described by creswell (1994). two readers read each interview and identified the dominant themes, coded the data according to these themes, compared their results, and reached consensus regarding the coding. a third reader confirmed these themes through an independent analysis of the data. findings of the twenty interviewees, twelve mentioned “learning from persons” explicitly as one of their most significant learning experiences in college. in other words, 60 percent of interviewees cited this community-based learning course—which constituted six credits of their minimum of 180 required for graduation—as a most significant learning experience they had had as an undergraduate. of the eight other interviewees who did not mention “learning from persons” as one of their three most significant learning experiences, six of these graduates made it clear that it had been a significant experience in response to the interviewer’s questions about their capstone course. for example, one said, “it was the most important experience of my life,” and four described it as a “fantastic” or “incredible” experience that had impacted their life since graduation. in all, 90 percent of interviewees identified that a community-based learning course—their capstone course, specifically—had been a most significant experience in their college education. analysis of the data, both with regard to students’ most significant general learning experiences and the lasting impact of their involvement in “learning from persons,” led to insights about what graduates report years later as the most salient and impactful aspects of their college years. students consistently pointed to two major themes as features of their most significant learning experiences, which cross-cut throughout their commentary: •   relationality, which included the following: ʼ  a high degree of interaction with others perceived to be different from themselves, particularly in the community-based setting ʼ  a high degree of interaction with a teacher (broadly defined) who modeled ways of thinking and working through problems and provided opportunities for continual contact and feedback ʼ  a high degree of interaction with peers, including through group and team work •  community-based, experiential, hands-on learning experiences  relationality of the fifty-seven total learning experiences that graduates reported as significant (three experiences for each of seventeen interviews, and two experiences for each of three interviews), 92 percent involved explicitly relational elements, experienced in a 112 variety of ways. that is, students repeatedly described encounters with teachers, fellow students, student affairs resource staff, guest speakers, and community partners as the most significant elements of their undergraduate education. when a respondent mentioned something that was not overtly relational in nature (and, of these responses, the location of psu, in the midst of downtown portland, oregon, was the most frequently cited factor), the probes that followed the initial questions—namely, “what was important about that experience for you?” and “in what ways, if any, has that impacted you after college?”—typically led to responses that involved the importance of human relationship and connection. in response to these probes, students often mentioned having had the opportunity to connect outside classes with persons working in their chosen field or being able to attend lectures, readings, and other events that furthered what they were learning in the classroom. one graduate explained that her most valuable learning experiences were ones where people related to one another: i like to connect with people. i like to connect with my teachers. i don’t…like big lectures and stuff, you know, where there’s no personal interaction. i find that hard. so [in college] i really appreciate[d] when there [was] discussion and some type of personal [connection], or personal accessibility. this student stated that the high degree of relationality in some of her courses, combined with her involvement in student organizations, “opened the door” for post-graduation involvement on projects in small groups and the taking on of leadership responsibilities. this student concluded by saying that she found it extremely valuable to have engaged in this sort of integrative learning, as it helped her relate to different people. interaction across difference. nearly half (45 percent) of the graduates explicitly mentioned the fact of the diversity represented by their instructors and their peers as being central to their most significant learning experiences, which intersects with their more general descriptions of faculty and peer interactions expanded on below. even more fundamental in graduates’ responses was a recognition of the significance of learning from persons formerly thought of as “others” within community-based learning environments. one graduate who described herself as older than the majority of other students in college noted that interacting with these younger classmates was important for her post-graduation interactions in the workplace. another graduate said that one of her most significant learning experiences stemmed from the diversity within the group of professors she encountered throughout her studies, who came from many parts of the world and offered her fresh perspectives on issues that she had never examined before. this graduate spoke directly to how this engagement across difference had fostered in her an open-mindedness that she has continued to operate from post-graduation. 113 another graduate, who identified herself as a conservative, identified “tolerance” as a most important lesson she took from her interactions with persons from across the political spectrum: being a conservative and being among a lot of liberal students and teachers… it was a really hard thing sometimes to just keep your mouth shut and absorb and listen and appreciate….it really taught me a lot about how…everybody’s allowed to have their own opinion, everybody’s ideals are different, and you just have to kind of try and see the good in everything, because typically there is something good in all those things….it was really a good thing for me to have gone to a liberal arts college because i got exposed to a lot more, and i think i have a lot more tolerance now because of it….i’m not so close-minded [sic] now. that’s probably the one thing i will tell my kids, is that i don’t care what they do when they go to college, they can go there for whatever they want, i just want them to learn to live with everybody who’s out there, to appreciate everybody who’s out there, and to really listen to people, no matter [if] what they think they’re saying is crazy, or not, you don’t have to…agree with it, but just appreciate it. with regard to “learning from persons” in particular, the way that the capstone was grounded in encounter across difference provided the foundation for students’ significant learning in the course. without exception, interviewees talked about the nature of the “live encounter” (palmer 1998, 37) and the way it called forth a kind of reciprocity that they were often startled to experience. indeed, many students spoke to a central paradox in their roles as student-counselors with persons with significant disabilities: that, at the start of the experience, they had had to set themselves and their fears aside simply to do the work of caring for another who was clearly in need of such care, and, in the end, they realized that they had likely gained more from the experience than those they had ostensibly been serving. respondents spoke to that tension throughout the interviews when they reflected that they had to push through their concerns in order to be effective and fully in service to their campers—to recognize that this experience was “not all about me,” as many of them stated explicitly—and that doing so allowed them to realize how they were ultimately changed by the experience and that, in fact (and ironically so), it was all about them. one particularly powerful example of this kind of recognition, this “ah-ha” moment born of that paradox, was expressed by this participant: i [counseled] a thirty-year-old autistic woman who was completely dependent on me [for personal care]…and it was extremely humbling. had to do everything….when i first started, [i] couldn’t believe i was having to do this with my time….well, by the end of the week, i actually, for the first time since i was probably five years old, wet the bed at camp, because of all the trauma and stress that had happened to me for the four days before that happened. it was like i was so humbled that i got taken back to where they were, and i actually told my thirty-year-old camper what had happened, and 114 she gave me the biggest hug and said, “it’s okay, i wet the bed too.”…i was so mortified that it happened to me, i didn’t know who to tell, or what to do. but she just totally embraced me and said, “it’s okay.”…that’s why i say it was the most amazing experience of my life. it just totally took me, 360 [sic] to an adult. it was just amazing, overnight….i was so scared when it happened, but looking back, thank god that happened to me….i have to say that was probably the ultimate moment, the one thing that i got out of my entire college career that i will never forget….i would have paid a hundred thousand dollars just to have that experience happen to me, because it has meant so much on how i parent, on how i deal with my husband and my marriage, on how i deal with individuals at the church, at the clothes drive, my neighbors….sometimes everybody needs to be taken care of. no matter how capable they are. no matter how stubborn, how strong-willed. sometimes everybody needs to be told that it’s okay, no matter what….even if it’s [an] embarrassing thing, or the most awful thing…they just need to be told it’s okay...and sometimes that’s all it takes. interaction with faculty. in recounting their most significant learning experiences, graduates also referred explicitly and often to the power of the modeling provided by their instructors and the value of the high degree of interaction with faculty in those significant learning experiences. one graduate now employed as a social worker indicated that one of the most significant learning experiences happened for her in a class in which she “was [regarded as] a person to the teacher, instead of just another student in the class.” another graduate talked about the importance of his business classes that were taught by instructors with expertise developed through experience in the workforce and the seasoned business leaders they welcomed into the course as guest speakers, and how he draws on the lessons he learned from those instructors and speakers to this day. throughout the interviews, when describing the significance of their growth connected to “learning from persons,” students recognized and identified the camper-participants with whom they worked as the direct sources of their learning—and, in effect, their teachers. one graduate talked about learning a fundamental lesson about communication from the nonverbal young woman that she had counseled. toward the end of the week, her cabin group was practicing a skit for the final campfire, and the young woman’s reaction surprised her: [she became] really, really, really resistant….i was getting really frustrated, because i thought…what is the deal?....why wouldn’t [she] get involved?.... she had a word book with picture-y things, and she showed me the picture of “sad,” and it finally clicked to me that the reason she was so resistant was because she had been to camp before and realized that when you started practicing for these little skits, that meant the end of the week was coming. this graduate said that she had learned not to make an assumption about what a person is trying to communicate, but to draw closer to the person and their communication 115 style so as to be open to what is being shared—and she learned that lesson directly from her relationship with her camper-participant. she went on to explain how she regularly applies this lesson in the present: “give people credit, back up from the situation, and don’t assume the absolute worse…making sure you’ve understood what they’ve communicated.” interaction with peers. graduates recognized and included their interactions with their undergraduate colleagues as being significant sources of their learning. a number of interviewees reported that working cross-functionally within student teams throughout their time at psu and learning the skills and capacities for functional group interactions were essential parts of their memorable learning experiences. one graduate, an accountant, noted that “learning to get along with and work with people you don’t want to” was a key feature of her learning from her peers. another graduate, a business student, described the value of working closely with peers in this way: learning to work with others in team-based projects…was really challenging for me, and i learned a lot about personal boundaries and other people’s boundaries, and it has helped me in the workplace immensely, although i hated it at the time….i have found that there’s typically always a way, because there’s a middle ground you can meet [on], and i really learned that patience from my college experience, because, you know, you had to get those grades in college, and you really learned how to encourage people versus make people mad. and try and bring out the positive and not necessarily point out the negative….these experiences…really did help me to get through those real-life situations. another graduate who had majored in business described two important outcomes of engaging in teams in college: gaining skills in working cross-functionally with different sorts of people and learning how to take individual responsibility for her contribution within a team. this graduate spoke about how she learned to deal with difficulties that arise, personally or professionally, when working with others, and the importance of “being honest, not only with myself, but with the whole group if it’s something i can’t handle or something i need help with.” this interviewee then shared, “i don’t think about [this on] a day-to-day basis, but now that we’re talking about it, it really is kind of a big part of what i do,” suggesting that this learning has been so well integrated as to have become invisibly operational in her professional working style. experiential learning interviewees repeatedly mentioned the importance of experiential engagement as cornerstones of their most significant learning opportunities. in fact, under initial questioning about their most significant learning experiences, 55 percent of interviewees explicitly named “hands-on” learning as a critical aspect of these most memorable sources of learning. internships, practica, field-based science activities, and 116 study abroad experiences were all cited here, with one graduate, for example, noting that her internship in a business setting helped her determine what work she both wanted to pursue and, equally importantly, didn’t want to pursue in the future, while also allowing her to strengthen her resume and build references for later job-seeking. graduates repeatedly described post-graduation outcomes resulting from experiential learning in college. for example, one said that his internship “gave me a lot of skills that i actually apply to what i do today.” another graduate recalled that as a sophomore he was the lead electrician in a theater production, supervising twenty other students. he reported that “the leadership aspect [of this role] was really important, [because] i’m actually in a supervisor position now, and it really helped me with my organization and scheduling.” a former biology major, who is now a teacher, described the importance of courses which involved outdoor trips, including one to the oregon coast to look at fossils and giant rock beds, to the development of his pedagogical approaches today: it’s…one thing to be in a classroom and talking about it and reading about it, but actually getting out and seeing it…made all the difference….physically getting your hands dirty….i mean it was so cool….psu had a big influence on the things i studied and who i am now….i’m actually now a teacher, and i love to take my students out as much as i can get them out….i like to take ‘em out and get ‘em dirty. other interviewees also explicitly identified that certain experiential learning opportunities had been significant because of the connection to their professional pursuits. a graduate in speech and hearing sciences spoke to the value her disciplinespecific courses had for her but stressed the importance of her experiential learning through the capstone, saying the following: i think…actually getting to be out there in the trenches doing something rather than reading a book or studying for a test, just actually getting out there and doing stuff…really makes a big difference. [it was] a real-life experience that i was then able to apply when i started looking for work, that i had actually done something in that field, because then when i started applying for jobs as an assistant i had some experience. a graduate serving as an officer in the military also named his capstone as a most significant experience because being a student-counselor at camp required him to demonstrate and expand his leadership skills: “leadership was…quite a growth for me. it helped me because eventually i became an officer and a lot was expected [of me].” in fact, of all of the types of experiential learning that students had encountered, the most frequently mentioned type identified by students as most significant was community-based learning. one business school graduate currently working in the high tech industry described community-based learning as central to two of his most 117 significant learning experiences in college. through a sophomore-level general education inquiry class, this student volunteered at a local food bank, which, he said, opened his eyes to the personal benefits of volunteering. the student noted that, before this class, he “had given blood, and…[done] civic duty kinds of activities, voting and stuff, but this was the first time i actually got out and volunteered….arguably it was forced upon me…[but] it actually exposed me to things i wouldn’t have been exposed to on my own.” the power in the community-based component in this graduate’s inquiry class led directly to his choosing the “learning from persons” capstone. the latter learning experience, he said, “opens your eyes to different opportunities, different exposures, different ways of thinking, where a regular classroom environment wouldn’t have done so....i wouldn’t have tried to spend that time had it not been part of the curriculum.” now, in his corporate position, he serves on his company’s team-building committee and regularly schedules group service outings for his colleagues to engage in collaboratively. “you are bagging potatoes elbows to elbows,” he reported. “it worked when i was a sophomore, it’ll work now that i’m in the professional field…. it’s really lived in me to become the person i am today.” in fact, in response to questioning about the “learning from persons” capstone specifically, 90 percent of interviewees identified the experiential nature of the course as one reason for its significance. a particular way that interviewees talked about the significance of “learning from persons” was in relation to the “24/7” nature of the experience; the fact that they had entered an immersion that essentially forced them to push through their resistances in order to meet their responsibilities. a clear majority of the respondents identified that they had chosen the course because it had seemed like a fun and easy way to meet their general education requirement in a relatively short two weeks and then discovered, upon meeting their campers, the forces of resistance within themselves to being fully present and participatory. if they were to stay, however, they had to figure out how to move beyond their resistances to be useful to another, and the stories of their journeys described, over and over, this trajectory. despite their making an informed choice to join “learning from persons” and the extensive preparation they had received prior to their camp experience, graduates recalled feeling fearful and uncomfortable when faced with the reality of providing care for their camper-participant. if they were to remain in the course, they had no choice but to engage, given the immersive nature of the experience—but they realized that they did have a choice about how they would engage. and they recognized, upon reflection, that this choice deeply impacted what they took with them from the experience. one graduate talked about the arc of his experience in this way: so the first day, and it’s amazing, right?....all of us senior capstone students were all in the lodge, we’re all being briefed, we’re all being kind of trained with our faculty advisors on how to handle the processes there, and the parents pull up and drop off their children. i got tad, and he was...a little more of a 118 challenge, a little more disabled than a lot of the other kids there....he couldn’t speak…[and] he couldn’t walk, so it was a challenge in the beginning. and i thought, ‘oh, my gosh, i can’t do this.’ and so the first two days, i have to admit...i was going, ‘i’m out of here.’ this is too hard, you know. my guy can’t tell me when he’s hungry, he can’t tell me when he needs to be changed....he can’t even go swimming, right, and...it’s just...really hard. but the third day through, no lie, the third day…after lunch, he had difficulty, so i had to kind of feed [him]...and all of a sudden tad reached out and grabbed my hand. and i was like, he’s in there! totally in there! he’s telling me he wants more…and then he started interacting with me, and....i was so, honestly, ignorant and naive, right, it was subtleties in his face, because he couldn’t talk, but then the third day i started to understand him, and i started to connect with him, and...i was like, ‘you know what, i like this guy!’ you know, he knows i’m there, he knows i’ve got his back. implications in responding to questions asking them to identify their three most significant learning experiences in college and then probing for the details surrounding that significance, graduates overwhelmingly named relationality (in the form of relationship with others across difference, relationship with faculty and persons serving as teachers, and relationship with peers) and experiential learning as foundational to those experiences. while the preceding sections have discussed these elements separately, there was much overlap in the responses among these factors. interviewees, for example, spoke of the learning they had gained in numerous and subtle ways through working with camper-participants, who, as co-participants in an immersive experiential setting, had actively taught them and who offered a living source of engagement across difference. given the high degree of response indicating the importance of relationality (92 percent of interviewees) and experiential environments (90 percent of interviewees) to most significant learnings, we argue that experiential opportunities within courses— from experiential activities and exercises embedded within more “traditional” courses to the full-on immersive environment of a residential service-learning course like “learning from persons”—provide a key to unlocking significant learning for students. indeed, while a clear majority of interviewees named the capstone as one of their most significant learning experiences, many of them also named plenty of other experiential approaches, too, from place-based activities that took them out of the classroom for relatively brief periods of time to internships, practica, and other community-based learning opportunities. it is perhaps more likely, as well, that course elements experienced as relational ones will be embedded in or will emerge from experiential learning settings. a team of business students developing a marketing plan for a real community partner, for example, will necessarily engage in multiple forms of relational learning. so will science students exiting the classroom for a place-based study of a local geological feature. further, interviewees spoke to the power of even a relatively common 119 classroom-based occurrence—the presence of a guest speaker—as contributing to the significance of their learning, as the speaker offered something within the course that was seen and experienced by students as relationally-based and particularly memorable. while clearly not all courses, and not even all community-based courses, can or should be structured like “learning from persons,” the data from this study suggest that it is not only such profoundly immersive courses that contribute to students’ experiences of significance, but also it is both large and small relational elements, and both fully enveloping and small-in-scope experiential opportunities, that persist as significant for graduates over time. certainly most, if not all, instructors, course designers, and program administrators, including those that operate in online contexts, might consider how to further embed relational and experiential elements in their courses and programs, as these elements pay dividends for graduates long after they leave the institution. conclusion on thirty beautiful acres in the mt. hood national forest, fifty staff, fifty-five university students, and fifty-five to sixty camper-participants come together every week and create a positive, accepting, fully inclusive community. while camp directors, staff, and faculty put a lot of work into creating the right structure and support so this can happen, there is camp director and staff turnover, a new cohort of university students every time, and a mix of new and returning camper-participants. yet even though the players might be new, the same positive community recreates itself year after year. faculty, staff, and students come to camp thinking we are going to be the ones that are in service, the ones that will be doing the giving. but when the camper-participants arrive, the real faculty have shown up, and they teach us how openly and without judgment to welcome a new relationship, accept another person fully and without condition, have fun in any situation, and co-exist just exactly as we all are. this community that is continually making and re-making itself does not have to be sustained beyond a week, and thus does not have to grapple with the tensions and inequities ongoing communities face in the “real world.” why, then, would students report, both in their reflection papers and course evaluations and in the interviews conducted for this study, that “kiwanis camp was real”? when students comment that camp was one of the first “real” communities they ever experienced, one in which everyone, including each of them, felt welcome to be who they are, and when graduates report that this experience, out of so many others, was among their most significant ones in college, we know that we are in the presence of the transformative possibility of education. not every learning setting can be as fully immersive and experiential as the one established by the “learning through persons” capstone. yet the insights shared by graduates about their most significant learning experiences offer practitioners guides for the sorts of learning approaches and strategies that will resonate long after the end 120 of college. graduates repeatedly told us that it was the learning experiences marked by relationality, involving meaningful interaction across difference, and offering opportunities for hands-on work that have continued to echo for them and inform their perspectives and actions to this day. references bamber, phil, and les hankin. 2011. “transformative learning through servicelearning: no passport required.” education + training 53 (2-3): 190-206. bowie, paul, lindsay pope, and murray lough. 2008. “a review of the current evidence base for significant event analysis.” journal of evaluation in clinical practice 14 (4): 520-536. bycio, peter, and joyce s. allen. 2004. “a critical incidents approach to outcomes assessment.” journal of education for business 80 (2): 86-92. creswell, john w. 1994. research design: qualitative and quantitative approaches. thousand oaks, ca: sage publications. fullerton, ann, vicki l. reitenauer, and seanna m. kerrigan. 2015. “a grateful recollecting: a qualitative study of the long-term impact of service-learning on graduates.” journal of higher education outreach and engagement 19 (2): 65-92. kerrigan, seanna m. 2004. “perspectives of college graduates on the experience and effect of capstone service-learning courses: a qualitative study.” edd diss., portland state university, proquest. (aat 3169484). kiely, richard. 2005. “a transformative learning model for service-learning: a longitudinal case study.” michigan journal of community service learning 12 (1): 5-22. laursen, sandra l., heather thiry, and carrie s. liston. 2012. “the impact of a university-based school science outreach program on graduate student participants’ career paths and professional socialization.” journal of higher education outreach and engagement 16 (2): 47-78. newman, cynthia m., and sigfredo a. hernandez. 2011. “minding our business: longitudinal effects of a service-learning experience on alumni.” journal of college teaching & and learning 8 (8): 39-48. palmer, parker. 1998. the courage to teach: exploring the inner landscape of the teacher’s life. san francisco: jossey-bass. pelco, lynn e., christopher t. ball, and kelly lockeman. 2014. “student growth from service-learning: a comparison of first-generation and non-first-generation college students,” journal of higher education outreach and engagement 18 (2): 49-66. 121 warren, jami. 2012. “does service-learning increase student learning? a metaanalysis.” michigan journal of community service learning 18 (2): 56-61. author information ann fullerton is a professor of special education at portland state university where she teaches capstone courses and prepares teachers in a merged program of special and secondary education. her research interests include service learning, youth transition to adulthood, and teacher preparation. fullerton earned her phd in psychology and special education from peabody college of vanderbilt university, nashville, tennessee. vicki l. reitenauer serves on the faculties of the women, gender, and sexuality studies department and the university studies program at portland state university, specializing in developing and teaching both discipline-specific and general education courses, including community-based learning experiences; building and sustaining community partnerships; facilitating relational faculty development processes; and co-creating faculty-led assessment practices. she has co-authored numerous works on these topics including learning through serving: a student guidebook for servicelearning and civic engagement across academic disciplines and cultural communities (stylus, second edition, 2013). ann fullerton special education graduate school of education portland state university po box 751 portland, or 97207-0751 e-mail: fullertona@pdx.edu telephone: 503-725-4254 fax: 503-725-5529 vicki l. reitenauer women, gender, and sexuality studies portland state university po box 751 portland, or 97207-0751 e-mail: vicr@pdx.edu telephone: 503-725-5847 fax: 503-725-5805 122 metropolitan universities vol. 28 no. 2 (spring 2017), doi: 10.18060/21513 working together differently: addressing the housing crisis in oregon judith a. ramaley abstract universities are being asked to prepare our students to navigate successfully in a complex and interconnected world and to contribute to the solution of difficult problems at work and in the communities where they live. our universities must do the same. we must adapt our approaches to education, scholarship and community involvement in order to play a meaningful role in addressing the increasingly complex and wicked problems that our communities face. the housing crisis in portland, oregon offers an especially important example of a wicked problem that has developed slowly, will be very costly to resolve and involves a lot of uncertainty due to unpredictable social, economic and environmental factors. in 2015, policymakers in communities throughout oregon began talking about a housing crisis as people searching for affordable housing found themselves competing with both the growing popularity of oregon as a place to live and a real estate investment boom. rents rose at a rate of $100/month and over 24,000 units were needed to meet the demand in 2015. the problem remains acute in 2016. this article uses community efforts to understand and address the housing crisis as a focus to explore the changing roles of the university in participating in and contributing to these new social networks, multi-stakeholder initiatives and collaborations. keywords wicked problems, social networks, collaborations, university/community engagement the changing nature of university/community engagement universities and colleges have long been seen as important contributors to the public good both through their preparation of an educated citizenry and through their role as a source of knowledge that can be applied to the analysis and management of societal problems. the way that universities were educating their students and addressing community problems has changed significantly since the late 20th century. communities now face a confluence of factors that increase the complexity of the problems they must address. (davis et al., 2015, ramaley, 2014a). when campuses first began to embrace their public mission, service was approached as the identification of well-researched answers to clearly articulated problems. such solutions work best when: (a) technical expertise is needed; (b) the consequences of actions are predictable; (c) the conditions are know in advance and well described; and (d) a central authority is in a position to ensure that appropriate actions are taken (heifetz et al., 2009; kania & kramer, 2013). in sum, the question is clear, there is little if any dispute about what has caused the problem and there is available expertise to propose a technical solution that can be applied to the problem. this approach informed the outreach and extension model as it developed in the 19th century to offer expert solutions to common problems. we still have some of those kinds of problems, and the 23 extension service still offers valuable service to both urban and rural communities. however, as the 21st century has unfolded, we are facing more complex problems that require a very different approach. as kania and kramer (2013) point out, “predetermined solutions rarely work under conditions of complexity—conditions that apply to most major social problems—when the unpredictable interactions of multiple players determine the outcome.” what we require now is both a different model of social progress and new ways to learn and work together. to work in this manner, communities must develop new approaches to collaboration and each participant must adapt its structure, its working relationships and its capacities to contribute to adaptive or emergent solutions to complex and wicked problems. it is convenient to start the story of the changing interpretation of both the role of higher education, and its contributions to the public good, with scholarship reconsidered. since 1990, we have witnessed significant changes in the ways in which the functions of research, teaching, and service have changed. at a watershed moment, the kellogg commission on the future of state and land-grant universities (1999) redefined these three classical components of the university mission, to reflect changes that were taking place in our understanding of what it means to be educated for a new era, and how universities can interpret and enact their public mission. the terms became discovery, learning and engagement. over the past few years, engagement has gradually been seen, not as a separate function, but as an approach to discovery and learning. the context in which these scholarly activities play out has expanded to include interactions between colleges and universities and the broader society. the world has become a living laboratory and classroom for scholarship and learning. all of this has taken place as a response to the growing number of complex and wicked problems that our institutions and our communities face in today’s world. these kinds of problems require new ways of working together and new interpretations of the scholarly functions of discovery, integration, interpretation and application (boyer, 1990). each of these aspects of scholarship and learning is changing in response to the realities of making sense of an increasingly complex world. however, the process has been slow, as both campuses and other sectors of society come to terms with the need for a new model of collaboration (kezar & lester, 2009). changes in the nature of engagement ernest boyer’s concerns about undergraduate education were shaped by the challenges of the late 1980s and early 1990s. in its early forms, involvement with the community was viewed as a form of service, and as a way to prepare students for their responsibilities as citizens. a small group of college presidents formed campus compact to encourage students to participate in community volunteer work. starting with a focus on community service and civic responsibility, the organization has grown to over 1100 member institutions committed to the public purposes of higher education and “dedicated solely to campus-based civic engagement, campus compact enables campuses to develop students’ citizenship skills and forge effective community partnerships. our resources support faculty and staff as they pursue community-based teaching and scholarship in the service of positive change (campus compact, 2016).” over the past thirty years since campus compact was formed, approaches to civic engagement and community engagement more broadly have continued to develop. it soon became clear that students who volunteered came back to their classes and to their campus experiences with 24 unanswered questions. this led to the development of new pedagogies that linked community experiences to the curriculum. there is now an abundant literature on different approaches to experiential learning, including service-learning, community-based learning and problem-based learning. all of these “combine learning goals and community service [and impact] in ways that can enhance both student growth and the common good…and integrates meaningful community service with instruction and reflection to enrich the learning experience, teach civic responsibility, and strengthen communities (campus compact, 2016).” as participation in experiential learning and community-based learning of various kinds began to grow, campuses found it necessary to design and implement support structures, to help faculty members and students identify and work effectively with community partners and to capture the growing volume of work and its impact on both student learning and on the community partners. promotion and tenure policies and practices began to address these new forms of scholarly activity within the context of the disciplines and avenues for publishing reflections on this form of teaching and learning, and the results of engaged scholarship expanded. the experiences of faculty and students in service-learning environments opened up a new set of scholarly questions, many of which addressed what are now often called wicked problems that require collaboration within the campus community and between the campus and the larger community. over the past several years, both communities and campuses have begun to experiment with new approaches to understanding the changing context of life in the 21st century, creating ways to bring the assets of a community together in new ways to build the capacity to explore and then respond to these kinds of problems and to promote new forms of learning and the capacity to put that learning to good use. the participation of higher education to these new collaborations and networks is changing as well. these recent efforts generally involve college and university support but they are a far cry from the models of service to the community that the academy embraced prior to the mid-1990s. universities are now learning to draw upon all aspects of boyer’s (boyer, 1990) conception of scholarship reconsidered, including the integration and application of knowledge. these components of a full scholarly agenda are now coming into their own as forms of engaged scholarship in which community members work with faculty and staff to explore the context in which change is needed and the community itself identifies the most meaningful issues that should be addressed. what is then set in motion is a continuous cycle of exploration, innovation and learning that is pursued over a longer time period of time than the one offered by the constraints of an academic calendar and held together by a number of strategies that create a chain of continuous work. (beaudoin & sherman, 2016). working in this collaborative mode sets up a pattern of trial and error in which the participants learn to see problems in new ways and to apply emergent solutions in a complex environment where no proven solutions exist, the consequences of any actions taken are inherently unpredictable, and no single organization or individual is in control. (kania & kramer, 2013). the term emergence is used to describe conditions that arise in unpredictable complex settings, where everything is connected in some way to everything else, and where perturbations can shift the dynamics of a situation in unpredictable ways (arbesman, 2016). dealing with a world of wicked problems 25 colleges and universities often reflect the social, cultural, economic and technological context in which they were founded. they often have difficulty in adapting to a changing world order that may call upon the academy to think and act differently. in a recent article, danah boyd (2016) pondered the question of why social science risks irrelevance. boyd’s arguments could apply just as easily to why our higher education institutions themselves risk becoming more and more out of step with the realities of life in the 21st century. boyd offers some advice that can frame our approach to thinking about the role of the academy in today’s world of complex problems and the importance of approaching scholarship and learning in new ways in order to foster the changes that will be necessary if we are to respond to a changing world. boyd (2016, p. b4) argues that “if we really want to matter, we need to think critically about the questions we ask—and the questions we don’t ask—and what influences that distinction.” boyd goes on to say that “we need to find better ways of collectively identifying hard and important questions to ask, arenas of under-interrogated issues, and knowledge that the public needs.” how can we ask questions that matter, not only to us but also to our students and to the public? again, boyd has an answer (p. b5), if we are to make a difference and have an impact on the ability of our communities to identify and address their most challenging problems, we must be “deeply embedded within the social world that we seek to understand” and embrace the role that we can uniquely play “to inform and empower through knowledge.” to support this, universities need to rethink not only the questions we ask but also how we are structured and what behaviors and results we honor and support. our goal in this paper is to talk about what this means in the daily life of a campus community and what we already know about how to create new ways to approach learning and discovery through new working relationships both within our academic community and with our neighbors and colleagues within the communities we serve. wicked problems can be described in a number of ways. according to camillus (2008) who drew upon earlier work by rittel and weber (1973), these kinds of problems (1) involve a range of stakeholders who have different values and priorities, (2) have origins in a tangled set of interacting causes, (3) are hard to come to grips with or make sense of, (4) continue to change as we seek to manage them and (5) have no clear or familiar solutions. these problems unfold in “a diverse and mutually interacting ecology” (fung, 2015, p. 514) of people and organizations. thus they require a great deal of boundary crossing to bring together ideas and resources from multiple sources. to capture the experiences of a diverse community, and to tap resources that otherwise might be ignored, new forms of interaction amongst citizens, government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and the business community are being created to support new approaches to community development (fung, 2015, p. 515). as fung (2015, p. 517) explains, complex and wicked problems require “multi-sectoral problemsolving” and ways to remove the barriers to “pooling knowledge and coordinating action” through the formation of networks that connect organizations together. these networks are built on the basic concept that the solutions to many of society’s most pressing problems today will require tapping into the expertise and ideas of different parts of the community and different disciplines. solutions to multi-faceted problems must be designed in an adaptive way rather than chosen from a repertoire of well-researched and well tested technical solutions (heifetz, et al., 2009). 26 new approaches to collaboration kania and kramer (2011) launched a new generation of thinking about collective efforts directed at complex problems in their series of articles on the concept and practice of collective impact. the components that characterize an effective collective impact model built up through networks of interaction amongst the participants in solution finding and action are: (a) a common agenda arrived at through a thoughtful process of exploration and interaction; (b) shared measurement systems and a willingness to look honestly at the evidence collected; (c) mutually reinforcing activities that draw on the strengths and interests of each participant; (d) continuous communication amongst the participants; and (e) a mechanism for backbone support that facilitates the building and maintenance of the relationships needed and the capacity of all participants to act knowledgably and in cooperation with the others. the concept of boundary spanning has emerged to describe how ideas, information and influence can flow through a community, whether internal to a campus or external. the people who can facilitate this exchange and integration are often called boundary spanners. while the patterns of these interactions can vary considerably from one place to another, this interactivity carries a number of challenges for institutional leadership, and for the design and operation of its programs (kezar & lester, 2009). ernst and chrobot-mason (2011, p. xv) describe this pattern as follows: in the traditional hierarchy of modern organizations, information flows vertically up and down the chain of command in a controlled way. groups are differentiated and bounded. organized by location or functions, group members have a high degree of similarity…we have learned how to coordinate work with those above and below us. we know what to expect from people in particular functions, locations or positions. technological, geopolitical, and social transformations, however, have introduced many additional ways that information can flow—laterally, diagonally and in spirals—disrupting organizations by creating new communication channels, changing long-standing practices and diffusing the distribution of power based on “who knows what.” in short, our institutions are turning into complex social systems. we now must deal with ambiguity and imperfection and the uncertainty that comes from the way that the elements of a complex system interact with each other (arbesman, 2016, p.7). consider the difference between something that is complicated and something that is complex. as arbesman (2016 p. 15) explains it, for a system to be complex, it is not sufficient for it to contain lots of parts. as he puts it, “the parts themselves need to be connected and interacting together in a tumultuous dance. when this happens, small changes cascade through this network, feedback occurs” and it matters what condition the system was in when the change began. a system like this is not predictable in its responses to various inputs or changes. colleges and universities are beginning to adapt to a complex world of wicked problems. twentieth century institutions earned prestige from the work of individual faculty members and from the accomplishments of individual graduates. increasingly, institutions are adopting a different approach that draws upon collaboration, and new forms of interaction within the campus community, and between the campus and the surrounding larger society. the goal is to create the capacity to work on problems that behave as complex systems. these problems are 27 often called “wicked problems” and they require new patterns of communication, information flow, new ways to work together and new organizational designs and leadership practices (ramaley, 2014a, 2014b). as colleges and universities begin to rethink their curriculum, their organizational structure, the roles and responsibilities of leadership and the values that will shape the way they assess the impact of their efforts, the communities with which they also must interact with are doing the same thing (ramaley, 2016a, 2016b). in this new environment, “each expert knows a piece of the puzzle, but the big picture is too big to comprehend (arbesman, 2016, p. 23). if we are to make sense of the complex problems that we face as a community, as a society and as a global network of people concerned about the future, we must learn to depend upon each other in new ways. this requires us to coordinate and blend our knowledge, our resources and our influence to create the capacity to address problems that are shaped by many interacting variables and that change shape as we seek to understand and manage them. individually, none of us can make sense of the complexities we face. arbesman (2016 p. 92) points out that there are two ways to rethink how we develop and use expertise in a world of complexity. one solution is to work toward multidisciplinary approaches, in which we learn enough about each other’s disciplines to be able to blend the insights from different fields, and apply multiple frameworks to the study of an issue or wicked problem. another way is to move back toward the concept of a generalist or polymath (arbesman, p. 142), who can connect one area of knowledge to another. these people can both see the larger picture and also can focus on the smaller details of a system. while the body of knowledge that a generalist or boundary spanner must traverse is now daunting, we are developing new ways to enable this kind of thinking, by preparing people who have deep expertise in one area or field but breadth of knowledge as well. the national science foundation built boundary spanning into the integrative graduate education and research traineeship (igert) program that ran from 1998 to 2015. program officers and grantees often referred to the graduates of igert as t-shaped individuals. the stem of the t represents deeper knowledge of a field and the cross bar represents the capacity to integrate that deeper knowledge with a broader context. although the igert program ended in 2015, this interdisciplinary program created an approach to an interdisciplinary graduate education that linked together science, technology, engineering, mathematics and the social sciences to create a new kind of boundary spanner or generalist capable of working with others to study and develop responses to wicked problems. these individuals can translate from one field to another and help specialists work together in new ways. leading in a complex environment as ernst and chrobot (2011, p. xvi) point out, “the leadership advantage now goes to the people who are most closely linked to others and can work with a great variety of people from differing positions, backgrounds and locations.” such people create and operate within what ernst and chrobot call a “nexus effect,” or a node within a complex interwoven set of working relationships and perspectives. they bridge the gaps created by traditional organization charts and individual departments and support units. they see those boundaries not as limits but as places of opportunity to create new capacity to work in a world of complexity. in a complex environment, leadership must be distributed so that connections can form as needed and then dissolve and connect in new ways as work progresses or as a problem continues to 28 develop new facets and interacting elements. in addition, leadership can no longer be thought of as the actions of individuals. today, “the performance of an organization depends in part on the level of cooperation and coordination among interdependent leaders (yukl, 2012, p. 78). yukl (2012, p. 68) contrasts three forms of leadership: task-oriented, relations-oriented and change-oriented. task-oriented leadership focuses on achieving some primary objective in an efficient and reliable way. relations-oriented leadership is directed at creating more human capital. change leadership creates the capacity of a campus community to work in new ways to address complex problems that require collaborative learning and new ways of thinking and action. unfortunately, most higher education institutions have been slow to embrace approaches to leadership that rely on collaboration and interdependence. these campuses are falling behind in the push to create the capacity to deal with complex and wicked problems, both on campus and beyond. campuses that become adept at boundary spanning, both internally and within the broader community, are regaining their historic role as contributors to the public good, while finding new ways to educate their students for life and work in a complex world. boundary spanning in an increasingly uncertain environment: the portland state experience charles mcclintock (2001, p. 349) foreshadowed today’s leadership challenges by articulating two major issues facing higher education at the turn of the 21st century. the first challenge is to link the contrasting and intersecting worlds of research and professional practice in order to prepare students to become effective problem-solvers. to make this possible, the second challenge is focus on “ways of relating academic specializations within the campus and across the campus-community boundary in response to needs for knowledge that transcends disciplinary boundaries.” both tasks depend upon rethinking organizational structures and leadership practices. institutions have experimented with different forms of bridges and nodes of interaction within the fabric of their campus culture and structure. in the past, these centers and institutes, as well as interdisciplinary efforts or special projects, often have become isolated, and have failed to influence the larger campus community of which they are a discrete part (levine 1980). in retrospect, this can be understood by considering the larger adaptations that are needed if these new forms of scholarly and educational activity are to thrive. it has proven to be a challenge to move from an organizational design based on individual achievement and a largely vertical pattern (often described as a “chain of command”) to a model in which more of the work is done by teams or collaborative interaction. fortunately, new approaches to understanding organizational behavior and new approaches to leadership are emerging, whichare beginning to link previously separate components of an academic community in new and more creative ways. at portland state university, the institute for sustainable solutions (iss) through its sustainable neighborhoods initiative (sni) has begun to experiment with new forms of interaction with some of the neighborhoods in portland (beaudoin & sherman, 2016). these programs operate as a nexus effect (ernst & chrobot, 2011) or node within the complex environment of portland state while connecting in a number of ways deeply into the surrounding greater portland region. the result is a boundary spanning model that can produce sustainable outcomes over time. key to this approach is the concept of solutions-oriented learning in which student learning and development “is balanced with the goal of producing products and processes that can have a 29 lasting effect for the project partner (wiek et al., 2015, quoted in beaudoin & sherman, 2016, p. 153).” to accomplish this, sni weaves together a number of different student experiences over time, to maintain continuity in the university/community collaboration, including communitybased learning courses, internships, student research, and faculty involvement. research also plays a core role in contributing to the capacity to address complex community problems. the goal of this approach to scholarship is to produce “actionable knowledge” or in boyer’s terms, application. these broader conceptions of learning and scholarship are demanding. they require a flexible and responsive infrastructure in order to be sustained over time. that support structure is provided by the institute for sustainable solutions. as beaudoin and sherman explain, “admittedly, transformative sustainability research and solutions-oriented learning are not easy…and are often more complex to design and implement.” to make this approach work, a university must adapt its existing infrastructure, and its approaches to discovery and learning, to support long-term and thriving partnerships, both internal and external. iss functions as a boundary spanning entity although it is located within the fabric of portland state university. its role is to build a supportive ecosystem of people and ideas, both within the university and across the community, which can sustain a long-term collaboration and adapt as the interests, experiences and needs of the community develop, and as the wicked problem that is the target of the collaboration evolves in response to whatever interventions are undertaken. iss has developed a core set of functions and capacities that can support long-term interactions within the community and within the university as well. the process starts with facilitating conversations with community members to identify a focus for a collaborative project that will address an important community issue. this is amplified by attention to storytelling to grow broader awareness and interest in the project that the community has chosen through its own deliberative process. iss then serves as a project manager ensure that everyone remains focused on the project outcomes and that there is consistent and strong community involvement. iss also functions as a neutral party to help resolve any conflicts that arise. throughout the project, iss provides support for leveraging new resources to expand and deepen the impact of a particular project or program, provide ongoing assessment and opportunities for reflection and adjustments as the project unfolds and the participants learn more and create a bridge from one part of a longterm effort to the next stage by creating the capacity to reflect on each phase of a project and plan for the next. to make all of this work, iss provides program managers, who are familiar with the neighborhoods, communication specialists, development personnel assessment staff and researchers. all of these different aspects and roles are held together by careful efforts to facilitate the interactions amongst the participants. another experiment with collaboration involves a shift from the more traditional think tank model for analyzing problems to an oregon idea lab concept that focuses on exploring and designing collaborative responses to pressing oregon problems. still under development, the idea lab concept draws upon all of the facets of the boyer model of scholarship. it relies upon concepts of engaged scholarship and learning to produce “solutions-oriented learning” and “actionable knowledge” through a process that draws on the expertise of scholars, practitioners and community members. it relies on the capacity of a particular community to identify and then act collaboratively to address an important problem. the kinds of problems that the idea lab concept is designed to address require a long-term strategy, involve both uncertainty and risk, require input from multiple perspectives, depend 30 upon effective boundary spanning in order to bring together the people and resources needed and will demand significant investment of time and financial resources. to make this work, it will be ne3cessary to reconsider some public sector priorities, reorganize scarce resources and create new ways to work and learn together. these efforts will require some new approaches to pooling resources for shared purposes and new ways to monitor and measure progress in ways that make sense to a diverse group of participants. in this model, the university role also shifts from defining problems to promoting new working relationships and dialogue, providing research findings that can shed light on a problem and creating new approaches to building a package of different learning models and student and faculty opportunities guided by the interests of the community and chosen to provide mutual benefit to university participants and community members. the mission of an idea lab will be to incubate, investigate, collaborate with community partners to implement solutions and then study and communicate practice-informed ideas and approaches for enhancing the future of oregon—all of this in cooperation with community leaders and citizens. the housing crisis in portland the housing crisis in portland, oregon offers an especially important example of a wicked problem that has developed slowly, will be very costly to resolve, and involves a lot of uncertainty, due to unpredictable social, economic and environmental factors. the stage was set for a collaborative effort earlier when the meyer memorial trust launched an affordable housing initiative in 2007 that was focused on preserving and increasing oregon’s stock of affordable housing while helping low income renters to achieve stability and selfsufficiency. the oregon-based foundation awarded $8.8. million in grants to 17 nonprofits, with the goal of preserving up to 6,000 units of federally rent-subsidized housing , build the capacity of nonprofits in rural areas to increase the quality and quantity of housing outside the portland metro area and provide better resident services to help low-income renters achieve stability and self-sufficiency. an assessment of that project was prepared and issued in april 2013 (smock 2013). in 2015, meyer memorial trust “recommitted to the initiative, pledging another $11 million over the next five years to support affordable housing solutions from oregon’s wild, windy coastline to its austere eastern landscape of deserts and mountains.” in 2011, the portland housing bureau issued its 2011-2013 strategic plan and set ambitious goals to provide more housing for low income renters and working with its partners throughout the region to assess the city’s housing needs and to choose the best solutions to efficiently meet those needs while working out how to pay for those solutions. in 2015, policymakers in communities throughout oregon began talking about a housing crisis as people searching for affordable housing found themselves competing with both the growing popularity of oregon as a place to live and a real estate investment boom. rents rose at a rate of $100/month and over 24,000 units were needed to meet the demand in 2015. the problem remains acute in 2016. in 2015, the portland city council declared a “housing emergency” and increased funding for affordable housing, specifically in the city’s urban renewal areas and added $64 million to the city’s affordable housing budget to be spent over the following decade funded by a property tax set-aside. the council also directed the housing bureau to find a new source of funding that could be used city-wide. 31 in response to this new attention on issues of housing affordability and homelessness, the city club of portland convened a research committee to look at housing affordability in portland. the committee issued its report in june 2016. so far, the crisis continues to intensify, and there is, as yet, no coordinated approach to dealing with the issues on a citywide or regional basis. as this article is being written, a coalition of businesses and advocates for the homeless are supporting a measure on the november oregon ballot that would generate $258 million over twenty years to build or renovate 1300 rental units, 600 of which would be set aside for individuals whose income is lower than 30% of the median family income in our area. so, what is the university doing to build capacity to deal with the imbalance between the available housing options and the needs and interests of the people seeking a place to live? gentrification in living cully cully is a neighborhood in portland. unlike many other neighborhoods, the community has developed a strong network of non-profits, government agencies, small businesses and neighborhood groups that work together to address issues that affect people who live there. cully was one of the first neighborhoods to join the sustainable neighborhoods initiative but showed considerable reluctance to trust the motives of the university. it also assumed that as a public institution, portland state was obligated to bring resources to the community in the form of money. now, two years later, those reservations have been resolved and cully offers a good example of the process by which people in a community can choose a signature project and work together with support from the university to address the issue, in this case the problem of displacement of people of modest income due to the gradual gentrification of the cully neighborhood. several university undergraduate classes explored policies that have been adopted in other places to address the problem of gentrification and displacement. a paid graduate internship provided project management to coordinate the project and provide continuity from one class to another. the focus was to explore the possibility of acquiring land for affordable housing projects by adapting the land trust model to the conditions in cully. the first class gathered examples of the use of land trusts in a number of cities. the next class looked at the case studies prepared by the first class. a paid intern then adapted the lessons derived from the studies by the two undergraduate classes to the needs and conditions in cully, and assisted the living cully coalition in preparing proposals to the city of portland for ways to counteract the displacements being driven by gentrification. with help from sni, the community has developed a new comprehensive plan that includes land banking. the city of portland is considering putting some funding into enactment of the plan. creating a community voice in lenz lenz is another community in the portland region but unlike cully, lenz does not have an effective community coalition or network to identify signature projects to help the area and to build a shared vision of what the people who live there want and need. working with four organizations that have an interest in the lenz neighborhood, sni is helping to build capacity to draw upon the experiences and concerns of the people who live there, in order to create one or more themes around which the community can rally. the motivation for this came from two psu students who had worked on a project in lenz as the focus for their capstone project in psu’s 32 general education program, called university studies. sni advised and supported the students who developed several scenarios as a vehicle for bringing the community together to imagine a better future for the neighborhood. the focus is not on the university and its interests but on the neighborhood and its challenges. the overall goal to promote the ability of people there to identify, explore and work together on issues that are important to life in that part of portland. both approaches enact the university commitment of let knowledge serve the city, but in one case, the knowledge is produced as a collaboration between portland state and people in the community, and in the other case portland state simply helps create the opportunity for the community to tap into its own knowledge. as a theme emerges that captures the imagination of the people in lenz, the university will move into its supportive role that integrates a succession of projects focused on that signature theme and that sets up a pattern where each part draws on the results of the project that preceded it. age-friendly housing and the challenge of citizen participation in decision-making the institute on aging at portland state university has convened a cross-section of individuals including representatives from city agencies, disability services, housing advocates, metro area economists, aarp oregon, and groups such as the oregon opportunity network, which focus on age-friendly housing and what efforts are currently underway to provide a range of housing options for older adults and to address the housing crisis in oregon. while this mix of people all have a stake in addressing portland’s housing crisis, they play very different roles, see the problems through different perspectives, and have very different opinions about the nature of the problem to be addressed. some equate aging and disability and focus on services for the elderly, including age-friendly housing options that will allow the elderly to age in place. others are more focused on intergenerational living arrangements that create opportunities for the generations to support each other. a few are focused on the interests of empty-nesters who are looking for well-designed options as they down-size. affordability is a theme that unites these people, but each has a different idea about what affordability means, what housing choices are important, and how to deal with the shortage of affordable options. in convening this group of housing advocates, the institute on aging hopes to create a new kind of advocacy coalition (sabatier, 1988) that can build upon the knowledge and interests of a wide range of participants (neal et al., 2014). one focus of this effort is the residential infill project organized by the portland bureau of planning and sustainability this year. the goal is to plan for the estimated 123,000 new households that will arrive in portland by 2035. although the task group solicited input from the community, only current homeowners showed up to discuss the issues. the committee was composed of developers, designers, neighborhood-based advocates and other community members. once the group had prepared a preliminary report, the task was to gather widespread community input. one challenge for that project has been to include the needs of older and disabled adults. the institute on aging developed a way to solicit input from this population, most of whom are usually silent on these important issues but deeply affected by policy choices and investment strategies made by the city of portland and by developers. in july 2016, portland state hosted an open house to gather input on the residential infill project policy proposals from older adults, people with disabilities and advocates for accessible as well as affordable housing (delatorre, 2016). extra care was taken to ensure that the meeting was equitable and inclusive both through 33 how invitations were issued and by making the assistive strategies available during the meeting including american sign language interpreters and real-time captioning. this example illustrates how much care must be devoted to ensuring that the people living in a community have a voice in shaping decisions that will affect them directly. conclusion the problems facing our communities and our nation today have become steadily more complex with more and more stakeholders and less and less agreement about why our problems exist and what we can do to manage them. at the same time, we appear to be losing our capacity for informed and thoughtful discussion of these issues and less able to engage in the public problemsolving that can generate effective options for addressing them. there is an urgent need to create opportunities to build trust and to engage in constructive conversations about what lies ahead and hop to generate better outcomes. in this context, colleges and universities are uniquely positioned to play a key role in building community capacity to identify and explore pressing problems and to provide support for community organizations and advocacy groups to work together to build healthier communities. many universities are creating fresh interpretations of the traditional roles and responsibilities of our campuses. we are building the capacity to learn in new ways, to draw upon the complex ecosystem of people and knowledge that makes up our campus community and to work in effective ways with the communities to educate our students and prepare them for life and work in the 21st century. we are learning how to support the new forms of collaboration and the social networks that are forming within community settings by facilitating and supporting collaboration rather than by designing or directing it (critchley, 2015). new neighborhood-based approaches to addressing the housing crisis in the portland area and the development of new networks that bring together representatives from each sector of society are examples of ways that universities are adapting their approach to discovery and learning in order to interact in new ways with other organizations and with the people who live in the communities from which we draw inspiration and ideas. references arbesman, s. 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(2014b). education for a rapidly changing world. in h. c. boyte (ed.). democracy’s education: a symposium on public work, citizenship, and the future of higher education (pp. 91-98). vanderbilt university press. ramaley, j.a. (2016a). collaboration in an era of change: new forms of community problemsolving. metropolitan universities journal, 27(1), 3-24. retrieved from https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php,muj/issue/view/1223. ramaley, j.a. (2016b) navigating the rapids: on the frontiers of the knowledge revolution. liberal education, 101(4), 36-43. rittel, h. w. j., & webber, m. m. (1973). dilemmas in a general theory of planning. policy sciences, 4, 155-169. https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/bf01405730 sabatier, p.a. (1988) an advocacy coalition framework of policy change and the role of policyoriented learning therein. policy sciences, 21, 129-168. https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00136406 wiek, a.xiong, a., brundiers, k., &leeuw, s. (2015) integrating problem-solving and projectbased learning into sustainability programs: a case study on the school of sustainability at arizona state university. international journal of sustainability and higher education, 14(4), 433-449. yukl, g. (2012) effective leadership behavior: what we know and what questions need more attention. academic of management perspectives, november 2012, 66-85. https://dx.doi.org/10.5465/amp.2012.0088 https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1350508401082018 https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php,muj/issue/view/1223 https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/bf01405730 https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00136406 https://dx.doi.org/10.5465/amp.2012.0088 36 author information dr. judith a. ramaley is president emerita and distinguished professor of public service at portland state university in the mark o. hatfield school of government. she has served as president of winona state university (mn) and the university of vermont. she is a senior scholar with the association of american colleges and universities and has a special interest in the meaning and design of an undergraduate education, civic and community engagement and leadership of change in higher education. she served as assistant director of the education and human resources (ehr) directorate at the national science foundation from 2001-2005. judith a. ramaley mark o. hatfield school of government portland state university post office box 751 portland, oregon 97207 email: jramaley@pdx.edu telephone 703-623-8927 mailto:jramaley@pdx.edu metropolitan universities vol. 29 no. 3 (august 2018), doi: 10.18060/21469 people, practices, and patterns: transforming into a learning institution bill heinrich, breana yaklin, dave goodrich, and jess knott abstract organizational transformation takes time, energy, and patience. an active administrative unit, the hub for innovation in learning and technology (called simply, the hub) engaged intentional change from its inception. the hub aspires to help michigan state university (msu) “reinvent itself as a learning institution” by transforming ourselves so that we might transform others. the authors, all current employees of the hub, provide an in-depth look into the challenges and triumphs of purposeful organizational change. without change, msu would maintain existing gaps on measures of student success among different demographic groups. the key audience of these efforts are learners in the university while considering the surrounding system of faculty, staff, administrators, curriculum, assessment, and student engagement efforts. the hub catalyzes innovative ways to collaborate, learn, research, and improve learning. we design new opportunities that take advantage of skills and connections across the disciplines. the hub adapted work practices that can sustain transformation. the hub also built a physical space reflective of these strategies. initial practices resulted in a series of careful, bold learning pathways focused on new capacity and professional development for stakeholders. we extrapolated experiences, practices, and findings for other transforming university, business, and organizational contexts. keywords: organizations; systems change; spatial development; self-reflection; capacity introduction existing cultural practices and paradigms can yield difficult habits to break, even when those practices no longer serve students well or provide any other benefit (kuhn, 1962). a key response to a desire or need for change includes making a number of organizational, structural, relational, symbolic, or staffing changes (bolman & deal, 2013). unfortunately, the strategies employed by leaders and faculty either lack coordination or simply address problems at the surface without addressing underlying causes (senge, 2006). within this article, the authors will discuss the evolution of an academic-administrative unit at michigan state university (msu), and how this organization, the hub for innovation in learning and technology (the hub) seeks to reinvent msu as a learning institution. with the transformations the hub has begun to implement, msu intends to address organizational learning from multiple perspectives simultaneously. to accomplish perspective taking, a key practice of the hub is regular self-reflection to learn from experiences. the hub also engages its partners in regular self-reflection to create solutions that encompass the underlying complexity of persistent problems. 86 value proposition in early 2015, a unique set of leaders, ideas, and budgets coalesced into a committed network of faculty and staff focused on curriculum, technology, assessment, and culture building. these factors combined to create the hub. in just a few months, msu chartered this organization and charged it with “reinventing msu as a learning organization,” (grabill, j., personal communication, 2015). as a result, the hub sought to provide a focus for the university in addressing the following related opportunities: • the opportunity to enhance msu’s pedagogical and technological support for learning while building human capacity for the continuation of that support. • the opportunity to identify high-value learning outcomes and ways to research, measure, and analyze those outcomes. in the domain of research on learning analytics, for example, msu began and helped lead a conversation about what inclusive and highquality learning looks like in higher education and is working to realize that opportunity. • the opportunity to do innovative work in the domain of undergraduate and graduate education. the hub also sought to address a number of new challenges: • the lack of a clear and focused intellectual and physical space on campus concerned with the identification, facilitation, and development of scalable learning innovations that can aid large numbers of students. • the lack of a space on campus that could serve as an incubator for new learning models, new uses of space, new uses of technology, and new forms of collaboration. • the lack of a strategy for online and digital learning that encompasses both on-campus and distance learning. related to this is the necessity to execute that strategy in line with the mission of the university. as a support entity, the hub aimed to facilitate better learning pathways through pedagogy, technology, accessibility, and connections between learners and teachers. the hub intended to find out what students need and want out of their educational experience. the potential value to students at msu became clearer through a series of ongoing leadership conversations, with purposeful student involvement. these conversations included creating a space for active, engaged, and influential learning and working to close the gap between faculty and students by increasing communication and eliminating barriers. but how? to approach these aims, the hub modeled the behaviors it wanted to see in the university. an early task of the hub was to generate creativity and urgency for interventions in student academic success. in this effort to create organizational change, the hub began with people the staff believed to be interested in improving student outcomes. this included not only team members, but project partners as well. at the same time, the staff had to build its own team. coming together from several different administrative units on campus, hub staff had to build rapport internally and begin to create a 87 non-hierarchical organizational practice, characterized as a “flat” culture. this meant that the hub staff collectively expressed feedback for projects and processes daily. as part of the staff, we were asked to challenge assumptions and establish new processes to do so in a way that created conversation, rather than prescription. staff also had to be welcomed to offer feedback and apply their skills in a way that would help evolve the collaborative culture with both our team members and our project partners. as the hub learned and evolved, a story emerged which detailed the journey the hub took toward progress. to tell this story, we first ground our discussion in the literature of learning organizations. next, we focus on how people enact their practices and patterns as examples of a transformative organizing principle. finally, we 1describe how a nimble organization emerged over time as a means to reinvent msu as a learning institution by targeting student learning experiences and outcomes (figure 1). figure 1. a timeline and practice spectrum of the hub. review of relevant literature transformational learning the development of the hub organization has been an experience in transformation. according to mezirow, “a defining condition of being human is that we have to understand the meaning of our experience,” (1997, p. 5). the development of hub work and culture focuses on this idea, and has become a frame of reference for staff. further, we have focused this guiding principle 1 authors wish to thank the hub for time and support to write this manuscript, emma kukuk for editorial guidance and keesa johnson and momoko rai for insights on early drafts. 88 outward in an attempt to understand how our campus partners are experiencing this change with us. according to mezirow: “a frame of reference encompasses cognitive, conative, and emotional components, and is composed of two dimensions: habits of mind and a point of view. habits of mind are broad, abstract, orienting, habitual ways of thinking, feeling, and acting influenced by assumptions that constitute a set of codes. these codes may be cultural, social, educational, economic, political, or psychological. habits of mind become articulated in a specific point of view—the constellation of belief, value judgment, attitude, and feeling that shapes a particular interpretation,” (1997, p. 5–6). intentional reflection among staff and project partners is a key component of transformative learning, and purposefully informs each stage of project development, as well as into expectations for staff. continuous learning and experimentation is the customary practice, as is sharing what was learned from failures in the process. as found in liimatinen, poskiparta, karhila et al. (2001), reaching the level of critical learning requires a focus on the practice of intentional reflection as a part of the learning process. in addition to learners, hub staff are also educators, requiring another layer of critical reflection. cranton & carusetta (2004) recommend that those in teaching roles reflect upon their sense of self as not only teachers but also people, finding that those who do are more likely to articulate the values their practice is based upon and share it with others. kreber (2004) noted that while reflection is important, and many people say they build opportunities for reflection into their work, this is not often the case, as those same people frequently cannot provide an account of their activity that demonstrates engagement in reflection. we counteract this tendency by operationalizing intentional reflection as an activity. we also use reflection as a means of documenting and sharing practices. transformational learning has many meanings ranging from micro changes in neural connections to wholly changed individual identities and choices. we have identified a set of observations and outcomes about our own organizational changes. changes in individual habits, physical spaces and uses, and social interactions across the organization receive our attention. we also share stories and evidence of our adopted goal of transforming ourselves in order to transform the larger msu institution. being a learning organization organizations that learn from data and experiences can transform. the essential process is similar to individual transformation, although it requires more conscious thought and coordination in a group or organizational setting. the hub emerged within this complex and mature higher education environment to provide important symbolic, cultural, and technical support for solving problems in student-success issues. without coordinating efforts to address complex issues and problems, stakeholders likely perceive that we say one thing but do another. we say we value student graduation rates but may appear to sideline this goal when the institution does not address the issue with sufficient resources (argyris & schön, 1996). in this environment, addressing multifaceted academic issues require a clear vision, unified efforts, and 89 strong leadership. understanding this environment guides our interactions with stakeholders who have differing interests and motivations, sufficient political will to change organizational patterns, and resources to make measurable progress. without intentional coordination to address student success issues in universities, individuals and colleagues with different perspectives may unintentionally oppose each other in order to protect their local interests. in contrast, a learning organization works to recognize tensions between competing perspectives in an effort to create solutions or interventions that value feedback from different stakeholders (senge, 1996). a catalyst and a result of these practices is a shared understanding or meaning of the purpose of the work. these kinds of organizations move quickly and slowly at the same time. they work fast to build partnerships and create prototypes, while working deliberately to peel back the layers of an issue and examine the connections and feedback loops of the underlying system. in many ways, the hub’s organizational transformation effort relies on an understanding of systems thinking. systems thinking relies on people to “make their understanding of social systems explicit” for the purposes of improvement (aronson, 1996, p 1.). for example, gaps in student success across identity markers is typically a symptom of larger societal challenges. systems thinking encourages addressing complex issues by trying to address underlying problems. previous approaches to student success have included additional student support for different groups of students based on identities, representing symptom-based approaches. the hub works to approach this problem systemically as a means to encourage enrollment management, student support, financial aid, and academic departments to work together. systems thinking requires us to address the underlying causes and the environment in which the problem occurs. according to aronson, systems thinking is helpful when facing: “...complex problems that involve helping many actors see the ‘big picture’ and not just their part of it; recurring problems or those that have been made worse by past attempts to fix them; issues where an action affects (or is affected by) the environment surrounding the issue, either the natural environment or the competitive environment; [and] problems whose solutions are not obvious” (1996, p. 1). contrary to linear problem analysis, systems thinking seeks not to take apart the elements of an argument, but rather to look for the ways that those parts and their movements affect one another and observe how short-term decisions affect long-range consequences. the hub aims to employ systems thinking by creating shared meaning among stakeholders and facilitating opportunities for organizational reflection. by learning as an organization, we expect that our group might experience a transformation. the object of this transformation is simultaneously the hub itself and the larger entity of msu. we adopt senge’s (2006) description of “learning organizations” as: “...those organizations where people continually expand their capacity to create the results they truly desire, where new and expansive patterns of thinking are nurtured, where collective aspiration is set free, and where people are continually learning to see the whole together,” (p. 4). 90 the hub strives to be a learning organization. the staff and leaders encourage and reward both self and group reflection. in essence, we reflect the sentiment that a learning organization is a group of people working together collectively to enhance their capacities to create results of value for many people (fulmer & keys, 1998). these documented reflections serve to guide communication among the hub team, our project partners, and institutional stakeholders. from ideas to action: the first project of the hub is the hub the hub has aligned its intentions and activities in order to reinvent msu as a learning institution. we further this goal by a few patterns and behaviors that, taken individually, might not make an impact. however, taken together, when integrated into a work system, these patterns and behaviors have the potential for extraordinary impact throughout the organization of msu. activities the hub uses are design thinking, scheduled and unscheduled (pop-up) coworking, regular brainstorming, weekly coordinated staffing rhythms, project staffing decisions, and selfreflective behaviors, all of which we will explain herein. planning our behaviors and work patterns was the first step towards achieving our goal of creating an innovative, open, and collaborative workspace. the next step was to commit to these behaviors in our daily work and follow through on our intentions of diffusing these behaviors across our team and throughout campus. at its core, the hub is a design and consulting operation working on behalf individual and teams of stakeholders at msu. staff at the hub listen for opportunities and charter projects. a charter describes appropriate people, time, and resources deployed on behalf of faculty and department led change efforts. projects have ranged from course level teacher professional development, to department wide curriculum and assessment practices, to institution wide analytics and decision support. because the hub receives funds from the campus provost (general funds) no charges are made for services. however, the project charters specify the ways in which the hub staff will work closely with the project partner. at the end of projects, the project partner ‘owns’ the solution and the hub does not maintain support beyond that point. intentional transformation design thinking. we began to use design thinking as a guiding framework for both our internal processes and to organize our projects from our first conversations. the hub uses two definitions of design thinking to guide its work. at its core, design thinking is a method of “of meeting people’s needs and desires in a technologically feasible and strategically viable way,” (brown, 2008, para. 2). according to turnali (2013), it is also “...a process, applicable to all walks of life, of creating new and innovative ideas and solving problems,” (para. 3). design thinking methods play an important role in our ongoing work as the hub in that they allow us to systematically assemble and make sense of disparate views and conflicting campus needs in order to collaborate on and create applicable solutions. we have begun to collect evidence of the impact on project goals and learning gains made by project partners because of working with design thinking approaches. we value the way design thinking encourages teams to work through conversations. at the same time, we lack robust evidence to make claims about success with these approaches. 91 we consider our use of design thinking as an ongoing inquiry with periodic benchmarks to help us evaluate the efficacy. coworking. coworking is one of the keys to our work philosophy, and one of the ways we facilitate and execute the ideas, solutions, and innovations identified in our design thinking work. coworking events bring stakeholders campus-wide into a shared space where they can work on their own projects, while sharing ideas and contributing to projects as desired. “culture cups” (figure 2) are used to illustrate availability, and set workspace norms for focus and personal work time and space. figure 2. an internal graphic illustrating the culture cup system. our open workspace allows for the development of interdisciplinary networks, more collaborations, and idea generation throughout the lifespan of our projects. by working in an open space, we aim to encourage new ideas and organic conversations. we are experiencing instances where people who would not have connected on a project overhear work that parallels their own and share ideas and information. partners across campus come to the hub to work for the day in a new environment next to new people, expanding the opportunities for these conversations. 92 brainstorming. brainstorming follows a similar format to coworking in that it utilizes the number of people and ideas in the room. however, while coworking is tied to co-location, brainstorm sessions are more facilitated. individuals trying to solve problems, develop solutions, or create opportunities can come generate and discuss ideas with our team, resulting in a diverse variety of design ideas, assessment questions, and future directions. weekly schedule rhythms. we have developed a pattern of weekly schedule rhythms (see figure 3) in an effort to create efficient workflows in a fast-paced, multi-location environment. this pattern allows our team to be more purposeful in our planning and workflow by eliminating unnecessary meetings and encouraging a cooperative culture. the hub reserves monday mornings for weekly project planning, collaboration, and a 30-minute standup status meeting, which we called scrum, and more recently, as our weekly report. frequently seen in the software development industry, scrum meetings are fast-paced stand-up meetings that allow for rapid project updates and conversation on a regular basis. individual projects still use scrum processes when appropriate. wednesday mornings are reserved for administrative meetings such as staff meeting, individual supervisory meetings, et cetera. the middle of every thursday is “be available” time, where all hub staff are expected to be available to contribute to brainstorm sessions and work needing additional resources. this availability allows for individuals who need more project resources to tap the collective group for formal and informal brainstorming sessions. additionally, we ask staff to be co-located if possible during this time to allow for organic conversations and contributions to others’ work. figure 3. a graphic detailing the general weekly schedule rhythms. 93 in an effort to make our projects and weekly rhythms more transparent across campus, we also invite others to attend our scrum meetings. we encourage our project partners to follow a similar pattern and invite them to be a part of our standing scrum meetings or find a block of time that works to conduct a similar status update meeting. agile project management. a common critique of higher education is that departments operate in isolation. while faculty publish to their scholarly communities, they often lack active sharing of good ideas and practices with each other. for example, if an academic department has a course in which many students do not succeed, then they unintentionally affect the goal of graduation, perhaps disproportionately. without a window into that department’s practices, system-level administrators or leaders are limited in their capacity to intervene. in contrast to some similar historical patterns at msu, the hub’s processes and projects are overtly transparent and visible. we build visible and public displays for every active project in the hub (figure 4). using this approach is a blend of agile methods and transparent work environments as modeled by menlo innovations in ann arbor, michigan (sheridan, 2013). figure 4. projects boards on display at the hub. agile project management is described as originating from a movement launched by the penning of the manifesto for agile software development in the spring of 2001 on agileallience.org, which influenced similar movements in manufacturing, construction, aerospace and even project management itself (highsmith, 2009). the original manifesto describes four key values as a better way of developing software: (a) individuals and interactions over processes and tools; (b) working software over comprehensive documentation; (c) customer collaboration over contract negotiation; and (d) responding to change over following a plan. https://www.agilealliance.org/ 94 here, the authors of the manifesto highlight “...while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more,” (beck et al., 2001). although the product of our work in the hub is not software, we have drawn from these and other similar principles in the way we go about our work. for instance, the project boards prominently displayed in common areas used in weekly scrum meetings represent current progress on key project deliverables, in ways that can quickly represent pivots needed on a weekly basis. routine operations such as meetings and professional development activities do not currently appear on these boards, but we are experimenting with ways to make notes and feedback visible and usable to others, as an expression of our goal to work transparently. this includes making notes on what is working well and what is failing. agile methodologies inform a unique approach to failure and the role it plays in projects. for instance, menlo innovations references a large and visible sign on their wall that says “fail faster” (sheridan, 2013, p. 125). the concept of embracing failure seems counterintuitive, but we believe it is imperative for helping the project become more successful in the end. where traditional project management is often put in place ultimately to avoid failure, agile approaches intentionally seek and welcome failure as early and often as possible in the process to serve as feedback. our approach towards the cultural value of transparency is in direct contrast to traditional examples of large-scale projects that ultimately failed out of fear of disclosing fail points earlier on in the project. the task cards and timelines on the project boards keep us accountable to each other and our stakeholders, and serve as a physical representation of our transparent culture, progress, setbacks, successes and opportunities to learn. engagement strategy. from the beginning, the hub utilized a robust engagement and communications strategy to communicate the values and practices of the new unit to increasing numbers of stakeholders and interested parties. we engage our visitors and guests with visual displays and an active co-work environment. externally, we connect with campus community members through electronic and social media outlets. we maintain our relationships with our project partners through ongoing assessment and communications. in each case, we anchor communications to several key principles, or “story anchors,” summarized by the terms: individual strength, collective power, and extraordinary impact. each principle is grounded in an assessment and data collection strategy to help reiterate alignment to the mission of “reinventing msu as a learning institution.” project pacing for external partners. we try to schedule our project work according to locally adapted agile principles. an example of rhythm and pacing is our work on a project to redesign several general education course sequences to include linked courses, cohorts, and relevant cocurricular experiences. first, a project plan took shape consisting of phases mapped out over the course of the year with deadlines, outcomes, and deliverables. within each phase, there are planned and focused work times, which last 1-2 weeks to maintain project momentum. then we established patterns and rhythms with faculty on this co-curricular project by planning design sprints and regular check-in points. faculty on this project work collaboratively with three interdisciplinary studies directors and the hub project support team to complete these design 95 sprints. hub staff also mapped out the professional development needs for individuals on this project for the coming year. from a project management standpoint, we enact timelines and deliverables. however, we would not consider ourselves successful if that is all we added to a project. for an external partner to work with the hub constitutes some agreement, tacit or explicit, with trying to work differently. our project facilitation practices regularly raise the question of project design through use and reflection, iteration, transparency, and collaboration. materials and support resources are prepared to guide work-groups through the design sprints. to keep groups accountable, we establish regular weekly check-in meetings with agendas, minutes, and assigned tasks for each working group member to complete by the next meeting. similar pacing behavior including planning and execution with small working groups, regular check-in meetings, agendas, and assigned tasks has seen different levels of success in a number of hub projects. project staffing strategies. the hub works to emphasize the individual strengths of experts on campus by creating and nurturing opportunities to leverage the expertise and influence of faculty and staff across our campus. in this way, we steward campus and departmental goals and share the burden of the institution to make an extraordinary impact on student experiences. msu has an excess of intellectual capacity among experts on campus who are able and willing to help address major challenges in both pedagogy and student success and few opportunities to apply their knowledge. our practice of engaging experts from around campus allows us to maintain a flexible staffing practice for shortand mid-length projects. similar staffing practices have been used in higher education for many years (bresciani et, al, 2010; jones, lefoe, harvey, & ryland, 2012), and we find that this staffing practice attracts experts in part because people genuinely want to help solve a problem and because it enhances individual and professional networks. additionally, engaging people across campus for flexible staffing also helps us build human capacity in collaborative, iterative work practices that we believe will help identify new solutions to big challenges. we aim to build capacity in project management skills across campus as well, so the benefits we offer to a partner are as much a product as they are an experience with a coherent process. in turn, we commit to ongoing individual development through a linked network and through professional communications, which we align with project goals and outcomes to amplify the extraordinary work of our expert partners. self-reflective behaviors. in an attempt to break out of old habits and to create new capacity, we undertook the first of what would become a series of self-reflective behaviors. in january of 2016, the hub explored the mental models held by eight individuals in the hub leadership team. this group had been meeting weekly from october 2015 to january 2016 and intermittently beforehand to implement the vision of the hub. a conversation recurred about the future nature of the organization, which we were still imagining. because the group came together in october 2015 from three units on campus, each with a distinct organizational culture, a fair amount of cultural diffusion and negotiation was underway by january of 2016. at that time, the hub’s director of assessment led a small assessment project with the help of two research assistants. the inquiry team examined mental models as a basis for action, similar to habits of mind. an essential function of this research was to identify how this team was trying to fit into or change the campus. we define mental models here as an individual person’s conscious or subconscious 96 conceptualization of information and experience that drives action. as articulated by holland, holyoak, nisbett, & thagard (1986), these models are often, but not always, illustrated in the form of metaphors and frames of understanding. mental models often take the form of declarative knowledge (knowing what), structural knowledge (connections between ideas), and procedural knowledge (knowing how to do). enacted mental models help an individual negotiate and process information in the context of myriad background and context influences (table 1). table 1. mental models interview questions declarative • who are you (individual or group) working for? • what values drive chosen projects? (what projects should be added to portfolio?) • what kind of structure does an individual envision? structural • with whom do they want to communicate? • with whom do they need to communicate? • what is difference between project and service? • how do projects relate to and inform each other? procedural • how do individuals work as project leaders? as a member of a team? as an expert on a team? • how do we communicate? • how are projects selected? • in what order does communication take place? • what issues of caution does the hub encounter or anticipate? the team conducted interviews and analyses consistently with an open interpretive coding practice akin to phenomenography (rands & gansamer-topf, 2016). participants were eight members of the hub’s leadership team. the interviewer made coding and initial interpretations, along with a member of the leadership team, and a research assistant. by discussing these interpretations with the leadership team, we invited a broader effort toward shared understanding. as a new organization, the team expressed some trepidation at this early opportunity to work transparently with each other. the interviews, analyses, and visualizations helped the leadership team translate their existing organizational patterns into a shared mindset. table 2 (below) shows themes and attendant descriptions that emerged from eight interviewees. 97 table 2. themes from mental models interviews people connecting stakeholders/customers/whoever has a need to ideas (design, knowhow, it & technology, relationships & communication, listening) focus on stakeholder groups (assume people are working/important within that; it’s not that the entire organization is dependent on specific key individuals but it’s how the hub hangs together in relation to other organizations) mention internal msu stakeholders/people mention external stakeholders (industry, non-msu) ideas enhancing ongoing discussions/conversations (ideas, projects, possibilities, rethinking) gives concrete examples gives abstract framework mention dangers, problems, pitfalls projects multiple/big range of topics, open-ended (r&d, degree programs, departmental initiatives) projects lead to (change, innovation, new possibilities) structures the hub of activity (ideas, projects, possibilities) describes elements of a horizontal/flat, open-ended, fluid, flexible organizational structure describes elements of vertical hierarchy, not necessarily rigid power structure but could be well-defined roles/responsibilities focus on projects as the basic structure or driver of activity focus on services as the basic structure or driver of activity there was a sense that the hub was--and perhaps still is--at the intersection of a variety of ideas, projects, and possibilities, and that part of the hub’s job was to connect people and resources together. key resources clearly included design thinking, knowledge, process strategies, relationships, and communication. equally clear was that the hub did not want to be perceived solely as a technology incubator. most people mentioned the hub’s role in improving or enhancing ongoing discussions on a wide range of topics, and not concentrated on one specific type of project. participants varied in their assertion that the hub’s consulting services and partnerships were helping to advance innovative ideas (i.e., in a curriculum). participants did not agree that the 98 hub’s way of working, which was consultative and facilitative, in general would lead the campus to innovation and change. all participants mentioned stakeholders on the msu campus such as the provost, faculty, staff and leaders, and students; several participants also mentioned external stakeholders, such as industry and markets. these comments pointed to additional opportunities if the hub looked outside of campus for possible partnerships. the participants, expressing the desire for a relatively “flat” organizational structure, identified the basis for the current organizational practices. a flat organizational structure, they believed, would include intentionally informal activities to lower barriers and create more transparency. the one participant who described a more traditional vertical hierarchy also described himself or herself playing multiple roles (leader, major role, or minor role) in various projects underway simultaneously. another participant’s idea of a distributed labor platform was later implemented as our project management and essential staff assignment structure. this structure, combined with efficient time and project management, provided the most flexibility for an innovative organization with a broad outlook. while the mental models interviews were not meant to be predictive, they were illustrative of differences in opinion about the organization as embodied by the staff. discussions allowed for processes and ideas to surface in new ways, and thus served as an important real-time, selfreflective prompt for the team. in looking at our journey, we can point to several instances where the now-current ideas emerged from the thinking and experiences of employees during the early months of discussions, trials, and errors. feedback and indicators the assessment strategy of the hub aims to help us know more about our work in practical and informative ways. the hub designed its approach to yield both formative and summative analyses of data, information, practices, and impacts. the strategy encompasses a collective effort among staff to listen for and recognize various indicators of success. individual team members may need to learn how to identify or recognize such indicators across engagement, risk, human capacity, and tangible goals. other organizations might assign such tasks to different groups such as business development and human resources. but in the hub, projects will only be considered successful if teams attend to the whole. engagement complementing these essential project indicators and feedback is a formal external engagement and communications strategy, utilizing story anchors, and an institution-focused assessment plan with regular reporting. story anchors serve as the connection point for hub cultural values, project assessment data, and external facing reports and communications. assessment reports draw on records of indicators and feedback captured in a variety of media and networks including social media, agile project boards, internal communications, space use and calendars, and other specific reports such as the self-study mentioned earlier (figure 5). in turn, feedback from summative reports and external engagements inform the formative assessment loop. 99 figure 5. assessment and feedback strategy. currently, data for the summative assessment metrics are being gathered for our first external facing report (grabill, 2017). the use of continuous indicators, feedback, and engagement strategies drive the hub forward. several important indicators are described that have helped us define our work and patterns for the campus. we track engagement for our various social media and our main website. the engagement indicators with these pages and accounts have seen more growth than anticipated, most notably with external accounts such as facebook, which saw an increase from 0 followers in october of 2015 to 660 and counting in december of 2016. further, the hub website has seen a steady influx of visitors ranging from 36 to 445 per week from january to december 2016. in addition to external metrics, we also track internal communications with our team via the team-messaging platform slack. these data then inform the ways in which we communicate and interact with our partners, and help us identify and hone strategies that are timely and effective for the collaborative culture we are trying to establish. monitoring for project deliverables is the primary impact analyses strategy for our early efforts. as mentioned previously in the weekly time rhythms section, our team reports on project progress and deliverables each monday morning during our reporting meeting. 100 risk-ttaking on behalf of others at times, the social-political risk of behaving differently among peers is too great (bolman & deal, 2013). because some staff and faculty on campus will not effectively change work patterns until evidence of a clear impact and reward is present, an important indicator we attend to is risk. we have taken an initial risk on behalf of improving student success by creating this organization with an open and collaborative work culture, rather than rely on somewhat isolated efforts. we took a second risk by publicly committing to goals and accountability. we collaborated internally and externally to build a set of projects that more intentionally execute designed innovations. we open our practices and work patterns to external analyses to gain insights faster. simultaneously, the hub aspires to be an example for others on campus to take similar risks and normalize the uncertainty associated with taking on projects with unknown outcomes. however, this kind of transparency makes it imperative that we share both successes and failures publicly. further, as the designated “innovation” space, we must not own the projects, for our partners, but rather facilitate the success of others. to facilitate this load sharing, hub staff share project management and planning responsibilities with project partners. we intentionally place ourselves in positions to be accountable on behalf of the project for rhythm and pacing of work, and for keeping groups on task to push projects forward. human capacity from a human and project capacity standpoint, the hub balances between large-, medium-, and small-scale projects. across each of these projects, there are similar characteristics of time, effort, planning, and implementation. generally speaking, we have focused our early efforts on projects that make relatively fast, highly visible impact on initiatives in student success. further, we have set clearer limits about the kind of projects we take on. for example, we work not to replicate services that are already available elsewhere on campus. in these situations, instead of a production role, we take more of a facilitative role, connecting needs to existing services or collaborations. to support internal human and project capacity more efficiently, we have adopted new meeting structures. each meeting has clearly articulated agendas, with goals that maximize productivity and reduce wasted time. we have prioritized working together through our shared scheduling rhythms, allowing for fewer and more efficient meetings. we have adopted searchable messaging and project management tools such as slack, trello, and google drive, which allow us to self-serve resources that might have otherwise required a meeting. from a technology support and service perspective, we have shifted our focus away from the manual development and production of online courses for faculty. instead, we work with faculty and departments to teach them how to do most course production work independently, and focus more development time on development of resources requiring advanced technical skill such as immersive environments and interactive media. 101 tangible patterns and goals in october of 2016, we opened a new physical space on msu’s campus that is at once an office and a public expression of our values and practices. in this new space, we have allowed for experimentation with norms for noise, communication, function, space uses, and addressing challenges based on emergent properties of the space. since moving into the new space in a central campus location, we have been better able to observe the social systems and organizational habits of the hub. prior to moving during october of 2016, the hub team worked in separate locations on campus. efforts to make organizational and administrative patterns explicit occurred largely online or at individual meetings. working in a central location where all hub employees and partners can co-locate provides opportunities for patterns, habits, and other social systems to become more explicit in everyday activities and communication. we are developing a better understanding of our team members, our partners across campus, skill sets, and our capacity by working together in a central location on a regular basis. rather than working in sequestered offices, we are now working in an open office environment, which provides daily opportunities for parallel projects to intersect in casual conversation. our senses are engaged in a number of ways in this open work environment. we can see physical signs of the workflow of the hub when task cards move on team members’ project boards, we can hear when project partners stop in for a meeting at the next table and when there is a buzz of discussion in the space. while the hub has been operational since january 2016, moving into a single space in october 2016 provided tangible opportunities to track and understand our systems and work. working together has provided the opportunity for us to gather meaningful feedback on internal software, social media, and project collaboration, each helping to inform what our next steps can or should be. learning and improving we have observed changes among hub staff for increased individual capacity for hub projects and identified examples of how our projects influence work patterns, pacing, and outcomes for our project partners. a discussion of these follows. we realize that an opportunity like working to reinvent msu as a learning institution requires preparation to take risks and to fail. innovation and change can only happen if we collectively acknowledge this risk from the outset. early planning messages proposing the existence of the hub pointed to indicators of success: we will have some success by designing or engineering outcomes. but most important will be creating incentives, patterns of behavior, and supporting spaces that facilitate connections that enable the hub and msu to benefit from accessing information, opportunities, people, and ideas and putting those assets in relationship to each other. innovation will be a function of the hub’s ability to connect, communicate, discover, and execute in partnership with others (grabill, personal communication, 2015). it is too early to determine if the hub has yet realized the transformational goal of reinventing msu as a learning organization. in fact, many of the active projects may take three to five years before we will be able to determine meaningful progress on the project audience. at the same time, we reflect here on how the applied ideas behind the culture building, the spatial designs, 102 and our collaborative projects have influenced the daily habits of our work to be more agile, adaptive, transparent, and communicative. lessons learned on spatial design previously, we discussed some of the group’s experiences designing and inhabiting a new space. although the general sentiment of employees in this new space has been relatively positive in terms of the effect it has had on complementing our cultural efforts, there have also been lessons we have learned in the time we have occupied it. as we continue to learn and work simultaneously, it is our intent to share our findings publically for other groups who may want to experiment with similar practices. for instance, the previously mentioned culture cups that indicate our individual availability status came about in response to the sometimes loud and distracting nature of the open work environment. although in our spatial designs, we designed “focus rooms” geared for projects or meetings that need a quieter and distraction-free environment, there are times where employees of the hub are working at their desks and need to focus on a project and indicate that it is not a good time to be interrupted. when all concerned collectively recognized this as a need, a co-work expert in the hub adapted quickly by finding a solution to test using these color-coded culture cups. the cup system was adopted from other open working space models. in fact, part of the reason we collectively value the importance of sharing what we are learning in public spaces is because we benefit from others doing the same. we not only learn from other working groups around msu’s campus, but also continue to learn from groups at other institutions and in other sectors around the world. these groups often report similar reciprocal benefits from the practice of “learning out loud,” either as public intellectuals or even as acts of benevolence from kind people willing to share what is working and what isn’t. lessons learned on culture the cultures, work rhythms, project plans, management tools, communication plans, assessment plans, and events each represent our attempt to create a culture of intentionality. we aim in turn to build capacity among our colleagues and peers for similar work, thus reinforcing our culturallevel impact on the campus. we have begun to see evidence of these impacts in the course of an academic year. in three cases, leaders from other areas of campus have asked us to help them be a hub-like operation for their subset of tasks. further, our network building efforts have yielded new partnerships and relationships with various colleagues integrating certain behaviors. our colleagues see examples of unexpected collisions yielding new collaboration such as hosting coworkers, technology workgroups, reputation building, and social media engagement. by celebrating these successes, we do not want to imply that these processes have been easy. reconfiguring service offerings and learning to say “no” has been a challenge. in some cases, departments and individual faculty had been accustomed to seeing production and coursebuilding services being the primary focus of what instructional support and innovation was. additionally, moving a group of designers and researchers with different instructional, technical, and professional philosophies into an open workspace, with new, different, and sometimes contradictory expectations and processes has been challenging. at the same time, we have aimed to help people grow as individuals, colleagues, and professionals. 103 lessons learned on engagement with partners as with any new endeavor, what matters externally includes our reputation for being a good partner. we have internally defined being a good partner by linking quality, openness, and flexibility in support work to the success of the project. further, we aim to create ongoing, meaningful engagement opportunities and metrics for our visitors, participants, and project partners. this includes informal conversations that take place because of us working in a space intended to be open, inviting, and accessible to the broader community. it also includes existing in relatively more formalized events like our coworking sessions, meetings with external stakeholders, and project-specific design-thinking workshops. some events are more formal than others, depending on the nature of the work but each come wrapped with intentionally collaborative planning, delivery, and reflective components. for instance, in “eight lessons (we learned yesterday) for running a design thinking workshop,” a blog post published by dr. leigh graves wolf (2016), assistant director of the hub, reflects on ways we have been learning to improve our design thinking workshops. in that piece, graves wolf mentions things that have worked in these sessions, but also things that have not been working and what we have been doing to improve these learning experiences for our partners. the hub staff has conscientiously observed its own patterns for opportunities to improve, which in turn have led to an ample number of experiences and reflections. by scheduling discussion and reflection conversations—on both project work and internal processes—at regular intervals, the hub staff have collectively created data and meaning that we believe should lead to organizational improvements. further, by protecting time and expecting staff to contribute, the reflective work is shared. moreover, because the culture of the hub aims to be inclusive, the lessons reach across teams, leaders, and students in the large staff group. conclusion as this small organization passes its first anniversary of practice, we find ourselves less in startup mode, with fewer experiments and more evidence of process continuity. increasingly, a focus on project impact is becoming a central part of planning conversations in the hub. we know that scaling up good projects is important. we also know that, to us, a good project includes content goals, capacity goals, and process goals. we have seen that the potential value of the hub seems to resonate with people. in some cases, they see themselves adopting some of our practices for their own organizations. to that end, we feel like we have a responsibility to share the story of the hub. we are trying to change msu from the inside out by being the hub, by embracing our beliefs and culture, and encouraging other people to similarly change their institutions. msu is not the only institution to attempt reinventing itself. we see interest elsewhere and, as the hub, want to be a model for change. we want to see a cultural revolution within higher learning institutions, and believe that the best way to achieve this is for others to adopt similar practices of work and reflection. we think this diffusion of practices and ideology will result in a movement toward collaborative, effective learning organizations within higher education. as the hub continues in its experiment, we see excitement, interest, confusion, and debate around the concepts of the hub. we are regularly asked: can this work? we respond with a simple transformation: how can this work? 104 references aronson, d. (1996). overview of systems thinking. retrieved from http://resources21.org/cl/files/project264_5674/overviewstarticle.pdf argyris, c. & schön, d.a. (1996). organizational learning ii. reading, ma: addison-wesley. beck, k., beedle, m., van bennekum, a., cockburn, a., cunningham, w., fowler, m.,...sutherland, j. (2001). the agile manifesto. retrieved from https://www.agilealliance.org/agile101/the-agile-manifesto/ bolman, l. g., & deal, t. e. (2013). reframing organizations: artistry, choice, and leadership (5th ed.). san francisco, ca: jossey-bass. bresciani, m. j., todd, d. k., carpenter, s., janosik, s., komives, s., love, p., & tyrell, s. (2010). acpa/naspa professional competency areas for student affairs practitioners. washington, dc: american college personnel association, national association of student personnel administrators. brown, t. (2008, june 1). design thinking. harvard business review, 86(6), 84–92. retrieved from https://hbr.org/2008/06/design-thinking cranton, p., & carusetta, e. (2004). perspectives on authenticity in teaching. adult education quarterly, 55(1), 5–22. http://doi.org/10.1177/0741713604268894 fulmer, r. m. & keys, j. b. (1998). a conversation with peter senge: new developments in organizational learning. organizational dynamics, 27(2), 33–42. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0090-2616(98)90022-5 grabill, j. (2017). annual report. retrieved from https://hub.msu.edu/report2017/ graves wolf, l. (2016, august 18). eight lessons (we learned yesterday) for running a design thinking workshop [blog post]. retrieved from http://hub.msu.edu/eight-lessons-welearned-yesterday-for-running-a-design-thinking-workshop/ highsmith, j. (2009). agile project management: creating innovative products. boston, ma: pearson education, inc. holland, j. h., holyoak, k. j., nisbett, r.e., & thagard, p. r. (1986). induction: processes of inference, learning, and discovery. cambridge, ma: mit press. jones, s., lefoe, g., harvey, m., & ryland, k. (2012). distributed leadership: a collaborative framework for academics, executives and professionals in higher education. journal of higher education policy and management, 34 (1), 67-78. https://doi.org/10.1080/1360080x.2012.642334 http://doi.org/10.1177/0741713604268894 https://doi.org/10.1016/s0090-2616(98)90022-5 https://hub.msu.edu/report2017/ http://hub.msu.edu/eight-lessons-we-learned-yesterday-for-running-a-design-thinking-workshop/ http://hub.msu.edu/eight-lessons-we-learned-yesterday-for-running-a-design-thinking-workshop/ https://doi.org/10.1080/1360080x.2012.642334 105 kreber, c. (2004). an analysis of two models of reflection and their implications for educational development. international journal for academic development, 9(1), 29–49. https://doi.org/10.1080/1360144042000296044 kuhn, t. (1962). the structure of scientific revolutions. chicago, il: the university of chicago press. liimatainen, l., poskiparta, m., karhila, p., & sjögren, a. (2001). the development of reflective learning in the context of health counselling and health promotion during nurse education. journal of advanced nursing, 34(5), 648–658. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.13652648.2001.01794.x mezirow, j. (1997). transformative learning: theory to practice. new directions for adult and continuing education, 1997(74), 5–12. https://doi.org/10.1002/ace.7401 rands, m., & gansemer-topf, a. m. (2016). phenomenography: a methodological approach for assessment in student affairs. journal of student affairs inquiry, 1(2), 1–22. senge, p. m. (1996). leading learning organizations. training & development, 50(12), 36-37. senge, p. m. (2006). the fifth discipline: the art and practice of the learning organization. new york, ny: currency: doubleday. sheridan, r. (2013). joy, inc.: how we built a workplace people love. new york, new york: penguin group. taylor, e. w. (1997). building upon the theoretical debate: a critical review of the empirical studies of mezirow’s transformative learning theory. adult education quarterly, (48)1, 34– 59. https://doi.org/10.1177/074171369704800104 turnali, k. (2013, april 16). what is design thinking? [blog post]. retrieved from http://www.digitalistmag.com/innovation/2013/04/16/what-is-design-thinking-030869 https://doi.org/10.1080/1360144042000296044 https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2648.2001.01794.x https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1365-2648.2001.01794.x https://doi.org/10.1002/ace.7401 https://doi.org/10.1177/074171369704800104 http://www.digitalistmag.com/innovation/2013/04/16/what-is-design-thinking-030869 106 author information bill heinrich is the director of assessment in the hub at msu focused on assessing things that are hard to assess. he earned a ph.d. in higher, adult, and lifelong education from michigan state university with scholarship centered on outcomes and impacts of experiential learning and the mindsets that individuals carry about assessment work. bill’s background in student affairs and outdoor education help him translate research into practice for greater impact on institutional cultures and practices. *bill heinrich, phd director of assessment, msu hub for innovation in learning and technology michigan state university d-101 wells hall 619 red cedar rd. east lansing, mi 48823 email: heinri19@msu.edu telephone: 517-432-6738 twitter: @billhridesbikes breana yaklin is a learning experience designer for the msu hub for innovation in learning and technology and for teaching and learning technology with it services. she supports faculty to design strong student-focused learning experiences, and has been conducting interviews with undergraduate students to gather student voice and better inform curriculum design. lately, she has been working closely with academic advising units to support proactive advising and student success change initiatives. breana yaklin learning experience designer hub for innovation in learning and technology michigan state university 619 red cedar rd d101 wells hall east lansing, mi 48823 email: yaklinbr@msu.edu telephone: (517) 353-2993 twitter: @breanayaklin mailto:yaklinbr@msu.edu 107 david j. goodrich is an educator and learning designer who began working at michigan state university in 2012. dave works in the hub for innovation for learning & technology where he collaborates with faculty to develop new courses, redesign existing courses, and consult on instructional learning object projects. he also enjoys facilitating faculty workshops and being a guest instructor from time to time for msu’s college of education. david j. goodrich learning experience designer hub for innovation in learning & technology michigan state university 619 red cedar rd d101 wells hall east lansing, mi 48823 email: daveg@msu.edu telephone: (517) 884.0669 twitter: @rangerdavie jessica l. knott is the learning design manager for msu information technology and the msu hub for innovation in learning and technology. she holds a ph.d. in higher, adult, and lifelong education from michigan state university. her research interests include the effect of human-centered design and agile processes in higher education, workforce development, and the impact of cross-institutional collaborations on staff and student experiences. jessica l. knott hub for innovation in learning & technology michigan state university 287 delta court east lansing, mi, 48824 email: jlknott@msu.edu telephone: 517-884-0674 twitter: @jlknott *corresponding author mailto:daveg@msu.edu mailto:jlknott@msu.edu abstract value proposition review of relevant literature transformational learning being a learning organization from ideas to action: the first project of the hub is the hub design thinking. we began to use design thinking as a guiding framework for both our internal processes and to organize our projects from our first conversations. the hub uses two definitions of design thinking to guide its work. at its core, design t... “culture cups” (figure 2) are used to illustrate availability, and set workspace norms for focus and personal work time and space. brainstorming. brainstorming follows a similar format to coworking in that it utilizes the number of people and ideas in the room. however, while coworking is tied to co-location, brainstorm sessions are more facilitated. individuals trying to solve p... weekly schedule rhythms. we have developed a pattern of weekly schedule rhythms (see figure 3) in an effort to create efficient workflows in a fast-paced, multi-location environment. this pattern allows our team to be more purposeful in our planning a... agile project management. a common critique of higher education is that departments operate in isolation. while faculty publish to their scholarly communities, they often lack active sharing of good ideas and practices with each other. for example, if... feedback and indicators engagement complementing these essential project indicators and feedback is a formal external engagement and communications strategy, utilizing story anchors, and an institution-focused assessment plan with regular reporting. story anchors serve as the connectio... risk-ttaking on behalf of others at times, the social-political risk of behaving differently among peers is too great (bolman & deal, 2013). because some staff and faculty on campus will not effectively change work patterns until evidence of a clear impact and reward is present, an i... human capacity from a human and project capacity standpoint, the hub balances between large-, medium-, and small-scale projects. across each of these projects, there are similar characteristics of time, effort, planning, and implementation. generally speaking, we ha... tangible patterns and goals learning and improving lessons learned on spatial design lessons learned on culture lessons learned on engagement with partners conclusion references metropolitan universities vol. 29 no. 3 (august 2018), doi: 10.18060/22407 institutionalizing transformative learning: the trees, then the forest, then the realization ed cunliff and jeff king abstract finding a sense of authentic self as an institution, a true sense of mission, and the means to live that mission were the central focus of a strategic planning process addressed by the university of central oklahoma about fifteen years ago. as the institution grew within a metropolitan-serving mission, the goal to transform students from adolescents to adults and find new potential in their lives led to an exciting journey that is still vibrant and relevant today. the theoretical base provided within transformative learning has helped students, staff, and faculty align efforts. this case study provides replicable processes and specifics that may help others find a clearer path for fulfilling their mission. the study describes how the university of central oklahoma’s (uco’s) transformative learning focus coalesced and became the point of distinction for a uco education, helping to ensure that all activity supported our mission—helping students learn. the compelling, lived sense of mission developed from the initial strategic planning process has helped to strengthen the learner-centered culture of the campus while providing a structure that facilitates implementation and assessment. transformative learning jack mezirow’s foundational work beginning in the mid-70s is widely considered the origin of transformative learning theory (1981, 1990, 1997, 2000), although its roots can be traced back to humanistic psychology, adult learning theory, and constructivist learning theory. mezirow commented that: “a defining condition of being human is our urgent need to understand and order the meaning of our experience, to integrate it with what we know to avoid the threat of chaos” (taylor & cranton, 2012, p.73). this phenomenon is a natural part of growing up human. we make meaning of our life experience and create a framework from which to operate and act in the world. students of all ages, as well as organizations, connect with the world of higher education within a framework established through experience. they come with an eye toward expanding their worldview; transformative learning is about expanding that view, and as such is a natural process within higher education. whether it is through the experience of an adolescent on the path to adulthood, an adult ready to enter a new career, or an organization seeking to broaden its perspective by bringing in new views, transformative learning has a growing place in higher education. transformation of perspective is a key principle of transformative learning (dirkx, 2012; mezirow, 1990). jack mezirow’s foundational work in transformative learning, and the work of scholars following him, such as patricia cranton, emphasize a changed perspective resulting from grappling with events, ideas, and circumstances that challenge a student’s status quo 9 thinking. true transformation guides students to discoveries about themselves, to realizations about their relationship to self, others, and the world, and to understandings that transcend the bounds of disciplinary content. cranton (2002) distills the theory of transformative learning in this manner: at its core, transformative learning theory is elegantly simple. through some event . . . an individual becomes aware of holding a limiting or distorted view. if the individual critically examines this view, opens herself to alternatives, and consequently changes the way she sees things, she has transformed some part of how she makes meaning out of the world. (p. 64) morrell and o’connor (2002) provide a perspective that reflects the depth of change involved in the concept: … a deep, structural shift in basic premises of thought, feelings, and actions … a shift of consciousness that dramatically and permanently alters our way of being in the world. such a shift involves our understanding of ourselves and our self-locations; our relationships with other humans and with the natural world… (p. xvii) the changes implied within the framework of transformative learning are not superficial, involving the mere memorization of facts; instead, they align more with one of the basic tasks of undergraduate work, which involves transformation from adolescence to adulthood. benjamin and crymble (2017) found that youth described the transition as involving three accomplishments: physical responsibility for self, emotional competency, and career attainment (2017, pp. 252). illeris (2014) succinctly defines transformative learning in a manner that fits well with the transitional perspective of adolescents to adulthood: “the concept of transformative learning comprises all learning which implies changes in the identity of the learner” (2014, p. 40). transformative learning meets the university of central oklahoma the changes or accomplishments that students make as they move from adolescence to adulthood are significant transformations, and assisting our students remains part of the many challenges of higher education. it was the recognition of the university’s role in this transformative process that encouraged the framing of activities as part of a larger transformative learning process. from this point, the idea of transformative learning began to grow on the campus. uco’s current working definition of transformative learning calls it is a holistic process, which puts students at the center of their own active and reflective learning experiences. uco is oklahoma’s only “metropolitan university” as identified by the oklahoma state regents for higher education. uco’s demographics, program mix, student body, faculty, staff, and institutional processes look similar to many mid-size, regional state universities. uco has about 16,500 students. it is masters-comprehensive in nature; it includes a large and successful teacher education program, serves a high number of commuters, and yet maintains a strong on-campus life for those who choose it. the institution’s unique attributes include an international 10 population of about 9%, and a forensic science institute noted as one of a select few nationwide that offers both bachelor’s and master’s degrees. uco operationalizes transformative learning via the central six tenets here described. its program has replicable elements in terms of helping students learn and creating an over-arching campus climate, which, for uco, has its basis in transformational learning. the core idea of “helping students learn” as the mission of the university brought together disparate initiatives into a unified framework. this simple mission focus aligns on the mindful, intentional creation of educational experiences, designed to expand graduates’ perceptions of the possible, because they have a deeper understanding of themselves, others, and their communities. elements of the transformative learning mission are present in the tenure and promotion policy for faculty, in internal grant requirements, and in collaborative programs that include faculty, students, and staff. creating a “real world” higher education experience, blending the campus and the community, is essential to an understanding of transformative learning. transformative birthing: a case history is it a common occurrence for a major university strategic plan to land on the shelf, collecting dust? if that sounds familiar, then the beginning of the story might have repeated at uco. what may be different is that under the guidance of dr. don betz, uco’s provost during the early stages of this process, the academic units continued to push forward the strategic planning effort. betz, now uco president, understood the value of a clear focus for moving an institution forward. the academic side of the house persisted in its efforts to formulate and act upon the strategic plan in a manner that would ultimately unite all units under the shared goal of helping students learn through transformative learning experiences. the president’s office also invited two other units, student affairs and administration and information technology,to attend and participate in academic affairs retreats and planning sessions. in a highly interactive strategic planning session, utilizing concepts from bennis, benne, and chin (1969) that stretched over a two-day period, the deans and the provost’s staff focused on revising and formulating the institution’s mission and values from the academic perspective. the consensus process utilized in the strategic planning resulted in a mission that began simply with helping students learn. while there were those who wanted to leave the mission with the simple and primary focus of helping students learn, the fully crafted mission statement became: the university of central oklahoma (uco) exists to help students learn by providing education experiences to students so that they may become productive, creative, ethical and engaged citizens and leaders serving our global community. uco contributes to the intellectual, cultural, economic and social advancement of the communities and individuals it serves. (university of central oklahoma, n.d.). this mission ultimately led to the development of transformative learning at uco. on a parallel timeline, though much more organic in its origin, multiple and seemingly disparate programs were brought to campus and gained support from faculty, staff, and students. the american democracy project, undergraduate research, first-year experience, service 11 learning, and similar programs received a significant amount of attention, offices, and fullor part-time staffing. these programs shared active, experiential learning strategies that could inform both the curricular framework and in co-curricular activities. these and various other programs all intended to help students learn and had essential connections to mission, yet they transcended the curriculum. these programs are often the purview of student affairs and do not lie within the normal scope and practice of academics. george kuh and his research would ultimately corroborate the value of these programs in his monograph: high-impact educational practices: what they are, who has access to them, and why they matter (2008). in addition to the strategic planning effort, a second element that strongly influenced the institution’s transformation at this point was a concern shared by most institutions of higher education: how to focus on assessing educational practices. determining how to measure the various elements of the strategic plan unintentionally spurred the recognition that there were, in fact, significantly connections among these disparate programs. while each program, whether first-year experience or service learning, needed to be assessed on its own, all programs could be measured together, because all contributed to the overall transformation of undergraduates’ perspectives about their individual connections to content, self, others, and the community on local, national, or global levels. this second recognition played a significant part in bringing together the different program perspectives; the implementation team was able to consider the connections rather than the separation, boundaries, or silos between the programs. it was during this process of developing assessment frameworks that the term “transformative learning” first emerged. a theoretical framework did not prompt the term, but rather the practical challenge of evaluating what was done (or said to have been done) educationally. thinking about assessment clarified a point of connection that neatly paralleled the strategic planning effort. returning to a holistic, connected framework supported the shared superordinate goal of helping students learn. the third significant force was the office of academic affairs’ desire to collaborate with constituents across the campus. acting against the natural tendency to protect turf, the vice president of academic affairs reached out to other units and invited them to participate in planning activities. this invitation initially implied “listen and comment,” but progressed to a more inclusive process. there was also an intuitive understanding that the university was a single system and its various units operated with the singular goal of helping students learn. the vice presidents of student affairs, enrollment management, information technology, and administration were invited to semi-annual retreats addressing the academic strategic plan, and became regular attendees. the three aforementioned processes pursued the same mission and commitment to students’ learning, more than by any formulated strategic model. john dirkx (2012), a leading scholar in the area of transformative learning, might consider this within the concept of “soul work,” guided by the heart because the commitment stemmed from a deep appreciation for students and all participants involved in the learning process. this point in the uco transformation is also indicative of systems thinking within an inclusive atmosphere, in this case a moment when the vice presidents from all areas came together to formulate a single model. the vice presidents, working within the president’s cabinet, collectively formalized and created the central six tenets, thus giving all other factors a formal, university-wide direction. it was at this point that the concept of transformative learning was officially included in the mission, reading: 12 the university of central oklahoma (uco) exists to help students learn by providing transformative education experiences to students so that they may become productive, creative, ethical and engaged citizens and leaders serving our global community. uco contributes to the intellectual, cultural, economic and social advancement of the communities and individuals it serves” (university of central oklahoma, n.d.). this revised mission statement and the central six tenets (discipline knowledge; global and cultural competencies; health and wellness; leadership; research, creative and scholarly activity; and service learning and civic engagement, more conveniently termed the “central six”) became the foundation for uco’s transformative learning. what does it take personally and professionally to accomplish such goals? among several factors, the uco campus model suggests a willingness to share, which often involves giving up tightly managed ownership or giving up turf and silos to support the entire institution and its mission. the concept of synergy is critical because it allows the production of a win-win situation to support student learning. perhaps most importantly, the commitment to students must be lived and not just discussed. as uco solidified its commitment to the central six principles, it was important to have the sense that specific actions adopted worked in support of the research regarding high impact practices. figure 1. uco’s central six tenets juxtaposed against kuh’s high impact practices. creating your own synergy in the authors’ recent presentation at a teaching/learning conference, a participant commented that while he liked the ideas presented, the case history, and the story, his institution remained staunchly siloed and wondered what steps he might take to enhance their synergy. although the authors responded in the moment, the question has propelled a deeper consideration of the forces 13 that make such an effort work. the following are lessons learned and guidance offered, with a cautionary note that this is an on-going process. people processes such as these always start with people, both in official leadership roles and those at an operational level. higher-level support is important, though depending upon the level of the action taken; it might mean the dean of a college, a department chairperson, or, as in the case of uco, vice presidents working with presidential approval. the active involvement of mid-managers. while formal approval of the transformative learning mission occurred at the vp level, several program directors became involved, offering various experience levels with faculty assignments or different sides of divisional units such as student affairs and administration. involvement has taken many forms, but one of the most visible is through a structured form of advocacy in which faculty members, recommended by their academic deans, serve as advocates for each of the central six tenets. deans and unit managers also play a supportive role when they nominate faculty and staff to serve on the university-wide committee that helps with the planning of the annual transformative learning conference (see below) and other activities. staff can submit projects for student transformative learning record (stlr) program (described later), and may serve on projects with faculty and students. one such team, as an example, is involved in a research project related to k-12 and higher education leadership development. department chairpersons led discussions in departmental meetings to help their faculty determine, for instance, wording on syllabi about the central six tenets. as is always the case, faculty were critically important, and many uco faculty certainly became “pioneers” in terms of their involvement. the same applies to program directors in areas such as service learning, who eagerly stepped forward and embraced opportunities for collaboration. it is important to respect the contribution of each individual and office, a task partially accomplished by recognizing where each has contributed in their current role. faculty may say, “i’ve been doing that (in uco’s case, transformative learning) for a long time,” and there is likely truth in that statement. accepting the current contribution of people is essential. personal traits and characteristics. first, some of the people involved in the process must have legitimate authority, with the ability to make things happen. this might be a faculty member directing a class, or a director of the american democracy project, or a vp in academic affairs. one of the strongest authoritative messages within the uco plan was the alignment of budgeting processes to elements of transformative learning practice, such as direct support to faculty involving undergraduate students in research efforts. this alignment process had strong support from the uco academic affairs office. authentic leaders are second characteristic of people to involve, according to northouse (2012) in his book leadership: theory and practice. authentic leaders are individuals who will support efforts to help students learn even when it is beyond their own personal or departmental interests. they will unite their individual interests and the interest of the whole. the uco wellness center’s director understood john ratey’s research and his 2008 publication (spark), which 14 showed a significant relationship between health and learning. the director made a great partner in the early transformative learning institutional efforts. he created an interdisciplinary committee to help make connections among faculty, student affairs staff, and wellness center personnel. this action-focused team continues to renew itself through a bi-annual needs assessment and planning effort aligned with the mission. focus there is tremendous power in focus, requiring not a rigidity of mind but the ability to adapt while knowing and creating a path. in the early days of the uco process, an umbrella was identified that allowed the unification of previously disparate programs. that umbrella, as described earlier, was named transformative learning, and the components were the central six tenets. that focus has remained constant through its manifestation in particular programs, morphing and adapting as the environment has changed. leaders often feel that it is their charge to create new programs, and uco did that within the central six framework. the provost and the president both had the commitment to highlight transformative learning and the central six in almost every major presentation on and off campus. this focus and branding of transformative learning and the central six coincided for faculty and staff and provided a sharable community terminology. students have also adopted the terminology, helping to keep the focus. while uco has not reached unanimity, the central nature of transformative learning is apparent in the ethos: it was the first and primary point in the construction of the most recent strategic plan for 2020. alignment alignment has contributed greatly to the progress of uco transformative learning efforts. planning, budgeting, policy, and procedure must ensure that decisions are consistent with the focal message, and new programs, academic or co-curricular, need to align in some way. alignment ought not to restrict innovation, but to encourage it. transformative learning terminology appears in policies, such as the generic elements of class syllabi, supporting the theme. educational and professional development opportunities have encouraged transformative learning. a case of walking the transformative learning talk occurred with the university’s 2011– 2012 revitalization of the faculty development unit, raising its profile and re-branding it with the name, “center for excellence in transformative teaching and learning.” similarly, the institution financially supports faculty when they make state, regional, and national presentations about the transformative learning model. internal grant opportunities are available to support course re-design and other activities to find innovative ways to support transformative learning, and on-going development programs have transformative learning as a central theme. 15 learning space the construction of uco’s center for transformative learning, which opened in 2010, was the ideal symbol for the mission focus, and its thoughtful design continues to function as an ideal learning space. the building, now commonly referred to as the ctl, demonstrated the university’s commitment to transformative learning. the building’s design is a dream for faculty if they value interactive learning. the ctl building is spacious, with many areas for students to gather in small groups or one-on-one to study and collaborate, and uco intentionally designed the classrooms with no “front” so the faculty member is physically encouraged to work with an interactive format. tables and chairs are all on wheels, allowing faculty to reconfigure the room in a matter of minutes with minimal effort. classrooms present three walls equipped with displays for the projection of visuals, and two walls are also equipped with rails to support huddle boards (small portable white boards) that can be easily lifted and placed on tables so students can gather around, graphically brainstorm, or create finished visuals, after which boards can be hung up for full-class discussion. classrooms in the ctl serve as innovation-prompting instructional spaces for those who teach in them. each college on campus “owns” two classrooms in the building emphasizing a crossdisciplinary approach to transformative learning. such an approach realizes a benefit, not solely because more students experience the learning space, but also because of the interdisciplinary collegiality that organically occurs when the faculty member across the hall is from a different college. the ctl’s classrooms have become a model for many other classroom renovations on campus. amidst a movement in higher education toward friendly, active-engagement learning spaces, uco’s experience with these kinds of instructional environments is favorable from both students and faculty the institution sent a strong message of support to faculty who wanted to widen their knowledge of instructional strategies, including things like “huddle boards,” instantly reconfigurable table/chair layouts, and “frontless” classrooms, by locating the center for excellence in transformative teaching and learning (cettl), the faculty development unit, within the new building. this location puts faculty support inside interdisciplinary teaching space designed specifically to enable and support teaching that transforms students. as faculty development offerings around transformative learning have grown, the ctl has been pressed into service as the space for new faculty training, the meeting area for learning communities for the scholarship of teaching and learning, and a gathering place for book discussion groups around transformative learning and other topics. cettl’s 21st century pedagogy institute hosts and supports these meetings and provides an evidence-based structure for faculty to develop and improve teaching practice. 16 courageous collaboration collaboration is not easy in any setting and usually involves shifts in power dynamics. if perceived as a zero-sum game, someone must lose while someone else wins; however, with a strong focus and committed individuals, collaboration can become synergistic, a true win-win opportunity. collaboration is not just a matter of finding the right people: leaders must frequently reiterate their support for the collaborative ventures, especially in high-profile meetings and public forums. if there is a give-and-take involved in the process, then top-level leadership must be sure to provide that support. nothing should be lost because of collaboration, with position and authority undiminished as a consequence of collaborative effort. the same holds true for innovative processes; faculty may feel vulnerable to innovations that have a risk of failure, as it could negatively affect student evaluations and potentially put promotion or tenure at risk. such circumstances are a good example of how and where the faculty development operations can be pro-active with information, workshops, consultations, and other supportive activities. in addition, administration has the opportunity to be congruent in its message and execution that experimentation, in order to create more transformation-prone learning activities and environments, will be honored, as in the uco model. this creates the sense that faculty and administration are all working toward the same goals by actions, not just words. one initiative at uco, designed specifically with alignment in mind, was the transformative learning steering committee, a group that began initially as a conference committee managing a campus-wide day of discussions about transformative learning. from its inception, the committee was comprised of representatives from academic affairs (including faculty), administration, information technology, and student affairs. in late 2012, the provost and the vice president of student affairs charged the committee with a new mission: to be the “face of” transformative learning at uco, transforming it into a steering committee with a much broader purpose and responsibility. concurrent with this change the transformative learning conference (http://www.uco.edu/tlconference) took on a new, higher level of prominence, moving from a solely uco event and conversation to being an off-campus, metropolitan-venue conference with high-profile keynotes and featured presenters, while still maintaining a conversation-based approach in concurrent sessions about transformative learning. this raised profile of the conference has helped it grow; it is now in its 12th year. http://www.uco.edu/tlconference 17 figure 2. individual components of uco’s transformative learning initiative. assessment as mentioned previously, the small group that was first to use the terminology “transformative learning,” had initially come together to talk about issues of assessment. it was important, therefore, to identify or create tools and processes to measure the degree of success in helping students develop within the areas that were to become the central six tenets. uco still struggles, on occasion, with specific aspects of the assessment process, but has found various answers in different locations that may assist others. transformative learning is not so different as an approach to teaching and learning that it varies dramatically from widely regarded good practices in assessment. for example, angelo and cross (1993) identify seven basic assumptions about good assessment (pp. 7–11), and astin, along with his eleven co-authors, present nine principles of good practice for assessing student learning (1992). guidelines for quality assessment such as these apply to transformative learning, as does the rationale for authentic assessment (wiggins, 1990). assessment of transformative learning must address both the individualized nature of the process and the meta-conceptual framework; measuring it at the micro-level might satisfy some but could easily miss the larger focus. transformative learning serves as a guiding principle, often 18 reflected in some meta-type instruments, such as nsse (national survey of student engagement) and uco’s gss (graduating student survey). similar large-scale instruments can also help present a broader picture—the american college health association-national college health assessment, for example. this certainly tells us something about our success with students relative to our health and wellness tenet among the central six there is also useful information within a variety of discipline-related instruments often used for special accreditation, and it is only a matter of mining the data to use this information. requirements from disciplinary accreditors to assess the degree to which students achieve learning outcomes, for example, can provide opportunities to measure success in areas such as those represented by our central six. because uco is one of the institutions participating in the quality assurance commons essential employability qualifications certification (eeq cert: https://theqacommons.org) project, a lumina foundation-funded initiative, the institution is working with other institutions to help define what a certification process might look like concerning beyond-disciplinary skill development within programs and across uco. student development in our central six maps directly to eeqs as conceived by the quality assurance commons, ultimately providing yet another mechanism to assess transformative learning efforts. as uco continues to refine its assessment of transformative learning, its institutional assessment unit is adapting as useful measuring tools the association of american colleges and universities (aac&u) value rubrics (valid assessment of learning in undergraduate education) which connect to the institution’s central six tenets. these rubrics, for instance, are figuring prominently in uco’s continuing refinement of the core curriculum. each individual has a unique story of transformation, and those stories can be gathered and analyzed via qualitative analysis techniques. uco’s transformative learning steering committee has been engaged in this research approach, directing irb-approved research projects employing both qualitative and quantitative analysis of information gathered in surveys, one-onone interviews, focus groups, student narratives about transformative learning, and from other sources. in addition, the assistant director dedicated to assessment of uco’s student transformative learning record initiative (see below) leads a robust evaluation of how well faculty members are implementing transformative learning practice and to what degree students are benefitting from it. anecdotes and qualitative analysis are extremely useful and powerful sources of information, especially related to concepts with inextricable affective components like those inevitable in transformative experiences (taylor, 2001). at the same time, there are many aspects of transformative learning that result in student change in psychomotor and cognitive domains, and it is important to capture those gains as well. uco has now added student transformative learning achievement data (as generated via the stlr process described below) into institutional data analytics and the predictive modeling mix. in advance of that, fall 2015 to fall 2016 student achievement and retention results showed the transformative learning tool and process associating with strong positive gains, in many cases into the double digits (and verified at p<.001 levels for these large-n analyses). subsequent fall2016-entering students tracked into their sophomore years as well as fall 2015 students tracked https://theqacommons.org/ 19 into their junior years also show double-digit retention numbers compared to students who did not have the transformative learning experiences generated via stlr. these gains are shrinking the gaps in achievement and retention that have existed between students who are and who are not low socio-economic-status (ses), underrepresented, and/or first-generation. the data for the entering cohort of first-time/full-time freshman in fall 2016 show improved gains, indicating that stlr creates an improving positive impact. regarding assessment, the suggestion would be for institutions to use what they have while pursuing what they think might be a better tool to assess success with something as ambitious as transformative learning. transformative learning: a “stellar” approach though transformative learning as an organizing principle may have arisen organically at uco, the university community has become intentional in designing assignments, activities, and environments meant to prompt student transformative experiences. the institution conceived the student transformative learning record (stlr, pronounced "stellar": http://www.uco.edu/stlr) process as a crucible of intentionality for transformative learning, and committed institutional funding to move ahead. six months later, the vision for stlr gained validation, in the form of a multi-year u.s. department of education title iii strengthening institution program grant of several million dollars. briefly, stlr is a process whereby faculty connect at least one assignment in their courses to one or more of uco’s central six tenets. the assignment is usually an existing one that, with careful planning, can connect to a tenet and produce a student-learning artifact that faculty may assess using stlr rubrics (built on the aac&u value rubrics, mentioned above). faculty eventually push the artifact, the rubric used to assess it, and the achievement level reached to the student’s stlr e-portfolio. an example: for years, a statistics instructor has used a dataset from a textbook for an assignment on central limit theorem. by using, instead, a real-world database describing kilometers walked from different villages to the nearest sources of potable water, the instructor could add a reflective prompt to the assignment associated with uco’s global and cultural competencies (gcc) tenet. such a prompt might intend to elicit students' perspectives about the differences between their lives and the lives represented in the statistics students accessed for the assignment. the instructor will grade the assignment as usual but then assess the stlr artifact (the written reflection) using the gcc rubrics. a similar process exists for co-curricular learning, except that students attending a student affairs event, where “student-teacher ratios” might be hundreds to one, automatically attain only the lowest level of transformative engagement, “exposure,” by virtue of a student id card-swipe process integrated into stlr. student affairs professionals manage by exception those students who might deserve a higher rating, requiring an artifact of those students and assessing it using the stlr rubrics. uco devised an awkward but effective way to capture this in a learning management system “pseudoshell” created for the event. for example, the asian moon festival http://www.uco.edu/stlr 20 becomes a “course shell” where student affairs staff can assess the transformative learning artifact requested of a student who demonstrated leadership in organizing the event. a mobile student app allows students to track their progress across all three levels of potential transformative impact— “exposure,” “integration,” and “transformation”—in each of the tenets. in a future phase of the app, students will be able to see upcoming term tenet-associated courses (down to the section level) and student affairs activities as they plan their course schedules. the stlr e-portfolio might be the “end product” of uco’s transformative learning concerning what students do with the proof of their achievement within each of its tenets. graduates can grant to a potential employer access to the two best exemplars in their e-portfolios of a tenet particularly relevant for the sought-after job, for instance, in advance of job interviews. uco has been working closely with its stlr employer advisory board, but knew previously that employers wanted to know more about potential hires than what shows on their academic transcripts. uco believes the stlr e-portfolio will provide such information to potential employers. the eportfolios, though, are not mere repositories of stlr artifacts. students must create useful, employer-friendly presentations of self that provide quick answers to what hiring managers want to know. this means institutions must train students in the creation of their stlr e-portfolios, potentially within capstone courses, which are required in all uco programs. while the stlr e-portfolio is where students present tangible proof of transformative learning, a student-customized presentation of stlr achievement conveniently appears on the uco comprehensive student record (csr), which unifies a record of stlr achievement with the academic transcript. students have control of the stlr portion of their csrs and are able to customize multiple versions, similar to what one might do in customizing versions of a résumé. uco believes this is important, as students make sense of their beyond-disciplinary learning and make choices to prioritize experiences as they present themselves to others. they can only customize, however, from among their official stlr achievements, thereby ensuring the integrity of the information via an evidence-based, authentic assessment process. as a unification of the academic transcript and the stlr record, the csr is official in every way and carries the registrar’s stamp. with the csr now in operation and students able to access and customize these records, uco is in early stages of requiring csrs when students apply for positions on campus, student worker opportunities, on-campus internships, and as part of application packages for awards. the purpose is for csrs to provide formative developmental opportunities. students create the csr version they believe best supports their application, then discuss how and why the csr demonstrates their development of the skills and ethos required to perform the duties for which they are being considered or to support their worthiness to receive the recognition for which they have been nominated. uco students thereby gain experience in applying and interviewing for opportunities during the course of their time at the institution; such experience can prove valuable when seeking employment and/or graduate school admission. 21 the stlr tool and process also struck a chord with grant funders. the first was the large title iii grant from the u.s. department of education (mentioned above) which allowed uco to expand faster than the original timeline devised to operationalize transformative learning when funded with only institutional funds. next, uco gained an invitation to the 2015 cohort of the next generation leadership challenge breakthrough models incubator cohort, led by educause and supported by the gates foundation. more recently, uco joined the initiative led by naspa (national association of student personnel administrators) and aacrao (american association of collegiate registrars and admissions officers) and funded by the lumina foundation to be among the 12 institutions selected to design a “comprehensive student record” (above). the project highlighted institutions doing innovative work to document beyond-disciplinary learning. it provided the impetus for uco to design its csr. additionally, uco received a 2016 western interstate commission for higher education cooperative for educational technologies (wcet) outstanding work award for stlr. most recently, the institution’s work with stlr has garnered an invitation to the lumina foundation-supported quality assurance commons’ essential employability qualities (eeq) project (also introduced above). lumina-eeq further invited uco’s forensic science program, as the program-level participation in place for the 14 institutions invited to the project. because of stlr, uco also garnered an invitation at the institution level given stlr’s reach across all programs. finally, and perhaps the most validating statement about uco’s approach, is the fact that multiple other institutions are now in process adopting/adapting stlr on their own campuses. uco has been gratified that these adoptees include both u.s. and international institutions. adoption by other institutions has gained further momentum, given the charge in the title iii grant that what the institution produces must be platform-agnostic, replicable, and scalable. it's also the case that stlr has passed muster with regional accreditors, both at uco (higher learning commission) and at a stlr-adopting/adapting institution, western carolina university (southern association of colleges and schools), which made its version of stlr the focus of its quality enhancement plan for its institutional reaccreditation. conclusion the uco journey has been rewarding, frustrating, challenging, frightening, and always interesting. it has been a movement from practice to theory in terms of the recognition of the transformative learning framework, and that has worked well. this journey has also benefitted from serendipitous circumstances within the framework of strategic planning. the institution learned as it found its way, repeating a favorite expression, "building the plane while we're flying it," during the course of the journey. however, a general knowledge of systems, processes, project management, and teaching/learning theory have helped inform uco at many places along the way. most importantly, this journey toward transformative learning as an operational approach for teaching and learning has been about professionals committed to the broader purpose of the institution, the mission, and to creating ways to help students learn. 22 references angelo, t. a., & cross, k. p. (1993). classroom assessment techniques: a handbook for college teachers (2nd ed.). san francisco, ca: jossey-bass. astin, a. w., banta, t. w., cross, k. p., el-khawas, e., ewell, p. t., hutchings, p., marchese, t. j., mcclenney, k. m., mentkowski, m., miller, m. a., moran, e. t., & wright, b. d. (1992). nine principles of good practice for assessing student learning. washington, d.c.: american association of higher education (now known as the american association for higher education and accreditation). retrieved march 19, 2017, from http://teaching.uncc.edu/sites/teaching.uncc.edu/files/media/files/file/assessmentandgrading/9p rinciples.pdf benjamin, a. & crymble, b. (2017). a re-imagination of the transition to adulthood. in a. laros et al. (eds.), transformative learning meets bildung (pp. 247–258). san francisco: jossey-bass. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6300-797-9_20 cranton, p. (2002). teaching for transformation. new directions for adult and continuing education, 2002 (93), 63–72. https://doi.org/10.1002/ace.50 dirkx, j. (2012). nurturing soul work. in e. taylor, p. cranton, & associates (eds.). the handbook of transformative learning, theory, research and practice. san francisco: jossey-bass. kuh, g. d. (2008) high-impact educational practices: what they are, who has access to them, and why they matter. washington dc: aac&u publications. illeris, k. (2014). transformative learning and identity. london: routledge. mezirow, j. (1981). a critical theory of adult learning and education. adult education, 32 (1), 3– 24. https://doi.org/10.1177/074171368103200101 mezirow, j. (1990). how critical reflection triggers transformative learning. in j. mezirow & associates (eds.), fostering critical reflection in adulthood: a guide to transformative and emancipatory learning (pp. 1–20). san francisco: jossey-bass. mezirow, j. (1997, summer). transformative learning: theory to practice. new directions for adult and continuing education, 1997(74), 5–12. https://doi.org/10.1002/ace.7401 mezirow, j. (2000). learning as transformation: critical perspectives on a theory in progress. san francisco, ca: jossey-bass. morrell, a. & o’connor, m. a. (2002). introduction. in e. o’sullivan, a. morrell, & m.a. o’connor (eds.). expanding the boundaries of transformative learning: essays on theory and praxis (pp. xv–xx). new york: palgrave. https://doi.org/10.1525/california/9780520228627.003.0001 http://teaching.uncc.edu/sites/teaching.uncc.edu/files/media/files/file/assessmentandgrading/9principles.pdf http://teaching.uncc.edu/sites/teaching.uncc.edu/files/media/files/file/assessmentandgrading/9principles.pdf https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-6300-797-9_20 https://doi.org/10.1002/ace.50 https://doi.org/10.1177/074171368103200101 https://doi.org/10.1002/ace.7401 https://doi.org/10.1525/california/9780520228627.003.0001 23 nicol, d. j., & macfarlane-dick, d. (2006). formative assessment and self-regulated learning: a model and seven principles of good feedback practice. studies in higher education 31 (2), 199– 218. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075070600572090 northouse, p. (2012). leadership: theory and practice. los angeles: sage. ratey, j. (2008). spark. new york: little, brown. taras, m. (2005). assessment—summative and formative—theoretical reflections. british journal of educational studies, 55 (4), 466–478. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.14678527.2005.00307.x taylor, e. w. (2001). transformative learning theory: a neurobiological perspective of the role of emotions and unconscious ways of knowing. international journal of lifelong education, 20 (3), 218–236. https://doi.org/10.1080/02601370110036064 taylor, e., cranton, p., & associates (eds.). (2012). the handbook of transformative learning, theory, research and practice. san francisco: jossey-bass. transformative learning home. (2018, april 16). university of central oklahoma. retrieved from http://sites.uco.edu/central/tl/index.asp university of central oklahoma. (2018). university mission, vision statement, strategy statement, and call to action. retrieved april 4, 2015, from http://www.uco.edu/about/mission.asp wiggins, g. (1990). the case for authentic assessment. eric document retrieved march 19, 2017, from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ed328611.pdf https://doi.org/10.1080/03075070600572090 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8527.2005.00307.x https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8527.2005.00307.x https://doi.org/10.1080/02601370110036064 http://sites.uco.edu/central/tl/index.asp http://www.uco.edu/about/mission.asp http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ed328611.pdf 24 author information ed cunliff is professor of adult and higher education at the university of central oklahoma with a consulting practice in transformative learning and authentic leadership. ed’s seeks to help learners achieve their goals, which he accomplishes through teaching/facilitating learning in the adult and higher education program at the university of central oklahoma. teaching and research interests include adult learners, applied research, transformative learning, managing adult education programs, and the organization and administration of higher education. *ed cunliff department of adult education and safety sciences university of central oklahoma 100 n. university drive box 206, ctl 221 edmond, ok 73034 email: ecunliff@uco.edu telephone: 405-974-2972 jeff king is executive director of the center for excellence in transformative teaching and learning at the university of central oklahoma. he also leads the student transformative learning record (stlr) initiative, which is comprised of the processes, tools, and infrastructure uco employs to operationalize transformative learning. as part of his stlr duties, jeff works with other institutions who have adopted or adapted stlr to their own campuses, missions, and cultures. jeff king center for excellence in transformative teaching and learning university of central oklahoma 100 n. university drive box 212, ctl 205 edmond, ok 73034 email: jking47@uco.edu telephone: 405-974-5544 *corresponding author metropolitan universities vol. 29 no. 2 (may 2018), doi: 10.18060/22395 the heart of listening eric demeulenaere abstract dr. eric demeulenaere is associate professor of education at clark university in worcester, ma. when he received the ernest a. lynton award for the scholarship of engagement in 2015, he was an assistant professor coming up for promotion and tenure. he received the lynton award because his scholarly work exemplifies deep collaboration with community partners across the faculty roles of teaching, research, and service. that reciprocity and valuing of the knowledge assets in the community comes across strongly in this essay. his essay is fundamentally about engagement that disrupts the dominant epistemology of the academy, which narrowly constrains ways of knowing and passes for legitimate knowledge. much of this essay reflects the keynote address that eric gave at the lynton colloquium at the university of massachusetts, boston in september of 2015. he received the lynton award at the annual meeting of the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities in omaha, nebraska the following month. scholars like eric, and all lynton award recipients, need supportive institutional environments of campuses, like those of cumu, which redefine excellence through demonstrated engagement with and positive impact across their local cities and communities, valuing and nurturing their epistemic orientations and those of their students. —john saltmarsh, university of massachusetts, boston. keywords: community engagement; engaged scholarship; activist academic; youth; urban education; university-community partnerships; ernest lynton award introduction october 11, 2015. i had just landed this morning for my first visit ever to omaha, nebraska, where the next day i was going to receive the ernest lynton award for community-engaged scholarship at the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities’ annual conference. the following day, which also happened to be indigenous people’s day (also known as columbus day), i was scheduled to give a speech in conjunction with receiving the award. nervous about receiving the award and giving a speech, i quickly checked into my room, laced up my running shoes, positioned my earbuds and headed out for a jog on an unseasonably balmy day in omaha. turning north from my hotel, i passed by the conagra foods headquarters, which had just announced the layoff of 1,500 employees as part of the relocation of its headquarters to chicago. i then crossed a long walking ramp that spilled into a larger park that ran along the missouri river. i passed historical markers that commemorated the landing of lewis and clark in 1804 with no real mention of how that date marked the beginning of the process of taking that land from the indigenous people in this part of the united states. 20 crossing the bob kerry pedestrian bridge, my eyes took in the riverfront and the view of the city skyline as my mind contemplated the pawnee, otoe, sioux, missouri, iowa and omaha peoples who had once lived in and controlled the land i jogged on. i thought about how the following day, a holiday celebrates the father of the american genocide and the creator of the transatlantic slave trade. i reflected on the connections between that and the speech i was planning to give about the scholarship of engagement. forgetting pausing at the middle of the bridge that connected nebraska to iowa, i looked north where the missouri river curves its way up several hundred miles to north dakota. a little ways east from the river, my grandmother grew up in a farmhouse in spiritwood, north dakota. several years before my grandmother was born, my great grandfather was able, because of his european heritage, to obtain land free through the homestead act—land that was forcibly stolen from the dakota who had lived there. the homestead act, and the preemption act before it, encoded into federal policy the racist ideology of manifest destiny. no history records the destruction of the human lives of native americans that these actions created for the families that were living where my great grandfather “homesteaded” in north dakota. historical markers in omaha never mention the treaties and small pox that stole the land from the american indians. columbus day parades ignore the mutilated and enslaved bodies of americas’ first nations. my own family history records for me that this “gifted” land enabled my great grandfather to raise 18 children, including my grandmother, all of whom survived through the great depression. my great uncle was even able to use the profits from the farm to buy the land from his seventeen siblings. that very small nest egg would later support my grandmother’s move west. she eventually settled in california, marrying and buying a small house. my legacy dates not only to the quaint little farmhouse in spiritwood, north dakota that we visit for family reunions; it is linked to the legacy of stolen land and the oppression of dakota families. i stand here today as a legacy of the “exploration” by louis and clark and the “discovery” of columbus. i am thankful to christine sleeter (2008) whose own efforts to think critically about her genealogy inspired me to look critically at my own genealogy and refuse to allow my family to continue to ignore our history of privilege. professor sleeter helped me to recognize that it is not only important for me to humbly recognize that i stand before you today on the shoulders of my strong and stoic grandmother, but also that i simultaneously stand on the heads of the dakota families whose stolen lands are similarly tied to my own legacy. standing on the bridge over the missouri river thinking about histories ignored, i recalled ta nehisi coates’ (2015) haunting book, between the world and me. there, he reminds us of how easy it is for those of us who inhabit spaces of privilege, to forget. he writes: the forgetting is habit, is yet another necessary component of the dream. they [white people who he refers to as “dreamers”] have forgotten the scale of theft that enriched them in slavery; the terror that allowed them, for a century, to pilfer the vote; the segregationist policy that gave them their suburbs. they have forgotten, because to remember would tumble them out of the beautiful dream and force them to live down here with us, down here in the world. i am convinced 21 that the dreamers, at least the dreamers of today, would rather live white than live free…. to awaken them is to reveal that they are an empire of humans and, like all empires of humans, are built on the destruction of the body. it is to stain their nobility, to make them vulnerable, fallible, breakable humans (p. 143). ta nahisi coates chilling words demand i remember that my successes come at a cost to others. jogging back towards my hotel with coates words mingling with indigenous people’s day and the dakota nation, i recalled franz boas and his work with ella deloria. while in graduate school, i studied under several anthropologists, but it was only when i arrived at clark university as a new assistant professor of education that i first heard about frank boas—the father of american anthropology. his first academic appointment was in 1888 at the then newly formed clark university. the more i learned about boas, the more i came to admire his work and connect with his disposition toward this work. he wrote in 1884 to his then-future wife: i do not want a german professorship because i know i would be restricted to my science and to teaching, for which i have little inclination. i should much prefer to live in america in order to be able to further those ideas for which i live.... what i want to live and die for, is equal rights for all… don't you believe that to have done even the smallest bit for this, is more than all science taken together? i, too, never sought to be an academic. even after earning my ph.d. in education in 2003, i worked to open a school for social justice in oakland, ca. i wanted to be involved in the creation of radical social change and the academy seemed too distant and removed from this work. at the time, i had not yet encountered academics like franz boas, or ernest lynton, or john saltmarsh. instead, after getting my doctorate, i worked with others to create a small school for social justice in oakland modeled after the school the black panther party had created decades earlier. when the state of california took over the oakland unified school district and appointed the second state administrator, they began to target the new small schools for closure. my school was one of the first targeted and shut down. i felt defeated. i did not know what to do. my mentor and fellow community activist, margo okazawa-rey, said that being an academic is the perfect job for an activist. you control your time and the projects on which you work. with the discovery of participatory action research, i learned that my research could be a part of my activism. i have been spending the last several years trying to figure out how to make my work as an academic, the same as my activist work—how to marry my scholarship, teaching and service as an academic to my vocational commitment to social justice—what it means to be an activist academici. this article offers my reflections on this journey—of learning to remember and listen. remembering on this journey, i have been fortunate to encounter many role models. more than hundred years ago, franz boas’ scholarship worked to challenge the social darwinism and eugenics that were the dominant, and racist, ideologies of his day. however, beyond his prolific and diverse scholarship, he simultaneously worked closely with w.e.b dubois to found the naacp. he wrote prominently for the naacp’s recently launched crisis magazine. he supported carter g. 22 woodson’s efforts to create black history week and worked tirelessly, albeit unsuccessfully, to launch an african american museum in new york. but mostly, he worked to remember, not just the forgotten horrors committed by white people, but to reclaim the hidden stories of the greatness of black people and american indians. w. e. b. dubois brought boas to atlanta university to give the commencement speech in 1906. about this speech, dubois (1939) wrote, franz boas came to atlanta university where i was teaching history in 1906 and said to a graduating class. you need not be ashamed of your african past; and then he recounted the history of the black kingdoms south of the sahara for a thousand years. i was too astonished to speak. all of this i had never heard and i came then and afterwards to realize how the silence and neglect of science can let truth utterly disappear or even be unconsciously distorted (p. vii). in all his work boas challenged the ideas of exceptionalism of european cultures—the prevalent ethnocentric idea that european and white american culture was somehow more civilized, more evolved, than other cultures. one of the ways he did this, which resonates with my own work was by nurturing and raising funds for what antonio gramsci would later call organic intellectuals from the subaltern—intellectuals from marginalized groups who communicate ideologies that disrupt the dominant narratives. boas, for example, supported and collaborated extensively with ella deloria, a multilingual dakota woman. he sought out funding for her research into the dakota culture and they collaborated on several research projects and even wrote a book together. he similarly supported zora neale hurston in very much the same way. interestingly, both hurston and deloria ended up becoming more famous for their fiction that grew out of their ethnographic, folkloric, and linguistic work, writing that was encouraged by boas. as i have recently earned tenure, this raises all kinds of questions for me about how i as an academic should best communicate my research, how i write, and where i publish. i deeply appreciate boas for his model of supporting the development of organic intellectuals like hurston and deloria. antonio gramsci (2005), the marxist revolutionary imprisoned by mussolini, and one of my intellectual forbearers, argues that everyone is an intellectual, only some of us are public intellectuals, paid to work in the field of ideas. he states that everyone “carries on some form of intellectual activity,… participates in a particular conception of the world, has a conscious line of moral conduct, and therefore contributes to sustain a conception of the world or to modify it, that is, to bring into being new modes of thought” (p. 51). most public intellectuals, gramsci argued, view themselves as distinct from the structures that create and maintain social inequities, but are, in fact, complicit in those systems. gramsci’s analysis causes me to question, repeatedly, my positioning. gramsci called for the rise of new counter-hegemonic intellectuals who would come either from marginalized groups like deloria and hurston, or from traditional public intellectuals who are converted to work to transform the ideological and material conditions that maintain inequality. these new counter-hegemonic intellectuals, gramsci asserted, “can no longer consist in eloquence … but in active participation in practical life, as constructor, organizer, ‘permanent persuader’ and not just a simple orator" (gramsci, 1971, p. 10). in other words, these new transformative intellectuals cannot simply offer revolutionary ideas removed from concrete 23 participation in the lives of the people for whom they advocate liberation. gramsci’s words constantly push me to reflect, always, on my practice. crossing main street in my second year at clark, i became involved in a project co-teaching a group of high school seniors at a local public high school a few blocks from clark’s campus. one aspect of the course had our high school seniors collaborating with students in my colleague’s first year intensive course at clark university. the idea was that they would work together to make art and at the end of the semester we would curate together a professional art exhibition. on the first day we brought the two afterschool classes together, we put them into groups of six with a couple students from each class and gave each group a camera. we told them to go out into the community and capture pictures that represent their ideas of “self,” “home,” “community,” and “dreams.” one of the groups headed out and a couple of the young college students suggested going across main street in front of clark’s campus to get a soda at a small market. one of the high school students, lionelii, hedged and said he did not want to go over there. the college students offered to pay for his soda, thinking money might be the reason for the hesitation. lionel kept hesitating stating vaguely that there could be trouble if he went there. the college students did not take him seriously. it is right across the street from campus, how would he get involved in any fight right across the street in the middle of the day. what he never told them is that he had not been across main street in five years. he was involved with a gang that had a long-standing feud with another gang that controlled the territory across main street. despite this complication, lionel allowed himself to be talked into crossing the street by these college students—students he had just met and who were barely a year older than he was. against lionel’s better judgment, he and his group crossed main street and headed towards the store. sure enough, some youth from the rival gang saw him. they got on their cell phones, and in no time, a group of youth began to approach lionel and the group of students with him. once words passed between them, lionel made it clear, he was ready to stay and fight a whole group of other youth. somehow, the clark students and lionel’s classmates talked him into leaving and they all raced across the street and into one of clark’s science buildings where the rival gang members followed them and waited outside. i found out about this after the students called my co-teacher who drove up to the back of the science building to sneak them out and drive them to a safer place. there are several ways to analyze this story. first, the episode reveals an entire social reality that literally crosses through my college campus and directly shapes the lives of several neighborhood youth that remains hidden from the social world of our college community. indeed, the young people caught up in this world are so sophisticated that they know, always, which person are clark students and which youth are from the neighborhood. sure, clark students experience the occasional mugging. however, they live far apart from much of the violence that occurs in our main south neighborhood. moreover, most clark students and faculty remain completely oblivious to this reality. this experience was a powerful learning moment for my college students. 24 real university-community engagement however, the main reason i share this story is that it serves as a powerful metaphor for community-engagement work in universities. too often, in so many university projects that work to collaborate with the community, the people who learn the most, who benefit the most are the college students. the college students in this situation meant well, but they were just unaware. we might wish to forgive them because they really had no idea what was going on. nevertheless, their ignorance did not create the problem, but rather their inaccurate interpretation of the situation, exacerbated by their inability to listen to lionel. they responded based on their understanding of the world and made assumptions rooted in the best of intentions. if they had just listened to lionel and had not made assumptions about his resistance to go to the store, they might have all avoided danger. problems occur when people come from the academy, or other spaces of privilege, assume they understand the problem and offer the solution. teju cole (2013) referred to this tendency as the “white-savior industrial complex.” cole suggested that rather than attempt to save people, “why don’t you ask the people you’re trying to save what it is that they need?” (as quoted in alfaro, 2015). people from spaces of privilege too frequently create danger or bring harm because they too easily trust their assumptions and fail to listen effectively. yet if we can learn to listen, we might just receive the knowledge that can keep us all safe. community—making sense of social reality (-ies) now i want to turn and analyze lionel in this situation. before i do, i want to share a little bit more information about him. what i have shared so far is that lionel was involved with a local gang. that is it, and we have all kinds of stereotypes about gangs in this country. these stereotypes were at play in the high school where i taught lionel. one of his classmates wrote her college essay on what she learned from lionel in our class. she wrote in part: i tried to stay as far away as possible from the “lionel’s” at my school …. i was college bound, while he was headed for jail. i became the smart asian girl who everyone believed in, while lionel became the deviant that society wanted to ignore…. our paths collided when lionel and i were put in a group that had the tasks of carrying an open 5-gallon container of water, an uncooked egg, and ourselves up to the top of a mountain. lionel became a leader. he encouraged everyone, including my friend jenny who was struggling to make it up the hill. lionel walked with her for the final section of the trail to make sure she didn’t trip or fall behind. for the majority of the hike, he carried the five-gallon water bottle…. everything i was taught to believe about lionel dissolved into the victorious feeling of being on top of the mountain and we wouldn’t have made it there without him. from the top of the mountain, i… began to see myself and the people i grew up with in a new light. this is always how it is. the upper-tracked students are usually oblivious to what is happening in the lower tracks, but the lower-tracked students are much more aware. it is always easier for those most oppressed to develop critical consciousness. 25 i remember later in the class with lionel, we were reading chapters from foucault’s (1977) discipline and punish. at around the same time, i also had students in my undergraduate college class reading the same chapters. the high school students struggled with (and whined and complained about) the dense language of the text. we had to slow down and spend a lot more time trying to make sense of what foucault was saying. however, once they comprehended foucault’s concepts of docile bodies, hierarchical observation, the examination and the panopticon, there was a very different reaction to the social theory from the high school students than from my college undergrads. the connections foucault makes between prisons, factories, the military and schools comes alive when you are teaching it to kids who have been in jail, worked in factories and have family in the military. these students hated trying to decipher the dense text, but they loved the theory—it gave them a language to talk about and make sense of something they already knew deep in their bones. most good theory does not offer new information per se, rather it gives a language and a way to organize what people know intimately from their lived experience. this experience of social theory that my high school students had mirrored bell hooks (1994) and her embrace of theory: i came to theory because i was hurting—the pain within me was so intense that i could not go on living. i came to theory desperate, wanting to comprehend—to grasp what was happening around and within me. most importantly, i wanted to make the hurt go away. i saw in theory then a location for healing (p. 59). i used to be puzzled over why most of my undergraduate students did not appreciate good theory and preferred the more narrative texts i assigned. it was because most of my undergraduates did not really need it in the same way. they were not struggling to make sense of their social reality. they were not in pain, trying to find healing. however, for the marginalized and oppressed, for the students in my high school class, they approached social theory as an ointment for healing. we have all these amazing social theorists in our urban schools who are turned off by schooling, by what paulo freire (1970) calls banking education. they reject schooling not because they are lazy, not because they are not intellectual; rather they reject a system that does not help them to develop as organic intellectuals, that does not enable them embrace theory to heal and make sense of their social reality. the best educators in urban schools recognize that the kids with heart, the youth willing to walk out of a class or tell off a teacher, are those very students who possess a critical consciousness about their social reality. they are also the students who feel the pain of oppression most deeply. michelle fine (1991) discovered this decades ago in her work examining high school dropouts. she writes: the dropout was an adolescent who scored as psychologically healthy. critical of social and economic injustice, this student was willing to challenge an unfair grade and unwilling to conform mindlessly. in contrast, the student who remained in school was relatively depressed. self-blaming, this student was more teacher dependent, unwilling to challenge a misgrade, and endlessly willing to conform. by the end of this research, i worried about those who left public high school; but i also worried about what we instill in those who remain (p. 4). 26 lionel was this type of student. he is brilliant. he is a leader. however, he was barely passing school, and he hated school. one time when we presented together in a college class, lionel told a story from second grade. he had been suspended for cursing at a teacher. when he came back from suspension, they had created a behavior plan for lionel. every day he went without getting in trouble, he earned a candy bar. he started collecting the candy bars and began selling them to his classmates and kids on the streets for spending money. for him, even as early as second grade, schooling was ridiculous. so much of our success in teaching that class of seniors we owe to lionel. because he took our class seriously, so many of his classmates followed his lead. also, the high-tracked students in the class came to realize that their assumptions about the difference between the educational tracks had to be challenged. they came to recognize that nothing special separated the students in the different tracks. in many ways, lionel brought qualities that were missing, qualities like courage and a sense of self. when i started out as a teacher, everyone wanted to teach the juniors and seniors. however, i later came to realize that that was because by 11th and 12th grade, the kids with heart had usually left. those were the easiest grades to teach because the students who persisted that long were the docile bodies who would tolerate the banking educational system. moreover, we need the lionel’s in our lives—the courageous disrupters, the challengers of authority. there is a reason why paulo freire puts his faith in the oppressed when it comes to creating the radical social change we need in this society. lionel was fearless, not only on the streets, but in dealing with teachers and honors kids and even college admission counselors. he wrote with this raw, authentic and powerful voice. this is how he started his college essay: i wonder how it feels to decide a college applicants’ fate. i see college admissions officers as caring most about building the reputation for their college. do not 4.0 gpa’s and perfect sat scores boost the competitive status of universities? forget about the kids from the ghetto when the selectivity index is on the line, right? how can ghetto kids help your ranking in the us news and world report’s annual guide to selective colleges? isn’t that your job, to serve the best interests of your college? i suppose you just need to do your job so you can make your money to support your family, your mortgage and your nice car in the driveway. you are really living, i guess, but you deserve it. i mean you have worked hard for all you have, right? i recognize that i just unfairly labeled you and i apologize for that. but i am tired and angry of all the unfair labeling that happens all the time to me and the people in my neighborhood. my transcript may not properly reflect it, but i, too, know what hard work means. i work daily from 3:00 pm to 3:30 am and then wake up at 6:00 am to go to school. it is hard taking a van filled with immigrants to work at the frito-lay factory earning only seven dollars an hour, when i actually deserve much more…. i’m not asking for you to feel bad for me or the kids i used to live with in the projects. i am only asking for the same shot that you give the rich kid with the mercedes benz and the private tutors. 27 let us return to the scene where lionel followed the college students across the street. it is really interesting that lionel, a young man with such heart, who seems to be able to stand up to anyone, was somehow compelled to cross main street by a few college freshmen, who were sheltered and naïve about the realities of city life generally, and main south worcester in particular. what is it that caused lionel to deny the knowledge that would have kept him and everyone safe? i saw this silencing every time we brought the high school students together with the college students. the high school students, who usually had a lot to say, remained relatively quiet. one time we watched a documentary film together called aka don bonus, which was about a cambodian refugee growing up in housing projects in san francisco and struggling to survive and graduate high school. the film provoked an interesting discussion, mostly with the college students speaking. my co-teacher asked the question, is sokly ny (aka don bonus) smart? should he gain admission to clark? the high school students stayed quiet, but the college students dutifully responded, “maybe he wouldn’t have wanted to go to college.” one student ventured, “i am not sure he would like college.” another added, “i don’t think he would have the discipline needed to go to college. i mean it would suck for him to be admitted and then fail out.’” the high school students did not offer many responses to this question, but the next day before class, one of the high school students shared with me how upset he was with the clark students. actually, he became upset at the entire college system. he identified strongly with sokly ny and he was angry because he felt that the college students dismissed his own college ambitions. i remember him stating something like, “i think everyone should get a chance to go to college and try to make it there. this system is so screwed up.” he had pretty much messed up through high school, getting horrible grades. now, in part because of our course, he was really re-thinking his future and wanted to go to college. he was smart and knew he could go and do well at clark, but he also knew his past grades would prevent him from being accepted. he was so enraged. i asked, “why didn’t you say anything yesterday to the group?” he answered, “i don’t know, i didn’t know what to say….” the collaboration was powerful in several ways. my high school students slowly began to realize that the college students were no smarter than they were. halfway into the semester, the high school students shared their memoirs with the college students who shared their college statements. several of the college students expressed surprise at how powerful the memoirs were. this simultaneously made the high school students a little proud and angry for the fact that the college students had not expected them to write powerfully. however, most of the high school students did not express that to the college students. the college students felt positive about the collaboration for the entire semester. and there were a lot of wonderful moments together. again, the college students were completely oblivious to the simmering frustrations that many of the high school students felt throughout the collaboration. i kept pushing the high school students to speak up. 28 where is the “we”? finally, at the end of the collaboration, as we were preparing for the art show in december, the high school students found their voice, again led by lionel. we were planning an art exhibit to display the masks, artist books and the photographs we had all created together as a collaborative art exhibition between the high school and college students. we had taken over 500 photographs. we planned to have a small group of college students join a small group high school students to work with a professional photographer to select about a hundred photos taken in the main south community. of these hundred, the entire group would narrow it down to fifty for the exhibition. however, due to some drama at the high school, its leadership cancelled all afterschool activities the wednesday when the initial selection team was supposed to meet. therefore, only the college students went with the photographer to select the 100 photos. the deadline with the printer meant we could not delay it another week. the following wednesday we met as a large group to select 50 photographs from the 100 chosen by the group of college students working with the photographer. this group of college students got up at the meeting along with the professional photographer and started to talk about each photograph as they flashed the photograph across a large projection screen. the college students from the selection group would share why they chose each photo. the professional photographer and his assistant talked about the composition of the photographs. the process began initially with everyone encouraged to raise their hand if they wanted the image in the show or not. initially, there was only limited and rather pleasant discussion before the vote on any particular photograph. a small group of the high school students, led by lionel, became more and more vocal with each passing slide. finally, one of them said, “these photos are too nice of the neighborhood. that’s not the main south i know!” another exclaimed, “we have two different visions. you all,” meaning the college students, “see the neighborhood different than us.” lionel and his friends kept asking who took each picture, not wanting to support photos that the college students had taken. the discussion began to devolve and it was hard to reach any real conclusion about what to do. the real, albeit unspoken issue, was who really has the authority to say what photos best represents the community— the high school students who lived their entire lives in main south or the college students who recently arrived? some of the high school students finally unleashed their voices, probably channeling some of the dormant frustrations, and said some things that were hurtful to the college students. many of the college students felt the high school students dismissed their perspectives. several of the college students articulated a position that indicated that, although they had a different perspective on the community, that it was just as legitimate. they also argued that the point of this art exhibition was to highlight the collaboration across differences and excluding anyone from the choosing was not collaborative. the debate raged on for a while and we were clearly not completing the task to choose fifty pictures. the conflict eventually ended when one of the high school students said that everyone should just pick one photo and explain why they chose it. people left frustrated and hurt. 29 the whole debate seemed to divide the high school students from the college students. in the end, the high school students continued to assert their voice by formally naming the exhibition, “us and them.” the college students and the teachers i was working with were not so excited about this and the title itself became hotly debated and contentious. the conflict saddened many people involved in the project. i was probably the only one that felt good that a more honest dialogue had begun, but unfortunately, it was at the very end of the collaboration. this was the first time that there was intense passion in the conversation in which people were really trying to speak their truth to each other across the differences. the college students had felt that the collaboration had been going smoothly throughout the semester and were shocked and saddened by the hostility and conflict that occurred, which they felt had undermined all the progress they thought they had made. i, conversely, felt like it was really the beginning of authentic dialogue. the prior pleasantness of the interactions and lack of conflict really hid the underlying frustrations concealed by the general silence of the high school students. now they were struggling with what the community really was and how to represent it. this was messy and contentious stuff. finally, the college students could see what the high school students, who had been silent for so long, really thought, and the high school students began to find their voices. i felt the learning had really begun, albeit very late in the collaboration. my lifelong work has been about getting youth to speak with powerful voices. the high school students i have worked with are big fans of tupac shakur. many years ago, one of my students gave me a book of poems tupac had written. one of them is “the rose that grew from concrete.” it goes like this: did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete? proving nature's law is wrong it learned to walk without having feet. funny it seems, but by keeping its dreams, it learned to breathe fresh air. long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else ever cared (shakur, 1999, p. 3). too often, instead of seeing roses that grew through concrete, our society focuses on the messed up petals, how the leaves are not perfect. teachers in urban schools complain about the sharp thorns, but fail to recognize that thorns grow for protection. these narratives are so dominant that my youth, my roses, come to see themselves as flawed, embarrassed by their petals. their stories have taught me that i can never assume i understand anything from looking at the petals or the leaves or the thorns. assumptions are dangerous. what matters is the story of how they came to blossom at all. i have learned that i need to listen more and create the space for youth to share their stories. these counter-stories help youth see that their rose petals are their greatest strength, and this should not embarrass them. counter-storytelling is not only healing, it can be transformative, not just for the youth, but also for the rest of us. back in worcester, i lace my jogging shoes up and head out for a run. as i cross main street, i remind myself of lionel’s lesson about the turf boundaries to which i am mostly oblivious. lionel has helped me become more mindful not only of what remains oblivious to me, but to the many ways my privilege pushes me to forget and blinds me to the realities right in front of me. 30 lionel has taught me that if i really want to understand, to remember, and to have any type of impact, i really need to let go of my assumptions and listen. i no longer try to help young people fit into college, because they should not fit in, they should lead the transformation needed on our campuses. indeed, i am not trying to help the youth in worcester at all, rather i am privileged to be able to work with them, beside them, behind them and watch them develop into the organic intellectuals we need to disrupt the dominant narratives and envision a new society. much like lionel held the knowledge that would keep his group safe, we need the lionel’s in our world to guide us through the dangers of our time and remind us about the stories we have forgotten, the stories that can set us all free. i will let lionel have the final words, words from later on in his college statement: i have come to believe that it is important for my voice to be heard, and through an education at your college, this just might be possible. you might be worried about how my admission will put your college’s competitive stature in jeopardy. please trust me, while my academic record is far from perfect, i am aware of the task before me and i am up to the challenge. sure, i am a kid from the ghetto, but i am becoming a young man who is willing to speak the truth and make a difference in this world. 31 references alfaro, m. (2015, april 24). novelist teju cole discusses ‘white-savior industrial complex’ for packed audience. the daily northwestern. retrieved from: http://dailynorthwestern.com/2015/04/24/campus/novelist-teju-cole-discusses-white-saviorindustrial-complex-for-packed-audience/ cole, t. (2012). the white savior industrial complex. the atlantic, 21(march). coates, t. n. (2015). between the world and me. new york, ny: spiegel & grau. dubois, w. e. b. (1939). black folk then and now. new york, ny: henry holt & co. fine, m. (1991). framing dropouts: notes on the politics of an urban high school. albany, ny: state university of new york press. foucault, m. (1977). discipline and punish: the birth of the prison. new york, ny: pantheon. freire, p. (1970). pedagogy of the oppressed (mb ramos, trans.). new york, ny: continuum. gramsci, a. (2005). the intellectuals. in s. p. hier (ed.), contemporary sociological thought: themes and theories (pp. 49-57). toronto, ontario: canadian scholars’ press. gramsci, a., (1971). selections from the prison notebooks. new york international publishers, hooks, b. (1994). teaching to transgress: education as the practice of freedom. new york, ny: routledge shakur, t. (1999). the rose that grew from concrete. new york, ny: mtv books. sleeter, c. (2008). critical family history, identity, and historical memory. educational studies, 43(2), 114-124. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131940801944587 https://doi.org/10.1080/00131940801944587 32 author information dr. demeulenaere earned his m.a. (1999) and ph.d. (2003) in the social and cultural studies program at the university of california at berkeley's graduate school of education. his dissertation research focused on urban students' transformations of their academic identities and school performances. dr. demeulenaere joined clark university's education department from the san francisco bay area, where he was involved in urban education for sixteen years. dr. demeulenaere taught middle and high school social studies and english in oakland and san francisco for eight years. he also served as an adjunct professor in education at the university of california at berkeley, the university of san francisco and san francisco state university. more recently, he was the co-founder and principal of an innovative small high school in east oakland focused on social justice. eric demeulenaere associate professor, urban schooling, department of education jacob hiatt center for urban education clark university worcester, ma 01610-1477 telephone: 508.421.3750 email: edemeulenaere@clarku.edu i this, the activist academic, is the title of my forthcoming book co-authored with colette cann. ii all names are pseudonyms. mailto:edemeulenaere@clarku.edu i, too, never sought to be an academic. even after earning my ph.d. in education in 2003, i worked to open a school for social justice in oakland, ca. i wanted to be involved in the creation of radical social change and the academy seemed too distant... remembering on this journey, i have been fortunate to encounter many role models. more than hundred years ago, franz boas’ scholarship worked to challenge the social darwinism and eugenics that were the dominant, and racist, ideologies of his day. however, beyond... but mostly, he worked to remember, not just the forgotten horrors committed by white people, but to reclaim the hidden stories of the greatness of black people and american indians. w. e. b. dubois brought boas to atlanta university to give the commen... franz boas came to atlanta university where i was teaching history in 1906 and said to a graduating class. you need not be ashamed of your african past; and then he recounted the history of the black kingdoms south of the sahara for a thousand years. ... in all his work boas challenged the ideas of exceptionalism of european cultures—the prevalent ethnocentric idea that european and white american culture was somehow more civilized, more evolved, than other cultures. one of the ways he did this, whic... antonio gramsci (2005), the marxist revolutionary imprisoned by mussolini, and one of my intellectual forbearers, argues that everyone is an intellectual, only some of us are public intellectuals, paid to work in the field of ideas. he states that eve... crossing main street in my second year at clark, i became involved in a project co-teaching a group of high school seniors at a local public high school a few blocks from clark’s campus. one aspect of the course had our high school seniors collaborating with students in m... on the first day we brought the two afterschool classes together, we put them into groups of six with a couple students from each class and gave each group a camera. we told them to go out into the community and capture pictures that represent their i... against lionel’s better judgment, he and his group crossed main street and headed towards the store. sure enough, some youth from the rival gang saw him. they got on their cell phones, and in no time, a group of youth began to approach lionel and the... there are several ways to analyze this story. first, the episode reveals an entire social reality that literally crosses through my college campus and directly shapes the lives of several neighborhood youth that remains hidden from the social world of... real university-community engagement however, the main reason i share this story is that it serves as a powerful metaphor for community-engagement work in universities. too often, in so many university projects that work to collaborate with the community, the people who learn the most, w... they responded based on their understanding of the world and made assumptions rooted in the best of intentions. if they had just listened to lionel and had not made assumptions about his resistance to go to the store, they might have all avoided dange... community—making sense of social reality (-ies) now i want to turn and analyze lionel in this situation. before i do, i want to share a little bit more information about him. what i have shared so far is that lionel was involved with a local gang. that is it, and we have all kinds of stereotypes ab... i tried to stay as far away as possible from the “lionel’s” at my school …. i was college bound, while he was headed for jail. i became the smart asian girl who everyone believed in, while lionel became the deviant that society wanted to ignore…. our ... this is always how it is. the upper-tracked students are usually oblivious to what is happening in the lower tracks, but the lower-tracked students are much more aware. it is always easier for those most oppressed to develop critical consciousness. i remember later in the class with lionel, we were reading chapters from foucault’s (1977) discipline and punish. at around the same time, i also had students in my undergraduate college class reading the same chapters. the high school students strugg... i came to theory because i was hurting—the pain within me was so intense that i could not go on living. i came to theory desperate, wanting to comprehend—to grasp what was happening around and within me. most importantly, i wanted to make the hurt go ... i used to be puzzled over why most of my undergraduate students did not appreciate good theory and preferred the more narrative texts i assigned. it was because most of my undergraduates did not really need it in the same way. they were not struggling... the dropout was an adolescent who scored as psychologically healthy. critical of social and economic injustice, this student was willing to challenge an unfair grade and unwilling to conform mindlessly. in contrast, the student who remained in school ... lionel was this type of student. he is brilliant. he is a leader. however, he was barely passing school, and he hated school. one time when we presented together in a college class, lionel told a story from second grade. he had been suspended for curs... so much of our success in teaching that class of seniors we owe to lionel. because he took our class seriously, so many of his classmates followed his lead. also, the high-tracked students in the class came to realize that their assumptions about the ... lionel was fearless, not only on the streets, but in dealing with teachers and honors kids and even college admission counselors. he wrote with this raw, authentic and powerful voice. this is how he started his college essay: i wonder how it feels to decide a college applicants’ fate. i see college admissions officers as caring most about building the reputation for their college. do not 4.0 gpa’s and perfect sat scores boost the competitive status of universities? forget ... i recognize that i just unfairly labeled you and i apologize for that. but i am tired and angry of all the unfair labeling that happens all the time to me and the people in my neighborhood. my transcript may not properly reflect it, but i, too, know w... let us return to the scene where lionel followed the college students across the street. it is really interesting that lionel, a young man with such heart, who seems to be able to stand up to anyone, was somehow compelled to cross main street by a few... i saw this silencing every time we brought the high school students together with the college students. the high school students, who usually had a lot to say, remained relatively quiet. one time we watched a documentary film together called aka don b... the high school students stayed quiet, but the college students dutifully responded, “maybe he wouldn’t have wanted to go to college.” one student ventured, “i am not sure he would like college.” another added, “i don’t think he would have the discipl... the high school students did not offer many responses to this question, but the next day before class, one of the high school students shared with me how upset he was with the clark students. actually, he became upset at the entire college system. he ... he had pretty much messed up through high school, getting horrible grades. now, in part because of our course, he was really re-thinking his future and wanted to go to college. he was smart and knew he could go and do well at clark, but he also knew h... the collaboration was powerful in several ways. my high school students slowly began to realize that the college students were no smarter than they were. halfway into the semester, the high school students shared their memoirs with the college student... where is the “we”? finally, at the end of the collaboration, as we were preparing for the art show in december, the high school students found their voice, again led by lionel. we were planning an art exhibit to display the masks, artist books and the photographs we had... a small group of the high school students, led by lionel, became more and more vocal with each passing slide. finally, one of them said, “these photos are too nice of the neighborhood. that’s not the main south i know!” another exclaimed, “we have two different visions. you all,” meaning the college students, “see the neighborhood different than us.” lionel and his friends kept asking who took each picture, not wanting to support photos that the college students had ... many of the college students felt the high school students dismissed their perspectives. several of the college students articulated a position that indicated that, although they had a different perspective on the community, that it was just as legiti... the whole debate seemed to divide the high school students from the college students. in the end, the high school students continued to assert their voice by formally naming the exhibition, “us and them.” the college students and the teachers i was wo... i, conversely, felt like it was really the beginning of authentic dialogue. the prior pleasantness of the interactions and lack of conflict really hid the underlying frustrations concealed by the general silence of the high school students. now they w... my lifelong work has been about getting youth to speak with powerful voices. the high school students i have worked with are big fans of tupac shakur. many years ago, one of my students gave me a book of poems tupac had written. one of them is “the ro... did you hear about the rose that grew from a crack in the concrete? proving nature's law is wrong it learned to walk without having feet. funny it seems, but by keeping its dreams, it learned to breathe fresh air. long live the rose that grew from concrete when no one else ever cared (shakur, 1999, p. 3). too often, instead of seeing roses that grew through concrete, our society focuses on the messed up petals, how the leaves are not perfect. teachers in urban schools complain about the sharp thorns, but fail to recognize that thorns grow for protectio... back in worcester, i lace my jogging shoes up and head out for a run. as i cross main street, i remind myself of lionel’s lesson about the turf boundaries to which i am mostly oblivious. lionel has helped me become more mindful not only of what remain... i no longer try to help young people fit into college, because they should not fit in, they should lead the transformation needed on our campuses. indeed, i am not trying to help the youth in worcester at all, rather i am privileged to be able to work... i have come to believe that it is important for my voice to be heard, and through an education at your college, this just might be possible. you might be worried about how my admission will put your college’s competitive stature in jeopardy. please tr... copyright © 2016 metropolitan universities vol. 27 no. 3 (autumn 2016), doi: 10.18060/21386 shared space, liminal space: five years into a community-university place-based experiment heidi lasley barajas and lauren martin abstract this article explores shared space at the university of minnesota’s robert j. jones urban research and outreach engagement center (uroc), located four miles off campus in a community strong in assets, but facing inequality, disinvestment and racism. uroc’s mission promotes university-community collaboration to solve critical urban challenges. we learned this requires more than just a physical space. trust and connection requires tending to epistemological space – liminality between the university and community – to foster transformational scholarship. keywords: engagement, anchor institutions, place-based introduction public relevance is crucial to the future of institutions of higher learning (holland, 2009). academia has knowledge, skills and resources to help tackle societal grand challenges such as climate change, widening local and global wealth gap, wars and famine, health decline and disease, and gender-based violence among many other issues (boyer, 1997; harkavy, 2015). however, an emerging body of literature suggests the importance of engagement, including creative and collaborative approaches to knowledge production, rooted in the lives of people who experience these challenges first-hand (stringer, 2014; bradbury, 2015). collaborations between the academy and communities often falter on issues of trust, accountability, transparency, and misunderstanding (davidson-hunt & o’flaherty, 2007; glover & silka, 2013), particularly when those collaborations involve communities of color and low-income people due to histories of exploitation, colonialism and experimentation (smith, 2012). thus, collaboration is critical but fraught. the creation of shared spaces offers opportunity, and, of course, additional challenges. this article describes the first five years of the university of minnesota robert j. jones urban research and outreach-engagement center (uroc). uroc is a place-based engagement center located in the near north community of minneapolis (known as the “northside”) designed to be a shared space to promote collaboration. the selection of the northside as the physical site for uroc was deliberate. the goal was to build on strong assets with community leaders while also funneling more university resources to confront significant structural racism, concentrated poverty, housing segregation, disinvestment, and wealth, health and educational disparities. 48 trust-building, transparency and accountability have been critical to uroc’s mission from the beginning. lessons from our first five years suggest that attention to building a beautiful and accessible physical space is necessary but not sufficient for building strong communityuniversity partnership. the conceptual and epistemological components of our shared space proved to be equally important. here we share how uroc developed and cultivates a liminal space – between university and community – that is just safe enough for everyone to feel discomfort and challenge. we have found that being able to feel safe enough to be uncomfortable together is a critical aspect of shared space that leads to transformation and collaboration. this article describes the sometimes-tumultuous history of uroc’s iterative development to offer lessons and insights for others as they construct shared spaces in which to collaborate for the public good. we begin a discussion of the literature on anchor institutions, place-based engagement and liminal space. this is followed by a short history of uroc. then we discuss in greater depth what we mean by uroc being “liminal” and why we believe it is critical for shared space and transformation. we provide examples to share lessons. we conclude by offering clear lessons and next steps from uroc’s developmental trajectory. the literature: anchor institutions, place-based engagement and liminal space from anchor to engagement anchor institutions are frequently described as “place-based” institutions (birch, perry, & taylor, 2013) that “bring together economic and financial assets, human resources, and physical structures” (u.s. department of housing and urban development, 2013). anchor institutions draw their identities to a large degree from their urban locations and their contributions to the economic stability of their surrounding communities (dubb, mckinley, & howard, 2013). nonprofit and for-profit institutions can all act as anchor institutions, providing employment opportunities, creating markets for goods and services, and partnering with other institutions and businesses to develop new partnerships and economic, and cultural, and educational opportunities within communities (ehlenz, birch, & agness, 2014). taylor and luter (2013) further refine the definition of anchor institutions by suggesting that an authentic anchor institution should have a social justice mission that allows it to act as a “change agent” within its surrounding community. urban universities are uniquely positioned to act as authentic anchor institutions in their communities. universities have traditionally played a role in urban development as the “eds” of “eds & meds”--institutes of higher education and medical centers that both provide a market for goods and services and generate jobs for area residents (harkavy & zuckerman, 1999). while job creation through hiring local residents is an instrumental contribution to local communities, universities are increasingly leveraging their geographic locations to cultivate partnerships and sustained relationships with their surrounding communities to achieve benefits that extend beyond employment. this can include service learning, class projects, and engaged research (dubb et al., 2013). 49 a focus on more meaningful engagement with surrounding communities comes from a growing understanding that increased economic well-being does not necessarily perpetuate individual and social well-being, and that development of a community is different and more impactful than development in a community (bridger & alter, 2007). deeper engagement can happen when universities embrace a 21st century way of thinking that works with communities to collaboratively solve problems and build on strengths (holland, 2009). this vision aligns with the burgeoning literature on community-engaged scholarship and a recognized need across the academy for deeper collaboration with communities (fitzgerald, bruns, sonka, furco, & swanson, 2012). the importance of working with communities was strongly articulated during the process of developing what was termed an “urban agenda” between the university of minnesota twin cities’ campus (umtc) and the northside community. maruyama, jones, and finnegan (2009), writing about the umtc’s initial work to create an urban task force, stated that place-based work should “[f]ulfill the university’s land grand and civic missions through addressing issues of urban communities in collaboration with those communities, in order to improve the quality of life for all minnesotans” (maruyama et al., 2009, p. 82). they further suggested that collaboration should be “[a]nchored where possible by a physical presence [emphasis added] in communities where the issues to be resolved are most prevalent” (p. 82). but, they further stated that the university’s governing body “cautioned that the university cannot become a social or human service provider for all unmet needs or a landlord for urban renewal” (p. 81). alignment with the umtc’s teaching, learning and research mission was part of the foundational fabric of uroc. to this end, some urban universities are reaching out to their geographic communities, working with local neighborhood organizations to find ways to meet local needs. more importantly, universities are finding ways to co-produce knowledge with communities that lead to strategies for addressing pressing community concerns. for example, the netter center at the university of pennsylvania focuses on developing mutually-beneficial partnerships with community organizations to address community concerns, resulting in the development of new courses for university students and new programs and initiatives for the surrounding geographic community of west philadelphia (netter center for community partnerships, 2014). the barbara weitz community engagement center at the university of nebraska at omaha provides a discrete, dedicated, on-campus space for the university’s outreach and engagement efforts. the oncampus building provides office space for community partner organizations, public meeting spaces, and a centralized location for students seeking volunteer opportunities. the td community engagement centre at york university is located off-campus in a shopping center in the jane-finch neighborhood of toronto and offers a variety of academic and lifelong opportunities, both for york university students and local residents. defining space: liminality in engagement a key challenge in committing to sustained and collaborative place-based work is the need to share physical and epistemological space in mutually beneficial ways. sharing requires working through many conflicting ways of doing and knowing, where all involved transform how they 50 work together. the notion of liminality as a metaphor illuminates one way that shared space can emerge. in anthropology, liminal space is often defined as a space that is “betwixt and between;” a kind of suspended no-person’s-land, mediating between two (or more) fixed states (turner, 1964). victor turner, an early theorist of “liminality” defined a fixed state as “any type of stable or recurrent condition that is culturally recognized” (turner, 1964, p. 234). turner and other anthropologists used the concept to explore and understand rituals, initiations, and rites of passage. others, such as mary douglas, have explored the symbolic relation between liminal spaces/people and distinctions between the sacred and the profane (douglas, 1966). the concept has also been used in post-colonial studies to shed light on cultural hybridity and movement between cultural spaces and is still a cogent concept in thinking about transformation (e.g. horvath, thomassen, & wydra, 2015). for our discussion here, liminal space is a compelling metaphor for two reasons. first, it provides language for thinking about transformation between fixed states. certainly turner’s definition of a fixed state could apply to the institutional and cultural differences that often surface between universities and communities. another key aspect of liminal space is that it suspends the rules (momentarily)—it is flux and transformation, uncertainty and discomfort. this moment of disruption can be a time to build trust. old ways of knowing and doing become transformed. that trust can then extend outward. as described more in depth below, we believe the way uroc holds space creates small moments of something akin to liminal space; we are neither simply a community center nor an academic research center. we are both. we do not wish to over-stretch this metaphor, but we believe that close attention to cultivating a space that is safe enough for everyone to feel discomfort and challenge – such as in liminal space – is an important component of shared space. a short history of uroc uroc and the umtc the umtc was established in the twin cities of minneapolis and st. paul in 1851 and it received public support under the morrill land-grant act. the university of minnesota system has four additional campuses across the state of minnesota. the twin cities campus currently has 30,500 undergraduate students and 16,300 graduate and professional students, including 7,000 international students from 135 countries and 400,000 alumni. the umtc has recognized the critical role of public engagement in meeting the university’s mission for teaching, research and outreach. thus, the system-wide office for public engagement (ope) reports directly to the senior vice president for academic affairs and provost. uroc is a umtc-wide center that reports through ope to the provost and is therefore positioned as an academic research center to support engaged scholarship on issues relevant to urban communities. the uroc building is a refurbished strip mall that is 22,700 square feet, with over 14,322 square feet of usable office and meeting room space. the building also houses an art gallery, hospitality station, reception area, a teaching kitchen, staff lounge, meditation/prayer room, storage, and other facilities. windows across the front and back of the building represent the transparency promised to the community, and create a light-filled environment. the building has 51 high visibility and its common spaces are regularly reserved for. more than 2,050 visitors come into the building each month. in the 2015-16 academic year, uroc engaged faculty from more than thirty-five academic programs across the umtc campus, supported sixty-five projects, and welcomed more than 25,000 visitors. the mission, goals and structure that emerged for uroc were not always clear. rather, they unfolded over a four year process of community engagement led by the umtc’s central administration with strong leadership from other units, faculty and community partners. early history of uroc (2006-08) the concept for creating a space to be shared by the university and community at uroc’s current location (near the corner of plymouth and penn avenues in north minneapolis) was formed in conversations between the umtc president, the minneapolis mayor, and a community leader and ceo of a county health facility located near uroc. the first iteration of “shared space” was called the university northside partnership (unp). this vision was led by robert j. jones, the senior vice president of systems administration and academic affairs who was a leader in the umntc central administration. the vision was big and bold. the minnesota spokesman-recorder (an african-american run press) in the opening of an article dated may 26, 2006, described the plans as follows: university of minnesota officials have big plans for the corner of penn and plymouth in north minneapolis, where they envision a national model of university involvement in a community with multiple needs. some community members and organizations support the proposal, while others, including black professionals, do not believe that a white institution like the u of m is best suited to lead such an effort. (towns, 2006) the possibility of a physical university presence in north minneapolis led to umtc recruiting a renowned child psychologist to found the university child and family center in partnership with the county health facility. the center would focus, among other things, on the role of child development in reducing out-of-home placements to foster care. from the beginning, the university vision for what a shared space might mean was not universally shared among the different communities in north minneapolis. there was also a great deal of mistrust rooted in concerns that the university had ulterior and secret motives behind the unp. the center was a proposed partnership with the city of minneapolis and hennepin county to build and run a $65 million dollar state of the art mental health facility and research center. however, by june 2006 the st. paul pioneer press declared that “the university northside partnership is now tangled in issues of race, mistrust and control, and it has opened the dam to a flood of long-held grievances against the university” (tosto, 2006, p. 1a). the article pointed to flyers in the community that asked, “do you want our black families and babies to be tested on like black guinea pigs again?” (p. 1a). these articles captured the tone and tenor of what was to come for the next five years of community conversation between umtc officials, faculty and staff, and community members and leaders about research, race, knowledge production, ownership and intellectual property, 52 exploitation, experimentation on black children, and claims of past broken promises and lack of trust. media coverage from the time focused particular attention on the proposed mental-health facility for children and the need for a formal community benefits agreement. the distance on agreement between the community and the university as to the value and role of a university physical presence was considerable, culminating in a community vote conducted by the northside resident redevelopment council. of a total of 439 interested community members who voted, 75 percent supported the unp. however, that vote was an agreement on the possible value of a university building in the neighborhood—not necessarily a vote of trust for the work to be done there. the unp’s plans for a research and mental health facility on the corner of plymouth and penn avenues north collapsed in 2008. the university pulled out of the plan citing financial concerns, including the worsening economy and a higher than expected lease rate for the space. however, the university remained committed to the community and turned attention to renovating a failing shopping center (located near the same corner) as a base for university research and outreach (brandt, 2008). the university’s research and outreach centers and extension’s regional sustainable development partnerships stood as models from which an urban center would be built. in shifting the focus but not the vision, the university took an indispensable first step toward creating a model of reciprocal, participatory engagement where the community and university collaboratively identify problems and create solutions (cantor, englot, & higgins, 2013). as the planning and building progressed, the community worked side-by-side with the university in an effort to “move beyond the one-way flow of intellectual capital (and technology transfer) independently generated within the ivory tower and given to (or perhaps foisted upon) communities” (cantor et al., 2013, p. 20). uroc: is it just a building? (2008-09) the unp moved forward at the university with continued support from senior members of central administration. under the leadership of senior vice president jones, key faculty members, and a newly hired executive director of uroc, work with community leaders and community residents participating in the unp continued discussions of a university presence in the community. in february 2008, the umtc purchased a bankrupt shopping center near the corner of plymouth and penn for $1.125 million dollars with a plan to invest another $2.1 million dollars in renovations. in the minneapolis star tribune on february 16, 2008, senior vice president jones stated that “the purchase of this strategic location on the north side is the foundational piece of the university’s vision to create new and support existing partnerships between the community and the university” (walsh & collins, 2008, p. 6b). the corner of plymouth and penn had been envisioned as the geographic space for this partnership that became “real” in the building of uroc. from there many questions remained. was uroc just a building, a space to house partnerships; or was it more than that? 53 to answer this question, under the direction of the first uroc executive director and associate vice president, irma mcclaurin, the university conducted almost two years of community and university listening through focus groups, interviews, and informal conversations to learn from multiple community and university stakeholders what they would like to see as the vision for uroc and its work. this process engaged hundreds of people, culminating in a two-day conference which was held in february 2009, called “coming together to create a shared future for north minneapolis,” or the futures conference for short. there were over 56 participants including faith leaders, economic development representatives, umtc senior leadership, faculty and staff, nonprofit leaders, community residents (elders, formerly incarcerated individuals, and youth) and represented people from many racial and ethnic groups. participants engaged in workshops, discussions, and break out groups. from that work emerged a new vision based on mutually beneficial partnership and valuing all forms of knowledge. participants in the futures conference provided a clear vision demanding accountability, transparency, relevance, and commitment to multiple forms of knowledge, partnership and mutual benefit. they suggested that transformative, trusting relationships would be dynamic and take time to develop because so many harms from research have been done in the past. the conference also suggested a collaborative, transparent model would require a shift from thinking that higher education provides expert knowledge and solutions while the community only contains the problem. instead, a vision of mutual benefit and recognition of community assets and knowledge was necessary for the vision to move forward. most importantly, the community wanted to drive relevant, useful and action-ready research rather than serve as passive “subjects” of someone else’s research agenda that would lead to publications, tenure and rewards for the researcher and for the anchor institution (for documents, see uroc.umn.edu). these joint engagement efforts were bolstered by independent efforts within the university and from within the northside community. internal university activities, led by two senior faculty, focused on convening interested faculty to talk about doing engaged work. faculty were identified through their participation in efforts led by the office for public engagement to understand how engagement could support the university’s mission. external university activities were organized by the northside residents redevelopment council (nrrc) and included organizing the community vote, discussion of community benefits, and more. both of these processes surfaced three community and faculty delineated priority areas of work: education and life-long learning, health and wellness, and community and economic development. the futures conference also identified art and artistic expression as a critical form of knowledge, connection and healing. living into the mission: the uroc model development (2010-14) when the building opened its doors in 2009, uroc had a building, mission and vision. the futures conference content and vision were distilled into uroc’s current mission. senior vice president jones invited early adopters of engaged and place-based research, often through discussions with collegiate deans, to locate projects at uroc. (important to note is that early adopters were not charged for space; rather that cost remained in the senior vice president’s office.) in addition, the community affairs committee (from the unp) was linked to uroc to continue a formal avenue for community input. efforts were moving forward, but two large 54 questions remained: what is uroc? and how does uroc operate? in other words, it was still to be determined exactly what uroc would actually do and who would really benefit from that work. some thought uroc was an outreach outpost or a point of service delivery. others believed it was a community center that offered classes. still others believed that uroc was simply a building, a space just like any other office space on campus. these ideas did not match the university of minnesota’s strategic vision for urban partnership as outlined by the university’s governing board to be “consistent with our core missions of research and teaching” (maruyama et al., 2009, p. 81). the founding executive director of uroc shepherded the early engagement processes and the building renovation and design. after a short transition, heidi barajas was hired by senior vice president jones as executive director in 2010. between 2010 and 2013, the uroc staff worked with community and university partners to operationalize and “live into” the uroc mission. first, uroc’s work was aligned with the office for public engagement’s strategic plan on public engagement that supports the university’s core strategic goals in the areas of research, teaching and service. uroc’s reporting line was changed to its current configuration in 2011, when senior vice president jones left the university and the system and academic affairs structure was re-organized. at that time, uroc’s reporting line was shifted to the ope within the provost office. after uroc was secured in the academic reporting line of the umtc, the executive director convened a uroc leadership team that reported directly to her. the uroc leadership team, comprised of the executive director, directors of research, facilities, outreach, and administration, along with the support of faculty and graduate students from umtc’s minnesota evaluation studies institute (mesi) developed a logic model (with activities, outputs, intermediate and long term goals). the logic model and accompanying strategic planning documents solidified our core operating principles and examined the modes of operation of projects at uroc that were longterm, sustainable and deemed impactful by participants and the broader community. through preliminary documentation strategies, we learned from our activities that were deemed successful by university and community partners how to best meet the uroc mission. criteria for “success” were determined by each project, but we created a checklist to help surface key areas for measurement of success, including: processes of partnership (i.e. how involved were community in all phases, degree of working relationship, etc.); degree of methodological rigor to match the question; knowledge production, documentation and dissemination of that knowledge in multiple formats; and action (what was done as a result of the knowledge). the end result of that work was uroc’s operational model, shown in figure 1. at the core of uroc’s work is partnership through a cycle of research and outreach. all work conducted at uroc must be through a university-community partnership of some kind. engaged research requires consistent and thoughtful community connections that are best developed and maintained through outreach. thus, the uroc staffing structure has a director of outreach and a director of research. uroc promotes and supports engaged research and outreach through two mechanisms. first, uroc supports the efforts of other units on the umtc campus to do work in mutually beneficial partnership with community. we do this through catalyzing engagement. umtc projects can affiliate with uroc and use shared space in the community, 55 community connections, a collegial and supportive learning environment, professional development, and reputational capital. prior to joining uroc, these projects go through an affiliation process where we agree on “fit” between the project or program and uroc’s mission, vision and values. second, uroc conducts its own signature projects through direct engagement. our goals are to engage with our neighbors and other urban communities to develop and model ways of conducting engaged research and outreach. in both forms of engagement we promote scholarship in action, bringing the best of the academy and community wisdom to bear on our most pressing urban challenges such as the achievement gap, sex trading and trafficking, trauma and community violence, health disparities, and a pervasive wealth and jobs gap linked to race and geography. figure 1. operational model the core principles for uroc’s direct engagement research and outreach are transparency, accountability, inclusivity, and mutual benefit. all projects conducted at uroc build on strengths in confronting urban challenges and are driven by local questions and concerns. research at uroc involves those directly affected in ways that are appropriate, building on the motto from youth work, “nothing about us, without us.” there are many modes of community engaged research and outreach. these include approaches described as: engaged research, community based research (cbr), community based participatory research (cbpr), action research (ar), participatory action research (par), and youth participatory action research (ypar). each label has a slightly different pedigree, emphasis and approach. uroc does not promote or endorse specific approaches or research methodologies. rather, we encourage a “right fit” between goals, methods and type of engagement along the engagement continuum developed by the umtc’s office for public engagement. the continuum envisions a range of engagement from research “in” communities, 56 to research “for” communities, to research “with” communities. uroc does not conduct or directly support research “on” communities where there is no partnership. liminal space: working together in new ways shared space is more than simply an accumulation of walls, doors and windows. it has a climate, an environment, an ethos, a “feel”, and a presence. shared conceptual and epistemological space, as liminal space suggests, is where we cultivate a space that is safe enough for everyone to feel discomfort and challenge. by definition, something is conceptual when it deals primarily with abstract or original thoughts. a conceptual plan for example, is one in an early stage--to make it work, the details need to be fleshed out. epistemology relates to our theory of knowledge and what “counts” as knowledge and expertise. both are beyond what we perceive with our senses and involve how we believe each other. when we talk about conceptual and epistemological space at uroc, we mean the way the space “feels” to people who enter it. do people feel respected, valued, and welcome? does the space reflect multiple cultures, values, and communities? the physical space, staffing, and overall accessibility can foster or forestall these responses to uroc. our staff is intentional about cultivating these more intangible aspects of uroc. for example, one senior leader from the umtc referred to our common areas as follows: “this space feels powerful, the accumulation of many difficult conversations that happen in a respectful and trust-building way.” a community leader reflected that uroc is “eye-pleasing.” he felt that this quality raised the bar for people to feel a sense of importance and value within their community. the uroc art gallery encapsulates this duality of space. it is both physical and conceptual, providing representations of community beauty, strength and reflection. all of these elements are critical to how the space at uroc functions to bridge divides and provide space for difficult and complex relations that can lead to transformation through knowledge production and scholarship. much of the programing and research conducted through uroc plays on these notions of shared space. below we provide a few in-depth examples about how the conceptual and epistemological space at uroc is cultivated in relation to engaged research and scholarship. action research cycle: root causes and joint action our first example highlights how uroc’s space combined with deep community connections spurred engaged research on sex trading and trafficking that has helped shape prevention, intervention and statewide policy. uroc’s director of research has been conducting community engaged and action research on sex trading since 2004 and she has firmly established that the harms of sex trading directly relate to individual and community health and vitality (martin, hearst, & widome, 2010; martin, 2013). in 2011 uroc hosted a critical conversation on sex trafficking at which hundreds of community members voiced their concern and pledged to take action to stop sex trafficking in minnesota. the conversation—with survivors, police, northside residents, activists, academics and more—was inherently difficult. it surfaced multiple perspectives and community wisdom about the harms of sex trading on individuals and the community and also strengths and resiliencies. 57 building on our difficult conversation, uroc developed the sex trafficking and community well-being initiative which seeks to deepen and sustain engagement by conducting a series of interconnected research projects, awareness-raising activities, prevention initiatives, and intervention activities directed at the issue of sex trading and trafficking and its impact on communities. the projects engage widely with community and use multiple research approaches as guided by each project. we use the action research cycle as both an approach and a metaphor (stringer, 2014). stringer (2014) states: analysis of information emerging from responses to questions provides insights from which “interventions” – actions to remedy the situation – are formulated. continuing research cycles enable evaluation, reformulation, and redevelopment of actions, leading to increasingly effective solutions to the problem at the heart of the research project (p. 102). staff at uroc co-design projects with community and do the projects together. this always leads to new and deeper questions. with each project, we delve deeper and deeper into root causes. the projects focus on experience and meaning-making around marginalized, hidden, and obfuscated experiences that tend to be elided by our broader social narratives and discourses. each individual project within the initiative has its own source of funding, including government, foundations, and internal umtc sources. however, the initiative allows us to develop insights across projects to dig deep into challenging, hidden, and difficult issues in urban communities. for example, we examine the relation between sex trading/trafficking and race and poverty, even though we do not have separate funding for a specific project on this topic. likewise, we seek to understand the intersections between sex trading and sexual violence. uroc’s research is embedded in statewide anti-trafficking efforts. our connections shape the questions we ask and we use rigorous research methods to surface data, often in partnership with communities. minnesota was the twelfth state to pass safe harbor laws, which decriminalize youth victimized in sex trafficking and is the only state to provide statewide funding for prevention and intervention efforts, known as the no wrong door model. many of these gains were accomplished using empirical research, conducted by uroc and others, to make the case to legislators and other stakeholders. for example, based on a previous collaboration, the minnesota indian women’s resource center (miwrc), commissioned uroc’s director of research to conduct a benefit-cost analysis on the fiscal impact of a sex trafficking prevention program for youth. in conducting this study, we re-worked typical university contracts to support joint ownership of the report. this study was instrumental in securing funding for no wrong door mentioned above. additional research on the overall market for sex trafficking in minneapolis and minnesota has shaped statewide law enforcement efforts, service provision and prevention of youth victimization in trafficking. uroc’s work on sex trading and trafficking builds on several different connotations of shared space as liminal. for example, the initiative was launched by a critical conversation on sex trafficking. the critical conversation series at uroc serves to elevate university and community knowledge as equals – bringing the university into the community and the community into the university. we were able to convene multiple, often incongruent, 58 stakeholders (former victims of sex trafficking, advocates, police, legislators, academics, and more) together to build common language and a platform for action. it was a hard conversation, but individuals who participated felt welcome at uroc because of our staffing, the “feel” of the space, and because of its geographic location. uroc’s research on sex trading seeks to build on the strength of multiple stakeholders including youth, service providers, police, research, and more. uroc’s reputation as a good partner and neighbor serves to engage strong and deeply rooted community partners to help design projects, make meaning and seed action. facilitating a multi-jurisdictional team with empirical research urban-located and land-grant institutions include in their mission serving the public good. umtc, holding both of these identities, also offers the resources of a research institution. this last identity has created tension between universities and communities. the role that scholarly activity plays, in this case empirical research, may be of great benefit to communities as well as universities. as glover and silka (2013) suggest, the issue may fundamentally be who initiates and leads partnerships and how scholarship stimulates conversation that expands what is possible. uroc supports and engages with several projects that are led by multi-jurisdictional teams. one such project is a community-initiated, uroc-facilitated multi-jurisdictional team of stakeholders focused on economic development. economic development is a key aspect of anchor institutions and the communities of which they are a part. universities have interest in the economic development of their neighborhoods, are invested in the development of other anchor institutions in their geographic proximity, and have other significance in a wide range of related areas such as employing large numbers of local people (coalition of urban serving universities, 2010). a primary concern of community residents in north minneapolis is employment. to address this concern, and to support current economic development efforts offered by non-profits and government agencies, uroc focused on job creation by building a multi-jurisdictional team supported through research. in 2011, minnesota governor mark dayton held a job summit at the request of religious leaders on the northside. the summit, held at uroc, initiated a conversation between community and university leaders who agreed that separately, the community, local government, and the university could not assuage the long history of benign neglect that resulted in the current lack of jobs for north minneapolis. the northside faces a number of historical and contemporary structural issues related to employment and jobs. recent research revealed that for african americans (roughly half of the population in north minneapolis) only 32.8 percent own a home, 42 percent live below the poverty line, and less than 4 in 5 african american students graduate high school. by 2012, the northside unemployment rate was 21.1 percent compared to the overall minneapolis unemployment of 9.5 percent. given this alarming evidence, we developed a collaborative model named the northside job creation team (njct). the njct is a collaborative space initiated to hold major stakeholders in north minneapolis, the city, the state, and the umtc. it is facilitated through uroc. the mission of the team is to reverse the clear deficit of living-wage jobs and large employment disparity in the northside through research that identifies potential businesses that could attract public/private investments 59 to create sustainable living wage jobs in or near north minneapolis. to achieve parity with the rest of the city, north minneapolis would needs to employ 5,000 residents more residents. although a challenge, the njct set a goal to create 1000 jobs in five years. key to the success and sustained work of the njct is the role of the project consultant—a retired community leader with a strong and diverse business background. contracting with a consultant allowed the university to support the process, but allowed for the consultant to speak as a member of the business and larger community. for uroc, the community consultant role cultivates a space that is safe enough for everyone to feel discomfort and challenge. funding for the community consultant and to conduct research with faculty and students from the umtc’s carlson school of management has been provided by uroc, city economic development offices, and two philanthropic organizations. by 2015, the njct included 32 team members representing a broad array of organizations including the city of minneapolis, the governor’s urban initiative board, the black chamber of commerce, minneapolis public schools, a twin cities regional economic development partnership, several local philanthropic and non-profit organizations, key job education organizations including local community colleges, and successful minority-owned businesses. originally, two faculty from the umtc business school provided oversight for the research and eventually became njct members. the faculty worked with graduate students on research that provided detailed feasibility studies and business plan analysis that were the most viable and sustainable business opportunities for north minneapolis. in all, nine research projects have been completed. in 2015, the njct made significant progress including signed letters of intent from four businesses committed to relocating or expanding into north minneapolis. crucial barriers, discovered through research, were identified for each of these opportunities and are currently being addressed through the multi-jurisdictional team. to date, 905 living-wage jobs have been created. we project that if all goes well with the companies mentioned above, we will add 630 jobs in the next two years for a total of 1535 living-wage jobs. although the njct is pleased to have been successful to this degree, the number of jobs needed to reach parity with the rest of the city is 5,000. creating distinct spaces for faculty participation uroc supports and engages in a number of projects related to education. the generation next uroc faculty fellows initiative explores the benefits of creating spaces for university faculty to engage in scholarship as part of a cohort. uroc as a place-based organization requires long-term participation of faculty. a number of individual faculty partner with uroc on project-driven work. however, building the field also requires time and space for faculty to connect with other faculty who do engaged research. this facilitates growth of new ideas, and provides the space to create new and possibly interdisciplinary partnerships. providing a space for faculty cohorts to thrive may also address common barriers for engaged scholars. jordan et al. (2012) suggests that legitimizing partnership work as part of the scholarship process, raising the profile of engaged work to meet larger university goals, and providing spaces in which scholars can better understand the principles 60 underlying community engaged scholarship across disciplines are key to building the field and sustaining faculty participation. uroc has had successes and struggles in building sustainable spaces for faculty cohorts to jointly engage in scholarship on critical urban challenges. here we describe a unique epistemological space between a powerful non-profit promoting educational attainment and a group of interdisciplinary faculty. nationally, there is a large gap in standardized test scores between students of color and white students. locally, minnesota is among the states with the highest achievement gaps between black, latino, native american, and many southeast asian students and their white counterparts (yuen & williams, 2016). in response, leaders in minnesota came together to form generation next, a twin cities organization dedicated to closing the achievement gap. generation next is co-chaired by the umtc president, the president of the general mills foundation, and headed by a former mayor of minneapolis. based on the national strive together network, generation next brings education, community, government, and business leaders together to identify and adopt programs that focus on 6 traditional measures of school success. in 2014, generation next leadership articulated to uroc the need for more connection to community. uroc suggested bringing together multi-disciplinary faculty and community partners to engage around distinct points of view about the roots of the achievement gap beyond individual educational benchmarks. as a starting place, generation next asked faculty to respond to the following two questions consistently posed to the organization: why is there an achievement gap in the context of minneapolis-st paul? what action should we take to address the gap? five faculty groups, each headed by a lead faculty fellow and comprised of both faculty and community partners were established. faculty selected as leads had a strong, demonstrated record of community-based scholarship in the areas of education, health, gender studies, communications, and the arts. the generation next uroc faculty fellows initiative operates in alignment with the office for public engagement, as well as with the office of the president and the office of the senior vice president of academic affairs and provost, with the goal of contributing to, but not replicating, efforts by other individual umtc faculty related to the achievement gap. each faculty group met monthly and the group leads also met several times to share the work from their individual groups, and to build the overall cohort. through this process, there have been interesting and unexpected connections across the work and direction of the five individual groups addressing both the “why” and the “now what” questions posed by generation next. surprisingly, each of the groups was opposed to entering into discussions to answer the “why” question. they expressed frustration with continued focus on the reasons there is a “gap” and identified an overabundance of research that addresses this very question (ladson-billings, 2006; milner, 2013; minnesota minority education partnership, 2012). the fellows also asserted that educational inequity is upheld through continuing to use a faulty narrative, which echoed other academic research in this area (cabrera, milem, jaquette, & marx, 2014; barajas & ronnkvist, 61 2007; cammerota, 2007; ramirez & carpenter, 2005). these new insights contributed to the existing narrative and work of generation next. each group shared with the other groups as well as the generation next leadership projects/actions related to ending educational disparities. what excited the generation next leadership the most was how a space that included different, complex approaches to addressing a faulty narrative created a different lens, with multiple possible outcomes and outputs for understanding how to improve the education of diverse kids. in the first year of the initiative, faculty were invited to participate without financial incentive. when the faculty leads were invited to create the initiative, uroc was transparent that funding was not yet in place. a small food budget and some logistical support for scheduling meetings, arranging meeting places, and note taking during meetings was offered to all groups. some took advantage of the support and others did not. although the primary work of the initiative focused on creating a connection with generation next, a second goal for uroc was to document and understand how to support faculty in engaged work. several intentional efforts contributed to creating a space that invites strong participation by faculty. to begin, intentionally asking generation next to name this group of faculty as generation next uroc fellows was important in terms of validating the work across the university and in individual departments and programs. providing logistical support to set meetings and find space was important support. as with any partnership, listening and adapting to the environment created as the initiative developed has been key to keeping faculty engaged. for example, one of the faculty leads proposed submitting a proposal to the university strategic plan. as a group, the leads produced a collaborative proposal. this year uroc was able to secure internal funding from the university metropolitan consortium to provide $10,000 to each group to seed a project/action. all five groups are doing a project with community partners that demonstrate ways to support student educational success. in february of 2016, a second meeting with the generation next leadership shared information about the projects ranging from youth participatory action research projects (ypars) designed as part of the language arts curriculum for all students in a middle school, to a participatory project with high school teachers, to a project focused on how school discipline policies impact caregivers. faculty leads, participating in a focus group shared why they were drawn to the work and continue to participate in the cohort. the leads expressed a strong desire to contribute to the narrative on educational achievement and the gap. all of the faculty leads wanted their work and perspectives to be heard by the kind of audiences to which generation next had access. the leads also appreciated a formalized space where they were given the opportunity to work together as engaged scholars. they expressed some frustration in the level of connection to generation next as an organization and wanted uroc to support strengthening that connection. the next step for the cohort is to share the outcomes and impacts of the projects to date with each other, and then generation next, and to create a funding strategy across all of the projects to sustain the work. conclusion 62 in uroc’s first five years we have learned much about shared space; including what it really means to “share” and how to use a place-based facility to foster mutually-beneficial partnerships that lead to action in the world as well as critical scholarship. to navigate our first five years, uroc needed to confront two overarching tensions that emerged from both university and community collaborators. first, is uroc simply a building, a shell to house special projects? second, how would the space itself be used and occupied? in other words, how would it be shared? and who would have access? answers to these questions shaped how we define, use, and share space at uroc. first, sharing space is not easy or straightforward. it requires iterative development as well as adaptive leadership that learns, grows, and changes with each iteration and challenge. second, universities and communities each have their own rules, cultures, and ways of doing that often operate on seemingly conflictual logics. further, the societal power differential between academic and other ways of knowing is a real source of strain and potential conflict. early contentions around race, power and trust have continued to be central to the work of uroc. as the narrative of our first five years shows, in many different ways, we chose to lean into the discomfort of structural inequality, race, knowledge production, and power. this includes acknowledging that universities, research leaders, and academic knowledge are not yet fully reflective of all communities. in particular, in the academy, communities of color and people experiencing poverty are not yet seen as full and equal partners in creating knowledge. acknowledgement is a first step. the shared space at uroc seeks to transform the unequal access to knowledge/power experienced by communities of color in urban areas. that work starts from the foundation of how we cultivate our shared and place-based space of uroc. these challenges are not unique to uroc, and much has been written about the challenges of university-community partnership building (sandy & holland, 2006). but we believe our placebased approach offers unique lessons, strengths and challenges. the metaphor of liminality – or a space in-between – sheds light on how uroc fostered its notion of shared space. all who participate in uroc’s space, university staff and community partners, must challenge their assumptions, change their standard ways of doing and expand beyond their comfortable ways of knowing to accept multiple ways of doing and knowing. the lessons of uroc’s formation and its first five years suggest that the university and community need to transform and benefit together. the efforts described represent examples of how uroc is living into our mission as well as different approaches to sharing space with our urban communities, and with students, faculty, and staff at umtc. the original vision for uroc was to transform how the university works with community. this vision was timely because of the difficulties umtc had at the beginning involving community in decision-making. but, for the work of engagement to transform and for the community to benefit, the university and community need to transform and benefit together. sharing space, rather than giving space, requires uroc to hold spaces (physical, conceptual and methodological) that invite and welcome both university and community. often, university staff 63 working with community try and separate themselves from the anchor institution in order to be seen as one of “the good guys.” in the short term, such an approach may feel good or allow university researchers initial access to community spaces. however, as a university place-based center we ask university and community members and partners to enter liminal spaces together. we all need to experience discomfort and challenge in order to grow and change. living in shared space is a risk, but one that could support our transformational intentions. references barajas, h. l., & ronnkvist, a. 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(2013). anchor institutions: an interpretive review essay. new york: marga incorporated, anchor institutions task force. tosto, p. (2006, june 18). u plan sparks racial tension; north minneapolis mental-health center stirs suspicion among neighbors. st. paul pioneer press, p. 1a. towns, l. d. (2006, may 26). why the rush to start the northside initiative? minnesota spokesman-recorder. retrieved from http://www.tcdailyplanet.net/why-rush-start-northsideinitiative/ turner, v. (1964). betwixt and between: the liminal period in rites of passage. in w. lessa & e. vogt (eds.), reader in comparative religion: an anthropological approach (4th ed.). new york: harper & row. u.s. department of housing and urban development. (2005). the power of partnerships: celebration 10 years (1994-2004), community outreach partnership centers. washington, d.c.: office of university partnerships. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1476750313488146 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1077801210386771 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0042085912470417 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/003172170508600809 66 walsh, p., & collins, t. (2008, february 16). plymouth penn shopping center is sold to u for $1.125 million. minneapolis star tribune, p. 6b. yuen, l., & williams, b. (2016). without support, minnesota students left behind at graduation. retrieved from http://www.mprnews.org/story/2016/03/07/graduation-gap-minnesota author information *heidi lasley barajas is the executive director of the university of minnesota robert j. jones urban research and outreach-engagement center which provides leadership on critical urban issues across the university. an associate professor and chair of the department of organizational leadership, policy and development in the college of education and human development, heidi’s research and teaching focus on diversity and inclusion in educational institutions. heidi lasley barajas university of minnesota department of organizational leadership, policy and development 206 burton hall 178 pillsbury drive se minneapolis, mn 55455 email: hbarajas@umn.edu telephone: 612-625-4823 lauren martin is the director of research at the university of minnesota robert j. jones urban research and outreach-engagement center. lauren has been conducting community-based and participatory action research with a wide range of community stakeholders since 2004. she is nationally recognized for her engaged scholarship on prevention of sex trading and trafficking as well as for her work on engaged research methods and approaches. lauren martin university of minnesota the robert j. jones, urban research and outreach-engagement center (uroc) 2001 plymouth avenue north minneapolis, mn 55411 email: mart2114@umn.edu telephone: 612-624-0435 *corresponding author http://www.mprnews.org/story/2016/03/07/graduation-gap-minnesota mailto:hbarajas@umn.edu mailto:mart2114@umn.edu 97 the university next door: developing a centralized unit that strategically cultivates community engagement at an urban university valerie l. holton, jennifer l. early, meghan resler, audrey trussell, & catherine howard abstract using kotter’s model of change as a framework, this case study will describe the structure and efforts of a centralized unit within an urban, research university to deepen and extend the institutionalization of community engagement. the change model will be described along with details about the implemented strategies and practices that fall within each of the eight steps. the paper concludes with reflections and future efforts. virginia commonwealth university (vcu) is physically, socially and economically intertwined with the city of richmond. from the university’s inception, community engagement has been an integral part of vcu’s values and mission (vcu, 2014). in the process of creating vcu as a public institution of higher education for the city of richmond, the wayne commission (1967) established that vcu would be “an urban-oriented university . . . unique in that its basic philosophy concentrates on meeting the needs of an urban population living and working in an urban environment (p. 12).” it is in this context that vcu has come to develop and refine its relationship with the region. since its founding in 1968, vcu has worked to live up to its calling as a public urban university. an early focus on professional programs in social science and health fields were vcu’s entrée into bridging the educational goals of the university and the societal needs of its urban community. overtime, the vision for vcu expanded as an institution that not only serves urban community members directly but also fosters partnerships across governmental and educational boundaries that provide the highest quality of service to its students and to the wider richmond region. [for more information on the history of the university and its commitment to engagement, see bonis, koste, lyons and curtis (2006); howard and allison (2004); and trani and holsworth (2010).] as a result, numerous organizational changes and initiatives have been undertaken that reflect vcu’s commitment to institutionalizing community engagement as a means to educating the citizenry and generating new knowledge while also having a positive impact on its communities. evolution of engagement infrastructure at vcu. in 2006, vcu established the division of community engagement (dce), a centralized administrative unit that resides in the office of the provost and is responsible for institutional progress related to community engagement. prior to that, efforts and programs related to engagement were housed in a larger administrative unit along with other programs and offices such as continuing studies, summer programs, and international education. as community engagement gained prominence across the university and was increasingly seen by the leadership as core to vcu’s mission and values, dr. eugene trani, the president, and other senior leadership established the dce as the first unit with a sole focus on engagement and a university-wide scope of responsibilities. while the dce has gone through a series of name changes, the word “community” has been included in each as a signal to the university and broader community that 98 vcu values engagement. the dce has grown and strengthened its role as the primary coordinating structure for supporting and advancing community engagement for all academic and academic support units across the university. using kotter’s model of change, this paper will review the strategies used by the dce to extend and deepen vcu’s engagement with and impact on our communities. kotter’s model for organizational change john kotter (1996) identified a set of principles for leading organizational change. these principles, outlined in eight steps, are based on his many years of leading long-lasting change initiatives in large companies: (a) create a sense of urgency, (b) form a powerful guiding coalition, (c) create a vision, (d) communicate the vision, (e) empower others to act on the vision, (f) plan for and create short-term wins, (g) consolidate improvements and produce still more change, and (h) institutionalize new approaches. in general, the steps are considered to occur in a sequential order leading to institutionalized change. skipping a step, or getting too far ahead without a solid base, can create problems. at the same time, the dynamic nature of complex organizations often necessitates tackling multiple steps at once. therefore, kotter (1996) emphasizes the importance of the first four steps for preparing organizations for transformation. steps five through seven introduce new strategies and practices to the organization. the final step anchors, or institutionalizes, the change into the organizational culture (kotter 1996). although kotter’s steps do not seamlessly translate from corporate to academic settings, the framework is useful for examining and describing change implementation, spread, and institutionalization in higher education (furco & holland, 2013). the model has been used to effectively describe the transformation processes of universities and colleges that have redesigned their promotion and tenure systems (seifer, et al. 2009; harris, et al. 2003); enacted curricular reform (susman & pascoe, 2001, bland, et al. 2000, guze, 1995); and facilitated educational innovation (viaggiano, shub & giere, 2000). we employ kotter’s change model as a framework to describe the dce’s strategies and practices that have enabled and deepened the institutionalization of community engagement at vcu. to do this, we describe each of the eight steps in the change model, situate each step within the context of vcu, and describe implemented strategies and practices within each step. create a sense of urgency kotter suggests that most successful change efforts begin when an individual or group examines circumstances of the organization and its environment, such as potential threats or developing opportunities. when these circumstances are broadly and dramatically outlined, especially with respect to potential crises or great opportunities, a sense of urgency is created (kotter, 1996). this sense of urgency is crucial to gaining the needed cooperation and motivation (kotter, 1995). the establishment of the office that later became known as the dce occurred during a time when the united states saw an increased interest in and exploration of the connections between institutions of higher education and their communities (welch & saltmarch, 2013). several articles released over this time captured and helped to propel this movement. ernest boyer’s seminal work, scholarship reconsidered: priorities of the professoriate (1990) challenged the traditional notion of scholarship and proposed an emphasis on engaged teaching and research. in returning to our roots: the engaged institution, the kellogg commission on the future of state universities and land grant colleges (1999) outlined both the challenge of public 99 engagement and the ways in which institutions must mobilize to respond. soon after, the american association of state colleges and universities released, stepping forward as stewards of place (2002) to serve as a guide for leadership to integrate public engagement throughout the institution. a new mechanism for institutions to be recognized among their peers began in 2006, when the carnegie foundation awarded its first cohort of colleges and universities with an elective classification for community engagement. receipt of this classification continues to be based on evidence-based documentation of institutionalization of engagement, and offers an opportunity for validation of efforts that are not necessarily recognized in other ways, such as through u.s. news rankings (jaschik, 2006). similarly, multiple professional organizations were launched to advance the national dialogue around the role of higher education in their communities. for example, campus compact, a national collation of nearly 1,100 colleges and universities committed to the public purposes of higher education, first convened in 1985 (campus compact, 2015). in 1989, the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities (cumu) was founded to advance the integration of urban universities with their immediate environment. today, it is the longest running and largest organization committed to serving and connecting the world’s urban and metropolitan universities and their partners (coalition of urban and metropolitan universities 2015). community-campus partnerships for health (ccph) was started in 1997, and continues to promote health equity and social justice through partnerships between communities and academic institutions (community-campus partnership for health, 2015). and finally, imagining america was formally launched in 1999 to encourage campus-community collaborations in humanities, arts, and design and advance public scholarship. today it contains over 100 college, university and community organizations (imagining america, 2015). combined, these individual and organizational thought leaders created a sense of national urgency regarding the value of public engagement in the mission of higher education. concurrently, a sense of urgency was developing locally. one issue was related to the rapid growth in vcu’s student body and its physical footprint, which placed increasing pressure on the surrounding communities. for instance, in the early 1990s vcu prepared a master plan that involved expansion north into the oregon hill community. the residents adamantly opposed this expansion north and protested as the incoming president, dr. trani, came to campus. dr. trani responded by throwing out that master plan and establishing a community advisory board to foster better communication between the university and its neighbors (howard & allison, 2004). physical expansion also significantly impacted another neighboring community. as described in detail in howard and allison (2004), vcu’s relationship with the carver community created both a need and opportunity for an intentional and mutually-beneficial partnership between the university and carver. this partnership received significant support from dr. trani and other senior leadership and faculty across the university. a part of this expansion was the desire for vcu to be seen as a critical and integrated part of the region’s success. as such, dr. trani and other senior leadership saw the need for the faculty to be present in the community and recognized as solving real-world problems through their research. similarly, it was important for vcu to be known for graduating the next generation of an engaged citizenry that was prepared to meet the challenges facing the region and world. here we highlight two initiatives that developed from this: service learning and the community associates program. service learning was seen as a way for students to have meaningful learning opportunities while contributing to the community. a faculty member was hired to develop service learning at the university, including its definition, approval process, and the training of the first cohort of service learning faculty. at the same time, the community associates program was 100 developed to support faculty who wished to engage in research and teaching that specifically met needs in the community (howard & allison, 2006). finally, it is important to note that these initiatives occurred during a time when there was increased funding to support engaged efforts. these funding opportunities allowed for and encouraged individual faculty and universities to initiate and build the infrastructure to sustain engagement efforts. for instance, vcu received funding from campus compact to support service learning and received a grant from department of housing and urban development (hud)’s community outreach partnerships centers program (copc) to support the carvervcu partnership (howard & allison, 2006). form a powerful guiding coalition forming a strong guiding coalition involves assembling a group with enough power and legitimacy to lead the change effort. while major renewal programs might start with just one or two people, in order for a successful transformation to occur, a leadership coalition must form and grow over time (kotter, 1996). this coalition develops a shared commitment to excellent performance in the area of change. in the most successful transformations, the coalition is comprised of individuals with powerful titles, information, expertise and reputations (kotter 1996). one of the continual challenges of community engagement efforts at large universities is coordinating efforts so that they become part of the institutional culture. universities are often characterized as loosely coupled systems where units are somewhat responsive to each other but retain unique goals and values (weick, 1993). in order to create a cohesive culture of change, universities must develop rational systems to coordinate constituent units' values and goals (orton & weick, 1990). the challenges of the loosely coupled system manifested for vcu. as a large, urban university with two main campuses and an academic medical center, it was difficult to know the full breadth and depth of the engaged scholarship and outreach occurring across the university. academic and administrative units separately organized and carried out their community efforts. additionally, considerable engagement-related work was being led by individual faculty, staff and students. while the university was committed to excellence through engagement, no central mechanism charged with supporting this goal existed. such a central mechanism was seen by the president as having the potential to not only be a champion of community engagement, but also facilitate internal capacity building for engagement among vcu faculty, staff and students; coordination of community engagement projects among multiple units; linkage of community interests with vcu’s teaching, research and service interests; and enhancement of the quality of these efforts. to address this, in 2006 vcu developed two organizing bodies around which to develop guiding coalitions: the division of community engagement (dce) and the council for community engagement (cce). both were envisioned as aligning and supporting vcu’s then strategic plan, vcu 2020: a vision for excellence and its goal of “maintaining vcu as a model for universitycommunity partnerships.” while this case study primarily examines the efforts of the dce in influencing change, this section will also include a brief discussion of the cce and its activities since the dce provides the administrative support for the cce. division of community engagement. the dce was established as the primary coordinating structure for supporting and advancing community engagement across all academic and academic support units. it began as a small office, and over the past ten years has grown and strengthened 101 its role. it currently operates with a budget of $2.5 million—nearly three-fourths of which come from education and general funds. housed in academic affairs, the dce was, and continues to be, led by a vice provost who reports directly to the provost. this organizational location has provided visibility and credibility within the university, as well as a “seat at the table” with other university leadership. this has enabled the dce to advance engagement through critical opportunities such as strategic planning processes, development of policy, and strategic university initiatives. as the needs of the university and community have changed over time, so has the dce. it currently employs over twenty full-time faculty and staff members appointed directly to the division, who are experts in community engagement, along with other part-time staff and students. currently, the dce organizes its work around improving the impact within three core elements of vcu’s mission: 1) outreach, 2) teaching/learning, and 3) research. to better evaluate and understand vcu’s efforts in each of these domains, the dce also leads and contributes to institutional research regarding university-wide community engagement activities and impact. here we highlight selected the dce programs that are currently active and show how they relate to other institutional initiatives and priorities (see figure 1). figure 1 current structure community outreach community outreach involves the application and provision of institutional resources, knowledge or services to directly benefit the surrounding community (vcu community engagement terms and definitions 2013). as an urban university, vcu's people and programs literally and figuratively blend into the cultural fabric of its surrounding neighborhoods and the broader 102 region. therefore it is critical that the university work collaboratively with its contiguous communities to develop mutually-beneficial relationships through various community outreach programs. neighborhood outreach the dce employs a full-time neighborhood outreach director to work closely with the community. this position originated through the previously mentioned copc grant through hud in 1998, and has been sustained by the university since then. currently, the director works with the five surrounding neighborhoods and in partnership with the vcu neighborhood team. with liaisons from each of the surrounding neighborhoods, this team strives to share information and resources, pursue common goals and develop activities that enhance the communities. they meet regularly to facilitate communications between university and neighborhood leadership in order to align and connect efforts and voice needs and opportunities. additionally, they participate with other community members in the annual vcu neighborhood forum that is hosted by vcu’s president and is open to the public. mary and frances youth center. the mary and frances youth center, opened in 2007, maintains two private tennis courts and classrooms designed for youth programming and youth-centered training. in partnership with the the united way of greater richmond and petersburg, the center also manages the implementation of the youth program quality intervention (ypqi), a quality improvement process for out-of-school-time service providers across the region. utilizing the david p. weikart center for youth program quality system, the process encourages and supports education and human service leaders to adapt, implement and scale best-in-class, research validated quality improvement systems to advance child and youth development (mary and frances youth center, 2015). vcu americorps program. the dce has also hosted the vcu americorps program, the longest-running and largest americorps program in virginia, for the past two decades. the vcu americorps program has a literacy focus with the goal of helping improve the academic skills of students attending richmond public schools. the program provides vcu students an opportunity to make a difference in local communities through a commitment of one year of service. community-engaged teaching/learning community-engaged teaching connects students and faculty with activities that address community-identified needs through mutually beneficial partnerships that deepen their academic and civic learning (vcu community engagement terms and definitions, 2013). the first cohort of faculty was trained in service learning, one example of community-engaged teaching/learning, in 1998 and has since become one of the university's signature pedagogies. the office of service learning was established within the dce with the hiring of its current director in 2008, and is responsible for increasing the number of high-quality service learning courses for undergraduate and graduate programs. the dce also led the development of aspire (academic scholars in real environments)—a living-learning program promoting community engagement through academic coursework and co-curricular experiences. the mission of vcu aspire is to enrich and deepen students’ understanding of their capacity to create positive change in communities and address critical societal needs through long-term sustainable partnerships (vcu aspire, 2015). http://www.yourunitedway.org/ http://www.cypq.org/ 103 the office of service learning is guided by the vcu service learning advisory council, composed of faculty, staff, students and community members who have expertise in service learning pedagogy and are committed to making a positive difference in the community. this council meets twice a year to oversee the implementation of the service-learning office’s strategic plan and to provide the service-learning office staff with guidance and advice. annually, all council members give presentations within their academic units to increase their colleague’s knowledge and awareness of service-learning at vcu. community-engaged research community-engaged research (cenr) is a collaborative process between the researcher and community partner that identifies the assets of all stakeholders and incorporates them in the design and conduct of the different phases of the research process (vcu community engagement terms and definitions, 2013). the goals of cenr are to create and disseminate knowledge and creative expression, while contributing to the discipline and strengthening the well-being of the community. the dce's office of community-engaged research was established in 2012. under the full-time direction of a faculty member, the office works in collaboration with other units to support and advance cenr activities across vcu’s schools, centers, and institutes. a major goal of this office is to stimulate collaboration, identify synergy, remove barriers and broadly promote the science of cenr. institutional research. the dce's office of community-engaged research is also responsible for institutional research related to university-wide community engagement efforts. it is therefore responsible for developing infrastructure to identify and assess the impact of community engagement activities within the dce and across the university, as well as the university’s impact on its surrounding community. included in this responsibility is the management and evaluation of the council for community engagement (cce) grants program and vcu’s annual application to the president's higher education community service honor roll. cross-unit entities. while the dce organizes its work internally around outreach, teaching/learning, and research, it also facilitates two cross-unit bodies, each charged with supporting and promoting community engagement. these two entities are the council for community engagement and the federation for community-engaged research. council for community engagement in 2006, the dce partnered with the office of the senior vice president for health sciences, which oversees the academic medical campus and center, to form the council for community engagement (cce). the cce is comprised of appointed representatives from all schools and colleges, as well as key support units, research centers and institutes. each cce member is charged with supporting and promoting community engagement within their home units the cce helps the dce to promote collaboration and coordination of engagement activities across the university by facilitating the exchange of information and resources across units and campuses. as an illustration of the value placed on engagement across the university, the cce is co-chaired by the vice provost for community engagement and associate vice president for health sciences, student initiatives and inclusion. under their direction, the cce (1) builds and maintains a network of liaisons across units, (2) receives and disseminates information and resources that promotes and supports community engagement, (3) gathers information from the community on critical needs and opportunities, (4) recognizes accomplishments of university-community partnerships, and (5) assists in the coordination of events designed to engage the vcu 104 community with community partners to address community-identified needs. currently the work of the cce is organized in under three standing cce committees: grants and gifts, awards and recognition, and community connections. grants and gifts committee. the cce's grants and gifts committee administers funds to encourage engagement and to initiate innovative collaborative programs and research that address community-identified needs. this and other grant making programs are described later in our discussion of how the dce addresses barriers to engagement. awards and recognition committee. the cce's awards and recognition committee helps bring attention to the community engagement activities of vcu faculty, staff and students. the committee oversees the nomination, selection and celebration of outstanding universitycommunity partnerships through the annual currents of change awards program. established in 2005, these awards are given in the categories of teaching, research, outreach and studentinitiated. recognizing outstanding university-community partnerships serves to publicly honor community-engaged programs at vcu and as a stepping-stone to external awards and grant funding. for example, vcu won the prestigious c. peter magrath university community engagement award in 2014 for its pharmacist collaborative care and outreach in the community program—a program led by the school of pharmacy that received the currents of change award in 2010. community connections committee. the cce community connections committee creates the bridge between the cce and the community. the committee develops and oversees service opportunities for vcu employees and actively promotes the use of community service leave (csl). in accordance with state policy, twelve-month vcu employees are granted up to sixteen hours per year of paid csl to provide volunteer services to eligible community-based agencies. additionally, the committee collects vcu employees’ csl stories and pictures to use for news articles on the dce’s and university's website. federation for community-engaged research vcu also has a separate cross-unit entity to specifically support community-engaged research. the federation for community-engaged research is charged with promoting internal alignment of cenr activities at vcu. the federation is comprised of senior representatives from many vcu schools, centers and institutes with high levels of cenr, including the schools of medicine, nursing, education, social work and the arts as well as the office of the provost. the federation is co-chaired by the dce's director of community-engaged research and the director of the community engagement core of vcu's nih funded center for clinical and translational research (cctr). the federation’s organizational structure is displayed in figure 2. figure 2: federation for community-engaged research 105 create a vision in order for change efforts to have direction, a clear vision must be created with defined strategies for achieving that vision. the vision presents a picture of the future that is relatively easy to communicate, appeals to stakeholders, and goes beyond numbers and data. a clear vision elucidates the general direction for change by simplifying hundreds or thousands of more detailed decisions and motivating individuals to take action in the right direction. it also coordinates the actions of those individuals (kotter, 1996). one way that complex organizations like vcu create a vision for multiple small units is to develop a strategic plan. as previously described, the dce was established to support and advance community engagement as specified in the 2006 strategic plan, vcu 2020. soon after the arrival of the new president, dr. michael rao, vcu launched its current strategic plan, quest for distinction, in 2011. this gave even greater prominence to community engagement and helped to maintain a sense of urgency and vision. quest for distinction strengthens vcu’s commitment to community engagement by explicitly committing to becoming a national model for community engagement – one of four strategic planning themes. under this theme, vcu's goals are to (1) expand community-engaged scholarship and service learning, (2) create university-community partnerships with a focus on the key targeted areas of k-12 educations (with a focus on middle school), access to health and economic development, and (3) provide strategic leadership in addressing sustainability challenges through curricular and service innovations and green facilities and operations. in 2015 quest for distinction was recalibrated, with community engagement remaining a primary theme (table 1). table 1 vcu’s refocused themes and goals 2015-17 theme iii become a national model for community engagement and regional impact goals and strategies: 1. advance focused and strategic university-community engagement that addresses critical needs and opportunities in the region a. leveraging university strengths and assets and address community-identified needs and opportunities b. ensuring all students have access to innovation/entrepreneurial pathways that support regional economic development, cultural vitality or community wellbeing 2. leverage the efforts of our students, faculty and staff to enhance, integrate and disseminate community-engaged scholarship, student service-learning opportunities and outreach a. embed, support and promote community engagement within university cultures, practices and structures 106 vision alignment in 2013, the dce developed its own strategic plan to align with that of the university. the planning process included a review of similar units in peer institutions, particularly their structure and functions. in addition, input was gathered from nearly 100 university staff, faculty, administrative leaders and partners through interviews and input sessions. five broad goals for the dce were identified: (1) develop, demonstrate, research and disseminate high-quality community engaged outreach programs, (2) develop, implement, research and disseminate highquality community engaged learning experiences, (3) support rigorous community-engaged research that advances disciplinary and interdisciplinary knowledge and contributes to the wellbeing of communities, (4) develop, implement, research and disseminate the dce model of excellence for university-community partnerships, and (5) develop and align human and fiscal resources that support innovative programs and new initiatives that reflect the dce strategic plan. this process also yielded updated mission and vision statements and operating principles (table 2). table 2 division of community engagement vision, mission and operating principles dce vision vcu is a community of engaged citizens, working together, changing lives. dce mission to mobilize university-community partnerships that generate innovative solutions to societal challenges and prepare the engaged citizens of tomorrow. dce operating principles 1. to value and respect the knowledge and expertise that exists within communities. 2. to support collaborative university-community partnerships built on trust and reciprocity. 3. to seek out, engage, and value diverse perspectives and experiences that forge practical and innovative solutions. 4. to advance and disseminate new knowledge and best practices through community engaged scholarship. 5. to develop and adopt a model of best practices in community engagement – the dce model of excellence for university-community partnerships. each program within the dce and the cce then created logic models to coordinate with the goals of the strategic plan and provide a clear purpose with measurable outcomes. as a result, the dce and cce shared a unified vision for community engagement that aligned with the larger university’s vision and strategic plan. communicate the vision a vision that is only understood by a few people cannot lead to transformation. similarly, transformation is impossible without the help of others. thus, credible efforts utilizing multiple communication vehicles must be employed to convey the new vision and strategies to others (kotter, 1996). a high level of consistent and clear communication of the vision is necessary for others to develop a common understanding and develop a shared sense of a desirable future (kotter, 1995). in turn, these common understandings can help motivate and coordinate efforts that lead to transformation. 107 the vision of vcu as an urban, research university that prioritizes community engagement as a means to achieve its mission and positively impact communities is a consistent message, both internally and externally. for instance, the value of engagement is found across university’s web presence and is a reoccurring theme in presidential blog posts and university-wide announcements (blog.president.vcu.edu/). the dce’s website, community.vcu.edu, is featured as one of only six direct navigation portals on vcu’s main website. this location gives it prominence among over 600 vcu websites. the dce serves as a model and consultant for best practices in communicating internally and externally about the division's and university's engagement activities. the dce website, social media, print materials and other communications provide opportunities and support for units across the university to integrate university-community partnership language and vision into their own communications and operations. similarly, the dce has provided training so that others are exposed to best practices. the dce’s news blog provides stories and snapshots of universitycommunity partnership activity across the university and encourages units to share their community-engaged stories in order to elevate the importance of community engagement at vcu. to establish a common language, the dce, cce and the office of planning decision support (opds), the university's institutional research unit, established vcu’s official community engagement terms and definitions, which are included in university's glossary of terms. [for more information on the development of the community engagement terms and definitions, see holton, v., jettner, j. f., early, j. l., & shaw, k. k. (2015).] finally, the dce promotes the use of engagement language in all aspects of university operations. for example, vcu's recruitment of potential students, faculty and staff notes that “we seek and support students who demonstrate intellectual curiosity, community engagement and out-of-thebox thinking” (undergraduate admissions, 2015) and “we take pride in our…engagement with the communities we serve…” (about vcu, 2015). this may help to establish a communityengaged foundation for vcu's identity even with someone's first impression of the university. beginning with this initial exposure to vcu's engagement vision, the dce then purposefully cultivates a continuum of opportunities and supports that shape approaches and expectations for teaching, learning, outreach and service among all students, faculty and staff. in short, the dce fosters the expectation that community engagement is central to one's experiences at and with vcu. this, in turn, necessitates that the university to actively promote and remove obstacles to engagement. empower others to act on the vision according to kotter (1996), even when urgency is high, a guiding coalition has been created, and a collective vision has been well communicated, many barriers may still exist to implementation. these barriers inhibit employees from carrying out the vision. the purpose of this stage in the change process is to empower a broad base of people to take action on the vision by removing as many barriers as possible. here we will focus on dce's efforts to mitigate or eliminate structural barriers, skills barriers, and systems barriers. removing structural barriers. structural barriers stem from an organization’s existing structure, particularly in terms of the structure’s ability to support the vision once implemented. faculty and staff constitute the most significant portion of the university's organizational structure. recruitment and hiring practices shape their composition. hiring practices can influence perceptions of an organization’s vision, as well as recruit potential employees who are committed to the realization of the organization’s vision. when filling http://blog.president.vcu.edu/ http://community.vcu.edu/ 108 leadership positions within the dce, such as program or office directors, the dce has preferred to hire individuals with earned doctorates. this practice both lends credibility to and legitimizes the offices within the university context in two ways. first, this qualification preference or requirement signals that vcu values these positions insofar as it must financially support higher salaries associated with terminal degrees. second, the doctorate requirement signals that the directors have expertise in that area and are able to advance the scholarship associated with their respective fields, which allows the dce to position itself as a leader in engagement. more broadly, vcu prominently displays its designation as community engaged by carnegie in its job advertisements for leadership positions. by highlighting its community-engagement status in these advertisements, vcu communicates to potential employees that it (1) values and practices engagement, and (2) would be a good fit for potential employees who themselves value engagement. the effect of these practices has been positive, with a record of successful leadership hires who value and advance community engagement. removing skills barriers. empowering others to act on the vision ensures that as many people possible are equipped with the skills they need to follow through, and to be able to do so with some degree of autonomy and expertise. this type of empowerment requires that skill, or competency, building opportunities be provided by the organization on a regular and ongoing basis. the dce has employed a continuum of competency-building opportunities as a key strategy to promote its vision of high-quality, high-impact community-engaged scholarship. these opportunities exist to ensure the university and its community partners are equipped to fulfill the dce’s vision of engagement. the dce views competency-building opportunities as falling along a continuum of exposure, experience and expertise (see figure 3), which allows for the progressive professional development of vcu's faculty, staff, students and community partners. community-engaged competencies can be developed through (a) individual skill-building opportunities that are both broadly available and targeted towards certain individuals, (b) learning networks and mentorships that make additional assistance available as well as promote interdisciplinary work, and (c) readily available guidance (klein & sorra, 1996). aligned with the dce’s grounding in academic affairs, the dce primarily targets its competency-building activities towards faculty and staff, with fewer opportunities for students and community partners. figure 3 dce continuum of support strategies learning networks and skill-building opportunities. to move individuals along the competencybuilding continuum, the dce convenes people virtually and in-person to build learning networks 109 and skills around topic areas pertinent to engagement. skill-building opportunities (e.g. workshops and trainings) provide specific opportunities for participants to increase their knowledge in certain topic areas. at the same time, participants in skill-building activities often develop learning networks with their peers. these networks, ideally comprised of diverse members with varied levels of interest in and experience with the topic area skill-building opportunities, enrich learning by providing feedback, support, and guidance to peers. while opportunities for creating learning networks are sometimes lacking at academic institutions (israel et al. 1998), the dce has considered its role of convening others as a strategic approach to introducing and refining community-engaged scholarship competencies in order to empower others to act on and move the dce’s engagement vision forward. interest groups and list-serves. the dce operates multiple listservs as a means of connecting with university and community partners. these listservs utilize email as a communication mechanism to build awareness, help facilitate potential collaborations, provide information on efforts to support and encourage engagement activities, and elicit suggestions to further deepen the work of university-community partnerships. combined, these listservs reach over 1,200 members across the university. additionally, the cenr listserv is currently in the process of expanding its communication format to include a blog page with a public forum. annual institute & workshops. the dce, along with the center for clinical and translational research, hosts vcu’s annual community engagement institute. the institute helps faculty members, community partners, and graduate students to develop a basic understanding of community engagement. participants are exposed to service learning and community-engaged research presentations, workshops, and networking opportunities. this annual, week-long event is offered free of charge to approximately 50-70 individuals. similarly, the dce offers short workshops throughout the year that address a wide range of topics. these workshops have focused on competency related to community-engagement in general, as well as topic areas specific to service-learning and cenr. for example, workshops related to partnership development for effective community engagement have focused on how to identify and develop partnerships, how to engage in community-university partnerships across one’s career, and conflict resolution. workshops related to service learning have included topics on the development of reflection activities and the syllabi and preparing students for service learning. cenr workshops have been given related to cenr grant search strategies, specific cenr methodologies, and issues related to conducting ethical research. faculty learning communities and faculty fellows. the dce co-sponsors a variety of opportunities for faculty to engage in learning as a cohort. employing both faculty learning community (flc) and faculty fellows models, the dce has offered cohort experiences for faculty to collaboratively learn together, document what they have learned, and share their gained knowledge with vcu at large. depending upon the nature of the topic addressed by the cohorts, the dce has worked with co-sponsors from other vcu units to provide stipends for faculty participants. faculty mentoring programs. faculty mentoring programs offered by the dce provide guidance and support to faculty members who are developing or teaching new service-learning courses. mentoring programs pair faculty mentees one-on-one with mentors who are experienced in service-learning pedagogy. the service learning mentor program is voluntary, with no stipend paid to either mentees or mentors. in partnership with vcu's office of research and the center for clinical and translational research, the dce is developing a similar program for pairing less experienced community-engaged researchers with faculty with more experience. 110 readily-available guidance. in order to build and maintain competence in engagement activities, resources to guide effective engagement endeavors must be offered and readily available at an institutional level (calleson, jordan, & seifer, 2005). employees must know where to turn for technical assistance, tools, and strategies for operationalizing the ideals of community-engaged activities within an academic institution. guidance documents, bibliographies, and videos have been developed to provide permanent reference resources. these have been developed in collaboration with other units, and include topics relevant to partnerships (e.g. finding community partners, principles of engagement), service learning (e.g. what is service learning, incorporating service learning into a syllabus) and cenr (e.g. what is cenr, compensation of community partners, faqs about cenr and the irb). the dce stores these resources in scholars compass, an open access publishing platform that hosts the intellectual output of vcu’s academic, research, and administrative communities (http://scholarscompass.vcu.edu). its goal of providing wide and stable access to vcu’s scholarly products aligns well with the dce’s goal of ensuring a readily available and widely accessible collection of engagement guidance documents. the dce, therefore, worked closely with the university’s library to support the implementation of this online repository of materials. the dce continues to populate the repository by regularly updating it with publications, scholarship, presentations, infographics, and videos developed within the dce as well as materials from the community engagement institute. courses. the dce has offered several courses under a community studies designation. these courses are offered to both undergraduate and graduate students and develop student’s knowledge, skills and abilities working in and with communities outside of the academy. there are also courses to develop students as service-learning teaching assistants. through these courses, teaching assistants develop new skills, work closely with faculty, develop relationships with community leaders and participate in a wide variety of community initiatives. more recently the dce has offered a doctoral-level, open-access course that explores the philosophy and techniques of cenr using a connected learning framework (http://rampages.us/communityengagedresearch/). removing systems barriers systems barriers to change emerge when the existing systems and processes within an organization do not support the vision. systems must therefore be in place to reinforce the idea that fulfilling the vision is not only expected, but will be supported and rewarded by the organization. promotion & tenure. professional reward structures, manifested in higher education largely through promotion and tenure policies, reinforce institutional vision by explicitly outlining the types of activities expected, supported and rewarded by the institution and socializing faculty members to the values of the institution (pelco & howard, 2015). some academic institutions do not regard community-engaged scholarship as equivalent to other categories of academic scholarship and achievement in their promotion and tenure strategies (ahmed, et al., 2004). this presents as a major barrier to encouraging community engaged work by faculty, especially those seeking tenure. thus, an important strategy for validating community-engaged scholarship is to explicitly recognize this work in promotion and tenure policies. in 2011, vcu began the process of reviewing and revising its university promotion and tenure policies. the provost charged an ad hoc committee to 1) assess and highlight best practices in 111 higher education regarding promotion and tenure; 2) review current vcu guidelines to address dated materials and accuracy; and 3) suggest revisions to bring policies in line with the new strategic plan, including the stronger emphasis on community engagement. the dce organized presentations exposing administrators to community-engaged scholarship, teaching and service, and retained an external expert consultant to work with key campus stakeholders around topics of community-engaged activity, including meeting with the deans to help them understand the nature and role of community-engaged scholarship within their disciplines. in may of 2013, a new university promotion and tenure policy was approved which explicitly includes the recognition of community-engaged research, teaching, and service as acceptable approaches to scholarship at vcu. the work to revise individual academic schooland unit-level policies to align with the university-level policy is almost complete. intramural funding. when offered as intramural grants, institutionally supported seed grants are effective incentives for faculty to partner with community members. these seed grants provide immediate gains for furthering the institutional vision, as well as long-term benefit. past research has shown that faculty awarded these grants are more successful in obtaining other grants compared to those who are not awarded seed funding (zuiches, 2013). institutional support is also critical for successful partnerships with high levels of sustainability (chadwick & pawloski, 2007). in an evaluation of two seed grant programs at vcu, leisey, holton, and davey (2012) found that grant funded projects had positive benefits for faculty, students, and community partners and were associated with enhanced service delivery, high-quality learning experiences, and published community-engaged scholarship. as such, the dce has endeavored to ensure that intramural funding to support engagement activities is regularly available. as mentioned above, the cce oversees a grant making program with an annual funding pool of $100,000. grantees receive one-year awards of up to $20,000 that support interdisciplinary university-community programs, or initiate new university-community partnerships, or continue the development of long-standing collaborations. grants are intended to yield communityengaged scholarly products and to leverage external funding. the dce provides administrative support for this program, including a yearly evaluation of its impact. in partnership with the cctr, the dce supports a cenr pipeline to proposal program through which cenr partnership development awards up to $10,000 are intended to specifically support building and supporting research partnerships. recipients of the partnership development grant are invited to apply for additional intramural funding through either the cce community-engagement grants or through the cctr’s endowment fund. the cctr’s endowment fund provides individual research awards up to $50,000 and multi-school research awards up to $130,000 for health sciences research. additionally, the dce manages and awards travel grants in the amount of $1,000 to support the scholarship and professional development of service-learning instructors. plan for and create short-term wins while major change takes time, kotter asserts that most employees need to see compelling evidence within twelve to twenty-four months that transformational efforts are producing expected results (kotter, 1995). thus, it is recommended that short-term wins be systematically planned for and created. short-term wins help to maintain the momentum necessary for the renewal of efforts required to implement the long-term changes necessary for real transformation to occur (kotter, 1995). recognizing and rewarding organizational actions that enable the vision is one way to create short-term wins. the dce has helped vcu to leverage both internal and external award opportunities. internal awards and recognition communicate to organizational members that 112 community engagement is valued, respected, and celebrated (see earlier section on the council for community engagement for a description of the internal rewards opportunities). external awards also communicate the value of community engagement efforts while creating a sense of pride for the organization and its members. additionally, external awards also convey vcu’s efforts to a broader audience. vcu has been recognized by several national entities that recognize community engagement. vcu was among the first cohort of institutions recognized as community-engaged by the carnegie foundation in 2006 and was reclassified in 2015—with the dce leading the application process each cycle. vcu is one of only 54 universities to be designated by the carnegie foundation as “community engaged” with “very high research activity.” also in 2014, again with dce's leadership, vcu was admitted to the president’s higher education community service honor roll for the eighth consecutive year and is one of 121 schools nationwide that earned the recognition of honor roll with distinction. it was the second consecutive year for vcu to be named to the honor roll with distinction. each year the dce releases annual reports to celebrate the work of the dce. this report highlights the “outstanding community engagement of vcu faculty, students, and staff” (division of community engagement 2015, 1). the report outlines successes from the annual community engagement institute and spotlights community engagement grant and currents of change awardees. the annual report also highlights annual outcomes for efforts within aspire and each of its outreach programs, as well as in the areas of service-learning, neighborhood outreach, and community-engaged research. the report is distributed broadly to both internal and external stakeholders. another way to recognize and advance organizational vision is to plan for visible performance improvements that can be measured and evaluated (kotter 1995). to that end, the dce has led the development and implementation of infrastructure to identify, track and assess vcu’s community engagement activities and impact (see holton, jettner, early, & shaw, 2015; holton, early, jettner & shaw, 2015). additionally, the dce collaborated with the opds to apply an anchor dashboard framework to use as a reference in the broader conversation about maximizing vcu’s positive impact on our community (holton, jettner, & shaw, 2015). these efforts have enabled the dce, in partnership with the opds and others, to launch two visible displays of information. the online community engagement data dashboard (www.community.vcu.edu) includes and describes community-engagement activities across the university by year and unit. additionally, the dce is leading the development of a partnership map that displays all the partner organizations (vcu and community-based) and partnerships by geographic focus, activity, topic focus area and vcu unit (http://communitynetwork.vcu.edu/partnermap). finally, in collaboration with the opds, the dce has launched a task force to further develop the community engagement data infrastructure and ensure that the information is used to support strategic decision-making. consolidate improvements and produce still more change leaders of successful efforts use the credibility afforded by short-term wins to take on larger challenges (kotter, 1995). this might include developing new programs that can continue to implement the vision (kotter, 1995). these programs reinvigorate the change process, and might even be larger in scope than earlier projects. additionally, successful leaders tackle systems and structures that have not yet been considered, or are not consistent with the transformation vision (kotter, 1995). http://www.community.vcu.edu/ http://communitynetwork.vcu.edu/partnermap 113 the dce is a dynamic unit that leads the development of university-wide infrastructure. it has a strong record of incubating programs until they are self-sustaining. one such example is the partnership for nonprofit excellence (pne), an independent non-profit that helps to build the capacity and enhance the impact of other non-profits in the region. three of the pne’s four programs were initially created and housed for several years under dce. these include (1) connectva, a one-stop communication network linking individuals with ideals, information and resources, (2) handson greater richmond, a service that matches people and their interests to meaningful volunteer opportunities that create positive change in central virginia, and (3) nonprofit learning point (nlp), a program that offers affordable classes, coaching, and programs for professional and leadership development for the nonprofit community. the dce also helps existing, successful projects and programs to improve. for example, as noted earlier, most professional development opportunities, such as the community engagement institute, have targeted faculty and staff members or students. upcoming ce institutes will be designed for the explicit purpose of introducing university and community partners to one another to create opportunities for future work together. organized opportunities for shared interest exploration and initial partnership development activities will be deliberately orchestrated throughout the event. another opportunity for expanding the purpose of the ce institute is to begin to move away from promoting the compartmentalized community-engagement work of faculty, and towards a more integrated concept of “community-engaged scholars” at vcu. faculty members have traditionally been identified as those who teach service-learning or conduct cenr, but not necessarily as having expertise in multiple domains of community-engaged work. in the future, the ce institute will be designed as a springboard to support faculty who are interested in multiple domains of community engagement. university-based participants, including graduate students, will co-learn the founding principles of community engagement alongside community members. topics addressed might include foundational topics that apply to any manner of community-engaged work to include initiating and sustaining partnership, techniques for successful collaborations, and the importance of community engagement. these foundational topics will also be developed and presented as online learning opportunities, ideally as open source content. once the ce institute has concluded, participants will have the opportunity to continue taking learning modules, in either face-to-face or online formats, to build their community engagement competence, culminating in earning a community engagement certification. this curricular revision aligns with a national trend towards the development and recognition of integrated community-engaged faculty. institutionalize the new approach according to kotter, “change sticks when it becomes ‘the way we do things around here,’ when it seeps into the bloodstream” of the entire organization (kotter, 1995, p. 67). once this kind of transformation occurs, practices that were once considered ‘new’ become rooted in organizational culture, including its members' norms of behavior and shared values, and operate as a powerful social force (kotter, 1996; kotter, 1995). in other words, deep institutionalization occurs when the vision is embraced by all organizational members and units. vcu actively seeks to achieve this stage, and, with dce's leadership, is in the process of implementing several initiatives to deepen its institutionalization of community engagement. we conclude by highlighting three examples of these efforts. attract and retain individuals expecting engagement. by taking steps towards embedding engagement throughout the university culture and practices, vcu will achieve true 114 institutionalization of community engagement, manifested in its ultimate goal of vcu being largely recognized as the “best place” for engagement. in other words, faculty will recognize vcu as the best place to conduct community-engaged scholarship, students will recognize vcu as the best place to learn about community-engaged scholarship, and community partners will recognize vcu as a positive ally that benefits the community. establish strategic, focal efforts. vcu is also exploring ways to leverage its strengths and resources in a way that aligns intentionally with community-identified needs and opportunities. one approach is to anchor, or embed, the values of engagement into institutional practice. this builds from the concept of “anchor institutions” which recognizes the organization itself as a powerful actor, and the role it can play as an economic and cultural driver in community wellbeing (axelroth & dubbs, 2010). vcu is currently exploring how its values of engagement are embedded within many of its institutional practices such as procurement, real estate development and hiring through the application of an anchor framework to measure vcu’s impact (holton, jettner & shaw, 2015) and participating in the larger national conversations with hud’s anchor task force and the democracy collaborative. the concluding section on the future of the dce describes another approach it is considering to establish strategic, focal efforts. ensure consistent recognition for community-engaged work. vcu continues to consider how to best ensure recognition of engagement work for the purposes of promotion and tenure. while official university policy recognizes community-engaged research, teaching, and service as valued approaches to scholarship, individual departments and units continue to develop their capacity for considering such work in their promotion and tenure practices. to ensure that the changes in promotion and tenure policy impacts the assessment of all faculty at vcu, a national expert has been invited to engage the university in critical conversations about the role of community-engaged scholarship in the academy as a whole, and specifically in the review of faculty for promotion and tenure. the future of dce’s role in deepening and extending the institutionalization of community engagement as vcu approaches the 10-year anniversary of the dce, it is a time for reflection on the past as well as intense planning for the future. using kotter’s framework for change, this case study highlights the role of the dce within vcu in institutionalizing the value of community engagement. next we briefly reflect on the current infrastructure before considering the upcoming challenges that the dce hopes to address that will be important for fulfilling the university’s mission and values. welch and saltmarsh (2013) conducted a review of the infrastructure of over 100 community engagement centers across institutions that received the carnegie community engagement designation in 2010. based on this review, the dce has the essential components of a community engagement center as identified by other center directors: budgeted institutional funds, administrative support, programming staff, faculty development, faculty leadership/buy in, student leadership/decision making, assessment mechanism/procedures, full-time administrator, academic affairs reporting line, database/tracking system, adequate office space, define/designate courses, fund-raising mechanisms, communication/outreach, transportation coordination/policy, cross-campus collaboration, and course development grants. these components will provide the ongoing infrastructure and support that will enable the dce to continue to deepen and extend the institutionalization of community engagement. however, it is important to note that opportunities to enhance the division’s infrastructure continue to exist. for instance, as public universities are facing an ever-increasing need to generate revenue, the 115 dce is exploring ways to garner additional grant funding to support community engagement efforts through its office as well as across the university. consistent with welch and saltmarsh’s (2013) findings on the expanding role of engagement centers, the dce is also assuming a greater role in risk management, which is requiring the development of expertise in a new area. for example, in collaboration with the university council and office of compliance, the dce has led the development of an administrative policy regarding minors on campus. this policy addresses issues such as mandatory reporting of child abuse and neglect; background checks, training, and supervision of faculty, staff, students, and volunteers involved in youth programs; and registering and tracking of all youth programs and activities on campus. to enhance awareness of and compliance with this policy the dce developed an interactive online training that overviews the policy, assesses understanding through situational quizzes, and provides support through downloadable forms, templates, and contact sheets. finally, the dce continues to explore systematic and ongoing mechanisms for genuinely engaging community members in honest conversation about the challenges they face. moreover the dce would like to facilitate opportunities for university and community members to collectively work together to meet those challenges. this type of engagement has traditionally emerged through approaches such as the establishment of advisory boards or inviting community members to join existing university committees (field 2002). while these approaches can be meaningful, they often operate in uncoordinated silos. such disparate efforts make it difficult to deeply engage in university-wide work that is high-impact and mutually benefits the community and university. the dce would therefore like to aid vcu in a new, university-wide approach that would align its university-based expertise and resources with community-based expertise and resources to identify and address critical needs and opportunities in the region. ideally, this effort will bring together cross-discipline faculty, students, and community members to collectively target their work at a community-identified priority. the dce envisions this effort as occurring on a universityand school/college-level as well as engaging individual faculty, staff, students and alumni. an enhanced focus such as this would help vcu deepen its impact in key areas, as well as provide opportunities for faculty, staff and students to engage in high-impact research and teaching/learning. to achieve this goal, the dce, along with the university, must first contend with many questions such as: 1. what is the best mechanism for identifying priority issues to address? 2. how can such an effort be coordinated across vcu’s complex institution and richmond’s complex region? 3. how might this effort connect with other university efforts to ensure that the engagement is truly institutionalized? 4. how might this effort connect 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(2013 december). the impacts of seed grants as incentives for engagement. journal of higher education outreach and engagement 17 (4), 57-73. 120 author information dr. valerie holton is the director of community-engaged research in the division of community engagement at virginia commonwealth university. in her current role, she leads and contributes to strategic initiatives that deepen and demonstrate the university’s civic mission. she leads the division’s involvement in building university-wide infrastructure to advance community-engaged research (cenr). additionally, she supports the development of the division and university's capacity to track and measure the impact of vcu's engagement. jennifer (jen) early works in vcu's division of community engagement to support and advance cenr as part of the university's strategic effort to align university-wide community engagement and impact. she assists in the identification, development and dissemination of cenr resources for faculty, staff, students, and community partners. jen is a doctoral candidate in vcu's health service and organization research program. her research interests include the role of academic health centers, their relationships with surrounding communities, and how they interact to impact community health. she also has research interests in how organizational structure impacts individual and organizational performance. meghan resler works in vcu’s division of community engagement to support the development of vcu youth policy and design the accompanying online, interactive training. additionally, she visually represents the office of community engaged research’s ideas and communications. with a master in social work she recognizes the value of evaluation and assessment and with a bachelor in fine arts she appreciates the power of visual storytelling. audrey trussell works in vcu's division of community engagement to deliver project management, strategic planning and implementation support to advance key community-engaged institutional initiatives. in her role she has developed and created foundational communication methodologies to strengthen the division's involvement in disseminating, discussing and supporting community-engaged scholarship and activities. audrey is a candidate in vcu's masters of public administration program and will receive a graduate certificate in nonprofit management in december 2015. dr. catherine howard is the vice provost for community engagement at virginia commonwealth university and associate professor in the department of psychology. she cochairs the vcu council for community engagement and has focused on creating a culture of community engagement throughout the campus. valerie l. holton, ph.d., lcsw director of community-engaged research division of community engagement virginia commonwealth university 901 west franklin street richmond, virginia 23284 vholton@vcu.edu jennifer l early, bsn, msha, rn strategic project manager and research associate division of community engagement virginia commonwealth university po box 843062 mailto:vholton@vcu.edu 121 richmond, virginia 23284 s2jlearl@vcu.edu meghan resler, msw, bfa youth policy coordinator and visual communications specialist division of community engagement virginia commonwealth university 901 west franklin street richmond, virginia 23284 reslerma@vcu.edu audrey trussell assistant to the vice provost division of community engagement 901 west franklin street richmond, virginia 23284 atrussell@vcu.edu catherine w. howard, ph.d. vice provost, division of community engagement associate professor, department of psychology virginia commonwealth university 901 w. franklin street richmond, va 23284 choward@vcu.edu mailto:s2jlearl@vcu.edu mailto:reslerma@vcu.edu mailto:atrussell@vcu.edu mailto:choward@vcu.edu copyright © 2016 metropolitan universities vol. 27 no. 2 (summer 2016), 59-73, doi: 10.18060/21127 community-engaged faculty: a must for preparing impactful ed.d. graduates deborah peterson, jill alexa perry, lina dostilio and debby zambo abstract since its inception nine years ago, cped members have re-envisioned and implemented a new purpose for the professional practice doctorate in education, or ed.d. this new purpose is grounded in the goal of preparing doctoral students to serve as scholarly practitioners, those who engage community as stakeholders in the process of improving problems of practice. forming practitioners to be leaders in their communities under the cped framework requires faculty who look beyond traditional roles by embed.d.ing themselves in communities to work alongside practitioners working to transform their communities. unfortunately, at many institutions, community-engagement is considered counternormative to the traditional interpretation of research, teaching, and service, though it need not be. this paper will discuss the implications of cped's community-engagement principle for ed.d. programs, institutional policies, and academic environments in which community-engaged faculty do their work and the importance of these faculty members in the design of the education doctorate. introduction the carnegie project on the education doctorate consists of 80+ schools and colleges of education in the united states, canada and new zealand working in collaboration to improve the design of professional preparation programs at the doctoral level. since its inception nine years ago, cped members have reenvisioned and implemented a new purpose for the professional practice doctorate in education, the ed.d. this new purpose is grounded in the goal of preparing educators to be scholarly practitioners, those who “blend practical wisdom with professional skills and knowledge to name, frame, and solve problems of practice... by collaborating with key stakeholders, including the university, the educational institution, the community, and individuals” (cped, 2010). to develop ed.d. programs like these across varied contexts, cped offers a framework rather than a prescriptive program model. as its foundation, this framework presents a set of guiding principles, which stress the importance of preparing practitioners to be leaders in their communities and a set of design concepts that stress the importance of practicing the skills of a scholarly practitioner. forming practitioners to be leaders in their communities under the cped framework requires intentionality in program design. this intentionality comes from faculty members who look beyond tradition and believe in the value of community-oriented scholarship as core to their workload. these faculty members understand the purpose of an ed.d. degree, and in turn recognize that they themselves must be engaged in the community. as such, they work collaboratively in neighborhoods, schools, and organizations surrounding their institutions. they honor the strengths and recognize the challenges of community members and work with them to create positive change in mutually respectful ways. such community-embedded faculty offer themselves as models for ed.d. candidates as they contribute to coconstructed systems that respond to educational issues. their research agenda is theoretical and practical. their publications include scholarly and practitioner audiences. their work meets rigorous standards and is to be commended on many levels. however, as faculty have moved their research and scholarship into communities, promotion and tenure practices remain focused on tradition and review committees do not know how to appropriately value this 60 type of work. community-engaged scholarship introduces an orientation that challenges epistemological norms, as well as customs that govern who is considered to be an expert peer and what products of dissemination are considered rigorous. perhaps the starkest misunderstanding of community-engaged scholarship is that it is merely service and supplementary to one’s teaching and research, instead of being understood as a publicly-oriented reframing of academic work that is integrative of teaching, research, and service (colbeck & wharton-michael, 2006). such an integrative and publicly oriented mode of scholarship presents "second order issues" that challenge the academy's norms and practices (sandmann, saltmarsh & o'meara, 2008, p. 50). given the emphasis cped places on practical redress of problems of educational practice, it is critical that colleges of education that house cped programs support faculty and students as they construct agendas of community-engaged scholarship and identities as communityengaged intellectuals. in this paper, we will discuss the importance of community-engaged faculty in the design of the education doctorate under the cped framework. using data gathered from cped consortium members, we first offer a glimpse as to how faculty are designing programs around community and offer insight as to the type of faculty needed to do this work. we then provide, as an example, the experiences of one such faculty member who has been enmeshed in community-engaged scholarship. she will describe her experience in developing community connections for her ed.d. program and the challenges she has faced in the promotion and tenure process as a result. the paper concludes with a discussion on the ways in which universities could and should better value this work and support such faculty. the cped framework within the initial years of the carnegie project on the education doctorate, faculty members rejected the idea of a one-size fits all program model. members claimed that professionals entering doctoral programs came with varying needs that reflected their varying practitioner contexts--rural, urban, suburban pk-20 educational settings. additionally, members argued that each university campus was unique which may or may not limit what could or couldn’t be changed programmatically. such variety and uniqueness across educational contexts, they argued, would not support a prescriptive model for the professional practice doctorate in education. thus, members set out to define other ways to collectively improve the ed.d. while honoring local contexts. the answer began with a new definition of the ed.d. that members characterized as: “the professional doctorate in education prepares educators for the application of appropriate and specific practices, the generation of new knowledge, and for the stewardship of the profession” (cped, 2009). with this understanding, members developed a framework upon which programs could apply this definition to their local context to design the strongest professional preparation possible. this framework consists of a foundation of six program design principles, a set of design-concepts that support the building of programs, and four overarching constructs that have been investigated to understand how programs have operationalize this framework. the program design principles state that the professional doctorate in education: 1. is framed around questions of equity, ethics, and social justice to bring about solutions to complex problems of practice. 2. prepares leaders who can construct and apply knowledge to make a positive difference in the lives of individuals, families, organizations, and communities. 3. provides opportunities for candidates to develop and demonstrate collaboration and communication skills to work with diverse communities and to build partnerships. 4. provides field-based opportunities to analyze problems of practice and use multiple frames to develop meaningful solutions. 61 5. is grounded in and develops a professional knowledge base that integrates both practical and research knowledge, that links theory with systemic and systematic inquiry. 6. emphasizes the generation, transformation, and use of professional knowledge and practice (cped, 2009). the design-concepts include signature pedagogy, laboratory of practice, inquiry as practice, problem of practice, dissertation in practice and scholarly practitioner. definitions for these concepts can be found on the cped website (http://cpedinitiative.org). for the purposes of this paper, we offer the definitions of only two of the design-concepts—scholarly practitioner and laboratory of practice—before discussing how member programs have operationalized this framework as a means to promote community engagement in ed.d. programs. scholarly practitioner was admittedly one of the last of the cped design-concepts to be defined, namely because it was meant to represent the culmination of the ed.d. program. according to cped, a scholarly practitioner is one who: blends practical wisdom with professional skills and knowledge to name, frame, and solve problems of practice; uses practical research and applied theories as tools for change because they understand the importance of equity and social justice; disseminates their work in multiple ways; and has an obligation to resolve problems of practice by collaborating with key stakeholders, including the university, the educational institution, the community, and individuals (cped, 2010). this definition represents the graduate who has been formed through a cped-influenced ed.d. program and exemplifies the cped definition of the ed.d. while all of the cped design-concepts contribute to the formation of the scholarly practitioner, the laboratory of practice in particular relates to the ways in which community engagement is learned and how principle #3 (provides opportunities for candidates to develop and demonstrate collaboration and communication skills to work with diverse communities and to build partnerships) is enacted in cpedinfluenced ed.d. programs. therefore, the laboratory of practice for professional preparation is: a setting where theory and practice inform and enrich each other. they address complex problems of practice where ideas—formed by the intersection of theory, inquiry, and practice—can be implemented, measured, and analyzed for the impact made. laboratories of practice facilitate transformative and generative learning that is measured by the development of scholarly expertise and implementation of practice (cped, 2010). this cped design-concept moves away from the traditional critique of laboratories—wherein academics carry out experiments in communities—towards a new definition that advocates collaborative spaces that facilitate transformative and generative learning. in this sense, the practitioner works with coalitions of stakeholders (that include academics, students, educators, community leaders, residents, etc.) to create opportunities to dream innovatively together and to develop promising strategies to address local problems. over the past nine years, the cped framework has been adopted by all member institutions (originally 25, now over 80) as well as by a significant number of non-member institutions. the underlying commitment to this framework is the belief that scholarly practitioners can and must transform their own practices. such growth both within and outside of the cped organization indicates strong interest among institutions of higher education to respond to the needs of educational practitioners. the result has been http://cpedinitiative.org/ 62 the creation of ed.d. programs that empower these leaders to transform educational systems and better lead those that work on the front lines of education (perry, zambo, & wunder, in press). cped & community engagement as we have noted above, the importance of community connections and partnerships are noted in cped’s third principle and in its definitions of scholarly practitioner and laboratory of practice. like other aspects of the cped framework, the consortium is continually working to better understand if, and how, this principle and these design-concepts are being enacted in member ed.d. programs. when asked how this should be performed, consortium members noted that a set of “constructs” could be used to look across the cped framework, allowing for the many aspects to weave together. given this, a team of improvement fellows (faculty from cped member institutions) were invited to join in cped research efforts and tasked with defining these constructs and gathering data across the consortium. one construct noted to be important was the role of community connections and partnerships. to investigate this construct fellows operationally defined it as: “community connections and partnerships require consistent, persistent, and equally honored engagement between and mutually beneficial outcomes for academicians and stakeholders in and from the community” (cped, 2015). using this definition data were gathered from cped members in june 2015. several findings emerged that have helped cped understand its members’ work with community in ed.d. programs and the importance of supporting faculty as they create and foster community practice contexts for the formation of scholar practitioners. the role of community connections and partnerships, the cped fellow’s found, serves different purposes in member ed.d. programs and at different stages ed.d. program development. with an initial survey, it was discovered that the notion of community connections and partnerships provided structure for the overall ed.d. program design as well as in the selection of scholarly literature and assignments that ed.d. students complete. program structures tended to come from theoretical frameworks that focus on culture, place, social action, collaboration, and criticality. students learn about critical reflection, democratic ideals, and the socio-cultural context of schooling and learning by reading literature focused on community and education (e.g., curriculum, pedagogy, and context) and the influence of race, gender, and class on educational opportunities. assignments are active, applied, and aimed at helping students research their actions and ideas. ed.d. students are typically asked to build partnerships in varied communities and to conduct action-oriented studies that collect data, perform analysis, and present findings in co-constructed ways. through data cped learned that enacting the cped framework in an ed.d. program made community connections and partnerships an integral part of professional preparation. ed.d. students are being exposed to intentional program designs that offer scholarship and experiences focused on community engagement. as a result, these students become action-oriented, reflective scholar practitioners. wanting to delve deeper, fellows collected more data at one of its bi-annual meetings. focus groups were formed with approximately 150 faculty members who were working at varying stages of designing and implementing their programs. fellows asked members to explain how their programs defined community connections and partnerships and what these definitions looked like in their ed.d. programs. data from these sessions showed that faculty in the early phases of designing their programs stressed the importance and role of community connections and partnerships in all aspects of program design. these faculty were largely optimistic that embedding their students in communities would both benefit and challenge thinking, and teach students to co-construct community based research. faculty members in this design stage saw the ultimate goal of community work as developing leaders who learn from and with varied communities and in turn, take back what they learn in their courses to their own communities. 63 along the same lines, faculty members who were in the process of implementing their cped-influenced ed.d. program believed that community connections would challenge student thinking. however, with a bit of programmatic experience under their belts, these faculty members questioned the “hows” of doing this work. in particular, faculty struggled with the “boundaries” that defined community. for example, they asked ‘is community broadly defined to mean the state or regional levels, or should it be more narrowly defined such as the individual student's’ work site?’ in addition, this group of faculty participants grappled with the notion of what it meant to ‘know one’s community and work effectively in one’s community.’ in contrast, faculty members whose programs were established and had graduated students viewed community engagement in ed.d. programs as variable. this meant building community within the programs themselves by inviting diverse individuals from varied contexts (k-12 teachers, administrators, higher education, organization leaders, etc.), or engaging community-stakeholders into the admissions process by asking applicants to supply reference letters from these individuals. community and partnerships were also part of the ethos of their programs and threaded throughout the curriculum as students worked on problems of practice found in communities and worked on dissertations in practice that impacted communities (see cped website for this design-concept definition). however, these faculty members noted challenges in utilizing community connections and partnerships during the dissertation process. what these data highlight is that faculty members believe community engagement has an important role in professional preparation programs in education. however, it also notes the complexity faculty face in designing these connections and experiences for their students and themselves. in the next section, we supply a framework for this work and then outline ways in which faculty have been successful in integrating community engagement into cped-influenced ed.d. programs by offering the experience of one cped faculty member. we will then discuss the characteristics of these individuals and the need and ways for making their work easier through a university-wide support system. the tempered radical leading the redesign of a cped-influenced ed.d. is not always an easy endeavor for the faculty member who finds him/herself battling policy, procedures and colleagues that are steeped in traditional academic culture (perry, 2013). additionally, these faculty members face personal consequence because traditional faculty reward structures do not incorporate informal efforts (o’meara, 2006) such as redesigning programs. despite these challenges, however, many assistant and associate faculty members around the country have persisted creating ed.d. programs that are innovative and non-traditional. perry (2010, 2013) found that these faculty members who lead changes in ed.d. program designs were often successful because they exhibit qualities of “tempered radicals.” meyerson’s (2003) tempered radicals framework describes individuals who both identify with and are committed to their institutions but who are also committed to a cause or movement that is “fundamentally different from and possibly at odds with the dominant culture of their organization” (meyerson & scully, 1995, p. 186). these leaders aspire to create positive change but have no formal authority. as a means to limit personal discomfort in moving the agenda forward, they must temper or tailor their strategies. tempered radicals rely on a variety of strategies that do not necessarily follow a formal step-by-step process, but rather offer ways to tackle obstacles and resistance. meyerson’s model identified the difficulties that faculty members face during the change process and described them at various levels— the individual or psychological level (motivation, identity, and resilience), the group or social psychological level (strategy, tactics, power dynamics), and the organizational level (leadership development, group formation, structure and culture). 64 the tempered radical framework offers a lens through which to understand how one faculty member at a cped-influenced ed.d. program created an ed.d. program focused on community engagement despite institutional and personal challenge. in the next section, we offer the story of deborah. deborah’s story clinging to traditional concepts regarding the doctorate in education as well as traditional faculty expectations for teaching, research, and service in cped-influenced institutions may result in the decrease of higher education’s relevance in educational reform. to remain relevant, institutions must provide meaningful ed.d. programs for practitioners. cped’s framework provides clear guidance for transforming the focus and the pedagogy of the ed.d., as envisioned by shulman, golde, bueschel, and garabedian (2006) and perry and imig (2008) to ensure our ed.d. graduates can transform our pk-20 school systems. furthermore, institutions of higher education can remain relevant by supporting faculty who align their research, teaching, and service with the cped framework. this means supporting faculty who are doing innovative work and clarifying promotion and tenure expectations for community-engaged scholars who work in communities and in practice settings. my identity as a community-engaged scholar was informed by 30 years as a teacher and school administrator. i intended to return to a school leadership position after completing my dissertation and serving as part-time clinical faculty preparing future school leaders. instead, i accepted a tenure-line position within an institution known for its innovation and community engagement, portland state university. my appointment letter included the traditional expectations in the areas of teaching, research, and service. while our promotion and tenure policies include traditional evaluation concepts such as “quality,” “impact,” and “peers,” many within our university are working to ensure that faculty contributions are evaluated in ways that are inclusive (ellison & eatman, 2008), reflect cped principles, and integrate an expanded understanding of community-engaged scholarship. while i had considerable expertise and success serving as a scholarly practitioner leading schools and as a clinical faculty member, my transition to a community-engaged, tenure-line scholar was challenging. however, several important factors eased the transition in several ways. my program coordinator, department chair, research director, and dean provided substantial support for my transition: release time to engage partners, funds to develop my scholarly agenda, professional development at national conferences on educational inequities, regular meetings with the associate dean, and graduate assistant time to support community outreach. these resources ensured my work was embedded in the community, of support to those seeking to end educational disparities, and would also contribute to our graduate school and university’s mission of serving our community within the promotion and tenure focus on teaching, research, and service. my transition to a community-engaged scholar was also eased by my assignment to teach in the administrator licensure program and the educational administration doctoral program. as a part of teaching in the doctoral program, i conducted research with one of my students who is latino, a leader in the state latino advocacy organization, and a mentor in the latino mentoring program. we completed all aspects of one study side by side, examining the experience of 10 award-winning latino administrators in the pacific northwest. we presented our results to the latino mentoring program participants, and a research article has been accepted for publication in a scholarly journal. this work addressed all six cped principles, generated new professional knowledge, and was transformative in nature, not just for my doctoral student, but also for our respective educational organizations, for future school leaders, and for me as a community-engaged scholar. this student’s doctoral cohort recently asked if we could further investigate the findings by conducting an additional study in the coming year, applying the concepts they are learning in their doctoral research sequence to this next study. 65 my transition to community-engaged scholar conducting research was eased by my deep connections within the local educational community, which increased my opportunity to collaborate on research of importance to the community. two additional research opportunities emerged: one researching a program i developed while a high school administrator and the other collaborating with a school district on a culturally responsive teacher evaluation rubric. when i served as a high school principal, several well-connected business people asked me to identify the most pressing problem that i faced in my role. i shared with them the complexity of teaching 200 students who were homeless, struggling to pay for rent or electricity in whatever way possible (peterson & lehnhoff, 2013). the business group subsequently helped secure a $160,000 grant to provide social services coordination in the school. as a community-engaged scholar, the same group asked me to conduct a study on the impact of that model on the students’ abilities to graduate from high school. i was able to locate students who became the subjects in the study. when the study was completed, i wrote a white paper. the paper presented the data from the now-graduated students on which aspects of the school-based social services coordination helped them graduate. i also created an implementation model and budget for school-based social services. a recommendation for statewide policy changes was included in the paper. my colleague and i shared the plan with three of the highest elected and appointed officials at the state and county level as well as those leading after-school programming and health and human services in our state. we met with the leaders of a major education advocacy organization and the chair of the city’s policy group on high school completion. after 18 meetings over the course of 6 months, and securing funding commitments from existing county and state resources, our model was adopted 11 months after my study began by an education advocacy organization. that organization oversaw implementation of the plan 7 months later, impacting hundreds of students in six of the highest poverty high schools in our county. my research developing a culturally responsive teaching rubric also began through ties i had as a scholarly practitioner. an esl director with whom i had worked as a principal, contacted me in my role as assistant professor to ask if i would join the district’s native cultural trust and collaborate in writing a grant to develop and implement a rubric that examined teaching from the indigenous perspective. after receiving the grant, i built on the work of julie cajune, the montana indian education program, and geneva gay to create an initial draft of a rubric. the school district’s title vii coordinator facilitated the native cultural trust’s work as they revised and implemented the rubric over a two-year period. the teachers in her district use the rubric to evaluate their lessons. my administrative licensure students implement the rubric in their assignments related to instructional leadership and culturally responsive teaching. as a result of our collaboration, the district has created resources for those teachers who are expanding their understanding of culturally responsive instruction specific to native youth, and 45 future school leaders have an additional tool for providing feedback to teachers. i am now collaborating with an internationally recognized scholar of indigenous teaching praxis and the school district’s title vii coordinator to publish this work in practitioner and scholarly journals. service to my institution began as a first-year tenure-line faculty member when i was appointed to represent our department as a member of the doctoral program council. soon thereafter, i was tasked with revising the education administration doctoral specialization to reflect cped principles and to ensure alignment with other doctoral specializations in our department. despite years of leadership experience in schools and a firm knowledge of change leadership literature, leading this change effort was challenging. i was the least senior faculty member in our specialization. the expected timeline for completion of the redesign was at a pace faster than was comfortable for my more experienced colleagues. cped principles had been embraced by our faculty but were not yet operationalized in terms of admissions, curriculum, or program outcomes. leading the process of meeting with tenured faculty who had previously taught doctoral courses and redesigning their syllabi based on cped principles was 66 nothing short of terrifying. i did not have the positional authority to lead this process. however, a twoyear effort resulted in the redesign of our ed.d. with the unanimous approval of all department faculty and doctoral program council members. our redesigned specialization reflected a strong focus on leadership for equity and an expectation that our doctoral students focus on community-engaged scholarship. articulating the quality and impact of this work for my promotion and tenure portfolio has been challenging. perhaps i am an example of what perry (2013) explicates in her examination of “tempered radicals” (kezar & lester, 2011). i am deeply committed to my institution; yet i am equally committed to preparing fierce equity leaders who will eliminate educational disparities in our schools in their various leadership roles. i want to impact the preparation of current practitioners as well as contribute to the knowledge base of what works to reduce educational disparities. articulating how my work provides a bridge between the world of scholarly practitioners and academics, a focus that i am committed to while following the traditional format outlined in promotion and tenure articles has resulted in me articulating my work as follows: research. in the past year, i have had two articles accepted for publication in peer-reviewed journals, one abstract accepted for development into an article in a peer-reviewed journal and one non-refereed contribution to a book chapter. since my appointment in 2011, i have published six peer-reviewed articles, three refereed chapters in conference proceedings, and three non-refereed publications. state and national (refereed) presentations. in the past year, i have given four refereed presentations. since my appointment in 2011, i have given 15 refereed presentations on various aspects of school leadership for equity; i am developing these presentations into scholarly or practitioner articles for peer-reviewed journals. local and state (invited) presentations. i have given six invited presentations in the past year, a total of 14 since appointment in 2011. all presentations focused on leadership for equity. (cite from peterson, personal narrative.) however, as ellison and eatman (2008) note, the work of community-engaged scholars does not necessarily fall neatly into one discrete category of teaching, research, or service. boyer (1990) first proposed and ellison and eatman later expanded upon the concept of a continuum, a framework for making sense of the work of faculty who are transforming their institutions and communities through community-engaged scholarship. it is also important for deans, provosts, and promotion and tenure committees to understand the community-engaged scholarship continuum when evaluating promotion and tenure portfolios of community-engaged scholars. for example, traditional definitions of “impact” and “peers” are not necessarily the same for community-engaged scholars as they are for traditional scholars. in my case, while many of my colleagues celebrated the impact of an article published in educational leadership, a practitioner journal distributed to 160,000 educational leaders, other more traditional colleagues discounted its value based on their interpretation of “peers” as fellow academicians and “impact” based on citations or other traditional, academic metrics. similarly, while some colleagues recognized the impact of my work to embed social workers in schools, others evaluate this contribution as service. i am sure there will be those who believe it is my inexperience that leads me to focus my energies on the community-engaged scholarship that i have described above. antonio, astin and cress (2000) note that women and faculty of color are more likely to value community-engaged scholarship and that while this focus may limit their academic promotions, they are unwilling to engage in anything other than community-engaged scholarship. this is how i am oriented to my work. i want to impact current 67 practitioners who can immediately reduce educational disparities in their roles as doctoral students and as school leaders. simultaneously, i want to contribute to the research base on characteristics of leaders reducing educational disparities. i know that while the academy is in the process of transitioning to a broader, more inclusive and socially just orientation toward community-engaged scholarship, there are some who will prefer traditional epistemologies and frameworks. i believe it is with care for my professional future that members of the promotion and tenure committee and some mentors encourage me to only engage in activities that demonstrate traditional interpretations of scholarly production. their guidance is offered as genuine support. i value their wisdom and care. and yet the “tempered radical” in me, the part of me that nudges against boundaries from within my organization to transform it, our students, and our communities to create a more socially just world, also believes in the power of our faculty and institutions to change. as i continue my focus preparing school leaders to be fierce leaders for equity, i have found support from colleagues within our institution and in professional organizations. while the promotion and tenure committee advised me to submit a traditional narrative and engage only in data-driven research (rather than conceptual explorations) and publish only in traditionally defined peer-reviewed journals, the committee also recognized the impact of my leadership on community-based organizations. tenured professors within my institution and from other cped-inspired institutions have reached out to mentor me on navigating traditional promotion and tenure expectations during our institution’s transition to honoring community-engaged scholarship and the expanded definition of “peers” for those transforming educational organizations as part of their scholarship. president emerita ramaley, one of our institution’s key leaders in community-engaged scholarship, mentored me through the yearlong portland state university office of global diversity and inclusion mentoring program. a cped improvement fellow offered to examine my portfolio through the critical lens of an outside reviewer nine months before its due date to ensure i’ve clearly articulated my case to potential reviewers who are new to the concepts of community-engaged scholarship. colleagues teaching in the doctoral program asked to meet with me to explore what it means to teach in a cped-influenced doctoral program and what the implications are for their pedagogy and learning outcomes. after i presented on the ed.d. change process at a recent cped convening, several colleagues reached out to ask for more strategies on leading the change process in their institutions. the colleagues described above are not content to cling to traditional concepts regarding ed.d. programs or faculty promotion and tenure expectations; rather they are supporting others while also transforming their own practices, programs, and institutions. characteristics and contexts that support community-engaged scholarship one might ask where cped doctoral students come into this argument. after all, cped is most centrally concerned with revolutionizing the preparation of educational leaders such that they are scholarly practitioners, able to effect change within their practice contexts and to respond to the educational inequities facing our world today. quite simply, socialization and adequate learning experiences are necessary for us to reach these goals. cped doctoral students must be socialized to value communityengaged scholarship and given the experiences and learning opportunities to effectively engage with others across institutional and sector boundaries. according to o’meara (2011, p. 186): if graduate students do not have an apprenticeship of sorts in [community] engagement (golde, 2008) and if they do not develop professional identity as [community] engaged scholars (colbeck, 2008), they will not develop the knowledge, skills, and professional orientation (austin & mcdaniels, 2006) to truly become [community] engaged scholars (o’meara, 2008c). the ability to provide such an experience through a laboratory of practice is directly determined by the capability of cped faculty members to offer such learning. to do this authentically, we assert, would 68 require that cped faculty member adopt community-engaged scholarship themselves. two key factors affect this possibility—individual characteristics and institutional context. first, a faculty member’s motivation to do community-engaged scholarship is not only influenced by the institutional context in which they work (colbeck & wharton-michael, 2006); personal characteristics and dispositions also strongly influence a desire to do community-engaged scholarship. as our colleague deborah relates above, her motivation for stepping out of the public education sector and into the academy stems from a transformation agenda. she selected the environment she felt best positioned her to more powerfully enact educational change—the academy. her ability to foster this work in an academic setting stems from her collaborative nature, which resonates with a democratic epistemology (saltmarsh, hartley & clayton, 2009). other characteristics that may contribute to one’s community-engaged orientation include gender (which deborah exemplifies) and race. women are more likely to involve their students in community-based learning (antonio, astin & cress, 2000) at the university-level. faculty of color, on the other hand, are more likely to be involved in outreach and to support university students who undertake outreach (o’meara, 2002). as a result of these characteristics, women and faculty of color are overrepresented among those who undertake community-engaged scholarship (vogelgesang, denson, & jayakumar, 2010) within academia. thus, if cped member institutions seek to attract a vibrant, diverse faculty who are eager to undertake transformational agendas, making a pathway that supports community engagement is essential. changing the structures that typically hinder such faculty work is a necessary step. second, faculty that do community-engaged scholarship need an institutional context that supports such research not only at the policy level but also at the personal level. in their work on faculty motivation for public scholarship, colbeck & wharton-michael (2006) assert that a faculty person’s context beliefs— when one expects the institution will support their goal attainment—are influenced by the degree they believe senior faculty will understand and value their community-engaged scholarship. many other studies centralize the influence of the institution on whether or not faculty will adopt or persist in their use of community-engaged scholarship (for example, beere, votruba & wells, 2011; jaeger, jamison, clayton, 2012; o’meara 2005; sandmann and weerts 2008). therefore, to fully realize the role of community-engagement cped-influenced ed.d. programs, it is not sufficient enough to attract new faculty such as deborah. we must be prepared to receive and retain these faculty, having familiarity and experience with community-engaged scholarship throughout our ranks as well as having policies and processes that promote the legitimacy and rigor of community-engaged scholarship. sandmann, saltmarsh, and o’meara (2008) stress the importance of moving community-engagement scholarship into the core of institutional practice. to do this, they note, “it will have to be advanced at the level of secondorder changes—changes that move beyond programs, structures, and rhetorical positioning to involve institutional culture and underlying policy. second-order changes are significantly more difficult to enact and require sustained effort over longer periods of time” (p. 50). implementing practices conducive to community engagement as a result of its work cped is changing institutional structures to foster innovation. in the context of community engagement, cped is undertaking this challenge alongside american higher education and the multitude of disciplinary associations have been wrestling with how to best advance communityengaged scholarship for some decades now. sandmann, saltmarsh and o’meara (2008) assessed the effectiveness of strategies that have been used to advance community-engaged scholarship, which range from redefining how a faculty members approach and characterize their work, to revising tenure and promotion guidelines, to assisting faculty to emphasize the rigor and quality of their community-engaged scholarship, to establishing a national pool of community-oriented peer experts who could review and evaluate community-engaged scholarship, to combining all of these approaches within a disciplinary 69 stream such as the health sciences (through the work of community-campus partnerships for health). all told, the authors found these strategies to be lacking. rather, they propose a new model for communityengaged scholarship that integrates change within four university homes: within graduate education, the departmental unit, disciplinary associations, and the institution as a whole. their model intersects faculty socialization and institutional change as a means to advance communityengaged scholarship. with regard to socialization, this occurs in graduate programs as they prepare graduate students equipped to undertake community-engaged scholarship as well as in the disciplinary homes of faculty as disciplinary associations seed community-engaged scholarship through special interest groups, conference themes, and national calls for publicly-oriented forms of the discipline. with regard to institutional change, sandmann, saltmarsh, and o’meara’s (2008) model cites faculty development and support for engagement as necessary practices. such support includes amending tenure and promotion awards for community engagement and helping faculty to document community engagement in their dossiers. however, the unique insight their model provides is to suggest that strong institutional change isn’t simply dependent on implementing the aforementioned practices, but doing so in ways guided by change theory and in ways that integrate changes across multiple aspects of the institution. cped might well consider adopting this model for community-engaged scholarship as a compass for its efforts to collaborate with member institutions to facilitate cped principle #3. focusing efforts across cped member institutions to socialize their faculty toward community-engaged scholarship and to change the processes and policies that most affect community-engaged scholarship is a wise investment. some examples of how the sandmann, saltmarsh, & o’meara (2008) model could be interpreted in the cped context might include the following suggestions. cped’s most direct influence could be exerted in the areas of: ● influencing graduate education by building up the resources and understanding of a laboratory of practice such that it is consonant with the carnegie definition of engagement and providing recognition or reward to those graduate students who are most visibly enacting cped’s commitments to community engagement). one idea might be to crystalize what a cped graduate would look like in two areas: k-12 leadership and faculty (of course underscoring the community-engaged nature of these graduates) also, for those cped institutions who are preparing future faculty, they ought to leverage the aac&u preparing future faculty work. ● exerting influence as a kind of disciplinary association by utilizing cped convenings, scholarly opportunities, and peer networks to advance scholarship and practice on community engagement in the cped context and by developing resources that support the appropriate evaluation of community-engaged scholarship conducted by cped faculty. this latter task could be modeled after the work has been done by community campus partnerships for health. ● encouraging cped institutions to create change at the departmental level by creating models of portfolio development that portrays how one’s community-engaged scholarship can be effectively positioned (whether or not the indicators for reward explicitly name and/or characterize) community-engaged scholarship) to the best effect within the institution’s existing promotion and tenure guidelines. additionally, cped influenced departments can harness models for development over time such as using tools like the engaged departments rubric (kecskes, 2008). cped may be able to model this departmentally-located work by providing opportunities within convening structures for cped schools to showcase their dossier work and use of the engaged departments rubric to create departmental policies and practices more conducive community-engaged scholarship. 70 conclusion if schools of education want to remain relevant, then these institutions must find better ways to prepare those leaders who are struggling to improve our nation’s pk-20 education systems. the cped framework for redesigning ed.d. programs is one very real way to do this. however, if we are to expect that educational practitioners who graduate from cped-influenced ed.d. programs will possess the skills, knowledge and dispositions to be scholarly practitioners then we must provide the laboratories that offer real practice for students to learn how to connect to communities and produce community-engaged research. community-engaged faculty who teach in these programs are the key. finding and supporting faculty who can establish strong community connections and incorporate those connections into their teaching and scholarship should be a high priority of both cped and non-cped member institutions. looking to our colleagues who study community-engaged scholarship provides a solid start. 71 references antonio, a. l., astin, h. s., & cress, c. m. (2000). community service in higher education: a look at the nation’s faculty. review of higher education 23 (4), 373–398. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/rhe.2000.0015 beere, c. a., votruba, j. c., & wells, g. w. (2011). becoming an engaged campus: a practical guide for institutionalizing public engagement. hoboken, nj: john wiley & sons. carnegie project on the education doctorate. (2010). cped design concepts. college park, md: author. carnegie project on the education doctorate (2009). working principles for the professional practice doctorate in education. college park, md: author. colbeck, c. l., & wharton‐michael, p. (2006). individual and organizational influences on faculty members' engagement in public scholarship. new directions for teaching and learning 2006 (105), 1726. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/tl.221 ellison, j., & eatman, t. k. (2008). scholarship in public: knowledge creation and tenure policy in the engaged university. syracuse, ny: imagining america. jaeger, a. j., jameson, j. k., & clayton, p. (2012). institutionalization of community-engaged scholarship at institutions that are both land grant and research universities. journal of higher education outreach and engagement 16 (1), 149-170. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/orsc.6.5.585 kecskes, k. (2008). creating community-engaged departments: self-assessment rubric for the institutionalization of community engagement in academic departments. portland state university. meyerson, d.e. (2003). tempered radicals: how everyday leaders inspire change at work. boston: harvard business school press. meyerson, d., & scully, m. (1995). tempered radicalism and the politics of ambivalence and change. organization science 6 (5), 585-600. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/orsc.6.5.585 o’connor, b., anthony-stevens, v., & gonzalez, n. (2014). nurture and sustain a culture of collaboration, trust, learning, and high expectations. r. ylimaki (ed.). the new instructional leadership: isllc standard two. new york: routledge. o’meara, k. (2002). uncovering the values in faculty evaluation of service as scholarship. journal of higher education 26 (1), 57–80. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/rhe.2002.0028 o’meara, k. a. (2005). encouraging multiple forms of scholarship in faculty reward systems: does it make a difference? research in higher education 46 (5), 479-510. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11162005-3362-6 o'meara, k. (2011). faculty civic engagement: new training, assumptions, and markets needed for the engaged american scholar. in j. saltmarsh & m. hartley (eds.) to serve a larger purpose: engagement for democracy and the transformation of higher education (pp. 177-198). philadelphia, pa: temple university press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/rhe.2000.0015 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/tl.221 http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/orsc.6.5.585 http://dx.doi.org/10.1287/orsc.6.5.585 http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/rhe.2002.0028 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11162-005-3362-6 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11162-005-3362-6 72 o’meara, k. & jaeger, a. (2006). preparing future faculty for community engagement: barriers, facilitators, models, and recommendations. journal of higher education outreach and engagement 11 (4), 3-26. perry, j. a. (2010). reclaiming the education doctorate: three cases of processes and roles in institutional change (doctoral dissertation). university of maryland, college park. perry, j.a., & imig, d.g. (2008 november/december). a stewardship of practice in education. change 40 (6), 42–48. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.3200/chng.40.6.42-49 perry, j.a. (2014). changing schools of education through grassroots faculty-led change. innovation in higher education, 39 (2), 155-168. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10755-013-9267-y perry, j.a., zambo, d. & wunder, s. (in press). understanding how schools of education have redesigned the doctorate of education. journal of school public relations 36, 58-85. saltmarsh, j., hartley, m. & clayton, p.h. (2009). democratic engagement white paper. boston, ma: new england resource center for higher education. sandmann, l., saltmarsh, j., & o'meara, k. (2008). an integrated model for advancing the scholarship of engagement: creating academic homes for the engaged scholar. journal of higher education outreach and engagement 12 (1), 47-64. shulman, l. s., golde, c.m., bueschel, a.c., & garabedian, k.j. (2006). reclaiming education's doctorates: a critique and a proposal. educational researcher 35 (3), 25-32. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.3102/0013189x035003025 vogelgesang, l. j., denson, n., & jayakumar, u. m. (2010). what determines faculty-engaged scholarship? the review of higher education 33 (4), 437–472. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/rhe.0.0175 author information deborah peterson prepares future school leaders with a strong focus on leadership for equity and reducing educational disparities as assistant professor in the educational leadership and policy department at portland state university. her research examines the experience of school leaders who successfully reduce educational disparities. she collaborates with community groups, school districts, and professional organizations to support context-specific solutions to problems of practice in schools. deborah peterson, ed.d. portland state university graduate school of education educational leadership and policy po box 751 615 sw harrison room 506u portland, oregon 97207-0751 phone: 503-725-4688 fax: 503-725-3200 email: dpeterso@pdx.edu http://dx.doi.org/10.3200/chng.40.6.42-49 http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10755-013-9267-y http://dx.doi.org/10.3102/0013189x035003025 http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/rhe.0.0175 mailto:dpeterso@pdx.edu 73 jill alexa perry is the executive director of the carnegie project on the education doctorate (cped) and a research associate faculty member at the university of pittsburgh. dr. perry’s research focuses on professional doctoral preparation in education, organizational change in higher education, and faculty leadership in higher education. dr. perry received a bachelor of arts in spanish and international studies and a masters of arts in higher education administration from boston college. she holds ph.d. in international educational policy from the university of maryland. she is a fulbright scholar (germany) and a returned us peace corps volunteer (paraguay). jill alexa perry, ph.d. university of pittsburgh 4318 wesley w. posvar hall 230 south bouquet street pittsburgh, pa 15260 cell: 301-204-2644 phone: 412-624-7272 email: jperry@pitt.edu lina d. dostilio directs the center for community-engaged teaching and research at duquesne university in pennsylvania. in this capacity, she facilitates teaching and research collaborations that involve university stakeholders in public problem solving across an array of social and environmental issues. lina previously served as chair of the board of directors of the international association for research on service-learning and community engagement and is the scholar in residence for campus compact’s research project on the community engagement professional. lina d. dostilio, ed.d. duquesne university a.j. palumbo center 600 forbes avenue pittsburgh, pa 15282 phone: 412-302-4810 email: dostiliol@duq.edu debby zambo, professor emerita from arizona state university is currently working as the associate director of the carnegie foundation on the education doctorate (cped). while at asu as coordinator of the ed.d. in leadership and innovation program while at asu. debby’s research interests include newly designed ed.d. programs and the application of educational psychology to educational practice. since 2012 she has worked closely with dr. jill perry, director of cped, helping with various aspects of the organization. in 2014 she became the associate director of cped and is continuing to work in this capacity. debby zambo, ed.d., emerita phone: 623-695-0682 email: debby.zambo@cpedinitiatice.org mailto:jperry@pitt.edu mailto:dostiliol@duq.edu mailto:debby.zambo@cpedinitiatice.org metropolitan universities vol. 29 no. 2 (may 2018), doi: 10.18060/22415 3 using the urban advantage to achieve the greatest good vicki l. golich just as urban and metropolitan universities and colleges serve an important role in their communities, cities serve important roles in students’ academic and personal growth. urban institutions provide them with the resources to grow and thrive in a fast-paced environment. with better opportunities for experiential learning, research and development, creative activity, and partnerships that create immediate and substantive impact on communities, this urban advantage was the focus of the 23rd annual cumu conference “the urban advantage” (cumu, 2017). the conference was held in denver, colorado in october 2017. presentations explored the unique learning opportunities provided by urban universities known to improve student persistence and successful career development (aac&u, n.d.). scholars and activists called for urban ihes to consider how they might engage with their surrounding communities more effectively to solve problems, improve the local economy, and educate a professional 21st century-relevant workforce. finally, they underscored the imperative that metropolitan colleges and universities stay true to their public mission. the keynote speakers for this conference—holland, howard, and seligsohn—set the stage for these presentations and conversations in a plenary session titled “voices from the field.” their powerful rhetoric both challenged and congratulated participants. holland noted, in particular, that ihe leaders must manage the changing landscape of higher education, while keeping grounded in the purpose of a university degree. howard reminded us that colleges and universities should leverage and harmonize their institutional assets to support surrounding communities, as this achieves “mutual, shared, enlightened self-interest of the very best kind.” finally, seligsohn encouraged conference attendees to avoid the false dichotomy that sees civic education as distinct from career preparation. in doing so, he reminded all that “a powerful positive relationship between engaged citizens and community members … and economic prosperity,” and that civic-minded citizens will demand positive political behavior from elected officials. this issue includes two winners of the ernest a. lynton award for the scholarship of engagement. the 2015 winner, demeulenaere, describes his personal journey that brought him to combine the teaching, research, and service obligations of a tenure-line faculty member with his passion to engage in activism to achieve social justice for all. walker, the 2017 recipient, and co-author, east, present two case studies of institutions that engaged their surrounding communities in redevelopment efforts. the next two articles describe university efforts to develop and build spaces in downtown areas to expand access to the university, enhance economic vitality of the region, and create opportunities for partnerships. barthell, simmons, and youngblood describe the university of central oklahoma (uco) experiences in developing uco downtown. similarly, davson, englot, fischzang, fleming, and kline describe how they created a new space in the city of newark—“express newark”—that benefits rutgers faculty and students and city inhabitants. 4 three articles describe academic-community partnerships focused on improving educational outcomes. provinzano, riley, levine, and grant describe drexel’s school of education partnership with communities in schools. larrivee, challupka, cleary, and comeau describe how worcester state university engaged with their community to develop a program that improves educational pathways for direct care workers. a group of faculty at california state university san marcos (csusm)—nuñez-alvarez, clark-ibañez, ardón, ramos, and pellicia— describe their work on increasing the community engagement of their surrounding latino community though “a culturally and linguistically relevant civics curriculum” delivered to students and their families. finally, golich, haynes, hillhouse, and pfeifer describe how metropolitan state university of denver faculty and administrators engaged in iterative conversations with industry leaders to develop a curriculum and designing educational facilities to meet the integrated needs of the university and the region. references aac&u (american association of colleges and universities. (n.d.). “high-impact practices.” retrieved from https://www.aacu.org/resources/high-impact-practices. boyer, e. (1997). scholarship reconsidered: priorities of the professoriate. san francisco, ca: jossey-bass. coalition for community schools. (n.d.). retrieved from www.communityschools.org/. cumu. (2017). “past conferences: the urban advantage.” retrieved from www.cumuonline.org/what-we-do/annual-conference/past-conferences/. democracy collaborative. (2018). “the democracy collaborative and the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities (cumu) launch the higher education anchor mission initiative in partnership with 31 colleges and universities.” retrieved from https://democracycollaborative.org/content/democracy-collaborative-and-cumu-launch-highereducation-anchor-mission-initiative. https://www.aacu.org/resources/high-impact-practices http://www.communityschools.org/ http://www.cumuonline.org/what-we-do/annual-conference/past-conferences/ https://democracycollaborative.org/content/democracy-collaborative-and-cumu-launch-higher-education-anchor-mission-initiative https://democracycollaborative.org/content/democracy-collaborative-and-cumu-launch-higher-education-anchor-mission-initiative copyright © 2016 metropolitan universities vol. 27 no. 3 (autumn 2016), doi: 10.18060/21389 shared spaces, shared learning: university/corrections partnerships that transform thinking deborah smith-arthur and amy spring abstract by partnering with correctional facilities, institutions of higher education are well positioned to create shared learning communities that provide profound educational experiences. portland state university offers several courses involving university/corrections partnerships; these courses meet inside carceral institutions. this article highlights three of these courses and the shared learning spaces they involve. we address the negotiating of these partnerships, development of the courses, and the creation, maintenance and outcomes of these complex learning environments. keywords: prison education; community based learning; engaged learning. introduction imagine: university students have signed liability releases which delineate the inherent risks of entering a correctional or detention facility, and ask them to wholly assume those risks. in great detail, they have been told what and what not to wear, and they have been carefully advised of the statute making the introduction of contraband into a correctional facility or detention center a felony. now they are physically at the facility, which will become their classroom for the term. admonitions from family members or friends perhaps echo in their minds: “don’t go there! it’s dangerous!” walking from the parking lot, under the razor wire, and through a locked gate that requires them to be buzzed in so they can enter the institution, makes them wonder what awaits them. a corrections officer asking them to produce their state-issued identification greets them. they sign in and are given a visitor’s badge, and are often asked to acknowledge and sign a statement that, in the event that they are taken as a hostage, no one will negotiate for their release. they are instructed to stow their keys and cell phones in waiting room lockers, two of the many strictly prohibited personal items not allowed in the facility. they pass through the metal detector—sometimes several times, shedding belts, shoes, anything that may contain metal, in front of their colleagues. occasionally during this disrobing process the officer in charge will publicly admonish students for not adhering to the dress code. once cleared, students replace all removed items, and move forward, hearing the electronic grind of the heavy sliding door, which lets them inside the institution and into their classroom. meanwhile, on the inside, the incarcerated course participants—those living inside the razor wire—are also nervously wondering what’s to come, what to expect. perhaps their own 107 colleagues will disparage them as they get the call from staff to head to the education unit. they wonder what college students will think of them; they wonder how they will be perceived. why do college students bother to come spend time with them? are they on display? can they handle the academic work? will they be judged? there are a variety of ways to think about shared learning spaces in higher education. combining residence halls with academic programs, using technology to create virtual learning spaces or online classrooms, and developing frameworks for experiential learning in community settings are all among the various ways that we conceive of shared learning spaces. in this article, we focus on a unique setting for a shared learning space: the implementation of learning communities within carceral institutions involving both incarcerated learners and university students learning together, side by side inside a locked facility. these shared learning spaces bring these seemingly disparate communities of students together in a physical, social and intellectual way, creating a powerful learning community. through experience we have learned that these spaces have attributes, challenges, and rewards unique to the setting; the restrictive rules and regulations that are layered on this educational setting are like no other learning environment. the creation and maintenance of a university/corrections partnership, of course, involves negotiating the complex bureaucracy of both institutional bureaucracies. there is growing interest in developing these partnerships as evidenced by the january 2016 publication “building effective partnerships for high-quality postsecondary education in correctional facilities” (vera institute, 2016). while other types of shared learning spaces might involve partners in the general community, contending with the regulations, needs and logistics of correctional institutions present particular and heightened challenges. additionally, courses involving learning communities within carceral settings involve students from seemingly very different educational paths and life experiences. this collaboration can be somewhat disorienting, thus also providing potential to be particularly transformative. close monitoring of and support for the feelings and emotions, as well as the academic learning, of all the students and participants is required. the thorough preparation for the experience, the design of the physical space, the providing of tools and support for engagement across perceived difference, and the creation of opportunities for all students/participants to collaborate together toward a common goal are all important aspects of managing and making the most of this cross-cultural shared learning space. in this paper we examine the various aspects of shared learning spaces within carceral settings through the lens of three such course offerings at portland state university. the first, developed by a faculty member who teaches the juvenile justice capstone, involves a partnership with the multnomah county department of community justice, juvenile services division, and with the beat within, “a publication of writing and art from the inside” of juvenile detention facilities nationwide (www.beatwithin.org). this course brings writing and art workshops through the beat within into the donald e. long detention facility in portland, oregon. the next course offering, “women’s prison gardens capstone,” partners with the oregon department of corrections, and specifically the gardening program at coffee creek correctional facility, a women’s prison about 40 minutes south of portland in wilsonville, oregon. through this course, students make three trips to the prison garden to learn gardening skills from the incarcerated women gardeners there. the last course, “inside out prison exchange: civic leadership” 108 partners with the oregon department of corrections. this course has been offered at both columbia river correctional institution in portland and coffee creek correctional facility. students in this course study and practice civic engagement and civic leadership. the correctional facilities where these courses take place are within a driving distance of roughly 45 minutes from the portland state university campus; their proximity to campus is in large part why the instructors chose these institutions as partners. the capstone program’s curriculum: making these courses possible portland state university is a 50-acre campus situated in downtown portland, oregon, that enrolls more than 22,500 undergraduate and 5,600 graduate students. this urban-serving university celebrates its well-known motto “let knowledge serve the city” by animating the student and faculty teaching and research experience with engagement opportunities that bring the campus community into applied teaching and learning settings in partnership with community organizations. in the early 1990s psu reformed its undergraduate general education requirements to include a six-credit senior-level multi-disciplinary community-based capstone course (metropolitan universities, 2015). capstones are the culminating experience of the university studies curriculum, psu’s innovative general education program. in the capstone, students and faculty work with community partners collaboratively to respond to a communityfaculty identified concern. each of the courses featured in this article are capstones, and the students enrolled in these courses are nearing the end of their undergraduate requirements. the aim of the capstone is for students to demonstrate the sum of their learning through application and engagement with a real problem, working in collaboration with others. all capstone courses have a community-based learning element, and students are required to work with or on behalf of a community partner. these courses are limited to 18 students, thus allowing for a small seminar-type of learning environment. all of these curricular and administrative elements described above contribute to our ability to develop an educational experience of this type. physical space and tools for learning and engagement juvenile justice capstone the juvenile justice capstone course partners with the multnomah county department of community justice (dcj), specifically the juvenile services division. portland state university and the multnomah county dcj have a mutually beneficial, long-term partnership, of more than twelve years. the juvenile services division of multnomah county dcj operates the donald e. long juvenile detention home (jdh) (multco.us/dcj-juvenile). this facility houses youth, typically ages 12-18, from multnomah, clackamas and washington counties. the majority of youth are being held in detention pre-adjudication, and the average length of stay is 14 days, but youth can spend anywhere from 1– 241 days in the facility. roughly 60 percent of youth are incarcerated under oregon’s ballot measure 11, requiring automatic waiver to adult criminal court for youth aged 15 and older charged with certain crimes, as well as mandatory minimum sentences upon conviction (ors 137.700, multco.us/dcj-juvenile, n.d.). through this capstone, psu students bring a writing and art workshop into juvenile detention, through the beat within: a publication of writing and art from the inside. the beat within has 109 been in existence for twenty years. founded in 1996, the program began in almost an impromptu manner, following the death of tupac shakur, a famous rapper from the late 1980’s and 90’s whose music often focused on violence and hardship in inner cities, racism and other social problems. david inocencio, founder of the beat within, has commented on how impactful shakur’s death was for many youth, and he wanted to give youth a forum for expressing their feelings. out of that idea, the beat within was born (hilton, 2010). now the beat within allows over 5,000 incarcerated youth nationwide the opportunity to reflect and write on the same topics each week, and also to read how others are responding to these same topics. responses are typed, lightly edited, and sent to the editorial board of the beat within in san francisco. a number of pieces are chosen for publication. printed bi-weekly, the magazine is distributed to a wide variety of stakeholders in the juvenile justice system, including policymakers, judges, attorneys court counselors, and of course, incarcerated youth. in order to participate in this capstone, psu students must complete and pass a background screening through the multnomah county dcj. as psu’s 10-week terms means that roughly 15 capstone students are undergoing the clearance process at dcj approximately every 12 weeks, this clearance process requires substantial time and resources on behalf of dcj staff. the strength of the partnership is dependent upon the willingness of dcj to facilitate this process. however, dcj also recognizes and appreciates the benefits to their clients and the support of their mission that the partnership with psu provides. in preparation for facilitating beat within workshops, the class tours the detention facility and begins the process of being oriented to the culture of detention. additionally, the class thoroughly reviews the beat within volunteer and training manual as well as editing guidelines. by the third week of the term, students are ready to begin facilitating workshops. while the incarcerated youth who participate in the workshops do report increased interest in writing, and in reading, the emphasis of the partnership is not on developing youth into polished writers, but instead on positive pro-social engagement between university students and incarcerated youth (catching, 2013). the beat within is the vehicle for that engagement. on days when youth may not be interested in participating in the writing or art, for a variety of reasons, students and youth participants engage in a discussion about college or perhaps play a game of dominoes. even more important than the writing and art produced is the pro-social engagement between the detained youth and the psu students. after the weekly workshops, capstone students type and lightly edit each piece of writing, according to specific guidelines provided by the beat within, and then submit that work to editorial board at the beat within. editors at the beat then review the submissions and various pieces are chosen for publication. additionally, each young person who submits work receives a personalized response from the beat within. the shared physical learning space of this course is situated within housing units, or “pods” within the juvenile detention facility. most of the activities during the day for detained youth, including their learning, eating, recreation, and sleeping, happen within that space. consequently, this is where the partnership and the engagement with the capstone class happens as well. students and detained youth who participate with the beat within workshops are situated at tables in an open area of the unit. sitting around these tables, youth participants and college students are in circles together. the dynamic of the circle helps to put all at ease, and to 110 dismantle any sense of hierarchy. corrections staff, or “custody service specialists,” are always present. however, over the years of the partnership, trust in the background process and the training has been established, and in fact most custody staff see capstone as “a part of the culture of detention” (lefebvre, pers. comm., 2015). therefore, while remaining present and engaged, most of the facility staff allow capstone students to lead and run the workshops without interference. this shared learning space results in differing, yet complementary, outcomes for the various stakeholders. from the perspective of the department of community justice, the capstone class and the beat within workshops enhance their mission by “assisting youth in developing creative problem solving skills, empathy, and tools to express emotions appropriately.” (bolson, pers. comm., 2015). the course provides pro-social engagement and community connections that dcj staff cannot provide. in fact, the course was recognized with a “volunteer of the year” award from multnomah county in 2011. for capstone students, the shared learning space of the beat within workshops inside juvenile detention offers them an opportunity to examine and transform how they perceive those labeled as juvenile delinquents and how they understand criminal and juvenile justice policy. through anonymous end-of-term evaluations and reflective writing assignments, students have reported that the experience of working with the youth has changed them profoundly. specifically, they report having learned that the youth are “brilliant, unique, smart, talented, thoughtful, kind and reflective” which is not how they perceived incarcerated youth prior to the course. additionally, the experience of working directly with incarcerated youth inside a detention facility situates the academic component of the course within a real and applied context. just as paulo freire advocated “reading the world” as a key pedagogical strategy, this critical place-based educational experience allows students to reflect upon that place (juvenile detention) and has an impact upon their relationship to it (gruenewald, 2003). indeed, “...firsthand experience can become an important way to shape an audience’s sensitivity for processing arguments calling for social change regarding the prison-industrial complex...and prepare [students] for a critical examination of incarceration policy” (hinck et al., 2013, 40). for the detained youth who participate in the beat within workshops, engaging weekly with university students leads to a positive sense of community engagement, and conversely, decreased feelings of isolation (catching, 2013). during the closing circle at the end of each term, in which psu students, incarcerated youth, and dcj staff sit together to reflect upon the experience, many youth have expressed that through their engagement with college students, that they are “not forgotten,” and that they are appreciative for the involvement and for the fact that they have been “given a voice.” shared learning space and engagement with university students provides for growth that extends beyond academic learning and leads to a better sense of belonging and well being. women’s prison gardens capstone while the juvenile justice capstone utilizes writing and art as a tool for prosocial engagement between college students and young people experiencing incarceration, the women’s prison garden capstone utilizes gardening as the tool for that engagement. incarcerated women teach 111 organic gardening skills to psu capstone students, sharing their expertise and skills that they have developed while planting and maintaining the garden inside the prison yard. the physical space of the shared learning happens within the prison, outdoors, in the ½ acre garden area, which was created by the prison gardening program. oftentimes, all participants are on their knees in the garden together; physically in the dirt. this dynamic is disarming and leads to a shared sense of participation and a sense of equality among participants. the developer and instructor of this course was already a volunteer with the department of corrections, and was instrumental in creating that gardening program. the psu capstone program was viewed as a way to expand and sustain the gardening program. the instructor proposed the offering of the course as an adjunct instructor, and the capstone committee, a small group of seasoned capstone faculty who review all new course proposals, approved it. her pre-existing relationship with the department of corrections made the partnership development between the department of corrections and the university relatively uncomplicated. gardening programs in prisons can soften the effects of the harsh prison environment while at the same time assisting with preparation for reintegration into society. exposure to gardening skills offers people experiencing incarceration prosocial tools for self-support and for coping with stress (lindemuth, 2014). beyond gardening together, however, the gardening program at cccf and the partnership with psu capstone offers incarcerated women and students both an opportunity to engage with one another as peers. the instructor has noticed that participants also push beyond the stereotypes of one another they may have held previously (rutt, d., pers. comm., 2016). again, varying yet complementary learning outcomes are achieved. despite the fact that in this course students make only handful of visits to the prison throughout the term, this place-based pedagogy makes the academic learning, involving an examination of the experience of women in prison, and the social change related to the prison-industrial complex, more real and impactful for the university students. as indicated through reflective writing and discussion in the course, students find that they have a deeper understanding of the issues and challenges faced by incarcerated women, and their previous course work in their various disciplines becomes more focused and fine-tuned. for the incarcerated women, teaching gardening skills to university students gives them a sense that they indeed have meaningful contributions to make, and also helps them to feel more connected to the world beyond the prison walls. through her extensive experience with the garden and the course, the instructor has shared her belief that the garden and the attendant engagement with outsiders creates a healthier environment for everyone there, incarcerated women as well as staff (rutt, d., pers. comm., 2016). inside out: civic leadership capstone the inside out: prison exchange civic leadership capstone course has been offered once per year for the past 10 years. this course provides an opportunity for a small group of students from psu, “outside students,” and a small group of residents from a prison within close proximity to psu, “inside students,” to study and learn together. the shared learning space for the course is physically located within the prison. each week, “inside students” and “outside students” work together in a structured peer and collaborative learning environment. students (both inside and outside students) examine their own perceptions about crime and justice, the criminal justice system, and corrections through a policy analysis lens. all students gain a deeper understanding 112 of the criminal justice system through the marriage of theoretical knowledge and practical experience achieved by meeting together weekly. students in the class also work together to complete a culminating project, through which they propose a project or policy change that they believe is organizationally viable and would improve the lives of those incarcerated in the facility. the shared learning space for this course takes place in a classroom space made available to the class within the prison. higher education courses are not readily available to incarcerated people, yet there is growing recognition and data that educational programs in prison promote safer communities, safer prisons, and are cost effective (vera institute, 2016). from the perspective of prison administrators, the course allows college level instruction to be made available to the carceral community without cost to the inside students. the psu students, however, pay full tuition and bear the cost of instruction, thus making it possible for the instructor to offer the course at the prison as part of their teaching load. the course also provides inside students with regular opportunities to engage with outside community members in ways that reinforce prosocial engagement in an academic community. as confirmed by student reflective assignments and in class conversations, inside students regularly report they feel connected to a larger community of caring and thoughtful people on the outside and feel a sense of confidence as they consider their release that they otherwise would not have gained. given that the learning community involves college students, and both communities of students complete the same assignments and readings, the shared learning space provides inside students with an opportunity to have the role of student modeled for them by a community of students that are perceived to be academically accomplished (collier & morgan, 2008). this modeling reinforces for the inside students that they in fact possess the intellect and skills to perform in a college level course. as with the two previous courses, the shared learning space for the psu community of students allows them to challenge their assumptions of who incarcerated people are and how the policy practices of incarceration play out in the real lives of real people. the inside and outside students in this class report being moved to rethink their assumptions about the “other” and this often results in them seeing themselves as more alike than different. portland state students who enroll in this course are nearing graduation. they have taken dozens of classes on campus over the four plus years of their academic career. they enter the inside out prison exchange: civic leadership course with a sense of confidence that they know how to effectively perform in a college class to learn and be rewarded with a commensurate grade. many of these college students are drawing on tacit knowledge that they are not even aware that they possess, but that help them perform successfully in their classes (polanyi, 1966). although some of the inside students have attended college prior to being incarcerated, the great majority have not or were last in a college class many years prior. therefore, the inside students in this class are often not able to draw on the same informal and implicit knowledge about how to perform well in a college class as the outside students. in general, the inside students believe that to do well in the class they tend to complete all the assigned reading and follow with precision the assignment guidelines. the attention to detail the inside students bring to the class reading assignments, homework, and class discussions is a regular reminder that preparation and rigorous engagement with the course content is essential in this course. 113 the class is a highly interactive class where students complete assigned readings and in small groups (of both inside and outside students) facilitate discussion of the readings. there is always a group project in this class where the students complete a community engagement project that results in a change within the prison. projects have included: (a) setting up an institution-wide recycling program; (b) the introduction of lower calorie, healthier meal options to a system that only offered high carbohydrate, high calorie options; and (c) the establishment of a clothing closet for indigent inmates without access to clothing suitable for life upon release from prison. students analyze power and resources, and learn and improve proposal writing and presentation skills. all of these course elements build a set of knowledge and skills that civic leaders must master to be effective change agents in their communities. students repeatedly report they are surprised at how receptive the prison administration is to their ideas and how the power dynamic between prison staff and the class shifts slightly while the class is taking place. this intensive course provides a life-altering experience that allows the psu (“outside”) students to re-conceptualize and rethink what they have learned in the classroom, in the media, and through public policy about marginalized, incarcerated communities. in the words of a former outside student, “i have learned to see my inside classmates as individuals and people with hope and dreams like everyone else instead of as their crime. i used to view all individuals in prisons as criminals. through my experience during this class my view has changed in such a way that i believe will be with me for many years to come” (quote from a reflective assignment, 2008). through gaining these insights, this class inspires outside students in a variety of ways. for those who view themselves in future criminal justice careers, through reflective writing assignments it is clear that the experience of spending intensive time with incarcerated people serves to humanizes that population. additionally, as is often reported in reflective papers and in classroom discussion, students in this course develop a desire and a commitment to work towards a more socially just prison system. while further research is warranted, it is at least anecdotally clear to the instructor that the experience of the course encourages students to pursue employment and community work that leads toward an effective, humane, restorative, criminal justice system. at the same time, the class challenges the incarcerated (“inside”) students to place their life experiences into a larger social context, to develop or rekindle their intellectual self-confidence and interest in further education, and to encourage them to recognize their capacity as agents of change in their own lives, as well as in the broader community. partnership development with corrections departments partnership development between community organizations and educational institutions that make community-based courses like capstones possible is never an easy task. an established and growing body of literature details that reciprocal, collaborative, sustained partnerships require the parties involved to invest time and resources in establishing trust, clear and open communication, establishing a set of common goals for the partnership (sandy & holland, 2006; community-campus partnerships for health, 2007; creighton, 2008). organizational culture and the roles and authority individuals have within their organization influences the development of these partnerships. kevin kecskes (2006) reminds us of the importance of understanding the culture of our organization’s “belief system” to effectively employ partnership development strategies. development of the partnerships with prisons, jails, and detention centers can be 114 replete with various levels of attendant challenges. the primary concern of locked facilities is safety and security. in large part a high level of investment in restrictive rules and a strong chain of command achieves these goals. colleges and universities prioritize education over safety and security and often go about achieving this goal in an organizational culture with significantly less structure than most organizations, while locked facilities represent an extreme example at the other end of the spectrum. the general philosophy and supportiveness, or lack thereof, of a particular correctional facility toward educational programming can impact the development of these partnerships. over the years of developing partnerships with a variety of correctional facilities in oregon, portland state university faculty have successfully overcome the seemingly divergent goals and organizational cultures to create these shared space partnerships by addressing some important corrections concerns. the sustained commitment of the teaching faculty and the accompanying curricular structure are essential elements to the success of these partnerships. recognizing that building a partnership between organizations with very different cultures takes time, knowing that the investment will yield a shared learning environment that will serve many hundreds of students over time makes it completely worthwhile. establishing trust and credibility all partnerships must be based on a foundation of trust. correctional facilities perceive that having a group of college students come into the facility to take classes with a group of currently incarcerated individuals presents the facility with a level of risk that they are likely not to assume unless they have significant trust in the instructor who leads the class. the instructors who have successfully developed the partnerships that have resulted in these shared spaces for learning, trust and credibility was established through one of three paths:  a successful partnership was established from an existing relationship the instructor had with the corrections facility;  an instructor who had existing professional expertise in corrections and that expertise helped facilitate the establishment of the partnership;  an instructor established a partnership by following the administrative processes that govern the development of new programs at the prison. trust for both the juvenile justice capstone and the women’s prison garden capstone was initiated and established because of previous relationships that the faculty had with the community partners, as volunteers and in relation to previous work history. in the case of the juvenile justice capstone, a decade of previous juvenile and criminal law practice allowed the faculty member to access the working relationships within the department of community justice, which operates the juvenile detention facility where the course is based. based on those pre-established relationships, it was fairly easy to navigate the correct protocols for development of the educational partnership. the mission of the donald e long detention center is "to create and maintain a safe, secure, stable, and enriching environment for juveniles in our care, while protecting the community" (https://multco.us/dcj-juvenile). additionally, multnomah county juvenile detention is one of the four original local model sites established through the annie e casey foundation’s juvenile detention alternatives initiative (jdai). (www.aecf.org/work/juvenile-justice/jdai/). multnomah county was one of the earliest sites to implement the jdai. part of the strategy of the jdai is to improve the conditions of http://www.aecf.org/work/juvenile-justice/jdai/ 115 confinement. partnering with portland state university to participate in the writing and art workshops offered through the beat within fits nicely within both the mission of the dcj and the strategies implemented through the jdai. therefore, dcj was very welcoming to the idea of the partnership with portland state university, and the juvenile justice capstone course. as mentioned above, an instructor who enjoyed an established relationship with coffee creek correctional facility and the oregon department of corrections developed the women’s prison gardens capstone. prior to developing her course, the instructor was working with the facility manager at the women’s prison to revive the prison garden and to develop the gardening program at the prison. that established relationship helped a great deal with developing the partnership between the department of corrections and psu for facilitation of the women’s prison gardens capstone. the initial motivation for the development of the course grew out of a felt need at coffee creek, a need to engage more volunteers in the gardening program as a means to launch the program and sustain it over time. psu’s reputation for strong community engagement, and the capstone program’s community-based learning pedagogical approach, made the program a logical and creative place to turn for increased volunteer involvement. the inside-out: civic leadership capstone class was created and offered by an instructor without a prior relationship with the prison system and without a professional background in criminal justice or corrections. the prison where this course was initially offered was not responding to an expressed need. in fact the prison was not terribly motivated or interested in launching additional educational programs. all of these elements made cultivating this partnership difficult. given these significant barriers, trust and credibility were hard-won and ultimately established by navigating the administrative structures that govern and guide the adoption of new programs at the department of corrections (doc). the instructor of this course developed a proposal and presentation that was submitted to the director of education at doc. that director had a vested interest in trying to offer educational programs uniformly throughout all facilities managed by the doc. obtaining state level approval for the course signaled to the local prison facility that the doc education director was in support and was giving them license to take the “risk” associated with offering a course of this type. the requisite approval at the state level followed by approval at the local prison proved to be an important sequence that moved the partnership forward. with course approval established, the instructor also was required to participate in the rigorous 60-hour inside out prison exchange program training to help inform teaching practices within a corrections setting (http://www.insideoutcenter.org/traininginstitute.html). the instructor was also required to have her class supervised by a corrections staff member for a probationary period. these essential phases of development allowed the instructor to establish credibility within the institution. while certainly a more onerous process than experienced in the development process of the previous two capstones highlighted here, nevertheless partnership and course development was indeed possible and ultimately successful. security concerns. correctional facilities are rightfully highly concerned with safety and security. bringing a group of college students into the facility repeatedly over the course of 10 weeks presents corrections staff with multiple concerns. these concerns include the potential problem of people experiencing incarceration building lasting, personal relationships with college students. the doc does not want classes of this type to be the venue where inmates and college students develop lasting personal and possibly romantic relationships. they view these 116 kinds of relationships as potentially coercive and present increased opportunities for the exchange of contraband, both safety and security taken very seriously in corrections. the oregon doc has a system-wide training that is required of all of their volunteers, and instructors must complete this training before being allowed to teach inside. additionally, the doc has established a rule that all instructors leading educational courses of this type must be trained and certified inside-out instructors. inside-out training is a one-week professional development program facilitated by the inside-out prison exchange program, located in philadelphia at temple university. trainings are also offered in varying locations. the training guides instructors in teaching practices within a correctional facility that involves pedagogical techniques as well as tools to employ to prevent security breaches in carceral facilities. dealing with these concerns directly through professionally led programs is an essential part of establishing and sustaining the partnership. of course the multnomah county department of community justice (dcj) is also concerned with safety and security, and in addition, with confidentiality. prior to conducting workshops, capstone students engage in training regarding the health insurance portability and accountability act of 1996 (hippa), the prison rape elimination act (prea), as well as all multnomah county rules and regulations relating to juvenile detention. capstone students are screened each time they enter the facility, and custody services specialists are always present on the units during workshops. confidentiality is maintained by using only first names. staffing and space issues. developing a partnership that results in an effective shared learning environment requires that the use of corrections staff doc or dcj and facilities resources be considered. with the dcj, education and the creation of an enriching environment for youth is part of their mission. thus, resources devoted to the partnership are considered well utilized. the doc, on the other hand, does not mention education in its mission. therefore, one barrier to successfully setting up a partnership of this kind can be the concern that the course will consume already limited staff time and classroom space for “non-essential” programming. the instructors of the inside out: civic leadership capstone and the women’s prison garden capstone have both successfully navigated this concern by becoming trained volunteers of the doc, completing all the necessary protocols. the volunteer status they enjoy requires an investment of time, but once that status is achieved the instructors are able to perform some duties that would otherwise fall to the doc staff and be in the position to contribute to the sustained the management of these courses overtime. securing access to space within the correctional facility can also be a barrier to establishing these partnerships. the instructors of these courses have used flexibility as a tool to overcome this issue. flexibility in the types of classroom they are able to turn into a shared learning environment as well as flexibility in the time the course is offered. partnership success is enhanced when doc staff sees that the instructors are willing to take responsibility for support and management of the course and maintain flexibility. funding and sustainability. the business model for this partnership is quite simple. as with all capstone courses (and there are roughly 60 to choose from), all three of these courses fulfill the senior level general education requirement for psu students. courses are fully enrolled with 1618 tuition-paying students. for the inside out: civic leadership capstone course, as long as the 117 instructor is willing to offer the course at the correctional facility and willing to double their course enrollment with inside students, the university is willing to allow the course to be offered as part of the instructor’s teaching responsibilities. the majority of inside students do not have the funds to pay for the course credit. those inside students who enroll often take the course for their own personal growth and do not receive college credit. there has been a move at portland state to secure funding to support differential tuition rates for inside students, which would allow inside students to take these courses for credit at more affordable rates. there is an intention to secure funding for inside student enrollment and to help sustain the partnerships with these correctional facilities, but to date it remains an element of the partnership that is unfunded. for the juvenile justice capstone and women’s prison gardens capstone, the workshops and gardening, respectively, are part of psu students’ community-based learning requirement as part of their capstone course. the required academic component of the course, an addition to the community based learning component, does happen on the psu campus, and incarcerated participants are not involved in that academic component of the course. therefore, these courses are a regular part of the instructors’ teaching loads. faculty and student preparation as with all teaching, knowing and understanding place and the context is of utmost importance. in these shared learning spaces, it is critical to a successful experience for all involved that the instructor is well prepared to teach on the inside. while faculty may be very well prepared in their discipline, this alone does not make them prepared to teach inside correctional settings (matthews, 2000). on the contrary, a second and perhaps more important factor in preparation is gaining an understanding of how teaching inside carceral institutions is different than teaching in a classroom, or in the community, on the outside. this factor is critical to the success of the students/participants and the course experience overall, and perhaps even to the continuance of the education program inside the facility. significant differences include: limited or no access to technology, limited or no communication with students between face-to-face class meetings, power differential between those students who are able to come and go each class period and those who are incarcerated and must remain in the facility when class ends, race and class differences among the students, and the limited power the instructor has within the facility. specific and focused training experiences are helpful in preparing the faculty to gain clarity on how to deal with these unique elements of this shared learning space on the inside. as highlighted above, the inside out prison exchange program offers a 60-hour training program designed to prepare faculty to teach college level courses on the inside (see www.insideoutcener.org). while this trainingperhaps the most structured and organized such training of its kind currently offered nationally, is helpful, it by itself does not prepare someone for success in teaching in this setting. spending as much time as possible inside detention and correctional facilities by becoming a volunteer and/or through participating in trainings offered on the inside, becoming familiar with criminal and juvenile justice laws and policies in the relevant state, such as mandatory minimum sentencing law and laws impacting waiver of juveniles to adult court are also essential to good teaching in this setting. in his paper “developing a prison education pedagogy”, tony gaskew (2015) argues that community colleges, rather than four year institutions, may be better suited to this work of post118 secondary education inside carceral institutions. he cites the physical proximity of community colleges to penal institutions, the lower cost of community colleges, and finally a critical cultural advantage that community colleges have over four year institutions, in that they have a more diverse student body. noting that of the 2.2 million people incarcerated nationwide 40 percent are black males, gaskew argues, and we agree, that understanding and accounting for the “pedagogical racial gap” does matter (68-69). gaskew proposes the “humiliation to humility perspective,” or the hhp. according to gaskew, the hhp expands the pedagogical discussion of the “invisible three-dimensional elephant inside the prison classroom: racism, white supremacy, and white privilege, by incorporating the narrative truths of the lived experiences of incarcerated black males” (71). having an awareness of and an understanding of this ‘invisible threedimensional elephant’ certainly better prepares an instructor to be effective in this shared learning space. in addition to delivering and exploring relevant content in a compelling and non-racist way to a diverse student group, faculty in these shared learning spaces need to be caring and compassionate with each student and with the classroom community as a whole, in order for a successful shared learning to develop. a faculty person who is perceived as “caring and compassionate” is going to be most effective in this type of shared learning space (mageehon, 2006). students in these classes have a wide variety of confidence and skill levels at performing academically; a gentle approach that allows all students to establish a voice in the classroom is essential to building a learning community where students can enlighten each other on the topics addressed (zhao & kuh, 2004). faculty members also need to be creative. it is unlikely that the technology that many (most?) are now accustomed to teaching with will be available in the learning space inside the detention or correctional facility. thinking through class sessions, content delivery, and assignments becomes a different process than many instructors have takenfor-granted in teaching outside of carceral settings (mccarty, 2006). just as faculty should undertake all opportunities to prepare themselves for the experience of teaching inside carceral settings, it is essential that all students and participants, coming from both inside the carceral settings and outside, are well-prepared to enter the shared learning space. in most cases, in order to successfully create the space that will be the learning environment for the term, separate sessions with participants who are students outside of the facility and with students or participants who are incarcerated on the inside is helpful, and, in the case of the inside out program, is required. there are many logistics and details to cover, including transportation, facility rules, starting to gain a familiarity with the culture of a carceral setting or of a college classroom, to name a few. this initial orientation meeting is also a time when the facilitator begins to create “...an atmosphere of trust in which students can be comfortable and engaged, ready to enter the group process and take responsibility for their own learning” (pompa, 2004). understanding of context and place is important for faculty and for students who engage in any community based learning, and these shared learning spaces are no exception. conclusion once all the various steps and hurdles described above have been handled and overcome, and all arrangements and preparations have been made, these shared learning spaces hold tremendous potential to provide transformative learning for all involved. of course, research points to 119 educational opportunities for incarcerated people as being instrumental in reducing recidivism (davis et al., 2014; vera institute, 2016). even beyond the education, however, participating in intellectual and academic pursuits in collaboration with university and college students offers to inside participants/students an opportunity to develop and recognize their own sense of competence and self-efficacy (allred et al., 2013). the dismantling of assumptions and the reflection that is an integral part of these shared learning spaces can help all students and participants alike to build and develop a habit of connection and reflection that will be supportive of familial and community relationships in the future (catching, 2013). the transformative quality of these courses is in part achieved through the magic created in the shared learning environment. in sharp juxtaposition to their worries at the start of the experience, students are often surprised at how, in a relatively short period of time, they have been moved intellectually, emotionally, and interpersonally (j. gardner, personal communication). the learning environment is challenging and stimulating and the time always passes too quickly. at the end of an individual class session, students are surprised when the instructor, reminded notso-subtly by corrections staff, lets students know that it is time to wrap up and to exit the shared learning space. much is left undone, and it is not uncommon for students to leave with already building anticipation for the next session together. students often remain unsettled when the last class of the term creeps up, even though at the first class meeting the instructor foreshadows the end of the class and warns that it will come all too soon. students are informed that although they do not know each other, over the weeks the class meets they will come to know one another and will be sad when they have to say goodbye. at the start, students typically find this hard to imagine and largely do not believe that when they are required to say goodbye at the last class meeting there will be tears shed. in the last emotional moments of this course, because of safety and privacy concerns, students are reminded that they are not to have contact with one another after the conclusion of the class. reminding them of this abrupt fact often inspires the students to share what the class has meant to them, and often students will include a story of a particular moment in the class that stood out as significant to them. a shared learning community has been built where and with whom it had not been expected. in many ways, liberation has occurred— liberation of thinking, and of assumptions. this liberation could only have occurred in communion together, and it is our hope that this sense of liberation each term will indeed be a step toward the dismantling of the larger prison industrial complex. references allred, s., harrison l., & o’connell, d. 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(2004). adding value: learning communities and student engagement. research in higher education, 45(2), 115-138. http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/b:rihe.0000015692.88534.de. author information deborah smith arthur, m.a., j.d., developed and teaches the juvenile justice capstone, and has been teaching capstones at psu in the area of juvenile justice since 2003. she is a former criminal defense attorney, specializing in representing juveniles in adult criminal court, and she is passionate about the intersection of juvenile and criminal justice and educational equity and access. deborah smith arthur, m.a., j.d. assistant professor university studies program portland state university 1721 sw broadway http://dx.doi.org/10.1215/01636545-2006-005 http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/s0031819100066110 http://dx.doi.org/10.1023/b:rihe.0000015692.88534.de 122 cramer hall 117 portland, or 97201 email: debs@pdx.edu telephone: 503-725-5831 amy spring is the community research and partnership director, in which she works with psu students, faculty, staff, and community partners to facilitate and support the growth of community partnerships. she has spent a significant part of her career working on institutional change efforts related to engagement, while also facilitating faculty and student workshops focused on community engagement and coordinating recruitment of students and faculty to participate in applied community-based teaching. amy spring community research and partnerships director portland state university market center building, suite 620 1600 se 4th ave. portland or 97201 telephone: 503/725-5582 mailto:debs@pdx.edu metropolitan universities vol. 29 no. 4 (december 2018), doi: 10.18060/22834 100 good trouble: post-tenure interruptions to our academic ‘routines’ nick tobier abstract as a public artist and designer, i construct spaces that connect people and ideas. the social spaces i create challenge our traditional ways of thinking, knowing, and experiencing one another and our cities. this piece presents a resistance to preset disciplinary values and a recognition that exponential rather than incremental change in an urgently evolving filed demands knew form and language. working at what might be described as the margins of a field within a discipline that is itself often at the margins of a university necessitates both deliberate articulation and responsibility to translate less orthodox practices, off-center inquiry, ways of knowing and outputs in the tenure and promotion process. this pieces challenges us to see the civic work we do as good work, and when our good work serves as an interruption to the existing status quo of the academy, then this good work serves to bridge the academy to cities in more meaningful ways. keywords: post-tenure reflection; civic engagement; faculty roles and rewards; art and design; institutional margins; reciprocity; social spaces introduction in my discipline of art and design, and my roles as a professor and civic engagement institutional leader, there is, for me, both the good work of problem solving that we do, and the good trouble we create. we accomplish this by continually learning to understand and speak the languages of our community partners while sharing our own. through this sharing, we build social justice exemplars that live into our institutional rhetoric that frequently promises to act in the public good. this example, i hope, gives some sense of how my work as an artist and designer appears as an interruption: not too long ago i walked in a uniform topped by a white conductor’s hat and gloves with a small cadre of willing transportation advocates down the center of woodward avenue in detroit. three lanes of vehicular traffic on one side heading north, 3 lanes of traffic on the other side heading south, we caused some trouble to the routine traffic as we walked in between the yellow lines, and collectively made a ‘train’ composed of ladders, mop buckets, yellow umbrellas, dry ice, a leaf blower and two shovels. along the way, our train paused to pick up passengers. causing trouble means that my role as a professor of art and design and as an institutional civic engagement leader is to provoke the introspection and questioning that comes with good trouble. the good trouble we can cause helps to interrupt our traditional academic routines and our ways of thinking about and doing our teaching and research as community engaged faculty members and administrators. in this piece, i will share some examples of the “trouble” i cause through my 101 work. this will help us think more critically and creatively about public interruption as a radical social strategy to bring awareness to and advance change in our communities. new civic engagement in my current role at the university of michigan, in addition to my research and teaching, i serve as the edward r. ginsberg senior counsel to the provost on faculty civic engagement to advance civic and community engagement. it is hard for me to fathom that i find myself in this role—that as a self-defined marginal practitioner at a small marginal unit at a big research university i was selected for a position to advocate for colleagues, programs and priorities in civic engagement at a university-wide level. this is a position i grew into, or maybe, the where university and i grew together. i owe a debt to bryan rogers, a supportive dean who valued off-center inquiry of all sorts. he especially practices that co-mingled “inside” and “outside” engagement. dean rogers encouraged me to seek allies and supportive colleagues outside the department as soon as i arrived at michigan. it would be misleading to say that this has all been strategic, and it would be less than useful to ascribe it to coincidence. more accurate is to suggest that we each seek out our best allies in the people who believe in the intellectual and creative inquiry we have as citizenscholars. among the aspirations i have for my current roles (as senior faculty with the safety of tenure and as an administrator) is to create spaces and connections that support and encourage my colleagues’ initiatives, ideas and efforts. they are seeking to forge paths of community partnership, as well as practices and pedagogies of connection and social justice and the resulting creative scholarship of surprising or unexpected form. it is critical for me in this role to navigate the institutional context of the university while hewing true to my core values as instigator of good trouble. there are daily challenges to help scholars navigate questions of promotion and tenure expectations, the demands of scholarship, unequal power and resource distributions with community partners, and remembering the very human reasons why many of us came to this work in the first place. yet i use my experience, resources, and position within the institution to advance of collective commitments to civic and community engagement. my work and interest in public, street-side projects is informed by years after college working in the world—as a hotel doorman, as a construction worker, and as a landscaper and later, landscape designer. each of these experiences contributed to my understanding of the roles of work in constructing public places. whereas i spent hours changing my white gloves to wave for a taxi in philadelphia or carry a bag, such ceremonial attention rarely graces those who wait hours for a bus, or a train. in my work as a door attendant, i learned to love the ceremony of my work and the camaraderie of our uniformed corps. i loved being part of a team that is so often at odds with the individual accolades and achievements that fuel our meritocracies. my work explores the impact of art and social practices, the blurring of art and everyday life, and the role of an artist in society. i create public art as a gesture of utility, civility, and encouragement of relationships with others. 102 detroit local my work on the train project, detroit local—a street-side appearance project in response to a new streetcar line—navigated many of these questions, both literally and metaphorically. the train was a response to a new streetcar line, funded by a billionaire and serving the already wellserved downtown core of detroit. this inequity of resources irritated me along with countless others. our train project picked up where the new line stopped, calling attention to the uneven development of the city and the confluence of private interests, development and access to transit. these appearances are and have been the context of my work in my discipline—art and design. as my work, which i describe as public construction,1 exists outside of my field’s traditional metrics of measurement—exhibitions in galleries or museums—i have found it useful to continually define my own terminology both as a reflective exercise, and as a guide for my colleagues and peers to see the context, aspirations and relative merits of these efforts. there is, lurking in these definitions, both a resistance to preset disciplinary values and a recognition that exponential rather than incremental change in an urgently evolving field demands new form and language. i work at what i might describe as the margins of a field within a discipline that is itself often at the margins of a university. this necessitates both deliberate articulation and responsibility to translate less orthodox practices, processes and outputs in the tenure and promotion process. presenting my work for review to my colleagues, many of whom fall within the rubrics of traditional artistic practice, has been a continual growth process. at times, i admit, i have chafed under the weight of what seem to be so many concurrent (but not concentric) systems of growth. on the one hand, i have my professional obligation to the disciplinary fields. on the other hand, those accomplishments lie embedded in the lives and rhythms of communities and partnership. these two competing poles—one bent on individual achievement and accolades, and the other grounded in collective action and consensus building—create the contradictions with which civic engagement advocates contend. we learn the mismatch of academic time and the rest of the world. while we live by the semester, the year, or the summer hiatus, our partners are on 24/7 time, and thus our urgency of conference deadlines or grant proposals is at odds with their daily lives. in detroit, the gathering of the train’s participants took nearly two years of building trust, forging alliances, and sharing insights along with fashioning props and uniforms. through this process, i employed activist strategies to realize public works of art and design. such projects lie equidistant from a place-based art and design and what i call experimental urban planning: the signature ephemera of parades or block parties intersect with the cultural collisions occurring when these coincidental communities collide with intentional actions. this extended process is core to civic engagement, not to find a solution but to be present and patient with working to forge a collective response. yet in terms of the measures in our tenure and promotion processes, all of this remains at the margins. the video document of detroit local, a 3-minute edited film, has appeared at film festivals and as part of exhibitions around the world. the act of translating the intricate process of building relationships, negotiating questions of representation and power dynamics in the transformation of public space is in detroit was validated by a film festival in tokyo. 103 field of our dreams i had been working with students at earthworks urban farm in detroit, and eating our meals as guests at the adjacent capuchin soup kitchen, which runs the farm. at a table in the lunchroom, i became friends with keith love and warren thomas, who are regular guests of the kitchen. among the things we shared was an interest in doing something to enable access to the produce we were fortunate enough to find. the f.o.o.d. project was born of these conversations, and the persistence of keith and warren, along with greg bostic and earthworks staff, gwen meyer and lisa richter. field of our dreams (f.o.o.d) was a project where the relationship building process extended far beyond any academic accumulations. f.o.o.d. was a mobile produce business that operated on detroit’s lower east side, on tuesdays and thursdays at street corners, housing projects, adult care facilities. for two years, when friends asked what i was working on, i told them that i have been selling fruits and vegetables on street corners in detroit. the next question was, usually, “what are you working on as an artist?” i had served hot chocolate from an embroidered and upholstered cart, and built a portable picnic table for new yorkers eating from food vending carts. f.o.o.d. aligns with these earlier projects, both within the rubrics of relational aesthetics or social practice and in the spirit of providing a service as part of a cultural inquiry. f.o.o.d. means many things to me and asks many questions for me about the impact of art & social practices, the blurring of art and everyday life, and the role of an artist in society. f.o.o.d. showed up 2 days a week, for regularly scheduled stops on the lower east side, one of the many neighborhoods in detroit that are food deserts—for most residents, this is their only access to fresh food. not to mention the social aspect of being able to gather at a corner and talk with neighbors and strangers a like. through its regular and recurrent presence, f.o.o.d. was sometimes a viable business, as well as tangible evidence that individual action and motivation have the ability to respond to pressing social needs with innovative, appropriate and interesting responses with critical and interrogative design process and projects. at the f.o.o.d. truck, i was a staff member working for the business, although my partner most often introduced me as an artist. this always gave me good pause to reflect on practices i value and aspire to, as well as those about which i have questions. i have been the form giver— uniforms, precedent study and inspiration for envisioning small markets around the world, business cards, web site, display, infrastructure design and construction. these are artifacts of building relationships between my co-workers, and with the people who come to buy from us. once, i overheard keith love describing me as an artist to a customer who asked, “what’s that dude doing here?” “his work,” keith continued, “is that he gives shit away.” what i got from the opportunity of being part of f.o.o.d., to truly build complex relationships is far more than i could have anticipated through any other project, including insight, commitment to others and challenges to reflect on and respond to. marvelous guests the clothes dryer is turning. slowly, the contents rotate 360 degrees clockwise. and then again. for ten minutes, or until another coin is inserted. such is the elegant monotony of 104 a laundromat, as each machine perfects its movements over set intervals. next to the wall of dryers, a ballet dancer performs a stretching sequence. extending an ankle and rotating the foot. first clockwise, 360 degrees, over and over. then again. in my roles as an artist and designer and now, professor at the university of michigan, i see certain parallels in an ongoing project, marvelous guests. aspiring to recognize both the inherent messiness of differences, marvelous guests is an interrelated series of delegated performances lending new working conditions and meanings to several trades. to this end, we invite professionals to conduct their business in unusual locations—as a guest. each encounter produces its own forms of communication on location. the relationship between guest and host as dynamic, and not without friction as each adjusts to the other. much like an oyster, the guest is perhaps the catalyst who needs a host in order to make a pearl. an irritant at first, a persistent question, but ultimately, a marvelous new relationship evolves. i hope to continue to be an irritant, and to be irritated at the same time. by taking activities out of their familiar environment, we share a chance to see something beautiful, poetic, possibly absurd, precious or powerful. at the same time, the environment offers a new context for everyone to recognize the implications of what occurs rather unremarkably on any other given day. conclusion negotiation of the artist’s (or any discipline) presence in someone else’s territory is one of the key components of this work and of civic engagement. i, the individual, am responsible for interjecting this content and its specific aesthetic concerns into a public/quasi-public space as a guest of those places. beginning with this first layer of communication, participation with me the artist as a guest starts right away. can i work with you? i was tremendously fortunate to arrive at the school of art and design (now penny w. stamps school of art and design) under the leadership of then-dean bryan l. rogers. dean rogers had been a chemical engineer before becoming an artist, and his modus operandi was to welcome friction, and to encourage exploration. his support encouraged me, along with scores of my colleagues and our students, to see our roles as not bound by disciplinary convention but spurred by good trouble-making. i cannot overstate the role of a supportive dean, both in the tenure and promotion process, and in personal growth. one of my quests currently as a now senior faculty member and as senior counsel to the provost is to offer the support and encouragement for our colleagues striving in civic engagement teaching and research to continue to ask rude questions about our roles and cause good trouble. the apg (artist placement group) manifesto, 1980 reads, “negotiations are contingent upon both participants having this understanding and a mutual confidence.” in what i hope is part of a legacy of great britain in the 1970’s, idealistic groups and practitioners around the artists’ placement group (apg) advocated that artists can and should take part in projects and processes in which creative thinking and energy take precedence over surface manipulation or pure form giving. the apg model—to integrate artists into sixties’ british businesses and corporations—proposed a structural challenge at an institutional level, 105 where the artist was a negotiated presence. i often think similarly of my work in the university and in communities. i value this negotiated presence. it suits my personality (i would like to ascribe it to being a libra, but that may be a stretch) as someone who values social complexity and dynamism over clear delineation and linear processes and who savors conversation over finding information. additionally, i find it is an honest and effective place to be for civic engagement. it recognizes that we should never be presume our positions, but rather, continually negotiate them. shall we be an integral presence, or a long-term guest? “guest worker” often connotes a non-resident alien allowed to work for a finite period. that is, typically, why a guest worker seeks to avoid trouble, and precisely why i believe that those of us in a position of relative security must continually seek out, and inquire into, new problems. problems, like trouble, put something in the way for us to figure out how to respond. thus my conversation with david ross at burt road muffler negotiating the appearance of a bagpiper by the car vacuums as with captain william boynton of the grand river boat cruises (who hosted a goldfish in a bowl), were problems i raised. my role as an artist and senior counsel demands communication across disciplines, amongst a broad range of creative ideas and in communication with a broad range of contexts. i offer each partner an opportunity to say no, to ask questions, to suspend disbelief or say “why not?” problems are roadblocks that give us pause to reevaluate, for our partners and ourselves, as well as for skeptics. like the “train” that appeared on woodward avenue, we have a line willing to enter traffic and create an image of a possible future. university people come as problem creators, however much we like to believe we are offering expertise, resources or solutions. for our department chairs, we offer problems in our different forms of practice. that, for me, is the good hard work we have chosen to do. the good trouble we create by continually learning the languages of our community partners while sharing our own, we build social justice exemplars that live into our institutional rhetoric that frequently promises to act in the public good. there is, of course, the threat of expulsion from the university, or displeasing assignments, direction or cautions from administrators who do not yet see the value of civically engaged pedagogy and practice. to be fair, there are expectations to uphold that are not secrets—that creation of new knowledge through scholarship and/or creative practice is the university’s mission. for instance, if i were to re-examine my entry to the university of michigan , a tier 1 research campus, i might have paused to reflect on the expectations and trade-offs accompanying the mission and the opportunity. in addition to a supportive dean, i was able to find my aspirational academic allies here, in particular the ginsberg center and arts of citizenship, where i first met with and worked with supportive and dynamic colleagues from history, urban planning, and dance. the camaraderie and mentorship shared by charlie bright, margi dewar, kamilah henderson, robin wilson and at miller were invaluable as they formed a community of practice that encouraged me to continue to seek and value reciprocal partnerships within and beyond the university, and to see good trouble on the margins as good work. as a senior faculty member with the safety of tenure, i now find myself as a creator of spaces to advance our collective good trouble. 106 references artists’ placement group. (1980). manifesto, 1980 edition. retrieved from http://www.darkmatterarchives.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/final_manifesto_apg.pdf 107 author information nick tobier professor, art and design school of art and design university of michigan 2000 bonisteel blvd. ann arbor, mi 48109-2069 email: nicktob@umich.edu telephone: (734) 936-0697 pr. tobier studied landscape architecture at harvard’s graduate school of design and subsequently worked in professional practice in boston and new york. he was assistant professor at the school of art at alfred university. he is now a full professor at the university of michigan penny w. stamps school of art & design. in addition, he serves as senior counsel to the provost on civic engagement. in his current research and teaching, pr. tobier conducts collaborative projects in the public realm, including partnerships with furniture designers, bakers, farmers; critical and celebratory involvements between artists, designers and broad communities; and a commitment to lasting partnerships working with creative individuals and communities from detroit to ishinomaki. 1 i mean both a location (public) and an ideological compass (public/civic). i mean material, sociocultural, structural and economic (construction); i also mean process (the act of construction is in formation.) metropolitan universities vol. 29 no. 2 (may 2018), doi: 10.18060/21771 a decade of progress: lessons learned in developing the uco downtown john f. barthell, charlotte k. simmons, and karen youngblood abstract for over a decade, the university of central oklahoma (uco) has been engaged in defining its role within the oklahoma city (okc) metropolitan area. by 2013, an enhanced physical presence developed for uco within okc itself, including the creation of the academy of contemporary music and the chk|central boathouse. afterwards, and in accordance with uco’s strategic plan, vision 2020, the brookings institution and the greater oklahoma city chamber of commerce explored links between okc and workforce development needs, in parallel with planning for an innovation district. emerging from that planning is uco downtown, a flexible urban learning facility on the border of okc’s business district and the recently designated innovation district. an upcoming renovation of offices and business incubators will provide additional space for the growth of uco downtown, as well as serving as home to customized education, a non-degree credit program serving metropolitan businesses. with substantial enrollment increases during the first three cycles of enrollment, programs have begun to anchor themselves into the okc downtown. the convergence of uco downtown with recent recommendations by the brookings institution forms the basis for uco’s goal of serving okc’s workforce (especially in stem) as well as the broader okc community (arts, business, education, government, etc.). the purpose of this paper is to describe a case study for the introduction of a learning facility in an urban environment (oklahoma city) and to reflect on important lessons drawn from that experience. we hope this article will benefit others with similar objectives in their own institutional strategic plans. keywords: innovation districts; strategic planning; urban learning facility introduction researchers have amply well documented the relationship between colleges and universities to the economic development of state economies for oklahoma. workforce data show that there are 100 critical occupations that will produce 33,000 jobs by 2025 in oklahoma and the majority of those (72%) require some post-secondary education and nearly two-thirds (65%) require an associate, bachelors, masters, doctorate or professional degree (oowd, 2017). the vast majority of these professions (engineers, nurses, software developers, etc.) are compatible with if not directly linked to metropolitan areas. thus, the role of the accessible, public university is paramount. indeed, the top 100 metropolitan areas cover only 12% of the land area of the united states but contain two-thirds of its population and generate 75% of its gdp (katz and bradley, 2013). public colleges and universities therefore have an important role in the metropolitan and urban environments throughout the country, and the oklahoma city metropolitan area is no exception. the university of central oklahoma (uco) is a public university of between 16,000 and 17,000 students of which approximately 70 percent originate from the oklahoma city metropolitan area (uco factbook, 2017). uco’s origin was as a territorial normal school (founded in 1890) with a 58 role that extended across the territory in teacher preparation (loughlin & burke, 2007). over the years, the mission and niche of uco has evolved with the growth of oklahoma city and surrounding environs to produce a much broader array of degree programs, including masters and professional degrees outside of teacher preparation. through time, given its close proximity to oklahoma city (okc), uco is now widely recognized as the public metropolitan university for okc as recently stated on social media by mayor mick cornett: “with the acm@uco in bricktown, downtown classes at the carnegie building, and the uco boathouse in the boathouse district, uco has a substantial okc footprint” (cornett, 2017). this article will demonstrate how, given a strategic commitment to being a metropolitan university, the university of central oklahoma created a successful learning center (uco downtown) in the heart of oklahoma city. we will describe the process that led to the physical creation of the center as well as local, regional, and national policies that influenced it. our hope is that this case study will benefit those wishing to create similar outcomes for their metropolitan planning initiatives. the first steps the academy of contemporary music (acm) began enrolling students in the fall of 2009. the program occupies a former 25,000 square foot warehouse building in the now attractive entertainment district known as bricktown. the program provides associates and/or bachelors degree options, and its curriculum focuses on contemporary music performance, production and technologies. acm currently enrolls several hundred students and has shown marked resiliency during the recent economic downturn in oklahoma (uco factbook, 2017). for uco, acm represents the first attempt to bring a niche program, relevant to an urban environment, to downtown oklahoma city. an in-resident ceo manages the program independently of the main campus, but adheres to the academic guidelines of the college of fine arts and design. acm also operates a nearby performance lab that is used for live performances of faculty, students, staff, and guest performers. the central/chk boathouse opened in the spring of 2015 and serves the uco women’s rowing team as well as serving as a venue for live music, art exhibitions, and conferences. the facility was funded entirely by private sources and generates annual income (through rental fees for events) to offset maintenance costs. the boathouse is adjacent to the oklahoma river and a part of the boathouse district that serves as a new and attractive community aquatics center for the oklahoma city metropolitan area as well for competitive rowing teams that use the river because of its unique geometry. while no courses or academic programs are offered at the boathouse, the facility has become a popular location to host visiting delegations and for planning retreats as well as a setting for fundraising events. after the culmination of the vision 2020 planning process in the spring of 2013, and a division of academic affairs planning process in the following fall semester of 2013, the need to create a physical connection to oklahoma city emerged as a key priority. several investigatory expeditions began in order to locate an appropriate and affordable teaching space within oklahoma city. ultimately, the historical carnegie metropolitan library building was designated for housing this teaching effort, as described in a later section. a plan took shape to support the design and construction of a teaching facility there. critical to this effort was collaboration with the center for 59 e-learning and connected environments (cece), the key organization on the uco campus that provides professional expertise in learning design to faculty and staff members. vision 2020 and the commitment to the oklahoma city metropolitan area in 2011, with the arrival of a new president, dr. don betz, uco had its first institution-wide planning process (inclusive of all faculty and staff) since 2007 and produced four strategic themes: (1) transformative learning; (2) student success; (3) value; and (4) place. below, we describe these themes and their relevance to our strategic planning process. transformative learning. transformative learning (tl) activities on our campus include important emphases that are relevant to uco’s role in the metropolitan area, including civic engagement and service learning, among others (barthell et al., 2010). these activities even operate to support the career aspirations of our students through an e-portfolio system, known as the student transformative learning record or stlr, which records contributions of our students in all areas of tl (barthell et al., 2014). the last of these themes, place, affirmed the intertwining roles of history and locale with an explicit connection to the oklahoma city metropolitan area. student success. tl activities on the uco campus conform well with high-impact educational practices that are known to promote student success (kuh, 2008, cunliff & hughes, 2011). in 2014, uco established an office of high-impact practices to promote further this connection between students and these important learning experiences (springer et al., 2018). combined with the opportunities presented by the stlr system (barthell et al., 2010), student opportunities may reach well beyond their undergraduate years and into their later careers. value. vision 2020 also emphasizes the value of an education at uco and the ability for students to achieve access to that education on our campus. access includes a commitment to diversity and inclusion as well as finding mechanisms for making that education accessible to students from challenging socio-economic backgrounds. key to this commitment is an understanding of the role of widening the “band width” of students entering college for the first time (verschelden, 2018). place. uco’s roots as a teaching institution inform its sense of being student-centered. as a metropolitan university with a commitment to the people in and around the oklahoma city metropolitan area, its commitment must manifest in both physical and cultural terms. this includes the case study described in this article, as well as examples of outreach to community members in oklahoma city itself that have been a critical part of our strategic planning process by helping to realize the community connections elucidated through the vision 2020 planning process. for example, uco began a formal collaboration with the greater oklahoma city hispanic chamber of commerce in 2014. uco is currently represented by one member of the chamber’s board of directors and at least one staff member (director of community outreach) is housed part-time at the chamber’s headquarters. uco’s division of student affairs conducts student recruitment there in the evenings, as well as outreach events that support the hispanic community. uco works closely with the chamber in both staff and faculty leadership development, including through the latino leadership okc program. the innovation district 60 simultaneous with the development of uco downtown, discussions within the uco president’s cabinet began to focus on broader patterns associated with successful collaborations among universities and other elements of urban communities. indeed, in an era of declining state support for public universities, the importance of localized (municipal and community) support in strengthening the role of universities has become an even more important aspect of strategic planning and institutional investment patterns. uco has therefore begun a reconceptualization of its role to align its resources and programming with community assets and needs to increase its regional relevance for the oklahoma city metropolitan area. key to that role is an enhanced footprint within oklahoma city itself. in their book metropolitan revolution, published in 2013, coauthors bruce katz and jennifer bradley stated, “innovation districts cluster and connect leading-edge anchor institutions and cutting edge innovation firms with supporting and spin-off companies, business incubators, mixed-use housing, office and retail, and twenty-first century amenities and transport.” bruce katz visited the uco campus in february of 2015 as an invited speaker for the celebration of uco’s 125th anniversary. during that time, he visited with members of senior leadership at uco and the oklahoma city chamber of commerce and proposed that the ideal location for an innovation district (id) would be along an area bisected by interstate 235 (i-235). the eastern side of the area is composed of universities, research foundations, and numerous business enterprises attractive to entrepreneurs. on the western side of i-235 is an area that is replete with restaurants and coffee shops that are in close proximity to museums, theatres, and performance halls on the western side of i-235 in a section of oklahoma city known as automobile alley. in the following fall of 2015, oklahoma city and philadelphia were the only two of dozens of candidate cities to gain admission in the anne t. and robert m. bass initiative on innovation and placemaking. the oklahoma city chamber of commerce then entered into a contract with the brookings institution to recommend an exact area for the district, conduct an economic ecosystem audit of the proposed location, and recommend steps for implementing the id. brookings has already delivered its recommended area for the id and it encompasses 843 acres, bisected by interstate 235 (i-235) as described above. this represents only 0.2% of the area of oklahoma city but it accounts for 4.7% of its jobs. a research park dominates the area to the east of i-235. the park is composed of private and state-funded institutions, which, for the most part, advance economic interests in biomedical research and the health industry. (the number of jobs in the id that are stem-related is 28%, compared to only 16% of those in oklahoma city as a whole.) the area to the west of i-235 concentrates most of the residents of the innovation district. as noted above, the area serves as a magnet for entertainment and dining opportunities for people throughout the oklahoma city metropolitan area. uco has been a participant in all segments of planning for the oklahoma city id. a teaching facility, uco downtown (in the former carnegie metropolitan library building), developed as the id was still in its planning infancy. uco downtown aligns with uco’s vision 2020 as uco’s first attempt to bring core programs (especially graduate programs) into the downtown oklahoma city environment. indeed, planning for the facility occurred during the fall 2013 academic affairs retreat while senior leadership (deans and cabinet members) were reading the newly published metropolitan revolution by katz and bradley (2013). uco downtown took its first students during 61 the spring semester of 2015. additional programs have developed since the emergence of the id in oklahoma city include those associated with the office of customized education. initiated in the downtown area in 2016, in a building about three blocks from uco downtown, customized education exists to integrate business and entrepreneurial activities created in the id with uco programs that can contribute to such entrepreneurship. still nascent, customized education will soon be housing businesses that are collaborating with uco on innovative projects with promise as metropolitan business partners. uco downtown: the journey in search of uco’s next foray into the heart of the oklahoma city metropolitan area, the deans and president’s cabinet had numerous friday afternoon excursions to downtown oklahoma city, trudging through unfinished and darks spaces in buildings it appeared we would be able to afford to rent. after more than a year of searching, we found “the right place at the right price” in the carnegie centre, the former home of oklahoma city’s metropolitan library from 1901 until 2004. the building had been vacant since 2004 when the new downtown library opened as part of the original metropolitan area projects (maps) plan, a capital improvement program funded by a temporary sales tax. while her initial plans for the empty building had been an extensive reconfiguration and conversion into upscale condominiums, developer judy hatfield held on to the carnegie centre during the 2008 economic downturn and waited for better times. utilizing tax credits for the historic building and tax increment financing (tif) investment opportunity, she was able to re-open the carnegie centre in 2014 with commercial spaces on the ground floor and 19 apartments on the upper floors (lackmeyer, 2014). stepping into an elevator with a display of vintage book binders still lining its walls, reminiscent of the former use of the building, visitors descend one floor to get a view of the space that was leased in the newly renovated carnegie centre in july 2014. while at first glimpse one previously saw only a dark and cold basement with no plumbing and devoid of hvac and lighting fixtures (see figure 1), president don betz agreed that the empty shell of a space allowed us to imagine new possibilities. consistent with president betz’s frequent characterization of the university community as being “idealist[s] without illusions,” we weighed the risks versus rewards and became the signature tenant the landlord was seeking to grow momentum for the property. “uco downtown” (see figure 2) had found a home in a signature multi-use building in a well-established area of the central business district. 62 figure 1. first view of the lower level of the carnegie centre figure 2. carnegie center, home of the uco downtown teaching facility once we decided to lease the space, we set in motion our plans to open for classes in time for january (2015) classes. after quick concept-to-architectural drawings, in october of 2014, the walls started going up to define the space. by november, the hvac and sheetrock were in place, and december saw a frenzied final month of construction to completion (see figures 3 and 4). after a test run in early january with a one-week intersession class, the building was ready for a silent opening for the spring 2015 semester. 63 figure 3. construction as the walls begin to define the space figure 4. construction as the hvac goes in the uco downtown teaching facility was designed to be different: a space appropriate for an urban setting location with a layout that maximizes flexibility and collaboration. it was to have six classrooms with flexible furniture sufficiently adjustable so that a given room could be quickly set up to accommodate a multitude of requests. it could accommodate a yoga class at the beginning of the day, a corporate retreat during the daytime hours, a community lunch-and-learn over the lunch hour, and reset for credit-bearing classes in the evening (see figures 5–7). 64 figure 5. uco downtown classroom sample configuration figure 6. uco downtown classroom sample configuration 65 figure 7. uco downtown classroom set for an evening event planners installed collaborative-learning spaces throughout the teaching facility. space is available for students to work independently or in groups and provides a convenient location for students to gather before and after classes (see figures 8–10). with an excellent restaurant directly across the street from the facility, downtown workers may arrive early, have dinner, and then prepare for class. figure 8. collaborative space with “whiteboard” tables 66 figure 9. collaborative space for individual or group work figure 10. areas for students to study before and after classes one of the most unique and customer-focused approaches of the facility is the “techceptionist.” these student employees, trained to handle all of the technology needs of the facility, serve as the first point of contact and reception for the space. uco downtown classrooms are equipped with the most up-to-date technology of any uco facility, including interactive video capability for distance learning. with a goal “to do everything but teach,” techceptionists handle all technology concerns, in order to create an environment that is conducive to learning and assure the overall teaching experience is a pleasant one for faculty. 67 uco contracted with a downtown parking garage to provide parking for students and faculty three and one half blocks “near” the facility. parking is currently provided for free, a feature which students enjoy (see figure 11). uco downtown is unique to uco and to downtown okc and, as detailed below, has become a favorite place for classes for many faculty and students. figure 11. reasons why students love uco downtown if you build it, will they come? even as construction was under way, deans and department chairs were planning for classes in the new downtown facility and enrollment opened on november 3, 2014. given that the structure was completed only days before the first scheduled intercession course, uco downtown had a “soft opening” with no formal advertising campaign beyond putting the courses in the schedule and initiating a new uco downtown website (http://downtown.uco.edu/). however, the new downtown location had been featured in a story in the oklahoman (lackmeyer, 2014) a few months earlier in october. in order to cover its costs financially, uco set a minimum enrollment goal of 300 students during the first year. enrollment reached 150 by december 12th, with course offerings from every academic college. however, enrollment suffered because the facility did not yet have approval from the student and exchange visitor program (sevp). this meant that our international students had permission to study only in edmond, on the main campus. all international students had to be withdrawn and, in many cases, this resulted in entire sections being moved back to the uco campus. in the end, nearly one-third (31.9%) of students that had shown interest in the facility by enrolling in courses were lost. nonetheless, the final enrollment for the spring 2015 semester was 155, with 68 students studying biology, creative studies, english, forensic science, funeral service, history, mathematics, political science, and spanish in the downtown facility. as expected, most (78.52%) of those enrolled had addresses within the oklahoma city metropolitan area, with nearly half (48.99%) of these from cities outside of edmond. despite this setback, uco downtown exceeded the goal of an annual enrollment of 300 during the first year with ninety-one enrolled in summer 2015 and two-hundred and sixty-nine enrolled in fall 2015, totaling five hundred and fifteen (see figure 12). the spring 2016 semester was a critical period because the higher learning commission (hlc) conducted a site visit and uco downtown was approved to offer full programs at the facility. up until that point, no more than 50% of the coursework for any program could be offered. additionally, we received sevp approval during the same semester. uco also launched its first advertising campaign for uco downtown. figure 12. uco downtown enrollment history by semester as we near completion of three full cycles of uco downtown enrollment, we are currently offering courses in the following graduate programs: adult education, educational administration, the master’s in public administration (mpa), the master’s in business analytics (msba) and the professional science master’s (psm). the latter two programs are new and are expected to be attractive to the okc workforce. moreover, the master’s in business administration (mba) program has relocated entirely from the main campus in edmond to okc. undergraduate classes are offered in biology, criminal justice, english, funeral service, leadership, mathematics, and spanish. next steps: one santa fe plaza while the primary purpose of uco downtown is to provide space for credit-bearing classes, uco customized education provides oversight of the facility and maximizes the space usage with noncredit programming in all possible off-hours. uco downtown utilizes the facility for certificates, courses, contract partnerships, and conference management programming within the okc metro business community, even hosting a small business incubator in a neighboring facility (one santa fe 155 243 413 91 162 81 269 403 646 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 spring 2015 spring 2016 spring 2017 summer 2015 summer 2016 summer 2017 fall 2015 fall 2016 fall 2017 69 plaza). uco downtown space is also available to rent to businesses and organizations on occasion, making the facility a community favorite for events and retreats. as of the spring 2018 semester, the uco downtown facility will no longer be able to keep pace with the classroom demands during peak times (evening hours). plans are currently taking shape to renovate newly available space in one santa fe plaza, to include five additional classrooms. uco is already leasing office space there, for uco customized education. while only touchdown space, in the form of cubicles, now accommodates faculty teaching at uco downtown, faculty offices will be available in one santa fe plaza. located three blocks away from uco downtown, one santa fe plaza (see figure 13) will continue to house customized education, the catbird seat small business incubator. furthermore, it will provide conference and classroom space for increased programming (e.g., for the mba) and a more permanent setting for student services and faculty offices. moreover, this next chapter of our metropolitan expansion will be a “stemcubator,” a laboratory space for holding biology and engineering laboratories, and interdisciplinary collaborative research space for faculty, students, and community partnerships (see figure 14). figure 13. one santa fe plaza uco continuing education was able to secure $1,000,000 in tif funding for the planned remodel of uco rental space within one santa fe plaza, a good indicator of oklahoma city’s confidence in uco’s viability as a long-term partner to the downtown and oklahoma city metropolitan area. 70 figure 14. future home of the uco “stemcubator” lessons learned the creation of uco downtown was a multifaceted process that took years to accomplish. it happened in the context of a decade of previous campus development and after a specific planning initiative (vision 2020) that included “place” as a strategic theme. we benefited greatly from the foresight of our predecessors (presidents, vice presidents, faculty, and staff members). however, during our involvement, we encountered several experiences that are important to review. below, we share some of those lessons. creating institutional momentum. while the details of uco downtown emerged from an academic planning process, this experience belongs in the broader context of a decade of university-level planning, including the current university strategic plan, vision 2020. shared governance among university constituents is an essential element in building momentum toward a successful uco downtown. in addition to planning with the six university deans, this included unsolicited visits to the university’s faculty senate in order to articulate the need for the project and why it was an appropriate investment in the future of the institution. key collaborators. given the entrepreneurial nature of creating uco downtown, both in its design and planning, we needed partners on and off the uco campus who could relate to a new, metropolitan-based approach to learning. key among these partners was the center for e-learning and customized education (which later evolved into the center for e-learning and connected environments with customized education settling in downtown oklahoma city). this group immediately grasped the special needs of the facility, including the nature of the learning space (with an ability to physically rearrange learning components on short notice) and the availability of skilled learning technology facilitators (“techceptionists”). these collaborators included a local real estate agent and civic leader, dedicated staff members, and faculty pioneers with a desire to explore a new form of urban education. 71 communication with key stakeholders. even after the construction of the teaching facility that formed the physical basis for uco downtown, communication with academic policy makers was essential to development of the learning environment of our metropolitan-based students. federal input (e.g., student and exchange visitor information system, or sevis) was required to accommodate international students. we notified our regional accreditation body (higher learning commission) of our intent to teach in the facility and obtained a visit by an accreditation liaison. both the regional university system of oklahoma (ruso) and oklahoma state regents of higher education (osrhe) also provided critical input into the planning process. forgetting the role of key stakeholders like these can have disastrous consequences for any academic planning process that includes off-site teaching locales. conclusion given the continued and substantial decline in federal and state funding for higher education, the special role that metropolitan universities play, in providing education that supports the economic momentum of the states they serve, is increasingly important. the role of universities in metropolitan innovation districts illustrates a modern view of universities as being integral to regional economies that support global outcomes. this paper chronicled the journey of one metropolitan institution, the university of central oklahoma, to enhance its physical presence in the downtown metropolitan area (oklahoma city), including the establishment of a downtown teaching facility. indeed, uco has been actively engaged in formalizing its role within the oklahoma city metropolitan area for over a decade. uco downtown, a teaching and community service extension of the uco main campus in edmond, has now brought curriculum previously found only on the uco campus into the heart of oklahoma city. the multi-year process that led to its development has yielded several lessons we hope will benefit the reader. key among these is to ensure that you engage in a concerted and collaborative strategic planning process and that you are aware of all relevant accreditation and federal guidelines that may affect that planning process. acknowledgements we wish to thank the numerous individuals who have supported and contributed to the development of the uco presence in oklahoma city. former uco president roger webb and executive vice president of administration and finance, steve kreidler, were strongly influential in creating a vision and series of early actions that created a footprint in oklahoma city, including the development of the academy of contemporary music (acm) and the central chk boathouse. the center for e-learning and connected environments, including drs. linda banks and bucky dodd, provided invaluable assistance to our early efforts in designing and implementing the learning space at uco downtown. we also thank the uco president’s cabinet for their involvement in advancing that footprint. dr. mark kinders, vice president of public affairs, was a critical contributor to the strategic planning in oklahoma city, especially with respect to the innovation district and the greater oklahoma city hispanic chamber of commerce. finally, the current uco president, dr. don betz, envisioned the important interface between oklahoma city and uco that has led to the project we have described in this article. we are grateful for his leadership throughout this planning and implementation of vision 2020. 72 references barthell, j., cunliff, e., gage, k., radke, w. & steele, c. (2010). transformative learning collaborating to enhance student learning. proceedings of the 115th annual meeting of nca/the higher learning commission, 26, 56-60. retrieved from http://sites.uco.edu/academicaffairs/files/transformlrningcollaborating.pdf barthell, j., pope, m., king, j., verschelden, c., hughes, c. & wilson, g. (2014). using a transformative learning transcript to assess high-impact practices. proceedings of the 119th annual meeting of nca/the higher learning commission, 30, 58-63. retrieved from https://sites.uco.edu/central/tl/files/uco-hlc-2014-paper-accompanying-presentation.pdf cornett, c. [mickcornett]. (2017, march 17). congratulations to the uco broncho hockey team, which won its second national championship in the last three years this week. with the acm@uco in bricktown, downtown classes at the carnegie building, and the uco boathouse in the boathouse district, uco has a substantial okc footprint. and…the broncho’s home ice is in oklahoma city! [facebook status update]. retrieved from https://www.facebook.com/mickcornett cunliff, e. & hughes, c. (2011) transformative learning is h.i.p. in oklahoma. the higher learning commission: a collection of papers on self-study and institutional improvement, 27, 139-141. katz, b. & j. bradley. (2013). the metropolitan revolution: how cities and metros are fixing our broken politics and fragile economy. washington, d.c.: the brookings institution. lackmeyer, s. (2014, october 8). oklahoma city’s former downtown library, carnegie centre, starts new story. the oklahoman. retrieved from: http://newsok.com loughlin, p. & burke, b. (2007). building traditions, educating generations: a history of the university of central oklahoma. oklahoma city, ok: oklahoma heritage association. oowd. (2017) oklahoma office of workforce development state workforce data. oklahoma city, ok: oklahoma office of workforce development.. retrieved from https://oklahomaworks.gov/ springer, m. s., barthell, j. f., simmons, c. k, jackson-hardwick, d. & wilson, g. m. (in press). broadening campus participation in undergraduate research through the office of high-impact practices. council for undergraduate research scholarship and practice of undergraduate research (spur). uco factbook. (2017). university of central oklahoma factbook. edmond, ok: university of central oklahoma office of institutional research. verschelden, c. (2017) bandwidth recovery: helping students reclaim cognitive resources lost to poverty, racism, and social marginalization. sterling, va: stylus publishing. 73 author information john f. barthell is provost and vice president for academic affairs and former dean of mathematics and science at uco. focused on producing a learning model supporting the teacher-scholar role for faculty, he supports initiatives nationally that emphasize undergraduate research (e.g., as a cur councilor and nsf reu biology leadership council member). the pi of an nsf reu grant centered in the republic of turkey, he has authored over 60 articles pertaining to ecology, natural history, and topics relating to highimpact educational practices such as undergraduate research. provost barthell oversaw the strategic planning for uco downtown. *john f. barthell office of academic affairs university of central oklahoma 100 n. university drive edmond, ok 73034 telephone: 405-974-2534 email: jbarthell@uco.edu charlotte k. simmons is associate vice president for academic affairs and former dean of mathematics and science at uco. she also previously served as chair of the uco department of mathematics and science. among other responsibilities, she provides oversight of the budget for academic affairs (including uco downtown). she has served as the pi and/or project coordinator on several nsf grants in support of undergraduate research and is a cur councilor. charlotte k. simmons office of academic affairs university of central oklahoma 100 n. university drive edmond, ok 73034 telephone: 405-974-2538 email: cksimmons@uco.edu karen youngblood is executive director for continuing education at uco. she is responsible for the design and day-to-day operation of uco downtown and its integration with the okc area businesses. she earned a bs degree in business administration from friends university and a med with an emphasis in adult education and training from uco. with a broad depth of knowledge from her diverse background of having worked in corporate, non-profit, and higher education settings in her career, karen is known for forging paths into uncharted territory, often working where she is creating the roadmap and connecting people as it unfolds. karen youngblood customized education university of central oklahoma one santa fe plaza, suite 100 oklahoma city, ok 73102 telephone: 405-974-5599 email: kyoungblood2@uco.edu *corresponding author mailto:jbarthell@uco.edu mailto:cksimmons@uco.edu mailto:kyoungblood2@uco.edu metropolitan universities vol. 30 no. 2 (june 2019), doi: 10.18060/22810 60 civic leadership education at the university of chicago: how an urban research university invested in a program for civic leaders that resulted in a positive impact for both the civic leaders and the faculty, staff and students of the institution itself joanie friedman abstract the university of chicago (uchicago), known for transformative education, created the civic leadership academy (cla) to address the need for leadership development in government and the non-profit sector. in 2014 the office of civic engagement recognized that while there were a host of leadership development opportunities for individuals in the private sector, similar opportunities for nonprofit and local government employees were lacking. the program begins by investing in fellows’ leadership capacity, so that in turn, their organizations are better able to carry out their missions. after three years of research and co-creation with foundations, corporations, individuals and groups, an original design, structure and curriculum emerged. the curriculum is rigorous and analytical, drawing upon the expertise of the faculty and the experiences of established civic leaders in chicago. action skills help individuals use their knowledge to achieve desired outcomes, and involve elements of communication, negotiation, persuasion, motivating others, and teamwork. keywords: civic leaders; chicago; civic leadership academy; non-profit; government; leadership development; civic engagement; equity; civic infrastructure introduction the university of chicago (uchicago), known for providing transformative educational experiences, created the civic leadership academy (cla) to address a lack of rigorous leadership development in non-profit and government employees who work in a variety of domains (education, housing, transportation, parks, arts, law, etc.) and who have at least 5-7 years of experience. this six-month, international, interdisciplinary program exceeded expectations by benefiting the civic leaders, the organizations that invested in those leaders, and the city’s larger civic infrastructure. in addition, this program transformed the way the university understands civic leadership education and its own role and responsibility in fostering it in chicago. the process the university undertook, to weave together faculty from five professional schools and to create a learning environment for faculty to interact with local civic leaders impacted the school in anticipated and unanticipated ways. the civic actors, while studying with faculty from multiple disciplines, raised new questions about what civic leadership is, how it is employed in the dynamic civic sector, and how the institution itself wrestles with questions of race, equity, inclusion, and difference. fellows helped shape the curriculum and sparked uncomfortable, and therefore fruitful, questions for uchicago faculty and staff. as an institution dedicated to rigorous civic dialogue, the university welcomed the insights and made changes based on the feedback of civic leaders. this reciprocal relationship between academics and practitioners makes this program distinctive. the field of civic studies looks at the relationship 61 between the academy and the surrounding civic sector. the cla is a concrete example of how a university can invest in civic studies. as peter levine (2014), lincoln filene professor of citizenship & public affairs at tufts, writes, civic studies [is] a strategy for reorienting academic scholarship so that it does address citizens—and learns from them in turn. in fact, it treats scholars as citizens who are engaged with others in creating their worlds. civic studies integrates facts, values, and strategies. those who practice this nascent discipline are accountable to the public for what they believe to be true, to be good, and to work. they are accountable for the actual results of their thoughts and not just the ideas themselves. civic studies is a large river fed by tributaries of scholars and practitioners who share commitments to particular forms of civic action in the world. the creation of the civic leadership academy was a way to bring scholars and practitioners into meaningful contact around a contested notion of civic leadership. while the original intent was to serve civic leaders, an additional benefit was the impact these civic leaders had on faculty, staff and students inside the university of chicago. for example, the question raised in the cla curriculum, “what is civic leadership?” (howell & wolton, 2014) led to an interdisciplinary faculty symposium hosted on campus entitled “a symposium on leadership” that included faculty from philosophy, political science, comparative literature, and behavioral science, seeking new questions about leadership. the lessons learned, and the results described below, might help other universities recognize the potential they have in contributing to the education of civic leaders who are addressing complex urban challenges. origin story: what was the situation and the opportunity? this university is here to assist teachers, students, businessmen and women, and particularly those whom circumstances have deprived of educational opportunities once eagerly sought. i maintain that university men and women owe something as an institution to the people who are without its walls. our obligation does not cease when we give instruction to those who come to us; it is our business to go beyond just as far as our means and opportunities permit. —william rainey harper 1894, university of chicago’s first president in 2014, the office of civic engagement recognized that while there were a host of leadership development opportunities for individuals in the private sector, there were not the same opportunities for nonprofit and local government employees, who were addressing some of the most complex urban challenges. in chicago, nonprofit and government agencies are often working on the same issues but sometimes at cross-purposes. individuals who work for the public library, the park district, and the public school system for example often did not have mechanisms to form relationships with nonprofit agencies in education, housing, and health. robert zimmer, president of the university of chicago, as part of the university’s strategic vision, invested in civic engagement as a key priority, and hired derek douglas, former special assistant for urban affairs in the obama white house, to become the vice president of civic engagement in 2011. given the university of chicago’s desire to help strengthen the civic infrastructure of its home city, while staying true to its educational mission, the office of civic 62 engagement committed to co-create, with local partners, a new program to serve “the people who are outside its walls.” the original intent was to leverage the university’s intellectual resources to build the leadership capacity of non-profit and government leaders. as evidenced by the three-year study, it accomplished its goal, and created positive benefits for the universit as well. what is the model and how does it work? the program begins by investing in fellows’ leadership capacity, so that in turn, their organizations are better able to carry out their missions. the cla has another goal of building a collaborative network that “breaks down silos.” bringing together fellows across sectors will ultimately contribute to chicago’s civic infrastructure. civic infrastructure is defined as an active, engaged network of civic leaders who gain strength from 1) relationship development, or the extent to which individual fellows developed strong personal and professional relationships with other fellows in their cohort, and 2) networking activities, or the extent to which fellows exchanged information and resources and/or formed mutually beneficial organizational collaborations. (cassata, talbot & century, 2018). the six-month cla program is distinctive for three reasons. first, the curriculum is interdisciplinary, with 110 hours of classroom learning with faculty from chicago harris school of public policy, chicago booth school of business, university of chicago law school, the school of social service administration, and the graham school of continuing liberal and professional studies. the curriculum is curated to expose the fellows to contradictory and divergent ways of thinking. for example, two political science professors modeled how to disagree with the accepted definition of the concept of “leadership.” figure 1. theory of action diagram, university of chicago’s civic leadership academy. 63 as figure 1 illustrates, uchicago brought together local government and nonprofit sector leaders to study with faculty from multiple disciplines and civic practitioners to develop individual fellows, public and nonprofit organizations, and civic networks, all in order to benefit the city. second, all 30 fellows engage in a week-long global practicum to south africa or india that exposes them to their counterparts in a radically different context. third, fifty percent of the cohort is admitted from the non-profit sector and fifty percent from the government sector so that fellows build an intentional community across non-profit and government sectors aimed at building a stronger chicago. partnering across the civic sector after two years of research and co-creation with foundations, corporations, individuals and groups such as lisc chicago (a community-development support organization) and the civic consulting alliance (an engine of public-private sector collaboration), an initial design, structure and curriculum emerged. lisc chicago hosted a set of focus groups for the target population of nonprofit candidates for the civic leadership academy. the civic consulting alliance helped identify promising public sector leaders who would benefit from this kind of program. seed funding for the program came from local foundations such as the searle funds of the chicago community trust, mccormick foundation, and the field foundation, in addition to corporate donors such as jpmorgan chase and microsoft corporation, as well as significant investments of time and resources from the university of chicago. one important factor in the program’s success was its partnership model. from the outset, planners gathered input from an advisory council comprised of individuals from foundations, corporations, community-development corporations, public/private entities and all five of the university of chicago’s professional schools. the process was a form of civic engagement itself, which built a sense of collective ownership. the full cost of the program, including six months of study and a one-week global practicum, is $25,000 per fellow or $750,000 for 30 fellows in each cohort. to make this program affordable to the non-profit and government section, the university committed to raise $17,000 per student from philanthropy and asked the host organization to pay $8,000 for this certificate program. additional financial aid was raised for organizations who could not afford the $8,000 fee, no organization was turned away based on financial constraints. the curriculum is grounded in theory the cla curriculum is rigorous and analytical, drawing upon the expertise of the faculty and the experiences of established civic leaders in chicago. the civic leadership academy is grounded in an approach emphasizing the need (davis & hogarth, 1992) to acquire both “conceptual” and “domain” knowledge, and develop both “action” and “insight” skills. conceptual knowledge means learning about fundamental leadership and management principles, theories, and ways to think rigorously about problems and challenges. it is acquired through formal instruction and learning experience. to that end, cla employs an interdisciplinary team of uchicago faculty from all five professional schools and the institute of politics, as well as industry professionals, who help fellows think broadly, critically, and creatively. 64 domain knowledge, on the other hand, is area-specific and acquired by hands-on experience or through a company or industry training program. to that end, cla not only draws on some of the university’s top professors, but also from the expertise of its nonprofit and government partners, and from the fellows themselves, who come on average with 5-7 years of field experience. the program’s comprehensive nature fills a need for skill-based, conceptual and practical leadership development. by bringing together nonprofit and government leaders, cla creates an environment where fellows can learn from their counterparts in public service. action skills help individuals use their knowledge to achieve desired outcomes, and involve elements of communication, persuasion, motivating others, and teamwork. as part of the application process, fellows select a leadership skill to advance during the cla and provide two examples of opportunities to exercise that skill. throughout the six months of the program, each fellow identifies, collects, and analyzes data on his or her own leadership action skills. these “insight skills” help fellows learn the right lessons from their experiences and profitably interpret feedback about the outcomes of their actions. working with faculty, each fellow reflects individually and in a group, to ensure that she or he is gaining the appropriate insight. in this way, the cla experience is also a reciprocal one, where faculty and practitioners engage participants in new questions that inform and shape their teaching and work. this reciprocal knowledge sharing benefits both the participants and the instructors. the six-month curriculum is divided into three sections the cla curriculum is dynamic and changes in response to feedback from faculty and fellows every year. in the first four years of the program, the curriculum was divided into three sections. the first section focused on foundational ways of thinking about leadership, including sessions on discovering one’s capacity for leadership, defining civic leadership, and collecting and analyzing data to inform civic action. for example, a history professor taught a session on foundational ideas of leading through plato’s crito and martin luther king’s “letter from a birmingham jail.” a political science professor challenged notions of power and ethics by teaching machiavelli’s text the prince. the second section was the global practicum that in years 1-4 brought fellows to johannesburg, south africa or delhi, india, where they meet with nonprofit and government leaders in a different context who faced similar leadership obstacles and employed leadership strategies. the goal of the week-long immersion was not to understand “what” leaders in south africa or india are doing, but to investigate “how” those leaders were advancing goals, persuading audiences and negotiating in contested civic spaces. the week-long global practicum sparked fellows to think differently about the broader context in which they operate and how they as a network of leaders across chicago might learn with and from the leaders in south africa and india who faced similar challenges in a larger and more complicated context. 65 the final section focuses on the application of concepts to practical challenges of leading in the civic space. for example, a business school professor teaches techniques in negotiation in the civic sector. a behavioral science professor teaches conceptual knowledge on securing commitment, a necessary skill for leaders who need to secure commitment from civic actors. a community organizer engages fellows on disrupting power through an analysis of saul alinsky’s rules for radicals. the classwork and global practicum provide a powerful transformative learning experience for nonprofit and government leaders. in addition, in the program’s fourth year, the curriculum added an interactive civic case-study, based on chicago’s history with the “cha plan for transformation.” this new case study focused on goal-setting, persuasion and negotiation in a local historical set of events. in the fifth year, the program’s management transitioned from the office of civic engagement to the harris school of public policy, which had served as the academic home of the program from the program’s inception. under the leadership of the harris school the curriculum continues to be refined based on input from faculty, staff and fellows. how to measure the success of the civic leadership academy? the office of civic engagement worked with uchicago’s outlier research and evaluation network to conduct a three-year comprehensive evaluation of the civic leadership academy addressing the following questions: • to what extent have cla fellows experienced and demonstrated changes in leadership behavior and self-efficacy over time?; • to what extent have organizations benefited from having a fellow participate in the cla?; and • to what extent has the civic leadership academy experience facilitated the development of a network and in turn contributed to a civic infrastructure in chicago? the methodology used to address these questions included: pre and post fellow leadership surveys, pre and post fellow network surveys, pre and post supervisor surveys, fellow focus groups and fellow case study interviews. results of the three-year study: the outlier evaluation was able to illustrate with qualitative and statistically significant quantitative data that from the beginning to the end of the program, fellows became more confident in their ability to: • use data and information to guide decision-making; • understand others’ perspectives; • reflect on the effects of their behavior; • develop effective action plans; • adjust their behavior in response to feedback; • use assessment tools to understand others’ needs; • make a greater effort to understand others in the organization; and • consider both experience and research when goal-setting. 66 the results reveal that the civic leadership academy had a positive impact on individuals, organizations and civic infrastructure. over the course of the program, fellows became more confident in using data to guide decision-making (59% pre to 91% post), understanding others’ perspectives (59% pre to 82% post) and developing effective action plans (77% pre to 91% post). furthermore, the organizations benefited from having a fellow in the program, both because of the professional connections and because of the change in behavior. 78% of supervisors of fellows agreed or strongly agreed that cla improved their fellows’ ability to be better leaders in the organization. moreover, qualitative and quantitative data revealed that a larger civic network emerged from the program, resulting in concrete new collaborations. for example, when the deputy commissioner from the public library connected with a nonprofit that focused on job placement, training and coaching people affected by poverty, they were able to create a new initiative to connect homeless individuals who arrived in the public libraries with services to help them find employment. illustrations of these collaborations can be found in all twelve case studies (cassata, talbot & century, 2018). the preand post-surveys, focus groups and interviews revealed that fellows built strong personal and professional relationships, their behaviors changed over time, and the organizations benefited because of the leaders’ increased self-efficacy. these findings, collected during the program’s first three years, indicate that an urban research university, when it partners with local government and nonprofits, can use its resources to convene and educate civic leaders in the service of strengthening the individual, organizational and civic infrastructure of a city. figure 2. civic leadership academy – working theory of action based on evaluation data (2015-2017) figure 2 illustrates relationships between the cla program and the key outcomes described in the summative evaluation findings. program structures experienced by fellows are listed in the left-hand box, and described in detail below. program mechanisms, derived from evaluation data, describe the processes through which program structures may yield the identified fellow, 67 network, and organizational outcomes. the arrows depict relationships between outcomes, illustrating multiple paths through which particular outcomes may be reached. lessons learned the three-year outlier evaluation served both a formative and summative role that informed program design and refinement of the civic leadership academy. data collected in the evaluation led to two significant adjustments to the program. first, after the first year, it was clear that while the fellows enjoyed exposure to the variety of professors and ways of thinking, they needed help integrating one class with another and connecting them to their own work. therefore, in the second year, the program added a “faculty advisor” who attended all classes, met with each faculty member to help design the sessions, and traveled with the cohort on the global practicum, in order to be the “red thread” tying these elements together. second, there were major changes made to the capstone project in order to have it align with the mission of the program. the intended goal of the capstone project was to help fellows put their leadership development into action. in the first year of the program, fellows were asked to submit two proposals (with sign-off from their supervisor) for active projects that could advance their own leadership and benefit the organization. at the end of the first cohort, the evaluations revealed that while capstone projects advanced the work of the host organization, they did not improve the leadership skills of the fellows as much as anticipated. one possible reason is that the types of people nominated for and accepted into the program were high-performing, task-oriented individuals. the work of leadership development requires one to become more self-aware, more vulnerable and to take risks. because of the high stakes of doing a project at one’s home institution, as soon as the project was scoped, the individual focused on immediate results and lost sight of the more nuanced task of observing one’s own behavior in particular contexts. because of this real-time feedback, the program adjusted its requirement from a capstone project to a capstone reflection paper, which asked fellows to synthesize and draw connections from classwork to their experiences. the reflection paper employed in the fourth and fifth year encouraged fellows to consider how one leads, rather than focus on the completion of a particular task. anticipated and unanticipated benefits to the university in launching the cla, the university hoped that the program would result in positive benefits to the university. for example, cla fellows can help undergraduate and graduate students gain access to opportunities working with or in the public sector. cla fellows met with undergraduates from the institute of politics to share their career stories. a student group reached out to cla fellows to host a civic hack-a-thon; students were able to use “real data” from cook county to scope meaningful data-science projects. these types of initiatives led to a year-long program where public-policy data scientists partnered with cook county staff to deploy teams of data scientists to inform policy makers how to make evidence-based decision making easier for government employees (international innovation corps, 2019). enriching the lives of the civic leaders, welcoming them into the university community and providing new opportunities and connections for current students were anticipated positive outcomes of this investment. one unanticipated benefit was that the lived experiences fellows and practitioners brought to the university informed the curriculum itself and helped instigate conversations within the 68 university on race, equity and inclusion. fellows raised questions of how race, equity and power dynamics shape the policies and protocols in chicago and how that inherently influences the work of civic leadership in chicago. as part of a session taught by a political scientist on “undefining civic leadership,” students met with a local activist who was a key founder of the movement for black lives. these activists and fellows pushed back on the definition of leadership as inherently hierarchical. the input the fellows and practitioners brought to the cla curriculum challenged uchicago faculty and staff to think and teach differently. as a result, there was a new cla session introduced into the fifth cohort on “confronting difference,” where fellows grappled with the ascriptive characteristics that shape how—and in some instances, whether—one is able to lead. texts for this section include palacios (2016), delaney (2018), and richie (1996; 2012). 69 figure 3. heat map: chicago community areas served 70 conclusion and implications the university of chicago created a model program that demonstrated how an urban research university could partner with local government and nonprofits to benefit individuals, organizations and civic infrastructure. in the program’s first five years, the university discovered many positive benefits. by welcoming full-time nonprofit and government leaders as a new kind of “student” at the university of chicago, both the participants and the university itself benefited in anticipated and unanticipated ways. faculty from five professional schools mobilized to teach this group of eager students, and found that the life experiences they brought to the classroom were much different from those of undergraduate and graduate students. the success of the civic leadership academy has deepened the university’s commitment to civic leadership scholarship, teaching and practice. the university’s office of civic engagement created a new position of the executive director for civic leadership to coordinate, invest in and discover new ways that an urban research university can leverage its resources, so that all students, faculty, staff, alumni and civic actors can sharpen and enhance their civic leadership. in the next five years, it is looking for ways to leverage the initiatives that invest in civic leaders at the university, e.g. civic scholars, a scholarship for an mba for nonprofit and government leaders, as well as chicago commons, a program of the divinity school for faith-based leaders. uchicago leaders seek to create new platforms for civic leadership education and help support a “civic leadership exchange” for citywide leadership development programs. for example, based on the cla curriculum, the university is piloting a new program called the “civic actor studio.” the initiative recognizes the performative aspect of leadership, and partners with theater directors from the university’s court theatre, to help leaders strengthen their leadership performance skills. the civic leadership academy at the university of chicago is one example of how a major urban research institution can leverage its intellectual strength in order build the capacity of the city it calls home. in investing in inquiry and recognizing civic leaders as reciprocal partners, the university has become more permeable and has been influenced by the new perspectives civic leaders bring. by engaging a new kind of student and opening up inquiry on the very concept of “civic leadership” an urban research university can not only impact its intended audience, but can also change the research institution itself so that the institution at large can play an even more significant role in shaping its home city. 71 references cassata, a., talbot, m.e., & century, j. (2018). civic leadership academy final evaluation report. outlier research & evaluation for university of chicago. retrieved from https://cla.(uchicago).edu/impact davis, h.l. & hogarth, r.m. (2012). rethinking management education: a view from chicago [selected paper 72]. chicago, il: university of chicago graduate school of business. delaney, r., et al. (2018, october 21). reimagining prison. portside: material of interest to people on the left. retrieved from https://portside.org/2018-10-21/reimagining-prison howell, w. & wolton, s., (2014) leadership: a provisional definition presentation at the university of virginia conference on leadership in american politics, june 2-3, 2014. levine, p., & soltan, k. e. (eds.). (2014). civic studies. washington dc: association of american colleges & universities. palacios, l. (2016). challenging convictions: indigenous and black race-radical feminists theorizing the carceral state and abolitionist praxis in the united states and canada. meridians, 15(1), 137-165. https://doi.org/10.2979/meridians.15.1.08 richie, b. (2012). arrested justice: black women, violence, and america's prison nation. new york: new york university press. richie, b. (1996). compelled to crime: the gender entrapment of battered black women. new york, ny: routledge. https://cla.uchicago.edu/impact https://doi.org/10.2979/meridians.15.1.08 72 author information joanie friedman executive director of civic leadership office of civic engagement edward h. levi hall university of chicago 5801 south ellis avenue chicago, il 60637 telephone: 773-702-1035 email: joaniefriedman@(uchicago).edu as executive director of civic leadership for the office of civic engagement, joanie is responsible for advancing the knowledge, teaching, and practice of civic leadership locally, nationally, and globally to increase civic trust and strengthen cities. working across the university, she raises the visibility of programs and partnerships that strengthen the civic sector via civic leadership. in 2015, joanie launched the civic leadership academy, an interdisciplinary leadership development program for nonprofit and government leaders who study with practitioners and faculty from chicago harris school of public policy, chicago booth school of business, university of chicago law school, the school of social service administration, and the graham school of continuing liberal and professional studies. prior to working with the office of civic engagement, joanie led the southside arts & humanities network of the civic knowledge project, which connected the cultural resources of the surrounding community with the resources of the university. joanie holds a b.a. in history from brown university and an m.a. in social and cultural foundations in education from depaul university. civic leadership education at the university of chicago: how an urban research university invested in a program for civic leaders that resulted in a positive impact for both the civic leaders and the faculty, staff and students of the institution itself introduction origin story: what was the situation and the opportunity? what is the model and how does it work? author information joanie friedman executive director of civic leadership office of civic engagement edward h. levi hall university of chicago 5801 south ellis avenue chicago, il 60637 telephone: 773-702-1035 email: joaniefriedman@(uchicago).edu metropolitan universities vol. 29 no. 1 (february 2018), doi: 10.18060/22175 lessons learned about inclusion while starting a new college michelle d. jones abstract starting a college from scratch presents a unique opportunity to think about how to build an inclusive learning environment from the beginning by selecting people and strategies that do not carry the weight of the traditional academic model and its prejudices and assumptions about who belongs and who does not. this article documents the lessons learned in the first two years of a new college and presents some next steps. keywords: alternative college; innovative; new college; startup college some disclaimers i want to start with an acknowledgment that i am a white woman from an upper middle class background who went to a traditional private liberal arts college designed for people like me and who has a ph.d. so, as i grapple with the goal of gaining understanding in the realm of diversity, equity, and inclusion, i am relying on listening to other people's experiences and doing the best i can to understand them. i am not an expert in this, just someone who cares a lot and who is trying to build a different kind of college to address some big issues in higher education in a way that might nudge change in the entire system. starting a college from scratch—wayfinding academy—presents a unique opportunity to take all the things i saw in the higher education system that troubled me during my 15 years of working as a faculty member and to try to avoid those pitfalls. mostly this looks like embedding a lot of intention into every decision, from the very tiny ones to the much bigger ones. how to create a higher education experience that is inclusive and accessible is a thing i think a lot about, but only recently have i started digging deep into reading books, watching films, and going to trainings on the topic, and requesting that members of our staff and faculty do the same. one of the deepest core values we have at wayfinding academy is that “education is an investment we all share” (https://wayfindingacademy.org/creed/), and that everybody should have access to it if it’s a step that will help them to do what they want to do with their life. in all our systems and processes, from the moment we meet a prospective student through the moment they graduate, we have to be careful not to make assumptions about who belongs and who doesn’t. we’ve tried to set up the wayfinding experience so everybody is valued and respected for who they are and what they bring. 47 in the beginning our students come from all over the country and have lots of experiences they’re drawing from. it is important for all students to have someone they feel they can connect to as a mentor, who can understand them and what they’re going through, and relate to what they’ve experienced in life. one of the things i tried to do from the beginning was bring in a team of faculty and staff who have a diversity of lived experiences. finding people who have a variety of lived experiences has been a struggle in the early years. when you start something from scratch, you rely a lot on your friends’ network and people you've worked with before whose skills and capabilities you’re already familiar with. as a white person from an upper middle class background, most of my immediate network was similar to me, so many people on our founding team looked a lot like me and had similar backgrounds. as a result, in the first year of operations we were predominantly white. in our planning meetings, we were having deep conversations about important and complicated issues related to equity and inclusion, but most people sitting in those conversations were white. probably because of the way we appeared to people looking in, the first cohort of students we enrolled were all also white. that was not our intention, and not all of the students who applied nor all the students invited were white, but all the students who ended up enrolling were. even though we have backgrounds in equity, inclusion, and social justice, you couldn’t necessarily see that or tell that just from looking at us. one lesson i learned from this experience is that in addition to holding the values, you also have to look like what you believe. both are necessary. we had the inclusivity and equity values in place from the very beginning, we talked about this a lot in the early days when founding wayfinding academy, and we built the curriculum around it, but to anybody outside looking in, we didn’t look like that was what we valued. the two-year program of study we offer is in self and society. the program title means that half of the courses the students take are about who they are as human beings, what they’re passionate about, and what they care about. the other half is about society, what’s going on in the world, and what the major issues are. we’re helping students find the place where those two things come together, so they can figure out how to be of service to the world or their community. social justice topics are embedded through just about everything we do in the coursework. when i went to hire the founding faculty to teach the first round of courses, i chose people intentionally who had a very strong background in and experience with social justice issues. many of them were activists or scholars or researchers who had worked in this area for a very long time, so students who came to wayfinding were surrounded by those conversations from the very beginning. at the same time, once people came and spent time with us, were in our space, and had conversations with us, the feedback we got was that it felt like a welcoming and inclusive place. so, once we got someone in the building and into the conversation, we were able to break apart that initial perception that we might not be inclusive, or a place for people of diverse backgrounds. 48 after spending some time reflecting on this and noting these things, we made the decision to be more blatant about putting our values front and center. we did not change anything in terms our recruitment strategy for students or staff and faculty members—we still posted our openings in the same places and reached out to the same community organizations, but we started putting our statement of diversity and justice on everything we put out publicly. it reads: we believe that diverse backgrounds and perspectives are not simply ideal, but critical to the wayfinding academy, the movement to re-imagine higher education, and to the students we serve. we believe that justice is an active pursuit, not a passive stance. as such, we place special emphasis on candidates from underrepresented racial, ethnic, religious, gender association, sexual orientation, economic, (dis)ability, and cultural backgrounds which will increase the diversity of our organization and help us strive toward justice on those (and other) fronts. wayfinding academy does not discriminate on the basis of race, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, gender expression, genetic information, religion, national origin, disability, previous military service or any other protected category in the admission of students, employment, access or treatment in its programs and activities or the administration of its educational and employment policies. how it is going now our second year is looking a bit better. of our six most recent hires, three were people of color and two were people with a disability. in our second cohort of students, 29% are students of color and 23% are students who identify as non-gender, non-binary or transgender (see supplementary figure 1). we now look like we match the values we have held from the beginning in a way that feels authentic, yet we still feel that we have a ways to go. we get a lot of feedback now that, when people come to visit us, it feels like a place where they can truly be themselves and feel like they belong. i’ve heard that both from staff members and from students who are reflecting on places they've been before that did not feel that way. most of our students—80% of them—have gone to a traditional higher education institution before they came to wayfinding and one of the reasons they left those institutions was because they didn't feel like it was serving them and helping them get to their next steps. put another way, it wasn't treating them like a whole human being with recognition of their talents and differences. they didn't feel they could just be themselves, they felt they had to fit into a box or some predetermined notion of what a “good” college student is like. another thing we do is make sure our pedagogy matches our values. we don’t say that the only way to be a good wayfinding student is to be able to write really good essays. students are sometimes asked to write things, but often they are given the freedom to do a project in whatever format works the best for them. so, if writing is not their preferred or strongest mode of communicating their ideas, they can make a video, podcast, play, interpretive dance or 49 something else they come up with. we try not to make assumptions about what it looks like to be smart, or engaged, or able to demonstrate mastery of course material. in this way, we can treat each student as an individual and as a whole human being. finally, one of the things we try to do is embed these conversations everywhere. it is a thing we think about and talk about every day, not just at designated times. we start this with students during orientation week where we give them a “scarf of inclusion” and let them know that if they ever feel excluded, or pick up on one of their cohort-mates being excluded, they should wear the scarf to remind us. we continue the conversation with students in the core courses and guide groups, and we weave it into our weekly crew meetings and quarterly board meetings. we don’t try to steer clear of the hard conversations, we lean into them. one thing i think about a lot these days is the motto of dennis littky, founder of the met high school in providence, rhode island, and later the big picture learning schools across the country. he has long said that he believes education should be “one student at a time.” he built his entire model on the concept of treating each student as an individual, meeting them where they're at, and helping them get from where they are now to where they're trying to be (littky & grabelle, 2004). policies, procedures, and statements of nondiscrimination are foundational elements, which need to be in place, but they are not enough. it takes vigilance and intention to make sure there is a culture of paying attention to each individual student and helping them in their own individual journey. and this is probably the way to be as inclusive as possible as a higher education institution. it is also important to be honest about the challenges that come with this approach. the first few months of our second year has brought some interesting challenges as a result of at least partially achieving our goal of having a more diverse community. we now have more voices at the table and more perspectives represented. this means we all have to learn to see the world from someone else's point of view at least a little bit of the time. this, of course, expands all of our knowledge and our ability to engage with the world in a way that matters. and when you get more diverse perspectives in those conversations, one of the things that comes with that territory is tension and conflict. we had a few struggles early this year with making sure the conversations are taking place in a way that gives everybody the chance to voice how they feel, even if it's not in line with the majority view in the room. the first course students take with us is understanding our world which focuses on how humans have dealt with concept of “difference” over the past 500 years, specifically through the lens of colonialism. there are many complex topics that come up in those conversations, some of which are about the nature of human nature and whether we are inherently good or evil and much of the discussion is about class struggles and race tensions. when our first cohort of students took that class they didn't have a lot of diverse perspectives come up in their conversations because many of them come from similar backgrounds there are different socioeconomic backgrounds represented in that cohort, but all the students are white and had been raised in the same dominant culture. for our second cohort, which is a more diverse group, when some of those topics came up in class, arguments would sometimes happen. so, lately, we have been having conversations as a community about how to have disagreements 50 respectfully and recognize and honor others’ life experiences and how they influence their perspective. now what? this leaves us with the obvious question: now what? my goal is to build on the foundation we have started and stretch us into the next level of thinking and acting on our values. a few specific things in the works are: 1. the formation of an equity team who participates in a series of workshops to build a common language and understanding, create some additional guidelines and policies for wayfinding academy, and puts a longer term strategic equity plan in place. we recently applied for a technical assistance grant to fund the formation of this team. 2. creating a civic engagement and social justice track for wayfinding students who want to focus more on these topics. this track would include taking workshops and trainings specific to these areas, doing internships with organizations focused on these realms, and creating a portfolio full of projects with this focus. 3. hosting events specifically for communities of color in portland. for example, when we do our student recruitment events this year, we will have some events that are specifically for prospective students of color and their families. we still have a way to go to accomplish the goal of being a place that is diverse, treats people equitably, is inclusive of people of different backgrounds and experiences, but we have come a long way in the first two years. and we welcome the tensions and conflicts that will likely come up more regularly as a result of moving more towards that goal. but this is the purpose of higher education and part of the role of a learning community and it's probably essential to the future of our country and perhaps the world to be able to have these kinds of conversations with people who have different opinions and experiences than you and do it with compassion. figure 1: selected demographics of wayfinding academy students. 51 references littky, d. & grabelle, s. (2004). the big picture: education is everyone's business. alexandria, va: association for supervision & curriculum. wayfinding academy creed. (2016). retrieved from https://wayfindingacademy.org/creed/ 52 author information michelle jones is doing her life's work, which is exhilarating and terrifying. during her 15 years teaching leadership and organizational behavior courses in the traditional college system, she had a front row seat for what is broken about that system. about 3 years ago, she gathered a group of like minded folks around a vision of what a revolution in higher education could look like. after years of helping groups and non-profits organize for social impact as a volunteer (superthank, tedxmthood, world domination summit) michelle started her legacy project and the wayfinding academy was born. michelle d. jones, ph.d. founder, president, and chief academic officer wayfinding academy 8010 n. charleston ave. portland, or 97203 e-mail: michelle@wayfindingacademy.org telephone: 503-482-9038 linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/michelledjones1/ about wayfinding academy wayfinding academy is a new two-year college in portland, or at the heart of a movement to revolutionize higher education. we believe there's more than one way to do life. and one definition of success is not enough. the two-year program is anchored by 9 core courses in communication, social change, teamwork, and leadership that will help students on any path. from there, they handcraft their own curriculum with the support of their own personal guide. students get their hands dirty with real-world internships, mentorships, and learn & explore trips. all the while, they’ll be documenting their experiences and learnings in a portfolio that they can carry with them far beyond college to show the world who they are and what they can do. there are no cookie-cutter tracks. we are humans to be cultivated, not objects to be sorted. it's education by odyssey, with qualified and dedicated guides helping students choose each next step. wayfinding academy has been approved by the oregon higher education coordinating commission to grant associates degrees in self and society (yes, we’re a real college). http://www.linkedin.com/in/michelledjones1/ wayfinding academy creed. (2016). retrieved from https://wayfindingacademy.org/creed/ metropolitan universities vol. 29 no. 1 (february 2018), doi: 10.18060/22178 the changing roles and contributions of campus diversity offices and their influence on campus culture carmen suarez, myron r. anderson, and kathryn s. young abstract higher education has struggled to include and support students, faculty, and staff from underrepresented and marginalized groups. in recent years, universities have decided to address these struggles explicitly, using a variety of different approaches to better support these groups from mandatory trainings to optional events, from external audits to internal campus climate surveys. one promising approach to providing support to marginalized groups has been to employ campus diversity officers and offices. these offices operate at the executive level and take on campus-wide leadership responsibilities, incorporating inclusive excellence and an equity perspective throughout campus policies, functions and culture. in this article, programmatic and policy efforts at two public universities are detailed, spotlighting systemicproactive and individual-reactive policies and programs needed to advance access, diversity, equity, and inclusion across institutions of higher education. although the approaches each university takes are site and context specific, they use the role of chief diversity officer both to marshal policy and programmatic change to improve the educational experiences for all who work at and learn at these institutions. keywords: campus climate; cultural responsiveness; equity; microaggressions; chief diversity officer introduction higher education has been grappling with the need to address educational inequities and to improve recruitment and retention of diverse students, faculty and staff for at least 30 years (hurtado, arellano, griffin, & cuellar, 2008). student activism around the country in recent years has added more urgency to this critical institutional responsibility. to this end, the incorporation of an equity perspective throughout a campus is paramount and can take on many forms. for the purposes of this article, an equity perspective “is a transformative quality improvement tool used to improve planning, decision-making, and resource allocation leading to more racially equitable policies and programs” (multnomah county, n.d.). it focuses change on multiple fronts simultaneously and includes multiple stakeholders who influence policies, processes and programs in order to move the institutional needle towards thinking about equity in each new and exisiting context throughout colleges and universities. the equity perspective ensures that it is the institution that bears the burden of creating pathways to success, rather than institutions using a framework based on cultural deficit that assumes the student is solely at fault for academic failure and thus the university bears no responsibility for inequitable outcomes. through direct experience and collected data, we know the racial, ethnic and gender demographics of students are changing (williams, 2013; williams & wade-golden, 2013). in 65 2014, the nationwide percentage of students of color in public schools was 49.5% (mcfarland et. al., 2017). institutions of higher education have ongoing deliberations of how to best recruit, and most importantly, retain, students of color in high schools and also in colleges. the 2017 national center for education statistics (nces) state of education confirms the gaps for students of color. they are not attending college at the rates they should compared to white students, and when they do attend college, they are not achieving degrees at proportional rates (mcfarland et al., 2017). likewise, faculty of color statistics have also not seen marked improvement (supiano, 2015). there is a need for a continued focus on increasing diverse faculty, another issue of urgency spotlighted in nationwide student activism. this paper details efforts at two institutions to build an equity perspective throughout campus policies, decision making, processed and programs. reading through the efforts at two similar but different institutions demonstrates how each place must consider its local context as it strives to implement an equity perspective across its institution. metropolitan state university of denver (msu denver) and portland state university (psu) have adopted elements of inclusive excellence to guide and assist in the advancement of equity throughout their campuses. introduced by the american association of colleges and universities (aac&u), inclusive excellence is the practice of moving beyond numeric measurements as the only strategy to promote diversity. inclusive excellence involves embedding the practices and philosophies that encourage diversity in every aspect of an organization. moreover, inclusive excellence involves institutionalizing systemic practices and philosophies, thus generating a broader outcome in regards to: inclusivity, excellence, cultural competence, innovation, synergy, and pride (anderson, n.d.). institutions of higher education generally adapt, to their own environment, approaches that are derived from national efforts such as inclusive excellence. they develop policies, practices and programs that advance the diversity, equity and inclusion (dei) missions in unique ways. the two universities highlighted here, msu denver and portland state university, each take differing approaches in developing a university-wide approach to applying an equity lens couched in the concept of inclusive excellence. structurally psu is a research one university and msu denver is a regional comprehensive university. this fundamental difference has an effect on the faculty and student ratio, resources, hierarchy, and elements of their mission. when reviewing msu denver’s instructional practices, you find that they promote an average class size of 19 students with no teaching assistants at the university. this means over 90% of the classes are taught by faculty with discipline-specific terminal degrees. moreover, the evaluation of the faculty is weighted at greater than 50% on their teaching and advising performance with a much lesser weight on their research performance. for msu denver, there is an emphasis on faculty professional development, with an equity focus on increasing diverse faculty. for the culture and climate work, institution-wide dei professional development and emphasis on supervisory training is critical. reviewing psu instructional practices, you find that psu has three categories of instructors, tenured and tenure track faculty, non-tenure track faculty with continuing full-time contracts and adjunct faculty. its average class size is twenty-seven. with a student population of over twenty66 nine thousand, the emphasis on cultural responsiveness in curriculum and pedagogy increased in depth, breadth and urgency. a december 2015 student of color speak-out raised these issues further. to engage in continuous improvement of campus culture and climate, strategies to advance dei goals include the use of an equity lens in decision making, and the restructuring of a council of stakeholders, with committees focusing on various institutional needs, policies and practices. although each institution is unique, the similarities in their urban locations, diverse student, faculty and staff populations (and the fact that they are at the forefront in systematically infusing diversity and inclusive philosophies throughout their respective institutions) provide a common perspective to share how their diversity offices influence campus culture. the following section details how each university has developed policies and programs that best meet its individual identity and internal stakeholder needs related to diversity and inclusion. these programs center around professional development, community engagement, mentorship, curriculum and instruction with the collective goal of how to best achieve dei advancement. metropolitan state university of denver (msu denver) msu denver, founded in 1965, is an urban university that takes a proactive approach to diversity. diversity is reflected in the curriculum; programs, policies; and in the composition of faculty, staff and students. for example, msu denver has a curriculum requirement that all students must complete a three-credit diversity course to be eligible to receive their undergraduate degree. this diversity course requirement promotes an understanding of diversity that we hope will continue in the future. also, the office of diversity and inclusion serves as the facilitator of programs and policies to support university diversity efforts. the diversity initiatives grant process provides $100,000 for university departments to apply to execute programs that align with the university mission and inclusive excellence. lastly, the systemic campus climate survey policy provides a continuous stream of data that provides university leadership with constituency feedback informing their decisions in regard to campus climate. currently 39.52% of the student body is racially and ethnically diverse, and 24.14% faculty and staff are racially and ethnically diverse. furthermore, msu denver’s administrative staff population is made up of 32.85% people from racially and ethnically diverse backgrounds. while this breadth in diversity is very much welcomed, managing and advancing the campus diversity interactions must be considered. the office of diversity and inclusion is tasked with supporting and promoting diversity and inclusion in all aspects of campus life, to include the design and development of policies and initiatives that embrace and support diversity, and that move the university down the path of inclusive excellence. below are several initiatives created by the office of diversity and inclusion that embody the move to systemically and individually incorporate an equity perspective throughout the university. at msu denver, the office of diversity and inclusion is called upon to lead and be an integral part of this equity charge. the inclusive excellence framework, grounded in inclusive excellence theory and connected with quantitative and qualitative research specific to msu denver, was designed by dr. myron anderson to create a guide while allowing for the promotion of 67 creativity, authenticity, and flexibility as programs and policies are shaped to advance equity. msu denver’s framework includes campus climate, civic engagement, retention and recruitment, diversity initiatives, diversity development, and equity in excellence (see model below). it is important to note that all elements within this framework lead to the aspirational goal of inclusive excellence (anderson, n.d.). msu denver and other campus diversity offices across the country are often being called upon to lead and engage in many of these elements when introducing an equity perspective. figure 1. elements of inclusive excellence (anderson, 2017). when incorporating an equity perspective throughout a campus, it is important that each institution’s framework has both system-wide and individual paths. having this approach allows for an institution to be both proactive and reactive in the development and implementation of policies and programs that promote equity. both paths are needed to effect change in this regard. the role of the chief diversity officer is to serve as an ally and as a resource in the development and implementation of both system-wide and individual activities throughout the university. it is important to note that these activities are not solely programmatic in nature. in our experience, there needs to be an intentional effort to develop and implement equity policies and processes as well. it can be a misstep to focus too heavily on programs; then the diversity office quickly morphs into a program office. this is the case when an office focuses too many of their resources on implementing a focus on national holidays, affinity group programs, or general diversity programs classified as an event. we find that programs do not move the equity needle unless they are undergirded by policies and processes that infuse diversity and inclusion throughout the institution. the implementation of equity policies and processes can take the forms of university-wide professional development. at msu denver, it led to the creation of a center for faculty development, the engagement of the enrollment management, equal opportunity and diversity and inclusion offices. in our experiences, empowering and connecting these areas when it comes to developing and implementing policies and process can systematically advance equity throughout your institution. institutions may have different ways and labels for doing this. some institutions may not be aware that their programs and initiatives can be categorized via this model. however, this model allows institutions to develop a clear inventory of initiatives, and to attach a value to each 68 initiative confirming the long-term and short-term impact of the initiative in relation to broader equity goals. to this end, msu denver created the four-way implementation model to illustrate the longterm and short-term impact of diversity and inclusion policies and programs (see model below). diversity and inclusion four-way implementation model figure 2. diversity and inclusion four-way implementation model (young & anderson, 2017). based on the frameworks above, we share how the diversity and inclusion four-way implementation model provides a platform to create systemic-proactive and individual-reactive initiatives that have had a significant impact on infusing equity throughout msu denver. this model can also be used to inform institutional leadership about new initiatives and to establish an accountability instrument to ensure equity goals. shared below are several msu denver equity initiatives that have knowledge acquisition, curriculum development, mentorship and community engagement at their core, are designed to place an institution down the path of inclusive excellence. tenure track supper club the tenure track supper club (ttsc) is a faculty retention program that utilizes mentorship as a tool in the retention of minority faculty. given the disproportionately low retention rates of african-american faculty at the university, the office of diversity and inclusion led the development of the mentorship program for african-american and other faculty of color. the program now welcomes tenure-track faculty from all underrepresented populations and majority junior faculty, to introduce them to tenured faculty who serve as mentors, help educate new faculty about the hidden curriculum of higher education, and demystify the tenure process. the ttsc provides a safe environment to share knowledge with new faculty, and in turn have those faculty share with administrators in promotion and tenure review leadership positions, about the subliminal inequities in the tenure process that are experienced by faculty in the classroom and in the office. these inequities arise from valuing differently areas of scholarly activity, to expectations for in-service days and to requirements around advising, to daily interactions with students, other faculty, and staff at the university. this two-fold education 69 environment (mentorship and knowledge sharing) arms the faculty of color with additional tools to combat received inequities. however, just as important, it educates the university system (the decision makers in the promotion and tenure process) about inequities, thus providing an avenue for removing inequities from the process as well. this program promotes collaboration from multiple fronts and promotes inclusive efforts to remove inequity and promote excellence, thus increasing the diversity of the faculty. at the onset of the program, african-american faculty were earning tenure at 60% while white faculty were earning tenure at 90%. today, african americans are earning tenure at 95% and white faculty are earning tenure at 95%. supervisory training the university engages in proactive voluntary approaches like the implementation of the university-wide professional development conference, the higher education diversity summit, and the opportunity for staff and faculty to attended learning communities focused on diversity and inclusion to learn about diversity, as in the program above. it also engages in mandatory, proactive strategies to teach people in positions of authority about their role in promoting diversity as part of the university’s mission. dobbin and kalev (2016) argue that managers advocate better for a diverse workplace when managers become part of the problem-solving team. to foster the development of diversity champions throughout the university, the office of diversity and inclusion facilitated the development of a 90-minute interactive workshop on diversity and inclusion that was woven into a mandatory supervisor-training program. this administrative decision squarely places issues of cultural competence within the broader framework of supervisors’ responsibilities within the university. it asks them to be problem solvers for diversity-related questions related. the ninety-minute presentation teaches the fundamental concepts of diversity, inclusion, cultural competence, microaggression awareness and understanding. this interactive session breaks supervisors into groups to share their own experiences of microaggressions on campus. these experiences are incorporated into a larger discussion on diversity, inclusion and equity and its relationship to campus climate. microaggressions refer to “brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults toward people of color” (sue, capodilupo, torino, bucceri, holder, nadal, & esquilin, 2007, p. 271). this interactive workshop helps supervisors think about their role in reducing microaggressions from individual and organizational perspectives, see the equity disconnect, and develop strategies to advance diversity and inclusion throughout their unit. based on informal feedback, this training resulted in over 500 supervisors understanding what microaggressions are and having tools and strategies to remove them from their work environment. although we do not have a quantifiable number of the amount of microaggressions removed from the campus, we have received numerous indicators, positive comments from supervisors, employees, and a significant improvement in msu denver’s campus climate survey results in the employees’ perception of a welcoming environment. higher education diversity summit the higher education diversity summit (heds) is an annual campus initiative that promotes and increases professional development opportunities through the lens of inclusive excellence 70 (williams, berger & mcclenden, 2005). heds acts as a catalyst to understand others’ experiences on campus. it opens communication about how to be supportive to groups and individuals who traditionally feel marginalized at universities. the higher education diversity summit promotes cultural competence and reduce incivility throughout the university. heds educates the campus in the areas of implicit bias, diversity and inclusion, lgbtqia+ issues, disabilities, race, gender, socioeconomic status, ageism, organizational climate, microaggressions, and much more. this annual conference provides an opportunity for continuous knowledge acquisition, as well as a platform for faculty, staff, and students to engage with one another and transfer knowledge in the diversity and inclusion space. further, this conference keeps the diversity and inclusion conversation at the top of the university’s agenda and provides multiple data and dialog points to make change via education related to equity objectives throughout the university. faculty fellow the office of diversity and inclusion receives funding from the university to secure a faculty member’s time, in the equivalent of a six-credit hour course load, to work in the diversity and inclusion office. the chief diversity officer follows the institution’s internal search process to identify and confirm faculty to serve in this role. this fellow is charged with being a liaison between administration and faculty and lending scholarly expertise to the office. the fellow’s responsibilities change as the institution’s needs change. the faculty fellow has shared responsibility for developing and conducting trainings on and off campus (co-writing articles for academic consumption), and for participating in a variety of university-wide initiatives related to diversity and inclusion. the impact of the faculty fellow is linked to how it advances the individual and reactive elements of the “four-way implementation model”. the faculty fellow has designed and implemented many customized interactive workshops within departments and units to improve campus climate issues. the fellow has the ability to work closely with the faculty and staff on individual, unit, and employee bases to resolve issues on the ground. this position promotes the ability to be nimble and react individually to provide skills and strategies to departments on how to resolve negative climate issues. hosting a faculty fellow in the office of diversity and inclusion demonstrates cooperation between administration and faculty which models equity at the university. these four programs provide a comprehensive, proactive and long-term impact on equity throughout the college campus at msu-denver. portland state university has been very intentional in their quest to incorporate an equity perspective throughout their campus and has done so systemically, proactively, individually and reactively as well. we share some of these efforts below as they differ from the efforts at msu denver. portland state university (psu) portland state university is a public university located in portland, oregon, with a student body of twenty-nine thousand students. currently, 28% of the student body is racially and ethnically diverse, and there are seventeen hundred international students from ninety-one countries. its student population is the most diverse of the public institutions in the state. psu has long had 71 various resource centers, including cultural resource centers and a diversity and multicultural student support services unit in student affairs that offers academic support as well as houses the various cultural centers. psy and msu denver have some similarities, a diverse student population, urban locations, a wide range of affinity groups, a diverse faculty and staff, and a strong commitment to diversity and inclusion that is indicated in the mission of the institutions. in 2011, the chief diversity officer position was created. this position was charged to lead the also newly created division of global diversity and inclusion (gdi). in 2015, the position was elevated to vice-president in part due to the december 2015 psu student of color “speak-out” which is described below. the school’s mission is “let knowledge serve the city” and its new strategic plan “let knowledge serve” has five goals, one of which is “expand our commitment to equity.” the other four goals each have an equity lens consideration statement as well as equity objectives. during the writing of the plan, an equity lens panel was formed to review all sections and iterations from a racial and equity lens and also to review the goals from other dimensions of diversity. the efforts to inculcate the equity lens vertically and horizontally throughout campus functions, climate and culture is at the core of gdi’s mission, responsibilities and contributions. the office is structured in four areas of effort: (a) diversity education and learning, (b) equity and compliance; (c) diversity, equity and inclusion advocacy (focused on policies and procedures); and (d) partnerships and engagement (internal and external). structuring the office around these four areas allow for the flexibility to engage with issues and concerns around equity, and provide resolutions. as mentioned in the approach at the metropolitan state university of denver, it is very important for the executive diversity office and efforts of the office not to be overly focused on programming. the critical role is to tackle inequities in policy and practice, which can disenfranchise our underrepresented students, faculty and staff ,and provide system-wide and individual solutions to the inequities. following are three on-going efforts that intend/aim/seek/with the goal of spurring the system-wide change needed to better achieve the strategic plan equity goals. equity lens use in decision-making the equity lens requires an institution to question themselves to see if they are being inclusive and to interrogate the impact their policy and programmic decisions might have on marginalized groups. in its most basic explanation, the equity lens is a way of consciously asking questions when making decisions. some of the starting questions of an equity lens are: (a) what is the decision to be made? (b) who is making the decision? (c)how will the decision affect those not at the decision-making table? and (d) what are the benefits and consequences, including thinking through unintended consequences to historically marginalized and underrepresented groups? to operationalize this, and use the strategic plan as a focus, psu has developed an equity lens panel that will review and make recommendations on the strategic planning process using the concepts of the equity lens in decision making. gdi and other partners focus on teaching the use of the equity lens in decision-making. this initiative began with the president-led annual leadership planning session (alps), a day-long retreat of both the academic and non-academic leadership with attendance of approximately 120, 72 including the vice-presidents and their direct reports, deans, associate deans, chairs, directors and associate directors. the 2016 retreat was devoted to the equity lens and went from the presentation model to table-top exercises ranging from practicing using the equity lens at the policy level to directly addressing progress on objectives of the five university strategic plan goals. since that alps, psu has engaged in an on-going series of systematic and proactive workshops for supervisor’s campus-wide that include work with hands-on scenarios and open discussion on issues specific to the units they represent. several follow up unit-initiated workshops have occurred, as well as the centralization of the equity lens as a keynote for the annual day long cultural responsiveness symposium. the president’s annual leadership planning session was the ideal starting point for incorporating the concepts of the equity lens in decision making. however, as it has moved to our strategic planning process the objective is for the university is to institutionalize the use of the equity lens in decision-making throughout all aspects of the university. cultural responsiveness in curriculum and pedagogy psu students of color held a student of color speak-out on december 1, 2015, like many students around the country. one strong and often-repeated concern was about what was happening and not happening in the classrooms in relation to cultural responsiveness. many students emotionally shared stories of microaggressions, the absence of their stories and voices in the curriculum, and the absence of needed classroom management to mitigate microaggressions. many were listening, and gdi reached out to faculty to explore how psu might incorporate better the equity lens in the classroom. the faculty, through the unions, through the faculty senate, and through the key faculty academic units already deeply engaged in culturally responsive pedagogy and curriculum, developed and led a partnership with gdi to create a workshop series to address the student concerns. utilizing faculty as instructors, a large roll-out of sessions on re-tooling individual courses from a cultural responsiveness framework as well as learning more about culturally responsive pedagogy was initiated this past academic year. having union and faculty senate support (and partnership) is a critically important component in curriculum and pedagogical change, as is a modest faculty enhancement grant to participating faculty who complete a course revision. early results are gratifying, with over 200 faculty participating in a two workshop sequence, one each for curriculum and pedagogy. participating faculty have revised curriculum and assignments in courses and adjusted their own instructional skills to better manage difficult classroom conversations, learn about different learner types, develop classroom discussion protocols and the like. additionally, curriculum processes were changed for new courses. the course submission protocol has two additional questions: (a) one on how the new course will have curriculum content that better reflects diverse learners; and (b) one on the faculty member’s plans for addressing culturally responsive pedagogical needs. gdi and faculty partners continue to engage 73 in how this particular education and learning focus will evolve and continue this academic year and in future years. president’s diversity action council the psu president’s diversity council (dac) has contributed greatly to the diversity work and progress for over 20 years. in the past two years, stakeholders have explored how better to harness its university-wide representation, its members’ collective knowledge, skill sets, advocacy orientation, and energy, to better address systemic and structural change needs, in addition to its ongoing valuable programming. a reorganization was decided upon. a committee structure for the council was developed. the committees include three focused on culture and climate (curriculum and pedagogy, workshops and annual symposium, the cocurriculum), recruitment and retention of diverse students, recruitment and retention of diverse faculty, recruitment and retention of diverse staff, communications, the president’s diversity mini-grants, and the president’s diversity awards. each committee has co-chairs who, with gdi leadership, serve as the steering committee. the dac meets as a whole with the president at the start of the academic year to consult and hear their charge. the dac meets again at the end of the year with the president and campus leadership to share their deliberations, recommendations and work going forward. in the first year under the new structure has been completed, the dac has grown to over 80 members. the results include significant success in achieving the goal of substantive recommendations per the committee topic areas that will assist leadership in moving forward. recommendations range from the relatively simple step of improving and encouraging use of a central campus diversity calendar to the more challenging and/or complex goals of significantly increasing funding support for the hire and start-up of new diverse faculty, and including dei assessment categories on all employee (faculty and staff) performance evaluations. conclusion the roles of campus diversity offices are changing. as indicated in the efforts by msu denver and by psu, the impact of the chief diversity officer and the diversity offices that they manage addresses university-wide systemic, structural and programmatic issues throughout the institution. a key point in the changing role of the campus diversity office and the chief diversity officer is that we are no longer overly focused solely on programming. rather, the role is to tackle inequities in policy and practice that can disenfranchise our underrepresented students, faculty and staff. our experiences confirm that diversity offices that focus too much on programming will see diversity surface gains but experience stagnation in curriculum development and system implementing which can influence campus culture for generations. a similarity between psu and msu denver linked to our success in influencing campus culture throughout our respective institutions is tied to the fact that our positions report directly to the president at our institutions. it is important where the chief diversity officer resides on your institutions organizational chart, because this communicates a message of the institution’s valuing of diversity. further, it provides formal and informal opportunities for the chief 74 diversity officer to engage with senior leadership on institutional and national issues related to diversity. furthermore, this conceptual and physical location provides multiple opportunities to identify, develop and provide recommendations across institutional leadership channels in regard to diversity and inclusion. finally, this reporting structure promotes opportunities to acquire resources to build, develop, implement, partner, and facilitate crosscutting initiatives involving faculty, staff, students and the community, generating a synergy where everyone is working together to promote an inclusive environment for everyone. additionally, the work of this kind of division is multidimensional and incorporates multiactions. addressing strategically and simultaneously university issues of recruitment and retention, curriculum and pedagogy, bias, microaggressions, discrimination and harassment, procurement practices, community engagement, fiscal and human resource allocations, fundraising, space use and allocation, research and scholarly activity—in short, the totality of university endeavors—through the equity lens, is essential if equity is to increase in universities. the initiatives shared in this paper act as part of the infrastructure of continuous learning and improvement related to diversity at each university and as ways to improve campus climate. the initiatives address people at different stages of their professional development. they recognize the urgency of addressing educational inequities and improving recruitment and retention of diverse students, faculty and staff leading to successful outcomes. all have the goal of encouraging a campus who sees diversity as an asset to be cultivated. chief diversity officers are the leaders of these new and exciting changes. stay tuned. 75 references association of american colleges & universities. 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(2013). strategic diversity leadership: activating change and transformation in higher education. sterling, va: stylus. williams, d.a. & wade-golden, k.c. (2013). the chief diversity officer: strategy structure, and change management. sterling, va: stylus. young, k. & anderson, m. (forthcoming 2017). microaggressions in higher education: embracing educative spaces. in c.m. capodilupo et al. (eds.). microagression theory: influence and implications, (n.p.). hoboken, nj.: john wiley & sons. https://multco.us/diversity-equity/equity-and-empowerment-lens https://www.pdx.edu/president/sites/www.pdx.edu.president/files/strategic%20planning%20equity%20lens_final%20-%20may%2012.pdf https://www.pdx.edu/president/sites/www.pdx.edu.president/files/strategic%20planning%20equity%20lens_final%20-%20may%2012.pdf http://www.chronicle.com/article/racial-disparities-in-higher/234129 http://www.chronicle.com/article/racial-disparities-in-higher/234129 76 author information * carmen suarez is the vice president for global diversity and inclusion at portland state university (psu). she is responsible for university wide equity and compliance, including analysis to spur continuous institutional culture and climate improvement, diversity education and learning, organizational structural and systemic review to spur change, and community outreach and engagement to support the core principle of psu: let knowledge serve. a primary emphasis is the use of an equity lens for all levels of decision making. carmen suarez, ph.d. vice president global diversity & inclusion portland state university 1600 sw 4th avenue, suite 830 portland, or 97201 telephone: (503) 725-5969 email: csuarez@pdx.edu myron anderson serves metropolitan state university of denver (msu) as the associate to the president for diversity and professor in the school of education. anderson is responsible for developing an inclusive campus, and articulating and resolving issues related to diversity. in addition, anderson identifies campus climate trends and is responsible for developing a strategic vision across all academic and administrative units to establish strategies for resolution of campus climate issues. myron r. anderson, ph.d. associate to the president for diversity and professor of education technology metropolitan state university of denver 440 l student success building campus box 63, p.o. box 173362 denver, co 80217-3362 telephone: (303) 615-2065 email: mande118@msudenver.edu kathryn young is an associate professor in the school of education. her professional interests include disability studies in education, inclusive education, diversity in higher education and race in education. she researches intersecting factors which enable certain students to be included and others excluded in schooling systems. she connects her research to her practice through teaching future teachers and working closely with urban schools. kathryn young, ph.d. associate professor, school of education metropolitan state university of denver campus box 21, p.o. box 173362, denver, co 80217-3362 telephone: (303) 615-1555 email: kyoung42@msudenver.edu *corresponding author mailto:csuarez@pdx.edu mailto:kyoung42@msudenver.edu microsoft word cumu caret final 11.12.19-final.docx   invited commentary    © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23551 | december 6, 2019  9  social responsibility and civic readiness as critical  higher education outcomes  robert l. caret1    1office of the chancellor, university system of maryland    cite as: caret, r.l. (2019). social responsibility and civic readiness as critical higher education outcomes.  metropolitan universities, 30(4), 9‐16. doi: 10.18060/23551    this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license.    editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d.  the work of urban and metropolitan universities  throughout my 25 years in higher education leadership, overseeing two campuses and two university systems, i have maintained a strong connection to the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities (cumu), both philosophically and in practical terms. early on in my tenure as president of san jose state university, i established the overarching goal of making san jose state the metropolitan university of silicon valley. complementing the institution’s geographic location, size, and mission, all of which positioned it ideally for this role, i also saw a student population, a community role, and an ethos of service that spoke to the institution’s responsibility as an urban citizen. this same perspective was part and parcel of my approach at towson university (tu). as president, i actively created a vision and an identity for the institution, focusing on its role as the metropolitan university of maryland. i established external partnerships with focuses on education, economic and workforce development, arts and culture, and social change. as president of the 5-campus university of massachusetts system (umass) i oversaw two cumu member institutions, umass lowell and umass boston. the university system of maryland (usm), where i currently serve as chancellor, is itself a cumu member, as are several of its component institutions, with towson and the university of maryland, baltimore county (umbc) “founding members” of cumu as a formal organization. © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23551 | december 6, 2019   10  throughout these years, i also had a very direct connection to cumu, serving on several committees, on the board of directors, as a vice president, and, from 2006-2011, as cumu president. with this background, i know first-hand the distinctive perspective and unique tools that our comprehensive institutions can use to address social challenges and bring about meaningful change. in addition, i also recognize the special obligation our comprehensive metropolitan and urban universities have to be active and engaged in the communities they serve. these are the primary, 4-year, “access” institutions, not just in terms of the sheer numbers of students they educate, but also in terms of the composition of those students, serving as a vital higher education pathway for women, underrepresented minorities, and first-generation college students. beyond that, our comprehensive universities stand as bridges, with numerous graduates going on to advanced degree programs at research universities.   social responsibility  over the course of my entire career in higher education, spanning nearly fifty years as an educator, administrator, and leader, i have seen our society grow ever more complex and, unfortunately, divided. at the same time, as a society we have become increasingly unable to effectively navigate these differences and divisions in any sort of positive or productive manner. from my perspective, the imperative of infusing, or perhaps reinfusing, an ethic of social responsibility across society at large is a duty higher education has not sufficiently prioritized in recent decades. given that our comprehensive universities are the higher education institutions most on the front lines of society, most representative of the diversity of our populace, and best equipped to engage directly and successfully with the community, this is a responsibility they must embrace. and while metropolitan, urban, and comprehensive universities must lead this effort, all institutions of higher education, including public and private, 2-year and 4-year, research and comprehensive, must join in as well. we must pursue a broad-based strategy toward this unified goal. the launching point for this effort requires us to stop thinking of higher education solely in terms of workforce development; our mission is much broader and should be recognized as such. i have long summarized my vision in higher education leadership in a single sentence: to graduate educated, enlightened citizens who are ready to go to work in all facets of life to make their lives, their communities, and our nation better. from a higher education perspective, this requires us to multi-task. © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23551 | december 6, 2019   11  in today’s economy, skills and knowledge are the most valuable of commodities. this is especially true in maryland, a leading stem state, where the future is driven by innovation in the life sciences, cybersecurity, autonomous vehicles, and other areas. as such, i make no apologies for pursuing a strong economic development agenda as usm chancellor, and i have been expanding usm partnerships with the private sector from day one. at the same time, however, we must always remember that the value of colleges and universities is far broader than simply educating people to qualify for jobs. education for its own sake must always be central to our mission. knowledge of history, an appreciation of art and literature, insight into philosophy, and an understanding of world cultures are indispensable aspects of a civilized society and the preservation of our american democracy. we must consider the possibility that we have put such a premium on skills and workforce development, the secular side of higher education, that our broader mission of providing educated citizens, the spiritual side of higher education, is in danger of being lost. while this debate has been going on for decades, the intensity seems to have reached an all-time high. yes, we have an obligation to ensure that our graduates are prepared to meet the rigorous challenges of the new economy, armed with the knowledge and skills they need to compete. at the same time, we have an obligation to make sure our society is provided with the graduates it needs, graduates that have the education, the cultural and intellectual underpinnings, and the perspectives necessary to enable them to take their place as enlightened and progressive members and leaders of a democratic society. to square this circle, we must mobilize the collective commitment and capacity of higher education to actively advance our communities through an embrace of the importance of civic readiness. to accomplish this, we need to reestablish higher education’s critical leadership role in promoting “the we versus the me” through civic education, civic engagement, and civic responsibility. civic education  we need a greater emphasis on civic education to ensure an informed, knowledgeable, and responsible citizenry that understands the origins, impact, importance, and fragility of democracy. from a higher education perspective, impactful civic education means helping students develop a powerful civic skill set. they need to become thoughtful consumers of news and information, able to differentiate between fact and opinion, to see relationships and make connections, and to draw conclusions that are warranted from the data. this is almost a textbook definition of critical © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23551 | december 6, 2019   12  thinking. in addition, they need learning opportunities that shape their outlook and experiences to position them as informed, engaged members of their communities. and while they need to support freedom of expression and tolerance for different thoughts, they must also learn to temper that support with a commitment to a rigorous pursuit of fact and inquiry into truth. this is a tall order, and it requires us to integrate civic education into core requirements across disciplines. as we all know, disciplinary specialization is a prominent feature of the modern american public university. our faculty and students are more and more creatures of specialization. and while that has some positive aspects as far as repairing students for careers, it falls short in terms of educating the whole student. while at towson many years ago, i worked on a senate effort to put in place a campus-wide understanding of what an arts and sciences based education is and why it is important. we wanted students to understand that our future was linked to our past and that the links between disciplines were important to the education we were providing and they needed. we reinforced the civic role of our graduates. while i was president of the umass system, massachusetts adopted a first-in-the-nation state policy on civic learning for public colleges and universities that incorporated civic learning as an expected outcome for undergraduate students. it is critical to note that this outcome was not just an understanding of the history and government of the united sates and other nations. by calling for civic learning as a goal in campus strategic plans, we saw a statewide educational commitment to the intellectual elements of civic education, the practical aspects of civic engagement, and the values associated with democracy and with civic responsibility. it is not just a box we checked off after taking a course, it is a desire to ensure broad-based educational outcomes in our students. in my current capacity as university system of maryland chancellor, we are digging into this issue more deeply as well. many of our campuses are fully engaged in campus compact. in addition, we updated our strategic plan, with perhaps the most significant change being the elevation of equity, diversity, inclusion, and civic engagement as a new, stand-alone goal. most importantly, a few years ago the usm board of regents established a civic education workgroup. the workgroup conducted a year-long inventory and assessment of campus-based activities and policies and developed systemwide initiatives to help our students graduate as more active and effective citizens. the usm now identifies civic literacy as a core expectation for all students and works to foster an ethos of civic engagement and participation across the system and its institution.   © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23551 | december 6, 2019   13  civic engagement  a vital companion to civic education, civic engagement turns our needs and aspirations into actions. it strengthens connections to one another and inspires a commitment to work to make a difference in the life of our communities, the we versus the me. we need a two-pronged approach, first with the university itself active and engaged, and second with students (and faculty and staff) experiencing and internalizing public action and engagement. one of the most active and articulate advocates for institutional involvement was a former usm colleague david adamany, former president of wayne state. he provided an example of this philosophical approach of institutional engagement: his vision for universities as anchor institutions, particularly in urban environments, drove his concept of “the university as urban citizen.” adamany envisioned urban universities held to the highest standards of civic commitment, while at the same time carrying out their traditional roles of asking questions, seeking knowledge, teaching, and research. he saw no inherent inconsistency between these traditional functions and urban citizenship. his 15 years leading wayne state were marked by expansive partnerships with the k-12 community, business leaders, public safety officials, state and local elected leaders, and others, all to advance his goal of a national research university with an urban teaching and service mission. this concept that higher education institutions must not simply be in communities, but rather part of communities must be our standard. it is, however, important to differentiate between actions that are little more than volunteerism or service learning and genuine civic engagement. this is not to denigrate any efforts that target critical social needs. if anything, we could use much, much more active and personal engagement in communities. what i am referring to is civic engagement that requires students to come to terms with their individual duty as citizens, to become active participants in democracy itself, to understand the work of citizenship, to understand that citizenship is more than rights; it is also responsibilities. connecting teaching, research, and service to community engagement will more effectively yield civically engaged students, scholars, and institutions. issued every five years, the carnegie community engagement classification, now affiliated with the swearer center for public service at brown university, is perhaps the most significant identifier of true community engagement across higher education. the classification acknowledges colleges and universities with an institutional focus on collaboration with their broader communities in efforts that enrich scholarship, research and creative activity; prepare educated, engaged citizens; strengthen democratic values and civic responsibility; address critical societal issues; and contribute to the public good. in recognition of the value of this designation and, more importantly, the growing importance of the concept of true civic engagement that it represents, the usm made a concerted, coordinated © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23551 | december 6, 2019   14  effort to bring carnegie community engagement classification to more of our campuses. for the 2015 community engagement classification cycle, towson university was the only usm instruction represented among the 240 colleges and universities recognized. other campuses have initiated the process and will apply at the next open application cycle. there are other, more targeted effort that support this agenda as well. for example, the voter friendly campus designation program seeks to support and acknowledge campusbased efforts that help students overcome barriers to participating in the political process as well as efforts that develop a culture of democratic engagement on campus. in addition, as the 2020 census approaches, colleges and universities, including those in maryland, are gearing up to engage students, staff, faculty, administrators, and community partners to ensure a fair and complete count in the 2020 census. given that voting and the decennial census represent foundational cornerstones of democracy, it would be nothing short of a dereliction of duty for a college or university, especially a public, metropolitan university, to pass up the opportunity to engage students, faculty, staff, and the surrounding communities in support of full participation. civic responsibility  the third leg of the stool supporting democracy is civic responsibility, an idea first recorded by the ancient romans and embedded in our constitution, that directly acknowledges our obligation to make contributions for the good of the whole society. if we consider a campus as its own society, its own democratic society, what do we want to see? we want to see a learning environment that features open, reasonable, respectful discussion of political, social, and other issues. we want to see the student/faculty relationship evolve to one where faculty do not simply serve as objective experts, but rather as intellectuals who catalyze debate and forge relationships among diverse constituencies, and we want to see students with a more active role in campus decision-making. in such an environment, students, regardless of major, will graduate with the intellect, skills, experience, and perspective they need to be active and engaged citizens. the notion that an educated citizenry is vital for our survival as a free people, and the imperative mission of higher education to educate for democracy, was recognized from the earliest days of our nation and supported by our founders. i would contend that civic responsibility would essentially become an automatic outcome if we embraced enhancing civic education and provided opportunities for civic engagement as a truly institution-wide or system-wide priority. © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23551 | december 6, 2019   15  in maryland, this ethic of civic responsibility is manifesting itself through our significant, system wide re-commitment to the city of baltimore by the usm and its institutions. five of our 12 universities call greater baltimore home. a few years ago, we moved the system headquarters from suburban washington to downtown baltimore to better focus on the city’s needs. additionally, we established baltimore power, or b-power, a new partnership to better leverage usm resources to improve educational outcomes for baltimore city students. in partnership with baltimore city public schools and baltimore city community college, b-power uses both college readiness programs and dual enrollment courses, exclusively targeting foundational english and mathematics classes. through b-power, usm is creating a new baltimore-centric pathway from high school, to a two-year community college degree, to a four-year degree at a usm (or non-usm) institution. our goal with b-power is ambitious; we hope to dramatically improve the rates of high school graduation, college going, and degree attainment for students throughout baltimore. we are building a much wider alliance with other usm institutions, non-profits, businesses, schools, and education advocacy organizations working together. baltimore is the state’s largest city and a vital economic engine; it must have a future of educational and economic opportunity. a focus on college and career readiness for city students is an imperative. b-power is a key part of a bringing about a brighter future for city students, the city, the region, and the state. presidential leadership: the tie that binds  for higher education to meet these obligations, to effectively weave civic education, civic engagement, and civic responsibility into the very fabric of who we are and what we do, will require significant change; changes in policy, changes in behavior, changes in resource allocation, and more. in addition, there is the difficult prospect of overcoming institutional inertia and, in some cases, flat-out resistance to this change. factor in the need to invest in in highquality faculty development that enables faculty and students to engage in civil discourse, and the magnitude of the task becomes clearer. without doubt, broad institutional support and commitment will be required. bringing about this level of commitment and support will be driven by presidential leadership. leaders of institutions of higher education must not shy away from these challenges. this is, in fact, where leadership matters most. it will not be easy, but it is essential. the fact that so many aspects of our civic life have become dysfunctional makes this effort all the more important and imperative. if we are committed, it can be our efforts that help move us from civic dysfunction to civic enlightenment. © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23551 | december 6, 2019   16  note  chancellor caret’s piece is largely adapted from an address he gave at the american association of state colleges and universities (aascu) annual meeting in fall 2017. metropolitan universities vol. 28 no. 1 (winter 2017), doi: 10.18060/21477 the urban food hubs solution: building capacity in urban communities sabine o’hara abstract access to affordable fresh food is an ongoing challenge for underserved urban neighborhoods across the united states. several are designated food deserts with no access to a full-service grocery store within a one-mile radius. the urban food hubs of the college of agriculture, urban sustainability, and environmental sciences (causes) of the university of the district of columbia (udc) exemplify the university’s commitment to building capacity in the food desert neighborhoods of washington d.c. the four components of the urban food hubs are food production, food preparation, food distribution, and waste and water recovery (http://www.udc.edu/category/causes). they are designed to not only provide access to fresh food, but also to create jobs, improve public health, mitigate water management problems, and create urban resiliency. the contributions in economic, social/cultural, and physical/environmental impacts, and the five pillars of economic development that track the broader impacts of urban capacity building are described here. the urban food hubs demonstrate the investment metropolitan universities could make to ensure the long-term economic, social, and environmental health of each community. the model is scalable and replicable in other metropolitan areas, including those that experience high pressure on land-use and those experiencing decline. keywords capacity building, urban food systems, urban agriculture, urban sustainability, resilience, community-based economic development introduction universities have long played an important role in building the economic capacity of the communities they serve. universities provide employment, offer education and training, and conduct research to meet the economic, social, and environmental development needs of the future (abel & dietz, 2012; porter, 2007; siegfried, sanderson, & mchenry 2007). metropolitan universities, those that serve urban and peri-urban communities, play a particularly important capacity building role given the diversity and disparity of urban communities. most cities are bifurcated; some neighborhoods have high household incomes, high education levels, low unemployment, and abundant access to amenities and services; others have low household incomes, high unemployment, and limited access to everything from medical services to restaurants and fresh food (berube & homes, 2015; baum-snow & pavan, 2011). as the only public university in washington d.c., and the only exclusively urban land-grant university in the united states, the university of the district of columbia (udc) and its college of agriculture, urban sustainability, and environmental sciences (causes) developed a focus on urban agriculture and urban sustainability to address the needs of its diverse urban 70 constituencies. this unique focus finds expression in the udc urban food hubs initiative. the urban food hubs seek to improve quality of life and economic opportunity through a comprehensive urban food system that meets the needs of both the underserved neighborhoods lacking access to fresh food and the high-end markets associated with the fast growing local foods movement (o’hara, 2015). unlike some of the shrinking metropolitan areas in the united states, which have developed a focus on urban agriculture to find new uses for abandoned neighborhoods, the washington d.c. metropolitan area is growing. it is therefore an ideal location to test the viability of an urban food system that can compete in an environment of strong land-use pressures. the four components of the udc urban food hubs—food production, food preparation, food distribution, and waste and water recovery—are designed to establish: (a) high-efficiency urban food production sites; (b) commercial kitchens to improve nutritional health and add value by turning produce into food products; and (c) green infrastructure that remediates urban soils and improves water use efficiency. each urban food hub is a business incubator to create jobs and address health disparities. as will be discussed in a later section of this article, this makes the udc urban food hubs more comprehensive than the food hubs definition of the united states department of agriculture (barham et al, 2012). there are direct and indirect benefits of the udc urban food hubs and investing in them is a way to operationalize the capacity building mission of metropolitan universities. beyond implications for washington d.c., the urban food hubs can serve as a model for economic development that focuses on economic, social, and environmental benefits. by making the social and environmental impacts the focus of economic development, the measures of economic development success are redefined to ensure more sustainable outcomes. table 1 summarizes the four components, locations, and programs of the udc urban food hubs in washington d.c. table 1 udc causes urban food hub udc urban food hubs food components (and related education) (sustainable economic, social, environmental health) student, faculty and community engagement production preparation distribution waste & water van ness campus ward 3 green roof, hydroponics, aquaponics commercial kitchen; teaching kitchen farmers market; csa; restaurant contracts rainwater harvest; water runoff reuse experiential learning, research, land-grant workshops, demonstrations, certificates betrie backus campus ward 5 hydroponics, aquaponics, native plant nursery commercial and teaching kitchen under construction tbd rain garden design, installation, and maintenance tbd east capitol urban farm ward 7 aquaponics, raised bed gardens food truck farmers market rain garden; rice field land-grant workshops, demonstrations, and certificates; research pr harris campus ward 8 hydroponics, aquaponics, raised bed gardens food truck tbd tbd tbd why urban food hubs? 71 the university of the district of columbia is a comprehensive, public, minority serving, landgrant university that was formed from three precursor institutions: washington technical institute, federal city college, and d.c. teachers college. of all the land-grant universities in the united states, udc is the only one that serves an exclusively urban territory (national research council, 1995). in 2011, the university formed its college of agriculture, urban sustainability, and environmental sciences (causes) to reaffirm its urban land-grant mission, and to bring the university’s land-grant programs into closer alignment with its academic programs. causes set out to embrace its unique mission and develop a focus on urban agriculture, urban sustainability, and resilience. the college offers academic programs in architecture, health education, nursing, nutrition and dietetics, urban sustainability, urban agriculture, and water resources management. the applied research and community outreach functions—typically offered through separate agricultural experiment station (aes) and cooperative extension service (ces) programs—are combined and offered through five land-grant centers that are aligned with the college’s urban agriculture and urban sustainability focus. centers include the center for urban agriculture and gardening education; the center for sustainable development and resilience; the center for nutrition, diet, and health; the center for architectural innovation and building science; and the center for 4-h and youth development. the mission statement of causes affirms the college’s commitment to “… offer researchbased academic and community outreach programs that improve the quality of life and economic opportunity of people and communities in the district of columbia, the nation, and the world.” in 2013, causes adopted its tagline healthy cities – healthy people to affirm its capacity building mission as inextricably linked to improving the environmental/physical condition and the social/cultural condition of the urban community it serves. the commitment to improve quality of life and economic opportunity must therefore be understood as a commitment to improve not only economic outcomes, but also the social/cultural and physical/environmental context within which every economic activity takes place (o’hara, 1995, 1997). to give practical expression to this commitment, causes developed an urban food hub model. like most cities, washington d.c. is bifurcated. administratively, the city is organized into eight wards. ward 8 has the lowest median household income level of $32,000 per year, an unemployment rate of close to 20%, and 90% of its residents are african or african-american. ward 3 has a median household income of $110,000 per year, an unemployment rate of less than 4%, and 5% of its residents are african-american (united states bureau of the census, 2014). similar disparities are evident in food security and health parameters. the united states department of agriculture defines food security as “… access by all people at all times to enough nutritious food for an active, healthy life” (united states department of agriculture, 2014). low food security implies that high quality food is unavailable at least some of the time for some people. wards 5, 7, and 8, the three d.c. wards with the lowest income levels, are home to 34% of the population, yet less than 10% of the city’s grocery stores are located there (see figure 1); and less than 10% of the 520 self-identified food retailers in washington d.c. offer an adequate variety of fresh produce to support a healthy diet. 72 figure 1. full-service grocery stores and urban food hubs in washington d.c. the result is food insecurity for a significant number of d.c. households: 13% report being food insecure; 19% experience food hardship; and 37% of households with children were unable to get enough food (d.c. department of health, 2013). among the damaging effects of food insecurity on children are impaired cognitive development, reduced school readiness, lower educational attainments, and slower physical, mental, and social development (cook et al., 2006; nord, coleman-jensen, andrews, & carlson, 2010). another concern stems from the declining nutrient content of some of our food (usda, 2014). one contributing factor is the increased time between harvest and consumption. to accommodate the time spent in transport, produce is harvested before it ripens. populations in urban areas on the east coast of the united states are especially vulnerable since california is the top producer of fruits and vegetables. this calls for an increase in the production of nutrient ward 1 ward 4 ward 3 ward 5 ward 2 ward 7 ward 6 ward 8 van ness campus pr harris campus east capitol urban bertie backus campus 73 dense produce closer to where the majority of consumers live, namely in metropolitan areas on the east coast of the united states. growing perishable food closer to where consumers live also reduces the energy use associated with food transportation (canning, charles, huang, polenske, & waters, 2010; weber & matthews, 2008). historically, cities are not locations where much food has been grown (gorgolewski, komisar, & nasr, 2011; united nations development program, 1996). firebird farm, the udc research farm located just beyond city limits in beltsville, maryland, seeks to change that. it is dedicated to urban agriculture and its research focuses on how to produce food sustainably in urban neighborhoods where space is a premium. the udc urban food hubs take the udc farm into the city. the focus extends beyond farming to a comprehensive food system that supports skills development and job creation through food production, food preparation, new food distribution methods, and waste and water recovery. similar to the cooperative extension offices that have shaped the capacity building mission of land-grant universities in rural counties across the united states (usda 2015; usda nifa 2014), the urban food hubs seek to build capacity in urban neighborhoods by focusing on the entirety of the urban food systems from food, to health and wellness, and green infrastructure. what is an urban food hub? according to the agricultural marketing service (ams) of the united states department of agriculture (barham et al., 2012), a food hub is “a business or organization that actively manages the aggregation, distribution, and marketing of source-identified food products primarily from local and regional producers to strengthen their ability to satisfy wholesale, retail, and institutional demand.” this definition emphasizes the distribution component of the food system. to quote ams, “food hubs are an important subset of food value chains … by offering a combination of aggregation, distribution, and marketing services at an affordable price, food hubs make it possible for many producers to gain entry into new larger-volume markets that boost their income and provide them with opportunities for scaling up production.” the udc urban food hubs further broaden the food hubs definition of the ams. the reason for this comprehensive approach is that many urban dwellers have become distanced from their food source. fresh unprocessed food is often unavailable, and there is a disconnect between consuming food and knowing where and how it is grown. often the interest in the quality and origin of food is first triggered by an interest in cultural associations of food, or by a concern for food-related illnesses like obesity, diabetes, and hypertension (brown & jameton, 2000; webber & dollahite, 2008; raj, raja, & dukes, 2016) urban food production also intersects uniquely with urban sustainability considerations like storm-water management and waste reduction (barthel & isendahl, 2013; o’hara, 2015). urban gardens, for example, increase permeable surfaces and green roofs absorb storm water run-off. both reduce pressure on urban storm water systems that are at capacity in many of our cities (agudelo-vera, mels, kessman, & rijnaarts, 2011; james, magee, scerri, & steger, 2015; lovell, 2010;). when food is produced in densely populated urban communities rather than in sparsely populated rural areas, issues like integrative pest management and mitigating heat islands must also come into focus (li, bou-zeid, & oppenheimer, 2014; wittmer et al., 2010). the four components of the udc food hub address these complex connections: 74  food production through bio-intensive methods, hydroponics, and aquaponics;  food preparation through kitchens that add value and offer nutrition education;  food distribution through farmers markets, csas, restaurants, and niche markets; and  closing the loop through composting, water harvesting, rain gardens, and other green infrastructure initiatives. each of these four components offers opportunities for business development, training, and improved resilience (see figure 2). the urban food hubs seek to form a decentralized network of local food centers that improve food security, nutritional health, job creation, and resilience especially in urban neighborhoods that have deficits on all counts. the idea of strengthening local economies by replacing imports with local goods and services produced in decentralized local business networks is not new (florida, 2005; schuman, 2015). it has been called leak-plugging or re-localizing production (schuman, 2002; new economics foundation, 2014). there are two principal strategies: to attract businesses to relocate in the community and to grow businesses from within. the udc urban food hubs promote the latter by focusing on local entrepreneurship. each food hub comprises a cluster of business opportunities for entrepreneurs who ideally come from the neighborhood where a food hub is located. local entrepreneurs receive training and technical support to implement their business plans. these can range from a health-focused business that maximizes nutrient yield and offers health assessment and nutrition counseling; to growing micro-greens and herbs for high-end restaurants; to ethnic crop production for local niche restaurants and grocery stores; green roofs that serve as food production and event space; and native plant seedlings grown for urban parks and rain gardens (o’hara, under review; ackerman, dalgren, & xu, 2012; royte, 2015). figure 2. the urban food hubs as comprehensive food systems model. each urban food hub features the four components of food production, food preparation, food distribution, and waste 75 and water recovery. yet each specific design varies based on the urban density, site-specific characteristics, and business objectives of each location. what follows is a brief description of the four components of the udc urban food hubs that are currently in various stages of implementation in wards 3, 5, 7, and 8 in washington d.c. food production through intensive urban agriculture at the heart of each urban food hub are highly efficient food production systems that utilize bio-intensive raised bed gardens, green roofs, hydroponic, and aquaponic to grow plants without soil in nutrient rich water. regardless of the specific food production method a food hub utilizes, the aim is to maximize production on the limited land areas available in urban neighborhoods. the udc urban food hubs demonstrate several of these methods. the university’s van ness campus is located in ward 3 at a high traffic intersection next to a metro station. space is very limited in this high-density neighborhood. the food production component of the food hub is a 20,000-square-foot green roof that was installed on an existing roof structure (see figure 3). figure 3. food-producing green roof of the udc van ness campus urban food hub in ward 3. eighteen-inch deep planters placed around the perimeter of the roof support the production of a variety of food plants, from tomatoes to peppers, beans, okra, eggplant, and even berry bushes. the interior of the roof is limited to no more than four inches of soil depth, which can support the production of leaf lettuce, microgreens, and herbs. in its start-up phase the shallow beds are used mostly to grow sedums, a plant that is native to the area and requires little maintenance. the sedums absorb water and climatize the building, reducing storm water runoff and lowering heating and air conditioning needs (horowitz, 2012; whittinghill & bradley rowe, 2012). the roof also features a greenhouse and a hydroponic system that is arranged vertically to fully utilize the limited space. hydroponics refers to a method of growing plants in nutrient enriched water rather than soil. nutrient levels are maintained by adding liquid fertilizer. hydroponic systems produce substantial amounts of food in small spaces, including indoors, and can be used to grow herbs, lettuce, spinach, kale, and other greens, as well as tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, beans, okra and squash. since no soil is needed, hydroponic production can be used even in areas where soil contamination may be an issue. the van ness food hub also incorporates an aquaponics system that combines growing fish (aquaculture) and growing vegetables without 76 soil (hydroponics). the co-production of vegetables and fish creates significant water savings, high productivity levels, and reduced waste. the causes aquaponic systems use only 10% of the water used in conventional agriculture and since the fish waste is used as plant fertilizer, very little waste is generated. the university’s bertie backus and pr harris campuses are located in neighborhoods with lower urban density. food production at both locations takes place in 30 foot x 85 foot hoop houses. the bertie backus location (see figure 4) in ward 5 is easily accessible by metro and features three hoop houses, one with a hydroponic system, one with an aquaponic system, and one with a native plant nursery. the pr harris location in ward 8 features two large hoop houses with a hydroponic and an aquaponic system (see figure 5). figure 4. the udc urban food hub at betrie backus in ward 5. figure 5. the udc urban food hub at pr harris in ward 8. the east capitol urban farm is the udc urban food hub location in ward 7 (see figure 6). it features a community garden with 60 raised beds available to residents, a children’s garden and play area, a nature trail, and an aquaponic system installed in a 30 foot x 85 foot hoop house. the d.c. housing authority made the three-acre site available to udc for the purposes of developing a model for temporary urban farming that improves the condition of vacant land while future development decisions are being made. the hydroponic and aquaponic systems pioneered by causes are highly energy efficient and stable. an aeration device called the flo-vex, which is the patented invention of a udc emeritus professor, is the key to efficiency (kakovitch industries, 2016). another innovation is that all 77 necessary components of the hydroponic and aquaponic systems are assembled on a metal skid for easy installation and maintenance (see figure 7). since experience with food production is limited in urban communities, the ease of installation and maintenance is an important consideration. figure 6. the east capitol urban farm food hub in ward 7 figure 7. the urban aquaponic system at the udc urban food hubs in wards 5, 7, and 8. an important part of the udc capacity building mission, are training certificates, workshops, and demonstrations offered at the urban food hubs and at the udc firebird farm. topics include introduction to urban agriculture, bio-intensive growing methods, hydroponic and aquaponic production, and integrative pest management; but also food safety, age appropriate nutrition, food preservation, composting, and rain garden design and maintenance. food preparation in kitchens and food trucks two main thrusts of activities comprise the food preparation component of the urban food hubs–nutrition education and value added. to address them effectively each urban food hub ideally has a well-equipped kitchen that serves as a teaching facility to improve information about healthy eating, healthy food preparation, and age-appropriate diets. the kitchens also serve as a business incubator for those interested in starting a catering business or turning tomatoes and peppers into salsa or other value-added products. the kitchens are designed to be functional and 78 food safety compliant. demonstration areas provide visible workspaces, and well-defined workstations for receiving, storing, preparing, preserving, and recycling. figure 8 shows the kitchen facility at the van ness food hub. activities at the kitchens include nutrition education workshops, cooking classes, and food demonstrations. certifications are offered in food handling, food safety, and food preservation like canning and pickling. the space can also be used to advance research on the determinants of safe food handling behaviors, risk perception, and cultural barriers that may impede the adoption of food safety and healthy eating habits. figure 8. van ness food hub kitchen and udc food truck at east capitol urban farm. residents can also lease kitchen space to launch a catering or food-processing business. nutrition education itself may also offer viable business opportunities. recent legislative changes allow dieticians to prescribe a therapeutic diet. this is consistent with the increased focus on prevention, rather than treatment, which offers new opportunities to qualified dieticians and nutrition educators (schaeffer, 2014; anderson, palombo, & earl, 1998). kitchens are expensive to build and operate. a more affordable option is a food truck that can serve as a mobile food demonstration and teaching facility in addition to serving as a mobile farmers market that takes fresh produce to food desert neighborhoods. the commercial kitchen at the udc firebird farm is installed in a standardized container. this may be a viable option for some urban neighborhoods provided zoning regulations permit the installation of a container. causes also partners with schools, churches, community centers, and non-profit organizations to ensure access to suitable kitchen facilities that are easily accessible to residents. to be successful, nutrition and food safety education must be culturally sensitive and aware of the social pressures associated with food preparation traditions and eating habits. one approach to improving nutritional health developed by a udc nutrition and dietetics professor is to modify family recipes and culturally significant dishes to improve nutritional value without changing the taste (forthcoming). another approach is to provide self-monitoring devices that offer feedback to improve awareness of food preparation and eating habits. much work remains to identify successful strategies to prepare food for improved public health and economic conditions. food is not only about nutrition, but it is also an expression of cultural identity and ethnic pride. this makes the food preparation component of the urban food hubs 79 all the more important for the diverse urban neighborhoods they serve. food distribution and the price point challenge a frequently-posed question is whether urban agriculture is commercially viable? the answer is, it depends. growing demand for locally grown food and seasonal produce offers significant revenue potential (pinchot, 2014). yet high-revenue markets do not address the needs of urban food desert neighborhoods. these neighborhoods may not have the purchasing power to generate the revenue needed to cover the capital investment and operating expenses of an aquaponic or hydroponic system. to serve a low income local market may require a commitment to a socially responsible business model where a portion of the revenue generated from sales to high-end customers subsidizes lower revenue markets, or where some space is set aside as community space to supplement household incomes (friedman, 2007; golden, 2013; philander & karriem, 2016). one of the most lucrative food distribution models is contracting with high-end restaurants for micro-greens, edible flowers, lettuce mixes, and herbs. micro-greens take less than two weeks from germination to harvest in a hydroponic greenhouse. if the greens are seeded every day, it is possible to establish a pattern of daily harvests. greens sold to local restaurants require minimal packaging and labeling, whereas sales to grocery stores will require more extensive packaging and labeling that creates higher costs. ethnic crops offer another high-revenue market. the term refers to plants that are not native to the americas. given the diversity of restaurants and food traditions in metropolitan areas, ethnic crop niche markets offer unique opportunities for urban growers. food tastings conducted by causes indicate significant market opportunities in washington d.c. especially for african crops. particularly popular are garden eggs, kittely, hibiscus, and hot peppers (afanchao, 2015). local farmers markets and community supported agriculture (csa) programs that sell directly to the end consumer are also popular distribution options. csas deliver fresh produce, typically once a week, to a central pickup location or directly to csa member homes. rather than charging a price per pound, csas charge customers a flat fee at the beginning of the growing season. in exchange, csa members receive a weekly delivery of in-season produce. some csas offer a lower price to customers willing to assist with crop maintenance, harvesting, and delivery (o’hara & stagl, 2002). csas typically require minimal packaging. produce is delivered in bags or boxes and csa members exchange the empty container for a full one at the time of delivery. udc operates a farmers market at the east capitol urban farm and a farmers market and csa at the van ness food hub. other markets are expected to open during the 2017 growing season. generating sufficient revenue from sales to the end consumer can be challenging especially in low-income neighborhoods that are most in need of fresh food. the d.c. produce plus program (http://doh.dc.gov/service/produce-plus-program) expands the purchasing power of low-income neighborhoods. the program doubles the value of food stamps and women, infants, and children (wic) coupons if they are redeemed at a local farmers market. the veggie prescription program offers similar benefits. it works with local hospitals and community health centers to encourage health providers to offer prescriptions of fresh fruits and vegetables instead of medication. the veggie prescriptions are then redeemed at a local farmers market (brody 2014). 80 the urban food hubs also support collaborative efforts including gleaning days and harvest collections. one such initiative, the city orchard project, established a fruit orchard at the udc firebird farm to grow a variety of berries, apples, and asian pears for clients of a local food bank. the food bank, in turn, helps maintain the orchard through weekly volunteer days, which have the added benefit of introducing food bank clients to a farm often for the first time. collaborations with local schools, culinary institutes, and other hospitality sector partners also expand food distribution options. for example, a local green roof business estimates that 50% of its revenue comes not from food production but from catering and health and wellness events. food distribution-related programs offered by causes include entrepreneurship classes, market research to assess opportunities in the food and hospitality sector, and research on the delivery preferences of various demographics. the skills associated with fish and produce production, and with the value-added from food processing and preservation, are only of benefit if they find markets that generate revenue and living wages. closing the loop through waste and water recovery waste and water management are essential components of the udc urban food hubs. given the land-use pressure in growing metropolitan areas like washington d.c., this component can add valuable positive externalities that add to the economic bottom line of food production and value-added food preparation. for example, food and horticulture plants that are growing on green roofs, in community gardens, and in rain gardens absorb water and urban farms add permeable surfaces to the urban scape. this can meaningfully reduce storm water runoff and reduce the pressure on storm-water systems that are often outdated and well below current capacity needs. urban agriculture can therefore mitigate flooding risks and improve urban resiliency. the term resilience refers to the ability of communities to cope with disruptive events like natural disasters and to recover more quickly from the negative impacts of a disaster (meerow, newell, & stults, 2016; prior & roth, 2013; wheater & evans, 2009). vegetable plants have relatively high nutrient needs. it may therefore be necessary to capture the water runoff from urban agriculture systems and reduce water-soluble nutrients before the water run-off is released into the storm water system (niemczynowicz, 1999). the van ness food hub captures the water runoff from the food-producing green roof and stores it in cisterns for reuse in irrigation systems that maintain plantings around the center of the campus (see figure 9). this kind of water management adds value that is not captured in the revenue generated by food products. a number of cities also offer storm water credits to incentivize water capture and reuse (friedrich, 2016). water capture at the van ness food hub and soil mitigation at east capitol urban farm. the design, installation, and maintenance of rain gardens and green roofs offers viable business opportunities and improves the aesthetics of the urban scape. a particularly innovative rain garden is a rice paddy that was installed at the east capitol urban farm (see figure 10). the small rice field grows organic rice in a flood-prone area. this generates dual benefits from storm water management and sustainable rice production. in addition, the innovative rain garden adds to the aesthetics of the site. 81 the design, installation, and maintenance of rain gardens and green roofs offers viable business opportunities and improves the aesthetics of the urban scape. a particularly innovative rain garden is a rice paddy that was installed at the east capitol urban farm (see figure 10). the small rice field grows organic rice in a flood-prone area. this generates dual benefits from storm water management and sustainable rice production. in addition, the innovative rain garden adds to the aesthetics of the site. figure 9. water capture at the van ness food hub and soil mitigation at east capitol urban farm. figure 10. the rain garden rice paddy at east capitol urban farm and compost for soil mitigation. urban soils are often contaminated and may require soil amendments before they are suitable for food production. composting is key and each of the urban food hubs has a small composting site where plant and food waste can be turned into healthy soil. a recent business start-up in the d.c. area is compost taxi. for a monthly fee, compost taxi picks up food waste from residential households and composts it to support urban agriculture initiatives. the social benefits of green-infrastructure improvements also go beyond soil and water management benefits. adding green space to health facilities, for example, improved the performance of medical staff and the healing and recovery process of patients (guenther & vittori, 2013). other social benefits include improved neighborhood safety, better walkability, more exercise, and added public space where neighbors can socialize (ackerman et al., 2014; chiffoleau, millet-amrani & canard, 2016; daiggaer, 2009; dixon et al., 2007; gallet, 2011) as the urban food hubs continue to evolve, each hub may eventually be equipped with an alternative energy source that takes the urban food hubs off the grid and turns them into 82 resiliency hubs that can secure food, water, and energy during times of crisis. this resilience model is already under development at the udc firebird farm. it features a solar-powered groundwater well, a containerized aquaponic system and kitchen, and a solar powered walk-in refrigerator. the urban food hubs also enhance the learning opportunities of udc students. they serve as a common focal point for service learning, student and faculty research, leadership development, and professional networking. students can enroll in the certificate courses and workshops offered through the university’s land-grant programs to prepare them for success as entrepreneurs in the local food and green infrastructure economy. investing in urban capacity building metropolitan universities have long been at the forefront of investing in surrounding communities. capacity building investments include renovation and reuse of residential properties, business incubators, neighborhood storefronts, and more. frequently these initiatives put unand under-utilized buildings back in use as resident halls, offices, classrooms, and businesses (drucker & goldstein, 2007; o’hara, 2001; rucinski, 2001). the udc urban food hubs expand this capacity building role to include university-owned food production, food processing, and green infrastructure facilities. similar to a business incubator that makes space, equipment, and shared services available to business start-ups, the urban food hubs make an upfront investment in the urban food and green infrastructure sector (saegert, 2006). this improves the likelihood of success for start-up businesses that would find it difficult to make the capital investment necessary to install a hydroponic or aquaponic system, a green roof, or a commercial kitchen. even less capital-intensive production methods that utilize raised bed gardens may require considerable up front investments. when land that was previously used as a building site, is converted to agricultural land, the up-front soil remediation and site preparation costs can be substantial. the urban agriculture toolkit published by the usda tallies the projected investment at $100,000 to $250,000 for a half-acre parcel of land (usda, 2016). the kitchen facilities associated with the food preparation component of the urban food hubs can be even more costly unless a pre-existing kitchen facility is available for use or renovation. the udc urban food hubs initiative has begun to make the necessary investments to turn food desert neighborhoods into thriving neighborhoods. a pilot project to test the university’s entrepreneurship based model was launched at the udc firebird farm where a group of students built and managed a hydroponic system installed in a 30-foot x 60-foot hoop house. the students successfully produced head lettuce and basil for sale at local farmers markets and the model is now being transferred to the udc urban food hubs. the hubs currently under development feature four hydroponic and four aquaponic facilities, two commercial kitchens, and a food truck. funding for the urban food hubs comes from a sustainable development grant of the district of columbia, from the anacostia economic development corporation, and from the university’s own capital funds. in the tradition of land-grant universities, the udc college of agriculture urban sustainability and environmental sciences (causes) provides training and technical assistance for the development, implementation, and operation of the businesses launched at the 83 urban food hubs. the hubs thus offer a model for business development from the ground up that identifies local entrepreneurs who wish to utilize the business opportunities the hubs offer. prospective entrepreneurs can use an on-line application process to apply for the use of the facilities. a review panel interviews applicants to select the most promising entrepreneurs. since the new business start-ups will have to carry only operating expenses, their financial viability and future expansion potential should be improved. by investing in the urban food hubs, udc expects to improve the success rate of the urban businesses it incubates. the model has also proven to offer additional business development opportunities in the technology sector. a udc computer science professor and an emeritus professor are collaborating to develop a sensor system that optimizes the productivity of the aquaponic and hydroponic facilities through a national science foundation small business technology transfer (sttr) grant (clearton, 2017). the sttr program provides funds for small businesses to conduct research and development (r&d) on technology innovations that have the potential to be commercially successful and benefit society. early indications suggest the urban food hubs can galvanize neighborhood activity and provide social and environmental benefits that go beyond the core objectives of spurring economic development and improving health outcomes. the following section highlights the social and environmental benefits of the food hubs. assessing broader social and environmental impacts the udc urban food hubs offer a model to diversify and localize the food and green infrastructure economy of metropolitan communities. while the economic viability of the urban food hubs will depend on the specific business model and site characteristics of each hub, the social benefits of improved health outcomes of underserved urban populations are indisputable. seeing how food is grown can be an effective catalyst for adopting more healthful eating habits and for reducing the public health expenditures associated with food-related illness. michigan state university’s cooperative extension service identified seven benefits of locally grown food that are not captured in the food price. locally grown food is: (a) more flavorful; (b) reconnects us with the seasons; (c) is more nutrient dense; (d) supports the local economy; (e) benefits the environment; (f) promotes a safer food supply; and (g) connects consumers and growers which improves awareness of where food comes from (halweil, 2002; klavinski, 2013). a report published by the university of california davis (2015), also attributes considerable social, health, and economic impacts to urban agriculture, and an mit study documents the economic impact of urban aquaponics (goodman, 2011). the field of ecological economics offers especially useful examples for calculating the value of the social and environmental side benefits of economic activity (o’hara, 1996; 2004; 2014). the usda regional food hub resource guide also illustrates economic, social, and environmental impacts (barham et al., 2012). some of the benefits of locally grown food will depend on the specific production methods applied. some growers, for example, may be committed to growing seasonal food plants while others will grow the same salad mix year around. environmental benefits may vary with the energy used for food production. almost regardless of the specific production methods, the urban food hubs reduce water use and improve storm water management. many cities have an aging water infrastructure that is at capacity and will benefit from the reduced water runoff associated with the urban food hubs. the benefits of reduced transportation and improved freshness also apply across the board, regardless of the specific production method used. the 84 urban food hubs can also improve the aesthetics of a neighborhood. raised bed gardens, trellises, and vertical growing systems can bring tremendous enhancements to an urban neighborhood. other benefits may result from the reuse of unused or underutilized buildings that can be successfully repurposed for indoor food production. much has been written about how to measure the quality of life of urban communities and the complex economic, social, and environmental impacts of sustainable development strategies (agudelo-vera et al., 2011; birch & wachter, 2008; burton, 2009; costanza et al., 2007; marans & kweon, 2011; paul, magee, scerri, & steger, 2015; sirgy & cornwell, 2002; smit, nasar, & ratta, 1996; vollmer, 2011; wheeler & beatley, 2014). a practical approach that brings the social and environmental impacts of economic development into view is the five pillars of economic development model pioneered by the author (kakovitch & o’hara, 2014; o’hara & vazques, 2006). this model argues that the key to long-term economic success lies in focusing on the needs and assets of local communities. this requires closer attention to those factors that undergird successful economic development rather than to economic indicators themselves. while economic indicators like the numbers of jobs or gdp per capita provide a snapshot of the impact of past actions, the five pillars focus on future economic development potential. by tracking those factors that are commonly considered external to the purview of economics, communities can be more pro-active in their development decisions. the five pillar categories that capture long-term economic success are: (a) health; (b) education; (c) environmental quality; (d) social and cultural amenities; and (e) access to information and transportation (see figure 11). table 2 offers a sample of indicators that can capture trends in the five pillar areas. tracking the impact of the urban food hubs on these indicators provides a measure of the longterm economic development impact of the hubs. figure 11. the five pillars of economic development. economic development strategies that focus on the five pillars depend on local information and local knowledge. the knowledge of credentialed experts that uses aggregated data and often assumes that solutions are transferrable from one community to another may be useful, but not sufficient. such aggregated information can create distortions that underestimate local purchasing power and other local assets. what is needed instead is the knowledge of local experts who can give voice to local context conditions, development barriers, and assets. such local knowledge is typically sparse, yet it is the very basis for identifying viable markets and resources that are often overlooked. e d u ca ti o n h e a lt h h e a lt h s o ci a l& c u lt u ra l t e ch n o lo g y e n v ir o n m e n t economic development 85 university decision makers must look beyond the usual circle of stakeholders and outside their comfort zone to ensure research agendas and capacity building agendas are shaped by a commitment to bring the life worlds (translated from habermas term lebenswelt; habermas, habermas, & mccarth y,1985) of local communities and non-credentialed local experts into focus. without the engagement of local experts, local contexts will be misrepresented, underrepresented, or omitted altogether (o’hara, 1996; raja & diao, 2016; hacker et al., 2012). a five pillars study for washington d.c. is currently under way and will be released in 2017. table 2 selected indicators of the five pillars of economic development indicator category education ● % of population with one or more year of college ● public high school graduation rate ● student:teacher ratio in public schools ● achievement test scores (act/sat) of high school seniors health ● life expectancy ● # of physicians per 1,000 of the population ● % of population that is obese ● % of population with diabetes social & cultural amenities ● # of full service grocery stores per 100 of population ● # of health food stores ● # of sit-down restaurants ● % participation of residents over 18 in clubs and organizations information technology and transportation ● % of households with internet access ● # of high speed internet access providers ● # of people per day using public transportation ● # of commuters with 25 minutes or less commuting time environment ● dissolved oxygen in surface water ● acres of permeable surface area ● green cover from agriculture, horticulture, grassland ● # of days with heat index above 100of metropolitan universities are ideally positioned to take on the role of facilitating a local and regional discourse about pathways to long-term sustainable development. this may take the form of stakeholder meetings, listening sessions, neighborhood meetings, and other forms of dialogue with a broad range of individuals and organizations that offer a perspective on local needs, assets, opportunities, and deficits. the urban food hubs stand in the tradition of the cooperative 86 extension service of united states land-grant universities and offer a space for formal and informal discourse applied to a metropolitan context. conclusion the urban food hubs of the college of agriculture, urban sustainability, and environmental sciences (causes) of the university of the district of columbia (udc) offer a model for capacity building that is committed to creating a local economy that improves the economic, social, and environmental conditions of underserved urban communities. the urban food hubs are designed to improve access to fresh food, reduce health deficits, and create jobs. each food hub consists of four components that link economic, social, and environmental impacts. the four components offer four distinct types of business development through high intensity food production on green roofs, raised bed gardens, and hydroponic and aquaponic facilities; food preparation that adds value to locally grown food and improves public health; innovative food distribution models that improve access to high quality affordable food through farmers markets, food trucks, and csas; and waste and water management through composting, reduced storm water run-off, and green infrastructure improvements. the metropolitan area of washington d.c. is growing. the urban food hubs must therefore be competitive in an environment of intense land use pressure. counting external benefits in addition to core mission of improving food security and creating jobs is therefore of paramount importance. some more tangible benefits include reduced food-related illnesses and improved storm water management. some less tangible ones include improved neighborhood aesthetics, stronger civic engagement and neighborhood safety. by making an upfront investment in the urban food hubs, the udc is creating the capacity for improved food access, health, and economic development in underserved neighborhoods in the nation’s capital. beyond applicability for washington d.c., the urban food hubs can serve as a model to improve the quality of life and economic opportunity of urban communities across the nation. the urban food hubs thus have a larger agenda: to create a network of sustainable and resilient local food systems that advance the economic, social/cultural, and environmental/physical benefits. the long-term sustainable development success of metropolitan communities depends on developing such resilient local economies. as urbanization continues globally, 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(2012). the role of green roof technology in urban agriculture. renewable agriculture and food systems, 27(04), 314-322. https://doi.org/10.1017/s174217051100038x wittmer, i. k., bader, h. p., scheidegger, r., singer, h., lück, a., hanke, i., ... & stamm, c. (2010). significance of urban and agricultural land use for biocide and pesticide dynamics in surface waters. water research, 44(9), 2850-2862. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.watres.2010.01.030 author information sabine o’hara is the dean of the college of agriculture, urban sustainability, and environmental sciences (causes), and director of land-grant programs of the university of the district of columbia. a former provost, college president, and international education executive, she is well known for her work in community-based economic development and ecological economics. sabine o’hara college of agriculture, urban sustainability, and environmental sciences (causes) university of the district of columbia 4200 connecticut ave. nw washington d.c. 20008 e-mail: sabine.ohara@udc.edu telephone: 202-274-7011 http://asi.ucdavis.edu/programs/sarep/publications/food-and-society/ualitreview-2013.pdf https://doi.org/10.1021/es702969f metropolitan universities vol. 30 no. 2 (june 2019), doi: 10.18060/22929 8 urban education as racialized state violence: what is the role of higher education? pauline lipman abstract this address was given as the plenary presentation to the 24th annual conference of the coalition for urban and metropolitan universities, chicago, illinois, october 23, 2018 keywords: displacement; community; minorities; neoliberalism; school closures; privatization; protest good morning. thank you so much to all the conference organizers for inviting me to a dialogue with you. i know that cumu has a place-based mission and that the theme of this conference is partnering with community organizations and institutions for equity. that’s exactly what i want to talk about today. displacement is an issue i will focus on today, so i want to begin by recognizing the space we are in and acknowledging the native peoples whose land we are on. forward to 2018, we should note that this opulent hotel we are meeting in, located on chicago’s gold coast, in a global city, was a few weeks ago a site of a city-wide strike by primarily black, brown, asian, immigrant, and women hotel workers for the simple justice of year-round health insurance. these low-wage service workers live the effects of globalized displacement and the flexibilization of labor that is a cornerstone of the neoliberal restructuring of the labor force, even as they find it increasingly impossible to live in the city. another act of displacement. our universities are also complicit. they employ increasing numbers of part-time, contingent academic labor, phds who work out of their cars and often live near the poverty line, without a stable place of employment. in my talk today i want to draw connections between what geographer ruth wilson gilmore calls these “disparate spaces” connected by restructuring of the urban economy and urban space, neoliberalization of public education, the politics of race, the resistance of grassroots social movements, and ultimately our universities. i want to locate myself in this story also. i am a professor of educational policy studies at the university of illinois at chicago. i teach young people who are going to be chicago public school (cps) teachers and graduate students who study urban education. i am the parent of a cps graduate and i have been involved in organizing for education justice in the city for over 20 years. i study the relationship of urban education policy and the political economy of cities and the politics of race. so i am deeply committed to the issues i am going to talk about. as an activist scholar, i claim what feminist philosopher sandra harding (2015) calls the “situated objectivity” of engagement in the social processes i study. i have seen first-hand the lived experience of cps policies. while i draw on research on urban education and my own extensive ethnographic data, my analysis privileges perspectives of the black and latinx families, students, and their teachers that i organize with. their experiences, histories, insights, and desires are 9 central to understand the dialectics of the racialized neoliberal restructuring of public education and emerging alternatives. school closings and black disposability on may 22, 2013, chicago’s mayor-appointed school board voted to close 49 neighborhood elementary schools and one high school—the most school closures at one time ever in the u.s. the mayor justified the mass closures on grounds of a fiscal “crisis” that required public austerity. the closures impacted 133 schools in total, including designated “receiving schools,” and approximately 47,000 students. the board’s decision followed seven intense months of protest in which literally thousands of parents, students, teachers, and community members testified at public hearings, marched, picketed, sat in, held press conferences and vigils, organized a three-day march across the city, and more to stop their schools from being closed. the 50 closings were on top of over 10 years of previous drastic school actions in which the board had closed, phased out, consolidated, or turned around 105 neighborhood public schools. in 2013, the board promised it would close no more schools for five years. yet, less than a year later, they turned over dvorak, mcnair, and gresham elementary schools—all in black communities—to a non-profit management organization, dismissing all staff and destabilizing the schools. then, in april 2018, five years after the 2013 mass closings, the board voted to phase out and close four more high schools in the african american englewood section of chicago and one primarily black elementary school on the near south side. school closings in working class communities of color in chicago are part of a national pattern. in 2014, the journey 4 justice alliance reported that, in recent years, detroit, new york, and chicago had all closed more than 100 public schools. columbus, pittsburgh, st. louis, houston, philadelphia, washington dc, kansas city, milwaukee, and baltimore each closed more than 25. the district of columbia closed 39 since 2008. in each case, black and brown students were primarily affected. puerto rico is the latest case in point. in april 2018, the governor of puerto rico seized on the devastation and displacement caused by hurricane maria to announce plans to close more than 300 out of 1,100 public schools on the island and to open up puerto rico to charter schools and private school vouchers for the first time, even as teachers and parents came together to clean, repair, and reopen their schools. shortly after the hurricane, secretary of education, betsy devos, an advocate of charters and vouchers, flew to the island to strategize with puerto rican officials. it was a déjà vu moment, calling up the specter of pushing through school closings and privatization in new orleans in 2005 after hurricane katrina. school closings are the new “normal” response to “natural” disasters and urban fiscal “crises.” the main target of these policies is black communities where economic strangulation is exacerbated by urban austerity measures to dismantle public housing, public health clinics, schools, and other public services. as black studies professor rose brewer (2012) points out, this is a form of neoliberal urban crisis management rooted in black disposability and oriented to capital accumulation. public disinvestment is coupled with intensified policing, incarceration, and police violence against black children, men, and women. along with lack of affordable 10 housing and living wage jobs, these policies are driving african americans out of the city, but they have also sparked a new wave of militant organizing, demonstrated by the movement that forced the trial and conviction of the police officer who murdered black teenager laquan macdonald in chicago. i want to talk about these dialectics centered on public education and pose some questions about implications for our work in urban universities. my focus is chicago, but the same urban political economic and racial dynamics play out in other u.s. cities, albeit in varied ways. accumulation by dispossession privatization of education in the u.s., and globally, typifies the neoliberal strategy of “accumulation by dispossession.” that is, private appropriation of public goods and institutions—“the commons”—from public housing, to the amazon rain forest, to public water systems, to the human genome—and their commodification for profit. neoliberal policies over the past thirty years have transformed public education into a lucrative global industry. the u.s. education market alone (zion market research) was valued at about $1.35 trillion in 2017. markets in charter schools, education services, curriculum, on-line classes, teacher training operations, testing, tutoring services, branded university satellites, for-profit colleges, and more are hot investment opportunities. speculative investment in charter school bonds and charter school real estate is the subject of investor webinars and bond trader and hedge fund newsletters. this process has been facilitated by political administrations on both sides of the aisle and shaped by billionaire venture philanthropists, exemplified by the walton family, melinda and bill gates, and eli broad foundations and facebook ceo mark zucker, who have benefited from the extraordinary upward redistribution of wealth over the past three decades. capitalizing on neoliberal policies to disinvest in urban public schools, they leverage their enormous wealth to promote education markets, business management of schools, the technology-driven education standards and testing industries, and retooling schooling for human capital development. in a colonial model, they decide what is best for working class students of color. chicago school closings closing public schools is a key policy lever to facilitate marketization of public education. in chicago, since 2001, 170 neighborhood public schools were closed, phased out, consolidated, co-located, or handed over to private “turnaround” managers. schools with more than 99 percent students of color (what the chicago teachers union calls “apartheid schools”) have been the principle target. in the 2013 closings, 79 percent of the students affected were black although 40.5 percent of the students in the district are black. most of the other affected students were latinx. due to school closings, some black areas of the city have few neighborhood public schools left. many were closed for low enrollment, even as cps authorized and funded 131 charter schools, mostly enrolling black and brown students. at the same time, cps’s budget has disproportionately benefitted selective enrollment and specialty schools in primarily white, upper-middle class and gentrified areas. 11 this racialized pattern is repeated nationally. over 80 percent of the students affected by philadelphia’s closure of 23 schools in 2013 were black, though the school district student population was 58 percent black. just four percent of students affected were white. washington d.c.’s closure of 15 schools in 2013 affected about 2,700 students; just two (less than 0.01 percent) were white, although white students make up nine percent of the d.c. public school population. of the total affected students, 93 percent were black although 72 percent of the students in the district are black. detroit, with a student population that is 82 percent black, closed more than 100 schools since 2005. in each of these cities, there is an associated expansion of charter schools. yet, there is little evidence that closing schools improves education. the vast majority of students do not experience improved academic performance. a study of chicago’s 2013 mass closings by the consortium on chicago research found “academic outcomes were neutral at best, and negative in some instances.” nor is there evidence that charter schools overall improve education. root shock public officials justify closing schools with a narrative of “failure” and “underutilization.” but this narrative washes out the complexity of schools rooted in communities and erases histories of structural racism and public policies and private investment decisions that have gotten them to this point. the official narrative negates the pain, loss, and dislocation that children experience when their schools are closed. it disregards parents’ fears for the increased risks to children forced to travel long distances, cross dangerous streets, or go out of their neighborhoods. closing a school breaks the web of sustaining human connections that coalesce there, producing trauma that professor of urban policy and public health, mindy fullilove, calls “root shock”— “the traumatic stress of the loss of [one’s] lifeworld” whose effects last for decades. the interviews our team of activists and scholars at the collaborative for equity and justice in education did with parents affected by chicago’s 2013 school closings captured this trauma. one parent said, “…the kids were grieving. it was just like somebody had died and it had. the school died”. many described their schools as like “family” and their closure as a blow to the community. our interviews with black and latinx parents revealed that many were deeply involved in their schools as volunteer teaching assistants, coaches, school monitors, unofficial community liaisons, elected local school council representatives, and more. some anchored school programs. they had intimate knowledge of the interplay of their school’s strengths and weaknesses, perspectives on how to improve it, and broad, humanistic visions of the education they wanted. the school closing process itself dehumanized the parents and their children who were excluded from decision-making and whose deep knowledge and insight were disregarded and dismissed. neoliberal urbanism and education policy taking a wider view, we cannot fully understand the forces driving these policies and their implications without considering the spatial, economic, and racial logics of neoliberal urban development. animated by global economic competitiveness and urban entrepreneurship, urban 12 governance regimes make development decisions to satisfy capital markets, real estate developers, and elite consumers. their neoliberal strategies prioritize downtown development, gentrification, privatization of public goods, outsourcing of union labor, and subsidies to capital, pushing aside whatever stands in the way, including public housing, public schools, and the people who live there. the result is deeply intertwined political, economic, and spatial urban dichotomies along lines of class, race, and ethnicity. these contrasting realities are on display in chicago, a city centered on global business services, tourism, and real estate development. a city of luxury zones and hardship zones, tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy and poverty and near-poverty wages for immigrants, women and people of color who work for them. gentrification, rooted in real estate development and speculation on property values, is a pivotal sector of this neoliberal urban economy. this is a process in which the built environment is selectively junked, abandoned, destroyed, and reconstructed to create “a new locational grid” for capital accumulation, to paraphrase urban policy scholar rachel weber. before communities can be new sites of capital accumulation, they have to be devalued, prepared for development, and reimagined as places of value. their “regeneration” is made possible by dispersing the people who live there, erasing the community identities they have constructed, and replacing them with new, sanitized images. in the new political economy of urban education, i argue that education policy is integral to this differential valuation of city spaces. in gentrifying areas, cps closes and then rebrands neighborhood schools as specialty schools to attract real estate investment and the consumers of new middle class housing. in white middle and upper-middle class areas, cps expands selective enrollment schools and enhances the resources and curriculum of existing neighborhood schools. at the same time, divesting in public schools in low-income black and latinx communities, and replacing them with charter schools, signals further state abandonment of areas of the city not yet ripe for profitable reinvestment. as geographer laura pulido (2016) points out, white supremacy is integral to processes of devaluation and re-valuation of urban space and urban schools: the devaluation of black (and other nonwhite) bodies has been a central feature of global capitalism for centuries and creates a landscape of differential value which can be harnessed in diverse ways to facilitate the accumulation of more power and profit than would otherwise be possible. since 2000, a quarter million african americans have left chicago; most who left since 2010 were low-income and young. in 2000, black students were 52 percent of cps’s population; today they are 37 percent. of the roughly 170 schools closed, 88 percent of the students affected were black. in 2013, cps closed one quarter of all the predominantly black schools in the city in a single year. many were anchors in communities that experienced economic impoverishment, public and private disinvestment, dismantling of public housing, and home foreclosures. some had served generations of families. closed, abandoned school buildings and the churn of new charter schools further destabilizes these communities, readying them for future development, minus the people who live there. in what the chicago teachers union (2012) calls an “apartheid” school district, race and class disparities in resources and curriculum are stark. the ctu documents that schools in black and 13 latinx low-income communities disproportionately lack music and art teachers, updated science labs, school nurses, adequate counselors and libraries. abandonment of black community resources is linked to the expendability of black labor in an economy of outsourced production, automation, and low-wage service work. black students are more likely to be subject to racialized policing and containment than to economic and social opportunity. as ta nahisi coates demonstrates in relation to chicago’s north lawndale community, these racial inequities rest on historically state-sanctioned housing segregation and discrimination that robbed communities of color of wealth and resources while the state facilitated wealth accumulation by whites. similarly, the journey 4 justice alliance documents that many closed schools that served low-income, working class black, latinx, and other students of color in washington d.c., chicago, detroit, new york, philadelphia, and elsewhere had a history of inequitable resources and lack of investment. for example, in 2012, the chicago board of education voted to phase out dyett high school after years of disinvestment and destabilization. this was despite parent and community organizing to bring in resources and programs, the school’s accelerated rates of college going, and a nationally recognized restorative justice program. by 2012, there were no advanced placement classes, only a rudimentary schedule of science and math classes, and students took art online. college preparatory and mentoring programs initiated by teachers and community members were lost when cps refused to continue funding them. dyett high school student, walter flowers, summarized, “it just feels like they don’t care as much as we want them to. it’s been heartbreaking. cps just turned its back on us….” in december 2011, cps’s chief operating officer admitted that cps did not intend to invest in schools that would be closed in the next 5–10 years. these policies represent what jodi melamed calls the “state-finance-racial violence nexus,” the integral relationship of political/economic governance with racial violence that enables accumulation by dispossession. melamed argues, “it has become increasingly plain that accumulation for financial asset-owning classes requires violence toward others and seeks to expropriate for capital the entire field of social provision (land, work, education, health).” another education is possible more than any other education policy, school closings have generated organized grassroots resistance and community-union coalitions, led by people of color. not willing to simply defend public schools as they are, parents and teachers want something more. over the past 10 years, they have developed a critical analysis of the intersection of racism and privatization and formulated programs for racial justice, sustainable neighborhood schools, and self-determination. examples are growing: • the national journey for justice alliance’s report, an equitable and just school system now; • the chicago teachers union programs, the schools chicago students deserve and a just chicago; • the milwaukee community-labor coalition, schools and communities united, proposal fulfill the promise: the schools and communities our children deserve; 14 • the alliance to reclaim our schools education justice is racial justice platform; and • the education platform of the movement for black lives. in our research, parents voiced their desire for a rich, challenging, humane curriculum, a holistic education centered on children’s development, not testing and competition. they want respectful, culturally relevant public schools that are centers of community where young people develop academically, and as thoughtful, caring and just humans. their vision dwarfs the impoverished, instrumental conception of schools as aggregate test scores, bodies with future job skills, and obedient subjects. i want to share two concrete examples of school transformation rooted in community struggles and parents’ educational vision. the first is the campaign that culminated in a 34-day hunger strike in 2015 to re-open dyett high school in chicago’s historic african american bronzeville neighborhood. despite community proposals to revitalize dyett and plans to create a network of aligned bronzeville elementary schools, in 2012 cps voted to phase out the high school over the protests of parents and students. over three years, a persistent grassroots campaign forced cps to agree to reopen dyett as a neighborhood high school and to issue a call for proposals for the school’s focus and vision. in community meetings large and small, students, parents and community members forged a vision for the school they wanted for their community. together with community organizations, teachers, and university partners, they formed the coalition to revitalize dyett to co-develop and write a comprehensive 53-page proposal for the dyett high school of global leadership and green technology, based on the community vision. the vision expressed the intergenerational wisdom and educational vision of a working class black community. through dialogue and analysis, parents and young people distilled critiques of the inequitable and oppressive schooling black children are subjected to, and unfolded their dreams into a farsighted, community-rooted, humanizing, research-based, educational proposal focused on “environmental sustainability and leadership for peace and justice.” it built on experience of youth and parent organizing, critical freirian pedagogy, educational research, and historical practices of black education. the proposal was endorsed by several past presidents of the american educational research association. it began: our philosophy of education is to prepare young people to deeply understand and study their social and physical reality so they can enter the global stage of history as actors in transforming their world….education should value and build on the young people of bronzeville, their culture, languages, experiences, history, wisdom, and elders to enable them to know who they are, where they come from, where they are going, and to love their community and themselves. the model is a school who cares for children and youth as whole people, wraps around them both supports and challenges they need in order to develop. as in a village, it treats them with respect and dignity, and demands excellence and commitment to even a greater good than their own individual success. this is a model that nurtures leadership; it teaches perseverance, expects the best, and supports solidarity.… (dyett rfp, 2015) 15 this philosophy infused the proposed curriculum, pedagogy, school culture and organization, approach to school discipline and relationships, physical structure of the building, involvement of parents and community, national and global connections—even as the proposal followed required cps guidelines. when it became clear cps was violating its own process and would reject the community proposal, 12 parents, grandparents, teachers, and supporters launched a 34-day hunger strike that drew national and international attention and support from across chicago. the hunger strike exposed the link between school closings and anti-black state violence. protesters against the police murder of a rekia boyd, a black woman in chicago, made that connection explicit when they marched, at night, from a protest at the police station to the dyett strike. after 34 days, the hunger strikers were forced to end the hunger strike when, as grandmother irene robinson said, it was evident that “rahm emanuel [chicago mayor] would rather let us die.” nonetheless, the campaign succeeded in forcing cps to re-open dyett as a neighborhood public high school, though without the proposal’s focus. and the struggle for the full community vision continues. the second example is the national campaign for sustainable community schools, a forwardlooking alternative to school closings and privatization. the campaign calls for transforming neighborhood schools into sustainable public schools with engaging culturally relevant curriculum, high quality teaching—not high stakes testing—wrap-around supports, restorative justice, and transformational parent and community engagement. in chicago, a coalition of the chicago teachers union (2018) and community organizations, building on the vision for a revitalized dyett high school, won 20 sustainable community (see also cps, 2018) schools in the 2016 teachers’ union contract. their principles grow out of the dyett high school proposal: • racial justice and equity; • transparency and trusting relationships; • self-determination and self-governance; • building on community strengths and community wisdom; • shared leadership and collaboration; • reflective learning culture; and • whole child approach to education. the dyett proposal and organizing for sustainable community schools provide counter narratives and demonstrate concrete alternatives to the deeply inequitable economic, political, spatial, racialized landscape of the city. they imagine schools as life-affirming, identityaffirming spaces, incubators of critical thought and action rooted in community and relationships of solidarity and humanization. they exemplify a strategy of fighting for schools as part of fighting for sustainable urban working class communities. the dyett hunger strike demonstrated how far the state is willing to go to prevent working class black parents from exercising agency to control their destiny, how little regard it has for black life, and how critical schools are to the racialized neoliberal plan for the city. it also demonstrated that fierce contests over urban education embody the struggle for place and selfdetermination for black and other communities of color. hunger striker, grandmother, and lifelong bronzeville resident, april stogner, explained, “this is our community. it has been taken 16 hostage and it is time to let it go. this is ours. we are going to fight for it…” (see also ewing, 2019). what is the role of universities? so what role do universities play and what role should they play? u.s. universities are contradictory institutions. on the one hand, they were set up as elitist, exclusionary, white institutions-supports for racial capitalism. the neoliberal university’s growth strategy, its financial and management policies, its allocation of resources are shaped by logics of business. entrepreneurship, corporate funding, market competition, increased tuition revenues, cost-cutting through subcontracting to private services, and public private partnerships in which profit taking by private investors and companies is part of the equation. these are the normalized strategies of universities across the u.s. the new multimillion-dollar classroom and dorm building going up at university of illinois at chicago, across from my office, for example, is a public-private venture, at least partly aimed at attracting high tuition-paying out-of-state and international students and marketing. meanwhile, there are fewer black students as the university (a publicly funded urban institution) markets itself to out-of-state and international students and cps continues to fail to educate black students, and the dystopian realities of neoliberal urbanism come to roost in our classrooms. my working class students preparing to be teachers are stressed out by debt, working full time jobs, living undocumented, family evictions, police violence, and low-wages. some of our universities are key actors in gentrification and displacement. uic is a key player in the gentrification of the nearby mexican working class community of pilsen. its partnerships with developers facilitated the construction of university village, a middle and upper-income mega gentrification complex on the site of a former public housing project and historic black community. the university’s role as gentrifier is mirrored by the university of pennsylvania in west philadelphia, columbia university in harlem, temple university in north philadelphia, and more. moreover, some of our universities are complicit in the disinvestment and privatization of education, which i have described. university representatives sit on public policy-making boards that devise and legitimate processes of dispossession and marketization. they partner with charter-school chains, teach for america, and other sectors of the education privatization industry. they comply with, even help design, neoliberal school district policies, and fail to oppose, and sometimes benefit from, policies that devastate communities they purport to serve. over vociferous protests of parents and teachers, depaul university got $50 million in public tax increment finance (tif) dollars to fund its new stadium while cps budgets were slashed as austerity measures. these are public funds that rightfully belong to schools. yet universities are also spaces for community collaborative research, critical scholarship and debate, and student organizing. university partnerships with community organizations and projects are the focus of this conference’s workshops. an example is the dyett proposal: uic college of education faculty collaborated with parents, community organizations, students, and teachers to write the proposal, and the dean of the college of education endorsed it. 17 but how do we push back against the neoliberal university itself? how do we build community partnerships outside the university that also hold the university accountable for its role in school closings and gentrification of the neighborhoods where our community partners work and live? what can we do to make the university pay living wages to its workers, who live in the communities we partner with and whose children attend public schools? how can we use community collaborations to organize for open admissions and free tuition to open up the university to the working class communities it excludes, but who fund it? how can we pressure the university to refuse contracts with education privatizers, to stop gentrifying and displacing black and other communities of color as students fought to do historically at columbia university? how do we pressure the university to open up its space and deploy its skills, material resources, prestige, and public voice to challenge injustices in the city and beyond? if the university is actually complicit in education policy as anti-black violence, how do we do our work to contest that? how do we stand with struggles for what henri lefebvre termed “the right to the city”? those are the questions we need to grapple with and the challenges we all face. 18 references the alliance to reclaim our schools (2019) retrieved from http://www.reclaimourschools.org/ brewer, r. m. (2012). on twenty-first century social transformation: class, nation, gender and race in a period of revolution and capitalist crisis, perspectives on global development and technology, 11(1), 11-26. https://doi.org/10.1163/156914912x620707 chicago teachers’ union. (2018, september 1). sustainable community schools: a path to real equity. retrieved from https://www.ctulocal1.org/chicago-union-teacher/2018/09/sustainablecommunity-schools-a-path-to-real-equity/ ewing, e.l. (2019, march 1). the fight for dyett: how a community in chicago saved its school. american educator, 43(1), 30-40. harding, s.g. (2015). objectivity and diversity: another logic of scientific research. chicago, il: university of chicago press. https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226241531.001.0001 journey for justice alliance (2014, may). death by a thousand cuts: racism, school closures and public school sabotage. retrieved from https://j4jalliance.org pulido, l. (2016). flint, environmental racism and racial capitalism. capitalism nature socialism, 27(3), 1-16. https://doi.org/10.1080/10455752.2016.1213013 zion market research. (2017). u.s. education market. retrieved from https://www.zionmarketresearch.com/ http://www.reclaimourschools.org/ https://doi.org/10.1163/156914912x620707 https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226241531.001.0001 https://doi.org/10.1080/10455752.2016.1213013 https://www.zionmarketresearch.com/ 19 author information pauline lipman, ph.d. professor of educational policy studies room 1404 etmsw university of illinois at chicago 1040 w. harrison st. (m/c 147) chicago, il 60607 telephone: (312) 413-4413 email: plipman@uic.edu pauline lipman is professor of educational policy studies and director of the collaborative for equity and justice in education. her teaching, research, and activism grow out of her commitment to social justice and liberation. her interdisciplinary research focuses on race and class inequality in education, globalization, and political economy of urban education, particularly the inter-relationship of education policy, urban restructuring, and the politics of race. pauline is a member of the leadership body of teachers for social justice – chicago and is active in coalitions of teachers and community organizations. she is a co-director of the data and democracy project. she has co-led various collaborations with community organizations to produce policy reports that bring to light educational injustices and community-driven programs to transform urban schools. metropolitan universities vol. 29 no. 4 (december 2018), doi: 10.18060/22837 108 the road taken: contributions to advancing community-engaged scholarship jomella watson-thompson abstract as an early career professional, i often felt as if i was on the road less traveled as a communityengaged scholar and tenured-track faculty member in academia. although the work of community-engaged scholarship (ces) may be valued, the mechanisms for advancing ces, such as through faculty reward systems, often are not well-established. in my experience, it has been extremely important to create both internal and external opportunities for community-engaged scholars to promote and recognize the collaborative work that integrates scholarly activities with communities in mutually beneficial ways. as a recipient of the 2014 ernest a. lynton award for the scholarship of engagement of early career faculty, i will share how the award and recognition influenced my development and trajectory as a community-engaged scholar. in my professional journey, the lynton award affected me in several ways, including preparing for promotion and tenure, establishing and expanding my network of community-engaged scholars, and advancing opportunities for both internal and external leadership roles in ces. through this paper, i will share my journey as a community-engaged scholar, as well as discuss some factors that i found to be critical conditions for success. lastly, i challenge us to consider the intersection and continuum of community-engaged and participatory approaches to ensure that we are maximizing our opportunities to advance ces across fields, disciplines and approaches. keywords: community-engaged scholarship; community-based participatory research; lynton award the road not taken by robert frost (1916) two roads diverged in a yellow wood, and sorry i could not travel both and be one traveler, long i stood and looked down one as far as i could to where it bent in the undergrowth; then took the other, as just as fair, and having perhaps the better claim, because it was grassy and wanted wear; though as for that the passing there had worn them really about the same, and both that morning equally lay in leaves no step had trodden black. oh, i kept the first for another day! yet knowing how way leads on to way, i doubted if i should ever come back. i shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence: two roads diverged in a wood, and i— i took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference. when i reflect on my journey as a community-engaged scholar, i think of robert frost’s poem, the road not taken (mountain interval, 1920). as a community-engaged scholar, i was fortunate to take the road less traveled, which was not because i had any such intention. it was a confluence of factors, including exposure as an undergraduate to service learning and to participatory research as a graduate student. then, through the ernest a. lynton award for the http://www.nerche.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1527&itemid=582 109 scholarship of engagement of early career faculty, i got my first introduction to communityengaged scholarship as an approach and a lens from which to view my work. now, as a tenured faculty member, i feel comfortable acknowledging that i was not familiar with the term “community-engaged scholarship” prior to applying for the lynton award. since graduate school, i supported the work of a community-engaged scholar, but in my discipline we considered the work to be service learning and participatory research. through the process of being nominated, and later as a recipient of the award, my understanding of community-engaged scholarship blossomed. additionally, as a recipient of the ernest a. lynton award, i encountered a network of scholars and colleagues who think about this work from a different disciplinary base, often in higher education. colleagues who identify as community-engaged scholars are very welcoming, sincere, and optimistic about the future and the advancement of community-engaged scholarship. i often wonder, if i had not been blessed to be the recipient of the award, would our paths have ever crossed? as a scholar trained in community-based participatory approaches, i would have continued to be a productive scholar in the areas of community and youth violence prevention, neighborhood development, and youth development. i would have continued to work alongside community partners to improve outcomes of community-identified concern through participatory approaches as an associate director with the center for community health and development. i would have continued to serve as a tenure-track faculty member at the university of kansas in behavioral psychology who integrated service learning into coursework and research projects. however, my road, pathway, and trajectory as a scholar would have been different if i had not attained the 2014 ernest a. lynton award for the scholarship of engagement for early career faculty. after which, in 2016, i was blessed to be awarded tenure and promotion to the rank of associate professor. thus, i will take this opportunity to reflect on how the ernest a. lynton award has affected my work, network, and tenure process, and it has contributed to a more refined career pathway. now, i hope to contribute to further championing the work of community-engaged scholarship so that others from an array of disciplines can more easily find the pathway. i endeavor to contribute to advancing community-engaged scholarship, as a road traveled not by happenstance, but as an intentional pathway on the journey for those who are committed to working with communities from an academic base. continuing the legacy through the ecosystem of knowledge ernest a. lynton put into words a vision for community-engaged scholarship, in which research, teaching, and service combine into a knowledge ecosystem, fortifying and beneficial to not only the academician, but also the students and the community. according to lynton, knowledge does not move only from the locus of research to the place of application, from scholar to practitioner, teacher to student, expert to client. it is, everywhere, fed back, constantly enhanced. we need to think of knowledge in an ecological fashion, recognizing the complex, multi-faceted and multiply connected system by means of which discovery, aggregation, synthesis, dissemination, and application are all interconnected and interacting in a wide variety of ways. (lynton, 1994, p. 10) http://www.nerche.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1527&itemid=582 http://www.nerche.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1527&itemid=582 http://www.nerche.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1527&itemid=582 110 based on the carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching, post, ward, longo, & saltmarsh (2016) define community-engaged scholarship “as the collaboration between academics and individuals outside the academy— knowledge professionals and the lay public (local, regional/state, national, global)— for the exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity” (p. 113). illustrative examples of community-engaged scholarship as a community-engaged scholar, i have recently been working collaboratively with community partners and students to support thryve (together helping reduce youth violence for equity), which is a youth violence prevention initiative in kansas city, ks. the initiative has funding support from health and human services, office of minority health through the minority youth violence prevention ii program. thryve participants find and address social determinants of health, or those underlying factors that contribute to well-being or to the likelihood that youth may be involved in violence. some of these are education, employment, social connectedness, and access to resources for youth and families. thryve supports cross-sector collaboration through the involvement of over 40 organizations in the community, representing government, law enforcement, justice system, education, higher education, youth-serving organizations, social service agencies, faith community, and youth themselves. the organizations guide the initiative through a systems advisory board, which selects the change levers to improve conditions for youth in a priority geographical area of the community. the vision for thryve is: “empowered youth thriving and prospering in a safe community”. in this comprehensive community venture supporting multi-strategy interventions, secondary and post-secondary students take part through coursework, service, and research to work alongside thryve staff and partners. the contributions of multiple partners have shaped every approach for supporting healthy and positive youth development in our community. as a result, staff have developed community-valued products, including an assessment, strategic plan, and a series of community presentations. within the ecosystem of knowledge, thryve supports a continuous process of feedback and refinement that has enhanced the approach in ways that have often slowed the process but has supported reciprocity with community partners. as another example, for over a decade, our center for community health and development has served as the evaluator and research partner for the aim4peace violence prevention project. the health department in kansas city, missouri, sponsors the program. aim4peace focuses on reducing shootings and killings in a priority area of the community. it developed from the cure violence (formerly ceasefire chicago) approach to violence prevention. since 2008, aim4peace has collaborated with the center for community health and development as an evaluation partner. aim4peace has contributed to the ecosystem of knowledge and community partners served as co-authors on manuscripts and co-presenters at scholarly conferences along with faculty and graduate students. academic partners have also supported activities of value to aim4peace, including quarterly collaborative data review sessions, presentations to program staff, community partners, and city council. through training opportunities and coursework, students have contributed to developing a digital story of community leadership with the initiative and other products. furthermore, the center for community health and development 111 has supported the development of annual evaluation reports and presentations. these have in turn supported program enhancements with community partners. community partner representatives also served as a dissertation committee member, as it is important to involve community partners in academic processes that validate their community and programmatic expertise. now, students who have completed the program coursework have assumed consultation and leadership roles with the aim4peace initiative, post-graduation. the partnership between the ku center for community health and development within the department of applied behavioral science, and the aim4peace program has supported community-based participatory evaluation, using an integrated framework for collaborative public health action in communities and the model for participatory evaluation (watson-thompson, 2015). figure 1. an integrated model presenting the participatory evaluation framework for collaborative action based on the five-phase framework for collaborative action and a six-step participatory evaluation model (institute of medicine 2002, 186; fawcett et al. 2003, 24, and fawcett et al. 2010, 3). the integrated framework for community-engaged scholarship guided the community-university collaboration for both the thryve and aim4peace initiatives. the model’s first phase supports community and academic partners in assessing and prioritizing community-level problems and goals under study through collaborative assessment and planning. both the university and community partners then shape the research agenda and questions to guide the effort. based on the identified problem or goal, planning processes emerge, including the development of a logic model or framework to guide the initiative. often, as with thryve, a community and systems change action plan contains the program, policy, and practice changes prioritized by the collaborative effort. in the second phase, community and academic partners support targeted action in the community through community-based implementation of the interventions identified through the collaborative planning process. 112 in the third phase, targeted action leads to the implementation of identified community and systems changes, which are a key intermediary measure for how the community and environment is being modified to support improvements related to the prioritized issue. through participatory evaluation processes, community and academic partners collect and collaboratively share data to understand progress, as well as to support necessary adjustments through an ongoing process of data sharing and feedback. then, in the fourth phase, as interventions (i.e.., programs, policies, and practices) take effect, there should be widespread changes in the prioritized risk factors and behaviors of individuals and groups. finally, a continuous cycle of information review, feedback, and adjustments can achieve improvements at the level of the community or population over time. through the implementation of this participatory framework, community-university collaboration supports an ecosystem of knowledge. impact of the lynton award on my professional pathway in understanding the impact of the ernest a. lynton award for the scholarship of engagement for early career faculty on my professional development as a tenured faculty member, it is helpful to share key timelines and milestones, particularly related to the tenure process. in 2012, i first applied and became one of eight finalists for the 2012 ernest a. lynton award for the scholarship of engagement for early career faculty. although i was not the 2012 lynton award recipient, it was very meaningful and rewarding, as early career faculty, to receive recognition as a finalist from then the new england resource center for higher education (nerche) within the university of massachusetts, boston. in 2014, i reapplied and was the successful recipient of the ernest a. lynton award for the scholarship of engagement for early career faculty. although i supported the work of a community-engaged scholar, prior to initially applying for the 2012 lynton award, i was unfamiliar with community-engaged scholarship as an approach. in preparing my nominee application materials, i learned more about the scholarship of engagement as set forth so eloquently by ernest a. lynton (1994) and ernest boyer (1996). it was evident that this was an emerging pathway from which to anchor my work. the 2012 lynton award application process assisted me in critically framing and succinctly communicating my approach to community-engagement. prior to this process, i had generally thought about community engagement across my research, teaching, and service more as isolated components rather than as an integrative approach. i was supporting community engagement in teaching through service learning, in research through community-based participatory research, and in my professional and personal service endeavors. however, i was unintentionally isolating these functions and the interactions between the components of my work. in academia, we often learn to think of research, teaching, and service as three core, but often independent functions. the lynton award application process gave me the opportunity to reflect intentionally on the integration and impact of my research, teaching, and service as interdependent and mutually beneficial. in 2012, i was also beginning to gather materials for my progress towards tenure review (pttr) process, which at my institution takes place midway through the probationary period for tenuretrack faculty. although the preparation of the lynton award application materials was intensive, http://www.nerche.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1527&itemid=582 http://www.nerche.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1527&itemid=582 113 i was able to use the application to help refine my research and teaching statements as parts of my dossier. the lynton award application process, prompted critical reflection on my approach to research, teaching, and service. through the lynton award application process, i received valuable feedback and support regarding the communication of my approach from colleagues with the center for service learning and my faculty mentors who served as award nominators. during the pttr process, i developed an initial dossier, inclusive of a research statement, teaching statement, and supportive portfolio materials. the pttr process forecasted the full tenure review process, except external reviews were not required. in 2013, i successfully completed progress towards tenure review, which my department conducted after my third year. although my pttr was successful, some internal reviewers had concerns related to the complexity of my course requirements, which integrated service learning, as well as my publication productivity due to being more longitudinal community-based studies. my faculty chairperson at the time recommended that it would be important for me to begin to use my annual faculty performance review processes to “school” my colleagues, or promote an enhanced understanding of community-engaged scholarship within the department. the chairperson indicated that for many of my faculty colleagues, the work i did was admirable, but community-engaged scholarship was a newer concept to faculty who would be evaluating my work and supporting recommendations for promotion and tenure. although many of my faculty colleagues were supportive of a community-engaged approach, there were concerns regarding if i would be able to balance productivity in ways traditionally measured or counted for tenure and promotion. early in my career, i received guidance from well-intentioned colleagues to determine if i wanted to support, “community services or academic achievement”. moreover, my more-senior colleagues often reminded me to “do what you have to do now, so that you can do what you want to do later.” the dichotomous system is often difficult for community-engaged scholars to navigate, as there is limited understanding of community-engaged scholarship as a valid approach leading to a different trajectory of productivity and impact for faculty. often, community-engaged scholars produce two different portfolios of work to respond to the different needs and values of the academic and community audiences. for instance, a presentation to a key community stakeholder, such as the city council, may not resemble a scholarly or academic product. if supporting ces, a presentation to city council or other key community stakeholders related to ces activity should be recognized and valued as much in the scholarly review process as a presentation at an academic conference. however, in academia, it requires our measures and factors of impact, as well as distinctions between major and minor scholarly work to be more broadly defined and accepted in the academic review processes. a challenge with having two different systems of value and merit is the duplicate work and effort of the scholar. an integrated system, in which ces products have value within both the community and academia, would enhance the feasibility and attractiveness of ces. creating opportunities to involve community stakeholders in academic processes (e.g., review committees) begins to reduce silos and promote a more equitable approach between community and university partners. 114 if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again in august of 2015, i learned that i had received the lynton award as i was starting to assemble my dossier for tenure review. my dossier included letters from students who had benefited through coursework and/or research opportunities, letters from community colleagues, and examples of community-valued products such as evaluation reports. when i submitted my curriculum vitae for p&t review, 33% of my published articles included community-partner coauthors. nearly 50% of my major scholarly presentations involved community partners. at the time of tenure, i had contributed to developing nearly as many technical reports (e.g., evaluation reports) as scholarly publications. this is a clear example of the dual role that communityengaged scholars often must play to provide both community-friendly and scholarly-valued products to different audiences. the lynton award occasioned several scholarly presentations and the publication of an article in the metropolitan universities journal, which further helped to communicate and endorse my approach to community-engaged scholarship. the lynton award application process helped me to refine further my research and teaching statements for my dossier. however, it was more difficult to represent my work in the dossier by the general categorizations of research, teaching and service. between 2012 and 2015, the lynton award application processes had made more purposeful the way i framed and practiced an integrated approach of ces. thus, in presenting my dossier it became increasingly more difficult to demonstrate and communicate my work separately across standard and independent categories of research, teaching, and service. as we consider how to support ces in traditional academic processes, dossier templates or options that promote and lift up the integration of research, teaching, and service is an institutional practice that may be more immediately feasible for some institutions and would begin to signal support for ces. the greener pathway: conditions or enabling factors that support success for ces i will present some conditions or factors that were key in enabling my success as an awardee, as well as a community-engaged scholar. through the process of applying for, and later receiving, the lynton award i was able to refine and better communicate my approach as a communityengaged scholar. based upon personal reflections of my pathway, i have identified several conditions that enabled my success including the following: (1) pathways for developing a ces approach; (2) network of support for championing and modeling ces; (3) institutional promotion and recognition of ces; and, (4) leadership opportunities to advance ces. based on these factors, my ces activities post-tenure has resulted in leveraged financial resources and opportunities for administrative and leadership roles in ces. pathways for developing a ces approach. for community-engaged scholars, it is important to have pathways and options for navigating the university system as faculty, scholars, and/or administrators. a community-engaged scholar can leverage resources, including human and financial, in the communities served. after obtaining tenure, i requested and received a one-semester course release through my department that allowed me to focus on obtaining external grant funding to support research endeavors. the course release supported me, as a participatory researcher, to further develop partnerships in the 115 community and to apply for federal grant funding to address youth violence, an identified problem in our community. during the period of the course release, i submitted a grant to health and human services, office of minority health to address social determinants that may result in racial and ethnic disparities in youth violence. the resulting initiative, thryve ran on a $1.7 million award to support ces activities to address youth violence in kansas city, ks. one challenge we had with thryve concerned federally approved facilities and administrative (f&a) or indirect cost rates, which can be as much as 51% at our institution. to be clear, it is important to secure some f&a costs to absorb some of the expenses incurred by the university in providing infrastructure support. however, a challenge with community-engaged research is that often most of the work takes place in the community (i.e., off-campus). furthermore, a large proportion of the funding goes directly to support community-based activities and/or partners. moreover, it is difficult as a community-engaged scholar to communicate to community partners that a large part of the funding award remains at the institution, when often we should be supporting equitable practices as anchor institutions. one way to address this challenge may be a reduced f&a rate for funded projects that support ces. although this may be ambitious to consider a redistribution of f&a for ces related projects demonstrating direct community investment, it would signal institutional commitment and support to and in the community. network of support for championing and modeling ces. community-engaged scholars must support a community of practice with other colleagues of kindred spirit, both on campus and in the field. i was fortunate to have colleagues who provided a community of support both within my department, at the level of the university, and through broader professional networks. based on various networks of support, i have worked with colleagues to both champion and model ces. through the lynton award, i met and maintained a network of colleague affiliated with the new england research center on higher education (nerche) at the university of massachusettsboston, the swearer center at brown university, and through the coalition on urban and metropolitan universities (cumu). now, as a member of the lynton award national advisory committee, i am able to contribute to advancing ces with other committee members through our network. for community-engaged scholars, it is helpful to obtain mentorship and support from a community of on-campus colleagues who understand and promote ces. i was fortunate to have two faculty mentors within my department, drs. stephen fawcett and glen white, who were advocates for service-learning and participatory research approaches. as mentors, they modeled community-engaged scholarship, both as directors of productive research centers, competitive successful external funding recipients, respected leaders in the field, productive participatory researchers, and as instructors of service-learning courses. they shared model materials including course syllabi, examples of scholarly products, including funded grant applications, and provided basic interpersonal support. the center for service learning (csl) at the university of kansas has been pivotal in my development as a community-engaged scholar, as well as in promoting ces recognition and leadership opportunities both on campus and in the field. through the faculty ambassadors program of the center for service learning at ku, i participated in a community of practice with 116 other campus colleagues supporting service learning. the faculty ambassadors met a couple of times throughout the semester to offer support and guidance, as well as to connect colleagues across disciplines supporting service learning and ces within the university. through opportunities and information shared by the center for service learning at ku, i could expand my regional network of partners affiliated with campus compact. the center for service learning provided access to a network of colleagues, along with direct supports to my development as a community-engaged scholar. the csl encouraged me to apply for the lynton award in 2012, and then to reconsider applying in 2014. honestly, without the encouragement from colleagues in csl, i would not have considered reapplying. although i am familiar with peer-review and resubmission processes within the context of publications, i had not considered applying this type of resubmission (and refinement of approach) to award nominations. the csl reviewed and provided feedback on my initial application, which i incorporated into a stronger subsequent award application submission, which was successful. the resubmission of a lynton award application was also a successful strategy for other 2012 lynton award finalists, who also received the award in a subsequent year. the csl has offered direct support, guidance, leadership opportunities, and access to colleagues and networks interested in ces. institutional promotion and recognition of community-engaged scholarship. the center for service learning (csl) at the university of kansas (ku) was very instrumental in promoting my work and recognition as a community-engaged scholar. during periods in my career when it was a struggle to balance scholarly productivity with community-engagement, the internal and external validation i received through the csl was helpful. the csl promoted recognition of my work and supported nominations for awards, which served as a reinforcer, and encouraged me to continue down the ces pathway. the csl was instrumental in supporting at least four awards that i received related to ces. in 2012, the csl nominated, and then awarded me the excellence in community-based teaching and scholarship award through the heartland campus compact. in 2014, i was the recipient of the ernest a. lynton award for the scholarship of engagement for early career faculty based upon nominations from the csl and my faculty mentors. upon receipt of the lynton award, i received communications from both the provost and chancellor regarding this accomplishment, which was an indicator of the value of both the award and ces at ku. the external validation received, as an award finalist, helped to legitimize and demonstrate the merit and intentionality of my community-engaged work within my institution. the csl also has developed awards to recognize service learning and ces on our campus. in 2015, i was the recipient of a service-learning mini-grant award through the center for service learning. the mini-grant went to faculty fostering campus-community partnerships to supports best practices in service learning. in 2016, through the center for service learning at the university of kansas i received the faculty excellence in service learning award. additionally, i have mentored several undergraduate students who were recipients of service-learning awards at the university of kansas, including the csl student award for excellence in service learning and the service showcase award. i speak of these awards not for personal recognition. i wish to demonstrate the importance and impact of having an institutional unit that recognizes http://csl.ku.edu/award-nominations http://csl.ku.edu/award-nominations 117 and promotes the contributions of faculty and students supporting ces. now, i am working with other colleagues in csl to develop departmental or organizational-level awards for academic units to champion and support ces together. leadership opportunities to advance ces. in order to modify institutional systems and practices that support ces, those trained and/or practicing ces should have opportunities to contribute and shape the institutional landscape. at ku, i have found many opportunities as both a scholar and administrator in the area of ces. since i began my tenure-track appointment, i served as a service-learning faculty ambassador for my department, applied behavioral science. through the faculty ambassador program, faculty who teach service-learning courses share best practices and challenges for community engagement in their academic schools and departments. i gained the chance to serve a two-year term as a faculty fellow through the center for service learning, which provided a leadership opportunity. as a faculty fellow, i helped to consider programming and new initiatives to advance service learning at ku. most recently, the vice provost of undergraduate studies appointed me as a senior faculty associate or associate director with the center for service learning. in this role, i report directly to the assistant vice provost for experiential learning in undergraduate studies. i provide guidance and oversight for strategic initiatives related to community-engaged scholarship and service learning as we explore a broader experiential and engaged learning framework at ku. as i now have a leadership and administrative role within the csl at ku, i have a broader perspective and base for promoting ces. the lynton award and other recognition created robust opportunities for me at multiple levels, including at my institution. at the fork in the road: importance of integrating ces with other participatory frameworks as we consider how to advance community-engaged scholarship at our individual institutions, as well as across fields and disciplines, it is important that we consider the broader landscape of community engagement. academicians sometimes experience a challenge in how to integrate multiple advancements across disciplines and fields of study. to some extent, i have grappled with reconciling our vision for community-engaged scholarship through an integrated approach that recognizes and builds upon other movements in the area of participatory research. over the past couple of decades, the continuum of participatory approaches has evolved based on disciplinary influences, which presents some variations in terms (wallerstein, duran, oetzel, minkler, 2017). thus, i categorize participatory research to include participatory action research, community-based participatory research (cbpr), and other forms of participatory approaches. wallerstein, duran, oetzel, & minkler (2017), present cbpr and community-engaged research (cenr) within a continuum of community engagement, which may be supported through community-university research partnerships (curps) (coghlan & brydon-miller, 2014). community-engaged scholarship shares many commonalities in goals, outcomes, and modes with other forms of participatory approaches. ward (2016) indicates the following in understanding the next generation of engaged scholars, 118 we recognized that our individual understandings of community-engaged practice and scholarship were limited to, and by, traditional higher education roles and constructs...we realized that we had to broaden our understanding of scholar beyond the traditional conceptualization of tenure-track faculty members. (p. 112). it is important to increase recognition of community-engaged practice and scholarship across the range of community and university contributors in order to understand our collective contributions to impact and improvement. based on my conceptualization, community-engaged scholarship extends cbpr through the integration of teaching or training, research and service, particularly for those in a more traditional faculty role. however, the broader perspective of community-engaged scholarship, which must also include community engagement professionals in non-tenured roles, lessens its distinction from other forms of participatory models. thus, it may be helpful to consider the integration of community-engaged scholarship across the continuum of community-engagement and participatory approaches. to actualize the vision of community-engaged scholarship requires a joint and coordinated mobilization of our collective efforts to support systemic changes within and across university systems is necessary. a coalition concept recognizes and extends our approach as a continuum of community engagement. this will help to expand our base for community and university support and proactively counter opposition. i identify as a community-engaged scholar, a communitybased participatory researcher, and a practitioner of experiential and service learning. there is no problem with self-identifying across these related approaches. however, the challenge is to name, frame and build cohesive support in a way that allows for key systemic changes such as promotion and tenure policies, curricular requirements, and expanded criteria for scholarly expertise. therefore, the more we can reduce barriers or potential deflections that may stem from disciplinary preferences, our collective approach to advancing community-engaged approaches will be stronger. those of us who do this work recognize community-engagement when we see it. however, this challenge is not for those of us inside the camp, but for those who we want to bring into the camp. there seems to be a couple of bases by which to expand our reach, including those scholars who support community-engaged practices, but don’t describe their work in this way, or those who either have not been exposed or do not understand communityengaged scholarship, but may be responsible for evaluating our work. although there is a new generation of emerging scholars more formally trained and seasoned in community-engaged scholarship, many academicians are still unfamiliar with the approach. during a time when we face both internal and external pressures in relation to community engagement and the role of the academy, we cannot be distracted from our core mission and vision. thus, we must together advance an ecosystem of knowledge (lynton, 1994) that supports bidirectionality regarding our exchange of knowledge within and across not just the community, but also academia. through community-engaged scholarship, we have the unique and unifying opportunity to dismantle silos and foster transdisciplinary learning to address some of our most perplexing societal problems. thus, i challenge those of us within the university systems to be united in our discovery as in itself an ecosystem of knowledge that can advance our interactions with the community. 119 i remember a scholarly gathering i was invited to attend focused on advancing multi-sector collaboration. for those who were hosting the gathering of scholars and practitioners, they thought the models and frameworks they were presenting related to multi-sector collaboration were novel. however, many of the ideas and challenges posed regarding multi-sector collaboration were not unique, but just more novel to this sub-group of colleagues who were from fields of health that are more traditional. after the meeting, a community-based colleague voiced frustration, as she was knowledgeable of our advancements in participatory and grassroots efforts supporting multi-sector collaboration. as a boundary-spanner who integrates perspectives from behavioral psychology, applied behavior analysis, community psychology, public health, urban planning, and prevention science, i embrace the challenge of integrating our knowledge in ways that promote transdisciplinary and cross-sector collaboration. i think of a challenge that i sometimes face when supporting engaged work in the community, which is limited knowledge regarding the different community-placed and community-based efforts from the same university that may be occurring within a community. on last year, a community member affiliated with our thryve systems advisory board, challenged us to map out the various community-based projects, efforts, and partnerships that our institution was supporting in the area of youth development in our priority geographical area. the community member wanted to ensure that we, within and across the university, were first maximizing and modeling a spirit of collaboration within our institution. otherwise, uncoordinated efforts requesting engagement of community partners can be disjointed and overwhelming from the community perspective. potential considerations of feasible practices to begin to integrate ces. i challenge us to consider how we champion community-engaged scholarship in a way that reduces barriers through our many efforts to advance community engagement. for instance, consider a conference that includes leaders across the continuum of community-engaged scholarship to identify common strategies and language. consider also opportunities for consecutive conference scheduling or joint pre-conference workshops across similar associations in the same locale. envision publishing embargos or co-submission requirements for journals or conferences that promote dissemination of information across different journal and conference outlets. more immediately feasible practices may support using common keywords in our dissemination efforts to strengthen our collective contributions to community-engaged scholarship across fields and approaches. the road taken: assuring an intentional pathway for ces to achieve the ends that we seek in addressing societal issues through community engagement, we must extend our ecosystem of knowledge so that we are good stewards of our collective knowledge and action across disciplines and approaches of engagement. imagine how we could advance our trajectory of community engagement by further aligning community-engaged scholars, including those who identify across the continuum of participatory and action researchers and/or service learning. often, i have found that there are other colleagues at our institutions supporting what we would consider community-engaged scholarship, but are often calling it something different or are unaware of how to frame the approach. an integrated 120 approach will help garner the critical mass of scholars and administrators necessary to change conditions to make it easier and more rewarding for ces to not only be the desired, but the default pathway. those who read this article likely are already practitioners or champions of community-engaged scholarship. thus, i challenge my readers to share this issue with a colleague who may be at a fork in the road or who stands to help to make ces an attractive pathway along the scholarly journey. if asked, if i would do this all over again, i would indeed choose the same path, now knowing all i do about the opportunity that awaits for impact at the community and university levels. now that i am post-tenured faculty, i am embracing the opportunity to assume additional leadership and administrative roles to further advance ces within my institution and in the field(s). based on the impact of the lynton award on my own professional development as a communityengaged scholar, i am committed to supporting the conditions i have identified through this reflection as critical to my success. we have the opportunity to promote and champion ces for our current and next generation of scholars. in the future, when faced with the fork in the road, scholars may take community-engaged scholarship as the path more commonly traveled. 121 references boyer, e.l. 1996. the scholarship of engagement. journal of public service and outreach, 1 (1): 11–21. https://doi.org/10.2307/3824459 coghlan, d., & brydon-miller, m. (2014). the sage encyclopedia of action research. thousand oaks, ca: sage publications. fawcett, s.b., boothroyd, r., schultz, j.a., francisco, v.t., carson, v. & bremby, r. (2003). building capacity for participatory evaluation within community initiatives. journal of prevention and intervention in the community, 26 (2): 21–36. https://doi.org/10.1300/j005v26n02_03 fawcett, s.b., schultz, j.a., watson-thompson, j., fox, m., & bremby, r. (2010). building multi-sectoral partnerships for population health and health equity. preventing chronic disease 7 (6), a118. retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/pcd/issues/2010/nov/10_0079.htm frost, r. (1916). the road not taken. poetry foundation. retrieved from https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44272/the-road-not-taken. u.s. institute of medicine committee on assuring the health of the public in the 21st century. (2002). framework for collaborative community action on health. in the future of the public’s health in the 21st century (pp. 186–198). washington, d.c.: national academies press. lynton, e.a. (1994). knowledge and scholarship. metropolitan universities, 9–17. retrieved from https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/muj/article/view/19385 post, m.a., ward, e., longo, n.w., & saltmarsh, j. (eds.) 2016. publicly engaged scholars: next-generation engagement and the future of higher education. sterling, va: stylus publishing, llc. wallerstein, n., duran, b., oetzel, j.g., & minkler, m. (eds.). (2017). chapter 1: on community-based participatory research. in community-based participatory research for health: from process to outcomes (third edition). san francisco, ca: john wiley and sons. ward, e. (2016). part two: new public scholars. in m.a. post, e., ward, n.w. longo, & j. saltmarsh (eds.), publicly engaged scholars: next-generation engagement and the future of higher education (pp. 112-115). sterling, va: stylus publishing, llc. watson-thompson, j. (2015). exploring community-engaged scholarship as an intervention to change and improve communities. metropolitan universities, 26 (1), 11-34. retrieved from https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/muj/article/view/20986 https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44272/the-road-not-taken 122 author information pr. jomella watson-thompson ph.d. department of applied behavioral science university of kansas 1000 sunnyside ave 4001 dole center lawrence, ks 66045 telephone: 785.864.1563 email: jomellaw@ku.edu jomella watson-thompson, senior faculty associate with the center for service learning; associate professor of applied behavioral science, has a ph.d. in behavioral psychology and a master in urban planning. she supports community-engaged scholarship approaches and conducts participatory research the areas of neighborhood development, positive youth development, and adolescent substance abuse and violence prevention. tel:785.864.0533 mailto:jomellaw@ku.edu metropolitan universities vol. 30 no. 2 (june 2019), doi: 10.18060/23202 109 scholar-administrators as change agents emily m. janke abstract flexibility and readiness to change are not necessarily valued or recognized traits in higher education. yet higher education is in a period of dramatic change, because of rapid change in scholarship and society. with this change in mind, i reflect here on the role and effect of scholaradministrators as agents of change. keywords: social change; society; college administration; higher education; scholarship; scholar-administrators; leadership introduction the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities (cumu) named its scholar-administrator award in honor of my esteemed colleague, dr. barbara holland. she often shares a joke when she introduces herself to a new audience of faculty, staff, or administrators. she says, “hi, i’m barbara, and i study change in higher education. some think that’s an oxymoron.” this joke is funny, if the point is not already obvious, because being flexible and nimble, organizationally speaking, is not a recognized, or even necessarily valued, characteristic of higher education. higher education is in a period of dramatic and broad change because it is tethered, necessarily and inextricably, to the trends and needs of scholarship and society, which is changing at unprecedented rates. institutions face a greater connection to the global economy and internationalization of campuses and curricula. our increasingly diverse students, faculty and staff engage campuses differently than in the past. society demands greater accountability of public investments. a new economic sector of for-profit higher education has emerged spurring competition and marketization. rapid technological innovations have transformed how knowledge is generated, accessed, and shared (kezar, 2013, pp. 5-6). higher education institutions have always been and continue to be “inextricably interlocked” (boyer, 1996, p. 11), as they exist to serve the current and future needs of society. so as society changes, so too must higher education if it is to remain relevant. if institutions of higher education are to keep pace with the rapid advances and changes, indeed, transformations, occurring in society and the environment more broadly, administrative leaders of all ranks must remain at the forefront of learning about new directions and strategies to effect the outcomes they demand. to ensure the relevance, and hence, vibrancy of our institutions, it is important that administrators and scholars learn with and from each other—in real time. across disciplines, even applied ones like higher education and business, practitioners lament the long latency between idea and useful implementation, or the challenge of converting theory to practice (van de ven, 2007). to stay current with trends and experiences, we need to empower 110 and enable administrators to become and be scholar-administrators transcending false separation between scholarly and administrative work and identities. as the inaugural recipient of the barbara a. holland award for scholar-administrator, i reflect on the role of scholar-administrators as change agents within their institutions and beyond. scholar-administrators it is difficult, if not impossible to define precisely who a scholar-administrator is, mostly because it is an identity that individuals tend to claim, more so than a formal role codified in job descriptions. i have gained no purchase on which to assert a single definition of this identity. for the purpose of this essay, however, i focus on the definition provided by the coalition for urban and metropolitan universities (cumu), which highlights “both a scholarly approach to their administrative role” and which establishes “an integrated record of administrative leadership and high-impact scholarship that (shapes) ideas and actions within and beyond (an) institution” (application, 2019). this description suggests that through integration of scholarship with administration, one can advance multiple goals synergistically. one can use scholarly approaches to improve one’s understanding of the issues facing higher education and how best to navigate them. furthermore, one can develop scholarship that can be shared with others, passing along insights learned from the scholarship and strategies for guiding change that may be helpful to administrators of other campuses. while administration is an appointment or position that one assumes formally, scholarship is an activity that one pursues. individuals who produce scholarship are scholars, and scholarship may develop across various roles (e.g., faculty and administrative roles). scholarship stands on its core characteristics: it demonstrates current knowledge of the field/discipline, invites peer collaboration and review, is open to critique, is presented in a form that others can build on, and involves critical reflection of the work (glassick, huber & maeroff, 1997). the cumu framing of a scholar-administrator identity is valuable because it focuses squarely on the role of scholarship in administration—as a tool and strategy that shapes not only what we know, but also what we do as administrators. this characterization resonates across narratives i have found in the limited scholarship on those who identify as scholar-administrators, as well as my own. scholar-administrators leverage the skill sets, perspectives, networks, and resources they possess—as scholars who continue scholarly approaches and agendas—in their administrative positions to push proactively for change. change agent for many scholar-administrators, they seek administrative positions because it affords them access to resources and networks that are necessary for change, and which may not be otherwise possible, for example, as a faculty member within an academic department. in my own experience, i pursued administrative positions solely upon earning my doctorate because i wanted to build systems of support and encouragement that would increase the number of 111 students and faculty engaged with communities through mutually beneficial and reciprocal partnerships. since then, through administrative roles, i have accessed to tools of leadership and organizational development, namely funding, membership in decision-making teams and committees, power to recruit and convene, and the time needed to wake up every day focused on achieving the administrative agenda set forth. working within an office focused on institutionalizing community engagement through building supportive policies, practices, and cultures among faculty, staff and students, i work with people across disciplinary and institutional silos. while my colleagues in faculty roles have limited time to push forward a community engagement agenda for the institution, it is my primary work. my view is expansive; i am working to transform the university, and higher education, more broadly. reading the changing landscape every discipline and administrative area is constantly evolving, due to changing conditions and new understandings. therefore, it is essential for administrators to be constantly looking on the proverbial horizon, to help understand what is to come, and to plan how best to prepare the institution for that future. hence, scholar-administrators are constantly on the steep end of the learning curve of new trends, technologies, and strategies. we read relevant literature and engage in national conversations so that we understand the issues and opportunities that will arise for our institutions. in her article, “change as a scholarly act: higher education research transfer to practice,” ramaley describes the necessity of administrative leadership to actively pursue new areas of inquiry and scholarship, describing areas of scholarship that are far different from her training as a biologist. these include the areas of women and minorities in academia, university-industry partnerships and technology transfer, fundraising, team building and professional growth of staff, community college and high school articulation, enrollment management and student success, and conflict resolution. she goes on to argue that “an administrator today must also be a learner among learners, willing to embrace the novel and unexpected and able to be an agent for change. to do this, we (scholaradministrators) must model what it means to have a truly educated mind and then use this mind in public. we must constantly study our environment and test various ideas, let us call them hypotheses, in the living laboratory over which we preside. it would be wise for us to apply to ourselves the same expectations that we have of any well-educated person… to employ a rigorous scholarly approach. (p. 76) as a three-time university president, ramaley embodies the approach of a scholar-administrator. she maintains a sense of curiosity about why and how things work, and then collaborates with individuals across a broad array of areas to identify new areas for collective learning. we need scholar-administrators because they are not satisfied to learn about ideas from others, repeating them on their own campuses, but instead seek to frame the questions themselves, engage in rigorous inquiry, and assess situations for themselves, integrating lessons learned from scholarship and their own administrative practice. in my own decade-long work as an administrator for community engagement, i have had to learn about many new topics that, at first, seem unrelated to community engagement. often, i had to move across disciplinary and 112 administrative silos, interpreting and adapting ideas and tools for use in my context. i have collaborated with many different people across many different roles and institutions to improve not only my, but collective understanding of the issues we face. many of the areas of scholarship that ramaley lists are still relevant nearly two decades later, but also have grown to include newer ones such as, ways of knowing: • interand trans-disciplinary scholarship; • cross-sector partnerships and anchor institutions to support collective impact (kania & kramer, 2011; taylor & luter, 2013; vortuba, et al., 2002); • development of inter-institutional collaborations and shared cyber-infrastructure to support community-level data collection and use to improve services, programs, and quality of life; scholarly communications: • new and diverse forms of products and artifacts of knowledge generation, (eatman, 2012, 2014), pluralistic forms of scholarly impact (aguinis, shapiro, antonacopoulou, & cummings, 2014), and platforms for scholarly communications (kramer & bosman, 2016; narock et. al, 2019); • scholarly use of social media and altmetrics (sugimoto, work, larivière, & haustein, 2017); • open data, open access, and open scholarship (kramer & bosman, 2018; national academies of sciences, engineering, and medicine, 2018); diversity, equity and full participation: • expanding the range of faculty and non-faculty positions and roles (e.g., non-tenure track teaching-focused and/or research-focused faculty; scholar-administrators) (kezar, 2012); • policies, practices, and structures to support the full participation of diverse faculty, staff, and students (sturm, eatman, saltmarsh, & bush, 2011); and new institutional structures: • divisional models rather than departmental structures to organize faculty lines, curricula, and academic focus areas (silverman, 2019). just these few major transitions and transformations are already underway on our campuses. these have required me to engage in the scholarly practices i describe. for example, i have read widely across different disciplinary and administrative areas to gain different perspectives on these topics. i have conducted interviews, focus groups, and surveys to gain a sense of campus climate on various issues to understand faculty members’ knowledge, values, attitudes and behaviors related to various topics. i co-designed a database for tracking and measuring community engagement activities and partners so that our institution could have a better sense of our faculty and staff members’ engagement with external communities so that we could better align community-university talents and priorities. 113 the tools that scholar-administrators use to view the landscape, therefore, are the tools of a scholar. when necessary, they develop new lines of inquiry and research to improve understanding and practice. the administrator acts as a researcher as well as a leader of change (holland, 2019, personal communication). studying leading change some forms of scholarship produced by administrators allow administrators to learn from each other about how to create conditions for change, as well as what needs to be changed. studying the change process: what changed, who affected the change, how the change came about, and to what ends the change yielded is an essential aspect of being a change agent. to do this, they must not only stay current with issues, trends, and current events to help identify what changes need to occur. they also need to hear about best practices and innovations tried at other institutions, and, perhaps, based on the lessons of others, resist unproven changes that will not advance, or worse, will harm the mission, viability, and vibrancy of their institution if adopted (kezar, 2014). little has changed since cohen and march (1974) first described the factors that make change difficult in higher education. as a system, it has many ill-defined, often inconsistent, goals. furthermore, it is comprised of members who vary concerning their level of time and personal investment in the organization. “despite new policy and funding frameworks for education at the state and federal levels, higher education has largely tried to cope without changing core organizational practices and cultures. the sector has been slow to adapt to new conditions and expectations (holland, 2019, p. 68, emphasis added). seeing change coming is the easy part, it is organizing people and reorganizing structures and cultures that are most difficult. through their scholarly approach and sharing of scholarship, administrators build not only new understanding, but as importantly, relationships and trust. as they work with co-authors and share their work with colleagues, they develop personal relationships and social rapport. they find individuals who share similar passions for shared areas of inquiry, and they demonstrate to faculty that they understand what it takes to be a scholar and produce scholarship. they can appreciate the full process of scholarship, from inception to writing to dissemination and all of the steps in-between. when they attend academic conferences to present on their scholarly efforts, they sit alongside other faculty and scholar-administrators who are seeking to stay current with trends, pressing issues, and future directions for advancing various fields of scholarship. more importantly that the scholarship itself, most certainly, is the many different connections and relationships made among scholar-administrators and faculty through producing and sharing scholarship. any administrator who has been tasked to lead a new initiative knows that achieving success as change agents cannot be achieved by individuals or policies alone; “being a successful change agent requires a broad and expansive view of leadership… to include members of all groups” (kezar, 2014, p. 110). such relationships make it easier to gain informal feedback on ideas, gain buy-in, and build coalitions for change. 114 the composition of the faculty and staff in higher education is changing dramatically, and with it, expectations are changing as well. this demographic transition provides ripe opportunity for working alongside new cadres of colleagues who are similarly interested in transforming aspects of higher education so that they are more relevant and aligned to the needs of society and scholarship. holland (2019) points out that higher education is now comprised of four generations of faculty and staff, from baby boomers to gen xers, to millennials, to gen ys, and that these different generations have different profiles and expectations of academic work and professional life (kezar & maxey, 2015; trower, 2012). the faculty and instructor demographic profiles, trending similarly to but more slowly than national and student profiles, are becoming more diverse with regards to race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, and generational culture. these different individuals have different ideas about their sense of purpose, such as why they are scholars and what it means to be a scholar. they also view scholarship more expansively in terms of who produces scholarship, whom scholarship is for, and what aims scholars intend to influence and impact. no less, they tend to value and produce many diverse expressions of scholarship that are manifest in different types of products, shared on platforms that maximize the potential that their work will be viewed and used by the audiences and partners they have identified. no less, they believe in measuring the “impact” of one’s contributions through scholarship in ways that go beyond more traditional notions of citation counts and publisher prestige (see aguinis, shapiro, antonacopoulou & cummings, 2014 and alperin, et al, 2019.). sharing change strategies scholar-administrators share their change strategies with others as a way to advocate for change within and across institutions. to do that, they do what other scholars do: they think, create, and share. in scholarly terms, they present and publish their work. their work does not end once they have accomplished a goal; they share what they have done broadly and critically. my own scholarly record reflects this. for the past decade, i have co-produced diverse artifacts of scholarship about the change processes that occurred at the university of north carolina greensboro’s campus, about integrating recognition for community engagement into the faculty promotion and tenure guidelines. i have co-authored presentations, journal articles, book chapter, websites, datasets, workshops, surveys, reports, and other forms of scholarship, some of which has been peer-reviewed by other scholars, and nearly all of which is available on public platforms for broad and free access. i strive to share my scholarly work because i have benefited from learning with and from others. i want my learning to contribute to the collective learning about these topics we study so that the field can advance more effectively and quickly. an essential, but sometimes overlooked, practice of the scholar-administrator is that of producing scholarship: artifacts that are presented to others, so that the ideas may be reviewed, critiqued, and built upon. just as faculty are increasingly publishing and sharing new forms of scholarly communications (e.g., digital scholarship, data sets, digital archives, etc.), scholar administrators are also contributing new forms of scholarship. when scholar-administrators create and share data sets, videos/films, websites, blogs, social media feeds, reports, programs, manuscripts, exhibits, 115 programs, and webinars, as well as performances, technical reports, program evaluations, curriculums, patents, and exhibits that are firmly grounded in the standards of high-quality scholarship—then they are producing scholarship. if one considers scholarship as residing along a continuum of approaches and artifacts, and which uphold the standards of scholarship, then scholar-administrators can situate their unique contributions of diverse forms of scholarship to the larger field of practice and research (janke, 2019). challenges of being a scholar-administrator a scholarly approach to administration (i.e., the use of research, inquiry, evidence and other ways of examining and understanding systems of change) is not an intellectual exercise for the personal benefit of the scholar. however, the academic world, too often, treats this work as though it were. to be clear, many of my scholar-administrator colleagues relate that they are neither asked to nor rewarded for producing scholarship. they do scholarly administrative work in spite of the lack of recognition, and sometimes, disincentives for scholarship (post, ward, longo, & saltmarsh, 2016). lina dostilio currently serves as associate vice chancellor for community engagement at the university of pittsburgh. she has also, among other scholarly work, edited a book, authored a book, and served in fellowship positions to advance research and administrative agendas at the request of two national associations (campus compact and the cumu), shares of her experience as a scholar-administrator at a previous institution: my choice to maintain a scholarly agenda is also outside the norm for most administrators. as a result, my scholarship is not a main thrust of my administrative position, but is seen as a beneficial byproduct. scholarship is the work i do early in the morning or late at night after my child is asleep. it is not the work i can do amid the chaotic phone calls, meetings, and e-mails of an engagement administrator. yet, without research, my practice loses its focus and begins to cede the larger reason for why it exists. that larger vision, of leveraging higher education to address injustice, is compelling and sees me through to a stronger identity as a boundary spanner and community-oriented scholar. (dostilio, janke, miller, post, & ward, 2016, pp. 125–126, emphasis added) many scholars repeat this story of the importance, indeed, the necessity, of maintaining a scholarly agenda as an administrator for the sake of the administrative practice of serving as a change agent. bickford and whisnant’s (2010) informal count at their large university revealed: at least 40 such administrators, roughly three-quarters women. many of us continue to pursue our scholarly research, writing, publication, public speaking, public engagement, and teaching while fulfilling our administrative duties… academe has no system to recognize and encourage our unique contributions. (para. 3) a review of administrative positions shows that policies and practices do not recognize the time and resources required for scholarly-administration. scholar-administrators are too often not provided the resources, often in the form of access to data and the time and talents required to analyze the data (ramaley, 2000). 116 learning organizations we ignore the scholarship of scholar-administrators to the detriment of institutions and system of higher education, as they are critical for supporting and effecting changes that are and will be required in order that higher education remains relevant, valued, and viable as a public good. theories about organizational learning solving suggest that in order for institutions to change, they must provide change agents and other members with time and skills for reflection and professional support to develop personal competencies such as how to create a shared vision and facilitate team dialogue, and they must emphasize systematic inquiry and problem solving (kezar, 2013). despite the importance of learning, however, many organizational leaders do not realize that such learning deserves support. furthermore, it can be easily and unwittingly thwarted by policies, practices, and doubts that change is, in fact, possible (kezar, 2013). for example, bickford and whisnant (2010) recount, “those academic departments and administrative offices inclined to make more generous or flexible arrangements for us [scholar-administrators] lack precedents, policies, structures, and money for doing so” (para. 7). even though one might expect institutions of higher education to be paragons of higher learning, which are supportive of professional development opportunities to foster creativity, innovations and visionary thinking, organizational learning is not a common phenomenon (argyris, 1991). the previous examples suggest that this is so. hence, we must rethink and create awareness about the importance of the cyclical cycle of scholarship and administrative practice. scholarship is integral to the work that scholaradministrators do, and, likewise, administrative work advances scholarship. though the cycle is generative, it is not self-evident: time and resources must be provided to ensure that scholaradministrators are able to foster their scholarship as part of their work expectations. this means that scholarship, to use a recipe metaphor, is not an “additive” but is rather, “baked in” as an integral ingredient in the recipe for scholar-administrator success. this also means establishing criteria for recognizing and rewarding the various scholarly artifacts produced by scholaradministrators in personnel evaluations, creating clear guidelines for expectations from both the supervisor to support and the scholar-administrator to conduct scholarship. building a cadre of scholar-administrators i have written previously about the resonance that rhoades and colleagues’ (2008) writing about expectations of new and diverse faculty has had on my own thinking: they come not to “make it” in the academy, but to “remake” the academy. i have come, likewise, to understand that scholaradministrators, of the type that i have described in this essay, seek not to reify and uphold the academic structures and cultures that they inherited, but rather, to create and hold spaces in which these new scholars can arrive, persist, and thrive. the role of the scholar-administrator, then, is to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with other innovators, working towards transformation of our disciplines, our institutions, and higher education systems more broadly. this form of leadership encourages, cultivates, and, where necessary, protects scholars. 117 what does a scholar-administrator need to be successful? by successful, i mean to help institutions of higher education remain flexible and vibrant in rapidly changing environments. we must move from idealistic encouragement of scholar-administrators, a theoretical stance not often accompanied by the structural space to practice scholarship, to a very practical, logistical effort of introducing policies and structures for encouraging the types of contributions we need from scholar-administrators. such reform of policies, structures, and practice must begin to effectively recognize and reorganize conceptions about who is a scholar and what constitutes scholarship. the following list provides some recommendations for institutions of higher education as well as disciplinary and professional associations: institutional-level changes 1. structure positions, expectations, and funding to allow scholar-administers to: a. review the base of evidence; b. establish their own theories of change; c. allot and protect time in administrative work schedules (“on the clock”) for writing and the “deep work” (newport, 2016) required to read, reflect, and produce scholarship to be shared with others; d. participate in regional, national, and international conversations, and translate them for local discussions and decision-making; e. proactively network and collaborate with other scholars for the purpose of collecting, generating, and sharing learning and scholarship, remotely and inperson; f. plan for scholarly work in annual work plans, reports, and reviews; and g. recognize and reward scholarly work and artifacts when evaluating accomplishments and making determinations about annual review accomplishments, merit pay, and promotions. 2. recognize the scholarly accomplishments of scholar-administrators in similar ways to faculty accomplishments, including recognitions in campus-wide communications, awards, recognitions, and celebrations. 3. if the scholar-administrator has a faculty line or affiliation, include space in annual reporting documents and conversations to include activities and accomplishments related to scholarly administration so that such scholarship is recognized as an integrated aspect of the scholar-administrators profile. disciplinaryand professional association-level changes 4. use existing and create new online, digital, and open access platforms for sharing the scholarship of academic change. 5. carve out or establish new venues for diverse forms of scholarly artifacts, including, and beyond manuscript-form articles, generated by or used within administrative work. consider the role of peer-review and how this may be different for scholarship and artifacts intended primarily for administrative audiences. 6. recognize and celebrate excellence in scholar-administration, like the barbara holland scholar-administrator award given by cumu. 118 this list will continue to develop and evolve as the environment continues to change as well. conclusion the future of higher education will be led and populated by people we have not yet met, and they will address issues we have not yet encountered that will require knowledge, skills, and approaches we yet to imagine or invent. the need for higher education to change is inevitable if it is to stay current and relevant to needs and demands of society. fortunately, we have in our midst a growing cadre of scholar-administrators who believe in the transformative power of higher education for students and society, and the ability of higher education to transform itself. these individuals span rank, position, discipline, and demographic. it is time to better recognize and support the role of scholar-administrators as key change agents on our campuses. they are critical to supporting the work of others pursuing new ideas, emerging technologies, and expanding approaches to generating scholarship. scholaradministrators are key partners in helping institutions of higher education transform their policies, practices and cultures because they possess both the tools of administration and research. they are practitioners, who understand the internal working of administration and who have networks of collaborators across disciplines, units and institutions. they have the passion for change, and they are forces of change. it is time, then, to recognize, prepare and support scholar-administrators more effectively, so that they can do what they do so well: serve as key change agents in and of higher education, and lead boldly into a yet-to-be defined future. acknowledgements the author wishes to thank drs. barbara a. holland, terri l. shelton, and lina d. dostilio for their continued inspiration as models of scholar-administrators, as well as for their conversations and feedback that have informed many of the ideas presented in this essay. within all of my research on change, leadership emerges as perhaps the most important facilitator, for without change agents’ energy and enthusiasm, there would be little change. 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(2017). scholarly use of social media and altmetrics: a review of the literature. journal of the association for information science and technology, 68(9), 2037–2062. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.23833 taylor, h. t., & luter, g. (2013). anchor institutions: an interpretive review essay. new york: anchor institutions task force. retrieved from http://www.margainc.com/initiatives/aitf/ trower, c. (2006). gen x meets theory x: what new scholars want. journal of collective bargaining, 0, article 11. retrieved from http://thekeep.eiu.edu/jcba/vol0/iss1/11 urban universities for health. (2015). faculty cluster hiring for diversity and institutional climate. retrieved april 12, 2019 from http://urbanuniversitiesforhealth.org/media/documents/faculty_cluster_hiring_report.pdf van de ven, a. h. (2007). engaged scholarship: a guide for organizational and social research. oxford, uk: oxford university. vortruba, j. c., bailey, j. i., bergland, b. w., gonzalez, a., haynes, k. s., howard, m. a., ... & siegel, b. l. (2002). stepping forward as stewards of place: a guide for leading public engagement at state colleges and universities. washington, dc: american association of state colleges and universities. weerts, d. j. (2011). “if only we told our story better...”: re-envisioning state-university relations through the lens of public engagement (wiscape viewpoints). madison: wisconsin center for the advancement of postsecondary education. retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ed518998 https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.23833 http://www.margainc.com/initiatives/aitf/ http://thekeep.eiu.edu/jcba/vol0/iss1/11 http://urbanuniversitiesforhealth.org/media/documents/faculty_cluster_hiring_report.pdf https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ed518998 122 author information emily m. janke institute for community & economic engagement unc greensboro 1111 spring garden street greensboro, nc 27412 telephone: (336) 256-2578 email: emjanke@uncg.edu emily m. janke, ph.d. is director of the institute for community and economic engagement (icee) and an associate professor in the peace and conflict studies department. as the director of icee, emily leads and supports initiatives that encourage, support, elevate, and amplify faculty, staff, student, and community colleague community-engaged teaching, learning, research, creative activity, and service. emily’s scholar-administrative work addresses multiple aspects of community engagement focused on community-university partnerships, and institutional culture and change strategies. in particular, she focuses on tracking and measuring community engagement and public service within and across institutions of higher education, the recognition of community-engaged scholarship in reappointment, promotion and tenure policies; the role of conflict management and transformation in community-university partnerships; institutional support for community engagement; innovations in scholarly communications; and reciprocity, collaborative communication, and restorative practices as aspects of high quality, ethical community engagement. metropolitan universities vol. 28 no. 4 (november 2017), doi: 10.18060/21745 a community in crisis: the opioid epidemic on staten island patricia a. tooker abstract there is no “magic potion” or vaccine to prevent youth from using alcohol or other drugs. adolescent substance abuse prevention programs have been largely ineffective because the messaging is taken for granted. efforts based on theories of growth and development patterns, and are inclusive of strategies beyond the classroom and home, have demonstrated encouraging findings particularly when members of the community are involved. this paper will explore factors behind illicit substance use among youth in staten island, new york and how wagner college is playing an important part of a collective impact initiative that is starting to make a difference. keywords: youth; drugs; coalition; prevention; health promotion an epidemic of substance abuse on staten island staten island’s substance abuse epidemic is real and it is not going away. in 2014,74 borough residents died from drug overdoses, up from 64 the year before ( wrobleski,2014).powerful batches of high-quality heroin are flowing into new york and taking lives, as staten island struggles to fight this frightening epidemic. the highly potent substance is what drug experts say is contributing to the spike in overdose deaths here and across the city. the heroin isn’t just stronger today, there is also more of it coming into new york. the drug enforcement administration’s new york division has seized 1,951 pounds of heroin this year, up from 1,139 pounds in 2014, according to dea records. in 2009, the dea confiscated just 189 pounds of heroin (lavis, 2015). “the antidote: can staten island’s middle class neighborhoods defeat an overdose epidemic” by ian frazier was published in the new yorker on september 8, 2014. this article proved to be the first in a series of many that brought to light a serious health issue on staten island. n.y. times authors j. david goodman and michael wilson followed frazier with five more articles published in 2014 in the new york times between the months of april through november. statenislandlive.com followed on november 21, 2014 with a brief but powerful blog that began with the statement “it is no secret that great kills is one of the busiest hot spots on the island for heroin”. adam lener who owns portobello cafe, a popular italian restaurant on a main thoroughfare in great kills, further detailed how “you see this all over the neighborhood” and how he has watched “good neighborhood kids” transform over time to “unrecognizable” addicts who are hardly able to stand on their own two feet (lavis, 2014). in the 20 years he has been in business, he has watched his neighborhood change, and feels that families are suffering and merchants are the addicts’ prey. this businessman went on to say how he recently witnessed two people “shooting up” heroin just across the street from his restaurant 132 and how a young man used a cinder block to shatter the front window of his restaurant to remove a cash register (lavis,2014). this is just one of many recently documented crime events on the island that have been linked to illicit drug use. along with the higher incidence in crime rates, the borough also saw the second highest rate of heroin overdose deaths per 100,000 residents according to epi data brief, one of the many statistical databases within the new york city department of health and mental hygiene. in 2012, staten island residents had the highest (10.2 per 100,000) of drug poisoning deaths involving heroin, followed by the bronx (8.8 per 100,000). the rate in staten island was more than three times that in queens (2.8 per 100,000) more than double in brooklyn 4.2 per 1000, 000), and nearly double the rate in manhattan (5.4 per 1000, 000). drug addiction, notably of prescription pills, then heroin, has increasingly plagued the borough in the last several years, accounting for dozens of deaths, primarily of young adults. more than 100 staten islanders have died of heroin overdoses alone since 2010, according to the city department of health. staten island has the highest proportion of youth who have used a prescription pain reliever. the effect of devastating drug abuse is evidenced by the local obituaries we see every day as young people are dying of addiction. it is now called an epidemic and it has reached record numbers, as the overdose and death-toll rates increase each day. many youth are in denial until their families or teachers confront the youth with their behavior, or they are hospitalized or arrested (dohmh, 2012). heroin use increasing in 2013-2014, an estimated 444 new yorkers per 100,000 residents aged 12 or older used heroin, more than double the corresponding prevalence in each of the two year periods dating back to 2007-2008.after lagging the national rate for most of the decade, the prevalence of heroin use in new york jumped, and exceeded the national rate by 49 percent in 2013-14. overdose deaths, one of the starkest signs of this problem, reached new peaks in new york in 2014. while orange and suffolk counties had higher heroin overdose rates, staten island exceeded all counties in prescription opioid overdoses in that same time frame. treatment admission rates for both heroin and prescription opioid abuse have increased over the past decade among all new yorkers aged 12 and over (https:www.samsha.gov.data/sites/default/files). prescription drug abuse is a pathway to heroin addiction/ funding for help today, the effect of prescription drug abuse in teenagers in the united states remains a serious problem, and also contributes to a rising behavioral health epidemic. the outcomes of drug abuse in general always negatively affect many aspects of one’s life. physical and behavioral health, social and legal complications are the most dominant societal issues. at a drug forum titled “scared straight”, held recently in a staten island high school, one leading island advocate said “she knows of 10 drug related deaths so far in 2016—and others fear the totals for 2015 will be far worse than 2014, which saw 47 drug related deaths” (simontacchi, 2016). data from the national institute of drug abuse indicates that one in five teenagers reported that they have abused prescription drugs (nida, 2011), which many on staten island say is the precursor or 133 gateway drug to heroin use. “we’re in the middle of a crisis……it’s not the kind of problem you can fix with arrests,” said one nypd chief (commanding officer of staten island). “you’ve got to get to the children and convince them that this is not a good way of life” (simontacchi, 2016). so what does this all mean for staten island? we have to start speaking about it, was pronounced at the forum. however, the biggest issue according to the nypd chief has to do with the families of addicts not tackling the issue head-on, because of the shame associated with it. speaking during a conference call with reporters last spring, jackie cornell-bechelli, regional director of health and human services (hhs) region ii, announced grants for new york and new jersey, calling the opioid epidemic "one of the most pressing issues we have. the epidemic reaches across rural, urban and suburban areas, and overdoses are now the leading cause of death in the u.s. in 2014, 200 new yorkers died every month from overdoses, as compared to 100 people every month in new jersey. "these are our families, our friends, our neighbors, and without these funds they might not be able to get the treatment that they need," cornell-bechelli said further. it is unclear whether any of the treatment facilities on staten island applied for the grant funding, but what is clear is that nothing is coming to richmond county. hhs does not disclose which organizations apply for grants, only those that are awarded, according to a spokesman (shapiro, 2016). "staten island is the epicenter of the opioid abuse epidemic, and has been for years," u.s. rep. daniel donovan, r-11th district, said in a statement. "i would hope that federal agencies consider this fact when writing grant formulas. i'm reaching out to the department of health and human services to find out what happened here, and how we can ensure staten island health centers receive the resources and attention from the federal government that they need” (dhhs,2016). citing the heroin and prescription drug epidemic, staten island district attorney michael mcmahon has asked the city for more funding for the da's office and governor andrew cuomo recently addressed a large forum on staten island as part of his new york state combatting heroin tour. "the drug epidemic on staten island is off the charts. the drugs on the street are too accessible," mcmahon told the local press shortly after being elected in last november. "we have to get the drug dealers off the streets. that's where we have to partner with the police department and community leaders. we need enforcement, treatment and prevention" (shapiro, 2016). 134 figure 1. staten island, new york. demographics staten island is a predominantly white middle-class community with high median income and high school graduation rates. staten island is southwest of new york city (figure 1). it is the southernmost part of both the city and state of new york. the borough is separated from new jersey by the arthur kill and the kill van kull, and from the rest of new york by the new york bay. with a 2014 census-estimated population of 473,279, staten island is the least populated of the boroughs but is the third-largest in area at 58 sq. mi (150 km2). staten island has been sometimes called "the forgotten borough" by inhabitants who feel neglected by the city government. staten island is the only borough with a non-hispanic majority. according to the 2010 census, 64.0% of the population was non-hispanic white, down from 79% in 1990, 10.6% black or african american, 0.4% american indian and alaska native, 7.5% asian, 0.2% from some other race (non-hispanic) and 2.6% of two or more races. 17.3% of staten island's population was of hispanic or latino origin (of any race). in 2009, approximately 20.0% of the population was foreign born, and 1.8% of the populace was born in puerto rico, u.s. island areas, or born abroad to american parents. accordingly, 78.2% of the population was born in the united states. approximately 28.6% of the population over five years of age spoke a language other than english at home, and 27.3% of the population over twenty-five years of age had a bachelor's degree or higher. according to the 2009 american community survey, the median income for a household was $55,039, and the median income for a family was $64,333. males had a median income of $50,081 versus $35,914 for females. the per capita income for the borough was $23,905. about 7.9% of families and 10.0% of the population were below the poverty line, including 13.2% of those under age 18 and 9.9% of those age 65 or older (https://www.wikipedia.org). david goodman and michael wilson report that the “blue collar” population is to blame in their new york times article entitled “heroin’s new hometown, on staten island, rising tide of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/arthur_kill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/kill_van_kull https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/new_york_bay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/new_york_bay https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/white_american https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/african_american https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/hispanic_and_latino_americans https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/english_language https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/per_capita_income https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/poverty_line https://www.wikipedia.org/ 135 heroin takes hold.” the workforce is primarily made up of police, firefighters and city workers who are able to access the health care system and obtain pain reliever prescriptions for often on the job injuries and related health issues (https://www.nytimes.com.2014/05/05). staten island residents exhibit some of the worst risk factors for chronic and preventable diseases in comparison to residents citywide. despite having the highest median income of all five boroughs of new york city, staten island residents suffer from higher incidences of cancer and heart disease, with mortality rates exceeding those of the other four boroughs and new york state. they smoke more, weigh more, exercise less and consume more sugary drinks than their counterparts in other boroughs. all of these are factors that contribute to their increased risk for chronic disease and pain (goodman & wilson,2014). an overabundance of “leftover meds”, many of which were sitting in household medication cabinets, made their way to the street hence creating recreational opioid pill abuse. pills could be found everywhere, which led to a local rap song in 2012 called “painkiller paradise, staten island.” doctors’ offices were flooded by users requesting illegal prescriptions for habits that required 20 to 30 pills a day ($30 each). it then became easier and cheaper to switch to a $5 or $10 single glassine of heroin, which has always been available in neighboring new york city (goodman & wilson, 2014). staten island has a particularly high incidence of substance abuse no community is immune to heroin, alcohol or prescription opioid addiction. opioid abuse and misuse is a problem in rural, suburban and urban communities across the state and nation. in 2013 substance abuse rates among staten island high school youth was 8.2% while the overall rate for nyc was slightly lower at 7.6% (https://www.drugfree.org). according to the talk 2 prevent program in new york state, teens will most likely know other kids who use alcohol and drugs, and many are willing to express their thoughts or concerns with a parent about it (https://www.talk2prevent.ny.gov). in fact, when teens feel that they can access a drug easily, it sends the message that it is a drug they may choose to use (burroughs, 2003). in the nsduh report, 29.7 % of 12th graders say that heroin is easy to obtain and 12.6% of 8th graders agree(nsduh, 2015). teenage heroin use continues to be a major concern for this vulnerable age group (figure 2). in the still-developing teenage mind, social media, stress from school, friends and romances, family pressures, and problems as well as the transition to fitting in, all play an important part in drug use, particularly if the teen has not learned the facts about drugs and alcohol (https://www.drugfree.org). heroin use among teens continues to remain steady year after year. heroin is a very powerful and addictive drug. however, can heroin use and overdose rates among staten islanders be curtailed with more public awareness and community involvement as key factors in addressing this problem? staten island teenagers may be attracted to heroin as a street drug of choice over alcohol or prescription painkillers which are now known as the gateway drugs to heroin. health promotion is a key strategy for prevention no one single factor can address the problem of heroin use but community readiness and health promotion in our schools may be an important step in combating this issue. in 2014, 56% of 712th graders said their parents did not talk to them in the past month about the dangers of https://www.drugfree.org/ 136 underage drinking. if parents let their kids know that they disapprove of any drug/alcohol use, the child is less likely to use them, and a child who gets through his/her teen years without abusing drugs or alcohol is highly unlikely to develop the problem as an adult (https://www.drugfree.org). the concept of prevention is a key component of modern community health practice. in popular terminology, prevention means inhibiting the development of the disease before it occurs. primary prevention applied to a generally healthy population precedes disease or dysfunction, while secondary prevention is the early detection and treatment of adverse health conditions (anderson & mcfarlane, 2015). a main concern are the community’s recognition of existing and further health-related problems, including the need to monitor and provide teaching to the targeted population. programming for teen awareness and prevention of substance abuse is most often times implemented in school settings. however, when a community at risk has been identified, health information necessary to develop health-oriented skills, attitudes, and related behavioral changes will require further input from community participants and representatives. figure 2. substance abuse information. the power of opioids heroin is an opiate; a depressant that inhibits the central nervous system. heroin can be administered in several ways: smoking, snorting, or shooting/injecting. each time a user administers heroin, more is needed to get the same consistent high. it has been found that teens are more likely to first use heroin by means other than injection. dr. herb kleber, director of the center on addiction and substance abuse (casa), says that "non-injection makes it psychologically easier to start, removing the needle barrier and letting the teen delude himself that such use is not dangerous or addicting." however, one can die from an overdose or become addicted from these non-injecting routes as well. https://www.drugfree.org/ 137 those who are addicted to heroin may need to have frequent access to it (three times a day is typical), so they may frequently make excuses for having to be by themselves. after a dose, they may show signs of sedation, such as a slowed, shuffling gait or nodding off. if they do not or are unable to continue use, they may exhibit heroin withdrawal symptoms, which may include restlessness, muscle and bone pain, insomnia, diarrhea, vomiting, cold flashes with goose bumps, and involuntary leg movements. for the chronic user, withdrawal may be severe and the accompanying cravings may be intense and long-lasting. while for most people withdrawal takes days, for some, the symptoms may last for months, and cravings may persist for years. some users combine heroin with other drugs, especially cocaine and benzos, and this can result in other dangerous effects. additionally, drug use among u.s. adolescents inched up between 2008 and 2009 (see figure 3), in what federal officials called a troubling "warning sign" of teen substance abuse. recent reports compare and contrast drug and alcohol use in college-age adults from 1994-2014. figure 3. rising drug use among u.s. adolescents from 2004 to 2013. behavioral traits and health promotion healthy people 2020, a national health promotion and disease prevention initiative from the dept. of health and human services, specifically includes youth development in its goals and objectives: improve the healthy development, health, safety, and well-being of adolescents and young adults. adolescents (ages 10 to 19) and young adults (ages 20 to 24) make up 21 percent of the population of the united states. the behavioral patterns established during these developmental periods help determine young people's current health status and their risk for developing chronic diseases in adulthood. although adolescence and young adulthood are generally healthy times of life, several important public health and social problems either peak or start during these years. 138 examples include: ● homicide, ● suicide, ● motor vehicle crashes, including those caused by drinking and driving, ● substance use and abuse, ● smoking, ● sexually transmitted infections, including human immunodeficiency virus (hiv), ● teen and unplanned pregnancies, and ● homelessness. because they are in developmental transition, adolescents and young adults are particularly sensitive to environmental—that is, contextual or surrounding—influences. environmental factors include family, peer group, school, neighborhood, policies, and societal cues. these conditions can either support or challenge young people’s health or well-being. addressing the positive development of young people facilitates their adoption of healthy behaviors and helps to ensure a healthy and productive future adult population. researchers further indicate that adolescent health is so important because adolescence is a critical transitional period, which includes the biological changes of puberty and the need to negotiate key developmental tasks, such as increasing independence and normative experimentation (https://www.healthypeople 2020.gov) the health promotion model there are many examples of effective policies and programs that address adolescent health issues and many theoretical frameworks to choose from across the disciplines to support community-wide education programs in the middle and high school aged population. the health promotion model designed by nola j. pender ph.d. (2005) is a "complementary counterpart to models of health protection." it defines health as a positive dynamic state rather than simply the absence of disease. health promotion is directed at increasing a patient's level of well-being. the health promotion model describes the multidimensional nature of persons as they interact within their environment to pursue health. health promotion concepts are targeted at supporting individuals, families, and communities in order to reach their optimal health potential, even in a diseased or debilitated state. the emergence of health promotion as the central strategy for improving health has shifted the paradigm from defining health in traditional medical terms (the curative model within a biological perspective) to a multidimensional definition with social, economic, cultural, and environmental dimensions (pender, murdaugh & parsons, 2015). health promotion is easily seen in both primary and secondary prevention. school settings and community organizations are typical venues to provide such information. forming the coalition in order for community members to battle an epidemic, they should unite and work toward a clearly defined goal. as defined by john kania and mark kramer of fsg in 2011, collective 139 impact is the commitment of group of actors from different sectors coming to a common agenda for solving a specific problem using a structured form of collaboration. organizations trying to create lasting solutions to a large scale problem must coordinate their efforts and work together moving away from the “isolated impact” to a collective impact. according to fsg the formation of a cross-sector coalition must meet five criteria in order to be considered collective impact. they are as follows: • a common agenda, • a shared measurement system, • mutually reinforcing activities, • continuous communication, and • a backbone organization (https://ssireview.org.) the tackling youth substance abuse (tysa) initiative is a cross-sector coalition aimed at driving major improvements in youth substance abuse on staten island, with the ultimate goals of decreased use of alcohol and prescription drugs, and youth making healthy choices. tysa is a project of the staten island partnership for community wellness (sipcw), a non-profit 501(c) 3 organization. sipcw provides staffing, administrative oversight, physical space, and serves as the backbone for the collective impact model. the staten island foundation has supported this initiative from its inception in early 2011. this effort began when take care staten island, the staten island partnership for community wellness, and the staten island foundation convened people interested in addressing community health issues, with the assistance of fsg, a global non-profit consulting firm. after looking at community health data, it became clear that staten island youth, when compared to the rest of nyc, were burdened by substance abuse issues, specifically prescription drug abuse and underage drinking. the emerging coalition adopted a high-level strategic framework in november 2011, including a common agenda with shared data, goals, and indicators, and a blueprint for implementation covering organizational structures and processes, to transform the plan into action, thus forming the tackling youth substance abuse initiative. in may 2012, staff were hired and the initiative was formally launched in september at a standing-room-only event at staten island borough hall (https://sipcw.org). sipcw has moved beyond traditional partnerships, engaging all sectors of the borough to test new models of collaboration. staten island’s geographic isolation from the greater nyc metropolitan area produced a tight-knit community with a strong sense of family ties and connection to the borough. partnerships are built on familiarity and trust. there is strong leadership from our anchor institutions such as schools, hospitals and well established businesses. institutions of higher education have a vested interest in serving the community and building strong relationships in the areas surrounding their campuses. however, too few act to advance that interest. many have field trips or episodic community projects, which do not contribute to a true partnership model, which must be ongoing and reciprocal. wagner college is a small, private, residential, co-educational, liberal arts college located on a wooded hilltop site on staten island, a borough of new york city. over 2,000 students in more than 30 academic programs, five graduate and one doctoral program make up the wagner https://ssireview.org/ http://www.thestatenislandfoundation.org/ http://www.sipcw.org/tysa/data%20and%20research/tysa_common_agenda_and_blueprint_040412.pdf https://sipcw.org/ 140 college community. wagner is deeply committed to teaching and learning both within and outside of the classroom and campus. our mission statement clearly states that wagner works to prepare students for life as well as careers, by emphasizing scholarship, achievement, leadership, and citizenship. the curriculum is a comprehensive educational program that is anchored in the liberal arts, experiential and co-curricular learning, inter-culturalism and service to society. under the “wagner plan for the practical liberal arts” faculty and students alike are creating, and living through, integrative and experiential teaching and learning covering a wide range of topics. “learning by doing” is our guiding motto as the curriculum is closely linked to real world issues both locally and abroad. wagner has the faculty, staff and student body that are prepared, and consistently called upon, to assist with community engagement, community research and participatory learning projects and programs particularly on staten island. sipcw is one of many community organizations with whom wagner has had a long standing relationship. this led to an invitation to join the tysa initiative when it began in 2011. sipcw has over 124 organizations and stakeholders that have been active participants in many of their initiatives and are readily convened and engaged as issues arise. this has been the case with the tysa project, because we have the participation of the island anchor institutions mentioned earlier, as well as 19 substance abuse prevention stakeholders, 7 active design organizations, 6 law enforcement agencies, 8 government partners, 12 youth organizations, 5 faith based organizations and 8 nonprofits. our elected officials also bring leadership and bipartisan support on health care issues. our coalitions, with borough-wide reach, are particularly critical in the absence of a district public health office. the staten island community is a smaller landscape that is easier to navigate than in other boroughs, which is a strong advantage when using a community approach to a public health issue. being geographically isolated with a smaller share of city services has taught us to quickly identify need, generate support, and activate strategies. what does tysa do? sipcw believes strongly in the power of the “collective impact” approach to inform strategies and activities. collective impact efforts grow out of the recognition that key stakeholders across the community have a deep, vested interest in improving outcomes. the outcomes depend on a complex range of challenges that can only be improved through a systematic and coordinated approach owned by the many relevant players. community readiness to address substance use should be directed at information gathered from key informants, interviews and focus groups to identify: (a) community knowledge of the problem (issues and efforts); (b) leadership; (c) community climate; and (d) resources. this is evident in how the work has been distributed in the various committees in the tysa framework, which is accessible on their website. tysa is a dynamic partnership of both private and nonprofit organizations, city and state government agencies, philanthropists, parents, teachers and teen volunteers, many of whom have been working to combat alcohol and drug abuse for years. the call to address this issue has never been stronger than now due to the recent surge in opioid drug abuse which has made national headlines. 141 tysa has an executive committee, a steering committee, and 5 workgroups. tysa has a dedicated project director and coordinator, overseen by the executive committee of the sipcw board of directors. sipcw is governed by its own bylaws. the strategic direction of tysa is governed by a steering committee comprised of a broad range of community stakeholders. this committee is responsible for overall administration and management of the coalition’s activities and serves as the governing body of the coalition. decisions are made by consensus or a 2/3 majority vote although the project director and sipcw board may assist with decisions on the day to day and financial activities. membership strives to represent all community sectors and is intentionally diverse (local government officials, local business, schools, law enforcement, faith ,media, hospital and professional health care providers, parent advocates, partner coalitions, service/civic/volunteer groups, substance abuse prevention and treatment providers and philanthropy). membership duties and responsibilities are clearly outlined for all members (https://sipcw.org). the cross sectoral workgroups guide implementation of tysa, including strategy –setting and refinement and stakeholder engagement. each workgroup has 2 co-chairs who also serve on the steering committee. tysa has created the following workgroups and their respective purpose: ● social norms creates data driven messaging and education to target the attitudes and behaviors of parents, youth and other stakeholders who influence youth substance abuse across the community. ● alcohol availability works to reduce the retail and marketplace availability of alcohol and develop policies that impact the availability of alcohol. ● continuum of care develops new approaches to screening, referral, treatment, and recovery that reaches all staten island youth in need. ● opioid works to reduce the supply of prescription drugs (opiates) to youth for illicit use and increase access to opioid prevention services. ● policy and advocacy develops and advances a policy platform that impacts availability of substances, quality of treatment, and other key facets of youth substance abuse. each workgroup’s role is to select evidence informed strategies to make progress against each outcome (short term) and to continuously improve strategies in an ongoing way (long term). they engage the community in meaningful and ongoing ways and focus on the implementation of strategies and activities (https://sipcw.org). the tysa initiative focuses all of its member’s efforts into achieving the same goals. staten island doctors, pharmacists, law enforcement officials, drug treatment providers, hospitals, educators and youth organizations are all working together to help one another, and the whole community, tackle youth substance abuse, according to adrienne abbate mpa, executive director of sipcw and project director of tysa. tysa is not intended to be a new “program” nor an attempt to compete with any of our community’s noteworthy health initiatives. our aim is to build strong public awareness of the urgent need to tackle youth substance abuse, help to better align current efforts and fill necessary gaps, and create a strong strategic framework for improved collective impact (https://sipcw.org). https://sipcw.org/ https://sipcw.org/ https://sipcw.org/ 142 coalition members responded to a capacity checklist survey in an effort to effectively implement environmental strategies. the steering committee orients new members joining the coalition to ensure that they are well aware of the work tysa is doing and subsequently they can talk about it and promote tysa at their respective organizations within the larger staten island community. main objectives (and principal methods) of the coalition are listed as: ● educates community on substance abuse issues (parent workshops, community forums, media campaigns); ● collects and shares data and personal stories (focus groups, surveys, testimonials) ● trains professionals (pharmacists, physicians, youth service providers, beverage servers, business owners); ● provides opportunities for youth and community ownership of issue (youth council, workgroups, town hall meetings); ● connects community with needed resources (fact sheets, web resources, parent toolkit, treatment resource guide); and ● advocates for systems-level change at the local, state, and federal level (treatment services, prescription monitoring programs) (https://sipcw.org). data collected from the staten island 2014 youth development survey (yds 12-17 year olds) and the 2015 young adult survey (yas 18-25 year olds) gave tysa members clear information that there was overall evidence indicating a high lifetime prevalence of alcohol and prescription drug use among these groups. they also collected data on the total number of emergency department admissions for heroin and opioid overdoses at the two hospitals on staten island. the new york state open source data was accessed to calculate arrest rates for staten island. schools, including the three college campuses on the island, were targeted with short faqs that were displayed on busy bulletin boards and published on online formats in order to reach large student bodies. last year wagner college co-sponsored a forum titled “staten island’s drug crisis: a community conversation” and has held several naloxone (opioid overdose treatment) training sessions, which were open to the entire community, with the support of student groups and with funding from state senator andrew lanza. r-24th senate district. public service announcements on local radio and television stations also assisted in the messaging of the coalition’s mission, vision, and goals. st. john's university, staten island campus, the college of staten island (cuny) and wagner college have faculty and students collaborating on a variety of educational forums throughout the department of education, parochial and private school settings. a college-level prevention forum was held in mid-november (2016) which joined forces with the office of alcoholism and substance abuse services ( oasas ) and assemblyman michael cusick’s office to host a substance misuse awareness panel at st. john’s university. the event was cosponsored by wagner college and the college of staten island and targeted college students, raising awareness about substance use on staten island. speakers included student leaders and faculty from each campus, the da, oasas staff and tysa backbone staff. information was shared about the drug landscape on staten island along with consequences and next steps. https://sipcw.org/ 143 conclusion a progress assessment of tysa was conducted by fsg in february, 2015. of the many significant findings which were presented to all of the members of tysa a few highlighted statements of that report are as follow: ● overdose deaths decreased dramatically on staten island as collective efforts increased. ● citywide, more youth enter treatment with opioid as their primary drug vs. other substances. ● more staten island youth are seeking treatment than in the past for their opiate use. ● prescription rates are decreasing for the first time in five years. ● tysa’s partnerships and influence bring and align resources to the common agenda. ● partners align their resources to tysa activities. ● new resources acquired directly for tysa’s role in the common agenda, and ● tysa has made significant progress in bringing and aligning resources to the common agenda. tysa membership is strong and has reached out to more key community members for greater representation of the staten island community. the steering committee currently has close to 80 members and in january 2017 a new executive committee will be elected. island-wide activities representative of the workgroups are ongoing in the community weekly and monthly. in september, 2016 a large free outdoor community event called “heroes of hope” was held on the grounds of a partnering faith based organization. many of the island wide organizations were available to discuss and disseminate health promoting and drug abuse prevention materials. an annual health care expo was held at the hilton garden inn on staten island (october, 2016) and tysa members were present once again to provide information and were also participants in a panel discussion. a campaign to provide signage in the restrooms of restaurants and bars regarding heroin overdose information and interventions is underway. the youth task group is working to curtail the sale of alcohol to minors in deli’s, bodega’s and liquor stores with new signage. a powerpoint presentation titled “parents (teachers) (coaches), you matter” is making its way into many island-wide middle and high schools, and a proposal to provide containers to collect used syringes has been accepted by our parks department officials. work continues with our local law enforcers and political figures to establish new policies and legislation regarding many of the variables related to illicit drug availability and use. district attorney michael mcmahon has initiated changes in our criminal court system for veterans and first time offenders who struggle with substance use disorders. the warm hand-off program was launched at richmond university medical center in november, 2016 which connects individuals that enter the emergency department (ed) struggling with substance misuse to resources. they are currently working towards launching this same program at staten island university-northwell healthcare system. tysa backbone staff and available members of the steering committee will be attending the community antidrug coalitions of america (cadca) national leadership forum in washington d.c. in february, 2017. they will be participating in a poster presentation concerning the collective impact approach to reducing substance misuse among teens at the conference. a redesign of the tysa website is in progress on the sipcw site. it will be comprehensive, with multiple features 144 and pages including, “get help,” “get informed,” “take action,” and will provide multiple resources for parents, youth and young adults, schools and providers. students are assisting a local pharmacist to collect and properly dispose of unused medications within our senior citizen day centers and a recent collaboration with the birds nest foundation (www.birdsnestfoundation.org) resulted in a video shoot to educate youth and young adults that heroin use via injection can lead to a higher risk of acquiring hepatitis c. lastly, in respect to governance, the coalition meeting structure will host larger bi-annual committee meetings, to which steering committee members can invite other guests to attend. this will allow for the coalition to maintain the core group of the steering committee members for high-level, decision making purposes, while also encouraging more community members to get involved through events and to join workgroups. wagner college faculty, students and staff are involved in many one of the above-stated projects within the tysa initiative, through curricular and non-curricular-based placements for the students. professional development activities for students and faculty are aligned with organizational leaders and staff which allow for cooperative programs within the public, private and voluntary sectors. wagner will continue to stay committed to the work that is necessary to curtail the ever rising incidence of opioid use, addiction and overdose rates in staten island. wagner is also deeply connected to other programming in the greater community to forward educational improvements, economic development, social reform and health promotion. we are a anchor, placed by necessity, which is able to be a reliable and consistent participant in the needs of an ever changing local and surrounding community. wagner college is a national leader in civic engagement, serving as a model for liberal arts education that connects teaching and learning with public work in and with our broader community. 145 references anderson, e.t., and mcfarlane, j. 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(2016, march 10).silence=death: lives lost, families devastated. staten island advance. retrieved from https://en.wikipedia/wiki/statenisland. the substance abuse and mental health services administration (samsha). retrieved from https://www.samsha.gov unintentional drug poisoning (overdose) deaths in new york city, 2000-2012 (2013, september). new york city department of mental hygiene. retrieved from https://www.nyc.gov/html/om/pdf/2013/edb_unintentional_drug_poisoning_overdose deaths.pdf wilson, m., & goodman, j. d. (2014, november 30). heroin takes over a house, and mom, on new york's staten island. the new york times. retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/30/nyregion/heroin-takes-over-a-house-and-mom.html wrobleski, t. (2016, march 28). sobering stats from da mcmahon underline heroin scourge. staten island advance. retrieved from http://www.silive.com/opinion/columns/index.ssf/2016/03/sobering_stats_from_da_mcmahon.ht ml young, s. (2017) nola j. pender’s nursing theory: health promotion model. retrieved from https://youngsteve.wikispaces.com/ nurse+theorist+nola+pender https://en.wikipedia/wiki/statenisland https://www.nyc.gov/html/om/pdf/2013/edb_unintentional_drug_poisoning_overdose%20dea https://youngsteve.wikispaces.com/ 147 author information patricia (pat) tooker dnp, fnp is the dean of the evelyn l. spiro school of nursing at wagner college, and also held the position of dean for integrated learning for the past 6 years, in which she had administrative responsibilities for the signature undergraduate curriculum “the wagner plan for the practical liberal arts.” pat is passionate about health promotion within vulnerable communities in staten island and has been with tysa since its inception serving on the steering committee and 3 workgroups. dr. patricia tooker evelyn spiro school of nursing wagner college 1 campus road staten island, ny 10301 e mail: ptooker@wagner.edu telephone: 718-390-3443 metropolitan universities vol. 29 no. 1 (february 2018), doi: 10.18060/22172 reframing the dominant diversity discourse: alternate conversations for creating whole system change frank d. golom abstract diversity and inclusion (d&i) efforts in higher education are decades old, yet progress continues to be slow and elusive for many campuses. recent events in colleges and universities across the united states suggest that long-standing challenges related to access, equity and inclusion remain as entrenched and intractable as they have ever been, resulting in campus environments that may be unwelcoming or hostile to faculty, staff and students from underrepresented groups. one reason for the partial success of university d&i programs is that they overemphasize individual actors, attitudes and behaviors while neglecting the systemic, organizational cultures in which those actors reside. drawing on the organization development and change literatures, this paper offers three alternate perspectives for reframing campus diversity work, arguing that all d&i initiatives must consider the (a) contextual, (b) multilevel and (c) systemic nature of change if they are to be robust and successful. keywords: inclusion; systems thinking; organization change; organization development; multicultural affairs introduction institutions of higher education have been attending to issues of diversity and inclusion (d&i) for decades (harvey, 2016). such attention can be seen in a number of important and consequential d&i initiatives, including efforts to increase the recruitment and retention of students and faculty from underrepresented backgrounds, the development of specific affinity programming, spaces and offices for minority students, the creation of targeted administrative positions to lead and manage diversity efforts, and training and other psychoeducational programs aimed at educating the broader campus, and the general public, on a number of important topics critical to increasing multicultural competence in the 21st century (e.g., prejudice, discrimination, identity, microaggressions, social justice). these efforts are long-standing, necessary, responsive and consistent with the aim of expanding access to higher education in the united states. and these efforts are often unsuccessful (dobbin & kalev, 2016; eagly, 2016). despite decades of attempts at increasing access, equity and inclusion for underrepresented groups, and despite some progress with respect to the diversification of students and faculty, there remains considerable work to be done, and considerable dissatisfaction with campus climates that are deemed unwelcoming or hostile. the current article offers an organizational systems perspective (senge, 1990) on the state of d&i efforts in higher education, and argues that many of our efforts at diversity and inclusion fail because they do not make the whole system the target of the change effort (block & noumair, 2017). it also offers several ways of conceptualizing and framing campus d&i efforts from an 12 organization-wide, total system, culture change perspective in the hopes of increasing the depth, longevity and success of their impact. to that end, the article is grounded in the change and diversity literature in organizational psychology and organization development (e.g., burke, 2017), and not necessarily in more traditional writing in higher education or social justice. recent conversations in the diversity and inclusion space over the last several years, there has been increased attention to issues of diversity, inclusion and multicultural competence in higher education, fueled in part by the larger national climate and public outrage over racial injustice in the united states, including the deaths of a several unarmed african american men at the hands of police officers in missouri, new york and maryland. campus walkouts, protests, sit-ins and uprisings, often in solidary with residents in ferguson, staten island and baltimore, have become common, receiving coverage in the chronicle of higher education, the associated press, the new york times, the la times and the washington post. the atlantic even compiled an interactive “cheat sheet and timeline” from some of the more well-known campus protests, including those at harvard, yale, claremont mckenna and the university of missouri (wong & green, 2016). these demonstrations and the actions they spurred were attempts at producing real change by and on behalf of students who have been historically marginalized. student groups from at least 80 colleges and universities have requested a variety of actions from campus administration. these actions, collected and listed in full by the website thedemands.org, are attempts at initiating, re-invigorating and maintaining some of the efforts that have typified the higher education multicultural equity landscape for decades, including increased recruitment of students and faculty of color and training for all faculty, administrators and staff on issues of racial justice and microaggressions, the “brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, and environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory or negative slights and insults to the target person or group” (sue et al., 2007, p. 273). yet even with the increased attention surrounding these movements, the demands put forth by the students and the actions taken by some administrators, actual change with respect to campus diversity and inclusion has been harder to achieve. according to a recent report in the new york times, “black and hispanic students are more underrepresented at the nation’s top colleges and universities than they were 35 years ago” (ashkenas, park, & pearce 2017). despite decades of attempts to recruit individuals from marginalized backgrounds, the percentage of african american first-year students at top us institutions remained “virtually unchanged since 1980,” and the proportion of hispanic first-year students at these institutions did not keep pace with us population trends over the same period. a plausible take-away from these data, and the last few years of headline-grabbing campus activism, is that institutions of higher education, much like their corporate counterparts, have not produced as much d&i change as they had hoped (dobbin & kalev, 2016; eagly, 2016). although there are many reasons for the lack of progress, one explanation lies in the way some diversity and inclusion advocates have been framing and approaching their work, frequently choosing to focus their conversations and actions on specific individual instances of oppression rather than on the systemic organizational forces that keep such cycles of oppression locked in 13 place (davidson, 1999). william b. harvey, the former a vice president and director of the center for advancement of racial and ethnic equity at the american council on education and a distinguished scholar at the american association for access, equity, and diversity, framed the question this way in an important article published (harvey, 2016) in the chronicle: “how many protests will it take to finally diversify our campuses?” harvey recounts a telling anecdote that encapsulates just how little systemic, structural change has been produced in higher education when it comes to diversity and inclusion. he includes the following passage from another essay he penned, which he started distributing to bewildered colleagues during the campus protests of late 2015 and early 2016: while greater numbers of minority-group students are matriculating at colleges and universities than ever before, to a large degree those students find themselves outside the mainstream of campus life. at best, the feeling that many have is that their presence is simply tolerated as a politically expedient maneuver; at worst, they feel they are the victims of subtle—and sometimes not so subtle—racist attitudes and practices on the part of classmates and instructors alike. as harvey notes, although colleagues frequently agreed with the sentiments expressed, they were somewhat incredulous and confused when he recounted that the article he was quoting from had originally been published 36 years ago in 1981. the new, novel and surprising campus uprisings of the last few years were, according to harvey, just “a chronic case of racial déjà vu.” from an organization change perspective, they were also a good illustration of just how limited individually-focused and isolated programming can be when it comes to transforming the culture of an entire organizational system, and therefore, producing and maintaining sustainable change. shifting the conversation: an organization change perspective while the claim of racial déjà vu is more anecdotal than empirical, it is consistent with decades of writing in the organizational psychology and development literatures on when organizational systems produce change, and when they do not. by some estimates, two-thirds of organization change efforts fail, unable to meet their desired objectives (burke, 2017) and often producing a considerable amount of resistance in the process. the reasons for these failure rates are many, and include technical challenges like unclear visions, active political opposition, ineffective leadership, poor implementation and inadequate communication (burke, 2017; pasmore, 2011). yet, beyond the technical, behavioral and administrative drivers of organization-change failure, one additional reason for the lack of success of many change initiatives is that change leaders often do not make the entire organizational system the target of the change effort (burke, 2017; senge, 1990), focusing instead on specific individual events rather than on the deeply engrained patterns, norms, cultures – or the larger systemic context – that allow such events to occur. to understand this aspect of failure more fully, it is helpful to review basic tenets of systems theory as they apply to an organizational context. senge (1990) defines a system as “anything that takes its integrity, form and definition from the ongoing interaction of its elements… all of which have a common purpose and behave in common ways” (senge, 1990, p. 137). more simply, a system can be best thought of as a set of elements “interconnected in such a way that 14 they produce their own pattern of behavior over time” (meadows, 2008, p. 2). different systems theorists distill the elements of organizational systems in various ways (e.g., burke & litwin, 1992; meadows, 2008; svyantek & brown, 2000), but a useful classification is provided by senge (1990), who distinguishes between the structural, functional and behavioral elements of any system. the structural element, which refers to “the basic interrelationships that control behavior and translate perceptions, goals, rules and norms into action” in any organization, includes hierarchies, information-flows and general decision-making processes (senge, 1990, p. 40). the functional element describes the long-term patterns of behavior between actors that often result from the organization’s structural makeup, similar to the organization’s personality, or response tendencies. and, the behavioral element refers to an organization’s specific, individual responses to a given situation, including specific events embedded in its overall pattern of behavior, or more plainly stated, its “who-did-what-to-whoms” (golom, 2015). in many change initiatives and in most organizations, the pull is to conceptualize change by focusing on these individual behavioral elements in isolation, rather than thinking about the patterns and structures that lock seemingly disconnected elements together or cause them (burke, 2017; senge, 1990). for example, in the diversity and inclusion space, organizations frequently require training in response to biased or insensitive behavior among organizational members (davidson, 1999). yet, when attention in day-to-day organizational life is placed on individuallevel events instead of considering what those events reveal about the organization’s culture, the result is often a series of interventions aimed at improving unbearable symptoms, without ever attending to their underlying cause. organizations committed to addressing change in this way appear actively and reactively busy, calming isolated and even repeated crises, but their cumulative work may not produce substantive change. in fact, a structural approach to change is perhaps the only way to have a significant impact on an institution’s culture, correcting deeply and often unconsciously embedded ways of responding and altering the context so that certain events are less likely to occur (burke, 2017; senge, 1990; golom, 2015). the failure to target organizational culture is the death knell of many change initiatives (katzenbach, steffen & kronley, 2012). this is particularly true in the diversity and inclusion space, which is, in the literature and in practice, rarely framed from an organization change or whole systems perspective (block & noumair, 2017; foldy & buckley, 2017). block and noumair (2017) articulated this challenge in a recent special journal issue devoted to thinking about diversity and inclusion systemically, noting that current d&i practice and scholarship mostly emphasize “individual-level understanding and interventions, via providing extra knowledge and skills training for women and people of color, or providing bias awareness training for leaders and managers” (p. 150). research suggests, however, that such individuallevel interventions are often unsuccessful in producing large-scale diversity change in organizations (dobbin & kalev, 2016), particularly with respect to the representation of women and people of color in top management positions and employee perceptions of the institutional climate. as block and noumair (2017) note, such failure occurs in part because d&i practitioners frequently ignore “the role that systemic factors play in influencing diversity and inclusion in organizations,” thereby ensuring that “diversity initiatives are enacted narrowly, making change in part of the system rather than in the whole system,” if at all (p. 150). 15 such omissions are as true in higher education as they are in the corporate world, as colleges and universities frequently focus their d&i conversations at the individual-level, spurred in part by specific campus or national “crisis” events that demand immediate attention and reaction from students. not only is this the dominant frame on change in many organizations, it is a model that has been employed in higher education since multicultural affairs offices began populating student development in the 1970s and 1980s (patton & hannon, 2008). these offices are engaged in the important work of attending to the experiences, academic success and psychological well-being of underrepresented students who exist in campus environments that may be both subtly and overtly hostile to them, but as a general rule, they are rarely responsible for or have authority over direct system-wide culture change on behalf of their constituents. thus, the cycles of justice and equity activity that grip higher education every few years are more about attending to individuals than changing the organizational culture, which is, both conceptually and in practice, a significant driver of the lack of progress frequently cited (harvey, 2016) by underrepresented individuals on university campuses. in order to produce total system change, d&i practitioners have to shift the conversation and consider framing and enacting their work from an organizational, or total system, change perspective. alternate diversity dialogues: context, levels and systems framing diversity and inclusion work as an organization change initiative requires holding at bay reactions to specific, individual events and instead examining patterns, interrelationships and feedback mechanisms across the organizational system. it also requires engaging in conversations that do not always dominate the daily work of diversifying higher education institutions, which as the evidence reviewed earlier indicates, has been overtaken by reactions to local and national crises, uprisings and student demands, many of which include individual-level interventions (e.g., screening for bias, diversity training, grievance policies) that are not strongly supported in the research (dobbin & kalev, 2016; eagly, 2016). these conversations are based on the theoretical and empirical literature in the field of organization development, and emphasize attending to organizational context, higher levels of analysis and systems dynamics in addition to the immediate individual event or concern of the moment, regardless of how important, pressing or unacceptable that individual element might be. conversation #1: the context conversation social and organizational psychologists have for decades reinforced the idea that we frequently make individual attributions regarding the causes of other people’s behavior, while at the same time offering contextual rationales for our own. for example, we are more likely to discuss others’ bad actions as being a fundamental reflection of who they are, while excusing our own with a litany of outside forces that affected us and of which those around us would be unaware (ross, 1977). this fundamental attribution error often results in individuals forgetting the simple idea that behavior in organizations is jointly determined by two factors: those related to the individual person as well as those related to the larger group and organizational context in which that person resides (chatman, 1989; lewin, 1951). this interactionist perspective is essential for navigating the complex, diverse environments of most modern organizations, as it forces the recognition that the organizational context can be as strong an influence on organizational behavior as personality variables (chatman, 1989). 16 in higher education d&i work, a considerable amount of attention is placed on individual elements, including individual instances of intolerance on campus, individual student complaints and individual faculty members and administrators who do not ‘get it’ with respect to diversity and social justice issues. the attention to the individual-level is necessary, but empirical research suggests it is insufficient for conceptualizing and addressing diversity and inclusion challenges in an organizational setting. in effect, context matters, as context can induce behavior in strong organizational environments that overrides one’s personality dispositions (chatman, 1989). in higher education, what counts as context is far-ranging, including institutional classification (e.g., carnegie classification), history, mission, cultural norms, legislative environment, demographic composition, curriculum, organizational systems and community partnerships. for example, many campuses have specific policies and procedures for reporting and addressing bias against underrepresented students. in a recent meeting at one university, students began to criticize the bias reporting system for a lack of follow-through on submitted complaints. the administrator charged with overseeing bias reporting insisted that she gave every complaint reported her due diligence and care, and a lengthy conversation ensued about whether the bias reporting system was functioning as intended. to keep the conversation at the level of the reporting system and its functioning, however, misses a larger contextual data point about the culture of the institution and how it might be contributing to the occurrence of biased events in the first place. an interactionist perspective moves beyond individual incidents of bias or microaggression to consider the context of those incidents, and to wonder what group and organizational-level variables are preventing individuals who would suppress such biases in other contexts from doing so in their current setting. microaggressions, for example, do not occur in a vacuum (lilienfeld, 2017). they occur in a context that, depending on its contents, may make their expression more or less likely. ensuring that the organizational environment is not fertile ground for such incidents is a far better and more effective strategy than only addressing each individual microaggressive event as, or more likely after, it occurs. metaphorically-speaking, the latter approach is the equivalent of preventing weeds in a garden by pulling each one out as it appears, rather than simply treating the soil to make weed growth less likely, and then periodically attending to an occasional outlier. conversation #2: the levels conversation one of the unintended consequences of overly focusing the d&i conversation on individual events, elements and actors is that our change initiatives become focused at the individual-level as well. in short, an individual frame begets common individual interventions, including recruiting, retaining, replacing, displacing, training and coaching particular individuals or a set of individuals (burke, 2017). unfortunately, there remains little evidence in the organizational literature that changing individuals results in a changed organizational system (burke, 2017). first, d&i interventions are frequently reactive in nature and often occur absent a larger organizational d&i strategy (cf. thomas, 2004), “not in the service of moving the total system in a new direction” (burke, 2017, p. 101). second, sometimes change occurs in the opposite direction of what was intended, as some common individual-level diversity interventions have been shown to create backlash or decrease the representation of underrepresented groups in leadership roles (dobbin & kalev, 2016). 17 the organizational literature on the effectiveness of diversity training offers an illustration regarding the limitations of individual-level change interventions, especially when one considers that a frequent student demand during the 2015-2016 campus protests was some form of diversity training. of the 80 schools featured on thedemands.org, most of their student groups demanded some form of diversity, racial justice or microaggressions training. yet, according to a number of empirical studies, such training is more likely than not to be incomplete, ineffective or produce resistance (bezrukova, jehn & spell, 2012). for example, in their review of common diversity practices in 708 private sector organizations, kalev, dobbin and kelly (2006) discovered that “practices that target managerial bias through feedback (diversity evaluations) and education (diversity training) show virtually no effect in the aggregate. they show modest positive effects when responsibility structures are also in place. however, they sometimes show negative effects otherwise. research to date from hr experts and psychologists suggests that interactive training workshops, of the kind we examine, often generate backlash (p. 611). in some ways, the lack of findings here and in other studies of a similar nature are not surprising. exclusively targeting the individual level ignores the multiple levels that exist in and around any organization, including higher-order group, department, university, industry and national forces that influence students, faculty and staff long after the training has ended. at the very least, d&i interventions that address specific units or departments within the university (i.e., group training or group coaching) may yield more dividends than programs that attempt to educate individuals from various quarters of the campus, in part because they may promote the establishment of group norms and knowledge structures that can remain in place after the training has ended (kulik, roberson & tan, 2013; liang, moreland & argote, 1995). conversation #3: the systems conversation to consider context and levels more explicitly in the pursuit of diversity and inclusion work is to begin to adopt a systems perspective on creating change. as an oversimplification, one of the challenges of our dominant discourse on diversity and inclusion in higher education is that it does not always involve a systems conversation. in fact, if both diagnosis and intervention remain at the individual level, a systems conversation cannot by definition occur and a lack of progress is almost guaranteed. to think in systems is to attend to context and level of analysis, as has been said, but also to the structural interdependence, interrelatedness and patterns between and among different aspects of the system, both in any given moment and over time. in organizational systems, these structures and patterns are best understood as organizational culture, or the “beliefs, values and behavioral norms that come to be taken for granted as basic assumptions and drop out of awareness,” even as they are implicitly “taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think, feel and behave in relation to problems” (schein, 2016, p. 6). culture is paramount because it outlasts any one individual event or element within the organizational system, in part because it is structurally stable, deeply unconscious, pervasively broad and subtly integrating of disparate events and activities (schein, 2016). for example, one of the issues facing higher education d&i leaders right now is the inclusion and protection of transgender students and faculty. institutions have taken up the causes of transgender individuals on campus, including the important issue of providing all gender restrooms and housing options. 18 this attention to transgender issues is needed, important and critical to the safety, learning and well-being of trans students, and it also parallels the attention previously paid to the safety, learning and well-being of gay, lesbian and to a lesser extent bisexual students in the 1990s (renn, 2009). it is likely that other queer-identified students will receive attention in the coming decade, in a cyclical yet often unacknowledged pattern of welcoming in a new sexual minority “other” that had previously gone ignored. on the one hand, this is the nature of diversity and inclusion work, expanding the circle to an ever-widening array of marginalized individuals. on the other hand, it suggests that previous attempts at change may have focused heavily on one individual group of students or one social identity, rather than thinking about the ways in which the organizational culture and system, particularly its heteronormative or gendered basic assumptions, could be changed so as to allow a more seamless integration of students, faculty and staff of diverse sexual expression. a focus on changing the deeply embedded cultural norms of a whole organizational system is decidedly a different conversation, but if the goal is to enhance equity and inclusion for all types of underrepresented groups in the academy, it is a required one. fundamentally altered organizational behavior requires an altered system (golom, 2015), and while many have adopted the language of “systemic issues” or “systems,” it is much harder to make the paradigm shift required to think systemically or implement that thinking practically in an organizational context (meadows, 2008). in part, the challenge with implementation rests in the fact that systems are not static; they are dynamic entities that seek to maintain equilibrium at all costs and that frequently fall into entrenched patterns of responding (meadows, 2008; coleman et al., 2017). as a result, not only are they difficult to see or change, they also difficult to maneuver, and will frequently return to homeostasis, particularly in the face of narrow or isolated attempts to alter them (meadows, 2008). the only way to change an organizational system is to change its culture, to shift its norms, values, beliefs and attitudes out from underneath it to an altered, more diverse and inclusive state, often without it realizing what those norms are and without engendering too much resistance. translating the conversations: systems blueprints for change thinking systemically is a tall order for any change initiative; for deeply personal and identityrooted d&i work, it requires the utmost skill, patience and tolerance for ambiguity. a frequent critique of systems approaches to change is that they are interesting diagnostically, but do not easily lend themselves to intervention, implementation and action (meadows, 2008). although this critique is valid, the alternate conversations suggested in this article are examples of how d&i practitioners can begin to adopt more of an organization change frame in their work, and how they can shift their conceptual models and mindsets toward greater systems acumen. examples of how common d&i challenges and interventions might be reframed and approached from a context, levels or systems perspective are provided in table 1. 19 table 1: common d&i challenges and interventions reconsidered from a context, levels and systems perspective challenge individual-level intervention context considerations levels considerations systems considerations several faculty are concerned about the lack of queer individuals on the faculty and in senior administrator roles. in the next round of faculty hiring, the provost’s office devotes additional resources to identifying and recruiting queer faculty. is the climate on campus favorable for queeridentified individuals, and how is scholarship on queer issues viewed? how would the inclusion of queer faculty in certain departments impact group cohesion, communication, conflict and trust? how might institutional heterosexism be manifest in formal and informal campus policies, procedures and systems? a coalition of underrepresented students, unsatisfied with what they perceive as a negative climate on campus, hold a series of demonstrations to voice their experiences of microaggressions. university administrators, in response to student demonstrations, implement mandatory diversity training for faculty, staff and students. does the university curriculum and programming include multiple psychoeducational opportunities for learning about issues of social justice, diversity and inclusion? how does training support an overall vision, strategy and action plan for campus diversity efforts at the universitylevel? what are the potential points of resistance to mandatory training, and how and where on campus are they likely to manifest? a student of color has complained about a faculty member’s biased behavior, including racially insensitive and politicallycharged comments. the student is encouraged to file a formal bias complaint or grievance, which is then investigated by the appropriate university official. how is this dynamic reflective of or influenced by current (or historical) university, regional or national patterns and trends? are the faculty member’s actions an isolated event, or do they imply something about the climate for diversity in his or her department? what implicit norms are present on campus that tacitly condone or allow faculty to remain ignorant of issues of racial justice? 20 additionally, a number of systems models exist in the organization change and development (burke, 2017) and higher education (dowd & bensimon, 2015) literatures that can offer guidance to faculty, administrators and students as they consider strategic planning around campus diversity and equity initiatives. these models distill the context, levels and systems conversations reviewed here into practical blueprints for change that include the main factors, leverage points and interrelationships that exist at the core of any organizational system. for example, using an open systems model of organizational performance and change (burke & litwin, 1992), golom (2015) proposed seven recommendations for applying a systems lens to campus diversity work around queer student issues, and provided an in-depth case study of one university’s attempt to put the recommendations into practice. summarized in table 2, these recommendations include (1) manipulating the context to create a strong sense of urgency, (2) developing a vision for change that sticks, (3) involving the “right” people to communicate the vision, (4) aligning day-to-day organizational behavior with the new vision, (5) sustaining and institutionalizing the vision, (6) rewarding and celebrating small successes, and (7) evaluating and recalibrating the change goals. table 2: recommendations for effecting institutional change around diversity issues (golom, 2015) recommendation 1: recommendation 2: recommendation 3: recommendation 4: recommendation 5: recommendation 6: recommendation 7: manipulate the context by creating a strong sense of urgency harness and channel momentum by developing a compelling vision for the change effort that sticks involve the right people to communicate and reinforce the vision align day-to-day organizational life with the new vision (and stop behavior that interferes with that alignment) independently sustain and institutionalize the vision orchestrate, reward and celebrate small successes evaluate, titrate and recalibrate the change effort a full discussion of all seven recommendations can be found elsewhere (golom, 2015), but two merit review here, both because of their importance in creating and sustaining change and because they often need to be customized to fit the mission and culture of a particular institution in order to be successful. first, the initial step of any change initiative is to create a sense of urgency. according to the literature, urgency serves to build the necessary momentum and readiness for change to occur, and is often achieved by surfacing dissatisfaction with the status quo (burke, 2017). how that dissatisfaction is surfaced, however, can take on different meanings for different constituent groups and different campuses. the task for d&i practitioners is to 21 define urgency for their institution in a way that is likely to resonate with the mission of the organization and its members. for example, at a recent workshop where the above recommendations were presented, one participant commented that he had been showing demographic data to faculty and administrators for years to no avail. he consistently highlighted the dearth of minority faculty and staff compared to changing student demographics, yet he saw no increased motivation to change beyond those already motivated. based on experience, this is not an uncommon phenomenon or complaint, and one that occasionally devolves into a discussion of all that is ‘wrong’ with the people who just “do not get” the data. it may be more useful, though, to consider the meaning of that data in context. although data are particularly helpful with respect to capturing and evaluating the progress of any change work, they are not uniformly instrumental in persuading individuals to action, particularly those who do not use data regularly or who may have trouble seeing the story behind the information (dowd, bensimon & witham, 2016). to use data unartfully with these individuals is a risk from an urgency perspective, and may require either technical assistance or a reframe on the use of data from a psychological perspective. d&i practitioners, who are able to see the story in their institutional data, would benefit from thinking about the cognitive and emotional reactions those data generate, and then considering alternate methods for bringing about the same reactions in those who are not data friendly (e.g., student narratives, intergroup dialogues). alternatively, the center for urban education uses an interactive program called the benchmarking equity and student success tool (besst) that is designed to help faculty and administrators illuminate the ‘story’ behind the data for those unaccustomed to working with such information (dowd, bensimon & witham, 2016). regardless of the approach used, from an urgency perspective, it is important to note that not all data are equal nor are they equally compelling. in most cases, the data alone are not creating a sense of urgency. what creates urgency is how the data make individuals feel. second, although urgency is in effect the sine qua non of any change initiative, urgency by itself is insufficient and generally unsustainable, as it often relies on crises cycling through the system at predictable intervals to rebuild momentum. if one wishes to guide d&i work beyond a reactive and event-based approach, urgency must be translated into a compelling and strategic vision for moving forward that is reinforced at all levels of the organization. from an equity perspective, clear goals and objectives are essential (dowd, bensimon & witham, 2016). a wellarticulated and thoughtful vision offers organizational members an end state toward which they can guide their various initiatives. furthermore, research is clear about the powerful effects of goal-setting on motivation and performance (locke & latham, 2002). a compelling vision offers a superordinate goal that can help keep diverse constituencies aligned and unified over the course of a change effort, which is at times bound to be nonlinear, chaotic and full of ostensibly competing agendas (burke, 2017). several recent examples illustrate the power of a strategic vision and the detrimental effects of its absence. for instance, religiously-affiliated institutions often struggle with the inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (lgbt) and other queer-identified students, faculty and staff. one potential way through these struggles is to explicitly link queer change efforts to the religious mission of the institution, often by citing religiously-based values associated with community, justice and service to the disadvantaged or the underserved (golom, 2015). 22 although certain segments of the campus may bristle at such a deliberate connection, scholars suggest that embedding diversity work into an institution’s pre-existing mission, culture or strategy ensures that it is much more likely to be successful (thomas, 2004). along these lines, it may be helpful to consider examples from the student demands mentioned earlier, which originated from campus uprisings against racial injustice. in the spring of 2015, students of color at one university gathered in solidarity with antiracist demonstrations across the nation. part of the gathering involved sharing painful experiences of racial microaggressions on a large banner. the statements written on the banner were disturbing and gut-wrenching, and were made available far and wide across the campus. on the one hand, these statements certainly created a sense of urgency among university faculty and administrators, including individuals for whom d&i concerns were not typically top of mind. on the other hand, that sense of urgency occurred without a larger, campus-wide conversation about a strategic plan or vision for diversity, broadly defined, moving forward. instead, the students demanded, and the administration consented, to a number of individual-level programmatic initiatives that have repeatedly been shown to have mixed empirical support in the literature, including mandatory diversity training focused on a narrow definition of diversity (kulik, roberson & tan, 2013). more than two years later, that training has only been piloted in portions of the campus, and the sense of urgency that many thought would bring about real change appears to have lessened, especially as many of those originally involved have graduated or exited the institution. in some ways, this outcome is not surprising. as dowd, bensimon and witham note (2016), “instead of thinking about equity as a ‘targeted strategy’ that can be achieved through one particular office or program, institutions should approach equity as a normative standard for all aspects of the institution, from resource allocation to assessment to strategic planning.” in other words, successful equity work requires whole system change, and that requires shifting the overall culture of higher education by: (a) attending to the larger context of the change effort (e.g., sense of urgency); (b) linking individual-level behavior and higher-level organizational factors (e.g., day-to-day organizational behavior with clear change visions, objectives and goals); and (c) considering how programs and interventions can be strategically aligned to shift the organization’s implicit norms and assumptions about the kinds of people and issues to which it has traditionally attended. unfortunately, this is a process that, by its nature, can only occur slowly and over time. culture change may be the ultimate goal of any systemic change effort, but practitioners are often unsuccessful changing culture by directly trying to change it (burke, 2017; lorsch & mctague, 2016). instead, culture change is often achieved by envisioning the behaviors needed to bring about new cultural norms and values, and then slowly reinforcing those behaviors through altered performance evaluations, incentive structures and decisional authority (lorsch & mctague, 2016) until equity and inclusion become “pervasive” features of organizational life (dowd, bensimon & witham, 2016). a systems caveat the examples, blueprints and recommendations mentioned above and summarized in tables 1 and 2 are important illustrations of what a systems lens on d&i work entails, and their inclusion 23 at the end of this article is meant to provide specific and helpful illustrations for some of the principles covered. yet, if one is truly thinking systemically, a list of specific actions that can be taken to produce change misses the very essence of the nature of organizational systems; it is inherently better to help individuals understand the general rules and principles that underlie a system’s behavior than to produce a list of acontextual, ahistorical and frozen-in-time actions that should always be taken or always demand attention. helping organizations and individuals shift their paradigms, mindsets and models toward thinking systemically is a better leverage point for creating change than any one specific intervention (meadows, 2008). a list of reactive, event-driven and strategically void initiatives can never additively produce total system change. conclusion the purpose of this article was to offer an organizational systems perspective on the state of d&i efforts in higher education. i argue that many of our efforts at diversity and inclusion fail because they do not make whole system change the target of those efforts. i further suggest that those interested in making academia more inclusive for a variety of underrepresented groups consider how attending to the context, levels and systems surrounding individual events and behavior can enhance their work. to that end, the alternate conversations included in the article are meant to complement our existing approaches to increasing access, equity and inclusion in higher education, to emphasize that those approaches are often static while systems are not, and to expand the conversation we have been recently having in a more dynamic and productive way. adopting these conversations is not a magic bullet for the success of any diversity and inclusion initiative, nor is it easy. however, to continue to stay at the level of individual interventions is to be complicit with the organizational system in maintaining the status quo, resisting change and allowing the culture of the university to remain unscathed. that may appease different individuals and social groups at different points in time, but it will never offer many of us in higher education the diverse and inclusive future we seek. 24 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(2000). a complex systems approach to organizations. current directions in psychological science, 9(2), 69-74. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8721.00063 thomas, d. a. (2004, september). diversity as strategy. harvard business review. retrieved from http://www.hrb.org. wong, a. & green, a. (2016, april). campus politics: a cheat sheet. the atlantic. retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.com https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x10362579 https://doi.org/10.1016/s0065-2601(08)60357-3 https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066x.62.4.271 https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8721.00063 27 author information dr. frank d. golom is an assistant professor of applied psychology at loyola university maryland, where he specializes in organizational psychology and the application of psychological principles to group and workplace settings. his expertise is at the intersection of workforce diversity, organization change and group dynamics. dr. golom has been an invited keynote speaker at several diversity and inclusion conferences sponsored by the american association of colleges and universities (aac&u), and continues to publish in the area of workforce diversity and organization change. he has won several awards for his work, including two best lgbt research awards from the society for industrial-organizational psychology and a highly commended paper award from emerald publishing. prior to joining the faculty at loyola, he served as founding associate director of executive education programs at teachers college, columbia university. frank d. golom department of psychology loyola university maryland 4501 north charles street baltimore, md 21210 email: fgolom@loyola.edu telephone: 410-617-2241 mailto:fgolom@loyola.edu metropolitan universities vol. 30 no. 1 (february 2019), doi: 10.18060/22372 51 building capacity as anchor institutions: infrastructure, structure, and strategy kristin norris and h. anne weiss abstract as campuses seek to advance community engagement, and embrace their role as anchor institutions within their community, questions emerge regarding how this role connects to and informs priorities within larger institutional mission and goals. welch & saltmarsh (2013) have noted that, historically, infrastructure—a center or office that supports and coordinates community engagement—has been a key component to institutionalizing community engagement. this article differentiates between infrastructure and organizational structure. it identifies some implications of this, as institutions build a foundation for their anchor institution mission—who, how, and to do what. the article calls attention to what is necessary if we are to fulfill our public missions and is useful as campuses consider who is involved in conversations about their anchor work, why this is important for the community and the campus, and who should be involved. keywords: community engagement; organizational structure; roles and responsibilities; alignment; institutional mission introduction this essay examines three bodies of literature. first, it reviews organizational structure, with particular focus on higher education organizations. secondly, it looks into institutionalization, and the characteristics that influence institutional processes. lastly, it investigates both community engagement and anchor mission work in higher education and their potential relationship(s) to the processes and structural factors that influence how widely and deeply these streams of work in higher education can inform and change our respective institutions. we offer the reader a metaphor connecting “athletics in higher education” (writ large) to illustrate the potential for following the adage “structure follows strategy” (chandler, 1962) when it comes to vertically organizing the community engagement and anchor mission work. we begin by defining community engagement and anchor mission work noting their similarities and differences. a community-engaged anchor institution includes the business operations and economics within how an institution defines community engagement. the campus presents its economic self-interest within the context of economic reciprocity with the historically disenfranchised community. dubb, mckinley, and howard (2013) define anchor mission as “a commitment to consciously apply the long-term, place-based economic power of the institution, in combination with its human and intellectual resources, to better the long-term welfare of the communities in which the institution is anchored” (p. 48). interest in anchor mission is because “often local residents are excluded from wealth-building opportunities because of discriminatory education, criminal justice, employment, and financial lending policies. universities that leverage hiring, procurement, and investing along with scholarship, research, and public service 52 resources can help address inequalities while creating stronger reciprocal community relationships” (sladek, 2017, n.p.). the anchor mission also aligns with an increased desire (or pressure) for institutions of higher education to measure the collective impact of the organization; assessing its contributions to the greater good of society in ways that go beyond graduation rates and job placements. carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching has defined community engagement as the “collaboration (among) institutions of higher education and their larger communities (local, regional/state, national, global) for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity” (janke & shelton, 2011, p. 3). community engagement is valued because it “enriches scholarship, research, and creative activity; enhances curriculum, teaching and learning; prepares educated, engaged citizens; strengthens democratic values and civic responsibility; addresses critical societal issues; and contributes to the public good” (janke & shelton, 2011, p. 4). today, the push for community engagement is because we need “innovation, democratic participation, and opportunities for social mobility in a dynamic new world” (pasquerella, 2018, p. 1). to “cultivate the voice, talent, and active public participation of the next generation of local citizens in a global world” because our society depends upon it (cantor, 2018, p. 1). the similarities and differences between an anchor mission and community engagement are worth noting for the purposes of discussing infrastructure and organizational structure to support institutionalization. to begin, we note two similarities. first, both embrace the role that institutions play in thriving communities and have expressed commitments to their responsibilities through rhetoric, staffing and resources. they value this work because it is good for the community, but also improves scholarship and education (cantor & englot, 2014). second, they share similar values and recognize the importance of reciprocity in relationships. reciprocity being defined as “recognition, respect, and valuing of the knowledge, perspective, and resources that each partner contributes to the collaboration” (janke & shelton, 2011, p. 4). however, anchor institution missions and community engagement each have distinctive qualities. first, the goal or primary outcomes each seeks to measure typically differ. assessing outcomes of community engagement have historically focused on student learning and success or faculty as engaged scholars and their partnerships via teaching and learning or research (norris & weiss, in press). on the other hand, anchor-institution initiatives are driven by community impacts and how that may occur through a variety of means (e.g., procurement, hiring practices, enrollment management strategies, real estate investments) as well as teaching and learning, research, and service. second, anchor-institution projects are more likely to define “community” primarily in terms of local contributions. conversely, community engagement is more likely to broadly define community, even so far as global activities, because the focus is on the process of engagement, or how the institutions works with community, as opposed to where the engagement occurs. lastly, leadership, infrastructure, and organizational structures to support these initiatives differs across campuses. this last three are the focus of this article. moving forward we use the term “anchor work” to represent activities associated with community engagement or anchor institution initiatives. the essay begins with literature on the organizational structure of institutions of higher education and how they incorporate change and https://www.aacu.org/liberaleducation/2018/spring/cantor 53 innovation. this sets up our introduction of a metaphor that may be useful for campuses, as they think about how to structure themselves in order to institutionalize anchor work. we identify the implications as well as limitations of this metaphor and make recommendations for leadership, fundraising, and developing metrics or goals. overview of organizational structures in higher education the organization-structure literature is extensive. for the purposes of this essay, the literature the authors examined has been limited to higher education, with particular emphasis on the complex and unique characteristics that distinguish colleges and universities organizationally (birnbaum, 1988; blau, 1994; blau & schoenherr, 1971; parsons, 1971; perrow, 1986; santos et al., 1998). the context of this essay focuses on the internal structures seeking to establish anchor work. how an organization is structured depends, to some extent, on the particular characteristics that define and differentiate the organization’s purpose and method of operating (rothblatt, 1995; schein, 1992). once its purpose is determined, the organization’s structure becomes the first step in its design (lewis, goodman, & fandt, 2001), with the creation of substructures and work groups (e.g., committees) to support its primary goals or mission. an organization’s structure is defined by the framework or institutional parameters that connect the policies, activities, roles, and reporting relationships needed for the organization to perform, if not fulfill, its purpose (barr & tagg, 1995; dalton, todor, spendolini, fielding, & porter, 1980; fincher, 1982; robbins, 1983; selznick, 1948). these structures have common characteristics that define their schema for productive work, and extend from the organization’s history, mission, and the particular values and cultures that distinguish the organization from others. historically, higher education’s organizational model takes shape with a minimum degree of standardization, which allows for high levels of autonomy among its historically key constituency and decision-making body (i.e., faculty). minimum standardization contributes to high levels of ambiguity, which is a chief characteristic of academic organizations (baldridge & deal, 1983). this also influences the way(s) that administrators and others view what is important to the organization’s performance of its mission, vision, and goals. autonomy, decision-making, and minimal standardization are important to understand, as well as the differentiating organization features of size, geographic location (i.e., urban, rural), institutional type. all of these, as well as student and faculty demographics can also “prescribe or restrict behavior[s] of organizational members” (dalton et al., 1980, p. 57) and influence the methods by which academic and administrative goals or tasks are structured and achieved. santos and others (1998) refer to higher education organizations as decentralized bureaucracies, which enable adaption to conditions in the external environments in which they operate. to achieve balance between bureaucratic structures and the multifaceted work of its internal constituents (faculty, staff, students, administrators, stakeholders, etc.) and external pressures or stakeholders, higher education organizations frequently use looser coordinating processes than those found in more traditional organizational settings (e.g., the business model of organizations with managerial and administrative cultures). yet these loosely coupled organizational constituents and structures, partnered with environmental factors, must operate within an administrative framework in the 21st century that act to control or sustain ever-scant resources or 54 capital (e.g., human capital, social capital, political capital) and oversee the managerial processes to build its capacity to keep on achieving its mission and goals. in all, the literature recognizes that higher education organizations have a centralized administrative structure that oversees resource or capital allocation and managerial operations. a parallel academic division is responsible for all aspects of teaching and instruction, conducted in a decentralized work structure of faculty work, student affairs, and a unit for public affairs, university communications, or community engagement. these work areas, and therefore the loose coupling of these structures operate parallel to each other yet are interdependent, i.e., they are connected by the mission and goals of the organization. integral to the success of these connections across work are structures and processes associated with embedding innovation into the culture of the organization as a starting point for the institutionalization of change. organizational structures for anchor work complex institutional and environmental factors, community interaction, and a unique form of change evolves from anchor work. to implement and sustain anchor mission work, institutions need to recognize how varying elements of structure link to deliberate and intentional processes to bring communities and the higher education organization together. sustaining change innovation requires understanding the relationship between the organizational factors that distinguish it from other institutional initiatives. as more institutions implement anchor work (and try to normalize them), it is essential to understand the organizational contexts that influence its sustainability and “the institutional factors that affect decision-making at every level and every stage of operations (glemon et al., 2001, p. 107). furco (1999), furco et al (2009) and glemon et al. (2001) point out that the convergence of complex processes that define, and are integral to, the institutional structure strongly influence those initiatives. self-assessment tools for the institutionalization of service learning or community engagement serve as evidence and further validate the importance of structure (furco, 1999; holland, 1997, 2009; gelmon, seifer, kauper-brown, mikkelsen, 2005). in large part, these self-assessment tools indicate that some degree of a coordinating entity (e.g., center, office, committee, clearinghouse, faculty percentage of time) must exist. however, they do not mention elements of shared responsibility, collaboration or partnership with other units or leaders on campus and typically focus on supporting pedagogic practices (i.e., service-learning). gelmon et al.’s (2005) self-assessment tool notes that community engagement must connect to other structures, constituents, and policy-making entities (e.g., board of trustees, faculty senate.) furthermore, institutional commitment requires both words and strategic actions, i.e., merely mentioning how community engagement is a core value or part of the mission for the campus is not enough. by emphasizing a centralized unit (e.g., center, office) we can appreciate that structure, in terms of having it and thinking about ‘where’ it is located, is a key factor in normalizing innovative change in higher education institutions. for example, the centralized unit could have “affiliations of infrastructure with academic affairs, student affairs, residence life, development, and the president’s office, sometimes jointly affiliated” (holland, 2009, p. 90). in some cases, a seniorlevel position, such as vice president or vice provost occurs, but it is more common to create a position for a director who focuses on engagement activities (holland, 2009). holland notes 55 how scope can range widely across campus contexts and perhaps that this is influenced by the degree to which the institution already has a decentralized or centralized model for supporting community engagement (supporting service-learning, coordinating campus-community partnerships, engaging students in co-curricular programs of volunteering, etc.). while gelmon et al. (2005) do not speak to organizational structure specifically, they do state that “community engagement is named as a high profile effort on campus along with other efforts such as: recruiting and retaining minority students, improving teaching effectiveness, establishing community partnerships, conducting community-based research, fostering interdisciplinary collaboration, etc.” (p. 4). giving credence to the role community engagement could and should have in relation to a campus’s strategic plan or goals is useful, but does not illustrate the scope of responsibilities, the necessary partnerships, how the leader is positioned (political, networking, or convening power), or how the work is structured to support the goals of the institution. environment, structure, and institutionalizing anchor work this section provides perspectives of institutionalization that disrupts higher education towards a more democratic purpose (i.e., accessible, equitable, just, fair, engaged, deliberative, etc.) through anchor work. institutionalization of initiatives requires certain personalized factors to operate in the internal environment and be valued not for what is produced, but for the values that those operations represent to the institution. these personalized factors and values provide clarity about organizational identity and purpose. they mean, in organic terms, that organizations “are open to their environment and must achieve an appropriate relation with that environment if they are to survive” (morgan, 1997). the external environment or community context must inform the structural-functional perspective of higher education organizations. scholars define institutionalization in the literature in different but complementary ways. the describe institutionalization using two distinctive elements. one focuses on rule-like, organized patterns of action and behavior. the other embeds action permanently in the institution without tying that action to specific individuals (zucker, 1977). for the purposes of this essay, we will focus on changes in organizational design that support and enable innovation and change, thereby influencing policies and procedures that move special projects to a standardized and routine process. institutionalization, in this conceptualization, is the process that links the structural characteristics of the organization to the shared meanings and values that the organizational culture internalizes (perrow, 1986; prentice, 2002; selznick, 1948; tolbert & zucker, 1983). institutionalization is contingent, then, on the fit or conformity between the layers within the larger context and external environment (i.e. place-based community) in which the organization operates. the study of institutionalization therefore raises questions. how can the organization can coordinate its behaviors to facilitate the adoption of new characteristics? how can the organization promote new activities (jelinek, 1979) to become part of the routine work environment? how can the organization adopt rule-like paradigms of behavior (zucker, 1987) without being tied to specific individuals or situations? kanter (1983) notes that institutionalization is a process that cannot occur in isolated places within an organization. it must touch other parts of the organization and involve the participation of others if it is to gain permanence. certain integrative actions assist with institutionalization, “weaving the innovation or change initiative into the fabric of the organization’s expected 56 operations” (kanter, 1983, p. 300). a similar definition is that institutionalization is change that has reached the point of losing its “special project” status, and it has become “part of the routinized behavior of the institutional system” (curry, 1992, pp. 9-10). we can think of institutionalization as a point in the process when certain behaviors are expected and assumed in order to achieve desired outcomes across the layers through which the organization operates. we must also remind the reader that cultural influences dominate each level of the organization and therefore processes (curry, 1992; schein, 1992; tierney, 1988). here we may distinguish institutionalization from change, a distinction that is critical, despite their very close relationship. where change is difference or newness, institutionalization is making change last and helping it gain a sense of legitimacy, value, and permanence in an organization. whether or not change is lasting depends on two factors: the process by which the change itself proceeds, and the leadership to gather support for managing the change process over time. this essay focuses on the structures by which the change itself proceeds and how it is therefore organized or structured within higher education institutions. to facilitate institutionalization, it is essential that the relevance of ‘the change’ be identified and supported as it relates to areas such as institutional mission, organizational readiness or adaptivity, constituents’ capacities, and access or allocation of other important capital and resources (kezar, 2002a; curry, 1992; fullan, 1991; kanter, 1983; kimberly, 1979). thus, the organization’s purpose, its readiness for change in terms of attitudes and motivation, the ability of its members to understand and absorb the value of change, and the fiscal structures that provide access to resources to support new initiatives are essential elements for sustained change. change initiatives should not be attempted in isolation but, as kanter and curry contend, should focus on creating the ability to identify and develop internal forces and support systems that connect to the process itself. internal forces that drive change and innovation come from both vertical and horizontal linkages. according to dill and sporn (1995), higher education organizations require structures that nurture innovation, adaptability, and cohesion in order to respond to change. here we are talking about vertical as opposed to horizontal coordination, and the way these design elements can prevent or facilitate implementation of an innovation (kanter, 1983). for example, “horizontal linkages [have the ability to] break through structural barriers, collapse psychological distance, and cut through competition among diverse institutional units” (chickering, 1999, p. 40), promoting incentives for participation and support for change. successful institutionalization, however, must also require sufficient vertical linkages that intersect with the lateral structures of the organization for new ideas to be accepted, new policies and practices to be tested, and new behaviors to be learned (chickering, 1999). if vertical and horizontal linkages are not intentionally thought about, attempts at change will not always be successful. some campus initiatives remain in a state of limbo without becoming integral to the design, structure(s), and routine assumptions of the organization. they eventually dissipate or disappear. a successfully institutionalized innovation or disruption depends on certain organizational characteristics that influence the shape of change, and how it becomes permanent in the organization (curry, 1991, 1992). in the rest of this essay, we will first explore anchor work, an innovation that seeks to change and shape an organization such as higher 57 education, and offer an example from college athletics to illustrate how to think about the vertical design or structural elements necessary to vertically organize higher education institutions. metaphorically speaking…how collegiate athletics can inform the vertical structure for institutionalizing anchor work the following metaphor is useful for further illustrating what we see as a challenge when institutionalizing anchor work. we hope this metaphor is useful for campuses as they reflect and engage others in a dialogue about how to implement and sustain anchor work. college athletic programs are commonplace, regardless of actual expense to the university, and for good reasons. first, schools can leverage athletics to recruit students. moreover, hiring coaches capable of nurturing the growth and development of their student athletes is paramount to recruitment efforts and success of the program. second, athletics contributes to a vibrant campus culture, which fosters a sense of pride, belonging, and loyalty that is unique and engages multiple stakeholders, including the local community. third, if done well, athletics can generate revenue through sponsorships, donations (aka, boostering), and of course (sporting) event attendance (see table 1). given these similarities, we see value in looking at the organizational structure of athletic programs. table 1. metaphor collegiate athletics anchor work attract students who want to participate in athletics while gaining an education attract students who want meaningful, applied learning experiences as part of their education hire coaches who can develop student athletes as players and students hire faculty who develop students as professionals within their chosen field and their civic-mindedness create a sense of belonging and commitment to the local community; foster pride, and loyalty to the institution create partnerships within the community; make commitments to the community; foster pride and appreciation for the campus generate revenue and encourage participation in campus events generate funding to support research, outreach, and engagement; encourage reciprocal partnerships while the majority of scholars and practitioners involved in anchor work do not normally think in this way, the overlap is undeniable. for example, much like athletics, rich and meaningful anchor work can attract students seeking meaningful learning opportunities. similar to athletics, which relies heavily upon the leadership and expertise of coaches, we look to our engaged faculty and staff. likewise, a campus culture that supports anchor work holds great potential to develop a sense of pride and appreciation amongst faculty, staff, and students, but more importantly, amongst members of the community. in addition, if campuses are able to capture the fruits of anchor work, then their policies, courses, research, and initiatives will connect to 58 issues in the community and to student learning and success, telling a robust story of engagement. we believe anchor institution work and community engagement holds great potential to diversify funding beyond internal grants and external contracts and contribute to our communities in meaningful and lasting ways. to illustrate, we offer a few examples. if athletics gives the community an aggregated identity and has uniforms, awards, parades, etc., can the anchor institution create that same kind of bonding and allegiance because of the economic development work it does for local businesses? can it garnish capital, through qualified investment vehicles, from alumni who want to support and invest in employee-owned businesses or permanent affordable housing to protect community members from displacement? similar to setting goals for a winning record or number of athletes with academic achievements, can an anchor institution set equally powerful goals with the community, such as decreasing poverty by a percentage or increasing participation in healthcare hmos or census reporting? in general, how can fulling the public mission to this extent create a positive feedback loop that translates into quality of life of local residents and strengthen its place in civic partnerships across the state? implications and considerations using the metaphor so, if we understand community engagement and our anchor work to include a broad scope of activities, how does that influence infrastructure, organizational structure, and our strategy? specifically, how we allocate work (differentiation), coordinate roles and responsibilities (integration), and create and implement a comprehensive vertical strategy for success? we think that examining the various aspects generally included in ‘nationally recognized athletics program’ offers an opportunity to reflect, and ultimately, consider the organizational structure(s) necessary to achieve and normalize our anchor missions and sustain the work of community engagement. table 2 identifies roles within athletics and the type of activities or tasks associated with the role. as the metaphor implies, the table includes a similar scope of work or responsibilities for staff/faculty involved in anchor work. it is worth noting that we are not implying the current centers or offices that support community engagement should hire more staff and resources that equate to the positions or seek to amass resources that it takes to run athletic programs. instead, consider the scope of responsibility and subsequent tasks. we suspect campuses will need to consider relationship-building, informal organizational structures, and aspects of distributed leadership (liang & sandmann, 2015) through other entities or people who have similar goals. 59 table 2. infrastructure and organizational structure metaphor with athletics job title, position, or activity tasks associated with athletics tasks associated with community engagement/anchor institution initiatives awards & recognitions recognize players and coaches who exceed expectations (e.g., community service awards, academic achievements). recognize faculty, staff, and students who meet or exceed expectations. community partner awards and recognitions. neighborhood awards and grants. advocate for internal systems, processes, and guidelines that align with best practices (e.g., promotion and tenure policies, annual reporting guidelines that call attention to and acknowledge engagement, irb protocol). communications, public relations, & government relations tell stories of impact to a variety of stakeholders and enhance campus image. advocate for policies and regulations impacting players, coaches, the league, and the sport. disseminate findings that tell a story of impact and how faculty, staff, and students are working to address community issues. leverage faculty expertise for expert testimony; influence public policy. work with legislators on issues effecting higher education and our communities. compliance officer (e.g., title ix policies, equity, diversity, inclusion, legal issues) ensure equitable access and participation. foster interaction with diverse others. investigate allegations between stakeholders (e.g., between students and coaches) examine community engaged activities to ensure equitable access and participation. ensure community engagement is strategically connected to diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives (e.g., pipeline programs, recruit underrepresented students and faculty). advocate for democratic engagement and manage town-gown relationships. events management manage logistics associated with events (e.g., parking, tickets, rsvps, navigating campus, signage, etc.). manage logistics of campus-community partnership activities (e.g., parking, public meeting spaces, policies, directions, invitations, marketing). 60 job title, position, or activity tasks associated with athletics tasks associated with community engagement/anchor institution initiatives development active participant in fiscal matters; offer direct support or supplementary information that enhances the financial sustainability of the campus (e.g., sales, sponsorships, purchasing, fundraising, donations, etc.) demonstrate and support how anchor institution initiatives can be instrumental in the financial sustainability of the campus and the community (e.g., impact of grants and contracts, capital campaigns, fundraising, etc.). create alternative strategies for addressing talent gaps (e.g., offer corporate training/technical assistance, entrepreneurship, credentialing programs, etc.) advocate for institutional commitments related to the community (e.g., live/hire/buy initiatives, local purchasing policies, real estate acquisitions, etc.). track, monitor, and assess progress monitor student eligibility, enrollment, and scholarship requirements; track student progress toward degree. respond to requests for information (e.g., student conduct, mid-semester grade reports, alumni, compliance). document and submit information for ncaa standards (e.g., recruitment policies, evidence). evaluate satisfaction and success. monitor community engaged activities and document how students, faculty, and staff are addressing issues in the community. respond to requests for information (e.g., student participation in service-learning, hours, engagement by county, service on community boards, etc.) submit information for awards and accreditation. set goals, define success; evaluate programs and initiatives and assess progress toward goals. facilities, tours manage on-campus spaces, access, and safety (e.g., lighting, security, building maintenance, environmental sustainability). manage or support others responsible for on-campus and off-campus educational spaces (e.g., clinics, service-learning sites). advocate for a welcoming and inviting campus for the community (e.g., museums, theatres, athletic events); campus visits or delegations from other countries, campuses, high school visits. 61 job title, position, or activity tasks associated with athletics tasks associated with community engagement/anchor institution initiatives training & risk management training and professional development for staff, administrators, coaches, and students (e.g., work environment issues, harassment, student rights and responsibilities). ensure policies and procedures are in place to protect others (e.g., background checks, equipment safety, and security). oversee the implementation of policies and procedures (e.g., programs involving children, background checks, transportation, etc.). faculty development programs that support community engaged scholarship and practice prepare students for engagement with the community. student development & success works directly with students related to academic success (e.g., registration, good academic standing, progress toward degree, mentoring, tutoring, access to support services, leadership). develop, implement, or support programs that support student success through community engagement (e.g., servicebased scholarship, community work study, co-curricular engagement opportunities, networking, civic learning). leadership table 2 included a wide range of roles, responsibilities, and tasks to assist campuses as they consider how work is allocated and roles and responsibilities are coordinated if the campus is to fully embrace their role as an anchor institutions. however, leadership is worthy of additional consideration. both athletics and community engagement are increasing their respective leadership appointments at the vice president/chancellor level, with direct reporting lines to the president/chancellor. for athletics, we may observe oregon state university, university of louisville, or university of arizona. for community engagement, indiana university-purdue university at indianapolis, duquesne university, university of pittsburgh, virginia commonwealth university, university of north carolina-greensboro, or university of minnesota, are splendid examples. we also note that additional research is needed to explore these positions: job description, staff support, budget, responsibilities, deliverables, etc. this trend toward executive-level leadership, who have a large portfolio of responsibilities as it relates to anchor work, shows how the strategies to enact a vision of this magnitude is fundamentally connected to priorities, initiatives, and decisions across the vertical structure of higher education and its many other initiatives. these others include diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives, student success, recruitment and enrollment strategies, academic affairs, institutional priorities, sustainability, and more. to tie this back into the metaphor do you hire a leader who is responsible for creating a vision and implementing a strategy (e.g., vice president for athletics/engagement) or someone who has expertise in a predominant area (e.g., basketball or football coach/faculty development)? this becomes even more challenging if you expect them 62 to work with other units and with people on and office campus (e.g., compliance officer, legislators, recruitment and enrollment).we are suggesting campuses consider what constitutes anchor work taking a broader appreciation for all that is possible and necessary. then, identify an executive-level leader who understands all aspects of this work and has positional power (e.g., convene, work across academic, administrative, and community silos, political capital, legitimacy in the academy and community). challenges with the metaphor the challenge, which any leader will face, is creating a vision for why this work is worth the investments, like we invest in athletics, and is able to deliver evidence of success. in the case of athletics, metrics exist and are relatively easy to capture. for example, overall record, rankings within the conference, number of student athletes exceeding academically, hours of service in the community, etc. metrics are useful for creating and articulating a vision for the work, not to mention measure progress or success. within community engagement, the metrics are limited to student learning (e.g., number of service-learning courses, number of service hours, number of community partners). moreover, even those merely indicate what we are measuring, not quality or what success would look like. the work around anchor institution mission has developed the “anchor dashboard metrics,” which is helpful for campuses trying to figure out what to begin tracking and monitoring (sladek, 2017). the field of community engagement is also building capacity to identify metrics and indicators of success, particularly those that are useful for influencing policies, programs, and practices. we could learn a few things from athletics by setting measurable goals and aligning performance appraisals (i.e., promotion and tenure guidelines) (norris & weiss, in press). the other challenge with this metaphor is that some might assume the goal is to generate additional revenue. after all, many athletic programs are famous for their financial role in higher education, including the privileges that sports teams have received in the way of resources and real estate. we acknowledge this as a limitation or potential for misinterpretation and therefore worthy of clarification. in relation to anchor work, campuses run the risk of privileging certain types over others (e.g., community-engaged research, volunteering, anchor housing, or business centers). however, there are financial considerations for anchor work and most campuses perceive these as ‘costs of doing business’ (e.g., marketing, public relations, sponsorship, etc.) just like we acknowledge that not all sports generate enough revenue to cover costs. while it is difficult to account accurately for the income and costs associated with anchor work, we acknowledge that telling a story of the campus’s anchor work is worth leveraging for development purposes. if campuses embrace their anchor mission and hire an executive-level position to lead this work, some aspects of fundraising will inevitably fall within their scope of responsibilities. moreover, while sports have provided access to college for black and brown students, what has been the cost of the university doing business like that? how could the university’s support of the anchor mission influence athletics to create more equitable and inclusive systems? how could universities continue to leverage sports to create a place-based identity that is excited about the value of education and not just athletics? one of the authors of this article is a former college athlete and can testify that not all athletic programs prioritize the sport over an education. in fact, 63 the majority do not. however, one limitation of this metaphor is that it may create a negative perception of anchor work, depending on one’s background and experiences with athletics. we see value in the metaphor and recognize that not all college athletic programs are the same and anchor work varies by institution and context as well. conclusion the institutionalization of community engagement has historically focused on infrastructure, which cannot be dismissed, and in fact, should be recognized for the important role it has played in the history of this work—the dedication of time, edifices, places, people, policies, practices, dollars—visually, rhetorically, and literally. having a designated place, center, or person has given our campus constituents and community members somewhere to go, someone to answer questions, and literally support the work. while we have made it a priority across our engaged campuses, we still know very little about various aspects of operationalizing the infrastructure for community engagement (see welch & saltmarsh, 2013), or how it relates to the intended outcomes or ‘impact’ of this work. further research is needed, therefore, to better appreciate the role of structure (both vertical and horizontal) as it relates to students’ civic learning and democratic engagement; faculty’s engaged scholarship; the economic or developmental impacts in our community; and so much more. our ability to illustrate the depth and breadth of activities associated with anchor work and how structure should follow strategy through the metaphor of athletics is limited. however, its ability to articulate the vertical factors associated with organizational structure give us much to consider. again, the historical focus on creating a single, central or centralized place or space indicates by itself that our leaders and units are relatively insular and inner-focused. institutions of higher education must accept the challenge to take a step back, expand our sights, or more correctly, bring more into our purview, which thereby necessitates greater alignment and higher vertical structures partnered with strong leadership. the anchor institution initiative, consequently, opens our work, our leaders, our constituents, our resources, and our operationalization of this work into areas of risk, threats, and opportunities that were not (necessarily) there before, or at least did not lie within the purview of community engagement. moving forward, we are curious and cautiously attentive to how forces of change, both internal (e.g., new leadership, innovative ideas, new initiatives) and external (i.e., accountability, competition, globalization, technology, and legislation), affect infrastructure, structure, and the 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(2013). current practice and infrastructure for campus centers of community engagement. journal of higher education outreach and engagement, 17 (4), 25-56. retrieved from http://openjournals.libs.uga.edu/index.php/jheoe/article/view/1090 https://doi.org/10.2307/2086752 https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.1988.11778301 https://doi.org/10.2307/2392383 https://doi.org/10.2307/2094862 https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.so.13.080187.002303 68 author information *kristin norris, ph.d. iupui director of assessment, office of community engagement university hall, 4008r 301 university blvd. indianapolis, in 46202 317-278-0013 norriske@iupui.edu kristin norris earned her bachelors of science from purdue university and masters of science from indiana university in hospitality & tourism management and her ph.d. in higher education administration from the iu school of education at indiana university. she is an editorial fellow for the metropolitan universities journal and vice chair of iupui’s program review and assessment committee. h. anne weiss, phd candidate with indiana university director of assessment, indiana campus compact assistant director of assessment, iupui office of community engagement 1226 west michigan street, br 026 indianapolis, indiana 46202 317-274-5512/ 317-274-6500 www.indianacampuscompact.org anne has over five years of experience, both inside and outside the classroom, in designing civic engagement initiatives. anne’s experiences have included responsibility for planning local and national conferences, copy editing for the journal of civic literacy, data collection and analysis, bibliographic research, staff recruitment and on-boarding, marketing and communications. anne has published a handful of articles regarding how students display their civic learning. *corresponding article mailto:norriske@iupui.edu http://www.indianacampuscompact.org/ introduction overview of organizational structures in higher education organizational structures for anchor work environment, structure, and institutionalizing anchor work metaphorically speaking…how collegiate athletics can inform the vertical structure for institutionalizing anchor work implications and considerations using the metaphor leadership challenges with the metaphor *kristin norris, ph.d. microsoft word wim wiewel 23554 38374 new format_lcedits (002)-final.docx   invited commentary    © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23554 | december 6, 2019   55  sustaining liberal arts colleges through community  partnerships and the co‐production of knowledge  wim wiewel1 and jerusha detweiler‐bedell2    1 office of the president, lewis & clark college, 2 department of psychology, lewis & clark college    cite as: wiewel, w., & detweiler‐bedell, j. (2019). sustaining liberal arts colleges through community partnerships  and the co‐production of knowledge. metropolitan universities, 30(4), 20‐39. doi: 10.18060/23554    this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license.    editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d.  abstract  there was a time when universities located in cities set themselves apart from urban life, even,  in some cases, building walls that isolated their campuses. as the cold war and space race  accelerated the demand for academic expertise, government funding for basic and applied  research became a mainstay of higher education. with the end of the cold war, many  institutions turned to a greater concern by addressing domestic societal needs. as state funding  began its steady and continuing decline, urban universities developed programs to demonstrate  the value they add to cities and metropolitan regions, and public‐private partnerships took  root. today, liberal arts colleges are being challenged to demonstrate their relevance and value.  their future is, in part, predicated on their success in building stronger, more strategic, and  mutually beneficial relationships beyond their campuses, specifically by collaborating with and  adding value to the cities and metropolitan areas in which they are located. a movement that  started in public universities should now be adopted more widely by liberal arts colleges.  keywords: community relations, community engagement, curricular innovation    leveraging what we do well to sustain our future  most colleges and universities have long been engaged with their home city in various ways. lewis & clark, a private institution in portland’s southwest hills, six miles from the city center, is no different. we enroll 3,300 students across our undergraduate college, graduate school of education and counseling, and law school. both our graduate school and law school have longestablished, curriculum-based programs, practica, and clinics. these provide essential services to schools, individuals, families, businesses, entrepreneurs, and nonprofits, with a particular focus on underserved populations in the portland area. however, this is newer ground for our © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23554 | december 6, 2019   56  undergraduate college of arts and sciences, which is why we are taking steps to better structure the ways we engage beyond our campus. propelled by our strategic plan, “exploring for the global good,” we are now working to build more coherent, curriculum-based community partnerships that focus on the co-production of knowledge. this objective advances our mission while creating added value for our students, our college, and the city we call home. in undertaking this initiative, we are gleaning lessons from the evolution of higher education in the united states, the experience of large public universities, and our own history as a private college with deep public roots and relationships. we believe this to be a sustainable model from which other liberal arts colleges can learn and replicate as they prepare for an always uncertain, but eagerly anticipated, future. how we got here: higher education in brief  “in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, higher education leaders believed that the purpose of college education, first and foremost, was to build character in young people—and that one could not build character in a city” (diner, 2017). for young and highly impressionable minds, the assumption was that the city’s distractions were too many and too enticing. this put urban colleges and universities at a competitive disadvantage, and many “commuter schools” responded by establishing learning collaborations with municipalities, museums, and local institutions. the public view of higher education as the key to individual, family, and societal prosperity took hold as the gi bill opened access to new and larger segments of the population. coinciding with the rise of the cold war and the race between the united states and the soviet union to establish primacy in space, this shift also underscored the emerging importance of higher education to the nation’s economy, security, and sense of well-being. but growth was segmented, and continued to exclude large numbers of minority and low-income students. it also failed to expand opportunities for women. the great social movements of the 1960s and 1970s for civil rights and equal rights made university enrollments more diverse and somewhat more representative of their communities. two forces converged as the cold war ended, a decrease in federal research funding accompanied by intense public scrutiny: higher education came under increasing criticism for everything from rapidly rising tuition to the poor quality of undergraduate education and ‘dumbing down’ of curricula. in search of a new niche and mission, many institutions turned to a greater concern with addressing domestic societal needs in health, education, governance, economic development, and community revitalization. (wiewel, gaffikin & morrissey, 2000) by virtue of their location and mission, urban public research universities were, and are, well positioned to develop partnerships and alliances that demonstrate the value they bring to cities. they have access to people, expertise, and capital that can result in transformative change within © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23554 | december 6, 2019   57  specific communities, as well as their city and region. but experience tells us that this will happen only when all parties involved are focused on building a true partnership rather than accruing power, and on making progress based on shared interests rather than hidden agendas. lewis & clark: the public side of a private college  at lewis & clark, public participation made our beginnings possible as a private college. established in albany, oregon, in 1867 by the presbyterian church, the fledgling college took wing when the citizens of the town stepped up to fill a funding gap that threatened to delay or derail construction. similarly, when the college moved to portland and sought a permanent campus in 1942, aaron frank, a prominent business leader, philanthropist, and staunch advocate of education, initiated a last-minute gift that made the 63-acre frank family estate the college’s new home. under the leadership of then-president morgan odell, who cultivated strategic relationships with civic and business leaders and who promoted four semesters of supervised service in the community as a requirement for graduation, the school established itself as being very much in and of its place, such that it became widely known as “portland’s college.” during the 1980s and 1990s, lewis & clark’s engagement with the city waned as it began to refashion itself as a classic liberal arts college dedicated to rigorous scholarship and the pursuit of knowledge both for its own sake and in service to others. this occurred simultaneously with the rise of portland state university (psu) as a premier public research institution “internationally known for its whole-university approach to community-university engagement” (wiewel, kecskes & martin, 2011). indeed, psu’s location has long been a catalyst for the mission it spells out in bold letters on the side of a pedestrian bridge on its downtown campus: let knowledge serve the city. at lewis & clark, our official motto, in latin, has less public visibility but is equally expressive of what we do, and also offers a construct for organizing our renewed commitment to engaging our city and community through our curriculum: explorare, discere, sociare.   curriculum‐based community engagement at lewis & clark    explorare    the goal of reconnecting with and becoming more visible in portland, in part through volunteer, clinical, and internship opportunities in the community, is a central component of our strategic plan, “exploring for the global good.” curriculum-based community engagement in portland helps fulfill the explorare part of our motto, which translates to “explore; search out; test; try out; investigate” (https://www.online-latin-dictionary.com/). our proximity to downtown portland allows faculty to invite guest speakers and guest artists to their classrooms, to embed opportunities to attend performances, museums, and art galleries into student coursework, and to visit organizations and sites in the region. classes such as psychology internship allow for © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23554 | december 6, 2019   58  explorations of social service-oriented and/or laboratory-based occupations. in this course, students spend 10 hours each week at their off-campus internship sites in addition to regular weekly classes with the professor. all course material is applied one way or another to the students’ internship experiences, covering issues ranging from professional ethics to burnout. through course-based internship experiences, our students are able to try out the fit between their own burgeoning academic expertise and the professional experiences they are able to explore off-campus. discere  opportunities for students to investigate off-campus connections as a part of their formal coursework leads to unique learning outcomes, as implied by the second part of our motto, discere, which means to “learn; become acquainted with; acquire knowledge of” (https://www.online-latin-dictionary.com/). our students acquire knowledge about the content and methods of the specific disciplines they choose to study as well as about the location in which we are situated. our strategic plan endorses the important role of courses with “a local, place-based component, allowing our students to examine and consider how the theoretical or global issues they study in class play out in portland” (“exploring for the global good,” 2018). for example, in our historical materials courses, students visit the oregon historical society, take a historical walking tour of portland, and complete a project called “world war ii in the portland landscape.” in a course named “from stumptown to portlandia,” students learn about the history of portland, starting with industrialization in the 1890s and ending with gentrification in the 1990s. and in one of our public policy courses, students examine the policies the city of portland has tried over time, evaluate the effectiveness of these policies, and develop innovative policy solutions for the future.   sociare  creating a curriculum that invites students to explore, explorare, and learn, discere, within and about the city we live in is necessary but not sufficient in achieving the goal of creating a campus culture that builds true partnerships with the broader portland community. the final, yet arguably most essential, component of our motto is sociare, which means to “unite; join; ally; share in” (https://www.online-latin-dictionary.com/). central to the success of any place-based curricular experience is a focus on a series of pragmatic, mutually beneficial projects. further, these projects need to be designed to unite a community partner and the institution in order to establish relationships and build trust. indeed, our strategic plan prioritizes the development of “external partnerships that support diversity, equity, and inclusion… [and] cultivate active, reciprocal engagement between lewis & clark and the external community and alumni.” as discussed in a recent president-to-president column (wiewel 2019), the goal of co-producing knowledge requires a mutually beneficial relationship that is built over time. in this context, learning is a shared endeavor that comes from working together and assessing the impact of the collaborations. the campus community must support these efforts, and the institution, as a whole, must work to enhance the visibility and success of these relationships. this level of curricular campus-community engagement sets a high bar, but is nonetheless achievable. for example, in associate professor mitch reyes’ rhetoric course, students explore © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23554 | december 6, 2019   59  and apply principles of argumentation and social justice in a community-based mentoring program run in collaboration with portland public schools. our undergraduate students learn theoretical and methodological frameworks for understanding the role of argumentation in fostering social justice, which they explore through readings, discussion, and writing assignments. additionally, twice a week students spend time at an underserved high school in east portland, mentoring high school students and helping them to use rhetoric and argumentation to advocate for themselves in college application essays. this means students are exploring, learning, and working together with members of the community in a tangible way that benefits both the undergraduate students and their community partners. to explore, learn, and unite: keys to success  taken together, our motto reminds us to explore and learn while working together with the local community, and in order to do so effectively, we have identified six characteristics essential to our success in building stronger, more strategic, and mutually beneficial relationships beyond our campus (wiewel 2019): 1. focus on making the partnerships synergistic. successful partnerships become mutually beneficial by simultaneously advancing the learning of the students, the intellectual lives of the faculty, and the needs of the community group. one example of this is “theatre from the insideout: illuminating mass incarceration,” a joint project between our history and theatre departments and a local minimum-security facility. associate professor of history, reiko hillyer, teaches a course on crime and punishment to 15 lewis & clark undergraduates and 15 incarcerated individuals. the course covers the history of imprisonment and brings out the creativity of those who experience it every day. associate professor rebecca lingafelter also teaches several sections and organizes the writing and performance of a theatre piece by all students in the class. 2. recognize that community partnerships take time to build. establishing trust is essential, and this requires us to reorient our focus early on, from achieving desired goals to identifying shared values (wiewel & lieber, 1998). time spent on the process of relationship-building will greatly increase the likelihood of beneficial outcomes. recognizing the importance of building trust, and the time commitment involved, our student leadership office maintains close relationships with a small number of community organizations for which our students can do volunteer work. this provides the organizations with a reliable, consistent source of volunteers, and reduces the time required to constantly develop new opportunities. it also makes transportation to the volunteer sites much more efficient. 3. work together to determine needs. with a foundation of trust and shared values, it is much easier to collaborate. importantly, community partners have as much to offer to the institution as the institution has to offer to the partners. the goal is for everyone involved to identify their unique skills, their specific needs, and the opportunities for growth that can come from the relationship. 4. create strong support structures within the institution for the partnerships. this requires giving strategic importance to the co-production of knowledge, rewarding faculty who engage in this © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23554 | december 6, 2019   60  work, and giving tangible support through the investment of time at an institutional level (e.g., establish an office of community partnerships to maximize the internal visibility of community partnerships). at lewis & clark, rather than creating a new office with the accompanying financial needs, we created the portland connections council, which brings together many of the individuals engaged in work with the portland community (from academic, student life, and administrative units) in order to offer mutual support, share experiences, and coordinate activities. representatives from the graduate and law schools, in addition to the undergraduate college, attend the council. this provides opportunities for internal collaboration across the three schools as well as a chance to build on one another’s pre-existing local connections. the council meets once per semester, and creates a communication mechanism all year round. 5. assess the impact of the partnership and report progress. on the surface, assessment seems to run counter to relationship building, but measuring progress and being transparent about the results is central to the success of any community partnership. when the outcomes are not as robust as hoped, treat this as an opportunity for further learning and growth rather than as an indication that the relationship needs to be abandoned. 6. prepare for the long-term investment of the institution’s strategic, financial, and programmatic resources. community engagement should not depend solely on a particular faculty member’s interests or time-limited external funds. instead, partnerships should be built into the institution’s curriculum and given budgetary support. as an example, our institution now has a new course designation connect-portland, which is assigned to undergraduate classes that highlight the experiential, experimental, and/or inquiry-based learning derived from our location in the pacific northwest.   making the future our own  connect-portland courses and the community partnerships that evolve from them have the potential to further nourish the local and global citizenship values that our students embrace, especially social consciousness and making a positive impact in the world. curriculum-based civic engagement programs also have the capacity to strengthen our initiatives for recruiting and retaining top-level students, faculty, and administrators. what’s true for lewis & clark is also true for many of our peers: strategic enrollment management is the bridge to our future, and community partnerships are key supports in this bridge as they create options for students to pursue their social justice interests while also acquiring real-world skills. what’s also true for us is that we are still in the early stages of refining and implementing a more structured and robust program of community engagement within our undergraduate college. we offer the following takeaways, not as caveats, but as guideposts:  in higher education today, nimble must be our new normal. private liberal arts colleges have a degree of administrative flexibility that is often unavailable to large public universities. we must leverage this advantage.  the times, not to mention current and prospective students and their families, demand that we be ever mindful of return on investment and other measurable outcomes, but © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23554 | december 6, 2019   61  adapting to rapidly evolving demands does not require abandoning our core values and key strengths. it means building on them.  we must link community engagement to the academic experiences and development of our students in ways that build world-ready skills, add value to their degrees, and advance professional success.  emphasizing the co-production of knowledge navigates the space between those who advocate pursuing knowledge for its own sake and those who champion experiential learning, or transforming knowledge into practical action.  community engagement is always dynamic. key players move on, power shifts, and demographics change, so the structure and process must remain stable and constant. urban public universities have long demonstrated the value of community engagement. the model we describe here is one from which liberal arts colleges can learn and replicate. by focusing on who we are, where we are, what we do well and can do even better, we can best educate our students and collaborate with our home cities and towns. acknowledgements  the authors thank joe becker and jim enright of lewis & clark’s office of public affairs and communications for their assistance. © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23554 | december 6, 2019   62  references                                                               diner, s.j. 2017. “how universities migrated into cities and democratized higher education.”  https://www.whatitmeanstobeamerican.org/ideas/how-universities-migrated-into-cities-anddemocratized-higher-education/    wiewel, w. gaffikin, f. morrissey, m. 2000. “community-university partnerships for affordable housing.” cityscape: a journal of policy development and research. volume 5, number 1. 30-31.    wiewel, w. kecskes, k. martin, s. 2011. “portland state’s second (r)evolution: partnering to anchor the institution in sustainable communities. metropolitan universities: an international forum. volume 22, number 2. 8.   wiewel, w. lieber, m. 1998. “goal achievement, relationship building, and incrementalism: the challenges of university-community partnerships.” journal of planning education and research, 17:291-301.   wiewel, w. 2019. “your city is more than a place to call home.” https://president2president.com/library/2019-2020_ch3.  original research © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23237 | february 21, 2020 24 return for good: a model for impact investing for endowments adam schor1 1metropolitan state university of denver cite as: schor, a. (2020). return for good: a model for impact investing for endowments. metrpolitan universities, 31(1), 24-43. doi: 10.18060/23237 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract as the calls for responsible investing grow, universities will be asked about their endowments’ investment policies regarding impact investing, wherein endowments seek opportunities that provide investment returns and social impact. a common concern for the investment committees, however, is how to incorporate impact investments without compromising the goal of maximizing asset values and the benefit to its university. this paper offers a way forward. using standard portfolio optimization models and a broader way to consider return, this paper suggests that an endowment can still meet the goal of maximizing expected value while investing with a purpose. it also offers examples of how to incorporate impact investing opportunities throughout the traditional asset classes in an endowment’s portfolio. the paper also addresses some reasons why endowments have been hesitant to incorporate impact investments. while other papers have addressed aspects of impact investing, this paper seeks to offer an accessible and holistic approach to the topic. keywords: responsible investing, endowments, investment policy introduction the rising importance of responsible investing suggests that foundations and endowments are thinking beyond just what their portfolios can make; they are considering what their money can do. impact investing, the responsible investing offshoot where an endowment can direct its investment assets to areas with important social impact, is emerging as the next frontier in social awareness. it is a more active step than guidelines about environmental, societal, and governance (esg) issues or a socially responsible investing policy (sri). esg and sri policies often http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23237 | february 21, 2020 25 describe what not to do, whereas impact investing seeks investment opportunities. it goes beyond avoiding “doing bad” and tries to “do good.” endowments are, in many ways, advantageously positioned to incorporate impact investments relative to foundations and other institutions, such as public or private pension plans, yet the concept remains vexing to many university boards and their investment committees. this paper, therefore, offers a framework for endowments that wish to consider impact investing, including implementing a policy, assessing returns, and reconciling impact investing with the typical investment policy goal of maximizing risk-adjusted returns of an endowment. it also shows how to incorporate impact investing into many asset classes in the typical endowment portfolio. a great deal of literature addresses social awareness as part of an investment policy for an endowment or foundation, including an increasing focus on institutions as anchor institutions, where a university and other institutions do more to improve the communities they occupy (kebea, 2019). metropolitan universities journal, for example, dedicated its february 2018 issue to anchor institutions. impact investing is more broadly discussed for foundations, with much of the literature focused on the societal benefits with some discussion of risk and return factors. emerson (2018), for example, has written a great deal about “blended value,” which considers the social and financial results of an investment. epstein and yuthas (2014) discuss quantifying social impact, although with an emphasis on larger-scale projects, and much of the literature focuses on large-scale investment themes, such as global health, environmental issues, and economic development. aggarwala and frasch (2017) address the conflict in investor mandates by considering endowments as “one big impact investor” and incorporating a simplified modern portfolio theory approach. mission investors exchange (community foundation field guide to impact investing, 2013) and the institute for responsible investing (wood & hoff, 2008) for example discuss the benefit to fund raising from an impact investing framework and are among organizations that have published detailed guides about where endowments can allocate money. smith and smith (2016) have suggested the benefits of impact investing to the endowment and to the university. chowdhry et al. (2019) discusses how impact investing can blend with traditional investing to optimize outcomes, although, unlike this proposal, there is an implicit assumption that impact investors or “socially motivated” investors must sacrifice return. the issue may be definitional. some investors define impact investments as any investments with below-market expected returns but having targeted social benefits. as discussed later, this paper will not use this definition, however, and indeed finds it too narrow. this paper blends these concepts into a central idea to guide those considering impact investing. it takes a holistic and accessible approach to implementing impact investing, detailing the steps required, how to consider returns, how to incorporate portfolio analysis tools, and discusses investment opportunities across of range of asset classes. it focuses on endowments, which, unlike foundations, may not have a specific social mission. this paper contends that impact investments can be considered in a typical risk-return paradigm and that smaller organizations with narrower goals and leaner staffs can participate in impact investing. it addresses the difficulty of measuring returns, drawing on previous work but seeking more precision. while addressing reasons why few endowments have © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23237 | february 21, 2020 26 yet implemented impact investing, it also suggests that a university can do more; the paper proposes not only that a university endowment can incorporate impact investing and honor its investment policy mandate to grow its assets, but also that the university is advantageously positioned to do so to the benefit of its students and community. sri vs. esg vs. impact investing a university’s concern about where it invests is not new, yet the framework for responsible investing has only emerged in the last two decades. in the 1970s and 1980s, for example, a number of endowments debated or implemented anti-apartheid policies of divestment. yet the call to consider social outcomes clearly has grown louder in the last decade (höchstädter & scheck, 2015). under the umbrella of responsible investing, one can consider a spectrum of involvement from less to more active directives. esg, at the passive end of the continuum, has gained considerable momentum. the un principles of responsible investment, an organization launched in 2006 that offers guidelines for esg investors, has grown from 100 signatories to more than 2,200, representing more than $80 trillion of assets (principles for responsible investing, 2019). interestingly, the organization has no specific criteria for excluding an investment; a signatory only agrees to explicitly consider esg factors as part of its investment process. esg investing from the perspective of an endowment is an outsourcing of responsibility. institutions may require their own investment teams or their outside managers to incorporate esg guidelines, but the policies have no real say on what assets these managers purchase. to that extent, it is a passive approach. socially responsible investing represents a more active step. sri differs from esg in that an organization will typically provide a list of prohibited securities or a manager will operate with the idea of explicitly excluding certain type of stocks. an endowment’s prohibited names typically reflect the ethos of the university, such as banning firms involved with contraceptives, weapons manufacturing or, more recently, operating in carbon-based industries. as sri and esg directives often are combined, the use of sri guidelines is unquestionably rising as well (dawkins, 2018). although the factors under consideration could overlap, sri is not necessarily a subset of esg. an sri-focused investment policy could eliminate a company by the nature of its business while another endowment could find no fault. impact investing, or mission-based investing for foundations, goes further yet. the term impact investing itself is relatively new, dating only from 2007, and it still lacks a common definition (höchstädter & scheck, 2015). the commonfund, an organization meeting investment needs of endowments, defines impact investing as those with “the express goal of generating and measuring mission-related economic, social or environmental change alongside financial return” (foundations survey, 2016). it is key that impact investments seek financial returns and furthers the social goals of the organization, especially in the context of investment policies. these investments can span the portfolio, from cash with community-banks to housing loans for low© the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23237 | february 21, 2020 27 income residents to direct investments in impact funds to loans and equity stakes in small businesses. impact investments, also known as mission-based investments, are different than grants, which can have no financial return, or, more accurately, a negative 100% return. unlike esg or sri, impact investing is quite active; it is not an exclusion policy but an explicit policy of targeting certain investments. emerson writes that impact investing is the “intentional deployment of resources across the entire capital continuum wrapped around itself, transcending the dualism of doing good and doing well.” it must have an explicit goal of social benefit and financial returns (emerson, 2018). despite the growing popularity of esg, sri, and impact investing, foundations and especially endowments have been slow to incorporate these approaches. in the commonfund survey, only 25% of respondents have investment policy statements referring to one of these areas. for endowments, 21% of the respondents reported sri as part of their plans, making it the largest category for those with a policy. impact investing was by far the least popular, with only 3% of endowments reporting its use, although the scope of implementation and even how each respondent defines impact investing is unclear. impact investing acceptance was much higher among foundations, likely reflecting the mission-based nature of foundations (foundations survey, 2016). there should be no reason to expect a decline in the interest in esg, sri, or impact investing. much as the anti-apartheid investment controversy started with students a generation ago, it seems logical that students or other constituents will demand the same level of accountability of their endowments in terms of social impact. as acceptance grows, an endowment without an explicit policy on responsible investing will likely need it soon. impact investing will certainly be part of the demands. the trade journal pension and investments quoted matt onek, president and ceo of mission investors exchange, as saying “there is no foundation cio that isn't considering impact investing. all foundations are going to have to consider how to utilize impact investing in their portfolio" (bradford, 2018). one should assume his view would apply to endowments at some point as well. the investment case why endowments endowments in general have a differentiated position compared with public plans and with many foundations in terms of their ability to incorporate impact investing. unlike pension plans, endowments typically do not face long-term liability streams, other than modest distribution requirements, and are not subject to stringent regulations on liquidity or solvency. like foundations, endowments are ultra-long-horizon investors. yet endowments differ from many charitable foundations because endowments typically lack a broader social or charitable goal. a foundation can choose to wrap up its operations or change its focus at any point, but universities © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23237 | february 21, 2020 28 are typically large forces in their communities, through employment, their role in education and, often, their physical presences. finally, endowments bring together a range of academic and professional disciplines that can be harnessed and combined with the resources of its student body. for example, many schools have public security investment programs that include students managing endowment assets, and a smaller number have student-involved venture capital programs. the following sections suggest that many of these attributes make endowments advantageously positioned for effective impact investing. the portfolio fit socially-motivated investment guidelines have been criticized and avoided because of the concern that they will diminish returns and, therefore, violate fiduciary duties. the commonfund survey found 71% of respondents seeing returns from impact investing as a substantial or moderate impediment to implementation. additionally, 37% saw concerns about fiduciary duty as a substantial or moderate impediment (foundations survey, 2016). portfolio theory suggests that limiting an investment universe leads to sub-optimal risk-reward trade-offs, yet the observed impact of social policy on risk-adjusted returns is less clear in practice. while some studies have found drags on returns from esg and sri policies, an increasing number of studies suggest a benefit to returns (verheyden, t., eccles, r. g., & feiner, a. (2016). the counter-argument to the risk of limiting the investment universe is that the companies meeting certain social criteria are better firms and, over the long term, more likely to create value. that debate is beyond the point of this paper. suffice it to say that the issue of how esg guidelines impact investment returns is far from settled. the return implications of impact are more difficult to study; it is relatively new, and one cannot use publicly traded stocks to measure returns. in addition, institutions that use impact investing sleeves would not normally break out segment returns. the global impact investing network reported that among investment managers running funds that seek profitable returns, the majority earn market level returns. those willing to accept lower returns typically end up with belowmarket returns, unsurprisingly (annual impact investor survey, 2018). the implication is that returns for impact investment are not inherently poor. they depend on the projects selected, as it is with all investments. what is also clear and different from esg or sri policies is that impact investing does not require limiting an investment universe. impact investments can be an additional asset class that expands the universe, just as many large endowments have moved beyond traditional asset categories and into alternative asset classes. a lack of adequate empirical data leaves a theoretical debate whether impact investments can provide adequate returns. while one could follow a model suggested by chowdhry et al. (2019) that classifies investors are either “profit-motivated” or “socially motivated,” there is no inherent reason why one investor cannot be both. while the authors use this model to examine designing © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23237 | february 21, 2020 29 contingent social contracts and not as a discussion about implementing impact investing, the intuition holds. an efficient market argument would suggest that social needs exist because there are no proper private sector incentives, such as attractive returns, to address them. such an argument ignores the fact that many impact investments are small and thus difficult to find or lacking enough scale to warrant investments from larger pools of money. as discussed below, the argument does not necessarily need to be that impact investing are the highest return investments but only that they offer attractive risk-return trade-offs and favorable correlations with other portfolio assets. in addition, as discussed later, the return calculation may not be as straightforward as with other asset decisions. as long as an endowment can choose which investments to fund and assuming it has some skill in choosing, or at least not a bias toward poor decisions, returns need not suffer. an impact investment that “does good” can also do well. portfolio optimization the decision to include impact investing can, therefore, be viewed as part of the traditional asset allocation process, which takes into account risk, return, and asset correlations. impact investments can be extensions to existing asset classes, such as cash and fixed income where they introduce a modest change to the risk profile. in the case of equity-like impact investments they can be considered as alternative asset classes with distinct risk and return characteristics. examples could include direct equity stakes, loans with enough risk to be considered equity-like or investments into impact funds that invest in these type of securities. table 1. risk-return assumptions by asset category. the model uses this framework and the tools of modern portfolio theory (mpt). as an overview, mpt considers the risk and return characteristics of each asset as well as the correlation of their returns to all other portfolio holdings. an asset whose correlation with the other assets is less than perfect can improve the overall risk-return trade-off of a portfolio, even if the asset itself offers a less attractive risk-reward combination than other the assets. an extension of mpt is the sharpe ratio, which measures the risk a portfolio takes and compares it © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23237 | february 21, 2020 30 to the additional return a portfolio generates by taking that risk; a higher sharpe ratio is desirable as it means an improved portfolio in terms of expected return and risk. the assumptions for each asset category are important to the analysis and subject to debate. while one scenario appears here, the larger point is that impact investing can, and should, be considered as any other investment sleeve. the scenario starts with an endowment portfolio that has 60% of its assets in equities, 35% in bonds and 5% in cash. table 1 details the risk, return, and correlation assumptions, which rely on the historical data noted. note there are three scenarios for impact investing. giin reports returns for two type of investors: those seeking market level returns and those willing to accept below market returns. both sets of return numbers, plus an average of the two, are used. as the portfolio shifts out of equity exposure and into an equivalent exposure of impact investments with equity like characteristics, the sharpe ratio improves. in other words, the inclusion of impact investments improves the risk-return tradeoff for each set of assumptions, as seen in figures 1, 2, and 3. depending on the assumptions for impact investing, the sharpe ratio peaks between 20% and 60% exposure for impact investments. figure 1. sharpe ratio with below market assumptions. figure 2. sharpe ratio with blended returns market assumptions. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23237 | february 21, 2020 31 figure 3. sharpe ratio with market return assumptions. such a high weight should not be entirely surprising given that many endowments already have meaningful exposures to alternative investment classes. the numbers also coincide with a commonfund survey, where respondents set a target allocation to impact investing between 1% and 20%. the analysis does not consider liquidity as a risk. endowments, however, have the advantage of being ultra-long-term investors and can tolerate low liquidity as long as the impact investing sleeve is properly sized. in summary, the analysis suggests that an investment committee with a goal to maximize return with a reasonable risk can improve its portfolio by incorporating impact investing. the expected return calculation for an endowment, the calculation of return should be more complex than the simple internal rate of return, even if the endowment’s investment policy is simply to increase value. while an endowment can expect market-level returns from impact investing, it can justify lower economic returns if it rightly considers more than direct cash in from the investment. an endowment grows when its funding and investment returns exceed its dispersals. the value of the endowment is the beginning value times the return plus new contributions less dispersal of funds or 𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸 = 𝐵𝐵𝐸𝐸 ∗ (1 + 𝑟𝑟) − 𝐷𝐷 + 𝐶𝐶 where ev is ending value, bv is beginning value, r is period return, d is dispersal and c contributions under normal circumstances, there is no real link between the investment return and the ability to attract new funds; that is, within a wide range of outcomes, investment performance should neither motivate nor discourage donors. to maximize ev, therefore, an endowment’s investment committee is correct to seek to maximize r or, perhaps minimize d, although internal standards, university funding needs and external regulations govern dispersals. in addition, with no © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23237 | february 21, 2020 32 expected relationship between c and r, it makes sense to consider fund raising goals independent of investment policy. on the other hand, an investment that can increase contributions, c, could have a lower return and still maximize the portfolio value. impact investments serve that role. one could foresee an investment campaign featuring an impact investing program in the same way a new building can generate donor interest. as impact investing gains awareness, it creates a stronger tool to use for fundraising. rising public acceptance can also lead to the risk that not addressing responsible investing slows contributions. note the calculations only consider the measurable monetary benefit of impact investing. one could add another component to the endowment return, which is the social benefit, s. the return calculation thus becomes: 𝐸𝐸𝐸𝐸 = 𝐵𝐵𝐸𝐸 ∗ (1 + 𝑟𝑟) − 𝐷𝐷 + 𝐶𝐶 + 𝑆𝑆 where s is a measurable social value from the investment the social benefit could be the value to employees from low-cost housing loans, the benefits to students from a business that offers jobs, say, or any number of social goods provided by many charitable organizations. naturally, explicit estimates of s are imprecise, but the idea remains that impact investing can pull more levers in raising the value of an endowment. considering the value of s could also improve the ability to raise contributions, c. calculating s and c measuring c, or additional contributions, is subjective but easier than quantifying s. many development professionals would attest that raising assets for a specific cause or project offers many more opportunities for success than merely general fundraising. in a publication by the mission investment exchange, two foundation executives write that donors are “intrigued” by the ability to get a return and then “recycle charitable dollars and achieve a financial return as well as a social, economic and/or environmental return.” in addition, they write, “by educating the broader donor community about opportunities for impact investing, the community foundation will be positioned more prominently and favorably to a broader audience of perspective donors – next generation and entrepreneurs especially – who believe in the power of market discipline in community investments” (community foundation field guide to impact investing, 2003). smith and smith (2016) consider sri as an extension of a university’s brand effect and as a signal; the same logic could apply to impact investing. a university’s impact in the community should be seen as its brand. impact means how it educates students but also, one could argue, how it improves the community that the students occupy or will soon enter. an © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23237 | february 21, 2020 33 endowment seeking to raise money can ask on behalf of its students alone or can ask on behalf of the community and its students. the second message might be more compelling to donors. table 2. adjusted return incorporating additional contributions. actual return donor matching percentage adjusted return value of c 10% 10% 11% 1% 10% 20% 12% 2% 10% 30% 13% 3% 10% 40% 14% 4% 10% 50% 15% 5% 10% 60% 16% 6% 10% 70% 17% 7% 10% 80% 18% 8% 10% 90% 19% 9% 10% 100% 20% 10% the impact of additional contributions is easier to measure and incorporate into a return analysis, especially if the donations are explicitly tied to a program. an incremental donation increases the return by the percentage that the donation comprises of the endowment’s investment, as shown in table 2. for example, a matching grant, where a donor co-invests at the same level as the endowment, essentially doubles the return on investment of the project. an impact investment policy that draws more general donations, but is not tied to the specific investment, serves the same role. if the added donations are 5% of the endowment over five years, say, then the annualized rate of c is at least 1%, adjusted by the returns generated by reinvesting the funds elsewhere in the portfolio. measuring s is more elusive, although several tools exist, the most prominent the notion of social return on investment (yates & marra, 2017). sroi requires a way to measure the net present value of the social benefit as a percentage of the net present value of the investment, which is difficult in practice (millar & hall, 2013). in theory, one could look at the incremental benefit returned to the community from the investment. the success of a community business, for example, likely has an economic multiplier throughout its neighborhood. the stability of affordable housing for students and their families or for university employees benefits the university in an indirect manner. measuring these impacts is difficult and subjective but not impossible. yates and marra point out issues with the measurements, including the imprecision, but also note that sroi improves comparison among competing plans and can motivate stakeholders to participate. while focusing on health care projects, banke-thomas, a. o., © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23237 | february 21, 2020 34 madaj, b., charles, a., & broek, n. v. (2015) point out the need to consider the counterfactual, that is, what would have been the outcome had the project not been undertaken. while our equation considers s as a percentage return, one could overcome the fuzziness of measurement by thinking of s on a scale depending on the university’s goals. a business employing students in the neighborhood might rank higher than one operating farther from the university and with less local impact. housing might merit a higher score, for example, than transportation, and thus if projects in each area had the same returns, the endowment could favor housing. additionally, the endowment perhaps tolerates a housing-related impact investment with a return below market levels, if it ranked housing with a higher s. there’s a risk that an over-reliance on s conflicts with a goal to maintain the infinite life of an endowment. a high value of non-financial returns could be seen as worthwhile but effectively drain the endowment, it is unlikely an endowment would embrace the value of a social return so enthusiastically that the time horizon changes. in any case, the investment policy statement can address this concern, should it arise. epstein and yuthas (2014) describe a scoring system for measuring the social impact, with each important criterion ranked and then compared to the financial return. thus an endowment could assign points from job creation or student health in one project with an above average return and compare it to another potential investment with a fewer social impact points but a higher financial return. the choice between the two may not be clear but at least a model exists. giin introduced a measurement called the impact reporting and investment standards (iris), which presents criteria to validate impact, although it does not offer a specific method to quantify the impact in terms of numerical return. similar measures have emerged as well (epstein & yuthas, 2014). eventually, and with study, it might be possible for a university to consider the social benefit more explicitly, as the united kingdom does with its national health care system, where policies address the sensitive issue of pricing and allocating medical resources by assigning a monetary value to the expected remaining years of a person’s life. epstein and yuthas (2014) highlight a system that measures the present value of incremental wages from a job training program and divides it by the cost of the program to quantify sroi. an extension for an endowment might be to add a coefficient to the numerator to consider the incremental return to the university from those higher wages. it is a complex and naturally imprecise measurement, to be sure, but not one that is unattainable. implementation framework the mission and investment policy statement with an intellectual framework for impact investing, the next step is developing a structure for implementation. implementing an impact investment program is not only an endowment decision, but requires a university to consider its mission. while the endowment must tackle a © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23237 | february 21, 2020 35 range of structural decisions, the first question for the university is broader: who should it help? if it wants to invest with impact, where should that impact be felt? the answer starts with the university’s mission statement and then feeds into the investment policy statement of its endowment. if a university wants to impact its community, then it must define that community. this section addresses these questions, but not necessarily the difficult answers, and offers some basic structural steps on implementation. an endowment designed to provide tuition expense, for example, implicitly defines its community narrowly as students and their needs to cover school costs. however, an endowment could consider improving job prospects or training as equally valuable as tuition support. one could argue for a yet broader definition and consider the community as the neighborhoods around the institution or the neighborhoods where its students live. a religious university could consider all members of its church. an endowment could, perhaps, help its students by investing in them, potentially even including their children or their parents. each endowment will need to customize its approach, taking into account the nature of the university and the needs of the community, once defined. the answers require deep reflection by university leadership and the endowment board and refinement of the university mission statement. the difficulty of the questions, however, does not diminish the importance of the answers. without a mandate to help its community, a great number of endowment investment policy statements may struggle to implement impact investing, stuck with the belief they sacrifice return to do so, this paper notwithstanding. with a clear mandate endowment can address how to consider return in terms of measuring the economic return, the social impact, and the boost to new contributions. process and people endowments must establish a process to consider impact investments, a specific plan about how decisions are made, and must address factors such as the level of due diligence, the approval process, the monitoring of existing investments, and a host of other implementation-related issues. the process is the template that an endowment holds up to an investment decision. the clearer and firmer the process, the more effective an impact investment program can be. process depends on the people charged to implement it. some universities have robust investment departments that are already adept at analyzing alternative investments; others will have to look for resources, either internally, externally, or both. many endowments without deep investment offices rely on consultants to find and evaluate managers and aid with allocation decisions. many impact investment funds and programs have opened in recent years and manage billions of outside funds, and they offer the investment value that endowments seek when hiring other outside managers. they charge fees and lack the ability to tailor the investments to the specific goals of a university. if personnel resources are an issue or if the endowment goals are broad enough, outside managed funds are a viable option. for a © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23237 | february 21, 2020 36 dedicated, internally-led impact investing program, it is likely that the endowment would need to identify one person or a small group, likely with some investment knowledge and the ability to garner the university resources, to lead or oversee the process. the person or group would do well to draw on the vast resources of a typical university. the endowment should consider using an advantage that many foundations and non-endowment plans do not possess: universities can tap into knowledge of its professors, alumni and, often, highly accomplished professionals on their own boards as well as the eager and low-cost workforce of its students. here, again, the concept of social benefit and community matters. for example, many universities have an entrepreneurship class or even entrepreneurial academic program; it may make sense to include in the curriculum the evaluation and monitoring of investments in community-based entrepreneurs. many other courses in areas such as marketing, operations, accounting, and finance would benefit from the real-world exposure brought in through impact-based investments. if the university considers the role of the endowment to help its students, and most do, albeit typically in a financial perspective, then the idea of giving students practical experience is compelling and another input to s, the social benefit. investment opportunities the opportunity for impact investing is large. the range is no different than what one sees across the spectrum of traditional investment options from high-risk, high-return, low-liquidity venture capital investments to the low-risk, low-return, high-liquidity cash, and cash equivalents. what follows is a broad overview, with general asset classes and how an endowment could include impact investments in each. full implementation requires building out or utilizing existing legal, accounting, and compliance personnel as well as developing the process to monitor investments. the examples come from several important publications that have researched the opportunities, including the mission investors exchange and the institute for responsible investing. numerous local and national organizations offer advice or can be a source of potential investments. many of these organizations are non-profit but the endowment could build relationships with community banks or other for-profit organizations that seek investors. it is also important to collaborate with other endowments, especially as implementation becomes more widespread, to build scale and leverage resources. in considering the following asset classes, the process starts by defining the return potential, including the values of c and s, determining the risk and the liquidity and understanding where the investment opportunity would sit within the asset allocation framework. three key areas are: • cash: deposits in community banks which lend locally can be more impactful than cash in national or global financial institutions. there should be little difference in yield, especially in the current low-rate environment. a step further might be to deposit cash in organizations with specific lending mandates, such as subsidizing mortgages for low-cost housing loans. cash could also support loans to small business in low-income areas. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23237 | february 21, 2020 37 institutions include community development finance institutions (cdfis), which garner federal grants if they direct a specified percentage of business to support those who lack access to financial markets. cdfis can take in outside, insured deposits to bolster their capital bases. community development banks and community development credit unions can effectively use local knowledge to find opportunities in traditionally underserved communities. they too can take in outside deposits. • fixed income: opportunities include lending for low-income and affordable housing and for community entrepreneurs unable to access traditional bank networks, perhaps because those in need do not fit a traditional profile. while the expected return, at least risk adjusted, could be lower, the ability to generate a return through a social benefit could be higher than with cash investing. depending on the nature of the loans, these investments could offset some duration risk in traditional fixed income allocations; that is, their values may fall less if interest rates rise. • equity: equity-like investments, such as direct investments in small business or even higher-risk loans to them, could be considered an alternative asset class. the equity-like exposure could be venture capital investments for entrepreneurs in the university community, as defined by the mission statement or investment policy statement. an endowment could use an outside-managed fund for this exposure or could harness local resources, including its faculty and students, to source ideas. many community-based organizations and local banks help underserved entrepreneurs with loans. an endowment could use the vetting and analysis of these organizations but invest as an equity-holder, perhaps increasing the credit-worthiness and capital of the fledging business. the opportunity also exists to co-invest with other local universities with similar agendas and communities to create the ability to diversify among many opportunities. implementation roadblocks university endowments have sought out alternative investments, including hedge funds, venture capital, and real assets, in an attempt to diversify and to seek alpha. at the same time, the university community, including faculty and students, have spoken out for greater social awareness in the endowment’s portfolio, if not explicitly referring to impact investing then at least addressing its key attributes. nevertheless, the implementation by university endowments has been minimal. there are examples, such as university of cincinnati, which invested almost $150 million or 13.6% of its endowment to finance real estate development in a cincinnati neighborhood (dubb, mckinley, & howard, 2013). other examples exist, but as noted, fewer than 3% of university endowments have an explicit impact investment policy, and one might wonder about this number given the loose definition of impact investing and the frequent conflation with socially responsible investing. many endowments allocate funds for students to invest through university courses, which can be considered an impact investment with the social benefit of practical experience for students. these examples notwithstanding, when one moves down from sri and esg and consider only investments with direct benefit for the © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23237 | february 21, 2020 38 university community, it would seem that a barrier exists between the spirit of the university community and the actions of its investment board. the barrier cannot be explained by a lack of interest in non-traditional investments or by abnormal risk-aversion. some asset classes offer opportunities for impact investing without requiring notably higher risk tolerances. instead, it appears that structural and behavioral factors have prevented implementation, and if not addressed, could continue to slow acceptance, despite an existing investment rationale. phillips and johnson (2019) interviewed leaders of non-profit organizations and others involved in funding affordable housing and community development projects to highlight barriers in implementation. while the interviewees were not from endowments, one can infer common apprehensions. the authors found that a lack of market knowledge and the challenges of measuring social impact were among the reasons to not invest. similarly, emerson and bugglevine (2013) highlight the lack of markets, a poor structure to access deals and, importantly, a lack of a common measure to measure social impact. the lack of a method to measure impact might be the biggest barrier. endowments could rightly argue that their traditional investments have impact already, as their capital finances companies that create jobs and improve lives. if impact investing requires a sacrifice in returns, therefore, it belongs as part of the distribution of the endowment and not the management of its corpus. the view is not without merit, but emerson (2018) dismisses this oft-heard quip of “all capital has an impact.” he is a long-time advocate of “blended value” and argues that the lack of a perfect measure is not a reason to abandon the effort to consider social value. ford foundation president darren walker (2017) suggested changing a prevailing attitude where an organization considered 5%, the distribution, of the portfolio in terms of social impact and the remaining 95% in terms of financial returns. he writes that “the time is right … to consider how we might start to bridge the gap between philanthropic impact and investments.” this bifurcated view of a portfolio that he criticizes, however, could explain the slow adoption of impact investing, especially among endowment boards and investment staffs that lack a specific socialwelfare goal. again, without a framework to measure returns, boards may not feel comfortable moving away more traditional investment options. other hesitations may run deeper. for example, larry kramer, president of the william and flora hewlett foundation, suggests that impact investing is wasteful for an endowment because it blurs the line between grants and investments. sacrificing investment returns for impact investing, he suggests, diminishes the value of future grants and thus reduces their benefits (gunther, 2019). his views also would argue against program-related investments, an increasingly popular method of equity and loan that combine grants with financial return expectations. the then-president of harvard university, drew faust, was even more emphatic in 2013 when he said, “the endowment is a resource, not an instrument to impel social or political change” (mufson, 2019). while faust was commenting on student and faculty requests to divest shares of companies focused on fossil fuels, his attitude might extend to impact investing. accepting the idea of a broader return measure for impact © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23237 | february 21, 2020 39 investing and considering them as viable portfolio options, as this paper suggests, could very well require a mindset not common in endowments, what emerson and buggs-levine (2011) call the “mutant manager.” a second hesitation is access to investment options, although many funds exist that cater to impact investors. while these funds have seen tremendous growth, they may not be suitable for endowments seeking local impact. the problem is also scale; a large endowment with a robust staff can best evaluate impact investments, but for efficiency it must consider large deals that can be meaningful within a portfolio. a smaller endowment can handle smaller deals but may not have the staff or investment sophistication to evaluate the prospects. one method to marry community impact and scale would be to partner with other local institutions or with many community-based institutions focused on local economic development. even if an endowment investment team accepts that impact investing might not require a sacrifice of returns, the issue of time horizon could be a deterrent to implementation. most endowments, to the extent that a university plans to remain in existence, have an extraordinarily long investment horizon, excluding its annual distribution requirements. while jaeger, et. al. (2010) speak of the multi-horizon paradigm for endowments, segmenting between current distribution needs and long-term growth of the corpus, the substantial long-horizon portion allows universities to be paid for liquidity risk that other investors could not accept. a potential conflict, however, would arise if investment decision makers at endowments do not also have long investment horizons because of their compensation plans or career goals. for example, the university of michigan set investment staff bonuses on the rolling three-year performance relative to benchmarks and to peers (investment office incentive plan 2017). linking compensation to performance is not inherently bad and quite common in the investment community. the point is not to criticize michigan in particular but to note that incentives can influence the willingness to take on a longer-term perspective inherent in some impact investments. it may be unfair, however, to blame the manager, who is really the messenger of the university’s mission statement. real adoption among endowments likely will start with leadership at the university to establish a goal to incorporate impact investing into its endowment and then align interests and allocate resources. the decision could stem from the perspective of a university as an anchor mission and the role of place-based investing. emily sladek of the democracy collaborative, a non-profit organization dedicated to harnessing resources for community development, writes that universities now recognize themselves as “important place-based engines that play key roles in key economies.” that awareness is “the beginning of the story,” she writes. “it is one thing to be an anchor institution. it is another to consciously and intentionally adopt an anchor mission, leveraging all available institutional and operational resources,” states sladek (sladek, 2019). © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23237 | february 21, 2020 40 given the mandate to do so, an endowment investment team will seek out vehicles for an impact, either through cdfis, local banks and funds, teaming with other groups with similar community goals, and many other options. the need to seek investments could lead to greater effort to measure the impact, both in contributions and social returns, to justify and monitor the money spent. each university will have to develop its own tools, tailored to its resources and definition of community, but there will be similarities among endowments and benefits to sharing knowledge. processes improve with feedback loops. conclusion endowments often see impact investing as a choice between increasing assets and allocating money for social good. this paper sets out to show that this tradeoff can be a false one, especially as one considers the effect on contributions and values of the social benefits to the university’s community. incorporating impact investing requires a robust policy and a thoughtful debate on the definition of the community, but it can be a powerful and, if properly measured, a fair-return strategy for a university. an endowment could undertake impact investing while remaining a prudent person, as investment policy statements and outside standards often require. it is important to distinguish impact investing from grants. impact investments should not crowd out grants with strong social impact but negative financial returns. this paper suggests these two paths are complementary, rather than conflicting. however, adoption has been slow and this paper suggests endowments must overcome some structural biases against impact investing to match the level of acceptance seen in foundations. while the lack of precision in measuring social impact is an important barrier, there are investment options that can still make sense. in addition, an endowment can overcome the difficulty in measuring the social benefit or the incremental contribution with a thoughtful and iterative approach based on experience. an endowment, unlike a foundation, has the additional benefit of involving its students and enhancing their knowledge. in all, the rising voices outside the endowment and the advantages within it argue for a new look at incorporating impact investing. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23237 | february 21, 2020 41 references aggarwala, r. t., & frasch, c. a. 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(2008). handbook on responsible investment across asset classes. institute for responsible investment. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23237 | february 21, 2020 43 yates, b. t., & marra, m. (2017). social return on investment (sroi): problems, solutions … and is sroi a good investment? evaluation and program planning, 64, 136-144. doi:10.1016/j.evalprogplan.2016.11.009 adam schor1 introduction metropolitan universities vol. 30 no. 1 (february 2019), doi: 10.18060/22408 5 developing the student anchor engagement framework jennifer johnson kebea abstract modern urban and metropolitan universities are increasingly obliged to recognize their role as anchor institutions. these same institutions of higher education (ihes) also have a responsibility to educate students to be responsible and participatory citizens in society. an increasing number of ihes recognize these distinct commitments as central to the public purpose of higher education. however, few intentionally involve students in anchor mission work. this misalignment denies students a rich opportunity for civic learning and democratic engagement. furthermore, it prevents ihes and their surrounding communities from realizing the benefits of harmonizing these two commitments. this mixed-methods research study resulted in the development of the student anchor engagement framework, a 36-item strategic framework designed to identify how ihes can intentionally involve students in anchor strategy. the framework derives from the democracy collaborative’s anchor institution community benefit dashboard. expert participants ranked all items included in the framework as to their potential to influence student civic learning and democratic engagement. implications of this research study include the potential for ihes to consider, strategically, ways to align student civic learning with anchor institution practices for the advancement of both pursuits. keywords: anchor institution; civic learning; democratic engagement; student engagement introduction higher education in the united states aims to fulfil multiple missions. while preparing students to serve as professionals in their field of study remains the primary goal, many urban and metropolitan institutions of higher education (ihes) also embrace two public purposes. the first is to educate students to be responsible and participatory citizens in society. the second is to consider how an ihe serves as an institutional citizen and anchor institution within the local communities where they operate. in many ways, these two public purposes of higher education are complimentary; however, researcher or practitioners do not typically consider them together. this mixed-methods study sought to develop a strategic framework, in which ihes, serving as anchor institutions, can facilitate civic learning and democratic engagement by involving students in the anchor mission of the institution. second, this study aimed to ensure that said framework presented customizable and sustainable engagement strategies for diverse ihes. this study resulted in the development of a 36-item framework, referred to as the “student anchor engagement framework” (kebea, 2016), which mirrors the structure of the democracy collaborative anchor institution community benefit dashboard, here abbreviated as the “anchor dashboard.” the collaborative designed this anchor dashboard to help ihes identify and measure how they are serving as an anchor institution within the community (dubb, 6 mckinley, & howard, 2013). the student anchor engagement framework augments the anchor dashboard by including student engagement in anchor strategy. the student anchor engagement framework is organized into the same five categories as the anchor dashboard, including: (a) anchor mission alignment; (b) economic development; (c) community building; (d) education; and (e) health, safety, and environment (dubb, 2015). all 36 items included in the student anchor engagement framework had the best potential for positive impact upon student civic learning and democratic engagement, as judged by expert participants in this research delphi-method study. aligning the student anchor engagement framework with the anchor dashboard was both intentional and strategic. the anchor dashboard was one of the first tools to define categorically how ihes could serve as anchor institutions within their communities across a variety of systems (dubb et al., 2013). however, the anchor dashboard contains very limited information on how to involve students in anchor strategy. therefore, the student anchor engagement framework attempts to build upon and complement the anchor dashboard, while providing vast accessibility and utility for ihes considering strategies to involve students in institutional anchor strategy for enhancing students’ overall civic development. the student anchor engagement framework, in alignment with the anchor dashboard (dubb et al., 2013), builds upon and expands research exploring student involvement in anchor strategy by wittman and crews (2012), as well as guinan, mckinley, and yi (2013). this article will describe the process of developing the student anchor engagement framework (kebea, 2016) and explore the significance of this framework within the field of higher education. this research is significant to a national audience because it provides a roadmap for ihes to engage, strategically and intentionally, their students in the anchor work of their institutions. this ultimately creates a broader network of ihes to invest jointly in the interrelated concepts of anchor strategy, civic learning, and democratic engagement. literature review the literature that informed this research stemmed from three concepts: the role of ihes to serve as anchor institutions within their local communities, the role of ihes to act as civic educators of students by embracing the tenets of civic learning, and the importance of recognizing the foundational role that democratic engagement plays in both commitments. the connection between ihes’ dual roles as both civic educator and anchor institution are not readily apparent within literature or practice. however, the opportunity for explicit connection of these concepts does exist and stands greatly to inform the practice of each individual commitment. anchor institutions anchor institutions are place-based organizations, including ihes and health systems, which link closely to their local communities because of both organizational goals and capital investments (dubb et al., 2013). the historical origins of anchor institutions goes back to 1862 with the passage of the first morrill act. this legislation reserved land for 69 state-supported ihes, which now number more than 100 nation-wide and are officially known as land-grant institutions (renaud, 2008). as part of the land-grant process, ihes took on the responsibility of producing 7 research and knowledge applicable to both agriculture and industry in largely rural communities (alperovitz & howard, 2005). today, many of these ihes continued to focus energy and effort on institutional engagement with their local communities, thus paving the way for today’s modern concept of a higher education anchor institution (cantor, 2009). more recently, a growing number of ihes have worked to redefine their relationships with and responsibilities to the communities where they reside. embracing an anchor mission has materialized individually for unique ihes and many urban and metropolitan universities have now focused resources on problem solving efforts relevant to their specific communities. furthermore, ihes are discovering that they can align institutional will and resources to the benefit of both the community and the ihe. anchor dashboard is a key piece of research advancing this work. it identifies five categories and twelve outcomes related to ihes and their roles as anchor institutions (dubb et al., 2013). the outcomes identified within these categories provide a roadmap for present day urban and metropolitan ihes to consider how they currently serve as an anchor institution and how they might consider expanding their commitment to the role. civic learning civic learning references the “knowledge, skills, values, and the capacity to work with others on civic and societal challenges” (aac&u, 2012, p. 4). ihes have largely embraced their roles as purveyors of civic learning, dating back as far as the early 1600s and the founding of harvard university, the first ihe in the nation (jacoby, 2009). this commitment would continue through the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century; john dewey proclaimed that formal education should play a key role in democracy by teaching students to be civically engaged members of society (jacoby, 2009). by the twenty-first century, ihes were re-examining their role in civic learning. in 2012, the national task force on civic learning and democratic engagement released a comprehensive report entitled a crucible moment: college learning & democracy’s future. this report sought to remind ihes about their role as civic educators and their responsibility to ensure that their graduates leave prepared to be knowledgeable, responsible, and participatory citizens (aac&u, 2012). while ihes have often fallen short in this pursuit, many have nevertheless remained committed. nearly 1,100 ihes hold membership with campus compact (2016), and 361 ihes currently hold the carnegie foundation’s elective community engagement classification (saltmarsh & driscoll, 2015). democratic engagement the final theme explored in this literature review is democratic engagement. democratic engagement is identified by “deep engagement with the values of liberty, equality, individual worth, open mindedness, and the willingness to collaborate with people of differing views and backgrounds towards common solutions for the public good” (aac&u, 2012, p. 3). like civic learning, democratic engagement is not a nascent concept in american higher education. in fact, founding fathers benjamin franklin and thomas jefferson were both early advocates of the democratic purposes of higher education (boyte & kari, 2000; harkavy & hartley, 2008). by 8 the turn of the twentieth century, john dewey would also be clamoring for schools to be models of democracy (dewey, 1900). the concept of democratic engagement ultimately serves as a bridge between the role of ihes to serve as both civic educators and anchor institutions, illuminating a path and rationale for student involvement in anchor strategy. while research or practice have not traditionally connected these concepts, precursors are present in the literature. for example, saltmarsh, hartley, and clayton (2009) begin to describe these linked concepts by stating: democratic engagement locates the university within an ecosystem of knowledge production. in this ecosystem, the university interacts with outside knowledge producers in order to create new problem-solving knowledge through a multi-directional flow of knowledge and expertise. in this paradigm, students learn cooperative and creative problem solving within learning environments in which faculty, students, and individuals from the community work and deliberate together. (p.11) ihes that utilize their knowledge and expertise to solve complex public problems while engaging in authentic collaboration with community are modeling democratic engagement. this orientation readily lends itself to conceptualizing how students can play an active role in anchorinstitution strategy. methodology this mixed-methods study utilized an explanatory sequential design, analyzing quantitative data collected during phase one of the study to inform the second qualitative phase (creswell, 2012). during phase one, the author utilized a three-round delphi study featuring a panel of 25 national higher education experts. two focus groups provided feedback during phase two. the focus groups totaled nine engaged students at drexel university, a large, private, urban, research institution located in philadelphia, pa. drexel’s institutional review board (irb) granted approval in advance of this research study. delphi method the delphi method served as a flexible mixed-methods research tool during the first phase of this study. this research protocol engages an expert panel to provide responses and rankings to a structured series of questions or statements over several iterative phases (skulmoski, hartman, & krahn, 2007). many industries use it, including higher education, to assist with both decisionmaking and consensus building (linstone & turoff, 1975). the author selected the delphi method because of its complementarity to this study. the delphi method provides a well-structured process for organizing and ranking new information collected about a topic (skulmoski et al., 2007). it also provides a democratic way to gather information, which was particularly relevant given the nature and context of this research study. day and bobeva (2005) explain that “whatever the perceived reason for its choice, the method offers reliability and generalizability of outcomes, ensured through iteration of rounds for data collection and analysis, guided by the principle of democratic participation and anonymity” (p. 104). further, each expert participant’s opinions and contributions carry equal weight during 9 both data collection and analysis (dalkey, 1972). the author identified expert participants for this delphi study nationally through consultation with several professional organization including the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities, the international association of research on service learning and community engagement, the anchor institution task force, and the democracy collaborative. participant eligibility was confirmed utilizing criteria including: (a) three or more years of experience in the field of higher education as related to civic learning and/or anchor institution research; (b) two or more publications in an associated field; (c) affiliations with one of the professional organizations listed above; and (d) the willingness and time to participate in the study. participants needed to meet two of the first three criteria, and all needed to meet the final criterion in order to be part of the study. demographics collected on the group indicate that diverse in gender and age. the majority of participants (23) identified as white/caucasian. one participant identified as black or african american, and one identified as native american or american indian. professional roles of participants included engagement center directors and staff, service-learning facilitators, student leadership facilitators, anchor strategy implementers, engaged faculty, senior-level higher education administrators, and representatives from organizations affiliated with anchor strategy and/or civic learning. fourteen expert participants hold doctoral degrees, nine hold master’s degrees, and two hold bachelor’s degrees in their respective fields. participants, upon request, described the profile of their current institutional home. the majority of institutions in this study were large, urban research institutions. there were both public (12) and private (9) institutions represented. a smaller number of suburban (3) and rural (4) institutions were also represented in the sample. the survey instrument utilized in this delphi study included a series of three online surveys administered via email using the survey tool qualtrics. the first round of the delphi study was qualitative and consisted of a series of open-ended questions aimed to identify potential ways that students could be involved in anchor strategy. the second and third rounds utilized 4-point likert-type scales to ask expert participants to review responses collected during round one and rank both the quality of the proposed item to have a positive impact on student civic learning and democratic engagement, and the overall ease of its implementation. in order for an item to be included in the final emergent framework, three distinct measurements were essential. first, the item needed to have a mean score of 2.0 or less, indicating that the expert participants had judged it to have a positive impact on student civic learning and democratic engagement. second, we calculated two metrics that indicate consensus. the first was the interquartile range (iqr), which calculates the absolute value of the difference between the 75th and 25th percentiles (rayens & hahn, 2000), with values of 1.0 indicating a high level of consensus (von der gracht, 2012). finally, 80% of expert participants had to rank the likert item as a 2.0 or less for inclusion on the final framework. if items did not meet all three of these criteria, the authors ejected those items from the final framework. after analysis was complete, 36 unique items remained in the framework across five categories. the author organized items within categories based on the implementation levels easy, moderate, or difficult, calculating these levels based on additional likert scale data collected during round two and three of the survey. 10 ultimately, 19 of the 25 total participants completed all three rounds of the delphi study. this represents a 66% final retention rate, with retention rates between rounds registering at 88% and 86% respectively. these retention rates fall within acceptable rate guidelines as suggested by sumison (1998). focus groups the second phase of data collection during this research study included two focus groups. the researcher utilized a purposeful sampling technique to identify students to participant in the focus groups. the focus groups were comprised of engaged students from drexel university, a large, private, urban, research institution that has largely embraced its identity as an anchor institution in philadelphia, pa. the author recruited students specifically for their participation in programming offered through drexel’s lindy center for civic engagement and their individual ability to contribute to a review and conversation of the student anchor engagement framework, as perceived by the researcher. each focus group had to review the emergent framework and providing feedback. key questions that the author asked during the focus groups revolved around the clarity of the framework, prior involvement of the participants in the activities listed in the framework, and their perceived opportunity for new learning through involvement in the listed activities. each focus group was audio recorded and transcribed. data was hand-coded and analyzed using a priori codes that mirrored questions asked during the focus groups. integrating feedback from the focus groups allowed the early framework to be further customized for usage at drexel university. this opportunity to customize the framework is an important step towards ensuring that ihes can implement an anchor strategy with student engagement within the contexts and realities of their diverse institution. results the delphi study resulted in the development of a 36-item strategic framework titled the student anchor engagement framework, shown in figure 1. the framework identifies key ways that students can be involved in anchor strategy, along with their perceived ease of implementation (kebea, 2016). all engagement items included in the framework ranked as having a potential positive impact on student civic learning and democratic engagement. the framework shown in figure 1 is the generic template developed through the delphi method in phase one of this research study. phase two, which utilized focus group feedback from students at drexel university, resulted in a slight variation to the generic framework with the addition of one item to the list. ihes interested in utilizing the student anchor engagement framework should consider hosting student focus-group sessions to personalize further the framework to the realities and opportunities available on their own campuses. 11 12 figure 1. student anchor engagement framework (kebea, 2016). 13 conclusion this research study resulted in the development of the student anchor engagement framework, which identifies specific ways that students can be involved in anchor strategy (kebea, 2016). multiple implications of this research exist for university personnel that support community engagement and/or anchor strategy, university leadership, and students themselves. this work has the potential to encourage ihes to reconsider how each institution conceptualizes and organizes community engagement across internal divisions, especially those that typically do not intersect within the institution (kebea, 2016). for example, an ihe with a traditional (perhaps even isolated) community engagement center may consider how a student-focused collaboration with the campus procurement office might advance both anchor strategy and civic learning. a natural first step might involve the community engagement center and procurement office co-sponsoring a student intern, who focuses on developing a strategy to encourage other students to spend locally. simultaneously, the community engagement center might start to infuse information about the ihe’s role as an anchor institution into student workshops and trainings, sparking further interest and involvement of students in their institution’s anchor strategy. more advanced approaches might begin to involve faculty who incorporate anchor mission concepts into curriculum leveraged to advance specific aspects of anchor strategy. connecting anchor strategy to both curricular and co-curricular student pursuits is a clear way to enhance congruency between the ihe’s role as civic educator of students and as anchor institution within the community. this research also presents implications for university leadership. as universities continue to participate in conversations around the significance of institutional investment within local communities (campus compact, 2016), the student anchor engagement framework will be useful to ihes that seek ways to leverage one of their greatest resources, students, to aid in the advancement and congruence of this work. this alignment is crucial to the future success of ihe anchor strategy because initiatives and strategic directions that do not directly involve and benefit students, the core stakeholders, have a repeated tendency to diminish over time. furthermore, engaged ihes that pursue national recognition including through the elective carnegie community engagement classification (saltmarsh & driscoll, 2015), should continue to advocate for the addition of reporting requirements that aim to measure their commitment to serve as both civic educators to students and as anchor institutions within their local communities (kebea, 2016). this intentional connection will allow ihes to more cohesively understand and share their institutional commitments and accomplishments within the wide expanse of community engagement. finally, for current students (and the staff and faculty that support them), this research study and the resultant student anchor engagement framework provide a roadmap illuminating specific examples of how students can engage in, and potentially learn from, this important work. this framework is not exhaustive or inflexible. instead, it serves a springboard for the creative inquiry and involvement of students in all aspects of anchor institution strategy. 14 references alperovitz, g., & howard, t. (2005). the next wave: building a university civic engagement service for the twenty-first century. journal of higher education outreach and engagement, 10 (2), 141-157. american association of colleges & universities (2012). a crucible moment: college learning and democracy’s future. washington, d.c. ashworth, k.h. (1964). urban renewal and the university: a tool for campus expansion and neighborhood improvements. the journal of higher education, 35 (9), 493496. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.1964.11772976 boyte, h.c., & kari, n.n. (2000). renewing the democratic spirit in american colleges and universities: higher education as public work. in t. ehrlich (ed.), civic responsibility and higher education (pp. 37-60). westport, ct: the american council on education and the oryx press. campus compact. (2016). creating a great campus civic action plan. retrieved from http://compact.org/campus-compact-action-plan.pdf cantor, n. (2009). a new morrill act: higher education anchors the “remaking of america.” presidency, 12 (3), 16-22. creswell, j.w. (2012). qualitative inquiry and research design: choosing among five approaches (3rd ed.) thousand oaks, ca: sage publications, inc. dalkey, n.c. (1972). the delphi method: an experimental study of group opinions. in n.c. dalkey, d. l. rourke, r. lewis, & d. snyder (eds.), studies in the quality of life: delphi and decision-making (pp. 13-54). lexington, ma: lexington books. day, j. & bobeva, m. (2005). a generic toolkit for the successful management of delphi studies. the electronic journal of business research methodology, 3 (2), 102116. dewey, j. (1900). the school and society. chicago, il: the university of chicago press. dubb, s. (2015). anchor institution community benefit dashboard. tacoma park, md: the democracy collaborative. dubb, s., mckinley, s., & howard, t. (2013). achieving the anchor promise: improving outcomes for low-income children, families, and communities. takoma park, md: the democracy collaborative at the university of maryland. guinan, j., mckinley, s., & yi, b. (2013). raising student voices: student action for university community investment. college park, md. responsible endowments coalition and the democracy collaborative. harkavy, i., & hartley, m. (2008). pursuing franklin’s democratic vision for higher education. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.1964.11772976 15 peer review, 10 (2/3), 13-17. retrieved from https://www.aacu.org/publicationsresearch/periodicals/pursuing-franklins-democratic-vision-higher-education jacoby, b. (2009). civic engagement in higher education. san francisco, ca: jossey-bass. kebea, j.j. (2016). engaging students in the anchor mission of the university: a mixed-methods study utilizing the delphi method. retrieved from proquest dissertations & theses global linstone, h. & turoff, m. (1975). the delphi method: techniques and applications. reading, ma: addison-wesley publishing company. rayens, m.k. & hahn, e.j. (2000). building consensus using the policy delphi method. policy, politics, & nursing practice, 1 (4), 308-315. https://doi.org/10.1177/152715440000100409 renaud, j.p. (2008). morrill act. in encyclopedia of the social and cultural foundations of education (p. 518). thousand oaks, ca: sage publications. saltmarsh, j., hartley, m., & clayton, p.h. (2009). democratic engagement white paper. boston, ma: new england resource center for higher education. retrieved from https://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1252&context=gse_pubs saltmarsh, j., & driscoll, a. (2015). carnegie selects colleges and universities for 2015 community engagement classification. retrieved from http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/newsroom/news-releases/carnegie-selects-collegesuniversities-2015-community-engagement-classification/ skulmoski, g., hartman, f., & krahn, j. (2007). the delphi method for graduate research. journal of technology education, 6 (1), 1-21. https://doi.org/10.28945/199 sumison, t. (1998). the delphi technique: an adaptive research tool. british journal of occupational therapy, 61 (4), 153-156. https://doi.org/10.1177/030802269806100403 von der gracht, h.a. (2012). consensus measurements in delphi studies. review and impactions for future quality assurance. technological forecasting and social change, 79 (8), 1525-1536. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2012.04.013 wittman, a., & crews, t. (2012). engaged learning economies: aligning civic engagement and economic development in community-campus partnerships. boston, ma: campus compact. https://doi.org/10.1177/152715440000100409 https://doi.org/10.28945/199 https://doi.org/10.1177/030802269806100403 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2012.04.013 16 author information jennifer johnson kebea lindy center for civic engagement drexel university 3210 cherry street philadelphia, pa 19104 email: jpj38@drexel.edu telephone: 215.895.2097 twitter: @jenjohnsonkebea linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferkebea/ dr. jennifer johnson kebea is the executive director of the lindy center for civic engagement at drexel university in philadelphia, pa. with over a decade of experience in higher education, dr. kebea has been part of drexel university’s expanding efforts around civic engagement since 2009. her research interests exist at the intersection of universities’ dual roles to serve as both civic educators of students and as anchor institutions within their surrounding communities. http://www.linkedin.com/in/jenniferkebea/ metropolitan universities vol. 30 no. 2 (june 2019), doi: 10.18060/22788 73 achieving college readiness through a dual enrollment course: “strategies for success” bridgette cram and elizabeth béjar abstract to increase equitable postsecondary access and success outcomes it is critical to address the college preparedness gap. while florida international university (fiu) continues to improve retention and graduation gaps for currently enrolled students, it became evident that the university could play a larger role in preparing high school students for college and university. in 2017, fiu developed a dual enrollment version of a currently offered course, sls1510: strategies for success, to address this gap. the purpose of this article is to describe the context in which this decision occurred, the philosophy used to drive development of the course, and the steps taken to pilot the course. this article highlights the successes of the course, including enrollment of over 2,000 students over 4 semesters, along with areas of improvement for future iterations. the findings of the pilot can help to inform colleges and universities who are interested in addressing college preparedness in the k-12 pipeline. keywords: preparedness; non-cognitive; k-12; access; self-awareness introduction the college-readiness gap among incoming students, especially low-income and underrepresented students, is well documented (conley, 2007; roderick, nagaota, & coca, 2009; ross, et al., 2012). literature indicates that in addition to traditional measures of college readiness (e.g. gpa, sat/act scores), there are a number of non-academic, traditionally referred to as non-cognitive, characteristics (e.g. time management, study skills, and motivation) that help ensure a student is ready to succeed in college once admitted (conley, 2007; mattern, et al., 2014). while florida international university (fiu) takes a holistic approach to college readiness efforts with its k-12 partners, the purpose of this article is to describe how fiu addresses the non-academic college readiness gap through a high school dual enrollment course, strategies for success. the authors first present a brief history of the student success work that took place at fiu to establish the context for addressing college readiness through dual enrollment. an overview follows of the theoretical framework used to develop the course and a discussion about the selection of dual enrollment as a vehicle for increasing college readiness. the paper ends with a survey of key curricular points, lessons learned, and future directions for the program. 74 history and context florida international university (fiu) is a large research university located in miami, fl. home to over 57,000 diverse students, many of whom enter the university from the surrounding three counties; fiu has the unique opportunity to support the local community and economy through its delivery of high-quality education to these students. in 2015, fiu invested in the creation of the student success initiatives (ssi) office, committed to developing retention and graduation interventions. the context for this article lies in two of the interventions developed by this office: college life coaching (clc) and sls1510: strategies for success. several institutions across the country have used one or both of these interventions to improve retention and graduation rates (see: florida state university, tulane university); and fiu adapted these models to address the specific needs of our students. the clc program functioned initially as a targeted, reactive intervention. the ssi team would identify freshman students on academic warning or probation and invite them to participate in the program. the coaching program focuses on five core areas: time management skills; study habits and learning strategies; ability to identify and create goals; coping strategies; critical thinking skills; and intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. fiu piloted the program in summer 2016 (15 students) and launched to a larger cohort of students in fall 2016 (46 students). while the clc program experienced success, the fiu team was not able to scale to the number of students needed due to limited staffing. because of this challenge, strategies for success was developed. much like the growth of academic/life coaching in the higher education landscape; student success courses are common at all levels of post-secondary institutions and have been demonstrated to improve persistence (zeidenberg, jenkins, and calcagno, 2007). the goal of this course at fiu is to incorporate coaching in the classroom through training instructors in coaching skills combined with a standardized curriculum. with this new model, the team has served 907 students since spring 2017. due to the large number of fiu students requiring this course in their spring semester, the ssi team recognized that many of the conversations that instructors and students were having during class and related coaching appointments had to do with lack of preparation and/or knowledge before they entered fiu. it was at this time that the ssi team began to have conversations with the dual enrollment office to explore offering this course at the high school level. dual enrollment in the state of florida is guided by §1007.271. students are eligible to take dual enrollment courses beginning in 6th grade, provided that they have “a 3.0 unweighted high school grade point average and the minimum score on a common placement test adopted by the state board of education which indicates that the student is ready for college-level coursework” (dual enrollment programs, 2018). the statute also outlines requirements for faculty credentialing and course content. briefly, these must be equivalent to those of the post-secondary institution issuing the credit. fiu drafts articulation agreements for each county that is engaged in the dual enrollment program to ensure adherence to the robust regulatory environment within florida. 75 the fiu dual enrollment program serves, on average, over 5,000 students per semester. the research on dual enrollment indicates that students who have previously earned dual enrollment credits demonstrate higher gpa and completion rates once they enter a postsecondary institution (jones, 2012; radunzel, nobel, & wheeler, 2012). students in the fiu dual enrollment program, who enroll at fiu, show results consistent with this research. they are more likely to persist to their 2nd year, maintain higher gpas, and have 4and 6year graduation rates higher than students who did not enter with dual enrollment credits. furthermore, the admissions yield rate for students with dual enrollment credit is over twenty percent higher. this data demonstrates why fiu has pursued dual enrollment and seeks to build affinity with enrolled students so that they come to fiu and can succeed in graduating with a 4-year degree to further their academic and career goals. theoretical framework and operationalization a myriad of personal, societal, and institutional forces influence post-secondary success. in general, the literature indicates that at a personal level, both academic (traditionally described as cognitive) and non-academic (traditionally described as non-cognitive) skills are of critical importance (conley, 2008; farrington et al., 2012; komarraju, ramsey, & rinella, 2013). development of non-academic factors happens well before the transition to college, and occurs primarily outside of the classroom (farrington et al., 2012; pascarella et al., 2016). therefore, it becomes even more imperative to review these skills overtly with students, especially those who may be more at-risk of not completing their degree. in fact, much attention over the past 5 years has focused on the “hidden curriculum.” smith (2013) calls this “a set of unwritten norms, values, and expectations that unofficially governs how individuals interact with and evaluate one another” (p. 47). addressing these issues through interventions such as success coaching or success courses is based on literature demonstrating that these non-academic factors can in fact be influenced and changed (bettinger & baker, 2014; zeidenberg, jenkins, and calcagno, 2007). the initial development of strategies for success drew heavily from the conceptual framework presented in figure 1, developed by conley (2008). conley posits that college readiness is comprised of four factors: key cognitive strategies, key content, academic behaviors, and contextual skills and awareness. in regards to specific types of non-academic factors, farrington et al. (2012) found that the literature identifies five areas of importance: (a) academic behaviors; (b) academic perseverance; (c) academic mindsets; (d) learning strategies; and (e) social skills. these are subsets of what conley defined as academic behavior and contextual skills and awareness. while recognizing that many students may come to college ill-prepared in all four domains, fiu sought to design the strategies for success course and coaching interventions for developing only two, academic behaviors and contextual skills and awareness. conley (2007) defines academic behaviors as “a range of behaviors that reflect greater student self-awareness, selfmonitoring, and self-control of a series of processes and behaviors necessary for academic success” (p.16). contextual skills and awareness signifies “the privileged information necessary to understand how college operates as a system and culture” (p.17). 76 figure 1. facets of college readiness. from conley, d. t. (2008). ssi staff chose to focus on these two elements given the results of our clc pilot and the fact that many of our students do not come to fiu with the social and cultural capital needed to navigate a university campus. the staff selected the academic behaviors in the course to include topics such as time management, study skills/test preparation, motivation, and social and emotional intelligence. next, the staff operationalized contextual skills and awareness through topics such as academic and career planning and financial literacy. please see table 1 for more detail. table 1. fiu strategies for success course objectives strategies for success modules connection to facets of college readiness (conley, 2008) goal setting academic behaviors mindset matters academic behaviors time management academic behaviors learning how to learn academic behaviors study prep academic behaviors roadblocks and problem solving contextual skills and awareness resources and getting involved contextual skills and awareness wellness contextual skills and awareness self-evaluation academic behaviors aligning your values, skills, and goals academic behaviors is your major right for you? contextual skills and awareness career exploration contextual skills and awareness financial aid and financial literacy contextual skills and awareness final reflection and forward thinking academic behaviors contextual skills & awareness academic behaviors key content key cognitive strategies 77 implementing sls 1510 as a dual enrollment course once planners determined that strategies for success should be pilot tested in a high-school setting, they made several important adjustments. the course offered to fiu students is one credit only, to avoid excess credit accumulation. however, it was necessary to offer the course in a variable credit format—up to three credits—so that it could be included as part of the dual enrollment program. this presented several benefits. first, coverage of critical strategies related to time management, studying, and test preparation could be more in-depth. furthermore, the ssi team integrated sections on social and emotional intelligence and additional material on how to navigate college. adding these elements served to increase the coverage of the “hidden curriculum” through discussions about how to navigate systems such as financial aid and how to gain “the knowledge and skills that enable them to interact with a diverse cross-section of academicians and peers” (conley, 2008, p. 11). moreover, adding this course to the dual enrollment portfolio helps to establish dual enrollment credit at more high schools throughout the county and allow for more students to enroll who otherwise may not be prepared for content-specific dual enrollment courses,. in fact, since its inception in fall 2017, over two thousand students have taken sls1510 as a high school course at twenty-six different high schools through a specialized summer course on fiu’s campus, and online. in fall 2018, 815 high school students enrolled in the course, accounting for nearly 14% of dual enrolled enrollments. this is our highest enrollment thus far. in addition, the course serves a diverse demographic – roughly twenty percent of students who have taken the course identify as black or african-american while 73% identify and hispanic or latino; exceeding the proportion of these students currently enrolled at fiu (13% and 61% respectively). recognizing the importance that early preparation can have on postsecondary access and success, fiu intends to leverage sls1510 as a tool for increasing equitable access to fiu. in addition to high enrollment numbers, persistence data for students who successfully transition to fiu is encouraging. thus far, 78 students transitioned into the fiu freshman cohort during the 2018-19 academic year. of those, 99% (77) persisted into the spring semester. while this persistence rate is higher than the university average for fall to spring persistence, as larger numbers of students make a transition to fiu, we will be able to look closer at whether or not this course significantly influences retention and graduation rates. key curricular points several key design elements ensure students receive the same content regardless of location. these elements include instructor training and support, a master class format, a commitment to the course philosophy, and active learning. instructor training and support dual enrollment instructors must meet the minimum requirements for an adjunct faculty appointment at fiu, which is at least a master’s degree with 18 hours of focus in the disciplinary area. since strategies for success is a general studies course, instructors must have a master’s degree and be identified by their principal as having a capacity to succeed in teaching a collegelevel class. a benefit that this course offers is that it has engaged school guidance counselors in 78 the teaching process, which leverages their expertise in the classroom. once selected, dual enrollment instructors complete the fiu credentialing process and attend a required instructor training. this training introduces them to the master class template and overall philosophy of the course. in addition to these trainings, fiu mentors visit each high school instructor at least once per semester. this gives an opportunity for high school instructors to ask questions or address any challenges they may have experienced; it also gives the fiu mentor an opportunity to see how instructors put the curriculum into operation in the classroom. instructors also have access to a sharepoint website, updated through the semester. this site includes updates from the fiu mentor as well as any shared best practices that instructors have found to be helpful. master class format the master class format for this course includes a standardized syllabus. the course structure consists of four modules and four required projects. module 1 highlights the importance of mindset, goal setting, and time management. the project for this module is a mindset reflection paper where students reflect on how to develop a growth mindset and why this is critical for college success. the second module focuses on how we learn, study habits, test preparation, and the development of critical thinking. for their second module project, students must develop a presentation of study “best practices” rooted in the science of learning. the third module encompasses what many refer to as “life skills”, including chapters on social and emotional intelligence, diversity and cultural competency, and financial literacy. for this project, students reflect on their personality type: how it shapes their choices in life, academics, and future careers. the final module revolves around academic and career planning. students reflect on their values and interests to guide them in creating plans for success after high school. their final project is a career and budget report, where they research their selected career and develop a budget based on projected earnings. the course provides instructors with rubrics for each assignment, which ensures that assessment of artifacts is consistent across all sections. commitment to course philosophy the entire curriculum related to the course centers on development of self-awareness through reflection. students are required to keep a journal (either written or electronic) to address key reflection questions for each reading. the purpose of the reflective assignments are two-fold. first, the process of reflection helps students develop self-awareness, which is critical to both college and lifelong success. second, it serves to facilitate classroom discussion more effectively. active learning the final design element critical to facilitation of the course is a commitment to active learning. fiu mentors provide instructors with lesson plans guided by the reflections that students complete each night. the premise of the course is that there should be limited lecturing, with a greater focus on discussion and facilitated group work. 79 considerations for adopting strategies for success while additional data must accrue and give a clearer picture as high school students continue to graduate, the initial feedback from high school instructors and students alike demonstrate that this course can be helpful in exposing students to critical non-academic factors important to their post-secondary success. to pilot this course, institutions must consider the following: state-level dual enrollment policy, transferability of course, human resources, and financial resources. state-level dual enrollment policy not all states offer the same flexible dual enrollment policies as florida. according to the education commission of the states (ecs) (dounay zinth, 2016), several states have no statewide dual enrollment policy. for those that do, stipulations vary on who is responsible for paying tuition, where courses may be offered, or how courses are evaluated, among other rules and regulations that must be complied with. course transferability fiu allows strategies for success to count as transfer credit towards a student’s degree program. in addition to this course, fiu takes care in offering courses that count towards university corecurriculum requirements. this helps ensure that students are able to decrease their time to degree once enrolling in a post-secondary institution. florida’s statewide articulation agreements also provide assurance that students who wish to attend other institutions within the state can receive credit for their fiu dual enrollment. human and financial resources fiu has invested in the dual enrollment program based on the overall success that students have once they enroll in fiu. fiu currently has eight staff that serve the central dual enrollment office, responsible for overseeing agreements and administrative functions for the program. each course must have specified a faculty mentor(s). these mentors must have specified credentials to teach the course at fiu, provide training to high school instructors, and conduct site visits to each high school. they must ensure that syllabi, teaching methods, and assignments meet college-level standards. institutions looking to pilot a dual enrollment program must determine the appropriate method of paying the mentors depending on how they receive payment for offering the dual enrollment courses. lessons learned while strategies for success has only just begun its fourth semester, the fiu team has already made changes to the textbook and course. the original version of the course depended on the instructor to develop reflective activities and discussion prompts. based on feedback, the 2018 version of the course incorporated an edited textbook and specific lesson plans that aligned the reflective activities to classroom discussions. in addition, the course scaled back the number of required projects from eight to four. this provided high school teachers with a framework to 80 meet all necessary milestones, and adapt the course to fit their teaching style and address the varying needs of students. the most important lesson learned over the past year, however, is of structured flexibility. from the university perspective, this course serves as a foundation for students to build upon. the structure of a master class is necessary to maintain consistency with student learning outcomes, and ensure that all students receive the same information and complete the same activities to build this foundation. at the same time, the high school environment is unique and fiu must allow high school teachers to exercise best practices in classroom management and engagement. the relationship that exists between the fiu mentors and dual enrollment instructors embodies this concept of structured flexibility; which is the core reason why the course continues to evolve and improve. as of spring 2019, the course has entered its third design iteration. project leaders adjusted the instructor materials, to provide enough information to be successful without burdening instructors with too much material. it is important that the course mentor and high school teachers communicate to find the right balance of structure and flexibility, as every high school is unique in its needs. fiu is currently piloting a fully online version of the course using open educational resources (oer), designed to maintain a high-level of student reflection and application of course strategies and skills. the fiu team will evaluate the success of the online course at the end of the term to determine if this is a viable mode of delivery for the content of this course. however, the oer materials will serve for use in the face-to-face sections for high schools to reduce the cost burden to local school districts. data collection and analysis is also an area for improvement. the course mentor works closely with the central dual enrollment office to ensure that appropriate data points are collected; furthermore, the course mentor is exploring how to collect data from high school students taking the course to determine changes in behaviors and attitudes. conclusion as fiu looks to the future, it becomes increasingly clear that universities must proactively address college readiness gaps that occur long before a student applies for admission. at a time when performance-based funding is placing increasing pressure on institutions to adopt policies that may decrease equity, programs such as these can work proactively to ensure that we provide students from all backgrounds with the opportunity to gain skills that translate into academic and career success. this article outlines an approach to collaborating with the k-12 system and intentionally working with high school students to develop the academic, social, and emotional skills they need to be successful lifelong learners. not only will interventions such as this move to close this gap, but long-term success can also help to improve equity in terms of access to postsecondary education and completion. 81 references an, b. p., & taylor, j. l. 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(2004). first-generation college students: additional evidence on college experiences and outcomes. the journal of higher education, 75(3), 249-284. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2004.11772256 http://dx.doi.org/10.14507/epaa.v23.1781 https://doi.org/10.3102/0162373713500523 http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/apr07/vol64/num07/the-challenge-of-college-readiness.aspx http://www.ascd.org/publications/educational-leadership/apr07/vol64/num07/the-challenge-of-college-readiness.aspx https://doi.org/10.1002/he.321 https://www.ecs.org/dual-concurrent-enrollment-policies/ https://www.ecs.org/dual-concurrent-enrollment-policies/ http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?app_mode=display_index&title_request=xlviii#titlexlviii http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?app_mode=display_statute&url=1000-1099/1007/1007.html http://www.leg.state.fl.us/statutes/index.cfm?app_mode=display_statute&url=1000-1099/1007/1007.html https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2012.12.007 https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2004.11772256 82 radunzel, j., noble, j., & wheeler, s. (2014). dual-credit/dual-enrollment coursework and long-term college success in texas. issue brief. act, inc. retrieved from http://www.act.org/content/dam/act/unsecured/documents/dualcredittexasreport.pdf roderick, m., nagaoka, j., & coca, v. (2009). college readiness for all: the challenge for urban high schools. the future of children, 19(1), 185-210. https://doi.org/10.1353/foc.0.0024 ross, t., kena, g., rathbun, a., kewalramani, a., zhang, j., kristapovich, p., & manning, e. (2012). higher education: gaps in access and persistence study (nces 2012-046). u.s. department of education, national center for education statistics. washington, dc: government printing office. retrieved from https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2012/2012046.pdf smith, b. (2013). mentoring at-risk students through the hidden curriculum of higher education. lanham, md: lexington books. zeidenberg, m., jenkins, d., & calcagno, j. c. (2007). do student success courses actually help community college students succeed? [ccrc brief no. 36]. new york, ny: columbia university, teachers college, community college research center. http://www.act.org/content/dam/act/unsecured/documents/dualcredittexasreport.pdf https://doi.org/10.1353/foc.0.0024 https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2012/2012046.pdf 83 author information *bridgette cram, ph.d. academic programs and partnerships florida international university 11200 sw 8th st. pc 526 miami, fl 33199 email: bcram@fiu.edu bridgette cram is director of academic programs and partnerships at fiu, where she works to leverage internal and external partnerships for student success. bridgette was the founding member of the student success initiatives office and serves as the primary mentor for sls1510. bridgette earned her phd in public affairs from fiu where she focused on the measurement and development of cultural competence in graduating masters of public administration students. elizabeth m. béjar, ph.d. academic and student affairs florida international university 11200 sw 8th st. pc 526 miami, fl 33199 email: bejare@fiu.edu elizabeth béjar is senior vice president for academic and student affairs at fiu. elizabeth serves as principal investigator for multiple grants focused on minority-serving institutionsmodels of success. she serves on the board of the southern association of colleges and schools commission on colleges, serves on the florida board of governors council of academic vice presidents academic coordination workgroup, and is an advisory board member to excelencia in education. she earned a phd in higher education administration from boston college. *corresponding author microsoft word 23364 guenther swanstrom george new format.withtskgedits (1202)-final.docx   invited commentary    © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23364 | december 6, 2019  42  pursuing the anchor mission in a fragmented suburban  setting: assets, capacity, and collective action  karl j. guenther1, todd swanstrom2, and thomas f. george3    1 community innovation and action center, university of missouri‐st. louis, 2 department of political science,  university of missouri‐st. louis, and 3 office of the chancellor, university of missouri‐st. louis                                                   cite as: guenther, k.j., swanstrom, t. & george, t.f. (2019). pursuing the anchor mission in a fragmented suburban  setting: assets, capacity, and collective action. metropolitan universities, 30(4), 42‐54. doi: 10.18060/23364    this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license.    editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d.  abstract  increasingly, suburban universities find themselves in communities facing challenges that inner  cities have had to deal with for decades, including concentrated poverty, housing vacancy, and  underperforming school districts. while the problems are similar, the institutional context is  different. compared to central cities, suburban municipal governments generally lack the  resources necessary to sustain robust community economic development initiatives. further,  suburbs often lack the rich landscape of nonprofit organizations that were built up over many  decades in central cities. this article reflects on the experience of the university of missouri‐st.  louis as a case study of a suburban anchor institution. this experience suggests that anchor  institutions in suburban settings need to focus on asset‐based community development,  support collective action among fragmented institutions, and build the civic capacity of local  governments, nonprofits, and businesses.    keywords: anchor institutions, capacity building, collective action, community improvement,  asset‐based community development    © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23364 | december 6, 2019  43  introduction  urban issues are moving to the suburbs. more poor people now live in suburbs than in central cities (kneebone & berube, 2013). most anchor institutions are located in central cities, and the literature on anchor institutions is heavily oriented toward urban contexts. increasingly, suburban universities find themselves in communities facing challenges that inner cities have had to deal with for decades, including concentrated poverty, housing vacancy, and underperforming school districts. while the problems are similar, the institutional context is different. compared to central cities, suburban municipal governments generally lack the resources necessary to sustain large-scale community economic development initiatives. further, suburbs often lack the rich landscape of nonprofit organizations that were built up over many decades in central cities. the university of missouri-st. louis (umsl) is located in just such a fragmented suburban setting. we reflect on our experience as a suburban anchor institution to draw lessons for anchor institutions located in similar contexts. specifically, we argue that suburban anchors need to focus on asset-based community development, support collective action among often fragmented institutions and build the civic capacity of local governments, nonprofits, and businesses.   the suburban context  umsl is a land-grant metropolitan university located in north st. louis county just outside the city of st. louis (see figure 1). umsl views itself as an anchor in the region and in north st. louis county, but when we formulated our anchor mission we wanted to choose a local geography to focus our efforts. umsl elected to focus on communities that touch upon a twomile radius from the center of the campus (see figure 2). the two-mile radius is somewhat arbitrary, but we believe it captures the communities whose fortunes are tied most closely to the university, and us to them. © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23364 | december 6, 2019  44  figure 1. the metropolitan context of umsl.  socioeconomic conditions in the communities that touch upon the two-mile radius vary significantly, but many face financial hardship. for example, 21.9% of the population in the footprint is living below the poverty line, compared to 9.8% in st. louis county as a whole. the unemployment rate is 11.8% compared to 5.9% in broader st. louis county. only 15.3% of people living around the university have a bachelor’s degree, compared to 42.8% for all of st. louis county (united states census bureau, 2017). much of the housing was mass produced after world war ii to satisfy pent-up demand. most of the single-family homes are small, 8001,200 square feet, bungalows and some are larger architecturally distinctive homes. the median house price in the area is $75,117, compared to $181,100 in broader st. louis county. a few mixed-use corridors exist in the footprint. after decades of disinvestment, a few have seen investment and new energy while others continue to see disinvestment and even abandonment. © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23364 | december 6, 2019  45  figure 2. umsl’s local anchor geography (two‐mile radius).  local government around the umsl campus is highly fragmented. st. louis county has eightyeight separate municipalities and ten unincorporated census designated places, making it one of the most fragmented counties in the nation. the area around umsl is especially fragmented. remarkably, thirty separate municipalities touch on the two-mile radius around campus (see figure 2). the population in those thirty municipalities ranges from 182 in bellerive acres to 20,730 in ferguson (u. s. bureau of the census, 2018). generally, suburban areas are less well served by nonprofits (allard & roth, 2010; weir, 2011). although there are many social service nonprofits in the two-mile radius, they are often small and lacking in resources, or larger organizations that serve the broader county or region. community development corporations (cdcs), nonprofits devoted to revitalizing specific communities, are generally lacking in the suburbs. an association of community building nonprofits reports that there are twenty-one place-based nonprofits operating in the city of st. louis, but only seven operating in the county, which has many more poor people (community builders network of metro st. louis, n.d.). as we discuss later, umsl helped establish one of © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23364 | december 6, 2019  46  these place-based nonprofits and is in the focus footprint of beyond housing, one of the region’s largest community development nonprofits. although the communities around umsl face many challenges, they also have significant assets. it is essential for anchor institutions to focus on these assets. successful community and economic development is rooted in asset-based community development (abcd). abcd helps communities to identify their strengths and their assets that can be building blocks for revitalization (asset-based community development institute, n.d.). the communities around umsl have significant assets which the university and the community can leverage to improve the quality of life. the anchor mission is rooted in the fundamental truth that large institutions are often not maximizing the impact they can have in community wealth building and place making. the communities in which umsl is a part have assets, including the headquarters of some of the nation’s largest companies, such as emerson and express scripts, historic communities and shopping districts, the oldest public golf course west of the mississippi, and proximity to st. louis lambert international airport. new assets dot the landscape, as well, including numerous stops on the regional light rail system called metrolink, bike trails, and job training centers. while anchor work must adapt to the special challenges of working in fragmented inner-ring suburbs, it will not succeed if it does not lift up the area’s assets and help to leverage them for the communities’ benefit. umsl’s journey to an anchor institution framework  umsl has been engaged in local and regional community building since its inception. the university has deep connections to its public purpose from umsl’s founding through a partnership between the local school district, which donated the land for the campus, and the university of missouri, which created umsl as part of the public land grant university system. in the most recent decade, umsl developed its own framework and governance structure for pursuing the anchor mission, and developed a database to guide the anchor work and evaluate its effectiveness. umsl’s journey toward crafting a strategic anchor mission began in 2014 when we joined the anchor dashboard, a collaboration of six universities, funded by the annie e. casey foundation and facilitated by the democracy collaborative, and designed to systematically collect data on the condition of the communities around our campuses. we formed an anchor dashboard committee that facilitated the data collection not just on the surrounding communities, but also on the institutional effort of umsl to impact issues in the community. the data collection focused on the two-mile radius around umsl. this data collection effort involved quantitative data, as well as qualitative data from a series of focus groups with residents, business owners, and elected officials. the process of collecting data did not just help to guide our anchor strategy but also helped to lift up the anchor mission and give it more legitimacy inside the university. © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23364 | december 6, 2019  47  one of the findings from the data was how deeply umsl was involved in the anchor footprint. umsl has 370 full-time, part-time, and student employees and over 4,000 alumni who live within the two-mile radius. the university has deep connections with the people in this community beyond its physical placement, professional connections, and public land grant mission. the data collection made it clear that our well-being was closely connected to the fate of these communities. in 2018, the anchor dashboard committee transitioned to the anchor institution committee, which provides guidance to university leaders on strategy for our anchor work. the anchor institution committee represents key leaders across the university. deliberation by the anchor institution committee led to the university identifying an anchor framework that covered four pillars of strategies in economic development, community development, health and services, and education (see figure 3). the university then integrated the anchor mission into the recently completed five-year strategic plan. figure 3. the four pillars of umsl’s anchor initiative.  © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23364 | december 6, 2019  48  anchor initiatives: building civic capacity  two events focused umsl’s attention on the challenges facing the communities around campus. in 2012, the missouri board of education voted to withdraw accreditation from the normandy school district, which covers much of the anchor focus area. this meant that students could transfer to other schools in the region and their tuition dollars would follow them. this soon brought the school district to the edge of bankruptcy. in 2017, the normandy schools collaborative, which was a restructuring of the school district, reached provisional accreditation with improved test scores, but there is still a long way to go. the second focusing event was the shooting of michael brown in august 2014 by a white police officer in the city of ferguson, which is located less than a mile from the umsl campus. the massive demonstrations that followed energized the black lives matter movement and cast light on the predatory and racially biased policing practices by many small, under-resourced municipalities in st. louis county. after the normandy school district lost its accreditation in 2012 and michael brown was shot in 2014, highlighting glaring inequalities in the region, umsl took a closer look at how it could better collaborate with neighboring communities. the normandy school district’s loss of accreditation prompted the university to deepen the collaboration between the college of education and the school district. the events in ferguson called the university’s expertise in trauma-informed care into service. umsl trained school teachers and leaders on how to support youth from local communities as they returned to school after michael brown’s death. the college of education has also partnered with schools on literacy programming and early childhood development. umsl has not acted alone; beyond housing, one of the highest capacity nonprofits in umsl’s anchor footprint, has led a comprehensive community revitalization initiative called 24:1, based on the 24 municipalities in the normandy school district. it has won national recognition as one of the most comprehensive community improvement initiatives in the nation (swanstrom, et al., 2012). to deepen umsl’s collaboration with 24:1, chancellor tom george joined the board of beyond housing. based on extensive citizen engagement, beyond housing helped the community to devise a comprehensive plan for revitalization that addresses, among other issues, housing, education, health, personal finances, and community engagement. beyond the chancellor’s involvement in this effort, university researchers collected data and performed evaluations for the initiative. while the many small-scale municipalities around umsl provide great access to elected officials and local decision-making, many struggle to build the capacity to effectively plan and implement economic development initiatives. many different stakeholders in the community are © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23364 | december 6, 2019  49  working to address these contextual challenges. beyond housing’s municipal government partnership has helped seven municipalities combine into the north county cooperative police department, facilitated thirteen separate municipal courts merging into two court hubs, and facilitated the first municipal consolidation in the area (beyond housing, 2017). recognizing that the communities directly bordering on the campus face a number of specific challenges, umsl collaborated with them on a number of initiatives. natural bridge road was a four-lane avenue that split the umsl campus and cut it off from surrounding communities. umsl facilitated a collaboration among the missouri department of transportation, the city of normandy, great rivers greenway, st. louis county, east west gateway council of governments, and north county inc., raising approximately $20 million to reconfigure natural bridge into a “complete street” that can accommodate not just cars but also pedestrians and bicyclists. university square, a university-affiliated cdc established by umsl, helped to facilitate the project and is working to bring more diverse retail opportunities to the area, such as a grocery store, hotel, and café. the chancellor hosts community meetings for local residents and elected officials several times a year to share what is happening on campus and to brainstorm community improvement initiatives. as part of the anchor initiative, we conducted a series of focus groups to determine how the community perceived the university. the focus groups with local elected officials, business owners, and residents focused on understanding their attitudes toward umsl and their perception of the university’s role in the community. through these focus groups it became clear that communication between the university and community was a consistent issue. local government officials felt umsl communicated with them on a regular basis, but business owners felt less communication, and residents felt even more outside the loop. residents appreciated having umsl as a resource, but felt that umsl did not communicate about major initiatives that would affect the area until after the fact. the focus groups highlighted the reality that strong relationships had been built with elected officials who regularly attended the chancellor’s community meetings, but this communication was not trickling down and out to the broader community. umsl needed to broaden its communication channels and work to more directly talk with residents and business owners. recognizing that we needed a consistent form of communication, we created a monthly newsletter, community connections, which keeps community residents up to date on university plans and lifts up community improvement initiatives that are ongoing in the anchor footprint. the focus groups also showed that local businesses did not feel connected to or knowledgeable about opportunities to do business with the university. to address this concern, we conducted an engaging local business event in 2018. most of the businesses around the campus are small and are not well prepared to bid on contracts at umsl. we designed the engaging local business event to rebuild relationships between the university and local businesses, as well as to provide © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23364 | december 6, 2019  50  support for businesses needing to learn how to become a registered supplier and bid on university projects. beyond training on university procurement, the event also showcased business development supports offered by umsl and mu extension, such as a procurement technical assistance program and entrepreneurial support. about 40 businesses attended the event, which generated new bids from local small businesses. recognizing that more training and supports will be needed to enable local businesses to be more successful at bidding on university contracts, umsl has decided to make engaging local business an annual event. the anchor mission is now fully integrated into umsl’s recent five-year strategic plan. we have made a point of putting specific anchor goals into the plan. for example, the plan calls for a 10 percent increase in the number of local hires and the amount of procurement dollars spent on companies located in the anchor footprint by 2020. we are presently developing a database to track procurement contracts by geography and reach out more effectively to local businesses. like many public universities, we are part of a statewide system and procurement procedures are mandated by the central university of missouri system. partnering with system-wide leaders around procurement will be crucial for our success. in the meantime, however, we have been able to break landscaping contracts into smaller amounts, thus enabling us to pilot work with local and minority-owned landscaping companies. conclusion  one of the most prominent lessons from our work is that anchor institutions in fragmented suburban settings need to both improve practices to be a stronger partner with community and work to enhance the capacity of local governments, nonprofits, and private businesses . supporting local governments to work together to find cost savings, deliver higher quality services, or access training and staff support will be crucial to the success of these communities. local businesses need support to acquire the capacity to bid on university contracts and bring more jobs and investment into the community. likewise, nonprofits need to be nurtured, and umsl is fortunate to have a high-capacity nonprofit, beyond housing, in the anchor footprint. in recent years, larger nonprofits have been locating in the area and new nonprofits have been emerging in north county. however, even more capacity is required to address all the issues facing these communities. suburban institutions can learn from strategies attempted by others to develop initiatives based on their community context and institutional strengths. throughout the country, universities like the university of central oklahoma (uco) are utilizing partnerships and collaborations to build community capacity. these efforts are paying off for both the broader community and the institution. uco restructured staff to better partner with the greater oklahoma hispanic chamber of commerce on goals shared in the uco’s strategic plan and the chamber’s seven community development priorities. alongside college readiness and employment initiatives, © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23364 | december 6, 2019  51  uco also developed the latino leadership oklahoma city program with the chamber to grow the number of effective leaders in for-profit, nonprofit, government, and higher education roles (barthell, castillo, mendoza, macey, & simmons, 2019). this is just one example of how universities are working with partners to enhance community capacity. other universities have found ways to support community capacity by playing an intermediary role to support investment and expertise being available to students and community members. pace university’s wilson center for social entrepreneurship works across disciplines at the university and across nonprofits and community/social enterprises to support successful start-ups (tekula, shah, & jhamb, 2015). through participation in national networks like the anchor learning network and the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities, umsl has been able to take learnings from other institutions into conversation with local community partners to review ideas and develop strategies that make sense in north st. louis county. umsl realizes, above all, that it cannot do this work alone. the amount of local procurement and hiring it controls is not enough. large private companies in north st. louis county need to be brought into the anchor initiative. for example, the impact of a local procurement initiative at umsl could be greatly improved if large institutions and private corporations engaged in a coordinated effort to contract with local companies. umsl’s anchor institution strategy has evolved to include forming an anchor collaborative with north county institutions and companies. we are currently working with christian hospital and the st. louis zoo, which has purchased 425 acres for a new facility in north st. louis county. the collective strength of large institutions to impact the local economy through coordinated local procurement and hiring has the potential to stabilize and revitalize disadvantaged suburban communities. umsl’s journey to embrace the anchor mission illustrates the need to root anchor institution strategies in a community’s assets and support collective action and capacity building across community stakeholders. the communities around umsl have many small businesses and a few large corporations. both are assets in tackling high unemployment and poverty rates. as discussed, anchor institutions can design small contract opportunities that are suited to small businesses and can work to form anchor institution collaboratives that broaden the number of jobs and contract opportunities large institutions target to local communities. success in each of these strategies requires building capacity to analyze an institution’s purchasing and hiring patterns, local business options, and increasing knowledge in the community of contracting requirements. depending on the local context, anchor institutions may play the role of convener or capacity builder and other times the institution might best support collective action and civic capacity building through participation or partnership with others. universities, in particular, can be powerful partners in addressing collective action and civic capacity building given their experience as educators and their ability to serve as neutral conveners. © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23364 | december 6, 2019  52  umsl’s experience leaves anchor institutions working in fragmented inner-ring suburbs with a set of key questions to answer as they focus on asset-based community development, support collective action among often fragmented institutions, and build the civic capacity of local governments, nonprofits, and businesses. 1) how will you engage deeply across different government, nonprofit, business, and resident groups to identify community goals the institution can engage on and communicate effectively? 2) what assets does your community possess that the university can help leverage to improve the local community and economy? 3) are there coalitions of stakeholders that cut across individual actors that you can engage with to design and implement strategies? or does your institution need to play a convener role? 4) what capacity building is necessary to increase a strategy’s likelihood of success? what capacity building can the university do and what capacity building requires partnership? fragmentation and a sometimes-limited history of social and economic efforts in suburban communities experiencing disinvestment do not seal the fate of those communities. it is merely the context in which the work is done. when that context is accounted for, anchor institutions and the communities they are a part of can achieve their goals.   © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23364 | december 6, 2019  53  references  allard, s.w., & roth, b. (2010). strained suburbs: the social service challenges of rising suburban poverty. washington, dc: brookings institution. asset-based community development institute. (n.d.) retrieved from https://resources.depaul.edu/abcd-institute/pages/default.aspx barthell, j.f., castillo, d., mendoza, l.r., macey, j.d., & simmons, c.k. (2019). alignment through community: the case of a metropolitan university and the greater oklahoma city hispanic chamber of commerce. metropolitan universities, 30(2). doi: 10.18060/22808 beyond housing (2017). the 24:1 initiative: 2017 impact report. retrieved from https://www.beyondhousing.org/uploads/files/beyondhousing-impactreport-2017.pdf. community builders network of metro st. louis (n.d.). retrieved august 12, 2019 from https://www.communitybuildersstl.org/cbn-members. kneebone, elizabeth and alan berube. 2013. confronting suburban poverty in america. washington, dc: brookings institution press. swanstrom, todd, et al. (2012). civic capacity and school-community partnerships in a fragmented suburban setting: the case of 24:1. journal of urban affairs, 35(1), 25-42. tekula, r., shah, a., & jhamb, j. (2015). universities as intermediaries: impact investing and social entrepreneurship. metropolitan universities, 26(1). united states census bureau (2018). 2018 american community survey population estimates. retrieved from https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/index.xhtml. united states census bureau (2017). 2013-2017 american community survey 5-year estimates. retrieved from https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/nav/jsf/pages/index.xhtml. university of missouri – st. louis (n.d.). community connection news. retrieved august 12, 2019 from http://www.umsl.edu/collaborations/news/index.html. university of missouri – st. louis (n.d.). strategic plan. retrieved august 12, 2019 from http://www.umsl.edu/services/academic/strategic-plan/. © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23364 | december 6, 2019  54  weir, m. (2011). creating justice for the poor in the new metropolis. in c. hayward & t. swanstrom (eds.), justice and the american metropolis (237-256). minneapolis: university of minnesota press. https://doi.org/10.5749/minnesota/9780816676125.003.0001 original research © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23719 | february 21, 2020 78 building capacity: the case for values-based operations joseph allen,1 sheridan trent2 and sara woods3 1school of medicine, university of utah, 2department of psychology, university of nebraska at omaha, 3barbara weitz community engagement center, university of nebraska at omaha cite as: allen, j., trent, s. & woods, s. (2020). building capacity: the case for values-based operations. metropolitan universities, 31(1), 78-91. doi: 10.18060/23719 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract since the opening of the university of nebraska at omaha’s (uno) community engagement center in 2014, both university and community building partners have been guided by a set of core values. established by a community/university task force after months of focus groups, community conversations, and other data gathering activities, these values have helped provide a foundation for the selection of university and community building partners, decision-making, and ongoing operations. this study explored the ways in which building partner alignment with the weitz cec values influenced their subsequent perceived organizational capacity. results indicated that embracing the values was positively associated with increased perceptions of organizational capacity. essentially, those who indicated they embraced the values experienced heightened feelings of belongingness, participated in more networking activities, and agreed that the culture was more cooperative, which contributed to their organization’s perceived capacity. keywords: values, capacity building, community engagement, belonging introduction the number of universities with campus centers or institutes of community engagement is substantial, with a recent investigation into the infrastructure of campus engagement centers receiving 147 responses from various engagement units at different universities (welch & saltmarsh, 2013). such centers are important hubs of engagement activities at universities and can aid in engagement between a university and its community through efforts to coordinate http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23719 | february 21, 2020 79 service learning (bringle & hatcher, 2000), facilitate volunteering and community service on campus (bringle & hatcher, 2002), and aid in the building of university-community partnerships (bringle & hatcher, 2002). for institutions that have or are hoping to develop spaces in which community and university entities coexist within a shared facility, understanding the relationship between how a space is framed and participant outcomes is critical. creating such spaces requires human, financial, and social capital and such investments deserve a clear understanding of the outcomes produced by the space and the collaboration that occurs therein. the community engagement center (cec) on the university of nebraska at omaha’s (uno) campus, opened in 2014, has adopted many of the community programming practices compiled by welch and saltmarsh (2013), but is unique in the provision of shared space, with a total of 15,000 square feet for community and university organizations, which are located and operate directly within the center itself (woods, reed, & smith-howell, 2016). partners are selected with attention to their alignment with the cec’s values (e.g., reciprocity, collaboration, communication, diversity, civil and open dialogue, welcoming atmosphere and continuous improvement) and maintain space within the building for three to six years, during which they are provided with resources (e.g., free meeting space, access to capacity building initiatives, access to student volunteers, contacts with faculty who conduct engaged research, marketing and administrative support etc.) to support their growth and sustainability. a detailed accounting of the operations of uno’s cec may be found in woods, reed, and smith-howell (2016). our hypothesis is that organizations that demonstrate values-inspired behaviors report higher levels of perceived organizational capacity. capacity is an important factor in determining impact. capacity building can be defined abstractly as “increasing the ability of an organization to fulfill its’ mission,” (wing 2004, p. 155). capacity provides an indication of an organizations’ progression over time. it also provides an indication as to the effectiveness and sustainability of an organization. shumate, fu, and cooper (2018) found that nonprofits with strong collaborative relationships with government agencies had greater strategic planning capacity than nonprofits that did not. another study by williams-gray (2016) suggested that nonprofits that go through a process of evaluating their individual capacity are more likely to build capacity in the future. finally, kapucu and demiroz (2013) found evidence that an organization’s capacity can be increased through the use of strong relationships and networks with other nonprofits. given these findings and the overt focus on a values-framed engagement environment, we investigated the following research question: how does a values-framed engagement environment affect perceptions of organizational capacity? © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23719 | february 21, 2020 80 method participants respondents were individuals working within uno’s cec, including those affiliated with a community organization (i.e., community partners) and those affiliated with a university organization (i.e., uno partners). a total of 57 community partners and 54 uno partners filled out the annual survey. of those who responded, 75.3% of individuals were female, 22.2% of individuals were male, and 2.5% of individuals selected a gender other than female or male. the average age of respondents was 39.36 (sd = 15.46), with all individuals between 20 and 79 years old. in terms of education, all individuals had graduated from high school (or the equivalent). many (48.1%) had a graduate degree of some sort. the survey respondents included some students (n = 43) and faculty (n = 14) working within partner agencies. measures values behavior. the cec has seven values to help guide partner and staff operations within the building, including: (a) diversity; (b) civil and open dialogue; (c) collaboration; (d) reciprocity; (e) communication; (f) welcoming atmosphere; and (g) continuous improvement. a thirty-three item questionnaire was included within the annual survey to measure the extent to which individuals from partnering organizations agreed they exhibited a variety of behaviors associated with the values. partners rated their own behaviors on a likert scale from one (strongly disagree) to seven (strongly agree). a sample item of each value can be found in table 1. belongingness. four items from the sense of community scale (horning, robinson, & carroll, 2014) were used to assess the extent to which building partners felt they were a part of the cec. items were modified to reference the cec. respondents selected their degree of agreement using a five-point likert scale from one (strongly disagree) to five (strongly agree). a sample item is: “if someone criticizes the cec, it feels like a personal insult.” networking frequency. to determine intra cec networking frequency, building partners were presented with four questions from the networking behavior questionnaire (michael & yukl, 1993), framed to seek information about networking occurring within the cec (e.g., attend meetings, ceremonies, or special events in the cec). respondents rated the frequency with which they performed each behavior in their role as a building partner on a likert scale from zero (never) to four (on a daily basis). © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23719 | february 21, 2020 81 table 1: cec values, definitions, and sample items definition sample item civil and open dialogue the cec is a space where all opinions can be heard, and different ideas are not only respected, but encouraged, because diversity of thought fosters innovation and creativity. “while at the cec, i felt free to initiate dialogue around controversial topics.” collaboration our community faces complex social problems that require unique and novel solutions. the cec strives to cultivate a collaborative environment, in which people are willing to organically develop creative strategies and partnerships for solving such issues. the partnerships crafted as a result of being in the cec should not be forced, but rather a product of revealing shared goals and a willingness to build alliances between university and community partners. “i collaborated with other partners or individuals on projects to address community issues at the weitz cec.” communication we encourage thoughtful, respectful, and transparent communication between all individuals who use the cec including community partners, faculty, staff, and students. “i used many modes of communication to suit the needs of my target population.” continuous improvement basing decisions for improvement on direct feedback and concrete data ensures that organizations can continue having positive impacts on the community. the cec leadership hopes that community and university partners will grow in many ways, but mostly that all partners will be better equipped to serve the omaha community as a result of being in the cec. “i systematically tracked my organization's progress in the last 6 months.” diversity we actively seek to represent the many diverse ideas, backgrounds, and cultures that comprise omaha and the university community. “my organization has come up with original and innovative ideas.” reciprocity the cec is considered a portal through which the community and the university can exchange resources, ideas, and solutions. through reciprocal relationships, in which goals and expectations are clearly stated and fulfilled, community and uno organizations interact with and benefit from each other. “when completing collaborations, i followed up to ensure expectations were met.” welcoming atmosphere we value everyone who uses the building and show that by creating an environment that is clean, easy to access, filled with friendly faces, comfortable for all, and meets people’s physical needs. “when hosting an event in the weitz cec, i helped to clean-up afterward.” © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23719 | february 21, 2020 82 cooperative building culture. perceptions of the culture of the cec were measured with two climate items from the employment relationships scale (buch & dysvik, 2010). questions were reworded to reflect the cec space (e.g., “there is a high level of cooperation between those that work in the cec”) and rated by survey respondents on a scale from one (strongly disagree) to five (strongly agree). perceived capacity. to determine building partners’ perceptions of their capacity, we developed three questions for the annual survey to gauge the influence of the cec on their organizations’ operations. a sample item is: “being in the cec has contributed positively to my organization’s sustainability.” partners rated each statement on a likert scale from one (strongly disagree) to five (strongly agree). procedure the cec annual building survey was distributed to 238 individuals working within the barbara weitz community engagement center. the survey was open for a total of four weeks beginning in april 2017 and lasting through may 2017. those who had not taken the survey were sent a reminder email every week. those who took the survey were thanked for their responses. individuals who completed the survey were entered into a drawing to win a $25 credit on their uno mavcard (i.e., campus id card). of the original 238, responses were obtained from 137 individuals in the building, resulting in a response rate of 57.56%. for the purposes of the following analyses, 13 individuals were removed from the sample for being staff members in the cec, as we were interested in the responses from individuals who were building partners. this resulted in a final sample of 124 individuals. after four weeks, the survey was closed and all individuals were thanked, again, for taking the survey. results descriptive statistics and intercorrelations for all scales utilized in this study are presented in table 1. there was evidence of range restriction present with several of the values, including diversity and communication, which ranged from values of four to seven, and a welcoming atmosphere and reciprocity, which ranged from values of three to seven. in spite of these initial concerns, no issues were detected in terms of skew or kurtosis, so we proceeded with analyses. three sets of analyses were used to explore the overarching research question and are described here. in the first analysis, we sought to understand if self-reported values behaviors were associated with greater perceptions of organizational capacity. to test this question, we first examined the correlations between each value and capacity. enacting behaviors of six of the seven values were © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23719 | february 21, 2020 83 significantly and positively associated with reported perceived capacity, including diversity r(72) = 0.47, p < .001, civil and open dialogue r(73) = .34, p = .004, collaboration r(73) = .30, p = .009, reciprocity r(73) = .42, p < .001, communication r(73) = .43, p < 001, and continuous improvement r(72) = .42, p < .001. a welcoming atmosphere was not significantly associated with perceived capacity (see table 1). to further assess the first research question and to better understand if any values were predictive of perceived capacity above and beyond the other values, we regressed all values upon perceived capacity simultaneously. the amount of time spent in the cec was also included in the analyses as a covariate, as it correlated with several key variables. the full model for the regression was significant f(8,81) = 7.87, p < .001, r² = .24, indicating that together with the time spent in the cec, all seven values predicted perceived capacity, accounting for 44% of the variance in perceived capacity. in the second set of analyses, we we examined the individual coefficients for each value in the multiple regression model where all seven values predicted partners’ reported perceived capacity. the coefficient for two variables, including diversity, β = .34, p = .025, ci [0.03, 0.46] and continuous improvement, β = .29, p = .028, ci [0.02, 0.34], were significant above and beyond all other values (see table 2). © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23719 | february 21, 2020 84 table 2: means, standard deviations, and intercorrelations for study variables variable mean sd 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 1. belongingnes 3.84 0.83 (.87) 2. network 1.73 0.55 .33* (.79) 3. culture 4.17 0.72 .25* -.13 (.65) 4. capacity 4.58 0.68 .08 .03 .36** (.85) 5. diversity 5.92 0.77 .40** .29** .25* .44** (.74) 6. dialogue 5.55 0.96 .35* .29** .35** .30* .68** (.83) 7. collaboration 5.41 0.97 .49** .50** .30** .25* .67** .68** (.75) 8. reciprocity 5.71 0.93 .48** .24* .32** .37** .75** .57** .62** (.82) 9. comm 5.68 0.70 .27* .33** .38** .39** .72** .58** .66** .72** (.67) 10. atmosphere 5.77 0.87 .28* .39** .06 .01 .48** .43** .51** .48** .47** (.52) 11. improvement 5.59 0.97 .47** .19 .37** .33** .50** .51** .61** .51** .52** .25* (.61) 12. partner status 0.51 0.50 .13 -.15 .06 -.12 .01 -.04 .07 .08 -.05 -.02 .11 notes. n = 83 111. reliabilities are on the diagonal. *p < 0.05. **p < 0.01. belongingness, culture, and capacity were rated from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). networking behavior was rated from 0 (never) to 4 (on a daily basis). all values were rated from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). partner status was coded 0 (university partner) or 1 (community partner). © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23719 | february 21, 2020 85 in the third and final set of analyses, we examined three factors that may function as intermediary mechanisms, including feelings of belongingness reported by partners, the networking behaviors of individuals in the building, and the overall cooperativeness of the building culture itself (see figure 1). a series of mediations were conducted to determine if these variables operated as mediators through which any of the values influence perceptions of organizational capacity. we identified eleven significant mediations between various values and partner capacity through intermediary variables. of particular note were the indirect relationships between a welcoming atmosphere and partner perceived capacity through all three mediators, including belongingness (b = .05, boot se = .03, ci [0.00, 0.13]), culture (b = .21, boot se = .06, ci [0.08, 0.33]), and networking frequency (b = .07, boot se = .03, ci [0.01, 0.13]). reciprocity also influenced partner perceived capacity through all three mediators of belongingness (b = .03, boot se = .02, ci [0.01, 0.08]), culture (b = .04, boot se = .03, ci [0.00, 0.11]), and networking frequency (b = .06, boot se = .03, ci [0.01, 0.11]). a civil and open dialogue was indirectly related to partner perceived capacity through both belongingness (b = .03, boot se = .02, ci [0.00, 0.09]) and networking (b = .05, boot se = .02, ci [0.01, 0.10]). collaboration was indirectly related to partner perceived capacity through networking frequency (b = .04, boot se = .02, ci [0.01, 0.10]). finally, diversity indirectly influenced perceived capacity through networking frequency (b = .04, boot se = .02, ci [0.00, 0.09]). no significant mediators were identified between either continuous improvement and partner perceived capacity, or between communication and partner perceived capacity (see table 3). figure 1. hypothesized indirect effect of cec values behaviors on partner capacity through belongingness, building culture, and networking frequency. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23719 | february 21, 2020 86 table 3: multiple regression analyses of all values behaviors and partner report capacity f r2 b se β t 95% ci constant 7.15** 0.38 1.68 0.45 3.74 [0.79, 2.58] civil and open dialogue 0.03 0.08 0.05 0.39 [-0.13, 0.19] collaboration 0.00 0.07 0.00 0.00 [-0.13, 0.13] communication 0.06 0.11 0.49 0.49 [-0.18, 0.29] continuous improvement 0.16† 0.09 1.94† 1.94 [-0.00, 0.33] diversity 0.21† 0.11 1.86† 1.87 [-0.01, 0.43] reciprocity -0.01 0.08 -0.08 -0.08 [-0.17, 0.16] welcoming atmosphere 0.04 0.08 0.48 0.48 [-0.12, 0.20] note. n = 96, **p < 0.05, *p < 0.01, †p < 0.10. table 4: indirect effects of values behaviors on partner reported capacity through belongingness, culture and networking estimate boot se 95% bc ci iv: civil and open dialogue belongingness 0.03* 0.02 [0.00, 0.09] networking 0.05* 0.02 [0.01, 0.10] iv: collaboration networking 0.04* 0.02 [0.01, 0.10] iv: diversity networking 0.04* 0.02 [0.00, 0.09] iv: reciprocity belongingness 0.03* 0.02 [0.01, 0.08] culture 0.04* 0.03 [0.00, 0.11] networking 0.06* 0.03 [0.01, 0.11] iv: welcoming atmosphere belongingness 0.05* 0.03 [0.00, 0.13] culture 0.21* 0.06 [0.08, 0.33] networking 0.07* 0.03 [0.01, 0.13] note. n = 96, bc ci = bias-corrected confidence intervals. only significant relationships are depicted. communication and continuous improvement did not significantly influence capacity through mediators. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23719 | february 21, 2020 87 discussion the increasing number of community engagement units or centers underscores the need for attention to factors which influence their effectiveness, but relatively few studies have explored this area. the goal of the current study was to add to existing knowledge by evaluating the role that building values may have upon the operations of campus centers of engagement. specifically, we sought to examine: (a) if higher levels of self-reported values behaviors were associated with greater perceived capacity; (b) if some values behaviors predicted perceived capacity above and beyond other values behaviors; and (c) how values behaviors might influence perceived capacity. although some literature has explored characteristics of campus engagement centers (e.g., welch & saltmarsh, 2013) and other has focused on best practices derived from a case study of a particular unit (e.g., grorack & mccall, 2018), no studies on campus engagement centers to date have utilized annual survey data gathered from the community and university partners working directly in the unit or building. given the findings just discussed, there are several implications for organizations of higher education interested in establishing or reinvigorating shared spaces. general implications for practice institutes of higher education and community partners may use the findings provided here to help them in their efforts to create a collaborative value-based environment. essentially, other institutes of higher education may want to replicate a values-centered framework within sharedspace facilities. this could be done in three meaningful ways. first, given the association of values behaviors with perceived capacity, organizations may want to build a culture of valuebased behaviors within similar shared-space centers (e.g. tyler, dienhart, & thomas, 2008). these institutes may want to include things like reciprocity between agencies that are partnering on various initiatives, maintaining an atmosphere where individuals feel welcome, advocating for a civil and open dialogue, and so on. additionally, some institutes may already have values and simply may need to emphasize them (giberson, resick, & dickson, 2009), encourage more formal adoption of them by partners, and expect new partners to buy into the values-centered approach. second, since two values, diversity and continuous improvement, emerged as influential predictors above and beyond the other values, those institutes seeking to start fresh with a valuescentered framework may want to incorporate these specific values over some others. both values might serve as a starting point for universities hoping to get their community or other university partners more engaged and involved at their campus centers. specifically, organizations which show a high level of diversity, whether within the organization itself, in terms of the individuals who are served, or in terms of the ideas the agency represents, may be more likely to build © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23719 | february 21, 2020 88 capacity in a shared-space setting (hawkins, 2014). conversely, organizations with a dedicated focus on tracking their progress and finding ways of continuously improving their programs and services would likely also thrive (al-tabbaa, gadd, & ankrah, 2013). third and finally, even though the findings on the intermediary mechanisms did not support mediation, they serve as additional areas of emphasis for any institute attempting to foster a values-focused shared space (welch & saltmarsh, 2013). for example, a notable finding had to do with networking frequency, which as a mediating variable, explained the influence of five of the seven values on organizational capacity. in other words, the values chosen and emphasized at the weitz cec appear to help support networking, which in turn influences partner perceived capacity. regardless of the values selected, the networking frequency mechanism is likely an essential functioning variable in the success of a shared collaboration space (herman & renz, 2008). limitations and future research the present study is not exempt from limitations. first, data were gathered using self-report measures at one-time point and are thus cross-sectional in nature, making it impossible to infer causality. however, in alignment with current theory and practice, when ascertaining information about individual perceptions (e.g., capacity) and attitudes (e.g., belongingness), it is appropriate to utilize self-report instruments (conway & lance, 2010). a more accurate method of assessing behaviors, such as networking frequency, would be of interest for future research. second, although our measurement of perceived capacity was of use in understanding the overall influence of values behaviors, future studies could focus on how values influence different types of impact rather than overall capacity. for example, a recent article by srinivas, meenan, drogin, and deprince (2015) found some evidence that impact can be understood through seven dimensions, including: (a) social capital; (b) skills and competencies; (c) motivations and commitments; (d) personal growth and self-concept; (e) knowledge; (f) organizational operations; and (g) organizational resources. evaluating the relationships between values behaviors and multiple dimensions of perceived capacity could provide information on which values are the critical in different situations. third, data were gathered from community and university partners housed within uno’s cec. although we believe many of the relationships captured in this study would hold true between university and community partners operating in partnership with other campus centers of engagement around the country, it is possible that some of the high scores obtained in our sample would not come through if partners and their respective organizations were not housed in the same building. for example, partners may have fewer opportunities to network when spread © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23719 | february 21, 2020 89 across greater distances or feel a decreased sense of belongingness with the campus if they spend less time physically present. conclusion the findings in this study reinforce the importance of emphasizing values within campus centers of community engagement with a high degree of university and community partner participation (woods, reed, & smith-howell, 2016). overall, both direct and indirect relationships between values behaviors and partner perceived capacity stress the utility of identifying partners with shared values if the sustainability of partnering organizations is to be enhanced. specific findings regarding networking frequency, as well as the importance of diversity and continuous improvement in the prediction of partner perceived capacity provide a starting point for those seeking to build a culture where the satisfaction and effectiveness of a university’s partners is upheld. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23719 | february 21, 2020 90 references al‐tabbaa, o., gadd, k., & ankrah, s. 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(2016). building capacity in nonprofit human service agencies through organizational assessment during the accreditation process. journal of nonprofit education & leadership, 6, 99-114. doi:10.18666/jnel-2016-v6-i2-6499 wing, k. t. (2004). assessing the effectiveness of capacity-building initiatives: seven issues for the field. nonprofit and voluntary sector quarterly, 33, 153-160. woods, s., reed, b. j., & smith-howell, d. (2016). building an engagement center through love of place: the story of the barbara weitz community engagement center. metropolitan universities, 27(3), 84-105. building capacity: the case for values-based operations joseph allen,1 sheridan trent2 and sara woods3 abstract method participants measures procedure results discussion general implications for practice limitations and future research conclusion references metropolitan universities vol. 29 no. 2 (may 2018), doi: 10.18060/22396 voices from the field 2017 cumu annual conference opening plenary remarks october 9, 2017 barbara a. holland, ted howard, and andrew j. seligsohn abstract urban and metropolitan areas face unique challenges in serving the multifaceted needs of their communities, but also have advantages that create some of the world’s greatest universities. three scholars opened the 2017 cumu annual conference with “voices from the field.” each spoke to the changing role of urban-serving institutions and the place-based advantages cumu members have in enriching their communities while strengthening the universities’ core commitments. cumu advisor barbara a. holland, holland consulting, described the changing role of higher education and highlighted the distinct and powerful advantages urban-based higher education institutions have in shaping the success of the metropolitan areas they collectively serve. ted howard, the democracy collaborative, encouraged universities to move beyond current place-making initiatives and to adopt the anchor mission, distilling lessons from cumu members who are pioneering new approaches to anchor mission work to have greater impacts on their institutions and communities. andrew seligsohn, campus compact, reflected on the inter-connected nature of two of higher education’s missions: (a) educating students for democracy; and (b) carrying out their anchor mission, as well as the impact of a civically-engaged student body on creating sustainable change in our communities. barbara a. holland: the urban advantage higher education is well into an era of dramatic change at every level of organization, operations, culture and mission. looking across the landscape of the united states in specifically, this is a time when there are large and extraordinary differences in how individual universities are responding to the need to embrace change and innovation. some institutions are taking bold actions, while others are hunkering down and hoping that they can ride through current challenges without major internal changes. the latter institutions will not thrive going forward, in part because even more change is ahead. institutions that are recognizing the opportunities presented in a time of change will thrive and i believe there is ample evidence that the most successful will be those in urban and metropolitan contexts. cumu member institutions have always been innovative thinkers in part because most campuses are chronically under-funded and, therefore, creativity, imagination and experimentation have always been valued highly in our campus culture. going back in history, 6 many new ideas and improvements in higher education began on america’s urban/metropolitan campuses. in particular, the massive expansion of access to higher education in the post-wwii era accelerated the transition of the u.s. from a rural to an urbanized nation; a trend which is happening again today with the large influx of young adults choosing to move into postindustrial cities where they can find affordable housing, cultural diversity, entrepreneurial environments and further education, among other assets. in this context, it is clear that there is a distinct and powerful advantage to being an urban-based higher education institution, and a corollary disadvantage to being rural and remote. features of the urban advantage the benefits of urbanity align with the major challenges for improvement and renewal in higher education performance, effectiveness, and impact, internally and externally. these actions and strategies include the need: (a) to improve student success; (b) create productive and high impact learning environments for all students; (c) ensure broad access, attract/retain/develop a new generation of faculty and staff; (d) engage our teaching, learning and research activities with issues and opportunities of our region; (e) contribute to economic progress; and (d) develop partnerships and strategies that lead to new streams of funding and capacity, and more. so what about an urban/metropolitan location creates these advantages? • people: diversity of culture, experience, race, language, age, expectations and ambitions (85% of all people on earth live in urban spaces) • concentration of broad societal issues: large-scale access to learning through action; ensures student access to multiple hands-on learning experiences, internships, engagement, employment • economic and innovation hub: rich with partnership opportunities – business, industry and other sectors generate collaborative research opportunities, discovery/application, graduate employment • political and philanthropic hub: access to influential leaders and organizations as well as an array of intellectual and financial resources for research and partnerships • arts/creativity hub: broad and diverse forms of creative activity enrich urban culture, social fabric and the economy • academic pathways: community colleges, private institutions, research universities…the full array of educational settings encourages access and contributes to social capital and equity of opportunity • communications/technology access and innovation: the classroom can be in many settings relating to every discipline; faculty can collaborate locally, regionally and globally through strong, reliable communications systems. • transportation hub: easy access to the world; sustained collaboration with global partners enhances teaching and research impacts; local/international expertise and discovery leads to new industries and other assets to the city and its academic institutions today’s reality is that some rurally-located campuses are struggling to sustain enrollment and a robust and diverse academic workforce. students and new generation faculty alike are drawn to 7 institutions in metropolitan regions because they seek access to partnerships and experiences that are not available in remote communities. the challenges of the globe play out in every urban region. more than just a laboratory for research and learning, these challenges inspire us to think anew about how we organize our assets and capacity, in concert with others, to identify solutions that will inform a hopeful future. summary the changes that are emerging are extensive and inevitable, but beyond the challenges of leading change, the new directions are positive and exciting. there is considerable reason to be optimistic about the future of urban and metropolitan institutions because we are changing already, even if we don’t always recognize it. change is already well underway and it is leading us toward a model characterized by collaboration and impact. • teaching/learning/research are coming together as blended activities, rather than competing with each other. this increases our capacity for partnerships internally and externally. • students are increasingly involved in active learning strategies that enhance community capacity for progress and action. students are our best public representatives and will contribute to the renewal of public regard for higher education • new-generation academics are creating a new academic culture based on organization around q's and ideas that involve partnerships across disciplines and other sectors. many of you probably already have a body of faculty and staff that are comprised of about 40% gen x and millennials. some may be even higher. research reveals these faculty will create a new, public-facing academic culture that may also help restore higher education as an invaluable resource for local and global progress and well-being. there is strong alignment between these emerging changes and situational context. urban/metro institutions are in a sweet spot, and many are already innovating and adapting to a new academic culture that includes greater emphasis on student success and cross-sector opportunities to work on challenging questions that challenge our world and require networks of intellectual resources to identify workable solutions. this organization of urban and metropolitan universities has an extraordinary and exciting future that is unfolding before us at this conference. society’s current challenges around economy, equity, opportunity and health in a context of safe, productive and civil communities require a strong and engaged higher education sector to inform and stimulate progress and social capital. in an urbanized nation, it will be the urban and metropolitan institutions that lead the way toward a new era when higher education sector is once again at the table as an asset to progress and equity. i have no doubt many of your institutions will be prominent leaders in renewing the social contract between higher education and society in the coming years. you have set a path for progress that is exciting, inspiring, hopeful and optimistic, and for good reasons. thank you for your leadership. 8 ted howard: the anchor mission as everyone at this conference is well aware, the days when a university could be separate from or ignore the community in which it is based are long gone. over the past 20 years, the trajectory of higher education has been toward greater levels of engagement with community. in these two decades, we have seen the advent of volunteering and service learning, academically based community service and research, the creation of community engagement and outreach centers on our campuses, many forms of community partnerships, k12 initiatives, and here and there a bit of university-led economic development (retail, housing, and so forth). admittedly, much of this aims to create better campus districts for students, staff and faculty, not necessarily to meet the needs of the community. we have also seen in recent years a growing trend toward multi-anchor engagement, in which universities collaborate on place-making with healthcare institutions, local philanthropy, and municipal government. the next major development for higher education is now beginning to pick up momentum: leveraging and harmonizing all of the assets of the institution to benefit community. we call this the anchor mission. this is a term of art that the democracy collaborative coined around the year 2010. we define it as: a commitment to intentionally apply an institution’s place-based economic power and human capital in partnership with community to mutually benefit the long-term wellbeing of both. in other words, to align all of the functions of a university, from teaching and research to procurement, hiring, and treasury/investment policies, to produce ever-greater benefit to the places where we are rooted—anchored—and from which we do not exit. this innovation for our field is an orientation for acting. as university leaders at all levels begin standing for and expressing their anchor mission, new questions arise, and new answers appear. we become more serious and accountable regarding what we expect from ourselves and our institutions. a particular emphasis of the anchor mission is on economic inclusion: ensuring that all residents of the community, including those most disadvantaged or marginalized, are included in the economy and its growth. economic inclusion is an asset-based approach to development, with a strong emphasis of focus on those neighborhoods and areas of our community that are most challenged. localizing our supply chains, our hiring practices, and our investment portfolios is at the very heart of how universities can contribute to a more inclusive, resilient, and vibrant local economy. 9 by altering our business model and corporate culture around the anchor mission, we begin moving our engagement to higher levels of meaning and impact. from: • doing some good things for and with the community, in effect a charitable impulse… to • making a real and measureable impact in the community in a few select areas, such as helping to improve a local school… to • being accountable for all of our functions and assets and how they can be deployed to produce positive impacts on our communities, not as charity, but as sound business practice that can also benefit our own institutions—a win-win for the institution and for the community. at the democracy collaborative, for the past three years we have been participating with six universities through our anchor dashboard learning cohort. our goal is to learn how to improve performance and measure impact through the implementation of an anchor mission strategy. these six universities, rutgers-newark, drexel, virginia commonwealth, buffalo state, cleveland state, and missouri-st. louis, are pioneering new approaches to go all in for mission—the anchor mission. one of the participants in the anchor dashboard learning cohort, peter englot, senior vice chancellor for public affairs and chief of staff at rutgers university-newark, puts it this way: our understanding of the anchor mission was that it is incumbent upon us as a placebased, urban university to leverage our intellectual, human, and material capital in partnership with others across sectors of our community to make a collective impact on addressing the challenges facing our community… we understood this to be not just good for our community, but to improve our scholarship and education. the opportunity for our communities is enormous, but still largely untapped. across our nation, place-based universities employ 4 million people, purchase $43 billion of goods and services year-in, year-out, and have endowments and investment portfolios of $515 billion. only a small percentage of this economic power is now deployed to strengthen our communities, but imagine the possibilities as more of our institutions begin to adopt an anchor mission framework. let me give you two examples of how one university and one health system are beginning to think about and implement their anchor mission. 10 drexel university in philadelphia (figure 1) now sees the totality of its anchor mission in this way: figure 1. three-fold integration of university missions to support the anchor mission. note how the core functions of service, academics, and institutional investment are all integrated and connected to one another and to community—rather than siloed off and not interacting with one another. using this framework, all of the functions of the university are engaged in a robust conversation about how they can carry out their work in ways that benefit the community, as well as the institution. 11 another model (figure 2) of anchor mission implementation has been created by kaiser permanente, one of the nation’s largest health systems: figure 2. assets to support an anchor mission. again, notice how kaiser permanente is seeking to integrate and leverage all of their functions and assets—from their it and communications programs to their health care delivery and their supply chain—to create healthier communities. within the anchor mission framework, everything is included and nothing is left out. let me conclude by suggesting to you why the anchor mission matters. for our institutions universities are sticky capital. we are rooted in place. we are in our communities for the longhaul. it is simply not in our self-interest to be based in communities that aren’t thriving, resilient, sustainable. properly focused, our economic power and human capital can be important contributors to a stronger and more inclusive community. and by implementing an anchor 12 mission, we can improve our institutions, our teaching, our research, and the experience for our students, our staff, and our faculty. for our communities many of our communities are hurting, particularly inner city and inner ring suburbs of communities of color. the statistics are stark and must be addressed head on if we are serious about ensuring a thriving and inclusive economy and meaningful democracy. • over the past decade, fully 90% of our core urban areas have seen disinvestment and destabilization grow; • in the most productive and largest economy the world has ever seen, 22% of america’s children live in poverty, a percentage that has not changed since 1960; • the number of people living in concentrated poverty has doubled from 7 million to 14 million since 2000, and nearly 50 million of us live below the federal poverty line; • white median net wealth in the us is thirteen times greater than african american net wealth and ten times greater than latino net wealth. in my view, our institutions cannot succeed in the long-term if our communities are failing. we rise and fall together. this reality is at the heart of the anchor mission. for our nation at this time of national political grid-lock where so little can be achieved in washington, dc for our communities, where the action is, where the innovation is, is in communities themselves, particularly in the urban areas where cumu’s member institutions are based. our cities are our new “laboratories of democracy.” what we do in our urban and metro areas matters—not just today but in the long-term. by adopting an anchor mission, our institutions can participate in developing new approaches that can scale up for profound national impact once there is a new opening politically, which of course there will be one day. our institutions cannot solve all of the problems our urban areas face, but we can be leaders in our communities, pointing the way for other anchors, for businesses, for the public sector. through our example, we can help set a “new normal” for what is considered appropriate institutional behavior in our communities. by adopting an anchor mission—leveraging and harmonizing all of our institutional functions and assets in support of community—we can improve our cities and improve ourselves. this is mutual, shared, enlightened self-interest of the very best kind. thank you. 13 andrew j. seligsohn there are many things to say about the state of national politics in the united states, which means there is much room for disagreement and competing interpretations. but one thing nearly everyone agrees about is that on the issues that matter most, we are very unlikely to see serious and sustained action in the foreseeable future. we are unlikely to forge a sustainable immigration policy or a policy to create economic opportunity for urban and rural communities that lack access to high-paying jobs. we are not going to act on climate change. we cannot ignore national politics, but we would be making a huge mistake if we were to gamble on significant forward movement coming from washington in the near future. in that context, the question of how to make change in and through local communities—always important—takes on additional urgency. so, i want to spend a few minutes reflecting on how we should approach the contribution of colleges and universities to community change. in particular, i want to reflect on the relationship between what we often think of as two distinct aspects of the public mission of higher education. one aspect is what we might call the institution’s anchor mission: the obligation of the university to participate actively in creating strong, healthy, prosperous communities. the other aspect is what we might call the university’s civic education mission: the obligation of the university to educate students for effective participation in a just democratic polity. institutions typically act as if these were separate and distinct missions: one mission has to do with job creation, physical development of the built environment, purchasing practices, and other domains that seem to have nothing to do with students. the other mission has to do with academic courses and co-curricular programs, the stuff of the student experience. those of us who believe colleges and universities must contribute to changing the country for the better tend to focus our calls for action on one of these domains or the other. so it is not surprising that we are left believing they are actually separate and distinct. my central point is that despite the apparent gap separating these missions, there is ultimately no daylight between them. we can distinguish them analytically, and it may be useful to do so for certain purposes. in the end, though, a university cannot carry out its anchor mission without educating students for democracy, and a university cannot educate students for democracy without carrying out its anchor mission. my goal is to explain why these two apparently distinct missions turn out to be one mission and to identify some implications of that recognition. the first way of seeing why there is no daylight between the two missions is by considering what constitutes success in the anchor mission realm. while there are many reasonable answers to the question, for the purposes of discussion let’s just say that success in the anchor realm means supporting the development of a community that thrives in every way that contributes to the quality of life for residents. anchor success is achieved when a community is strong economically, socially, and environmentally. as soon as we spell out what we mean by anchor success, we can see that it cannot be achieved without a strong citizenry. we know this for several reasons. first, the extensive literature on 14 social capital makes clear that there is a powerful positive relationship between engaged citizens and community members, on the one hand, and economic prosperity. a community of people who are connected to each other creates a platform for innovation and investment in which individuals have the confidence to take risks. isolated, disconnected individuals are not positioned to identify opportunities and resources, the keys for building a successful local and regional economy. second, another body of academic literature, known as selectorate theory, has shown that leaders will be responsive to the interests of those whose support is crucial to their own ability to stay in power. if the majority of citizens participates in the political life of the community, leaders will work to improve life for that majority, which requires them to act in a way that creates broad opportunity. if a small minority participates, leaders will direct benefits to that minority. the creation of broad opportunity is the achievement of a successful economy. the direction of benefits to a small minority of influential people, in contrast, is corruption, which produces economic failure for the vast majority. if an engaged and participatory citizenry is necessary for economic success, then the education of students for effective citizenship is not separate from the anchor mission; it is the first and most important element of an anchor strategy. examples from all over the world show that pouring money into communities in which citizens do not or cannot participate does not produce shared prosperity. it produces benefits for those in power and the people responsible for their staying in power. if colleges and universities direct economic resources to communities that have experienced disinvestment but do not support a corresponding civic revival, they will fail to achieve their anchor mission. put another way, civic education is not an undertaking separate and distinct from the anchor mission. civic education is an essential means to the end of anchor success. but while civic education may be a necessary condition for anchor success, it is clearly not a sufficient condition. it might be tempting, therefore, to imagine that other components of the anchor mission (e.g., local purchasing, responsible real estate development, inclusive hiring practices, and robust partnerships) are optional for those who care most about civic education. on this way of thinking, it would be possible to focus on curricular and co-curricular experiences for students, be glad that strengthening the citizenry in the vicinity of the university is helpful to the regional economy, and leave it at that. but there is a problem with that view. students, a substantial body of evidence reveals, learn not just from what institutions teach them but also from what institutions do. when institutions act in ways that manifest commitment to the public good, students are themselves positively influenced. several strands of research point in this direction. first, we have evidence from k-12 education. the making caring common initiative at harvard’s graduate school of education has compiled the results of research on efforts to cultivate pro-social behaviors in students e.g., listening, compromising, working with others to solve problems. these are all behaviors that relate closely to citizenship skills. their conclusion 15 is that no program is likely to have more of an impact on students than the behaviors of the adults in the school. if school professionals display, in their interactions with each other and with students, the behaviors they wish to cultivate, students will emulate them. if school professionals display other behaviors, programs will not be especially effective. to a student, the school is teachers and administrators. students learn from the school. similarly, evidence from the responses and behaviors of college students shows that they, too, tend to follow the lead of their institutions and the people who represent them. evidence from the personal and social responsibility inventory, analyzed by robert reason and his colleagues, shows the importance of institutional leadership in shaping student civic learning and development. the psri shows that high-impact practices, such as service learning have a substantial positive effect on student civic attitudes. it also shows, however, that the effect of high-impact practices is far more positive for students who believe that their institutions embrace the civic values such experiences seek to cultivate. if students see their universities acting as responsible anchor institutions, the students are more likely to be open to seeing themselves as responsible civic actors than if they see their universities sitting on the sidelines. analyses of student voter participation lead to the same conclusion. nancy thomas and her colleagues have studied universities that significantly over-perform or under-perform expected student voter rates based on data from the national study of learning voting and engagement (nslve). the overarching finding in this research is that student voting is driven by the campus climate at an institution. programs focused on student voting may make a difference, but the biggest positive impact comes when students see that their university takes seriously values such as diversity, student voice in decision-making, and equal opportunity. when the institution lives out its stated values in its practices, students are motivated to embrace their obligation to participate in the political life of the community by voting. all of these threads connect at a single point: if we want students to embrace the opportunities and responsibilities of citizenship, universities must embrace their own public responsibilities as anchor institutions in their communities and regions. as we have seen, the anchor mission depends on the success of the civic education mission, and the civic education mission depends on the success of the anchor mission. therefore, we can see that there are not two mission but one: the university’s public purpose mission. that public purpose mission has two dimensions, the civic education dimension and the anchor dimension. what are the implications of that recognition? first, these two dimensions of the public purpose mission must be pursued in an integrated fashion. we miss an opportunity to show students how an institution can take on public challenges in partnership with communities if we do not engage students in the work. however, engaging students in the work requires us to connect the people on the campus who facilitate student civic learning with the people who lead anchor efforts. connecting these people and their work also ensures that the intentions of anchor efforts will be evident to students. that last point connects to the second implication of the inter-connection of the two missions: anchor efforts must be designed and executed in ways that provide evidence of the egalitarian and democratic commitments of the institution. that means community members and students 16 must be active participants in decision-making connected to the university’s public purpose mission. unless students experience the institution’s commitment to the democratic values motivating the work in the first place, we cannot expect that they will come to share that commitment. both public and non-profit universities receive and deserve public subsidy because their central purpose is to advance the public good. if the leaders of universities imagine that they should, must, or even can pick and choose among their obligations and pursue either their anchor mission or their civic education mission, they will undermine their own capacity to achieve their core public purpose mission. if, on the other hand, they embrace the inter-connection among the dimensions of the public purpose mission, they have the opportunity to foster new levels of creativity as faculty, staff, students, and community members work together to envision the next generation of integrated and engaged universities. 17 author information barbara a. holland is recognized internationally for her scholarship and expertise on organizational change in higher education with a focus on institutionalization of community engagement. as an academic leader, she held senior administrative positions at portland state university, northern kentucky university, university of western sydney and university of sydney. in government-related roles, she was director of the learn and serve america national service-learning clearinghouse for seven years and visiting director of the u.s. department of housing and urban development’s office of university partnerships for two years during the clinton and bush administrations. as a researcher and consultant, she has advised more than 100 colleges and universities in the usa and other nations regarding community engagement, institutionalization, and leadership of change, and she has authored many publications of note, including the creation of the holland matrix for institutionalization. as a scholar and leader, barbara was a founding board member and 2011-12 chair of the international association for research on service-learning and community engagement (iarslce), and also was a founding member of the national review board for the scholarship of education, the national advisory panel for the carnegie elective classification for community engagement, and the australian universities community engagement alliance (now called engagement australia) which in 2008 named her one of their first two honorary fellows. in 2006, she received the iarslce award for research achievement. she previously served as executive editor of metropolitan universities journal and serves in editorial roles for five other refereed journals. barbara had been a lead faculty member for the engagement academy for university leaders, sponsored by four major higher education associations, since it began in 2008. barbara a. holland, phd strategy advisor coalition of urban and metropolitan universities email: holland.barbaraa@gmail.com ted howard is the co-founder and president of the democracy collaborative. previously, he served as the executive director of the national center for economic alternatives. howard directs the collaborative's partnership with the cleveland foundation on the evergreen cooperative business initiative, a path-breaking strategy to create green jobs and wealth for lowincome families in six of the city's underserved neighborhoods. howard was appointed the cleveland foundation's first steven a. minter fellow for social justice, a position he held from 2010 to 2014. for the past three decades, howard has worked in the not-for-profit/civil society sector, including more than 15 years in international development with ngos and agencies of the un system. most recently, he was the executive director of the national center for economic and security alternatives, a research and policy institute. howard served for nine years as chairman of the board of search for common ground, the world's largest conflict resolution ngo. he also serves on the board of lift, a national mailto:holland.barbaraa@gmail.com 18 organization dedicated to engaging college students and youth in combating poverty in our nation's urban areas. ted howard, phd co-founder and president the democracy collaborative the hanna building 1422 euclid ave. suite 1652 cleveland, oh 44115 email: thoward@democracycollaborative.org telephone: 216-282-2022 andrew j. seligsohn is president of campus compact, a national coalition of 1100 colleges and universities dedicated to the public purposes of higher education. as president, seligsohn has focused on strengthening campus compact’s support for deep partnerships between campuses and communities through comprehensive campus planning. he is also leading efforts to expand campus compact’s professional development and student civic leadership offerings. before joining campus compact in june of 2014, seligsohn served as associate chancellor for civic engagement and strategic planning at rutgers university–camden, where he worked across the campus to develop the university’s engagement infrastructure to maximize community impact and student learning. seligsohn previously served as director of civic engagement learning in the pace center at princeton university and as a faculty member in the department of political science at hartwick college. at hartwick, seligsohn also served as the elected chair of the faculty. seligsohn has published articles and chapters on higher education engagement, student political engagement, constitutional law, political theory, and urban politics. seligsohn is a member of the policy council of the service year alliance and the national advisory board for the all in campus democracy challenge. seligsohn holds a ph.d. in political science from the university of minnesota and a b.a. in modern intellectual history from williams college. andrew j. seligsohn, phd president campus compact 45 temple place boston, ma 02111 email: ajs@compact.org telephone: 617-357-1881 mailto:thoward@democracycollaborative.org mailto:ajs@compact.org metropolitan universities vol. 29 no. 4 (december 2018), doi: 10.18060/22711 87 post-tenure reflections on community-engaged scholarship in a psychology research setting farrah m. jacquez abstract community-engaged scholarship emphasizes community partnership in the teaching, research, and service roles faculty pursue. traditionally, psychological research places the highest value on tightly controlled, laboratory-based research led by faculty as “expert” and community as “subjects.” the difference in values between traditional research and community-engaged research can serve as a paradigm-level barrier to community-engaged scholarship for psychologists working in research settings. i discuss my personal experience as a faculty member with a community-based participatory research (cbpr) orientation and describe four suggestions to increase community-engaged scholarship among psychology researchers in similar highresearch institutions: (a) revise promotion and tenure documents to recognize it; (b) update irb reviews to support it; (c) earmark internal funding specifically for it; and (d) create networks to spread it. keywords: community-engaged participatory research; community-engaged scholarship; psychology; health disparities introduction like most students in the last fifty years who pursued a doctor of philosophy degree in clinical psychology, i was trained in a scientist-practitioner model that emphasized the integration of research and clinical practice (beck et al., 2014). the foundation of the scientist-practitioner model is the idea that training in both research and clinical skills will be the best professional preparation for a psychologist, no matter what type of career they go on to pursue. clinicians can provide higher quality care if they are active, knowledgeable consumers of scientific information and academic psychologists will generate more relevant, applicable scientific evidence if their research is informed by real clients. community-engaged research is a collaboration between academic and community partners to create and disseminate knowledge for both academic and community benefit (carnegie foundation, 2018). one might imagine that psychology’s scientist-practitioner model could serve as a helpful framework for community-engaged research by simply replacing “clients” with “communities” in the conceptualization of ideals. researchers who choose to work with community organizations and resident stakeholders will conduct research that directly speaks to community problems. psychologists working in communities using evidence-based practices will have more power to change the structures and systems necessary to promote positive community change. 88 despite the seemingly easy transition from the scientist-practitioner model to communityengaged research, clinical psychology as an academic discipline has been slow to accept community-engaged research as valid science. the distrust stems primarily from a difference in values that can be framed in terms of the trade-off between internal and external validity. in every scientific inquiry, the researcher must balance the need to tightly control all aspects of the study to reduce confounding variables that muddy results (internal validity) with the desire to have the results apply to the real world (external validity). in psychology, the balance between internal and external validity when designing research studies is often referred to as “the experimenter’s dilemma.” traditionally, psychology research has placed a very high value on internal validity. for example, in intervention research, lab-based randomized controlled trials are considered the gold standard because they maximize confidence that significant findings are a result of the treatment and not because of spurious factors. internal validity is critical to consider because we need to be sure that the treatments we are delivering actually do help people. however, the pervasive wicked problems that persist despite considerable funding and effort to combat them (e.g., obesity, drug abuse, health disparities) suggest that the interventions developed through traditional research methods are simply not working outside the laboratory setting. community-engaged researchers tend to place more weight on external validity in the interest of tangible benefits in the community. although a community-engaged scientist will try to control as many factors as possible when conducting research to maximize internal validity, ultimately if the treatment doesn’t work in the real world, it is not worth developing. the difference in values between traditional research and community-engaged research can serve as a paradigm-level barrier to community-engaged scholarship for psychologists working in research settings. partnering with community members in research differs from traditional research at almost every point in the process, including deciding which research questions to ask, who gets funding, how to collect data, and where to disseminate results. at each point, the researcher necessarily compromises control so that the research is more relevant and has greater reach in the community (balazs & morello-frosch, 2013). in comparison with the disciplines of public health and education, psychology has been slower to accept a balance shift toward less control (bogart & uyeda, 2009). however, the tides appear to be turning. a recent article in american psychologist, the official journal of the american psychological association, made the case for equitable involvement of community members in psychological research (collins et al., 2018). surprisingly few psychologists within academia are working from a community-based participatory research (cbpr) lens, so the introduction to this research orientation in the most widely distributed journal in psychology marks a major milestone. the authors (which include both researchers and community partners) describe several distinct advantages of community-engaged research that respond directly to the internal-external validity trade-off. in particular, they highlight the potential for community-engaged research to close the research-practice gap, to improve validity of research methods, and to increase effectiveness of interventions. i have found these same benefits in my own work. in the remainder of this paper, i will discuss my personal experience as a faculty member with a cbpr research orientation and 89 make suggestions to increase community-engaged scholarship among psychology researchers in similar high-research institutions. personal experience of a community-engaged research psychologist for the past ten years, i have worked as a professor in the psychology department at the university of cincinnati, a research 1 institution with a total student enrollment of about 45,000. i have been doing community-engaged scholarship to fulfill uc’s research, teaching, and service expectations for my faculty role (jacquez, 2014). in my research, i have worked with latino immigrants, community organizers, neighborhood leaders, and youth to develop interventions for health equity. in my teaching, i partner for each class with a community organization to allow students to use research skills to help agencies reach their goals. my service activities focus on serving on community boards and leading activities to help recruit and retain underrepresented minority students and faculty. i was fortunate to receive the lynton award for community engagement for early career faculty in 2013, an honor that was extremely helpful in my bid for tenure. i do not have colleagues reviewing my materials who engage in community-based participatory research, so the external validation of the lynton award helped to explain my impact at both the departmental and college levels of tenure review. the lynton award helped to legitimize my research and convince promotion and tenure reviewers, even those unfamiliar with the field of community-engaged scholarship, of the value of my approach. in the time i have spent as a faculty member, the enthusiasm with which my work and community-engaged research in general is received has increased rather dramatically. i believe there are two primary drivers in this shift. firstly, the funding landscape has changed. funders like the robert wood johnson foundation, the patient-centered outcomes research institute (pcori), and even some requests for proposals from the national institutes of health are including community engagement as a required element in grant proposals. these requirements have placed a higher value on faculty who have demonstrated expertise in community-engaged work. secondly, i and other community-engaged faculty have identified strategies to disseminate our work in ways that satisfy traditional research expectations, thereby making communityengaged research more mainstream. for example, in our five-year partnership with latino immigrants, we have published seven articles, including results of the work (jacquez et al., 2016; jacquez, vaughn & suarez-cano, 2018; topmiller et al., 2016; zhen-duan, jacquez & vaughn, 2017), participatory methodologies we’ve used with latino immigrants to collaborate (vaughn et al., 2016) and descriptions of the process of working together over time (vaughn et al., 2016; vaughn et al., 2017; vaughn, jacquez & zhen-duan, 2018). by publishing community-engaged work in traditional research journals, i am part of a movement of community-engaged researchers who are demonstrating that partnering with community members is “real” scientific research that can and should be valued in academia. at the same time, grant funders are requiring that researchers include community members to increase translation and potential for real world change. together, researchers and grant funders are helping to not only make community engagement more acceptable, but to make it an expectation for research that can lead to action. 90 promoting community-engaged research within research 1 institutions funding mechanisms and researcher savvyi have changed in ways that encourage communityengaged research. nevertheless, research 1 institutions have been slower to institute policies that promote this work. the carnegie foundation currently classifies 115 doctoral-granting universities throughout the united states as research 1 institutions, or those with the highest research activity. the carnegie elective classification for community engagement assesses institutional commitment to community engagement and the process of self-study involved in the application process allows institutions to revitalize their civic and academic missions. there are 316 campuses nationally that have been awarded the classification since 2006 (carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching, 2015). among research 1 institutions, 53% (n=61) have received the carnegie classification for community engagement at one of the two eligible points in the last decade (carnegie classification, 2018). although the community engagement classification is elective, it represents an evidence-based documentation of institutional practice and suggests an institution’s interest in self-study and quality improvement in community-engagement (swearer center, 2018). furthermore, my experience in a stem discipline at a research 1 institution is consistent with the observations of fellow community-based participatory researchers in academic medicine. who have posited that policies and procedures will need intentional shifts in order to increase the number of faculty doing community-engaged research (nyden, 2003; allen et al., 2010). in reflecting on the primary barriers and facilitators to my community-engaged scholarship as a faculty member over the last decade, i have identified the top four factors that have served as barriers or facilitators to my work: promotion and tenure policies, institutional review boards, professional networks, and internal funding mechanisms. based on these factors, i outline specific recommendations for research institutions to support faculty in their pursuit of rigorous community-engaged research. factor 1: revise promotion and tenure documents to recognize community-engaged research one of the often-cited strategies to promote community-engaged research is to revise promotion and tenure strategies to recognize this type of work (israel, schulz, parker & becker, 2001). however, the traditional stem disciplines and academic medicine settings where many health researchers are employed have not changed their policies. since the days when i went through the tenure process, two institutions with which i am affiliated have made major revisions to their promotion and tenure policies to make room for different kinds of research impact. in my home department of psychology at the university of cincinnati, our 40-person faculty took on a laborious collaborative revision of our reappointment, promotion, and tenure criteria in 2014. in faculty meetings over the course of a year, we discussed the specific language in our criteria that could be adjusted to include community-engaged research. when i went up for tenure in 2013, the criteria for research and publishing was: it is traditional in psychology to focus on refereed journal articles. while these are important, we also look for appropriate presentation of research. typically, this will mean articles, but it could also include books, chapters, technical reports, or other suitable 91 forms of publications. the candidate may offer evidence on the appropriateness of the outlets. following lengthy discussions about how we could uphold the standards of our scientific discipline while still having room for community impact, we revised the research and publishing language to: the department of psychology includes a diverse group of scholars representing a variety of disciplines and areas of focus. it is critical that, regardless of a faculty member’s area of focus, his or her dossier clearly documents excellence in research. the field of psychology has traditionally focused on refereed journal articles and grants as the primary measures of research productivity. while peer-reviewed journal publications are important, we also look for other appropriate presentations of research, which could also include books, chapters, technical reports, or other suitable research products. we understand that some of our tenure-track faculty are practicing in subfields in which it is not traditional to seek federal research funding as pi or to disseminate their research primarily in peer-reviewed journals. in these situations, the candidate must offer evidence in the dossier of 1) what the standard of research excellence is in the subfield and 2) how this standard has been met. these changes recognize the diversity of research within psychology as a discipline and providing a specific mechanism for faculty to demonstrate their excellence in nontraditional ways. where the psychology faculty focused on a general shift in promotion and tenure criteria, another example from pediatrics at cincinnati children’s hospital and medical center focused on the inclusion of community-engaged research and community-based participatory research (cbpr) more specifically. in the section of their reappointment, promotion, and tenure criteria focused on participation in research or other scholarly activities, they added several sentences and a phrase to include a broader spectrum of research (relevant added sections are italicized): research and scholarly activities are broadly defined, and include basic, clinical, or translational; health disparities; community-engaged; biostatistical or informatics; quality, safety and outcomes; behavioral; and health services research. participation in clinical trials or other investigations that lead to the translation of intellectual property into potentially commercially viable products are also valued. given that interdisciplinary team activities are increasingly recognized as important to the future of biomedical science, participation or leadership in collaborative research/team science are valued in the promotion process. in addition, it is well recognized that collaboration between academic and community partners can enhance translation of scientific knowledge for clinical and community programs; therefore, the efforts of faculty working with community organizations to improve public health are also values. collaborative research is evidenced by participation in local or regional multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, or multicenter studies; collaboration between academic and community partners; or participation in multi-site research, clinical improvement, learning or safety networks. external support for research or scholarly activities is encouraged but not required. solely referring patients to clinical trials is not sufficient to achieve this criterion. 92 the revisions came about in consultation with the center for clinical and translational science and training (cctst), our cincinnati-area clinical and translational science award (ctsa). like all 57 national institute of health-funded ctsas around the country, the cctst has a community engagement core that focuses on integrating academic and community resources for community benefit. faculty in our community engagement core advised the department of pediatrics in the revision of their promotion criteria to explicitly acknowledge the benefit of working with community partners to improve scientific knowledge and better disseminate it so that it can improve health outcomes. the university of cincinnati psychology department and the cincinnati children’s hospital and medical center department of pediatrics are two examples of departments that have improved their policies to allow faculty to show impact through community-engaged research. however, the road to changing policies even across these two institutions is long and complex. at uc, there are five colleges and more than 50 departments, each with their own promotion and tenure criteria. although psychology has changed our criteria to pave the way for community-engaged scholarship, to my knowledge no other department has made similar revisions. to make changes in just one institution is a mammoth undertaking requiring investment from stakeholders across disciplines. factor 2: require community-engaged research expertise on institutional review boards (irbs) bring together any group of community-engaged researchers and you will inevitably hear a conversation about the frustrations working with irb systems that have rigid rules and procedures to protect human subjects in traditional scientist-subject relationships. like other researchers, i have been personally challenged in managing the ethics of working in community partnerships with the human subjects protection policies and procedures implemented by the irb (wilson, kenny & dickson-smith, 2018). one review of challenges to community-based participatory research and irb found consistent barriers across all studies (tamariz et al., 2015). the primary issues stem from the difference between traditional research paradigms and the more iterative, shared-decision making that happens in community-engaged research. irbs overwhelming evaluate research that is designed, implemented, analyzed, and disseminated by an academic “expert.” therefore, their role is to protect the human beings who serve as subjects in the research. in community-engaged research, research “subjects” are instead partners in forming the questions, making decisions about research design, and getting the word out about results. most irbs simply do not have a process to evaluate cbpr projects. the irb at my institution has shown an interest in promoting community-engaged research and has attended meetings across campus to better understand how to support this work, but we still do not have a concrete set of procedures that can be applied specifically to community-engaged research. as has been recommended by other researchers (tamariz et al., 2015) and professional organizations like community-campus partnerships for health (shore et al., 2014), i believe that having individuals with community-engaged research expertise and non-academic community representatives on irbs could help with the review process. ideally, these academic and livedexperience experts could help develop new policies and procedures to delineate the research 93 ethics involved in community-based participatory research (mikesell, bromley & khodyakov, 2013).with community members serving on irb review panels, community-engaged researchers could be more confident that the irb was truly evaluating their research for what it is: a collaborative approach that uses research methods to solve real-world problems. factor 3: earmark internal funding mechanisms for community-engaged research one of the most difficult aspects of starting a tenure-track faculty position as a communityengaged researcher is the ever-looming expectation for grant funding. the first two reappointment reviews happen after 18 months and about four years respectively. research faculty are expected to have funding to report at these reviews. community-engaged research can simply take more time to get started. collaborative relationships between researchers and community members take time to develop and the process of sharing decision-making takes more time than researcher-led projects. unfortunately, few grant mechanisms fund partnership development to allow community members and academic partners to co-create research projects. our cincinnati-area ctsa organization has developed grant and training mechanisms over the past nine years to support community-academic partnerships and research. as co-director of research for the community engagement core of the center for clinical and translational science and training (cctst), i have overseen the community health grant program for the past eight years, which funds projects up to $20,000 that are conceived and conducted by community-academic partnerships. because we often received applications from teams that had the potential to be great partners, but were not yet ready to do a full research project, two years ago we developed the partnership development grant to fund new partnerships up to $5000 as they plan a project or collect pilot data. on the community side, we offer the popular community leaders institute (cli), a six week training series designed to enhance academic-community research, integrate the interests of community leaders and researchers, and build research capacity and competencies within the community (crosby, parr, smith & mitchell, 2013). the cli has formed a network of research-savvy community leaders ready to partner for change in our community. taken together, the cctst’s grant programs provide small but significant internal funding mechanisms to support community-engaged research that can be particularly helpful for junior faculty members still developing their community partnerships. i was fortunate to receive two community health grants early in my career. these awards allowed me to form relationships with community partners with whom i still work today, to add grant funding to my cv for my reappointment reviews, and to collect pilot data that became the basis for national-level funding. universities and academic medical centers that truly value community-engaged research should create funding that is specifically earmarked for this type of work. ideally, grant proposals should be reviewed by both academic and community members to evaluate the degree to which research is mutually beneficial to both scientific and community interests. factor 4: create networks of community-engaged scholars across disciplines like most disciplines, psychology can be pedigree-driven. most research psychology training programs work on a mentorship model in which graduate students are recruited into doctoral 94 programs to work with a particular mentor. students often go on to internships and postdoctoral fellowships with other students who have worked with their mentor, or mentors of their mentor. a tight-knit community develops, with everyone going to the same conferences and building on one another’s research. i was trained in this model and was extremely fortunate to have an excellent graduate mentor who prepared me well for a path into pediatric psychology. therefore, i was able to complete an internship at the #1 ranked children’s hospital in the country and an nih-funded pediatric psychology postdoctoral fellowship. i was well positioned to join the tight-knit group of psychologists i had trained to be a part of. however, along the way i discovered community-engaged participatory research. none of the students or faculty with whom i had trained had ever conducted cbpr; many were downright skeptical of my “outreach projects”, which they considered unscientific. my faculty department was supportive of me taking my own path, but i had lost the network of mentors and students to collaborate with me on the journey. because community-engaged research is an emerging field, i have noticed that many departments across my campus have just one or two people interested in this type of work. because i am part of a large campus with an adjacent academic medical center, there are enough of us interested in community-engaged work that we have found each other. many of us collaborate and we have started to form mechanisms to network and support one another. for example, in the college of arts & sciences at uc, we have created the cincinnati project (http://thecincyproject.org/), a collaborative that harnesses the expertise and resources from the university of cincinnati faculty and students, and from cincinnati community members, nonprofits, governments and agencies in order to conduct research that will directly benefit the community. through the cincinnati project and the cctst, i have been able to join a network of faculty and community members in cincinnati doing community-engaged work, which has been immensely helpful in both tangible and abstract ways. i have developed concrete skills in working with the irb, applying for grants, and meeting new partners to conduct research, but i have also felt supported, understood, and validated by colleagues. on a national level, i have recently joined the board of directors for community-campus partnerships for health (ccph), a nonprofit membership organization that promotes health equity and social justice through partnerships between communities and academic institutions (https://www.ccphealth.org/). ccph provides a professional home to many academic and community partners who, like me, are driven by partnership processes rather than a discipline-specific allegiance. institutions who are serious about cultivating community-engaged research should provide funded, structured networks for individuals across disciplines on their campus to do this work. they should also provide funding and support for faculty members to join national collaboratives like ccph to allow community-engaged researchers to connect with colleagues across the country who also prioritize participatory, partnered research methods. https://www.ccphealth.org/ 95 conclusion since i entered the job market in 2008, i have noticed that universities and academic medical centers across the country are reinvigorating their dedication to community engagement. these changes are often clearly seen in marketing materials expressing a commitment to community partnerships, but are less visible in institutional support for faculty members doing communityengaged research. in order for community-engaged scholarship to move from being “emerging” status within research-intensive institutions to the mainstream, infrastructure must be created to support faculty to do this work. i have described four specific strategies institutions could develop to support community-engaged scholarship: (a) revise promotion and tenure documents to recognize it; (b) update irb reviews to support it; (c) earnark internal funding specifically for it; and (d) create networks to spread it. with these supports, institutions could unleash the potential of faculty to use their academic expertise to solve real-world problems and help realize the vision of the community-engaged university. 96 references allen, m. l., culhane‐pera, k. a., pergament, s. l., & call, k. t. 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(2013). ethical community-engaged research: a literature review. american journal of public health, 103 (12), e7-e14. https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.2013.301605 nyden, p. (2003). academic incentives for faculty participation in community‐based participatory research. journal of general internal medicine, 18 (7), 576-585. https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1525-1497.2003.20350.x shore n, park a, castro p, wat e, sablan-santos l, isaacs ml, freeman e, cooks jm, drew e, seifer sd. (2014). redefining research ethics review: case studies of five community-led models. seattle, wa: community-campus partnerships for health. retrieved from https://community-wealth.org/content/redefining-research-ethics-review-case-studies-fivecommunity-led-models swearer center at brown university. (2018). carnegie classification for community engagement. retrieved from https://www.brown.edu/swearer/carnegie tamariz, l., medina, h., taylor, j., carrasquillo, o., kobetz, e., & palacio, a. (2015). are research ethics committees prepared for community-based participatory research? journal of empirical research on human research ethics, 10 (5), 488-495. https://doi.org/10.1177/1556264615615008 vaughn, l. m., jacquez, f., marschner, d.*, & mclinden, d. (2016). see what we say: using concept mapping to visualize latino immigrant’s strategies for health interventions. international journal of public health, 61 (7), 837-845. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00038-016-0838-4 vaughn, l. m., jacquez, f. m., & zhen-duan, j.* (2018). perspectives of community coresearchers about group dynamics and equitable partnership within a community-academic research team. health education & behavior, epub ahead of print. https://doi.org/10.1177/1090198118769374 https://doi.org/10.1080/13576280110051055 https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/muj/article/view/20570/20170 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10903-018-0732-7 https://doi.org/10.1353/hpu.2016.0161 https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.2013.301605 https://doi.org/10.1046/j.1525-1497.2003.20350.x https://doi.org/10.1177/1556264615615008 https://doi.org/10.1007/s00038-016-0838-4 98 vaughn, l. m., jacquez, f., zhen-duan, j., graham, c., marschner, d., peralta, j., garcía, h., recino, m., maya, m., maya, e., cabrera, m., & ley, i. (2017). latinos unidos por la salud: the process of developing an immigrant community research team. collaborations: a journal of community-based research and practice, 1 (1). retrieved from http://scholarlyrepository.miami.edu/collaborations/vol1/iss1/2 topmiller, m., zhen-duan, j., jacquez, f. j., & vaughn, l. m. (2016). place matters in nontraditional migration areas: exploring barriers to healthcare for latino immigrants by region, neighborhood, and community health center. journal of racial and ethnic health disparities, 4 (6), 1214-1223. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-016-0329-6 wilson, e., kenny, a., & dickson-swift, v. (2018). ethical challenges of community based participatory research: exploring researchers’ experience. international journal of social research methodology, 21 (1), 7-24. https://doi.org/10.1080/13645579.2017.1296714 zhen-duan, j.*, jacquez, f., & vaughn, l., m. (2017). demographic characteristics associated with barriers to healthcare among mexican and guatemalan immigrants in a nontraditional destination area. family & community health, 40 (2), 101-111. https://doi.org/10.1097/fch.0000000000000141 https://doi.org/10.1007/s40615-016-0329-6 https://doi.org/10.1080/13645579.2017.1296714 https://doi.org/10.1097/fch.0000000000000141 99 author information farrah m. jacquez, ph.d. associate professor, psychology university of cincinnati 4150n edwards 1 edwards center telephone: 513-556-5124 email: jacquefh@ucmail.uc.edu web: https://sites.google.com/site/ucpitchlab/ farrah m. jacquez is a licensed clinical psychologist and associate professor of psychology at the university of cincinnati. her work is focused on community-partnered approaches to health equity. since arriving at uc in 2008, she has collaborated with community partners to secure over $250,000 of grant funding for community research with direct community benefit. she is interested in utilizing community-based research methods to address health disparities. i research savvy refers to the strategic decisions community engaged researchers need to make to successfully navigate the tenure process. metropolitan universities vol. 28 no. 1 (winter 2017), doi: 10.18060/21464 farming chicago: prospects for higher education support of sustainable urban food systems in the u.s. heartland howard rosing and daniel r. block abstract the article highlights recent food policies in chicago with the goal of exploring how higher education institutions can contribute to development of sustainable food resources for residents of north american cities. thousands of chicago residents face daily challenges accessing fresh food due to income constraints and/or lack of proximity to food retailers. concomitantly, the city’s high dependency on imported food, often from thousands of miles away, is countered by growing interest in local production in community gardens and urban farms. the article outlines efforts at redeveloping chicago into a thriving producer of fresh food through advocacy, policy making, and planning; and curriculum and community engagement efforts at chicago area universities and colleges that exemplifies higher education’s role in creating a just and ecologically sustainable urban food system. the examples illustrate the importance of multiinstitutional collaboration, often driven by community-based advocacy groups that facilitate local food research, technical assistance, and policy initiatives with support from universities and colleges. the article therefore highlights the supportive role urban higher education institutions can play in building food systems that support the local food economy, contribute to improving the natural environment, and expand access to nutritious fresh food for those with the least wherewithal. keywords chicago, higher education, food systems, community-university partnerships, sustainability introduction the article describes (1) recent efforts at redeveloping chicago into a thriving producer of fresh food, through advocacy, policy making, and planning; and (2) prospects for advancing higher education’s role in creating a socially equitable, economically just, and ecologically sustainable food system in chicago. we suggest that higher education institutions can play a supportive role in promoting urban food production and distribution initiatives driven by local residents. we begin by exploring the history of community-driven efforts to produce locally-focused food policies in chicago and conclude by suggesting ways in which higher education institutions have supported and can further support sustainable urban food-systems development. the primary goal of the article is to highlight ways in which urban higher education institutions can support greater access to fresh, nutritious food for local residents, using the case of chicago. chicago is a robust commercial center and diverse international city on the western shores of lake michigan in the agriculturally rich midwest region of the united states. through advocacy, 28 determined urban food producers have made farming and gardening in and around chicago an emerging alternative to provisioning the city with food that is otherwise imported from outside the state, region, or country. the article highlights the history of recent food policies in the city with the goal of exploring how higher education institutions can support development of a sustainable urban food system. research in higher education on the latter is of growing interest within the social and environmental sciences, but has implications for the future development of higher education curriculum and community engagement practice. as transdisciplinary stakeholders, researchers in sustainable urban food systems help inform municipal, state, and federal policy makers in ways, through producing data on ways to increase food equity. that in turn can potentially have liberatory outcomes for those historically marginalized by the spatial and economic relations of food access in cities. as in the case of many land-grant universities with extension services, urban universities are becoming centers for technical assistance and capacity building through teaching, research, and student/faculty community service focused on food systems. if deployed through a critical lens respectful of the history, voices, and concerns of communities, higher education resources can be of tremendous benefit to urban food producers and distributors, and especially those seeking solutions to urban food access challenges. until recently, food producers in chicago, a city largely perceived as commercial, industrial and residential, have had minimal support from neighboring universities and colleges. higher education curriculum and research, technical assistance, and capacity-building for growers has been virtually nonexistent. as little as a decade ago, curriculum focused on farming in the city— once an urban space teeming with agriculture—would have been inconceivable as a subject of study within most chicago-area universities. presently, the majority of chicago’s food resources remain under control of large corporate retailers and wholesalers. undoubtedly, community gardens and farms in the city serve as a relatively minor resource in regards to the quantity and types of food needed to feed the city. although chicago community gardens and urban farms typically evolved as an alternative to supermarkets, city-grown food through for-profit urban farming is quickly enmeshing itself into farmers markets and retail food stores. community gardens are also expanding rapidly, creating neighborhood commons for both community-building and procuring fresh food, despite little to no support from higher education and minimal assistance from the municipal government. along with capital-intensive urban agriculture projects linked to both for-profit and philanthropic initiatives, rapidly expanding commercial and community-based food production has become an important force in the process of transforming post-industrial urban landscapes. in the second section, we explore the history of the policies that underlie these processes in chicago. food system policy and planning in chicago farming chicago farming in what is present-day chicago dates back to well before europeans arrived in the western great lakes region. for centuries, indigenous groups including the miami and potawatomi peoples cultivated and/or processed corn, squash, beans, nuts, and a variety of protein-rich seeds to compliment diverse fauna of what became northeastern illinois and presentday chicago (markman, 1991). chicago was chartered as a city in 1837, following the removal of the indigenous population after the treaty of chicago in 1833 (block & rosing, 2015, pp. 40 29 41). during the 19th century, with the help of the railroad, the city became a major center of grain aggregation and trade and by the end of the century, the nation’s center for meatpacking. from its outset, the city was also producing food for local consumption and for much of chicago’s first century, farms existed both within and in close proximity to the city. year-round greenhouses once produced ornamental plants and vegetables for chicagoans. farms within and surrounding the city harvested vegetables and produced dairy products for local consumption as well as for export. by the early 20th century, chicago had become a major hub of the national food economy, a center of food aggregation, debulking, and distribution and eventually of food manufacturing, marketing and commodity trading. as the population grew, farming in the city diminished and urbanization and industrialization transformed chicago’s landscape. farms were pushed farther out of the city until very little remained of the local food system that once fueled markets and fed chicagoans (block & rosing, 2015, pp. 10-20). for much of the 20th century, with the exception of a resurgence of “victory gardens” during the two world wars, agriculture was not recognized as part of city planning or neighborhood development efforts in chicago. while community garden spaces were included in public park planning, such as the largely unimplemented gardens integrated into parks designed by danish architect and park superintendent jens jensen in the early 20th century, these were small in scale and not focused on feeding the city. chicago’s evolving zoning code neglected to reference community gardens or urban farms as legal land use. the city’s last remaining farm was converted to the chicago high school for agricultural sciences during the 1980s. a 2009 report commissioned by the state of illinois noted that “one thousand five hundred miles is the average travel distance for food items now consumed in this state; agricultural products sold directly for human consumption comprise less than 0.2% of illinois farm sales.” (illinois local and organic food and farm task force, 2009, p. 41). the report found that 95 percent of organic food sold in the state was grown and processed outside the state and more than 70 percent of the state’s agricultural receipts were for corn and soy. like many north american cities, the provisioning of chicago has become almost completely dependent upon food imported from distant states and countries, even though more than three quarters of illinois was covered by farmland. for much of chicago’s history, farming and gardening either occurred on private property or in public parks either formally or informally. land access to grow food, especially for those who lived in the ubiquitous multi-unit rental apartment buildings, was at times difficult. during the early part of the 20th century, chicago corporations sponsored growing plots for their workers. settlement houses, a precursor to today’s nonprofit human service agency, established gardens for residents of the city’s tenement housing district. the most well-known of these gardens was at the hull house. there in 1909, 150 individual plots were allotted to residents by the newly established city gardens association, resulting in establishment of the largest urban farm in the u.s. at the time (maloney, 2008, p. 76). international harvester company, one of the largest manufacturers of agricultural machinery, loaned land to the association and plots were leased to individuals and families to grow food for their own consumption and to sell. chicago’s motto, urbs in horto (city in a garden) continues to reflect practices across social classes whereby city gardeners and farmers share the belief in producing food organically. however, a good portion of the city’s current residents face barriers to accessing growing space among other resources needed to produce food, even though as noted above there appears to be 30 significant interest in community gardening. chicago’s community gardens were historically built on privatelyand publicly-owned vacant lots that were never zoned for agriculture or food production. one of the city’s first efforts to raise public support of community gardens occurred during the 1970s, when chicago’s department of human services hosted national conferences on community gardening. the result was the creation of the american community gardening association (2016). two decades later, in 1996, the municipal government, along with other public agencies, created neighborspace, a nonprofit urban land trust charged with protecting community-organized and managed growing spaces. the organization took over land ownership and assisted with insurance, access to water, and other resources. gardens on land protected by neighborspace were no longer susceptible to removal as a result of more powerful capitalintensive development interests. despite the recent resurgence of interest in urban farming, there is limited empirical data on this phenomenon in cities like chicago, especially on how the idea of consuming “local food” resonates among economically and racially diverse groups (delind, 2011). recent research on production of food in chicago, however, suggests widespread interest in communal growing across race and class (rosing, helphand, vitiello, & odoms-young, 2016). notwithstanding the above-mentioned efforts by city government to support local gardeners’ land rights, as in other u.s. cities, much of urban food system planning and development in chicago has occurred at the level of grassroots and nonprofit advocacy groups and educational and human service organizations through support from foundations. openlands, a non-profit organization started during the early 1960s as an advocate for open space in northeastern illinois, has been a longtime supporter of protecting vacant land for urban gardens. during the 1990s, the organization began holding workshops for gardeners in partnership with chicago’s garfield park conservatory and later began a school garden building program. in 1995, green net, a network of gardeners and urban agriculture advocates, ran a foundation-funded grant program to support gardeners and created a map of chicago community gardens. in 1999, chicago hosted the annual meeting of the now-defunct community food security coalition, a national network of community gardeners and food security activists. local activists used the conference to show off food justice projects, such as the god’s gang aquaponics center, that was located in the nowdemolished robert taylor homes, at the time the largest public housing project in the united states. such efforts provided the basis for community, school, and backyard garden expansion in chicago at a time when there was no land use zoning designation for community gardens or urban farms. local food policy advocacy advocacy for food-systems planning and development in chicago and the state of illinois built during the first decade of the 21st century. a chicago-based foundation, chicago community trust, funded illinois food security summits from 2001 until 2003 that further energized local and organic food advocates. these efforts built on chicago’s history of local food-systems development by groups such as the resource center (city farm), god’s gang, openlands, the chicago botanic gardens, and more recent groups such as the institute for community resource development, good greens, urban habitat chicago, growing home, angelic organics learning center, and the chicago branch of growing power, an internationally recognized urban farming organization in nearby milwaukee, wisconsin. building off of grassroots community 31 organizing for social and environmental justice, these groups pushed for a coordinated urban food policy agenda. inspired by the first summit at which the creation of a food policy council was voted as the top priority, seasoned urban gardeners, farmers, and food justice activists organized two advocacy organizations in 2002: chicago food policy action council (cfpac; formerly the chicago food policy advisory council) and advocates for urban agriculture (aua). these groups were eventually joined by chicago-based, but nationallyor regionallyfocused sustainable food advocates such as family farmed. in 2004, cfpac published the report “community food security inventory of the city of chicago” and by 2006 had organized an annual chicago food policy summit held as part of family farmed’s multi-day good food festival, a chicago-based trade show for local and regional producers and distributors of organic food. that same year, a food desert map of chicago was published, highlighting vast areas of chicago that were both low-income and lacked supermarkets (gallagher, 2006). drawing on the work of geographers and activists in the united kingdom (whelan, wrigley, warm, and cannings, 2002), in 2006 mari gallagher released a food access map of chicago, using data collected for the northeastern illinois food security assessment at chicago state (block, et al, 2008). combined with the northeastern illinois food security assessment, the map resulted in an increased focus on food access in chicago and nationwide. city, state, and national political figures, including michelle obama, began to focus on chicago as a place to think through building a more equitable food system. before the end of the decade, chicago-area food-systems advocates began to participate at the state level on behalf of policies to support local and regional food-systems development. the illinois local and organic food and farm task force was created by the illinois general assembly in 2007, and the organization published a report with policy recommendations in 2009. later that year, advocates celebrated when the illinois general assembly (2009) passed the illinois local food, farms, and jobs act (ilffja). the act stated “20% of all food and food products purchased by state agencies and state-owned facilities, including, without limitation, facilities for persons with mental health and developmental disabilities, correctional facilities, and public universities, shall, by 2020, be local farm or food products.” the legislation created a council under the governor to oversee recommendations for policy implementation. this change in policy could, in theory, lead to food procured locally by numerous illinois state-funded entities in the populous northeastern region anchored by chicago and inhabited by more than eight million people. in october 2009, chicago food advocates published a food systems report funded by the chicago community trust (chicago food policy advisory council and city of chicago department of zoning and planning, 2009, p. 7) as part a larger metropolitan urban planning effort. the first recommendation was to “include food and food waste issues in local land use, infrastructure, and comprehensive plans.” according to a 2013 report on the ilffja, the state-level procurement policy was difficult to implement (illinois local food farms jobs council, 2013). though the policy provided the possibility of a public incentive to spur localization of food in illinois, the results were far from forthcoming. shortly after passing the ilffja, in 2010, the chicago metropolitan agency for planning (cmap), the state’s regional planning organization for northeastern illinois, published its comprehensive regional plan go to 2040 informed by the food systems report. also commissioned by the chicago community trust, chapter four of go to 2040 titled “promote sustainable local food” presented three recommendations: (1) facilitate sustainable local food 32 production; (2) increase access to safe, fresh, affordable, and healthy foods; and (3) increase data, research, training, and information sharing. each of the recommendations had a set of “implementation action areas” and the first action step under implementation action area #1 was “support urban agriculture as a source of local food” (cmap, 2010, pp. 47-50). the challenge, however, was that most municipalities, including chicago, had little to no policy structure in support of urban agriculture. chicago lacked zoning codes to legalize land use for the food production that already existed within city limits. to this end, organizers from groups such as cfpac and aua developed relationships within the municipal government led by long-time mayor richard m. daley. daley, who called for chicago to be the “greenest city” in the country, created the department of environment and had the city’s first green roof installed on city hall in 2001 (the first in the country on a municipal building). during the 1990s, his administration created permitting processes to expand farmers markets and, in addition to supporting the formation of neighborspace, developed greencorps, a jobs program that partly provided technical assistance to community gardens. in light of cmap’s plan, the daley mayoral administration and its largely acquiescent city council seemed open to local food policy initiatives; chicago gardeners and farmers were set on legalizing land use for urban agriculture. such a policy was especially relevant in neighborhoods that lacked proximity to fresh food. the city’s post-industrial economy, combined with decades of racist urban planning practices supported by discriminatory mortgage lending and real estate development resulted in neighborhood divestment and property and land devaluation on the south and west sides of the city. the result was a lack of fresh food retailers and an abundance of vacant lots in economically distressed neighborhoods on the south and west sides of the city populated largely by black residents (gallagher, 2006). gardens and farms were partly a community response to limited access to fresh food. urban agriculture initiatives among black residents of chicago’s south and west sides take on what mcclintock (2008, pp. 6-7) in the case of oakland, california refers to as an “emancipatory role,” a form of resistance that integrates “ecological stewardship with social justice.” in chicago, groups such as growing power call for anti-racist practice to be included in chicago’s food-systems planning (block, chávez, allen & ramirez, 2012). furthermore, that planning must be linked to addressing access to fresh food in underserved predominantly black neighborhoods. the first step in the view of gardeners and farmers was to form an urban agriculture land use policy that took into consideration those neighborhoods with the least fresh food resources. by 2010, the mayor and city council appeared open to an urban agriculture ordinance. as far back as 2007, daley’s department of planning and development published a formal report on the city’s food system. eat local, live healthy put forth five recommendations, the first two of which supported local and urban food systems development (city of chicago department of planning and development, 2007). increasingly envisioning himself as a “green mayor,” daley authorized in december 2010 the posting of a press release on the city website announcing a proposed zoning amendment that would “incorporate plant-based agricultural definitions and land use tables into chicago’s zoning code” (city of chicago, 2010). though the proposed policy would recognize urban agriculture as a legal land use, immediate opposition emerged from urban agriculture leaders. erika allen, director of growing power chicago, conveyed to the local press that “if this passes, our work would be over,” referring to plot size limitations that would make the organization’s farms out of compliance (eng, 2011). others complained that the 33 ordinance was designed with limited community input and that requirements for landscaping and fencing would be cost-prohibitive for many if not most chicago gardeners. some of the most confusing requirements included tree planting adjacent to gardens that disregarded the need for sunlight to grow food, as well as a requirement that fencing be “architectural.” local growers spent the winter and spring of 2011 organizing against the ordinance that had to be approved by the city council. after the city postponed review of the policy initiative multiple times, the proposed ordinance was deferred to late may 2011 after daley left office and the new mayor, rahm emanuel, was installed. following daley’s departure after 22 years in office, organizers saw an opportunity to work with emanuel who had been barack obama’s chief of staff in washington d.c. and who proposed to support local food as part of his election campaign. cfpac and aua went back to work on proposing revisions to the city for the proposed zoning ordinance. by july 2011, details of a revised ordinance had been finalized and emanuel announced his proposal at growing power’s chicago branch. the ordinance passed the city council and became law in september 2011, marking the first time chicago municipal policy authorized urban agriculture as a land use. the key to this new zoning ordinance were the grassroots community organizers who met and debated the details of what was needed to establish protocols for food producers from diverse communities with a myriad of interests. that organizing process by no means unified food producing and advocacy groups, whose members spanned race and class diversity of the city. indeed, there were serious concerns about racial equity in access to resources (capital, land, water, and soil) and about new, predominantly white, food producers entering economically distressed neighborhoods of color and asserting privilege. nevertheless, the city’s new urban agriculture ordinance established a policy foundation for which citywide food activists from all backgrounds could continue to organize, debate, and advocate for future food-systems policies. just months after the urban agriculture ordinance was passed in 2011, funding from the center for disease control and prevention’s communities putting prevention to work initiative supported the chicago department of public health (cdph) and the nonprofit consortium to lower obesity in chicago children (clocc) to develop a chicago food plan. in december 2011, a couple dozen people huddled into a room in downtown chicago to talk with cdph and clocc staff about planning the future of the city’s food system. the meeting was one of several to be held as part of the cdc-funded healthy places initiative that would involve residents in food planning at open meetings held downtown in outlying neighborhoods. the planning process continued through much of 2012 and a resulting report, a recipe for health places, was published in january 2013 and outlined five-goals: (a) build healthier neighborhoods; (b) grow food;, (c) expand healthy food enterprises; (d) strengthen the food safety net; and (e) serve healthy food and beverages. “grow food” contained five objectives including creating more “public open spaces for large-scale food growing, job training, and food related education,” enhancing community and school gardens, ensuring the land is “safe for growing food,” encouraging the “use of private spaces to grow health food, and collecting data on urban food production” (city of chicago department of housing and economic development, 2013). in defining these objectives, the plan reiterated what advocates had been calling for, for more than a decade. growing more food in chicago 34 in general, growing more food in cities requires additional land that is zoned or designated as agricultural land which sets up the predicament of whether municipal governments want to prioritize land for food over other development initiatives that produce higher tax revenues. chicago, which had more than a $63 billion debt in 2014, is a major landowner and major player in land deals. while urban agriculture has been cited as a way to improve nutrition and community food security in u.s. cities (e.g., ableman 2000), little systematic research exists on whether municipal governments value community gardens and urban farms as part of community and economic development, though scholars have clearly illustrated the benefits of urban agriculture to cities (lovell, 2010). as mcclintock states in the case of oakland, the local food movement in black communities is partly driven by a long lineage of resistance that could reshape local agri-food and land use policies. this is a resistance that dates from forced migration, slavery, jim crow, ghettoization, and racialized neighborhood divestment in chicago; these are underlying factors that remain at the core of efforts to develop a truly sustainable food system built on just social and economic principles and sound environmental practices. several black farmers and black-led, communitybased organizations led the charge to produce food locally, including growing power, center for urban transformation, god’s gang, seed, grow greater englewood, black oaks, the roseland-pullman urban agriculture network and good greens (now hosted by the usda midwest regional office in chicago). many of these organizations have worked in recent years to level the playing field for black gardeners and farmers to successfully participate in and take some control over the local food economy. in one recent study conducted in a predominantly black south side neighborhood, more than 80% of participants stated they would grow food if they had the resources to do so (rosing, hollowell, engler, spittle, 2014). given that many historically segregated black neighborhoods in chicago correlate with high rates of vacant lots, questions about land access for urban agriculture often focuses on these neighborhoods. building on a 2005 neighborhood plan developed by the community in partnership with the local initiatives support corporation chicago (lisc, 2005), in march 2014, city planners adopted the green healthy neighborhoods (ghn) plan which largely focused on the predominantly black south side englewood neighborhood. citing goal two of a recipe for health places, the plan called for “development of clusters of vacant land for urban agriculture” and two urban agriculture “districts.” that july, mayor emanuel held a groundbreaking ceremony in englewood for supermarket chain whole foods market that opened a store in 2016 which has committed to buying from local suppliers in a neighborhood where median household income is under $20,000 (city of chicago, 2014). the recently launched englewood community group grow greater englewood (gge) proceeded to organize, to ensure new plans and investments benefit the existing community. through support from the chicago community trust, gge developed their own plan in partnership with neighborspace. the englewood community farms prospectus and business plan, published in december 2015, calls for “community-controlled farms in an urban agriculture district” where land would be provided for for-profit and cooperative farming operations (teska associates, 2015, p. 1). once land access and tenure issues are addressed, the costliest resource for starting a garden or farm in chicago is the soil that is often needed to replace or grow on top of contaminated soil. chicago soils are challenging due to structural and toxicity issues, making remediation 35 expensive. transforming food scraps into soil through composting is a practice that, until recently, was impeded by city law that for forbade growers from bringing off-site food scraps into growing spaces without a specialized permit. given the apparent toxicity of much of chicago’s soils, it is not surprising that composting policy emerged as a priority issue for local food-systems advocates. in 2014, food policy organizers turned their attention to formulating and passing a new city ordinance on the production of compost in chicago gardens and farms. that year, a state-level advocacy group, illinois stewardship alliance, spearheaded the passing of a state law permitting off-site food scraps to be brought onto farms and gardens. by 2015, the mayor’s office in chicago agreed to support a similar ordinance and the state-level illinois environmental council began working with cfpac, aua, and numerous long-term advocates of gardening, composting, and habitat development to formulate a policy proposal. in july 2015, the city council passed an ordinance to expand composting in gardens and farms, with support from a wide range of grassroots environmental and food-systems advocates (city of chicago, 2015) as advocacy groups continued to push chicago toward adopting food policies focused on local production, profit and nonprofit urban agriculture organizations opened or expanded alongside more informal producers and distributors such as community gardens. these include organizations such as the plant, a vertical farm located in a 95,000-square-foot former meat packing plant in chicago’s former stockyards that contains aquaponics, a commercial kitchen, and a brewery. the organization seeks to build a closed loop system where waste from the food businesses go toward powering the plant via an anaerobic digester. other large-scale indoor and outdoor urban farming operations are rapidly developing in the city, such as farmed here or gotham greens that in 2015 opened a 75,000-square-foot rooftop farm in the south side pullman neighborhood on the roof of a soap factory. such profit or non-profit businesses, opening largely in former industrial areas or adjacent to economically distressed neighborhoods of color, present questions about the direction of policies to promote sustainable urban food systems and whether the emerging chicago food system incorporates participation in production and distribution by local residents. arguably, the above questions drive to the heart of what is meant by sustainable urban food system. it is a question that challenges local educators and researchers to move toward building procurement practices, curriculum, and forms of community engagement that promote local, neighborhood involvement and investment in building growth opportunities and equity within chicago’s food system. as we will explore in the subsequent section, there is some hope in this regard as higher education institutions begin to understand their multifaceted role in the local food system. at the level of institutional food procurement, municipality-funded or governed primary and secondary schools and community colleges in chicago will likely find themselves intersecting with a recent municipal policy initiative known as the “good food purchasing policy” (goodfoodpurchasing.org). similar to the state-level ilffja and a policy passed by the city of los angeles, the initiative seeks to require public institutions such as schools and park districts to procure food from local producers whenever possible. similar policies were recently adopted by san francisco and oakland school districts and advocacy campaigns are underway in several other cities including chicago. related initiatives in higher education, such as the national student network real food challenge (realfoodchallenge.org) that advocates for universities to align food procurement strategies with local, fair trade, and ecologically sound 36 food providers, do not have a significant presence among chicago universities. in theory, policies that push for public and higher education procurement of local food could indeed spur future growth in urban and regional food systems in chicago. meanwhile, as we shall see in the subsequent section, universities and colleges are beginning to take notice of efforts underway to help chicago-area growers increase their production to feed more of the city. in 2014, for example, the searle funds at the chicago community trust announced “food: land: opportunity–localizing the chicago foodshed” with the stated goal of providing funds toward “increasing the supply of local and sustainable food.” along with other local and regional food system funders such as fresh taste, the initiative seeks to increase land and business skills for producers as well bring capital investments into chicago agriculture. such efforts highlight chicago’s movement toward greater local production with an eye on how social equity can be built into local production and distribution processes. as policies and money continue to expand support for local and regional food-systems development in northeastern illinois, questions emerge about access to and the availability of knowledge resources for supporting sustainable food production in the city. with the exception of a master gardener’s program periodically offered in chicago by the university of illinois extension in cook county, most knowledge resources for sustainable food system development in chicago have been developed at the grassroots level through assistance by nonprofits such as openlands, neighborspace, growing power, and advocates for urban agriculture. though many land-grant institutions have urban programming across the united states, there has been limited assistance from traditional agricultural and food-systems advisors in chicago. yet universities in the city are large institutional players within the local food economy. they are not only enormous institutional food buyers, but also producers of food waste that could be diverted back into food production and distribution through composting and soil production. we conclude by turning to the question of how higher education institutions can support knowledge development and dissemination in pursuit of a socially equitable, economically just, and ecologically sustainable food system in the country’s third largest city. higher education and sustainable urban food systems: the case of chicago chicago was built during in the early 19th century on the transformation of nature into food commodities, first in the form of grains and later in the form of meat and processed food. the city has a deep history as a producer and processor of food for local consumption, though like most midwestern cities, urban landscape was transformed from food production into industrial, commercial, and residential space. it is not surprising that up until very recently, there was not a higher education undergraduate degree program in agricultural science within chicago, let alone the surrounding metropolitan area. given the recent emergence of farming as a developing vocation in chicago, it is not surprising that higher education curricular development in food systems development first emerged in the form of community college curriculum. in 2009, the city colleges of chicago, in partnership with windy city harvest, a program of the chicago botanic gardens, began a certificate program in sustainable urban agriculture accredited by the illinois community college board. based out of a branch of daley college on the city’s southwest side, the program includes an internship at a local urban farm. operating in proximity to nearby cook county jail, where the botanic gardens had previously created a farming program, the daley college certificate is seen as a way to move people from incarceration to 37 work in the emerging local food business. the educational facility and curriculum includes greenhouse production and an aquaponics system that, up until the 2011 urban agriculture ordinance, was only legal in the city within such educational institutions. more recently, wright college, also part of the city college system, began offering online curricula in agroecology focused on employment in urban agriculture. their unique model in the city integrates online classes instructed by faculty at the college of agricultural, consumer and environmental sciences at the university of illinois urbana-champaign, one of the largest and most well established schools of agriculture in the united states. this model offers an avenue for community college students to consider careers in urban agriculture through eventually completing a four-year degree in agriculture at the university of illinois. the program also bridges the gap between traditional land-grant institutions with agricultural science curriculum—delivered in less urban localities—with higher education institutions situated in densely populated urban environments. in general, four-year colleges and universities have been slow to adopt curriculum and research programs focused on sustainable urban food systems. one of the first such efforts occurred at chicago state university (csu). supported by an initial grant from the city of chicago in 2010, csu, located on the far south side of chicago in a neighborhood classified as a food desert, opened an aquaponics facility in a former factory near campus. the facility produces tilapia, the waste of which circulates through growing beds to nourish hydroponically-grown plants. the system in turn supports an urban agriculture track for csu students as well as provides a resource for community groups and schools to learn and develop technology. later, grants from the usda and u.s. department of education supported the facility and its integration into csu’s curriculum, including the creation of an urban agriculture concentration in the geography major. also, numerous csu graduate students have integrated aquaponics and urban agriculture into their theses. the aquaponics facility’s director (co-founder and director of the non-profit sweetwater foundation) (http://sweetwaterfoundation.com/) converted the space into a community resource and meeting place. csu’s aquaponics center built on and expanded the university’s longstanding involvement in urban food-systems research through its neighborhood assistance center (nac). a decade earlier, the current nac coordinator was part of a partnership of community groups and university researchers throughout chicago who created the now defunct chicago food systems collaborative (cfsc) that established a network of food access and food-systems scholars and practitioners from across the city (suarez-balcazar et al., 2006). cfsc was supported by a grant from the w. k. kellogg foundation. the principal investigator on the grant was a national food justice spokesperson and organizer now based in the twin cities. a major result of the grant was a research study in chicago’s west side austin neighborhood (block & kouba, 2006). additional work involved the promotion of a farmer’s market in austin and a salad bar pilot program in the cafeteria of two schools, one of the first projects of its kind in the city. overall, the work of cfsc provided a foundation for many researchers of food access across the city. along with a researcher’s ongoing work on mapping and understanding challenges with food access in chicago neighborhoods, some cfsc researchers would go on to become a major resource for community groups seeking to understand neighborhood food challenges and related social determinants of health. before its dissolution around 2006, cfsc would include 38 researchers from several major urban universities including chicago state, loyola university chicago, uic, and depaul university. in time, each of the mentioned universities expanded support for local and sustainable food systems development. chicago state, expanded food access research on chicago and northeastern illinois (block, chávez, birgen 2008). at uic, the center for excellence in elimination of disparities developed a food equity committee that brought together researchers from across chicago to discuss policy initiatives including equitable development of local food systems. in 2013, loyola university opened a new building for its institute for environmental sustainability including an urban agricultural greenhouse and aquaponics systems. the institute recently launched chicago’s first bachelor of science in food systems and sustainable agriculture. the program’s faculty are deeply involved with students in research and service on urban food production both off and on campus with gardens and a farmers market. outside chicago, loyola has a 98-acre retreat and ecology campus where it operates a working farm for students to study sustainable agriculture. at depaul, the environmental science and studies department opened its rooftop greenhouse garden in 2008, and later established a curriculum on urban agriculture and community food systems. it currently is building a community soil lab where students test community garden soil at no cost. the college of liberal arts and social sciences created a food studies minor heavily focused on local and sustainable food systems. through the university’s steans center for community-based service learning, depaul established the community food systems initiative that engages faculty and students from across the university in service, research, and capacity building for growers and distributors across economically distressed neighborhoods. the initiative provides direct research support for community organizations, gardens and urban farms seeking to advance food production and distribution processes. on campus, depaul student gardeners formed the urban farming organization that operates a corner lot garden where they produce food for donation to a pantry and to sell on campus. as urban agriculture policy and planning unfolded at the state and municipal levels during the past decade, almost all the major chicago universities have added curricular, research, technical assistance, and community service focused on local and sustainable food systems. in 2012, along with a colleague at the illinois institute of technology, which developed its own urban agriculture curriculum on chicago’s southside, we organized a network of university faculty, staff, and researchers called the chicago higher education sustainable food systems network (chesfsn) in order to create dialogue that could lead to multi-institutional community-engaged and scholarly projects in support of sustainable food-systems development in greater chicago. the group meets annually to share projects and curriculum developments and has hosted crossinstitutional citywide tours of university gardens and food projects for students. notwithstanding these efforts, very little is understood about the potential for chicago higher education institutions to support building of a socially, economically and ecologically sustainable local food system, especially if institutions were to collaborate more intentionally. the goal of chesfsn is to communicate across higher education specialties (faculty, researchers, technicians) about the activities of universities and colleges in addressing a core issue facing the chicago region: ensuring a sustainable food supply. the hope is that further collaboration between institutions will develop. 39 maintaining networks such as chesfsn over the long term remains a challenge, given changes in faculty and staff and competing institutional agendas related to curriculum and research. nevertheless, multi-institutional partnerships can and have emerged in chicago focused on the city’s food system. one important example of collaboration occurred in 2013 when three universities partnered with non-profit and community groups to produce a yearlong yield study of community gardens across the city (rosing, helphand, vitiello, odoms-young, 2016). researchers from the steans center at depaul university, university of pennsylvania, and the university of illinois chicago collaborated with neighborspace and several other community groups to carefully map all community gardens in the city. they then proceeded to work with gardeners to measure square footage and crop yields and to learn how they distribute their harvest. building on an earlier study conducted in philadelphia (vitiello and nairn, 2009), researchers conducted site surveys measuring food production and distribution in 260 gardens. in-depth case studies at seven sites were chosen to represent a cross-section of chicago’s community gardens included detailed crop plans and the weighing of crop yields. the harvest study, which plotted more than 43 acres of community gardens on a map, calculated an estimated 517,157 pounds of food produced from community gardens, most of which was harvested in low-income neighborhoods. moreover, chicago gardeners produced an estimated $1,665,698 worth of fruits and vegetables that went directly into households and through neighborhood and familial social networks, multiplying the gardens’ impact on neighborhood food access. the study also measured nutrient levels of the city’s community garden harvest, documenting, for example, an estimated 588,516 servings of collard greens worth 905,410 grams of fiber. most importantly, the study highlighted the importance of community gardens to healthy food access for a large number of the city’s residents. similar to how the chicago food systems collaborative (cfsc) brought universities to the table to conduct research on food access on chicago’s west side more than a decade earlier, the harvest study highlights how community-based organizations act as facilitators that coordinate higher education institutions and not the reverse. one of the primary lessons learned in chicago is that higher education has a supportive—rather than leadership—role to play in producing a more sustainable urban food system. as in the case of traditional agricultural—extension, universities, and colleges have resources that can be deployed to support local growers and distributors, food educators, and policy advocates. as a follow-up to the harvest study, for example, the steans center at depaul continued to support neighborspace, advocates for urban agriculture and the non-profit education, agriculture, and technology (e.a.t.) to complete a multi-year initiative to develop an online interactive tool for mapping and documenting urban agriculture in the city. five years in the making, in march 2015, the chicago urban agriculture mapping project (http://cuamp.org) launched a detailed database of more than 730 chicago gardens and farms (see figure 1). this ongoing project inventories and maps urban agriculture projects across the chicago area, from small residential gardens to commercial urban farms. cuamp aims to provide the public with a comprehensive inventory of urban agriculture in chicago to which they can add and change data. in addition to serving as a tool for connecting gardeners, farmers, vendors, consumers, volunteers, funding sources, and others interested in urban agriculture, the tool will be used to study and better advocate for chicago’s growing urban agriculture movement. visitors to cuamp.org are able to view and search for gardens and farms, each of which includes basic details such as the growing site category (e.g. community garden, urban farm, or school garden), ownership, and whether 40 food or other crops such as flowers or ornamental plants are grown. users of the database are able to enter their own garden or farm or add information to one that already exists by filling out a brief questionnaire on the website. administrators review submissions for publicly visible growing sites and college students vet the data to ensure accuracy. community-university partnerships such as cuamp offer the potential for higher education to support development of an important public resource that also contributes to student learning and faculty research across multiple institutions. in fact, loyola and depaul faculty have already been sharing use of the data in cuamp on research projects with students. more collaboration is planned as the tool is further developed as a research resource. figure 1 chicago urban agriculture mapping project website conclusion as interest in sustainable urban food systems grows within higher education, especially among students, new forms of community-engaged curriculum, research, and technical assistance through community service and grant-funded projects will likely emerge. the urban and community food systems movement is growing rapidly in the united states and as we have seen 41 in the case of chicago, city governments are being pushed to respond to demands of farmers and gardeners who seek to grow food sustainably and to distribute it in new and socially just ways. chicago growers continue to build off recent policy making successes and to push for increased opportunities to efficiently and effectively cultivate food in a space that was once filled with an abundance of fruit, vegetable, grain, and livestock production. new policy and planning efforts continue to encourage city, county, and state officials to envision chicago as a year-round foodproducing city. meanwhile, one of the most important immediate measures that can be implemented by metropolitan universities and colleges is building local food into food service provider contracts. procurement policies not only promote local food economies, but also encourage environmental sustainability and a justly compensated workforce. in addition to leveraging their food-buying power, higher education institutions can fashion community engagement initiatives that focus on capacity building for urban and peri-urban growers and distributors, engaging students and faculty in scientific research and service in the interest of expanding crop yields and ecosystems services in support of urban agriculture. as we have seen in the case of our own institutions, community-university partnerships that strengthen the potential for local populations to improve fresh food access, directly benefit faculty and students who gain knowledge from residents who understand what, how, and where food grows best in the environments where they live. these residents often know what major challenges exists— land, water, and soil access—that hinder further local and sustainable food systems development (e.g., llorens-monteserin and rosing, 2016). these are challenges that universities—through research, technical assistance, and advocacy—can directly participate in resolving. as members of the community themselves, universities and colleges can also be key players in urban and peri-urban food systems development through diverting their food waste production into municipal composting. chicago itself is behind many north american cities in implementing municipal composting policies, however a statewide group, the illinois food scraps coalition, recently implemented an institutional composting campaign signed on to by several chicago-based universities. how additional food scraps can be channeled into production of soil for growing food in the city remains an important topic for future policy making. large and small universities and colleges can surely have influence on this process. scaling up farming and gardening in chicago, especially for those growers who have the least wherewithal, means not only land access but also access to healthy non-toxic soil. this challenge suggests an opportunity for university administrators to construct a robust community-engaged urban soil science curriculum that explicitly involves students and faculty in soil testing and remediation processes linked to local food production. once hosting a thriving agricultural sector, chicago may again become a place that at least partly provisions itself through local production. higher education can do much more to support the social, economic, and ecological contexts within which residents build a sustainable urban food system. in doing so, institutions need to recognize their own impact on local food economies. students and faculty need to approach community-university food projects with a critical perspective. the perception that people in economically distressed neighborhoods want to grow food and that helping them to build gardens and farms is a solution to food access challenges should be carefully and critically examined (rosing, 2012). there is a problematic perception that growing food locally is the solution to food access challenges that are rooted in the global political economy, income inequality and, as philip howard suggests, the inordinate power of 42 supermarkets in control of the food system (howard, 2016, p.22). supporting local control of the food system requires a reconsideration of institutional values on the part of university administrators; that is, to not only contract with food service vendors who will source food ethically, but also to look for ways to use institutional buying power to support development of chicago farmers and gardeners whenever possible. efforts are under way in chicago to employ higher education resources to strengthen under-resourced local growers by institutionalizing community-engaged curriculum and research that can build the growing capacity of residents in economically distressed neighborhoods. multipurpose tools such as cuamp have the potential to further expand research and other forms of technical to urban farmers and community gardeners. there is considerable work to be done to develop higher education institutions into resources that build the capacity of city dwellers to take part in local and urban food economies. what types of urban food systems curriculum can be developed by schools, colleges, and universities? how can such knowledge resources be made accessible to local residents? how can higher education institutions strategically channel resources—through technical assistance, research, service learning, internships, and community service—into local food systems development especially in economically distressed areas underserved by fresh food? how can metropolitan universities bridge the rural-urban agricultural divide; how can they become the connector between rural, peri-urban, and urban efforts to regionalize food systems to support economically, socially, and environmentally sustainable cities and contiguous rural areas? the case of chicago universities and colleges, as we suggest, illustrates the emerging role of the academy not as expert—as chicago growers have clearly shown themselves to be—but as capacity builder and provider of support to farmers and gardeners as they are challenged by local political and environmental conditions and the hegemony of the global food system. given rapid growth of local and regional food systems in north american cities in general, universities, and colleges will increasingly need to evaluate their role in urban food systems planning, policy-making, and development from the perspective of procurement practices, research, curriculum, technical assistance, and perhaps most importantly, community-engagement that facilitates partnerships in support of equitable, sustainable fresh food for all residents. references ableman, m. 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(2002). life in a ‘food desert.’ urban studies, 39(11), 2083–2100 https://doi.org/10.1080/0042098022000011371 author information howard rosing, phd, is a cultural anthropologist and the executive director of the steans center for community-based service learning and community service studies at depaul university. he is co-director of depaul’s graduate program in sustainable urban development (sud) and his research focuses on urban food access, economic restructuring, community food systems, and food justice movements in chicago and the dominican republic. he is codeveloper of the chicago urban agriculture mapping project (cuamp.org), a public resource for documenting chicago’s food production. howard rosing (corresponding author) executive director, irwin w. steans center for community-based service learning & community service studies depaul university 2233 n. kenmore chicago, il 60614 e-mail: hrosing@depaul.edu telephone: 773-325-7463 daniel r. block, phd, is a professor of geography and coordinator of the fred blum neighborhood assistance center at chicago state university. he has completed a number of food access studies, including the northeastern illinois community food security assessment, a large-scale food access study of the six-county chicago metro area. block is currently on the board of the chicago food policy advisory council and is a past president of the agriculture, food, and human values society and the founding chair of the geographies of food and agriculture specialty group of the association of american geographers. daniel r. block https://doi.org/10.1007/s10464-006-9067-y https://www.foodlandopportunity.org/projects/englewood-land-access-project http://www.farmlandinfo.org/sites/default/files/philadelphia_harvest_1.pdf https://doi.org/10.1080/0042098022000011371 mailto:hrosing@depaul.edu 46 professor of geography and coordinator, neighborhood assistance center chicago state university 9501 s king dr. chicago, il 60628 e-mail: dblock@csu.edu telephone:708-703-6412 mailto:dblock@csu.edu copyright © 2016 metropolitan universities vol. 27 no. 3 (autumn 2016), doi 10.18060/21388 building an engagement center through love of place: the story of the barbara weitz community engagement center sara woods, b.j. reed and deborah smith-howell abstract universities throughout the united states operate engagement centers to extend campus faculty, staff and student resources to their communities. in 2014, the university of nebraska omaha (uno) opened the barbara weitz community engagement center (weitz cec): a privately funded $24 million, 70,000 square foot facility located in the middle of its original dodge street campus. in addition to offices for its service learning and community service enterprises, the cec houses over thirty university and community organizations and offers extensive space for meetings, dialogue and collaboration. this paper will discuss its strategic and programmatic origins, unique design, and lessons learned in developing and operating the center. keywords: university engagement, partnerships, community engagement introduction the university of nebraska omaha (uno) opened the barbara weitz community engagement center (weitz cec) in march of 2014. costing just over $24 million, the new 70,000-squarefoot facility, fully paid for by private funds, supports the creation and expansion of universitycommunity partnerships, satisfying growing demands for community meeting and planning space, and extending the campus’s resources far beyond its physical boundaries deep into the community. the weitz cec is located in the heart of uno’s original dodge street campus. by serving as a destination where campus and community connect, the weitz cec has exponentially increased uno’s ability to engage its faculty, staff and students in high-quality, meaningful, and impactful engaged scholarship, service learning and community service experiences throughout the community, particularly in areas of economic stress. the hallmark of the weitz cec is shared space, and the multiple benefits that this concept derives. anchors of uno’s engagement efforts—in particular its nationally recognized service learning academy (sla) and its rapidly expanding office of civic and social responsibility— are for the first time in the same building on campus. by moving and expanding a nonprofit incubator from an off-campus location to the cec, over thirty nonprofit, government, university and student organizations now are housed in the building, working side by side in a rich, collaborative environment that encourages and supports opportunities for ongoing dialogue, investigation and cooperation. shared space is also achieved by hosting multiple community events—as many as fifty per day—in the building’s 21 reservable meeting spaces, and for having an open door to the uno campus itself. the everyday presence of a multitude of partner and 85 anchor organizations, the hundreds of daily visitors to the building attending a wide swath of events, and the unpredictable diversity of university students dropping in for a study session or a chat—all in one building—makes the weitz cec a truly unique place in higher education. the weitz cec’s mission is to “contribute positively and measurably to the community’s quality of life by creating, supporting, and expanding mutually beneficial partnerships, engaged scholarship, and academic and student programming that create tomorrow’s leaders and agents of change” (university of nebraska omaha, 2016). its vision reads “the dynamic programs, initiatives and partnerships fostered and supported by the weitz center will inspire generations of leaders, groundbreaking solutions, and synergetic collaborations that will transform our community and campus into world-class metropolitan partners” (university of nebraska omaha, 2016). the weitz cec was funded entirely with private donations, with most funding coming from two prominent, local family foundations. both foundations had strong connections to uno, having funded capital projects in the past. one of the foundations had also funded scholarships and program endowments as well, and had a firm commitment to the university’s service learning efforts from their beginning. an accompanying program funding campaign has raised $4.5 million, with funds going to support an endowed directorship for the service learning academy and programming support for the p-16 initiative in the sla, the collaborative, and a summer work academy for youth through the office of civic and social responsibility. additional endowments provide student support and internships. the evolution of the weitz cec the conceptual design, broad-based buy-in, rapid success of the weitz cec capital campaign, and ongoing program funding success can be attributed to three critical factors in uno’s history. the first was uno’s legacy and continuing reputation of deeply rooted engagement and outreach in the omaha area as a distinguishing feature of its identity as a metropolitan university. the second was the launch, growth, and flourishing of uno’s service learning enterprise, which has evolved from a small cadre of engaged faculty and a handful of classes to a sweeping, galvanized movement encompassing every college and almost every department at uno. the third factor was uno’s pioneering community role as an incubator of collective impact nonprofits beginning in 2000. using a 2,500 square foot collaborative work space shared with the university of nebraska medical center, uno worked with community leaders to launch, administer, and house issue-focused nonprofit initiatives that responded to emerging community needs. all three of these movements have gained local and national attention. as the service learning academy and the nonprofit incubator (later called the collaborating center) grew in size, their influence through expanded stakeholders, partners, visibility, and outcomes also widened. both became known as two of uno’s signature outreach efforts along with other uno’s mainstream engagement activities, some of which were long-term, college-driven initiatives and others that were more recent and campus wide. the confluence of these movements into one coherent, but still decentralized, engagement agenda was communicated in uno’s successful 2006 application to the carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching. uno was among the first group 86 of u.s. colleges and universities to receive its new community engagement classification. separately and collectively, these three factors (embracing community engagement as central to its role as a major metropolitan university, a thriving service learning movement; and the successful collaborating center) provided the programmatic, philanthropic, and values-based foundation on which the cec is built. factor 1: growing into a metropolitan university the first, and most far reaching factor, has been the university’s long term commitment to the city of omaha and its surrounding metropolitan area. consistent with its metropolitan mission, uno has contributed positively and extensively to the quality of life in the omaha area since its inception as the university of omaha in 1908. while the university has grown substantially in terms of its physical footprint, enrollment, and alumni base, its overall impact on the city and region’s economic health, quality of life, and intellectual capital has steadily increased. the area’s business, nonprofit, education, and government sectors have come to rely upon uno’s academic, programmatic, and student resources in their day-to-day operations, long‐term growth, and sustainability. uno has invested heavily in its community through a broad spectrum of outreach and scholarship activities, spanning from individual student internships to major, multidisciplinary programs. these have collectively engaged thousands of faculty, staff and students, and involved the campus’ full range of academic areas ranging from the fine arts to engineering and mathematics. the benefits of uno’s outreach efforts have been reciprocal, enriching the university’s teaching, student services and research enterprises as well as its community partners. in 1993, uno joined the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities (cumu). this affiliation has elevated uno’s community outreach efforts on a national level, and has helped sharpen uno’s focus as a “metropolitan university.” in 1998, uno adopted a vision statement that reflects its commitment to be a leading urban institution: “the university of nebraska omaha will be among the nation’s premier metropolitan universities a university of high distinction with strong academic and scholarly values distinguished by creative relationships with the communities we serve.” (university of nebraska omaha 2010) building engagement into the strategic fabric of the campus. since 1997, uno has utilized a dynamic strategic planning process to drive campus resources and priorities. in 2000, uno established three strategic goals that continue to guide campus priorities today. goal 3 of the uno strategic plan reads, “uno will be recognized for its outstanding engagement with the urban, regional, national, and global communities” (university of nebraska omaha, 2010). uno has expanded and extended its outreach efforts through increased financial, logistical, human resource and organizational support for service learning, applied research, community service projects and community leadership activities across the full breadth of university divisions, colleges, and units. these activities range from multi‐disciplinary, comprehensive initiatives such as the service learning academy to long‐term applied research programs such as the center for public affairs research, and to hundreds of individual outreach activities of faculty, staff and students. campus-wide examples include uno’s participation as one of the first group of institutions in aascu’s american democracy project initiative (labeled civic participation 87 project at uno) and development of the nonprofit leadership alliance (formerly american humanics) at uno. in his 2009 convocation address, uno chancellor john christensen said, “we are the university of nebraska at omaha, but we always have been “of” our community. in many ways, i believe we are among the nation’s distinguished institutions, serving as a national prototype for innovative interactions within our community, particularly in the area of service learning. however, the time has come to raise the proverbial bar.” continuing, dr. christensen challenged the audience, as well as the broader campus community, to broaden the campus’ engagement activities, saying “groundbreaking work in the field of institutional engagement suggests that it is no longer enough for such activities to remain the province of a select few within the university. rather, the art and science of engagement must permeate the academy, and be reflected broadly in all areas of teaching, research, and public service” (christensen, 2009). in response, the campus has taken additional action to make community engagement a clear focus of uno’s metropolitan mission. all colleges recognize the scholarship of engagement to some degree in their reappointment, tenure and promotion policies, and three have very detailed guidelines addressing it. faculty can notate scholarship of engagement activities in their annual reports, collected through an online reporting system (digital measures). this will enable the campus to keep metrics on the type and trends of engagement-related scholarly activity, teaching and service. funding engagement. privately funded community chairs have been added to the ranks of faculty, and the office of academic affairs offers annual engagement grants to encourage new scholarship activity. the nu foundation has an endowment sufficient to support two centennial engagement graduate fellows, who serve in community engagement related roles on campus. one of the fellows is assigned to the cec. staff in academic affairs provide support in data collection and measurement regarding the campus’ community engagement activities and are involved in the development of a “campus commitment” website highlighting community engagement. role of external recognition in furthering engagement. in 2015, uno once again received community engagement classification from the carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching, one of 361 universities to have this classification. the application included details regarding the cec and the partnerships that had already ensued in preparation for its opening, along with an extensive list of engagement activities that had occurred since uno’s original classification in 2006. uno has been intentional in utilizing both external recognition opportunities such as the carnegie classification to promote engagement on campus, in the community, within the nu system, regionally, and nationally. this has helped to elevate the work of faculty, staff and students, create informal and formal rewards, and connect even more effectively with funders. in doing so, each award builds upon the one before it, developing a broader and deeper cache of community and campus supporters. a similar approach can be seen in uno’s history with the president's higher education community service honor roll. the campus was first named to the honor roll in october of 2006. the excitement that occurred as a result helped fuel additional interest in service learning 88 and community service activities; for example, during that time the seven days of service initiative was launched. in 2009, uno was listed among the 141 institutions recognized “with distinction” on the honor roll, and soon following discussions began regarding the cec. in justifying a nationally-unique engagement center to the university of board of regents in 2010, both the carnegie classification and the honor roll were detailed as examples of the campus’ exemplary commitment to engagement. in 2011, uno was a finalist for the president’s award, and in 2014, uno was the honor roll’s national recipient of the presidential award for economic opportunity category. one of the programs identified in the honor roll in 2014, summerworks, received over $2m of private funding in 2014 and 2015. another factor in recognition has been in the campus’s ability to host national conferences, raising its visibility. uno hosted the international association for research in service learning and community engagement (iarslc) conference in 2014, the national conference of the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities (cumu) in 2015, and will host the engaged scholarship consortium’s national conference in 2016. factor 2: the service learning movement at uno the second critical factor in the creation of the cec was the transformational and defining impact of service learning on the campus’s community engagement efforts. service learning as a formal practice began in 1998‐1999 as an initiative of the uno center for faculty development (cfd). in march of 1999, the midwest consortium for service learning in higher education awarded a $29,575 grant to the uno cfd to create the uno service learning academy (sla) within the center for faculty development (leach & bacon, 1999). a total of nine service learning classes were offered in a variety of disciplines. after the consortium grant ended, uno sustained the service learning academy with the director of the cfd providing leadership. a .70 fte service learning specialist, hired in 2003, provided partnership support to both the community and campus faculty. with its origin in the center for faculty development, uno’s service learning academy developed as a faculty support and resource center. all service learning courses at uno are integrally linked to the curriculum and course learning objectives. service learning at uno also focuses on the scholarship of teaching and learning, encouraging and support faculty, students, and community partners’ participation in conferences and publications. this model has been instrumental in creating faculty and administrative buy-in for service learning specifically and engaged teaching and research more generally. among the faculty engaged in service learning at that time was barbara weitz, who taught in the uno school of social work. she and her colleagues became campus advocates for service learning, hosting experts as well as visits to other campuses. in 2004-05, uno had sixty service learning courses and growing interest among the faculty. in the summer of 2005, the midwest consortium for service learning in higher education funded the “south omaha seminar” to familiarize faculty interested in service learning projects with community organizations and 89 issues in that part of omaha. in the summer of 2006, a second grant funded a similar seminar in north omaha. in 2005, the service learning academy was established as an official office, separate from the center for faculty development. paul sather, the then assistant director of uno’s school of social work, became the first full-time director of uno’s service learning academy. the sla also gained its own office space and a full time assistant director who oversaw service days and volunteer activities (in 2012, this function separated from sla and now is part of the uno division of student affairs). in 2008, the sla began the p-16 initiative and hired a full-time coordinator to oversee it. with primary funding from the weitz and sherwood foundations, this initiative combines service learning classes from a university partner and a p-12 partner focusing on a nonprofit or community partner. in this scenario, university and p-12 students create a cooperative, real-life learning environment in which both types of students have specific learning objectives. the community partner benefits from the expertise and energy of the students. another benefit is the early exposure the p-12 students receive by having contact with university students and being on a college campus, often for the first time. uno’s p-16 initiative continues today, and continues to receive funding from the weitz, sherwood, and other local funders. today, the sla continues to thrive. uno faculty, sla staff, and many students have published and presented dozens of articles related to the impact of service learning in a variety of disciplines. uno has hosted several service learning related conferences, including the international association for research on service-learning and community engagement (iarslce) in 2014. the sla now has a substantial endowment for its director and has access to both state and private funding. it has a full-time evaluator to measure the effectiveness and impact of its programs on students and community organizations, and shares its findings with funders, university colleagues, community partners, and the academy. dierberger (2015) reported four ways in which uno is somewhat unique in the operation of the sla. first, the sla takes a more developmental approach in which students have service learning experiences that continue to build upon one another throughout the curriculum. for example, in the school of social work, service learning experiences would tie into the curriculum as students progressed from semester to semester, sometimes continuing with the same community partner or in the same issue area. secondly, uno’s approach promotes interdisciplinary service learning teams across campus. through the south and north omaha seminars, the sla has encouraged collaboration among faculty from different fields to address common issues. for example, one collaboration around housing engaged faculty with classes in engineering, social work, and business. this interdisciplinary approach created new and creative collaborations throughout campus. dierberger also noted that substantial private funding distinguished uno’s service learning activities from those of other institutions. the sla has received substantial private support to institutionalize its operations and staffing, as well as generous support for program operations. additional support from the corporate community has allowed for additional programming and increased the visibility of the academy even further in the funding community. 90 finally, there is substantial positive energy about service learning at uno. service learning is an identifiable component of uno’s brand, supported and promoted by campus leadership at all levels. this clear public support creates an environment that encourages faculty to participate in this pedagogy. uno’s service learning initiatives have brought a wide spectrum of faculty, representing every uno college, into the community engagement arena, and have acquainted numerous nonprofit professionals, board members, and stakeholders with the campus and its assets. these efforts have also brought uno great national recognition, as the aforementioned carnegie and president’s honor roll attest. factor 3: the collaborating center and uno’s role as nonprofit incubator the third factor in uno’s progression toward the construction of the cec was the operation of a prototype nonprofit incubator from 2000 until 2014. the college of public affairs and community service (cpacs) operated this facility for emerging, local nonprofit organizations. cpacs had deep roots in outreach and the scholarship of engagement, having been founded in 1972 as a direct response to civil unrest taking place in omaha at the time. the university viewed cpacs as a means to forge more proactive and productive interactions with areas of greatest need in omaha. the college’s academic programs in urban studies, social work, public administration, criminal justice, and gerontology included hands-on community engagement and applied research. in the early 1990s, cpacs received funding from the u.s. department of justice to develop a community plan for youth violence. the project was named pact (pulling america’s communities together) and was part of a nationwide initiative spearheaded by the u.s. department of justice in collaboration with the department of housing and urban development, the department of education, the department of health and human services, and the department of commerce. some of the funds from the pact grant were used by the uno department (now school) of public administration) to engage in neighborhood capacity building programs. additional programs and partnerships with the omaha community foundation, the chamber of commerce, the us attorney’s office, the mayor’s office, the urban league, the chicano awareness center (now the latino center of the midlands), and the omaha police department led to a successful community outreach partnership center grant through the department of housing and urban development in 1997. this grant further broadened uno’s involvement with even more neighborhood-serving organizations in omaha’s enterprise community. in 2000, several cpacs faculty and staff were asked to participate in the planning of a neighborhood center for the greater omaha area. the success of the neighborhood builders training program and copc neighborhood initiatives had illuminated the need for a centrally located, comprehensive center that would offer a full range of services to neighborhood associations and grassroots neighborhood-based citizen groups. several local family foundations and the united way of the midlands came forward as funders, but balked at the idea of having the center located in the mayor’s office where it could be subject to political whim. the planning 91 team were also wary of starting a new nonprofit which would have to balance capacity development challenges rather than start out meeting the immediate needs of neighborhoods. instead, funders and stakeholders sought a third party that would serve as an incubator for the center and assume an administrator role. uno, and specifically cpacs, was asked to serve in this capacity, as it had already proven to be a neutral convener in the past. simultaneously, the university of nebraska medical center approached cpacs to see if it would partner in the launch of the unmc/uno collaborating center for public health and community service. uno agreed as the location for the center – called the “collaborating center” was in central omaha, just two miles from downtown and on the city’s main bus line. the space was open, with offices around the perimeter. low bookshelves surrounded each space and allowed for conversation between “neighbors.” rent was very reasonable, with uno/unmc underwriting the cost of the common space and adjacent parking. uno provided administrative support and technical assistance to the neighborhood center for seven years, until the center split off as an independent nonprofit. other nonprofits incubated and supported by uno included the hate crimes coordinating council, project interfaith, omaha table talk, metropolitan area continuum care for the homeless, and the family economic sufficiency program. as administrator of these programs, cpacs provided back‐office support, including accounting, human resources management, grant administration, and technical assistance. in return, the incubator relationship provided multiple opportunities for service learning projects, applied research, and collaborative activities for uno students, faculty and staff. the majority of these programs and their staff were housed at the collaborating center. by co‐ locating these organizations in the same physical space, the nonprofits’ staff and constituents benefited from shared meeting space, operating support, and most importantly, common interests and collaboration. in addition to uno sponsored organizations, the space also housed several other nonprofit organizations that operated more independently, such the omaha office of the nebraska children and families foundation and the african american achievement council. these organizations also benefited from the shared space and sense of community that thrived in the collaborating center. admittedly, managing these incubated organizations was time-consuming for uno personnel. an associate dean in cpacs spent approximately .33 fte of her time overseeing personnel, managing contracts, and helping to navigate university channels, structures, and procedures on the behalf of the nonprofit partners. both she and the cpacs dean served on incubated organization’s boards of directors in an ex-officio capacity. this time and effort offered extensive dividends, however. the incubator role created enormous goodwill in the community. cpacs, and more broadly, uno, were active partners in solving community problems. students had increased opportunities for active engagement, capstone projects, and internships. board members, task force participants, and consumers of services were able to connect with the university in ways they had not before. the university was also able to connect with donors in new ways. one of the two donors for the cec was one of the original donors for the neighborhood center and served on its original advisory board. later, the same donor was a lead 92 donor for a major renovation of the cpacs building, and connected other foundations to the project. initially, uno placed a full-time staff professional at the collaborating center who assisted with building management, scheduling, accounting, and other duties. within a few years, however, it became clear that the partners did not need “managing.” working together, they agreed upon a general set of informal operating guidelines that served them sufficiently. this self-governance approach carried over to the cec, which uses a committee structure for building operations. the organizations became resources to one another, often partnering on new initiatives, bartering services, and providing advice and support. the collaborating center remained in operation until 2014. the unmc terminated its side of the lease in 2013 due to the loss of funding. when the cec was completed, organizations were given an opportunity to apply. many of the uno incubated organizations had become independent nonprofits and had moved out on their own (which was an objective) or had been absorbed by a new parent organization. this was also considered to be a success. for example, omaha table talk, which focused on promoting peaceful dialogue among and with people of color, joined ranks with inclusive communities, a growing nonprofit that became a cec partner. another collaborating center organization, the family economic success initiative, became part of family housing advisory services. only one of the three remaining organizations opted to apply (metropolitan area continuum of care for the homeless) and is now part of the cec. planning for the uno community engagement center in 2008, uno announced that it was moving its college of business administration (cba) from the dodge street campus to the pacific street campus. this created a domino effect, as the cba’s vacated roskens hall would eventually become home to the college of education (coe), leaving kayser hall vacant. with a 5-story, campus office and classroom building now available, chancellor john christensen began conversations about how this building could contribute to the campus’ growing reputation as a metropolitan university. conversations quickly led to questions about kayser hall’s viability as a potential engagement center for the campus. the timing was right for such a conversation. there was rapidly growing support among the faculty, students and community for uno’s service learning and community service activities. uno had recently earned its carnegie classification and was establishing a strong identity as a metropolitan university. the collaboration center was thriving and demand for its space exceeded its capacity. there was agreement among the campus’ leadership that placing its anchor engagement programs under the same roof would build momentum, campus support, and greater community visibility. to help dialogue regarding an engagement center move forward, in 2009 chancellor christensen convened a campus/community taskforce comprised of university administrators, facility personnel and faculty as well as community representatives and potential donors to discuss potential options. the committee met monthly, with one of the faculty representatives researching prototypes at other universities. the committee made site visits to two universities known for university/community engagement, portland state university and the university of utah. at both site visits, the committee met multiple campus representatives of outstanding 93 engagement programs and gathered feedback on uno’s vision for its campus-based engagement center. the committee had several options for an engagement center. one was to completely gut the kayser hall building. another was to select an off campus site. a third was to select a site on uno’s pacific or center street campuses. a fourth was to identify a site on the dodge street campus. quickly, the committee ruled out the kayser hall option. the building lacked windows, open space, and potential for access. it was not proximate for parking, was located on a far corner of campus, and would require substantial funding for upgrades of hvac, information technology, and other updates before it could be renovated for engagement purposes. the committee also ruled out construction of a site off the uno campuses, as there was a strong desire to ensure the involvement of students. the experience with the collaborating center had been that it had been difficult to engage uno’s student population in an off-campus location. almost all uno students work, many over 20 hours a week. the committee believed the best way to ensure their involvement was to build the center on campus. because of uno’s central location in omaha, close to bus lines and downtown, access to campus is not an insurmountable issue for community. also, the committee pondered, if building off campus, where? omaha has two areas of economic stress: north omaha and south omaha. uno’s location in between the two communities seemed to be wisest choice, with a commitment to utilize the proposed engagement center to ramp up the campus’ outreach efforts in both communities. with all of this under consideration, the committee recommended that a new building be constructed on the uno campus. the committee evaluated different sites, including locating the center on the pacific street campus to the south of the dodge street campus. ultimately, the committee selected a site on what was then a parking lot on the center of campus, next to the uno’s signature campanile (bell tower). this location would ensure new visitor parking available next to the building, and the campanile would serve as a visible landmark for those unfamiliar with the campus. operationalizing engagement into design and values the physical design of the weitz cec involved a deliberate process that spanned over five years and involved multiple site visits, two architectural firms, many charrettes, over twenty-five focus groups representing campus and community constituents, and several university review processes before ground was even broken. first, consistent with university procedure, a local architecture firm developed an extensive program statement for the building that communicated the vision for the building, using feedback from focus groups from throughout the community and campus. the program statement, which contained both a narrative as well as conceptual designs of the interior space, was approved by the university of nebraska board of regents and used as the basis for bidding by firms for the actual design and construction of the center. the selection process of the firms included points for each potential firm’s conveyed grasp and understanding of the proposed unique nature of the cec and its commitment to collaborative work. 94 the architecture firm selected for the building, holland basham architects (hba), spent extensive time exploring the concept of “collaborative work and meeting spaces” with future building staff and users, and students. architects set up site visits for exploration of office, meeting, and casual space design, held charrettes and additional focus groups, and met extensively with the community/university task force to ensure that the vision for the center was achieved. the design of the building reflects a deference to collaboration, shared workspaces, open design and transparency. uno’s twelve years of experience in operating the collaborating center provided important insight about effective collaboration practices that informed the weitz cec design process. the collaborating center “neighbors” also were key focus group participants when uno began planning the weitz cec, as they offered insights that proved invaluable regarding the design of the partnership spaces. for example, they suggested including some private office space and creating work areas that allowed collaboration but also gave staff a sense of privacy when they needed it. the weitz cec’s space reflects both. the collaboration center neighbors also recommended ample open collaborative workspace where weitz cec partners could meet and interact, greet stakeholders and clients, and spread out when they needed to. all of this was incorporated into the design, as making sure the weitz cec contained one private meeting space (all of the other meeting spaces in the cec incorporate glass). separate from the process for the physical design of the building, the weitz cec community/university task force concurrently went through a lengthy planning process that identified the core values for the weitz cec that continue to guide decision making, partner selection and evaluation, and building operations. this process included utilizing focus group data and gathering additional feedback from campus constituents involved with service, volunteer, and service learning opportunities. additionally, the weitz cec community/ university task force conducted a multi-step facilitated conversation process that included brainstorming, refining, and prioritization to clearly articulate the building values. these values continue to guide decision-making, partner selection and evaluation, and building operations. in meeting both the mission and vision, the weitz cec emphasizes core values that serve as the basis for decision-making, selection of partners, and evaluation of its effectiveness. these are described in table 1. table 1 barbara weitz community engagement center: community and university partner values diversity the weitz cec actively seeks to represent the many diverse ideas, backgrounds, and cultures that comprise omaha and the university community. civil and open dialogue the weitz cec is a space where all opinions can be heard and diverse ideas are not only respected but encouraged in order to foster innovation and creativity. 95 collaboration the weitz cec fosters an environment where people are willing to organically develop creative strategies and partnerships for solving complex social problems. communication the weitz cec encourages thoughtful, respectful, and transparent communication between all individuals who use the weitz cec including community partners, faculty, staff, and students. reciprocity the weitz cec is a portal through which the community and the university exchange resources, ideas, and solutions. through reciprocal relations with clearly stated and fulfilled goals and expectations, community and uno organizations interact with and benefit from each other. welcoming the weitz cec values everyone who uses the building, and shows that by creating an environment that is clear, easy to access, filled with friendly faces, comfortable for all, and meets people’s physical needs. continuous improvement the weitz cec equips all partners (community and university) to better serve the omaha community by basing decisions for improvement on direct feedback and systematic data gathering and analysis. unique features of the weitz cec while there are a number of community outreach centers at universities and colleges throughout the country, many are limited in scope and focus on one component of outreach, such as service learning, or are located off‐campus and focus on a specific neighborhood. others are housed within individual colleges or units within the institution and are focused on discipline‐specific outreach activities, rather than being university-wide. the uno weitz cec is unique on a national level in terms of size, scope, the nature of its operations, potential impact, and approach. in particular, the following are examples of the weitz cec’s unique approach to engagement and how the nature of the building has been forged by collective learning within the entire campus community. shared space requires principles and guidelines. the weitz cec contains “partnership” spaces totaling 15,000 square feet for both community and campus organizations. currently, thirty-two nonprofit, government, student, and university organizations are housed in the weitz cec. the organizations were selected through a values-based application process, in which applicants describe how they will attend to building priorities such as collaboration, communication, diversity, democratic principles, and reciprocity. external partners have an opportunity to apply to be “administrative” partners, in which they enter in an incubator-like relationship with uno. university partners include several faculty-led engaged scholarship projects that provide opportunities for applied research. occupation in the building is built upon the expectation that all residents will engage in mutually beneficial relationships. with the exception of the permanent anchor partners (sla, ocsr), all building partners go through a rigorous application process. all external partners must indicate in their applications how they intend to commit to reciprocal activities with the campus (service learning, internships, and research partnerships) with the campus. likewise, university partners 96 must detail how they will be engaged in the community. applicants must also describe how they will address the weitz cec values if selected to be building partners. a community/university committee reviews applications and conducts face to face interviews with prospective partners. the committee sends its partner recommendations to the uno chancellor for approval. if selected, partners in the building are asked to maintain a level of engagement consistent with what was envisioned in their proposals. this progress is monitored through meetings with weitz cec staff and occasional reports. the relationships partners develop with university/community partners are organic, with the individual organization determining the nature of these partnerships and how and when they take place. however, extended occupancy in the building is dependent on these reciprocal relationships occurring and being reported. in general, occupancy in the building is envisioned to last from three to six years for nonpermanent partners. the weitz cec serves the entire omaha metropolitan area and beyond. some of its university and community partners, in fact, have a statewide focus. currently, the tribal emergency management program (temp) serves native american tribes and reservations within the state of nebraska with a plan to expand its service area beyond the state in the future. hunger free heartland, a community partner, seeks to address childhood hunger in the state. similarly, the buffet early childhood center addresses issues affecting the success of children ages 0-8 in nebraska. the weitz cec is also comprehensive in terms of campus use – all colleges at uno are engaged in some way in the weitz cec. similarly, the weitz cec does not limit its outreach to a specific type – e.g., education or economic development. rather, its approach is organic, allowing the community and campus to determine priorities and programs collaboratively. finally, an essential component of the vision for the building was to offer a variety of meeting spaces to the community, provided at no charge to users. rather than just offer space, however, the weitz cec is a thriving community crossroads. this has cemented the building’s role in the omaha area as a key place for making change, community dialogue, and group learning space. each of the meeting spaces were designed for flexibility, it innovation, and group dynamics. meeting organizers can move walls, store or rearrange tables, utilize whiteboard walls, and take advantage of videoconferencing and other technology, aided by building support staff. decentralization and shared ideas. uno has avoided, as much as possible, a top-down approach to engagement. the weitz cec serves as a mechanism to promote and support engagement at uno, but the responsibility for initiating, maintaining, and supporting community outreach and scholarship remains the purview of uno’s individual divisions, colleges, departments, and, some instances, individual faculty. this bottom-up approach has helped ensure the sustainability of engagement of uno despite changes in leadership at all levels. for the weitz cec, it has also broadened the appeal of the facility across the campus. five of uno’s six colleges are represented in its partner organizations, and students and faculty from all colleges have participated in the service learning academy and community service activities. sharing physical space. uno does not charge rental fees for community events held in the weitz cec. this includes events ranging from small meetings of four people to comprehensive conferences and workshops with over 300 in attendance. offering the space, including its technology, for free has made the weitz cec the central place for holding the full array 97 community and campus-based engagement events. in doing so, it has offered myriad opportunities to place uno in the forefront of community activities – making it an ideal spot for strategic planning forums, decision accelerators, and other complex events. in fact, in 2014, the chamber of commerce used the entire building – including all of its informal workspaces – for an intensive media workshop for young media specialists. over seventy-five participants developed omaha’s new brand during the two-day time period. dedicated and adequate parking. focus groups held during the design phase were unanimous that ample visitor and partner parking had to be adjacent to the weitz cec. forum attendees described uno as an island surrounded by a moat with limited access into the campus and a “you can’t get there from here” impermeability. the weitz cec includes an adjacent, dedicated parking lot with eight-five stalls, with a gatehouse and attendant, with flexible access to seventy more stalls if needed. building partners have secure parking underneath the weitz cec. shared space and access. one of the primary purposes of the community engagement center is to increase access to the uno campus by providing meeting space in which critical decisions about the issues facing the omaha area, region, state and beyond can be deliberated and determined. the flexible, state-of-the-art space in the weitz cec meets a significant need for this in the community, and in doing so is drawing key decision makers – including those residents affected most by the decisions – together to have peaceful and productive dialogues. by making the space free of charge, the “playing field” has been leveled and all types of organizations are gathering in the weitz cec spaces. on any day, it is common to see omaha’s most influential donors meeting at the same time, and sometimes in the same space, as students, government leaders, consumers of services, community advocates, business executives, and nonprofit leaders. not only do formal meetings occur, but informal gatherings in the weitz cec’s plentiful casual gathering spots and lounges are locales for serendipitous conversations. from vision to impact the weitz cec has surpassed expectations in terms of its initial impact. in its first twenty-seven months of operations, over 12,000 events involving over 170,000 visitors and 648 separate organizations have taken place in the building. thirty-two partner organizations – eighteen community-based and fourteen from the uno campus, share collaborative office space in the building. weitz cec anchor organizations four permanent anchor organizations (uno service learning academy, office of civic and social responsibility, william brennan labor institute, and the buffett early childhood institute) are housed within the building, allowing expanded capacity and outreach for both uno and the university of nebraska. however, it is important to note that while the weitz cec houses these important entities, the vast extent of uno’s outreach and engagement activities continue to occur within the campus’s six colleges, criss library, athletics, and division of student affairs. 98 the uno service learning academy (sla). the sla supported over 200 classes with more than 3000 uno students in ay 2015/16, including those from its nationally recognized p-16 initiative. the p-16 initiative involves over 1500 uno students and over 2500 k-12 students working with at least 50 community partners. with a full-time staff of six and twelve graduate students, the sla utilizes the cec as a base for drawing partners to campus for culminating events, partner fairs and workshops, and project meetings. the office of civic and social responsibility (ocsr). oscr has expanded from a full-time staff of one to a staff of 3.0 fte and over thirty-five student workers. leveraging additional private funds gained since the weitz cec opened, ocsr now includes a student-run food pantry in the weitz cec for uno students and staff; a volunteer resource center; a signature days of service coordinator; and the collaborative for student service and leadership (the collaborative), through which student leaders develop and lead community service teams with nonprofit organizations. in 2013-2014, over 5,400 uno students, p-12 students, and community volunteers participated in 20 signature service days for almost 38,000 collective service hours. the uno william brennan institute for labor studies. the brennan institute operates from the weitz cec and leads its training program for union leaders on site. previously, the institute was housed in a state office building in downtown omaha, isolated from the campus and with limited access to meeting space. now, it is proximate to its home college, campus leadership, and multiple community partners. it has strengthened its campus bonds and heightened its visibility while building its capacity in the weitz cec. the buffett early childhood institute (beci). with a goal of making nebraska the “best place in the united states to be a baby,” the institute has grown from a staff of three in 2014 to over twenty-five since moving into the weitz cec. this university of nebraska initiative focuses on programming and outreach to improve learning outcomes for children ages 0-8 throughout the state. other roles of the cec in addition to housing community/university partners and anchor partners, and hosting community events, the weitz cec plays additional roles.  supporting the scholarship of engagement by offering dedicated spaces for faculty involved in applied research in collaboration with community partners, as well as space for communities of practice focused on an engaged research theme.  serving as a conduit for the community for university service resources.  promoting campus events occurring in the weitz cec that are open to the public.  offering capacity building support to nonprofit partners in the building.  collaborating with the avenue scholars foundation to fund americorps volunteers from metro community college as interns for cec partner nonprofits. 99 lessons learned through the uno experience the lessons learned through uno’s experiences with community engagement, the sla, and the collaborating center provided the basis for the values-based, partner-driven approach and business practices that uno is utilizing in the weitz cec today. through the experiences of operating an incubator, uno’s leadership—for both academic affairs and business—has relied on a strong foundation of expertise and artifacts with which to launch successful partnerships, develop reasonable facility and business agreements, and manage expectations. invest in, learn from, promote, and celebrate bite-sized successes. then repeat. the weitz cec capitalized on the momentum gained from numerous, entrepreneurial engagement efforts of individual faculty or administrative units. initially, there was limited return on investment: minimal recognition from the community or campus; challenges in navigating and communicating campus complex policies and procedures to community partners; and limited support, and sometimes resistance, in fundraising. despite these challenges, these initiatives such as uno’s service learning academy and the collaborating center moved forward and grew in size, visibility and scope. they grew new sub-initiatives, such as the p-16 initiative, that continued to fan out and broaden the impact and visibility of uno’s engagement efforts and engage even more faculty and students. uno administrators learned from failures as much as successes. the experience with the collaboration center, for example, demonstrated that proximity to partners was a key to success and that the interaction led to emerging partnerships and programmatic initiatives that would not have happened otherwise. the lack of student interaction in that same space showed that engagement of students with each other and with community partners cannot occur in a significant way unless they were physically connected to each other in some way. today, the weitz cec nurtures multiple, small initiatives that emanate between building partners and uno faculty. for example, a collaboration with girl scouts, black police officers association, and the nebraska watershed network (a uno student based organization from the uno department of biology) is working with sherman elementary to engage low income girls as citizen scientists to collect water samples on a research project. these small collaborations build into broader networked projects with additional campus and community partners, funding, and visibility, and in turn growing interest in community engagement there is great value in the university being a neutral convener. the impartial role of uno in helping launch and administer organizations such as the neighborhood center, metro area continuum of care for the homeless, and hunger free heartland has had real benefits for the campus. while it is behind the scenes work that often does not allow for the uno brand to shine through, it has connected or strengthened the bonds between the campus and a broad range of service providers and government agencies throughout the community. it has served as a conduit for its students and faculty to find opportunities in service learning, community service, internships, and applied research. it also has solidified the university’s reputation as a dependable partner and backbone for community impact efforts. despite the university taking a back seat role in terms of “calling the shots,” the importance of the campus in filling the convener role has increased its exposure to local donors, some of whom are active issue-focused supporters who otherwise have had limited experiences an engaged metropolitan university. this 100 experience has also demonstrated that this role as “neutral convener” cannot be taken for granted. trust and social capital built over years can be lost if external partners perceive that the campus and now, if the weitz cec itself has a clear partisan interest in the outcome of specific issues. one of the more challenging aspects of hosting organizations and events in the building is for the university to welcome debate and dialogue around controversial concerns and at the same not be seen as an advocate for a particular position. in launching a major initiative such as the weitz cec, tap the institution’s hidden assets for support. institutions of higher education correctly identify student and faculty resources as being critical to their community engagement efforts. allocations of space and funding to support direct personnel expenses are also highly valued by campus leaders (campus compact 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009). in addition to the above, uno’s fundraising and communications efforts played a vital role in the development of the weitz cec. however, the support and partnership of uno’s business and finance division was a critical key to the successful design, launch and operation of uno’s weitz cec. led by the vice chancellor of business and finance, the division was actively involved early in the design process, not just in the physical design of the building, but also in determining how the weitz cec would be supported as an engagement facility, used by community and university partners alike. key to this design orientation was the concept of access. the vice chancellor personally set this tone early on by convening key facilities personnel and asking them to take an approach not of control, but of access. for example, this approach meant that community partners and visitors using the weitz cec would access immediate parking, unfettered by confusing signage and cluttered access points. this was a turnabout from the presumptive theme of control that had dominated the campus’s approach to parking for decades. giving community partners physical, logistical, operational and network access to the campus and the weitz cec required the cooperation and assistance from a broad array of campus services, many of which had not been involved in the business of engagement in the past. accounting staff created cost centers for community partners and simple procedures for billing rent, copier charges, and miscellaneous expenses. parking services has worked with cec staff to provide a customer-service focused approach to managing its visitor lots. information services had to create mock identities for community partners who defied definition by standard campus categories: not an employee, volunteer, alumni, nor student, but someone who needed secure access to buildings, parking permits, recreation facilities, and a mavcard. telecommunications created multiple options so that partners could utilize the campus telephone system or bring in their own private provider. the campus compliance officer developed a facilities agreement template for the partners. the level of cooperation and responsiveness that was provided by the division of business and finance, and that continues to occur, has been critical to the weitz cec’s success. this has been achieved through a commitment to transparency, through which problems have been addressed head-on between the weiz cec director and the corresponding department head. more significant problems or challenges are directed to uno’s senior leadership (the vice chancellor for business and finance, senior vice chancellor for academic and student affairs, and the chancellor) or the chancellor’s cabinet for discussion and resolution. 101 free space pays big dividends. uno made a decision early in the planning process not to charge any fees for the use of its meeting rooms or corresponding technology. this has proven to be a major win to the campus, resulting in over 100,000 visits to the building in its first 21 months of operation. the weitz cec’s policy is to be open for free community and campus events that are “for the public good,” excluding fundraisers, political campaigns, and press conferences. the weitz cec’s open door policy has extended the campus to individuals who have never been to uno before as well as to alumni who have not been returned to the campus for many years. the free space is especially valuable to federal and state agencies that are not able to pay for meeting and conference space for trainings, workshops, and webinars. nonprofit organizations hold public dialogues, client fairs, board meetings, and strategic planning events. local elected officials hold town halls, dialogues, and stakeholder meetings. local foundations hold grant writing seminars, bring in national speakers and panels, and convene planning forums around major issues. in offering this space for free, uno’s leadership has quickly realized that the gains vastly overweigh lost potential revenue from booking rooms. the university is now a community destination from where positive change can take place, where community problems are solved, and where civil dialogue occurs. while there is a value placed on the free space uno provided: the weitz cec also broadened the range of visitors to the campus: potential students, attending chess tournaments, slam poetry contests, or inclusivity events; neighborhood association members from the areas surrounding the campus, many of whom had never been to uno; business leaders attending omaha chamber board meetings; policymakers, including members of nebraska’s state senate, city council, county commission, and washington delegation, all attending a broad array of meetings; and the broadest array of donors and potential donors, attending board meetings, stakeholder events, community dialogues, and even informal gatherings in the weitz cec’s collaborative nooks. of course, in all of these circumstances, the opportunity to connect or reconnect uno with a parent or alumni through the weitz cec is always present. “i met ____ at the weitz cec last week” has become part of omaha’s local vernacular. often, visitors to the weitz cec take advantage of the building’s central location to explore uno’s walkable campus, often visiting the institution for the first time. this has served as an excellent recruiting tool for potential students and parents, as has the weitz cec’s partnership with the uno recruitment office, which provides promotional materials (with the event coordinator’s permission) at building events involving youth. a decentralized approach to engagement works, but it still requires coordination. the weitz cec’s university partners represent five of the university’s six academic colleges, academic affairs, and division of student affairs. all weitz cec partners agree to abide by the stated values of the center. otherwise, each is only accountable to protocols or expectations within their home department and college, not to a centralized community engagement office at uno. the service learning academy (sla) serves faculty and students from all of uno’s colleges as well as students attending university of nebraska lincoln classes held on the uno campus, but there is no mandate for faculty to participate outside of occasional departmental expectations. the sla operates from the office of academic affairs and the office of civic and social responsibility runs through the division of student affairs, and students participate voluntarily. 102 uno and the weitz cec’s leadership has been careful to define the weitz cec as a portal for the institution’s engagement efforts, not the container for the entirety of the campus’s work in this regard. while it houses uno’s signature engagement programs (sla and oscr), both of these are focused on working throughout the campus, involving faculty and students from throughout the academic and student affairs enterprises. weitz cec staff assist with connecting the building’s partners with potential university collaborators from throughout the institution, make referrals for internships, capstones, practica, and engaged research opportunities for inquiries from throughout the community, and assist campus organizations in hosting community engaged events. however, even broader efforts, such as supporting faculty in scholarship of engagement through the tenure and reward process, civic engagement grants, and emphasis of uno’s metropolitan mission all promote community engagement as well. this approach has led a broad-based sustainable focus on engagement at uno that has endured for decades despite leadership changes at the campus, division, college, and departmental level. decentralization is not without its challenges: as it makes it difficult to identify and quantify engagement activities on a campus level; measure overall outputs and outcomes; and communicate the depth and impact of engagement on students and the overall community. as uno strives to demonstrate the value of the weitz cec and its “proof of concept,” capturing and sharing this institutional-level information is even more crucial. the commitment of resources and human capital spanning twenty years, two chancellors, and multiple deans, vice chancellors and other campus leaders along with extended relationships with key donors and community partners led to the realization of the weitz cec. this moved from a combination of individual commitments to one that reflected a shift in the institutional culture. uno is working to overcome these challenges by utilizing campus wide measurements such as the national survey of student engagement’s civic engagement module, a community perception survey, standardized assessments of service learning courses, a more comprehensive approach to evaluation and student portfolios by the office of civic and social responsibility, and a year-long university engagement data collection process led by the office of academic affairs. in the summer of 2016, a broader campus evaluation of engagement will begin. all of the data collected will be shared on a new “campus commitment” page under the “engagement” portal on the uno website. building for engagement requires flexibility in physical design and ongoing approach. in the design of the weitz cec, the uno leadership team acknowledged that the building’s design would be fluid and flexible as the realities of collaborative co-location emerged. there was no prototype nor design basis to learn from in shaping the physical design of the space. luckily, there was sufficient funding left in the budget to allow for multiple modifications of workspaces, office areas, and project rooms during the first twenty-one months of operation. the office furniture in the partner spaces is modular and allows for redesign. other spaces, such as a large filing area, have been removed and replaced with open work areas while others have been reconfigured to accommodate hoteling spaces for drop in users and large tables for informal meetings. this flexibility has also allowed for a focus to continuous improvement. working with the weitz cec advisory committee, weitz cec administration utilizes building statistics, surveys, partner 103 feedback and observation to examine use patterns and make changes. a new, concierge-style reception desk will ensure a volunteer or student will greet all building visitors even when a major conference claims the larger front desk. an underused resource room will soon be repurposed into a flexible classroom. a major partner is planning to vacate the weitz cec as it outgrows its current space, opening up opportunities for new programming and innovation. when engaging in partnerships, clarify expectations upfront and achieve agreement regarding common terms. uno’s experience with the collaborating center and service learning academy has underscored the value of achieving a common understanding of expectations regarding partner roles and contributions. in the operation of the weitz cec, coming to agreement around certain terms is especially important, as its partner organizations are expected to “collaborate,” “communicate” and be “reciprocal,” among others (cec, 2015). however, these terms can be ambiguous and carry different meanings, depending on the context. the values-based approach to managing the weitz cec has helped clarify these expectations, as each value is defined during the application process and reiterated in multiple ways, events and artifacts. sla uses multiple strategies to clarify expectations and agreement, including employment of a full-time community liaison and holding an annual, week-long summer workshop for its p-16 initiative, attended by over 150 faculty, k-12 and community participants. by working together to clarifying and operationalizing common terms, partners, faculty and weitz cec administrators better understand expectations around what will be gained in a collaboration or partnership and how the work will be done. conclusion the barbara weitz community engagement center represents vast opportunities for future growth in uno’s outreach and engaged scholarship efforts. its flexible design and decentralized approach, along with the commitment of university leadership, means that the center will play an important role in developing additional collaborations, new community service opportunities for students, the ongoing expansion of service learning, and increasing the level and impact of engaged research. the weitz cec demonstrates the value of engagement at every level of the institution. from unit-based initiatives like neighborhood builders, which later gave rise to a college-based nonprofit incubator, to a small faculty development office promoting and supporting service learning among a few faculty champions, uno was able to demonstrate the value it provided through its faculty members, staff and students in addressing critical community issues. accompanied by a solid strategic plan that reiterated the value of community engagement and the concrete role of uno as the city’s metropolitan university, these initiatives took root and steadily grew and gained momentum in terms of visibility, speed and impact. as their velocity increased, so did the attention paid to them by critical stakeholders within and outside of the university: government decision makers, community stakeholders and partners, and donors. ultimately, these donor-champions participated in the planning process for the weitz cec, sharing the vision that emanated from the lessons learned in service learning projects, neighborhood engagement, collaborative workspaces, and values-driven partnership. 104 references barbara weitz community engagement center (2015).partner expectations. christensen, j. (2009 october 7). 101 years: writing the next chapter. university of nebraska omaha convocation address. strauss performing arts center, omaha, nebraska. dierberger, j. (2015). service learning history and p-16 protocols (final report, comm 8980: independent study). omaha, ne: university of nebraska omaha. leach, m. & bacon, n. (1999). service learning academy (memorandum). omaha, ne: university of nebraska at omaha. barbara weitz community engagement center. (2016). our mission and vision. retrieved from http://www.unomaha.edu/community-engagement-center/about-the-weitz-cec/our-mission-andvision.php. university of nebraska omaha. (2015). strategic plan. retrieved from http://www.unomaha.edu/strategic-plan/index.php. authors: sara woods is executive associate to the senior vice chancellor for community engagement at the university of nebraska omaha. she holds an mpa from uno. sara woods barbara weitz community engagement center university of nebraska omaha 6001 dodge street omaha, ne 68182 e-mail: swoods@unomaha.edu telephone: 402-554-3914 fax: 402-554-5904 b. j. reed is the senior vice chancellor for student and academic affairs at uno. he earned a ph.d. from the university of missouri-columbia. b. j. reed office of academic and student affairs university of nebraska omaha 6001 dodge street omaha, ne 68182 e-mail: breed@unomaha.edu telephone: 402-554-2907 fax: 402-554-4896 mailto:swoods@unomaha.edu mailto:breed@unomaha.edu 105 deborah smith-howell is the associate vice chancellor of academic affairs and dean of graduate studies at uno. she holds a ph.d. from the university of texas. deborah smith howell office of graduate studies university of nebraska omaha 6001 dodge street omaha, ne 68182 e-mail: dsmith-howell@unomaha.edu telephone: 402-554-4849 fax: 402-554-3143 mailto:dsmith-howell@unomaha.edu metropolitan universities vol. 29 no. 2 (may 2018), doi: 10.18060/22342 the roles of foundations and universities in redevelopment planning laurie a. walker and jean f. east abstract laurie a. walker, the 2017 recipient of the ernest a. lynton award for the scholarship of engagement, is an associate professor in the school of social work at the university of montana. together with her co-author, dr. jean f. east, professor in the graduate school of social work at the university of denver, they have raised, in this piece, an important and insightful critical lens on the implications of higher education institutions’ “engagement” with their local communities. it looks deeply into the implications of the “blind spot” identified by baldwin (2017), which “comes largely from the assumption that higher education, while hypnotized by corporate power, is still an inherent public good, most clearly marked by its taxexempt status for providing services that would otherwise come from the government.” they examine how campuses may be deeply involved in the local urban area and also advancing a self-interest that may not be a public interest – through gentrification, and through what baldwin calls “noneducational investments in real estate, policing, and labor” that “can carry negative consequences for neighborhoods of color.” walker and east are asking us to more closely examine how campuses can get so involved in the cities of which they are a part as to be a dominant force that does not advance the public good, but the good of the campus. this is a dilemma and a question that many of the cumu member campuses have already faced or may face in the coming years, and goes to the heart of the public good of higher education in a neoliberal age. —john saltmarsh, university of massachusetts, boston keywords: planning; public housing; resident engagement; qualitative one goal for the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities (cumu) 2017 conference in denver, colorado was to explore the role of urban universities as anchor institutions. anchor institutions—such as universities, hospitals, parks, sports teams and stadiums—are often located within or adjacent to urban neighborhoods with a concentration of low-income residents, who could benefit from partnerships and investments designed to create more equitable and safe environments (baldwin, 2017; etienne, 2012; rapson, 2008; rutheiser, 2013). in recent years, anchor institutions have committed to a set of principles for working with communities that includes a high level of accountability. a consequence of the 1980s–1990s new federalism was a deeper reliance on anchor institutions to solve problems not met by the private neoliberal market, e.g., crime in neighborhoods adjacent to universities (etienne, 2012; wilson, 1996). the new policy approach offered tax incentives for private investment (enterprise zones) while simultaneously decreasing federal investment in cities from an average of 18 percent to 6 percent (wilson, 1996), resulting in drastic cuts to services in neighborhoods. 34 the kresge foundation was the title sponsor of the cumu 2017 conference in collaboration with the annie e. casey foundation (casey foundation). part of the kresge foundation’s mission is to support universities globally in becoming anchor institutions (rapson, 2008). the casey foundation, while not an anchor institution, has invested in supporting community organizing and development in low-income neighborhoods for almost 30 years and has invested in related anchor institution work for almost 15 years (rutheiser, 2013). denver anchor institution case studies this paper examines two case studies of anchor institution involvement in neighborhood development, then compares and contrasts them in order to understand the effectiveness of community engagement efforts (pendergast, 2013). given the locally driven solutions of neoliberal approaches, the roles of each collaborator in urban development—whether a university or a foundation—vary from city to city and project to project; however, the lessons learned via each case study are likely informative of work where universities and foundations explicitly identify as anchor institutions. figure 1 depicts the neighborhood anchor institutions discussed in this article. figure 1. sun valley and la alma/lincoln park anchor institutions. the first case focuses on a public private partnership that grew out of a decade-long casey foundation making connections (mc-d) initiative to engage two neighborhoods adjacent to auraria, sun valley and la alma/lincoln park, as part of a ten-city nationwide effort to promote community change (yates & saasta, 2013). in 2007, the casey foundation specifically invested in a resident advisory council (rac) process, in order to support a neighborhood and light rail 35 planning that was more accessible to residents than the existing neighborhood and station area planning. the casey foundation accomplished the rac process by collaborating with the community-based organizations (cbos) where the foundation was already engaged. mc-d convened the community organizing and development staff they funded in planning a process that engaged residents and local anchor institutions (e.g., the housing authority and city government employees). this work indirectly engaged denver universities via student internships and projects focused on neighborhood planning (united states environmental protection agency, 2016; walker & east, 2014). the rac process was evaluated utilizing federal funding received by the first author of this paper while a graduate student (walker & east, 2014). the case empirically describes strategies used to facilitate system-wide changes during the planning phases of the neighborhoods’ redevelopment. the case discussion emphasizes the potential and limitations of a foundation and contracted facilitator’s roles in ensuring that publicprivate partnership dialogue leads to strategies promoting social justice, addressing historic and contemporary oppression, and take note of whether private sector interests dominate these collaborations (fields, 2014). the findings focus on the role, structure, and capacity-building of one foundation and the neutral facilitator hired to help the partnership maintain affordable housing, address neighborhood problems like crime, and improve neighborhood human services and infrastructure. the second case studies the 1976 development of a shared campus footprint, known as auraria, via an urban renewal bond in 1969 to be home to three higher education institutions. although the process was consistent with national use of section 112 policy and outcomes, it displaced between 150 and 300 predominantly latino/latina families, who mostly moved south of colfax avenue into the la alma/lincoln park (brown, 2006; etienne, 2012; pendergast, 2013a). successful partnerships between auraria and these neighborhoods requires being sensitive to the initial urban renewal and displacement concerns of residents (etienne, 2012; pendergast, 2013b). this case uses secondary data from the auraria campus media, an environmental impact statement, and planning efforts related to the relocation the athletic fields into the la alma/lincoln park neighborhood (ahec, 2012 as cited in pendergast, 2013b; metropolitan state university of denver, 2016; pendergast, 2013a, 2013b, 2013c, and 2013d). metropolitan state university of denver (msu denver) recently spent nearly $200 million on campus development projects, which included building athletic facilities (regency athletic complex) in the la alma/lincoln park neighborhood (metropolitan state university of denver, 2016; pendergast, 2013a). the regency athletic complex development included community benefits related to removing environmental contaminates from the previous landowner. a colorado university professor reported on: (a) the initial and recent auraria campus development including a public-private partnership with a hotel chain; (b) an environmental impact statement drafted by cu denver professors in the 1970s; and (c) and perceptions of the auraria campus’ ongoing community engagement (pendergast, 2013a, 2013b, 2013c, and 2014d). additionally, the cu denver is involved with a current sun valley planning grant (united states environmental protection agency, 2016). 36 to contextualize the discussion of both cases, background on the roles of universities and foundations in similar roles in the united states are provided below. in urban areas like denver, with at least twenty-six universities, campus leaders play key roles as anchor institutions. therefore, the implications of campus investments in neighborhoods are discussed as one type of anchor institution in the case studies of this article. foundations also play a major role in community development and their role as partners in communities is significant. role of universities and foundations in urban planning and development both universities and foundations share the same four types of capital that influence neighborhood planning and development in a neoliberal context (etienne, 2012; fields, 2014): financial, intellectual, social, and political (bondgraham, 2011; etienne, 2012; sites, chaskin, & parks, 2007; turner et al., 2014). the sociopolitical climate creating the need for university and foundation involvement in urban development (and their types of capital) are similar. however, their perspectives as stakeholders and their self-interests are different. financial capital. universities function as knowledge economies that experience changing financial realities that require creating new practices for financing universities (eteinne, 2012). etienne (2012) describes the “contemporary commercialization of all aspects of urban life and higher education. under the current paradigm of neoliberal market ideology, both town and university have pursued fulfillment of their traditionally not-for-profit missions with for-profit management schemes” (p. 1280). universities generate revenues as students and employees consume various types of goods and services provided, such as classes, retail, other amenities, sporting events, etc. (etienne, 2012). the current sociopolitical climate includes “talent attraction and retention... [through the work of] economic development professionals [who] are looking to colleges and universities as the instruments that will help them transform their marginal cities and regions into silicon valley or route 128 [the area around harvard university and the massachusetts institute of technology]” (etienne, 2012, p. 1401). universities as landowners often in the urban core are sometimes described for “their economic footprint... as the new company in our ‘company towns’” (baldwin, 2017, para 25). some universities have employees focused on hiring, purchasing, real estate development, urban revitalization, expansion, and other development (etienne, 2012; rapson, 2008). purchasing and development includes, “revitalizing industrial land for academic purposes” (etienne, 2012, p. 1116) and, “having learned lessons from urban renewal, they now ‘bank’ land to accommodate expansion in the years to come or, at the very least, to leverage it for resources somewhere down the road” (etienne, 2012, p. 1433). universities can also leverage their purchasing to support small and local minorityand womenowned business enterprises as a means of investing in community economic development resulting in wealth building for local business leaders. intellectual capital. universities as knowledge producers not only attract talented students and employees, but also historically and contemporarily “shape urban policy, planning, and economic development” (baldwin, 2017, para. 3). for example, the 1959 amendment to section 112 of the federal housing act, created a financially incentivized means for cities and universities to acquire land, relocate residents, and then support universities in developing the land utilizing federal matching funds at a ratio of 1:2 or 1:3 (local to federal dollars) (baldwin, 2017). universities educate students, who then occupy the policymaking, planning, development, 37 and business roles in the city with the power to influence the future of cities (baldwin, 2017; etienne, 2012). social capital. universities have human capital in their employees and students as “their ‘product’that is, their students, who will become central actors in the knowledge economy” (etienne, 2012, p. 190). urban universities often have employees and students who may be of different demographics (such as race and class) than the residents of those adjacent neighborhoods with a concentration of people who are low-income and/or people of color (etienne, 2012). anchor institutions, like universities, university medical centers, hospitals, and sports teams, often form partnerships via civic engagement. examples include campus compact, service learning, and community service programs that collaborate to problem-solve local issues such as crime with community organizations (baldwin, 2017; etienne, 2012; rapson, 2008). the community engagement is useful to the university’s public relations image and perception of giving back to the community (etienne, 2012). some anchor institutions, such as housing authorities, have regular practices of engagement with communities in their daily work and in planning for development. this is more clearly mandated and reported for public agencies, but may be less clearly visible for university development projects (etienne, 2012). political capital. contemporary cities are strategic about drawing private investment in urban core areas that experienced deindustrialization, which resulted in the need to, “reorganize urban space to serve their interests, as industrial capital did in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries” (etienne, 2012, p. 142). one form of reorganization includes offering universities, whether public or private a “tax-exempt status [that] allows them to invest in real estate with less risk than a private investor might face” (etienne, 2012, p. 1425). as a result, “the most recent writing on universities as catalysts for growth is steeped in regional economic development interests” (etienne, 2012, p. 1393). however, “the residue of higher education’s role in urban renewal and in the displacement of low-income neighborhoods near campuses is still remarkably close to the surface of university-community relations” (etienne, 2012, p. 1377), as the “displacement of hundreds of african americans during the period of urban renewal in the 1950s and 1960s... section 112 amendment of the urban renewal legislation of 1959 (which allowed colleges and universities to employ urban renewal policy for campus expansion)” (etienne, 2012, p. 285). the, “land acquisitions for dramatic campus expansions made during the late 1960s and early 1970s displaced thousands of poor and working-poor families, many of them african american (etienne, 2012, p. 166). as a result, the city often acquires land for university expansions because the city handling of land acquisition and relocation provides political cover for the university. “because of their nonprofit status and geographic position as fixed capital, universities exist with the expectation that they will advance the public’s interest and welfare” (etienne, 2012, p. 1441). local government grants university tax subsidies presumably in exchange for services, public good, and the educational mandate. this is particularly true for public land grant institutions in towns, where an expectation exists that, “campus stakeholders, neighborhood residents, and city leaders must be at the table, in an equal way, for transparent discussions about how higher-education institutions can best serve as a public good” (baldwin, 2017, para 25). the department where the community-engaged work of universities is housed is important and may include a perception of likely co-optation if housed under senior administration who would expect a give-and take-relationship in order to support the work that may include providing political cover for university in development efforts (etienne, 2012). as a 38 result, the organizational structure and practices of universities involved in development may be critiqued for a lack of transparency and accountability regarding benefits for the community particularly if the local history included section 112 relocations (etienne, 2012). university roles in urban neighborhood planning and development “the relationship between cities and higher education has grown more complex with time,” in the context of, “regional and global restructuring of the economy [that] may have affected the neighborhoods themselves” (etienne, 2012, p. 1079). the first federal policies in 1862 and 1890 established land-grant colleges and universities, which created the initial campus footprint for many colleges and universities (baldwin, 2017; etienne, 2012). the 1959 amendment to section 112 of the housing act was a second similar legislation that created a means for universities to acquire land in urban renewal areas, which included the core land amassed for many urban universities in existence today (etienne, 2012). later iterations of public policy included the creation of public-private partnerships that stimulate the economy through public housing redevelopment programs, e.g., housing for people everywhere vi (hope vi) and choice neighborhoods. these last two programs do not directly relate to university land and development, but do influence both the nature of development collaborations in the neighborhoods adjacent to universities and the types of collaborations universities engage in via community engagement and research (etienne, 2012; walker & east, 2014; wilson, 1996). the culmination of these various neoliberal urban renewal interventions resulted in a larger scale, “gentrification [that] has evolved beyond the domain of small private pioneers to being something that only ‘corporate gentrifiers’ – developers with enough capital to invest in valorized inner-city markets – can engage in” (etienne, 2012, p. 1063). etienne (2012) noted, the short-term success of urban real estate development masks the persistent problem of urban poverty that was unresolved by the new deal policies of the 1950s and 1960s and in fact exacerbated by restructured urban economies and neoliberal public policy of the 1980s and 1990s. the fragmentation of municipal governance and services created openings for private actors to complete what public policy failed to do – make inner city neighborhoods attractive and livable. the shift of responsibility from the federal government to cash-strapped city governments created opportunities for colleges and universities to augment municipal services such as crime prevention. for better or worse, this placed the fate of urban communities in the hands of private actors who are not directly accountable to public processes and interests...many institutional leaders have suggested that universities should deepen their ties to their host communities. those ties have taken various forms, including partner and catalyst for economic growth, collaborator in urban neighborhood revitalization projects, and provider of urban services. “eds” and “meds” – colleges/universities and hospitals – are often cited as potential factors in the revival of urban economies and communities. in the past two decades, higher education and health care have become two of the largest sources of employment in contemporary urban economies (p. 182). 39 foundation roles in neighborhood planning and development foundations’ use of financial, intellectual, social and political capital for urban development varies from foundation to foundation and project to project. some community foundations, like the chicago community trust, explicitly identify as anchor institutions. the casey foundation is a collaborator in anchor work, but does not consider itself an anchor institution. the ford foundation, casey foundation, macarthur foundation, enterprise community partners, and other local foundations often function as catalysts for transforming concentrated poverty neighborhoods within the united states (turner et al., 2014). public housing reform since the 1990s has also included neoliberal market and policy approaches that incentivize public and private investment in urban neighborhoods that previously experienced decades of disinvestment (edmondson & hecht, 2014; fields, 2014; howell, 2016). these public-private relationships have used federal funding that mandated securing local engagement and support from individual residents and sometimes community-based partnerships as stakeholders (bond graham, 2011; sites, chaskin, & parks, 2007). private foundations play a role that focuses on a collective impact, addressing complex issues in local communities. collaboration across various sectors builds on assets, strengths, and resources (edmondson & hecht, 2014). local foundations, city offices, and cbos sometimes collaborate to convene local planning processes and approaches. these collaborations support an empowerment process for residents that works within contemporary market-based public housing redevelopment approaches (fields, 2014; howell, 2016). market-based approaches to public housing redevelopment are similar to university approaches that include public-private partnerships that incentivize private companies to redevelop with tax breaks, low interest loans, and less regulation, which, some deem, amounts to public subsidies for private development (squires, 1989). local support includes private foundation funds that develop the capacity of local cbos while simultaneously helping foundations accomplish their organizational vision, such as investing in improved outcomes for low-income families (fields, 2014). as a result, foundations may play a role in convening forces driving and resisting the development of mixedincome communities near public transit stops that often connect to local universities as key anchor institutions. some foundations seek to level the playing field between stakeholders with different experiences of power and competing interests in order to work towards defining common goals. however, the work is inherently complicated and subject to multiple, sometimes contested, interpretations. partnerships can create both strengths and limitations for resident engagement, depending on the role, structure, and capacity of the various partners. universities as anchor institutions have a significant amount of power and capital (as explained above) and therefore can learn community engagement lessons by informing themselves of public housing redevelopment critiques of foundation roles. fields (2014) critiques foundation collective impact approaches in urban development contexts, and states that while collaboration may help, the goal should be to fundamentally transform social, political, and economic structures... urban community organizations are not contending with the effects of disinvestment so much as the consequences of opening ‘underserved’ central-city markets to mobile and underregulated global capital... contesting the social costs of capitalism to working class and 40 marginalized peoples calls for new political strategies and rescaled forms of activism based on an analysis of power relations that moves beyond the local. (p. 146) in urban redevelopment contexts, foundation funding may result in engaging with many historic and contemporary community groups. some groups utilize conflict-based community organizing approaches that contest neighborhood disparities yet rely on foundation funding to become, “enmeshed with the state and market structures they once resisted” (fields, 2014, p. 146). the enmeshment of cbos in processes seeking to develop support for neighborhood redevelopment may be a form of bureaucratizing, co-opting, or repressing resident resistance to the sudden financial interests in their formerly disinvested communities (chrisman, 2010). the cbos working in these neighborhoods are then part of mainstream processes with a structure established by those with financial, intellectual, and social capital. the community development role of foundations, local governments, public works departments, and local cbos is to act as place based anchor institutions (birch, perry, taylor, 2013; mazany & perry, 2014). foundations are asked to lead in the context of a local government that is less resourced from the federal government (birch, perry, taylor, 2013; mazany & perry, 2014). place-based community foundation leadership is asked to create solutions to local social issues and infrastructural problems unaddressed by the public or private systems (birch, perry, taylor, 2013; mazany & perry, 2014; nye & glickman, 1998). neighborhood redevelopment is one issue foundations focus on, due to the combination of neighborhood problems in communities they are invested in, as well as the demand for central city land due to forces of globalization, investments in regional transportation infrastructure, and migration of people to cities (birch, perry, taylor, 2013; mazany & perry, 2014). redevelopments rely on the collective missions, available resources, and relationships of public-private partnerships (birch, perry, taylor, 2013; mazany & perry, 2014). foundation capital has the ability to leverage and build on local assets (bondgraham, 2011; turner et al., 2014). foundations, private institutions, and non-profit organizations often partner with government entities to offer financial, intellectual, social, and political capital focused on a shared agenda seeking to facilitate social change; however, many community organizations are skeptical of collaborating with public-private partnerships (bondgraham, 2011; sites, chaskin, & parks, 2007; turner et al., 2014). community organizing skepticism in public-private partnerships community based organizations that use community organizing methods, such as building power bases in institutions that include people who experience marginalization, are often solicited to become part of urban redevelopment planning. community-based organization participation in community development is often a measure of effective engagement in capacity building efforts (birch, perry, taylor, 2013; nye & glickman, 1998). community foundations often list community organizing as a component of capacity building; however, community organizing, community development, and social planning processes have different models, tactics, engagement strategies and outcomes (lowe, 1998). community organizing groups may or may not agree with the goals of community development corporations and social planning processes (lowe, 1998). rather, community organizing based groups more often have a stake in specific solutions and are focused on gaining power within unequal partnerships known to benefit private developers (mazany & perry, 2014; squires, 1989). 41 demand for land that was once ignored drives urban renewal in a climate of deregulation, which community organizing processes deem a key moment to mobilize people to take action (chrisman, 2010; squires, 1989). many redeveloping neighborhood residents have already lived through nearby development since 1960s and more recent public-private partnerships (etienne, 2012). community organizing groups have their own self-interest in naming and engaging in the conflict and struggle redevelopment brings, and therefore they seek to think critically regarding prior development history (allen, 1970). for example, some black leaders or more radical movements became token representatives who may have been co-opted into providing support for the capitalist agenda of their neighborhoods (allen, 1970). war on poverty programs funded engagement in community processes, which both built political power of minority groups to produce enough votes and candidates to african american mayors, as well as create the congressional black caucus in 1976 (chrisman, 2010). community organizing groups are often skeptical of the erasure or dilution of their requests in false consensus processes that may never meet public need (mazany & perry, 2014; squires, 1989). tensions inherent in university partnerships for community development university community development efforts have similar critiques as foundations and public community planning and development efforts co-opting community organizing groups. in a neoliberal policy context, developers often have for profit and non-profit arms of their organizations that conduct the business and public relations of developments (allen, 1970; mazany & perry, 2014). universities have been critiqued for having a similar parallel neoliberal structure: the relationship between cities and universities is historically one of convergence... convergence has roots in the contemporary commercialization of all aspects of urban life and higher education. under the current paradigm of neoliberal market ideology, both town and university have pursued fulfillment of their traditionally not-for-profit missions with for-profit management schemes (etienne, 2012, p. 1280). the simultaneous campus development and community engagement processes risk placing university civic engagement as a form of “community relations as a part of expansion and development exposes the co-opting of the language of participation, representation, collaboration, and community development by university leaders to serve the interests of the research-extensive university” (etienne, 2012, p. 1460). the processes parallel the role cbos are asked to play in development processes. as a result of the urban renewal history, and the current trends in urban redevelopment, community organizing and university civic engagement can play an important role in public-private partnerships and yet must recognize the potential to be coopted by competing interests that favor private development (allen, 1970; etienne, 2014). methods for the first case study, the detailed contextual information about the neighborhoods, the resident advisory council process, as well as the methods including the research design, participant characteristics and sampling, data collection process, and data analysis appear in 42 walker & east (2014), who noted: data were collected and triangulated from multiple sources, including semi-structured interviews, participant observation by the first author, field notes, and artifacts including audiovisual materials (e-mails, messages, photographs, local newspaper media, and city council public hearing video footage), official memos, meeting notes, meeting minutes, and additional records from the process. (walker & east, 2014, p. 348) the institutional review board at the university of denver approved the research. the twentysix interviewees included non-profit, foundation, and public employee professionals, as well as residents of various demographics and standpoints (including public housing residents and homeowners who are neighborhood association leaders (often homeowners) and local resident council (public housing leaders) for both neighborhoods. the second case was based on a review of auraria campus documents related to the development or engagement in development in the two neighborhoods of this study. these include documents between 2006 and 2016: (a) coverage of scholarships for displaced aurarians (brown, 2006); (b) additional planning documents of the auraria higher education center to develop campus buildings and a public-private hotel partnership “where metro students used to play tennis” (pendergast, 2013b, para. 2), as well as expand athletic fields into the la alma/lincoln park neighborhood (ahec, 2012 as cited in pendergast, 2013b; metropolitan state university of denver, 2016; pendergast, 2013a, 2013b, 2013c, and 2013d); (c) university of colorado – denver, foundation, and federal funding for ongoing planning in sun valley (united states environmental protection agency, 2016; vaccarelli, 2016); and (d) coverage of the broncos stadium and housing authority as anchor institutions in the sun valley development (roberts, 2016). results and discussion the results from the two cases are presented with the data for the rac first, followed by data from the reports and documents of the auraria planning processes. the main themes summarizing the role of the foundation in the qualitative interviews include: (a) providing financial resources; (b) building capacity; (c) engaging in relationships; (d) designing a process; (e) hiring a neutral facilitator; and (f) functioning as a key partner with city economic development staff, cbos, and residents. each of the themes is described in-depth below with comparisons across the neighborhoods and triangulating rac artifacts or member checking when possible. for the sake of brevity, translation and application to the auraria campus, these results were added to each of the rac result themes. providing financial resources rac collaboration. professionals described mc-d as the convener of the rac process as they sought to transform the way city system operated. mc-d worked with the office of economic development to secure the funding for the rac process from the casey foundation and the city and county of denver. mc-d also provided logistical resources, such as language translators, 43 food served during meetings, filling in gaps in roles not performed by other collaborators, taking meeting minutes, and documenting the planning and rac processes. the la alma/lincoln park resident participants in the interviews were not clear on mc-d’s resource role in the rac process. for example, one participant said, “well, i’m not really sure. i don’t remember their active presence in those meetings. i guess i’m not sure what their role was.” sun valley participants were also not clear on mc-d’s role, but they discussed how mc-d set up a peer visit trip to portland that enabled them to experience mixed-income redevelopments and transitoriented development. one sun valley participant described their experience seeing the hope vi redevelopment at new columbia for the first time: those redeveloped neighborhoods in portland were pretty impressive. you couldn’t tell what was public housing. the areas were so nice. they said some of them paid a lot of money to be in those places and other people paid minimal. it works. you wouldn’t think it would until you went up there and you saw it, but it works. the neighborhood city council person suggested the peer visit to the rac professional and resident participants during a related community organizing meeting in the spring of 2008 after the rac process was complete. the peer visit to portland, oregon occurred in july 2008 and was funded by mc-d at the request of community leaders. the peer visit included two homeowners, a community organizer, a housing authority redevelopment staff member, and three city employees (office of economic development, the transit-oriented development program manager, and a city planning staff). the participants traveled around portland on public transportation to experience transit-oriented developments and build relationships with each other and similar stakeholders in portland. the transit-oriented development manager was especially appreciative of the chance to learn alongside the sun valley cbo, as he wrote in an email, "it was not only informative from a transit-oriented development perspective, but i found hearing the residents and community organizer’s perspectives also very beneficial." auraria campus application. etienne (2012) wrote about resident resistance to university residence halls built within neighborhoods, which may be a transferable learning from the peer visits to housing sites after the rac process. the la alma/lincoln park neighborhood in 2000 fought against residence halls in the neighborhood, which may have been overcome with a similar peer visit engagement processes (pendergast, 2013a). building capacity rac collaboration. mc-d also played a role in bringing residents to the rac table to support them, make them feel welcome, and empower them to take control of the impact of the redevelopment on their lives. rac professionals describe how mc-d feared that redevelopment was going to be an issue in sun valley and la alma/lincoln park because mc-d wanted to build the capacity of the neighborhoods. an mc-d employee said: the more i thought about it, i realized i need to bring this back to mc-d because when we were talking about… what we were supposed to be doing… making sure that these neighborhoods are building their capacity and are successful. you know, one of those pieces isn’t gonna happen if most of the neighborhood is displaced… long term, mc-d 44 can’t say we were successful. so really it became clear to me that this was gonna be an advocacy issue that we need to be involved in. another professional described mc-d’s commitment to the rac process: they were really committed to finding a way to make it work in spite of a lot of people’s concerns, legitimate concerns, and legitimate anger about past promises not kept and things like that. i’d say mc-d was really kind of the entity that said we have to make this work for the benefit of the residents we just have to make this work. mc-d tried to represent the residents in the planning group and humanized organizers to the city behind the scenes. mc-d staff described their perception of community organizing among city staff: there was a lot fear around what organizers do, and that they might be just instigating… they’re just going to rile everybody up, it’s going to be anarchy. i did a lot of work around just talking about what organizers do, and the organizing groups would meet with mc-d, we would talk through issues. a city planner stated that mc-d’s role was to keep the city on their toes. and to be the voice for the residents and the community. honestly, they really were skeptical and questioned the city’s and denver housing authority’s motivations. i think they questioned the intent and they also questioned the process. public housing residents in la alma/lincoln park remained engaged in the city’s south lincoln steering committee through at least 2012. residents of sun valley remained engaged in the planning processes until the plan was adopted in 2013 and into the ongoing planning processes in 2016 (roberts, 2016; united states environmental protection agency, 2016). therefore resident capacity was not only supported, but also extended at least nine years past the initial rac process. as a result, the resident engagement and capacity was strong at least a few years after the casey foundation closed out their planned funding the 10-year mc-d initiative. auraria campus application. the auraria campus, like many campuses, similarly has to manage the displaced aurarian’s historic and current skepticism regarding the university’s intentions and willingness to ensure that residents benefit from university development (etienne, 2012; pendergast, 2013b). the auraria campus made commitments to the displaced residents, including displaced aurarian scholarships that required ongoing engagement and preparation to begin implementing in the 1990s (brown, 2006). the university of colorado – denver is a key collaborator with the ongoing sun valley planning (funded by the federal government) that includes partnering with enterprise community foundation, the byrne criminal justice innovation program, and local collaborators (united states environmental protection agency, 2016; vaccarelli, 2016). the auraria campus has also engaged the la alma/lincoln park residents in pedestrian amenity improvement planning, as well as a community benefits process with the new athletic fields within the neighborhood (ahec, 2012 cited in pendergast, 2013b). 45 relationships rac collaboration. the rac professionals worked with the mc-d foundation to perform a function that included engaging in relationships with both residents and the cbos working in the neighborhoods. the mc-d resident coordinator also spent a lot of time trying to get residents to come to meetings and said: initially in the process… i think that the city came in and thought dha maybe too thought okay, great, we’re just gonna have front range economic security center, metro organizations for people, project wise, and mc-d just do all the outreach for us... and quickly we came to the recognition that no this is going to be a coordinated effort. another study participant said mc-d relationships helped get the various groups to work together: the best way that can be invested is really living up to its name making those connections. connecting the expertise with the institutions and developing the best, most effective and efficient strategies available. keeping the connections with the collaborative agencies like the non-profits, like project wise and front range economic security center and metro organizations for people and being a face that is liked by the community, by the residents. despite mc-d’s best efforts to activate their professional networks, cbo stakeholders that helped support community residents were reticent to get involved. yet, sun valley residents, as the most hesitant in the process, did participate not just in local events but also in national venues such as the september 2010 partners for innovation national symposium and policy forum that discussed transit-oriented development, affordable housing, and community perspectives. sun valley residents also initiated having their voices and experiences heard during a mayoral candidate forum their community based organization hosted in april 2011, which demonstrated their initiating relationships with potential elected city officials. then-city council member, michael hancock, engaged with residents through the forum before he became mayor. sun valley residents also engaged in mediation for conflict resolution among historic leaders, which was funded by the mc-d and resulted in residents’ abilities to set clear boundaries on daily interactions with one another and within cbo meetings. la alma/lincoln park rac participants maintained relationships with key planning and redevelopment staff. this resulted in planning the mariposa redevelopment with resident oversight and the development of a healthy public housing development tool in 2010. all three cbos involved in the rac process had an ongoing role in the resident and professional relational networks developed during the rac process, which resulted in ongoing social support and safe spaces to discuss redevelopment implications, as well ongoing involvement in organizing for resident self-interests within the context of regional changes. 46 auraria campus application. initially, auraria campus community relationships were contentious and punctuated by legal battles regarding home and business owner displacement (pendergast, 2013c). many of the residents had live-work style arrangements for their homes and many of the businesses did not reopen after their displacement (pendergast, 2013d). archive photos of the neighborhood homes are similar to the single family homes in the la alma/lincoln park and sun valley neighborhoods, which is aligned with the reality that many displaced residents moved within the la alma/lincoln park neighborhood (pendergast, 2013d). universities utilizing urban renewal to develop university footprints should consider that displaced residents might still be neighbors of the campus after displacement (pendergast, 2013c). an environmental impact statement (eis) drafted by two university of colorado denver professors in the 1970s noted that six years into the campus construction (likely around the time of the campus opening) no la alma/lincoln park resident representatives were on the auraria higher education center (ahec) board, which was a concern (ahec, 2012 as cited in pendergast, 2013b; pendergast, 2013c). the eis noted the contentious relationships with ‘radical’ latino/latina activists and strongly encouraged ahec to proactively engage with residents (pendergast, 2013c). creating structure: process design rac collaboration. process design refers to the role of the foundation in making sure that a process was enacted in a manner that equally engaged all stakeholders. the national civic league (ncl) contracted to provide the rac facilitation and helped the planning team create a community input process that would keep people at the table with transparency and integrity. the ncl explained: public processes go one of two formats, you either go town hall or focus group. when you go to town hall that’s basically an open mic for community residents, you have a public official speaking at the people, not with the people, and then you have residents unloading at them, and people are frustrated. and then you have the focus group where there’s no public official sharing information, you’re just gathering wish list items, and then focus group information often gets kicked to the side and never acted on. and so people also get frustrated with process because in either scenario there’s not really a rich give and take, and the way that the league designs processes it has to be the holders of power sitting at the table with the people in conversation, in actual dialogue. my job was to design the processes that we would use for all of those things, but then also do all of the diplomacy required so you address everyone’s concerns. the rac participants did not comment in their interviews on the process design directly, although several rac participants from both neighborhoods alluded to the fact that the process felt like “a dog and pony show,” “a political sandbox,” and “a show with an entertainer.” the ncl suggested leaving the residents out of the process design stage despite the cbo’s typical practice of bringing residents to decision-making tables to speak for themselves. cbo professionals expressed concern that the decision to have professionals design a process for residents resulted in the ncl designing a process that either was not explained clearly and therefore not transparent, or that did not have integrity for residents any more than previous planning processes did. 47 a component of the process design was creating a structure where mc-d was the initial convener. mc-d conducted outreach to city offices and denver housing authority and invited them to the table with cbos to discuss redevelopment and planning. mc-d initially facilitated meetings, and then decided they needed to hire a facilitator to manage relationships and be cheerleaders of the process even in the midst of conflict. for example, one professional said: i am not a regular actor in that inter-agency environment, so i don’t know what the vote on the street is. so as flare-ups would occur, it would really be mc-d that i would sit down… and figure out what the people were mad about and how we could address it. you know, what do we need to do for people to feel like their concern has been heard? what adjustments do we need to make to the process to get people’s belief in its integrity restored… if there hadn’t been mc-d staff there wouldn’t have been a process. the la alma/lincoln park participants observed mc-d being part of the process design. they reported seeing mc-d staff serving food and playing a clerical role, such as taking notes, typing documents, and calling residents if something came up. sun valley participants did not observe mc-d creating structure for the rac process. the community organizer working with the sun valley residents would explain the meetings and processes that mc-d, the ncl, city employees, and community based organization staff held; however, the sun valley residents were used to working directly with these employees and calling and structuring meetings themselves in the organizing work mc-d funded, so they did not acknowledge or credit mc-d with creating the rac structure. the sun valley residents were instead critics of the rac process design and structure and described the meetings as a waste of their time and a distraction from the work they defined as urgent and important. auraria campus application. critiques of the auraria campus describe verbal commitments made in the 1970s to residents stating the land would not be used for commercial development and that the campus footprint would not expand south of colfax avenue (pendergast, 2013a). the rac model could give residents a structure to discuss these past promises in the context of current projects. the auraria campus 2012 plan notes an intention for ongoing public-private partnerships (pendergast, 2013a; ahec, 2012 as cited in pendergast, 2013b). the campus leaders might consider involving the auraria campus employees and students in the process with neighborhood residents. faculty are required to complete service to the campus and community, which could include creating service learning or internship opportunities for relevant classes. students in social work, city planning, political science, business, and law clinic or mediation focused majors could complete course and program learning objectives with hands-on experiences in engaging with residents one-on-one and in meetings. the campus involvement in dialogues with residents could improve university and neighborhood relationships (etienne, 2012). hiring a neutral facilitator rac collaboration. the ncl was hired to provide a neutral facilitator. the facilitator was a latino male who was bilingual in english and spanish. the rac professionals and participants agreed that the function of the ncl facilitation was objectivity. mc-d and cbos were 48 concerned for residents and therefore viewed as not objective. the residents had their selfinterests and the city already had a general vision for transit-oriented development for the neighborhoods. the professional participants in the interviews stated that they learned early in the process that mc-d could not facilitate and manage the process. the ncl was brought in as “an objective facilitator” because they did not have a stake in the outcomes whether that be development, non-profit outcomes, or being on the city payroll full-time. the ncl was described as setting an equal table that gave all of the various perspectives a chance to respond. the facilitator captured everyone’s opinion and directed participants development of ideas and input for future meetings. the rac participants described the facilitator as: (a) neutral referee for a good clean fight that enabled full participation (rather than having to referee themselves); (b) a timekeeper; and (c) a used car salesman and an entertainer. rac professionals stated the facilitator was able to work to understand the behind the scenes dynamics, but critiqued the facilitator’s ability to manage various city employee dynamics and perspectives. the ncl facilitator therefore tried to design a process that allowed all of these interests to dialogue regarding community perspectives at an equal table with focused meetings. the facilitator drew out ideas and residents ability to express their hopes and vision for the future of the neighborhood. one la alma/lincoln park participant described how the nlc engaged residents: the way that they induced people to come up with opinions with the sticky notes i think was actually a good idea because you get a wider response from everyone when you do that. if you just ask questions and have everyone respond in a typical question and answer session you’re gonna get the strong personalities only, and i think you need to get all the personalities, or at least an opportunity for all the personalities to respond. another participant said, “he really encouraged people to speak up and to participate… they would give us homework, but it really wasn’t homework, it was just to get your mind working so at the next meeting you’d have ideas and input.” a third resident described the process of documenting the discussion as dream it up and sum it up. they would, “capture everybody’s thoughts and opinion and then... tried to put them concisely down for us. put them into a language that the city could understand.” the professionals described the ncl facilitation as an effort to keep people at the table equal and focused on future neighborhood change. the facilitator stated, i got to be, by virtue of having a neutral referee for the process, i think it creates a space where people can feel more free to participate instead of feeling like they have to be the referee. and ultimately they can’t be the referee because everyone is acting from their own self-interest and our self-interest is to have a good clean fight. (laughter) go to your corners, come out when the bell rings, you know. (laughter) 49 la alma/lincoln park participants also described the facilitation as, “running the show.” one la alma/lincoln park participant described their perception of the dynamic as the facilitator tried to keep the interactions light-hearted: he’s like a car sales person. he was our entertainer… it wasn’t my style, but he was very good… he’s a little too raw. i think he was doing cartwheels. and i’m just jealous because i can’t do those anymore. he’s a little bit too ‘college.’ …a little childish. a little bit unprofessional. maybe he was ‘dumbing’ it down because we’re the lower economic…is this guy acting like this because he thinks we’re all economically deprived or what? or is this just how he is? would he do this in a corporate boardroom? sun valley participants noted that the facilitator respected everyone involved including the residents and seemed to understand the behind the scenes topics they discussed. a sun valley resident described the facilitator role as: i think he was just brought in to try and run the meeting, but sometimes i don’t think he did run it…they still had other people from the city come in and stand there and tell him basically, what to do, what to say. the city planner was always there in the middle of everything. the sun valley cbo leaders had years of capacity-building funded by mc-d, which included community organizing training that gave sun valley resident leaders the confidence to name the power dynamics they observed in the rac meetings. some sun valley residents felt the rac process was co-opting their organization, which they perceived as powerful and effective. the neighborhood leaders saw themselves as effective leaders of meetings that regularly challenged city employees (such as city planners) in their organizing processes and did not see the need to have a facilitator lead the process. in contrast, one professional also commented on the facilitator, stating that he erred on the side of listening to the resident perspectives and did not know the city departments: as a facilitator, he could have done a little better job of understanding the city of denver departments and process and the different departments and agencies within in the city and just the planning process. in the end he did. i think it’s done him well. he’s gotten more work with the city. i felt like sometimes he is a little bit biased toward the organizers and the residents. which is probably fine. facilitators tend to be more biased to the people. as a result, perhaps the city planner also felt like their process was co-opted, which is why she consistently directed him as the facilitator. the perception that the ncl facilitator was biased toward any group or had the self-interest of securing future work with the city calls the perception of his ‘neutral facilitator’ objectivity into question. auraria campus application. the auraria campus coalition efforts to create pedestrian and social connections can learn from the resident hesitancy and the need for coordinated outreach. similarly, the displaced aurarian and la alma/lincoln park requests for community benefits included access to campus amenities like athletic fields. the eis suggested that the campus 50 make athletic fields available to neighborhood residents came to fruition in the 2015 development (metropolitan state university of denver, 2016; pendergast, 2013c; ahec, 2012 as cited in pendergast, 2013b). auraria campus had purchased thirteen acres of land in the la alma/lincoln park neighborhood 2008 to develop the athletic fields in order to repurpose the space of the athletic fields in the initial campus footprint for a public-private partnership (ahec, 2012 as cited in pendergast, 2013b). the campus planners and administration envisioned specific land as public-private partnerships as revenue generating properties. however, the demands of the market did not align with initial plans (ahec, 2012 as cited in pendergast, 2013b). a connect auraria coalition was formed in 2010 to develop a vision for physical and social connections between the campus and the surrounding neighborhoods, which included the la alma/lincoln park neighborhood association, the pepsi center (sports stadium anchor), and similar public representatives as the rac process (ahec, 2012 as cited in pendergast, 2013b). physical connection improvements recommended by the coalition were funded by the denver regional council of governments and the city and county of denver by 2012 and included pedestrian improvements for two la alma/lincoln park intersections with the campus (ahec, 2012 as cited in pendergast, 2013b). the connect auraria coalition worked with the neighborhood association comprised more of white middle-class gentrifiers, but did not reportedly engage the public-housing resident structures. including the local resident council and the redevelopment steering committee might have resulted in different perspectives of lower income parents that rely on public transportation and pedestrian amenities with their young children, who may have different perspectives on the proposed pedestrian amenity improvements. functioning as a key partner with the city rac collaboration. the final foundation role in the rac process included functioning as a key partner with the office of economic development staff, cbos, and residents. a mc-d staff member described how a city office of economic development staff member described mc-ds role as a key partner with the city both since the inception of mc-d and in the rac process stating: ‘you should be at the table … you need to make sure that resident voices are being heard’ … the office of economic development was the entity that saw that the politics were going to make it difficult for the process to move forward with everyone self governing, so they reached out to us and asked us to develop a game plan for moving everybody forward… we received critical political cover from office of economic development to legitimize our efforts while the city and others that were applying pressure to the city planning department to keep it moving... and to say no, we’re doing this. this has to happen. we need to give people time to really have thoughtful input into what’s going on. the office of economic development had a history of investing the neighborhood cbos via local small grants. the office of economic development also had a future role in implementing station area plans via supporting infrastructure, drawing commerce, and increasing job access as components of creating economically thriving neighborhoods around light rail stops. the office of economic development was described as political cover for mc-d’s efforts. the rac 51 participants did not understand the office of economic development’s role in the rac and redevelopment process. yet, organizers working for cbos participating in the rac process— and in other neighborhoods within the denver metropolitan region after the rac process— reported a lack of city engagement with residents or a more tokenizing level of engagement in similar planning processes without an rac process. therefore the key partnerships between the office of economic development and mc-d may have provided the political cover needed to get residents a voice via the rac process. auraria campus application. eteinne (2012) describes a similar political cover that community engagement initiatives of universities play for the institutions development agendas. the 2012 ahec master plan describes almost 45,000 students and a 150-acre campus that includes property acquired after the initial urban renewal acquisition of land (ahec, 2012 as cited in pendergast, 2013b). the master plan includes detailed notes regarding each building location, plans for shifting purposes, and the many complicated components to consider for development of that property (ahec, 2012 as cited in pendergast, 2013b). as the auraria master plan noted, pepsi center event traffic relied on the campus street grid to such a degree that the city would not allow the campus to eliminate a specific street during recent development planning. this wrinkle demonstrates the impact of sports stadiums as anchor institutions on other anchor institutions like adjacent universities (ahec, 2012 as cited in pendergast, 2013b). the auraria campus recently completed the development of: (a) the auraria science building addition and renovation in 2009 and 2010; (b) a $62 million student services building for metropolitan state university of denver (msu denver) in 2012; (c) a $65 million student services building in 2013 for the university of colorado denver (cu denver); (d) a $40 million student services building for the community college of denver (ccd) in 2013; (e) a publicprivate partnership in the springhill suites hotel opened in 2012; and (f) the $24 million regency athletic complex in 2015 (metropolitan state university of denver, 2016; pendergast, 2013a). msu denver invested $10 million in renovations and ccd and cu denver also had plans for renovations of undisclosed dollar amounts (ahec, 2012 as cited in pendergast, 2013b). the campus has over 5 million square feet of developable land remaining on campus (ahec, 2012 as cited in pendergast, 2013b). the auraria campus has engaged la alma/lincoln park residents when their development plans involve properties at the edges of, or are within, the neighborhood; however, a higher level of engagement includes having a la alma/lincoln park resident representative on the auraria higher education center board as a means of ongoing transparent and accountable development (etienne, 2012; pendergast, 2013c). veronica barela is a governor appointed member of the ahec board, who was raised in north lincoln public housing site and has lead a local community development corporation called newsed since 1977, serves with a neighborhood perspective and is very engaged in the community and housing (ahec, 2018). conclusion neoliberalism and globalization with private actors as developers of formerly public land can create a civic vacuum where universities as anchor institutions, who are mission and research driven, can invest in capital, relationships, research, and programs to serve the local neighborhood (etienne, 2012; fields, 2014; the democracy collaborative, 2013). however, the 52 political tools available to universities to develop their campuses have historic and contemporary barriers to engagement rooted in experiences of race and class (such as minority resident home and business displacement to establish the campus) (etienne, 2012). the resident advisory council model and the lessons learned in the evaluation process, as well as other case studies of university developments, can provide lessons learned for other anchor institutions (etienne, 2012). regional forces for contemporary development, including light rail, public housing redevelopment, and campus expansion, to spur market-driven reinvestment in neighborhoods can often overpower or co-opt resident voices and initiatives for change (allen, 2970; chrisman, 2010; fields, 2014). resident engagement in lengthy planning initiatives can result in relying on the private market to execute resident suggestions, which may be, “organized by the tastes of incoming groups and not around the material and social realities of those communities” (etienne, 2012, p. 939). for example, in the sun valley neighborhood, the residents’ vision for an international market intended for low-income multicultural residents, and the desire for low-end retail like dollar stores, may give way to the $351 million entertainment district constructed around the denver broncos stadium and their fans as an anchor institution and customer base (roberts, 2016). neighborhood investments in addressing crime may also underestimate the amount of crime the entertainment district will add to the residential area (vaccarelli, 2016). etienne (2012) notes issues with crime generally in neighborhoods adjacent to urban universities, which at least in part stems from college students consuming alcohol within the surrounding neighborhoods that may parallel the professional sports fans’ behavior that increases neighborhood crime. the regional investments in the light rail, related infrastructure, and the expected housing market boom seek to convert the higher income customer base of football fans, who typically only interact with the neighborhood approximately fifteen days per year, into new residents and consumers of business services on a more daily basis (birch, perry, taylor, 2013; mazany & perry, 2014). the question remains: will foundations or other anchor institutions continue investing in hearing resident experiences during and after the redevelopment, as the racial and economic demographics in the neighborhood shift on a more daily basis, or will the outcomes fall out according to the private market? the risk of sudden interest in previously disinvested neighborhoods in a deregulated neoliberal context is high (chrisman, 2010; squires, 1989). the investment in and with anchor institutions could include formal neighborhood and university advisory groups with resident seats in addition to ongoing funding of grassroots community organizing driven by resident experiences over time (allen, 1970). how can we as university leaders ensure our mission driven university intellectual, social, political, and financial capital effectively engages the communities surrounding our campuses in order to contribute to developing more just and inclusive urban neighborhoods than we inherited (etienne, 2012)? 53 references allen, r. l. 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(1996). when work disappears: the world of the new urban poor. new york: alfred a. knopf press. yates, g. & saasta, t. (2013). the why and how of engaging residents for change. national civic review, 102(3), 35-41. https://doi.org/10.1002/ncr.21138 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9906.2007.00363.x https://doi.org/10.1080/10705422.2014.929063 https://doi.org/10.1002/ncr.21138 56 author information * laurie a. walker was: (a) a community organizer in a neighborhood of this study that was funded by the annie e. casey foundation; (b) a housing and urban development – office of university partnerships early doctoral student and doctoral dissertation research grant recipient from 2008–2012; and (c) a program evaluator of the resident advisory council process evaluated. laurie is the 2014 recipient of the emerging scholar award from the association for community organization and social administration and the 2017 recipient of the ernest a. lynton award for the scholarship of engagement. laurie a. walker, ph.d. school of social work university of montana jeannette rankin hall 004 32 campus dr. missoula, mt 59812-4680 telephone: 406-243-2803 email: laurie.walker@umontana.edu jean f. east is a community practice specialist and was an academic collaborator with the annie e. casey foundation’s making connections-denver initiative during the 10 years of the program. she was the co-founder of project wise (women’s initiative for service and empowerment), which was a community based organization partner in the resident advisory council process. jean was also laurie’s academic advisor during graduate school. jean f. east graduate school of social work craig hall, room 402 2148 s. high street denver, co 80208 telephone: 303-871-2870 email: jean.east@du.edu authors’ note prepared under grant number h-21544sg from the department of housing and urban development, office of university partnerships. points of views or opinions in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the department of housing and urban development. * corresponding author microsoft word 004_23815_olwell_2020_conference issue_23815 final.docx original research © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23719| february 19, 2020 18 early college high school/dual enrollment 2.0: evidence-based approaches to engage youth and families for educational, career, and community development isabelle cherney,1 laura douglas2, ellen fischer3, and russell olwell,4 1,4school of social education and social policy, merrimack college, 2office of the president, bristol community college, 3early college alliance, eastern michigan university cite as: cherney, i., douglas, l, fischer, e., & olwell, r. (2020). early college high school/dual enrollment 2.0: evidence-based approaches to engage youth and families for educational, career, and community development. metropolitan universities, 31(2), 18-32. doi: 10.18060/23815 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract urban universities have long faced a critical challenge to help k-12 schools, students, and families effectively access a college education. while colleges and universities have embraced strategies such as charter and partner schools, these interventions do not always result in a robust pipeline of students entering the higher education system. for higher education leaders, addressing the needs of students and their families to attain an affordable college degree is an important part of education and community development in the communities near campus. early college programs, particularly those with a focus on equity and student support, can provide high school students with an exemplary preparation for college, as well as college credits that can be used to reduce time to degree and college costs. in three case studies of early college programs, students’ college credits earned, grades earned while enrolled in the program, and eventual college enrollment and graduation rates are the key metrics. lessons learned include the importance of leadership and policy support for these programs, as well as designing the program to address equity issues from the beginning. keywords: education, community development, college affordability, college success, low income students © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23815 | july 20, 2020 19 early college as a strategy for metropolitan universities urban universities face a series of key challenges in order to survive and thrive over the next two decades. in most locations nationwide, the population of high school graduates is shrinking, making it more difficult to recruit a freshmen class (grawe, 2018). second, low-income university students struggle to navigate the college/university system, and may drop out/stop out or graduate slowly, while still incurring student debt (bjorklund-young, 2016; yuen, 2019). finally, colleges and universities struggle with how to best leverage their resources to help the surrounding community, with the local k-12 system often the greatest area of need. deepening and extending these key relationships has been an area of focus for many metropolitan universities, who have attempted to focus their efforts on top institutional priorities (holton, et al., 2016). early college strategies, while not a panacea for urban and metropolitan colleges and universities, can help address each of these issues. early college programs, in which high school students take college classes on a college campus, can help colleges and universities develop academically talented students while those students are still enrolled in local high schools, can help boost enrollments in key areas of the college, and help increase the educational access and educational achievement level of the surrounding community. unlike dual enrollment programs, where high school students take college-level classes from high school faculty at their present school, or university-connected partner schools, students in early college programs: (a) typically take courses on the college campus; (b) are part of a state designation process, and are committed to k-16 alignment; (c) provide comprehensive wrap-around services to students; and (d) possess a purposeful process for developing college readiness in academics and social emotional learning. the success of these interventions make early college programs a rich source of learning for higher education in terms of retention, student success, and developing a culture of inclusive excellence. early college programs have existed for two decades, and the research evidence on their effectiveness, mostly drawn from the evaluation of the bill and melinda gates foundation funded-projects, has been compelling (berger, et al., 2013; nodine, 2011). however, one weakness of the model to date has been that those students who might benefit the most from this programming (non-white students, immigrant students, students from low-income families, first generation college students) can be left out of this programming, with middle and upper-class families taking advantage of the program disproportionately (education trust, 2020; fraire, 2018). to address this weakness, early college programs being launched now by urban colleges and universities and their partner k-12 school districts have embraced a program design that focuses on equity, and using an evidence-based approach, connecting youth less likely to attend college © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23815 | july 20, 2020 20 directly out of high school with programming designed to support their efforts. this article presents perspectives from a range of institutions (high school, two-year institutions, four-year institutions, and philanthropic investors) that are rethinking these early college models to maximize community impact and affordability to students and families (american institutes for research, 2009). from dual enrollment/early college to early college 2.0 the evidence of early college success in texas and north carolina, the two states with the greatest participation in early college programs, has been among the most promising in the area of high school reform and higher education transformation (hall, 2013; nodine, 2011). in both states, colleges and universities developed early college programs that gave students greater access to college credits, often on the college campus itself. the programs in nodine’s study drew from a diverse group of students in texas, 66% hispanic, 63% economically disadvantaged, and 74% first generation college students. the evidence from these efforts is largely positive: as high school students took more college-level classes, their odds of graduating high school, enrolling in college, and succeeding in college level coursework improved. for example, more than a third of the early college students in nodine’s study had already received enough credit for an associate degree while still in high school (2011). while the students above seem like ideal students to develop and recruit, early college and dual enrollment students remain controversial in higher education. the recent report from the university of texas system illuminates the gulf between the views of some college faculty about these programs, and the quantitative evidence of student success. this report was initiated by faculty concerns about dual enrollment students, who allegedly were not performing up to standard in their classes and in the next classes in sequence (troutman et al., 2018). the quantitative evidence of dual enrollment/early college success in the texas study was overwhelmingly positive. as stated within a report from the university of texas system, “compared to students who are not credit-bearing at the time of the college admission process, dual credit students: are more likely to be retained and to graduate from a ut system institution; have higher 1st-, 2nd-, and 3rd-year gpas; and have fewer semester credit hours at the time of graduation.” though the report cannot make a distinction between dual enrollment and early college efforts, it highlights the positive impact of students arriving on campus having successfully completed college level work (troutman, et al., 2018, p. 4). however, the benefits of early college and dual enrollment did not always reach the students who might need it most. particularly in dual enrollment programs, higher income families, students, and their high schools might be able to access these programs at a higher rate than their lower income peers (jones, 2014). the students who would benefit the most from early college, including non-white students, first generation college students, and immigrant students, would be © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23815 | july 20, 2020 21 left at the mercy of the information they might receive from their guidance counselor or school district. in a study of dual enrollment in pennsylvania, museus, lutovsky, and colbeck wrote that “unfortunately, in the commonwealth of pennsylvania, dual enrollment programs at the institutional level have disproportionately served already privileged high school students” (2007). this selection bias meant that even if early college and dual enrollment were having a positive impact in these states, it might have an impact that would only make educational gaps more pronounced. gilbert has argued that, at the college level, he sees inequality in his survey course classroom, as students from higher income families fulfill his requirement before college through dual enrollment coursework. he writes that, “for middle-class suburbanites, college is potentially one year shorter and thousands of dollars cheaper than it is for students of lesser means, who must spend more time in college and take on more debt to earn the same degree” (gilbert, 2017). as states have drawn on the models of texas and north carolina, they have attempted to correct for this selection bias by building equity into the early college system from the beginning. in massachusetts, a coalition that includes local foundations, the massachusetts department of higher education, the massachusetts department of elementary and secondary education, and jobs for the future have all insisted on a model that foregrounds equity and access. colleges or schools seeking early college designation must demonstrate a commitment to student access to early college programming. as a result, the programs in massachusetts have been developed explicitly to serve low-income families, with a focus on students of color and students from immigrant backgrounds. prospective programs must also show that they are addressing the needs of students with learning challenges, as well as students with english language learner status (massachusetts early college initiative, 2019). the massachusetts departments of higher education and elementary and secondary education collaborated to create principles for officially designated early colleges in the commonwealth. these would guide efforts by the state’s public and private institutions in creating early college opportunities. the principles are: (a) equitable access: targeting underrepresented students in higher education; (b) academic pathways that are well integrated and aligned with college and career; (c) robust student support in both academics and advising; (d) connections to career through workplace and experiential learning experiences; and (e) high-quality and deep partnerships between high schools and colleges. while not every approved program is equally strong in all five areas, the approval and continuing review process help programs develop more equitable programming as they scale up (massachusetts department of higher education, 2020). in michigan, early colleges apply for recognition through the state department of education, and are held to the design standards of the national middle college consortium, which includes deep sustained collaboration with college partners, aligned academic programs from the ninth grade through 60 credits, student support appropriate to the needs of the students and the demands of © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23815 | july 20, 2020 22 the college, and continuous organizational improvement (national middle college consortium, 2020). the evidence for early college high school success: three case studies over the past decade, early college and dual enrollment strategies have proven to be a powerful strategy for helping low-income and underrepresented students gain access to higher education and be more successful students once they arrive to college full time (an, 2013; troutman, 2018). the what works clearinghouse (wwc) has validated two important studies that show the power of the early college model. research done in north carolina on early colleges using random assignment, where students were selected for the program based on chance, revealing that early college outcomes are not simply due to selection effects. the college enrollment rates of students in racial/ethnic minorities enrolled in early college in this study was 8% higher than their comparison peers, and the rate of college enrollment for economically-disadvantaged students in these programs was 11% higher than their non-program peers (edminds, et al, 2017). the second wwc-endorsed study drew on data from five states to show that 63% of students randomly assigned to early college enrolled in post-secondary education, as opposed to their traditional peers who enrolled only 23% of the time (song and zeiser, 2019). financial analyses show that early college programs are a solid financial investment, generating a return of 15:1 on dollars spent (air, 2019). however, the real power of the early college model for metropolitan universities can be found in local case studies that show how institutions can adapt this strategy to meet their educational and community development goals. the three case studies of early college programs described below were chosen to represent the breadth of this field by institutional type (four year and two-year institutions, public and private colleges). the case studies also capture programs at different stages of development and evaluation; one program has years of quantitative data about student achievement, one that has three years of data, and one that is just launching its first cohorts of students. each case study uses student achievement data, retention data, and data about enrollment and persistence in higher education to measure success against that of traditional high school students. case study 1: two-year public urban community college bristol community college (bristol) is located in southeastern massachusetts and serves the city of new bedford, one of the most impoverished cities in the commonwealth, with a poverty rate over 20%, almost double the massachusetts average (southcoast health, 2016, p. ii). the area has traditionally been home to industries that required little formal education, such as commercial fishing, and the decline of these industries has left many in the community, particularly recent immigrants, out of the recent economic boom. while there have been efforts to rebuild the economy around new fields, such as renewable energy, there is a mismatch © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23815 | july 20, 2020 23 between the jobs coming available and the characteristics of the population, a situation which bristol has stepped in to bridge. one way to address this skills gap has been to focus early college efforts on fields that the area will need to build new industries, particularly engineering. community colleges exist at the perfect point to address this issue, as they work intensively with local k-12 schools, including technical and career high schools, as well as with four-year universities. in this case, the community college leveraged these relationships to build a pipeline from high school into b.s.e. programs while also reducing the cost to families. through the early college program, students at local technical and career high schools are able to take classes in high school that count towards their associate degree at bristol. many of these high schools have invested heavily in pre-engineering programs and have the equipment and personnel necessary to give their students a solid start on obtaining the associate degree. next, the students transition to bristol, but are guaranteed future admission to the university of massachusetts–dartmouth if they are successful in their courses and complete their associate degree. while students are at the community college, the program also provides connection to umass dartmouth, including: (a) access to the university’s library, fitness center, bookstore and dining halls, while attending bristol full-time; (b) collaborative on-site academic advising and priority registration at umass dartmouth; (c) career development workshops; and (d) a umass dartmouth id card that provides access to umass dartmouth events including sporting events, musical and theatre productions, and speaker programs. graduating from bristol, students in the program are then eligible for umass dartmouth award merit scholarships of at least $2,500 a year if they have earned a cumulative gpa of 3.0 or higher and are enrolled as a full-time student. the program reduces overall costs as well; bristol students who sign up for and meet the guidelines of the commonwealth commitment program attend umass dartmouth at a fixed rate of tuition and fees throughout their remaining two years of study, a 10% rebate on tuition and fees per semester, as well as the masstransfer tuition credit, which this year covered 10% of tuition and fees, a total of approximate 40% savings. bristol also creating a health careers early college program for english language learners, in which high school students will take college level esl coursework as well as health classes. by the time of graduation from bristol, these students will be fully bilingual health workers, a needed group in the workforce of an area that has many aging residents. these strategies are both enrollment strategies and community development strategies for bristol, which is a community college that serves several urban centers. it is both encouraging students to complete their k-12 credential, and then providing a clear, finite pathways, in terms of both time to degree and cost, to students and families who are wary of both higher education and the associated load debt. this program strengthens the ties between k-12 © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23815 | july 20, 2020 24 schools and the community college, as well as between the community college and its 4-year partner university. finally, it embraces the emerging diversity of the area, seeing the strengths of the spanish and portuguese speaking population as an asset in health care fields, rather than viewing it as a deficit to be remediated. case study 2: public college, urban master’s institution early college alliance @ eastern michigan university (eca@emu) began as a k-12 effort to improve access to high quality education across washtenaw county in michigan. the program’s cornerstone was a local intermediate school district, which brought together member districts to form an innovative consortium to govern the program. these k-12 leaders approached eastern michigan university about the program, and built an agreement to house the program at the university, and to purchase courses and credits for the students through the consortium. eca@emu is a good example of community “in-reach” to a university. eca was not part of an educational or enrollment strategy on the part of the university, but instead an attempt by k-12 educational leadership to utilize the university as one component of a larger plan to improve educational outcomes. this relationship developed organically over several university presidencies, and now eca is a critical partner in emu’s education and broader student retention efforts. ellen fischer’s research on the early college alliance students documented the impact of the program at eastern michigan university, providing hard numbers and fair comparisons of the impact early colleges can have (fischer, 2016; fischer & olwell, 2018). while the few studies published on early colleges have examined national and state data, they do not dig into the postgraduate experiences of students from one institution, and do not have a readily available comparison group to track early college students against. fischer, studying one institution, eastern michigan university, was able to compare early college students directly to the students with whom they are sitting in class, traditional college first year students. when examined this way, some key results stand out: ● early graduates have earned bachelor’s degrees at far higher rates than their non-eca peers, with most eca graduates continuing their education at eastern michigan university. ● early college students were equal or greater in diversity than their peers across the county. ● african-american students benefited from early college enrollment and were able to graduate at a higher rate as a result. in addition, national clearinghouse data for eca@emu cohorts demonstrates just how powerful the early college model is for diverse students. for the 2010 eca cohort, the © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23815 | july 20, 2020 25 percentage of students graduating from a four-year college in four years was 74%, compared to a statewide average of 27%. for african american students, the difference is even more stark: 67% of students graduated within four years of college, as opposed to a statewide average of 13%. the 2012 cohort has maintained these high levels of achievement, with students in that cohort graduating college at a rate of 71%, as opposed to a state rate of 29%, and african american students graduated at a 71% rate, as opposed to a 13% rate statewide. for african american students, early college provided an edge of over 500% in four-year college graduation rates (national clearinghouse data, provided by early college alliance, 2019). programs such as eca have a lot to teach urban colleges and universities about how to help students develop the skills and resources to navigate the college classroom and broader campus. students in eca spend the first part of their early college experience working with eca teachers, who work with students on academic as well as “soft skills” that are critical for college success. as students prove that they are ready for the college classroom, they are enrolled in eastern michigan university classes, with a goal of earning up to 60 college credits in the experience. students in eca choose what courses to take and can build a program around their strengths as well as on their future educational and career path. early college programs such as eca have developed facilitated support for students as they move into college classes, and expertise in the type of teaching, mentoring, and advising that allows students to thrive. college leaders can emulate the focus that early colleges have on social and emotional learning. early college students learn non-academic strategies to successfully navigating a college classroom. they learn explicitly how to interact with professors, how to seek help when not succeeding in class, and how to learn from failure. additionally, they directly learn what college-readiness guru david conley describes as key “academic behaviors,” such as note-taking and study skills (conley, 2007). finally, early colleges can provide a pipeline of students ready to be successful on campus, and who are used to navigating the foibles of that system. early college programs such as eca@emu also can help colleges and universities fill seats in classes that have become less popular with traditional undergraduates. eca pays for the seats it purchases in emu’s classrooms (at a discount), providing a steady stream of tuition revenue from students that the university does not need to pay to recruit. most of these classes are traditional general education and introductory stem classes, which many traditional students avoid with the help of ap and transfer credits (gilbert, 2017). for colleges and universities facing a declining population of traditional-age high school graduates, early college provide customers for classes who often stay to matriculate at the college, providing high caliber academic students who are already familiar with the campus and its operations © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23815 | july 20, 2020 26 case study 3: four year, private institution the merrimack college abbott lawrence academy (ala) early college program was launched in the 2017-18 academic year, as part of the effort to reform the nearby lawrence public schools. the process was initiated by the superintendent/receiver of lawrence public schools, jeffrey riley, who requested a new program in a lunch meeting with merrimack’s president christopher hopey. the design for the program was to allow students in the high school’s abbott lawrence academy, a competitive exam school, to take courses on merrimack’s campus during their junior and senior years. this would help the school attract and retain top high school students in the district (many of whom were leaving for private school options in eighth grade), and give those students in the program a better chance at admission to selective colleges. support teachers at the high school worked with early college students when they were not on the college campus to help provide needed academic assistance. lawrence public schools serves a city that is among the poorest in massachusetts, with a population in schools that is majority non-white, majority immigrant, and majority first in their family to attend college. the students attending the program were representative of school children in the city: 84% latinx, and over 80% eligible for free or reduced lunch. by focusing on lawrence high school, this program addressed the needs of students in the region who would benefit from this effort, as well as bringing greater diversity to the college campus, as the college student body is currently 15% students of color (registrar data, 2018). to make attending merrimack a real possibility for the lawrence students, hopey also made plans for a scholarship program for top graduates of the program. ten of the inaugural cohort of early college students were selected as pioneer scholars at merrimack college for fall 2019, receiving a fulltuition/room and board scholarship for their four years on campus (merrimack college pioneer scholars, 2020). in fall 2017, the first cohort of 64 students was divided into two sections of political science/united states government, and two sections of human biology which included a 2-hour weekly lab. students take the other subjects in the spring term. last year, these students achieved equal or higher grades in classes than their college counterparts enrolled in the same merrimack courses, taught by the same faculty, and the overall course pass rate in the early college was 98% (merrimack college registrar data, 2019). in fall 2018, merrimack added choices for the ala senior class in the subjects of psychology and engineering. starting in spring 2019, the program expanded by offering courses in areas including human development and human services, education, computer science, politics, criminology and criminal justice, and mathematics, including calculus i and introduction to statistics. the program serves over 150 students, both juniors and seniors at lawrence high school, at the present time. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23815 | july 20, 2020 27 sample programs of study to continue at merrimack were created to help students see the opportunity to finish college early or to get a head start on graduate school, and to see the connection between their studies and a career path. possible pathways for these students include education, human development and human services, biology, stem fields, and political science. as a result of this curriculum work, the merrimack/lawrence high school program has been designated by the state of massachusetts as an official early college program, the only private college in the state to have achieved this recognition. since the beginning of the program, ala students have scored in the same range as their merrimack peers, with some courses/semesters higher than first-year merrimack students in similar classes, and some slightly below. the high school seniors, in classes mixed with merrimack peers, have scored above a 3.0 gpa overall, even without the academic support that was built into their junior year classes (merrimack college registrar data, 2019). early college student perspectives a key framework in the field of evaluating early colleges comes from the work of michael nakkula and karen foster, who, in their case studies of two pioneer early colleges, drew attention to the changes in the way early college students think about themselves. they found that early college programs changed students’ view of themselves (nakkula & foster, 2007; jobs for the future 2011). longitudinal research showed that early college graduates were adept at problem solving on their new campus, took on leadership and service commitments while in college, and drew upon the academic strengths of their school in their choice of major (jff, 2013). in a well-designed and implemented program, early college students move from hoping or believing that they can be successful in college to a student who has successfully completed college-level coursework; students go from thinking about college as a “possible self” to an “expected self,” confident they can navigate upcoming challenges in college and beyond (nakkula & foster, 2007). these findings and this framework have held up throughout the longitudinal studies of early college outcomes directed by nakkula, which continues to the present. when students in early college programs talk about their experiences, they point to both an individual gain of educational skills, but also to a broader community and civic impact that the program can have. participating in an early college program, for students in cities such as lawrence, is an act of resistance and defiance to the stereotypes about their city and about their community. thus, early college programs are a way in which local colleges and universities can both support youth and the urban communities they are part of, and to help redefine the public image of those communities. as one of early college students wrote about the lawrence program: © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23815 | july 20, 2020 28 as a student in the lawrence public school system, it is easy to feel counted out. there are so many stereotypes of us being lazy, stupid, ungrateful, or uninterested. but in abbott, everyone who is enrolled in these merrimack courses has a goal, has big plans for their future. allowing us to take these courses further prepares us for these bright futures we aspire to, and shows lawrence in a different light. we aren’t dropouts, class skippers, etc. a focal point of being an abbott student is “being the future of lawrence”. this partnership with merrimack college is helping not only us see that, but the rest of our city, and those around us… taking college classes has raised my self-esteem, and made me feel as though i am paving the way for my future. (quoted in cherney, 2019) another lawrence student, who was awarded a scholarship, connected the early college program to larger issues of community development and university/community relations in her graduation speech, stating: [the early college program] shows that lawrence has so much to offer and that we are not “the city of the damned” as we have been portrayed as. … this partnership between abbott and merrimack college is the first of its kind: kids are graduating high-school with college credits from a private 4-year university, and that is something to celebrate. merrimack college is doing what other colleges or universities wish they could do: creating and maintaining hard-working and goal-oriented individuals who will stop at nothing to achieve their goals. (student graduation speech, 2019) for students in lawrence, this struggle to redefine their community and their image is intrinsically political, a direct rebuttal to political figures such as president trump, who has denounced the city of lawrence by name of several occasions for contributing to new hampshire’s opioid issues (lawrence eagle, march 19, 2018). for the city of lawrence, early college programs, such as merrimack’s, provide a chance to develop leaders among youth, who will hopefully return to the area as adults. as more students in the high school are able to attain a college education, the proportion of college graduates in the city will rise, and young people will have a network of parents, uncles, aunts, cousins, neighbors, and community members who are able to reach back and help them navigate the college process. for merrimack college, the early college and pioneer scholars are a major investment in the future of the community, and a way to encourage student and community aspirations for college degrees. the pioneer scholars program was recognized by massachusetts governor charlie baker in his 2020 state of the commonwealth address as an example of boosting educational impact and saving families’ tuition dollars (baker, 2020). lessons from case studies for urban and metropolitan college leadership the communities served by most urban colleges and universities are often in former industrial or manufacturing areas, where a college degree was not previously a prerequisite for middle-class income. early college can be a strategy for areas such as these to develop a larger population of © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23815 | july 20, 2020 29 residents with a 2 or 4-year college degree, who can both raise the average earnings in the area, as well as be a resource for helping family members and community members aspire to and succeed in college. in all three cases, there were very similar lessons for college and university leaders. first, a strong partnership between k-12 and college and university leaders was needed to make the system work. unlike many educational partnerships, early college is a strategy that is “all in,” as k-12 leaders are trusting the college with their students, and the college is trusting that the k-12 students will achieve on campus. strong personal relationships between k-12 and higher education leaders is a prerequisite for success in this area. second, as programs get underway, leaders must find ways to expand them or extend their impact. at bristol, early college efforts expanded from a program designed to provide a cost and time-effective means to training engineers to a program that could meet the needs of english language learners in local high schools and the needs of local employers for a skilled workforce. at eastern michigan university, early college changed from being a tenet in buildings and purchaser of credits to a partner in developing student success programming. at merrimack college, early college moved from being a program for local 11th and 12th grade students to become part of the campus, through the pioneer scholars initiative. a third lesson is that early college programs can also make urban areas more appealing to parents and students. eca@emu brought many families to ypsilanti, michigan each day for school, giving them a different perspective on a city long dismissed as blighted. the programming at bristol is part of an economic renewal of this gateway city, as it transitions towards a future based on industries such as renewable energy and health care. in lawrence, students and families view the early college program as a way to prove critics of the city wrong, and to raise the profile of their dynamic and entrepreneurial hometown. in all cases, early college students are a key source of learning for college and university leaders. understanding how early college students can be able to achieve such high grades in the classroom can help college and university help all of their students. this access to data and learning is a key advantage of early college over partner school and professional development school models, as it provides a real-time look at student success and barriers right on campus. at the state and policy levels, the key lesson is that attention to diversity and equity needs to be central to policy and processes from the beginning. as early college programs are developing and spreading, a strong state policy that promotes equitable access and backs it up with sufficient, stable, and sustainable funding can make a significant difference in student outcomes. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23815 | july 20, 2020 30 a caveat: the challenge of funding for early colleges one of the key challenges for any leadership in early college is to find funding. while early colleges can be lean, and can take advantage of district and college resources, they remain resource intensive. successful early colleges build powerful relationships between faculty, staff, and students, and these require smaller-than-usual ratios of students. school finance often relies on the lower costs for students in the lower grades to subsidize the expenses of high school programs, and separate early colleges cannot draw on this funding. unless school finance policy allows for per pupil support of early college programming, this funding will always be cobbled together from grants, k-12 budgets, and higher education subsidies, which is an unstable base on which to build any educational venture. conclusion while many colleges and universities in cities across the nation have invested in creating partner schools, often helping create charter schools in their areas, fewer have taken the full jump to creating early college programs. while there is value in creating partner schools, and in creating pipeline programs with local schools, there is a quantum leap of commitment to creating and running an early college. early college programs represent a commitment by higher education to bring local students onto their campus every day, and to encouraging and developing those students towards a college education, whether it is at the home campus or elsewhere. these programs represent an investment of time, energy, and mentoring that is far beyond what is usually possible at a partner school. ultimately, campuses learn and gain as much from early college programs as the students, families, and k-12 teachers. however, these programs represent a leap of faith in young people, and campus leaders, faculty, staff and the campus community must decide is worth the effort. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23815 | july 20, 2020 31 references american institutes of research. 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(2011). making the grade: texas early college high schools prepare students for college. jobs for the future. song, m., & zeiser, k. (2019). early college, continued success: longer-term impact of early college high schools. american institutes for research. southcoast health (2016), community needs assessment. troutman, d., hendrix-soto, a., creusere, m., mayer, e. (2018). dual credit and success in college. university of texas system. retrieved from https://data.utsystem.edu/sites/default/files/upload/utsystem-dualcreditstudy.pdf yuen, v. (2019). new insights into attainment for low-income students. center for american progress. retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ed596190.pdf metropolitan universities vol. 29 no. 4 (december 2018), doi: 10.18060/22842 12 the life, work and legacy of ernest a. lynton (1926–1998) elaine ward with emiley dionne, emily wall and shannon zelek introduction i will stop here for the moment. it has been a story good to live, fun to write down, and i hope, interesting to read. (ernest lynton, 1996c) learning about ernest lynton’s rich life has been interesting for me to uncover. where many of us only know ernest through his writings, i have come to learn the origins of the motivations for his work and commitments to advancing the public purpose of higher education and the scholarship of engagement. the significance of the title of the metropolitan universities journal’s first issue in 1990, identity and culture, is not lost on me as i seek to understand more fully the life, lived experiences, and identity of ernest a. lynton that moved him to influence cultural shifts within higher education toward increased value and legitimatization of useful, publicly engaged work. as a researcher, i strive to understand our individual and collective motivations for our community engagement scholarly work. what are our aspirations for this work and its broader impact in society? why do what we do and how can what we do influence the greater public good. as a steward of change (ward & miller, 2106), i seek ways to use our individual and collective understandings to lift up and advance institutional commitments to civic and community engagement as we help our higher education institutions hold fast to and more fully realize their responsibilities to individuals and communities beyond our walls. for me, ernest lynton was one of the first thought leaders that pushed me to focus my own research on not only the individual work of faculty, their identities and motivations for this work, but also the institutional contexts and cultures that supported or inhibited their publicly useful scholarly work. that institutions of higher education, especially metropolitan universities, have a special obligation to their region and while they must: [retain] their central purpose and focus if they are to remain the principal societal mechanism for the objective criticism of prevailing views and practices. but metropolitan universities recognize that they must change the way in which this knowledge-centered mission is pursued. the nature, uses, and clientele for knowledge are evolving; the effective interpretation and dissemination of knowledge have become as important as its creation, and an ever more diverse clientele needs [diverse responses]. the form must adapt as the function changes. (lynton, 1990, p. 4). a faculty member’s work supports the institutional mission and is central to its function. and in “metropolitan universities, members of the faculty bear the principal burden of institutional change, having to adapt and expand their scholarly and pedagogical skills to meet a diversity of challenges for which their traditional training has not prepared them” (lynton, 1990, p. 5). just as faculty members have a professional responsibility to advance the institutional mission, so too 13 does the institution have a responsibility to support faculty success through the development of policies and infrastructures that recognize and reward what ernest then called ‘professional service’ or what we now know as publicly engaged scholarly work (post, ward, long & saltmarsh, 2016). ten years ago, ernest’s work lay the groundwork for my own. for a decade, through my work with the ernest a. lynton award for the scholarship of engagement for early career faculty, i have continued to learn from the next generation of publicly engaged scholars and institutional change agents who seek to realize their individual and their institution’s public ‘obligations to the regions’ (lynton, 1990). prior to my research for this special issue, i had no idea ernest lynton was an immigrant. his 1998 obituary in the new york times, summarized his life’s work: professor lynton advocated closer cooperation between students and employers based on a system in germany, where he was born, and he called for apprenticeship programs that would give high school students three years of combined school and work experience. he also urged emphasis on the practical applications of research by faculty members, and he promoted outreach work by them. —new york times, april 5, 1998, p. 40 i had researched ernest’s work and scholarly contributions to the field of higher education transformation and community engaged research from the early 90s, but knew little about his previous life. as a narrative methodologist, i wanted to learn more about the man himself, behind the scholarship, experiences and commitments to institutional change. through this special issue and conversations with some of his closest colleagues and mentees, we will share his story – the man behind the scholarship and higher education transformation. this special issue will deepen our understanding ernest’s own narrative, his contributions, and in turn the impact of the award through the next generation of stewards of institutional change, our posttenure lynton award recipients. ernest’s colleagues and mentees cathy burack, deb hirsch, barbara holland, kerryann o’meara, lorilee sandmann and zelda (zee) gamson, gene rice and richard freeland shared their experiences working with ernest with me. for them, ernest was indeed a man of influence and intellectual acumen, and more importantly, he was caring, generous, collaborative, nurturing, and trusting in how he worked with others. the way he worked with others helped these women feel that they were “part of something bigger”, that they “mattered” (driscoll, personal communication), and that their contributions were as valuable as were his own. the strength of their personal connections with ernest, and his impact on them, were personally and professionally invaluable. i wanted to get to know the man behind the scholarship and learn more about him than they could share with me. this curiosity led me, and my graduate student research team, to explore institutional archives, genealogy records, and family member memoirs. working on this issue has led me on a journey of discovery into ernest’s individual work and life as well as the collective experiences of many who worked closely with him to advance higher education’s commitment to public purpose, particularly the recognition and reward through promotion and tenure of individual faculty scholarly work. 14 ernst albracht loewenstein became ernest a. lynton ernest albert lynton was born on july 17, 1926 in charlottenburg, west berlin, germany. charlottenburg was one of two districts with the highest jewish population in 1920s berlin, an international, sophisticated and culturally rich area in comparison to other areas of the region (charlottenburg wilmersdorf www.berlin.de). he came from a lineage of educated, cosmopolitan family members (lynton, m. 1995; hoffman, n.d.). i would not have discovered this without his brother mark’s memoir, accidental journey. “it is him”, i said aloud as i realized i was reading ernest’s brother mark’s memoir. he had signed his forward, ‘mark lynton, larchmont new york 1994.’ i could reference that with a genealogical ‘family sheet’ that identified larchmont as the place of mark’s death in 1997 (hoffman, n.d.). i was certain this was ernest’s brother. questions i had about ernest’s early childhood years, and how that may have influenced who he was as a scholar, mentor, and institutional change agent, were no longer a gap in his narrative. to begin with, ernest’s brother begins his memoir with "i was born max-otto ludwig loewenstein, in stuttgart, germany.” (p. 3) i now understood why i was having such a hard time finding information on any lynton family. mark goes on to verify the genealogy: “both sides of my family had in or near stuttgart for ten generations or more--a documented fact--and claimed earlier antecedents from jews who had fled the spanish inquisition, which, if not necessarily fiction, remains unverified." (p.3) mark’s narrative not only confirmed everything i had read in rolf hoffman’s family sheet on the loewenstein family. hoffman’s data came to life in mark’s retelling. i began to understand the socio-political structures of germany in this period when i further explored the places where ernest’s ancestors had lived. ernest’s great-great-grandparents go back to 1769 in oetteingen and steinbach near schwaebisch hall. steinbach is in the thenkingdom of württemberg (1805–1918) whose capital was stuttgart. we know from mark’s memoir that he was born in stuttgart before his parents moved to berlin. ernest’s parents were arthur jakob loewenstein (1889–1962) and martha luise (lizzie) kiefe (6.28.1895 1984). arthur was a banker and later an executive in a german car manufacturing company. sometime before 1914, he spent time in london to learn about banking. he later authored a book on jewish banking. arthur had earned degrees in law and economics from heidelberg university. ernest’s mother lizzie went to finishing school in france. ernest had two uncles and an aunt on his father’s side. gustav (1890–1939) also studied in heidelberg university. ernest’s uncle max (1896–1917) died as a young man in france in combat during wwi. ernest’s aunt else born in 1893 died in stuttgart in 1930. both ernest’s father and his uncle gustav immigrated to the united states, arthur to new york and gustav to los angeles. ernest’s paternal grandparents were naphtali loewenstein of oedhiem (1852– 1923) and emilie wormser (1863–1924). ernest’s paternal grandfather naphtali founded pflaum & loewenstein bank around 1880 with his partner, david pflaum, at koenig strasse 31 a in stuttgart. when david died, naphtali worked with one of his brothers (he had eight siblings) and they formed the gebrueder loewenstein bank in stuttgart. http://www.berlin.de/ 15 ernest’s great grandfather, jakob loewenstein (naphtali’s dad), was born in bonfeld on december 26, 1819. jakob was a teacher and hazzan (a musician who led the congregation in songful prayer) in gerabronn, korb, oedheim, hohebach, oberdorf, sontheim and finally heilbronn (hoffman, n.d.). jakob’s father, loew lippman loewenstein (1769–1850), ernest’s great, great, grandfather, was also a teacher. he taught in steinback near schwaebisch hall. this community suffered terribly during kristallnacht, some 170 years after leow’s birth. ernest’s great, great grandmother ester’s family were also teachers, in oettingen. as we can see, ernest descended from a strong lineage of educators. mark’s retelling of his family origins and accomplishments brings to life the lineage that deepened my connection to their lived experiences. moving to stuttgart in the early 1800s, they evolved from a succession of rabbis and moneylenders to repeated generations of lawyers and bankers, a logical progression. much of the same thing happened to my mother's family, the kiefes, who, for a number of generations, lived in baissingen—a small hamlet southeast of stuttgart—as the local kuffen (barrel makers), which led to the family name. they, too, discovered banking as a more promising profession and moved to stuttgart. my grandparents were enthusiastic supporters of the king of württemberg, his overlord, the emperor of germany, of all things german; both my father and uncle won iron crosses in world war i, and my other uncle was killed in it as an eighteen-year-old volunteer recruit. my father, with both law and economics degrees from heidelberg university, had spent some years in london before 1914 to learn to be a banker. my mother had attended finishing school in england, having been brought up bilingually in french and german. (the same swiss governess responsible for this remained with the family for almost seventy years, so that my brother [ernest] and i were equally at ease in both languages.) (p. 3) i had wondered how ernest managed in the u.s. education system as an immigrant. i too came to the united states with my parents, a little younger at thirteen and not fleeing persecution. however, my working-class family background left me without the intellectual or cultural capital to navigate easily the education system here. i had wrongly identified my own immigrant’s educational experience with that of ernest. i had truly marveled at how he managed the transition, and earned his doctorate a short ten years after his arrival. that he accomplished this so quickly, under such circumstances, when english was not even his first language, was amazing to me. it took me that long to earn a bachelor’s degree. gaining insight into his deep intellectual heritage helped me see what lorilee sandmann meant when she described ernest as “a man of small stature, but mammoth intellect” (sandmann, personal communication.) ernest’s early background, prior to the rise of nazis, laid the foundation for his success within u.s. higher education. my research also leads me to believe that his cumulative early experiences led him to advocate for, and strategically advance, the changes he envisioned. he completely understood that the “fundamental mission [of universities was] the disinterested pursuit and promulgation of knowledge… [yet maintaining] the objective criticism of prevailing views and practices” (lynton, 1990, p. 4). yet he also knew that the academy still needed to realize itself more fully as a steward of place (cumu website) and advance its public purpose. 16 mark’s account of his own childhood gives us further insight into ernest’s early years: my father was named head of a major german car manufacturer in 1922, when i was two years old, and we moved to berlin, where my brother was born some years later. i had a very warm, happy, affluent and sheltered childhood, and i have equally happy memories of my high school years, which began in 1929 at the franzoesisches gymnasium. the school had been founded in the 1640s by and for immigrant french huguenots, and was unusual in continuing to teach all subjects in french; it thus tended to attract a varied and mostly international body of pupils. subsequent events led to my being exposed to school systems in three different countries, i still believe the german system to have been the most balanced and well rounded. (p. 4) ernest’s mother had gone to finishing school in france. his father had spent time in england “learning about banking” and the family had the same governess for generations (70 years). ernest’s father was highly accomplished, he had received his doctorate from heidelberg university, had degrees in law and economics, hand written his dissertation/book on banking, was a banker and now a high level executive in a prominent german car manufacturing company, all the while having a medal of honor from world war i. his father’s career brought them to berlin in 1922. mark, then max, went to france to continue his schooling in 1933. throughout ernest’s earliest years, life in germany was overtaken by extreme nationalism and the perceived superiority of a german, aryan race, an ideology advanced by the nationalist socialist german workers’ (nazi) party. three years before ernest’s birth, adolf hitler had attempted to seize power from the german government. the failed 1923 coup resulted in his imprisonment, which in turn only led to his increased popularity. when ernest was just three years old, the severe depression of 1929 paved the way for the rise of nazi power in germany. hitler pronounced that all of the nation’s problems would resolve if communists and jews were driven from germany (www.speigel.de). ernest was just seven years old when hitler and the nazi party rose to power in 1933. the rate of erosion of jewish rights accelerated and two years later, when ernest was nine, the nuremberg laws took all citizenship rights away from jewish germans and prevented marriage between jews and germans all in the name of protecting german blood and honor. ernest was ten years of age in 1936, when jewish rights were further eroded and jews were not allowed to vote. when he was just 12, in 1938, what can be considered the beginning of the holocaust took place on november 9 and 10 when jewish businesses were destroyed and jews were openly attacked and murdered on the streets across the nation. kristallnacht (night of broken glass) stands as the event that marked the shift in german policy against the jews from enslavement to annihilation (www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org). by 1939, all jews had to carry an identification card with them at all times. soon, life deteriorated to the point where jews not only were banned from most public places in germany, but also were being moved into concentration and forced labor camps. the abominable denial of rights and property, segregation, and “relocation” ultimately led to the systematic mass killing of six million european jews. ernest’s family left berlin for amsterdam in 1935, the same year hitler’s nuremburg laws stripped rights and citizenship from the jewish population. http://www.speigel.de/ http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/ 17 ernest and his parents moved from berlin to amsterdam in 1935. they arrived in the united states in 1941, just one year before the nazi’s formulated their ‘final solution to the jewish problem’, a plan for the liquidation of all european jews (www.history.com). the family sailed from lisbon, portugal to ellis island, new york on the steamship mouzinho. the ship’s manifests lists ernst albracht (israel) loewenstein (under 16). figure 1. the steamship mouzinho departing lisbon for ellis island. the ellis island ledger lists arthur loewenstein, passenger number 901763153084, and martha lowenstein, passenger number 9011982070101. arthur was described as five feet, five inches tall, with fair complexion and blond hair and martha was the same height with fair complexion and gray hair and grey eyes. ernest had fair complexion, black hair and brown eyes and was five feet, six inches tall when he arrived at ellis island on september 2, 1941. there were 1,650 passengers on the steam ship. the loewenstein family had obtained their visas in rotterdam, holland on may 19, 1941. ernst’s parents listed english and german as their spoken languages and ernst, french and german. mark writes that he “had not seen my family since the summer of 1939 [for seven years], and while in touch since 1941, correspondence had been patchy and infrequent." (p. 245) he finally had word from them in september 1941. "they had left holland a month earlier with a small number of german jews whom the nazis had agreed to let leave, as a result of some complex negotiations and substantial financial sacrifices borne by the warburg clan in new york." (p. 85). the family had fifty dollars with them upon arrival, en route to their "friend" henry behrens of 120 cahrini boulevard , new york city. http://www.history.com/ 18 in june of 1946, mark got leave from the british army. ernest followed his father and uncles and the accidental military service of his brother when he himself entered military service on december 19th, 1944. the draft was in force, and ernest’s studies at carnegie institute of technology had to wait when he reported to camp blanding in florida. ernest's mother died on july 13, 1984 at 89 years. she lived in the us for 43 years. arthur died on july 31st 1962 at the age of 73. he died 22 years before his wife. ernest was 36 years of age when his father died and was 58 when his mother passed away. both of his parents lived to see the lineage of teachers continue when ernest took up his academic position at rutgers in 1952. ernest did a one-year postdoctoral fellowship at leiden university in holland in 1951, returning to the place he grew from childhood to a young man. dutch royalty had founded leiden university in 1575, and it is one of europe's leading research universities (https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/about-us). in 1952, he joined the physics department at rutgers university in new york. ernest married his wife and colleague carla in 1953. all of the people i spoke to for this issue were unanimous in their respect and admiration for carla. this is where i learned how ernest’s work and their life together was often the same. they described carla as ernest’s equal in all ways, but especially, if not more so, in intellect. together, carla and ernest were extremely generous with their time and resources. they were benefactors of numerous charitable organizations and carla was a long-time volunteer at the perkins school for the blind, where she received a lifetime achievement award for the number of volunteer hours she served. carla contributed to causes from musical societies to planned parenthood to efforts to decrease elderly homelessness. carla and ernest were renowned for opening their home for faculty to gather and dialogue about societal and educational issues. many talked about how these gatherings and the lynton’s generosity and care really made them feel like they mattered (amy driscoll, lorilee sandmam, cathy burack, deb hirsch, personal communication). amy went on to say how “ernest was the type of provost a faculty member would want to work for.” as we reflected on this together, we talked about how such generosity and openness to creating spaces for debate and dialogue was in opposition to the silos of the academy at the time. we agreed that ernest modeled the values of co-creation and mutuality for which he advocated in his writings. while he was not always easy to work with, he respected colleagues and treated them as his equal. he made people believe that their ideas were just as important as his (lorilee sandmann, amy driscoll, personal communication). ernest’s work: out of the discipline and into the urban university ernest’s early work within urban institutions influenced his commitments to diversity and access for underrepresented students, particularly young black students. through conversations with faculty from a diverse array of disciplines, ernest learned the need for creativity and innovation in meeting the needs of students. ernest experienced the limitations the traditional educational paradigm placed on faculty and students who wanted to teach and learn relevant curricula that would prepare students for their futures in the workplace and within society. these experiences presaged ernest’s exposure to the more practical and relevant purposes of higher education. ernest recognized that universities, particularly metropolitan universities with a responsibility to https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/about-us 19 its students and to nearby cities, needed to be more responsive to the lived experiences and needs of the changing times and students demographics. lynton believed that the goal of a liberal arts education is to create awareness of fundamental social, economic, and political problems and the manner in which the methodologies of relevant academic disciplines can address them. more specifically, lynton cited the rapid, uncontrolled, and unbalanced growth of urban complexes, the explosive and often chaotic development of non-european nations, and the inability of western countries to assimilate scientific and technical problems as areas around which the staff and curriculum of the new college might be organized. he proposed interdisciplinary majors relevant to each area, including urban studies, comparative literature, and programs in city and regional planning. (http://livingstonalumni.org/documentation) livingston college: great expectations ernest’s time as the founding dean of livingston college greatly influenced his commitment to the urban mission of higher education. christopher hann wrote a piece for rutgers magazine that conveys a strong sense of the time and the aspirations of the college. livingston college came into being in 1965 and: served as a living experiment in higher education, a quixotic attempt to provide a new academic experience for a new generation of students—more engaged, activist, even radical. it was, depending on your point of view, the hippie school, the black school, the utopian school, the anarchist school. “it was a campus,” says rob snyder lc’77, “too easily defined by its extremes.” as much as it was an actual place, livingston was an idea—a whole set of brash, untested notions, really, burnished by the white-hot passions that fueled so much of the social upheaval across america in the 1960s. central to livingston’s core was its commitment to students…who might otherwise never have access to a college education, including larger-than-ever numbers of minority, or, in the nomenclature of the college, nontraditional students. livingston thus became the first coed liberal arts college at rutgers with a special commitment to diversity, the first to create departments of africana studies, puerto rican studies, women’s studies, anthropology, community development, urban studies, and computer science…the founding dean, ernest lynton, a yale-educated physicist who had taught at rutgers college since 1952, had high expectations. lynton wanted livingston to become “the mit of the social sciences”…lynton’s ability to recruit top-flight faculty was due largely to his ability to infect others with the passion he felt for the task at hand. (http://ucmweb.rutgers.edu/magazine/archive1013/features/spring-2012/greatexpectations) http://livingstonalumni.org/documentation http://ucmweb.rutgers.edu/magazine/archive1013/features/spring-2012/great-expectations http://ucmweb.rutgers.edu/magazine/archive1013/features/spring-2012/great-expectations 20 figure 2. 1974 livingston college yearbook. dean ernest lynton in dark glasses. while livingston began in 1965, the college did not open until 1969 with a freshmen class of 600. the photo in the middle of the year book cover is of ernest and students standing outside the resident halls with stacks of mattresses on barren ground. livingston was opening for business, but the grounds were not quite ready. i discovered ernest’s commencement address to the first full graduating class of 500 livingston college seniors may 20, 1973. he declared: we have shown, unmistakably that a college within a university can contribute to the highest levels of scholarship, research, and instruction of a university, while at the same time it can meet the educational needs of a broadly heterogeneous student body—the needs of black and puerto rican, the needs of the poor as well as the rich, the needs of the sons and daughters of working-class parents as much as those of the progeny of merchants and bankers—the needs as well of older and of part-time as much as those of younger, and full-time ones. there are two common threads running through this multifaceted educational enterprise. one is a universal commitment to quality, and that is something which we have had to learn from each other slowly and sometimes painfully. it is only in an truly multiracial institution like ours that the white liberal can learn, from his black and puerto rican colleagues and critics, that the greatest arrogance of whites is their low expectation with 21 regard to the performance of minority students – and gradually the lesson is being learned that the high expectations and demanding goals are what each of us owes to every one of our students. and this common emphasis on quality makes possible the second common thread of our effort—the refusal to accept any track system of education in which students are channeled and boxed in according to their background. the most important feature of livingston’s fascinating educational mix is that it provides for all students the full range of opportunities—and encourages each to explore the very limits of his or her potential and aspirations, regardless of background and prior training. you who graduate here today have come from many different societal groups, many races and classes, many backgrounds. you go from here into a wide variety of occupations—further graduate and professional education, medical and law schools, jobs in private and public agencies, teaching and— inevitably—some with no jobs at all. a great diversity—but the achievement of the college is that there is no correlation between where you are going and where you came from. to be many things to many people, to provide a broad spectrum of education and career opportunities, to serve the needs of a heterogeneous student body—such achievements should, indeed must, be the ultimate aims of all colleges and all universities—but as yet livingston stands nearly alone in this. (hidalgo, 1973, as cited in livingston alumni association, 2017) there is evidence of ernest speaking of himself in this speech as the ‘progeny of merchants and bankers’ or the ‘white liberal’. former colleagues to whom i spoke for this article often mentioned ernest’s self-deprecating tendencies and the way he never shied away from making fun of himself. i find a level of honesty in this commencement speech that acknowledges his privileged background and yet commitment to diversity and access in higher education. the next vignette comes again directly from ernest in another unpublished piece, and gives further insight into the origins of these commitments that later developed into the work of faculty roles and rewards for engaged scholarship, that we may be more familiar with. these are his own words as he reflected on his time at livingston college. here we see ernest’s growth from being an academic within the discipline to becoming an administrator and innovator in the larger urban university. his interest developed from others interested in higher education’s responsiveness to student and workplace needs at the time. in 1965, ernest related how he met a growing number of people interested in higher education, and read and listened to what they had to say, that there was a need for fresh approaches and creative thinking regarding the role of universities and the nature of their pedagogy…so we set out to develop curricula that would be relevant to the student’s social and personal concerns, and ways of teaching that would foster more individual initiative and provide greater flexibility…we were determined to treat our students as adults, able to make their own decisions without pervasive rules…in almost everything we instituted initially, we were ahead of the national trends…one of the most fascinating parts of my job in those formative years was to interview many people in the social sciences and humanities about 22 what were the interesting directions in those fields, and who the most promising young people to recruited [as faculty]. that was especially the case in anthropology…over a number of months in 1967 and 68 i went to see just about every leading anthropologist in the country – including margaret mead whom i visited in her eyrie under the eaves of the museum of natural history in new york. she and all the other luminaries were uniformly helpful and supportive, and there was much overlap in their recommendations both as to emerging fields as to hot young prospects…out of conversations with individuals in other social science i obtained a strong sense of an impending shift in those fields toward an emphasis on complex social issues and public policy-particularly in the broad area of urban problems. and that became a central theme for livingston: in sociology, political science, economics, (social) geography, we recruited individuals interested in urban issues and policies. (lynton, 1996c). ernest’s reflections here evidence the origins of his broadening beyond his own discipline of physics into the multidisciplinary landscape of that was to become livingston college. one can begin to see where ernest’s conceptualization of an eco-system of knowledge creation began to emerge. ernest emerged himself in such a transdisciplinary ecosystem as he sought to understand more fully the role of the university in a changing society. ernest opened himself up to many different perspectives and ways of knowing as he sought ‘fresh approaches and creative thinking’ so he could develop curriculum and ways of teaching that were most relevant for the students livingston wanted to enroll. ernest sought out knowledge systems that are more “equipped to take the complexity of interrelationships” into account when the “dominant model of scientific knowledge [is more] characterized by reductionism and fragmentation” (shiva, 2016, p. 8). ernest may have had the early realization that indigenous knowledge systems, being more wholistic, (shiva, 2016) are often better suited to address ‘complex urban social issues’. ernest had great expectations for universities and hope to see a commitment to teaching and outreach instead of the “lopsided priorities” shifting institutional priorities and ‘excessive emphasis’ toward research (lynton, 1994b). prior to my research for this issue, i wondered where the shift for ernest was. how and why did he make the move from physicist to higher education reformer? as other’s have indicated, ernest was a product of his times (saltmarsh, 2016; rice, personal communication; freeland, personal communication). even still, it is nice to hear it from ernest himself. in 1973, ernest left rutgers and took up a position as the first system-wide vice-president for academic affairs. here he penned the first comprehensive faculty personnel policy (freeland, personal communication). in 1980, he left the vice-presidency and took a faculty position as the commonwealth professor for physics at the university of massachusetts, boston. however, ernest did not leave his desire for higher education transformation far behind him. in 1988, with zelda gamson, ernest co-founded the new england resource center for higher education (nerche). he focused his energies on advancing what he then called professional outreach. over the next 10 years he worked with cathy burak, deb hirsch, amy driscoll, lorilee sandmann, and briefly kerry ann o’meara on faculty roles and rewards and the documentation and promotional of professional outreach. this work laid solid foundation for the carnegie elective classification for community engagement (driscoll, personal communication) and the national review board for the scholarship of engagement (sandmann, personal 23 communication). while at the university of massachusetts and nerche, ernest’s commitment to advancing the urban and metropolitan university became a core focus of his work. coalition of urban and metropolitan universities—building an international coalition the responsibility of the university in the sharing, pursuit, and application of knowledge ensures that our basic culture and heritage will be preserved. the university must guard its existence as an independent institution in order to achieve these primary functions. however, the university must not stand apart from its society and its immediate environment but must be an integral part of that society. the university best serves itself and society by assuming an active leadership role, as opposed to its traditional stance of somewhat passive responsiveness. (hathaway, c.e., mulhollan, p.e., and white, k.a., 1990) with this mission in mind, ernest and the founders of cumu realized the collective responsibility required, not just of individual faculty members through their teaching and research, but of departments, collegiate units, and institutional leadership, as all work together to realize the ‘complex and multidimensional mission of metropolitan universities (lynton, 1996a; lynton 1996b). ernest was concerned about both higher education’s occupational (lynton, 1983; lynton, 1984; lynton, 1989) and civic (lynton, 1983; lynton, 1996a; lynton, 1996a; lynton, 1995a) utility and effectiveness. he was also very much concerned with the “challenges of diversity” (lynton, 1990a), the growing diversity of urban centers and therefore in student populations created a need for universities to respond to new student needs. ernest’s role as the founding dean of rutger’s livingston college in 1965 and as the first system vice-president for academic affairs at the university of massachusetts in 1973 led to his commitments to urban education. barbara holland provides invaluable insight into ernest’s work in establishing cumu and helping us understand more fully the intention behind the coalition. elaine: tell me about your early work with ernest and cumu. barbara: metropolitan universities are distinctive and it begins with a discussion with the challenge of responsibility and responsiveness to the scholarly and instructional needs of diverse cities and all of our institutions are really shaped by the fact that they are characterized by diversity, diversity of students, and diversity of scholarly and professional activities diversity of constituencies. from the very beginning we have been all about taking traditional scholarship and making it more responsive to a diverse world and by diversifying the ways we think about scholarship and who benefits from scholarship. ernest had a strong commitment to diversity. the second issue of the journal was about student diversity, the third issue was about external needs and internal capacities, ways of communicating between the university and its regions, examining problems of intellectual interest and describing ways of involving students in a variety of outreach activities and the 4th one was about faculty – the pedagogical challenges of a diverse student body, the professional challenges of what ernest called outreach, the needs for 24 new conceptions of scholarship, new criteria for promotion and tenure. ernest was always ahead of his time. and he passed this on to me in so many ways. elaine: what do you recall about the early years of cumu? barbara: metropolitan universities came together as an organization chuck hathaway and paige mulhollan. wright state university held a meeting with several presidents. they felt that the metropolitan university had the characteristics of where higher education was going in the future. and for ernest, this was all about diversity of students, diversity of teaching, learning by doing, and about changing faculty culture to help him that he truly believes that we have to figure out a way to recognize that scholarship is not just in the classroom or in the laboratory but also must be available and extended to the public. he was the father of cumu and the first scholar to really articulate so long ago, in 1990, that where we were going is where we are today. he saw that the path forward for higher education in general was going to be the idea of scholarship that advances knowledge that is also shared and made accessible and involves partnerships with communities. and students had a role in this and that the connection to community would bring more diversity to our institutions. metropolitan universities are institutions of opportunity, focusing on the diversity of their cities and their student body and the necessity to have a diverse workforce and the necessity to create curriculum with experience. these concepts were “edgy and new in the 1990s.” it was ernest who said we have to keep our work [advancing the metropolitan university] scholarly if we are going to have impact on higher education, which was their goal was to articulate what mus understood about society and higher education. ernest saw it had to be done through a scholarly process and that the journal would be the anchor of the strategy to identify and establish the characteristics of metropolitan universities and to draw in detail the case for why what mus were doing at that time was foreshadowing what all universities are trying to do now. they first few issues of mu journal are what most universities are working on today – diversity and equity, a curriculum that integrates experience, and diversity of faculty and staff, and the dual importance of research that contributes to the scholarly advancement and also contributes to public advancements. in the early 1990s these were not things everyone in higher education were talking about in the way we are today. there was concern about how to recruit and retain diverse students, but cumu through the journal articulated this work in a way that was very compelling because it was based on already lived experience of living in urban space. ernest was present for all of the first meetings of the coalition. the journal started after the first meeting and the journal serves as the glue of the organization in terms of learning and sharing from each other. that is the basis of the spirit you see at our conferences: very egalitarian and convivial, where students, college presidents, faculty and staff are all in the same room sharing together. elaine: spirit of the work is coming through in the conversations with others, so not just the work or the reform that ernest was trying to advance, but how he was doing it was important— involving others and being collaborative. 25 barbara: yes. he had many mentees beyond me. ernest and his wife were an incredible team and were involved in a number of charitable activities. they were personally involved in a variety of things to improve community development and cultural opportunities for all. he was an early exemplar of the engaged scholar as we call them today. of someone who leads a scholarly life of inquiry and fact and evidence-based interpretation and he also lived in a world of “how do i use that for public good.” and there was no difference between the two for him. elaine: his modeling of engagement is almost in opposition to the siloed nature and the isolation of higher ed. he created communities. barbara: yes, he was not the solo scholar doing solo work for solo advancement. elaine: which is a little ironic given the disciplinary background he comes from as a physicist. barbara: absolutely. he’s a hard core scientist. elaine: all the more reason to lift up the ways in which he did this work mirrors the values he had as an individual. the communities he helped create by opening his home. barbara: he certainly saw metropolitan universities as a medium for social justice, but he did it in a scholarly way, always understanding the public impact of this work. he used the journal early on to have the conversation about how we change promotion and tenure. how do we change our picture of our expectations of faculty work? he was the physicist who turned into a higher education scholar. how will we create a greater integration of teaching, research and service and research. how do we bring those together and not see them as separate. this was very edgy in the early 1990s. elaine: where do you think there was influence from or departure from ernest boyer? barbara: they have similar agendas in that higher education must change, it is changing and we need to magnify that rate of change, because it will make us a relevant contributor to society. transformative day for the institution for the two ernest’s to be on campus and talking about change in higher education. ernest boyer had more in a political frame of mind, in the sense of foreseeing the loss of public appreciation and value of higher education and the need for us to think about new and different ways to demonstrate that value of what higher education contributes. ernest lynton would be more in the space of needing to look at public challenges and the diversity of our students and the equity of opportunity that higher education provides and how do we use our scholarship and our research and our teaching to create a more equitable society without diminishing in any way our academic rigor. boyer may have been more of a political tactician and ernest lynton more of a coalition builder. they were two provocative voices. president judith ramaley’s recollections of the day they were both on her campus are as follows: in 1990, the governor’s commission on the future of higher education in portland completed its deliberations and issued its final report calling for portland state university to embrace the identity of an urban research university. that report opened up a new 26 identity and sense of purpose for portland state university. this all happened at a time when both ernest boyer and ernest lynton, each in his own distinctive way, were exploring and making sense of the changes that were beginning to take place in the relationships of colleges and universities to the broader society of which they are a part and the implications of those changes for the roles and responsibilities of faculty members. as psu completed its new strategic plan in 1991 and began to embrace the urban mission that had for many years been embedded in its culture but not recognized or celebrated, it was clear that we were shifting our identity at a time when broad social, cultural, economic and political forces were creating a new context for higher education. there would be implications for our curriculum, our scholarly agenda and our working relationships and collaborations with other sectors of society. to help us think through the significance of what it would mean to become an urban research university, we decided to invite some of the nation’s most thoughtful observers and interpreters of higher education to join us, to think with us about what it would mean to become an urban-serving institution and to explore how we could express that mission. we invited two of the nation’s most distinguished interpreters of higher education to join us to think about the path ahead. ernest boyer had recently published two books that set the stage for our thinking. one was college. the undergraduate experience in america (1987) and the other was scholarship reconsidered, priorities of the professoriate (1990). both were based on boyer’s extraordinary network of people and the conversations and ideas that he wove together so brilliantly to make the case for what soon became the model of an engaged university. he posed the question: “can america’s colleges and universities with all the richness of their resources, be of greater service to the nation and the world?” (boyer 1990, p. 3).” ernest lynton had already begun to explore the mission and purposes of metropolitan universities and played a pivotal role in establishing the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities and served as the founding editor of its journal. his passion for service and his deep understanding of the changing character of life in the 20th century was an inspiration. in 1987, he and susan elman in new priorities for the university described “the themes that would engage him for the remainder of his life---the role and responsibility of the ‘metropolitan university’ bringing to bear its resources to the knowledge needs of society, and the need to translate knowledge into understandable and usable forms (hirsch, 2000 p. 57–58.)” we brought both men to campus on the same day to talk with us about how our newly embraced mission as an urban research university could enable us to respond to the complex challenges facing society in an era of extraordinary social, political and technological change and all the consequences that these forces were exerting on the world around us. while their perspectives fit together like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle, neither alone would have offered us as rich and as meaningful a conversation by himself. boyer was a grand synthesizer of conversations and ideas. lynton was an astute observer of the forces reshaping our society and, in turn, the world order. between them, they 27 engaged us in deep reflection on how the world was changing and how we must change along with it. i only wish we had a transcript of that day. that conversation set the stage for our transformation into the university that portland state is today. it is always one thing to be able to describe a desirable outcome. it is quite another to make that vision a reality. ernest lynton and ernest boyer got us off to a good start in inventing a very different approach to the core functions of a university in ways that have enabled us to achieve lynton’s goal of making “knowledge understandable and usable” while helping us expand our approach to scholarship to ensure that we would work with a broad range of community partners to address the questions that matter most in building healthy and resilient communities. judith a. ramaley, president emerita and distinguished professor of public service, portland state university this is a wonderful reflection on the influence of ernest lynton’s work and impact in concert with the work of other thinkers in the field at the time. elaine: in what ways was ernest being strategic in his thinking and practice? barbara: ernest, from the beginning insisted that cumu had a journal. having the journal fully reviewed would add credibility and power to the idea to serve a more diverse student body, understand new forms of faculty work, change faculty culture and recognize that scholarship is both for scholars and for the public. ernest knew that doing this in a scholarly way would give the organization a voice in working and collaborating with other organizations and starting to create a national movement around changing academic culture in a way that we now call giving credibility to community-engaged scholarship. nerche was a way to create a physical space to show the importance of developing collaborations between institutions. while some academic associations might be competitive, cumu has always been about sharing and learning from each other. nerche was an on-the-ground, real example of his own institution, of how to bring people together around themes that were convened to share. ernest’s influence was his culture of openness and sharing and appreciating how we learn from one another, the conference emulates this as does the journal. and the role of nerche was his demonstration of what this looked like on the ground. elaine: is this in opposition to the traditional paradigm? barbara: exactly. the historic higher education paradigm was post-world war two and up until the late 80s and 90s was about competition. and there is still competition, but in the main the culture of academia today is much more collaborative and communicative then it has been. this is the way of the future. a number of institutions are starting to organize faculty around questions and problems and issues and topics and less about individual work. there is abundant evidence that institutions now are looking to be collaborative and the impact of engagement and the impact of the focus on more success for all students through more collaborative approaches to teaching and learning that help students succeed have changed everywhere. if we go back and look at the early issues of the journal in cumu, we’ll see that they were pressing this early on 28 and it was one of the motivations for their own association was that they wanted to learn from each other. ernest’s legacy ernest has made many lasting contributions to metropolitan universities and their role and responsibilities in society. of particular significance, his foundational work helped universities realize their mission through their recognition and reward of faculty community engaged teaching and research. the work he did with amy driscoll just before he died goes on through the carnegie elective classification for community engagement. many institutions across the country have revised their promotion and tenure guidelines in response to ernest work. lorliee sandmann, deb hirsch, barbara holland, cathy burack, kerry ann o’meara and gene rice were all (or became) leaders in advancing this work. ernest’s legacy through the work of these women is of great significance. often academic articles mention the names of others who worked with ernest to advance the scholarship of engagement, donald schon, gene rice, russ edgerton, lee shulman, ernest boyer. i am happy to lift up the women involved in the early and subsequent waves of this work and hope that their names will begin to be acknowledged as widely. the contributions of zee gamsom, amy driscoll, barbara holland, cathy burack, lorilee sandmann, deb hirsch and kerry ann o’meara merit our attention. i look forward to the next iteration of this work, that explores their contributions in more detail in turn lifting up their legacies. my own approach to my work in higher education research involves attending to the process and the way we do our work. ernest gives us lessons for how we engage in this work that is humble, lifting up of the other, not only respecting but also validating the contributions of all, whether graduate student, staff person, faculty member, administrator or colleague. every contribution is as equally valid and legitimate as the other is. ernest did not, according to the conversations i had with others, place more value on someone’s contributions because they had positional leadership or authority. he gave as much time energy and space to the contributions of each one present. in relation to the hierarchy of higher education, he gave a platform and voice to graduate students as well as peers. i believe the lynton award does just this: it validates and legitimizes the contributions of scholars whose work is having tremendous public impact but does not rate highly within the traditional paradigms of higher education. through the external validation via the award, the legitimacy of that scholar’s work by virtue of receiving the award is lifted up within their own institution. coming from the hard sciences, ernest had legitimacy within those traditional, positivist paradigms. his humility, his intellectual openness and his commitment to making sure that the work that we do in higher education is of value to the professions, to businesses, to communities became his life’s work. he wanted to make sure that the work that faculty did was recognized, validated, legitimized by policies and reward systems within the academy. how he engaged and moved this work forward was a role model for community-engaged scholarship. he modeled the values that drive our community-engaged scholarship, values of reciprocity, mutuality, respect for others, disrupting traditional knowledge hierarchies and epistemologies. he modeled those values in his work with junior scholars. 29 ernest did not claim that institutions should follow certain value systems or that he, in his position of privilege and power, should act and behave in another way. the values he demonstrated were the value systems driving the co-generation of knowledge, helping higher education have greater impact in in businesses or professions, the values that he said were essential to advance that work in authentic ways. ernest’s way of doing this work speaks to me through conversations with his closest colleagues, in ways that renew my commitment to how community engagement work can happen and should happen, the importance of processes that mirror the values that drive community-engaged scholarship. therefore, as leaders and scholars, and thinkers in civic and community engagement, how are we living, modeling ernest and carla lynton’s legacy of inclusion, participation, epistemic equality, and not privileging one epistemological or methodological paradigm over another? how are we being inclusive and respectful in our own practices within higher education, with one another? how are we attending to the process and methods by which we do this work? lessons i have learned about ernest’s life behind the scholarship and publications has reinvigorated my commitment to these values. ernest’s partnership with his dear wife carla, their opening up of their home, and the inclusive nature of their approach speaks to me and my commitment to finding ways that this work of advancing community engaged scholarship continues to attend to the processes by which we attempt to advance the work. how do we advance this work together? how do we validate one another? how do we legitimize the contributions of students, community partners, staff, and faculty of all ranks? how do we make space for the next generation of community engaged scholars and institutional change agents? how are we space makers in ways that we are helping the next generation attend to how we do the work, as much as what work is being done? how do we not perpetuate traditional, hierarchical paradigms? how do we advance value systems that are more respectful, collaborative, and lifting up of one another? ernest mentored and encouraged the next generation of institutional change agents through his work with barbara, amy, lorliee, deb, cathy, and later kerry ann. in turn they have had great influence on me and the way i remember and attend to the value drivers in this work. the lynton award helps encourage recipients to attend to not only the ‘what’ of the work they are advancing, but the ‘how’ of that work. all this is part of ernest’s legacy. i hope to advance it further, by sharing this special issue with you all. our responsibilities as individuals and colleagues are to be generous with our time, to be curious in our intellect, to be impatient with injustices, to want to change existing institutional paradigms and policies that promote epistemic injustice that devalue and delegitimize the work of some over others. 30 timeline: ernest, family and significant dates in german history year date loewenstein family 1769 loew lippmann loewenstein born (ernest’s great, great grandfather) teacher i steinback near schwaebisch hall. ernest’s great, great grandmother was ester (daughter of abraham moyses simon rimon and kela in oettingen ernest’s great, great, great grandparents) 1850 ernest’s great, great grandfather, loew, dies. 1852 oct 26 naphtali loewenstein, ernest’s grandfather born in oedheim, works as a banker in stuttgart. 1863 may 26 emilie wormser, ernest’s paternal grandmother, born in aldingen, near stuttgart. 1895 jun 28 martha luise kiefe (ernest’s mother) born near stuttgart. 1889 aug arthur jakob (ernest’s father born, stuttgart, germany) 1912 arthur publishes a book on banking (possibly his doctoral thesis) 1920 april 16 ernest’s brother, max-otto ludwig loewenstein, is born. 1922 arthur named head of a major german car manufacturer. loewenstein family moves from stuttgart to berlin 1923 aug 5 naphatali (ernest’s grandfather) dies in stuttgart. 1923 hitler goes to prison after the failed “beer hall putsch.” 1924 may 16 emilie (ernest’s grandmother) dies in stuttgart. 1924 hitler is released from prison, gains popular support. 1926 july 17 ernest is born in charlottenburg, berlin, germany 1933 hitler and nazi party win election and attain full power. 1933 mark, age 13, goes to school in france. ernest is six years old. 1935 nuremberg laws strip rights from jews. 1935 ernest is nine. his family leaves berlin for amsterdam. 1936 mark goes to cheltenham, england. ernest is ten years old. 1938 nov 9 kristallnacht—beginning of the holocaust 1939 german invasions of poland. the second world war begins. 1940 may 10 germany invades the netherlands. 1941 august ernest’s family evacuate to lisbon on the steamship mouzinho. 1941 sept 2 ernest’s family arrive at ellis island. 1941 ernest and his parents reside in new york, new york. 1943 one year of college carnegie institute of technology. 31 year date ernest lynton 1944 dec 19 enlists for u.s. military service as a private. 1945 feb 20 petitions for naturalization while stationed in florida. 1945 sept 2 world war ii ends. 1946 brother max, now mark lynton, rejoins family in new york. 1951 earns a doctorate in physics from yale. postdoctoral fellowship in leiden university, amsterdam. 1952 joins the physics department at rutgers. 1953 marries carla kaufmann in new york city. 1962 authors superconductivity. 1962 his father arthur dies in new york city. 1964 founding dean of livingston college, rutgers. 1969 livingston college opens to 500 students. 1973 senior vp for academic affairs, university of massachusetts. 1980 commonwealth professor of physics, u. of massachusetts. 1982 publishes corporate education: college opportunity. 1983 joins the john mccormack institute for public affairs. 1983 publishes a crisis of purpose: reexamining the role of the university, and the economic impact of higher education. 1984 his mother martha dies in new york city. 1984 authors the missing connection between business and the universities. 1984 march presents the post-industrial university: new structures for new missions at the national conference on higher education 1987 authors with sandra elman new priorities for the university. 1988 co-founds the new england resource center, with zelda gamson. 1989 founding of coalition of urban & metropolitan universities. 1990 first editor of metropolitan universities journal. 1994 authors knowledge and scholarship. 1995 authors making the case for professional service. 1996 retires as editor of metropolitan universities journal 1998 dies in brookline, ma. laid to rest in wakefield, ma. 1999 publication of making outreach visible, co-authored with amy driscoll. 32 references boyer, e. l. (1987) college. the undergraduate experience in america. new york. harper and row publishers. boyer, e. l. (1990) scholarship reconsidered. princeton: the carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching. driscoll, a. & lynton, e.a. (1999). making outreach visible: a guide to documenting professional service and outreach. ed 441392. washington, dc: american association for higher education (aahe). retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ed441392.pdf hann, c. (2012 spring). great expectations. rutgers magazine. retrieved from http://ucmweb.rutgers.edu/magazine/archive1013/features/spring-2012/great-expectations hidalgo, h. (1973). no one model american: a collegiate case in point. the journal of teacher education, 24 (4), 294-301. as cited in livingston alumni association. (2017). early history: 1960s and 1970s. retrieved from http://livingstonalumni.org/early-history-1960s-and-1970s hirsch, d. (2000) ernest lynton remembered. journal of higher education outreach and engagement, 6 (1), 57-59. retrieved from http://openjournals.libs.uga.edu/index.php/jheoe/article/view/237 hathaway, c. e., mulhollan, p. e., & white, k. a. (1990 spring). metropolitan universities: models for the twenty-first century. metropolitan universities, 1 (1), 9-20. retrieved from https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/muj/article/view/19023 lynton, e. a. & sandra e. elman. (1987). new priorities for the university: meeting society's needs for applied knowledge and competent individuals. san francisco: jossey-bass. lynton, e. a. (1996a). ensuring the quality of outreach: the critical role of evaluating individual and collective initiatives and performance. journal of public service and outreach, 1(2), 16-22. lynton, e. a. (1995a). making the case for professional service, washington d.c: american association for higher education (aahe).) lynton, e. a. (1996b). reversing the telescope: viewing individual activities within a collective context. metropolitan universities, 7 (3), 41-45. retrieved from https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/muj/article/view/19571 lynton, e. a., (1996c). from berlin to brookline. unpublished. lynton, e. a. (1983 october). a crisis of purpose: reexamining the role of the university. change, 15 (7), 18-23. https://doi.org/10.1080/00091383.1983.10570016 https://doi.org/10.1080/00091383.1983.10570016 33 lynton, e. a. (1984). the missing connection between business and the universities. american council on education/macmillan series on higher education. new york: macmillan publishing co. lynton, e.a. (1989). higher education and american competitiveness. working paper series: the federal role in education. new york: national center on education and the economy. lynton e.a. & elman, s. e. (1987). new priorities for the university. san francisco, california: jossey-bass inc. lynton, e. a. (1991) from the editor’s desk. metropolitan universities, 2 (2), 2-3. retrieved from https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/muj/article/view/19198 lynton, e. a. (1994a summer). knowledge and scholarship. metropolitan universities, 5 (1), 917. retrieved from https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/muj/article/view/19385 lynton, e. a. (1994b). the changing nature of universities. new england journal of public policy, 10 (1), 241-250. retrieved from https://scholarworks.umb.edu/nejpp/vol10/iss1/21/ lynton, m. (1995). accidental journey: a cambridge internee’s memoir of world war ii. woodstock, ny: overlook publishers. saltmarsh, j., ward, e., & clayton, p. (2011). profiles of public engagement: findings from the ernest a. lynton award for the scholarship of engagement for early career faculty. nerche report. new england resource center for higher education, university of massachusetts, boston. ward, e. (2010). women’s ways of engagement: an exploration of gender, the scholarship of engagement and institutional reward policy and practice. doctoral dissertation. university of massachusetts, boston. shiva, v. (2016), biopiracy: the plunder of nature and knowledge. berkeley, ca: north atlantic books. saltmarsh, j. (2016). ernest lynton and the tyranny of research. journal of higher education outreach and engagement, 20 (1), 45-52. retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ej1097205.pdf 34 author information elaine ward, ed.d. merrimack college 315 turnpike street north andover, ma 01845 telephone: (978) 837-3572 email: warde@merrimack.edu for almost ten years, dr. ward has worked with faculty nominees and recipients of the ernest a. lynton award for the scholarship of engagement for early career faculty, served as the award coordinator and has chaired and co-chaired the annual lynton colloquium. dr. ward writes and teaches on the institutionalization of civic and community engagement within higher education as is co-editor of the book publicly engaged scholars: next generation engagement and the future of higher education (2016). dr. ward was also one of the leads on the international pilot of the carnegie elective community engagement classification in ireland. dr. ward has served on the board of the international association for research on service learning and community engagement and was the conference program chair in 2016, reaffirming our purpose, bridging our understandings & broadening our collective impact. currently, dr. ward is an assistant professor of higher education at merrimack college, school of education and social policy. mailto:warde@merrimack.edu microsoft word v2.23808-article text-41060-1-11-20200720 new(1).docx original research © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23808 | july 20, 2020 92 from transactional to transformational: drexel university and aramark collaborate on mission jennifer britton1, jami leveen2, don liberati3, and anna d’isidoro4 1 office of university & community partnerships, drexel university, 2 communications and strategic partnerships, aramark, 3department of business services, drexel university, and 4 office of university & community partnerships, drexel university cite as: britton, j., leveen, j., liberati, d. and d’isidoro, a. (2020). from transactional to transformational: drexel university and aramark collaborate on mission. metropolitan universities, 31(2), 92-110. doi: 10.18060/23808 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract this analysis of the supplier relationship between drexel university and aramark offers a demonstration of the potential for intensifying an anchor institution’s local economic inclusion strategies by leveraging the economic power of supplier partnerships. the operation of a major food service contract represents a substantial set of campus jobs and procurement, but this economic activity often remains outside the remit of economic inclusion efforts when the institution has no contractual influence over it. when an anchor institution can partner with a major supplier that shares a commitment to community impact, it offers opportunities to strengthen an anchor strategy. this article describes how drexel university and aramark used their campus food service relationship to deepen drexel’s anchor mission and core strategic priorities and aramark’s enterprise sustainability agenda, including the value of the negotiation process, and a set of outcomes in the form of initiatives in food insecurity, local economic inclusion and community engagement, research and technology transfer, and student co-op employment. both the relationship building process and its outcomes offer a model for other institutions as they look to leverage the untapped economic activity of the major service suppliers. keywords: anchor strategy, enterprise sustainability, procurement, auxiliary services © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23808 | july 20, 2020 93 introduction there is an accelerating movement in higher education as an increasing number of institutions are establishing an “anchor mission” to more intentionally invest in the communities in which they are embedded. many of these institutions are looking for tools and strategies that can move them to a next step beyond the impact of business activities like direct hiring and purchasing. strategic collaboration with major suppliers can enrich and deepen an ambitious anchor mission, multiplying the mission’s scope and reach. additionally, when suppliers have their own enterprise sustainability goals, there is mutual benefit when they are open to exploring a deeper relationship with clients that are embedded in community. drexel university and its campus food service supplier, aramark, have built a mission-driven collaboration that reaches beyond the traditional boundaries of institutional contracting to deepen and enrich the commitment that each organization has to the communities in which they are embedded. drexel has articulated a clear set of policies and practices regarding the university’s direct purchasing in the west philadelphia communities surrounding its campus, but the purchasing and hiring done by suppliers chosen for major service contracts has represented a segment of institutional economic investment that has been largely out of the university’s control. drexel used the opportunity of a change in food service providers to build expectations for local purchasing, social impact activity, student participation in food research, and student access to cooperative education employment positions into a new contract, and the early results are promising. this analysis builds on existing work that describes the mechanisms of higher education anchor strategies and it represents a meeting point between literature and scholarship that examines corporate social responsibility and sustainable supply chain management. this study addresses a gap in the literature where these issues overlap: when colleges and universities collaborate on civic-mission-driven goals with their major suppliers. for professionals in higher education who are responsible for advancing an anchor strategy in their institution, it offers an example of a successful process that may be extrapolated to other settings. the drexel-aramark partnership demonstrates how universities and their major service suppliers can leverage their relationships with one another to deepen their respective mission-driven work. the lessons learned about collaboration are informed by the perspectives of the authors who participate in crafting and supporting drexel’s anchor mission and in negotiating and cultivating aramark’s food service contract with the university. these lessons represent the authors’ reflections on the implications of such institutional relationships for advancing an anchor mission beyond the powerful but limited scope of direct purchasing. the analysis and supporting evidence offered here is based on the direct shared experiences of the authors in this process, and conversations with other participants. the facets of the relationship and negotiating process © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23808 | july 20, 2020 94 chosen for description here are featured for their relevance to the intersection of these two organizations’ community-facing missions. background drexel university and aramark in 2010, with the arrival of university president john fry, drexel established a plan to align the institution’s core functions with a civic engagement mission (fry, 2010). established in 1891, drexel is a private university located in west philadelphia, with more than 26,000 students. it is known for its emphasis on cooperative education, or “co-op,” in which students participate in up to 18 months of work experience as part of their graduation requirements. having identified three dimensions in which an institution of higher education could carry out a civic engagement mission, drexel has been developing strategies not only around its (a) academic mission; (b) its volunteer power; and (c) its operational and business functions, how the university hires workers, purchases needed goods and services, and builds and renovates buildings and spaces. drexel further articulates a mission as an anchor institution by recognizing an obligation to the neighbors, communities, and other stakeholders located in the west philadelphia neighborhoods near the university city campus (office of university and community partnerships [ucp], n.d). this work is supported and centrally coordinated by the ucp. ucp incorporates a number of community engagement functions including: (a) the lindy center for civic engagement, which handles traditional student engagement as well as pedagogical supports for faculty; (b) the dornsife center for neighborhood partners, which is a neighborhood-based resource center inspired by cooperative extension; (c) an economic inclusion team who focus on local workforce access and small business support; and (d) a suite of early and k-12 education initiatives. drexel’s administrative departments like human resources, procurement services, and business services are also drivers of the civic engagement work, especially as related to institutional investment, and ucp works closely with them to achieve local economic inclusion goals. in the case of the aramark relationship, business services and procurement services took the lead, with ucp acting as a support resource. as drexel has refined its approach to using the university’s business expenditures to direct investment into west philadelphia, it became apparent that there were untapped opportunities to deepen the anchor mission, namely through major service contracts. outsourced business relationships for services like food, vending, and security represent economic activity on campus, jobs and purchasing, mainly, over which drexel had not previously asserted influence. by rethinking the approach to such contract negotiations with fresh expectations regarding economic inclusion values and access for students, drexel could unlock a set of opportunities for community stakeholders and for its academic mission. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23808 | july 20, 2020 95 with a corporate headquarters situated in center city philadelphia, just across the schuylkill river from drexel, aramark is a food, facilities management, and uniform provider serving clients like fortune 500 companies, major sports teams, healthcare providers, educational institutions, iconic destinations and cultural attractions, and numerous municipalities in 19 countries around the world. aramark has roughly 270,000 employees and the company prides itself on its innovative approach to the services it offers, as well as on a comprehensive enterprise sustainability strategy. aramark identifies employee engagement, empowering healthy living, environmental sustainability, and local community investment as the main features of its enterprise sustainability strategy. the strength of the program has netted the company recognition as one of fortune’s “world’s most admired companies” (fortune, n.d.) and as an employer of choice by the human rights campaign and diversityinc. (diversityinc, n.d.) aramark sums up its goals with the notion of making a positive impact on people and planet: enabling people to prosper on a healthy planet while supporting long-term business growth. considering the “people” part of this approach, aramark supports employee wellbeing through an array of benefits and opportunities such as a culture of employee volunteerism, wellness benefits, a front-line education program, and a suite of employee health support services; the company likewise considers the wellbeing of its consumers through a range of healthful food offerings. strategies for local, ethical, and inclusive sourcing act as a mechanism for communitylevel investment. for the “planet” side, the company reduces its environmental footprint by sourcing responsibly, operating efficiently, minimizing food waste, and reducing packaging. supplier relationships in context there is a gap in the literature at the intersection of institutional anchor missions and issues of corporate social responsibility and sustainable supply chain management, and we hope to establish a foundation for future work in this area. first, a closer look at philadelphia is useful. in 2014, the city had the highest poverty rate among metropolitan areas with more than one million people. there is a growing need for building local economies that function for all, and inequality, low wages, and underemployment are entrenched in many localities (cles and democracy collaborative, 2019). today, philadelphia relies on educational and medical institutions for much of its employment and economic growth (harkavy, 2016); the city has one of the highest concentrations of anchor institutions in the country, with educational and medical institutions (eds and meds) comprising 12 out of its 15 largest employers. an anchor institution may be defined as an entity with long-standing or permanent ties to a location with no intention of leaving (birch, et al., 2013). at the turn of the 21st century, the term anchor institution was created by economist michael porter who described a major corporation situated in a community that provides area residents with stability through employment and vibrancy. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23808 | july 20, 2020 96 the anchor institution’s landscape is complex. however, when institutional and campus growth fails to take into account the needs of the often-marginalized neighborhoods nearby, it can exacerbate issues like housing affordability, and can drive residential displacement. these kinds of impacts seem at odds with institutional civic engagement work that aims to offer support and resources to organizations and residents in such neighborhoods; it may be the case that a welldeveloped local engagement strategy has followed a period of growth, or that an institution lacks internal coordination among these functions, or in some cases may simply not be concerned with the status of neighboring communities. faced with such tensions between different institutional functions, universities often must reconcile their ambition to expand and grow against a civic mission (thomas-el, 2019). a higher education movement centered in community engagement has surfaced and continues to develop as a mechanism for addressing poverty, racism, gentrification, and health inequity in the communities influenced by these institutions, and in part to address or ameliorate the local impacts of institutional growth. the response has encouraged the advancement of servicelearning, volunteer projects, community economic development initiatives, and communitybased participatory research towards generating mutually beneficial partnerships that deliver positive impact in nearby communities (harkavy, 2016). colleges and universities have an immense potential to be an integral part of community wealth building that prioritizes environmental, social, and economic justice. in this regard, anchor institutions influence the social determinants of health, a framework that looks past individual health to examine the way structural forces such as income, education, and social organization impact a person’s well-being (chinn, 2011). harnessing this potential can influence local economies such that capital, rather than abandoning the area, can be held and regenerated, contributing to the recirculation of income when the economic opportunity, dignity, and safety of communities are prioritized and supported (cles and the democracy collaborative). researchers suggest that, despite this inherent potential, what may sometimes be lacking is “a deep and intentional drive to maximize the potential of [the institution as an anchor]” (cles and the democracy collaborative). this prompts the question: how vigorously committed are anchor institutions to their role as agents of economic and social change? to what extent do they leverage the tools available to them to advance an anchor mission? the analysis provided here illustrates how drexel turned a major supplier relationship into one such tool. institutions, then, that embrace such a commitment can engage their corporate partners in deepening this economic mission. foundational corporate social responsibility (csr) literature points to csr as “the obligations of businessmen [sic] to pursue those policies, make those decisions, or follow those lines of action which are desirable in terms of objective and values of our society (bowen, 1953). walton (1967) establishes that “social responsibility recognizes the intimacy of the relationships between corporation and society and realizes that such relationships © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23808 | july 20, 2020 97 must be kept in mind by top managers as the corporation and the related groups pursue their respective goals.” the three pillars of csr, clients, people, and community, aim to put humans and the planet first through intentionally operating in social, environmental, and economic responsibility (peterson, 2019). when major business partners with csr agendas can connect with anchor institutions working to establish strong connections with surrounding communities, impacts may be multiplied. this requires strategic systems thinking: who are the players? what are the incentives? what policies and procedures are in place that limit how anchor institutions and their business partners can procure from community businesses? (clarke, 2017). system mapping can aid anchor institutions in understanding how to shift functions and structure to be more purposeful in their operations, routines, values, relationships, and resources (clarke, 2017). some research suggests that anchor institutions can use sustainable supply chain management (sscm) as an avenue to further disseminate their missions through corporate partnerships. a supply chain is defined as “a dynamic process that includes the continuous flow of materials, funds and information across multiple functional areas within and between chain members” (jain et al., 2009). from an organizational perspective, the contributions to interorganizational relationships have been made through transaction costs and later complemented by contracting verbiage and the consideration for social change (rodríguez-lópez et al., 2017). research places an emphasis on the importance of early-formed relationships, trust, and dependence between organizations for their capacity to enhance innovation. it is suggested that a feedback process favoring communication, dependency, and trust ultimately allows partnered companies to establish a cycle of improving business results from better supplier relationships (rodríguezlópez et al., 2017). these factors may inform various institutional pressures in order to navigate other powerful organizations, missions and entities upon which anchor institutions depend, and the desire to fulfill the obligation an anchor institution has to its community (sayed, et al., 2007). snyder (2019) advocates for a new social contract in supply chains, one that furthers a business’s self-interest and, at the same time, considers others. contractual parties can serve as moral agents to show and act on human compassion. sayed further suggests that supply contracts are sets of promises, an inherently moral act (snyder, 2019). sscm illustrates that participating parties have the opportunity to learn and grow together, to adjust their relationship as needed, and to build upon a shared purpose. in the new social contract that snyder supports, anchor institutions and corporations can use their partnerships as a way to achieve greater economic efficiency while simultaneously working toward shared moral pledges. in the drexel-aramark relationship that we discuss here, there is an explicit moral purpose that drives both aramark’s enterprise sustainability strategy and drexel’s development of a comprehensive anchor mission. discussion drexel and aramark formed a relationship in 2016 when drexel invited aramark to take over campus food services, and the relationship has been evolving through a set of distinct phases. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23808 | july 20, 2020 98 this discussion is arranged in a rough chronology of the development and negotiation process through which drexel and aramark set up an operating agreement and set of initiatives that have served to advance both drexel’s anchor mission and aramark’s community commitments. with each successive phase, from the fast launch through formalizing basic contractual needs, and from exploring options for building on the basics through the emergence of four distinct initiatives, the potential of this supplier relationship as a strategic tool deepened. in this analysis, the importance of intentional trust building over the course of ongoing contract negotiation and management is critically important, and while processes with major suppliers at other institutions may unfold in different ways, in this reflection the time that it took over the course of these four phases to forge a trusting working relationship has been instrumental. establishing a new business relationship because of a disruption with a prior food service provider, aramark arrived in the middle of an academic year and launched its presence at drexel without a contract in place. once aramark was able to establish routine operations, the contract negotiation proceeded. drexel understood that the first priority was to ensure that aramark was well integrated into the campus culture. from drexel’s point of view, the first 18 months of the relationship largely focused on aramark getting comfortable with the campus, acclimating to the drexel culture, and ensuring that the core dining program met students’ needs. a food service supplier is the university’s largest direct service provider to students. food service is a high-touch relationship that has significant impact on the campus living experience, especially for first-year students, so getting this right is critical for the university, and doubly so because the food service supplier is providing nutrition to students who largely live in rooms that do not have full kitchens and, therefore, often cannot cook for themselves. for its part, aramark understood its goal as providing quality food and creating a positive student experience that would support academic success while also enabling clients to attract and retain students and talent, to operate efficiently, and to grow effectively. a long-time leader in the higher education market, aramark has an understanding of what students are looking for in a food service experience. when the relationship with drexel started in 2016, aramark was eager to work with drexel to reimagine the campus dining experience and what a deeper and more collaborative relationship could look like. accordingly, the early days of the relationship were focused on the immediate need to get the student dining program stabilized. over the subsequent negotiating process of several months, however, a deep and lasting collaboration emerged, and a range of opportunities were uncovered where collaboration could flourish. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23808 | july 20, 2020 99 building mutual trust and identifying opportunities through contract negotiation developing a business relationship of this scope requires significant effort, and building relationships across negotiating teams takes time. for drexel and aramark, the process fostered mutual trust and created space for developing new ideas. both teams felt it was critical in the first year to establish a foundation of developing common standards, common vernacular, and shared goals and expectations. drexel’s business services team, which commonly handles major service contracts relating to campus life and student services, and the aramark local and regional teams enacted this first level of relationship building through a series of regularly occurring project meetings to ensure strong lines of communication regarding the core dining program. a food service contract is a complex agreement addressing service, student satisfaction, financial performance for both organizations, and insurance and standard-of-care requirements. the process of developing a contract allows both organizations to set specific performance goals and expectations for each other. during the first year of operation, an internal agreement incorporated the basics of the dining program, but as contract negotiation between drexel and aramark played out, opportunities emerged to set broader goals around the general nature of the relationship. after the initial year, as operations stabilized following the rapid launch, and the core functions of the dining program were being met, the teams felt confident about looking for ways to take the relationship to the next level, moving beyond the day-to-day core program management and thinking about how to operationalize a set of broader goals. the complexity of aramark’s business presented significant opportunities for drexel to leverage the relationship. as a normal part of business operations, aramark purchases food and supplies, hires individuals to work at dining locations, hires and trains individuals to be managers and supervisors, and deploys volunteers. at the same time, drexel was actively thinking about how to deepen the relationship with its key suppliers as part of a larger institution-wide commitment to economic inclusion and local economic development, a buy and hire local strategy. the timing was right to figure out a way to work together to achieve broader impact. in addition to the core program requirements that were detailed in the contract and were standard for comparable service contracts, drexel introduced the idea of support for key university initiatives including local economic inclusion and support for drexel’s strategic priorities around food insecurity, student co-op, community engagement, and licensing and technology transfer. while the focus on these strategic priorities was somewhat ambiguous in initial 2016 contract negotiations, the respective teams have spent time during 2018 and 2019 defining, in more detail, where aramark and drexel can work together most effectively around food and jobs. eventually © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23808 | july 20, 2020 100 enshrined in the contract was a set of best effort expectations for aramark to align with drexel’s local investment strategies along with reporting and evaluation requirements. from higher ed nuts and bolts to strategic contracting: auxiliary services as relationship builder when developing a business relationship like this, the role of a university’s auxiliary services department is critical. an auxiliary services department sits between university administrators and various suppliers, including those for food service, and often acts as both a translator and a connector. inside the institution, the various organizational structures contiguous to auxiliary services can tend to favor goals that lean towards the poles of either the contract compliance and financial delivery or the student experience. auxiliary services can help balance the two priorities. the auxiliary services department of a university typically oversees services and programs that serve as the backbone to the university and the student experience. its name depends on the institution, including auxiliary services, business services, campus services, and university services. the portfolio often varies among different universities, but it traditionally includes the main service-providing contracts like dining, vending, the bookstore, and mail services. the auxiliary services portfolio may also include housing, parking, licensing and trademarks, the identification card program, student centers, and real estate. at drexel, this office is known as business services. drexel’s business services delivers a set of programs and services essential to students and employees, aiming to foster dynamic campus destinations and community relationships. business services administers campus dining, vending and retail, dragoncard services and the dragondollars program, on-campus parking services, and mail service. business services’ approach to balancing financial delivery and student satisfaction was to first consider how to best advocate on behalf of the institution and students as drexel and aramark began negotiations. looking at internal business practices and at how peer institutions operate, it became clear that the best way to support drexel’s broader strategic initiatives in this partnership was to start small. local hiring, shared in more detail below, is an example of starting small. although the impact was substantial, a local hiring strategy was relatively easy for aramark to implement, and candidate recruitment fit into a structure already developed by drexel. additionally, it made sense to look for ways to weave aramark’s current business practices into initiatives that already existed at drexel. business services spent time meeting with the drexel departments that had a stake in the aramark relationship, including student life, the office of university and community partnerships, and procurement services to better understand their goals in order to better inform conversations with aramark with these interests in mind. with a © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23808 | july 20, 2020 101 contract in place, part of the work was to then connect the right people in each organization to generate project development around the shared priority areas. local hiring is an example of this approach in practice. the opportunities in this area were clear: aramark hires many people each year, and drexel is committed to creating economic opportunity and access to jobs for west philadelphians. in addition, aramark offers jobs with fair starting wages and benefits, which meets another of drexel’s goals to not simply generate local jobs but to facilitate career pathways with family sustaining wages. launching a collaborative local-hire effort meant first consulting with drexel’s economic inclusion team who, under the auspices of the office of university and community partnerships, coordinate workforce access and small business support programming focused on west philadelphia. business services needed to understand their engagement process, how they prepare jobseekers for interviews and working, and how they support employers. the next step was to engage with the aramark on-site human resources team to understand their process and hiring rhythms, followed by bringing the teams together. mapping contract negotiation around core priorities in contract negiations, suppliers may sometimes be faced with a range of client requests to support various intiatives over and above the core deliverables of the contract itself, and this can be especially true in the higher education space. one of the most effective practices over the past year in the drexel-aramark relationship has been making the connection to the university’s strategic opportunities a frequent and regular part of the ongoing conversation. the drexel team looked for opportunities to connect various initiatives at drexel to the core dining program rather than asking for investments that felt like extras unrelated to that service. this has been a useful lesson and one that drexel now considers in all of its significant supplier relationships. an additional factor in this relationship building has been attention to the intersections between the wants and needs of the students and the broader goals of the university. students and parents are increasingly asking for more when it comes to what a university dining program can offer. of course, they want great food that is served by a friendly staff, but they also increasingly care about where the food is sourced, how the program impacts the local community, and how the institution’s food service supplier supports their school’s educational mission as well as alumni businesses. these expectations overlap with drexel’s anchor mission. ongoing work to connect key personnel at aramark to researchers at drexel in, for example, food and hospitality, has generated opportunities that support student learning, healthful food choices, and local purchasing, opportunities that are now fully realized and offer benefits to the core campus dining program. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23808 | july 20, 2020 102 the payoff to building mutual trust: enriching mission-driven initiatives as in any relationship, there have been challenges with the drexel-aramark partnership. at times, drexel and aramark have had difficult conversations about contract deliverables, and about how to address any inadequacies that may arise. in the end, though, when trust is established and there is mutual respect in day-to-day communication, it is easier to overcome occasional disagreements and problems. in instances of any contractual dissatisfaction, problem, or crisis, drexel’s business services office takes the approach of continued conversation. whether with aramark or any other major service supplier, proactively getting ahead of problems and taking a position of transparency has served well for supplier relationships. when drexel communicates operational changes to the supplier as soon as a new need or problem emerges, along with a candid assessment of the institution’s needs, it helps the supplier make any adjustments they need to implement in their service delivery. further, preventing these problems being conveyed as surprises serves the project of trust building. as drexel and its suppliers weather the covid-19 crisis that has profoundly disrupted campus service contracts, the negotiating teams are leaning on this established atmosphere of forthright communication about evolving needs on the part of both drexel and aramark to lay the groundwork for an eventual service recovery. jointly, the teams realize that they are in a long-term relationship and that all share an interest in great outcomes for students and for each organization. the slow and intentional process of planning, and especially planning around mission, contributed to this atmosphere of trust between drexel and aramark. with that foundation, each has been able to take risks on missionrelated initiatives that have fed back into the success of the process. a working group with executives from both organizations has identified four key priorities for project and initiative development in addition to the core dining program: • drexel and aramark will address food insecurity on campus. there is a growing number of students who are food insecure, and aramark is uniquely positioned to provide guidance and support in this area. • drexel and aramark will align initiatives and resources around local economic inclusion and community engagement. aramark has several programs currently funded and being deployed that can be leveraged to create immediate impact in the neighborhoods surrounding drexel. • drexel and aramark will work together on technology development and finding places where academics, research, and industry intersect, with the drexel food lab work observed as a prime example. • aramark will get engaged in the drexel co-op program. as an international employer, aramark has an opportunity to provide rich and deep co-op opportunities for drexel students that can become a pipeline of talent into their organization. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23808 | july 20, 2020 103 these areas of emphasis, the teams believed, would allow drexel and aramark to reach beyond the traditional food service vendor transactions to develop a deeper relationship and create impact for philadelphia communities while delivering benefits for both student learning and aramark’s sustainability goals. addressing food insecurity many college students across the united states face food insecurity (payne-sturges, tjaden, & caldeira, 2017), lacking consistent access to the nutrition they need to lead a healthy life, with implications on their academic performance. when contract negotiations launched with drexel, aramark already had a set of practices in place to address student food insecurity. for example, the company is a research and development funder of swipe out hunger, a student-led movement to end college hunger, and it also supports the hope center for college, community, and justice at temple university, an action research center focused on access to healthy food on college campuses. aramark had also implemented the following practices in dozens of campus locations: • the food donation program provides gets unused and unserved food to qualified nonprofit organizations, including student groups and the local campus community. • aramark donates funds, food items, or space to a number of university-managed food pantries. • aramark works with organizations like swipe out hunger to facilitate the transfer of student meal swipes and leftover dining plan dollars to peers in need. with these practices already a part of aramark operations in other locations, there was an opportunity to connect the work of drexel undergraduate student and now-alumnus evan ehlers to this supplier partnership. ehlers leads a non-profit called sharing excess, which focuses on food insecurity on the drexel campus and around philadelphia, as well as building a model for other institutions to follow (sharing excess, n.d.). drexel’s business services team connected ehlers with key personnel at aramark to explore how aramark could support this initiative. the outcome, an agreement with aramark to support a student meal swipe donation process, has been an important piece of how sharing excess works. ehlers notes of the relationship with aramark: after nearly two years of collaboration and planning with drexel and aramark, we implemented a sustainable program that could anonymously redistribute donated guest meal swipes to students in need. in the first hour that we launched the program, we received over 240 meal swipe donations. what started out as an idea in my mind has evolved into an effective solution to a very real problem © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23808 | july 20, 2020 104 thanks to the support of drexel and aramark. together, we are now achieving our shared vision of no student ever going hungry on campus. (e. ehlers, personal communication, november 11, 2019) aramark’s support for sharing excess, brokered by business services, represents an intertwining of food service, a basic institutional function, with student learning outcomes and achievements, a focus on community impact and greater good, as well as the student life cycle experience of an entrepreneurial alumnus. local economic inclusion and community engagement in late 2018, business services and aramark launched a pilot small batch purchasing program with the enterprise center (tec), a west philadelphia business development nonprofit that houses a commercial kitchen and business support services for local food entrepreneurs. this small batch program created an opportunity for tec’s small suppliers to provide food services and products to aramark for integration into drexel’s on-campus dining program. this arrangement speaks to aramark’s interest in integrating the goals of strategic sourcing, supply chain sustainability, and supplier diversity inclusion, while also supporting drexel’s anchor mission to increase campus purchasing with west philadelphia businesses. the business case for the connection comes from satisfying student interest in the kinds of locally produced and culturally relevant food products that tec can provide. for aramark, implementing a relationship with tec meant moving away from a traditional transactional supplier/provider relationship. exploratory conversations looked for places where tec’s objectives could provide value for drexel’s dining program, and they uncovered opportunities where aramark could not only purchase products and services from tec’s culinary members, but also help their entrepreneurs build exposure and capacity around the drexel campus. since the program began, tec’s local and minority-owned businesses and their products have been featured in catering menus, residential dining, special events on campus, and a bi-weekly farm stand for students with dining plans. tec’s vice president kim carter has facilitated major institutional food service connections with the culinary entrepreneurs that the organization supports, stating “we work with aramark (drexel), sodexo (university of the sciences) and bon appetit (university of pennsylvania)” and three businesses have scaled into a move into center city philadelphia’s reading terminal market thanks to the consistent volume that these connections provided, torityeah, sweet nina, and birdie’s biscuits. as noted by carter, “we currently do weekly business with aramark with an average of six vendors: tuck-ins, sweet nina, jillian bakes, birdies biscuits, shop sho’s granola, amira delights, brightland coffee, tortiyeah and kakemi. the vendors sell at retail location on campus and at the farm stand” (k. carter, personal communication, november 11, 2019). © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23808 | july 20, 2020 105 carter also notes, “the relationship with drexel and aramark has been a game changer for the small local businesses. it has provided the vendors with consistent revenue and exposure to a new demographic. this relationship provides an opportunity to sell to universities and their food service companies. it also provides local food options, provided by small businesses, to students. the vendors feel at ease with working with drexel and are enjoying the opportunity to engage with the students.” carter identifies important impacts of aramark’s small batch purchasing program, including supporting the west philadelphia economy, revenue for small and local businesses, job creation, and supporting minority and women-owned businesses. she further points to an additional pond-ripple, stating “the tec vendors shop locally, so the program has an extended impact in the surrounding communities” (k. carter, personal communication, november 11, 2019). the scale of aramark’s local purchasing suggests the potential for further developing this priority; aramark’s total purchasing in philadelphia zip codes during fiscal year 2019 on the drexel account alone added up to roughly $3.5 million, representing 48% of its total spend on the account. as noted, along with its emphasis on local purchasing, drexel also focuses on local hiring as part of its set of anchor strategies, and the aramark contract offered the opportunity to deepen the commitment to workforce access for west philadelphia jobseekers. following a process that included developing an understanding of aramark’s personnel needs, business services facilitated a handoff of aramark’s site hiring managers to drexel’s economic inclusion team, and the first material outcome of the collaboration has been a joint job fair during the summer of 2019. ultimately, 15 new associates joined the aramark at drexel team as food service workers, cashiers, utility workers, and catering attendants. in addition to linking with drexel’s local purchasing and hiring priorities, aramark has aligned some of its existing community commitments with drexel’s volunteerism and service and education access priorities in west philadelphia. the global volunteer program aramark building community engages chefs, dietitians, and other employees to help families learn about and gain access to healthy food, support local community centers, and offer hospitality and food related career skill-building. aramark employees at drexel have participated in aramark building community day since 2017 with more than a dozen employees volunteering each year. the team has hosted food drives, collecting 161 pounds of food to support the regional food access organization philabundance, and in 2018 and 2019, employee volunteers created hundreds of craft kits in partnership with project sunshine for children receiving treatment at local hospitals. aramark has also aligned its aramark ignite program, funded by aramark corporation and administered by the urban league of philadelphia, to support drexel’s goal of providing high © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23808 | july 20, 2020 106 quality education opportunities and career pathways to west philadelphia k-12 students. the program, now entering its second year, provides workforce skills through school-based workshops around college prep and career-readiness. aramark ignite is coordinating with drexel to provide additional resources specifically to students at west philadelphia high school. technology development and research initiatives: drexel food lab the integration of the drexel food lab into drexel’s relationship with aramark is another example of generating outcomes on multiple levels, in this case supporting both student learning and student health. this aspect of the collaboration responds to student customer demand and is an extension of aramark’s initiative with the american heart association to provide “plantforward” menu components. led by jonathan deutsch, professor of culinary arts and food science, the food lab engages culinary arts students in food product development and culinary innovation. under the guidance of culinary arts faculty and professional chefs, food lab students develop recipes and cooking techniques with the goal of creating customized food products for clients. for its collaboration with the food lab, aramark developed a creative brief that shaped the syllabus for a culinary arts course. aramark then invited the students to the company’s philadelphia headquarters to work in the innovation center development kitchen where aramark chefs shared their standard development process with the students. from providing hands-on opportunities to developing new recipes to spending time in a commercial kitchen, the chefs and students were deeply engaged in the learning process. this provided an enhanced learning experience for the students while also generating a deep and meaningful impact with the development chefs by giving them the opportunity to connect with new perspectives and to share their expertise and experience. one graduate-level product development course created a set of menu items that have since been rolled into aramark’s vegetarian and vegan portfolio, becoming part of aramark’s larger effort to satisfy an increasing demand for plant-based meals. as a result of this partnership, three vegetarian sandwiches developed by drexel students were piloted in drexel’s dining hall, a buffalo cauliflower wrap, a grilled portobello mushroom sandwich, and a roasted beet salad and goat cheese sandwich, which are now also part of aramark’s menu database for their higher education, healthcare, and business dining clients. drexel co-op and aramark drexel is known for its co-op program, which enables students to explore career options and to gain real-world, paid experience in their fields ahead of graduation. during 2019, there has been significant effort by both organizations to identify a set of co-op opportunities throughout the © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23808 | july 20, 2020 107 aramark system. given aramark’s scale and complexity as an organization, they are poised to become a key strategic partner for drexel in this area. aramark currently employs two student co-ops onsite at drexel's campus, and are looking to expand that number at their global headquarters. the goal is to add up to 10 positions in departments throughout the organization, including information technology, marketing, communications, accounting, and other areas. the positions support the corporate team and help develop future talent in philadelphia. aramark wants students to walk away from the experience with potential employment contacts in its college hire program, which offers resources like career counseling and resume advice, and hands-on experience in projects that are vital to the day-to-day functioning of aramark’s workplace. through this co-op arrangement with aramark, one of the largest local employers in the philadelphia market, drexel is able to demonstrate the ways a traditional supplier relationship can be expanded and integrated with the different strategic institutional priorities. the benefits extend beyond student training: the university has a deeper array of co-op positions available to their students while aramark gains access to a well-prepared local talent pipeline. conclusion for universities ready to move beyond direct institutional purchasing in their anchor strategies, this account offers a model for deepening a local anchor strategy in a way that also supports some of the institution’s core priorities around teaching and research. for drexel, the opportunity to collaborate on a mission with aramark has helped launch a high-profile student and alumnidriven food insecurity project. incorporating this major supplier relationship into the anchor strategy for local economic investment has netted access to a swath of new campus jobs for west philadelphia residents, and has generated substantial spend with local food entrepreneurs. the relationship enriches student training through aramark’s work with the drexel food lab while offering student diners a new array of healthful menu choices that have been developed by their own peers. finally, the student co-op connections that are being established with aramark offer a boost to student learning experiences and opportunities. in the process of fostering a deeper and more meaningful relationship with the drexel team, aramark has observed that the company has been able to broaden the depth and breadth of its impact in philadelphia by adding employment and purchasing opportunities and expanding on its community engagement and volunteerism activities. the work to support sharing excess adds value to aramark’s own food insecurity efforts. aramark has benefited from the innovation of drexel students, such as rolling new recipes into their menus, and it anticipates that developing a talent pipeline with drexel will have consistent future payoffs. finally, the process of building © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23808 | july 20, 2020 108 out a mission-focused contract with drexel has created an important template that aramark can use with other university clients. this analysis is limited to one university and one of its suppliers, and while this represents a powerful example, there is much potential for broadening the area of research. comparative studies that consider different types of institutions would offer much to the anchor-mission movement. drexel is a private university with the advantage of a great deal of agility in adjusting its purchasing policies, whereas state and state-affiliated university systems often have significant legislative constraints on purchasing. there is also a place for exploring the implications of this work with corporate suppliers who may not come to a university contract with a well-articulated corporate social responsibility or sustainable supply chain management agenda. in this scenario it will be important to ask: what is the capacity, and what tools are needed for achieving a meaningful contribution to an anchor strategy? © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23808 | july 20, 2020 109 references birch, et al. universities as anchor institutions. journal of higher education outreach and engagement, 17(3), 7-16. 2013. bowen, h.r. social responsibilities of the businessman. new york: harper-row. 1953. centre for local economic strategies and democracy collaborative. health institutions as anchors: establishing proof of concept in the nhs. august 21, 2019. chinn, deborah. critical health literacy: a review and critical analysis. social science & medicine. 73(1), 60-67. july 2011. doi: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.04.004 clarke, brian. anchor institutions: the economic benefits of putting community first. communities & banking; boston 28(2), 12-13. spring 2017. diversityinc. (n.d.). the 2019 diversityinc top 50 companies for diversity. retrieved from https://www.diversityinc.com/the-2019-top-50-diversityinc/ drexel university office of university and community partnerships. (n.d). what is civic engagement? civic engagement is at the heart of our mission as a university. retrieved from https://drexel.edu/civicengagement/about/mission-and-vision/ fry, john a. (october 5, 2010) drexel convocation: remarks by president john a. fry. retrieved from https://drexel.edu/president/messages/speeches/2010/october/convocation-2010/ fortune. (n.d.). world’s most admired companies. retrieved from https://fortune.com/worldsmost-admired-companies/2018 harkavy, ira. engaging urban universities as anchor institutions for health equity. american journal of public health. 106(12), 2155-2157. december 2016. https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.2016.303475 human rights campaign. (n.d.). best places to work 2019. retrieved from https://www.hrc.org/resources/best-places-to-work-2019 jain, et al. select supplier-related issues in modeling a dynamic supply chain: potential, challenges and direction for future research. international journal of production research, 47 (11), 3013-3039. 2009. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207540701769958 © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23808 | july 20, 2020 110 payne-sturges, d., tjaden, a., & caldeira, k. (2017). student hunger on campus: food insecurity among college students and implications for academic institutions. american journal of health promotion 32(2), 349-354. doi: 10.1177/0890117117719620 peterson, paige. the 3 pillars of corporate social responsibility: clients, people, and community. hmc sales, marketing and alliances excellence essentials. october 2019. rodriquez-lopez, et al. exploring quality generating factors in customer-supplier relationships. gospodarka surowcami mineralnymi—mineral resources management 33(4), 157-176. 2017. https://doi.org/10.1515/gospo-2017-0046 sayed, et al. institutional complexity and sustainable supply chain management practices. supply chain management: an international journal. 22(6), 542-563. 2007. https://doi.org/10.1108/scm-10-2016-0365 sharing excess. (n.d.). our story. retrieved from https://www.sharingexcess.com/story snyder, david v. the new social contracts in international supply chains. american university law review. 68(1869). 2019. thomas-el, shawnna laureen. “in my neighborhood, but not for me”: long-standing african american residents’ perceptions of gentrification, anchor institution expansion and the paradox of civic engagement. drexel university. may 2019. walton, c. c. corporate social responsibilities. belmont: wadsworth press. 1967. urban partnerships to address health literacy in high need metropolitan universities vol. 30 no. 2 (june 2019), doi: 10.18060/36893 3 equity and the urban university: introduction to the chicago conference issue beatriz gonzalez and howard rosing this 2018 cumu annual conference issue of metropolitan universities journal (muj) highlights efforts by universities and scholars seeking to engage directly with issues of equity in cities. reflecting on the conference theme, partnering for equity, the city of chicago offered arguably one of the most sobering and rich contexts for discussing the role of higher education in promoting equity. a 2017 study found the cost of lost income to chicago’s regional economy due to racial segregation exceeded $4 billion (urban institute, 2017, pg. ix). this same study noted an estimated 83,000 college degrees never attained because of racial segregation (urban institute, 2017, pg. 40). chicago, like many urban areas, presents the most pressing opportunities and challenges for uncovering and addressing issues of equity. as reflected in the conference presentations and speeches, one of the most important changes in higher education is the growing recognition that social change begins on and around the campus. paulo freire posited this view nearly 40 years ago in pedagogy of the oppressed, naming education a political act. to fully realize this transformative power of higher education, universities must partner across institutions and sectors to reveal and address critical issues of equity. this is the focus of the work shared at the 2018 cumu annual conference. in this issue the articles in this 2018 cumu annual conference edition of metropolitan universities journal epitomize the work of metropolitan and urban colleges and universities in cooperating with communities to address mutual challenges and goals towards social justice. lipman’s conference keynote address sets the stage for this edition by provoking frank reflection on how higher education institutions can contribute to the development of educational policy that dismantles gross inequities based on race and class. tackling grand challenges: community engagement and collective impact in public problemsolving reviews approaches to university-led grand challenge initiatives. such initiatives have grown in presence in recent years, particularly because of the obama administration 2012 call to engage private and public sectors, including higher education, in joint national and global problem solving. tackling grand challenges points to an approach that incorporates principles developed both within and outside the academy: community-engaged scholarship, which brings meaning and relevance to learning and collective impact, and attends to essential structural issues relevant in the community. by bridging these worlds, the authors posit that grand challenge initiatives are more likely to be mutually beneficial, attuned to complexity, and thus more effective. the authors describe the example of the university of denver, as an institution, which has used the frameworks in the implementation and organization of its interdisciplinary, publicly engaged work. with a focused look at one partnership between a civic organization and a public university, alignment through community: the case of a metropolitan university and the greater oklahoma city hispanic chamber of commerce reveals how goal alignment between partners 4 can spur greater effectiveness for both entities. this case example, based on the work of the university of central oklahoma (uco) and the local hispanic chamber of commerce (hc), demonstrates that such alignment can lead to extramural funding, transformative learning practices, and professional growth, strengthening workforce and city development. the alignment begins with the explicit match of uco’s academic mission as a metropolitan university with the hc’s purpose. the joint clarity on their shared goals strongly anchored the partnership for both parties with the necessary engagement of senior leadership, the investment of resources, and even organizational restructuring for cross-entity effectiveness. while describing what is clearly a substantive endeavor, alignment through community demonstrates the deep return on investment that such efforts have. in examining the mutually beneficial, reciprocal relationship between a university and civic leaders, civic leadership education at the university of chicago reinforces the efficacy of assetbased approaches to community development. civic leadership describes not only the transformation of the university’s understanding of civic education, but also of its sense of responsibility for fostering it in the city of chicago. the mutual respect across partners as cocreators of knowledge evident in the program led to a more rigorous and authentic curriculum more likely to lead to necessary change in chicago. this article explores the university’s investment in civic studies, the concept of civic leadership from the practitioner perspective, and questions of equity and inclusion, involving all in the civic-leadership development program. while civic education and leadership development provide an important on-campus tool for engaging students in community development, college access is and will remain a critical component of creating equity and inclusion in cities. in achieving college readiness through a dual enrollment course: "strategies for success,” cram and béjar outline an approach for universities to collaborate with the k-12 system and to work intentionally with students to attain the skills needed to be successful at the university. florida international university (fiu) employed a dual enrollment course, strategies for success, evaluating and adjusting it over multiple years to determine its progress and impact. through mentoring and coaching interventions, the course and program show promise toward providing the support and the needed academic and contextual foundation for low-income and underrepresented students to succeed in college. urban universities can also be an important resource for increasing equity in access to health knowledge. in their article, urban partnerships to address health literacy in high need populations, keller et al. describe how marquette university collaborated with local nonprofits to implement and evaluate an evidence-supported health literacy program for low-income african american residents of milwaukee. the project illustrates the role universities can play in illuminating the importance of health literacy training to improve the health and wellbeing of historically marginalized populations. the project provides evidence of a successful collaboration between a university and community-based organizations that can contribute to improving equity in health outcomes by local populations impacted by structural racism. in community engagement vs. racial equity: can community engagement work be racially equitable? telles offers a striking picture of the lack of attention to racial equity within community engagement in higher education. she argues that for institutions to be truly transformative in their urban settings, they should explicitly incorporate racial equity as a 5 component within engagement initiatives. furthermore, the gap in literature in relation to racial equity in higher education community engagement provides an opportunity for scholars to engage in empirical research regarding racial equity in relation to organizational structures, staffing and programs. echoing sentiments from pauline lipman’s conference keynote, telles concludes, “failing to address issues of racial equity within higher education community engagement initiatives may facilitate transforming into engaged institutions that continue to operate as racially exclusionary spaces.” we close this issue with reflections by emily janke, the inaugural recipient of the barbara a. holland scholar-administrator award. in scholar-administrators as change agents, janke explores the definition of scholar-administrator and how it looks in practice. she argues that through the integration of scholarship with administration, one can both ask and answer critical questions facing our institutions and communities. this in turn enhances our understanding of how to change institutional practices to fully realize the transformative power of higher education for our students and their families and our communities. because of this, janke calls the field to “better recognize, prepare and support scholar-administrators so that they can do what they do so well: serve as key change agents in and of higher education, and to lead boldly into a yet-to-be defined future.” 6 references darder, a. (2018). critical leadership for social justice: unveiling the dirty little secret of power and privilege. in p. mclaren & s. soohoo (eds.), the radical imagine-nation: public pedagogy and praxis (pp. 41-73). new york, ny: peter lang. freire, p. (1971). pedagogy of the oppressed. new york, ny: seabury press. garcia, g.a. (2017). decolonizing hispanic serving institutions: a framework for organizing. journal of hispanic higher education, 17, 132-147. https://doi.org/10.1177/1538192717734289 giroux, h.a. (2011). neoliberalism and the death of the social state: remembering walter benjamin's angel of history. social identities, 17, 587-601. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504630.2011.587310 mason, maryann (2019). adolescent firearm homicide in chicago 2013–2017: young black males at high risk. retrieved from the injury prevention and research center smith child health research, outreach and advocacy center, stanley manne children’s research institute https://news.wttw.com/sites/default/files/article/fileattachments/final%20data%20brief%20%20ivdrs%20adolescent%20firearm%20ho mocide%20in%20chicago%202013%20to%202017%20young%20black%20males%20at%20 high%20risk%20%281%29.pdf urban institute (2017). the cost of segregation: national trends and the case of chicago, 1990–2010. retrieved from https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/89201/the_cost_of_segregation_final_0.pdf wealth distribution in the united states in 2016. (2019). retrieved from https://www.statista.com/statistics/203961/wealth-distribution-for-the-us/ https://doi.org/10.1177/1538192717734289 https://doi.org/10.1080/13504630.2011.587310 https://news.wttw.com/sites/default/files/article/file-attachments/final%20data%20brief%20%20ivdrs%20adolescent%20firearm%20homocide%20in%20chicago%202013%20to%202017%20young%20black%20males%20at%20high%20risk%20%281%29.pdf https://news.wttw.com/sites/default/files/article/file-attachments/final%20data%20brief%20%20ivdrs%20adolescent%20firearm%20homocide%20in%20chicago%202013%20to%202017%20young%20black%20males%20at%20high%20risk%20%281%29.pdf https://news.wttw.com/sites/default/files/article/file-attachments/final%20data%20brief%20%20ivdrs%20adolescent%20firearm%20homocide%20in%20chicago%202013%20to%202017%20young%20black%20males%20at%20high%20risk%20%281%29.pdf https://news.wttw.com/sites/default/files/article/file-attachments/final%20data%20brief%20%20ivdrs%20adolescent%20firearm%20homocide%20in%20chicago%202013%20to%202017%20young%20black%20males%20at%20high%20risk%20%281%29.pdf https://www.urban.org/sites/default/files/publication/89201/the_cost_of_segregation_final_0.pdf https://www.statista.com/statistics/203961/wealth-distribution-for-the-us/ 7 author information *beatriz gonzalez, ph.d. chief diversity officer & vice provost university of la verne office of diversity and inclusivity founders hall room 106 la verne, ca 91750 telephone: (909) 448-4512 email: bgonzalez@laverne.edu dr. gonzalez is chief diversity officer & vice provost at university of la verne. gonzalez came to the university of la verne in august 2013 as associate provost for faculty affairs. she was appointed to her current titles in april 2016, broadening her responsibilities to include retention of students, faculty, and staff with a focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion. howard rosing, ph.d. executive director irwin w. stearns center for community-based service learning depaul university 2233 n. kenmore avenue chicago, il 60614 telephone: (773) 325-7457 email: hrosing@depaul.edu dr. rosing is the executive director of the steans center where he oversees the work of academic service learning and the egan office for urban education and community partnerships and supports depaul's partnership with the asset-based community development institute housed at the center. he works with faculty to develop scholarship on service-learning and community-based research as pedagogies. dr. rosing also serves as a faculty member in community service studies and an affiliate faculty member in geography, sustainable urban development (masud) and community psychology and co-directs masud. he has taught and developed numerous service learning courses including community food systems and geography, food and justice, which serve as required courses in depaul's minor in food studies. dr. rosing is a cultural anthropologist whose research focuses on urban food access, economic restructuring, community food systems, and food justice movements in chicago and the dominican republic. *corresponding author mailto:hrosing@depaul.edu metropolitan universities vol. 29 no. 4 (december 2018), doi: 10.18060/22841 3 legacy lived: a generation of ernest a. lynton award recipients advancing community-engaged scholarship and institutional change elaine ward introduction [now] the die is cast, and the fledgling product of our labors is on its way. an exhilarating moment, and also a frightening one. our hope and our expectations are high, as is our excitement about our new adventure. will our excitement be justified, our hopes realized? will metropolitan universities reach its intended audience? and will that audience be pleased by what it receives? —ernest lynton, 1990 ernest need not have feared when he penned these words for the first issue of the metropolitan universities journal in the spring of 1990. almost three decades later, both the journal and the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities (cumu) are going strong and the award established in his name in 1997 has received over 1,100 nominations nationally, and has been conferred on 27 faculty members. today, the journal is an online, open access journal with a readership of over 11,000, spanning the globe. the cumu annual conference attracts over 400 attendees, and 103 higher education institutions are members of the coalition internationally. two decades after his passing, this issue of metropolitan universities honors the life, work, and legacy of ernest lynton. in particular, the issue lifts up the impact of ernest’s, work and how his vision for strong faculty and university engagement (lynton, 1996a; lynton, 1995a), expanded views of scholarship and epistemology (lynton, 1994) carries on through the work of faculty and campuses across the country. this issue shares how ernest’s legacy continues to live through a generation of faculty who have received the ernest a. lynton award for the scholarship of engagement—and since 2009—for early career faculty. for almost ten years, i have been involved in the lynton award in several capacities. first i was a graduate research assistant with the new england resource center for higher education (nerche) working with john saltmarsh and sharon singleton. later i served as a reviewer, as a researcher studying award recipients, as the lynton award coordinator and for the last five years as the chair for the lynton colloquium. i have had the privilege of witnessing how ernest’s legacy lives through the exemplary scholarly work of engaged faculty across the country. the lynton award is a product of the evolution of perspectives on knowledge generation and the scholarly work of faculty (lynton & elman, 1987; lynton, 1995a; driscoll and lynton, 1999). nerche create the award to recognize excellence in what it then called faculty professional service and academic outreach. in 2007, the award was renamed the ernest a. lynton award for the scholarship of engagement to reflect the move toward a more collaborative, integrative 4 conceptualization of faculty work, and a shift from one-directional, academia-centric outreach to the more reciprocal work of the scholarship of engagement (ward, 2010). faculty members connect their teaching, research, and service to community-based, public problem solving in integrated ways, so that their faculty roles overlap and reinforce each other. by the late 2000s, evidence from lynton award nominations indicated that a younger generation of faculty, often women and people from other underrepresented populations, were gravitating toward the scholarship of engagement. thus, in 2009, nerche focused the lynton award on early-career faculty, in an effort to acknowledge and legitimize the emergence of this new generation of scholars, who have created their professional identities with public commitments and who approach knowledge generation and teaching and learning as deeply collaborative scholarly work. furthermore, as we find in the post-tenure reflections of the lynton award recipients in this issue, the shift to an early-career award opened the possibility that the award could influence the promotion process for recipients.i the faculty members in this issue are exemplar community engaged scholars and now, posttenure, stewards of civic and community engagement institutionally, nationally and internationally. it is an honor to serve as the guest editor for this issue and lift up their accomplishments as we seek to further ernest’s legacy across higher education in general and metropolitan universities in particular. about this issue many of us have had the opportunity to read ernest’s own scholarship on higher education’s relationship with industry (lynton, 1984; lynton, 1989). ernest wrote extensively on the responsibility of the urban university (metropolitan universities 1990-1998; lynton, 1983; lynton and elman, 1987), new scholarship and epistemology, faculty roles and the recognition and reward of engaged scholarship (lynton, 1994; lynton, 1995a; lynton, 1996a; driscoll and lynton, 1999). the archives of metropolitan universities have many of ernest’s writings available on line. i do not seek to regurgitate his work here, but will rather share some of the findings of my historical explorations into ernest’s life and work. as a feminist and a narrative researcher, i seek to understand fully those from whom i wish to learn. this desire led me to interview colleagues and mentees who worked closely with ernest. i spoke with cathy burack, amy driscoll, richard freeland, zee gamson, deb hirsch, barbara holland, kerry ann o’meara, gene rice, and lorilee sandmann. i also received information from judith ramely and john saltmarsh. these conversations helped me understand ernest’s work, commitments and characteristics, but i discovered little about ernest’s life prior to the mid-1980s. the conversations certainly piqued my curiosity about the origin of his motivations for and commitments to the work of engagement and the ways universities could more fully engage with society. i discovered much about ernest before his colleagues in the field of engagement and urban and metropolitan universities came to know him. i am happy to share these discoveries with you in “the life, work and legacy of ernest a. lynton.” the second article, “community-engaged scholarship and promotion and tenure: lessons from lynton award recipients” draws on qualitative dissertation research done with 11 faculty members. their words convey their lived 5 experiences with the promotion review process as community-engaged faculty members. they shared lessons about faculty identity, connection to place and epistemological orientation as strong motivators for engaged scholarship. tenure became a ‘safety net’ enabling the freedom to practice community engaged scholarship. it set the stage for the post-tenure reflections from our contributing authors. through the post-tenure reflections, we now see ernest’s vision for the practice of engagement, institutional cultures that support engagement, and faculty. more senior faculty are taking up the charge as institutional and national stewards of this work. ernest would be encouraged by the advancements made by this generation of engaged scholars, while acknowledging that there is still work to be done. one of the last pieces ernest wrote for metropolitan universities journal, “from the sidelines” (he had officially stepped down as editor, but in his own words could not be “kept quiet”). ernest has recently returned from two conferences in great britain. among all the topics discussed, i was most struck by the repeated emphasis on an issue that has long been recognized by many individual in metropolitan universities as being of great importance, and that now appears to be emerging as a central issue throughout higher education. it is the need to bridge the gap between theory and practice, and to give practical experience and workplace learning a central rather than a peripheral role. the issue is complex and has many ramifications, many of which were discussed at the london meeting: the limitations of a disciplinary organization, the definition of learning outcomes, and the tensions between competence and knowledge and between societal usefulness and academic criteria. it emphasizes knowledge created in the process of application and what don schon calls reflection-in-action. it raises fundamental epistemological, as well as pedagogical, questions to which, on the whole, we have not paid enough attention in our institutions.” —lynton, mu, fall 1996b our contributing authors pay attention to fundamental epistemological, pedagogical (and i would add methodological) concerns, as well as those related to disciplinary narrowness, institutional isolation, societal usefulness, and the legitimization of faculty work through reformed institutional reward policies. eric demeuleanaere’s “creating dangerously” challenges us to consider how our work in urban communities “must not only examine and ponder the realities of urban violence, poverty and racial oppression, but also seek to address these realities.” what does it mean, “to engaged in such scholarship as from a place of privilege as a white male, middle-class academic?” eric shows how we present our work in our tenure statements in ways that do not diverge too far from the norm, while also staying true to our values as engaged scholars. eric reveals the problems in our understanding of ‘expertise’ when working with urban youth, and when the people we care about are hurting, even dying. eric, post-tenure, challenges us to take risks that are more meaningful, strive to be a “counter-hegemonic intellectual” and activist scholar who works to create spaces where one can be an academic and an activist. eric’s sharing of excerpts he omitted from his tenure statement illuminate the risks that tenure-track faculty members avoid in order to pass the traditional tenure process. 6 michelle dunlap’s “four community engagement lessons from detroit to connecticut” helps us further understand the compromises community-engaged tenure track faculty members make regarding the scholarship. michelle reflects on the strategic choices faculty members might have to make, depending on the culture of their institutions. michelle describes an entire tradition of service that goes unrecognized as valid or legitimate, that of black women, who spend their lives lifting up others and helping build capacity in families and communities. from this experience, michelle works post-tenure to put students and communities of color at the center of her community engagement work and challenges the field to do similarly. michelle, like eric, reflects on the need to take measured risks, as we need to sustain our work and our health, while we mentor the next generation of community-engaged scholars in this work. michelle’s work gets to the heart of the concerns ernest had about diversity within higher education and the responsibility of faculty and institutions to meet the needs of our diverse learners and urban communities. lorlene hoyt’s “emancipating minds and practicing freedom: a call to action” shares her unsuccessful first experience with the tenure process. she shares how receiving the lynton award prior to tenure provided external validation that added credibility to her case. the award emboldened lorlene to broaden her “understanding of what constitutes scholarship” and reduced her sense of isolation she experienced at her institution. the award gave her “courage to experiment with the ways in which knowledge is generated and applied, and to overcome rather than reinforce the false dichotomy between practice and knowledge in the academy.” however, it did not help her achieve tenure at her first institution. taking a leadership role at another institution, lorlene did achieve promotion, and her post-tenure reflection challenges us to identify the difference we want our scholarship to make in the world and to question how our work contributes to human dignity and well-being. the theme of risk taking continues as lorlene asks us to exercise our power, take a stand for justice without facing any of the real risks many people across the globe face, e.g. imprisonment for speaking out. farrah jacquez’s “post-tenure reflections on community-engaged scholarship in a psychology research setting” shares how the discipline of clinical psychology has been slow to accept community-engaged research as valid science. ernest had a deep understanding this with his hard science disciplinary background as a physicist. psychology’s high value on internal validity in intervention research, and lab-based randomized controlled trials, are essential to ensure that the treatments we deliver help people. yet for farrah, ‘wicked problems’ like obesity, drug abuse, health disparities suggest that the interventions developed through traditional research methods are simply not working outside of the laboratory setting. post-tenure, farrah believes that community-engaged research places more weight on external validity in the interest of tangible benefits to the community. farrah offers lessons for us to help advance community-engaged research within research i institutions, including the continued revision of promotion and tenure documents, for institutional review boards to include community-engaged research expertise, to earmark internal funding mechanisms for community-engaged research, and to create networks of community-engaged scholars across disciplines. nick tobier’s “good trouble: post-tenure interruptions to our academic ‘routines’” shares how, through his discipline of art and design, nick uses his ‘tools’ to create social spaces to challenge our traditional ways of thinking, knowing and experiencing one another and our cities. 7 nick’s contribution offers resistance to pre-set disciplinary values, and a recognition that exponential rather than incremental change in an urgently evolving field demands a new form and language. nick describes himself as working at the margins of a field within a discipline that is itself often at the margins of a university. working at the margins, for nick, needs both deliberate articulation and responsibility to translate less orthodox practices, off-center inquiry, and ways of knowing into outputs in the tenure and promotion process. nick’s contribution challenges us to see civic work as ‘good work.’ if our good work serves as an interruption to the existing status quo of the academy, then this ‘good work’ causes ‘good trouble,’ and serves to connect the academy to cities in more meaningful ways. jomella watson-thompson’s “the road taken: contributions to advancing communityengaged scholarship” shares her journey as an applied behavioral scientist. she trained for community-based participatory research approaches and even used service learning as a pedagogical practice, yet did not view her teaching, research and engagement as integrated, prior to receiving the award. ernest’s vision of community-engaged scholarship was a new revelation for jomella. research, teaching and service were “integrated through an ecosystem of knowledge that is mutually reinforcing and beneficial” not only to the faculty, but also to the students and to the community. ernest’s insights allowed her to see connections through and across her work that she had experienced as fragmented. while preparing to apply for the award, jomella discovered the scholarship of engagement as a way to both explain and anchor her work. the award process helped her to frame and communicate her scholarly approach. this understanding, as well as the external validation afforded by the award, added a level of refinement to jomella’s tenure dossier, which she would not have had without the award. she reflects, post-tenture, on how the lynton award application process can deepen an applicant’s understanding of community-engaged scholarship theory and practice. like the carnegie elective community engagement application process, it can help faculty members understand their own scholarly work; faculty may in turn be strategic and intentional in how they advance themselves and others as community-engaged scholars. these exemplars of community-engaged scholarship advance ernest’s legacy through their scholarly work in and with communities. they bring their institutions closer to society as they reexamine, post-tenure, how to use of their power and position as tenured faculty members. they challenge the academy to go beyond its traditional concepts of scholarship, epistemologies and disciplinary silos, to think more creatively and innovatively about networked, transdisciplinary ways of knowing and generating new knowledge across the disciplines can lead to more tangible, meaning outcomes for our communities. their individual impact is significant, yet their collective impact can ensure the quality of engaged scholarly work and lead to a re-centering of the university from the periphery to the center of the cities, communities and society. this is what ernest sought as the ideal for our urban and metropolitan universities in particular and for higher education in general. as the work of these faculty members show us, he need not have feared, for the public future of the academy is safe. as they too have high hopes and expectations for their universities to more fully realize their societal responsibilities. 8 acknowledgements i would like to thank my graduate students, emiley dionne, emily wall and shannon zelek for their research assistance for this issue and all of the students in my fall 2018 civic engagement and higher education course, thank you for expressing interest in this project. i would also like to thank all those who shared their memories of ernest with me. thank you to cumu’s arthur smith for your patience and diligence in getting this issue to print. valerie holton, as colleague and executive editor of the journal, many thanks for all of your encouragement and help with this issue. i value your input and commitment to advancing our work in the field. a special thank you to barbara a. holland, as past executive editor of the journal, and close colleague of ernest, thank you for walking this journey with me and sharing so many wonderful memories of your work with ernest. thank you to the swearer center for providing an administrative home for the award, and to john saltmarsh for all your mentoring and support along the way. thank you to all of the wonderful lynton award recipients who wrote for this issue. your contributions to sustaining ernest’s legacy are deeply appreciated. 9 references hirsch, d. (2000). ernest lynton remembered. journal of higher education outreach and engagement, 6 (1), 57-59. retrieved from http://openjournals.libs.uga.edu/index.php/jheoe/article/view/237 hathaway, c.e., mulhollan, p.e., and white, k.a. (1990 spring) metropolitan universities: models for the twenty-first century. metropolitan universities, 1 (1), 9-20. retrieved from https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/muj/article/view/19023 lynton, e. a. &. elman, s. e. (1987). new priorities for the university: meeting society's needs for applied knowledge and competent individuals. san francisco, ca: jossey-bass. lynton, e. a. (1996a). ensuring the quality of outreach: the critical role of evaluating individual and collective initiatives and performance. journal of public service and outreach, 1 (2), 16-22. retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ej1097203 lynton, e. a. (1995a). making the case for professional service. washington d.c. american association for higher education (aahe). lynton, e. a. (1996b winter). reversing the telescope: viewing individual activities within a collective context. metropolitan universities, 7 (3), 41-55. retrieved from https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/muj/article/view/19571 lynton, e.a., 1996c. from berlin to brookline. unpublished. lynton, e. a. (1983). a crisis of purpose: reexamining the role of the university. change, 15, (7), 18-23. https://doi.org/10.1080/00091383.1983.10570016 lynton, e.a. (1984). the missing connection between business and the universities. american council on education/macmillan series on higher education. new york, ny: macmillan publishing co. lynton, e.a. (1989). higher education and american competitiveness. working paper series: the federal role in education. rochester, ny: national center on education and the economy. retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ed327124 lynton e.a., elman, s. e. (1987). new priorities for the university. san francisco, california: jossey-bass inc. lynton, e. a. (1990a summer) from the editor’s desk. metropolitan universities, 1 (1), 3-8. retrieved from https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/muj/article/view/19022 lynton, e. a. (1994 summer). knowledge and scholarship. metropolitan universities, 5 (1), 917. retrieved from https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/muj/article/view/19385 https://doi.org/10.1080/00091383.1983.10570016 10 saltmarsh, j., ward, e., clayton. p. (2011). profiles of public engagement: findings from the ernest a. lynton award for the scholarship of engagement for early career faculty. nerche report. boston, ma: new england resource center for higher education, university of massachusetts. ward, e. (2010). women’s ways of engagement: an exploration of gender, the scholarship of engagement and institutional reward policy and practice. doctoral dissertation. university of massachusetts, boston. 11 author information elaine ward, ed.d. merrimack college 315 turnpike street north andover, ma 01845 telephone: (978) 837-3572 email: warde@merrimack.edu for almost ten years, dr. ward has worked with faculty nominees and recipients of the ernest a. lynton award for the scholarship of engagement for early career faculty, served as the award coordinator and has chaired and co-chaired the annual lynton colloquium. dr. ward writes and teaches on the institutionalization of civic and community engagement within higher education as is co-editor of the book publicly engaged scholars: next generation engagement and the future of higher education (2016). dr. ward was also one of the leads on the international pilot of the carnegie elective community engagement classification in ireland. dr. ward has served on the board of the international association for research on service learning and community engagement and was the conference program chair in 2016, reaffirming our purpose, bridging our understandings & broadening our collective impact. currently, dr. ward is an assistant professor of higher education at merrimack college, school of education and social policy. i excerpts from saltmarsh, j., ward, e., clayton. p. (2011). profiles of public engagement: findings from the ernest a. lynton award for the scholarship of engagement for early career faculty. nerche report. new england resource center for higher education, university of massachusetts, boston. mailto:warde@merrimack.edu microsoft word guarasci new format-final.docx   invited commentary    © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23552 | december 6, 2019  35  looking forward in ominous times: two pathways for  urban colleges and universities  richard guarasci1     1 office of the president, wagner college    cite as: guarasci, r. (2019) looking forward in ominous times: two pathways for urban colleges and universities.  metropolitan universities, 30(2), 35‐41. doi: 10.18060/23552    this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license.    editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d.  introduction  higher education is in turmoil. in an age of growing and significant inequality, heightened racism, metropolitan resegregation, and demographic challenges, colleges and universities suffer countless consequences. joined with a punishing public narrative that questions higher education’s purposes, integrity, and necessity, public support for colleges and universities is in sharp decline. the results of this new political economy are severe underfunding and financial stress, enrollment issues, and heightened student debt, leaving very limited degrees of institutional freedom to alter this equation. colleges juggle agendas and work their way through budget dramas that results in sizing down their expenses sharply on the false hope that austerity is a formula to fiscal stability. politically, a cloud of intensified and unfavorable governmental regulation looms over the higher education landscape and it promises to be at odds with how colleges and universities have perceived themselves, organized their governance, and designed student learning. there are alternative, progressive voices calling for free tuition, but these proposals come with their own attempts to narrow institutional freedom and provide no additional funding for added resources. others predict that social media and innovative technologies will radically solve these problems on their own, but their version of student learning is a spartan model of education reduced merely to knowledge transmission and workforce preparation. where are the necessary attributes for a modern, competent, and flexible workforce? these attributes include creativity, engagement, emotional development, ethical learning, and social consciousness. the future will likely not be limited to these dynamics; unforeseen forces will play a role, but two specific outcomes will present themselves. one outcome is a market driven pathway and the other is entitled “the engagement pathway.” as stakeholders in urban and metropolitan colleges and universities, we can let the market model work its internal logic and redesign higher education around a purely commercial philosophy or we can assert our agency in reinventing © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23552 | december 6, 2019    36  higher learning so that it is robust, affordable, and engaging. either our absence or our resilient creativity will spell the outcome. the market model: a dystopian future  left alone, market-based systems conform to a certain logic; when unfettered by intervening regulation and when composed of multiple providers, markets reward competition framed around cost, price, productivity, and sales volume. the direction of competitive activity moves significantly toward maximization of economic advantages and logic favors pricing that overwhelms rival competitors. independent of the moral sensibilities of its leadership, any failure to fully maximize net revenue and adequately manage price and cost almost certainly will result in competitors who follow the logic of economic advantage, finding advantages in capturing more of the market and more revenue. reinvesting additional revenue into increased productivity from reduced labor costs and greater use of technology allow the maximizers to outmaneuver the competition. regardless of how communally sensitive institutional leadership may pride itself, competitors who have a lower cost of production and higher net revenue retain the ability to undercut competitors by lowering their pricing and consequently gain greater market share. the end game is to bury the competition, absorb their customers, and increase the bottom line. while this pure type of market scenario rarely exists in full, the reward system points providers toward the market logic of competition and net revenue maximization. the underlying drama takes place in the actual production process and in higher education this means how we organize, cost, price, and deliver learning and, ultimately, degrees. for the last forty years american universities and colleges have been caught up in a somewhat similar market logic. the consequences of the market approach have proven to be significant at first but rather dramatic when put in a larger perspective. the uninterrupted market model pathway will have a punishing impact on the future design and governance of urban and metropolitan universities and colleges. some of the market logic has been at play in the current moment. for instance, the market model prizes cost reductions and productivity increases. the first step is usually the substitution of part-time labor for full-time labor; for the last twenty years, universities and colleges have hired part-time faculty in very large numbers. according to the integrated postsecondary education data system (ipeds) data in 1970, four out of five college professors were full-time employees, with roughly 400,000 employed full time and 100,000 employed part time. by 2015, that ratio was virtually equal with approximately 800,000 full-time faculty members compared to 750,000 part-timers. by 2016, the ratio actually was equal. part-time faculty are paid less, retain few or no employee benefits and teach large enrollment classes. eventually market logic pushes colleges to begin the substitution of technology for full and part-time faculty as a means to increase significantly the student / teacher ratio, one of the key metrics for controlling labor productivity and ultimately lowering the cost of educating a student. there have been nascent attempts by educational providers to use mass online courses (moocs) under the instruction of one or a few instructors to replace a large swath of traditional full-time faculty. as an unsophisticated and regressive approach, these efforts have largely failed due to their impersonal, anonymous, and unaccountable format, resulting in extremely low completion © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23552 | december 6, 2019    37  rates and minimal learning retention. we do see, however, the rise of nonprofit attempts to compete with online education by major universities, initially reaching out to new markets of adult learners but now moving quickly to provide this approach for traditional undergraduate and graduate students. much of this is about gaining market share through dramatic increases in enrollment and net revenue. clearly more nuanced and personalized forms of the use of social media and online technology will appear and then we could see an accelerated rate of replacing full-time faculty. the market logic will significantly use this same dynamic in replacing administration and staff employees as well. market logic will dictate the inevitable evolution of mergers, acquisitions, and closures among universities and colleges. the market will punish an abundance of higher education providers, particularly those incapable of realizing significant economies of scale. we see the beginnings of this process with a number of closures and some mergers, mostly in the northeast but likely coming to a neighborhood near you. finally, market logic will invite nonacademic providers in direct competition with traditional nonprofit higher education. amazon.com, inc., and other large tech companies are currently moving in this direction. by reducing higher learning to direct workforce development, nonacademic providers will find little use for relying on public and private universities who retain governance and protocols that are often at odds with corporate priorities. the reductionist ideology now swallowing many community college systems is also finding its way into defining undergraduate education among state legislatures. this will result in reducing higher learning to apprentice education and ultimately mega tech companies and other conglomerates will find it affordable to produce the same results with greater productivity and flexibility. while a dystopian and mordant description of the future of urban and metropolitan higher education, the market logic model will be a major force in shaping one possible future unless higher education and its leaders find a sustainable alternative model. one does exist.   the engagement model: placing community and collaboration at the center  the alternative to the pure market model is the engagement model. this approach values collaboration, integration, and partnerships over competition and revenue maximization. the engagement approach will require a major shift within the culture of higher education leadership and its success will demand courage by trustees, regents, and alumni. additionally, it will need faculty members and administrators to be their best creative selves. the engagement model is a pathway to fiscal stability. it creates added revenue and lowers educational costs by building on greater economies of scale. a greater division of labor among partnering institutions will realign costs and sharing infrastructure and back office costs will provide important savings. redesigning the delivery of learning will provide a future model for prizing higher impact teaching practices. by focusing on a learning model that prizes experiential and civic learning, the engagement model provides a foundation for a new delivery system more compatible with a community-derived and problem-based curriculum, which emphasize the association of american colleges & universities’ (aac&u) essential learning outcomes, such © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23552 | december 6, 2019    38  as critical thinking, effective communication skills, cultural competency and diversity learning, and ethical and civic responsibility. the engagement model is predicated on several foundational elements. first, collaborative partnerships are essential among universities and colleges. this is a difficult process that necessitates a dramatic cultural shift among senior institutional leadership and institutional cultures. having spent their respective careers promoting the brands and niche qualities of their respective institutions to prospective students, families, alumni, foundations, and donors, presidents and senior officers must now redirect their efforts toward linking with former competitors. colleges and universities now compete for students often by engaging in an arms war in housing and athletic facilities, dining services, and excessive institutional financial aid among other expenses. this is very problematic overall and this behavior drives up cost. in fact, increased competition in higher education, similar to health care, doesn’t reduce price. quite the opposite, it drives up cost in an oxymoronic fashion to even the most experienced economic theorists. the engagement model poses a more effective way to contain, if not reduce, cost and, ultimately, pricing, relying on inter-university collaboration. to gain economies of scale, senior leadership must find ways to share infrastructure costs in areas such as dining, maintenance, housing, insurance, endowment management, pension management fees, human resources, employee health care, auditing, and similar functions. acting in a larger network of colleges and universities as a coordinated network will allow for greater leverage in purchasing and providing these support services. the most impactful approach would be designed around a common network of institutions where each member institution would retain its individual name, endowment, and alumni but work under a banner promoting the opportunities for students, communities, and research available in a larger envelope of aligned and coordinated governance model. not unlike a coordinated common market, individual institutional prerogatives would require the thoughtful balancing of network goals. there are some analogs for this model in american healthcare and banking networks. statecraft would define executive leadership as well as decisive and local decision making within the primary institution. patience, resiliency, and openness will be required of all the other institutional stakeholders. after a time, when experience and trust are baked into the partnerships, educational and curricular integration across institutions are possible, if not desirable. the network design can address curricular and programmatic redundancy evident in current midsized and small colleges and universities, and it also can open up creative, exciting new curricular models of integrated teaching, learning, and research where an expanded resource base allows for deeper opportunities across institutions for both faculty and students. another dimension of the engagement model calls for deep partnerships with primarily, but not exclusively, local communities. the “anchor institution” approach is quickly becoming a benchmark for many in higher education where colleges and universities understand their relationship to specific communities or neighborhoods as essential identities where all parties are anchored in each other’s geographical and practical biographies. these relationships are not understood as coincidental but rather as essential to learning, teaching, as well as institutional and neighborhood civic and economic prosperity. this is especially poignant for university © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23552 | december 6, 2019    39  partnerships embedded in those forgotten, shadow neighborhoods of deep social and economic inequality where the anchor’s work deeply transforms both the community and the university. opportunities are open for individuals, communities, and all the stakeholders in the campus community. in these places the civic responsibilities of higher education can be profoundly impactful in addressing legacies of racism, ethnic bias, and the lost talent, intelligence, and creativity that sits ignored and uncultivated. learning how to participate democratically in rising together as partners framed around a common geography and shared values, local residents, college students, and the larger campus community practice the arts of democracy learning lessons of responsibility and common purpose amidst the unique and celebrated identities within a community. leadership and service are transformed into a powerful agency for engaging the opportunities and challenges in the civic space available in a democratic nation. here, too, resources are aggregated among universities, the corporate, nonprofit, and governmental sectors so that the impact is exponentially increased within and across the geography. grants, gifts, and allocations are now strategic and more attractive. metrics capture the power of integrated work. there are numerous examples of powerful anchor work. my own experience comes from a local partnership across five key policy areas with the most impactful framed around a highly integrated k-16 educational pipeline in a predominately mexican and african american community. the port richmond partnership has created significant individual educational opportunities for those usually ignored, feared, and restricted to low expectations and even lower resources, but it has also provided remarkable sense of agency to k12 teachers and administrators, college students, and local allies. it changed the college, its culture, makeup, and reinvigorated its sense of mission. there are a number of stories like this that are emerging within higher education, particularly in the urban and metropolitan space. i refer to this work as the “civic imperative” of higher education. the economic benefits to the university are located in more engaged learning resulting in greater student retention, completion, and ultimately in greater net tuition revenue. additionally, greater philanthropy and public support has and likely will expand, as will institutional and network reputations. the engagement model’s community-defined curriculum is predicated on strategic partnerships aimed at solving significant community challenges. colleges and university curriculums will be primarily, but not exclusively, focused on problem-based learning opportunities for student cohorts (learning communities) in a combination of traditional classroom, field-based, and online groupings. working from the identification of community assets and building toward addressing problems, students produce signature work and faculty will develop needed research and scholarship. a new pedagogy is likely needed to nourish the engagement model of community problemcentered learning. the current design of the academy will be an impediment. it is inflexible, static, and predicated on a labyrinth of stakeholder veto points. reform and progress of the sort built into current engagement success most often requires the circumvention of the current governance and organization now fixed into academic and administrative silos. there are more impactful ways of organizing learning and teaching; healthcare offers a glimpse of what could serve as inspiration for a more appropriate analog for universities. hospitals now work through integrated teams of primary care physicians, internists, specialist physicians including surgeons, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, doctors of nursing practice, hospitalists, rns, and a © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23552 | december 6, 2019    40  variety of related nursing assistants. patient care will be touched by these teams through interdisciplinary and integrated work. in more complicated cases, mental health and social work colleagues may be threaded into the patient care. this system is promising because the patient is treated in a more comprehensive manner. the challenge, of course, is the quality of the integrated work, the transparency of the individual practitioners in sharing knowledge and accountability, and the need for coordination. without these components the integrated model can falter. hospitals and the many associated professions are challenging traditional hierarchies in order to find successful outcomes and very low recidivism of readmitted patients. the latter is very costly to hospitals given their reliance on private health insurance and governmental reimbursements. even with the limitations in this healthcare analogy, the individual health professionals are strategically focused on the patient, the maladies, and the exponential power of their shared expertise in finding medical strategies and successful practice. what can we learn from this practice structure that would align with a problem based, engagement model of learning and can it lead to greater learning at a lower cost of education? imagine a different organization of faculty work and student learning where integrated teams attend to cohort groupings of students centered around the engagement of a particular problem or sets of problems arising out of a common partnership with a local or allied community. these teams would consist of a master teacher coupled with a team composed of a pedagogical specialist trained in reflective practice, a media and communication arts specialist similarly credentialed, and two advanced peer educators providing support for student learning, effective presentation, and civic responsibility. instead of a larger core of expensive faculty members, this model would stratify academic work along the same lines as the hospital teams. they are strategically focused on learning, signature work and direct community engagement in addressing meaningful problems. this model would lower the cost of teaching and learning as it arranges work differently. the master teacher would possess the traditional phd or equivalent doctoral degree and the specialists would hold master’s degrees in appropriate areas. the peer educators would be interns. the teaching team will rely on high impact learning practices in meeting the essential learning outcomes for career preparation, civic responsibility, and lifelong learning skills. of course, moving from the current model of university academic work to this model is fraught with immense political challenges. current faculty members would fear the disappearance of their privileges and protections. unions would fear declining memberships and senior administrators might easily wilt in the face of such resistance. on the other hand, students, parents, employers, and taxpayers would cheer its presence. this model will inevitably evolve in some form in the market model and/or by nonacademic providers. the new delivery system need not be imposed on faculty but rather developed as a steady, evolutionary reform where academic work is more exciting, creative, and collaborative. the necessary genius to nurture its acceptance will require the rare interpersonal skills born to those leaders across the higher education spectrum who possess the vision, resiliency, patience, and empathy that fosters trust and courage in those with whom they work. the preservation of © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23552 | december 6, 2019    41  urban and metropolitan universities will need a more compelling engaged learning model that is more affordable, sustainable, and creative. finally, the partnerships discussed earlier in the engagement model will easily integrate our nonacademic partners more directly in problem-based learning. hospitals, schools, nonprofits, and corporate partners will share resources, labor and costs in this new model. it is in their interest to develop a new work force and to solve seemingly intractable problems in their overcrowded emergency rooms, challenged elementary, middle and high schools, civic arenas, and research labs. summary  on the whole, futurists usually suffer badly. unforeseen challenges, new political realities, technological breakthroughs, and cultural patterns shape futures as well as markets. as one realist once said, “real life happens in-between plans.” i suspect the future reality lies somewhere in between these two possible pathways. the larger point is that higher education can allow other societal forces to predominate in shaping its future or it can challenge itself to find a pathway to a future where its commitment to deep learning will be predicated on our core values of evidence-based and logical reasoning, openness to new and challenging ideas and educating students to play their roles as creative, ethical, and civic professionals, all necessary for a dynamic economy and a robust, diverse democracy. metropolitan universities vol. 30 no. 3 (september 2019), doi: 10.18060/23194 20 how service-learning promotes intergenerational harmony: a case study of a service-learning project in a science course sze nga cecilia au yeung, lai ki. lam, and jonathan j. fong abstract the office of service learning and science unit at lingnan university partnered with the discovery and education department at ocean park (an aquatic theme park in hong kong) to develop a service learning project. beyond service learning’s traditional goals (enhanced student learning, useful service for a community partner), we examined the potential to develop intergenerational harmony. a service-learning project is a compulsory part of the science course cld9008 life sciences: the way life works, taught by professor jonathan fong, assistant professor in the lingnan university science unit. this course brings together traditional university students and elderly students from lingnan university elderly academy program directed by the lingnan institute of further education (life). the elders are hong kong citizens aged 55 or above who voluntarily attend lectures and lessons with the students. in their service-learning project, they join intergenerational teams to transmit their new knowledge and educate ocean park visitors. the educational services (narration services at exhibits and assistance with interactive games) aim to fulfil ocean park’s goal of enriching visitor experience, as well as promote awareness of marine conservation and sustainability. this study looks at on how including elders in a service-learning project facilitates open communication and reciprocal learning between age groups, and promotes intergenerational harmony. the authors wish to express their appreciation to alan wong and orlando chan from ocean park, hong kong for supporting this study. keywords: service learning, intergenerational harmony, open communication, reciprocal learning, science education theoretical framework and literature review current scholarship affirms that service learning is an effective means to fostering reciprocal learning and communication between socially separated populations. intergenerational harmony, in which multiple generations understand and support each other, thrives best by open communication and reciprocal learning between older and younger generations (storm & storm, 2011; dantzer et al., 2012). intergenerational communication and reciprocal learning facilitate the transmission of traditional values and promote the sustainable development of the society (kaplan et al., 1998; wangyal, 2001). 21 however, studies also identify obstacles emerging from both age groups. students often have strong stereotypes about the elderly (pecchioni et al., 2004) and the elderly frequently overestimate their willingness to talk with and learn from students (beckert, 2007). these mindsets decrease communication and hinder reciprocal learning between older and younger generations (storm & storm, 2011). service learning allows students to render a service towards a particular social need and to reflect on their personal experience through journal writing and classroom discussion (markus et al., 1993; westacott & hegeman, 1996; bringle & hatcher, 1996; eyler, et al., 1997). intergenerational service learning includes participants of different age groups. it connects elders and university students, and contributes to meaningful exchanges of knowledge and values (santini et al., 2018; hegeman et al., 2002; nicolas, 2001; knapp & stubblefield, 2000; lowen, 1996). when elders and students interact during intergenerational service-learning projects, reciprocal learning allows all participants to be learners and teachers free of hierarchy (hwang et al., 2014). the ultimate goal is for elders and university students to benefit educationally and socially, in the hope of changing students’ stereotypes of elders and elders’ unwillingness to learn from younger students (gutheil et al., 2006; duke et al., 2009; lowe & medina, 2010). to be successful, intergenerational service learning should include organized, ongoing, and mutually rewarding interactions between older and younger generations (newman & smith, 1997). most intergenerational service-learning projects cast elders as service recipients and students as service providers, and focus only on student outcomes. studies focusing on youth providing community service to the elderly far outnumber studies of aged adults as volunteers (june & andreoletti, 2018; shea, 2017). in our study, we changed the approach to see how well elders and students work together as service providers. the outcomes and effects on both students and elders derived from two research questions: (1) were university students and the elderly more knowledgeable about each other after an intergenerational service-learning experience? (2) did the project benefit both university students and the elderly? if so, what had changed? in this study, we examined whether an intergenerational service-learning project, with elders and students working together as service providers, promotes intergenerational harmony through reciprocal learning and open communication. we evaluated the impacts on both elderly and students through a questionnaire adopting a paradigm for intergenerational learning (strom & strom, 2011). 22 methods we researched this intergenerational service-learning project over two periods: the summer semester of 2018 and the regular semester of the 2018–2019 academic year. the services provided were narration of aquatic exhibits and interactive games for ocean park visitors. participants formed intergenerational groups of one to two elderly and two to four university students. the summer semester had twelve participants (six students and six elders), while the regular semester had forty-five participants (thirty-five students and ten elders). as one of its graduation requirements, lingnan university requires a service-learning project of at least thirty hours’ duration. we divided this time between four major components. first, ocean park offered a 7-hour training session. in this training, participants learned about ocean park, the service activity (narration service and interactive games), and customer service techniques. second, each group conducted a total of twenty service hours at ocean park within an eight-week period dictated by the academic calendar. third, a one-hour consultation session was conducted in the halfway through the period to discuss experiences and ways to improve. the last component was a 2-hour reflection session, which served as a wrap-up of the service project. we used a mixed method for collecting data, combining quantitative and qualitative approaches. quantitative data measured changes in participants’ attitude. qualitative data provided a deeper understanding of how attitude changed and in what way (johnson & christensen, 2013). for the quantitative piece, we used preand post-test questionnaires to evaluate participant expectations before and after their service. the pre-test consisted of five questions on a five-point likert scale and one open-ended question, while the post-test consisted of thirteen questions on a five-point likert scale and one open-ended question. for the qualitative component, we used four ways to evaluate the effect of the service-learning project on elders and university students: observation of their on-site performance and group interaction, observation of midterm consultations, observation of the final reflection session, and study of the reflective essays detailing their experience. results participant characteristics and data collection details the mean age of the elders was 63.4 years. most (77%) of them were retired. the mean age of the students was 20.4 years. seventy-five percent of students had no previous service-learning experience and ninety-three percent did not live with their grandparents. forty participants (66% response rate) completed the pre-test questionnaire, while forty-five participants (75% response rate) completed the post-test questionnaire. we collected forty-four reflective essays from elders and students. we edited the quotes used in this paper for clarity, while preserving the meaning. 23 attitudes recorded before the service-learning project participants’ qualitative comments detailed participant expectations. typical elder responses were: “to let me understand more about the students’ thoughts, at the same time to share my own experience with them” and “exchange different ideas between students and elders.” for university students, typical replies were to “deal with each other peacefully,” “i hope to communicate with the elders and other students to gain some more different kinds of insights and experience” and “have fun and communicate with them [the elderly] comfortably”. changes in attitudes following the service-learning project responses to our questionnaires indicated that the project made a positive impact to both the university students and elders. it softened student stereotypes towards the elderly, strengthened intergenerational communication, increased participants’ enthusiasm for reciprocal learning, and construction of a positive relationship between elders and students. changed students’ stereotypes towards elderly one of the questions on the preand post-test asked the participant their comfort level when speaking with the other age group (table 1, question 1). for the elderly, the mean score increased from 3.90 to 4.67 (maximum 5), while for university students, the mean score increased from 4.23 to 4.36. in the reflective essay, many university students described their changing perceptions towards the elders. in this service-learning project, elders were not the service recipient, but rather they worked closely with the students as the service provider. through this cooperation, many university students claimed they changed their stereotypes of the elderly. the following student excerpts illustrate these changes: in the beginning, we thought that he (elderly team-mate) was not capable of doing many things since he was older than us. however, in truth, he is very smart and tough. i thought there would be a generation gap so that we may not communicate well. but after the service learning i feel comfortable talking with the elderly. her (elderly) heart and thoughts are similar to our so we had many common topics to discuss. i initially thought that it would be difficult to get along with elderly people due to the generation gap. however, working with elderly people was one of the most wonderful and memorable experiences in the service-learning project. 24 the service-learning project was worth doing because i have learned a lot and established a bond between members that i never expected. i never thought i could be friends with an elderly person because i thought we have very different lifestyles and different concepts, ideas. for me, this is a valuable experience. it changed my view of elderly people and gave me a new understanding of them. the elders that i attend class with are active, talkative, and not be too shy to ask questions. strengthened intergenerational communication one question in the preand post-test focused on to what extent the participant gained understanding for the values that guide the behavior of the other age group (table 1, question 2). the mean score of both elders and students increased when comparing before and after the service. for elders, the mean score increased from 3.9 to 4.44, while for students, the mean score increased from 3.72 to 3.81. another question focusing on knowing how the other generation interprets events, the mean score of elders increased from 3.72 to 4.11, while for university students, the mean score increased from 3.71 to 4.29 (table 1, question 3). most participants agreed that the arrangement of students paired with elderly improved their interaction with the other generation. the average score was 4.33 for elderly and 4.46 for students (table 2, question 2). on-site observations found that the university students and the elders communicated frequently to complete their tasks. two examples stand out in the elders’ reports and the university students’ reflective journals. for the interactive booth game, the teams discussed division of labor, such as who will manage the queue and who is responsible for playing games and interacting with visitors. similarly, as ocean park visitors speak a variety of languages (primarily cantonese, mandarin, and english), teams assigned the appropriate teammate to interact with a visitor, depending on language proficiency. if any university students were not strong in cantonese (e.g. non-chinese hong kong citizens or mainland chinese students), they would ask elders for help. the following excerpts from the reflective journals illustrate these findings: she (elderly) always shares her own life experience with us and talked about something related to her volunteer works in her daily life. our elder member gave us a lot of support and shared his own experiences with us. in particular, he would share his opinions on working as a team and lead us methodically. she (elderly) gave a lot of advice to us during the service. for example, she taught us 25 how to approach tourists in a better way during our narration service. she put a lot of effort in engaging the visitors. at lunchtime, we exchanged a lot of knowledge. he (an elderly man) told me about his career, and he gave me a lot of advice on my future work. i shared with him the current situation of my university life and about the academic system. service at ocean park provides a very good opportunity for students and elderly to communicate because we stay together for the whole day. we had lunch and took breaks together, sharing past stories as well as talking about the future. i (elderly) gave them some suggestions and we discussed those suggestions. increased enthusiasm for reciprocal learning three preand post-test questions relate to reciprocal learning. mean scores of both elders and university students increased when asked about gaining insight about young/old world (table 1, question 5). for elders, the mean score increased from 3.81 to 4.44, while for the students, it increased from 3.57 to 4.25. they also scored higher on whether mixed age groups encouraged them to learn from the other (table 2, question 1). the mean score was 4.44 for elders, and 4.40 for university students. on whether they received support from each other during the service, both university students (mean score = 4.78) and elders (mean score = 4.43) scored relatively high (table 2, question 6). in their reflective journals, nearly all students and elders agreed that different age groups had different strengths. students related better to younger visitors, being more familiar with current issues, while elders are able to calmly handle unexpected issues. the following extracted statements illustrate the above findings: we talked to him (elderly teammate) about the relationship between two different generations, particularly parents and children. listening to the perspectives of different generations, we learned a lot about what we did not see from our perspective. after working with elderly people for several weeks, i thought that they created a positive learning environment because they were more eager to learn when compared to the students. they showed a good attitude to lifelong learning [the ongoing and selfmotivated pursuit of knowledge]. this attitude is very important for us students because we sometimes forget why we are studying. they (elders) have much more life experience than undergraduates, and they also have a passion to study. when i talked with the elderly, i thought, i want to be like them when i am old. i learned a lot from the discussion and their attitude. 26 he (elder) diligently studied the materials used for the narration. when we forgot any information about sea animals, we could immediately ask him. constructing a positive relationship between elders and university students in the post-test, both university students and elders strongly agreed that the arrangement of students paired with elderly fostered a positive relationship between generations. the mean score for elders was 4.67, while the mean score for students was 4.50 (table 2, question 3). for the post-test question on whether a cooperative service-learning project can promote intergenerational harmony, the mean scores were 4.55 (elders) and 4.36 (students) (table 2, question 7). the content of their reflective journals echoed the survey results: if there is another chance for me to work with elders again, i am willing to do so. we (students) were lucky we could cooperate with the elders during the service. in my opinion, having the elderly around is good. learning together with different generations was a wonderful experience because it helped to build respect and positive engagement. this part (intergenerational cooperation) is my favorite part. i am so thankful that we had the opportunity to learn and work with elders. the generation gap almost did not exist between us, thanks to everyone’s cooperation. we acted like a family. we took care of them and they took care of us. i like such teamwork with both elder and the students. to me, i had a nice experience in a harmonious relationship with my teammates. 27 table 1. average pre-test and post-test scores among elders and university students question elders university students pre-test post-test pre-test post-test i felt comfortable when speaking to them 3.9 4.67 4.23 4.36 i valued their guidance and understood their behavior. 3.9 4.44 3.72 3.81 i got to know how other generations interpret events 3.72 4.11 3.71 4.29 i recognize students or elders' vision of the future 3.81 4.11 3.71 4.14 i gained insight about the young/old world 3.81 4.44 3.57 4.25 table 2. average score of elders and university students from the post-test question elders university students 1) the arrangement of students paired with elderly encourage me to learn from students/elders 4.44 4.40 the arrangement of students paired with elderly increase the interaction with students/elders 3) the arrangement of students paired with elderly build positive relationship between you and students/elders 4.67 4.50 4) i think my relationship with students/elders is closer 4.44 4.46 5) i am happy to work with students/elders as a group 4.78 4.61 6) i gained support from students/elders during the service. 4.78 4.43 7) to what extend do you agree that the service-learning project can promote intergenerational harmony? 4.55 4.36 discussion in this study, we take a different approach to intergenerational service learning. instead of having students be the service provider and elders being the service recipient, we make students and elders work together to be the service provider. this approach has a positive impact on both elders and students, in terms of open communication and reciprocal learning, in turn promoting intergenerational harmony. we discuss our findings in further detail below. 28 different goals and expectations influence participant perception the responses on the pre-test showed that the elders and the university students different expectations towards the service-learning project. elders were generally willing to work with students, while students were worried about cooperating with elders. this is probably due to the course arrangement. the elders joined the course knowing the service-learning project’s details in advance. they understood that they had to cooperate with the students in the ocean park service-learning project. it was obvious that those elders not interested in working with university students would not apply or withdraw from the course. therefore, to a certain extent, these elder participants were a self-selecting group who looked forward to cooperating with the students. on the other hand, the students did not know the details of the service-learning project in advance. many students registered for the course to meet two lingnan university graduation requirements for one science-related course and one service-learning course. as in other studies, student participants may have felt obliged to join the service-learning project (stukas et al, 1999), or perhaps joined the course to ‘simply fulfil a course requirement, gaining little out of the experience beyond a grade’ (knecht & martinez, 2012). based on the result of the post-test, students experienced a positive change in their view of the elderly. we believe the project’s structure facilitated this change: both of the elders and the students played the same role of being a service provider. both groups of participants carried the same responsibilities and expectations from ocean park, regardless of age. we found that effective communication and utilization of talent between the elders and the students were key elements to make this intergenerational service-learning project successful. intergenerational service-learning projects promote reciprocal learning and open communication in the reflective journals, the university students and the elders provided details on the way the teams encountered problems and how they resolved them. for example, two commonly reported problem were the division of labor among teammates and strategies on attracting visitors to participate in interactive games. to solve these problems, teams had to openly discuss, share opinions, and mutually agree on a solution. as all participants, both students and elders, were working at ocean park for the first time, no one was an expert, and thus no assumed their opinion was best. in such a situation, we believe both students and elders were encouraged to openly communicate and respect the opinions of other team members. in one particular case, the university students relied on their elder teammates: an argument began two groups of visitors over the proper queueing procedure. the university students involved felt anxious and helpless at that moment, but the elder teammates used their maturity to resolve the situation calmly. we believe such situations stimulated the students’ open-mindedness and respect towards elders. in such a case, the elder acts as a role model for which students are able 29 to learn from and follow. how the elder participants calmly deal with contingencies served a framework for the students to refer to when having a need to solve similar problems in the future. in addition to fuller life experiences of the elderly, students also learned from observing the attitude of the elderly towards the service-learning project. elders took the responsibility of the narration service very seriously, diligently studying the materials before going to ocean park. many university students mentioned that the elders were more familiar with the information than they were. the effort of the elders pushed the students to stay engaged and work harder. we believe the elders performed so well principally for two reasons: time and sense of responsibility. elders were able to devote more time to the project because most of them were retired, while the students had to manage four or five academic courses per semester. furthermore, the elderly had a greater sense of responsibility towards this service-learning project. our impression was that the elderly viewed this project like a job, and believe it was their responsibility to be well prepared and perform well. this may be because of the richer life experiences of elders, or because the course was voluntary for the elders, but compulsory for students. regardless of the differences, the students were able to learn by observing the elders. similar to the existing studies on intergenerational service learning, the student participants regard the elders as role models to follow (fair & daphane, 2014; aemmi & moonaghi, 2017). mutual learning through personal stories one service day at ocean park lasted for 7 hours. throughout the day, teams took breaks for rest (thirty minutes, twice daily) and lunch (one hour, once daily). teams often stayed together during breaks, providing opportunities for them to chat in-depth about larger topics. we believe this facilitated mutual learning. two common topics amongst the teams were about the ‘future’ and ‘current trends’. in these discussions about the ‘future’, the university students would share their dreams and visions, while the elderly would provide advice based on their life experiences. the elderly wanted to understand ‘current trends’ to better understand their own children or grandchildren. some elderly participants noted that this kind of discussion during service was much more in-depth than the in-class discussions. this is likely because the in-class discussions focused assigned topics focusing on the lecture material, and these discussions would not continue after class. on the other hand, both the elders and the students mentioned the environment at ocean park was relaxed, and teams were free to discuss any topic. such discussions about common interests and life experiences provided a deeper understanding of teammates and improved mutual learning. 30 limitations we note three main limitations to our study. first, elderly participants were a self-selected group. elders registered for the course knowing it was an intergenerational service-learning project, and were willing to cooperate with the university students. they fully intended to engage actively, and therefore tended to have positive expectations. such a scenario may create self-selection bias, influencing the result (thomson, 2003). second, data from the summer-semester group arrived relatively late (around 6 months after service was completed) due to logistical problems. those participants, relying on memory to complete the questionnaire, may not have been able to provide as many, or as accurate, details of their experiences. lastly, the response rate of the elderly participants was relatively low. we conducted the questionnaire online, which we believe affected elderly participation. some elderly were perhaps not familiar or comfortable with the online questionnaire, and decided not to respond. conclusions and contributions to theory and practice this study provides strong evidence on the positive impact of intergenerational service learning projects upon open communication and reciprocal learning, leading to greater intergenerational harmony (storm & storm, 2011; dantzer et al, 2012). many previous studies on intergenerational harmony place elders as the service recipients/beneficiaries, while students are service providers. at ocean park, elders and students are service providers, working together as a team to provide service to the public. all participants are equal, and neither the elders nor the university students enjoy special privileges. older and younger participants are encouraged to be open-minded and to cooperate closely with each other. our findings are coherent with chan et al. (2013): “through learning, investigating, communicating and solving problems together, students and elders cooperate and complete the learning journey hand in hand.” through engaging in a project with a common goal, students and elders experienced a deeper understanding of each other. to form a successful team, members had to establish a strong bond, communicate well, and be committed to the same goal. participants discovered that each team member had particular strengths and weaknesses, and that cooperation created a team where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. the ocean park service-learning project created an environment where participants were willing to learn from each other, regardless of age. our conclusion supports the existing literature’s findings (e.g. storm & storm, 2011; dantzer et al, 2012) that when elders and students work together in a service-learning project, their trust and communication strengthens and promotes the sustainable development of society. 31 acknowledgement the authors would like to express their appreciation to alan wong and orlando chan from ocean park, hong kong for supporting this study. the work described in this paper is supported by a grant from the cross-institutional capacity building for service-learning in hong kong higher education institutions funded by the university grants committee of the hong kong special administrative region, china (project no. polyu4/t&l/16-19). 32 references aemmi, s. z., & karimi moonaghi, h. 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(1996). service learning in elder care: a resource manual. albany, ny: the foundation for long term care. 35 author information sze nga cecilia au yeung department of marketing and international business, lingnan university, hong kong ceciliaauyeung@ln.hk lai ki lam office of service-learning, lingnan university, hong kong joylam@ln.edu.hk jonathan j. fong science unit, lingnan university, hong kong jonfong@ln.edu.hk original research © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24927 | september 9, 2021 68 third space creates collaborative environments to develop pre-service teachers amanda steiner1, chris wilcoxen2 , and julie bell3 1,2,3department of teacher education, university of nebraska omaha cite as: steiner, a., bell, j., and wilcoxen, c. (2021).third space creates collaborative environments to develop preservice teachers. metropolitan universities, 32(2), 68-84. doi: 10.18060/24927 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract in the fall of 2012, 11% (n=157) of clinical practice (i.e. student teaching) candidates at a metropolitan university were in jeopardy of not passing clinical practice. public schools in the area began to voice their concerns, and placements of candidates became a challenge. as a result, the university re-envisioned the program, utilizing third space to facilitate discourse between local school districts and university faculty. the development of third space was based on program data, which led to the following shifts in the program: scaffolded coursework with increased time in the field; instructional coaching prior to clinical practice; and a system for collecting feedback to sustain partnerships. collaboration between p-12 schools and the university was essential in preparing candidates to connect theory and apply it in practice. by spring 2016, the initiatives implemented led to a 12% decrease of candidates in jeopardy of not passing clinical practice. as the teacher preparation program continues to grow, one of the biggest challenges is continuing to build and sustain new partnerships. the authors provide a framework for how programs could adapt some of these initiatives to develop and sustain university and school partnerships. keywords: third space, teacher preparation, field-based experience, clinical practice introduction today, as higher education works to align programs to state and interstate teacher assessment and support consortium (intasc) standards, teacher preparation programs and state licensing facilities are making significant changes to how they assess pre-service teacher candidates’ preparedness to enter the teaching field. the new standards require pre-service teachers to https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24927 | september 9, 2021 69 demonstrate that they acquired the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to be effective teachers by providing evidence of their learning (i.e. portfolios, videotapes of teaching, reflections on performance, analyses of students’ work, tests of pedagogical and content knowledge). boyd et al. (2008) advocated for a full year of student teaching. while implementing a full year of clinical practice (i.e. student teaching) is not possible for most teacher preparation programs due to a strain on resources, boyd et al. (2008) also supported well-supervised, extended time in the field with alignment between theory and practice, which they suggested produced more effective candidates for the field of teaching. deangelis, wall, and che (2013) found that candidates who were satisfied with their pre-service teacher preparation were more likely to stay at their current school (and in education, in general) than those who were not satisfied. given the current pressure for educational reform, the need for preparing and retaining highly-qualified teachers, and the implementation of new standards in higher education, a way to bridge theory and practice for teaching candidates is through welldeveloped and supported field experiences. field experiences create a holistic approach for learning the art of teaching. strong preparation programs provide teacher candidates with field experiences that integrate theory and pedagogy and provide candidates with opportunities to develop their understanding through focused inquiry, observation, and guided practice (hollins, 2011). ronfeldt et al. (2014) found that teachers who engage in coursework aligned with opportunities to practice teaching in authentic environments are better prepared for the realities of the classroom and more likely to remain in the profession. this paper expands upon data collected at a midwestern metropolitan university from 2012-2015 (wilcoxen et al., 2015) to further illustrate how one teacher preparation program strengthened the connection between university coursework and school field experiences. the authors utilized program data to re-envision the development of third space in field-based teacher preparation and outline steps taken to align the goals of the teacher preparation program and community partners to support candidates in field-based experiences and completion of clinical practice. literature review field-based teacher preparation pre-service teachers bring their own perceptions and experiences to the classroom. these perceptions can lead to a disconnect in a candidate’s understanding of the complexities of the classroom. teacher preparation programs have been criticized for the lack of connection between what is learned in university-based coursework and its application in authentic school settings (clarke & winslade, 2019; darling-hammond, 2009; ncate, 2010), therefore candidates need support in gaining the knowledge, skills, and dispositions to be effective teachers. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24927 | september 9, 2021 70 field experiences bridge the disconnect between theory and practice (hammerness & kennedy, 2019). here, candidates are exposed to a variety of instructional strategies, the engagement each draws, and the impact of assessment. furthermore, p-12 practitioners are highly influential during fieldwork (orland-barak & wang, 2020; ronfeldt et al., 2018). in the last ten years, teacher preparation programs have pivoted to increase the amount of time candidates are spending in field-based experiences (lee, 2018), yet candidates are often left to observe teaching while p-12 practitioners are provided little direction or support from the university (aacte, 2018). the effectiveness of the experience is relational to the collaboration, support, and expertise of the p-12 practitioner and placement itself (torrez & krebs, 2012). prospective teachers need opportunities to not only observe in classrooms, but to engage in authentic teaching experiences that allow them to implement instruction and reflect on their practice (clarke & winslade, 2019). early experiences coupled with support and timely feedback can help candidates grow their confidence. furthermore, effective clinical partnerships that pair academic coursework with field-based experiences “assure that pedagogy and effective practices are learned, refined, and mastered by aspiring educators under the guidance of skilled experts” (aacte, 2018, p.44). to aid in the communication between university faculty and p-12 schools, a collaborative space with representatives from all parties needs to be established to create a shared vision and goals to support candidates as they learn and apply the art and science of teaching. defining third space the conceptual framework for this study rests in the concept of third space. the concept of third space has been used in multiple fields. according to sailors and hoffman (2019), “hybrid spaces bridge the gap between academic coursework and traditional practicum experiences so beginning teachers can be more innovative in their practices thus transforming education” (p. 125). for the purpose of this paper, the authors refer to this hybrid space as third space. third space refers to the practice of bringing pre-service teachers, p-12 partners, and university faculty together to create learning opportunities. this can be difficult. goodlad (1993) acknowledged difficulties in reaching symbiosis in collaborative partnerships as well as the cultural differences between the university and p-12 environment. this is only compounded by each system having its own vocabulary and accreditation requirements. consider the relationship, conversations, and learning between the pre-service teacher and the mentor teacher as one distinct space. in this space, guidance is fueled by the standards and needs of the p-12 classroom. the relationship, conversations, and learning between the pre-service teacher and the university are a second distinct space. in this second space, guidance is grounded in the needs of the university. both are necessary, and the space between these two distinct © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24927 | september 9, 2021 71 spaces, the theoretical third space, is extremely complex; the pre-service teacher is quite literally caught in the middle between the university and the p-12 classroom. successful conditions and navigation of the third space environment are critical for pre-service teacher’s success during clinical practice. the ultimate goal is to bridge theory learned in university coursework with practices in a live classroom (zeichner, 2010). collaborative models, such as third space, facilitate the dialogue necessary to support students. abbott and mcnight (2010) highlighted the impact of collaboration between educators by indicating three positive outcomes: more accurate identification of student needs and instructional strategies; greater communication across grade levels and content areas; and an increase in job satisfaction and teacher retention. opportunities in the field expose candidates to the varied cultural, linguistic, and socioeconomic contexts that help pre-service teachers develop their own cultural competence and culturally responsive teaching abilities (zeichner, 2012). context the midwestern metropolitan university described in this paper serves 15,000 students campus wide, and two out of every three educators in the metropolitan area hold a degree from the university. given the size of the teacher preparation program, over 1,000 pre-service teachers are placed in field-based experiences each year. the university's connection to area schools and development of successful teachers is vital to the community. recent changes to the state accreditation requirements made field-based experiences a central component of teacher preparation. community partnerships are essential in helping candidates obtain the 100 hours of practicum needed for certification in addition to completing 14 weeks of clinical practice. the challenge between fall 2012 and 2013, the university saw an increase in clinical practice (i.e. student teaching) candidates in jeopardy of failing clinical practice. the percentage grew from 11% (of 157) in fall 2012 to 14% (of 142) in fall 2013. challenges derived from an overall lack of classroom experience prior to clinical practice. candidates did not understand the ebb and flow of a school day and struggled to apply even basic lesson plans. the lack of practice applying what they had learned from their university coursework in authentic school contexts negatively impacted all aspects of the classroom, including student learning. as shown in table 1, this led to a decreased acceptance of p-12 placement requests and added tension to partnerships. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24927 | september 9, 2021 72 table 1. candidates in jeopardy of failing clinical practice year total number of clinical practice candidates total number of candidates in jeopardy percent in jeopardy fall 2012 157 17 11% spring 2013 192 21 10% fall 2013 142 20 14% potential consequences university supervisors and mentor teachers expressed concerns about candidates in jeopardy of unsuccessfully completing clinical practice. at-risk candidates required extensive support and resources; therefore, each candidate at risk was assigned an intervention team. this team consisted of the teacher candidate, mentor teacher(s), the university supervisor, a clinical practice liaison, the university field experience director, and the school building administrator. each member of the team played an important role in providing support to the pre-service teacher. together, the team implemented assistance plans and narrowed support by focusing on three to five indicators from the summative assessment. team members worked closely to implement the assistance plan and monitor progress with weekly progress checks. additional observations and coaching support were provided based on candidate needs. the entire team met weekly for progress-monitoring discussions. as the number of candidates needing assistance plans grew, management of these plans became difficult. the increased need for support required an extensive amount of time and resources; consequently, the teacher preparation program developed plans to take a proactive approach to field experiences leading up to clinical practice. as a result, the university redesigned the program and grounded efforts in collaboration with school districts to find common solutions that benefited all. description of third space in teacher preparation creating partnerships between teacher preparation programs and local schools has been at the forefront of conversations to redesign teacher education for the past two decades (beck, 2020; hollins, 2011; moore & sampson, 2008). universities have been criticized for the lack of collaboration between schools, mentor teachers, and university faculty. furthermore, university © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24927 | september 9, 2021 73 faculty are criticized for not connecting coursework to the realities of the classroom. many researchers refer to this as the theory-practice divide (darling-hammond, 2005; klein et al., 2013; zeichner, 2010) or two-worlds pitfall (braaten, 2019; feiman-nemser & buchmann, 1985). as previously outlined, third space refers to a hybrid space that brings two separate domains together through discourse and collaboration with the intent to address challenges and construct new knowledge (klein et al., 2010; zeichner, 2010). in teacher preparation, third space environments create a structure to support pre-service teachers with quality observations conducted by university instructors and coaches, opportunities for reflective practice, and emphasis on p-12 student needs. figure 1. third space and discourse p-12 schools and the university engaged in discourse and collaboration as part of third space to address the challenges candidates experienced in clinical practice and renew the partnerships with local school districts. monthly meetings between the university and a group of human resource representatives from 12 area school districts, along with two educational service units, allowed for discourse. the platform provided space for rich discussion among partners to cocreate desired outcomes of the experience for all parties involved (i.e. teacher candidates, mentor teachers, administrators, university faculty). this led to the development of a scope and sequence with clear goals, aligned field experiences, and strengthened partnerships with local schools. discourse within the third space led to innovative solutions with three outcomes to implement: scaffolded coursework with increased time in the field; instructional coaching prior to clinical practice; and a system for collecting feedback to sustain partnerships. analysis researchers used program data and qualitative feedback from the mentor teachers and teacher candidates participating in field-based experiences to evaluate the impact, if any, the initiatives derived from third space had on teacher candidates’ preparation. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24927 | september 9, 2021 74 as mentioned previously, in fall 2012, 11% (of 157) clinical practice candidates were in jeopardy of unsuccessfully completing clinical practice. in spring 2013, 10% (of 192) candidates were in jeopardy, and in fall 2013, the candidates in jeopardy jumped to 14% (of 142). with the changes made to the program in creating a productive third space, there has been a change in the number of candidates in jeopardy of unsuccessfully completing their program. after only one semester of implementation, the number of candidates dropped to 5%, then to 4%. by spring 2016, the first cohort of candidates to complete the program with the strengthened partnerships, increased field, and instructional coaching support saw a 12% decrease in the amount of candidates at risk for unsuccessfully completing clinical practice, as shown in table 2. table 2. candidates in jeopardy of failing clinical practice after the implementation of instructional coaching year total number of clinical practice candidates total number of candidates in jeopardy percent in jeopardy spring 2014 159 8 5% fall 2014 159 7 4% spring 2015 128 6 5% fall 2015 145 7 5% spring 2016 138 3 2% fall 2016 70 3 4% spring 2017 107 6 6% fall 2017 59 6 10% spring 2018 128 8 6% fall 2018 58 2 3% spring 2019 118 8 7% © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24927 | september 9, 2021 75 it is important to note in fall 2017 funding changed, and graduate assistants (ga) were hired and joined the remaining two full-time instructional coaches. the following year, as enrollment increased, additional gas were hired. to fulfill this role, gas must have five years of p-12 teaching experiences and hold a current teaching certificate. recent experience working in schools ensures that the coaching support gas provide to teacher candidates reflects current issues and trends in education. hiring gas also allowed for maximized support in the field as coaching hours could be shifted to times of the day with the highest need since there were more people able to provide feedback. even with the decrease in full-time coaches and shift to graduate assistants, overall, the data shows a decrease in need for additional support at clinical practice. the increased time spent in the field with the support of instructional coaches improved the average pass rate to 97%. increased time in field and instructional coaching: the impact on third space with the implementation of additional field time and instructional coaching support, candidates were provided multiple supported opportunities to connect theory to practice. these experiences allowed candidates to apply their learning within a classroom setting. university faculty tied 30% of the course grade to performance in the field to ensure the complexities of teaching at one level were met before continuing to the next. the performance assessment at each level was scaled back from the one used at clinical practice, so the language and expectations stayed consistent and candidates were able to show improvement on the progressive rubric. mentor teachers provided input in creating the rubrics as well as evaluating the performance of the candidates using the rubric at the end of each field experience. instructional coaches concentrated on providing support in early field experiences. coaches were present in buildings four days a week throughout the duration of the field experience (i.e. six weeks). coaches use multiple types of coaching methods including instructional coaching (knight, 2007) and cognitive coaching (costa & garmston, 2015). both types of coaching are centered on observing the candidates teaching and engaging in reflective conversations that prompt reflection and goal setting. these conversations also provide opportunities for candidates to ask questions or address concerns. initial challenges with the implementation of instructional coaching were defining the role of the coach and helping candidates understand the coach’s nonevaluative role. as candidates progressed through the program, the coach’s role was defined more clearly, and coaches became trusted guides. the consistent presence of instructional coaches and university faculty in the buildings provided more opportunities for continued conversations with partner schools/stakeholders and allowed mentor teachers to have a more consistent voice in the third space. university faculty (e.g. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24927 | september 9, 2021 76 instructors, instructional coaches) frequently checked in with mentor teachers to monitor candidates’ progress and to help address questions or concerns in a timely manner. sustained partnerships: the impact on third space the development of the third space opened lines of communication among the university and school partners to create shared goals for supporting teacher candidates. the continuation of conversations with stakeholders prompted changes for continued improvement and longevity of partnerships. currently, the program partners with over 40 host schools to provide field-based experiences for pre-service teachers prior to clinical practice. the feedback from mentor teachers and teacher candidates reflects positive partnerships formed within the third space, shown in table 3. table 3. partner feedback participant feedback mentor teacher mentor teacher mentor teacher i had a really great partnership with my practicum students as we were both able to grow from each other’s ideas and thoughts! our teaching practices and my classroom is better as a result of our partnership. the course instructors and instructional coach were available and introduced themselves. i knew i could have visited or asked them about anything that came up. i really enjoy working with uno teacher candidates. i feel like i am able to learn just as much from them and the experience as they are. i appreciate the partnership. teacher candidate teacher candidate my mentor teacher has the bar set high, so having a conversation with my coach about her perception of things going well did make me feel better about my path so far. the partnership with [the school] was an incredible experience. i would highly recommend working with them again. my mentor teacher went above and beyond to support me as a student. the administration and school counselor were available to encourage us as students but most importantly, they treated us like staff! i can't say enough good things about my experience with [teacher] and the building. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24927 | september 9, 2021 77 teacher candidate this was my favorite and best practicum because of the support i received from these professors. with the unknown season we are in, they offered so much support to us and always made sure to ask for feedback on what they could do better. they were all so helpful and i felt like i could come to them with questions because they made themselves available. reflection and replication in analyzing program data and qualitative feedback from the mentor teachers and teacher candidates participating in field-based experiences, the authors reflected on the initiatives that aided in the success creating third space and sustaining university and school partnerships. teacher preparation programs might consider replicating the following practices to increase successful program completion and build partnerships with local schools. increased time in field in an effort to address the concerns expressed by partner schools and mitigate the number of candidates on assistance plans, the university turned their focus inward and examined the scope and sequence of the teacher preparation program. the building relevant, integrated, developmentally guided experiences for students (bridges) committee was formed, consisting of faculty representing the elementary and secondary methods courses, office of field experiences personnel, and the teacher education department chair. the committee engaged in work to define key learning objectives in each course and audited courses for overlap in content and instructional practice. as a result, bridges developed a scope and sequence, scaffolding coursework and field-based experiences to build in time and complexity. courses were blocked together and linked to the field-based experience time, just as a science class to a lab (figure 2). this allowed for easier registration and placed candidates in the field a minimum of four days a week for three hour blocks of time. in other words, candidates were in the field more frequently for an increased amount of time. seeing the progression of content in a typical school week helped candidates begin to understand the rhythm of classroom instruction. university faculty developed key assessments, including a field experience rubric which tied 30% of the candidates’ overall grades to their field performance. in addition to candidates completing their field experiences in partner © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24927 | september 9, 2021 78 schools during consistent blocks of time, this also allowed for instructional coaches to support candidates in the field. course instructors and instructional coaches worked together to develop an instructional coaching calendar that allowed faculty to be a constant presence in p-12 buildings during field experiences. figure 2. scope and sequence of field-based experience supporting partners and pre-service candidates: instructional coaching to support the need for guided and supervised field experiences, four instructional coaches were hired to work alongside course instructors and collaboratively develop and support experiences for candidates. the term instructional coach is multifaceted. knight (2007) defined the role as “an onsite professional developer who works collaboratively with teachers, empowering them to incorporate research-based instructional methods into their classrooms in a non-evaluative role” (p. 12). a variety of roles and responsibilities can be assigned to instructional coaches; therefore, coaches do not adhere to a one-size-fits-all model. the model utilized at this metropolitan university allows candidates to learn theory at the university while having opportunities to apply this knowledge in a real-life classroom with the on-site support of an instructional coach. instructional coaches facilitate a synergistic environment that focuses on growing professionals through the use of collaboration, collective problem solving, decision-making, research, and reflection. pre-service teachers complete the field experiences with the support of a p-12 mentor teacher, course instructors, and an instructional coach. pre-service teachers need to understand why teachers take particular actions; communication needs to be explicit, exploratory, and reflective (lawley et al., 2012; zeichner, 2012). the instructional coach serves as a nonevaluative observer of teaching and a thought partner for the candidate to reflect on their teaching, grow in their practice, and meet course learning objectives. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24927 | september 9, 2021 79 instructional coaches work closely with course instructors. the coaches attend classes with candidates, model co-teaching, and support candidate development of continuous selfassessment. this collaboration supports the coach in being well versed in the goals of the university which in turn allows them to advocate for pre-service teachers and serve as a liaison between the university and p-12 schools. furthermore, given their presence within the buildings and the relationships with school partners, instructional coaches witness first-hand the culture of the building and can make concrete connections for candidates to course content. they understand classroom dynamics and can provide differentiated support for pre-service teachers and mentor teachers. collaboration in third space is a continual process, and open communication serves as the catalyst for these partnerships to thrive. instructional coaches play an important role in fieldbased experiences, as they are an extension of the university and are visible within schools. in addition to supporting pre-service teachers in their learning while in the field, the instructional coach also serves as a resource for p-12 partner schools. the coach works collaboratively with the building administration as well as mentor teachers to ensure that university expectations are implemented and questions or concerns are addressed in a timely manner. prior to the field experience beginning, faculty and coaches meet with mentor teachers to share where the course falls in the scope and sequence, to review the objectives of the course, and to provide ideas of what the experience may look like for candidates. at times, mentor teachers may need guidance as to how the candidate can best be utilized. other times, mentor teachers may need guidance on what the candidates are developmentally able to handle and how to support their development. coaches are able to address concerns with the candidates, which allows the mentor teacher time to focus on the needs of p-12 students. sustained partnerships at the conclusion of each field experience, debriefing sessions are scheduled between university faculty and p-12 partners. the purpose of these sessions is to celebrate successes from the semester and also to set future goals. some of the debriefing sessions occur face-to-face, while others occur virtually. when scheduling the sessions, university faculty and personnel consider the needs and desires of p-12 teachers and accommodate accordingly. the same questions are asked of each partner school, and information is compiled and shared with all stakeholders. the following questions are addressed: 1. what were the positives of the experience? 2. what are your thoughts on the schedule/timing of the practicum experience? 3. were the expectations for the practicum realistic? 4. what are your thoughts on the field rubric? © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24927 | september 9, 2021 80 5. what can we do to better support you and your students? 6. what might make placements easier for districts/schools (if administration is present)? 7. do you have any other feedback to improve our program? the district and school debriefing sessions brought about important conversations regarding logistics of the experiences and best practices. the conversations allowed the p-12 teachers to have a voice in third space. their insights into what is possible to accomplish in the five-week practicum, the logistics of the experience itself, and feedback on the assessment tool have been invaluable. the debriefing sessions prompted changes in certain field experiences to meet the needs of pre-service candidates, mentor teachers, and p-12 students. in addition to the debriefing sessions, a survey was developed to ensure that all stakeholders could share their voice (i.e., pre-service teachers, mentor teachers, and building administrators). university instructors and the field experience personnel review the survey data and work directly with each building to make improvements to the experience for the next semester. faculty cohorts set goals for the upcoming semester based on the feedback. these conversations continue each semester as a means of strengthening partnerships and meeting program goals. implications and conclusion re-envisioning the program and the development of third space has strengthened partnerships with local school districts, allowing placements of approximately 1,000 pre-service candidates in over 40 elementary and secondary schools. maintaining partnerships every semester allows for all parties to become familiar with the goals of the course, the developmental needs of candidates and p-12 students, and the culture of the building. third space offers opportunities to intentionally pair veteran (mentor) teachers with teacher candidates to share their craft and support the teacher candidates’ pedagogical practices. being mindful of the added workload mentoring can place on teachers, it is important consideration is given to not overusing mentor teachers and buildings. therefore, as programs grow, a challenge they face is continuing to maintain existing partnerships while also forging new ones. the onboarding of new building partners takes time to establish. beginning with initial conversations with district human resources offices, to meeting with building leaders and mentor teachers, inculcating teacher candidates into the classroom can take a year to establish. yet, this hard work pays off as this program experienced in the wake of a global pandemic. established partnerships allowed for minimal interruptions to practicum experiences. as many educator preparation programs pressed pause on field experiences and moved to the use of video teaching, sustained partnerships allowed the university to pivot with partner schools to provide support in synchronous, asynchronous, and hyflex environments. furthermore, the relationships © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24927 | september 9, 2021 81 that existed between the school and the university allowed stakeholders to establish response plans and protocols that mirrored each other. beyond supporting field-based experiences, school districts were able utilize teacher candidates that had met a threshold of practicum hours to help combat the substitute shortage providing teacher candidates with additional opportunities to gain experience. elements that have supported developing these partnerships in the teacher preparation program described in this article are the following: 1. a shared vision: setting up initial meetings with local schools to create a shared vision for our partnership by outlining goals of the course, 2. building orientations: organizing building orientations for candidates to become part of the school community, 3. visibility and accessibility: supporting candidates and mentor teachers with university faculty presence in buildings, and 4. soliciting feedback: debriefing surveys and conversations with buildings at the conclusion of field experiences to make improvements to the experiences for next semester. collaboration in third space between p-12 districts and universities is necessary for candidates to learn, practice, and apply instructional strategies in classrooms. a focused approach nurtures the development of a professional vision (zeichner, 2012). increasing conversations and valuing district input leads to a growth model. without collaboration in a third space, identifying needs, clarifying expectations and supporting all aspects of a field experience, the chasm between universities and pk-12 practitioners will continue to widen. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24927 | september 9, 2021 82 references american 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(2012). the turn once again toward practice-based teacher education. journal of teacher education, 63(5), 376-382. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022487112445789 https://doi.org/10.1177/0022487119894230 https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x18782906 https://doi.org/10.1177/0022487109347671 amanda steiner1, chris wilcoxen2 , and julie bell3 original research © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24536 | august 9, 2021 27 cultural competency activities: impact on student success jeffrey k. coleman1, darryl b. holloman2, melanie d. turner-harper3, and christina m. wan4 1office of diversity and inclusion, kennesaw state university, 2division of student affairs, spelman college, 3department of sociology, georgia state university, and 4 office of undergraduate evaluation, georgia institute of technology cite as: coleman, j.k., holloman, d.b., turner-harper, m.d., and wan, c.m. (2021). cultural competency activities: impact on student success. metropolitan universities, 32(2), 27-44. doi: 10.18060/24536 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract this study examines the impact of a cultural center on students’ views and perceptions of their own cultural competency learning and ability to manage their college experience at a large metropolitan university. this exploratory analysis highlights the views of ten students who frequently engaged with a cultural center. emerging themes include: (a) how students at a metropolitan university defined cultural competence; (b) challenges, difficulties, and problems participants experienced interacting with people from other cultures (e.g. nationality, ethnicity); and (c) successful interactions participants experienced with people from other cultures. findings and discussion from this study suggest: (a) identity, exposure, and critical awareness; (b) navigating and negotiating conflict; and (c) engaging cultural resources are the skills students develop, through experiences with a cultural center, that impact their ability to manage their college experience. this project studied a culturally mixed group of students using personal experiences, interviews, and focus group discussions to describe meaningful and defining moments. this study and its findings are noteworthy because there is little research in this subject area. all participants were frank, cooperative, and candid throughout the process. they offered insights and shared information regarding cultural competency at metropolitan university (mu). keywords: cultural centers, student affairs, career readiness, student development https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24536 | august 9, 2021 28 introduction cultural competence is one’s ability to appreciate, respect, and accept differences in perspective and behavior based on cultural commonalities and differences. this skill is imperative for college students as they transition to the workplace (chun & evans, 2016). the acquisition and expansion of cultural competence is necessary in the student experience at cultural centers on college campuses. mitchell hammer (2009) suggests cultural competence is a key ability needed to work and live effectively with people from various cultural backgrounds. notably he affirms, “cultural competence is essential for transcending ethnocentrism and establishing effective, positive relations across cultural boundaries both internationally and domestically” (hammer, 2013, p. 7). the promotion of cultural awareness and the increase of cultural sensitivity are primary facets of contemporary higher educational settings. american colleges and universities are being redefined by the pervasive understanding that freedoms of expression are shaped by not only the culture of our campuses but the cultural impact of our constituencies. this cultural impact, which if not clearly understood, oftentimes leads to student demonstrations or even escalate to campus crisis and institutional unrest. a better understanding of culture, its various forms, and stakeholders’ perceptions of culture will allow for the incidents mentioned above to develop into places of educational opportunities. metropolitan colleges and universities have become prime environments for increased cultural sensitivity and promotion of cultural awareness. cultural competence at these institutions, however, must be infused in the structural and organizational practices found on these campuses (national education association, n.d.). establishing co-curricular cultural competence experiences that target students will vary across metropolitan institutional types because of the cultures, contexts, and choices that evolve in the design process found on each campus. the purpose of this study was to better understand the impact of a cultural center on student views and perceptions of their own cultural competency learning and ability to manage their college experience at a large metropolitan university. this study was guided by the following central research question: what is the impact of a cultural center on student views and perceptions of their own cultural competency learning and ability to manage their college experience at a large metropolitan university? literature review contemporary college graduates must be equipped with cultural competence to navigate diverse environments and identify another’s sense of belonging, using critical thinking skills and academic-specific knowledge in creative ways to address major global questions in order to develop sustainable solutions to our local, national, and world problems (hammer, 2013; mccoy, 2011; patton, 2010). for the purposes of this study, the authors define cultural © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24536 | august 9, 2021 29 competence as “the capability to shift cultural perspective and appropriately adapt behavior to cultural difference and commonalities” (hammer, 2013, p. 26). “cultural competence” as a student learning outcome at metropolitan colleges and universities include efforts supported by both academic and student affairs as well as student success units. in metropolitan campus settings cultural competence can serve as a foundation for all high impact student success practices including, but not limited to, learning communities, community engagement, study abroad, disability services, and other curricular and co-curricular activities designed to develop, educate, and prepare individuals to tackle the challenges of living in and expanding urbanized societies (kuh, schneider, & aacu, 2008). a cultural center may facilitate and offer some of these high impact practices. cultural centers and student affairs mono-identity and intersectional focused centers, such as the one in this study, both provide spaces for students to develop their cultural competency skills by connecting around identity and cultural aspects of the university experience. to accomplish their goals, these centers must create spaces that are guided by specific standards around intentional learning, social justice education, and cultural competence skills, specific to the institution (jenkins, 2017). in a broad list of competencies for student affairs practitioners, acpa – college student educators international & naspa – student affairs administrators in higher education (2015) include social justice, a category under which cultural centers should frame their work. patton and hannon (2008) note that although the spaces responsible for this type of work are often placed within student affairs units in a college setting, to be successful in the promotion of cultural awareness, these practices must be threaded through the campus environment. cultural centers and cultural competence the intercultural development inventory, a premier tool in assessing cultural competence, developed by mitchell hammer, defines cultural competence as “the capability to shift cultural perspective and appropriately adapt behavior to cultural difference and commonalities” (hammer, 2013, p. 26). patton (2010) asserts the importance of culture centers on the college campus as spaces “where students’ feelings, ideas, cultures, and experiences not only matter but receive validation and support” (p. xvii). successful cultural competence efforts on campus are more than just the existence of cultural centers; they should foster a sense of belonging by engaging students in comprehensive ways to ensure they graduate. patton (2010) further highlights the importance of examining the work of cultural centers through audits, such as departmental program reviews. patton (2010) asserts that audits should include examination of whether a culture center is providing students the opportunity to build community on campus and promote a sense of “belongingness” (p.196). thus, a role of cultural centers should be to provide students with the © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24536 | august 9, 2021 30 sense that they belong within the larger university community. they can also contribute to the university’s overall success and students’ educational goals, in broader ways. for example, in mccoy’s (2011) recommendations for improvement for multicultural affairs work at public universities, he highlights the need for cultural centers to play a role in fostering students’ global citizenship, contributing to students’ retention at the university and providing physical and programmatic space. jenkins’ (2008) cultural programming framework highlights the role of the cultural center in operationalizing an institution’s goals for inclusion, but this must incorporate initiatives that foster true learning. methodology the purpose of this study was to better understand the impact of a cultural center on student views and perceptions of their own cultural competency learning and ability to manage their college experience at a large metropolitan university. metropolitan university (mu) has been recognized as the most diverse institution in the state university system (sus), which makes work around building cultural competence more relevant. the multicultural ambassadors program (map), developed by the mu cultural center, involves map ambassadors, a group of undergraduate students who are selected and trained to facilitate workshops, trainings, and discussions in the classroom and elsewhere across campus designed to build cultural competency skills. the goal of this initiative is to educate the mu community in cultural competence, inviting students, faculty, and staff to explore society through a global lens. this qualitative study used an interview-based case study to understand the impact of a cultural center on views and perceptions of map participants and non-map participants regarding their own cultural competency learning and ability to manage their college experience at a large metropolitan university (glesne, 2011). there is no institutional expectation or requirement for students at mu to develop cultural competency. this research project was approved by the university irb board. selection of sample for the purposes of this study, ten randomly selected students participated in individual interviews and a focus group. the sample included five students who were past participants in map program and five students who were not past participants in map program but frequently engaged with the cultural center in order to draw conclusions. the authors used a semi-structured interview approach to compare the perspectives of the program participants and non-program participants on their experiences within the cultural center. the sample selection criteria for this study were chosen for several reasons. first, the authors wanted to explore which experiences map participants and non-map participants identified as cultural competency activities. second, the authors wanted to compare the similarities and © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24536 | august 9, 2021 31 differences between the experiences of both groups. third, the authors wanted to study this population because there is very little research in this subject area. fourth, the authors wanted to examine how the cultural center assists students at mu in the development of cultural competency skills. data collection data collection included interviews, focus groups, and a questionnaire. the interview questions addressed the central research questions (see interview questions). the interviews allowed the authors to examine what the cultural competency experiences were for past map participants, how the program helped define those experiences, and how they compared to the experiences of the non-map participants. focus group questions and discussion were developed around an analysis of themes that surfaced during individual interviews (creswell, 2013). initial themes discovered in the individual semi-structured interviews informed the focus of the group interviews (see questions/prompts for focus groups). these themes included: cultural competence, cultural conflict, success through conflict, and cultural competence resources. open-ended questions were used to initiate the discussion, allowing the participants to explore and clarify their views, build off the responses of other participants, and allow the participants to guide and direct the course of the research study. as part of this study, the authors also collected data to provide a demographic profile and academic achievement analysis for the groups in the study (table 1). the authors structured our research to explore the impact of a cultural center on the development of students’ cultural competency skills at mu. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24536 | august 9, 2021 32 table 1. demographic information demographic information for participants n percentage pell eligibility eligible 7 70% non-eligible 3 30% first-generation status first-generation 7 70% non-first-generation 3 30% race black or african american 9 90% white 1 10% ethnicity black (non-hispanic) and hispanic/latinx 1 10% black (non-hispanic) 1 10% non-hispanic/latinx 7 10% hispanic/latinx 1 10% gender male 5 50% female 5 50% academic major economics 1 10% anthropology 1 10% political science 1 10% philosophy 2 20% exercise science 1 10% pre-managerial sciences 1 10% neuroscience 1 10% early childhood education 1 10% spanish 1 10% academic classification first year 2 20% junior 3 30% senior 5 50% total 10 100% © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24536 | august 9, 2021 33 in examining data for the participants in the study, seven of the ten participants had a 3.0 gpa or higher; however, all participants were in good academic standing. the university defines “good standing” as earning a minimum grade point average of 2.0 each semester. the authors found that seven participants were pell-eligible and seven were first-generation college students. finally, when analyzing academic classification of participants, the authors found that two were first year students, three were juniors, and five were seniors. the sample had a wide diversity of academic majors, including only two participants with the same major. the participants were a close representation of the overall student population who used the center. data analysis procedures the purpose in using a data analysis and representation approach structure (creswell, 2003) was to provide a methodology to guide the analysis and configuration of data to categorize, reflect, and interpret. the following data analysis approach was applied for each participant in this study: create and organize data; data review; data coding; description of the case; interpretation’ and validation of findings. the authors coded the data once it was reviewed. data was sorted into themes that exemplified the same theoretical or descriptive ideas (glesne, 2011). after data from individual interviews were coded, each participant’s experience was uniquely described. the cases were then combined into two groups of either map participants or non-map participants. the common themes revealed through individual interviews were used to develop focus group questions to further interrogate the patterns within each group. the authors identified themes in the data to define and demonstrate understanding of the information collected. the coded data was transformed as the authors conducted interviews and focus groups and connected the findings with personal experience (wolcott, 1994). relying on creswell’s (2003) method of triangulation, document comparison, peer debriefing, and member-checking were used to assure trustworthiness. within the analysis of interview and focus group data, participants’ personal success is measured as attainment of skills such as a humanitarian approach to cultural conflict, and the ability to navigate and dismantle cultural barriers (council for the advancement of standards in higher education, 2015). these impacts are defined by participants’ personal reflections on their experiences. the authors are also able to measure participants’ academic success through analysis of the demographic profile (table 1). findings what is the impact of a cultural center on student views and perceptions of their own cultural competency learning and the ability to manage their college experience at a large metropolitan university? map and non-map participants were evenly represented in order to provide a complete sample of students who are involved with the cultural center. upon comparing these © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24536 | august 9, 2021 34 two groups, the authors found that the qualitative differences between map and non-map responses are not significant, and will not differentiate between the two groups in this analysis. identity, exposure, and critical awareness participants expressed deep, nuanced understandings of their cultural identities and the ways these identities may conflict with other people on campus. participants agreed that culture is the traditions and identity that distinguish one group of people from another and that cultural competence is a respectful open-mindedness and comfort level with difference. rather than focusing on any similarities or differences between themselves and someone else, one participant explained, “i think actual cultural competency is appreciating someone else’s culture in its own right and not having to make comparisons necessarily to your own culture.” some participants went on to offer a more complex explanation of what it means to be culturally competent; they described cultural competence as an action and a choice, a willingness to embrace the unfamiliar, an effort to communicate, adapt, and find common ground. “[try] to share viewpoints and have a revelation through shared experiences,” one participant urged. participants recognized the impact of arriving at a culturally-diverse campus. as one participant reflected: when i got to college…i really learned about all the different ways that blackness can be presented…that for me was my first experience where i was like “oh my gosh, blackness isn’t just this monolithic thing that i thought it was when i was younger. it’s all these different types of intersections and experiences that share this common thread.” that was a very revolutionary kind of experience for me. another participant commented: going to a university like [mu], it’s very diverse, i encounter people from different backgrounds on a day-to-day basis. in terms of cultural difference, i do see a lot of different things in terms of how people interact with one another, different jargon that’s used in conversation among different groups of people[.] participants also noted the intersection of race and class that becomes more apparent upon exposure to new people from varying backgrounds. participants acknowledged their own class positionality and its impact on their relative privilege. many described the economic ups and downs in their lives as shifts in and out of different class statuses. one participant explained: i am…middle class or whatever, but for right now i’m poor because i’m in college, you know. but i can tell when i interact with someone that is of a different race or social class, they don’t listen to me as much because they don’t think i’m on their level because they have more money than me[.] © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24536 | august 9, 2021 35 another participant said: i grew up, we grew up poor, and as we got older, we kind of moved up to, like, middle class as my parents got better jobs and things like that, so…i’ve seen the poor side and i’ve seen the middle-class side[.] this critical awareness is impactful: in the words of one participant, “being a minority allows me to understand that i need to go the extra mile in every facet of my life. it motivates me to want to be a better person and do better things.” navigating and negotiating conflict participants extended their cultural awareness to the many dimensions of identity-based conflict and oppression. these dimensions included race, gender identity, sexuality, socioeconomic class, and religion; participants cited conflicts in all of these categories, as well as intersectional conflicts across categories. participants experienced racial conflict in a variety of culturally embedded forms ranging from overt to covert. they cited white privilege, disempowerment, hostility, insensitivity, stereotypes, misperceptions, microaggressions, and the emotional labor of having to frequently explain a particular racial identity if it did not match up with a preconceived notion, for example, being multiracial or identifying as black rather than african american. participants unpacked racial conflict as a misunderstanding that needs to be unlearned through cultural competency. one participant said: as a social construct, we are taught that race is really someone’s skin tone, who they are, and where they come from. but in reality, race is just a way to categorize people. those that don’t know that race has nothing to do with who people are at times unwilling to think differently and that causes conflict for both them and the people they are placing in that race category. another participant commented: i guess if you’re talking about being a black male, we could talk about the years of how black men have been stigmatized, and culturally how that works in america, and that kind of informs some of my thought process now. a third state: i think the biggest barrier has been race in itself…other groups of people may have little to no exposure to those of my race, and the challenge with that is just understanding how to navigate through those barriers and finding basic commonality and common ground to kind of start a conversation in the first place. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24536 | august 9, 2021 36 this discussion extended to include intersectional conflicts with gender, sexual, and religious identity. participants of varying gender identities commented on gender inequality and the added challenges that come with the stereotypes and cultural differences of being a black woman, or a muslim woman, or a gender-non-conforming black muslim. participants who identified as straight expressed empathy and a desire to be allies to the lgbtqia+ community. another area of conflict discussed was religion, specifically religions that are minorities in the u.s., including non-theism. participants cited oppression both against and within religions – that is, insensitivity and judgment towards minority religions by majority ones such as christianity and catholicism, and oppressive ideologies bred by religion against intersecting cultural categories, such as anti-abortion and anti-lgbtqia+ beliefs. one participant pointed out a conflict-ridden intersection between race and non-theism in the black community: “queer and black and non-theists…is a very small group of people whereas in a lot of white queer communities’ non-belief is an expected thing almost. one participant summed up religion’s cultural relevance: they explained, “religious oppression is, i think, something that’s not often thought about as having ‘real world’ consequences. we forget that religious oppression is not just restriction on practice; it intersects often with classism, sexism, anti-blackness and many other things.” many respondents mentioned that these experiences made them culturally sensitive, humble, and appreciative of fellow open-minded people. they also consider themselves particularly attune to areas where they experience more or less privilege than people in other social positions, such as being a racial or gender minority, and a member of a majority religious sect or sexual orientation. many participants find that their minority status(es) made them more adaptable, more empathetic, and more apt to deconstruct stereotypes and look for common ground with others. “everyone has to ‘unlearn’ things, even about the communities with which they identify,” explained one participant. participants with non-minority statuses mentioned that they use their privilege to create occasions to teach others about cultural minority groups; for example, one participant who is a member of a religious organization hosts awareness events on islam and hinduism in order to seek common ground. this person stated: [i]t was one of the best meetings we’ve had this entire semester, we had the biggest turnout of people…and we all just hung out and asked questions…they just talked a lot about what [islam] means to them…it cleared up a lot of misconceptions. we have meetings like that i think they’re really a success when we can have muslim students and atheist students and christian students come together…[it’s] beneficial for all parties. when asked why common ground is such an important goal, respondents explained that it is the only way to move forward in communication. they articulated that communicating towards © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24536 | august 9, 2021 37 common ground creates comfort, from this comfort comes trust, and from trust comes the opportunity to bridge gaps in cultural understanding and connection. participants spoke of using cultural competence as a tool to renegotiate certain parts of their own culture. one participant who is religious convinced their family to transfer to a socially tolerant church and another began using their map ambassador training to transform negative, racialized experiences into opportunities to communicate and deconstruct conflict, rather than walking away in anger. many participants had similar views related to the importance of advocating for cultural competence activities so that even the most privileged individuals might become engaged in cultural empathy, adaptation, and the unlearning of oppressive ideologies. one participant stated: making yourself aware of your privilege and revealing that to other similarly-privileged people are the first steps to advocacy and allyship. i think it’s important to have students, faculty, community members with different privileges rally around people who are disadvantaged in the same way. another participant commented, “when you realize your privilege and become culturally aware, then you can effectively make changes to improve issues. it is important to get people who aren’t already there to help ignite competence.” engaging cultural resources participants noted that it is necessary to have access to resources in order to work towards becoming culturally competent. they also agreed that these cultural competency resources are readily available to them at mu and that simply being on campus at all is a constant cultural experience. beyond this exposure to a culturally diverse student body and beyond the cultural center as their primary resource, participants also cited the following as valuable cultural competence resources on campus: language courses, opportunities to study abroad, model un, student services offices that cater to particular identities, and university-wide activities offered at student housing and elsewhere on campus. student clubs, in particular, are cited as an empowering opportunity to lead and create cultural events, such as the religion event mentioned in the previous section. when asked about off-campus opportunities for cultural competence-building, participants cited the internet and social media as major tools for access to new and different ideas and people, a blurring of cultural lines, and quick way to spread and gain knowledge. they also praised local arts scenes as places to share common ground with different people, cultural activities in the local communities such as film festivals, voluntarism and advocacy groups, and professional mentors and coworkers. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24536 | august 9, 2021 38 expanding on the findings of astin (1993) and villapondo (2002), our findings demonstrate the myriad positive effects of access to, and participation in, cultural competence activities on campus. participants shared the creative methods they use to respond to cultural conflicts. one participant mentioned that they enjoyed navigating their multiple racial and ethnic identities during interaction with different friend and family groups; they saw it as an advantage to have this authentic access to so many cultures. with regard to the cultural center in particular, participants reflected on the solidarity built and felt with members of a similar identity; they spoke of the relief of being around fellow minorities as an escape from the emotional labor of being expected to represent an entire race, gender identity, or religion when in other spaces. map participants received, as part of their involvement with the center at mu, training and development on cultural competence and related topics. in addition, the center’s program offerings focused on identity, culture, and more. therefore, map and non-map participants would likely have had opportunity to reflect about their own cultural competence prior to this study’s data collection. this is an advantage for this research, as these participants were well positioned to provide keen insight. many of the participants, map and non-map alike, were involved in the center’s programming and events prior to this research. in future studies, further examination of cultural centers outside of the metropolitan context would yield important comparative results. additionally, similar data collected at another type of institution, such as a religiously-affiliated institution, or small private institution, is a direction future researchers should consider. conclusion and implications our findings suggest that identity, exposure, and critical awareness; navigating and negotiating conflict; and engaging cultural resources are the skills students develop through experiences with a cultural center at a metropolitan university. these experiences correspond with learning reconsidered (naspa & acpa, 2004) student outcomes of persistence and academic achievement. participants in the study were able to reflect on their ability to develop skills to manage their college experience by addressing cultural barriers to their ability to manage their college experience. barriers such as the emotional labor of being expected to represent an entire race or gender identity were deconstructed and an environment of cultural inclusion was established in the cultural center. such experiences enabled participants to build humanitarian skills of understanding, appreciating differences, and advocating to dismantle systematic barriers of oppression. moreover, participants reflected their ability to navigate conflict by working cooperatively with individuals different from themselves and people with different points of view, skills reflecting cognitive development and career preparation (council for the advancement of standards in higher education, 2015). © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24536 | august 9, 2021 39 the study indicates that cultural centers should serve as safe spaces for students from diverse backgrounds to reflect on the variance in their socially constructed cultural identities. these spaces should also provide students with the opportunities to reflect, embrace, and value how those identities are both similar and dissimilar. many students, however, will arrive to campus with concerns that their social and cultural identities will not be embraced. this study demonstrates the importance of maintaining cultural center spaces as a student success bastion for a college or university community. this is underscored during a global pandemic where many college students have struggled to maintain connections to their campuses via remote learning environments. as metropolitan universities and colleges rebound from a global pandemic, resources will be strained throughout the campus. it will be important that university administrators and policy makers continue to invest in the work, growth and expansion of the cultural centers on their campuses. cultural centers will continue to support expectations that student graduate prepared to enter competitive job markets demonstrating “work-readiness.” this study reveals that college students who connect with cultural centers acquire skills that prepare them to navigate global spaces where cultural awareness will serve as an employment requirement. although the tenets of student success have often been associated with academic advising and financial solvency, these are only some of the aspects that contribute to successful student retention. student success initiatives must also include varying aspects of student belonging and fit specific to their institutions. these are extremely important aspect for metropolitan universities and colleges who may not always have traditional campus environments. cultural centers provide students an opportunity to explore and connect with their gender, sexual, racial and religious identities which help them better maneuver the various academic spaces they will encounter on campus. moreover, cultural centers can help students navigate densely populated urban environments which are rich in multifaceted cultures and traditions. this study reflects how learning does not occur in a vacuum nor only manifests in academic classroom settings. lifelong learning occurs through many different facets including cultural centers, residence halls, greek life, student conduct, and civic engagement. these out-ofclassroom experiences help provide students with a holistic approach to learning that better prepares them to enter grounded workforces. the authors have learned through a global pandemic that students and student success initiatives require the whole campus to embrace innovative approaches to facilitating student retention and matriculation. these initiatives will call for academic affairs, student affairs, and student success units to work in sync to support students in a post-pandemic environment. lastly, metropolitan colleges and universities are microcosms of larger societies and it will be the responsibility of their cultural centers to foster environments that promote efforts that shape inclusive and culturally aware environments. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24536 | august 9, 2021 40 references acpa: 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(2009). niggers no more: a critical race counternarrative on black male student achievement at predominantly white colleges and universities. international journal of qualitative studies in education, 22(6), 697–712. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24536 | august 9, 2021 41 jenkins, t. s. (2017, may). a new set of standards for multicultural affairs: transformative education principles & the student affairs program review. paper presented at the national conference on race & ethnicity, ft. worth, texas. jenkins, t. s. (2010). viewing cultural practice through a lens of innovation and intentionality: strategies for student personnel administrators in culture centers. in l. d. patton (ed.), culture centers in higher education: perspectives on identity, theory, and practice. (1st ed.). sterling, va: stylus publishing. jenkins, t. s. 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(2008). what works? a qualitative examination of the factors related to the academic success of african american males at a predominantly white college in the south. challenge: a journal of african american studies, 14(2), 67–89. national education association (n.d.). diversity toolkit: cultural competence for educators. retrieved from http://www.nea.org/tools/30402.htm patton, l. d. (ed.) (2010). culture centers in higher education: perspectives on identity, theory, and practice. sterling, va: stylus publishing. patton, l. d. & hannon, m.d. (2008). collaboration for cultural programming: engaging culture centers, multicultural affairs, and student activities offices as partners. in harper, s. r. (ed.), creating inclusive campus environments for cross cultural learning and student engagement. washington, dc: naspa student affairs administrators in higher education. sandeen, a. & barr, m.j. (2006). critical issues for student affairs: challenges and opportunities. san francisco, ca: jossey-bass. villalpando, o. (2002). the impact of diversity and multiculturalism on all students: findings from a national study. naspa journal, 40(1), pp. 124-144. tinto, v. (2017). reflections on student persistence. student success, 8(2), pp. 1-8. doi:10.5204/ssj.v8i2.376 wolcott, h. f. (1994). transforming qualitative data: description, analysis, and interpretation. thousand oaks, ca: sage publications. https://doi.org/10.1002/abc.249 http://www.nea.org/tools/30402.htm © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24536 | august 9, 2021 42 supplementary data interview questions 1. how do you define culture? 2. what is your definition of cultural competence? 3. what has your experience been around cultural difference? 4. describe the cultural competency activities you have participated in at metropolitan university. these are experiences in which you have the opportunity to shift your cultural perspective and appropriately adapt your behavior to cultural difference and commonalities. 5. what did you experience as challenges, difficulties, and problems in interacting with people from other cultures (e.g. nationality, ethnicity)? a. discuss the relationship you believe these challenges had to your race. b. discuss the relationship you believe these challenges had to your gender. c. discuss the relationship you believe these challenges had to your sexual orientation. d. discuss the relationship you believe these challenges had to your socioeconomic class. e. discuss the relationship you believe these challenges had to your religion. 6. what did you experience as successful interactions with people from other cultures (e.g. nationality, ethnicity)? a. discuss the relationship you believe these successes had to your race. b. discuss the relationship you believe these successes had to your gender. c. discuss the relationship you believe these successes had to your sexual orientation. d. discuss the relationship you believe these successes had to your socioeconomic class. e. discuss the relationship you believe these successes had to your religion. 7. what are some resources and services at metropolitan university that you think helped you interact successfully with people from other cultures (e.g. nationality, ethnicity)? 8. what are some resources and services outside of metropolitan university that you think helped you interact successfully with people from other cultures (e.g. nationality, ethnicity)? 9. what do you feel university administrators and professors should know and do to create experiences that foster cultural competence at metropolitan university? © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24536 | august 9, 2021 43 questions/prompts for focus groups questions/prompts for focus group 1 (map participants) 1. it seems that the fact that gsu offers a variety of cultural competency activities, with the office of multicultural affairs as the largest example, was a common theme in each of your individual interviews. talk to me about why you think this is the case. 2. it seems that dealing with your own closed mindedness, the closed-mindedness of others and communication issues between cultures were common themes in each of your individual interviews. talk to me about why you think this is the case. 3. it seems that conflict based on race and how it is perceived was a common theme in each of your individual interviews. talk to me about why you think this is the case. 4. it seems that lack of exposure and insensitivity to other classes was a common theme in each of your individual interviews. talk to me about why you think this is the case. 5. it seems that insensitivity towards religious people and oppression within religions were common themes in each of your individual interviews. talk to me about why you think this is the case. 6. it seems that effective communication and acceptance and openness between cultures was a common theme in each of your individual interviews. talk to me about why you think this is the case. 7. it seems that finding common ground and understanding was a common theme in each of your individual interviews. talk to me about why you think this is the case. 8. how has the office of multicultural affairs helped foster cultural competence for you at metropolitan university? 9. how can workshops and trainings for professors on open-minded thinking and cultural competency help foster cultural competence for you at metropolitan university? 10. what roles have the internet, social media, and friendship played in helping you successfully interact with people from other cultures? 11. talk to me about how your experiences have all been similar... 12. talk to me about anything that has been shared that seems strikingly different to you… 13. what advice would you give to other students about how they can successfully engage in cultural competency activities at a metropolitan university? © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24536 | august 9, 2021 44 questions/prompts for focus group 2 (non-map participants) 1. it seems that the fact that gsu offers a variety of cultural competency activities, with the office of multicultural affairs as the largest example, was a common theme in each of your individual interviews. talk to me about why you think this is the case. 2. it seems that being sensitive to different people, and wanting others to feel like you can relate to them and respect them were common themes in each of your individual interviews. talk to me about why you think this is the case. 3. it seems that communicating with people who are unaware of their privilege, and convincing people to see the value in engaging in cultural competence activities and advocacy were common themes in each of your individual interviews. talk to me about why you think this is the case. 4. it seems that stereotypes and judgments around race, gender, sexuality, faith, or socioeconomic class were common themes in each of your individual interviews. talk to me about why you think this is the case. 5. it seems that insensitivity towards religious people and oppression within religions were common themes in each of your individual interviews. talk to me about why you think this is the case. 6. it seems that a common theme in each of your individual interviews was that the experience of being in a racial, gender, sexuality, or faith minority has made you stronger and more motivated. talk to me about why you think this is the case. 7. it seems that a common theme in each of your individual interviews was that you can see areas and aspects of your identity where you are privileged while also aware of other areas where you are not. talk to me about why you think this is the case. 8. it seems that a lack of effort by professors to get trained in cultural competence and practice it consistently in the classroom were common themes in each of your individual interviews. talk to me about why you think this is the case. 9. how has the office of multicultural affairs helped foster cultural competence for you at metropolitan university? 10. what roles have off-campus jobs, off-campus community participation, and off-campus arts and cultural activities played in helping you successfully interact with people from other cultures? 11. talk to me about how your experiences have all been similar... 12. talk to me about anything that has been shared that seems strikingly different to you… 13. what advice would you give to other students about how they can successfully engage in cultural competency activities at a metropolitan university? jeffrey k. coleman1, darryl b. holloman2, melanie d. turner-harper3, and christina m. wan4 selection of sample data collection data analysis procedures supplementary data metropolitan universities vol. 29 no. 4 (december 2018), doi: 10.18060/22835 60 four community engagement lessons from detroit to connecticut michelle r. dunlap keywords: community engagement setting the context one of the first lessons that i learned as a scholar of community engagement was that the term “volunteerism” in the traditional canonical research and literature did not include the kinds of volunteerism that black folks and other collectivist minority cultures do. once, while attending a community engagement conference, i overheard some scholars who were huddled together; they were bemoaning that minorities do not volunteer, and they were mystified as to why. at first that sounded normal to me as i had visions of the red cross, salvation army, hospitals, and other non-profit organizations in my head. however, as i thought deeper about it, i began to think about my own life, growing up in detroit. i thought of the lives of the many other minorities that i know. i recalled that for the vast majority of us, we come out of the womb volunteering. our volunteerism may not look like the formal volunteerism that goes on at the red cross and other organizations. nevertheless, our lives tend to be full of volunteerism. we donate and volunteer in our faith-based organizations, as well as in our immediate, extended, and non-blood families. we look after neighbors, church members, and children by the thousands. for hundreds of years, as well as pre-enslavement, we communally looked after one another’s children, whether formally acknowledged or not. i can recall the story of my great-grandfather elijah, reportedly the biracial son of a young black woman and her white jewish enslaver/master. when he was very young, his mother either died, or she was sold away forever. however, nearby lived a kindly enslaved woman named, “nana”, and as was common during that historical period and beyond, she reared him as her own. in other words, someone stepped up and stepped in to do something that they had no legal obligation to do, but they took it on as a moral obligation to look after a child as their own. the enslavement period ended while my great-grandfather was still relatively young. because of nana’s upbringing of him, he was able to go on to accomplish remarkable things: carpentry, marriage, seven beautiful children, and a devoted life of evangelism that included daily devotions with his seven children when they woke up and before they went to sleep. he and his children, with their own hands, built a rather large house that still stands to this day, a house that remained in our family until his last child died in 2007 at the age of 100. the tradition of family members stepping in and rearing children as needed is one that is familiar, if not common, to most african american people as well as native americans, latina, and many other cultures. having said all of this, i bring you to my life and its evolution into the discipline of community engagement. i too am a multiracial person—reared by a biracial father, a white irish/french grandmother, an african american mother, and an african american stepmother. twenty-five years ago, i entered a tenure-track position as the first african american in my department. six years later, i became the first african american woman in the history of the college to start as an 61 assistant professor and secure promotion and tenure. eight years later, i not only became the first african american woman at the college to achieve these milestones, but also first to go on to achieve full professor status. it’s not that i am so special or smart, or that my college is unusually difficult for domestic minorities (in fact, i have tended to find the opposite to be true). rather, academic environments in general historically have not been climate-friendly for the very minority groups who gave their blood for and/or built this country. i hope that in this new millennium, things are shifting for the better in academia. however, i cannot tell my story of community engagement without setting this context. not only was i a trailblazing-first in many ways in my academic institution, but also among all of the cousins and siblings of my generation on my mother’s, my father’s, and my stepmother’s side. among all of them, i was the first to earn an undergraduate degree. therefore, i also was the first among my familial generation to earn a master’s and doctorate. making my experience even more unique, was that when i began my tenure-track position, i had already spent three years as the guardian of a precious six-yearold nephew, and to my delight i ended up rearing him a total of 15 years until he was 18. so, i started my full-time academic career as a single parent of a young child. by the time my oldest was 21; he was entering the armed services, i was both coming up for full promotion and becoming a parent again. this time it was to a just-as-precious 7-year-old whom i adopted, and who now is almost grown. about four years into my rearing of him, i joined the “sandwich generation” as my mother’s primary caregiver. she is a survivor since 2013 of lung cancer with metastasis to the brain. to date, she has received not only radiation, chemo, and oral chemo, but also four “gamma-knife” surgical procedures to remove brain tumors. so, a black, single, auntiemomma, ph.d., professor, primary caregiver, scholar—that is what i have been while also blazing a trail within academia and the disciplines of service-learning and community engagement scholarship. therefore, as i set this context, i may not have put in many hours as a volunteer at the red cross or the salvation army, but like many minorities, i have hundreds and thousands of hours of undocumented volunteerism that i do not think of as volunteerism—it is just “what we do”. it took me hearing the muttering of scholars at a conference to argue defensively within myself that what many minorities “just do” is also volunteerism. moreover, informal and undocumented volunteerism is just as much or more than what others do formally, as well as just as valid and important. understanding the validity of informal and undocumented volunteerism that is the norm within many minority or collectivist cultures would be the first important thing that i would want readers to take from my experience as a scholar of community engagement. i use the concept of volunteerism to make this point in the strongest terms: please remember to question assumptions with respect to the communities we engage, hearing directly from the community itself at the most basic level before framing studies, theories, and policies. thus, for an overview, i present four lessons for the field or for other community-engaged scholars: 1. question assumptions with respect to the communities in which we are engaged (discussed and illustrated above). 62 2. conduct, support and publish more community-engagement research with students of color and communities of color at the center, and not in juxtaposition to normalized views of white culture. 3. university or college funding opportunities to help support community-requested or negotiated engagement are a necessary and important investment. 4. when engaging with communities outside of the classroom, you, your students, and your administration have to be willing to take measured risks. crossroads and difficult research choices when i first started my career, i found myself interested in two different, but somewhat related issues. i originally wanted to publish a series of papers based on a pilot study that i had conducted with 159 students examining their perceptions and misperceptions of the partially fictionalized african american family in spike lee’s crooklyn. while i was pursuing that, something had been brewing among my students. at that time, except for an occasional minority here or there, they were almost all white. for the majority of them, i was the first african american woman in a position of authority that they had personally encountered, which in itself had the potential to be a challenge and often it was. in addition, when i arrived at the college my department chair at the time told me that in most of their classes they sent their students out into the very economically and racially diverse community to do practicums. concurrently, our office of community partnerships (volunteers for community service or ovcs at that time) was using the language of “service-learning.” i quickly understood that these two experiential forms of learning were the same within the context of our department, and i happily incorporated service learning into my very first curriculum, and have done so ever since. during the first two-years of incorporating service learning, i noticed a pattern of at least 25%75% of my students expressing during class or coming to me in my office to express anxieties about their experiences in the community. some expressed feeling unwelcomed, feeling nervous, or feeling ill prepared. initially, i had a hard time understanding why they were so anxious, as i came from extremely diverse communities within detroit. i was puzzled, and i could not understand why the students were making such a big deal about going out into the community. when i asked my colleagues if their students were having similar difficulties, they reported that they did not seem to be experiencing the same distresses that my students were. i began to realize that in comparison to my department mates, perhaps there was something about me, a relatively younger (by roughly 15 years) black woman, sending the students out into less privileged environments, that made the students feel even more uncomfortable. in addition, perhaps the diversity-oriented journaling prompt questions that i asked were engendering discomfort, e.g., “how do you see your life as being different from the community with which you are engaging?” further, i began to notice that the themes emerging about their discomfort and their means of coping were sounding more and more similar each semester. i became more and more interested in their adjustment process, and i was motivated to want to help them understand their own process so that i would not become a sacrificial victim of it. in these efforts to both understand their issues and to help protect myself by illustrating their process, i decided that i would like to study their journals systematically. for the next few years, at the end of each semester after all grades were turned in, i asked for volunteers willing to submit their journals for study, inclusive of written permission. students submitted their journals by the dozens, and as they did, i 63 anonymized their journals so that i could solicit assistance from my ongoing student research team with coding. we were able to develop a coding system for documenting the hundreds of issues that emerged within the student journals. concurrently, i had been working on the crooklyn pilot study mentioned earlier. however, i found myself at a critical point. i needed to decide which of my two beloved research studies to focus on, as the tenure clock was ticking loudly. there was the pilot study where students had watched the first 15 minutes of the african american family in spike lee’s crooklyn, and then evaluated the family on many different dimensions. then there was the service-learning studies involving systematic analyses of my students’ journals. i felt a need to focus on one or the other for a time, in order to produce a cohesively connected series of journal articles, but i also felt torn between the two lines of research. it was 1995, and one line of research looked at how people perceive and misperceive black families, while the other examined what mostly white students go through when they go out into minority communities. this second line addressed helping service-learners with their adjustment issues so that they can go out more composed and prepared, and thus do a better, more culturally sensitive and appropriate job of engaging with the community. i felt motivated to produce scholarship that would help my and other students around the country, no matter what their background. my project would aid them to go out, do good work in the community, and treat the community as their partners rather than as stereotypes. either of my two areas of interest and corresponding data collections could accomplish this. the passion was within me for both areas, but the practical question for me was whether i could finish one more quickly than the other within the time constraints of the tenure clock. ironically, it was around that same time in 1995 or so that i came across an article by yolanda t. moses, a former president of the now defunct american association of higher education (aahe). the article was in an educational magazine that i have not been able to locate in recent years. i do recall that, in the article, dr. moses said that black women need two lines of research, one for themselves, and one for their careers. at a conference that i attended shortly after that, i mentioned this to a couple of my black women colleagues. one recently tenured black woman seemed quite offended by it, saying that all of her research is for her. my response was that i was glad that she was in an environment or context where she could feel that way. however, i wasn’t so sure that my environment had evolved to that place yet where i didn’t have to worry about the practicalities of what happens to the research when it leaves my desk to be evaluated by journals, and how that could impact a tenure decision. i decided that since my pilot study was conducted with college students and not practicing social service providers, i would put it on the back burner, and would put all of my energies into the analyses of service-learning journals and production of publications from that. i wonder now if i was actually bifurcating my research in the manner that dr. moses suggested, with the service-learning studies being for my career, and the crooklyn studies, which i would save for later, being for myself? in any case, her advice helped me to emotionally detach from one and strategically develop a plan for moving ahead with the other with tenure in mind. i moved forward, publishing many research articles on the multicultural service-learning process, as well as a book and two edited volumes. with the help of my mentors, i also was strategic about the journals that i targeted for my service-learning work, and i did find most journals to be receptive to what i had produced. the 64 qualitative and quantitative analyses conducted on the student journals found, for example, that most students feel anxious as they begin their service-learning, but if they can just get past the first few visits without quitting, the vast majority will feel much better and will even enjoy their service-learning (davi, dunlap, & green, 2008 & 2010; dunlap, 1998a). other publications examined, for example, the actual multicultural issues that service-learners and facilitators of community engagement report and how they resolve them (e.g., dunlap, 1998b & 2000; dunlap & webster, 2009; evans, taylor, dunlap, & miller, 2009). my colleagues and i explored how male service-learners respond differently to affection from girls and boys compared to female service learners (dunlap & coughlin, 1999). using a piagetian model of assimilation and accommodation, we looked at how service-learners working at homeless soap-kitchens view their identity in relation to their service-learning partners (dunlap, scoggin, green, & davi, 2007). we discovered how racial identity development occurs within the classroom and community engagement process (e.g., davi et. al., 2010; dunlap 1998c, 2000, 2011, & 2013), and how frustrating it can be engaging in communities where people “see no color” (dunlap, burrell, & beaubrun, 2019). a decade and a half after i first read dr. moses’ extremely helpful article, and after earning tenure and coincidentally full promotion, i returned to my crooklyn work, collecting the same kind of data but this time from 200 social service providers from different seven agencies. i am now in the process of creating a similar series with this work as i did with my service-learning work. like concentric circles, i have moved from service learning to broader circles of community engagement (e.g., social workers, minority shoppers and their experiences, etc.). the first crooklyn journal article published illustrates that as service-providers’ claims of being colorblind grow stronger among the participants, the more likely they are to see the children depicted in first 15 minutes of crooklyn as aggressive and out of control, even when controlling for race, education, and other demographic variables (dunlap, shueh, burrell, & beaubrun, 2017). i see this line of work as potentially making a significant contribution to the community engagement and cultural competency bodies of work, because they challenge those who work with children and families to consider their own personalities, biases, and upbringing experiences as they engage with the community. i am in the process of submitting similar articles with respect to social service providers’ symbolic racism scores and a variety of other variables. i also am working on a book based on interviews with mostly minority people around the country about their experiences trying to do something as simple as shop. their stories also have everything to do with community engagement, as individuals go outside the safety and security of their homes into a consumer marketplace that often has very negatively stereotypical views of minority customers as thieves. the incidences described in the storytelling reveal a complexity that the national and international public has just recently been able to peak into with the recent starbucks and similar incidences. all these years later, as i compare the publication processes of these three different lines of research, it may be coincidence, but i believe my scholarly works that force white people to look at themselves are much more challenging to advance in the academy than my service-learning work. the former studies how they judge minority children, or how they treat minorities in the consumer marketplace. the latter focused on predominantly white students and their adjustment 65 in the service-learning process. therefore, back in 1995, whether idealistically it was right or not, i get the impression that i made the right choice for my career when i pushed the one area forward, and delayed the other areas for another time when my career was more secure. that does not make me feel proud, and i put the blame for this on academia and what before now it has preferred to examine critically. academia has preferred looking at white adjustment needs, while also analyzing communities of color through an unquestioned, often pathologizing, white norm. i would like to see academia more heavily shift its values to the point that it finds minorityfocused work of as much concern and interest as work that advances the dominant culture’s needs and analyzes its norms. this point brings me to the second lesson, which is on decentering the dominant narrative in our research. that is, more research needs to be supported, conducted and published with students of color and communities of color at the center, and not in juxtaposition to normalized views of white culture. therefore, academic research and publications centered on non-stereotypical, culturally relevant minority experiences as well as critiques of dominant cultural norms should stand as just as valid as research centered on the needs of dominant culture, and should be advanced as such in journals and books and in tenure, promotion, and grant-funding processes. likewise, scholarly research venues should foster and nurture minority scholars and students’ and other constituencies’ experiences and critiques of dominant white norms, especially within community practice and engagement. new supports, new directions to personally meet and engage with mrs. carla lynton and the nerche staff in the process of receiving the ernest lynton award in 2008 was a great honor that was very validating for my work and me. i received the lynton award just prior to coming up for full promotion. i traveled to receive the award accompanied by two of my student research team members who copresented with me at the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities (cumu) conference in louisville, kentucky. this was the experience of a lifetime, and to be able to share it with two of my students was incredible. the two students were so excited that they must have taken what easily could have been 500 or more photos. my other students, their classmates, helped us practice for our presentation prior to leaving, which in itself was a further bonding experience for all of us. to now see these two students go on to receive masters degrees and to continue on their path to engaging in work with children and families as well as co-authoring communityengaged scholarship is very rewarding for me and anyone involved with them. the lynton award now goes solely to pre-tenure scholars, and that makes a lot of sense because it is so validating to one’s community-engaged career. community-engaged research can be seen as less valid, or therefore soft, in comparison to other fields of inquiry, when actually it can be extremely difficult, time-consuming, and even more risky in comparison. to have the lynton award to help validate pre-tenure contributions is a greater affirmation of the field. in the past decade since receiving the lynton award, not only has my writing, but also my community engagement, have taken several very interesting turns. for one, my community engagement has extended from my students’ service learning at various sites of their choice to include focused, project-based endeavors. with support from several internal grants, such as the connecticut college margaret sheridan faculty engagement grant, and the international 66 curriculum development (icd) fund, my students and i have become better financially equipped for engaging in exciting community engagement and learning endeavors. through grants ranging from $500 to $3,000, as well as seeking support from other offices on campus, these endeavors have included traveling, providing collaborative community education, hosting community guest speakers to our classes, organizing and hosting community based workshops, and conferences that bring the community and the college together. for example, students of my hmd 302 social and personality development, hmd 307 adolescent development, and hmd 111 introduction to human development have traveled in partnership with community youth to harlem new york, as well as to a variety of conferences, museums, performing arts events, and cultural banquets that relate to our courses. the purpose of organizing such field trips is to encourage collaborative intellectual and social engagement across and within these partners regarding human developmental and social justice themes. for the past year and a half, students of my hmd 302 social and personality development and my hmd 307 adolescent development courses also have engaged with community partners to develop parent training workshops and resources to strengthen family communication and child rearing. to extend the life of our project, my students and i have developed a parenting support video page that documents our activities and posts student-developed educational information and trainings requested by our community partners (parent support group video resource page, 2018). to elaborate further on our engagements, for the past few years, with help from the above grants and other campus donations, my students and i have consulted with community partners to ask what educational opportunities they would like us to develop in partnership with our courses. one of these collaborations resulted in a full-day conference titled, “flippin’ the script: challenging the strongholds and systems that hold us back” that brought together 90 community youth, parents, college students, faculty, and administrators for a day of mutual sharing and learning. the workshops that were requested by the community, and subsequently provided, all centered on empowering the community financially, physically, emotionally, and educationally. my students and i also have hosted numerous youth, youth leaders, and other community partners as visitors to our courses. in addition, thanks to funding, we have hosted many youth and adult community partners for lunch and dinner with our class at connecticut college’s harris dining hall for collaborative dialogue, interpersonal fellowship, and crosscultural learning. this semester, my hmd 307 adolescent development students added seven new videos to our parent support video page to help community teens and their parents deal with social media issues including cyberbullying, internet safety, and critical thinking (parent support group video resource page, 2018). we also hosted a conference this past may to introduce the students’ new videos to the college and community, and to engage with community partners on these issues. in addition, we highlighted the video page and its new videos at our class-sponsored monthly parent support-group. i now assign these videos early on in my courses so that my students can learn from their past classmates, and be inspired to envision new video projects for themselves. thus, to recap, in order to invest in, promote, and further advance classroomcommunity collaborations, and especially equitable ones, funding opportunities are needed. in addition, finding ways to extend the life of such educational opportunities and engagements 67 using technology or other resources, whenever possible, is helpful for sustaining a potential mutual learning impact. challenges and risks service-learning and other education-based engagements are so much more risky than conventional classroom learning. when we take our students, teaching and/or research offcampus, typically we do not have the same control over the variables that could affect us as we do within the confines of the classroom. as examples, there are a few situations that i found particularly challenging when engaging with community environments. several years ago, when my students and i were collecting diversity-related data over a period from one of several data collection sites, one of the white participants took issue with my questionnaire and its implementation. she seemed upset that the questionnaire had racially focused questions. further, she accused me of giving an unapproved scale, the mmpi clinical assessment, on my questionnaire (i did not). in spite of my trying to quell her concerns and explain what the questionnaire actually contained, she went forward and complained to a state regulatory agency. this caused me, and the 35 participants of that particular day, to be interviewed about our process as part of an investigation that lasted for a two-week period. having to tell this to my college’s institutional review board (irb)—of which i was a committee member myself—and to my dean of faculty, was embarrassing, to say the least. worse, i had to live through the investigative process for two weeks not knowing if the regulatory agency would confiscate my data, or even if the agency would forbid me to conduct research ever again in my state, which i was told could happen. the two weeks of waiting were torturous. research has always been an important part of my career, and truly an academic passion. during those two weeks, my hair fell out, i broke out into stress-induced psoriasis, and then i contracted the shingles. the investigator came to interview me last, at the end of the two-week investigative process. we met at my office, and i was not sure what to expect. she was a white woman who greeted me warmly, but i still was extremely apprehensive. i had prepared extensive notes, detailing the rationale behind my entire process, including its every step and how it lined up verbatim with my distributed informed consent and my irb approvals. after shaking my hand and introducing herself, she sat down and made herself comfortable. i was expecting her to interview me, but instead, she told me that she would tell me what happened that day, and she proceeded to go over the whole data collection process step by step, in full detail from the moment i walked into the room that morning. she spoke as if she herself was there. puzzled, i asked her how she knew every little detail, or what i said and did as if she herself was there. she explained that every person she interviewed as part of the investigation reiterated to her identically the details of the research process. then she apologized for all of my trouble, letting me know that i was found not-guilty of any wrong-doing, and giving me a letter documenting her finding that i could pass on to my institutional irb. her sincere, even emotional apology to me for what i had endured was something that i will never forget. because one person out of dozens misunderstood the intent, purpose, or process of my study, i found myself in the midst of what felt like the worst disaster ever. these are the sorts of 68 misunderstandings, challenges, and risks that can happen when we take our work or even our students outside of the classroom. someone can misunderstand our intentions, our materials, our style of dress, or our communication. during those two weeks of waiting, i vowed that i would never engage my academic life with the community again. however, that vow did not last very long. because we engage in communities, we are able to accomplish unique endeavors that may have a significant positive, swift, applied, and/or relevant impact on the community, our students, and ourselves, and that is difficult to give up. being able to bring knowledge to parents confused about their teenagers’ development, or to collect data from people who actually work with children and families every day, or to take students together with children, teens, and/or elders, some of whom have never been outside of a 10-mile radius of where they live to see places they have only heard of is so rewarding—to museums, theatres, libraries, festivals, and other cultural events, all of these kinds of endeavors seem mutually rewarding to all involved. being able to process with my students and community members, both together and separately, is also where a great amount of our learning occurs. community engagement is therefore more challenging, and sometimes riskier. nevertheless, in 25 years of academic and community engagement, the above instance was the most upsetting, and thankfully, nothing else has come anywhere near close to it for me. the next thing that i find most challenging is that sometimes it is difficult for me to accept when i want more for a person or persons i am working with in the community than they want for themselves. sometimes i find it painful to accept a person’s choice not to pursue better for themselves when that better may appear easily available by my (mis)perception. but i have to remind myself that my perception is not necessarily their perception nor their reality. my initial perception often is not the correct perception, and surely not the only perception. related to this, is my frustration when community partners seem not to be open to new opportunities because of fears or stereotypes. for example, i can recall being extremely frustrated when i was trying to bring two u.s. predominantly poor and immigrant protestant church congregations together with a catholic church congregation in east africa that works with refugee families. using technology, i wanted my students to collaborate with all three churches so that we could work together on issues that may be affecting all three of the communities. however, as i was attempting to organize the collaboration, i found that the catholic congregation representatives did not want to work with the protestant churches, and the protestant congregations’ representatives did not want to work with the catholic congregation. i myself have worked for years with us catholic and protestant leaders so on the day that i realized that my vision for my students was going to be thwarted due to religious intolerance, i found myself extremely disappointed, even almost depressed. i felt so disillusioned—to hear of such still lingering prejudice between denominations—that i cried. once i dried my eyes, however, i accepted that the options were coming down to my students working with one denomination or the other because the catholics and protestants with whom i was engaging were not going to work together. therefore, i went with the one that logistically would be more feasible logistically and hands-on for my students. however, my sadness about such remaining religious intolerances still lingers at times. on a related note, i had a situation once where my students and i were working with an ethnic, faith-based organization to try to strengthen parenting strategies. we organized a cultural, educational field trip for the families to a theatre to see a native american 69 storyteller/singer/musician performance. the purpose of the field trip was to help model for parents how to better utilize educational and cultural resources in our community, as well as model methods for engaging their children on themes related to such events. when seeking feedback from the church about events that would interest their youth, they had warned me that they would not attend any events with “dance” (as they viewed dance as sinful), but that any other cultural events would be okay. accordingly, my students and i were careful to pre-screen the cultural/educational events that we located for consideration to be sure there was no dancing in them. after much vetting of events, we selected the native american theatrical performance for its artistic and cultural diversity, as well as its historical and educational potential, and its logistical and cost-effectiveness. excitedly we purchased 40 tickets with our grant funds and informed the church leaders of the specific event that we had planned for them based on their initial feedback. then to our surprise, they would not accept our invitation because the description of the event included “jazz”, which, unbeknown to us, also was seen as sinful. initially the students and i were devastated. afterward, we used it as a teachable moment, understanding that when organizing activities, there is always the risk that not everyone will be happy or satisfied with all aspects of it. in our processing, we emphasized that we cannot pretend to know what any community group wants or needs, i.e., we cannot impose our values on any group. thus, just because we had the perspective that the event we had organized would be appropriate and valuable, does not mean that it was. we reaffirmed that we must be respectful and understanding of their worldview. therefore, we brainstormed on other youth organizations to whom we could extend the invitation. in the end, on the evening of the event, we filled all of our seats with 40 community youth, college students, and community elders who attended dinner in the student cafeteria and then moved forward to the theatre for the event. it turned out to be a wonderful evening of sharing, networking, laughter, enjoyment, and most of all, learning. many in the community are still talking about their event. likewise, my students and i learned a great deal about measured risk-taking and resourcefulness through that experience which we will cherish. i offer one more example of the kinds of difficulties that can come with taking our learning outside of the classroom. one of the greatest challenges for me was watching a local non-profit with which i was heavily engaged lose its building because it would not consider other perspectives, feedback, assistance, or resources. i, and often my students, had been a supporter of the non-profit for more than a decade. but my and other supporters’ advice about how to reach sustainability was never taken seriously—things like forming an active board; developing equitable policies for its participants; creating a short and long-term financial plan with accountability. while the non-profit still exists, a great deal of its resources goes toward renting space rather than increasing equity in a space of its own. therefore, there is very little funding available for anything else, and no space for programming without having to pay additional rental fees. once ownership of their space was lost, i found it difficult to continue to utilize my health and energies toward their mission without a plan for organization, consensus, sustainability, and accountability. in other words, i was not willing to continue to risk my students’ time and resources (and my own) toward a non-profit that was not attempting to attend thoughtfully and strategically to its sustainability, even to the point of refusing helpful educational and training resources for more than a decade. while i remain connected to those involved in the endeavor, i have not been willing to engage my students or my energies and 70 resources working to assist the non-profit, until they have made an effort to develop a plan for equity, accountability, and sustainability. i decided not to continue to take the measured risks with this organization. reluctantly yet firmly, my students and i cut our losses and moved on. therefore, when engaging with communities outside of the classroom, you, your students, and your administration have to be willing to take measured risks when you feel that it is appropriate. however, you also have to self-care, knowing where your limits and boundaries are so that you can stay healthy and whole yourselves. unfortunately, this sometimes may mean deciding not to take a risk, as well. to review, and to sum, my advice to community-engaged scholars (and those mentors and institutions that support them) is to continually question assumptions with respect to the communities in which we are engaged. further, as we work to unfold research programs, we should be sure to listen carefully to the communities with whom we partner when developing our research questions and methodologies, being sure to frame our work equitably, and ways that allow everyone to learn, including ourselves. we need to be sure to utilize or push further for university or college funding opportunities that help support community engagement and research. finally, when engaging with communities outside of the classroom, consider taking very carefully thought out and measured risks with input from the community, but also know where your self-care and/or ethical limits and boundaries are so that you can take full pride in your work over the life of your career and beyond. so many aspects of my career have helped me to grow as a scholar: the multicultural contexts and ways of seeing and experiencing the world; the older and newer research opportunities; tremendous mentoring; grant and other financial supports; community partnerships; award recognitions such as the lynton award, and the tenure and promotion validations. many challenges i would have preferred to do without, but yet have taught and stretched me. all together, these lessons have made me a keener, more compassionate, more grateful communityengaged scholar. i hope that my experiences can help younger scholars coming along, who are trying to find their way and their stronger voices—but in a balanced manner. that is, in a manner that both supports their humanity and stretches them to grow as scholars while also finding satisfaction and pride in their work. as i have and i am very grateful. likewise, i hope that institutions will make community-engaged scholarship and funding a greater priority as we consider the challenges that communities are facing such as social injustice, the preschool to prison pipeline, health disparities, early intervention, policeinvolved shootings, mass shootings, environmental racism, non-prescription and prescription drug epidemics, gentrification and re-gentrification, homelessness, sextrafficking, and on and on. not to further illuminate the problems, but rather to illuminate the solutions in order to find the resiliency factors, public policy commitments, and other variables that can help to ameliorate these challenges so that our communities can better thrive as full partners with us. 71 figure 1: from left: sharon singleton, nerche; christina burrell, connecticut college alumna, class of 2011; carla lynton (beloved widow of ernest lynton); penney jade beaubrun, connecticut college alumna, class of 2011; and michelle dunlap, connecticut college, and lynton award recipient, (lynton awards ceremony, brown university, october, 2008). 72 references davi, a., m. dunlap, & green, a.. (2008). feminist ways of seeing: preparing students for service learning. in k. dugger (ed.), handbook on service learning in women’s studies and the disciplines (pp. 14-25). baltimore, md: institute for teaching and research on women. davi, a., m. dunlap, & green, a. (2010). exploring difference in the service-learning classroom: three teachers write about anger, sexuality, and justice. in t. deans, b. roswell, & a. wurr (eds.) writing and community engagement: a critical sourcebook (465-484). boston, ma: bedford/st. martin’s press. dunlap, m. (1998a). adjustment and developmental outcomes of students engaged in service learning. journal of experiential education, 21 (3), 147-153. https://doi.org/10.1177/105382599802100307 dunlap, m. (1998b). voices of students in multicultural service learning settings. michigan journal of community service learning, 5 (1), 58-67. retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.3239521.0005.106 dunlap, m. (1998c). voices of students in multicultural service learning settings. michigan journal of community service learning, 5 (1), 58-67. dunlap, m. & coughlin b. (1999). college student affection issues in child and family focused community service-learning settings. academic exchange quarterly, 3 (4), 28-34. [reprinted in linda serra hagedorn, ph.d. (ed.), sound instruction: ready to use classroom practice, 2001, chatanooga, tn: rapid intellect group.] dunlap, m. (2000). reaching out to children and families: students model effective community service. lanham, md: rowman & littlefield publishers. dunlap, m., scoggin j. m., green, p. & davi, a. (2007 spring). white students’ experiences of privilege and socioeconomic disparities: toward a theoretical model. michigan journal of community service learning, 13 (2), 19-30. retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.3239521.0013.202 dunlap, m. & webster, n. (2009). enhancing inter-cultural competence through civic engagement. in b. jacoby (ed.), civic engagement in higher education (pp. 140-153). hoboken, nj: jossey-bass publishers. dunlap, m. (2011). thriving in a multicultural classroom. in c.p. harvey & m.j. allard (eds.), understanding and managing diversity. upper saddle river, nj: pearson/prentice hall. dunlap, m. (2013). cross-cultural community engagement, elizabeth kubler-ross’s model of death and dying, and racial identity development. in h. fitzgerald, j. primavera, and c. burack’s (eds.) going public: civic engagement, the scholarship of practice, e. lansing, mi: michigan state university press. https://doi.org/10.1177/105382599802100307 http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.3239521.0005.106 http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.3239521.0013.202 73 dunlap, m., shueh t. f., burrell c., & beaubrun, p. j. (2017). color-blind ideology and perceptions of minority children during a fictionalized parent-child discipline scene, journal of ethnic & cultural diversity in social work, 27 (2), 193-213. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/15313204.2017.1344946 dunlap, m., burrell c., beaubrun, p. (2019). moments in the danger zone: encountering “nonracist,” “non-racial,” “non-color-seeing,” do-gooders. in s. evans, a. domingue, & t. mitchell (eds.), black women and social justice education: legacies and lessons. ny: suny press. evans, s., c. taylor, m. dunlap, & d. miller (2009), african americans and community engagement in higher education: perspectives of race in community service, service-learning, and community based research. ny: suny press. parent support group video resource page (2018). home. retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/channel/uccq4iyxn4yyoasjrdpqwvfw/featured 74 author information michelle r. dunlap professor of human development connecticut college box #5223 270 mohegan ave. new london, ct 06320 telephone: 860-439-2634 email: mrdun@conncoll.edu pr. dunlap graduated from wayne state university with high distinction and with honors in psychology. she has served on the faculty of the human development department at connecticut college since 1994, and served twice as faculty liaison to the connecticut college children's program in 2000–2001 and 2006–2009. she has written journal articles, book chapters, and essays about her research involving college students working in community service-learning settings; intergroup relations; and perceptions and misperceptions of african american child rearing. mailto:mrdun@conncoll.edu microsoft word 22604 reding (new format) ter edits 11_20_19 abs(1) final.docxfinal again.docx   original research    © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/22604| december 2, 2019   3  determining the university’s position in a  multi‐stakeholder collaborative network  tracie evans reding1 and kristin vanwyngaarden1    1 department of teacher education, university of nebraska at omaha    cite as: evans reding, t. & vanwyngaarden, k. (2019). determining the university’s position in a multi‐stakeholder  collaborative network. metropolitan universities, 31(1), 3‐23. doi: 10.18060/22604      this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license.    editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d.  abstract  complex problems are being approached through collaborations that cross sectors including  businesses, nonprofits, public institutions, and academia. social network analysis (sna)  methods have been adopted to help manage these large collaborations, and it is useful not only  for exploring the network dynamics of the collaboration as a whole, but also for exploring  where an individual organization lies within the network. universities can benefit from  understanding their position and ties within a network and utilize that information to  strengthen their position within these collaborations while fostering collaborations within the  network. this study applied sna to determine the influential position of an urban university  within a multi‐stakeholder collaborative network (mscn). the university in this study holds  more formal intra‐sector relationships and more informal inter‐sector relationships with the  organization types in the mscn. the findings also show that the university does hold a  prominent position within the informal network of the mscn; however, it does not hold a  position of prominence within the formal network of the mscn. fostering these formal and  informal relationships would allow the university to strategically promote beneficial  collaborations for the university and the network as a whole.     keywords: collaboration management, cross‐sector collaborations, social network analysis,  social capital    © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/22604| december 2, 2019  4  introduction  collaborations among stakeholders from private, nonprofit, and public sectors that focus on addressing complex problems through the innovative combination of their knowledge and resources have become increasingly popular (becker & smith, 2018). these collaborations have been referred to as multi-stakeholder collaborative networks (mscns), and within mscns, universities are a key element because they produce human capital and contribute to innovation production through the development of new knowledge (etzkowitz et al., 2000). universities have also been shown to develop innovation networks within their communities (benneworth & hospers, 2007). one increasingly complex issue that requires the development of innovation networks to target is the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (stem) workforce shortage. developing local and regional stem learning ecosystems has been identified as one of the solutions. stem learning ecosystems are localized mscns that are “dynamic collaborations among school, out-of-school time programs, stem expert institutions (such as museums, science centers, institutions of higher education, and stem professional associations), the private sector, community-based organizations, youth and families” (stem ecosystems, 2018). stem learning ecosystems aim to provide the structure through which high-quality and cross-sector learning is available to all learners, resulting in the development of important skills and engagement within stem disciplines necessary to develop and nourish the stem workforce (stem ecosystems, 2018). there are currently 84 stem learning ecosystems that comprise the global stem ecosystems community of practice, including the omaha stem ecosystem (ose), which serves the omaha, ne metropolitan area. the member organizations of the ose comprise a variety of stakeholder groups including multinational companies, educational institutions, non-profit organizations, and science centers and museums. within the ose, the university of nebraska at omaha (uno) has taken a large leadership role as one of the two founding institutions, as well as maintaining a strong presence on the ose founders board and the ose steering committee. one of the guiding principles of the ose is to: sustain an overarching structure to bring community partners together to advance stem learning as a priority in omaha. we welcome diverse partners and experiment with innovative ways for engagement. by creating a network of community organizations, we provide a venue for collaboration around solutions to stem issues and leveraging of resources (ose steering committee, 2017). this guiding principle clearly outlines the intention of the ose to develop and foster an innovative and capacity building network to address the stem workforce shortage in the omaha metropolitan area. uno’s intense involvement in the ose provides ample opportunity for it to help manage this collaborative network and its own network position. in order to do this, uno © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/22604| december 2, 2019  5  must evaluate the overall network structure in order to understand the existing ties of the overall network, as well as uno-specific ties, in order to improve network innovation. with this knowledge, uno can help the ose focus efforts in order to maintain current ties while also facilitating the development of new ones. in order to focus the efforts of a mscn, such as the ose, the network itself must be evaluated, which may be done through social network analysis (sna) in order to improve collaboration management. sna is the methodology utilized to examine formal and informal relationships by investigating relational concepts, processes, and patterns within a social network. a social network is multi-faceted and may be described as a business, university, school, neighborhood, organization, or even a family. the participants in these networks are known as actors, and it is their interactions and relationships, known as ties, that are examined within sna studies (borgatti & ofem, 2010; kenis & oerlemans, 2007; wasserman & faust, 1994). the purpose of this article is to present a method employed by uno and the ose, which evaluates the development of its network by examining the presence and absence of ties, individual actor positions, and whole network metrics. sna has been used by the ose to evaluate its network and make strategic plans based on the data.   social network analysis, social capital, and innovation   as previously mentioned, mscns, such as the ose, depend on the relationships present amongst the members, and many collaborations are recognizing the importance to analyze these relationships using sna for management purposes. social capital (sc) has been identified as a popular theory used within sna studies to help when managing innovation in collaborations. sc is often referred to as the actual and potential resources within a network because of the relationships present (nahapiet & ghoshal, 1998). various dimensions of sc can be targeted; however, this study focuses on relational sc and structural sc. relational sc refers to the underlying nature of the ties that are present amongst the actors within a network and is measured through network density, which represents the number of ties present as compared to the number of ties possible. relational sc results from a history of interactions and has been shown to result in trust and the development of norms in cross-sector alliances, which aids in the flow of knowledge and willingness to collaborate on innovations (vlaisavljevic, cabello‐ medina, & pérez‐luño, 2016; zach & hill, 2017). the majority of research dedicated to the role of relational sc with regards to innovation has focused on analysis and development efforts within the pharmaceutical and technology sectors; researchers have found no existing scholarship that focuses on the relational sc of mscns, such as stem learning ecosystems. due to the diverse nature of stakeholders within a mscn, it is expected that certain organization types will bring varying degrees of relational sc with one another due to previous © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/22604| december 2, 2019  6  collaborations, and typically, organizations within the same sectors seem to have existing ties (reding, sigmon, jafri, smith-walker, meyer, 2017). this clustering of relationships within sectors may also be due to a network phenomenon known as homophily, where actors tend to have ties with others that share certain commonalities such as attitudes, experiences, and education (mcpherson, smith-lovin, cook, 2001). homophily has been shown to facilitate relationships through ease of communication because of these commonalities (mcpherson, et al., 2001). networks that are examined through a relational sc lens will result in varying degrees of ties because of the intent of the surveys. this study investigated formal and informal networks, since survey questions aimed to determine the nature of the existing relationships present in the ose. the informal network represents the ties that were present in the network based on nonprescriptive and non-professional ties. informal networks highlight the presence of loose ties. further, informal ties can be used as the basis of developing and promoting new collaborations (the connected company, n.d.).   the formal network in this study represents the ties that were present in the network based on a history of collaboration. the identification and examination of these formal networks is important because they have been shown to increase the probability of future collaborations and innovation (zach & hill, 2017). based on the information thus far, we present our first hypotheses:   h1. within the informal network, the relational sc of 4+ year organizations (uno) will be lower for intra-sector ties rather than inter-sector ties through the demonstration of network density. h2. within the formal network, the relational sc of 4+ year organizations (uno) will be greater for inter-sector ties rather than intra-sector ties through the demonstration of network density.   while relational sc has been shown to increase the probability of future collaborations and innovation, one study has shown that the structural sc of an actor is a better measure of whether they will be involved in future collaborations (zach & hill, 2017). the importance of the structural sc in predicting and managing collaboration necessitates its inclusion in this study. structural sc refers to how the patterns of ties determine the amount of sc present, not only to individual actors within the network, but to the network as a whole. metrics within structural sc studies involve examining the positional centrality of the actors within the network. while there are numerous types of centrality metrics, two of the most common are degree and betweenness. degree centrality is a measure of the number of ties an actor possesses as compared to the number of ties possible within the boundaries of the network. a high degree centrality indicates actors that have an increased awareness of others’ knowledge, which allows for easier knowledge transfer (brandon & hollingshead, 2004; nahapiet & ghoshal, 1998). these © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/22604| december 2, 2019  7  members are often called hubs and increase the scale of adoption of new innovations by passing on new knowledge to many actors (goldenberg, et al., 2009; rogers, 2010). the other centrality metric, betweenness, looks at how often an actor acts as a link between two otherwise unconnected actors within the boundaries of the network. high betweenness indicates an actor that is able to moderate the flow of knowledge, has access to relatively new knowledge, is positively correlated with innovation, and increases the rate of innovations (liu, sidhu, beacom, & valente, 2017; rogers, 2010; shaw-ching, madhavan & sudharshan, 2005). these actors are known as bridges or gatekeepers. it has been suggested that there are actors within networks that can hold positions of both hubs (high degree centrality) and gatekeepers (high betweenness centrality) (guimarães et al., 2013). a previous study used a new methodology involving the determination of actors who act as both hubs and gatekeepers to determine emergent teacher leaders within a computer science education cohort (reding, dorn, grandgenett, siy, youn, zhu, & engelmann, 2016). this current study adapted that methodology to determine which organization types within the ose act as both gatekeepers and hubs by calculating a combined centrality score. historical network data used by the ose shows that, on average, the organization types in the academic stakeholder category tend to have lower numbers of loose ties than the organization types in the other categories. the same data show that, on average, the organization types in the academic stakeholder category tend to have higher numbers of formal ties than the organization types in the other categories (reding, et al., 2017). through the possession of these different types of ties, the centrality scores of each organization type, including the 4+ year organization type (uno), will be different in the different networks (i.e., formal and informal). this brings us to our final hypotheses:   h3. within the informal network, the 4+ year organization type (uno) will possess a relatively low structural sc through the demonstration of one of the lowest combined centrality scores. h4. within the formal network, the 4+ year organization type (uno) will possess a relatively high structural sc through the demonstration of one of the highest combined centrality scores.   methodology  the purpose of this study was to develop a methodology to determine the position of an urban university within a mscn. a document analysis of a digital survey administered via emailing an ose listserv was utilized. sna methods were used in this study. eighty-six individuals who elected to complete the online survey comprise the population of this study. the respondents were asked to report the level of interaction they had experienced with members of various organization types within the ose.   © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/22604| december 2, 2019  8  data collection   the first step in the data collection process was to assign an identification number to each respondent. the next step was to codify the various categorical factors of organization type, stakeholder category, asset type, and interaction level. each organization received a nominal value and the possible organization types the respondents could select included 2 year college, 4+ year college, business with less than 50 employees, business with 51-200 employees, business with more than 200 employees, career or technical training, charitable foundation, civic organization, faith based organization, parent/neighborhood organization, private p-12 education, public p-12 education, science centers and/or museums and libraries, youth serving organizations, military, government, and other. next, a nominal identifier based on the three stakeholder categories of academic, business, or nonprofit was assigned. the nominal values and identifiers (id) for the organization type can be found in table 1. table 1. nominal id and abbreviation by organization type    organization type abbreviation nominal id academic sector 2 year college 2yr 1 4+ year college 4yr 2 career and/or technical training ctt 3 private p-12 education prvp12 4 public p-12 education pubp12 5 business sector business with less than 50 employees <50 6 business with 51-200 employees 51-200 7 business with more than 200 employees >200 8 nonprofit sector charitable foundation cf 9 civic organization co 10 faith-based organization fbo 11 parent/neighborhood organization pno 12 science centers/museums/libraries scml 13 youth serving organization yso 14 military mil 15 government gov 16 other 17 © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/22604| december 2, 2019  9  next, the interaction levels were assigned ordinal values of “0,” “1,” or “2.” the ordinal values of the interaction levels can be found in table 2. table 2. ordinal id by interaction level  relationship interaction level ordinal id i am not familiar with anyone in this category no interaction 0 i am familiar with someone in this category but we did not work together in a professional manner informal interaction 1 we shared professional advice and/or materials when opportunity arose informal interaction 1 we worked side-by-side as separate organizations but did not have a formal agreement formal interaction 2 we worked together as a formal team with an established formal agreement (such as a memorandum of agreement) formal interaction 2   determining relational social capital    once interaction level frequencies were determined, an adjacency matrix for both the informal and formal relationship levels were generated. these matrices were then used to determine density, which represented the relational sc of each organization type based on the interaction levels that were previously determined. density is a measure of the number of ties that are reported as compared to the number of possible ties that could exist. the intra-sector density and inter-sector density for the informal and formal networks were calculated for each organization type (refer to table 1 for organization types and their sectors). the intra-sector density for the informal network for the academic organizations was calculated based on the number of possible ties present within the academic sector which included the organization types of 2-year college, 4+ year college, private p-12 education, and public p-12 education (career and technical training were not included because there were no respondents from this organization type). for example, if 4+ year colleges reported informal ties with other 4+ year colleges and private p-12 education, but not with 2-year colleges and public p-12 education, then the informal network intra-sector density for 4+ year colleges would be 2 out of 4, or a density of 0.50. the inter-sector density for both networks for the academic organizations were calculated based on the number of possible ties within the business and nonprofit sectors which included the organization types of business with less than 50 employees, business with 51-200 employees, business with more than 200 employees, charitable foundations, civic organizations, science centers/museums/libraries, and youth serving organizations (faith based organizations, parent/neighborhood organizations, military, and government © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/22604| december 2, 2019  10  organizations were not included because of the absence of respondents from those organization types). for example, if 4+ year colleges reported informal ties with business with more than 200 employees, charitable foundations and science centers/museums/libraries, but not with the other business and nonprofit organization types, then the formal network inter-sector density for 4+ year colleges would be 3 out of 8 or a density of 0.38.   determining structural social capital    the metrics of degree and betweenness centrality of each of the organization types represented by the respondents of the survey were utilized to measure structural sc. degree centrality is a measure of the number of ties an actor has in the network and betweenness centrality is a metric based on how well an actor is connected to otherwise unconnected actors and holds an intermediary position between them. using the adjacency matrix for the informal network, the degree centrality and betweenness centrality metrics were calculated using nodexl (smith, ceni, milic-frayling, shneiderman, mendes rodrigues, leskovec, & dunne, 2010). the metrics for each individual was then converted to a scoring system where the actor with the highest degree metric was given a degree score of 1, the actor with the next highest degree metric was given a degree score of 2, and so on. this scoring conversion was also completed for betweenness centrality metrics. once each actor had a degree score and betweenness score, they were added together to determine the combined centrality score. since the study utilized a small population, there were repeat degree centrality metrics. ultimately, this study employed a scoring conversion and not a ranking system; therefore, these ties were conserved and several organization types received the same degree score, and then the scoring sequence continued with the next number. this process was then repeated for the formal network using level 2 interactions rather than level 1 interactions.   results and analysis population demographics  there were 86 total surveys used in this analysis and respondents self-selected organization types to which they belonged. figure 1 represents the number of respondents per organization type and figure 2 represents the percentage of each stakeholder category represented by the respondents. the majority of respondents belonged to the academic stakeholder category at 50% with the 4+ year college organization type, having the most respondents at 27. the number of respondents in the 4+ year college organization type alone makes up 1/3 of the respondents of the entire survey. this large number of representatives from this organization type shows a strong engagement level from uno. © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/22604| december 2, 2019  11  the second most represented stakeholder category was nonprofit, with 33% of the respondents. within this category, youth serving organizations had the most respondents with 10. the business stakeholder category had the third largest representation with 15% of the participants who elected to complete the survey. within this category, businesses with less than 50 employees represented the largest organization type with 8 respondents. there were no representatives who completed the survey within the following categories: career or technical training, parent/neighborhood organizations, military, and government. figure 1. percentage of respondents per organization type   figure 2. percentage of respondents per stakeholder category  2 27 0 2 12 7 4 2 1 8 1 0 8 10 0 0 2 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 n u m b er o f r es p o n d en ts organization type number of respondents per organization type academic 50% business 15% nonprofit 33% other 2% © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/22604| december 2, 2019  12  relational social capital: density    in order to determine relational sc, an adjacency matrix was initially developed that identified which ties were present. the data were used to identify formal and informal networks within the ose based on the level of interaction actor one reported to have with actor two. table 3 shows the adjacency matrix for the informal network where actor one is represented by the organization types in column 1 and actor 2 is represented by the organization types in row 1. when examining 4+ year colleges (represented by 4yr), on average, they reported informal interactions with the following organization types: two year institutions, private p-12 schools, businesses with less than 50 employees, charitable foundations, civic organizations, faith based organizations, science centers/museums/libraries, and youth serving organizations. table 3. informal network adjacency matrix  ose organization types 2yr 4yr prv p12 pub p12 <50 51200 > 200 cf co fbo scml yso 2yr 0 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 1 4yr 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 prvp12 1 0 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 1 pubp12 1 0 0 1 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 <50 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 51-200 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 1 >200 1 1 1 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 cf 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 0 0 0 co 1 0 0 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 fbo 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 scml 1 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 0 0 yso 0 0 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 figure 3 is the sociogram of the informal network and was produced through the excel add-in nodexl (smith, et al., 2010). the actors (ose organization types) were represented as the nodes and the reported relationships were the arcs (arrows). it should be noted that this is a directed graph, meaning that the arrows represent the “direction” of the interaction from actor 1 to actor 2. this means that there are unreciprocated ties represented in the graph, for example, there is a tie present between 4yr and co even though co did not report an informal relationship © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/22604| december 2, 2019  13  on average with the 4+ year colleges organization type. the organization types’ nodes were represented by certain shapes and colors: academic stakeholder category nodes were red squares; business stakeholder category nodes were green circles; and nonprofit stakeholder category nodes were blue triangles. this represented the organization types and their relative positions to one another based on their reported relationships. refer to table 1 for a list of the organization type abbreviations. there were no participants within the organization types of career or technical training, parent/neighborhood organizations, and military, thus they are absent from the sociogram. the organization type of “other” is also absent since it is a broad category for any respondents who felt they did not belong to any of the organization types listed.       figure 3. sociogram of informal network  table 4 shows the adjacency matrix for the formal network where actor one is represented by the organization types in column 1 and actor 2 is represented by the organization types in row 1. when examining 4+ year colleges (represented by 4yr), on average, they reported formal interactions with the following organization types: 4+ year colleges and public p-12 schools. © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/22604| december 2, 2019  14  table 4. formal network adjacency matrix  ose organization types 2yr 4yr prv p12 pub p12 <50 51200 > 200 cf co fbo scml yso 2yr 1 1 1 1 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 4yr 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 prvp12 0 1 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 pubp12 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 <50 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 51-200 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 1 0 0 0 >200 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 cf 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 co 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 fbo 0 1 1 1 0 0 0 1 1 1 0 1 scml 0 1 1 1 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 1 yso 1 1 1 0 1 0 0 1 1 0 1 1   figure 4 shows the sociogram of the informal network and was produced through the excel addin nodexl (smith, et al., 2010) and follows the same parameters as previously described for the sociogram in figure 3.     figure 4. sociogram of formal network  © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/22604| december 2, 2019  15  once the interactions were identified, the relational sc of the organization types were calculated using nodexl (smith, et al., 2010) and were determined by the density of each organization type’s intra-sector and inter-sector ties for both network types, informal and formal (refer to table 1 for each organization type’s sector). the density of an actor’s network is the degree to which the possible number of ties actually occur. if all possible ties occurred, the density would be 1, conversely, if none of the possible ties occurred, the density would be 0. this data is represented in table 5. table 5. intra‐sector and inter‐sector density by organization type  organization type intra-sector informal network density inter-sector informal network density intra-sector formal network density inter-sector formal network density 2 yr 0.00 0.75 1.00 0.25 4+ yr 0.50 0.75 0.50 0.00 prv p12 0.50 0.88 0.50 0.12 pub p12 0.50 0.88 0.50 0.12 bus <50 0.67 0.78 0.33 0.22 bus 51-200 0.33 0.78 0.67 0.11 bus >200 1.00 0.67 0.00 0.00 cf 0.40 1.00 0.40 0.00 co 1.00 0.71 0.00 0.29 fbo 0.20 0.29 0.80 0.43 scml 0.20 0.43 0.80 0.57 yso 0.20 0.29 0.80 0.57 h1. within the informal network, the relational sc of 4+ year colleges (uno) is lower for intrasector ties rather than inter-sector ties through the demonstration of network density. the intra-sector relational sc of 4+ year colleges within the informal network was 0.50, which means that 50% of the possible ties it could have with other academic organizations were at the informal level. the inter-sector relational sc of 4+ year colleges was 0.75, which means that 75% of the possible ties it could have with business and nonprofit organizations were at the informal level. this means that 4+ year colleges possessed relatively more informal ties with organization types outside of its sector than within its sector as predicted by h1. in addition, when looking at the informal network intraand inter-sector ties of the organization types that belong to the business sector, this pattern persisted. the organization types in the business sector all show a lower intra-sector relational sc compared to their inter-sector © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/22604| december 2, 2019  16  relational sc in the informal network. this pattern also persisted for the nonprofit organization types, except for charitable organizations. h2: within the formal network, the relational sc of 4+ year colleges (uno) is greater for intersector ties rather than intra-sector ties through the demonstration of network density the intra-sector relational sc of 4+ year colleges within the formal network was 0.50, which means that 50% of the possible ties it could have with other academic organizations were at the formal level. the inter-sector relational sc of 4+ year colleges is 0.00, which means that 0% of the possible ties it could have with business and nonprofit organizations were at the formal level. this means that 4+ year colleges possess relatively more formal ties with organization types within its sector than without its sector, on average there were no formal ties reported between individuals from 4+ year colleges types and any business or nonprofit organization types as predicted by h2. in addition, when looking at the formal network intraand inter-sector ties of the organization types that belong to the business sector, this pattern persisted. the organization types in the business sector all show a greater intra-sector relational sc compared to their inter-sector relational sc in the formal network, except for the organization type of businesses with greater than 200 employees, which on average reported no intraor inter-sector formal ties. this pattern also persisted for the nonprofit organization types, except for charitable organizations. in terms of collaboration, the data supported the notion that relational sc is based on the history of interactions of the actors within a network and that on average, individuals from organization types that belong to similar sectors, such as academic, business, and nonprofit, tend to bring with them formal ties with other individuals that belong to the same sector. the data also supported the notion that the individuals within a network on average will have informal ties or no ties to individuals who are in different sectors.   structural social capital: combined centrality score    the metrics of degree and betweenness centrality of each of the organization types represented by the respondents of the survey were utilized to measure structural sc. degree centrality is a measure of the number of ties an actor has in the network and betweenness centrality is a metric based on how well an actor is connected to otherwise unconnected actors, and holds an intermediary position between them. h3: within the informal network, the 4+ year colleges type (uno) will possess a relatively low structural sc through the demonstration of one of the lowest combined centrality scores.   © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/22604| december 2, 2019  17  the combined centrality scores were calculated using nodexl (smith, et al., 2010) based on the degree and betweenness centralities for informal and formal networks, which are represented in table 6 and 7, respectively. the top organization types with the best combined centrality scores for the informal network were civic organizations and businesses with 51-200 employees. this means that, on average, these respondents had both a large number of ties within the informal network as well as acted as intermediaries for otherwise unconnected organization types. the bottom organization types with the worst combined centrality scores were science centers, museums, and libraries, and youth serving organizations. table 6. informal network centrality metrics and scores by organization type  organization type degree centrality degree score betweenness centrality betweenness score combined centrality score 2 yr 0.50 4 1.266 1 5 4+ yr 0.67 3 1.030 2 5 prv p12 0.75 2 0.577 6 8 pub p12 0.75 2 0.887 3 5 bus <50 0.75 2 0.647 5 7 bus 51-200 0.75 2 1.266 1 3 bus >200 0.75 2 0.647 5 7 cf 0.75 2 0.236 7 9 co 0.83 1 1.266 1 2 fbo 0.25 6 0.831 4 10 scml 0.33 5 0.111 8 13 yso 0.25 6 0.236 7 13   when focusing on uno, the organization type of 4+ year colleges had a combined centrality score of 5, which is the third highest score with a degree score of 3 and a betweenness score of 2 which contradicts h3. h3 was based on previous results presented from the ose in 2016 and this demonstrates the dynamic nature of the ose and how responses can change annually. uno has a relatively high number of ties within the informal network, and these respondents can act as intermediaries connecting other network members. further, uno is in a position to foster these relationships and build upon them to generate more formal and lasting collaborations not only by developing partnerships with itself, but also by connecting organization types that aren’t already connected. this also means that uno’s structural position allows it the possibility to somewhat influence the adoption rate of innovations within the ose, as well as influence the scale to which an innovation is adopted through the informal ties it holds within the ose.   © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/22604| december 2, 2019  18  table 7. formal network centrality metrics and scores by organization type  organization type degree centrality degree score betweenness centrality betweenness score combined centrality score 2 yr 0.50 3 8.543 2 5 4+ yr 0.17 5 1.210 8 13 prv p12 0.25 4 1.210 8 12 pub p12 0.25 4 3.467 5 9 bus <50 0.25 4 0.143 10 14 bus 51-200 0.25 4 10.250 1 5 bus >200 0.00 6 0.00 11 17 cf 0.17 5 0.710 9 14 co 0.17 5 8.167 3 8 fbo 0.58 2 1.126 7 9 scml 0.67 1 3.126 6 7 yso 0.67 1 5.050 4 5 h4: within the formal network, the 4+ year colleges type (uno) will possess a relatively high structural sc through the demonstration of one of the highest combined centrality scores.   in the formal networks, the top organizations were 2-year colleges, businesses with 51 200 employees, and youth serving organizations each with a combined centrality score of 5. this means that on average, these respondents had both a relatively large number of ties within the formal network as well as acted as intermediaries for otherwise unconnected organization types. the bottom organization types with the worst combined centrality scores were businesses with less than 50 employees, businesses with more than 200 employees and charitable organizations. when focusing on uno, the organization type of 4+ year colleges had a combined centrality score of 13 which is one of the bottom 3 scores with a degree score of 5 and a betweenness score of 8 which contradicts h4. again, h4 was based on data from the ose survey in 2016. this demonstrates some of the limitations of this methodology, which will be further discussed in the conclusion. this means that uno had a relatively low number of ties within the formal network, and these respondents typically cannot act as intermediaries connecting other network members. this reiterates the findings from the informal network because respondents could only select one interaction level, so if the majority of ties were informal, then the number of formal ties were fewer. therefore, while uno has some formal ties, there is room for growth within their formal network. consequently, uno’s structural position within the formal network does not allow it to influence the scale and rate of adoption of innovations. © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/22604| december 2, 2019  19  conclusion  the purpose of this study was to determine how universities could use sna to determine their structural position within mscns, as it is beneficial for an organization to identify their structural positions and understand the sphere of their influence of the sc and innovation within their network. additionally, it is beneficial not only for an organization to identify and understand their own position, but to also identify others’ positions within the network. this study demonstrated that sna can be used to determine the structural positions of organization types within the ose. analysis was completed by averaging the interaction levels of the respondents within the organization types to determine interaction levels. this information was then used to calculate the centrality metrics of density as the metric for relational sc and combining degree and betweenness as the metric for structural sc. after converting these metrics to a scoring system and adding them, each organization type received a combined centrality score that identified organization types that acted as both hubs and gatekeepers.   limitations    one of the limitations of this study was that it was based on a self-reporting survey, which allows for biases, namely social desirability bias and reference bias. social desirability bias occurs when respondents select options because they want to seem more “popular” (west, 2014), while reference bias occurs when respondents interpret the various options differently (west, 2014). the survey used in this study did attempt to minimize reference bias by providing explanation of each interaction level. desirability and reference biases affect all self-reporting surveys and further research needs to be conducted to determine how to minimize these threats. the data were also limited by the inconsistent spread of the number of respondents per organization type. the frequencies for those organization types that had fewer respondents were heavily influenced by only those few as compared to a larger number of responses. this study was also limited by the network analysis, as it was based on averaging the interaction levels of the individual members of the organization types and does not represent the whole network. also, it was not possible to represent the whole network, as surveys were completed by individuals who elected to participate. further, utilizing whole network analysis would have been too time-intensive, as respondents would be required to select an interaction level for 86 different individuals.   discussion    through studying the ose, we were able to look at the differences in various forms of sc for uno within a growing, dynamic mscn. breaking the members of the network into different sectors allowed us to further examine the network through intraand inter-sector ties. we were © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/22604| december 2, 2019  20  also able to disaggregate the ties into two different networks based on the strength of formal and informal ties. in this study, we determined that the majority of uno’s informal network ties were with organization types outside of the academic sector, meaning that respondents from uno had, on average, more informal ties with individuals from business and nonprofit organization types than with academic organization types. we also determined that the majority of uno’s formal network ties were with organization types inside of the academic sector, meaning that, on average, they had more formal ties with individuals from academic organization types than with business or nonprofit organization types. in fact, they only had two formal ties in the network which included four year institutions and p-12 public schools. in terms of the structural sc, the results from this study did not support the proposed hypotheses. uno possessed a relatively high structural sc in the informal network and a relatively low structural sc in the formal network, which directly oppose h3 and h4. uno had the third highest combined centrality score for the informal network, which means uno is in a position to foster these informal relationships and encourage more meaningful collaborations. however, uno had one of the bottom three combined centrality scores for the formal network. when looking at the two networks from this perspective, it makes sense the uno would have a low score for the formal network because they held an influential position in the informal network and respondents can only select one level of interaction. it also demonstrates room for growth for uno in terms of developing their informal relationships into formal relationships and helping to facilitate this growth for others within the network. these interactions can be best fostered through frequent, energetic, and genuine face-to-face interactions, resulting in increasingly more meaningful and sustainable relationships (pentland, 2015). when combining the results of the relational sc and structural sc of uno for both networks, there are several organization types with which uno needs to strategically form relationships. on average, individuals from uno recorded no relationships with individuals from business organization types with 51-200 employees and > 200 employees. in particular, it would be beneficial for uno to seek out partnerships with individuals from businesses with 51-200 employees as they are in structural positions of hubs and gatekeepers in the formal network and, on average, uno recorded no relationships with any individuals from this organization type. developing partnerships with individuals from the businesses with 51-200 employees would be advantageous for uno because these individuals have many formal connections and can help uno make new connections and be involved in formal collaborations. uno also has many informal relationships that they can build upon, particularly in the nonprofit sector; one organization type within the nonprofit sector that uno should enhance its relationship with is youth serving organizations. on average, individuals in these organization types hold positions of prominence in the formal network, and individuals from uno already © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/22604| december 2, 2019  21  have informal relationships with these individuals, which can help facilitate a more formal collaborative relationship. within research concerning cross-sector partnerships, sna is being used to analyze and manage these collaborations. the role of urban universities within these mscns can be informed and enhanced through the use of sna. universities should strive to be prominent actors by holding positions of hubs and gatekeepers within their innovative mscns, because while they hold content expertise, having access to diverse perspectives is vital to the generation of creativity and insight (pentland, 2015). this creativity and insight will be beneficial for both the university and the community as a whole.   acknowledgements    the authors of this study would like to acknowledge the following people for their contributions to this project: drs. neal grandgenett, elliott ostler, and sarah edwards from uno, julie sigmon, director of the omaha stem ecosystem, and dr. elizabeth mulkerrin from the omaha henry doorly zoo.     © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/22604| december 2, 2019  22  references  becker, j., & smith, d. 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(2014) the limitations of self-report measures of non-cognitive skills, the brown center chalkboard series, no. 92.  metropolitan universities vol. 30 no. 2 (june 2019), doi: 10.18060/22813 20 tackling grand challenges: community engagement and collective impact in public problem solving anne p. deprince and cara marie dienno abstract in recent years, grand challenge initiatives have emerged nationally with the goal of addressing large, multidisciplinary public problems. the advent of university-led grand challenge initiatives offers an important opportunity to reflect on how institutions of higher education design, implement, and orient externally relevant activities at a time of public skepticism. with a focus on public problem solving, grand challenge initiatives offer a way to re-engage the public’s imagination and faith in higher education, depending on what these initiatives reflect about institutional values, practices, and work. we use this reflection opportunity to review early approaches to university-led grand challenge initiatives. we then propose that two frameworks should merge explicitly into grand challenge initiatives to guide public problem solving: community engagement and collective impact. finally, we offer the establishment of a grand challenge initiative at the university of denver (du) as an example of the integration of community engagement and collective impact frameworks into the organization and implementation of institution-wide, publicly-engaged work. keywords: university-community; collaboration; multidisciplinary; institutional structure introduction in recent years, institutions of higher education have faced questions about their value, relevance, and contributions to the public, as opposed to private, good. at the same time, urban-serving institutions continue to navigate their “especially complex and intimate relationship” with their local communities and the challenges facing diverse communities (ramaley & mcnair, 2018, p. 4). against this backdrop, the higher education landscape has seen the emergence of grand challenge initiatives that have the stated goal of addressing large, multidisciplinary public problems. the emergence of grand challenge initiatives offers an important opportunity to reflect on how institutions of higher education generally, and urban institutions specifically, design, implement, and orient externally relevant activities at a time of public skepticism. with a focus on public problem solving, grand challenge initiatives offer a way to re-engage the public’s imagination and faith in higher education, depending on what these initiatives reflect about institutional values, practices, and work. we use this reflection opportunity to review early approaches to university-led grand challenge initiatives in an urban context. we then propose that two frameworks should merge explicitly into grand challenge initiatives to guide public problem solving: community engagement and collective impact. finally, we offer the establishment of a grand challenge initiative at the university of denver (du) as an example of the integration of community engagement and collective impact frameworks into the organization and implementation of institution-wide, publicly-engaged work. 21 emergence of university-led grand challenge initiatives in 2012, the obama administration launched efforts to encourage government, companies, foundations, philanthropists, and universities to pursue grand challenges. it defined these challenges as “ambitious but achievable goals that harness science, technology, and innovation to solve important national or global problems and that have the potential to capture the public’s imagination” (office of science and technology policy, 2013; dorgelo & kalil, 2012). the obama administration’s call built on work emerging through foundations, such as the gates foundation, as well as academic disciplinary organizations, such as the national academy for engineering grand challenges (http://www.engineeringchallenges.org). since then, other academic disciplines (e.g., berndtson et al., 2007), disciplinary organizations (e.g., uehara et al., 2013), and individual institutions (popowitz & dorgelo, 2018) have either called for or launched grand challenge initiatives. in 2017, the university of california, los angeles (ucla) convened nearly 20 higher education institutions from north america to share practices related to establishing universityled grand challenge initiatives. a report from this assembly (popowitz & dorgelo, 2018) provides the most comprehensive look to date at the early framing of university-led grand challenge initiatives, which includes both public and private institutions who summarize their work with varying degrees of emphasis on faculty research, student, and communities. for example, carnegie mellon university’s program “is designed to provide winning groups of faculty with targeted support to build research capability” while georgia institute of technology’s program entails “a living and learning community with over 100 freshmen…living together” who will “explore solutions in student-led teams over the course of their undergraduate degree” (p. 5). some descriptions include collaboration across students, staff, and faculty, such as the university of texas at austin, for whom “bridging barriers is a campus-wide, researcherdriven grand challenge initiative” (p. 5). ucla’s description of their grand challenge initiative emphasizes connecting “hundreds of faculty, students, community members, and leading experts across many fields to solve society’s toughest problems” (p. 6). the report is the basis for establishing a community of practice, which provides a structure for universities to share practices and co-learn as grand challenge programs come into operation nationally. building on the obama administration language, the report defined grand challenges as “moonshots” and a “'north star for cross-sector and multidisciplinary collaboration” (p. 2). the report shared the optimism that university-led grand challenge programs were “rallying research communities to contribute to solving a major societal challenge; attracting new investment and resources; demonstrating value of university research; and engaging students, partners, the broader community, and the public” (p. i). higher education consultants have reinforced the potential for grand challenge initiatives to seed collaboration that will help position institutions in an increasingly difficult research-funding environment (e.g., lund, barnhart, goodell, & winslow, 2017). as highlighted in the ucla report, grand challenge initiatives are not the first nor only efforts by universities to leverage research for impact, which means that universities can learn from existing approaches and frameworks. the ucla report referenced high integrity basic and responsive research (hibar) championed by the association of public and land-grant 22 universities as a relevant approach to grand challenge initiatives. the report also cited existing frameworks to guide institutions in determining the scope and focus of grand challenge programs, such as the use of a smart goals framework, an acronym for specific, measurable, ambitious, realistic and relevant, and time-bounded. in addition, advice about establishing and implementing university-led grand challenge initiatives has focused on key institutional factors, such as the importance of structures and staffing to support the initiative as well as robust communication and long-term engagement of constituencies such as faculty, staff, students, administrators, and communities (lund, 2017; popowitz & dorgelo, 2018). important questions about implementation have also emerged, such as how grand challenge initiatives can ensure faculty are able participate while also keeping their own individual or preexisting programs of research moving forward (lund, 2017). the ucla report highlighted questions about how and when communities should attempt any grand challenge initiative development and implementation (popowitz & dorgelo, 2018). in addition to these core questions, we see an opportunity to ask what the design and implementation of grand challenge initiatives reveal about our institutional values and practices, particularly in light of trying to reengage communities in the vision and mission of higher education. with these questions in mind, as well as the potential of grand challenge initiatives for public problem solving, we propose that two frames should be central to the design and implementation of grand challenge initiatives: community engagement and collective impact. we turn first to defining collective impact. secondly, we discuss collective impact and community engagement in the higher education context. lastly, we provide an example of how the university of denver has applied these frameworks to the development and early implementation of its grand challenges initiative. the collective impact framework collective impact emerged as a framework in the nonprofit sector in light of observations that community-level change seemed more likely to occur when organizations worked together towards a shared agenda rather than in isolation (kania & kramer, 2011). in the seminal article published in the stanford social innovation review, kania and kramer (2011) described the climate of social change as one that prioritized the creation of independent solutions, where an organization’s value related to its ability to demonstrate unique impact. as an alternative, they proposed the term collective impact to refer to the commitment of actors from different sectors to a common agenda to solve a specific social problem. collective impact efforts are, according to researchers, “different from traditional collaboration in that they are designed to drive sustainable change in entire systems” (bender, 2017, para. 1). to accomplish system-wide or community-level change, kania and kramer (2011) proposed that five conditions are essential: (a) a common agenda; (b) shared measurement; (c) mutually reinforcing activities; (d) continuous communication; and (e) backbone support. a common agenda allows for a shared understanding of the problem to take shape. this, in turn, provides the clarity to prioritize strategies that are not only results-focused and measurable with an agreed-upon set of tools, but are also of mutual benefit to those involved. continuous communication supports the overall collaborative process as does having an entity responsible for providing logistical and infrastructure support to the collaborative group. with these conditions in place, the collective impact framework suggests that diverse entities can work 23 towards shared goals while still maintaining their individual organizational identities and missions. since kania & kramer’s (2011) article, many collaborative groups have embraced the term and endeavored to use the approach to move the needle on important, so-called wicked problems in their communities. in fact, cabaj & weaver (2016) have described the current atmosphere of collective impact as at a fever pitch. not surprisingly, the swift growth and uptake of the collective impact model has ushered in important critiques as well. authors have argued, for example, that collective impact omits attention to a rich body of evidence in the existing literature about coalition building. furthermore, it has yet to demonstrate grounding in evidencebased practice; moreover, it pays little attention to issues of equity and diversity. in addition it focuses on engaging the most powerful rather than the most impacted stakeholders, which undercuts building relationships, trust, and leadership among communities (arias & brady, 2015; christens & inzeo, 2015; flood, minkler, lavery, estrada, & falbe, 2015; le, 2015; lechasseur, 2016; mcafee, blackwell, & bell, 2015; williams & marxer, 2014; wolff, 2016). several responses, however, have emerged to these critiques. kania and kramer (2016) have emphasized the importance of treating the model as a framework, not a prescriptive recipe. furthermore, the tamarack institute has proposed collective impact 3.0 (cabaj & weaver, 2016), which maintains many of the same principles as the original collective impact framework while encouraging-practitioners to refocus efforts away from a management paradigm and toward a movement-building paradigm. moreover, a recent research report released in march 2018 provided the most methodologically rigorous study of collective impact completed to date (spark policy institute & ors impact, 2018). the cross-site study included 25 collective impact initiatives, eight of which were included for deeper analysis. the study found that collective impact contributed to measurable population change at all eight sites. integrating collective impact and community engagement frameworks many important commonalities exist between the collective impact framework and the structures of higher education institutions generally. for example, the structure of institutions of higher education lead to units that each have their own disciplinary approaches and cultures, which holds many similarities to working across sectors. while these units share a common institutionwide mission, the day-to-day practices of their work turn on the accomplishments of individual departments, divisions, and colleges in the ways the institution rewards faculty, chairs, deans, and other such administrators. looking within departments, faculty have been historically incentivized to emphasize independent achievement, for example, through tenure and promotion processes, and incremental progress in research, such as through funding expectations to build one grant proposal on the specific findings of the previous grant. as urban institutions of higher education begin to explore their role in collective impact initiatives (see metropolitan universities journal issue dedicated to this topic; november 2017, volume 28, number 4), they are also exploring how to more meaningfully participate in and impact their communities, including through community-engaged methods. in a comparison of land-grant institutions and urban institutions (weerts & sandmann, 2008), findings revealed that urban institutions develop a stronger embeddedness within their communities. holland (2002) 24 has called this being “not just in the city, but ‘of the city’” (p. 3). this leads to an engagement agenda that is more fully realized across the campus at urban research universities. this is, in part, due to the use of intentional engagement language as a piece of institutional branding, the porous boundaries of partnerships that support engagement, the alignment of engagement with the teaching and research roles of faculty, and stronger leadership support for engagement along with leaders who view community partners as stakeholders and learning partners (weerts & sandmann, 2008). community engagement, then, is a method of research, creative work, teaching, and learning that emphasizes university-community partnerships characterized by mutual benefit and reciprocity. over the last two decades, community-engaged methods have evolved in terms of their rigorous application to research, creative work, and teaching as well as their role in universities. the widely used definition of community engagement, advanced by the carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching, is “the collaboration between institutions of higher education and their larger communities (local, regional/state, national, global) for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity” (driscoll, 2008, p. 39). the emphasis on mutual benefit and reciprocity calls upon institutions of higher education to embrace an approach that allows diverse ways to generate knowledge as well as application of such work to the betterment of society. shields (2015) argues that urban institutions should explore the primary function of their engagement efforts, whether they emphasize a more transactional and reputational focus or a truly mutually beneficial and social transformative one: “simply offering community service project or an infusion of development funds does not necessarily fulfill this moral function of social transformation. it does not automatically or inherently attend to the socio-cultural, political, or economic needs and ideologies of community in which the institution is embedded” (p. 227). the complexity of society’s most pressing problems and the inherent need to approach solution generation from a multidisciplinary lens has led scholars to call upon institutions to make community engagement more central to the core of university work (fitzgerald, bruns, sonka, furco, & swanson, 2012). fitzgerald et al. argue that shifting from product to impact will improve the societal relevance of higher education. such a shift requires commitment to transformational change not only deeply within an institution, but also in the way a university engages with the broader community. ramaley (2002) underscores the importance of a clear and compelling model that institutions may use to guide actions at every turn when seeking such transformational change. sandmann and plater (2009) claim that “community engagement will endure only when the belief, the commitment, and the actions are so pervasive – so habitual – that their withdrawal would be painful.” (p. 23). we propose that combining collective impact and community-engaged frameworks offers a powerful method to achieve transformational change that elevates the public purpose of universities while re-committing to such a purpose. guided by collective impact and communityengaged methods, universities have the potential to shift from isolated impacts focused on individual scholars or projects to multidisciplinary work that tackles wicked problems in collaboration with communities. the focus on work done with communities is vitally important. by merging lessons learned in the field of community engagement, there is the possibility to address the critiques of collective impact related to diversity and equity. the practice of 25 community engagement, especially in urban settings, continues to evolve in ways that help universities reflect the diversity of the cities in which they reside (bringle, hatcher, hamilton & young, 2002). it strives to employ a practice of full participation where “institutions are rooted in and accountable to multiple communities” (strum, eatman, saltmarsh, & bush, 2011, p. 4), and explore their role in social transformation, especially as it relates to addressing the marginalization of individuals in their community (shields, 2015). a key charge for urban institutions is to consider what ethical community engagement looks like, applying “principles of mutuality, reciprocity, social justice equity, self-determination, and collective efficacy” (murtadha, 2016, p. 8). as community engagement can help address the challenges of collective impact, collective impact can in turn strengthen university effort to work toward larger scale community change. bender (2017) argues that collective impact approaches applied to university-community partnerships can (a) reinforce institutional mission, (b) focus and strengthen institutional community engagement efforts, and (c) facilitate community-based research. ultimately, bender contends that by engaging in collective impact efforts, higher education institutions can “better serve their own students, improve campus-community engagement efforts, and ultimately strengthen the communities in which they operate” (para. 13). while bender and articles in the metropolitan universities journal issue highlighted the role that urban institutions can play in multi-sector collective impact initiatives in communities, no one to our knowledge has considered how to adapt and apply the concepts and processes of collective impact to the internal function of a university. in other words, because universities are composed of different units, divisions, departments, centers, institutes, and more, with different missions and visions, they function like a conglomerate of multiple organizations all working under the same set of operational goals, typically outlined in university-wide strategic planning efforts. the collective impact framework’s focus on multi-sector collaboration is ripe for helping institutions of higher education think about how to align and leverage institutional structures across diverse units and disciplines. this allows a shift from fragmented activities, though they may be of a high quality, to a collective form of action that can lead to deep and durable impact (cabaj & weaver, 2016). important to the application of the collective impact framework to higher education is infrastructure in terms of what kania and kramer (2011) conceptualized as backbone support, or cabaj and weaver (2016) as containers for change. both conceptualizations point to the importance of a structure within the loosely coupled system of higher education that can span, convene, and support broad collaboration. the backbone support entity should bring together skills necessary to coordinate and communicate across constituents. backbone organization staff stand apart from the participating groups and provide support such as planning, managing and supporting the initiative through facilitation, communication, data collection and reporting, and other logistical and administrative functions (kania & kramer, 2011). as kania and kramer (2011) point out, “the expectation that collaboration can occur without a supporting infrastructure is one of the most frequent reasons why it fails” (p. 40). further, wolff (2016) note that backbone organizations need not lead the effort themselves. rather, they must possess the skills to cultivate leaders among those involved. the individuals driving the collective impact process must be able to create spaces where authentic dialogue is encouraged and supported and space for criticism, debate, and negotiation is embraced (hoey, colasanti, pirog, & fink shapiro, 26 2017). those best suited to apply the collective impact model may be what bolman & gallos (2011) refer to as academics leading from the middle. while those who lead from the middle face challenges and pressures in navigating sometimes conflicting cultures and value systems, there is also much that can potentially facilitate dialogue and bring divergent audiences together for a common purpose. we propose that the centers or offices on campus that support the application of communityengaged methods can serve this backbone role. in a study of 147 campuses who have received carnegie community engagement classification, welch and saltmarsh (2013) found that an important theme for engagement offices was their role in relationship building and the critical need they fill in not only supporting, but also influencing institution-wide initiatives. indeed, offices supporting community-engaged work (e.g., from service learning to community-engaged research and creative work) are often designed and situated to span disciplines and departments, positioning them to facilitate collective impact in a dynamic way across the campus that resonates within the specific economic and social context of the institution. engagement centers are typically already working to provide programming and resources to support faculty who then lead classes, research, and other change efforts. the collective impact framework provides a way to think strategically about the structure and resource support for these offices, so that they can in turn support deepening the collaborative potential and future impact of public good work. further, engagement centers prepare campus constituents to work reciprocally with communities and community-based organizations by ensuring that work serves community-identified needs. this helps to address some of the recent critiques of collective impact expressed by numerous authors about whose voices are elevated in collective impact processes (e.g., wolff, 2016). the application of a collective impact framework across campus via engagement offices can focus on structuring existing work in such a way that disparate efforts align to a single set of goals measured in the same way rather than developing new programs or offices. in other words, institutions need not create wholly anew research agendas or classes. rather, they ideally create structures to learn from and with one another and to coordinate efforts to support a broad set of shared aspirations. this coordination may lead to collaboration, but it may be just as likely to lead to harmonizing work and drawing connections across research agendas, programs, and other initiatives. as hanleybrown, kania and kramer (2012) observe, “collective impact efforts are most effective when they build from what already exists; honoring the current efforts and engaging established organizations, rather than creating an entirely new solution from scratch” (p. 4). engagement-center staff, particularly center directors, play a key role in connecting constituents both inside and outside the organization, demonstrating the ability to “negotiate power and balance between the organization and external agents to achieve mutual objectives” (weerts & sandmann, 2010, p. 708). these staff members serve as translators of each sides’ perceptions and expectations. competent engagement professionals are able to both embrace respect for community perspectives while also possessing a keen understanding of their institution’s landscape in order to advocate for community engagement (dostilio, benenson, chamberlin, crossland, farmer-hanson, hernandez, 2017). in addition to their unique position to span such boundaries, engagement offices are often best able to help shape a common agenda. “a true common agenda requires leadership to bring key stakeholders together; to review the key data 27 which informs the problem or issue; to develop a shared vision for change; and to determine the core pathways and strategies that will drive the change forward” (cabaj & weaver, 2016, p. 6). engagement offices are often already working with administrators, faculty, students, staff, and community members and have often cultivated a level of trust and credibility. these broad connections across campus and community can help engagement staff bring diverse perspectives to the fore along with data to inform decision-making. such boundary spanning staff can build strong, reciprocal relationships (murtadha, 2016), especially those that employ “shared voice and power and insist upon collaborative knowledge construction and joint ownership of work processes and products” (jameson, clayton, & jaeger, 2011, p. 264). furthermore, these offices have often developed strategies for communicating across such diverse constituents, preparing them to support continuous communication in collective impact efforts. the community-engaged methods espoused by these offices are, by definition, central to creating mutually reinforcing activities that have the potential for enhancing public impact. adapting collective impact and community engagement frameworks for a grand challenge initiative this section integrates the collective-impact and community-engagement frameworks into discussion of the design and implementation of grand challenge initiatives. because the nature of grand challenges is to address multidisciplinary public problems, no single discipline has the capacity to address these challenges in isolation. we propose that collective impact and community engagement can guide the development of grand challenge initiatives in ways that allow institutions of higher education to demonstrate public good values and impact while leveraging structures to span and connect collaborative potential. to make this case, we describe below the development and early implementation of du grand challenges (2019) at the university of denver. the university of denver’s strategic plan, du impact 2025, prioritized the development of a grand challenge initiative to address complex public problems. the task of designing and implementing the initiative settled upon a working group of faculty and staff from across campus, including the authors, who serve as director and associate director of the university’s center for community engagement to advance scholarship and learning (ccesl) respectively. the collaboration for the public good working group (working group) began meeting every other week in fall 2016 to design the initiative as well as other public good work from the plan. the placement of grand challenges initiative planning within the working group was likely very important to the values embodied by the implementation plan as well as the community engagement and collective impact frameworks eventually applied. for example, the initiative could have chosen groups focused on expanding the university’s research impact or internal collaboration. the design priorities would have likely differed to some degree. however, the working group’s collaboration and public good charge led to approaches that would ensure the initiative embodied the university’s vision to be a great private university dedicated to the public good. further, the working group sought to root the initiative in the university’s long-standing commitment to community-university collaborations, exemplified through the engagement office, ccesl. 28 the working group’s initial proposal for implementation to the university’s leadership focused on the basic structure of the initiative. adapting the language of the white house 21st century grand challenges (white house office, 2013), the proposal framed the initiative around the potential possibilities when the multi-disciplinary expertise and interests of students, staff, faculty, and community members joins to pursue ambitious and achievable public good goals. the initiative aimed to bring together curricular, scholarship, creative work, and co-curricular activities to advance community-engaged, public good work on complex issues that affect our communities locally, as well as regionally, nationally, and globally. further, the working group proposed an inherently community-engaged arc rooted in, first, articulating shared aspirations with communities, then taking collaborative actions across community-engaged scholarship, learning, and service, and finally demonstrating achievements toward our public good goals. therefore, the working group designed the structure of each challenge issue to follow a 3-year time course with programming and funding for each challenge rolling out across these 3-year cycles. we also proposed that the initiative include a family of programs reflecting the goal of engaging the campus and community. the proposed programming built on successful programs already run at a smaller scale through ccesl and other campus entities. that initial proposal also laid out a commitment to a community-engaged process of selecting the issues areas. in particular, the working group proposed to select the inaugural three grand challenge issue areas as part of a collaborative process with campus and community constituents. thinking about root causes of problems, the proposal also pointed to the importance of identifying inter-related issue areas to allow du and community partners to build on work across time (versus approaching the work as three separate and distinct challenges). this centering of community-engaged methods was in line with cabaj and weaver’s (2016) arguments that a much stronger focus on the role of the community was essential to the evolution of collective impact. engaging authentically, and with a sense of reciprocity and trust, with the communities with whom the university partners was essential for the initiative to have the potential to move the needle on important issues. therefore, it is a defining characteristic of du’s approach. following this initial proposal, the working group turned to institutional operational issues. it began to integrate collective impact into structural recommendations. the collective impact framework served to argue that a backbone structure was essential to ensure implementation success and that ccesl should provide that structure. these structural arguments were grounded in descriptions of backbone functions with the ability to guide vision and strategy, support similar activities, establish shared measurement practice, cultivate community engagement, advance policy, and mobilize resources (turner, merchant, kania, & martin, 2012). several types of evidence helped to argue for ccesl as the backbone, including the center’s record of accomplishment in facilitating and coordinating institution-wide public good work across faculty, staff, and students within their existing organizational structures (department, divisions, centers). furthermore, ccesl, like many engagement centers, has built a reputation for the kind of adaptive leadership required for a backbone organization, including “a delicate balance between the strong leadership needed to keep all parties together and invisible ‘behind the scenes’ role that lets the other stakeholders own the initiatives success” (hanleybrown, kania, & kramer, 2012, p. 6). in addition to experience in training faculty, staff, and students in 29 the skills necessary to do public good work using best practices in community engagement, ccesl also brought assessment expertise that could identify shared measurement tools as demanded of collective impact efforts. finally, ccesl’s expertise in community engagement best practices promised to ensure that communities remained at the center of any change processes and that the initiative consistently applied principles of inclusivity. community-university input to identify grand challenge issue areas to identify the grand challenge issue areas, the working group sought to select issues that were multidisciplinary in nature. each issue would have the potential to engage every academic unit on campus in some way. every issue must be broad enough to engage many disciplines and communities while specific enough to allow us to identify attainable goals with community partners in the “aspirations” phase. it should be relevant to the community, focused in areas where the university has substantial faculty expertise, as well as connections to both scholarship and teaching. furthermore, the working group sought to recognize the unique potential for collaboration in our local, urban context while recognizing that faculty across campus also did work regionally, nationally, and globally. to identify issues, the working group turned to a mix of existing data as well as collected new information. in terms of existing data, the working group drew on interviews and site visits conducted during the university’s strategic planning process. this included interviews with community leaders and change makers, as well as visits to other campuses focused on public good work and higher education leaders nationally. in terms of new information, the working group used a combination of methods that aimed to bring in diverse voices to planning and discussion. looking externally, the working group reviewed grand challenge issues selected by other universities as well as priority areas detailed by the city’s mayor and state’s governor. looking internally, the working group looked at areas of overlap and connection among existing programing and scholarship. furthermore, the working group sought to identify existing community-university partnerships that could inform understanding of areas in which faculty and communities were committed to working together. in winter 2017, the working group surveyed faculty from across campus about their work with communities in research, creative work, teaching, and service. more than 300 faculty responded and described more than 700 unique community partners with whom they worked on a broad range of public issues. the majority of community partners were local, illustrating the close relationship that urban institutions have with their communities (ramaley & mcnair, 2018) as well as the potential for focusing energies locally to leverage existing collaborations for impact. the survey team coded faculty responses to identify focus areas of this scholarship and themes. this coding informed a picture of both narrow topics as well as broad problem areas in which faculty were working across campus and with communities. that information enabled the working group to consider different configurations of topics that reflected multidisciplinary issues for which the university had depth and breadth of faculty expertise. a similar coding process was used to a review the topic areas on which student organizations focused as a way of integrating student interest into the process. the working group also brought campus and community voices directly into the issue identification process. for example, public good forums took place around broad topics (such as democracy, sustainability, and equity) to foster conversation about opportunities for cross 30 disciplinary and community-university collaboration. to promote broad engagement, public good forums were live-streamed on facebook and in-person and virtual participation via twitter was encouraged. in july 2017, the working group launched a call for input on grand challenge issues as well, inviting university staff, faculty, students, and alumni as well as community members to share ideas for grand challenge issues. these efforts provide an illustrative, not exhaustive, list of steps taken to identify the theme for du grand challenges. drawing on the information gathered in this process, the working group identified the overarching theme of “thriving communities” for the du grand challenges initiative and proposed three inaugural issue areas: improving daily living in our communities, increasing economic opportunity in our communities, and advancing deliberation and action for the public good in our communities. in october 2017, du grand challenges officially launched. both chancellor rebecca chopp and provost and executive vice-chancellor gregg kvistad expressed their enthusiasm for the initiative. working group co-leads, art jones (via video conference) and anne deprince presented the framework for du grand challenges in terms of structure (aspiration, action, and achievement) and issue areas. both collective impact and community engagement frameworks were integrated into the launch, to set the expectation that once a common agenda (or shared aspirations in the du grand challenges design language) had been set, the work would shift to developing a strategic framework for action (hanleybrown, kania, & kramer, 2012). the launch was live-streamed in three parts, to ensure broad participation from those present as well as those joining online. implementation to date: from aspirations to action in fall 2017, the university entered the aspirations phase for the inaugural issue: improving daily living in our communities. the working group offered the campus community both broad and narrower examples of topics that might connect to this issue area. such topics included: (a) health, healthy development, health equity, disease, illness and injury, parenting and family; (b) crime and safety, such as interpersonal violence, disaster and emergency, or mass violence; (c) migration, immigration and refugees; (d) environmental sustainability, climate change, urban development, or energy; and (e) meeting basic needs, including food access, homelessness, hunger, poverty, or water access). these particular terms arose from the coding of the faculty benchmarking data on community-involved work. therefore, these terms indicated areas in which faculty were already doing research, creative work, and/or teaching that involves communities. across ay 2017-2018, du grand challenges programming sought to engage campus and community constituents in intentional dialogue to set aspirations that could lead to action steps in ay 2018-2019 for improving daily living in our communities. for example, five du grand challenges forums brought together nearly 200 faculty, staff, students, alumni, and community members around themes that followed the broad problem areas above. du grand challenges also hosted the inaugural du a community table event on april 11, 2018. this one-day event was based upon the chicago community trust foundation’s innovative on the table program. it brought small groups of university and community changemakers together to generate ideas to improve daily living in our communities. anyone could sign up to host a conversation and hosts selected when and where they held their table conversation, what food options were provided, and who to invite to participate in the conversation. the goal 31 was to obtain feedback that could guide collaborative work in the years ahead. table participants identified priorities for action. the host conducted participant surveys and conveyed them back to our working group. a community table involved more than 70 tables, after which more than 280 people shared ideas, the majority of whom were community members. the working group also launched du grand challenges scholar grants to fund faculty community-engaged scholarship that tackles issues affecting daily living in our communities. six projects, which engaged faculty from units across campus, obtained funding. additionally, the working group invested in capacity-building, bringing to campus a nationally recognized collective impact leader, dr. bill fulton, for a full day of events focused on broadening conversations about collective impact as a method of accomplishing institutional goals. participants included faculty, staff, students, and community members. the working group reviewed the information collected across all du grand challenges program activities during the aspiration year of improving daily living in our communities as well as during the du grand challenges planning process year (e.g., faculty benchmarking survey, call for input on grand challenge issues). a review of information from the year of programming (e.g., grants funded, input from forums and a community table) suggested that du grand challenges supported existing collaborations and facilitated new connections. furthermore, the initiative seemed to be connecting people for practical purposes, such as collaboration; and for a shared identity to belong or contribute to something bigger. moreover, the first year of programming revealed the importance of coordination with other campus activities given many inter-related opportunities. in addition, the graduate school of social work and ritchie school of engineering and computer science were participating in their own disciplinary grand challenge programs. other aspects of the university’s strategic plan were seeding multidisciplinary, cross-unit collaborations. at the end of the aspiration year, the working group determined that the university and community shared goals around improving daily living through addressing health and healthy development, crime and safety, migration, environmental sustainability in an urban environment, and housing and food insecurity. however, university and campus constituents did not yet share an agenda on how to address these issues through actions that would result in measurable change. therefore, the action phase focused on a distinctive and potentially high impact process rather than project. specifically, the action phase applied the lessons learned about collective impact as a guiding framework for the overall du grand challenges initiative. the university took action in four areas that affect daily living in du’s urban context: (a) crime and safety; (b) migration; (c) environmental sustainability in an urban environment; (d) housing and food insecurity. in september 2018, a request for applications (rfa) invited faculty, staff, students, and community members to join a collective impact cohort on one of the four topics. with a deep recognition that “successful university-community partnerships will involve all participants as learners and teachers in shared efforts to seek solutions-focused outcomes to society’s most intractable ‘wicked’ problems” (fitzgerald et al., 2012, p. 18), the rfa sought broad participation from faculty, staff, students, and community members. this approach sought to maximize the impact of collaboration and minimize problems that occur when universities act alone or without adequate consultation in trying to address community issues. by applying the best approaches to community-university partnerships, this process fostered an ongoing 32 progression of “alignment, discovery, learning, and emergence” (kania & kramer, 2013, p. 2). furthermore, each cohort has faculty leadership who will ensure that community-engaged scholarship will be at the core of the approach to advance discovery goals while also affecting change in the grand challenge issue areas at the community level. more than 60 faculty, staff, students, and community members have joined cohorts that launched in november and december 2018. over the course of a six-month planning period, facilitators will guide the cohorts through a process to review research on collaboration, create guiding results statements, review data and identify indicators, and build an action map with intentional strategies. the cohorts will then pursue their selected action strategies over the following 12 months and be involved in evaluation and dissemination of work in the subsequent 6 months; the latter 6 months coincides with the achievements phase of the du grand challenges structure. the work of each cohort will inform the other cohortsm through the backbone support provided by ccesl; the working group will monitor and support the cohorts’ overall trajectories. this intentional design for consistent communication and feedback will ensure that the cohorts do not fall prey to the dangers of “shifting from isolated programs to isolated collective impact initiatives” (smith, pelco, & rooke, 2017, p. 27). cohort participants are also responsible for building networks of others with expertise and interest in the issue area. the goal of this process is to build distributed networks that will continue to seed new work, identify existing work that can work in tandem, and move forward with new members when existing members leave projects. this process will balance launching new projects with continuing to look for and engage existing projects/people. early successes and lessons there are many early indicators of success in meeting du grand challenges’ goals. the earliest goals of the working group were to design a community-engaged initiative broad enough to be multidisciplinary while specific enough to identify goals that were attainable and relevant to the community. the working group was successful in many of these regards, having designed an approach to du grand challenges that emphasizes community engagement and centers community-university partnerships in problem solving. the yearlong process used to identify issue areas integrated perspectives from campus and community members. with the selection of the three inaugural issues (improving daily living, increasing economic opportunity, and advancing deliberation and participation for the public good), these goals were met in terms of the reach and relevance. in terms of reach across campus, the group found faculty experts for all issues in all units. in terms of relevance to the community, all three areas touch on existing community-university collaborations in research and teaching. this suggests that the topics selected are of interest and will continue to engage communities. as summarized in ccesl’s end of year report (2019), the inaugural year of programming successfully engaged students, staff, faculty and community members in activities that ranged from intentional dialogue (e.g., forums) to research and creative work (du grand challenges scholars grant). tempering early successes were challenges in identifying specific, attainable goals for improving daily living during the first year’s aspiration phase. the phase-oriented timetable assumed that specific projects and goals would emerge out of the aspiration phase, though the process led to the recognition that there was campus and community interest in a range of inter-related topics 33 and projects. a success in the face of this challenge, though, was in being able to apply flexibly the collective impact framework to advance the initiative. facing concerns that limiting the scope too soon might impede bolder action, the working group proposed establishing collective impact cohorts as a way to dedicate more time for a relatively smaller group of campus and community members to identify specific, collaborative action plans in four areas. at this writing, the cohorts are in the midst of a six-month, facilitated planning period, working towards specific action plans to take effect over the subsequent eighteen months. their action plans will include indicators and program measures to evaluate the impact of their work on the public problem targeted. several lessons of experience stand out looking towards the end of the second year of implementation. as noted in the ucla report, communicating effectively about a complex initiative to the many campus and community constituencies is challenging. ccesl has diversified communication strategies over the last year and sought to expand networks of students, staff, faculty, and community colleagues to amplify messages. programming challenges have included sustaining engagement in events and grappling with place-based decisions about whether events will be on campus and/or in the community. the working group and ccesl continue to try new things and adjust strategies for communication and programming. midand long-term goals of the initiative include solving public problems, developing sustainable funding for the initiative, and advancing community-university collaborations as well as multidisciplinary work. less than two years into the implementation of this initiative, there has not yet been enough time to evaluate successes in these areas. to do so in the future, the working group will use indicators and program metrics determined by the collective impact cohorts to examine whether actions affected the public problems targeted. further, ccesl and the working group are leading multi-year efforts to evaluate changes over time in faculty and faculty-community collaboration in research and teaching, using social network analysis and other tools. as the backbone support, ccesl staff are working with development colleagues on campus on external funding. to date, the university received a grant from the arthur vining davis foundations to support du grand challenges programming that affects undergraduate education. that support has resulted in undergraduates doing faculty-mentored, communityengaged research on topics related to du grand challenges issue areas as well as engaging in faculty-mentored critical reflection on how their du education prepares them to address complex public problems. conclusion grand challenge initiatives are meant to capture attention and imagination for public problem solving. university-led grand challenge initiatives have the potential to communicate much about institutional values and practices. for example, initiatives designed in a top-down fashion without consultation with communities may reinforce views of higher education institutions as hierarchical, remote ivory towers. historical, “town and gown” tensions between universities and communities may only worsen. alternatively, the emergence of grand challenge initiatives offers an opportunity to draw on traditions that have emerged within campus, such as communityengaged scholarship, and outside the academy, such as collective impact, to establish a new approach to institution-wide collaboration with communities for the public good. the design and 34 implementation of du grand challenges offers one university’s approach to grand challenges in an urban context, guided by community engagement and collective impact. a new approach that integrates community engagement and collective impact has the potential to inform thinking about institutional structures, such as the importance of engagement centers to span and connect campus and community constituents. furthermore, this approach can also affect the public’s view of higher education values, particularly around collaboration and engagement with local, urban communities to solve problems. the approach promises to allow universities to leverage existing relationships and collaborations cultivated by community-engaged faculty to advance institution-wide community-engaged work. moreover, by drawing on community-engaged methods, grand challenge initiatives have the opportunity to articulate and demonstrate their commitment to university-community collaborations that are mutually beneficial and reciprocal. in addition, collective impact frameworks provide a template for thinking through essential structural issues. for example, collective impact scholarship suggests that community-level change requires an influential champion, financial resources to ensure adequate progress can be made, and a sense of urgency that change is required (hanleybrown, kania, & kramer, 2012). by integrating a communityengaged, collective 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(2013, april 2). 21st century grand challenges. retrieved from https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/administration/eop/ostp/grand-challenges williams, j. & marxer, s. (2014, september 4). bringing an equity lens to collective impact [blog post]. retrieved from https://www.collectiveimpactforum.org/blogs/34176/bringingequity-lenscollective-impact wolff, t. (2016). ten places where collective impact gets it wrong. global journal of community psychology practice, 7(1), 1-11. retrieved from https://www.gjcpp.org/en/resource.php?issue=21&resource=200 https://doi.org/10.5243/jsswr.2013.11 https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.0.0027 https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2010.11779075 http://openjournals.libs.uga.edu/index.php/jheoe/article/view/1090/698 https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/administration/eop/ostp/grand-challenges https://www.collectiveimpactforum.org/blogs/34176/bringing-equity-lenscollective-impact https://www.collectiveimpactforum.org/blogs/34176/bringing-equity-lenscollective-impact 39 author information anne p. deprince, ph.d. department of pyschology university of denver 2155 s. race st. denver, co 80208 telephone: 303-871-2939 email: anne.deprince@du.edu twitter: @apdeprince anne p. deprince is professor and chair in the department of psychology and director of the center for community engagement to advance scholarship and learning (ccesl) at the university of denver. in her capacity as ccesl director, she has advanced the institutionalization of community-engaged work across campus. she also pursues a program of community-engaged research on gender-based violence. *cara marie dienno, ph.d. center for community engagement to advance scholarship and learning university of denver 2050 east evans avenue, suite 22 denver, co 80208 telephone: 303-871-2158 email: cara.dienno@du.edu twitter: @caradienno cara marie dienno is associate director of the center for community engagement to advance scholarship and learning (ccesl) at the university of denver. she supports faculty, staff and students in their community-engaged work – collaborating with the community to advance social justice and live out the university of denver's public good vision. in addition to supporting the campus community, she also teaches university courses using service learning pedagogy and participates in community-engaged research. *corresponding author mailto:anne.deprince@du.edu mailto:cara.dienno@du.edu original research © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23936 | december 18, 2020 93 faith community and campus engagement in immigrant integration felipe a. filomeno1 1 department of political science, university of maryland, baltimore county. cite as: filomeno, f.a. (2020). faith community and campus engagement in immigrant integration. metropolitan universities, 31(3), 93-115. doi: 10.18060/23936 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract immigration is one of the most contentious topics in contemporary american politics. this study presents the planning, implementation, and evaluation of a program of faith community dialogues on immigration developed in partnership between a public university, a faith-based group of volunteers, and catholic congregations. based on data from dialogue transcriptions, exit questionnaires completed by participants, observation notes, and reflections shared by students and faith community leaders, the study shows the outcomes of the program for the congregations, the volunteer group, the students, and the faculty leader. the volunteer group was able to launch a new program that helped immigrant and united states-born members of faith communities develop feelings of mutual understanding and collaboration. students had the opportunity to learn research skills and better understand people’s perspectives on immigration and race. the faculty leader produced community-based scholarship that otherwise would not have been possible. the study concludes that cumulative collaborative learning, the inclusion of a religious dimension, and support from faith leaders are key for the success of partnerships between academic and faith-based organizations. keywords: dialogue, religion, immigration, community-based research http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23936 | december 18, 2020 94 introduction faith-based stakeholders are key members of the communities with whom colleges and universities engage. partnerships between institutions of higher education and faith-based groups and organizations have resulted in many teaching and service-learning programs as well as research projects (friedrichs, 2012; janzen, pomazon, & hrynkow, 2017). this article presents the planning, implementation, and evaluation of a program of faith community dialogues on immigration carried out in partnership by a public secular university, the university of maryland, baltimore county (umbc) and a faith-based group of volunteers, the latino racial justice circle (lrjc). from design to evaluation to reflection, the program involved collaboration between a researcher and community partners in the collection and analysis of data about a major social issue: immigration. as such, the work combined community-based research, engaged scholarship, and evaluation methods. while community-based research implies an equitable inclusion of community members in all stages of the research process, engaged scholarship refers to research that connects the “resources of the university to our most pressing social, civic, and ethical problems” (boyer, 1996, p. 19). by analyzing this experience in light of the literature, the author seeks to identify conditions that contribute to the success of research partnerships between academic and faith-based organizations. the article is organized in five sections. in the following section, the researcher describes the context of the organizations in partnership and reflects on their positionality in the program. next, the researcher reviews the literature of evaluations of research projects that engaged faithbased organizations. in the subsequent section, the researcher presents the design and implementation of the program in a narrative form of program evaluation for the reader to see how the program evolved through three cycles, each one taking advantage of lessons learned in the previous cycle. from summer 2018 to march 2020, the projects corresponding to the three cycles are: (1) a short dialogue at an ecumenical workshop on immigration in october 2018, (2) a set of two three-week dialogues in catholic parishes, one in an urban and predominantly african american congregation in february-march 2019, a second in three suburban and predominantly white american congregations in may 2019, (3) a three-week dialogue in two urban catholic faith communities, one predominantly latinx and one predominantly white american, scheduled for 2020. in the final section, the researcher presents the results of the evaluation of the program, discussing its outcomes for dialogue participants, host faith communities, the lrjc, students, and the researcher. the article ends with a discussion for future research and a reflection on the challenges and lessons learned in the partnership between umbc, the lrjc, and faith communities. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23936 | december 18, 2020 95 context of organizations in partnership after conducting research on immigration in baltimore for a few years, the researcher realized the need to conduct research with immigrant communities rather than just about immigrant communities. in interviews with leaders of immigrant-serving organizations, the researcher heard complaints of research fatigue, which happens when community members feel overwhelmed by requests from researchers, especially when they do not see tangible results from research activities (way, 2013). the researcher had also lost interest in scholarship whose results remained within the confines of academia. moreover, after each research project was completed and no matter how methodologically rigorous the study was, the researcher would often ask: “but is this really how immigrants have experienced this?” instead of designing their next research project purely on intellectual considerations, the researcher started to volunteer at immigrant-serving organizations to directly contribute through service, build relationships, and identify community aspirations to which research could make a contribution. working from within immigrant communities would also give the researcher deep experiential knowledge that could minimize doubts about research findings. in 2017, the researcher became a volunteer for the lrjc, which supported latinx immigrants in baltimore through educational and legal assistance programs. as a faith-based group of volunteers affiliated with a catholic non-profit organization, the lrjc aims “to educate and inspire people of all faith traditions. working together, we will recognize and then act to eliminate systemic racial injustice and everyday incidents of bias and discrimination toward the latino community. the circle is committed to healing the wounds of racism by seeking to understand and respect one another. the circle also strives to change human behavior so that we might change the human heart” (lrjc, 2015). the vision of the lrjc is “to create opportunities throughout maryland for meaningful, authentic dialogue about race relations with people of different cultures. as a result, the circle hopes to form cross-cultural, faith based communities focused on spiritual growth and improving social relationships” (lrjc, 2015). the lrjc mission and vision are consistent with the mission of umbc, a midsize research public university located just outside of baltimore city. umbc prepares students for “community service and leadership” and “is dedicated to cultural and ethnic diversity” and “social responsibility” (umbc, 2020). in early 2020, the carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching honored umbc with the carnegie classification for community engagement, recognizing the university’s commitment to the larger academic movement toward community engagement. the researcher’s identity as an immigrant from latin america facilitated their entrance in the lrjc, which was seeking to increase its latinx membership. the researcher’s catholic identity also facilitated participation in the group, which has strong ties to the catholic church and starts and finishes every meeting with a prayer. despite these affiliations, there were differences in class position and phenotype between the researcher and members of the community served by © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23936 | december 18, 2020 96 the lrjc which, occasionally, made the researcher feel like an outsider. with time, the volunteering evolved into the faith-based campus-community partnership presented here. although playing simultaneously the roles of program leader and researcher could introduce bias into the study, it allowed for the generation of what dezerotes (2018) called “practice-based evidence.” dialogue practitioners use practice-based evidence to assess and evaluate their work relying on direct participant feedback and direct observation the dialogue process (dezerotes, 2018, p. 42). to further minimize the risk of bias, the evaluation methods were made explicit, were applied systematically at multiple points in time, and included discussions of findings with lrjc members. leaders of the lrjc wanted to create a program of faith community dialogues on immigration. a volunteer with experience in classroom dialogue facilitation, the researcher offered to lead the creation of the program as a community-based research and evaluation project. the first dialogue was held in october 2018 as part of an ecumenical workshop on immigration and more dialogues were held since then. literature review: lessons from evaluations of research with faith-based organizations to identify program evaluations of research projects conducted in partnership with faith-based organizations, the researcher used the terms “faith” or “religio*” combined with “community research,” “community-based research,” “campus-community” or “university-community” on google scholar. the large majority of the evaluations resulting from that search assessed research on public health with qualitative evaluation methods. some findings of those evaluations coincide with conclusions of the broader literature on community-engaged scholarship: (1) researchers need to screen potential community partners to check if they have capacity to participate in a project (hippolyte et al, 2013); (2) power over the project needs to be shared between researchers and community partners (hippolyte et al, 2013; laken et al, 2007; oppenheim et al, 2019; szaflarski et al, 2014); (3) researchers and community partners need to communicate regularly and transparently to build trust, assess progress, and solve problems (easley et al, 2003; hippolyte et al, 2013; laken et al, 2007; szaflarski et al, 2014); (4) researchers should include members of community organizations in the research team (derose et al, 2010; hippolyte et al, 2013; xiaoming, 2007); (5) researchers and community partners should recognize each others’ diverse and complementary set of skills and resources (szaflarski et al, 2014); and (6) researchers need to invest time for building relationships in the community (kaplan et al, 2009). © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23936 | december 18, 2020 97 other findings are specific to research that engages faith-based organizations. although the literature on community-engaged scholarship has recognized the importance of building relationships with community leaders to gain access and trust in the community, evaluations of research with faith-based organizations emphasizes faith leaders as community members whose support is crucial (hippolyte et al, 2013; kim, 2004). faith leaders can advocate for the project, for instance, during religious services (kaplan et al, 2009) when a critical mass of community members are present. researchers need to be culturally sensitive when engaging with faith leaders because some research topics or methods might raise concerns from the perspective of their religious traditions (szaflarski et al, 2014). researchers need to be accommodating of faith leaders’ demands and try to strike a balance between rigorous scholarship and the comfort level of leaders and members of faith communities (kloos & moore, 2000; szaflarski et al, 2014). previous evaluations of research that engages faith-based organizations have also stressed the need to include a spiritual component in the research project (doyle et al, 2007; kaplan et al, 2009; kim et al, 2017; kitzman et al, 2017; rodriguez et al, 2009). examples of this are opening a project meeting with a prayer, starting a community forum with a sermon by a pastor, and connecting the process, goals, and outcomes of the project to scripture. the inclusion of a spiritual component in the research project can also motivate the support of faculty, administrators, staff, and students who are inspired by their faith (janzen et al, 2017). researchers and faith-based community partners should, however, be cautious about the religious component of a project overpowering the scientific component (rodriguez et al, 2009). in sum, we expect the likelihood of success of research partnerships between academic and religious institutions to increase with: (1) transparent, participatory, and sustained interactions between scholars and faith partners, (2) the commitment of faith leaders to the partnership, and (3) the inclusion of religious rituals and values in the partnership. program design and implementation in summer 2018, an lrjc leader proposed to the group the organization of an ecumenical workshop to educate members of local faith communities about immigration. as a volunteer of the lrjc, the researcher joined the planning committee of the workshop and became responsible for a dialogue that would happen as part of the event. from the beginning, the researcher wanted to combine a programming opportunity with research on intergroup community dialogues and on the intersections of faith and relations between immigrants and people in the united states. in the designing stages of the program, research consisted of: (1) a review of the literature on intergroup community dialogues, (2) a review of the literature on religion and immigration attitudes, (3) a pre-dialogue facilitator training session and focus group with lrjc members to discuss the dialogue guide. this initial research sought to make the dialogue evidence-based and culturally sensitive. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23936 | december 18, 2020 98 the researcher designed the dialogue following the principles of intergroup community dialogues: the dialogue would happen in small groups of participants, have trained facilitators, ground rules, and open-ended questions for participants to think critically about commonalities and differences between immigrants and people born in the united states (herzig, 2011; hope in the cities, 1995; mccoy, flavin, & reaven, 1997; study circles resource center, 1998; u.s. department of justice, 1998; nagda et al, 2012). the researcher also took into account theories about the intersection of religion and immigration attitudes (bloom et al, 2015; brenneman, 2005; brown & brown, 2017; kang, 2017; knoll, 2009; mcdaniel, nooruddin, & shortle, 2011; paterson, 2017; wallsten & nteta, 2016). for instance, bloom et al (2015) found that religious social identity increases opposition to immigrants who are dissimilar to in-group members in religion or ethnicity, while religious belief engenders welcoming attitudes toward immigrants of the same religion and ethnicity but only among the less conservative devout. to mitigate the social identity effect, in the introduction of the dialogue, the facilitator asked participants “please say your name and which country you or your ancestors came from” to make participants acknowledge their immigrant background. to heighten the religious belief effect, the researcher included the question “what does your faith tradition say about immigrants?” which makes participants ponder what would be an immigration attitude consistent with their religious beliefs. one week before the event, the researcher trained lrjc members to work as dialogue facilitators. each facilitator received a guide for the dialogue, which presented the ground rules, organization, dialogue questions, evaluation procedures, and recommendations for effective facilitation (see table 1 below for a sample). the training also included a simulation of the dialogue. participants made a few suggestions for the dialogue, such as changes in the language of some questions to make them culturally appropriate from the perspective of immigrants. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23936 | december 18, 2020 99 table 1. examples of ground rules, facilitation guidelines, and dialogue questions ground rules we agree to dialogue in good faith. we will listen to others carefully, speak honestly, and be open to thinking together. we will raise our hands to the facilitator every time we want to speak. we will talk one person at a time and keep our comments brief. we will face and work through disagreements respectfully. disagreements will be about ideas and not personalized. facilitation guidelines your main task is to keep the discussion focused, stay neutral, and enforce the ground rules. do not act as a teacher or expert. you should not become the “go to” person to answer questions. value people and their ideas, promoting critical thinking on those ideas without being judgmental. ask questions about the pros and cons of ideas or facts and about assumptions and concerns underlying ideas. prevent outspoken participants from monopolizing the conversation. dialogue questions how do you decide who your “own people” are? have you seen or experienced in your community tensions between immigrants and those born in the united states around cultural issues such as language, religion or ways of life? if we had excellent relations between immigrants and people born in the united states, what kinds of things would we see, hear, or feel in the communities? the lrjc decided the dialogue would be the last activity of the workshop and last for 40 minutes. participants could share personal stories, feelings, and thoughts about immigration, explore commonalities and differences between immigrants and people born in the united states, discuss visions of how participants’ communities should deal with immigration, and propose actions they should take to achieve that vision. to recruit workshop participants, the lrjc distributed flyers about the workshop to local public libraries, colleges, neighborhood groups and associations, but mostly to religious groups and organizations. twenty-eight people participated © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23936 | december 18, 2020 100 in the workshop. for the dialogue activity, participants were randomly split into small groups, each with a facilitator. the workshop took place at a private catholic school in an area of baltimore largely populated by latin american immigrants. redesigning the program the evaluation of the ecumenical workshop dialogue informed the lrjc decision to scale up and redesign the dialogue. the researcher drafted an extended version of the dialogue guide according to which the program would now take place over three sessions of one hour and thirty minutes over three consecutive weeks with one session per week. the extended version of the dialogue would also encourage participants to talk in terms of personal stories (to reproduce in the dialogue the appeal of personal testimonials by immigrants, which workshop participants had highly appreciated). the researcher shared the draft of the dialogue guide in a focus group with lrjc members for discussion. the group provided suggestions, mostly about language, which the researcher followed in the revision of the draft. since the evaluation of the ecumenical workshop dialogue indicated that the lrjc should expand its recruiting efforts to get a more diverse pool of dialogue participants, the lrjc decided to partner with faith communities of specific demographics and locations for subsequent dialogues. one dialogue would happen at a predominantly african american urban congregation and another would happen at a predominantly white american suburban congregation. the selection of those two settings was done to allow for comparisons and because of the biracial demographics of the baltimore area, a predominantly african american urban core surrounded by predominantly white american suburbs. the different locations and compositions of dialogue groups could also reveal different power dynamics between participants. scaling up the program scaling up the program and engaging specific faith communities as partners was costly. the researcher applied for funding from maryland humanities, a statewide educational nonprofit organization. members of the lrjc were listed in the grant application as members of the project team. the lrjc contacted two catholic congregations that matched the criteria stated above. the application was successful. in early 2019, the researcher met with members of the lrjc and the pastoral team of the urban predominantly african american congregation to plan the first dialogue, which happened in late february and early march 2019 in the church dining room. to recruit participants, the pastoral team suggested the researcher, being catholic, attended a sunday mass at the congregation to © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23936 | december 18, 2020 101 speak about the program. parishioners interested in the program wrote their contact information on a sign-up sheet. between 12 and 14 people participated in the dialogue, depending on the day, including members of the congregation and members of the lrjc who were brought in to increase the number of latinx participants. some participants missed one of the three dialogue sessions. after the lrjc concluded the dialogue at the urban congregation, the group contacted the pastor of the suburban predominantly white american parish that had initially accepted to host a dialogue. although this parish was historically white american, an inflow of latinx immigrants to the area had led to the establishment of a hispanic ministry, including masses in spanish. the lrjc thought the program would be a great way of building relationships between the englishspeaking and the spanish-speaking parishioners. however, the pastor decided to withdraw the parish from the program fearing that open conversations about a divisive issue such as immigration at this time of the nation’s history would jeopardize the incipient interethnic relations among members of the parish. the lrjc then reached out to other suburban predominantly white american parishes and, after several weeks, received a positive response from the pastor of three parishes. the lrjc met with the pastoral team to present the program, answer questions, and decide on dates and recruitment of participants. the pastoral team decided to be in charge of the recruitment. the lrjc asked only that they invited a diverse group of people in terms of their home parish, ethnic background and political ideology, if known. the dialogue happened in may 2019. between 11 and 14 people participated in the dialogue, depending on the day, including members of the three parishes, several of whom were immigrants, and a member of the lrjc. the pastor, a white american man, was so enthusiastic about the program that he proposed the lrjc organize a broader event on immigration open to more members of their congregations. in one of the dialogues, the pastor talked about their previous experience of service to latin american immigrants in new york. the researcher acted as the facilitator of both dialogues, which were held in english with as needed translation to and from spanish. the researcher was assisted by four undergraduate students, who helped with set up and cleaning the space, distribution and collection of informed consent documents, and exit questionnaires. all dialogues were audio recorded. in spring 2020, a leader of the lrjc told the researcher that her own congregation, an urban predominantly white american catholic community, was interested in hosting a dialogue on immigration. the researcher proposed the lrjc organize a dialogue between members of that congregation and members of an urban predominantly latinx catholic congregation. the lrjc met with the pastor of the latinx congregation, a white american man who was very receptive to the program and even offered to connect the lrjc to pastors of other catholic parishes. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23936 | december 18, 2020 102 currently, the lrjc is creating a committee of members from both congregations and the lrjc to implement the program. as the lrjc learned from the previous dialogues, members of host faith communities, not just faith leaders, need to be actively involved in the implementation of the dialogue. in this upcoming dialogue, the researcher-facilitator will use the lrjc guide for faith community dialogues on immigration that was created based on the dialogues held at the catholic congregations in spring 2019, as discussed in the next section. in sum, the lrjc, leaders of host faith communities, and the researcher designed and implemented the dialogue program in collaboration. since participant feedback on the ecumenical workshop emphasized the importance of personal testimonials to educate the public on immigration, the researcher invited another umbc professor, tania lizarazo, to partner with the lrjc to work with dialogue participants in the production of digital stories. lizarazo is an expert in digital storytelling and had already collaborated in teaching and research with members of the local latinx community. she attended the dialogues held at the catholic congregations and invited participants that seemed engaged in the conversations to produce digital stories about their experiences with immigration and how they understand the role of dialogue in improving relations between immigrants and those born in the united states. lizarazo and an undergraduate research assistant taught six participants the concept of digital stories and guided them through the production process. participants chose the images and text, used their own voice, and had control over the final content of the stories. program evaluation program evaluation is a major field of opportunity for partnerships between academic institutions and faith-based organizations. unlike government agencies, business corporations, and professionally staffed non-profit organizations, faith-based organizations (especially individual congregations and volunteer groups) often lack the capacity to conduct evaluations independently. evaluations do not only provide faith-based organizations with the knowledge necessary to develop programs but also provide demonstrated program needs and outcomes that can justify requests for resources in grant applications and fundraising efforts. two undergraduate students participated in the evaluation of the partnership between the lrjc and umbc that materialized in the dialogues. they collected, transcribed, and analyzed data from the program. the researcher considered the effects of the program on faith communities, the lrjc, students, and themself as a scholar-teacher. while the lrjc was interested in the evaluation primarily as a means to develop a program, the researcher was also interested in using the data to investigate the efficacy of intergroup community dialogues in improving relations between immigrants and people born in the united states, and to explore the role of faith in those relations. the evaluation of the 2018 dialogue draws extensively from filomeno (2019a), a © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23936 | december 18, 2020 103 publication that resulted from the partnership. the research protocols used in the evaluation of the dialogue program were approved by the umbc institutional review board. evaluation methods the evaluation used a mixed-methods approach. in terms of quantitative methods, the evaluation used data collected through an exit questionnaire completed by dialogue participants. near the end of the 2018 ecumenical workshop on immigration, an undergraduate student provided a questionnaire to the 28 participants in which they provided basic demographic information and evaluated the workshop. the questionnaire contained five questions that asked participants to self-report attitudinal changes resulting from the workshop, namely feelings of mutual understanding and inclination for collaboration between immigrants and those born in the united states (see appendix). participants answered according to a likert scale ranging from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5). a compound index consisting of the average score for those five questions was generated to assess the results. the questionnaire also asked workshop participants for suggestions for improvement and other comments. at the end of the last session of each dialogue held in catholic congregations in spring 2019, an undergraduate student provided a questionnaire for participants to evaluate the program. like the questionnaire used in the october 2018 ecumenical workshop, this questionnaire asked participants to self-report attitudinal changes in a likert scale that allowed for the calculation of a compound index (see appendix). in terms of qualitative methods, a week after the 2018 ecumenical workshop, the researcher conducted a focus group with lrjc members to discuss the event and the findings from the questionnaire data. the focus group had 13 participants, including four members who had worked as facilitators in the workshop and five members who were participants in the workshop. the focus group was audio recorded, transcribed, and thematically analyzed. the evaluation of the dialogues held in catholic congregations in spring 2019 included a thematic analysis of observation notes, dialogue transcripts, post-participation reflections by students and faith leaders, and answers to open-ended questions of the exit questionnaire completed by participants. since the dialogue transcripts were extensive, the researcher used the software nvivo to thematically analyze that data. the researcher coded the first dialogue and then the second dialogue. the coding followed an open coding approach, starting with a set of codes based on theories of dialogue and on a review of observation notes. codes related to the process and outcomes of the dialogue were, for instance, “critical thinking” and “empathy.” after the first round of coding, the researcher analyzed the data again to make sure that codes created during the analysis were applied consistently across the data. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23936 | december 18, 2020 104 evaluation results outcomes for faith communities considering all participants of the 2018 ecumenical workshop on immigration, the compound index of attitudinal change calculated from the exit questionnaire was 4.45, near the midpoint between “agree” and “strongly agree”, indicating stronger feelings of mutual understanding and inclination for collaboration between immigrants and those born in the united states as a result of participation. the questionnaire did not allow the evaluation to distinguish between effects of the dialogue portion of the workshop from the effects of mini-talks about immigration and testimonials by immigrants. the question about suggestions and comments prompted a wide variety of responses but one theme emerged from five responses: to increase the duration and/or frequency of the workshop. participants also expressed strong appreciation for the testimonials by immigrants. like workshop participants, the follow-up focus group with facilitators agreed on the strong appeal of testimonials by immigrants and on the need to increase the duration of the workshop. lrjc members who worked as facilitators said there was not enough time for the dialogue portion. for the dialogue in the predominantly african american catholic congregation, the compound index was 4.57, or 11 respondents. for the dialogue in the predominantly white american catholic congregations, the compound index was 4.1, or 10 respondents. the high values suggest participation improved feelings of mutual understanding and inclination to collaborate across differences. the small number of participants in each dialogue makes it difficult to verify statistically the reason for the slightly weaker attitudinal change among the predominantly white american congregations, but this might be due to the higher proportion of conservative participants in those congregations. consistent with the findings from the questionnaire applied at the congregations, the thematic analysis indicated that the dialogue promoted mutual understanding and collaboration between immigrants and citizens born in the united states. for illustration, see the following exchange between an african american and a latinx participant in the first dialogue (which was edited for shortness): african american participant: what is it that makes you feel uncomfortable [among nonhispanic americans]? is it something that people do directly or is it just generalizations? latinx participant: sometimes people give you “the look.” you have an accent. african american participant: i do those looks too. but they’re not all negative. they’re more inquisitiveness than negativeness [sic]. i would just say that, you know, talk to the people. you would be surprised. people aren’t all negative. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23936 | december 18, 2020 105 in the above exchange, the african american participant challenged an assumption of the latinx participant, making her understand that “the look” might just be a benign sign of noticing difference. the african american participant, in turn, learned that immigrants might interpret “the look” in negative ways. in the following exchange from the first dialogue, also edited for shortness, an african american and a latinx participant connected their experiences with discrimination: latinx participant: i worked at a school and i got promoted while i was working there. and the young lady that had my position before i got promoted had a starting salary that was $5,000 higher than mine. we had the same educational level, same experience. [was that] because i’m a woman, a latinx woman? african american participant: i worked in a doctor’s office and there was another woman that worked with the doctor and we both did the same job and we both made the same salary when we came in. but then the doctor gave me a raise, and so he gave her a raise, and every time he gave me a raise, he would give her a thousand dollars more than i had [been paid] because he could not stand for somebody black to make more money than a white person. in both dialogues, participants often engaged in critical thinking about immigration interactively by scrutinizing, elaborating or corroborating each others’ statements. the result of those critical thinking moments was not necessarily a consensus among participants, but each group was able to move from stereotypical statements about immigration to more nuanced understandings in a friendly manner. several passages of the dialogues also show participants’ inclination to collaborate across differences, especially in response to the dialogue question about actions that participants could take to improve relations between immigrants and citizens born in the united states in their communities. actually, as a result of the dialogue at the predominantly african american congregation, the lrjc and the congregation cross-marketed community events and a member of the lrjc was invited to give an “immigration 101” talk to the congregation. participants of the dialogue at the predominantly white american congregations decided to organize a multicultural, multi-parish potluck, which happened a few weeks after their last dialogue session and had 30 participants from four different parishes and several different countries, a rare occurrence in a city as racially segregated as baltimore. after the conclusion of the dialogues at catholic congregations, the researcher asked the faith community leaders that collaborated with the program to write letters of testimonial. the lrjc received two such letters. a faith community leader said the she “would highly recommend that other parishes be afforded opportunities to meet and have honest conversations with members of various ethnic, racial and cultural groups to help eradicate racism and unfounded biases that separate us as members of god’s family.” she also suggested that “in order to more fully appreciate the diversity of the groups, the location of the [dialogue] meetings should be rotated © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23936 | december 18, 2020 106 between the two groups [host congregation and lrjc].” this rotation format, in fact, was already adopted in the dialogue at the predominantly white american congregations. according to the letter from another faith community leader, the dialogue “allowed for a safe and nonjudgmental environment where individuals could share their life stories and experiences they encountered and continue to encounter as immigrants in this country … moreover, the [dialogue] helped to develop deeper and long lasting relationships with those who participated where, otherwise, we might not have had the opportunity do so.” outcomes for the lrjc the umbc and lrjc partnership launched the dialogue program that had been envisioned by the group’s leadership. the lrjc brought its community connections and its mission provided a strong social justice framework lacked by traditional academic research. umbc brought expertise in grant writing, evaluation methods, and production of digital stories. in addition, umbc made available a classroom where several lrjc meetings related to the project were held as well as the university’s graphic design services for the production of publications from the program. umbc also provided students to assist in the execution of the program, who, in turn, gained skills and knowledge. to guarantee the sustainability of the program, the researcher wrote, in consultation with lrjc members, the lrjc guide for faith community dialogues on immigration, which is available to the public for free (filomeno 2019b). the guide teaches stepby-step how to implement a three-week dialogue on immigration in faith communities of any denomination. the digital stories produced with dialogue participants are published on the lrjc youtube page will also contribute to the sustainability of the program. the presence of umbc service interns in the lrjc, discussed below, is another positive outcome of the partnership for the group. outcomes for students five undergraduate students participated as assistants in the project. not all students were involved equally in all tasks and all students missed at least one dialogue session, which makes difficult a standard assessment of their learning outcomes. to evaluate what they gained from this experience, the researcher relied on notes from conversations with students during the project and on reflections they shared with the researcher via email. in an interview for a story of the baltimore sun on experiential learning that featured the program, one of the students said, “the project helped me to understand what assumptions people have regarding race and the immigration process and how these assumptions shape their outlook on people who are different from themselves” (scarff, 2019). in a conversation right after one dialogue session, three students said they were surprised by the stories of activism shared by elderly dialogue participants. one student said her generation thinks of themselves as the most https://www.youtube.com/channel/ucghe9f5natandtk5xtmfwjg © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23936 | december 18, 2020 107 conscious about racial justice and environmental problems but the elderly participants of the dialogue session were already mobilizing around those issues decades ago. three students also expressed appreciation for dialogue across differences as a mode of communication and developed active listening skills by observing dialogue sessions. one student said “if i did not agree with [a participant’s] viewpoint. instead of feeling defensive or upset, i became curious and tried to understand their point of view” (personal communication, feb 13, 2020). another student said “the biggest change that is suggested from the study is listening to others. this does not mean just listening to hear words. it means really enveloping yourself in someone else’s perspective” (personal communication, feb 15, 2020). one student specifically connected the religious component of the dialogue to their experience with religion: “as someone who has had a rocky relationship with religion throughout my life, i was able to see the positive impact that the church had on some individuals. it helped me to look past my own experience and to appreciate the experience of another. i also saw how the common thread of religion created the ability to have the conversation” (personal communication, feb 15, 2020). since the partnership between umbc and the lrjc in the dialogue program has worked out, the researcher asked the lrjc if they would like to host umbc students in service-learning. their response was positive and, in february 2020, two undergraduate students became service-interns for the lrjc. outcomes for the researcher the partnership between the lrjc and umbc has given the researcher opportunities to develop their scholarship and teaching. in terms of scholarly outcomes, the researcher has published an article about the ecumenical workshop on immigration (filomeno, 2019a), obtained a grant to fund the dialogues in catholic congregations as a community-based research project, and has started a book project on cosmopolitan dialogues in faith communities. the researcher has also given scholarly talks about the project at umbc and at a local public library. in terms of teaching outcomes, in spring 2020 the researcher started to teach a service-learning course on global citizenship and had two students placed in the lrjc for service-learning. more broadly, the partnership allowed the researcher to transition from research about communities to research with communities. as scholar who is also a person of faith, the researcher feels the partnership has been personally enriching, allowing them to combine rigorous academic work with service to faith communities. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23936 | december 18, 2020 108 implications for practice to challenge anti-immigrant or racist beliefs at last, the dialogues at catholic congregations also generated insights about the intersection of religion and immigration that can inform the work of faith leaders and communities interested in pro-immigrant advocacy and, more broadly, partnerships between colleges and faith communities for social justice. participants of both dialogues connected specific religious beliefs and metaphors to immigration, such as “all are welcome,” “we are all god’s children,” “jesus was a refugee,” “all people are the body of christ,” “do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” and “you were foreigners in the land of egypt.” interestingly, politically conservative white american participants who had made anti-immigrant statements were quick to bring up pro-immigrant religious beliefs. this finding is consistent with the claim by bloom, arikan and courtemanche (2015) that religious beliefs can generate pro-immigrant attitudes, but only among the less conservative devout. the more conservative devout might understand those religious beliefs but still display anti-immigrant attitudes. in the dialogue at the predominantly african american congregation, after one participant brought up that religion had also been used to the detriment of immigrants and other minorities, such as when religious beliefs were used to justify slavery or when immigrants of religious minorities were discriminated, other participants agreed that religion can work for both the inclusion and exclusion of immigrants. indeed, bloom, arikan and courtemanche (2015) found that, across religious denominations, religion as social identity – as opposed to religion as a set of beliefs – has a parochialist effect, increasing opposition to immigrants who are dissimilar to ingroup members in religion or ethnicity. by contrast, participants of the dialogue at the predominantly white american congregations saw the catholic church only as an institution that contributes to immigrant integration. they mentioned, for instance, the welcoming and vibrancy of hispanic parishes in the united states and the church as a source of information and charity for immigrants. as social theory would expect, members of dominant social groups can be oblivious of the exclusionary aspects of social institutions. it is, therefore, important that partnerships between universities and faith-based organizations for social justice bring together people of dominant and oppressed social groups. dialogue across difference in the context of those partnerships can help surface blind spots that some people of faith might have about religion and society. furthermore, at times, white american dialogue participants articulated american national identity in a christian nationalist fashion. for instance, a white american participant mentioned the phrase “in god we trust” as a principle that americans have used as guidance. in response to the dialogue question about what it means to be an american, two other white american participants connected the founding of the united states to christianity, saying the founding fathers were believers and that they were guided by the holy spirit. articulations of christian nationalism were not present in the dialogue at the predominantly african american congregation, whose participants expressed more positive immigration attitudes and reported © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23936 | december 18, 2020 109 more positive attitudinal change in comparison to participants of the predominantly white american congregations. this finding is consistent with the claim by mcdaniel, nooruddin and shortle (2011) that christian nationalism is associated with negative immigration attitudes. leaders of partnerships between universities and faith communities that are geared for social justice in urban settings should be aware that religion is not necessarily a progressive force for social justice. critical self-reflection informed by evaluation research can help partnership leaders navigate the complicated relationship between religion and social justice. discussion for future research the partnership between the lrjc and umbc materialized in the dialogue program evaluated generated benefits for the ljrc, faith communities, faculty and students from umbc. the lrjc was able to launch a new program. community engagement through local volunteerism led a faculty member to develop relationships and understandings that then became the natural platform for community-based scholarship. students had the opportunity to learn dialogical skills and better understand people’s perspectives on immigration and race. immigrant and united states-born members of faith communities developed feelings of mutual understanding and collaboration across differences. the continuity of the program since mid-2018 and the recent placement of umbc students as service-interns in the lrjc attest to the mutual benefits of the partnership. as the program engages other faith communities, those outcomes are likely to develop. the lrjc-umbc partnership included collaborative learning in the co-creation of the dialogue program. there were several built-in opportunities for program evaluation from its inception. evaluation procedures, such as the focus group with facilitators of the ecumenical workshop on immigration or the questionnaire for dialogue participants, can be seen as formal procedures for active listening to program stakeholders. punctuating the timeline of the program intentionally with evaluation moments allows one stage of the program to inform the next. in the case of the lrjc-umbc partnership, the evaluation of the ecumenical workshop informed the design of the dialogues at catholic congregations, whose evaluation informed the creation of the lrjc guide for faith community dialogues on immigration, which will be used in upcoming dialogues. faith and scholarship are often understood as alternative approaches to knowing the world. the lrjc-umbc partnership, however, indicates there is potential for mutually beneficial and synergistic relations between faith-based organizations and secular universities. in the case of immigrant integration, there is an interesting synergy between scholars and faith-based proimmigrant actors. while the first think critically about immigration using logic and evidence from research, the latter think critically about immigration from the cultural perspective of cosmopolitan religious values such as “welcome the stranger.” © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23936 | december 18, 2020 110 previous evaluations of research based in faith-communities underscored the inclusion of a spiritual component in such projects. in the lrjc-umbc dialogue program, meetings with faith leaders would usually start with a prayer, all dialogue sessions started with a prayer, and the dialogue script specifically encouraged participants to think about what their faith traditions say about immigration. however, leaders of partnerships between universities and faith communities should be aware that religion is not necessarily a progressive force for social justice. as previous evaluations of research based in faith communities suggested, when exploring partnerships with faith communities, academic representatives should see faith leaders as crucial stakeholders. in the lrjc-umbc experience, the embrace by pastors of the dialogue program as a type of intercultural ministry that can integrate diverse yet segregated parishes were indispensable. working with faith leaders requires flexibility. many of them are overworked and their pastoral committees work on a volunteer basis. faith leaders also tend to be protective of their faith communities and will need to be convinced that the collaboration will not hurt their communities. in the dialogues in catholic congregations, for instance, the researcher negotiated the participant recruiting method with pastors. while, as a scholar, the researcher would have preferred a random selection of participants, pastors wanted control over who would participate. the lrjc-umbc experience also suggests that not only the leaders but also members of faith communities should be involved in the planning and implementation of the collaborative project. members of faith communities can provide valuable input to project design, increase the trust of the community in the project, and help with participant recruitment and in the actual implementation of project activities. in the case of dialogue programs, the lrjc-umbc program still faces the challenge of sustaining collaborative action between immigrants and united states-born people after dialogue ends. to go beyond one-time events, such as a multicultural potluck, the lrjc guide for faith community dialogues on immigration now ends the dialogue with a deliberation on a single issue that participants will collaborate on over an extended period of time. the lrjc also faces the challenge of scaling the program out to other denominations and up beyond the congregation level. again, the support from faith leaders will be essential to encourage other communities to welcome the program and to recommend it to higher clergy. conclusion immigrant integration is a key area for partnerships between urban institutions of higher education and faith-based organizations. immigrants tend to settle in urban areas and faith-based organizations have historically played an important role in immigrant integration. universities and faith-based organizations are, therefore, bound to encounter each other when working with immigrant communities. overall, the lrjc-umbc dialogue program suggests that partnerships between secular public universities and faith-based organizations are not only possible but likely © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23936 | december 18, 2020 111 fruitful for communities, 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(2017). love thy neighbour? the impact of political and religious elite discourse on immigration attitudes. phd thesis, university of glasgow, glasgow, england. retrieved from http://theses.gla.ac.uk/8642/ (19 october 2018). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pedn.2017.05.004 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cct.2017.08.003 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-5906.2009.01449.x https://doi.org/10.1177/1532673x10371300 https://doi.org/10.1097/phh.0000000000000707 http://theses.gla.ac.uk/8642/ © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23936 | december 18, 2020 115 rodriguez, e. et al (2009). a qualitative exploration of the community partner experience in a faith-based breast cancer educational intervention. health education research, 24(5), 760-771. https://doi.org/10.1093/her/cyp010. study circles resource center. 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(2016). for you were strangers in the land of egypt: clergy, religiosity, and public opinion toward immigration reform in the united states. politics and religion, 9, 566–604. https://doi.org/10.1017/s1755048316000444. way, e. (2013). understanding research fatigue in the context of community-university relations. local knowledge: worcester area community-based research 3. retrieved from https://commons.clarku.edu/localknowledge/3 (23 march 2020). xiaoming, g. (2007). church involvement in education for sustainability: using participatory action research to design a faith-based education for sustainability programme in a christian community, new zealand. masters’ thesis. institute of geography, school of geography, environment and earth sciences, victoria university of wellington, new zealand. https://doi.org/10.1093/her/cyp010 https://about.umbc.edu/mission-and-vision/ https://doi.org/10.1017/s1755048316000444 https://commons.clarku.edu/localknowledge/3 felipe a. filomeno1 original research © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23993 | december 18, 2020 70 faith in action, adult learning, and immigrant justice: bringing mission to life christopher d. tirres1 and melanie c. schikore2 1 department of religious studies, depaul university 2 interfaith community for detained immigrants cite as: tirres, c.d. & schikore, m.c., (2020). faith in action, adult learning, and immigrant justice: bringing mission to life. metropolitan universities, 31(3), 70-92. doi: 10.18060/23993 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract this article emerges from a collaborative research project between a religious studies professor at depaul university and the executive director of the chicago-based non-profit interfaith community for detained immigrants (icdi). in 2016, we forged a community partnership to explore and enhance the relationship between pedagogy, faith, and social justice. in this article, we share the results of our research on how exposure to and involvement with the work of icdi impacts students, staff, and volunteers. our research reveals the powerful effect that a community-engaged partnership can have not only on adult learning but also on spiritual development. our findings suggest that faith in action may take several forms, including encounter, accompaniment, advocacy, and social justice, and that those who engage the work of icdi may engage them in different ways. these insights will be useful for institutions, both universities and community organizations alike, in enhancing adult learning and spiritual growth. keywords: spirituality, religion, action research, adult learning, community engagement http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23993 | december 18, 2020 71 faith in action, adult learning, and immigrant justice: bringing mission to life in 2016, the authors of this article, a professor of religious studies at depaul university and the executive director of the interfaith community for detained immigrants (icdi), forged a community-engaged partnership that examines how immigrant-advocacy work impacts those who engage it. students in tirres’s religious studies class participated in three half-day icdirelated immersion experiences and were then invited to reflect on their experience. as we have shown in our first article from this partnership, these community-engaged immersion experiences proved significant not only for student learning but also for institutional identity and mission (tirres and schikore, 2020). we found that for institutions like depaul university, the largest catholic university in the united states whose mission is centered around faith in action, this type of community-engaged learning can be a potent site for realizing mission. we were also interested in how exposure to the work of faith-based institutions informs an individual’s faith journey. both depaul university and icdi are faith-based organizations, rooted in the catholic tradition, that honor and value religious pluralism. additionally, both put a premium on active forms of faith that do the work of social justice. thus, rather than approach faith primarily as assent to doctrine, both depaul and icdi understand faith largely as transformative praxis, or faith in action. how do institutional values like these shape the faith journeys of individuals within the organization? we posed this question to icdi staff and volunteers, who have sustained contact with the work of icdi and who represent a variety of religious traditions. a majority of respondents reported that their work with detained immigrants indeed helps to reinforce and strengthen their faith journey. many also suggested that icdi’s interfaith context added new dimensions to their faith experience. as we formulated the project and reviewed the initial qualitative data that were collected through a survey, we kept returning to questions like the following: (1) what does “faith” and some of its related usages mean within the context of our community-engaged project?; (2) in particular, how does “faith in action” shape an individual’s “faith journey” in the context of “interfaith advocacy” for detained immigrants?; and (3) in what ways is the concept of “faith” functioning in each of these key phrases, and how might these different aspects of faith intersect with one another? in what follows, we make explicit some of the different ways that faith is deployed within our community-engaged project. the first section describes our respective institutional contexts and missions, which are centered around faith in action. the second section makes explicit some of the theoretical resources that inform how we think about faith in action in the context of a religious plural university, depaul, and a multi-faith organization, icdi. as we will show, we have found it helpful to approach faith not only in terms of formal institutional religious affiliations, but also in terms of how faith functions in helping individuals and communities to © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23993 | december 18, 2020 72 grow. such a focus speaks to our interest in constructive-developmental approaches to faith, such as found in the work of parks (2010), tisdell (2003), fowler (1996, 1981), and dewey (1934). as such, we are interested in how meaningful encounters with detained immigrants, which take place within a context that values religious pluralism, may lead to significant learning experiences that deepen and expand the spiritual journeys of those who engage the work of immigration advocacy. section three shares some of the most recent data we have collected from icdi staff and volunteers. in light of this data, we offer two conceptual frameworks that shed light on some of the different ways in which faith in action may manifest itself within this constructive-developmental process. in the final section, we summarize these findings and discuss their larger implications. depaul university and icdi: faith-based institutions with ‘faith in action’ missions founded in 1898 in the name of st. vincent de paul, depaul university in chicago is the largest catholic university in the united states. with over 22,000 students, depaul remains dedicated to its core mission, which is to provide access to higher education for those who have been historically unable to pursue it, including first-generation college students, low-income students, immigrants, and/or students of color. today, depaul’s student body is racially diverse -19% of students identify as hispanic, 8% identify as african american, and 6% identify as multiracial. the school is also economically diverse -47% of freshmen come from households with an adjusted gross income of $100,000 or less, 32% of all freshmen receive pell grants, and 6% of freshmen are from families with an adjusted gross income of $20,000 or less. depaul university has also long been a haven for people of all faiths, including, perhaps most notably, jewish students. as evidenced by its early promotional literature from the 1920s, “depaul clearly declared itself open to students of all religious backgrounds, and pointed to the presence of non-catholic students throughout the university.” by the 1930s, jewish students constituted as much as 25% of the student body at depaul’s loop campus and as much as 40% of the student body at the law school (rury, 1998). the life and work of st. vincent de paul (1581-1660) serves as the core blueprint for the university’s continued commitment to the historically underserved. vincent de paul was born to peasant farmers in the south of france. like so many of his generation, he initially entered the priesthood to secure economic stability for himself and his family. as he was studying to become a priest, de paul befriended numerous societal and church leaders, including the noble and influential gondi family. de paul became the family’s chaplain and tutor, and he was often asked to accompany madame de gondi on her trips to inspect her extensive properties throughout france. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23993 | december 18, 2020 73 through these trips, de paul interacted with the rural poor, and these experiences began to reshape de paul’s sense of calling and mission. on one such trip, madame de gondi turned to him and asked what has become known as “the vincentian question,” which is “what must be done?” (holtschneider, 2001, p. 342). this question proved to be a turning point in de paul’s life. for the remainder of his life, de paul dedicated himself to this question, focusing on how the most pressing social challenges of his day could be addressed not only through acts of charity, but also through institutional and structural change. today, a loose and diverse worldwide network known as the vincentian family seeks to coordinate its efforts to collaborate for systemic change. depaul university’s mission statement (2016) reflects these core commitments. as it reads, “the distinguishing marks of the university are its catholic, vincentian, and urban character (p. 1). it is “dedicated to teaching, research, and public service” (p. 1) and it places a high priority on “programs and instruction and learning” (p. 1). the university also makes explicit its commitment to public service, especially given its urban setting. “in meeting its public service responsibility, the university encourages faculty, staff, and students to apply specialized expertise in ways that contribute to the societal, economic, cultural and ethical quality of life in the metropolitan area and beyond. when appropriate, and mutually beneficial, depaul develops service-learning and educational partnerships with other institutions and agencies” (p. 2). depaul university has long been a leader in public service initiatives. the irwin d. steans center for community-based service learning (cbsl) enables the integration of project-based and service-learning pedagogy. the egan office of urban education and community partnerships, a part of the steans center since 2013, directly assists community organizations with community engagement processes. additionally, the assets-based community development (abcd) institute, housed within the steans center since 2016, provides faculty and staff with resources and tools to identify and nurture neighborhood assets. this approach helps students and faculty to respect the experience and knowledge produced in communities, rather than focusing on what is wrong or missing, or treating them merely as objects of study or research. in the last few years, the above units, along with depaul’s division of mission and ministry and the newly created university-wide council on community engagement, have made important strides in thinking more intentionally about depaul’s commitment to public service. now more than ever, much attention is being given to how the university can forge educational partnerships with other institutions and agencies in a mutually beneficial way. the steans center, for example, encourages cultivating community partnerships for the long-term. similarly, the council for community engagement has created a set of guiding principles for community engagement that champions an assets-based approach to community partnership that is explicitly and intentionally reciprocal. likewise, depaul’s division of mission and ministry fosters © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23993 | december 18, 2020 74 mutually-beneficial and sustained partnerships through co-curricular programs like the depaul community service association (dcsa) and alternative break service immersions (absi). as cases like these illustrate, multiple units at depaul are viewing community engagement and public service less as acts of charity “for” the underserved and more as sustained relationships “with” community partners, from whom there is much to learn. like depaul university, icdi has catholic roots and a deep appreciation for faith in action. its mission is to provide spiritual support and accompany people affected adversely by the immigrant detention system and to advocate for systemic change. this mission has its roots in the core values and critical concerns of the sisters of mercy, the religious order of icdi founders joann persch and pat murphy. the first sisters of mercy arrived in the united states from ireland in 1843 and have been ministering to and with immigrants since then. in 2005, they formalized this commitment and issued a statement that calls them to "recognize an urgent duty and challenge to stand in solidarity with immigrants seeking fullness of life.” (sisters of mercy of the americas, 2005). the sisters of mercy (2020-a) articulate four core mission values: ● spirituality: the example of jesus leads us, the gospel guides us and catherine mcauley’s spirit enlivens us. ours is a life of contemplation and action, prayer and service. ● community: living in community deepens our relationship with god, strengthens us for mission, and continually inspires us in our call to serve others. ● service: we see jesus in the most marginalized people and take a vow of service to perform works of mercy that alleviate suffering. we strive to follow jesus’ example in all that we do. ● social justice and our critical concerns: we work passionately to eliminate poverty, the widespread denial of human rights, the degradation of earth, the increase in violence and racism, the continued oppression of women, the abuse of children, the mistreatment of immigrants and the lack of solidarity among people and nations. the sisters of mercy’s (2020-b) commitment to immigrants comes out of their deep belief in the dignity of each human person. it is also reflected in their more than 150 years of ministering to and with immigrants in hospitals, parishes, social service centers, and schools, which includes 17 colleges and universities. mercy sisters advocate for the safety and protection of all migrants, and for just and humane immigration reform in the united states that reunites families, provides a pathway to citizenship, protects young people, and provides for fair enforcement of the law. icdi’s mission is rooted in the work of the sisters of mercy and further informed by the interfaith perspectives that come from volunteers, staff, and the people served by icdi. the © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23993 | december 18, 2020 75 dignity and worth of each person, the desire for justice, and the awareness that we are all connected and need to concern ourselves with the well-being of our fellow humans are some of the common values around which icdi convenes faith-diverse people. people from more than 17 different religions and denominations participate in the work of icdi and are able to find meaningful ways to express and exercise their faith through the work of the organization. the mission of icdi is carried out through various programs and interfaith ministries. icdi volunteers provide pastoral care in four different county jails where immigrants are detained. volunteers also visit the children’s centers where unaccompanied minors are held until they can be reunified with family. through a daily court-watch program, volunteers serve as eyes and ears in the immigration court system to identify human concerns that need attention. through a hotline, volunteers respond daily to calls from people released and in need of food, clothing, transportation, and other help. icdi volunteers also assist immigrant travelers passing through chicago via a daily presence in the greyhound bus station. volunteers in the deportation ministry assist families who are losing a loved one to deportation and pray with the people being deported. through various housing opportunities, icdi provides shelter, case management, and accompaniment to people released from immigration detention with no family or friends in the united states. a shared understanding of faith: “religion” and “the religious” in the context of a community partnership today, it is not uncommon to hear someone say “i am spiritual but not religious.” as recent data from the pew research center suggests, over 25% of the united states population now identifies as such (lipka & gecewicz, 2017). several important recent studies examine how emerging adults navigate their spiritual journeys. drawing on constructive-developmental research, parks (2010) offers one of the most compelling accounts of how young adults in their twenties navigate meaning-making and questions of faith. as parks suggests, “faith is often linked exclusively to belief, particularly religious belief. but faith goes far beyond religious belief, narrowly understood. faith is more adequately recognized as the activity of seeking and discovering meaning in the most comprehensive dimensions of our experience—that is, faith is as much a verb as a noun” (p. 10, emphasis in original). tisdell (2003) offers another insightful account of the role of spirituality in teaching and learning. she focuses on the potential role of spirituality in teaching for cultural relevance with multicultural populations in higher and adult education. as tisdell makes clear, “spirituality is not about pushing a religious agenda” (p.10, emphasis in original). instead, tisdell articulates a set of assumptions that guide thinking about spirituality, which include the following: (1) spirituality and religion are not the same, but for many people they are interrelated; (2) spirituality is an awareness and honoring of wholeness and the interconnectedness of all things through the mystery of what many refer to as the life-force, god, higher power, higher self, cosmic energy, buddha nature, or great spirit; (3) spirituality is © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23993 | december 18, 2020 76 fundamentally about meaning making; (4) spirituality is always present (though often unacknowledged) in the learning environment; (5) spiritual development constitutes moving toward greater authenticity or to a more authentic self; (6) spirituality is about how people construct knowledge through largely unconscious and symbolic processes, often made more concrete in art forms such as music, image, symbol, and ritual, all of which are manifested culturally; and (7) spiritual experiences most often happen by surprise (p.xi). around the same time, astin, et al. (2005) shared their findings of the first national longitudinal study of spiritual growth among college-age students. one of their central research questions was: “what are institutions doing that aids or inhibits students in their spiritual quest?” the research team developed five measures connected to religious qualities and five measures connected to spiritual qualities. whereas the religious qualities largely pertain to elements connected to organized religion, the research team describes spirituality in terms of the following measures: [spirituality] involves an active quest for answers to life’s “big questions” (spiritual quest), a global worldview that transcends ethnocentrism and egocentrism (ecumenical worldview), a sense of caring and compassion for others (ethic of caring) coupled with a lifestyle that includes service to others (charitable involvement), and a capacity to maintain one’s sense of calm and centeredness, especially in times of stress (equanimity). all three of these studies share a common assumption around the distinction between organized religion, on the one hand, and a more comprehensive sense of faith or spirituality, on the other. but one may ask: from where does this distinction arise? if we trace sources, it becomes clear that parks and tisdell are drawing heavily on constructive-developmental approaches as found in the psychological work of erikson, piaget, kegan, gilligan, and others. fowler’s (1981, 1996) groundbreaking work, which explores spirituality as a developmental process, is particularly central for both. all of these approaches, in turn, owe a debt to the groundbreaking work of educator and philosopher john dewey, who also made significant forays into psychology. in 1934, dewey published a common faith, a short and provocative book about the religious dimension of human experience. his central claim, which has proven quite generative for later thinkers, is that there is a fundamental difference between traditional conceptions of “religion” and a more pragmatic understanding of “the religious.” today, we may roughly translate this distinction into the difference between “religion” and “spirituality.” dewey’s first chapter, titled “religion versus the religious,” elucidates the difference. religion, dewey explains, is often conceived of as a noun substantive (p. 9). it usually “signifies a special body of beliefs and practices having some kind of institutional organization, loose or tight” (p. https://spirituality.ucla.edu/findings/spiritual-measures/spiritual-quest.php https://spirituality.ucla.edu/findings/spiritual-measures/spiritual-quest.php https://spirituality.ucla.edu/findings/spiritual-measures/ecumenical-worldview.php https://spirituality.ucla.edu/findings/spiritual-measures/ecumenical-worldview.php https://spirituality.ucla.edu/findings/spiritual-measures/ethic-of-caring.php https://spirituality.ucla.edu/findings/spiritual-measures/charitable-involvement.php https://spirituality.ucla.edu/findings/spiritual-measures/equanimity.php © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23993 | december 18, 2020 77 9). in contrast, “the adjective ‘religious’ denotes nothing in the way of a specifiable entity, either institutional or as a system of beliefs” (p. 9). instead, “the religious” denotes attitudes that may be taken toward every object and every proposed end or ideal” (p. 10). thus, rather than focus on the question of what “a religion” is, dewey urges his readers to consider how we may enact a sense of “the religious” in our everyday lives. he reminds us that, like all living creatures, we are organisms who interact with our environment. in particular cases, this interaction involves the creation of powerful ideals that may stir and re-orient us in deep-seated ways. for dewey, such interactions need not be limited to the experiences of organized religion. if our transactions with our environment lead to a deep-seated re-orientation or “adjustment” in life, then by virtue of this effect, the experience is a religious one.1 dewey goes on to say that “the actual religious quality in the experience described is the effect produced, the better adjustment in life and its conditions, not the manner and cause of its production. the way in which the experience operated, its function, determines its religious value” (p. 14). dewey thus flips the script here on our traditional conception of religious faith. religious studies scholar eddie glaude, jr. aptly describes this as dewey’s “inversion strategy” (glaude, 2018, p. 8). rather than assume a priori that religious institutions are automatically and necessarily the source of deep-seated and enduring changes in attitude, dewey turns the statement around, positing that “whenever this change takes place there is definitely a religious attitude. it is not a religion that brings it about, but when it occurs, from whatever cause and by whatever means, there is a religious outlook and function” (1934, p. 17). we find value in these insights. as mentioned earlier, an overriding question for us has been: how does first-hand experience with faith-based experiences with immigrants impact depaul students as well as icdi staff and volunteers? reframed in slightly more deweyan terms, we are asking: how do faith-based experiences (such as student immersion experiences and/or ongoing icdi staff and volunteer advocacy) lead to deep-seated and enduring changes in attitude? moreover, how do these changes in attitude manifest themselves in socially-engaged practice? faith-in-action in the context of immigrant detention: a line of inquiry as the first section of this article made clear, depaul and icdi are faith-based entities that put a premium on faith in action. as such, they speak both to dewey’s sense of “religion” and to his more engaged and dynamic sense of “the religious.” whereas dewey himself tends to draw a sharp distinction between these two ideas, our missions suggest another picture, wherein both exist in a mutually beneficial relation, even amidst inevitable tensions and contradictions. the missions of our respective contexts invite us to see this relationship in a more nuanced way. 1 for a discussion of dewey’s somewhat technical understanding of “adjustment,” see tirres (2014), p. 95-96 and alexander (2013), p. 362-368. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23993 | december 18, 2020 78 that said, mission statements are only as good as the deeds and acts that actually help bring them to life. if our missions reflect our institution’s most cherished ideals, what other concrete evidence can we draw on that shows that we are effectively enacting mission? what does our collaborative work with icdi teach us about how we actualize faith in action? and how can our community partnership itself help to create meaningful mission-related learning experiences? the following section describes the methodology that we used to tackle these questions, and it shares some of our basic findings. methodology our collaboration utilizes a framework of action research, which orients inquiry toward the enhancement of direct practice (carr and kemmis, 1986) and leverages research “to bring about social change” (bogdan and biklen 1992, p. 223; lewin, 1946). we are interested in both of these aspects as we each strive to improve our practice as facilitators of adult learning and spiritual formation. we value the dialogical, sustained, and iterative nature of our partnership and find resonance with greenwood and levin’s (2005) assertion that action research can be an effective way to bring together university research and teaching with community needs. through action research, we are able to move constantly between practice and theory so that we can “address questions and issues that are significant for those who participate as co-researchers” (reason and bradbury, 2008, p.1). additionally, we are particularly interested in the meaning that students, volunteers, and staff are making of their experiences with immigration-related activities. following a qualitative research approach, we are interested in what eisner calls “the virtues of subjectivity” (p. 48-49). as with the parable of the blind men and the elephant, we recognize the rich benefit that can come from all the different perspectives of knowing the elephant, none of which is true or complete and all of which capture a piece of the experience. our collaboration emerged out of our shared work with icdi. in 2015, i (chris tirres) began volunteering with the organization. about a year later, i approached dr. schikore to see if she might be interested in working on a shared project. we discussed what each was interested in learning and accomplishing through the partnership. i wanted to know how exposure to work of icdi would influence my students and how i could best integrate immersion experiences into his class. for my part, i (melanie schikore) wanted to better understand what it was about a person’s faith that called them to the work of accompanying and walking with detained immigrants and how serving as an icdi staff person or volunteer impacted their faith journey. knowing more about this would help icdi to strengthen our interfaith aspect of the organization, recruit and support © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23993 | december 18, 2020 79 volunteers, and shape donation appeals. both dr. tirres and i anticipated that we would each benefit and learn much from doing this work collaboratively. working collaboratively, the overarching question that guided our research was: “how does direct engagement with the issues faced by those in immigrant detention affect people?” in order to address this question, we designed two rounds of qualitative research that explored two key sub-questions: “how do immigration-related immersion experiences impact students?” and “how does working or volunteering in the field of immigrant accompaniment impact the faith journeys of staff and volunteers?” we used two instruments for anonymized data collection: a writing prompt for students and an online survey for icdi staff and volunteers. students were asked to address the following prompt: in this class, you participated in three different immersion experiences: the icdi prayer vigil, the días de los muertos exhibit in pilsen, and the icdi courtwatch program. in roughly a page (~300 words), reflect on what was most significant for you in two of these experiences. (after briefly describing each experience, consider questions like: what was most valuable to your learning? how did the experience open up new insights or questions for you? what take home idea(s) from these experiences are most likely to stick with you over the next 15 years?) the online survey for icdi staff and volunteers consisted of 14 questions that were designed to explore the relationship between their faith and the work of icdi (see appendix). for the purposes of this article, question 10 is of particular relevance: “how, if at all, have your experiences with immigrants and icdi informed or impacted your faith journey? tables 1 and 2 show the participation rates and self-identified faith traditions. table 1. participation rates among depaul students and icdi staff and volunteers participation students staff volunteers 21/27 (78%) 3/7 (43%) 55/300 (18%) © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23993 | december 18, 2020 80 table 2. icdi staff and volunteer self-identified faith tradition catholic 24 jewish 8 lutheran (elca) 4 unitarian universalist 3 episcopalian 3 protestant 2 united church of christ 2 kindness 2 church of christ 1 muslim 1 jewish agnostic 1 buddhist 1 sikh 1 mennonite 1 american baptist 1 progressive presbyterian 1 christian 1 interfaith 1 spiritual 1 no answer 1 data analysis because we were at an early stage in this research and without a pre-determined understanding of what we were looking for, we wanted the themes to emerge from the data. additionally, we wanted to see if there were shared themes while also respecting the unique themes of each data set and of each individual. we are interested in meeting each student or volunteer where they are so that we can support and enhance their learning. using a "a general method of [constant] comparative analysis" (glaser & strauss, 1967, p. vii) over the course of our iterative action research, we will generate theory from the data, elaborating and modifying theories as we learn more. we recruited an undergraduate assistant to help code the student data, and we enlisted another professor (who also volunteers with icdi), to help code the icdi staff and volunteer data. for each data set we employed generative coding. we used a combination of deductive and inductive approaches (miles, huberman, & saldaña, 2014) and drew on grounded theory as described by strauss and corbin (1998). our process of open coding consisted of identifying concepts, phrases, key words, and quotations in order to categorize responses. after doing so individually, we met to share and discuss our notes in order to achieve inter-coder agreement. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23993 | december 18, 2020 81 limitations we acknowledge several methodological limitations to our study. first, because we anonymized all data, we could not follow up with particular students or icdi volunteers/staff to probe further any responses which were unclear or incomplete. second, we currently only have two sources of data. in the future, we anticipate collecting data through additional means including in-depth interviews, observations, field notes, classroom notes, and other artifacts. third, the data sets were not entirely comparable because we asked different questions. whereas students were asked to reflect broadly on what proved most significant for their learning, icdi staff and volunteers were asked to focus more narrowly on how their work with icdi impacted their faith journey. lastly, due to small sample size we analyzed the volunteer and staff data as one set but are aware that looking at the staff and volunteer data separately may provide additional insights given that staff have many more hours of engagement. findings these above limitations notwithstanding, our data analysis reveals a variety of ways in which the work of icdi impacts students, volunteers, and staff and offers insight into our ongoing conversation about faith, faith journeys, and pedagogy. student data. as we discuss in our first co-authored publication (tirres & schikore, 2020), five themes emerged from the student data: 1) most students reported a change in perspective through the immersion experiences. 2) a majority of students reported that the immersion activities provoked psychoemotional responses. 3) many students expressed awareness of their own social location. 4) a majority of students conveyed a desire to make a change in the world. 5) several students connected their immersion experiences to the current political situation. we analyzed these five themes in light of clingerman and locklin’s (2016) “clea” model of civically engaged learning. briefly, this model identifies four capacities that are engendered through civically engaged learning: the power to entertain intellectual complexity (c), the ability to recognize one’s social location (l), the capacity to be empathetically accountable (e), and the impetus to move toward motivated action (a). although we did not specifically ask students to reflect on how their experience of immigrationrelated work intersected with their own faith journeys, it is worth noting that a number of responses referenced matters of faith. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23993 | december 18, 2020 82 references to faith “i thought it was so powerful for a group of people from different faiths and cultures to come together to fight for one cause and bring comfort to the families and immigrations through the power of prayer.” “what was most significant to me from the immersion experience at the icdi prayer vigil was that people of different religions organized and came together to show their solidarity with those being processed for deportation and their families at the broadview detention center.” references to interfaith “the prayer vigil opened my eyes to how other religions besides catholicism have an impact on latinos. this is because we attended the interfaith section. i had known that mexico has a notable jewish population, having provided refuge to jewish people escaping persecution during world war ii. also, i knew that my neighbor who is mexican is jewish, but it never really clicked to me just how much more important judaism can be for latinos until the rabbi said the prayer in hebrew.” "i will continue the rituals of interfaith prayers and altars for my loved ones and our struggles, and i will pass these rituals on to my children." in references to faith, students acknowledged the presence of both formal religious traditions (i.e. “a group of people from different faiths,” “people of different religions”) as well as more active expressions of faith (i.e. “com[ing] together to fight for one cause,” “bring[ing] comfort” to others through the practice of prayer,” “[coming] together to show their solidarity.” © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23993 | december 18, 2020 83 in references to interfaith, this element of the prayer vigil enabled the student to see how other faith traditions work toward social justice and a student expressed how the interfaith aspect of the prayer vigil will inform future actions icdi staff and volunteer data. in our initial coding of the icdi staff and volunteer data, two prominent themes emerged. respondents reported that the work of icdi: (1) strengthened their faith. respondents also reported that their involvement with icdi helped them to appreciate their work with icdi as a form of (2) faith in action. strengthened their faith “my interaction has only made my faith stronger” “it strengthens my belief that we are all one human family and it is incumbent upon each of us to work for the betterment of the world for each other’s sake.” faith in action “it helps me see my faith in action. working with immigrants deepens my understanding of what it means to love my neighbor and work for social justice.” “felt it was time to stop sitting on the sidelines. there were great needs all around me and needed some way to give back. finding icdi was a great blessing. it allowed close involvement with a community in ways i could have never accomplished on my own, and felt greatly strengthened by people i was meeting in icdi.” we continued to discuss the coding and made connections between the student data and the icdi data. we realized that there were certain parallels between the two data sets in terms of cognitive and spiritual development among adult learners. the clea model, which we utilized to better understand how immersion experiences were impacting students, shed light on the fact that civically engaged activities helped students to grow not only in terms of intellectual complexity (c), but also in terms of their becoming more aware of their own social location (l), their empathetic accountability (e), and their expressed desire to engage in some form of motivated action (a). as we re-visited the icdi staff and volunteer data, we noted that there was a © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23993 | december 18, 2020 84 somewhat homologous learning process at play. we thus revisited this data set in terms of (1) how individuals internalize meaning from their own faith journey; (2) how a dialogic process of engaging immigrants impacts one’s spiritual development; and (3) the ways in which these experiences may open up onto questions of social justice. in short, we saw a pattern that moved more or less from the “i” to the “we” to the “should” of spiritual discernment. this pattern shares certain affinities with kegan’s (1994) five order of consciousness which move from an egocentric “me” perspective to an ethnocentric “us” perspective to a world-centric “all of us” perspective (kegan, 1994 and kegan and wilbur, 2013). since we specifically asked icdi volunteers and staff questions related to faith, we have rich data referencing different aspects of faith as it relates to these ideas. respondents expressed various ways in which they were personally impacted by their work with icdi. such responses connote a certain inward focus that highlight how some individuals assess their own spiritual development. personal impact “my own need for prayer and meditation has grown.” “it opened my eyes” “it gave me an opportunity to share my faith.” “i feel joy” “i enjoy being able to ‘be there’ for the detainees” “i have been renewed.” at the same time, many respondents also noted that their spiritual growth is closely tied to a dialogical and intersubjective encounter with detained immigrants. for many, spiritual growth takes place through learning from immigrants and accompanying them on their journey. these statements underscore the dialogic nature of providing spiritual care and how being in a sustained relationship impacts one’s faith journey. learning from immigrants and accompaniment “these people challenge and inspire me to have a deeper, healthier spiritual life myself.” “i am continually challenged to examine the core of my beliefs by the unadorned faith of those we meet in jail.” © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23993 | december 18, 2020 85 additionally, icdi volunteers and staff noted that their work with icdi had inspired them to live lives of faith in action and to work toward social justice. several answers indicated that this was something respondents had moved towards. inspired to faith in action/social justice “icdi has given me the opportunity to live out my faith commitment to social justice on an ongoing basis, at least weekly, and sometimes daily.” “i am getting braver about speaking out to advocate for those seeking asylum” “i feel more committed than ever to be involved in the pursuit of justice for immigrants.” discussion from the data we can see that icdi-related activities impact depaul students and icdi staff and volunteers in significant ways. given our action research framework, we are interested in further understanding and supporting significant learning experiences and spiritual development in our respective contexts. accordingly, we have begun thinking about our two sets of data as representative of a continuum of spiritual development. the framework that we have developed can be described in terms of encounter, accompaniment, and advocacy, which may then open up onto larger questions of social justice. this framework could be represented as the following: through various encounters with detained immigrants and their families, both depaul students and icdi staff and volunteers learn firsthand about the lived realities that immigrants face. they learn directly about their histories, their legal struggles, and their sense of hope and faith. participants feel the plight of the immigrant in palpable ways. through various modes of accompaniment, such as listening, praying, laughing, crying, witnessing, and being present, participants both give and receive. they witness firsthand the tremendous hope, resiliency, and faith that many detained immigrants carry with them, even in the bleakest of situations. in so doing, they learn how to walk with immigrants at various stages of the process. through sustained forms of accompaniment, some participants are compelled to advocate for detained encounter accompaniment advocacy (social justice) © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23993 | december 18, 2020 86 immigrants and their families. this may take the form of writing letters or assisting family members of someone who is detained. all of these forms of faith in action, encounter, accompaniment, and advocacy, can bolster in significant ways the faith journey of participants, and, in many cases, they can further shape one’s commitment to social justice. without a doubt, praxis-centered missions also significantly inform the process. it is instructive to note that this journey of encounter → accompaniment → advocacy → social justice is present in both the student data and the icdi staff and volunteer data, though to different degrees. for example, the half-day immersion experiences can be seen as clear examples of encounter. because these experiences are not ongoing, accompaniment and advocacy are less pronounced in the student data. that said, there are certainly at least some gestures in these general directions, as when students reflect on what it was like to observe immigration court, which can be seen as a form of accompaniment, and when students express a desire to make a change in the world, which can be seen as an early form of advocacy and engagement with social justice. that said, more clear-cut examples of encounter, accompaniment, and advocacy can be seen in the icdi staff and volunteer data, owing to the fact that participants partake in the work of icdi in an ongoing and sustained way. having acknowledged a certain parallel between the two sets of data in terms of a developmental continuum, it is equally important to note that this process is not as simple, linear, or unidirectional as a continuum suggests. factors such as previous life experience, faith origin, and proximity to directly impacted people can influence where one is and how one moves on the continuum. for example, if someone comes out of a religious tradition that is focused somewhat narrowly on charity, then a commitment to social justice may not be part of one’s spiritual trajectory. likewise, if one is already intimately familiar with lived realities of undocumented immigration or immigrant detention, then acts of encounter and accompaniment are likely to be less pronounced in the process, given that may be already implicitly presumed. furthermore, as just noted, the extent to which one is involved in the work also affects where one might place oneself on the continuum. after all, working with immigrant populations on a regular basis is qualitatively different from participating in a limited set of immersion experiences. to address some of the shortcomings of the continuum framework, we have imagined a quadrant that allows for a more interrelated and fluid understanding of a person’s location and movement between categories: © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23993 | december 18, 2020 87 encounter accompaniment advocacy social justice in the quadrant model (which is distinct from an overlapping venn diagram model), one can move from any one point to another, and overlap between the quadrants is not necessarily a given. indeed, within icdi there have been volunteers who came to the work good-hearted and with a passion for direct advocacy but fairly naive of the actual issues facing immigrants. nevertheless, over time and through various forms of encounter and accompaniment, they developed a social justice mindset. conversely, there have also been volunteers who came to the work owing primarily to a strong sense of justice. in their case, their faith journey was deepened by forms of accompaniment, such as working alongside immigrants as well as other volunteers from diverse faith traditions. as such cases illustrate, the starting points of faith in action may be vastly different among participants. the quadrant thus serves as a tool that can help locate the various entry points of participants. it might also be useful in helping to articulate how someone engages with the work at any given time. if nothing else, both the continuum and quadrant framework help us to identify some of the concrete ways, such as encounter, accompaniment, and advocacy, in which faith in action actually manifests itself in the context of our work with detained immigrants. based on what we have learned so far, we hope subsequently to explore questions such as the following: how can we further shape the pedagogy within our respective settings, a university classroom and a nonprofit organization, to best nurture and support the faith journeys of adult learners? how can student engagement with icdi-related activities inform the ongoing work of icdi staff and volunteers, and, conversely, how can experiences of icdi volunteers and staff inform student learning and spiritual growth? implications we have learned much from our collaborative action research in terms of both the process and the substance of our inquiry. as it regards to process, we acknowledge just how valuable a shared sense of mission has been for our community partnership. both depaul university and icdi are grounded in faith traditions whose founding congregations put a premium on faith in © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23993 | december 18, 2020 88 action. today, this charism remains tangibly present in our respective institutions. in addition, we recognize that our institutions also provide crucial resources in the way of human capital (i.e. leadership, scholarly expertise, and practical know-how), material infrastructure, and historical memory. such resources help to support in a very direct way that work of faith in action. as regards the substance of our research, we continue to gain clarity on the various ways in which faith, spirituality, inter-faith, and religion function in the context of our community-based research project. as we have seen, faith is indeed something that runs much deeper than the question of one’s particular institutional affiliation. whereas faith may well be understood as a noun, as in a particular faith tradition, it is the adjectival or adverbial sense of the term, that is, how human experience and action function and manifest themselves in a faith-filled way that gets us closer to its core meaning. but just as soon as we make this distinction between faith in action and institutions of faith, we must nevertheless ask: as important as it may be to differentiate the religious aspect of human experience from institutional religion, are the two mutually exclusive? are religio and “the religious really as separate as dewey would lead us to believe? or, to put the matter in more contemporary terms, is being spiritual necessarily at odds with being religious? as we have found, institutional religion, at its best, can indeed help to cultivate organic expressions of human spirituality, which may extend well beyond any particular institutional affiliation. our study has shown that faith in action may manifest itself in a variety of forms, including encounter, accompaniment, and advocacy. these are all ways of doing faith. furthermore, such activities may contribute to significant forms of learning and spiritual growth, which necessitate a certain level of reflection. the former president of depaul, dennis holtschneider, underscores the interconnection between doing and reflecting in his description of vincentian formation, which he identifies as a “go-then” philosophy: vincentian formation doesn’t begin with a classroom, or a book, or a lecture. the philosophy of vincentian formation is a “go-then” philosophy. go serve them, then come back and talk about it. go serve them, then begin to ask what works and what doesn’t work. go serve them, then begin to figure out why they (and others like them) are poor in such a wealthy society. go serve them, then begin to ask others who serve them how they keep serving over the years. the best learning happens when it’s grounded in real life and real questions. the vincentian mission must always be deeply rooted in the lives of the poor. start there. we don’t learn the vincentian spirit from a book. we can only get it working with the poor (2005, p. 3). implied here is a form of deep learning that is at the same time a form of spiritual formation in the widest sense. one engages vincentian learning and, by extension, vincentian spirituality, by doing. the same can be said of icdi. although the faith dimension of icdi can very well be © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23993 | december 18, 2020 89 understood in a formal sense, i.e. as a reflection of the organization’s inter-faith commitment to work with variety of religious traditions, more potent expressions of faith emerge when one looks at how participants actually encounter, accompany, and/or advocate for detained immigrants and their families. in such cases, both faith and mission are brought to life. as we have shown, one can engage faith on a variety of levels. for some, faith is a highly personal matter of assenting to doctrine. in such a case, it is often presumed that the more one adheres to established teachings, the more faithful one becomes. for others, engaging a faith tradition may happen in more impersonal ways as an institutional fact of life, regardless of one’s personal religious convictions. for example, non-religious students may attend depaul, just as non-religious individuals may volunteer with icdi. in these cases, although one may not engage faith as a matter of personal conviction or belief, one is still engaging with a faith-based tradition at an institutional, or formal, level. although the examples above vary in significant ways, they all share one thing in common: they tend to approach faith as primarily a question of institutional affiliation. as we have argued, however, faith has other possible starting points, including the praxis of social engagement. our community partnership has yielded many valuable insights for us, but one of the most valuable has been the recognition that the two of us (tirres at depaul, and schikore at icdi) are both fundamentally committed to socially-engaged learning that creates significant learning experiences for adult learners. furthermore, we have come to realize that socially-engaged learning may take a variety of forms, including encounter, accompaniment, and advocacy. such forms of engagement prove to be religious through their function and effects more so than through their formal connections to religious institutions. that being said, in both of our cases, there is significant overlap between institutional religion and a more diffuse sense of the religious, making the question all the more interesting. for example, the mere fact of being within a faith-related context has implications for faith journeys, even for those without a profession of faith. the point that we would like to stress here, however, is that for both of the adult populations with whom we work, depaul students and icdi staff and volunteers, the very act of engaging detained immigrants and their families may contribute significantly to one’s spiritual journey. this engagement may open up a new way of doing faith. as we have seen, this journey need not be linear, and people may enter and exit)the process at various points of engagement. but in all cases, the process of engaged learning and engaged reflection can be a valuable part of one’s spiritual journey. faith-based institutions and organizations often have high aspirations for bringing their mission to life and for contributing to the spiritual formation of those under their care. they would be well served to remember that such high aspirations may very well begin to take root in the 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(2003). exploring spirituality and culture in adult and higher education. josseybass. https://integrallife.com/over-our-heads/ http://pewrsr.ch/2xp0y8w https://via.library.depaul.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1020&context=vincentian_ebooks https://via.library.depaul.edu/vincentian_ebooks/20/ https://www.sistersofmercy.org/files/images/justice/immig/07critical-concerns-series.pdf https://www.sistersofmercy.org/about-us/mission-values/ https://www.sistersofmercy.org/what-we-do/education https://www.sistersofmercy.org/what-we-do/education © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23993 | december 18, 2020 92 appendix icdi staff and volunteer survey questions (online) q1 do you consent [to taking this survey]? q2 how do you most identify your role with icdi at present? q3 if you have served in another capacity within icdi previously, what was it? please explain. q4 how long have you been involved with icdi? q5 in which age range do you fit? q6 which icdi program(s) have you been involved in? (you may check more than one). q7 please identify your faith tradition(s). q8 describe your faith journey up to this point in your life. for example, how has your faith journey changed, grown, or deepened over time? how, if at all, is your faith experience different now from earlier periods in your life? q9 how, if at all, has your faith journey brought you to the work of icdi / immigration? q10 how, if at all, have your experiences with immigrants and icdi informed or impacted your faith journey? q11 as you know, icdi is an intentionally interfaith organization that serves people of all faiths. how, if at all, has the interfaith aspect of icdi impacted your faith journey? q12 does your faith have a public stance or statement on immigration? what is it? how does it align with your personal beliefs? q13 what has been most valuable to you about your experience with icdi? q14 how has your involvement with icdi opened up new insights or questions for you? christopher d. tirres1 and melanie c. schikore2 abstract original research © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24054 | december 18, 2020 44 promoting public good and wellness from the perspective of a midwestern regional baptist church community-led research engagement partnership rebecca johnson, 1 diana ingram2, bishop simon gordon3, and paris davis4 1 independent researcher, formerly center for community health and department of medical social sciences, feinberg school of medicine, northwestern university, 2department of healthcare, american college of education formerly rush university medical center , 3 triedstone full gospel baptist church, and 4total resource development organisation triedstone full gospel baptist church cite as: johnson, r., ingram, d., gordon, s., and davis, p. (2020). promoting public good and wellness from the perspective of a midwestern regional baptist church community-led research engagement partnership. metropolitan universities, 31(3), 44-69. doi: 10.18060/24054 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract faith-based communities supporting diverse and underserved communities are increasingly being recognized by researchers as community “anchor institutions” and equitable partners in research engagement. research suggests that faith-based organizations (fbos) can promote health and well-being within congregations and throughout communities. this evidence has energized community-academic partnerships to collaboratively support fbos in plans to improve community wellbeing and health equity, particularly within communities of color. this paper describes the evolution of a community-academic collaboration led by a full gospel midwest regional baptist church where the co-partners professed a commitment to advancing the public good through collaborative governance and shared goal setting in the delivery of an engagement training program. core features highlighted are: (1) establishing a community advisory board; (2) developing a research engagement training program; and (3) analyses, results, and legacy. extension of the church-led mission to lead research engagement connects leaders and communities to resources and scientific expertise in support of the data needs and aspirations of faith-based communities. as research-ready partners, faith-based communities have the capacity to function as localized anchors to drive urban health policy and to serve as advocates by being the “voice” in community-driven research engagement for “public good.” https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebecca-johnson-12263873/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24054 | december 18, 2020 45 keywords: faith-based communities, shared decision-making, engagement, public good and wellness, full gospel, research ministry ambassadors, pastors4pcor introduction “expand to the right and to the left, and your descendants will inherit the nations, and make the desolate cities inhabited” (isaiah 54:2-3) nationwide urban institutions of higher education educate about 20 million students annually and are significant economic anchors or place-based institutions within cities and the nation. in chicago, public and private higher education institutes identify and have been identified as anchor institutions that actively embrace the “public good.” (case, 2020; perry, 2018; murasse, 2001). universities have led partnership projects to further place-based social causes and human flourishing (bamk et al., 2018) and improve the economic health of local neighborhoods (case, 2020). institutions with hospital systems are also working together to improve patient experience via patient engagement. chicago, for example, is home to both the chicago consortium for community engagement, established in 2008, and the area patient-centered outcomes research network, established in 2013. the chicago consortium for community engagement (c3) takes advantage of the significant federal investment of the national institutes of health in chicago’s clinical and translational science institutes to ensure that local research is conducted collaboratively with communities in efforts to make research findings more relevant and available to the public more effectively and efficiently. c3’s mission is to maximize the impact of community-engaged research, improve population health and health equity throughout greater chicago and actively engage researchers, community stakeholders, policy makers, and others who share a common vision for a healthier chicago (c3 partners are listed in appendix a). pastors4pcor (p4p) is a faith-based research engagement initiative that serves as a community liaison ready to partner with research institutions and public health networks. more specifically, and directly impacting p4p’s current focus on building a community support hub for connecting patients, stakeholders and researchers (pcori, 2019), is c3’s work with the chicago department of public health (cdph). the wider availability of big data which impacts health on a daily basis has sparked renewed focus on the health disparities and inequities which exist in the city from multiple perspectives. understanding the particular mix of underlying health conditions and health factors in different communities has become a city hall priority (cdph, 2020). c3’s 2017 appointment of a cdph coordinator laid the groundwork for a reciprocal working relationship between p4p and cdph. the coordinator is a respected and valued hub community advisory board (cab) member, linking cab and hub community of resource enrichment (core) members to c3, cdph, and other community place-based anchors and support, partner, opportunities, knowledge, expertise, and services (spokes) (see figure 1). © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24054 | december 18, 2020 46 unlike c3, the chicago area patient-centered outcomes research network (capricorn)’s mission is to advance patient-centered research across chicago. specially, to develop, test, and implement policies and programs designed to improve health care quality, health outcomes, and health equity for the diverse populations of chicagoland and beyond. since 2014, capricorn has worked to put in place the infrastructure and processes necessary to create data sets comprised of high-quality, de-duplicated patient information. eleven (11) different health systems (see appendix a) contribute strategic leadership, data, and/or data stewardship. capricorn is one of nine clinical research networks (crns) supported by the national patient centered clinical research network (pcornet) that originated from the patientcentered research institute, (2013). more specifically, and directly impacting p4p’s capacity to build and sustain a community support hub for connecting patients, stakeholders and researchers, is the legacy of engaged partnership between p4p and capricorn leaders and members since 2013. for example, a founding member of the original p4p cab was also a founding member of capricorn’s patient community advisory committee (2013). c3 and capricorn illustrate the powerful added value of networks hosted by urban universities and the expertise hosted within affiliated research hospitals, other health systems, and city departments. partnership between networks like these and community place-based anchors, such as p4p, have considerable potential. the literature for researcher-initiated community engagement, for example, showcases mutually beneficial partnerships between the urban university, civic foundations, and other community place-based anchors. indeed, these partnerships can deliver sustainable place-based communities and reduce neighborhood health inequities (harkavy, 2018; fritz et al., 2019). however, despite the proliferation of “public good” partnerships, measuring the size and significance of that identification and the impact on communities has remained elusive. universities tend to measure what they are required to measure (friedman et al., 2014) and community partners are rarely afforded the experience of informing research questions asked, collecting and analyzing data, or the opportunity to disaggregate data for their own use (friedman et al., 2014). additionally, as noted by the coalition of urban serving universities, “resources, not mission often drive data collection efforts” (friedman et al., 2014) with partnership priorities and investments changing over time in response to funding as much as societal need. further as several authors have observed “the persistent health inequities impacting communities close to wealthy urban universities raise troubling moral issues, as well as, questions about higher education’s contribution to the public good” which become particularly apparent during times of emergency (harkavy, 2016; scriven, 2011). in this article, we focus on the evolution of pastors4pcor (p4p), a faith-based research engagement initiative. triedstone full gospel baptist church (fgbc) is located on chicago’s southside. triedstone’s church leader is bishop simon gordon. under bishop gordon’s direction, the midwest region of fgbc provides localized accessible health-related information, services and resources that are much needed by local community residents. these initiatives are https://pcornet.org/clinical-research-network/ https://pcornet.org/ https://www.capricorncdrn.org/about/patient-community-advisory-committee/ © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24054 | december 18, 2020 47 managed through the triedstone church’s community outreach hub, total resource community development organization (trcdo). trcdo was established as a 501(c)3 entity in 2000 to assist at-risk families in need of immediate wraparound support services. trcdo’s mission is to help close service gaps by functioning as a one-stop resource that offers onsite programs and linkages for providing daily living resources and support. for over 20 years, trcdo has successfully accomplished this goal through collaborative relationships within the faith-based community, varying local entities and governmental agencies, including the formation of pastors4pcor (p4p) in 2013. trcdo annually reaches over 25,000 individuals directly through health awareness and prevention programs, food pantry, hud housing counseling, ceda assistance, and training and development programs. since its inception in 2013, p4p has partnered with multiple stakeholders across chicagoland to pave the way for a community support hub capable of connecting patients, stakeholders and researchers (pcor, 2019). valued stakeholders have included southland health minsters network; medical and academic researchers from northwestern university (nu); rush university medical center (rumc); illinois institute of technology (iit); university of illinois at chicago (uic), university of chicago (uc), loyola university; cook county health systems (cchs); faith-based community-based patients and caregivers; and church leaders and members. initially, p4p focused on building a community advisory board (cab), and members were recruited from those valued stakeholders listed above. the cab managed the development of a research engagement training program for church leaders and members designated as trainee research ministry ambassadors (rma). now, as illustrated in figure 1, p4p is building out a community support hub to sustain support and navigation for collaborative partners interested in community engagement figure 1. building a community support hub (pcori, 2019) and sample research engagement. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24054 | december 18, 2020 48 context community-initiated research engagement with research institutions is well documented (jewetttennant, et al., 2016; adebayo, et al., 2018; campbell, et al., 2007). systematized review of the growing body of literature suggests faith-based communities are heavily invested in the processes of reciprocal relationship building, regularly connecting congregations to healthcare knowledge and information (dehaven, et al., 2004; kang, 2016; khubchandani, et al., 2016, olivier, 2017; brooks, et al., 2002; tucker, et al., 2017; sanders, 2016). published research on community engaged research with faith-based community anchors shows recurrent positive impact via a range of initiatives, particularly those with a preventive or behavioral and educational focus. cardiovascular health, diabetes, cancer, depression, dementia, nutrition, and physical activity (brewer et al., 2017; hankerson et al., 2013; hou, 2017; misra, 2016; plunkett, 2015; campbell et al., 2007) are all topic areas where researchers and faith-based communities have effectively engaged. factors which have impeded researcher-initiated engagement include researcher misunderstanding about faith-based community infrastructure, historic mistrust of research institutions, and faith-based community misunderstanding of communication by healthcare providers (kiger, 2017). p4p’s community engaged work should be understood with reference to the patient engagement rubric and framework for practice defined by pcori (pcori, 2014). to clarify, whilst community engaged and community based participatory research is characteristically defined by its mission to increase knowledge and understanding of a given phenomenon and to integrate the knowledge gained with interventions for policy or social change benefiting the community members (stoecker et al., 2003), the mission for pcori engagement awardees is to build capacity of patients, caregivers, stakeholders, and consumers of the broader healthcare community to engage in patient-centered outcomes research. pcori’s mission is to help people make informed healthcare decisions, and improve healthcare delivery and outcomes, by producing and promoting high-integrity, evidence-based information that comes from research guided by patients, caregivers, and the broader healthcare community. in pcori-funded research, patients and other healthcare stakeholders are equitable partners, as opposed to research subjects, who leverage their lived experience and expertise to influence research to be more patient centered, relevant, and useful. their early and continued involvement throughout a study can lead to greater use and uptake of research results by patients and stakeholders within the healthcare community. many faith-based communities support and serve vulnerable and minority populations who experience the poorest health outcomes and adverse impact of health disparities shown by local and national health statistics. faith-based organizations are “beloved communities” (warren et al., 2011), a term which martin luther king jr. used to signify a society based on justice, equal opportunity, and love of one's fellow human beings. ...also one in which all are embraced and none discriminated against. community members are supported by a “healthy grapevine” © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24054 | december 18, 2020 49 capable of disseminating and sharing health information during events like prevention screenings, community health fairs, and after-school programs. for example, recently faith-based communities have become essential to the front-line response to virulent coronavirus (covid19) pandemic by offering drive through food banks, as well as, ongoing ministry support. the effects of covid-19 on the health of racial and ethnic minority groups is still emerging (cdc, 2020; chicago urban league, 2020), however, the data suggests a disproportionate burden of illness and death among racial and ethnic minority groups. due to ongoing health disparities and inequities, those of us who live and/or work within communities of color are not surprised that this current global health crisis of a covid-19 pandemic places communities of color and minorities at higher risk of poor adverse outcomes and/or death from virus related complications. early scientific covid-19 data and reports indicate that people with existing chronic health problems and/or co-morbid health conditions such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, cancers, and asthma are more vulnerable to the disease (chicago urban league 2020) and “the majority of the black covid-19 patients who died had underlying health conditions including respiratory problems and diabetes. 81% had hypertension or high blood pressure, diabetes or both.” more recent report of new cdc data, for example, the marshall report, 2020, shows deaths in illinois from all causes, covid and otherwise, have gone up 9% among white americans, but more than 30% in communities of color (+37% black; +70% latinx; + 54% asian). online city and local media updates on covid-19 cases and deaths has placed a magnifying glass on preexisting inequities in our communities with residents able to search chicago by zip code for updates on mortality rates within racial and ethnic community areas (cdph, 2020; south-side weekly, 2020). triedstone’s bishop simon gordon has a history of leadership within the full gospel baptist church movement with regional and international ties, as well as, networking with national and local policy makers and politicians. most recently, bishop gordon and other clergy heeded the governor of illinois’ service call to join and work closely with his covid-19 health equity taskforce (chicagobusiness, 2020). within communities of color, minorities, and low-income earning families, the impact of the covid-19 pandemic is devastating for communities already experiencing living conditions where there are food deserts, limited access to healthcare, and sparse affordable housing. during this pandemic, faith-based leaders and the (illinois) health equity taskforce face the “ethical challenge of doing good in the face of chaos” by arranging for a fair distribution of health resources and more accessible covid-19 testing sites in the predominately at-risk african american communities in order to “put our community on a better place for longevity and strength” (earl, 2011; scriven, 2011). church leaders have also taken the lead in messaging the governor’s mandate of social distancing and size limits to gatherings, including offering virtual spiritual services. triedstone’s response to the covid-19 pandemic is a recent illustration of how quickly and effectively faith-based communities can mobilize and respond to public health crises. the unique combination of collaborative partnership and networking on display within and beyond the state © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24054 | december 18, 2020 50 of illinois illustrates how faith-based organizations are uniquely placed to network with multiple stakeholders to deliver locally focused community-led engagement with public health issues of national relevance. through this collaborative effort and “ethic of mutual respect” (earl, 2011), faith-based communities and governmental agencies have intentionally worked together for the common public good and wellness in addressing the communities’ needs and to mitigate the impact of this global pandemic, covid-19. to those of us who had worked with p4p, this was not a surprise. pre-covid triedstone had led the way in pioneering pertinent research questions and selecting the appropriate methodologies to pilot a sustainable community-academic partnership between trcdo and northwestern university as authors now describe research question/inquiry in pcori-funded research, the focus of inquiry is science which leverages lived experience and expertise to influence research to be more patient-centered, relevant, and useful. the premise is that early and continued involvement throughout the phases of a research study can lead to greater use and uptake of research results by patients and stakeholders within the healthcare community. key questions prefacing p4ps building of a community support hub have included asking faith-based leaders: (1) why engage with research; and (2) when, how and where can my lived experience make a difference? equally important for p4p has been the effort to document the journey and show that a grassroots-initiated cab/hub model can deliver the key governance processes essential to the delivery of an effective research engagement infrastructure. methodological approaches in 2015, p4p was awarded its first eugene washington award (ew) and became the first grassroots faith-based entity funded by pcori to host and operationalize a network of churches interested in learning more about and patient centered research engagement. between 2016 and 2018, leaders of seventeen churches across chicago ranging in size from less than 50 to over 2,000 members signed up to join the p4p network, completed institute review board (irb) training, and endorsed their representatives to be trained as p4p research ministry ambassadors (rmas) (see appendix b). figure 2 shows the geographical distribution of churches who completed memorandum of understanding (mou), and sent church representatives to be trained as research ministry ambassadors (rma) and research survey methodology. training was led by co-authors (rj and di), two academic partners from northwestern and rush universities. in 2017, building on the experiences of delivering the rma program, pastors4pcor applied for and received a second ew engagement award for a train-the-trainer program (pcori, 2017). our goal was to equip others with the training tools and methods for engaging faith-based communities. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24054 | december 18, 2020 51 in 2019 p4p was awarded further funding to build community capacity to connect patients, stakeholders, and researchers. figure 3 illustrates the operative journey to date from cab to community support hub (pcori, 2019). it should be noted that ew funding for capacity building was never guaranteed. the team submitted new applications for each contract. success depended on the report of evidence of research engagement and success in p4ps chosen methods. figure 2. geographic distribution of participating churches. figure 3. from cab to community support hub (pcori, 2019). © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24054 | december 18, 2020 52 in what follows we share what we consider to be the essential components of our research engagement science. establishing a community advisory board for the “beloved community” (warren, et al., 2011). (1st ew award: 2015-2017) p4p’s original community advisory board (table 1) was recruited from existing networks. an explicit goal of patient-centered outcomes research institute (pcori), authorized by united states congress under the 2010 affordable care act, is to increase minority ethnic representation in health research. our cab diversity was 70% african american and 30% white. pcori holds accountable medical and public health researchers by ensuring that identifiable patient-focused proposals are submitted when seeking grant funds (pcori, 2020). they also look for active engagement with the research cycle. cab oversight was therefore guided by pcori’s principles and values. this means patient engagement is placed at the heart of practice and delivery of health disparities and health equity research (huang, et al., 2017; taiseale, 2016). the collaboratively authored vision for p4p (by its founders) was “to increase the participation of underserved communities of color in comparative effectiveness research and patient-centered outcomes research.” cab activity was informed by p4p’s mission and vision “to inform, inspire and engage congregations in research through partnership” together with the longer term dream “to increase the participation of underserved communities in comparative effectiveness research and patient-centered outcomes research through the design, development, implementation, reporting, and dissemination of research.” table 1. pastor4pcor community advisory board: original member role, affiliation and skills (2015) board role affiliation skills advisory board chair church leader senior pastor advisory board cochair senior church leader reverend and pastor executive director church elder, lead administrator phd, mba advisory board member academic research partner phd, researcher advisory board member academic research partner phd, mph, researcher © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24054 | december 18, 2020 53 advisory board member community advocate/church member mph, llc advisory board member healthcare provider/hospital system md, clinician advisory board member community business advocate ba, jd, policy advocacy advisory board member community advocate/church member patient/caregiver advocacy advisory board member church member patient advisory board member broadcast journalism/community media bs, ms the cab’s first major task was to guide the design and development of a research ministry ambassador (rma) training curriculum and materials suitable for faith-based community leaders and/or their nominated representatives and approve the engagement methods and strategies used to recruit participants. the p4p cab chairperson enlisted the executive director (ed) of the home church’s community development services (trcdo) to oversee the management of a faith-based network infrastructure capable of recruitment. the ed created participant recruitment materials including information sheet, memoranda of understanding, data sharing agreement, pre and post-learner assessments, evaluations, and dissemination strategies. to join the network, a pastor committed to sign a memorandum of understanding, nominated a church representative(s) to attend the training program and complete institutional review board (irb) certification. developing a research engagement training program (2015-2017 and 2017-2019) historical mistrust resulting from evident racism, discrimination, and bias is a key reason why underrepresented people and communities of color have negative perceptions of research, medical institutions, and researchers (solomon, 2013). the tuskegee clinical trials, the case of henrietta lacks and genetics research casts a long shadow within communities of color (braithwaite, et al., 2020; buseh, et al., 2013; lee et al., 2019; thompson, 2014). community leaders also share frustration with researchers not sharing findings back to the communities participating (petkovic et al., 2020). © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24054 | december 18, 2020 54 as illustrated in figure 4, p4ps rma training included preparing trainees to engage with research milestones. five training modules orientated learners to the research cycle and included preparation to take a community health survey into the community. figure 4. research engagement steps 1-5 although the education and training proposed was deemed to be irb exempt, cab board members were insistent that respectful research engagement behavior needed to be included in the rma engagement training. irb certification was made a program pre-requisite for both cab membership and the trainees, research ministry ambassadors (rmas). the cab agreed that it should be a pre-requisite for at least one representative from each church wishing to complete the survey component of the training program to have completed irb training. irb reliance and education leads from the irb office of northwestern university delivered interactive in-person human research protections certification training on three occasions for community partners and certificates of completion. this cirt-ification (community involvement in research: training for community partners) program includes: (1) human research rules and regulations; (2) asking people to participate in research; (3) being careful with research information; and (4) how this all applies to you and your study. developed specifically to meet the needs of community research partners, cirt-ification was designed collaboratively by institutional review board and community-engaged research partners at university of illinois at chicago, university of chicago, and northwestern university. the popularity of the course with participants encouraged the p4p ed, davis (co-author), to serve as an expert reviewer for an online training program in human research protections for community © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24054 | december 18, 2020 55 research partners. developed by a team at loyola university, cirtification online was launched in january 2020 (matthews, et al., 2018). table 2. community-based irb training (2015-2018) pastors, leaders and other church member participation in community irb training participants 2015a 2016b 2018c comments pastors, church leaders, and advisory board members 17 “i liked the review of the belmont report and the importance of informed consent” (2016) “i appreciate the pace and content delivered during the training today” (2018) “very informative information about irb” research ministry trainees and train-the trainers** 22 11 24 total 39 11 24 (100%) agreed the understand the rules and regulations protecting community members. (2016). (67%) agreed their knowledge/skills regarding the ethical issues of doing research together had significantly increased. (42%) agreed their knowledge had somewhat increased. (2018) a irb training taster (2015) birb training for period may – october (2016) cirb training for period january – september (2018) analyses, results and legacy in chicago, we know that each community has a unique sound. our trained irb-certified ambassadors have become bilingual in the languages of their communities and the language of the research world. ongoing iterative evaluation of each phase of p4p’s research engagement shows the impact our approach to engagement science has had on three key audiences. firstly, on the community individuals who completed training and engaged community members in a basic survey of health conditions and health factors impacting faith-based communities. secondly, on the researchers who have engaged with p4p and thirdly, on stakeholders and policy makers who have supported the p4p mission since its inauguration. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24054 | december 18, 2020 56 impact on faith-based trainees and communities improved education and understanding of patient-centered research engagement has been the biggest outcome for our faith-based community participants. a primary p4p cab goal was to train a cadre of rmas ready to serve as knowledgeable advocates for faith-based communities across chicagoland (see figure 2). our hypothesis was that building the “research-ready” capacity of faith-based communities would not only promote equitable engagement with researchers within the medical and scientific arenas but also prepares these entities for nontraditional research engagement. the authors who are p4p academic partners and co-founders jointly worked in developing the research educational program to provide the tools necessary for rmas to understand and navigate databases and interpret health-related projects from design through implementation and dissemination of results. there was a crucial need to have the voice of the communities at the table when research topics are being developed and data collected and analyzed. learner pre and post-assessment of trainees was conducted by the academic trainers from northwestern and rush universities (co-authors rj and di), to ensure continuous quality improvement and evaluation of the fit between training content and leaner expectations and experiences. the cab-approved strategy facilitated accessible and easy monitoring of learner progress towards project aims and objectives and overall program performance. using a single pre and post-assessment model supplemented by regular learner evaluation, the cab used the data to iteratively review project progress and address issues as they arose. data collected from pre and post-assessment included valuable demographic information about participant characteristics (see appendix b). for example, participating research ministry ambassadors, all of whom were members of faith-based communities across chicagoland (figure 2) shared that in their own church environments they held variety of church leadership roles: elders, pastors, and leaders of a church ministry (for example, members serving under ministries focusing on health, youths, caregivers, etc.). trainers learned that rmas represented churches of different sizes and that churches were varied in their use and familiarity with social media. of note to researchers should be the need to take extra care when conducting pre-assessments. pre-assessment took place during the first meeting of rmas before irb training. everyone attending the session was new to the project and uncertain about its value and as a result unsure as to whether to trust the academic trainers and share information with them. upon completion of the training program, participants were asked to select all roles they would like to pursue post-training from the following list: (1) disseminate research findings; (2) join a pprn; (3) renew community irb; (4) conduct a second survey; (5) learn about clinical research; (6) become an educator about health behavior; (7) champion a health condition; (8) promote awareness about priority conditions; (9) become a trainer for research ministry; and (10) become a pcor ambassador. they were also invited to pledge a project-related action for the coming year. table 3 showcases a sample of pledges shared. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24054 | december 18, 2020 57 table 3. post assessment sample of rma pledges and preferences participants sample pledges engagement preferences research ministry trainees i have been energized to take things forward in my faith-based community health ministry i have truly been enlightened about how research is so important i pledge to help raise men’s awareness about the importance of participating in health research i liked that i can help my congregation because i am educated with information to help them have a better quality of life. become an educator about health behavior conduct a second survey learn about clinical research promote awareness about priority conditions since its inception, p4p has graduated 72 irb-certified research ministry ambassadors (rmas), trained 26 research ministry as facilitators/trainers (rmts) from more than 12 zip codes and self-published the trainer facilitator manual, engaging faith-based communities with health research: research ministry ambassador facilitator manual using kindle direct publishing (davis et al., 2017). during post-training sessions, trainers learned about some of the “ripple effect” (hardy, et al., 2018) the community-based training program and research engagement had had on individual participants. in actuality, several rmas used their training and expertise to continue to engage with research. one rma became a champion for a community engagement and early recognition project addressing disparities in stroke (the ceerias project). another shared her expertise and knowledge of being an informal caregiver to improve home care aide understanding of client health and wellbeing topics for research (johnson, et al., 2018) and was a key community stakeholder reviewer of a freely available website designed to assist seniors with later life planning (pcori, 2017). other rmas are respected community voices within the uic cancer center patient brigade (a group set up to ensure that the patients and communities have an active voice at the table regarding the center’s research and community engagement activities), and the chicago community, media and research partnership (pcori, 2019) where the focus is to improve the dissemination and accessible communication of research findings. two lay members of the cab have served on pcori national advisory panel on patient engagement. 12 rmas continue to be members of the pastors4pcor google classroom and groupme text. members exchange resources and events, as well as, survey requests from trusted sources such as illinois department of health (idph) and chicago department of public health (cdph) and reflections © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24054 | december 18, 2020 58 from events attended. rmas have advocated for community members at research focused events on “men living well with sickle cell” hosted at the university of illinois at chicago (uic), stem cell therapy and regenerative medicine hosted by the bayer stem cell institute and have co-presented at more community focused events such as the “fourth annual faith, health and research dialogue” hosted at chicago state university (csu). learning, resources, and information from those events have been shared with other trained rmas and also on church websites. in 2017, p4p successfully partnered with another pcori ew awardee to build the capacity of a rural faith network to engage in research. nine faith-based communities in and around the little rock, ar area undertook an abridged version of the training including taking the survey into the community. impact on researchers community generated survey data has been the biggest factor in building our capacity to impact and partner with researchers. p4p developed and delivered two cycles of p4p community health surveys that resulted in data collected from over 1,400 survey participants in illinois and arkansas. dissemination of survey results via scientific poster presentation has proved particularly effective in communicating the aims and goals of the p4p partnership to public health researchers and clarifying our status as a community-based anchor. since 2015, we have presented the results of our work by participating in both oral and poster presentations and/or as panel speakers at a range of academic, public health and community health conferences sponsored by important scientific and peer associations (e.g. pcori, american public health association, society for behavioral medicine, community-campus partnership for health, balm in gilead healthy churches 2020), and local community health events. going forward, hub plans include co-authoring articles on the research educational program and community health survey results. our cab-approved dissemination policy requires community-academic coauthoring and co-presentation of all findings. our capacity to operate as an effective community-based anchor helped us to become a “test partner” in a pcori funded comparative effectiveness study of treatments for one of the priority conditions flagged by community survey (heart disease). in collaboration with program lead, duke clinical research institute (dcri, duke university) and study site at northwestern university (evanston, illinois), the p4p network partnered with researchers on with adaptable (aspirin) study as one of two community-based organizations. dcri collected information on people with heart disease and the effects of taking a certain aspirin regimen [regular (325 mg) or low-dose (81 mg) aspirin] with goal to determine which dose of aspirin was better. our network was utilized to assist in the recruitment of eligible participants. as a community partner under direction and subcontract of northwestern university, p4p was responsible for assistance with the initial participant entry (recruitment) into © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24054 | december 18, 2020 59 the redcap portal system for participant consenting, randomization and early visit conducted via the online patient portal format. the main goal of the trial partnership was to assess p4p’s capacity to engage with clinical health researchers. valuable lessons learned from this “test partnership” between community anchor and clinical research team are fully documented elsewhere. (zimmerman et al., 2018) particular concerns and barriers to participation arose around differences in operational infrastructure, particularly budget and contractual issues, equipment and secured it routes (off-campus); and registering p4p as a federally approved site for data collection. for example, academic institutions leading public health research characteristically operate cost-reimbursable subcontracts. this means communities invoice monthly to report work completed, whereas, community organizations would prefer to have a fixed cost deliverable contracts such as those offered by pcori. building on this wealth of experience, the pastors4pcor network is continuing to work with the adaptable clinical research investigator. the adaptable northwestern university lead researcher/partner supported p4p’s engagement throughout the lengthy onboarding process. this persistence led to p4p serving as the community engagement partner lead (one of three pis), on a recently awarded federally funded clinical trial with a goal to coordinate a community-centered intervention to reduce cardiovascular disease in chicago (see figure 1). impact on stakeholders and policy makers the multifaceted collaborative relationships formed during p4p’s evolution from cab to hub (see figure 3) has a lasting legacy. as detailed in the introduction to this article, from 2018 onward, we have engaged representatives from the chicago 3 (c3) clinical translational sciences institutes (ctsis) and the chicago department of public health (cdph) in the building of the new hub capacity to connect leaders of organizations to the lived experience of underserved members of communities across the chicago area and vice versa. the hub cab includes members with affiliations and skills to advance research engagement driven by the community to impact data driven policy making. a community of research enrichment (core) (which includes trained rmas) is supported to take the lead in pinpointing topics and discussions for collaborative action. stakeholders willing to provide access and linkage to knowledge, expertise, and services needed to progress research engagement identified by the community, are sources of support, partnership, opportunities, knowledge, expertise and services (spokes) (figure 1). the hub model allows for and facilitates the engagement of patients and stakeholders throughout the healthcare and research communities. p4p’s hub cab and core is also helping us to adapt and respond to covid-19. going forward, p4p aims to be a 21st century community support hub for research engagement relevant to post covid-19 urban growth and quality of life. through community-led research © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24054 | december 18, 2020 60 engagement, our hub anticipates focusing on issues which align the incentives of faith-based communities, the private sector and federal, state, and local governments to unlock the full potential of the community. we anticipate that this will include housing, food, education, and access to healthcare in a world where insurance has disappeared along with job loss and covid19 testing and social distancing have become the norm. rationale and reflection racial and ethnic disparities in health and health care have long persisted in united states communities and one way to address this is to increase participation of underserved populations in health research. pastors4pcor (p4p) began this process by developing a cab and training program to build capacity of faith-based communities to engage in equitable partnerships with researchers. our research ministry ambassadors (rmas) have the tools to navigate and interpret research projects and conduct community asset mapping to describe key health priorities and resources within their community. in addition, the rmas are equipped to interact with existing church ministries in caregiving, health care, and cluster engagement discussion groups on specific health topics. this article provides additional evidence that faith-based communities can be valuable community-based anchors able to nurture and develop non-traditional research engagement in reducing health disparities and promoting health equity in practice and delivery. (zimmerman et al., 2018; richmond et al., 2017). our approach illustrates how community-academic collaboration around health conditions and factors prioritized by faith-based communities can benefit communities. in addition, how community anchors can provide strategic oversight of multiple interventions as opposed to the more opportunistic engagement offered by university leads. the urgent need for continued accountability and attention to patient-focused experience has been evident during the current covid-19 climate. in david satcher’s article, “the impact of disparities in health on pandemic preparedness,” he labels the greatest barriers to being prepared for a pandemic as health disparities and global heath inequities. these barriers impede pandemic preparedness due to disparities in health outcomes, health knowledge and awareness, early detection, early interventions as treatment and access to healthcare and treatments to prevent disease outcomes. a key component of attempts to overcome these barriers is being prepared and connected (satcher, 2011). conclusion as bishop simon gordon, tfgbc pastor and chairperson of pastor4pcor, has observed while living in the face of the current global health pandemic, we see that our “community leadership and landscape are changing.” endemic longstanding issues of disparities in health care and economic hardships are not new challenges but rather stark realities and more commonly © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24054 | december 18, 2020 61 experienced by minorities and communities of color. by building the capacity of faith-based communities to lead research engagement with academic and medical researchers and health providers, p4p aims to enable individuals and organizations new to research to identify health research questions which matter to them, and give them the information for how to make informed choices about participation in research studies. learning about the process of engaging community members with collection of community health data about priority health conditions and factors impacting communities collected by our rmas, shared and disaggregated by the p4p network has led to lively discussions within the community not only about participant experience of disseminating a survey but why survey respondents may have prioritized the conditions and factors as they did. p4p survey results underlined the need for better preventive education amongst faith-based communities around the prevalent health conditions impacting communities and better access to health care and supportive services. since then, covid-19 has provided real-time lived experience of how data and science can be used to inform policy makers, as well as, to show the strengths and weaknesses of data as a driver. the appropriate representatives now more than ever must be seated at the discussion table for important data interpretations, preparedness, community-based decisions to answer the call for action to mitigate adverse community impact during such critical times as an emergency, like a global public health pandemic. acknowledgements we thank all cab members, faith-based community leaders, and congregations who are part of the p4p network. this project was funded through a patient-centered outcomes research institute (pcori) eugene washington award. the views presented in this article are solely the responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of the pcori, its board of governors, or methodology committee. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24054 | december 18, 2020 62 references maurasse, d. 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(2018). a novel patient recruitment strategy: patient selection directly from the community through linkage to clinical data. appl. clin. inform. jan 9 (1) 114-121. pcori patient advisory panel [internet]. available from: https://www.pcori.org/engagement/engage-us/pcoris-advisory-panels/advisory-panelpatient-engagement/biographies-advisory satcher, d. (2011). the impact of disparities in health on pandemic preparedness. journal of health care for the poor and underserved. vol 22, number 3, august, supplement, pp. 36-37. about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank about:blank https://publicnarrative.org/2019/10/announcing-the-chicago-community-media-research-partnership/ https://publicnarrative.org/2019/10/announcing-the-chicago-community-media-research-partnership/ about:blank about:blank © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24054 | december 18, 2020 68 appendix a c3 partners (c3, 2017) capricorn network sites (capricorn, 2017) c3 has established a multi-institutional administrative structure that includes faculty, staff, and partners from the following: alliancechicago chicago department of public health (cdph) northwestern university university of chicago and its partner, rush university university of illinois at chicago contributing strategic leadership, data, and/or data stewardship: alliancechicago cook county health edward hines jr. va hospital and jesse brown va medical center loyola medicine ann & robert h. lurie children’s hospital of chicago northshore university health system northwestern medicine (lead) rush university medical center university of chicago university of illinois hospital & health sciences system medical research analytics and informatics alliance a patient community advisory committee (pcac) has worked with capricorn since its inception to elevate the patient voice in research. appendix b demographics of research ministry ambassadors (rma) participating in training at triedstone full gospel baptist church (pre-assessments conducted in 2016 and 2018) demographics 2016 2018 participants in rma training n (%) n (%) total 20 (100%) 16 (100%) age category (years) 18-24 0 2 25-39 4 3 40-49 6 (30%) 5 (31%) © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24054 | december 18, 2020 69 50-59 6 (30%) 2 60 and over 4 3 dna 0 1 gender male 4 5 female 16 (80%) 11 (69%) missing 0 0 race black or african american 20 (100%) 16 (100%) education less than high school 0 0 high school diploma (ged) 4 2 college degree or higher 15 (75%) 12 (75%) some college 2 missing 1 faith-based community (congregation size) 26-100 0 3 101-499 6 (30%) 5 (31%) 500-999 1 4 1,000-1,499 1 1 over 2,000 1 1 not known 4 0 social media used by participants internet 18 13 smart phone 15 13 email 20 (100%) 13 facebook 0 11 twitter 0 5 don’t use 0 0 social media used by home church internet 19 13 smart phone 17 10 email 18 12 twitter 7 7 facebook 17 11 don’t use 0 0 promoting public good and wellness from the perspective of a midwestern regional baptist church community-led research engagement partnership microsoft word 23920 july 2020_rs_cl02 (pd accepted changes 8.6)_cl_rs.docx original research © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23920 | august 14, 2020 3 confirmatory factor analysis for the service-learning outcomes measurement scale (s-loms) ka hing lau1 and robin stanley snell2 1 office of service-learning, lingnan university, 2 department of management, lingnan university cite as: lau, k.h. & snell, r.s., (2020). confirmatory factor analysis for the service-learning outcomes measurement scale (s-loms). metropolitan universities, 32(1), 3-34. doi: 10.18060/23920 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract service-learning was introduced into hong kong over a decade ago, yet there is a research gap about the self-perceived developmental outcomes for students, partly due to the lack of a reliable measurement instrument across course disciplines and types of service-learning. this study validated a recently created service-learning outcomes measurement scale (s-loms) through confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) with data from 629 students. s-loms measures selfperceived student development through 56 items, which cover outcome domains under four overarching categories: knowledge application, personal and professional skills, civic orientation and engagement, and self-awareness. alternative measurement models were compared in this validation exercise, with the results indicating that although a model with 11 domains and without overarching categories was preferred, there was also support for a model with 10 domains subsumed under the four abovementioned overarching categories. multisample analyses indicated that both models were stable across gender. the practical implication of our findings is that for the purpose of measuring the developmental impacts on students of engaging in service-learning, s-loms offers investigators a number of options besides using the entire 56-item scale. some administrative options are described at the end of the paper. keywords: service-learning, hong kong, student developmental impacts, measurement instruments © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23920 | august 14, 2020 4 introduction service-learning is “a form of experiential education in which students engage in activities that address human and community needs together with structured opportunities intentionally designed to promote student learning and development” (jacoby, 1996, p. 5). this transformative pedagogy has spread around the globe (shumer, stanton, & giles, jr., 2017). hong kong is no exception, as over the past decade service-learning has been introduced to most universities there (ma, 2018; ma & chan, 2013). developmental outcomes for students arising from servicelearning have been well illustrated in the west (e.g. astin & sax, 1998; astin, vogelgesang, ikeda, & yee, 2000; celio, durlak, & dymnicki, 2011; conway, amel, & gerwien, 2009; driscoll, holland, gelmon, & kerrigan, 1996; felten & clayton, 2011; einfeld & collins, 2008; eyler & giles, 1999; elyer, giles, stenson, & gray, 2001; lundy, 2007; novak, markey, & allen, 2007; prentice, 2007; richard, keen, hatcher, & pease, 2017; rama, 1998; simon & cleary, 2006; warren, 2012; yorio & ye, 2012). evaluating developmental outcomes for students is considered to be one of the five critical elements of successful service-learning programs, according to jacoby (1996). this is because evaluation sheds light on directions for improvement and growth, and it encourages sustainable collaboration between schools and the community. however, the body of scholarly publications about student development arising from service-learning in asia remains limited (xing & ma, 2010; snell & lau, 2020). this scarcity can be attributed to the absence of a standardized and reliable measurement instrument for assessing those student developmental outcomes after service-learning experience that are targeted by universities in hong kong. there have only been a small number of similar measurement instruments used in the past for this purpose, and these have had various inadequacies. problems have included: (a) importing scales which have been developed in the west into asian contexts, and which are subject to standardization concerns (e.g. lo, kwan, chan, & ngai, 2016; ngai, 2009; siu, tang, & lai, 2013); (b) covering a limited set of developmental domains (e.g. eyler, giles, & braxton, 1997); and (c) having insufficient target respondents for scale validation (e.g. ma, chan, & tse, 2019). addressing this gap, snell and lau (2020) developed an instrument named the “service-learning outcomes measurement scale (s-loms).” s-loms measures learning outcomes perceived by students under four overarching categories covering 15 domains. the first category is knowledge application and has one cognominal domain. the second category is personal and professional skills, which comprises the six domains of creativity, problem solving skills, relationship skills, team skills, selfreflection skills, and critical thinking skills. the third category is civic orientation and engagement, which comprises the five domains of commitment to social betterment, understanding community, empathy and caring for others, respecting diversity, and sense of social responsibility. the fourth category is self-awareness, which comprises the three domains of self-efficacy, self-understanding, and commitment to self-improvement. s-loms consists of 56 descriptive items regarding the above domains, to which participants respond with a 10-point likert scale, ranged from 1 as “strongly disagree” to 10 as “strongly agree.” © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23920 | august 14, 2020 5 in comparison with similar measurement instruments that have been adopted in the past, sloms carries several merits. first, it has been designed for the context of hong kong, reflecting the local culture and recent developments within the higher education sector there (snell & lau, 2020). second, the set of domains included in s-loms comprehensively covers the desired developmental outcomes of hong kong based service-learning programs. third, the administration of s-lom is both standardized and flexible, such that practitioners can elect to measure developmental categories or domains, according to their needs. fourth, s-lom is expected to undergo rigorous validation before its practical implementation. in a previous validation study (snell & lau, 2020), s-loms was tested with 400 hong kong university students, and the current study involves a further 600-plus respondents. it is intended that there will be subsequent studies of test-retest reliability and criterion validity, which will engage additional respondents. we anticipate that the conceptual relevance and scale validity of sloms will attract its usage by service-learning practitioners as a tool for assessing progress on the enhancement of developmental outcomes for students. the starting point for the development of s-loms as a measurement instrument was a review of the common student developmental domains arising from service-learning, as documented in past literature. this was followed by considering the special educational and social context for service-learning in hong kong. for example, within the overarching category of civic orientation and engagement, the instrument was oriented more toward moral development than participatory democracy. to further match the emerging instrument to the local context, the authors also invited local service-learning practitioners to examine the developmental domains and proposed items in the development process. as a result, 15 developmental domains under the four aforementioned overarching categories were identified. an initial study (snell & lau, 2020) was then conducted to validate s-loms based on its administration with a sample of 400 university students. s-loms was found to have satisfactory internal consistency with the underlying dimensionality uncovered through exploratory factor analysis (efa) by using the method of principle components with oblimin rotation. in that study, regarding reliability, s-loms achieved the cronbach’s alpha value above .70 for its four categories, while the 15 original domains collapsed into 11, as follows. creativity and problem solving skills combined into the higher-order domain of creative problem solving skills. another higher-order domain comprised relationship and team skills. a third higher-order domain, community commitment and understanding, combined commitment to social betterment with understanding community. a fourth higher-order domain, caring and respect, combined empathy and caring for others with respecting diversity. the other domains remained discrete. the current study continues the measurement instrument validation journey. this paper reports the validation results of testing s-loms with a new sample through confirmatory factor analysis (cfa) against the above factor structure that emerged in the previous efa study (snell & lau, 2020). it is intended that subsequent research not reported here will test for other types of © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23920 | august 14, 2020 6 validity regarding s-loms, such as test-retest reliability, and will then use s-loms to measure developmental outcomes for students through before and after administration around servicelearning experience. the above practice is a typical step in the scale development process (e.g., brown, 2015; hurley, scandura, schriesheim, brannick, seers, vandenberg, & williams, 1997; tay & jebb, 2017; worthington & whittaker, 2006). while efa is used to identify the dimensionality for a set of variables, it does not force variables to be loaded on certain factors in advance. by contrast, cfa tests whether data fits a pre-specified factor structure (stevens, 2009). the current study tested a series of alternative models with various factor structures. since the 11-domain factor structure discussed above had received empirical support from only one prior efa study, the current study adopted a prudent approach in testing that structure together with the originally theoretical 15-domain factor structure proposed by snell and lau (2020), together with other possible structures, so as to compare which one would provide a better fit with a new set of data. methods participants the current study recruited 629 university students from four hong kong government universities, namely lingnan university, the hong kong polytechnic university, hong kong baptist university, and the education university of hong kong. female respondents constituted a larger part of the sample (59.5%) and the average age was 20.5 (s.d. = 2.21). broken down by major disciplines, the sample comprised engineering and science (40.9%), business (19.9%), social sciences (14.3%), arts (12.7%), and healthcare (12.2%). among the respondents, 65.8% had previous service-learning experience or were in the process of taking service-learning programs or courses. instrument the original structure with four overarching categories and 15 domains described above was employed in the construction of s-loms. in the 56-item instrument administered to the students (see appendix 1), there were three to four items for each of the 15 domains, in the form of selfdescriptive statements. respondents were asked to indicate the extent of their agreement with the items on a 10-point likert scale (from 1, “strongly disagree” to 10, “strongly agree”). procedures the respondents were invited to answer s-loms on a voluntarily basis in a classroom setting, with consent from the instructors of the respective courses, which did not necessarily involve service-learning. besides s-loms, the students completed some demographic items about © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23920 | august 14, 2020 7 gender, age, academic background, and prior service-learning experience. upon completing the questionnaire, the students received a hk$50 supermarket voucher. statistical analysis cfa was employed in the analysis, using eqs version 6.4 for windows, and the extent of missingness of the sample data and the assumption of multivariate normality were checked, in order to decide the estimation methods. regarding data missingness, 520 of the 629 participants (82.7%) provided no missing responses. the mean percentage of missing responses in an item was 0.4%. 63 missing patterns were identified among the 109 respondents with missing responses. moreover, the sample was tested with multivariate normality. the related indices provided by the eqs indicated violation of the assumption. specifically, both the yuan, lambert, and fouladi’s coefficient (1,332.76) and its normalized estimate (208.24) showed values over 5.00, inferring the nonnormally distributed pattern of the sample data (bentler, 2006). as the data showed incomplete and nonnormal patterns, the full information maximum likelihood (fiml) method with robust correction was employed in eqs for the cfa execution, recommended by bentler (2006). the scaled chi-square (yuan-bentler, i.e. y-b c2) and other indices under yuan-bentler’s correction of the results were adopted for deciding goodness of fit for the models. this approach is regarded as an effective adjustment procedure when the model violates multivariate normality and is applied to incomplete data (blunch, 2016; byrne, 2008; savalei & bentler, 2005). in executing the analysis on the models specified below, a typical cfa parameterization was adopted, as described in steps (a)-(d). in step (a), the first path between each designated factor (whether a learning domain or an overarching category) and its first variable (whether an assigned item or a learning domain) was set as 1.0, for the sake of model identification and latent variable scaling. in step (b), all other parameters and factor variances were freely estimated. in step (c), a constant variable v999 with no variance and a mean value of 1.0 was created for each variable equation. in step (d), covariances were freely estimated between each designated factor. for the sake of comparison, no modification such as error covariances were made to the models. as the model chi-square test, although commonly used, is subject to a number of limitations (hooper, coughlan, & mullen, 2008) and tends to be rejected as not fitting (thompson, 2004), other goodness of fit indices, including cfi, nnfi, and rmsea were also used for assessing the models (tabachnick & fidell, 2013). since the robust correction was implemented, the values of the above indices under the results of yuen-bentler correction was adopted. acceptable model fit was defined as follows: cfi (³ .90); nnfi (³ .90); rmsea (≤ .08) (bentler, 1990; brown, 2015; browne & cudeck, 1992). since a series of models (see the next section) with different factor structures were tested, model aic indices were employed in comparing the competing © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23920 | august 14, 2020 8 models. these are among the most commonly adopted indices for the comparison of non-nested models by using chi-square values (brown, 2015). the smallest aic value indicates the best fitting model, under the condition that the models are non-nested. models specification since s-loms is a newly established measurement instrument with only one prior efa validation to support its internal factor structure, the current study tested, through a series of cfas, whether the data fitted other possible factor structures for the instrument, besides the one already reported by snell and lau (2020). the seven models that were tested are represented in table 1 and are explained next. model 1 serves as a baseline model, within which all items are loaded onto a single factor. model 2 is theoretically grounded to the extent that the items are assumed to load directly onto their respective overarching categories identified in prior literature, of which there are four: knowledge application, personal and professional skills, civic orientation and engagement, and self-awareness. the developmental outcome domains such as relationship skills were omitted from this model. models 3 and 4 tested whether items loaded onto their corresponding developmental outcome domains irrespective of the overarching categories (developmental domains directly to corresponding items). model 3 was theoretically based, to the extent that it comprised the original 15 domains that s-loms had originally been designed to measure (snell & lau, 2020). for example, creativity and problem-solving skills were retained as two separate domains instead of being merged into the single domain of creative problem solving skills. however, the four overarching categories were not included in this model. by contrast, model 4 was empirically based, to the extent that it combined some pairs among the original 15 outcomes to match the 11 domains that had been discovered in the previous efa study (snell & lau, 2020). model 5 and model 6 involved two layers of factors, and constituted hybrids of model 2 with either model 3 or model 4. both model 5 and model 6 were theoretically based, to the extent that they included the four overarching categories. in addition, model 5 included the 15 theoretically based original outcome domains, whereas model 6 included the 11 domains from the previous efa study. an additional model, model 7, was a modification of model 6 that was created by combining the domains of sense of social responsibility with the domain of community commitment and understanding under the overarching category of civic orientation and engagement, as is explained in the next section. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23920 | august 14, 2020 9 table 1. model specifications for the alternative models of s-loms model description graphic illustration 1 56 items loaded on one factor 2 56 items loaded on four overarching categories (factors) factor 1 item 1 item 2 item 3 item 54 item 55 item 56 ‧ ‧ ‧ item 1 item 4 item 5 item 45 item 46 item 56 ‧ ‧ ‧ item 27 item 28 factor 1 factor 2 factor 3 factor 4 ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23920 | august 14, 2020 10 3 56 items loaded on 15 developmental outcome domains (factors) 4 56 items loaded on 11 developmental outcome domains (factors) item 1 item 4 item 5 item 54 item 56 ‧ ‧ ‧ item 8 domain 1 domain 2 domain 15 ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ 15 f ac to rs c or re la te w ith e ac h ot he r item 1 item 4 item 5 item 54 item 56 ‧ ‧ ‧ item 8 domain 1 domain 2 domain 11 ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ 11 f ac to rs c or re la te w ith e ac h ot he r © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23920 | august 14, 2020 11 5 56 items loaded on 15 developmental outcome domains then four overarching categories 6 56 items loaded on 11 developmental outcome domains then four overarching categories item 1 item 4 item 5 ‧ ‧ item 8 domain 1 domain 2 ‧ ‧ category 1 category 2 category 3 category 4 item 25 item 27 domain 7 ‧‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ item 28 item 31 domain 8 ‧ ‧ item 43 item 45 domain 12 ‧‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ item 46 item 50 domain 13 ‧ ‧ item 54 item 56 domain 15 ‧‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ item 1 item 4 item 5 ‧ ‧ item 12 domain 1 domain 2 ‧ ‧ category 1 category 2 category 3 category 4 item 25 item 27 domain 5 ‧‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ item 28 item 35 domain 6 ‧ ‧ item 43 item 45 domain 8 ‧‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ item 46 item 50 domain 9 ‧ ‧ item 54 item 56 domain 11 ‧‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23920 | august 14, 2020 12 7 a modification of model 6 with the combined developmental outcome domains of community commitment and understanding and the domain of sense of social responsibility item 1 item 4 item 5 ‧ ‧ item 12 domain 1 domain 2 ‧ ‧ category 1 category 2 category 3 category 4 item 25 item 27 domain 5 ‧‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ item 28 item 38 domain 6 + 8 ‧ ‧ item 39 item 45 domain 7 ‧‧ item 46 item 50 domain 9 ‧ ‧ item 54 item 56 domain 11 ‧‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ ‧ © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23920| august 14, 2020 13 results model comparison table 2 reports the cfa results in terms of the chi-square test, goodness of fit indices, and aic indices. the chi-square values for all these models were statistically significant, reflecting that large sample size increased the power of the test and thus the likelihood of rejection as not an exact fit. accordingly, the goodness of the fit indices were taken into consideration (bentler, 1990), and models 3, 4, 5, and 6 demonstrated acceptable model fit, with both nnfi and cfi at marginally 0.9 or above, and rmsea and its 90% confidence interval at or lower than .05. moreover, all absolute values of standardized residual were small, indicating that those models fit the data well enough. table 2. fit indices & standardized residuals for the alternative models of s-loms item model 1 model 2 model 3 model 4 model 5 model 6 model 7 y-b c2 * 4,245.33 3,811.88 3,340.77 3,450.80 3,635.83 3,607.38 3,631.76 df 1,484 1,478 1,379 1,429 1,465 1,469 1,470 p .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 .00 nnfi .870 .890 .901 .902 .897 .899 .898 cfi .875 .894 .911 .909 .902 .903 .902 rmsea .054 .050 .047 .047 .048 .048 .048 90% ci .052, .056 .048, .052 .045, .049 .045, .049 .046, .050 .046, .050 .046, .050 aic 1,277.33 855.88 582.77 592.8 705.83 669.38 691.76 average absolute standard -ized residual .084 .035 .034 .034 .041 .040 .040 note: * y-b c2 denotes the yuan-bentler scaled chi-square values with robust correction applied. the fit indices in the table are also adopting the version of robust correction. comparing the aic indices for the above four models indicates that model 3 is the best fit, followed by model 4, 6 and 5, in preference order. despite being the best fit, the results for model 3 nonetheless indicate two issues. specifically, the factor correlations between two pairs of learning domains, namely 1) creativity and problem solving skills; and 2) commitment to social betterment and understanding community, are 1.0, and correspond to snell and lau’s (2020) results in the earlier efa, which led to the creation of higher-order domains, such as “creative problem solving skills”. factor correlations approaching 1.0 constitute strong grounds © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23920 | august 14, 2020 14 for combining multiple factors into a single factor, given the poor discriminant validity that is implied (brown, 2015). a similar issue was found with model 5, which put the 15 domains under four overarching categories, in that the factor coefficient between understanding community and its overarching category of civic orientation and engagement was found to be 1.0. because of these issues, model 3 and model 5 were dropped and only those models with a structure involving 11 domains were considered. among the remaining models, model 4 was preferred, given its low aic value, acceptable goodness of fit (y-b c2 = 3,450.80; df = 1,429; p = .00; nnfi = .902; cfi = .909; rmsea = .047, ci = .045, .049), and good factor loadings and factor correlations. model 6, with 11 domains under four overarching categories, was also found to have an issue, in that the path of the domain of sense of social responsibility obtained 1.0 of factor loading from its parent category, indicating the need for further structure simplification under civic orientation and engagement. accordingly, model 7 was created as a modification of model 6 by combining the two conceptually related domains of sense of social responsibility and community commitment and understanding. model 7 obtained acceptable overall goodness of fit (y-b c2 = 3,631.76; df = 1,470; p = .00; nnfi = .898; cfi = .902; rmsea = .048, ci = .046, .050), and a relatively low aic value (691.76). the 56 items and the 10 domains loaded with statistical significance on their respective domains and categories, nearly all with scores over .60 (except two items with loadings close to .60), while the four categories were significantly yet not perfectly correlated. although usually more parsimonious models (i.e. model 4) would be preferred, a more complex model may also be considered if it is based on a theory that can “substantially improve understanding of the phenomenon or can substantially broaden the types of phenomena understood using that theoretical approach” (stevens, 2009, p. 572). in our case, the results of the cfa for model 7 imply that s-loms can also further understood as a 10domain model with four overarching categories. in summary, while the fit indices implied that model 4 was the best model for s-loms, inspection of factor loadings led to the creation of model 7, which was retained for further consideration in the next step, where model 4 and model 7 were examined for their stability on gender by using multi-sample analysis. multi-sample analysis multi-sample analysis, or the factorial invariance test, is especially suitable for testing whether a particular model structure or relationships between factors in a model is applicable across samples by different types of categorization (schumacker & lomax, 1996). the dataset was divided into two samples by gender (248 male and 364 female). the demographic profile, including mean age and academic backgrounds, for the two sub-samples is listed in table 3 below. the missingness of both male and female samples revealed an acceptable pattern, with around or over 80% of the responses did not contain any missing responses. as with the previous © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23920 | august 14, 2020 15 analysis, the fiml method with the yuan-bentler correction was employed in model estimation, given the incomplete data with the multivariate nonnormal pattern for both samples (see table 3). table 3. demographics & missingness of the groups in the multi-sample analysis male female no. of respondents 248 364 mean age 20.21 20.71 academic background arts 6.9% 16.9% social science 11.0% 16.9% business 16.3% 21.9% engineering & science 59.8% 27.5% healthcare 6.1% 16.7% service-learning experience without 36.2% 32.8% with 63.8% 67.2% missingness no. (percentage) of participants without missing responses 194 (78.2%) 314 (86.3%) no. of missing patterns 41 37 the mean percentage of missing responses in an item 0.6% 0.3% multivariate normality yuan, lambert, & fouladi's coefficient 857.15 1,029.60 normalized estimate 84.23 122.24 © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23920 | august 14, 2020 16 we followed the approach recommended by tabachnick and fidell (2013) to perform the multisample analysis. we began with the baseline model for the two samples, and constrained a different parameter in each round to test whether the chi-square difference for each group between the less restrictive and more restrictive model was statistically significant. in eqs, this result is presented as the overall chi-square values of the two models against their summative degrees of freedom, in accordance with bentler's (2006) recommendation. in this procedure, if the result is insignificant, the next step is to add another set of constraints followed by another test, with further steps taken until the result is significant. for our analysis, the parameters comprised, in order, factor loadings, factor coefficients, and factor covariances, but disturbance variances and error variances were not tested due to concern about the sub-group sample size. model 4 and model 7 were tested by means of the above method. the results of the multi-sample analyses for model 4 and model 7 are given in table 4. all standardized residual covariances were small over both the male and female samples, showing that both models fit the data well. for model 4, the analysis by gender revealed that the baseline model is acceptable (summative y-b c2 = 4,814.65; df = 2,858; p = .00; nnfi = .904; cfi = .911; rmsea = .046, ci = .044, .049). further constraining on factor loadings of the items on their domains (summative dy-b c2 = 70.07; df = 56; p = .10; nnfi = .905; cfi = .910; rmsea = .046, ci = .044, .048), as well as on factor covariance (summative dy-b c2 = 66.28; df = 55; p = .14; nnfi = .906; cfi = .910; rmsea = .046, ci = .044, .048) between the domains showed insignificant y-b c2 change and acceptable goodness of fit, indicating that model 4 was equivalent across gender, in terms of model structure, factor loadings, and factor covariance. regarding model 7, which structures the measurement instrument items with 10 domains under the four overarching categories, the multi-sample analysis showed similar patterns, depicted in table 4. the analysis by gender revealed that the baseline model had acceptable goodness of fit (summative y-b c2 = 5,017.24; df = 2,940; p = .00; nnfi = .901; cfi = .905; rmsea = .047, ci = .045, .049). further constraining on factor loadings between items and domains (summative dy-b c2 = 54.49; df = 46; p = .18; nnfi = .902; cfi = .905; rmsea = .047, ci = .045, .049), and factor coefficients between domains and their categories (summative dy-b c2 = 15.82; df = 9; p = .07; nnfi = .902; cfi = .905; rmsea = .047, ci = .045, .049), as well as factor covariances between overarching categories (summative dy-b c2 = 1.57; df = 6; p = .95; nnfi = .902; cfi = .905; rmsea = .047, ci = .045, .049) showed insignificant chi-square change with acceptable goodness of fit. the multi-sample analyses indicated that both model 4 and 7 were stable across the sample by gender, with acceptable goodness of fit (nnfi and cfi at .90 or above; and rmsea <.06). © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23920 | august 14, 2020 17 reliability analysis table 5 and 6 display the reliability results of the developmental outcome domains and overarching categories of the two models. these results indicate satisfactory reliability (see lance, butts, & michels, 2006), with most cronbach's alpha scores above .80 and a small number just below .80. this was the case for the entire scale (.981), for the four overarching categories (.866 to .957 for model 7), for the 10 developmental outcome domains in model 7 (.794 to .925) and for the 11 domains in model 4 (.790 to .915). selected models and summary based on the above analyses, model 4 and model 7 were selected as potential final models, but with inclination toward model 4 because of its lower aic value. the final findings for model 4 and model 7, in terms of factor loadings, factor coefficients, factor correlations, and reliability indices are illustrated in figure 1 and 2, and table 5 and 6. all items in model 4 and model 7 were loaded on their designated domains and categories, except that for model 7 the domain of sense of social responsibility was combined with that of community commitment and understanding. as a result, the constituent domains within the category of civic orientation and engagement distinguish interpersonal-level issues, i.e., caring and respect, from community-level issues. although the structure of both models received confirmation, the high factor correlations and coefficients illustrated that a more parsimonious solution could be obtained (brown, 2015). we will discuss this further in the next section. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23920 | august 14, 2020 18 table 4. multi-sample analysis results y-b c2 * df p nnfi cfi rmsea rmsea ci dy-b c2 ddf dp average absolute standardized residual male female model 4: the 11-domain model without upper level categories baseline model 4,814.65 2,858 .00 .904 .911 .046 .044, .049 n/a n/a n/a .038 .041 factor loadings equivalent 4,884.72 2,914 .00 .905 .910 .046 .044, .048 70.07 56 .10 .055 .052 factor covariances equivalent 4,951.00 2,969 .00 .906 .910 .046 .044, .048 66.28 55 .14 .054 .050 model 7: the 10-domain model with upper level categories baseline model 5,017.24 2,940 .00 .901 .905 .047 .045, .049 na na na .049 .043 factor loadings equivalent 5,071.73 2,986 .00 .902 .905 .047 .045, .049 54.49 46 .18 .070 .047 factor coefficients equivalent 5,087.55 2,995 .00 .902 .905 .047 .045, .049 15.82 9 .07 .065 .048 factor covariances equivalent 5,089.12 3,001 .00 .902 .905 .047 .045, .049 1.57 6 .95 .062 .048 note: * y-b c2 denotes the yuan-bentler scaled chi-square values with robust correction applied. the fit indices in the table are also adopting the version of robust correction. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23920 | august 14, 2020 19 figure 1. standardized item-domain factor loadings* of model 4 notes: *all item-domain factor loadings are statistically significant at the .05 level. the path of the constant variable v999 to all measurement variables is not shown in the figure, for the sake of clarity. ka: knowledge application; rts: relationship & team skills; cps: creative problem solving skills; srs: self-reflection skills; cts: critical thinking skills; ccu: community commitment & understanding: cr: caring & respect; ssr: sense of social responsibility; se: self-efficacy; su: self-understanding; csi: commitment to self-improvement item 026 item 019 item 066 item 061 item 037 item 008 item 072 item 087 item 021 item 077 item 068 item 051 item 092 item 100 item 058 item 030 item 029 item 048 item 059 item 044 item 014 item 093 item 070 item 073 item 001 item 022 item 007 item 091 item 047 item 045 item 040 item 101 item 049 item 094 item 098 item 046 item 085 item 079 item 084 item 005 item 032 item 067 item 027 item 023 item 015 item 050 item 075 item 060 item 034 item 010 item 006 item 063 item 025 item 069 item 083 item 090 ka rts cps .782 .769 .766 .636 .796 .795 .712 .658 srs .768 .760 .719 .704 se .793 .790 .780 .663 su .842 .825 .783csi .784 .759 .757cts .749 .743 .726ssr .800 .797 .764 .761 .739 .695 .671 .632 .785 .778 .732 .722 .679 .674 .655 .614 cc u .801 .791 .788 .766 .754 .746 .680 .594 cr .781 .723 .718 .714 .711 .709 .594 for intercorrelation between learning domains, please refer to table 5 © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23920 | august 14, 2020 20 table 5. standardized factor correlations* and reliability between domains of model 4 domain** reliability ka rts cps srs cts ccu cr ssr se su csi ka .866 1.00 rts .912 .859 1.00 cps .909 .935 .970 1.00 srs .818 .816 .955 .911 1.00 cts .794 .771 .853 .831 .978 1.00 ccu .915 .806 .910 .888 .917 .865 1.00 cr .907 .790 .910 .891 .899 .823 .932 1.00 ssr .790 .822 .924 .917 .941 .883 .964 .962 1.00 se .843 .807 .890 .898 .886 .828 .859 .924 .948 1.00 su .805 .769 .854 .884 .897 .855 .887 .899 .943 .959 1.00 csi .807 .742 .818 .824 .844 .840 .854 .825 .923 .854 .900 1.00 notes: *all correlations are statistically significant at the .05 level **: ka: knowledge application; rts: relationship & team skills; cps: creative problem solving skills; srs: self-reflection skills; cts: critical thinking skills; ccu: community commitment & understanding: cr: caring & respect; ssr: sense of social responsibility; se: self-efficacy; su: self-understanding; csi: commitment to self-improvement © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23258| january 2, 2020 21 figure 2. standardized item-domain factor loadings and factor correlations * of model 7 notes: * all item-domain factor loadings are statistically significant at the .05 level. the path of the constant variable v999 to all measurement variables is not shown in the figure, for the sake of clarity. for domain: ka: knowledge application; rts: relationship & team skills; cps: creative problem solving skills; srs: self-reflection skills; cts: critical thinking skills; ccu&ssr: community commitment & understanding, and sense of social responsibility: cr: caring & respect; se: self-efficacy; su: self-understanding; csi: commitment to self-improvement; for category: ka: knowledge application; pps: personal & professional skills; coe: civic orientation & engagement; sa: self-awareness item 026 item 019 item 066 item 061 item 037 item 008 item 072 item 087 item 021 item 077 item 068 item 051 item 092 item 100 item 058 item 030 item 029 item 059 item 048 item 044 item 093 item 014 item 070 item 073 item 001 item 007 item 022 item 091 item 045 item 047 item 027 item 040 item 101 item 049 item 023 item 046 item 085 item 079 item 084 item 005 item 032 item 067 item 015 item 094 item 098 item 050 item 075 item 060 item 034 item 010 item 006 item 063 item 025 ka rts cps .777 .760 .730 .617 .798 .786 .686 .658 srs .773 .756 .700 .690 se .792 .781 .770 .658 su .842 .815 .779csi .788 .754 .736cts .698 .656 .585 .795 .793 .755 .749 .728 .686 .665 .626 .783 .773 .715 .711 .673 .660 .644 .611 ccu & ssr .778 .776 .773 .758 .754 .748 .739 .737 cr .774 .717 .716 .708 .708 .705 .573 ka pps coe sa 1.00 .975 .973 .971 .900 .981 .963 .969 .976 .909 .888 .958 .952 .819 .932 .800 item 069 item 083 item 090 © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23920 | august 14, 2020 22 table 6. reliability of model 7’s domains & overarching categories reliability category knowledge application* .866 personal & professional skills .957 civic orientation & engagement .947 self-awareness .920 domain knowledge application .866 relationship & team skills .912 creative problem solving skills .909 self-reflection skills .818 critical thinking skills .794 community commitment & understanding, & sense of social responsibility .925 caring & respect .907 self-efficacy .843 self-understanding .805 commitment of self-improvement .807 note: *the cognominal category was created above the domain "knowledge application" for the sake of providing a clear model structure conclusion by using cfa with a relatively large sample, the current study sought to confirm the dimensionality and factor structure of s-loms that had been obtained through efa in a previous study (snell & lau, 2020). seven alternative models were specified and tested. the results indicated that an 11-domain model without overarching categories (model 4) was the best fit, outperforming the single factor model (model 1) and four-category level model (model 2) in terms of the aic values and goodness of fit indices. by contrast, the analysis indicated that both models that contained 15 developmental outcome domains (model 3 and model 5) could not fit the data well, because of ill-fitting patterns in factor correlations and coefficients between particular pairs of domains. thus, in model 3, there was a factor correlation of 1.0 between the domains of creativity and problem solving skills, and between the domains of commitment to social betterment and understanding community; while in model 5 a factor coefficient of 1.0 was found between the domain of understanding community and its overarching category of civic orientation and engagement. the discovery of factor correlations or coefficients approaching 1.0 indicates that there may be more parsimonious model structures (brown, 2015), and is consistent with the efa results in the prior study (snell & lau, 2020). © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23920 | august 14, 2020 23 model 6, with a structure of 15 developmental outcome domains under four overarching categories was also rejected due to its factor coefficient of 1.0 between the domain of sense of social responsibility and its overarching category of civic orientation and engagement. model 7 was therefore created based on a modification of model 6, with the two domains subsumed under the overarching category of civic orientation and engagement. the first of these domains, a composite of community commitment and understanding and sense of social responsibility, reflects concern for societal level issues. the second domain, caring and respect, reflects interpersonal-level sensitivity. acceptable goodness of fit was found between the data and model 7, albeit with an aic that was larger than for model 4. both the 11-domain model without overarching categories (model 4) and the 10-domain model with four overarching categories (model 7) were found to be invariant in terms of factor structure, factor loadings, factor coefficients, and factor correlations between male and female groups in the sample, indicating the stability of both models across gender (schumacker & lomax, 1996). the results, indicating preference for 11 over 15 developmental domains, confirmed the previous efa findings of snell and lau (2020). specifically in model 4, creativity and problem solving skills were combined into creative problem solving skills; relationship skills and team skills were combined under relationship and team skills; community understanding and commitment to community were integrated under the community commitment and understanding; and empathy and caring for others along with respecting diversity were subsumed under caring and respect. the four overarching categories confirmed in model 7 are consistent with typologies of the major developmental outcomes of service-learning in the past literature, which include academic enhancement, personal growth and civic learning (e.g. driscoll et al., 1996; elyer & giles, 1999; elyer et al., 2001; felton & clayton, 2011). model 7 also includes self-awareness as an overarching category, which was created by snell & lau (2020) to capture the developmental outcomes associated with confucian self-cultivation, which has influenced tertiary education policy in hong kong. at the developmental outcome domain level, model 7 further reduces the number of domains from 11 to 10, by combining sense of social responsibility with community commitment and understanding. in summary, by comparing the 11and 15-domain structure through cfa with a new sample, the current study confirmed that s-loms can be structured as an 11-domain model (model 4) without an overarching category level, which was a better fit with the data than the alternative models. nonetheless, the study also offered some support for a model with 10 developmental outcome domains under four overarching categories (model 7), resembling the findings of past literature. multi-sample analysis indicated that both model 4 and model 7 were stable across male and female groups in the current sample. practical implications because of the satisfactory factor validity and internal consistency reported above, s-loms offers flexibility in how the developmental impacts on students engaging in service-learning can © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23920 | august 14, 2020 24 be measured, with a number of options besides using the entire 56-item scale. for example, an instructor with a specific interest only in the two developmental outcome domains of critical thinking skills, which has three items, and creative problem-solving skills, which has eight items, need only use those 11 items for measurement, thereby streamlining the data collection process. another example is that an investigator, who wishes to focus on measuring impact within the overarching category of civic orientation and engagement need only use the 18 associated items instead of the entire s-loms. thus, s-loms can be administrated flexibly in accordance with instructors’ or researchers’ needs. overall scores for any particular developmental outcome domain can be derived by averaging the scores of the associated items. it is assumed that investigators would adopt a pretest-posttest research design for measuring developmental impacts. limitations and further studies the first limitation lies in the level of fitness of the models in the current study. although both model 4 and 7 achieved acceptable goodness of fit indices (i.e..90 or above for nnfi and cfi ), they did not meet the satisfactory level, which is .95 for nnfi and cfi indices (hu & bentler, 1999). further studies should apply s-loms into more new samples to test whether consistently satisfactory goodness of fit indices can be obtained, and if so, discover what modifications are necessary in order to achieve this. the second limitation arises from the multivariate nonnormality of the data from the current sample, resulting in bias over the ml methods in model estimation. despite our attempt to apply corrections through yuan-bentler correction with the fiml method, other researchers have stated that better results can be achieved by adopting a two-stage robust method for non-normal missing data (e.g. tong, zhang, & yuan, 2014), and further studies can consider adopting the latter approach. third, the numerous factor correlations and factor coefficients exceeding .85 that were found for both model 4 and model 7 warrant attention. they imply poor discriminant validity (brown, 2015) and may raise questions about the unique predictive validity of their individual factor. further research is thus required into the predictive validity of s-loms's domains and categories. further limitations, in the case of model 7, concern the high factor coefficients between the 10 domains and their corresponding overarching categories, as well as the high factor correlations between the overarching categories. this phenomenon matches the observation by snell and lau (2020) that although the four overarching categories are conceptually distinct, they are empirically inter-related. the limitation of high factor correlations and coefficients suggests that s-loms may need further refinement, and that there is scope for testing a set of simplified models against data from new samples. despite the above limitations, the current study has provided empirical evidence about the construct validity of s-loms, from which further validation work can be done. the next steps being undertaken include validating test-retest reliability over an interval of time, and testing © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23920 | august 14, 2020 25 criterion validity by administering s-loms under a pretest-posttest design with service-learning as the intervention in between. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23258| january 2, 2020 26 author note this paper results from a cross-institutional project named “cross-institutional capacity building for service-learning in hong kong higher education institutions (polyu4/t&l/16-19)” which aims to enhance and support the development of service-learning as an effective pedagogical strategy under the collaboration of lingnan university, the hong kong polytechnic university, hong kong baptist university, and the education university of hong kong. the project was launched in 2017 and has been funded by the university grants committee (ugc) of the hong kong special administrative region (hksar) government. the authors wish to thank the ugc for funding the project, and the above institutions for their participation in the process of scale development and validation. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23920 | august 14, 2020 27 references astin, a. w., & sax, l. j. 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(2012). a meta-analysis on the effects of service-learning on the social, personal, and cognitive outcomes of learning. academy of management learning & education, 11(1), 9–27. https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2010.0072. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23920 | august 14, 2020 32 appendix 1. items, developmental domains and overarching categories of s-loms items no in scale domain* item category: knowledge application 019 knowledge application i know how to transfer knowledge and skills from one setting to another. 026 knowledge application i can make connections between theory and practice. 061 knowledge application i am able to apply/integrate classroom knowledge to deal with complex issues. 066 knowledge application i know how to apply what i learn in class to solve real-life problems. category: personal and professional skills 008 relationship skills i am good at building relationships between people. 051 relationship skills i can easily establish effective relationships with people. 068 relationship skills i can build long-term relationships with people. 072 relationship skills i am good at keeping in touch with people. 021 team skills i have the necessary skills for making groups or organizations function effectively. 037 team skills i am good at resolving conflicts. 077 team skills i am confident in leading others toward common goals. 087 team skills i participate effectively in group discussions and activities. 030 problem-solving skills i am able to solve challenging real-life problems. 044 problem-solving skills i feel confident in dealing with a problem. 059 problem-solving skills i often modify my strategies to solve a problem when the situation changes. 100 problem-solving skills i feel confident in identifying the core of a problem. 029 creativity i am not afraid of trying new things. 048 creativity i am able to generate original ideas. 058 creativity i am able to look at an issue from a fresh perspective. 092 creativity when necessary, i can think of alternatives. 014 self-reflection i always think how i can improve myself. 070 self-reflection i will evaluate myself after completing a task. 073 self-reflection i consider circumstances when reflecting on how well i have performed. 093 self-reflection i reflect on myself regularly. 001 critical thinking skills i can analyze an issue comprehensively. 007 critical thinking skills i often look at complex issues from different angles. 022 critical thinking skills i can understand others' viewpoints when we are making decisions together. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23920 | august 14, 2020 33 category: civic orientation and engagement 040 commitment to social betterment i think about how i can serve the community after graduating. 047 commitment to social betterment i will play my part to reduce social problems. 049 commitment to social betterment i always actively discuss possible improvements for our community. 091 commitment to social betterment i will contribute my abilities to make the community a better place. 045 understanding community i can identify challenges in the community. 094 understanding community i can investigate the challenges faced by people in need in a community. 098 understanding community i can identify issues that are important for a disadvantaged community. 101 understanding community i can identify useful resources of a community. 005 respecting diversity i can respect people whose background is different from mine. 046 respecting diversity i am willing to try to understand people whose background is different from mine. 067 respecting diversity i respect the needs of people from different backgrounds. 084 respecting diversity i appreciate the ideas of people from different backgrounds. 032 empathy and caring for others i observe others' feelings and emotions. 079 empathy and caring for others i consider others' points of view. 085 empathy and caring for others i care about others. 015 sense of social responsibility i believe that taking care of people who are in need is everyone’s responsibility. 023 sense of social responsibility i feel obligated to help those who are less fortunate than me. 027 sense of social responsibility i believe that everybody should be encouraged to participate in civic affairs. category: self-awareness 034 self-efficacy most things i do, i do well. 050 self-efficacy i have many good qualities. 060 self-efficacy i am satisfied with my achievement so far. 075 self-efficacy i am positive about myself. 006 self-understanding i have a clear picture of what i am like as a person. 010 self-understanding i know my strengths and weaknesses. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23920 | august 14, 2020 34 025 self-understanding i have a clear understanding of my own values and principles. 063 self-understanding i know what i need in my life. 069 commitment to selfimprovement i am always motivated to learn. 083 commitment to selfimprovement i always keep my knowledge and skills up-to-date. 090 commitment to selfimprovement i look out for new skills or knowledge to acquire. notes: * in model 4, the following higher order domains were formed: 1) creative problem solving skills, by creativity and problem solving skills; 2) relationship & team skills, by relationship skills & team skills; 3) community commitment & understanding, by commitment to social betterment and understanding community; and 4) caring and respect, by empathy and caring for others and respecting diversity. in model 7, an additional composite domain was formed, namely community commitment and understanding and sense of social responsibility, by combining sense of social responsibility and community commitment & understanding. original research © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24210 | february 15, 2021 78 hierarchical microaggressive intersectionalities: small stories of women of color in higher education kathryn young1 and myron anderson2 1 school of education, metropolitan state university of denver, 2 office of inclusive excellence, university of texas san antonio cite as: young, k. & anderson, m. (2021). hierarchical microaggressive intersectionalities: small stories of women of color in higher education. metrpolitan universities, 32(1), 78-103. doi: 10.18060/24210 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract this article uses methods from narrative analysis to consider how the macro-level experiences of racism and sexism appear in micro-level small stories about hierarchical microaggressive intersectionalities (hmi) in higher education. small stories shared by university faculty and administrators reveal that microaggressions were simultaneously experienced along the lines of race, gender and role in the institution. themes emerge that link deprofessionalization, invisibility, and fatigue to these small stories. on a nuanced level, the narratives in this paper demonstrate how broader societal notions of women’s and women of color’s roles in institutions translate into a negative campus climate for those who experience hmi. keywords: campus climate, equity, diversity, cultural competence higher education, race, gender, microaggressions, institutional development https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24210 | february 15, 2021 79 introduction nobody in their right mind is going to call me the n-word. …, because true racism is being able to have power over somebody else. so that doesn't happen to me that way. it shows up for me if i'm in a boardroom or situations where i'm the only woman or i'm the only african american person within a hundred mile radius. i can see in the energy of the people there, they don't sense that i should be holding one of those seats. i can sense that. but i can never tell. is it racism? is it sexism? —oprah winfrey this quote exemplifies a phenomenon experienced through living in a stratified society – receiving racial and gender microaggressions in the workplace. even though there are women in positions of power in organizations, there remain moments in their work-lives where their race or gender or both are called into question in relation to the role they hold. this becomes even more problematic when it is difficult for the person experiencing the microaggression to name the form of discrimination being experienced due to its nuance, like in oprah’s quote above. researchers have exposed the multiple marginalities experienced by women of color on institutional campuses (e.g. turner, 2002). this paper dives into a specific way that these multiple marginalities manifest as hierarchical microaggressive intersectionalities. hierarchical microaggressive intersectionalities (hmi) are those everyday slights found in higher education that communicate systemic valuing (or devaluing) of a person due to the interplay between their institutional role and their other identity categories like race and class. hierarchical indicates how the position held at an institution indicates value for those who work in the institution, microaggressive indicates the impact of discriminatory experiences, and intersectionalities indicates how the women do not just experience microaggressions with one aspect of their identity, but often through many aspects of their identity simultaneously. the goal of this study is to answer the question: what can be learned about campus climate from how women in higher education explain hierarchical microaggressive intersectionalities against them? this paper problematizes the ways in which important aspects of institutional actors’ personal and professional identities intertwine in the use of their small stories. it also theorizes the role hmi play in campus climate in order to better understand how multiple systems of oppression (collins, 2000) intersect and interact for women in higher education. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24210 | february 15, 2021 80 literature review research into microaggressions is situated in the larger body of research into campus climate and informs a discrete, yet pervasive, experience of women (of color) in higher education, that of feeling unwelcome, devalued, and under-acknowledged because of their role and their race and their gender (e.g. solórzano, ceja, & yosso, 2000). a negative climate impacts recruitment and retention of faculty, staff, and administrators from historically marginalized groups (turner, gonzalez, & wong, 2011). they report unequal treatment in “hiring, work expectations, and promotion and tenure resulting in increased stress, decreased job satisfaction, and attrition” (lutz, hassouneh, akeroyd, & beckett, 2013, p. 129). additionally, women of color in higher education experience the intersection of racism and sexism resulting in increased marginalization and isolation (ahmed, 2012; sulé, 2011; turner, gonzález, & wong, 2011). this study builds from microaggression, hierarchical microaggression, and intersectionality research. the term microaggression is used to describe, “brief and commonplace daily verbal, behavioral, or environmental indignities, whether intentional or unintentional, that communicate hostile, derogatory, or negative racial slights and insults toward people of color” (pierce, carew, perce-gonzalez, & willis, 1978; sue, capodilupo, torino, bucceri, holder, nadal, & esquilin, 2007, p. 271). this microaggression definition has expanded to include not just racial slights, but slights against other identity markers like gender identity, sexual identity, disability, etc. (basford, offermann, & behrend, 2013; lewis, mendenhall, harwood, & huntt, 2013; nadal, 2013; torres-harding, andrade, & romero diaz, 2012). early microaggression researchers examined the effects of “differentials in power and privilege” (hurtado, arellano, griffin, & cuellar, 2008, p. 217) between students from dominant racial backgrounds and those historically underrepresented at institutions, yet there is limited examination of how employees, who spend even more time on university campuses than students, experience microaggressions (christensen-mandel, 2019; young, anderson, & stewart, 2015). a few studies represent faculty experiences with microaggressions (boysen, 2012; constantine, smith, redington, & owens, 2008; pittman, 2012), and others show the experiences of microaggressions of university administrators (alabi, 2014; garvey & drezner, 2013; young, anderson, & stewart, 2015). employees, much like students, experience varying degrees of power and privilege on college campuses; their powers and privileges often relate to their professional roles. some roles are thought of as more or less significant, with higher or lower importance (ingram, 2006). in many ways the importance of the role impacts the importance of the person who holds that role (hirt, 2006). importance translates into a value judgment on the person who holds that role, with people in less-valued roles treated as less-valued people (fuller, 2003). role often becomes the defining identity at institutions since higher education organizes employees into three main groups: faculty, staff, and administrators, each representing different © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24210 | february 15, 2021 81 aspects within the academic hierarchy (christensen-mandel, 2019). slights in the university context impact employees emotionally and physically, and reflect the goals and values reflected through campus climate (hurtado, arellano, griffin, & cuellar, 2008). nixon (2017) shares stories of female chief diversity officers (cdo) who must navigate microaggressions as part of their role at their universities and how they must balance competing expectations related to their identity and role. she notes how these cdo’s experiences parallel other values on campuses. young, anderson, and stewart (2015) point to the unique type of microaggressions found on university campuses hierarchical microaggressions to represent the everyday slights found in higher education that communicate systemic (de)valuing of an employee because of the institutional role held by that person. findings from this study indicate four main types of hierarchical microaggressions: (1) valuing/devaluing based on role/credential, (2) changing accepted behavior based on role, (3) actions (ignoring/excluding/surprise/interrupting) related to role, and (4) terminology related to work position. one aspect missing from the microaggression literature and that of hierarchical microaggressions is the intersection between genres of microaggressions. how do race and gender microaggressions overlap, interact, and weigh on each other? how does the literature explain microaggressions that engage with more than one identity category simultaneously? the literature on intersectionality addresses these intersections and overlaps. intersectionality theorists examine the interactions of co-occurring systems of oppression (collins, 2000; crenshaw, 1989). intersectionality is not just about examining personal identities, but also about examining the institutions that use identities to exclude, include, and privilege (crenshaw, 2015). researchers have examined the relationship between social identities and personal identities (jones, 1997; shields, 2008). other researchers examine race and social class (liebow 2002; sung 2013), disability and race (hill 1994; stuart 1992), disability and gender (thomas 1999; thomson 1997; wendell 1996), gender and race (collins 2000; hooks 1994), disability and sexuality (meyer 2002), and intersectionality and higher education (dill, 2009; winkle-wagner, 2009). critical race feminists examine how race, ethnicity, nationality, and other identities shape how gender is experienced in higher education and in other organizations (cho, 1997; gilmore, 2003; montoya, 2003). these researchers all highlight the importance of not assuming that people of any given category have similar experiences, although they do recognize the need to be “strategically essentialist—to speak as a group (as asian women, for example) when it is politically necessary to do so” (ropers-huilman, & winters, 2011, p. 669). examining multiple oppressions simultaneously explains how similar experiences on the surface can be more or less oppressive depending on salient identities in context, like having a student call a professor by their first name can be a sign of a strong relationship or a sign of disrespect (ropers-huilman & winters, 2011). © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24210 | february 15, 2021 82 critics of microaggression research, most notably lilienfeld (2017), have asked about the imprecise nature of microaggressions and have queried the psychological nature of these claims – why should we believe how someone feels about their interactions when they may be wrong. lileinfeld notes that people might disagree about naming an experience as a microaggression. he concludes that this disagreement indicates a lack of nuance in the research to tease out definitively if something is or is not a microaggression. researchers have responded to these sorts of critiques (e.g. mcclure & rini, 2019; sue, 2018). mcclure and rini (2019) explain how theoretical investigations often fall into three types of investigations: psychological, experiential, and structural. critiques, like those of lilienfeld (2017), ignore the structural aspects of microaggressions. examining microaggressions from a structural perspective explains not just how someone “feels” about the microaggression, but also places the microaggression as a structural component of racism or sexism. a structural analysis of microaggressions reveals that people who experience microaggressions are also often from groups who are hired less, promoted less, have higher levels of stress once in academic, etc (e.g. solórzano, 2018). microaggressions are psychological and structural. smith, yosso, and solórzano (2006) hint at an intersectional analysis of microaggressions when they define microaggressions in part as “layered insults based on race, gender, class, sexuality, language, immigration status, phenotype, accent, or surname” (pg. 300). pérez, huber, and solórzano (2015) have also interrogated this idea through their taxonomy of microaggressions. layered insults evoke the same image of piling up of co-occurring oppressions as argued by collins (2000). watson (2007) similarly explains how “individuals have a range of identities with different ones acquiring salience in different contexts” (pg. 372). watson points to the fluidity of identity categories, another aspect of intersectionality. holling (2019) actively describes intersections of race, gender, and institutional roles as she examines her experiences with being labeled “intimidating” in the academy. she notes that, “power derives not only from primary identity categories but also from institutional role, rank, and/or status” (p. 107). this study extends analysis like that of holling (2019) and adds to it through examination of hmi. three ways that hmi indicate structural disadvantage for women and women of color are deprofessionalization, (racial battle and gender) fatigue, and invisibility. deprofessionalization women, and women of color, in higher education have shared their stories and been the focus of research about what it means to not be treated like a professional when one’s role is to be a professional (gutiérrez y muhs, flores niemann, gonzález, harris, & gonzalez, 2012). black faculty are racially stereotyped at work and are expected to entertain their colleagues in ways not expected of their white counterparts (mcgee & kazembe, 2015). professors who study issues related to race are assumed to be less credible, less serious, and less rigorous than colleagues who study other research areas; this is especially true for african american professors who study © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24210 | february 15, 2021 83 race (thompson & louque, 2005). faculty of color and female faculty do, and are expected to do, a disproportionate amount of service work like mentoring and advising students and junior faculty, serving as a faculty advisor for campus clubs, and being on committees (nicol & yee, 2017; nixon, 2017). in courses, students are less likely to take female faculty of color seriously as academics as they do not fit traditional expectations of what a professor should be (i.e., white and male). students, not seeing female faculty of color as professionals, are more likely to challenge course content (ford, 2011). faculty of color, administrators of color, and women of various backgrounds face students, other faculty, and administrators who assume a lack of qualification for or capability of faculty work or administrative work, and then must hide their feelings of frustration and annoyance that result from being treated as less than a professional over and over in the workday. the message these women receive is that they do not belong and cannot do the work – they are not professionals. fatigue women in higher education are professionally exhausted. racial battle fatigue (rbf) is described as “social-psychological stress responses (e.g., frustration, anger, exhaustion, physical avoidance, psychological or emotional withdrawal, escapism, acceptance of racist attributions)” (smith, allen, & danley, 2007, p. 552) associated with being a person of color and the repeated target of racism. constant race-based discrimination can produce emotional, psychological, and physiological distress and cover up the consequences of discrimination on the material realities of marginalized faculty. rbf is the cumulative effect of being “on guard” and having to continually be prepared to respond to insults, both subtle and covert. faculty from marginalized groups often discuss having an “arsenal of responses” as tools of self-protection from racial macro and microaggressions (smith, yosso, & solórzano, 2008). gender fatigue is the fatigue of trying to mentally construct workplaces as gender neutral despite the continued evidence of gender discrimination and the powerlessness to change these structures of reproduction (kelan, 2009). invisibility faculty of color, women of color, and other women, have all pointed to their invisibility in higher education (constantine, smith, redington, & owens, 2008; ford, 2011). this invisibility is often enacted by others seeing or not seeing marginalized groups (ford, 2011). taylor states, “our identity is partly shaped by recognition or its absence, often by the misrecognition of others, and so a person or group of people can suffer real damage, real distortion, if the people or society around them mirror back to them a confining or demeaning or contemptible picture of themselves. nonrecognition or misrecognition can inflict harm, can be a form of oppression, imprisoning someone in a false, distorted, and reduced mode of being” (taylor, 1992, p. 25). nonrecognition or misrecognition relates to the power and privilege of the person who does not © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24210 | february 15, 2021 84 see another. invalidating personhood through nonrecognition or misrecognition is argued to restrict faculty of color’s influence on their schools and on their school culture (hassouneh, akeroyd, lutz, & beckett, 2012). researcher positionality i am a white, female, middle class, professor. i have not held a position of leadership like chair of a department. as narrative research is interpretive, my background and biases must be clarified (merriam, 2009). i have certainly received hmi related to my age, gender, and role, but not related to my race. i personally know the feeling of wondering, “did that really just happen?” “am i going to be supported in reporting such a ‘small’ transgression?” given that i have many non-marginalized identities, identities that are associated with privilege and power at an institution, i can go many days without experiencing a microaggression. i cannot say the same for many of my colleagues of color. i am a black, male, middle class, administrator and professor. i have held leadership positions like vice president for inclusive excellence, associate chair of the teacher education department and professor within the school of education. as narrative research is interpretive, my background and biases must be clarified (merriam, 2009). i have certainly received hmi related to my age, gender, race, and role. i have experienced the feelings of wondering, “wow, that really just happened” and “is this action a one-time thing or is this who they really are and i will have to deal with these negative slights throughout the relationship?” although there are very few spaces where my marginalized identities may be minimized, there is almost never a day that goes by where i do not experience microaggressions. methods in order to answer what can be learned about campus climate from how women in higher education explain hierarchical microaggressive intersectionalities against them we used a purposeful sample and analyzed small stories from the sample using critical discourse analysis. research context metropolitan state university of denver (msu) is an urban, land-grant university in a mountainous region of the united states. this university leads the state in enrolling a diverse student body and employing a diverse faculty. msu denver has about 20,000 students, 95% of whom are in-state. 46% of undergraduates are students of color, 56% are the first in their family to go to college, nearly 80% of students work full or part time, and nearly one-half are pelleligible. the institution was designated as a hispanic serving institution in 2019. the demographics of msu denver’s full-time faculty population is made up of 74% white, 10% © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24210 | february 15, 2021 85 hispanic or latinx, 5% african american, 8% asian, 2% bior multi-racial, <1% american indian or alaskan native, 0% native hawaiian or pacific islander and 1% other. 52% of fulltime faculty identify as female and 48% identify as male (u.s. department of education, 2017). the demographics of msu denver’s administrative staff population identifies as 67% white, 17% hispanic or latinx, 5% african american, 6% asian, 3% bior multi-racial, <1% american indian or alaskan native, <1% native hawaiian or pacific islander, and 1% other. 62% of administrators identify as female and 38% identify as male (u.s. department of education, 2017). data sources although limited in scope, this exploratory study grew out of a case study of cultural competence trainings for supervisors. in the original study a total of 191 examples of microaggressions were gathered from phrases written on butcher paper (young, anderson, & stewart, 2015). in the original study the researchers used sue et al. (2007) microaggression theoretical framework to examine data from the cultural competence trainings. unfortunately, this data came in the form of phrases written on butcher paper. many of the phrases did not provide enough detail to examine race, gender, and role simultaneously. the authors extend the original data sources by collecting a purposeful sample and invited known female faculty and administrators to share personal examples of microaggressions. each of these women had participated in a cultural competence learning community for staff, administrators, and faculty with the researcher. nine of the ten had been participants in the supervisor trainings as well. they were chosen because they already knew about the concept of microaggressions and would be able to provide examples if they had any of microaggressions at work. they were individually emailed and asked: “if you have 5 minutes, can you jot down an example of a microaggression that has happened to you or someone you know related to role intersecting with an identity characteristic and send it to me.” all ten people who were asked responded with small stories within ten minutes. participants ten women participated in this research. seven self-identify as people of color and three selfidentify as white. three hold the role of faculty, four hold the role of administrator, and three are both faculty and administrators as they are department chairs. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24210 | february 15, 2021 86 table 1. participants race gender role person of color woman faculty white woman administrator/ faculty white woman administrator/ faculty person of color woman faculty person of color woman administrator person of color woman administrator person of color woman administrator person of color woman faculty person of color woman administrator white woman administrator/ faculty data analysis the authors employ a narrative approach to understand the types of microaggressions experienced by women in higher education related to the role they hold at the institution. in this study narrative analysis through the lens of small stories helps explain the value in using emails as a source of data. narrative researchers connect the lives and stories of individuals to social phenomena and to dominant discourses (watson, 2007). these language practices help the teller to (re)construct their identity in their current social, cultural, and historical contexts (gover, 2003). stories are constructed by a narrator who chooses from their experiences and orders the events in a meaningful way, an order that considers her own interpretation of those experiences. narrative can be thought of as an interpretation of reality rather than a direct reflection of that reality (dyer and keller-cohen, 2000). the use of (counter) story telling is also a key component of critical race theory (crt) and critical race feminism (crf) because these counter-stories challenge the silence of “race-neutral” storytelling. these small stories help faculty and administrators from marginalized groups discuss the race-related and gender-related stress they experience at institutions. these narratives give voice to the marginalizing experiences and oppressions that can occur at the intersections of race, class, gender, role, and sexual orientation in higher education. these narratives start to capture the complex components of individuals’ experiences related to their personal and professional identities. small stories come from a need to share what just happened and to use that sharing to construct a sense of who someone is in the moment (bamberg & georgakopoulou, 2008). the immediacy of email works for the ability to share in the moment. small stories act as sites of identity work because they exist between fine grained microanalysis and macro accounts of events in © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24210 | february 15, 2021 87 narratives (bamberg & georgakopoulou, 2008). small stories play an important role in professional identity development (grossi and gurney, 2019). the small stories in this study were evaluated using critical discourse analysis (cda). cda is a methodology that focuses on the constructions of identity and marginality and works well to help explain faculty’s and administrators’ small stories in the larger context of what the stories have to do with campus climate (dey & associates, 2010). cda researchers argue that language is a form of social practice in relation to how power, inequality, and dominance are maintained or resisted in talk and in text (janks, 1997; van dijk, 2008). the authors use critical discourse analysis with an intersectional lens to understand how small stories uncover institutional inequality through discourse (fairclough, 1993, 2013; gee, 2000). analysis begins with determining if each of the emails fits the qualifications of a small story and all did (bamberg & georgakopoulou, 2008). inductive thematic analysis was then applied to the small stories to let themes rise to the surface (miles & huberman, 1994). the authors then returned to microaggression, hierarchical microaggression, and intersectionality literature and mapped the themes in the stories back to themes in the literature using deductive analysis. the deductive themes that occurred across the data and in the literature became the robust themes presented in this paper (charmaz, 2006, glaser & strauss, 1976). the themes of invisibility, (racial battle and gender) fatigue, and deprofessionalization were found. the next step was to reconstitute the stories and examine the interplay between invisibility, fatigue, and deprofessionalization within each small story. returning to the small story as complete pieces for analysis situates the individual’s lived experience in its larger institutional location, something which the themes alone cannot do (jones, kim, & skendall, 2012). findings the purposeful sample’s small stories elicited three main themes: (a) deprofessionalization, (b) fatigue, and (c) invisibility. seven of the ten stories evoked fatigue, five of the ten small stories evoked deprofessionalization, and five evoked invisibility/ erasure. six of the ten stories reflected two themes and two of the ten reflected all three themes. the participant’s race was not an important factor in the number of themes reflected in each small story. an example of deprofessionalization: in giving my opinion how we needed to improve the services for freshmen students of diverse backgrounds…a highly seasoned dr. person, stated “you only have a masters in higher education right”? because the research says people of color fail due to …” .i don’t know, remember the rest. i felt mad. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24210 | february 15, 2021 88 this person indicates how someone denigrated her level of education in the exchange. her quality of work and perhaps even her intellect was called into question. this exchange provoked an emotional response that made the respondent forget the end of the conversation. an example of fatigue: consequently, whenever i met with this committee, i always had to overly prepare and anticipate the potential “picking” at me. this person indicates how she always must overprepare when meeting with a specific committee. she must emotionally steel herself to be potentially picked on in the committee. it is exhausting to have to be more prepared than others and to enter meetings steeled against being treated badly. an example of invisibility: a colleague comes to talk about departmental issues and every issue is about a female colleague. and i am a female in leadership. this person remarks how the other colleague sees her only as her position of leadership. they do not even question how sharing issues related to gender repeatedly might reflect on the gender of the person in leadership as well. her gender is invisible to the colleague. the themes were helpful in dissecting shared experiences across this group of women and in demonstrating how these experiences are microaggressive. however, until the themes are reconstituted back into small stories, they cannot show hmi experiences for the individuals. in the next section, we use one small story to demonstrate the interplay of these themes. below, a women faculty of color shares her small story and through critical discourse analysis (cda) we can see evidence of deprofessionalization, racial battle fatigue and invisibility. the authors used underlining and notations with a key to note deprofessionalization and invisibility in this small story. this faculty member wrote: students and fellow faculty refusing (1) to refer to me as dr. anton (name changed) even when they refer to others with their full titles (2).....choosing instead to call me "miss anton" or just "anton" even after i have corrected them several times. being absolutely invisible to some faculty (3a). nearly bumping right into me (3b) or speaking to everyone else in the room except me in polite conversation (3c). even © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24210 | february 15, 2021 89 standing at the bathroom sink and not speaking to me at all (3d) when they work with me on a daily basis not faculty that i don't know very well, no, faculty that i work with every day (4). or walking up to someone that i am currently speaking to and starting up a conversation with the same person that i was speaking to without even saying "excuse me" or "could i butt in for just a moment" (5).....just completely acting like i don't exist or like they don't see me when i am a big, round, brown woman in the room who is probably wearing a bright color like turquoise or purple or orange or yellow (6). there is no way that you just didn't "see" me unless you were trying to ignore me. (7) (1) active verbs on the part of the microaggressor: refusing, choosing, bumping, speaking, standing, walking, saying, acting, trying – indicating fatigue at always having to maneuver around others so actively trying to exclude her. (2) not using the formal address given to other faculty, even after correction – deprofessionalization (3a) stated invisibility (3b) example of invisibility (3c) example of invisibility (3d) example of invisibility (4) implied disrespect because it is known colleagues ignoring her – deprofessionalization (5) stated invisibility in two quick phrases (6) explaining how not seeing her would be impossible – invisibility (7) stated invisibility and implied deprofessionalization through showing that the faculty is not worth talking to. in only 196 words, this faculty member demonstrated how often she actively becomes deprofessionalized by students and faculty who are not willing to call her “dr.” (ford, 2011; gutiérrez y muhs et. al., 2012) and how she becomes invisible – remarking eight times in this short excerpt how people willfully ignore her physical presence; she is experiencing “intersectional invisibility” (crenshaw, 1991). she later says, “i could go on and on” indicating the fatigue she experiences from many similar interactions. further, the fact that she could go on and on demonstrates that this story is a form of generic or habitual small story, which communicates how common this type of interaction is for anton (georgakopoulou, 2008). limitations although a purposeful sample expedites data collection, pulls from a population that is easily accessible, and provides information-rich data related to the phenomenon of interest, purposeful sampling does not offer a robust enough method to generalize from the findings. this technique © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24210 | february 15, 2021 90 also allows for the introduction of sampling and researcher bias as the sample often does not reach a broad enough participant base (nowell, norris, white, & moules, 2017). as this is an exploratory study using a purposeful sample, future studies will be needed to increase the trustworthiness through “prolonged engagement, persistent observation, data collection triangulation, and researcher triangulation” of these findings. for this study, transparency of the analysis and not extending the results to the global population is necessary. the small sample size of small stories in this study results in our lack of ability to speak to certain theoretically important considerations. for example, there was no variation in race/ethnicity relative to participant role in the themes of the small stories in this study. given the literature in this area, one would expect variation and a larger sample size would be better able to tease out this relationship. discussion workers prefer for their identities to not matter for interactions at work (winkle-wagner, 2009). this exploratory study however, shows how workplace interactions can be fraught with hmi, negative slights related to intersectional identities and the roles these women hold, when they are just trying to get their work done. this and other small stories evidence fatigue, invisibility, and deprofessionalization in interaction with these women’s professional roles. although others may not intend to ignore anton, the impact on anton by repeatedly being ignored and not treated like a professional impacts how she feels as a professional. if small stories are a way to create a sense of who someone is in their professional sphere, then anton’s professional sense of self is deeply, negatively impacted through these experiences (bamberg & georgakopoulou 2008). she is tired and disrespected. there is no doubt that the campus climate for anton is not a uniformly positive experience. she might not know if she is being disrespected for being a woman, a woman of color, a faculty of color, or some combination of these, and spending time trying to figure out why she is not treated as a professional by students and her peers keeps her from focusing on being productive in other ways (mahtani, 2004; sue, 2010; sue et. al., 2007; wong, derthick, david, saw, & okazaki, 2013). this not knowing why she receives such treatment is a key component of microaggressions. she also does not know exactly how her role, gender, and race intersect for her to receive such unprofessional behaviors from others that force her to question her role at the university –a strong example of hierarchical microaggressive intersectionality. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24210 | february 15, 2021 91 in nixon (2017), the researcher shares an anecdote from a woman of color, faculty member: melissa shared the frustration she feels when her ideas receive less credibility from her senior colleagues, and she wonders if that has to do with her race, her gender, her lack of faculty standing, or the ideas themselves (p. 310). melissa, just like oprah in the introduction, wonders what aspect of her personal or professional identity is provoking a microaggression from her colleagues. she questions her “lack of faculty standing” – hierarchy; her race and gender – intersectionality; and even the ideas themselves –a key component of microaggressions – the uncertainty related to all these identities (sue et. al., 2007; sue, 2010; wong et. al., 2014), but really, for melissa, all her identities are being questioned simultaneously. anton shares an example that evokes her blackness and her womanliness at the end of her small story of invisibility and deprofessionalization as a further example of how identity intertwines with deprofessionalization, fatigue, and invisibility. these quotes from oprah, anton and melissa all provide examples of hmi. these themes map onto role, gender, and race that together may render the microaggressee with a variety of stress responses like “frustration, anger, exhaustion, physical avoidance, psychological or emotional withdrawal, escapism, acceptance of racist attributions” (smith, allen, & danley, 2007, p. 552). understanding these experiences is critical to understanding how to move forward with supporting equity and inclusion in higher education. women, and women of color who experience deprofessionalization, fatigue, and invisibility, might begin to disengage or look elsewhere for work, somewhere that does a better job of supporting their whole selves at work. the small story in the findings section demonstrates how one experience by a woman of color, who is also a faculty member, experiences her various identities attacked simultaneously, not only because of her race, gender, or role, but through all at the same time (watson, 2007). being called by a first name might not be an issue for another faculty member who feels his/her role is more stable, more accepted at a university (ford, 2011; harlow, 2003). in fact, informality could show comradery and be a way to be inclusive. given the historical and current experiences of faculty of color, and women of color at institutions, lack of professional naming acts as a slight (harlow, 2003). repeatedly marginalizing this female faculty of color on a seemingly individual level overlaps with reduction of women of color on campus and relates to power relation on who is “naturally” seen and unseen in professional institutions. it becomes a cumulative burden. this data, through analysis of small stories, shows that women faculty and administrators of color experience the overlapping negative themes of deprofessionalization, invisibility, and fatigue in their professional lives. the research did not question frequency of these experiences, but two of the women of color, one faculty and one administrator, indicated they could go “on © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24210 | february 15, 2021 92 and on” about these sorts of microaggressions, which is consistent with other research on women of color in higher education (lutz et. al., 2013). this paper adds to the microaggression literature by demonstrating how hmi are similar to and different from other microaggressions and how hmi evidence deprofessionalization, fatigue, and invisibility of women of color on campus. this study broadens and deepens our understanding of the complexities of postsecondary education today as the experience of females and people of color and females of color in university leadership continue to struggle with bringing and sharing their full identities in the workplace. this small study is one step towards the call from smedley and faye hutchinson (2012, p. 2) that argues: “despite the difficulty, scholars must continue to struggle with making sense of the messiness of the “daily lived experiences of racism and the subtleties of the racial worldview as they impact on individuals” … “these are the kinds of realities that we must talk about.” the value of this project lies in the explanatory depth and specifics the small stories provide; for it is perception of the experience that matters for experiences on campus as negative or positive, “the perception has real, lived consequences as woc (women of color) navigate race, gender, and power” (ford, 2011, p.473). implications using narrative to examine microaggressions demonstrates how these small stories move respondents “actively between private and public, personal and cultural, past and present” (gover, 2003, abstract) where the hmi they experience takes on a particular hue where the role a person holds, and the hierarchical position of that role, has value tied into the very idea of a university (delgado bernal & villalpando, 2002; walker-canton, 2013). hmi are set against the backdrop of a lack of proportional representation on university campuses and higher education institutions and can make people from marginalized backgrounds feel like outsiders. discrimination creates even more stress and anxiety and amplifies feelings of alienation in a space that is already not representational of people’s identities (cokley et. al., 2017). campus environments can feel unsupportive and racially hostile, these feelings then lead to alienation, dissatisfaction, disidentification as part of the academy, and disengagement. what can be learned about campus climate from how women in higher education explain microaggressions against them? this article, and others like it, share counter-stories so that campus climates become places rooted in empathy, “on the powerful impulse to usher both justice and humanity into everyday social transactions” (runyowa, 2015, para 11) and become places that make structural changes to bring justice and humanity into university-based social interactions. hierarchical microaggressive intersectionalities manifest differently depending on identity contingencies which makes them difficult to address through a “one-size-fits-all” policy © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24210 | february 15, 2021 93 approach, but there are many policy implications that can be considered, many coming from women and women of color in higher education themselves. researchers can focus their inquiry on accounts of lived experiences of people of color and other marginalized groups in professional roles at higher education institutions. we can work to maintain the true and complicated nature of individual and group identities within the research process (carter-sowell & zimmerman, 2015). we can examine the interplay between which identities are more salient in which higher education environments in interactions with systems of power and privilege at higher education institutions. we can, through our research, rend transparent the power in interconnected structures of inequality as a precursor to dismantling the structures (jones, kim, & skendall, 2012). institutions can put at the center of strategic plans and implementation of those plans the experiences and expertise of marginalized groups. they can recruit more women of color simultaneously to alleviate isolation and tokenization (griffin & reddick, 2011; jones, wilder, & osborne-lapkin, 2015; ong, 2005; rockquemore & laszloffy, 2008). they can provide “structural and financial support for professional organizations that serve women and people of color” (ford, 2011, p. 475; turner, gonzález, & wood, 2008). they can engage task forces to closely examine interactional patterns between different groups and institutional policies and procedures that reinforce, inadvertently or purposefully, social exclusion, like the work being done at the university of michigan (jean-marie & lloyd-jones, 2011; sanchez-parkinson, grim, chavous, & ting, 2018). they can further work to reduce hmi by creating proactive and reactive educative spaces that transform policies, processes, programs, and value systems (young & anderson, 2018). ford (2011) reminds us: in order to be effective, change must occur on both the micro(e.g., intergroup interactions; campus climate) and macro(e.g., strategic reform to biased incidents; inclusive hiring, retention, and promotion practices) levels. our challenge is to no longer participate in reproducing hegemonic narratives of difference that limit the professional experiences of woc faculty; instead, we must continue to support counter-hegemonic narratives of resistance and institutional transformation” (p. 475). as institutions strive to reflect the growing diversity of their students with proportional diversity of staff, faculty, and administrators, they must also invest systemically in the supports and policies needed so that no faculty, no administrator, no staff member, no student from an historically marginalized group has to say “i could go on and on” about the microaggressions they experience in higher education. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24210 | february 15, 2021 94 references ahmed, s. 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(2015). hierarchical microaggressions in higher education. journal of diversity in higher education, 8(1), 61-71. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0038464 https://doi.org/10.1080/00221546.2016.11780891 http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0038464 kathryn young1 and myron anderson2 deprofessionalization women, and women of color, in higher education have shared their stories and been the focus of research about what it means to not be treated like a professional when one’s role is to be a professional (gutiérrez y muhs, flores niemann, gonzález, harr... invisibility researcher positionality i am a white, female, middle class, professor. i have not held a position of leadership like chair of a department. as narrative research is interpretive, my background and biases must be clarified (merriam, 2009). i have certainly received hmi relate... the authors employ a narrative approach to understand the types of microaggressions experienced by women in higher education related to the role they hold at the institution. in this study narrative analysis through the lens of small stories helps exp... small stories come from a need to share what just happened and to use that sharing to construct a sense of who someone is in the moment (bamberg & georgakopoulou, 2008). the immediacy of email works for the ability to share in the moment. small storie... the small stories in this study were evaluated using critical discourse analysis (cda). cda is a methodology that focuses on the constructions of identity and marginality and works well to help explain faculty’s and administrators’ small stories in th... analysis begins with determining if each of the emails fits the qualifications of a small story and all did (bamberg & georgakopoulou, 2008). inductive thematic analysis was then applied to the small stories to let themes rise to the surface (miles & ... the next step was to reconstitute the stories and examine the interplay between invisibility, fatigue, and deprofessionalization within each small story. returning to the small story as complete pieces for analysis situates the individual’s lived expe... the small story in the findings section demonstrates how one experience by a woman of color, who is also a faculty member, experiences her various identities attacked simultaneously, not only because of her race, gender, or role, but through all at th... metropolitan universities vol. 30 no. 1 (february 2019), doi: 10.18060/22919 3 the transformative power of anchor institutions emily sladek everyone knows by now that colleges and universities are “anchor institutions”: important place-based engines that play key roles in local economies. but the raw facts of size and place are just the beginning of the story; what matters is not just the fact that anchors have an impact on communities, but what kind of impact they have, and on what terms. it is one thing to be an anchor institution. it is another to consciously and intentionally adopt an anchor mission, leveraging all available institutional and operational resources for community benefit. higher education is charged with creating new knowledge, preparing a workforce, and impelling lifelong civically-engaged learners. as if ensuring delivery of its core mission was not enough, it also must work to eliminate barriers to access, maintain funding and enrollment and graduation rates, and address student debt. as higher education seeks to secure private and public investments, it also contends with the internal organizational challenges of decentralized and siloed operating environments. often, the public is unaware of these complex and nuanced constraints and challenges. as institutions advocate for, and act to ensure, their own survival and success, leveraging their power to dismantle systems of oppression can start to slip outside the frame. branding campaigns or regressive land use, hiring, or contracting policies can fail to center the needs, skills, and assets of long-time residents. highereducation institutions are at risk of sending mixed messages (albeit often unintentional) to their constituencies, which can undermine public trust, student and faculty retention rates, and the ability of campuses to be conscious actors in creating just and livable communities. to grapple with these challenges, higher-education institutions are becoming more disciplined and resourceful in their efforts to identify and build capacity for organization-wide behavioral change. universities are coming together, as communities of learning, to think innovatively and practically about the strategies that will move higher education further along in its pursuit of reciprocal partnerships, democratic engagement, and systemic solutions to inequalities. they are breaking down campus silos to build programs in the areas of small-business development, hiring, procurement, housing and investment practices. they are thinking critically about these assets and about ways to address legacies of disinvestment, instead focusing on advancing racial equity. they are working to engage the campus community, integrating faculty and staff. they are working to measure their impact, and build an evidence base for this work. and they are working to reimagine their relationship to community, engaging with a broader array of stakeholders. this issue of metropolitan universities journal, for which the democracy collaborative was eager to serve as guest editor, highlights a cross-section of key work and critical reflection from across this new field of practice, in particular exploring: • infrastructure and resourcing to support the anchor mission; • alignment of the anchor mission with other strategic priorities, • addressing larger challenges related to structural racism and persistent social and economic inequities. 4 articles in this volume the issue begins by presenting practical “how-to” strategies for implementing an anchor mission. higher education has struggled with how to integrate the anchor mission into teaching and learning. drawing on a mixed-methods research study, johnson kebea of drexel university shares a framework for including students that has the potential to further breakdown institutional silos and better prepare students to be civically minded actors in the workforce. khandros from the economy league of greater philadelphia details the collective impact purchasing strategy which multiple anchors in philadelphia have adopted, with the goals of reducing poverty, improving racial equity, and creating sustainability. moving from practice to theory, the next set of articles explores innovations in organizational theory that align internal decision-making processes with community engagement practices, and offer insights into how to institutionalize the anchor approach. del rio and loggins of the university of san diego argue in favor of a communityand cohesion-based concept for integrating diversity and reciprocity into institutional culture, known as joining. norris and weiss of iupui reflect on lessons learned from the development of athletics programs. they identify effective organizational structures that allow for sustainable and robust partnerships, both within the university and with external community partners. in addition, the article by bergen of marquette university and sladek of the democracy collaborative explores the tensions between different paradigms for community engagement, focusing on the publicgood frameworks, analyses of academic capitalism, and calls to adopt an anchor mission. the final article concludes with a detailed report with recommendations for a successful implementation of an anchor mission, based upon the learning realized in and by the anchor dashboard learning cohort, a community of practice facilitated by the democracy collaborative between the years of 20152018. gomez, sonenshein, espinoza, and fuhrmann share insights gained from adopting an anchor mission at california state university los angeles. they offer suggestions for incorporating upward mobility measures along with examples for community partnership into the anchor dashboard. looking ahead in order for higher education institutions to adopt a truly transformative and authentic anchor mission, leadership and staff must work to align internal operations with community engagement, to limit the ways in which university actions often work at cross-purposes. this requires an “all in” commitment, calling for greater coordination across campus, from external relations to diversity and inclusion. it will also rely on expanding the set of external stakeholders, and joining place-based, collective-impact initiatives. building a movement to embed the anchor approach across the higher-education field will mean continuing to invest in building the body of evidence and monitoring progress on goals. we will need to change day-to-day policies and set the stage for long-term system change. we will need to integrate anchor strategies into teaching and learning, and develop curricular innovations. as universities and colleges deepen their implementation across these areas, a shared commitment to identifying and sharing best practices can help revolutionize and reorient institutional power, in order to build just relationships with local neighbors. microsoft word 002_intro_watson_kebea_24223 final.docx © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24223 | july 20, 2020 3 all in: the urban mission: the 2019 annual cumu conference nyeema c. watson1 and jennifer johnson kebea2 1office of civic engagement, rutgers university-camden, 2 lindy center for civic engagement, drexel university cite as: watson, n.c., & kebea, j.j. (2020) all in: the urban mission: the 2019 annual cumu conference. metropolitan universities, 31(2), 3-6. doi: 10.18060/24223 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities (cumu) celebrated its 25th annual conference in october 2019. convening in philadelphia pa, this conference was the largest for cumu to date, selling out weeks in advance and drawing representatives from across the united states, canada, and south africa. with the theme of all in: the urban mission, attendees gathered purposefully to examine how universities are striving to intentionally align their goals with the priorities of their host cities to affect desired change, drive economic development and inclusion, and address issues of shared importance. philadelphia provided an apropos backdrop for the conference. as the birthplace of american democracy, 18th century philadelphia was the site where our nation’s founding fathers went “all in” on a bold vision for a new and radical form of government. today, in the 21st century, institutions of higher education continue to be bold as they aim to leverage their full power and influence to achieve more robust positive impacts as anchors within their communities. to see the “all in” strategy in action within the philadelphia region, the conference featured four local community experiences hosted by drexel university, rutgers university-camden, temple university, and the university of pennsylvania. these experiences highlighted how all four of these anchor institutions are deeply embedded within their cities, engaging in a variety of community partnerships that focus on addressing community-driven needs. during these experiences, institutions showcased how they address essential topics including economic and workforce development, k-12 education and college pipeline efforts, health and wellness, hunger and homelessness relief, and affordable housing. each institution demonstrated how they engage faculty, staff, and students in these efforts through academic courses, community-based research, and volunteerism. from each experience, it was clear the depth and breadth of institutional commitment to both addressing community needs and enhancing the teaching and research © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24223 | july 20, 2020 4 missions of the university, and gave conference attendees a sense of what an “all in” strategy entails. connecting to the current context the articles featured in this issue take deep dive into many of the themes highlighted during the conference, sharing novel approaches and best practices. each article provides greater context and detail on how universities are deepening their collaborations with community partners to address community needs and implementing strong assessment and research practices to gauge the impact of these partnerships and programs. however, the world in which higher education and community engagement exist is rapidly changing and we must be adept at quickly pivoting to address new needs and challenges as they arise. during the time lapse between the conference to the publication of this journal issue, the united states has found itself in the midst of what is being referred to by many as a triplepandemic. in mid-march 2020 the united states was first rocked with the covid-19 pandemic, which has resulted in more than 120,000 deaths nationally to date. soon thereafter, communities across the country began to feel the tremendous financial fallout from widespread state and economic closures implemented to stop the spread of the virus. the third wave of the pandemic, which has existed since before this nation’s founding, arrived in the form of racial uprisings in the wake of the killings of ahmaud arbery, breonna taylor, and george floyd and the continued racial disparities and mistreatment faced by millions of black people in america on a daily basis. the intertwined and critical nature of this triple-pandemic will undoubtedly change both higher education and the communities it exists within for years and, likely, decades to come. as the guest editors of this journal, we encourage you to read each piece included in this issue, recognize the timeframe and context it was written during, and then consider the current context and reality. what burgeoning issues need to be addressed moving forward as they relate to community engagement in the midst of this triple-pandemic? how do we position higher education to be responsive to complex, interconnected, and evolving realities experienced by the individuals on our campuses and the broader communities we exist within? what role does higher education hold as it pertains to addressing ongoing and systemic inequality in this country and across the globe? these are essential questions that we must grapple with ourselves, at our institutions, and within our communities in order to advance the field and the relevance of our work. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24223 | july 20, 2020 5 in this issue the first piece featured in this issue is authored by euan hague, a professor of geography and director in the school of public service at depaul university in chicago, illinois. hague is the recipient of the 2019 barbara a. holland scholar-administrator award, an award presented annually by cumu that recognizes individuals with a strong record of both administrative leadership and impactful scholarship. in his essay, hague reflects on his 20-year academic journey as a geographer with a deep-rooted orientation towards community engagement and social justice that undergirds and guides his work. the next pair of articles included in this issue focus on efforts locally and globally that aim to support underrepresented, first generation students in making a successful transition to higher education. while there has been a significant increase in the numbers of african american and latinx youth who attend college, they still lag considerably behind their white and asian counterparts. this is due in large part to access to a high quality k-12 education, appropriate preparation as to what to expect when they enter college, and the high cost of college overall. while the desire is there on the part of these young people to go to college, these barriers oftentimes prove insurmountable. however, isabelle cherney, dean of the school of education and social policy at merrimack college, laura douglas, president of bristol community college, ellen fischer, principal of the early college alliance at eastern michigan university, and russell olwell, associate dean of the school of education and social policy at merrimack address these issues by looking at equity focused, student centered dual enrollment programs from the perspective of both two and four year institutions and high schools. using a case study approach the authors show how a well-developed program that focuses on student success from the beginning can provide opportunities not only to prepare these students for the academic rigor of college while in high school, but also allow them to achieve college credits for courses taken during this time that will also reduce time to degree completion and overall college costs. in south africa, the university of pretoria’s mamelodi campus adopted an anchor institution model to address the lingering issues of apartheid by developing community engagement programs focused on increasing access to higher education as a way of ensuring that campus diversity mirrored the diversity in the community. in this article, the authors nthabiseng a. ogude, kgadi c. mathabathe, nosipho mthethwa and regina white from the university of pretoria show how the campus moved from a community engagement model that focused on a collection of community-focused initiatives to an anchor institution model that focused on how the entirety of the university could be used to address the social, educational, and systemic economic challenges of the community of mamelodi. one of the core approaches of this anchor work is how the campus was transformed through the creation of various stem after-school and pipeline efforts as a way of connecting young people to academically rigorous activities that will assist them in having the appropriate academic, social and emotional skills to be successful at the university and a pathway there upon completion of their studies. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24223 | july 20, 2020 6 continuing with a global focus, donna nickitas and nancy pontes from rutgers universitycamden, present a research study that utilized engaged civic learning and social justice frameworks to prepare undergraduate nursing students for work in an increasing global context. the analysis of their study demonstrated that students enrolled in a spanish for health professions course not only increased their spanish language fluency in the medical setting, but also demonstrated marked gains in global perspectives. exploring entrepreneurism in urban environments, silvia garcia and nina ustymchuck from iupui present a research study that examines the interconnectedness of urban entrepreneurism in relation to the community resources available to support the local business community. the research shared in this article utilized a mixed-methods approach to collect data and feedback directly from community residents and business owners, illuminating the significant social capital assets necessary to build a strong culture of entrepreneurship. reflecting on their roles as anchor institutions, jennifer britton, don liberati, and anna d’isidoro from drexel university and jami leveen from aramark, a food, facilities, and uniform service corporation, discuss how they moved from a typical contract-based food supplier relationship to a community-focused, mission-driven partnership that centers on strengthening the economic development of west philadelphia. the article shares the successes and challenges of conceptualizing, developing, and executing a complex university-corporation effort to increase local hiring, supplier diversity initiatives, and local procurement; the policies that need to be put in place to make this relationship work; and a frank conversation about some of the limitations. in the final article of this issue, keristiena dodge and sachin pawaskar, at the university of nebraska omaha (uno), underscore the importance of demonstrating impact through community engagement for higher education institutions. dodge and pawaskar describe uno’s multi-step process to address this critical issue from forming an institutional committee to guide the work, to creating a framework to systematically track, visualize, and share community engagement work and outcomes across the institution and beyond. the article includes a critical reflection and discussion about their process, key learnings, and recommendations for institutions that seek to follow a similar path. metropolitan universities vol. 30 no. 1 (february 2019), doi: 10.18060/22917 69 considering the anchor mission strategy within the competing “regimes” of higher education community engagement daniel j. bergen and emily sladek abstract the concept of the anchor institution, and its subsequent mission, was first considered in the mid-1990s, a time during which the dominant academic culture of higher education was driven by the “public good regime.” the decades since have seen the emergence of the publicengagement knowledge regime, and the academic capitalist regime. this article views the anchor mission strategy through the shifting and competing “regimes” of higher education and considers questions that might arise due to these shifts. anticipating and understanding these questions increase the self-awareness critical to authentic engagement, lower the risk of reifying historical dynamics of power, privilege, and oppression, and elevate the potential for success in advancing the anchor strategy. keywords: markets; economy; regimes; engagement; anchor institutions increasingly, institutions of higher education are reconsidering their community roles more strategically. from research, to teaching, to local investments, and hiring, the advancement of community engagement has elevated institutional interest in the roles universities and colleges can play in their communities. research clearly demonstrates that “colleges and universities have been called to collaborate with their broader communities to address societal issues and needs (boyer, 1990; campus compact, n.d.; carnegie, 2006; weerts & sandman, 2010) and, at the same time, to participate more fully in the free-market economy (nussbaum, 2010; slaughter & rhoades, 2004)” (giles, 2012). institutions have therefore sought profit-generating opportunities (slaughter & rhoades, 2004); political and/or funding pressures (alperin, et. al, 2018); changing racial demographics; enlightened self-interest; or, all/some combination of the aforementioned strategies. universities and colleges continue to be develop and refine strategies for local community engagement. as one key strategy of local community engagement, the movement towards adopting an anchor mission strategy within the evolving spatial boundaries between institutions of higher education and their communities is necessarily fraught with complex tensions around economic and social power and privilege. for these purposes, advocates ought to shape the anchor mission strategy within the descriptive frameworks of the shifting paradigms, or “regimes,” of higher education. this is to ensure the self-awareness critical to authentic engagement, and lower the risk of reifying historical dynamics of power, privilege, and oppression. the anchor mission strategy henry g. cisneros, former secretary of housing and urban development, with contributions from ira harkavy, then director for the center of community partnerships at university of 70 pennsylvania, discussed the basic principles of the “anchor institution” in the 1995 essay, “the university and the urban challenge”. in his essay, changing demographics, globalization, corporate migration to suburbs or overseas, social and economic immobility, create the urban context for what cisneros considers, “the danger of becoming two nations: one with highly skilled, well-paid workers and professionals, and the other with a low-skilled, lowor even nowage, permanent underclass” (cisneros, 1995). the solution that cisneros proposes is to leverage the economic, and intellectual resources of local colleges and universities to revitalize cities, and “help create communities of opportunity.” in theory, by embracing this solution, collaborating with other locally identified anchors, and residents to develop communityand place-based approaches, resources and capacity can be better shared to accomplish collective goals. however, as hodges and dubb (2012) note, “anchor institution strategies may improve the quality of life in target neighborhoods, but without markedly improving the welfare of longtime neighborhood people—frequently low income and people of color—some of whom may move out of the neighborhoods due to increased rental values or rising property taxes”. subsequently, the anchor mission risks continuing to intensify strategies, or justify decisions, that further harm community relations, or fail to create generational wealth for people struggling the most. instead, by understanding the strategy within the shifting and competing “regimes” of contemporary higher education, we can potentially mitigate the risks of harm, and elevate the potential for success. competing “regimes” in utilizing the term “regimes”, we are specifically referring to slaughter and rhoades (2004) use of the competing “knowledge/learning regimes”, and saltmarsh and hartley’s (2016) broader consideration from their chapter, “the inheritance of next generation engaged scholars”, published in publicly engaged scholars: next-generation engagement and the future of higher education. in the chapter, saltmarsh and hartley state, “the language of ‘regimes’ is significant; it is a language of power, privilege, and politics. it constructs an understanding of knowledge generation and of teaching and learning that is inherently political—with consequences for equity and justice in a democracy”. within this context, it is helpful to define the competing regimes, prior to considering how they might inform our approach to the anchor mission strategy. the public good regime “reflects the dominant academic culture of higher education, often characterized as ‘scientific,’ ‘rationalized,’ and ‘objectified,’ meaning that the approach to public problems is predominantly shaped by specialized expertise ‘applied’ externally ‘to’ or ‘on’ the community, providing ‘solutions’ to what has been determined to be the community’s ‘needs’” (saltmarsh & hartley, 2016). arguably, cisneros and harkavy developed the basic principles of the “anchor institution” concept in 1995 under this regime. the academic capitalist regime “values privatization and profit taking in which institutions, inventor faculty, and corporations have claims that come before those of the public,” and holds that “knowledge is constructed as a private good, valued for creating streams of high-technology products that generate profits as they flow through global markets” (slaughter & rhoades, 2004). for the purposes of this discussion, and the idea of the anchor mission strategy, we 71 broaden this notion a bit beyond the concepts of technology transfer and intellectual property. we examine institutional investment strategies that are profit generating and maximizing. we consider also those cost-containment approaches that align with the business aspects of higher education. finally, the public-engagement knowledge regime, “comprises core academic norms determined by values such as inclusiveness, participation, task sharing, and reciprocity in public problemsolving, and an equality of respect for the knowledge and experience that everyone contributes to education, knowledge generation, and community building. […] the university is part of an ecosystem of knowledge production addressing public problem-solving, with the purpose of advancing an inclusive, collaborative, and deliberative democracy” (saltmarsh & hartley, 2016). each of these regimes is advancing competing values, and norms, some of which will likely be prioritized in ongoing decision-making by senior-level leaders. in adopting an anchor mission strategy, leaders should recognize these regimes and their corresponding opportunities and challenges, as it would affect the character and public perception of the institution. recognizing the innate tensions among the regimes, and the descriptive frameworks they are advancing as we consider our anchor mission strategies, will allow us to develop more meaningful and thoughtful questions, and subsequently pursue more aligned and intentional outcomes. implications for the anchor mission strategy each of the regimes carries a lens through which decision-making may be occurring. appropriately positioning the anchor mission strategy within ongoing academic conversations related to the public good, public engagement knowledge, and academic capitalist regimes, advances more nuanced considerations of the role of higher education within local communities. cisneros and harkavy considered the idea of the anchor institution, and its subsequent mission, through the lens of the dominant academic culture of higher education at that time. this was the “public good” regime. the decades since have seen the emergence of the public-engagement knowledge regime, and the academic capitalist regimes. therefore, we think it is important to address the anchor mission strategy within the context of these newer regimes as well. the anchor mission, as a community engagement strategy through which institutions engage their local communities, may face similar challenges to community engagement as a broader movement, particularly related to the impacts of the public good regime. as butin (2012) states in his introduction to the engaged campus, feminist, critical, postcolonial, and critical race scholars have questioned the grounding for just about every single assumption, enactment, and orientation of ‘community’ and ‘engagement.’ from the reification of ‘the other’ to a problematic ethical foundationalism to a distressing cultural voyeurism to a middling conceptual framework for organizational and community change, the community engagement movement currently lacks the depth of scholarship necessary to provide a solid base for its embrace across higher education. just as the broader notion of community engagement must wrestle with the competing regimes of higher education, so too must the anchor mission strategy understand itself within these frameworks. 72 for example, the anchor mission strategy that aligns with the public engagement knowledge regime might consider a more bidirectional relationship with the broader community. this is similar to how a scholar might pursue their research within this framework: “the center of the engaged scholar’s identity is a scholarship that commands recognition of personal and communal values over the narrow, academic-centric self-interests of traditional scholarship. this newer form of scholarship recognizes community-based expertise and is propelled by a desire for all people to realize their highest potential” (dostilio, et. al, 2016). considering community-based expertise within the anchor mission strategy will fundamentally change the dynamic and approach to operational decision-making processes as well as teaching and learning outcomes that result in more economic reciprocity with legacy residents. as aforementioned, by broadening the nature of academic capitalism beyond research and technology transfer opportunities, scholars can develop more intentional and inclusive models for how to engage with the most marginalized communities. for example, how might universitysupported innovation and commercialization projects result in long-term wealth building opportunities for local underemployed residents? alternatively, how can a university support venture-capital startups and smaller businesses that directly meet community needs? the anchor mission helps to unite these long-standing public good and business interest goals through intentionally developing place-based partnerships, justice-driven community benefit agreements and investments into shared equity enterprises. it is evident that the anchor mission can realign operational and investment business practices and build better cohesion between local anchor partners around collective impact goals. administrators, staff, faculty, students, and alumni with local community members can intentionally build capacity of local businesses, securing family-supporting employment opportunities, increasing the local tax-base, and developing a more environmentally sustainable supply chain. they can invest in worker-owned grocery stores in food deserts, to increase the core outcomes of higher education to be civically and workforce minded, while also supporting marketable knowledge innovations. implementation of anchor mission strategies serve higher education’s public mission by securing cradle-to-retirement pipelines for local residents, reducing brain drain, while strengthening community engagement and equity efforts in our most impacted neighborhoods. there are clear tensions created when institutions of higher education engage their local communities, and as a result, there is a need for universities/communities to set clear expectations. what are the limits of the university to engage with the community – and how can the two clearly communicate and honestly call into question those boundaries, in a way that builds trust? both must recognize the realities of the capitalist culture in which we operate, the dominant and historical culture of the public good regime, and the more pragmatic idealism of the public engagement knowledge model, as well as the inherent tensions between the three. this helps to develop more nuanced communications with stakeholders inside and outside the institution to better practically address social and economic inequalities. the anchor mission strategy supports the different community engagement regimes in ways that can also positively impact community relations and academic outcomes. 73 references alperin, j.p., muñoz nieves, c., schimanski, l., fischman, g.e., niles, m.t. & mckiernan, e.c. 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(1995, january 11). the university and the urban challenge. u.s. department of housing and urban development. retrieved from https://www.nettercenter.upenn.edu/sites/default/files/1995_cisnerosthe%20university%20and%20the%20urban%20challenge.pdf. dostilio, l.d., janke, e., miller, a., post, m., & ward, e. (2016). disrupting role dichotomies. in m.a. post, e. ward, n.v. longo, & john saltmarsh (eds). publicly engaged scholars: nextgeneration engagement and the future of higher education, (pp. 117-129). sterling, va: stylus publishing. giles, h. (2012). negotiating the boundary between the academy and the community. in d.w. butin & s. seifer (eds). the engaged campus: certificates, minors, and majors as the new community engagement (pp. 49-67). new york: palgrave macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137113283_4 hodges, r. & dubb, s. (2012.). the road half traveled: university engagement at a crossroads. east lansing, mi: michigan state university press. slaughter, s., & rhoades, g. (2004) academic capitalism and the new economy: markets, the state, and higher education. baltimore, md: johns hopkins university press. saltmarsh, j., & hartley, m. (2016). the inheritance of next generation engaged scholars. in m.a. post, e. ward, n.v. longo, & john saltmarsh (eds). publicly engaged scholars: nextgeneration engagement and the future of higher education, (pp. 15-33). sterling, va: stylus publishing. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137113283_4 74 author information *daniel j. bergen executive director, office of community engagement marquette university po box 1881 milwaukee, wi 53233 telephone: 414-288-3033 email: daniel.bergen@marquette.edu dr. bergen graduated from marquette university in british literature, with a focus on cognitive literary theory and the romantic era. he is the founding, and executive director of the office of community engagement at marquette university where he is responsible for the promotion, support, and advancement of community engagement in research, teaching, and service. he is a member of the national forum for chief engagement officers, university co-representative for the higher education anchor mission initiative, member of the southeastern wisconsin regional community engagement steering committee, and member of the near west side partners, a milwaukee-based anchor mission collaborative between marquette university, millercoors, harley davidson, aurora health care, and potawatomi business development corporation. emily sladek manager of higher education engagement the democracy collaborative 1200 18th street nw, suite 1225 washington, dc 20036 telephone: (202) 559-1473 x127 email: esladek@democracycollaborative.org ms. sladek is the manager of higher education engagement at the democracy collaborative. she leads the collaborative's higher education programming and in partnership with the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities, manages the higher education anchor mission initiative that includes over 30 public and private universities and colleges from across north america. she earned a master of public administration from the evergreen state college with a focus on research and evaluation for academic bridge programs (trio) as well as the gateways for incarcerated youth program, which provides education pathways to youth in the juvenile offender system. previously, she interned with the peace economy transitions program at the institute of policy studies identifying best practices in community-led economic development in converting the defense industry to civilian uses. *corresponding author microsoft word 23555-article-text-38363 lieberman-final.docx   invited commentary    © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23555 | december 6, 2019   26  brain remain: shifting the paradigm of pride  devorah lieberman1 and shannon capaldi1    1 office of the president, university of la verne    cite as: lieberman, d., & capaldi, s. (2019). brain remain: shifting the paradigm. metropolitan universities, 30(4),  26‐34. doi: 10.18060/23555    this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license.    editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d.    introduction  volumes of research studies, surveys, and census data document the “brain drain,” the phenomenon of highly educated and highly skilled workers migrating from their hometown to an urban or metropolitan area that promises a better life. early indications of brain drain begin with high school graduates determining where to attend college. there is a pervasive belief that it is a measure of success and part of a process of upward mobility to go away to college, and therefore an implied failure if one remains in their hometown or region while earning a degree. this mentality and encouraged brain drain behavior is reinforced by a k-12 education system that sorts students early in their academic careers and invests in the best and brightest, while paying little attention to the majority of students (harmon, 2010). this is a skewed approach and leaves many individuals, and their hometowns, with few opportunities and stifled upward social and economic mobility. the needs of the workforce are rapidly changing. some form of post-secondary education is required for the majority of entry-level jobs in the united states (bureau of labor statistics, 2017). yet, higher education is being faced with increasing competition and growing skepticism regarding the value of a college degree. by collaborating and partnering with the region in which an institution exists, urban, suburban, or rural, colleges and universities can cut through higher education’s competitive noise and growing skepticism, while addressing the changing workforce needs and redefining students’ pride about where they earn a degree, and begin their careers, close to home. we call this paradigm shift the “brain remain,” and it has the potential to significantly alter the way higher education, k-12 districts, businesses, and community leaders work, operate, and collaborate in the new economy. this, in turn, can create bold new opportunities for students where they least expect them: right in their own backyards. © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23555 | december 6, 2019   27  it is a wonderful life  the 1946 frank capra classic film, it’s a wonderful life, might have been well ahead of its time in exploring the impacts of the housing crisis and corporate greed, but at its core, the poignant story of george bailey speaks to brain remain at its highest level: a young man in pursuit of worldly success only to discover much more meaningful opportunity in his hometown. that is not the case for everyone, but the idea that the pursuit of happiness can materialize in a young person’s own community arguably has more street cred than ever. for example, the cost of an out-of-town or an out-of-state education is increasingly intimidating for many american families. if you can receive the same quality degree or certification without mortgaging your future, why wouldn’t you? but there’s an even bigger bailey-esque picture, here: the vested interest we all have in our hometowns. think of our own philanthropic campaigns as colleges and universities, and how we target alumni. they are likely donors because of the deep connection and pride they carry for our respective institutions. now, expand that sentiment to the community as a whole. the more invested you are, the more likely you will get involved and give back. researchers from the university of nottingham in england analyzed 91 studies on the effects of gratitude and behaviors that help others, discovering that gratitude had the largest effect on peoples’ willingness to give back, more than sadness, happiness, empathy, shame, and anger (psychology today, 2017). if students feel grateful for the education they received and the opportunities they had while growing up, from grade school through graduate school, they are more likely to give back to their communities in some capacity, helping to improve the community for all. to achieve that outcome, however, several major hurdles must be overcome. the first, an emotional one, the sense that staying close to home is not a sign of failure, but a sign of pride and the desire to make a real difference in the community that helped raise you. this sense of pride and connection often fades when students begin thinking about where to attend college. it is during this decision-making process where the concept that far-away college equals success begins to take root and the brain drain paradigm perpetuates. brain drain, brain gain  in their book hollowing out the middle, patrick carr and maria kefalas assert that during primary and secondary education, students are sorted into four categories: achievers, seekers, returners, and stayers (chang, 2018; harmon, 2010). achievers show ability early and receive the greatest attention and investment by teachers, mentors, administrators, and counselors. achievers perpetuate the brain drain and are encouraged to “break free of small town life,” (harmon, 2010). much of a region’s new generation of talent, intelligence, and innovation is lost through this pattern. seekers desire to leave their hometown, but often lack the resources and © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23555 | december 6, 2019   28  frequently enlist in the military as a means to an end. returners leave home after high school, and eventually return. these returners are a form of the brain gain for suburban and rural areas. when achievers leave their home region, the urban and metropolitan areas where they land (e.g., los angeles, new york, chicago, san francisco, boston, and washington, dc) realize the benefit of brain gain by becoming home to new talent and young, eager minds. returners are those who demonstrate the reverse migration pattern. they are those who leave home for college and return with their new skills. returners are a small slice of the brain gain pie for many suburban and rural areas (chang, 2018). finally, stayers are those who decide to stay in place because they like where they live and enjoy being around like-minded people, or they believe they do not have the means or the ambition to leave. the stayers often find blue-collar or service-related employment and realize limited economic and social mobility as a result. stayers are often the students who tend to feel lessthan, and are treated less-than, when compared to their classmates who leave for college, frequently treated or perceived as a deficit to their communities, when in reality they are the greatest asset to their communities. the stayers are untapped potential for suburban and rural regions to develop a strong workforce for future growth demands. there is great opportunity for regional colleges and universities to partner with the community to better serve the stayers and instill a newfound sense of pride in staying in one’s hometown, the brain remain. changing higher education and fostering brain remain  as the higher education landscape shifts, colleges and universities are welcoming a generation of students who are skeptical about the value of a degree. the students who are not sorted as achievers early on are often those who rationalize that college is not worth their (or their parents’) hard-earned money or worth going into debt, especially if the local jobs they anticipate accepting do not require a college degree (harmon, 2010). additionally, higher education institutions are scrutinized for their elitist history (especially among private institutions) and limited accessibility to those with humble resources. couple these public perceptions with the increased competition in the higher education landscape, and there is an opportunity for colleges and universities to change their approach and to change the narrative of who should stay and who should go away to college. now is the time to change our paradigm and the narrative. this paradigm shift is an imperative; it will serve our students and our region in ways that will benefit both. the current landscape of higher education is one of convoluted competition. regional not-forprofit private institutions are competing with large, state-funded public institutions for the same students. online and distance-learning options are adding out-of-state institutions to the © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23555 | december 6, 2019   29  competitive mix. institutions are constantly looking for the next new program or the next new delivery method to remain relevant, distinctive, competitive, and sustainable. it is clear that most institutions can no longer attempt to keep up with the jones’s on every front. a thoughtful, strategic, and most reasonable approach to focusing efforts and resources would be to concentrate on the employment and social needs of the region in which the institution exists. hockey hall-of-famer wayne gretzky famously said, “go where the puck is going to be.” it is important for colleges and universities to keep this in mind, especially when determining where the puck is going to be within the region they serve. for example, among california’s 10 largest counties, riverside and san bernardino rank first and second in terms of job growth, at 4.2% and 3.6% respectively. according to the california employment development department, the inland empire is expected to add 242,000 jobs between 2016 and 2026, a 16% growth rate (vs. 10% for the state as a whole). logistics, global trade, and healthcare lead the way as the region positions itself as a development and innovation hub in these key industries, and the university of la verne is prepared to meet the puck by graduating students ready for these careers. the majority of university of la verne’s 8,500 students come from the rapidly-growing inland southern california region. several years ago, university leadership looked at the projected workforce needs of inland southern california and identified the growing demand for healthcare professionals. many nearby institutions offered nursing degrees, but only a handful offered physician assistant programs. having historically only offered gerontology and health services management programs, the university of la verne decided to step further into the allied healthcare professions space and now offers a master’s program for physician assistants. each year, the university has more than 1,000 applicants for 22 seats. on average, 71% of physician assistant students are from southern california. the university partners with local hospitals, clinics, and health organizations for lab courses and clinical rotations for the students. when the first class of physician assistants graduate in december 2020, they will have positions waiting for them and will fulfill the dream as stayers, excited to begin working in the same region where they grew up. from this endeavor, an excellent example of partnership and collaboration between education and industry was born. the university of la verne created a president’s health advisory council (phac) with healthcare and community leaders from throughout inland southern california. the group meets three times a year with the goal of sharing with the university administration the healthcare profession needs they have in their own industries and what the future portends for regional healthcare needs. by listening to the phac professionals and examining the data, the university of la verne is strategically investing in and developing additional healthcare majors and programs that will graduate a skilled workforce ready to meet the needs of the region. similar collaborations are happening throughout southern california’s inland empire. © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23555 | december 6, 2019   30  nonprofits, businesses, government, and education are working together to highlight the assets and opportunities that, properly leveraged, can transform a region of 4.5 million people into a robust social and economic hub for the entire country. a major part of that endeavor is convincing the best and brightest that promising opportunities exist in their own backyards. this is something that can only happen if the region’s workforce development efforts are aligned with its economic development initiatives. in recent years, several shining examples of this alignment have surfaced, notably:  inland economic growth & opportunity (iego), an intentional network of businesses and institutions throughout san bernardino and riverside counties, committed to creating better jobs and increasing access to them.  growing inland achievement (gia), a collective impact effort designed to align education and increase the college attainment rate of its students, especially those who struggle the most to get into and persist in college.  changing the narrative, a communications and engagement strategy designed to position the inland empire as an assets-rich region and an attractive place for philanthropic and economic investment.  inland california rising, an expansive effort that is bringing together stakeholders, innovators and thought leaders from the inland empire, san joaquin valley, and the sacramento metro area to increase public awareness and shape perceptions about inland california as a place of dynamic leadership and innovation.  the convergence, a coalition of healthcare providers, educational institutions, and workforce development specialists who are committed to addressing the growing shortage of healthcare workers throughout the region. in addition, a number of innovative career pathway efforts are underway, connecting education, business, and local government around a shared vision of preparing young people for sustainable career opportunities. in fontana, a city of 214,000 people with a robust business climate, the mayor’s education coalition is bridging deep divides and creating a new level of trust between businesses and schools. recently, the city’s chamber of commerce partnered with a high school to offer professional training classes on topics ranging from workplace etiquette and showing up on time, to conflict resolution and dressing for success. more than 60 students are participating in the pilot program. in san bernardino county, generationgo! is helping to supersize career pathways at several local school districts, offering support, assistance, and a network of business partners that districts are often struggle to build on their own. at the former march air force base in riverside county, the mars career promise program is creating a training platform around promising careers in aerospace and advanced manufacturing. © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23555 | december 6, 2019   31  by putting a priority focus on the specific needs of the region, rather than solely on national or international trends, higher education institutions are able to significantly reduce the amount of competitive noise. instead, they can focus on what will attract local students, both traditional undergraduates (i.e., stayers), and adult learners and graduate students who are settled but looking to advance or change their careers without uprooting their lives. this approach will also improve the job placement of graduates, as colleges and universities will be educating students for professions that are known to be needed in the region. creating a culture of successful graduates who grew up in the region and stayed to pursue a career (i.e., stayers) would help individuals and communities shift the paradigm to pride in their regions and the brain remain. students choosing to stay close to home for college would lead to feeling that, while they had choices to study close to home or at a distance, they made the choice related to pride in their community. communities and k-12 educators should be cultivating the talent and intellect of all their students, and rely on the students’ emotional attachment and financial investment to stay close to home, ergo brain remain. colleges and universities can consciously make the shift to increase opportunities for students from the region who want to stay in the region by exploring the following options:  strategically position the institution as an asset to the region through internships, civic/community engagement efforts, and knowledge resources. as portland state university says in their tag line, “let knowledge serve the city.” the brain remain assumes this philosophy by aiming to provide knowledge resources to educate members of the region and promote increased regional social mobility.  meet with and listen to industry leaders in the region to create the academic and certificate programs that reflect their workforce needs.  partner with regional industries to offer internships, or develop pipelines and pathways from post-secondary education into employment.  seek every opportunity to reinforce pride in students who choose the regional university and who choose to invest and serve in their communities.  initiative media coverage around the brain remain concept and impact on the community  cultivate a strong alumni network to mentor and hire students who graduate from the regional institution.  collaborate and partner with regional k-12 districts and charter schools to establish pipelines and clear pathway options for all students into post-secondary education.     © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23555 | december 6, 2019   32  impacts of brain remain   the impacts of universities and communities shifting from a brain drain paradigm to brain remain mindset are significant. offering compelling post-secondary education opportunities for stayers provides access and opportunity for the majority of students who are not necessarily groomed to go away to college. those students are an integral part of the brain remain as they are assets to their communities, local industries, and the economic mobility of their region. by taking advantage of regionally-focused programs, stayers will enhance their employability, lifetime social mobility, and sense of self-efficacy. these graduates will be prepared for jobs and careers that are in-demand in their hometown, and the region’s workforce will be enriched. more industries will be compelled to bring their jobs to the areas with the skilled workforce, increasing prosperity for non-urban areas. the stayers who become part of the brain remain are then more likely to feel a sense of gratitude for all the opportunities their hometown afforded them and will have a deep emotional investment that leads them to be involved in their communities and give back. shifting to the brain remain will improve the lives of many individuals who may otherwise feel left behind, while simultaneously enhancing suburban and metropolitan communities. the university of la verne is working diligently to promote the brain remain paradigm. recently, 24 students, largely from the inland southern california region, were each asked why they chose to attend the university of la verne. their responses ranged from: (a) their coaches and teachers graduated from this university and recommended it; (b) wanting to earn a law degree from this university so they can go back to their neighborhood and advocate for those who are like them; (c) needing to work while going to school in order to help to support their parents and siblings; or (d) enrolling in the university thinking they would transfer and are now happy to be here getting a degree that will lead to a profession that will improve their future. these are the examples of why it is important to embrace the residents and the future of the region. the brain remain is the option that brings pride to the students, their families, and their region. going away to college is undoubtedly a transformational experience, but not the singular trajectory for educational transformation. it will never cease to offer incredible value for those who seek such a path. however, whether one moves away after high school should not be linked so closely with self-efficacy. with the current generation of students, the increased competition of higher education, and the changing demands of the workforce, colleges and universities have the opportunity to shift the paradigm. through partnership, collaboration, and focused intention on serving the regions in which they exist, institutions can plug up the brain drain and champion the brain remain.     © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23555 | december 6, 2019   33  acknowledgments     special acknowledgement to steve lambert, co-owner of the 20/20 network, a southern california-based public affairs and strategic communications firm, for his contribution of the data and information related to the inland empire. © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23555 | december 6, 2019   34  references  brown, a. (2014). “public and private college grads rank about equally in life satisfaction.” retrieved from https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/05/19/public-and-privatecollege-grads-rank-about-equally-in-life-satisfaction/ bureau of labor statistics, u.s. department of labor. (2017). the economics daily. retrieved from https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2017/37-percent-of-may-2016-employment-inoccupations-typically-requiring-postsecondary-education.htm chang, a. (2018). “those who leave home, and those who stay: how we’re sorted into these groups.” retrieved from https://www.vox.com/policy-andpolitics/2017/6/15/15757708/hometown-stay-leave harmon, h. (2010). book review “hollowing out the middle: the rural brain drain and what it means for america.” journal of research in rural education 25(3). retrieved from http://jrre.vmhost.psu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/25-3.pdf psychology today. (2017). “what we know about gratitude and giving back.” retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/evidence-based-living/201706/what-we-knowabout-gratitude-and-giving-back microsoft word 23825-article text-38858-1-11-20191206_rev.docx   © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23825 | december 6, 2019  3  introduction to future of urban and metropolitan  universities   barbara a. holland1 and valerie holton2    1 metropolitan universities journal executive editor emerita, 2 metropolitan universities journal editor    cite as: holland, b., & holton, v. (2019) introduction to future of urban and metropolitan universities. metropolitan  universities, 30(4), 3‐8. doi: 10.18060/23825    this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license.    editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d.  on this occasion of the 30th anniversary of the founding of the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities (cumu), we have invited past and present executive committee members to share their perspectives on the contemporary prospects, challenges, and opportunities for the members of this thriving organization. first, you may be interested in a bit of history about the origins of cumu. in february 1989 a group of campus presidents and representatives of several other higher education organizations met at wright state university to discuss the proposition that metropolitan located universities were developing distinctive characteristics that reflected their urban locations and relationships. organized and led by wright state chancellor paige mullhollan, professor ernest lynton, and other leaders, the discussion identified the growing concentration of populations and economic activity in america’s cities and the new demands and opportunities created by that trend. as cities became the hub of economy and personal opportunity, universities and colleges in cities needed to step up and recognize their roles in contributing to equity, opportunity, and progress. these ideals were formed into a statement called: “metropolitan universities: who are we?” that highlighted actions and partnerships that we would recognize today as engagement. the story of the development and growth of cumu is recorded in the 29 years of metropolitan universities journal. lynton was the founding executive editor of the metropolitan universities journal with karen white as the first managing editor. volume 1, number 1 launched in spring 1990. the first volume was written by a mix of presidents, provosts, scholars, and a mayor. in his introduction of this defining first issue, lynton said: © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23825 | december 6, 2019  4  the theme of this initial issue is identity and culture. we hope that the content will provide a broad-brush overview of the nature and mission of metropolitan universities, a sense of their basic institutional character. in the aggregate, the articles in the issue indicate a number of common attributes shared by all these universities, in spite of their many differences. all are characterized by diversity: diversity of students, diversity of scholarly and professional activity, diversity of constituencies. all accept, albeit to different degrees, the challenge of responsiveness to scholarly and instructional needs of this multiple clientele. all insist on retaining their most basic characteristic: that of being true universities...metropolitan universities recognize that they must change the way in which this knowledge-centered mission is pursued. the nature, uses, and clientele for knowledge are evolving; the effective interpretation and dissemination of knowledge have become as important as its creation and an ever more diverse clientele needs university-level education. (lynton, 1990) by may 1990, a declaration of metropolitan universities was created and signed by the first 46 members of the organization. the declaration described a focus on new approaches to teaching, research, and service that emphasized attention to equity, diversity, relevance, innovation, and accessibility in a context of partnerships with communities, business, culture, and government. the declaration has been updated over the years, but maintains the core focus of equity, access, relevance, and partnerships across member institutions and their cities. the first cumu conference was in 1993 at university of north texas. the second issue of metropolitan universities journal in the summer of 1990 focused on “challenges of diversity” with provocative articles on the themes of access, retention, campus climate, adult learners, commuter students, and new views of student services and student life in metropolitan campuses, issues that are still important today as each generation of students and the impact of technology requires continuous attention to the ways we support student success. attention to the student experience and academic success has been a strong theme for cumu throughout its history, as has the centrality of working partnerships with community leaders and organizations. at the recent 25th conference in october 2019 at philadelphia, it was exciting to attend many sessions and plenary presentations focused on new strategies for student equity and retention to graduation, and new insights into effective partnerships leading to community, cultural, and economic progress. an anniversary evokes our need to reflect and also to look at the way forward. therefore, this issue is similar to the first journal volume in 1990 because we have invited leaders and scholars to reflect on their sense of the state of the metropolitan universities mission and where we are heading going forward. all the past issues of metropolitan universities journal are available © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23825 | december 6, 2019  5  online, so you may wish to read those early two issues to appreciate our origins as an association that continues to seek to contribute to greater equity and success for our students, our institutions, and our communities. the contributions in this issue, written by institutional leaders, offer very bold ideas. higher education is changing rapidly and unevenly across america. some institutions, represented here, are thinking and acting in bold ways to recapture public support, improve student progress, and re-invent the ways we fund our institutions and the ways we do research and teaching, among other large changes. the large-scale change higher education is experiencing now is not easy and often painful, especially when change leads to closures. however, the papers in this issue and other news gives me a sense of optimism. higher education is entering an era of big changes. the world’s population and enterprises are concentrated in cities. the experience of change across cumu institutions will be of great value to others seeking to find the way forward to serve educational needs and a capacity for future discoveries and innovations. in this issue   in the first article in this volume, robert caret, chancellor of the university system of maryland, describes what he learned in his early career as an administrative leader at urban institutions such as san jose state university, towson university and others, which he calls primary access institutions. caret sees these access-oriented institutions as successful in expanding access to full participation in society, leading to contributions to the local work force, culture, and social change. today, as a leader of a large, multi-campus system, caret builds on these values of access institutions to remind us that education is not just to create opportunity for the individual’s personal success, but also to inspire the educated individual to recognize their social and public responsibilities. caret says: “…we have an obligation to make sure our society is provided with the graduates it needs, graduates that have the education, the cultural and intellectual underpinnings, and the perspectives necessary to enable them to take their place as enlightened and progressive members and leaders of a democratic society.” caret describes a straight-forward approach to encouraging students to develop the skills of an engaged citizen that appreciates and participates in democracy. through his experiences, caret observes the need to move from campus approaches to engagement that involve only some students, to an approach that integrates civic education, civic engagement, and civic responsibility into curriculum and institutional culture. he offers a thoughtful and practical description of the importance of attention to the development of each of these three attributes, which require different approaches. caret also shares examples of how the institution can demonstrate its own focus on civic responsibility by increasing student voice on campus, engaging faculty, staff, and students in improving local schools, and collaborating with other universities nearby. © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23825 | december 6, 2019  6  buffalo state college provides an exciting and inspiring story of a city that is emerging into a new era of opportunity and success through partnerships between the college and many other entities to welcome new groups moving into the city and facilitate their well-being and success. president katherine s. conway-turner describes how the city, the college, schools, foundations, the government, and non-profits work together to help new arrivals with ways to learn about their new home and provide necessary services to help them settle in and become productive members of a city that is growing again after the loss of manufacturing. the depth of partnerships and the creative approaches to supporting language training, student graduation rates, transitioning from school to college, small business development, and more, is impressive. president conway-turner says: “our campus today has a layered approach to addressing the concerns of many of the newest members of our community. we extend our campus to support children, adults, and all family members who come to western new york looking for a better place to live, grow, and, hopefully, thrive.” president devorah lieberman of the university of la verne and shannon capaldi, director of the president’s office, write about the growing image problem related to going away for college. high costs of going away to college is leading to a growing image that a degree isn’t worth it. the authors note that stayers who are encouraged throughout their schooling to attend a local college can both improve the economic and social strength of their community and also feel proud of their education. they contrast brain drain which can lead students away, never to return home, with brain remain that can enrich both the student and the region. as discussed by the authors, “students choosing to stay close to home for college would lead to feeling that, while they had choices to study close to home or at a distance, they made the choice related to pride in their community. communities and k-12 educators should be cultivating the talent and intellect of all their students and rely on the students’ emotional attachment and financial investment to stay close to home, ergo brain remain.” the authors offer suggestions and literature relevant to the strategies for encouraging students to consider remain, which may reduce skepticism about degree values. richard guarasci, president emeritus at wagner college, describes the dangers of the current economic model that higher education is following today and offers an alternative vision for higher education organization that is based in large part on the creation of greater value to the public and the students. guarasci says: “the alternative to the pure market model is the engagement model. this approach values collaboration, integration, and partnerships over competition and revenue maximization. the engagement approach will require a major shift within the culture of higher education leadership and its success will demand courage by trustees, regents, and alumni. additionally, it will need faculty members and administrators to be their best creative selves.” he proposes partnerships across universities and colleges and other business, industries, and organizations for every aspect of operations, and to intentionally develop a teaching/research agenda that aligns with regional assets, challenges, and © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23825 | december 6, 2019  7  opportunities, among other ideas. given the examples of some universities already seeking networks of partnerships to increase impact on community progress, his model has real potential going forward. the team of guenther, swanstrom, and george at the university of missouri-st. louis (umsl) report on their anchor institution initiatives in the two-mile square area around the campus. post-industrial cities like st. louis are now experiencing increasing poverty, hunger, homelessness, loss of businesses, and other inequities of opportunity in the suburbs. st. louis is distinctive in that it has the most fragmented suburbs in the nation with 88 municipalities overall, and 30 of those municipalities are in the umsl region. as discussed by the authors, “one of the findings from the data was how deeply umsl was involved in the anchor footprint. umsl has 370 full-time, part-time, and student employees and over 4,000 alumni who live within the twomile radius. the university has deep connections with the people in this community beyond its physical placement, professional connections, and public land grant mission. the data collection made it clear that our well-being was closely connected to the fate of these communities.” the case study presented by umsl provides useful insights into the difficulty of organizing collective actions across many small entities that don’t have much bandwidth. the authors provide tools and tips that have led to notable progress. wim wiewel, president of lewis and clark college, and professor jerusha detweiler-bedell offer insights into the views of engagement in a private liberal arts college environment. as discussed by the authors, “liberal arts colleges are now being challenged to demonstrate their relevance and value. their future is, in part, predicated on their success in building stronger, more strategic, and mutually beneficial relationships beyond their campus, specifically by collaborating with and adding value to the cities and metropolitan areas in which they are located.” over the last decade the college has been increasing the integration of engagement with public issues in the curriculum using a variety of methods including integrated internships, exploring historic places, studying public policies, and proposing innovations. at this college learning is a shared endeavor; college students are learning and discovering through interactions with people in the community so that all are ultimately benefiting from the partnership. william j. fritz and ken iwama share amazing story of the college of staten island’s legacy trilogy initiative. their article opens with a compelling statement: “the degree to which urban and metropolitan colleges and universities can have a positive impact on their respective is heavily influenced by the nature and extent of their connectedness to, and alignment with, civic need.” in 2012, leadership of the college began to engage in public discussions and recognition of the legacy of institution, the legacy of place, and the legacy of mission in ways that acknowledged the historical and problematic past of the institution and opening a new way to embrace its modern mission as staten island’s anchor institution serving a highly diverse population. their article describes a three-year process to acknowledge the past narrative, which © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23825 | december 6, 2019  8  has led to new changes that are based in engagement with current community needs and interests. in 2015 marquette university realized it needed to take a much more focused approach to community engagement around their campus and the wider urban region. president lovell and his colleagues provide a clear and logical story of the internal and external processes that have, over five years, created a more focused agenda of engagement and the necessary partnerships and infrastructure to implement, guide, and assess the work. this article offers an excellent guide on how to work across sectors to create more equitable external partnerships and more inclusive community engagement. an initial focus on a partnership center near campus led to the recognition of the need for more internal coordination and leadership of engagement, and better ways for community to connect to the university. as engagement became more intentional, working groups were formed to promote best practices in engagement, leading to discussions about the recognition of faculty using engagement methods in teaching and research. recently a new task force has been created to consider ways to coordinate efforts across higher ed and corporate entities to encourage collaboration and reduce overlap. the marquette story is impressive in its innovative approaches to building internal and external connections to support effective engagement. in sum, this issue of metropolitan universities journal reveals that though people often joke that higher education institutions don’t change, these articles tell us otherwise. change is everywhere in higher education. when cumu founders met at wright state in 1989, there were mostly two generations of faculty across most universities, today there are at least four generations with gen z on the horizon as the fifth. change and adaptation is an essential institutional skill. students, the community, business and government leaders, alumni, and our faculty and staff are thinking about and enacting changes in education every day, be it a simple fix or a giant leap into a largescale change initiative. the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities distinguishes itself in several ways; it is collaborative and members support each other and share ideas about challenges and opportunities. this issue specifically aims to foreshadow the way forward for higher education in an increasingly urbanized world. the nature of this topic has called authors to look at the past as a way of understanding what’s ahead. we thank the authors for their thoughtful and candid contributions. microsoft word conway turner new format 23553 revised by author (newest)-final.docx   invited commentary    © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23553 | december 6, 2019   17  higher education’s role in the support of diverse and  ever‐changing new american cities: exploring buffalo  katherine s. conway‐turner1    1president’s office, buffalo state college, state university of new york     cite as: conway‐turner, k.s. (2019). higher education’s role in the support of diverse and ever‐changing new  american cities: exploring buffalo. metropolitan universities, 30(4), 17‐25. doi: 10.18060/23553    this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license.    editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d.  abstract  urban institutions are typically located in diverse and vibrant cities. this diversity has changed  over the decades, thus requiring campuses to address the complexity that is seen as these new  american cities evolve. in this article the city of buffalo is discussed as a city that manifests a  continuous change in population diversity with a significant increase in the immigrant and  refugee populations. the ways that buffalo state college has evolved its outreach to support  immigrants, refugees, and new americans is discussed, approaches that include ways to  support entry and success within the city school systems, support for families and adults  learning the english language and preparing for citizenship exams, convening and support to  navigate their new location, and assistance in business efforts. extensions of the mission of  urban institutions to support these new members of city communities allows campuses to  participate fully in addressing the needs of this important segment of our cities. immigrant and  refugee families add to the vibrancy and economic success of our communities and facilitating  their adjustment, integration, and success within our cities not only provides needed support  for new american families, but adds to the current and future economic and social success of  the community where they now call home. this is an important aspect of the urban anchor  mission.    keywords: immigrants, refugees, newcomers  © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23553 | december 6, 2019       18      introduction  contemporary urban environments are sometimes called “new american cities.” in this context, journalists, legislators, and community leaders focus on and describe the current complexity of cultures, peoples, ethnicities, languages, and economic layers that are ever-present within cities like buffalo, new york and other urban landscapes across the country. however, it is important to understand that these cities have been changing throughout their histories and the new faces that you see today were once represented by other peoples, some who were newcomers, and many that, at one point, called this city or region their home. here i will discuss the ways that buffalo state college, like many anchor higher education institutions, recognizes and supports the cultural vibrancy within an urban city today and how buffalo state college is participating in the transition and welcoming new families to our evolving city. the ways in which we participate in the support and transition of newcomers are many, varied, and firmly grounded in our mission as an urban engaged campus, as well as our focus as an anchor institution with a commitment to elevating all members of our community regardless of racial, ethnic, religious, cultural, place of origin or any other aspects of personal distinction. for decades, the role of many higher education institutions, and specifically suny buffalo state, has grown to meet the needs of our community in large numbers. we have opened our doors to previously excluded citizens across many decades as barriers fell and higher education institutions embraced inclusion. buffalo state, like many urban campuses, provided educational opportunities for veterans returning from wars to gain important skills and degrees to move ahead. urban campuses provided educational opportunities post segregation for previously excluded populations and we stood for opportunity for first generation students coming from wide-ranging backgrounds, regardless of immigrant status, as well as for all those who simply needed a helping hand to move ahead. buffalo state, as the state university of new york’s only four-year campus fully within a city, embraces our urban engaged focus. we are not only located within an urban environment, but we are dedicated to connecting with and uplifting our multiple diverse and vibrant communities. this diversity takes many forms and includes national original, cultural distinctions, religious differences, racial and ethnic differences, physical ability, sexual orientation, and much more, but first let us situate our environment within a historical context. buffalo, located in the western portion of the state of new york (ny) is the second largest city in the state. however, before europeans stepped into the area now known as buffalo, this territory was home to first nations people (szczepaniec, 2018). the history of native peoples dates back thousands of years. the haudenosaunee or iroquois nations lived throughout western © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23553 | december 6, 2019       19  ny including what is now the city of buffalo. a series of forced and savage territorial dislocations, with made and broken treaties that did not benefit peoples of the first nations, has resulted in a vibrant but comparably small existing portion of these first nation peoples living within contemporary western ny (cepla, 2019). within the 19th and 20th centuries buffalo saw an influx of immigrant europeans move into western ny just as the area was developing a thriving new economy and growing into a regionally significant city. the then strong and prosperous commerce was achieved through many interrelated advancements. the building of the erie canal opened the opportunity for goods to be moved from east to west and back; additionally, the grain elevator and the expanse of the railroad contributed to the centrality of buffalo as a growing and thriving place of commence (goldman, 1983). by the end of the 19th century, the population of native people had been significantly reduced and significant numbers of european immigrants flooded into buffalo to make this region their home. in the 1800’s large populations of german immigrants came into buffalo to make a life for their families. these families began to prosper under thriving conditions and they were soon to be joined by a sizable portion of irish immigrants, followed by immigrants from a host of other european countries. during this period, a small population of african americans also joined this mix. western ny was a well-travelled bridge to freedom for enslaved blacks during the 19th century as many made their way to northern states or to canada on the underground railroad seeking freedom from slavery (goldman, 1983; brown, 2014). some blacks seeking freedom decided to stay in western ny and other free blacks made their way to this blossoming area and made this their home. this mixing of cultures was not always harmonious, but nevertheless we understand that cultural diversity is not new to the state of ny, while the reality of inclusion has been a constant challenge. as time passed other populations immigrated to western ny from all corners of the world to form the diverse community throughout the state that can be observed today. as the economic environment changed and commerce declined, like many other booming cities in the rust belt, populations saw significant decreases. the closing or downsizing of once vibrant industries and a shift to an economy where buffalo competed less successfully, along with a diminished economic structure, no longer allowed cities like buffalo to dominate and the reality became a decades long decline for many cities. new americans today  what is different today isn’t the local diverse community, it is that the variety of cultural backgrounds have changed. in 1910, 80% of all united states immigrants came from europe while in 2010, 80% of immigrants come from asia and latin america (nunn, o’donnell & shambaugh, 2018). within the buffalo-niagara areas, the foreign-born population from 20002010 increased by 33% (wilson & singer, 2011). the immigrants of today are contributing to © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23553 | december 6, 2019       20  building back a declining population that had been seen in western ny and other rust belt cities for decades as manufacturing declined and as commerce changed. as the economic drivers changed in cities likes buffalo, detroit, cleveland, pittsburgh, and others and jobs that were counted on for decades began to decline, shift, or disappear, people began to move to other locations seeking more promising opportunities for their families. this loss of population has not been easy on urban environments like buffalo. growth had stymied, construction was depressed, and the city faced significant downward turns for decades. this situation has allowed many cities like buffalo to welcome with significant optimism the appearance of increased immigration and increased refugee resettlement. in 2018 the state of ny ranked fifth in number of refugees settling in the state with the greatest numbers of refugees arriving from the congo, burma, ukraine, and bhutan (wilson & singer, 2011). western ny continues to seek new populations to come, join communities, and contribute to the needed growth in this area. these hopeful newcomers, ready to take advantage of the boom in buffalo, also add to the vibrancy of the city and are celebrated by many as urban environments grow in population. many of these new community members are hopeful to one day become americans. there is also broad agreement by economists and researchers that immigrants raise the economic output of communities. the resettlement of immigrants and refugees into buffalo has been a muchneeded population boost while bringing an important labor force into the area. the change in the city of buffalo is visible within many community institutions and especially within its public school system; as of 2019, there are 34,000 children within the buffalo public school system and 80% are students of color, with the fastest growing segment consisting of children from immigrant and refugee families. the languages spoken by those new to the united states is often not english and, according to the buffalo public school system, 83 different languages are spoken in the homes of these children. these new and hopeful future americans are from countries like burma, somalia, cambodia, and china and they join the diversity of native american, african american, and latin american populations that are significantly represented within our community. the increases in the immigrant population has not been the only change in the last decade for buffalo; buffalo is experiencing a renaissance as both state and private investments have increased. this can be seen in the reinvestment taking place, the new businesses opening, and growing job possibilities. a concern today is providing an environment where all community members benefit from the growth and resurgence happening in buffalo. anchor institutions, like buffalo state, and communities will need to monitor closely how the city’s success impacts all sectors of the region so that success reaches all, not just privileged portions of our community.   © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23553 | december 6, 2019       21  the role of higher education   anchor institutions are place-based organizations, including ihes and health systems, which link closely to their local communities because when an anchor institution like buffalo state recognizes the ever-changing diversity of our city it is important to strategically address the question: how can we address the needs, hopes, and challenges of those new to our community? in many ways, the obvious connection is ensuring that these newcomers can matriculate into our campuses and take the classes and receive the degrees and certificates that will allow them to be most successful. this focus is one that is central to our work and the mission of the institution. buffalo state does this by working individually, or in collaboration with other community partners, to provide entry and support into our educational enterprise. our successful upward bound program, a federally funded trio program, has for over 50 years provided an opportunity for disenfranchised and marginalized youth to prepare to enter a college and successfully complete their chosen degree program. we continue to serve in this space and provide a muchneeded bridge for those who have faced generational and current barriers to education as well as children of recent immigrants who have not been a part of the united states higher education system. upward bound, since its inception, has been a bridge for african american, latin american, native american youth; it has also proven to be a bridge for youth from diverse immigrant populations within our city. these children from new american immigrant families are enrolling in our program in increasing numbers and then launching into higher education institutions to gain that important degree to prepare them for a successful future. preparing children for p‐12 education     many urban based campuses have a longstanding teacher education program. these programs are uniquely suited to assist youth in underserved and immigrant families as they transition to and move thorough their education programs. thus, many urban campuses extend their mission to provide outreach within our immigrant and refugee communities. buffalo state’s school of education has a long and laudable reputation, not only for teacher preparation, but for working within western ny school systems to advance the very best in teaching pedagogy and an understanding of how to elevate each child to success. with these connections our faculty work with the professional development school consortium to address the diverse and changing needs of children within our p-12 systems. preparing teacher candidates to teach within our diverse schools is central, but our education program also works directly with teachers and school systems to elevate the current work to better serve the diverse and ever-changing populations within their schools, including best practices in working with children new to this country, and working with students new to learning within the framework of the english language. © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23553 | december 6, 2019       22  other avenues of support for newcomer children at buffalo state include: a global book hour that provides weekly experiences in a community location where teacher candidates use multicultural literature to facilitate language skills, and a buffalo state global literacy channel series on youtube designed for parents and caregivers to help young readers and writers, especially those acquiring english as a new language. these types of programs are important for education institutes to develop and address the critical literacy skills that are needed to secure student success. our partnership with say yes buffalo, a part of the national say yes to education network, creates an interconnected support for children within the buffalo public school system in ways that both address concerns experienced by children in p-12 but also tackles the transition of these children when they attend colleges like buffalo state. the mission of say yes buffalo is to create and convene a partnership of school districts, parents, teacher advocates, community institutions, funders, and higher education institutions to realize a vision of supporting students to graduate from high school and to complete college. a new grant funded by the gates foundation will allow us to launch this fall the buffalo college success network, which will provide increased support for children as they move from high school to college completion. the college has many disciplinary ties to newcomers’ families that emerge from programs that address nutrition needs, language proficiency, and family social needs. in varied ways our college, like many who are situated in the rich and diverse urban environment, provides opportunities that are central to our education mission. however, it is important to expand our programming in ways that address the critical needs of new americans.   furthering our connection with new american communities     the buffalo state community academic center is one campus unit that directly addresses issues and concerns facing new immigrants in buffalo. located on the westside of buffalo in a community adjacent to campus and within a geographic area that is largely an immigrant community, the center focuses on programming that will address key issues facing newcomers. the program buffalo beginnings introduces academic and literacy skills to youth that have arrived recently to our community. such skills operate as a bridge for school age children as they prepare and begin the process of entering into the p-12 school system. preparation for the reality of united states schools and what to expect within classrooms, how to transition to a new and unfamiliar school system, and assistance in developing literacy skills are important skills for these children. the center also offers new american english as a second language. these classes serve adult immigrants, refugees and newcomer adults as they seek to learn english and provides basic english language skills that allows families to navigate many language intricacies as they settle into the area. the center also offers the new american us citizenship preparation classes to provide support for those who are working toward completing the us naturalization test and successfully becoming american citizens. additionally, the college provides thousands © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23553 | december 6, 2019       23  of hours of community service to additional programs that address the needs of new americans and refugees coordinated through the buffalo state civic and community engagement office. the buffalo beginning program partners with all four resettlement agencies (journey’s end refugee services, jewish family services, catholic charities, and the international institute of buffalo) to provide volunteer hours and consultative services.   navigating the cultural divide    much of the work of buffalo state, like other campuses dealing with the same experiences, is linked with organizations or services that directly address the variety of stated needs of newcomers to the region. it is also important to navigate the cultural divides that are seen in communities; helping families feel at home, assisting them in understanding the impact of culture on behavior and choices, and settling families into their environment are ways that allow them to feel part of the community. the buffalo state anne frank project (afp) offers an opportunity to discuss issues of inclusion and diversity as well as convening discussions that can be both supportive and reaffirming. the anne frank project is another way that buffalo state addresses the changing population throughout our region. the anne frank project began in 2005 as a project from the theater department. initially the focus was to develop a campus play based on the life of anne frank. however, due to both the diverse campus population and the diversity seen within buffalo more generally, the play took another turn. it was decided that anne frank, a girl hiding from the nazis in germany, would be juxtaposed with another genocide, the 1994 killings of tutsis in rwanda by hutu extremists. thus, the project laid bare the commonalities of racial and ethnic hatred as seen through the eyes of anne frank and anana based on the life of immaculee ilibagiza as told in left to tell. from the beginning, the anne frank project developed a purposeful focus to work within the buffalo school system to share universal themes of survival, transformation, and social justice. this was grounded by work the afp does to take buffalo state students to rwanda each year to both learn about the 1994 genocide and to share with teachers in rwanda the mechanisms and tools to explore conflict resolution, community building, and identity exploration. additionally, each fall the anne frank project hosts a social justice festival on campus with significant contributions from our diverse community on and off campus as participants, presenters, and partners. many current members of immigrant and refugee families come to buffalo with stories similar to the atrocities faced during the holocaust or during the rwandan genocide. thus, this project can provide a space and a way to move beyond the past hurts that paved their press to come to the united states and to affirm they are not alone and are supported. in this festival and through bringing the anne frank project to schools, the organizers both opened the discussion of the importance of social justice everywhere and the importance of our communities appreciating and supporting all segments of our communities. differences that © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23553 | december 6, 2019       24  divide us are openly discussed and confronted while we focus on the commonalities that unite us. these sessions and this work serves to reduce the distance between our community members and forges a dedication to unity, fairness, and community commitment. supporting economic advancement  within our small business and development center, buffalo states works frequently with refugees or newcomers who are interested in starting a business. they are generally referred to the center from one of our community partners and many of the programs offered by the center are of significant interest to immigrant and refugee members. as a city on the great lakes, there has been strong interest in programs and opportunities based on the blue economy (water-based projects). interest in entrepreneurial training is of significant interest within our community and this support in collaboration with community partners has been successful in launching the business interests of many immigrants and refugees within our region.   conclusion  the mission of urban anchor institutions continues to evolve, as does the surrounding community. buffalo state’s nearly 150-year history has shown a pattern of support and encouragement for groups that are new to higher education. the makeup of the population in our urban environment has changed dramatically over the history of our institution, but we have remained steadfast and true to our mission, which has always included opening doorways and creating pathways for those underserved no matter their origins. our campus today has a layered approach to addressing the concerns of many of the newest members of our community. we extend our campus to support children, adults, and all family members who come to western new york looking for a better place to live, grow, and, hopefully, thrive. buffalo is a new american city in many ways. it is diverse, it is vibrant, and it is growing. today we see the city of buffalo on the rise and as an anchor institution within buffalo we seek to support all members of our community, new and old, in their efforts to thrive and succeed in today’s world.   © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23553 | december 6, 2019       25  references  cepla, z. (2019). fact sheet: us refugee resettlement, immigration forum. (january 25, 2019) brown, w. (2014). william wells brown: clotel and other writings. greenspan, e. (ed.). new york, ny: the literary classics of the united states, inc. goldman, m. (1983). high hopes: the rise and decline of buffalo. albany, new york: state university of new york press. nunn, r., o’donnell, j., and shambaugh, j. ((2018). the hamilton project: a dozen facts about immigration (october 2018). www. hamitionproject.org szczepaniec, k. (2018). indigenous people of western new york. partnership for the public good. (february 2018) wilson, j. and singer, a. (2011). immigrants in 2010 metropolitan america: a decade of change. brookings institute. (october 2011) microsoft word fritz iwama new template 22368 (12.02)-final.docx   invited commentary    © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23368 | december 6, 2019  63  the power of place‐based legacies in advancing  reengagement with community  william fritz1, and ken iwama2    1 office of the president, college of staten island, the city university of new york, 2 office of the vice president for  economic development, continuing studies, and government relations, college of staten island, the city university  of new york    cite as: fritz, w., & iwama, k. (2019). the power of place‐based legacies in advancing reengagement with  community. metropolitan universities, 30(2), 63‐71. doi: 10.18060/23368    this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license.    editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d.  abstract  the degree to which urban and metropolitan colleges and universities can have a positive  impact on their respective communities is heavily influenced by the nature and extent of their  connectedness to, and alignment with, civic need. drawn from the experiences and outcomes  of the college of staten island’s legacy trilogy initiative, a comprehensive educational and  community engagement campaign exploring and leveraging the college’s legacy of institution,  legacy of place, and legacy of mission, this article proposes that higher education institutions  can increase connectedness and alignment with their surrounding metropolises by embracing  their deep and intricate social and economic place‐based histories. engaging with legacy in this  uniquely personal and purposeful way can not only give more meaningful shape and added  dimension to institutional identity, it can also empower colleges and universities to become  more impactful to the communities they serve.     keywords: anchor institution, borough stewardship, institutional identity    © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23368 | december 6, 2019  64  introduction  a hallmark of highly impactful urban and metropolitan colleges and universities is that they are in strategic alignment with their communities. for these institutions, the foundations of their missions and identities reflect the deep, intricate social and economic histories and contexts of their respective, surrounding metropolises. conversely, colleges and universities that consciously or unconsciously disassociate from their important place-based legacies can experience, through this disconnectedness, a diminished ability to advance mutually beneficial opportunities and engagements with their communities. such was the case with the college of staten island, the only public institution of higher education on staten island, one of five boroughs of new york city. in its present form, the college was formed in 1976. however, its institutional history runs much deeper, tracing its roots to the establishment and eventual merger of its two predecessor institutions, staten island community college and richmond college. in 1993, the college of staten island relocated from the northern part of the borough to a larger campus located midisland. while the transition to a new campus represented a significant milestone for the college, the relocation also marked the beginning of a period in which the institution experienced a growing disconnect from the borough. as a consequence, the dynamic exchange of knowledge, skills, resources, and values between the college and staten island community, so vital to the advancement and growth of both, began to wane. in 2012, the college of staten island made the critical decision to once again become part of, and not apart from, staten island by introducing an ambitious legacy trilogy initiative. central to this initiative, which was presented in three separate but interconnected themes, was a comprehensive educational and community engagement campaign to foster greater understanding and discourse related to our significant, interwoven histories with the borough. more specifically, we sought to reengage with our legacy of institution, remembering our predecessor institutions staten island community college and richmond college and their historical ties to the north shore section of staten island where they originated; legacy of place, acknowledging and valuing that our campus sits on the former site of the willowbrook state school, widely regarded as the birthplace of the civil rights movement for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities; and legacy of mission, understanding and embracing our vital role as staten island’s anchor institution. the legacy trilogy was launched at our annual convocation ceremony, the major event convening students, faculty, staff, and community members for the president’s yearly state of the college address. over a three-year period, each state of the college address was dedicated to a separate theme of the trilogy. this seminal educational series stimulated college-wide dialogue about our connectedness to the borough. of greater import, the reexamination of our narrative inspired meaningful and significant institutional change, fortifying the foundations of our mission and identity in the context of community engagement. © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23368 | december 6, 2019  65  legacy of institution, returning to community  staten island community college was established in 1956 as the first public institution of higher education in the borough with an inaugural class of 112 students (the staten island community college records, 2018). it was an inspirational symbol of hope and opportunity for the people of staten island. as remarked by staten island borough president albert v. maniscalco to the graduates at the first commencement of staten island community college in 1958: this is a historical day on staten island. you are the first graduating class of our staten island community college. you are the product of long cherished dreams of the people of the borough for their own community college. we are proud of you, and to the people of staten island you are the first of their dreams come true. (maniscalco, 1958, side 1, 38:40) by the mid-1960s, enrollment at the community college had grown to over 2,000 full and parttime students (the staten island community college records, 2018). this was reflective of a national increase in the number of graduates from two-year colleges, which gave rise to consideration of a new concept in higher education, the upper-division college (volpe, 2001). in 1965, richmond college became the first urban upper-division college in the country, providing undergraduate programs for juniors and seniors and select graduate studies (the staten island community college records, 2018). its auspicious beginning was short lived, though, as new york city would soon become embroiled in mounting fiscal crises culminating in 1975 with the city narrowly avoiding bankruptcy (the staten island community college records, 2018). richmond college, funded exclusively through the city and facing imminent danger of closing, merged with staten island community college, thus creating the college of staten island in 1976 (the staten island community college records, 2018). both staten island community college and richmond college were originally located in the borough’s north shore community district, an area encompassing seven neighborhoods and home to the famous staten island ferry, connecting staten island to lower manhattan across new york harbor. the college of staten island eventually relocated its campus to mid-island in 1993, and soon thereafter, the college, on an institutional level, began to turn its attention inward, becoming increasingly campus-centric and less connected to its surrounding community. within this context of growing disconnectedness, an institutional narrative evolved, framing our historical timeline as beginning in 1976, the year of the merger. pursuant to this narrative, our predecessor institutions, staten island community college and richmond college, and their more than 30,000 alumni, began to slowly fade from our institutional memory, and with it, an appreciation of the indelible void left in the community when our predecessor institutions departed from the north shore. according to a recent study by mehrotra, kimiagar, drobnjak, and halktis (2018), today the north shore is one of new york city’s most populated community districts with approximately 174,000 residents. it is one of the few districts in which its racial and ethnic diversity, 36% white non-hispanic, 21.3% black non-hispanic, 30.4% latino, and 8.7% asian, is representative of new york city as a whole (mehrotra et al., 2018). income disparity is prevalent in the north shore as there are many residents falling on the higher end of the income continuum, while many © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23368 | december 6, 2019  66  others live under very challenging economic conditions (mehrotra et al., 2018). the study notes that the overall poverty rate, 21%, is slightly higher than the citywide rate, with one-third of north shore children living in poor households, and the labor force participation rate among residents, 66%, being significantly lower than new york city overall. of particular concern, north shore youth “are more likely to be disconnected than youth citywide meaning greater numbers are both out-of-school and out-of-work.” (mehrotra et al., 2018, p. 6). one suggested reason for this is that: young people on the north shore are less likely to be enrolled in college compared to years past. the share of 18to 24-year-olds with a high school diploma who are enrolled in college has decreased substantially; the share of students from north shore high schools enrolling in post-secondary education has also declined. (mehrotra et al., 2018, p. 6) our focus on legacy of institution firmly established staten island community college and richmond college as inseparable from our institutional history, a change in narrative that was eventually adopted by the university system at our behest. this provided us with a pivotal opportunity for self-examination of our engagement with, and service to, the north shore community. long the bane of staten islanders’ existence, public transportation has historically suffered from an extremely poor infrastructure as the only borough without rapid transit, underscored by the lack of a subway system (kramer & flanagan, 2012). layered with other socio-economic impediments, there are tangible barriers for north shore residents to attend the college of staten island at our mid-island campus. this serious introspection eventually led to a major institutional undertaking: the college’s return to the north shore. in fall 2017, we opened the new college of staten island st. george satellite facility, csi st. george, located in the north shore’s st. george neighborhood adjacent to where staten island community college and richmond college once stood. csi st. george, the first satellite facility established by the college for matriculating students, is a newly constructed 16,000-square-foot space, with ten smart classrooms, a state-of-the-art computer lab, an open and expansive student lounge, and a dedicated on-site student services center. in just one year of operation, it has grown from an initial enrollment of 523 full and part-time students to 992 students in fall 2018, with more than half residing in the north shore (m. d’alessandro, personal communication, may, 19, 2019). with increasing enrollments and the expansion of student and community programming, csi st. george is steadily weaving the college back into the fabric of the north shore. arising from our legacy of institution, the college of staten island has now come full circle in its journey originating in 1956. our return has enriched and strengthened our identity as a beacon of higher education opportunity and, as expressed by the borough president 61 years ago, fulfilling our promise as “the product of long cherished dreams of the people” (maniscalco, 1958, side 1, 38:40).   © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23368 | december 6, 2019  67  legacy of place, ascending from tragedy  the second theme of our trilogy, legacy of place, has a deep and uniquely special meaning as it relates to our mid-island campus. the college of staten island is situated on historical, if not hallowed, ground. our idyllic, verdant, park-like campus belies its tragic past as the former home of the willowbrook state school, which gained world-wide notoriety for its inhumane treatment of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. the story of willowbrook began in 1938 with the first rumblings of the state of new york’s intention to build an institution in the borough of staten island for people with developmental disabilities, which was part of a broader, long-standing institutionalization movement (goode, hill, reiss, & bronston, 2013). willowbrook state school was eventually constructed on the land where the college of staten island now sits. however, its original intended use was briefly diverted to serve as the site of the halloran general hospital military facility during world war ii (goode et al., 2013). it was not until 1947 that the willowbrook state school for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities opened with a small number of residents (goode et al., 2013). from its very inception, the institution grew in population and in structure, but always under the conditions of overcrowding, understaffing, and underfunding by the state (national council on disability, n.d.). by 1962, the number of children and adult residents had climbed to 6,000, greatly exceeding its capacity of 4,000, with a staffing ratio reportedly to be one attendant for every 60 residents (goode et al., 2013). in 1965, united states senator robert f. kennedy made an unannounced visit to the willowbrook state school, thereafter summarily referring to it as a “snake pit” (goode et al., 2013, pp. 90-91). in his testimony before a new york joint legislative committee, kennedy described what he had witnessed: there are young children slipping into blankness and lifelong dependence. there are crippled children without medical supervision or rehabilitative therapy [...] there are children and young adults without education and training programs to prepare them for life in the community. and there are many far too many living in filth and dirt, their clothing in rags, in rooms less comfortable and cheerful than the cages in which we put animals in a zoo without adequate supervision or a bit of affection condemned to a life without hope ... there are no civil liberties for those put into the cells of willowbrook . . . (goode et al., 2013, p. 90) the ensuing years brought more intense scrutiny to willowbrook’s deteriorating state. jane curtin, a reporter with a local newspaper, the staten island advance, wrote a series of articles chronicling the inhumane conditions of the state school (goode et al., 2013). then, on january 6, 1972, geraldo rivera, at the time a young reporter for wabc-tv eyewitness news, broke into the school grounds with a film crew capturing the shocking images of the mistreatment of residents, similarly witnessed by senator kennedy seven years earlier (goode et al., 2013). that night, the exposé was broadcast on network television, and the local and national outcry that followed signaled willowbrook’s tipping point (goode et al., 2013). © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23368 | december 6, 2019  68  within months of the broadcast, parents of residents filed a class action lawsuit alleging conditions at willowbrook violated the residents’ constitutional rights (national council on disability, n.d.). following a period of protracted litigation, governor hugh carey signed a landmark consent decree (national council on disability, n.d.). the willowbrook consent decree, as it would be known, mandated major reforms including the transition of residents to community placements and opportunity for residents to lead productive, fulfilling lives (national council on disability, n.d.). in 1987, willowbrook was finally declared officially closed, paving the way for the college of staten island to eventually relocate its campus to the grounds of the former state school in 1993. coinciding with the college’s growing disconnect with its surrounding community after relocation, the college also started distancing itself from the perceived stigma and shame associated with the painful history of the willowbrook state school. individual faculty members admirably sought to preserve the memory of the state school though an annual willowbrook memorial lecture series, but this was done largely without institutional support. the college’s disassociation with the former state school stood in stark contrast with the intentions of individuals, agencies, and organizations supporting and advocating for people with developmental disabilities in the community that the injustices of willowbrook would never be forgotten. this dynamic mired our shared connection to the willowbrook state school in anger and distrust. our engagement with legacy of place provided the college of staten island with the invaluable opportunity to embrace our place-based connection to the willowbrook state school and to formally acknowledge the injustice perpetrated upon thousands of residents in its care. it also allowed us to talk about willowbrook’s lesser known, but equally significant, stories of triumph. the many courageous individuals and organizations whose activism led to the closure of the school are credited not only for leading the first civil rights movement for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities, but also for effectively ending the practice of warehousing the most vulnerable in society. remarkably, the national attention over willowbrook led to the adoption of the first federal civil rights legislation protecting people with disabilities, which served as the building blocks leading to the passage of the americans with disabilities act in 1990 (national council on disability, n.d.). approaching willowbrook from this more complete and rich historical perspective helped to finally move its story beyond tragedy. arising from our legacy of place, the college now actively and proudly supports and sponsors the annual willowbrook memorial lecture series. at our most recent commencement, the college awarded jane curtin an honorary degree of doctor of humane letters for her contributions in exposing the conditions at the state school. geraldo rivera, once considered a trespasser at willowbrook, was welcomed back to speak at the college’s departmental exercise for the first graduating class of our new bachelor of science in social work degree. imbued by the sense of rebirth of place, he created the college of staten island geraldo rivera fund for social work and disability studies, which provides support for public conferences, symposia, lectures, and publications that will inform the public, influence policy, and empower people with disabilities. © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23368 | december 6, 2019  69  galvanized by this momentum, the college has broken ground on a momentous project, a commemorative museum trail called the willowbrook mile. this major endeavor will incorporate multiple outdoor exhibit stations, each providing information about the willowbrook state school, placed at various locations of historical importance across campus. notably, and indicative of a growing community trust, the willowbrook mile is a result of a collaboration between the college of staten island and several organizations serving the disabilities community including the staten island developmental disabilities council, the largest coalition of agencies, parents, advocates, and professionals offering information, referrals, and assistance for those with developmental disabilities. for the college of staten island, the transformative impact of legacy of place arose from a uniquely painful and conflicting time in our history. the acknowledgment and valuing of the important social lessons originating from our place have helped to facilitate a restorative healing of our community. concomitantly, legacy of place has uplifted the college by giving meaningful shape and a profound, added dimension to our institutional identity. legacy of mission, the borough’s anchor mission    emanating from our vital presence as the only public institution of higher education in the borough, the foundational purpose of the college of staten island is to provide our students with higher education access and equal opportunity as a vehicle for intellectual growth and upward social mobility. the community-inspired themes and efficacious outcomes of legacy of institution and legacy of place illuminated that our foundational purpose can be viewed as part of an overarching mission, serving as a responsible steward of the borough. legacy of mission, the third and final theme of our trilogy, elucidated the college’s crucial role as staten island’s anchor institution. to engender a better understanding of our anchor role, legacy of mission presented a view of the college through the lens, not of its presence within the community, but of its potential absence. what would happen, we asked, if the college of staten island were to suddenly cease to exist: the disappearance of 2,800 jobs as staten island’s second largest employer, the loss of goods and services contracts as well as the purchasing power of our students and employees, all of which support local businesses, the deficit of trained and skilled students to meet workforce needs, the dissolution of the intellectual capital needed to advance community-based research and scholarship, the vanishing of a major cultural and intellectual center, and a diminution of local volunteerism, service, and civic engagement by students, faculty, and staff. this perspective provided enlightenment concerning the college’s great obligations and responsibilities to the borough attendant with its anchor status. in 2017, the college of staten island finalized its new strategic plan, “opportunity to ascend,” to guide the college’s vision and growth over the next five years. sprung from our legacy of mission, for the first time in our history, a major strategic priority was created to advance the college as an anchor institution. that strategic priority, borough stewardship, derived from the landmark publication, stepping forward as stewards of place, from the american association of state colleges and universities (2002), provides in pertinent part: © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23368 | december 6, 2019  70  the college of staten island is fully committed to advancing its role as a ‘steward of place’ through direct, two-way interaction with the staten island community through the development, exchange, and application of knowledge, information, and expertise for mutual benefit ... to help effectuate the ambitious goals of borough stewardship, the college created an entirely new unit, the division of economic development, continuing studies, and government relations. the division brought together new and existing offices and departments that are directly and organically aligned with anchor work. designed to be predominantly communityfacing, the division has become the college’s principal liaison to the borough to facilitate organic collaborations and integrations. most recently, the college of staten island was selected among thirty-one colleges and universities across the united states as an inaugural member of the higher education anchor mission initiative. this is a joint initiative of the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities and the democracy collaborative, a national research institute developing strategies for a more democratic economy. this national collaboration is “designed to develop and share new strategies for deploying higher education’s intellectual and place-based resources to enhance the economic and social well-being of the communities they serve,” and will provide a comprehensive framework for assessing the impact of our work (democracy collaborative, 2018). legacy of mission sparked an epiphany concerning our role as an anchor institution, and the process of self-realization moved the college to fully embrace its identity as borough steward. this inspired fundamental institutional change reflecting our newfound commitment to community engagement that is both substantive and enduring. the extraordinary outcomes from our legacy of institution and legacy of place, as well as the subsequent outgrowth of our many other place-based initiatives, exemplify the singular significance of the anchor mission.   conclusion  urban and metropolitan colleges and universities are facing exceptional challenges in turbulent times. among them, decreased public funding, declining enrollments, and heightened concerns over the cost of education spurred on by the student debt crisis are fueling debate concerning the value of higher education. therefore, it is critical for higher education institutions to meet the challenge of relevancy by demonstrating greater value propositions with the communities in which they reside through more purposeful and meaningful connections aligned with civic need. as evinced by the college of staten island’s legacy trilogy initiative, place-based legacies provide fertile ground for institutions to reengage with their surrounding metropolises for mutual advantage. by leveraging shared social and economic histories, even those with painful or difficult origins similar to our willowbrook legacy, colleges and universities can fortify their respective missions and identities to become even more impactful to the communities they serve. this is the power of legacy. © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23368 | december 6, 2019  71  references  american association of state colleges and universities. (2002). stepping forward as stewards of place. retrieved from https://www.aascu.org/workarea/downloadasset.aspx?id=5458. democracy collaborative. (2018). the democracy collaborative and cumu launch the higher education anchor mission initiative in partnership with 31 colleges and universities. retrieved from https://democracycollaborative.org/content/democracy-collaborative-andcumu-launch-higher-education-anchor-mission-initiative. goode, d., hill, d., reiss, j., & bronston, w. (2013). a history and sociology of the willowbrook state school. united states of america: american association on intellectual and developmental disabilities. kramer, d.c., & flanagan, r.m. (2012). staten island: conservative bastion in a liberal city. lanham, md: university press of america. maniscalco, a.v. (1958). first commencement, june 9, 1958, staten island community college [lp]. archives & special collections, department of the library, college of staten island, cuny, staten island, ny: sanders recording studios. mehrotra, a., kimiagar, b., drobnjak, m., & halkitis, s. (2018). the north shore of staten island: community driven solutions to improve child and family well-being. retrieved from https://www.cccnewyork.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/north-shore-report.pdf. national council on disability. (n.d.). forty years after the willowbrook consent decree, ncd celebrates how far we’ve come. retrieved from https://ncd.gov/newsroom/05042015. the staten island community college records. (2018). archives & special collections (cm-1), department of the library, college of staten island, cuny, staten island, ny. volpe, e.l. (2001). the comprehensive college. lincoln, ne: writers club press. urban partnerships to address health literacy in high need populations metropolitan universities vol. 30 no. 2 (june 2019), doi: 10.18060/22786 84 urban partnerships to address health literacy in high need populations abiola o. keller, amy vuyk, and joshua knox abstract low health literacy disproportionately affects racial and ethnic minority communities and lowerincome socioeconomic groups. to address this critical determinant of health inequity, two nonprofit organizations, repairers of the breach, a day shelter for individuals experiencing homelessness, and bread of healing a neighborhood-based clinic serving individuals with low incomes, partnered with researchers at marquette university to implement and evaluate an evidence-supported health literacy program. the partnership delivered the curriculum in seven one-hour sessions over seven weeks. the program attendees were predominantly african american men and women from 19–73 years old. most participants had formal education ranging from elementary school to some college. forty individuals attended at least one class and 14 attendees completed 4 or more classes. program completers demonstrated gains in confidence and topic knowledge. most interviewees reported a personal/family need for the program, acceptability of the group format, and the ability to learn the skills they needed for self-care. the project used a successful collaboration between community-based organizations serving vulnerable populations and an urban academic institution to demonstrate the necessity, feasibility, acceptability, and effectiveness of formal health literacy education in adults with low incomes or who are experiencing homelessness. urban and metropolitan serving institutions can work in partnership with community to address low health literacy in high need populations. keywords: heal program; health education; community-academic collaboration introduction to promote health, improve health outcomes, and achieve equity, individuals must be able to understand and use the health information they hear, read, and see from numerous sources. yet, approximately 80 million adults in the u.s. have difficulty using everyday health information (kutner, greenberg, jin, & paulsen, 2006). health literacy, defined as the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services need to make appropriate health decisions (ratzan & parker, 2000) is an important determinant of health. research has shown low health literacy to be associated with adverse health outcomes (berkman, sheridan, donahue, halpern, & crotty, 2011) and poorer use of health care services (griffey, kennedy, d'agostino mcgowan, goodman, & kaphingst, 2014). while low health literacy affects people of all races, ages, education, and income levels, rates are higher among minority and lower socioeconomic groups (kutner et al., 2006). given the disproportionate burden of low health literacy and its adverse impact on health, improving health literacy had been recognized as a critical mechanism for improving health and health outcomes (u.s. department of health and human services, 2010). notably, improving health literacy is included as one of the healthy people 2020 objectives (office of disease prevention and health promotion, 2019). 85 institutions of higher education can play a major role in addressing inequities in determinants of health such as health literacy. in addition to collaborating with community to deliver healthpromoting services and programs, urban and metropolitan serving institutions may also serve as evaluation partners. collecting and analyzing data to determine the feasibility and effectiveness of community-based programs in order to better understand what does and does not work is critical for optimizing program outcomes and maximizing the return on investment. (centers for disease control and prevention, 2019). in this article, we present an example of leveraging a community-academic partnership to deliver and evaluate a health literacy intervention in a high need population. in response to a community-driven agenda to elevate the health and well-being of community residents (milwaukee health department) and in recognition of the potential for limited health literacy to reinforce existing inequalities, researchers at marquette university, an urban institution, partnered with two local clinics serving individuals with low incomes or who are experiencing homelessness to address low health literacy. available evidence suggests that health literacy can be increased through focused interventions (taggart et al., 2012). moreover, interventions delivered by non-physicians (dennis et al., 2012), or in a community setting (taggart et al., 2012) are promising approaches. the health education and literacy (heal) program (literacy for life, 2016) is a community-based, health literacy course. although the heal program has been shown to increase participants’ confidence and health knowledge (mellor & uselton, 2016), this has not been investigated in lower resourced settings. moreover, participants’ perceptions of the necessity, acceptability, feasibility, and safety of the intervention have not been examined. information on these parameters is essential for guiding efforts to augment health literacy skills in underserved populations. to address this gap, a community-academic partnership sought to assess the necessity, acceptability, feasibility, fidelity, safety, and effectiveness of the heal program in an urban setting. methods design this qualitative and quantitative study explored the six critical parameters—necessity, acceptability, feasibility, safety, fidelity, and effectiveness—of a health literacy intervention in an urban community. this approach has been used in previous intervention research with people facing multiple barriers (bekhet, zauszniewski, & matel-anderson, 2012). data were collected from participants during face-to-face interviews at the conclusion of the intervention. this study was approved as minimal risk by the marquette university institutional review board. setting repairers of the breach (rob). repairers of the breach is a nonprofit day shelter for individuals experiencing homelessness. repairers is engaged in healing activities that build community awareness and pave the way for individual improvement through nutrition, fellowship, counseling and support groups, violence reduction, substance abuse recovery, leadership, and 86 volunteerism. repairers also operates a free medical clinic serving individuals experiencing homelessness and the local community. bread of healing (boh). bread of healing is a nonprofit neighborhood-based clinic serving individuals with low incomes. bread of healing provides medical, pharmacy, dental, counseling, social service, and health education services. participants for the study, the study team recruited a convenience sample of adults receiving medical services at rob or boh medical clinics. individuals were eligible for the study if they attended rob or boh medical clinics, were willing to attend up to 8 intervention sessions, and able to provide information via pre and post surveys and an interview. procedure the community partners informed recruitment approaches for the study. at rob, researchers distributed printed materials about the study and posted flyers in prominent places. in addition, the investigators had one-on-one conversations with prospective participants in the clinic. at boh, investigators held an information study where they presented general information about the study. at both sites, anyone who was interested in participating and eligible was invited to attend the first intervention session. the intervention literacy for life (2016), an independent non-profit organization of the william and mary school of education in williamsburg, va, developed and disseminates the intervention used here, entitled health education and literacy (heal) program. prior to beginning the study, the authors traveled to the literacy for life learning center and completed the 1-day certification training course necessary to obtain a license for administering the heal program. the research team conducted the heal program twice, once at rob and once at boh. consistent with the established protocol, the heal program sessions took place in a small group format. each session was held in a private classroom. dr. keller and mr. knox alternated teaching the sessions at boh. ms. vuyk taught the curriculum at rob with support from mr. knox. the research team delivered the heal program curriculum in seven one-hour sessions over seven weeks. they addressed topics such as how to describe symptoms to a doctor, reading and understanding medication instructions, understanding when to use non-emergent health care services versus using the emergency room, understanding medical forms, and identifying healthy lifestyle choices. each of the sessions was conducted by one or two members of the research team. 87 measures and instruments measuring and evaluating the intervention parameters. the team assessed the necessity of the heal program by asking participants if they felt they needed the program and if they thought that their friends and family would benefit. the authors also gauged necessity using the participants’ baseline scores on the rapid estimate of adult literacy in medicine-short form (realm-sf), a 7-item word recognition test. the realm-sf has been validated, and fieldtested in diverse research settings (arozullah et al., 2007). possible scores on the realm-sf range from 0 to 7. individuals with a score of zero (grade equivalent = third grade or below) will be unable to read most low-literacy materials, those with a score of one to three (grade equivalent = fourth to sixth grade) will need low-literacy materials and be likely unable to read prescription labels. adults with a realm-sf score of four to six (grade equivalent = seventh to eighth grade) often struggle with most patient-education materials and would benefit from lowliteracy materials. those with a score of seven (grade equivalent = high school) will likely be able to read most patient education materials. additionally, this study examined baseline scores on a brief questionnaire assessing participants’ confidence for and knowledge of the topics covered in the heal program. confidence was measured by asking how comfortable and confident participants felt in doing routine health tasks such as asking providers questions, competing forms, and determining when and where to seek care. available responses for each item were on a 5-point likert scale including not at all, not very, somewhat, very, and extremely with higher numbers indicating more confidence. the authors assessed the knowledge gained with eight true or false questions based on the program curriculum. to evaluate acceptability of the heal program, participants were asked to describe what part or parts of the program were most, and least interesting. they were also asked whether they thought the program content and the group format were appropriate for them. the feasibility of the program was assessed by asking participants to describe what part or parts of the program were easiest and most challenging, and whether they thought the number of and length of each session was appropriate for them. to determine program fidelity, participants were asked if they thought they learned the skills they needed to take care of their health and what would have helped them to learn better. fidelity was also assessed by administering the brief questionnaire to assess participants’ confidence for and knowledge of the topics covered in the heal program at the completion of the curriculum. to compare the pre and post confidence and knowledge scores a paired wilcoxon signed-rank test was performed. the wilcoxon signed-rank test is similar to the paired t-test but is more suitable when the data are non-normally distributed (mcdonald, 2014). the research team hypothesized that the post-program scores would increase if the program content was taught effectively. the safety of the heal program was measured by asking participants to describe the part or parts of the program that were the most, and least, uncomfortable or distressing and whether they had any worries about confidentiality during the group sessions. the effectiveness of the heal program was evaluated by asking participants to describe the part or parts of the program that were the most, and least, helpful in teaching them about taking care 88 of their health. participants were also asked for feedback on ways that the program could be improved. all participants were asked to provide demographic information (age, gender, race, ethnicity, and education). perceived health status was evaluated using a single item question asking participants to rate their general health on a scale from 1 to 5 with 1 being poor and 5 being excellent. results the study sample forty adults attended at least one heal program session (rob = 24, boh =16) with 13 attending four or more sessions (rob = 7, boh = 6). fourteen adults completed the postprogram evaluation (rob = 9, boh = 5). thirteen of the 14 adults identified as african american. among those who completed the post-program evaluation, 7 were women (50%) and 7 men (50%). participants in the program evaluation were between the ages of 27 and 64 years (mean, 50), the majority had a high school education or less (n =12, 86%) and rated their health to be good, very good, or excellent (n = 11, 79%). evaluation of intervention parameters necessity. the baseline realm-sf scores, as well as participants’ confidence for and knowledge of the program topics, were assessed as indicators of the level of need for the heal program. the realm-sf scores of the study sample ranged from one to seven (mean, 4.6), baseline confidence scores ranged from three to five (mean, 3.9), baseline knowledge were between zero and six (mean, 4.1). most program completers reported feeling that they needed the program (86%) or that their family and friends needed the program (79%). one participant said, “at first i didn’t [feel i needed the program], but now that i went through it, i learned a lot of stuff. it was beneficial.” another shared, “i can say i need it. even though i knew some of it, it helped freshen my mind.” acceptability. when asked what part or parts of the program was most interesting, the most frequently discussed topics included communicating with providers (n=4) and diet and nutrition (n=4). one participant said, “health wise about the weight, learning how much calories in soda.” information about smoking cessation and medication taking emerged as the least interesting. with regards to smoking cessation, one participant explained by saying “smoking, not trying to quit right now.” when asked about the appropriateness of the group format, many participants responded positively. responses included “it was fun cause you learn more from different people.” and “it was awesome cause you learn something from everybody.” feasibility. half of the participants reported that nothing about the program was difficult. among those who reported finding part of the program challenging, the most frequently (n=3) discussed challenge had to do with making changes related to diet and nutrition. one participant described this by saying “eating right. i am still in the process of eating right. sometimes i eat too much cake.” another added, “i have to watch what i eat even though i want fast food, i can’t have it.” six individuals responded that the content pertaining to diet and nutrition was the easiest. this 89 was exemplified by comments such as “i used to eat a lot but [the class] told you different things to eat to watch your weight” and “i never knew to go to the store and look at labels. i used to go to the store and just pick up stuff.” the majority of participants (64%) wanted either more class time or longer sessions, “the hour was too short” or additional classes “for a beginning it was [long enough], but i wish they has a step 2.” fidelity. approximately 93% of participants felt they were able to learn the skills they needed to take care of their health. one said, “since i have been in the class i’m controlling my blood pressure better and eating better, less fried food, more baked food, more veggies.” when asked about what would have helped them learn better, 36% said nothing more was needed, 29% commented on individual factors such as, “maybe if i wasn’t so stubborn” or “pay more attention,” and 14% requested changes to the methods used to deliver the content, including writing on the board more and using a projector. post-program confidence and knowledge scores were measured as an indicator of the fidelity of the program. after completing the program, confidence scores ranged from 2.7 to 5 (mean, 4.1). using the wilcoxon signed-rank test, there was no statistically significant difference between the pre and post confidence scores (p-value > 0.2). the post knowledge scores were overall higher than the pre-scores and ranged from 2 to 7 (mean, 5.9). based on the wilcoxon signed-rank test there was a statistically significant difference between the pre and post knowledge scores (0.02 < p-value < 0.05). safety. over half (57%) of the participants reported that nothing made them feel uncomfortable. three participants reported discomfort with activities focused on behavior change. one participant described this by saying. “trying to force you to eat something you don’t know anything about, never heard of. i like soul food.” most adults (93%) were not concerned about confidentiality during the group sessions and felt they were able to control the information that was shared. this was exemplified by statements such as, “if i want them to know something, i’ll tell them.” effectiveness. when asked what part or parts of the program were the most helpful in teaching them about taking care of their health the majority (79%) of participants reported that everything was helpful. the most frequently mentioned topic was learning about communicating with providers and preparing for appointments. with regards to ways the program could be improved, responses focused on participants’ desire for more program sessions. discussion this is the first study to evaluate the necessity, acceptability, feasibility, safety, fidelity, and effectiveness of the heal program in individuals with low incomes or who are experiencing homelessness. regarding fidelity and effectiveness, participants’ knowledge scores were significantly higher at the end of the program compared to their scores before the program. moreover, most participants reported that everything they learned was helpful in helping them take care of their health. the study findings indicate that there is a great need for health literacy training in populations with low resources. given that the study participants were primarily (93%) african american, the findings are consistent with previous research suggesting that racial and ethnic minorities are 90 at increased risk for having low health literacy (kutner et al., 2006). in addition to demonstrating need, this study also found evidence that adults at the two clinics desired health literacy training and most notably, they found the topics included in the heal program acceptable and wanted more training sessions. delivering health literacy training programs in a group format within a community setting may be a valuable method for increasing access to these programs. this study showed that learning about and discussing health topics in a group format did not cause participants discomfort and in fact, participants valued being able to share their experiences and listen to others. throughout this community-academic partnership to address health literacy, the research team overcame challenges and learned valuable lessons. these may be useful to other urban and metropolitan universities seeking to influence health outcomes in their communities. a key challenge for the study team was participant attrition. it was encouraging that forty total participants attended at least one class. however, only 14 participants attended most of the classes and completed the post-assessments. the high attrition rate possibly resulted from the forced transience of the population, the degree of uncertainty in their daily schedules, personal or family illness, and other competing commitments such as job or housing searches. in addition to securing the support of organizational leaders, the successful implementation of group-based, multiple session programs, like the heal program, requires identifying champions for the classes amongst the organizational staff and program participants. other critical components for success include advertising the classes beforehand in the clinics and securing dedicated space within the community partners’ facilities for the classes. while healthy food was provided at each session, a modest financial incentive was provided only at the first and last session. financial incentives played a larger role in attendance at rob with a more significant drop in attendance after the incentives diminished. it is recommended that future classes provide healthy food and modest financial incentives or small non-monetary items at each session to encourage attendance if utilizing this course with individuals with low incomes or who are experiencing homelessness. another challenge encountered was developing class cohesion. at both sites, the degree of engagement and enthusiasm for the curriculum was remarkable; however, a notably higher level of class cohesion and belonging occurred among rob participants. additionally, the research team noted robust discussions about changing health behaviors at rob. there were discussions of the same issues at boh but less participant commitment to behavior change. speculatively, the different cohort constituencies, low income vs. experiencing homelessness, may explain this observation. never the less a group dynamic that is cooperative and encourages respect of individual differences and abilities is essential for promoting learning. as such, it is recommended that instructors actively build class cohesion and model healthy behaviors for future classes. the qualifications and experience of the heal teachers have implications for both this study and future interventions. all members of this research team were qualified adult educators with formal teacher training and certifications as health care professionals. our qualifications as teachers were certainly an asset to the program. however, our background is unusual compared 91 to most health literacy programming including typical heal courses where the instructors are either adult educators or healthcare professionals but not both. further, we recognize our own limitations as teachers in this population. the students in the course were atypical compared to the graduate health professions students whom we ordinarily teach. instructors planning to teach health literacy classes in low literacy populations need to be able to recognize basic literacy issues, adapt their teaching methods in response, and demonstrate flexibility and patience in classroom management of variations in attention, participation, and interruption. we suggest that others who are considering teaching health literacy take formal training such as the heal program provides or use online education through the centers for disease control and prevention (centers for disease control and prevention, 2018). future researchers and others working in this sphere need to consider both the sustainability and feasibility of community partnerships in health literacy programming prior to initiation. this study was externally grant funded by the nccpa health foundation kathy j. pedersen grant to promote equitable care and a matching donation from the hepburn foundation. the authors’ institution, marquette university, has continued to support licensing fees that have allowed the program to continue another year. two of the authors, (knox and vuyk) have continued to teach the classes at the rob site. a program to train physician-assistant students remotely to deliver the heal curriculum is currently in the planning stages. however, the authors recognize that factors including availability of funding, trustworthy relationships with community partners, and qualified available teaching staff may be serious impediments to others planning similar interventions. conclusion in times of diminishing public resources and increasingly complex social problems, urban and metropolitan universities, and especially those universities with social missions, should be investigating and supporting collaborations with their communities and community-based organizations to curb urban decline in the areas of housing, violence, employment, education, and healthcare. this community-academic partnership to improve health literacy illustrates the value of fostering community-academic networks focused on addressing critical community issues and demonstrates the key role urban and metropolitan universities can play in improving the health of all groups in the cities they serve. acknowledgments this research was supported in part by the kathy j. pedersen grant to promote equitable care supported by the nccpa health foundation. additional support provided by the hepburn family. 92 references arozullah, a. m., yarnold, p. r., bennett, c. l., soltysik, r. c., wolf, m. s., ferreira, r. m., . . . davis, t. 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(2010). national action plan to improve health literacy. retrieved from https://health.gov/communication/initiatives/health-literacy-actionplan.asp https://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/topics-objectives/topic/health-communication-and-health-information-technology/objectives https://www.healthypeople.gov/2020/topics-objectives/topic/health-communication-and-health-information-technology/objectives https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2296-13-49 https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-2296-13-49 https://health.gov/communication/initiatives/health-literacy-action-plan.asp https://health.gov/communication/initiatives/health-literacy-action-plan.asp 94 author information *abiola o. keller college of nursing marquette university clark hall 363 po box 1881 milwaukee wi 53201-1881 telephone: 414-288-8569 email: abiola.keller@marquette.edu abiola o. keller, pa-c, mph, phd is an assistant professor in the college of nursing at marquette university. her research focuses on depression, medication adherence, and chronic disease self-management with particular interests in health disparities. in particular, her work emphasizes partnering with community agencies and using community engaged research methodologies to address self and symptom management. amy vuyk curative care network amymaulbetsch@gmail.com telephone: 414-526-8575 amy vuyk, ms, ccc-slp is a pediatric speech language pathologist at curative care network in mílwaukee, wl. amy earned a b.s. in education from the university of wisconsin-madison in 1993. she completed an ms in speech and language pathology at marquette university in 1995. joshua knox department of physician assistant studies marquette university 1700 west wells street milwaukee wi 53233 email: joshua.knox@marquette.edu telephone: 414-288-8483 joshua knox, pa-c, ma is a clinical associate professor in the department of physician assistant studies at marquette univerisity and associate director of the marquette university emergency medicine post-graduate physician assistant program. his areas of clinical expertise and research interests include gastroenterology, hematology/oncology, emergency medicine, public health, and health literacy. *corresponding author mailto:abiola.keller@marquette.edu mailto:amymaulbetsch@gmail.com mailto:joshua.knox@marquette.edu design setting participants the intervention measuring and evaluating the intervention parameters. the team assessed the necessity of the heal program by asking participants if they felt they needed the program and if they thought that their friends and family would benefit. the authors also gau... microsoft word ohmer+et+al.+proof published 2.15.22.docx original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25329| february 15, 2022 81 university-community engagement during a pandemic: moving beyond “helping” to public problem solving mary l. ohmer,1 carrie finkelstein2, lina dostilio, aliya durham,1 and alicia melnick1 1 university of pittsburgh school of social work, 2 university of pittsburgh, office of community and government relations cite as: ohmer, m.l., finkelstein, c., dostillo, l., durhamn, a., & melnick, a. (2022). university-community engagement during a pandemic: moving beyond “helping” to public problem solving. metropolitan universities journal, 33 (1), 81-91.doi: https://doi.org/10.18060/25329 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract the covid-19 pandemic has been a major disruption in higher education, challenging universities to engage with community partners in unprecedented ways. among them was an accelerated challenge to ways of engaging with surrounding communities and the resulting importance this holds for social change. a common approach has been for the university to offer mutually beneficial help to communities through top-down directives and strategies. another approach prioritizes democratic engagement, including co-constructed knowledge generation and political action where the university is part of a larger ecosystem engaged in public problem solving and deeply sustained ways of collaborating. moments of economic and social crises put into stark view higher education’s intentions: are we playing at community involvement, or are we committed partners, leveraging our unique missions to join our communities in solving the problems facing us? this article discusses how a university’s response to the pandemic illustrates democratic community engagement, including how the university partnered with community organizations to alleviate the dire impacts of the pandemic on peoples’ basic needs and equity. lessons learned for university-community engagement during normal times and times of crisis are shared, including ways to foster social change that addresses the inequities illuminated by the pandemic. keywords: community engagement principles, problem solving, community partnerships, pandemic response, advocacy, social justice © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25329| february 15, 2022 82 introduction the covid-19 pandemic challenged the ways many universities have come to be involved in their surrounding communities and the resulting importance this holds for social change. there has been a documented turn from the unidirectional, university-as-problem-solver model to collaborative knowledge generation and joint problem solving, often referred to as democratic engagement. (saltmarsh, 2017). this turn provides avenues for higher education institutions to be informed by and enlisted as partners within community-led work for equity and justice (eatman et al., 2018). sgoutas-emch and guerreri (2020) argue that such a turn in an institution’s relationship to its broader communities requires a broad network of campuscommunity partnerships through which the social change (particularly toward just ends) can be enacted. moments of economic and social crises like the pandemic put into stark view higher education’s intentions: are we playing at community involvement, or are we committed partners, leveraging a joint problem-solving approach with a network of community-campus partnerships to solve the problems facing us? our university’s approach to community engagement is moving toward joint public problem solving and participatory and deeply sustained ways of collaborating. this is done through institutional transformation: internal structures (senior personnel, councils, and orientation for those seeking to do community engagement) and community-facing commitments (neighborhood engagement centers, re-examination of institutional practices, and involvement in civic processes) that anchor our way of being in and with our communities. though not yet fully realized, these developments shape an environment where institutional-level campus-community partnerships are possible. we can convene collaborators from university schools/centers to agilely partner in public problem-solving efforts. our university’s response to the pandemic illustrates how our foundation in democratic community engagement allowed us to respond to community partners agilely and nimbly through co-created solutions and advocacy. this article discusses how students, staff, and faculty were deployed to support community partners as part of an institutional response. we begin with a review of university-community engagement, including community engagement principles. next, we discuss our university’s overall approach to community engagement, followed by how this approach was integral to engaging in community problem solving around the needs exacerbated by the pandemic. finally, we discuss lessons learned for higher education institutions during normal times and crises. community engagement principles community-university engagement is guided by principles that allow for reciprocal relationships between the university and the community, using democratic and asset-based engagement aligned with community strengths and problem-solving agendas. this approach uses a variety of strategies, including community-based research, civic engagement, and service-learning (martin & pyles, 2013). in addition, to be successful, community-university engagement must be “highly reflective, hybridized, purpose-driven, and ethically principled” (dostilio, 2017a, p. 9). as this work evolves, universities committed to these principles see that the institution’s role is not to lead but to be a learner, supporter, and partner (dostilio, 2017b). © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25329| february 15, 2022 83 an anchor institution takes these principles of university-community engagement and brings them to life through place-based partnerships in the neighborhoods surrounding the university (hodges & dubb, 2012). the shared location creates a strong motivation for the university to partner because they are invested in the neighborhood and can help to foster stable, sustainable communities (dostilio, 2017b). the intent is to bring university resources together with the public and private sector to “enrich scholarship, research and creative activity, enhance curriculum, teaching and learning, prepare educated, engaged citizens, strengthen democratic values and civic responsibility; address critical societal issues; and contribute to the public good” (“community engagement,” n.d.). mutual benefit is a key success marker of community-university engagement (bushouse, 2005; farber & armaline, 1998; mackinnon-lewis & frabutt, 2010; mattessich, murray-close, & monsey, 2001). in relationship-oriented engagement, we seek mutuality that is “collaborative, reciprocal, honest, and involve[s] good will” (bringle & hatcher, 2020; shafer et al., 2003, p. 162). collaboration and reciprocity are essential, along with a democratic orientation that leads to mutual transformation, not just mutual benefit (jameson et al., 2011; saltmarsh & hartley, 2011). communities are informing the academy, and the academy is informing communities, leading to the “fundamental reshape of institutions of higher education and the role they play in society” (cox, 2000, p. 17). such a reshaping of roles moves the institution from helping to meet a need to participating in social problem-solving. the institution has a vested interest and degree of social responsibility to contribute to society beyond preparation and socialization of students for employment in the local economy, occupancy in the community, or even the collection of data for research, publication, and faculty promotion (wade & demb, 2009; barkin et al., 2013; chile & black, 2015). relationship-oriented engagement opens doors for marginalized communities to experience empowerment, universities to discover, test, and translate more effective interventions, and community institutions to develop a greater capacity to develop and implement data-informed interventions to improve community outcomes. the institution’s reshaping is reminiscent of a return to the roots of land-grant colleges anduniversities’ charge to participate in the solving of social problems through direct engagement, all the while “provid[ing] knowledge for the public good” (soska, 2015, cited in grolar & mccall, 2018, p. 8). the international association for public participation (iapp) captures this “bidirectional flow” in its spectrum of community engagement model, which emphasizes how the integration of engagement, communication, and community involvement facilitates shifts in civic participation from outreach, consultation, and involvement to collaboration and shared leadership (clinical and translational science awards consortium, 2011; barnes & schmitz, 2016). commitment to community engagement during “normal” times our university has created a culture and structure for community-engaged service, teaching, and research through its office of engagement and community affairs (eca) and carnegie foundation community engagement classification. eca brings together internal and external stakeholders to develop collaborative partnerships and relationships. a significant component includes neighborhood commitments to three communities, the university's neighborhood, and © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25329| february 15, 2022 84 two additional neighborhoods, with place-based community engagement centers. moreover, “these commitments are grounded in mutually beneficial relationships that support the neighborhood’s agenda while strengthening the university’s mission of teaching, research, and service” (university of pittsburgh, cgr, n.d.). resources are provided to improve access to the university and support relationships between the campus and the community. moreover, the university received the carnegie classification for community engagement, the country’s highest honor that higher education institutions can achieve for embedding community engagement in their peer functions. the university made a minimum 15-year commitment of investment, infrastructure, programming, and dedicated staff in two cec neighborhoods (university of pittsburgh, n.d.). to ensure this commitment to engagement is shared across the university, all sixteen schools provide dean-appointed representatives to sit on an internal advisory council, which is coordinated by the office of engagement and community affairs and plays a key role in connecting schools/units to opportunities to engage with the community in a mutually beneficial way. in addition, each community has a neighborhood advisory council, facilitated by the leadership of the community engagement center in that neighborhood, that informs the ongoing collaboration with the university. this helps to shape the benefits to local partners and the larger community, including reviewing proposed programs, recommending site locations, referring job candidates, and working together to ensure a responsive and non-duplicative mixture of programs (university of pittsburgh, n.d., p. 2). pivoting community engagement during the pandemic the university worked closely with its community-campus partners to pivot its communityengaged work in response to the pandemic. the pandemic service initiative was created, with eca leading and coordinating this effort through a covid-19 community response task force, an interdisciplinary team of faculty and staff that met weekly during the height of the pandemic to respond to the needs of our community partners during this crisis. several faculty members participating in this task force were also members of the internal advisory council. in addition, many of the community partners engaged through this initiative were also participating in the work of the community engagement centers, including the neighborhood advisory councils. however, other faculty and staff participated in the task force, and partners from other communities outside the cec neighborhoods were also engaged and assisted. the initiative focused on expanding university service, contributing to drives and collections organized by community organizations, and forging innovative, problem-solving partnerships (university of pittsburgh, n.d.). the library system prepared a list of community resources, including information on covid-19 prevention, testing locations, basic needs assistance, and access to online resources for children and families. resources translated into multiple languages ensured support reached immigrant and refugee communities which continue to be disproportionately impacted by the virus (lee & miller, 2020). the university also supported school children struggling to learn online. through a partnership with our local united way, the university trained and deployed tutors, mostly university students, to support children participating in learning hubs. in each instance, the work undertaken was jointly shaped by community and campus partners, who brought to the task force what needs and approaches they felt needed to be pursued. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25329| february 15, 2022 85 the university chancellor allowed full-time staff and faculty to dedicate eight hours of their paid time each week to volunteer with the initiative. in addition, students were also encouraged to volunteer (university of pittsburgh, n.d.). since the beginning of the pandemic, this initiative has brought together over 539 staff and faculty members and over 100 students to volunteer at 29 virtual and in-person events, including vaccination clinics (ward, 2021). below we describe one of the pandemic service initiative programs in more detail. the care and connection caller program (ccc) as part of the covid-19 community response task force, the care and connection caller program or ccc was developed in response to requests from community partners for assistance in reaching out, via telephone, to individuals and families they served who were isolated and most at risk during the pandemic. community partners that were part of the cec neighborhood advisory councils approached eca for assistance because of the overwhelming needs that quickly developed because of the pandemic. the ccc program was coordinated by an employee in eca, under the leadership of the school of social work faculty. a committee was created for ccc that included faculty and community partners. partners from other communities outside of the cec neighborhoods also joined the ccc because they had similar needs for assistance and strong connections to the university. needs were identified by community partners and brought to the ccc committee, who would then problem solve and discuss how pitt could most effectively work alongside and support community partners. needs also emerged and changed throughout the pandemic and were slightly different for each community partner. in response, we created online training for university volunteers to learn how to make the calls, as well as individualized scripts for each community partner, co-developed with partners, that addressed the specific needs of the people they served, including resources for housing, mental health, food, and later for covid-19 testing and vaccines. for example, one agency served the elderly population, so connections needed to be made for food resources that could be delivered to this population. another agency served the latino community, so we worked with the agency to translate their scripts and resource guides into spanish. the ccc helped our community partners expand their efforts to reach out to people who were isolated and provide them with the resources they desperately needed during the pandemic. during the first three months of the pandemic, over 100 volunteers were trained, making over 1,000 calls. ccc partners served african american and latinx populations, families, and senior citizens. a survey was sent to the ccc volunteers to get their feedback early on. forty-four callers responded, and 79.5% started making calls at the time of the survey. callers were asked about their experience on a scale from one, worst to five, best. most callers had a good experience, with 64% indicating four or five; and 33% indicating three. comments from the callers illustrated the reciprocity, sense of engagement, and purpose they felt while making the calls and the satisfaction in connecting with people and providing support. for example: • “i think these calls provide healing in both directions. people who may feel alone in a highly stressful time are able to find companionship as well as meaningful, practical resources.” © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25329| february 15, 2022 86 • “i feel that the opportunity gave me purpose during this trying time. i feel [the university] and the service organization were very helpful and have the best interest of those they serve in mind.” throughout the pandemic, ccc adapted to meet the needs of community partners, including helping to register people to vote, sign up for rent relief, and participate in a summer youth workforce program. in addition, the ccc pulled in other university departments to leverage resources (including securing translation services to create a covid-19 resource briefing for immigrant and refugee communities). we also adapted the university library system’s libguide on covid-19 into a one-pager that could be distributed by community partners, which was updated often on a weekly basis to reflect new information. our most significant lift occurred when vaccinations became available for seniors in early 2021. the county health department asked the university to support two large-scale vaccination clinics in our partner communities. with less than a week to plan, the network of campus-community partnerships was tapped to lead the initiative, with the university providing additional capacity. ccc volunteers were brought in, and within 24-hours, they made calls and helped sign up 2,000 residents to receive their first vaccine 24-36 hours later. the ccc volunteers also reached out to everyone vaccinated at the clinics, sometimes multiple times. in addition, they set up a vaccination hotline to take some of the burden off our partners for callbacks. our partnership resulted in 1,800 of the original 2,000 people receiving their second shot. ccc partners continued to be involved in vaccination and other outreach, with the support of over 200 university volunteers making over 6,000 calls. the ccc university and community partners were particularly attuned to the disparities facing the people being called. in most cases, these were individuals who had experienced poverty and racism, along with the adverse effects of covid-19. therefore, more than connections to resources were needed to address the longstanding issues exacerbated by the pandemic. the relationships needed to inform a larger response were in place and were activated in ways that marshaled collective decision-making and problem-solving. during weekly meetings, community partners raised issues consistently brought up in their calls with residents, particularly around food and housing. we discussed ways we could engage in advocacy around these issues and developed an analysis of local, state, and federal policies, including how local and national organizations were advocating to enhance/expand current policies. speakers were brought in to provide information and feedback to community partners on potential advocacy pathways and to share data related to food, housing, health, and other inequities exacerbated by the pandemic, including comparing the impact of the pandemic on the mostly african american and low-income communities our partners worked in to more affluent and white communities. relationships between university and community partners were built and strengthened through these zoom meetings, resulting in genuine public problem-solving. the ccc partners continued to meet to discuss how to further advocate for policy change through the summer of 2021. the advocacy efforts of the ccc were recognized by the pittsburgh study (tps, n.d.), which is a “community-partnered research initiative to find out what works to help children and youth thrive.” the lead social work faculty member on the ccc is also a co-lead of the tps policy and place committee, whose role is to examine the impact of policies on child thriving through community-partnered and equity-focused policy analysis and outreach, including policies related to similar issues around housing and food insecurity that the ccc was addressing during the © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25329| february 15, 2022 87 pandemic. community partners from the ccc have been invited to join the tps policy and place committee to continue their advocacy work around the issues exacerbated by the pandemic. this level of engagement with community partners will continue to strengthen as we work together to address the larger social and systemic issues facing the most vulnerable groups during and after the pandemic. university and community engagement during a pandemic: lessons learned the covid-19 pandemic challenged universities to be more vigilant in adhering to and practicing community engagement principles and engaging with partners in a public problemsolving approach. the university responded to the pandemic with a collaborative, communitydriven approach. the pandemic service initiative and the care and connection caller program illustrate the community engagement principles of democratic engagement, reciprocity, mutual benefit, collaboration, and shared leadership. the university did not approach communities armed with lists of resources or services it was willing to donate from a distance at the height of the pandemic. instead, the university paused and listened to its existing network of campuscommunity partnerships to jointly expand avenues of assistance and collaboration during an incredibly uncertain and unprecedented public health crisis. this was possible because of the university’s existing relationships with partners through ongoing community engagement efforts that embrace a culture of genuine civic participation. in many ways, the ability to quickly activate faculty and staff across schools and units represented an internal reliance and valuation of the abundant social capital and goodwill built over time, cultivating relationships with grassroots, organizational, and elected leaders across our community. this was due, in large part, to institutional resources being used to capture, catalog, and celebrate the engaged research, courses, projects, and programs that made the carnegie classification attainable. while within the context of the covid-19 pandemic, our efforts were concentrated on place-based engagements with key partners, a university of our size and scope understands that community configuration extends to identity, ideology, ability, and other defining characteristics. mutual benefit and reciprocity were also illustrated throughout the psi and ccc. the university benefitted because its people and resources were targeted in ways that built upon its strengths and expertise. the communities benefitted because the initiatives were built upon their strengths and knowledge and on-the-ground analysis of their communities' needs. the communities further benefited by selectively enlisting the resources of a large institution with considerable social and political capital to address the key issues they faced during the pandemic. solutions were also developed collaboratively through honest and open dialogue about inequities and inequality (collins and guidry, 2018), resulting in shared leadership among university and community partners. one university staff person noted that new resources were also developed in response to community needs, such as providing laptops for kids who had to learn remotely, as well providing basic supplies such as cleaning and disinfecting products that were scarce during the pandemic. the pandemic was also occurring as the country’s longstanding structural racism became more visible due to protests following the murder of george floyd (blake, 2020; dreyer et al., 2020). © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25329| february 15, 2022 88 these issues were front and center for our community partners who are and/or serve people of color, particularly within the african american community. we began to discuss these issues in our weekly calls with the ccc and other partners the university collaborated with on the pandemic service initiative who were fighting health and racial injustice. community engagement requires that even large institutions like universities alter their direction in response to community needs. thus, the university and community partners reframed the initiative to develop a program to educate university volunteers and students about the importance of civic action around issues exacerbated during the pandemic. civic action week was established during the pandemic but will continue each year in collaboration with community partners. our collaborative efforts during the pandemic also illustrate the importance of institutionalized versus individualized partnerships. namely, the effective coordination of university assets and resources needed to meet community needs under such unique circumstances resulted in a significant impact because it was supported by individuals connected to a community/university partnership infrastructure. the pandemic service initiative was able to link community partners to resources throughout the university, bringing different departments together to provide support. partnerships were not occurring in silos, thus enabling collaborations best suited to community needs and social, economic, racial, and health issues. this also prevented duplicating efforts or overwhelming organizations with requests for partnerships. in a tough time, when silos could have built up due to isolation, partnerships between the university and community blossomed, growing stronger than before, laying the ground for mutually beneficial relationships now and in the future. community engagement principles undergirded all this work and provided the foundation for genuine partnerships. these are not only lessons for transforming what we do during a pandemic but can serve as inspiration to ignite and orient more faculty to the possibility of community engagement principles to translate their research, passion, and a sense of community responsibility into solutions that improve community outcomes during “normal” times as well. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25329| february 15, 2022 89 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(2009). a conceptual model to explore faculty community engagement. michigan journal of community service learning, 15(2), 5-16. metropolitan universities vol. 30 no. 3 (september 2019), doi: 10.18060/23231 10 introductory service-learning experience: macau college students in ethnic minority school of mountain area in china lu ching hui, chen zi yan, yang zi yi abstract this paper described how university students from macau took social responsibility in china through service-learning project. it was an introductory experience for the student participants and for the children in the mountain area as well. this study aimed at raising children’s interest in learning and their desire of continuing study. results were reported in four themes: (1) increasing personal competence of teamwork spirits, leadership and service skills; (2) students’ perception towards poverty issue and education in china rural and mountain areas; (3) having commitment to the next service; (4) realizing that servicelearning must be a mutual process. this paper also provides an overview of how a livinglearning community dedicated itself to community service to educate residents holistically. keywords: service-learning, poor alleviation, education, residential college introduction in 2018, the macau special administrative region (sar) government was committed to following the central government's policy of precision poverty alleviation in congjiang, guizhou province (coutinho, 2018). in july 2018, cheng yu tung college of university of macau (cum), as a living-learning community and a leading university in macau, conducted an investigation to understand their needs. after meeting with local government officials and school principals, the college launched its very first service-learning program in december 2018, to provide volunteers to teach mandarin, music, physical education and arts courses at one targeted school. “d” primary school was located in the mountainous area and people were from a chinese ethnic minority-miao. most villagers were illiterate and few spoke the mandarin language at work or at home. since china’s reform and liberalization, only two residents had earned high school diplomas in a village of two thousand people. in the face of scarce educational resources, “d” primary school’s learning environment offered only kindergarten, first grade, and second grade. children were reluctant to attend third grade schooling in other villages due to low learning motivation, transportation difficulties, or their parents’ orders. this project aimed at raising interest in learning for sixty-seven second-grade children, and motivating them to further their education. at the same time, it was a first-time service experience for most of the macau students. in the end, it showed that thirteen students from the college students developed a greater social responsibility to motherland china, in response to macau sar government policy. 11 literature review macau sar’s policy of poverty alleviation in guizhou on may 23, 2018, chui sai on, chief executive of the macau special administrative region (sar) government, and zheng xiaosong, director of the liaison office of the central people's government in the macau sar, led a delegation to guizhou province. together, they signed a “poverty alleviation cooperation framework agreement” with guizhou’s provincial government to launch a jointly administered poverty alleviation program. macau sar agreed to further cooperation between guizhou and macau in five areas: (a) tourism; (b) commerce; (c) education; (d) agriculture; and (e) informatization (i.e., make the local economy and society more information-based). furthermore, macau sar government would provide focused assistance to congjiang county through "precise poverty alleviation work", in eight areas: “industry, tourism, culture affairs, education, healthcare, talent development, employment transfer, and donation” (zhao, 2018). moreover, the chief executive stressed the sar government would strive to encourage further participation from the macau community to reduce poverty in guizhou. in addition, according to the agreement, the macau sar government allocated funds not exceeding 30 million renminbi to support rebuilding a primary school campus in congjiang county. this “d” primary school is the target of this study. miao people and “d” village community “d” village’s population was mainly composed of one chinese ethnic minority, the miao. the village was located on a high slope, transportation access was difficult, and communication was not easy. most of the villagers spoke miao instead of mandarin. the miao people are the fifth largest ethnic minority in mainland china (han are the majority). miao people had their own religions and complex customs. in order to protect miao’s bloodline, miao have strong traditions that prompt them to stay in close-knit, communities, regardless of living in harsh conditions for thousands of years in rural and mountainous areas (yang & zhao, 2013). the “d” villagers still lived a very traditional farming life. “d” village had a total of two thousand people, and as of 2018, three hundred and forty-six people still lived in households defined as poverty-stricken. “d” primary school was located in the center of “d” village, twenty-six kilometers away from the closest city. it had two hundred and sixteen students in one kindergarten, three first-grade classes, and two classes of second-graders. nine teachers worked there, and only one possessed an undergraduate degree. due to its mountainous location, “d” primary school and its village regularly face a water shortage for two to three months out of every year, and they struggled to provide clean drinking water. 12 residential colleges of university of macau and cheng yu tung college university of macau implemented its residential college system after relocating to its new campus in 2014. as of today, it has established ten living-learning residential colleges. the objective of the university of macau’s whole-person education model was to nurture selfreflective, caring, and socially responsible individuals who can grow in a challenging and multicultural environment (chen h. d & gong h, 2016). to achieve this objective, cheng yu tung college organized several programs with the goals to encourage students to practice what they learn in class and contribute to the community, and transforming them into global citizens with sense of responsibility and patriotism. service learning and citizenship the college designed the project based on a modified version of fertman, white and white’s model (1996). the model comprised four phases, entitled preparation, service, reflection and celebration. in the preparation phase, the team had to understand “d” primary school and its students’ backgrounds, obtain the school’s support and establish service-learning goals, providing college volunteers with teacher training. in the service phase, the team moved from exploration to understanding and from a group mode to a mindset of caring for each individual student. in the reflection phase, the team performed group and individual reflection, from what (what i did), so what (what i learned), now what (what i do with what i learned). in the celebration phase, the team demonstrated the teaching outcomes to parents, the community and the college (jacoby, b., 1996). the model’s authors believed that students acquire knowledge more quickly when solving practical problems, while service learning provides such an environment. college students strove to communicate with miao children who did not speak mandarin fluently. the children’s behavior and the college students’ reflection amply demonstrated service learning’s theoretical claim of “service, combined with learning, adding value to each and transforming both” (eyler, j& giles, d.e, 1999). furthermore, service learning provided an ideal environment for bringing together disparate qualities of values, knowledge, skills, efficacy and commitment into effective citizenship development. students first feel a sense of social responsibility and then acknowledge the importance of social justice. students find the motivation to do more, by looking at their results and seeking ways to improve them. in trying to make a more effective difference, they may revise their strategies or even take some risks, by which they gain experience and self-confidence. service learning has the capacity to develop students who felt connected to community to commit themselves to engaging in the next service. to sum up, participation in service learning led to the values, knowledge, skills, efficacy, and commitment that underlay effective citizenship (eyler, j & giles, d.e 1999). service leaning in china since the implementation of reform and opening-up, china has witnessed many groundbreaking changes within its culture, economy, and education. the country makes rapid 13 gains in digitalization, globalization, and economic development. in today’s ever-changing society, new opportunities and challenges constantly emerge. as a result, people struggled with the difficulty of meeting the high demands of this rapidly evolving environment. (ma, chan, liu & fong, 2018). by a continuous improvement in education levels, more and more institutions, including high schools and universities in china, began to nurture students with multiple skills, abilities and sense of social responsibility to adapt to this changing world. for instance, in 2001, china promoted the volunteer service act, classifying voluntary service as a means for fulfilling civic duty. chinese government and institutions acknowledged that education should go beyond to classroom instruction. more importantly, students ought to join society and apply what they have learned to practice and contribute to society. after all, theory and application were complementary and mutually enforcing. however, compared to other regions or countries in asia such as hong kong, taiwan, singapore, philippines, etc., service-learning projects for credit or in a formal class setting were still not common in chinese higher education. (guan & xiong, 2011). project design and student participants the college designed this service-learning experience with residential college students in mind. out of thirteen participants, five were male and eight were female. most were from academic disciplines other than teaching primary school. only one student had prior experience doing volunteer service while at university. it was a non-credit, living-learning project taught by a college resident fellow, faculty members, non-government organization personnel, as well as university students from congjiang, guizhou. the project included sixteen hours of classroom instruction and preparation, twenty-four hours of community service, and six hours devoted to evaluation. teaching approach in the service process, a “communicative approach” informed a small group discussion. this study divided sixty-seven students into twelve groups and a teaching assistant took charge of each group. while one student instructor was in the front teaching, other teaching assistants made sure the children knew what to do and responded correctly. the teaching method trained children’s ability in three aspects: linguistic competence (its grammar and vocabulary), sociolinguistic competence (how to use and respond to language appropriately) and strategic competence (recognize and repair communication breakdowns before, during, or after they occur) (richards & rodgers, 2001). additionally, students learned a variety of teaching aids and many interesting activities as another teaching approach. the teaching aids were diverse to arouse different children’s attention and interest. for example, children would play clarinet, use the labyrinth to practice mandarin, or have time for creative painting. with the mentoring and supervision of teaching assistants and student instructors, children had the opportunity to receive responsive care and attention. the project was student-centered, especially for those children who were shy or unable to use mandarin to express themselves. 14 study evaluation this study used a qualitative description method to collect and analyze data. the authors collected data by several means, including verbal presentation of student reflections in personal meetings, students’ written journal reflections, instructor’s observations, and the partner institution’s feedback. in their analysis of teaching results, the authors interviewed the school principal and some primary school student representatives to evaluate this project. journal reflection covered topics such as the meaning of service learning, poverty alleviation, policy-making, the educational system, a sense of social responsibility and personal growth such as teamwork spirits, cultural engagement, and service and leadership skills. the authors coded all this data to develop a number of meaningful conceptual units. two researchers codified separately, and subsequently compared each other’s categorizations. results and discussion four major themes were identified as students undertook the project: (a) increasing personal competence of teamwork spirits, leadership and service skills; (b) college students’ perception towards poverty issue and education in china rural and mountain areas; (c) fostering the sense of commitment and social responsibility; and (d) it was a mutually beneficial learning process. increased team spirit, personal competence, leadership, and service skills the training helped the volunteers understand the miao’s ethnic minority culture, find the meaning of service learning, and discover how to communicate with one another. this introductory service experience improved their team spirit and ability in all phases. volunteers also gained a greater appreciation of leadership and service: this service-learning journey was my happiest journey, and my working group was very united and attentive. from the preparation to the on-site teaching, everyone contributed his or her time and ideas selflessly. if we had any disagreement, we would listen, discuss and analyze it carefully in order to develop a more appropriate teaching plan for the children. (#4) we had to teach in front of the classroom. we needed to instruct our teammates and the kids. then we would become teaching assistants in turn. this made each of us a leader and a good follower. (#5) i am grateful that we had each other. we learned how to lead out of love and service. ” (#10) 15 at the beginning, i thought being the instructor in the front of the classroom would be the most exhausting job, but after the first day, i found that being the teaching assistant with children was the hardest. after that, i realized the importance of teamwork: we had to work closely. it was necessary to communicate with each child, making sure they understand what the instructor meant. i also had to learn to how to manage time and allocate some tasks for the children in order to achieve the purpose of each lesson.” (#12) college students’ perception towards poverty issue and education in china rural and mountain areas college students saw firsthand the link between poverty and poor quality education. as mentioned above, out of nine teachers in “d” primary school, only one had a bachelor’s degree. compared with advanced countries in asia or elsewhere, the standard for teachers here is still low (national institute of education science, 2010) and it influences the teachers’ attitude to their children’s education. a lax attitude made teaching harder and it is quite difficult for college students to communicate with the school equally. poverty alleviation must have both economic and humanitarian aspects. everyone has the right to get an education. equipping our mind and brain makes us stronger and that is when we will not need poverty alleviation support. we walk ourselves out of poverty! (#2). it is a very good to see that macau sar government tried to support educational affairs. i think that cultivating the young generation will help the most in the long run. it is also crucial for the local teachers to learn more and do more for their own students (#4). i think the kids should get more education, not only to get rid of poverty but also be more rigorously prepared to protect their own precious culture!” (#9). i think another way to alleviate poverty is to set up a team of teachers to train the teachers in this rural and mountain area of china. only when the teachers improve can our children be educated out of poverty faster. (#3) fostering a sense of commitment and social responsibility children’s ability of speaking mandarin and desire of learning was better than expected. by taking care of every student in small groups, they were willing to communicate in mandarin. the “d” school did not provide formal classes in arts, physical education and music until the college team came. children proudly and happily asked their parents to join the celebration party. the principal highly praised the team’s contribution and hoped they would come again. 16 furthermore, in last july’s investigation, the school paid more attention to teaching subjects, but overlooked the personal hygiene or moral education of the village children. the project found that children in mountainous areas had serious illnesses in winter, made worse by the persistent water shortage. moreover, children did not maintain an orderly classroom. they pushed each other and walked around during the meal. plainly, their etiquette needed to improve. above all, the team members felt fulfilled but encountered new tasks and challenges, leaving them feeling obligated to do more. it was encouraging to see nine out of the thirteen participants commit to do the service again. you found you had some impact on other people, the kids, the teammates… from their reaction you started to think more about yourself. this was a powerful and meaningful experience” (#11) i spent lots of time wondering if it was meaningful to do this service. then i realized children might not grow that fast, they might not learn that much from me. however, i am sure they were happy and felt the warmth of the larger society. they are loved. if we have more people get involved, it will be a big success! (#8) service learning may be more difficult than expected, but if we chose to join, we should do it with heart for that we may affect other person's life forever. no matter how difficult the road is, we must be unremitting.” (#3) service learning was a mutually beneficial learning process college students and “d” primary school realized that service learning was a two-way, reciprocal process. unlike traditional volunteer projects or charity actions, service-learning programs contained designed learning plans, thorough preparation, structured reflection and concluding celebration. while providing services to the outside world, college students learned from the children. the meeting of different life experiences made students understand the importance of understanding and respect more clearly. in the teaching process, the team found out some parts of “curriculum guidelines for primary schools in mainland china”, the basic skills that students should master in each grade, were missing in “d” primary school. for example, art class required the mastery of creating and handcrafting. local teachers in “d” primary school were not qualified art teachers and with the lack of teaching materials and resources, they did not know how to conduct art classes in a scientific and systematic way. therefore, the team taught from the rgb color model and then moved to teach how to make paint the beijing opera facial masks and do the handmade windmills. teachers in the “d” primary school had the chance to learn and continued to use the teaching materials after the team left and as well as the pe courses and music courses. studying together was a wonderful moment. i like their childlike innocence, which was the beautiful nature of children and what i had been looking for a long time.” (#7) 17 when we were coaching children one by one, i realized that everyone, no matter at what age or in what kind of environment they grew up, they wanted strongly to be taken seriously. i have learned to understand others better and to consider from their perspectives which also increased my empathy during my very first time servicelearning experience.” (#8) i quite agreed with the sentence, ‘during the service, what we learn might be always greater than what we served’. we went into minority villages, experiencing different life styles and learned different cultures. i have learned a lot and i did hope the children too. ” (#6) conclusion this study provided an overview of how university students from macau took social responsibility in ethnic minority school of mountain area in china through service-learning project. the main purpose of this service-learning project was to enhance children's interest in learning so they were willing to continue to study. the project achieved these goals. children showed interest in learning and they actively participated in class activities. children asked their parents to school to witness their learning outcomes, and reinforced their willingness to pursue more education. macau college students showed improved team spirit, leadership and service skills. they felt connected to the community and two-thirds of them made a commitment to doing the service again next year. the institution acknowledged their students’ effort and enthusiasm. though it was a first-time service-learning experience for both the college students and the school, it showed that both communities benefited and learned a lot. nevertheless, the study had its own limitations. the project took place during the christmas holidays. the team only had three days to do its teaching. it was not easy to provide a more complete and thorough learning experience for children even though the communicative teaching approach worked excellently. on the other hand, while the team focused on the children’s immediate learning interests, better training for local teachers in “d” school is of crucial importance as well. this service-learning project will take place again. in the second project, planners should extend greater consideration to training for the teaching staff, and the children’s personal hygiene and manners. 18 references chen h. d & gong h (2016) studies on the education of residential colleges in today’s universities. xi’an, china: xi’an jiaotong university press. eyler, j& giles,d.e (1999). where’s the learning in service learning? san francisco, ca: jossey-bass. hok-ka, c., mui-fong, f., & cheng, a. (2018). service learning and the aims of chinese higher education. in hok-ka c., mui-fong f., cheng a., & cheung-ming a. (eds.), servicelearning as a new paradigm in higher education of china (pp. 17-44). east lansing: michigan state university press. retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.14321/j.ctt2111gc9.5 jacoby, b. (1996). service learning in today’s higher education. san francisco, ca: josseybass. coutinho, p. (2018 may 25). macau sign agreements aimed at poverty relief in guizhou, macau daily times. retrieved from https://macaudailytimes.com.mo/macau-signsagreements-aimed-at-poverty-relief-in-guizhou.html richards, j. c., & rodgers, t. s. (2001). approaches and methods in language teaching. (2nd ed.). cambridge: cambridge university press. wang, j. (1990). compulsory nine-year education in china: issues and prospects. journal of education finance, 15(4), 487-497. retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40703838 zhao, f.y(2018.5.23).macau offers poverty-relief help to guizhou,xinhuanet. retrieved from http://www.xinhuanet.com/gangao/2018-05/23/c_129878753.htm 關爾佳、熊紫珺(2011)論中國高校“服務學習”的 現狀及發展前景。中國青年研究，8， 100-103。取自 retrieved from http://xueshu.baidu.com/usercenter/paper/show?paperid=9baa45ea1c34ed82b7a0fa788783bb d1&site=xueshu_se 楊成光、趙斌(2013)。貴州苗族原始宗教文化研究。中國經濟研究導刊，4，268-269。 取自 https://wenku.baidu.com/view/804b0dde26fff705cc170a7d.html?from=search 19 author information ching hui, lu resident fellow g039 w23 cheng yu tung college university of macau macau, china dianelu@um.edu.mo ms. lu received her master degree on student affairs of higher education in national taiwan normal university. she has worked as a resident fellow in university of macau for more than 5 years. ms. lu conducts many leadership and service programs and the guizhou service-learning project was one of them. before joining um, she had worked in national taiwan university for 7 years. zi yan, chen sophomore in english education g039, w23 cheng yu tung college university of macau macau, china czy201225@gmail.com ms. chen is a year-two undergraduate from university of macau and majors in english education. she wants to become a teacher to help students get a better future. this was her first time doing service-learning program as a university student. she was in charge of arts courses on site, and enjoyed the process of teaching and playing with the children. zi yi, yang freshman in business administration cheng yung college/macau, china g039, w23 cheng yu tung college, university of macau macau, china dianelu@um.edu.mo czy201225@gmail.com yangziyi2345@126.com ms.yang is a year-one undergraduate from university of macau and majors in business administration. she did volunteer service when she was in high school in mainland china. this was her first service-learning program as a university student. she was in charge in mandarin courses when she was in the service site. mailto:dianelu@um.edu.mo mailto:czy201225@gmail.com mailto:yangziyi2345@126.com metropolitan universities vol. 29 no. 4 (december 2018), doi: 10.18060/22829 75 emancipating minds and practicing freedom: a call to action lorlene hoyt abstract the generative utility and relative permanence of higher education institutions suggests they may have a vital role in contributing to our collective survival, if they are able to evolve quickly and purposefully. this essay is a reflection on my own experience of the academy and the ways in which the ernest a. lynton award for the scholarship of engagement opened my mind and emboldened me to work hand-in-hand with communities nearby and around the world. in doing so, it makes the case for the practice of “reciprocal knowledge” to enhance human dignity and wellbeing and improve social harmony and stability. it is also a call to action, inviting people inside and outside the academy to contribute to the growing global university civic engagement movement. keywords: scholarly engagement; university civic engagement; reciprocal knowledge; human dignity emancipation of self universities must be places where minds are emancipated and citizens enabled to live fully conscious lives in which suggested inevitabilities are constantly questioned. —president michael d. higgins of ireland, address to eua conference, 2016 the university, for tenure-track professors and others, can become an intellectual prison, an environment where you learn to follow the long-established rules in order to survive. this essay is a call to action, aiming to reach and mobilize learners in the academy who might feel alone and trapped in an institution that primarily rewards conformity. as i recount my own experience of the academy, i reflect on the ways in which the ernest a. lynton award for the scholarship of engagement opened my mind and set me free. as i write, i represent both a “midpoint” and a “turning point” in the 23-year history of the ernest a. lynton award for the scholarship of engagement. as the midpoint, eleven engaged scholars received the lynton award (1996-2006) before i received the award in 2007 and there have been eleven award recipients since (2008-2018). more importantly, 2007 was a turning point for the award: i was the first person to receive the award who was not tenured. as an assistant professor on the tenure-track when i received the award, the public recognition of my engaged scholarship and the invitation to join a renowned cadre of scholars buoyed my otherwise floundering confidence. the award was also significant to me because it helped me understand and articulate my collaborative approach to research, teaching, and service. the day i presented my engaged scholarship and accepted the award was at once the best and worst moment of my academic career. at the time, i was suffering from a migraine headache that was in its second week. the stresses of striving to meet the demands of tenure were mounting 76 and i was under the care of two cardiologists. however, my conversation with carla lynton (ernest’s wife) at the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities annual conference in baltimore was the catalyst for my scholarly awakening. for several years as an assistant professor of urban planning at the massachusetts institute of technology (m.i.t.), i had co-led a campus-city partnership known as mit@lawrence. (the city of lawrence, massachusetts, is a vibrant majority latino city located about 30 miles north of m.i.t. it is the last textile city built by the essex company, one of the country’s first corporations.) what began as a seven-week course aimed at teaching students of urban planning how to analyze data from the u.s. census bureau using a geographic information system evolved over time into a long-term collaboration in community development. prior to meeting carla lynton and receiving the award, i had strategically prioritized my time and efforts to align with the categories by which my colleagues would evaluate my scholarly productivity and impact: research, teaching and service. the news of achieving the lynton award prompted me to rethink, reframe, and rewrite the narrative statement that i had been preparing for my scholarly dossier for promotion to associate professor without tenure (the rank preceding tenure at m.i.t.). the award taught me to see the ways in which my research, teaching, and service were overlapping and mutually reinforcing, and it exposed me to the idea of the scholarship of engagement (lynton, 1994). instead of examining the people of lawrence as subjects of research (an approach that i had conformed to as a doctoral student), the award emboldened me to expand my engagement with community leaders in lawrence and m.i.t. faculty and students in ways that cut across the traditional domains of research, teaching and service. together, we blended the theory and practice of urban planning, studying and enacting solutions to problems of vandalism, flooding and foreclosure. we secured funding from the u.s. department of housing and urban development and deployed participatory methods of data collection and analysis to discover new development opportunities; we combined traditional spatial data with unconventional data such as resident perceptions, and provided forums for productive public interactions and decisionmaking. early successes, such as the approval of a zoning overlay district to permit housing in the city’s historic mills, raised expectations among residents and civic leaders and gave all of us the confidence to do more. the external validation of my work by way of the lynton award also strengthened my case for promotion. a tenured colleague informed me (off the record) that the award strengthened my dossier and contributed substantially to my promotion from assistant professor to associate professor without tenure. the award and the reframing of my narrative statement apparently assured some colleagues that the campus-city engagement, though taking place in the “swampy lowlands” where “problems are messy and incapable of technical solution,” was indeed a rigorous a way of knowing “embedded in competent practice” (schön, 1995, p. 28). the tenured faculty in my department voted unanimously to promote me from assistant professor to associate professor without tenure. the lynton award also emboldened me to broaden my understanding of what constitutes scholarship. in the years that followed my promotion to associate professor without tenure, we 77 continued to grow the partnership with the city of lawrence. our scholarly engagement tested and refined the theory and practice of “reciprocal knowledge” by way of collaborations among a variety of m.i.t. faculty, staff, students as well as civic leaders and residents. in addition to such scholarly artifacts as peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, we co-generated policy reports, special grants to fund development projects, ‘how-to’ guides, blog posts, webinars, and short films. our sustained engagement strengthened my research and teaching, while contributing to student learning and community development practice in lawrence. successive waves of students wrote theses that informed the development of union crossing, a leed platinum certified mill redevelopment project in downtown lawrence. middle school students from lawrence came to m.i.t. every month to participate in chemistry, physics, biology, and civil engineering experiments. faculty incorporated resident testimonies into their research on predatory lending and housing foreclosures. by way of our partnership, we created “a special climate in which the academic and civic cultures communicate more continuously and more creatively with one another” (boyer, 1996, p. 251). reciprocal knowledge, as we defined it, emerges as people learn the norms and advance the values of democracy by replacing longstanding habits of distrust with new institutional relationships; it is characterized by real learning on both sides, achieved through a diverse, dynamic, and complex network of human relationships (hoyt, 2010). the lynton award gave me the courage to experiment with the ways in which knowledge is generated and applied, and to overcome, rather than reinforce, the false dichotomy between practice and knowledge in the academy. it encouraged me to expand my relationships with people outside the walls of the university. in doing so, it transformed my experience of the university; the university became a place where i lived a fully conscious life, questioning and moving beyond that which appeared inescapable. the practice of freedom education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world. —paulo freire, pedagogy of the oppressed, 1968 (1996 ed.) before i received the lynton award, i felt isolated, afraid, and unable to free myself from the way i thought about scholarship and success in the academy. though i was initially excited about joining m.i.t. after completing my doctoral degree, these feelings began to develop early in my tenure track journey. at my first faculty meeting, m.i.t.’s provost presented findings from the newly published reports of the committees on the status of women faculty. he explained to me and my colleagues that m.i.t. faculty women earned less than their male colleagues, were few in number (16% of m.i.t. faculty were women), and reported feeling a lack of influence in important decision-making. the report noted that women faculty had won appointment to important committees; however, important departmental decisions take place outside of committee structures (m.i.t., 2002). the findings and the apparent lack of concern among the majority my colleagues were demoralizing and made an indelible impression. 78 due in large part to this stunning initiation to the academy, i became whole-heartedly committed to breaking the glass ceiling, so to speak. in my department, that would mean becoming the first female professor in its 75-year history to rise through the ranks from assistant professor to associate professor with tenure. earning tenure became for me more than a personal achievement or pay increase; it was a matter of fighting for gender equality. i was also determined at the time to achieve tenure at m.i.t. in order to provide the full tuition remission benefit to my children. though they were young at the time, the prospect of earning tenure at m.i.t. became a goal for our family; it symbolized the opportunity for the next generation to expand their knowledge and networks with minimal concern about the associated financial burdens. these two forces— fighting for all women and fighting for my family—drove me to work very long days, through weekends and holidays. i became increasingly fixated on tenure and the victory it might represent. for me, tenure became synonymous with success. accordingly, i adopted the “publish or perish” mindset, compromising my health and my personal relationships. my research and writing aimed to impress senior faculty in my department and external reviewers. i aimed to achieve tenure at m.i.t. at any cost. the lynton award set me free, and, in a way, saved my life. the opportunity to rub elbows with other engaged scholars prompted me to challenge my deep-seated beliefs about my role as a woman seeking tenure, my obligations as a parent, and my vision of what constitutes a successful career in the academy. the award ended my isolation at m.i.t. by connecting me with a cadre of engaged scholars throughout the boston region and beyond. i discovered there were revolutionaries in academia. there were risk-takers and rebel rousers pushing against the traditional boundaries of the ivory tower, aligning their personal and professional values, and working with communities to generate new and relevant knowledge for purposeful action and societal betterment. leading by example, they helped me to break free of the way i had been socialized as a doctoral student and later as a tenure-track faculty member. as these personal relationships and exchanges with engaged scholars in multiple disciplines grew, i recalibrated my approach to learning, doing, and knowing with the people of lawrence. in time, i began to see myself as an activist scholar, committed to social impact and institutional change. my interest in reforming institutions of higher education emerged as my larger cause and calling, casting a shadow on and diminishing the importance of tenure. as my promotion to tenure approached, i prepared my dossier of engaged scholarship. this dossier, i decided, would serve the greater cause by giving my tenured colleagues an opportunity “to incrementally enlarge the customary paradigm of knowledge generation in higher education by using reward systems such as tenure to assign value to new forms of scholarship” (hoyt, 2010). the dossier included bold experiments such as the collaborative thesis project. i coorganized this project with a group of six graduate students who shared my interest in modernizing the well-established thesis requirement. we decided together that each student member of the group would investigate the use or potential use of funds from the american recovery and reinvestment act with community partners in cities across the united states. we met weekly to share discoveries, learn across cases, and troubleshoot research-related problems. in spring 2010, we disseminated ideas that cities could act on in the form of public presentations (in cities, on campus, and through webinars), short films, peer-to-peer blogs, and ‘how-to’ guides. our collaboration also resulted in book entitled transforming cities and minds through 79 the scholarship of engagement: economy, equity and environment (hoyt, 2013). by discovering new modes of co-inquiry, co-learning, and co-production, we pushed the traditional boundaries of research and mentorship. the success of this project gained public recognition when i received the m.i.t. excellence in advising award. also, my engaged scholarship and its impact on the field of urban planning and in the city of lawrence was recognized when the president’s council on service and civic participation named m.i.t. to the president’s higher education community service honor roll. mit@lawrence won the presidents’ community partnership award from massachusetts campus compact, and i received the m.i.t. martin luther king jr. leadership award. my scholarship was integrated and prolific. i developed theories from practice, publishing accessible essays in high-ranking, peer-reviewed journals. my teaching evaluations were consistently among the very highest in a large department with dozens of course offerings. i served as the first faculty advisor to the m.i.t. student group queers in the built environment (in 2009), which received m.i.t.'s john s. w. kellet 47 award, as well as the award for contribution to intellectual life of the department. to my surprise, my department did not award me tenure at m.i.t. in fall 2010, the tenured faculty in my department, several of whom had assisted me with compiling a dossier of my engaged scholarship for promotion to tenure, met to discuss my promotion case. they decided by majority vote not to solicit external review letters. a tenured colleague who participated in the meeting later shared some insights with me: “we took a vote. some thought your case should go out for review, and others did not. turnout was low and people who did not attend did not get to vote. the decision was made forty-eight hours before the meeting.” the news of their decision felt cruel and unfair to me at the time. why would the colleagues with whom i had worked for several years (20022010) decide to deny me the opportunity to send my dossier to external reviewers? why would they deny themselves the opportunity to hear what others had to say about my achievements, and the opportunity (lynton, 1996, p. 2) to deliberate the definition of scholarship? a revolution in concepts the first level of the revolution is not a revolution in technology, machinery, techniques, software, or speed, but a revolution in concepts, and thus the way we think about issues. (odora hoppers, 2017, p. 2) the lynton award led me to the ideas and people who have helped me to know who i am. the experience of being a lynton award winner has instilled in me a clarity of purpose and conviction that propels me forward during periods in my career when my confidence is low. in 2011, i left m.i.t. and accepted a staff position as director of programs and research for the talloires network, a sponsored program in the tisch college of civic life at tufts university. the talloires network is a global association of 388 engaged universities in 77 countries around the world. it was established in 2005 when then tufts university president lawrence s. bacow convened a group of 29 university presidents, vice-chancellors and rectors from 23 countries at the tufts european center in talloires, france. together, this small group of university leaders made a public commitment to building a global network of engaged universities by producing 80 and signing the talloires declaration on the civic roles and social responsibilities of higher education. in my new position, i began managing all core programs and activities of the network, and overall administration of its secretariat. though it was humbling and disorienting to forego my faculty role, i was energized by the prospect of collaborating with and providing support to engaged scholars around the world. with network members and partners, i embedded several research questions in the network’s programmatic activities: how and why is university civic engagement developing and expanding internationally? what strategies hold particular promise for strengthening university civic engagement? what are the trends and driving factors in university civic engagement? what impact does university civic engagement have on the development of student capabilities? motivated by curiosity to learn about other universitycommunity partnerships and liberated from the pressures of moving through the faculty ranks, i set out to rebuild my academic career at tufts university. the network provided enormous inspiration. early on, i discovered a program called amplifying community voices (hereafter voices). created in 2006 at the university of venda, a small public institution in south africa, voices engages people in collective deliberation and decisionmaking. discussions include university faculty and students as well as youth, women, and the elderly in rural communities. students from a variety of disciplines organize and lead “reflection circles” in dozens of villages in the vhembe district near the university. students learn how to ensure that all voices may speak, and no single voice dominates. by doing so, they learn about conflict, group dynamics, and how to recognize and handle power imbalances. voices captures and contributes local knowledge to inform public development projects. voices reinforces multidirectional flows of knowledge as municipal officials and university students and staff use the development plans to address such issues as water and sanitation, education, health, housing and transportation (francis & kabiti, 2014). in this way, knowledge is “is everywhere fed back, constantly enhanced” (lynton, 1994). in 2013, i prepared a dossier for promotion and returned to a faculty role as an associate research professor (a multiple-year full-time appointment based on external funding; it is not a tenuretrack position) at tufts university. i presented my action research on the history and development of national, regional and global networks for university civic engagement, their activities and strategies, and their aspirations for the future. the research demonstrated why such networks are positioned to address specific needs and issues of their social, cultural and geopolitical contexts, and how they function as intermediaries and build strong ties with their institutions. my findings suggested that networks for university civic engagement continue to grow in number, size of membership, and capability; they are influential vehicles for exchange of experience, professional training, and policy reform through collective voice and action. my research identified the factors driving the international university civic engagement movement: national governmental policies, institutional incentives and rewards, the changing expectations of external constituencies, and the visions and strategies of the latest generation of university heads. i discovered that while there is significant variation with respect to goals, outcomes and nomenclatures across and within regions of the world, university civic engagement leaders share common vision and strategy. these leaders build their character and quality on the influence of 81 regional values such as good citizenship, social responsibility, and social solidarity. they aim to address pervasive challenges to civic life, such as poverty, illiteracy, and disease using an array of approaches including service learning, volunteerism, extension, participatory action research and applied research. service-learning is the most common pedagogical approach and it is practiced in all regions and many countries of the world, in all fields of study and in public and private universities, large and small. my promotion dossier included a comparative research study of exemplary university engagement programs in different institutional and geopolitical settings (australia, egypt, malaysia, mexico, scotland, south africa, and united states). in this project, seven pairs of authors, each consisting of an academic and either a community practitioner or a student, produced case studies to answer the questions: what capacities do students need in order to participate effectively in their societies as active and responsible citizens? what practices are universities around the world using to engage students in communities more effectively? what difference have these practices made in the civic capacities of students? these exemplary engagement programs reach beyond traditional community service learning approaches. they are producing greater student skills in managing conflict and bridging cultural divisions, building community assets, and addressing fundamental political challenges to build inclusive systems of power. michigan state university press published this project and made it part of its scholarship of engagement series. later, i updated my dossier for external review by leaders in the field. due in large part to administrative ambiguities, personnel changes, and other challenges, the internal process was replete with twists, turns, and lengthy pit stops. however, i benefited from the strong and consistent support of many colleagues who understood the merits of engaged scholarship, valued my contributions, and knew how to navigate the institution. by the end of 2017, i was promoted to research professor in the department of urban and environmental policy and planning at tufts university (research professors enjoy the same rights and responsibilities as tenured full professors at tufts university; it is a multiple-year full-time appointment based on external funding). the old wounds have healed, i am living my dream, and the cause is more urgent and consequential than tenure. as professor and executive director of the talloires network, i envision the greater cause as a project in strengthening the global university civic engagement movement. in practical terms, this means realizing the special obligation of universities as civic institutions to enhance human dignity and well-being and improve social harmony and stability. a few examples among our members include: clinics for dental care that reduces oral health inequality in england; a project to rebuild a school that was destroyed by a flood in pakistan; an initiative to provide women with seed capital to start a business in mexico; and a refugee support program in australia that prepares future teachers while assisting young, unaccompanied minors from iraq, sudan, afghanistan, and sierra leone. call to action this [modern] university is a network or web of many nodes, each closely connected to all the others, and it engages in continuous two-way interaction with its environment. it is an institution that still has a clear identity as a whole but is less defined and less 82 compartmentalized than the traditional university. (lynton & elman, 1987, p. 161) as governments around the world move higher education from the margins to the forefront of their agendas, and higher education participation rates continue to rise around the world, the debate about the role of the university is no longer a theoretical exercise. it a pressing question demanding thoughtful action. what do you believe the societal role of the university to be? is it an engine for technological advances and economic growth for the public good? is a site of critical inquiry and engaged citizenship? is it a market-driven provider of skills for the purpose of individual economic security? universities are rooted and durable community institutions (harkavay, 2011). in this way, they are perfectly positioned to respond to the pressing challenges of our time. like many human institutions, they exhibit inertia and are slow to change. can we afford to watch from the sidelines, as rising authoritarianism and the disintegration of democracy around the world redefine the popular perception of higher education? it is already reducing universities to brands, degrees to commodities, and students to customers. might we articulate and proactively advance a broader social understanding of the university? what forces will drive and shape the role of the university in the 21st century? shall they be the demands of 21st century students who expect to customize their learning to fit their distinctive needs? will there be decreasing public support for universities? will multiple factors bring mounting global competition among universities? to say nothing of pressing societal issues, including population growth, rising levels of inequality, human conflict and migration, and food and water insecurity. powerful technological advancements including artificial intelligence and its impact on the nature of work and the realities of human consciousness. three decades ago, lynton and elman (1987) suggested that the university in the 21st century would be a “web of many nodes” engaging “in continuous two-way interaction” with communities. in many ways, their vision is unfolding. i believe that the university as we know it will necessarily evolve into a nimble and responsive network of engaging spaces, physical and virtual, synchronous and asynchronous. popular contemporary characteristics such as sage on the stage, standardized testing, disciplinary research, semesters, and specialized degrees will fade away. new ideas including reciprocal knowledge, impact-based assessments, transdisciplinary action research, continuous and on-demand learning, and collaborative problem-solving credentials and micro-degrees will emerge and take hold. i invite you to ask yourself, where do i stand? in the end, what difference will my scholarship make in the world? in what ways does my research, teaching, and administrative leadership within higher education contribute to human dignity and wellbeing? if you are working in a geopolitical location where you may speak freely, and take a stand for justice without facing the risk of unlawful imprisonment, i ask you to exercise your power. now is the time for bold action. by taking action, you will contribute to the growing global university civic engagement movement. a case in point is the newly-elected vice-chair of the talloires network steering committee, dr. sara ladrón de guevara. ladrón became rector of universidad veracruzana in 2013 and was re-elected for a second four-year term in 2017. she is the first woman to hold this prestigious position in the 75-year history of the university. her leadership as rector has 83 proceeded from a profound commitment to social justice and activism for speaking out against corruption. in 2016, she organized and led a 60,000-person statewide protest to demand the university’s public funds from the state government. this protest has come to symbolize the defense of the right to higher education (ladrón & monaco, 2017). conclusion in closing, i urge you to join the movement, as we take larger and more rapid strides toward “the new scholarship” (schön, 1995, p. 32). it is time to evolve beyond the “battle of snails.” the generative utility and relative permanence of higher education institutions suggests they may have a vital role in contributing to our collective survival, if they are able to evolve quickly and purposefully. incremental adaptation, resistance to or denial of the changing global order are no longer viable options for institutions, especially universities. let us continue to move forward, and with a heightened sense of urgency, creativity, and fearlessness. engaging spaces we have created violent places for suffering, where many voices are excluded; practicing conformity of thought…conformity of deed. places that polarize and divide us, where we doubt each other’s motives and ways, accepting false boundaries and limitations. places that generate waves of unrest, where we lose our footing and faith; retreating from ideals of agency and cooperation. places that diminish our imaginations, where we abuse power and destroy hope, seeking dominance over the other. we need engaging spaces to move through, where all are welcome; practicing freedom of thought…freedom of deed. spaces that respond to our ever-changing needs, where we grow, endure, and thrive; imagining and achieving limitless possibilities, spaces to struggle and learn together, where we explore and discover beauty; inventing new opportunities for prosperity. spaces that nourish our aspirations, where we recreate systems of power; seeking dignity and wellbeing for humanity … again and again. —lorlene hoyt 84 references bacow, l. s. (2011). foreword. in d. watson, r.m. hollister, s.e. stroud & e. babcock, the engaged university: international perspectives on civic engagement. routledge, new york & london. boyer. e. l. (1996). the scholarship of engagement. journal of public service and outreach 1 (1), 11-20. https://doi.org/10.2307/3824459 francis, j. & kabiti, h. (2014). amplifying community voices for people-centered development in south africa. unpublished paper, venda, south africa. freire, p. (1996). pedagogy of the oppressed. trans. m. b. ramos. rev. ed. london: penguin. harkavay, i. (2011). forward. in ledoux, m.w., s.c. wilwhite, & p. silver, civic engagement and service learning in a metropolitan university: multiple approaches and perspectives (pp. xiii-xv). philadelphia, pa: university of pennsylvania press. higgins, m.d. (2016 april 16). what is the role of the university in the digital age? university world news 409. retrieved from http://www.universityworldnews.com/article.php?story=20160412194215660 odora hoppers, c. (2017). transformation and change in knowledge generation paradigms in the african and global contexts: implications for education research in the 21st century. educational research for social change 6 (1), 1-11. https://doi.org/10.17159/22214070/2017/v6i1a1 hoyt, l. (2010). a city-campus engagement theory from, and for, practice. michigan journal of community service learning 17 (1), 75-88. hoyt, l. (2014). university civic engagement: a global perspective. higher education exchange. dayton: kettering foundation. retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ed560889 hoyt, l. et al. (2017). university entrepreneurship education for individual and community transformation. toronto, canada: mastercard foundation. retrieved from https://talloiresnetwork.tufts.edu/wp-content/uploads/yepi-report-1.pdf ladrón, s. & monaco, a.p. (2017 june 18). community spirit: universities redefining how students learn. times higher education. retrieved from https://talloiresnetwork.tufts.edu/wpcontent/uploads/community-spirit-ladron-de-guevara-and-monaco-.pdf lynton, e. a. & elman, s. e. (1987). new priorities for the university: meeting society’s needs for applied knowledge and competent individuals. jossey-bass publishers. san francisco. lynton, e. a. (1994). knowledge and scholarship. metropolitan universities: an international forum, 5 (1), 9-17. retrieved from https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/muj/article/download/19385/19144 https://doi.org/10.2307/3824459 https://doi.org/10.17159/2221-4070/2017/v6i1a1 https://doi.org/10.17159/2221-4070/2017/v6i1a1 https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ed560889 https://talloiresnetwork.tufts.edu/wp-content/uploads/yepi-report-1.pdf https://talloiresnetwork.tufts.edu/wp-content/uploads/community-spirit-ladron-de-guevara-and-monaco-.pdf https://talloiresnetwork.tufts.edu/wp-content/uploads/community-spirit-ladron-de-guevara-and-monaco-.pdf https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/muj/article/download/19385/19144 85 lynton, e. a. (1996). rethinking the nature of scholarship. international higher education 6, 2– 3. https://doi.org/10.6017/ihe.1996.6.6217 mit faculty governance. (2002 march). reports of the committees on the status of women faculty. retrieved from https://facultygovernance.mit.edu/sites/default/files/reports/200203_status_of_women_faculty-all_reports.pdf saltmarsh, j. (2016). ernest lynton and the tyranny of research. journal of higher education outreach and engagement 20 (1), 45-51. retrieved from http://openjournals.libs.uga.edu/index.php/jheoe/article/download/1592/911 schön, d. a. (1995). knowing-in-action: the new scholarship requires a new epistemology. change 27 (6), 26-34. https://doi.org/10.1080/00091383.1995.10544673 talloires network. (2017 june 23). veracruz declaration on social responsibility and human dignity in higher education engagement. retrieved from https://talloiresnetwork.tufts.edu/wpcontent/uploads/veracruzdeclaration_english_with-signatures.pdf https://doi.org/10.6017/ihe.1996.6.6217 https://facultygovernance.mit.edu/sites/default/files/reports/2002-03_status_of_women_faculty-all_reports.pdf https://facultygovernance.mit.edu/sites/default/files/reports/2002-03_status_of_women_faculty-all_reports.pdf http://openjournals.libs.uga.edu/index.php/jheoe/article/download/1592/911 https://doi.org/10.1080/00091383.1995.10544673 https://talloiresnetwork.tufts.edu/wp-content/uploads/veracruzdeclaration_english_with-signatures.pdf https://talloiresnetwork.tufts.edu/wp-content/uploads/veracruzdeclaration_english_with-signatures.pdf 86 author information pr. lorlene m. hoyt executive director of the talloires network dearborn house tufts university 72 professors’ row, rm. 108 medford, ma 02155 telephone: (617)-627-6056 email: lorlene.hoyt@tufts.edu dr. lorlene hoyt is a research professor in the department of urban and environmental policy and planning, a faculty member of the tisch college of civic life at tufts university, and the executive director of the talloires network, a global network of 388 engaged universities in 77 countries. she has published in numerous academic journals, and she is the author of transforming cities and minds through the scholarship of engagement, a book she wrote with a group of six m.i.t. students. more recently, she coordinated a research and writing collaboration with engaged scholars who are leading exemplary university civic engagement programs in seven countries on six continents. their collective work entitled regional perspectives on learning-by-doing: stories from engaged universities around the world was published by michigan state university press. microsoft word 003_hague_holland_award_article_23923 final.docx invited commentary © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23923 | july 20, 2020 7 connecting courses, curriculum, and community in chicago euan hague1 1school of public service, depaul university cite as: hague, e. (2020). connecting courses, curriculum, and community in chicago. metropolitan universities, 31(2), 7-17 doi: 10.18060/23923 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. introduction i am deeply honored to receive the 2019 barbara a. holland scholar-administrator award from the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities (cumu), as i believe strongly in interconnecting the elements of an urban institution: students, faculty, and community members, and integrating these within the classroom, curriculum, disciplinary structures, and administrative best practices. additionally, i suggest that such an integrative approach should be fundamental to our scholarly practice, as teaching, research, and community engagement inform and reinforce each other. our institutions give us opportunities to draw upon considerable resources that can be used to aid disadvantaged communities and, as professionals in the academy, we are well-positioned to pursue pedagogy that can make a difference in our society. my passion for such integrative practice is rooted in my home discipline of geography, which has long grappled with the question of the relationships between communities and the academy. in 2020, geography is a vibrant, theoretically innovative, and community-engaged discipline. at its core, the discipline asks spatial questions that seek to understand how places and landscapes are created and understood. this can be the physical geography of earth’s landscapes and their geomorphology, or it can be, as i have chosen to study, its human landscapes. people shape landscapes for specific uses; they give places meaning and construct built environments that express those meanings. understanding landscapes and places as meaningful and as being continually made and remade by people through myriad decisions, both small and large, leads to questions about who has the power to shape a landscape or give meaning to a place. it leads geographers to ask why places are like they are; to interrogate representations of places; and to explore the contested hegemonic meanings of places. this leads to examining which people, politics, and political systems impose and control the production of meanings, of landscapes, and © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23923 | july 20, 2020 8 land uses, and how these relate to identities. geographers are, therefore, driven to ask questions that put place and spatial relationships at the core of investigative analyses. within geography, many faculty are committed to community-based scholarship. much of this engagement has been with urban communities and, over the past fifty years, has sought to advance a coproduction of geographical knowledge. such practice was central to the influential work that became known in the early 1970s as radical geography. a vanguard for early entries of feminist, marxist, and post-colonial thought into the discipline, radical geography sought “social relevancy” and “advocacy” for research projects (peet, 1977, 2000), and was disseminated though antipode its, at times irreverent, scholarly journal (hague, 2002). the most explicit and subsequently celebrated expression of radical geography’s immersive practice to produce research that advances community change was bunge’s (1971) bringing of geographical expertise to the service of the detroit neighborhood of fitzgerald (merrifield, 1995; progress in human geography, 2011). peet (1977: 13-14), describes bunge’s approach and its attendant call for academic geographers as community-engaged advocates and activists: geographers should form expeditions to the poorest and most blighted areas of the country, contributing rather than taking resources, planning with people rather than planning for them, incorporating local people rather than excluding them in an elitist way. work produced by bunge as part of his detroit geographical expedition (1968-73) was used to counter expansion plans of his former employer, wayne state university, and by community organizations to advance campaigns against racially unequal schooling. “[a]dvocate geographers and planners,” peet (1977: 15) explains, “offered their professional expertise to disenfranchised groups to help them deal with powerful institutions and eventually to shift power to the presently powerless.” although i am too young to have experienced the initial engagements of radical geography in the early 1970s, by the 1990s, flush with the discursive analyses of post-structuralism and the continued influence of marxism, critical geography flourished, its theoretical syntheses and commitment to pursuing social justice resonating with a new generation of geographers who, by the early 2000s, had “significantly (if not completely) reoriented the discipline to the point where it is now—and this is not a total exaggeration—the center of radical social justice theorizing in the academy” (mitchell, 2004: 765). although both continuities and distinctions can be drawn between the radical geography of the 1970s and critical geography, castree (2000, 956) raised a point that resonated with me and many of my peers, namely that the “spirit of engagement and activism” of the 1970s had been somewhat lost (cf. hague, 2002) and, as a result, professional academics were less directly engaged in community struggles than those of previous generations. yet, as castree (2000, 959) outlined, “there is in principle nothing to stop today’s critical geographers reaching out from the academy in order to improve the world they study.” attracted © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23923 | july 20, 2020 9 by such contentions, and a determination to pursue an academic career that could draw upon the radical and critical branches of geography to offer assistance to communities, i have consistently sought opportunities to collaborate with people in the cities where i have worked to better understand a central question that animates much geographical research, namely explaining the relationships between people and places. my own community engagement is also something of a family tradition: i have childhood memories of my faculty-member father writing a book about the impact of urban planning on scottish public housing and his work with the communities organizing in opposition to technocratic and top-down local development proposals (c. hague, 1984). re-reading his book for this essay, i find my own perspectives echoing his calls for “a radial professionalism,” which “retain[s] an expertise, but that expertise would be rooted in self-awareness, with a consciousness of the ways in which the city is pervaded by ideology and sectional interests. it would be allied to the imagination to design alternatives and the technical ability to specify them” (c. hague, 1984: 327). it was my father who suggested that when moving to chicago in 2002 to take up a faculty position at depaul university, i should draw upon the works of one of the city’s most famous community organizers, saul alinsky (1969, 1972) who argues that it is important when working with community organizations to let the local residents set the agenda of important issues to be addressed. what follows are two examples from my teaching that, influenced by these precedents, seek to intertwine the classroom with the community. two curricular examples at depaul, i have been fortunate to utilize the existing curricular structure and associated institutional support to develop distinctive, community-engaged courses. at the undergraduate level, depaul requires all students to complete one experiential learning course, which can be an internship, study abroad, community-based service learning, or another hands on class that meets learning outcomes, and one freshman explore chicago course, which is an introduction to the city, university, and academic practice. this curricular flexibility has enabled me to bring the resources of my courses, and the social justice foci of geographical theory and disciplinary practices, first, to assist community organizing through a long term community-based service learning guided research project and, second, to advance student learning through direct contact with community activists in an explore chicago course. each course represents a different model of community engagement: the community-based service learning course could be described as inside-out, as the resources and expertise of the academy are brought off-campus and into the community to address community-raised concerns, in this case, questions by members of a community organization, the pilsen alliance, to help them understand the urban policies and practices that were restructuring and transforming the city and the neighborhoods in which they live. the second example from my explore chicago freshman course is outside-in, namely © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23923 | july 20, 2020 10 bringing activists into conversation with students who learn about the local community directly from those who live and work within it. 1. community-based service learning in 2003-04, with support from depaul university’s steans center for community-based service learning, i entered an on-going partnership with the pilsen alliance, a nonprofit community organization that works in chicago’s primarily latinx lower west side community. based around an annual urban development course that integrated community-based service learning, this collaboration has led to both my students and myself making community presentations, attending community meetings, disseminating research findings through local galleries and selfpublished booklets, and engaging in community and city-wide discussions about affordable housing in a rapidly gentrifying area of chicago (hague, 2006; curran, et al., 2007; hague et al. 2008; c.hague et al., 2011; block, et al. 2018). over the past fifteen years, this course has been reshaped, updated, and redesigned, but at its heart remain the relationships that my colleagues and i have built with the pilsen alliance community organization and the research that we have generated and shared with the community. the chicago neighborhood of pilsen dates to the second half of the nineteenth century when it developed rapidly to house an immigrant population arriving primarily from central and eastern europe. this population gave the neighborhood its name, pilsen, derived from the czech city of plzeň. a center of labor activism, perhaps most famously the 1886 mccormick reaper works and 1910-11 garment workers strikes, pilsen’s population peaked at 85,680 in 1920 (betancur & kim, 2016). in the post-world war ii era, pilsen experienced a demographic change that echoed those seen in numerous u.s. cities as the white ethnic population moved to the suburbs and a new immigrant population began to arrive from central and south america. by 1970, pilsen was the first latinx majority community area in chicago (betancur, 2005). gentrification has since been transforming the neighborhood, in a manner that epitomizes the term as defined by its originator, ruth glass (1964, xviii): one by one, many of the working class quarters of london have been invaded by the middle classes… once this process of ‘gentrification’ starts in a district it goes on rapidly until all or most of the original working class occupiers are displaced and the whole social character of the district is changed. in the 2000 census, pilsen’s population was 44,031, 88.9% hispanic, “with a $27,763 median household income compared to chicago’s $38,625” (betancur, 2005: 62). by 2010 the median household income had risen to $35,611 (still below chicago’s $47,270) and, as the latinx population decreased, property values rose (betancur & kim, 2016). by 2013, betancur & kim (2016) demonstrate, pilsen’s population had declined to 35,353 and 81.6% hispanic. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23923 | july 20, 2020 11 it is in this context that my undergraduate urban geography course conducts a building inventory survey, which focuses on around 25 city blocks, approximately 850 properties, in the most rapidly gentrifying eastern areas of the neighborhood. in our preparatory and ongoing conversations with the pilsen alliance, we learned that the community organizers and local residents were very capable of telling the community’s history and the stories of the impacts of gentrification that have made housing less affordable; where they needed support was in quantitative analyses and data visualizations that could display how their community was transforming in a manner that local officials would take more seriously than stories. as a result, we devised a project in which students annually collect data on a host of urban development indicators including zoning laws, property taxes, property sales and tax increment financing (tif), the latter a “geographical approach to land use planning and development” that redistributes property taxes raised within a designated area to fund projects within that area and leverage additional private investment (hague et al., 2017, p.3). the course uses lectures, field trips, seminar discussions, and data analysis. student learning occurs in three different locations: the classroom, a computer laboratory, and the pilsen neighborhood. in lectures, i outline pilsen’s geography and history, and explore theories of gentrification, illustrating these with documentary films, powerpoint presentations, and guest speakers. required readings include seminal peer-reviewed geography articles on gentrification, such as smith (1979) and hackworth and smith (2001), and shorter essays from newspapers and magazines, such as lutton’s (1998) overview of the neighborhood, and avila’s (2005) account of the controversial conversion of a building from a light manufacturing facility to condominiums. this reading assignment strategy enables students to grasp the complex information presented in scholarly articles and relate it to chicago-area examples of similar urban processes. students prepare questions and discussion notes based on these readings which are used in classroom group work, enabling peer-explanation and further review of the material. in field trips to pilsen, i highlight recent disputes over, and locations of, condominium development, housing demolitions, and community protests. each student is allocated around thirty-five properties, approximately one block, of pilsen to explore. students visit their blocks, assessing the structural qualities of the properties and their current uses, and i show them how to collect publicly available data from city of chicago, the cook county assessor, and the cook county treasurer websites. after completing this empirical research, students compile their data into an excel file and, with my guidance, produce graphs and charts to illustrate a final report about housing development in pilsen. the student reports are graded for course credit and are then shared with the pilsen alliance. students have told me that the methods of data collection and analytical techniques i introduce help them pursue careers in urban planning, real estate, and community organizing. further, students feel ownership of the data and expertise in relation to their block: many have said that the course was one of the most important of their undergraduate career. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23923 | july 20, 2020 12 one of the things that i wanted to achieve in this course was to see service learning as researchdriven community engagement in which the production of knowledge is shared, with both the resources of and expertise from within the academy assisting the community organization. consequently, the life of this course does not stop at the end of the academic quarter. throughout the year, i employ students to collate the information produced in the course into a single combined database. diagrams and information from this data set are supplied to the pilsen alliance on demand. i supervise undergraduate students skilled in geographic information systems (gis) to work with the combined data set to map answers to questions pertinent to the pilsen alliance, such as where zoning changes have been granted in the previous twelve months or which properties that used to be owned by individuals are now owned by banks or llcs, both situations that are often precursors to redevelopment, or where property values and tax assessments are increasing most rapidly (figure 1). the community organization uses the information derived from the course for their campaigns to challenge the city’s various development scenarios for pilsen, to aid local residents in securing property tax relief, and to coordinate community conversations on the process of gentrification and its impact on pilsen. upon request of the pilsen alliance, i have offered seminars and public lectures about the course’s research findings and about urban policies such as zoning and historic preservation, presented testimony at city council meetings about neighborhood development, and have spoken about gentrification and community development to both english and spanish-language local radio, television, and newspapers. 2. engaging community organizers and activists in 2015 i began a co-teaching partnership with michael james, a well-known chicago activist and community organizer. james attended graduate school at university of california, berkeley, leaving in the mid-1960s to work for the students for a democratic society (sds) economic research and action project (erap) seeking to advance “an inter-racial movement of the poor” with jobs or income now (join) in chicago’s uptown neighborhood (james, 2013 [2006]; gitlin & hollander, 1971; pekar & mcclinton, 2008; rothstein, 1969). james was a participant in the 1968 democratic convention protests, appearing on a pbs history detectives episode that examined a protest poster he produced. he subsequently became one of the founders of rising up angry (1969-75), a newspaper that expanded to become an organization that also led ‘serve the people programs’ like free health clinics, free legal services, and a host of similar services (de zutter, 1989; hague, 2008; sonnie & tracy, 2011; tucker & romero, 2016). james is also known locally for operating the heartland café (1976-2012) and its associated radio show, live from the heartland. working alongside james, we developed a course entitled “activists and activism in chicago since 1960” that introduces around fifty freshman students each fall to community organizers and other people who have dedicated themselves to tackling the challenges facing neighborhoods in chicago. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23923 | july 20, 2020 13 in this course, the syllabus is structured in a manner that pushes students to understand 1960s activism and its legacy through meeting people who have led activist lives and worked in community organizing. this intertwining of biography and local politics resonates strongly with students who see their own passions reflected in the comments of the speakers. students are asked to make connections to today’s issues and practices of community activism, and reflect on how much social progress has been made over the past fifty years. the interactions with community members take place both on and off campus. indeed, my own role is primarily as coordinator and administrator: it is our guests that do the teaching. whenever possible, we ask activists where we should meet in their community, and take the students to them. thus, we put the places of activism into conversation with the activists themselves. subsequent assignments ask students describe and reflect both on the comments of the guest, and the neighborhood that they traveled to and experienced. at other times, we invite speakers to join us in the classroom to tell students their activist biographies. further, james and i take students to visit sites associated with his own activism, such as the john a. logan statue in grant park, where the whole world was watching the clashes between police and protestors at the democratic national convention in august 1968, and holy covenant united methodist church which housed rising up angry’s fritzi englestein free people’s health clinic in the 1970s. many urban universities have provoked community protest with the processes of campus redevelopment and resultant residential displacement, roles that institutions are slow to admit to and slower to atone for, and about which current students are typically unaware. to highlight this, another regular guest is josé ‘cha-cha’ jiménez, who in the 1960s founded and led the puerto rican activists of the young lords organization (mathewes, 2019). under his leadership, in may 1969 local puerto rican residents threatened by urban renewal occupied mccormick seminary building, now part of depaul’s campus, temporarily renaming it the manuel ramos building. hearing jiménez describe events to students as they sit on the building’s steps is a powerful learning experience, one that i suggest resonates strongly because the teaching is happening in place. a second on-campus site is a cafeteria, the pit, that was blockaded and occupied in 1969 by african-american students and the young lords organization, as a contemporary student journalist described: cha cha jiminez [sic], leader of the young lords, …stood in front of the s.a.c. [schmitt academic center] to reportedly protect the black students inside from the white students outside. cha cha then walked into the pit and raised his right hand in a clenched fist, a symbol of black power (schneider, 1969). meeting people at locations, in neighborhoods that have much changed in the past fifty years, gives students an opportunity to think about the issues which animate our speakers, such as civil rights, gentrification, community development, policing, and the impacts of societal change. students are asked to reflect on other places, such as the anonymous apartments used by jane to provide illegal abortion services across chicago in the late 1960s and early 1970s (booth and © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23923 | july 20, 2020 14 booth, 2008; king, 1993; kaplan, 1997), and consider how community organizers operating out of storefronts and church basements led effective actions, as many similar organizations in chicago continue to do. such a course envisions community engagement in a manner that understands residents as educators, sharing their knowledge of the places in which our students live. conclusion there are opportunities for community engagement on all our campuses; there are community members who can share their stories with our students and we have the expertise to pursue a radical professionalism at our institutions, practicing a pedagogy that can integrate faculty, students, and community residents in learning experiences. indeed, one of the most heartening developments in during my twenty-year academic career has been that community engagement, and the practice of faculty and students collaborating with off-campus organizations, is increasingly common and increasingly perceived as best practice. yet, i would suggest, it is still radical. research-centered community engagement that generates knowledge that can be used to advance community goals and inform residents, that can strive to address and redress society’s injustices and its uneven distribution of resources, and teaching that can engender change and make a difference, must be a central commitment of urban universities in the 21st century. figure 1. percentage change from 2017 to 2018 of estimated market value by property in eastern pilsen, chicago. properties with high decreases in value in this area are often vacant sites where houses have been demolished prior to new construction. the highest increases (over 450%) are typically newly constructed buildings. map by rasa whittaker. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23923 | july 20, 2020 15 references alinsky, s. (1969). reveille for radicals. new york: vintage books. alinsky, s. (1972). rules for radicals: a pragmatic reader for realistic radicals. new york: vintage books. avila, o. (2005, april 22). hispanic condo buyers seen as pilsen threat. chicago tribune. betancur, j. (2005). gentrification before gentrification: the plight of pilsen in chicago. nathalie p. voorhees center for neighborhood and community improvement, white paper, university of illinois at chicago. betancur, j. & kim, y. (2016). the trajectory and impact of ongoing gentrification in pilsen. nathalie p. voorhees center for neighborhood and community improvement, university of illinois at chicago. block, d., hague, e., curran, w., & rosing, h. (2018). measuring community and university impacts of critical civic geography: insights from chicago. the professional geographer, 70(2), 284-290. doi: 10.1080/00330124.2017.1366777 booth, h. & booth, g. (2008). the heather tobis booth story, 1964-66. in pekar, h., dumm, g., and buhle, p. (eds.), students for a democratic society: a graphic history (pp. 110114). new york : godalming: hill & wang. bunge, w. (1971). fitzgerald: geography of a revolution. cambridge, ma: schenkman pub. castree, n. (2000). professionalisation, activism, and the university: whither 'critical geography'? environment and planning a, 32(6), 955-970. doi:10.1068/a3263. curran, w., hague, e., & gill, h. (2007). practicing active learning: introducing urban geography and engaging community in pilsen, chicago. in hofman, n.g. and rosing, h. (eds.), pedagogies of praxis: course-based action research in the social sciences (pp.79-94). bolton, mass.: anker pub. de zutter, h. (1989). group efforts: rising up angry and the greasers' revolution. chicago reader. https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/group-efforts-rising-up-angry-and-thegreasers-revolution/content?oid=874469 gitlin, t., & hollander, n., (1970). uptown: poor whites in chicago. new york: harper & row. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23923 | july 20, 2020 16 glass, r. (1964). introduction. in centre for urban studies, (eds.), london: aspects of change (pp. xiii-xlii). london: macgibbon & kee. hackworth, j., & smith, n. (2001). the changing state of gentrification. tijdschrift voor economische en sociale geografie, 92(4), 464-477. doi: 10.1111/1467-9663.00172 hague, c. (1984). the development of planning thought : a critical perspective (built environment series). london: hutchinson. hague, c., hague, e., & breitbach, c. (2011). regional and local economic development, basingstoke: palgrave macmillan. hague, e. (2002). antipode, inc. antipode, 34 (4), 655-661. doi: 10.1111/1467-8330.00261 hague, e. (2006). service learning in pilsen, chicago. in greene, r.p., bouman, m.j. and grammenos, d. (eds.), chicago’s geographies – metropolis for the 21st century (pp. 264-267). washington dc: association of american geographers. hague, e. (2008). rising up angry. area-chicago, 7, p.25. hague, e., curran, w., & pilsen alliance (2008). contested chicago – pilsen and gentrification / pilsen y el aburguesamiento: una lucha para conservar nuestra comunidad, www.lulu.com. hague, e., lorr, m., & sternberg, c. (2017). chicago – neoliberal city. in bennett, l., garner, r. & hague, e., (eds.), neoliberal chicago (pp. 1-13). urbana; chicago; springfield: university of illinois press. doi:10.5406/j.ctt1s47658 james, m. (2013 [2006]). getting ready for the firing line: organizing in uptown in the 60’s. next left notes. http://collectiveliberation.org/wpcontent/uploads/2013/01/getting_ready_for_the_firing_line.pdf kaplan, l. (1995). the story of jane : the legendary underground feminist abortion service (1st ed.). new york: pantheon books. king, c. (1993). calling jane: the life and death of a women’s illegal abortion service. women and health, 20 (3), 75-93. doi: 10.1300/j013v20n03_05 lutton, l. (1998). will development bury the barrio? chicago reader. https://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/will-development-bury-thebarrio/content?oid=896150 © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23923 | july 20, 2020 17 mathewes, f. (2019, september 28) 50 years later: lessons in activism from the young lords of lincoln park. 14east magazine. http://fourteeneastmag.com/index.php/2018/09/28/50years-later-lessons-in-activism-from-the-young-lords-of-lincoln-park/ merrifield, a. (1995). situated knowledge through exploration: reflections on bunge’s ‘geographical expeditions’. antipode, 27 (1), 49-70. doi: 10.1111/j.14678330.1995.tb00261.x mitchell, d. (2004). geography in an age of extremes: a blueprint for a geography of justice. annals of the association of american geographers, 94 (4), 764-770. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8306.2004.00433.x pekar, h., & mcclinton, s. (2008). join chicago. in pekar, h., dumm, g., and buhle, p. (eds.), students for a democratic society: a graphic history (pp. 99-101). new york : godalming: hill & wang. peet, r. (1977). the development of radical geography in the united states. in peet, r. (ed.) radical geography: alternative viewpoints on contemporary social issues (pp. 6-30). chicago: maaroufa press. peet, r. (2000). commentary: celebrating thirty years of radical geography. environment and planning a, 32 (6), 951-953. doi: 10.1068/a32202. progress in human geography (2011). classics in human geography revisited: william w. bunge (1971) fitzgerald: geography of a revolution. progress in human geography, 35(5), 712-720. doi: 10.1177/030913251103500501; 10.1177/030913251103500502; 10.1177/0309132510394978. rothstein, r. (1969). evolution of erap organizers. in long, p. (ed.) the new left: a collection of essays (pp. 272-288). boston: p. sargent. schneider, r. (1969, may 19). background: what it was all about. the depaulia, 47(2), 2-3. smith, n. (1979). toward a theory of gentrification a back to the city movement by capital, not people. journal of the american planning association, 45(4), 538-548. doi: 10.1080/01944367908977002 sonnie, a., & tracy, j. (2011). hillbilly nationalists, urban race rebels, and black power : community organizing in radical times. brooklyn, n.y.: melville house. tucker, d., & romero, a. (2016). organize your own: the politics and poetics of selfdetermination movements, chicago: soberscove press. microsoft word ratcliff_antiracism issue proof.docx original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi: 10.18060/25332 | february 11, 2022 3 understanding campus space and whiteness as ontological expansiveness joseph holt ratcliff1 1university of st. thomas cite as: ratcliff, j.h. (2022). understanding campus space and whiteness as ontological expansiveness. metropolitan universities journal, 33 (2), 3-18. doi: https://doi.org/10.18060/25332 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. guest editors: kevin w. allison, sylvia carey-butler, rosalyn hobson hargraves, tiffany g. townsend, and jeffery wilson. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract this paper discusses findings of a quantitative, causal-comparative study that sought to determine if a statistically significant difference existed between a rural predominantly white institution and an urban minority-serving institution in terms of their white american male students’ perceptions of whiteness as ontological expansiveness. as the demographic makeup of the united states of america continues to become more diverse, so too are the colleges and universities that support students of all backgrounds. given this shift and understanding the need for social justice awareness, it is important to grasp how white students understand and take part in this shift. the study found low effect sizes and statistically significant differences between the two institutions as assessed by the study instrument, finding minority-serving institutions’ white american male students are slightly more accepting of their white racial identity and have a slightly higher affinity for social equality. higher education institutions can utilize this data to improve campus-based student activism as a rejection of the assumptions of whiteness within the ivory tower. thus, there is a pressing need for critical interrogations of whiteness in higher education. keywords: whiteness, campus space, urban institution, and higher education original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi: 10.18060/25332 | february 11, 2022 4 introduction american higher education institutions were established to prepare white colonial males for society and educate them in ministry (thelin, 2011). as the demographic makeup of the united states continues to become more diverse, so too are the colleges and universities that support students of all backgrounds (banks, 2009; denson, 2009; hu & kuh, 2003). according to the national center for education statistics projections to 2026, white american students project to have the slowest college enrollment growth. white american students will only grow 1% from 2015 to 2026, while african american students will grow 20%, hispanic american students will grow 26%, asian american/pacific islander students will grow 12%, american indian/alaska native students will decrease 3%, and students identifying as two or more races will grow 37% (hussar & bailey, 2018, p. 27). given this shift, and understanding the need for social justice racial awareness, banks (2009) stated, “therefore, even as racial diversity increases and must be addressed by our institutions of higher learning, it is also important to grasp how white students understand and take part in this shift” (p. 149). colleges and universities are predestined white spaces, no matter how diverse an institution is or how comprehensive its diversity statement claims to be. white males rarely encounter a space where they feel estranged based on race. this has been described as ontological expansiveness, or the way “whiteness as a structuring ideology in u.s. society permits white people to think, act, and interact with the space around them in such a way that they have a right to inhabit any space, be it material or otherwise” (corces-zimmerman et al., 2020, p. 432). this is problematic because white males, who benefit from white and male privilege, consistently commit racial incidents and microaggressions on college campuses yet have the most authority in challenging the racial status quo (cabrera, 2011; ratcliff, 2020). even institutions can perpetuate whiteness through their images, policies, and overall structural diversity, or lack thereof. therefore, it is important to interrogate how white male students navigate campus spaces and whether the structural diversity of an institution impacts their white racial identity. many researchers have identified the college undergraduate years to be the best time for cognitive and social development, stating the collegiate experience is prime for developing the social justice racial consciousness in undergraduate students (cabrera, 2011; hall et al., 2011; hu & kuh, 2003; ford, 2012; reason & evans, 2007). this article discusses findings of a quantitative, causal-comparative study that sought to determine if a statistically significant difference existed between two geographically-similar, demographically-different universities in terms of their white american male students’ perceptions of whiteness as ontological expansiveness as it relates to the tenets of critical whiteness theory (cabrera et al., 2016). after the introduction, a summary of relevant literature centers around whiteness as ontological expansiveness within higher education. the methods and results of the study will follow and end with a discussion of the findings. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi: 10.18060/25332 | february 11, 2022 5 whiteness as ontological expansiveness in higher education most higher education institutions are inherently designed to cater to white people, and this further develops ontologically expansive attitudes. for example, cabrera et al. (2016) stated, “whereas the vast majority of race-based analyses in higher education focus on interpersonal interactions as the center of analysis, whiteness also informs issues of campus space” (p. 22). gusa (2010) referred to this as white institutional presence (wip), and others simply called it white space. both of these terms “refer to the means by which whiteness becomes the social and environmental norm within institutions of higher education” (cabrera et al., 2016, p. 23). type of institution matters in the united states, there are over 5,000 institutions of higher or postsecondary learning (nces, 2018). these institutions include public and private universities, liberal arts colleges, for-profit entities, and technical and community colleges. universities can be classified on a spectrum from urban to rural. the major demographic categories are predominantly white institutions (pwi), minority-serving institutions (msi), historically black colleges and universities (hbcu), hispanic serving institutions (hsi), and asian american/ pacific islander serving institutions (aapisi) (college board, 2018). this study focused on two public four-year universities, one pwi and one msi, in the geographic region of southeast texas. their demographically-different student populations and structural diversity are central to this study. in an essay regarding land acquisition and its relation to higher education, patel (2015) stated, “education is and represents property, and more specifically in the u.s., white property” (p. 658). she continued, “universities and colleges are themselves sites of property rights in terms of economic, cultural, and social capital” (patel, 2015, p. 663). she termed this notion of property as “white settler colonialism,” which is practiced in three steps: (1) seize the land, resources, cultural practices, and goods of the desired location, (2) practice state-sanctioned genocide, and (3) import slave labor in chains (patel, 2015, p. 661). patel (2015) argued american institutions of higher education, even the most elite, have long had oppressive practices that have “manifested to protect white property rights, such as the use of slave labor to build and maintain campuses and also in sanctioning and rewarding research that justified slavery through account of biological difference” (p. 663). additionally, patel (2015) called out the idea of “meritocracy” as “hegemonic work,” and accused higher education institutions of spreading false rhetoric by stating, “desiring diversity without reckoning with the core settler property interests undergirding practices of inequality fulfills appearance needs while staving off transformation into other possible futurities. it is a desire for symbol but not material change” (p. 670). she argued this false rhetoric invalidates many of the diversity programs and initiatives on campuses since meaningful change is not the primary goal, but more so, the university's image. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi: 10.18060/25332 | february 11, 2022 6 patel (2015) highlighted an important distinction of this study when she stated, “by altering the number of racial minorities on college campuses, equity can be achieved. however, to assume that simply wedging in more people of color into college campuses will alter inequity grossly underestimates its longstanding, deep and purposeful architecture” (p. 670). the type of institution only matters to white american male social justice consciousness development to the extent to which the leadership of an institution is prepared to “attend to the policies that shape how populations historically marginalized from higher education are valued, supported, and empowered to facilitate change” and “learn from projects that were birthed from explicit purposes of social responsibility and social transformation” (patel, 2015, p. 670-671). while patel (2015) emphasized an increase in marginalized students on campus would not lift the veil of racial oppression, structural diversity is especially important for white american students at higher education institutions (bowman & park, 2014). bowman and park (2014) stated, “structural diversity has been operationalized as the proportion of students of color, the proportion of underrepresented students of color (excluding asian americans), and the relative representation of several racial groups” (p. 663). the structural diversity of an institution has a positive effect on white american students due to the availability of different-race peers and cross-racial interactions. without strong structural diversity, interracial interactions, and friendships cannot occur (bowman & park, 2014). keeping the concept of structural diversity in mind, this study will seek to compare pwis and msis' impact on white american male social justice racial consciousness development. predominantly white institutions thelin (2011) and patel (2015) mentioned that most institutions were developed and tailored towards educating the white american man. as a result, many institutions today remain predominantly white institutions and continue to perpetuate whiteness (gusa, 2010; hikido & murray, 2015; patel, 2015). however, researchers have highlighted the benefits of white american students being exposed to and engaged with multicultural organizations and diversity programs and its profound impact on their social justice consciousness development (bowman & park, 2014; cabrera, 2012; lo et al., 2017). lo et al. (2017) stated, “in the united states, growth of the immigrant and minority populations is diversifying many predominantly white colleges and universities that have worked to make curricula and policies supportive of racial/ethnic diversity” (p. 247). still, white american students at predominantly white institutions are “more likely to describe race relations favorable, and minority students more likely to describe them unfavorably” (lo et al., 2017, p. 247). even, “some americans affirm that a color-blind ideology holds sway in their nation today” and racism is no longer relevant as laws equally apply to all citizens (lo et al., 2017, p. 248). however, the researchers used critical race theory in their study and noted how it combats the idea of reverse racism. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi: 10.18060/25332 | february 11, 2022 7 lo et al. (2017) sought to provide two things in their study: (a) establish whether african american and white american students at a pwi in the american south showed differences in perceptions of campus race relations and (b) locate correlates explaining any differences in student perceptions via the role of race and racism in understanding campus race relations (lo et al., 2017). they distinctly defined the terms prejudice, discrimination, traditional racism, and symbolic racism by stating, “campus race relations can hardly be conducive to an ideal of social justice if racism is prevalent among students” and “racism is made up of racial/ethnic prejudice combined with discriminatory behavior” (lo et al., 2017, p. 248). the study was conducted at the university of alabama and sought to update previous work at the university, which also examined racial issues over the past fifty years (lo et al., 2017). their final findings consisted of data from 3,219 undergraduate students that identified as white or african american. they found “racist and discriminatory words and acts occur too often on the campus,” and white american students could not identify the words or acts as often as african american students were (lo et al., 2017, p. 257). lo et al. (2017), addressing their first objective, found “white students to assess campus race relations more favorable than black students did” (lo et al., 2017, p. 257). secondly, the researchers found both groups had higher scores of symbolic racisms, or covert acts, “acknowledged less campus racism or discrimination, describing race relations in more positive terms” (lo et al., 2017, p. 257). the correlation between covert acts of racism being measured higher for white american students who also perceive positive campus race relations is significant because african american students perceived the campus racial climate significantly more negatively (lo et al., 2017). lo et al. (2017) summarized their study by emphasizing race at the center of the campus climate discussion “is necessary to a future in which interracial, interethnic contacts on campus benefit all students of all backgrounds” (p. 261). minority serving institutions white american students have a racially dominant position in society, and most colleges continue to operate as historically white spaces (hikido & murray, 2015; patel, 2015; thelin, 2011). a significant amount of research is focused on pwis and white identity development and “crucially demonstrated students’ confusion, contradictions, and discomfort in constructing their white identities” (hikido & murray, 2015). however, hikido and murray (2015) stated, “there is limited material on white college students’ responses to multiracial environments and multicultural ideals” (p. 392). hikido and murray’s (2015) study, plus others, highlighted the experience of white american college students in multiracial environments with increased multicultural ideals. hikido and murray (2015) stated, “schools where whites constitute a numerical minority or ‘minority-majority schools,’ are of particular interest and importance” (p. 389). these institutions serve as “crucial sites for personal development,” and “they play an important role in establishing behavioral norms, and thus dictate and foreshadow students’ interactions in other original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi: 10.18060/25332 | february 11, 2022 8 steadily diversifying institutions” (hikido & murray, 2015, pp. 389-390). additionally, coinciding with bowman and park (2015), “white students gain disproportionately from diversity compared to students of color because increased structural diversity more dramatically increases their chances of engaging in cross-racial interactions” (hikido & murray, 2015, p. 393). their study evaluated the attitudes of white american students on a “multiracial campus where diversity is experienced both as a demographic feature and an idealized model” (hikido & murray, 2015, p. 390). hikido and murray (2015) addressed critical multiculturalism and emphasized how the acceptance of multiculturalism on campuses has become the “moral imperative of so-called ‘modern’ states, institutions, and individuals” (p. 390). multiculturalism can be separated into different paradigms labeled conservative, liberal, or critical, but hikido and murray (2015) argued: “only critical multiculturalism considers the complexities and inequalities inhered within them” (p. 390). hikido and murray (2015) stated, “a crucial tenet of critical multiculturalism is making whiteness visible and accountable. as long as whiteness eludes scrutiny as an invisible standard, it remains the marker against which all ‘others’ are measured, thus maintaining its centered and privileged position” (p. 391). since minority institutions serve a multiracial student body and promote multiculturalism, they have the greatest potential to become an institution of change (hikido & murray, 2015). alternately, hikido and murray (2015) also argued white american students could “embrace multicultural discourses that conserve the legitimacy and centrality of whiteness” (p. 391). the sample and qualitative method of the study were small, yielding only three white american women and two men aged 18 through 21. however, the researchers claimed the group interview “yielded a rich data set that demonstrates the complexity of white student discourses regarding campus racial diversity” (hikido & murray, 2015, p. 394). the students were enrolled in a large, public university in an urban environment in california. hikido and murry (2015) stated, “the university prides itself for both its compositional diversity as well as its institutional support of inclusiveness” (p. 395). their findings were unique in that campus diversity was celebrated and welcomed; however, four themes emerged: “(1) diversity fosters tolerance on campus; (2) diversity fragments into segregation; (3) institutional diversity efforts undervalue and exclude whites; and (4) the university should overlook white identity” (hikido & murray, 2015, p. 395). the findings from hikido and murray (2015) compliment the findings from patel (2015), in which universities promoting multiculturalism and diversity cannot solely rely on their structural diversity and student body to ensure cross-racial exposure and development. hikido and murray (2015) concluded, “ultimately, these students propagated a multiculturalism that protects white superiority in a multiracial setting by normalizing whiteness and stabilizing racial hierarchies” (p. 407). they argued their findings deserve considerable attention, “not only because they ironically erode the collaborative ideals that diversity platforms seek to accomplish, but also because they serve as a template for future scenarios where whites live and work in multiracial environments” (hikido & murray, 2015, p. 408). the researchers called for universities to do original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi: 10.18060/25332 | february 11, 2022 9 more to create “inclusive environments that foster interracial collaboration and antiracism, elements crucial for a rapidly diversifying country,” and they “must implement such pedagogies and institutional initiatives” (hikido & murray, 2015, p. 408). without following this call to action, hikido and murray (2015) stated, “white students, regardless of their racial environment, will likely adhere to shallow multiculturalism that inadvertently sustains the chasms of racial inequalities” (p. 408). critical inquiry into higher education environments that foster interracial and multicultural collaborations is needed to understand how to interrupt whiteness and provide more racially cognizant spaces. method this quantitative causal-comparative study sought to determine whether college campuses’ structural diversity and environment influenced the white racial identity of white american male students. the setting of the study was two universities (names changed), magnolia university and tulip university, within the geographic region of southeast texas. magnolia university is classified as a large, public, rural, predominantly white institution (pwi), and tulip university is classified as a large, public, urban, minority-serving institution (msi). the choice to study white american males at two demographically-different institutions was purposeful. as stated, white american males benefit from both male and white privilege, and they have the most authority on challenging the status quo (cabrera, 2011). the researcher sought to compare the attitudes of white american males at similar-sized institutions with demographically-different student body types to highlight the impact the institution type and its environment have on white american male students’ ontological expansive attitudes. instrumentation subscale: white racial identity scale (wris) an altered 23-item white racial identity scale (wris) was used to measure participant perception of whiteness as ontological expansiveness. miller (2017) created the wris to include “traditional attitudinal measures of white racial identity, but expands these previous measures by including questions that ask whites about their behaviors and cultural preferences” (p. 93). miller (2017) argued expanding examination to include racial identities on culture and attitude offers “a more complete picture of how whites perform their identities and the kinds of racialized norms that underlie institutional and interactive process on college campuses, whether or not whites are aware that these behaviors and cultural practices are racialized” (p. 93). weaker scores on the wris indicate the participants have more frequent cross-racial contact and have more flexibility and awareness of white racial identity (miller, 2017). the wris original instrument contained 37 items “that measure the behavioral and cultural components of white racial identity as well as the white racial attitudes to provide a more holistic picture of how white racial identities are constructed and performed in social interaction” (p. 96). after exploratory factor analysis, miller (2017) administered 24 items to 221 white american original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi: 10.18060/25332 | february 11, 2022 10 college students and revealed eight subcomponents of white racial identity that included such factors as american, cross-racial, ethnic, intimate, racial attitudes, institutional, music, and food. most of the eight factors had alpha reliabilities of 0.7. still, any that did not meet the suggested statistical strength “were retained due to the fact that cronbach’s alphas are underestimated for factors with three or less items” (miller, 2017, p. 101). an altered 23-item wris was used in a larger survey as a subscale for this current study. the question i never like black music more than white music was removed due to feedback from the pilot study participants regarding how the question was poorly worded and did not define what was considered white music or black music. the current study also changed the response options from the original 5-item likert scale to a 6-item likert scale to maintain congruence between the larger instrument subscales. the purpose of the wris subscale in this study was to understand the attitudinal measures of white racial identity among the participants. additionally, the wris strived to understand how white american males perceived and performed their identities on their college campus as it assesses multiple factors attributed to racial identity. for example, with questions like, i feel it would be better if different ethnic groups didn’t mix and i prefer going to social gatherings and parties where most of the people are white, the wris helped determine white american male perceptions of whiteness as ontological expansiveness. results the participants in this study self-identified as white american males currently enrolled at either tulip university or magnolia university during the fall 2019 semester. study participants ranged from first-year, sophomore, junior, and senior students at tulip and magnolia universities. table 1 details the overall exploratory data analysis at each research setting. table 1 exploratory data analysis for the research setting and sample total population sample size total male sample size total white male sample size tulip 37,689 0.50% 18,837 1.07% 4,402 4.58% magnolia 51,625 1.35% 27,515 2.53% 16,135 4.31% total 89,314 1.00% 46,352 1.93% 20,537 4.37% note. tulip university n = 202 (institutional research, 2019); magnolia university n = 697 (data & research services, 2019). original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi: 10.18060/25332 | february 11, 2022 11 initially, 1,014 principal participants completed most of the 23-item instrument. any respondents not answering all 23-scale principal items were discarded for consistency and clarity. additionally, a respondent was discarded if they failed to answer demographic questions referring to which school they attended, their gender, or their ethnicity since the initial survey had to be distributed to all undergraduate students at both universities, based on the research settings and the research protocols. in this study, 87% of all participants were retained as usable cases to analyze the study data. tulip university participants account for 202 or 22.5% of the study’s final sample of 899 participants, while magnolia university accounts for the remaining 697 or 77.5% of participants. however, when observed in terms of sample size percentage of each school’s total viable white american male participants, tulip university’s study sample constitutes 4.58%, and magnolia university’s is 4.31%. this means that white american male participation at tulip university was higher than at magnolia university, even though tulip’s percentage of total sample participants is much lower than magnolia’s because of significantly different total numbers of white american male students at each of the two universities. graphical exploratory data analysis highlighted the differences between the two research settings on the wris. figure 1 shows the boxplots used to further examine the differences in response frequency distribution between the two schools on the wris and reveal any outliers. figure 1 shows the slight difference in the 75th percentile of participants' overall means. however, both tulip and magnolia universities have normal distributions, with median and mean values of 2.97 and 3.03 at tulip, plus median and mean values of 3.34 and 3.37 values at magnolia. participants at both schools had relatively the same range in distribution of response means, and there were outliers. however, the ranges spurn from 1.00 of strongly disagree to a 4.00 of mildly agree at tulip university and 2.00 of agree to a 4.00 of mildly agree at magnolia. further of note, magnolia university has more means closer to mildly agree than tulip university, which has mean averages more clustered towards mildly disagree. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi: 10.18060/25332 | february 11, 2022 12 figure 1 figure 1. boxplots of wris by school setting. likert scale: 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = mildly disagree, 4 = mildly agree, 5 = agree, 6 = strongly agree. higher scores indicate a greater lack of awareness and recognition of white racial identity. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi: 10.18060/25332 | february 11, 2022 13 a descriptive histogram further validated this analysis. figure 2 shows the histogram to further visually triangulate illustrations of the difference between the distribution of responses at the two schools and determine whether there was any skew. the slightly lower means of tulip university compared to the slightly higher means of magnolia university align with the graphical visual analysis results of the stem-and-leaf and box plots. figure 2 figure 2. histogram of respondent means by school type and wris. likert scale: 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = mildly disagree, 4 = mildly agree, 5 = agree, 6 = strongly agree. higher scores indicate a greater lack of awareness and recognition of white racial identity. table 2 descriptive statistics of wris by school n mode median mean sd tulip university 202 3.2 2.97 3.03 .61 magnolia university 697 3.4 3.34 3.37 .60 total 899 3.2 3.26 3.29 .62 original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi: 10.18060/25332 | february 11, 2022 14 note. likert scale: 1 = strongly disagree, 2 = disagree, 3 = mildly disagree, 4 = mildly agree, 5 = agree, 6 = strongly agree. higher scores indicate a greater lack of awareness and recognition of white racial identity. table 2 presents the descriptive statistics of the sample size, frequency, and variance distribution of the mode, median, mean, and standard deviation on the wris for each school setting. tulip university, with n = 202, had a lower mode, median, and mean than magnolia university, with an n = 697. overall, in this study, the participants (n = 899) had a mode of 3.2, median of 3.26, mean of 3.29, and standard deviation of .62. this supports the graphical exploratory analysis and supports the use of the parametric t-test to determine the significance of the difference between participant perceptions collected at the two study settings. the effect size for the wris was .22. this indicates a low medium effect size and strengthens the significance of the findings (field, 2018). table 3 factor reliabilities of wris by study study american cross racial ethnic intimate racial attitudes institutional music food original .74 .69 .75 .67 .77 .69 .62 .58 current .82 .81 .75 .55 .88 .42 .62 note. for the current study, music did not meet the threshold to produce a cronbach alpha. the internal consistency of each wris factor (american, cross-racial, ethnic, intimate, racial attitudes, institutional, and food), except music, both in the original instrument author’s study and in this current study, had a cronbach alpha ranging between .42 to .88. according to field (2018), acceptable alphas range from above .70. in the current study, music only had one item contributing to that factor due to a removed question. cohen et al. (2018) stated there must be two or more items to conduct reliability analysis. therefore, the music does not have an alpha for this study. miller (2017) had similar factor alphas and stated, “although some of these alpha reliabilities did not meet the suggested statistical strength of 0.7, they were retained since cronbach’s alphas are underestimated for factors with three or less items” (p. 101). this study’s reliability coefficient was compared to that of the original authors to ensure that this study's reliability coefficients were either similar or close to those of the original authors. table 3 shows the alpha reliabilities of the original study and this current study. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi: 10.18060/25332 | february 11, 2022 15 table 4 independent samples t-test for wris levene’s test for equality of variances t-test for equality of means f sig. t df sig. (2tailed) mean difference std. error difference 95% confidence interval of the difference lower upper equal variances assumed .699 .404 -6.951 897 .000 -.33710 .04850 -.43228 -.24192 equal variances not assumed -6.868 320.867 .000 -.33710 .04908 -.43367 -.24053 note. p < .05. an independent samples t-test was conducted to determine if there were statistically significant differences in white american male perception of whiteness as ontological expansiveness as assessed by the wris when responses from magnolia university are compared to those from tulip university (table 4). tulip university males (m = 3.03, sd = .61) perceived white racial identity and comprehended it greater than magnolia university males with a statistically significant difference, md = 0.33, 95% ci, t (897) = -6.868, p = .000. therefore, the null hypothesis is rejected since there is a statistically significant difference between participant responses from the two universities on their white american male’s perception of whiteness as ontological expansiveness. discussion the results of this analysis indicated a statistically significant difference (md = 0.33, 95% ci t (897) = -6.868, p = .000) between participants at tulip university (m = 3.03, sd = .61) and magnolia university (m = 3.37, sd = .60) on the wris and their ontologically expansive attitudes. these findings indicate white american male students’ awareness and understanding of white racial identity and its relationship with physical and metaphorical space are greater in surroundings that have more diverse populations, adding to the importance of diverse environments to previous findings (hikido & murray, 2015; lo et al., 2017; miller, 2017). researchers have highlighted the benefits of white american students being exposed to and original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi: 10.18060/25332 | february 11, 2022 16 engaged with multicultural organizations and diversity programs and its profound impact on their social justice consciousness development (bowman & park, 2014; cabrera, 2012; lo et al., 2017). hikido and murray (2015) added, “while a racially diverse environment and a prodiversity ethos may open up channels for interracial collaboration and inclusion, these factors alone do not ensure that individuals will be able to critically think about race and their racial identities” (p. 408). many white americans believe “the pendulum has now swung beyond equality in the direction of anti-white discrimination” (norton & sommers, 2011, p. 217). exemplified by challenges to teaching critical race theory and notions of reverse-racism on college campuses, norton and sommers (2011) speculated, “whites may fear that minorities’ imposition of their cultural values represent an attack on white cultural values and norms, as evidenced by whites’ resentment of norms of political correctness” (norton & sommers, 2011, p. 217). in reality, whiteness and white racial identity not only “enable white students to live in racial bliss, it also enables them to feel entitled to move throughout any component of the campus” (cabrera et al., 2016, p. 71). people of color are aware that physical, cultural, linguistic, etc., spaces are not always as open to them on college campuses, which further normalizes whiteness (cabrera et al., 2016). in this study, medium-low means on the wris from each university suggests whiteness is still normalized on these campuses. whiteness as ontological expansiveness increases the more whiteness is normalized, and the responses to the wris from magnolia university participants echo those findings when the majority demographic and structural diversity of the institution is centered on white americans and their ideals (sullivan, 2006). however, participants from the diversity-rich environment were more racially and culturally aware of how they perform in their physical and metaphorical space, which should motivate scholars and practitioners to continue providing multicultural opportunities and experiences inside and outside the classroom. it can be concluded that minority-serving institutions (msis) promote greater awareness and recognition of white racial identity in their white american males and may allow for more racially cognizant spaces. miller (2017) stated, “college campuses are a key place where white racial identities are created and contested” (p. 92). with the varied environments that minority-serving and metropolitan higher education institutions provide, these environments are ripe for challenging ontologically expansive attitudes and contesting whiteness. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25332 | february 11, 2022 17 references bowman, n. a., & park, j. j. 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(2018). digest of education statistics, 2016 (nces 2017-094), table 105.50. retrieved from: https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=84. metropolitan universities vol. 30 no. 1 (february 2019), doi: 10.18060/22377 37 aligning equity, engagement, and social innovation in anchor initiatives esteban del rio and john loggins abstract drawing on cultural studies and the practice of engaged learning and scholarship, this paper proposes a cultural approach to institutional transformation, which we argue necessarily follows anchor partnerships. the authors advance a model of cohesion and alignment among equity, diversity, and inclusion (edi), community engagement, and social entrepreneurship commitments at colleges and universities. this centers on the notion of “joining” as an epistemology and a methodology in community and campus-based work to achieve the anchor mission. in addition to advancing a theoretical model, the authors draw upon theory in practice at the university of san diego, where the center for inclusion and diversity, mulvaney center for community, awareness, and social action, and the changemaker hub aligned their efforts to approach student learning, community empowerment, and economic development through a cohesive lens. keywords: joining; edi; equity; diversity; anchor mission; inclusion; epistemology; selfreflection; cultural change introduction colleges and universities excel at getting the separations right. academic affairs is not the same, nor does it feel the same, as student affairs. departments and schools maintain different course requirements. we enforce the boundaries and justify the atomization of working campus units with ideals such as faculty governance, administrative organizational charts, academic freedom, and reporting structures. our terms to describe the operations of an institution, its units, divisions, and areas, rely on focused, profession-specific, specialized, functional, and necessarily separated work. even the language attached to higher education in the popular imagination connotes division: town/gown; ivory tower/real world; theory/practice; thinking/doing. as complex organizations that focus on the generation and dissemination of knowledge, specialization holds benefits for achieving received notions of excellence. the refinement of expertise, the practice of authority, and the conferral of degrees all rely on a kind of distinction. as higher education attempts to change out of its elite guise, distinction continues to serve as a default logic, silently guiding actions that fortify separation. we name these distinctions because we embody them. those of us affiliated with universities must remember to explain acronyms and jargon specific to our campuses and disciplines that, far too often, slip from our tongues unintelligibly when in community settings. we defer to hierarchy in an embodied manner, physically moving to the background when august professors or executive level administrators engage with partners. without much hesitation, we trade the letters after our name or institutional titles for the authority and deference they afford as we 38 engage with non-academics. separation informs our assumptions and habits, and shapes our behavior. but how do we get the connections right? place-based anchor relationships in urban settings ask colleges and universities to rethink their commitment to separation and instead, focus on the work of connection. anchor institutions in higher education are colleges and universities rooted in their communities, advancing democratic partnerships and investment in economic opportunity through collaborative relationships with various stakeholders. as anchor thinking develops, community-centered ideas and languages emerge and gain momentum, potentially outpacing our compartmentalized campus cultures. for this reason, anchor commitments may suffer the fate befallen many existing higher education diversity and inclusion initiatives: words outpacing action and symbols replacing embodiment and transformation. the competitive nature of contemporary higher education turns ideas into slogans, replaces long-form participatory collaboration into branding and staging strategies, and inclines itself toward window dressing. alternatively, how can we embody the best community and equity-centered ideas that we put forth? how can we internalize anchor commitments so that they manifest in our habits and assumptions? in what follows, we offer a set of ideas—an approach, a practice, and a model—that strengthen the anchor mission by articulating connections between equity work, contemporary social movements, community engagement, and social entrepreneurship. these areas represent the nexus of some of the most urgent challenges of our time. in order to confront such challenges, new ways of joining must be imagined. anchor commitments mean that universities think of themselves as a part of the community. too often, however, these commitments operate more in word than in deed. for a college or university to sincerely embody the anchor mission, we must confront the truth that many parts of our campuses continue to operate unchanged and distinct from communities where they operate. while more useful terms than “community” exist to describe actors who do not work for the university (grassroots partners, intermediaries, residentdriven organizations), we will refer to these parties as “community” or “community partners.” we hope to confront the academy’s unstated commitment to separation, despite the most generous proclamations or well-intentioned efforts to build relevance to the broader world, and hope not to reproduce the separations in our own writing here. the practice of joining with communities in democratic partnerships means that universities must reflect on how they transform. this transformation cannot occur through campus declarations, messages from the president, or the establishment of task forces, but through culture change: a process where universities reflect on their operational habits and assumptions and discern change in order to join authentically and mutually with communities. join with communities: an approach and a practice culture change can only be realized if one takes culture seriously. below, we articulate a cultural approach to institutional transformation. we focus on building a community of practice around the concept of “joining.” we then proceed to offer a cohesion model to explore how to enact and embody change. these ideas create an agenda for radically realizing the anchor mission through deep, transformative confrontation with habits and assumptions that limit the collective impact 39 that universities and communities can achieve together. further on, we confront the challenges and opportunities, perhaps in some contexts obscured by institutional inertia, through a cultural approach, a community of practice, and a working model of cohesion. a cultural approach to institutional transformation we begin with a cultural approach as a framework for change, leading to alignment among equity, engagement, and social innovation spaces in higher education. these are the coordinates for our idea of achieving the anchor mission in higher education. in doing so, we align our efforts with scholars and practitioners at colleges and universities, whose work connects the academe and the community, from scholars of engaged learning to those articulating mutuality and democratic partnerships through the anchor mission. we also recognize the wisdom and expertise of community partners who shape these connections, sometimes offering critical assessments of the reflexes and hidden commitments of higher education (reyes, 2016). we critically accept recent work in higher education scholarship and organizational behavior that has sought to build ideas and infrastructure to advance inclusive excellence. we hope that a cultural approach and integration with community engagement can lead to more fully realized equity agendas on and off campus. the conversations and initiatives from convening organizations such as the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities, the democracy collaborative, campus compact, and imagining america serve as catalysts for our ideas here. this essay provides points of articulation with existing thinking and practice, and for some readers and contexts, a confrontation with sometimes self-imposed limitations of realizing the anchor mission and the institutional transformation it suggests. a cultural approach draws generally on the social sciences. students of traditional anthropology and sociology are familiar with the application of cultural models to different contexts. here, we draw from the disciplines of communication and cultural studies to focus on the way ideologies, constructed through messaging, inform and shape cultural practices. this move also allows for a confrontation with the misconceptions around communication and culture that minimize their impact and application. too often, culture is conceptualized as the expression of a way of life, and communication is seen as representing the world. rather, from a communication and cultural studies view, culture creates and sustains a way of life, and communication (language, symbol systems, discourses) produce reality, rather than merely tell us about it. in communication, we “construct, maintain, repair, and transform reality” (carey, 1989, p. 30). if communication holds a formative role for the production of reality through symbol systems and language, culture manifests those messages. this lifts communication and culture from limited roles of merely describing social reality and organizational behavior and focuses instead on the generative and determining features of expression and action in higher education. culture represents a whole way of life (williams, 1989). scholars understand it as the system of meanings, or mental frameworks, that different groups deploy to make sense of the world, in a process of negotiation and contestation (hall, 1986). culture organizes the world, through language and other symbol systems, manifesting in everyday practices where systems of meaning are maintained and negotiated. cultural studies, as an academic field, takes such a notion of culture seriously, especially how it manifests in popular, vernacular forms. lawrence grossberg argues that cultural studies “is concerned with describing and intervening in the ways 40 cultural practices are produced within, inserted into, and operate in the everyday life of human beings and social formations, so as to reproduce, struggle against, and perhaps transform the existing structures of power” (2010, p. 9). ultimately, cultural studies seeks to create emancipatory knowledge, so that social actors can confront unequal power relations that often remain hidden beneath the common sense cultivated by dominant groups. this field of inquiry provides a foundation for how culture is a way of understanding higher education, and how to create changes to higher education, called upon by all of the community engagement, equity, and social innovation commitments gathered under the anchor umbrella. a cultural approach to institutional transformation in higher education asks for a critical stance toward the systems of meaning that we deploy in order to make sense of our work, our campuses, and our communities. such a move goes beyond calls for organizational change (golom, 2018). instead, it examines the taken-for-granted making of meanings that occurs at a cultural level. academic, professional, and institutional culture becomes the terrain of transformation. rather than defaulting to the repetitive cycle of introducing of new initiatives, trainings, or restructuring, a cultural approach seeks to focus on the habits and assumptions that arrive from our cultural sense-making, and thus determine our behaviors and attitudes. a cultural approach aims for a deeper process that addresses the conditions under which our work occurs and the purposes that guide our individual and collective actions. conditions and purposes hold a determining effect on our attitudes, behaviors, and ideas. these conditions and purposes might arrive from a community, vernacular, or participatory context, or, as is often the default in higher education, they arrive from above, in administrative dictates, faculty lectures, and task-force recommendations. we can understand the former as conditions set “from below” and the latter as set in place “from above” drawing on existing hierarchical patterns in universities and communities. the anchor mission asks for a casting off of these strict hierarchies in order to create conditions and purposes together. how, then, do we radically institutionalize the anchor mission? a cultural approach would consider how academic and professional habits and assumptions, informed by systems of meaning created from “below” or from “above,” must change through democratic partnerships and reset from a logic of mutuality. first, however, it requires something of a confrontation with existing cultural patterns that define professionalism in higher education, from the professoriate to public affairs. becoming an anchor institution cannot be the sole province of specialized practitioners and bold leaders. it must manifest in the whole institution’s work, through a deep process of acculturation. ultimately, taking up the anchor mission requires a culture change, through an ongoing process of reflection, discernment, acculturation, and action: • reflect on the habits and assumptions, conditions, and purposes that guide individual and institutional actions, attitudes, behaviors. • discern which of those support the anchor mission and those that undermine the anchor mission. • identify changes necessary in strategy, but also in work routines and mental frameworks (personal and professional habits and assumptions that inform individual and collective work, and the conditions and purposes of that work). • commit to collectively setting the purpose and creating the conditions for culture change. do so by empowering faculty, staff, students, and most importantly, community partners. 41 • assess (it is most useful to discern outcomes and assessment for anchor commitments as part of the normal assessment procedure) • repeat. this last point returns to the beginning of the cycle closes the loop for what should be an ongoing process. people always make meaning, and as flexible and mutable as culture can be, it also persists through the routines of everyday life. the anchor mission must be considered as a call to transformation in higher education. colleges and universities communicate often about innovation and transformation, but when does a deep re-evaluation occur at the cultural level? such an endeavor requires radical commitment from executive-level leaders on a campus, and an acculturation with the support of their authority throughout an institution. in other words, those with responsibility must understand epistemologically (intellectually and professionally), but also ontologically the urgent need for fundamental change in higher education because of relationships with communities. they can thus co-construct those changes with the community, and hold the campus accountable for enacting change. a cultural approach requires a kind of holism. communities read universities as coherent wholes. if one part of the university undertakes serious anchor work, but other parts of the university rest on traditional power dynamics that locate higher education above and apart from a community’s everyday life, campus leaders should expect distrust from the community and criticism from engaged faculty and students. if the community engagement office is doing everything right, but business service, facilities, or student affairs operates according to other logics, suspicion from on and off campus will fill the space in-between. rather than add new anchor initiatives to existing operations, a cultural approach asks for a reckoning with existing operational logics and the assumptions that produce them, which may have previously excluded much of the anchor agenda. it also necessitates a reckoning with the history of the college or university’s relationships and practices in communities, and a re-evaluation of the broader ontology of community. we suggest that a target in undertaking a cultural approach to institutional transformation in anchor discussions has to do with a term we use in our work: joining. by building a community of practice around joining, universities can confront the separations they have relied upon and that persist in efforts to connect more democratically with the communities they interact with. joining means that communities co-construct the purposes and conditions of cultural, economic, and political coordinated action—and that colleges and universities are within communities, not outside of them. the practice of joining when i don’t know myself, i serve you. i when i know myself, i am you. —ramayana (hindu sanskrit text) within the fields of community service-learning and community engagement, critical analysis of how and why universities show up in community has helped the pedagogy evolve. in tania 42 mitchell’s essay “traditional vs. critical service-learning” (2008), one can see how this evolution has and continues to be taken up by universities. critical service-learning refocused the orientation of community engagement toward social justice and opened a conceptual window to explore and examine the university’s role in both perpetuating injustice and creating justice. critical service-learning sets the stage for joining as a cultural, community practice in anchor relationships. mitchell’s (2008) review of community engagement literature examined traditional and critical service-learning models of community engagement. mitchell notes three areas that differentiate critical service-learning from the traditional, received view of service-learning: 1) all participants seek to redistribute power in the relationship, 2) the cultivation of authentic relationships, and 3) participants work from a social change perspective. these three intentional outcomes are woven into community-based learning course objectives, the pedagogy, and the reflective process. mitchell presents a deliberate approach that is structured and attentive. we draw from critical service-learning here as we advance joining, as the practice of joining represents a deliberate practice that is emergent and mindful. more than anything, joining requires the political and professional will to work with whatever emerges from partnerships, without defensiveness and with accompaniment. to begin to understand the practice of joining, it is helpful to offer up a distinction between mindfulness and attentiveness. most mature community engagement programs in higher education will rightfully say that they are very mindful when they enter and work with community partners. service-learning, while still fraught with voyeuristic tendencies and savior complexes, stands as highly reflexive and mindful practice in productive, critical national conversations. it offers a productive lens to understand the practice of joining. refining and parsing out attentiveness from mindfulness offers a clear way hold the traditional and critical service-learning pedagogy and step into a deep practice of joining. attentiveness entails the willful acts of gathering community input, recognizing community partners as co-educators, and building reflexivity about power and privilege, which often takes the form of student reflections. all these thoughtful and deliberate actions enable practitioners to create a container that can safely hold the partnership. we then ask our students to safely step out of their comfort zone in order to effectively and respectfully work with community partners. approaching the community with a high level of attentiveness is a very caring and effective way to engage, and in no way impedes taking up a practice of joining. this attentiveness has helped grow service-learning pedagogy in a way that critically addresses vital systemic power dynamics in service-learning. ultimately, these lessons have pushed universities into expanding equitable, democratic relationships with communities as anchor institutions. mindfulness turns attention to that which emerges from partnerships. it describes the willingness to notice, work with, and accept what emerges. that which emerges from mindfulness can be a myriad of things ranging from personal issues or biases to unexplored power dynamics. mindfulness can open expansive vistas of understanding and new ways forward in partnerships. in any community engagement moment or partnership opportunity, thoughts, feelings, and ideas will inevitably emerge; being willing and deliberate about experiencing what emerges stands as the crux of genuinely joining with community. the willingness to turn our gaze inward and 43 notice what is coming up for me requires participants to be vulnerable, open, and brave. it requires all to courageously step into discomfort/disruption and be willing to hold, to work through, and to accept what arrives. joining requires this kind of mindfulness to suggest pedagogical insights, research data, and community possibilities to reach the overarching purpose in anchor partnerships: to join in community together to strive for social equity and economic justice. informed by mindfulness, joining beyond service-learning thus becomes both an epistemology and a methodology in community and campus-based work for equity and social justice. to join with each other on campus and in the community proposes a transformational intervention in diversity and what is known as community service spaces. we argue that a cultural approach, manifests inclusion of marginalized groups, seeks democratic partnerships in communities, and builds capacity to confront to the urgent challenges and opportunities facing communities and campuses from an anchor logic, and ultimately an anchor being. such an approach joins lay foundations and pathways so that higher education can transform itself as it invites racial and ethnic diversity. becoming the anchor institutions that we aspire to be will undoubtedly entail deep change that will potentially encounter reluctance, denial, and resistance. leadership’s ability to tether itself to its anchor purpose, hold steady in face of this resistance, and maintain the fortitude to examine the institution’s internal dynamics that keep us from equity, justice, and connections will be the measure of how possible a culture change really is. the most difficult work of leadership involves learning to experience distress without numbing yourself. the virtue of a sacred heart lies in the courage to maintain your innocence and wonder, your doubt and curiosity, and your compassion and love even through your darkest, most difficult moments… a sacred heart allows you to feel, hear, and diagnose, even in the midst of your mission, so that you can accurately gauge different situations and respond appropriately… that’s what we learned about the sacred heart the willingness to feel everything, everything, to hold it all without letting go of your work. (heifetz & linsky, 2002) to join is to invite and engage mindfully in community with others with a reflexive openness to the radical potential of connection prior to the work of collaboration. leadership theory, a foundational discipline for community engagement, suggests that joining helps us turn our gaze inward, looking at ourselves in relationship to the community. it requires an openness to change. accordingly, a cultural approach seeks to transform organizations and institutions by examining how we make sense of our work, and how that informs our habits and assumptions, to better navigate a hierarchical, globalized world. this change is vitally important when joining with those from underrepresented perspectives, distressed communities, subaltern groups, and others who have not set the existing terms of “partnership.” to do so fully, joining must develop through communities of practice. these are “groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly” (wegner, 2006, p. 1). communities of practice serve as a framework for knowledge-sharing, where members learn from each other through interaction, and engage in the development and evolution of the practice (meltzer & martik, 2017). actualized through interactional, reflective, situated, and collective communities of practice, joining leads to authentic, democratic, and equity-centered articulations of anchor work. the larger the community of practice, especially from those on campus who 44 hold the most tightly to traditional models and institutional inertia, the greater the realization of the anchor mission. the cohesion model and communities of practice a community of practice for joining takes form through the notion of cohesion. returning to the opening paragraphs of this essay, we see a cultural approach and joining as ways to build coherence and cohesion around the anchor mission, disrupting unstated cultural commitments to distinction and separation. the terrain of this work occurs in models and structures, that is, the conditions and purposes that inform cultural action. what is the form of the work? who created it? from our experience at the university of san diego, we argue that a cultural approach, where the practice of joining can thrive, leads to a cohesion model. the cohesion model builds communities of practice from disparate functions of the university and in partnership with communities. the notion of cohesion implies connections, alignment, unity, sharing power, truth-telling, repair(ation), healing, and negotiation. in our work, we aligned the following functions: equity, diversity, and inclusion (edi), community engagement, and social innovation. together, we created a new way of working, of aligning our budgets, of joining with community partners to create compelling moments of sharing, engaging instances of disagreement, and new possibilities for what we might undertake together to make our neighborhoods and our campus more equitable, just, and viable. while our campus holds mature, well-respected, and integrated community engagement and social innovation practices, the pulsing issues and engaged social movements around equity, diversity, and inclusion serve as our collective catalyst and conscience in undertaking the anchor mission. equity, diversity, and inclusion as a point of departure for anchor work among the broad aims of contemporary u.s. higher education, few present more yearning for change, hope for the future, increasingly vexing questions, and persistent frustrations than equity, diversity, and inclusion (edi) in general, and racial justice in particular. for many years, higher education limited itself to advancing numerical diversity and “including” people of color and other minority groups into their existing logic. this logic is culturally specific, based in wealthy, white, or male perspectives, but treated as normal and universal. including those from underrepresented and underserved perspectives into this logic leads to persistent experiences of marginalization. this same logic shows up in colleges and universities relationships with communities. more recent equity agendas and struggles for racial justice on campus reformulate diversity and inclusion by focusing the change not on the new bodies who encounter the university, but on the institutions themselves. campuses now seem to strive to realize both accessibility and equity with initiatives, plans, and declarations, resulting in infrastructures and models centralizing the work of the diversity office and diversity officer (williams & wade-golden, 2013). the recent formal professionalization of the chief diversity officer (cdo) through the national association of diversity officers in higher education (nadohe) holds promise to better establish diversity apparatuses at colleges and universities, which too often have various levels of responsibility but rarely any institutional authority. on the other hand, the cdo role can become a perceived solution to entrenched equity issues in the minds of campus leaders, creating a point of responsibility without directly 45 confronting the university-wide inertia that made the cdo role necessary. in other words, the cdo or the hastily-assembled diversity office can obscure the deep cultural work necessary to realize equity in higher education, especially when the cdo is beholden to authority held by vice presidents and presidents, for whom the cdo is just another constituent. the cdo role can appear to be doing the work, much like some articulations of anchor partnerships, but the existence of the position does not necessarily guarantee that the campus undertakes reflection and ongoing discernment about diversity with transformation as the end goal. over the last three years, ground-shifting events and ideological disruptions have overtaken best practices and status-quo diversity agendas of most colleges and universities, led by racial and intersectional justice movements with their attendant lists of demands that emerged nationally in november 2015. the election of donald j. trump in 2016 caused an outpouring of anxiety and urgency around questions of identity and status on campuses and in communities. as of this writing, a policy agenda from the white house and congress manifests implicitly, when not explicitly, from a politics of bigotry, misogyny, and nativism. these developments call urgently not for any quickly assembled diversity apparatus, but for a fundamental cultural engagement with the values and missions of colleges and universities. from black lives matter to the “sanctuary campus” movement, edi defines the most urgent challenges, opportunities, and hopes on our campuses and in our communities. this synergy calls for a cultural approach to edi, particularly concerning the intersections with service-learning and social entrepreneurship. both of these areas have benefited from productive energy, a progressive practice, scholarship, and institutional buy-in over the last 10 years, while edi efforts face a wide gap between research and practice. the “demands” of 2015 made visible the chasm between higher education diversity management and the social-justice activism in communities with whom students connect through solidarity, modeling, and sometimes collective organizing. do such conflicts exist between the necessarily related practices of service-learning, social entrepreneurship, and edi, especially in anchor work? in many ways, without edi, servicelearning is reduced to volunteering and social entrepreneurialism functions as just another version of capitalism. absent direct confrontation with the inequitable systems that community work and social entrepreneurialism hope to replace, those systems operate silently underneath a new veneer, now more insidious, in that they appropriate criticisms leveled against them. where does social entrepreneurialism advocate for stronger regulations of corporations or the free flow of capital? an equity agenda would demand as much. the desire to collaborate closely with campus diversity offices and equity leaders in communities can be thwarted by a lack of common ideas about equity agendas and by working from silos at our universities. the voices calling for a new paradigm arrive from national associations (macnair, 2016), to critical scholars (ahmed, 2012), and the prophetic voices of justice echoing through our classrooms and communities. articulating anchor through cohesion informed and inspired by the demands for racial and intersectional justice, three offices at the university of san diego came together to integrate programs, align and share budgets, and undertake a practice of joining with each other so that we may more fully join with communities in anchor partnerships. we argued that equity, social innovation, and community engagement 46 ought to operate holistically. communities and students did not move through such spaces in a disjointed way. our practice must therefore be taken up in community with each other. our provost supervised all three offices at the time and enabled the construction of a community of practice based on joining. we began to focus on developing capacity among our faculty, students, and community partners to step with us out of the distinct spheres of institutional compartmentalization and into new practices that linked the urgency of equity with the resources of community engagement and social innovation. we developed an authentic community of practice around joining, with the aim of manifesting the anchor mission at a cultural level in our habits and assumptions. at the same time, we were very clearly on our own, garnering interest from some administrators and faculty colleagues, but un-joined by much of the institution. this changed when a new round of strategic planning began. our efforts inspired some of the thinking that went into the university’s strategic plan, which eventually offered an integrated model of a number of central institutional commitments. this larger platform means that a coherent, unified effort can support fully realizing the anchor mission. we have only begun the cultural work across the institution and the community to raise our collective efforts to a transformative level, and we have had our stumbles, hesitations, and successes. opportunities and challenges in the practice of joining your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. —rumi in almost every joining interaction, intentional or otherwise, there lies an opportunity to use the experience as a mirror for self-interrogation. sometime that mirror offers a sharp, obtuse reflection of oneself to reconcile, and in other instances, there may be a subtler offering that leads you to down a path towards more self-awareness. through community-engagement opportunities, we are able share clear examples of these opportunities for introspection. a 20-year-old relationship with staff at the local juvenile detention facility yields a sharp example of community engagement bluntly presenting an opportunity to examine oneself in relation to another and in relation to larger systems dynamics. a student favorite, juvenile hall affords students the opportunity to connect with other young adults in very different circumstances. more often than not, the introspective opportunities are subtle but readily apparent, with deliberate questions and thoughtful reflections. what comes up generally revolves around power, privilege, race, and class. students generally have the room to examine those revelations at their own pace or not at all. occasionally, the dynamics reveal themselves in ways very disruptive to a student’s normal interactions. during a visit to juvenile hall on columbus day, a university student encountered an indigenous youth who was willing to share frustration of incarceration and subjugation from a native perspective. the practice of joining compels the practitioner to see what some may consider an angry outburst as a vulnerable, decisive moment and an opportunity to examine what has emerged. that powerful vulnerability activated the student’s own sense of being vulnerable. being unpracticed, she became paralyzed, retreating to safety of her comfort zone. her inability to seize this moment to (in the moment or after) stay present, unpack what came up and join in 47 that vulnerability is a missed opportunity that is equally apparent on an institutional level. while this episode has limitations for how anchor relationships can be mutually beneficial, as incarcerated youth are not necessarily a stable presence in our ongoing community work, it shows the radical potential of joining as a practice. when colleges and universities accompany community partners, exercising vulnerability and openness, they can step into economic and political associations and collaborations with a deeper, ontological capacity to achieve solidarity. on an institutional level, when universities attempt to join communities, it too is offered reflections of itself that are difficult to confront. in those moments the prevailing norms and culture prompt defensiveness, technical excuses and fixes, and a doubling down on existing unequal power dynamics. examples of these relations are also readily available. like many campuses over the past two years, usd has been working to welcome and create a safe learning environment for undocumented students, also known as dreamers. outreach and enrollment of dreamers is increasing, and our university welcomes them as it becomes a changemaker campus. despite its intention to accompany these young people and join them as they seek education and a place in this society, institutional habits resist authentic practices of joining. recently the united states department of homeland security (dhs) enrolled in a career fair on campus as an exhibitor, which created a sense of betrayal and fear among the dreamers and their allies. if the university, as a whole, practiced joining with these students and attended to the issues they face, the urgency of their situation and the legitimacy of their fears may have earned the primacy students and community members thought it deserved. this episode provides an opportunity to explore how institutions can mindfully engage in the practice of joining to help themselves respond, and not react, to moments like these. in this case, those of us who work within the cohesion model were able to accompany students, the community, and the administration to undertake a course correction and suggest a different path. community partners who are immigrant advocates alerted our offices to the possible presence of dhs on campus, and we used our support system to notify students of this possibility. concurrently, student leaders and allies of dreamers began organizing, leading dhs to back out of the career fair to avoid controversy. student leaders continued with protests, open forums, and collective reflections, ultimately calling for more transparency and communication regarding threats to the well-being of vulnerable student populations. as with the student at juvenile hall, some of our inclinations included defensiveness, shifting responsibility, and offering technical solutions. self-introspection and joining would come when we brought students and administrators together, and undocumented students seized the opportunity to speak their truth, and administrators joined them in a moment of solidarity. these are the difficult but common interactions on a campus where there exists a viable model of cohesion. the willingness to deliberately and consistently do this work is requisite to join community and truly be an anchor institution committed to equal, democratic, reciprocal partnerships. conclusion any university entity can take up the cohesion model, yet it is best undertaken with community partners in the room, resulting from the practice of joining. inspired by the 2015 student activists’ articulation of racial justice as an intersectional project, a cohesion model attempts to 48 get the connections right. when undertaking this work as practitioners, we hope readers can identify the actors who must be a part of work, and to join with them to build economic justice and more democratic relationships among those in community. not every college or university who engages with the anchor mission is ready or interested in institutional transformation. but for those who have done so seriously, and for those who see the stakes in this work regarding the viability of higher education in the future, it is time to recognize the radical potential of the anchor mission and undertake the practice of joining from a deep cultural logic. the practice of joining engages with an honest struggle for equity rather than proposing solutions that cannot help but serve as window dressing. criticisms of diversity and inclusion efforts in higher education as excuses for avoiding a confrontation with intersectional equity and racial justice should serve as a warning for milquetoast or piecemeal efforts at community work. identifying that struggle as an internal, introspective process shifts efforts made by universities from being primarily outward facing to including self-interrogation and an acknowledgement that institutions of higher education can and do perpetuate unequal societal power structures. in doing so, institutions are able to identify, own, and let go of the obstacles that keep them from authentically joining in community. we hope to inspire ways of working that are just, equitable, democratic, and transformational. 49 references ahmed, s. (2012). on being included: racism and diversity in intellectual life. durham, nc: duke university press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822395324 carey, j.w. (1989). communication as culture: essays on media and society. new york, ny: routledge. golom, f. (2018). reframing the dominant diversity discourse: alternate conversations for creating whole system change. metropolitan universities journal, 29 (1), 11-28. retrieved from https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/muj/article/view/22172 https://doi.org/10.18060/22172 grossberg, l. (2010). cultural studies in the future tense. durham, nc: duke university press. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822393313 hall, s. (1986). the problem of ideology: marxism without guarantees. journal of communication inquiry, 10 (2), 28-44. https://doi.org/10.1177/019685998601000203 heifetz, r.a. & linsky, m. (2002). leadership on the line: staying alive through the dangers of leading. boston, ma: harvard business review press. mcnair, t.b. (2016). the time is now: committing to equity and inclusive excellence. diversity and democracy, 19 (1), 4-7. retrieved from https://www.aacu.org/diversitydemocracy/2016/winter/mcnair mitchell, t. (2008). traditional vs. critical service-learning: engaging the literature to differentiate two models. michigan journal of community service-learning, 14 (2), 50-65. reyes, r. (2016). engaged pedagogy: reflections from a barriologist. engaging pedagogies in catholic higher education 2 (1). retrieved from https://digitalcommons.stmarysca.edu/epiche/vol2/iss1/1 https://doi.org/10.18263/2379-920x.1012 wegner, e. (2006). communities of practice: a brief introduction. retrieved from http://www.ewenger.com/theory/index.htm williams, r. (1989). resources of hope: culture, democracy, socialism. london: verso. williams, d.a. & wade-golden, k.c. (2013). the chief diversity officer: strategy structure and change management. sterling, va: stylus. https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822395324 https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/muj/article/view/22172 https://doi.org/10.18060/22172 https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822393313 https://doi.org/10.1177/019685998601000203 https://digitalcommons.stmarys-ca.edu/epiche/vol2/iss1/1 https://digitalcommons.stmarys-ca.edu/epiche/vol2/iss1/1 https://doi.org/10.18263/2379-920x.1012 50 author information *esteban del río, ph.d. associate provost and chief diversity officer associate professor, communication studies university of san diego 5998 alcalá park san diego, calif. 92110 (619) 260-7455 edelrio@sandiego.edu esteban del río collaborates with partners to advance an equity agenda with the aim of transforming the university and community in the direction of social and economic justice. his teaching and scholarship focuses on the politics and poetics of human difference and unity, with work exploring the production of latinidad in informational, entertainment, and vernacular discourses. he sits on the governing board of the california bicycle coalition, engaging in community-based advocacy around mobility justice. he also serves as the collegium board chair, working on faculty development within the catholic intellectual tradition. john loggins director of community engaged learning karen and tom mulvaney center for community, awareness and social action university of san diego 214 maher hall san diego, ca 92110 (619) 260-2969 jloggins@sandiego.edu john loggins works collaboratively as part of a team responsible for ensuring that usd is a global and national leader as a community-engaged anchor institution committed to democratic and equitable community partnerships that generate transformative solutions to societal challenges. he earned a masters in leadership studies from the university of san diego and continues to connect his practice of adaptive leadership to his work in community engagement and in his roles as a board member for og yoga and as a member of the place-based justice network steering committee. john’s commitment to positive social change through community engagement began during his service in peace corps jamaica, where he led an effort to create innovative programming for incarcerated youth. for the past 13 years, john has continued his work in jamaica by creating and co-creating several international course-based community engagement experiences for usd undergraduate and graduate students. his continued dedication also shows through his roles as a volunteer (20 years) with american cancer society and seany foundation. *corresponding author metropolitan universities vol. 29 no. 4 (december 2018), doi: 10.18060/22836 35 community-engaged scholarship and promotion and tenure: lessons from lynton award recipients elaine ward in 2008, for my dissertation research, i interviewed eleven faculty members who received the ernest lynton award for the scholarship of engagement to examine their experiences with promotion and tenure. there were three assistant professors, one associate professor, and seven full professors. all faculty members were female and represented eight four-year public institutions (four ru/vh, two master’s and two doctoral granting universities) and three fouryear private institutions (two bac/a&s and one ru/vh). they represented the humanities (eight) and the sciences (three). through qualitative, semi-structured, opened-ended interviews, i aimed to understand their experiences with engaged scholarship in the context of promotion and tenure. many community-engaged scholars fight to receive the internal validation that ernest advocated for with amy driscoll via making outreach visible: a guide to documenting professional service and outreach (1999). ernest might be somewhat content to know that the award in his name provides external validation that helps legitimize their scholarship at their home institution. i say ‘somewhat content’, for it is clear that ernest had high expectations for institutions to value the work of engaged faculty. amy driscoll helped to advance ernest’s vision through her leadership of the collaborative process of that produced the carnegie elective classification for community engagement (2008), and its requirement that applicants must show how they address promotion of community-engaged scholarship formally via personnel policy, i.e., faculty handbooks and contracts. while we find more evidence of rewards that value communityengaged scholarship, broad and consistent equivalence of recognition and rewards across all faculty roles will require further effort and commitment. community-engaged-scholars experiences with promotion the following is an excerpt (2010) from my dissertation research. it synthesizes individual narratives from my interviews with lynton award recipients prior to 2010. the excerpt conveys a shared understanding of their engaged scholarly work, influences, motivations and intersections with institutional culture via promotion and tenure policy and processes. the resulting narrative combines direct quotes from the faculty members and my own synthesis of aspects of their narratives to summarize their experience. their individual experiences, along with the post-tenure reflections of more authors in this special issue contribution may lead us to a deeper understanding of their significance for the broader development of institutional reward systems and policies that more fully realize ernest’s mission to validate and legitimate professional service/community-engaged scholarship. lynton’s work will have achieved success when there is an ‘equivalence of recognition’ across teaching, research and engagement (lynton, 1993, metropolitan universities/summer 1993; lynton, 1996a; driscoll and lynton, 1999). elaine: for me, community-engaged scholarship is work grounded in and motivated by the needs of those outside the academy by real people dealing with real problems in the 36 real world. community-engaged scholarship is ideally about strong, trusting, respectful and reciprocal relations that last the test of time and results in collaborative projects that lead to community and social change and good scholarship. that is the essence of mutual benefit in engagement between the academy and the public. when in reality communityengaged scholarship is a messy practice, filled with negotiating multiple needs and wants, translating across multiple languages (institutional and organizational rather than linguistic), figuring things out as you go, and often bears multiple surprises and disappointments. as a faculty member, we are often in the difficult position of never being able to please everyone – we cannot please our students from the outset when we don’t present ourselves as the all-knowing expert or by not being able to foresee all the obstacles and challenges that will inevitably arise. we cannot always please our nonengaged colleagues because the focus is not on their value of detachment, and we often struggle to be recognized by the traditionalist reviewers of our promotion and tenure committees. can we talk about your community engaged scholarship and your experiences with promotion at your institution? maura: for me—i’m just going to speak from my heart—community-engaged scholarship is where you yourself are truly a part of the community. you may not be from that community…but you yourself have become part of that community. karen: i agree with maura, engagement has to be a sustain effort. it cannot just be a onenight stand. it means making a commitment each and every semester. i often joke with my students—i wish poverty went away this semester. i wish domestic violence went away this semester. so, for me engagement means making a commitment each semester for the past 23 years. and this cannot happen if we have a purely academic orientation to our work. elaine: what is the orientation that is needed for authentic engagement build on values of trust and participation? karen: for me, it’s a conscious political position that opposes an institution-centric perspective, where i use the tools of my academic trade as a means to accomplish social justice ends and community ends. ruth: yes, the community has to be in the driver’s seat. the work of social change has to begin at the grassroots. change that is brought from the outside, without collaboration or analysis from beneficiaries, without their input, is dead on arrival. i want to stress the point that even though we might be scholars or researchers, the people we work with are experts in their own situation and are more able to tell us about their reality than we can ever understand. susan: i agree that the community is a source of knowledge and i also believe that our students bring more reality to the classroom than is often recognized in the academy. i view engaged research as a collaborative process where i and the people i am working with are co-researchers, co-beneficiaries, co-creators of the research. so research is a many centered knowledge production process that honors different kinds of 37 epistemologies and all ways of knowing. my classrooms are a collaborative, many centered knowledge production space. jennifer: my experience is a little different in that the point of my work is not necessarily to be community-driven, but it certainly is to be practically-driven. i want to do the most rigorous theoretical and methodological work that i can, but i have to have a practical purpose. my work in the academy is driven by my job in the workforce prior to becoming a professor. my job is not to go out and demonstrate expertise as much as to demonstrate problem-solving and to guide effective communication and team work. elaine: the creativity of your individual work speaks to your attempts to recognize and include multiple and diverse ways of teaching, learning, inquiring, knowing and doing. the relational, connected, and collaborative processes help keep this work true to the values of mutuality and reciprocity that we individually and collectively hold dear. what else motivates your community-engaged scholarship? shanna: it is about a sense of fairness. why should children in the poor school not have the same access to resources as the children in the private school? in general, public schools have the will and the interest, but not always the capital to provide resources. it is this inequity that motivates me to work for change and provide more equitable resources. catherine: for me, as a child of the 1960s, i was always involved in working for change. from a child, i was involved in community organizations and in high school community advocacy projects. my parents were both very strong community leaders. susan: i can relate to that. i too grew up watching my parents helping people to improve their education and their lives. when i was little, i used to go to the center where my mother worked as a social worker. so, i was trained very young to be interested in social issues. but it wasn’t until i went to work in the community that the question came to me for the first time, what is the purpose of my academic research? what do i really want to do with it? just get a doctorate? if that was the case, i don’t think i ever could have finished. honestly, because it has no meaning or relevance. i need to make my research relevant. lucinda: similarly, i questioned the relevancy of what i studied in graduate school. the ‘so what’ question got me, and i wondered if anything i was doing was relevant to anyone other than me and my small academic community. maura: diversity is key for me. my diverse, multiracial and multi-cultural background is an important piece of my community engagement work. my personal difficulties motivate me to work toward equity in the sharing of resources. issues of diversity and equity are the fundamental components of my engagement work. karen: social justice is a huge motivator for my work. i use my academic work to advance my activist work where i work for change in local and international communities. 38 ruth: for me too, social justice is one of the three main drivers of my community engagement. jill, eleanor, catherine: i agree. elaine: there is an overwhelming consensus that social justice and community change are reasons for you doing community-engaged scholarship. all: yes! eleanor: and our beliefs about knowledge generation and sharing. i believe in learning that works. so diverse, dynamic learning networks that include all community members, in my experience, are one of the more powerful ways of formulating and testing new theories and perhaps more importantly refining practice and making real change in the world. karen: yes, and for me epistemology connects to the political. the feminist, conscious political choice becomes a part of the way of thinking, living and teaching. it shapes knowledge production and views. i believe that it also shapes research and your social process too. elaine: so, are you saying that there are personal and public dimensions to our beliefs about knowing and learning and that these have a political dimension? maura: yes, my ways of knowing are very personal to me. then i discovered scholarship i could relate to it. i could give language to what i already knew in my spirit. to give it language legitimatized it. ruth: yes, there is a political dimension. there are all these issues of power, especially in western societies where the contributions of women are not very valued. lucinda: even locally, the issues of power and voice are prevalent. it is power. people are used to listening to people who can speak a certain language, and part of this is academia. so, i see my role to translate between the community and the academy. its raising awareness and translating that voice. shanna: for me, epistemology and gender are connected, and both serve as a mirror to the power dynamics that exist in the academy. as a woman in a male-dominated field, i realized that being a woman to an extent was a liability. professors wielded their power by telling me that i didn’t belong in the classroom or i wasn’t smart enough. this influenced my sense of confidence for a while, but then i got angry, and now i’ve just come to terms with it. susan: there are others who have gone before us, not in the field of engagement, who talk about this politics of epistemologies. for example, nadine cruz. she talks about 39 different ways of knowing, and laura rendon talks about integration, spirituality, and liberation. these things make a huge impact on my own thinking. so, i try to honor different kinds of epistemologies or like nadine cruz would say ‘all ways of knowing’ in my own teaching and research. elaine: when we talk about our personal epistemologies, like when we talk about gender, we are talking about our identity—the very essence of who we are. the language that we use to talk about this is very emotional and very personal. i appreciate you sharing about yourselves in this way. it is not a level of conversation that happens very often in academia. susan: yes, and i’d like to revisit what shanna said about the connections between gender and epistemology and i would like to try to connect this more directly to identity and institutional culture. we are trying to survive in a very masculine academic culture. it is this culture where you are expected to take on this identity as the expert in everything and that you don’t show emotions, that you don’t embrace reflective thinking. having to survive those expectations is difficult and they are very much at odds with what i value and think are important. audrey: yes, navigating these issues of personal identity, values, and epistemology in the academy is tough. we have to protect ourselves and think strategically about what work we do publicly. elaine: audrey, your experience raises issues about the culture of the academy and the subsequent expectations placed on us. let us explore the intersections between our individual faculty work and your institutional cultures and contexts. what are your experiences as a community-engaged scholar? where are there alignments and divergences? themes i have noted in our conversations include: the work of engagement is versatile enough to happen across the disciplines, faculty members experience both hostile and hospitable environments that either reject or reward their engaged scholarly work, and that there is as much rhetoric regarding practice as there is adherence to existing policies. let’s start with these. shanna: i agree that this work can happen across the disciplines and also across institutional types. some people say that service-learning is more conducive to liberal arts institutions, liberal arts disciplines than to science. i do not believe that. i just think it is how you frame what you do and what you define as a connection with community. catherine: and how we frame what we do is critical in the promotion and tenure process. i navigated the tenure and promotion process by looking at the mission statements of the university and the college and if this is what the mission says then that is what i grounded my work in. i did not assume that people remembered the mission or guidelines, so i reminded them. i just followed the rules. 40 eleanor: that is wonderful that you had such clear protocol to follow. i only wish we all had. i constantly got mixed messages about what i should do or should not do for tenure. i still don’t know where i stand. maura: i made sure i had two research agendas: one for me and one for the academy. i was very strategic and published a lot. shanna: i too had two research paths. and i also i think we have to be a lot more loose about what i would term scholarship, because i think scholarship depends on who you are speaking with. inside the ivory gates i think they are looking at specific parts of scholarship for example books and papers. but i would really consider a [designed community space] a product of scholarship because it is the [user’s] knowledge and way of knowing and ways of [using the space] and the members of the community in addition to us [academics] that we are all working together to try to address a critical community issue in a specific way. i want to see how we are using scholarship to improve equity in resources. lucinda: i have a very supportive chair and department. i am not worried. engagement is part of the president’s vision for the college. jennifer: they could have denied me tenure, but given what was on the record, i always felt pretty secure. but i have to say, they had my portfolio reviewed by one of their friends who never finished his phd. i am going up for promotion at a research institution and the committee chose to send it to one of their friends who never finished his degree. that was a slap in the face! susan: i received messages that i should not include certain work in my 4th year review, but i did. it was important to me to have my voice on record, but for tenure, i took this out. i wanted to get ‘in’ before i engaged with people around this. it was a tactical move, but a painful one. shanna: i can relate to this sense of pain through the tenure process. i had both traditional research and engaged research in my portfolio, but this did not matter. i had a very supportive chair and i was nurtured and encouraged. then the chair left. even with the support of the new chair the promotion and tenure committee voted against me. i had zero votes for, 2 votes against and one person abstaining. even though i had 15 refereed journal articles—my college said if you had 10 you’d be safe—i had 1.5 [projects] completed. i mean all you had to do was count. if promotion and tenure is bean counting, which to an extent it is. i had the numbers. i think essentially what happened was that the woman who was a year ahead of me had trouble with promotion and tenure. we were wonderful friends. we collaborated a little bit and we supported each other. but once i started getting recognition—essentially for doing service-learning—i think she just got really disgusted somehow and so she really led the charge against me going up for promotion and tenure. they wrote in their faculty report that my case was going to be a test for whether the university really valued service learning and scholarship, and because they said that my quote, un-quote, traditional research did not stack up. i got 41 through because i had a lot of external support. i wrote an appeal letter and i probably had the best, most well-crafted piece of writing i have ever done in my life because i literally had six english professors looking at it and offering me suggestions. so, i made it, even with the negative vote in the department, because every single vote after that [favored my case]. karen: yes, in academia you are still measured by your publications. your prestige is related to that. activist work can result in publication, but it is marginalized in academia and anyone who chooses to be an activist is more marginalized because it is not respected. it is not viewed in the same way as conventional teaching or conventional research. any time i did anything as an activist scholar, which i always did, i was delegitimized as a scholar. shanna: it can be a double-edged sword, right? where you do community engagement and you get a lot of public recognition, you develop your relationships with your administrators who wind up saving you in the end when the faculty cuts you because you are doing community engagement! elaine: susan, you talked about strategic decisions you made about what to present in your dossier as you moved through stages of promotion so that you would “fit in”. have any others made strategic choices as you have moved through the stages? do we see the risks for the engaged scholar lessening as you move through the faculty ranks? shanna: yes, i tried really hard not to highlight my community engagement going from assistant to associate because i did not think my department really would understand it. so, i really focused a lot more on the traditional [research]. when i went up for full, i was absolutely unapologetic about it. i mean i have a bigger reputation in [engaged research] than i do in traditional research and it is a huge impact in terms of what i do so it figured prominently in my write-ups. i tell you one thing i was nervous about was finding external evaluators in my field that i thought would understand [my work]. my chair was helpful. he said, “you know you are doing this traditional [research], and you are doing this teaching [research] and there has never been officially a teaching research portion of your job description. i want to change your job description so that when you go up for full and external evaluators are looking at your records, they are going to see that teaching research is officially part of your position.” i sailed through. elaine: your experiences highlight the intersections between personal and social identity, commitment to social change and your professional work in the academy. knowledge production is the work of the academy and the work of the faculty, but you are pushing on the boundaries of what are accepted as legitimate sources and methods of producing and sharing knowledge. our personal epistemologies become our public epistemologies as we enter into the debate of the politics of knowledge and the power relations and dynamics associate with knowledge production and sharing. all the while, we want to ensure that what we do and how we do it practical and relevant in nature, clearly articulated, and serving of a purpose greater than our discipline, our institution or ourselves. as we continue our engaged scholarly work, our hope is that our institutions 42 grow in their ability to support the multidimensionality of our work through faculty reward policy and practice. (ward, e., 2018) lessons decisions to carry out community-engaged scholarship are deeply rooted in a faculty member’s identity. data from this study connects the faculty members’ intersecting identities with their motivations for beginning and sustaining community-engaged scholarship. the faculty members often define, re-define, share and re-shape their identity as scholars and civic agents as they attempt to realize their fullest selves and potential in their academic institutions. community-engaged scholarship is a manifestation of the scholar’s integrated sense of personal, civic, and professional identities. the faculty members in this study claim social identities that go beyond mere connection to society and culture (hurtado, 1996), but own a sense of civic or political responsibility and democratic purpose (dzur, 2008; sullivan, 2000; code, 1991; naples, 2003). the faculty members also claim a strong professional or scholarly identity, influenced by their faculty roles, one’s discipline and academic epistemologies. each faculty member claims multiple and intersecting identities, stemming from their race, ethnicity, socioeconomic background, sexual orientation, parent, scholar, practitioner, teacher, inquirer, thinker, and knower. their personal, civic, and professional identities result in an integrated identity, manifesting in a sustained commitment to exemplary community-engaged scholarship. sources of personal identity can include gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, socioeconomic background, and personal epistemological orientation (i.e. intuition, emotion, value driven ways of knowing and constructing knowledge, deconstructing dominant epistemologies). sources of professional identity relate to faculty roles—teaching, learning, service, or inquiry, as well as disciplinary affiliation, and academic epistemological orientation. in the case of some of these scholars, it leads to a rejection of dominant epistemological orientations). sources of civic identity comprise a sense of connection to and responsibility for favored groups or causes, community, church/faith, social justice, participatory democracy, democratic inclusion, and engaged epistemology. connectedness our motivations for, and conduct of, community-engaged scholarship emerge from not only our identity, but also our identity in context. the contexts for engaged faculty vary, yet have similar characteristics across space and place. the overarching concept of connectedness helps us understand that engaged faculty members work from existing connections to place, with people, and, for some, to political action. they relate to place through a strong sense of rootedness and deep belonging. they form connections with others through a strong commitment to real and reciprocal relationships that enhance that sense of belonging. moreover, they connect to the need for political action through a strong sense of responsibility to act on behalf of self and others to ensure equity, fairness, and justice for all those who belong to their respective community. the 43 concepts of connectedness and belonging are essential to any understanding of community. they may apply locally, nationally, and globally. meanings and geographic boundaries of community differ for each faculty member, which points to the socially constructed nature of community. epistemological orientation matters i.e. epistemology influences engagement knowing that for the majority of faculty members in the study, engagement is deeply personal and connected to their core identity: who they are as a person, scholar, and civic agent. epistemological orientation is the one source of identity present in each of the three facets of their identity. as a community-engaged scholar, the faculty claim a personal epistemology and an engaged epistemology. they also take hold of the academic epistemology of their department and institution. negotiating these multiple epistemologies requires a commitment to an improved state of being. nadine cruz (2009) contends that the core issue in the politics of engagement requires a reframing, away from the dominant expert epistemology of the academy and a recognition of the significance of ontology in the work of civic or community engagement. she calls for not only epistemological transformation, but also pedagogical and institutional transformation that recognizes a battle of ideas and that the real driver, along with what we want to know, is how we want to be in the world or ontology. i argue that the this study’s community-engaged scholars cared very much about how they and their communities would be in this world, what services they have access to, and what quality of life they would live. they also deeply care about their own lived experiences in the academy, as well as an accord with their experiences there and their own personal values. the goal is for their epistemological, methodological, and pedagogical approaches to echo their ontological values. this is clear from karen’s statement about her academic scholarship as a means for her to achieve her “social justice and community ends.” she has a distinct vision about how the women and the communities she works with should live their lives and reach their fullest potential. karen questions the systems that prevent such a quality of life for the women she shares that goal. using the “tools of her trade”, she has adapted and developed her epistemological and methodological values to effect positive change for the women with whom she works. karen pushes against the expectations the institution has for her as a scholar. she does the work she needs to do, in the way she needs to do it, to effect the change she wants to see in the world. ernest lynton challenged higher education to respect and value community engagement as legitimate scholarly work. unfortunately, we see that faculty members in this study, as well as those who contribute their post-tenure reflections, fight to preserve their personal epistemological values in institutional environments that are often hostile toward non-traditional ways of knowing. yet the hope is in the fact that many engaged scholars stay their path even they have to battle the ‘cult of the academy’. they are willing to take on this fight because they cannot in good conscience compromise their convictions. the lynton award recipients have paved the way for the next generation of engaged scholars who “do not compromise objectivity for the sake of pure science but rather value individual experience in addition to the legitimacy of the collective.” (ward, 2016, p. 111) 44 ward & miller (2016, p. 184) recount that: [engaged scholars share a] collective unease with the existing normative structures, cultures, and practices of higher education that diminish academia’s responsibility as an institutional steward of place, where the institution extends its fullest resources to advance public purposes…and [w]e become stewards of change as we call for a transformation of higher education that legitimizes the contributions of communityengaged scholars and more fully responds to the transdisciplinary nature of knowledge that is equitably co-created in and with community. tenure allows free practice of community-engaged scholarship, and institutional influence comes with promotion to full professor. to what extent a faculty member shares or conceals their work depends on their rank. faculty members in this study, and those sharing their post-tenure narratives, are often in self-protection mode where they conceal their efforts from others within their institution to protect their work from being undermined or compromised. many faculty members stay under the radar or have multiple research agendas. the strategic stealth required at the pre-tenure stage often does not dissipate until the faculty member has achieved the rank of full professor. at this stage of a career, a faculty member will experience safety and subsequent freedom to be fully open about their work. this freedom also bring a level of authority. audrey, shanna, jennifer, and karen share how they still surprise themselves by the amount of influence they hold as senior faculty members. their counsel carries weight at the institutional level and beyond. often these faculty members serve as consultants to other institutions that seek to align promotion and tenure policies with community-engaged scholarship, as is the case with shanna. we see similar reflections in the contributing authors in this special issue. the faculty members in this study worked at institutions either hospitable or hostile toward community-engaged scholarship. teaching-focused institutions provided more supportive academic homes than research-intensive institutions. the mission of the metropolitan university is to serve the region, and therefore one might hope to find more supportive institutional policy and practice related to the recognition and reward of community-engaged scholarship at cumu institutions. even so, the decisions the faculty member makes about navigating their respective institutional context, establishing key alliances, aligning their work with the institution’s mission (lynton, 1996b), and clearly framing one’s promotion portfolio are all key contributions to a successful review. once awarded tenure, many community-engaged faculty members solidify their commitment through mentoring the next generation of community-engaged scholars and students, opposing the dominant paradigm, centering marginalized standpoints, and advocating for institutional change that amplifies commitments to engagement. the contributing authors advance ernest’s legacy via their stewardship of change in similar ways through their post-tenure narratives. 45 references code, l. (1991). what can she know?: feminist theory and the construction of knowledge. new york: cornell university press. cruz, n. (2009). presentation. university of massachusetts, boston. driscoll, a. (2008). carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching. retrieved from http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/. driscoll, a. & lynton, e. (1999). making outreach visible: a guide to documenting professional service and outreach. washington, dc: american association for higher education. dzur, a. w. (2008). democratic professionalism: citizen participation and the reconstruction of professional ethics, identity, and practice. university park: the pennsylvania state university press. hurtado, a. (1996). strategic suspensions: feminists of color theorize the production of knowledge. in goldberger et al. (eds.) knowledge, difference, and power: essays inspired by women’s ways of knowing (pp. 372-392). lynton, e. a. (1993 summer). from the editor’s desk. metropolitan universities, 4 (2), 2-5. retrieved from https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/muj/article/view/19646/19349 lynton, e. a. (1996a). ensuring the quality of outreach: the critical role of evaluating individual and collective initiatives and performance. journal of public service and outreach, 1 (2), 16-22. retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ej1097203 lynton, e. a. (1996b winter). reversing the telescope: viewing individual activities within a collective context. metropolitan universities, 7 (3), 41-45. retrieved from https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/muj/article/view/19571/19276 naples, n. a. (2003). feminism and method: ethnography, discourse analysis, and activist research. new york: routledge press. sullivan, w. m. (2000). institutional identity and social responsibility in higher education. in ehrlich, t. (ed.). civic responsibility and higher education (pp. 19-37). westport, ct: american council on education, series on higher education, oryx press. ward, e. (2010). women’s ways of engagement: an exploration of gender, the scholarship of engagement and institutional reward policy and practice. doctoral dissertation. university of massachusetts, boston. ward, e. (2016). section ii: new public scholars. in m. post, e. ward, n. longo, & j. saltmarsh (eds.). publicly engaged scholars: next generation engagement and the future of higher 46 education (pp. 111-115). stirling, va: stylus publishing. ward, e. & miller, a. (2016). next-generation engaged scholars: stewards of change. in, m. post, e. ward, n. longo, & j. saltmarsh, j. (eds.). publicly engaged scholars: next-generation engagement and the future of higher education (pp. 184-193). stirling, va: stylus publishing. 47 author information elaine ward, ed.d. merrimack college 315 turnpike street north andover, ma 01845 telephone: (978) 837-3572 email: warde@merrimack.edu for almost ten years, dr. ward has worked with faculty nominees and recipients of the ernest a. lynton award for the scholarship of engagement for early career faculty, served as the award coordinator and has chaired and co-chaired the annual lynton colloquium. dr. ward writes and teaches on the institutionalization of civic and community engagement within higher education as is co-editor of the book publicly engaged scholars: next generation engagement and the future of higher education (2016). dr. ward was also one of the leads on the international pilot of the carnegie elective community engagement classification in ireland. dr. ward has served on the board of the international association for research on service learning and community engagement and was the conference program chair in 2016, reaffirming our purpose, bridging our understandings & broadening our collective impact. currently, dr. ward is an assistant professor of higher education at merrimack college, school of education and social policy. mailto:warde@merrimack.edu microsoft word published vol33 issue1 smith_leflore_novesl_12.2021+eas+final+feedback-edits (1).docx original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25627 | february 15, 2022 64 landing the class: an analysis of innovative enrollment strategy and leadership during the covid-19 pandemic delonte j. leflore1, aleque novesl2, and everrett a. smith3 1office of undergraduate admissions, university of cincinnati, 2office of the president, university of cincinnati, and 3college of education, criminal justice, and human services, university of cincinnati cite as: leflore, d.j., novesl, a. & smith, e.a. (2022). landing the class: an analysis of innovative enrollment strategy and leadership during the covid-19 pandemic. metropolitan universities, 33(1), 64-80. doi: 10.18060/25627. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract the devastation of covid-19 substantively impacted enrollment opportunities for colleges and universities in the united states. many higher education institutions responded to the crises by moving students off campus, enacting furloughs, increasing tuition, and appealing to their state and federal legislators for financial resources. at the university of cincinnati (uc), critical considerations for campus leadership were how to best stabilize enrollment and resources and what needed to take place to ensure that underrepresented students were not lost in the process. disparities exist in how the pandemic affects people of color and people from lowsocioeconomic backgrounds. that, undoubtedly, was true for many of uc’s students and their families from historically underserved backgrounds. uc launched a strategic initiative called landing the class to address enrollment concerns. the effort, which this article features, discusses how uc used innovative strategy and planning to address its enrollment challenges during the pandemic. using a variety of institutional and national data, we provide an analysis of the extent to which the landing the class initiative was influential in helping the university reach its enrollment goals and implications for higher education leaders during the covid-19 pandemic. keywords: strategic enrollment management, urban, higher education, access, affordability, college readiness © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25627 | february 15, 2022 65 introduction the covid-19 pandemic had a distressing impact on colleges and universities (pollikoff et al., 2020). revenue sources from state and federal governments were either threatened or eliminated. private giving levels were flat (stiffman, 2021). revenue from tuition and fees was in question as many students and their families faced uncertainty regarding college attendance. urban areas were affected drastically by the pandemic. many city-dwellers opted to work from home rather than commute to work and engage in the typical attractions that many cities provide (florida, 2020). state mandates and city ordinances almost certainly contributed to urban ecology. traditionally, urban universities have had a unique position to engage in partnerships with their cities (mundt, 1998), and issues impacting the city are inherently a part of the urban university’s strategic planning (smith, 2021). the university of cincinnati (uc), which has a mission to be a leading public urban university, was on the verge of having eight years of record-breaking enrollment when the covid-19 pandemic forced many students to delay their enrollment or drop out because of its economic impact. various research studies have examined the relationship between college access, race, and socioeconomic status (baker et al., 2018; hurtado et al., 1997; mustaffa & dawson, 2021; nelson, 2003). other studies have considered race and space, including urbanicity, in their research on access and choice (dache-gerbino, 2017; dache-gerbino, 2018). studies have also explored location and college choice (holloman & nolen, 2008; miller & smith, 2017; perna et al., 2011). much of the literature on college access and enrollment suggests that students consider several factors specific to them to make their college decision, including family, financial costs, social identity, and location. in early spring 2020, university leadership noticed that first-year enrollment trends depicted stagnation, presenting concerns in reaching institutional enrollment goals for fall 2020. the combination of these challenges and pre-existing enrollment issues regarding current students contributed to university leadership’s decision to develop an innovative approach to combat the collective enrollment trends. as a result, uc launched the landing the class (ltc) task force. the purpose of this analysis is to offer an assessment of ltc at both divisional and institutional levels with a specific focus on enrollment. the university of cincinnati the university of cincinnati is the second-largest public university in ohio and, in 2020, had a combined enrollment of 46,710 students. uc comprises three campuses, with its clifton location serving as the main campus, offering a combination of baccalaureate, master, doctoral, and professional programs. the campus is located a little over three miles from downtown cincinnati and a mile away from the historic over-the-rhine neighborhood. uc has two regional campuses located in blue ash and batavia, ohio, that primarily offer associate degrees. in 2018, uc © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25627 | february 15, 2022 66 introduced strategic sizing, an institutional campaign to improve student enrollment size and quality, including an audacious goal of growing the student body from 45,000 students to 60,000 by 2028. enrollment goals, created in each of the 13 academic colleges in concert with faculty, are a cross-campus effort most recently co-led by enrollment management (em) and each academic college. given uc’s complexity and the purpose of the study, we decided to focus on uc’s clifton campus, its undergraduate and graduate student populations, and the impact ltc had from a strategic enrollment management perspective. at uc, the division of enrollment management is comprised of undergraduate admissions; advising and academic resources; college credit plus; new student orientation; one-stop student services; registrar research and assessment; student financial aid; graduate admissions, cps strong initiative; and university advising association. the division of enrollment management is headed by the vice provost of enrollment management and four assistant vice provosts. they have shifted from an enrollment service lens to an enrollment management lens partly because of ltc. background on the landing the class task force ltc is a university strategic initiative that called on cross-campus leadership to engage in collaborative enrollment planning to address enrollment challenges. due to the complexity and decentralized organizational model of uc, this initiative needed to rise to the most senior level of the university instead of being managed by individual units and colleges. the president of uc and the vice provost for enrollment management co-chaired a working group comprised of campus stakeholders, including senior university leaders, staff, and faculty. many of these individuals were selected based on their institutional knowledge and responsibilities. the task force was designed to have decision-makers and innovative thinkers in the same space to consider the various risks associated with the pandemic to collectively and deliberately decide on the appropriate responses to covid-19. the president gave the charge to highlight the importance of this committee and its responsibility to help stabilize enrollment and resources. ltc attempted to stabilize enrollment and identify growth strategies by focusing on returning, admitted transfer students, and new student populations. each week, ltc focused on a targeted population and identified approaches that could aid in achieving enrollment goals. uc enrollment challenges and strategies in fall 2019, uc announced its seventh year of record-breaking enrollment with more than 46,000 students. with the celebration of yet again record-breaking enrollment, uc ended 2019 with an increase in first-year undergraduate applications for fall 2020. spring is when prospective students begin to confirm their intent to enroll at a college or university in the admissions cycle. the university released a record-breaking number of admission decisions in response to its increase in submitted applications. early in this cycle, uc was positioned to break the record for the number of incoming first-year students. predictive modeling suggested that the © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25627 | february 15, 2022 67 university would have an enrollment growth of 5% to 7% among incoming first-year undergraduates over the previous year. in march 2020, a couple of weeks after the university decided to close in response to the rise in covid-19 cases, the confirmation and registration rates for incoming first-year students began to slow. at that time, student enrollment confirmations declined 7% compared to the same time in the previous year. registration rates for orientation and housing lagged by 10% to 15% compared to this same time the year before. also, the division of enrollment management lacked clarity on how to best describe the upcoming academic year to students and their families. there were several questions from future and current students that initially remained unanswered. even more concerning, for the first time in seven years, uc was on the verge of not meeting its enrollment goal, which was antithetical to the purpose of strategic sizing. the pandemic challenged how the office of admissions was accustomed to operating. the division adjusted to these challenges by converting traditional campus recruiting events to a virtual platform, counseling students and families experiencing financial hardship related to the pandemic, and addressing the abundant competition between other colleges and universities. four prevailing challenges that would disrupt enrollment goals remained in front of campus leadership. the first was to identify realistic and achievable enrollment goals given current circumstances. this challenged university leaders to examine current enrollment goals outlined in strategic sizing plans and adjust as needed. according to goals outlined in strategic sizing, uc projected an overall increase of close to 1,000 students representing all student degree types. faculty and academic colleges had to identify how to stabilize enrollment growth to remain the same as in 2019 before the pandemic, 46,388 students across all three campuses. this required highly sought majors that had limited growth because of resources, thinking creatively about accommodating more students and course offerings, and recognizing that some majors will experience a decrease in enrollment. the second required university leaders to acknowledge uncertainty and coordinate communications while building trust with campus stakeholders and the public. uc needed to communicate that it was adequately prepared to manage the pandemic crises by addressing issues and remaining proactive. the institution also presented an overarching communication that, as a leading urban university, it would continue to offer world-class, quality education, including online. uc has provided online education for more than a decade, and its commitment to providing delivery options to students is directly tied to the university's strategic direction. the third challenge was stabilizing the university's financial position, which involved reviewing multiple financial models to minimize monetary loss and impact. as a result, the university decided that it needed to land the class with an overall enrollment of 46,388 (39,200 uptown) students. the last obstacle was meeting institutional enrollment goals by retaining current students and growing new student enrollment while prioritizing equity and diversity. the following sections of the study discuss the university's strategy and approach for accomplishing its goals. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25627 | february 15, 2022 68 enrollment challenges and those affected according to the national student clearinghouse research center (2021), the covid-19 pandemic negatively affected college-going populations, and colleges experienced losses in enrollment. all racial and ethnic groups experienced enrollment declines at the undergraduate level and impacted students of color and international students particularly hard (nscrc, 2021). compared to the previous academic year, international students, native american, and black students experienced the most substantial drops (nscrc, 2021). as such, uc’s ltc initiative focused on these vulnerable populations. during this time, prospective international students, while interested in enrolling at uc, could not enter the united states due to the travel restrictions. this setback would ultimately impact the number of international students enrolling at uc for fall 2020. for uc, 6.4 % (3,015) of its students identify as international students, and 17% (8,039) of its students are from underrepresented student populations (uc facts, 2020). this year, nearly one in four first-year students are underrepresented, making up about 23% of the overall student population (uc facts, 2020). similar to the data presented by the national student clearinghouse, uc’s student populations showed earlier signs of enrollment challenges. international and underrepresented student populations make up almost 30% of uc’s enrollment portfolio across undergraduate and graduate programs, which would not allow uc to fulfill its enrollment goal. uc performed a series of budget projections using national enrollment trends. each assessment concluded that uc needed to employ innovative and strategic enrollment strategies to stabilize and grow enrollment during the global pandemic and a period when high school graduation rates are negatively impacting college attendance among traditional college-age students. multiple research and population data reports indicate enrollment declines over approximately the next ten years. underrepresented and international students are vulnerable populations, and they are also demonstrating the most growth in population size for colleges and universities (grawe, 2018). successful recruitment cycles are critical for the financial stability of colleges, especially so during a pandemic (kafka, 2021). for uc, the pandemic increased students' access in multiple ways that run contrary to typical recruitment cycles. some of these examples included flexibility in determining completed applications, extending deadlines, waiving test requirements, forgoing application and confirmation fees, increasing student support throughout the admission cycle, tuition discounting, and increasing access to financial aid. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25627 | february 15, 2022 69 analysis and findings we examined several descriptive data to better understand the institution’s approach to holistically addressing the pandemic's impact on enrollment. we referred to data available through uc’s office of institutional research and national data on enrollment from simpsonscarborough and the national student clearinghouse research center. at a broader, institutional level, uc put into place several strategies that relied on frequently updated data to guide decisions for enrollment. for example, survey results released by simpsonscarborough (2020) revealed that 40% of incoming first-year students who once aspired to attend a four-year institution were now likely or highly unlikely not to attend. informed by these data, uc identified first-year applicants as a probable source for enrollment decline. initial data collected in summer 2020 provided insight that for uc specifically, applications for first-time undergraduates were up from 2019 with a positive difference of 351, while new transfer student applications were down 169. unfortunately, data also showed that while applications for firsttime undergraduates had increased, the number of confirmed enrollments decreased compared to 2019. from the initial findings, an early emphasis was placed on identifying populations of focus and developing innovative approaches for retaining and recruiting these populations to meet enrollment goals. populations of focus in tandem with enrollment management, the ltc initiative focused on four populations: returning students, admitted students, transfer students, and new populations of students. a datadriven approach for each population was taken using innovative ideas tailored to each group to overcome probable enrollment decline. these approaches included specific marketing campaigns targeting subgroups of the four populations. returning students retaining returning students was a concern, and emphasis was placed on the subpopulation of continuing international students, both graduate, and undergraduate. these students were at a heightened risk for summer enrollment melt because many returned to their home country at the beginning of covid and could not return to the united states by the fall semester. summer enrollment melt is a period when students reconsider whether or not to attend college, and in many cases, decide not to attend (rall, 2016). this decision is prevalent among historically underrepresented students and can extend to international students. uc international, the office that supports the university’s global education efforts, and enrollment management worked together to survey all international students to identify how many would be impacted and the actual population for outreach. the goal was to provide these students with an online schedule, wherever possible, to allow for their continued enrollment. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25627 | february 15, 2022 70 the survey response rate, 26%, was an initial concern. however, the data provided the shocking revelation that while only 9% of continuing uc graduate students returned home, 40% of undergraduate students did the same. increasing flexibility for online scheduling helped reach the initiative’s retention goal of most international students. however, much of its success was attributed to the development of the bearcats everywhere scholarship. the scholarship provided and continues to provide international students, as of summer 2021, with a one-time tuition award for each semester applied. this funding matched what students would have paid for their non-resident surcharge, a discount for undergraduates totaling $7,667 for the uptown campus. international graduate students were also eligible, with the discounts varying based on the program and other stipends already provided. we found that throughout two semesters, scholarships paired with flexible online scheduling options resulted in the enrollment of 3,579 international students compared to the 2,952 enrolled for fall 2020. admitted students the ltc task force developed a few different approaches to help address admitted first-year student concerns. each has specific metrics to meet the same enrollment goals set before the pandemic. the first approach allowed fall 2020 admitted students to begin classes in summer 2020. traditionally, students admitted in the fall are not permitted to start early at uc. however, task force discussions helped identify that early student enrollment would create an opportunity to give students a head-start in their program and ensure their enrollment in the fall. this initiative was initially developed with the expectation that they would become more likely to remain enrolled by building relationships with incoming first-year students earlier. this was evident with the enrollment goal of an additional 75 fall 2021 admits being met after they could schedule summer classes. the second approach to enroll admitted first-year students included leveraging additional financial aid dollars in place of both state and federal funding sources. based on simpsonscarborough (2020) data, 24% of study participants who were high school seniors believed that they might change their minds about attending college because of covid-19. these findings suggested that uc could engage its urban core and enroll students locally who were still undecided. also, more expansively, this initiative specifically targeted students in ohio who were admitted to uc but had not yet confirmed enrollment. this push for enrollment helped uc compete for students who planned to attend an ohio public university, staying home, or staying close to home. the objective was to increase awards for 800 students and yield 200 students as a part of uc’s traditional enrollment goal. ultimately, 100 new student yields were met through the facilitation of this initiative. the division of enrollment management also developed an institutional grant to address the disparities related to race, socioeconomic status, and financial aid. scholars have suggested that © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25627 | february 15, 2022 71 institutions should reexamine their roles in supporting students the summer that they matriculate to college (tichavakunda & galan, 2020). insufficient financial resources, for example, are an obstacle to access for many college students (perna, 2006; perna et al., 2011). also, studies have shown that financial aid like small grants contributes positively to student success outcomes (denning et al., 2019; hurwitz, 2012; nguyen et al., 2019). the office supported incoming underrepresented and first-generation students by incentivizing them to complete their enrollment steps to mitigate the possibility of summer melt. students had the opportunity to earn up to $1,500 depending on their enrollment status. this investment was novel because em usually has minimal scholarship awards besides merit, which has historically led to financial burdens for students of color and first-generation student populations. evidence exists that financial aid directly affects student outcomes such as access (denning, 2019; goldrick-rab et al., 2012). for example, complications in the financial aid process contribute to students not receiving the entire amount of eligible aid and possibly influence their enrollment decisions (page & clayton, 2016). while not an exclusive outcome, uc had its most diverse class, with nearly one in four first-year students from historically marginalized populations or a low socioeconomic background this year. the total number of these students rose to just over 23%. the last approach was a campaign developed with university housing called start where you are. this initiative was implemented to support first-year students taking all their courses online. the initiative's primary purpose was to allow students to begin their first year from home or choose not to live on campus or in university housing for the fall semester, including waiving the mandatory on-campus living requirement. the initiative was designed to be program-specific and required active involvement from the office of new student orientation for first-year students and major adaptations to their advising process. while metrics for this initiative were not as easy to set, we identified that the goal was met to maintain enrollment for incoming firstyear students who may have been in jeopardy of not attending in the fall. this outcome was realized through the analysis of the overall enrollment of uc first-year students. transfer students students’ enrollment decisions were clearly in flux during the pandemic. instead of waiting for conditions to evolve, ltc developed three targeted marketing campaign initiatives: stay in cincinnati, change the world, and ready for next. the first campaign, stay in cincinnati, was used to engage incoming transfer students not currently in the applicant pool, including students from the cincinnati and metropolitan area who attended other universities. the campaign was specifically aligned with the university’s desire to lead as an urban public university. in addition, the campaign was also able to target individuals who were not currently in the workforce and wanted to return to school for up-skilling and additional credentials. the content of the messages focused on being a resource for transfer students regarding financial aid and transfer credit decisions. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25627 | february 15, 2022 72 the change the world and ready for next marketing campaigns were crafted for the local cincinnati market and developed to increase confirmations among first-year students changing institutional commitments and increase applications for incoming transfer students. these campaign efforts increased transfer applicants by 200 for fall 2021 and yielded 75 to 100 additional transfer students. we found it challenging to narrow down exactly which efforts produced the outcome of meeting fall enrollment goals or even if a mix of the three was the answer. overall, the result was positive regardless of specificity. new student population the fourth student population ltc considered was new student populations. uc waived test requirements and application fees associated with enrollment, such as confirmations, housing, and orientation for incoming first-year and transfer students to the uptown campus. when considering the class of spring 2020 baccalaureate graduates, many of those who had planned to enter the workforce were changing plans due to the pandemic’s contribution to a dearth of job opportunities and limited travel options and instead considering entering a uc graduate program. the university created a new opportunity for an unrealized student population to enroll in the stay a bearcat initiative. the initiative helped meet enrollment goals by engaging an entirely new group that might not have considered graduate education at uc before the pandemic. stay a bearcat was a robust effort with many moving parts (see table 1) that ensured that students who did not plan to continue their educational pursuits could make an easy, stress-free decision on whether to attend graduate school. finally, the metrics set for stay a bearcat, like the other initiatives, included an application goal and a yield. the fall 2021 graduate student enrollment goals were met, including increasing graduate applicants and yielding 176 more new graduate students than in fall 2020. table 1. strategic elements of stay a bearcat initiative 1. standardized test score waivers for prospective students 2. referral process for students to a different program rather than being denied 3. submission deadline extensions for programs 4. increased contact with prospective students 5. extension of confirmation deadlines for admitted students 6. revamp of holistic admissions processes to attract a more diverse group of students 7. movement of program start dates to allow for the most convenient start date © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25627 | february 15, 2022 73 measurement of impact we identified that a vital part of weekly ltc task force meetings included gauging impact and progress through analysis of three established data groups automatically generated and sent weekly to the group before meetings. the task force evaluated pre-covid data that reflected retention of the fall 2018 cohort to fall 2019 and compared it to current real-time retention numbers using the fall 2019 cohort's retention to fall 2020 (see figure 1). the data collection included students retained versus those not retained for each college and the overall university retention total. utilizing these typical year data as a means of comparison versus the retention conditions under the stressors of the pandemic allowed the group to actively monitor weekly progress and adjust their plan accordingly. figure 1. fall 2018 cohort retention to fall 2019 © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25627 | february 15, 2022 74 the second data extraction was an overarching enrollment headcount separated by colleges showing fall 2019 versus fall 2020 and a graphed depiction of change (see figure 2). the data set provided the ltc task force with a broader depiction of the current state of enrollment. these data also indicated which specific colleges required extended efforts compared to others. these same data were also used to successfully monitor progress post-pandemic for landing the class from fall 2020 compared to fall 2021 (see figure 3). figure 2. headcount enrollment, fall 2019 to fall 2020 © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25627 | february 15, 2022 75 the third data set the ltc task force utilized was the overview of university-wide enrollment goals set by the task force. this data set provided the group with a descriptive analysis of each of the focused populations discussed earlier with an additional layer of specificity of the student’s degree type, including undergraduate, graduate, or transient students. the data considered enrollment, confirmations, and goals for fall 2019 and fall 2020, respectively. the data also considers fall 2021 goals and the metrics necessary to meet those goals. figure 3. headcount enrollment, fall 2020 to fall 2021 © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25627 | february 15, 2022 76 implications for practice and conclusion the covid-19 pandemic pushed university leaders, including senior admissions and enrollment management officers, to think and operate differently than they traditionally have and offered valuable lessons and headway into cultivating a campus culture of strategic enrollment management. sustainable practices, including a greater focus on strategic sizing and long-term planning, created opportunities for tactical conversations to figure out how the institution can increase financial assistance for pell-eligible students who want to enroll at uc but cannot afford the costs. multiple subpopulations of students share this situation, including first-generation, rural students, and more. despite wanting to grow, the university has seen a decline in the percent of pell-eligible students over the years. the pandemic presented a clear opportunity to yield and retain these students more competitively. furthermore, ltc has allowed uc to be competitive in its yield efforts without creating new programs. moreover, ltc assisted in developing a culture that is interested in solving enrollment issues, less about crisis and more about strategic enrollment management. another sustainable practice includes tactical meetings with university leadership versus the previous reporting on enrollment management processes, timing, and whom uc served. lastly, in concert with a consultant, a cross-campus committee highlighted multiple friction areas regarding undergraduate student experiences that needed improvement to help reduce the melt of incoming students and retain current student enrollment. the ltc task force developed several innovative approaches to meet enrollment metrics in response to what could have been a detrimental year for the institution. when the pandemic began, and institutions were sending students, faculty, and staff home before the end of the spring 2020 semester, uc rapidly prepared for the unknown. their early preparation and emphasis on enrollment contributed to the university’s efforts to retain students from the onset of the pandemic resulting in the most extensive summer enrollment in its 200-year history. the total headcount increased 1.5% over the previous year as of the first day of fall 2020 classes, and 783 more full-time equivalent (fte) students were enrolled, an increase of 9.7% over the previous year. also, gross tuition for the summer, including the removal of non-resident fees, experienced a slight increase. ltc recognized these successes but did not assume they would continue to span through the fall semester. while simultaneously considering summer enrollment, retention, and recruitment, the task force was able to help the institution start the fall 2020 semester as one of two public ohio institutions with increased enrollment. the findings in our analysis suggest that the uc’s mission and approach to enrollment management are tied to its urban identity. the documents and artifacts that we examined for the study support this conclusion. urban universities have unique opportunities to engage their surrounding communities during the most pressing of times. the pandemic illuminated uc’s © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25627 | february 15, 2022 77 efforts in addressing access and affordability, especially for students from the city and who now called cincinnati home. the urban mission that guides the institution and its leadership was elevated because of the crisis. how uc managed through this once-in-a-century challenge was arguably rooted partly in its desire and strategy to engage the city of cincinnati. our analysis suggests that uc was one of the fortunate universities to sustain itself during the pandemic. takeaways from the study include the notion that ltc efforts brought enrollment management to an institutional forefront in a way that had not been previously established. historically, enrollment management had not been involved in the planning at the college level. ltc cultivated a culture of collaboration between colleges and the office of admissions in the enrollment management process. also, the pandemic propelled the opportunity for the university to redefine relationships with enrollment management and admissions and other institutional operations such as marketing and communications to centralize its collective admission efforts in a more efficient way. college access is a priority that urban universities should keep in front of them by actively engaging their communities. institutions should look for opportunities to invite constituents to have substantive conversations about promoting higher education to youth in their city and investing in partnerships with school districts within the metropolitan area. a sincere commitment to college access, specifically for citizens in the metropolitan area, demonstrates a commitment from the urban university to improve educational outcomes for their city and creates a more straightforward pathway toward postsecondary education for many. today, the division of enrollment management works more closely with college leaders in their planning efforts to ensure that they are establishing enrollment practices that are informed from landing the class committal and retention strategies. these recruitment experiences have informed how enrollment management will approach recruiting students in the future. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25627 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(2020). the summer before college: a case study of first generation, urban high school graduates. urban education, 1-29. https://doiorg.uc.idm.oclc.org/10.1177/0042085920914362 metropolitan universities vol. 30 no. 2 (june 2019), doi: 10.18060/22808 40 alignment through community: the case of a metropolitan university and the greater oklahoma city hispanic chamber of commerce john f. barthell, david castillo, liliana rentería mendoza, j. david macey, and charlotte k. simmons abstract the university of central oklahoma (uco) is a public metropolitan university that has developed a highly collaborative relationship with the greater oklahoma city hispanic chamber of commerce (hc). this partnership unites several uco divisions and the hc in support of a set of shared goals, articulated in uco’s “vision 2020” strategic planning document and in the hc’s seven community development priorities, which include business development, cultural and environmental stewardship, workforce development, and education. to facilitate these partnerships, uco’s division of academic affairs has reorganized its administrative structure to create an office of global and cultural competencies, which includes a director of cultural outreach and diversity strategies, who serves as on-site liaison to the hc; the division of academic affairs also has representation on the hc board of directors. these shared efforts provide a means for securing extramural funding, internships, and new leadership programs that will sustain the partnership and affect a growing demographic and economic segment of oklahoma city. within the university, this partnership complements the diversity and inclusion initiatives of uco’s division of student affairs and promotes the legislative and economic initiatives led by uco’s division of public affairs. this article addresses the often-unrecognized role that a university’s academic mission plays in anchoring community partnerships, and it contributes to best practices in fulfilling an institutional commitment to serve diverse, metropolitan populations. keywords: partnerships; urban planning; development; cultural competencies introduction public universities increasingly confront paradoxical expectations that they engage more directly with the communities they serve and that they do so with diminished state-appropriated funding. this situation has increased the need to develop mutually beneficial outcomes with community organizations that value highly collaborative partnerships. this article outlines the basis for one such partnership, which began in 2013 through collaboration between representatives of the greater oklahoma city hispanic chamber of commerce (hc) and of the university of central oklahoma (uco). hc has set for itself a business-oriented mission with a seven-plank community platform that includes education, while uco pursues a metropolitan-based mission to help students learn through a variety of degree programs by means of high-impact practices, referred to as transformative learning, that include six tenets (barthell, cunliff, gage, radke, & steele, 2010). among these “central six” tenets is global and cultural competencies, which forms the basis for an office of the same name within the division of academic affairs, led by an assistant vice president and a director of cultural outreach and diversity strategies, both of whom are coauthors for this article. 41 uco is an ideal educational partner for this collaboration. founded in 1890 as the territorial normal school of oklahoma, it has played an important role in the oklahoma city metropolitan area for over a century. uco has grown to meet the needs of oklahoma city and its surrounding communities. most recently, its outreach has included uco downtown, a facility within the business district that brings metro-centric as well as mainstream courses and programs to residents of oklahoma city (barthell, simmons, & youngblood, 2018). oklahoma city has one of the fastest growing latinx populations among u.s. metropolitan areas, with an 85% increase in the number of latinx individuals between the last two census periods, 2000 and 2010 (ennis, ríos-vargas, & albert, 2011). uco has also grown in latinx enrollment, with over 11% of current students identifying as latinx (uco office of institutional research, 2018). more than 50% of oklahoma city public school students are now latinx (oklahoma city public schools, n.d.). it made sense, therefore, for uco to help the hc in creating a new collaborative space within its current facility in south oklahoma city. the provost/vice president and associate vice president for academic affairs at uco work closely with the hc president and ceo; all three are coauthors of this article. uco benefits from this relationship by fulfilling its metropolitan strategic plan documented in vision 2020 (uco, 2013), while the hc receives both interns and student-centered grant-writing support through collaboration with uco’s students, staff, and faculty. as oklahoma city’s only public university, uco has a unique responsibility to create a bridge to the oklahoma city metropolitan area’s latinx population. the university’s mission to “contribute to the intellectual, cultural, economic and social advancement of the communities and individuals it serves” (mission and vision, n.d.) is grounded in theoretical and practical insights of scholars. barber (1992), gamson (1997), ostrander (2004), ramaley (2000), and saltmarsh and hartley (2011), have all examined civic engagement in higher education and have studied the goals and dynamics of campus-community partnerships. indeed, the literature abounds with studies that exemplify the importance of mentorship through high-impact educational practices within academic settings (tinto 1994, jonides 1995, seymour & hewitt 1997, crowe & brakke 2008, kuh 2008). this may be especially true for underrepresented group students in stem disciplines (collea 1990, estrada et al. 2011). uco therefore has every incentive to encourage community engagement and networking in anticipation of the arrival of new, often first generation, students to our university campus. uco and hc have implemented several new programs and initiatives, described in this document, in the past five years to support this developing and essential partnership. below, we detail aspects of the partnership and describe how several new initiatives have contributed to the institutionalization of this partnership, sharing the perspectives of both the hc and uco through the voices of the authors contributing to this article. engagement of chambers of commerce with colleges and universities chambers of commerce create an environment within their service area and/or within their target community in which economic growth and workforce development thrive. these goals link directly to the educational level and workforce readiness of the communities they serve. thus, chambers of commerce often facilitate partnerships with k-12 systems and colleges and 42 universities. nationally, the u.s. hispanic chamber of commerce foundation’s university partnership initiative focuses on creating a college-to-career pipeline between hispanic-serving institutions and industry through education, access, and internships. university of texas at arlington is the managing partner and fiscal agent for the initiative, which will launch in texas with the goal of nationwide expansion (university of texas at arlington, 2018). a local example is the tulsa talent hub initiative funded by the lumina foundation in 2017. tulsa regional chamber, tulsa community college, and tulsa technology center are working to increase by five percent the postsecondary enrollment for latinx and low-income individuals. this initiative involves creating guided college pathways and customized business and industry training to meet the demand of tulsa employers (tulsa regional chamber, 2017). higher education-chamber partnerships frequently form close ties to business and workforce development, as this is the intersection of their work. as a result, the partnerships could lead to transactional engagement. uco’s partnership with the hc is unique. efforts to align the collaborative partnership with the missions of the two organizations resulted in campus-wide support for and participation in the partnership and full organizational commitment from the hc and its board. the university’s academic mission provides a conceptual framework for the partnership, which fulfills uco’s institutional commitment to serve oklahoma city’s diverse, metropolitan populations and to promote economic development in the region. for the hc, the collaboration with various departments from admissions (college access) to academic programs as well as embedded faculty and staff at the chamber has brought about transformational successes to both organizations as detailed below. connecting to the latinx population in oklahoma city metropolitan area according to the pew research center, 18% of the nation’s population is latinx, making this group the second largest ethnic group behind white/caucasian (flores, 2017). with this representation nationally, a growth in latinx-owned businesses has been evident. in fact, latinxowned businesses are the “most dynamic entrepreneurial segment of the american economy” (u.s. hispanic chamber of commerce, 2017). according to the u.s. census bureau (2012), there were 3.3 million latinx businesses nationally in 2012 (latest economic census data), which contributed more than $468 billion to the economy (u.s. hispanic chamber of commerce, 2017). the latinx population, in turn, has buying power of one and a half trillion dollars (humphreys, 2017, p. 9). oklahoma is seeing this dynamic segment grow and make an impact in the state and the oklahoma city metropolitan area. according to a 2010 u.s. census bureau brief, oklahoma’s latinx population experienced an 85% growth over the past 10 years (ennis, ríos-vargas, albert, 2011) and increased its buying power to $9.4 billion as of 2017 (humphreys, 2017, p. 24). with close to 400,000 latinx individuals in the state and more than 110,000 latinx individuals in oklahoma city (u.s. census bureau, 2016), the latinx population and the more than 10,000 latinx businesses (u.s. census bureau, 2012) are becoming increasingly important. this is not only because of the increasing influence of latinx interests in the economic development of oklahoma city and state, but also because businesses create jobs and demand for an educated workforce. this demand marks the point of intersection between the vision and goals of the hc and uco. 43 in 2013, uco began planning for the growth of the latinx population. the largest public school system in the state, oklahoma city public schools, began to show a demographic shift. at that time, the latinx student population was increasing at a rapid rate, to become the largest population in the school district. latinx students are now the majority, with 53% of the district’s 46,000 students being of hispanic or latinx descent and more than 13,000 students being english language learners, with a large majority speaking spanish at home (oklahoma city public schools, n.d.). hc president/ceo david castillo recalls hearing about uco’s efforts to attract more latinx students to the university. he saw a news report that uco was finding creative ways to reach out to latinx parents, such as offering campus tours in spanish. he therefore contacted uco’s vice president for public relations to meet and explore opportunities for collaboration and mutual support. at that time, the hispanic chamber had just bought a new building for service expansion. the building had a conference room available, as well as extra office space. after discussion at the leadership level, uco solidified its partnership with the hc by increasing its level of support from a university membership to a two-year sponsorship of the conference room and of one office and by installing state-of-the-art audio-visual equipment. this initial step offered uco the ability to use the conference room to provide pre-college workshops and to hold meetings with prospective students and parents, conducted in both spanish and english, for recruitment purposes. these events were extremely successful because they brought uco to the community, instead of asking the community to travel twenty minutes north to edmond, the predominately white/caucasian suburb where uco’s main campus is located. these efforts have continued since the inception of the partnership, thanks to the commitment of uco’s division of student affairs and office of undergraduate admissions. although uco now has several locations in downtown oklahoma city closer to the hc, providing services at multiple sites within the community remains a priority for uco. doing so builds trust and enhances opportunities to collaborate with and better serve the latinx community. uco recently renewed its sponsorship of the conference room for another two-year term and it will be upgrading the equipment by the end of the year for use by the hc and the wider community. uco’s goal is to increase and expand the services provided at the hc through the creation of new and the expansion of existing initiatives, in particular from the division of academic affairs. realigning resources: office of global and cultural competencies uco, like many other public institutions of higher education across the country, has experienced a sharp decline in state funding within the past five years. the division of academic affairs has strategically reallocated existing resources in order to continue to advance the university’s mission to help students learn by providing transformative learning experiences, among other means. an open assistant vice president position in the division presented an opportunity to reimagine this position for the first assistant vice president for global and cultural competencies. this position’s duties include functioning as the university’s chief academic diversity officer, promoting international faculty collaborations and study abroad opportunities 44 for students, and providing oversight to the concurrently formed office of global and cultural competencies. in july of 2016, provost/vice president for academic affairs john barthell established the office of global and cultural competencies. this new unit brought together existing and emerging programs within the division. since its founding, it has served as an incubator for new initiatives. these initiatives and programs, which serve a wide variety of constituents both on campus and off, address issues of inclusion, diversity, and globalization, in keeping with the office’s overall mission to promote global and cultural competencies. global and cultural competencies, as defined by the university, include the wide-ranging set of skills and knowledge necessary “to communicate effectively in a complex world, to function in multiple and diverse environments, and to adapt to the continuously changing global society through an attitude of awareness, consciousness, and respect” (global and cultural, 2018). the office of global and cultural competencies includes two full-time staff members, the director of oklahoma city cultural outreach and diversity strategies and the director of education abroad. it has three faculty members with administrative responsibilities: the director of the women’s research center and blgtq+ student center, the director of faculty outreach and support, and the assistant director of the women’s research center and bgltq+ student center. the assistant vice president for global and cultural competencies, one of three assistant vice presidents within the academic affairs leadership team, oversees the operations of the office and reports to the provost/vice president for academic affairs (uco office of institutional research, 2018, p. 13). the office of global and cultural competencies also benefits from the work of a number of student researchers supported by the office of academic affairs, in fulfillment of the university’s commitment to engage students in high-impact practices. the office of global and cultural competencies collaborates with other campus units including the center for excellence in transformative teaching and learning (division of academic affairs), the office of diversity and inclusion (division of student affairs), and the office of global affairs (division of student affairs) to support education abroad activities and inclusion and diversity initiatives. the office has a direct oversight role for faculty-led study tours, semesterand year-length study abroad activities and international faculty exchanges (uco centre for global competency, 2019). it also sponsors a range of educational and professional development programs for faculty on topics related to global and cultural competency, including the ongoing global and cultural competencies faculty learning community, offered in collaboration with the center for excellence in transformative teaching and learning (uco center for excellence, 2018). through the women’s research center and bgltq+ student center, the office of global and cultural competencies facilitates collaboration among scholars and activists on and off campus on interdisciplinary scholarly, creative, and pedagogical projects in the fields of women's, gender, and sexuality studies (women’s research, 2018). in addition, the office of global and cultural competencies serves a bridge between the campus and oklahoma city metropolitan community by playing an active leadership role in organizations including the oklahoma city 45 inclusion and diversity consortium (2017), the oklahoma center for community and justice (2018), and the greater oklahoma city hispanic chamber of commerce (2019). strengthening the partnership with the greater oklahoma city hispanic chamber of commerce in 2013, the university of central oklahoma forged a partnership with the hc as both organizations sought to serve oklahoma city’s growing latinx population. this partnership began with uco’s sponsorship of the hc conference room, to provide a physical presence in the community and to cultivate trust within the latinx community. once the physical location was in place, uco’s presence in the community expanded through ongoing events developed by the office of undergraduate admissions and pre-college programs, including college-readiness workshops such as scholarship workshops, act preparation, and informational workshops about uco. bringing the programs to the latinx community instead of expecting the community to come to the university was the first step in creating trust within the community. offering information, tours, and workshops in spanish also helped to build the relationship with the community. having a uco representative participate in community events continues to build and sustain trust with the latinx community. after the office of global and cultural competencies was created, the next logical step was to create a position within the office to connect faculty, in particular latinx faculty, and faculty projects to the latinx community. the director of oklahoma city cultural outreach and diversity strategies position, formed by utilizing existing salary lines as they became available, has strengthened uco’s relationship with the hc. the director is an integral part of the hc and works in its offices twice a week. she serves on hc and community committees and provides support for hc program expansion. this level of engagement opens avenues for uco faculty and staff to engage in programs, events, and activities that align with their academic or service interests. one such successful and mutually beneficial program is latino leadership oklahoma city (llokc). a graduate from the program herself, the director for oklahoma city cultural outreach and diversity strategies participates in the planning committee and recruits uco faculty and staff to participate in the program in order to connect and embed additional faculty and staff into the oklahoma city latinx community. a nationally recognized program now in its sixth year of implementation, llokc develops latinx and bilingual individuals into effective community leaders. participants in the program represent a broad range of organizations, including private, nonprofit, higher education, and governmental agencies. through the six-month program, participants sharpen their skills in areas including public speaking, leadership development, and event management, and they learn about serving on boards and hear from nonprofit, governmental, media, and educational agencies. the goals of the program are to increase participants’ capacity to fill leadership roles and to enhance their commitment to and involvement in community activities in central oklahoma. the program also increases the network of peers and connects participants to established community leaders (llokc, n.d.). 46 since llokc’s inception, uco has sponsored uco leaders to participate in the program. uco’s participation demonstrates to the hc the university’s commitment to being an anchor institution for the communities it serves by developing leaders who work in a wider capacity, outside of the university, and influence the community. llokc also helps the university to increase retention of faculty and staff who are of latinx backgrounds or bilingual. uco has sponsored ten of its nearly forty graduates to date. six of the uco participants have been faculty members in the colleges of education and professional studies, liberal arts, and mathematics and science. the four staff members have represented academic affairs, development, and student affairs. the employment retention rate for the uco participants in the llokc program is 80%; all eight uco representatives are engaged in community projects that align with their academic and professional interests. dr. kristi archuleta, associate professor of organizational leadership and class iii llokc graduate, describes how her engagement in the program has affected her career (k. archuleta, personal communication, april 15, 2019): “as a mid-career faculty, llokc helped me to widen my lens to integrate the oklahoma city community and advocacy within my work at uco. multiple connections and pathways were presented for llokc participants to help us navigate and grow in new directions that are in alignment with each of us.” universities provide professional development opportunities to employees. however, universities often overlook the importance of providing culturally relevant faculty and staff development opportunities. such professional development opportunities increase retention of faculty and staff because they create a sense of belonging to the university and connect particular faculty, who may not be from the region, to the community that the university serves. furthermore, universities often discuss strategies to create a sense of belonging for underrepresented students through programming to increase retention and academic success. similar strategies can increase retention of underrepresented faculty and staff, especially if faculty and staff from underrepresented backgrounds are proportionally less numerous than underrepresented students at their institution. creating a sense of belonging within the university and community is essential for the professional success of faculty and staff as well as for student success. dr. guillermo martinez-sotelo, assistant professor of spanish in the modern languages department reflects on his participation with professional organizations at uco as well as his involvement with the llokc program (personal communication, april 12, 2019). "being part of [the latino faculty & staff] association didn´t only help me meet other hispanic & latinx colleagues around the university campus when i started my position in 2013, but it also opened doors for me to be part of larger projects, such as the hispanic success initiative... [t]he programs that i´ve had the chance to participate extend beyond the university. because of uco´s close partnership with the hispanic chamber of commerce, in 2017; i also had the chance to be part of the 4th cohort of the latino leadership oklahoma city program. this program aims to develop latinx leaders from different industries to work together in the betterment of the community, our community; and by extension the city we live in." uco has continued to enhance its community outreach efforts through engagement in hc events. uco’s intentional outreach goes beyond the recruitment of students. uco is also 47 intentional in the recruitment of faculty and staff through its attendance at the annual viva oklahoma! hispanic chamber expo and career fair and the bilingual job fair. the hc’s and uco’s community partners see in uco’s presence an unwavering commitment to the advancement of the community, and this builds trust within the community. for these large community events, uco creates a welcoming environment for community members to speak to uco students, faculty, and staff. because of these efforts, uco has seen, over the past five years, rising latinx student enrollment and an increase in engagement within the latinx community. for example, uco has seen an increase in state and federal legislative members reaching out to the university to discuss latinx issues within higher education. the director for oklahoma city cultural outreach and diversity strategies has expanded uco’s partnerships with the oklahoma city mayor’s office. the new mayor, david holt, has emphasized the need to integrate the diverse populations of oklahoma city, and he continues to invite uco representatives, including members of the office for global and cultural competencies, to attend events. a local agency representative stated within the last year, “uco is everywhere in the community.” this statement points to the success of university-wide efforts over the last five years by the divisions of academic affairs, student affairs, and public affairs to connect to and better serve the growing latinx community in the oklahoma city metropolitan area. tying uco’s efforts to its academic mission has interwoven these successes with those of faculty and students. uco links its retention programming for students to faculty, community leaders, and partner organizations such as the hc. one clear example is the hispanic success initiative, a collaboration between student affairs and academic affairs. the hispanic success initiative connects student participants with peers, faculty and staff mentors, and the community (hispanic success, n.d.). now in its fourth year, the hispanic success initiative (hsi) incorporates noncognitive practices in a co-curricular setting designed to improve retention and foster a sense of belonging among students. student participants are first-time freshmen and transfer students. the majority of the participants have at least one risk factor – low income, low high school/transfer gpa, or first-generation college-student status. students receive information regarding the initiative via emails and paper mailings asking them to complete an application coming students and their parents as part of the recruitment effort. once the application period closes, the initiative selects students based on the above-mentioned risk factors. hsi builds upon “reflect-and-connect” sessions that allow for identity development while creating a sense of community. the cohort convenes bi-weekly to foster communication among students and to guide them through the integrative knowledge portfolio process using generative interviewing skills (peet, 2015). this generative process allows students to reflect on their sense of self through discovery of their strengths, values, and purpose. uco faculty, staff, and peer mentors participate in these sessions with cohort members and reinforce generative knowledge interviewing through mentoring. hsi connects students to uco’s values of leadership, global and cultural competencies, research creative and scholarly activities, and service learning and community engagement. as part of the program, participants hear community leaders and participate in service-learning events with community partner organizations. these values align with kuh’s (2008) high-impact practices shown to increase student retention. students’ reflections on their growth reside in an e-portfolio for assessment by the students’ faculty and 48 staff mentors, using the student transformative learning record (stlr), to determine the level of transformation that each student demonstrates. retention data for hsi student cohorts have shown positive results. since the beginning, the program has served 101 students; of these students, 86 are currently studying or have successfully graduated. year-to-year retention data for the first cohort of students shows that hsi students stay enrolled not only at a higher rate than other latinx undergraduate students, but more than all uco undergraduates. hsi participants were retained from fall 2015 to spring 2017 at a rate of 78%, compared to 71% for latinx undergraduate students overall and 69% for all undergraduate students. the average gpa for hsi participants in fall 2016 was 2.94, compared to 2.81 for all latinx undergraduate students and 2.88 for all uco undergraduate students. for the second cohort, 97% persisted from fall 2016 to fall 2017, compared to 70% for the overall undergraduate latinx population at uco, and 69% for all undergraduate students. early analysis of the third cohort’s data shows similar trends. at the end of the current academic year, the program will have data on four-year graduation rates for the first-time freshmen and three-year graduation rates for transfer students who participated in the first cohort of the program. tables 1 and 2 below provide academic performance and persistence data for the first cohort semester to semester since fall 2015. table 1 hsi cohort 1 academic performance compared to uco undergraduate (ug) students n = 41 uco ug students ug latinx students hsi participants avg gpa fall 2015 2.84 2.76 3.18 avg gpa spring 2016 2.88 2.89 2.87 avg gpa fall 2016 2.86 2.83 2.95 avg gpa spring 2017 2.88 2.83 2.91 avg gpa fall 2017 2.86 2.81 2.90 avg gpa spring 2018 2.87 2.78 3.01 table 2 hsi cohort 1 persistence* compared to uco undergraduate (ug) students n = 41 uco ug students ug latinx students hsi persist* to spring 2016 84.8% 85.5% 92.7% persist to fall 2016 73.1% 75.6% 87.8% persist to spring 2017 69.4% 71.0% 82.9% persist to fall 2017 66.4% 66.9% 78.0% persist to spring 2018 63.9% 64.0% 78.0% *persistence includes continuing at uco and graduating. hsi participant feedback, in addition to the academic outcomes, demonstrates a sense of belonging among the students served. at the end of each program year, participants mention they 49 have gained a sense of community in hsi by seeing other hsi students as well as faculty/staff regularly around campus and within the sessions. this sense of community has made them feel that they are not alone and have connections to the campus, which mirrors the results documented by hurtado & carter (1997). below are two quotations from student participants: “being a part of this organization has given me insights and reflection skills necessary to gain a greater understanding of experiences present in my life.” “as a first-generation college student, being a part of hsi has provided a community, like a home away from home, here at uco that has made me feel welcome[d] and involved.” faculty and staff mentors report the same positive outcomes. through hsi interactions with students, faculty and staff mentors develop a stronger sense of belonging to the campus and oklahoma city communities and increase their advocacy work on behalf of students. many of the faculty and staff mentors are graduates of the llokc program discussed earlier. hsi committee planning member and chair of chemistry, dr. luis montes reflects on the impact of his participation in the hispanic success initiative below (l. montes, personal communication, april 10, 2019). “being a mentor in hsi has helped me understand the importance of being visible in my roles as stem faculty member, department leader, and faculty leader. while i would do these things anyway, i understand the value in demonstrating to latinx students that these paths are open to them as well. and more generally, they can be successful in other paths outside of academia or the sciences…from a personal standpoint, the [integrative knowledge portfolio process] training has helped me to recognize some of my own talents and what i value. the increasing population of latinx students in my courses has helped me to understand the importance of being a role model.” having the director of cultural outreach and diversity strategies embedded at the hc has also supported hc staff in enhancing programming supported by academic affairs. the director has connected chamber projects with uco’s colleges and academic departments, as well as with other university departments. faculty have made connections hc programming. for example, a faculty member from the adult education department has served on the llokc planning committee. uco also provides grant-writing expertise for hc program development and expansion. the director and a faculty member with reassignment time, provided through the transformative learning scholars program, work closely with hc staff to identify opportunities and to write proposals for external funding. the faculty member assists the director in finding external funds to support community initiatives that further uco’s role as an anchor university. hc recently received, with uco’s assistance, grant funding for a project to provide culturally responsive business development services to women who are of latinx descent, who belong to other underrepresented groups, or who are from low-income backgrounds. the project’s servicedelivery progresses by a community-building approach that will foster a sense of belonging, confidence, and skill development for women entrepreneurs through support groups, 50 mentorships, and networking. this project will revolutionize the way in which business development services are delivered in central oklahoma. as part of this project, uco’s college of business will provide assistance by engaging faculty content experts for curriculum development, presentations, and mentorships for aspiring women entrepreneurs. students will reap the benefit of the faculty members’ involvement. the customized education department, a uco unit that runs the catbird seat, a successful business incubator, will provide resources and support to the hc project participants by sharing curriculum and providing seats in incubator workshops. staff from uco’s business incubator will also assist high-achieving women in the project, including those who have an established business and are seeking to expand. finally, the director has been able to connect students to the hc via grant-funded internships. these internships operate through the student transformative learning record grant, a title iii grant awarded to uco by the u.s. department of education. interns have assisted the director and hc staff in data collection for grant-writing purposes, as well as program evaluation, program development, and event-planning assistance. his members have served as interns, connecting students to community organizations and business leaders. uco’s division of academic affairs has expanded the partnership with the hc since the establishment of the office of global and cultural competencies more than two years ago to connect faculty and students to the community. this relationship could not operate at its current level without the buy-in from the top. hc president/ceo david castillo has stated on multiple occasions that uco’s engagement and investment can be seen at every level of the university, including the president, provost, and the vice presidents for public affairs and student affairs. from the vice president for public affairs’ original discussion with hc regarding conference room sponsorship to its current support and equipment maintenance, from the first campus tours in spanish to the current efforts to market and advertise to the community to hire diverse individuals and recruit diverse students, uco’s wide-ranging support is evident. an example of this support can be seen in uco’s regular attendance at annual events such as the greater oklahoma city hispanic chamber luncheon (see picture 1 below). additionally, the hispanic chamber president/ceo is part of the uco president’s council of advisors, and the provost/vice president for academic affairs is the current chair of the hc board of directors. challenges and lessons learned building and strengthening transformational partnerships requires investment by parties working toward a similar goal. as a metropolitan university, uco invests its future in the success of the oklahoma city metropolitan area and its growing latinx community. the decisions uco leadership have made in order to connect to the latinx community have resulted in increased retention of students through programs such as the hispanic success initiative, as well as increased retention of faculty and staff through culturally-relevant professional development programs, community engagement efforts, and internship opportunities. investments of time and resources require financial support. with continued reductions from state support, the challenge will be to sustain and grow the partnership with the hc. 51 picture 1. uco delegation to the 2017 greater oklahoma city hispanic chamber luncheon include uco president betz, vice presidents for student affairs, public affairs, and finance, five assistant/associate vice presidents for academic affairs, three college deans, faculty representatives, student and academic affairs staff, and students. because applicants for the hispanic success initiative are a self-selecting group, another challenge will be to scale the initiative to serve additional students who might not otherwise participate. uco plans to expand the initiative by incorporating a first-year success course that will reach latinx students who may have limited availability to participate in co-curricular cohort activities due to job or familial obligations and might not consider applying to the initiative because of these requirements. once the course is underway, additional research will need to compare the outcomes of the cohorts based on different delivery methods. engagement of faculty and staff within the academic affairs initiatives has had a strong positive impact professionally and personally on those who have been involved, as the statements above illustrate. for uco, the benefits are many. the university is retaining these employees at higher rates, and an even greater value emerges from strengthened ties to the community and to community organizations, which in turn enhances faculty and staff members’ sense of belonging. faculty and staff are proud ambassadors of the university and use their skill-sets and knowledge to advance the economic, social, and intellectual development of the metropolitan area. tenure and promotion requirements for faculty and end-of-year staff reviews can limit participation when these community outreach activities do not specifically align to the division’s or department’s mission, values, and initiatives. additional research shall need to find how these processes can be adapted in ways that recognize and support collaborative partnerships. 52 for the hc, the lessons learned with the highly successful collaboration with uco will serve efforts to cultivate and strengthen partnerships with area k-12, vocational, and higher education institutions. many of these entities are engaged in hc activities and programs. hc president/ceo david castillo knows relationship building takes time, resources, and buy-in from both organizations for the partnership to be mutually beneficial in the long-term. building the buy-in from the institution from its leadership throughout the entire organization will be key to ensure replication of highly collaborative partnerships with educational institutions throughout the metropolitan area. projecting forward and social mobility uco is a member of the regional university system of oklahoma (ruso) with a specific charge to serve the oklahoma city metropolitan area. as a public regional university, uco strongly supports the social mobility of its diverse student body, many of whom are firstgeneration college students. a recent study by the equality of opportunity project reveals that universities like uco are far more likely to create this mobility for these students than are research-intensive public or private universities (chetty, freidman, saez, turner, & yagan, 2017). one of uco’s primary goals should therefore be to create opportunities to help students from such communities, including oklahoma city’s latinx community, which is a growing and highly productive component of the state’s workforce. indeed, the stanford graduate school of business’s latino entrepreneurship initiative report shows a national 46% increase in latinoowned businesses this year, compared to a six percent decline in white/caucasian-owned businesses during the same period (orozco, oyer & porras, 2018). because of the unprecedented increase in the latinx population in oklahoma city and the resulting increase in latinx high school graduates, the partnership described in this article is essential for both uco and the hc. at uco, the college of mathematics and science recently (fall 2018) became the first academic college to reach a “majority minority” status. just over fifty percent of the college are now nonwhite/caucasian. the college’s rate of latinx enrollment is increasing more rapidly than in any other uco college during the last five years (uco office of institutional research, 2018). the need for stem-related jobs, a topic often noted in privateand public-sector settings in oklahoma, has obvious implications for uco and its future enrollment patterns, as it does for the communities uco serves. the oklahoma city innovation district, for example, has emerged as an area of investment to increase wealth-generation through stem and especially bioscience disciplines; the brookings institution has identified uco (andes et al., 2017) as a key contributor to the workforce in the innovation district. the college of mathematics and science has already made great strides in developing programs that will encourage latinx students and students from other underrepresented group to participate in stem fields (barthell et al., 2013), and it can serve as a model for other colleges. throughout this article, we have tried to convey that it is essential to act in substantive ways in collaborations of this sort and to understand the importance of return on investment, both financially and in terms of human capital. community partnership must be authentic and deep. both uco’s president and provost, as well as other members of the president’s cabinet, 53 regularly attend events hosted by the hc and vice versa. both parties must therefore commit staff and administrative time to ensure that the partnership remains mutually beneficial in its outcomes. initiatives in both domains must also entail substantive investments such as the hispanic success initiative and the latino leadership oklahoma city programs described in this article. pursuing these avenues is rewarding and essential in the challenging environment that currently surrounds public universities in metropolitan environments; deep collaboration is the key to our future. 54 references andes, s., hachadorian, j., katz, b., siprikova, a., vey, j. s., & walker, m. 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(2018). retrieved from http://sites.uco.edu/central/thecenter/index.asp 58 author information john f. barthell, ph.d. provost and vice president academic affairs academic affairs university of central oklahoma 100 north university drive edmond, ok 73034 email: jbarthell@uco.edu telephone: 405-974-3371 fax: 405-974-3519 john f. barthell is the provost and vice president for academic affairs at the university of central oklahoma (uco). he previously served for seven years as the dean of the college of mathematics and science. his 24-year career at uco has emphasized student-centered approaches to education, especially in undergraduate research. in addition to serving as a nationally elected councilor for the council on undergraduate research, he has now served as the principal investigator (pi) or co-pi of seven national science foundation grants that support transformative learning (high-impact educational) learning practices. david castillo president/ceo greater oklahoma city hispanic chamber of commerce 3321 s. western ave. oklahoma city, ok 73109 email: david.castillo@okchispanicchamber.org telephone: 405-616-5031 david castillo is the president/ceo of the greater oklahoma city hispanic chamber of commerce. he oversees chamber operations and program development. he has over 12 years of experience helping hispanic entrepreneurs establish and grow businesses through his leadership in expanding and developing the hispanic chamber. liliana rentería mendoza, m.a. director, okc cultural outreach and diversity strategies global and cultural competencies university of central oklahoma 100 north university drive edmond, ok 73034 email: lrenteria@uco.edu telephone: 405-974-5762 fax: 405-974-3843 liliana rentería mendoza is the director for oklahoma city cultural outreach and diversity strategies. in her role, she works closely with the greater oklahoma city hispanic chamber of commerce providing program development and grant writing support to the ceo/president 59 david castillo. she has been instrumental in supporting new and existing academic affairs and university-wide initiatives with the chamber and other community organization in oklahoma city with a particular focus on south oklahoma city. *j. david macey, ph.d. assistant vice president office of global and cultural competencies university of central oklahoma 100 north university drive edmond, ok 73034 email: dmacey@uco.edu telephone: 405-974-5922 fax: 405-974-3843 j. david macey serves as assistant vice president for global and cultural competencies in the office of academic affairs and as professor of english in the college of liberal arts at the university of central oklahoma. through the office of global and cultural competencies, he coordinates a range of programs related to inclusion, diversity, and globalization including faculty recruitment and retention initiatives, international academic partnerships and exchanges, community outreach and engagement activities, and education abroad programs. charlotte k. simmons, ph.d. associate vice president academic affairs university of central oklahoma 100 north university drive edmond, ok 73034 email: cksimmons@uco.edu telephone: 405-974-2538 fax: 405-974-2538 charlotte k. simmons is the associate vice president for academic affairs at the university of central oklahoma (uco). in this role she provides the financial planning that underlies several programs that support hispanic initiatives on the uco campus. she is also a nationally recognized author of subjects pertaining to the history of mathematics (the best writing on mathematics in 2012) and serves as a councilor and executive board member for the council on undergraduate research. as a former dean of the college of mathematics and science, she laid the groundwork for the donald betz stem research and learning center on the uco campus. *corresponding author original research © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24058 | december 18, 2020 181 the black church and liberal arts institutions: forming reciprocal relationships for thriving urban communities and churches marcia allen owens1, john mcknight2, maurice tiner3 and michelle r. dunlap4 1school of the environment, florida agricultural and mechanical university, 2office of institutional equity and inclusion, connecticut college, 3 encouraging word church, and 4 department of human development, connecticut college cite as: owens, m.a., mcknight, j., tiner, m., & dunlap, m.r. (2020). the black church and liberal arts institutions: forming reciprocal relationships for thriving urban communities and churches. metropolitan universities, 31(3), 181-196. doi: 10.18060/24058 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract academic institutions engaged in partnerships with the black church, including small, independent, under-resourced churches as well as historically black denominational churches, and other under-resourced faith-based organizations, are encouraged to consider collaborative educational opportunities around the issues of strategic financial sustainability and short and long-term stewardship. four highly community-engaged academics offer a thought-experiment starting with their observations and experiences with respect to the need for such partnerships, and how these kinds of collaborations may be able to help strengthen the black church, in all its forms and faith-based communities and ground them for greater advocacy for demanding systemic and structural change. keywords: black church, community engagement, faith-based organizations, churches, sustainability, stewardship http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24058 | december 18, 2020 182 the authors of this paper are engaged academics and community advocates who also have been highly active in small urban, predominantly minority-serving non-denominational and denominational churches and other faith-based community organizations for decades. as we have traversed the often-distinct spaces of small churches, faith-based organizations, academic, other non-profit environments, and underserved communities, we are keenly aware of the strengths, similarities, and opportunities for reciprocal learning in all of these environments. together we bring more than 100 years of experience within churches and faith-based organizations, over 125 years of higher education and/or other non-profit career experience, and more than 50 years of post-secondary education. based on these experiences, we offer the following thought-experiment. we find ourselves imagining the transformative potential of applying key liberal arts principles with which we have become accustomed in our academic lives to help address challenges we have observed for years in our various faith-based community engagements. we have reached a point of great concern with respect to the future and sustainability of small, independent churches and faith-based organizations in underserved communities in the united states. this paper stems from the disconnects we experience as we maneuver between church, academy, and community. although these environments are often physically close, there is a chasm between their approaches to future planning and problem solving. our collective concerns have been exacerbated and made more urgent by the impact of the novel coronavirus pandemic. for academic institutions who partner with small, independent non-denominational and denominational churches, or faith-based community organizations, this article poses a question for consideration. what would happen if small, independent churches, as well and denominational and other faith-based organizations more purposefully applied sustainability principles such as those common to liberal arts colleges? for example, owens (2008) offered that churches should “preach what we should practice,” and that we must cross the gaps of science, religion, and culture in order to become literate in environmental, health, policy, and educational matters in order to lead god’s people. as responsible citizens, we must be fluent in speaking about issues that impact our communities on the local, national, and global levels, much like a sound liberal arts education. our aim is not to theoretically position liberal arts institutions as saviors to grassroots faith-based organizations, but rather, to leverage the unique resources within the academy and to create opportunities for mutual benefit. we have found that small, independent churches often operate in reactive-survival mode, with leaders necessarily focused on putting out proverbial fires. these organizations rarely have the time or inclination to consider leadership models to ensure their long-term success. liberal arts institutions often employ strategies for sustainability that may be https://www.google.com/search?q=baccalaureate&spell=1&sa=x&ved=2ahukewi7tllbt-hoahwbhhiehf4tchcqkeeckab6bagwecy © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24058 | december 18, 2020 183 of interest to small churches, including collaboration and interdisciplinarity, shared governance, strategic financial planning, equity, and diversity. this paper is our thought-experiment to encourage others to consider liberal arts principles and their potential benefit to churches and faith-based community organizations. however, we first recognize the importance of faith-based organizations, and what academia can learn from them. then we will describe challenges in small, independent churches that we have observed. finally, we offer liberal-arts based theoretical components that could be proposed, employed, and tested within academic-community faith-based engagements. what the academy can learn from faith-based organizations with respect to valuing community engagement the role of faith-based organizations within underserved communities has been extremely important over the centuries and decades. the black church is a historical community anchor in both rural and urban communities and have been significant sources of family and community support. although there is no established or universally accepted definition, frazier (1974) described a merger of the “invisible institution” or “brush arbor” church and the established black churches of the north and south, which resulted in black denominational churches with roots in the enslavement period wherein african people were involuntarily forced into migration and were brutalized and exploited. as a result, african people were made to worship in the christian faith, especially as it pertained to submission and obedience of whites in power. however, many black congregants adopted its customs, practices, and policies to also provide much needed supports that were missing within the context of what the plantation provided. many of these churches combined the african nations’ communalism with christian and other religious rituals from africa. the black church in these contexts were secret societies that coalesced to help ensure that all members of the enslaved community would be looked after as much as possible through the sharing of information, secret intelligence, extended family kinship (blood and non-blood) networks, shared food, and other resources. regardless of the definition or version of the black church and their particularities and divergences, barrett (2010) offers that “all black churches are likely to value educational success on the part of their young congregants and that many may work (or would be interested in working) to promote their success in similar ways” (p. 250). it also is well understood that many black churches, along with young middle, high school, and college students collectively, were the backbone of the 1950s and 1960s civil rights movements, and even many movements prior to those and since (lewis & webb, 2010). the roles of the black church in families and communities historically have included: spiritual development; protection and advocacy for vulnerable families and communities; provision of family and © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24058 | december 18, 2020 184 community; and provision of economic resources and social networking when needed. it also has served an important leadership role to families and communities, offering child-rearing support and extended family kinship support. oftentimes the church has assisted in family and community conflict resolution; elderly assistance; and mentoring of black males and females and youth (francis, 2015), although there still tends to be a great distance needed to go with respect to mentoring of lgbtqia+ youth. church-related activities have helped youth develop oration, and other educational and leadership skills (toldson & anderson 2010). these also are the places where many talented musicians, singers, and actors, even grammy and academy award winners, honed their skills. the black church has been a base of social service provision for the poor, sick, and disabled. it has provided education and leadership concerning economics, material, and physical survival for minorities in a predominantly white world, serving as the nucleus of community and extended community advocacy and protest. the list could continue ad infinitum. for underserved communities, the church is often where volunteerism happens, where those historically needing to be served the most do the most serving. this dynamic is often invisible to the mainstream which does not recognize this kind of non-documented or informal service. in these contexts, service is woven into the fabric of everyday being. thus, hundreds of years later, black and urban churches still serve these same roles, often serving as a safety net for families getting lost in the broken economy, the systems of oppression, the war on drugs, the preschool to prison pipeline, and drug epidemics that are seen as criminal by the mainstream population, as opposed to a public health crisis when it hits opioid-addicted white populations. the small independent black, urban, as well as rural churches often have served as community focal points, not only for support, but also for resistance against oppressive policies and practices. to this day, black churches position spiritual development as primary, but also prioritize protection and advocacy for the black community. many still offer a sense of community with church leaders being of utmost importance to families. when faith-based entities do not survive or do not reach their fullest potential, the impact of that failure ripples to families and communities, even to those who are not directly associated, that is, there are adverse effects for the entire community, municipality, and beyond. acknowledgment of a tenuous history may lead to reciprocal relationships there are many needs that the black church will continue to lead in addressing. similarly, there is much that liberal arts institutions may offer the black church. however, both will need to acknowledge the role of historical oppressions and biases in the continued existence of a gap between the black church and the academy. the origins of that gap relate to a mainly black/white racial divide that originated with the founding of the united states but was exacerbated by anti-black racism manifested through the institution of slavery (drewry & © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24058 | december 18, 2020 185 doermann, 2001) that continue through and postcivil war, reconstruction, jim crow, and the civil rights movements of subsequent generations. the first black americans on record as earning baccalaureate degrees were edward jones and john russworm, who graduated in 1826 from amherst and bowdoin colleges, respectively. by the time of the end of the civil war in 1865, the black american population had reached 4.4 million, but only 26 more black people are reported to have earned baccalaureate degrees (drewry & doermann, 2001). prior to the civil war, some schools for free black americans were founded and became the first historically black colleges and universities (hbcus). what are now cheyney state, lincoln, and wilberforce universities granted their baccalaureate degrees in the 1930s. education continued and remains as an elusive endeavor for the descendants of enslaved africans. formal and higher education were institutions that were withheld, and presently, access to quality education remains a challenge. thus, the educational divide created a class divide among african americans, as access to education was and is tied to racism, oppression, economic opportunity, and basic human dignity. there are historic, complex, and sometimes antithetical relationships between faith, education, and the black community (mitchell, 2010). education, although seen as a way out, was also seen as a dividing point because it was not accessible to all. there were always free black people, but social class is an important variable in navigating those relationships. teachers and preachers were often among the more educated people in black communities, the former profession being mostly women and the latter being mostly men. accordingly, among the denominational and nondenominational black churches, social class and gender remain in terms of church leadership, worship style, music, and prescribed gender roles (warnock, 2014). relationships with teachers, not professors, emerged as access to education increased. however, the presence of university professors has not increased to the point where they are commonplace in most black churches. garnering trust in an educational system that has a history of racially exclusionary structural inequalities, built on foundational tenets of black inferiority (barrett, 2010) presents a grand challenge for collaborative progress. there is a pride in and of the black professional class, but there is also a suspicion of “educated people who acted as though they were ‘above’ less well-educated members of the community” (siddle walker, p. 85). success in collaboration with the black church means reading the room, code switching, and being the person who can talk to less formally educated church leaders on their level while also being someone that they can look up to and trust. black professors must behave in ways where our education is not threatening. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24058 | december 18, 2020 186 learning from the black community there is much that academic institutions can learn from engagement with small faith-based organizations and from academic peers who carry strong faith. first, many professors, staff, and students may not understand that for many people, faith is not secularized into specific spaces and timeslots, for example, sunday morning. many faith-based community partners and some academic partners carry faith with them 24-7, even into their classes, campus programs, and generally in how we respond to various situations. those who operate with faith-based principles in academic settings often draw from their spirituality in their relationships and communications with students and colleagues, helping to foster a culture of inclusion and respect. secondly, academic institutions can learn that because academics may allow our faith to be seen, it does not mean that we do not respect or even appreciate the faiths of others. we may have a deep respect for other religions while clinging tightly to our own, which can put us at times at odds with our own faith-based organizations who may believe that there is only one way to love or serve god. likewise, our faith-beliefs and practices can put us in awkward positions with our institutions, at times, feeling stuck between worlds as believers and academics. thirdly, there is a great deal that engagement with faith-based organizations can teach academics about the role of faith in everyday life, including the efficacy of the children, adults, and elders engaged within their faith-based organizations, and the social activism, networking, fund-raising, and creative problem solving that can occur within small, independent faith-based arenas. thus, while we are focused on presenting liberal arts values and strategies as potentially helpful for small, independent faith-based organizations, we do not mean to suggest that partnerships and learning between academia and faith-based organizations are not mutually beneficial. we offer a potentially helpful theoretical framework for problem-solving, but do not intend to position academia as a paternalistic savior of vulnerable churches. challenges observed within small independent churches the pew research center (2018) reports a rapid decline of christianity in the united states, with the largest decreases occurring in the catholic church as well as mainline protestant denominations, yet 79% of african americans self-identify as christian. nearly half of black christians are not associated with historically black protestant denominations. by measures of religious commitment, importance of religion, daily prayer, and weekly church attendance, african americans are more religious than white and latinx populations. however, the percentage of african americans who are religiously unaffiliated has increased with differences in age. 18% of african americans adults overall remain unaffiliated, but that increases to nearly 30% when the focus is young adults between the ages of 18 and 29. comparatively speaking, © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24058 | december 18, 2020 187 only 7% of black adults over the age of 65 self-report as religiously unaffiliated. thus, like other populations, membership in the black church overall is decreasing. in spite of these trends, the black church, in all of its forms, continues to stand in the gap for children and families who may be struggling, although the churches simultaneously are also struggling. under-resourced communities are very rich in creativity and resourcefulness, yet financially limited and vulnerable to sustainability challenges. therefore, attention to community assessment, mission, financial planning, and sustainability are extremely important. yet, these may be the areas with the least undergirding. thus, the churches with the most to offer might have the fewest resources for assuring their sustainability. every time a church that provides communal support to children and families closes, an entire community of people, sometimes numbering in the thousands if counting their collateral impact, are left to fend for themselves, or to seek another church that may not be a reasonable distance from home. trust within a church community takes time, sometimes years to build among its members, so starting over in a new church can be very problematic, from the transportation to get there to the trust that also takes time to establish in any relationship. the fact that so many churches are closing, and at a rate higher than they are growing, presents a startling gap for minority children and families who rely on these churches to help them move from isolation toward community, and from disenfranchisement toward empowerment. historically, the black church has maintained its role as a hub for social services provided to predominately african american communities. as time has progressed, african americans have obtained greater access to resources and education, which has been both a reward and a challenge for some black churches. in other words, some segments of the community have not had to rely on the church as much for assistance with basic, emotional, networking, and meditative needs, while the least resourced still do. many churches are capitalizing on the diverse set of skills and knowledge offered by the current generation of african american and ally members that are highly educated, skilled, networked, and resourced. the churches that have found the most success in this era have been able to translate congregants’ skills and education directly into church involvement and leadership. simultaneously, many black churches have relied on faith with little to no practical implementation. while black communities are suffering from high levels of poverty, lack of education, inadequate housing, increased violence, health disparities and other social issues, what is the church's responsibility beyond having faith? resistance against systemic barriers must accompany our faith. relying on faith without also strategically planning and fighting for structural change may have contributed to a large number of churches becoming stagnant in their growth, even to the point of extinction. to this, the church must not only proactively engage short and long-term sustainable strategies, but also nurture their membership with tools to meet the demands for change. thus, we have observed increasingly greater tensions within black and © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24058 | december 18, 2020 188 minority churches involving appreciation for diversity, expectations of transparency and accountability, and demands for shared governance and strategic sustainability. we have noticed the tendency for the faith-based organizations not already embedded within a long-standing and/or well-functioning, minimally secure financial, and structural system to be especially at risk because they have no larger or protective organizational structure to fall back on when the going gets rough. nonetheless, it is this independence that makes the nondenominational arm of the black church so important, because of their freedom from rigid religious structures and doctrines. the freedom where a church answers only to god may be attractive to participants who wish to avoid the politics of larger, more highly structured churches. it often is these small, independent churches that have great appeal to the younger generations, because they may not be as steeped in traditionalism, but that very thing also may be what also makes these churches most vulnerable. in other words, these independent churches may be less likely to have actively engaged governing boards that can proactively and critically look out for the interests of the church as a collective. our years of experience in liberal arts environments have helped us understand some of the challenges faced by non-profit institutions of all kinds, including small, under-resourced churches. in the next section of this paper, we outline some of these challenges and offer strategies for consideration. challenge 1: a greater need for clarity of mission, shared governance, ongoing assessment, and consistent accountability the black church includes organized denominations and conventions such as the african methodist episcopal (ame), african methodist episcopal zion (amez), christian methodist episcopal (cme), church of god in christ (cogic), church of god by faith (cogbf), and several baptist conventions (e.g., national baptist, progressive baptist, national missionary baptist, etc.) that have more centralized organizational hierarchies. it has been our experience that many small, urban, and rural independent faith-based organizations could benefit from assessment and accountability in mission, structure, and goals. a strong, participant-engaged mission statement serves as a declarative statement describing who a group is, what optimal goals are desired, and also gives insight on how those goals will be accomplished. too often the goals tied to a church’s mission statement only allude to the work that the church strives to do, but never ties it to an overall mission to be achieved. these organizations should embark on the project of reevaluating their mission statement and goals to be sure that they effectively are meeting the needs of their membership and those within the community. assessment is an ongoing process to examine patterns, use and efficiency of resources, effectiveness, and cumulative impact. it has been our experience that without transparent assessment, resulting accountability is difficult or non-existent. because independent faith-based organizations are not governed by any secular higher offices, it can be difficult to structure transparency and accountability. some states require that nonprofits have a governing board, however, we have © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24058 | december 18, 2020 189 observed that those boards often are in name only. consequently, leadership may not be truly challenged to consider diverse viewpoints, or to try diverse strategies for developing and implementing policies and procedures. decisions, therefore, may be made arbitrarily, authoritatively, emotionally, inequitably, self-servingly, or unsustainably. the solution is not necessarily for a church to join a hierarchically organized denomination, but rather nondenominational churches may develop well-functioning shared-governance structures, creating internal systems of accountability and oversight. shared-governance may bring together leaders, congregants, and community participants who are faith and practical-minded to form a decisionmaking collaborative who will look out for the best interests of the independent church. if there is no transparency and no accountability, then the faith-based organization could be argued as being cultish by any number of definitions (richardson, 1993). academic institutions may be able to assist or at least model transparency for their faith-based community partners who may need more of it. challenge 2: short and long-term sustainability plans and goals the hope of sustainability begins with attention not only to the short-term survival of an organization, but also mission-driven strategic planning, including financial planning, toward long-term goals. a lack of financial acumen directly impacts sustainability when faith-based organizations are not educated on savings, development, investments, wealth management, and managing endowments. for example, small, faith-based organizations may be renting from expensive hotels in order to hold services rather than collaborating with community resources for free or nominal expense spaces enabling saving for a down payment to purchase a long-term space. academic institutions engaged with small, independent churches might serve them well by offering spaces for holding services, youth programs, and other events while also assisting them with their financial sustainability plan if needed. challenge 3: greater need for appreciation of diverse viewpoints and interdisciplinarity we have found that like many faith-based organizations in our nation, the black church, as well as small, urban, and rural independent churches could benefit from diverse points of view and interdisciplinarity, beginning with an active board, and including the rest of its membership. ideally, a governing board should include diverse membership, perhaps including at least one member from outside of the church structure, someone who can bring additional expertise to the governing board, such as a financial expert, attorney or other legal expert, a grant-writer, or a consultant, if such expertise is not already found among the members. interdisciplinarity can also be nurtured by the sharing of ideas across occupations, topics, arts, sciences, programs, trainings, environments, and cultures so that learning and creativity do not come exclusively from churchrelated activities. in any case, academic institutions who work with small, faith-based © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24058 | december 18, 2020 190 organizations may be able to assist them in understanding how appreciation for diversity and interdisciplinarity might help to strengthen the effectiveness of the governing board. challenge 4: greater need for critical thinking and academic humility related to some of the previous challenges, in our decades of experience with small, the black church as well as small urban and rural churches, we have found a tendency at times for critical thinking to be frowned upon among membership and governing boards. at first blush, it may seem to be a direct challenge to critical thinking. remembering that the historically the black church fosters education of its members as a mechanism for uplift, what may be misconstrued as anti-intellectualism may be a defensive posture to the revelation of deficiencies in knowledge, training, and skills. academic institutions engaged with small, faith-based organizations may be able to gently educate and model, with humility, appreciation for critical thinking where needed. liberal arts leadership principles as faith-based-grounded scholars, it is common or natural for us to bring ideas from the academic world to our faith-based endeavors (e.g., the expectation of accountability), and vice versa, to bring our faith-based experiences to our academic life (e.g., “call and response” methods in our teaching). the more that we have found ourselves crossing among the academic, faith-based, and community worlds, we have found ourselves bringing our knowledge from all of those worlds everywhere we go, and it has changed us and our expectations in all of those spaces. we have learned to expect greater transparency, accountability, diversity, interdisciplinary, and sustainability in everything in which we expend our energies and resources. however, we also recognize the historical variables that may fuel the tensions between the black church and the academy. there are many rewards in town-gown faith-based partnerships, including the potential of such partnerships to help make demands on systemic structures for equity and social justice while also helping to support community needs, something that the black church models for liberal arts institutions. another reward, often less talked about, is the transformative power of such partnerships on higher education institutions such as the social learning and greater awareness of diversity issues that such partnerships bring to students, professors, and administrators. in honoring that power, liberal arts institutions may be able to partner with the black church in evaluating and revising mission and governance documents as well as sustainability planning and continuous leadership development. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24058 | december 18, 2020 191 shared governance in the liberal arts environments that we have traversed, we have discovered a tendency and value for shared governance and wide-spread input. shared governance involves a full participation process where all stakeholders have an opportunity to have their voices represented on policy decision-making either via representatives, survey, open meetings, democratic vote, and/or some other form of input and engagement on issues and decisions. it does not mean that a hierarchical structure does not exist, but that those hierarchies are entrusted to seek the input of those for whom they represent or are responsible. shared governance seeks as much diverse and equitable input as possible, in order to ensure that all components of an organization, or even a household, has been heard and considered. shared governance creates stakeholders who feel their input was heard and considered, even if not agreed upon. related to shared governance, research has proven that diversity and interdisciplinarity in the body of shared input gives greater problem-solving potential to an organization. diversity and interdisciplinarity in backgrounds engender creativity across boundaries. a variety of perspectives enhances not only an organization’s creativity, but also its problem-solving abilities. appreciation of diversity is not just in terms of demographic percentages and numbers, but also the ability of an organization to consider, and if necessary, act on the diverse views, opinions, issues, and perspectives, and retain its diversity of members. in our thought-experiment, we propose that diverse shared governance principles may be applicable not only to traditional businesses, but also to faith-based organizations, and even to families. we believe that higher educational institutions that are partnered with faith-based organizations, and especially churches are strategically positioned to assist urban churches by helping them to consider the power of shared governance, leveraged by various intersectional diversities. together, these partnerships can maximize placement in leadership roles as well as creative succession planning to ensure the sustainability of these churches. this will require a greater respect for and appreciation for diversity and interdisciplinarity which might be a challenge for some churches. however, this might be an area where academia can help their faith-based partners understand the potential relationships among shared governance, diversity, interdisciplinarity and the creativity that it engenders, and sustainability, if they do not understand them well already. environmental stewardship and sustainability many americans feel that small personal sacrifices are meaningless in terms of global environmental stewardship. as educators who hold positions of authority and respect in the black community, pastors in the black church including small, urban non-denominational churches should equip ourselves to “practice what we should preach and preach what we should © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24058 | december 18, 2020 192 practice” (owens, 2008). in a viable partnership, liberal arts institutions may partner with pastors and church leaders to equip them with knowledge on environmental, health, and social issues in order to practice it and inform their congregations. modeling sustainable behaviors at the church will likely lead to changes in personal and household behavior patterns. environmental and sustainability partnerships may also bridge generation gaps by allowing youth and younger adults to work on projects that will benefit the whole church as well as offering opportunities for theological reflections on creation, responsible stewardship as well as church and household consumption habits (owens, 2006). conversely, faithful academics may expand the research base on the knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors of pastors and members in the black church, including urban communities. irwin (2013) speaks of the average lifespan of a church being 70-100 years, which is about the same as the lifespan of a human being. thus, we are at a point in history where many churches from the 1950s-1970s have aged, and are having difficulties with long-term viability within the church. the fight for social justice also is extremely important. demanding change at the macrosystem levels, such as elimination of the preschool to prison pipeline, racist practices, health disparities, underemployment, joblessness, and environmental justice are efforts to be undertaken by academic institutions and churches alike. the more practical aspects of sustainable survival that the small, independent church can learn from academic institutions, the more equipped the church will be for functioning sustainably over the course of a long span of time. these may include partnering with churches to assist them in developing creative and sustainable solutions, spaces for fellowshipping and meeting, grant-writing skills, financial budgets, board development, development of municipal advocacy and negotiation skills, social justice advocacy, and more. conclusion the black church and the liberal arts institution have much to offer one another. formed in response and resistance to enslavement and involuntary servitude, the black church is not reaching out to liberal arts institutions; they did not send for us. alas, for many black people, these institutions represent the american power structure that delivers intersectional inequities and oppression. in order to traverse barriers constructed via centuries of oppression and violence, black professors at these institutions and their allies must approach the black church with profound faithful and cultural humility rather than with a paternalistic approach that indicates that the liberal arts institution knows what the black church needs more than the descendants of a faith that has sustained generations. although liberal arts academics come in good faith, our missionary-like zeal may be off-putting and misconstrued as threatening. as black educators, we must engage in introspection and self-reflection to make sure that our intent is and remains © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24058 | december 18, 2020 193 genuine. our blackness may open the door for us, but it alone will not sustain a reciprocal relationship. what the black church has sustained for generations may be also instructive to liberal arts institutions, thus forming viable, sustainable, and faithful partnerships. academic institutions can be helpful by allowing these two major principles to help inform their engagement with faithbased organizations, and empirically research them to test their merits. we are hopeful that approaches such as those we have proposed may help to narrow the ever-widening chasm between faith and works, practical strategies for moving forward, so that churches will not merely survive, but also thrive. hopefully small, independent churches and other faith-based organizations can increase their ability to model survival and thriving strategies for the health, welfare, and success of their congregations and individual members. such strategies may help to strengthen small, independent churches, and therefore help to transform urban communities who may be supported and strengthened by them. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24058 | december 18, 2020 194 references alexander, r., & moore, s. 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(2014). womanist theologians on the mission of the black church. in the divided mind of the black church: theology, piety, and public witness (pp. 153-172). new york; london: nyu press. retrieved august 29, 2020, from http://www.jstor.org.famuproxy.fcla.edu/stable/j.ctt9qfcsd.9 http://www.jstor.org/stable/23890179 http://www.jstor.org/stable/23890179 http://www.jstor.org/stable/20798343 the black church and liberal arts institutions: forming reciprocal relationships for thriving urban communities and churches marcia allen owens1, john mcknight2, maurice tiner3 and michelle r. dunlap4 microsoft word 009_dodge_2020_conference-issue_23787 final.docx original research © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23787 | july 20, 2020 111 innovation through community partnership mapping and analytics keristiena dodge1 and sachin pawaskar2 1office of academic affairs, university of nebraska at omaha, 2department of information systems & quantitative analysis, university of nebraska at omaha cite as: dodge, k. & pawaskar, s. (2020). innovation through community partnership mapping and analytics. metropolitan universities, 31(2), 111-130. doi: 10.18060/23787 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract higher education institutions are increasingly required to provide a measured response to perceptions that challenge institutions’ value proposition as assets to their communities. this article focuses on best practices in the campus’ efforts to create a pathway to demonstrate community impact. the ability of systematic tracking of partnership and project data is foundational. this article discusses how institutions’ research agenda can expand from basic metrics to analyzing leading indicators of partnership success, and how a sophisticated dataset can be ultimately leveraged to measure impact. the article concludes with a reflection of the challenges faced by other higher education institutions and the commonality in institutions’ desire to systematically track and visualize community engagement efforts. keywords: impact, measurement and assessment, data, strategic planning introduction metropolitan institutions are extensions of their local, regional, and global communities. bardo writes, “a metropolitan university is not merely a university in a city, it is of the city. its focus is on the total educational needs of its area and the interlinkages of those needs with the changing and shifting conditions in the world at large” (bardo, 1990, p. 42). the concept of the metropolis is boundless rather than limiting, and institutions’ ability to connect their identity to the © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23787 | july 20, 2020 112 metropolis allows them to thrive by bringing relevance to their instruction, research, and service missions. several years ago, the university of nebraska at omaha (uno) launched a campaign with the slogan “welcome to our campus, otherwise known as omaha.” this campaign reflects uno’s metropolitan identity and intrinsic values of engagement and collaboration. this identity originates in the 1908 founding documents, which identify the purpose of the then university of omaha as “the promotion of sound learning and citizenship” (as cited in owen, 2016). indeed, civic and community engagement are inherently connected to the learning process at uno. on an annual basis, uno offers over 600 community-engaged courses, including servicelearning and community-based learning courses. each year, around 6,000 to 7,000 unique students are involved in some form of community engagement at uno. through servicelearning, community-based learning, engaged research, and volunteerism, uno engages hundreds of community partners. uno is also home to the barbara weitz community engagement center (cec), which houses campus and community organizations. the cec is a catalyst for community engagement by bridging campus and community and igniting opportunities for collaboration. in the 1970s the university of nebraska board of regents’ vision for uno as nebraska’s metropolitan institution was to be “an institution aware of its role in the societal mission of achieving a better life for all” and one that is “concerned more with society’s welfare than with its own self-preservation” (cited in owen, 2016). as profound as this statement is, predominately external forces have changed the higher education landscape. similar to other institutions, uno faces increased scrutiny. higher education institutions must provide a measured response to perceptions that challenge institutions’ value proposition as assets to their communities. metrics and research should be central to this response. while increased scrutiny highlights the importance of establishing metrics for community engagement, the desire to create engagement metrics largely derives from the campus community. in 2015 and 2016, the uno office of academic affairs engaged the campus community in a community engagement self-assessment. in this research study, campus leaders, faculty, and community engagement professionals were interviewed to gain a better understanding of unit-specific community engagement conceptualizations and the desired direction for the institution-wide engagement research agenda (starke, shenouda, & smithhowell, 2017). there was consensus regarding the importance of measuring impact of engagement efforts. the desire to measure impact was two-fold, both internally and externally focused. internally, the critique was that while uno tracked student participation in community © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23787 | july 20, 2020 113 engagement, no substantial research was conducted on the impact of the engagement experience on the students (e.g. retention, civic engagement, employment). externally, interviewees expressed frustration with uno’s inability to demonstrate systematic community impact beyond project-level outcomes and/or anecdotal evidence. the desire to measure impacts is not unique to uno. this has been an area of focus for many engaged institutions (driscoll, holland, gelmon, & kerrigan, 1996, elder et al., 2008; flynn, 2015; holton, early, & shaw, 2015; jenke & medlin, 2015; and rosing, 2015). the importance of quality assessments, outcomes, and evidence of impact is widely recognized. incorporating assessments into institutions’ engagement practices increase accountability, data-driven decision making (gelmon, 2000, gelmon et al., 2001), and are a characteristic of institutionalized engagement (furco, 2002). institutions, such as portland state university, recognize that measuring impact is important for institutions to “demonstrate their value to the community at large as well as to legislative bodies” (flynn, 2015, p. 169). based on uno’s self-assessment, engagement cabinet1 administrators sanctioned the creation of the uno community engagement measurement, assessment, and evaluation committee (hereafter engagement measurement committee). the goals of this committee include the creation of a framework for strategic data gathering, analysis, and reporting, and the formalization of an institutional engagement research agenda. central to uno’s research agenda is the creation of a mechanism that allows for systematic partner-centered tracking, analysis, visualizations, and multi-layer mapping. this article focuses on uno’s efforts to create this framework for partnership analysis and visualization. the framework illustrates best practices and challenges. the goal of this article is to provide practical insights that could facilitate other institutions’ efforts to track partnership engagement. the article starts with a brief description of the community engagement partnership initiative framework while focusing on the importance of leveraging service-learning and the agile/scrum methodology. then the authors address the value of data democratization, which can only occur if the framework is driven by campus input, reflects community voices, is dynamic and inclusive, and tailors information to accommodate various audiences. finally, the article discusses how a strategic framework must address sustainability concerns and should be integrated into institutions’ strategic planning process, which ensures relevance of community engagement and its data collection. while the framework allows institutions to demonstrate and 1 the engagement cabinet at uno consists of the senior vice chancellor for academic affairs, the associate vice chancellor for academic affairs and dean for graduate studies, the executive associate to the senior vice chancellor for community engagement and director of the community engagement center, and the vice chancellor for student success. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23787 | july 20, 2020 114 visualize community engagement, it is not the end goal; rather, it is an integral and strategic stepping stone in institutions’ roadmap of measuring community impact. the article concludes with a reflection on the challenges faced by other higher education institutions and the commonality in institutions’ desire to systematically track and visualize their engagement efforts. the community engagement partnership initiative in 2016 uno recognized that despite its national recognition for community engagement, including carnegie classification, a presidential award recipient in the honor roll, and an excellence in community partner engagement award, the institution was lacking a comprehensive listing of its community partners. while units across the institution were highly engaged, uno was unable to answer simple questions about how many community partners it was engaged with, who these community partners were, what the focus was of the engagements, where the engagements took place, and the type of engagement. without this information, uno was not positioned to “study the impact both of individual partnerships and across partnerships” (driscoll, 2014). similar to other institutions (flynn, 2015; holton, early, & shaw, 2015, rosing, 2015), uno recognized the need to track community partnership data. as a response to this need, the engagement measurement committee collaborated with multiple graduate-level, service-learning capstone classes in the college of information science & technology to create the community engagement partnership initiative (cepi). cepi is a framework that allows uno to track, visualize (including through multi-layer mapping), and analyze its community partners and projects. the cepi mapping and analytics framework serves multiple levels of utility. on the micro-level, this tool allows uno to answer questions and provide complete transparency regarding community partnerships and projects, including responses to the ‘who, what, where, when, why, and how’ questions. the table below provides some of the types of questions uno can expect to ask and answer. table 1. micro-level utility (illustrative; not comprehensive) category question who who are the community partners we are engaged with? who are the campus partners (college and units) involved in community engagement? what what organization types do uno’s community partners represents (e.g. nonprofit, government, schools, etc.)? what is the focus of the engagement work? what are the outcomes associated with the projects? where where are our community partners located? where or which legislative districts are we engaged in? © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23787 | july 20, 2020 115 when when have we engaged with our community partners? why why are we engaged? how how long have we engaged with our community partners? how many community partners are we engaged with? how engaged are we in our community? while providing transparency and answers to the questions above, cepi also becomes a powerful mechanism that visualizes the extent of uno’s community collaborations, thus demonstrating how uno is operationalizing its metropolitan mission. below is an example of one multi-layer map that demonstrates collaborations with community partners by legislative districts (figure 1). the visualization is dynamic and allows users to drill down to answer specific questions by using the filters. each dot on the map represents one community partner and the interactive nature of the data points allows for complete data transparency. figure 1. dynamic and interactive legislative district multi-layer map (based on a limited dataset) leveraging service-learning universities today have several important missions, among them advancing student learning, scholarship, and community engagement. a key part of the cepi innovation was to connect these three important goals by leveraging service-learning. service-learning is a method of teaching that combines classroom instruction with meaningful, community-identified service. this form of engaged teaching and learning emphasizes critical thinking by using reflection to © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23787 | july 20, 2020 116 connect course context with real-world experiences. service-learning faculty collaborate with community organizations as co-educators and encourage a heightened sense of civic engagement and personal responsibility for students while building capacity and contributing community impact (uno sla, 2019). figure 2 shows the traditional service-learning model. figure 2: traditional service-learning model developing cepi through several graduate-level service-learning capstone courses was more challenging than simply engaging the services of professional developers and consultants, or to outsource it to a software development company. outsourcing the assignment was not an option for the engagement measurement committee, as the committee has no operational dollars or budgetary discretion. by leveraging service-learning classes, uno was able to create the software without utilizing significant financial resources. more important, however, is that this framework demonstrates uno’s commitment to community engagement. how better to reinforce such a commitment than to connect its creation to student learning outcomes, thus reflecting the ethos of a metropolitan university? agile framework students in graduate-level service-learning capstone courses developed the cepi framework over three semesters. the students were enrolled in the management information system program in the college of information science and technology. the capstone students created a statement of work in collaboration with the engagement measurement committee. the requirements were developed using the agile scrum framework and methodology (neon rain interactive, 2019; drumond, 2019; james, 2019; westland, 2018) over several two-week sprints. at the end of each sprint, there was a demo which allowed the committee to provide feedback and iteratively build the software. the iterative process of testing the technology, providing feedback, and having the issues fixed in the following sprint resulted in significant efficiency and responsiveness. figure 3 demonstrates the agile scrum methodology. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23787 | july 20, 2020 117 figure 3: agile scrum framework methodology data democratization fragments of community partnership data often exist in silos, and non-expert users must be able to exploit it to extract knowledge, gain insights, and make well-informed decisions. the value of the knowledge discovered from big data could be of greater value if it is available for later consumption and reuse (espinosa, garriga, zubcoff & mazon, 2014; winter, wiseman, & muirhead, 2006; brown, bammer, batliwala, & kunreuther, 2003; shalowitz et al., 2009) especially in community groups from low-income neighborhoods. such community groups have the most to gain from full access to data, yet the least capability to achieve that access or make use of the data once they have it. the gap is often filled by intermediaries who provide access to data and assist with analysis (sawicki & craig, 1996). universities fill in the role of such intermediaries by empowering community groups to participate fully in planning and policy discussions that affect their neighborhoods. universities, such as uno, play this role of information providers. data democratization leads to better transparency, which allows universities, government, and community leaders to work more cohesively by using better data to enhance decision-making capabilities. for those benefits to occur, buy-in is essential. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23787 | july 20, 2020 118 community partner voices since partners are central in the cepi framework, ensuring community support for this effort was important. after two capstone courses were completed, the engagement measurement committee engaged community partners to solicit feedback. the committee conducted a seminar presentation and six community partner focus groups, reaching more than 50 community organizations. the engagement measurement committee collaborated with the service learning academy and demonstrated the mapping technology for the partners during the service-learning seminar, an annual week-long opportunity to bring community partners to campus with the goal of facilitating engagement. based on this, the committee decided that more in depth focus groups would be valuable. following the seminar, the service learning academy sent out requests for focus group participation to its community partners. the engagement measurement committee doubled the number of scheduled focus groups with the goal of limiting participation to around 10 participants for each focus group. to the extent possible, community feedback was incorporated into the third capstone class’ statement of work. feedback deemed out-of-scope was placed on a roadmap for future development the community partners’ input proved invaluable and provided a refreshing perspective on the framework. while cepi allows for community partners to access data, uno is responsible for data entry. partners confirmed that this was an appropriate approach but wanted to ensure that all collaborations with uno would be reflected in the framework. partners were also positive about the creation of cepi and recognized that it meets an almost universal need, namely the need to demonstrate organizations’ partnerships outreach efforts. furthermore, partners questioned various aspects of the framework. some feedback reflected a reaction to how the framework was set up, including how categories were established, whether they were appropriate, and how their respective organization fit into the categorizations. this feedback led to expansions in our categorizations. transparency was another interest of the community partners. while partners appreciated the information, they critiqued reports that included aggregated data without the ability to drill-down and get to the underlying data. the latest iteration of the technology provides drill-down functionality to aggregated numbers, thus increasing transparency. in addition, responsive to the partners’ feedback, the third capstone class improved the ability for data to be exported to microsoft excel and pdf. much of the feedback was analytical and resulted in discussions on how to recognize complex issues such as partnership sustainability, intensity, and networks. this led to a variety of © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23787 | july 20, 2020 119 innovative analyses within the application. the community partners pushed the committee’s way of thinking by discussing how engagement is becoming more holistic and connects to multiple topics rather one overarching focus area. this resulted in a significant change in the data model and allowed for projects and partnerships to connect to a variety of subcategories and a creation of a holistic score. importantly, the focus groups provided insights on how partners envisioned using the technology to advance their own goals. understanding this vision allows the committee to make development decisions to benefit uno and its community partners. the engagement measurement committee was surprised to learn that despite its primitive stage, community partners were aware of the framework and were utilizing it to some extent. for example, during community partner focus groups, two organizations that are part of the same coalition to advance access to the arts in k-12 schools, discussed how they reviewed the cepi data during a coalition board meeting. the data demonstrated how both organizations were collaborating with uno and the same k-12 school to offer arts programming to that school. based on this, the coalition made the informed decision to expand access to other schools. campus buy-in community engagement breaks down silos. the tracking of community engagement, and the potential design of a systematic framework for visualizing engagement, cannot happen in a silo. campus buy-in is essential in the ability to do institution-wide engagement tracking and analysis. uno’s movement towards systematic partnership data tracking, analysis, and visualizations was based on campus input. first, the initial effort to move towards community partnership tracking was a direct result of the feedback received in the engagement self-assessment. indeed, the basis for tracking partnerships was laid by the assessment participants, which included administrators, college deans, faculty members, and engagement professionals. wilhite and silver (2004) warn that stakeholders can become disengaged if an atmosphere of "pseudo-consultation" exists. in this instance, the campus community believes that although their feedback is solicited, it will not affect decision-making. therefore, it is essential that in each feedback instance input is analyzed and incorporated. the campus community systematically and consistency provided feedback on the cepi framework which was essential to the decisionmaking process. a few efforts of campus input are worth highlighting: first, the engagement mapping efforts were presented at several campus-wide strategic planning forums. in one of the 2017 forums, the audience representing faculty, staff, and students were asked to evaluate a prototype and provide feedback. this resulted in over 100 suggestions and comments. the overwhelming support resulted in the engagement measurement committee’s © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23787 | july 20, 2020 120 efforts in advancing its prototype by working with the capstone students. improvements, based on the suggestions, included: (1) the expansion of dataset with a variety of metrics, including project-level details, student involvement, engagement types, cascading campus partners, and organization types; and (2) incorporating legislative districts as a core component of all maps, visualizations, and reports. additionally, campus participants asked important questions about the equity of partnerships and alluded to potential gaps in partnerships and sustainability of partnerships. while these questions did not have an immediate response, they were placed on a roadmap for further analysis and have been, to some extent, addressed in future iterations of the technology. secondly, the engagement measurement committee was essential in providing strategic input. this committee consisted of representatives from the divisions of academic affairs and student success, and included the community engagement center, service learning academy, and the office of civic and social responsibility, as well as representatives of units with expertise in assessment and evaluation. these units regularly collaborate with campus and community partners, and therefore are well positioned to provide feedback. before every capstone, this committee decided on its primary goals and identified stretch goals for the capstone. after each capstone class was completed, the committee had an opportunity to test the technology, provide user experience feedback, and reassess the various components of the framework. the feedback varied from technological fixes to data model changes, and from implementing logic-based forms to expanding the captured metrics. finally, engaging faculty members for input was non-negotiable. faculty teach service-learning and community-based learning classes, lead engaged research efforts, and mentor students through many curricular and co-curricular engagement opportunities. in partnership with the center for faculty excellence, focus groups and small meetings were scheduled to solicit feedback. the feedback from faculty members provided a unique perspective of the framework. feedback included incorporation of definitions of all metrics, clarification of what should be included and what should be excluded from the database, and the request for faculty recognition within the framework. faculty were also critical of the prospect of adding another reporting layer to their workload and stressed the importance of connecting the framework to faculty activity systems. whereas previous iterations of the framework provided recognition to the units involved in the collaboration, there was no way to capture the faculty and/or staff involved in the project; the newest iteration incorporates this important component. in addition, a user guide was created with expectations on what to include in the application, and definitions were embedded throughout the technology. while we were unable to respond to concerns related to additional reporting requirements immediately, this advancement has been discussed with university © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23787 | july 20, 2020 121 leadership and is recognized as a top priority for future development, as discussed in the sustainability section. the process of allowing stakeholders, whether internal or external, to voice their opinion results in buy-in and commitment. lencioni (2002) explains that the process of creating buy-in through creating opportunity to allow stakeholders to voice their opinions should not be mistaken for a desire for consensus. buy-in grows, in part, when feedback is genuinely solicited in an iterative process and when this feedback is systematically incorporated in the decision-making process, where appropriate. dynamic and inclusive to facilitate campus buy-in, it is important that any data presentation is relevant to specific units. while campus leaders may be interested with the institutional community engagement data, college deans and unit chairs/directors are primarily interested in engagement data relevant to specific units. this means that each map, visualization, chart, table has to be dynamic by incorporating drill-down capabilities to colleges and main units, as well as departments, schools, and campus programs. the ability for each unit to be recognized for its partnerships and collaborations in the framework, in addition to the buy-in process, resulted in various units requesting to enter their data into the cepi framework. further, it is important to recognize the different needs of various internal stakeholders. uno is a decentralized campus in which units conceptualize community engagement in different ways (dodge, starke, smith-howell, & woods, 2019). the engagement dataset should be inclusive and flexible to avoid disengagement from specific campus units. for example, while the majority of the community engagement efforts occurs with nonprofit community partners, there are specific colleges that have expressed the importance of including small businesses as part of the community partnership definition. these colleges facilitate community-based learning for the public good with micro-businesses. by implementing an organization type dimension to the dataset, uno is able to include community engagement efforts with these colleges’ business partners, while still allowing endusers to differentiate (and possibly exclude) specific organization types from the data presentations. therefore, the dataset should be inclusive enough to allow for relevance to all units, while providing data integrity through clear definitions, labeling, and user interactions. audiences it is important to recognize the myriad audiences that could have interest in community engagement and partnership data. the key is to reframe the same information into slightly different presentations relevant to different audiences. for example, filters allow users to drill © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23787 | july 20, 2020 122 down to answer specific questions. each data representation is dynamic and allows for unitspecific drill-down functionality, making the data presentations relevant. in addition, uno has developed specific presentations tailored towards different audiences. for instance, the application embeds legislative districts in reports. the ability to ask questions at the legislative district level is a question most often asked of university leadership and is critical to win support from state and local government officials. data-informed strategic direction once the metrics are institutionalized, the dataset is developed and the basic data representations are visible, with the strategic importance of such frameworks becoming visible (macro-level utility). the analytical structure allows uno to address strategic questions, including the ability to identify strategic alliances, discuss equity in resources and issues addressed, and provide an innovative framework for measuring impact. with the cepi framework, questions that were previously difficult to conceptualize, let alone answer, became attainable, including the ability to analyze social networks and partnership intensity. the issue of partnership intensity has been a point of discussion in the engagement measurement committee, faculty input, and community focus groups. all stakeholders recognize the need to differentiate between low touch vs. high touch and/or sustainable partnerships. for example, if an institution engages with partner x during a one-day volunteer event, that is a different relationship, with different outcomes and impacts, than the relationship with partner y that includes multiple projects, over a longer timeframe, engaging a larger number of different campus units, addressing a multitude of societal issues, and through multiple different types of engagement. analyzing and weighing the importance of these variables is essential to advance from basic metrics to leading indicators of success. strategic questions include the ability to recognize that there are certain societal focuses that the university is more engaged in than others focus areas. this information does not necessarily warrant action or correction; it could be that a particular focus area is of strategic interest to the institution. however, without the data representation and transparency, there cannot be an informed decision. other macro-level questions include gaps in community partners (who is the institution not engaging), equity, and saturation of engagement. sustainability one of the greatest challenges facing engagement-tracking systems is sustainability. while there will be individuals on campus willing to enter data, many will refuse or lose interest in the technology. it is essential that a plan is created to ensure sustainability. application program © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23787 | july 20, 2020 123 interfaces (apis) provide unique opportunities to increase sustainability by connecting the framework with existing systems that may already capture engagement data. mol (2016) warns about survey fatigue amongst university students, a phenomenon reflected in the self-assessment interviews and faculty focus groups. this reinforces the importance of leveraging existing data sources and demonstrating their use prior to requesting new data input. to address this concern, uno created an engagement data inventory that identified engagement data points, definitions, sources, timeframes, and limitations. higher education institutions often require faculty members to enter data into faculty activity technology. while faculty activity software contains important engagement data, it is often underutilized, leading to frustration with faculty members. holton, early, and shaw (2015) reinforce the importance of leveraging faculty activity data. the next step for the engagement measurement committee is to develop data apis that will allow for integration with campus systems, starting with uno’s faculty activity software. not only will such an integration lead to valuable data and increased sustainability, it is also responsive to faculty focus group feedback, which could facilitate buy-in. it is important to recognize that integrating two disparate systems via apis takes work and can be challenging, especially since it requires some technical expertise, but more importantly, it needs buy-in from different levels within an organization. from a technical perspective, integrating different institutional processes and technology systems that have different data frameworks might seem problematic at first glance, but apis have been created precisely to solve this problem and allow multiple systems using different technology stacks and frameworks to work in concert. the latter is more difficult, because it requires organizations to overcome existing culture and behavior challenges, which often have silo mentality; overcoming these requires buy-in at the highest levels within an organization. the architecture of disparate software systems becomes a tangled web of inefficient processes and standalone applications with siloed data points (think automation, 2020). within higher education, there is near universal recognition that insights connected to the toughest challenges are buried in data housed in multiple siloed systems. overcoming this challenge requires a fundamental change in the way an institution thinks about, manages, shares, and applies data to achieve its strategic goals. it takes a sustained investment, strong leadership, and campus-wide buy-in. the key for universities to building something sustainable is to work on “thinking of data as an institutional asset, not a departmental one” (ellucian, 2020). early discussions with the institutions’ information technology departments are advisable to ensure that all stakeholders can place system integration on their respective development roadmaps. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23787 | july 20, 2020 124 apis are driving a new wave of innovation centered on sharing services. industries want to learn more about apis and their potential to transform business processes. in general, apis offer institutions the opportunity to scale and foster innovation while reaching a wider audience (glowtouch, 2016; readwrite, 2008; chomko, 2010; iyer & subramaniam, 2015; little, 2015). furthermore, much of the higher education information technology already incorporates apis. apis are worth the investment if institutions are truly concerned about the sustainability of their framework. institutions should not be asking individuals to enter engagement data in one system and re-enter similar information in another system, as this is a recipe for disengagement. strategic plan integration strategic plans of metropolitan institutions often emphasize community engagement which is a sign of commitment. when designing a framework for tracking community engagement, alignment with the strategic plan and planning process is advisable. the engagement measurement committee conceptualizes this in the following ways: 1) by institutionalizing metrics and targets, and 2) by elevating the relevance of the engagement work through alignments with strategic priorities. depending on the institution, there may or may not be metrics, targets, and benchmarks tied to the community engagement objectives and strategies. most institutions do an abysmal job of monitoring whether they are progressing toward their goals, and many struggle to know if they are on track for a given year. at uno, leadership implemented technology that ties metrics to all strategic planning initiatives. in effect, the technology (uneplan) allows units to align initiatives with the strategic plan and operationalize audacious goals by creating (multi-year) roadmaps with metrics/targets. the desire to institutionalize metrics makes data-driven frameworks (for example cepi) more relevant, as they provide a mechanism to monitor progress, thus increasing accountability. another way of aligning the framework to the strategic plan is by integrating it with campus priorities (holton, early, & shaw, 2015). as indicated by furco (2002), an alignment of engagement to campus priorities demonstrates ‘sustained institutionalization.’ while sustainable commitment to engagement is reflected in mission statements and strategic plans, the role of community engagement should advance as a method for achieving institutional priorities. for example, through the strategic planning process, uno identifies topics to bolster its strategic goals. in 2019, the entire campus rallied behind the completion imperative with the goal of implementing a multitude of initiatives to support students’ pathway towards graduation. in 2020, uno announced six interdisciplinary big ideas of strategic importance to the campus. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23787 | july 20, 2020 125 incorporating these strategic priorities within the framework adds another level of relevance to the community engagement partnership initiative as it allows uno to track its partnership data based on the new priorities. critical reflection uno is not unique in its approach to track and assess partnerships. critical questions may arise regarding the process of creating the technology and its effectiveness. for instance, one might wonder if the creation of such platforms is a good use of university resources. one way of reflecting on this question is by recognizing that universities are at the forefront of technology innovation and have been incubators of many products used in everyday life (e.g. the internet, google). one of the goals of academia is to provide opportunities to explore creating new products, technologies, and platforms that benefit the community at large. furthermore, as reflected in the best practices, the pathway utilized was in fact efficient, cost-effective, and meets a significant institutional need. others may wonder why institutions would build their own platform instead of using a commercial product. for uno, it was important that the creation reflected the best practices described in this article. this includes responsiveness to campus and partner input, data model sustainability and flexibility, and adaptability to support dynamically changing priorities. furthermore, the creation of cepi was grounded in service-learning. one of the considerations with commercial off-the-shelf (cots) products is that they are in either early stages of development or do not meet all the nuanced needs of specific universities and communities. each university has different and specific engagement goals, understandings, and frameworks; building a platform that can meet such a level of customization is a challenge. however, the authors recognize that the creation of a standalone platform can be a significant undertaking and advise institutions to reflect on the efforts done by others, including marketplace products. the most important questions relate to whether the creation of the partnership framework results in behavior changes, either related to data entry or informed decision-making. taking a conservative approach, the answers are unknown at this point, although there are certainly positive indications. from a data entry perspective, community engagement units have entered data resulting in over 400 active partnerships and 1,000 engaged projects. furthermore, other units on campus have expressed interest in entering the data. however, in the absence a full campus-wide rollout and api implementation, the database reflects a limited dataset. from an information consumption perspective, the data has been used in a variety of situations to respond to basic partnership questions (list of partners, number of partners, specific projects by © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23787 | july 20, 2020 126 partners, etc.). more recently, uno started efforts to expand local/regional international experiences. cepi was used to gain a better understanding of existing efforts, including: • what projects (local and beyond) connect to international topics? • who are uno’s international partners? • who are uno’s local and regional community partners that have collaborated on topics related to international engagement? • who are the key campus stakeholders interested in topics related to international engagement? the example referenced earlier in this article of community partners reviewing cepi in board meetings, recognizing duplication of efforts, and changing strategy to collaborate with different partners is an example of strategic, data-driven decision-making. while there are certainly indications that the framework is leading to a desire for data entry, information consumption, and data-driven decisions, in recognition of challenges ahead, it is premature to declare success. conclusion, strategic vision, and next steps implementing a framework for understanding community partnerships provides institutions the ability to move beyond basic metrics into leading indicators of success, while simultaneously visualizing the scope of community engagement. the vision for the community engagement partnership initiative, however, goes beyond basic partnership and project metrics. while tracking partnership/project data is essential, cepi is only a starting point in uno’s ability to measure societal impact. partner interviews and focus groups will be important to assess the roles, process, decision-making, perceptions, and partnership outcomes (driscoll et al., 1996; gelmon et al., 2001). the engagement measurement committee has identified a research agenda that would leverage the existing cepi dataset. the goal is to connect qualitative research methods to the existing cepi dataset leading to quantifiable outcomes by dataset dimensions, including geographical location, legislative district, focus area, types of engagement, and others. community partners have expressed interest in participating in interviews and/or focus groups to facilitate this process. higher education institutions should move towards the systematic and strategic tracking and visualization of their community engagement. the incentive to do this might differ by institution, although it will often be a combination of several factors, including: 1) the urge to demonstrate the value proposition of higher education, or respond to allegations or the lack thereof; 2) the curiosity to understand the impact is of the institution’s community engagement efforts, for example on a particular societal issue, location and/or district, or partner; and 3) the desire to be © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23787 | july 20, 2020 127 strategic about community engagement through informed decision-making for example related to gaps, avoidance of duplication, saturation, and alliances. at the 2019 philadelphia coalition of urban and metropolitan universities (cumu), three institutions presented homegrown systems that allow for community engagement tracking and reporting. the three institutions, the university of nebraska at omaha, the university of pittsburgh, and georgetown university, recognized the need and the existing gaps in institutions’ ability to systematically track and visualize community engagement. the support expressed by the audiences indicates that other institutions struggle with similar questions. the authors recognize that the approach and solutions outlined in this article is one among many. every institution has its own processes and systems, which have several unique facets, and no one solution can address all of these. the challenge faced today is the lack of an agreed upon common framework and ontology as it relates to data for community engagement and servicelearning. the authors encourage institutions to explore other approaches and solutions, including available options in the marketspace or potentially creating a homegrown solution that fits the institution’s needs. an institution’s data journey should be one that engages a variety of stakeholders at various stages and recognizes that priorities may shift; systems, therefore, must be flexible and easily adaptable. uno’s roadmap to the cepi framework was not without challenges. many of the best practices described were in response to those challenges. cepi started as a signature initiative of the engagement measurement committee and developed into a formalized framework based on campus input, buy-in, and desired new features. cepi’s progression from a prototype to a formalized framework took deliberate effort and time, and scaling it up further can only be sustained with institutional investments. while uno, the university of pittsburgh, and georgetown university have moved towards a formalized framework of tracking and visualizing community engagement, institutions should start their own journey. though formal structures are advantageous, they are not a prerequisite to engagement tracking. uno built multiple prototypes and relied on informal data collection mechanisms, including excel spreadsheets and ad-hoc data requests, before creating this structure. informal mechanisms are an appropriate starting point and require few investments. whether formal or informal, institutions should recognize that tracking partnership data is an essential step towards measuring community impact. higher education institutions are hubs for innovation, collaborations, and positive societal impacts. it is, indeed, part of our social contract and our collective ability to demonstrate these outcomes is in our strategic interest. © the author 2020. 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(2006). university-community engagement in australia: practice, policy and public good, sage journal – education, citizenship and social justice, doi: 10.1177/1746197906064675 metropolitan universities vol. 30 no. 1 (february 2019), doi: 10.18060/22412 17 philadelphia anchors for growth and equity: applying the lean startup methodology to build a financially sustainable anchor collaborative mariya khandros abstract as poverty and inequality continue to plague american cities, universities and hospitals are looking for ways to leverage their role as community anchors to address these issues. local procurement programs have emerged as one way for institutions to build local wealth and create jobs. in order to increase the impact of individual institutions, many cities are creating placebased collaboratives to amplify the impact of individual anchors. however, because collaboratives focus on systems-level change, which can take many years to achieve, they frequently struggle to raise and sustain necessary levels of funding. this article outlines how the principles of a lean startup methodology, an approach that focuses on gradual growth using validated learning, can be utilized to build financially sustainable anchor collaboratives and identify the most effective strategies for local purchasing. the article provides an overview the philadelphia local purchasing landscape. the author defines the lean startup methodology and looks at the application of the methodology through the lens of philadelphia’s local purchasing collaborative, philadelphia anchors for growth and equity at the economy league of greater philadelphia. the goal of this article is to share a strategic planning framework that could be useful in creating effective local purchasing collaboratives. keywords: strategic planning; local purchasing; collective impact; best practices; case study introduction although philadelphia has been experiencing population and economic growth for the last 10 years, more than a quarter of its population still lives in poverty (pew charitable trust, 2017). one of the reasons that economic growth has not seeped into pockets of poverty is that new jobs are largely concentrated on opposite poles of the skills spectrum: low-wage and low-skill positions or high-skilled, white-collar positions, which are out of reach for philadelphia hard-toemploy residents. largely absent are middle-skill jobs with a career path. at the same time, philadelphia’s economy is anchored by a robust sector of large, nonprofit ‘edsand-meds’ institutions. with a few exceptions, these institutions are located in zip codes characterized by high rates of poverty and unemployment, anchored in place by campuses and state-of-the-art medical buildings. for many anchor institutions, addressing philadelphia’s poverty not only aligns with their mission, but also could lead to improved community relationships, easier employee attraction, and increased safety. collectively, these institutions spend billions of dollars on an array of goods and services, mostly outside of philadelphia. channeling a fraction of this spend locally, could catalyze the growth of local businesses and the creation of jobs that could provide a pathway out of poverty. 18 in 2018, the economy league of greater philadelphia launched philadelphia anchors for growth and equity (page). the league created a partnership between the economy league, the city of philadelphia and more than a dozen philadelphia-area institutions. this alliance works to capture a portion of this procurement spend locally in order to grow philadelphia businesses, strengthen the local economy, create middle-skill, living wage jobs, and build wealth. preliminary research completed by the office of the city controller informed the initiative. this article summarizes the preliminary research that provided the momentum for the launch, provides an asset and gap analysis of the philadelphia landscape, explains the lean startup methodology and outlines the strategic plan for scaling up page. this strategic plan serves as a case study for applying the framework of the "lean start up" methodology to developing sustainable anchor collaboratives. although the landscape analysis in the early part of the report is particular to philadelphia, others can easily apply a similar approach, used here to complete the landscape analysis and create the strategic plan, to many other initiatives and municipalities. the lean startup approach provides a path for starting a project on a limited budget and defining clear metrics to guide the project’s growth in terms of scope and resources. preliminary research: defining the opportunity and assessing feasibility as a first step, it was critical to establish whether an adequate localization opportunity existed prior to investing resources into a new initiative. it was also critical to determine whether anchors were ready, willing and able to participate in the work. the philadelphia city controller’s office took the lead in studying the potential of a local anchor procurement strategy for philadelphia. in 2014, the city controller concluded that local hospitals and universities purchase a total of $5.3 billion in non-salary spending, but only 52% of that amount is spent locally (office of the city controller, 2014). however, one cannot assume that the remaining $2.8 billion can localized. for example, an mri machine can cost over a million dollars, but no mri manufacturers exist in philadelphia and starting up a new manufacturer borders on the impossible. for this reason, the controller’s 2015 report used actual purchasing data from local anchor institutions and compared it to the survey of local manufacturing capacity. the report concluded that out of $531 million in funds available in sectors where philadelphia had capacity (food, medical services, medical and surgical appliances, building services, among others), only 19% was spent locally (office of the controller, 2015). increasing this spend by just 25% could result in over 5,000 direct and indirect jobs (office of the controller, 2015). having demonstrated the size of the local purchasing opportunity, a central question remained. would local anchors be willing to participate in this initiative? in order to answer this question, the controller’s office began convening quarterly meetings with procurement directors from several the major non-profit education and healthcare institutions to discuss ways that they could increase local purchasing. early results exceeded expectations. the institutions demonstrated willingness to commit staff time, share information, and think creatively about ways to localize their purchasing. the controller’s team also learned that there could be a strong business case for local procurement; for example, many hospitals send all of their medical laundry out of state, resulting in unnecessary fuel costs and increased risk of interruption to the supply chain. a local 19 medical laundry would not only create local jobs but could also reduce costs for anchors. these early meetings confirmed earlier research findings and encouraged the controller to move forward with implementation. gap analysis: assessing the assets and gaps in the philadelphia landscape in order to develop a plan for philadelphia’s local purchasing initiative, the controller’s staff compiled a list of elements and best practices necessary for creating anchor purchasing collaboratives from institutions such as the democracy collaborative, initiative for a competitive inner city and the anchor institution task force. this list was used assess the local business landscape (supply-side), anchor institutions (demand-side), major suppliers such as aramark, staples, vizient or premier, which can represent as much as 80% of an institution's spend (supply chain integrators) and the presence of any convening or backbone organizations. overall, philadelphia has most of the key ingredients to implement a successful local procurement initiative. the most notable gap was the absence of a local backbone organization. because of the landscape analysis, the city controller’s staff began a search for a suitable nonprofit to serve as an anchor collaborative backbone organization, resulting in page’s relocation to the economy league of greater philadelphia. the following section provides a detailed look at the gap assessment. local business landscape (supply) the first step was to establish and quantify the business opportunity within industries utilized by anchor institutions. as was mentioned previously, there is at least $530 million of capacity within philadelphia’s existing manufacturing sector (office of the controller, 2015). in particular, the controller’s report identified eight sectors with capacity to serve anchors: hvac products, electrical equipment, furniture, facility commodities, medical equipment, laboratory equipment, paper products, and office supplies. subsequent work with anchors has identified food and medical services as additional opportunity spaces. finding capable businesses is an important first step. however, using local purchasing to catalyze new business growth could produce an even deeper impact. the next part of the landscape assessment looked at technical assistance and capital provision, both critical to the creation and growth of businesses. philadelphia is rich in resources when it comes to capacity building. the city is home to a variety of support structures for growing businesses. these range from university-based small business development centers to nationally recognized nonprofits. just a few of them are the enterprise center, philadelphia industrial development corporation (pidc), the reinvestment fund (trf), local initiatives support corporation (lisc), and finanta to business groups such as the greater philadelphia chamber of commerce (gpcc), the delaware valley industrial resource center (dvirc), and the sustainable business network (office of the controller, 2015). these organizations offer a variety of programs to help small businesses working with large, institutional clients: advising businesses on questions of legal structure, bonding and insurance, writing an rfp, and managing cash flow. however, the biggest service gap was the fact that no 20 programs connected businesses to new contracts, upon completion of their programs. a backbone organization or a local purchasing collaborative could fill that gap. as with technical assistance, there are many sources of funding in philadelphia. this, however, does not mean that there is sufficient funding. generally, philadelphia tends to lag other major cities in terms of funding. according to a survey done by daily business news, respondents considered lack of access to funds to be the number one barrier to small business success in philadelphia (uzialko, 2016). according to the sustainable business network (2011), an average philadelphia cdfi has $4 million in loans available to businesses, compared to the national average of $12.5 million. according to a more recent report by pew, philadelphia ranks thirteenth in the nation for venture capital invested, despite being the 6th most populous city (pew charitable trust, 2017). without a comprehensive capital scan, one can make only general statements about business funding in philadelphia, but there is sufficient reason to expect that access to capital will be one of the challenges in the anchor procurement space. anchor institution landscape (demand) there are 34 traditional anchors (hospitals and universities) located in philadelphia, with a total annual operating budget of about $14 billion, of which about 38 percent, or $5.3 billion, is nonpayroll spending and therefore represents procurement opportunities for which a local vendor might be utilized. of that $5.3 billion in annual procurement opportunities, according to a 2014 report by the philadelphia controller, currently about 52 percent, or $2.7 billion, goes to goods and services from local vendors (office of the controller, 2014). in terms of community engagement, there is a significant range, based on interest, mission and available resources. although university of pennsylvania’s community engagement efforts have been the most widely recognized, almost every hospital and university in philadelphia has made efforts to connect with and serve their neighborhoods. the controller’s report detailed many examples of local engagement by drexel university, temple university, thomas jefferson university hospital, and the community college of philadelphia, among others (office of the controller, 2015). more recently, children’s hospital of pennsylvania opened the south philadelphia community health and literacy center, an innovative health, literacy and recreation center in 2016, providing another example of anchor investment in the local communities (sapatkin, 2016). since the publication of the controller’s 2015 report, the most critical development in terms of anchor procurement has been the launch of philadelphia anchors for growth and equity, with funding from the city of philadelphia, children’s hospital of philadelphia, drexel university, university of pennsylvania and health system, temple university and health system, and thomas jefferson university and health system. the institutions’ early willingness to support financially the page initiativeclearly demonstrated their investment in local procurement work. other institutions participating in page include the community college of philadelphia, einstein healthcare network, la salle university, peirce college, saint joseph’s university, salus university and the university of the sciences. 21 in order to understand procurement from the anchor institutions’ perspective, the city controller’s office distributed a survey to all of the anchors listed above to learn about barriers, motivations and steps that anchors have taken to localize procurement. the survey yielded several interesting findings. barriers first, even when anchors are willing to participate in local purchasing, they face a variety of barriers external and internal, including a perceived lack of local companies with sufficient capacity, decentralized purchasing practices, high insurance, and bonding requirements required by their legal departments. furthermore, the practice of issuing contract bids and rfps to a small pre-screened group of companies excludes many potential local vendors. moreover, managers had already encumbered up to 80 percent of an anchor’s expenditures in long-term contracts with supply chain integrators, which are major companies such as aramark or staples that aggregated products and services from many smaller vendors. this places an intermediary between the institutions and their suppliers. benefits to anchors while anchors participate in local procurement as a social impact initiative to improve the economy of their surrounding neighborhoods, the survey sought to identify specific benefits that anchors might receive from participating. in this regard, the vast majority (82%) stated that this work helps them become the ‘provider of choice’ for their community. other benefits included meeting community-engagement goals, addressing the social determinants of health, increasing the number of competitive rfp bids and introducing flexibility into supply chains. fifty-four percent of anchors surveyed also see local purchasing as a way to meet the diversity and inclusion requirements of certain federal grants. best practices implementation when it comes to local purchasing, most anchors have made significant headway in implementing national best practices. most have completed a spending analysis, engaged all levels of staff and leadership, and improved some part of their bidding processes. however, areas for improvement persist. these include setting concrete goals, adding local purchasing staff and continuing to improve the bidding process. the following is a summary of findings from the best practices survey: • defining local: 55% of anchors consider the city of philadelphia as local, 27% use a “concentric” approach, with greater preference given to location closer to the anchor, while 18% have another approach, such as an immediate neighborhood. • analyzing spend: 91% of respondents completed an independent purchasing analysis. • local targets: only two anchors reported setting specific local purchasing goals. • leadership buy-in: half of the survey respondents say that either executive leadership (25%) or senior management (25%) is championing local procurement. 31% of respondents say the role falls to middle management, while staff is the driving force for local purchasing at 19% of institutions. 22 • staffing changes: 36% of anchors created a new position in the procurement or the diversity and community outreach departments, 18% performed training with existing staff and 45% made no changes. • engaging staff: when it comes to engaging employees who are not actively working on local or diverse purchasing, most respondents have no plan or resort to passive information sharing, rather than the more effective approach of training. to maintain staff engagement, 30% use communication such as announcements or newsletters, 30% perform ongoing training, while 40% do neither. • incentivizing localization: 36% of anchors use only cost-reduction benchmarks to incentivize their staff. forty-five percent use qualitative metrics, while the rest use a different approach. nine percent reported changing performance metrics to accommodate for local procurement. however, some respondents pointed out that in cases where supervisors use qualitative criteria to evaluate performance, incentives may not be a barrier to local purchasing. • rfp processes: modifying the bidding process to create room for local companies is critical to promote local purchasing. philadelphia anchors report accelerating payment processes (18%), adding requirements to include local firms in every bid (18%), or ensuring that rfp announcements include local participation (9%). 55% did not amend the process. several commented that they also include requirements for local subcontractors in rfps. • other actions: o thirty-six percent adjusted current it systems to support local purchasing. o another thirty-six percent organized seminars for local businesses about the rfp process. o thirty-six percent also collaborated with other organizations to promote local purchasing initiative (e.g. other anchors, local chambers of commerce, capacitybuilding nonprofits). o twenty-seven percent made announcements to the local community to increase awareness and solicit bids. o nine percent created or funded targeted capacity building programs for local suppliers. the fact that most philadelphia anchors have begun to implement many local purchasing best practices is the survey’s most encouraging finding. institutions are engaging staff and thinking creatively about ways to bring in more local companies. next, institutions should continue building on progress in areas such as staff training and modifications to the bidding process, while addressing larger gaps, such as encouraging anchors to add dedicated staff, adjust incentives, and set concrete goals. a capable backbone organization might reliably provide some of these functions. major suppliers landscape (supply chain integrators) the anchor survey showed that frequently the majority of an anchor’s spend is not direct, but rather channeled through supply chain integrators (scis). a comprehensive local purchasing strategy will need to engage scis in local purchasing efforts. 23 according to the anchor survey, more than half (55%) of the anchors establish minority/majority partnerships between a local firm that acts as the customer service "middleman" providing services such as desktop delivery and fulfilling emergency orders, with the large national sci contributing their extensive catalog to the partnership. for example, office depot uses a local tier i distributor, telrose corporation. in 2017, emsco (a local lab supply company) and thermo-fisher scientific formalized a relationship to serve the university of pennsylvania. other common engagement strategies included encouraging scis to open a local facility (27%), amending rfp language to require local subcontracts and report on local spend (18%). only one anchor has reported unbundling contracts (breaking contracts up into smaller pieces to be more accessible to smaller suppliers). the primary takeaway is that in order to engage scis, anchors must invite them to the table. as major clients, anchors wield considerable power; this is another reason why a collaborative structure will produce more impactful results than individual institutional efforts. if an sci hears that purchasing local is important to several of their clients, rather than just one, they will invest more significantly in developing “buy local” strategies. backbone organization landscape (connecting supply and demand) the biggest gap identified by the landscape assessment has been an absence of a backbone organization to coordinate an anchor collaborative. a backbone organization is a neutral convener that builds a network of anchors, businesses and support organizations; creates a common definition of local; researches and reports on best practices and facilitates matchmaking between the supply of local businesses and anchor demand (burnett 2013). prior to page, there was no operating collaborative in philadelphia. for several years, the greater philadelphia chamber of commerce had convened the supplier network, which discontinued because of the difficulty of matching up interested small businesses with the right anchor opportunity (philadelphia chamber of commerce, 2017). two institutes at the university of pennsylvania, the institute for urban research and the netter center for community engagement have done research and created toolkits to help anchors engage in the community, but neither has taken an active organizing role (mott, 2013). the philadelphia area collegiate cooperative is a proto-gpo, with members negotiating jointly to buy commodities such as bottled water and lab supplies at a lower cost. however, this group purchasing effort aims primarily to reduce costs, rather than any localization efforts (association of independent colleges, 2017). university city district, an anchor-funded special services district, has engaged institutions in the west philadelphia neighborhood, but not the entire city. based on the criteria an effective backbone organization, the economy league of greater philadelphia is a natural for the role of a neutral convener. the economy league has a long history of addressing critical issues facing greater philadelphia by providing impactful research, connecting diverse leaders, and advancing shared solutions. a board of about 60 of the region's leading firms and institutions oversees the economy league, giving it the staff, experience, reach, and reputation for independence to perform the functions required by a backbone organization. for these reasons, in march of 2018, the economy league launched philadelphia anchors of philadelphia of growth and equity, based on the research and groundwork 24 completed by the philadelphia city controller (khandros, 2018). the resulting strategic plan guides the development of the initiative within the economy league over the next several years following the official launch. lean startup methodology philadelphia possesses most of the critical assets necessary for the success of the philadelphia anchors of philadelphia of growth and equity. however, by far the biggest outstanding need has been a convening or backbone organization; though several attempts have been made, none have lasted. local purchasing initiatives face two particular challenges that can result in failure. first, although local procurement best practices are standard, the backbone organizations that implement them are not. for example, in chicago, the initiators had raised all necessary funding before the launch of chicago anchors for a strong economy (case), while cleveland did not create the evergreen backbone organization until after two cooperative businesses had been launched. each city requires a unique approach and arriving at that approach requires trial and error. this means that an effective collaborative has to incorporate failing forward into its strategy, so that the failure of one approach to local purchasing does not translate into the failure of the whole initiative. the second related challenge is that collaboratives must maintain credibility with their funders as they experiment and, in many cases, fail. the best way to do this is to scale slowly, only growing funding after an experimental strategy has proven to be successful. based on these parameters, the lean startup methodology proved to be the most fitting management philosophy for page’s strategic plan. lean startup is an approach that focuses on gradual growth using validated learning and provides a framework for selecting the most productive ideas out of a wide field of contenders. the lean startup methodology, developed by eric ries, applies lean manufacturing concepts in order to address a staggering 75% failure rate among startups (blank, 2013). it has revolutionized management thinking about launching new ventures. prior to ries’ groundbreaking work, many startups followed the ‘stealth mode’ approach: raise all possible funding, perfect the product in secret, and launch with a big splash. this approached minimized the risk of idea theft, but it left companies vulnerable to assumptions made in their business plans. one wrong estimate could—and often did—spell crushing defeat. instead, ries advocates for validated learning by creating several iterations of a minimum viable product (mvp), the simplest version of the product that allows a company to market test its underlying assumptions (ries, 2011). the mvp can be a ‘duct tape and paper clips’ solution that does the bare minimum to meet product requirements on the lowest possible budget. the mvp should then be thoroughly vetted with potential customers, to gather feedback and learn whether the product is indeed viable, or if the company should pivot and try again. using the feedback, the creators can invest more resources to create the next version. this iterative method makes it easier to raise funding at each stage, because each previous step demonstrates the value of the product. ries (2011) calls this cycle of creating, evaluating and updating a product the ‘build-measure-learn’ cycle. 25 the four main lean startup tenets that drive philadelphia’s strategy are as follows: • steady growth: in its final form, the backbone organization will need significant technical and staff capacity to support high levels of local anchor purchasing. however, rather than fundraising to reach that capacity all at once, philadelphia’s backbone organization should scale up slowly, learning at each step so as not to outgrow available resources. • clearly defined theories: each growth phase needs to be associated with learning a specific lesson. each phase should start with a clear theory to test. • meaningful metrics: rather than settling for “vanity metrics”, metrics should accurately demonstrate the success or failure of a particular theory. • disciplined approach: if an initiative is not producing clear results and sustained growth, the startup should discontinue it. do not settle for mediocre growth. setting goals ries introduces a valuable concept of distinguishing between “vanity metrics” and actionable metrics when setting goals. vanity metrics are measures easily made to show an illusion of progress, without communicating meaningful information; in the page context, a vanity metric might be the number of anchors participating in the initiative. in contrast, an actionable metric demonstrates progress towards a goal, such as new contracts awarded to local businesses. to determine the best metrics, one should begin with the end goals in mind. what is the vision for philadelphia? discussions with stakeholders have yielded three general mission-related goals: • reduce poverty (via job creation); • improve racial equity (via wealth building); • improve the bottom line for anchor institutions. in order to demonstrate its value to funders, supporters and stakeholders, page has to demonstrate its ability to meet these four goals. demonstrating that ability requires translating the vague goals into actionable metrics that can be impacted by an increase in local purchasing. goal 1: reduce poverty measuring the creation of living-wage jobs serves as the best proxy for poverty reduction. with a poverty rate of twenty-six percent, approximately 400,000 philadelphians live below the poverty line, of which roughly 210,000 are working-age adults (pew charitable trust, 2017). to reduce the number of adults in poverty by one percent, the city needs to create 2,100 living-wage jobs. the philadelphia city controller estimates that for every $100 million in additional local spending, roughly 5,200 jobs or 1,200 direct and 4,000 indirect jobs will result (office of the controller, 2015). chicago anchors for a strong economy (case) estimates that 4 jobs are created for every million dollars in additional local spend. the discrepancy is likely due to the fact that case estimates do not include indirect jobs. page will use the average of the estimates by case and the philadelphia controller (1 new direct job and 1.5 new indirect jobs for every $150,000 of new local spending) to track its poverty reduction impact. 26 goal 2: improve racial equity via wealth-building while page is not able to build wealth in terms of pension or investments, it can do so by supporting minority entrepreneurs with procurement contracts. a simple measure for wealth building is the total contract dollars channeled to certified minority-owned firms. one way to approach goal setting is to compare the number of contract dollars directed to historically disadvantaged enterprises to the number of such "ready, willing and able" enterprises in the msa. according to the 2017 disparity study released by the philadelphia city office of economic opportunity, "ready, willing and able" m/w/dsbes in philadelphia represented 26.3% of all businesses; that number should be used for setting the minimum purchasing for page, with the potential for setting more ambitious goals as the project develops (annual disparity study, 2017). goal 3: create sustainability through bottom-line impact although the principal reason for most anchors to participate in local procurement initiatives relates to mission, in the long term a successful initiative must wed social and bottom-line impact. an economic downturn or a major legislative change (such as the repeal of the affordable care act) could place significant budgetary pressures on anchors, leaving programs that do not justify themselves on a cost-benefit basis vulnerable. thus, in order to ensure sustainability of the philadelphia anchors of philadelphia of growth and equity, leaders must make a business case for local purchasing. this can be done in several ways. in the most direct way, this means that every new business added to the supply chain must either improve the anchors’ financial bottom line or provide value in another form (for example through better service or increased convenience). to track this goal, as spending data arrives from various institutions, management should compare it against spending prior to the initiative, and against spending amounts afterwards on categories where they connected with local suppliers. interviews with anchors should supplement this information. the goal, in this case, should be either lower or flat costs for targeted categories. indirect benefits such as increased safety, improved employee and student recruitment, ease of meeting grant requirements and improvement of neighborhood can also be included in the business case through measures such as reduced security costs, reductions in recruiting and training expenses or administrative expenses. each of the four goals has implications for the operation of page. the poverty reduction goal implies the creation of a ‘first source’ hiring policy that privileges hard-to-employ philadelphians as new jobs are created. valuing racial equity means running the localization work in a way that helps, rather than hinders, existing supplier diversity initiatives. improvement of local economy means that while contracts with local anchors will make a big impact, the longer-term goal is to utilize local demand to create opportunities for local firms to win larger contracts with scis, thus resulting in the export of local goods and services beyond philadelphia. the sustained increase in local purchasing implies that this has to make business sense. that in turn implies that local companies have to be able to compete on the merit of their price, product, and service, and anchor institutions as well as their major scis have to embed local purchasing into their standard 27 business practices. these implications combined with best practices research from national procurement initiatives form the framework for the strategic plan. the backbone organization should monitor these goals and evaluate each initiative against them. a strategic plan for increasing anchor procurement in philadelphia the strategic plan’s structure conceives of three areas of work. the section that covers the backbone organization discusses how page grew from an informal convening to a formal initiative housed at the economy league of greater philadelphia. the supply section presents strategies that page staff will use to identify capable local businesses and grow new businesses to capacity. finally, the demand section discusses actions that anchors can take to increase their demand for local goods. each of the sections roughly corresponds to the build-measure-learn cycle of the lean startup methodology. building a backbone organization to connect supply and demand expectation: philadelphia’s biggest resource gap has been the absence of an organization committed to working exclusively on localizing anchor procurement. in the first iteration of this project, page began as an informal operation out of the city controller’s office as an early market test to find out whether local anchors would work cooperatively, share information and shift their procurement practices to create opportunities for local purchasing. if the anchors found this work valuable, they would ultimately be willing to provide seed funding for the launch of the program. process: page started by convening purchasing officers from philadelphia’s major nonprofit education and medical institutions under the auspices of the city controller’s office. the earliest evidence of the anchors’ willingness to cooperate was the near-perfect attendance at the meetings. institutions were open, cooperative and creative when it came to making suggestions for ways to localize purchasing. when the city controller proposed an in-depth study to quantify the potential economic impact of an effective anchor procurement strategy, the largest anchor institutions shared comprehensive purchasing data sets. measure and learn: once page evolved from a research concept to a program, it outgrew the city controller’s policy unit and needed to move to a new organizational home, which would require participating anchors to step in as investors in the program. because the institutions saw value in the approach, the city of philadelphia’s commerce department, children’s hospital of philadelphia, drexel university, temple university and health system, thomas jefferson university and health system and the university of pennsylvania and penn medicine all financial commitments to page, providing the seed capital to begin implementation. following the launch, it will be critical to keep track of the return on investment. long-term sustainability will require proof that donated funds are translating into local jobs paying a living wage, increased tax revenues, and benefits for participating anchors. it will be tempting to focus on vanity metrics such as membership or website traffic but discipline in evaluating success will be required for long-term viability. the rest of the plan focuses on strategies for page to achieve these goals. 28 finding, growing and building capable local businesses (supply) in order to localize anchor purchasing effectively, page needs to create a steady pipeline of anchor businesses. the first step is to identify capable businesses and connect them to anchor opportunities. page will test several strategies to identify capable businesses. these include identifying and sharing lists of current anchor suppliers and creating a capacity screening mechanism to evaluate businesses that do not have recommendations from major clients. next, page will look for ways to grow businesses to capacity by creating shared service solutions for hospitals and connecting businesses to capacity building programs. finally, page will look for ways to catalyze the creation or attraction of new businesses. capturing existing capacity strategy: create a database of local businesses with capacity. expectation: during informational interviews, several procurement directors expressed a desire to see a comprehensive directory of all qualified, local businesses to facilitate their localization efforts. this phase will test the hypothesis that one of the reasons that anchors do not use local businesses is that they do not have a comprehensive list of capable businesses. build: page staff will collect lists of existing, local suppliers serving anchors, and compile them into a searchable database. staff may enhance this list with additional businesses from local business support organization. the ‘minimum viable product’ will be an excel or an airtable database, but as the backbone organization grows, the list should expand into an easily accessible online platform. measure: as far as measurement, businesses with new contracts or new revenue and new jobs are useful metrics of success. growth and change in database usage patterns will be another indicator of success or failure; for example, if growth plateaus too soon that is a likely indicator that anchors reviewed the database, but ultimately did not find it useful. learn: two lessons are critical during this phase. first, the controller’s 2015 report identified eight industries with capacity to serve anchors by looking at high-level manufacturing data. compiling a list of actual companies will test the report’s conclusions in practice by determining whether companies with capacity exist and can meet anchor needs. second, creating a comprehensive list of local companies will test the initial assumption that anchors do not use local businesses due to a lack of information. if sharing this information with anchors does not produce meaningful results, the page team will investigate further barriers to local purchasing. strategy: screen new companies for capacity this structure can also inform the second strategy for identifying capable businesses: developing a capacity screening mechanism for businesses. if the expectation is that a screening mechanism will effectively identify capable businesses, then a higher percentage of screened businesses 29 should successfully compete for anchor contracts, as compared to those unscreened. the mechanism can be refined over time via the ‘build-measure-learn’ cycle. growing promising businesses strategy: work with existing entrepreneurs to create shared services expectation: anchors are willing to cooperate with each other, but competitive pressures have prevented potential joint projects from moving forward. an external convener will be able to bring competitive institutions to the table over non-competitive or commodity products and services. build: during meetings in 2015 and 2016, procurement directors identified medical laundry as a potential opportunity for localization. several of the hospitals were shipping all of their laundry (nearly 20 million pounds) out of state to maryland and new jersey, because there are no medical laundry facilities in philadelphia. this practice added unnecessary fuel costs and risk to the supply chain. building a local laundry would create as many as 100 jobs and reduce cost and risks for the participating hospitals. a local entrepreneur considered, but eventually passed on the opportunity, and page is currently in the process of identifying a company interested in taking advantage of this opportunity, as well as convening investors, real estate companies and support organizations. the medical laundry will be the first test case for joint projects strategy. measure: with joint projects catalyzed by page, the measure of success will be whether the project (e.g. medical laundry) goes forward and achieves financial sustainability. local jobs created will be another measure of effectiveness. learn: anchors have already identified several other promising joint endeavors, including a medical supplies sterilization plant, kit and tray assembly, and a local produce processing center. the success of these projects will hinge on the willingness of anchor institutions to commit a critical volume of spending to catalyze the creation of a new project. it will be important to test if, following the initial brainstorming stage, anchors commit resources to the creation of a given project. strategy: provide capacity building, capital and workforce training to help promising companies reach capacity. the landscape analysis demonstrated that many business-support organizations in philadelphia could provide consulting services, low-interest financing, as well as a trained workforce via a variety of training organizations. if in the process of identifying capable entrepreneurs, the page team finds promising companies that are not yet large enough to serve anchors, the team can connect them to capacity-building programs. the page team should measure the effectiveness of these programs by seeing whether companies reach the requisite capacity upon completing the training. 30 building new capacity expectation: once existing businesses have connected to anchors, and companies that could and wanted to shift direction have taken advantage of existing opportunities, the remaining step is the creation of entirely new businesses. build: there are two possible approaches. first, page may take the approach of evergreen cooperatives and facilitate the creation of cooperatives or other forms of employee ownership (e.g. esops) that can source a high volume of cheap commodities or provide basic services for anchors while building community wealth. another approach would be the one recommended by the brookings institution: to use the research dollars and purchasing power of anchors to incubate innovative technology and health start-ups. page could collaborate with the university science center to pursue this business-creation approach. measure and learn: at this stage, the page team will test will whether page’s existing programming can facilitate the creation of new businesses. in the short term, the attraction of entrepreneurs to opportunity spaces discovered by page will indicate success. in the long term, total jobs, years to reach profitability, total new investment dollars and revenues created will help provide the measure of success for the initiative. shifting the purchasing behavior of anchors (demand) expanding local supply is an important step to increasing local procurement, but the internal systems work done by anchors will be critical as well. fortunately, philadelphia anchors have already shown extensive commitment. the first step recommended by best practices literature, a detailed analysis of institutional spending, most of the anchors have already completed. additionally, by committing staff time to the controller’s quarterly meetings, anchors have identified several joint projects, shared information about their largest vendors and provided survey data about internal barriers. the institutions have also enabled the continuation of this work by funding page at the economy league. to build on this preliminary work, anchors should implement local purchasing best practices to reduce barriers and increase the number of contract opportunities for local businesses. the survey issued by the city controller can help provide the baseline for policies that they should implement. in the spirit of the lean startup methodology, the economy league has divided best practices into easy-to-implement, medium and challenging. anchors should begin with the easiest to implement policy changes, to demonstrate their effectiveness, and build up to more complex shifts after securing deeper buy-in with leadership and staff. setting goals and communicating the commitment to local purchasing expectation: the act of setting goals and communicating them internally and externally should yield early results in terms of increased local purchasing. build: first, it is critical to build support for page within each anchor institution. anchors can begin financially supporting a backbone organization through fees or in-kind support. 31 next, anchors should set concrete local purchasing goals and share them with all levels of staff, and every purchasing decision maker, including departments beyond procurement such as information technology, facilities and legal departments. securing their buy-in can help further organizational procurement goals. finally, they could also hire or assign a dedicated staff person to coordinate local purchasing efforts. anchors should also communicate these goals externally to current scis and other large vendors, via a group letter or meeting. for an added level of accountability, anchors should add local purchasing language into new rfps. measure: setting concrete spend goals will allow anchors to measure the effectiveness of local purchasing strategies. additionally, this is the time to develop a policy checklist based on national best practices and to determine how an institution’s internal policies compare, and set policy implementation goals as well. learn: this phase will serve as a litmus test for internal buy-in, and for the openness of an anchors’ major suppliers. if institutional leaders receive considerable push-back, they should use the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of institutional barriers to local purchasing and develop strategies to address those barriers. making improvements to the rfp process expectation: the biggest internal barrier and consequently most important change an anchor can make is improving the rfp process. build: following on the changes from the first phase, anchors can deepen their commitment by improving the rfp process. they can start by regularly sharing data with page and providing a forecast of upcoming contract opportunities. they can provide an option for accelerated payment or work with capital provision agencies to ensure cash-strapped businesses have access to bridge capital. lastly, anchors can commit to adding at least one local company to the list of vendors invited to participate in a bid or making rfps public. an even deeper level of commitment would be to invite local vendors to participate in shaping the rfp to maximize their chances of meeting the requirements. measure: measures of success for amending the rfp process can include total dollars and number of contracts flipped to local companies. learn: page staff have identified many potential barriers to local purchasing. addressing each of them in turn will allow stakeholders to determine which produce meaningful outcomes and significantly increase local purchasing, and discard the strategies that sound impactful, but do not produce results. 32 engaging supply chain integrators expectation: supply chain integrators (scis) are companies that aggregate the goods and services of smaller providers and sell them as a bundled contract. for example, staples and office depot do not manufacture printers, paper and other office supplies; instead, they aggregate products and service offerings from hundreds of small suppliers into a catalog, streamlining purchasing decisions for their large clients. as has been mentioned earlier, a comprehensive local purchasing strategy needs to incorporate scis, because they frequently comprise more than half of all purchasing done by anchors. in order to sell to philadelphia anchors, many local businesses will need to become suppliers for scis first. build: there are three main strategies for engaging supply chain integrators. the first is working with them to establish minority/ majority or tier i/ tier ii relationships with a local firm. the second is creating joint projects, such as the medical laundry. finally, local businesses with competitive products and pricing may be able to sell directly to supply chain integrators. however, sci can frequently be reluctant to engage in local purchasing work, because of existing relationships with national suppliers or a reluctance to share the revenue from a given contract. for this reason, using the entire collaborative, as opposed to individual anchors, to engage scis can be a particularly effective strategy. anchors can do this by speaking with their sales reps, and by writing local purchasing and reporting requirements into major rfps. by encouraging all anchors to communicate the value of local purchasing, page amplifies its importance to scis. measure: as with other strategies, anchors should track the number and dollar amount of localized contracts to identify the most effective strategies. learn: by including local purchasing language into rfps and continually engaging scis, page and anchor staff could discover new localization strategies that they had not even considered. local businesses could also get the opportunity to ‘export’ their goods beyond the philadelphia market, if they gain access to sci catalogs. completing the best practices checklist expectation: the early wins from the first two phases should provide examples that can be used to create a strong business case and social benefit case for local procurement, paving the way towards additional substantive changes. build: during this phase, anchors should tackle the most challenging barriers. for example, anchors can start moving certain contracts from scis to the minority partner business. alternatively, anchors can disaggregate certain contracts in order to commit more dollars locally. another barrier to address is insurance requirements; anchors can reduce these for some vendors, or identify partners that can act as ‘umbrella organizations’ to smaller companies. this is also the phase to review the policy checklist and ensure that local procurement plays its part in the incentives, training and values of the institution. 33 measure and learn: the policy indicator developed during the first phase should guide assessment of institutional progress at each stage. additionally, the anchors should be tracking both the overall increase in local purchasing, as well as the rate at which it is growing, in order to pinpoint particularly successful policies. lessons following the lean startup methodology has helped philadelphia anchors for growth and equity achieve early wins and gain credibility with funders, stakeholders and supporters. this approach will be critical as the initiative grows and begins seeing both disappointments and results from attempting various localizations strategies. the following are the key lessons from the early stages of page: • clearly and credibly defining the value of a local purchasing initiative in terms of dollars and jobs created was the spark needed to catalyze page. the sound methodology of the city controller’s 2015 report convinced anchors and funders to begin the conversation. the staff still uses the document, three years later. • no local purchasing collaborative is alike. while best practices documents provide helpful guidance, each new initiative should start with an analysis that identifies their locale’s unique assets and challenges. • anchors buy as much as half of all of their products and services with supply chain integrators. engaging scis is critical to any comprehensive local purchasing strategy. • it is possible to secure early wins without expending many resources. early meetings conducted by the city controller yielded ideas, such as the medical laundry, and connection, such as the relationship between emsco scientific and thermo-fisher scientific, that helped produce early results that demonstrated the effectiveness of page. • when setting goals, it is important to distinguish between “vanity” metrics and actionable metrics, in order to determine the effectiveness of an initiative. • including experimentation into a collaborative enterprise’s strategic plan ensures that as certain strategies fail, the overall initiative does not, ensuring resiliency. • clearly outlining what the organization hopes to learn from each experiment ensures that every experiment adds to institutional learning and increases the chances of future success. 34 references andes, s., hachadorian, j. katz, b., vey, j.s. 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(2017, february 13). the racial wealth gap: how african-americans have been shortchanged out of the materials to build wealth. economic policy institute. retrieved from https://www.epi.org/blog/the-racial-wealth-gap-how-african-americans-have-been-shortchangedout-of-the-materials-to-build-wealth/ khandros, mariya. (2018, april 24). anchor procurement initiative: a cross-sector approach to business growth and job creation. retrieved from http://economyleague.org/providinginsight/regional-direction/2018/04/24/anchor-procurement-initiative-a-cross-sector-approach-tobusiness-growth-and-job-creation kim burnett consulting. (2013). advancing local anchor procurement strategies: early findings and next steps for the field. retrieved from https://community-wealth.org/content/advancinglocal-anchor-procurement-strategies-early-findings-and-next-steps-field-0 mott, amanda. (2013, october 25). penn iur and executive vice president host power of eds and meds panel discussion. retrieved from https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/penn-iur-andexecutive-vice-president-host-power-eds-and-meds-panel-discussion office of the philadelphia city controller (2014, january). survey of the current and potential impact of local procurement by philadelphia anchor institutions. retrieved from https://community-wealth.org/content/survey-current-and-potential-impact-local-procurementphiladelphia-anchor-institutions 35 office of the controller. (2015, april). anchoring our local economy: developing a local procurement strategy for philadelphia’s higher education and healthcare institutions. retrieved from http://economyleague.org/uploads/files/479178214582107859-anchorinitiativemanufacturingjobsroadmap-2015.pdf patten, eileen. (2016, july 1). racial, gender wage gaps persist in u.s. despite some progress. retrieved from: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/07/01/racial-gender-wage-gapspersist-in-u-s-despite-some-progress/ the pew charitable trust. (2017). philadelphia 2017: the state of the city. retrieved from https://www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/reports/2017/04/philadelphia-2017 ries, eric. (2011, september 13). the lean startup: how today's entrepreneurs use continuous innovation to create radically successful businesses. new york, ny: crown business. romero, l. (2016, april 27). report: philly’s poverty problem isn’t going away. retrieved from: https://philly.curbed.com/2016/4/27/11510912/philly-poverty-rate-increasing sapatkin, don. (2016, may 9). south philly center combines health, literacy, recreation.. retrieved from: http://bit.ly/1ri7fpq sustainable business network of greater philadelphia. (2011). taking care of business: improving philadelphia’s small business climate. retrieved from http://media.philly.com/documents/sbn+taking+care+of+business.pdf uzialko, a. (2016, may 15). the state of small business: pennsylvania. business news daily. retrieved from http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/9101-doing-business-in-pennsylvania.html 36 author information mariya khandros economy league of greater philadelphia 1800 jfk boulevard suite 460 philadelphia, pa 19103 email: mkhandros@economyleague.org telephone: 215-875-1000 x 116 linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariyakhandros/ mariya khandros is the director of shared solutions at the economy league of greater philadelphia. she wrote the strategic plan to create philadelphia’s anchor purchasing collaborative, philadelphia anchors for growth and equity, and currently oversees its implementation. acknowledgments: the author would like to thank the economy league of greater philadelphia for providing a home for philadelphia anchors for growth and equity. she would like to acknowledge executive director jeff hornstein, who first developed this idea during his time in the city controller’s office, the economy league staff (nick frontino, jen egmont, meredith garfield, sara manning, mike shields, mohona siddique) and cokie nanka, our intrepid supply chain intern. she would also like to thank dr. nelson lim and josh power, who advised her while she was as an mpa candidate at the fels institute of government writing her master’s thesis. finally, she would like to thank former philadelphia city controller alan butkovitz and his staff, bill rubin and lief erickson, for writing and publishing the studies that catalyzed her work. mailto:mkhandros@economyleague.org https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariyakhandros/ microsoft word published vol33 issue1_collier (1).dotx original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25222 | february 15, 2022 37 how peer mentoring can help universities promote student success in a post-covid-19 pandemic world peter collier1,2 1emeritus professor, portland state university, 2dr. peter j. collier consulting cite as: collier, p. (2022). how peer mentoring can help universities promote student success in a post-covid-19 pandemic world. metropolitan universities, 33(1), 37-54. doi: 10.18060/25222. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract the covid-19 pandemic and fallout from universities’ pandemic response efforts has made the adjustment to college more complex for new students. this is particularly true for students who lack familiarity with how college works. in addition to student adjustment issues, new pandemic-related issues include a greater risk for information overload, problematic access to technology and the internet, complex decision-making, greater difficulty in recognizing relevant resources and effective strategies for addressing specific issues, and difficulties in responding to issues that take different forms in remote or hybrid learning contexts. peer mentoring can help. informed by interviews with university faculty, program coordinators, and support staff, this article identifies the peer mentoring qualities that make it a useful tool for helping universities respond to issues associated with the pandemic. mentors provide personal connections to the university, have proximate experience for a post-pandemic university context, are seen as credible sources for messaging, and provide accurate standards of social comparison with regards to strategies for success. the article also suggests tips for universities to set up peer mentoring programs to assist students in post-pandemic contexts. keywords: peer mentoring, covid-19, student success © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25222 | february 15, 2022 38 introduction the 2020-21 covid-19 pandemic forced universities to address multiple issues they never anticipated. even when quick responding schools came up with what appeared to be viable plans for dealing with an initial set of problems, developments in federal and state-level pandemic responses made initial plans obsolete overnight (murakami, 2020; quilantan, 2020). new issues kept arising that required universities to come up with creative ways to support students. completing a college degree is a high stakes/high reward activity. there is a big payoff for graduates with four-year degrees compared to non-graduates in terms of employment and career opportunities, average earnings, and access to better health care (caumont, 2014). earning a bachelor’s degree involves successfully addressing multiple adjustment issues and is challenging under the best of conditions. the freshman year and the transition from first to second years are critical times with regards to student persistence (kamer & ishitani, 2019). peer mentoring has been used in the past to promote college student success (lane, 2020). peer mentoring in higher education, peer mentoring describes a relationship where a more experienced student helps a less experienced student improve academic performance and social connection to the university by “…connecting protégés to key resources, providing information about opportunities, helping protégés navigate their university, and acting as liaisons to faculty and other influential people” (lunsford et al, 2017). peer mentoring has been shown to be effective in promoting college success for different subgroups of students including returning veterans (alexander, 2014), students with disabilities (hillier, et al 2019), stem majors (zaniewski & reinholz, 2016), and students of color: latinx (moschetti, plunkett, efrat & yomtov, 2017), african american (brittain, sy, & stokes, 2009), native american (mosholder & goslin, 2013), and asian american students (palmer & maramba, 2015). traditional college adjustment issues traditionally, students must address several important adjustment issues, besides meeting course-related academic demands, to succeed in college. first, students transitioning into higher education need to establish they are legitimate college students and belong at the university. both social belonging and academic performance are strong predictors of retention (davis, hanzsek-brill, petzold & robinson, 2019). participating in peer mentoring programs has been associated with improved grade point average (demarinis, beaulieu, culi, & abd-el-aziz, 2017), completing a higher average number of credits in the first year (collier et al, 2008) and improved sense of belonging (yomtov, plunkett, efrat, & marin, 2017). © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25222 | february 15, 2022 39 second, new students are asked to develop a social support network without having spent much time in the college context. universities try to anticipate and address this issue by providing pre-term orientation, on-campus and resident hall-based information kiosks, and new student outreach connected to social activities during the first week of classes. students who participate in peer mentoring programs report that they strongly value the support they receive from their mentors (ruthkosky, & castano, 2007) and viewed them as allies with whom it felt safe to disclose personal issues and information (beebe, beebe, redmond & geerinck, 2004). third, new students are asked to take in, understand, and act upon a significant amount of new information. this is an on-going process. information is constantly being introduced with expectations that earlier material provides a foundation for all that follows (beras, 2018). by sharing their own university experiences, peer mentors help their mentees make higher quality decisions (collier, 2015, p. 76-77) that lead to college success. fourth, new students are asked to understand the college student role and the university’s expectations of them. they are expected to know not only that there are important adjustment issues that need to be addressed, but also which issues need to be prioritized, and at what time. it is assumed, though not always articulated, that if students do not know how to address a specific issue, they will know what information they are missing and where to go to get that information. mentors help less experienced students better understand the college student role (palmer, hunt, neal & wuetherick, 2015) and how to use that knowledge to achieve valued goals such as completing their degrees (collier, 2015, p. 37-38). students who participated in peer mentoring programs demonstrated increased confidence in their abilities to successfully enact the college student role (smith-jentsch, scielzo, yarbrough, & rosopa, 2008). fifth, new students are expected to be able to locate campus resources for addressing specific issues. they are expected to do so even though they have little or no experience with those issues, limited knowledge of neither available options, nor ideas about which resources might be most helpful for addressing those issues. beatrice & shively (2007) found that students who participated in peer mentoring programs increased their knowledge and use of available campus resources. finally, non-traditional students (e.g. first-generation, low-income, older/returning students) face additional, unexpected challenges due to differences in available resources and/or familial lack of familiarity with higher education (collier & morgan, 2008). peer mentors can provide these students with insights into how to make the most of opportunities at college, avoid potential pitfalls, utilize available resources, and respond appropriately to professors’ expectations. this is information that students whose parents are college graduates typically get at home (collier 2015). the changes that universities have made in response to the threat of the covid-19 pandemic have increased uncertainty and introduced additional college adjustment issues. therefore, universities must © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25222 | february 15, 2022 40 strategize about how to encourage students to enroll, persist, and ultimately complete their degrees at those schools. peer mentoring can be a particularly effective approach for universities trying to support students in the post-pandemic contexts. additional pandemic-associated issues that impact college student success and how peer mentoring could help students address these issues the covid-19 pandemic and fallout from universities’ pandemic response efforts, e.g. the shift to all online courses in spring 2020, have made college adjustment more complicated for students. in this section i will examine five additional pandemic associated issues and explore how properties of peer mentoring: (e.g. the ability of mentors to provide personal connection (beras, 2018), be viewed as credible information sources (collier, 2017), share relevant expertise (collier & morgan, 2008), and serve as a models for social comparison (smith-jentsch, et al, 2008) make it a potentially valuable approach for universities seeking to support students in the post-covid-19 context. 1. post-pandemic students need to establish social support networks within the new context where traditional means of interacting with other students, faculty and staff are no longer present. post-pandemic students need to develop personal connections to the university traditionally, universities have tried to promote connections among new students by providing a range of welcome-to-campus activities. unfortunately, traditional student outreach activities have been rolled back post pandemic due to concerns about large group gatherings and maintaining appropriate social distancing (camera, 2021). how peer mentoring can help peer mentoring can help post-pandemic students develop social support networks. as one mentor program coordinator noted, students want to be heard and recognized as individuals. one characteristic of mentor-mentee relationships is that mentors provide mentees with personal connections to the university. peers share a perspective with mentees due to their proximate experiences, which makes them relatable and increases the likelihood of mentor-mentees bonding. in the current context, one-toone, virtual mentor-mentee relationships may provide needed welcome-to-campus socialization while maintaining student safety. mentors can establish face-to-face connections by contacting mentees by zoom or other video chat software before the semester begins. a program coordinator noted that one key is making communication routine and repetitive. regular mentor check-ins reassure mentees that someone on campus knows them personally and provides many of the positive qualities of face-to-face interaction. college students who participate in peer mentoring programs report stronger intentions to stay in college © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25222 | february 15, 2022 41 and complete their degrees (sanchez, bauer, & paronto, 2006). as universities return to in-person course delivery over time, these virtual relationships can serve as foundations for on-going, in-person ones. post-pandemic students need to be able to identify credible message sources as noted earlier, content is only one element that impacts whether a student pays attention to a message. the message source’s credibility is equally important (pornpitakan, 2004). one benefit of traditional in-person education is that students have opportunities to informally interact with other students and learn their perspectives on which message sources are credible. with remote course delivery, students lose these informal opportunities to share information how peer mentoring can help the social-psychological concept of credibility is a helpful frame for understanding why peer mentoring is a valuable tool for helping universities respond to pandemic-associated issues. the person sending a message is called the message source. a message source’s credibility is a critical element in the persuasion process. there are two components to credibility: expertise and trustworthiness. expertise refers to the source’s degree of knowledge of issue-related factual information, whereas trustworthiness refers to the degree to which the source is perceived as likely to accurately share this related factual information (hovland & weiss, 1951). peer mentors are seen as experts on “how to be successful university students in the post-pandemic context” because of their recent experiences successfully addressing the adjustment issues their mentees are currently facing. peer mentors are also likely to be similar to new students in age and background. similarity has been associated with increased likelihood of being perceived as trustworthy (traberg, & van der linden, 2022). thus, it follows that mentors are likely to be seen as credible message sources. mentors’ greater perceived credibility increases the likelihood of mentees following their advice. 2. changes to more technologically based course delivery modes (e.g. entirely online in the current context) leads to a greater reliance on online communication. note: this is also a valid issue when universities opt to respond to the post-pandemic concerns by increasing the percentage of hybrid courses being offered. post-pandemic students need to deal with potential information overload greater reliance on online communication means that students receive constant streams of information from their universities without another person being available to clarify resulting questions. students can get overwhelmed when asked to make sense of large amounts of messages that all seem equally © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25222 | february 15, 2022 42 important. information overload can lead to avoidance, as mentees either do not open emails or do not respond after opening and reading their emails (misra & stokols, 2012). how peer mentoring can help the first step is to get mentees to recognize and acknowledge that they have received messages from their mentors. the personal connections that mentors build with their mentees increases the likelihood that mentees will pay attention to the mentor’s e-mail in their overloaded inboxes (macrae, visokomogilski, golubickis,& sahraie, 2018). the second step involves encouraging the mentee to follow the mentor’s advice. once the mentor has shared her expertise, in the form of already-tested college success strategies, and the mentee tries out a strategy and it works, the mentee is more likely to follow subsequent courses of action advocated by the mentor (collier, 2015, p. 77). post-pandemic students need to be able to differentiate among incoming messages new students are inundated with multiple messages from different university sources urging them to address specific issues immediately. without a basis for differentiating which messages are most important to pay attention to, students can be frozen into inaction. how peer mentoring can help mentors can simultaneously help mentees differentiate among incoming messages and reduce potential information overload by assisting them in creating simple guidelines for message recognition, categorization, and prioritization (wainer, dabbish, & kraut, 2011). recognition has to do with determining which messages are most important (e.g. “always open emails from the office of financial aid, any of your professors, and your mentor”). categorization refers to separating messages into important and junk (e.g. “create separate folders to save messages from different classes.”) after separating messages into categories, prioritization refers to which messages in the important category need to be read and acted upon before others (hanrahan, pérez‐quinones & martin, 2016). there is a tendency for students to underestimate the sheer volume of messages they will receive as the result of a shift to all online course delivery. by revisiting these issues from time to time, mentors can make sure mentees are not getting overwhelmed. 3. post-pandemic students must deal with unanticipated changes in important adjustment issues as noted earlier, to succeed at college, even before the pandemic, new students are called upon to appropriately address a range of adjustment issues even though they initially may not be sure how to do so. an additional, post-pandemic complication is that even when students are aware of how earlier students dealt with the same issues, particularly prioritization, that information is likely no longer applicable. current students may not realize that even recent graduates’ ideas about the relative © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25222 | february 15, 2022 43 importance or appropriate time to prioritize specific issues may have changed due to the demands of the post-pandemic university context. for example, when classes were all delivered in-person and on campus, issues like setting up an it account – e.g. internet access, email account, logins for accessing online tutoring resources, or learning how to remotely access library resources -may have seemed to just be part of general housekeeping in preparation for the beginning the semester and no more important than quite a few other issues. however, the same issues will take on much more importance when all classes are only delivered remotely and access to campus resources is only available online. typically, students learn through the process of social comparison to recognize important adjustment issues, strategies for addressing those issues, and when to prioritize specific issues at different issues (festinger, 1954). social comparison involves sharing and comparing their understandings of what it takes to succeed at college with those of other, usually more experienced, students in face-to-face interactions. new students lose these learning opportunities when campuses shift to remote delivery of courses or decrease opportunities for students to informally interact with each other. students need social comparison information to make informed decisions. decision-making follows a particular pattern: problem recognition, awareness of alternative strategies, assessment of the alternatives’ relative likelihood of success, selection of an alternative, and putting that alternative into action (simon, 1955). there are important differences between new and more experienced students’ decision-making processes with regards to the same issue. experienced students are more likely to consider alternative strategies that have higher likelihoods of success. post-pandemic students need to be able to identify effective success strategies to make informed decisions. in the post-pandemic context, students do not have access to input from their peers about different alternative problem-solving strategies’ relative likelihood of success or opportunities to observe the consequences of other students implementing different alternatives. new students may be ignorant of potentially effective strategies for addressing specific adjustment issues (collier, 2015 p.74). they do not know that there are important things they don’t know. new students are forced to make decisions about how to proceed addressing specific college adjustment issues using a less-efficient trial and error approach based solely on their own experiences. post-pandemic students need to be able to accurately calculate alternative strategies’ costs and benefits a related issue is whether new students can accurately calculate the potential costs and benefits of different approaches for addressing specific adjustment issues (hastie, 2001, p.658). students who are © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25222 | february 15, 2022 44 unfamiliar with the consequences of choosing one alternative over another often make choices that maximize short-term benefits while ignoring alternatives that ultimately produce greater benefits in the long run (iloh, & tierney, 2014). how peer mentoring can help peer mentors provide mentees with templates for how to be successful students by sharing their experiences in the post-pandemic university context. new students struggle with identifying effective success strategies. mentees’ universe of possible effective strategies may be different than those of more experienced students because they are less familiar with higher education in general, and the postpandemic university context. one advisor mentioned that even when the issues new students are dealing with are the same as in the past, the explicit steps they will need to take to address those issues is different because the context has changed so radically. new students may be unaware of potentially effective strategies that mentors are already familiar with due to their own experiences. another decision-making-related issue is that new students have difficulty accurately calculating specific alternatives’ costs/benefits. they struggle with subjective assessments of whether trade-offs associated with commitment to a specific strategy are worth it. mentees may be unaware of potential benefits and/or costs that might affect their choices of strategies. peer mentors’ advanced college status and post-pandemic context experiences provide greater understandings of which strategies have the greatest likelihood of success. when mentors share their understandings of strategies that work, their mentees are more likely to make higher quality decisions. for the mentee, accepting the mentor’s advice amounts to replacing a higheffort, low-likelihood of success approach (i.e. figuring out how to proceed using trial and error based on personal experience) with a simple judgment task (e.g. “should i accept this strategy as the best one to use because the mentor recommends it?”). it is the peer mentor’s credibility that encourages the mentee to follow the advice that is offered. the mentee spends less time setting up the problem and working out a viable solution and more time working on the actual task. spending more time on task leads to better academic outcomes (collier, 2015, p.76). 4. post-pandemic students need to be able to distinguish relevant resources and how to use them appropriately in the new context once a problem has been identified and alternatives initially assessed, but before a choice is made, it is important to consider the availability of relevant resources. new students’ evaluation of a strategy’s relative likelihood of success depends upon how easy it is to imagine that alternative addressing the issue. one factor that impacts this evaluation is the availability of effective problem-solving resources. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25222 | february 15, 2022 45 because of their unfamiliarity with the post-pandemic context, new students may not be aware of available resources or how to use them appropriately. how peer mentoring can help peer mentors are likely to be aware of the range of available campus resources due to their advanced college status and post-pandemic context experiences. however, mentors need to do more than just provide mentees with relevant information about campus resources. they also need to make sure mentees understand which resources are appropriate for addressing specific student issues (collier, 2015, p.71). a mentor training coordinator noted that linking campus resources to specific student issues was a point of emphasis in their on-going trainings. in training, mentors were presented with a scenario and then asked: “which resources would you recommend to help a student deal with this issue in the post-pandemic university context?” it is helpful when mentors can provide mentees with explicit, stepby-step directions on how to use key resources to address specific adjustment issues. 5. changes in course delivery modes disproportionately impact low-income students and those who are not familiar with how the university works. as noted earlier, universities’ responses to the threat of the covid-19 pandemic have increased uncertainty and created additional college adjustment issues for all students. for example, one concern that all students share has to do with uncertainty regarding how the university will deliver courses (morris, myers, hawkins, moulton & moulton, 2021). it is harder for students to plan when the final decisions about whether in-person instruction will be permitted is ultimately in the hands of state officials. when universities shifted to remote course delivery, school became more difficult for students who prepandemic relied on campus resources for access to wi-fi, computers, and printers. having a quiet area with access to technology is problematic for many students working from home. bandwidth issues impact download and uploads of assignments and are exacerbated in many households by k-12 students’ increased need for internet access due to their schools’ shift to remote course delivery. other post-pandemic course delivery issues disproportionately impact low-income and first-generation students. post-pandemic low-income, first-generation students need help in addressing technological and internet access issues when universities shift to more technologically based course delivery modes within higher education, the digital divide refers to an identified condition where low income, firstgeneration, and minority students report experiencing distinct disadvantages in terms of access to technology and the internet (buzzetto-hollywood, wang, elobeid, & elobaid, 2018). two separate 2020 studies of college students’ post-pandemic technological barriers (jaggers et al, 2021; means & © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25222 | february 15, 2022 46 neisler, 2020) found that approximately 16% of students reported technology barriers (e.g. inadequate computer hardware or internet connection) that inhibited their participation in online learning. both studies found higher rates of connectivity issues for low-income students compared to high-income students, and for black and latinx compared to white students. an examination of differences in students’ type of home internet connection found these relative disadvantages persisted with white and more affluent individuals more likely to have home broadband access (zickuhr, 2013). there are also hardware issues that contribute to the digital divide. low-income and minority students are more likely to use their cell phones for internet access, and while smartphones are sufficient for basic online tasks, they are not adequate for more complex tasks like completing class assignments (fernandez, reisdorf, & dutton, 2019). in addition, differences in screen size can lead to shorter attention spans due to visual strain (maniar, bennett, hand, & allan, 2008). as one advisor noted, success in the post-pandemic university context depends on tech capacity, not just “does a student have internet access?” how peer mentoring can help the differential impact of the digital divide becomes even more important to address postpandemic as universities shift to more technologically based course delivery modes. already established mentoring programs need to place greater emphasis in their trainings on the ubiquity of digital divide-related issues among current college students along with information for mentors on how to connect mentees to relevant post-pandemic resources. as one coordinator pointed out, the nature of your training and your program must change in relation to the degree to which your school’s course delivery format changes. new students may not be aware of which resources the university provides that would make it easier for them to effectively complete academic tasks. for example, when portland state went to entirely remote learning in spring 2020, librarians worked to keep some spaces at the library open for students with limited connectivity at home to come to school to access high-speed internet. the issue then became how to get that information to the students who need it the most. even when the university explicitly shares this information in a message to all students, it may get lost in the tidal wave of messages new students receive daily. because peer mentors are perceived as credible message sources, their messages may get through to new students even in the sea of other e-mails. because they have already established personal connections, it is safer for mentors to directly ask if mentees are having issues in these areas. mentors can also help mentees realize they are not alone in having to address these issues by sharing stories from their pasts about instances when they ended up doing unnecessary additional work or achieved less-than-optimal results on assignments because they did realize that appropriate problemsolving resources existed. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25222 | february 15, 2022 47 the final section of this article offers tips for universities concerning how to set up programs and prepare peer mentors for supporting students in post-pandemic contexts. tips for universities preparing mentors typically takes place during pre-semester mentor training. during training, program coordinators need to identify post-pandemic adjustment issues they anticipate students will face and explicitly spell out what mentors should emphasize in their interactions with their mentees. 1. make sure that mentors’ messages emphasize information that is consistent with and complimentary to other important university messages that are going out to students. this increases the likelihood of successful communication in several ways. first, for students who try to pay attention to other mail from the university, message repetition is associated with information retention and greater perceived source credibility (ernst, kühne, & wirth, 2017). not only are mentees more likely to retain the information in the repeated message, mentors’ improved perceived credibility increases the likelihood of mentees following their mentors’ advice. second, if students respond to potential information overload by withdrawing from reading most of the e-mail messages from the university, mentors’ messages are more likely to be read and responded to because of their already established relationships. this mediates the university’s use of online communication as default mode of communication and still exposes new students to the university’s important messages even if they have to be diverted through the mentors. 2. use explicit language in peer mentors’ messages. encourage mentors to clearly spell out what issue the message is about in both the e-mail subject line and the first sentence of the text (wainer, dabbish, & kraut, 2011). make sure each message explains why this issue is important, how students should proceed, and how to get any questions answered. one advisor emphasized that mentors need to be explicit, “this is exactly what i am here for and here is how i can help.” 3. clarify that mentors are facilitators, not necessarily experts on addressing every adjustment issue. clearly communicate that mentors are facilitators who can connect students with other experts who can address specific issues. this should be emphasized during mentor training, and mentors need to make sure mentees understand this at the beginning of their relationships. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25222 | february 15, 2022 48 4. emphasize why mentors are expert students. to be considered experts, mentors need to be able to demonstrate they know how to successfully problem-solve in the post-pandemic university context, e.g. how to make the most of remote office hours. since mentors are already likely to be perceived as trustworthy because of their similarity to mentees, the combination of expertise and trustworthiness increases the likelihood of mentors being seen as credible message sources with all the benefits that brings. one coordinator suggested that programs could build up the mentor’s perceived expertise by certifying that they have completed training that covered how to best address specific issues and locate important resources. 5. encourage mentors to model how to be successful university students. besides acting in appropriate ways, mentors need to explain to mentees why they made the choices they did when addressing a specific adjustment issue to facilitate social comparison. it can be very helpful when mentors tell stories of own and other students’ experiences addressing specific adjustment issues particularly in the post-pandemic university context. 6. promote appropriate resource use through how to videos. one program coordinator mentioned that in post-pandemic contexts that rely on remote delivery, it is helpful to have mentors make short screen-chats demonstrating how to appropriately use specific campus resources. these informal and personal messages in the mentor’s voice can be shared with multiple students who have the same issue. this also makes the mentor appear to be more of a real person than just a talking head in a zoom call. 7. expedite the development of mentor training programs. consider building upon or adding to existing mentor training programs on your campus. one relatively quick turn-around intervention would be to have university student support staff work with existing mentoring program coordinators and mentors to develop a list of important issues that students are struggling to address in the post pandemic context. ask the same group to provide “advice for mentors” to share with students on how to best address each issue and which campus resources would be most useful for doing so. after making a consolidated list, share that material with the coordinators of existing programs so that they can incorporate it into ongoing mentor training or even mid semester outreach to current students. whether you are developing new programs or building upon existing ones, among the skills to emphasize in mentor training are: giving directions, knowing potential adjustment issues and which strategies mentors should recommend, as well as being able to link campus resources to addressing specific adjustment issues. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25222 | february 15, 2022 49 conclusions the covid-19 pandemic and unintended consequences of schools’ pandemic responses have introduced new college adjustment issues and made universities’ student support efforts more complicated. peer mentoring can help. acknowledgement this article is informed by conversations with select portland state university faculty members, mentoring program coordinators and advisers about their experiences in winter/spring 2020 when the university shifted from in-person to entirely online course delivery in response to the 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(2013). who’s not online and why. retrieved from http://www.pewinternet.org/reports/2013/non-internet-users.aspx metropolitan universities vol. 30 no. 3 (september 2019), doi: 10.18060/23195 36 infusing service-learning into allied health profession curriculum: perceived enablers and barriers sally jane uy abstract service learning may offer an innovative perspective in the competing global and national health interests among philippine universities. the author sought to understand the enablers and barriers of implementing service learning in the context of a premier private catholic philippine allied health profession education. using an in-depth descriptive qualitative design, this study gathered and analyzed by theme transcripts from interviews, field notes and organizational documents. data were coded and categorized into perceived barriers and enablers, according to the self-assessment rubric for institutionalization of service learning in higher education (srisl) by furco (2002). a wide range of enablers and barriers to implementing sl in one of the university’s health-related program thereby emerged. the results of this study may support further uptake of service-learning as a signature pedagogy in the allied health profession in the philippines, particularly for its emerging unique professional identity and role in enhancing disability-related health outcomes. keywords: occupational therapy; philippine higher education; disability-related health outcomes introduction a central part of philippine educational reform is to have universities connect more with communities and provide a reciprocal service orientation in which the universities reach out to their communities with knowledge and services. it mandates philippine universities to undertake more innovative and transformative approaches to produce future graduates equipped with skills, knowledge, and attitude to respond to local, regional, or national social development needs. specifically, the philippine health system calls for improvement of health services delivery, including its accessibility in the rural and socioeconomically disadvantaged areas. although advancing health research and medical knowledge has a positive impact on the health of most people, it does not sufficiently address the complex health issues in the philippines. a first concern is that medical advances cannot replace the humanistic element. care, empathy and compassion of the healthcare provider, will remain essential components of effective healthcare delivery (mcmanus,1991; burks & kobus, 2012). furthermore, trends in future global workplaces show an increasing need for teamwork and collaborative problem-solving skills, interpersonal communication, and social skills to complement these technical skills (world economic forum, 2016). however, researchers note a decreasing emphasis of these skills in most medical curricula, with the assumption that these skills develop naturally in the ‘hidden’ curriculum as students navigate their training (battaglia, 2016; geraghty et al., 2016). therefore, in preparing future healthcare 37 professionals, it is important for schools to build these skills intentionally into their professional education curriculum (battaglia, 2016; burks & kobus, 2012; geraghty et al., 2016). servicelearning, then, may offer an innovative perspective in these competing global and national health interests among philippine universities. literature supports service learning as a high-impact teaching strategy in higher education (kuh, 2008) and as a signature pedagogy in the field of occupational therapy education (schaber, 2014). it offers a broad array of benefits for universities and the communities they serve. however, much of the available literature comes from the united states. furthermore, the bulk of the literature demonstrates the benefits of service learning among secondary schools and community colleges. literature on the adoption of service learning among higher education institutions (hei) remains limited and presents practitioners with more contextual challenges. this study therefore seeks to understand the enablers and barriers to service learning in the context of a premier private catholic philippine allied-health professional education. literature review simply defined, service learning (sl) is “an experiential education approach that is premised on reciprocal learning “(furco, 1996, p. 2). however, sl takes many forms and the literature records a wide range of conceptualizations of service learning. the most widely used definition of sl comes from bringle and hatcher (1996, p. 222): a credit-bearing educational experience in which students participate in an organized service activity that meets identified community needs and reflects on the service activity in such a way as to gain further understanding of course content, a broader appreciation of the discipline, and an enhanced sense of civic responsibility. bringl and hatcher base their formulation on the works of john dewey and david kolb’s educational and experiential theories. giles and eyler (1994) as well as jacoby, 2014) agree that reflection is a key pedagogical feature of service learning. another widely used definition of sl states that: [s]ervice learning means a method under which students or participants learn and develop through active participation in thoughtfully organized service that is conducted in and meets the needs of a community; is coordinated with an elementary school, secondary school, institution of higher education, or community service program, and with the community; and helps foster civic responsibility; and that is integrated into and enhances the academic curriculum of the students or the educational components of the community service program in which the participants are enrolled; and provides structured time for the students or participants to reflect on the service experience (national and community service act of 1990, p. 13) stemming from community development theories, this definition highlights a second key feature of service learning. reciprocity, as described by sigmon (1979), helps distinguish service learning from other closely associated terms, such as internship, field education, community 38 service and volunteerism. furco (1996) provided a continuum of this distinguishing feature of reciprocal relationship with his conceptualization of sl. internship and field education place university students as the locus of control of service provision by deciding who, what and when services will be provided. in contrast, in community service and volunteerism, the recipients control and benefit from these services. from these descriptive definitions, researchers draw out an understanding of two key features of sl. these are reflection as a pedagogical strategy and reciprocity as a guiding principle for community partnership and learning. additional studies find that sl yields significant improvements in student learning and development (celio, durlak & dymnicki, 2011; yorio & feifei, 2012). furthermore, recent literature (battaglia, 2016; roskell, white & bonner, 2012) is widely supports the use of service learning as an experiential pedagogy for developing those humanistic skills said to be in decline in health-related professional curricula. it aids the holistic development of the health professionals, both in discipline-specific skills and generic health professional skills such as interprofessional practice and cultural responsiveness (crawford et al., 2017). aside from the benefits of service learning, current literature continues to explore the practice of service learning among international higher education institutions. there are many more servicelearning programs in the united states than in australia, asia, or africa (kerins, 2010). obviously, this poses difficulties in identifying the most critical success factors across different countries. this article seeks to address this gap by exploring factors that support as well as hinder the successful implementation of sl in the philippines, where this is a relatively new approach. support factors educational and historical context as major drivers. one of the major drivers of sl was the educational and historical context (stanton, giles & cruz, 1999). for example, sl flourished in the 1990s as a result of the us government call to augment the role of american higher education in nation-building (national task force on civic learning and democratic engagement, 2012, p. 2). similarly, the humboldtian idealism of combining teaching and research together with the european culture of volunteerism has been seen as an opportunity in paving the way of sl in the german universities in the early 2000s (garrett, sharpe, walter & zyweitz, 2012). conversely, langworthy (2007) argued the contextual difference on australian historical convict-beginnings and platonic influence on education made sl not readily embraced widely in australia. change in mindset for educational reform. launching a sl program requires a change in mindset and it is not simply adding a new program (stanton, giles & cruz, 1999). sl should not act as a supplement to the formal curriculum, but as a necessary component of student learning, explicitly linked to academic growth. this best distinguishes service learning from volunteer activities (xing & ma, 2010; zlotkowski, 2011). sachs and clark (2017) attributed the success of macquarie university to its commitment to making community engagement their core business and not as an add-on feature. the synergized tripartite university function legitimized 39 service learning as their core business. the creation of a ‘hub’ integrates it into the university fabric, across disparate functions of teaching, research, and community development. such structural integration encourages collaboration instead of competition and it institutionalizes service learning (kezar & rhoads, 2001; roberts et al., 2018). in asia, education exists solely as an intellectual endeavour. sl called for a shift from this mindset to recognizing “[p]edagogically, service learning comprises of the ‘head’ plus ‘heart’ plus ‘hands’ ” (xing & ma, 2010, p. 24). design of service-learning program. the role of faculty members in designing appropriate sl activities is crucial to ensure achievement of good learning outcomes. this means ensuring good student-placement fit and well-structured reflection activities. waterman (2013) found that student-placement fit, defined as meeting the students’ motivation (whether intrinsic or extrinsic) during their service-learning experience, significantly affected the success of the program. this also meant that the relevance of the right settings and the related tasks to their course content helped assure that the experience indeed enhanced their learning (giles & eyler, 1994). more importantly, well-structured reflection had the strongest link with the learning outcomes (celio et al., 2011). in allied-health professional education, parmenter and thomas (2015) further found that ongoing reflections, as a key feature of occupation-focused sl, enabled learning about occupational therapy’s underpinning paradigm as well as development of professional values of being a therapist. enabling processes. most literature recommends creation of a separate office to lead service learning (bringle & hatcher, 1996; furco, 2002). by contrast, macquarie university use a different organizational structure for its service-learning program. it created a hub as “an (evolving) configuration” (sachs & clark, 2017, p. 277) to encourage institutional collaboration. furthermore, sachs and clark (2017) find that a clear and close alignment between servicelearning objectives and the university’s mission and core values is one of the most important successful factors. macquarie university recognized the unique contribution of sl to higher education through its curriculum. this alignment rationally determined the form sl would take, the breadth of sl across departments and student levels, and the focus of program monitoring and evaluation. this successful implementation of sl at macquarie university provided case study evidence of how sl has contextually transformed this australian university (sachs & clark, 2017). reciprocity, as the key feature of sl, defines macquarie university’s network and partnerships. administrators do not measure success by the number of communities enlisted, but rather by the social impact of their programs (sachs & clark, 2017). this reciprocity principle shifted the model of community development from a “needs based” to an “asset based” paradigm. this shift is “in contrast to doing work for communities, in communities or on communities. [the] newer paradigm emphasizes doing work with the community” (bringle & plater, 2017, pp. 301-302). resource commitment, particularly financial resources, plays a vital role in the success of any program. because of limited internal grants and funding, universities need to look for external grants to fund these sl activities. macquarie university used these grants to offset the incurred costs and subsequently to foster more engagements (sachs & clark, 2017). however, internal 40 grants presumably work better towards service-learning implementation without reliance on external funding (furco, 2002). hindering factors alternatively, literature also shows several hindering factors or barriers to implementation of sl that led to the failure or non-institutionalization of sl programs in some universities. organizational culture and tensions associated with service learning. kezar and rhoads (2001) recognize the role of academic leaders in balancing the organizational tensions associated with sl. for instance, langworthy (2007) argues that the tension between the public good offered by sl interest and the increasing external pressure on workforce outcomes and graduate attributes may have led to the australian universities not to engage in sl. moreover, tensions within the organization such as the lack of faculty interest and budgetary support, the lack of time and coordination for sl, and placing sl on a marginal status are the most cited barriers in implementing sl (bringle & hatcher, 1999; stanton et al., 1999; waterman, 2013). reshaping into sl-conducive organizational culture, increasing the incentives for sl engagement, and realigning the recognition and reward system to include sl are some suggestions to resolve these organizational tensions (kezar & rhoads, 2001). academic culture. the academic culture questioning service learning’s legitimacy as an academic activity is also a possible hindrance to its implementation. where does sl fall under the three functions of the university: teaching, research, or community service? kezar and rhoads (2001, p. 167) argue that the functional ‘organizational boxes’ universities need restructuring to encourage interdisciplinary collaboration more conducive to service learning. garrett et al. (2012) further argue that the challenge of sl in german universities lies on the traditional belief that the concept of educating engaged citizens should be in the public democratic space of society and not necessarily in the more formalistic arena of higher education. moreover, langworthy (2007) recommends a change of terminology, to reduce confusion and ‘trivialization’, and to reflect a more academic or scholarly nature. financial challenges. funding schemes often make a difference in successful service learning. for instance, federally funded australian universities rely on the competitive ranking results that emphasize research outputs and employability, not community engagements or impact on social transformation. langworthy (2007) extrapolates that this was one of the reasons for australian universities not embracing service learning. opazo, aramburuzabala and cerrillo (2016) conversely attribute much of service learning’s success among spanish universities to financial support through the european credit transfer system (ects). growing ethical concerns. lastly, xing and ma (2010) highlight ethical dimensions of service learning in asian literature. they explored the extent of the academic community’s involvement vis-à-vis the governance of the university and its partner communities. in particular, service learning programs must show they enhance the community’s capacity to be self-sufficient over the charitable service provision. furthermore, possible exploitation issues exist for communities and students, such as the use of free student labor to perform duties otherwise performed by paid workers. 41 methodology the initial step in adopting service learning into the context of philippine higher education is to explore the key support enablers of, and barriers to, service learning in the context of a private catholic university in the philippines using the the self-assessment rubric for institutionalization of service learning in higher education (srisl) by furco (2002). srisl is one of the widely used tool that characterizes the success factors in development of sl in higher education. it utilizes five dimensions, namely, the philosophy and mission of service learning, the faculty support for and involvement in service learning, the student support for and involvement in service learning, the community participation and partnerships and institutional support for servicelearning. more than eighty american higher education institutions had used this tool to identify the stage of development of service learning in their institutions and subsequently provide the direction to steer the specific dimensions towards its institutionalization (furco, 2002). implementation science frameworks guided this study in how to adopt successfully new sl programs and practices. implementation science is utilized to promote the systematic uptake of evidence-based research findings and practices into routine practice to improve the quality and effectiveness of services (nilsen, 2015). specifically, determinant frameworks among the implementation sciences recognized that implementation is a multidimensional phenomenon, with multiple interacting influences (nielsen, 2015). it is generally aimed to understand influences, whether facilitator or barrier, on implementation outcomes. the author chose to use the srisl, being closely relevant to the service-learning practice and its consistency with the characteristics of these determinant frameworks. this study used an in-depth descriptive qualitative design. the two sources of data used to inform the analysis were a) semi-structured interviews with thirty-one (31) key stakeholders or intended users about their views about sl and their perceived enablers and/or barriers in its implementation and b) a document review of relevant organizational reports and plans on service learning in the said university. transcripts, field notes and organizational documents were analyzed using thematic analysis. data were coded and categorized into perceived barriers and enablers according to the srisl framework. individual conversations with three key administrative staff, which includes the vice-rector for academic affairs, simbahayan director as the community extension arm of the university, and the dean of the college of rehabilitation sciences, took place on campus. the author also interviewed three department chairpersons, ten faculty members and fifteen students from the college of rehabilitation sciences about their views about sl and their perceived enablers or barriers in its implementation using semi-structured questions (table 1). reflections and organizational insights on ongoing sl activities grew from these conversations combined with a review of relevant organizational reports and plans. 42 table 1. interview questions semi-structured questions used in the interview srisl (furco, 2002) 1. how do you understand service learning? 2. what are possible benefits of service learning? 3. what are examples of service-learning activities in which you have participated? dimension 1: philosophy and mission of service learning 4. what motivates you to participate in servicelearning activities? 5. what hampers your participation in service learning activities? dimension 2: faculty support for and involvement in service learning dimension 3: student support for and involvement in service learning 6. how does the community view the participation of students in service learning? 7. how does the university view the participation of students in community activities? dimension 4: community participation and partnerships 8. how has service learning evolved in the college and/or university? what factors led to this current state of service learning? 9. what problems or challenges did you encounter in engaging with communities? how did you manage or resolve them? dimension 5: institutional support for servicelearning results and discussion background on the university of santo tomas the university of santo tomas (ust) is one of the top universities in the philippines with twenty-three (23) colleges and fifty-six (56) undergraduate academic programs. it is a 400-yearold private catholic university with a 20,000-student population. as the royal and pontifical university of the philippines, the university is renowned as a strong traditional educational institution. this paper focused on one particular unit called as the college of rehabilitation sciences (crs). it is one of several health-related colleges. it offers four programs: (a) physical therapy (pt); (b) occupational therapy (ot); (c) sports science (sps); and (d) speech and language pathology (slp). the dean of the college is responsible for its overall operation. department chairpersons manage their respective programs. our subjects discussed a wide range of enablers and barriers to implementing sl in crs. the significant perceived enablers were the implicit alignment of institutional mission with service learning, the early service-learning groundwork in each department, faculty members’ enthusiasm, the preferred partner communities and the symbolic administrative support for service-learning initiatives. the perceived barriers were: (a) fragmented views among students, faculty and administration; (b) restricted faculty and student engagement; (c) minimal incentives for faculty and students to participate in service-learning; (d) the limited ‘reciprocity’ concept among the partner communities; and (d) the lack of actual administrative commitment and support. the result of this self-assessment also showed the early stages of development of service learning at ust. 43 perceived enablers implicit alignment of institutional mission with sl. sl activities appeared to be peripheral to ust’s institutional goals and strategies. as a catholic university guided primarily by the teachings of st. thomas of aquinas, ust’s mission has three core values: competence, compassion and commitment. while the components of compassion and commitment are clearly relevant elements of sl, the curriculum does not explicitly link these to achieve one of the key graduate attribute of servant leadership. in the same light, the thomasian educational philosophy of contemplative study in service of truth (lorezca-tangco, 2014), though closely attuned with sl, was not clearly evident in its curriculum. competence in professional therapy practice appears to be the main focus of the curriculum design. thus, it lacked a clear link to the socialtransformation mission stated in its strategic plans. specifically, students and faculty members see little evidence, so far, for crs’s strong social-transformation agenda for the vulnerable and marginalized population of people with disabilities. beginning service-learning groundwork. the dean recognized that the ot department took the lead on sl development when it introduced a community-based rehabilitation (cbr) course into its curriculum in 2010, and expanded to introduce social justice issues using a rehabilitationscience lens. it was admittedly difficult at the beginning for the ot department to gain acceptance and legitimacy of this pedagogy. as an evolving course, cbr offered a relatively new perspective on disability-related health issues by putting the community as the focal point for disability prevention and health promotion activities for allied health professionals. nevertheless, cbr shifted the paradigm from a medical to biopsychosocial model of disability, with the twofold benefit of attaining student outcomes and meeting community health needs (sagun-ongtangco & abenir, 2016). the cbr course not only expanded the disability-related practice of occupational therapy, but also helped develop a unique professional identity in the philippine setting. optimism of faculty members. despite claiming it was their first time to hear about sl or having limited understanding of sl, faculty members have discussed various elements of sl in their current practice such as: i think our community-based rehabilitation (cbr) course is an example of service learning because it is geared towards community development through disability prevention. (faculty member 1) our internship program has a community setting as one of the students’ placement. (faculty member 2) we encourage our students to participate in lib-rehab, an annual program of providing free therapy services in the community. (faculty member 7) the current group of interns are conducting research on tele-rehab in the community in exchange for free rehabilitation services to its community members. (faculty member 8) 44 these responses showed that sl is closely associated with working in a community (locational purpose) and working on a community (therapy service provision). moreover, it also appeared that sl is closely intertwined with the nature of the therapy profession, which is inherently part of the allied health professional identity (parmenter & thomas, 2015). as such, community involvement becomes integral part of the allied health profession curriculum for developing both professional therapy and humanistic skills. although the lack of reflective pedagogical strategy and attendance grades diluting the basic essence of sl, there were also some faculty members who saw the potential of sl to: not only develop these humanistic skills but also to promote social justice as perceived from the rehabilitation science lens. recognition of health disparities and inequitable access to healthcare services are among the many social problems that need to be incorporated into the service-learning program. (faculty member 5). this recognition may lead to the potential expansion of sl into the social change agenda as described by butin (2010), including disability-related health reforms such as disability-inclusive communities. preferred partner communities. simbahayan, as the community development arm of the university, acted as the liaison between the community and the colleges, matching the academic needs with the community needs. simbahayan director proudly shared that the number of partner communities had increased to one hundred twenty (120) over a few years. the program uses a needs-based framework, by which the university identified and established the needs of partner communities prior to forming a partnership (director of simbahayan). for crs, it was relatively easy to establish disability-focused community partnerships in rural and socio-economically disadvantaged areas, with limited access to therapy and health services. it included public schools, rural health units, villages and non-profit organizations with disability-related concerns, among many others. most of these activities were discipline-specific, and were thought of as extra-/co-curricular in nature, such as free health screening, wellness programs, english language classes, book reading for education and humanities programs, and tree-planting or community clean-ups for the social sciences programs. symbolic administrative support. the organizational structure of the university clearly reflects its tripartite functions of instruction, research and extension services. each function is clearly the province of a vice-rector controlling an operational budget. for the instruction function, there is the office of vice-rector for academic affairs. for the research function, there is the office of vice-rector for research and innovation. for extension services or community development, there is the simbahayan office, under the office of vice-rector for religious affairs. being a catholic university, simbahayan represented the union of church (simbahan), family (bahay) and nation (bayan). simbahayan was the innovative result of the quadricentennial celebration of the university in 2010. 45 perceived barriers fragmented views. the most common sl understanding reported by both faculty members and students is community service, either curricular, co-curricular or extra-curricular. some students associated sl with internship. they shared stories about their experiences of practising the skills learned in the classroom with real patients (in contrast with simulated patients). some faculty members and students related sl to occasions when they volunteered their services in the community (as compared to the clinic or hospital). few faculty members described sl as an exchange between learning skills for disability-inclusive community development by students and the empowerment of partner communities on disability-related health issues. two faculty members mentioned that both community and the academe shared the mutual benefit of sl with an end goal of improving the disability-related health outcomes in their communities. the department chairpersons raised a different perspective. they focused on the pedagogical component of sl and its impact on the values formation and humanistic skills such as cultural competency and interprofessional collaboration skills. the administrative officials had more fragmented views on sl. on the one hand, the crs dean viewed it as a way to merge research and community service. on the other hand, the simbahayan director viewed it as mobilizing the students to participate in socially-relevant activities. he further elaborated that simbahayan will get a boost in support and funding if it portrayed the university as an international sl hub, reportedly important for the university’s ranking and program accreditation purposes. furthermore, the vice-rector for academic affairs viewed it as the pedagogical tool that will shape future thomasian graduates as global citizens. reflection as a learning strategy received little mention in these conversations. participants may have assumed that learning had occurred because of their community experience. the role of faculty in facilitating learning through reflective strategies was not evident. reflection, as a key pedagogical feature of sl, was not explicitly elucidated in these conversations. this fragmented vision of sl on the part of various stakeholders indicated a strong need to clarify and harmonize sl understanding to appreciate its intended benefits, particularly in the allied health profession curriculum. restricted engagement of faculty and students. limited understanding and time constraints resulted in minimal faculty involvement. i would like to be part of community activities, but i have no more time for this. (faculty member 8) inasmuch i would like to make frequent community visits with my class, we don’t have the extra time to do so. (faculty member 2) 46 although opportunities for sl were available to students, their academic workload took a higher priority: we would like to do it, but our academic studies come first. if only we have spare time, we would participate in community activities. (student 3) it takes so much time to get into the communities . . . and the traffic jam makes it horrible. the travel time actually makes it difficult, not the actual activity. (student 4) similarly, students perceived the national service training program (nstp), a nationally mandated course for all first-year students to engage with the community, as a ‘hassle’ or irrelevant to their learning to become allied health professionals, as it lacked in the utilization of health-related skills in their community activities. compliance to the traditional allied medical profession curriculum design seemed to be more appealing to students than the altruistic values of sl. minimal incentives. faculty members considered community service as a non-rewarding work. they under-recognized it as an innovative pedagogy. a number of faculty members shared that engaging in community service contributed little to their faculty promotion. they were further pressed to balance the three functions of teaching, research, and community service, with the latter most likely neglected. researchers and advocates have consistently raised this as a key barrier to sl implementation (roberts et al., 2018). with time-consuming logistical preparations, compounded by compliance with tedious government regulatory requirements for off-campus activities, some faculty members felt unmotivated and considered it not a worthwhile activity. similarly, there were few incentives for students to participate in sl activities. accustomed as they were to mandatory attendance requirements in their courses, students claimed they expected a reward for their participation, either with an attendance grade or through bonus points for meritorious effort. for the faculty members, they gave these bonus points because “without these incentives, students will most likely not participate in such extra work” (faculty member 5). this counteracted the key feature of sl, in which students receive grades based on their learning outcomes, not solely on their participation (zlotkowski, 2011). limited reciprocity. while the number of partner communities has increased over time, sl’s impact on the community and/or student learning remains unexplored. the quality of these programs and partnerships, and their impact on social transformation will need more attention. simbahayan usually arranges the community activities and specifies the number of participants, resources, dates, and times according to the availability of the students and faculty. the director found this convenient, as partner communities readily altered their stated needs to accommodate simbahayan’s constraints, in return for free services. the concept of ‘reciprocity’ (sigmon, 1979, p. 10), understood as placing resources in the hands of those being served, was not evident in this example. limited actual buy-in. despite the potential of sl to influence graduate outcomes, the departmentalized organizational structure may often lead to silo thinking in teaching, research, and service functions. therefore, this may limit the collaborative culture needed to cultivate sl. 47 moreover, limited student and faculty recognition, grants and awards were available for successful achievement. conversely, instances of non-compliance reportedly received negative reinforcements, such as budget reduction and increasing procedural bureaucracy. this nonpositive organizational culture may have hindered the creative and innovative thinking necessary for sl to take a richer form in this university. the faculty and students alike confronted multiple layers of bureaucracy for community engagement. the simbahayan director may symbolically oversee the university’s function in community development. however, both the student affairs office and the academic affairs office have the most to say in approving extra-curricular activities. the community-development coordinators monitor the community activities within their colleges, while the department chairpersons monitor the integration of sl as a pedagogy in their respective departments. highlighting this lack of a coordinating entity, the simbahayan director lamented that: the recent ched policies have reduced the number of community activities of the students by 50%. there has been so much time, effort and money just to get those ched permits and it had to be cancelled at the last minute because the permits were not processed in time. (simbahayan director) the director lamented further that the modest budget allocated to simbahayan did not support all the community-related activities. most often, students had to do their own fund-raising to implement their community-related activities. furthermore, faculty and students often competed for the same sponsors. for instance, the mayor’s office of the partner community might be asked to fund the transportation and food expenses for different activities. these conversations indicated that sl in ust may potentially be the vital link in fulfilling its thomasian educational mission, but it may need to: (a) organize more effectively; and (b) implement sl so as to effect the authentic social transformation it hopes to achieve. the fragmented understanding of sl, seen as mostly mandatory, extra-curricular activities within the community (rather than with the community), is typically characteristic of early stages of sl program development. reciprocity, as a key element of sl, can be further enhanced to overtly align the thomasian educational mission and disability-related health sl initiatives. furthermore, crs faculty should reconsider employing pedagogical reflection strategies on sl activities to bring the humanistic skills of compassionate care into the allied health curriculum. the tripartite structure and academic culture of the university shaped the way simbahayan functioned as a separate unit from teaching and research. such organizational tensions may contribute to defeating the altruistic intentions of service learning. beyond serving as an essential coordinating entity, simbahayan should provide a broader range of pedagogical and research support and ethical practice to support institutionalization of sl in the university. by recognizing the early stage of development of sl in ust, it has already shown potential growth and development opportunities to fulfill its 400-year-old thomasian mission in modern times. the srisl tool had helped identify the specific enabling dimensions, which can aid in overcoming the perceived barriers. ultimately, these strengths shall help advance the institutionalization of sl program at the university. 48 conclusion responding to the call for relevant allied-health professional education, we need to ensure that learning experiences in the actual communities contribute to the redesign of health service delivery, as well as to allied health professional development. this study highlighted the multidimensional perspectives from the academic community of faculty members, students and the partner communities regarding many key concepts which may affect the sl implementation. while the benefits of sl are clear to the academic landscape, it was apparently not adequate to drive its successful implementation to attain its graduate outcomes as well as the resultant disability-related health outcomes for the communities we serve. the results of this study may inform development of continuing education, training and support for service-learning initiatives for further uptake of service learning as its signature pedagogy in the allied health profession. sl can potentially support allied health profession curriculum for its emerging professional identity and role in enhancing disability-related health outcomes. likewise, the fragmented views, time constraints and limited institutional buy-in of sl are the key barriers in need of attention as practitioners advance signature sl in allied-health professional education. this may potentially make service learning a core component of the allied health education curriculum and further scale up service learning across the various programs in the university. 49 references battaglia, j. 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(pp. 95119). temple university press. retrieved from http://www.jstor.org.ezp.lib.unimelb.edu.au/stable/j.ctt14bt5qz.13 http://www.jstor.org.ezp.lib.unimelb.edu.au/stable/j.ctt1xwf3j http://www.jstor.org.ezp.lib.unimelb.edu.au/stable/j.ctt14bt5qz.13 52 author information sally jane uy, med(melb), mbah, otrp, otr associate professor department of occupational therapy college of rehabilitation sciences university of santo tomas españa boulevard, sampaloc manila, philippines email: shuy@ust.edu.ph / sjuy22@gmail.com contact number: +639176290207 sally jane uy is currently an associate professor at the college of rehabilitation sciences and graduate school of the university of santo tomas. she has more than twenty years of experience as an occupational therapist in the clinical setting and the academe. she recently obtained her masters in educational management from the university of melbourne under the australia awards program. mailto:shuy@ust.edu.ph mailto:sjuy22@gmail.com infusing service-learning into allied health profession curriculum: perceived enablers and barriers sally jane uy support factors hindering factors original research © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23986 | december 18, 2020 163 the application of faith and learning: faith-based anchor institutions and community engagement theresa m. harrison1 , dottie s. weigel2, and melinda b. smith3 1carolina family engagement center, university of south carolina, 2graduate program in higher education, messiah university, and 3 health, nutrition, and exercise science department, messiah university. cite as: harrison, t.m., weigel, d.s., & smith, m.b. (2020). the application of faith and learning: faith-based anchor institutions and community engagement. metropolitan universities, 31(3), 163-180. doi: 10.18060/23986 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract higher education institutions face many competing priorities and are still expected to serve the public good. faith-based institutions, in particular, aim to meet a faith-inspired calling and serve the communities in which they are situated while guiding students in their faith formation by integrating service and academic priorities. in this paper, the authors explore, through a case study methodology, the unique positionality of messiah university, a faith-based university located near the capital city of harrisburg, pa. specifically, this study explores the impact of a community engaged course with an urban nonprofit agency. keywords: community-university partnerships, experiential learning, cultural humility, servicelearning, faith integration introduction an anchor institution’s ability to address the issues of their respective community has elicited much needed attention over the past twenty years. hodges and dubb (2020) suggest university leaders have not worked hard enough to address important national problems. the focus has primarily been on how anchor institutions situated in urban environments have served urban communities. anchor institutions best serve others when they align their mission and strategic plans with priority concerns, not only within their local context but their surrounding regions as well. cantor, englot, and higgins (2013) have specifically called on universities to consider how to leverage their unique strengths in order to break down university and community barriers. universities can avoid being the expert in the ivory tower by truly working with communities, as http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23986 | december 18, 2020 164 part of the community, to address need and generate solutions. faith-based institutions are uniquely positioned to do this work. this paper provides an example of how a faith-based anchor institution located in a suburban context can fulfill its mission by extending its reach into an urban environment and work in concert with an urban place-based anchor institution. context of the institution of higher education messiah university is a liberal arts university known for its orientation to christian service (messiah university, n.d.-a). the university was founded in 1909 on the outskirts of the capital city of harrisburg, pa upon receiving a plot of land from the first university president. the mission of messiah university, “to educate men and women toward maturity of intellect, character, and christian faith in preparation for lives of service, leadership and reconciliation in church and society,” reflects its commitment to faith and service (messiah university, n.d.-b). because service, leadership, and reconciliation are firmly rooted in the context of christian faith, this impacts the university’s approach to service: “we don’t just serve because it’s the ‘right thing to do’; we serve because god calls us to open our hearts to the poor and needy and to work for justice wherever injustice prevails” (messiah university, n.d.-b, para 4). messiah university is rooted in the anabaptist tradition, which upholds pacifist beliefs (messiah university, n.d.-c). due to their status as conscientious objectors during world war ii, many faculty completed civilian public service in lieu of military service (haynes, 2005). service has, therefore, been an integral part of the campus culture for decades. in the early 1990s, messiah university was awarded with a fund for the improvement of postsecondary education (fipse) grant to develop “innovative projects for student community service” to strengthen service-learning across the curriculum (agapé center for service and learning, 2012). in 1998, messiah dedicated a newly renovated space on campus called the agapé center for service and learning. the agapé center houses co-curricular educators and faculty partners dedicated to ensuring community partnerships with areas of great need, such as inner city harrisburg. through the agapé center, students serve the local community by addressing needs such as hunger and homelessness, literacy, and health and wellness. the agapé center also connects faculty with community partners for academic service learning and provided tremendous support to the current research project. the context of community: the allison hill community (harrisburg, pa) harrisburg, the capital city of pennsylvania, is one of the most industrialized cities in the northeastern united states. it serves as home to heavy manufacturing, agriculture, and chocolate maker the hershey company. despite the city’s decade-old financial troubles, it was ranked the second-best place in the united states to raise a family in 2010 and has favorable financial stability due to its high concentration of state and federal government agencies. it is a racially diverse city, majority-minority with 51.8% black or african american, 21.8% hispanic or © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23986 | december 18, 2020 165 latinx, and 22.6% white. the overall college attainment is 20.2% which is indicative of the median household income of $37,356 and poverty rate of 27.7%. additionally, only 34.6% of residents own their homes (u.s. census bureau, 2018). as with most industrialized cities, the gradual loss of industry after wwii led to white flight to the suburbs. the community of focus for this study is located directly east of downtown harrisburg, pa and is accessed by bridges and across a wide path of train tracks along the susquehanna river. allison hill, known by locals as the “hill,” the “ville,” and the “third ward” is harrisburg’s first suburb and comprises many neighborhoods representing a variety of cultures such as west african, vietnamese, indonesian, latin american, african american, and european american populations. the majority of residents are low income and one third are under the age of 18 (u.s. census bureau, 2018). over the years, a number of homes and buildings have fallen into disrepair and have been condemned. once source reported 199 buildings in the neighborhood as “abandoned” and another 121 as “vacant” (malawskey, 2014). literature review anchor institutions while universities, the government, and hospitals have always played an important role in our communities, it was not until 2002 when the term anchor institutions was coined by michael porter to emphasize the long-term and vested nature of these institutions in a particular city or region (rutheiser, 2016). dubb, mckinley, and howard (2013) further define anchor mission as “a commitment to consciously apply the long-term, place-based economic power of the institution, in combination with its human and intellectual resources, to better the long-term welfare of the communities in which the institution is anchored” (p. 48). it is for this reason that higher education institutions (heis) are uniquely situated to do this work due to their vast network of knowledge and resources located within a geographic location or community. william rainey harper, the first president of the university of chicago, had an evangelical view of the university as a “prophet of democracy” (p. 43), a place embedded in the issues and life of urban america with the purpose of serving the city and country and fulfilling the university’s democratic promise (benson et al., 2017). the united states has a long history of community engagement partnerships with heis. in the nineteenth century, many states established land grant universities linking higher education with agriculture, heavy industries, and local communities (jacob, 2015). those strong ties have persisted with many land grant universities, but with the growth of system-wide educational entities (e.g., r1, community colleges, regional comprehensive universities), community engagement efforts have seemed to shift in priority based on the heis designation. as such, public institutions are not inevitably vested in community engagement efforts. many heis have competing priorities such as recruitment and retention of students, maintaining a high-level research profile, and fundraising to meet multi© the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23986 | december 18, 2020 166 million-dollar campaign goals. faith-based institutions have to weigh these priorities, but their faith mission also heavily influences how they enact their mission and what drives leadership decisions. in considering the unique make-up of hei’s as anchor institutions, we must consider how community engagement is viewed by leadership as central to the mission of the university. for example, even though community engagement, along with teaching and research, is considered a core function of heis, it is not generally given equal weight in their reward systems (saltmarsh, 2011). therefore, any opportunity to link teaching and research with community engagement initiatives is advantageous to meeting the commitments of faculty and the institution writ large. university–community partnerships encompass many iterations in linking teaching, research, and service, with opportunities such as community-based research projects, service-learning activities, and community-based training programs (russell & flynn, 2001). yet, by and large studies show that universities tend to benefit from these long-term partnerships more than communities do, creating a sense of resentment and mistrust (gray, 2000; perkins et al., 2004). whereas engaged campuses advance the concept of full participation and are both in and of the community, participating in reciprocal, mutually beneficial partnerships between campus and community (strum, 2011). one such campus is the university of pennsylvania, which serves as a model in developing and implementing an effective response to urban issues by partnering with local communities advancing the core purposes of the university and the wellbeing of the community (benson et al., 2017). in essence, full participation requires people, including students, faculty, and community members, within and beyond the university coming together to transform a community with the foundational understanding that heis are rooted in and accountable to multiple communities. heis are accountable to students who matriculate within their walls and they are also accountable to entities connected via physical space (e.g., adjacent residential neighborhoods) and collaborative projects (e.g., nonprofits dependence on servicelearning classes). the intersection between faith and community engagement has implications not only for college students but for communities as well. the faith tradition of an institution is imbued in the intentions of faculty, staff, and students; ideally, their intentions embody the very nature of living out faith through actions in one’s community. when examined in relation to place-based anchor institutions, the call to serve in one's community, to seek justice and defend the oppressed, and be good stewards of our resources and time seem to go hand in hand. wuthnow (1998) emphasized a spirituality of seeking, which readies the spiritual sojourner for the road. taken literally, we might even suggest that where faculty and students seek out their spiritual experiences as a member of an institution is logically going to be influenced by how and where the institution is integrated in their community. college and university campuses have a responsibility to communicate the context of the community to students early on and help students understand they are part of an ongoing effort to serve the community. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23986 | december 18, 2020 167 integration of faith into the classroom and curriculum in mapping the terrain, huber and hutchings (2004) define integrative learning as “connecting skills and knowledge from multiple sources and experiences; applying theory to practice in various settings; utilizing diverse and even contradictory points of view; and, understanding issues and positions contextually” (p. 13). integrative learning experiences provide an opportunity for the learner to address real-world problems, adapt their intellectual skills, and understand and develop individual purpose, values, and ethics (rhodes, 2010). when applying christian theology to address real-world problems through service-learning, christian colleges and universities are positioned to help their students frame engagement around faith principles such as to love their neighbors. messiah university has established learning objectives for undergraduate students that are accomplished through curricular and cocurricular learning structures. through social responsibility, one of the six university-wide educational outcomes, students demonstrate a commitment to service, reconciliation, and justice, and respond effectively and ethically to the complexities of an increasingly diverse and interdependent world. specifically, students (a) gain an appreciation for cultural and ethnic diversity; (b) become servants, leaders, and reconcilers in the world; (c) develop a sense of civil responsibility and commitment to work with others for the common good; (d) develop the courage to act responsibility and redemptively in a complex world; (e) practice good stewardship of economic and natural resources; (e) act in ways that respect gender, cultural, and ethnic diversity; and (f) make decisions that reflect an ethic of service, a concern for justice, and a desire for reconciliation (messiah university, n.d-d) servicelearning provides an opportunity for students to integrate their faith and learning through service to the community. accomplishing educational goals through experiential learning messiah university aims to achieve educational outcomes through curricular and cocurricular structures, and one of the major ways is through the experiential learning initiative (eli). students participate in an approved experiential learning activity that involves goals of meaningful career development and community engagement (messiah university, n.d-e). this involves a guided process where students are challenged to learn, apply and integrate knowledge and skills in an authentic context (messiah university, n.d-e). service-learning courses are one of the ways students fulfill their eli requirements. these courses engage students in community service beyond the classroom while employing intentional reflection to help students connect their service with course content. service-learning has been shown to have positive benefits on academic learning, promotes civic engagement, and builds strong partnerships with communities (eyler, giles, stenson, & gray, 2001). saltmarsh and hartley call for democratically engaged work, which is “framed as inclusive, collaborative, and problem-oriented work in which © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23986 | december 18, 2020 168 academics share knowledge-generating tasks with the public and involve community partners as participants in public problem solving” (benson, harvkavy, & puckett, 2007, p. 20). description of the service-learning course health promotion management (aphs 220) is a three-credit course offered as an applied health science elective within the health, nutrition and exercise science department at messiah university. students in the applied health science major are required to take several of these elective courses to complete graduation requirements. the course is offered every other academic year, during the fall semester. since 2017, aphs 220 has been approved by the institution as an experiential learning initiative (eli) course, designed to support selfawareness, professional preparation, and community engagement. to complete the eli component, all students establish and evaluate personal learning goals regarding professional development and community engagement during the semester. at semester conclusion, they also create resume wording regarding their experience. in the course, students collaborate with brethren housing association (bha), located on hummel street in harrisburg, pa to promote health in areas identified by staff and interested participants. bha operates the transitions, side-by-side, and next steps programs, employs eight staff members, and owns 10 parcels of land for 22 apartments for supporting families. bha’s mission is “to help individuals and families, who are experiencing homelessness, achieve their god-given potential by providing a holistic program of stable housing, supportive services and loving relationships.” (brethren housing association, 2019-2020, para 6). this shared mission between bha and messiah university is an effective foundation for collaboration and partnership. students are required to be on-site at bha several times during the course. during on-campus class time throughout the semester, students engage in communication with staff members, creating sustainable wellness support for bha within small group learning communities. students authentically work through the health promotion process through the creation of health interest surveys, implementation plans, sustainable support tools, and assessment plans. at the conclusion of the semester, students share their process and support tools with staff and families at bha. community-based learning pedagogy within a traditional classroom setting, addressing tangible societal issues with faith integration may be challenging. however, engaging students in service and partnership encourages realistic practice and reflection on experiences (de groot, alexander, culp, & keith, 2015). creatively pursuing community engagement can enhance student learning and provide an opportunity for authentically exploring faith as students learn with and from community partners. within the applied health science field, a pedagogical emphasis on service and community relationships © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23986 | december 18, 2020 169 involves learners in sustainable practices to enhance wellness and address social justice through stewardship (culp, 2016). through personal reflection and listening to the stories of others, learners are equipped to pursue action steps toward community engagement in their own future professional work. instead of a singular discussion or one topic in the syllabus, each class encourages students in exploring the integration of their faith and work. they have opportunities to reflect on their own personal experiences of privilege and oppression, consider areas of explicit or implicit bias, and develop relationships with a foundation of cultural humility. aphs 220 aims to enhance student learning while also addressing a significant community need. methodology qualitative research is a process of inquiry that strives for a greater depth of understanding of social phenomena (creswell, 2018). qualitative methods were employed to explore students’ experiences and engagement through the service-learning course, providing thick, rich descriptions. these “participant perspectives” (bogdan & biklen, 1998) facilitated the exploration of the students’ experiences as well as the perceptions of the community partner. this case study was guided by the following research questions: (a) what themes emerged that demonstrate the impact of the service-learning course on students’ career application and faith integration? and (b) in what ways does the community-university collaboration have an impact as described by the community partner? context of the course the aphs 220 course meets twice a week for 75-minute class periods. the students are required to complete two on-site visits to brethren housing association (bha) in harrisburg, pa and have additional volunteer opportunities, such as organizing a thanksgiving dinner and assisting with weekly childcare for bha support groups. students are challenged to take input from staff and families to create supportive wellness tools that are useful and sustainable at bha. participants in fall 2019, there were 25 students (n = 25) enrolled in the aphs 220 course. regarding gender, seven students were male (n = 7) and eighteen students were female (n = 18). in terms of class status, two students were sophomores (n = 2), 15 students were juniors (n = 15), and eight students were seniors (n = 8). while service is a required component of the course, the students know about this requirement when registering for the class. students have the opportunity to choose between this course and other courses once they learn about the required service with bha. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23986 | december 18, 2020 170 community-based learning experiences in the initial weeks of the course, students worked in their small group learning communities to design a health interest survey to gather relevant information regarding the primary nutrition interests and goals of staff and participants at bha. before preparing their survey, students were required to do background research to assist in their design. as they created their surveys, they were reminded to maintain clear organization and formatting while using audience-appropriate language, which included clarity, as well as statements that were empowering and not assumptive. students included scaled items for respondents to check interest level in nutritionrelated issues, as well as open-ended questions. in addition, at least one question was designed for respondents to discuss other holistic wellness interests (i.e., physical, emotional/mental, environmental, spiritual, social). the surveys were reviewed and edited by the instructor and then distributed to staff and participants at bha. staff responses (n = 4) to the survey revealed that the majority of bha families would benefit from practical nutrition education and strategies and simple, healthy recipes (n = 4). they also affirmed that families have enough supplies for cooking, but strongly disagreed that families have a lot of knowledge about nutrition (n = 4). the students compiled the feedback in class and established themes for their initial project implementation plans. these plans were shared with bha staff for feedback before students begin actively creating their nutrition support tools. the collaboration continued throughout the semester, as students shared their progress and asked for insight from staff who work directly with participants on a daily basis. with continual feedback from staff at bha, the five student learning communities designed and created nutrition support tools for 20 families who would be living in apartments at bha. the student-designed tools included interactive laminated placements for children, a nutrition infographic to place on kitchen walls, a nutrition logbook for grocery shopping and reflection, a cookbook including breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack recipes, and physical activity cards for families and youth staff. during the final week of the semester, students were on-site at bha to share their tools with staff and available participants. this was an important component of student learning and partnership. students shared the educational components of their tools, the rationale for their designs, and their hopes for how they can be used in the future. the students asked for questions from staff and received feedback on how the tools would be integrated with bha. course reflection activities the students responded to specific questions used in the “reflection and application” assignments in aphs 220 throughout the semester: © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23986 | december 18, 2020 171 ● professional development: what specific skills will you work to develop through our course this semester that can enhance your professional effectiveness? please describe one or two skills in detail, including action steps you will take. ● community engagement: what do you hope to learn about community or do as a member of a community this semester? consider our class community, as well as our involvement with the bha community. ● listen deeply to the ted talk by novelist chimamanda adichie, “the danger of a single story.” then, respond to the following questions. in your own words, how is a “single story” of people formed? what are practical suggestions for how our class can avoid a single story of homelessness as we work with bha? ● using your own words, create a definition for cultural humility. what are practical ways that we can approach our work with bha this semester with a commitment to cultural humility? ● go to the project implicit website and choose two implicit association tests (iat) to take for personal reflection: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html. what two iats did you choose to complete? reflect on the experience of taking iats (most of our scores do reflect some bias). how can tests like this be helpful? why do you think you scored as you did? ● revisit the personal commitments that you set at the beginning of the semester (professional development and community engagement). discuss your progress and any adjustments that you would like to make in these areas for the remaining weeks of the semester. ● (eli question) consider the knowledge you gained and the skills you practiced in this course that can be applied within a professional context. describe two transferable skills you gained or improved from this course experience. describe how these skills might benefit you in a professional setting in the future. ● (eli question) what did “community” look like in your experience this semester within the health promotion management course? as you reflect on your experience, what is one specific way you believe you will engage in and contribute to a specific community in the future? ● discuss a significant moment during this experience that left a lasting impact on you. what made this moment significant for you? data analyses students were invited to respond candidly to the reflection and application assignments throughout the semester. an overall construct that emerged from the data was the notion of authenticity. students’ reflections were honest and authentic. the concept of authenticity is liberating in the sense that one acts out of commitment and choice through their existential experiences not out of duty to external constructs (kirylo & boyd, 2017). © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23986 | december 18, 2020 172 an inductive research approach was employed as well as a constant comparative analysis of the data to draw three major themes cultural humility, knowledge of the community, and faith and vocational application. table one includes the major themes that emerged, including a description of the theme and an example quote from the data. table 1. end of semester student reflections theme theme description example quote cultural humility reshaping a privileged mindset to adopt a posture of cultural humility, similar to christ. the concept of cultural humility was a brand-new idea this semester. i loved learning about the mindset “[allow the client to be] the expert” and applying it by being mindful of the vocabulary we used. i think this can transfer to physical therapy when i get people of different minorities and backgrounds. cultural humility reshaping a privileged mindset to adopt a posture of cultural humility, similar to christ. as each individual comes to me, they all have their own stories. i will not let my story shape my perspective, rather i will love as god loves and support them as they are entering the rehabilitation process which can be both painful and frustrating on some days. cultural humility reshaping a privileged mindset to adopt a posture of cultural humility, similar to christ. i learned what good teamwork is and how much that can impact the project. the fact that we knew our [projects] were going to be used by real people also had an impact on how we worked on it. we had to create ways to portray information that was easily understood, which is how i improved my professional language skills. i had never had to create something that was going to be used in real life. so, this course was eye opening and i learned so much about how to talk and appeal to real people, something no other class has offered so far in my college career. knowledge of community realizing the importance of knowing the people served and their distinct needs. i was humbled by how much i didn’t know but i was very surprised at how much others in our class didn’t know about the community that we were about to serve. it was seriously eye opening how much an average christian college kid (including myself) doesn’t know about their local community that is struggling. it caused me to reflect © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23986 | december 18, 2020 173 on what i am involved with and what the real purpose behind those things is. knowledge of community realizing the importance of knowing the people served and their distinct needs. as a class, we had established a community that saw the bha as not something we needed to conquer, instead, we needed to join forces, form a partnership and seek positive change together. faith and vocational application understanding the importance of a christian mission and calling and applying these concepts through authentic service to others. when i think about the people in community surrounding/supporting bha, i’m able to see different parts of the body of christ work together. our class is just one part of the body, which is focused on physical health. some bha staff were another part of the body, focused on childcare. other bha staff were another part, focused on finances. then other parts of the body were leaders – kind of like joints in the body connecting one moving piece to another. it was cool to see how all these different parts of wholeness were expressed through different parts of the community to serve alongside bha, and how beautiful it was for them to all come together. faith and vocational application understanding the importance of a christian mission and calling and applying these concepts through authentic service to others. community means recognition of difference, while simultaneously loving and affirming the group or individual. if only we could all see the world from the point of view of the father. imagine viewing every single individual as a carefully crafted & wonderfully made individual. to me, this is the community of the kingdom. in addition to the qualitative data, end-of-course evaluations were used to triangulate the data (table 2). creswell and miller (2000) define triangulation as “a validity procedure where researchers search for convergence among multiple and different sources of information to form themes or categories in a study” (p. 126). examining student satisfaction with the course helped to determine the validity of the student reflections. by participating in an anonymous survey, students were able to indicate their honest perception of the course effectiveness. students responded to a 5-point likert scale survey indicating their agreement to course effectiveness in accomplishing course objectives. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23986 | december 18, 2020 174 table 2. student perceptions of aphs 2020 course effectiveness (n = 25) course effectiveness factors mean standard deviation helped students to interpret subject matter from diverse perspectives 4.9 0.27 encouraged students to reflect on and evaluate what they have learned 4.9 0.27 demonstrated the importance and significance of the subject matter 4.9 0.27 formed teams or groups to facilitate learning 5.0 0.0 related course material to real life situations 4.9 0.27 created opportunities for students to apply course content outside the classroom 4.9 0.32 involved students in hands-on projects such as research, case studies, or real-life activities 5.0 0.2 asked students to share ideas and experiences with others whose backgrounds and viewpoints differ from their own 4.6 0.56 overall, excellent course 4.9 0.27 note. 100% response rate, likert scale, 5 = strongly agree. community partner reflections once the aphs 220 course was completed, one of the research team members who did not have a previous relationship with the community partner and who did not work for messiah university conducted an in-depth interview with the program director of the brethren housing association. the purpose of this interview was to explore the perceived impact of the community-university collaboration. the program director shared that the harrisburg area “has a lot of resources such as food pantries, but there is no education on how to do meal planning” (m. bellesfield, personal communication, august 17, 2020). she went on to describe the importance of learning about the families first and how they feel about nutrition. this was a positive confirmation to the use of an assessment survey before the project even started. in addition, the director shared that the agency does not want to “showcase” the families or make them feel like they are on display, so students © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23986 | december 18, 2020 175 must read the feedback from the needs assessment survey carefully and listen well to the feedback from the survey and community partner. when asked how the local community perceives messiah university students, she responded that they “connect with people, have an understanding of empathy, incredible character, are dependable, and are high-level students” (m. bellesfield, personal communication, august 17, 2020). many of the characteristics described by the community partner aligned with the themes derived from the student reflections. implications while the residential campus of messiah university is rural, harrisburg, pa is an urban community located less than 20 minutes from campus. many students within aphs 220 had never been to harrisburg, and most had not spent any time in the allison hill neighborhood where brethren housing association is located. embedding service within a course gave students an extended opportunity to serve their community and allowed the bha to build off of the work that had been done in prior semesters. as the director of bha shared, “the [students] provided me with tools, such as the menu planner, that help on a daily basis. this was very educational for the women, and never had anyone talked to them about this” (m. bellesfield, personal communication, august 17, 2020). students were able to practice authentic professional skills in small group collaboration and by creating wellness support tools. they engaged in listening to the stories of others, both inside the classroom and through their interactions at bha. students found commonalities among people who have had different life experiences than their own. by engaging their local urban community, students experienced long-lasting effects through faith and vocational applications as well as compassion for the community. creative collaboration led to opportunities to provide holistic support for student learning and growth, as well as sustaining partnerships with community neighbors. bha “depends on volunteers” to accomplish their mission to serve harrisburg residents (m. bellesfield, personal communication, august 17, 2020), and they continue to welcome messiah faculty and students to partner in service to the community. challenges and lessons learned for future practice there are several challenges and lessons that were learned throughout the semester. first and foremost, there is greater faculty effectiveness with an emphasis on community partnerships, not just projects. when students saw the staff and families at the brethren housing association as people from whom they can learn and walk alongside, their classwork was more authentic and the implications were longer lasting. when the emphasis is simply on creating a project to “serve” others, there is risk in creating an unhealthy hierarchy between “us” and “them.” each student responds to course experiences in different ways, and it is essential to support the individual journeys. in aphs 220, some students completed the coursework, but did not pursue additional engagement beyond what was required. in contrast, there were other students who © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23986 | december 18, 2020 176 chose to volunteer at bha on a weekly basis and became deeply involved in the lives of the families who live and work there. as educators, our job is to encourage personal and professional growth, but to also recognize the unique ways these will be expressed for each student. reflection must be ongoing and formative, not only summative at the conclusion of a semester. students need opportunities to think deeply about their own experiences and views and have opportunities to consider ways in which perspective can change throughout the course. eyler, giles, and schmiede (1996) indicate that reflection should be continuous, connected, challenging, and contextualized for students to gain the most meaning from their servicelearning. at its best, reflection should support growth in self-awareness regarding faith, relationships, and vocation. it should also provide opportunities for students to ask questions without easy answers and challenge systems related to social justice. jacoby (2014) emphasizes critical reflection as “the process of analyzing, reconsidering and questioning one’s experiences within a broad context of issues and content knowledge” (p. 26). authentic service assumes that each person comes to the partnership with a common understanding and purpose of the issues they seek to address, and the change needed to bring about a solution. “only through such praxis, in which those who help and those who are being helped help each other simultaneously, can the act of helping become free from the distortion in which the helper dominates the helped” (dewar, 1998, p. 54). students must, therefore, be encouraged to develop the practice of listening well. mcewen, herman, and himes (2016) indicate, “authentic dialogue requires active listening on the part of each participant with a deep respect for each other’s opinions—even if they differ from one’s own” (p. 313). university–community partnerships are a conditional response to social, political, and historical contexts. all stakeholders involved in establishing these partnerships have their own priorities that emerge as the collaborative efforts take place. as such, it is important to understand that current practices are predicated on past experiences. when partners choose to ignore social, political, and historical contexts, the possibility of working together toward equitable outcomes is lost (miller & hafner, 2008). conclusion faith-based anchor institutions are well-positioned to meet the needs of their local and regional communities as a place-based entity, with a vast network of knowledge and resources, and a commitment to service as a priority. when we think about the role hei’s play in helping to positively transform communities, we have to consider both the individual and institutional commitment to this work. students should have an opportunity to consider their biases, develop a sense of cultural humility, and connect their faith to their actions. faculty need to assist students in exploring these aspects of their personal and social development through creating a curriculum © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23986 | december 18, 2020 177 that aligns with these priorities. similarly, faculty must be supported through professional development opportunities and be encouraged to seek out community partnerships to enhance the learning outcomes of their courses. at the institutional level, administrators have to lead by example and demonstrate the value of forging cross-sector collaboration by encouraging faculty and staff at all levels to leverage the strengths of the university to meet the challenges we face as a collective community. at the center of effective outreach are community partners who most often articulate the needs of the community and model collaboration. most importantly, it is the community members—people who, time and time again, serve as the educators. faith-based anchor institutions have the potential to be most effective when they are willing to authentically listen to and learn from those they serve. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23986 | december 18, 2020 178 references agapé center for service and learning. (2012). 2011 annual report. mechanicsburg, pa: messiah university. benson, l., harkavy, i. r., & puckett, j. l. (2007). dewey’s dream: universities and democracies in an age of education reform: civil society, public schools, and democratic citizenship. philadelphia, pa: temple university press. benson, l., harkavy, i., puckett, j., hartley, m., hodges, r., johnston, f., & weeks, j. (2017). knowledge for social change: bacon, dewey, and the revolutionary transformation of research universities in the twenty-first century. philadelphia, pa: temple university press. brethren housing association. (2019-2020). mission and history. https://www.bha-pa.org/about cantor, n., englot, p., higgins, m. (2013). making the work of anchor institutions stick: building coalitions and collective expertise. journal of higher education outreach and engagement. 17(3), p. 17-46. creswell, j. w. (2018). research design: qualitative, quantitative and mixed methods approaches (5th ed.). thousand oaks. creswell, j. w., & miller, d. l. (2000). determining validity in qualitative inquiry. theory into practice, 39(3), 124-130. culp, b. (2016). social justice and the future of higher education kinesiology. quest, 68(3), 271–283. de groot, m., alexander, k., culp, b., & keith, n. (2015). experiential learning in kinesiology: a student perspective. pedagogy in health promotion, 1(3), 123–133. dewar, margaret e., and claudia b. isaac. 1998. “the potentially transforming experience of community/university collaboration,” journal of planning education and research 17, 4:334–347. dubb, s., mckinley, s., & howard, t. (2013). the anchor dashboard: aligning institutional practice to meet low-income community needs. the democracy collaborative at the university of maryland. retrieved from http://communitywealth.org/sites/clone.communitywealth.org/files/downloads/anchordashboardcompositan chor.pdf © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23986 | december 18, 2020 179 eyler, j., giles, d. e., jr., stenson, c. m., & gray, c. j. (2001). at a glance: what we know about the effects of service-learning on college students, faculty, institutions and communities, 1993–2003. nashville, tn: vanderbilt university. eyler, j., giles, d., & schmiede, a. (1996). a practitioner’s guide to reflection in service-learning: student voices and reflection. nashville, tn: vanderbilt university. gray, b. 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(2018, july 1). retrieved april 27, 2020, from https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/harrisburgcitypennsylvania/ edu685218#edu685218 the application of faith and learning: faith-based anchor institutions and community engagement theresa m. harrison1 , dottie s. weigel2, and melinda b. smith3 original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25259 | january 4, 2022 3 university-community engagement from the perspective of the university populace: a case study of a canadian university nathan hall1 1department of kinesiology, brock university cite as: hall, n. (2022). university-community engagement from the perspective of the university populace: a case study of a canadian university. metropolitan universities, 33(1), 03-26. doi: 10.18060/25259. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract researchers have long supported increased engagement between institutions of higher learning and the communities that exist beyond campuses. it has been suggested that universities, especially metropolitan core ones, can benefit from making concerted efforts to engage with surrounding communities in meaningful ways. examining the efforts universities make to better engage with the community will help to inform future practice and hopefully lead to greater success and prevalence of university-community engagement. to that end, this study examined university-community engagement from the perspective of various constituencies that make up a university’s populace (e.g., students, faculty). specifically, using a descriptive exploratory case study design, this research examined students, faculty, staff, and administrators’ perceptions regarding university-community engagement and awareness of community learning programs at one canadian university, a decade after a university wide community engagement policy was instituted. data was collected using an online survey which was completed by a self-selecting sample of participants from the university populace. the results expand on existing literature by providing perspective from the internal university populace regarding university-community engagement efforts. furthermore, the study results provide insight into the awareness of and support for university-community engagement efforts among various university constituencies. keywords: community learning, higher education, descriptive research, policy, community partnerships https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25259 | january 4, 2022 4 introduction it has become increasingly common and important for universities to enhance their presence and dedication to the communities they are in or interact with (hodges & dubb, 2012; kagan & diamond, 2019; maurrasse, 2001). to that end, many universities have increased their focus on providing institutional backing for community partnership establishment and expansion, as well as community-relevant forms of scholarship (barker, 2004; brisbin & hunter, 2003; glazier et al., 2020; sasson, 2019; taylor & ballard, 2020). in canada, universities have not been excluded from this trend, and many canadian universities have developed policies and strategies to improve their community footprint and connections. however, developing, growing, and improving relationships between institutions of higher education and the community has not happened overnight and in some cases has been a struggle. this is likely due to the perception that for far too long “universities were seen as spatially and culturally disconnected and politically disengaged from the needs and concerns of the communities that surround them” (allahwala et al., 2013, p.43), and consequently communities often felt unwelcome by universities and were uninterested in trying to develop mutually beneficial connections with universities (hart et al., 2007; strand et al., 2003). yet, for those higher education institutions willing to make concerted efforts to break down these barriers and engage with surrounding communities in more meaningful ways, the documented benefits (alday-bersoto, 2019; collins et al., 2007; glazier et al., 2020; miller et al., 2018; onwuemele, 2018) can be immense. the university of winnipeg is a canadian university that over the past decade often characterized itself as being just such an institution (i.e., a university that has a strong focus on engaging with the community). in fact, to help ensure university-community engagement was a clear part of the university of winnipeg’s identity, the university developed what it referred to as a “community learning policy” in 2009. however, having a dedicated policy on community engagement does not guarantee that community engagement efforts are being made and recognized. therefore, the overall intent of this descriptive study was to examine awareness and perceptions of this specific institution’s community engagement efforts over the past decade since that policy was created, as seen through the eyes of those within the university community, including students, staff, faculty, and administration. background in 2008, the association of universities and colleges in canada (now universities canada) released a report that provided insight into university research engagement and knowledge mobilization and offered universities evidence-based strategies for future growth in these areas. in this report, it was stated that: community partnerships help universities to define and scope the research questions and provide access to research partnerships and sources of local © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25259 | january 4, 2022 5 expertise, as well as additional funding and in-kind contributions. in turn, universities provide communities with access to wide-ranging and in-depth knowledge and national and international expertise that informs and addresses community challenges and opportunities in a meaningful way. (p. 84) this suggestion came at a time when the major canadian federal government research grant and scholarship funding organizations (tri-council – nserc; sshrc; cihr) were putting added emphasis on the importance of knowledge dissemination and community awareness. moreover, this document was released during the 2008 global financial crisis, when public funding for canadian universities had already been in decline for more than a decade (canadian association for university teachers, 2009). consequently, many canadian institutions were looking for ways to secure other sources of financial support. hence, this idea of increased community engagement offering “additional funding and in-kind contributions” was of great interest to many canadian universities. academics encouraged an increase in community engagement by universities for many years, especially at academic institutions located in urban centers. specifically, researchers argued that building partnerships between institutions of higher learning and community partners located in marginalized metropolitan core communities can be a sound strategy for generating ongoing opportunities for scholarship that meets the social, financial, civic, and educational needs of the community (cohen & yapa, 2003), and for teaching social justice (merrett, 2000). add to this the financial crisis of 2008, and it may not have been a coincidence that less than a year after the association of universities and colleges in canada released the aforementioned report, the university of winnipeg developed and released a policy document specifically focused on engaging the community (axworthy, 2009). the document that was released by the university of winnipeg discussed the increasing literature supporting university-community engagement, as well as the social, economic, and cultural need for the university of winnipeg to presently increase its focus on community learning and engagement. the document identified existing community learning programs that the university was offering and also highlighted community populations with which the university believed it was presently engaging and/or with which it needed to improve engagement. several of the community populations emphasized in the document, including indigenous, new immigrant, and at-risk youth populations, were clearly influenced by the surrounding neighborhood and metropolitan core location of the university of winnipeg. the identified purposes of the policy document were: first, to demonstrate that the various initiatives undertaken thus far can be given a shared framework and to illustrate that their combined results set the stage for redefining the role of the university and its relations with the broader world it serves. and, second, to generate a discussion on how to prioritize the issue of community learning as a central pillar of post‐secondary education in the 21st © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25259 | january 4, 2022 6 century, and to examine how we – faculty, staff, students and community members alike – can advance this enhanced mandate. (p.3) creating and publicly sharing a policy document indicated a strong awareness and appreciation by the university of the many voices advocating for increased university-community engagement. furthermore, it demonstrated a level of dedication to improving the university of winnipeg’s community footprint through what the document identified as “community learning.” however, developing a policy regarding anything is only valuable if it leads to desired actions and outcomes. there are many ways that a university could approach taking action to better engage the community, and as noted in the policy document developed by the university of winnipeg (2009) there is no one universal model that fits all. since the university released its policy document on university-community engagement, the institution has taken various actions to expand its community engagement. some of these actions, such as providing internal funding and/or support for faculty to engage the community more with their research (e.g., involving community research partners; community focused dissemination), were strictly geared towards specific members of the university of winnipeg populace (i.e., faculty). however, the most notable actions were increased overall rhetoric from senior university administration regarding university-community engagement and an increased focus on what the university of winnipeg referred to as community learning programs (clps), specifically development of additional clps (e.g., e.g., community charter for access to campus recreation facilities; international education programs), as well as increased promotion and support for existing ones (e.g., a global welcome centre; inner-city youth sports programs & camps; indigenous learning centre). these actions were geared towards encouraging all members of the university populace (i.e., students, faculty, staff, and administration) to have greater engagement with the community (axworthy, 2009). but have these actions worked? purpose assessing awareness and perceptions of university-community engagement efforts is a valuable method to help institutions understand where such initiatives stand and where future efforts related to community engagement may need to be focused. to that end, a considerable amount of research has been completed with respect to community perceptions regarding universities’ engagement efforts (e.g., bruning et al., 2006; hart & northmore, 2011). yet, research specifically focussing on insight from those individuals functioning within academic institutions and how various groupings of these individuals (e.g., faculty, staff, students) may differ from one another in their perceptions of an institution’s community engagement has received less attention. however, examining the various populations within a university and their awareness of community engagement programs and perceptions regarding overall institutional community © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25259 | january 4, 2022 7 engagement has the potential to help universities understand the reach and effectiveness of their community engagement actions. therefore, the present descriptive case study was designed to investigate and compare the knowledge and perceptions of one specific university’s various population groupings (i.e., students, faculty, staff, administration at the university of winnipeg), henceforth referred to as “constituencies,” concerning that university’s overall community engagement and the specific clps the university offers as part of its community engagement efforts since implementing a community engagement policy a decade earlier. specifically, this study sought to provide insight into the following four key areas of interest: a) the perceptions among various university constituencies of the university of winnipeg’s present engagement with and overall commitment to its “community learning policy”; b) the extent to which specific the university of winnipeg constituencies are aware of and promote the university of winnipeg’s specific clps; c) the perceptions of various university of winnipeg constituencies with respect to which specifically identified community groups (e.g., indigenous; immigrant and newcomer; lgbtqia+) are being targeted through the university’s clps, and beliefs about the extent to which community groupings are aware of the university’s clps; and d) the perceptions of various university of winnipeg constituencies about the value of university-community engagement methods data collection procedures and instruments this study followed a descriptive exploratory study design (mark, 1996; singh, 2007) and involved data collection over a seven-month timespan. studies of this nature are commonly used when little is known about a particular phenomenon (burns & grove, 2005; singh, 2007), which was the case here. the university human research ethics board approved this study prior to any data collection. all university of winnipeg students, faculty, staff, and administration were eligible to participate. to recruit participants for the study, university-wide communication blasts via email, powerpoint slides that course instructors shared at the start or end of lectures, the university of winnipeg website and social media accounts, and word of mouth were all utilized. potential participants were informed about the nature of the study and provided a link to a website containing a detailed letter of information and corresponding consent form, as well as the actual questionnaire. participants were free to complete the questionnaire on their own time and were provided with contact information should they have any questions or concerns. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25259 | january 4, 2022 8 following the guidelines offered by andrews and colleagues (2003), a 22-item online survey that was specifically created for this research, was used to collect descriptive cross-sectional data. due to the exploratory nature of the study and the intent to collect data from all the various university of winnipeg constituencies at the same time, the use of a cross-sectional online survey to collect data was deemed appropriate (wyatt, 2000). eight of the items on the questionnaire were demographic in nature, for example: age, gender, and primary university status (i.e., which of the following did the participant see as their primary role on campus — student; faculty; staff; administrator). the remaining items on the survey dealt with the study’s four key areas of interest described earlier. the survey used almost all closed response questions which included both rating scales and select all that apply options. one open ended question was also included at the end of the survey to seek additional input or comments. participants had the option to skip any questions they were not comfortable answering. the survey took participants approximately nine minutes to complete and was completely anonymous. given the descriptive focus of this study, content validity for the questionnaire was established by having a proficient online questionnaire developer and a university-community engagement expert scrutinize the questionnaire. following these examinations of the instrument, minor alterations were completed to help ensure the information being sought would be attained. subsequently, as a means of establishing greater face validity, the questionnaire was piloted with a group of individuals from the university of winnipeg and a group discussion with these individuals was conducted to confirm clear wording of items on the questionnaire and that what the items were focused on was readily apparent to the group. a couple of items on the questionnaire were reworded based on this piloting process. as ayers and housner (2008) have suggested, “validity is not applied to an instrument, but to the inferences about scores and the interpretation and application of actions based on those scores” (p. 55). the data collected for the present research was completely descriptive in nature and was not intended to study cause and effect. consequently, validity measures beyond what have been described were not essential. participants the university of winnipeg populace was composed of approximately 450 staff/administration, 600 faculty members, and a student body of around 9000 students at the time of the study. the survey was completed by 274 members of the university of winnipeg populace (undergraduate students=87; post baccalaureate/graduate students=7; faculty=85; staff=88; admin=7) and the distribution was 69% female, 30% male, and 1% other. participants varied in how long they had been a member of the university populace with 31 participants having been a member of the university for less than a year, 47 participants having been a member for twelve or more years, and the rest being very evenly distributed somewhere between those extremes. among the students who participated in the study, first year students to students who had been attending the university for more than five years completed the survey, with the majority (45%) of student responses coming from those identifying as second or third-year students. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25259 | january 4, 2022 9 data analysis once the data were collected, descriptive statistics were completed along with chi-square and/or fisher’s exact tests to examine relationships among variables and responses to the various survey questions (vieira jr., 2017). beyond providing descriptive information, several of the specific independent variables (e.g., age, gender, university department) were not examined as they did not relate to the specific purposes and defined research questions of the present study. as a result, the independent variable most focused on for this study was participant’s self-identified primary status at the university (i.e., undergraduate student; post baccalaureate or graduate student; faculty; staff; or administrator). the reason for focusing on this particular variable was strictly connected to its central importance in examining the four key areas of interest identified in the study. some of the categories within this variable needed to be grouped together for data analysis due to small sample sizes. thus, undergraduate students and post baccalaureate/graduate students were grouped together and referred to as “students” in all analyses, and similarly staff and administration were grouped together and referred to as “constituencies” for all analyses. the data analyses were completed using spss. results perceptions regarding engagement and commitment to community learning policy the first set of questions to be analyzed were all related to the perceptions among various university of winnipeg constituencies regarding present engagement and overall commitment by the university to its community learning policy. the first survey question related to this topic asked respondents, on a scale of 1-5 (1=extremely disengaged; 3=neutral; 5=extremely engaged), to what extent they believed that the university of winnipeg was actively engaged in a community learning policy? it was found that 84% of the participants who answered this question believed that university was somewhat or extremely engaged in a community learning policy, 12% believed the university to be neutral, and 4% felt that the university was somewhat or extremely disengaged. as can be seen in figure 1, about 90% of faculty members and staff/administration were found to believe that the university was somewhat or extremely engaged in a community learning policy, while a lower proportion of students (74%) indicated this same level of engagement. the difference in these proportions was found to be statistically significant (p=0.008). © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25259 | january 4, 2022 10 figure 1. perceptions regarding university engagement in a community learning policy a second survey question in this vein sought to examine participant’s impressions regarding the university of winnipeg’s commitment to its community learning policy. respondents had an option of four answers to this question (1=university is not committed enough to community learning policy; 2=university is demonstrating the right amount of commitment to community learning policy; 3=university is overly committed to community learning policy; and 4=unsure). the results indicated that almost half of the overall sample (49%) believed that the university demonstrated the right amount of commitment to its community learning policy (see figure 2). however, it should be noted that many participants suggested they were unsure about the university of winnipeg’s commitment level to community learning policy (28%). this statistic was driven mostly by the significantly higher percentage of students, in comparison to faculty or staff/administration counterparts, indicating that they were unsure (p<.01). © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25259 | january 4, 2022 11 figure 2. perceptions regarding university commitment to community learning policy the final survey question related to this topic asked study participants to indicate, on a scale of 1-5 (1=extremely unsuccessful; 3=neutral; 5=extremely successful), the degree to which they believed the university of winnipeg was succeeding in its community learning policy? results illustrated that 70% of participants believed the university has been somewhat or extremely successful with its community learning policy, 24% were neutral, and 6% believed it to be somewhat or extremely unsuccessful (3% chose not to answer). no significant differences were found between the various university of winnipeg constituencies and their perceptions regarding the university’s success in meeting its community learning policy. personal awareness and promotion of specific university of winnipeg clps another key area of interest for this present research was to better understand the pervasiveness of the university of winnipeg’s specific clp’s among the various university constituencies. to that end, one of the survey questions asked participants to identify, from a provided list, which of university is not committed enough to community learning policy 14% university is demonstrating the right amount of commitment to community learning policy 49% university is overly committed to community learning policy 7% unsure 28% choose not to answer 2% © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25259 | january 4, 2022 12 the university of winnipeg programs/centres/initiatives etc. related to university-community engagement they have heard of. respondents could check all that apply (see figure 3). some of the best known programs were those specifically geared towards the indigenous community (e.g., aboriginal student services center, wii chiiwaakanak learning center). also, community learning programs mainly geared towards international students were well known, including international student services, the global welcome center, and the english language program. however, it must also be noted that more than half of the study participants were unaware of over 50% of the clp’s that were being offered (see figure 5). on average, students were the constituency least aware of most community engagement programs offered by the university, and the staff/admin were the most aware of every program with the exception of the campus climate for lgbtq students program and the writing program/tutoring centre, of which the faculty were most aware of (see table 1). figure 3. percentages of participants that heard of specific university of winnipeg clps 22.4 53.1 52.4 36.1 35 40.5 24.5 66.7 62.2 71.4 47.3 6.8 28.2 53.4 52.4 23.1 48.3 65.6 68.7 84.4 81 47.3 5.8 4 0 20 40 60 80 100 innovative learning centre winnipeg education centre community-based aboriginal teacher education … international teacher education program (itep) mentorship program (faculty of education) service / experiential learning campus climate for lgbtq students recplex community charter global welcome centre wii chiiwaakanak learning centre collegiate model school spin sports clubs sun life diabetes awareness and education program inner city jr. wesmen sports programs and camp science kids on campus adventures summer camp opportunity fund english language program writing program / tutoring centre aboriginal student services centre international student services adult learner services other (please specify) all others percentage of participants aware u n iv e rs it y 's c lp s a t t im e o f s tu d y © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25259 | january 4, 2022 13 table 1. association between constituencies and awareness of specific university clp’s university of winnipeg constituency university of winnipeg specific clp’s student n=94 n (%) faculty n=85 n (%) staff/admin n=95 n (%) p innovative learning centre 8 (8.5) 22 (25.9) 30 (31.6) <0.001* winnipeg education centre 33 (35.1) 49 (57.7) 61 (64.2) <0.001* community-based aboriginal teacher education program (catep) 35 (37.2) 46 (54.1) 62 (65.3) 0.001* international teacher education program (itep) 27 (28.7) 35 (41.2) 39 (41.1) 0.131 mentorship program (faculty of education) 38 (40.4) 28 (32.9) 33 (34.7) 0.547 service/experiential learning 15 (16.0) 44 (51.8) 52 (54.7) <0.001* campus climate for lgbtq students 19 (20.2) 27 (31.8) 24 (25.3) 0.208 recplex community charter 53 (56.4) 56 (65.9) 75 (79.0) 0.004* global welcome centre 32 (34.0) 52 (61.2) 88 (92.6) <0.001* wii chiiwaakanak learning centre 39 (41.5) 65 (76.5) 93 (97.9) <0.001* collegiate model school 14 (14.9) 44 (51.8) 70 (73.7) <0.001* spin sports club 5 (5.3) 4 (4.7) 8 (8.4) 0.605 sun life diabetes awareness and education program 26 (27.7) 19 (22.4) 33 (34.7) 0.180 inner city jr. wesmen sports programs and camp 42 (44.7) 46 (54.1) 59 (62.1) 0.056 science kids on campus 25 (26.6) 50 (58.8) 70 (73.7) <0.001* adventures summer camp 13 (13.8) 16 (18.8) 36 (37.9) <0.001* opportunity fund 14 (14.9) 44 (51.8) 77 (81.1) <0.001* english language program 39 (41.5) 55 (64.7) 86 (90.5) <0.001* writing program / tutoring centre 60 (63.8) 64 (75.3) 66 (69.5) 0.251 aboriginal student services centre 67 (71.3) 72 (84.7) 93 (97.9) <0.001* international student services 66 (70.2) 67 (78.8) 90 (94.7) <0.001* adult learner services 45 (47.9) 25 (29.4) 61 (64.2) <0.001* * to control for type i error, p values of ≤ .01 were considered significant it was not only deemed useful to establish just how well known the university of winnipeg’s clps were amongst its populace, but also whether various constituencies ever promoted these programs by personally recommending specific clps to others. consequently, one of the survey questions asked participants to identify, from a provided list, which of the university of winnipeg programs/centres/ initiatives etc. related to university-community engagement, if any, © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25259 | january 4, 2022 14 have they ever recommended to others? respondents could check all that applied. overall, the staff/administration constituency was the most likely to recommend the university’s clps, and had the largest percentage of recommenders for all but five of the programs, while the faculty constituency had the largest percentage of recommenders (see table 2). table 2. association between constituencies and recommendations to others regarding the university of winnipeg’s clps university of winnipeg constituency p university of winnipeg specific clp’s student n=94 n (%) faculty n=85 n (%) staff/admin n=95 n (%) innovative learning centre 0 (0.0) 5 (5.9) 4 (4.2) 0.046 winnipeg education centre 4 (4.3) 12 (14.1) 13 (13.7) 0.037 community-based aboriginal teacher education program (catep) 2 (2.1) 14 (16.5) 12 (12.6) 0.002* international teacher education program (itep) 6 (6.4) 12 (14.1) 9 (9.5) 0.220 mentorship program (faculty of education) 7 (7.5) 5 (5.9) 8 (8.4) 0.806 service/experiential learning 2 (2.1) 13 (15.3) 17 (17.9) <0.001* campus climate for lgbtq students 2 (2.1) 1 (1.2) 10 (10.5) 0.008* recplex community charter 21 (22.3) 13 (15.3) 29 (30.5) 0.052 global welcome centre 8 (8.5) 14 (16.5) 34 (35.8) <0.001* wii chiiwaakanak learning centre 4 (4.3) 13 (15.3) 32 (33.7) <0.001* collegiate model school 0 (0.0) 5 (5.9) 18 (19.0) <0.001* spin sports club 1 (1.1) 0 (0.0) 2 (2.1) 0.776 sun life diabetes awareness and education program 4 (4.3) 2 (2.4) 4 (4.2) 0.782 inner city jr. wesmen sports programs and camp 6 (6.4) 8 (9.4) 8 (8.4) 0.746 science kids on campus 3 (3.2) 5 (5.9) 15 (15.8) 0.006* adventures summer camp 4 (4.3) 3 (3.5) 11 (11.6) 0.068 opportunity fund 1 (1.1) 12 (14.1) 21 (22.1) <0.001* english language program 8 (8.5) 17 (20.0) 42 (44.2) <0.001* writing program / tutoring centre 31 (33.0) 56 (65.9) 44 (46.3) <0.001* aboriginal student services centre 13 (13.8) 28 (32.9) 53 (55.8) <0.001* international student services 12 (12.8) 21 (24.7) 49 (51.6) <0.001* adult learner services 4 (4.3) 7 (8.2) 27 (28.4) <0.001* other 1 (1.1) 6 (7.1) 7 (7.4) 0.060 * to control for type i error, p values of ≤ .01 were considered significant © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25259 | january 4, 2022 15 perceptions about community groups being targeted and awareness of the university of winnipeg’s clps another of the four key areas of interest in the present study was gaining insight from the university of winnipeg’s various constituencies about the community groups (e.g., indigenous; new comer/immigrant; lgbtqia+) they believe are being targeted through the university’s clps, and the extent to which they believe specific community groupings are aware of the university’s clps. therefore, one of the survey questions asked participants to identify, from a provided list, which populations were being targeted through the university of winnipeg’s clps. respondents could check all that applied. the findings indicated that indigenous, immigrant and newcomer, and urban core populations led the way (see figure 4). the proportion of student respondents who believed that each community population group was being targeted as part of the university’s clps was often significantly lower when compared to the faculty and staff/administration constituencies (see table 3). figure 4. perceptions of which community populations are targeted through the university of winnipeg’s clps 83.9 92.8 63.2 54.3 34.9 21.1 75 47.4 37.5 2.3 1 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 immigrant and newcomers indigenous lgbtq persons with disabilities youth in care (e.g., cfs) incarcerated persons inner city and surrounding neighborhoods community k 12 schools seniors other (please specify) choose not to answer percentage of participants that indicated this population group is targeted p o p u la ti o n s ta rg e te d © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25259 | january 4, 2022 16 table 3. association between constituencies and responses regarding the university of winnipeg’s targeting of specific populations through clps university of winnipeg constituency community populations targeted student n=94 n (%) faculty n=85 n (%) staff/admin n=95 n (%) p immigrant and newcomers 68 (72.3) 74 (87.1) 89 (93.7) <0.001* indigenous 80 (85.1) 82 (96.5) 94 (99.0) <0.001* lgbtqia+ 63 (67.0) 48 (56.5) 63 (66.3) 0.267 persons with disabilities 56 (59.6) 36 (42.4) 58 (61.1) 0.022 youth in care (e.g. cfs) 22 (23.4) 28 (32.9) 49 (51.6) <0.001* incarcerated persons 3 (3.2) 22 (25.9) 33 (34.7) <0.001* urban core & surrounding neighborhoods 58 (61.7) 71 (83.5) 80 (84.1) <0.001* k-12 schools 23 (24.5) 45 (52.9) 63 (66.3) <0.001* seniors 21 (22.3) 38 (44.7) 46 (48.4) <0.001* * to control for type i error, p values of ≤ .01 were considered significant two questions in the survey were designed to provide insight into the respondents’ beliefs about community awareness of the clps offered by the university of winnipeg. the first of these questions asked participants to indicate, on a scale of 1-5 (1=completely unknown; 3=neutral; 5=extremely well known), how well known do they believe the university’s clps are among the general city and surrounding area population. very few participants believed the clps at the university were completely unknown (3%) or extremely well known (6%) to the city and surrounding area populations (see figure 5). further analysis (i.e., chi-square and fisher’s exact tests) demonstrated no significant differences existed between the various self-identified status constituencies (i.e., students; faculty; staff/admin) at the university regarding perceived community awareness. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25259 | january 4, 2022 17 figure 5. participant opinions about whether or not the university’s clps are well-known by the population living in city and surrounding area the second survey item providing insight regarding respondent’s beliefs about community awareness of the clps offered by the university of winnipeg asked participants to indicate, on a scale of 1-5 (1=completely unknown; 3=neutral; 5=extremely well known), how well known they believe the university’s clps are among communities which are traditionally underrepresented at canadian universities (e.g., lgbtqia+; immigrants and newcomers; indigenous; persons with disabilities; individuals from low socioeconomic status neighbourhoods)? very few members of the university of winnipeg populace believed the university’s clps were completely unknown (2%) or extremely well known (4%) to traditionally underrepresented populations (see figure 6). once again, further analysis demonstrated no significant differences existed between the various self-identified status constituencies (i.e., students; faculty; staff/admin) at the university regarding perceived community awareness. however, a trend did exist in which students, on average, were less likely than their faculty or staff/administration counterparts to believe that clps offered by the university were somewhat or extremely well known. extremely well known 6% somewhat well known 33% neutral 26% somewhat unknown 29% completely unknown 3% choose not to answer 3% © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25259 | january 4, 2022 18 figure 6. participant opinions about whether or not the university’s clps are well-known among traditionally underrepresented communities perceived value of community engagement the final key area of interest in the present study was gaining insight from the various constituencies at the university of winnipeg regarding the perceived value of universitycommunity engagement. two items on the survey were focused on this area of interest. the first of these asked participants how important they felt community engagement was for a university? respondents had an option of four answers to this question (1= somewhat/extremely unimportant; 2=neutral; 3= somewhat/extremely important; and 4=unsure). the second of these items required respondents to provide their opinion on the statement “having clps at a university help support academic excellence/achievement”. respondents had an option of four responses (1= somewhat/completely disagree; 2=neutral; 3= somewhat/completely agree; and 4=unsure). the results from these two survey items revealed that the majority of participants believed community engagement is important for a university (91%) and that having clps supports academic excellence/achievement (77%). yet it should also be noted that students were significantly less likely than both faculty and staff/administration to believe community engagement is important to a university (see table 4). extremely well known 4% somewhat well known 33% neutral 29% somewhat unknown 26% completely unknown 2% choose not to answer 6% © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25259 | january 4, 2022 19 table 4. associations between constituencies and responses to value of community engagement survey items university of winnipeg constituency student n=93 n (%) faculty n=84 n (%) staff/admin n=95 n (%) p how important is community engagement for a university somewhat/extremely important 77 (83.7) 78 (92.8) 92 (96.8) 0.003* neutral 13 (14.1) 2 (2.4) 2 (1.2) somewhat/extremely unimportant 2 (2.2) 3 (3.6) 1 (1.0) unsure 0 (0.0) 1 (1.2) 0 (0.0) clps support academic excellence/achievement somewhat/completely agree 74 (79.6) 61 (72.6) 75 (79.0) 0.117 neutral 15 (16.1) 10 (11.9) 15 (15.8) somewhat/completely disagree 3 (3.2) 9 (10.7) 5 (5.2) unsure 1 (1.1) 4 (4.8) 0 (0.0) * to control for type i error, p values of ≤ .01 were considered significant discussion the university focused on in this study has put considerable effort into creating the image of an academic institution dedicated to community engagement. this includes the creation of a community learning policy, and the development of many clps designed to serve and/or increase university engagement with various community populations. the existing literature supports such efforts and has recognized some of the benefits to university-community engagement (alday-bersoto, 2019; glazier et al., 2020; sasson, 2019; taylor & ballard, 2020), and also supports assessment of such efforts (holton, 2015). however, to date, little has been documented which specifically examined the support for and perceptions of such efforts by the various internal constituencies which make up a university populace. the results from the present study help to provide additional insight to this specific line of inquiry. the present study found that the large majority of the university of winnipeg populace surveyed believed that not only is overall university-community engagement important but having dedicated clps at a university supports academic excellence/achievement. the fact that students were significantly less likely to perceive university-community engagement as important can likely be attributed to the fact that administration and staff at the university are more likely to be © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25259 | january 4, 2022 20 the ones developing, leading, and advocating for the various community engagement initiatives. regardless, the overall importance seen in community engagement identified by the university of winnipeg constituencies suggests that this sample of the university population is in agreement with the literature advocating for concerted university-community engagement (muirhead & woolcock, 2008). obviously, this would be a positive finding for any university that has developed a policy supporting community engagement and actively promotes itself as being engaged with the community. that is, if a university wants to be engaged with the community it will likely find this easier to accomplish if the members within the university see such engagement as valuable. yet, a question that does arise from this finding is whether or not the university of winnipeg populace supported community engagement to this extent before the university developed a policy, or is the perceived value placed on university-community engagement by the university populace thanks in part to the development of such a policy and the institution wide increase in promotion of community engagement that followed its release? future research should try to examine the specific impact that implementing an institutional policy on university-community engagement has on the perspectives of a university’s populace with regards to the importance of community engagement. armed with the understanding that the university of winnipeg populace surveyed seemed to support the general idea of university-community engagement, the next question to examine was “what does the university populace think about the university’s efforts to engage the community?” the findings from the present study demonstrated that the majority of the university populace surveyed believed the university was engaging in a community learning policy, although students were again less likely to believe this than other university of winnipeg constituencies. furthermore, the results indicated that almost half of the entire sample felt the university was demonstrating the right amount of commitment to community engagement and over two thirds of the sample believed the university was successfully enacting its community learning policy. these findings suggest that students are the constituency within a university which are hardest to make aware of university-community engagement efforts, and that dedicated efforts to inform students about community engagement actions would be beneficial. these findings also indicate that, overall, the university has done a reasonable job not only when it comes to enacting a community engagement policy but also ensuring that its various constituencies are aware and supportive of the university’s commitment to that policy. this finding is positive, especially since this institution is located in a community of socioeconomic disadvantage and as allahwala et al., (2013) argue, strong community-university partnerships are particularly important in such neighborhoods. it is noted that internal support for a university’s community engagement efforts is no guarantee that those efforts are being realized by the external community (hart & northmore, 2011), but it must also be noted that a lack of awareness and support amongst a university’s populace for its community engagement efforts is very likely to hinder the success of such efforts. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25259 | january 4, 2022 21 based on the above findings regarding the awareness and support of the university of winnipeg’s populace for its overall community engagement, it is somewhat surprising that the study results demonstrated relatively low levels of awareness and minimal recommendations of the university’s specific clps among study participants. only a few of the clps were very well known, but the large majority were not, and this was especially true among the student constituency surveyed. this should be of some concern because word of mouth is one of the best forms of endorsement for university-community engagement programs (robinson & barnett, 1996) and if the members of a university populace are unaware of the programs, then the university is missing out on this important method of clp promotion. these findings suggest that universities must carefully attend to communication and advocacy regarding the clps they develop. specifically, it must be made clear who clps can benefit or are intended to serve if the university wants its members to support and recommend such programs. furthermore, a concerted effort likely needs to be made by universities to provide its various constituents, especially the student body, with regular and detailed information regarding current clps that the university is offering. another area where the perceptions of students surveyed at the university of winnipeg were found to be significantly different than their faculty, staff/administration counterparts was regarding which community populations are most targeted through the university of winnipeg’s existing clps. most notably, students were significantly less likely than staff/administrators to perceive all but two community populations (i.e., lgbtqia+; persons with disabilities) as being targeted by the university’s clps. it is likely that this finding is connected to previously discussed results which seem to suggest that, on the whole, the staff/administration constituency is more connected to the university’s community engagement initiatives and therefore more likely to be aware of specific clps. it was no surprise that regardless of university constituency surveyed the community populations perceived to be most targeted by the university were indigenous, immigrant and newcomer, and urban core neighbourhoods. all these populations were highlighted in the institutions community engagement policy (axworthy, 2009) and consequently have been made priorities. the results from this study demonstrate that these priorities have been recognized, and the support of the university’s populace for its overall community engagement efforts is an indication that targeting these priority groups was a good idea for the university of winnipeg. the existing literature would also support targeting these specific community populations because all of them would often be considered communities of racial and/or socioeconomic disadvantage, and it has been argued that partnerships with such groups can be essential for building a university’s overall community engagement footprint (cohen & yapa, 2003; allahwala et al., 2013). additionally, due to the role of universities in the social systems that have perpetuated racial inequalities, it is imperative for universities to engage in reciprocal partnerships with such communities (bergan et al., 2021) as part of concerted efforts to help right this wrong © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25259 | january 4, 2022 22 if there was any specific community population that study participants perceived to be underengaged by the university, and yet are relatively abundant in close proximity to the university, it is the older adult community population. in fact, there are numerous seniors’ homes and care centers in under ten minutes walking distance to this institution’s campus. due to the vast number of life experiences that older adults have, engagement with this specific community population should be considered a resource all constituencies of a university could benefit from. researchers have supported this notion and reported various specific benefits attained through university-senior community engagement efforts (augustin & freshman, 2016; wang, 2017). henceforth, the university of winnipeg may need to consider clps that could address this issue. regardless, these specific findings related to targeting of community populations lend some support for the development of a university wide community engagement policy. the university of winnipeg deliberately highlighted specific community populations in its community engagement policy, and over a decade following the release of that policy those highlighted community populations are the ones perceived to be the most targeted. however, any universitycommunity engagement related policy should attempt to identify all potential community groups the university can engage with to ensure none are overlooked or given inadequate consideration when developing clps. it must be noted that just because a university identifies a community population to engage with, it still does not guarantee that community population is being engaged. the members of the community population being targeted would need to be aware of and willing to engage with the university through the various engagement opportunities that are made available. perceptions amongst all the various constituencies surveyed at the university of winnipeg were that the surrounding communities, as well as traditionally underrepresented communities, are moderately aware of the clps the university offers. this finding is positive because it demonstrates once again that the university of winnipeg populace believes the university is achieving some level of success in connecting with the community. however, the perceptions of the university populace about community awareness of clps is not as valuable as actually getting the community populations to discuss their awareness levels of the university of winnipeg clps. this lack of community perspective is a clear limitation to the present study, but considerable research focusing on the perceptions of community populations regarding university-community engagement initiatives does already exist (allahwala et al., 2013; bruning et al., 2006; hart & northmore, 2011; onwuemele, 2018) and consequently this was not an identified area of interest for the present study. conclusion this descriptive case study offers a snapshot of how various constituencies at a canadian university view various aspects of university-community engagement. it appears that in the case of the university of winnipeg, support for overall university-community engagement and specific programs for engaging the community has been developed across all campus groupings. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25259 | january 4, 2022 23 that being said, the self-selecting survey methodology used in the present study has limitations with respect to who responded (i.e., this is not a random representative sample) and the depth and detail of the responses. consequently, further study of a qualitative nature to delve more deeply into the differences in awareness and support for university community engagement efforts, beyond the high-level identities emphasized in the present study, would be warranted. in addition, the results from this study provide some support for the creation of a university policy towards community engagement. having a community engagement policy, however, does not guarantee effective community engagement will occur. neither 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(2000). when to use web-based surveys, journal of the american medical informatics association, 7, 426-429. https://doi.org/10.1136/jamia.2000.0070426 https://doi.org/10.5130/ijcre.v1i0.516 https://doi.org/10.2478/mjss-2018-0136 https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/muj/article/view/20977/20404 https://doi.org/10.1002/cc.36819969303 https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2018.1496410 https://doi.org/10.4135/9789351507741 https://doi.org/10.1080/10705422.2020.1716286 https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315233024 https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45222-7_8 https://doi.org/10.1136/jamia.2000.0070426 nathan hall1 original research © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25396 | august 16, 2021 45 effects of teaching in a summer stem camp on the mathematics teaching self-efficacy of highly qualified preservice secondary mathematics teachers bridget a. franks1, and sheryl l. mcglamery2 1department of teacher education, university of nebraska omaha and 2office of stem education, university of nebraska omaha cite as: franks, b.a. & mcglamery, s.l., (2021). effects of teaching in a summer stem camp on the mathematics teaching self-efficacy of highly qualified preservice secondary mathematics teachers. metropolitan universities, 32(2), 45-67. doi: 10.18060/25396 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract educational opportunity gaps experienced by students of color living in poverty, with accompanying lower levels of mathematics achievement, remain a roadblock to their access to college-level training in stem fields. to address this problem, secondary teachers must be confident in their ability to share mathematics content effectively with students from cultures different than their own. bridging the opportunity gap is more likely with two elements in place: intellectually stimulating pre-college experiences and community partnerships that establish connections between underserved neighborhoods and resource-filled environments, such as university campuses. this study explored the effects of teaching in a four-week stem summer camp for ethnically diverse, high-needs middle school girls on the teaching self-efficacy of highly-qualified preservice secondary mathematics teachers, a group that has been less studied than preservice elementary teachers. participants were students in the nebraskamath omaha noyce partnership, a federally-funded teacher preparation scholarship program at the university of nebraska omaha, an urban, metropolitan university. teaching self-efficacy was measured by the mathematics teaching efficacy belief instrument (mtebi) and by follow-up qualitative analysis of questionnaire responses and focus groups. participants’ gains on the mtebi were significant for personal mathematics teaching efficacy, but not for mathematics teaching outcome expectancy. qualitative analyses suggested that both instructional coaching and https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25396 | august 16, 2021 46 everyday interactions in a summer camp setting contributed strongly to the preservice teachers’ increased confidence about teaching mathematics to culturally diverse, high-needs learners. keywords: self-efficacy, secondary mathematics teaching, opportunity gap, teacher education, stem education introduction opportunity gaps in american schooling have emerged as important explanations for disparities in achievement, particularly in mathematics, between students in underserved schools and those who attend schools with many resources. flores (2007) noted that latinx, african american, and low-income students are less likely to have the same opportunities to learn in american schools as other students. among the persistent inequities experienced by these students are less access to experienced and qualified teachers, less exposure to the high expectations of advanced classes in mathematics, and deficits in per student funding. flores (2007) also observed that when students’ ethnic or cultural background differs from that of their teachers, teachers often assume deficits in the students rather than teaching to their strengths, and these low expectations lead to fewer opportunities for learning more challenging and advanced mathematics. the tendency among american middle and high school teachers to attribute achievement gaps to student characteristics, including motivation levels, work ethic, and family support, rather than to systemic inequities in resources and educational opportunities, has been well documented (bol & berry, 2005; locke, tabron, & chambers, 2017; tabron & chambers, 2019). but kotok (2017) found that course tracking and school socioeconomic status played crucial roles in the widening achievement gap in mathematics from 9th to 11th grade between high performing african american and latinx students and their high performing white and asian peers. despite similar test scores in 9th grade, high achieving asian and white students were 25% and 17%, respectively, more likely than their high achieving african american and latinx peers to be enrolled in advanced mathematics courses. smith, trygstad, and banilower (2016) observed similar, tracking-related inequalities in educational opportunities for science instruction, noting that students with low prior achievement, when grouped together, have less access to wellprepared teachers, material resources, and high quality instruction. they noted further that in these classes, minority students, particularly african american and latinx students, are significantly overrepresented. the persistence of these opportunity gaps, and the lower levels of mathematics achievement that accompany them, reflect a common structure of unequal opportunity for students living in poverty and students of color that remains a serious concern to educators, although the national council of teachers of mathematics has long asserted that: © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25396 | august 16, 2021 47 much of what has been typically referred to as the "achievement gap" in mathematics is a function of differential instructional opportunities. differential access to high-quality teachers, instructional opportunities to learn high-quality mathematics, opportunities to learn grade-level mathematics content, and high expectations for mathematics achievement are the main contributors to differential learning outcomes among individuals and groups of students.” (nctm, 2012) among the many suggestions made by researchers to address the opportunity gap, two elements stand out as offering significant benefits to students in underserved schools: intellectually stimulating pre-college experiences and community partnerships that bridge the gap from underserved neighborhoods to empowering, resource-filled environments (reding et al, 2017). one such experience, the eureka! stem summer camp on the campus of an urban, metropolitan university, has been offered to low-income girls in omaha, nebraska for the past seven years. the camp includes a broad range of hands-on, experiential stem learning activities, as well as field trips, fitness activities, and information on college and careers. it is offered by a partnership between the university of nebraska omaha and girls inc. of omaha, a nonprofit community organization that provides many educational activities and a strong support system to girls from low-income families. like many summer camps, this one offers social, emotional, and physical health benefits to the students who participate. however, it can only address opportunity gaps in mathematics if the people who teach in the program can confidently and effectively offer enriched experiences, high expectations, and a growing sense of familiarity with college environments, so that students can truly envision college, and possible mathematics-related careers, in their future. thus, the attitudes and beliefs of the people who staff the program are critical, especially those of preservice teachers who are there to gain experience working with underserved students because they intend to teach in underserved schools. college students with this goal are often not members of the same ethnic or cultural group as their future pupils; 79% of american school teachers in 2017-2018 were white, according to the national center for educational statistics. their training should help them gain the confidence that they can communicate with students who are very different from themselves, and provide those students with high quality, challenging mathematics education. the question explored in the present study is this: when considering their future teaching performance, are preservice secondary teachers who are highly qualified in mathematics equally confident about their ability to teach it? if not, what kinds of experiences will increase their confidence, especially when they are planning to teach high-needs students from cultural and ethnic backgrounds very different from their own? in a mixed methods study using both © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25396 | august 16, 2021 48 qualitative and quantitative assessments, we explored the effects of teaching in a stem summer camp for ethnically diverse, high-needs students on the teaching self-efficacy of mathematics scholarship students in a federally-funded teacher scholarship program. since much of the research literature on mathematics self-efficacy has focused on elementary teacher education, this study addressed the need for more study of secondary teacher preparation. mathematics teaching efficacy in preservice teachers the frequent research focus on elementary education majors reflects a well-founded perception that many future elementary teachers struggle with mathematics and are lower in confidence about their ability to teach it, as well as science, than about their ability to teach other subjects (buss, 2010). issues explored in these studies include self-efficacy regarding actual performance on mathematics problems, mathematics anxiety, mathematical beliefs, and self-efficacy about teaching mathematics. much of this research draws on bandura’s (1986) social cognitive theory, wherein self-efficacy is defined as people’s judgments about their capacity to organize and execute a course of action needed to produce a specific performance attainment. it is concerned “not with the skills one has but with the judgments of what one can do with whatever skills one possesses” (bandura, 1986, p. 391). as noted by bates, latham, & kim (2011), self-efficacy mediates between beliefs and behaviors, so regardless of their actual mathematical ability, students’ efforts may be affected by their own judgment of their ability to solve mathematics problems or perform other mathematics tasks. assessment of self-efficacy for mathematics teaching is thus a critical aspect of teacher training, since preservice teachers who do not believe they can teach a subject effectively are less likely to persevere in learning to do so. such assessment forms the basis for many research studies of teachers’ beliefs about their ability to teach mathematics. the mathematics teaching efficacy belief instrument, or mtebi (enochs, smith, & huinker, 2000) is often used for this assessment. the instrument is useful because it measures two dimensions of self-efficacy: belief in one’s own ability to teach effectively, and belief that effective teaching in general will have a positive effect on student learning. the subscale that measures the first dimension is called personal mathematics teaching efficacy (pmte); the subscale for the second dimension is called mathematics teaching outcome expectancy (mtoe). two types of studies have made use of the mtebi: those that explore relationships among mathematics teaching self-efficacy and other beliefs or attitudes, and those that explore preand posteffects of interventions, such as methods courses or field experiences. in the former type of study, a number of interesting relationships have been observed. bates, latham, and kim (2011) found that performance on a mathematics basic skills test was strongly correlated to both © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25396 | august 16, 2021 49 mathematics self-efficacy, as measured by the mathematics self-efficacy scale, and mathematics teaching efficacy, as measured by the pmte subscale of the mtebi. preservice elementary teachers who felt confident about their ability to solve mathematics tasks were more likely to feel confident about their ability to teach mathematics to children. briley (2012) explored the relations among mathematics self-efficacy, mathematics teaching self-efficacy based on the mtebi, and the level of sophistication of preservice elementary teachers’ beliefs about mathematics (e.g., whether it is viewed as a set of isolated facts and procedures or as coherent concepts; whether it is to be memorized or to be understood). preservice teachers who reported stronger beliefs in their ability to teach mathematics effectively were more likely to hold sophisticated mathematical beliefs. both mathematical beliefs and mathematics self-efficacy were positive predictors of mathematics teaching self-efficacy, particularly on the pmte subscale. with regard to the effects of interventions, swars, daane, and giesen (2006) used the mtebi to explore the relationship between mathematics anxiety and mathematics teaching self-efficacy among elementary preservice teachers taking a mathematics methods course that included 24 days of clinical experience in elementary schools. even after the course, where no pretesting was done, they found a significant, moderate negative relationship, such that preservice teachers with the lowest levels of mathematics anxiety had the highest scores on the pmte subscale. other studies, however, have found that supportive experiences in mathematics content courses, methods courses, and field experiences can have positive effects on teaching self-efficacy. newton, leonard, evans and eastburn (2012) used the mtebi to explore the relationship between content knowledge and teaching self-efficacy during an elementary mathematics methods course that included field experiences in urban public schools. throughout the course, they observed a moderate positive relationship between mathematics content knowledge and the pmte subscale of the mtebi, as well as increases in both mathematics content knowledge and scores on the pmte subscale. in a two-course sequence of elementary mathematics methods and student teaching, swars, hart, smith, smith, and tolar (2007) used the mtebi to explore the relationships among mathematics content knowledge, pedagogical beliefs, and teaching efficacy. self-efficacy beliefs on the pmte subscale increased over time in both methods courses and student teaching. utley, mosely, and bryant (2005) also found that preservice elementary teachers’ personal self-efficacy for teaching mathematics had increased by the end of their methods courses. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25396 | august 16, 2021 50 mathematics teaching efficacy in preservice secondary mathematics teachers concern about elementary teachers’ self-efficacy for teaching mathematics is understandable, since elementary teachers with high mathematics anxiety may avoid teaching mathematics in their classrooms or use less sophisticated teaching methods (karp, 1991; swars, daane, & giesen (2006). teachers who have high efficacy about teaching mathematics are more likely to use inquiry-based and student-centered teaching methods, thus increasing both student interest and achievement (swars, hart, smith, smith, & tolar, 2007). fewer studies have explored secondary teachers’ self-efficacy for teaching mathematics. one reason for this is that secondary mathematics teachers have chosen the field, whereas elementary teachers, whether they enjoy mathematics or not, are still required to teach it in most elementary schools. if secondary-education students feel uninterested or less than confident about their mathematics knowledge, they can choose another academic discipline and select out of any expectation that they teach mathematics. this being the case, we might assume that those who choose to teach mathematics at the secondary level are reasonably confident in their mathematics skills and content knowledge. in general this appears to be true, and such confidence can affect career choices, as noted by hackett and betz (1989), who found correlations between mathematical performance, mathematics self-efficacy, and choosing a mathematics-related major in college. but performing mathematics tasks skillfully is not the same as teaching mathematics. secondary mathematics teachers, in addition to teaching students who share their enjoyment of the subject, must teach students who are not like themselves, that is, students who do not enjoy it and may have high levels of mathematics anxiety and low levels of background knowledge and achievement. if the teachers are white and middle-class, as many american teachers are, they must also learn how to connect with students whose race, culture, and socioeconomic context differs from their own. secondary students who have experienced opportunity gaps, including many years of less-than-optimal education in high-poverty environments, may not have received the encouragement to pursue mathematics that their teachers did, and may be unmotivated. despite these challenges faced by preservice secondary mathematics educators, few studies have explored their self-efficacy for teaching mathematics. two explorations with a small sample of new inservice secondary teachers taking a mathematics methods course while teaching for the first time (evans, 2011a; 2011b) illustrated some interesting relationships. evans’ (2011a) study of 42 teaching fellows in a new york city alternative certification program found a positive correlation between attitudes toward mathematics, including confidence, value, enjoyment, and motivation, and the personal mathematics teaching efficacy subscale of the mtebi, but not between such attitudes and the mathematics teaching outcome expectancy subscale. both content knowledge in mathematics © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25396 | august 16, 2021 51 and attitudes about mathematics improved significantly by the end of the semester, but there was no significant change between pretest and posttest scores on either of the mtebi scales. taking a methods class while gaining teaching experience was clearly helpful in some ways, but it did not result in increased self-efficacy for teaching mathematics. in another analysis of the same sample, evans (2011b) found that the mathematics and science majors among the teachers had higher mathematics content knowledge than other majors, but content knowledge was not related to either attitudes toward mathematics or teaching selfefficacy, as measured by the mtebi. teachers reported high positive attitudes toward mathematics and high teacher self-efficacy, regardless of their content ability. this study used a small convenience sample of teachers in a unique educational environment; they were careerchangers recruited to an alternative certification program and had provisional teaching certification while taking graduate courses in education and teaching in their own classrooms (evans, 2011b). it is interesting that their self-efficacy beliefs on the mtebi subscales did not change significantly over the course of their first semester teaching, but the uniqueness of their situation makes these findings difficult to generalize. teaching self-efficacy was explored in another unique context by haynes and stripling (2014), who used the mtebi to examine the mathematics teaching self-efficacy of agriculture education teachers in wyoming. their participants were moderately self-efficacious in both personal mathematics teaching efficacy (pmte) and mathematics teaching outcome expectancies (mtoe). professional development needs reported by teachers varied based on their selfefficacy, with teachers lower in self-efficacy desiring help with procedural elements such as concepts in common core mathematics and designing lesson plans that utilize agriculture. teachers higher in self-efficacy wanted professional development in teaching mathematics concepts found in natural resource management and plant science, collaborating with mathematics teachers, and motivating students to learn the mathematics found in the agricultural and natural resources curricula. higher self-efficacy in these teachers appeared to be associated with teaching at a more advanced level, thus providing students with more challenging experiences. rationale for the current study the studies above (evans, 2011a; 2011b; haynes & stripling, 2014) were completed with inservice teachers; there is a need for more work with preservice secondary teachers, particularly those who are near the beginning of their training. because of a partnership between the university of nebraska omaha and girls inc. of omaha, the teacher education program at this university has been able to provide field experiences for students (both elementary and secondary majors) in (eureka! stem, a summer camp for educationally at-risk middle school girls. one group of such students is comprised of noyce scholarship recipients. these undergraduate students have been selected for the nebraskamath omaha noyce partnership, © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25396 | august 16, 2021 52 an effort funded by the national science foundation robert noyce teacher scholarship program. they are highly-qualified students in mathematics, are majoring in mathematics and secondary education, and participate in the camp at an early stage in their program. their mathematics competency has already been demonstrated, but how confident are they about the realities of teaching mathematics to ethnically diverse students who need substantial academic support? this study explored the effects of teaching in a stem summer camp with ethnically diverse, high-needs students on preservice secondary mathematics teachers’ teaching self-efficacy, as measured by the mtebi, and also by follow-up qualitative analysis of questionnaire responses and focus groups. the qualitative analysis was designed to expand understanding of the quantitative results, and of the experience as a whole. if the stem summer camp experience affected teaching self-efficacy, whether positively or negatively, what were the reasons? which aspects of the program made the greatest difference to the students? the authors were particularly interested in students’ reactions to the instructional coaching provided to them throughout the summer camp session. a number of research studies have been produced in the seven years of the summer stem camp’s operation. in the authors’ previous work (franks, mcglamery, & van wyngaarden, 2016; mcglamery, franks, & shillingstad, 2016; mcglamery & franks, 2019), they have observed significant improvements in the science teaching self-efficacy of preservice elementary teachers who completed an intermediate field experience during the summer camp, and have also compared the summer camp experience with regular, classroom-based field experience in terms of science teaching self-efficacy. an earlier study by other researchers (reding et al., 2017), examined the quantity and strength of relationships between the eureka! stem camp participants and student camp leaders who were scholarship recipients and future mathematics teachers. the present study focused on a different sample of these scholarship participants, exploring the effects of the experience on their self-efficacy for teaching mathematics. the summer camp field experience the summer stem camp is offered in a city school district in which about 72% of students identify as a racial or ethnic minority. of these students, 34.9% identify as hispanic/latinx, 28% as white, 25.2% as african american, and 5.6% as asian. the remainder include biracial students and students identifying as native american and pacific islander. in the district, 19% of students are english language learners and 74% receive free or reduced lunch (omaha public schools). the four-week summer camp experience introduces at-risk female students, who are rising 7th and 8th graders from low-income families, to stem education in a positive college setting, with the goal of stimulating their interest in both academic success and possible future careers in © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25396 | august 16, 2021 53 stem fields. topics in the camp included robotics, high-altitude ballooning, rocketry, programming and coding, financial literacy, physics, biology, biomechanics, chemistry, engineering and mathematics. the mathematics sessions in the eureka! stem camp addressed middle level, 5th through 8th grade, mathematics concepts. some pre-algebra and algebra concepts were introduced. in the city school district, students are tested using the nebraska student-centered assessment system in mathematics. three levels of proficiency are determined based on test performance: developing, on track, and college and career ready (ccr). proficiency in meeting state standards is calculated based on the scores of students achieving at the on track and ccr levels. in the 2018-2019 school year, the percentages of students reaching proficiency in mathematics were 48% for white students, 25% for hispanic/latinx students, and 17% for african american students (nebraska department of education). most camp participants needed additional support in mathematics; on average they demonstrated a oneto two-year achievement gap in comparison with their middle-class peers in the city, a trend that has been observed every year of the seven years the camp has operated. camp staff introduced more mathematics-based sessions to target important mathematics standards, and reviewed concepts the girls should have learned in upper elementary and middle level mathematics classes. all of the girls were recruited for the summer camp via a community partner of the teacher education program, girls inc. of omaha, a community support program for girls. most of the participants were from single parent families with annual incomes below $30,000. the majority were african american, but african (somali), latina, and white girls also participated. girls inc. of omaha serves girls ages 5 through 18 years of age. founded in 1975, it now has two centers in the city, with art rooms, computer labs, and a library, woodshop, sports field, and playground. it serves approximately 1,000 girls each year, providing after-school programming, mentoring, college application assistance, transportation, counseling services, medical services, healthy meals, and computer access. the summer stem camp is part of a five-year program collaborative offered by girls inc. of omaha and the university of nebraska omaha. the first two years focus on the summer camp, and the following years include mentorship and externship experiences with stem-related organizations and businesses. research questions in this study the authors used a mixed methods approach known as the explanatory sequential design, so called because researchers first collect quantitative data and then gather qualitative data to help explain or elaborate on the quantitative results (creswell & guetterman, 2019). the quantitative analysis explored this question: how does teaching in a stem summer camp affect preservice secondary teachers’ personal mathematics teaching efficacy beliefs and/or © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25396 | august 16, 2021 54 mathematics teaching outcome expectancy, as measured by the mtebi? the qualitative inquiry expanded on this question to explore more deeply, via an open-ended questionnaire and a focus group, the aspects of the eureka! stem program that were most likely to impact participants’ teaching self-efficacy. these aspects included their experiences as instructors in the summer camp, the effects of the instructional coaching they received as they prepared and carried out lessons, and their interactions with students from diverse cultural backgrounds. method participants participants in the study were undergraduate students at a medium-sized metropolitan university who had been selected for mathematics scholarships in a federally-funded teacher scholarship program. the program is open to students enrolled in the university’s bachelor of science in mathematics/teacher preparation program. the grant provides scholarships, research opportunities, internships and mentorship to students pursuing careers as high school mathematics teachers in high-needs schools. scholarship participants earn both a mathematics degree and secondary teacher certification while developing valuable skills, such as culturally responsive teaching techniques, that will enable them to teach effectively in high-needs schools. the study participants, known as interns, were all preservice secondary mathematics teachers, enrolled in a summer teaching course for which the eureka! stem camp experience served as a field component. the goal in incorporating the interns was to give them teaching experience with diverse populations of youth, and also for them to provide needed support to the instructors who were leading the stem sessions of the camp. there were 10 interns, including four white males and six females, five of whom were white and one african-american. intern activities the interns were assigned to work with an instructor during each stem session. since the session contents were all different, efforts were made to pair interns with areas in which they had expressed an interest. each intern worked in an instructional capacity for five hours per day, four days per week. friday sessions were field trips to various stem-focused sites that provided the girls with new and interesting experiences; the interns accompanied the girls on all of their field trips. each stem session was 90 minutes in length. each intern designed, planned, and taught two 90minute, all-mathematics sessions, with the assistance of the instructional coach. in addition, the interns worked with presenters in other stem areas to assist as instructional facilitators and group managers. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25396 | august 16, 2021 55 instructional coaching and the intern experience during the four-week camp session, the interns were given instructional coaching before they taught, during the teaching process, and after the teaching sessions. the instructional coaching was designed to better assist these novice teachers as they planned and implemented lessons. because the interns were novice teachers, they needed assistance with planning lessons that were inquiry based and engaging to the girls. the instructional coach met with the interns weekly, and also attended their teaching sessions to observe them and give feedback on their teaching. the meetings were opportunities for discussions about best teaching practices and a chance to plan together the lessons the interns would be teaching. the mathematics instructional coach was a former teacher of mathematics with a phd in mathematics education, who also worked as an instructional coach of mathematics for a local school district before joining the faculty at the university. quantitative data analysis instrument the mathematics teaching efficacy belief instrument (mtebi) (enochs, smith, & huinker, 2000) was used to assess the interns’ self-efficacy regarding mathematics teaching. this instrument measures two subscales, personal mathematics teaching efficacy belief (pmte) (13 items), and mathematics teaching outcome expectancy (mtoe) (8 items). participants’ beliefs are rated on a 5-point likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). each subscale contains both forward-phrased (“i will continually find better ways to teach mathematics”) and reverse-phrased (“i will not be very effective in monitoring mathematics activities”) items. procedure the mtebi was administered to the interns at the first organizational meeting, one week before the camp was to begin. the posttest administration of the mtebi occurred at the last meeting of the interns, during the last week of the summer camp. results for quantitative analysis paired samples t tests were used to evaluate differences between pretest and posttest scores for the two subscales of the mtebi, mathematics teaching outcome expectancy (mtoe) and personal mathematics teaching efficacy (pmte). table 1 illustrates the results observed for the two subscales. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25396 | august 16, 2021 56 on the mtoe subscale, the difference between pretest and posttest scores was not significant, t (9) = 1.64, p = .14. an average difference of 1.9 points between pretest and posttest scores was observed. on the pmte subscale, the difference between pretest and posttest scores was significant, t (9) = 3.99, p = .003. an average difference of 5.1 points between pretest and posttest scores was observed (table 1). using an eta2 formula for a paired samples t test, a large effect size of .23 was obtained for the mtoe subscale and an even larger effect size of .63 was obtained for the pmte subscale (cohen, 1988). table 1. paired samples t-tests with pretest and posttest scores on mathematics teaching outcome expectancy and personal mathematics teaching efficacy subscales of the mtebi, interns summer camp sample interns, summer program subscale n mean, sd pre mean, sd post t(9) p effect size* mtoe 10 
 30.8 (2.44) 32.7 (3.16)
 1.64 .14 .23 pmte 10 53.4 (4.25) 58.5 (4.71) 3.99 .003 .63 mtoe scores out of 40 possible; pmte scores out of 65 possible.
 *eta2 values: .01 = small effect, .06 = moderate effect, .14 = large effect (cohen, 1988) qualitative data analysis procedure the qualitative data was collected via a written survey with open-ended questions, as well as oral responses in the context of focus group interactions. the written responses collected on the questionnaire were used as a beginning point for further conversation with the interns. the questionnaire was given to the interns during their second to last meeting with their instructional coach. the focus group occurred at the final meeting with the instructional coach. all 10 interns responded to the questionnaire and participated in the focus group discussions. the written questionnaire included the following questions: questions about the eureka! stem camp experience: 1. what about the camp did you like best? 2. what aspects of the camp most interested you? 3. were there aspects of the camp that you did not expect? © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25396 | august 16, 2021 57 questions about the coaching experience: 1. what about the instructional coaching did you find useful? 2. what aspects of the instructional coaching did you find least useful? questions about teaching students: 1. what challenges did you have working with the girls? 2. what successes did you have working with the girls? qualitative analysis the qualitative data was collected in two ways. first, the written questionnaire was administered, and based on the responses to the questionnaire, possible follow-up questions were planned to be asked during the face-to-face focus group session. the questionnaire responses were sorted and coded for common themes, using the constantcomparative method described by bogdan & biklen (2007). in this method, researchers look for key issues, words, or phrases in data that become coding categories. they compare incidents in the data to other incidents, incidents to categories, and categories to other categories (creswell & guetterman, 2019). they examine the coding categories for overlap or redundancy, then collapse them into broad themes. the focus group setting allowed the interns to clarify and provide more detail about their written responses. the focus group data was recorded as field notes and meeting minutes by the author and the instructional coach. these notes were also coded, with the goal of identifying additional themes and confirming themes identified from the written responses. the coding process, including both the written surveys and the focus group, identified the following themes: • lack of experience with a diverse population of students • class differences (interns mostly came from middle-class families; students were from families living in poverty). • challenges related to the age of the students, such as selecting developmentally appropriate mathematics lessons. • emotions surrounding the experience, such as anxiety, feeling overwhelmed • developing a relationship with the students in the camp • learning to gain the students’ trust • helping the students take risks to try new mathematics activities, particularly those that were challenging • challenges related to interns’ newness to teacher preparation • benefits of coaching • feelings of anxiety relieved by support from the instructional coach • sense of improvement in their own teaching skills • usefulness of the camp experience as part of their preparation to teach mathematics © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25396 | august 16, 2021 58 results the themes identified and confirmed by the questionnaire and the focus group session formed the basis for the assertions below. quotations from the participants are used to support the assertions and provide the reader with the perspective of the study participants. assertion one the biggest challenge to the efficacy of the interns was working with such a diverse population of students. because the interns were in the beginning of their teacher preparation, they lacked experience and confidence to tackle the teaching challenges they faced during the summer camp. they struggled initially with gaining the students’ trust and developing relationships with girls whose family situations were mostly very different from their own. intern #4: “learning to relate to the girls and establish a working relationship was the challenge for me. the question up front was, how do i gain the girls’ trust? how do i get the girls to follow my instructional lead? many of the girls struggled with math and needed to feel comfortable with the instructor in order to try. being able to establish trust and lead the girls to take risks and try really was exciting to experience.” intern #9: “i was surprised to see how different the girls were at first. i don’t know what i expected. they seemed so young and i had no idea how to start to get to know them.” intern #10: “the diversity was hard to deal with, where do i begin? what type of teaching will we be doing? do i even know what level of math to consider teaching? do the girls even like math? all these questions, it was hard not to panic.” assertion two interns reported that the opportunity to work with diverse learners was helpful in developing efficacy in teaching mathematics. however, the initial orientation to the setting was anxiety producing. all but two of the interns had not worked with such diverse learners. the girls participating in the camp were from diverse backgrounds, and the interns reported that middle level students were a new experience for all but two of them. additional issues centered on concerns about classroom management and how to best engage the girls in learning. learning levels and how to select developmentally appropriate math lessons were foremost in the minds of the interns. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25396 | august 16, 2021 59 intern #2: “middle level students were new to me. i have only worked with college students. the behaviors and the needs of middle level girls seemed to offer some challenges i didn’t know how to address. the overall experience with the diversity was good, just overwhelming at first.” intern #4: “wow, the girls were great, once i got into the sessions and had a chance to work one on one with them. it certainly was a matter of getting to know the students and establishing trust with the students. the math sessions helped me see the need for experience with diverse learners. coach j was right about being prepared to meet the learners where they are. yes, it helped me feel confident in my ability to teach math.” intern #5: “the big question for me was where do we begin to teach math to such a varied group of students? it was so cool to have the opportunity to go from not knowing how to grab onto this, to being able to do two major teaching sessions and have it all come together. working as a team with other interns and the instructional coach was really good. it gave me more confidence to try things and explore new ways of teaching.” assertion three interns reported that the coaching experience was very useful in helping them achieve greater efficacy in teaching mathematics. the coach assisted with the planning of the mathematics lessons taught by the interns and helped the teacher candidates to reflect on the teaching experiences after the lessons concluded. a particular challenge was helping the girls, who did not have strong mathematics skills, learn to take risks and try new mathematics activities. in this, the coach modeled assessing what the girls did know and adapting activities to be more user friendly for them. all the interns found the coaching experience to be the most useful aspect of working in the camp. intern #1: “many of the girls we worked with were behind in their math skills. it was very important to have math lessons that fit the level of the student. if the lesson is too hard the girls tend to just give up and stop trying. the trick is to have the right level and degree of difficulty to engage the students and not frustrate them. the coach really helped us here. learning how to help the girls feel comfortable to keep trying and not give up; that was the most useful to me.” intern #3: “i found the instructional coach to be the most useful aspect of the camp experience. she was very helpful and gave us such good ideas and pointers. the opportunity to plan with her made the lessons run so much more smoothly. i © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25396 | august 16, 2021 60 really had no idea how to plan for what we were trying to do…without the coach the lessons would not have been on target. i had never taught real kids, i didn’t know where to start.” intern # 5: “maybe i had worked with some small groups of students in tutoring sessions, but nothing like the eureka! stem camp. this was hands on teaching with real kids. all different, very diverse groups of girls. the issue for me was how to relate? how do i get to know the girls? what do i talk about? the instructional coach was great. she helped us with all kinds of teaching strategies and ice breaker activities to get a feel for the students.” intern # 7: “for me it was all about the coaching in the process of teaching math or any other subject. the sessions we helped with were assigned. the coach attended the sessions and observed us working with the girls. after the sessions, she would debrief with us about how the sessions had gone. we had time to ask questions and discuss anything we wanted to talk about.” assertion four the need for experience in teaching and the support to try new strategies was very useful to the interns. it was emphasized by the interns that having help with the selection of the teaching strategies and the implementation was critical to developing efficacy about teaching mathematics. intern #10: “the lack of experience teaching real kids math or anything else for that matter…really made it hard at first to pick or plan good lessons. the coaching was very important to me. it made it much easier to see myself being successful.” intern #1: “i needed help selecting the lessons and working with curriculum materials. how do you find activities to teach the math concepts in a way that is both engaging and allows the girls opportunity to problem solve? this was for me the big challenge.” intern #2: “most of us came into the (camp name) experience with limited exposure to teaching. we all felt overwhelmed at first. the girls we were working with were not like what i had experience with in my own school back home. even with all the stress, i would do it again. the learning curve was steep, but the rewards outweighed the stress.” © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25396 | august 16, 2021 61 discussion implications there is limited research about the mathematics teaching self-efficacy of preservice secondary teachers, especially compared with the literature about preservice elementary teachers. this study illustrates the need for more. it is relevant to teacher training programs, particularly those at metropolitan universities, but also for any program where students are interested in teaching at high-needs schools. the authors found that preservice secondary teachers, even though they have high mathematics skills, still feel anxious and unprepared to actually teach mathematics to real students. this is especially true when those students come from underserved populations and different cultural backgrounds from the preservice teachers. two elements of the study offer contributions to the understanding of teaching self-efficacy in preservice teachers. one was exploring issues with secondary mathematics teachers previously explored with elementary science teachers (franks, mcglamery, & van wyngaarden, 2016; mcglamery, franks, & shillingstad, 2016). as with those studies, it was found that the summer camp experience resulted in significant improvements in teaching self-efficacy. another contribution was utilizing qualitative methods to discover more about what specific experiences meant the most to preservice teachers, and had the most effect on their self-efficacy. among those experiences, the supervision and support of an instructional coach ranked highly, as did the opportunity to work with ethnically and culturally diverse students. limitations and future studies one obvious limitation of this study is the small sample size. another is the fact that all the interns were scholarship recipients and, therefore, high achieving students in mathematics. future studies should explore the self-efficacy of a broader range of preservice secondary mathematics teachers. this would have to be done during a regular school semester, however, since the summer camp could not be staffed by many more people. in both the summer camp and in a classroom-based field experience, the authors found positive effects on science teaching self-efficacy, as measured by the science teaching efficacy beliefs instrument, or stebi (enochs & riggs, 1990), in preservice elementary science teachers (franks, mcglamery, & van wyngaarden, 2016; mcglamery, franks, & shillingstad, 2016; mcglamery & franks, 2019). the next step is to assess teaching self-efficacy with preservice secondary teachers in both mathematics and science during a regular school semester. this study © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25396 | august 16, 2021 62 provided a deeper exploration by using qualitative methods; those, too, should be utilized with classroom-based field experiences. the importance of community partnerships in teacher education programs our metropolitan university has a long history of service learning and community partnerships (schumaker & woods, 2001; woods, reed, & smith-howell, 2016), particularly with regard to stem education (grandgennett et al., 2015). this study illustrates that such partnerships can enhance teacher training when field placements include community-based organizations other than schools. as mcdonald et al. (2011) observed, such placements “afforded preservice teachers new ways of seeing and understanding children beyond school and across difference.” they build connections between prospective teachers and community organizations, helping them to develop a holistic and assets-based view of children and youth. the interns in this study experienced the connections made in a community partnership between a service/mentoring organization for girls and their own metropolitan university. a significant benefit of the partnership in this case was the opportunity for informal interactions between middle-class education students and the underserved students they will be teaching in the future. spending full days with their students in a summer camp setting, including field trips and social activities, allowed the interns to stretch their interpersonal skills, and raised their awareness of the need for developmentally appropriate lessons. it allowed them to teach students from three very distinct cultural groups (latinx, somali, and african american) in the city. because most of them came from white, middle-class families, but wished to teach in the city’s ethnically diverse public school district, this early experience with students from different cultures was invaluable. education students ultimately have many opportunities to go out into their communities because they have field experiences in different schools throughout their training. in the case of the summer camp, an important community connection was bringing the girls to the campus. for some, it was their first time being on a college campus, so preservice teachers were able not only to teach them, but also to serve as role models, inviting the girls to see themselves in the role of college student in the future. conclusion this study describes a unique program that addresses the opportunity gaps experienced by highneeds students by providing both pre-college experiences and community partnerships (reding et al., 2017. such programs benefit both student participants and preservice teachers because of the demand for stem teachers in high-needs educational environments. if teacher education programs are to be successful in training teachers who can be effective mathematics educators in high-needs schools, those preservice teachers need support, and that support should begin early © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25396 | august 16, 2021 63 in their teacher preparation. even though the eureka! stem camp lasted for only four weeks, it gave these preservice teachers both a real-life experience with a culturally diverse group of students, and the support to improve their self-efficacy for teaching the students who will need them most. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25396 | august 16, 2021 64 references bandura, a. 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(2016). building an engagement center through love of place: the story of the barbara weitz community engagement center. metropolitan universities, 27(3), 85-105. doi10.18060/21388 https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/muj/article/view/21379 https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/muj/article/vie917 http://dx.doi.org/10.14507/epaa.v24.2207 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1949-8594.2012.00145.x https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1949-8594.2007.tb17797.x https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1949-8594.2007.tb17797.x https://doi.org/10.1353/hsj.2019.0002 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1949-8594.2005.tb18040.x https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/muj/article/view/21379 bridget a. franks1, and sheryl l. mcglamery2 original research © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24556 | march 30, 2021 124 factors associated with opposition to a vape-free campus policy seok hyun gwon1, youngjoo cho2, linna i. laestadius3, yang wang4, and han-joo lee5 1college of nursing, university of wisconsin-milwaukee, 2department of applied statistics, konkuk university, 3joseph j. zilber school of public health, university of wisconsin-milwaukee, 4 health science center, peking university, 5 department of psychology, university of wisconsin-milwaukee cite as: gwon, s.h., cho, y., laestadius, l.i., wang, y., & lee, h.j. (2021). factors assciated with opposition to a vape-free campus policy, 32(1), 124-145. doi: 10.18060/24556 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract objective. to assess the characteristics of campus populations who were opposed to a vapefree campus policy and examine factors associated with opposition to a vape-free campus policy among those who indicated support for a tobacco-free policy. participants. faculty, staff, and students (n=2210) in a midwestern university participated. methods. individuals were invited to a campus-wide online survey about the tobacco-free policy on campus in spring 2018. pearson’s χ2, t-test, and binary logistic regression were used for analysis. results. age, gender, current tobacco use, perceived harmfulness of e-cigarettes, and perceived harmfulness of secondhand smoke were significantly associated with opposition to the vapefree campus policy. conclusions. our data highlight the importance of various demographic factors that are associated with opposition to the vape-free policy. the current field needs to use informative approaches to improve knowledge of overall tobacco in health campaigns and public health programs on campus and within community outreach programs. keywords. health policy, electronic nicotine delivery systems, tobacco, surveys and questionnaires, cross-sectional studies https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24556 | march 30, 2021 125 factors associated with opposition to a vape-free campus policy american young adults are rapidly becoming addicted to new tobacco products known as electronic nicotine delivery systems (ends), commonly called e-cigarettes. researchers reported that ends prevalence among u.s. adults was 4.5%. notably, among young adults aged 18 to 24, it was reported as high as 9.2% in 2016 (mirbolouk et al., 2018). there are a variety of types of ends. recently, a novel ends product named juul has swept the nation. although it was first introduced in 2015 (stahr, 2015), its market share was reported to hit over 75% in 2018 (craver, 2018). due to the tiny size and flashy usb flash drive-like shape with little to no scent, juul users can vape regardless of the location, including classrooms and buildings on college campuses (reimer, 2019; veitch, 2018). harmful effects of smoking and secondhand smoke (shs) have been well documented in the literature. both smoking and shs are significantly associated with cardiovascular disease (e.g., stroke), respiratory disease (e.g., chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), cancer, and other serious health conditions, including stillbirth, low birth weight, bone diseases (u.s. department of health and human services, 2010; 2014). however, the detrimental health effects of ends are quite poorly understood compared to those of traditional combustible cigarettes (dinakar & o’connor, 2016). although there is limited empirical data, multiple ingredients in ends, including nicotine, ultrafine particles, flavorants such as diacetyl, volatile organic compounds (e.g., benzene), toxic heavy metals (e.g., lead and cadmium), and carcinogens (e.g., formaldehyde) are suspected to produce negative health outcomes (u.s. department of health and human services, 2016). there is a concern that ends use may serve as a gateway to nicotine addiction and eventually traditional combustible tobacco smoking in the future (etter, 2017; u.s. department of health and human services, 2016). peer influence has been shown to be a significant facilitator leading to the use of ends. evidence exist that young adults who smoke daily experienced increased desire to use ends when they observed a peer who use ends (king et al., 2015). social learning theory (bandura, 1977) and the ecological perspective of health (sallis et al., 2006) explain the putative mechanism by which individuals learn smoking through exposure to that behavior (bandura, 1977). additionally, the ecological perspective stresses the importance of a healthy environment and policies for better health (mcleroy et al., 1988; sallis et al., 2006). in the united states, tobacco control policies are being adopted increasingly on campuses to protect college communities against the deadly health hazards caused by tobacco and promote the rights of those on campus to breathe clean air. as of april 1, 2019, 2,356 campuses had implemented 100% smoke-free policies. although 84.2% restricted all tobacco, including noncombustible products, and 83.4% prohibited ends on campus (american nonsmokers’ rights foundation, 2019), many colleges are hesitant to adopt vape-free campus policies. campus administrators and populations may be reluctant or disagree with pushing the adoption of vape© the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24556 | march 30, 2021 126 free campus policies for various reasons. they may not know the exact constituents of secondhand vapor (tan et al., 2017). they may also perceive ends not to be tobacco products, or there may be political issues at play involving campus groups who are in favor of vaping in colleges. strong constituent support is an important factor in adopting and implementing tobacco control policies (satterlund et al., 2011). nevertheless, research on characteristics of campus members associated with opposition to vape-free campus policies has been scarce. braverman et al. (2017) reported the use of tobacco products (cigarettes, smokeless tobacco, and non-cigarette tobacco) as a predictor of opposition to tobacco-free policies, whereas predictors of support for these policies included smoke-free policy support, being female, international student status, exposure to shs, and being over 55. a study by brown et al. (2016) similarly found that non-users of ends were more likely to support vape-free campus policies than ends users. however, their study did not consider relevant demographic information (e.g., race/ethnicity, sexual preference, veteran status), environmental factors (noticing ashtrays or “no smoking” signs, etc.), awareness of the campus smoking policies, and perceived harmfulness of shs and/or ends. there is a need for a more comprehensive assessment of individual characteristics or contextual factors that are associated with opposition to vape-free campus policies. identification of such factors will provide essential information to develop effective strategies to establish and implement tobaccofree campus policies. given the possibility of misconceptions of the definition of tobacco-free (whether it includes ends), the investigation of perceptions of ends-free (or vape-free) campus policies is valuable. discerning the reasons why supporters of tobacco-free campuses would not support the policies for vape-free campuses is particularly important in initiating effective communications geared toward vape restrictions in colleges. in this paper, we report results from a campus-wide survey open to all campus populations (students, staff, and faculty members) aimed at assessing levels and possible drivers of support and opposition for both vape and tobacco-free campus policies. within the survey, we addressed a wide range of demographics, environmental factors, smoking policy awareness, and perceived harmfulness of ends and shs. we aimed to assess the characteristics of individuals on campus who were opposed to a vape-free campus policy and examine factors associated with opposition to a vape-free campus policy among those who indicated support for a tobacco-free policy. methods participants and procedures in spring 2018, an email invitation from the student association with the link to the online survey about tobacco-free campus policies was distributed to all faculty, staff, and students at a university in wisconsin. only individuals who signed the online consent participated in the study survey. a total of 2,210 individuals participated in the survey, with an approximate response rate © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24556 | march 30, 2021 127 of 8%. this study was approved by the university of wisconsin-milwaukee institutional review board before data collection. measures opposition to tobacco-free and vape-free campus policies the question, “do you agree that campus needs to adopt a policy that would make the entire campus 100% tobacco-free?” was used to measure the level of support or opposition to the tobacco-free campus policy, and the question, “do you agree that electronic cigarettes (vapes) need to be banned in the tobacco-free campus policy?” was used to measure the level of support or opposition to the vape-free campus policy. response options included “strongly agree,” “somewhat agree,” “neither agree nor disagree,” “somewhat disagree,” and “strongly disagree.” “strongly agree” and “somewhat agree” were considered support of the tobacco-free and vapefree policies and “somewhat disagree” and “strongly disagree” were considered opposition. demographic characteristics participants reported age, gender, sexual orientation, race and ethnicity, and veteran status. tobacco use and exposure to secondhand smoke on campus respondents reported their tobacco use status by responding to the question, “do you currently use tobacco products?” respondents were asked to report frequencies of exposure to shs from cigarettes on campus; possible answers were “every day or most days,” “some days,” and “never.” participants were also asked to document whether they had seen ashtrays, receptacles, or “no smoking” signs on campus. awareness of campus smoking policy in the survey, we provided the current smoking campus policy statement (university prohibits smoking in all buildings, vehicles, parking structures, and within 25 feet of all buildings) and asked the participants whether they were aware of this policy before reading the statement. perceived harmfulness of shs and ends the participants were asked to report perceived harmfulness of shs on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 meaning “not at all harmful” and 10 meaning “extremely harmful.” their perceived harmfulness of ends was evaluated with the question, “how harmful do you think electronic cigarettes (vapes) are compared to conventional cigarettes?” responses included “less harmful,” “about the same,” and “more harmful.” © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24556 | march 30, 2021 128 analytic plan we used descriptive statistics to examine frequencies and percentages for categorical variables and mean and standard deviation for continuous variables. we used pearson’s χ2 statistics to examine bivariate associations between characteristics (categorical variables) of the participants and opposition/non-opposition to the vape-free policy on campus. a t-test was used to examine the mean difference in perceived harmfulness of shs between groups who agreed with the vapefree policy and those who did not. we used binary logistic regression to investigate factors associated with opposition to the vape-free campus policy among individuals who were in favor of the tobacco-free campus policy. for categorical variables with more than 2 levels, we used the overall significance of the corresponding variable and bonferroni adjustment to evaluate pairwise effects between the reference variable and the rest of the variables. all statistical assumptions for bivariate and multiple analyses were met. the significance level was set at < 0.05. results characteristics of all participants table 1 presents the characteristics of the campus participants between opposition and nonopposition to the vape-free policy on campus. a total of 40.3% of the participants opposed the vape-free policy. nearly half of participants aged 29 or younger opposed the vape-free policy, but only a small proportion of the participants aged 40 or older disagreed with the vape-free policy. the differences in these age categories, dependent on the vape-free policy opposition, were significant. there were also significant differences in gender and sexual orientation categories regarding opposition to the vape-free policy. participants who answered with alternate gender self-identification opposed the vape-free policy to a greater degree (64.6%), compared to those who identified themselves as men (54.2%) or women (28.5%). heterosexual participants reported significantly more to the vape-free policy opposition compared to their homosexual counterparts. latinx participants (49.3%) opposed the vape-free policy the most whereas nonlatinx asians (29.7%) did the least. race and ethnicity were significantly related to opposition to the vape-free policy. approximately, 80% of the participants who had never been exposed to shs on campus opposed the vape-free policy compared to only 22% of those who were exposed to shs every day or most days. this difference in opposition to the vape-free policy by frequency of exposure to shs was significant. in addition, respondents who have never seen ashtrays or receptacles on campus reported significantly more opposition than those who had seen them. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24556 | march 30, 2021 129 table 1. characteristics of campus participants, stratified by opposition to a vape-free campus policy (n= 2210) bivariate association categorical variables non-opposition (support) n (%) or mean (sd) opposition n (%) or mean (sd) 𝜒𝜒2 or t p frequencies of non-opposition and opposition 1320 (59.7) 890 (40.3) age 166.132 <0.001 ≥ 60 years 81 (83.5) 16 (16.5) 50-59 years 127 (82.5) 27 (17.5) 40-49 years 143 (83.1) 29 (16.9) 30-39 years 197 (72.4) 75 (27.6) 26-29 years 117 (57.6) 86 (42.4) 18-25 years 655 (49.4) 657 (50.1) gender 158.635 <0.001 woman 871 (71.5) 347 (28.5) man 432 (45.8) 512 (54.2) alternate self-identification 17 (35.4) 31 (64.6) sexual orientation 27.375 <0.001 homosexuality 182 (47.8) 199 (52.2) heterosexuality 1138 (62.2) 691 (37.8) race/ethnicity 12.439 0.014 latinx 74 (50.7) 72 (49.3) non-latinx white 1090 (60.4) 714 (39.6) non-latinx black 35 (67.3) 17 (32.7) non-latinx asian 45 (70.3) 19 (29.7) non-latinx others 76 (52.8) 68 (47.2) veteran 3.178 0.075 no 1261 (60.2) 835 (39.8) yes 59 (51.8) 55 (48.2) frequencies of exposure to shs 333.406 <0.001 every day or most days 728 (78.0) 205 (22.0) some days 512 (55.1) 417 (44.9) never 80 (23.0) 268 (77.0) ashtrays or receptacles 96.844 <0.001 seen 762 (53.1) 673 (46.9) not seen 29 (44.6) 36 (55.4) not sure 529 (74.5) 181 (25.5) no smoking signs 2.751 0.097 not seen 495 (62.0) 303 (38.0) seen 825 (58.4) 587 (41.6) © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24556 | march 30, 2021 130 current tobacco use 412.443 <0.001 no 1289 (68.6) 589 (31.4) yes 31 (9.3) 301 (90.7) awareness of campus smoking policy 32.285 <0.001 no 349 (70.8) 144 (29.2) yes 971 (56.6) 746 (43.4) perception of harmfulness of ends 381.414 <0.001 less harmful 484 (40.8) 701 (59.2) about the same 652 (80.3) 160 (19.7) more harmful 184 (86.4) 29 (13.6) perception of harmfulness of shs 8.742 (1.694) 5.576 (2.787) 30.322 <0.001 most current tobacco users (90.7%) disagreed with the vape-free policy, while only a third of the non-current tobacco users (31.4%) were opposed to the policy. a significantly greater percentage of the participants who reported awareness of the campus smoking policy opposed the vape-free policy (43.4%) than those who reported being unaware of the campus smoking policy (29.2%). individuals who perceived ends as less harmful than cigarettes were significantly more opposed to the vape-free policy compared to those who perceived ends as more harmful, and those who perceived ends and cigarettes as equally harmful. participants opposed to the vapefree policy reported significantly lower mean scores of perceived harmfulness of shs than those who were not. there were no significant differences related to veteran status or noticing “no smoking” signs. characteristics of participants who opposed the vape free policy but agreed with the tobacco free policy table 2 presents the characteristics of the campus participants who favored the tobacco-free policy but opposed to the vape-free policy on campus. out of 1458 tobacco-free policy supporters (66% out of the total sample), 219 participants (15.1%) opposed the vape-free policy. there were significant differences in the age and gender categories regarding vape-free policy opposition. more than 20% of the participants aged 25 or younger reported opposition to the vape-free policy compared to 10% or fewer of those aged 26 or older. and male participants were more often opposed to the vape-free policy compared to female and other than male and female participants. a significantly greater percentage of heterosexual participants were opposed to the vape-free policy than homosexual individuals. participants who had not seen “no smoking” signs reported significantly more opposition to the vape-free policy than those who had seen the signs. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24556 | march 30, 2021 131 current tobacco users reported four times more opposition to the vape-free policy than noncurrent tobacco users, representing significant differences regarding opposition. respondents who perceived that ends were less harmful than traditional cigarettes reported significantly more opposition to the vape-free policy than those who perceived that ends were more harmful or that ends and cigarettes were similarly harmful. participants who were not opposed to the vape-free policy reported perceiving shs as more harmful than those who were opposed to the policy. the difference in this perception level was significant. there were no significant differences in race/ethnicity, veteran status, frequencies of exposure to shs, noticing ashtrays or receptacles on campus the surroundings, or awareness of the campus smoking policy in this sample. factors associated with opposition to the vape-free campus policy but agreement with the tobacco free policy table 2 is a representation of a binary logistic regression model to find factors associated with opposition to the vape-free campus policy among those who agreed with the tobacco-free policy. controlling for all other variables (sexual orientation, race/ethnicity, veteran status, frequencies of exposure to shs, noticing ashtrays or receptacles, noticing no smoking signs, and awareness of the campus smoking policy), age, gender, current tobacco use, perceived harmfulness of ends, and perceived harmfulness of shs were significantly associated with the vape-free policy opposition. we adjusted multiple comparisons using tukey's test to look at differences between groups with more than two levels including age, gender, and perceived harmfulness of ends. as shown in table 3, the 18-25 age group had significantly higher odds of opposition to the vape-free policy than all others. moreover, males had significantly higher odds than females to the opposition of the vape-free policy. participants who answered that ends is about the same as or more harmful than conventional cigarettes had significantly less odds of opposition to the vape-free policy than those with less harmful. figure 1 presents bar charts regarding statistically significant variables in the multiple logistic regression model. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24556 | march 30, 2021 132 table 2. factors associated with opposition to the vape-free campus policy among individuals who supported a tobacco-free campus policy (n=1458) bivariate association logistic regression model variables nonopposition (support) n (%) or mean (sd) opposition n (%) or mean (sd) 𝜒𝜒2 or t p or 95% ci p frequencies of non-opposition and opposition 1239 (84.9) 219 (15.1) age 78.709 <0.001 <0.001 ≥ 60 years 76 (96.2) 3 (3.8) ref. 50-59 years 120 (96.0) 5 (4.0) 1.023 0.2144.883 0.977 40-49 years 139 (97.9) 3 (2.1) 0.742 0.1334.146 0.734 30-39 years 185 (90.7) 19 (9.3) 2.149 0.5548.331 0.269 26-29 years 109 (89.3) 13 (10.7) 2.639 0.64310.883 0.178 18-25 years 610 (77.6) 176 (22.4) 5.240 1.45418.888 0.011 gender 21.168 <0.001 0.007 woman 838 (88.1) 113 (11.9) ref. man 392 (79.0) 104 (21.0) 1.750 1.2342.481 0.002 alternate selfidentification 9 (81.8) 2 (18.2) 1.238 0.2226.912 0.808 sexual orientation 5.282 0.022 homosexuality 160 (79.6) 41 (20.4) ref. heterosexuality 1079 (85.8) 178 (14.2) 0.771 0.4941.204 0.254 race/ethnicity 2.842 0.585 0.328 latinx 62 (82.7) 13 (17.3) ref. non-latinx white 1030 (85.1) 180 (14.9) 0.819 0.3931.707 0.593 non-latinx black 33 (80.5) 8 (19.5) 2.228 0.6847.255 0.184 non-latinx asian 44 (91.7) 4 (8.3) 0.562 0.1482.136 0.398 non-latinx others 70 (83.3) 14 (16.7) 0.884 0.3322.349 0.804 © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24556 | march 30, 2021 133 veteran 2.546 0.111 no 1189 (84.7) 215 (15.3) ref. yes 50 (92.6) 4 (7.4) 0.623 0.1822.132 0.451 frequencies of exposure to shs 0.595 0.743 0.177 every day or most days 719 (85.6) 121 (14.4) ref. some days 463 (84.2) 87 (15.8) 1.226 0.8521.763 0.273 never 57 (83.8) 11 (16.2) 2.092 0.9124.801 0.082 ashtrays or receptacles 2.602 0.272 0.305 seen 699 (84.4) 129 (15.6) ref. not seen 27 (77.1) 8 (22.9) 1.476 0.5533.940 0.437 not sure 513 (86.2) 82 (13.8) 0.804 0.5621.151 0.234 no smoking signs 5.389 0.02 not seen 474 (82.3) 102 (17.7) ref. seen 765 (86.7) 117 (13.3) 0.797 0.5511.152 0.228 current tobacco use 29.617 <0.001 no 1230 (85.6) 207 (14.4) ref. yes 9 (42.9) 12 (57.1) 4.304 1.50112.341 0.007 awareness of campus smoking policy 0.896 0.344 no 335 (83.5) 66 (16.5) ref. yes 904 (85.5) 153 (14.5) 1.094 0.7361.625 0.658 perception of harmfulness of ends 222.978 <0.001 <0.001 less harmful 458 (69.6) 200 (30.4) ref. about the same 618 (98.3) 11 (1.7) 0.059 0.0310.110 <0.001 more harmful 163 (95.3) 8 (4.7) 0.172 0.0810.367 <0.001 perception of harmfulness of shs 8.948 (1.367) 8.1 (1.787) 6.686 <0.001 0.853 0.7670.948 0.003 sd, standard deviation; ci, confidence interval © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24556 | march 30, 2021 134 figure 1. bar charts of statistically significant variables in the logistic regression model © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24556 | march 30, 2021 135 table 3. multiple comparisons or adjusted pvalue age 50-59 years vs ≥ 60 years 1.023 1 40-49 years vs ≥ 60 years 0.742 0.999 30-39 years vs ≥ 60 years 2.149 0.862 26-29 years vs ≥ 60 years 2.639 0.732 18-25 years vs ≥ 60 years 5.240 0.101 40-49 years vs 50-59 years 0.725 0.998 30-39 years vs 50-59 years 2.100 0.737 26-29 years vs 50-59 years 2.579 0.566 18-25 years vs 50-59 years 5.121 0.014 30-39 years vs 40-49 years 2.895 0.562 26-29 years vs 40-49 years 3.555 0.415 18-25 years vs 40-49 years 7.061 0.018 26-29 years vs 30-39 years 1.228 0.996 18-25 years vs 30-39 years 2.439 0.023 18-25 years vs 26-29 years 1.986 0.333 gender man vs woman 1.750 0.004 alternate self-identification vs woman 1.238 0.965 alternate self-identification vs man 0.707 0.911 perception of harmfulness of ends about the same vs less harmful 0.059 <0.001 more harmful vs less harmful 0.172 <0.001 more harmful vs about the same 2.945 0.061 more specifically, the odds of being in the opposition group to the vape-free policy among participants aged 18-25 were 5.2 times higher than those 60 or older. the odds of being in the opposition group among male participants were 1.7 times higher than those in female participants. the odds of being in the opposition group among current tobacco users were 4.3 times higher than those in non-users. the odds of opposing the vape-free policy among those who answered, “about the same” and “more harmful” for the perceived harmfulness of ends compared to those who answered “less harmful” were 0.059 and 0.172, respectively. as the participants perceived ends more harmful, the odds of opposition to the vape-free policy decreased. the odds ratio of perceived harmfulness of shs predicting opposition to the vapefree policy was 0.853, which indicates that the odds of opposing the vape-free policy decreased as they perceived shs more harmful. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24556 | march 30, 2021 136 discussion the surgeon general definitively concluded that any kind of tobacco use or exposure to tobacco is significantly hazardous to health (u.s. department of health and human services, 2014). recently, ends have become the most popular form of tobacco products among youths and young adults in america. as ends deliver nicotine derived from tobacco, they are considered a tobacco product by the u.s. food & drug administration (2019). although evidence about the long-term health effects of ends is limited compared to that of traditional combustible tobacco products, researchers have confirmed that ends pose significant health risks (u.s. department of health and human services, 2016). therefore, vape-free policies should be considered in efforts to control tobacco use on campus. the multiple analysis model (table 2) indicated that age, gender, current tobacco use, perceived harmfulness of ends, and perceived harmfulness of shs were significantly associated with opposition to the vape-free campus policy among those who otherwise supported a tobacco-free campus policy. because ends are categorized as tobacco products, the “comprehensive tobacco-free policy” in our survey was meant to include the restriction of ends. surprisingly, a considerable proportion (15.1%) of the study participants reported being opposed to the vapefree campus policy even though they reported supporting the comprehensive tobacco-free campus policy in the survey. this finding suggests that many people do not consider ends to be tobacco products. this misconception may come from misinformed beliefs and norms around ends. for example, adolescents and young adults who use juuls often fail to recognize that they contain nicotine and many refer to their devices specifically as juuls rather than ecigarettes (willett et al., 2019). moreover, a belief that vaporization from ends is pure and unharmful may contribute to misconceptions about ends (harding, 2014). these beliefs may in part be driven by exposure to social media promotions for e-cigarettes, which have often portrayed ends as safer and as healthier than conventional cigarettes (mccausland et al., 2019). exposure to ends materials on social media has also been shown to be associated with greater ends use (pokhrel et al., 2018). given the prevalence of misinformation about ends, the participants may have failed to recognize how ends use would be affected by the enforcement of a comprehensive tobacco-free policy. beliefs may also have been shaped by prior exposure to tobacco-free policies in other locations, as a variety of dimensions exist in campus tobacco control policies. for example, policies depend on the definition of tobacco products (e.g., smokeless tobacco, ends, hookah), the affected areas (e.g., indoors, outdoors, inside vehicles, a certain distance from buildings), and situations (e.g., religious ceremonies, research purposes) (american nonsmokers’ rights foundation, n.d.; heath et al., 2016). the american college health association (2012) has endorsed comprehensive tobacco-free policies, stating that building tobacco-free environments on campus can result in significant decreases in the number of tobacco users, the quantity of tobacco products used, and the © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24556 | march 30, 2021 137 exposure of non-tobacco users to passive tobacco use. to enact comprehensive tobacco-free campus policies that include ends restrictions, college administrators, health professionals, and policy makers need to understand the key factors related to opposition to new policies found in this study. the logistic regression model (table 2) showed that participants who perceived ends as less harmful than traditional cigarettes were more likely to oppose the vape-free policy compared to those who perceived ends as more harmful and those who perceived ends and cigarettes as equally harmful. the model also confirmed that respondents who perceived shs less harmful were more likely to oppose the vape-free policy. thus, opponents of the policy may have had lower sensitivity to the dangers of ends, shs, and cigarettes. perception and knowledge of general tobacco use in campus populations are closely associated with support for or opposition to vape-free policies. this aligns with the recent literature reporting that today’s younger generations tend to consider ends less harmful and more acceptable than traditional tobacco products (jongenelis et al., 2019; leavens et al., 2019; nicksic, et al., 2019). these widely prevalent beliefs about ends necessitate raising awareness in regards to ends through public health education and campaigns. our final analytic model showed that current tobacco use status was a strong predictive factor for the vape-free policy opposition on campus. participants who used any tobacco products were not in favor of the vape-free policy. as we did not specify the kinds of products used, we were not able to examine differences related to the effects of each tobacco product. however, it is reasonable to think that current tobacco users do not think favorably about tobacco restriction policies. previous research also supports this finding (braverman et al., 2017; cooper et al., 2016). in our sample, 18-25-year-olds were nearly five times more likely to oppose the vape-free policy than respondents aged 60 or older. this odds ratio was even higher than that of current tobacco use in the model. the finding that younger adults were not in favor of the comprehensive tobacco-free policy (including vape restrictions) is consistent with findings from braverman et al.’s study (2017). as mentioned above, ends use has become socially acceptable among young adults. in addition to perceptions of whether ends are tobacco and/or harmful, there is a possibility that young people do not believe the damaging consequences of vaping and exposure to vaporization will happen to them (passanisi et al., 2017). young adults and adolescents are prone to make poor decisions in terms of health behavior (gwon & jeong, 2018), and engage in risky or impulsive behaviors (defoe et al., 2015; scott-parker et al., 2017). in this study, male campus participants reported more opposition to the vape-free policy than female and other than male and female counterparts. this difference in gender effect was in accordance with prior research (braverman et al., 2017; cooper et al., 2016; thomson et al., 2016). © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24556 | march 30, 2021 138 the variables of sexual orientation (heterosexuality vs. homosexuality) and “no smoking” signs (not seen vs. seen) were significant in bivariate association but not in logistic regression (table 2) due to the controlling effect of other variables in the regression analysis. in other words, sexual orientation and “no smoking” signs correlated with other characteristics of the sample, and these two variables were explained by other variables instead. numerous studies have documented disparities (higher prevalence) in tobacco use rates among lgbtq groups compared to non-lgbtq populations (kann et al., 2016; lee et al., 2009). the effect of heterosexual orientation may have been hidden by current tobacco use status in the model. individuals who had not seen “no smoking” signs were more open to vaping on campus in bivariate analysis, possibly because opponents paid less attention to these enforcement signs. however, this variable was not significant in logistic regression because of the controlling effect of other variables. findings from this paper can be useful for informing policy makers and community partners of effective practices to reduce the use of ends among college students who may be influenced by perception and social and environmental factors (cheney et al., 2018). the inadequate level of knowledge about ends products and their health effects may cloud the decision-making process, which leads to experimental and, eventually, regular use of ends on campuses. a study in north dakota showed that four in ten college students did not know whether ends use was prohibited on campus (braverman et al., 2016). given the dramatically increased availability of ends products and rise of ends advertisements in college communities (wagoner et al., 2014), initiating anti-ends campaigns to promote tobacco-free campus policies is crucial. in 2017, arkansas and illinois mandated a smoke-free campus policy (including ends) for public institutions; iowa has even extended this to private institutions (wang et al., 2018). although wisconsin, where this study was conducted, enacted a smoke-free law prohibiting smoking in workplaces, restaurants, and bars in 2010 (centers for disease control and prevention, 2020), there have been no state-wide smoking and vaping restrictions on campuses. further, state preemption has prevented localities from regulating advertising, licensure, or youth access for tobacco products (centers for disease control and prevention, 2018), and the state does not consider e-cigarettes as “tobacco products” in its statutes (public health law center, 2020). thus, state policy may have influenced the opposition to the adoption of the vape-free campuses in the state. in addition, while wisconsin’s smoking rate is close to national average and the state is not a major tobacco producer, its adult vaping rate is among the top ten in the u.s. (hu et al., 2019) and the percentage of wisconsin high school students had increased from 8% in 2014 to 20% in 2018 (wisconsin department of health services, 2019). as a result, participants may view vaping as more normative than in other midwestern states with lower vaping rates. future research is warranted to investigate the impact of this policy on the prevention of ends use and exposure to ends products among college students. developing tailored communication strategies that target groups opposing vape restriction, including males, who © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24556 | march 30, 2021 139 predominantly use ends products more than females, and current tobacco users who use ends as a substitute, is also important in gaining their support for a comprehensive tobacco-free campus policy, coupled with a potential educational role for parents (cheney, et al., 2018). this will gradually shape social norms and, in the long run, decrease ends use and exposure to secondhand vape among young adults in higher education. limitations and strengths although this study provided important findings for successful adaptation of vape-free policies on college campuses, it includes several limitations. first, the survey results were subject to response bias because this campus-wide online survey was self-reported with a possibility that participants answered untruthfully or misleadingly on the survey questionnaire. for example, they may have felt pressure to give answers that were more socially acceptable, but the anonymity of the survey may have decreased this concern. second, this survey was conducted on one university campus in wisconsin, and the results may not be widely generalizable. third, we were not able to include more questions and answers that may have been useful for analysis. for example, types of tobacco products used may have affected opposition to the vape-free policy. additional answers such as lesbian, gay, asexual, bisexual, queer, polysexual, and pansexual for sexual orientation (american psychological association, 2019) would provide more detailed information about association with opposition to the policy. we did not consider different answer options for gender other than man, woman, and alternate self-identification, such as cisgender man, cisgender woman, transgender man, transgender woman, gender-nonconforming, genderqueer, gender-nonbinary, gender-creative, agender, and two-spirit (american psychological association, 2019). lastly, the survey was implemented cross-sectionally, not allowing the examination of trajectories. multiple strengths of the current study should also be noted. first, the sample size was significantly large. second, this survey included a set of comprehensive variables in the analytic models that prior research did not, including sexual orientation, veteran status, frequency of shs, environmental scan factors, awareness of existing smoking policy, and perception of the harmfulness of ends and shs. third, we included various confounding factors, such as demographics, environmental factors, awareness, and perception in the analytic models to examine the factors associated with opposition to vape-free campus policy which previous researchers did not consider. fourth, our findings are novel in that comprehensive tobacco-free campus policy supporters can be opposed to the adoption of vape-free campus policy probably due to their misconception and misbelief about ends. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24556 | march 30, 2021 140 conclusion in this study, we investigated factors associated with opposition to vape-free campus policies among those who supported a tobacco-free policy based on a campus-wide survey of a university in wisconsin. college administrators, health professionals, tobacco-free campus taskforce teams, and policymakers need to consider the significant demographic factors that prompt opposition to these policies (younger age, male, and current tobacco user), targeting populations in campus health campaigns and community outreach programs for more support. notably, altering perceptions of the harmfulness of ends and shs can be important steps toward vape-free campuses. there is a need to use informative approaches to improve knowledge of overall tobacco use, ends, and the harmful effects of ends in public health programs on campus. because this study was conducted in only one campus, surveying a larger sample from multiple institutions (similar in size and demographics to the university the survey was administered) in the future will be helpful to compare the factors associated with opposition to vape-free campus policies and learn what, if anything, has been effective in making campuses more smoke and vape 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(2019, january). youth tobacco survey 2018: high school snapshot. https://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/publications/p01624.pdf https://www.theeagleonline.com/article/2018/12/juuling-craze-hits-au https://www.theeagleonline.com/article/2018/12/juuling-craze-hits-au https://doi.org/10.1093/ntr/ntu081 https://doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm6724a4 https://doi.org/10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2018-054273 https://doi.org/10.1136/tobaccocontrol-2018-054273 https://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/publications/p01624.pdf microsoft word v2007_garcia_2020_conference_issue_23810 final.docx original research © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23810 | july 20, 2020 71 seeking inclusion through local entrepreneurship training initiatives in low-income communities silvia c. garcia1 and nina ustymchuck2 1office of community engagement, indiana univeristy-purdue university indianapolis, 2iu mckinney school of law, indiana university-purdue university indianapolis cite as: garcia, s.c. & ustymchuck, n. (2020). seeking inclusion through local entrepreneurship training initiatives in low-income communities. metropolitan universities, 31(2), 71-91. doi: 10.18060/23810 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract understanding the role of local resources in enabling or constraining the development of entrepreneurial activities in urban communities holds important implications for community placed-based initiatives led by urban universities. this article analyzes the societal and interpersonal factors that affect the outcomes of an entrepreneurship center created in 2016, in partnership with an urban university within a low-income community adjacent to campus. the center was created to address the needs of local residents wanting to launch new businesses, as well as supporting small business owners in the neighborhood who desire to grow their businesses and capitalize on the neighborhood’s proximity to large city anchors. the study uses a mixed research design to understand, through the voice of residents and local business owners, the potential of the center as a catalyst for local entrepreneurship and inclusion, and proposes ways in which community resources can be used to bolster entrepreneurial success. results reveal the need to strengthen local entrepreneurs’ social capital and social competences in order to promote access to financial and business resources. local businesses must be used as significant assets to build upon in order to strengthen entrepreneurial capacities and cultivate community attitudes towards entrepreneurship. keywords: entrepreneurship training, community resources, university-community partnerships © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23810 | july 20, 2020 72 introduction in 2014, a residential neighborhood within a midwestern city was given a special designation as part of a local initiative to transform strategic urban locations into places where people choose to live and work. the development was linked to a larger vision aligned with the city’s plan to develop urban villages. aligned with the neighborhood’s 2015 quality of life plan, residents and neighborhood organizations were enthusiastic about creating a center to give residents access to entrepreneurship training and microloans and/or other lending programs for business start-ups, as well as provide local businesses with services and technical assistance. to advance the community plans, in 2016 a local public university was awarded a grant and private funds to create a place-based entrepreneurship center. the university served as fiscal agent and provided staffing, planning expertise, and advice on partnerships, curricula, and services for the targeted population. the center hired a full-time manager and recruited the first group of program participants for the business accelerator program in fall 2016. university faculty, local businesses, and community leaders are members of the board of directors. the university builds relationships on behalf of the center, helps in the identification of funders for co-investment and collaboration, and contributes with business resources, training, as well as financial support to aspiring and existing business owners. in an interview to 18 local business owners, gramlich, hurtubise, lockard, and santos (2018) identified five areas of needed support: networking with other business leaders, better communication with city officials and agencies, stronger sense of community, advocacy for merchants and small businesses, and neighbors’ involvement with the retail community. these results added to previous findings by bresnahan, diaz, hay, smith, and walden (2016) who observed low levels of interaction of local business owners with other businesses in the neighborhood. both studies revealed the need to strengthen social capital. this mixed methods research provides specific information about the observed needs. we collected data from center clients and staff, local residents, non-profits, and small business owners in the community to address two research questions: 1. what factors affect the entrepreneurial activity in the neighborhood? 2. how can the university and the entrepreneurship center leverage the community social and business resources to support entrepreneurial growth? © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23810 | july 20, 2020 73 entrepreneurship training and inclusion entrepreneurship training programs run under the assumption that the development of entrepreneurial skills can help overcome barriers frequently posed by the lack of educational background required to access traditional jobs (laney, 2013). underlying training efforts, there is an assumption that important entrepreneurial skills that are not part of the individual’s arsenal of inborn aptitudes can be developed (henry, hill & leitch, 2005). the characteristics of entrepreneurship programs vary depending on training needs and expectations, context of application, and population served (o’connor, 2012). in consequence, the wide variety of programs in existence have led to different forms of classification. henry, et al. (2005) use the categorization developed by jamieson (1984) to distinguish between three types of entrepreneurship training: education about enterprise, education for enterprise, and education in enterprise. education about enterprise educates students on setting up and running a business, mostly from a theoretical perspective. education for enterprise focuses on aspiring entrepreneurs for a career in self-employment, encouraging participants to set-up and run their own businesses. education in enterprise, “deals mainly with management training for established entrepreneurs and focuses on ensuring the growth and future development of the business” (henry, et al., 2005, p.102). valerio, parton and robb (2014) distinguish between entrepreneurship education and entrepreneurship training programs. entrepreneurship education comprises academic programs that target secondary and higher education students, while entrepreneurship training programs are non-formal options targeting a wide range of potential users. entrepreneurship training can target “vulnerable, unemployed, inactive individuals, or necessity-driven potential entrepreneurs,” “highly skilled, innovation-led, or opportunistic potential entrepreneurs,” and “practicing entrepreneurs” including “individuals owning informal, micro and small enterprises all the way to high-growth potential enterprise owners” (p. 33). training is expected to increase socio-emotional and technical skills associated with entrepreneurship as well as entrepreneurial activities and outcomes, such as employment rates and profits (valerio, et al., 2014). several studies have evidenced positive relationships between training and entrepreneurial intentions (dehghanpour, 2013), entrepreneurial skills (dumas, 2001), entrepreneurial selfefficacy (ehrlich, de noble, jung, & pearson, 2000), and the need for achievement and internal locus of control (hansemark, 1998). findings also connect entrepreneurship training with business outcomes. training improves small business performance and results (bennett & barkhuizen, 2014; tambwe, 2015) and increases entrepreneurial activity (cowling, 2009). individuals who receive training have 1.5% more probability of starting a new business, and are 3% more likely to be owner-managers of small businesses (cowling, 2009). however, the effects of training depreciate over time in reference to starting a business and business scaling-up and profitability (fairlie, karlan & zinman, 2015) as well as in sales and profits (berge, bjorvatn, & tungodden, 2015). even though there is plenty of evidence of associations between training and © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23810 | july 20, 2020 74 outcomes at the individual and business level, the effects of training on unlocking the potential of individuals and communities in improving their circumstances through active participation in the economy have been difficult to isolate and substantiate (bettcher, & mihaylov, 2015; o’connor, 2012). factors affecting the effectiveness of entrepreneurship training the effects of entrepreneurship training on entrepreneurial activity depend on several moderating factors such as level of education (nabi, liñán, ertuna & gurel, 2011), prior work experience (startiene & remeikiene, 2009; wiger, chapman, baxter, & dejaeghere, 2015), and motivation (sriram, mersha, & herron, 2007). similarly, interpersonal skills (baron & markman, 2003) and timely access to resources such as capital, social networks, and policy (isenberg, 2011) can booster the long-term effects of training. the following is the explanation of some of these interpersonal and societal factors. interpersonal factors starting and running a business is usually a risky adventure requiring a significant amount of effort and levels of social capital and investment that most nascent entrepreneurs in low-income communities may not possess. (anderson & miller, 2003). entrepreneurs need social capital, including networks, status, personal ties, and referrals, to enhance their access to knowledge and cooperation and to foster their opportunities to receive funds (baron & markman, 2003; grant and baden-fuller, 2004). minority small business owners operating in low-income communities find particular hurdles connected with the lack of bridging and linking social capital (williams, huggins & thompson, 2018). while bridging social capital connects people horizontally between socially heterogeneous groups, linking social capital vertically connects poor people with others who hold influential positions in formal organizations. bridging and linking social capitals are important in low-income communities to reduce exclusion and increase trust in formal institutions (middleton, murie & groves, 2005). however, as williams et al. (2018) found, entrepreneurs in deprived communities mobilize resources primarily through socially homogenous groups, mainly with people who have similar characteristics and backgrounds and are inside their immediate circle of contacts. consequently, they do not use bridging and linking forms of social capital to grow their businesses. social capital alone is not enough for entrepreneurial success; entrepreneurs need to build social competences that allow them to take advantage of the fact that they have access to social and business networks. baron (2014) defines social competence as the “array of skills that assist individuals in interacting effectively with others” including “the ability to perceive others accurately, to express one’s own emotions and reactions clearly, to be persuasive, and to make a good first impression on others…” (baron, 2014, p.26). while social capital helps entrepreneurs to gain access to other groups, social competence “plays an important role in determining the © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23810 | july 20, 2020 75 outcomes of their experience” (baron & markman, 2003, p.44). outcomes can translate into new funding, knowledge, partners, or buyers. the authors suggest that, “providing entrepreneurs with appropriate training in social skills might assist them in their efforts to exploit opportunities and launch new ventures” (p.58). social competence is an antecedent of social capital (lans, blok & gulikers, 2015); therefore, more attention must be given to increasing minority small business owners’ abilities to build relationships across heterogeneous groups and with formal institutions. societal factors the conditions under which the entrepreneur operates, societal factors, such as regulatory, economic, and social conditions, also affect the entrepreneur’s success (wiger et al., 2015; baron, 2014). societal factors allude to six domains of the entrepreneurship ecosystem: markets, human capital, supports, culture, and finance and policy. these factors interact in highly complex and specific ways to shape the entrepreneurial ecosystem (isenberg, 2011). entrepreneurial ecosystems are shaped by the geographic context and the social construction of entrepreneurship that co-evolves with the dynamic of each community (malecki, 2018; mckeever, jack, & anderson, 2014). these ecosystems are not geographically bounded; instead, they are defined by a relational nature that incorporates the entrepreneur’s network of organizations and individuals, locally and globally (clarysse, wright, bruneel, & mahajan, 2014). consequently, it is difficult to develop a unique understanding of the sequence of events that make the ecosystem operate in a way that favors entrepreneurship (malecki, 2018). there may be regions where certain elements of entrepreneurial ecosystems are precarious and still operate satisfactorily. a recently published study in the united states (kugler, michaelides, nanda, & adbayani, 2017) found that there are proportionately fewer businesses operating in low-income areas, and lower levels of business investments. in general, small low-income communities tend to have less robust human capital, market limitations, less developed infrastructure, smaller networks, less developed or inexistent structures of support, and lower financial resources than large urban centers with established ecosystems. therefore, small communities must “rely on other components and engage in strategies that allow them bolster their deficiencies” (roundy, 2017, p.252) leveraging tangible and intangible assets to overcome existing limitations. some of the existing elements of the ecosystem such as community resources (i.e. community values and loyalty, social bonds, positive role models), local institutional support (i.e. local university, funders, investors, government, and service providers) and training opportunities can be used as advantage to bolster entrepreneurial success and overcome physical and financial limitations. this study identifies some of these resources in a local context. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23810 | july 20, 2020 76 methodology program context the entrepreneurial center is located in a working-class, residential neighborhood with more than twelve thousand residents. the median population age is 31; 26% of the population are african americans and 30% are latinx. poverty rate is 39%, and more than half of the households have income below $25,000. during the last few years, development financial institutions, funding organizations, local investors, local government, and anchor institutions have collaborated in the revitalization and connectivity of the neighborhood to downtown (lisc, 2020). on the northwestern edge of downtown, between the neighborhood and the campus, the university, together with global corporations, and research institutes are creating an innovation district, planting future economic growth for the city (16 tech community corporation, 2020). the neighborhood has also witnessed the growth of an organic art district, perceived by community leaders as positive for business. the neighborhood ranks 31/99 in the number of jobs among all neighborhoods in the city (savi, 2020) and has in operation more than 144 small businesses, mainly in construction, social services, including health and education, arts, entertainment, and food services (gramlich, et al., 2018). design the study uses a sequential mixed methods approach (creswell, 2014) that employs quantitative followed by qualitative data collection methods and multilevel sampling (onwuegbuzie & collins, 2007). quantitative (close-ended) and qualitative (open-ended) data were integrated during analysis, interpretation, and discussion. data collection methods online survey: an online survey was used to collect primary data. invitations to take the survey were distributed via qualtrics. the purpose of the survey was to get first-hand information of the reach and effects of entrepreneurship training on clients’ capabilities, status, and performance after receiving services. the survey was content-validated by the center staff and included 36 questions that collected information about business characteristics (location, number of employees, and kind), business networks, entrepreneurial intentions, services received at the center, self-perceived change in entrepreneurship skills, business outcomes, perceived barriers to entrepreneurship, and areas of needed support. the skills listed in the survey to measure selfperceived change in entrepreneurship skills were extracted from the description of the center training activities. survey data was analyzed using spss for frequencies, cross tabulations, and median comparisons. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23810 | july 20, 2020 77 qualitative data collection: focus groups, semi-structured interviews, and an open-ended questionnaire were used to deepen understanding on survey results about capacity building, business outcomes, barriers to entrepreneurship, and business networks. the principal investigator and research assistant conducted four 45-minute semi-structured interviews with four center staff members. community leaders and members of the neighborhood association responded to a short-emailed questionnaire containing five open-ended questions about business opportunities in the neighborhood, changes in local economic activities, and the potential for participation of local entrepreneurs in these changes. the interim director of the center invited a purposive sampling of community business owners and non-profit directors to four focus groups. one focus group was attended by non-profit directors, and three were attended by business owners. focus groups were conducted by an independent investigator and observed by the research team. interviews and focus groups were recorded and transcribed verbatim. the results of the interviews, focus groups, and open-ended questionnaires were analyzed using thematic analysis (guest, macqueen, & namey, 2011). the qualitative analysis software nvivo was used by the investigators to code and aggregate the data into categories and themes. data coding and interpretation was a collaborative process, involving the principal investigator and research assistant. participating population the survey targeted 100% of clients in the center database by october 2018. 356 current and prior clients received online invitations to complete the survey. only 40 individuals (11%) finished the survey. 50% of survey respondents were neighborhood residents. 64% (27) identified themselves as female, and 25% (10) as male. among local residents, nine (9) were female and seven (7) were male. 55% of the respondents were between 30 and 49 years old and 76% had college education (55% were college graduates). 50% had a household income over $40,000. twenty-nine respondents (72%) were business owners; of them, 23 were business owners when they used the center services for the first time. the number of non-resident business owners (16) was higher than the number of resident business owners (13). the center offers the following services: 10-week business accelerator program, free business workshops, presentations and seminars, one-on-one business coaching, networking opportunities (through meetups, round tables, conversations), and brief assistance to target specific business needs (i.e. vetting a business idea). the three most used services by survey respondents were free business workshops/presentations/seminars (19); business coaching (17); and the10-weeks accelerator program (11). in total, 12 local business owners and four non-profit directors participated in the focus groups. five community leaders responded to the open-ended questionnaire. the instructor of the 10© the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23810 | july 20, 2020 78 week business accelerator program, two business coaches, and the former program director of the center participated in semi-structured interviews. findings findings combine qualitative and quantitative data into seven main themes. the first two themes denote the effectiveness of the center in building entrepreneurship skills and business creation. the next four themes summarize the main barriers and areas of needed support reported by participants: business networking, social competence, financial support, and community trust and support. the last theme, roots in the community, emerged as a community asset. capacity building the survey measured perceived changes in skills since the first occasion clients received service/support at the center. using post-then-pre questions (rockwell & kohn, 1989), we asked respondents to report perceived changes in entrepreneurial skills. wilcoxon signed ranks tests were used to compare pre and post ranks. results in table 1 indicate statically significant pre and post differences (significance level = .01) for “come up with a new business idea” (z = 2.673, p = 0.008); “clearly explain my business idea to others” (z = -3.234, p = 0.001); “networking” (z = -2.887, p = 0.004); “estimate the amount of start-up funds/capital” (z = 3.755, p = 0.001); “estimate consumer demand” (z = -4.000, p = 0.001); “determine a competitive price for your product/service” (z = -3.051, p = 0.002); and “design an effective marketing campaign” (z = -3.419, p = 0.001). differences between pre and post media ranks in the skills “identify the need for a new product or service” and “fund my business startup/growth” were not statistically significant at .01 significance level. test results show that survey participants perceive improved performance in seven of the nine skills listed in the survey. table 1: entrepreneurial skills. post-then-pre results entrepreneurial skills median pre median post z p-value come up with a new business idea 2.00 3.00 -2.673 0.008 clearly explain my business idea to others 2.00 3.00 -3.234 0.001 identify the need for a new product or service 2.00 3.00 -2.496 0.013 networking make contact and/or exchange valuable information with others 2.00 3.00 -2.887 0.004 estimate the amount of start-up funds/capital 2.00 2.00 -3.755 0.001 estimate consumer demand 2.00 2.00 -4.000 0.001 determine a competitive price for your product/service 2.00 2.00 -3.051 0.002 fund my business start-up/growth 1.00 2.00 -2.556 0.011 design an effective marketing campaign 2.00 2.00 -3.419 0.001 © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23810 | july 20, 2020 79 further wilcoxon signed ranks tests were conducted to compare results between college graduate clients (22) and clients with some college, higher education, or less (18). we also compared business owners (29) with non-business owners (11). college graduates perceived improvement in four skills: “come up with a new business idea” (z = -2.741, p = 0.007); “estimate consumer demand” (z = -3.000, p = 0.003); “determine a competitive price for your product/service” (z = 3.051, p = 0.002); and “estimate the amount of start-up funds/capital” (z = -2.810, p = 0.003). clients with some college education, high school or less did not report significant improvements in any skill after receiving services. business owners perceived improvements in four skills: “clearly explain my business idea to others” (z = -2.673, p = 0.008); “estimate the amount of start-up funds/capital” (z = -2.919, p = 0.004); “estimate consumer demand” (z = -3.317, p = 0.001); and “design an effective marketing campaign” (z = -2.640, p = 0.008). non-owners did not perceive improvement in any of the skills. business start-ups the survey inquired about the number of new businesses created by clients since the first year of operation of the center. eleven new businesses were established after 2016. three of the new business owners graduated from the 10-week business accelerator program, received business coaching services, and mentoring. one of them received seed money for start-up. the other eight received business coaching (5) or attended networking events (3). neighborhood residents owned eight of the newly established businesses and only one was located in the neighborhood. the survey also inquired about intentions to create a new business within the next two years. seven of the 11 respondents who, by the time of the survey, did not own a business, expressed intention to open a new venture within a year time, and two said that they would be starting a new business after one year. business networking the need to build business networks was mentioned several times during interviews, focus groups, and in the survey. in the survey, we asked clients about the main barriers to entrepreneurship in the neighborhood. to the question about needed areas of support, respondents expressed that they needed opportunities to connect with investors (60%), with established entrepreneurs (50%), and with clients (45%). in a focus group, one participant said “i want to be a part of the financial ecosystem of minority communities. because i think one of the issues minority business owners have with staying in business is access to consumer markets, to successfully sell their stuff” (participant 3, focus group 2). small business owners expressed that the structures to promote and facilitate collaboration and networking are scarce, leading to missed opportunities to participate in larger © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23810 | july 20, 2020 80 ventures. during the fourth focus group, participants conveyed in the idea of a “glass ceiling” that does not allow them to grow their businesses. they agreed that they would not be able to push “their way up” if they do not collaborate. one of the participants who said to have been “underneath the glass and above it” expressed the need for spaces to collaborate: …if i was in this room before i had a conversation with [bidder] about letting that contract go, and we had tagged that level of conversation, i’d tell you, you could knock down the framing, you take over cleaning, we could have done some major things, but i turned the contract down. yeah, i turned the contract down, i actually won that contract. (participant 5, focus group 4) having a strong network is key to survival especially during rough times, as voiced by this participant who said that she had the help of the landlord, who “waived [her] rent while the roads were closed for constructions.” she added “the economic development person in the [area], sends people into my business, talks about my business and buys whenever they have an event. i also got a grant from them. [i have] friends that help me with extra work at fairs” (participant 1, focus group 3). social competence participants shared the need to develop social competence skills. coaches shared that clients are not getting practical training in how to network although networking is an important part of the conversation. the instructor mentioned: [in trainings] we don’t really do an exercise, we don’t provide that opportunity to have that experience… we don’t take them to a networking event, or we don’t create a networking event.... i do show a video to them that teaches them strategies for networking, which is what everyone finds very helpful, but … i don’t challenge them to go out and utilize the formula and then come back and report to the group. or we don’t do a field trip where they have to go out and network and utilize what they observed or took from the video and apply it to practice. so, i think … they don’t have that experience… (instructor) focus group participants communicated that in order to take their businesses to next level they need to be able to see the results of networking and to recognize the opportunities to transform casual contacts into partnerships and profitable business opportunities. one of the participants expressed to have her calendar “booked out with networking,” but she needs to have “strategic meetings about the way business works, and what needs to happen.” she expressed that it is a question of “strategy versus networking.” as she stated, strategy allows you to move from just shaking hands to “win business…successfully complete the business and leverage that contract to the next contract” (participant 2, focus group 4). © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23810 | july 20, 2020 81 when we asked community leaders if local entrepreneurs were prepared to become active participants in economic changes, one of them wrote in the questionnaire, “a fair number of [neighborhood] entrepreneurs started a business without understanding how to avoid pitfalls and what is necessary to run a successful business.” from another leader’s perspective, a way to address this gap is by “providing current local businesses with the opportunity for soft skills training, cultural understanding, professionalism attributes, and understanding of community engagement.” financial support in the survey, respondents identified lack of support from government (35%) and lack of funding (35%) as primary barriers to entrepreneurial success. low access to business resources (23%) was also considered among the five main barriers. when asked about the stage of development of their businesses, 10 out of 28 survey respondents (36%) expressed that they “still struggle to generate enough cash flow and get enough customers to stay in business.” eight (29%) responded that their businesses have enough clients but still cannot generate enough cash flow to finance growth. only two respondents (7%) described their current businesses as profitable with sufficient size and product-market penetration. the businesses reporting to be in good shape were created before 2014. most of the struggling businesses were created in 2016 or after. in the focus groups, business owners revealed that part of their struggles is their limited access to funding opportunities, particularly because there is a tendency to favor applicants with better credit history or better connections. a participant stated: i have been on the inside of some of those grant funding things, and they seemed to go, to be awarded to the people that are connected. … it’s the people who don’t really need it, it’s like well-healed, well-off connected to government white people are getting grants... you know they’ve got bank accounts, big ones. so, i would love to see some programs come through that are more about grit, determination, inspiration, fortitude, and aid to the community not a detriment to the community. (participant 1, focus group 3) one business owner said that she would like to have “more access to grant programming for small businesses…”. she continued “…being able to find out about them is very difficult and then there are requirements that you may or may not be able to provide especially for people like me who don’t like to do the paperwork and stuff. … [i need] someone to walk me through it”. this was confirmed during interviews with coaches who noted that most incoming clients lack information about the requirements to access public and private funding. one coach shared “[clients] want someone to give them the funds, and they don't understand what a true investor is and how those relationships and contracts are structured”. in addition, aspiring business owners do not always have the required conditions to have access to traditional credits for not having a strong credit history or the financial stability they need in their businesses and households, which increases the costs of repayment. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23810 | july 20, 2020 82 community trust and support in the survey, clients were asked to judge whether starting a business in the neighborhood was worthwhile/worthless; rewarding/disappointing; without risk/risky; exciting/unstimulating; and easy/challenging. more than 60 percent of the respondents described starting and running a business in the neighborhood as worthwhile (65%), exciting (65%), and rewarding (61%). however, respondents also expressed that starting a local business was somehow challenging (38%) and not without its own risk (31%). we compared the responses given by residents and non-residents using the chi-square test of independence and found that residents were significantly more likely (p < .05) to find opening a business in the neighborhood “worthless”, “risky” and “challenging”. focus group participants also talked about community support. when asked what motivated her to continue to work, one of the participants in the second focus group said “if i would have a community behind me, i think that would motivate me to keep going.” business owners think that the community’s lack of trust on their competencies affects their capacity to find investors and gain access to consumer markets. during the fourth focus groups, one business owner expressed “there’s trust issues. our whole community at large has trust issues”. one participant of the second focus group said “black people don’t like to support black businesses because they expect us to disappoint them” … she continued, “a lot of times, and this is really unfortunate, but like they expect for yours to not be of quality if it’s a black business….” she then added, “it’s just, it’s really a whole layer of… it’s just a cultural nuance… to like not to support each other for systematic oppression…we’ve been taught to not support each other and work together on purpose…and it comes into everything” (participant 3, focus group 2). focus group participants agreed on the need to build trust in order to create a strong business environment. without community support, small businesses will find it difficult to take advantage of the opportunities that present to them. i just bid on [name of bidding] and actually won. i won a contract for 1.2 million dollars… and i had to turn it down for a couple of reasons. one reason was, is that we left out some stuff. but, even at 1.2 million dollars, with our community we can figure it out. but i didn’t have enough community support if you will, to be able to confirm and be confident that i was good (participant 3, focus group 4). rooted in the community we asked survey respondents what motivated them to become business owners. most of them (55%) have an internal motivation (always wanted to be an entrepreneur) and do not seem to be strongly driven by external circumstances like retirement. through the focus groups, we also learned that local entrepreneurs are motivated by giving back to the community. connecting with the community, contributing to community wellness, equity, and inclusion underpins their © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23810 | july 20, 2020 83 entrepreneurial success and is part of their mission as entrepreneurs. one focus group participant stated, “i want to have a space that reminds people that we’re all better together, and then use the different tools to uplift voices of those who have been silenced. ….and then the last thing is to show other women of color that these spaces are for us and if they’re not then we can create them” (participant 2, focus group 2). business owners revealed wanting “to keep our dollars in our community so that our businesses can grow.” as a participant in the second focus group said, “i want my business to be the foundation to help me build into myself, my family, my legacy, and create more business, to create for my community.” they propose investing in the community by hiring people to help them and sustain that growth. one participant commented, “you know it’s that cyclical effect … it goes around… i’m trying to set up something better for my son and the generations that come behind him”. new entrepreneurs want to create opportunities for the underserved, “keeping it in house and …feeding the community, giving folks jobs” (participant 2, focus group 4). discussion the entrepreneurship center was created as a local initiative supported by the university to incentivize new local entrepreneurial ventures that would contribute to social and economic development. study results suggest that the services provided at the center effectively develop key entrepreneurial skills. however, college graduates reported greater skill gains, which may suggest that services are targeting audiences with higher education levels, defeating the whole purpose of inclusion behind training initiatives in low-income communities (anderson & miller, 2003; kugler, et al., 2017). this could also be used as a reminder of the moderating effects of higher education (nabi, et al., 2011). the survey revealed reasonable levels of entrepreneurial intentions (seven out of 11 potential business owners reported intentions to open a business within the next two years) and business creation (11 new businesses after 2016). however, only one of the eleven new businesses were located in the neighborhood. this may be an indicative that the focus of the center is still at the micro-level, on individuals’ skills and actions, but disconnected from expected community outcomes. connecting entrepreneurs to markets, service providers, other entrepreneurs, local lenders, and investors should be a common practice of community-placed entrepreneurship training programs (knox, 2017; korsching & allen, 2004). results show a disconnect between local small business owners and the resources they need to grow, partly due to lack of socialization of local entrepreneurs among them and with the larger entrepreneurial and financial organizations. this was previously found by bresnahan, et al., (2016) and gramlich et al., (2018), leading to efforts to create a merchant association. while the merchant association is a step forward, connecting the association with umbrella and government organizations will be crucial in building linking social capital (williams, et al., 2018), promoting inclusion, and increasing trust in formal © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23810 | july 20, 2020 84 institutions (middleton, et al., 2005). contributing to build social capital should come with the intention to develop social competences (baron & markman, 2003). in this sense, training must include the development of skills that increase the entrepreneurs’ ability to build effective relationships across heterogeneous groups and with formal institutions (lans, et al., 2015), gaining access to resources and exposure to entrepreneurial models otherwise not available to them. findings also suggest that entrepreneurs need improved access to funding opportunities adapted to their needs and circumstances, as well as increased knowledge of the requirements and mechanisms to pursue funding. currently, the center facilitates cash awards to trainees and information of microfinance options available to small businesses. some of the information currently provided comes from the small business administration and the chamber of commerce. based on the results of this study, these efforts are not enough. together with skill training, the center should increase opportunities for financial support, which has proved to be a promising practice to promote self-employment in low-income contexts (berge, et al., 2015; blattman & ralston, 2015). for early start-up businesses, grants (cash or in-kind) and awards are more appropriate than loans due to lack of collateral, perceived risk, and high interest rates (mckenzie & woodruff, 2013). accessible information from lending and grant programs and help throughout the submission process is also needed. another needed strategy is to advocate on behalf of local aspiring and existing business owners who are underrepresented, ensuring equal access to funding opportunities. results show that local entrepreneurs need a favorable business environment with higher levels of trust from residents, entrepreneurs, and investors. roundy (2016) advises that community narratives and values are important contributors in shaping the entrepreneurial ecosystem. negative community beliefs and attitudes towards new entrepreneurs can act as deterrents for business enterprise creation. as reported in this study, non-residents seem to understand more clearly the economic potential of the neighborhood than local residents, which may affect how residents take advantage of the current investment boom. the university and the center have an important role in supporting entrepreneurs by ensuring that neighborhood residents understand and support entrepreneurship (roundy, 2017). the university, along with community leaders and community organizations, can collaborate in building better relationships between residents and local businesses by using strategies that bring people together, such as community conversations (born, 2012) or other community-building practices. such practices open spaces for listening to residents, local businesses, and state institutions, providing opportunities for greater and deeper participation in decision-making and social capital building. likewise, the university will hear local perspectives on business development in the neighborhood and adapt center programming to better suit local needs while developing awareness and fostering trust (gavazzi, 2015). inclusive community activities like these will lead the way to strengthen social bonds and reinforce the social assets that will be used to overcome existing limitations (roundy, 2017). © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23810 | july 20, 2020 85 a remarkable finding was the sense of social responsibility expressed by business owners in their desire to support the community while and after growing their businesses. this relates to the concept of embeddedness discussed by mckeever et al., (2014) and moriggi (2019). embeddedness views entrepreneurship as a socialized relational process in which the entrepreneur is part of the social context and their actions are partly motivated by the desire to respond to the needs of this context. together with social capital, embeddedness is an important mechanism for identifying opportunities and local resources, and generating strategic options. embeddedness is a community asset that must be leveraged by the center to involve business owners in the implementation of strategies to strengthen local entrepreneurship (mckeever et al., 2014). co-developing and co-implementing training services and strategies with the local entrepreneurial community, paying attention to local information, needs, and skills will increase community impact and labor market outcomes (betcherman, dar, & olivas, 2004; brooks, donovan & jonhson, 2017). by being intentional in incorporating local businesses in the identification of training gaps and implementation of a wide diversity of meaningful learning experiences, the university and the center will help reduce the relational and social barriers that hinder resident participation in training experiences. conclusion urban universities have a leading role in promoting economic and social inclusion for vulnerable populations (conway-turner, 2019). in accomplishing this role, universities need to be responsive to communities through community-based initiatives that value the power of community-university partnerships as an influential strategy not only to enhance responsiveness to local needs, but also to increase stakeholders’ commitment to results (cantor, englot, & higgins, 2013). study results show that the entrepreneurship center created by the university in 2016, to date has had a limited impact on community outcomes and in promoting social and economic inclusion. the study revealed the need to strengthening entrepreneurs’ social capital (networks, status, personal ties, and referrals) in and outside the community, and social competences (skills that assist individuals in interacting effectively with others) to promote access to local and external resources and entrepreneurial knowledge. additionally, it was found that business owners perceive lack of trust in the community which affects their access to local markets. results also confirm that local small business owners need better and more equal access to financial, business, and community support to grow their businesses. we identified strategies that the university and the center can leverage for and with local residents and institutions to provide more opportunities for entrepreneurial success and economic inclusion. the university should focus more on the social assets of the community and further © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23810 | july 20, 2020 86 connectedness among organizations and individuals that currently work in isolation towards common goals. well-established partnerships with local community organizations and local businesses will allow the university and the center to better understand the needs of the community and establish strategies that cut across individual and organizational efforts to remove the existing barriers. limitations one of the limitations of the study is the low response rate to the survey, which may have created significant nonresponse bias. another limitation was the use in the survey of “post-then-pre" (rockwell & kohn, 1989) questions that utilize retrospective self-reporting. limitations include the emergence of satisficing (lam & bengo, 2003) and the use of cognitive strategies to provide socially desirable responses instead of exerting the substantial efforts necessary to optimally answer a survey question. additionally, hill & betz (2005) mention validity concerns such as recall bias or degradation or distortion of memory. implications for future research efforts to break the barriers to entrepreneurship in low-income areas must start by identifying the enabling and constraining factors to entrepreneurship and developing mechanisms of support. the article provides enhanced understanding of the factors that drive and hinder entrepreneurship in this particular neighborhood, and suggests ways in which the university can contribute to build a favorable entrepreneurial environment through stronger community-university relationships. further studies must be focused on deepening understanding about what practices can be enacted by urban universities in different contexts to promote entrepreneurial success. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23810 | july 20, 2020 87 references 16 tech community corporation. 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(2018). entrepreneurship and social capital: examining the association in deprived urban neighbourhoods. international journal of urban and regional research, 1-21. doi.org/10.1111/1468-2427.12589 metropolitan universities vol. 30 no. 1 (february 2019), doi: 10.18060/22398 75 purpose-driven partnerships that transform people and places: cal state la’s anchor mission jose a. gomez, raphael j. sonenshein, zuhey espinoza, and henry fuhrmann abstract california state university, los angeles (cal state la) has committed to becoming los angeles’ premier educational anchor institution, forging meaningful partnerships that contribute to the overall well-being of the region. cal state la ranks number one in the nation for the upward mobility of its students (chetty, friedman, saez, turner, & yagan, 2017). the democracy collaborative (tdc) developed the anchor dashboard learning cohort to create a critical mass of colleges and universities committed to addressing economic, educational, and health disparities through engaged anchor mission strategies (sladek, 2017). tdc identified five thematic anchor dashboard success indicators as elements for establishing an engaged anchor mission mindset and structure. the cal state la example illustrates the importance of the themes and offers support for establishing field-wide best practices based on the principles outlined by tdc (dubb, mckinley, & howard, 2013; sladek, 2017). the university’s experience suggests that successful implementation of its engaged anchor mission strategy will benefit from a comprehensive approach. the course and manner of its strategy consists of the five tdc indicators: (1) leadership support at the university’s highest level; (2) incorporation of the anchor mission into the institution’s strategic plan, and universitywide identity or brand-building initiatives; (3) establishment of anchor mission committees and structures to coordinate work; (4) promotion and advancement of place-based cohesive narratives and expectations to embed an institutional anchor mission culture and build trust; and (5) development and support for anchor mission coordinating and support catalysts to manage anchor projects. these require two additional elements, added to the list: (6) implementing data collection protocols, including the measurement of local community student success after graduation using mobility report cards (chetty et al., 2017); and (7) continuous and faithful relationship building with external partners. urban and metropolitan public comprehensive universities, such as cal state la and many of cumu’s member institutions have gained the experience and resources to serve and help transform struggling communities. cumu and tdc’s higher education anchor mission initiative collaboration can provide a coordinated structure for supporting institutions that have committed to an anchor mission strategy and for developing best practices and guidance to those considering an anchor mission. keywords: anchor institution; community engagement; university-community partnerships; upward mobility. 76 introduction california state university, los angeles (cal state la) is a regional comprehensive, multicultural, hispanic-serving institution (hsi). it resides within a complex, dispersed, and diverse metropolitan constellation of economic and social needs, challenges, and opportunities. for more than 70 years, the university has served the central, east, and san gabriel valley regions of los angeles. the university has provided ladders of opportunity for first-generation college students, veterans, immigrants, and families throughout los angeles in pursuit of better lives. since cal state la began, its mission has been to propel the communities it serves to greater prosperity. the current student demographic profile includes 88.5% of undergraduate students with demonstrated financial need, 72% who are low income and eligible for pell grants, and 58% who are first-generation college students. approximately 64% of current students are latino, and 83% come from los angeles, with 50% from within an 8-mile radius of the university and 75% from within a 14-mile radius. approximately 70% of alumni reside in los angeles and almost 85% in southern california (cal state la, 2018a). when cal state la students succeed and prosper, the immediate surrounding communities thrive. cal state la has committed to becoming los angeles’ “premier educational anchor institution,” contributing to “the overall well-being of the region,” and fostering thriving and progressive communities throughout the region through meaningful, collaborative, and mutually beneficial partnerships (cal state la, 2016). in april 2018, cal state la gained the opportunity to participate in the higher education anchor mission initiative, a joint project of the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities (cumu) and the democracy collaborative (tdc), affirming its obligation to enhance the economic and social well-being of its community (cumu news, 2018). smith, pelco, and rooke (2017) have described the challenge of demonstrating the social and economic community benefit value of universities. as policymakers, elected officials, the media, the community, and business leaders measure the impact of limited resources, and interest groups compete for budgetary support, it is tempting to argue that expenditures for higher education should focus on the traditional core missions of teaching, research, and service (trani, 2008). however, the community benefit purpose and anchor mission of committed urban and metropolitan universities is “not a luxury or a tangential activity, it is core to the identity of the institutions, valuable to the other core mission elements, and essential to the vitality of the surrounding communities” (smith et al., 2017, p. 27). complementary partnerships and coordination between anchor institutions such as cal state la and surrounding stakeholders that show results add significant value and return on public and private investments, leading to greater future support for higher education and anchor mission initiatives. this article analyzes the development of cal state la’s ongoing work to propel the people and places it serves to greater and more resilient economic and civic development. it constructs an appropriate anchor mission definition to express cal state la’s form of engaged anchor mission. mobility rate is the term it uses for an indicator of successful university community impact (chetty, friedman, saez, turner, & yagan, 2017). the authors then apply the democracy collaborative’s thematic anchor dashboard success indicators (sladek, 2017) are then applied to evaluate the university’s progress in establishing a community-engagement, anchor-mission development mindset and structure. the establishment of disciplined and committed engagement, data collection, messaging, and, most importantly, leadership support throughout 77 the institution and in the community are essential for building an anchor mission strategy. the analysis of the cal state la experience suggests that recommendations developed by tdc’s anchor dashboard learning cohort for fostering an engaged anchor mission strategy provide important lessons for colleges and universities. the indicators or guidelines for success should be a roadmap for establishing and advancing institutional anchor missions. the cal state la case offers support for establishing field-wide best practices based on the themes and indicators outlined by tdc (dubb, mckinley, & howard, 2013; sladek, 2017). a holistic, engaged anchor mission strategy definitions of anchor institutions frequently center on concepts related to place: permanence, roots, or community. according to community-wealth.org, “anchor institutions are nonprofit institutions that once established tend not to move location” (retrieved july 2018 from https://community-wealth.org). the local initiatives support corporation (lisc) further defines anchor institutions as “those entities, public, private or nonprofit, that have significant capital investment and mission focus rooted in a particular community” (retrieved july 2018 from http://www.lisc.org/los-angeles). anchor institutions can be universities, hospitals, religious or cultural organizations, amusement parks or entertainment resorts, sports teams and stadiums, government agencies or complexes, convention centers, museums, foundations, or transportation hubs (cantor, englot, & higgins, 2013; walker & east, 2018). the democracy collaborative identifies an institution’s anchor mission as “consciously applying their long-term, place-based economic power, in combination with their human and intellectual resources, to better the longterm welfare of the communities in which they reside” (dubb et al., 2013, p. v). in another tdc report, higher education’s anchor mission: measuring place-based engagement, the college and university anchor mission is described as a symbiotic relationship between institutions and communities to take on the most difficult challenges of underserved and under-resourced stakeholders (sladek, 2017). economist michael porter has used the term “anchor institution” to single out colleges and universities as “powerful economic engines” that, taking a strategic view, can drive revitalization in their adjacent communities (ceos for cities, 2010). in this description, universities operate like large businesses and leverage their financial and commercial influence to spur local economic development (initiative for a competitive inner city & ceos for cities, 2002; porter, 1997, 2016). other scholars have criticized this view for an overreliance on private sector solutions and “wishful thinking” (bates, 1997; harrison & glasmeier, 1997). baldwin (2017) has questioned the economic expansion initiatives of several large universities that are swallowing communities and generating considerable revenues with questionable public benefits. smith et al. (2017) describe the university anchor institution approach as part of “three community-university partnership paradigms: (a) the community engagement model, (b) the anchor organization model, and (c) the collective impact model” (p. 9). they explain that these partnership models can provide insight and value, alone or in tandem, and that no single approach or template can inform the disparate community benefit missions of universities. the cal state la model of anchor mission proceeds from a holistic, integrated conception of community impact, based on reciprocal interdependence, and university-community coproduction for the public good. this deeply rooted engagement is deliberate and considers the https://community-wealth.org/strategies/panel/anchors/index.html http://www.lisc.org/los-angeles/what-we-do/economic-development/anchor-institution-strategy/ https://democracycollaborative.org/sites/clone.community-wealth.org/files/downloads/anchordashboard-report-web.pdf https://democracycollaborative.org/sites/clone.community-wealth.org/files/downloads/anchordashboard-report-web.pdf 78 university as both “social glue” and an “economic engine” for the communities it serves (cantor et al., 2013, p. 20). a deeply rooted anchor mission as an engine of upward mobility one measurement of community benefit that universities with an anchor mission should explore is student upward mobility. in one recent study, the equality of opportunity project set out to answer the question: “which colleges in america contribute the most to intergenerational income mobility?” (chetty et al., 2017, p. 1). the economists who conducted the study analyzed federal tax forms and other data for more than 30 million college students from 1999 to 2013, using the results to create what the researchers called mobility report cards. they ranked every college and university in the united states. at the top of their list: cal state la (chetty et al., 2017). the researchers calculated the portion of each institution’s students whose families fell in the bottom quintile of the income distribution and the portion of students who, in the years after college, ended up in the top income quintile. the product of those two numbers yielded the mobility rate. many elite institutions, such as the ivy league universities, scored well for their low-income students’ future success but relatively poorly in terms of access for such students; that combination resulted in unexceptional mobility rates. similarly, many institutions that offered broad access to those of low income scored poorly in terms of their students’ future success, again resulting in modest mobility rates. cal state la scored highly for both lowincome access (above the 95th percentile among all institutions) and high success rate (near the 90th percentile), resulting in the number one mobility score, 9.9%, more than five times the national average (see figure 1). figure 1. top-ranked institutions for upward mobility as calculated by the equality of opportunity project. 79 the question of access for low-income students remains crucial. in their study, the researchers noted: many of the highest mobility rate colleges—such as the california state colleges and a number of community colleges—are not highly selective institutions in terms of student observables such as sat scores or based on students’ revealed preferences. this suggests that these colleges could potentially be “engines of upward mobility” by producing large returns for students from low-income families. (chetty et al., 2017, p. 5) the rate of upward mobility is a powerful gauge of community impact for colleges and universities pursuing an engaged anchor mission strategy. this is particularly true of regional comprehensive universities situated in urban and metropolitan areas such as cal state la. its students generally come from the local community (83% from los angeles, 75% from within 14 miles), are low income (88.5% with demonstrated financial need, 72% low-income pell eligible). the majority are first generation (58% of parents did not attend any college, 79% of parents did not graduate from a four-year college or university), and most graduates continue to reside in and serve their communities after graduation (70% of alumni reside in los angeles) (cal state la, 2018a). these local students are supported, thrive, graduate, and succeed, providing increased economic and social stability in their communities. evaluating the cal state la anchor mission sladek (2017) examines efforts to track the success of colleges and universities in advancing the financial and social well-being of their surrounding communities. she describes the anchor dashboard project, in which six urban universities working with cumu and the democracy collaborative sought to develop a “framework of metrics that can help to tell their stories, gather baseline data on community conditions, and document the internal capacities and external partnerships necessary to advance their work” (p. 2). such data, the project partners determined, is essential for anchor institutions to assess the needs of neighboring communities, especially those that are low income; track improvements in institutional initiatives; and advocate for promising efforts. the six institutions in the project, collectively referred to as the anchor dashboard learning cohort, were among the 33 u.s. colleges and universities selected in april 2018 to participate in the higher education anchor mission initiative by cumu and tdc. the institutions won invitation for their demonstrated commitment to pursuing an anchor mission strategy. cal state la is the only los angeles-area university and one of two california institutions selected for the inaugural class of anchors (cumu news, 2018). the anchor dashboard learning cohort identified five top success indicators for adopting an anchor mission (sladek, 2017, pp. 12-22): 1. leadership support at the highest level (conceptual and financial support). 2. incorporation of the anchor mission into strategic plan (and goal setting). 80 3. anchor committees/internal relationship building. 4. implementing data collection protocols. 5. relationship building with external partners. in this section, the project applies these five success indicators to evaluate cal state la’s efforts to establish an engaged anchor mission mindset and structure focused on community development, and to illustrate the university’s progress while identifying areas for improvement. leadership support at the highest level the anchor dashboard learning cohort emphasized the essential role of top leadership in confirming that anchor work is an institutional priority and in generating broad support across an institution’s constituencies. an administrator at one of the cohort universities described the need for a “champion in a leadership position to drive the ship—specifically, clearly communicate the vision, gain buy-in, empower others to act on the anchor mission, and garner resources to fund the effort” (sladek, 2017, p. 12). william a. covino took office as president of cal state la in september 2013. in his previous post, as provost at fresno state university, he led efforts to advance civic learning and community engagement. for his work there, covino won the william m. plater award for leadership in civic engagement by the american association of state colleges and universities (cal state la, 2013). upon arriving at cal state la shortly thereafter, he set out to build on its longstanding legacy of deep community engagement. the previous president, james m. rosser, had been a recognized advocate for access, equity, and inclusion in higher education (american council on education, 2012). covino immediately championed a bold vision for the university. in his first month on campus, during his first speech on the day before fall classes began, he reminded students, faculty, staff, alumni, friends, and community partners who had assembled for his convocation address that cal state la was “first and foremost, a university dedicated to the public good” (covino, 2013). he described the foundation of the university’s success as “engagement,” and explained: we have come a long way from the “ivory tower” detachment that characterized many american universities during the last century. the csu [california state university system] has become an exemplary model of “working for california” through outreach and community engagement initiatives that have made our campuses a driving force for student success and economic development. continuing distinction and achievement, for the csu in general and for cal state la in particular, requires that energetic interaction become an integral part of our mission, vision, and values, not only as a commitment to working with external partners, but also as a guiding principle for teaching and learning. (covino, 2013, p. 7) in those first few months, pr. covino began deploying resources to community engagement and restructuring the university’s executive leadership to manage better this institutional priority. he recruited senior leadership and staff with extensive experience working with the region’s diverse communities, including business, government, community-based organizations, education, and the media. the university strengthened and reorganized its advancement, communications, 81 development, and public and governmental affairs units so that all were to report directly to the president’s office. pr. covino established the faculty visioning task force to seek recommendations from the faculty on establishing or modifying academic programs “that will better align with the existing and future needs of the greater los angeles region” (willard, zelman, haras, prabhu, & gutarts, 2015). the task force was charged with conducting a needs analysis and research on issues such as expected workforce and community demands in los angeles; student learning, including community engagement and service learning; and issues concerning underrepresented students in urban education. the task force proposed that cal state la become an anchor institution as a way to leverage the university’s myriad longstanding partnerships with entities in the community (willard et al., 2015). between his first convocation address, shortly after arriving at the university, and his investiture several months later, pr. covino (interview, 2018) was encouraged by what he heard from the faculty visioning task force and people he met across the university and the los angeles region. cal state la, he learned, was a vital social, economic, and educational engine for the public good that must do even more to support the communities it serves and to help solve the region’s most complex and exigent challenges. in order to emphasize the central focus that community and civic engagement serves with those inside and outside the university, covino chose to amplify and highlight this message during the week of his investiture (w. a. covino, interview, 2018). the week featured events that highlighted what he referred to as engagement, service, and the public good. cal state la would be an anchor for the region. the ribbon cutting for a new center for engagement, service, and the public good launched a full week of activities devoted to the university’s focus on its role in support of the community. pr. covino also initiated the inaugural academic senate distinguished lecture on engagement, service, and the public good. longtime los angeles labor leader maria elena durazo delivered the inaugural lecture. he oversaw the opening of the cal state la hydrogen research and fueling facility, which is devoted to teaching and advancing clean transportation technologies, and manufactures and dispenses hydrogen to drivers of fuel cell vehicles. pr. covino also announced the “cradle-tocareer” program go east la: a pathway for college and career success, in collaboration with the los angeles unified school district and east los angeles community college. these projects and initiatives were evidence of the president’s commitment to providing staffing and financial resources to an engaged anchor mission strategy. pr. covino capped off the investiture week by reaffirming his message: “at our fall convocation, i spoke about the importance of engagement as a force that defines our mission as a 21st century public university” (covino, 2014, para. 24). he expressed that institutions that engage and serve others are what robert greenleaf (1972/2009) described as servant institutions. he voiced greenleaf’s appeal in his investiture address: if a better society is to be built, one that is more just and more loving, one that provides greater creative opportunity for its people, then the most open course is to raise both the capacity to serve and the very performance as servant of existing major institutions by new regenerative forces operating within them. (greenleaf, 1972/2009, para. 6) 82 reflecting on greenleaf’s call to action and the university’s defining commitment to engagement, service, and the public good, pr. covino (2014, para. 46) insisted that “cal state la will become a regenerative force.” he declared that together the university community would “become more deeply committed to the well-being of our city and our region, more clearly focused on becoming a powerful engine of social mobility, and more fully aware that compassion and caring for one another are at the heart of what education means” (2014, para. 51). his vision was clear and unequivocal: cal state la would be a catalyst for community wellbeing. incorporation of the anchor mission into the strategic plan high-level leadership and budgetary support are necessary but not sufficient. the institutionalization of a university’s engaged anchor mission must also inform its strategic plan (sladek, 2017). the report of cal state la’s faculty visioning task force (fvtf) (willard et al., 2015) was the precursor and foundational framework for the university’s conceptualization of an anchor mission strategy. the task force, consisting of 23 members of the faculty, and the university’s provost, conducted surveys of faculty and students, several student focus groups, and three town hall forums, and received input from regional organizations before issuing its report. the fvtf concluded (willard et al., 2015) that an anchor mission strategy was “a successful university-level strategy for facilitating community engagement” (p. 9), and the report’s first recommendation was to “define cal state la as an anchor institution and build this designation and its implications into future strategic planning, curriculum and fund-raising efforts” (p. 28). in the introduction to the report, the authors describe a “renewed identity” for the university that: would more directly involve students, faculty, administration and staff to respond to pressing challenges in our neighborhoods. reimagining our urban mission does much public good: it allows the university to collaborate and strengthen ties locally, to increase the social mobility of our students, and to provide multiple benefits for our students, the university and the very same communities from which our students come. (willard et al., 2015, p. 3) in october 2015, cal state la initiated a strategic planning process and created a strategic planning coordinating committee (spcc) chaired by the provost, lynn mahoney, and comprising faculty, staff, students, and administrative representatives. the effort continued well into the next year, drawing about 2,500 stakeholders from across the university and the community. the fvtf informed both spcc’s work and the president’s call for greater regional engagement and service. the subsequent strategic plan presented in august 2016 underscored the centrality of the university’s evolving engaged anchor mission. the first sentence of the university’s mission is “cal state la transforms lives and fosters thriving communities across greater los angeles,” and the university’s vision states that cal state la is dedicated to “serving the public good through initiatives that engage local, regional, and global communities in beneficial partnerships” (cal state la, 2016). one of the four pillars of the plan, designated as a strategic priority area, is engagement, service, and the public good. this phraseology, conceived and consistently applied by pr. covino, now stands as an abbreviated representation of the cal 83 state la form of anchor mission—a broad, holistic, and engaged strategy for collective impact. specifically, the plan affirmed that the university would strive to “become los angeles’ premier educational anchor institution and contribute to the overall well-being of the region” (cal state la, 2016). additional key initiatives in the strategic plan are: • increase and strengthen community outreach partnerships. • expand service-learning opportunities. • foster a thriving and progressive region through meaningful collaborative partnerships among and within the university, alumni, and communities of the greater los angeles area. anchor committees and internal relationships the anchor dashboard learning cohort identified the essential role of a university-wide committee to ensure the realization of anchor mission objectives and strengthen cross-divisional collaboration (sladek, 2017, p. 14). to facilitate the implementation of engagement, service, and the public good as a priority in the strategic plan, the university established a consultative group with representation from stakeholders throughout the campus. this group coordinates and expands the university’s engaged anchor mission work. the center for engagement, service, and the public good provides staff support and expertise to the consultative group and serves as the organizational hub for the university’s anchor effort. in addition, the president’s executive leadership team, consisting of the five vice presidents, includes anchor mission updates, presentations, and planning as part of its regular meetings. the anchor dashboard learning cohort also recommends that communications and messaging resources be part of the university’s anchor mission strategy. this advice is crucial for developing a place-based engagement culture and anchor mission mindset throughout the university. the cal state la communications and public affairs team has carefully crafted the university’s engaged anchor mission brand. it has synthesized the shared visions and work of cal state la and the communities, people, and places it serves. the team transmits an ethos of engagement and service in support of the anchor mission at every opportunity, via multiple platforms, methods, and media. zavattaro (2018) has examined the value and use of place branding, marketing, and communications in public sector organizations. she describes the power that meaningful names, logos, language, taglines, and other symbols can have for public institutions such as universities, particularly when inclusion and engagement are key priorities. indeed, place branding can convey an institution’s public purpose, or in cal state la’s case, its anchor mission. such efforts have catalyzed the university’s efforts to improve collaboration between academic divisions and between academic and business-side operations. early in pr. covino’s tenure, for example, as the faculty visioning task force was concluding its work and the strategic planning coordinating committee was taking shape, the university commenced an initiative to update, refresh, and enhance its brand. the president encouraged the branding committee to explore the essence of cal state la’s identity and develop new symbols and messages to communicate that identity. after extensive consultation with students, faculty, staff, alumni, and the community, civic leaders, and university partners, it became clear that at its core, cal state la is los angeles and the university serves los angeles. 84 figure 2. a new cal state la logo, right, was introduced in 2015 to replace the previous longstanding design, left. in the ambitious words used by tdc to describe anchor institutions, the university’s purpose is to “address tenacious community challenges” (sladek, 2017, p. 2). cal state la ordered new logos to indicate the institution’s role in shaping the city of los angeles (see figure 2). new messages and accompanying campaigns emerged to express the university’s mission and identity, and to inspire and energize greater support for public engagement. these included taglines such as “engagement, service, and the public good”; “pushing boundaries”; “la’s public university for the public good”; and “we are la.” promotional videos (click here to view) amplified cal state la’s brand through symbols, images, and words. implementing data collection protocols the need to collect data to document anchor mission outcomes has proven to be a significant challenge identified by the universities in the anchor dashboard learning cohort. sladek (2017) summarizes their outlook: the main goal of the anchor dashboard project is to collect data—to show that aligning university resources with the local community actually results in improved outcomes for low-income communities. while the anchor committee collaborates to develop the infrastructure and plan for collecting data, tracking data is not straightforward. along with funding anchor work, standardizing and institutionalizing data collection has been the biggest struggle of the anchor dashboard learning cohort. (p. 15) sladek (2017) notes that successful anchor strategies are likely to incorporate a variety of decision-making approaches, such as building anchor goals into existing initiatives or designing new programming based on the data collected, or conducting environmental scans and other analyses to assess the needs of institutions and their surrounding communities (p. 17). while cal state la pursues each of those approaches, it acknowledges that it can do a more robust job of measuring outcomes, ensuring that it meets its goals, and collecting relevant data. the university is looking forward to its participation in the cumu and tdc higher education anchor mission initiative and learning data collection and analysis best practices from the other collaborating institutions pursuing anchor mission strategies. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=plvmfpmigd5ddv88tfl6owdnutvallh73g 85 currently, cal state la participates in a comprehensive survey spearheaded by the anchor dashboard learning cohort as part of the higher education anchor mission initiative. the goal of this survey is to gather a set of core metrics that will aid in establishing baseline measures for anchor mission work in each strategy area. this anchor-institution alliance effort should yield valuable insight and guidance for participating colleges and universities. however, “there is unlikely to ever be a single plug and play” model that fits the diverse circumstances and contexts of all of the initiative participants (sladek, p. 7). one metric that demonstrates community impact, and validates a college or university’s anchor strategy, is the previously cited mobility report card research by chetty et al. (2017). the upward mobility rate of low-income students from underserved communities who graduate from the institution is a compelling statistic: cal state la leads the nation in this regard. as outlined previously, these local students graduate and maintain local residence, anchoring their communities by advancing racial and economic equity. as the university has gathered available data for the anchor mission initiative, it has uncovered relevant information that illustrates community benefit. for the last nine years, the university has tracked several procurement measures that affect the local community and the public good. cal state la is the only university in the 23-campus california state university (csu) system that has exceeded the system’s disabled veteran business enterprise procurement goals in each year measured, doubling the goal in eight of those years (cal state la, 2018b). similarly, cal state la exceeded the system’s small-business procurement goals in eight of those nine years, and had the highest average percentage spend, again leading the csu (cal state la, 2018b). further, local businesses receive approximately 10% of the university’s procurement spending (cal state la, 2018b). this impact may continue to grow, as data reported in the los angeles business journal (fine, 2018) showed that of public sector employers in los angeles county, cal state la had the highest percentage gain in workforce from 2017 to 2018, at 23%, and its budget grew by $14 million. with more than 28,000 students and almost 3,100 employees (86% of employees live in los angeles county), the university has a potent economic footprint in the communities it serves. cal state la’s participation in the higher education anchor mission initiative has brought greater focus to data collection and analysis that measures institutional impact. the collaboration has already produced promising results. relationship building with external partners it is instructive to view cal state la’s community benefit initiatives not as a sequence of onetime or temporary projects, each bringing in new partners, but as part of a continuum in which significant longtime partners return to take part in later initiatives. the guiding principle is to leverage existing relationships while forging new ones, seeking mutual benefit for all parties. building trust and continually working to improve communication between campus and community are essential to establishing and maintaining such relationships. as sladek (2017) writes, “a university having a shared destiny with their local community can be a powerful strategy in confronting a whole host of issues” (p. 21). one way that cal state la has expanded its reach is by bringing partners on site in pioneering colocation initiatives. partnerships located on campus include: • a stem-focus public charter high school serving local low-income students; 86 • a public-county, fine-arts focus high school; • a 20,000-square-foot grant-supported bioscience business incubator; • the hertzberg-davis forensic science center (forensic science center). this last facility is the largest municipal, regional crime laboratory in the nation, a facility second in size only to the fbi crime lab at quantico, virginia. these collocated partnerships produce cooperative synergies that enhance the university’s anchor mission by affording university students and faculty the opportunity to collaborate directly with partners. for example, the forensic science center merges scholarship with training in collaboration with the los angeles county sheriff’s department (lasd), the los angeles police department (lapd), and the california department of justice (cal doj). the center brings together resources from multiple entities to serve students and the community at large. the joint facility houses the crime laboratories of the lapd and the lasd, as well as cal doj training facilities. it is also home to cal state la’s school of criminal justice and criminalistics. students benefit from working with the best crime scene investigators from the lapd and the lasd. its minor, bachelors’, and master’s programs enroll more than 1,000 students seeking to specialize in criminal justice and criminalistics. the school also houses the california forensic science institute, whose mission is to support scientific advancement and its effective utilization in forensic laboratories through in-service training, student engagement, public education programs, and research, advocacy, and public policy in the fields of criminal justice and forensic science. this past year, the center’s partners, working with los angeles high schools and community colleges, established a college pathway program for local students interested in criminal justice and criminalistics careers. the forensic science center is one of many significant partnerships that the university has depicted in a map of los angeles county (see figure 3). the map lists more than three dozen initiatives and collaborating institutions in the broad areas of high technology, community development, urban planning, education and child development, economic and workforce development, civic learning, community health and wellness, and culture and the arts. these include outward-facing initiatives to which cal state contributes student and faculty service, experience, and expertise. others bring the talents of outside participants and members of the wider community to cal state la’s classrooms, laboratories, and the campus. these partnerships, as diverse as they are, share a common goal of being mutually beneficial (for the university, its partners, and the communities it serves) and contributing to the public good. to ensure the success of high-impact, sustainable public-benefit initiatives, universities must provide resources, support, and organization to implement community projects. institutions must have or develop anchor-mission coordination and support catalysts to serve as the structural backbone for anchor mission efforts. two anchor-mission catalysts that have provided support and leadership for cal state la community partnerships are the university’s pat brown institute for public affairs (pbi) and the center for engagement, service, and the public good. 87 pbi and the center support four projects that serve as examples of community partnership engagement that enhance cal state la’s anchor mission. mind matters, a campus-wide presidential initiative addresses the lack of mental health services and support in the underresourced communities of the university’s students. the prison graduation initiative, in which cal state la, working with the state, provides an in-person b.a. degree completion program for incarcerated students. civic university, a program in which pbi collaborates with the office of los angeles mayor eric garcetti to raise civic awareness. in addition, the southeast los angeles initiative is a collaboration of the university, pbi, local stakeholders, and several foundations focused on community empowerment. underserved communities have a higher prevalence of psychological distress, and face more obstacles to accessing behavioral-health services (national center for health statistics, 2015; agency for healthcare research and quality, 2016; american psychiatric association, 2017). pr. covino and ms. debbie covino launched the mind matters initiative to coordinate a comprehensive university-wide approach to help students, since many from communities lacking adequate mental health resources, to better manage stress and anxiety and reduce the stigma associated with mental health issues. the initiative provides students with resources including mental health awareness training, counseling services, and peer mentoring, as well as therapeutic activities such as yoga and guided meditation. through mind matters, more than 700 students, faculty, and staff have been trained in mental health first aid, enabling them to more readily recognize signs of stress and anxiety among students and, if necessary, direct them to meet with professionals in the counseling and psychological services (caps) office. in 2017-18, 355 more students than in the previous academic year met with caps counselors, a 24% increase that was due in part to greater campus awareness of mental health issues (cal state la, 2018c). the center for engagement, service, and the public good collaborates closely with the mind matters task force, which includes representatives from caps, and students, faculty, and staff from across the university to create and direct campus-wide strategies and activities. the center oversees mind matters town halls, an interactive, problem-solving program. the town halls, initiated in 2015, are an integral part of the required introduction to higher education course for first-year students. students learn about the connection between mental and physical well-being and academic success, work in groups to solve real-life scenarios, and then use the tools they have learned to develop action plans to improve the quality of life on campus and in the community. more than 1,700 students, half the incoming first-year, first-time class, participated in the town halls during the 2017-18 academic year (cal state la, 2018d). the mind matters initiative benefits not only students, but also their communities. as noted previously, a majority of cal state la students are the first in their families to attend college and reside near the university. mental health services in these communities are not readily available or easily accessible. moreover, many students come from homes in which parents do not always understand the pressures associated with the pursuit of academic success, or where mental health issues suffer stigma and go undiscussed. by assisting and supporting students, mind matters also assists and supports their communities. the community benefit will soon expand into a new program to provide mental health first aid training in spanish and english to parents as part of 88 the cal state la parent academy. the academy educates parents of first-year students about the rigors of university life so that they are better prepared to help their children achieve academic success and well-being. figure 3: more than three dozen initiatives and collaborating institutions illustrate the broad reach and diversity of cal state la’s partnerships across los angeles. 89 the center for engagement, service, and the public good has extended the university’s anchor mission to the incarcerated, their families, and their communities, many of which the university already serves. cal state la has developed a bachelor’s degree completion program for incarcerated individuals against a backdrop of increased national and state focus on the importance of rehabilitation in prison reform. federal mandates to reduce prison overcrowding and california voters’ support for reducing strict sentencing guidelines, providing rehabilitation services, and increasing parole opportunities have advanced in concert with an aggressive push for reforms by state leaders (beck, 2018). however, as thousands of inmates begin to be released (many of whom have been in prison for long periods) city, county, state, and local leaders are grappling with the question of how best to transition them back into the community (beck, 2018). this question underscores the importance of rehabilitation programs, especially educational programs such as the cal state la prison graduation initiative. through its prison graduation initiative with the california department of corrections and rehabilitation, cal state la is the only university in the state to provide an in-person b.a. degree completion program for incarcerated students. cal state la is also one of only 67 colleges and universities in the country to participate in the second chance pell pilot program, which allows incarcerated students to pursue bachelor’s degrees and receive pell grants to help pay for their educations. a rand corporation meta-analysis found that those who participate in correctional education programs have 43% lower recidivism rates than those who do not, and that individuals enrolled in college courses have a 51% lower chance of recidivating (davis, bozick, steele, saunders, & miles, 2013). it is also less expensive to educate than to incarcerate: over the past three decades, state and local government expenditures on prisons and jails have increased about three times as fast as spending on elementary and secondary education. at the postsecondary level, the contrast is even starker: from 1989–90 to 2012–13, state and local spending on corrections rose by 89 percent while state and local appropriations for higher education remained flat. (u.s. department of education, 2016, para. 1) prison graduation initiative students will earn their b.a. degrees by taking two courses per semester (including summers). students released before completing their degrees receive automatic enrollment as cal state la students to continue their educations at the university. the center for engagement, service, and the public good has also established a support program for previously incarcerated students called project rebound. it coordinates additional arts, writing, and advocacy initiatives in partnership with organizations such as corrections to college california, the words uncaged project, the anti-recidivism coalition, california humanities, and renewing communities (a joint initiative of the opportunity institute and the stanford criminal justice center). cal state la’s pat brown institute for public affairs (pbi) is an important support catalyst and a key contributor to the university’s civic-based, anchor-mission initiatives. former governor pat brown, who created the california master plan for higher education, located the institute at the university and envisioned it as an entity meant to invest deeply in the nearby community. in 2013, la mayor eric garcetti reached out to pbi to co-create an education program, which became civic university (civic u), to promote greater civic awareness during a time of growing http://theopportunityinstitute.org/ https://law.stanford.edu/stanford-criminal-justice-center-scjc/ https://law.stanford.edu/stanford-criminal-justice-center-scjc/ 90 voter dissatisfaction. turnout in california’s primary and general elections, for example, has declined significantly since the 2008 presidential vote (public policy institute of california, n.d.). in los angeles, according to a pbi poll, 63% of registered voters believe that special interests have more power than voters do in city politics and government (cal state la, 2015). the objective of the project is to show participants that they can be, in fact, effective advocates for their communities. the los angeles city budget has since incorporated civic u to provide training to leaders of the city’s 97 neighborhood councils. those who complete the training earn certificates from cal state la. the program has expanded to provide education about los angeles county’s government, the los angeles unified school district, and the council-manager form of government in operation in most of the county’s cities. civi u has also presented the training throughout the region to social services agencies, high school students, business organizations, international groups, government officials, and leadership development programs. the informative, research-based, and accessible curriculum provides participants with the knowledge and tools to engage and influence government and their representatives, leading to more inclusive and responsive policy and decision-making. in recognition of its work, pbi recently won a three-year grant from the weingart foundation to expand the program’s reach. pbi also serves as an anchor mission catalyst for cal state la’s collaboration with the southeast los angeles initiative, an effort to seek solutions to persistent challenges in a historically underresourced area. southeast los angeles (sela), also known as the 710 freeway corridor, consists of 11 small-incorporated municipalities and 4 unincorporated county areas just south and east of the city of los angeles. these include unincorporated east los angeles, right on cal state la’s doorstep, and other neighborhoods from which the university draws many of its students. sela suffers from myriad social and political problems, with limited attention from major civic institutions. the residents of sela are mostly low income. some 57% of the adult population is foreign-born, compared with 44% for los angeles county as a whole; about 88% identify as latino, according to a study commissioned by the california community foundation (ccf) and pbi (2017). the study noted that the percentage of residents holding bachelor’s degrees is less than a quarter that of the county as a whole. while the need is demonstrable, the response of public and private agencies has not been sufficient. furthermore, the ccf-pbi study found that sela constitutes something of a “nonprofit desert,” in which residents lack access to the services and benefits that nonprofit organizations provide elsewhere in los angeles county. the analysis of the study area found that there was one nonprofit organization for every 764 residents, compared with one for every 291 residents of los angeles county as a whole (ccf & pbi, 2017). the sela initiative emerged when ccf approached pbi in 2016 to help engage residents, elected officials, and other stakeholders in sela so that they could become a more effective voice for the region. as a backbone organization for the initiative, pbi assumed the task of identifying scholars able to research public policy issues affecting the area, and to convene stakeholders to help convert research findings into policy. pbi has organized several “summits of possibilities” to discuss concerns, review research, and consider policies to improve community well-being. this became the sela initiative, with additional funding partners, including the weingart foundation and the ballmer group. in turn, the initiative has led to the 91 relaunch of a previous effort, the southeast los angeles collaborative, a group of stakeholder organizations devoted to strengthening the southeast los angeles area. through pbi, cal state la serves on the collaborative’s board alongside many educational, social service, environmental justice, economic development, and other nonprofits and public agencies. soon after the sela collaborative relaunched, cal state la joined with another of sela’s partners, the ymca of metropolitan los angeles, to develop a community initiative called achieve la. the program, announced in november 2017, seeks to pave a pathway to college for youth in the under-resourced communities of southeast la. achieve la offers mentoring, tutoring, college admissions advisement, and dedicated programs at cal state la and the local rio vista ymca for students and their parents. achieve la is the first such ymca program in the united states. the partnership focuses on neighborhoods characterized by poverty, low educational attainment rates, high unemployment, and lack of access to healthcare and childcare. conclusion the democracy collaborative’s anchor dashboard learning cohort is dedicated to creating a critical mass of colleges and universities committed to addressing economic, educational, and health disparities through engaged anchor mission strategies (sladek, 2017, p. 25). tdc identified five thematic anchor dashboard success indicators as ingredients for establishing an engaged anchor mission mindset and structure. the cal state la example illustrates the importance of the five themes and offers support for establishing field-wide best practices based on the themes and indicators outlined by tdc (dubb, mckinley, & howard, 2013; sladek, 2017). the university’s experience suggests that the successful implementation of an anchor mission strategy will benefit from a comprehensive approach. that approach includes: (1) leadership support at the highest level of the university (conceptual and financial support); (2) incorporation of the anchor mission into the institution’s strategic plan, and university-wide identity or brandbuilding initiatives; (3) establishment of anchor mission committees and structures to coordinate work; (4) promotion and advancement of place-based cohesive narratives and expectations to embed an institutional anchor mission culture and build trust; (5) development and support for anchor mission coordinating and support catalysts to manage anchor projects; (6) implementing data collection protocols, including the measurement of local community student success after graduation using mobility report cards (chetty et al., 2017); and (7) continuous and faithful relationship building with external partners. the deliberate and disciplined establishment and implementation of an anchor mission by colleges and universities can enhance the economic, political, and social vitality of low-income, underserved communities. “the stronger and more broadly held anchor mission goals become within institutions, the more opportunities will be identified to help reduce disparities in home communities, and build meaningful partnerships with outside groups to advance those goals” (sladek, 2017, p. 25). urban and metropolitan public comprehensive universities, such as cal state la and many of the cumu member institutions are well able to serve and help transform struggling communities. cumu and tdc’s higher education anchor mission initiative collaboration can provide a coordinated structure for supporting institutions that have committed 92 to an anchor mission strategy and for developing best practices and guidance to those considering an anchor mission. this work and the insight and information derived from the initiative are essential for communicating the public benefit and collective impact of higher education. many authors have written about persistent inequality and the lack of upward mobility in society. the cal state la experience suggests that an emphasis on engagement, service, and the public good can increase upward mobility and provide significant community benefit. by connecting learning and scholarship with a clear mission to enrich the quality of life, colleges and universities can be the engines of urban and regional transformation. cal state la president covino described the inherent value of investing in the well-being of communities during his sixth and most recent fall convocation address to the university community: we have demonstrated that universities can and must extend their reach beyond the walls of the institution and into our communities. the university of the 21st century is a university that transforms people and places. the times in which we live are calling— demanding—for us to be more. by embracing our identity as an engaged anchor institution in los angeles, we must make our social value clear. the challenges and opportunities facing los angeles are our challenges and our opportunities. 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(2017, november 29). the emerging role of universities in collective impact initiatives for community benefit. metropolitan universities, 28 (4), 9-31. https://doi.org/10.18060/21743 https://doi.org/10.1177/089124249701100103 https://doi.org/10.1177/0891242416642320 https://doi.org/10.1177/089124249701100102 https://doi.org/10.18060/21743 96 trani, e. p. (2008, may 16). even in hard times, colleges should help their communities. the chronicle of higher education, 54(36), a36. retrieved from https://www.chronicle.com/article/even-in-hard-times-colleges/23564 u.s. department of education. (2016). state and local expenditures on corrections and education. retrieved from https://www2.ed.gov/rschstat/eval/other/expenditures-correctionseducation/brief.pdf walker, l. a. & east, j. f. (2018). the roles of foundations and universities in redevelopment planning. metropolitan universities, 29 (2) 33-56. https://doi.org/10.18060/22342 willard, m., zelman, w., haras, c., prabhu, v., & gutarts, b. (2015). faculty visioning task force report: 2015-2020. cal state la. zavattaro, s. m. (2018). what’s in a symbol? big questions for place branding in public administration. public administration quarterly, 42 (1), 92-119. https://doi.org/10.18060/22342 97 author information *jose a. gomez california state university, los angeles 5151 state university drive los angeles, ca 90032 e-mail: jose.gomez@calstatela.edu telephone: 323-343-3030 jose a. gomez, ph.d., is executive vice president and chief operating officer at cal state la. gomez previously served as a senior advisor and executive in the offices of the leader of the california state senate, california attorney general, and california state treasurer. raphael j. sonenshein pat brown institute for public affairs california state university, los angeles 5151 state university drive, ge 222 los angeles, ca 90032 e-mail: raphael.sonenshein@calstatela.edu telephone: 323-343-3770 raphael j. sonenshein, ph.d., is the executive director of the pat brown institute for public affairs at cal state la. sonenshein is the author of three books on los angeles politics and governance. from 1997 to 1999, he served as executive director of the los angeles appointed charter reform commission. zuhey espinoza california state university, los angeles 5151 state university drive los angeles, ca 90032 email: zuhey.espinoza@calstatela.edu telephone: 323-343-3064 zuhey espinoza is the director of policy and government relations at cal state la. she is a doctoral student at ucla. espinoza previously served as a coro fellow and deputy with the los angeles county board of supervisors. henry fuhrmann california state university, los angeles 5151 state university drive los angeles, ca 90032 email: hfuhrma@calstatela.edu telephone: 323-343-3030 henry fuhrmann is a los angeles-based writer and journalist. fuhrmann previously served as an assistant managing editor at the los angeles times. * corresponding author original research © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23994 | december 1, 2020 116 solidarity, reflection, and imagination: exploring student formation and community engagement from a faith-based anchor institution perspective leah sweetman,1 bobby wassel,2 stephen m. belt3 and bryan w. sokol4 1, 2, 4center for service and community engagement, saint louis university 3department of aviation science, saint louis university. cite as: solidarity, reflection, and imagination: exploring student formation and community engagement from a faith-based, anchor institution perspective (2020). metropolitan universities, 31(3), 116-139. doi: 10.18060/23994 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract the catholic, jesuit inspired mission of saint louis university (slu) – “the pursuit of truth for the greater glory of god and for the service of humanity” – firmly places serving humanity in line with the institution’s goal for academic excellence. importantly, service in the tradition of catholic, jesuit education is embedded in a broader vocational goal of forming people to build a just and equitable society. it remains to be seen in what manner and to what degree slu students reflect the qualities such experiences are intended to aid and develop. what follows is an attempt to identify contemporary expressions of ignatian education, a well-educated solidarity, depth of thought, and depth of imagination, within the students who took part in community engagement activities supported by slu’s center for service and community engagement. the present study drew upon assessment data from three distinct undergraduate experiences. each of the three attributes were evident, either directly or in a latent form appropriate to the nature of the activity and the level of the student participants. while it is not possible to quantify a direct measure, the results indicate that the programs are generally succeeding in promoting an ignatian inspired formation for its students. keywords: community-based learning, jesuit higher education, faith-based institutions, vocation, place-based community engagement http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23994 | december 18, 2020 117 saint louis university (slu) is one of 27 institutions that make up the association of jesuit colleges and universities (ajcu) in the united states and part of the network of approximately 189 jesuit institutions of higher education around the world. jesuit higher education is guided by a spirituality that seeks justice. inspired by the tenets of catholic social teaching and its intellectual and social justice traditions, a jesuit education places great emphasis on forming people for others. students are “exploring the distinctive and constructive ways in which their knowledge and talents will best serve society” (association of jesuit colleges and universities, n.d.). as such, the catholic, jesuit inspired mission of saint louis university, “the pursuit of truth for the greater glory of god and for the service of humanity,” firmly places serving humanity in line with the institution’s goal for academic excellence. importantly, service in the tradition of catholic, jesuit education is embedded in a broader vocational goal of forming people to build a just and equitable society. additionally, a common feature amongst many of the united states based colleges and universities is that they are situated in urban environments. the main campus of slu is located in midtown saint louis at a nexus of the city’s cultural and social life. this reality both challenges and invites slu to live its mission in real time as both neighbor and resource for the immediate community. this opportunity for a place-based approach to education and engagement is consistent with an anchor institution mission. according to sladek (2017), “the stronger and more broadly held anchor mission goals become within institutions, the more opportunities will be identified to help reduce disparities in home communities, and build meaningful partnerships with outside groups to advance those goals” (p. 25). while this focus has been central to the society of jesus since the beginning of the order (bergman, 2011), the jesuits revisited their mission in 1975 and unequivocally stated, “the mission of the society of jesus today is the service of faith, of which the promotion of justice is an absolute requirement” (“gc 32”, 2009). interestingly, this declaration was preceded some two years by remarks of the superior general of the worldwide religious order, father pedro arrupe, s. j., on the nature of the jesuit educational enterprise. in 1973, he argued that seeking justice must be the cornerstone of jesuit schooling and in the process coined a phrase that has served as one of the principle standards for ignatian identity in jesuit education ever since. “today our prime educational objective,” he stated, “must be to form men-and-women-for-others; men and women who will live not for themselves but for god and his christ” (arrupe, 2004, p. 173). to stress this point, he continued, “men and women completely convinced that love of god which does not issue in justice for others is a farce” (p. 173). arrupe’s successor, fr. peter-hans kolvenbach, s.j. further articulated this emphasis on the relationship between faith and justice. throughout his years as superior general, he continued to develop a contemporary understanding of this commitment to education in the ignatian tradition. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23994 | december 18, 2020 118 in 2000, speaking to the american jesuit colleges and universities, kolvenbach asked his audience to consider the qualities of a graduate of a jesuit university (2008). he reflected, “the real measure of our jesuit universities lies in who our students become” (p. 155). he suggested the notion of a “well-educated solidarity” (p. 155) as a way to encapsulate the ignatian character of educating the whole person. such a graduate would possess an “educated awareness of society and culture with which to contribute socially, generously, in the real world” (p. 155). in order to do so, he made an assertion that, like men-and-women-for-others, has become an icon of education in the ignatian tradition: students, in the course of their formation, must let the gritty reality of this world into their lives, so they can learn to feel it, think about it critically, respond to its suffering and engage it constructively. they should learn to perceive, think, judge, choose and act for the rights of others, especially the disadvantaged and the oppressed. (kolvenbach, 2008, p. 155) building upon the work of his predecessors, fr. adolfo nicolás, s.j. continued to develop a contemporary understanding and application of ignatian formation in higher education (nicolás 2009, 2010). once again, considering the current cultural climate, nicolás spoke of a “globalization of superficiality” (2009, p. 2) as he noted some of the negative attributes of the information age. evermore “connected,” equipped with continuous, instant access to nearly unlimited sources of data, our students are at increasing risk of superficial relationships as well as underdeveloped comprehension and shallow insight. “shallow, self-absorbed perceptions of reality make it almost impossible to feel compassion for the suffering of others; and a contentment with the satisfaction of immediate desires or the laziness to engage competing claims on one’s deepest loyalty results in the inability to commit one’s life to what is truly worthwhile” (p. 3). he reflected that jesuit higher education is challenged to “promote in creative new ways the depth of thought and imagination that are distinguishing marks of ignatian tradition” (p. 3). as with the others, he explained that such an education, “encompasses and integrates intellectual rigor with reflection on the experience of reality together with the creative imagination to work toward constructing a more humane, just, sustainable, and faith-filled world” (p. 5). the jesuits clearly articulate that to really be people for and with others, indeed, to be educated within the ignatian tradition, community engagement is a constitutive element. students’ community engagement efforts do not simply begin when their schoolwork is done. this approach to education is not only consistent, but meant to be in dialogue, with the scholarship of the broader academic community. “the jesuit tradition,” nicolás stated, “has always combined a healthy appreciation for human reason, thought, and culture, on the one hand, and a profound commitment to faith, the gospel, the church, on the other” (nicolás 2010, p. 10). according to mitchell (2008), critical service-learning encourages students to “see themselves as agents of social change, and use the experience of service to address and respond to injustice in communities” (p. 51). thus, scholarship such as critical service-learning (e.g., mitchell, 2008; © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23994 | december 18, 2020 119 stoeker, 2016), which seeks social justice and embraces a more political nature of community engagement informs and extends the jesuit position. similarly, the charge to connect learning with nicolás’ experience of reality roots jesuit education in the community and supports the anchor mission, “to accept responsibility for the collective well-being” (gomez, et al., 2019, p. 92). university resources along with faculty, staff, and students working with community partners, can fuel positive growth and development in local communities. there is a danger that community engagement, if not grounded in proper relationships with community members, risks bolstering hierarchical power structures (i.e., “power over” others, kreisberg, 1992) and relational asymmetries (e.g., more skilled or competent, more financially stable, more social capital versus less…). however well intended, this can inadvertently drive a deeper wedge between self and other, the “server” and the “served,” and create an “us-versusthem” mentality (sokol, hammond, kuebli, & sweetman, 2015). ultimately, such encounters do not represent what nicolás referred to as a “profound engagement with the real,” (2009, p. 4) nor do they lead to kolvenbach’s well-educated solidarity. within this context of the evolving identity of education in the ignatian tradition, slu endeavors to create learning environments that equip students to discern and develop their sense of calling and leadership in light of their faith commitments and their academic and professional pursuits. service at slu is inextricably linked with educating men and women about the importance of building god’s kingdom by seeking greater justice in the world (sokol, sweetman, wassel, franco, huffman, 2020). service is not an arbitrary addition to academics, jesuit schooling and the university experience. as kolvenbach (2008) explained, “when faculty do take up interdisciplinary dialogue with socially-engaged research in partnership with social ministries, they are exemplifying and modeling knowledge which is service” (p. 158). the calling to serve is embedded in the essential work of the university, in teaching students to discover their vocation and a deeper sense of purpose, as well as the anchor mission of urban, jesuit institutions. this is evident in the development of a new undergraduate core curriculum that will go into effect in the fall of 2022 (saint louis university, 2020b). the center for service and community engagement (csce) staff and other community-engaged scholars on campus helped to ensure that the core would exhibit qualities of ignatian tradition. this is especially clear in the cura personalis sequence and the reflection-in-action attribute. cura personalis, a latin phrase for “care of the whole person,” is the name of a three-requirement sequence in the new core focused on students’ holistic development. the sequence asks students to “explore fundamental questions of identity, history, and place,” and reflect on how being situated in their particular communities, such as urban, midtown st. louis, impacts and becomes part of who they are (saint louis university, 2020b, p. 6). students will be guided in structured processes of vocational reflection and discernment to foster justice in their personal and professional lives and then to turn their focus outward to their communities to address “how their skills, competencies, and knowledge transfer to professional, personal, and/or civic vocation(s)” (p. 7). the core’s reflection-in © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23994 | december 18, 2020 120 action component is an experiential component via which students engage in meaningful learning opportunities beyond the walls of the university and reflect on how their community engagement enhances their understanding of acting, in the jesuit tradition, “with-and-for-others” (p.11). slu’s annual survey on student service consistently shows that nearly 80% of enrolled students engage in volunteerism during their time at slu, as compared to the national average of 26% for college students (corporation for national and community service, 2015). as an institution, slu has received many community engagement accolades, including several presidential honor roll recognitions by the corporation for national and community service, a 2015 community engagement classification by the carnegie foundation, and a number 1 ranking for community service by the princeton review (franek, soto, koch, & aliperti, 2018). yet, with all of these efforts and intentions, it remains to be seen in what manner and to what degree slu students reflect the qualities such experiences are intended to aid and develop. what follows is an attempt to identify the qualities of ignatian education that are envisioned by the society of jesus within the students who took part in community engagement activities in the urban context of st. louis supported by slu’s center for service and community engagement. method the csce engages in ongoing, programmatic assessment of all of its work. the present study draws together assessment data from three distinct undergraduate experiences, developed and supported by the csce: the new student day of service, the vocational inquiry through advocacy and service program (vitas), and claver house. these data do not represent a unified longitudinal study, as the individual students vary from program to program. nonetheless, the conclusions we draw form a uniform narrative of the impact of community service and its value in promoting students' vocational choices. such a programmatic analysis is helpful for understanding how csce-supported activities contribute to ignatian formation and vocation development and what might be done to enhance or improve outcomes at the program, center, and university levels. drawing upon the remarks of frs. kolvenbach and nicolás, three primary questions guided the study: 1. how did students exhibit qualities indicative of formation consistent with a “well educated solidarity?” 2. how did student reflections reveal qualities that suggest a depth of thought? 3. how did student reflections and actions reveal a depth of imagination? © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23994 | december 18, 2020 121 data collected from the three programs varied in nature. the new student day of service program provided 621 student responses to a survey designed to assess questions of purpose and openness to diversity. vitas supplied data from a pre/post-test style survey of 106 students. claver house furnished four project posters authored by seven students as well as observations from faculty and staff advisors. the results of each of the data sources were then analyzed for evidence or attributes of the research questions (patton, 1997). historical context of csce in the fall of 2000, the lilly endowment invited slu to submit a proposal for their programs for the theological exploration of vocation. this invitation gave rise to slu’s voices project and a model for students, faculty, and staff to integrate their scholarly and professional pursuits with an explicit focus on personal purpose and meaning-making. faculty developed new reflection modules and service-learning courses, student leaders participated in retreats, and dozens of speakers talked about “wisdom in the professions” and living lives committed to service and justice. in 2009, slu launched the center for service and community engagement, intended to carry forward the mantle of the voices project by bringing together students, faculty, staff, and community partners through service, community-based learning, and research. voices strengthened partnerships with key institutions in the city, including saint louis public schools and the archdiocese of saint louis. the csce has continued these partnerships and formed new ones. the csce scaffolds programs to encourage personal and social responsibility by transforming student volunteers into effective servant leaders and advocates of social justice. the csce’s goals are threefold: (1) serve by connecting students, faculty, staff, and alumni to volunteer opportunities in the community, both locally and globally; (2) learn by promoting community-based scholarship through campus-wide service-learning efforts and universitycommunity research partnerships; and (3) engage by encouraging personal and social responsibility in slu volunteers and challenging them to become effective servant leaders and advocates of social justice. the new student day of service to recognize slu’s long-standing commitment to the community and to better introduce new, incoming undergraduates to the university’s culture of service, a “new student day of service” program was launched as part of fall welcome activities during slu’s bicentennial year of 2018. in the short time since its inception, the csce has used the opportunity of this new service tradition to reinforce messaging about the mission-centered significance of using one’s education to promote the common good. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23994 | december 18, 2020 122 method in 2019, the 1,800 new students who were participating in the service day’s activities were asked to complete an assessment of their experience and attitudes and thoughts about being challenged by the world’s complex social issues and diversity. about one-third of the students (n=621) finished the questionnaire that was emailed to them the day after the new student day of service experience. 70% of the respondents were women and identified as white; almost all were traditional first-year, residential students. the undergraduate population at saint louis university is 66% white and 60% female (saint louis university, 2020a). based on past assessments administered by the csce, the demographics of the survey respondents are not unusual. the principal metrics used in the questionnaire were ernest pascarella and colleagues’ openness to diversity and challenge scale (1996; whitt et al., 2001) and kendall cotton bronk and colleagues’ claremont purpose scale (bronk, riches, & mangan, 2018). the first scale is an 8item measure that gauges college students’ attitudes toward challenging ideas and new people on a standard 5-point likert scale. for the most part, the items assess students’ openness to connecting with others, especially those who are different from them (e.g., “i enjoy having discussions with people whose ideas and values are different from my own”). higher scores indicate a sense of connectedness to others and an attitude of being "at home" among differences, a "one world" mindset, so to speak. the second scale is a 12-item measure, again on a 5-point likert scale, designed for use with later adolescents and emerging adults, and assesses three inter-related dimensions of both shortand long-term purpose: 1) goal-directedness (e.g., “how hard are you working to make your long-term aims a reality?”); 2) personal meaningfulness (e.g., “how well do you understand what gives your life meaning?”); and 3) a beyond-the-self orientation (e.g., “how important is it for you to make the world a better place in some way?”). higher scores, as bronk et al. have said, suggest a “long-term, forward-looking intention to accomplish aims that are meaningful to the self and of consequence to the broader world” (bronk et al., 2018, p. 2). pascarella's measure is frequently used in higher education settings and was developed by student affairs professionals. bronk's scale was also developed for use with adolescents and emerging adults and, given the questions emphasis on community and service, was a reasonable fit for the nature of the service day program. the student participants were also asked to report on their community service experiences that they completed during the 2018-2019 academic year before entering slu. they rated the frequency of their service (see figure 1) as either none or just one experience (n=74), 1-3 experiences per semester (n=200), 1-3 experiences per month (n=275), or 1-3 experiences per week (n=55). we explored students’ responses with one main question in mind: does amount of service make a difference? that is, does amount of community service impact incoming college students' sense of purpose and openness to being challenged in diverse contexts? © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23994 | december 18, 2020 123 figure 1. community service experiences for incoming slu students (n=621) data analysis first, the researchers analyzed the impact of students' frequency of service on their attitudes of openness to diversity and challenge and found a significant effect. because of the positive, moderate correlation between the two primary dependent variables, the researchers conducted individual one-way anova's, instead of manovas which are best conducted when dependent variables are highly negatively correlated or when they are strongly correlated, around or higher than 0.60. in order to control for the increase in type i error rate with multiple anovas, bonferroni correction was employed. in post-hoc, follow-up t-tests, the difference between engaging never or once in service and more frequent, consistent service (of 1-3 times per month or week) on students openness was significant (see figure 2). that is, more consistent, frequent service experiences were associated with higher self-reported levels of openness and connectedness to others different from oneself. figure 2. relationship between amount of service and attitudes of openness to challenge © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23994 | december 18, 2020 124 second, the researchers analyzed the impact of service frequency on students’ self-reported purpose in life scores. similar to openness, the researchers found an overall significant difference in service frequency on students’ purpose (see figure 3). in post-hoc, follow-up ttests, a similar pattern emerged for the impact of service frequency on openness, in that more consistent, frequent service was associated with higher levels of purpose. figure 3. relationship between amount of service and sense of purpose finally, the researchers also found students’ scores on the purpose and openness scales were positively, significantly correlated, as shown in the following correlation matrix (table 1). table 1. correlations between purpose and openness to challenge scales openness purpose in life goal directness personal meaningfulness beyond-theself orientation openness 1.00 purpose in life 0.38** 1.00 goal directness 0.31** 0.82** 1.00 personal meaningfulness 0.17** 0.83** 0.53** 1.00 beyond-the-self orientation 0.47** 0.67** 0.42** 0.28** 1.00 n=621; *p<0.05; **p<0.01 overall, then, we surmised that more frequent, consistent service experiences positively impacted college students’ sense of purpose and openness to challenge and diversity. community engagement experiences become opportunities for intersection and connection with others who support students’ meaning-making, personal growth, and spiritual formation, while at © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23994 | december 18, 2020 125 the same time contributing to a greater collective sense of social responsibility and purpose (laboe & nass, 2012; sokol, donnelly, vilbig, & monsky, 2017). creating experiences like the new student day of service provide worthwhile and challenging opportunities for students to enrich their sense of purpose, and they provide an important touchstone for vocational discernment. other slu-supported service activities promote similar opportunities for growth, while at the same time, enhance important urban university-community partnerships. the vitas program through mentoring and reflection, the vocational inquiry through advocacy and service (vitas) program provides students who are engaging in community service and social justice advocacy a chance to explore how that work will influence their lives after graduation. the program was launched during the 2016-17 academic year with seed funding from the lilly endowment and netvue (network for vocation in undergraduate education). vitas serves as both a professional development opportunity for faculty and staff mentors, as well as a personal development opportunity for students. participants in the fall semester, faculty and staff who were selected as mentors engaged in a series of sessions to prepare them to work with students on the topic of vocational discernment. this included reading and discussing two primary source materials: the purposeful graduate: why colleges must talk to students about vocation (2015) by tim clydesdale and designing your life: how to build a well-lived, joyful life (2017) by bill burnett and dave evans. mentors represented diverse areas of campus. in the spring semester, students who were accepted into the program were divided into small groups of four to six. each group met periodically throughout the semester with their assigned mentor. these small-group sessions consisted of activities designed to provide students a chance to reflect on and discuss the concept of vocation, and to explore their purpose and calling in life. at the conclusion of the program, each student wrote an essay on their experience. method participants in the first cohort (n=63) were administered a pre-test survey to measure, among other items, how often they talk to peers and slu advisors about vocation, how often they seek out resources about vocation, and how much time they spend reflecting on their potential vocation(s). the same participants were then administered a post-test survey measuring the same items, as well as levels of agreement on how beneficial the program was, how effectively they were able to connect their community service and/or social action activities to vocational discernment, and levels of anxiety about their future. both surveys utilized a 5-point likert scale model to gauge frequency of or level of agreement with the above behaviors. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23994 | december 18, 2020 126 participants in the second cohort (n=43) completed a written reflection at the conclusion of the experience, which addressed 4 questions: 1. what does vocation mean to you? 2. how did vitas affect your vocational discernment process? 3. what did you learn about yourself through vitas? 4. as of right now, what do you see as your vocation(s) after graduation? faculty and staff mentors then read the reflections essays, with key themes emerging through codification as well as through direct observations made by the same mentors while leading the small group reflection sessions. data analysis during the first cohort, 63 student participants were administered a pre and post-survey. results included: (1) 91% of students said the vitas program was beneficial for their vocational discernment; (2) 78% reported feeling less anxiety about their future as a result of the smallgroup sessions; (3) 88% were able to effectively connect their community service and/or social action activities to their vocational discernment; and (4) in the post-test, students reported a significant increase in how often they talk to peers and slu advisors about vocation, how often they seek out resources about vocation, and how much time they spend reflection on their vocation, compared with pre-test scores. during the second cohort, 43 students submitted a reflection essay at the end of the experience. key themes from the essays (by question) included: 1. what does vocation mean to you? a. students were asked this question before the program started as part of the application process, as well as on their final reflection essay. b. pre-program definitions were largely split into either a focus on career or calling. c. post-program definitions reflected a stronger vocational understanding of career and calling not being mutually exclusive, but cohesive. see figure 4. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23994 | december 18, 2020 127 both: 5 both: 22 this was illustrated in a student’s reflection: before completing the vitas program, i believed the meanings of vocation and occupation to be the same. i now realize that vocation means so much more than the career path or job that i have. i now view my vocation as the intersection between my passions/interests, the ways in which i can tangibly make a difference and where the world needs me the most. 2. how did vitas affect your vocational discernment process? a. the program provided a rare opportunity to reflect on how current activities and experiences may be shaping vocation. b. vitas eased anxieties associated with the future. students were able to come to peace with their academic majors and career decisions. they benefited from improved self-confidence. c. it was a chance to connect with other students who share same anxieties and concerns, listen to their stories and go from feeling a sense of competition to vulnerability. d. vocation is not a finality; it is ever evolving. students recognized that it was okay not to know exactly what they want to do after graduation, and they understand it may change on a regular basis one student shared: what vitas clarified for me was not the surface level, what-job-am-i-going-to-have aspect of vocation – this has actually become a little less certain. rather, what became career 16 calling 14 career 5 calling 11 figure 4. students’ understanding of vocation, pre and post vitas program. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23994 | december 18, 2020 128 clearer were the underlying realities, the inner movements of the heart and the patterns of thought accompanying my prayer and action as i discern. 3. what did you learn about yourself through vitas? a. practicality vs. imagination: it is okay to make decisions with your heart too, not just your head. b. students discovered their true passions and strengths. they understood what was energy-giving, and they rediscovered their childhood interests. c. they learned a different definition of success: it isn’t just about money or job prestige, but how you engage with the community around you. careers are not the only thing that will define who they are (i.e., the concept of multiple vocations). from a student: i learned that it is okay to be vulnerable, and it isn’t a sign of weakness. it’s okay to not have my entire life planned out. through vitas, i feel that i have rediscovered some of the things in life that make me happy and give me joy, and how i can incorporate those into my everyday life, as well as into potential careers. 4. as of right now, what do you see as your vocation(s) after graduation? a. a majority reported a reaffirmation of future plans/career/life goals. b. four students reported an intent to change a major or career path. c. thirteen students intended to engage in a year of service post-graduation. a student reflected on their interest in pursuing a new experience: through our intentional discussions as a group and with guidance from my mentor, i have felt more and more confident in my decision to not take the gre at this time and delay graduate school to pursue a year or more of service. specifically, i have grown incredibly interested in pursuing the peace corps after graduation. based on the data above, it was clear that the vitas program had a significant impact on the students who participated. through sharing thoughts and experiences in a small group setting, led by a trained faculty or staff mentor, students were less anxious about the future, were able to engage in reflective conversations that they normally would not have, and were able to expand their concept of vocation beyond just a career. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23994 | december 18, 2020 129 claver house community in st. louis responding to nicolás’ globalization of superficiality and tenants of critical service-learning, slu has invested in place-based community initiatives that deepen relationships with partners, build a sense of the common good and shared humanity, and challenge the structural causes of injustice. this response is clearly evident in the monthly meetings of the ville collaborative, a grassroots organization that gathers neighbors as well as non-profit, faith-based, and local governmental organizations to share information and seek ways to work cooperatively in order to support and empower the neighborhood. the ville neighborhood is in north st. louis, about 1.5 miles north of slu's main campus, and, for nearly 100 years, it had been a center of african american culture, and home to many black professionals, businesses, and entertainers (4the ville, n.d.). while once a thriving community, the ville is now one of the more distressed areas of st. louis. nevertheless, it contains a variety of strong organizations working to stabilize and revitalize the community. slu has been heavily involved in service activities in the ville for many years (belt & bollock, 2020; sweetman & sokol, 2016). these activities have been built from many of the existing strengths of the neighborhood, particularly claver house, a slusupported community and active member of the ville collaborative. claver house is an intentional faith community centrally located in the ville, just around the corner from st. matthew the apostle catholic church. it was established in 2001 to be a place of hospitality and prayer. while the character of its mission has varied over the years to reflect contemporary expressions, it remains grounded within the ignatian notion of experiencereflection-action (korth, 2008). claver house provides a place-based introduction to the ville: a point of introduction to the residents, a place of reflection on the realities they face and our common humanity. thus, it is uniquely situated as a setting that promotes relationships and active engagement. the house makes available a residential opportunity for individuals to live in community and to be immersed in solidarity with our neighbors. over the years, this community has been home to a wide variety of individuals from many walks of life. extending beyond the residential community, claver house commons brings together several initiatives that seek to enable individuals and organizations to engage with the neighborhood and work together to respond to the challenges facing its residents. science saturdays, project read and feed, and claver house commons steam summer camp are three such programs. on any given saturday and all through july, children learn about nutrition and biology in the garden, explore circuitry and coding in the electronics and robotics class, discover aerodynamics and piloting skills in the flight simulation lab, learn about davinci and create their own murals and mosaics, read in the library, and develop and act out their very own improv scenes, and many others. activities are limited only by the interests and abilities of the children who participate and the volunteers who organize and offer them. and no one goes home hungry. with support © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23994 | december 18, 2020 130 from the greater community, claver house commons is able to provide breakfast and lunch for the children. oftentimes, they are able to offer care packages for families. method in 2018-19 claver house hosted a number of slu students, both as residents and volunteers for claver house commons saturday morning activities. members of the research team supported the student activities as advisors and collaborative volunteers. at the conclusion of the year, the students were invited to share their insights and experiences at the north saint louis symposium via poster presentations. four of these posters, broadly summarized in the excerpts below, were analyzed to evaluate how these students might reflect the characteristics of ignatian formation and explore the challenges posed by the jesuit leadership. claver house community (hennessy, c. & belt, s., 2019) claver house provides an immersive environment for its residents to grow in relationship with one another and the community they serve. slu students volunteer every saturday and serve as mentors to youth in the ville. serving as youth mentors provides the opportunity to develop as competent and sensitive leaders. through this collaboration, slu students and faculty learn in action what it means to walk with others and to be for others, sharing in all the successes and obstacles that arise along the process. flat stanley (klco, n. & belt, s., 2019) to learn about ourselves, reach out globally, promote writing skills, and form relationships, the youth at claver house have initiated the flat stanley project with st. martin de porres school in belize. with a liaison in both locations, the youth are finding their voice and diving into the opportunity to learn about a new culture and the individuals who live there. improv (allen, k., delorimier, j. & belt, s., 2019) children of all ages are invited and encouraged to creatively express themselves through improv. they are challenged to think out of the box and respond, react, and contribute in creative and thoughtful ways throughout these activities. through listening, laughing, and performing together, the children hone their public speaking abilities and build confidence in themselves. robotic operations billiken outreach (r.o.b.o.) (muhammad, j., pidatala, s., shekar, a. & belt, s., 2019) the national society of black engineers (nsbe) and society of women engineers (swe) at saint louis university established a robotics program in partnership with claver house common’s “science saturdays.” r.o.b.o. is conducted at claver house. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23994 | december 18, 2020 131 representatives from nsbe and swe who serve as positive role-models with diverse backgrounds would help increase minority contribution in stem fields. the program seeks to encourage the students’ passion for science and build upon their desire to learn. data analysis while it was more apparent in some, each poster revealed a quality of engagement with the children that appeared to be appropriately suited to the activities that were presented. the improv activity sought to, “allow children to explore different emotions through creative and artistic expression in hopes of promoting and cultivating emotional intelligence, recognition, and expression on all fronts.” the students involved in the robotics program recognized that there was room to foster deeper connections with the children by having them help, “developing future experiments.” the flat stanley poster presented what the project hoped for the children involved: “through this activity, relationships will continue to be built and discovery will flourish in the hearts and minds of our ville youth.” helping the children grow in their own sense of agency was another quality that emerged from each of the presentations. the community poster summarized this effort in terms of how the space aspired to be open to the children: “claver house commons strives to create a community where children in the ville neighborhood can feel they belong.” the flat stanley poster echoed this sentiment in terms of outcomes to which the project aspired: “our youth have a place in this world and by asserting their communication skills they will be able to confidently claim it.” improv spoke of helping children “build confidence” and gain “emotional maturity”, and r.o.b.o sought to foster a “diverse and supportive environment in creative thought.” returning to the claver house community poster, it appeared to gather these sentiments under the very purpose of the house itself: “we hope that these activities aid to stimulate a curiosity and enthusiasm that a child is able to follow by their own volition.” it is not known to what degree the different groups collaborated or discussed their individual poster presentations. however, it was rather clear that the students were operating along similar lines and shared a common sense of purpose. this quality revealed a sense of community to which the programs aspired. these students were invited to engage in the reality of the ville neighborhood, and enter into relationships with children who live there. they were challenged to share their unique and varied passions. each excerpt revealed a remarkable degree of agency with which the slu students met this challenge. in each case, the focus remained squarely upon the relationships that the community engagement activities facilitated. one poster expressed this aspect of the experience in this way: as st. louis city has historically been separated by negative and divisive perceptions and policies, it is easy for a st. louisan to stay in one's own separate world. claver house © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23994 | december 18, 2020 132 hopes to breach some of these divides by creating a space where these trends of separation are broken and the unusual can become more unremarkable. while the posters revealed a quality of thought and imagination that was consistent with fr. nicolás’ invitation, the encounters with the public during the symposium provided another glimpse of the depth to which the students were moved by their experiences. they spoke of their relationships with the children they had come to know. the development was likewise evident to the coordinators throughout the saturday morning experiences. the students entered into the experience according to their own unique personalities and passions. some were relatively shy, and it took them more time to begin to connect with the children. not all of the children gravitated to the activities, which caused additional challenges and, at times, frustration. not all of the projects proceeded as they were conceived, and plans had to be changed along the way. students often went home exhausted but also inspired. it is not easy for university students to find the time necessary to plan how they might go about sharing their unique talents and passions. nor is it easy to compel them to give up saturday mornings. many of the students who completed these projects were already strongly motivated to engage in such activities. it remains to be seen how such an experience can be expanded to reach a greater number of university students. however, these programs are being developed to respond to newly established core curriculum requirements and preliminary efforts are encouraging. it will be interesting to follow these programs as they become more explicitly embedded in academic programs, particularly those that do not have direct connections to community engagement or social justice concepts. discussion 1. how did students exhibit qualities indicative of formation consistent with a “well educated solidarity?” the new student day of service revealed a clear association between community engagement and both openness and sense of purpose. similarly, the vitas program reported that 88% of the students effectively connected community service or social activities to their vocational discernment. the claver house posters consistently revealed a sense of connection to the children, an investment in their success and well-being. it appeared to the researchers that this attribute was evident in each of the three programs in ways that were appropriate to their specific goals. 2. how did student reflections reveal qualities that suggest a depth of thought? © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23994 | december 18, 2020 133 the new student day of service correlations suggested a maturing depth of thought as participants considered their realities and advanced in their openness and sense of purpose. from the diversity scale, 90% of students responded that they somewhat agree or strongly agree to the statement “i enjoy experiences that are intellectually challenging” also, the service day was one of the highest ranked orientation activities and appeared to resonate with students’ reasons for attending slu in the first place. in the vitas program, this quality was clearly evident from the survey results as well as the qualitative themes and selected participant quotes. all of the results pointed to a successful effort to help students engage in thoughtful reflection. as one participant remarked, “what became clearer were the underlying realities, the inner movements of the heart and the patterns of thought accompanying my prayer and action as i discern.” similarly, the reports prepared by the students at claver house revealed a quality of consideration that pointed to a developing depth of thought. 3. how did student reflections and actions reveal a depth of imagination? the nature of the data presented from the new student day of service survey did not provide a ready avenue for insight into depth of imagination. however, the results did suggest a favorable disposition to this quality. in particular, responses to two questions seemed to indicate that the students possessed a positive inclination toward a deepening imagination. included in the openness to diversity and challenge scale, “the experiences i enjoy most are those that make me think about things from a different perspective” 80% of students responding to the survey agreed or strongly agreed. moreover, from the claremont purpose scale, students were asked, “how well do you understand what gives your life meaning?” 45.2% of the student respondents indicated that they understand quite well or extremely well, suggesting room for development in this area. the vitas program exhibited a depth of imagination in a couple of instances. the finding that 88% of the students were able to effectively connect their community service or social action activities suggests the sort of outcome that is made possible through the “real creativity” (nicolás, 2010, p. 4) which is born of a depth of imagination. furthermore, the themes that emerged as participants reflected on what they learned all point to this quality: (1) practicality vs. imagination: it is okay to make decisions with your heart too, not just your head; (2) students discovered their true passions and strengths. they understood what was energy-giving, and they rediscovered their childhood interests; and (3) they learned a different definition of success: it isn’t just about money or job prestige, but how you engage with the community around you. careers are not the only thing that will define who they are (i.e., the concept of multiple vocations). © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23994 | december 18, 2020 134 as one participant reflected: what vitas clarified for me was not the surface level, what-job-am-i-going-to-have aspect of vocation – this has actually become a little less certain. rather, what became clearer were the underlying realities, the inner movements of the heart and the patterns of thought accompanying my prayer and action as i discern. somewhat surprising to the researchers was the degree to which depth of imagination was evident in vitas and claver house and foreshadowed in the new student day of service. it was assumed that this would be the more elusive trait. this result may serve as further motivation for those who develop such programs to provide ample opportunity and encouragement for students to engage on their own terms and to bring their unique gifts to bear. finally, as noted above, the activities represented by the posters provide a compelling example of the sort of creativity that fr. nicolás described when speaking of depth of thought and imagination. the students reflected on the needs of the children and considered how they might bring their own talents and passions to the service of those needs. limitations the new student day of service survey response rate (33%) coupled with the pre-college service experience, suggest that those who responded to the survey were strongly predisposed to service. this can also be inferred from the student population who participated in vitas and at claver house. while slu can rightly be inspired by these success stories, it presents a limitation to the study. it is likely that the students here represented a strongly favorable segment of the overall student population as they related to the questions posed by this study. it was unclear the degree to which this identity was present or developing in the general student population. a more universal response would provide a clearer understanding of how the university is doing along the lines of ignatian formation. still, the results serve to validate the approaches to these questions. the poster presentations offered students an opportunity to describe their experience in their own terms. they were simply asked to present their project to the broader community. the nature of the posters reflected individual personalities and forms of expression and communication. in this way, they offered an insight into the ways the students engaged the children with whom they worked. again, this project may wish to develop the parameters of the presentation while striving to maintain as much autonomy as possible. another limitation of the study was that it did not address the identity and development of the faculty and staff. as fr. nicolás stated, “jesuit education should change us,” as well (2010, p. 5). additional research that includes the faculty and staff involved in jesuit education would provide valuable insight into the progress of identity and formation in the ignatian tradition. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23994 | december 18, 2020 135 conclusion this study explored three different community engagement activities sponsored by slu’s center for service and community engagement and attempted to identify qualities of ignatian education within the participants. each of the three attributes that framed the research questions were evident, either directly or in a latent form appropriate to the nature of the activity and the level of the student participants. while it is not possible to quantify a direct measure, the results indicate that the programs are generally succeeding in promoting an ignatian inspired formation for its students. the ultimate question, who the students become, is an open question that exists beyond the scope of this project. indeed, it is a question worthy of future consideration. jesuit education is grounded upon the development of a spirituality informed worldview that stresses god’s love and desire for justice in the world. returning to remarks of fr. nicolás, “in jesuit education, the depth of learning and imagination encompasses and integrates intellectual rigor with reflection on the experience of reality together with the creative imagination to work toward constructing a more humane, just, sustainable, and faith-filled world.” (nicolás, 2010, p. 5). such an approach naturally stands to enhance community engagement efforts of the academic institution. the examples considered in this article represent only a few of the ways that slu and other catholic, jesuit institutions value and prioritize the intersection of academic excellence and community engagement from a faith-based position. they also represent how jesuit higher education promotes and informs anchor mission work. indeed, an institutional commitment to “depth of imagination” serves to inspire developing approaches that consider and embrace contemporary pedagogy and theory. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23994 | december 18, 2020 136 references 4theville (n.d.) retrieved from http://www.4theville.org/about-the-ville/ allen, k., delorimier, j. & belt, s. 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(2016). the ville. in t. underwood (ed.), engaging with our neighbors: the practice of town-gown relations in missouri (pp. 93-99). springfield, mo: missouri campus compact. whitt, e., edison, m., pascarella, e., terenzini, p., & nora, a. (2001). influences on student's openness to diversity and challenge in the second and third years of college. the journal of higher education, 72(2), 172-204. doi:10.2307/2649321 https://www.slu.edu/about/key-facts/slu-profile.pdf https://www.slu.edu/about/key-facts/slu-profile.pdf https://www.slu.edu/provost/university-undergraduate-core/index.php https://democracycollaborative.org/learn/publication/higher-educations-anchor-mission-measuring-place-based-engagement https://democracycollaborative.org/learn/publication/higher-educations-anchor-mission-measuring-place-based-engagement © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23994 | december 18, 2020 139 acknowledgements the authors would like to acknowledge ashlei peterson, ph.d. candidate in the department of psychology, saint louis university, for her assistance in preparing this manuscript. we would also like to thank our community partners for their continued support, including revitalization, 2000, and st. matthew the apostle catholic church in st. louis, missouri. leah sweetman,1 bobby wassel,2 stephen m. belt3 and bryan w. sokol4 abstract keywords: community-based learning, jesuit higher education, faith-based institutions, vocation, place-based community engagement method historical context of csce microsoft word garmong et al. 2022 publish.docx original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25692 | june 11, 2022 110 academic center partnership with health department and church to rapidly deploy covid-19 vaccine pod reaching underserved populations gale e. garmong1, bridget c. calhoun2, alison colbert3, victor j. grigsby 4, jessica mann5, annie nagy6, brittani namey7, mary j. parish8, jennifer padden elliott9 1school of pharmacy, duquesne university, 2john g. rangos sr. school of health sciences, duquesne university, 3school of nursing, duquesne university, 4central baptist church and department of communication and rhetorical studies, duquesne university, 5office of civic engagement and external relations, duquesne university, 6allegheny county health department, 7school of nursing and center for integrative health, duquesne university, 8online learning & strategy, duquesne university, 9center for integrative health; ed and karen fritzky family chair in integrative medicine and wellbeing and school of pharmacy, duquesne university cite as: garmong, g.e., calhoun, b. c., colbert, a., grigsby, v.j., mann, j., nagy, a., namey, b., parish, m.j. & elliott, j.p. (2022). academic center partnership with health department and church to rapidly deploy covid-19 vaccine pod reaching underserved populations. metropolitan universities, 33(3), 110-137. doi: 10.18060/25692 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. guest editors: joseph a. allen, ph.d., sara hart, ph.d., and melissa yack, ph.d. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract the covid-19 pandemic has disproportionately impacted people of color, underscoring the importance of equity in the public health response. the duquesne university center for integrative health (ducih) is a university-wide center focused on training future practitioners and improving health equity in the pittsburgh region. ducih’s initial pandemic response included a virtual adaptation of community health programs and supporting partners’ testing and vaccination efforts. in march 2021, the allegheny county health department (achd) asked ducih to establish a vaccine point of dispensing (pod) at central baptist church in pittsburgh’s hill district, to reach underrepresented populations. ducih engaged the schools of health sciences, nursing, and pharmacy and multiple university offices to recruit an interprofessional team of 263 volunteers. from march to june 2021, the pod administered 5,652 vaccines in an underserved neighborhood, with a majority of doses administered to people of color, meeting the pod’s aim. this university-church partnership has continued with vaccine clinics and health screenings. this case study shares lessons for rapid response to public health emergencies original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25692 | june 11, 2022 111 through university-wide collaboration with community partners. universities with health science schools should cultivate relationships with local health departments to promote awareness of these capabilities. keywords: covid-19, vaccine equity, vaccine point of dispensing (pod), community engagement, community-academic partnership, academic health department, interprofessional education introduction: the challenge and potential consequences the 2019 coronavirus pandemic has had a disproportionate impact on people of color. rates of laboratory-confirmed covid-19-associated hospitalizations within the centers for disease control and prevention’s (cdc) covid-19-associated hospitalization surveillance network (covid-net) 14-state catchment area, adjusted for age differences between populations, were more than 2.5 times higher among non-hispanic american indian or alaska native, nonhispanic black, and hispanic or latino people than among non-hispanic white or nonhispanic asian or pacific islander people between march 1, 2020, and september 18, 2021 (cdc, 2021b). cdc national center for health statistics (nchs) data also show disparities in age-adjusted covid-19 death rates between racial and ethnic groups. hispanic people make up 35.30% of covid-19 deaths despite comprising only 19.40% of the u.s. population, nonhispanic black people 22.60% of deaths but only 12.70% of the population, non-hispanic american indian or alaska native people 2.60% of deaths but 0.70% of the population, and non-hispanic native hawaiian or other pacific islander people 0.70% of deaths but 0.20% of the population (cdc, 2020b). consequently, equity in covid-19 vaccine distribution has been an articulated priority of the cdc (cdc, 2021a). specifically, the cdc identified activities to “build community capacity to reach disproportionately impacted populations with effective culturally and linguistically tailored programs and practices...” and “support capacity building for covid-19 vaccine distribution and administration by establishing partnerships with organizations including federal, state, local, tribal and territorial agencies, national non-governmental, private sector partners, and community-based organizations” as important steps toward reaching this priority (cdc, 2020a). simultaneously, covid-19 has posed disruptions to the functioning of communities due to mitigation measures (cdc, 2020c). among these disruptions, health professions learners’ participation in clinical rotations and community-engaged health programs was restricted original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25692 | june 11, 2022 112 throughout the united states in 2020 due to governmental stay-at-home orders, healthcare organization and community partner policies, and university policies (fuller et al., 2020; rose, 2020). experiential learning is an integral component of health professions students’ development of clinical competence and kinesthetic skills. the degree of the pandemic’s disruption of clinical training varied among disciplines and the clinical sites students were assigned to. for example, physician assistant and nursing students assigned to emergency departments were not permitted in these high-volume environments early in the pandemic, in some cases delaying graduations because students could not complete the required numbers of hours or patient encounters. similarly, inpatient facilities with lower-acuity patients had lower censuses, often resulting in less capacity for students. from spring to summer 2020, many hospitals canceled elective surgical procedures, further limiting learning opportunities. collectively, these situations had the potential to negatively impact student progression through their educational programs and the depth of the learning experience. duquesne university center for integrative health the duquesne university center for integrative health (ducih) is a university-wide, interdisciplinary center whose mission “is to train the next generation of practitioners who will address rural and urban health care disparities and thereby improve health equity in the pittsburgh region and beyond” (“center for integrative health,” 2021). ducih was established in january 2020 to foster collaboration toward this mission among the schools of health sciences, nursing, and pharmacy and the proposed college of osteopathic medicine. the center was built upon a history of work that had been taking place between the university and multisector partners “to address problems that have a high cost, high burden, and significant racial disparity” (“center for integrative health,” 2021). within the ducih is the school of pharmacy’s center for pharmacy care (cpc), which is a pharmacist-provider of employee and student health programs, including robust immunization and travel health programs. ducih’s community health initiatives arm includes interdisciplinary school-based asthma clinics, a pharmacist-led community-clinical linkages program including chronic disease and social determinants of health screenings and care coordination, community-based chronic disease prevention programs (smoking cessation, cdc’s diabetes prevention program, etc.), and community-based vaccine clinics (elliott et al., 2021). through these programs, strong partnerships have been built over time with the allegheny county health department (achd), school districts, churches, federally qualified health centers (fqhcs), the housing authority of the city of pittsburgh, and community-based organizations, among others. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25692 | june 11, 2022 113 the university’s programs affiliated with achd were undertaken with the explicit goals of both educating health professions students and improving public health. this pre-existing, established relationship demonstrates the key components of an academic health department (ahd), including a formal partnership between an academic institution and a governmental agency (in this case, the local health department), a mutually beneficial agreement, and shared resources (erwin & keck, 2014). the ahd model is designed to enhance teaching, research, and service. before the pandemic, various schools at the university partnered with achd on projects related to head start, screening, vaccination, and health education. this includes a five-year project, the allegheny county racial and ethnic approaches to community health (reach) project, to implement screenings for chronic disease and social determinants of health using communitybased pharmacists (elliott et al., 2021). ducih community health initiatives’ response to the pandemic given the existing infrastructure of community-based health programs and established partnerships, ducih was able to quickly respond to the pandemic locally. table 1 summarizes various partners’ pandemic-response initiatives supported by ducih and lessons learned. volunteer training and orientation for these activities generally were conducted on-site by the partners. table 1. ducih support of partners’ pandemic response start of initiative volunteer pool recruitment mechanism volunteer roles lessons learned to inform future initiatives summer 2020: testing at partner fqhcs • ducih staff • school of pharmacy faculty and staff e-mail distribution list, with sign-up via google sheets • “crowd-control” (directing patients through the testing site) • data intake • providing selfswab instructions a variety of volunteer roles allowed the engagement of both clinician and nonclinician volunteers. dec 2020: support for community pharmacy and health system vaccine clinics • school of pharmacy students and faculty announcements in “school of pharmacy pandemic immunization response” blackboard • varied by partner and clinic central communication mechanism through learning management system facilitated sharing specific nature of original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25692 | june 11, 2022 114 community with links to sign-ups volunteer needs, site-specific requirements, and sign-up mechanisms efficiently, with flexibility for partner needs jan 2021: covid-19 vaccines at partner fqhcs • ducih pharmacist staff and rotation students • school of pharmacy pharmacist faculty and students e-mails to pharmacy practice faculty; blackboard community announcements; google sheets transitioning to signupgenius • vaccine administration (pharmacists only, due to fqhc credentialing process) • intake and vaccine documentation (students) ducih nonclinician staff member served as a liaison to fqhcs for pharmacist vaccinator credentialing and volunteer scheduling. online volunteer management software (signupgenius) offered benefits over manual scheduling: allowed volunteers to customize availability weekto-week by signing up for available shifts easily, provided updates to the coordinator of any schedule changes, and sent automated shift reminders or notices of shift modifications. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25692 | june 11, 2022 115 jan 2021: achd healthcare professional covid-19 vaccine clinics on duquesne campus • ducih staff and rotation students • school of pharmacy faculty, staff, and students e-mail list (faculty and staff) and blackboard community announcements (students), with sign up via google sheets • registration • guiding patients through workflow • vaccine preparation • vaccine administration/ documentation • post-vaccination monitoring/ check-out roles for nonvaccinators (e.g., registration, guiding patients through clinic workflow) increased volunteer pool while the hands-on experience with mass vaccination to meet an urgent public health need was impactful for all health professions, the opportunity to be involved in vaccine administration was particularly impactful for student pharmacists since this was the first time they were permitted to immunize in pennsylvania. while legislation from 2015 authorized pharmacy interns to immunize under pharmacist supervision, pennsylvania board of pharmacy regulations implementing interns’ immunization authority had not been finalized by december 2020 (pa act 8, 2015). recognizing the potential of student pharmacists to assist in the covid-19 vaccination effort, on december 8, 2020, pennsylvania’s governor issued an emergency waiver permitting trained pharmacy interns to immunize after notifying the board of their intent (p.a. department of state, 2020a). while this waiver is subject to expiration, a permanent application process was instituted for the “authorization to administer injectables for pharmacy intern” in march 2021. ducih worked with the school of pharmacy’s immunization training coordinator to establish a “school of pharmacy pandemic immunization response” community website in the university’s learning management system (blackboard). this website was populated with all immunizationtrained student pharmacists, faculty, and staff. it communicated vaccination opportunities, whether with ducih, local health systems, or community pharmacies. the site also served as a repository for clinical resources related to each covid-19 vaccine and vaccine administration. “assignments” were created in the site, which prompted students to upload training certificates and proof of board of pharmacy notification. school of pharmacy faculty and staff could then verify requirements were met. ducih’s support of early vaccination efforts at partner fqhcs (details in table 1) emphasized the need for a flexible, nimble approach. because vaccine supply was limited, and the fqhcs’ vaccine allocations from the pennsylvania department of health varied week-to-week, weekly communication between each volunteer pharmacist and the nursing coordinators at the fqhc original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25692 | june 11, 2022 116 sites was essential to determine the actual need for volunteers. these pharmacists then updated student pharmacists who were scheduled to work with them. ducih and the cpc also partnered with achd in january 2021 to vaccinate health professionals. recognizing the role of health professions students and faculty in the local healthcare system (placing them in the initial phase [1a] of vaccine eligibility), on-campus clinics were organized to vaccinate this population, both from duquesne university and a local community college. ducih staff worked with university facilities and events staff to arrange the use of large ballroom space and partnered with achd staff to design a clinic workflow to promote social distancing and logical movement of patients through registration, a waiting area, vaccination stations, and post-vaccination observation. achd contributed a staff member serving as clinic manager, the vaccine supply, and use of their documentation system (prepmod). vaccine-eligible individuals used this system to schedule appointments online and complete the required pre-vaccination screening questions. the system was also used on-site to register patients into the clinic and record vaccination details for reporting to the state immunization registry (pa-siis). this system sent automated e-mail reminders for patients to schedule their second dose of the vaccine series when due. the school of nursing was also involved with testing and vaccination efforts as soon as both became available. nursing students and faculty worked at vaccine clinics run by achd, including established clinics, as well as operations that went to temporary clinic sites to reach a specific population. several faculty members were also involved with vaccination efforts with local hospital systems. a faculty member who helped organize mass clinics with these partners would later lead a ducih team tasked with designing clinic workflow and logistics. another of the school’s clinical faculty members who took students in the early stages of vaccine distribution would be recruited as a site lead. early participation in community efforts provided valuable insight into design and implementation for ducih’s clinic. point of dispensing (pod) in the hill district neighborhood of pittsburgh achd’s initial approach to vaccinating the larger community focused on using large, regionallysituated covid-19 vaccine points of dispensing (pods), allowing efficient vaccination of large numbers of patients to meet the initially-high demand for vaccines. in march 2021, achd sought to open a pod “to target specific communities and populations who have not yet been reached through traditional means” (allegheny county health department, 2021). the location original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25692 | june 11, 2022 117 selected for this pod was central baptist church (cbc), a longstanding community institution in the hill district, one of pittsburgh’s historic predominantly black neighborhoods. recognizing duquesne university’s history of community-engaged work in the hill district and ducih’s success with working with community partners to implement health equity initiatives, achd approached ducih on march 2, 2021, with an ask to coordinate operations at this pod. in this descriptive case study, the authors undertake to share strategies utilized and lessons learned in rapidly deploying this public health response through university-wide collaboration with community partners. descriptive statistics of vaccine recipient demographics are presented, based on aggregate reports generated from the pod’s clinical documentation systems, to assess the pod’s impact on reaching underrepresented groups, including people of color. the community and partner: hill district and central baptist church the health resources and services administration (hrsa) has designated the hill district as a low income medically underserved population health professional shortage area (“mua find,” n.d.). census data for the church's tract indicate that 35.3% of people live below the poverty line; 84% of the population identify as black, 13% white, 2% two or more races, and 1% asian (u.s. census bureau, 2019). cbc is a centrally-located, well-known institution within this neighborhood and is also along two bus routes, facilitating access by those from other neighborhoods who rely on public transportation. inasmuch as the african american community has been facing serious health disparities, cbc felt it was the church’s mission to maintain levels of community engagement from an ethnographic framing that limited covid-19 disparities from widening. cbc’s public health initiatives have been a part of the church’s mission for more than twenty years. to this end, the dispensing of the covid-19 vaccine became a part of the public health, healthy living, and personal fitness mission. pod planning contributions of achd, cbc, and ducih to planning for the pod are summarized in table 2. in addition to conceptualizing the model and procuring the site, achd provided vaccine supply for the pod, information technology, and financial support for supplies, marketing, and a fulltime site lead. given the limited financial resources of achd, though, a model was created in which all other pod operations were supported by university faculty, staff and student volunteers, and cbc staff/volunteers. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25692 | june 11, 2022 118 in addition to providing the space for the pod, cbc provided staffing support, as indicated in table 2. volunteers were enlisted to assist in mobilizing those who came for vaccination, primarily by appeals to the church congregation. these volunteers were mostly retirees who had a strong interest in public health and public service. however, eighteen hires were given parttime positions at minimum wage compensation to maintain the day-to-day operations. a detailed schedule was created for each week, and hospitality and covid protocol training was implemented. training in administrative procedures for covid vaccination registration was also a part of the implementation process. the church’s leadership and congregation also assumed a lead role in promoting the importance of vaccination—and addressing hesitancy—among their community through pulpit announcements, word-of-mouth, personal calls, e-blasts, social media, and local television media interviews with the pastor and volunteers. cbc engaged in outreach to senior living facilities and churches and held a press conference collaborating with the black political empowerment project (b-pep), urban league, nfl hall-of-famers mel blount and franco harris, and the cbc pastor. the director of ducih worked with university administrators to obtain approval to support a campus-wide response quickly. the hill district pod opened at cbc in less than three weeks, on march 19, 2021. the ducih director identified individuals within select schools and offices to serve on the pod’s coordination team (as noted in table 2), provided leadership for this team, and worked closely with the achd, cbc, and university administrators to execute the necessary contracts and oversee all aspects of implementation. the overarching duquesne team met weekly beginning two weeks before the scheduled opening of the pod and provided planning and oversight of operations. the relatively large team was divided into four smaller teams, each with a designated lead and specific charges: site logistics, vaccinator training and coordination, coordination logistics, and promotion, as noted in table 2. these teams began meeting, planning, and procuring resources upon receiving their charge to ensure processes and resources were in place prior to the pod opening. importantly, representation from the office of civic engagement and external relations and the office of diversity and inclusion on the coordination team provided perspective regarding cultural responsiveness in the team’s planning. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25692 | june 11, 2022 119 table 2. pod contributions and coordination partner organization or ducih team representation charge achd achd staff and volunteers • conceptualization of model • selection/procurement of cbc site • input on workflow • vaccine supply (and ancillary immunization supply kits) from state allocation • provision of vaccine scheduling and documentation platforms (prepmod, clinic portal) and information technology • staff member and intern on-site • volunteer vaccinators to fill in gaps (e.g., during finals week) • financial support for ducih to purchase additional supplies, design/distribute marketing material, and hire one full-time site lead • promotion of pod through county channels (e.g., allegheny alerts) cbc pastor, administrative team, volunteers, and paid staff • facilities (ada accessible): o 4,200 square foot fellowship hall o two meeting spaces adjacent to the fellowship hall o ada-accessible restrooms o two parking lots totaling approximately seventy spaces. • part-time positions: o two managers to oversee and implement the organizational and operational plans o two parking attendants for traffic control o two greeters to welcome and direct people to registration o site monitors that managed the intake and outtake flows, including ensuring patients waited for the appropriate observation time as indicated by the vaccinator o janitorial cleaning service for sanitizing and disinfecting church daily o one payroll attendant o custodial service for daily cleanup. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25692 | june 11, 2022 120 duquesne site logistics team school of nursing ducih • designing preliminary workflow of pod, including physical layout and patient movement from arrival in the parking lot to departure to promote: o social distancing of patients o efficiency and safety o compliance with regulatory requirements (e.g., 15–30-minute observation period, provision of required documents) • coordinating provision of i.t. needs with achd (e.g., computer and wireless network access) • establishing vaccine ancillary supply procurement process from achd or ducih • establishing process for volunteer access to achd’s documentation system (partnership with coordination logistics team) duquesne vaccinator training and coordination team school of nursing school of health sciences school of pharmacy ducih • establishing a process for recruiting volunteer nursing, physician assistant, and pharmacy student vaccinators and faculty preceptors to fill the pod schedule • establishing process for vaccinator and preceptor volunteer communication and training: o required advance training o on-site daily briefing by preceptor duquesne coordination logistics team office of civic engagement and external relations online learning and strategy office of diversity and inclusion (odi) ducih school of nursing • creating a “community site” in the university’s learning management system (blackboard) for volunteer information and communication o required trainings o job descriptions o transportation logistics • creating and managing a master schedule for all university pod roles/shifts • recruitment of non-vaccinator volunteers (e.g., registration, workflow management) duquesne promotion team marketing and communication odi ducih • creating clinic signage and branded clinic documents (e.g., cards for end of observation time, vaccine cardholders) • designing/procuring patient giveaways • designing/procuring volunteer shirts and nametags • procuring water for patients and volunteers original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25692 | june 11, 2022 121 the team conducted an initial visit to the church vaccination site on march 18, 2021, one day prior to the pod’s soft launch, to explore the space and meet with representatives of cbc and achd. ducih’s previous experience with the achd on-campus vaccine clinics provided an initial workflow, adapted by the site logistics team to fit the available space in the fellowship hall and achd’s goal volume of 150-200 vaccinations per five-hour day (figure 1). the same core areas were maintained: registration stations (two with a volunteer at each), patient waiting area, vaccination tables (three stations, each with one vaccinator and one scribe [asked screening questions and completed the required documentation]), post-vaccine monitoring area, patient checkout table, vaccine preparation area, and supply storage. during this visit, videos were taken of the clinic space and proposed layout to post for future volunteer review. figure 1. pod workflow note. adapted from volunteer orientation materials (not to scale). soft opening and initial learning the pod opened with a soft launch on friday, march 19, 2021, with a limited schedule of 20 patient appointments and shorter clinic hours of 2-4 pm to pilot workflow. appointments were scheduled in advance using achd’s existing process of announcing clinics through the county’s community notification system (allegheny alerts) and having patients schedule online or by calling the pa 211 community resource line. members of the coordinating team, ducih staff and rotation students, achd staff members and interns, and volunteers from the church covered original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25692 | june 11, 2022 122 the schedule for this launch while university volunteer recruitment procedures were still being developed. appointments were increased to 50 percent of goal (approximately 75 appointments) the following week, monday through friday, from 1-4 pm. this gradual opening allowed the team to evaluate workflows and volunteer needs before opening the full schedule the following week. based on the church supplying staffing support daily to assist patients in moving from the parking lot through the clinic, the anticipated need for non-vaccinator university volunteers was reduced to assisting with the registration process. simultaneously, the coordination team observed that the registration process was more time-intensive than anticipated and created a bottleneck in the workflow. consequently, a third registration volunteer was requested. having two staff members present from achd allowed flexibility to provide additional registration support, in addition to their primary roles concerning monitoring vaccine supply, the clinic’s virtual workflow, and providing technical/procedural guidance. additionally, the coordination team observed that the schedule was not always full but that patients were requesting vaccines on a walk-in basis. while walk-ins were not initially planned for, given the goal of the pod to promote accessibility and the need to avoid vaccine waste, the decision was made to accept walk-ins. however, all ten doses from each vaccine vial (moderna mrna) had to be administered or discarded within six hours of puncture. thus, in the final two hours of the clinic, walk-in appointments could only be accommodated when there were extra doses anticipated from the vials needed for remaining appointments unless a full ten walk-ins were received. some challenges were encountered in communicating this nuance of when walkins could be accommodated. to further reduce waste, a volunteer from the church started to maintain a “standby list” of interested individuals if vaccine doses were remaining at the end of the clinic and assisted in calling these people in the order that they had expressed interest. the church also had a volunteer who could work with the county to pre-register individuals who did not have access to the internet or were not able to register on their own for any reason. the desire to avoid wasting doses while vaccine supply was initially limited resulted in clinic staff staying longer than anticipated the first week. patients were called in for remaining doses (transportation was sometimes a challenge), received their vaccines, and then completed observation. for transparency of the volunteer time commitment, the end of the shift was communicated as an hour after the last appointment to account for this process. as vaccine supply increased and demand decreased, beginning in may with a decline in first-doses at the pod, guidance from public health authorities shifted from a “no dose wasted” to a “no original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25692 | june 11, 2022 123 opportunity missed” approach, resulting in greater flexibility to accept walk-ins, even if wasted doses would result. this shift allowed the pod to further promote accessibility, particularly to those with scheduling or transportation limitations. this shift also decreased the importance of having a “standby list.” pod site lead and student intern positions to provide continuity and on-site leadership for the pod, a nurse practitioner was hired by ducih, funded by achd, to serve as the site lead at the pod. the site lead supervised the overall day-to-day operations at the pod, including supervising immunizing faculty and student volunteers to ensure patient safety, compliance, and efficiency. sometimes reallocation and retraining of volunteers for alternate roles was necessary based on the clinic’s daily needs. the lead also fulfilled an administrative role in the pod documentation system to manage volunteer access and ensure the completion of documentation. the site lead was also tasked with monitoring the inventory of vaccine doses administered in this system, compared with remaining doses and appointments to prevent waste. additionally, the site lead assisted in other roles throughout the clinic. two student interns were eventually hired to provide administrative support to the site lead. one on-site intern was charged with monitoring clinic supply inventory and assisting where needed in workflow. the other intern worked primarily remotely and was responsible for communicating pod volunteer reminders and training information to faculty and students across campus. faculty and student volunteer recruitment, training and oversight based on the clinic’s staffing hours of weekdays 12 6:30 pm (vaccine appointments from 12:30 – 5:15 pm) and saturday 8 am – 2:30 pm (appointments 8:30 am – 1:15 pm), the volunteer coordinators split the clinic into two overlapping 3.5-hour shifts to allow a shorter time commitment. however, a single volunteer could fill the two overlapping shifts for a given role when their availability allowed. a master schedule of all university pod volunteer shifts (vaccinator and non-vaccinator) was created in a spreadsheet (microsoft excel) and uploaded to a secure university drive (microsoft onedrive). this helped identify any vacant slots to be filled by individuals from other disciplines. particularly, regular check-ins between the school of health sciences, nursing, and pharmacy coordinators allowed them to arrange vaccinator coverage as needed during original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25692 | june 11, 2022 124 challenging periods for a particular school (e.g., the first week of rotations for pharmacy students, exam-heavy weeks, etc.). the master schedule spreadsheet also served as the mechanism for providing volunteer names and contact information for the pod site lead and student interns to arrange documentation system access and send reminders in advance of each shift. volunteer roles and recruitment strategies are described in table 3. student vaccinators and faculty preceptors were recruited from the school of health sciences department of physician assistant (p.a.) studies, school of nursing, and school of pharmacy. non-vaccinator volunteers were recruited from a broader pool across the university. table 3. university volunteer roles and recruitment volunteer type (# per shift) role recruitment mechanism faculty preceptor (1) • provided support and oversight for student immunizers • conducted a start-of-shift huddle with vaccinator volunteers to review pertinent vaccine information (e.g., contraindications/ precautions to vaccination, intramuscular injection technique, etc.) and orient them to the clinic workflow and safety procedures. • monitored students’ interactions with patients throughout the clinic, provided feedback, answered questions • evaluated special patient circumstances identified during the screening that might affect eligibility for vaccination. • assisted in preparing vaccine doses and monitoring for, and assigned to one of the three health professions schools according to the day of the week, with all three schools rotating saturdays. each of the schools adopted a different approach to filling this role based on the availability of clinical faculty, whether assigning one person for a particular day of the week or coordinating a volunteer schedule for their school’s day(s). original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25692 | june 11, 2022 125 responding to, any adverse events. physician assistant student vaccinators (2) • administering vaccines • asking screening questions, documenting, providing counseling • set-up and tear-down of vaccine stations identified students in the final year of the program and assigned them to the pod. several of the students were suspended from originally-scheduled rotations due to the pandemic. other students were assigned to the pod to supplement their primary care or internal medicine rotations during low patient censuses. students in the didactic phase of their p.a. training were asked to volunteer for the saturday shifts. nursing student vaccinators (2) • administering vaccines • asking screening questions, documenting, providing counseling • set-up and tear-down of vaccine stations recruited students to participate as part of their required population health course. these were 8hour shifts, as expected with other clinical placement sites. students had already been working at various other hospitaland community-based vaccine clinics within the county. the son simulation lab faculty developed an online education module (via nearpod) and provided open lab hours for students to practice their vaccination skills. nursing student volunteers were primarily third-year undergraduates and second-degree students who had already completed coursework and clinical experiences that included intramuscular injection training. the response from nursing students was strong, and as such, students were initially limited to one shift in the clinic to ensure all those interested would have the opportunity. pharmacy student vaccinators (2) • administering vaccines • asking screening questions, documenting, providing counseling • set-up and tear-down of vaccine stations pharmacy practice faculty members were asked by the coordinator, with the support of the division head and dean, to occasionally release their finalyear clinical rotation students to volunteer at the pod. because these students were routinely expected to be at their site for an eight-hour day, they were generally asked to fill the entire 12 – 6:30 pm shift at the pod to minimize volunteer shift changes and the number of shifts to cover. initially, the school’s coordinator attempted to compile a list of student availability, by day of the week, from each faculty member via a survey (googleforms) and then assemble a school-wide original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25692 | june 11, 2022 126 schedule. based on feedback that the survey was unclear and that students’ availability might vary week-to-week based on rotation activities, the coordinator began using signupgenius to post the individual volunteer shifts and distributed this to the faculty. the majority of weekday shifts were filled through this method; any remaining shifts, including saturdays, were distributed via the “school of pharmacy pandemic immunization response” blackboard community. the coordinator also used this site to verify that student pharmacist volunteers had completed all training and board-notification requirements before placing them on the schedule as vaccinators. non-vaccinator volunteers (2-3) • patient registration recruited from the university faculty, staff, and students through purposeful recruitment tactics. the initial ask for volunteers was centered around vaccinated individuals who had experience in allied health settings. this was the initial strategy to ensure that the non-vaccinator volunteers could assist in various roles at the site, despite not being able to vaccinate patients themselves. it became apparent that volunteers versed in healthcare terminology were of greater assistance in the registration role as they could assist individuals in completing the screening questions and answering questions about the vaccine and vaccination process itself. however, as the academic calendar came to a close, recruiting in this manner became more challenging due to student and employee availability during finals week. therefore, larger open calls for volunteers were made via email through messaging on the institution’s event management system (campuslink). by opening the call to attract a broader audience, faculty, staff, and students from all nine schools of study were able to volunteer to support the pod. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25692 | june 11, 2022 127 the vaccinator training and coordination team prepared training for students. this training included completing the cdc covid-19 vaccine training modules for the specific vaccine products used at the pod (initially moderna, and later pfizer, mrna vaccines) and reviewing a description of the vaccinator role, clinic workflow, and safety procedures. these training requirements were included in the reminder e-mail by the pod student intern prior to scheduled shifts, along with the shift date, time, address, parking information and map, dress expectations, and the pod site lead’s contact information in the event of questions or inability to fulfill a shift. volunteers were also advised that they would receive an e-mail to create an account in the documentation system before their shift. faculty preceptors were sent the same information directly (and carbon-copied on the student emails for their shifts) along with information about their role as preceptors in partnership with the site lead. this included a list of topics to review with students during the start-of-clinic huddle, including highlights from the cdc training modules. preceptors were also asked to observe and coach students’ injection technique at the start of the shift due to the students' varied experience and comfort levels. non-vaccinator volunteers received a reminder e-mail the day of their shift, a map to the site, and training was provided on-site. educational considerations: interprofessional, culturally-competent care in addition to addressing a critical public health and health equity need in the community, the pod provided a unique interprofessional education opportunity for participating students. health professions students worked alongside non-vaccinator volunteers from schools and departments across the university, as well as vaccinator volunteers from each of the three schools. while student vaccinators tended to gravitate toward working at a vaccine table with a student from the same discipline, sometimes uneven volunteer numbers from the schools resulted in organic interprofessional pairings. even when this did not occur, the various health professions students had the opportunity to participate in the daily huddle, collaboratively problem solve throughout the day, and participate in informal conversations with students from the other professions. additionally, due to the rotating preceptor schedule, students worked under the supervision of preceptors from other professions. this arrangement provided exposure to the different professions’ clinical decision-making processes and expertise. while students engage in interprofessional experiences routinely during their didactic and experiential training, the aspect of being permitted to vaccinate under the supervision of a health professional from a different discipline was novel since this was permitted by state-specific pandemic emergency waivers (p.a. department of state, 2020b, 2021). original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25692 | june 11, 2022 128 providing care at the pod also required student vaccinators to demonstrate culturally competent care, including mindfulness of the church site as a house of worship, respectfully listening and honestly responding to patients’ questions and concerns about the vaccine, considering transportation availability for the timing of second doses, and working effectively with interpreters for patients who spoke languages other than english. interpreter services were available telephonically at the pod, but patients were sometimes accompanied by a family member or friend who translated. students were coached through these considerations by the preceptors. adaptations to pod workflow while the pod planned to open the full 200 appointments per day beginning march 29, 2021, achd transitioned to a new clinic documentation software (clinic portal) that week. to allow pod staff and volunteers time to learn the new software, 50 percent capacity was maintained for that week. this software allowed patients to schedule their second-dose appointment before leaving the clinic, reducing the possibility of scheduling barriers interrupting the two-dose vaccine series. two checkout stations were routinely needed instead of one to integrate this feature. these were generally staffed utilizing a pod intern and staff member from achd. early in the pod operation, it was identified that, while the open room layout was convenient for efficiency, it offered little privacy for patients requiring removal of clothing or who were anxious about the vaccination and benefited from additional privacy. a mobile, three-paneled privacy screen was delivered to the clinic to provide a suitable level of privacy for people who required it. the screen could also be positioned around church pews along the sides of the room to allow patients with a history of post-injection dizziness or syncopal episodes to lie down while receiving the vaccine. aware that the spring semester ended in may but that vaccination needs would extend into the summer, ducih received additional funding from achd to hire ten student vaccinator summer interns to ensure the pod would be appropriately staffed as the majority of the student body returned home or resumed summer jobs. the volunteer coordinator from each health profession school promoted these opportunities to their students and collected interest using a simple online questionnaire (qualtrics) asking about their availability, relevant experience, and the reason for their interest in the role. the coordinators reviewed the interested candidates in collaboration with the ducih director and selected interns with the goals of maximizing availability and including students from multiple health professions when their program structure permitted. the employment of interns began in may 2021, with each working an estimated 30 hours per week. as they were oriented to their position, the student volunteer positions were phased out. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25692 | june 11, 2022 129 two additional second-degree nursing students also completed a public health-directed study during the summer months, focused on vaccine education and marketing the clinic to the neighborhood. these students worked with the site administrators, community agency, and community volunteers to create and test messaging and distribution strategies. two part-time assistant coordinators were also hired to cover the clinic coordinator role on days the site lead was scheduled off. these assistant coordinator positions also allowed the pod to phase out the need for faculty preceptor volunteers over the summer. achd and cbc continued to supply previous staff and volunteer support levels through the summer. in late may 2021, following the emergency use authorization of the pfizer mrna covid-19 vaccine for adolescents aged 12-15 years old, achd asked the pod to offer this vaccine in addition to the moderna vaccine previously offered. while this expansion was a positive development in reaching an expanded population, it required a careful re-evaluation of the clinic workflow to prevent product-related confusion or medication errors. the moderna vaccines were reserved for those who had received the first dose of that product and needed to complete the two-dose series. any new patients presenting to the pod were administered the pfizer vaccine, barring contraindications, to eventually phase out the moderna product. beginning may 24, 2021, the clinic layout was revised to create two separate workflows for each vaccine product on opposite sides of the room, converging in a shared post-vaccine observation area in the middle. the church volunteer greeting patients as they entered the clinic asked which dose patients were arriving for and directed them to the registration station corresponding to that number. station 1 (first doses) was set up to register patients to receive the pfizer vaccine on that side of the room. station 2 (second dose of moderna series) was set up to register for the moderna vaccine on the other side. while still social distancing, patients waited in separate areas according to vaccine product, and two vaccine administration tables, along with one vaccine preparation station, were set up on each side of the room for the respective products. keeping administration and preparation separate for the vaccine products was implemented to prevent errors due to the different preparation instructions (e.g., pfizer required dilution, whereas moderna did not) and dosing (0.3 ml for pfizer vs. 0.5 ml for moderna) for each vaccine. it was also necessary to prevent anyone under the age of 18 from inadvertently receiving the moderna vaccine, which was not authorized for this population. color-coded bins and syringe labels were used to distinguish the products and provide an additional layer of patient safety and quality assurance. expanding to the adolescent population resulted in necessary changes around emergency preparedness, including extra vigilance for syncopal reactions and ensuring the availability of pediatric dose epinephrine injectors. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25692 | june 11, 2022 130 remarkably, the demand for vaccines decreased at the end of may, as vaccine coverage increased. seeing a decline in doses administered, achd adjusted the pod operation to two days only during the following week and then phased out with friday clinics only for the next three weeks, concluding operations entirely on june 25, 2021. a timeline of operations milestones is presented in table 4. table 4. timeline of pod operations date (2021) event march 2 achd asks ducih to operate hill district pod march 18 initial team visit to cbc site march 19 soft launch (20 appointments; 2-4 pm) march 22-26 ramp up to 50% of goal volume (75 appointments/day; 1-4 pm) march 29 transition from prepmod to clinic portal documentation systems; hours increased to 12:30 – 5:15 pm monday – friday and 8:30 am – 1:15 pm saturday) april 5 increased to full goal volume (150-200 appointments/day) early may transition from student volunteers to paid summer interns may 24 addition of pfizer mrna vaccine june 1 beginning of pod phase-out (operated only two days this week, then next three fridays) june 25 conclusion of pod operations outcomes at the height of operations, the pod was staffed 6.5 hours per day, six days per week. each shift, ducih pod staff, university volunteers, and achd staff/volunteers partnered to fill a goal of at least two registration positions, six vaccinator/scribe positions, a vaccinator oversight/precepting position, two checkout staffers, and a clinic coordinator (generally the site lead). the church provided staff daily to assist with patient movement into and through the pod workflow. the ducih pod planning and oversight team included 19 individuals, including the site lead. ducih also employed three summer assistant coordinators, two student coordinator interns, and ten summer vaccine clinic interns through funding from achd. the university volunteers included 160 student vaccinators, 25 faculty preceptors or vaccinators, two pharmacy residents, and 76 non-vaccinator volunteers. coordinators attempted to fill vaccinator shifts evenly from the three health professions but collaborated to cover gaps. in addition to sending a staff member to the pod daily, achd provided an intern when available, original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25692 | june 11, 2022 131 and five health professional volunteers helped cover the schedule during finals week. cbc employed 18 individuals in part-time roles to assist with pod operations. from march 19 to june 25, 2021, 5,652 vaccine doses were administered at the pod. patient demographics recorded for these vaccine doses are presented in table 5. this data support that the pod achieved its aim to reach underrepresented groups, given that most doses were administered to people of color. table 5. vaccine doses administered by recipient demographics age group count percent 10-14 6 0.1% 15-19 177 3.1% 20-24 928 16.4% 25-29 716 12.7% 30-34 498 8.8% 35-39 355 6.3% 40-44 283 5.0% 45-49 301 5.3% 50-54 386 6.8% 55-59 540 9.6% 60-64 574 10.2% 65-69 317 5.6% 70-74 237 4.2% 75-79 89 1.6% 80-84 87 1.5% 85-89 38 0.7% 90-94 21 0.4% 95-99 6 0.1% 100-104 1 0.0% unavailable 92 1.6% total 5652 100% ethnicity count percent hispanic or latinx 298 5.3% not hispanic or latinx 4970 87.9% unknown 384 6.8% total 5652 100% race count percent asian 555 9.8% original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25692 | june 11, 2022 132 black 2576 45.6% native hawaiian or other pacific islander 6 0.1% white 2087 36.9% other race 330 5.8% unknown 69 1.2% american indian 29 0.5% total 5652 100% in addition to the direct public health and educational impact of the pod, ducih’s partnership with central baptist church has continued after the pod phase-out, with ducih continuing to hold weekly vaccine clinics utilizing their vaccine supply and free health screenings coinciding with the church’s soup kitchen hours. reflection and replication the experience of ducih during the pandemic illustrates the importance of established relationships with community partners and infrastructure to support university-wide initiatives of this nature. while some of the center’s established community health programs had to shift to a virtual platform during the pandemic, trusted and existing relationships with community partners allowed the center to identify opportunities to assist in the community’s pandemic response on the ground, whether through testing, flu vaccines, or partners’ covid-19 vaccination efforts. in each of these partnered responses, communication was essential—both with the partner to understand the specific need for support, as well as with ducih staff and volunteers to ensure their preparation to meet the need. ducih’s previous experience working with the county health department on community health programs to address health disparities, and the university’s history of community-engaged work in the hill district, also resulted in achd identifying ducih as an academic partner to coordinate the neighborhood’s pod focused on reaching underserved populations. ducih’s position as a university-wide, interdisciplinary center and existing collaborative relationships within the university facilitated the rapid team response to this request, bringing together the expertise, perspectives, and resources of multiple university offices and schools. organizing these representatives into a central planning and oversight team, with four sub-teams focused on specific areas of planning and execution, proved to be an effective approach for rapidly preparing to launch the pod. additionally, ducih’s previous experience working with achd at on-campus clinics provided a starting point for the pod workflow. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25692 | june 11, 2022 133 the hub-and-spoke model used for vaccinator recruitment promoted standardized training and helped to ensure the schedule was filled across schools while allowing a customized approach within each of the schools, as each school’s coordinator was aware of which subsets of students would be most available to assist based on the curriculum of each program. the school coordinators also relied on relationships with faculty colleagues to request flexibility for student volunteering and to recruit faculty preceptors. finally, coordinators were aware of and could verify any requirements for students within their profession to be authorized to vaccinate. the availability of non-vaccinator roles expanded the pool of potential volunteers to assist in this large effort. using technology in the volunteer recruitment process within individual volunteer pools, and then having a master schedule at the university level, helped to improve efficiency and streamline communication between volunteers, the coordinators, and the pod site lead. for health professions students impacted by limitations on clinical placements, patient care activities at the pod also filled a need. while limitations eased as vaccines became available, some remained when the pod was conducted. in these cases, shifts at the pod provided important clinical opportunities when students could not participate in their originally-scheduled placement. the unique nature of the learning experience was also important. typically, public health topics such as disease outbreaks and disaster management are covered in theory only, and students rely on simulations to get experience. the health professions schools were committed to ensuring that students had the opportunity to meaningfully engage in the massive public health response and serve the community. in launching the pod and throughout its operation, adaptability to changing needs and open lines of communication within the university team and with partners at cbc and achd was essential. the site lead sent frequent e-mails (daily initially and during periods of change) to volunteer coordinators and ducih and achd leadership. meetings were conducted weekly to keep all team members informed, maintain accountability for individuals’ roles, and brainstorm solutions to implementation challenges. the site lead interacted with representatives of cbc on-site daily, providing updates and serving as a consistent, familiar point of contact for any questions or concerns. this relationship was particularly important given the staffing model of rotating preceptors and volunteers. providing updates and gathering feedback were crucial around planned changes in the workflow to share the rationale, obtain input, and ensure that church staff could effectively assist patients with navigating changes. this communication and collaborative work toward a shared goal laid the additional groundwork for future collaboration. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25692 | june 11, 2022 134 limitations this pod was conducted in a single location. due to the unique relationships between—and resources of—the partners, other organizations seeking to implement a similar public health partnership may need to adapt the general approach to their circumstances. the volunteer coordinators initially intended to deploy a customized training program for the pod—including cultural competency training with readings, activities, and reflections—via a community page in the university learning management system. however, the urgent need for vaccine accessibility prompted a shift to on-site training—other than the site lead confirming vaccinators’ completion of the existing cdc modules—to reduce barriers to participation and support the rapid launch. this adaptation may have been mitigated by incorporating cultural competency within program curricula and cultural diversity training programs accessible to the whole campus community. nursing students participate in a series of diversity, equity, and inclusion workshops facilitated by the leadership of odi and the center for communityengaged teaching and research (cetr). physician assistant students take a course focusing on health disparities. third-professional-year pharmacy students participate in a communityengaged learning course involving skill development, assessment, and reflection in cultural competency, building on foundations of cross-cultural communication earlier in the curriculum. cultural competency modules are incorporated in courses within the liberal arts, and programs on diversity and cultural competency are offered during student orientation and throughout the academic year by odi, the cetr, and the division of mission and identity. thus, students who volunteered to participate in the pod would likely have previously engaged with curricula focused on cross-cultural competency. this reflection highlights that having a university-wide cultural competency curriculum would ensure that any volunteers who could potentially engage with members of marginalized communities, such as during rapid responses to emergencies, are prepared to do so. finally, while systematically evaluating stakeholder perspectives would have provided valuable insight on the pod’s impact, the rapid launch required focusing resources on operations. conclusions and lessons learned effective teamwork and communication within the university and community partners were critical in rapidly deploying this public health response. frequent, open communication regarding needs and progress allowed the partners to adapt to new developments and address challenges nimbly. within the university team, central leadership with an accountable delegation original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25692 | june 11, 2022 135 of specific tasks within individuals’ areas of expertise helped to marshal resources and develop plans quickly. using technology to efficiently organize volunteers (e.g., scheduling platforms) and share information (e.g., learning management systems, master schedule on university drive, templated e-mails, etc.) simplified coordinators’ administrative workload. based on this experience, academic institutions with health science programs should consider the implications of their community health partnerships, not just for current programming, but to address future, possibly emergent, needs. further, promoting awareness of community health programs, partnerships, and the populations served with local health departments may assist with the growth of those programs and result in greater recognition of the academic institution as a resource for responding to public health emergencies or other needs. development and evaluation of these relationships can be informed by erwin and keck’s (2014) academic health department concept. the existence of a university-wide, interdisciplinary health-oriented center or institute, like ducih, to develop and maintain relationships with community partners and facilitate collaboration across the health professions is critical for academic institutions to respond to public health needs. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25692 | june 11, 2022 136 references allegheny county health department. 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(2020a). pennsylvania expands authority of supervised pharmacy interns to administer vaccines. p.a. department of state website. retrieved from https://www.dos.pa.gov/pages/2020-12-08-waiver-pharmacy-interns-administervaccines.aspx p.a. department of state. (2020b). supervised nursing students to administer vaccines outside their clinical placements. p.a. department of state website. retrieved from https://www.dos.pa.gov/pages/2020-12-24-supervised-nursing-students-administervaccines.aspx p.a. department of state. (2021). pharmacy interns’ immunization skills to be more fully utilized by expanding supervision options. p.a. department of state website. retrieved from https://www.dos.pa.gov/pages/2021-01-27-pharmacy-interns-immunization-skills-morefully-utilized-expanding-supervision-options.aspx rose, s. (2020). medical student education in the time of covid-19. jama, 323(21), 21312132. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2020.5227 u.s. census bureau. (2019). american community survey 5-year estimates. retrieved from census reporter profile page for census tract 501, allegheny, pa. http://censusreporter.org/profiles/14000us42003050100-census-tract-501-allegheny-pa/ original research © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25527 | october 20, 2021 129 an engagement of hope: a framework and equitycentered theory of action for community engagement patrick m. green1, daniel j. bergen2, cynthia p. stewart3, and christopher nayve4 1center for engaged learning, teaching and scholarship (celts), and school of education, loyola university chicago, 2office of economic engagement, marquette university, 3parkinson school of health science and public health, loyola university chicago, and 4mulvaney center for community, awareness, and social action, university of san diego. cite as: green, p.m., bergen, d.j., stewart, c.p., & nayve, c. (2021). an engagement of hope: a framework and equity-centered theory of action for community engagement. metropolitan universities, 32(2), 129-157. doi: 10.18060/25527. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract building upon the proposed concept of an engagement of hope (green, stewart, bergen, & nayve, 2020) emerging from the exploration of faith-based approaches to community engagement, the authors delve into collaborative inquiry and critical reflection to construct a framework and equity-centered theory of action for community engagement. drawing from the work of faith-based community organizations and institutions of higher education, and through the lens of a practitioner-scholar framework, the authors present a scholarly approach to collaborative inquiry and exploration into an engagement of hope, responding to the current context of higher education. the development of the engagement of hope conceptual framework emerged with core approaches to community engagement, responding to the current context and seeking to move the field of community engagement to address this context. the five themes that scaffold the conceptual framework are explicated, including challenging unjust structures, the common good, collaborative courage, community-centered, and individual goodness. the implications of this framework and theory of change are discussed as well as a call to re-center relationships in the community engagement field. keywords: community engagement, hope, faith-based, practitioner-scholar, critical inquiry https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25527 | october 20, 2021 130 introduction as community engagement scholar-practitioners, who sought to interrogate the intersection of community engagement and faith at urban institutions, we delved into editing a special issue of metropolitan universities journal (volume 31, issue 3) published in december 2020. our inquiry into this topic led us to develop an exploratory study based on our work with faith-based organizations and communities, considering our own experiences as community engagement professionals (dostilio, 2017), and critically reflecting upon how such work is rife with tension, inequities, and systemic injustice. the context of a global pandemic, racial justice movement, and politically divisive environment was certainly addressed during the planning and delivery of that publication, but the deliberation among our co-editing team was more broadly focused on how we, as community engagement professionals, continue to engage in the center of this tension-filled context, as well as beyond it. we were encouraged by the work of faith-based community organizations, non-profits, and higher education institutions, and were especially inspired by faith-based work led by black churches and latinx communities. we were also informed by the work of these faith-based organizations in spite of the challenging context in which we were all living and working. our reflections returned to core questions: how do we continue to do the work of community engagement as we unravel the racial injustice and systemic inequity pervasive in our communities and social structures? how do we keep our focus, returning to engagement work with community partners at the center, in the face of such challenges? and how do we expand from a judeo-christian framework of understanding? taking cues from faith-based community organizations who have worked extensively through this lens of experience, we called for an engagement of hope (green, stewart, bergen, & nayve, 2020). it is through this recent exploratory study on the intersection of faith and community engagement that we return to our practice and further explore the concept of an engagement of hope. as practitioner-scholars, this exploration serves as a journey of discovery into our practice and leads us to our current line of inquiry. our inquiry emerges from the intersectional context of faith and community engagement, as scholar-practitioners and community engagement professionals who all work at faith-based institutions, as well as working extensively with faith-based communities and organizations (e.g. churches, non-profit organizations, community centers, interfaith groups, etc.). as community engagement professionals, we contextualize our roles and practice, extending critical inquiry into community engagement work, given the need for more research since “what needs to be further clarified and promoted is the nature, role, and perspective of the individuals who staff, lead, direct, and advance these [community engagement] spaces” (dostilio and perry, 2017, p. 12). from this demand for perspectives from community engagement professionals, we situated our inquiry into our practice, and we explored our context of community engagement. inspired and informed by faith-based community engagement, our inquiry continued after the publication was released through deliberations and critical reflections, as we continued to interrogate the concept of an engagement of hope. the purpose of our ongoing dialogue and critical reflections were to © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25527 | october 20, 2021 131 clarify this concept, providing both definition and explanation of an engagement of hope. in addition, we sought to honor its emergence from faith-based community engagement work, while also exploring its generalizability to community engagement broadly, building upon and differentiating it from other frameworks. for example, the concept of hope is complex, and when connected to engagement, it potentially alters the paradigm. hope is not superfluous, nor a dismissively fleeting aspiration, and as the slovene poet, boris novak, states in his poem, “decisions:” “between hope and despair / choose hope / it will be harder to bear” (novak, 2006). the final line of novak’s poem demonstrates the gravitas and weight of hope. to hope is to challenge oneself to believe in what one does not know or see. desmond tutu has been famously quoted that “hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness” (tutu, 2016) and cornel west stated that while he does often feel despair, as a “prisoner of hope,” he suggests, “never allow despair to have the last word” (west, 2021). in essence, the concept of hope is not a superficial construct, but rather a complex response difficult to carry, such as virtuous hope emphasizing the goodness of individuals (pieper, 1997). freire states, without a minimum of hope, we cannot so much as start the struggle. but without the struggle, hope, as an ontological need, dissipates, loses its bearings, and turns into hopelessness. and hopelessness can become tragic despair. hence the need for a kind of education in hope (2007, p. 3). we wanted to unpack this tension within the construct of an engagement of hope. through the lens of collaborative inquiry, rooted in critical reflection as scholar-practitioners, we explore this concept of an engagement of hope, more fully developing a conceptual framework emerging into an actionable theory of change. methodology our methodological approach to this study involved collaborative inquiry upon the emerging concept of an engagement of hope in the context of our practitioner-scholar research. mcreynolds (2015) writes, “practitioner-scholars have the unique ability to perceive deficiencies in current theories and practices. their research and best pedagogical knowledge are needed to challenge and drive the development of a stronger academy” (p.4). drawing from our framing article in which our call to action included turning toward an engagement of hope (green, et al., 2020), we sought to critically reflect on this concept in order to describe its meaning in action and explain it in more detail. our guiding questions included: 1) what do we mean by an engagement of hope collectively? 2) what are 3 5 characteristics or criteria that help us define this idea? 3) how do we enact this concept of an engagement of hope in our community engagement work? © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25527 | october 20, 2021 132 4) in the midst of tension-filled, challenging work of facing inequalities and injustice, how do we continue to immerse ourselves in community engagement? these questions emerged through our discussions and deliberations as we continued to pursue our exploration of this concept. we turned to qualitative inquiry, which focuses on meaning making and understanding through methodological and systematic approaches. to further explore this concept of an engagement of hope, especially to describe and explain its meaning, we relied on the qualitative approach of collaborative inquiry (donohoo, 2013). as an inclusive research methodology, collaborative inquiry involves participants as co-inquirers who are experts of their own lives and co-construct the research through active engagement in cycles of reflection (bridges and mcgee, 2011). this approach centers our questions about our own learning experiences in the context of community engagement (bray, lee, smith, & yorks, 2000). such a qualitative approach is essential for our exploration because collaborative inquiry: ...assumes that understanding and improving the human condition requires an approach that honors a holistic perspective on what constitutes valid knowledge. effective collaborative inquiry demystifies research and treats it as a form of learning that should be accessible by everyone interested in gaining a better understanding of his or her world. (bray, lee, smith, & yorks, 2000, p. 3). this approach to human inquiry is foundational to our study as we sought to interrogate the concept of an engagement of hope in order to gain a better understanding through ongoing reflection. as we each individually and collectively reflected on the engagement of hope within our own universities, communities of engagement, and personal lives, it brought to mind how human inquiry is participative, experiential, political, and action oriented (reason, 1996, p.15). this concept expands through reason’s work, reflections on the purposes of human inquiry where he states: quality human inquiry starts not with a concern for theory or knowledge but from engagement with the reality of people’s lives and how they live and experience them . . . concern for knowledge arises from this practical concern to help people make better sense of their lives and create more and better possibilities in their lives. although it may be influenced by our own life quest, we must start from questions of experience, need, and practice as defined by the people with and for whom we are working. human inquiry is thus essentially in-service. (reason, 1996, p. 20) this inquiry approach also relied heavily on rendon’s (2014) framework within sentipensante (thinking/feeling) pedagogy, in which transpersonal research deepens the narrative process and positions each author as co-researcher and partner “who turned to each other in truth while we © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25527 | october 20, 2021 133 attempt to open the interhuman nature of the experience” (pp. 52-53). within a faith-based context, this approach aligns with ignatian contemplation, as considered by george bernanos in the diary of a country priest, and further emphasized by modras in ignatian humanism. ignatian contemplation: …brings all the instruments into a final three-note crescendo [235-7]. first realize that all creation--everything we are and have and see--is given as a token of god's self-gift. second, realize that god is present in all creation--dwelling in the elements, plants, animals and us. finally, realize that god is not only present but "laboring" in all that exists--creating, conserving, concurring. in each of the concluding three points of the contemplation, ignatius writes, "i will reflect on myself." (modras, 2004, p. 32) collaborative inquiry allows the space and necessary reflection to enable deeper considerations of our own relationships with our work; and, ignatian contemplation invites the consideration of god’s presence in our efforts, before it posits the need to reflect on oneself. further, this reflective practitioner approach emerges from several faith-based perspectives and affirms the need for continued self-reflection and discernment as we engage our communities. our reflection questions emerged from our roles as practitioner-scholars of community engagement. dostilio and perry (2017) frame the role of community engagement professionals as multidimensional given the complexity of the work, sometimes serving as tempered radicals, transformational leaders, and social entrepreneurs, as we work within our institutions and our local communities. we identify as third-space professionals who often work in the blurred spaces with one foot in the community and one foot in the academy (whitchurch, 2013). such roles allow us to cross boundaries between classroom and community, between research and pedagogy, between student learning and community impact, leading to our hybrid roles as scholars and practitioners (green, eddins, berkey, & meixner, 2018). thus, our reflection questions emerged from our practice, our professional experiences, and our perspectives on working in and with community organizations. while there is a considerable amount of excitement and joy in the work of engagement, our experiences connecting and engaging with our communities can be filled with challenges, and we explore how we approach the barriers, challenges, and realities in which we work and live. the source of our inquiry is our practice, and a key function of the practitioner-scholar is to adopt an inquiry stance related to practice (lytle, 2008). practitioner-scholar research also connects issues within the practice to the context of the practice and established research methods of inquiry (salipante and aram, 2003). practitioner research is often described as a methodological approach that integrates theory, practice, and research, while also fostering critical reflection on practice through systematic inquiry (ravitch, 2014). the reflection © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25527 | october 20, 2021 134 questions guided our collaborative inquiry as we interrogated our practice and facilitated a methodological investigation into the concept of an engagement of hope. we each shared our own stories of engagement within our respective communities which mezirow (1990) refers to as a process of learning as a way to engage in critical self-reflection, which can lead to personal and societal transformation: this process of critical reflection has the potential for profoundly changing the way we make sense of our experience in the world, other people, and ourselves. such transformative learning, in turn, leads to action that can significantly affect the character of our interpersonal relationships, the organization in which we work and socialize, and the socioeconomic system itself (mezirow, 1990, p.xiii). because we each worked and lived in different cities and states, including illinois, wisconsin, and california, we conducted multiple virtual meetings to deliberate and dialogue about this concept. during our meetings, we conducted a thematic analysis of our critical reflections through categorizing and coding our reflections (clandenin & connelly, 2000; creswell, 2012; rendon, 2014; green, et al., 2018). we established key themes and identified essential principles that anchor the ideas that emerged. we triangulated the themes, established definitions, and generated a heuristic that represented our findings. we continued to reflect in an emergent, iterative process on this concept. we conducted two virtual feedback sessions for one hour each, both of which were interactive workshops sponsored by professional organizations, the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities and the association of jesuit colleges and universities which included professionals in the community engagement field, to identify if the emerging themes connected with their experiences and animated their engagement work. these feedback sessions allowed us to validate the themes with professionals in the field. our collaborative inquiry process concluded with several professionals requesting information on the concept to foster dialogue, and the affirmative responses confirmed that this concept resonated with other community engagement professionals. presentation of a conceptual framework and emerging equity-focused theory of change our thematic analysis suggested core approaches to community engagement and five key themes that emerged from our critical reflections, deliberation and dialogue, observations working with faith-based community partners, as well as feedback sessions. what emerged was a conceptual framework that elucidated a community engagement strategy for action and emerged into an actionable and equity focused theory of change. blaxter et al. (1996) explained that the components of a conceptual framework include concepts and contexts that define the scope of the inquiry, while also suggesting methods and theories to apply in the framework. a conceptual framework is historically defined as an iteration of a researcher’s inquiry that may evolve as the © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25527 | october 20, 2021 135 inquiry evolves, as well as a structure for organizing ideas (leshem & trafford, 2007). in addition, punch (2000) suggests that such frameworks represent the conceptual status of the topics at hand and their relationship to each other. connell and kubisch (1998) explained that a theory of change is outcomes-focused and evaluation-centered, linking activities, outcomes, and contexts to organizational leadership and strategy (connell and kubisch, 1998; dubow and litzler, 2018). in addition, a theory of change approach, in relation to community initiatives, focuses on planning and implementation, and a theory of change needs to be plausible, doable, and testable (connell and kubisch, 1998). reinholz and andrews (2020) define a theory of change, which was a phrase popularized by the aspen institute and often utilized in the context of complex community initiatives centered around social change, as “…a tool to help clearly articulate underlying assumptions from the offset. the process of creating the theory of change allows a team to reach consensus on its underlying assumptions, which are then codified in an explicit product (often displayed as a diagram)” (p. 1). the engagement of hope model centralizes equity within the theory of change in order to be held accountable to a broad range of stakeholders traditionally excluded in traditional theory of change models. animated by the impact of community engagement model, developed by nexus community partners, the engagement of hope change model bridges equity and community engagement by including the following values in their participatory change model: culture, spirituality, healing, history, identity, power, relationships, and trust. as scholar-practitioners conducting collaborative inquiry into the concept of an engagement of hope, we analyzed our data from our reflection and dialogue, developed a conceptual framework that defined key criteria, and created an equity-focused theory of change explicitly codified in figure 1. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25527 | october 20, 2021 136 figure 1. an engagement of hope conceptual framework and equity-focused theory of change © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25527 | october 20, 2021 137 to explicate the framework and theory of change, in the next section, we will explain the foundational approaches that serve as core pillars in approaching community engagement that undergird the framework. next, we explore the five themes and provide definitive characteristics of each theme that scaffolds the conceptual framework of an engagement of hope leading to a theory of change. lastly, we discuss implications for practice in the community engagement field. core pillars for approaching community engagement as we continued to deliberate and dialogue on this topic, we also continued to write, iterate, and reflect on the concept of an engagement of hope. our discussion centered around core assumptions, contexts, and pillars of thought to which we continually returned. we termed these core pillars for approaching community engagement because they were approaches of community engagement that emerged from the study of our practice. considering approaches of community engagement, an engagement of hope: addresses community engagement that balances the tension of institutional practices and recognizing inequity and injustice; centers multiple voices and lived experiences; prioritizes relationships over transactions; anchors in faith-based work in which god is at work in all things and that we live in a universe of grace; recognizes the difficult practice that requires sustenance (community of support); facing difficult issues, approaches community engagement with a passion for the possible. these approaches of community engagement are further explicated through our critical inquiry and critical reflections below. addresses community engagement sitting in the center of the tension from the beginning, our reflections identified an engagement of hope within the tension derived from community engagement that recognizes inequity and injustice. this was rooted in our prior study based on narrative inquiry: “this exploratory study led us to deeply and critically examine the concept of hope situated alongside community engagement in the context of the institutional tensions, historical legacies of inequity and racial injustice, and the communities’ multiple voices.” (green, stewart, bergen, & nayve, 2020). an engagement of hope understands and appreciates the need for tension, one of the most critical aspects of jesuit spirituality, as defined by barry, s.j. and doherty, s.j. in contemplatives in action: the jesuit way. while barry and doherty focus on very specific tensions within the jesuit way of life—trust in god and trust in one’s own talents, prayer and action, companionship and mission, obedience and learning from experience, the center and the periphery, poverty and use of the world’s goods, chastity and affective friendship—their overall message feels deeply applicable to an engagement of hope. specifically, “jesuit spirituality functions best when these tensions are alive, and clearly felt, that is when jesuits experience themselves in the pulls of both sides of each polarity” (7). © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25527 | october 20, 2021 138 centers multiple voices and lived experiences this engagement of hope engages multiple voices as well as a variety of lived experiences which lead to the next foundational approach principle. there are many examples, including other faith based communities, non-profit organizations, universities and community stakeholders/residents, providing an engagement of hope where everyone is invited to sit at the table and allow their voices to be heard. it is reminiscent of african american poet, langston hughes, and how he expresses this hope in his poem entitled, “i, too.” i, too, sing america i am the darker brother. they send me to eat in the kitchen when company comes but i laugh. and eat well. and grow strong. tomorrow, i’ll be at the table when company comes nobody ‘ll dare say to me “eat in the kitchn,” then besides they’ll see how beautiful i am and be ashamed i, too, am america (hughes, 1994) the poem reminds us of the stark reality in which many experiences have not been historically recognized, and an engagement of hope challenges us to recognize differences and dialogue across those recognized differences. as nancy cantor (2004) stated, “to lead the way toward fulfilling this hope, we in higher education must figure out how to sit together around our table and engage with difference.” as authors and community engagement practitioners, we wrestled with the tensions and questions inherent in earnestly attempting to integrate multiple voices and lived experiences in community-engaged work, and yet realized that we may never fully accomplish this task. in our original article we committed to “[elevating] the voices of our various community partners, as © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25527 | october 20, 2021 139 well as recognize our own privileged voices, we as an editorial team seek to frame this introductory thought piece from the perspective of (1) honoring the variety of faith traditions, (2) our scholar-practitioner approach to this exploratory study, (3) our own faith journey related to our professional role, and (4) our goal to be collaborative co-educators with community members. as co-authors we share a common faith tradition, and therefore, we do not want to speak on behalf of other faith traditions” (green, stewart, bergen, & nayve, 2020). the contemporary challenge of integrating multiple voices and experiences is not the recognition that doing so is critical to the practice of engagement, but rather the challenge lies in whose voices and experiences are elevated and prioritized over others. the engagement of hope model is an epistemology that is participatory and collective that intentionally integrates an equity-focused theory of change that serves to lift up and recognize multiple voices and lived experiences (nexus community partners). prioritizes relationships over transactions higher education institutions that foster community engagement within urban communities have to consider whether the partnerships are transformational versus transactional. enos and morton (2003) state that transactions are temporary and they originate from the understanding that each partner has something that the other needs, and, therefore, each party collaborates with the other to exchange these resources within existing structures, work, and personnel. although devoid of commitment, a successful transactional relationship will satisfy some of the needs of all parties. within a university-community partnership, this often means that each party simply uses the other to meet an immediate need, and then breaks off the relationship when their needs are exhausted. although short-term partnerships can address acute needs (bringle & hatcher 2002, p. 511), from the community’s perspective, their needs often remain. these acute community partner needs became painfully evident during the global pandemic. as academic institutions faced uncertain enrollment and declining endowments due to market forces, many universities furloughed staff and cut programs and services. there were numerous examples of academic institutions with transactional community partnerships with their communities providing cursory responses to urgent needs. however, there were fewer examples of transformational campus/community partnerships that truly responded to the societal impacts of the global pandemic and calls for dismantling systemic oppression and inequity. the most powerful stories centered on community-focused mutual aid networks, in which neighbors often checked in on each other and addressed issues of social isolation. this is what the engagement of hope looks like in action. for many universities who engage in relationships with community partners, community engagement is framed to include the concept of “working with” and not “working for” the community. this challenges the university entering communities with a savior mentality, and encourages an approach to seek the greater good within the community by first allowing the voice of the stakeholders within the community to share their wants and needs. this approach to © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25527 | october 20, 2021 140 community engagement seeks to understand the presence of god in every person, listening with humility, not to advance a particular objective or outcome, but rather to participate authentically in the shared laboring for the greater good. as emphasized in our previous article, salter-mcneil encourages faith communities to “… come out of their individualism and come together as a community to make and execute a plan based on a united vision for the future.” in the context of community, they should find the support, courage, and accountability to imagine and work toward a world different from the one we currently live in (salter-mcneil, p. 192-193). this defined a foundational principle within an engagement of hope, because it focuses on building relationships for support, courage, and accountability. in reflecting upon this notion of “working with,” or accompaniment with others, our critical reflections invited us into deeper dialogue around the role of our personal and professional motivations in the work of community engagement. one of our community partners reminds us of the need for persistent reflection and discernment as to why we are participating in this work: i sit across the table from one of the original naacp youth commandos who led the 1968 marches on milwaukee in a bank-building-turned-diner called coffee makes you black. 70 years of life has not dulled his activist tendencies, nor has it stilted his stature. he is a tall, african-american man, with a deep, graveled, voice. we are meeting to discuss his possible participation in an event we are hosting recognizing the 50th anniversary of the fair housing marches, a key moment in our city’s, and nation’s history. my intent is to partner with the local coordinating group, faculty members, and students to invite deeper campus discussions and explorations around the history of the movement, and the current moment in our city. the pause comes, and he leans forward. the questions are delivered in quick succession, with an intensity, and honesty that feels deeply personal. “what is your motivation? why are you doing this?” as a white male, born and raised in a suburb of milwaukee, the catholic tradition informed much of my upbringing. i attended k-8 and high school at catholic schools, and, while my undergraduate and master’s degree were completed at two public universities, i had always longed to return to an educational setting that invited the exploration of faith as a component of the whole person. as i completed my master’s in cultural studies, and was searching for my first position, i was excited when an opportunity opened up at marquette university, a catholic, jesuit institution located in the urban heart of milwaukee, wisconsin. my return to catholic education, and its strong mission-driven orientation, aligned with my values and religious upbringing, but i was unaware at the time how fully the expression of my faith would be ignited through the jesuit charism and community engagement. the questions posed above by my © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25527 | october 20, 2021 141 community partner resonate at a professional and personal level because they are precisely the place from which i think we should begin our approaches in community engagement, and personal prayer around decision-making. in the jesuit tradition, when a decision is being considered, the utilization of discernment allows us to more fully enter into and understand our motivations, paying attention to the gentle movements of the spirit within us. my race, gender, historical background, faith, and institutional affiliation form a context for my motivations in every moment of engagement with this partner. to approach community engagement authentically, i need to continually discern the motivations, and perhaps more importantly, my professional and personal interest in pursuing and forming engaged relationships. [db] (green, stewart, bergen, & nayve, 2020). to fully appreciate an engagement of hope, it is critical to be able to clearly and honestly articulate our motivations, not only for ourselves but for our partners as well. a failure to acknowledge and appreciate our motivations could lead to inauthenticity in our relationships and the subsequent potential for negative or even harmful outcomes. the question is how to intentionally frame these connections and relationships in a way that creates “coherent wholes” rather than atomized transactions (del rio, loggins 2019). in prioritizing relationships in community engagement, we do not seek to ignore transactions, nor demonize them, but rather we acknowledge transactions as necessary aspects of engagement when mutually agreed upon. the challenge is to clearly and consciously articulate our motivations to move toward coherent wholes and relationship-affirming outcomes, acknowledging and moving beyond transactions. anchored in faith-based work in which god is at work in all things and that we live in a universe of grace one of the key components of ignatian spirituality according to modras is engagement with culture: “a god at work in all things can be found on a stage as well as in a sanctuary. . . we live in a universe of grace” (modras, p. 83-84). if we believe that god is at work in all things and that we live in a universe of grace, then it follows that our engagement should be ignited by hope derived through that faith in god’s presence. our communities comprise broad and diverse perspectives, ideas, religious beliefs, political views, motivations, and interests. often it can be easier to identify and align with those organizations that most closely reflect our personal or institutional perspectives; however, community engagement often complicates the tidiness of such alignments. in these moments it is helpful to recall that, “for ignatian spirituality, nothing human is merely human. and no enterprise, no matter how secular, is merely secular” (modras, p. 84), god is at work in all things, and grace is ubiquitous. recognizes the difficult practice that requires sustenance (community of support) in considering efforts in community engagement, we must acknowledge that hope gives us sustenance in work that can be considerably difficult. nouwen states it clearly: “i cannot always © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25527 | october 20, 2021 142 find the light, or walk in the light of god. i need the love and support of my brothers and sisters in the community of faith” (nouwen, 28). our reflections and inquiry process included observations that community engagement work is persistent, resilient, and courageous because the focus is on the creation of good emerging from change. practitioner-scholars have ample opportunities to access communities of support, through programs or professional organizations committed to community engagement, such as the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities (cumu), campus compact, the international association for research on service-learning and community engagement (iarslce), the place based justice network, or the national society for experiential education (nsee). there are also organizations that create a community of mission-aligned institutions that may embrace faith and hope as central to practice, such as the association of jesuit colleges and universities (ajcu). there are other organizations and programs dedicated to creating a community of community engagement professionals, such as the practitioner-scholar community of iarslce or the engaged scholars consortium. lastly, communities of support may emerge from the community-based collaborators and non-profit community organization partners that share faith and hope as motivation. through these many opportunities, community engagement professionals may find a community of support to sustain us through this difficult work. facing difficult issues, we approach with “a passion for the possible” steindl-rast considers the concluding statement, “a passion for the possible,” of william sloane coffin’s autobiography, once to every man, as an invitation to consider how we must approach the crucial issues we face every day. steindl-rast states, as we go forward, the apparent limits of the possible will be pushed back further and further into the region of the seemingly impossible. sooner or later we realize that the possible has no fixed limits. [...] the exploration animated by a passion for the possible is, of course, our religious quest, spurred on by the restlessness of our human heart. hope makes our religious quest what it is. the very notion of quest implies hope. (steindl-rast, p. 125) five themes of an engagement of hope the following five themes emerged through our collaborative inquiry as we analyzed our reflections, deliberated, and interrogated this notion of an engagement of hope. rooted in our observations working with non-profit organizations (often faith-based), as well as our professional experiences in the community engagement field, these themes define and shape an engagement of hope. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25527 | october 20, 2021 143 challenging unjust structures as stated previously, a foundational principle of an engagement of hope is the tension derived from community engagement that recognizes inequity and injustice. this requires us to acknowledge institutional racism and inequity, to accept our role within the unjust systems in which we participate, and then to challenge them in practice, policy, and position. as anchor institutions we are called to provide educational practices within and outside the walls of our institutions through community partnerships which are mutually reciprocal relationships where faculty, community residents, and community organizations are co-educators to create a just society for everyone. rigorous academic experiences should not only enhance the development of all college students, they should also disrupt existing inequalities by bolstering students who have been historically marginalized or excluded from higher education (bowman and culver 2018). increasing social and economic equity is just one way that effectual instructional practices promote the public good. other societal benefits include improving local communities through partnerships, preparing students to be educated citizens of diverse societies and empowering them to identify and challenge systems of inequality (trolian and culver, 2020). this is how universities can provide an engagement of hope which is characterized by the honest and persistent work of faith communities that elevate the voices of people, challenge unjust structures, and integrate community histories with the potential and possibility for a better future. the common good community engagement that is anchored in hope is rooted in the inherent belief of the goodness of people juxtaposed with working toward the aspirational goal of the public good or common good. the tension of the individual versus the good of the community is situated not at odds, but through mutual consideration. faith-based higher education institutions in partnership with faith or non-faith based community organizations are called to serve the public good. cantor, englot, and higgins (2013) have specifically called on universities to consider how to leverage their unique strengths in order to break down university and community barriers. matthew kotchen (2012) states, “pure public goods have two defining features. one is ‘non‐rivalry,’ meaning that one person’s enjoyment of a good does not diminish the ability of other people to enjoy the same good. the other is ‘non‐excludability,’ meaning that people cannot be prevented from enjoying the good.” an engagement of hope is characterized by the honest and persistent work of faith communities that elevate the voices of people, challenge unjust structures, and integrate community histories with the potential and possibility of a better future. our critical reflections revealed examples of faith-based organizations who exemplified this engagement approach: © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25527 | october 20, 2021 144 as we think about the public good, i am reminded of a chicago urban community on the westside of chicago called north lawndale. lawndale christian community church (lccc) has been the beacon of hope for a once-plighted community filled with poverty, lack of medical care and affordable housing, high rates of recidivism, and food insecurities. in 1978, members of lawndale community church surveyed a group of lawndale residents about their greatest needs. the residents listed the following: inexpensive health care, basketball gym, improved housing, and competent and affordable legal services. the voice of the people was heard and the following engagement of hope was fulfilled: ● lawndale christian health center from hope to possibility to reality in 1984. ● lawndale christian development center was established in 1987 to provide economic development within the community affordable housing, restaurants, etc. in 2006, they developed the dr. king legacy apartments, museum, and commercial corridor on the land where dr. martin luther king, jr. lived while fighting for housing and workers’ rights in the 1960’s. ● hope house was established in 1995 as a place of refuge for men reentering society from prison to break the cycle of recidivism and provide shelter and job readiness skills. in the same year, lou malnati’s pizzeria, a sit-down restaurant opened which provides employment for local residents and hope house residents. ● in 2003, the first ever hip hop church was established for the youth in the community and in 2007, the church purchased and renovated an old firehouse and developed an arts community center providing culinary arts, dance and music studio, and workforce development. ● in 2010, lawndale christian legal center was established providing free legal services for youth and young adults 24 years of age and younger. ● in 2012, to continue to combat health inequity in the community an additional health clinic, fitness center, conference center, and sit down cafe was built. ● in 2019, with a partnership with chicago botanical gardens, lawndale health center built the farm on ogden which provides urban agriculture with fresh vegetables for health patients and community residents as well as food security and job placement for youth and formerly incarcerated men and women. in the same year, just a block away, the lawndale senior health center was built to specifically serve senior residents providing healthcare services and day senior programming. this example, of a faith based organization who for over 40 years have been intentional about their engagement of hope when they allowed the voice of the residents to dictate © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25527 | october 20, 2021 145 how they would serve the community for the public good. [critical reflection of cynthia stewart] during one feedback session, this example was presented and a few of the participants commented on what a joy it was to hear good things happening in chicago in spite of what they hear from the national media about the increase of violence and lack of resources in urban communities. collaborative courage community engagement is an act of courage in and of itself, as it relies on hope for a better future. in his consideration of the value of the community of the church, ronald rolheiser references edward shillebeeckx: “what we dream alone remains a dream, but what we dream with others can become a reality.” rolheiser goes on to consider the church community in the following way: “alone, standing apart from community, i am no more powerful than my own personality and charisma, which in a world of six billion--[now closer to 8 billion]--people, will not make much of a difference.[...] the first thing i should do, if i hope to help bring about some justice and peace on this planet, is begin to dream with others within a world-wide body of persons committed to the same dream” (rolheiser, p. 138-9). the imperative seems clear: we must dream with others through an engagement of hope. community engagement is collaborative in nature, requiring individuals in different sectors, organizations, communities, and backgrounds to generate, create, produce, and develop together. as previously stated, an engagement of hope is persistent, resilient, and courageous because the focus is on the creation of good; it exemplifies grit. faith-based institutions are significant influencers in the community both as institutional structures and the degree to which they develop coalitions in the community. engaged institutions partner with communities in order to collectively meet both parties’ needs, hopes, and desires. engaged universities embrace communities as equal partners who work with, not for, universities in a mutual exchange to discover new knowledge and promote and apply learning (karasik, 1993). this collaborative paradigm redefines universities from curators of knowledge to dialectic partners who must reconsider how they operationalize teaching for the benefit of all (torres, 2000)—“a successful collaborative process [that] enables a group of people and organizations to combine the complementary knowledge, skills and resources so they can accomplish more together than they can on their own” (center for the advancement of collaborative strategies and health, 2002, p. 2). © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25527 | october 20, 2021 146 community-centered an engagement of hope is community-centered, emerging from community knowledge, experience, voice, trust, and ideation. such engagement recognizes community histories and honors them with a seat at the table. because such engagement is consistently working toward the aspirational goal of the common good, the community is the center point and anchor to ground engagement in form, practice, and delivery. leiderman and colleagues (2002) found that a commitment to ensure mutual benefit leads to the development of trust and accountability in a community partnership. trust is a critical component of community partnerships, and schulz and colleagues (2003) consider the role of mutual trust in assessing the effectiveness of participatory research partnerships. these relationships are built on a two-way exchange that explicitly seeks mutual benefit and, ultimately, transformation (dostilio, p.169). our critical reflections animated this as we explored this theme of community-centered from the lens of an engagement of hope: jennifer turner, affectionately known as mama j, is an iconic culture bearer, historian, and storyteller for over three decades with the community book center (cbc) in new orleans. hundreds of university students have visited the cbc and mama j often will ask them, “what do you get, and what does the community get?” her question echoes sentiments from community voices who have grown weary of the expression of mutually beneficial relationships without experiencing the embodied actions and behaviors of true reciprocity. an equity and community-centered theory of change understands this polarity and approaches it like the “practice of joining” developed by esteban del rio and john loggins are critical to creating social cohesion to enact and embody change (del rio, loggins 2019). the practice of joining draws from critical service-learning in that there is an attentiveness to both pedagogy and a reflective process (mitchell 2008). del rio and loggins suggest that a joining practice must integrate mindfulness in order to be fully present and accepting of what emerges in community engaged work (del rio, loggins 2019) and they suggest the following process: ● reflect on the habits and assumptions, conditions, and purposes that guide individual and institutional actions, attitudes, behaviors ● discern which of those support the anchor mission and those that undermine the anchor mission ● identify changes necessary in strategy, but also in work routines and mental frameworks (personal and professional habits and assumptions that inform individual and collective work, and the conditions and purposes of that work) © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25527 | october 20, 2021 147 ● commit to collectively setting the purpose and creating the conditions for culture change. do so by empowering faculty, staff, students, and most importantly, community partners ● assess: it is most useful to discern outcomes and assessment of critical commitments as part of the normal assessment procedure ● repeat: this last point returns to the beginning of the cycle and closes the loop for what should be an ongoing process. people always make meaning, and as flexible and mutable as culture can be, it also persists through the routines of everyday life. (critical reflection of chris nayve) individual goodness an engagement of hope clearly focuses on the experience, knowledge, skills, and gifts of the individual. it elevates the voice and experience of individuals, and it is rooted in the inherent belief of the goodness of people as well as working toward the aspirational goal of the public good or common good. the emphasis on individual goodness stems from the early work of mcknight and kretzmann (1993) who coined the term asset based community development (abcd) in the late 1980s. while service providers and academics went into urban communities plagued with poverty, disinvestment, poor health, racism, oppression, crime, and lack of resources, their response was to provide a need-based approach, which focused on what communities lacked, deficiency, scarcity, and need. this approach did not provide hope, but continued the cycle of shame and hopelessness within many urban communities. mcknight and kretzmann’s abcd model of community engagement changed the way that service providers and academics entered into urban communities, and they shifted the focus on the assets, including the knowledge, skills, and gifts of the residents within that community. luther snow (2014) in his chapter assets, innovation, and academia, reflects on mcknight and kretzmann’s concept of framing good in urban communities as assets, rather than deficiencies: they noticed the good in communities. they observed that sometimes residents were getting things done together that the outside professionals could not accomplish. they saw community-based organizing, economic development, health promotion, teaching and learning, sharing and networking. and wherever something good was going on in communities, they realized that folks were not focused on needs. instead, they focused on assets. they reflected on their gifts, passion and talents, rather than their deficiencies. they took the reins of their associations, groups, and organizations, instead of depending on outside agencies. they appreciated the physical and economic assets in their communities, and figured out what they could do by connecting those assets in new ways. (snow, p. 33) © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25527 | october 20, 2021 148 an engagement of hope elevates this critical shift to not only recognize the goodness of individuals within communities, but also the experience of individuals living in the community. for example, mitchell (2008) challenges us to move toward critical service-learning pedagogy because it raises a critical consciousness of the individual learner in the community as well as the experience of individuals living in the community: critical service-learning pedagogy fosters a critical consciousness, allowing students to combine action and reflection in classroom and community to examine both the historical precedents of the social problems addressed in their service placements and the impact of their personal action/inaction in maintaining and transforming those problems. this analysis allows students to connect their own lives to the lives of those with whom they work in their service experiences. (p. 54) the tension, or polarity, of the common good juxtaposed with individual goodness is not elements that are at odds within community engagement, but rather elements that are both important and ideals of engagement. critical service-learning pedagogy captures this as it “encourages contemplation on both personal and institutional contributions to social problems and measures that may lead to social change” (mitchell, 2008, p. 54). faith-based non-profit organizations and churches lead in this area of honoring individual goodness through their programs and services. our critical reflections demonstrated many examples to animate this work: the work of taller de josé in the little village community of chicago, a primarily latinx community, often referred to as “little mexico,” demonstrates how a faith-based non-profit organization models and emphasizes the goodness of individuals in the community. i have learned so much working with them. supported by the congregation of st. joseph, this organization focuses on accompaniment -walking with individuals in the community to address their needs and connect them to the resources required to meet those needs. as i reflect, i am reminded that their model of accompaniment is a way to address and elevate individual goodness. the mission of this organization states it clearly: “taller de josé accompanies individuals, serving as a bridge to connect them to the health, legal, and social services needed to achieve their goals. as a member of the congregation of st. joseph mission network, we create more connected communities.” (taller de josé) the vision statement, however, articulates an emphasis on both social justice and elevating the dignity of each individual: © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25527 | october 20, 2021 149 by fostering the model of accompaniment, taller de josé: ● challenges social structure in order to create a culture of inclusivity and mutuality ● creates, maintains, and supports just relationships with individuals and organizations ● seeks to create systemic change to promote a more just and equitable society ● cultivates a consciousness of the inherent worth of each person ( taller de josé) the staff of this organization (called companeras/os) literally physically and emotionally walk alongside community members as they navigate complex systems (legal system, hospitals, immigration, social services) and connect the community members to resources. as they support each individual that comes to their doors, they approach them as the “dear neighbor” -a core value of the sisters who comprise the congregation of st. joseph-and honor their individual experiences, priorities, issues, and strengths. they walk with them, wherever they may need to go. they wait with them, sometimes for hours. they translate for them and help them find the buildings and offices in this large, complex city of chicago. and most of all, they listen to each person for what they want and need, for what they hope and dream. their work and the impact they have on the chicago community one person at a timereminds me to center individual goodness in my work every day. the work of taller de josé, and the sisters within the congregation of st. joseph, who founded it, remind me there is an actionable way to center individual goodness too we merely need to walk alongside and accompany each other. [critical reflection of patrick green] it is the work of many faith-based community organizations that serve as models and activate these five themes through their programs and services. implications: moving the community engagement field the engagement of hope is a conceptual framework and equity-focused theory of change model rooted in faith-based work, and reflexively moves beyond community engagement at faith-based institutions. it is applicable to community engagement approaches at all institutions, public or private, community college or four-year universities. it builds upon past and current community engagement frameworks, but responds to the current context of higher education. in effect, an engagement of hope framework proposes that we learn together and develop shared understandings within the complex contexts of our practice, whether that be faith, social justice, urban, rural, or constituency-based. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25527 | october 20, 2021 150 the community engagement field has long been focused on institutionalizing the work in the higher education sector. in an effort to legitimize service-learning and community engagement, early adopters demonstrated its effectiveness through evidence-based studies, built a canon of literature throughout the past several decades, fostered numerous resources for practice, and developed professional organizations. a second generation of scholars have emerged, and a third generation of early career scholar-practitioners have now contributed extensively to the field. yet the focus on institutionalization, organizational structures, and higher education course development has long been the point of entry. this surfaced during both of our feedback sessions with professionals in community engagement, and the focus has historically been on the service activity. the feedback from professionals during these sessions was not only affirmative validating the resonance of this framework, but also noted how this framework changes the narrative of community engagement. for example, in one of the interactive feedback sessions, distinguished scholar of community engagement, barbara holland noted the engagement of hope framework alters the interpretation of community engagement: “from the early beginnings of higher education engagement in community partnerships, campus-based organizers tended to focus mostly on the details and stresses of launching and delivery the activities. the necessary attention to preparation, logistics, and delivery could be overwhelming, leading to a view that a completed activity was a successful activity. the incredibly thin staffing and budgeting for community-based student learning programs certainly did not provide much of a base for critical assessment or formal research on the impacts on students or communities…good, bad, or indifferent. without a formal and ongoing campus/community dialogue, engagement was largely supported by interested faculty with a particular passion for engagement. this framework, by introducing hope and faith into the dialogue between higher education and communities, describes a potential path that may lead to new methods of campus/community dialogue that lead to specific initiatives that aim to create lasting change and improvements in communities. the focus on the essence of hope may help lead higher education engagement practices to be more successful in creating engagement initiatives that are co-developed in ways that fulfill the visions and goals of all involved.” (cumu learning and sharing series: expanding your work through an engagement of hope interactive workshop, may 13, 2021; personal communication, june 28, 2021) as holland notes, emphasis has traditionally been on institutionalizing the activity of community engagement. this may emerge from a service-learning course or a community engagement program at the institution of higher education. the location of community engagement has been from the institution to the community, although many place-based community engagement initiatives have tried to challenge this approach. the conceptual framework and theory of change evolving from an engagement of hope, with its emphasis on co-development, is a departure from this common point of entry; it is not, however, a side door or alternative gateway. it is a different © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25527 | october 20, 2021 151 place, rather, a new location; a community engagement of hope is seeking a new landscape, altogether, in the blurred spaces between communities and institutions. the implications of this theory of change is moving the community engagement field to build upon its current strengths and to re-center its focus addressing community outcomes and impact and de-center the activity. it is important to frame this article within the context of the global health pandemic, current racial justice movements, and deepening challenges to democratic structures in society. while these social issues have long plagued society, it is clear we are in a unique moment in history where the intersection and impacts of these social issues have very real immediate impacts, and unforeseen generational consequences. for these reasons, the engagement of hope framework and theory of change rooted in equity is explicitly focused on justice (social, economic, racial, and environmental), and it anchors the community at its core. it challenges traditional notions of knowledge, as community members are elevated as knowers and generators of knowledge. it is boundless, as it challenges us to dream and vision in and with community members. through this lens, the point of entry is the community, not the academy. given the new landscape in the community, there may not be a clear map, but there are many guides as our community partners walk with us, and we walk with our community partners. conclusion: re-centering relationships amidst polarities in an engagement of hope in addition to the new point of entry, this theory of change radically centers the individual experience through relationships in community engagement. as practitioner-scholars situated in professional positions related to community engagement, we spend a considerable amount of time listening to faculty, staff, students, and community partners, reading about and researching best practices, and engaging key leaders in the field. together, each year, we facilitate hundreds of meetings with various key stakeholders, review dozens of books and articles, and engage with expert consultations. through consistent efforts to create a strategy for more fully institutionalizing community engagement across our institutions, the return to common questions arose around more formal rewards and incentives structures, centralization of departments and offices, broader promotion of initiatives, and additional resources along with staffing to support and elevate the work within the university. in short, the institution is commonly centered on the evolution of the practice, or activity, of community engagement, and thus defined as the entity that needs to evolve and change in pursuit of doing community engagement work better. the institutional work focused on the activity, systems, structures and/or practice can sometimes slow or deter the relationship work we do and practitioners are called to do. as reflected through our writing process: © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25527 | october 20, 2021 152 we are facilitating programs, supporting engaged faculty, meeting with community members and residents, and cultivating awareness around historical moments in the city. at the same time, we are laughing with local pastors, crying with residents who are grieving the loss of community members, experiencing resolute anger with local activists, and considering how to move forward the greater good in relationship with others. i find myself reflecting upon the gifts, talents, and influence i have to enact change alongside the gifts, talents, and influence that others bring. structures and systems can sometimes discourage me; and, people make decisions that disempower some and empower others. the push and pull of the institution and the individual can leave me feeling tired and overwhelmed. and yet, like many of my colleagues, i return. i return to the meetings, the discussions of rewards and incentives structures, the events, the programs, the coffee shops, the planning and the executing. i do so because of the relationships i have developed. (critical reflection of dan bergen) as noted in this critical reflection, there exists a tension between the individual relationships we cultivate in community engagement work and the institutional systems and structures we attempt to address. during our feedback sessions, multiple community engagement professionals identified how the engagement of hope framework emphasizes intentional interactions. such intentionality challenges us to focus on relationships in a new way. similar to doherty and barry’s concept of tension in jesuit spirituality, an engagement of hope “functions best when these tensions are alive, and clearly felt, [...] when [we] experience ourselves in the pulls of both sides of each polarity” (7). the engagement of hope framework moves to a theory of action as we enter into this tension, experiencing the push and pull of such polarities as individual goodness and the common good. if it seems like an oxymoron to center the individual within efforts of community engagement, it is essential to clarify: this is not about centering the power of any one individual, but rather about centering the individual experience while we work toward the public good. our inquiry approach became one akin to how some educators consider a problem through “human-centered design thinking.” just as some of the fundamental tenets of this process warrant spending time with people in the environment, resisting being restricted by your own knowledge, considering the whole journey of the relationship or product, and persisting through prototyping, or utilizing collaborative courage in recognizing it takes time to evolve these relationships, our approach centered the human experience of relationship (human-centered design thinking, september 2, 2021). our goal in this exploration was to diminish the temptation towards “transactionalism” derived out of a need for efficiency and, subsequently, to further explore the emphasis on relationship. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25527 | october 20, 2021 153 scholarly efforts to “institutionalize” community engagement have shifted the focus from the moment of relationship to the institution. this article argues for a radical re-centering of the individual experience of relationship in community engagement. this re-centering is based on the premise that it is time for the community engagement movement to stop trying to justify itself within the constraints of higher education institutions often facing what andrew j. hoffman defines as a crisis: “academic research is becoming increasingly irrelevant as the work becomes too insular, the language too opaque, the journals too inaccessible, and the cultural norms of disciplinary boundaries too balkanized. we need to break out of our siloed research communities and bring our work to a world that needs it.” (hoffman, 2021, p. ix) while engaged faculty members are working to advance their research agendas in partnership with local organizations, it is most often the relationships they discuss when articulating their work in dialogue with others. our experiences working with faculty and community partners consistently reveal it is the network and connection to one another that proves valuable, whether connecting to other faculty or to community members and organizations. in other words, an engagement of hope begins with the fundamental calling to serve one another and to be in relationship with each other. as a theory of change, an engagement of hope centers the moment of relationship between two individuals, while holding space for the tension, the push and pull, of the institutional and individual experience, of the common good and individual goodness. as u.s. youth poet laureate, amanda gorman, shared in her inaugural poem, “the hill we climb,” we may all ask “where can we find light in this never-ending shade?” as we have “weathered and witnessed,” and more so: that even as we grieved, we grew that even as we hurt, we hoped that even as we tired, we tried yet gorman (2021) reminds us of hope as an actionable theory of change, as she concludes: for there is always light, if only we're brave enough to see it, if only we're brave enough to be it. such hope informs, inspires, and catalyzes community engagement work toward outcomes and impact beyond our current measures. in that moment of relationship and connection with each other, and amidst the space for tension, an engagement of hope emerges and has the power to transform us. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25527 | october 20, 2021 154 references blaxter, l., hughes, c. & tight, m. 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(2021). cornel west quotes about truth, love, and justice. downloaded on 10/7/21 https://everydaypower.com/cornel-west-quotes/ website resources for lawndale christian community church retrieved june 5, 2021 • lawndale christian community church • lawndale christian development center • lawndale dr. martin luther king legacy apartments • lawndale christian health center • lawndale christian senior center • lawndale christian law center • the firehouse community arts center • lawndale farm on ogden • lawndale christian community church hope house https://doi.org/10.1002/nml.26 http://www.tutufoundationusa.org/2016/01/03/ten-quotes-from-desmond-tutuhttp://www.lawndalechurch.org/ https://lcdc.net/contact/ https://lcdc.net/mlk-historical-memorial-district/ https://lawndale.org/ https://lawndale.org/senior-center https://lclc.net/ https://thefcac.org/about/ https://lawndale.org/farm-on-ogden http://lawndalechurch.org/hope-house.html patrick m. green1, daniel j. bergen2, cynthia p. stewart3, and christopher nayve4 original research © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23258 | february 21, 2020 44 the development of a service-learning outcomes measurement scale (s-loms) robin stanley snell1 and ka hing lau2 1department of management, lingnan university, 2office of service-learning, lingnan university cite as: snell, r.s., & lau, k.h. (2020). the development of a service-learning outcomes measurement scale (s-loms). metropolitan universities, 31(1), 44-77. doi: 10.18060/23258 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract service-learning as a transformative pedagogy has been adopted within hong kong’s tertiary education sector for over a decade; however, the lack of a standardized and validated measurement instrument to assess its student learning outcomes has been an obstacle to its further development. the current research study, collaboratively conducted by lingnan university, the hong kong polytechnic university, hong kong baptist university, and the education university of hong kong, therefore aims to develop such a measurement instrument named the “servicelearning outcomes measurement scale (s-loms),” taking consideration of the unique features of service-learning in hong kong. the scale development and validation work, with exploratory factor analysis and reliability test, has thus far demonstrated that the student-perceived learning outcomes after service-learning can be measured and assessed through 56 items. these items cover 11 domains under four major categories, namely: a) knowledge application; b) personal and professional skills, including relationship and team skills, creative problem solving skills, self-reflection skills, and critical thinking skills, c) civic orientation and engagement, including sense of social responsibility, community commitment and understanding, and caring and respect, and d) self-awareness, including self-efficacy, self-understanding, and commitment to self-improvement. several additional insights arising from the validation results are discussed. keywords: hong kong, validation, scale development, exploratory factor analysis http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23858 | february 21, 2020 45 overview the rise of service-learning in tertiary education service-learning has been undergoing continuing development in tertiary education, since its very first establishment in the united states in 1960s when oak ridge associated universities (orau) and the southern regional education board (sreb) developed and popularized service-learning internships (giles & eyler, 1994; ramsay, 2017). service-learning has been introduced to tertiary education institutions around the globe, yet while it has evolved in response to diverse contexts, its core principle of connecting academic learning with meaningful service to society has remained constant. accordingly, there is broad agreement on the definition of service-learning as “a form of experiential education in which students engage in activities that address human and community needs together with structured opportunities for reflection intentionally designed to promote student learning and development” (jacoby, 1996). there is also broad agreement that service-learning seeks mutual empowerment through social exchange between the students and the served, through which both sides can learn and grow (shumer, stanton, & giles, 2017), resulting in both academic and non-academic enhancement for students as expected outcomes. many hong kong based tertiary education institutions have come to regard service-learning as potentially beneficial for student learning and development, and have incorporated it in their undergraduate curricula. the first to do so was lingnan university, which introduced service-learning in 2004, and was also the first university in asia to institutionalize service-learning by establishing an office of service-learning in 2006 (ma & chan, 2013). a research gap regarding student learning outcomes from service-learning in hong kong although service-learning has been adopted in hong kong for over a decade, research on its impacts there and in other chinese contexts is limited (shek & chan, 2013). in order to further develop service-learning pedagogy in hong kong, the benefits for students, if any, of engagement in service-learning, especially evidence about perceived learning outcomes, should be clearly demonstrated to schools and instructors. although a considerable amount of research documenting student learning outcomes from service-learning has accumulated in the west (e.g. astin et al., 2000; celio et al., 2011; conway et al., 2009; eyler & giles, 1999; novak et al., 2007; warren, 2012; yorio & ye, 2012), there are relatively few scholarly publications about developmental outcomes of service-learning in asia, including hong kong, a gap that needs to be filled (xing & ma, 2010). this research gap can be partly attributed to the lack of locally salient and reliable measurement instruments for assessing the effectiveness of service-learning in hong kong, as explained in a later section. two research approaches have thus far been adopted, both of which have both fallen short of filling the research gap. first, some studies have adopted qualitative methods, © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23858 | february 21, 2020 46 such as focus groups and interviews (e.g. shek & chan, 2013; snell et al., 2015a, 2015b, 2019). although these approaches have offered deep and comprehensive insights into student experiences, as well as design and implementation issues during service-learning, it is difficult to compare qualitative findings across different studies (toncar et al., 2006). second, while other studies have used quantitative surveys for assessing learning outcomes, these have adopted or translated measurement scales that were developed in the west (e.g. lo et al., 2016; ngai, 2006, 2009; siu et al., 2013), and/or have focused on outcome domains that reflect researcher interests rather than local institutional priorities. this study, therefore, seeks to fill the research gap by developing a standardized and validated measurement instrument named “service-learning outcomes measurement scale (s-loms)” for assessing the perceived learning outcomes of students engaged in service-learning in hong kong, which addresses outcome domains that match local institutional priorities, and which can generate results that are comparable across studies in hong kong and potentially more broadly in asia. an additional aim of the research is to reduce error that might otherwise arise from using items and scales that have been developed in the west, and which may contain slang, idioms, and allusions that are not fully understood by local students. we believe that a customized measurement instrument can serve as a reliable means for schools and instructors to evaluate servicelearning pedagogy, while also generating a robust body of evidence regarding the local educational benefits of service-learning, which, if favorable, could attract newcomers to adopt servicelearning pedagogy. the next section will develop a preliminary conceptual framework for analyzing student developmental outcomes arising from service-learning, based on a review of western literature. this is followed by a section on how service-learning has been customized to address local needs in hong kong, in the context of (a) broader educational reforms and (b) cultural and institutional values that appear to be more closely aligned with confucian ideals than with western principles of liberation and democracy. these review sections are followed by a synthesis, in which we present a modified, culture-sensitive conceptual framework for analyzing student developmental outcomes arising from service-learning in hong kong. we then go on to explain the methods adopted for the development of a new measurement instrument for assessing student-learning outcomes, including how items and scales were created and validated, and how the associated statistical analysis was conducted. this methods section is followed by one that reports our results, and the paper concludes a discussion of the insights from our findings and analysis. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23858 | february 21, 2020 47 literature review preliminary conceptual framework for students’ developmental outcomes from service-learning the developmental outcomes for students that arise from service-learning have been studied extensively in the west, and numerous outcome lists have been proposed. for example, stating that service-learning “aims to connect the personal and intellectual, to help students acquire knowledge that is useful in understanding the world, (and) build critical thinking capacities” (eyler & giles, 1999) identified learning outcomes within four domains. these domains are: 1) understanding and applying knowledge; 2) personal and interpersonal development; 3) cognitive development, including critical thinking, engagement curiosity, reflective practice, and perspective transformation; and 4) citizenship. the above framework broadly matches other conceptualizations, such as one by driscoll et al. (1996), and has also been reflected in subsequent analyses by eyler et al. (2001), ash & clayton (2009), and felten & clayton (2011). we consider, nonetheless, that the eyler & giles (1999) four-domain framework can be condensed into three by subsuming personal and interpersonal development, such as team and interpersonal skills, together with cognitive development, such as critical thinking, under the broader domain of personal growth. table 1, as below, locates prior conceptual frameworks for student learning outcomes within the three major domains of academic enhancement, personal growth, and civic learning, which concurs with the model proposed by felten and clayton (2011). table 1. a preliminary conceptual framework for student learning outcomes from servicelearning researchers academic enhancement personal growth civic learning eyler and giles (1999) understanding and applying knowledge personal and interpersonal development critical thinking reflective practice perspective transformation engagement, curiosity citizenship driscoll et al. (1996) academic achievement personal development communication skills career choices self-awareness autonomy/ independence sense of ownership awareness of community involvement with community commitment to service sensitivity to diversity eyler et al. (2001) enhanced academic results interpersonal development ability to work with others moral development reduced stereotyping and prejudice © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23858 | february 21, 2020 48 the tripartite categorization in table 1 is consistent with eyler’s (2010) review, which confirmed that service-learning had favorable impacts on college students in terms of academic enhancement, personal growth, and outcomes relating to civic engagement. a large body of prior research accordingly indicates that service-learning can enhance students’ learning within the three broad domains. relevant sources include: astin & sax (1998), celio et al. (2011), conway et al. (2009), driscoll et al. (1996), felten & clayton (2011), lundy (2007), novak et al. (2007), prentice (2007), richard et al. (2017), rama (1998), shek & chan (2013), simon & cleary (2006); snell et al. (2015a), warren (2012), yorio & ye (2012). while we consider that these three domains capture most of the salient outcomes, space constraints mitigate providing a detailed mapping of all prior research. local adaptation of service-learning to hong kong since the institutionalization of service-learning in asia (including hong kong) has been relatively recent (permaul, 2010), it is not as mature as in the united states (ma & lo, 2016). as mentioned above, the tertiary education institutions in hong kong did not begin to incorporate service-learning within their curricula until the 21st century. the development of service-learning in hong kong (see ma, 2018) cannot be fully understood without taking local education policy reforms and associated institutional ideologies into account. the context of broader educational reforms. regarding the educational policy reforms, three milestones facilitated the emergence of service-learning. first, in 2001 a hksar government report critically reviewed hong kong’s school curriculum and set out a vision about equipping students with 21st century skills and abilities, with the cultivation of whole-person development and lifelong learning as core educational goals (education and manpower bureau, 2001). this knowledge application leadership and communication skills problem analysis critical thinking skills personal efficacy personal identity career development spiritual growth enhanced cultural & racial understanding sense of social responsibility citizenship skills commitment to service ash and clayton (2009) academic enhancement personal growth civic learning felten & clayton (2011) academic knowledge/ skills/ dispositions personal growth teamwork critical thinking skills intercultural competence civic learning © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23858 | february 21, 2020 49 report foreshadowed curriculum reforms of secondary and tertiary education at the beginning of 21st century. the new emphasis on whole-person development provided a supportive backdrop for the development of service-learning in hong kong (xing & ma, 2010). second, in 2010, the university grants committee (ugc), the organization responsible for guiding the hksar government on the funding and strategic development of all public-funded universities in hong kong, reiterated its overall mission for universities in hong kong. this mission, which is well-matched with the aims of service-learning, sought to develop students into productive and socially responsible citizens by equipping them with “a greater sense of the wider world and the moral or ethical tools with which they can contribute to that world. the experience of university (life) should firmly root an individual’s sense of personal and social responsibility” (university grants committee, 2010). third, wide-ranging structural reforms involved changing from a three-year to a four-year system for undergraduate degree programmes by all publicly-funded universities in hong kong, beginning in 2012. the adoption of a four-year programme reflected the purpose of providing students with a broader knowledge base to complement more specialized instruction (education and manpower bureau, 2005), and opened up opportunities to include general education as an integral part of the undergraduate curriculum (freake, 2013). in conjunction with the 2012 reforms, many hong kong universities launched service-learning programs, reflecting their own needs and circumstances (ma, 2018). the hong kong polytechnic university, for example, seized on the introduction of an extra year in the undergraduate program to stipulate the incorporation of a service-learning component in their graduation requirement (chan & ngai, 2014; shek et al. 2015). orientation by confucian ideologies. the ideological context for service-learning in asian societies such as hong kong appears to be substantially different from that of the west, where servicelearning has been based on john dewey’s ideas about the role of critical reflection on social action as a vehicle for building democratic values and awareness of human rights (giles & elyer, 1994; saltmarsh, 2005). although service-learning may be considered to be an aspect of civic education, confucian ideologies underpin educational policies in asian societies, resulting in a relatively depoliticised approach to such education, by emphasising spirituality, self-cultivation, harmonious relationships, and preservation of the status quo (lee, 2004). thus, in hong kong, civic education as a whole has emphasised personal and moral development rather than democracy and human rights (leung & yuen, 2012). accordingly, we observe that, in alignment with this overall approach, the stated objectives and expected learning outcomes of service-learning programs in hong kong tertiary education institutions have emphasised knowledge application and practical skills rather than proactive civic engagement or democratic ideals, as illustrated in table 2 below. by contrast, the service-learning course design © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23858 | february 21, 2020 50 handbook (howard, 2001) developed by the university of michigan as a reference point for other united states universities, has framed “purposeful civic learning” as an essential characteristic of academic service-learning. this handbook states that “the addition of relevant and meaningful service with the community must not only serve the community and enhance academic learning in the course, but also directly and intentionally prepare students for active civic participation in a diverse democratic society” (howard, 2001). © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23858 | february 21, 2020 51 table 2. main objectives and expected learning outcomes for major hong kong higher education institutions adopting service-learning university objectives expected learning outcomes chung chi college, the chinese university of hong kong (http://www.news.ccc. cuhk.edu.hk/slp/index_e.php) 1. to enhance students’ personal growth and prepare them to be informed, responsible citizens and civic leaders, through instilling the set of core qualities including values, knowledge, skills, critical and reflective thinking, and commitment, etc. 2. to benefit society by bringing in high-level expertise and resources from the tertiary education sector that address community needs. 3. to contribute to academic research on service-learning as a subject of study, and its application and impacts. 1. apply their (discipline) knowledge and generic skills to address community needs; 2. acquire skills to work efficiently and effectively with others; 3. evaluate one’s own strengths and limitations, and identify areas that need further development for personal growth; 4. develop a sense of citizenship and community service including the cultivation of social responsibility, civic engagement, attention and action for the needy; 5. develop information literacy and foundations for lifelong learning; 6. demonstrate active and rational collaboration in group discussion; 7. demonstrate personal and social soft skills, and the ability to work in interdisciplinary teams; city university of hong kong (cityu) (http://www.cityu.edu. hk/caio/oss/) 1. to enhance students' understanding of the work environment and their long-term personal and professional development. 2. to develop students' important life and job skills required by future employers so as to enhance their lifelong employability. 3. to facilitate, strengthen, and expand students' learning through the integration of service-learning into real life work experience. 4. to elevate the overall standard of students in terms of personal, career, and professional accomplishments through meaningful campus work and systematic feedback provided by recruiting units. 5. to provide a reliable pool of resources support to departments and individuals who have a high demand for manpower due to rapid development of the university. 6. to provide opportunities for faculty, students, and administrative staff to develop sense of belonging towards the cityu community. 1. personal and professional development 2. students' important life and job skills 3. to facilitate, strengthen, and expand students' learning © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23858 | february 21, 2020 52 hong kong baptist university (https://cisl.hkbu.edu.h k/about-cisl/sldefinition) 1. service projects anchored in a specific curriculum are developed to contribute to the common good of humankind in the effort to enrich students’ academic learning and personal growth 2. structured service-learning opportunities are built into academic curricula directly, allowing students to reflect better upon their experience as citizens and whole persons and to conceptualize and enact effective relationships between their academic learning and community service locally, nationally, and globally. 1. apply their cumulative learning gained from their discipline knowledge/course and beyond to address specific community issues by means of innovation; 2. demonstrate deep self-understanding, empathy and caring for others and great sense of commitment to the common good of humankind; 3. develop a habit of critical reflection for life-long and life-wide learning, personal and professional development, and 4. identify ways to strengthen generic competencies and professional skills. lingnan university (slrs model manual, from chan et al., 2006) 1. offers a real-life opportunity for students to apply the knowledge and skills that they have gained from course work into the community, and to integrate useful knowledge into practice. 2. students’ personal growth, self-fulfillment and satisfaction are expected to be enhanced after joining the service-learning program. 1. subject-related knowledge 2. communication skills 3. organizational skills 4. social competence 5. problem-solving skills 6. research skills the polytechnic university of hong kong (polyu) (https://www.polyu.ed u.hk/osl/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id =88&itemid=218) 1. preparing students to become civic-minded professionals with a heart to serve. 2. it is expected that service-learning at polyu will not only enhance students’ sense of civic responsibility and engagement, but also benefit the community at large. it emphasizes learning through engagement in services. 3. as a pedagogy, service-learning gives academic learning, service experience and reflection central roles in learning. 1. apply academic knowledge and skills into meaningful community service 2. have structured processes for students to reflect critically on academic content and civic engagement, so as to consolidate their academic and ethical development the education university of hong kong (https://www.eduhk.hk /re/modules/content/item.php?categoryid=42&itemid=22) 1. extend students’ learning beyond the traditional classroom-based curriculum while satisfying the quality assurance criteria. 1. leadership skills, communication skills, interpersonal skills, organizational skills, influencing skills, problem-solving skills, and creativity the university of hong kong (in the form of experiential learning) (https://tl.hku.hk/wpcontent/uploads/2014/01/gallantho-leaflet-20132.pdf) 1. the learning objectives are achieved through consistent faculty mentoring and critical reflection of the participation process. students will see the integration of theory and practice and develop its own interpretation and holistic understanding of the topics. 1. it is a kind of learning that requires students to tackle real-life issues and problems by drawing on theoretical knowledge that they have learnt in the formal curriculum. 2. dealing with real-life problems requires students to integrate knowledge within and across disciplines, to go beyond technical considerations, and to take into account social and human factors that come into play. https://cisl.hkbu.edu.hk/about-cisl/sl-definition https://cisl.hkbu.edu.hk/about-cisl/sl-definition https://cisl.hkbu.edu.hk/about-cisl/sl-definition © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23858 | february 21, 2020 52 a review of definitions of civic engagement by daynes and wygant (2003) provides a useful reference point. they identified a spectrum of definitions, ranging from those that “work from social justice or progressive models” through those that focus on political action inside or outside the electoral system, including protests, to those assuming non-political community-based work or the expression of individual freedom. the content of table 2 suggests that service-learning programs in hong kong tend to be oriented more toward non-political community-based work than toward political involvement and social justice. confucian values also appear to have shaped the design and implementation of service-learning at the course level in hong kong. this metropolis, with its strong confucian influence, has been regarded as a culture with large power distance, where those members who have relatively little power tend to accept hierarchical differentiation and inequalities in relationships, and low uncertainty avoidance, the extent to which those members prefer structure, strong direction and stability over ambiguity, (hofstede, 1983). such cultural characteristics have led hong kong to adopt authoritarian family-style as an implicit model of organization that follows the chinese administration principle of governance by man over and above rule of law (hofstede, 1980). accordingly, in educational settings, we observe that chinese students in hong kong tend to expect that their instructors will play a major role in structuring and guiding their service-learning projects, an expectation that is consistent with previous research findings that asian students prefer their courses to involve tight structure and close instructor guidance (e.g. chan, 1999; rodrigues, 2005). by contrast, in western contexts, service-learning programs are often framed as opportunities to learn by discovery about participatory democracy, and to build students’ ability to take action to change communities with the explicit aim of furthering social justice (battistoni, 1997; einfeld & collins, 2008; mitchell, 2008; wade, 1997). besides manifesting a relative lack of emphasis on social justice and democracy, table 2 also sheds light on another characteristic of service-learning in hong kong, which focuses more on the development of practical and job skills. this emphasis is aligned with traditional expectations in hong kong (kennedy, 2002) and in chinese cultures in general (lee, 1996) that academic success is a pathway to job success and upward social mobility (shek & chan, 2013). synthesis: a modified conceptual framework for the hong kong context our review of the literature led us to create a modified conceptual framework that formed the basis for the measurement instrument, s-loms, which we subsequently developed. this new framework (see table 3) comprises 15 domains that are subsumed under the four broad categories of knowledge application, personal and professional skills, civic orientation and engagement, and self-awareness. there are five main differences from the preliminary model. first, reflecting hong kong’s pragmatic orientation, we relabeled the original personal growth category as personal and professional skills. second, we included the domain of self-reflection © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23858 | february 21, 2020 53 skills within this broader category to acknowledge the centrality of self-cultivation in confucian educational philosophy (lee, 2004). this inclusion is also supported by prior research that has established that reflection plays a key role for students in deriving substantial educational and developmental outcomes from engagement in service-learning (bringle & hatcher, 1999; eyler & giles, 1999; godfrey et al., 2005; hatcher et al., 2004; jacoby, 1996). third, we made self-awareness the basis of a fresh category, subsuming the domains of self-understanding, self-esteem, and commitment to self-improvement, once again acknowledging the importance of confucian self-cultivation (lee, 2004). fourth, the domains that are subsumed under our category of civic orientation and engagement reflect the relatively depoliticized approach to civic education in hong kong (leung & yuen, 2012), with its muted concern for participatory democracy. fifth, we replaced the category label of academic enhancement and renamed the category as knowledge application. in line with this, we dropped subject knowledge from this category, on the grounds that the graded assignments within a course should suffice for systematically measuring how much students gain in terms of subject knowledge. table 3. the modified conceptual framework specific to hong kong context conceptual category knowledge application personal and professional skills civic orientation and engagement self-awareness learning outcome domain 1. knowledge application 2. relationship skills 8. sense of social responsibility 13. self-understanding 3. team skills 9. commitment to social betterment 14. commitment to self-improvement 4. problem-solving skills 10. understanding community 15. self-esteem 5. critical-thinking skills 11. respecting diversity 6. self-reflection skills 12. empathy and caring for others 7. creativity © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23858 | february 21, 2020 54 methods development strategies the scale development procedures adopted for the new instrument followed the standard approach employed in academic research (e.g. boateng et al., 2018; devellis, 2003). we began with the identification of constructs and domains through literature reviews, as demonstrated in the previous sections. the subsequent item development and scale validation procedures are described below in this methods section and in the results section that follows. our objective was to establish a validated measurement instrument, i.e. s-loms, that fulfilled four criteria: a) applicable in the cultural and institutional contexts of hong kong; b) comprehensive in covering commonly desired developmental outcomes arising from service-learning there; c) standardized, so as to be appropriate for service-learning courses and programs across the full range of academic subjects; and d) composed of distinct sub-scales, thus offering institutions and researchers flexibility to create shorter versions, focusing on particular outcome domains. item development for the most part, we adopted a deductive method for scale development, but this was supplemented by an inductive method. a deductive method involves creating survey items that are based on theory-based definitions of the target domain constructs, following an extensive literature review and a thorough examination of pre-existing scales. typically, it is adopted when there are established theories about the constructs that are to be measured already existed (boateng et al., 2018; hinkin, 1995, hinkin et al., 1997; morgado et al., 2017). an inductive method, by contrast, is not theory-based, and involves identifying constructs and establishing the appropriateness of survey items based on the opinions of subject matter experts, collected by means of interviews, focus groups (hinkin, 1995, hinkin et al., 1997), or electronic media. earlier sections of this paper have reviewed the past literature and have developed a conceptual framework for s-loms. in addition, we conducted a review of pre-existing instruments that have been used for assessing developmental outcomes for students arising from service-learning, yet we could only identify a small number of measurement scales for that had been validated in both western and hong kong-based studies. this dearth reflects that even in the west, there are few salient standardized and validated instruments for assessing development outcomes for students, arising from service-learning (toncar et al., 2006), and that among these, most have been narrowly focused on specific outcome domains (bringle et al., 2004), such as civic learning (e.g. eyler et al., 1997; olney & grande 1995), and community self-efficacy (e.g. reeb et al., 1998). we also examined the service learning benefit scale (seleb), developed by toncar et al. (2006), which is atypical in that it encompasses a broad range of self-perceived benefits arising from service-learning. we judged, however, that © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23858 | february 21, 2020 55 the seleb may lack reliability because it asks respondents to provide generalized ratings on particular constructs, such as “personal growth” and “skills in learning from experience” without going into specifics or providing conceptual explanations. as noted earlier in this paper, we found that when assessing self-perceived developmental outcomes arising from service-learning, hong kong-based researchers have tended to borrow measurement scales that have been developed in the west. we were only able to identify one preexisting standardized instrument, the so-called common outcomes measure (com) for assessing a wide range of developmental outcomes arising from service-learning (ma et al., 2019). this assesses outcomes in nine domains, namely self-understanding/confidence; communication skills; problem-solving skills; civic engagement, social responsibility and willingness to contribute; team skills; self-reflection; general knowledge application; caring for others; and intercultural competence. the com was initially validated with a relatively small sample (n = 193). we took reference of this generic scale, along with some domain-focused scales found in the prior literature and in use by particular tertiary education institutions in hong kong, such as a scale for self-esteem (rosenberg, 1965) once agreement on the conceptual framework for students’ developmental outcomes (table 3) had been reached, we adopted an inductive approach for item development across the 15 constituent domains. first, we formed a panel of local practitioners-cum-researchers, comprising faculty members with service-learning experience from four institutions adopting service-learning pedagogy, namely lingnan university, the hong kong polytechnic university, hong kong baptist university, and the education university of hong kong. this panel identified a small number of sub-domains for each of the 15 domains, and then engaged in brainstorming sessions to generate potential survey items for the various sub-domains, thereby generating a total of 103 prospective items for a draft s-loms. second, in line with the recommended approach by devellis (2003), these emerging items were evaluated by a different group of subject matter experts (smes), who also were experienced service-learning practitioners from the above institutions. the initial panel then reviewed the smes’ comments before compiling the draft s-loms for subsequent item validation, as described next. item validation procedure and participants. the draft s-loms in english was then subjected to a pilot study, which aimed at testing item readability for the target respondents, namely students studying at tertiary education institutions in hong kong. six pilot sessions were held at the abovementioned institutions through face-to-face administration. each session lasted about one hour with no more than 20 participants and comprised two parts. in the first part, which was around 40 minutes, the participants were invited to answer the draft s-loms and note when they encountered any difficulty in understanding items. in the second part, which was around 20 minutes, the participants © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23858 | february 21, 2020 56 were invited to raise any comments they wanted to share with the administrator, about any issue regarding language, such as the use of words or ambiguity when answering the draft s-loms. the pilot sessions collected responses from altogether 83 participants, comprising 29 males (34.9%) and 54 females (65.1%), with the mean age of 20.5. their comments shared in the session and written on the draft s-loms were then analyzed and discussed by the panel, with the result that two items were discarded, and 35 items were revised in wording in order to enhance readability. with the revised draft measurement instrument, a validation exercise was implemented to test the psychometric properties, such as underlying dimensionality and internal consistency. s-loms was then administered in class on a collective basis. students were informed of the rationale of this validation exercise and were invited to join voluntarily, and those who did not want to participate could choose to leave. the remaining students were then instructed to indicate their consent and answer the revised s-loms, along with some demographical information, including gender, age, major of study, prior service-learning experience, under the assurance of data confidentiality. each respondent was offered a supermarket gift voucher valued at hk$50 as a token for their participants upon completing the revised s-loms. a total of 400 university full-time students at the four collaborative institutions completed the revised s-loms via classroom administration, with 397 of them providing demographic data. among them, 35.0% were male respondents while 65.0% were female respondents, and the mean age was 20.9. they came from various disciplinary backgrounds (arts: 23.4%; social science: 15.6%; business: 22.4%; engineering & science: 27.5%; nursing: 11.1%). most respondents, 70.5%, had previous servicelearning experience. multiple methods were adopted to explore the dimensionality of the revised s-loms and the stability thereof. first, owing to the large number of measurement items and their underlying domains, the minimum average partials (map) test was employed to provide guidance for determining the number of factors under the four categories. the map test, which involves principal components analysis with the examination of a series of matrices of partial correlation, is regarded as one of the best methods to obtain optimal solutions to the number of components in factor analysis (o’connor, 2000). the items within the four categories were inputted into the map program developed for spss by o’connor (2000) to obtain the number of optimal factors under each category. statistical analysis. each category’s items were then analyzed by exploratory factor analysis (efa) in ibm spss version 23.0 by the specification of the number of factors to that category obtained in the map test. specifically, the principle components method with oblimin rotation was employed, given that correlations were expected among domains of the measurement instrument. two exclusion criteria were adopted in reducing the number of items in the efa, with the purpose of simplifying the final factor structure. first, any items with the highest factor loading lower than 0.4 in absolute value were removed, given that “one would want in general a variable © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23858 | february 21, 2020 57 to share at least 15% of its variance with the construct (factor) it is going to be used to help name” (stevens, 2009). second, any double-loaded items were removed. after exclusion, the efa was re-administered. in the event that all items obtained satisfactory absolute values of factor loadings, some would be discarded based on the consideration of semantic proximity and the results of item-total correlation. owing to the large number of tested domains and items, as well as that the four categories were expected to be theoretically distinctive yet empirically related, four sets of efa were separately performed for the four categories in exploring underlying dimensionality. results the map test results indicated different optimal factor numbers for different categories, specifically one factor for the category of knowledge application, five factors for the category of personal and professional skills, four factors for the category of civic orientation and engagement, and three factors for the category of self-awareness. table 4 below depicts the results of the four category map tests. table 4. the map test results for the four categories of the measurement instrument category optimal number of factors knowledge application 1 personal and professional skills 5 civic orientation and engagement 4 self-awareness 3 the efas for determining the factor numbers guided by the above map test results for the four categories were then administered by following the afore-mentioned item exclusion and selection procedures. the analysis results indicated a clear factor structure at the higher order with satisfactory factor loadings. tables 5 to 8 illustrates the resulting s-loms by category. specifically, the items for the category of knowledge application converged to a single factor with factor loadings between .799 and .881, with variance explained 72.35% (α = .872). © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23858 | february 21, 2020 58 table 5. results for the items of the category of knowledge application no item absolute value of factor loading item-total correlation 1 i know how to apply what i learn in class to solve real-life problems. .881 .771 2 i am able to apply/integrate classroom knowledge to deal with complex issues. .867 .752 3 i know how to transfer knowledge and skills from one setting to another. .853 .731 4 i can make connections between theory and practice. .799 .656 within the category of personal and professional skills, a four-factor structure emerged in the final result. the four factors are named as creative problem solving skills, comprising the original items of the domains of problem solving skills and creativity, with factor loadings between .472 and .867 (α =.919), relationship and team skills, comprising the original items of the domains of relationship skills and team skills, with factor loadings between .470 and .886 (α =.925), self-reflection skills, with factor loadings between .542 and .838 (α = .848), and d) critical thinking skills, with factor loadings between .411 and .732 (α =. 751). the overall variance explained by the category’s items was 67.91% (α =. 961). © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23858 | february 21, 2020 59 table 6. results for the items of the category of personal and professional skills absolute value of factor loading no item creative problemsolving skills relationship and team skills self-reflection skills critical thinking skills item-total correlation 1 i am not afraid of trying new things. .867 .610 2 i am able to generate original ideas. .685 .700 3 i am able to solve challenging reallife problems. .652 .783 4 i feel confident in dealing with a problem. .635 .747 5 when necessary, i can think of alternatives. .534 .764 6 i feel confident in identifying the core of a problem. .518 .771 7 i am able to look at an issue from a fresh perspective. .511 .720 8 i often modify my strategies to solve a problem when the situation changes. .472 .744 9 i am good at keeping in touch with people. .886 .691 10 i am good at building relationships between people. .730 .691 11 i can build long-term relationships with people. .716 .711 12 i can easily establish effective relationships with people. .706 .749 13 i am good at resolving conflicts. .649 .733 14 i am confident in leading others toward common goals. .543 .731 15 i participate effectively in group discussions and activities. .531 .761 16 i have the necessary skills for making groups or organizations function effectively. .470 .764 17 i will evaluate myself after completing a task. .838 .678 18 i reflect on myself regularly. .766 .653 © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23858 | february 21, 2020 60 19 i always think how i can improve myself. .633 .651 20 i consider circumstances when reflecting on how well i have performed. .542 .710 21 i can analyze an issue comprehensively. .732 .601 22 i often look at complex issues from different angles. .654 .655 23 i can understand others’ viewpoints when we are making decisions together. .411 .627 within the category of civic orientation and engagement, the number of domains was simplified into a three-factor structure. the three factors are named as community commitment and understanding, comprising the original items of the domains of commitment to social betterment and understanding community, with factor loadings between .608 and .861 and (α = .919), caring and respect, comprising the original items of the domains of respecting diversity and empathy and caring for others, with factor loadings between .467 and .795 (α = .907), and sense of social responsibility, with factor loadings between .605 and .789 (α = .813). the overall variance explained by the category’s items was 67.71% (α = .946). © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23858 | february 21, 2020 61 table 7. results for the items of the category of civic orientation and engagement absolute value of factor loading no item community commitment and understanding caring and respect sense of social responsibility item-total correlation 1 i always actively discuss possible improvements for our community. .861 .584 2 i can identify useful resources of a community. .822 .724 3 i think about how i can serve the community after graduating. .733 .639 4 i can identify challenges in the community. .727 .709 5 i can investigate the challenges faced by people in need in a community. .726 .726 6 i will contribute my abilities to make the community a better place. .692 .735 7 i can identify issues that are important for a disadvantaged community. .675 .726 8 i will play my part to reduce social problems. .608 .719 9 i respect the needs of people from different backgrounds. .795 .645 10 i appreciate the ideas of people from different backgrounds. .789 .693 11 i am willing to try to understand people whose background is different from mine. .751 .736 12 i can respect people whose background is different from mine. .705 .576 13 i consider others’ points of view. .685 .690 14 i care about others. .478 .746 15 i observe others’ feelings and emotions. .467 .692 16 i believe that everybody should be encouraged to participate in civic affairs. .789 .622 17 i believe that taking care of people who are in need is everyone’s responsibility. .750 .681 18 i feel obligated to help those who are less fortunate than me. .605 .700 © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23858 | february 21, 2020 62 lastly, the items within the category of self-awareness reflected the designated structure with three resultant factors. these are self-efficacy, renamed from self-esteem, with relevant items retained, with factor loadings between .736 and .842 (α = .859), self-understanding, with factor loadings between .527 and .901 (α = .845), and commitment to self-improvement, with factor loadings between .660 and .941 (α = .829). the overall variance explained by the category’s items was 72.01% (α = .922). table 8. results for the items of the category of self-awareness absolute value of factor loading no item self-efficacy self-understanding commitment to self-improvement item-total correlation 1 i am satisfied with my achievement so far. .842 .644 2 most things i do, i do well. .830 .694 3 i have many good qualities. .770 .761 4 i am positive about myself. .736 .721 5 i know my strengths and weaknesses. .901 .639 6 i have a clear picture of what i am like as a person. .877 .642 7 i have a clear understanding of my own values and principles. .631 .743 8 i know what i need in my life. .527 .700 9 i look out for new skills or knowledge to acquire. .941 .641 10 i am always motivated to learn. .762 .667 11 i always keep my knowledge and skills up-to-date. .660 .736 © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23858 | february 21, 2020 66 conclusions the emergent model and instrument for service-learning outcomes in hong kong the efa results, given above, indicate a four-category, 11 domain model for student learning outcomes. this emergent hong kong model is based on the modified conceptual framework that we arrived at by adjusting a preliminary model from western literature, in the light of educational reforms and the observation that confucian values appear to have shaped the local adaptation of service-learning in hong kong. in our hong kong model, the first category, knowledge application, comprises a single eponymous domain. the second category, personal and personal skills, comprises four domains: creative problem-solving skills, relationship and team skills, reflection skills, and critical thinking skills. the third category, civic orientation and engagement, comprises three domains: caring and respect, community commitment and understanding, and sense of social responsibility. the fourth category, self-awareness, comprises three domains: self-efficacy, self-understanding, and commitment to self-improvement. there are four differences from the modified conceptual framework that was created before the efa (see table 3). these involve the combination of pairs of sub-domains into the following higher-order domains: creative problem-solving skills, which is combining creativity and problem solving skills; relationship and team skills, which is combining relationship skills and team skills; caring and respect, which is combining empathy and caring for others with respecting diversity; and community commitment and understanding, which is combining commitment to social betterment with understanding community. contrasts with the west the hong kong model still bears some resemblance to the preliminary conceptual framework developed from western literature, which has three categories, academic enhancement, personal growth, and civic learning (e.g. elyer & giles, 1999; felten & clayton, 2011). there are, however, three main differences between the hong kong framework and the western framework. first, in the hong kong model, the category of knowledge application refers to the generic ability to apply knowledge and does not refer to other forms of academic enhancement that could be measured by course instructors through graded assignments. a second difference is that our hong kong model contains a separate category of self-awareness, as distinct from other aspects of personal growth that we identify as another category of personal and professional skills. there is also a third difference, which reflects contrasting emphases between the civic orientation and engagement category in the hong kong model and the civic learning category in the western model. within the latter model, civic learning emphasizes democracy, social justice, and joint action (battistoni, 1997; einfeld & collins, 2008; mitchell, 2008; wade, 1997). as battistoni (1997), states: “the civic view … focuses not on altruism but on enlightened self-interest … © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23858 | february 21, 2020 67 the idea is that … free democratic communities depend on mutual responsibility and that rights without obligations are ultimately not sustainable.” by contrast, the hong kong model appears to invoke what battistoni (1997) refers to as a “philanthropic” view of service-learning, based on the notion that “the well-off are obligated to help the less advantaged, though they do not conceive of those served as being part of their own communities” (battistoni, 1997). this philanthropic orientation is evident in several items in our instrument within the category of civic orientation and engagement, such as the following three items. under sense of social responsibility, item 18 is "i feel obligated to help those who are less fortunate than me;" under caring and respect, item 11 is: “i am willing to try to understand people whose background is different from mine;” and under community commitment and understanding, item 7 is “i can identify issues that are important for a disadvantaged community.” allusions to democracy and joint action are not entirely absent from the hong kong instrument. thus, item 16 under sense of social responsibility is, “i believe that everybody should be encouraged to participate in civic affairs.” however, the overall emphasis is in alignment with the previous argument that the mainstream approach to civic education in hong kong is relatively depoliticized, emphasizing spirituality, self-cultivation, harmonious relationships, and preservation of the status quo (lee, 2004). practical implications as a result of the validation exercise conducted thus far, the length of s-loms has been reduced from 103 to 56 items under the 11 outcome domains. s-loms has achieved satisfactory dimensionality and reliability, and has a clear domain structure with broad similarities with previous research studies, while reflecting local adaptation to educational norms and policies in hong kong. furthermore, the factor structure and item compositions have been confirmed with a large sample (n=400), which conforms with the benchmark respondent to item ratio of five to one in factor analysis (stevens, 2009). such results provide a strong empirical foundation for the sloms in terms of its internal consistency. we believe that the clear and strong factor structure of the instrument will enable it to be of considerable practical convenience both for institutions and for service-learning practitioners and researchers. looking ahead, our work for validating s-loms still requires some additional steps. first, the results obtained from the efa and reported above need to be confirmed with another sample by means of confirmatory factor analysis (cfa), before going on to engage in further testing for test-retest reliability. subsequently, s-loms will be tested for criterion validity by administering it on a preand post-test basis with students, who are undertaking actual service-learning courses. this will enable us to investigate whether, for example, the domains in which students indicate their greatest developmental gains match the priority domains indicated by instructors. we will also investigate the sensitivity of the instrument to developmental outcomes for students © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23858 | february 21, 2020 68 across different course types, service types, academic disciplines, and other factors. in addition, more item reduction work will be conducted with the aim of further reducing the s-loms to three items for each domain. furthermore, although s-loms has been designed for the hong kong context, we intend also to investigate its validity in other asian contexts such as taiwan and singapore. as hofstede (1980) revealed in his cultural assessment study, no two asian cultures and regions should be assumed to be the same, despite many of them having been greatly influenced by confucian traditions, such as hong kong, singapore, taiwan, and japan. differences between locations in terms of broader educational policies may constitute another source of variation regarding the local adaptation of service-learning practices. in the event that s-loms is found to be valid in other asian contexts, this would enable comparative studies of the developmental impacts of servicelearning for students in different locations, which in turn would address a broader gap regarding the lack of service-learning research in asia (e.g. shek & chan, 2013; xing and ma, 2010). limitations besides the need to take further steps to validate s-loms in hong kong and other asian contexts, the discovery of four higher-order factors implies that some developmental outcome domains may not be easily differentiated by means of a self-reported instrument. assessing developmental impact within those domains may require additional or alternative methods for data collection, such as onsite observation, interviews, focus groups, and archival sources (e.g. bringle et al., 2004). in addition, we have already mentioned that assessments of the impact of service-learning on students' understanding of subject knowledge may be more appropriately based on their performance on graded assignments and examinations. accordingly, we acknowledge that a measurement instrument should not be regarded as a panacea, and that advancing understanding of the impact of service-learning on students in asia will likely require multiple methods. author note this paper is the result of a cross-institutional project named “cross-institutional capacity building for service-learning in hong kong higher education institutions,” aiming at enhancing and supporting the development of service-learning as an effective pedagogical strategy under the collaboration of lingnan university, the hong kong polytechnic university, hong kong baptist university, and the education university of hong kong. the project was launched in 2017, and has been funded by the university grants committee (ugc) of the hong kong special administrative region (hksar) government. the authors wish to thank the ugc for funding the project, and the above institutions for their participation in the process of scale development and © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23858 | february 21, 2020 69 validation. we are particularly grateful to professor james yue on ko of the education university of hong kong and dr. kam por kwan of the hong kong polytechnic university for their advice on statistical analysis. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23858 | february 21, 2020 70 references astin, a. w. & sax, l. j. 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(2010). service-learning in asia: curricular models and practices. hong kong university press. https://doi.org/10.5790/hongkong/9789888028467.001.0001. yorio, p. l., & ye, f. (2012). a meta-analysis on the effects of service-learning on the social, personal, and cognitive outcomes of learning. academy of management learning & education, 11(1), 9–27. https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2010.0072. robin stanley snell1 and ka hing lau2 abstract overview local adaptation of service-learning to hong kong synthesis: a modified conceptual framework for the hong kong context table 3. the modified conceptual framework specific to hong kong context methods development strategies item development item validation table 4. the map test results for the four categories of the measurement instrument table 5. results for the items of the category of knowledge application table 6. results for the items of the category of personal and professional skills table 7. results for the items of the category of civic orientation and engagement table 8. results for the items of the category of self-awareness conclusions the emergent model and instrument for service-learning outcomes in hong kong contrasts with the west practical implications limitations author note 404 not found microsoft word smith commentary antiracism published.docx original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26137| march 22, 2022 19 centering anti-racism, equity, and inclusion: an imperative for 21st century excellence daryl g. smith1 1 school of educational studies, claremont graduate university cite as: smith, d. g. (2022). centering anti-racism, equity, and inclusion: an imperative for 21st century excellence. metropolitan universities journal, 33 (2), 19-22. doi: https://doi.org/10.18060/26137 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. guest editors: kevin w. allison, sylvia carey-butler, rosalyn hobson hargraves, tiffany g. townsend, and jeffery wilson editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract with the rise in anti-racism movements, increasing visibility of inequities in society and changing demographics of the country, many institutions have responded with public statements, hiring of dei leaders, and the establishment of new anti-racism task forces. the question is whether this moment will be a true inflection point to address the unfinished business of the past, or a repeat of patterns we have seen. this commentary urges institutions to make sure to see this work as an imperative for institutional excellence that requires increasing institutional capacity for diversity and understanding how anti-racism, equity, and inclusion are tied to strategic excellence in every domain of our institutions. keywords: institutional capacity building, diversity, anti-racism, equity original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26137| march 22, 2022 20 introduction like many institutions across the country, and especially because of the mission of cumu institutions, centering on anti-racism, equity, and inclusion are a central issue of strategic plans. the police killings, including george floyd’s death that spawned worldwide protests about racial injustice, gave increased urgency to the black lives matter movement and momentum to anti-racism efforts throughout higher education. on top of that, the pandemic exposed and laid bare inequities across health care and education. the white supremacist assault on the capital highlighted, once again, the critical need for justice and racial reckoning. anti-asian events and increasing violence against the trans community demonstrate the urgency of supporting many communities under siege and educating all leaders for what it takes to make a pluralistic society that works and for addressing structural inequities. every institution in the country, and perhaps especially metropolitan institutions, must confront the fragility of democracy, the imperative of fundamental institutional change, and the seriousness of what is at stake. reframing the paradigm reframing our ways of thinking about this work from an institutional perspective provides opportunities to confront the unfinished business of the past even as we address the issues of today. perhaps at this moment, we can make the profound systemic changes needed so that we do not find ourselves returning back to these issues or similar topics as we have for the past 60 years. what have we learned from the many moments in the last decades when we had opportunities to make progress? while i am encouraged by the strong anti-racism statements and hiring of chief diversity officers in higher education and almost every industry in the country, i am concerned. they could represent real requirements for change or the beginning of similar patterns we have seen over the past decades, such as a committee, a report, a review, and a discussion. many of these replicate reports, committees, and discussions of the past often established after a different crisis. given the changing demographics of our society and the apparent inequities and the implications for a healthy democracy that works, change must be, and can now be understood, as an institutional imperative. however, what does a real imperative look like? decades ago, our institutions intentionally developed capacity for technology. technology was understood to be an imperative because of societal changes. not everyone agreed; some worried that core academic experiences like books and libraries would disappear, but institutions began to invest in the infrastructure, and disciplines began to change. it was an imperative. building the human capacity of staff, faculty, and students was also essential. changes concerning technology represented an imperative in higher education in every aspect of our institutions. significantly, we now can see a practical demonstration of what an imperative looks like when we immediately went to online learning at the beginning of the pandemic. had we not built the capacity over decades, that would not have been possible. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26137| march 22, 2022 21 the challenge, of course, is that the necessity for building capacity for technology across our institutions was visible to most everyone in a way that the consequences of embedded structural inequities have been largely visible only to those who experienced them. given the last few years, have these inequities, has structural racism now been made visible? given that the role of american higher education is central to preparing leaders for a pluralistic society, academic excellence requires that our colleges and universities understand how diversity, like technology, is now tied to excellence, making it crucial that institutions increase capacity for diversity. creating healthy pluralistic democracies requires, at a minimum, an intentional focus on the role and complexity of identities, making sure anti-racism work is not lost in the complexity of work on equity and inclusion, and, most certainly, the recognition of historically embedded societal inequities. leaders from all industries are now having to address disparities in their institutions, but too often, their response to revelations of bias and inequality is “i didn’t know.” why did our leaders who are the graduates of our institutions not know? the content of scholarship and curriculum must prepare our leaders to identify and understand the conditions that create equitable environments for all. these days, diversity, equity, and inclusion are often considered part of an institution’s strategic plan for inclusiveness and a core value parallel with other strategic issues. that is essential but not sufficient. implications for institutions anti-racism, equity, and inclusion must be manifested as an imperative for change embedded in structures, systems, knowledge, and metrics for excellence. we must make sure that our graduates in every field and at every level understand what this means and how to interrupt these patterns. this is as true for access, success, and campus climate, as it is for the content of scholarship, the curriculum, and the skills required to help future leaders and scholars confront and engage those inequities so deeply embedded that they restrict the knowledge, development, and, importantly, identification of talent. what, then, have we learned from research as core to this practice? 1. embed in institutional mission as an immediate and core imperative. whatever an institution’s mission—leadership preparation, solving complex problems, doing research, engaging communities, providing capacity building—requires understanding the diversity of the human condition, including social, historical, and individual factors that are important. there is no field from business and health care to architecture and urban planning to education where everyone needs deep capacity in structural and individual factors that are relevant. any area that works with the public or the community, as cumu institutions do, must be intentional about which publics or which parts of the community are served, addressed, or included in the research. 2. understand that the institutional work must be both inclusive and differentiated. it is essential to understand that anti-racism work does not conflict with the efforts to disrupt other structural inequities. indeed, addressing each will ultimately make the institution more inclusive for all. the challenge has been, in the past, that addressing other identity issues has sometimes been original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26137| march 22, 2022 22 easier than the serious unfinished business of race in the united states. that avoidance cannot continue. 3. understand the complexity of identities and their intersectionality, and critically understanding that the embedded inequities that must be addressed are institutional and academic. 4. data is key. while no institution would ignore budget data to see how they are doing financially, it is amazing how many institutions do not have data readily available on their progress on diversity. there are key metrics that are simple to monitor that hold institutions and leaders accountable for change (smith, 2020). the research suggests that the traditional response to issues is to create programs that support specific populations. and while these programs are critical to helping individuals and groups succeed, they most often do not address underlying institutional inequities despite their intentions. what is the status of diversity in terms of core metrics, and where is progress needed in student demographics, student success across all fields, faculty hiring and retention, diversity in leadership, research, and curriculum transformation? 5. capacity must be built throughout the institution intentionally in every department, at every level, both in terms of the qualities required of anyone being hired and the professional development needed as new issues emerge. we have had to do this on an ongoing basis with technology and have invested the resources necessary. the same cannot be said for dei work, which is often the responsibility of a few people. conclusion due to the confluence of recent events, we are in a moment that provides opportunities for real change, opportunities to create organizations where creativity and innovation thrive. it has never been more imperative that we interrupt the usual by recognizing the inextricable indivisibility of diversity and excellence. we will equip american higher education with the tools essential to fulfilling its critical imperative for a healthy democracy that works. just as technology has been an imperative that requires interrupting the usual, building higher education’s capacity for diversity, anti-racism, equity, and inclusion is imperative for the 21stcentury and democracy. reference smith, d.g. (2020). diversity’s promise for higher education: making it work (3rd ed.). johns hopkins university press. metropolitan universities vol. 30 no. 3 (september 2019), doi: 10.18060/23515 3 service-learning in asia carol ma hok ka, thera chiu, and lim tai wei service-learning service-learning (sl) has been recognized as a pedagogy that integrates meaningful community service with academic knowledge and skill development. it is an instructional practice providing a self-reflection platform for different stakeholders to enrich their learning experience, nurture civic responsibility, and strengthen community bonding (ma, chan, mak, chan, 2018). globally, higher education institutions (hei) are integrating sl into their curriculums as significant studies have shown the benefits of this innovative approach to experiential learning (ma & lo, 2016; kiely, 2005), including enhanced academic learning, communication skills, organizational skills, problem-solving skills, social competence, research skills and civic orientation (ma & chan, 2013; astin, vogelgesang, ikeda, & yee, 2000; vogelgesang & astin, 2002 ). it has also generated new knowledge (hargreaves, 2003), improved leadership skills (snell, chan, & ma, 2013), and encouraged civic engagement (steinberg, hatcher, & bringle, 2011). service-learning in asia although sl is primarily a western learning concept, it is widely used as a pedagogy among education and community sectors in asia, especially after the academic conference on ‘service-learning in asia: creating networks and curriculum in higher education’ held in 2002 at the international christian university (icu) in japan as this became an interconnection with other asian heis (xing & ma, 2010). in 2004, icu set up the servicelearning asia network (slan) with support from the japanese government and the united board for christian higher education in asia (ma, chan, chen and fong, 2018). in 2004, lu received one million dollars (hkd) funding support from kwan fong charitable organization to start a service-learning and research scheme (slrs) and then in 2006, received another ten million dollars (hkd) to set up the first office of service-learning (osl) in hong kong. with the aim of constructing a model for academy-student-community partnership, lu has made an attempt to truly put the inspirational slogan “serving to learn and learning to serve” into practice. with commitment from a dedicated sl team and support from local and regional partners, lu started taking the lead of sl development in both hong kong and asia. lu even organized the first asia-pacific regional conference on service-learning (aprcsl) in 2007 and served as the secretariat for slan after the revitalization. the biannual aprcsl was established in 2007 as a platform for education institutions and non-profit organization in the asia-pacific region to share knowledge and experiences in sl. after a few years of conference, it is also found that asian countries explore different ways to understand the meanings and the practices of sl. they also realized the unprecedented need 4 to modify and adjust to this concept with their own cultures, social and political characteristics. the themes of the aprcsl are listed below: • 2007: an evolving integration of theory and practice • 2009: crossing borders, making connections: service-learning in diverse communities • 2011: make a difference: impacts of service-learning • 2013: service-learning as a bridge from local to global: connected world, connected future • 2015: love journey: community engagement through service-learning • 2017: educating the heart: nurturing a fruitful life through service-learning in 2019, the 7th aprcsl hosted by singapore university of social sciences (suss) with the support of the service-learning asia network and different key partners include lingnan foundation, sg cares, youth corps singapore and skillsfuture sg. the conference theme was ‘service-learning: a lifelong journey of social responsibility’. as the organizer and the secretariat of the slan, suss noticed increasing societal and environmental challenges, the need to influence and empower asian youths to actively develop and act on their sense of social responsibility is ever pressing. in both academic and co-curricular applications, sl could play a critical role in heis in educating and engaging our youths to develop the knowledge and skills (head), attitudes and dispositions (heart) to make life choices that are socially responsible (habit), in their journey of growth to become leaders in society. since the whole region is facing similar social problems like poverty gap, ageing population, global warming, energy shortage and food crisis, environmental issue. sl provides a very good platform for students to take action beyond the campus environment, visualize the world as their home and become social leaders to spread love, care and act for the good of people in need. articles in this issue lu, chen and yang took a group of macau students out of their comfort zone and went to the mountain area of china to experience the life of ethnic minority children through a sl teaching project. the authors have shown the real life experiences to the students, thus, the students had more understanding of poverty issues and education opportunities in china’s rural areas. through the sl project, students also developed their teamwork spirits, leadership and service skills. and the most important is they have commitment to continue to serve because they understand sl must be a mutual process. the sl experience not only empowered the students, but also let them understand how a living-learning community can be created to educate people holistically. 5 living-learning community can happen anytime if we show respect to each other, for example, intergenerational learning. in view of the ageing population, especially, the increasing longevity and persisting low fertility have given rise to the whole ageing population in the world, there is a demand to promote more intergenerational harmony. au yeung, lam and fong shared how they have created a learning platform for young-old work together in a science course. the authors tried to explore how elderly individuals participating in a sl project facilitates open communication and reciprocal learning between age groups, and promotes intergenerational harmony. the young old partnership in the sl project has not only enhanced the trust and communication, but also help to promote a sustainable society. their findings echoed to what chan et al (2013)’s research result that ‘through learning, investigating, communicating and solving problems together, students and elders cooperate and complete the learning journey hand in hand.” it is a positive experience while young-old work together. however, not every sl project can run it smoothly. there are still substantial challenges (e.g. recognition of faculty and students’ involvement in sl; sustainability issues, ethical conduct of sl, etc. have not been sought for approval/cooperation with school authorities) to conduct sl in the region. uy’s article is an example to talk about the enablers and barriers in implementing sl in the context of a premier private catholic philippine allied health profession education institution. she also highlighted the multi-dimensional perspectives from the academic community of faculty members, students and the partner communities regarding many key concepts which may affect the sl implementation. while the benefits of sl are clear to the academic landscape, it was apparently not adequate to drive its successful implementation to attain its graduate outcomes as well as the resultant disability-related health outcomes for the communities we serve. the results of her study can inform development of continuing education, training and support for considering sl as its signature pedagogy in the allied health profession. she re-emphasized that sl can potentially support allied health profession curriculum for its emerging professional identity and role in enhancing disability-related health outcomes. other than integrate sl into your curriculum, you can also use sl as a way of conducting a community engaged research. loan and hsu tried to explore how civic media practice facilitating the democratic process in environmental protection in taiwan through community engaged research. the authors conducted in-depth interviews and analyzed the posts on facebook group, line messages, and websites of two ongoing projects regarding the impact of civic media practice on the democratic process. they also analyzed how social networking sites or applications function in four activities of the democratic process through network building, discussion forums, distributed ownership and persistent input. these activities definitely help organizations overcome distrust of institutions and enhance civic media’s ability to foster connections and create more usable interfaces between communities and institutions. nevertheless, creating a good space for discussion where people can voice their concerns is necessary, however, how to create a transparent, open and fair space between the participants and the administers are always a question? so, research may help to suggest what 6 would be the best to provide a safe environment to express views and concerns. and it may also mitigate the harm to democratic processes as well. conclusion though sl has been spreading in the region, there are not enough discussions on how can sl enhance teaching and learning to serve the needy in the society. the articles in this issue are some examples in the region, other challenges and opportunities should be shared in order to create the best practices for the region. in 2017, a presidential meeting of slan was held to discuss the development and best practices of sl in the region. it was confirmed that silliman university in philippines and dongseo university in korea will host the next regional conferences in 2021 and 2023 respectively. looking ahead, it is important to develop more joint partnerships and platforms to highlight the importance of sl as it will definitely be one of the means to address disruptions in the contemporary world and complex social issues. as you read this issue, we hope that you can consider the following questions: what are the needs in the region? ageing issues? environmental issues? democracy? children education or other else? what make sl work? how can we support sl movement? and what and how the heis recognize faculty members and students to embrace sl? hopefully, with your reflection, we can get more insights from you in the next regional conference in 2021 in philippines. 7 references astin, a., vogelgesang, l., ikeda, e., & yee, j. (2000). how service-learning affects students. los angeles, ca: higher education research institute, ucla. hargreaves, a. (2003). teaching in the knowledge society : education in the age of insecurity. new york, ny: teachers college press. kiely, r. (2005). a transformative learning model for service-learning: a longitudinal case study.michigan journal of community service-learning, 12(1), 5-22. ma, c. h. k. (2018). service-learning development in higher education in hong kong. in hong kong in 2017: two decades of post-1997 hong kong developments (pp. 43-61). singapore and new jersey: wspc. ma, c. h. k., chan, a. c. m., liu a. c., & mak f. m. f. (2018). service-learning as a new paradigm in the higher education of china. east lansing, mi: the michigan states university press ma, c. h. k., & lo, d. y. l. (2016). service-learning as an independent course: merits, challenges, and ways forward. international journal of research on service-learning and community engagement, 4(1), 39-52. meijs, l. c. p. m., maas, s., & aramuruzabala, p. (2019) institutionalisation of service learning in european higher education. in. embedding service learning in european higher education: developing a culture of civic engagement (pp. 212-229). london: routledge. doi: 10.4324/9781315109053-14. steinberg, k. s., hatcher, j. a., & bringle, r. g. (2011). civic-minded graduate: a north star. michigan journal of community service-learning, 18(1), 19-33. snell, r. s., chan, y. l., & ma, h. k. c. (2013, june). learning service leadership through service-learning: anxieties, opportunities and insights: paper presented at 4th asia-pacific regional conference on service-learning: service-learning as a bridge from local to global: connected world, connected future, hong kong and guangzhou, china. shek, t. l. d., & hollister, m. r. (2017). university social responsibility and quality of life. a global survey of concepts and experiences. singapore: springer nature. stanton, t., giles, d., & cruz, n. i. (1999). service-learning: a movement's pioneers reflect on its origins, practice, and future. san francisco, ca: jossey-bass publishers. vogelgesang, l. j., & astin, a. w. (2000). comparing the effects of community service and service-learning. michigan journal of community service learning, 7, 25-34. 8 xing, j., & ma, h. k. c. (2010). service-learning in asia: curricular models and practices. hong kong: hong kong university press. 9 author information carol ma hok ka head, master & phd of gerontology programme senior fellow, office of service-learning and community engagement centre for experiential learning s r nathan school of human development singapore university of social sciences 463 clementi road singapore 599494 carolmahk@suss.edu.sg thera chiu associate professor center for general education taipei medical university 250 wuxing st. taipei 11031, tw thera@tmu.edu.tw lim tai wei associate professor centre for university core singapore university of social sciences 463 clementi road singapore 599494 limtaiwei2009@gmail.com mailto:carolmahk@suss.edu.sg microsoft word 23556-new format_lovell-final.docx   invited commentary      © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23556 | december 6, 2019  72  strategically connecting a university to a community  michael r. lovell1, daniel bergen2, maura donovan3, and rana altenburg4  1office of the president, marquette university, 2 office of civic engagement, marquette university, 3 office for  corporate engagement, marquette university, 4 office for public affairs, marquette university    cite as: lovell, m.r., bergen, d., donovan, m., & altenburg, r. (2019). strategically connecting a university to a  community. metropolitan universities, 30(4), 72‐78. doi: 10.18060/38356    this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license.    editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d.       introduction  more than 450 years ago, ignatius of loyola and his colleagues founded the first of several jesuit institutions in sicily. they did this at a time when other higher education institutions existed, such as the university of paris, where students were trained for professions in law, medicine, and the priesthood. what set the jesuit colleges apart was that they were specifically created to train individuals who would improve the communities in which they lived, and not for a specific profession. few responsibilities can be as invigorating, and at the same time overwhelming, as staying true to a tradition that dates back nearly 500 years, yet that is the challenge that catholic, jesuit universities accept when they carry on their mission of producing citizens who live their lives in service to others. at marquette university, we’ve been striving to uphold this tradition for 138 years. we are constantly looking for new and innovative ways to help address some of milwaukee’s most pressing challenges and uniquely connect our talents and resources to benefit our community.   approach  to further live our mission, marquette has launched many new initiatives over the past five years that strategically connect our university to our community. in this paper, we will highlight three of these initiatives. the first relates to connecting the anchor institutions in our neighborhood through an effort called near west side partners. the second discusses the creation of a centralized office of community engagement that advances the development, support, and promotion of the research, teaching, and service partnerships between our campus and our community partners. the third initiative, our most recent enterprise, is our office of corporate engagement and partnerships. all three of these efforts follow through on ignatius of loyola’s vision to serve others and collectively make a difference.     © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23556 | december 6, 2019  73  near west side partners  near west side partners, inc. (nwsp) is an economic development nonprofit serving seven neighborhoods just west of downtown milwaukee. it started as a two-person conversation about community safety in the summer of 2014 between harley-davidson, inc. ceo keith wandell and marquette president michael lovell. it was prompted by a sudden spike in robberies around the university’s campus and unprecedented violent crime in harley-davidson’s parking lots, including a stray bullet that went through a conference room window during a business meeting. they agreed to take bold action to collaborate on how to best address community safety. their first action was to invite more than 20 corporate and nonprofit executives to a forum in october 2014 to discuss how they could improve their neighborhood. after the initial meeting, three other large organizations on milwaukee’s near west side made long-term leadership commitments: aurora health care, millercoors, and potawatomi business development corporation. together with harley-davidson, inc. and marquette, they became known as the anchor institutions. by january 2015, nwsp officially launched as a nonprofit, and it continues to serve more than 350 businesses, 94 nonprofits, 28,000 residents, and 29,000 employees. while the anchors provided unprecedented levels of leadership and engagement to nwsp, it was critical to engage with residents and other community stakeholders to determine the strategic priorities for the neighborhood. nwsp learned through listening, which was the focus during the subsequent months. based on community input, we agreed on four areas of focus: promoting economic development, improving and diversifying housing, unifying neighborhood identity and branding, and achieving greater safety for residents and businesses. the effort gained significant momentum with an april 2015 announcement of multi-year commitments totaling more than $2 million from the five anchor institutions to support nwsp’s signature initiative: parc, a highly effective, data-driven strategy to promote assets and reduce crime through the development of appropriate interventions targeting the four focus areas. key components include a fully funded community prosecution unit dedicated to the near west side that includes an assistant district attorney, data analyst, and outreach worker who are embedded in the neighborhood. parc coincided with a change at our university to further professionalize our public safety operations to becoming a fully sworn state-recognized university police department. in the first year of operation as marquette university police department, we saw robberies decrease 28% and burglaries decrease 53%. mupd’s success also dispersed crime in such a way that it helped reinforce milwaukee police department’s efforts to reduce overall crime in the near west side, resulting in similar double-digit decreases in robberies and burglaries outside the mupd patrol zone. these early wins in reducing crime provided the confidence for other law enforcement actions to be taken by the city of milwaukee: one involved a court-ordered receivership for a multi-unit apartment building with excessive code violations and one resulted in court action to force the closure and ultimate demolition of a tobacco shop. the tobacco shop was the near west side’s most problematic property, making it impossible to promote new development along its commercial corridor. in 2015, milwaukee police responded to more than 230 calls for service at that property. after the city filed the lawsuit, the calls for service dropped by nearly 90%. © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23556 | december 6, 2019  74  eventually, the owner sold the property to the adjacent penfield children’s center, which plans to use that land to further develop its programs. in addition to the lawsuit, the power of the partnership was further demonstrated by the anchors working with the wisconsin legislature to close a state law loophole allowing tobacco shops to continue operating in spite of criminal activity or poor management. the tobacco store effort gained the attention of milwaukee mayor tom barrett, who said in his 2017 state of the city address: “working together, they were able to get the property declared a nuisance and changed state law to prevent problems like this in the future. this teamwork paid off when the property owner voluntarily agreed to close the shop. talk about the power of partnerships. i want to thank the near west side partners for rolling up their sleeves and committing themselves to our city.” we knew we were achieving our goals when our work received even wider external attention from organizations like the u.s. department of housing and urban development (hud) and the international town and gown association (itga). in 2018, hud awarded a $1.3 million choice neighborhoods initiative grant to near west side partners and marquette to create a comprehensive community strategy focused on public housing options for senior citizens in the neighborhood. itga recognized the partnership with its 2017 presidential excellence award, highlighting leadership that fosters beneficial relationships between campus communities, contributions to the field of town-gown relations through academic research, and exemplary volunteer efforts that contribute to the quality of life of campus communities. the continuing efforts and successes of near west side partners can be seen online.   community engagement  historically, community engagement has been an emphasis and source of pride for marquette. president lovell’s three predecessors, rev. albert diulio, rev. robert wild, and rev. scott pilarz, had each during their tenures placed special focus on the neighborhood dating back to the early 1990s. in 2015, marquette received the carnegie classification for higher education community engagement and knew the time was right to leverage our success with near west side partners to further elevate and prioritize community engagement efforts. we had many programs and projects under way that year. marquette university faculty and staff received $9.9 million in grants through corporate, foundation, state, and federal programs to conduct community-engaged research and provide service to address community-based issues. beyond these external resources, our university was investing more than $17 million worth of care and services annually in the city through its centers, clinics (dental, legal and health), institutes, and programs. over 80% of our students participate in service during their undergraduate experience, and every school and college on campus provides their students with service-learning opportunities. despite community engagement being a priority for our campus, it was clear that our universitywide understanding and coordination of it was lacking. from 2014-2015, three separate university task forces or committees, the community engagement task force, academic senate committee on diversity and equity, and the president’s task force on diversity and inclusion, © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23556 | december 6, 2019  75  all recommended the creation of a campus-wide and cohesive community engagement office. for this purpose, the office of community engagement was launched in january 2016. the office of community engagement was strategically housed in the office of the provost to serve as a central clearinghouse for community engagement activities and to promote the scholarship of engagement. the office collaborates with partners across the institution, including the office of research and innovation, deans, department chairs, faculty members, the center for teaching and learning-service learning program, the center for community service, and the offices of student affairs, marketing and communication, and public affairs, to ensure engagement efforts are effectively responding to the needs of the community while meeting the educational and research mission of the university. over the first two years, with leadership from daniel bergen, executive director of the office of community engagement, marquette received nine local, state, and national awards for community engagement, including recognition as one of five institutions honored nationally by the washington center with a 2016 higher education civic engagement award. beyond elevating our profile, we began hosting wisconsin’s largest community engagement symposium, annually attracting over 300 participants for the one-day event; we have recruited community engaged scholars across disciplines, including psychology, education, nursing, exercise science, history, sociology, and communications. in the winter of 2018, the office of community engagement launched a new grant program (the president’s challenge) in partnership with the johnson controls foundation. the challenge provides a $250,000, two-year grant for one interdisciplinary, collaborative proposal that seeks to change the trajectory of lives in our community. proposals required a diverse group of faculty members from the hard sciences, social sciences, and the humanities, to partner with milwaukee community neighborhood organizations. proposals needed to address one or more of the critical areas in which neighborhood inequities exist, including health, education, safety, housing, transportation, and/or economic prosperity. in january 2019, marquette announced the first winner of the president’s challenge: the next step clinic. the project will address critical mental health needs for central-city children and its team includes 10 marquette faculty members, two african-american churches, and four other neighborhood organizations. more information about it is available online. building on the initial successes of the office of community engagement, marquette’s provost convened a community engagement task force 2.0 in july of 2018. the task force brought together internal leaders, external partners, and faculty, staff, and students to seek recommendations on how to further institutionalize community engagement. the goal of the task force was to establish marquette as a forward-looking leader locally, nationally, and globally. nearly 70 members of the marquette community volunteered to be part of the task force and self-selected to serve among six working groups that were focused on dimensions of engagement: faculty/staff engagement, student engagement, profile and membership, mission, partnership management and cultivation, and impact/assessment. in each of their respective work groups, the teams were asked to produce swot (strengths, weakness, opportunities, threats) analyses, identify best practices, and create recommendations. their recommendations focused on policies, organizational structure, and staffing. one of the key recommendations was the addition of community-engaged research and teaching in the © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23556 | december 6, 2019  76  university’s promotion and tenure guidelines. they reasoned such a concept is critical to the continued advancement of community engagement in research, teaching, and scholarship, the intentional recruitment of community-engaged scholars, and the ongoing support of current community-engaged faculty. under the guidance of the senior vice provost, a promotion and tenure evaluation committee was formed. the committee included the executive director of community engagement, the vice president of corporate engagement, and several faculty members, and they will propose changes to tenure standards in spring 2020. corporate engagement  without significant engagement with our local corporate community, it would be impossible to fully implement “beyond boundaries,” marquette university’s strategic plan. one challenge to our efforts was that we had poor cross campus communication regarding how best to approach our corporate partners. in addition, those approaches often had conflicting priorities and incentives. corporate relationships often were overly reliant on an individual rather than a university structure and marquette didn’t have a centralized organizational effort to leverage. to improve our corporate engagement efforts, a president’s task force was formally launched in summer 2017. the task force was charged with evaluating current internal efforts through a swot analysis and determining best practices in corporate engagement at universities across the country. more than 80 individuals from campus and 10 existing corporate partners volunteered to take part in the task force. each task force member joined a working team in one of the seven dimensions of corporate engagement: (a) academic programs and executive education; (b) talent development; (c) corporate-sponsored research; (d) technology transfer; (e) consortia and alliances; (f) corporate philanthropy and sponsorship; or (g) contracts and service partnerships. each team worked on an accelerated, six-month timeline to make formal recommendations as to how the university should move its corporate engagement efforts forward. the numerous recommendations were evaluated and prioritized by the task force. related to process and policies, the following seven recommendations were deemed the highest priority: • creating a single access point (web portal) and a central database to track all corporate interactions; • clearly recognizing corporate engagement as a contributor to tenure and promotion; • significantly improving career counseling services uniformly for all colleges/schools; • creating a customer relations management (crm) tool; • developing streamlined intellectual property and technology transfer policies; • providing a mechanism to efficiently approve innovative corporate grants, contracts and partnerships; and • creating a model and infrastructure for effective communication across campus. a key feature of the “single access point” included the creation of a new office of corporate engagement and partnerships (ocep) to be led by a vice president reporting directly to the president. earlier this year, maura donovan was named vice president of corporate engagement at marquette. under her leadership, the ocep has formalized, enhanced, and streamlined the © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23556 | december 6, 2019  77  ways in which marquette works with corporate partners through communication, prioritization, consistency, and process excellence. in 2018, just a few months after the office of corporate engagement and partnerships was formed, ocep announced its first major corporate partnership with town bank for commercial and retail banking. through the partnership, town bank (the milwaukee-area branch of wintrust community bank) sponsored marquette athletics and provided several million dollars in scholarship support for high-need students. another initial success of the ocep was the creation of a data science institute with northwestern mutual and the university of wisconsinmilwaukee in june 2018. the institute, which was a joint investment of more than $40 million, is physically housed in the cream city labs on northwestern mutual’s milwaukee campus where students, faculty, and northwestern mutual staff interact daily on research and educational programs. the institute grew out of a desire by northwestern mutual to not just improve its own abilities to extract value from digital information, but to transform southeastern wisconsin into a region that prospers in the digital age by creating a healthy technology ecosystem in tandem with the region’s two largest universities.   conclusion  our successes to better serve our region over the past five years have often overlapped with the task force processes in which we have engaged to address our most significant challenges. as is often the case in this fast-changing world, change does not wait. sometimes we were addressing our problems before our task force process had clearly defined them. near west side partners overlapped with the work of our community engagement task force, and it wasn’t the only overlap with this task force. another was marquette’s creation of the president’s challenge, identified earlier under the community engagement section. a third overlap was the university’s involvement with hundreds of other people in scaling wellness in milwaukee (swim) – a collaboration within the human services, healthcare, educational, and criminal justice sectors, that is bringing wisconsin to the forefront of the trauma-informed care movement. throughout the task force processes for both corporate and community engagement, as well as within our efforts at advancing research partnerships in the near west side, the challenge of involving faculty in these areas consistently arose. specifically, how do we reconfigure our guidelines that traditionally focus on academic publications as a primary factor for granting promotion and tenure to appropriately account for corporate and community engagement? that’s a challenge ahead. considering the future, we can often look to our past. in the book, universities and their cities: urban higher education in america (2017), marquette is featured at moments throughout. one particular quote from our past provides a guidepost for our future: “on marquette university’s twenty-fifth anniversary, in 1906, when it was relatively small but on the verge of acquiring local law and medical schools and establishing its department of science and engineering and school of business administration, the archbishop declared that ‘what a state university does for madison, a university located here would do for milwaukee.’ albert fox, s.j., marquette president from 1922-1928, © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23556 | december 6, 2019  78  promoted the institution as ‘milwaukee’s university.’ in an essay entitled ‘university’s vision of a city,’ he argued that a first-rate university needed an extensive partnership with its home city.” (diner 2017) in other words, we’re still working toward that extensive partnership with our home city that rev. fox wrote about nearly a century ago. however, we’ve come a long way, especially during these past five years. with better organization and better processes in place, we have every confidence we’ll further carry on the mission started by st. ignatius and his colleagues to create catholic, jesuit universities that produce citizens who live their lives in service to others. original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | 10.18060/26785 | july 2, 2023 5 collective vision: promoting leadership, partnership, and opportunities to improve health in greater hazelwood lisa ripper,1 michelle figlar, 2 tim smith, 3 jerome gloster, 4 chad dorn, 5 and jennifer padden elliot6 1 center for integrative health, duquesne university, 2 vice president of learning, the heinz endowments, 3 chief executive officer, center of life, 4 chief executive officer, primary care health services, inc., 5 vice president of community impact and evaluation, leading to movement, 6 director of the center for integrative health and associate professor, school of pharmacy, duquesne university cite as: ripper, l., figlar, m., smith, t., gloster, j., dorn, c., & elliot, j.p. (2023). collective vision: promoting leadership, partnership, and opportunities to improve health in greater hazelwood. metropolitan universities, 34(3), 5-13. doi: 10.18060/26785 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. guest editors: rochelle smarr, ed.d. and chris nayve, j.d. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract greater hazelwood, a neighborhood located in pittsburgh, pennsylvania, saw a decline in residents, businesses, and services at the steel industry's decline. residents, philanthropic organizations, advocates, health centers, schools, universities, and community-based organizations continue collaborating to revitalize the greater hazelwood neighborhood by following the greater hazelwood neighborhood plan. duquesne university center for integrative health was engaged by a place-based grantmaking strategy in greater hazelwood to explore the creation of a collaborative partnership between a university, federally qualified health center, school, residents, and community-based organizations to create a framework to improve access to comprehensive and quality healthcare in greater hazelwood. this collaboratively designed health and wellness programs based on community-identified health priorities to improve health outcomes. these programs provide opportunities for multi-sector partners and interdisciplinary health professionals to meet residents where they are, decrease disease disparity, and promote health equity. keywords: partnership, collaborative, health, wellness, community health http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | 10.18060/26785 | july 2, 2023 6 original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | 10.18060/26785 | july 2, 2023 7 introduction hazelwood and glen hazel, two of the city of pittsburgh’s 90 neighborhoods, create the greater hazelwood neighborhood. greater hazelwood was key in the region’s industrial age for its production of steel, which brought people, employment, businesses, and heavy pollution to the area for over 100 years (fraser, 2017). the decline of the steel industry in pittsburgh throughout the 1980s and 1990s and the eventual closure of the steel mill in hazelwood have been felt in greater hazelwood through a decline in population, closure of schools and businesses, and reduced services in the area. despite the changes and challenges, greater hazelwood is resilient. residents, communitybased organizations, advocates, universities, health centers, and philanthropic organizations continue collaborating to revitalize the community by addressing housing and environmental concerns such as air quality and increased green space access, revitalization of the business district, and resident well-being (dorn, 2022). in 2017, the greater hazelwood community collaborative (ghcc), a collaboration of community-based organizations from the neighborhood and those doing work within the neighborhood, launched the development of the greater hazelwood neighborhood plan. greater hazelwood residents, stakeholders, and the ghcc developed the neighborhood plan using an iterative process to establish a common vision and direction for a changing neighborhood; understand and prioritize community needs and desires, develop goals, recommendations, and implementation strategies in response; have a community-informed and -supported document to guide future planning activities, neighborhood design, and investment decisions; and proactively manage changing conditions and dynamics related to the development of hazelwood green [where the former steel mill was located](city of pittsburgh department of city planning, 2019). the greater hazelwood neighborhood plan includes information about the neighborhood as it is today to understand residents’ income and poverty, race, employment, education, economic development, housing, displacement, public health, food infrastructure, public safety, and community assets. today, greater hazelwood is home to 5,099 residents (36.7% african american). it has an average median household income of just over half that of the city of pittsburgh’s median household income ($25,440 vs. $44,092) (city of pittsburgh department of city planning, 2019). compared to the city of pittsburgh, greater hazelwood has a higher proportion of youth under 18, people over 50, and residents who live below the poverty level (city of pittsburgh department of city planning, 2019). original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | 10.18060/26785 | july 2, 2023 8 the greater hazelwood neighborhood plan also summarized the health needs of the community. community conversation and data showed that the health priorities, given the demographic and socioeconomic makeup of the neighborhood, should focus on addressing mental health and wellness, hypertension, diabetes, addiction, and asthma. the city of pittsburgh planning commission unanimously adopted the greater hazelwood neighborhood plan at a public hearing on november 5, 2019. this allowed the next phase of the plan to take placea call to action to realize the implementation of all identified priorities and engagement of strategic partners to assist with the vision for the neighborhood's future. the duquesne university center for integrative health (ducih) is one of many collaborating partners in this effort to implement the greater hazelwood neighborhood plan. ducih’s mission is to train the next generation of health practitioners to address rural and urban healthcare disparities and improve health equity in the pittsburgh region and beyond. ducih works with diverse community partners to meet residents where they are, decrease disease disparity, and promote health equity. ducih programs focus on problems that have a high cost, high burden, and significant racial disparity. in october 2022, the authors presented a poster at the 27th annual conference of the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities showcasing how the collaboration and framework between ducih, philanthropy, community-based organizations, schools, and local health center partners to build a strong neighborhood and improve health outcomes in greater hazelwood was created. background making a greater hazelwood (magh) is a place-based, grant-making strategy of the heinz endowments in the greater hazelwood community that began in 2018. magh intends to build, restore, and sustain meaningful relationships among social services organizations working in greater hazelwood (dorn, 2022). magh aligns and coordinates efforts to support children and families residing in the neighborhood. at the start of magh, 14 organizations focusing on youth development, social determinants of health, education, and workforce development received grants to implement community-informed programs. grantees met monthly on zoom for approximately one hour to discuss technical assistance, collaborations, upcoming events, challenges, and future directions. when the city of pittsburgh adopted the greater hazelwood neighborhood plan, magh was uniquely positioned to connect the community organizations to priority areas of the plan and promote the future directions that the magh coalition could support, such as focusing on health and wellness. to achieve health equity and decrease health disparities, barriers must be removed so everyone has a fair opportunity to be healthy. cross-sector partners must come together to ensure people original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | 10.18060/26785 | july 2, 2023 9 have resources to maintain and manage their physical health. magh approached partners like duquesne university and its center for integrative health (ducih) to join magh and explore the creation of a partnership between universities, federally qualified health centers (fqhcs), schools, residents, and community-based organizations to improve access to comprehensive and quality healthcare in greater hazelwood. magh’s engagement of ducih catalyzed the bridges to health collaborative. bridges to health collaborative formally launched in january 2020, the bridges to health (b2h) collaborative convenes multisector partners to implement sustainable, trauma-responsive, community-driven programs to address health disparities identified in the greater hazelwood neighborhood plan: asthma, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease. b2h bridges clinical and social determinants of health outside of the traditional healthcare system to create a pathway to health for everyone. the b2h collaborative convened and led by ducih in partnership with magh, greater hazelwood’s fqhc, elementary school, and seven community-based organizations (figure 1) designed a framework that would implement health and wellness programs tailored to the greater hazelwood community (figure 2). these programs, along with a brief description of the program and their outcomes, are located in table 1. some programs, such as the community clinical linkages and school-based asthma program, were able to be introduced to the greater hazelwood neighborhood with the support of the b2h collaborative network, thus allowing this work to build upon existing literature and strong community programming to support residents of the neighborhood further (elliott et al., 2021; elliott et al., 2022). b2h collaborative members were able to make connections between the needs of the community reported in the plan with program development. for example, the greater hazelwood neighborhood plan points to several areas for collaboration around health and social determinants of health needs. the b2h collaborative decided that a community health worker (chw) program could assist with resources related to housing, utility and healthcare navigation, and food security, thus working to fulfill some of the residents' needs in a variety of priority areas. research and evaluation on program outcomes are forthcoming. table 1. bridges to health program descriptions and outcomes program name program description program outcome measures original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | 10.18060/26785 | july 2, 2023 10 community clinical linkages (ccl) community-based pharmacists help to ensure that those at high risk for chronic disease and its implications have access to community resources to manage their conditions best. chronic disease and social determinants of health screenings referrals to clinical and social services follow-up with residents to support linkages to care community health workers (chw) chws serve as liaisons between residents and clinical and social services to support residents in getting the care and services they need to be healthy social determinants healthcare navigation support referrals to clinical and social services schooland communitybased asthma programs free, yearly asthma screenings monthly school-based asthma clinic hosted by the elementary school in greater hazelwood in collaboration with the local fqhc and ducih referrals for children at risk for undiagnosed or uncontrolled asthma asthma medication knowledge visit compliance asthma control asthma-related quality of life school-based health education program with partners, provide and/or facilitate health education programs for the elementary school and community organizations in greater hazelwood educational programs have included: • substance use disorder education and support • tobacco prevention and education • covid-19 ask the pharmacist • asthma education national diabetes prevention program (dpp) program follows the nationally recognized cdc weight loss original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | 10.18060/26785 | july 2, 2023 11 national diabetes prevention program model program is proven to prevent or delay the onset of type 2 diabetes through lifestyle changes. physical activity minutes self-monitoring blood pressure program (smbp) program follows the american health association smbp program program incorporates the concepts of remoting monitoring, online tracking, and recruiting local health mentors to encourage residents. blood pressure management and monitoring education prescription for change pilot research study that connects greater hazelwood residents to chronic disease prevention and management programs and pharmacistprovided medication therapy management diabetes risk cardiovascular risk physical activity access to healthy foods tobacco cessation four weeks of cessation support classes for participants virtually or inperson, with follow-up and assistance with obtaining nicotine replacement therapy decrease in tobacco use access to nicotine replacement therapy original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | 10.18060/26785 | july 2, 2023 12 figure 1. bridges to health collaborative partners. figure 2. bridges to health programs. the b2h collaborative meets twice a year as a large group. the meetings are coordinated and facilitated by ducih staff. during the collaborative meetings, all partners provide updates and discuss any challenges or barriers to programming, such as communication or space needs. original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | 10.18060/26785 | july 2, 2023 13 partners also share and celebrate new partnerships formed and won for their programs. in between the large group meetings, partners have the opportunity to be involved in one of four workgroups that dive deeper into program planning, implementation, and evaluation. all partners (figure 1) have representation in each workgroup to ensure community voice is centered and to promote cross-discipline collaboration. the workgroup’s facilitation responsibilities rotate among members of the group. ducih provides coordination for the workgroups. the workgroup topics are chronic disease programs, social determinants of health, research and evaluation, and strategic planning. the groups help guide the b2h collaborative’s activities and future directions. the b2h collaborative framework supports opportunities for connection among partners. for example, the neighborhood fqhc works closely with the elementary school as a partner in the school-based asthma program. university faculty and students work with partners to co-create programs that address health priorities. community-based organizations are trusted neighborhood sites for programming and provide opportunities for residents to learn more about services in their area. conclusion the b2h collaborative looks forward to growing the partnership between philanthropy, university, community-based organizations, and local health center partners to remain present in the greater hazelwood neighborhood to improve health outcomes. the b2h collaborative, along with magh, has been exploring new and innovative ways to continue to grow our programs and teams and diversify programmatic support. the b2h collaborative has found that it is imperative to have institutional buy-in, strong foundation partnerships, and other external funding sources, such as state and federal grants. one area for programmatic growth is maternal and child health. over the coming year, the b2h collaborative will enhance maternal and child health programming to serve families in greater hazelwood throughout the lifespan. the b2h collaborative is committed to ensuring that the process of enhancing these programs is community-driven. research and evaluation activities are ongoing to assess the programs' and collaborative's outcomes and impact. the collaborative will continue to welcome partners working in these spaces to facilitate collaboration and share expertise. the b2h collaborative launched in early 2020, just before the covid-19 pandemic. strong partnerships were in place for the b2h collaborative at that time because of existing relationships and support from magh and relationships with other partners wanting to improve health and wellness in the greater hazelwood community. these strong partnerships allowed the b2h collaborative to rapidly respond to the needs of the greater hazelwood community original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | 10.18060/26785 | july 2, 2023 14 throughout the pandemic. for example, the b2h community health worker (chw) program was created, and b2h chws could connect residents to health and social services resources. when the covid-19 vaccine became available, the community clinical linkages team partnered with the fqhc to provide vaccinations for greater hazelwood residents. the b2h collaborative evolved to meet the changing needs of the greater hazelwood community throughout the pandemic, which, in turn, strengthened and positioned the collaborative to continue to meet the community’s health-related needs. with magh as a facilitator of meaningful relationships among social services organizations in greater hazelwood and the greater hazelwood neighborhood plan as a guide, ducih and the bridges to health collaborative were able to explore, implement and tailor the creation of a partnership and framework between the university, fqhc, schools, residents, and communitybased organizations to improve access to comprehensive quality healthcare in greater hazelwood. original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | 10.18060/26785 | july 2, 2023 15 references city of pittsburgh department of city planning, greater hazelwood community collaborative. (2019). greater hazelwood neighborhood plan. retrieved from: https://apps.pittsburghpa.gov/redtail/images/7601_final_hazelwood_plan.pdf dorn, c., & johns, l. (2022). stengthening community collaboration: lessons learned in greater hazelwood (the tropman report, issue 1). retrieved from: https://sustainablepittsburgh.org/wp-content/uploads/1649269969347.pdf elliott, j. p., christian, s. n., doong, k., hardy, h. e., mendez, d. d., & gary-webb, t. l. (2021). pharmacist involvement in addressing public health priorities and community needs: the allegheny county racial and ethnic approaches to community health (reach) project. prev chronic dis, 18, e07. https://doi.org/10.5888/pcd18.200490 elliott, j. p., morphew, t., gentile, d., williams, p., barrett, c., & sossong, n. (2022). improved asthma outcomes among at-risk children in a pharmacist-led, interdisciplinary school-based health clinic: a pilot study of the cares program. journal of the american pharmacists association, 62(2), 519-525.e511. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.japh.2021.11.008 fraser, j. (2017). next stage. h, (1), 2-7. retrieved from: https://www.heinz.org/userfiles/library/2017_issue_1-complete.pdf lisa ripper,1 michelle figlar, 2 tim smith, 3 jerome gloster, 4 chad dorn, 5 and jennifer padden elliot6 abstract introduction background bridges to health collaborative conclusion references microsoft word updated vol33 issue 1 ko et al covid issue published.docx original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25330 | february 15, 2022 92 empowering those who seek to end hunger through collaboration and innovation jen-li ko¹, jeff joslyn2, ganhua lu3, jason palmer4, malcolm charles5, aishwarya sanganalu mattha6, bob parsons7, ron tatum8, carey redmann9, and walter bialkowski10 ¹department of languages, literatures, and cultures, marquette university, 2feeding america eastern wisconsin, 3 graduate student, marquette university, 4graduate student, marquette university, 5graduate student, marquette university, 6graduate student, marquette university, 7feeding america eastern wisconsin, 8feeding america eastern wisconsin, 9business development manager, feeding america eastern wisconsin, 10mailto:department of computer science, marquette university cite as: ko, j., joslyn, j., lu, g., palmer, j., charles, m., sanganalu matth, a., parsons, b., tatum, r., redmann, c., & bialkowski, w. (2022). empowering those who seek to end hunger through collaboration and innovation. metropolitan universities journal, 33(1),92-101. doi: https://doi.org/10.18060/25330 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract feeding america eastern wisconsin (faew) distributed 84% more food to community members in need during the covid-19 pandemic than in the prior year. though systems were in place to manage food receipt and distribution data, social distancing requirements and technological barriers revealed inefficiencies in utilizing this data. in pursuit of data-driven decision-making and in the context of a global pandemic, faew partnered with marquette university data scientists through an industry-supported grant. applying newly learned skills in business intelligence, students produced detailed reports of data cleanliness in faew’s source systems to improve underlying data quality and better support analytic efforts. additionally, students synchronized human-centered design thinking and visual analytics to produce an interactive application to optimize inventory management, storage availability, and product distribution. finally, students are utilizing business analytics techniques such as supervised and unsupervised data mining to provide new insights about food receipt and distribution patterns that will have a sustainable impact on faew operations. this unique partnership offers students experiential © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25330 | february 15, 2022 93 learning opportunities, tangible data science solutions that faew will use to ensure best practices, and real-world solutions to collaboratively end hunger in our communities. keywords: covid-19, data science, business intelligence, data analytics, food distribution, community engagement introduction thirteen million u.s. households face food insecurity (>10% of all households nationwide), representing uncertainty in having, or inability to acquire, enough food to meet the needs of household members due to insufficient money or other resources (u. s. department of agriculture, 2021). feeding america eastern wisconsin (faew) served more than 400,000 people in 35 wisconsin counties (10.2% of the population) before january 2020; however, in the subsequent one month period, the u. s. bureau of labor statistics (2021) reported an increase of 10,000 unemployed people (approximately quadrupling the number of unemployed). this dramatic spike in unemployment exaggerated underlying disparities in our community, forcing many additional families to rely on the public service faew provides to receive healthy and nutritious food. between february and april of 2020, faew saw a 67% increase in food distribution compared to the same timeframe in 2019. much of faew’s food is donated by wholesalers, retailers, and manufacturers, leaving most of the donated food received near the end of its shelf-life. effectively managing this increase indefinitely required innovation and resources that faew did not have. marquette university’s (2021) prestigious president’s challenge award supports innovative, interdisciplinary, and collaborative work that addresses critical issues and opportunities facing the city of milwaukee. marquette university faculty and students formed a unique alliance with faew leadership that brings together the field of data science and the mission to end hunger. through experiential learning, faculty-mentored students developed the business intelligence, business analytics, and visual analytics tools faew needs to end hunger more effectively in our communities, which is illustrated in table 1. students (a) optimized current visual analytics practices using licensed software, (b) performed high-level data interrogation on legacy information within faew’s database, (c) created an entirely de novo interactive application to support business decisions, (d) attempted to utilize historical information to identify determinants of food purchases, and (e) transformed a tabular hunger needs formula into an interactive application to support ongoing funding efforts. this complex project empowered students to utilize cutting-edge data science techniques to address meaningful and contemporary real-world challenges in an environment where the highest levels of corporate leadership are highly engaged and directly impacted by the accordant results. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25330 | february 15, 2022 94 table 1. a list of data science initiatives supported through this collaborative, interdisciplinary, and innovative partnership. each project was led by one student or groups of students based on their interests. challenge data science solution description optimizing dashboard functionality business intelligence elevation of the level of report automation to save time spent creating tableau dashboards. legacy data cleaning business analytics the inspection and correction of inaccurate or missing values within a dataset to improve data quality, and therefore the overall productivity for analytic purposes. interaction with companywide data visual analytics interactive web application designed to give users the ability to glean meaningful insights in previously specified areas of interest within faew. purchased product optimization business analytics supervised and unsupervised data mining designed to reveal patterns in the data, leading to the optimization of purchased products. hunger needs formula visual analytics interactive application giving users the ability to manipulate variable values to estimate total ask and total estimated pounds. novel experiential learning pipeline learning data science techniques requires data, and often, students seeking training in data science have data sets available to them through work, research, or other avenues. some students, however, wish to gain access to new data sets that support their learning. two leading faculty members and one student had a first formal meeting with leaders from faew and toured the warehouse at faew shortly before the covid-19 pandemic. to end hunger, especially during the covid-19 pandemic, faculty and leaders at faew proposed this collaboration project. in this case, students were invited to express their interest in participating in a research team seeking to aid faew. students selected for participation in the program could concisely articulate their interests and qualifications. selected students (n = 5) executed non-disclosure agreements with faew, and created a secure data portal to exchange data between marquette university and faew. in addition to receiving hourly pay, students could submit qualifying work for course credit in marquette university’s data science curriculum with instructor approval. students, key leaders at faew, and faculty advisors met monthly to review the © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25330 | february 15, 2022 95 progression of student work, and ad hoc meetings were held between students and faew partners as needed to achieve individual goals. total project time was twelve months (july 2020 to june 2021), as stipulated in the president’s challenge award opportunity. business intelligence to optimize dashboarding the volume of data amassed at faew over four decades of service to the community contains the essential information needed to support daily, weekly, monthly, and annual decisions that ensure those in need of food are served. examination of these data in their stored form, or even in a spreadsheet, limited practical value to those leaders needing to make rapid decisions about food acquisition, storage, and distribution activities. software companies identified this need and created robust platforms for organizations like faew to import their data and create visuals, dashboards, and applications. faew had a pre-existing license with tableau; however, this plug-and-play solution has some less obvious embedded functionality that presents data to leaders who wish to utilize their data to gain knowledge. after building a business case with faew leadership, students assessed readiness, created a business intelligence roadmap, developed scope, and obtained approvals to optimize current practice. the main goal of enhancing tableau practices was to automate reports and save time spent creating dashboards. historically, faew users would export data from primarius (a food-bankoriented database management solution) to excel, replace data sources in tableau, and perform validation. students observed visual analytics users at faew and found that approximately two hours were spent per day creating these reports. students then created dashboard templates within tableau to reduce the time spent repeating these creation steps. the visual component of most of the dashboards did not change; however, the underlying processes were changed to elevate the level of automation as new data were provided. the first two phases allow the newly created workbooks to serve as templates in which only data sources need to be replaced to create new reports. documentation of changes to the underlying dashboards were documented in onepage guides provided to faew containing summary features and narrative text. faew representatives with subject matter expertise reviewed and validated all changes. the applications designed by data scientists in training (marquette students) have been tested and approved by key staff and leaders at faew. subsequent observation of users generating the dashboards revealed that no more than ten minutes were required to generate the same information, corresponding to an estimated 458 hours saved in person-hours per year. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25330 | february 15, 2022 96 legacy data cleaning with business analytics preparing clean and well-structured data sets is a prerequisite for reliable and insightful data analytics. faew accumulated a large amount of data during its nearly 40 years of operation, providing abundant resources for data analytics. however, raw data usually require cleaning before analytics can be conducted with high reliability and accuracy. common data aberrancies include incorrect, incomplete, duplicated, or improperly formatted values. the central data components in faew’s network include (a) agencies (or members), who receive foods from faew and distribute them to people in need; (b) donors or vendors, who provide foods or products to faew; and (c) products or foods, which flow from donors/vendors to agencies and then to people in hunger, as illustrated in table 2. the key entities in faew’s relational database management system (i.e., primarius) map those major components in their network. therefore, data cleaning was conducted on data sets for agency, donor/vendor, and product. the fact that faew staff were already deeply familiar with data stored within primarius achieved two goals: faew could provide subject matter expertise for data elements and tables to marquette university students, and there were no barriers to technology adoption. the data cleaning process included three major steps: data extraction, data analysis, and reporting. raw data sets were first extracted from primarius and then imported into rstudio (an integrated development environment for r) for data analytics. using various r packages (e.g., tidyverse, dt, and knitr), the quality of the raw data sets were examined, and aberrant values (such as missing, incorrect, and redundant values) in the data sets were identified and summarized in reports with visualizations (i.e., charts and tables). reports were prepared using rmarkdown, which combined texts, codes, and visualizations and improved consistency and reproducibility. the data cleaning process was iterative. after faew improved the data quality in primarius based on the findings in the reports, new data were extracted and sent to the marquette university team to check the data quality using the same cleaning process, ensuring aberrant data values were fixed. a secure electronic pipeline was explicitly created for this project, and accordant non-disclosure agreements were executed to preserve the confidentiality of faew’s data. three data sets (for agency, donor/vendor, and products, respectively) were processed for data cleaning. as anticipated for any large organization with decades worth of data, the agency data set included over 500 aberrant values, involving variables such as agency reference number, agency name, zip code, state, and city. having clean data subsequently supported the data transformation, visualization, and modeling in other aspects of this project. in addition, the data cleaning process helped faew improve the quality of data in primarius and increase their productivity for various reporting tasks on a daily, weekly, monthly, or annual basis to stakeholders. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25330 | february 15, 2022 97 table 2. the number and types of aberrant records, by table, found in faew’s source data table number of aberrant records examples of variables impacted agencies 560 agency ref, agency name, city, state, zip, contact donors and vendors 962 donor ref, donor name, city products 1,446 product ref, name, storage interacting with company-wide data clean data served as the foundation of our team’s efforts to extend faew’s ability to derive meaningful insights and make informed decisions about their food acquisition and distribution practices. an assessment of reports that faew leadership created periodically revealed a scarcity of visuals that aggregated data in meaningful ways. thus, students were assigned to nested groups within faew’s leadership team to explore the needs of leaders to manage their inventory effectively, interrogate the duration of which products had been stored in two central warehouses, and called-out opportunities to store large, unanticipated food donations rapidly. in addition, students employed human-centered design thinking to support user-driven innovation and technical solutions. design thinking is taught as part of marquette university’s visual analytics course (department of computer science). it follows loosely the framework developed by stanford university as published in their design thinking bootleg guidebook. a three-page interactive application was subsequently programmed using rshiny, a web application framework for r. inventory and threshold the inventory and threshold page gave power to the user to investigate quickly and accurately the inventory of specific warehouses through quick-read widgets and a comprehensive data table. the widgets allowed the user to determine the number of on-hand items less than 20 pounds by weight or fewer than five cases, indicating low inventory. coupled with the widgets was a gauge readout to inform users of a percentage of all inventory items that wisconsin partner agencies cannot order online. the table allowed the user to search the uploaded data for any insights drawn up outside the widgets and gauge. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25330 | february 15, 2022 98 aging the aging page gave the investigator quick readouts with widgets of how many items in stock had been in storage for 30, 60, 90, and 120 or more days. this page then listed all relevant items in an easy-to-use searchable table format for more detailed information, such as the warehouse it is in or the product category. this type of information gave agency to the user to make more informed decisions and prioritize tasks and resources to make the most efficient impact on the region's inventory based on time in storage. storage availability the storage availability page gave the end-user the needed information to instantaneously determine the overall threshold, either too full or not enough, of the organization’s warehouses frozen, refrigerated, and dry goods. three color-coded gauges displayed this information, with < 40% representing green, 40 – 80% representing yellow, and ≥ 80% representing red. this data was also displayed in a time series chart with customizable date and warehouse input. specifically, the user saw specific moments in time, defined by the user, of the frozen, refrigerated, and dry inventory. this type of information empowered users to see trends in inventory, such as seasonality, that previously might not have been noticed. figure 1. screenshots and brief descriptions of three pages of the interactive web application. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25330 | february 15, 2022 99 this tailored, interactive application is available privately to defined users at faew through an online web portal. students created a short vignette of instructions for users to extract, load, and transform a data set from faew’s source system that consumes fewer than a few minutes. that document was then uploaded into the hosted environment and fed the application with all relevant data. analysis of improvements in key performance indicators resulting from this application was ongoing. attempts to optimize purchased products as there were gaps between donated food and the food items needed in the community, not all food distributed by faew was donated. therefore, students also attempted to employ predictive analytic techniques, specifically supervised data mining, to aid faew in understanding the determinants of purchased products. possible techniques were evaluated. the naïve bayes method for supervised data mining was selected since purchased was a binary outcome variable. though naïve bayes was efficient and straightforward in terms of computational load, it required categorical predictor variables and made the underlying assumption that all predictor variables were independent. thus, students interrogated faew data (e.g., warehouse, storage, weight, etc.) using classic techniques to confirm variable independence and binned (i.e., grouped) numeric variables as appropriate. more than 20 models were built and interrogated for combined sensitivity and specificity (i.e., if the model is able to predict whether or not a product will be purchased in the future). unfortunately, even with several environmental variables not contained within the data set itself (e.g., seasonality, region, etc.), model outputs simply lacked the specificity needed by faew to make robust predictions about product purchases. therefore, students are currently partnering with faew leadership to conceptualize additional data elements to collect to support more robust analytics. transforming a hunger needs formula finally, and perhaps one of the more subjective positive outcomes of this collaborative research effort, faew leadership was exposed to the skills and talents of data science students. this, combined with faew’s deep subject matter expertise and wealth of experience in providing food to those in need, created an unanticipated opportunity requested by faew leadership. through a combination of business intelligence, business analytics, and visual analytics, students developed an interactive application that transformed a rudimentary, albeit effective, spreadsheet formula into an interactive, easy-to-use application that allowed faew members to input values, such as the number of people in need, the number of meals, the cost per meal, etc., to derive the total number of pounds of food and dollars needed to support a projected increase in need. this fully autonomous application provided faew with a sustained tool to ensure that they continue to end hunger in our communities. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25330 | february 15, 2022 100 conclusions and future directions whereas food insecurity decreased in metropolitan areas, food insecurity is increasing in nonmetropolitan and rural areas (nord, 2002). in part due to the sars-cov-2 pandemic, it is estimated that food insecurity will affect 1-in-7 wisconsinites in rural counties during 2021 (feeding america eastern wisconsin, 2021). unique dietary needs of rural populations and underlying disparities by race, ethnicity, age, and socioeconomic status exacerbate challenges associated with providing quality food to those in need in these rural communities (jernigan et al., 2017). foremost among the barriers to feeding food-insecure members of rural communities is a paucity of information about these communities’ unique needs and infrastructures. we are in the process of proposing a project that addresses food insecurity in rural places using three phases: • conduct thorough market research and identify existing data sets to inform strategies to treat food insecurity in rural places, supplementing with data collection as needed, • utilize statistical modeling, supervised and unsupervised data mining, and forecasting techniques to reveal new insights into the determinants of successful food provision in rural communities, and • design and implement natural experiments within faew’s broad food distribution network to test hypotheses that will inform best practices in food distribution across all rural communities. lessons learned by students, faew leaders, and faculty included an adjustment to entirely remote collaboration due to sars-cov-2, the importance of compensating faew leaders for buy-out time to divert from daily operations to collaborate with students, an expansion of faculty’ office hours to support the development of data-scientists-in-training carefully, and adapting to health and wellness needs during a global pandemic. setting clear expectations, both program-wide and for each project, helped achieve critical objectives within the short timeline available for funding. in addition, leveraging key personnel’s robust project management experience helped address unanticipated challenges with grace. the authors acknowledge that these features may not be routinely available in all academic-community partnerships and encourage a resource assessment before launching such efforts. much effort focused on bridging the gap between what our community partner needed and what could be achieved by higher education institutions and data scientists in training through various discussions on identifying needs, designing prototypes, using simulated data sets, and testing the applications from users’ perspectives. communication is the key to the success of this collaboration project. deepening this proven collaborative relationship between marquette university and feeding america eastern wisconsin will transform work thus far into a larger project with a broader scope to produce meaningful and institutionalized translational research opportunities for years to come. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25330 | february 15, 2022 101 references feeding america eastern wisconsin. (2021). our impact. https://feedingamericawi.org/aboutus/our-impact/ jernigan, b. b., wetherill, m.s., hearod, j., jacob, t., salvatore, a. l., cannady, t., grammar, m., standridge, j., fox, j., spiegel, j., wiley, a., noonan, c., & buchwald, d. (2017). food insecurity and chronic diseases among american indians in rural oklahoma: the thrive study. american journal of public health, 107(3), 441-446. https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.2016.303605 marquette university (2021). the president’s challenge. https://www.marquette.edu/innovation/the-presidents-challenge.php nord, m. (2002). rates of food insecurity and hunger unchanged in rural households. rural america, 16(4), 42-27. https://doi.org/10.22004/ag.econ.289511 u. s. bureau of labor statistics. (2021). wisconsin. https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes_wi.htm u. s. department of agriculture. (2021). key statistics and graphics.https://www.ers.usda.gov/topics/food-nutrition-assistance/food-security-in-theus/key-statistics-graphics.aspx microsoft word published vol33 issue1 malanson_12.2021+(1)+(1).docx original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25279 | february 15, 2022 55 a collaborative approach to covid-19 planning at a regional public university jeffrey j. malanson1,2 1department of history, purdue university fort wayne, 2office of academic innovation, purdue university fort wayne cite as: malanson, j.j. (2022). a collaborative approach to covid-19 planning at a regional public university. metropolitan universities, 33(1), 55-63. doi: 10.18060/25279. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract as purdue university fort wayne (pfw), a regional public university in northeast indiana, completed the spring 2020 semester fully remote due to covid-19, university leadership had to determine if there was a path to safely reopening campus and maintaining a low-risk environment for in-person instruction and work for the 2020-21 academic year. to make this determination, pfw engaged in a three-week scenario planning process in which we assembled 22 task forces composed of 140 faculty and staff, approximately 13.5% of the university’s fulltime employees, to identify the challenges and opportunities associated with eight scenarios for how the 2020-21 academic year could play out. reports and recommendations from the scenario planning process have informed all aspects of the university’s covid-19 planning, implementation, and communication. this paper examines how a highly collaborative planning process, informed by pfw’s recently completed strategic planning process, created broad engagement with and awareness of the university’s planning efforts, demonstrated the value placed on faculty and staff expertise and input, and helped to build long-term buy-in and trust. this approach also informed pfw’s planning processes for the 2021-22 academic year, which emphasized leveraging our covid-19 experiences to build a better normal for the university. keywords: scenario planning, covid-19, strategic planning, regional university, public university © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25279 | february 15, 2022 56 the covid-19 pandemic has required institutions of higher education to reevaluate virtually all aspects of their operations and to regularly make critical decisions at what feels like breakneck speeds. one area of innovation for purdue university fort wayne (pfw), a comprehensive metropolitan public university located in northeast indiana, has been a greater reliance on broadly collaborative planning processes to determine key aspects of university operations. empowering faculty and staff to establish protocols and develop recommendations for university-wide approaches to challenges, rather than relying on administrative mandates or unitlevel problem solving, has improved the university’s response to covid-19 and fostered greater confidence in and support for key decisions related to pandemic operations. lessons from the university’s pandemic response planning have already shaped our approach to post-pandemic planning and will continue to inform the university’s future planning exercises. as purdue fort wayne neared the end of the spring 2020 semester, the second half of which was fully remote as a necessary response to the early stages of the covid-19 pandemic, university leadership had to determine if there was a path to safely reopening campus and maintaining a low-risk environment for in-person instruction and work for the 2020-21 academic year. the experience with remote operations in spring 2020 had made clear that our students wanted and needed the opportunity for an in-person educational experience in 2020-21 if that experience could be delivered in a reasonably low-risk manner utilizing the resources the university had at its disposal. too many students had unreliable access to technology or high-speed internet at home, lacked safe and quiet spaces to complete schoolwork or take online courses, or had too many non-school obligations to be able to effectively manage a fully online course schedule. our students needed the engagement and support structures that an in-person education, or at least an open campus, afforded. there were many challenges to answering this planning question. among the most important beyond the unprecedented nature of the pandemic was that purdue fort wayne had limited administrative capacity to engage in planning on this scale, especially in the short timeframe available before critical decisions for fall 2020 operations needed to be made and communicated to employees, prospective students, current students, parents, and community partners. while part of the purdue university system, purdue fort wayne is largely autonomous in many aspects of its operations, including its response to covid-19. there was also the critical question of how to build trust in planning decisions, especially amongst employees, when they were not developed by the full team of medical and infectious disease experts that many larger universities could marshal. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25279 | february 15, 2022 57 scenario planning and implementation for 2020-21 the solution to these challenges was staging a large-scale scenario planning process, the primary goals of which were to determine if there was a path to safely re-opening campus, and identify the salient challenges and opportunities the university would potentially confront in the months ahead. in late april 2020, under the direction of the chancellor, vice chancellor for academic affairs, and an executive steering committee composed of senior administration, the presiding officer of the faculty senate, and the director of strategic planning as project manager, the university assembled 22 task forces focused on all aspects of university operations.1 each task force was charged with answering a series of planning questions related to the challenges and opportunities associated with eight different scenarios for how the 2020-21 academic year could play out.2 a total of 140 faculty and staff members served on the task forces, approximately 13.5% of full-time employees, with assignments based on areas of functional and/or research expertise while also ensuring that each task force included a broad mix of administrative and academic perspectives. the task forces had a tight timeline of just three weeks in which to complete the planning exercise. this approach to scenario planning was made possible by the university’s then-recently completed strategic planning process, which had likewise prioritized broad engagement and participation to build, iterate, and refine a comprehensive university strategic plan in a single calendar year. this was an intensive process that required a meaningful commitment of time and energy by participating faculty and staff, and it proved to be highly successful both as a planning process and at building trust and awareness. at the beginning of the process, we held an information session for all participants during which we explained the purpose and goals of the process, walked them through specific expectations for their work, and answered questions. we established an intranet site through which we could share documents, resources, and guidance. we built in predetermined check-in times to ensure timely progress and to course correct if needed. each task force produced a high-quality planning document that enabled university leadership to make key decisions about the pandemic response plan. the broad engagement of 1 academic success: fall 2020 beginners; academic success: graduate students; academic success: returning undergraduate students. auxiliaries and food services; community engagement, governmental affairs, development; diversity, equity, and inclusion; doe, hlc, iche, disciplinary accreditation; faculty scholarship, promotion and tenure; fall 2021 enrollment funnel; health, safety, and sanitation; human resources; library; non-credit, auxiliaries, resident organizations; non-lecture-based instruction; student housing; student life and experience, athletics; [purdue] system relations; teaching and learning; coordination with iu fort wayne; mixed modality opportunities and approaches; revenue projections, expenditure modifications; rotc. 2 the scenarios were informed by our then-limited understanding of how the pandemic was projected to evolve in the coming year and included a fully in-person academic year with no meaningful health and safety modifications, a year of mixed modalities and social distancing, a fully remote year, and scenarios with mixtures of the three and/or major disruptions requiring a transition to fully remote operations. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25279 | february 15, 2022 58 our university community helped to create an understanding of the planning effort and demonstrated the value that the university placed on faculty and staff expertise and input. the approach also helped to build long-term trust and buy-in to the planning outcomes, as, even if most people did not have the opportunity or inclination to read the more than 400 pages of planning documents that were created, the process we used was broadly communicated and transparently carried out. at the conclusion of the planning process, we held a virtual town hall open to all members of the university community in which we provided an overview of the planning process, summarized the planning recommendations developed by the task forces, and answered questions. the recommendations of the scenario planning task forces informed all aspects of the university’s subsequent covid-19 planning and implementation efforts. the full set of planning documents has proven to be a useful reference guide throughout the pandemic, but they were also synthesized to identify core planning themes and priorities that cut across all scenarios and areas of university activity.3 the most important theme highlighted in all the planning documents, beyond core health and safety considerations, was communication. the task forces highlighted and emphasized the need to (1) transmit accurate and timely information to all members of our university community through both formal and informal communication channels; (2) ensure that information, guidance, and protocols were clear and consistent in their presentation; and (3) provide the resources necessary for anyone with questions or concerns to find answers and be heard. the scenario planning process and recommendations had demonstrated the value of having broadly collaborative input into key planning decisions. university leadership determined that it was important to maintain this approach as we iterated the scenario planning recommendations into actionable implementation plans. an early key outcome of the process was the formation of the pfw prepared committee. composed of twenty administrators and faculty and staff members from across the university, the pfw prepared committee was charged with using the findings of the scenario planning process to develop recommendations for how to modify the physical infrastructure of the campus and to establish health and safety protocols to achieve and maintain a low-risk environment for in-person instruction and work. while much smaller in scale than the scenario planning process, the central goal of the pfw prepared committee remained the same: to leverage faculty and staff expertise and to demonstrate the ongoing weight and influence of employee voices in shaping the university’s response to the pandemic. 3 the eight planning themes were communication; accommodations for students, staff, and faculty who cannot or will not return to campus; student and faculty illness; new health, safety, and sanitation procedures; international students; future transition(s) to hybrid/remote operations; applied learning experiences; and how to evaluate, compensate, and reward faculty and staff. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25279 | february 15, 2022 59 to address communication, and in accordance with the recommendation made by the centers for disease control and prevention (cdc), the university appointed a covid-19 point of contact in june 2020 (2021). the point of contact had two overarching responsibilities: answer questions and respond to concerns from students, staff, faculty, parents, and community stakeholders, and help coordinate the university’s overall covid-19 response. with multiple committees, administrative offices, and academic leaders simultaneously developing and implementing plans and protocols, it was essential to have a single point person to ensure that everyone had access to and acted upon the same information. the sheer volume of information and guidance being compiled and communicated over the summer months also meant that it was easy for people not actively involved in planning and implementation efforts to miss relevant details, so having a direct point of contact accountable for providing answers and ensuring consistency helped to build confidence. one important aspect of this work was virtual pfw prepared q&a sessions, which were held weekly from july 2020 through may 2021 when the university was open, through which important updates could be discussed and questions could be answered. the university also launched a pfw prepared website and weekly email newsletter dedicated to sharing the latest information about covid-19 and the university’s response. between the structured pfw prepared communication channels and the responsive engagement through the covid-19 point of contact, the university was thus able to provide the necessary resources to ensure that everyone could understand the what, how, and why of the university’s fall 2020 operational plan. communication would have been a priority even without the scenario planning process, but the consistency of recommendations in that area reinforced the need to be intentional about what was communicated, how it was communicated, and in telegraphing the importance attached to clear and open communication that was responsive to employee and students concerns. scenario planning, the pfw prepared committee, and other focused planning activities that took place throughout summer 2020 produced a tremendous growth in collaboration between administrative units and academic departments to meet the challenges of the pandemic. some collaboration was borne out of necessity, such as efforts of the registrar, facilities management, special events, the division of continuing studies, and academic departments to completely remake our summer 2020, fall 2020, and spring 2021 course schedules to reflect changes to instructional modality and classroom social distancing expectations. other collaboration, such as the formation of a new educational technologies team from members of information technology services and the center for the enhancement of learning and teaching, was driven by a desire to more efficiently meet the needs of students, staff, and faculty. in all cases, it has led to improved communication, the limiting of redundant effort, and suggests improvements in university operations that will outlast the pandemic. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25279 | february 15, 2022 60 purdue fort wayne offered a limited number of courses in face-to-face and hybrid formats during its second summer 2020 session as a pilot for fall 2020. employees started to return to campus throughout july and august. on monday, august 24, the university welcomed thousands of students back to campus for the fall semester. while some students, faculty, and staff continued to learn, teach, and work remotely, and most aspects of our operations had been modified to reflect necessary health and safety precautions and protocols, the campus was open. due to the significant efforts of innumerable people, the campus remained open throughout the 2020-21 academic year. proactive planning for fall 2021 and beyond much of the public discourse throughout the first half of 2021 about the positive impact of covid-19 vaccines was that they would make it possible to go “back to normal.” setting aside the need for broader transformations in higher education necessitated by demographic cliffs, stagnating or declining state financial support, and business model changes, the desirability of a return to “normal” presumes that institutions operated rationally, logically, and efficiently before the pandemic. even the idea of creating a “new normal” focused primarily on continuing health and safety modifications much more so than embracing meaningful changes to various aspects of how universities behave. purdue fort wayne’s planning process for 2021-22 was motivated by how our university community could best leverage the learning and innovation covid-19 had necessitated to improve the university for the long term. the planning process afforded us the opportunity to intentionally act together to make purdue fort wayne a better place to learn, teach, discover, and work. the spirit and lessons of the 2020-21 scenario planning process were instructive as the university adapted a smaller scale process in spring 2021 to proactively plan for the 2021-22 academic year. while no one can speak with certainty about the future course of the pandemic, the rollout of highly effective vaccines, combined with the year of experience with modified covid operations, enabled us to plan around a single scenario for 2021-22 with a reasonable degree of confidence. factors in this single planning scenario included the covid-19 vaccine being broadly available to all members of our university community, most students and employees being back on campus, and the re-densification of classrooms and workspaces. premised on this baseline planning scenario, the university charged two committees with developing recommendations on how the campus should transition back to more traditional operations: an expanded pfw prepared committee and a new task force on academics and student support. the pfw prepared committee, which had continued to meet throughout the 2020-21 academic year, added several new members and was renamed the pfw ready committee to develop recommendations for fall 2021 operations. the academics and student support task force was created in partnership with the faculty senate and was composed of © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25279 | february 15, 2022 61 faculty representatives from each college and key administrators with responsibility for covid19 response and the instructional enterprise. the leadership of the faculty senate had been heavily involved in the scenario planning effort in summer 2020 and had served on the pfw prepared committee since its formation. the senate and its educational policy committee played a critical role in evaluating and approving temporary modifications of academic regulations. the formation of the academics and student support task force in spring 2021 was an important additional point of collaboration between the senate and the administration to develop key recommendations for the future. the committees established three guiding principles to inform all aspects of the fall 2021 planning process: (1) live the core value established in our strategic plan to put students first by maintaining student-centered expectations for all units; (2) create a better normal for purdue fort wayne; and (3) embrace a wellness mindset (purdue university fort wayne, 2020). underlying each of these principles was the recognized need to learn from and leverage our covid-19 experiences to improve the university moving forward. a great example of this is the omnipresence of zoom or other virtual meeting and livestreaming software options. the initial instinct of many people has been to either abandon virtual tools to the greatest extent possible once people are back on campus or to continue to live and work almost entirely in the virtual world. in the context of purdue fort wayne, either extreme would constitute a missed opportunity. while we want to be back in person as much as possible, many virtual tools lower barriers to access, facilitate communication and contact, and have received a great deal of positive feedback from students on their efficacy. as a result, use of these tools should be strategically targeted in the future to promote student and employee engagement and support. we must also continue to embrace the culture of experimentation and innovation in our educational enterprise that the pandemic spurred. lessons learned from collaborative planning while not groundbreaking by any means, one of the core lessons of the scenario planning process has been the importance of giving people meaningful avenues to make their voices heard and then, whenever possible, acting upon what they have told you. the appointment of the pfw prepared committee and covid-19 point of contact were embodiments of this lesson. throughout the 2020-21 academic year, we carefully considered when, how, and who to ask for feedback on our covid-19 response efforts that could yield actionable input. we surveyed faculty teaching the first face-to-face courses in summer 2020 to better understand their experience to inform further preparation and communication strategies for fall. during the first month of the fall 2020 semester, we surveyed all face-to-face instructors to ask about their classroom experience to identify what was going well, what challenges they were facing that we could immediately address, and what challenges would require additional planning in the future. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25279 | february 15, 2022 62 the week before the start of the spring 2021 semester, we sent a survey to all employees focused on how we could improve the university’s response to covid-19 moving forward and how they interacted with the various communication channels we had utilized to that point. we took immediate action where able and factored other insights into our 2021-22 planning efforts. for our fall 2021 planning, we sent a survey to both students and faculty asking about how students had experienced the pandemic, what they hoped would change in 2021-22, and what they hoped would stay the same. the results directly shaped both the academics and student support recommendations and the broader framing and messaging attached to them. all surveys were brief and were focused on gathering information that we could directly act upon. even in situations where we have not been able to implement specific ideas for which people advocated, understanding what they were experiencing directly informed and improved our communication strategies and future planning efforts. the nature of the covid-19 crisis forced us to find new ways of working together across institutional silos and continually reminds us of the critical importance of remaining flexible. the scenario planning work to prepare for 2020-21 expedited the process of breaking down barriers, but in the year since we have continued to communicate and collaborate across silos in ways never previously experienced. the recommendations of the scenario planning task forces in the summer of 2020, as well as those of our two planning committees for fall 2021, were an essential foundation for subsequent university decisions and actions, but the course of the pandemic has demonstrated that the best plans are those that are flexible and adaptable to meet rapidly changing conditions. as we prepare for our post-pandemic future, we must continue to plan, act, collaborate, and adapt with an eye toward the whole institution. acknowledgments while no names are used throughout the article, the planning and implementation processes described in this article were only possible due to the significant efforts of a large portion of the purdue university fort wayne community. the author would specifically like to thank chancellor ronald l. elsenbaumer and vice chancellor for academic affairs carl n. drummond for their encouragement to present information about purdue fort wayne’s covid19 response efforts to cumu’s virtual learning and sharing series and to prepare a version of that presentation for submission as this article. the author would also like to thank the two peer reviewers for their thoughtful reading and suggestions for improvement. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25279 | february 15, 2022 63 references centers for disease control and prevention. (july, 2021). guidance for institutions of higher education. covid-19. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019ncov/community/colleges-universities/considerations.html purdue university fort wayne. (2020). empowering transformation: strategic plan 2020-25. strategic plan and implementation. https://www.pfw.edu/strategic-plan/documents/pfwchan-strategic-plan-trustee-mtg-booklet-508-digitalv2.pdf microsoft word castro et al. 2022 publish.docx original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25798| june 11, 2022 39 how dynamic academic medical centers improve communities: the case of the rocky mountain center for occupational and environmental health katherine castro, travis jacobs, emilee eden, matthew s. thiese, kurt t. hegmann, and joseph a. allen1 1university of utah school of medicine cite as: castro, k., jacobs, t., eden, e., thiese, m. s., hegmann, k.t., and allen, j.a. (2022). how dynamic academic medical centers improve communities: the case of the rocky mountain center for occupational and environmental health. metropolitan universities, 33(3), 39-51. doi: 10.18060/25798 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. guest editors: joseph a. allen, ph.d., sara hart, ph.d., and melissa yack, ph.d. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract academic medical centers (amc) are unique healthcare resources that offer services to their local communities. as societal priorities shift, amcs are identifying approaches to practice community engagement. although many examples of amcs exist in the literature, few have targeted resources for specific health topics like occupational health. this case study identifies examples of community engagement from amcs around the u.s. it also offers a unique perspective of community engagement from the rocky mountain center for occupational and environmental health (rmcoeh), housed within the department of family and preventative medicine at the university of utah. this center is one of eighteen national institutes for occupational safety and health (niosh) education and research centers (erc). we use the community engagement continuum to consider community engagement across various degrees of relationship between the public and amcs, including outreach, consulting, involvement, collaboration, and shared leadership. continuing education, course work connecting students with the community, and multiorganization research projects are approaches rmcoeh uses to engage with communities. although there are many ways for amcs like rmcoeh to serve the community, there are opportunities for amcs to improve community engagement efforts through cultural shifts and community participation in projects. we explore such opportunities specifically for rmcoeh. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25798 | june 11, 2022 40 keywords: community engagement, academic medical center, occupational health introduction as societal priorities have shifted, academic medical centers (amc) identify approaches to collaborate with communities to understand better and address multilevel health issues. within the last decade, academic medical centers have moved away from community outreach to develop strategies to identify and mediate health disparities through community engagement (wilkins & alberti, 2019). community engagement in this context refers to the amc applying institutional resources to address and solve challenges facing communities through collaboration with community members (gelmon et al., 2005). community engagement establishes a mutually beneficial relationship between the community and the amc. the community gains resources not otherwise available while the amc obtains support and can apply for funding from external agencies to benefit the community-amc partnership. this relationship between amc and stakeholders can unearth new challenges that need addressing and provide organizational and community growth opportunities. previous literature describes initiatives taken by amcs to conduct community engagement through broad activities, specific projects, and collaborations with other universities. a case study at the university of kansas identified a wide range of activities to promote community engagement, including continuing education, health/wellness screenings, and efforts to reduce disparities among vulnerable populations (cook et al., 2013). in 2008, a case study at duke university identified community engagement through patient engagement by providing care management, clinical services, health promotion programs, and disease prevention programs (michener et al., 2008). a case study of the university of california los angeles's school of medicine identified four domains (research, education, clinical services, health promotion, and wellness) in which they engage with the community. the first domain, research, included a community-based participatory research project called the healthy community neighborhood initiative. the education domain included education for students and tutoring services for lowincome students in the community. the third domain was clinical service, and it included mobile clinics and free clinics available for unhoused and low-income individuals. the final domain, health promotion and wellness, included youth fitness programs and mindfulness programs for adolescents (chung et al., 2016). partnerships between amcs are emerging as well. northwestern university, the university of illinois at chicago, and northeastern illinois university are all involved in a community engagement core to minimize cancer disparities through screenings, research symposiums, education, and the creation and distribution of culturally competent health resources (shalowitz et al., 2009). national collaboration across universities is represented by a project to improve child health equity which includes the following five universities: northshore university, © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25798 | june 11, 2022 41 university of north carolina, university of california, los angeles, georgetown university, and john hopkins university (giachello et al., 2019). these cases described here and the partnerships emerging between amcs provide a foundation for current and future community-engaged efforts on the part of amcs. further, the u.s. department of health and human services (usdhhs) healthy people 2030 lists "community and workplace" as national priorities needing attention within the broader category of "settings and systems." these goals aim to promote health and safety in a community setting and the workplace (usdhhs, n.d. a; usdhhs, n.d. b). therefore, in this paper, we delve deeper into how an amc, the university of utah, engage with the community to address occupational and environmental health through the rocky mountain center for occupational and environmental health (rmcoeh) using the community engagement continuum (centers for disease control and prevention [cdc], 2011). through the review of this case, we discuss how communityengaged efforts emerged and areas where the rmcoeh can expand, grow, and develop further as they work directly with the community. department background in starting our review and case study, we begin with some background on the rmcoeh and its establishment. to meet the occupational and environmental health needs in the western united states, rmcoeh was established in 1977. in 1978 rmcoeh was chosen to be 1 of 12 national institute for occupational safety and health (niosh) sponsored education and research centers (erc). rmcoeh reports to the university of utah's senior vice president for health sciences and has a footing in the department of mechanical engineering (college of engineering), department of economics (college of social and behavioral sciences), departments of family and preventive medicine, internal medicine and physical medicine and rehabilitation (school of medicine), the school of business, and college of mines. due to the center's successes and legislative desires for broader community engagement, these ties have recently expanded via statutory involvement to require co-management of the center by weber state university. these connections allow for multidisciplinary work and support the mission of rmcoeh, which is to "protect workers and the environment through interdisciplinary education, research, and service." with small and large organizations located in the salt lake community, the state of utah, health and human services (hhs) region 8, nationally, and internationally, rmcoeh sees the need to provide services that will benefit workers at all levels of the community (university of utah health, 2021). © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25798 | june 11, 2022 42 the rmcoeh has four goals: 1. advance superior occupational health and safety (osh) academic programs. 2. conduct meaningful osh research. 3. provide exceptional continuing education, service, and outreach. 4. engineer osh solutions. method and results to review and describe the efforts of the rmcoeh over the years since its inception, we apply the community engagement continuum (cdc, 2011). specifically, the community engagement continuum considers community engagement across five levels of community involvement, including outreach, consulting, involvement, collaboration, and shared leadership. traditionally amcs offer services and resources to community members in a unidirectional relationship (cdc, 2011). in the community engagement continuum, this would be represented in the first level, outreach. by discussing the community engagement initiatives at rmcoeh with this model, we identify strengths and opportunities for improvements. outreach the first level of the community engagement continuum is outreach, characterized by a single direction of communication. community outreach connects services and topic expertise to those who may not otherwise have access to those services (cdc, 2011). the rmcoeh does community engagement at the outreach level in various ways. first and foremost, the rmcoeh identifies continuing education (c.e.) and training needs, then offers these courses to workers and the public. a wide range of courses is offered through rmcoeh, including emergency response courses, self-paced courses, hazard training, occupational health and safety administration (osha) courses, and more. the rmcoeh offers some courses for a small fee, often covered by organizations requiring their employees to take these courses. however, as the covid-19 pandemic emerged, the rmcoeh saw the need to disseminate current and accurate information related to the virus and established free courses for public education. beginning in 2020, participating community members can learn from health and safety experts about ways to better plan for an emergency. whether in-person or virtual, neighborhood emergency response planning (nerp) offers rmcoeh faculty members a chance to serve many community members, regardless of their financial situation. with the slogan, "disasters can be costly, being prepared is free," nerp offers six dynamic modules to prepare community © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25798 | june 11, 2022 43 members for a multitude of emergencies. containing modules including "earthquakes," "home and wildland fires," "floods," etc., community members in region 8 are receiving training for probable emergency events (university of utah health, 2020). the neighborhood emergency response planning course consists of 4 principles: 1. emergency preparedness 2. emergency recovery 3. coordinated response in communities 4. disaster response actions though nerp's content is based on the federal emergency management agency (fema) guide, "are you ready: a citizen's guide," participants in nerp are asked to give feedback on the effectiveness of the principles being applied to a real disaster. the faculty and instructors at rmcoeh understand that there is no "one size fits all" for emergency preparedness for different geographical locations. as received feedback makes nerp more effective, community engagement and involvement are attained when people in different states collaborate to help one another (university of utah health, 2020). c.e. courses are provided by the rmcoeh to "reduce human and financial costs by providing excellent short-course training in occupational safety and health that is marked by continuous improvement and response to needs, setting the highest standards for both internal and external service" (university of utah health, n.d.b). there are four main areas of the continuing education programs at the rmcoeh: 1. correspondence courses 2. distance courses 3. niehs hazwoper training 4. osha courses correspondence courses are a self-paced online education option. from "understanding human error" to "understanding and managing legal issues" and much more, correspondent courses allow busy community members to receive a quality education at their own pace (university of utah health, n.d.b). the topics covered by the correspondence courses were selected based on ongoing feedback from region 8 participants and their safety professional community members. the rmcoeh also partners with external groups to provide accurate and reliable training for community members. a partnership with the university of texas school of public health's southwest center for occupational and environmental health created the prevention, preparedness, and response academy for hazardous waste worker training (p2r). this collaboration provided effective hazardous waste operations and emergency response (hazwoper) training to workers who perform waste cleanup and emergency response. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25798 | june 11, 2022 44 rmcoeh also works with osha to provide training through the mountain west osha education center (mwoec). this center offers training to all states in region 8. topics included in these trainings are targeted towards construction, oil & gas, maritime, public sector, and general industry (university of utah health, n.d.c). as part of distance courses, the rmcoeh offers "business safety and success during the covid-19 pandemic." the goal of the course is to educate students on science-based best practices for promoting worker safety and health during the covid-19 pandemic. this course discusses ideas for restructuring business operations to mitigate challenges due to the covid-19 pandemic. along those same lines, rmcoeh offers another course called "novel corona virus covid-19." this course is free and educates students on up-to-date information about covid19. rmcoeh offers courses like these to provide community members with expert opinions from multiple qualified sources. second, the rmcoeh works with external agencies to provide opportunities for local communities. engagement with national organizations aids in establishing credibility with community partners. as the world shifted after the emergence of covid-19, a national priority to protect frontline workers came to light. hearing the call, rmcoeh quickly mobilized resources with the help of the centers for disease control and prevention (cdc) to collect and report data on covid-19 cases among local frontline workers. to evaluate this crucial group of community members, the cdc selected the rmcoeh to recruit 720 healthcare, first responders, and frontline workers in utah; this study is known as researching covid to enhance recovery (recover). recover's purpose is to perform "research on the epidemiology of covd-19 in essential response personnel" (university of utah health, n.d.a). the study began enrollment in october 2020, and the anticipated end date is march 2022. the research questions driving this study surround the need to understand various aspects of covid-19 in the frontline worker population within the state of utah. the research questions intend to uncover how many people get sick with covid-19, what symptoms are common if they have covid-19, how long does it take to recover from covid-19, how many people become infected with covid-19 but do not become sick, how well people are protected from getting covid-19 again after having it once, and how effective are the vaccines and how well do they protect people from infection. as the world entered the second year of the covid-19 pandemic, a collaboration between rmcoeh and the cdc grew into more of an established partnership as the recover project got extended and an additional project reflecting priorities surrounding youth and covid-19 emerged. current national priorities have shifted to understanding covid-19 responses in those under 18-years-old. to meet this national need, rmcoeh has continued its partnership with the cdc to study the effect of covid-19 on the youth. the purpose of pediatric research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25798 | june 11, 2022 45 observing trends and exposures in covid-19 timelines (protect) is to increase understanding of covid-19 infection rates and vaccine efficacy among our youth population and share findings with the country to protect our youth better. third, the rmcoeh provides funding to research projects through the pilot & small projects grant program, which aims to assess and improve community health. supported by niosh and rmcoeh, this program is a way for university students to work with community members to study and enhance occupational safety and health to receive funding. this award offers $5,000 $10,000 for one year (university of utah health, n.d.b). an example of this funding helping the community is a current study aimed at the ergonomic risk for ski instructors. without special equipment, ski instructors experience strain while holding positions not meant for the gear used. this project aims to assess the risk of the instructors and report back to the community studied. fourth, the rmcoeh participates in local, national, and international outreach by sharing research with academic and industry communities through attendance at various conferences. work produced by faculty and students has been presented at various occupational health conferences, including american occupational health conference (aohc), society for industrial and organizational psychology (siop), american psychological association's work, stress, and health conference (wsh), interdisciplinary network for group research (ingroup), american industrial hygiene conference (aihc), etc. consult the consult level of the community engagement continuum offers a little more trust and communication between the community and the amc. typically, a partnership is formed between the community organization and the amc in this instance. the community organization will have a need, and the amc will work to provide information, identify problems, solve problems, and/or produce recommendations (cdc, 2011). engagement with local communities is essential for academic entities. it can foster trust and mutual growth and help improve both the community and the academic institution. communication with local leaders and organizations aid in the understanding of what is needed within the community and where academic institutions can collaboratively help. engagement between these parties is important for making connections and job sustainability that the university will produce professionals that may work within these communities. first, the rmcoeh offers and requires all its students to enroll and engage with the community through a course titled "occupational health and safety solutions." required of all master's and ph.d. program students, this course offers students an invaluable opportunity for community engagement and involvement by allowing the students to take on the role of consultants. this © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25798 | june 11, 2022 46 interdisciplinary course incorporates ergonomics, industrial hygiene, occupational medicine, occupational injury prevention, and safety. this course allows students to bring what they have learned and put it into practice to benefit the utah community. local and state organizations identify problems, and then interdisciplinary teams of rmcoeh students, under faculty guidance, work to produce practical solutions for the organization. students work collaboratively with the local and state organization partners to provide solutions by performing sampling and testing in facilities, completing quality data analyses, and then delivering a final report to the company. this course is a sustainable way to keep rmcoeh an active community-engaged partner. products of this course are often presented at national occupational research agenda (nora) young/new investigators symposium. presenting this research allows for connections to be made with other research institutions and demonstrates practical research to community members. from this course, a multitude of consulting and research projects have been done to benefit community partners. in 2020 students were able to conduct a hazard analysis of a copper mine and found vibration, noise, and lead exposure hazards. this student group was able to identify cost-effective, short and long-term solutions to these hazards through engineering and administrative controls. in 2019, students were able to assess the ergonomic risk for health care employees at a pharmacy warehouse and sterile compounding facility. the student team visited multiple facilities and captured data on which tasks put the workers in the most harm. from their findings, the team was able to recommend sustainable changes, including altering the safety climate of the organization to put more emphasis on ergonomic training and safety as well as engineering controls aimed at lighting the physical load for the employees. second, the rmcoeh faculty help conduct needs assessments for communities. an example of this includes a needs and exposure assessment of communities exposed to toxic chemicals that had been released. according to the environmental protection agency (epa) data, 273 million pounds of toxic chemicals were released in utah in 2016, ranking the 3rd highest among u.s. states. with many toxic chemicals in the air, rmcoeh sought to assess community members' exposure in the area affected by this disaster. research conducted by faculty members of rmcoeh performed in 2012 educated many community members about unknown toxic chemical exposures. this information helped community members by providing evidence and justification for action. third, rmcoeh engages with the community through consulting with the center for meeting effectiveness (cme). this group works to improve worker well-being and safety through improving meetings. meeting satisfaction has been linked to job satisfaction. as the most common type of communication in the office, it is essential that employees have positive meeting experiences. this team provides information on effective meetings to local, national, and international community partners. cme can provide an assessment of meetings, identify © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25798 | june 11, 2022 47 areas of improvement, and recommend best practices to community partners (university of utah health, n.d.e). this group provides coaching for community partners on how to conduct a good meeting. currently, cme is working to assess safety meetings among construction workers as well as fire departments. this group is also working with an international organization to measure and compare meeting behaviors between two different virtual meeting software. involvement involvement presumes a little more trust between community partners and amcs. this level of the community engagement continuum identifies a clear partnership between the amc and the community partner. communication and participation circulate between the partners and cooperation is present (cdc, 2011). the rmcoeh demonstrates this level of engagement through its work and research with truck drivers. working with small and large private trucking companies and state and national trucking associations, the rmcoeh integrates research and injury prevention through multiple avenues. not only was research done with local truck drivers, but findings and empirical evidence are also shared as written publications in monthly newsletters sent out to all members of the trucking association. the rmcoeh also works with private trucking companies and the state trucking association to provide informational presentations to members and truck drivers. walkthroughs, coordinated by trucking agencies, provide a space for rmcoeh to assess challenges and discuss safety measures with these agencies. as the covid-19 pandemic progressed, the rmcoeh produced powerpoints and resources for trucking companies to provide drivers. the ongoing partnership with these local and national trucking companies and associations strengthens the trust between rmcoeh and these agencies, allowing for productive communication and further opportunities for involvement. collaboration collaboration is characterized by bidirectional communication where both partners are involved at each step of the process. this level of community engagement strengthens partnerships and trust between communities and the amc (cdc, 2011). the rmcoeh has a close relationship with the utah bar and court system. when the concern of depression emerged as a priority for utah lawyers, rmcoeh began work to address this industry-identified concern. rmcoeh built a collaborative relationship with the state bar and court system through research with utah lawyers. the rmcoeh works with these entities to conduct research, provide and discuss results, and plan interventions that firms can implement. what initially began as a task force evolved into a standing committee on lawyer well-being. this committee includes state bar representation, a state supreme court justice, mental health © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25798 | june 11, 2022 48 experts, small law firms, large law firms, diversity, equity, and inclusion representation, and rmcoeh representation. this interdisciplinary team works together to develop education seminars to share at national conferences. this team also works to improve policy surrounding lawyers to promote healthy behaviors, such as incentivizing certain aspects of well-being for continuing education credits. this relationship steps into shared leadership as rmcoeh works with local firms, helping educate and empower the firms to improve their safety and well-being by providing data, resources, and support. shared leadership the final level of the community engagement continuum is shared leadership. this is characterized by a strong bidirectional relationship between the community partner and the amc. this level includes community-based participatory research (cbpr), which puts value on the lived experience of community members to provide insight and make decisions. shared leadership offers the strongest level of trust between partnering organizations and can contribute to sustainable positive health outcomes (cdc, 2011). the rmcoeh itself is an example of shared leadership with the community. the advisory board guides decision-making for the center and is made up of community members and leaders. although this is shared leadership, what is needed is more shared leadership in the communitybased participatory research domain. engaging in cbpr will encourage and empower communities to improve safety and well-being by engaging in research as an equal partner. faculty are working on submitting project proposals for funding that will propel rmcoeh into the shared leadership space. discussion rmcoeh is a unique example of a center that attempts to build community-engaged efforts to better occupational health outcomes at multiple levels. by sorting projects and initiatives into the community engagement continuum, we can identify areas of strength and opportunity for rmcoeh. by utilizing this framework, amcs like rmcoeh can better recognize what is done well and what needs improvement. much of the community engagement initiatives are within the outreach, consult, and involve levels of the community engagement continuum. this means rmcoeh offers many services to various communities to improve worker health. areas for opportunities lie at the other end of the continuum within the collaboration and shared leadership levels. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25798 | june 11, 2022 49 first, the more dynamic amc is with its niosh education and research center, the more likely it is to reach every level of the community. although many of the initiatives mentioned provide critical services to communities and are improving communities at these various levels, most are not quite a community engagement in the sense that the community and rmcoeh are collaboratively working through projects together, i.e., community-based participatory research (cbpr). this is a major opportunity on which amcs may capitalize. we recommend changing language (e.g., vision, mission, goals) in the department to help alter the culture and emphasize the importance of community engagement. a study on community engagement within u.s. and canadian medical schools showed that most language in the vision and mission statements did not reflect a desire to improve community engagement (goldstein & bearman, 2011). if community engagement is a priority, it needs to be reflected in the organization's culture, starting with the language. second, another opportunity that amcs could utilize with ercs would be to conduct needs assessments at local, state, or regional levels. a needs assessment can help identify occupational and environmental challenges as well as community partners at the various levels. utilizing techniques, such as the delphi method, can help ensure the community leaders are at the table and the issues discussed are relevant to the communities. these challenges can then be matched with researchers at the amcs for collaboration on research and finding solutions. conclusion amcs are a useful tool for universities to serve various communities and improve health. amcs with ercs allow for the focus on health and well-being to be on workers and occupational health, providing a unique opportunity that only 18 universities in the u.s. could have. the community engagement continuum is a practical framework to arrange initiatives to see opportunities better. more importantly, there are opportunities for amcs with ercs to improve community engagement efforts through culture shifts and community participation in projects. it will be important to involve community partners as amcs with ercs grow and continue to increase their research efforts. though the relationship between amcs and communities can sometimes be strained, community engagement is possible, as the rmcoeh has demonstrated through years of dynamic research. we hope that partnerships between amcs and communities continue to grow with community engagement at the forefront. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25798 | june 11, 2022 50 references chung, b., brown, a., moreno, g., cuen, p., uy, v., vangala, s., ... & mangione, c. 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(2019). shifting academic health centers from a culture of community service to community engagement and integration. academic medicine: journal of the association of american medical colleges, 94(6), 763. http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/acm.0000000000002711 original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26397| april 13, 2023 occupational therapy and art education: interprofessional collaboration for inclusive remote learning jennifer wingrat,1 diane kuthy, 2 and jinyoung koh2 1 department of occupational therapy and occupational science, towson university, 2 department of art and design, art history, art education, towson university cite as: wingrat, j., kuthy, d., & koh, j. (2023). occupational therapy and art education: interprofessional collaboration for inclusive remote learning. metropolitan universities, 34(4). doi: 10.18060/26397 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract interprofessional collaboration is considered best practice in all areas of health care, and interprofessional education (ipe) activities are an essential part of preprofessional education programs. ipe activities typically occur between healthcare profession students but not between programs outside of healthcare where professionals are likely to collaborate, such as occupational therapy (ot) and schoolteachers. here we describe an innovative ipe activity between ot and art education students who collaborated during the covid-19 pandemic to apply theories from each discipline to create remote asynchronous inclusive art workshops during the pandemic. art education majors developed the workshop curricula, and ot students developed strategies to modify the activities to facilitate participation for children with disabilities. the collaboration between the students allowed both groups to be introduced to each discipline's objectives, modalities, and approaches while enhancing understanding of the distinct value that each provides within the education setting, thus increasing the likelihood of developing stronger interprofessional relationships in the future. the project sought to address other learning objectives, including researching and applying best practices for asynchronous learning, adapting activities for specific participation or learning needs, incorporating adaptations using universal design for learning principles, and preparing family-friendly resources in a remote format. 26 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26397 | april 13, 2023 keywords: interprofessional collaboration, occupational therapy, art education, asynchronous art, inclusive covid-19 education, udl, adapted art 27 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26397 | april 13, 2023 introduction interprofessional collaboration is considered best practice in all areas of health care by the world health organization (who) (2010) and has been identified by the accreditation council on occupational therapy education (acote) as an essential part of occupational therapy (ot) education (acote, 2012; handley-more et al., 2013). the who defines interprofessional education as students in varying healthcare professions learning “about, from, and with each other” to improve health outcomes (who, 2010, p. 10) and proposed a call to action for policymakers to commit to and champion interprofessional education and collaboration. the interprofessional education collaborative (ipec), comprised of 15 healthcare profession associations, defines core competencies for interprofessional collaborative learning experiences in healthcare education programs with a primary focus on population health (ipec, 2016). health profession programs widely use the framework and guidelines proposed by the who and ipec. numerous examples of interprofessional collaboration educational (ipe) activities among health profession programs throughout the literature exist. in their systematic review of the literature on ipe education in ot education, watford et al. (2021) found that 95% of 19 studies that were reviewed reported levels of measured improvement or positive outcomes. browne et al. (2021) reported that in their longitudinal study of graduate students in health science administration, nursing, ot, and clinical psychology, students had significantly better attitudes toward interdisciplinary teams after engaging in ipe experiences. these positive attitudes were maintained for up to 78 months. mills et al. (2020) similarly found improved attitudes and confidence regarding interprofessional collaboration among ot, speech therapy, and dietician students who engaged in a 3-hour simulation-based ipe activity. in addition to its importance in health care and occupational therapy education, interprofessional collaboration is also considered best practice for art educators and is one of the key professional skills measured on the candidate preservice assessment of student teaching (cpast), endorsed by the council for accreditation of educator preparation (caep). burdick and causton-theoharis (2012) suggested that art teachers can significantly support students with disabilities in the art classroom if knowledge is disseminated to create a respectful and empowering team environment. derby (2013) also emphasized that the field of education should begin to acknowledge the importance of quality art instruction for students with physical, visual, and multiple disabilities. although students with high-incidence disabilities may experience difficulties in creating art, their needs differ from those with physical disabilities. coleman et al. (2015) stated that art educators need to include adaptations within their educational spaces, including assistive technology, to support the needs of students with physical, sensory, and multiple disabilities in the art classroom. one way that adaptations can be made to art education for students with disabilities is through collaborative sharing among special education professionals and art education teachers (coleman et al., 2015). collaborative learning 28 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26397 | april 13, 2023 experiences provide a higher and more engaging level of professional growth (schlaack & steele, 2018; shabani, 2016). with the inclusion of collaboration across disciplines and professionals, students also improve in related skills such as communication, active listening, and even empathy (knight, 2009). interprofessional collaboration in preprofessional education the examples of research on ipe activities found in the literature, including those noted previously, typically involve students in healthcare majors that use a medical model, such as collaborations between students in nursing, ot, physical therapy, and speech therapy (e.g., browne et al., 2021; spencer et al., 2019; suarez et al., 2014). however, ots who work in the school system typically operate under an educational model requiring them to collaborate with general classroom teachers, special educators, and specialized teachers such as those who teach physical education, music, or art. according to handley-more et al. (2013), the literature shows that collaboration between ot practitioners and schoolteachers is minimal. research suggests that positive collaborative experiences during preprofessional education for teachers frequently result in improved outcomes for students with disabilities and may increase collaborative skills necessary for k-12 educational settings (farrand et al., 2019). therefore, creating ipe opportunities for students in ot educational programs and preservice art teachers is important to develop the skills needed for successful collaboration in future professional roles in the school system. zaid et al. (2021) examined the perceptions of special educators toward occupational therapy students in malaysia. they found that teachers needed clarification of the role of ot in the classroom. still, once they had the opportunity to work together, they concluded that ot is beneficial for both regular and special education and that collaboration helped them to meet their teaching goals. dillon et al. (2021) describe using principles from a model originally developed to guide social workers in successful interprofessional collaboration as a guide to interprofessional collaboration activities in a school setting. this interdisciplinary collaboration model includes five core components, starting with interdependence. it is based on the principle that professionals need to understand the distinction between their roles and those of the other team members and that they depend upon one another to accomplish goals (bronstein, 2003). when applied to an educational setting, interdependence requires that all members of the educational team, including educators and service providers such as occupational therapists, not only have an understanding of each other’s roles but that team members are dependent upon each other to achieve their goals relative to meeting the varying learning needs of students with disabilities (dillon et al., 2021). the second core component is newly created professional activities, which are collaborative activities that expand the understanding of each team member by combining and thus maximizing their expertise to meet a common goal (bronstein, 2003). 29 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26397 | april 13, 2023 applied to an educational setting, this component might include educators and occupational or physical therapists working as a team for specific populations, such as the population of students who receive a special education referral (dillon et al., 2021). the third component, flexibility, allows for the blurring of roles or boundaries to remove any sense of real or perceived hierarchy among members of a collaborative team, which in an educational setting might include one team member meeting with parents to share information about the other team members’ roles and responsibilities. collective ownership of goals, the fourth component, is the shared process of identifying and achieving goals which dillon et al. note reflects the activities of an interdisciplinary educational program (iep) team. finally, the fifth component, reflection on the process, occurs as the team members take time to reflect, discuss, and problem-solve, using feedback to improve the efficacy of the collaboration (bronstein, 2003). dillon et al. recommend applying this component via meetings among team members to discuss student progress, refine programming elements, and bond with each other. while it is clear that interprofessional collaboration is strongly valued in healthcare settings as recommended by organizations such as the who and ipec, and that interprofessional collaboration educational activities are beneficial to improving attitudes and confidence regarding collaboration among students in healthcare profession programs, activities to facilitate interprofessional collaboration among health care professionals who work in educational settings are needed. this paper describes an innovative ipe collaboration between occupational therapy students and art education majors at a large urban university of 22,000 students outside baltimore city. the university holds a carnegie community engagement classification, defined as a “symbiotic relationship between the schools that provide higher education, and the local as well as national and global communities” (https://nerche.org/carnegie-engagementclassification/). there are seven colleges within the university, including the college of health professions (chp) and the college of fine arts and communications (cofac), including undergraduate and graduate programs where students engage in community-based learning experiences as part of their educational training. for our collaboration, students worked together in a remote format to apply theories from each discipline to create asynchronous inclusive art workshops for families during the covid-19 pandemic in march 2020, as they could not participate in face-to-face community-based experiences. the collaboration used all five of the components identified by bronstein (2003) to prepare master’s level ot students in a pediatric occupational therapy lab class for collaboration with specialized school personnel and introduce undergraduate art education majors to the ot discipline while providing inclusive art activities to families in the surrounding communities of baltimore county and baltimore city. the collaboration also reflected the carnegie community engagement classification, which according to collins et al. (2017), is demonstrated at our university through curricula that connect ‘research’ and ‘civic’ responsibility. 30 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26397 | april 13, 2023 prior to the start of the covid-19 pandemic, a faculty committee at the university was planning community-based events to recognize the 30th anniversary of the americans with disabilities act (ada) and the 20th anniversary of the oscar award-winning documentary titled king gimp (hadary & whiteford, 1999), which followed the life of university alumnus dan keplinger, a renowned artist with spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy who grew up near the university and later attended and graduated with a master’s in fine art from the cofac. public events planned included public/private conversations, a retrospective of keplinger’s work curated by j. susan isaacs, a panel discussion with dan keplinger and three tu faculty members who were critical to his-and the documentary’s success, a student panel discussing the continued relevancy of ada and a series of community-based art workshops to be created and led by art education majors. the art workshops would include various methods for creating expressive-self portraits, a major focus of dan keplinger’s work. a group of occupational therapy students in a class taught by a faculty member on the planning committee that included learning about advocacy and inclusion were tasked with identifying community-based organizations to participate in the art workshops. all these activities and events were in planning stages prior to the start of the spring 2020 semester with the expectation that students would work with family groups in a face-to-face setting; once the covid-19 shutdown occurred, the only way to continue with the project was to shift to developing asynchronous workshops. in both the art education and ot classes, the collaboration expanded upon existing class assignments, meeting the pre-determined curricular objectives and learning goals for each class and meeting national accreditation standards for both groups. the primary curricular objectives and learning goals for the art education students were to practice collaborating with specialized resource personnel, research and apply best practices for asynchronous art lessons, and plan for and incorporate adaptations for specific learners while incorporating principles of universal design for learning (udl) a framework to support learning for all individuals regardless of skills, ability, or areas of need, to increase access to and participation in all areas of curriculum, including art education (cast, inc., 2021). for the ot students, the primary curricular objectives and learning goals were to apply fundamentals of occupational therapy theory and practice to children, adolescents, and their families in natural environments, articulate principles, and be able to design and train others in the application of adaptations and compensatory strategies to enhance performance in context and to practice collaboration with school personnel to develop skills in providing school-based ot intervention. collaboration between occupational therapists and art educators is valuable because students attending art classes in person or virtually may receive direct or indirect special education services from school-based occupational therapists via individualized education programs (iep) and 504 plans. therefore, art educators are likely to engage in some form of collaboration with ots with a common goal of making participation accessible to all students. to support students 31 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26397 | april 13, 2023 with ieps, art educators are tasked with differentiating instruction for some students while incorporating principles of udl, which assumes that there is variability in all learners and encourages teachers to plan and design the curriculum and environment to teach the range of students in their classrooms using three overarching principles: planning for and encouraging multiple forms of engagement, representation, and expression (cast, inc.,2021). occupational therapists use principles of activity analysis to identify the demands of a given activity, including factors related to the activity itself and factors within the environment, as well as the performance skills that are required to engage in it, including motor, process, and social interaction skills (aota, 2020). based on assessing the activity demands and the participants’ performance skills, occupational therapists may recommend methods to adapt the activity, the environment, or the way in which the participant engages (aota, 2020). procedures the purpose of this ipe was for occupational therapy students to collaborate with art education students to modify family arts workshops to allow children and youth with disabilities to participate in the workshops while introducing disability awareness to participants without disabilities. seven groups of 2-3 art education majors in the class, methods of teaching art, developed curricula for the remote asynchronous art workshops that explored the theme of expressive self-portraits to be provided to families in the community during the covid-19 pandemic shutdown in march 2020. each workshop provided an engaging way to create expressive self-portraits inspired by common themes found in the art of dan kiplinger. the art education teams researched other artist exemplars, selecting a diverse group of contemporary artists to further expound upon the central topic, and then each group developed a unique activity for the participants to create expressive self-portraits. many of the artist exemplars highlighted in the workshops had various disabilities, and/or their work addressed themes of accessibility. art activities included collages, punch needling, mosaics, expressive self-symbols, and musicinspired self-portraits. the art students created powerpoint slides that included background information on the given artist exemplar and subsequent slides with step-by-step verbal, written, and visual directions for completing each activity (see figure 1). 32 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26397 | april 13, 2023 figure 1. sample art activity: expressive collage self-portrait. once the curricula were developed, the powerpoint slides were shared with the pediatric ot lab class, who used one class meeting to complete their portion of the project. small groups of 3-4 ot students performed activity analysis to identify the motor, sensory, and cognitive requirements of each of the seven art activities. then they identified compensatory strategies and/or methods to adapt the activities to allow inclusive participation. the ot students then 33 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26397 | april 13, 2023 created their slides with the recommended adaptations and compensatory strategies and added these to the existing powerpoints using parent and teacher-friendly “jargon-free language” to ensure that their recommendations were clear and able to be implemented by those outside of the profession. for example, for the collage activity, which requires fine motor coordination and strength, ot students recommended adaptations, including using adapted scissors for participants who cannot grasp scissors and glue sticks for participants who lack hand strength or coordination to squeeze a glue bottle (see figure 2). for the punch needling activity, which requires fine motor precision to hold a needle and embroidery hoop, recommendations for adaptations included using simple pencil grips to build up the width of the needle and using a table clamp to hold the embroidery hoop (see figure 3). for the art workshops, the ot students recommended environmental modifications such as using a table lamp to light the work surface and placing brightly colored paper or mat on the work surface to provide contrast between it and the art materials (see figure 4). figure 2. adaptations for expressive collage self-portrait. 34 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26397 | april 13, 2023 figure 3. adaptations for punch needling. figure 4. sample environmental modifications for expressive self-portraits. once the revised presentations were completed with the addition of the ot students’ slides, the powerpoints were sent back to the art education majors as a modified version of their initial 35 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26397 | april 13, 2023 curricula that included the ot student recommendations. the ot students included pictures for reference to make their recommendations clear to all users, as seen in figures 2-4. the entire process was completed remotely, with the ot students’ contact information provided for answering any questions about their recommendations. each art education team was tasked with communicating their ideas about materials and processes for their workshop. the art education teams started creating their asynchronous workshops using the suggested adaptations. the workshops were created using the audio recording feature in powerpoint. each workshop was limited to ten slides or less, with no more than 3 or 4 slides to explain their workshop's concepts, materials, and processes to a non-art audience. art education students embedded short multimodel step-by-step demonstrations of various art techniques and media via the jumprope app on the powerpoint slides. demonstrations included narrated videos, still images, and written directions. this was especially important for younger students, students who may have shorter attention spans, or students who may struggle to understand concepts through only text-based materials. workshop participants can easily pause and replay each step-by-step demonstration as many times as they need to understand the process fully. the jumprope app, used exclusively on smartphones, was an excellent, accessible tool for students looking to expand their knowledge and demonstrate their skills with a shareable and engaging learning experience. art education students learned about and incorporated principles of udl as well as the adaptations that the ot students recommended. for example, students researched the readability of fonts and decided on a common san serif one for all the workshops for the workshops to be user-friendly. they also decided to work with a pastel theme to accommodate visually impaired learners. the students found it important to include their faces on the title slides as a visual aid to go with the voice heard on the slides (see figure 5). the art education students were able to implement the suggested modifications by photoshopping certain background colors and creating a unified theme across the slides. each member of the art education teams created a teacher example or prototype for their workshop. each workshop incorporated principles of udl and strategies to modify activities for children and youth with disabilities. art education students also included their names and contact information in case there were questions. the project reinforced and stimulated essential learning for preservice art teachers and ot students as it provided necessary collaboration with specialized resource personnel that art educators may encounter in their future schools. when the asynchronous workshops were completed, they were uploaded to vimeo, and two were released on facebook each week. the community-based organizations originally identified by ot students to participate in the in-person art workshops were alerted of their online availability. 36 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26397 | april 13, 2023 figure 5. sample title slide with art educator faces. discussion the collaboration between the students demonstrates a clear example of who’s definition of interprofessional education regarding students learning “about, from, and with each other” as both the ot students and art education majors learned about the objectives, modalities, and approaches of each discipline. the collaboration also demonstrated the application of the university’s commitment to and classification of community engagement by connecting research and civic responsibility during a global pandemic. further, all five principles of bronstein’s (2003) interdisciplinary collaboration model were also reflected in the collaboration. interdependence occurred as the students needed to fully understand their roles and each other’s roles to develop accessible and meaningful art curricula. the collaboration represented the 37 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26397 | april 13, 2023 principle of newly created professional activities, as these groups of students had never had the opportunity to work together on a shared objective. as such, this newly created professional activity allowed both the ot students and the art education majors to better understand the distinct value that each provides within the education setting, which increases the likelihood of developing stronger interprofessional relationships in the future. this, in turn, will result in improved experiences and outcomes for children and their families. flexibility and collective ownership of goals was demonstrated in students from both majors using each other’s work to reach the common goal of developing the workshops. finally, reflection on the process occurred as the students and course instructors reflected on and discussed the collaborative process. there were numerous benefits to the collaboration as well as lessons learned by both the students and the instructors. both the ot students and art education majors benefitted from applying principles learned in class to a real-life context while acquiring an increased understanding of each discipline's roles, objectives, modalities, and approaches. the students got the practical experience and learned the importance of using “jargon-free” language understandable to teachers, parents, and schoolchildren, especially in an asynchronous format. additionally, both groups of students benefitted from researching and applying best practices for asynchronous learning and preparing family-friendly resources for multi-age groups in a remote format. finally, the students benefitted from hands-on practice in adapting activities for specific participation or learning needs in context while employing principles of udl. student feedback about the collaboration was unanimously positive. one student commented about the role each group of students played in educating each other: it was a great opportunity to educate each other on what our fields can offer. we could educate on the adaptations ots can suggest… and the art education students could educate us on a variety of creative mediums that can be incorporated through interventions for our clients. another student similarly noted what she learned from working with students in a different discipline and how this helped her understand how the principles of her profession are applied in practice: this project was beneficial… to develop interprofessional collaboration skills i will need to use in the future. after completing this project, i was more aware of some of the artistic mediums used in art education, understood the purpose of choosing those mediums, and could see how these mediums could therapeutically benefit a client. overall, i thought it was fun! it was interesting to look at the applicability of occupational therapy. finally, a third student noted the authenticity of the experience, which she found to be enlightening: 38 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26397 | april 13, 2023 this collaboration with the ot students was enlightening. as student teachers we are familiar with the need to consider universal design for learning when planning activities. however, designing a workshop with special educational needs front and center was a challenge, and consequently a deep and authentic learning experience. the input from ot students was like having something familiar translated into a new and exciting language, demonstrating how to view accessibility as a process of opening doors to students of all abilities. it was a great opportunity to incorporate adaptations with accessible technology. limitations the primary limitation of this interprofessional collaboration activity is the lack of formal preor post-assessment of the experience. while we collected qualitative data via student written feedback, we did not use any objective measurements which would have contributed to our findings regarding the strength and success of the collaboration. the lack of formal preand post-assessments was because this activity developed organically during the covid-19 pandemic. as such, we were able to successfully incorporate the ipe activity into our existing course curricula, which may validate its worth in terms of its authenticity relative to regular classroom learning activities. we recommend that future collaborations include preand postsurveys using a likert scale to assess students’ attitudes about interprofessional collaboration, such as the readiness for interprofessional learning scale (parsell & bligh, 1999). another limitation is that because we quickly pivoted to remote delivery, we did not develop a tool to receive feedback from the art workshop participants, so we are unsure how many families took part in the art activities and how they were received by the children and families for whom they were intended. in the future, if workshops are offered asynchronously again, we would recommend asking participants to complete a brief post-survey with likert-scale questions to rate their experience. it might also be useful to provide participants with a method for sharing their art projects by uploading pictures to a facebook page or providing an email address to send pictures of the finished products to the students and/or faculty. finally, the ipe activity was limited by the fact that all the collaboration occurred remotely and asynchronously due to the covid-19 shutdown and because the schedules of the ot students and art students did not allow for synchronous meetings. however, this limitation required that both groups of students convey information in language understandable to those outside their respective professions while also being parentand child-friendly, which likely contributed to the educational benefits of the experience. conclusion 39 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26397 | april 13, 2023 interprofessional collaboration is integral to the healthcare model, and ipe activities are commonly used in healthcare education programs. our unique ipe activity provided the opportunity for collaboration between occupational therapy students and art education majors, two professions that are likely to work together in school settings. the collaboration met the who definition of interprofessional cooperation while successfully incorporating all components of bronstein’s (2003) interdisciplinary collaboration model and reflecting the university’s carnegie community engagement classification. all students responded favorably to the collaboration and noted the potential benefit to their future professional careers. furthermore, we demonstrated that successful interprofessional collaboration could occur in a remote, virtual environment and can easily be incorporated into an existing curriculum while meeting course and accreditation standards and objectives and upholding university initiatives. 40 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26397 | april 13, 2023 references accreditation council for occupational therapy education (acote®) standards (2012). american journal of occupational therapy, november/december 2012, vol. 66(6_supplement), s6–s74. doi: 10.5014/ajot.2012.66s6 american occupational 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(2019). interprofessional education: a controlled trial of a sharedlearning skills simulation between rn & ot students. journal of interprofessional education & practice, 15, 75-81. doi: 10.1016/j.xjep.2019.02.006 suarez, m. a., koole, h. k., & jackson, j. (2014). pilot interprofessional education program for ot student pediatric practice readiness. the open journal of occupational therapy, 2 (1). doi: 10.15453/2168-6408.1068 watford, p., adams, e., carlton, m., & todd, k. (2021). effects of interprofessional education on ot student practitioner outcomes: a systematic review. american journal of occupational therapy, 75(sup2), 1. doi: 10.5014/ajot.2021.75s2-rp351 world health organization. (2010). framework for action on interprofessional education and collaborative practice. geneva, switzerland: author. zaid, n.n., wahab, r., kamaralzaman, s., toran, h., ilias, k. (2021). perceptions of special educators towards occupational therapy trainees in a school setting. malaysian journal of medicine and health sciences, 17(3),154-161. 43 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xjep.2019.02.006 https://doi.org/10.15453/2168-6408.1068 https://doi-org/10.5014/ajot.2021.75s2-rp351 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xjep.2019.02.006 https://doi.org/10.15453/2168-6408.1068 https://doi-org/10.5014/ajot.2021.75s2-rp351 occupational therapy and art education: interprofessional collaboration for inclusive remote learning jennifer wingrat,1 diane kuthy, 2 and jinyoung koh2 abstract introduction interprofessional collaboration in preprofessional education procedures discussion limitations conclusion references microsoft word line et al. 2022 published.docx original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25661 | june 11, 2022 23 community engagement through contact tracing training david line, pamela s. kohlmeier, and sarah mount 1 eastern washington university cite as: line, d., kohlmeier, p.s., & mount, s. (2022). community engagement through contact tracing training. metropolitan universities, 33(3), 23-38. doi: 10.18060/25661 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. guest editors: joseph a. allen, ph.d., sara hart, ph.d., and melissa yack, ph.d. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract the covid-19 pandemic has brought many physical, mental, and economic challenges and has provided an opportunity for academia to participate in community engagement to help support public health. through a partnership between a university and a local health district, a contact tracing training program was developed and implemented in the late spring of 2020. that training program increased the health district’s capacity to respond to the pandemic and provided an experiential learning experience for public health students. through this community engagement endeavor, university faculty and students helped support a local health district’s covid-19 response efforts and, in so doing, also helped to support public health in the early stages of a global health crisis. the products of this endeavor, including contract tracers, case investigation, and trained instructors, continue to support public health contact tracing efforts in the community. keywords: community engagement, contact tracing, higher education, covid-19, experiential learning original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25661 | june 11, 2022 24 introduction the sars-cov-2 covid-19 pandemic brought multiple multifaceted challenges with 107,631 deaths in the united states attributed to covid-19 between march 1, 2020, to june 1, 2020 (centers for disease control and prevention [cdc], n.d.). additionally, the centers for disease control (cdc) reported 1,850,372 cumulative cases in the same timeframe with a total case rate of 565 per 100,000 (cdc, n.d.). the state of washington reported 21,995 total cases of covid19 for a case rate of 285 per 100,000 with 1,118 total covid-19 deaths (washington state department of health [wsdoh], n.d.). locally, spokane county reported 594 total covid-19 cases for a case rate of 110 per 100,000 and 34 deaths in 2020 between march 1 to june 1 (spokane regional health district [srhd], n.d.). additionally, rates of covid-19 induced health issues, such as depression, have been on the rise. in the united states, since the onset of covid-19, 27.8% of americans reported elevated symptoms of depression in 2020, which increased to 32.8% in 2021 (ettman et al., 2021). further, the pandemic harshly impacted the u.s. economy, with estimates showing the “median global gross domestic product dropped by 3.9% from 2019 to 2020, making it the worst economic downturn since the great depression” (oum et al., 2022, p. 2). while april 2020 projections suggested a slight decline of cases in the summer of 2020, that was quickly overshadowed by a 75% chance covid-19 would have a resurgent “second wave” by fall 2020 (american medical association [ama], 2020). effective mitigation tools from march 2020 to june 2020 included social distancing, maskwearing, case isolation/close contact quarantine, and contact tracing (khanna et al., 2020; kalyanaraman & fraser, 2020; taylor et al., 2021). both symptomatic and asymptomatic cases were being identified, adding to the complexity of mitigation efforts and highlighting an increased need for case detection, contact tracing, and subsequent quarantine/isolation (khanna et al., 2020; taylor et al., 2021). due to the novelty of covid-19, mitigation strategies were constantly evolving to adapt to new information. continued implementation and application of these mitigation strategies were essential to protect individuals and communities while also providing an opportunity for healthcare systems to prepare themselves for an expected surge (khanna et al., 2020). while the covid-19 pandemic brought many issues and challenges, the responses provided new ways for academic institutions to engage to benefit their communities. such engagement included a contact tracing training program partnership between a public university and a local health district. this partnership was developed by faculty from the eastern washington university (ewu) public health programs and the spokane regional health district (srhd) to increase the district’s capacity to respond to the pandemic while providing an experiential original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25661 | june 11, 2022 25 learning experience for public health students. the partnership focused on expanding contact tracing efforts to help control the spread of covid-19. during the pandemic, contact tracing involved “the use of clear protocols to notify, interview, and advise close contacts to patients with confirmed or probable covid-19” (cdc, 2022b). before the availability of vaccinations or the possibility of herd immunity, contact tracing was considered one of the “most important measures for reducing infection spread,” particularly at the community level (khanna et al., 2020; taylor et al., 2021, p. 704). while demand for a trained and available workforce of contact tracers quickly became apparent, overwhelmed health departments had little capacity to develop, let alone implement, competent contact tracing programs. it also became evident that regional institutions of higher education may be charged with doing their contact tracing, a task they were initially ill-prepared to do. this tasking and ill-preparedness rang true for srhd and higher education institutions in the inland northwest. appreciating the need for a contact tracing program, srhd and ewu faculty engaged in community collaboration. the cdc defines community engagement as “the process of working collaboratively with and through groups of people affiliated by geographic proximity, special interest, or similar situations to address issues affecting the well-being of those people” (cdc/atsdr committee on community engagement, 1997, p. 9). the ewu-srhd contact tracing training program (contact tracing training) worked collaboratively to benefit a local community through comprehensive instruction in traditional contact tracing and case investigation. the partnership made valuable contributions in contact tracing and case investigations, strengthening community-wide covid-19 mitigation efforts. while similar to contact tracing, case investigation focused on working with an individual who was confirmed or suspected to be covid-19 positive to “help them recall everyone with whom they have had close contact during the timeframe while they may have been infectious” (cdc, 2022a). the collaboration between srhd and ewu was successful because it benefited all stakeholders and fulfilled the three fundamental components of community engagement which include: (1) collaboration between the faculty and community, (2) a mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources, and (3) a partnership with reciprocity (public purpose institute, 2021). community engagement involves a continuum of community involvement (mccloskey et al., 2011). the community engagement continuum is a continuum over five areas of collaboration: outreach, consult, involve, collaborate, and shared leadership (mccloskey et al., 2011). each of these areas is fundamental for successful progression throughout the continuum. via response to community need, utilization of stakeholder input, and bidirectional communication, the collaboration between srhd and ewu falls within the “shared leadership” area of the original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25661 | june 11, 2022 26 continuum. the purpose of this publication is to share the methods of the ewu-srhd collaboration while illustrating how the tenets of community engagement were demonstrated during a global health crisis. collaboration between faculty and community community engagement by academia utilizes collaboration between faculty and community and can originate from various fields such as public health, political science, and social work. in may of 2020, public health faculty from ewu collaborated with srhd to develop a contact tracing training program to support public health. this collaboration between higher education institutions and a public health district blended the assets of both to create a mutually beneficial program. similar organizational structures can be found in contact tracing programs created during the covid-19 pandemic, such as those at illinois state university and penn state college of medicine (koetter et al., 2020; jarvill & neubrander, 2021). the contact tracing training utilized real-life experiences to support student learning while addressing a community need. the outcome of this collaboration provided community and academic health departments with trained contact tracers for their covid-19 response efforts and provided students with applied practice experiences. through these experiences, students honed skills, including investigatory epidemiology, community engagement, and effective communication. mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources the ewu-srhd collaboration occurred when ewu public health faculty and students wanted to help their community’s response to covid-19, and srhd was eager to accept that help. the contact tracing training was a collaboration in response to a crisis. important community engagement strategies such as collaboration and communication were utilized by ewu, srhd, and community partners to create the program. utilization of this experience for future emergency preparedness plans, including another pandemic, will benefit the community. increasing evidence suggests that crises that are prepared for or responded to with communityengaged solutions have been found to “augment officials’ abilities to govern in a crisis, improve the application of communally held resources in a disaster or epidemic, and mitigate communitywide losses” (schoch-spana et al., 2007 (page 10); lal et al., 2020; wolf-fordham, 2020). the contact tracing training utilized the strengths of each stakeholder and provided community engagement during a public health crisis, which served to benefit public health leaders by applying community resources and mitigating losses. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25661 | june 11, 2022 27 community engagement between academic partners and the community requires a mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources (public purpose institute, 2021). an essential component of the community-engaged approach is an open dialogue (national environmental justice advisory council, 1996; hatcher et al., 2011). an open dialogue was practiced throughout the collaborative process between ewu and srhd. generally, academic partners can provide insight, education, and practical application on issues, and community organizations can gain knowledge, new resources, exposure in the community, new relationships with other community members, and the potential to increase the capacity of their organization (public purpose institute, 2021). srhd provided background experience and expertise in disease tracking and contact tracing, whereas ewu provided knowledge in the areas of training and education. by utilizing these complementary specialties, srhd and ewu established a bidirectional relationship that led to the creative process of establishing the contact tracing training. while ewu was the primary academic partner, additional regional higher education institutions, including washington state university, gonzaga university, and whitworth university, provided expertise and feedback as community resources. collaboration between academic partners, such as ewu’s public health faculty and community organizations like srhd, creates a mutually beneficial relationship while also benefitting the community. as the covid-19 pandemic impacted ewu’s local community, an opportunity for community engagement commenced. at the time, spokane, washington, like much of the nation, faced closures of businesses and considerable concerns over the spread of covid-19 in the inland northwest and eastern washington region. srhd epidemiologists and program managers were recovering from the first wave of the covid-19 pandemic with an eye on future increases in cases. in this climate, a conversation between ewu public health faculty and srhd program managers commenced on how academia could support local public health efforts. the result of the discussion between srhd and ewu was the rapid development and delivery of a contact tracing training program by ewu for srhd. the primary goal per srhd was to train 50 contact tracers within six weeks. ewu public health faculty had secondary goals of bringing their experience in teaching and program development to benefit srhd and the community and providing students an applied practice experience opportunity. the training program and teaching methods the program needed to be developed and delivered in a virtual format to keep faculty and students safe during this early phase of the pandemic. fortunately, the ewu public health faculty’s experience in delivering online course materials would expedite developing the original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25661 | june 11, 2022 28 program and ensure quality in content delivery. the ewu public health faculty’s pertinent experience in delivering online content included subject areas such as emergency response, case investigation, contact tracing, health law, and professionalism in public health. srhd and ewu agreed that the primary content of the training program would be based on best practices put forth by the cdc and the washington state department of health, in addition to the epidemiologists with expertise in contact tracing from srhd. the training program was then rapidly developed, implemented, and completed. the andragogy for the training included a slide presentation, small group discussion, and an experiential component. the trainings were designed to be done with a student-to-teacher ratio of one to three, with an average of 6 and no more than 12 students per training. the target populations to train were students in public health, nursing, and medicine; volunteers from the health district; and volunteers from health care fields from the inland northwest. the training program was pilot tested the last week of may 2020 and became fully operational on june 1, 2020, with 20 contact tracers trained by june 15 and over 50 contact tracers trained before july 1. the contact tracers were trained to interface with srhd personnel who were doing and would continue to retain case investigation reports of covid-19. these case investigations focused on special populations such as minors, school-based outbreaks, and outbreaks within health care facilities. while srhd epidemiologists would continue to follow those special populations, the contact tracers trained through the contact tracing training would focus on community and workplace outbreaks. additionally, regional institutions of higher education would utilize instructors from the train-the-trainer component of the program to develop their contact tracing teams to trace the spread of covid-19 at their institutions. faculty and student engagement in the program, including the train-the-trainer component, helped increase the visibility of the ewu public health programs within regional institutions of higher education and the local community while fulfilling the primary and secondary goals of the program. the program trainings were offered over zoom and were intended to be completed in one sitting, with morning, afternoon, and evening time slots available. the training length was four hours, with an additional 1-hour srhd online ethics training prerequisite. the 1-hour ethics prerequisite educated students on health insurance portability and affordability act (hipaa) and expectations regarding confidentiality as defined by srhd. the four hour contact tracing training included a discussion on pertinent community services, srhd’s data entry system, the contact tracing process, covid-19 isolation/quarantine, prevention best practices, and interviewing skills. specific covid-19 topics covered in the training included the incubation period, signs and symptoms, and transmission methods. these materials were revised as new original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25661 | june 11, 2022 29 knowledge came forth. examples of slides that helped students understand the incubation and infectious periods of covid-19 are provided herein. figure 1. slide from presentation original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25661 | june 11, 2022 30 figure 2. slide from presentation beyond understanding the window of opportunity of transmission of covid-19, the trainings incorporated a wellness component for contact tracers. this area focused on personal preservation, which reviewed how to manage confrontations and maintain wellness before, during, and after a contact tracing shift. this wellness aspect also highlighted the benefits of contact tracing for the community. an example of a personal preservation slide is contained herein. window of opportunity 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 calendar days incuba:on period – the &me between when a contact is exposure to case 1 and becomes case 2 with s/s 2 days 5 days 14 days contact = case 2 case 1 2 days 14 days infec:ous period – &me during which a person (here, case 2) is contagious to others most infec+ous day 1 of s/s 5% 50% 95% pro por*o n of infec ted contact window of opportunity (the 2 days between a contact’s exposure to case 1 and them poten&ally becoming infec&ous themselves) original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25661 | june 11, 2022 31 figure 3. personal preservation slide the contact tracing training ended with small group mock contact tracing calls, which allowed each student to be a contact tracer, a covid-19 contact, and an observer of the process, using scenarios that helped students gain confidence in their roles as contact tracers. the scenarios were built on content previously covered within the training program. there were six different scenarios, so each student practiced with a different mock case, including contact demographics and social arrangements. to conduct the mock scenarios, students were split into three groups with one instructor per group. in each small group, students received materials based on their positions of contact tracer, a covid-19 contact, and an observer of the process. each small group went through three rotations, affording each student the opportunity to rotate through each position. for each rotation, students were given materials to support their roles. each student was given materials to utilize during the mock interviews. the mock contact tracer received an interview script, the contact’s information, and the data collection methods. the contact tracer’s script followed the 8-steps to contact tracing incorporated into the training. also, the script included prompts, a checklist to guide them in handling contact information, and a data collection form, which resembled what would be expected in the field. the checklist was designed to help keep the flow of conversation on point and to reorient the contact tracer should a conversation go sideways. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25661 | june 11, 2022 32 alternatively, students who were portraying contacts received contact information so that they could respond to questions and make the role-playing more realistic. additionally, the student observer was given the opportunity to watch an active contact tracing role-play and provide constructive feedback to the participants during a debriefing, which helped solidify learning. each mock training scenario ended with a debriefing guided by an instructor and included feedback by both the instructor and the observing student. the instructor and observing student gave constructive feedback based on scenario-specific teaching points during the debriefing. through role-playing and debriefing, students could give and receive feedback in a safe environment while building confidence in their roles as contact tracers. after completing the contact tracing training, students received a certification issued from ewu and endorsed by srhd. many students who thrived during the program were invited to enter the train-the-trainer portion of the program to help train contact tracers. the train-the-trainer portion of the program was developed to expand the reach of the contact tracing training. it allowed other partners, including higher education institutions, to utilize the training resources better to prepare the region for the spread of covid-19. the train-the-trainer trainings went over evaluation, set-up, and course management methods. it then reviewed highlights of the contact tracing training materials by focusing on the purpose of specific slides and how to deliver the material. once this 3-hour train-the-trainer training was completed, prospective instructors were invited to co-teach a contact tracing training with one of the original trainers. this helped the new instructors gain a better understanding of the material while also practicing their delivery and receiving feedback. an associated checklist went over pre-training, training, and post-training expectations, which helped ensure the fulfillment of training requirements. the train-the-trainer materials provided instructional resources on content that included an overview of the contact tracing training, including logistical and evaluation resources, andragogical suggestions, and tips on how to conduct mock training, which included a mock training demonstration and debriefing session. discussion the training provided students and faculty with an avenue to support the community and gain a sense of involvement during the pandemic. through mock interviews, students were able to practice conversational dynamics while supporting those afflicted by covid-19. students conversed with individuals who were portrayed as being isolated and needing a friendly voice on the other end of the phone, as well as individuals who felt the pandemic was a farce and contact original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25661 | june 11, 2022 33 tracers were an invasion of their privacy. such conversations led to opportunities for building social and outreach skills, as well as opportunities for critical thinking and creativity. in addition, the training created an opportunity for students to expand on their cultural competency because effective community engagement generally begins with an understanding of culture. in training, students guided individuals through ethical decisions which addressed individual liberties while promoting quarantining after significant exposure to covid-19 to protect the public’s health. the program was developed with a strong awareness of the increased impact of covid-19 on minorities and communities of color. the death of george floyd and the expansion of the black lives matter movement occurred just days before the initial training was offered, which exacerbated already tense perceptions of racial inequities. this increased our focus on scenarios that provided teachable moments for contact tracing in diverse communities. further, part of the training included identifying solutions and resources available to aid lowerincome communities. thus, when students asked questions of equity, instructors were prepared to answer. teaching moments provided by the scenarios included multi-generational residences, limited opportunities to isolate or quarantine, the need to go to work even after being identified as being exposed, and the appreciation of contacts being concerned about divulging circumstances and relationships with others who may have been exposed to covid-19. the trainings incorporated these complexities into the materials and scenarios and addressed ways for contact tracers to protect their own needs. similarly, due to a tense national political climate, as the potential for threats and hostility towards contact tracers increased, the importance of self-preservation and ways to protect the contact tracers from abuse was highlighted. examples of self-preservation content included in the interviewing skills section of the training highlighted that the contact tracers did not create the situation, the call would likely have a foreseeable impact on those contacted. while it was a bad day for those contacted, this should not ruin the contact tracer’s day. a repeated message for the training was that the resolution of the call was going to either be what the contact tracer intended or a referral to a supervisor. to accomplish the above, tips on effective communication were presented and discussed. communications skills like building rapport, being assertive, actively listening, and demonstrating compassion are central to a successful career in public health. however, these skills may be difficult to capture through standard coursework in a didactic setting where the focus is on rubrics and course learning objectives. thus, the development of communication skills was a central component of the training. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25661 | june 11, 2022 34 program effectiveness the contact tracing training exceeded its primary goal, met its secondary goals, and benefitted the local health department, community, local institutions of higher education, and students. srhd’s primary goal of training 50 contact tracers by july 15 was exceeded by training 53 contact tracers by june 24. similarly, the train-the-trainer component trained twelve instructors from five institutions of higher education which further surpassed srhd’s training goals. ewu’s secondary goals were met to provide applied practice experiences for students and benefit the community by protecting public health. in accomplishing the program’s goals, effective community engagement occurred. the faculty and students increased engagement between all regional higher education institutions. srhd was better able to keep up with the contact tracing needs of the local community. the ewu public health programs received a few inquiries from potential students regarding the opportunity to pursue a master of public health degree. students were able to expand on their traditional education and serve their community during the covid-19 crisis. additionally, many students quickly moved from volunteer status to employment opportunities as funding became available and the demand for contact tracers increased. further, higher education institutions received contact tracers allowing them to open their campuses in the fall of 2020 with better response capabilities. to promote utilization of the training by academic institutions in the region, institutions were encouraged to brand the training with their logos and to use scenarios likely to be encountered by their contact tracers. this allowed the training to be shaped to meet the needs of each user while allowing each university to take ownership of its delivery. official feedback has not been gathered from participating stakeholders, however, continued requests for contact tracers by srhd, panhandle health district in northern idaho, and regional institutions of higher education suggest that the program continues to be beneficial. through the development and utilization of the contact tracing training, with the associated train-the-trainer component, all the fundamental aspects of community engagement were met. this led to a stronger community covid-19 response with stakeholder involvement, highlighting the benefits of experiential education. future directions hopefully, another pandemic will not occur in any of our lifetimes but should a sudden, and substantial need for contact tracing recur, for whatever reason, there is one improvement that likely should be made to the contact tracing training. while the current contact tracing training original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25661 | june 11, 2022 35 quickly trained over 50 contact tracers within 6-weeks during the pandemic, these individuals had difficulty scheduling a mandatory meeting with an srhd epidemiologist to become srhd contract tracing volunteers. this additional one-on-one training sought to ensure each student understood the process and the paperwork at srhd. while this was well-intentioned, it was not practical during a pandemic. in fact, it created a bottleneck. the epidemiologists were extremely busy, making it difficult to complete this final step in the volunteer training process. due to the bottleneck of this step, trained contact tracers were not becoming srhd contact tracing volunteers as quickly as the community needed them. to negate the bottleneck, adding a 30-minute training video by srhd epidemiologists could remove the need for one-on-one meetings. this training video could highlight whatever the epidemiologists consider noteworthy regarding the contact tracing process, troubleshooting, and paperwork. this video addition would likely help ensure that students are competent and comfortable with the contact tracing process and paperwork and that the srhd epidemiologists have efficiently conveyed their insights on contact tracing at the health district. thus, the addition of a training video by srhd epidemiologists in the future would negate the need for individual meetings, which would promote efficiency in helping to get contact tracers actively volunteering in the community sooner. conclusion the covid-19 pandemic, with its many challenges, provided an opportunity for a university to partner with a local health district to train contact tracers in the community. through community engagement, academicians helped support the local health district’s efforts to contain covid-19 and promote public health. the contact tracers, trained through the contact tracing training, benefitted by gaining experience through applied practice experiences. in so doing, they developed their communication skills and helped to support their local health district and the community, including their campus communities. these efforts served to benefit the public’s health through community engagement. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities 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(2020). integrating government silos: local emergency management and public health department collaboration for emergency planning and response. the american review of public administration, 50(6-7), 560–567. https://doi.org/10.1177/0275074020943706 microsoft word publish_parks et al. 2022 6.19.22.docx original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26300 | june 19, 2022 92 anchored or detached? a student commentary on equity, diversity, and inclusion at urban institutions amanda m. parks1, gerron scott2, chariz seijo3, troy keys4 1,3,4 department of psychology, virginia commonwealth university, 2 center for environmental studies, virginia commonwealth university cite as: parks, a.m. gerron, s., seijo, c., &. keys, t. (2022). anchored or detached? a student commentary on equity, diversity, and inclusion at urban institutions. metropolitan universities, 33(2) 92-108. doi: 10.18060/26330 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. guest editors: kevin w. allison, sylvia carey-butler, rosalyn hobson hargraves, tiffany g. townsend, and jeffery wilson editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract in 2020, americans witnessed the covid-19 pandemic disproportionately impact the most minoritized groups. concurrently, the innumerable police killings of black americans re-ignited racial justice protests across the world. as a result, students, faculty, and staff observed a rapid push by administrations to enact diversity, equity, and inclusion (dei) initiatives and commit to creating more equitable and inclusive climates. since higher education's inception, urban anchor institutions have played an integral role in the political, social, and economic well-being of their surrounding communities. after 2020, as the distance between universities and their surrounding communities continues to expand, it’s as critical as ever for urban and metropolitan universities to dismantle the pervasive inequities that torment their students and surrounding communities. although numerous anchor institutions have expressed their commitment to dei initiatives in recent years, minoritized students, faculty, and staff continue to face systemic barriers to academic and professional achievement and overall well-being. given this discrepancy, we, four graduate students from an urban anchor institution, were invited to provide recommendations for universities to dismantle inequities and provide a more inclusive, anti-racist environment for its students. as such, we address three concerns: increasing the diversity of faculty and staff, correcting housing and medical injustices of the past, and remodeling campus safety and policing. our commentary also provides actionable steps for urban anchor universities to address these challenges, particularly for minoritized students and communities. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26300 | june 19, 2022 93 keywords: social justice, anti-racism, diversity, equity, inclusion, anchor institutions, community engagement introduction globally, 2020 was marked by tragic collective loss. for many students, 2020 was particularly stressful, bringing the deadliest pandemic in american history and a racial reckoning that had been burgeoning for years (lee & ahmed, 2020). in particular, racism-related trauma took an unprecedented form in 2020, and minoritized americans were constantly barraged with reminders of the ubiquitous and pernicious nature of racism (jones et al., 2020). namely, the police killings of george floyd, breonna taylor, and countless other black americans in 2020 alone spurred racial justice protests and a call to action across the country and the global reemergence of black lives matter (dreyer et al., 2020; weine et al., 2020). from the sociopolitical turmoil of the often-chaotic trump presidency to the grave illumination of racial inequality and health disparities in 2020, minoritized college students, as well as faculty, staff, and administrators, collectively experienced the deleterious physical and psychological effects of racism and other systems of oppression (clayton et al., 2019). across postsecondary institutions, students, faculty, and staff alike languished over the state of the world amid unspeakable loss and tragedy. online discourse and activism around anti-black violence peaked, including a concerted movement to defund the police, renewed campaigns for voting rights, and solicited donations towards bail funds; all permeated the social media landscape (nguyen et al., 2021). nationally, students observed a swift push by administrations to enact diversity, equity, and inclusion (dei) initiatives and commit to creating more equitable and inclusive climates. these efforts included statements from the leadership acknowledging the frustrations of many around current events and pledging support, enhanced diversity and antiracist training, climate surveys, and action plans for accountability to dismantle racism and other systems of oppression (thomas et al., 2020). however, many months later, students and faculty ponder whether higher education can deliver on their promises, as the general discourse and urgency of social justice activism from the summer of 2020 has noticeably quieted across campus institutions and on social media (nguyen et al., 2021; thomas et al., 2020). the responsibility of institutions, specifically urban anchor institutions, to address and dismantle the pervasive inequities that students and their surrounding communities face is as necessary now as perhaps any time before. since higher education's inception, urban affiliated institutions have played an integral role in cities' social, political, and economic vitality and their surrounding communities (harris, 2021). original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26300 | june 19, 2022 94 in particular, anchor institutions, which can be described as nonprofit or public institutions embedded in a place, are well-suited to engage with local stakeholders to share collective goals for community improvement (metropolitan universities, 2019). they often serve a significant role in the local culture by providing stability in real estate, purchasing power, and employment (harris & holley, 2016). anchor institutions that hold membership within the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities (cumu) span a diversity of institutional affiliations (e.g., historically black colleges and universities (hbcus), liberal arts colleges, ivy league, and regional research institutions; cumu, 2021). importantly, cumu members share a passion and dedication to the "urban mission" that includes supporting and centering student success, recruiting and retaining a diverse student body, community engagement and revitalization, and employing reciprocal partnerships to accomplish strategic goals (cumu, 2021). further, hbcu institutions play a critical role in black americans' social and economic advancement, particularly those from low-income backgrounds (nichols & evans-bell, 2017). the factors that contribute to the success of anchor institutions often include their commitment to examining and solving societal concerns. to that end, a significant concern plaguing anchor institutions presently is the lack of representational diversity of faculty and staff, contributing to academic disparities for students of color (llamas et al., 2021). studies have demonstrated that gpa, as well as retention and graduation rates, for underrepresented students from racially and ethnically minoritized groups are positively affected by the increased diversity of their faculty (llamas et al., 2021; stout et al., 2018). additionally, despite anchor institutions' stated commitment to revitalizing their surrounding communities, gentrification and cultural displacement are significant societal concerns that continue to have deleterious impacts on existing residents of color (valli, 2015). namely, studies have demonstrated a link between the increased cost of tuition and the scarcity of affordable housing, which has led to the disempowerment and displacement of predominantly black and latinx existing residents (rivas et al., 2019). a final societal concern that many anchor institutions have committed to addressing is the issue of policing on campus. as a result of the systemic violence enacted by police officers towards black and other people of color, particularly the killings that spurred the racial justice protests in the summer of 2020, students have urged university administrators and leaders to reevaluate the police presence on their campuses (subramanian & arzy, 2021). historically, in efforts to lobby for federal funding of urban renewal initiatives in the 1950s and 60s, anchor institutions' chancellors and presidents displaced thousands of black residents (brown et al., 2016). further, some chancellors justified increasing police presence on urban campuses by reporting sensationalized statistics and relying on black crime narratives (williams et al., 2021). as such, to adequately address these three societal concerns today, administrators at anchor institutions must ensure the underlying thread that ties these concerns together, systemic antiblack racism, is at the core of their strategic plans. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26300 | june 19, 2022 95 despite the role and responsibility of anchor institutions to their surrounding community, there is often a lack of consistency between anchor institutions' priorities and the community's expectations and priorities (e.g., the role of the college or university, the value placed on community research by administrators, faculty tenure and reward systems, etc.; harris, 2021). more specifically, although many stakeholders believe that anchor institutions play a role in improving their surrounding cities, there are often disagreements about whether the institution has a responsibility or obligation to do so (harris, 2021). as a result, anchor institutions often face challenges in implementing their aforementioned anchor mission-supporting activities, particularly those related to social concerns and equity (harris & holley, 2016; harris, 2021). to combat this difficulty in engaging their urban mission, several anchor institutions, including our home institution of virginia commonwealth university (vcu), have developed plans and strategic goals to address the inequities their students and surrounding communities experience. vcu's strategic plan, quest 2025: together we transform, focuses on student success, national prominence, urban and regional transformation, creating a culture of appreciation, and leveraging diversity (vcu quest, 2021). despite many advances to leverage diversity by vcu administration, on a 2021 organizational culture and climate survey, many faculty and staff reported a decline in the diversity and inclusivity of the university's climate. in sum, although numerous anchor institutions have expressed their commitment to dei initiatives in recent years, minoritized students, faculty, and staff continue to face barriers to academic and professional achievement (ballard et al., 2020; beeman, 2021) and overall well-being (busby et al., 2019; fruehwirth et al., 2021). throughout history, student activism has frequently influenced the creation of, and in some respects, the actual content within university-formed task forces and strategic planning efforts. in the wake of the racial justice movement of 2020 and the ongoing disproportional impact of the covid-19 pandemic on minority students, the voices and perspectives of an institution's most critical constituent, its students, need to continue to be amplified. we, a group of minoritized graduate students in clinical psychology and education, have been invited to address the most pertinent issues that impact our success and well-being at the university level. relative to matters of equity, inclusion, diversity, and anti-racism, we believe that anchor institutions are uniquely positioned to increase the diversity of faculty and staff, correct housing and medical injustices of the past, and remodel campus safety and policing. our commentary also provides actionable steps for urban universities to address these challenges, particularly for minoritized students and communities. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26300 | june 19, 2022 96 increasing diversity at urban and metropolitan universities increasing diversity at urban and metropolitan universities needs to happen in several ways. one way is to look at the university retention efforts of students of color. a second way is to develop holistic models of student development that account for the intersectionality of our students. a third way is to ensure that the faculty and staff more accurately reflect the student body. a fourth way is to create a partnership between the university and the community they serve to research the issues that directly impact their communities. diversity efforts can be made in various ways, but they have to be intentional and taken seriously by those involved. first-year undergraduate students of color are at particular risk of not being retained by universities for several reasons. one of those reasons is that they do not see themselves reflected in the faculty and staff they encounter (tinto, 1987; strayhorn, 2012). students at most universities will have mostly white professors. this is particularly true in stem disciplines (corneille et al., 2019). not seeing themselves reflected in faculty or staff can have a devastating impact on underrepresented groups' retention, progression, and graduation rates (strayhorn, 2012). since stem units typically have low faculty diversity, it often leads to poor outcomes for black and latinx students. black and latinx males are at particular risk due to unfair biases and systemic racism in k-12 school systems (johson & larwin, 2020). one of the largest units of mandated courses for students of all races at vcu is in one of our stem departments. as shown in figure 1, the grade distribution of black and latinx males in their entry-level course within a popular stem major, 43.9% and 37.8% receive a grade of "d," "f," or "w." failing or withdrawing from a course can lead to students being placed on academic probation, suspension or at risk of losing their financial aid. they might feel isolated and not part of the university, with hardly anyone in the unit to relate to due to limited numbers of faculty of color teaching in stem. members of these groups likely feel as if they have no support and nowhere to turn to when things get rough. black and latinx males might also lack the institutional knowledge required to navigate the transition from high school to college. support for these students needs to be done in a holistic manner that promotes their unique backgrounds. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26300 | june 19, 2022 97 figure 1. grade distribution of popular stem major class fall 2015-spring 2021 source: grade distributions scott – 302252 vcu irds urban and metropolitan universities need to develop a holistic support model for their students (magolda, 2009). the leaders of these institutions, namely the president, need to create a clear mission and vision on the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion. there also has to be a plan from all areas of the institutional structure that complement this mission and vision. universities should not rely on an institution's designated office of diversity to be the everything and go-to source for underrepresented groups. each office on campus needs to move beyond the proverbial planning to be more diverse and create actionable and measurable steps that produce diversity. in this approach, there needs to be a deep dive into the intersectionality of identities. historically, there has been a focus on just race, just gender, and just the socioeconomic status of individuals. there is now more emphasis on sexuality, but it is often separated from other identities. there needs to be an intersectional approach beyond race, gender, socioeconomic status, and sexuality when creating diversity plans. for example, a latinx student from a rural environment might need other assistance than a latinx student from an urban setting. if students are to succeed in college, an intersectional approach that addresses the needs of the many identities that students bring with them. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26300 | june 19, 2022 98 in addition to developing holistic models of student development, the faculty and staff of urban situated universities should at the very least reflect their communities and the student body they serve. for example, virginia commonwealth university has produced a culture and climate index scorecard in 2019 and 2021. these reports by the office of institutional equity, effectiveness, and success aim to assess the academic and administrative units related to diversity, inclusion, and engagement. each unit receives a rating between zero and five, comprising the following assessment rankings: excellent, good, good, average, fair, poor, and unacceptable. of virginia commonwealth university's fifteen academic units, all but five received a fair or lower on the diversity index. of the ten receiving a fair or lower, there are: one fair, five poor, and four unacceptable (vcu, 2021b). as part of the diversity index, units are measured on a compositional diversity scale of zero to two. this scale looks to see if the faculty and staff population reflects the student population. only five units received a score of one or higher on the compositional diversity. six units scored .25 or lower, with three units scoring a 0 (vcu, 2021b). as evidenced by the scores, the reported rhetoric on the importance of diversity does not match the reality of most universities. urban institutions need to be transparent about how the faculty and staff diversity reflects student diversity. urban institutions can use metrics such as this one to assess where they are in terms of diversity and use them to create goals and action plans to be where they want to be. on the mission front, urban and metropolitan universities need to align part of their research ambition with the community they are serving. universities need to diversify to produce research that aligns with the surrounding community's needs. there needs to be a focus on being a partner in solving the issues that members of their community face. an example of this can be health disparities between majority and underrepresented groups. aligning universities' research to serve the student population and the community better requires a commitment to hiring faculty and staffing that reflects those being served: students and the community. promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion will require institutions to devote more resources to researchers. institutions will also have to look at ways to create pipelines for students of color today to be able to conduct future research. institutions will have to actively seek students from underrepresented groups and dismantle some of the hurdles they encounter. one way is to waive or completely stop requiring standardized tests such as the gre. the costs of these tests can be a huge financial barrier, not to mention a mental barrier, for students, especially if students have to pay for test prep or take it more than once (millar, 2020). another way is to fully fund all graduate work, including masters' programs, and increase stipends with health care coverage. funding all graduate work will help students who cannot afford further debt and assist with advancement in their field. as more underrepresented students gain advanced degrees, institutions will likely increase the diversity among faculty and staff. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26300 | june 19, 2022 99 correcting financial/medical injustices metropolitan universities such as vcu have a significant impact on the community surrounding them. the institution's growth and development often run parallel with the progression of the city that it lies within. however, we have witnessed an exponential increase in university tuition and fees in many colleges throughout the nation in recent years, while financial assistance has remained stagnant. according to the national center for education services, between 2008 and 2019, respectively, undergraduate prices (tuition, fees, room, and board) at public institutions rose 28% (2021). by increasing the cost to attend, inequities may emerge for individuals, especially those from underrepresented backgrounds, immediately as they often do not have the financial means to keep up with the inflating prices. some students are willing to pay whatever it takes to attend the college of their choice through our education financing system. individuals who have been taught minimal financial literacy are willing to sign for student loans in excess of thousands of dollars per semester with little incentive to pay attention to the actual cost, let alone interest rates. both federal and private loans, sometimes likened to predatory, are freely available through a quick internet search and often pushed by the university's financial aid department. one possible solution would be to put a cap on tuition fees and loan amounts for a period of time. students would likely be more incentivized to stay below the annual federal borrowing limits. in addition, financial education and money management should be provided by the institutions themselves to better inform the students of the potential future drawbacks of abusing the loan system. an increased cost of attendance coupled with rising enrollment creates a ripple effect stemming from the school itself. neighboring real estate is one area that has taken advantage of this shift. property owners have witnessed increased enrollment prices and almost mirrored this trend by driving up their off-campus student housing prices (rivas et al., 2019). as a result, community members are being pushed out of their residences for students willing to pay the high cost of rent. urban institutions are faced with additional challenges when looking to expand their campuses. often, the majority of the institution is nestled in the middle of the city with limited vacant real estate. as a result, when an institution hopes to renovate part of its campus or expand by constructing new buildings, they are forced to remove or alter whatever previously resided in that space. gentrification often coincides with communal mistrust in entities such as the metropolitan university. as an anchor-based institution, virginia commonwealth university prides itself in seeing the surrounding community flourish alongside the college. however, the city of richmond has lost tax revenue in vcu's land expansion, given that the institution is not required to pay a property tax as part of its benefits of being state-affiliated. there is a need for a resolution involving this issue that does not pass on these financial burdens to the students or original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26300 | june 19, 2022 100 community members. metropolitan universities have historically absorbed valuable community resources for their gain. further study is needed to better understand the consequences of gentrification on urban neighborhoods, especially by metropolitan universities (pearman, 2019). for example, prior studies have demonstrated that long-term residents of these "revitalized" communities have felt disempowered and lost socio-political connection (valli, 2015). by empirically bringing to light the impacts of gentrification on the surrounding neighborhoods, these institutions will be more informed when making decisions that affect the institution and the local community. feedback from community members should also be invited if these universities truly aim to improve the city. a more collaborative approach should allow residents to feel more empowered and less at the mercy of the big institution on the block. repercussions between the institution and the surrounding city are not unique to the land ownership. a history of medical research targeting minority participants also contributes to this mistrust. many institutions provide affordable treatment to their surrounding population to promote inclusive care. however, an unethical history has left many community members skeptical of the treatment that they would receive. this is made evident through chris jones's organ thieves, which uncovered the improper treatment of bruce tucker by the primary hospital at virginia commonwealth university. tucker's heart had been transplanted into a 54year-old white man without consulting his family first or allowing the appropriate time to elapse. however, this is only one of many examples of medical injustice to the black community. ruptures in the patient-clinician relationship could have adverse effects on the service provided, including the depth of disclosure and the duration of treatment. to properly care for the community, those in need must be willing to seek help. approaches to reduce cultural mistrust between community members and the university-run clinics include racial matching between the patient and doctor, as well as an emphasis on cultural competence (trinh et al., 2019). both methodologies require a diverse staff that is well-representative of the surrounding community and well-educated on the history of this relationship. it is critical for the institution itself to be hypersensitive to this current set of beliefs surrounding health care services and be able to adapt when necessary for the betterment of the city. campus policing at urban and metropolitan universities in the wake of george floyd's murder, protests have led to police reform legislation across the country to address police brutality and racism (subramanian & arzy, 2021). universities have re-evaluated their relationships with law enforcement, especially their interactions with racial original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26300 | june 19, 2022 101 and ethnic minorities (barajas, 2020; vcu, 2021a). on college campuses throughout the united states, many institutions have their department of sworn officers with full police powers independent from the local city or state departments (reaves, 2015). the university employs campus police officers and are tasked with maintaining a safe campus environment for the people who live, study, and work within the institution. as urban institutions exist seamlessly with neighboring communities, campus police also have a responsibility to residents in the surrounding area. however, campus police have a reputation for over-policing racial and ethnic minority students and community members, especially black students (dizon, 2021). graduate and undergraduate students across the country, often led by black student organizations, have called to defund police departments within universities (barajas, 2020; sainato, 2020). a common demand across universities is for funds to be reallocated for mental health care. student mental health and well-being have become an increasingly urgent concern for universities (lipson et al., 2019). although most of the research examining mental health in students focuses on undergraduates, graduate students face significantly higher rates of anxiety and depression, and overall distress than the general population (evans et al., 2018). much of the impact of the pandemic on the mental health of graduate students remains unknown. still, emerging evidence suggests the covid-19 pandemic has exacerbated this crisis and led to increases in mental health disorders among graduate students (chirikov et al., 2020). to prepare for the needs of students returning to campuses in an eventually post-pandemic world, public safety must include training for mental health professionals as first responders for mental health emergencies. in response to many of these issues, vcu established the safety and well-being advisory committee in 2020 to create a list of recommendations that ensures public safety, especially for marginalized communities (vcu, 2021a). these recommendations include increasing education and training for officers and faculty, staff, and students, ensuring department accountability, and improving existing community relationships. it also addresses the need for non-sworn responses to crises, such as mental health and interpersonal conflict emergencies. however, current recommendations lack transparency, such as how funds will be allocated to increase training opportunities across the university and how progress in implementing these recommendations will be shared with the greater community. membership in the committee also had limited community participation, representing just three of over 50 committee and subcommittee members despite statements suggesting that the group was adequately representative of neighboring communities and associations (vcu, 2021a). by ensuring adequate participation in initiatives directly impacting communities, urban institutions of higher education must create spaces that empower community members to lead initiatives and collaborations for sustainable change. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26300 | june 19, 2022 102 as public safety remains a significant concern for both the students and the greater community alike, we advocate for university leadership to invest in community-based public safety approaches, focusing on building community relationships and skills-based education to prevent crime rather than reactive approaches to crime. community-based public safety approaches must also prioritize prevention efforts, such as student and community mental health care investment. these strategies include providing transparency in the university's relationships with law enforcement, consistent progress reports on implementing any reforms, and departmental transformation led by majority community and student leaders. as campus police departments at anchor institutions work with a diverse community of faculty, staff, students, and local residents, they have the opportunity to serve a unique role in both community partnership and public safety. the question remains: will they? conclusion urban anchor institutions and universities are responsible for addressing the economic and social inequities that impact the communities they are located in and ultimately serve, particularly those who hold minoritized identities. in recent years, this responsibility has gained even more importance, as minority groups have been disproportionately impacted by a number of events, including the covid-19 pandemic, the tumultuous sociopolitical climate, and the killings of black americans that led to racial justice uprisings. as graduate students, we have a unique role in representing the community as we often simultaneously hold privileged and oppressed social locations and identities. despite these important roles, our voices and perspectives are not often amplified when challenging unjust systems; as such, we felt it was imperative to provide recommendations for how our anchor institutions/universities can build anti-racist, inclusive communities and prioritize the well-being of its students and the local community. our insights and recommendations spanned three categories: increasing representational diversity, correcting housing and medical injustices, and remodeling campus policing. increasing the diversity among and support for graduate students will lead to a larger number of underrepresented students working on urban campuses, which will help the faculty and staff reflect the student body. correcting housing and medical injustices by taking a more collaborative approach when faced with community-altering decisions. as well as promoting a faculty and staff that is representative of the surrounding community and well educated on its history. remodeling campus policing requires anchor universities to invest in prevention that prioritizes the well-being of minoritized students and the local community. we hope that these original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26300 | june 19, 2022 103 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(2021). for "peace, quiet, and respect": race, policing, and land grabbing on chicago's south side. antipode, 53(2), 497–523. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1111/anti.12692 microsoft word chin et al. 2022 publish.docx original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25696| june 11, 2022 10 community engagement and learning at an academic medical center: maintaining community-academic partnerships during the covid-19 pandemic meghan chin, john dibello, henrike schmalfuss, rajay dockery, amanda gao, margaret eshleman, samuel indresano, nesreen shahrour, kim bullock, and capri fowler1 1 department of family medicine community health division at georgetown university school of medicine cite as: chin, m., dibello, j., schmalfuss. h., dockrey, r. gao, a., eshleman, m., indresano, s., shahrour, n., bullock, k., & fowler, c. (2022). community engagement and learning at an academic medical center: maintaining community-academic partnerships during the covid-19 pandemic. metropolitan universities, 33(3), 10-22. doi: 10.18060/25696 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. guest editors: joseph a. allen, ph.d., sara hart, ph.d., and melissa yack, ph.d. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract in light of the ongoing covid-19 pandemic, the health disparities plaguing our communities are highlighted more than ever. community-based learning (cbl) and community-based participatory research (cbpr) provide a highly relevant framework in addressing health problems, especially those related to the social determinants of health (ahrq, 2020). throughout the covid-19 pandemic, the team at the community health division (chd) within the family medicine department of georgetown university school of medicine (gusom) maintained and deepened relationships with community partners through engagement activities, which not only actively addressed community needs but also acted as an educational tool for a growing number of interdisciplinary students. this paper explores the effectiveness of cbl and cbpr as a framework, even when presented with challenges of the covid-19 pandemic. it further underscores how students at georgetown university have become more intimately involved in community health engagement during the pandemic. this serves as an encouraging model for establishing a student-based research learning community. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25696 | june 11, 2022 11 keywords: community-based participatory research, community-based learning, health disparities, health literacy, health promotion, intellectual and developmental disabilities introduction community engagement and awareness as part of investigative theory through community-based learning (cbl) and subsequent community-based participatory research (cbpr) have become critical to learning and research within healthcare. the faculty at georgetown university school of medicine (gusom) exposed students to the importance of community through servicelearning. as a result, they evolved into an intentional pedagogy, including reciprocal community-campus engagement or community-based learning. traditionally, cbl directly utilizes community engagement as a teaching and learning strategy for students at all levels of education, often partnering with local non-profit and advocacy organizations to facilitate community interaction and applied learning (beckman & long, 2016). cbl relies on the principle that impact and “profound learning often comes from experience supported by guidance, context-providing, foundational knowledge, and intellectual analysis” (marshall university, 2021). this pedagogical approach allows students and educators to apply theoretical and conceptual classroom models to the community directly. theoretical and didactic grounding provides a dialogical tool for student reflection as they engage with community participants. ideally, participation in cbl also addresses a community-identified need leading to transformative change. other positive outcomes include increasing community agency through knowledge sharing, academic community understanding, and recognition of community assets through consistent interactions. students acquire the necessary skills to address real-life problems or formulate a relevant research question on community partnerships. the cbl course, delivered as a required experience for all first-year medical students at gusom, directs students to partner with communities in the district of columbia (d.c.), often acting as a lever for multi-year engagement on a specific topic area or within a particular service setting. community partnerships are carefully selected based on their values and how they serve the d.c. community, allowing medical students to enhance established programs and create new relationships as welcomed by community members. these efforts can range from teaching school-based health education to innovative nutrition programs that encourage family strengthening for families with children with disabilities. by working directly with communities, students build upon their cultural competencies, understanding inequity and social justice, and community relationships, setting the foundation necessary for effective cbpr. in its current model, cbl at the medical school is nested within the georgetown family medicine community health division (chd), which fosters community engagement and undertakes advocacy and policy efforts. in working within the community, the collaboration is targeted as a mutual gain for the partner, the population they serve, and the medical students. engagement through respect creates a foundation for discovery, idea formulation, and project © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25696 | june 11, 2022 12 development. this process becomes a bridge to research deliberations that are democratic with shared investigatory interests. from this curricular experience, students at georgetown developed a desire to further engage with and learn from their communities, especially as the covid-19 pandemic highlights existing health disparities and calls for racial justice to permeate our culture. the relationships fostered through this course have segued into diverse forms of community engagement and cbpr partnerships within the chd, serving as a necessary crux for improving health equity within d.c. novel community-based learning education during the pandemic in light of the covid-19 pandemic, dr. kim bullock and her team at the chd sought to expand health-centered community engagement beyond the confines of medical school. in the summer of 2020, a five-week pilot course entitled addressing the health status and health inequities among individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities across the life span was offered for undergraduate and graduate students in all disciplines through georgetown university’s disability studies program in collaboration with gusom. the course incorporated cbl principles in an all-virtual learning environment and introduced students to tenants of cbpr. consequently, students connected with experts in the field of intellectual and developmental disabilities (idd), including clinicians, service coordinators, and individuals with lived experience of idd (also known as self-advocates). meetings with self-advocates focused on exploring their life experiences, learning about their advocacy efforts, and identifying the effects of the covid-19 pandemic on their wellbeing and access to healthcare. these conversations contributed to students’ understanding of idd as an identity, serving as a core foundation of future cbpr undertakings. virtual classes allowed for increased accessibility for all parties and connected students with community members that otherwise would not have been able to meet in person, offering a more varied and enriching experience. experiencing cbl carried out virtually allowed students to rethink how to increase the accessibility of cbpr through virtual platforms. candid, semester-long conversations bolstered trust amongst constituents, allowing for collaborative efforts and mutual empowerment in future cbpr efforts. by connecting directly with community members, students identified community needs and saw how those might differ from what experts and policymakers assumed, establishing a starting point for subsequent cbpr. beyond the classroom, students were invited to join d.c. community group meetings, including project action!, a dc-based advocacy organization, and a dmv disability/senior community online gathering. students were also encouraged to join weekly executive and community meetings sponsored by d.c.’s department on disability services (dds). these extracurricular opportunities allowed students to further engage in the course material and see first-hand how disability-focused community stakeholders build community, promote resilience, and advocate for themselves. students submitted weekly reflections to demonstrate their learning, process new material, and create connections between different guest speakers. additionally, the course © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25696 | june 11, 2022 13 culminated in a group concept paper identifying key research areas, such as social support and primary care, needed to better support d.c.’s idd community based on interviews the students had with community partners throughout the course. this collective paper served as a foundation for the central cbpr activities that have defined the success of the chd during the covid-19 pandemic. seeing and appreciating the value of undergraduate and graduate students as contributors to perspectives within the chd led to the recruitment of the division’s first junior research coordinator as well as several research assistants to bolster the chd’s cbpr efforts. with a wide variety of community and academic partnerships within and outside the district of columbia, the chd student research group comprises approximately 15 undergraduate and graduate interdisciplinary students and medical students. community-based participatory research as pedagogy cbl serves as a key vehicle for learning about and conducting cbpr at georgetown. cbpr is a “strength-based approach to research that involves collective, reflective and systematic inquiry in which researchers and community stakeholders engage as equal partners in all steps of the research process with the goals of educating, improving practice or bringing about social change” (tremblay, 2018, p. 2). cbpr finds pedagogical grounding by teaching students the value of community knowledge and the importance of building synergy in addressing methodological and goal-directed concerns in both qualitative and quantitative research. researchers and community members develop longitudinal relationships that ensure research findings lead to instant community benefits and build capacity amongst partners. this includes immediate dissemination of results and conclusions and cogent, actionable items that researchers and community partners can pursue collectively. benefits of cbpr include but are not limited to establishing a learning community and utilizing research questions relevant to both researchers and communities. areas of inquiry include identifying culturally appropriate study instruments, a deeper understanding of each community’s unique challenges, the growth of reflective observation and empathy, with real-life knowledge for engaged researchers/students. an important area of interest involves community health literacy leading to action and trust in the health care system for underrepresented populations (ahrq, 2020). cbpr faces challenges and limitations, often related to a limited number of funding sources and concerns regarding research quality and the extent to which all community members benefit from a project’s outputs and action steps (ahrq, 2020). as a research and educational tool, cbpr shows a large potential for reaching groups and communities that have been marginalized and historically ignored. a recent study by rink et al. (2020, p. 5) evaluated the implementation of randomized clinical trials (rcts) in american indian (a.i.) communities and determined that long-term cbpr “can mitigate the epistemological, methodologic and analytic complexities of conducting rcts with a.i. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25696 | june 11, 2022 14 communities.” these researchers found three main factors: “long-standing communityresearcher relationships, establishing context-based validity and overcoming the limit of social desirability through improving participant recruitment and retention”—that allowed for successful rct implementation while also “decolonizing” research techniques (rink et al., 2020, p. 4). inherent in cbpr is an intentionality to give at least equal weight to the lived experience and voices of study subjects as to the acquired expertise of academia. as such, biases and assumed power differentials that may infiltrate the academic community is called into question by interjecting the perspective of community members. through this process, university-community connectivity and legitimacy can lead to informed action and authentic, lasting social change. community health division engagement in cbpr after recognizing the interest and dedication of students engaged with the piloted cbl course, educators in the family medicine department developed multiple student-directed cbpr and advocacy groups within the chd to create collaborative, long-term partnerships that improve health equity and the wellbeing of respective local communities. these topic-focused groups are paired with specific community sites and are supervised by the division’s director, dr. kim bullock. utilizing community partnerships developed through academic and professional networks and the cbl course, the groups at the chd, engage in bidirectional educational and research experiences that address the social determinants of health and promote positive health behaviors in medically underserved communities. research findings are shared and discussed with community members and stakeholders to accomplish recognized goals or system change. unique to the chd is the interdisciplinary diversity of students engaged in the work. the chd expanded its on-campus partnerships and student recruitment through georgetown community groups, including gusom’s office of diversity, equity, and inclusion, a pilot disability studies course, the cbl course at the gusom, and the georgetown disability alliance. each student brings a unique viewpoint to the work based on their backgrounds and experiences. students studying medicine, public health, neuroscience, health policy, economics, and government are currently involved in developing and executing community projects. members of the chd meet weekly to discuss the implementation of community projects, explore new areas for collaboration, and promote further scholarship. working groups for community partnerships discuss current engagement, meet with community partners, evaluate current projects, and plan upcoming events. each month, students develop “mini-lectures” on topics relevant to research, public health, and current events in the idd community to present to their peers. these lectures are recorded and saved as future onboarding materials for incoming students to learn more about the communities they will be engaging with. a student-led grant writing workshop provides opportunities and resources for students to apply for their funding for individual and collaborative research. on average, students spend approximately five to ten © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25696 | june 11, 2022 15 hours per week on chd projects and have completed research fellowships with our group as part of their coursework. the chd has a longstanding history of working with marginalized communities and vulnerable populations. partnership building is critical to mutually beneficial inquiry and research, especially regarding educating students about cbpr. implicit bias, privilege, power, and oppression, both dyadic and group, are foundational learning topics. students engaging in community research must recognize and grapple with institutional power and privilege systems. they must be ready to actively listen and learn from those voices often ignored and missing from the research discussion. historically, the community’s unequal relationship dynamics and the institution have led to faulty research questions and analysis. to develop methodologies that reflect mutual community/campus input, one must identify and acknowledge structural bias and actively create a safe space where community participants can be valued. researchers must listen reflectively and recognize the interconnectivity that drives every aspect of the research process. a core tenant of the division is the commitment to positively impacting local communities by translating scholarship to action. most notably, students actively participate in cbl and cbpr with two partner organizations in the idd community: project action! and the national children’s center. these projects seek to address health at the intersection of social determinants of health, health education, disability studies, and advocacy, acting as a resource for members of the idd community in promoting both individual and systemic change. community engagement in action: chd academic-community partnerships project action! since its creation, the chd has been passionately focused on cultivating community partnerships within the district of columbia idd population. one such partnership developed over the past decade is with project action!, a regional coalition of self-advocates in the metro d.c. area. these self-advocates are people with disabilities passionate about advocacy, change, training, information, organizing, and networking (action). they organize around their collective experiences and concerns related to health care, transportation, housing, safety, and other issues. through sharing these lived experiences, members have created a community in which they learn about local issues in the dmv area, how to exercise their civil rights, and discuss ways to spread disability awareness in the local community. as one of the most influential idd advocacy groups in the washington, d.c. area, the self-advocates have a strong grasp on justice issues in the disability community and have honed ways in which they can affect change. a community-academic partnership between lay advocates of project action! and gusom was a natural progression from the relationship between dr. kim bullock and the d.c. idd community. as expressed by self-advocates, individuals with idd face undue barriers to healthcare in communication, transportation, and equitable treatment. future healthcare © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25696 | june 11, 2022 16 professionals must learn about the diverse patient populations they will serve, and the idd community is one that many medical school curricula overlook. iezzoni et al. (2021) determined that only 40.7% of physicians surveyed felt confident in providing competent care to patients with an idd, and 58.6% of physicians actively welcomed patients with idd into their practice. when receiving healthcare services, much of the patient experience is rooted in the physician’s actions, and there are many subtle yet impactful ways to alter care for the individual. for students, the strength of community-based partnerships at the professional training level lies in hearing the lived experiences from community members themselves. self-advocates from project action! participate in several activities with medical students throughout the school year to educate on best practices in providing equitable care. such activities include community listening sessions, focus groups, informative videos relating to the covid-19 vaccine, and inclusion in the cbl course as panelists. throughout the pandemic, the partnership between project action! and the georgetown university chd took shape primarily through community listening sessions and the subsequent development of a mixed-methods research study. this partnership mutually benefited the contributing individuals within the idd community as well as students of the chd. listening sessions began in august of 2020 and have continued during the progression of the pandemic. each session ranged from one to two hours, with anywhere from 10 to 40 self-advocate participants. during these listening sessions, students from the chd asked self-advocates about their relationships, experiences, and access to healthcare throughout the pandemic, gaining valuable insight into the shortcomings of the medical system and how the pandemic disproportionately affects the idd community. for those within the idd community, these listening sessions offered an opportunity to voice concerns and frustrations that many felt would otherwise go unheard. these sessions were also an opportunity for those within the idd community to receive answers to questions and concerns they have had throughout the pandemic from the chd director, a trusted medical professional. many self-advocates voiced concerns about the safety of the covid-19 vaccine, how to interact with others throughout the pandemic safely, and the timeline of vaccine eligibility in washington, d.c. also expressed during listening sessions were the widespread feelings of isolation due to the restrictions imposed during the pandemic. idd self-advocates and students would connect in breakout rooms and share ideas and stories in a more intimate setting. the virtual listening sessions fostered a sense of community that many had not experienced in over a year. these listening sessions became increasingly valuable due to covid-19 data provided by washington, d.c. dds. throughout the early months of the pandemic, individuals within the idd community were contracting covid-19 and facing serious health complications due to the virus at significantly higher rates than the general public. through these listening sessions and subsequent study, the chd hopes to provide information to this disproportionately affected © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25696 | june 11, 2022 17 population regarding preventative public health measures and gain insight into the failings of the healthcare system that put this population at increased risk of contracting covid-19. from the valuable information shared during the listening sessions, the chd has worked to develop an irb-approved research study centered around the experiences of individuals within the idd community during the pandemic in relation to the healthcare field. citing listening sessions as preliminary data, this research study was proposed based on i) determining the barriers to healthcare faced by individuals within the idd community throughout the covid-19 pandemic and ii) identifying interventions that may be utilized in future public health crises to better care for this marginalized community. this study uses a mixed-methods methodology, capitalizing on long-term partnerships with community-based organizations, the health care community, and self-advocacy groups to query experiences related to the covid-19 pandemic. self-advocates are asked to complete an online survey detailing their lived experience during the covid-19 pandemic. facilitated interviews with lay advocates highlight their unique strengths and resiliencies along with the community assets that facilitate needed support. all survey instruments and recruitment documents that target self-advocates are administered in plain language to ensure accessibility. self-advocates were integral members of study development and were consulted frequently during the design process. areas of concern during the pandemic highlighted by advocates during the listening sessions acted as a basis for qualitative and quantitative data collection. these topics include: feeling left out of the decision-making process, increased barriers to healthcare access, utilization of technology, adherence to public health guidance, and maintaining relationships. when presented with these topics as areas of study focus, advocates agreed they were representative of challenges faced during the pandemic. data collection instruments were assessed through meetings with self-advocates to ensure clarity and proper plain language usage. this active study hopes to accomplish these goals by analyzing quantitative data obtained through surveys and qualitative data obtained through facilitated interviews. national children’s center while the partnership with project action! focuses mainly on adults with idd; it is also important to recognize that it is not just individuals with idd that may experience undue hardship but also family members and loved ones. family members of adults and children with idd face unique challenges such as increased time demands, disruption of family routines, and increased financial burden while reporting higher levels of stress (luijkx et al., 2017). identifying this need for greater levels of support, the chd partnered with the national children’s center’s (ncc) early learning and early intervention center. this multidisciplinary program focuses on childhood education for children with and without disabilities in the birth to five-year period. the early learning and early intervention center is part of a lifespan of © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25696 | june 11, 2022 18 services provided by ncc and tailored to those with intellectual and developmental disabilities in washington, d.c. this partnership has developed into meaningful community engagement through increasing community agency, educational, and outreach efforts. over the past several years, one particular area of focus for the center has been increasing access to healthful, fresh foods for children and families of the local community. in 2020, washington d.c.’s overall projected food insecurity rate was 16%, with the greatest rates occurring in wards 7 and 8 (d.c. office of planning, 2020). food insecurity is strongly related to economic and social factors that contribute to systems of oppression, including unemployment, poverty, disability, and race and ethnicity (odoms-young & bruce, 2018). children with disabilities, such as those ncc serves, are also more likely to experience low or very low food security than children without disabilities (karpur et al., 2021). with the partnership of staff and community members at ncc, our team developed the health and nutrition initiative to educate families of young children about the link between nutrition and health, featuring increased attention on idd in an inclusive setting. thus, this partnership between ncc and the georgetown chd represents an empowerment strategy for families of children with idd and the local community to develop the skills and resources necessary to maintain healthy eating habits in an accessible manner. using this program as a model, students at the georgetown chd aim to recognize and challenge the inequities across the district while directly supporting those affected by these food access challenges. development of the curriculum the health and nutrition initiative was developed in january of 2021 in partnership with ncc’s family engagement and culinary staff. a pre-survey was virtually administered to families receiving services from ncc to understand the participating families’ backgrounds, current behaviors, and interests. families identified areas of interest in the intersections between nutrition and body systems and provided valuable information relating to their current health and eating behaviors. based on these interests, students developed an organic curriculum focusing on how nutrition plays a role in the development and functioning of specific body systems. each month, the health and nutrition initiative holds two sessions. the first session covers background information about a given body system or topic, such as the gut, brain, or living with allergies. students give a general overview of the system, how the system develops throughout childhood, and how nutrition can affect the functioning of that system. the second session provides specific nutrition advice and features a 30-minute video of a recipe demonstration from the center’s chef that families can replicate at home. created recipes feature key ingredients discussed from that month’s theme and incorporate flavors representing the community’s preferences. many of the fresh fruits, vegetables, and herbs used are grown and harvested from ncc’s urban garden, an outdoor learning site for the young children of the families in attendance. sessions are interactive and conducted virtually over zoom. students help facilitate © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25696 | june 11, 2022 19 avenues for family engagement, including wellness check-ins, strategies for maintaining healthy eating habits, and, most importantly, encouragement from families to share their experiences and build community. students drive the implementation of this project by developing and presenting session content, assisting in recipe demonstration led by ncc’s chefs, and incorporating input from the family engagement team in relation to parent needs and requests. each month a student lead is identified and acts as a liaison between the staff members at ncc and the chd for communication regarding planning and implementation of the sessions. the students also direct the content of the sessions by meeting with and interviewing healthcare experts as well as facilitating regular planning meetings with their peers. as the sessions progressed, the chd and ncc’s family engagement team solicited feedback from parents about the appropriateness of content and encouraged parents to participate in presenting by sharing their personal best practices and experiences. a unique aspect of the curriculum is that the sessions are flexible in nature, with content adjusted between sessions based on the community’s questions and feedback. this allows families to tailor their learning and have an active role in curriculum development. for instance, in a session about gastrointestinal health and the microbiome, parents shared that their children were “picky eaters” and that it was often a struggle to create nutritious meals that they would eat. ncc’s chef & culinary staff took this information and created recipes to share with families to help disguise fruits and vegetables in familiar child-friendly foods to promote microbiome health and digestion. additionally, to further promote community engagement, a family member representative was identified to assist in developing the nutrition curriculum. drawing on their personal experiences caring for a child with idd, family members provide invaluable feedback on session materials, ensuring that content is relevant for parents and family members attending the sessions. each session is attended by the chd director and board-certified family medicine physician to assist students in answering questions related to children’s health and nutritional needs, increasing engagement and ensuring educational relevancy. future plans include creating a facebook page, where students and family members can actively come together to share content related to the sessions and post ideas for future content while fostering a continuous sense of virtual community. partnerships in action: adapting to covid-19 the covid-19 pandemic disrupted academic institutions’ programming, including didactic and experiential learning, along with many other systems. seeing as community-based research and learning is grounded in direct contact with the community, our partnerships had to be creative in how they adapted to this challenging environment. before the pandemic, students worked closely © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25696 | june 11, 2022 20 with community members in-person, attending meetings and events at their community partner site. given the nature of the partnerships with project action! and the national children’s center, our research team had to make significant adjustments to how we engaged with community members. as of the spring of 2020, all community health division programming moved to an online format from weekly student meetings to community partnerships. students communicated with the leadership teams of community partners to develop a new workflow utilizing online platforms while maintaining the richness of in-person interactions. members of project action! moved their meetings online, and began contributing to virtual discussions with medical, graduate, and undergraduate students at the chd. transitioning programming at ncc proved more challenging as much of the material relied on in-person activities, such as access to the on-site garden and kitchen. together with ncc staff members, our group devised a virtual health and nutrition curriculum that would allow didactic and experiential learning for families. families would first attend a didactic videoconferencing session led by students that explores the relationship between the body and nutrition. this session would then be followed by a modified experiential learning session where the center’s chef would provide a virtual cooking demonstration based on previously highlighted ingredients. these changes to content distribution brought challenges in implementation. integrating an experiential learning component into an online format required flexibility from all parties. the cooking demonstrations needed to be accessible to families, providing a simple, nutritious meal that could be made in under 20 minutes. initially, the cooking sessions were done live, with families watching and interacting with the chef in real-time over video conferencing. this provided an interactive component that allowed families to learn directly from the experts and have their questions and comments addressed immediately. however, over the course of several sessions, it came to our attention that the feasibility of the live sessions was not always realistic. sessions were scheduled in the evenings, typically after many ncc employees finished their work for the day, limiting kitchen access. if a technological issue arose, families would be unable to view the demonstration in its entirety. additionally, many self-advocates at project action! and ncc family members did not always have reliable access to the technology required to conduct online meetings. those who could access appropriate technology had difficulty navigating the videoconferencing software needed for meetings. some members of the idd community relied on family members or support staff to assist with getting onto the virtual platform, and utilizing functions such as camera and microphone proved difficult. family members would often attend nutrition sessions on their phones, with limited access to software features such as polling and chat. despite the challenges of transitioning to a virtual environment, idd self-advocates and families demonstrated resilience in how they have adapted to these changes and were committed to © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25696 | june 11, 2022 21 regular participation. with the support of community members, the self-advocates were flexible and adapted quickly to the new realities of online interactions—as the frequency of virtual meetings increased, so did the technical savviness of the advocates. self-advocates could speak with chd members from the comfort of their own homes, allowing for increased outreach. while the virtual nature of meetings imposed communication challenges, it also allowed selfadvocates to meet with us with greater frequency, as there were no concerns about transportation or accessibility of meeting spaces. for the health and nutrition initiative, we found that video conferencing software has effectively delivered a health literacy program. the accessibility of an online session has reduced the burden on families to participate and allows multiple family members to attend sessions and learn together. parents can attend sessions wherever they are and learn without the obligation to travel to and from ncc. many parents work until later in the evening or do not have childcare available during session times and have expressed gratitude for the increased flexibility. given the nature of virtual conferencing, sessions were recorded, increasing content reach to family members who may not have been able to join the meeting. additionally, the online setting has allowed multiple students and members of the chd to attend conveniently. students spanning different institutions and time zones have been able to participate simultaneously, adding value to the sessions while also enriching their learning. conclusion our experiences deepening academic-community partnerships during the covid-19 pandemic demonstrate the practicality and utility of community-based engagement and participatory research, even if mostly conducted virtually. throughout the covid-19 pandemic, communities including those at project action! and the national children’s center have suffered under the social isolation of lockdowns and restrictions, as well as worries about health decisionmaking. the work of the chd helped to address such concerns, enrich their lives, and strengthen agency. even during times of crisis, community members are eager and willing to take the initiative and act as agents of change in their communities. partnerships with academic institutions allow members of underrepresented communities to educate future leaders on the healthcare disparities they experience, problem-solve, and develop networks and resources to enact change. the evidence-based publications that will follow from our research will impact community change at organizational and policy levels. we continue to learn from our community partners about the best way to engage in novel in-person and virtual engagement. our community connections at project action! and the national children’s center continue to be a source of mutual learning and service between georgetown university affiliates and communities experiencing vulnerability. we will continue in this meaningful work because of the authentic partnerships that have been built. these have been modeled from principles of cbpr to promote human flourishing in our local communities. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25696 | june 11, 2022 22 references agency for healthcare research and quality. (2020). ahrq activities using community-based participatory research to address healthcare disparities. retrieved from https://www.ahrq.gov/research/findings/factsheets/minority/cbprbrief/index.html beckman, m., & long, j. f. (2016). community-based research: teaching for community impact. stylus publishing, llc. d.c. office of planning, government of the district of columbia. (2020). (rep.). food access and food security in the district of columbia: responding to the covid-19 public health emergency. retrieved from https://dcfoodpolicycouncilorg.files.wordpress.com/2020/09/food-security-report-9-2420.pdf iezzoni, l. i., rao, s. r., ressalam, j., bolcic-jankovic, d., agaronnik, n. d., donelan, k., lagu, t., & campbell, e. g. (2021). physicians’ perceptions of people with disability and their health care. health affairs, 40(2), 297–306. https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2020.01452 karpur, a., vasudevan, v., lello, a., frazier, t. w., & shih, a. (2021). food insecurity in the households of children with autism spectrum disorders and intellectual disabilities in the u.s.: analysis of the national survey of children’s health data 2016 2018. autism, 25(8). https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.03.29.21254546 luijkx, j., van der putten, a. a., & vlaskamp, c. (2017). a valuable burden? the impact of children with profound intellectual and multiple disabilities on family life. journal of intellectual & developmental disability, 44(2), 184–189. https://doi.org/10.3109/13668250.2017.1326588 marshall university. (2021). what is community-based learning? retrieved from https://www.marshall.edu/ctl/community-engagement/what-is-service-learning odoms-young, a., & bruce, m. a. (2018). examining the impact of structural racism on food insecurity: implications for addressing racial/ethnic disparities. family & community health, 41 suppl 2 suppl, food insecurity and obesity (suppl 2 food insecurity and obesity), s3–s6. https://doi.org/10.1097/fch.0000000000000183 rink, e., knight, k., ellis, c., mccormick, a., firemoon, p., held, s., webber, e., & adams, a. (2020). using community-based participatory research to design, conduct, and evaluate randomized controlled trials with american indian communities. preventing chronic disease, 17. https://doi.org/10.5888/pcd17.200099 tremblay, m.-c., martin, d. h., mccomber, a. m., mcgregor, a., & macaulay, a. c. (2018). understanding community-based participatory research through a social movement framework: a case study of the kahnawake schools diabetes prevention project. bmc public health, 18(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-018-5412-y invited commentary © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26863 | july 2, 2023 89 the scholar-administrator imperative: developing scholarship and research through practice to build the community engagement field patrick m. green1 1 loyola university, chicago cite as: green, p.m. (2023). the scholar-administrator imperative: developing scholarship and research through practice to build the community engagement field. metropolitan universities, 34(4), 89-101. doi: 10.18060/26863 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. guest editors: rochelle smarr, ed.d. and chris nayve, j.d. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract building on two decades of professional experience in community engagement, the 2022 barbara a. holland scholar-administrator award recipient, dr. patrick m. green, critically reflects upon his role through the lens of administration (leadership), scholarship, and practice. drawing from the frameworks of critical reflection and exploratory inquiry, he positions the role of scholar-administrators as a necessity in high education, as scholar-administrators' contributions are rooted in practice and informs educational practice, thought-leadership, theories, and research. he frames scholar-administrators' scholarship as imperative to foster change within higher education and build the community engagement field. in the process, he offers an inquiry framework, including experience, practice, and context, to guide scholaradministrators to build the field by responding to the scholar-administrator imperative to fill the theory-practice gap. keywords: scholar administrator, practitioner-scholar, community engagement professional, engaged scholarship http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ invited commentary © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26863 | july 2, 2023 90 introduction after 20-plus years of experience in community engagement as a social service professional, an educator, a community partner, and a high education administrator, often at the same time, i am keenly aware that my professional experiences were often distinctly separated from educational theories and practices. adding the local and organizational context complicated matters, yet my work sat at the intersection of theory, practice, experience, and context. intentionally and critically exploring this untapped third space has emerged into an exploration of my professional educational identity, practice, and scholarship. this exploration has indicated a gap between theory and practice and between professional experience and scholarship. living in this blurred space, i have recognized this gap and shared vast opportunities to fill this gap by connecting professional experiences, inquiry, and context, as well as educational, interdisciplinary theories of community engagement professionals, teaching and learning professionals, faculty developers, experiential learning practitioners, and center leadership (green et al., 2018; green et al. 2021; green et al., 2022; heinrich & green, 2020). yet, the questions consistently surface: how, why, when, and in what ways do scholaradministrators contribute scholarship to the field (and how do they find the time)? yet reframing the questions that surface may be more appropriate to this dialogue: how, why, and in what ways does the field rely on the scholarly work of scholar-administrators? given the dynamic and changing nature of higher education, which has certainly been complicated and exacerbated by the global pandemic, scholar-administrators' work suggests a sense of urgency, and their scholarly contributions are essential. higher education needs the contributions of scholar-administrators, rooted in practice, to inform our work, thinking, theories, and research. in essence, upon critical reflection and exploratory inquiry into the scholar-administrator role (schön, 1983), i am suggesting the scholarship potential of scholar-administrators is an imperative, rather than an invitation, to foster change within higher education and build the community engagement field. critical reflection on professional experience: exploring a professional identity at the intersection articulating my professional identity has been a challenge in higher education. i am both administrator and faculty, managing the center for engaged learning, teaching, and scholarship (celts), a university-wide teaching and learning center that facilitates high-impact practices while teaching undergraduate and graduate courses at loyola university chicago. i am invited commentary © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26863 | july 2, 2023 91 both classroom-focused and community-centered, as i facilitate the partnership development team in celts to foster community-based learning, internship, and community research opportunities and courses. the target audiences in celts are faculty instructors, community partners, and students as we work to connect, convene, and build relationships across these three constituencies in high-impact learning courses. i am consistently the betwixt and between, in the gray area, across the blurred spaces, and inside both and in my professional roles. my hybrid roles have been articulated as practitioner-scholar, scholar-administrator (janke, 2019), scholarpractitioner, and reflective practitioner (schön, 1983). the literature often utilizes these terms interchangeably. whitchurch (2013) articulates these professional roles in higher education as third-space professionals. dostilio (2017) shaped the professional identity of community engagement professionals as the service-learning field became more professionalized. i am all of these labels and live them in my professional experience. for the purposes of consistency, i will utilize the term scholar-administrator in this piece to inquire into the professional experience (janke, 2019). interrogating experience as a source of knowledge i recognize my approach to being a scholar-administrator is three-fold: 1) space-creator, 2) pathway-paver, and 3) systems-changer. with over 20 years of experience in the community engagement field, my role as a scholar-administrator has evolved into a tripartite approach of creating space for new scholarly approaches and voices, paving pathways for scholars to build capacity, explore, and share their voice, and challenging systems of higher education and beyond. the following visual best represents how i implement this approach at the intersection of administration (leadership), scholarship, and practice. figure 1. scholar-administrator approach. invited commentary © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26863 | july 2, 2023 92 for the past two decades plus, i have served in the role of an educator at the intersection of community-based teaching and learning, urban education, and community partnership. my hybrid roles have been boundary-spanning and third-space professional roles, forming my approach as a scholar-administrator. as a secondary education history teacher working in innercity milwaukee with at-risk youth and as an adult educator working in a transitional homeless shelter, my professional career began in community development at the intersection of education and social services. as i transitioned to higher education, my lens focused on connecting the community's assets with the academy's capacity, building community service and leadership programs at roosevelt university in downtown chicago. as a coalition of urban and metropolitan universities (cumu) member institution, my first cumu conference presentation in baltimore, maryland, in the fall of 2007, focused on my experience as the faculty facilitator of a year-long leadership development series for business professionals, a collaboration between the local business association/chamber of commerce and roosevelt university to serve the community. the work with cumu continued to my present role with loyola university chicago, which has allowed me to participate in the anchor learning network and lead the anchor mission work at loyola university chicago. my work at loyola university chicago in celts has evolved significantly over time, with the center evolving into a teaching and learning center, community partnerships center, and high-impact learning unit, which allowed me to develop as a scholar-administrator to challenge systems, paved pathways, and create new spaces. inquiry into intersecting activities as a scholar-administrator as i reflect on my professional experiences, i recognize my role as a scholar-administrator continues to exist at the intersection of these activities invited commentary © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26863 | july 2, 2023 93 figure 2. intersection of scholar-administrator activities i began at loyola university chicago as the center for experiential learning founding director in 2007. our center evolved in the context of urban higher education in chicago, along with the community engagement field, to elevate engaged scholarship, explore place-based approaches, highlight critical service-learning with a justice orientation, and position community partners as co-educators. through multiple task forces with faculty, focus groups with community partners, faculty, and students, surveys, and democratic dialogue, beginning in 2018, i led the transition of the center to become the center for engaged learning, teaching, and scholarship (celts) in 2020 with support from the office of the provost. loyola university chicago celts had emerged into a high-impact teaching and learning center, as well as a community partnerships center. in addition, our extensive work with faculty and community partners has led to conference presentations, book chapters, scholarly writing, and dissemination. the nomenclature now matched the work and focus of the center, as informed by the community engagement scholarship. through multiple leadership positions at the university, the office of the provost accepted my re-organization and change management proposals and implemented the new structure at the university. my role as a scholar-administrator informs my approach to utilizing my influence to create organizational change. my third-space professional role as administrator and faculty member allowed me to contribute to the field-building scholarship while administering exciting new programs in celts. connecting my practice and writing my experience allowed me to present at conferences to disseminate knowledge, as well as write book chapters, edited volumes, and scholarly articles. i write to experience. i write to reflect on my experience. i write to resist the organizational barriers and systemic injustices we all operate. selected as one of campus compact’s engaged scholars for new perspectives in higher education from 2008 to 2009, serving on the board of directors of the international association for research on service-learning and community engagement (iarslce) from 2010 to 2017 and the society for experiential education (formerly nsee) from 2020 to present, created opportunities to engage in collaborative, scholarly writing. most of my scholarly works are co-authored publications as evidence of my commitment to collaborative work to build the field and elevate the voices of others. it is my intentional approach to building the field by paving pathways for others. most of my scholarly work draws on the literature around scholar-administrators by developing scholarly and methodological approaches to building reflective scholar-practitioner roles, such as collaborative inquiry, transpersonal research, and practitioner-scholar frameworks. i created opportunities to support scholar-practitioners development, such as the iarslce practitionerscholar community and the see fellows program. i created educational development programs invited commentary © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26863 | july 2, 2023 94 on behalf of professional organizations to build scholar-practitioners' capacity, pave new pathways for emerging scholars, and contribute to the field. rooted in the literature of reflective practitioners, praxis, and theory-to-practice approaches, i developed the practitioner-scholar community curriculum as an online, asynchronous community-building professional development experience for iarslce as their scholar-in-residence, creating a pipeline from this program for participants to publish in the international journal for research on servicelearning and community engagement (ijrslce). as an engaged scholar for the society for experiential education, i developed the see fellows program facilitating a two-year fellowship for scholars that commenced with presentations at the annual research conference and two articles co-authored in experiential learning and teaching in higher education (elthe). the third element of my approach to serving as a scholar-administrator is creating space for new scholarly approaches and voices. in the fall of 2019/winter 2020, when i worked with the editorial team of metropolitan universities journal as the guest editor to craft a special issue on the intersection of faith and community engagement, i immediately brought in a team of assistant editors, including scholars of color. this commenced in vol. 31 no. 3 (2020): the intersection of faith and community engagement at urban institutions, and led to many presentations for cumu and other organizations, as we featured the authors of this issue. our work as an editorial team continued beyond the issue as we wrote an additional article, an engagement of hope: a framework and equity-centered theory of action for community engagement. my efforts to generate space for new scholarly voices have emerged in my work with the society for experiential education (formerly nsee) as the chair of the nsee research and scholarship committee, a newly revitalized committee i began to co-chair in the fall of 2020. through this effort, i was also able to serve as the guest editor for two special issues of experiential learning and teaching in higher education (elthe), focused on the theme of exploring the relationship between experiential learning and social, economic, environmental, and racial justice (spring 2022 issue and fall 2021 issue). by carving out such spaces in the community engagement field, my role as a scholar-administrator seeks to elevate new voices, uncover new approaches and methodologies, feature new epistemological approaches, and develop new scholarship. from book chapters to book forewords and edited volumes, my scholarly works are deeply informed by my teaching and learning practice and professional experiences as an administrative leader. scholar-administrator sources of inquiry the many forms of inquiry for scholar-administrators emerge from professional experience. these experiences may be rooted in the responsibilities associated with a role (positional experience) and the many “special duties as assigned” that fill the minutia of your work day. the https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/muj/issue/view/1551 https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/muj/article/view/25527 invited commentary © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26863 | july 2, 2023 95 adage “write what you know” is especially prescient here—to document what you know based on your experiences is a powerful exercise. perhaps your professional experiences have allowed you to build relationships with community or campus partners, connect entities across campus, or convene disparate groups. such relationship work is hard to measure but valuable to explore. perhaps your experiences have allowed you to develop unique experiential learning courses or programs, facilitate faculty development programs, or construct co-curricular student development programs beyond your job description. such experience is a rich source of knowledge ripe for reflection, exploration, interrogation, and inquiry. here is where the scholaradministrator thrives, and the seeds of scholarly opportunities await. unpacking scholar-administrator as identity, methodology, and inquiry approach the literature around scholar-administrators varies in approach, from positional perspectives to methodological frameworks. in essence, such literature is focused on identity, methodology, and inquiry approaches when attempting to define scholar-administrators. for example, janke (2019) frames scholar-administrators as an identity challenging to define. dostilio (2017) establishes community engagement professionals as a professional identity and connects this identity to scholar-practitioners. whitchurch (2013) frames these roles as third-space professionals in the higher education context. from this perspective, the scholar-administrator is framed as a hybrid or multidimensional professional role, bearing several responsibilities and roles. other approaches move the scholar-administrator frame from a positional perspective to a methodological one. ravitch (2014) discusses practitioner-scholarship as a methodological approach integrating theory, research, and practice. this approach honors both a systematic research approach (methodology) alongside critical reflection and implementation in the context of professional practice. salipante and aram (2003) position such scholar-administrators as having an intimate understanding of issues, problems, challenges, and settings with established theories, methods, and research. lytle (2008) addresses scholar-administrators' ability to take an inquiry approach by theorizing and re-visioning practice, namely by generating local knowledge while interrogating the theory and research of others. the methodological frame explicitly acknowledges the experience as a source of knowledge. recognizing local knowledge and taking an inquiry stance is at the heart of the scholaradministrator. the traditional diad relationship of theory and research is expanded with the inquiry lens of the scholar-administrator. practice is integrated into the theory-to-research and research-to-theory relationship. salipante and aram (2003) challenge scholar-administrators to invited commentary © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26863 | july 2, 2023 96 fill the theory-to-practice gap to create knowledge used in practice. through scholaradministrators' work, the gap between theory and practice may be filled with theory/researchinformed practice, practitioner-generated theory, collaborative inquiry, and/or practice-informed theory (salipante & aram, 2003). lytle (2008) situates the inquiry stance within a specific context, and the approach assumes a problem within the practice that needs to be addressed or improved. this inquiry approach has significant implications for the scholar-administrator. since it challenges us to interrogate our practice critically, the inquiry stance invites us to be critically reflective and iterative of our practice. the inquiry approach collectively assumes this stance across scholar-administrators and positions critical reflection as inquiry. thus, inquiry efficacy becomes a part of the definition of the scholar-administrator, as it encourages us to articulate the macroand micro-contexts of our work. the challenge of the scholar-administrator is to become a critical agent of practice through inquiry and reflection. how does scholar-administrator inquiry work? through inquiry and reflection, scholar-administrators have the opportunity to build from their local context, leveraging and generating local knowledge. in effect, practitioner research emerges from practice and anchors broad inquiry into the specific study of practice. this scholarly approach designs inquiry (or research) related to theory, explicitly connected to a theoretical framework or conceptual model. with experience as a rich source of knowledge, practitioner research allows practitioners to collect and analyze practice-based data that responds to the questions (inquiry) they have articulated. such inquiry is rooted explicitly in the organizational or community-based context of the practitioner. there are a variety of approaches for practitioner research or varying dimensions of scholarship from which a scholar-administrator may approach this line of inquiry. a scholar-administrator may approach inquiry as a program or practice improvement through the lens of assessment and evaluation. given the dynamic nature of high education organizations and the evolution of responses to faculty, community partner, and student needs, a line of inquiry may focus on organizational change or innovation. a line of inquiry may focus on these areas in search of better approaches to diversity, equity, inclusive practices, and justice-oriented approaches. the varied constituencies involved in community engagement and teaching and learning suggest another line of inquiry may focus on enhancing the agency of faculty, students, community partners, administrators, or some other group working in the higher education and community system. invited commentary © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26863 | july 2, 2023 97 what emerges from the inquiry of scholar-administrators is important for us to consider. ravitch (2014) describes practitioner research as “the kind that emerges from knowing and caring about people in a setting, the kind that emerges when practitioners take seriously the responsibility to collaborate with, care for, support, and empower ourselves, our colleagues, and our constituencies” (p. 6). such inquiry work clarifies the problem of practice identified, providing information on what confounds or concerns the scholar-administrator in practice. in the process, it defines our contexts, establishing boundaries, bumpers, and bends to our problems of practice. our practice contexts become informed by the parameters and challenges we established, as well as the possibilities that surface. the influence of the context on practice becomes far more visible through this line of inquiry. the inquiry of scholar-administrators provides evidence for continuous improvement of practice, as well as insights for effective practice. emerging from practitioner research and inquiry is the clarification of the practitioner's role related to the outcomes. mills (1959) states: scholarship is a choice of how to live as well as a choice of career.… what this means is that you must learn to use your life experience in your intellectual work: continually to examine and interpret it. in this sense craftsmanship is the center of yourself and you are personally involved in every intellectual product upon which you work. this begs the question: what inquiry emerges from your professional practice? what inquiry is derived from your experience? what lines of inquiry surface from your organizational and community-based (place-based) contexts? stemming from these questions, the inquiry framework below connects practitioner research methodology with the scholar-administrator identity to create an intersecting inquiry approach: invited commentary © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26863 | july 2, 2023 98 figure 3. inquiry approach for scholar-administrators. this inquiry framework may guide and support scholar-administrators to build the field by responding to the imperative of filling the theory and practice gap. conclusion as a scholar-administrator, i am often asked how do you find time to write? i see my writing as exploring and inquiring into my work, and my scholarship (writing, conference presentations, educational convening, etc.) is imperative to my work in higher education. frankly, i write to resist – to challenge higher education to do this work differently, to upset power structures that have rested comfortably for decades (or centuries) on established norms, and to spark change. i turn to the imagination and hope to foster the change needed in higher education. i draw from two articles i have authored, one collaboratively with others, connecting our practice to scholarly approaches in community engagement. first, in making explicit connections between experiential learning and justice: new approaches to teaching and learning through an imagination for justice, i focus on the imagination for justice framework, drawing from the wonderful work of maxine greene (1995), connecting education deeply to the imagination. for if we talk about transforming our community, we must first transform our institutions. https://nsuworks.nova.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1175&context=elthe https://nsuworks.nova.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1175&context=elthe https://nsuworks.nova.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1175&context=elthe invited commentary © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26863 | july 2, 2023 99 developing an imagination for justice framework, we must interrogate all our institutions to see where we can embed justice in our pedagogies, practices, programs, policies, and purposes. in the second scholarly work, co-authored with other scholar-practitioners, an engagement of hope: a framework and equity-centered theory of action for community engagement, we develop the engagement of hope conceptual framework that emerged from our work with community partners. drawing from community partnership experiences within community engagement, we established five themes that scaffold the conceptual framework: challenging unjust structures, the common good, collaborative courage, community-centered, and individual goodness. we explicitly articulate a call to action to re-center relationships in the community engagement field. to do this work of community engagement in higher education as a scholar-administrator, to truly interrogate our practices and transform our institutions, may feel overwhelming. sharing a few lines from the poem prayer prophets of a future not our own, dedicated to oscar romero and written by ken untener, reminds us that we do not have to do it all at once: we plant the seeds that one day will grow. we water the seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise. we lay foundations that will need further development. we provide yeast that produces effects far beyond our capabilities. we cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that. this enables us to do something and to do it well. to do something that is why i write to change higher education, our practices, our policies, our approaches to community engagement. the scholar-administrator imperative challenges us to think and act differently, anchoring our context, experience, and practices as a source of knowledge that we must explore and interrogate to shape the future of higher education. invited commentary © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26863 | july 2, 2023 100 references dostilio, l. d. (ed.). (2017). the community engagement professional in higher education: a competency model for an emerging field. campus compact. green, p. m., eddins, e. a., berkey, b., & meixner, c. (2018). exploring the borderlands through collaborative inquiry: a narrative introduction. in b. berkey, c. meixner, p. m. green, & e. e. rountree (eds.), reconceptualizing faculty development in servicelearning/community engagement: exploring intersections, frameworks, and models of practice (pp.1–23). stylus publishing. green, patrick m. (2021). making explicit connections between experiential learning and justice: new approaches to teaching and learning through an imagination for justice. experiential learning & teaching in higher education, 4(2) , 1 8. https://nsuworks.nova.edu/elthe/vol4/iss2/5 green, p.m., castor, t., leyburn, d. j., demaria, d., & jaime, a. (2022). experiential learning educators as tempered radicals and social change agents in higher education: the nsee fellows program as reflective practitioner-scholars. experiential learning & teaching in higher education: 5(1), 2 – 9. https://nsuworks.nova.edu/elthe/vol5/iss1/6 green, p.m., castor, t., leyburn, d. j., demaria, d., & jaime, a. (2022). advocating for experiential learning programs as change agents in higher education: imagining a justice orientation that centers students and partners while enriching practice. experiential learning & teaching in higher education, 5(1), 10 – 23. https://nsuworks.nova.edu/elthe/vol5/iss1/7 green, p.m., bergen, d.j., stewart, c.p., & nayve, c. (2021). an engagement of hope: a framework and equity-centered theory of action for community engagement. metropolitan universities, 32(2), 129-157. https://doi.org/10.18060/25527 green, p.m., stewart, c.p., bergen, d.j. & nayve, c. (2020). faith and community engagement at anchor institutions: exploring the intersection and turning toward an engagement of hope. metropolitan universities, 31(3), 3-21. https://doi.org/10.18060/24784 greene, m. (1995). releasing the imagination: essays on education, the arts, and social change. jossey-bass publishers. https://nsuworks.nova.edu/elthe/vol4/iss2/5 https://nsuworks.nova.edu/elthe/vol5/iss1/6 https://nsuworks.nova.edu/elthe/vol5/iss1/7 https://doi.org/10.18060/25527 https://doi.org/10.18060/24784 invited commentary © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26863 | july 2, 2023 101 heinrich w. f. & green p. m. (2020). remixing approaches to experiential learning, design, and assessment. journal of experiential education, 43(2), 205–223. https://doi.org/10.1177/1053825920915608 janke, e. m. (2019). scholar-administrators as change agents. metropolitan universities, 30(2), 109–122. https://doi.org/10.18060/23202 lytle, s. l. (2008). practitioner inquiry and the practice of teaching: some thoughts on “better.” research in the teaching of english, 42(3), 373-379. http://ezproxy.msu.edu/login?url¼https://search.proquest.com/docview/215344856?acco untid¼12598 nash, r. j. (2004). liberating scholarly writing: the power of personal narrative. teachers college press. mills c. w. (1959). the sociological imagination. oxford university press. prophets of a future not our own downloaded at https://ignatiansolidarity.net/blog/2018/10/13/prophets-romero/ ravitch, s. m. (2014). the transformative power of taking an inquiry stance on practice: practitioner research as narrative and counter-narrative. perspectives on urban education 11(1), 5–10. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ej1022575.pdf salipante, p. & aram, j. d. (2003). managers as knowledge generators: the nature of practitioner-scholar research in the nonprofit sector. nonprofit management and leadership, 14, 129–150. https://doi.org/10.1002/nml.26 schön, d. (1983). the reflective practitioner: how professionals think in action. basic books. whitchurch, c. (2013). reconstructing identities in higher education: the rise of third space professionals. routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203098301 https://doi.org/10.1177/1053825920915608 https://doi.org/10.18060/23202 http://ezproxy.msu.edu/login?url¼https://search.proquest.com/docview/215344856?accountid¼12598 http://ezproxy.msu.edu/login?url¼https://search.proquest.com/docview/215344856?accountid¼12598 https://ignatiansolidarity.net/blog/2018/10/13/prophets-romero/ https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ej1022575.pdf https://doi.org/10.1002/nml.26 https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203098301 patrick m. green1 abstract introduction critical reflection on professional experience: exploring a professional identity at the intersection interrogating experience as a source of knowledge inquiry into intersecting activities as a scholar-administrator scholar-administrator sources of inquiry unpacking scholar-administrator as identity, methodology, and inquiry approach how does scholar-administrator inquiry work? conclusion references microsoft word published vol33_issue1_thomasel.docx original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25466 | february 15, 2022 13 can covid-19 reopening plans mitigate cycles of residential displacement? shawnna l. thomas-el1 1 school of dental medicine, university of pennsylvania cite as: thomas-el, s.l. (2022). can covid-19 reopening plans mitigate cycles of residential displacement? metropolitan universities, 33(1), 13-26. doi: 10.18060/25466. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract this article uses interviews of long-standing neighborhood residents’ sentiments of university expansion into their community. these data provide persuasive empirical evidence for the need of urban anchor institutions to include as an integral component of their campus reopening efforts, intentional plans for reducing the disruption of housing patterns of permanent residents. the term covid exposure has come to signify not only the potential to succumb to the virus, but it also implies the revealing of inequities in systems that impact the effects of the crisis within black and brown communities. every sector of u.s. society has been impacted by covid-19, and it has required a paradigm shift in our interactions with one another. academic institutions are enacting robust de-densification efforts which will stimulate dramatic shifts in the off-campus housing needs for students, but they stand the chance of displacing or further disadvantaging the long-standing residents who reside outside of their campus border. universities must use reopening plans as an instrument to change the trajectory of relationships they hope to cultivate with their long-standing neighbors, through renewed engagement efforts that integrate lessons from the past and that seek to build stronger neighborhoods by challenging housing inequity and housing inequality. keywords: african american, anchor institutions, covid-19, gentrification, displacement, housing, town and gown © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25466 | february 15, 2022 14 it’s very distressing to know that people who grew up in this neighborhood have had no access to the new developments. i’m not sure if they’re refused rental when they ask or if the policy is for students only. for years. what i do know is that last year during the pandemic was the first time i noticed one family, one black family with children in one of the multi-unit apartment buildings that rent to students. that was really very different because it’s all students all the time. it’s annoying. long-standing community resident the expected “de-densifying”—reducing the number of students in each bedroom—of oncampus housing is expected to drive increased demand for off-campus housing. frederick w. pierce, pierce education properties introduction the dynamic existing between urban anchor institutions and the neighborhoods which border their campuses has historically been fraught with tensions. in neighborhoods which consist largely of african american residents possessing low wealth, universities have been perceived by residents as culpable for the displacement of their neighbors who have not been able to maintain possession of their homes, and the gentrification of their neighborhoods where they have lived most of their lives. the 2019 study in my neighborhood but not for me, (thomasel, 2019) explores the perceptions residents hold about the expansion of fourdlet university (pseudonym) into the residential community of greatland (pseudonym). some of the more emphatic sentiments expressed surrounded the issue of housing, as they considered inextricable, the connection between the expansion of the university and the displacement of their neighbors. these sentiments defined the theme disrespecting the community and have shaped their feelings about the local academic institution. conducted two-years prior to the covid-19 pandemic, this study of residents who have lived in greatland, which borders fourdlet university, a large private, anchor institution for at least twenty years, details the frustrations they hold concerning their inability to partake of services and amenities which are deemed inaccessible in their midst. sandy, a recent graduate student, relayed her experience of attempting to rent an apartment close to her family while pursuing her studies. she was not a student of the bordering anchor institution, and that detail created her perceived barrier. she shares: [t]hey build beautiful apartment buildings, it would say “students only.” you couldn’t apply there if you wanted. you couldn’t live there if you wanted to. it literally had signs saying student only apartments. student only housing. and you’re like wait a minute, i lived here more than they did. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25466 | february 15, 2022 15 sandy was not alone in her experience. lavon, one of the more senior participants of the study, expressed his offense surrounding exclusion of individuals who are not students. he perceives rejection as that of discrimination: you could probably rent from a person that own[s] the property who rent to students, but i couldn’t. in my own neighborhood...and i say right to this day, that’s discrimination. it is discrimination! it is. one hundred percent. it says that you own a property...that you cannot rent from me because (pause). if i’m qualified, what makes me not qualified to rent in those apartments? you try to rent, they say if you don’t have a student pass or anything, you cannot rent from me. that’s discrimination. that’s housing discrimination. yeah. insufficient data exists to determine the level to which neighborhood residents have been afforded opportunities to assume vacant apartments during the pandemic; however, the leading quote above which details the observation of one family in an apartment traditionally held for students, suggests that this may not be an isolated incident. the observation provoked a conversation about housing in the neighborhood during a recent encounter with a resident who has lived in greatland for over forty years, giving rise to the consideration of how covid-19 has transformed the enduring reality residents situated near urban universities. it is important to note that this geographic location like so many other urban areas where african americans comprised the majority of the population, was one that had been gifted in the late 1940s by the city’s redevelopment authority to fourdlet university, to support the university’s projected student population increase by 1970. the familiar pattern of disinvestment and decline (lloyd, 2016; lucas, 2013; redfern, 2003) which precedes a gentrifying community prevailed over a forty-year period, as the university sought to develop ways to secure its own financial solvency. one idea for achieving this was to alter the perception of the university as a commuter school to being a predominately residential school, thus increasing the need for more student housing (gollotti, 2009; hoffman, 2012; university archives, n.d.). prior to 1990, the neighborhood of greatland was nearly 98% african american, with no documentation of white, undergraduate students residing in the neighborhood. the announcement of image transformation by the university’s president in the early 1990s prompted a shift in students’ willingness to extend their living boundaries beyond the main campus and into areas that still kept it accessible by walking. currently, the greatland neighborhood is deemed an extension of the university, with housing designated for students, bus shuttles with neighborhood routes, and round-the-clockuniversity security. the imminent return to campus with reduced numbers of students living in the traditional dormitory model give rise to the larger issue of anchor institutions working to ensure that the increased need for off-campus housing in the surrounding communities will not be to the detriment of long-standing community members. utilization of scholarship surrounding residents’ sentiments about expansion, displacement, and town and gown issues can serve to inform urban and metropolitan institutions prior to the development or implementation of campus reopening plans. this scholarship can prove instructive for mitigating gentrification and © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25466 | february 15, 2022 16 displacement cycles while also servicing student populations, given a proactive approach to the issue. background from its outset, the covid-19 pandemic illuminated the persistence of racial disparities that are emblematic (benfer, vlahov, long et al., 2021; kullar, marcelin, swartz et al., 2020) of the united states. the center for disease control (cdc) has reported that black and brown people experienced a disproportionate burden of covid-19 deaths, significantly higher rates of infections and hospitalization, and lower levels of care (cdc, 2021; kff, 2021). the term covid exposure has come to signify not only the potential to succumb to the virus, but also to emphasize the inequity of response in systems that can impact the effects of the crisis within black and brown communities. the covid-19 tracking project, a volunteer organization of professionals within the fields of data technology and science, reported on the consistent disproportionate healthcare and economic burden that the virus presented to african american and communities of color. their studies showed that by january 2021, more black americans had “died of covid-19 since the pandemic began than there are names on the vietnam memorial” and “than the number of people commemorated on the aids memorial quilt” (goldfarb, 2021). as a nation, we are slowly coming to realize, fully, the economic impact of covid-19 (baldwin & di mauro, 2020; chen, igan, pierri, & presbitero, 2020; gopinath, 2020) through the reporting of job losses, layoffs, shutdowns, work slowdowns and all the implications that stem from population reductions. increased demands for non-profit services due to high levels of food insecurity (gundersen, hake, dewey & engelhard, 2021; wolfson & leung 2020), mental health and physical and substance abuse counseling (sarvey, & welsh, 2021; taylor, paluszek, rachor, mckay & asmundson, 2021) necessities, compounded by shortages in donation revenue due to cancelations of fundraising events and job loss, demonstrates that there is no sector of the u.s. society that has not been impacted by covid-19. a paradigm-shift away from previous close-contact, care-free manners is required for the way we must now communicate and engage with each other, and nowhere is this truer than within the u.s. education sector, which struggled initially in determining how to deliver instruction to millions of young people throughout the country. at the post-secondary level, to manage the outbreak of a global health pandemic caused by covid-19, academic institutions were forced to take swift action (fischer, 2020; leckron, 2020) after shelter-in-place orders were issued nationally in march 2020. prior to the order, initial responses to covid-19 looked to extend spring breaks and de-densify campuses. reducing the number of individuals in close contact areas, including lecture halls, cafeterias, and dormitories, was a necessary immediate measure, and was widely accepted as effective in stopping or reducing the spread of the virus (freeman, nguyen, beliveau et al., 2021; hamer, white, jenkins et al., 2021). these were deemed insufficient choices (vasquez, 2020) for © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25466 | february 15, 2022 17 meeting the magnitude of the moment and ultimately mandates were issued for the full evacuation of dormitories and college campuses. in many urban institutions where student populations rely heavily upon off-campus housing in residential neighborhoods, tensions rose between school administrations and local landlords who also rely on the income of student rentals as landlords perceived the university to be exercising authority outside of their jurisdiction. communication from one apartment general manager informed their tenants, “this is your home, and you are welcome to stay. no one at the university has a right to require you to leave your apartment, or to move out…” (cohen, 2020). thousands of undergraduate and graduate students departed college campuses, and, importantly, students who lived off-campus and would have continued to do so, elected to return and remain home at the termination of their leases. academia, like many other industries at this time, is contending with financial ravage brought about by covid-19. the decision to freeze tuition combined with the reduction of international students’ acceptances (friga, 2021), portends an increase of students to future incoming classes to improve revenues. the impact of de-densifying the de-densifying of campus dormitories (diep, 2021) incites a shift in the traditional housing model (mosher, 2020; pierce, 2020; zalaznik, 2020) of double or triple occupancy rooms to single rooms where students have no roommates. further extrapolation of this plan implies an increase of students seeking off-campus housing in neighboring communities that are repeatedly encroached upon, giving rise to a central issue for residents, “[n]ow they pushing us out again, where we gon go?” (p. 133, thomas-el, 2019). out of necessity, fewer students will be housed in the dormitories for the purpose of dedensification. resultantly, students who are not housed by the university will seek housing within the outlying community (hoffman, 2012; mosher, 2020). this has been the consensus of university officials, realtors, and property managers across the nation (marcut, 2020; pierce, 2021; tracy & perman, 2021). unlike previous decades which were absent of community benefits agreements (gross, 2007; wolf-powers, 2010) designed to incorporate community input into negotiations surrounding development, or civic missions or anchor missions (checkoway, 2001; kantanen, 2005; norris, & weiss, 2019) that detail the guiding postures that institutions should display towards that neighbors, urban universities are now in possession of or have access to scholarship which details the sentiments and perceptions their neighbors hold in relation to the increased expansion into their communities. they have the tools available to change the trajectory of historical town and gown issues (o’mara, 2012) that have proven detrimental to low-wealth neighboring communities. prescient comments from one study participant relays her understanding of the phenomenon. she asserts: so now, you ain’t gonna charge, um five hundred dollars that you was charging these people that’s less fortunate. now to live in a one-bedroom apartment, it’s twelve hundred © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25466 | february 15, 2022 18 dollars. and you saying that’s okay. because you know why? you got the fourdlet students here, and they doggone pheaa money and everything is paying it. they not paying it, the money that they get for their grants and stuff is paying it. so now, of course, the landlord gonna say, ‘oh, ok they payin’ twelve hundred dollars here, i’m gonna go up here’, so now you got [them] pushing the people that lived down [here] all their life, you’re pushing them out of this. out of [city]. anchor institutions play a significant role in how residents will experience the impact of covid-19 on college campuses. there are opportunities to mitigate damages that may arise from neglecting or disregarding the needs of their neighbors prior to residents experiencing an increase of students seeking more housing. failure to foreground residents’ concerns of increased expansion and prohibitive housing creates the potential to increase the town and gown tensions that are representative of gentrification and displacement. these long-held notions about who deserves to occupy a space are enveloped by white supremacy and privilege and defined by race and class (mcghee, 2020; o’mara, 2012; reed, 2004; rothstein, 2018). principle tenets of anchor missions reflect the institutions’ desire to engage with and support the goals (birch, perry, & taylor, 2013; norris & weiss, 2019; sladek, 2019) of the community, and can work to thwart the deep-seated issues of feeling “pushed-out” or discriminated against. in this regard, urban and metropolitan academic institutions must include residential concerns within the structure of reopening plans, which assume the movement of their students into bordering neighborhoods in greater numbers as well as how the increase will affect housing for longstanding residents. the new normal in the 2021-22 academic year when campuses resume new regular operations, the temptation for landlords and realtors will be towards recouping income that was lost as housing investments sat dormant. at the national level, landlords have expressed dismay over the loss of rental receipt income (greenspan, 2021; khouri, 2021). though data are insufficient in detailing student experiences for satisfying rental agreements, pierce (2021) reports an increase of new offcampus apartment leases that will begin in summer 2021 in anticipation of plans by colleges to maintain the single dormitory room model. brian pearl is a developer whose company was hired in the summer of 2020 to build 886 units to house students after the first wave of the covid crisis. he supports the assertion that the future demand for student off-campus housing will remain high as the nation continues to grapple with the effects of the pandemic: the need for student housing throughout the nation is nothing short of compelling. in some universities, due to the inability to share rooms during the pandemic, the demand for off-campus housing has temporarily increased, even above its already high level. as we move past covid-19, we will continue to see a robust need for housing. (marcut, 2020) © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25466 | february 15, 2022 19 in adjoining residential communities that have experienced campus expansions into their neighborhoods, the ripple effect of the national lockdown punctuated a defining feature in gentrification of low-wealth, marginalized communities by anchor institutions: the availability of affordable rental housing in their neighborhoods. residents have expressed strong sentiments about the practices of developers in their community who have been intentional in their preference of tenants. one participant remarks: i actually still feel some type of way, um, with some of the things, far as them building up all of these nice apartments, but they’re not for us. and they are overly priced...just out of curiosity, i’ve called about apartments in the, in the um, area. and, um, there was a two-bedroom apartment, and it was like, oh it’s um, twelve hundred a month. and i’m like, ‘for what?’ and they’re like, ‘oh, um, cuz we charge six hundred per room.’ (p. 133, thomas-el, 2019) over the course of the national shut-down and throughout the partial reopening of college campuses, it has been difficult for landlords to salvage incomes through their rentals. to protect their investments, not only were they willing to forgo the “students only” requirement, but many entered into agreements with community members in the form of abatements, waivers, and deferrals (meyerowitz, 2021) to remain afloat. importantly, community residents have had the benefit of remaining in their neighborhoods; however, they “remain in the precarious position of being pushed out of the community due to the increasing expansion of the university” (thomasel, 2019). the anticipated full return of students in fall 2021 back to city campuses is what will present anchor institutions with the conundrum: how will they continue nurturing the fragile relationships with communities whose residents maintain the feeling of being pushed-out of their homes because of student preference while also maintaining the number of students needed for their business model to survive? according to paul friga of the kenan-flagler business school at the university of north carolina at chapel hill: “higher ed is hurting. our entire operating model is under siege, the revenue losses are unprecedented, and campus leaders are beginning to respond to the historic challenges. they are realizing that cost cutting alone is not the answer, and that this is a time to clarify their institution’s unique value to their students and communities.” (the chronicle of higher education, 2021) rather than venture that landlords or realtors will protect the interests of the residents, proactive use by anchor institutions of economic and political resources (bowen, 1953) could ensure that residents remain anchored in their locations. this may mean drafting agreements with housing representatives, working with municipal agencies that would help tenants remain where they are, or advocating on their behalf of their lease agreement. neglecting to openly and proactively engage with the neighboring community poses significant risks to urban institutions where housing is concerned as adverse impacts to residents which benefit students are perceived © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25466 | february 15, 2022 20 sanctioned by the institutions (thomas-el, 2019), and will reopen wounds that gentrification and displacement have caused. discussion the covid-19 global health crisis has collided with the quintessential urban crisis; however, scholarship surrounding the town and gown vacuum exists now, more abundantly than in decades past. urban academic institutions can benefit from understanding how they can interact with communities to bring about fruitful outcomes, and this scholarship positions them to be instrumental in bringing about a more equitable conclusion to positive community engagement. march 2020 introduced an unprecedented event for higher education. the impending return to campus for all students with fewer vacancies in campus dormitories gives rise to the question of how the influx of students into bordering neighborhoods will be addressed. anchor institutions that place as a priority engaging with this eventuality of student expansion into residential neighborhoods rather than disregarding it as a by-product of normal institutional operations (bergen & sladek, 2019), gain possibilities of improving community engagement efforts. bowen (1953), in his discussion of corporate social responsibility (csr), supports this assertion. regarding the responsibilities of businesses, he states that they are obligated, “to pursue those policies, make those decisions, or to follow those lines of action which are desirable in terms of the objective and values of our society” (p. 6). by contrast, failure to lead in this area of housing/residents/students, hazards the erasure of prior efforts towards improvement of community relations, as the new iteration of expansion and potential displacement could be viewed as an expected recurrence at the hands of the institution. conclusion it is possible, given the unprecedented nature of a once-in-a-lifetime global pandemic, that there is nothing that can be done except to make a public acknowledgement to the neighbors of an impending increase of student residents. nevertheless, even this would be better than the traditional silence from the university to which the community has become accustomed. communication from the institution demonstrates that long-standing residents are a part of the reimagining process for campus reopening. prior community engagement efforts from urban anchor institutions must shift towards recognizing the familiar patterns of displacement which exist throughout the town and gown dynamic. the current president of fourdlet is quoted as having the goal of being “the most civically engaged university in the nation.” a proactive approach could serve to establish a new normal that will account for the residents who have emerged as consistent placeholders in their communities especially during the time of the pandemic crisis. campus reopening plans must include measures that would not further © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25466 | february 15, 2022 21 disadvantage low-wealth residents in their neighboring communities by instigating unwelcoming environments, cost-prohibitive housing, or displacement. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25466 | february 15, 2022 22 references baldwin, r., & di mauro, b. w. 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(2020, october 20). it’s negligence’: u. of michigan students ordered to ‘stay in place’ after covid-19 cases surge. the chronicle of higher education. retrieved from http://www.chronicle.com/article/its-negligence-u-of-michigan-students-ordered-to-stayin-place-as-covid-19-cases-surge wolfson, j. a., & leung, c. w. (2020). food insecurity and covid-19: disparities in early effects for us adults. nutrients, 12(6), 1648. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu12061648 zalaznik, m. (2020, may 5). how colleges are prepping for face-to-face learning in the fall. university business. retrieved from http://www.universitybusiness.com/colleges-face-toface-online-learning-classes-return-to-normal original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26459 | march 8, 2023 27 exploring place-based pedagogy as entrepreneurship accelerator joseph v. palazzolo1 and raj devasagayam2 1 leon hess business school, department of management and leadership, lecturer, monmouth university, 2 leon hess business school, dean, monmouth university cite as: palazzolo, j.v., & devasagayam, r. (2023). exploring place-based pedagogy as entrepreneurship accelerator. metropolitan universities, 34, 27-42. doi: 10.18060/26459 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. guest editors: patrick m. green, ph.d. and susan haarman editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract this paper proposes a framework to create a small business and entrepreneurship accelerator designed based on prior work in evolving traditional place-based pedagogy to a more critical pedagogy of place. the case is crafted to utilize the built-in resources of a university as the core components in providing necessary resources for success, including expert-level technical assistance and a safe, empowering third space for collaboration. the included case focuses on a suburban/urban campus near several historically underserved geographies. this is important as the proposed framework for a small business and entrepreneurship accelerator focuses on educating and guiding local populations – including high school students – in growing their businesses. the case in this paper brings together university resources, local community elements, small business owners, social entrepreneurs, and high school students by activating a critical pedagogy of place rooted in improving economic conditions while addressing social issues. keywords: place-based pedagogy, third space, critical pedagogy of place, engaged experiential learning, entrepreneurship, business accelerator, community-driven outcomes http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26459 | march 8, 2023 28 exploring place-based pedagogy as an entrepreneurship accelerator according to the u. s. small business administration (2019), more than 30 million small businesses are operating in the united states, accounting for nearly half of all private workers. often, these small businesses cannot access reputable business development and accelerator programs to help expand their companies and/or grow to the next level. for example, in monmouth and middlesex counties in new jersey, united states, each county only has one official small business development center (sbdc). both sbdcs are connected to higher education institutions – rutgers university in middlesex and brookdale community college in monmouth (“home,” n.d.). while both sbdcs offer training for small business owners, neither has a specific accelerator program for younger entrepreneurs or entrepreneurs from an underserved population. the lack of sbdcs within the most economically disadvantaged neighborhoods creates inherent access issues for underserved populations. as natural anchor institutions in communities, universities may be the ideal location to organize and operate entrepreneurship and small business accelerator programs. furthermore, with their substantial infrastructure and desire for safe neighborhoods for their students to live, learn, and work (ehlenz, 2018), universities provide an ideal “third place” (butler & diaz, 2016) for small business owners to accelerate their companies. this paper builds on an extant understanding of place-based pedagogy and addresses community-based pedagogy in entrepreneurship. further, this paper provides a case study of how an entrepreneurship accelerator could be implemented using the resources of a suburban/urban university. conceptual underpinnings placed-based pedagogy is defined by several characteristics, including using the local environment and community as educational opportunities. as sobel (2005) writes, “place-based education is the process of using the local community and environment as a starting point to teach concepts in language arts, mathematics, social studies, science and other subjects across the curriculum.” mixing the local community and the geographic area surrounding a learning setting allows for greater achievement. sobel (2005) continues to note that by: emphasizing hands-on, real-world learning experiences, this approach to education increases academic achievement, helps students develop stronger ties to their community, enhances students’ appreciation for the natural world, and creates a heightened commitment to serving as active, contributing citizens. the hands-on learning experiences provided by a place-based education offer greater personal development and growth by activating the learner’s knowledge of the local environment. as © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26459 | march 8, 2023 29 smith (2002) notes, place-based education is unique to local environments, requiring the educator to move from the generic to the specific using cultural identity, the natural environment, real-world problem-solving, experiential educational opportunities, and collaboration with the local community. to this end, gruenewald’s (2003) research on place-based pedagogy underscores the ability of local context to be part of the discussion in the lived experience of a learner and their community. place-based pedagogy should be cognizant of local students’ interests with attention to the cultural setting in which learners live (ball & lai, 2006). integrating teaching-learning with local cultural characteristics enhances the student experience by teaching concepts that apply to their own lives and are practically useful in the community culture. while critical pedagogy and place-based education are indeed argued for, the authors suggest that caution should be exercised in areas that may be sensitive to students, whether their indifference to the local culture or their resistance to transformative political pedagogies (ball & lai, 2006). place-based pedagogy is also beneficial to educators, as they can become more engaged with different places by teaching, listening, and empowering the local learners. most importantly, it allows for educational dialogue to be created that empowers students to make critical considerations about the common good and the transformations happening in their communities so that they can contribute to meaningful change. our case builds on these observations and findings. place-based pedagogy in practice america and mallon (2020) address the notion of “connectedness” in pedagogical experiences and offer a “transition year” model for learners to benefit the most from such experiential learning. they state that the transition year provides the “real-life experience of the business world, coupled with personal and social development and education for active citizenship.” this is achieved by linking the local business community with students and allowing them to gain real-world business experience. they can also use their business studies competencies learned in school to help them achieve the career skills they will need after finishing school. linking their education with the skills they will gain in a work setting allows students to bridge the gap between school and working life and provides an easier transition after graduation. however, the transition year might be prohibitively ambitious for learners and parents, especially in underserved communities comprised of economically disadvantaged populations. for example, in the midtown section of neptune township – a focus area in our case – federal income tax records show a household income of approximately $26,000 by age 35 (the opportunity atlas, n.d.). our approach addresses the financial realities of socioeconomically diverse learner groups and entrepreneurial small businesses. and the authors agree with america and mallon (2020) on their stated benefit of students learning through connectedness. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26459 | march 8, 2023 30 ease of connectedness, however, is not present in all geographies. students in rural communities often face more disadvantages than their urban counterparts, including not being located near higher education institutions, lack of exposure to career options, fewer employment opportunities, and more. bright (2020) calls this a “deficits-based perspective” leading to the “rural brain drain” to highlight the view that rural areas are the cause of their problems, and those students that can achieve academic success are leaving their rural areas to seek jobs elsewhere, leaving those places without human capital. bright’s (2020) work highlights the importance of a critical pedagogy of place versus traditional placed-based pedagogy – critical pedagogy of place takes the next step by having students consider the meanings behind issues, analyzing processes, businesses, and organizations, asking why the processes are occurring, and utilizing their education to impact these processes. bright (2020) notes that when referring to educational opportunities in rural areas, place-based pedagogy should consider exposing students to various experiences, especially considering the economic disadvantages that often exist in rural communities. by encouraging a multi-faceted way of thinking in these students, a critical pedagogy of place challenges them to think differently and find solutions that they can use to build skills for career development. fifolt and mccormick (2020), in the context of public health education in the “deep south,” report that understanding a place and the history of that place will help to create successful public programs that make a necessary change in society. the authors believe this could be a transformational change in building a critical pedagogy of place for rural communities. gallay, pykett, smallwood, and flanagan (2020) focus on urban youths, as discussed in our case. these authors assessed how the youth of color living in urban spaces can learn through placebased pedagogy, expanding their education by engaging with local concerns and finding sustainable solutions. we agree with their pedagogical strategies, including working in groups with fellow students, teachers, and adults from the local community. gallay et al. (2020) reported that upon completion of the program, the students reported feeling that they had advanced their skill sets and that their projects benefitted the community they were working in. in our case, we see that the notion of a “critical pedagogy of place” is addressed. we find that the characteristics of our target learner populations from diverse and marginalized groups grapple with issues similar to bright’s (2020) rural learners and their community and filofts and mccormick’s (2020) racial minorities in the “deep south” using some of the best practices mentioned by gallay et al. (2020). from the arts and humanities realm, ball and lai (2006) posit that place-based pedagogy pays attention to the needs of a local community and delivers an empowering response to those needs. to this end, saraydarian (2021) analyzes place-based pedagogy in the context of teaching jazz improvisation. from this lens, a place-based pedagogy empowers learners by “making a space for place, [and creating] opportunities for students to ground their creative development, enculturing their technical skills so that they have a spot from which to say something from a © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26459 | march 8, 2023 31 place deeply felt and personally meaningful.” in the scope of jazz, the author feels that jazz students connecting to local communities where certain music was/is created will enhance their knowledge of the mechanics and grammar of music style and make them better musicians. furthermore, allowing students to make personal connections with the places they are in will induce personal development and connection with, in this context, jazz improvisation. our case applies these same principles in the context of entrepreneurship. place is also an aspect of education that deserves more prominence. häggström and schmidt (2020) reported that student interaction with place led to student agency, emancipation, and empowerment. the authors argue that place-based learning “could enhance a democratic and equal education that includes a civic and cultural dimension that may nurture active citizens engaging on their terms.” it is revealed that places that are interesting to students and evoke their emotions can encourage meaning-making processes, literacy, and ecological literacy. placebased learning involves undergoing an educational shift that rethinks what information younger generations need for their future and listens to the students themselves and their values. in their insightful piece, butler and diaz (2016) stress the importance of “third places” that we consider to offer a solution to cultural and socioeconomic limitations faced by underserved entrepreneurs. here, a “third place” is where people spend their time between home and work, the first and second places, respectively. these third places are meant to be areas where people can meet to exchange ideas and socialize, contributing to building and strengthening a real community. third places can include establishments like mcdonald’s, cafes with wi-fi and seating, and more. barajas and martin (2016), in discussing “shared spaces,” elaborate that it is not only the physical space that matters but the conceptual components, such as being safe enough for everyone to feel discomfort and change. once this can happen, transformation and collaboration can occur. a good place-based third space was seen to reduce the unequal access to knowledge/power experienced by communities of color in urban areas. luter (2016) underscores the importance of anchor institutions as safe spaces for students to engage in real-world problem-solving scenarios and mission-driven public service activities. towle and leahy (2016) elaborate on how shared spaces are a worthy challenge due to the positive outcomes they afford for inner-city communities that are often seen as hopeless. apart from intellectual benefits, they consider these spaces' emotional benefits to be invaluable. being engaged in higher education, our case naturally offers metropolitan colleges and universities as a viable “third place” of learning. infrastructures and technology (wi-fi, for instance) and access to content experts make this third place an ideal choice to host an entrepreneurship and small business accelerator in our case. activating place-based pedagogy in education © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26459 | march 8, 2023 32 an argument can be made that the practices of critical pedagogy and place-based education need to be converged for educational theory, research, policy, and practice (gruenewald, 2003). critical pedagogy challenges conventional education practices and ideas, while place-based education educates citizens for the direct effect on the well-being of the same places those citizens inhabit. gruenewald (2003) concluded that educators need to take the next step in integrating their current practices and expanding them to reflect theoretical rationale and fundamental teaching and learning. in heinrich and green (2020), the authors argue that place-based pedagogy allows the integration of theories, ontologies, and critiques which are imperative to help educators “create more robust learning designs, beyond foundational knowledge or content acquisition to include process, place, and personalized meaning.” haarman and green (2021) view community-based research through the lens of critical service-learning pedagogy and delineate a practitionerscholar framework for solutions-driven partnerships. iwama and fritz (2019) emphasize the importance of legacy in the communities and places where universities reside in. higher education can maintain relevancy and value by creating more purposeful and meaningful connections aligned with the civic needs within their communities, especially with the leadership and engagement of current students. our case involves the active participation of current undergraduate and graduate students to leverage the legacy advantage. in their recent article examining the deep learning offered by place-based pedagogy, borén and schmitt (2022) stress the importance of place-based knowledge but also stress that prior research has not taken the further step to acknowledge how these actors can be mobilized appropriately. they point out that local populations, in a place-based approach, are extremely valuable to the education of students, but knowing how to include these learner groups and their knowledge in a manner that is legitimate and transparent, as well as sustainable in the long-term, still needs to be addressed. once their knowledge is mobilized, educators need to form a basis for continuous learning. the authors suggest doing so through “networks of deep learning.” this term refers to “relations between various actors which are to be sustained over time, which positively condition mutually beneficial interaction on a common issue, and through which continuous learning takes place in terms of seeking and implementing sustainable solutions” (borén & schmitt, 2022). in our case, we provide the rationale and resources needed to build and sustain deep learning networks utilizing the elements of higher education. in a study defining universities as anchor institutions, ehlenz (2018) points out that many universities in the u.s. still describe themselves as anchor institutions and create multiple strategies across different areas to meet their goals. however, ehlenz (2018) also found that the frameworks of universities do not capture the full extent of their place-based impact and leave out areas that should be concentrated on. many universities in the study had low to moderate levels of strategy diversification, meaning they had less than four, or between four and five, © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26459 | march 8, 2023 33 respectively, categories of revitalization. those with lower levels of strategy diversification should identify gaps and opportunities in their framework and modify their approaches so that further development can be made in their suggestion of being an anchor institution. these gaps highlight how some universities in the study only followed traditional approaches in developing various strategies but should instead create new strategies that target areas they usually would not typically consider. in effect, the way we have traditionally understood anchor institutions must be revised in light of emerging communities of learners. our case builds on this thought and offers that the nomenclature may not be driven by characteristics, but rather an anchor institution offers itself as a third place to their learners in a welcoming manner, providing access to resources needed by local communities to foster and accelerate entrepreneurial endeavors – this creates the perfect combination of ingredients to create a critical pedagogy of place. case background and need identification according to data released by the white house (2022) from the u.s. census bureau, americans are applying to start new businesses at a record rate, up approximately 30% compared to before the pandemic (see figure 1). while organizations exist to assist entrepreneurs in forming and structuring their new corporate entities, the dramatic increase in new business applications indicates that there will be strong demand for small business development and acceleration in the coming years. this is especially true of new entrepreneurs who have spent the pandemic years stabilizing their businesses and are primed for immediate and long-term growth. figure 1. new business applications, annual 2011-2021. further, a survey of 400 small business owners showed that 36% said they want to invest in expanding their skill sets to help grow their businesses (“new kabbage survey,” 2017). however, the rapid growth and expansion of new business applications and the desire for small © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26459 | march 8, 2023 34 business owners to invest in their success are being hampered by the current economic conditions. survey results from 1,533 participants in the goldman sachs 10,000 small businesses program found that 84% of respondents have difficulty hiring and retaining their existing workers. in contrast, 97% of respondents noted that this hiring crisis impacts their economic returns (“goldman sachs survey,” 2022). the survey also notes that 97% of respondents report that the current inflationary economic environment has increased or sustained pressures on their businesses compared to three months ago. in comparison, 65% of respondents have had to increase their prices, leading to 38% saying that customer demand has decreased. these issues blend with broader global economic pressures, creating a chaotic and uncertain time for entrepreneurs. at the federal level, there is a desire to expand access to financial resources for small businesses, including through lending and investment, and encouraging more businesses to apply to the small business administration’s (sba) traditional 7a, 504, and microloan programs. according to the white house (2021), this strategy revolves around increasing the share of federal procurement dollars that go to socially disadvantaged businesses by 50% by 2025. this would address the strikingly low 5% of federal contracting dollars currently awarded to small disadvantaged businesses, a federal designation under which many small businesses owned by historically-marginalized populations are categorized (white house, 2021). among other things, the legislation directs the department of transportation to attempt to award more than $37 billion in federal contracts to small, disadvantaged business contractors. the goals include connecting small businesses to the resources they need to grow and succeed. university as accelerator utilizing a university as an entrepreneurial accelerator to meet these goals could provide educational opportunities and practical guidance through technical assistance in making entrepreneurs aware of such opportunities and equipping them with the business acumen needed to avail of such financial support. for instance, learning to develop marketing and business plans are basic requirements in procuring the financial resources available for an entrepreneur. a university-based entrepreneurship accelerator would provide education and guidance from experts to build such competencies. we pose the following case as a potential critical framework for building a small business and entrepreneurial accelerator by utilizing a university’s anchor institution status. the critical nature of this framework is inspired by meek’s (2011) work suggesting that a local environment be deconstructed for contextual understanding and that the resulting examination be used to create a more dynamic engagement with the surrounding community. further, miller (2019) reaffirms that a place-based framework cannot be a singular event but, instead, must be a framework to © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26459 | march 8, 2023 35 build educational opportunities and collaborations with experts in the world outside of the classroom. in the framework below, we use the term “the institute” to refer to the proposed small business and entrepreneurial accelerator. we use the geography of monmouth and middlesex counties in new jersey, united states, as a sample geography for the institute’s work. finally, we use our institution, the leon hess business school at monmouth university, as the anchor university. proposed place-based entrepreneurial accelerator the institute is designed to focus on developing, educating, and accelerating entrepreneurs within monmouth and middlesex counties through an on-site program at monmouth university’s leon hess business school. through the type of critical analysis discussed earlier (meek, 2011), the institute focuses on traditionally underserved geographies, including asbury park, carteret, keansburg, long branch, neptune, new brunswick, perth amboy, and woodbridge. programming targets four populations: high school students, social entrepreneurship organizations, minority-owned enterprises, and existing entrepreneurs seeking to accelerate their business. connecting to communities is a critical element of the institute’s success. in operationalizing the university’s strategic plan goal to develop service partnerships, the institute’s targeted geographies include those areas where there exists historic private disinvestment, which has resulted in generations of under-invested or non-existent commercial development projects and, consequently, a lack of entrepreneurial opportunities for local communities. the budding entrepreneurs and families living in these targeted geographies often cannot afford private mentoring and counseling that results in economic gain. according to the u. s. census bureau (2015), on the west side of asbury park, for example, 38% of the population lives below the poverty line, and the census tract median income is just 26% of the area median income (ami). nearby, 27% of families in the midtown neighborhood of neptune township are living below the poverty line, while their census tract median income is 48% of ami. parts of downtown long branch have 39% of families living below the poverty line with a census tract median income of 34% of ami. working in geographies that have historically experienced private disinvestment presents unique challenges uncommon in other locations. for example, two focus geographies for the institute’s programming include the aforementioned west side of asbury park and the midtown neighborhood of neptune township. federal income tax records indicate that household incomes range from $23,000 to $26,000 by the age of 35 in these areas (the opportunity atlas, n.d.). the same federal income tax records show that immediately adjacent to these locations are neighborhoods with household incomes ranging from $48,000 to $60,000, double the income in the focus geographies (the opportunity atlas, n.d.). this type of economic disparity often leads © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26459 | march 8, 2023 36 to a lack of well-resourced local institutions, which may also present an uncommon challenge in advancing entrepreneurial aspirations in these geographies. the institute framework relies on developing cross-sector and intrastate partnerships to best serve its population of entrepreneurs. partnerships within the technical assistance field include collaborating with existing entities like score, local offices of the new jersey small business development centers, and greater newark enterprises corporation. in addition, collaborations include statewide, mission-based lenders like new jersey community capital and ucedc and local, traditional lenders, including ocean first bank. the institute’s four focus populations the high school student program focuses on cultivating budding entrepreneurs within local high schools categorized as economically disadvantaged1 or serving historically marginalized populations. this program provides a hands-on, intensive summer boot camp hosted by the leon hess business school. this boot camp is designed to be conducted over four weeks, with instruction for approximately three hours daily, four days weekly. for this to be successful, there must exist mcinerney, smyth, and down’s (2011) relational trust between the university as a community anchor and local high school students by providing them with an experiential learning opportunity outside of their traditional classroom. similarly, the budding entrepreneurs program should be designed to include ongoing technical assistance for graduates of the program to help bring their ideas to fruition. the high school populations that these program targets are described further in table 1. table 1. focus high school populations school district economically disadvantaged historically marginalized population academy charter hs 76.9% 96.9% academy for urban leadership cs 70.2% 99.6% asbury park hs 52.0% 98.5% carteret hs 68.3% 87.8% colonia hs 30.6% 47.8% john f. kennedy memorial hs 42.3% 75.9% keansburg hs 38.9% 42.7% populations. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26459 | march 8, 2023 37 long branch hs 76.5% 74.0% neptune township hs 49.0% 72.9% new brunswick hs 99.9% 99.2% perth amboy hs 84.8% 98.4% woodbridge hs 39.2% 62.4% note: for the case, we use the new jersey department of education’s school performance report database to identify schools as economically disadvantaged based on this size of their free and reduced-price federal lunch program populations. the social entrepreneurship program focuses on engaging with small businesses that seek to address societal issues in the everyday operations of their businesses. in addition, nonprofit organizations are a core constituency for this program to help them professionalize their work and integrate best practices from the for-profit sector into achieving their mission. the social entrepreneurship program allows for a unique opportunity to embed the university in making a real, substantive impact in its surrounding community. the institute is also designed to target and engage with minority-owned enterprises and those businesses operating in and serving historically underserved populations. for this case, underserved populations include, but not necessarily be limited to, the following groups: womenowned businesses, those businesses owned by historically-marginalized cultural groups (e.g., african american, black, latino, asian, pacific islander), veteran-owned businesses, and businesses located in historically underserved geographies. in addition, the institute includes an accelerator-style program for existing entrepreneurs who are ready to elevate their businesses to the next level of success. content for the accelerator program includes evolving a business plan to focus on growth, designing a winning elevator pitch, and how to expand and successfully grow your professional network. the format for these sessions is designed to be spread over four weeks, with instruction for approximately three hours each day, four days each week. impact assessment the framework includes ongoing technical assistance after the accelerator program is completed to gauge the institute's impact and effectiveness. american express’s kabbage small business lending platform reports that 68% of entrepreneurs will achieve profitability within their first year of operations, and 84% will achieve profitability by their fourth year of operations (american express, n.d.). given the relatively short 12 to 48 months, our framework will include ongoing assessment and analysis of the impact for most small businesses to achieve profitability. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26459 | march 8, 2023 38 the evaluation will consist of a review of each business's annual financial statements after its leader has completed the institute’s programming. these regular check-ins also provide an ideal opportunity to stay connected to the entrepreneurs and offer additional technical assistance as they work through the demanding early stages of growth, stabilization, and acceleration. conclusion the framework proposed in the case above is designed using a place-based pedagogy that emphasizes a university’s natural position as a community anchor and embraces the critical pedagogy of place in developing an entrepreneurship training program and small business accelerator. as a result, it further advances the type of hands-on experience for a university’s students that is critically important to their future professional success. the case framework also integrates a series of 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(2015). 2015 american community survey. retrieved from https://www.census.gov/acs/www/data/data-tables-and-tools/data-profiles/2015/ united states small business administration (2019, april 24). small businesses drive job growth in united states; they account for 1.8 million net new jobs, latest data show [press https://www.mosbdc.com/ https://newsroom.kabbage.com/news/company/new-kabbage-survey-shows-67-percent-of-small-business-owners-expect-to-finish-2017-with-higher-revenues/ https://newsroom.kabbage.com/news/company/new-kabbage-survey-shows-67-percent-of-small-business-owners-expect-to-finish-2017-with-higher-revenues/ https://muse.jhu.edu/article/811558 http://www.jstor.org/stable/20440205 https://www.opportunityatlas.org/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/12/02/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-announces-reforms-to-increase-equity-and-level-the-playing-field-for-underserved-small-business-owners/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/12/02/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-announces-reforms-to-increase-equity-and-level-the-playing-field-for-underserved-small-business-owners/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/12/02/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-announces-reforms-to-increase-equity-and-level-the-playing-field-for-underserved-small-business-owners/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/01/25/fact-sheet-the-new-small-business-boom-under-the-biden-harris-administration/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/01/25/fact-sheet-the-new-small-business-boom-under-the-biden-harris-administration/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/01/25/fact-sheet-the-new-small-business-boom-under-the-biden-harris-administration/ https://www.census.gov/acs/www/data/data-tables-and-tools/data-profiles/2015/ © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26459 | march 8, 2023 42 release]. https://advocacy.sba.gov/2019/04/24/small-businesses-drive-job-growth-inunited-states-they-account-for-1-8-million-net-new-jobs-latest-data-show/ https://advocacy.sba.gov/2019/04/24/small-businesses-drive-job-growth-in-united-states-they-account-for-1-8-million-net-new-jobs-latest-data-show/ https://advocacy.sba.gov/2019/04/24/small-businesses-drive-job-growth-in-united-states-they-account-for-1-8-million-net-new-jobs-latest-data-show/ joseph v. palazzolo1 and raj devasagayam2 abstract exploring place-based pedagogy as an entrepreneurship accelerator conceptual underpinnings place-based pedagogy in practice activating place-based pedagogy in education case background and need identification university as accelerator proposed place-based entrepreneurial accelerator the institute’s four focus populations impact assessment conclusion references original research © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23931| august 3, 2021 3 cultivating innovation capacity of undergraduates in a technology commercialization academy in midwest america arthur l. chlebowski1, joshua d. mcwilliams2, william c. hawkins3, and stephanie el tawil4 1department of engineering, university of southern indiana, 2department of computer information systems, university of southern indiana, 3departments of biology and kinesiology and sport, university of southern indiana, and 4 growth alliance for greater evansville cite as: chlebowski, a.l., mcwilliams, j.d., hawkins, w.c., and el tawil, s. (2021). cultivating innovation capacity of undergraduates in a technology commercialization academy in midwest america. metropolitan universities, 32(2), 3-26. doi: 10.18060/23931 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract the technology commercialization academy (tca) was launched to promote the identification, assessment, and exploitation of economically viable innovations by undergraduates and retain those graduates in the southwest indiana region. further, as part of the i-69 innovation corridor initiative, the tca was part of increasing the regional innovation index score 20% by 2025. through the seven years of implementation, the program has determined that there is a crucial tool set that is necessary for new graduates entering industry, including instilling that innovation is a balance; innovation is agile; innovation must fail, pivot, and focus quickly; and lastly the program must realize its capabilities, be diverse in thought, and recognize that the personnel are key. by instilling these practices in the participants, using available programmatic information and surveys, 100% of job seekers post-graduation were employed within six months, 9% began their own startup from the program, and 64% of these high impact graduates stayed in southwest indiana. overall, the tca program structure has shifted to demand side iterative processes that create long-tail value for the region and made the participants attractive hires who are keenly aware of practices to move from opportunity to execution. keywords: entrepreneurship, frameworks, sprint, feasibility https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23931 | august 3, 2021 4 introduction when a university is part of a regional innovation ecosystem, it generally interacts in one or both of the following capacities. first, the university offers specialized program outside of standard university format aimed at bridging the entrepreneurial gap and/or offering entrepreneurial education (either through undergraduate, graduate entrepreneurial programs, or mentorship). second, the university serves as a conduit for these activities by providing access to technology, either through technology transfer, research, equipment, and/or infrastructure, in addition to subject matter expertise via faculty, staff, and/or research personnel (bezerra et al., 2017). the development and exploitation of these capacities, when coupled with community collaboration, allow regional growth (johnson jr, 2014). specialized programs, accelerators, or incubators are solely aimed at the development of entrepreneurial ideas and progression of the business. documentation of the creation of these programs is readily available in terms of facilities, layout, infrastructure, and workforce (jurkowski & kerr, 2010; thompson, 2012). the standard accelerator and incubator aid potential companies in moving their idea forward via access to investors, technology experts, and/or mentors in an effort to develop a robust pipeline of talent and shovel-ready ventures (biemiller, 2018; custer, 2015; johnson jr, 2014; klugh & williams, 2017; ochs et al., 2001; tekula & jhamb, 2015; woods et al., 2016). different methodologies are used to enhance and improve the business proposition of the participants including, but not limited to: mentorship, networking/investors, “the student becomes the teacher,” focus on leadership, expedited mba, partnership with local industry, or workshops by experts (bogomolny, 2005; garcia & ustymchuk, 2020; gilbert, 2010). meanwhile, the standard undergraduate entrepreneurial experience encompasses coursework aimed at teaching supply-side ideation through experience in the development of a business plan or business model canvas, and culminating in articulation via refined pitch. developed from the perspective of pedagogy (collet & wyatt, 2005; hanna, 2013; heinrich et al., 2018), once that entrepreneurial student has reached the culmination of their educational experience, they have a set of tools that are useful for themselves, prospective employers, or for advancing their prospective innovations. very few undergraduates pursue the idea(s) developed as part of the curriculum or, if pursued, the ideas are found so underdeveloped that they are unable to enter the specialized programs (bezerra et al., 2017). this creates a gap in the undergraduate innovation puzzle. while it can be easy to find the infrastructure, personnel, and technology to grow an idea, there has traditionally been a valueproposition deficit for large portions of the student population to justify dedicated time to these efforts. all too often, current undergraduate programs are designed for the individual that already has an entrepreneurial mindset and exclude a large population of aspiring young entrepreneurs © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23931 | august 3, 2021 5 who may not be matriculating through a business school curriculum. further, the puzzle, as currently configured, assumes a robust pipeline of mature talent and ideas before being provided access to a launchpad to success via incubators and accelerators with access to capital, mentorship, and space. bezerra et al. reviews the innovation space for the young entrepreneur and defines four main characteristics that need improvement for their success (2017), including: practical activities as a way to develop new business ideas; centrality of the incubation process; lack of credibility and resources; and difficulty in maintain a long-term relationship with the university. this paper discusses the technology commercialization academy (tca) program, which was designed to take approximately 16 students from all disciplines represented on the university of southern indiana (usi) campus and provide them the tools for discovering and capitalizing on opportunities. participants did this via inspirational subject matter made available through the nswc crane technology transfer (t2) office, local entities, or newly developed personal ventures via a paid 12-week student fellowship culminating in pitch events. the paper continues by discussing the southwest indiana regional background, methodologies, results and findings, the discussion of findings, and a conclusion. southwest indiana regional background southwest indiana has unique geographic positioning that allows for an unmatched distribution network: a central location provides access to 75% of the nation’s population within a one day drive; twenty-two linehaul railroads provide intermodal connectivity to the east and west coasts; and, easy access to international waters via the seventh largest inland port in the united states (economic development coalition of southwest indiana, 2019). with the geographic advantages, the southwest region has been a mainstay for manufacturing processes but has suffered at attracting and retaining high impact companies. to understand a region’s impact, the innovation index can assess a region’s innovation capacity and output (figure 1). the southwest region of indiana had a decrease in high tech jobs from 1997-2009 in comparison to the rest of indiana and the united states, while having a larger ratio of job growth to population growth. the number of patents produced by this region is less than half the average of the united states during that time period (innovation 2.0, 2019). evansville also ranks 179th while being the 232nd most populous city in the country. analyzing the data further (figure 2), evansville is successful in areas that are defined by the presence of strong legacy businesses and education (13th and 153rd respectively), but fares poorly in the creation of new entities, knowledge creation and technology diffusion, and access to venture capital (301st, 354th, and 245th respectively) (innovation 2.0, 2019). © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23931 | august 3, 2021 6 figure 1. innovation index comparison ratios 19972008/09. custom region defined as southwest indiana. figure 2. innovation index ranking – midwest towns/cities and u.s.-wide innovation centers due to these data points growth alliance for greater evansville’s (gage) mission is to drive and support economic development activities. as part of these activities, partners were sought to support the essential technology transfer component required to incite high technology startups. partnership intermediary agreements were formed between the naval surface warfare center, crane division (nswc crane), usi, and gage. nswc crane (located in southern indiana) provides technical engineering solutions and total lifecycle leadership for many of the systems © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23931 | august 3, 2021 7 that protect and enable the warfighter, and this intellectual property (ip) portfolio is available for development of commercial technology. with the completion of interstate 69 from evansville to crane, indiana, a prioritization of activity was strategically conceived resulting in the formation of the i-69 innovation corridor (gage, 2019). the purpose of the corridor initiative was to increase the regional innovation index score 20% by 2025 through the development of brainpower, innovation and entrepreneurship networks, quality, connected places, branding experiences, and civic collaboration. brainpower starts with a sound education and imagination. entrepreneurial educators can generate 21st century brainpower with skills to support globally competitive businesses. innovation and entrepreneurship networks create business development networks (clusters, entrepreneurial support, venture capital, mentors) capable of converting brainpower into wealth through innovation and entrepreneurship endeavors. quality and connected places entices mobile people and companies that are innovative to locate in places with high quality of life and remain connected to the rest of the world. branding experiences define the region’s story by depicting to young professionals that the region has a future that is vibrant and exciting. lastly, civic collaboration produces leaders that are skilled in the art and discipline of collaboration. usi acted as the educational partner and secured funding to support activities associated with brainpower, quality, connected places, and innovation and entrepreneurship networks. through the partnership with gage, this resulted in the development of several cooperative undertakings. tech on tap is a community-led program that fosters innovation by promoting collision, connection, and collaboration through hosted events. tour of opportunity incorporates a daylong event that allows middle school students the opportunity to view local career prospects first-hand, encouraging early talent retention and pathfinding. the technology commercialization academy planted the seed of innovation discovery in usi students who might not otherwise have access to the region’s entrepreneurial resources. methodology general setup of program the length of the tca program has varied but has ultimately settled at 12 weeks long, with students working 24-25 hours per week, which equates to 7.5 full 40-hour work weeks. students are initially taught entrepreneurial and innovation practices towards ideation and business feasibility. ideas are then assessed using different frameworks, as discussed in later sections, throughout the commercialization process. if the product faltered, the students pivoted to assess other ideas and began the process of commercial risk mitigation again with the new idea. at the end of the tca, pitch events are scheduled. the first is a public pitch event in which participants present the opportunities discovered, the market research they have performed to validate the commercial viability of those opportunities, and present a proof of concept. the result of this © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23931 | august 3, 2021 8 pitch is to curate a collision between student, mentor, or local entity resulting in the formation of new entities and collaboration with individuals or entities with access to capital. a second pitch is conducted with nswc crane personnel, to showcase to the inventors of the military technology how their concepts sparked innovation and inspiration for the potential commercial applications. decision making for programmatic changes programs were assessed yearly regarding the cumulative content production from the previous year using qualitative analyses of overall impact to the undergraduate student experience, utility of nswc crane intellectual property, and student professional readiness. this assessment was conducted via observations collected during phases of the program as participants completed activities and advanced potential innovations. further, the program initially focused on quantity of supply-side innovation from nswc ip and development of the commercial case via business model canvas. later iterations of the programming focused on enhanced quality via the introduction of new tools to emphasize product-market fit and demand-side customer-focused feedback. therefore, content and tools adjusted from year-to-year to fit the focus of the program. student selection the application process for participant selection in the tca program is open to all students across the usi campus. students interested in participating in the next summer’s cohort must fill out an application (supplemental figure 1) with several questions pertaining to their interests and goals. a student does not need to have entrepreneurial startup goals to be selected, but an interest in expanding their comprehension is crucial to success, as there are stages that require prototyping, business development, critical thinking, or problem-solving. during the assessment of applications, candidates were evaluated via the following criteria: professionalism and likelihood of making a positive contribution to the program as currently defined; ability to find gainful employment immediately following the completion of the program/their degree; and assessment of ability to provide unique insights during the creative process. a likert scale (0 low – 5 high) was used by the instructors and coordinators of the program to rank applicants. an average of the rankings was taken, and the top 16 students were asked to join the program, while the next 4 students were selected as alternates. instructors the tca program used usi faculty and staff from multiple disciplines to guide students through the ideation, feasibility, and commercialization processes. instructors were selected based on professional and personal experiences with innovative technologies, small business formation, ip knowledge, and a passion for entrepreneurship. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23931 | august 3, 2021 9 mentors the tca program used mentors from inside and outside of the academic setting for their expertise in a given area. depending on the portion of the program, a mentor was established and used to aid the students in that specific phase of the program. mentor relationships were leveraged to gain resources with field experience in the development of the product-market fit, prototyping, and business development to aid tca participants in the refinement of the prospective opportunity. technology selection problem identification began by using ip from nswc crane as a method to transfer military technology or ideas to civilian commercialization opportunities. the instructors and coordinator of the program identified and selected the initial patented technologies. this was conducted by assessing the claims of the ip and making selection based on how developed the ip was from conceptual to deployed, as well as capabilities to prototype, and lastly anticipated student comprehension. additional sources of potential innovation discovery were identified as participants brought personal interests and local small businesses/entrepreneurs requested to participate. talent development as retention of brainpower is a top objective within the tca, the first week of the program focused on talent development and career pathfinding. the students were prompted to identify their perfect occupation in the southwest indiana region and construct a professional development plan to achieve that role. additionally, students updated resumes, completed personality and work preference assessments, and individually connected with professionals in their desired occupation. the respective professionals were then invited to the culminating pitch event with the initiative and aid in enhancing the talent pipeline for regional employers. ideation framework to begin ideation, students were introduced to high-level components of the nswc crane ip technology, its direct military application, and the problem it attempts to resolve. the students were encouraged to ask open-ended questions in this discovery portion done by visiting the location where the technology is currently deployed or visiting with the inventor or entrepreneur. following the introduction to the problem, students began identifying various realms of application for the technology in a commercial space, i.e. students created divergent lists of other direct and indirect uses of the ip. after compiling a massive list of ideas with limited constraints, the students converged on their top areas of interest. those focal points were then assessed based © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23931 | august 3, 2021 10 on observable problems within that commercial domain, followed by solutions-oriented ideation exercises. through this exercise, the tca students retained the concept that every product must solve a problem for the consumer, as well as divergence and convergence ideation techniques essential to iterative opportunity discovery. ideation is done via several different methods, and our program focused on methods developed by celuch et al. (2014). the goal of this concept creation is to develop as many ideas as possible in the divergence phase using random stimuli and then converge by allowing participants to select only a few possible feasible solutions. the stimuli include, but are not limited to, imagery, sounds, and phrases. these stimuli provoke ideas, and participants note these solutions. students were coached that no idea is too grand or impossible, and each captured idea stimulates thought and further ideation from the remaining participants. feasibility framework once the initial ideation session was complete, students began the process of determining which ideas to develop and assess for business analysis. feasibility began based on the expertise of the students and mentors, as well as local resource availability, including a prototyping center and design software. students select their top 3-4 ideas to conduct a careful examination on feasibility. idea selection was done initially by a majority vote of the group. through feasibility evaluation, students discovered if the idea had merit and proceed forward, if not, they returned to their remaining top ideas and restarted the process. feasibility was categorized by two capabilities: (a) is there a market for the problem-solving idea?; (b) and can a technical prototype be developed to attain customer feedback? in initial tcas this was done ad hoc, with students determining feasibility by their own set of parameters. in later tcas, the feasibility idea test (fitest), a more formal documentation method, developed by usi faculty, that provided a first blush business case analysis was implemented. technical feasibility used the university’s applied engineering center (aec) and available engineering faculty for development of a functional prototype, or initial pretotype (nonfunctional façade). the market and technical feasibility analysis was repeated using customer feedback as validation to proceed or restart the process. students went out to potential customers and received feedback on whether the problem was understood, and the solution was valuable. discovery of market validation required qualitative interviewing techniques intended to map out the customer experience, thus framing the set of problems typically experienced by the potential customer more thoroughly before providing a suggested solution. if market viability was acceptable with present consumer demand, the students repeated this iterative process until all feasibility questions were answered, and the prototype had enough functionality to promote its innovative purpose. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23931 | august 3, 2021 11 business model canvas following market and technical feasibility, students were asked to develop a business case for their product. generally started while conducting feasibility, the business model canvas (supplemental figure 2) is used to describe and build a business case by proposing and testing a series of hypotheses for each of nine components (osterwalder & pigneur, 2010). this allows the student to quickly propose, test, and validate the potential new venture via the visual layout to develop their pitch. design sprint framework the design sprint developed by google ventures was incorporated into the tca curriculum to help develop more viable ideas through facilitated methodologies (knapp et al., 2016). the sprint method created a more formal method to ascertain answers to questions on potential product ideas. students could use this process whenever a question came up as a quick method to resolve and proceed with commercialization. the sprint process facilitates product development in a highly detailed, concise, and structured format that results in confident decision and clearer analysis. the design sprint is presented as a five-day process and covers problem definition, ideation, prototyping, and initial customer validation. if an idea is successful through this process, it could transition to feasibility analysis via the rigorous fitest. jobs to be done framework customer validation is a critical point in the commercialization process as it determines the viability of the idea and dictates the direction or progress of the proposed solution. jobs to be done (jtbd), a qualitative interviewing and customer journey mapping technique, was utilized during the last three tcas to help students understand the solutions and process by which consumers currently solve the problem. jtbd explores the qualitative analysis of consumer purchasing behaviors through assessment of the explicit journey the customer takes to make a decision. through the development and implementation of interviewing techniques, participants explored the emotional and chronological journey through the lens of a recent potential customer’s experience. this formalizes the customer interaction as a result of insights from a sample of those who had already made decisions on existing solutions, aiding in the evaluation of feasibility, and determining the true demand of the customer (christensen et al., 2005). tca students were introduced to this methodology very early in the program in preparation for interviewing the original inventors of the nswc crane ip. this created an inquisitive atmosphere in the general workspace as the jtbd format constructs a personal interaction between participants and encourages the students to remain quizzical throughout the duration of the program. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23931 | august 3, 2021 12 results and findings the initial offering (2012-2014) of the tca was designed to mirror the curriculum of the usi romain college of business’ aacsb accredited entrepreneurship minor. the program was five weeks in duration and provided a stipend for students participating in the program (figure 3). during the first week, the tca students were introduced to the program and visited nswc crane to learn about the ip selected for mining. figure 3. initial tca offering following ip identification, ideation commenced obtaining commercial opportunities. the second week focused on market validation of a converged set of opportunities with the third and fourth weeks being devoted to the development of the remainder of the business model via use of the business model canvas, with a small amount of time devoted to the development of a minimum viable product (mvp). during the final week, students developed and practiced a pitch which was delivered on campus and open to the public. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23931 | august 3, 2021 13 mentors from outside entities were used to supplement expertise towards the business model canvas and pitch development. this approach generally worked but it was determined to be too short in duration at five weeks and university regulation forced a student labor cap at a maximum of 28 hours per week. as a result, the program was extended to an 8.5-week full-time equivalent (fte) model, comprised of a 12-week duration with 28 hours per week. further, at the culmination of its first year, based on the output created by the students, a more inclusive program was desired and applications were opened up to the entire campus. tcas 2015 and 2016 expanded on tools and time that the students used to develop their ideas into viable product offerings. students now had 28 hours a week over a 12-week period. ideation was still crucial in the initial stage with visits to nswc crane for technical understanding. focus was brought toward increased customer validation through feasibility with a conceptual design and prototype. if an idea did not pass feasibility, the students revisited the idea or pivoted and restarted the feasibility process. the end of the program was marked by market validation for a few weeks and then pitch preparation in the final two weeks of the program. students pitched ideas that were brought through the feasibility stage and noted where they may have failed in the process, or where they stand after the program, while encouraging feedback from the public audience. to renew student excitement and bolster local impact, tca 2017 highlighted interaction with clients, i.e. local businesses combined with ip from nswc crane. second, design sprints (google sprints) were introduced to streamline student determination if the implementation of ip or other ideas had client merit and customer validation. a student team began by running a sprint on the problem posed by the client, and if initial customer validation was successful in the sprint, the teams would then transition to formal feasibility and prototyping, and finally to completion of the business model, if time allowed. this process allowed the students to fail and pivot quickly. as woods et al., (2016) discussed, the students could then “invest in, learn from, promote, and celebrate bite-sized successes. then repeat” (p. 99). more time was spent on teaching tools to the students in the 2017 tca to ensure students were well trained in development practices to benefit each student throughout their academic and professional careers. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23931 | august 3, 2021 14 figure 4. culminating tca program timeline table 1. tca impact on young entrepreneur characteristics characteristics (bezerra et al., 2017) tca program implementations practical activities as a way to develop new business ideas 2012 – usage of course developed ideation process by celuch et al.; interaction with nswc crane for ip centrality of the incubation process 2012 – crane ip inventor interaction 2015 – fit test aimed at supply side feedback 2017 – jtbd demand side innovation; shift to selfsustaining unstructured use of toolset. lack of credibility and resources 2014 – program marketed to entire campus 2015 – program moves to innovation pointe; prototyping added. 2017 – sprint process; program recognition difficulty in maintaining a long-term relationship with the university 2015 – access to the usi applied engineering center & center for applied research © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23931 | august 3, 2021 15 tca 2018 and 2019 (figure 4) included increased professional development components and introduced the jobs to be done (jtbd) toolset to the students. professional development components were introduced to connect students with regional employers to intentionally optimize the talent pipeline. students used the jtbd tool in conjunction with all the other previous tools, bringing focus to the problem the customer was trying to solve rather than general customer approval on supply-side innovations. further, with student feedback on the rigidity of tca 2017, a more informal tca 2018 was conducted. these tcas focused tools toward start of program. this permitted students to work at their pace, allowing them to take ownership of their idea rather than feeling pressured working on another company’s idea or another student’s passion project. however, the self-guided pace in 2018 resulted in an overall decrease of momentum, which impacted business case completion. tca 2019 kept the same layout as tca 2018 with the goal of balancing the freedom experienced in tca 2018 and the structure that generated more output from the previous years. this final programmatic layout (figure 4) brought forward a value-add toolset with focus on customer centric validation and improved on the initial offering seven years prior (figure 3). discussion of findings the tca was originally developed as a method to aid in the translation of military ip into commercial ip, and through regular assessment a set of key features began to emerge as successes to the tca program. an analysis conducted on reviewing the impactful characteristics of young entrepreneurs found that there are four characteristics needed for student start-ups to take the next step forward (bezerra et al., 2017). during the maturation of the tca program, which occurred simultaneously to this analysis, the authors independently validated need in the characteristics identified by bazerra et al. as a result of the intentional qualitative assessment of the program and subsequent iterations as described above, the tca developed solutions to those characteristics (table 1). in total, the tca has pitched approximately 20-30 ideas over the seven-year program, in addition to the hundreds of ideas that were initially thought of but not continued due to feasibility issues. the ideas that had enough technical and market feasibility were pitched at an end of program public event (table 2) and ranged from three ideas to a maximum of nine yearly. in total, 121 students completed the program and through the 2017 cohort, data were collected on students after their tca experience (table 3). of those 89 participants that have completed the program, 100% of the students that shared data had job placement within six months, compared to the school average placement rate from 2012-2017 of 85.1% (opra, 2018). of those students in the workforce, rates of 64% and 71% (opra, 2018) are observed for participants who stayed in southwest indiana and university data of those within 70 miles of campus, respectively. additionally, noted within the collected data from the tca, nine participants created their own start-up companies. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23931 | august 3, 2021 16 anecdotally, past participants stated that during interviews with their future employers, a major discussion point was their participation in and skillsets developed throughout the tca program. in an effort to increase the innovation index of the surrounding region, the 100% placement of participants is crucial to the success of the regional brainpower and intellectual capital initiatives developed at grant inception. as the program is open to all students, and those students who submit an application are pursuing advancement of their understanding and interest in innovation, the students who decide to become participants can be considered some of the university’s most ambitious students. even so, participants have traditionally been top students both academically and through campus involvement, as a result of the evaluation criteria utilized. even though the program has a lower rate of retention to southwest indiana relative to all usi year (# of ideas) list of ideas year (# of ideas) list of ideas 2012 (3) • bedsore reduction smart pad • student centered course • scheduling • smart target 2016 (5) • exceed group communication • marshalling gloves for airports • spara all-in-one household energy conservation • kitera marketing sprint and design • eaglei 2013 (4) • eband theme park • tracking • real time inventory • tracking system for stores • instant coupon using • geofencing • cell phone identification during emergency or disaster 2017 (7) • boredom busters sprint/app • 5d analytics sprint • motivating systems feasibility/market • 2hook4: pitch and sprint • tca branding/ marketing sprint • dt application in engineering • dt application in medicine 2014 (9) • 3-d scanner • pur-wheel • physical therapy tracker • tread condition alert system • stop tops • smart roof • foundation damage detection • intellitarget • clever cubes 2018 (4) • magic glasses • drone catcher • grill regulator • nature nodes 2015 (5) • ez spooler • locify • hose helper • volver reel system • motor development arm 2019 (7) • ur trash • curio • riverside cinema • filetor • involve life • wave noise cancelling system • screagle card table 1. summary of idea creation through tcas © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23931 | august 3, 2021 17 graduates (64% compared to 71%), these participants remain in the region, promoting its growth rather than moving to traditionally rich innovation magnetitic areas of the country. though the program aimed to advance a participant’s innovation capacity, as opposed to the creation of startups, it is important to note that ~10% of the graduates have taken it upon themselves to start a business. table 2. participant data after tca (through 2017 tca cohort) throughout the program, the most critical observation has been the correlation between success and the student’s buy-in that the tools are useful and necessary throughout their careers. this connection is the reason why the program has adapted iteratively from 2012 (figure 3) to 2017 (figure 4). during the program, the participants do not directly see the benefit of the tca tools, at times expressing frustration with the non-academic techniques. however, once the program is completed and a successful pitch has been presented, the students are better able to view the usability of these tools in the future, and how the tools shaped the results of their tca experience, expressed via their statements related to job placement being driven by their participation in the program. the tca program was purpose-built to be adaptive to changing landscapes in cohort profile, available ip, and new innovation discovery techniques. through the adaptations of the program, the structure was fine-tuned to maximize impact for students and community. first, the program had to realize its capabilities, and it was quickly identified that multi-disciplinary inclusive interaction is crucial, as were the roles of mentors and external participants. once the program adopted these considerations, participants received both an enhanced understanding of technological theory and realization of technology commercial feasibility. it was noted that while knowledge of equipment, and science is generally crucial to prototype functionality, vision and creativity are required to bring a truly innovative opportunity to the table. expansion of the opportunity to explore entrepreneurship across a university community brings diverse ideas and thought, in turn enhancing the student experience, programmatic output, and long-tail economic impact. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23931 | august 3, 2021 18 adaptions from the initial undertaking of the tca found success in developing student understanding that failure occurs, and in order to maximize value from those failures it is important to fail quickly to identify whether to kill, pivot, or focus effort. the five-day sprint was introduced to push the participants to not loiter with an idea and the inclusion of the sprint forced them to explore an idea, develop a testable prototype, focus on customer feedback, and make the decision on whether or not to move forward. this provided enhanced value, as it does in the context of software development, by providing a mechanism to timebox the creation of something tangible and testable. using this iterative process, the 2016 and 2017 cohorts attempted to have more direct impact on the external community by providing innovation as a service to external clients, which required a more structured schedule and coordination with local businesses. these cohorts were successful in creating ideas and delivering products for these businesses, but the impact on the student was missed. they learned the tools, but were unable to see how the tools work towards an idea that resonated, and therefore did not personally connect to the problems or the solutions addressing the needs of these external entities. the 2018 and 2019 cohorts prioritized ideation and problem solving that is relevant to the participants and generates passion and enthusiasm. since the ideas originated from the student, they had complete buy-in on the importance of the problem they attempted to resolve. this resulted in a more thought-provoking and rewarding experience for the students, though the immediate impact on the regional community diminished. following several iterations of the program it was determined that this promoted intermediate and long-term return for the community as a result of equipping these cohorts with the tools necessary to identify and exploit economic opportunities for either themselves or their employers upon graduation. in review of the seven-year program, it was found that participants needed to learn balance and agility. traditional entrepreneurship programs deliver on supply-side innovations, which are often those with high potential but in search of a customer. the introduction of jobs to be done, as well as the sprint processes brought focus to the consumer. the authors noted that students can have trouble accepting that their idea is not the right idea; providing a framework to hear directly from potential customers has immense value in validating their idea or providing potential pivot opportunities. similarly, solely focusing solely on demand-side innovation places limitations on ideation and restricts impact of potential outcomes. participants and coordinators have to be agile in the use of different frameworks to help understand prospective problems or needs. mentors have to be open to other frameworks to aid in a guiding participant’s prospective venture. while a mentor-sponsored framework may be beneficial, other processes are available to formulate, test, and move an idea forward, the authors found it critical for mentors and participants to have many tools in their toolbox from which to gain insight. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23931 | august 3, 2021 19 as a direct result of the tca, the rural indiana technology commercialization initiative was started and other national federal labs have begun their own commercialization academies (air force research laboratory, 2015). the program has been recognized nationally, including commendation as a significant contributor to the successful relationship with nswc crane during a briefing hosted by the office of vice president, mike pence (luttrell, 2017). as a program initiated through grant funding, usi decided at the culmination of the grant to continue the program. conclusion by objective measure the tca program has been considered a success in providing new capabilities to usi graduates and subsequently the region, each graduate of the tca program is equipped with skillsets that prepare them to constantly look for opportunity, communicate the value of that opportunity, and capitalize on it. the success of the program is quantitatively demonstrated to align with the goal of raising the innovation capacity of usi graduates and the region. in an effort to increase the regional innovation index score to 20% by 2025, the tca generated employment placement of 100% of participants in positions within six months of graduation, retention of 64% of this top-tier talent in the region, and the generation of nine new entities via participants who created their own startup. while these quantitative indicators of success are powerful, it is important to note that they are also coupled with qualitative recognition at the highest levels of the federal government and regional partners. the resulting product from the tca is enhanced human-capital planted throughout the southwest indiana community via shovel-ready entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs who are equipped to provide exponential return to themselves and their employers as they enter the workforce. it is clear that the long-tail impact of the 121 tca participants involved since inception in 2012 will have a profound impact on the economic expansion of the region. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23931 | august 3, 2021 20 acknowledgments the authors would like to thank the lilly endowment initiative to promote opportunities through educational collaborations round iii for the funding of the tca program. they would also like to thank mentors and coordinators that have participated in the program and have been valuable assets to teaching concepts and sharing experiences with our undergraduate students: jack smothers, jason salstrom, andrew moad, kevin celuch, bryan bourdeau, debbie dewey, charles kelly, gene recker, and the regional community. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23931 | august 3, 2021 21 references bezerra, é. d., borges, c., & andreassi, t. 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(2015). in like flint: how the innovation incubator at um–flint fosters social entrepreneurship in a city remaking itself. metropolitan universities, 26(1), 53-70. economic development coalition of southwest indiana. (2019). https://www.southwestindiana.org/ gage. (2019). growth alliance greater evansville economic development. https://www.growthallianceevv.com/ garcia, s. c., & ustymchuk, n. (2020). seeking inclusion through local entrepreneurship training initiatives in low-income communities. metropolitan universities, 31(2), 7191. https://doi.org/10.18060/23810 gilbert, d. (2010). integrating theory and practice for student entrepreneurs: an applied learning model. journal of enterprising culture, 18(01), 83-106. https://doi.org/10.1142/s0218495810000495 hanna, k. a. (2013). campus and community connections: the evolving iupui common theme project. metropolitan universities, 24, 60 69. heinrich, b., yaklin, b., goodrich, d. j., & knott, j. l. (2018). people, practices, and patterns: transforming into a learning institution. metropolitan universities, 29(3), 85–107-185– 107. https://doi.org/10.18060/21469 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11159-017-9665-y https://doi.org/10.1108/00400910510617033 https://www.southwestindiana.org/ https://www.growthallianceevv.com/ https://doi.org/10.18060/23810 https://doi.org/10.1142/s0218495810000495 https://doi.org/10.18060/21469 © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23931 | august 3, 2021 22 innovation 2.0. (2019). indiana business research center. http://www.statsamerica.org johnson jr, j. h. (2014). public-private partnership, entrepreneurship strategy, and regional economic development: a case study. metropolitan universities, 25(1), 5-38. jurkowski, o., & kerr, s. (2010). development of an educational innovation incubator. techtrends, 54(2), 72-77. klugh, e. l., & williams, r. c. (2017). creating a university driven “ingepreneurial” ecosystem in west baltimore: a strategy for rust belt revitalization. metropolitan universities, 28(2), 103-123. https://doi.org/10.18060/21510 knapp, j., zeratsky, j., & kowitz, b. (2016). sprint: how to solve big problems and test new ideas in just five days. simon & schuster. luttrell, b. (2017). usi recognized for nswc crane partnership at office of the vice president. https://www.usi.edu/news/releases/2017/10/usi-recognized-for-nswc-crane-partnershipat-office-of-the-vice-president/ ochs, j. b., watkins, t. a., & boothe, b. w. (2001). creating a truly multidisciplinary entrepreneurial educational environment. journal of engineering education, 90(4), 577583. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2168-9830.2001.tb00642.x opra. (2018). 2017 graduate destination. osterwalder, a., & pigneur, y. (2010). business model generation: a handbook for visionaries, game changers, and challengers. john wiley & sons, inc. tekula, r., & jhamb, j. (2015). universities as intermediaries: impact investing and social entrepreneurship. metropolitan universities, 26(1), 35-52. thompson, d. (2012). accelerating the growth of the next generation of innovators. ohio state entrepreneurial business law journal, 8, 379 391. woods, s., reed, b., & smith-howell, d. (2016). building an engagement center through love of place: the story of the barbara weitz community engagement center. metropolitan universities, 27(3), 84-105. http://www.statsamerica.org/ https://doi.org/10.18060/21510 https://www.usi.edu/news/releases/2017/10/usi-recognized-for-nswc-crane-partnership-at-office-of-the-vice-president/ https://www.usi.edu/news/releases/2017/10/usi-recognized-for-nswc-crane-partnership-at-office-of-the-vice-president/ https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2168-9830.2001.tb00642.x © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23931 | august 3, 2021 23 supplementary material supplemental figure 1. student application for tca program. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23931 | august 3, 2021 24 © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23931 | august 3, 2021 25 © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23931 | august 3, 2021 26 supplemental figure 2. business model canvas (osterwalder & pigneur, 2010). arthur l. chlebowski1, joshua d. mcwilliams2, william c. hawkins3, and stephanie el tawil4 southwest indiana regional background decision making for programmatic changes student selection instructors technology selection talent development ideation framework feasibility framework business model canvas design sprint framework jobs to be done framework results and findings discussion of findings acknowledgments supplementary material original research © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23884 | february 15, 2021 35 improving workforce readiness skills among college adult learners through new technologies: lessons from two schools sara b. haviland1, steven robbins2, vinetha belur3, gernissia cherfrere4 , and david klieger5 1,2,3,4,5 academic to career research center, educational testing service cite as: haviland, s.b., robbins, s., belur, v., cherfrere, g., and klieger, d. (2021).improving workforce readiness skills among adult learners through new technologies: lessons from two schools. metrpolitan universities, 32(1), 35-53. doi: 10.18060/23884 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract employers report struggles to find work-ready candidates who possess a desired combination of job-specific technical, general math and reading, and social and behavioral skills. community colleges are ideally situated to address these shortages, delivering a trained local labor force and often collaborating directly with employers and regional development boards to ensure the employability of their students and the economic vitality of their regions. one tactic to address these shortages is to introduce trainings geared directly toward soft and basic skill development. this paper presents case studies of two schools that use technology-enhanced trainings to incorporate work-readiness skill trainings in career technical education programs that are (1) flexible and learner-centric due to technology-enhanced delivery, and (2) use evidence-based assessment and intervention strategies to promote soft skill and literacy expectations. the trainings were provided by a non-profit education research and measurement company, which served as developer and research partner for the community colleges. results demonstrate adult learner satisfaction and commitment with these blended learning and mobile technology solutions. the authors discuss factors that facilitate training success, which include securing student buy-in and developing collaborative partnerships. keywords: workforce development, adult learners, career and technical education, critical skill development, social and behavioral skills https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23884 | february 15, 2021 36 introduction in the united states and globally, in cities and the regions they anchor, the knowledge and skills that employers, workforce preparation programs, and postsecondary institutions require have changed. today, employers demand increased education and training as prerequisites for jobs (casner-lotto & barrington, 2006; hart research associates, 2015; institute for a competitive workforce, 2012; levy & murnane, 2004). the increase in educational requirements is largely driven by skills gaps reported by employers. in addition to concerns about job-specific technical skills, employers report gaps in two critically important skill domains. first, for today’s complex technological economy, workers lack requisite cognitive and academic proficiencies (oecd, 2013). the second gap is a lack of proficiency across a broad array of behavioral competencies, which have been demonstrated to be instrumental to workplace success (casner-lotto & barrington, 2006; deming, 2017; national research council, 2011). these competencies sometimes have been referred to as “non-cognitive skills,” “socio-emotional skills,” “21st century skills,” “work readiness skills,” “soft skills,” or “employability skills” (see campion et al., 2011; parry, 1996). while technical skills help workers in specific jobs, noncognitive skills tend to be important for a wide variety of jobs. taken together, these can be considered essential skills. community colleges are well-positioned to be part of the solution in developing these competencies through affordable education that is often geared toward job-related skill development. with expanding portfolios in workforce development, the role of community colleges in directly meeting the skill demands of today’s employers is also expanding. this paper presents two community colleges serving urban students that recently worked with a partner institution (educational testing service, or ets, a non-profit educational organization) to pilot novel, technology-supported and evidence-based approaches to instilling critical competencies in adult learners. in both schools, the guiding research goal was to understand challenges and facilitating factors that accompanied the use of expanded remote technology to support essential skill development, and how these technologies were received by students. this paper highlights some of the implementation factors that supported success, including securing student buy-in and building organizational partnerships. lessons across these programs can be used to inform future efforts to help students improve in these essential skill areas for workforce success. an evolving understanding of essential skills cognitive competency and behavioral competency have different standing in formal education systems, community colleges included. cognitive competencies are the basic knowledge and skills, such as reading, writing, math, and content/technical knowledge of facts and processes that are part of traditional academic curricula, typically the domain of developmental education. behavioral competencies incorporate aspects of conscientiousness/ motivation that are distinguishable from cognitive skills, and are comprised of skills which primarily reflect © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23884 | february 15, 2021 37 intrapersonal and interpersonal qualities such as initiative, resilience, teamwork, and responsibility. in some sense, different disciplines and industries may incorporate elements of cognitive and/or behavioral competencies as part of their education or career training. educators have long understood that cognitive competencies are skills that can be developed over time, and community colleges endeavor to provide opportunities for students to develop these essential skills for career success. three cognitive skill domains that comprise essential skills for both college and the workplace include prose/literacy, document/information use, and numeracy. these domains have been a central focus of cognitive skills and literacy assessment for more than 100 years (kell & lubinski, 2013; kirsch, 2001; resnick & resnick, 1977) and continue to be critical to success in 21st century environments (oecd, 2013). as noted by the oecd, “at the most fundamental level, literacy and numeracy skills constitute a foundation for developing higher-order cognitive skills… and are essential for gaining access to and understanding specific domains of knowledge” (oecd, 2013, p. 56). many students arrive at college prepared to function and expand in these skill domains; developmental education courses, a varied network of programs designed to prepare students academically for collegelevel work, are offered for those who require remediation. unlike cognitive competencies, behavioral competencies have only more recently been understood as malleable skills that can be developed, and are perhaps equally important for personal and professional success in the growing global marketplace (national research council, 2011). behavioral skills rarely are taught systematically on any educational level (kirsch, braun, yamamoto, & sum, 2007; national research council, 2012; cf. u.s. department of education, n.d.). furthermore, the existing means, programs, and venues for assessing, developing, and supporting these competencies are not sufficient (national research council, 2012). behavioral competencies programs are created and administered on an ad hoc basis and participation is often voluntary; the wide variety of methods deployed include workshops, courses, credentials, and career services programming (noe, 2020). the existing evidence of valid and effective curricula and instruments to support career readiness skills development is limited; improving the evidence base of optimal implementation, program applicability and transportability between contexts, and the efficacy of cognitive and behavioral competency skill programs is an important task for workforce development today. promising applications of technology to support community college students understanding that essential skills are malleable and valued by employers, it is important to identify systematic ways to improve proficiency among learners. to that end, the authors present some applications of technology that may be ideally suited to community college learners, by introducing flexibility into the learning process. as with any technology in the learning environment, it is important to examine our assumptions (kruger-ross & holcomb, 2012). © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23884 | february 15, 2021 38 community colleges have diverse student bodies with specific learning challenges. being predominantly adult learners and non-traditional students, community college students are often balancing competing demands of work and family that can hinder participation in traditional, classroom-based coursework. the two cases presented in this paper are deploying technology that extends learning beyond the traditional classroom, introducing flexibility to the learning process. blended learning maximizes remote learning online learning confers several benefits, such as (1) allowing for a scalable and standardized delivery of the assessment and curriculum, (2) immediate feedback and explanations for learners on the end-of-module knowledge checks, (3) the ability for instructors to monitor student progress in the online system, and (4) virtual access to instruction and practice opportunities outside of the classroom, an important capability particularly with adult learners. however, courses can also be designed from the bottom up to blend elements of both remote and classroom-based learning. this blended learning approach has been shown to be more effective than pure online learning or instructor-led courses, particularly at the postsecondary level (means et al., 2013). compared to pure online models, blended learning models leverage the role of the instructor, in-class group work, and whole-class discussion to facilitate engagement, critical thinking, and exposure to different viewpoints and perspectives, while allowing for opportunities for students to provide and receive in-person feedback (garrison & vaughan, 2008). this also facilitates what others have called a “situated” learning environment, an environment that is believed to be particularly effective for adult learners which promotes learning by allowing learners to bring their prior knowledge and experiences into the learning setting and construct new knowledge through interactions with their peers, their instructor and instructional materials and activities (brown et. al, 1989). finally, the in-class component of the curriculum allows instructors to provide additional support, including one-on-one support, to students who may be struggling with making progress in self-directed online content. remote, mobile-enhanced and online technology allows learners to engage at their convenience one way to create a blended learning experience in an existing course is to add remote elements. app-based mobile technology offers two important pedagogical features: (1) instructional content presented in small “chunks” or “micro lessons” that allow for rapid absorption and rehearsal, and (2) practice test items with immediate feedback. with respect to the first feature, fulantelli, taibi, and arrigo (2015) highlight the importance of content relevance, learner control of the learning process, and explicit and manageable activities in a proposed taskinteraction learning analytics framework for mobile learning. these notions reflect the broader research on practice and successive relearning and rehearsal (c.f. dunlosky & rawson, 2015). © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23884 | february 15, 2021 39 the mobile learning lessons and exercises used in these case studies reflect the critical pedagogical features highlighted by fulantelli et al. (2015) in that they are based on both relevant and contextualized essential micro-lessons with training content that is based on evidence-based learning progressions that inform instructional content. further, learners dictate when and where they participate in the training. with respect to the second feature, whether called retrieval practice, practice testing, or test-enhanced learning, it has been well-documented that practice with immediate feedback helps optimize learning (dunlosky, rawson, marsh, nathan, & willingham, 2013; roediger & butler, 2011). while literature exists in various form regarding the use of technology in learning, or how to build essential skills, to date there is little work on how to use technology to build essential skills. in 2019, ets partnered with two community colleges to pilot technology-enhanced essential skills trainings, working with each school to deliver foundational skills alongside their programs as part of two separate, but related research studies on essential skills development; one school delivering cognitive essential skill training, and the other delivering behavioral essential skill training. the ets team evaluated these programs to understand challenges and facilitating factors that accompanied the use of expanded remote technology to support essential skill development, and how these technologies were received by students. methods the two school pilots are approached as case studies, which were designed to determine efficacy and identify best practices for imparting essential skills to community college learners. in both cases, the training was provided at no expense to the schools by the research unit of ets, which also paid implementation costs for the study. both cases are designed as implementation evaluations and include data collections from students as well as faculty and staff of the institutions. our data are drawn from several sources, including preand post-course surveys, interviews with faculty and administrators, and student focus groups results are shared by school, demonstrating the challenges and possibilities of efforts to bring behavioral and cognitive skill development to these students with blended learning models. the two programs are profiled in table 1. case study 1 occurred in the continuing studies program at a large northeastern community college serving a state capital with roughly half minority enrollment, largely black. case study 2 occurred in two different departments and courses, the department of adult education and the school of arts & sciences’ college readiness department, at a very large two-year midwestern college that serves a large proportion of career technical education students in a major city, with a majority enrollment of minorities, largely hispanic. results are framed around the key stakeholders in each system: the students, and the instructors and college personnel. the authors provide discussion about each case before turning to general discussion across cases. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23884 | february 15, 2021 40 table 1. profile of two case studies case 1 case 2 region northeast midwest school size 5,000-9,999 over 10,000 essential skills covered behavioral cognitive technology web-based lessons mobile app program location standalone, non-credit course embedded into developmental education and adult learning courses case study 1 this case study featured a standalone eight-week course offered through the school’s continuing studies program during the summer and fall terms of 2019. to participate in this free course, the only pre-requisites were (a) to be at least 18 years old and (b) to have either a high school diploma or high school equivalency credential. topics included initiative, perseverance, responsibility, flexibility, resilience, teamwork, citizenship, customer service orientation, problem solving, and ingenuity. participants self-enrolled in either an enhanced self-directed or a more fully blended learning version of the course; both featured the same content and were run concurrently by the same instructor. in both versions, students were expected to attend the first and last session in-person. during the first session, students completed a personality assessment and reviewed the score report with the instructor, received an overview of the course design and expectations, and participated in data collection via student experience surveys. during the last session, students de-briefed with the instructor on their experiences and participated in postcourse data collection via surveys and/or focus groups. the enhanced self–directed cohort completed eight online training modules, along with any prework or homework assignments, independently and at their own pace, and therefore had a “blend” that favored more flexible and independent learning. this was the less popular version, with only three students enrolling in the first semester the program was offered, and one in the second. the fully blended learning cohort completed the online training modules as homework on a weekly basis and participated in a one-hour in-person session at the institution, and therefore had a “blend” that comprised roughly half flexible and independent learning, and half in-person engagement and support. the instructor reviewed portions of the online modules and geared most of the class time towards engaging in activities, facilitating discussions and extending the lesson with relevant handouts. both versions of the course featured brief knowledge checks upon the completion of each online learning module, which were multiple choice and demonstrated the cognitive skill that was the subject of each lesson. the course experienced low enrollments that resulted in only 13 student completions across two class cohorts. the instructor and administrator each shared their perspectives in a formal exit interview and through ongoing check-ins with the research team. across cohorts, the © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23884 | february 15, 2021 41 race/ethnicity of the 13 participants was white (31%, n=4), hispanic (31%, n=4), asian (23%, n=3), and black/african american (15%, n=2). the participants were primarily female (77%, n=10) and held at least an associate’s degree (69%, n=9). initially during the summer 2019 course, 10 students registered for the workforce program for career development course, which included seven students for the blended learning course and three students for the enhanced self-directed course. however, only five blended learning students and three enhanced self-directed students (a) consented into the study (b) attended the first session, and (c) proceeded with attending the subsequent courses. for the fall 2019 course, nine students attended the first day of class, with five students persisting to the end of the course. all students who completed the course participated in the post-course survey, but with only 13 respondents our focus was on the qualitative-based open-text response items rather than numerical analyses. case study 2 this case study integrated a mobile learning training platform (the app) for cognitive skill development as a required component of existing developmental education and adult education programs. this consisted of 150 micro-lessons plus practice items to be delivered on learners’ mobile phones via a text messaging app. these lessons are tied directly to the essential literacy domains in the cognitive assessment, which is an assessment of abilities in prose, documentation, and quantitative literacy. students were given a cognitive assessment of their literacy skills at the beginning of the fall 2019 academic semester, the results of which were shared with the instructors. students then completed at least eight hours of mandatory homework on a mobile training app over the course of 8 weeks. at the conclusion of the eight weeks, the cognitive assessment was given again, along with a brief survey of student perceptions of the program. the two classes were a noncredit (pass or repeat) language arts ged/adult education class held twice a week for 3.5 hours at a time and an introductory college reading and writing developmental educational class, also non-credit, held twice a week for 2.25 hours at a time. students completed at least eight hours of mandatory homework on a mobile training app over the course of 8 weeks. at the conclusion of the eight weeks, the cognitive assessment was given again, along with a brief 31item survey of student perceptions that was administered online. the study team also conducted two 30-minute focus groups to inquire about students’ hands on experiences in using the app and their perspectives on the usefulness of the app in improving their literacy skills; and a 30-minute phone interview with each instructor. the focus groups, led by the deans of the two departments, were audio-recorded and analyzed by the research staff. the two instructors played a key role in the implementation of the training intervention by acting as moderators or brokers of the process. first, they provided feedback to the research team on all aspects of the training materials and process, including the assessment process, the score report, and alignment of the mobile app content with their teaching goals. they did this both during the © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23884 | february 15, 2021 42 implementation and also in interviews after its completion. they also gauged students’ reactions to the training intervention and keeping the research team abreast of the how the intervention was being received. instructors sent emails, at times on a daily basis, to share their feedback on students’ reactions and the pulse of the classroom. administrators also provided feedback to the research team through check-in emails and reviews of the initial project report. in case study 2, 34 students enrolled across both classes. with 21 cte learners (a) consenting to the study, (b) attending the first session, and (c) proceeding with attending all subsequent courses. more than half of the participants (57%) identified as hispanic. the rest were black/african american (24%) or white (14%). results: instilling essential skills in community colleges the discussion is framed around the key stakeholders in each system: the students, and the instructors and college personnel. we provide discussion about findings specific to each case before turning to the general discussion across cases. case study 1: voluntary behavioral competencies training in the following results, the authors explore the experiences and perspectives of the various stakeholders (i.e., students, administrators, and instructor) to assess the quality of the training, and then explore factors that created challenges for implementation of the course. unless otherwise noted, both the strengths and potential areas for improvement are echoed across the various data sources and course offerings (i.e., summer and fall 2019, enhanced remote versus a more blended learning model). student perspectives the following findings are drawn from open response items on post-course student surveys. motivations for participation. participants reported that they were motivated to register for the training because they viewed it as a preparatory course for career development to start or re-enter the workforce or an opportunity to enhance their job skills. given that the training program provides scaffolded material in the curriculum that supports participants in these areas, it appears that the participants had goals and expectations that were aligned to the overall objective of the course. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23884 | february 15, 2021 43 for instance, a few students shared in student surveys: o “i want to learn to prepare for working. i want to learn how to solving problem [sic] and communicate with people in work.” o “i'm looking for a job now and would like to be prepared better in advance.” o “i think this is my first step to start my career.” according to survey data, if given the opportunity to retake the course, the majority of participants would be primarily motivated by the incentive of a certificate of completion or feedback on their skills. satisfaction with content and delivery. overall, student respondents were satisfied with the program’s socio-emotional benefits and work readiness preparations, reporting increased confidence in their ability to use soft skills such as teamwork and responsibility. they also found the online modules easy to manage, informative, and visually stimulating. students felt more equipped with work readiness skills to pursue new forms of employment and more confident engaging in the hiring process. for example, some students shared: “the whole training with all the modules are really helpful for people to get prepared for [an] interview. and i think this will be very beneficial for the students when they graduate college.” “so, i’ve never worked before. i mean, it’s been like ages [since] i stopped working. i was a little bit nervous how will i get trained, and how will i start my first job and how will i go for interview, what they’ll ask me and all that stuff? but after coming through this course, it made me really more confident. i was happy throughout the course. i mean, i’ve learned many things and i’m ready for a new job.” the program offered these students targeted training that increased their confidence as they prepared for the job market. in another instance, a blended learning student shared that the module transcriptions and captions were very beneficial in helping the student comprehend and learn the content, which was an advantage of the format because english was not the student’s primary language. instructional quality and assessment. when reflecting on the instructional delivery of the course content in summer 2019, both the blended learning and self-directed students also shared an appreciation for the high level of interaction and engagement the instructor provided. the blended learning environment featured opportunities for students to share experiences and learn from one another. for the self-directed group the instructor also provided weekly email check-ins with the students and gave the students feedback. the instructional assistance was so wellreceived that the self-directed students recommended the instructional support be increased to twice per week. in reference to the knowledge check assessments, all the respondents either © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23884 | february 15, 2021 44 agreed or strongly agreed that they were comfortable with the process of completing the assessment and the assessment results made sense to them. in this same vein, all the participants agreed that the assessment gave them a better sense of what they can work on to be a stronger student or employee. room for improvement. while students were generally satisfied with the course offering, they also provided suggestions for areas needing improvement. for instance, multiple students suggested lengthening the blended learning course from one hour to two hours, because they believed the dialogue and constructive feedback with colleagues and the instructor were very useful, but often limited due to time constraints. students also recommended a followup course be offered to students so that students could continue to access and learn from the modules. additionally, survey data showed that participants also identified technical problems with the internet modules and issues of alignment with career values as areas for improvement. offering possible recommendations to strengthen the course, participants shared a desire to engage with more realistic examples, engage directly with career services, and receive hardcopies of the course materials, indicating they craved a learning experience that was further contextualized, a promising model (fulantelli et al., 2015). instructor reflections support more blended model. overall, the instructor shared that his primary goal was to build students’ confidence with each soft skill introduced in the program. for instance, the instructor shared, “if they [students] can come away feeling more confident about themselves as an employee and how they handle situations at work, then i think, they got out of it what they should have.” during the eight-week course, the instructor found the implementation of the curriculum, correspondence, and resources (e.g., modules, videos, and pre-work articles) well-prepared and useful. however, he encountered inconsistent student attendance, and noted that low accountability due to the voluntary nature of the program was an ongoing challenge. when students attended class, time constraints also posed as a challenge because the 60 minutes allotted did not provide enough opportunity to engage in discussions. the instructor also noted that the self-directed students had low student participation in written discussions, which he found somewhat problematic. the instructor also reflected on the possibility of converting the course to be credit bearing, recommending that the type of course and number of students within the selected course be considered to determine the adequate length of time for the training. if engagement and student participation is important, the instructor felt that increasing the program length to more than 60 minutes would give students the opportunity to engage in meaningful conversations and share their experiences. the instructor also felt that there should also be higher expectations on the student workload, more clearly defined logistics on how it will be implemented within a class © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23884 | february 15, 2021 45 setting, and an expansion on the importance of the program. given the instructor’s feedback, the blended learning version of the course appeared to be the optimal condition. supporting equity. in interviews, the program administrator shared that she was initially unsure about the relevance of the training, which was novel for the continuing studies department. however, after seeing the course in action and receiving positive feedback from the instructor and students, she felt that the training was very beneficial to the department. since the non-credit bearing centers are revenue-driven, the administrator noted that it could have been difficult to implement the program if there were not the funds provided to assist with implementing the course. students represented various age groups and life experiences, and therefore work and educational experiences also varied. the administrator remarked that the program provided an important avenue for students to become more marketable, sharing, “some are new immigrants; some are individuals who are restarting their careers maybe after a long gap. so, they come to non-credit to get these types of trainings to get back into a marketable individual in the marketplace. sometimes, we have individuals who are struggling to find a way as to why they are not progressing in professional world despite of having the training. so, this could be the missing piece for them.” given the students the administrator noted to benefit from the program, it was a useful way to close key equity gaps in the job market. beyond the credit bearing courses, the administrator also recommends offering the program to bilingual programs to help bridge the cultural gap. case study 2: integrated cognitive skills program in the following results, the authors explore the experiences and perspectives of the various stakeholders (i.e., students, administrators, and instructor) to assess the quality of the training, and then explore factors that created challenges for implementation of the course. in general, students became more confident in their reading skills because of using the app, and many also noted the ease of accessing the app’s content at any time. instructors felt the students were excited to use the app for homework and felt the content on the app aligned well with their teaching goals. satisfaction with content and delivery. participants cited three main ways they benefited from using the app during the semester including (a) the ease of learning anywhere/anytime, (b) the feedback and explanations provided by the app when an answer was incorrect, which helped to increase their reading skills and reading comprehension, and (c) the skills the app taught them in scanning the paragraph for answers to their questions and looking for keywords. with respect to ease of learning, eleven of the adult learners reported they used the app for short chunks of time, for instance, after their workday, while cooking, while waiting at the doctor’s office, or when © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23884 | february 15, 2021 46 relaxing after dinner. on the other hand, six adult learners used the app for extended periods of time, and four learners said they used it both ways. the learners reported they enjoyed the convenience the app gave them to learn the way they preferred and when they preferred. with respect to improving reading skills and scanning skills, nine of the adult learners reported feeling like the app was very useful in increasing these skills. in terms of text messages that were sent to participants after a certain period of non-activity, eleven students agreed that the text messages motivated them to open the app and work on the practice lessons. app and assessment experiences. with respect to the pretest, a majority of the 21 student survey respondents indicated that seeing the score report from their initial pre-course assessment increased their desire to improve themselves. eight students were satisfied with their scores, while eleven were neutral. with respect to the training app, participants generally reported they liked using the app for homework. most participants (n=18) felt that doing the practice lessons on the app helped them to improve their reading or reading comprehension skills, and seventeen participants reported they liked using the mobile app because it allowed them to practice and learn anywhere/anytime using their cell phone. a majority of students indicated they would welcome additional homework assignments on an app similar to the one used this semester. instructors moderate the learning experience. instructors acted as advocates for their students during the intervention process. for instance, when distributing pretest score reports to students, both instructors thought of ways to mitigate potential negative self-perceptions due to low scores on the assessment. one instructor indicated she buffered students by saying “don’t take this personally, but have a goal in mind that…this is where you’d like to be at the end of semester.” similarly, the instructors cautioned the research team that setting an expectation that the assessment would take 2 or 2.5 hours rather than 1.5 hours would allow students to prepare themselves better mentally and also prevent discouragement. one instructor noted, “some might have felt discouraged about their abilities since we told them 1.5 hours and it was taking them longer.” the instructors also performed in a motivational function, for instance, motivating students to perform their best on the pretest by telling them their performance on the pretest would determine the kinds/types of activities they were given the rest of the semester on the mobile app. equity considerations and room for improvement. program administrators reported major differences in students’ eagerness and interest to participate in the focus groups by class, with the ged/adult education students more motivated and eager to share their experiences, and the developmental education class less motivated and more reluctant to talk. this same theme of more motivation from the ged/adult education students to work on the app and less motivation from the developmental education students was also observed by the instructors and research team throughout the implementation of the program. the administrators elaborated on several differences between the two groups of students including age difference with half of the students from the ged/adult education being over age 30 which might account for their comfort in © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23884 | february 15, 2021 47 speaking up in the focus groups. the administrators also shared that the ged/adult education program is grant-funded and as such there is flexibility to give these students a tremendous amount of support and structure including more advising hours, more communication with students, a structured attendance policy, and more professional development experiences. however, the administrators also noted that the two groups were similar in other ways, including “race, ses, dispositional barriers (self-efficacy, motivation, consistency, perseverance, selfawareness, attention span), life challenges, learning challenges." implementation lessons across programs overall, these case studies demonstrated a positive experience for students who persisted in these technology enhanced, blended-learning experiences. case study 1 behavioral skills training was well received by the instructor, students, and administrator as a non-credit bearing course at the community college. the two areas that resonated across the three stakeholders was the usefulness of the program towards (a) increasing work readiness skills and (b) strengthening the confidence of students in employing those behavioral competencies. with the possibility of scaling up the implementation of soft skills training across multiple classes and institutions, there are some implications that merit consideration. in this case study, the administrator specifically selected the instructor, because his interests and skill sets aligned with the overall objective the program. however, in scaling up soft skill training, programs may be introduced to instructors as required top-down initiatives. therefore, developing avenues to collaborate with or incentivize instructors may build stronger instructor buy-in. case study 2 aimed to pilot an essential cognitive skills assessment plus app solution intended to improve essential literacy skills via immediate feedback, in two community college classrooms with career technical and adult learners. some of the most basic and important findings from this study are that across both classes, a majority of learners looked forward to seeing the results of their initial assessment, found the score report encouraging, and in at least one class, were looking forward to using the app, asking about it multiple times. learners generally enjoyed using their mobile devices and apps as part of their course assignments. limitations to this study include the absence of post-course data for students who dropped the course, a common challenge in educational training program evaluation that may have been compounded by the absence of incentives (both the voluntary nature of the program, and a lack of participant incentives for the study). future studies are planned to shift these programs into existing required curriculum in both credit and non-credit programs and add participant incentives to increase research participation, even among non-completers. even with only sparse data, in comparing the cases, notable lessons about implementation included the role of student buy-in in implementation success, the role of third party support in the implementation process. the authors discuss each in turn. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23884 | february 15, 2021 48 student buy-in and implementation success in both case study 1 and 2, the general student enthusiasm for content and delivery were encouraging, as learner motivations can predict initial skill acquisition (bauer et. al, 2016). while both programs were well-received by the participants who completed them, recruitment and retention were major challenges for case study 1, the voluntary program, while case study 2 was much more successful. key differences between the programs that likely contributed to this challenge included the voluntary nature of the program and the tuition free model, which meant that students did not have any financial stake in the program. in case study 1, voluntary participation may be related to student attrition and low student participation, due to the low accountability of students to attend or complete the sessions. this was a source of frustration for the instructor and implementation team. in order to maintain high fidelity of implementation and sustain student participation in a scalable model, attaching the program to a pre-existing course as required homework may be a more viable option. incorporating an essential skills curriculum into an extant credit-bearing course, as was done with case study 2, can ensure that all learners experience the curriculum and will be motivated to complete the training activities. integration provides opportunities for learning and practicing the behavioral competencies in the context of technical content related to the learner’s career aspirations. as demonstrated by knowles (1984), placing essential skills instruction into context is best practice for designing adult learning environments that stress the criticality of the immediate pertinence of the topics for the learner and their career. further, incorporation of essential skills curriculum into courses promotes a situated learning environment particularly effective for adult learners (brown, collins, & duguid, 1989). learners bring their prior knowledge and experiences into the learning setting and construct new knowledge by working with their peers, their instructor, and the instructional materials and activities. by integrating essential skills training as a homework task, as in case study 2, all stakeholders appear to have a more seamless experience. instructors are not burdened with the loss of instructional time or with the need to reframe the scope of their predesigned course. students may feel more incentivized to complete the entire program as opposed to only partially completing the tasks and knowledge check assessments. students do not have to allocate additional time to attend a separate course, but instead the additional training is infused within their scheduled coursework. in working with field partners, the research team observed that, independent of the context and content of an actual course, learners were not likely to appreciate the importance of behavioral competencies. thus, they might be disinclined to enroll in a standalone development course on behavioral competencies, particularly if completing the course does not earn the student additional credits towards their certificate. integration provides opportunities for learning and © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23884 | february 15, 2021 49 practicing the behavioral competencies in the context of technical content related to the learners’ career aspirations. this allows the instructors and learners to relate the online content to content and issues, both career-related and technical, covered in coursework, allowing learners to reflect on how the skills apply both in the classroom as well as within their chosen careers. furthermore, facilitating implementation factors may include whether the class is for credit and for a grade, or is non-credit bearing with only pass/fail options. unless completing the homework and actively participating is tied to whether a student passes or fails, students may be able to skip homework and class sessions and still pass the class. on the other hand, students with belowaverage but not very low reading abilities, in a class where the homework/program is required for a grade, and with an instructor whose attitude reflects that they believe the program is do-able by their students, might have better outcomes with respect to student motivation and interest in the program. third-party engagement and scalability in considering long-term scalability and sustainability for these programs, it is important to acknowledge the role that third party engagement played. this factor was cited by instructors and administrators in both programs as a facilitator for program success. factors that made these partnerships work included the transparency of ets’s expectations and goals, frequent communication, joint planning, and a commitment to feedback-formative evaluationimprovement. members of the ets team worked closely with administrators in the planning phase to determine implementation design and recruitment. ets project managers offered support and troubleshooting as needed for program technology and implementation, and worked closely with instructors throughout the launch and implementation of the trainings. community colleges enter into partnerships with local organizations to expand their impact, connect to employers, and/or bring additional resources into their programs (e.g. haynes et al., 2018, . typically, this is done through contract trainings, technology centers, workforce development partnerships, welfare-to-work, or business-based scholarships (kisker and carducci, 2003). in this study partnership the pairing is somewhat different, as the college’s partner is the research arm of a non-profit and non-governmental entity. however, this introduced resources to the school that removed costs typically associated with introducing novel curricula/pedagogy, which was a factor in the success of the programs. the resource intensity of this model threatens scalability; future studies are planned to determine if the programs would succeed without the same level of third party resources and expertise, and what adjustments can be made to ensure long-term program successes. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23884 | february 15, 2021 50 conclusion though small in scale, the two case studies demonstrated student enthusiasm for novel, technologically-supported forms of essential skills training, as students in both programs reported general satisfaction with the trainings and increased confidence in their abilities. however, the form of implementation mattered; in particular, integration of the curriculum into an existing, mandatory course, as opposed to a stand-alone, voluntary, or non-credit bearing course, increased motivation for all students to engage in the curriculum and increased efficacy through providing opportunities to learn and practice in context. a strong working relationship between partners appeared to facilitate program success, and frequent communications and joint planning go a long way to ensure that relationship. given the small sample of students and high incidence of dropout in case study 1, it is imperative that research continue to fortify our understanding of these novel programs; further action research is needed to understand the impact of mobile learning modality relative to classroom and homework-based instruction and how to embed co-curricular activities that promote essential skill work readiness benchmarks in existing cte curriculum. the results of these case studies suggest best practices to inform these efforts and provide necessary structure to support student success in essential skills development. these promising results warrant further study on a larger scale. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23884 | february 15, 2021 51 references bauer, k.n., orvis, k.a., ely, k. & surface, 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(1977) the nature of literacy: an historical exploration. harvard educational review, 47(3), 370-385. https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.47.3.27263381g038222w roediger, h. l., & butler, a. c. (2011). the critical role of retrieval practice in long-term retention. trends in cognitive sciences, 15(1), 20-27. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2010.09.003 u.s. department of education. (n.d.). every student succeeds act (essa). https://www.ed.gov/essa https://doi.org/10.17226/13215 https://doi.org/10.17226/13398 http://dx.doi.org/10.1787/9789264204256-en https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.47.3.27263381g038222w https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2010.09.003 https://www.ed.gov/essa sara b. haviland1, steven robbins2, vinetha belur3, gernissia cherfrere4 , and david klieger5 results: instilling essential skills in community colleges case study 1: voluntary behavioral competencies training case study 2: integrated cognitive skills program implementation lessons across programs kirsch, i. s. (2001). the international adult literacy survey (ials): understanding what was measured (ets research report rr-01-25). educational testing service. https://doi.org/10.1002/j.2333-8504.2001.tb01867.x original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26445| march 8, 2023 70 on becoming a people’s college: placemaking as hidden curriculum sean p. crossland1 1 higher education leadership, utah valley university cite as: crossland, s.p. (2023). on becoming a people’s college: placemaking as hidden curriculum. metropolitan universities, 34(2), 70-86. doi: 10.18060/26445 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. guest editors: patrick m. green, ed.d. and susan haarman editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract this research was originally presented as a chapter in the doctoral dissertation on becoming a people’s college: an appreciative inquiry. appreciative inquiry (ai) is a participatory approach to organizational change focused on an affirmative topic choice. the topic choice of the dissertation was equity, democracy, and justice at the selected site. this article shares the motivations and relevant characteristics of the chosen fieldwork site, de anza college. three categories of considerations for the role of place and placemaking within the institution’s hidden curriculum are described: institutional identities, organizational features, and resource scarcity. these characteristics are followed by a discussion of levers of change for enhancing the role of placemaking within the hidden curriculum: prefigurative politics, creativity, and the anchor institution approach. keywords: community college, placemaking, hidden curriculum, institutional identity, organizational features, prefigurative politics, anchor institution http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26445 | march 8, 2023 71 introduction the site for this study, de anza college, was selected based on a rich history of institutional intentionality for civic learning and democratic engagement. it is one of the first community colleges with an academic certificate in leadership for social justice. it has one of the highest transfer rates in the california community college system. in the last fifteen years, the institution transformed to focus more efforts on typically underserved and historically marginalized students. these factors make for an intriguing case for examining the role of civic learning and democratic engagement at the community college. place was not originally an area of focus for the purposes of the study. the site is located in the heart of silicon valley and draws nearly 45% of its student body from san jose (institutional research & planning, 2017). the annual student headcount is approximately 22,000. ethnic demographics are as follows: 39% asian, 27% hispanic, 20% white, 7% filipino, 4% black, 2% unrecorded, less than 1% pacific islander, and less than 0.5% native american. put differently, the “student body is extraordinarily diverse, with no racial or ethnic majority” (murphy, 2014, p. 20), setting a “national standard not only for educational excellence but also for a comprehensive commitment to social justice” (elfman, 2018, p. 24). literature review de anza is situated in the heart of one of the world’s most powerful economic epicenters, silicon valley. tom izu, faculty director for the history center describes silicon valley as an intellectually ahistorical place. individuals are alienated from their communities through layers of the fantastical idea of place. he said people live in general disconnection from their communities and any historical context. there is little understanding of how real people live due to constant pressure within consumer culture and the exclusion of stories that describe historical segregation and the oppressive environment shaped during the cold war. apple (2004) describes the hidden curriculum as the “tacit teaching to students of norms, values, and dispositions that goes on simply by their living in and coping with the institutional expectations and routines…” (p. 13). hidden curriculum challenges educators to think about their roles within the context of institutional, academic, and cultural norms. the project for public spaces (2007) describes placemaking as a collective reimagination and reinvention of public spaces with “particular attention to the physical, cultural, and social identities that define a place and support its ongoing evolution” (para 1). what follows is a brief exploration of literature supporting the case for place and placemaking’s role in the understood institutional curriculum. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26445 | march 8, 2023 72 placemaking through public art has been described as a recruitment and retention strategy for community colleges (knight, 2016). public art is one of many ways to create more welcoming, attractive, and fun spaces (pps, 2007), especially considering how public art comes into existence. for example, at de anza, many murals were commissioned through student lead processes, designed and installed by students. these participatory decision-making processes speak to the belief that “commitment to the democratic capacity of our students requires institutional intentionality and public conversation” (murphy, 2014, p. 23). the cocreation of public spaces through public dialogue becomes one of many ways of cultivating the democratic capacity of students. power dynamics are an important consideration for placemaking on college campuses (davies et al., 2016). following levin and monterro-hernandez (2009), this study examines de anza college (da) with an organizational-cultural perspective. they combine organizational identity theory and culture theory to research the dynamic relationships within institutions and institutional actors. through this combination, the study attends to the subjectivity and agency of the individuals. the study also explores the sociocultural contexts that mediate “individuals’ development and expressions of their subjectivity, intentionality, and power” (p. 15). finally, it emphasizes “complexity as a central feature of social life that can be explained by examining the recreation of larger institutional structures in the process of everyday interaction in a given setting” (p. 15). overall, this lens supports describing “community colleges not as homogeneous organizations but as unique organizations that develop particular social dynamics on their own” (levin & montero-hernandez, 2009, p. 15). these dynamics constitute a culture that has a direct impact on the learning environment for students. methodology appreciative inquiry (ai) is a method focused on organizational change. as such, most literature implies a broad level of institutional buy-in throughout the process. my approach to ai took a grassroots approach rather than a top-down approach. typically, ai convenes stakeholders with the explicit purpose of participating in the process. instead, i found many ways for my process to coincide with existing meetings and met with people whenever it worked in their schedules. ai takes a positive orientation to inquiry. rather than focusing on injustices and inequities like much of critical qualitative research, ai instead emphasizes strengths rather than deficits. in ai, we focus the energy of the inquiry on the positive outcome(s) we hope to accomplish rather than the multitude of challenges, inequities, and injustices we encounter. put simply, “what we focus on becomes our reality” (hammond, 1998, p. 26). appreciative inquiry (ai) “as a methodology that takes the idea of social construction of reality to its positive extreme” (cooperrider & whitney, 2005, p.7). participants’ perceptions are an © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26445 | march 8, 2023 73 essential factor when considering a socially constructed reality. ai uses “practical action research” (kemmis et al., 2014, as cited in merriam & tisdell, 2016, p. 56) as an approach to change management. ai focuses on the positive core of organizational life and the belief that “human systems grow in the direction of what they persistently ask questions about, and this propensity is strongest and most sustainable when the means and ends of inquiry are positively correlated” (cooperrider & whitney, 2005). cohen, brawer, and kisker (2014) situate the american community college within a larger belief that “since its founding the united states has been more dedicated to the belief that all individuals should have the opportunity to rise to their greatest potential” (p. 10) and that “all barriers to individual development should be broken down” (p. 10). the positive core positions community colleges as uniquely situated to foster democracy. the theoretical framework employed for this study is critical constructivism. a critical constructivist research paradigm examines the socially constructed world and asks, “what are the forces that construct the consciousness, the ways of seeing of the actors who live it?” (kincheloe, 2005, p. 34). this paradigm takes an unapologetic stance toward liberation and seeks relational truths. my choice for this theoretical perspective and subsequent methodological choices are grounded in the recognition that “the paradigms by which we see the world are inextricably linked to our value systems as legitimate scholars” (butin, 2006, p. 488). there is certainly not a single type of community college student or a unitary way in which community college students see the world. data collection followed the 5-d cycle of appreciative inquiry, including define, discover, dream, and design, with this and additional manuscripts constituting the delivery phase. data collection was an immersive experience; i spent more than an entire academic quarter full-time on campus. the approach to data collection utilized the participant-observer of an ethnographic inquiry (emerson et al., 2011). the academic senate and the equity action council were viewed as high-priority groups in which i participated in every meeting during my fieldwork. i also participated in departmental meetings, professional development programming, campus conferences, events, and individual interviews with key stakeholders. the resulting data represents over 100 interactions, including individual informal interviews, classroom presentations, observations, meeting participation, and informal discussions. additionally, we surveyed over 100 students as part of a participatory action research project with the vasconcellos institute for democracy in action (vida) coordinator and vida student interns. overall, the analysis leveraged the field journal to employ a constant-comparative approach to the analysis found in grounded theory (charmaz, 2014). analytic memos were developed following each phase. these memos summarized all interactions for the phase and created searchable documents. at the end of the design phase, i wrote a method narrative by reviewing © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26445 | march 8, 2023 74 all memos. the narrative provided an opportunity to revisit the data and the entire experience, in addition to the memos focused on each phase. findings this section represents an exploration of findings from the study relevant to place-based learning. findings will be discussed across two main themes: institutional identities and organizational features. the institutional identities addressed are specific to the study sight and may provide insight into some elements of institutional identities. the organizational features discuss particular characteristics of the site and are more generally applicable to community colleges. institutional identities there were three distinct institutional identities identified through this study. at times, the identities can exist together, while in other situations, one identity leads more prominently. the discussion here aims to offer some provocation for the ways institutional identity contributes to a sense of place and its implications for placemaking. the stanford of community colleges de anza’s front page boasts the phrase ‘tops in transfer.’ this statement highlights a long history of da being at or near the highest transfer rates in the california community college system. in addition, data available on the transfer velocity website from the ccc chancellor’s office confirms that de anza is a leader in both the number of students who transfer and the rates at which students transfer. the following represents a summary of cohorts from 1995-1996 through 2010-2011 based on eight years to transfer. over the 16 years of available data, de anza averaged between the third and fourth highest number of students transferred and between first and second for the percentage of transferred students based on the cohort (transfer rate) in california. compared to the system, de anza ’s lowest rank for the number of transfers was the seventh highest in the system, and the transfer rate was higher than any of the six schools that transferred more students. de anza ’s average transfer rate was over 15% higher than the total state average. this, in combination with its proximity to stanford university, has made ‘stanford of community colleges’ a common nickname for de anza. the desirable components of this identity include academic excellence and diversity, while the negative components portray academic elitism and isolationism. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26445 | march 8, 2023 75 both rob mieso, vice president for student services and juan gamboa, intercultural studies instructor, identified this institutional identity as potentially problematic and elitist. mieso focuses on demonstrating a commitment to historically underserved communities, showing potential students they could feel safe, supporting programs where students feel a sense of belonging, and maintaining lasting relationships with high schools and counselors (personal communication, 16 may 2019). gamboa seeks to refocus education around collective action rather than perpetuating social stratification. he dreams of de anza at the forefront of challenging inequality and global climate change. (personal communication, 09 may 2019). de anza college the theme of de anza college to a demanding and fast-paced work culture. top-down management creates environments where student-facing employees and faculty feel a constant demand to satisfy administrative expectations while fostering meaningful relationships with students. from facilitating weekend learning excursions and having no break before the start of monday classes to the challenges of working with students without fundamental reading, writing, and math skills, many faculty described feeling consistently overwhelmed by the demands they face. many of the pressures felt at de anza college systemic. for example, the california community college system uses a calculation called ftes or full-time equivalent students to determine college operating budgets (mullen & justice, 2018). faculty productivity in this process is measured by weekly student contact hours (wsch). this is calculated by full-term, regularly scheduled classes multiplied by the number of students enrolled in the course at census. a similar daily student contact hour is calculated for non-full-term courses. the pressures of enrollment are discussed further in the resource scarcity section. conversely, chancellor oakley and deputy chancellor gonzales (personal communication, 12 june 2019) describe the influence of rapid state and national changes on the extensive community college system. oakley stated clearly, “higher education is some of the hardest institutions to deal with change, from demographic shifts (70% of community college faculty are white), dynamic economies demanding more from higher education, and the reality that students have not been successful.” they both described the role of the chancellor’s office to take on issues of race, ethnicity, and equal opportunity directly. “it’s a built-in contradiction, the system takes advantage of people’s desire to make the world a better place” (anonymous, personal communication, 06 june 2019). the culture of de anza college operates in a hegemonic fashion across the institution. it works to create a perpetual othering between faculty and administration and between institutions and the ccc system. administrators are viewed as authoritarian and disconnected from the daily realities of the © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26445 | march 8, 2023 76 institution. in contrast, faculty are considered self-serving and unwilling to adapt to the institution’s multiple pressures. students are collateral for contract negotiations and performance funding models in this equation. the essence of these tensions is ubiquitous to community colleges and the field of higher education. democracy’s college the theme of democracy’s college refers to institutional intentionality toward democratic engagement. one example is the leadership and social change (lsc) certificate of achievement. lsc supports students to “gain in-depth understanding of the social structures that define their worlds, and develop the skills and practical knowledge required to transform those structures and make the world a more equitable place.” (leadership certificate, n.d.). de anza is one of the first community colleges in the country to have an academic certificate with an explicit emphasis on social justice. there is a growing national effort now supported by the community learning partnership (“our affiliates,” n.d.). vida embodies de anza ’s mission to “empower all students to attain their educational goals, develop an equity-based mindset and become civic leaders in their community” and the institutional core competency of “civic capacity for global, cultural, social, and environmental justice” (vision, mission, and values, n.d.). at the lsc graduation celebration, each graduate shared remarks with the audience. their messages spoke to empowerment in the face of adversity, a deep connection with words like home and family, and a responsibility for continuous growth through complexity and diversity. one of the community college’s few traditions is being nontraditional. they maintain a certain fluidity in programming and embody a continual search for improvement and willingness to change and “maintain open channels for individuals, enhancing social mobility that has characterized america, and they accept the idea that society can be better, just as individuals can better their lot within it” (cohen et al., 2013, p. 43). this speaks to an opportunity for community college students to make unique contributions to society while enhancing their quality of life. organizational features vida is limited by staffing, budget, and overall campus awareness. director and professor cynthia kaufman posed the question early and often within this project: how can we continue democratizing the institution? we discussed the challenges of institutionalizing democratic engagement in balance with the need to work at the margins not yet embraced by the institution. martinez palacios (2016) offers the concepts of vertical and horizontal inclusion as a way to challenge the “reproduction of domination through apparatuses for the extension of democracy” © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26445 | march 8, 2023 77 (p.350). in many ways, higher education exemplifies the idea of domination through democratic ideals. kaufman refers to this as the leninist approach to democratization rather than the freirien approach utilized in vida. martinez palacios centers crenshaw’s intersectionality to examine democratization and complex oppression. further, this work offers eleven questions for inclusive democratization: “is everybody there? are conditions present that allow the voice, presence, and worldview of marginalized people to be guaranteed?” (martínez palacios, 2016, p. 360). these questions frame the following section discussing three critical concepts of de anza’s organization and progress in institutionalizing equity and democratic engagement. networks network theory examines connection points in complex systems. davis, sumara, and lucekapler (2015) describe four types of networks: centralized, distributed, decentralized, and fragmented. networks advancing equity and democratic engagement at de anza most closely resemble the fractal-like decentralized networks, though, at times, they have characteristics or may benefit from attributes of the other networks. decentralized networks benefit from “efficient communication with a robust structure, enabling considerable flexibility and high adaptability” (davis, sumara, & luce-kapler, 2015, p. 197). examples include the interaction of vida, hefas, and the public policy school, which serve separate but complementary and, at times, overlapping purposes at the institution. the equity action council (eac) at de anza offers an additional example of a decentralized network. even the leadership of eac comprises a tri-chair to ensure a single voice does not dominate the agenda or discussions. while there is official membership to be a recognized shared governance entity, most meetings are open and welcome guests from the institution and community. additional examples within the decentralized network model include the puente project working to increase completion, successful transfer, and leadership development for historically underserved students (puente project, n.d.); the men of color community (mc2 providing “support and empowerment to men of color through active community engagement and facilitated mentoring relationships with student mentors, faculty and staff of color” (men of color community, n.d.); the latina/o empowerment at de anza (lead) developing leadership skills through course-based service and learning about latinx history and culture; and the initiatives to maximize positive academic achievement and cultural thriving focusing on asian american and pacific islander students (impact aapi). this list is not comprehensive but indicates the most prevalent programs identified during the site visit. additional efforts, and at times efforts within those described above, can appear as fragmented networks. these are not networks as they lack meta-connectivity but offer the opportunity for © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26445 | march 8, 2023 78 “small explosions of diversity within smaller clusters that might, at some point, come together into a grander network” (davis et al., 2015, p. 197). while fragmented networks do not contribute to the larger networks, they offer much potential for horizontal and vertical integration from an equity perspective. in addition, fragmented networks create opportunities for the emergence of powerful new ways of understanding when “once-disparate views are juxtaposed” (p. 197). this concept can honor the margins discussed in the introduction of this section. for example, both hefas and lead began as student-driven projects; institutional resources support both now. distributed networks are robust netlike structures. they lack large-scale connectivity and benefit from tight local connectivity. distributed networks explain many challenges within higher education: “distribution and communication is very inefficientand, by consequence, phenomena with this structure are highly resistant to change” (davis et al., 2015, p. 196). a confluence of pressures floods community colleges. “neoliberal ideas about the public good have framed recent discussions about community colleges, student success, and the public good on our campus in powerful ways” (sullivan, 2017, p. 296). this raises important questions about when community colleges should adapt under pressure and where they can resist these pressures with the best interest of their students in mind. shared governance shared governance in the ccc is comprised of multiple decision-making entities at the institutional level, multiple decision-making entities at the district level, multiple faculty unions and associations at the state level, boards of trustees for the 73 districts with oversight for the district, and interaction with state-level decision-making entities, various other statewide entities such as the rp group, a non-profit, non-partisan team working to increase community college success, a board of governors appointed by the governor, and a consultation council comprised of representatives from the statewide entities. complexity theory offers the potential for understanding this complex system of decisionmaking processes. following the concept of emergence, no one of these entities can be examined in isolation. instead, the sum of all these parts is “spontaneous, have levels of unpredictability, are irreducible, are context dependent, and are vibrantly sufficient” (davis et al., 2015, p. 181). the intricacies of the ccc’s complex shared governance system go well beyond the scope of this case study; however, complexity theory employs a concept of scale independence, which implies that each layer of a complex system is comparable to the total complexity of the system (davis et al., 2015). the following discussion focuses on de anza ’s shared governance while acknowledging and, at times, referencing larger shared governance processes. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26445 | march 8, 2023 79 following the quote at the start of this section, student involvement in shared governance is a consistent challenge. the de anza associated student body (dasb) is the central body focused on student participation in shared governance. dasb comprises a president, an executive vice president, and 28 senators. a separately elected position of student trustee serves on the district board of trustees as a representative of the student body. both dasb and faculty are quick to point out limitations in dasb ’s representation of the student body. “dasb is not representative of the whole student body. someone can win a seat with only 200 votes out of 16,000 students.” (personal communication, 17 june 2019). the incoming dasb president echoed this challenge, citing the lack of pay as a barrier for students who need to work or do not have the resources to volunteer a significant amount of their time. “if dasb was more representative, students would feel more connected. i hope to find that balance with communities that already exist” (personal communication, 19 june 2019). an incoming dasb member described this as an ongoing challenge at de anza. he described personality tensions yearly, and some elected members prioritized the personal opportunity associated with the position over public accountability of representing the student body. he poses a central question for the institution: “is weak student government a personnel problem or a structural one?” (personal communication, 17 april 2019). in other words, it may not be enough for institutional actors to acknowledge the limitations of dasb. instead, the focus should be on how to enhance representation. one such effort is the development of the best practices for student voices in shared governance document, which was updated during the spring academic quarter. vida student leader, rex zhang exercised leadership in updating the document by presenting to several committees and groups for feedback before ultimately getting the updated document adopted by both faculty senate and dasb. the document outlines the desire for “members of the de anza college community to engage in mutually meaningful participation in the process of shared governance” (best practices, n.d., para 2). in addition, the document outlines mutual accountability for shared governance groups to solidify student input and participation and for dasb to strive for accountability and communication in student participation. proposed changes to district hiring policy highlight the interaction between multiple institutional shared governance entities and district-level shared governance entities. karen chow, faculty senate president became aware of proposed changes under a sense of urgency that changes would be taking place soon. faculty senate discussed the issue and the equity action council had a special meeting to address concerns with the proposed changes. these discussions highlighted communication gaps among shared governance entities and confusion about de anza ’s representation at the district equity action council. de anza ’s eac ultimately drafted a letter citing these concerns and the need for a substantive decision to follow shared governance. similar conversations in academic senate explored the lack of district hiring policy for presidents. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26445 | march 8, 2023 80 a noteworthy example highlighting tensions within the ccc shared governance system is the no confidence vote from the faculty association for california community colleges. de anza academic senate adopted a similar resolution. other institutions and groups across the state are following suit. faccc’s original resolution cited the following: the office’s lack of transparency, disregard for shared governance, lack of prior consultation with faculty and other stakeholders on major initiatives, deficient oversight and fiscal accountability with the online college, and administration of a punitive funding formula that has created a system of winners and losers (faculty association of california community colleges, 2019, para 2). the chancellor and deputy chancellor acknowledged this tension. their perspective described an urgent need to address inequities across the state. i asked them when decisions should be made through public consensus processes and when situations require ‘closed-door’ decisions. they strive for a balance between the desire to engage and receive input with a need to move the work forward. chancellor oakley responded: in higher ed[ucation], broadly, we are good at debate, but not so good at coming to an actionable decision. leaders and administrators are supposed to move things from debate to action. it’s always a balancing act. there’s no science. it’s about leaning on experience and intuition. democratic processes are always meant to lead to a decision. they should be clear and intentional and focused on action. action then improves the discussion and debate.” (e. oakley, personal communication, 12 june 2019). deputy chancellor gonzales reiterated that values and theory were always present in chancellor oakley’s decision-making process and that he is relentlessly advancing the ccc vision for success. place in tension a highlight of how a place can be held in tension between different perspectives involved the district board of trustees raising a question regarding an aging building on campus, the flint center for performing arts. the building hosts several musical groups, performance artists, and speakers throughout the year. apple computer launched the first macintosh computer in the flint center. members of the community, including some of the groups who performed in the flint center as their home venue, gave public comment at the dbot meeting in support of keeping the flint center. some of the statements referred to the flint center as being “de anza ’s best public relations tool” and “families who live here do not send their kids to community college” © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26445 | march 8, 2023 81 (anonymous, personal communication, 10 june 2019). the majority of community members who attended were white and of retirement age. one community member who attended described an online petition that raised over 1500 signatures to support keeping the flint center in just a few days. members of the de anza renters rights coalition, the de anza associated student body, and students at large spoke of the challenges they and peers faced regarding housing in the area. many brought signs and cited statistics from recent studies on housing insecurity on community college campuses. while neither the academic senate nor the classified senate took an official stance, faculty senate president did give a voice of caution about budget constraints and the urge to dream big. she stated it should not be a debate about supporting either housing or performing arts. the debate was contentious, and at times, members of the community and students engaged in confrontation through the public comment process. community members voiced that it was acceptable to share a room during college. students described daily uncertainty about whether they could make ends meet even while working multiple jobs and being students. the board voted 6-1 in favor to: permanently close the flint center for performing arts and initiate a plan to build a new facility with staff pursuing specific goals that the facility proposed as a result of the planning process directly serve the instructional and student services needs of de anza college, to the extent possible meet the needs of the community for a cultural venue and civic meeting space, and if possible, generate revenue of its own. (de anza district board of trustees, 2019) this exemplifies students engaging in an organizing process and seeing an immediate result. while the students who showed up may be gone from de anza before the construction project begins, they contributed to the legacy of community organizing at de anza that will continue to shape its future. challenges conversations about the current budget crisis at de anza were inescapable. declining enrollments, combined with state funding changes, create continually declining budgets. brian murphy, president emeritus believes changes in state budgets are part of a larger hostile and reactionary agenda. “it is functional to systematically underfund community colleges because it limits the radical potential and narrows everything to a workforce completion agenda” (personal communication, 16 april 2019). gamboa, citing john trudell (john trudell, n.d.), also situates © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26445 | march 8, 2023 82 messaging of resource scarcity and beliefs that there is simply not enough for everyone within a larger war on the public, on people, and spirit. the practical impact of the budget crisis on de anza often manifests as a mediation of expression and contributes to the institutional identity of de anza college. ideas that may require additional funding or place additional demands on someone due to staffing shortages are stifled. course enrollments are a constant pressure. “people think something is wrong, there are judgments if your class doesn’t carry” (anonymous, personal communication, 20 june 2019). this perpetuates a hegemonic culture among the faculty and the idea that faculty are solely responsible for course enrollment. faculty take on new roles of marketing their courses and shaping courses to ensure that students will share good feedback with their peers to ensure their courses carry. the budget crisis highly impacts adjunct faculty. citing marx, dawn lee tu, faculty director of professional development states, “adjuncts are the embodiment of the commodification of labor and alienation of the individual to the work” (personal communication, 18 june 2019). when a full-time faculty member’s course does not carry due to low enrollment, it is common for them to take a course assigned to an adjunct faculty to ensure that they teach a full load and contribute to the wsch census. in many instances, the adjunct faculty member does not have a course to teach and thus does not have the opportunity to earn pay from the institution. personal politics and polarization productive disagreement requires mechanisms for feedback loops. higher education notoriously operates in silos, from the divisions of student affairs and academic affairs to the disciplines requiring foundational knowledge of the cannons to engage. a productive disagreement can shape the hidden curriculum toward a more purposeful and connected education. instead of rolemodeling authoritarian decision-making processes, community colleges can serve as experimental sites for democracy, challenging each process to engage voices across the institution. with collaborative decision-making processes comes the need and capacity for productive disagreement. the desire for more productive disagreement arose in individual discussions with faculty and during my facilitated discussions. i also witnessed an exemplary case of productive disagreement during a special meeting to discuss possible changes in hiring committee policy at the district level. a confrontational activist and a nonviolent communicator seemed at odds with an appropriate response to this urgent challenge. in the end, combining both perspectives leads to a best-case outcome, though not without some tension during the process. mae lee, asian american and asian studies instructor described a time when the curriculum committee engaged in messy fights over the meaning and purpose of coursework. now she perceives it as mostly focused on approval processes and having become sanitized to the point where substantive discussion is avoided out of fear of disagreement. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26445 | march 8, 2023 83 simply put, prefigurative politics involves “removing the temporal distinction between the struggle in the present and a goal in the future; instead, the struggle and the goal, the real and the ideal, become one in the present” (maeckelbergh, 2011, p. 4). in other words, solutions to social issues should include the desired outcomes rather than using an accomplishment to justify how it was accomplished. infusing prefigurative politics into the institution’s culture may profoundly impact the hidden curriculum. one example at de anza is the growing use of nonviolent communication (rosenberg, 2003) to reconsider the possibility. nvc rejects false binaries and dichotomies and challenges expression toward a peaceful future. implications centering creativity: self-expression as a high-impact practice a recommendation from the cambridge handbook is to “embrace arts and humanities as fundamental to the practice of freedom” (dolgon et al., 2017, p. 531). creativity also embraces ai’s generativity lever. generativity focuses on the creation and “the quest for new ideas, images, theories and models that liberate our collective aspirations, alter the social construction of reality and, in the process, make available decisions and actions that were not available or did not occur to us before” (bushe, 2011, p. 7). a commitment to placemaking embraces creative expression as part of the built environment. the idea of art as a high-impact practice came from multiple conversations with the faculty director of the euphrat museum of art on campus, diana argabrite. argabrite talked about her efforts to engage youth in the community and students on campus in a collective envisioning of what art means. she hosts open mic events specifically targeting students of color to break down barriers in the art world and historically underserved communities. she brings youth as young as kindergarten to summer camps and pushes back against the standardized notion of art education prevalent in our public education system. she described a dream where art is integrated across all subjects, where we strive for a more creative world through expressions of individual and collective humanity. anchor institution: institutional commitment to place during a discussion about the college equity plan in eac, the group discussed how to move beyond headcounts of students in programs and focus on campus culture and climate. adriana garcia, administrative assistant for the office of equity, social, and multicultural education stated, “if students are not welcome at one place on campus, they are not welcome here.” place© the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26445 | march 8, 2023 84 making is the continual reshaping of culture by all community members to ensure all feel welcome and belong. according to hodges and dubb (2012), an anchor institution’s mission includes “the conscious and strategic application of the long-term, place-based economic power of the institution, in combination with its human and intellectual resources, to better the welfare of the community in which it resides” (hodges & dubb, 2012, p. 166). while anchor institution approaches are less common at community colleges than four-year colleges, promising examples are building across the country. an institutional commitment to place, or embracing the anchor institution mission, will include institutional partnerships and sustained community engagement efforts. these community engagement efforts must go beyond recruiting strategy and strive for reciprocity. conclusion this study sought to build on the belief that the community college system “embodies our most noble ideas about democracy and human potential, and it stands a living daily expression of our ideals as a nation” (sullivan, 2017, p. 375). community colleges are continually adapting to the needs of their students and communities. centering place and placemaking as features within colleges’ commitments to civic identity offers significant potential for reimaging the role place plays in education and the way students and graduates view the co-creative possibilities in the places they live and work. appreciative inquiry offers a promising methodology for organizational change work focused on equity, democracy, and justice at community colleges. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26445 | march 8, 2023 85 references apple, m. w. (2004). ideology and curriculum (3 edition). routledge. bushe, g. r. (2011). appreciative inquiry: theory and critique. in d. boje, b. burnes, b. & j. hassard, (eds.) the routledge companion to organizational change (pp. 87–103). routledge. butin, d. w. (2006). the limits of service-learning in higher education. the review of higher education, 29(4), 473–498. charmaz, k. (2014). constructing grounded theory. sage publishing. cohen, a. m., brawer, f. b., & kisker, c. b. (2013). the american community college (6 ed.). jossey-bass. community learning partnership (n.d.). our affiliates http://communitylearningpartnership.org/our-network/our-sites/ cooperrider, d. l., & whitney, d. (2005). appreciative inquiry: a positive revolution in change (1 edition). berrett-koehler publishers. davies, c., gant, n., hart, a., millican, j., wolff, d., prosser, b., & laing, s. 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(2011). writing ethnographic fieldnotes, second edition (second edition). university of chicago press. http://communitylearningpartnership.org/our-network/our-sites/ http://www.deanza.edu/about-us/mission-and-values.html http://www.deanza.edu/about-us/mission-and-values.html http://www.deanza.edu/mc2/index.html http://www.deanza.edu/vida/leadershipandsocialchange.html © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26445 | march 8, 2023 86 hammond, s. a. (2013). the thin book of appreciative inquiry. thin book publishing. hodges, r. a., & dubb, s. (2012). the road half traveled: university engagement at a crossroads. michigan state university press. john trudell archives, inc. (n.d.) john trudell. https://www.johntrudell.com/ kincheloe, j. l. (2005). critical constructivism primer. peter lang inc., international academic publishers. knight, b. 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(2014). civic learning in community colleges. in j.n reich (ed.) civic engagement, civic development, and higher education (pp. 19–24). bringing theory to practice. project for public spaces. (2007). what is placemaking? https://www.pps.org/article/what-isplacemaking puente project (n.d.) puente project. http://www.deanza.edu/puente/index.html rosenberg, m. b. (2003). nonviolent communication: a language of life (2nd edition). puddledancer press. sullivan, p. (2017). economic inequality, neoliberalism, and the american community college (1st ed. 2017 edition). palgrave macmillan. https://www.johntrudell.com/ https://doi.org/10.1080/14742837.2011.545223 https://www.pps.org/article/what-is-placemaking https://www.pps.org/article/what-is-placemaking http://www.deanza.edu/puente/index.html sean p. crossland1 abstract introduction literature review methodology findings institutional identities the stanford of community colleges de anza college democracy’s college organizational features networks shared governance place in tension challenges personal politics and polarization implications centering creativity: self-expression as a high-impact practice anchor institution: institutional commitment to place conclusion references microsoft word v2corrected_006_nickitas_pontes_conference_issue_23813 final.docx original research © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23813 | july 20, 2020 53 around the corner, across the globe: developing global citizens through civic engagement donna m. nickitas1 and nancy m.h. pontes2 1,2 rutgers school of nursing-camden cite as: nickitas, d.m & pontes, n.m.h. (2020). around the corner, across the globe: developing global citizens through civic engagement. metropolitan universities, 31(2), 53-70. doi: 10.18060/23813 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract nursing educators wrestle with preparing the future nursing workforce to meet the needs of underserved, vulnerable populations in marginalized communities who suffer significant health disparities and social injustices. this article illustrates the integration of engaged civic learning (ecl) within a social justice framework that prepares baccalaureate nurses as global citizens to provide culturally congruent health care around the corner in local communities and learning abroad programs across the globe. multiple partnerships with local organizations were strengthened, with ecl integrated across the nursing curriculum and aligned with local needs of community housing, schools, churches, shelters, and fitness centers. the nursing faculty at rutgers school of nursing-camden collaborated with language professors to develop a spanish for health professions program to increase communication between students and the high percentage of spanish-speaking populations served locally and globally. a mixed-methods design evaluated program outcomes using descriptive data, student reflections, and the global perspective inventory (gpi) to assess students’ experiences and global learning related to learning abroad during their college experience. results from presurveys to post-survey results showed significant improvement (p < .05) in global learning in 16 of 35 question items. as students journey from entrance into nursing school until graduation, ecl develops them into engaged global citizens. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23813 | july 20, 2020 54 keywords: spanish education, cultural competence, service-learning, engaged civic learning, learning abroad around the corner, across the globe: developing global citizens through civic engagement four million nurses in the united states, as well as 20 million nurses across the globe, provide high-quality, transformative health care to increasingly diverse populations. nurses are the lifeline to care delivery and their contributions are critical to elevating a future workforce that is civically minded and socially responsive, including advancing health across the globe with a societal commitment to care for all people everywhere. as nursing and other health educators prepare the future workforce to fill the health equity gap among diverse, often vulnerable communities, a specific skill set beyond technical nursing competencies must include interpersonal communication, critical thinking, and cultural humility (nokes et al., 2005; sabo et al., 2015). this article illustrates how integration of engaged civic learning (ecl) within a social justice framework develops nurses as global citizens to provide culturally congruent health care services within diverse settings, including around the corner in local communities and learning abroad programs across the globe. cultural humility cultural congruence is a highly valued aspect of nursing and health care delivery; it is central to the concept of caring and person-centered care. a related concept, cultural humility, is seen as an important pathway toward cultural congruence. foronda et al. described it in the following way: in a multicultural world where power imbalances exist, cultural humility is a process of openness, self-awareness, being egoless, and incorporating selfreflection and critique after willingly interacting with diverse individuals. the results of achieving cultural humility are mutual empowerment, respect, partnerships, optimal care, and lifelong learning. (foronda et al., 2017, pg. 215) cultural humility is “other-oriented,” and involves the balance of listening and observing with curiosity and respectful inquiry. another important aspect of cultural humility is a lifelong commitment to self-evaluation, and nursing students can be introduced to this practice through reflection and critical thinking (sedgwick & atthill, 2019; schuessler et al., 2012). the concept of power imbalances applies to the nursing profession as we rethink our perceptions of provider and patient relationships. individuals are experts on their symptoms, their strengths, and their lived experience. reframing the provider-patient relationship without power imbalances © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23813 | july 20, 2020 55 empowers individuals to embrace their own health decisions. nurses often describe themselves as patient advocates, but in terms of cultural humility, nurses should advocate for “systemic humility,” which is often lacking in health care delivery, especially among those most vulnerable whose human rights are often overlooked and ignored (foronda et al., 2017). social justice as a foundation for nursing practice social justice is defined in several ways (boutain, 2005), but based on concepts of human rights and equality can be defined as "how human rights are manifested in the everyday lives of people at every level of society" (edmund rice centre, 2000, pg.1). social justice is inextricably linked to nursing and health through interrelated concepts of equity, access, participation and human rights (westwood, 2019). according to faden and bowers (2011), the most important population health goals for social justice are the improvement of health and wellbeing and the mitigation of social determinants that negatively impact health and wellbeing. the united state’s healthy people 2020 (hp2020) overall goal to increase health equity and eliminate health disparities is based upon principles of social justice (braveman et al., 2020). concepts of social justice are heavily nuanced and systemically interconnected with social determinants of health and health disparities. vulnerable populations are groups who have more health disparities, including a higher burden of disease, injury, disability, or mortality, when compared to other population groups. populations with these disparities cannot be explored outside the context of their lived environment, and often require supportive social networks as they are more likely to live in communities lacking supportive social environments: welldesigned built environments with safe and walkable access to stores and transportation, playgrounds, and schools (national academies of sciences, engineering & medicine, 2017). instead, their communities often have crumbling infrastructures that reduce access to safe outdoor environments, efficient transportation, and quality educational systems. likewise, these communities have limited access to high quality health care, which not only challenges wellbeing, but impacts longevity (arias et al., 2018). herein is the essence of a health equity gap. health equity allows individuals and communities to have the opportunities needed for optimal health and longevity. although systemic oppression lies at the root of these inequities (westwood, 2019), community leaders and residents who embrace the values of fairness and inclusion can use an equity framework to advance opportunities for neighbors living in marginalized communities (faden & powers, 2011). to eliminate barriers to health access and equity, there must be policies and programs to address the fundamental conditions necessary for achieving good health, especially among populations that have experienced cumulative disadvantage or stigma (national academies of sciences, engineering, & medicine, 2017). © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23813 | july 20, 2020 56 civic learning matters: next generation of socially responsible learners a major challenge for nursing and other educational programs is how to increase student awareness of vulnerable populations and how the health equity gap profoundly impacts the health and wellbeing of entire populations. often there is a disconnect between curricula and practice: nursing students are often more focused on acute care practice in hospitals, and while essential, they overlook these health-harming social determinants, especially once hospitalized individuals are discharged and return to living in their community (baker & baker, 2017; sabo et al., 2015). many of these overlooked factors contribute to expensive readmissions, medical errors, and other complications, that if better understood, could be foreseen and mitigated early on (makary & daniel, 2016). one approach to bridging this health equity gap and the social-determinant divide is the integration of civic and socially responsible learning. in the case of nursing education, highimpact pedagogical practices target social, economic, and political dimensions of health that are nested in communities with vulnerable populations (sabo et al., 2015). this approach creates a dynamic partnership between educational institutions and communities that creates a mutually beneficial relationship. moreover, universities, as anchor institutions, support efforts to meet the challenges facing their local community, city, county, and region with service-learning that fosters civic engagement through integrated efforts and partnerships. in turn, civic engagement builds and releases social capital, which is necessary to strengthen community among nurses and builds networks of reciprocal social relationships (persut, 2002). thus, an anchor institution within an urban city becoming civically engaged and socially responsible is a means to overcome systemic oppression among specific groups and populations (sabo et al., 2015). ecl is a teaching strategy that enhances courses across a wide range of disciplines. innovative partnerships with community organizations help deepen students’ understanding of course content through active engagement with communities beyond the campus. students engage in service, advocacy, and other forms of participation that connect course material to the efforts of real people to make a positive change (yorio & fe, 2012). civically engaged learning activities are experiential and address human and community needs via structured opportunities for learning; they involve thoughtful reflection and are respectful of the concept of reciprocity between the civic engagement experience and the individuals served (markus et al., 1993; nokes et al., 2005). although ecl is integrated throughout curricula in many nursing programs, educators struggle to train the nursing workforce to leverage communities for long-term impact (small, 2019). in this program, it was essential to partner with the university’s office of civic engagement, which already had multiple established connections to the local urban community and beyond. due to the coexisting relationships developed over the past 40 years, program implementation worked © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23813 | july 20, 2020 57 through them to connect with interested community partners (hill & powell, 2012). through their guided civic engagement faculty fellows program nursing and other faculty members developed or enhanced their courses using best practices for implementing ecl into curricula. as a result, students at their entrance into the nursing school through graduation embark upon a journey toward becoming engaged global citizens who can address needs of increasingly diverse populations within their practice. examples of their civic engagement include local preschools and schools, organizations to help those with housing and food insecurity, community health centers located in low income housing programs, school-based health centers, veteran centers, and a state-of-the-art recreational facility for economically disadvantaged community members. ecl courses contribute to camden and the region while preparing rutgers university–camden students for lives of active citizenship and informed leadership. research reveals that ecl is superior to traditional classroom learning, especially lecture format (ciacco & walker, 1998; markus et al., 1993). ecl has been linked with increased gpa (newell & saxena, 2018) and “joy in learning” while students gain a larger sense of who they are and the value of their contributions (finley, 2016). the outcomes of ecl are impactful in several dimensions for both the university as an anchor institution, directly, and as a provider of much-needed services to the community while student-learners gain personal insights and new knowledge about advocacy, activism, and civic duty. spanish for health professions program the center on aging society (2002) reports more that 37 million adults in the u.s. speak a language other than english and some 18 million people, 48%, report that they speak english less than “very well.” one challenge encountered with ecl courses is the difficulty communicating effectively with a large percentage of community members in a city where nearly 50% of residents are spanish heritage speakers, many with limited english proficiency (datausa, 2017). communication barriers are factors that impact the amount and quality of health care individuals received. for example, spanish-speaking latinx persons are less likely than white persons to visit a physician or mental health provider or receive preventive care, such as a mammography exam or influenza vaccination (fiscella et al. 2002). overall, health-related errors are the third leading cause of death in the united states and account for more than 250,000 deaths per year (makary & daniel, 2016). communication errors related to language and cultural differences are a major cause of these mistakes (schyve, 2007). conversely, spanish language proficiency among health care providers is associated with improved cultural competencies (rubenfeld et al., 2006), and increased patient satisfaction (sherrill et al., 2016). nurses must overcome language barriers to reduce medical errors. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23813 | july 20, 2020 58 the challenge of language and cultural differences prompted our strategic partnership with the department of world languages and cultures that had developed a course entitled spanish for health professions. in 2016, we applied for and received a grant from the department of education to expand international studies and spanish for health professions courses, and we collaborated with ana laguna who started the spanish for health professions courses, and with her colleague, dana pilla, further expanded the courses into a fully expanded spanish for health professions program. in 2018, a new certificate program was offered, which embeds ecl with the courses. the expanded program, offered in-person or online, enables both novice and heritage spanish-speakers to increase proficiency through four course levels and offers ecl internships and learning abroad courses to spanish-speaking countries, expanding the footprint of students who wish to make a positive impact, possibly lifelong, on vulnerable populations. often, students whose heritage language is not english feel disadvantaged compared to other students, but becoming a spanish medical interpreter turns a perceived liability to an advantage. at the same time, communicating in the preferred language of those served improves health equity and quality for the community, and demonstrates cultural humility as a core value of human caring and compassion. learning abroad as a path toward becoming global citizens learning abroad programs were developed to further enhance nursing students’ growth, cultural competence, and capacity as global citizens (kelleher, 2013; lin, 2001). the concept of global citizenship is often attributed to learning abroad programs without a clear delineation of its concepts or educational outcomes. hans schattle described six concepts listed here and described below as foundational to global citizenry: awareness, responsibility, participation, cross-cultural empathy, international mobility, and personal achievement (lewin, 2009). a key component of developing global citizens is what lewin (2009, pg 14) describes as the willingness to build relationships and, “nurture a sense of belonging in an unfamiliar setting.” a common challenge with learning abroad programs is a mismatch between student learner and organizational partner needs. for practical reasons, schedules are set with rigid timetables and limited free time, only to be met with student and faculty frustration as the realistic schedule and activities unfold. too often student learner objectives and departure planning lack cultural congruency with international partners. ouma and dimaris’ work (2013) emphasizes principles of cultural humility such as increased flexibility built into the plan and the removal of power differentials with the international organization so a mutual partnership evolves. faculty should provide students with anticipatory guidance about expectations and the importance of flexibility as a part of global learning. learning abroad courses within rutgers school of nursing-camden are designed to help develop global citizens and to foster students’ own belongingness while abroad. key building blocks of © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23813 | july 20, 2020 59 these programs are ecl activities and language immersion within the spanish-speaking countries of guatemala, cuba, and the commonwealth of puerto rico. pre-departure activities described as best practices for learning abroad included lessons on the country’s social and political history, the health care system and their health disparities, basic spanish language instruction, and cultural differences (visovsky et al., 2016). thoughtful debriefing sessions, along with guided reflection during the experience, were the most important teaching strategies to help students think critically and evaluate concepts related to their sense of belongingness and global citizenry (lewin, 2009; schuessler et al., 2012). while abroad, specific experiences were selected to strengthen connections within the group and acclimate them to the country. students visited local markets, learned latin dances, and participated in cultural festivals and religious ceremonies. depending on the country visited, students’ ecl projects included stove building among indigenous highlanders, and health screening and education programming in schools, elder centers and women’s circles, with spanish language immersion throughout. after guided reflection journaling and group debriefings which helped students think critically, these experiences were then deconstructed and reframed within a social justice framework emphasizing health equity and cultural humility. a few individual quotations from students were included below based on interviews and reflections from their photo reflection journals. box 1 and 2 contrain descriptions of the existing courses. box 1 an example of international engaged civic learning in guatemala: the course entitled health and healing in guatemala: a service learning journey involves three pre-departure meetings in preparation for the in-country experience. the preparation focuses on preparing the student to engage with the highland community in a culturally congruent manner. group work focuses on preparing health and educational outreach activities. students are partnered with a non-governmental organization (ngo) whose goal is to produce “hope and not dependency.” their mission is to “innovate transformational models of development that break cycles of dependency” through engagement with indigenous communities that fosters their interdependence to live well within their own culture and community (highland support project, n.d.). because the use of indoor wood stoves causes premature death among these highland communities, they have built thousands of stoves one community at a time. cultural immersion and team building activities: • boating, hiking, tour, and lunch at a coffee cooperative • ziplining • large market visit • stove building • planning educational activities © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23813 | july 20, 2020 60 • volcanic mineral hot springs relaxation after stove building is completed • highland village reciprocal activities: • women’s circle ceremonies by maya villagers • stove demonstration by local masons • stove-building collaboration between a village family and a group of students. • family health screening (height, weight, blood pressure, fasting glucose, vision). • health education (lay midwife training, group, and individual nutrition education). • fire ceremony by maya priest student reflection and debriefing: • daily reflective journaling • debriefing during and after the learning abroad experience • students create web-based photo reflection journal using guided reflection “...this trip was something i will be telling my grandkids about…people i met who changed my life forever for the better. i found out a lot about myself that i wasn't completely aware of…. i learned many things on this trip and i plan to take with me the rest of my life.” (student reflection) box 2 an example of global experiences 2 title: population health in cuba through sustainable community development this learning-abroad course introduces students with an overview of population health through the lens of community development within the republic of cuba. the emphasis of this course is to introduce key concepts of the cuban health care system and sustainable community development: 1. why they are important and how connections among social, cultural, educational and environmental systems are core to successful community development and health. 2. the second goal of this course is to provide a set of tools for students to utilize while interacting with the cuban people in the community, health and educational settings. this course also emphasizes spanish language immersion activities within the community, thus combining engaged civic learning while increasing spanish language proficiency. upon return, students will analyze how lessons from the cuban experience can be applied to u.s. communities with vulnerable populations experiencing poverty, health disparities, and poor health outcomes. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23813 | july 20, 2020 61 “the forced disconnection from social media and texting allowed me to enjoy those around me and to be more perspective,...this experience has changed me.” (student reflection) program outcomes and impact the spanish for the health professions program evaluation used a mixed-methods approach to identify outcomes. first, enrollment data was compiled to demonstrate the increase in enrollment and successful completion of the spanish for health professions courses. grant funding was the catalyst for partnerships between the school of nursing, the offices of learning abroad and civic engagement, and the department of world languages and cultures. within three years, there was a five-fold increase in enrollment, and course offerings increased from two to eight. although rapid course growth alone does not guarantee successful learning, it reflects students’ interest in increasing their spanish proficiency as future health professionals. at the conclusion of the first interpreting course in spring 2019, 22 students passed the national exam and were certified for providing medical interpretation within hospitals and other health organizations. this certification also provides a path for nurses and other health professionals who are spanish heritage speakers to quickly increase the spanish interpreter workforce, which will decrease health care costs, reduce communication errors, and help bridge the equity gap. the newer ecl and independent study courses in the certificate program include several outreach activities within the local underserved community. students at a large non-profit health and fitness centers provided nutritional information to guide clients’ food selections at the organization’s food pantry. recently, this partner organization awarded the 2019 class volunteer of the year, which attests to the positive outcomes of the course. one certificate student describes below how this program is essential to increasing health equity among the underserved latino/hispanic populations: the number of spanish speakers in america will continue to grow, and i’m pleased to be a part of the university’s award-winning effort to ensure they can receive health care from someone who can communicate with them in their native language,” she says,…, “it felt good to be doing work in my hometown, helping spanish speakers get the most out of the healthcare system. (rutgers-camden newsnow, 2019, pg.1) © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23813 | july 20, 2020 62 table 1: spanish for health professions enrollment increase academic year courses student enrollment 2016 2017 spanish for medical professions 1 spanish for health professions 2 (added) 98 2017 2018 spanish for medical professions 1 (added online) spanish for health professions 2 (added online) spanish for health professions 3 (added online) 188 2018 2019 spanish for health professions 1, 2, 3 (traditional/online) spanish for health profession internship (added) community medical interpreter national certificate (added) 253 total 539 note: this table demonstrates the increased enrollment with the expansion of the spanish for medical professions course in fall 2016 to an entire spanish for health professions program certificate program by spring 2019. learning abroad programs in general, learning abroad courses are regarded as valuable, but they often lack prospectivedesign program evaluation and improvement strategies. some faculty may question the value of more costly international programs versus less expensive local service-learning programs. in order to measure learning abroad student outcomes, we evaluated students both before and after the learning abroad experience (prospective/retrospective). students were surveyed (n = 40) in the learning abroad courses to cuba and guatemala during the spring 2018 semester. more than 50% of the students enrolled in these programs were nursing majors in baccalaureate, accelerated bs, and rn to bs programs; other majors included business, spanish, and health science majors. over 50% of the students enrolled identified as hispanic/latinx, black/african american, asian, or mixed race. the pre-evaluations were performed at the beginning of the semester in midjanuary. the post-trip evaluations were performed approximately one month after the studyabroad trip was completed. the instrument selected to evaluate students was the global perspective inventory (gpi) (research institute for studies in education, 2017). gpi is a validated tool to assess students’ experiences and global learning related to learning abroad during their college experience (braskamp et al., 2014). test-retest reliabilities ranged between .57 and .73, and internal © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23813 | july 20, 2020 63 consistency had coefficient alpha reliabilities between .657 and .773. intercorrelations between three subscales were sufficiently independent (145, .324, .241). the 35-item questions can be further classified into three dimensions: cognitive, intrapersonal, and interpersonal (iowa state university, n.d.). for this report, only preliminary data is reported for the 2018 cohort using individual items rather than the three dimensions. permission was obtained from iowa state university to administer the gpi for two years (2018 to 2020). paper and pencil surveys were administered the first week of class, followed by a post-test one month after students returned from their learning abroad experiences. as a post-versus-pre instrument, data were analyzed using ibm spss statistics 24 using within-subjects (post – pre) t-tests for each of the 35 individual item scores, as visible in table 2. within-subjects t-tests subtract post minus pre responses and estimate whether the result is significantly greater than zero. some items are worded so favorable items are the highest value, while other items are worded so favorable items are the lowest value. table 2: pre post results of 2018 cuba/guatemala learning abroad global perspectives inventory (gpi) question item post pre post pre t p i consider different cultural perspectives when evaluating global problems 4.46 4.17 0.29 2.40 .021 i rarely question what i have been taught about the world around me 1.93 2.42 0.50 -2.30 .027 i am informed of current issues that impact international relations 4.02 3.39 0.63 4.44 < .001 i understand how various cultures of this world interact socially 4.27 3.88 0.39 2.90 .006 i know how to analyze the basic characteristics of a culture 4.17 3.66 0.51 3.35 .002 i can discuss cultural differences from an informed perspective 4.55 3.95 0.60 3.77 .001 i have a definite purpose in my life 4.32 4.07 0.24 2.13 .040 i can explain my personal values to people who are different from me 4.54 4.20 0.34 2.48 .018 © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23813 | july 20, 2020 64 i am willing to defend my own views when they differ from others 3.95 3.56 0.39 3.98 < .001 i put my beliefs into action by standing up for my principles 4.10 3.78 0.32 2.06 .046 i do not feel threatened emotionally when presented with multiple perspectives 4.46 4.10 0.37 2.73 .009 i think of my life in terms of giving back to society 4.24 3.90 0.34 2.56 .014 i work for the rights of others 4.05 3.73 0.32 2.31 .026 i consciously behave in terms of making a difference 4.37 3.93 0.44 3.24 .002 i frequently interact with people from a race/ethnic group different from my own 4.73 4.46 0.27 2.56 .014 i intentionally involve people from many cultural backgrounds in my life 4.51 3.95 0.56 3.21 .003 note: number of participants (n) = 40. we only report items for which there was a significant improvement post-test compare to the pre-test of the 35 questions, 16 of them showed significant improvement (p < .05) in the post-versus-pre assessment. given the small sample of 40, it is likely that a larger sample would have more items showing significance. some of the responses to note were concepts of “giving back,” “making a difference,” interacting with people from different cultures, having “purpose” in life, and considering different cultural perspectives. these responses demonstrate movement toward cultural humility, advocacy, and an interest in interacting with other cultures and racial/ethnic populations. future evaluation will focus upon reinforcing the areas of significant improvement and addressing those areas in need of greater cultural sensitivity. furthermore, these data will be combined with 2019 data, which will enable further review according to the three cognitive, intrapersonal, and interpersonal dimensions. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23813 | july 20, 2020 65 conclusion robert caret’s (2019, pg. 10) vision for higher education parallels our own goal, “to graduate educated, enlightened citizens who are ready to go to work in all facets of life to make their lives, their communities, and our nation [world] better.” undergraduate nursing students are ignited by personal insight, skill development, and opportunities gained through local and global ecl, that propels them toward becoming engaged citizens who advocate for social justice, become change agents, and demonstrate cultural humility (nickitas et al., 2016). each student, in their way, becomes a socially responsive learner as they journey toward global citizenship. from the time students enter the university until graduation, faculty have numerous opportunities to create pathways for ecl that are influential and impactful, including grounding civic learning within a social justice framework, and equipping the nursing workforce to care for culturally diverse populations. thus, being civically engaged creates a possible place where a student’s “deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger coincide” (buechner, 1973, pg. 95). implications for practice and future research further research is needed to identify specific pedagogical interventions to optimize student development, especially during the current covid-19 era of less physical human connection within communities. existing challenges are now layered with limitations of a pandemic, where vulnerable communities need more connection, not less, from academic institutions and health professionals. students, in turn, need safe options to create a place for their “deep gladness” that is unexpected, but no less effective. now more than ever, a social justice framework for developing global citizens is paramount in order to accomplish hp2020 goals for health equity and the elimination of health disparities (braveman et al., 2020). preparation of future nurses within this paradigm is essential, but nonetheless insufficient without increasing language proficiency nurses and other providers that is congruent with the community. pedagogical goals in nursing and other health programs should consider including both cultural and language competencies with a commitment to rigorous measurement of health outcomes in order to bridge the 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(2001). designing metacognitive activities. educational technology research and development, 49(2), 23-40. doi.org/10.1007/bf02504926 makary, m., & daniel, m. (2016). medical error—the third leading cause of death in the us. bmj, 353, i2139. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.i2139 © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23813 | july 20, 2020 68 markus, g. b., howard, j. p. f., & king, d. c. (1993). integrating community service and classroom instruction enhances learning: results from an experiment. educational evaluation and policy analysis, 15, 410-419. https://doi.org/10.2307/1164538 national academies of sciences, engineering, & medicine. (2017). the root causes of health in communities in action: pathways to health equity. washington, dc. doi: 10.17226/24624 newell, m., & saxena, s. 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(2013). views from the global south: exploring how student volunteers from the global north can achieve sustainable impact in global health. globalization and health, 9(1), 32. doi.org/10.1186/1744-8603-9-32 research institute for studies in education (2017). global perspective inventory: theoretical foundations and scale descriptions. iowa state university: ames, ia. https://www.gpi.hs.iastate.edu/documents/gpi%20theory%20and%20scales.pdf rubenfeld, s., clément, r., lussier, d., lebrun, m., & auger, r. (2006). second language learning and cultural representations: beyond competence and identity. language learning, 56(4), 609–631. doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9922.2006.00390.x rutgers-camden newsnow. (2019). nursing graduate from north camden the first in her family to attend college. https://news.camden.rutgers.edu/2019/05/nursing-graduate-from-northcamden-the-first-in-her-family-to-attendcollege/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=class-of2019&utm_content=yahoska-morales&fbclid=iwar1isjifox9kxyutwuppv7uhtatzxtmi5wcq0oi6rfa27retjcfcmg-bwm © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23813 | july 20, 2020 69 rutgers university—camden. (n.d.). faculty fellows program. www.camden.rutgers.edu/civicengagement/faculty-fellows-program sabo, s, dezapien, j., teufel-shone, n., rosales, c. bergsma, l. & taren, d. (2015). service learning: a vehicle for building health equity and eliminating health disparities. american journal public health, 105(supp 1.), s38-s43. doi.org/10.2105/ajph.2014.302364 schuessler, b., wilder, w., & byrd, w. (2012). reflective journaling and development of cultural humility in students. nursing education perspective, 33(2), 96–99. doi.org/10.5480/1536-5026-33.2.96 schyve p. m. (2007). language differences as a barrier to quality and safety in health care: the joint commission perspective. journal of general internal medicine, 22 suppl 2(suppl 2), 360–361. doi:10.1007/s11606-007-0365-3 sedgwick, a., & atthill, s. (2019). nursing student engagement in cultural humility through global health service learning: an interpretive phenomenological approach. journal of transcultural nursing : official journal of the transcultural nursing society, 1043659619870570. doi.org/10.1177/1043659619870570 sherrill, w., mayo, r., truong, k., pribonic, a., & schalkoff, c. (2016). assessing medical student cultural competence: what really matters. international journal of medical education, 7, 248–254. doi.org/10.5116/ijme.578b.687c small, p. (2019). structural justice and nursing: inpatient nurses’ obligation to address social justice needs of patients. nursing ethics, 26(7-8), 1928–1935. doi.org/10.1177/0969733018810764 visovsky, c., mcghee, s., jordan, e., dominic, s., & morrison-beedy, d. (2016). planning and executing a global health experience for undergraduate nursing students: a comprehensive guide to creating global citizens. nurse education today, 40, 29–32. doi.org/10.1016/j.nedt.2016.01.008 westwood, s. (2019). ageing, diversity, & equality: social justice perspectives (s. westwood, ed.). routledge. https://cnpea.ca/images/ageing_diversity_and_equality.pdf yorio, p. & fe, y. (2012). a meta-analysis on the effects of service-learning on the social, personal, and cognitive outcomes of learning. academy of management, 11(1), 9-27. doi.org/10.5465/amle.2010.0072 © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23813 | july 20, 2020 70 acknowledgements this project was supported, in part, by a grant from the department of education, international foreign language education (doe/ifle) award # p016a160081. the spanish for health professions program was developed and implemented by ana laguna, and assisted by her colleague dana pilla. kevin emmons assisted in the program evaluation of the guatemala learning abroad program. the offices of international students/global programs and civic engagement were invaluable to our program’s success. original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26440| march 8, 2023 118 community autonomy and place-based environmental research: recognizing and reducing risks jennifer britton1 and hugh p. johnson2 1 procurement services and accounts payable, executive director for sustainable development strategy, drexel university, 2 the environmental collaboratory, senior director of research strategy and development, drexel university cite as: britton, j., & johnson, h.p. (2023). community autonomy and place-based environmental research: recognizing and reducing risks. metropolitan universities, 34(2), 118-137. doi: 10.18060/26440 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. guest editors: patrick m. green, ed.d. and susan haarman editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract academic and government-directed research is generally portrayed as a benign problemsolving enterprise. there is a long record of important theories, discoveries, and solutions to sticky problems that research has produced. but alongside this list of important advances in knowledge, there has been a record of damage to individuals and to communities as a whole when place-based research has not been implemented thoughtfully. researchers conducting community-facing projects are increasingly aware that place-based research may generate risks at a community level. this literature review identifies a set of dynamics through which placebased environmental research projects can undermine community autotomy where research takes place and offers a set of recommendations for researchers and institutions who wish to adopt research practices and institutional supports that honor community autonomy. keywords: place-based research, research ethics, environmental research, communitybased research http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26440| march 8, 2023 119 introduction place-based research in fields like ecology, environmental engineering, environmental health, and others can introduce harm and risk to human and nonhuman communities implicated in or simply situated at or near research sites. but the institutions sponsoring this research are only beginning to grapple with developing ethical practices addressing the community-level risks generated by academic research. the history of abuses in biomedical research against vulnerable individual research participants is well known and prompted legislation in the united states during the 1970s to protect human research subjects better. the follow-on belmont report (national commission for the protection of human subjects of biomedical and behavioral research, 1979) laid out principles for human subjects research around respect for persons, beneficence, and justice. in the past few decades, participatory action research (par) and community-based participatory research (cbpr) methods have become routine, partly as a movement to democratize research. especially in public health, many researchers (flicker et al. 2007, friesen et al. 2015, friesen et al. 2017, gilbert 2006, kwan et al. 2018) have been calling for a rethinking of traditional institutional research board (irb) processes and an expansion on the belmont report values to protect affected communities better, whether geographical or identity-based, when research has impacts like encoding a community in specific ways, exposing them to new risks, or undermining their autonomy. several public health researchers have observed that traditional irb human subjects protections, while effective in protecting individual human research subjects in biomedical and behavioral research, fall short when it comes to defending the well-being of place-based communities implicated in research (flicker et al. 2007, friesen et al. 2015, friesen et al. 2017, gilbert 2006, kwan et al. 2018). environmentally-focused research shares some commonalities with public health research in that it is often place-based, with data collection and analysis relevant to human and nonhuman animal communities. discoveries about localized environmental conditions have policy, economic, and public health implications, as well as an impact on community identity, cohesion, and agency. in addition, there is a great deal of environmental research that does not, at least nominally, incorporate human subjects or human communities and therefore does not feed through institutional irb processes; these researchers are not formally asked to consider the impacts of their work on communities, even if that formal process inadequately grapples with community-level impact. these factors combine with a set of converging dynamics in the higher-education landscape. the anchor mission movement among urban institutions calls on universities to align their business practices to support wealth building in neighboring communities; many such institutions are additionally undertaking a critical review of their research practices to identify and address ways in which research may exploit those nearby communities that have experienced disinvestment. a proliferation of community-connected climate and environment-focused research centers is © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26440| march 8, 2023 120 poised to expose partner communities to research endeavors that disregard community needs more frequently. additionally, there are many well-intentioned efforts to leverage the work of faculty and students in service to partnering communities through “town and gown” networks like epic-n, thriving earth exchange, university climate change coalition, and the urban climate change research network. further, with the biden administration’s pledge to address climate change with an explicit focus on the justice40 commitment to environmental racism (white house, 2021), there is some expectation of an increase in community-facing climate research funding and a concomitant rise in community exposure to research efforts that cause harm. on the community side, local leaders across north america have become research activists, creating community irbs and research review boards, and holding researchers and institutions who connect with them accountable for a baseline set of sound collaborative practices. finally, universities involved in the movement of engaged anchor institutions and those pursuing antiracism strategies in the wake of the 2020 uprisings are being called on by these movements to be better partners to nearby communities. one focus of this work is making changes to place-based research practices. an anti-racist approach and a justice lens on place-based research demand that researchers elevate community-level impacts and outcomes as part of the research process. this literature review highlights factors that undermine community-level autonomy in communities affected by environmental research, whether as active partners or not. in addition to identifying this set of risks and harms, the literature also surfaces a set of recommendations for both researchers and institutions, which, when assembled, can act as a roadmap for institutional research administration offices that are looking for the right response to the converging trends that include a serious focus on anti-racist institutional practices and a proliferation of place-based and environmental research centers. methodology this narrative literature review mainly incorporates work published since 2010, with a few exceptions for especially informative articles, and with an eye towards recent discussion in the realm of research ethics. most of the content includes peer-reviewed articles, with a few editorial commentaries from relevant journals. publications from community-based organizations naming problems in research processes and offering guidance to researchers are likewise illuminating. the literature search drew from databases like proquest central, sociological abstracts, and proquest’s biological sciences, along with google scholar searches to identify additional material. search terms used to identify literature that examines risk and harm in place-based environmental research include research ethics, environmental research ethics, conservation research ethics, decolonizing conservation research, decolonizing field ecology, and cbpr and par in environmental research. the search used some work from public health as a starting © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26440| march 8, 2023 121 point. the sweep of the databases unearthed approximately 35 relevant articles. the research team read each article to find discussions of harmful consequences of environmental research where place is relevant, as well as discussions that focus on recommendations for researcher and institutional responses. themes of literature review – risks, harms, and recommendations undermining local autonomy and exposing communities to risk and harm place-based research can undermine community autonomy in several ways. from holland’s (2017) discussion of procedural justice and political capabilities in the context of climate adaptation policies, this analysis borrows the notion of capabilities to define community autonomy. in this use, community autonomy refers to the ability of communities to have power over and shape decisions about the issues that impact them, which consequently attracts researchers' attention. research poses a set of risks to community autonomy for communities affected by place-based research, whether as active partners with researchers, as human subjects in the research, or as actors who are uninvolved in the research but simply live where the research takes place. many of these risks follow from failures by researchers to recognize that natural systems and organisms are entangled with human systems where ecological field research is concerned and, in general, a failure of researchers to understand their positionalities. when human communities are the focus of research, researchers can leave damage behind when they fail to grapple with the implications of their research on existing inequities. following is a discussion of these factors. research wastes community stakeholders’ time without generating any direct benefit in “parachute research,” researchers arrive at a community outside of it. they lack prior relationships, fail to engage community members impacted by environmental problems, and exclude them from research design. the research may employ residents for data gathering, which “diverts a community’s time, labor, energy, and resources...without providing perceived or accessible benefits” (cordner et al., 2012). parachute research can instigate conflict between community organizations and advance interventions and solutions that residents do not find practical or desirable. further, data use without inclusive planning can have serious consequences “such as decreasing a neighborhood’s property values due to publicity of contamination” (p 167). the work of community-based groups like north carolina’s west end revitalization association is derived from experiences with university-sponsored research projects that relied on community participation and informants. these projects generated career advancement for investigators who retained control of project data and publications but provided © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26440| march 8, 2023 122 the community with no tools for problem-solving (wilson et al., 2007). dynamics like this drive a sense in communities of being over-researched. they have prompted community-based organizations in cities like chicago (chicago beyond, 2018) and salt lake city (community research collaborative, 2021), who frequently interface with academic researchers to produce guidelines for investigators to work in these communities in more thoughtful ways. research trivializes community narratives about experiences of risk when research characterizes the environmental or environmental health conditions of a community or place, it has repercussions for that community’s accounts of their experiences and ability to organize based on those accounts. as ottinger (2013) observes, scientifically derived data has been used to undermine an environmental justice (ej) community’s capacity to develop and tell its own stories as community members navigate their own identity and choices in the shadow of industrial emissions. research enshrines narratives about a place that reproduces or reinforces unjust power arrangements tuck (2009) discusses “damage-centered” research that starts by documenting deficits in a place. this approach is damaging insofar as the challenges faced by a community can come to define it. damage-centered research relies on a theory of change. if authorities can understand the dimensions of a community’s poverty, health status, or environmental exposures, processes will subsequently occur to address and solve the problems. but, tuck argues, there is no good evidence that this ever actually happens. friesen et al. (2017) point to a public health study that shared alcoholism rates in an indigenous community which consequently had its credit rating downgraded. one can readily see a corollary in research that shares the adverse health impacts of local environmental conditions without attendant community planning and response. researchers’ assumptions can also generate damaging narratives. when ecological field researchers based in global north institutions do fieldwork in global south places, they can bring unexamined assumptions about their expertise and power. "in a sense, field research can be a colonial exercise, in which an incoming set of established researchers impose an agenda and a set of practices that reflect uneven power dynamics. ecologists from the global north must critically examine the ways in which they conduct fieldwork and how they relate to and reinforce existing inequalities” (baker et al. 2019, p288). when researchers have carried unexamined assumptions about the qualities of ecosystems and local land practices into their research and publications, it has justified oppressive practices. justifications for colonization were often derived from researchers’ narratives about indigenous land use practices, framed in environmental research as irrational and destructive. this type of © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26440| march 8, 2023 123 environmental history was codified around the same time that ecology was becoming an established discipline. “despite their inaccuracy, colonial environmental narratives became institutionalized and legitimated by ecological science through the provision of scientific proofs in the descriptions, maps, and data of colonial botanists and ecologists” (skandrani, 2018, p. 369). this dynamic of extraction-by-narrative is not relegated to the past: as seamster and purifoy (2019) demonstrate, the social construction of black communities today as places of environmental degradation is, somewhat perversely, part of the placemaking dynamic for white spaces and communities. research exposes human respondents to personal, physical, and financial risks due to information they disclose about local environmental or conservation conditions cooper et al. (2019), looking at citizen science research, identify a set of risks to citizen participants in research ranging from physical risks connected to data collection, psychological distress, and loss of efficacy when their contributions and ideas go unacknowledged, or they lack access to research outcomes and loss of confidentiality when personal situations and locations are revealed in data. yet, despite these risks, researchers leading citizen science projects rarely employ consent processes with local participants. considering conservation research that engages local human informants, st. john et al. (2016) discuss the ethical survey and interview research practices in situations where informants may have engaged in illegal activities like poaching. they emphasize that when privacy protections are inadequate, the research process can put these informants at risk when the data exposes them to encounters with law enforcement. research introduces a unique set of risks and harms to indigenous communities research has posed existential threats to indigenous communities. held (2019) recounts a dual purpose of environmental research in indigenous spaces meant to lay the groundwork for private resource exploitation as it described environmental features. accompanying social science research, per held, eased the way for cultural assimilation. harding et al. (2012) consider ways in which researchers, primarily engaged in environmental health projects, have abused the trust of tribal nations. “few nonnative researchers possess an awareness of native american culture and belief systems, including the continuing effect of american colonialism on the peoples they seek to study” (p. 6). there are important differences in how western research enterprises and tribal nations handle data ownership, management, and dissemination, for example. in the western academic tradition, the researcher owns the research data and is free to disseminate it. among tribal nations, data about the community is the community's property, with limits on sharing. this makes standard irb protocols allowing the researcher to use and publish tribal information as they wish inadequate. irbs do not commonly incorporate guidance on intellectual © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26440| march 8, 2023 124 property rights, nor do intellectual property rights reviews, when they exist, take on board irb principles of beneficence, justice, and respect of persons. human subjects irbs also do not consider tribal sovereignty or aboriginal rights. “american indians’ circumstances present situations that require greater efforts at informed consent. tribes are often more vulnerable because they are in the difficult position of seeking data and research funds while struggling against simply ‘being studied’” (p. 7). friesen et al. (2015) further examine the inadequacies of the belmont report with respect to indigenous communities, noting that some researchers in bioethics argue that it does not adequately consider how a research project may trivialize a community’s cultural traditions and beliefs. a situation in which biomedical researchers acquired havasupai community dna for a specific research purpose but then used it without consent to generate research on human origins in north america is a notable example of the potential for research to harm indigenous communities. where research in or about indigenous communities is concerned, snow et al. (2016) summarize a fundamental problem with researchers as knowledge brokers wielding methodologies and research practices that disempower. citing wa thiong’o (1986), they note that positivist research can act as “a cultural bomb that weakens indigenous communities’ belief systems, senses of unity and languaging, and understandings of common struggle” (p. 358). some approaches to framing research about environmental problems can obscure possible solutions where environmental health factors are the focus of research, especially in environmental justice (ej) communities, a research process can leave community-level health risks in place when it neglects place-specific risks and instead uses frameworks that are limited to individual-level impacts and interventions. “conventional health intervention and health promotion strategies have largely failed to mitigate the sources of environmental health risk for ej communities because the strategies often address health at the individual behavior level rather than interacting with relevant social, cultural, and political contexts” (davis & ramirez-andreotta, 2021, introduction section, para. 3). research that disregards the “place” in place-based research is another framing problem. quigley (2016) echoes this in her argument that place-based identities are just as important and worth elevating in research as the individual identities protected in traditional irb processes. “for example, many environmental research interventions will involve some study of a natural resource or spatial setting, usually within a locality of human inhabitants who are organized as a geographic community. an awareness of the meanings of place and the control of place-based conditions on the community level will be important considerations for research affecting the place conditions of individuals.” as for the kind of harm that can emerge: “when a research project/design has too narrow a design which mostly benefits the researcher’s © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26440| march 8, 2023 125 interest, this may produce a risk and harm to place-based conditions and the human groups/animals or ecosystems affected by a narrow design” (p. 23). quigley here refers to research focusing on a narrow aspect of place-based environmental health or ecosystem risk that can obscure other important risk factors for disease like housing access, healthcare access, and structural racism, producing research outcomes that fail to address structural issues related to place. arguing that because environmental justice scholarship is “bound to a hegemonic-western idea of modernity and western-inspired political ideals” in which solutions to environmental injustice flow from the state, álvarez and coolsaet (2020) hold that this type of research risks creating new injustice when transposed to contexts in the global south. they look at the concept of environmental equity as a response to injustices. in this view, equity is one idea in ej scholarship that can be especially problematic in global south contexts, wherein research that advances ideas of equitable distribution of the environmental risks of a global capitalist economy as a solution to those risks (as compared to risk distribution only to vulnerable communities) can legitimize those risks as long as they are distributed evenly. research disregards the needs of human communities when advocating for nonhuman animal conservation measures conservation and ecological field research that advocates for threatened and endangered species can sometimes lose sight of critical entanglements between human and nonhuman animal communities and may advance conservation policy that threatens the economic stability of lowimpact local communities. in a study of “village and forest” elephants in laos, lainé (2018) finds that research-backed conservation measures focusing solely on a global north conception of elephant integrity overlook the resilience of cooperative elephants and human communities and the benefits that these relationships could have to conservation goals. a similar dynamic finds embodiment in brazil, where conservation policy backed by scientific research has consistently marginalized traditional fishing communities and the social organization created by fishing activities, small in impact compared to industrial-scale fishing (castelo branco araujo & de aguiar portela moita, 2018). research disregards the safety and integrity of nonhuman animal communities the question of who is worth protecting in research design is an issue in place-based environmental research. field ecology research sometimes puts the safety of nonhuman animal communities at risk. marsh and kenchington (2004) identify gaps in ethical processes in field ecology and its institutional management and publishing in their case study a controversial 1996 research proposal on the impacts of fishing practices that would have exposed the great barrier reef to potentially large-scale damage to the sake of data collection. marine biologists, they https://www-proquest-com.ezproxy2.library.drexel.edu/indexinglinkhandler/sng/au/fernanda+castelo+branco+araujo/$n?accountid=10559 https://www-proquest-com.ezproxy2.library.drexel.edu/indexinglinkhandler/sng/au/edvaldo+de+aguiar+portela+moita/$n?accountid=10559 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26440| march 8, 2023 126 observe, were more attuned to their access to new data than to ecosystem integrity. costello et al. (2016) point out that while laws in many nations protect animals in laboratory research from pain and stress, they fall short of protecting wild animal communities from mass death in field sampling processes, especially when the animals are culturally unpopular or are invertebrates. a few examples of other risks to nonhuman animal communities include damage to stressed ecosystems where collecting or disrupting organisms can upset species balances or introduce disease. sampling methods like netting can harm or kill species other than the ones being studied and represent the uneven treatment of different species – some with care, some without. this lineup of factors introduced by environmental research that undermine community autonomy is not definitive, and there is space for further research to illuminate some of these risk factors better. there is ample reason here, however, for institutions to more closely consider how they approach oversight of and support place-based environmental research and for researchers themselves to integrate reflexivity into their practices. strategies and recommendations for practice alongside how an environmental research project or institutional research enterprise can leave damage behind in a community, emerging from the literature is a set of recommendations and strategies for researchers and their institutions to consider to mitigate these harms. these strategies fall into four broad categories, each of which has several possible components. as a set of recommendations, these points challenge environmental researchers and their institutions to think more expansively about who matters and who benefits in the research enterprise and to adapt research practices accordingly. the recommendations call for backing up this rethinking and adapted practices with formal structures and processes that reflect a moral research universe that takes community integrity seriously. as a researcher, approach work with reflexivity and an acknowledgment of positionality and power relationships while many types of conservation, ecology, and environmental research do not explicitly engage with human communities, baker, eichhorn, and griffiths (2019) encourage researchers to approach their work with the understanding that the natural systems they study are entangled in human systems. they call on researchers to integrate desired outcomes for the human communities connected to the research sites into their research design. they also ask researchers to challenge assumptions of scientific neutrality and objectivity, especially concerning research in the global south. büscher and fletcher (2019) envision an approach to conservation practice in which human and nonhuman animal communities each get what they need to thrive. this © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26440| march 8, 2023 127 vision can inform environmental and conservation research if researchers routinely consider the needs of the human communities entangled with the ecosystems, species, and environmental conditions they study. effective research, in this view, should support the structural changes needed to protect vulnerable human communities connected to or dependent on nonhuman research subjects. on an individual basis, researchers should grapple with their positionality, understanding how their status of nationality, gender, and race plays into the research process and acknowledging that they are not engaging in knowledge production as neutral observers. snow et al. (2015) echo this in their work on indigenous research practices, identifying the importance of acknowledging and addressing power imbalances in research relationships and integrating a reflexive approach that can help correct unwarranted assumptions of neutrality. one example of this is incorporating positionality statements in publications and recognizing local informants' contributions. while not found explicitly in the literature reviewed, extrapolating the need for recognition of institutional positionality and power seems logical, particularly for metropolitan and urban universities, which often have strong anchor missions that have resulted in a high volume of interactions with their local communities. contending with differential power relationships between researchers and community members, however, is more than simply declaring a power-neutral participatory process, which kwan and walsh (2018) observe will not reduce or eliminate them. instead, facing power gaps head-on and articulating efforts to address them can ground a more democratic research engagement. actions like integrating supplemental training for community participants can help narrow, if not eliminate, power differentials that flow from positionality. a researcher’s recognition of their positionality is also important for setting community expectations and creating accountability for researchers. the relationship between the community and researcher is influenced by the past experiences of each and by their interactions at the launch, implementation, and conclusion of a research endeavor. understanding that many communities have been the subject of repeated research activities for a variety of factors (e.g., location, access, unique attributes, extractive power imbalances, etc.), research fatigue impacts both the community and the quality of the research results, necessitating “the researchers’ explicit disclosure about research outcomes, potential benefits (or lack thereof) for the participants” (larocca et al., 2019, p. 11). the researcher may take on a number of roles with community partners throughout the research process (i.e., expert, student, employer, observer, friend), but “no amount of methodological training, time in the field, or careful attention to ethnographic practice could change the fact that … we are at once an insider and an outsider. in this way, a power dynamic cannot be escaped within these relationships, one that is directly tied to our positionalities as white western researchers” (larocca et al., 2019, p. 14). © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26440| march 8, 2023 128 as a researcher, adopt practices that elevate the safety, integrity, and agency of communities connected directly or indirectly to the research communities can benefit from environmental research in multiple ways, including direct compensation or employment, the generation of actionable knowledge through cogeneration or as recipients, and as participants in the research itself. how each of these benefits accrues to the community and to what extent, and how harms to the safety, integrity, and agency of a community can be mitigated depends on the practices that researchers employ. to bound and increase the applicability of their findings, environmental researchers often view communities as distinct collectives defined by ecological parameters like a watershed or an ecosystem type. they may also use political, social, and economic characteristics like census tracts, municipalities, rural versus urban, or relationship to the poverty line as research boundaries. while individual identities are comprised of a range of characteristics, there are often those defined as “local elites or interest groups” and more “marginalized groups” within any given community. long, ballard, fisher, and belsky (2015) caution that although working with elites may increase the capacity to conduct research and translate it into action, it also risks generating results that align only with the interests of those in power. by the same token, research aimed at addressing the needs of marginalized community members may impose risks to those members due to their participation. recognizing these differences in community identities and “paying attention to power dynamics and potential consequences is particularly important in communities that may have experienced historical trauma, oppression, or discrimination by outside groups” (p. 260). to combat the dangers of essentialist approaches enshrining damaging narratives, vohland, weißpflug, and pettibone (2019) suggest adopting an anti-essentialist approach to collective identity, such that identities represented in research are contingent, contextually situated, and are always in construction. where research design is concerned, there is a set of questions that researchers may ask themselves to empower local experts and informants and illuminate how the research findings may support community autonomy: “how many local scientists are involved in collaboration or co-creation? are the local scientists also authors on the published work? who has access to and interprets the resulting datasets? who applies knowledges?” (baker et al., 2019, p. 289). s. wilson, o. wilson, heaney, and cooper (2007) demonstrate just such a reversal of the usual community-researcher roles when controlling a research process, providing insights for research design. in this instance, the research utilized the environmental protection agency’s collaborative problem solving (cps) agreement. cpss enabled community-based organizations (cbos) to act as the principal investigator (pi), project manager, and recipient of project funding, giving them control over scope, objectives, and outcomes. the cps also enabled the cbo to develop a memorandum of an agreement specific to the roles and responsibilities of its © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26440| march 8, 2023 129 collaborative partners, including universities. when research partners created deliverables, they followed guidelines set by the cbo and directly informed the community’s needs. in most instances, however, the roles of the researcher and the community will be dictated by a more traditional model whereby community benefit comes in the form of useful and actionable knowledge, which should be developed through transparent and inclusive practices that enhance the long-term sustainability of the research. where budget and time constraints resulting from funding timelines and graduate degree requirements mean that research results may fall short of generating useful tools for community partners, long, ballard, fisher, and belsky (2015) recommend clear communication that a resolution to a problem might not emerge from the research. in those instances where the community or individual community members played an integral role in the research, whether as citizen scientists, research assistants, or community liaisons, providing them a larger, integrated role in the dissemination of the research can benefit both those individuals and the community. the citizen science community regularly convenes at conferences and forums, where community rewards and benefits are issues of discussion but the citizen scientists themselves are often absent. “meaningful inclusion of citizens’ goals and interests at such events and discourses requires thoughtful, creative work from the scientific community to synthesize citizens’ perspectives from the project level, to conduct research that asks citizens their motivations and goals for participation, or even to develop new roles such as citizen scientist advocates to speak for this essential – but often silent – group” (vohland et al. 2019, a compass for the citizen science community to navigate around neoliberal cliffs section, par. 1). where community members have served as research assistants or liaisons, their inclusion in large disciplinary conferences “could be potentially valuable networking opportunities for future employment or further study on the part of research assistants … and help address the imbalance in representation at important venues of knowledge production and bring more sustainable returns for essential co-producers of knowledge (larocco et al., 2019, p. 60). in addition to creating more inclusive roles for community members in the creation and professional dissemination of the work, researchers should also consider alternative modes of dissemination that directly support community autonomy. publishing in academic journals benefits the researcher and is a useful means of preserving information. still, long, fisher, ballard, and belsky (2015) found examples of community benefits being better served through “creative modes of sharing results, by publishing articles in local newsletters and newspapers, presenting their findings at informal local gatherings or community meetings and producing plays” (p. 258). © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26440| march 8, 2023 130 while co-created design, co-authorship, and inclusion of local expertise elevate community voices, it is sometimes the case that community and academic rewards are misaligned, and monetary compensation is appropriate. but determining who gets compensated and how much can be challenging to decide on by researchers who come from outside a community. long et al. (2015) found that “discussions with community partners could help answer difficult questions about who should be compensated (including whether it should be individuals and/or institutions), how (in cash or kind), how much, and the potential consequences of different options” (p. 259). finally, some kinds of research data collection from local informants, for example, that focuses on endangered species subject to poaching can potentially expose vulnerable people to law enforcement. st. john et al. (2016) layout recommendations for research practices that ensure the safety and anonymity of research informants to avoid their subsequent exposure to law enforcement as a result of research findings. as an institution, cultivate a research culture that accommodates and supports careful community-facing research a careful approach to community-facing and place-based research requires institutions to think beyond traditional review board protocols to reexamine their research culture. aspects of professional development, community support, and involvement, an approach to funding that better aligns with the timeframes of community-facing research, and even a wholesale rethinking of research ethics are options here. addressing the required structural changes, cvitanovic et al. (2019) call for a reimagining of professional development with institutions offering training and support for researchers in topics like active listening, mediation, brokering, and facilitation. on the administrative side, institutional contracting practices integrate a commitment to adequate legal and financial support to community participants. institutions can work with researchers to the extent possible so that return trips to the community for information sharing can occur following the conclusion of a research project (larocco et al., 2019). moving forward, “[a]s practitioners in both universities and nonprofits work toward building institutional capacity and securing long-term funding, individuals should examine the challenges to the par enterprise that arise with the probability that the researcher may more quickly leave the community” than is ideal for successful outcomes for the community (long et al., 2015, p. 260). davis and ramirez-andreotta (2021) suggest a set of research practices that facilitate structural change, including: “community members holding formal leadership roles; project design that includes decision-makers and policy goals; and partnerships designed to be sustained multiple © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26440| march 8, 2023 131 years through multiple funding mechanisms. in addition, the assumption of community benefit via participation is critically examined” (participatory research design for structural change section, par. 3). harding et al. (2012) cite the need for robust material and data sharing agreements and offer a model for setting up research components that support transparency in project scope, methods and data collection, as well measures for data access and security. beyond structural reforms, others advocate for an entirely new conception of environmental research ethics. cordner et al. (2012) state that while formal guidelines like the belmont report are a strong foundation for protecting humans affected by the research, “...formalized ethical protocols...are unable to fully take into account the dynamic relationships between multiple parties or the constant uncertainty faced by researchers as they navigate new ethical terrain or face questions unaddressed by existing standards” (p. 163). therefore, a “’post-belmont’ conception of ethics” can hold researchers accountable for harm prevention methodologies and benefit at both the individual level (as mandated by belmont) and the community level. gilbert (2006) argues further for a new ethical foundation in which we add dignity to the belmont report values because respect for autonomy alone does not support the right to live and develop in a safe environment. per gilbert, communities are entitled to fully understand the implications of a research project and access any tools emerging from research that support their autonomy, enabled by a conception of justice that considers what is just for a whole community. as an institution, examine and adjust formal research oversight and approval processes with a broader lens for community concerns in a review of irb protocols across north america, flicker et al. (2007) found that cbpr often falls short of being a harm-reducing methodology and that traditional irbs are ill-equipped to evaluate cbpr protocols for community-level risk. possible adjustments to traditional irb practices include cbpr training for irb members; an irb mandate that cbpr projects must consist of memoranda of understanding that “clearly outline the goals of the project, principles of partnership, decision-making processes, roles and responsibilities of partners, and guidelines for how the partnership will handle and disseminate data” (p. 487); and requirements for researchers to document how affected communities will be consulted in decisions about research design. friesen et al. (2015) suggest that the “respect for persons” condition of irb be expanded to include respect for persons and culture or respect for persons and communities. cooper et al. (2019) do not support using traditional irbs in projects with citizen science components, as this can obstruct democratic data sharing and innovation. they recommend an institutional oversight process that is flexible enough to handle a variety of participatory research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26440| march 8, 2023 132 scenarios while encouraging “dialogue among institutions about developing well-understood best practices” (p 6). considering the impacts of research focused on nonhuman communities, march and kensington (2004) recognize that most experimental marine biologists and ecologists operate without the oversight that protects lab animals. in support of ethical field research on animals and ecosystems, they ask institutional animal ethics committees to integrate more expansive environmental ethics into their purview. costello et al. (2016) echo this call for more inclusive environmental ethics for irb committees that consider impacts on whole systems and animal communities. they additionally ask that researchers reflect on their research by asking themselves: is the research necessary? do the ends justify the means? will animal or plant communities be harmed? can less harmful methods be considered? and what is the duration and recovery period for any unavoidable harm? conclusion place-based environmental research may undermine the autonomy of communities affected by the research by wasting community members’ time without generating direct benefit; trivializing community narratives about the risks they experience; enshrining narratives that reproduce unjust power arrangements; exposing informants to physical and financial risks; introducing a unique set of risks to indigenous communities; obscuring solutions as a result of framing; disregarding the needs of human communities when advocating for conservation measures; and disregarding the integrity of nonhuman animal communities. a set of mitigating strategies is available to both researchers in these fields and their institutions: researchers should approach their work with reflexivity and an acknowledgment of their positionality and power relationships; researchers should adopt practices that elevate the safety, integrity, and agency of communities connected directly or indirectly to their research; institutions should cultivate a research culture that accommodates and supports careful community-facing research; and institutions should examine and adjust their formal research oversight processes with a lens for community concerns. as researchers and institutions, bringing default reflexivity to research is key. it also suggests culture building to enable researchers to ask questions about intended research: does this research need to be done? by my team or by me? if it needs to be done, how does my positionality affect the research process and outcomes? how can my research results elevate the needs and interests of affected human and nonhuman animal communities without causing harm to either? institutional research offices have a corollary set of questions to ask themselves: how does our research enterprise enable outcomes consistent with values of justice? how do we support researchers engaged in the slow work of careful community engagement? what is the work we must do in our formal process and oversight to protect and empower communities who © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26440| march 8, 2023 133 may be affected by research originating in our institution? what conversations should we have with funders about their expectations? the self-study processes that emerge from this inquiry can create a foundation for a more democratic approach to environmental research. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26440| march 8, 2023 134 references álvarez, l. & coolsaet, b. 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(2007). use of epa collaborative problemsolving model to obtain environmental justice in north carolina. progress in community health partnerships: research, education, and action, 1(4), 27-337. https://doi.org/10.1353/cpr.2007.0036 http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/cstp.150 https://doi.org/10.1080/23251042.2020.1790331 https://econpapers.repec.org/scripts/redir.pf?u=https%3a%2f%2fdoi.org%2f10.1007%252fs13412-018-0501-x;h=repec:spr:jenvss:v:8:y:2018:i:3:d:10.1007_s13412-018-0501-x https://doi.org/10.1177/1476750315622542 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2016.01.025 https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.79.3.n0016675661t3n15 https://doi.org/10.5334/cstp.186 https://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/briefing-room/2021/07/20/the-path-to-achievinghttps://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/briefing-room/2021/07/20/the-path-to-achievinghttps://doi.org/10.1353/cpr.2007.0036 community autonomy and place-based environmental research: recognizing and reducing risks jennifer britton1 and hugh p. johnson2 abstract introduction methodology themes of literature review – risks, harms, and recommendations undermining local autonomy and exposing communities to risk and harm research wastes community stakeholders’ time without generating any direct benefit research trivializes community narratives about experiences of risk research enshrines narratives about a place that reproduces or reinforces unjust power arrangements research exposes human respondents to personal, physical, and financial risks due to information they disclose about local environmental or conservation conditions research introduces a unique set of risks and harms to indigenous communities some approaches to framing research about environmental problems can obscure possible solutions research disregards the needs of human communities when advocating for nonhuman animal conservation measures research disregards the safety and integrity of nonhuman animal communities strategies and recommendations for practice as a researcher, approach work with reflexivity and an acknowledgment of positionality and power relationships as a researcher, adopt practices that elevate the safety, integrity, and agency of communities connected directly or indirectly to the research as an institution, cultivate a research culture that accommodates and supports careful community-facing research as an institution, examine and adjust formal research oversight and approval processes with a broader lens for community concerns conclusion references microsoft word publish_smith et al. 2022 6.19.22.docx original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25333 | june 19, 2022 109 operationalizing antiracism in higher education community engagement stella l. smith1, kristin d. medlin2,3, and lauren a. wendling4 1 minority achievement, creativity and high-ability center, prairie view a&m university 2 collaboratory research fellowship program 3 institute for community & economic engagement, unc greensboro 4 collaboratory research fellowship program cite as: smith, s.l., medlin, k.d., & wendling, l. a. (2022). operationalizing antiracism in higher education community engagement. metropolitan universities, 33(2), 109-128. doi: 10.18060/25333 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. guest editors: kevin w. allison, sylvia carey-butler, rosalyn hobson hargraves, tiffany g. townsend, and jeffery wilson editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract higher education must move beyond statements of solidarity towards action to support antiracist work at institutions. although these statements of support are laudable, it can be challenging to successfully operationalize antiracism across all levels of an institution (individuals, activities/programs, courses, units, and entire institutions) and with all stakeholders (faculty, staff, students, and community partners). we suggest that community engagement is a key overlooked strategy and method for advancing antiracist agendas within institutions. examples of how antiracist work actually manifests through community-university partnerships can help identify successful outcomes of antiracist practices and policies. this article will share findings from a series of dialogues engaging over 250 participants about the intersection of engagement and antiracism, and share a call to develop a set of metrics to assess and measure antiracism in higher education community engagement. keywords: antiracism; community engagement; community-university partnerships original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25333 | june 19, 2022 110 introduction systemic racism has always existed within all facets of our country – higher education being no exception (bensimon, 2020; museus, ledesma, & parker, 2015). health, economic, and social inequities magnified by covid-19, coupled with the issues of ongoing police brutality and white supremacy, are bringing to the surface disparities that have always existed at disproportionate rates for people of color. now more than ever, public outcry over systematic racism and disparate treatment of marginalized communities has increased. leaders in all sectors have denounced racist policies and practices, and pledged support not just for diverse, equitable, and inclusive engagement, but also for antiracist engagement. although these statements of support are laudable, often it is challenging to infuse these ideals within current systems and policy. for many, issues of social justice, antiracism, and equity, diversity, and inclusion (dei) seem inextricably linked to higher education community engagement (hece) efforts. both scholarship and practice suggest that the concepts of equity and social justice must inform the work faculty, staff, and students do in and with communities (ccph board of directors, 2021; loggins, nayve, & plaxton-moore, 2020; mitchell, 2008; kretzmann & mcknight, 1993; public purpose institute, 2021). yet from an institutional perspective, the work of hece practitioners and dei practitioners continues to proceed on separate, parallel tracks (hurtado, 2007; sturm, eatman, saltmarsh, & bush, 2011) and there is little evidence of the benefits of hece on institutional dei or antiracism efforts. if community engagement is a strategy through which campuses achieve their institutional mission and goals, why are more institutions not explicitly relying on it to respond to the events of 2020 and the call to become an antiracist institution? even more elusive is the need to assess and measure antiracist engagement in the context of hece. it is important to note that there has been much more research conducted on the benefits of dei on hece at the individual level. these benefits are realized through evidence of student learning and transformation as a result of having participated in a high impact practice like service-learning (einfield & collins, 2008; zimmerelli, 2016), and though increased commitments to civic and community engagement in faculty of color (aguirre, 2000; vogelgesang, jensen, & jayakumar, 2010). at the institutional level, there are several rubrics that consider dei in isolation from engagement efforts (new england resource center for higher education, 2016; harris & bensimon, 2007). these tools consider the importance of institutional mission, administrative leadership, and evaluation and assessment capacity, but they do not consider the interplay or effects of community engagement efforts as methods to accomplish these goals. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25333 | june 19, 2022 111 this article describes the efforts of an inter-institutional, cross-sectoral group of scholars and administrators to identify synergies between institutional leadership and on-the-ground community engagement practitioners as it relates to community engagement and antiracism. over the course of the last year, we have engaged with over 250 hece practitioners, most of whom articulate feelings of being left out of institutional responses to antiracism and who are searching for a way to elevate the stories and impacts of those working at the intersections of hece, social justice, and antiracism. in this paper, we will summarize a series of dialogues engaging participants about the intersection of engagement and antiracism. lastly, we will provide next steps to measure community engagement efforts using an antiracism lens. the (re)emergence of antiracism the question could be asked, “why is it so difficult to introduce antiracist practices into higher education? the complexity stems from the ongoing discussion of race and the intersectionality of the impact of individual difference within our society. “today we are faced with complex, contradictory and complicated understandings of the language of race and racism” (kailin, 1994, p. 130). moreover, a larger challenge, often overlooked, is the long-standing history of systemic racism in the united states (feagin, 2013; museus et al., 2015). higher education was created to sustain this system of oppression. as hall, ansley, connolly, loonat, patel & whitham (2021) discussed in struggling for the anti-racist university: learning from an institution-wide response to curriculum decolonisation, the role of higher education in sustaining current power structure as: ● the creation of relationships of inclusion and exclusion between staff and students, institutions and stakeholders, and institutions and society. ● the dominance of white, male views of reality (ontology) and ways of producing knowledge about the world (epistemology). ● the hegemonic (dominant and manufactured) position of knowledge generated in the global north in addressing crises. ● the value of alternative histories and conceptions of a meaningful education and life. ● the relationship between, first, economic value and value-for-money, and second, humane values and human flourishing (p. 903) examples of policies that reinforce systemic racism in higher education include standardized testing, higher education finance models, performance funding, and cultural marginalization and isolation, to name a few (feagin, 2013; museus et al., 2015). hence, when we think about infusing antiracist practices and policies into our campuses some might say we are suggesting a reimagining of higher education. furthermore, when we seek to infuse antiracist principles into community engagement, we move counter to the traditional lens through which community original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25333 | june 19, 2022 112 engagement is conducted, which often includes individuals providing service to the community through non-reciprocal relationships. this is traditionally a eurocentric perspective of interacting with the world (hall et. al, 2021; yep & mitchell, 2017). dimensions of racism to better understand the meaning of antiracism, it is imperative to have a contextual knowledge of the pervasiveness of racism within society. although when discussing racism, individual actions are often considered rather than systemic structures, racism has several different dimensions. these dimensions move from the individual (internalized and interpersonal) to the systemic (cultural, institutional and systemic). although these dimensions are presented on a continuum, they occur and can be experienced together as well as separately as distinct phenomena. moreover, the dimensions are connected by people that perpetrate and maintain, intentionally or unintentionally, the dominant system. said another way, there is a connection between the individual and systemic dimensions, in that individuals with authority create and implement policy to reinforce and sustain the unjust policy or system. “it is argued that these racisms are grounded in the tendency to use white, euro-american culture(s) as the norm from which to evaluate other cultures and to treat people differently” (dei, 1996, p.12). a deeper discussion of the different dimensions of racism are detailed below. internalized racism is an individual’s private beliefs, bias, and prejudices as they relate to race (adams, bell & griffin, 2007; sue, 2016). these are thoughts that an individual might not know are there as they are often influenced and reinforced by culture and social programming (e.g., stereotypes of underrepresented populations and communities). internalized racism can lead to internalized supremacy by the dominant group and/or sublimated inferiority complexes in the minoritized groups. interpersonal racism is what is most thought of when we see acts of racism within the media or when we discuss acts of racism (feagin, 2013; sue, 2016). it focuses on how racism manifests when people interact with each other. said another way, it occurs when a person acts upon their internalized racism and their private racial beliefs lead to public interactions. examples of acts of interpersonal racism include racial slurs, bigotry, and hate crimes. cultural racism refers to the societal beliefs and customs that assign greater value to beliefs associated with dominant norms (powell, 2000; sue, 2016). these beliefs are often maintained through various media outlets. examples of cultural racism can be found in the language, traditions, and icons we privilege. cultural racism is often thought to be where personal racism connects racisms that are found in society (e.g., institutional and systemic). original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25333 | june 19, 2022 113 institutional racism occurs within institutions and systems of power. as individuals are the leaders of organizations, our personal beliefs often produce and perpetuate institutional racism (feagin, 2013; jones, 2000). institutional racism can be seen in unfair policies (formal and informal) as well as inequitable opportunities and disparate impacts of policies. systemic racism is the cumulative and compounding effects of a number of societal factors that have been designed to maintain and reinforce those in power (adams, bell & griffin, 2007, feagin, 2013). through interactions with institutions and policies, systemic racism maintains a system of privilege for those in power and a systemic disadvantage for those that are not in power. defining antiracism as alluded to by the title, antiracism is not a new term. the term actually has roots and history as part of the abolition movement. resurging again in the 1960s, the term “antiracism” became popular with various other types of emancipatory discourse including anti-sexism and gay rights (north, 2020). “a minimal definition of antiracism is that it refers to those forms of thought and/or practice that seek to confront, eradicate and/or ameliorate” (bonnett, 2000). said another way and enhanced to current context “anti-racism is understanding how years of federal, state, and local policies have placed communities of color in the crises they face today, and calling those policies out for what they are: racist.” (north, 2020, para. 16). it is important to note that the focus of antiracism, when developed, was not only racism. rather, it was also a response to issues of discrimination based on nation, culture and religion (anti-racism, 2000, bonnett, 2000). it is also important to recognize that the concept of antiracism is a global phenomenon. the national action committee on the status of women international perspectives: women and global solidarity defines antiracism as the “active process of identifying and eliminating racism by changing systems, organizational structures, policies and practices and attitudes, so that power is redistributed and shared equitably” (alberta civil liberties research center, n.d.). a similar thread throughout all of the antiracism definitions is the focus on changing systems to create a more equal distribution of power as well as moving from discussion of tolerance to acknowledging, celebrating and embracing difference (lynch, swartz, & isaacs, 2017). moreover, in considering the racism continuum, antiracism focuses on the systemic rather than individual level. “anti-racism moves beyond a narrow preoccupation with individual prejudices and discriminatory actions to the examination of the ways in which racist ideas and individual actions are entrenched and unconsciously supported in institutional structures. it is understood original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25333 | june 19, 2022 114 that racist practices do not require intentionality but that such practices are deemed racist in terms of their effects ” (dei, 1995, p.13). with the recent unrest related to systemic racism, the call for antiracist practices has resurged. one of the most important current voices in this conversation is ibram x, kendi, phd, founding director of the antiracist research and policy center at american university. in his book, how to be an antiracist, kendi provides the following definition for “racist” and “antiracist”: racist: one who is supporting a racist policy through their actions or inaction, or expressing a racist idea. antiracist: one who is supporting an antiracist policy through their actions or expressing an antiracist idea (kendi, 2019, p. 13). kendi’s position is very clear. regardless of intent, if one’s actions support racist policy they are considered racist. if one’s actions support antiracist ideas, they are antiracist. malini ranganathan, a faculty team lead at the antiracist research and policy center remarks about kendi’s interpretation of antiracism that “one endorses either the idea of a racial hierarchy as a racist, or racial equality as an antiracist” (north, 2021, para 11). an antiracist idea is understood as “one...expressing the idea that racial groups are equals and none needs developing, and is supporting policy that reduces racial inequity.” (kendi, 2019, p. 24). three goals of work from an antiracist perspective is to identify systemic oppression, challenge the inequity and bring about equity (lynch, swartz, & isaacs, 2017). “an emerging concern for contemporary anti-racist research is to move beyond the bland politics of inclusion to a new politics of transparency and accountability” (dei, 2005, p.5). an amalgamation of the historical context of antiracism as well as contemporary discourse has served as the conceptual foundation upon which this work has emerged. origins and foundations of this work this work was borne out of a national network of institutions committed to holistically understanding their community engagement and public service efforts through collaboratory, a platform designed to track the landscape of institutional engagement the who, what, where, when and why of activities designed with and for community. collaboratory supports interdisciplinary teams at 45 institutions across the united states and facilitates peer-to-peer connections and mentorship through a robust community of practice. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25333 | june 19, 2022 115 the network represents a diverse group of institutions (u.s. department of education, 2022): 81% are public, four-year institutions and 19% are private not-for-profit; and they range in size from 1,000 10,000 students (57%) to 10,000 or more students (43%). the network also includes one historically black college or university, one land grant, four faith-based institutions, and 47% hold the carnegie foundation’s elective classification for community engagement. the communities within which these institutions reside is also diverse – 50% of institutions are in urban communities, 43% are in suburbs or towns, and 7% are in rural communities. collectively these institutions have tracked more than 4,300 engagement and service activities with more than 5,500 community organizations (medlin and seto, 2021). this work began in the summer of 2020, amidst the covid-19 pandemic and nation-wide protest for racial justice in response to the countless people of color who have died at the hands of an unjust system. listening to the needs and frustrations of the administrators, faculty, staff, and students with whom collaboratory works, we felt compelled to act. we reflected on how we were uniquely positioned to deepen our own internal commitments to antiracism as an organization while also supporting our national network of institutions. it was determined that the two unique contributions we could make to the conversations were 1) using our power and positioning within the field to amplify the work our institutions were doing to dismantle systemic racism within american higher education and beyond, and 2) providing strategies to leverage collaboratory data across our network to explore and highlight if/how community engagement supports the fight for a more socially just and equitable society. collaboratory published a statement articulating these intentions to our network, and invited our community of practice into conversation to explore collective avenues for growth and exploration. the collaboratory team hosted an initial conversation with members of our community of practice on june 30, 2020. upon further reflection, participants shared that they felt a disconnect between those messages being shared by their institutional leadership and the work of individual faculty, staff, and students. while most community of practice members were positioned in units responsible for community and civic engagement, they felt that their offices were being left out of the conversations about how to react and respond to current events. they articulated a desire to continue to meet and discuss the intersection of community engagement and antiracism efforts more broadly. from this, a working group developed within our community of practice composed of institutions that wished to examine how they could leverage previously collected data on community engagement activities to enhance and reinforce their institutions’ narratives around antiracism. collectively, the working group developed three research questions to collectively explore: original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25333 | june 19, 2022 116 1. what does “antiracist community engagement” look like and how does it manifest? a. what are key characteristics of certain types of antiracist engagement (e.g., policy work, service-learning, volunteering in communities of color)? 2. how do we intentionally incorporate antiracism work into efforts across campus? 3. how do we hold our institutions accountable in more deliberate ways, with data? the working group emphasized the need for their institutions to more pointedly acknowledge community engagement as a strategy for operationalizing an antiracist agenda. the working group articulated the need for an operational definition of “antiracist community engagement” that they had yet not seen based on their backgrounds, experiences, or expertise. in an effort to assist their institutions, more effectively leverage community engagement within their antiracist commitments, the working group identified a clear need to better understand the ways antiracist engagement is manifested and assessed in higher education. the collaboratory team committed to funding a research fellow to develop criteria for what “antiracist community engagement” looks like – including common characteristics, principles, and focuses that are present when engagement is conducted with an antiracist lens. the working group hoped the definition and criteria could later be used to measure and assess existing community engagement and public service activities that had been previously documented on their campuses without having to re-engage faculty and staff directly. this form of secondary data analysis felt critical at the time, given the context of institutional burnout and uncertainty amidst the covid-19 pandemic and ongoing racial tensions. the collaboratory team invited stella l smith, an educational researcher and faculty member at prairie view a&m university, a historically black college and university, to serve as collaboratory’s antiracist community engagement research fellow to assist with working on these initiatives. research design the research design to answer the three research questions posed in this paper is a qualitative, interpretive research design to identify ways that universities are engaging in community engagement activities through an antiracist lens. as this work aimed to first understand the depth of individuals’ experiences and strategies as well as the frequency and breadth of the experiences, qualitative interpretive investigation is the best approach. institutional and community stakeholders who work directly with community engagement programming and activities participated in one of three community dialogues. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25333 | june 19, 2022 117 data collection to uncover the answer to the first and second research question, we conducted virtual community dialogues titled community dialogue on the intersection of engagement and equity, diversity, and inclusion using the zoom video conferencing platform. the community dialogue was scheduled for 1 hour. the community dialogues were promoted via social media (facebook and linkedin) and online through collaboratory networks. participation in the community dialogues was free; however, participants had to register to receive the link to log into the meeting. the event was held in a zoom meeting format to allow participants to fully participate in the conversation by turning on their video and unmuting their microphone to share their perspective and experiences. participation in the series of community dialogues was open to anyone — from novices to experienced practitioners, scholars, students, or community members — who wanted to align their community-based work more effectively with an antiracist lens. due to the overwhelming response for participation in the community dialogues we held three events instead of our originally planned single session. table 1, below, provides information about participant attendance. table 1. breakdown of community dialogues stakeholder participants in attendance date/time total registrants higher education community partner national association planning team january 18, 2021 2:00-3:00pm est 115 96 14 1 4 january 27, 2021 3:00-4:00pm est 47 35 8 0 4 february 2, 2021 2:00-3:00pm est 87 68 13 2 4 overall, the dialogues engaged almost 250 participants, encompassing 75 distinct higher education institutions, representatives from three national associations, and more than two dozen community partners. semi-structured conversations were conducted and an activity was original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25333 | june 19, 2022 118 developed to explore participants’ thoughts about racism and antiracism, specifically how they might move one engagement activity to be more antiracist. during the community dialogues, participants were provided an introduction to racism. though we recognize that the structures that need to be changed are at an institutional level, we discuss the connection of the individual and systemic racism in the creation and disruption of unjust systems. as an activity, participants were asked to consider how one activity that they currently conduct could be reimagined from an antiracist perspective and what type of assessment would be appropriate for the event? given this context, participants were asked questions about their perceptions of how hece could become more equitable and antiracist. data analysis although the data collection method (community dialogues) was informed by antiracism historical and current literature, the analysis of the data gleaned from the community dialogues utilized a grounded theory approach. the researchers did not use a theoretical lens to focus the analysis of the data; instead, the data emerged through a deductive analysis process. the five analytic, and not strictly sequential, phases of grounded theory building were used; namely, research design, data collection, data ordering, data analysis and literature comparison. all information was analyzed using open coding methods to uncover salient emergent categories and themes (strauss & corbin, 1998). it is crucial to understand the possible biases that the authors bring to the study and what measures were taken to minimize the influence of this bias (maxwell, 2005). in this section, the authors present their relationship to the topic and the participants in the study. the three authors' positionalities provided for a well-qualified and trained research team. stella l smith, phd is an educational researcher and faculty member at prairie view a&m university, a historically black college and university, and as the anti-racist community engagement research fellow with collaboratory, approached this work through the lens of increasing access and opportunity for underrepresented populations in higher education. as an african american, cis-gender, woman in academe, i grappled with concepts of racism and anti-racism in both my professional and personal life. my educational achievements do not insulate me from the realities of systemic racism in the united states. my position as both a member of doubly underrepresented populations (both race and gender) provides me with a unique understanding of the benefits of community engaged work conducted from an anti-racist perspective. kristin medlin, mpa, ms is equal parts higher education administration; public affairs/nonprofit management and leadership; educational research, assessment, and evaluation; and educational original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25333 | june 19, 2022 119 technology. my work in the community engagement sphere started over a decade ago, where i co-founded collaboratory i consider myself to be a unique version of a practitioner-scholar, working from within my position in industry to raise awareness about the value of engagement data, to help institutions develop a data culture, and to help build systems and structures for data collection, access, analysis, and sharing across the field. a pragmatist by training, my approach to research draws on the benefits of both positivist and constructivist paradigms and prioritizes a mixed methods and value-laden approach to research (kivunja and kuyini, 2017). as a white, cis-gender female, i believe it is my responsibility to act as an advocate and ally for underrepresented colleagues and communities. this project is a concrete attempt to embody this commitment. i acknowledge that i bring my personal beliefs and values to this research and i firmly believe that there are structural inequities in our educational system that community engagement can help to address. lauren a. wendling, phd is a graduate of the indiana university bloomington higher education doctoral program, former graduate assistant within the iupui office of community engagement, and a working professional at collaboratory, i have operated both personally and professionally within the sphere of higher education community engagement. i strongly believe that the foundational purpose of higher education is to contribute to the public good and my work as both a scholar and professional has reflected this belief. my professional trajectory and personal beliefs have been heavily influenced by my time spent at iupui, a highly engaged institution that is seen as a thought leader in higher education community engagement (iupui, 2019). through my professional experiences at iupui and collaboratory, i have come to believe that community engagement is a strategy through which institutions can actualize their visions, missions, and goals. in an effort to acknowledge the values and beliefs i bring to this inquiry and increase clarity and transparency throughout the research process, i continue to critically reflect on my positionality and guiding interests about the decisions made within each stage of the inquiry process – the formulation of research questions and methodology, data collection and analysis, and the representation of findings (luttrell, 2010b). findings participants shared a dynamic scale and range of activities hosted at their institutions including blood drives, food pantries, student internships, community-engaged academic courses, and other forms of community-engaged programming. in an analysis of the community dialogues, the following preliminary themes were identified: (a) quantitative and qualitative measures are needed, (b) intent is important, (c) institutionalization of antiracist community engagement ideology, and (d) boundaries of community engagement. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25333 | june 19, 2022 120 theme one: quantitative and qualitative measures needed based on the dialogues, it was clear that there are quantitative measures used to document the impact of community engagement activities (e.g., number of registrations, number of participants, demographics of attendees); however, there was less thought about how engagement impacts the community from an antiracist perspective. furthermore, when participants were asked for quantitative measures to demonstrate the outputs or impact of antiracist engagement, they were unable to articulate them during the discussion. participants stressed that quantitative measures were critical, particularly when discussing the need to institutionalize antiracist community engagement within the fabric of an institution. participants shared that often their institutions highlight community engagement activities as an example of how the institution is being a good neighbor and supporting the well-being of the community around them. however, if community engagement efforts are not institutionalized, they are at risk during times of budget cuts, institutional change, or staff turnover. developing quantitative measures to illustrate the benefit and impact of engagement for the institution, specifically through an antiracist lens, is vital to ensuring that permanent funding is allocated for community engagement. in addition to creating quantitative metrics to evaluate community engaged activities, there is a continued need to understand the impact and value of engagement through a qualitative, storytelling approach. mixed methods research can help address this need and give voice to the impact of these activities and support the institutionalization of community engagement. theme two: intent is important participants shared it was also necessary to understand the intent for organizing an engagement activity to truly assess it as antiracist because the intent or purpose of the engagement is related to its assessment. ultimately, the intent of the engagement would influence the design of the event as well as which metrics would be most accurate to measure the activity. it was also proposed that there is a connection between institutional and individual intent. said another way, the different dimensions of racism are important as we assess engagement events from an antiracist perspective. it was expressed repeatedly that people are the ones that create and plan events, and if those individuals have not had the opportunity to engage in critical conversations related to systemic racism and antiracism, the event, although often well-intended, can still end up having an impact that is counter to the goals of an antiracist community engagement agenda. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25333 | june 19, 2022 121 many of our participants stressed the idea that this is a both/and situation. in order to develop truly antiracist community engagement activities it will require work at both the systemic and institutional, as well as the personal dimension of racism. an institutional assessment of an activity is important, but that cannot replace or supplant each individual’s work to personally understand and embrace the concepts, policies, and practices that support an antiracist agenda. theme three: institutionalization of antiracist community engagement ideology participants shared the need to institutionalize antiracist community engagement as part of the core of the institution. participants shared examples of how involvement in community engagement activities can be institutionalized by adding credit to the tenure and promotion process or providing adequate resources to support reciprocal efforts to participate in engaged activities. participants stated that everyone on campus must take ownership of ensuring the institution maintains antiracist community engagement activities, including departments that might not traditionally participate in community engagement. the institution comprises multiple micro-institutions and part of the goal is to ensure community engagement is seen as a standard, not an exception, throughout the university. theme four: boundaries of community engagement there was discussion about the definition of community engagement; specifically, what is community versus what is the institution. depending on stakeholders that participated in the dialogues, there were varied definitions of community and community engagement. as we look to discover from an institutional perspective what antiracist, diverse, equitable, and inclusive community engagement looks like, the very boundaries of what creates community might also need to be questioned. for example, can faculty work that occurs within the confines of the institution, but benefits the larger public constitute community engagement? how can we determine if engagement with diverse institutional colleagues qualifies as community engagement? traditionally it seems that community engagement has been considered to be outside of the actual institutional physical space, but within our community dialogues, there was a question about how that traditional definition might be expanded to include activities that seek to empower underrepresented communities within the borders of that institution's physical space. discussion the community dialogues brought forth five clear takeaways. the first is the complexity of this challenge as we work to better understand and institutionalize antiracist community engagement. as community engagement professionals and advocates, we endeavor to assist institutions infuse antiracism into their community engagement. we also seek to help individuals understand and grapple with issues of systemic racism and antiracism, which are often very emotional issues to original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25333 | june 19, 2022 122 discuss. however, particularly in this time, it is critical that we capture the momentum of the national conversation about systemic racism and begin to address the challenges that are inherent in our higher education system. one source of information that might be of assistance to assess community engagement through an antiracist lens is collaboratory. the collaboratory database includes a variety of community engagement and public service activities from all over the country and can be used as a resource to compare and highlight those institutions that have done work to develop antiracist community engagement activities. the activities can serve as examples and benchmarks for institutions that have a desire to develop such programs but need a road map and an example for how to do so. second, there is also a need for examples of metrics that can be used to better understand and assess antiracist community engagement. we need to begin to think intentionally about how we develop metrics and assessment measures during the planning stages to ensure that community engaged work does indeed have the impact that is intended on the communities that we work with and serve. third, ensuring that we are consistently foregrounding antiracist principles as we think about how to engage with the community is a priority. “antiracism change requires that research and researchers see local peoples/subjects as the orists of their own everyday lives and practices. local peoples live and create theory. they are creators of knowledge not simply subjects of study” (dei, 2005, p. 5). the thread of antiracism should run throughout the development, planning, execution, and assessment stages of our engagement. assessment, as it relates to antiracist community engagement can no longer be an afterthought. we must develop formative and summative assessments so we can determine how we are doing and how we can improve. fourth, we need to acknowledge higher education's role in the reinforcement of systemic racism within this country. often community engagement programs endeavor to do work in communities, but we miss the important step of acknowledging how sometimes our very presence has reinforced the challenges that underrepresented groups have within that community. whether it is gentrification, displacement, or other racist policies, our institutions must acknowledge that we have been, and continue to be, part of the problem. from this place of recognition, we can move forward and strive to be part of a jointly constructed solution where we work with the community in order to be part of antiracist community engagement efforts. finally, we need to ensure that we start from a common language when we discuss antiracism. in any antiracism conversation, it is important to define these terms in order to make sure that everyone understands the terminology and intent of the conversation. sometimes the words original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25333 | june 19, 2022 123 “racism” or “antiracism” can cause communication to halt, though the goal of these words is actually the opposite. when we work to establish antiracist community engagement, we are seeking reciprocal relationships where all parties are able to discuss and interact based on their needs. everyone brings value to the table. it was clear from the community dialogues that we need to make sure that we define these terms and that everyone understands that these conversations, although they are personal in some regards, are focused on the systemic challenges. north (2020) quoted this profound statement by malini ranganathan who stated “anti-racism is an acknowledgment of privilege in a way that, i think, simply disavowing racism is not … it takes seriously that we all are situated into different matrices of power and privilege, and the first step is to take stock of that and not to disavow it or invisibilize it” (para 15). when we discuss an antiracist agenda it is an institutional agenda and an opportunity for us to work together as a community to improve outcomes for all. next steps at the beginning of this paper, we alluded to the creation of an antiracist community engagement scorecard. our next steps are to use the data from the community dialogues as well as data captured in collaboratory to inform the creation of a community engagement antiracist scorecard that can be used as an assessment tool for institutions to evaluate their current community engagement activities from an antiracist lens. informed by the feedback from the community dialogues and the research literature, the scorecard will have a mixed methods design including descriptive data, likert scale items and open-ended questions (mixed methods) to 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(2016). traversing divides: service learning in the writing center. diversity & democracy, 19(1). original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26063| february 25, 2023 66 long-term effects of stem enrichment programs on wages among under-represented minority students dina ghazzawi,1 donna pattison,2and catherine horn3 cite as: ghazzawi, d., pattison, d., & horn, c. (2023). tackling grand challenges: community engagement and collective impact in public problem solving. metropolitan universities, 34(2), 66-86. doi: 10.18060/26063 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract this study focuses on the increasing disparities in stem education achievement and long-term wage earnings of under-represented minority groups. as part of national efforts to improve the diversity of the stem workforce, this study uses longitudinal data from the university of houston’s education research center (uh-erc) to examine the effect of participation in a stem-focused intervention program (houston-louis stokes alliance for minority participation) on wage earnings across students from traditionally under-represented groups. data analysis consisted of propensity score matching analysis, followed by an ordinal logistic regression model to measure program participation effects on wage earnings. findings indicate a significant negative association between participation in the stem intervention program and long-term wage earnings. results highlight the role of structural racism and human capital on perpetuating achievement and wage gaps across race and socio-economic status. recommendations focus on career preparedness as a tool to increase the human capital of under-represented groups and institutional shifts in policy and program components that strive to reduce the impact of structural racism on this subpopulation of students. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26063| february 25, 2023 67 introduction using longitudinal data from the university of houston’s education research center, this study aims to examine the effect of participation in the national science foundation-funded houstonlouis stokes alliance for minority participation (h-lsamp) on wage earnings across students from traditionally under-represented minority backgrounds. h-lsamp was founded in 1998 to address racial disparities in stem degree production nationwide. the alliance currently consists of five local state universities: one historically black college/university (hbcu) and four hispanic-serving institutions as defined by the u.s. department of education. the program has run continuously for over 20 years with support from the national science foundation, institutional support, corporate sponsors, and private donors. between 2004 and 2020, the program graduated 2,044 students with bachelor’s degrees (ghazzawi et al., 2022a). of these graduates, 50.3% identified as either black or latinx (ghazzawi et al., 2022a). degrees in engineering account for 34% of the awarded degrees, computer/technology for 6%, and natural sciences and mathematics for 51% (ghazzawi et al., 2022a). oversight of the alliances activities has rotated between two of the consortium institutions. the designated lead institute coordinates the financial management of the nsf grant, handles reporting requirements, organizes steering committee meetings, and coordinates site visits and external evaluation of the program. each member institute manages additional funding specific to its campus and implements the program on its campus. the programs vary slightly on campus, but the core concept and mission are consistent across all institutes. supported by empirical evidence on collaborative learning environments conducive to minoritized student engagement and academic integration (e.g., treisman, 1992), h-lsamp works to reduce achievement gaps within the stem field by addressing two of the most pressing needs among minority students: academic support and financial need. the program is designed to support students through the transition from high school to graduation with a bachelor’s degree in a stem field. the programs work to recruit students from high schools with high minority enrollments through interactions with high school counselors and college recruitment events, and stem-specific competitions and camps. summer bridge programs for entering firstyear students provide intensive math prep for calculus readiness, advice on habits and behaviors, and resources needed for college success. these summer programs provide students with peer mentors and contacts with faculty and staff, so they have a built-in community when they begin their fall semesters. in addition to the academic support to assist students in graduating successfully, a significant component offered to all h-lsamp scholars is preparation for careers or advancement to graduate/professional level programs. career preparedness efforts undertaken by partner institutions include skill-building in competency building, self-efficacy skills, and financial planning to assist urm students in entering and successfully moving up through the © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26063| february 25, 2023 68 stem career pipeline. financial support is provided through renewable stipends contingent upon continued active participation in the h-lsamp program. participants typically provide at least three hours of service to the learning community weekly. this service can be a peer facilitator for a peer-led team-based active learning supplemental instruction workshop, a tutor, a computer lab assistant, an office aid, or a peer mentor. alternatively, they may work in a research lab to gain relevant hands-on experience. of the 2,044 graduates (2004-2020), 368 (18%) completed advanced degrees: master’s, ph.d., or pharmacy/optometry/medical degrees in texas. our data set could not capture students completing advanced degrees outside texas. of these students, 133 (37%) are black. for master’s recipients, 22% are latinx (ghazzawi et al., 2022b). detailed analysis of outcomes for one hispanic-serving and asian-serving institute in the houston alliance demonstrated that students who entered the lsamp program through the summer bridge were more likely to graduate and more likely to graduate in stem fields than students who were matched along a set of baseline characteristics (age, gender, race, sat math scores, and major) who did not participate (ghazzawi et al., 2022a). specifically, hispanic students participating in the program had a significantly higher first semester gpa and final cumulative gpa than the matched non-participants. however, the difference for african american students was not significant. participants in the program were 3.46 times more likely to complete a stem degree than non-participants. they had significantly higher grades in chemistry i and biology i courses, although, despite the extra emphasis on math, grades in calculus i were not higher (ghazzawi et al., 2022a). literature review racial disparities in educational attainment in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (stem) continue to be a national concern (eagan et al., 2013; foltz et al. 2014; nces, 2018; wimpelberg, 2008). as the u.s. population grows increasingly diverse, the proportion of african american and latinx stem graduates lags behind population demographics (allen-ramdial & campbell, 2014; national science foundation, 2019). in recent years, higher education institutions have made significant strides in intervention efforts to increase the recruitment, retention, and engagement of under-represented minority students enrolled in stem fields. although these efforts have resulted in positive outcomes concerning stem degree attainment, few studies investigate the outcomes of such interventions on the wage earnings of minority students. the role of structural racism on the racial wage gap © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26063| february 25, 2023 69 studies focusing on the racial wage gap in stem rely on human capital and labor market theories to investigate the factors contributing to racial disparities in pay. broyles and fenner (2010) conducted a study that examines the impact of human capital on the racial wage gap in stem undergraduates. using data from the american chemical society, which included a sample of male chemists, the study analyzed labor market earnings as a function of several sociodemographic and labor market characteristics such as race, education, field of work, and region of work, among others. their study found that after controlling for the labor market and sociodemographic characteristics, minority chemists earned significantly lower than their white counterparts. results conclude that racial differences in human capital contribute to the racial gap and can be primarily attributed to racism and the perceived value of human capital that stem workers from minority backgrounds contribute, compared to white stem workers (broyles & fenner, 2010). these results support a rich discourse of literature that discusses the role of systemic racism that manifests widely in stem disciplines and is perpetuated by institutional policies and practices that attempt to “fix” or change urm students to improve their chances of succeeding through the stem pipeline while ignoring their role in perpetrating such structures (mcgee, 2020, national academics of sciences, engineering, and medicine, 2019; zambrana et al., 2017). stem professions have been widely acknowledged as having a biased and “survival of the fittest” culture, essentially setting up disadvantaged minority students for failure (leath & chavous, 2018). higher education institutions utilize the leaky pipeline in their recruitment goals, which centralize recruiting a high number of urm students into stem fields and using financial and academic support to increase the graduation and retention of these students. however, this approach deflates and/or ignores the role of structural racism and racial disparities, which continue long after urm students have graduated from their respected stem fields, and explains why urm students drop out at a higher level and earn significantly lower than their white counterparts (turk-bicaki & berger, 2014). these findings and the role of structural racism in promoting wage inequities are important to consider as a backdrop and foundation to further discussion on wage disparities in stem. factors associated with higher wage earnings in stem research has consistently shown a significant wage premium associated with stem fields (blackburn, 2004; cheeseman day & martinez, 2021; tobias & li, 2003). findings show that the wage benefit associated with majoring in a stem field ranges from 5-28%, with high achieving students benefitting from increased earning benefits (olitsky, 2013; thomas, 2000). wage differentials refer to differences in wages between comparison groups. it is a way to look at earnings while considering chosen factors such as training and skills between or across groups or to review the wages of workers with similar skills and jobs but across geographic regions. wage differentials can also be examined through social constructs such as gender and race. economic literature points to the impact of socio-demographic and academic characteristics on © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26063| february 25, 2023 70 both college major choice and wage differentials across time (melguizo et al., 2011; olitsky, 2013). zhang (2008) found that while college major was the most predictive factor in determining wage differentials across time, large racial disparities were found in pay over time among college graduates, suggesting a contributing effect of both socio-economic and academic factors in determining wage differentials. these data are supported by numerous other studies that have found racial disparities in earnings, particularly in stem fields, with black and hispanic earnings being significantly lower than those of white and asian stem workers (landivar, 2013; lysenko & wang, 2020). studies have also found major-occupation congruence (working in the same area as your certification and credentials) to be positively associated with higher wage differentials, specifically in skill-requiring majors such as engineering (malamud, 2011). however, recent findings from the u.s. census bureau suggest that a significant portion of stem graduates are employed in non-stem occupations. according to the census bureau’s american community survey, over half (62%) of stem graduates in 2019 from ages 25-64 were employed in nonstem occupations such as law, education, social work, and accounting, with less than a third of stem-educated graduates (28%) working in a stem occupation (cheeseman day & martinez, 2021). these percentages are even lower for minority students. estimates indicate that only 9.3% of stem undergraduates from black or african american students and 10.7% of hispanic undergraduates work in stem occupations, compared to 12.6% of white students (u.s. census bureau, 2019). these data provide further evidence of the disparities in stem employment across races and highlight the continuous barriers and challenges faced by minority students to and through their stem educational trajectory and into the stem workforce. these findings also support the notion of promoting upward economic mobility for socio-economically disadvantaged minority students entering stem occupations, as an extensive body of research demonstrates that stem graduates who go on to work in stem fields make significantly higher earnings compared to those who do not (carnevale et al., 2011; cheeseman day & martinez, 2021). one of the national initiatives used to combat racial disparities in stem degree attainment is stem intervention programs. designed to boost academic preparation and provide financial assistance to urm students, studies have found strong associations between program participation and persistence in the stem field (carpi et al., 2017; jackson & winfield, 2014; lee & harmon, 2013). specifically, stem intervention programs that focus on academic preparation in math play a crucial role in boosting the math skills of disadvantaged urm students, many of whom did not receive adequate pre-college math preparation (chang et al., 2014; lisberg & woods, 2018). research suggests significant positive associations between early interventions in math and academic outcomes, particularly for disadvantaged students (cortes, goodman & nomi, 2015). furthermore, collective studies demonstrate the positive impact of academic preparation in math on labor market outcomes (dolton & vignoles, 2002; © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26063| february 25, 2023 71 goodman, 2012; rose & betts, 2004). despite this evidence, few studies examine the role of such programs on the earning outcomes of minority studies after graduation. several components of stem intervention programs contribute to higher wage earnings across time, specifically social and academic engagement and academic achievement. literature highlights academic achievement as a critical factor in both stem college major choice and increased wage earnings, particularly among under-represented minority students (melguizo et al., 2011; thomas, 2008). additionally, student engagement in different aspects of the college environment is significantly associated with higher earning benefits in the labor market (hu & wolniak, 2010). although these findings provide a broad outline of features of intervention programs that are significantly associated with wage premiums, there is an increased need to understand the role of such interventions in the economy and society. in particular, our study addresses the following research questions: 1) descriptively, to what extent have h-lsamp scholars who graduated with stem degrees, pursued post-graduate higher education, and entered stem-related occupations? 2) to what extent does participation in the h-lsamp program associate with higher wages compared to non-participants of the program? study significance this study adds to the existing body of literature in several distinct ways. primarily, this study offers a unique perspective on the mechanisms and approaches through which current opportunities and interventions can expand the wage earnings of under-represented minority students. in addition, by utilizing the rich repository of data available through the uh-erc, this study was able to track h-lsamp student outcomes from university into the texas workforce. this expansive availability of data enabled this study to identify factors early in a student’s education that could influence earning outcomes, filling the gap in the current research literature involving wage trajectories of under-represented minority students in stem careers as impacted by stem intervention programs. on a local level, these findings could provide the alliance with empirically based recommendations on program components targeted to improve wage earnings among high-risk minority students. in addition, these results could assist in better resource allocation towards program initiatives and components most beneficial to urm students. theoretical/conceptual framework this study draws upon paulsen’s (2001) human capital framework as well as perna’s (2004) expanded econometric framework that considers racial and ethnic disparities in educational attainment. human capital perspectives center around the value of higher education and © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26063| february 25, 2023 72 curriculum in developing skills that increase student productivity and, consequently, lead to increased monetary and non-monetary rewards (paulsen, 2001; rose & betts, 2004). perna (2004) created an expanded econometric framework that considers social and cultural capital measures that may influence student preferences, enrollment decisions, and outcomes (paulsen & st. john, 2002; perna, 2004). despite being largely ignored in formative econometric frameworks, scholars agree that including social and cultural capital measures is beneficial for examining racial disparities in educational attainment. prior research studies have highlighted the role of social and cultural capital as valuable resources that enhance upward mobility and productivity (coleman, 1998; morrow, 1999). from a human capital perspective, stem enrichment programs focus on building the academic preparation, skills, and knowledge that will enable urm students to graduate successfully and enter stem careers. studies also show that the social engagement and academic support provided as part of the stem enrichment program experience contribute to more successful enrollment and labor outcomes (hu & wolniak, 2010). drawing on perna’s (2004) framework, the support offered through such programs in the form of faculty or peer mentorship and advising, as well as informal interactions with peers, can have significant positive effects on building students’ social capital. guided by elements of both frameworks, this study aims to examine the role of both ascribed (socio-demographic) and achieved characteristics related to intervention programs designed to increase urm students’ academic preparation, success, and wage outcomes in stem fields. data source this study analyzes data available through the university of houston’s education research center, which contains essential student-level longitudinal information from the texas education agency (tea), the texas higher education coordinating board (thecb), and the texas workforce commission (twc). data provided through the erc enables texas students to be tracked across time from high school, higher education, and into the workforce. the data sample analyzed consists of college graduates from the h-lsamp program from 2004-2019 (n =1, 828), as well as graduate degree recipients of the program (n = 322). in addition, matched records of non-participants of the program were analyzed. the h-lsamp consortium includes five texas higher education institutions that dedicate active efforts to recruit, academically prepare and graduate students, particularly those from under-represented backgrounds, to successful matriculation into the stem pipeline. research methods the analysis for this study relied on both descriptive and inferential statistics. valletta’s (2018) wage earning’s function was used to examine yearly wage outcomes of h-lsamp participants and matched non-participants of the program. the analysis was conducted in two stages; first, © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26063| february 25, 2023 73 propensity score matching techniques were used to account for unobserved characteristics and self-selection bias associated with program participation (rosenbaum & ruben, 1983). one of the major advantages of propensity score matching techniques is the ability to match participants on a series of baseline covariates, creating a control group with similar characteristics comparable to our treatment group of interest. in the present study, treatment represents participation in the h-lsamp program. this first step of the analysis included matching students based on race, age, and stem vs. non-stem degree field. this process created a matched group of non-participants of the hlsamp program with similar baseline characteristics as program participants, allowing for the reduction of bias in participation effects throughout the second stage of the analysis. the second stage of the analysis involved linear regression techniques to estimate program participation effects on wage earnings after accounting for estimated propensity scores. conventional regression models do not properly control for selection bias, as students who enter the program may differ on several background characteristics. hence, the effects of these background variables undermine causal inference (winship & morgan, 1999). to examine the wage benefits associated with h-lsamp program participation, this study employed the standard log estimates equation used by valletta (2018): 𝑙𝑛𝑊𝑖 = 𝑋𝑖 𝛽 + 𝑆𝑖 γ + ℰ𝑖 where w represents yearly wage earnings, x represents the estimated propensity scores used to match similar students, as well as a dummy variable indicating h-lsamp program participation. s represents a vector of completion characteristics discussed in the variable section, allowing for the control of education and workforce variables that may contribute to wage differences among students, and ℰ represents the error term. the resulting equation enabled this study to examine the wage premium associated with h-lsamp participation after controlling for sociodemographic and pre-college characteristics. variables dependent variable the dependent variable of interest was the natural log of yearly earnings. wage earnings reported every quarter were converted to annual estimates. texas workforce commission data from the uh-erc was merged with higher education data with an identifier for hlsamp participants. merging both datasets allowed for the longitudinal tracking of hlsamp and nonlsamp participants from college and into the workforce and any associated differences in longterm wage earnings. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26063| february 25, 2023 74 control variables to control for student background characteristics, the propensity score model covariates included the socio-demographic variables of gender, age, race, and stem vs. non-stem major enrollment based on the supporting evidence of ascribed socio-demographic and socio-economic characteristics on economic outcomes (hu & wolniak, 2010; thomas; 2000; xu, 2013). table 1 presents coding schemes of control variables used for propensity score matching analysis. table 1. control variables coding scheme variable coding age continuous race 0 white 1 black 2 asian 3 hispanic 4 other stem degree field 0 – non-stem 1 stem independent variables in addition to the control variables used to match students, variables included in the linear regression model included the student’s field of study, estimated propensity scores, participation in the hlsamp program, major-field congruence (dummy-variable), occupation industry, and years of workforce experience. given that the workforce data available is limited to occupational codes represented by the standard industrial classification (sic) codes, industry classifications, rather than specific occupations, could only be represented in this analysis. table 2 presents coding schemes of variables included in the logistic regression analysis. particularly relevant to this study, non-stem fields of study are defined as any not categorized among natural science, engineering, and computer science majors. occupation is similarly defined as stem or nonstem based on the texas workforce commission classification. major-occupation congruence indicates where an individual worked in a profession aligned with or different from their undergraduate degree (e.g., a stem major in a stem field would represent major-occupation congruence). table 2. coding schemes: independent variables variable coding estimated propensity scores continuous program participation 0 – non-participant © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26063| february 25, 2023 75 1 participant field of study 0 – non-stem 1 – natural science & mathematics 2 engineering 3 – computer science occupation 0 – non-stem 1 stem major-occupation congruence 0 – non-congruent 1 congruent years of workforce experience continuous results descriptive outcomes propensity score matching was conducted using the program match, resulting in a matched sample of 3,765 students, including 1,780 treatment and 1,985 control participants. students whose records did not match the workforce data were excluded from the analysis. table 3 presents descriptive results of the matched group of hlsamp participants and non-participants. table 3. descriptive characteristics: matched sample variable control n % treat n % race white 167 9.2 178 9.0 black 525 29.0 546 27.6 asian 463 25.6 473 23.9 hispanic 430 23.8 432 21.8 other 225 12.4 352 17.8 gender male 974 53.8 836 46.2 female 1,070 54.0 911 46.0 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26063| february 25, 2023 76 stem degree non-stem 964 918 53.9 46.4 stem 824 1,059 46.1 53.6 degree field natural science & mathematics 858 47.4 930 47.0 engineering 642 35.5 696 35.1 computer science 118 6.5 118 6.0 other/non-stem 192 10.6 237 12.0 occupation stem-related 804 45.1 1,067 53.7 non-stem related 979 54.9 921 46.3 major-occupation congruence non-congruent 908 50.8 880 49.2 congruent 872 44.1 1,105 55.8 table 4 presents the regression results examining the effect of h-lsamp program participation on log wages using the estimated propensity scores as a control variable. results indicate that hlsamp program participation negatively predicted higher wages among students from all stem and non-stem fields. at the same time, stem-related occupations, as well as years of workforce experience, were significant predictors of higher wages among all students. results also indicated that students majoring in nsm, engineering, and computer science fields had significantly higher wages than those majoring in non-stem majors. in addition, majoroccupation congruence was not associated with higher wage differentials among students in the treatment and control groups. table 4. ols regression results variables ß 95% c. i for exp ß) © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26063| february 25, 2023 77 estimated propensity scores 0.04 -0.029 0.11 treatment (reference: non-treated) -0.009** -0.014 -0.005 field (reference: other/non-stem) nsm 0.017** 0.010 0.023 engineering 0.025** 0.017 0.032 computer science 0.012** 0.003 0.021 major-occupation congruence (reference: non-congruent) congruent 0.0046 -0.0016 0.011 occupation (reference: non-stem related) stem-related 0.018** 0.011 0.024 years of workforce experience 0.0035** 0.0031 0.0039 model summary n 3,765 pseudo r2 0.1143 f(8,3,762) 88.28 *p<0.05 *p<0.005 tables 5 and 6 demonstrate ordinal logistic regression results across stem fields, including nsm, engineering, and computer science. similar to ols regression results across students from all fields of undergraduate study, h-lsamp program participation was a negative predictor of higher wage differentials among students in all three stem fields. however, majoroccupation congruence was found to be a significant predictor of higher wage differentials for each category of the stem field, as well as years of workforce experience. table 5. ols regression: nsm majors variables ß 95% c. i for exp ß) estimated propensity scores 0.095* 0.021 0.17 treatment (reference: non-treated) -0.010** -0.017 -0.0036 major-occupation congruence (reference: non-congruent) congruent 0.027** 0.020 0.035 years of workforce experience 0.0032** 0.0027 0.0038 model summary n 1,775 pseudo r2 0.1080 f(4,1770) 64.63 *p<0.05 *p<0.005 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26063| february 25, 2023 78 table 6. ols regression results: engineering majors variables ß 95% c. i for exp ß) estimated propensity scores -0.135 -0.314 0.045 treatment (reference: non-treated) -0.011* -0.020 -0.002 major-occupation congruence (reference: non-congruent) congruent 0.020** 0.010 0.031 years of workforce experience 0.004** 0.0034 0.0051 model summary n 1,328 pseudo r2 0.1021 f(4,1323) 57.44 *p<0.05 *p<0.005 table 8 ols regression results: computer science majors variables ß 95% c. i for exp ß) estimated propensity scores 0.104 0.31 0.51 treatment (reference: treated) -0.014* -0.028 -0.00043 major-occupation congruence (reference: non-congruent) congruent 0.0049** 0.010 0.020 years of workforce experience 0.004** 0.0024 0.0048 model summary n 234 pseudo r2 0.1341 f(4,229) 12.01 *p<0.05 *p<0.005 limitations © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26063| february 25, 2023 79 there are some limitations to the data analysis that warrant discussion. firstly, our propensity score analysis matched students solely on race, age, gender, and stem vs. non-stem degree fields. given that hlsamp program participants are recruited from low-performing high schools, the inability to match students on socio-economic status, quality of high school, and precollege academic performance limit the analysis results. to that end, interpreting the results of program participation effects on program participants should be done with caution, as our matching process did not include variables that could potentially affect participation effects, given the lack of data availability. secondly, the results of this study apply to a single intervention program applicable to only texas-based students. despite the program size, which includes five partner institutions, our results do not necessarily apply to students from other states and regions. nevertheless, findings from this study do provide an essential understanding of program participation effects on wages that could be used as a useful guide for other stem intervention programs across the nation. discussion findings from this study corroborate prior research indicating that majoring in stem fields contributes to higher wage differentials for stem undergraduates compared to other disciplines (blackburn, 2004; carnevale et al., 2011; cheeseman day & martinez, 2021). results also support prior findings of the significance of major-occupation congruence on higher wage earnings, particularly for highly technical and skill-requiring majors (malamud, 2011). while the general ols regression model did not show any significant association between majoroccupation congruence and higher wage differentials across all majors, this variable was a significant predictor for students majoring in nsm, computer science, and engineering. these findings support an extensive body of research highlighting the importance of college major choice on future labor market earnings, specifically for stem major choices (melguizo et al., 2011; thomas, 2008) however, the results of this study leave more to be uncovered on the impact of socio-economic and racial disparities on labor market earnings. despite findings that stem major choice and employment in a stem field lead to higher wage differentials, participating in a stem-enriched intervention program, according to our findings, is negatively associated with higher wage differentials. despite the negative association, the small size of the coefficients indicates a relatively weak negative relationship between program participation and wage differentials. given that a large portion of stem intervention programs, including the program studied in this analysis, are targeted towards under-represented minorities from low socio-economic backgrounds, this finding brings to light the large racial and socio-economic disparities in stem labor market earnings that are persistent despite the successful graduation of minority students participating in these programs. program participants are more likely to come from relatively © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26063| february 25, 2023 80 disadvantaged economic backgrounds and are less likely to have adequate parental financial support (ghazzawi et al., 2021; kao & thompson, 2003). these socio-economic factors, as well as the inadequate pre-college preparation of urm program participants, contribute to racial disparities in pay, particularly in stem occupations (chen & soldner, 2013; zhang, 2008). these results suggest that socio-economic and pre-college factors extend beyond college education and considerably influence the wage earnings of urm students in stem (zhang, 2008). directions for policy and practice given the findings of this study and other studies that indicate racial disparities in wages, it is clear that colleges and universities must shift their focus from graduating a large number of urm students in stem to ensuring that urm students graduate with the same level of human capital as their white counterparts (broyles & fenner, 2010; zhang, 2008). stronger career preparedness, internship opportunities, and networking events are all as crucial to urm student success as graduating with a stem degree. for these reasons, realigning intervention program components and goals to focus on equipping urm students with workforce and career preparedness is a significant step in improving the human capital of urm students as they enter the stem workforce. in addition, the results of this study also point to the need for policymakers to address racial inequities in pay across the nation, particularly in stem fields. it also would behoove student advisors to counsel students about local employment opportunities available in their chosen field of study early in their academic career, as many minority students are reluctant to accept jobs far from home (estrada et al., 2018). this can lead to the selection of a nonstem-related job after college if employment matching the degree is unavailable locally. beyond programs and policies centered in academic institutions, work is also needed to confront continuing disparities in opportunities from the job application and selection process to opportunities for advancement and leadership roles and the general climate of the workplace. barriers centered on inappropriate sorting criteria and continuous microaggressions based on race and gender impact whether individuals are hired into stem careers and whether they choose to stay in the long term. minoritized groups suffer additional stressors in the workplace resulting from perceived and actual racism that impact self-confidence, self-image, and upward mobility (yosso et al., 2009). directions for future research to better understand the socio-economic and pre-college factors contributing to wage disparities, further research is needed to investigate the role of financial aid and pre-college ability in more detail. since this data was not available to examine in the current study, this level of inquiry © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26063| february 25, 2023 81 could not be included. furthermore, future work should consider the role of different intervention program components, such as the amount of scholarship awards and internship and mentorship opportunities that contribute to higher wage differentials over time. such analysis will yield program administrators and practitioners valuable 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(eds.), education, skills, and technical change: implications for future us gdp growth (pp. 313-342). university of chicago press. doi: 10.7208/9780226567945-010 valletta, robert g.. "9. recent flattening in the higher education wage premium polarization, skill downgrading, or both?". education, skills, and technical change: implications for future us gdp growth, edited by charles r. hulten and valerie a. ramey, chicago: university of chicago press, 2018, pp. 313-354. https://doi.org/10.7208/9780226567945010 wimpelberg, r. (2008). the greater houston p-16+ council: systemic pathways to birth-to career access and success. metropolitan universities. 19(4), 18-22. winship, c. & morgan, l. (2019). the estimation of causal effects from observational data. annual review of sociology, 25(1), 659-706. doi: 10.1146/annurev.soc.25.1.659 xu, y. j. 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(2019). 2019 american community survey, 1-year estimates. u.s. department of commerce. retrieved from www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs https://doi.org/10.1002/jae.696 https://doi.org/10.1080/07468342.1992.11973486 https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ed545309 https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.7208/9780226567945-010/html https://doi.org/10.7208/9780226567945-010 https://doi.org/10.7208/9780226567945-010 https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.25.1.659 https://www.jstor.org/stable/23471103 http://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs https://doi.org/10.1002/jae.696 https://doi.org/10.1080/07468342.1992.11973486 https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ed545309 https://www.degruyter.com/document/doi/10.7208/9780226567945-010/html https://doi.org/10.7208/9780226567945-010 https://doi.org/10.7208/9780226567945-010 https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.soc.25.1.659 https://www.jstor.org/stable/23471103 http://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/acs © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26063| february 25, 2023 87 yosso, t. j., smith, w. a., ceja, m., solórzano, d. g., (2009). critical race theory, racial microaggressions, and campus racial climate for latina/o undergraduates. harvard educational review. 79(4), 659-691. zambrana, r. e., harvey wingfield, a., lapeyrouse, l. m., dávila, b. a., hoagland, t. l., & valdez, r. b. (2017). blatant, subtle, and insidious: urm faculty perceptions of discriminatory practices in predominantly white institutions. sociological inquiry, 87(2), 207-232. doi: 10.1111/soin.12147 zhang, l. (2008). gender and racial gaps in earnings among recent college graduates. the review of higher education, 32(1), 51-72. doi: 10.1353/rhe.0.0035 https://doi.org/10.1111/soin.12147 https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.0.0035 https://doi.org/10.1111/soin.12147 https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.0.0035 dina ghazzawi,1 donna pattison,2and catherine horn3 abstract introduction literature review the role of structural racism on the racial wage gap factors associated with higher wage earnings in stem study significance theoretical/conceptual framework data source research methods variables dependent variable control variables independent variables results descriptive outcomes limitations discussion directions for policy and practice directions for future research references original research © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23990 | december 18, 2020 22 connecting with community and facilitating learning through the little rock congregations study rebecca a. glazier,1 gerald driskill,2 and kirk leach3 1school of public affairs, university of arkansas at little rock, 2department of applied communication, university of arkansas at little rock, and 3 school of public affairs, university of arkansas at little rock. cite as: glazier, r.a., driskill, g., & leach, k. (2020). connecting with community and facilitating learning through the little rock congregations study. metropolitan universities, 31(3), 22-43. doi: 10.18060/23990 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract places of worship play important roles as anchor institutions that promote community engagement and motivate political activity. universities, particularly in urban settings, can also serve as anchor institutions that connect communities. yet, there is often a gulf between the two, to the detriment of the broader community. in this article, we present the little rock congregations study (lrcs) as an approach to community engagement with faith-based organizations in an urban setting. this research project, based at the university of arkansas at little rock, involves an interdisciplinary team focused on understanding and improving the community engagement of congregations in the city of little rock since 2012. we present qualitative and quantitative data to illustrate the benefits of our approach, including research results returned to community organizations, greater visibility of the university in the community, student involvement in research and with faith-based organizations, and substantive findings that inform the greater body of knowledge and our own community. through more than eight years of community-based work on the lrcs we provide six key lessons learned for researchers and students building relationships with religious leaders that can help bridge the gulf between these two key community institutions. keywords: religion, higher education, community engagement, community-based research, collaboration http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23990 | december 18, 2020 23 communities are often centered around key, immobile institutions where people gather, engage, and develop relationships. universities and medical institutions are common examples of “anchors institutions” (adams, 2003). places of worship, such as churches, temples, and mosques can also play this role. although universities and places of worship are often both engaged institutions in metropolitan areas, they may not work closely together. universities tend to come from a rational, humanist perspectives and, especially if they are publicly funded, may be cautious about crossing the church/state line. faith-based organizations, on the other hand, may be skeptical of higher education and not feel fully appreciated or taken seriously by universities (fraser, 2016). the gulf between the two represents a missed opportunity for connections that can benefit these institutions and the broader community. through our research, we specifically ask: what can universities bring to partnerships with faith-based organizations in order to return mutually beneficial results and help bridge these gaps? here, we present one approach to university community engagement with faith-based organizations through a longitudinal community-based research project. through more than eight years of engaging with religious leaders and congregants, involving students in work outside of the classroom, and returning meaningful results to the community, we have built relationships between our university and the faith-based community in little rock, ar that have yielded positive benefits. in the following sections, we first describe the value of universities and congregations as anchor institutions and the potential for good that can come when they work together. we then describe our community-based research project at the university of arkansas at little rock: the little rock congregations study (lrcs). we present both qualitative and quantitative data to demonstrate the benefits of the study to the students, the faculty, the university, and the community. we then highlight major lessons learned. anchor institutions anchor institutions are an integral part of the community fabric and play an important role in civic life. anchor institutions are thought of as “locally embedded institutions, typically nongovernmental public sector, cultural or other civic organizations, that are of significant importance to the economy and wider community life of the cities in which they are based” (goddard, coombes, kempton, & vallance, 2014, p. 307). these institutions often have significant place-based investments in real estate, are deeply embedded in local networks, and are relatively immobile given their commitment to building civil infrastructure (birch, perry, & taylor, 2013; cantor, englot, & higgins, 2013). given their permanence and commitment to the community, anchor institutions are primed to serve as a catalyst for economic growth and social success in urban areas (harris & holley, 2016). © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23990 | december 18, 2020 24 some of the most prominent anchor institutions are “eds and meds.” this encompassing term refers to geographically defined networks of universities, educational, and medical institutions. places of worship, given their permanence, and as sites for building social capital, are also community anchor institutions. both have key, complementary strengths, and their respective missions indicate their potential to collaborate. we have found this to be true both in the literature on anchor institutions in communities and through our own research. congregations in communities as social anchors places of worship are “social anchors” in the community, facilitating bonding and bridging social capital, and serving as access points for connecting members across racial, economic, and gender lines (clopton & finch, 2011). congregations are also places where important civic skills are learned (brady, verba, & schlozman, 1995) and where social capital is built (putnam, 2000; putnam & campbell, 2012). they bring people together for fellowship and provide a space to build upon critical social connections in the community (cnaan, boddie, & yancey, 2003). of the estimated 400,000 congregations in the united states (randall, 2017), almost half make significant contributions to the stock of social capital in america, either through providing volunteers, philanthropic giving, or civic participation (saguaro seminar, 2009). unlike eds and meds, anchors that may have been physically present but historically disconnected from the local community (adams, 2003), places of worship have traditionally been trusted institutions (dash & chapman, 2007). consistent with the immobility characteristics of community anchors, religious institutions provide leadership and other resources in urban areas experiencing decline (patterson, silverman, yin, & wu, 2016), but they are also deeply embedded in the social and cultural life of a city (maurrasse, 2007). although congregations serve a key connecting role in communities, historically, they have also contributed to negative social patterns. segregated churches are correlated with segregated communities across all regions in the united states (blanchard, 2007). homogeneous churches represent a lost opportunity to enhance racial understanding and instead undermine common connections (blanchard, 2007; christerson, edwards, & emerson, 2005). the significance of this lost opportunity for racial understanding tragically surfaced during the 2020 nationwide protests that included little rock. our longitudinal research reveals a higher percentage of faith leaders now viewing race relations as a “very important issue” with 86% of responding clergy strongly agreeing or agreeing that “little rock has a problem with racial division.” our initial 2020 research with clergy, however, does provide cause for hope. of early clergy responders, 60% agree or strongly agree that race relations are likely to improve in little rock in the future (glazier, 2020). thus, while challenges of division exist, consistent with existing scholarship © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23990 | december 18, 2020 25 (e.g., brady et al., 1995; cnaan et al., 2003), the permanence and legitimacy of places of worship within urban areas are their strengths as facilitators of racial understanding. yet, we also recognize more than ever the need to engage in collaborative work that supports congregational leaders in efforts to address barriers that have historically harmed their influence. colleges and universities in communities as place-bound institutions, universities are also critical anchors with significant ties to the local community and economy. universities are not only catalysts that facilitate creating and sharing knowledge, but are also key to a city’s economic health (adams, 2003; harkavy & zuckerman, 1999). even universities in areas experiencing urban decline and institutions with low enrollment may still invest in neighborhood stabilization and commercial development projects (austrian & norton, 2005), and may even boost local housing values (cortes, 2004). real estate investments by universities attract other complementary investments in the surrounding metro area (adams, 2003). universities bring visitors from outside the region, increase local spending, and generate local revenues (bartik & erickcek, 2007). moreover, steinacker (2005) found significant positive localizing effects of student expenditures in the immediate area. as such, universities as anchor institutions contribute to economic vitality. additionally, universities as anchor institutions also influence the civic life of a community. cortes (2004) points out that some in the academic community view the university’s role as more than passive producers of knowledge, but as “societal instruments uniquely capable of addressing community problems” (p. 343). thus, universities have an opportunity to engage in public work through collaboration with local citizens as co-producers of knowledge (boyte, 2014). in doing so, the university as an anchor institution moves from being isolated islands of privilege (alexander, clouse, & austrian, 2016; harris & holley, 2016) to inclusive spaces where students, faculty, and community members engage in bi-directional, collaborative projects that benefit the local community. however, universities have historically had challenging relationships with their local communities. the divisions between “town/gown; ivory tower/ real world; theory/ practice; thinking/ doing” articulated by del rio and loggins (2019, p. 37), epitomize these challenging relationships. for instance, in articulating the “town and gown” relationship, barr (1963) notes “the town suspects the university feels arrogantly towards it, and the gown feels the town is suspicious of it” (p. 304). thus, there exists an opportunity for the university to work alongside institutions of the town, such as places of worship, to bridge this divide. consistent with the literature (martin, smith, & phillips, 2005; mcwilliam, desai, & greig, 1997), we argue that a community-based research practice that builds trust and returns tangible benefits to the community can build a bridge between these local anchor institutions. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23990 | december 18, 2020 26 bridging the gap although places of worship and universities both serve as anchor institutions, they often serve on parallel paths. for example, as noted earlier, universities may function to revitalize their communities though purchasing power or hiring from the local community (bartik & erickcek, 2007), whereas places of worship may provide social capital in the form of philanthropy and volunteers (saguaro seminar, 2009). occasionally, we see examples of where these paths cross, such as through job training programs at faith based organizations, but these instances are far more the exception than the rule. this gulf results in missed opportunities for collaboration and better service to the broader community. whereas universities might be seen as ivory towers, places of worship are typically with the people of the community in a critical and personal way, thus providing an access point for broader collaboration to address local social problems. indeed, partnerships between places of worship and universities illustrate how trust can be built between these institutions (cantor et al., 2013) and utilized to leverage community assets (milofsky & green, 2016) that can build bridges between the institutions and the community they serve. for instance, cantor et al. (2013) illustrate how discussions between university leaders and faithbased leaders build trust. in the near westside neighborhood in syracuse, n.y., such conversations were the impetus for a broader community-based coalition to address social and economic challenges. identifying and acting on these opportunities to connect universities and congregations can yield benefits for both, and for the broader community, including opportunities to build bridges across denominational and racial divides. how did we seek to bridge the gap between these two anchor institutions, the university and the faith community, in little rock, ar? we see our approach of conducting research in partnership with faith-based organizations as one way to bridge the gap. consistent with stoecker (2012) and strand et al., (2003), our approach focuses on providing useful information, emphasizes collaboration, and utilizes diverse methods. our approach to community-based research engages community members as partners in research, not as subjects, with goals that are jointly determined and mutually beneficial (hotze, 2011; riffin et al., 2016). thus, it is not just a methodological approach to doing research, but a mutually-beneficial way of engaging with our community. as academics, we use our expertise to conduct research, to engage our students, and apply diverse methods, specifically survey and interview data, to address local social issues. our approach is driven by the assertion that, as a university embedded within the capital city, the institution has an obligation and responsibility to engage with the community to address local issues (dubb & howard, 2007; hudson, 2013). this framework, as articulated by boyer’s (1990) © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23990 | december 18, 2020 27 “scholarship of engagement,” argues that the university attends to a city’s most pressing problems by partnering with the local community and institutions. as community members, we aim to return meaningful results to our partners in the faith community and beyond. we address the challenge presented by the congregation-university gap by engaging multiple places of worship that represent denominations that may have not worked together in the past. for instance, our clergy advisory board includes muslim, baptist, and presbyterian leaders, among others, working together to identify research topics that matter to our community. particularly in the southern united states, in a context of division and segregation, the university may prove to be a source of collaboration, of improving ties not only between the university and the congregations, but even between houses of faith. we carried out these elements through the infrastructure of the little rock congregations study (lrcs), an interdisciplinary, longitudinal research project housed at the university of arkansas at little rock. the little rock congregations study the lrcs is a community-based research project at the university of arkansas at little rock. the project involves students and faculty as multimethod researchers through surveys, interviews, focus groups, and case studies. the lrcs began in 2012, and data collection efforts with congregations took place in 2012, 2016, and 2018. the research team also worked with local nonprofits to collect data in 2019. additional data collection with congregations is ongoing in 2020. the research project has three broad goals: 1) to better understand the impact of faith-based community engagement, 2) to get students out of the classroom and into the community, and 3) to return meaningful findings to the community. when the lrcs began in 2012, researchers focused on the first and more academic goal. over time, researchers learned more about the congregations we were working with and their needs, and the project became more communityoriented to align with the interests and needs of the local faith communities. our process therefore aligns with stoecker (2012) who suggests that as part of the community-based research process, we engage in reflective practice with our partners to make the research more useful for our partners. these goals all seek to further our broad research question of how the university can contribute to the community and help bridge gaps. for instance, in 2012, we asked questions about presidential vote choice and political activity. we found that clergy are important political actors (glazier, 2018) and the messages congregation leaders deliver about political engagement have an effect on their members. congregants who attend places of worship where they hear messages about voting and © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23990 | december 18, 2020 28 participating politically are more likely to believe that their voice matters and to be politically active (glazier, 2015). in 2016, on the other hand, we included more questions about community engagement. we found that congregations tend to develop cultures that encourage either community engagement or political activity, rather than both, with black protestant churches as an exception (glazier, 2019a). as we prepare to collect data in 2020, we are prioritizing reports for congregations on the issues their members care about and the community organizations and congregations that are active on those issues, deliverables that community members tell us that they value. this gradual change in the priorities of the researchers, away from our own intellectual understanding and towards helping the community in the most beneficial way, is reflected in additional substantive choices we made over the years. as our research focus became more refined, our 2018 clergy survey asked about collaborations with nonprofits. in 2019, we added a nonprofit survey to gain a fuller picture of collaboration in the little rock community and to understand what barriers might be standing in the way of further collaboration. the shift in focus was prompted, in part, by informal ongoing dialogue with members of the faith community. this dialogue was facilitated by the creation of a clergy advisory board in 2018 and the lrcs religious leaders summit, which we hosted in 2019, with the explicit goal of listening to faith and community leaders and getting feedback on the issues they wanted us to focus on in our research. we see our approach of conducting community research with faith-based organizations as one way to bridge the gap between universities and congregations. thus, it is not just a methodological approach to doing research, but a mutually-beneficial way of engaging with our community. we find that it yields benefits in five distinct, yet interrelated, ways for students, faculty, the university, the community, and reciprocity in collaboration. in the following sections, we use qualitative and quantitative data to demonstrate how the lrcs has provided benefits in each of these areas. benefits to students experiential learning research indicates that students often learn best by doing (beames, higgins, & nicol, 2012; kuh, 1991). when they participate in the lrcs, student researchers get out of the classroom and into the community to see how people of faith act and serve. while sitting in sunday services, students hear announcements about back-to-school backpack drives and meals for the homeless. they find out about the real and substantive ways that people in faith communities serve. the students also interview clergy members who organize prison reading ministries, or youth summer education programs. they see the real work that is done by faith leaders behind the scenes. the students attend service days and help with neighborhood clean ups. these experiences enhance students' classroom work, enable them to make meaningful © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23990 | december 18, 2020 29 connections with the people in their city, who they might not come into contact with otherwise, and lead students become more civically engaged and socially competent (anderson, 2002; strand, 2000). additionally, students who participate in the research also learn marketable research skills (gregerman, lerner, von hippel, jonides, & nagda, 1998; russell, hancock, & mccullough, 2007). our graduate students work across semesters and see projects through multiple research stages, an experience which benefits students intellectually and in terms of their careers (thiry, weston, laursen, & hunter, 2012). student researchers have the opportunity to develop and test their own hypotheses in the data, thus making connections between theory and practice (breese, 2011; furco, 2010; gullion & ellis, 2014). these educational opportunities have been exceptional as students have gained experience through research design, data management, participant observation, interviewing, focus groups, survey administration and analysis, and hypothesis testing. these skills can be transferred to a world where data literacy is increasingly emphasized. course evaluations reflect the value students see in these skills; both undergraduate and graduate students mention the importance of learning analysis techniques and gaining data collection experience. for instance, one student shared in their final course evaluation that the best part of the course was “real experience researching, conducting surveys, and working with data.” another student remarked in their final course evaluation they had strengthened their research skills, noting, “i learned how to conduct surveys, do interviews, input data, leading focus groups, and much more” (glazier & bowman, 2019, pp. 13-14). since 2012, over 170 students have participated in research with the lrcs. of these students, five have presented original research at academic conferences, two have co-authored academic papers currently under review at peer-reviewed journals, and four have been awarded research grants to further their individual research related to the project. students have reported improved analytic skills, data analysis skills, and skills that transfer well to careers beyond academia. additionally, the students are able to connect with their local community in a way they otherwise would not have without this experiential learning opportunity (glazier and bowman 2019). in all, many benefits flow to students as a result of engaging with places of worship through community-based research. benefits to faculty faculty benefit from our approach to community-based research because of the wealth of data and the potential publications that come from it. the lrcs approach is one of communitybased, longitudinal, interdisciplinary research. multiple faculty members at the university work © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23990 | december 18, 2020 30 together to develop research questions, work with community members to address topics that matter to them, and collect data. successful community research partnerships are both sustainable and long-term (furco, 2010; hyland & maurette, 2010). as we have continued to work with the community and return useful results over the years, participation in the study has steadily increased. as figure 1 shows, both the total number of participants and the response rate has increased over time, indicating increasing trust from our community partners. as more congregations and clergy leaders have participated, we have been able to produce more academic research papers, which are of course essential to tenure and promotion. researchers have used data from the little rock congregations study to publish six academic research papers, with four others currently under review. thus, the benefits to faculty in terms of academic data and publications are substantial. figure 1. number of clergy surveys returned and response rate over time benefits to the university the university benefits from the approach exemplified by the lrcs mainly through the increased positive public presence of the university in the community. the research has garnered a fair amount of press coverage over the years. with each iteration, the office of communication puts out a press release on the study, which local newspapers often pick up, including religious news services. for instance, both the local catholic news service, arkansas catholic, and the arkansas baptist news have run stories about the lrcs. for a full list of news stories on the lrcs, see the media coverage section of our website (media coverage, n.d.). © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23990 | december 18, 2020 31 in 2018, we started the lrcs facebook page, where we regularly share study results, promote community events, and highlight the good work that people of faith are doing in our community. as of august, 2020, the facebook page has 376 followers, providing lrcs with a consistent form of contact with community members. figure 2 shows just how many people we have been able to reach through the posts we make on our facebook page. figure 2 shows a metric provided by facebook called a “daily total reach.” this metric is defined by facebook as, “the number of people who had any content from your page or about your page enter their screen. this includes posts, check-ins, ads, social information from people who interact with your page and more. (unique users).” figure 2. daily total reach of the lrcs facebook page, september 10, 2018-march 1, 2019 because our followers share our posts to their friends and because we sometimes pay to promote our posts to members of the little rock community, not everyone who sees our posts necessarily follows the lrcs facebook page. in the fall of 2018, when the facebook page first started, we shared some heartwarming stories about student researchers and community members that were liked and shared a number of times, representing the larger spikes in figure 2. the facebook page helps us share results with community members, raise the profile of the research and the university, and maintain good relationships necessary for community-based research. the data in table 1 show the responses to the different kinds of facebook posts, with © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23990 | december 18, 2020 32 results posts the most common, followed by spotlights posts, which highlight the work of specific congregations as they provide service to the community. spotlight posts garnered the highest mean lifetime post reach, meaning they reached the most people, likely as the congregations we tagged shared them on their own pages. although for any of the post subjects, the range of the number of people reached is quite large. some of our spotlights posts reached thousands of people, whereas others reached only tens, and the standard deviation is over 1,000. in all, our outreach efforts through facebook benefit the university by bringing thousands more people into contact with the research and the university. this definitely raises the positive profile of the university in the community. for further discussion of how social media can help facilitate community-based research, please see additional research by the authors (glazier and topping, 2020). table 1. types of posts and their reach through the lrcs facebook page, september 10, 2018march 1, 2019 post subject total number of posts made mean lifetime total post reach standard deviation range results 31 510.96 651.84 64-3063 spotlights 27 738.48 1026.56 52-3860 events 15 432.33 668.23 34-2161 promotions/wellwishes 18 473.44 856.83 33-3684 news coverage 6 334.83 350.20 30-816 total 97 544.27 797.69 30-3860 additionally, the lrcs community-engaged approach of faith and scholarship benefits the university by engaging students. high-impact learning opportunities, like engaging in research projects, have a significant and positive impact on student learning, retention, and graduation rates (alexander, 2000; ishiyama, 2002; thiry et al., 2012). the opportunity to engage in undergraduate research can be particularly impactful for first generation college students (ishiyama, 2002), which make up 80% of the student population at ua little rock, and students © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23990 | december 18, 2020 33 of color (pender, marcotte, sto domingo, & maton, 2010), 45% percent of our student population (quick facts, 2019). benefits to the community the lrcs also provides benefits for the community. when community members collaborate with researchers, the needs of the community are taken into account (hotze, 2011). as a result, community members feel heard and the research results can inform community problems that they care about. returning deliverables to community partners helps to create a positive feedback loop and builds trust (goldberg-freeman et al., 2010). getting the results of our research out into the community is one key way for the university and the researchers to show our partners and the broader community that the research is relevant and meaningful. over the years we have done this through mailing executive reports, hosting community events, creating a project website, and sharing findings through our project facebook page. the website houses all of the findings from the study, including executive summaries, infographics, and academic papers, as well as blog posts discussing findings and community spotlights. one resource on the website that is directly aimed at helping the community is an interactive map of food pantries (available in the references). this map has the location, hours of operation, and requirements for every food pantry in little rock. in pulaski county, where little rock is located, the food insecurity rate is 19.9% (feeding america, 2019). the united states department of agriculture has identified little rock, and in particular areas south of route 630 and east of route 430 as a food desert (2017). thus, by developing this interactive map, we move beyond an intellectual exercise in geographic information systems (gis) mapping, to developing a platform where the university, students, faculty, and the larger community can access information that attends to the real-life challenges faced by the broader little rock community. congregation leaders can now share information with their congregants and other community members in need on where they can access meals and learn about healthy eating habits. for the 2020 lrcs, we plan to expand our efforts at sharing our findings by preparing a report for each participating congregation. these reports will let the congregational leaders know which community issues their congregants are most concerned about, would like to see their place of worship address, and the extent they are willing to volunteer. the reports will also include contact information for congregations and nonprofit organizations that are working on those issues, so they can connect with community partners. an example report is included in the appendix. https://research.ualr.edu/lrcs/ https://www.facebook.com/littlerockcongregationsstudy/ https://www.facebook.com/littlerockcongregationsstudy/ © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23990 | december 18, 2020 34 this engaged process leads to another community benefit: facilitating connections. the reason we revised our research design to provide reports specific to each participating congregation was because of feedback from religious leaders. in 2019 we hosted a religious leaders summit to bring city leaders together to talk about the major problems facing our city. we held this meeting at ua little rock downtown, an urban space in the heart of little rock. at that meeting, one of the problems clergy identified was the difficulty of collaborating and making connections with one another. the contact information in our reports addresses this issue, along with our plan to hold future summits. reciprocal benefits of collaborative community-based research the lrcs is one example of an academic research project, housed at a community anchor institution, that has used its resources to connect with and serve the community in a mutually beneficial way. we view this relationship between congregations and the university as ongoing, but looking at just the past two years can provide a snapshot of the process by which ties are strengthened, research is furthered, and the community benefits. in 2019 we brought together religious leaders from diverse faith traditions across the city to advise us on survey design and community outreach as members of our clergy advisory board (clergy advisory board, n.d.). our advisory board represents the religious, gender, and ethnic diversity of our city, and helps grow and sustain the relationship between the university and the faith community. the board members provided feedback, planning, and goodwill in the community as we planned and hosted a little rock religious leaders summit in 2019 to share our findings with leaders and get their feedback on future research. working together provides an opportunity to be self-reflexive and engage in a dialogue with congregational leaders who have the local knowledge necessary to guide our research. at the summit, we distributed reports to share two findings that we thought would be particularly meaningful for the religious leaders in attendance. congregations that: (a) partner with nonprofits or other congregations are able to reach more community members in need; and (b) are engaged in the community have members that are more likely to volunteer at their own congregation. service is not a zero-sum game. serving in the community fosters a culture of service that also leads to more service to the congregation (glazier, 2019b). leaders at the summit were able to immediately see the value in the work we were doing, connect with other faith leaders at the event, and let us know what was important to them for future research. these efforts, the findings, and the increased engagement from the community are indicative of the value added of our ongoing bridge-building work. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23990 | december 18, 2020 35 lessons learned on bridging the gap the lrcs approach continues to be refined. in our collaborative journey with colleagues, students, and our community, we have identified five lessons learned that we hope will aid others in building bridges in urban areas. these practices can be replicated by other universities engaging in community-based research with faith-based partners. first, invite community leaders to inform the research process. while we still add theory and research in appropriate publications, the lrcs approach reflects the values of community-based research by working with community partners. from our work with over 50 leaders in focus groups seeking to understand the most pressing issues facing our city to engaging our clergy advisory board in shaping survey and interview questions, by taking the input of community partners seriously, we close the gap between the anchor institutions of university and congregations. in addition, this process ensures that even before data is collected, bridges are built. we have stronger relationships with leaders than ever before. they know we seek to listen to and provide data that will aid their efforts to improve our community second, find ways to improve civic discourse at public events. we have learned the hard way that we work in a polarized space. for instance, in our first foray into hosting a downtown event designed to share data with community leaders, we invited local political leaders to lend their voices to the importance of such venues. this platform, however, was taken as a rallying point for political leaders that marginalized other voices present. in listening to reactions from participants, some were taken back by the speeches given by one political leader. others expected it. bridging long-standing gaps between universities and institutions of faith does not happen automatically and missteps are to be expected. in this instance, we learned that while we cannot dictate the comments of politicians, we can either offer talking points, or frame the event so those attending know to expect diverse voices. third, create spaces for dialogue on the complexity of causes and solutions for addressing endemic social problems. religious organizations seek to address endemic problems, but may not be aware of the role of discriminatory social networks or government policies that fail to address these issues holistically. for example, congregations frequently provide food pantries. through our research, we are learning that limited collaboration happens in this space in terms of working with neighborhood-wide or political initiatives to address food insecurity. our website map of little rock food pantries illustrates instances where collaboration is happening and provides a tacit invitation for further collaboration. we are now also aware of the need to create spaces for dialogue on addressing complex social issues. fourth, identify and promote collaborative counter-narratives. counter-narratives refer to “narratives that counter missing, inaccurate, incomplete, and/or damaged social constructions” © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23990 | december 18, 2020 36 (papa, singhal, & papa, 2006). our work in this space moves against the primary narratives in congregations and non-profits which focus on the successes and programs of individual organizations. in contrast, we provide community spotlights focused on collaboration.. as such, they provide “counter-narratives” to the cultural norm of working independently and/or in competition. indeed, our work has been enhanced by a denominationally and racially diverse network of pastors addressing divisions (driskill & camp, 2006) this pastor network launching an organization featured in a lrcs community spotlight, the children of arkansas loved for a lifetime (c.a.l.l.). this collaborative effort, in response to a shortage of families for foster care, engages congregations by providing training and open homes. other lrcs spotlights include the madina institute and islamic center. both represent minority religious traditions in a christian-dominated bible belt state and the stories highlight their community-engaged work. such spotlights, shared through our facebook page and website, provide a way to fill in incomplete narratives about marginalized groups. fifth, identify and/or create diverse networks to address racial, socio-economic, and religious division. division based on race/ethnicity as well as economics and religion is a story our city shares with others. the incongruity of these divisions with theological tenets of faith surfaces and resurfaces in our community. in fact, in a study in our city, over 50 leaders from diverse denominations and ethnicities gave a public confession on how their divisions had harmed the community (driskill & camp, 2006). in addition, the language of “the most segregated hour” has consistently emerged in our interviews with pastors along with their appeals to address division (driskill, arjannikova, & meyer, 2014; driskill & jenkins, 2019). thus, our work has involved connecting with already existing diverse pastor networks as well as creating bridges built through collaborative service. conclusion places of worship and universities exist as anchor institutions that make positive contributions to our communities. however, bridges between these institutions are often lacking and the good work that they do is thus limited in its reach and efficacy. our research question sought to answer how universities could partner with faith communities and bridge the gulf between them in a mutually beneficial way. community-based research is one answer to that question. the lrcs provides one example of how researchers might develop such a bridge. as we have worked to build relationships in our own community, our data evidences positive results for the community, as well as benefits to the university, the faculty, and the students. furthermore, we have evidence of positive impacts from practices that promise to further strengthen this bridge. as we reflect on the lessons we have learned through more than eight years of researching with community partners in little rock, ar, we recommend five practices as an encouragement to others of ways to replicate our work in our urban center: (a) invite © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23990 | december 18, 2020 37 community leaders to inform the research process; (b) anticipate and find ways to improve civic discourse at public events; (c) create 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(2012). the benefits of multi-year research experiences: differences in novice and experienced students’ reported gains from undergraduate research. cbe—life sciences education, 11(3), 260-272. doi: 10.1187/cbe.11-11-0098 u.s. department of agriculture, economic research service (2017). food access research atlas. https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/food-access-research-atlas/go-to-the-atlas/ https://ualr.edu/administration/fast-facts/ https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2017/september/how-many-churches-in-america-us-nones-nondenominational.html https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2017/september/how-many-churches-in-america-us-nones-nondenominational.html http://dx.doi.org/10.21037/apm.2016.05.03 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00420980500121335 rebecca a. glazier,1 gerald driskill,2 and kirk leach3 abstract keywords: religion, higher education, community engagement, community-based research, collaboration © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26514 | may 25, 2023 88 promoting service-learning through an interdisciplinary and decentralized faculty fellow program shannon cummins,1 mitzi j. ritzman, 2 jodi benenson, 3 cecilia tocaimaza-hatch, 4 and andrea m. m. weare5 1 department of marketing and entrepreneurship, director of the center for professional sales, and associate professor, university of nebraska at omaha, 2 school of public administration, assistant professor, university of nebraska at omaha, 3 school of public administration, assistant professor, university of nebraska at omaha, 4 department of foreign languages and literature, assistant professor, university of nebraska at omaha, 5 school of communication, assistant professor, university of nebraska at omaha cite as: cummins, s., ritzman, m.j., benenson, j., tocaimaza-hatch, c., & weare, a.m.m. (2023). promoting servicelearning through an interdisciplinary and decentralized faculty fellow program. metropolitan universities, 34(4), 88-106. doi: 10.18060/26514 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract the adoption of service and community-based learning can be a challenge across college campuses. some units or departments might embrace the approach, while others believe it cannot be done in their discipline. despite being shown to offer benefits for learning and retention, recruiting faculty participation in service and community-based learning (sl/cbl) can be challenging. this article describes the origination and first two years’ outcomes of a decentralized faculty fellows program (ffp) across six colleges at a metropolitan university. after collaborating with college administration to determine priorities, the first cohort of faculty recruited for the ffp was tasked with serving as a resource for fellow college faculty/staff. this paper utilizes the fellows’ end-of-year reports organized around priorities and goals, activities planned or undertaken, and the fellow’s reflections of the year to conduct a qualitative analysis. results show the ffp allowed an individualized approach to address goals, determine tactics, and achieve outcomes across college units and offers an opportunity for implementation at any university because of its decentralized structure and ability to adjust to the needs of any specific college or unit. keywords: service learning, community-based learning, faculty fellow programs, case study http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26514 | may 25, 2023 89 introduction service-learning and community-based learning (sl/cbl) are proven pedagogical approaches used across multiple disciplines and educational levels to bridge teaching and community engagement (see billig, 2000; kuh, 2008). yet, despite decades of research that demonstrates the benefits of service-learning (sl) to student learning (warren, 2012), satisfaction (drinkard & tontodonato, 2019), engagement and retention (bringle et al., 2010), higher education institutions continue to struggle to engage key stakeholders in sl opportunities, including faculty. indeed, while many faculty members have espoused sl’s value to drive student engagement for more than a half-century (eyler, 2009; gelmon et al., 2018), others are skeptical of sl practices due to the challenges that come from delivering sl, such as limited time and resources, insufficient institutional support, and low student engagement, among others (anderson & pickeral, 2000; o’meara et al., 2008; weerts, 2007). to increase faculty adoption of sl/cbl practices, one initiative university campuses have turned to is enlisting faculty members currently engaged in sl for support around recruitment and mentorship of future sl faculty (bowen & kiser, 2009). these efforts are often identified as faculty fellow programs, where fellows usually work within their unit to coach faculty peers in sl practices (cazzell et al., 2014; werder, 2005). however, little research exists on the implementation and effectiveness of these faculty fellow programs (ffp) (exceptions include stevens & jamison, 2012). even less is known about implementing more decentralized ffps involving interdisciplinary faculty from across campus. this article describes one such sl/cbl ffp, where outreach and mentoring of faculty occur not at a centralized campus administration level but at a peer-to-peer level and involves faculty of multiple disciplines from across a midsized metropolitan university. in the ffp described in this study, faculty adherents of sl/cbl from each of the six colleges were tasked with serving as a resource for fellow college faculty/staff to advance this learning style from where it stood in their college. unlike traditional ffps, where a campus administrative unit often pre-determined goals, no programming was imposed on the ffp. instead, fellows, in collaboration with their college’s dean, were given the discretion to determine college priorities related to sl/cbl. campus sl staff acted as a resource to these fellows and worked to keep the fellows in active communication to encourage peer-to-peer learning further. thus, this article aims to describe this interdisciplinary, decentralized, peer-to-peer ffp as a case study of a novel approach to increase the sl/cbl curriculum across all colleges at the university of nebraska at omaha. the paper also proposes a model representing the collective inputs and outcomes of the program during its first and second years. it offers considerations and © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26514 | may 25, 2023 90 suggestions for those interested in creating a similar program to advance sl/cbl on a college campus regardless of discipline, experience, or administrative support. in the next section, the paper reviews the theoretical underpinnings of the ffp in the sl and pedagogy literature. it then describes the specific case for the ffp, campus service, and community-based learning environment in which the faculty fellow program stems and the development of the first and second faculty fellow cohorts. specifically, the commonalities and divergence of the program’s operation and outcomes across the six colleges are discussed using a qualitative review of the fellow’s end-of-year reflections. literature review the faculty engagement model (fem; wade & demb, 2009) provides the theoretical underpinnings for this study. the model describes how faculty engage in academic tasks related to teaching, service, and research that meet community needs and fulfill the university’s mission. for example, faculty might fulfill their research demands by publishing community-based research or engaging in sl as part of their teaching. in their proposed framework, wade and demb (2009) seek to examine the factors that encourage faculty to participate in those activities that meet their institution’s service expectations. fem accounts for factors that play a role in faculty engagement, which are divided into three broad dimensions: institutional, personal, and professional. the institutional dimension encompasses the institution’s culture and reward system for faculty’s engagement in the form of leadership and mission (i.e., service is valued by the administration and acknowledged as part of the institution’s mission); institutional policies (i.e., faculty engaged in service are promoted and receive allocated time for their service); budget and funding (i.e., service activities receive funding); structure (i.e., having a centralized body that supports faculty’s engagement); community involvement (i.e., the community welcomes the faculty’s engagement); and institutional type and prestige (i.e., different types of institutions value engagement differently). the professional dimension highlights the faculty’s discipline, socialization, and rank. these factors pertaining to the individual are relevant because institutions often do not reward faculty engagement in the community; thus, individual features can help explain faculty’s participation despite their institution’s lack of support. faculty discipline highlights how some disciplines are typically more engaged with the community than others, e.g., faculty in health professions or social sciences are more likely to participate in sl than those in the humanities. faculty socialization describes the social attributes or practices that faculty find acceptable or desirable. this orientation or socialization begins with an individual’s professional training in graduate school. as previously discussed, more community-oriented disciplines socialize graduate students (and future faculty) into becoming more committed to the community. finally, in terms © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26514 | may 25, 2023 91 of rank, faculty most committed to participating in the community tend to have the lowest status and rank. however, exceptions exist among faculty seeking (or having already received) tenure and their motivation to engage with the community. finally, in the personal dimension, wade and demb discuss race/ethnicity/gender, values/beliefs/motivation, epistemology, and previous experience, which capture how personal characteristics and beliefs motivate faculty to engage in service work. regarding race/ethnicity/gender, the authors allude to research findings demonstrating that faculty of color and women are usually more involved in sl activities. values/beliefs/motivation account for faculty with a humanistic orientation and feel a responsibility toward their community, which is often in opposition to faculty with a social orientation status often connected to scholarship and intellectual prestige. epistemology captures faculty’s belief that knowledge is built through experiences, unlike those who support the construction of knowledge via inquiry. lastly, faculty with a history of community engagement, personally or professionally, possess previous experience that impacts their response toward participation once in their roles as faculty. in summary, the fem is proposed as a model where faculty engagement is central. the institutional, personal, and professional dimensions account for multiple factors explaining why faculty engage with the community in their academic role. several studies exemplify the use of fem to explore faculty engagement. for instance, dierberger (2021) investigated faculty’s motivation and persistence in service-learning partnerships with p-12 teachers. the personal and professional dimensions best-explained participants’ persistence in sl, namely, their commitment to community service and the value that such activities have in their profession. similarly, russell-stamp (2015) sought to shed light on faculty’s motivations for engaging in sl in a regional and open-enrollment teaching university, where more than half of the faculty are contingent (e.g., part-time, and found that faculty with less sl experience found sl to be useful to the community being served while those with more experience saw more benefits for their students. in addition, faculty were aware of the support provided at the institution level for sl endeavors, which was congruent with the university’s commitment to sl. however, contingent faculty were less informed than tenured/tenure-track faculty of resources, most likely because they are often excluded from meetings in which information is disseminated (e.g., department meetings). these results highlight how faculty’s rank and prior experience with sl can determine their participation in sl. other investigations have also explored the topic of faculty’s motivation for engagement, though not with the fem framework. moore and ward (2014) describe elements impacting faculty decision-making to be influenced by both personal and professional motivators. this is illustrated by designing projects that positively impact communities within their sphere. in addition, administrative support for sl and community engagement weigh heavily when © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26514 | may 25, 2023 92 considering pedagogical choices. similarly, o’meara & niehaus (2009) described potential motivators for faculty integration of sl as “demographics, identity and life experiences; epistemology and personal goals; institutional contexts, disciplinary and department contexts, and faculty relationships with community partners” (p. 19). as such, sl pedagogy may be utilized to reflect elements of personal identity as well as the institution’s stated mission. these results demonstrate the processes by which faculty consider how sl experiences will support students in gaining authentic experience to apply to future career settings. using structured, supportive faculty development programs have also been identified as a comprehensive strategy to increase the overall integration of sl pedagogy into campus culture. this could include support for course development, research project design, and/or establishing community partnerships. additionally, collaboration among faculty has been identified as a strategy to enhance the experiences of faculty and students further engaged in service learning (stevens & jamison, 2012). cazzell, theriot, blakey, and sattler (2014) report on one such initiative to engage faculty: an sl faculty fellow program. in this program, university faculty from various fields worked together over one year to grow a community of sl educators. the program educated the faculty, supported them in developing sl courses, fostered research, and encouraged meaningful community partnerships. besides seeking to work closely with these individual faculty members, the program hoped the participants would encourage and educate other faculty on sl. for the duration of the program, participants engaged in such tasks as critical (written) reflections and group discussions, which were qualitatively analyzed. data were first separated into those produced prior to participation in the program and after. the analysis of pre-sl data identified recurrent themes, namely, anticipatory integration (i.e., nervousness for changes to come), the constant search for clarification (i.e., a search for an sl definition and implementation practices), and the move from “me” to “we” (i.e., finding practices that benefit all students). post-sl data converged in three themes: conflict between expectation and reality (i.e., handling ambiguity and unexpected events in sl), searching for relevance in servicelearning (i.e., identifying individual motivations for sl), and deconstruction of professional self (i.e., having less of a rigid role as a professor). this work highlights the transformative effect of the ffp as faculty grew and developed their knowledge of sl. historical background: service learning on campus this article uses the case of one higher education institution, the university of nebraska omaha (uno), to demonstrate how the campus uses an sl-centered ffp as one way to achieve its institutional mission. uno is the largest university in the state’s largest city, with a metropolitan statistical area of over one million residents. omaha is home to most of the large businesses in the state. it is a transport, finance, food processing, agriculture, healthcare, construction, and education hub between des moines, kansas city, chicago, and denver. uno enrolls more than 15,000 students, many of whom are first-generation. it is also the most ethnically diverse © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26514 | may 25, 2023 93 campus, with many transfer and non-traditional students. uno is a carnegie r2 (high research activity) classification and a phd-granting institution but is not the flagship land grant campus within the three-campus nebraska system. as a metropolitan university, uno boasts a long history of connecting students to community partners, both for and nonprofit; however, a centralized approach to supporting and growing sl at uno can be traced to 1999 when the campus earned a $29,575 start-up grant from a statewide sl consortium (leach & bacon, 1999). to continue the work, the campus contributed resources to establish the service learning academy (sla), a unit created to support the development of academic sl courses that would engage students in the omaha community in their classes while meeting the campus’ metropolitan mission. this effort resulted in significant sl course growth, from eight courses in 1999 to 255 in 2021-2022, facilitated by a partially dedicated faculty director role and a full-time staff position to connect community agencies with faculty members. expanding the program to the p-12 school system brought another growth phase. spurred by a community assessment (sri, 2007) and culminating in the creation of a stand-alone nonprofit organization, many members of the omaha philanthropic community began to focus their funding efforts on student disengagement, declining attendance, and graduation rates in p-12 community schools. the nonprofit organization building bright futures identified and/or created a myriad of community resources and strategies to impact student trajectory (sri, 2007). among these strategies was one curricular intervention for p-16 sl, which provided private funds to further develop the university’s sla, including hiring a p-16 coordinator in 2008 (dierberger, 2015). the coordinator aided in the development of many sl projects and seminars for both university faculty and p-12 teachers. these early efforts culminated in two sl curricular tracks that the sla oversees: the “traditional” approach includes a university-level course and community partner. in contrast, the “p-16” model comprises a community partner and a university and p-12 (elementary or secondary school-aged) courses. today, over 255 sl courses are taught at uno annually across six colleges. tenure-track faculty, tenured faculty, lecturers, and adjunct instructors all teach sl courses, which provide opportunities to connect students with the broader omaha community beyond campus. support includes guidance on sl course design and implementation, graduate assistant support for faculty offering sl courses, and programming such as a weeklong summer boot camp to train faculty in sl course design and connect faculty with community partners and an sl showcase event to thank and highlight community partners. a new initiative: faculty fellow program (ffp) the uno sl ffp was born from the results of the campus’ sla academic program review, which integrated feedback from various stakeholders, including faculty, staff, students, © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26514 | may 25, 2023 94 administration, community partners, and sla employees. while serving an integral role in meeting the university’s mission, recommendations centered on the need to increase the impact of community engagement by increasing the number of sl courses, expanding faculty development opportunities, and enhancing community partnerships. faculty-specific recommendations included reducing barriers to entry and incentivizing continued commitment. the ffp was re-designed to address each of these recommendations strategically. this re-design included the allocation of funds to support each fellow. faculty currently integrating sl pedagogy and demonstrated leadership potential were identified in collaboration with university deans and school/department directors and chairs, shifting to a shared and collective responsibility model. in addition to identifying college-specific objectives, this interdisciplinary group collaborated to form a community of scholars to disseminate information related to community-engaged work via conference presentations and manuscript submissions. after over two decades of work to engage faculty, staff, and students in the sla’s work, the staff and campus leadership determined strong pockets of sl existed on campus, but opportunities to increase knowledge of, and use of, the sla’s resources remained. as part of a campus-wide strategic planning process called “big ideas,” it was determined that service learning was a strength of the campus, but growing it further required a new approach. and importantly, there was not one approach or solution needed across campus. each college, and often, each department had a different experience and trajectory with sl. there needed to be an interdisciplinary approach to advance all campuses toward greater sl utilization. to achieve this, a goal of embedding one faculty member in each of the six colleges was developed. each faculty member would serve as a conduit between their home college and the sla—an advocate/educator for sl among the faculty of that college and a connection for sl opportunities within the community to the college. with this idea, the sl ffp was born. the specific goals of the program were two-fold for each faculty fellow. first, to work collaboratively with sla staff, strengthen and expand service learning/community engagement connections and partnerships with specific big ideas (campus-wide strategic planning goals) and colleges. and second, to serve as a liaison/resource for faculty/staff in the college to initiate, strengthen, and/or expand service learning and community engagement instruction and scholarship. as a resource to the college, each faculty fellow was asked to serve one to two hours per week for ten months and received a stipend. to recruit the fellows, each college’s dean was contacted asking for three individuals with 1) experience with sl/cbl; 2) interest in serving as a liaison/mentor to faculty to expand and/or deepen sl/cbl offerings within the college; and 3) experience with engaging faculty members in new initiatives and/or someone who has skills that the dean believed would make this person successful. in practice, this e-mail communication © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26514 | may 25, 2023 95 often was forwarded to chairs and departments, and self-nomination was standard. upon nomination to the dean, each candidate was asked to provide a cv and a letter of interest to the sla director. the director then conducted interview conversations and made a recommendation to each college’s dean. six faculty fellows, one from each college, began as the first cohort in late 2020. throughout the year, faculty fellows met regularly as a group, with members of the sla and with members of their respective colleges to set goals, priorities, and discuss challenges and opportunities. the next section of this paper details the opportunities and challenges of each college upon beginning the ffp. opportunities and challenges prior to the faculty fellow program each college faced different opportunities and challenges before the faculty ffp, which informed each college’s strategic priorities. the college of business administration (cba) confronted a tumultuous relationship with the terminology of sl at the beginning of the fellow program. the college offered many long-standing live case projects partnered with various community and business organizations, including undergraduate and graduate-level capstone courses. however, at some point, the college believed they were not credited with doing slbased work because it was not always in partnership with a nonprofit. thus, reporting of these efforts was not up to date, which caused several challenges. for example, the lack of accurate reporting hindered an ongoing campus effort to detail this type of community-based work on a public website. in addition, a change in the college’s accreditation process now required a focus on community impact. thus, the primary goals for the college at the program’s start were improving awareness, recognition, and reporting of sl/cbl in the college, and tactics revolved around faculty education and improved data collection. the college of public affairs and community service (cpacs) has a historic and enduring commitment to traditionally defined sl and community-engaged research and teaching. despite this culture, the faculty fellow began the fellowship by meeting with the college dean to discuss service-learning priorities for the college. ultimately, four key priorities were identified: to 1) better understand which teaching and research incentives would influence faculty participation in sl teaching and research; 2) tell the story of sl in their college through social media and other outlets to amplify the work cpacs is already doing; 3) talk to new and more experienced faculty about sl possibilities; and 4) learn from colleagues in other colleges about what initiatives have worked well. these priorities then evolved over the course of the year after conversations with faculty and staff. similarly, the process for identifying the priorities for the college of education, health, and human sciences (cehhs) began with communication with the assistant dean to identify how © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26514 | may 25, 2023 96 sl was implemented throughout the college. previous annual report data were utilized to determine the total number of sl courses being taught by cehhs faculty. priorities/goals were identified, including gathering data to determine faculty perceptions about the benefits of, and barriers to, integration of sl; highlighting student experiences with sl; discussing strategies to increase student awareness of sl courses within cehhs as well as general education courses; and increase awareness of faculty development opportunities and support provided by the sla. the college of information sciences and technology (is&t) offered about a dozen sl/cbl courses, most through a single department. a long-running six-credit capstone course was the crown jewel with student ownership of real stakeholder problems and barriers to overcome. this capstone project facilitated community partnerships with small family businesses and nonprofits and utilized students to connect the college with outside partners. beyond this course, obstacles remained in the college to grow the sl-based curriculum. primary among these was finding community partners and identifying projects that mimic the development and work world the students encountered after graduation. therefore, many of the college's sl courses utilized partners from campus-associated organizations or smaller departments within larger companies. college challenges to growing sl included: (a) overhauling the course syllabus and structure to accommodate service-learning or community-driven projects, (b) “culture shock” to work directly with community partners that have real needs, and (c) lack of collaboration skills among large groups of students working on a single project. the faculty engaged in sl within the college were committed, finding that sl helps students’ exposure to real-world data that is not pristinely curated and mimics the real world that students encounter after graduation. this makes sl projects much more exciting than the dry book project most of the stem students are used to. the college of communication, fine arts, and media (cfam) already had the strongest turnout of faculty teaching sl on campus, largely in the schools of communication and music. thus, in consultation with the dean, the college prioritized sustaining existing sl teaching. goals include: 1) promoting the roll-out of a community engaged scholar transcript designation (cestd) program to eligible students enrolled in sl courses; 2) backdating past courses which were delivered in an sl model but not designated as such; 3) more visible marketing of existing sl courses, especially newly designed sl courses developed for “totally online” delivery during the mandated online learning phase of covid-19. the college of arts and sciences (cas) is the largest college at uno. it includes faculty from often unrelated fields, e.g., languages and math. with such large numbers of diverse faculty, at the launch of the ffp, there were many levels of commitment to sl among the cas faculty. some faculty had been involved with the community through sl for years; others were wary of being involved in activities often seen as time-consuming and less fruitful regarding promotion or tenure outcomes. lastly, other individuals had had unsuccessful sl projects and did not want © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26514 | may 25, 2023 97 to repeat the experience. because of the covid pandemic, many faculty felt that sl was not an option since many courses were offered online or remotely. based on this context, in working with the college’s dean, it was decided that an excellent first step in the ffp was to promote sl. in particular, the dean suggested highlighting stories of successful sl projects during the pandemic. thus, an information campaign was designed to promote sl, which highlighted successful sl experiences in the college, and proposed new sl projects that could be easily incorporated into most undergraduate courses. finally, the college of engineering is dually located between two universities within the state system: the flagship land grant university, the university of nebraska lincoln, and uno. due to the dual campus nature of the college, it was not until the second year of the sl/cbl ffp that an engineering faculty began participating in the program. before they participated in the sla, the college of engineering had identified three sl courses. with assistance from the fellow, the college began to identify more courses that might be labeled as sl. this process was carried out by identifying classes that use real-world community projects as a backdrop to teaching fundamental engineering information. both the community and students benefit from the students’ analyses and participation. the college is also evaluating how to incorporate engagement into faculty apportionment so that the scholarship of engagement and community service is incorporated into the promotion and tenure process. this change could incentivize more involvement and buy-in from faculty. methodology and results each faculty fellow filed an end-of-year report for the program resulting in 13 reflections across the program’s first two years (2020-2022). these were open-text documents organized around three aspects of the program specific to each college: 1) priorities and goals, 2) activities planned or undertaken, and 3) the fellow’s reflection on the year. each college report was analyzed in atlas ti qualitative software using thematic open coding, resulting in 91 coded quotations in year one and 129 in year two. in total, 44 unique codes were created. next, codes and corresponding quotations were reviewed, and related codes were combined into groups. figure 1 shows the code grouping frequency across both years of the program, and table 1 details the types of sub-codes in each group. themes emerged from the qualitative analysis of the fellows’ reflections. the following section explores these thematic breakdowns across colleges and program years. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26514 | may 25, 2023 98 figure 1. frequency of group codes across years 1 and 2 of the ffp. table 1. description of group codes goals for the faculty fellow program understanding sl in the college, impacting sl awareness and perceptions, growing sl, student focus and perceptions planning and exploration of current state of sl understanding faculty perceptions, sl data collection, current state of sl in college, planning, ongoing process, pandemic/difficulty of sl individual value of program to fellow impact on personal motivation, personal growth, personal value, sl scholarship, faculty fellow cohort/program value, institutional learning tactics to achieve goals communicating with stakeholders: faculty, staff, community partners, chairs & directors, advisors, students; creating publicity materials, incentivizing faculty, determining best practices, collecting data, improving resources, creating course templates, liaising to sl resources year one themes the analysis pointed to seven relevant and frequent themes for year one: focus on faculty, chairs, and directors; ongoing efforts; cohort effect; publicizing success; personal connections; differences among colleges; and personal value to fellows. each theme is explained below. focus on family, chairs, and directors © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26514 | may 25, 2023 99 only a handful of codes related to student-focused priorities or actions in year one, such as recruiting students for the sl graduation designation. instead, fellows focused on the faculty’s needs and administrators’ goals. ongoing efforts the codes showed a balance between current activities and forthcoming actions, clearly showing that the goals outlined were in progress and specific activities were to continue beyond the program’s first-year end date. much of this was likely due to all the first-year fellows agreeing to continue in the role for a second year at the time of report writing. cohort effect the codes show a cohort effect, with many references to adopting actions learned from other fellows, intentions to explore sl practices from other colleges, or reflections of prior bias or presumed college sl superiority before the program. this speaks of the benefit of working with colleagues from other disciplines who can infuse new ideas. focus on publicizing existing success most tactics are related to leveraging existing sl work and successes to grow interested and awareness of sl among constituencies. these tactics varied widely from creating social media posts and other forms of publicity (the largest category) to hosting webinars; highlighting existing projects at college or department meetings; or adding projects to an existing university database. clearly, all fellows believed the work of sl in their colleges was not well understood or appreciated, and there was an opportunity to address the lack of knowledge of sl across campus. personal connections each fellow detailed the strategic planning process undertaken with the college administration to impact sl adoption meaningfully. while some actions were large-scale (e.g., presentations to the entire college, college-wide data collection surveys, etc.), all fellows relied on personal approaches. meetings with individual faculty, administrators, staff, and community members drove specific gains, including enhanced resources, new class projects and partners, publicity materials, and scholarship outputs. the reports indicate that fellows relied on personal sales as a tactic to drive goal achievement. differences among colleges © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26514 | may 25, 2023 100 while the goals across colleges were often overlapping, sometimes they were unique. for example, one college focused heavily on improving data collection. another narrowed in on student recruitment and advising for sl courses. the tactics were widely divergent, but all employed some form of publicity for existing sl work in the college to grow awareness and interest. personal value to fellows while the role was envisioned as a service to the college and university, fellows noted their satisfaction and growth due to involvement. multiple fellows noted scholastic publications or projects undertaken due to their involvement. others noted their pride and increased motivation after encountering student and faculty sl success stories. yet others noted the professional growth from being better connected across campus to people and resources. year two themes the analysis of reflections for the second year of the ffp resulted in these themes: strategic shift to one-on-one meetings; enlisting campus sl staff; focusing on students; fellow continuity; and tracing similarities across colleges. each theme is described below. strategic shift to one-on-one meetings the second year brought new strategies. one faculty fellow spoke of changing her approach from “top-down,” utilizing college channels of communication (e.g., newsletters, meetings, chairs), to “bottom-up,” meeting one-on-one with faculty, potential community partners, and serving as a liaison between these groups and sl staff and resources. for example, one fellow created personalized suggestions of sl projects for faculty based on the next semester’s teaching schedule. another personally recruited new faculty for an sl learning program. this theme is consistent with year one’s personal connection theme, where the benefit was found in personal outreach to meet program goals. move to enlist campus sl staff also evident in year two was a move to involve the campus sl staff and campus sl events in college-based programming. most fellows tried connecting faculty with the sl staff and resources to further the college’s sl goals. among the most common tactics were inviting sl staff to webinars, meetings, and other promotional/educational events and advertising sl-hosted events like the summer seminar to college faculty and staff. also noted by multiple fellows were benefits incurred from attending campus sl events, such as a spring showcase, lunch and learns or other programming. the benefits were often personal—awareness of opportunities or © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26514 | may 25, 2023 101 resources—then applicable to others in the college through the fellow. there was also an increase in sl scholarship among faculty fellows personally and in their planning and tactics, indicating an increase in awareness and willingness to connect classroom engagement to engaged scholarship. these initiatives ranged from a fellow working to create an sl lab space from grant funding to multiple conferences and papers published based on fellows’ sl experiences. increased focus on students year two also saw an increased focus on students. this was primarily driven by an effort to increase awareness and applications for the sl student transcript designation—where students who participate in sl/cbl learning and volunteerism can be awarded a graduation designation. efforts to promote the designation to students, educate and liaise with college-based advising, and create listings and handouts to designate eligible classes were among these efforts. moreover, other student-focused efforts emerged in year two, including creating c modules in the university’s learning management system to explain the motivation and buy-in for sl projects among students and efforts to improve diversity, equity, access, and inclusion for students in sl courses. fellow continuity finally, year two reflections provided robust support for the continuity of fellow appointments into a second year. many noted the increased institutional and personal benefit of working with and learning from the same set of faculty fellows from year one. it was pointed out that personal growth and value came from developing relationships across colleges. a group sl scholarship project was a tangible outcome of this continuity and regular fellow zoom meetings. this theme is very similar to the cohort theme in year one. similarities among colleges akin to year one, no two colleges shared the exact same goals, tactics, or outcomes; however, year two did see increased overlap. many colleges worked to advance the transcript designation and provide templates or best practices to faculty, increase data collection, and better understand current sl practices in their college. while differences were present, the regular contact of the fellows via zoom meetings and their increased connection to the sl staff via campus-wide sl programming impacted strategies and actions. fellows noted that they learned and borrowed from each other, evident in reflections, with more continuity among colleges than in year one. in effect, the fellows were developing and sharing best practices for the fellow program in year two with each other. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26514 | may 25, 2023 102 overall, the thematic analysis of fellows’ reflections demonstrates changes in strategies and collaboration patterns across the two years of the ffp. in the early days, fellows’ activities were guided mostly by administrators’ goals for their units. over time, there was a shift where faculty fellows turned their attention to their peers’ and students’ needs and tried to work with them on a more personal level. fellows also shared and learned from each other. thus, although they were from divergent disciplines, they found commonalities with each other when working together for a common goal. discussion after analyzing the end-of-year reflections of two years of the faculty fellow program, a model of the program was created (see figure 2). this model shows the process of determining the program's goals for each college coupled with campus and college-specific resources resulting in specific actions and activities taken by fellows and the resulting outputs, outcomes, and impact of the program. following this model, specific outcomes are described within each college to illustrate the decentralized approach to the ffp further. figure 2. faculty fellow model at uno. outcomes of the program various outcomes were accomplished within the first two years of the pilot. the program’s first goal was to work collaboratively with sla staff to strengthen and expand sl connections within the colleges. two colleges were able to identify courses utilizing sl but not designated as such. these courses were backdated with an sl designation to better assist students working toward the community engaged scholar transcript designation (cestd) and to help faculty market the sl they were already doing. colleges doing community engagement were also brought to sla staff attention to better capture the breadth of engagement occurring on campus. fellows also collaborated with sla staff to conduct original research in the field of sl and community engagement ranging from manuscripts to regional and national conference presentations. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26514 | may 25, 2023 103 the program’s second goal was to have each fellow serve as a liaison for faculty and staff to initiate, strengthen, and expand sl within their college. most of the program’s outcomes were nested under this goal. three colleges distributed a survey to all faculty to solicit sl perceptions and used the data to steer goals for the program’s second year. three colleges also conducted presentations to faculty about sl teaching opportunities as well as the transcript designation (cestd) program for students, and one college did a community presentation on its college engagement. all colleges could spotlight active sl courses and sl pedagogy tips in various mediums, including college newsletters, social media campaigns, and word-of-mouth marketing and outreach to non-sl faculty. notably, two colleges also found the benefit of spreading sl course awareness directly to academic advisors in searching for sl courses, enrolling in the cestd program, and discussing sl with first-year students during orientation. two colleges also accomplished monetary outcomes. once considered the possibility of incentivizing faculty to teach sl in future sla iterations, another applied for and was awarded a grant in community engagement to continue a course-based community project begun during the program’s first year. impact of the cohort approach while the faculty fellow program at uno was designed to be decentralized and college-specific, it was also designed as a cohort-based program. cohort approaches learning have been evaluated in graduate education. however, few studies assess the efficacy of cohort-based learning for faculty development. nevertheless, many of the same benefits from student cohort learning experiences are expected to apply to faculty. those benefits include the development of peer networks and the construction of opportunities for collaborative learning (mitchell & rostbanik, 2020). in this cohort-based approach, sl fellows met monthly via zoom. at each meeting, fellows had an opportunity to provide updates on their progress and receive feedback from other cohort members and the sl academy staff. this peer networking allowed fellows to consider new ideas and learn about other community needs. one of the outcomes across the colleges was developing a shared understanding and definition for sl, which allows colleges to recognize that some ongoing activities could be classified as sl. these regular meetings influenced the tactics and accountability of the fellows and increased the output. all original fellows elected to serve a second year, generating an increased sense of unity, willingness to share and learn from each other, and multiple scholarly projects among fellows. multiple fellows noted that their goals and tactics shifted in year two in direct response to other fellows' actions, successes, and challenges. conclusion © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26514 | may 25, 2023 104 the sl faculty fellow program at uno is distinct from other programs because its decentralized structure is intended to tailor an approach to the needs, challenges, and opportunities of each campus’ college units. this structure allowed for great variety among goals, tactics, and outcomes. yet, across two years of the program, evidence of increased conformity emerges, with fellows learning from each other and adopting common behaviors such as one-on-one mentoring and faculty and staff outreach. the program, as described, could be implemented at any university because of its decentralized structure and ability to adjust to the needs of any specific college or unit. to be successful at other sites, the support of the campus to fund and prioritize faculty engagement is critical. each fellow received a stipend for their work, and campus sl staff provided a regular meeting schedule to ensure motivation and group accountability. without a program owner to recruit fellows, act as a resource for fellows, and ensure buy-in from college leadership, the program could not achieve its end goals as effectively. the cohort-based impact of the program also proved important. most initiatives undertaken were not completed in a single year. retaining faculty for a second year allowed faculty to learn from each other, adjust tactics, re-evaluate goals, and achieve measurable results. campus sl leaders emphasized the measurability of results. the ability to show increased sl courses, grants, publications, meetings, publicity, and attendance at sla programming was viewed as a means of showing the value of the faculty fellow program and ensuring its continued existence. after two years, the program was funded again, speaking to the success of the endeavor and its fellows. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26514 | may 25, 2023 105 references 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(2000). challenges and strategies for success with service-learning in preservice teacher education. national society for experiential education quarterly, 25(3), 7-22. https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/slceslgen/17 billig, s. h. (2000). the impacts of service-learning on youth, schools, and communities: research on k-12 school-based service-learning, 1990 to 1999. special topics, general, 77. https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/slcestgen/77 bowen, g. a., & kiser, p. m. (2009). promoting innovative pedagogy and engagement through service-learning faculty fellows programs. journal of higher education outreach and engagement, 13(1), 27-44. bringle, r. g., hatcher, j. a. & muthiah, r. n. (2010). the role of service-learning on the retention of first-year students to second year. michigan journal of community service learning, 16(2), 38-49. https://hdl.handle.net/1805/9646 cazzell, m., theriot, s., blakey, j. m., & sattler, m. l. (2014). transformation of, in, and by learning in a service-learning faculty fellows program. journal of service-learning in higher education, 3(2), 30-46. dierberger, j. (2015). p-16 service-learning partnerships: a model for success. in delanooriaran, b., penick-parks, m. w. & s. fondrie (eds.), the sage sourcebook of servicelearning and civic engagement. (p. 171-178). thousand oaks, ca: sage publications, inc. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781483346625.n33 dierberger, j. (2021). motivational and persistence factors for higher education faculty members who collaborate with p-12 teachers to teach p-16 service-learning courses: a constructivist grounded theory. [unpublished doctoral dissertation]. university of nebraska, lincoln. drinkard, a. & tontodonato, p. (2019). the value-added nature of service-learning. journal of criminal justice education, 30(1), 136-155. https://doi.org/10.1080/10511253.2018.1446544. eyler, j. (2009). the power of experiential education. liberal education, 95(4), 24-31. https://hdl.handle.net/1805/9646 https://doi.org/10.4135/9781483346625.n33 https://doi.org/10.1080/10511253.2018.1446544 https://hdl.handle.net/1805/9646 https://doi.org/10.4135/9781483346625.n33 https://doi.org/10.1080/10511253.2018.1446544 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26514 | may 25, 2023 106 gelmon, s. b., holland, b. a. & spring, a. (2018). assessing service-learning and civic engagement: principles and techniques (2nd ed.). boston, ma: campus compact. kuh, g. d. (2008). high-impact educational practices: what they are, who has access to them, and why they matter. washington, dc: association of american colleges and universities. leach, m., & bacon, n. (1999). service learning academy (memorandum). omaha, ne: university of nebraska at omaha. internal document. mitchell, t. & rost-banik, c. (2020). service-learning cohorts as critical communities. educational studies, 46(3), 352-367. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03055698.2019.1584855 o’meara, k., terosky, a. l. & neumann, a. (2008). faculty careers and work lives.ashe higher education report, 34(3), 1-23. russell-stamp, m. (2015). faculty use of community-based learning: what factors really matter? michigan journal of community service learning 21(2), 37–48. sri international. (2007). investing in omaha’s children & youth: master plan. building bright futures. wade, a. & demb, a. (2009). a conceptual model to explore faculty community engagement. michigan journal of community service learning, 15(2), 5-16. warren, j. l. (2012). does service-learning increase student learning? a meta-analysis. michigan journal of community service-learning, 18(2), 56-61. weerts, d. j. (2007). facilitating university engagement with schools. metropolitan universities journal, 18(4), 67-86. werder, c., harwood, a., ochs, l., currier, d., duke, s., hammond, j. d., ... & stout, k. (2005). communities for growth: cultivating and sustaining service-learning teaching and scholarship in a faculty fellows program. michigan journal of community service learning, 41-51. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03055698.2019.1584855 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/03055698.2019.1584855 shannon cummins,1 mitzi j. ritzman, 2 jodi benenson, 3 cecilia tocaimaza-hatch, 4 and andrea m. m. weare5 abstract introduction literature review historical background: service learning on campus a new initiative: faculty fellow program (ffp) opportunities and challenges prior to the faculty fellow program methodology and results focus on family, chairs, and directors ongoing efforts cohort effect focus on publicizing existing success personal connections differences among colleges personal value to fellows strategic shift to one-on-one meetings move to enlist campus sl staff increased focus on students fellow continuity similarities among colleges discussion outcomes of the program impact of the cohort approach conclusion references original research © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24059 | february 15, 2021 104 engaging the faith community in designing a churchbased mental health screening and linkage to care intervention jannette berkley-patton1, carole bowe thompson2, joah williams3, kelsey christensen4, cassandra wainright5, eric williams6, andrea bradley-ewing7, alexandria bauer8, and jenifer allsworth9 1,2,4,8,9department of biomedical and health informatics, university of missouri-kansas city school of medicine, 3department of psychlogy, university of missouri-kansas city, 5,6calvary community outreach network, health services and outcomes research, 7children’s mercy hospital cite as: berkley-patton, j., thompson, c.b., williams, j., christensen, k., wainright, c., williams, e., bradley-ewing, a., bauer, a., & allsworth, j. (2021). engaging the faith community in designing a church-based mental health screening and linkage to care intervention, 32(1), 104-123. doi: 10.18060/24059 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract african americans are disproportionately burdened by mental health issues (e.g., stress, chronic depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder). upon review of mental health local/state/national data, a highly-engaged faith-based community action board (cab) raised concerns about the mental health needs of african americans and addressed mental health as a priority health area in african american kansas city churches. african americans tend to experience barriers to mental health services (e.g., limited access, high cost, mental healthrelated stigma, non-culturally tailored mental health care). african american churches have many strengths that could increase reach, acceptability feasibility, and impact of mental health interventions tailored for african americans. the cab conducted a health needs assessment survey (n=463; 11 churches) to identify health concerns and potential strategies to inform the design of a church-based mental health intervention. using a faith-community-engaged approach, the cab developed the survey and used its findings to design a religiously-tailored, multilevel mental health intervention focused on prevention, screening, and linkage to care. the needs assessment identified intervention strategies (e.g., church-based screening, stress reduction/exercise programs, pastors promoting mental health) that were: (1) rated as highly https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24059 | february 15, 2021 105 important/feasible to implement, (2) included in the intervention design, and (3) successfully implemented in african american churches by faith leaders and university students and faculty. keywords: mental health, african americans, mental health screening, linkage to care, churches introduction african americans are disproportionately burdened by many mental health conditions compared to european americans, including generalized anxiety disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and substance use (center for behavioral health statistics and quality, 2015; gonzález, tarraf, whitfield, & vega, 2010; himle, baser, taylor, campbell, & jackson, 2009; national center for health statistics [nchs], 2016a; nchs, 2016b; watkins, assari, & johnson-lawrence, 2015; williams et al., 2007). african americans are twice as likely as european americans to report chronic stress and hopelessness (nchs, 2016b), due to a myriad of factors (e.g., perceived discrimination, low incomes, and daily/family stressors) (kasper et al., 2008; mezuk et al., 2010; williams & mohammed, 2009). they are also more likely to experience greater disability and impairment (e.g., physical and social functioning) in response to mental health illnesses than european americans (hankerson et al., 2011). yet, african americans tend to be less likely to seek screening and receive health services for mental health-related issues and disorders (agency for healthcare research and quality, 2010), are more likely to use the emergency department for mental health treatment (samhsa, 2015), and are more likely to not take their medications and drop out of mental health treatment than most other races. (delphin-rittmon et al., 2015). a primary barrier for african americans seeking mental health services is mental health-related stigma (e. ward, wiltshire, detry, & brown, 2013). several studies have found that african americans tend to have greater negative perceptions of people living with mental health illness and are more suspicious of mental health services than other ethnic groups (brown, 2004; e. ward et al.; e. c. ward, clark, & heidrich, 2009). other barriers include limitations in health insurance, healthcare access, mental health literacy, and referrals/linkages to mental health services (briggs, briggs, miller, & paulson, 2011; cruz, pincus, harman, reynolds iii, & post, 2008; rogers, 2007; e. c. ward et al.). there is a tremendous need to increase the reach of mental health screening, prevention, and linkage to care (ltc) interventions with african americans in collaboration with trusted settings such as african american churches, especially considering african americans tend to be high churchattenders and consider religiosity to be highly important in mental health coping (pew research center, 2015; rogers, 2007; e. c. ward et al.). collaborative partnerships between urban universities and faith communities have potential to drastically expand the urban university mission of civic engagement (caret, 2019) to address © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24059 | february 15, 2021 106 health inequities in urban communities of color. religious institutions often provide a “public face” for communities by providing leadership in the struggle for social justice and equality, including equal healthcare access (idler, levin, vanderweele, & khan, 2019). illustrating the potential of such partnerships, the authors used a community-based participatory research (cbpr) approach to fully engage the kansas city (kc) faith community action board (cab) in designing a mental health screening, prevention, and ltc intervention in african american churches for implementation by trained church leaders. additionally, undergraduate/graduate level students from the university of missouri-kansas city (umkc) were trained to assist in implementing the church-based activities (e.g., participant recruitment, mental health screenings) to provide an immersive experience and broaden their understanding of health disparities, social determinants of health, and community-engaged research while participating in meaningful service learning in underserved communities. the design of the intervention was guided by a health needs assessment (hna) process. hnas have traditionally been used to gather information about health concerns from community groups to identify health priorities and determine potential solutions (e.g., sharma, 2000). information is also generated on the feasibility to implement identified, important solutions/strategies that can achieve meaningful improvements in proximal health outcomes and possibly, ultimately shift community-level indicators when taken to scale. the purpose of this paper is to discuss hna processes that led to the development of the healthy actions to impact mind and soul (aims) project, an intervention designed to improve prevention, screening, and ltc regarding mental health vices in the african american church context. here, key cab hna activities are discussed and include: (a) development of the hna survey and assistance with recruiting churches for survey participation, (b) review of the hna survey findings, (c) determination of important, feasible strategies to increase uptake of mental health screening that could be implemented via a faith-health-academic partnership, and (d) design of the resulting church-based mental health intervention that was eventually implemented by jointly by african american faith leaders and university students. methods background the kc faith cab is co-led by the study team and the calvary community outreach network (ccon), a leading faith-based organization with a mission of mobilizing churches to improve african american health in the urban kc area. the cab consists of over 50 members from faith (primarily), health, and academic organizations. the cab was formalized in 2012 – six years after the study team began conducting several national institute of health (nih) and localfoundation supported research projects in collaboration with ccon and african american © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24059 | february 15, 2021 107 churches. over this time, trust and mutual respect was established and reinforced from the study team. trust-building efforts included fully engaging faith-based partners in the research – even in conceptualization of the research focus, sharing grant dollars via contractual agreements, and sharing in publications and dissemination of study findings, consistent with cbpr principles (israel, eng, schulz, & parker, 2013). this work also aligns with umkc’s strategic plan, which includes a focus on transformational undergraduate/graduate education through service to the community and transformational enhancements to social, cultural, health, and economic prosperity in kc’s metropolitan area. engaging students and the faith community in addressing health disparities enhances students’ experiential education, collaboratively increases capacity to sustain the work in community settings, and helps to accomplish these university goals. as guided by cbpr principles (e.g., forming academic/community partnerships, tapping community strengths, ensuring community representation in research processes, identifying key community concerns) (israel, eng, schulz, & parker, 2013), the kc faith cab is highly engaged in all phases of the research from setting the research agenda, designing/implementing health promotion interventions, interpreting/disseminating study findings, and sustaining interventions. the cab’s highly active meetings are used to identify/discuss emerging health issues, create and culturally-religiously tailor church-based intervention components, establish appropriate recruitment strategies and study procedures for church settings, make sense of survey and intervention findings, forge new collaborative relationships between cab members’ organizations, and identify and implement strategies to maintain interventions that have been proven to be effective. the cab meetings are held quarterly, last two hours with lunch served, and regularly have about 30 members in attendance. development of the hna survey and inclusion of mental health items development of the hna survey has been described extensively elsewhere (berkley-patton et al., 2018) and is briefly described here with a focus on how the cab addressed mental health. two cab meetings were used to discuss/review health disparities from national, regional, and local data sources along with members’ lived experiences and personal knowledge. cab members initially determined the hna survey would focus on five health conditions: diabetes, heart disease/stroke, homicide/violence, hiv/aids, and asthma. however, after several cab members expressed the need to address mental health, healthcare access, and strategies specific to faith-based settings, these items were added later and resulted in eight focus areas for the hna survey. cab members divided into subgroups and discussed disparities data relevant to their focus area and generated a list of potential strategies that together could make improvements in that area. this process generated 110 potential strategies across the eight focus areas that were included in the hna survey. twelve of the strategies focused on mental health (e.g., support families, provide stress reduction activities, provide counseling services). © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24059 | february 15, 2021 108 the study team used this information to draft the hna survey, and used another cab meeting to do member-checking on wording and survey items, which confirmed the inclusion of questions on receipt of depression/mental health screenings and diagnosis, receipt of services from a mental health professional and from a religious leader, and exposure to community violence. once the survey document was finalized, faith-based cab members helped the study team to connect with african american church pastors, provide information about the survey, and determine interest in their church’s participation in having members complete the survey (see hna survey procedures below). based on survey results, initial priorities were identified as diabetes and heart disease/stroke. the cab then proceeded to design a diabetes/heart disease/stroke prevention, screening, and ltc intervention (project faith influencing transformation [fit]), which was been pilot tested. fit is now a free weight loss and physical activity program based in african american churches in kc urban areas (berkley-patton et al., 2020) and is led by faith leaders paired with umkc students serving as health coaches. hna survey procedures pastors who were interested in their church participating in the survey provided permission for the study team to share study information and conduct recruitment for the hna survey with their church members. church members consented and completed surveys immediately after sunday morning and wednesday night church services in sanctuaries and fellowship halls. study procedures and materials were approved by the umkc institutional review board. the hna survey included measures on demographics, health-related behaviors, health screenings (e.g., blood glucose, blood pressure, depression/mental health), and health condition diagnoses (e.g., diabetes, high blood pressure, depression/mental health), receipt of counseling from a pastor/religious leader (ever), receipt of mental health services from a mental health professional, and experiences with homicide/violence. participants were also asked to rank african american health disparities (diabetes, heart disease/stroke, homicide, hiv/stds, mental health, and asthma) in order of importance. additionally, they were asked to rate potential health promotion strategies on degree of importance and feasibility (e.g., 1 = very unimportant at all to 5=very important), with strategies grouped by each health disparity issue and health care access and church services strategy categories. descriptive findings (frequencies and means) specific to mental health are reported below. results hna mental health-related findings eleven churches (membership sizes of 50 to 750 members) from the kansas city, mo and kansas city, ks urban areas participated in the hna survey. among the 463 hna survey © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24059 | february 15, 2021 109 participants, 449 were from the participating church members and 14 were cab members who were not a member of a participating church. due to missing gender data for seven participants, findings reported are on the remaining 456 participants (73% female; mean age 45, sd=16; age range from 18-93). overall, 9% had received a depression/mental health screening in the last year, and 11% had been diagnosed with depression/mental health condition at some point in their lifetime. other participant characteristics are shown in table 1. mental health-related findings 56% of participants had visited a mental health professional at some point in their lifetime, and 49% had received counseling from a pastor or a religious leader. also, 49% had been a victim of a violent crime (gun shot, physical fight, assault), and 52% had lost a family member/friend to homicide. these findings were reviewed with the cab. table 1. participant characteristics (n = 456) participant characteristic variables % (n) or mean + sd gender female male 73.2% (334) 26.8% (122) age (mean + sd) 45.3 + 16.35 race black/african american/mixed race with african american other 96.7% (436) 3.3% (15) marital status single/separated/divorce/widowed married/ living with partner 59.5% (275) 40% (185) education less than high school degree high school degree/ged post high school technical training some college college degree or higher 6.0% (27) 23.5% (106) 34.4% (155) 13.7% (62) 22.4% (101) health coverage* (categories not mutually exclusive) medicare medicaid private insurance other health care no insurance don’t know 18.1% (83) 10.7% (49) 49.2% (226) 10.5% (48) 22.9% (105) 2.4% (11) average monthly income © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24059 | february 15, 2021 110 $0-$1000 $1001-$2000 $2001-$3000 more than $3000 don’t know 18.2% (83) 21.9% (100) 24.3% (111) 29.2% (133) 4.8% (22) church membership length (months; mean + sd) 146.3 + 179.4 the cab also reviewed the ratings on importance/feasibility for the proposed health promotion strategies for mental health, healthcare access, and church-based activities to determine which strategies would be most impactful on improving mental health and promoting mental health screening with faith-based partners. hna findings for these three focus areas are shown in table 2. the top strategies in each of these three focus areas received the most attention in discussions. among the mental health strategies, providing support to and enhancing communication with families, counseling services, and coping and stress reduction activities were highly rated as important and feasible in faith-based settings. regarding healthcare access, providing linkage to affordable healthcare services, health fairs inclusive of screenings, support for churches’ health ministry and training church leaders to be community health workers, text/email and other messages along with other communications (e.g., social media) were among highly rated strategies. lastly, highly rated church-based activities included providing free health screenings, health professionals in church services discussing screening importance/procedures, risk checklists, and printed materials (e.g., church bulletins, health resources). table 2. ratings on importance and feasibility of proposed health promotion intervention strategies on mental health, healthcare access, and church-based activities proposed health promotion strategies by health disparity issue1 importance1 (average) feasibility1 (average) mental health 1. offer classes on how to strengthen family relationships and communication. 4.2 4.0 2. provide education on coping and stress reduction skills for youth and adults. 4.1 4.0 3. provide church-based counseling services for individuals and families. 4.1 3.9 4. assist families who are helping family and friends living with a mental illness. 4.1 3.9 5. offer classes to reduce stress and express emotions like drawing, music, yoga, and meditative prayer classes. 4.1 3.9 6. promote/offer mental health substance abuse programs. 4.1 3.8 © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24059 | february 15, 2021 111 7. offer ongoing education seminars for church and community members on anxiety, depression, suicide, traumatic events, substance use, and eating disorders. 4.1 3.8 8. provide educational seminars on managing medication adherence and possible side effects. 4.0 3.8 health care access 1. link uninsured persons to low-cost health insurance and free health services. 4.2 3.9 2. provide churches with procedures and checklists to easily organize church-based health fairs, health screenings, and immunization events. 4.1 3.9 3. provide training/support for churches to develop/sustain health ministries. 4.1 3.9 4. use social media and other communication strategies (phone/text/email messages, church announcements) to encourage african americans to seek regular health screenings, get immunizations, and engage in healthy behaviors. 4.0 3.9 5. train church members to be community health workers to assist others with their health care needs (e.g., provide health referrals, coach on health behaviors, attend doctor appointments, provide emotional support). 4.0 3.8 6. use social marketing to broadcast health promotion messages about health disparities through billboards, radio, social media, and church websites. 4.0 3.8 7. provide members with adequate transportation to health care services. 4.1 3.7 8. educate church and community members on preparing for medical visits (having list of questions, medications, and vitamins) to receive high quality care. 4.0 3.8 strategies to address health disparity issues during church services 1. provide free health screenings (e.g., blood pressure, cholesterol, blood glucose [sugar], hiv/stds, bmi) and risk assessments. 4.2 4.1 2. use church websites to host health disparity information and videos. 4.1 3.9 © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24059 | february 15, 2021 112 3. distribute risk checklists to church and community members to determine their level of risk for each health issue that burdens african americans. 4.1 3.9 4. distribute directories with lists of resources for each health disparity issue. 4.0 3.9 5. distribute church bulletins, brochures, fact sheets, and posters on each health disparity issue. 4.0 3.9 6. have trained health workers who provide health screenings/ immunizations to fully describe the screening/immunization process in church services. 4.1 3.8 7. provide vaccinations for flu, pneumonia, shingles, and other adult illnesses. 4.0 3.8 8. have motivational messages from the pulpit and in church calendars to encourage members to seek regular health screenings and immunizations. 4.0 3.8 1all items had importance and feasibility response items ranging from 1 to 5; 5 = very important/feasible. cab discussion and design of a church-based mental health intervention for african americans cab discussion key topics intensely discussed by the cab focused on: (1) limited availability of mental health screening and counseling services (e.g., difficulty in getting an appointment, high cost of services); and (2) the pervasive mental health stigma in african american church settings (e.g., church folk talking negatively about people with mental health issues, fear of screening outcomes, beliefs that believers can pray mental health issues away). notably, there were lively discussions on spiritual versus clinical diagnosis of mental health issues. some faith leaders expressed their beliefs that mental health issues can arise from worldly influences and sinful behaviors intended to “rob people of their joy and contentment.” other cab members, especially those who were behavioral health clinicians and identified as persons of faith, discussed the science of mental health illness and how professional treatment and/or engagement in stress reduction and physical activities could help many mental health issues. in co-leading the discussion with ccon per cbpr principles, the study team encouraged cab faith leaders and clinicians to openly express their opinions as a way to share scientific information and cultural perspectives, and ensure the intervention design would be grounded in science while respectfully addressing religious beliefs that could facilitate/ hinder uptake of mental health screening. additionally, ccon faith leaders helped lead a cab discussion on how some beliefs among people of faith could further exacerbate or alleviate mental health-related stigma. these © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24059 | february 15, 2021 113 discussions resulted in the cab agreeing on the need for comprehensive religiously-appropriate intervention strategies (e.g., pastoral support in promoting/normalizing screening, church-based christian yoga, church bulletins on mental health myths/facts and compassion for people living with mental health illness). they also stressed the importance of church-based mental health screening and ltc to assist in overcoming barriers to receiving services. additionally, the cab further identified community resources needed to develop, implement, and sustain the selected intervention strategies. this included bringing on umkc’s community counseling and assessment services as a health agency partner that could provide affordable, sliding scale-fees for counseling by trained/supervised clinical health psychology and counseling education doctoral students. additionally, kc care health center was included as a health agency partner to provide community health workers who could assist church-community members with ltc services. design and launch of the mental health intervention by faith leaders the cab finalized the church-based intervention design with a focus on prevention, screening and ltc and named the intervention healthy actions to improve mind and spirit (aims). determined by the cab, the primary aim of healthy aims was to increase receipt of mental health screening among african american church-community members. they also sought to: (a) reduce mental health stigma; and (b) increase risk reduction behaviors (exercise and breathing), reduce stress/anxiety, and increase use of ltc services (secondary outcomes). the healthy aims project was piloted in four kansas city, mo urban churches, randomized to the religiously-tailored healthy aims intervention or a non-tailored educational comparison arm in 2019. church leaders were trained to deliver healthy aims components through multilevel church-delivery outlets, as guided by socio-ecological models (e.g., bronfenbrenner, 1979). key intervention components are shown in figure 1 below and include: (a) promotion of healthy behaviors with church and community members through church outreach ministries using text/email messages (church-community level), (b) print materials (e.g., mental health risk checklists, responsive readings, brochures, church bulletins) packaged in a healthy aims tool kit; pastors’ promotion of physical activity, stress reduction, and mental health screening; and church-based mental health screenings (e.g., anxiety, depression, substance use) by umkc clinical health psychology students (church services level), (c) mental health first aid training with health ministry leaders and exercise classes (e.g., christian yoga, zumba) (group level), and (d) 90-day linkage to mental health services and community resources provided by a community health worker (individual level). church-community members with screening results that indicated the need for further follow-up were referred to umkc’s community counseling and assessment services. as customary to the cab’s launch of new projects, a celebration was held to acknowledge the commitment and high-engagement of the cab in developing and launching healthy aims. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24059 | february 15, 2021 114 figure 1. the religiously-tailored multilevel healthy aims intervention discussion as mental health concerns increase among african americans due to everyday chronic stressors and diseases, grief from community violence, and young adult suicide (clements et al., 2020; compton, thompson, & kaslow, 2005; hollingsworth et al., 2017; howard et al., 2016; patton, woolley, & hong, 2012), there is a growing need to reach african american populations who may be at risk for mental disorders in venues that are highly frequented and trusted. urban universities are well-positioned to be key partners in these efforts to reach underserved populations with the goal of creating social change and eliminating health disparities in local communities (peterson, 2014). faith-based settings have long been acknowledged as a setting that can have tremendous reach with african american congregants (campbell et al., 2007; derose et al., 2019) and the community members they serve through church outreach ministries, particularly with prevention health screening interventions (berkley-patton et al., 2020; berkleypatton et al., 2018; derose et al., 2019; resnicow et al., 2004; sattin et al., 2016). thus, academic/faith-based organization partnerships are a vital means of addressing health and social issues in urban areas throughout the country. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24059 | february 15, 2021 115 findings from the hna indicated that 9% of participants had received a depression/mental health screening in the past year, and 11% had been diagnosed with depression/another mental health problem at some point in their lifetime, which is consistent with past studies with african american populations (himle et al., 2009; williams et al., 2007). depression rates are often higher among african americans experiencing frequent racial discrimination (hudson, neighbors, geronimus, & jackson, 2016). additionally, 56% of participants met with a mental health professional at some point in their lifetime, and early 50% met with a spiritual leader about mental health concerns. other studies have found similar results regarding use of counseling services from religious leaders (chatters et al., 2011), and suggest the appropriateness of equipping these leaders with training, tools, and resources to support their efforts in meeting the mental health and spiritual needs of their members while also referring them to professional mental health services. the national institute of mental health and other national mental health organizations have recognized the importance of faith leaders, particularly in african american communities, and their ability to reach many underserved persons who would not otherwise seek mental health services (national alliance on mental illness, 2016). future research is needed on how trained faith leaders can improve access to mental health services and positive mental health outcomes with church-community members. also, future practice is needed on how universities with clinical health psychology and/or counseling education programs, and community-focused mental health clinics can collaborate with faith leaders to support and sustain these efforts. recent studies have shown that appropriate tailoring of health promotion interventions to address health disparities can achieve improved health outcomes (burton, white, & knowlden, 2017; lucas, manning, hayman, & blessman, 2018), and that tailoring is best accomplished when community stakeholders are involved in establishing the research agenda, participating in the formative research, and contributing to the design of culturally appropriate study procedures and intervention components (israel et al., 2013). the highly active cab generated many potential feasible and important faith community strategies to enhance reach and mental health outcomes. our survey findings indicated that provision of counseling services and screenings, training on stress reduction and coping, and seminars on mental health were top strategies deemed to be highly important and highly feasible to implement in african american faith communities. these top strategies were then incorporated as components in the resulting faith-based mental health healthy aims intervention, which was recently delivered by trained church leaders to their members through multilevel church outlets (e.g., church services, ministry groups). this intervention reflects a larger, global interest in how faith organizations can function as religious health assets in their communities, that is, resources that can be used to deal with health crises and concerns (cochrane, 2006). such interest has given way to large multinational efforts to examine the functional capacity of religious institutions to serve as health care resources, such as the international religious health assets programme (irhap), an international workgroup of scholars and practitioners working to better understand the intersection of faith and public health. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24059 | february 15, 2021 116 this work joins a larger body of literature suggesting that faith communities can serve as valuable partners in developing strategies for addressing health disparities. of note, using a cbpr approach can be especially important when the health priority of interest is associated with stigmatizing beliefs that can thwart acceptability and feasibility of methods used and uptake of the resulting intervention (corrigan, 2020; michalak et al., 2016). to tap the many strengths of african american faith-based settings and tackle mental health stigmatizing beliefs, the authors highly engaged faith leaders along with health agency partners in every phase of the hna process. at times, there were very different viewpoints on the clinical and spiritual aspects of mental health that were displayed in lively debates. these debates were fruitful and generative, since similar and differing viewpoints would have certainly arisen during church leaders’ implementation of intervention strategies. working through the hna process helped to bring these differing worldview and clinical viewpoints to the surface and prepare faith, academic, health, and community partners to more effectively implement programs in ways to maximize each partner’s strengths. the iterative hna process is also a testament to building ongoing capacity to address widespread health concerns, particularly with underserved populations (sharma, 2000). the authors have used the hna process to address diabetes and physical activity in faith communities. it could also be used to address newly emerging health disparity conditions (e.g., covid-19). the hna enabled our faith-health-academic partnership to make quick use of the hna findings to address mental health while drawing on the strength of our longstanding collaborative relationships. academic researchers and universities can play a key role in supporting strategic initiatives identified by community partners and helping translate initiatives into action in a timely manner, which is an advantage of cbpr. the team quickly leveraged its partnership with the university-based community counseling clinic and health agency partners. this allowed for both swift protocol implementation and valuable training opportunities for church health leaders and mental health trainees (students) providing church-based mental health screenings. moreover, mental health trainees at the university’s campus clinic receive specialty training in topics related to health disparities and social determinants (e.g., chronic stressors, chronic diseases, grief from community violence, and young adult suicide). combining science with community lived experiences and shared resources can enhance the ability and capacity of all key stakeholders, academic and community partners, to work together to be responsive to the needs of underserved communities (israel et al., 2013). despite the many success of the hna process, limitations were existent. first, the information obtained in the hna was reflective of church members and not necessarily of community members who might otherwise use church-based outreach services. thus, future work seeking to develop screening and ltc intervention will benefit from the perspectives of community members engaged with the church but not necessarily active in the church. second, the authors’ © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24059 | february 15, 2021 117 sample consisted primarily of women and older adults. while reflective of past african american church-based studies (bauer et al., 2019; berkley-patton et al., 2020; christensen et al., 2020), future hnas should aim to engage more african american men and young adults to gain a better perspective on the needs of these underrepresented populations. third, due to mental health as highly stigmatized health concern, social reporting may have been occurring, although the findings on self-reported mental health screening and diagnoses were similar to national studies with african americans (himle et al., 2009; williams et al., 2007). fourth, the hna results were largely based on survey results. alternative methodological choices such as focus groups and key informant interviews could also be a useful way to elicit information from key stakeholders about needs and strategies to address those needs in the context of future research. lastly, the strategies reflect the fundamental christian belief system highly represented on the cab, therefore the resulting intervention may not generalize to other faith denominations and non-african american faith populations. future efforts to develop and implement churchbased mental health screening programs will need to be modified in light of the unique belief systems represented within each church or place of worship. conclusion this paper highlights a cbpr-driven approach to developing a mental health prevention, screening, and ltc intervention in african american churches in kansas city, mo. the authors used a faith community engaged approach and a hna to identify important and feasible strategies to design and launch the healthy aims intervention in african american churches. overall, the hna process highlights how faith-health-academic partnerships can collaborate to identify health priorities of importance to local communities, jointly develop interventions guided by data and experiential knowledge, even in the face of disagreements, and launch religiously-appropriate interventions that can be feasibly implemented by african american faith leaders with the communities they serve. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24059 | february 15, 2021 118 acknowledgements the authors would like to thank our many faith-based and health agency partners who contributed to this work and whose leadership and commitment to community health has been incredibly impactful. funding source funding for this project was 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(2009). discrimination and racial disparities in health: evidence and needed research. journal of behavioral medicine, 32(1), 20-47. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-008-9185-0 http://www.samhsa.gov/data/population-data-nsduh/reports?tab=38 http://www.samhsa.gov/data/population-data-nsduh/reports?tab=38 microsoft word 005_23807_mamelodi_23807 final.docx original research © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23807 | june 17, 2020 33 mamelodi pre-university academy: aligning campus strategic goals to achieve a university’s anchor institution strategy mandate nthabiseng a. ogude,1 kgadi c. mathabathe,2 nosipho mthethwa3 and regina white4 1office of the dean, mamelodi campus, university of pretoria, 2department of community based research and postgraduate studies, mamelodi campus, university of pretoria, 3office of the dean, mamelodi campus, university of pretoria, and 4 pre-university academy, mamelodi campus, university of pretoria cite as: ogude, n.a., mathabathe, k.c., mthethwa, n. & white, r. (2020). mamelodi pre-university academy: aligning campus strategic goals to achieve a university’s anchor institution strategy mandate. metropolitan universities, 31(2), 33-52. doi: 10.19060/23807 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract the university of pretoria (up) adopted an anchor institution strategy and designated the mamelodi campus as a faculty with a focus on community engagement with the primary goal of broadening educational pathways to post-secondary school attainment. as a conceptual shift from the community engagement literature, the mamelodi campus identifies the role that it plays and its relationship with the mamelodi community as part of its “anchor” institution strategy. this paper provides an overview of how two strategic goals of the university, namely widening access and success and strengthening social responsiveness, have manifested over a decade through designating stem access programs to a campus located in the impoverished township of mamelodi. the anchor mission entails improvement of the access programs through incorporating the student voice, as well the improvement of the after-school programs (asps) by formalizing a pre-university academy (pua). the pua is a signature academic program geared towards fostering articulation between the high school initiatives, access programs, and the mainstream programs to ensure a seamless transition from secondary school to graduation. a case study methodology was followed to highlight the lessons drawn from the provision of the programs which resulted in forward and backward articulation to close the school-university gap while addressing systemic educational problems left by the legacy of apartheid. the paper further elaborates on the process followed to cement the © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23807 | june 17, 2020 34 anchor mission through the pua as well as make recommendations to strengthen anchor institution strategy efforts in similar contexts keywords: anchor institution, community engagement, stem, extended curriculum programs, after-school programs introduction and background the shift in south african higher education institutions from being academically exclusive to becoming engaged, inclusive, and diverse has been progressive since independence in 1994 (birch, perry & taylor, 2013; hendricks & flaherty, 2018). in the overview on south african university history, strydom (2016) takes note of the role of south african universities under the apartheid regime, whereby the focus was solely on the milestones the universities achieved, with little or no mention of the universities’ function in their socio-economic and political contexts. south african universities, under the apartheid regime, seemingly romanticized their roles as higher education institutions whereas the post-apartheid narrative of universities is critical and cognizant of the socio-political and economic landscape of the communities in which they are embedded (strydom, 2016). the post-apartheid university of pretoria has adopted an anchor mission strategy whereby the anchor strategy mandate aims to improve the economy and infrastructure of the communities in which it is located and thus do away with societal ills, paving the way for academic access, success, and community engagement (hendricks & flaherty, 2018). in its endeavor to provide access to higher education, employment, and security, the university is cognizant of the importance of diversity, particularly to ensure that the campus community mirrors the socioeconomic and racial diversity that exists in the south african community (hendricks & flaherty, 2018; strydom, 2016). the policy adopted by the university aims to eliminate barriers between academia and the community and to foster community integration and improvement. in light of the university’s exclusive past, the policy places emphasis on the support for students from disadvantaged backgrounds (hendricks & flaherty, 2018; strydom, 2016). the university has thus designated the university of pretoria’s mamelodi campus as a hub for community engagement with a focus on enhancing access and successful student learning, as well as strengthening social responsiveness and impact in society. the mamelodi campus is geared towards broadening educational pathways for postsecondary school attainment through provision of access programs in science, engineering, technology and mathematics (stem). the purpose of this article is to show how, with the adoption of an anchor institution strategy, the campus’ activities moved from a community engagement approach (focused on student learning, transformation of faculty into engaged scholars, partnerships fostered through teaching, learning © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23807 | june 17, 2020 35 and research) to an anchor mission approach (community impact driven through a variety of activities such as procurement, hiring practices, as well as teaching, learning, research and service). our understanding of how the two constructs differ and are similar is informed by the recent article by norris and weiss (2019). while community engagement projects can be global in nature, anchor institutions define community in terms of local contributions. the emphasis for community engagement work is on how institutions work with the community as opposed to where the engagement occurs. although the university has an office that focuses on its social impact nationally through community engagement activities, the mamelodi campus employs a hyper-local approach towards implementing an anchor mission geared towards addressing the socio-economic challenges in mamelodi. the campus fulfills its anchor mission by forging partnerships with entities working in the mamelodi education ecosystem to increase the number of youth attaining post-secondary school qualifications. mamelodi township has an estimated population of 334,577; this excludes the burgeoning informal settlements, which places the estimated total to approximately one million residents, most of whom are predominantly black. with only 9.5% of the population having had access to higher education, mamelodi is an urban community with a high unemployment rate whereby 18% of the households have no income while 73.7% of the population are of working age,15-64 (census, 2011). although plagued by social and economic ills, the mamelodi township is rich in cultural, educational, infrastructural, social, and economic diversity and is therefore fertile ground for the implementation of an anchor strategy; these factors render the mobilization of assets and resources amongst the university and the community accessible and sustainable (cantor, englot, & higgins, 2013). a process of reflection and consultation with internal and external role-players led to the development of a campus anchor strategy that would not only address the community engagement mandate of the campus but also achieve the strategic goals of the university. in 2017, the kresge foundation awarded up and rutgers university-newark (ru-n) a planning grant towards their anchor institution strategies in their respective communities in newark and mamelodi. the up mamelodi campus thus developed an anchor mission strategy called the mamelodi collaborative (mc). the mc addresses five key areas: (a) broadening educational pathways for post-secondary school attainment; (b) leveraging the arts and culture; (c) science and the urban environment; (d) strong, safe and healthy neighborhoods; and (e) economic development and entrepreneurship. these key areas focus on bridging the poverty, crime, education, and unemployment gaps in the mamelodi community through community and district partnerships and a data led approach. this paper focusses on the niche area of broadening educational pathways and, more specifically, access and success to tertiary studies in stem for the youth of the community. the paper elaborates on how the campus arrived at a more comprehensive approach to broadening pathways to stem and closing the school-university gap through pre-university activities and access programs. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23807 | june 17, 2020 36 literature review an anchor mission strategy is the intentional deployment of an institution’s geographically bound assets and economic power to revitalize neighborhoods where individuals face historic barriers to economic growth and survival (dragicevic, 2015). the anchor mission strategy is implemented by anchor institutions which are described as large, non-profit organizations grounded in communities to ensure the mutually beneficial progress and well-being of the communities in which they are rooted (dragicevic, 2015; friedman, perry, & menendez, 2014). anchor institutions are largely developed in urban societies where the institutions mobilize their resources towards the strengthening of the surrounding neighborhood (dragicevic, 2015; ehlenz, 2018). due to global socio-political, socio-economic, and resource instabilities, universities have had to reinvent themselves in order to remain relevant in the ever changing world and communities in which they are embedded and function (ehlenz, 2018). the focus of universities both theoretically and practically has changed over the years from being academically exclusive, which hindered educational access to the broader community, to universities being agents for neighborhood revitalization, change, and development (birch et al., 2013; ehlenz, 2018; hendricks & flaherty, 2018; smith, pelco, & rooke, 2017). the systematic review by nkoana and dichaba (2017), addresses the increasing core mandate of university-community engagement (uce) across south african universities with aims to alleviate the poverty, inequality, and unemployment in the south african community. the study, however, highlights how the lack of a uce framework and a data trail may do more harm than good as the systemic review noted the lack of uce data and reports from other institutions around south africa. although south african universities run community engagement programs countrywide, the, university of pretoria is the first of its kind in the country to adopt an anchor mission mandate. the adoption of an anchor mission strategy is a major shift in community engagement literature towards a measurable impact in collaboration with the community in a defined geographical location as well as developing the locality intentionally and holistically compared to community engagement activities that emphasize service-learning often to meet the requirements of a university curriculum. universities driven by socio-economic constraints within the societies in which they are embedded build mutually beneficial partnerships with other community institutions, towards affecting a positive change thus acquiring the anchor institution status (bergen & sladeck, 2019). the report by hahn, coonerty & peaslee (2005) states that the focus of an anchor institution should be developing the economy of the community despite the challenges that anchor institutions face in the planning and collaboration of community outreach programs as well as interdisciplinary programs. various universities have adopted and successfully implemented the anchor strategy. however, bergen and sladeck (2019) argue that while the anchor mission © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23807 | june 17, 2020 37 strategy may improve the quality of life of the targeted communities as a whole, it may not improve the welfare of permanently resident low-income and oppressed individuals in those communities and will, in fact, drive them out of the community due to the ripple effect of a higher standard of living. anchor mission strategies thus fall short in addressing the development of generational wealth of the poorest individuals in their allocated communities (bergen & sladeck, 2019). through the use of surveys, ehlenz (2018) compared the theory and application of the anchor mission strategies to examine the extent to which universities invest in neighborhood revitalization. ehlenz (2018) states that theoretically, the likely advantages associated with the successful implementation of the university anchor mission strategy is the notable development and improvement of infrastructure, security, social, economic, as well as the quality of life of the targeted communities. the structural and economic development is thus meant to encourage investor buy-in and, in turn, affect the educational and school going trends of its learners and students in the community (ehlenz, 2016; ehlenz, 2018). such is evident in the anchor institutions addressed in hendricks and flaherty (2018) where the infrastructural development and community engagement, as well as economic investment by the university of pennsylvania, midtown detroit, and the university of maryland saw an increase in the economy, safety, and investment in the areas. the literature consulted highlights the success of international universities in the implementation of the anchor mission strategies while few studies exist which address the application of the anchor strategy in the context of south african universities. the predominant factor that stands out in the university anchor mission strategy literature is the data driven evaluation and monitoring of anchor mission strategy activities. furthermore, the successful anchor strategies mentioned above focus increasingly on the infrastructure and economy of their neighborhoods and do not elaborate on the implementation of the education access, retention, and success of learners and students in the community schools, as well as the students enrolled in the universities. unlike international universities where notable success in the implementation of anchor strategies is evident, south african universities lag behind in this regard (bank, 2018). consequently, the university of pretoria, in its implementation of the anchor strategy, has noted these gaps and seeks to not only improve the infrastructure and economy of the communities in which its campuses are embedded, but to also improve academic access and success, as well as foster sustainable community development that enhances the lives of the communities in which the university is located (hendricks & flaherty, 2018). the impact of the university through community outreach is vital in addressing the needs of individuals in the community and thus it is important to have a research and data driven approach in addressing societal constraints in the mamelodi community. the university of pretoria has set out to achieve its anchor mission of © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23807 | june 17, 2020 38 extending and improving academic access and success for the youth of mamelodi through its after-school programs which have been in operation since 2012. after-school programs after-school programs (asps) with a strong academic focus, are one of the ways in which civil society has responded in an attempt to counter student under-preparedness. asps have a long history globally and the conditions that shape their development reflect societal concerns regarding child development (lauer, motoko, wilkerson, & apthorp, 2006). the concerns vary from one society to another, hence asps vary widely in goals and practices, making it difficult to assess their effects as interventions. adding to this complexity is the need for asps to be developmentally appropriate and attractive to participants. several scholars who have conducted systematic reviews of asps (lester, chow & melton, 2020) found that while a number of promising models exist, many exhibit encouraging and yet methodologically flawed evidence of effectiveness. programs that provide greater structure, a stronger link to the school-day curriculum, well qualified and well-trained staff, and opportunities for one-to-one tutoring hold promise. the absence of academically rigorous research in the operations and outcomes of supplementary programs is demonstrated in the seventh systemic review summary conducted by international initiative for impact evaluation (snilstveit et al., 2016). the review evaluated the impact of interventions for improving learning outcomes and access to education for learners in low and middle income countries. snilstveit et al. (2016) demonstrated that most programs operate with little evidenced led practices. there is a need for future studies on after-school programs to implement rigorous designs and report on aspects of program quality. improving the rigor in the design of the programs as well as the evaluations of after-school programs is crucial and can provided valuable information to realize the potential of after-school programs (kremer, maynard, polanin, vaughn & sarteschi, 2015; lester, 2020). elements of an asp for redress from the literature it is clear that a meaningful asp model should be able to at least consider the socio-economic situation of the learner and structure innovative measures to minimize its negative impact for success in school and beyond. in addition, the model should provide the learner with the skills set relevant to the demands of the 21st century. the following elements are proposed as crucial to the success of an asp for redress: (a) a learner responsive environment through parent-school-community partnerships; (b) academic preparedness/ readiness; and (c) post-secondary school awareness referring to college and career prospects. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23807 | june 17, 2020 39 a learner responsive environment through parent-school-community partnerships the african saying, “it takes a village to raise a child” rings increasingly truer in a context where youth is responsible for criminality on school premises. schools can no longer turn a blind eye to societal ills as it no longer only manifests itself in the home environment. healthy school, family, and community partnerships lead to improved academic learner achievement, self-esteem, school attendance, and social behavior (lemmer, 2007). a learner responsive environment refers to an environment where educational matters are addressed through joint efforts of educators, learners, parents, members of the local community, and the education department. such an environment makes learners equal contributors to the partnership by encouraging them to be engaged in their schoolwork. as much as lemmer (2007) was talking from a schooling perspective, the same collaborative approach is necessary when it comes to asps. these programs are best positioned at the interface where all entities meet. after-school program models without a collaborative approach, tend to “take the responsibility of teaching off the hands of the teacher.” the comparative limited time available to after-school practitioners is already putting the prospect of obtaining superior results at risk. a similar message is communicated if asps are run separate from parental involvement. support programs can therefore have greater impact if they are school based or communicate a strong school/parent/asp partnership aimed at the specific needs of the learners of the school. it then continually contextualizes the leaners’ environment and allows for greater alignment between asp and school activities. teachers and parents could also have input in what the learners need at a specific point in time. children become used to a longer school day which can enhance their work ethic. academic preparedness and college and career readiness kivunja (2014) asserts that whereas a learner or student in the past would have been considered academically prepared if they possessed the traditional core subjects and skills domain (i.e. the 3rs of reading, -riting and –rithmetic) appropriate for a particular exit level, this is now considered inadequate. the learning and innovations skills as well as the digital literacies skills are additional prerequisites for academic preparedness. academic preparedness is inextricably linked to college and career readiness, hence it is upon the institution and community to instill the career and life skills domain in the individual. this paper therefore addresses how the university of pretoria, mamelodi campus, through the decade long provision of the extended curriculum programs (ecps) and asps, lessons learnt and a data-led approach, aligned its strategic goals of access and success and social © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23807 | june 17, 2020 40 responsiveness to achieve its anchor strategy mandate. the paper aims to answer the following research questions: research questions 1. how did the university of pretoria’s strategic goals of widening access and success and improving social responsiveness and impact manifest through the extended curriculum programs and the after-school programs between 2008 and 2018? 2. what lessons were learnt through the provision of these programs which enabled an improved strategy that addresses the school-university gap in a holistic manner? 3. what processes and activities did the campus engage in to arrive at a data led-approach in broadening educational pathways and cementing the anchor institution strategy in the mamelodi community? context typical of the south african urban model developed under apartheid, the mamelodi campus, previously known as vista university, is situated on the urban periphery, approximately 20 kilometers north-east of the capital city, pretoria. the apartheid government established the vista university in 1981 (landman 1989) to provide university-level education for black persons in urban areas, with particular reference to the training of secondary school teachers. the postapartheid minister of higher education, kader asmal, designated up as one of the institutions to incorporate a vista campus as part of the reconfiguration of the higher education system, which was legislated in 2002 (akor 2008:172). the council designated the vista mamelodi campus as a community engagement hub with a focus on providing access to stem programs after a 2007 review of how the vista mamelodi campus could contribute to the academic repertoire of the university of pretoria. by designating the campus a hub with a focus on stem the university aimed to contribute to addressing this challenge of poor education systems, inadequate service delivery, and poverty which are still defining characteristics of township communities. such challenges are a consequence of the socio-economic injustices that transpired in the country during the apartheid regime which affected predominantly black communities (state of the nation, 2019). one of the enduring challenges in the education system in south africa is the low number of high school learners from disadvantaged communities that access stem study programs. in fact, statistics have shown that the number of students who qualify with a national senior certificate (nsc) for entry to degree study, and those who have passed important “gateway” subjects such as mathematics, physical science, life sciences and english (home and first additional language) remain limited (department of basic education, 2016). this is due, in part, to limitations and © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23807 | june 17, 2020 41 challenges in the schooling system. to that end, in 2008 the university introduced three access programs at the mamelodi campus, to replace the university of pretoria foundation year (upfy) program which was a stem pre-university bridging program previously offered at the hatfield campus. these access programs are the bachelor of science extended curriculum programs in biological and agricultural sciences, physical sciences, mathematical sciences, and economic and management sciences. ecps have been introduced with support of the department of higher education and training to address under-preparedness of incoming students for the mainstream programs at higher education institutions. unlike the upfy, the ecps are formal degree programs and students register for a bsc degree from the onset. ecps are considered more effective in terms of articulating with the mainstream programs (rollnick, 2010). the ecps offered on the campus thus constitute the nucleus around which the academic identity of the campus is developed and are aimed at widening access to mathematics, commercial, and science-related careers for largely first-generation students coming from disadvantaged school backgrounds. ecps are particularly important in south africa where under-preparedness for university study is a majority rather than a minority phenomenon now and into the foreseeable future. teaching in the ecps is specialized to give students the necessary support to address underpreparedness. studies conducted between 2014 and 2016 have determined the positive impact of the mamelodi campus ecps and have proven the success of ecp’s while citing areas of improvement (engelbrecht, harding & potgieter, 2014; ogude, meyer, mwambakana & mthethwa 2019). following the positive results from these studies the campus turns its focus towards the development of a model that would address the school-university gap prior to students enrolling at university, that is, while they are at school. if successful, this strategy which entails backwards articulation (case, marshall & grayson, 2013) can complement the forward articulation of ecps resulting in a holistic approach to close the school-university gap and provide access to larger numbers of students. up strategic goals and the mamelodi campus up has identified five strategic goals as its key focus areas from the year 2019 going forward, namely: 1. to enhance access and successful student learning 2. to strengthen the university’s research and international profile 3. to foster and sustain a transformed, inclusive, and equitable university community 4. to optimize resources and enhance institutional sustainability 5. to strengthen the university’s social responsiveness and impact in society © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23807 | june 17, 2020 42 the mamelodi campus is designated the university’s social innovation hub with a focus on strategic goals one and five. student access, success: from extended curriculum programs to asps ecps have succeeded in widening access for students into stem and economic and management sciences fields since their introduction on the mamelodi campus. for the past decade the student population on the mamelodi campus has grown by over 200% from the initial 300 in 2008 to 850 in 2018 which comprises approximately 10% of the total first year intake (bureau for institutional research and planning, 2017) the overall module pass rate during this period has also been consistently high, averaging 83%, which is in line with the benchmark of the department of higher education and training of 82% (bureau for institutional research and planning, 2017) . since 2008, ecps have been the flagship academic programs of up’s mamelodi campus and the bedrock on which the thematic multi-disciplinary nature of the campus, its academic identity and its anchor strategy the mc, was conceptualized in 2018 (birch et al., 2013). in light of the major successes of the ecps, and as the nucleus around which the anchor strategy is conceptualized, it became important that they are strengthened even further from an institutional perspective. this necessitated a critical reflection on how the programs contribute by ensuring that more learners from mamelodi, access the ecps as well as other up mainstream programs. this reflection resulted in the following observations: (1) the numbers of learners that apply to the university of pretoria from the mamelodi schools have seen an upward but steady trend between 2014 and 2017, at 346, 336, 346, and 362, respectively. however, there is a concern that these numbers declined in 2018 to 246 and are generally very low. to put these numbers into perspective, of the 496 grade 12 learners from the 20 mamelodi schools, 31%, obtained a university entrance in 2017. thus, the numbers that applied in 2017 constitute 73% of the bachelors passes obtained by the twenty schools in mamelodi. the target is to increase this number by 20% in 2021 to 93%, an average of 4% per year. (2) unlike the application rate, the realization rate, that is the number of students that are admitted to the university, including the mamelodi campus, has been on a downward trend over the three years, 2015, 2016, and 2017 standing at 70%, 66%, and 63% respectively. this number may not be as high as it should be as admission point scores of some of the learners may not meet the up criteria for admission. in light of these observations, the university had to reflect on the extent to which its goal on access aligns with its anchor role in the mamelodi community. with such few students gaining access to the university, there was a misalignment which needed to be addressed. furthermore, the university resolved that it could make a contribution beyond enabling students’ access to its academic programs by advancing its social responsiveness mandate. in this way, the university © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23807 | june 17, 2020 43 can contribute broadly to educational achievement through strengthening access to other tertiary institutions as well. in an effort to further broaden access to stem, in 2012 the mamelodi campus introduced a stem asp, in partnership with the gauteng department of education’s tshwane south district office, which is responsible for the schools in mamelodi and surrounding areas. the target group of the asp was 450, grades 10 to 12, learners from 20 high schools in mamelodi, nellmapius, and eersterust. the asp initiative was intended as an additional pathway for previously disadvantaged learners to gain admission to primarily stem programs at the university of pretoria. lessons learnt from the research conducted on the ecps thus led to the introduction of the stem asp to increase the chances for the learners of mamelodi high schools to access the ecps or mainstream programs and address the school-university gap through backward articulation. studies have shown that intervention at the ecp stage is rather too late given a schooling system that is consistently producing underprepared students (case et al 2013). student access and success and the stem after-school program an introduction of the stem asps to improve the performance of grade 10 to 12 learners in mathematics and physical sciences from the 20 high schools in mamelodi and an associated teacher mentorship program offered to mathematics and science teachers for grades four through nine, enabled the campus to reach about 300 schools and up to 180,000 learners indirectly. an evaluation of the asps showed that in 2015, 33% of students in the asp learners were admitted to up (mainstream and extended programs). in 2016 this figure rose to 45%, an increase of 14%. cognizant of the need for collective impact, the campus formed a strategic partnership with providers of similar programs in the mamelodi area in 2015, herein lay the novelty of the asp model employed. these partnerships significantly enhanced the impact of the asps. learners participated in weekend mathematics and science classes offered by one of the partners called kutlwanong: promaths and attended the up asps once a week for self-paced tutorial exercises using e-learning software. in addition, learners benefited from the many enrichment and empowerment activities offered by an internal up entity, juniortukkie, ranging from life skills, study methods, time management, computer literacy, and reading skills development to bursary information and assistance with admission applications. learners also attended the juniortukkie spring and winter school program for grade 10 to12 learners, which were offered on campus during school holidays. the partnership with external entities was further strengthened by partnering internally with several academic departments such as the department of educational psychology and the department of science, mathematics, and technology education, as well as student-led organizations such as the postgraduate student association for the natural and agricultural sciences (psana). © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23807 | june 17, 2020 44 from the period of 2013 to 2018, assistance in mathematics and physical sciences was provided to an average of 800 grade 10 learners, 440 grade 11 learners, and 320 grade 12 learners. in total, 44 pre-service teachers served as tutors and, in the process, consolidated their own science and mathematics understanding and developed familiarity with the government prescribed curriculum. this ensured effective lesson planning and opportunities to develop best practices to better address learners’ struggles with mathematics and physical sciences. teachers were exposed to the diversity of the school-going community and were hence better at classroom management which significantly reduced the learning curve associated with beginner teachers. the impact of the after-school programs between the years 2015 and 2017, the after-school program (asp) had one level of intervention for learners in addition to the teacher mentorship program, reaching approximately 500 students a week in grades 10-12 and 100 teachers in the tmp. learners selected on merit from the 20 schools attended stem enrichment programs in which an e-learning platform was used to supplement the traditional chalk and talk teaching provided in the school and by other ngo’s working in the education space in mamelodi. although the mamelodi mathematics and science program had a limited footprint, it had notable qualitative and quantitative achievements. in partnership with local community projects such as kutlwanong, the reach of the asps in the mamelodi community learners expanded. awareness campaigns like the career fair hosted on the mamelodi campus of the university of pretoria contributed to learners’ exposure to the possibilities within the university of pretoria. this led to an increased awareness towards higher education access, more so towards enrollment in the university of pretoria as a result of exposure and access to higher education premises. it was vital that the learners’ progress was tracked through the collection of learners’ quarterly school report cards so as to ensure that learners benefitted positively from the programs through an evaluation and reflection on the teaching and learning methods in the programs. a comparative evaluation of the mathematics and physical science marks of the 2018 cohort indicated that the learners that enrolled in the asps performed above the national average. in mathematics, 48% received symbols higher than a level four (50-59%) while 22% attained over 70% (level 6 – 7). nationally, only 10% of learners obtained more than 50% in mathematics. in physical sciences, 53% of the asp learners obtained over 50% and 29% of them over 80%. nationally, only 12.5% of learners obtained more than 50% while 14% of the learners achieved level seven. one asp learner achieved an exceptional 98% in mathematics and 100% in physical science. in 2014, an average of 20% of the grade 12 learners in the program registered at the university of pretoria. in the following year this number almost doubled to 33%. this trend continued, with 44% of the cohort of 2016 qualifying to enter up (bureau for institutional research and planning, 2017). © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23807 | june 17, 2020 45 figures 1 and 2 below compares the symbol or grade distribution in mathematics and science for the cohorts of 2016, 2017, and 2018. the data shows that the 2018 cohort performed significantly better than the 2016 and 2017 cohorts which validated the improvements that were brought about by partnering with various role-players for a more holistic approach. towards the end of 2018, learners completed a survey from which we gathered that 79 out of a 121 participants, 65%, received provisional acceptance from a university. it is difficult to obtain accurate figures for actual registrations post completing secondary school, since we only had access to the database of the university of pretoria. of the candidates registered at the university of pretoria, approximately 20% enrolled in the following programs: financial services, engineering, the built environment, medical sciences and bsc. twelve students that commenced their studies in the asp and qualified to go into the degree programs at the university of pretoria underwent semi-structured interviews on their experiences in the program. the interviews were transcribed and subjected to thematic analysis. two themes emerged from the data analysis namely, aspiration for further studies and academic benefits of the asp. extracts from the qualitative data have been provided as examples of learner responses to the interview questions. aspiration for further studies and motivational attendance/parental support my dad even when he was chilling told everyone at home i was attending the university of pretoria though i was in grade 10. i had no chance of failing. he would look at my marks and say how i will tell people you had a bad mark. you cannot afford to get a mark lower than 80%. (student 3 tm – 2nd year medical student) my mom never went to university so she wanted one of us to go there. (student 4 ym) figure 1 mathematics symbol distribution 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 0 29 30 39 40 49 50 59 60 69 70 79 80 100 mathematics symbol distribution grade 12 (2016 2018) 2016 2017 2018 figure 2 physical science symbol distribution 0 10 20 30 40 50 0 29 30 39 40 49 50 59 60 69 70 79 80 100 physical science symbol distribution grade 12 (2016 2018) 2016 2017 2018 © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23807 | june 17, 2020 46 i came for friends, food, education, and that feeling of being at university (student 1: np, now 2nd year engineering) academic benefits of the after-school program i think when you come here (asp) and you are behind at school; you learn. by the time they do the work at school you already know the topic. (student 5 sm) i met other top learners from other schools, we share information and past papers, we formed a network. we improved our communication skills in front of strangers, learners came from different schools and this helped us not to get into cultural shock at university. (ws) online programs like momaths, quizzes, computer literacy was an advantage. (tm) the incorporation of the asps towards redress in the mamelodi community showed prominence in the academic preparedness and college and career readiness element of the program’s model. the students interviewed identified skills which the programs developed in them which they identify as life-long skills such as communication, information, and thinking skills were among the frequently mentioned. according to the student feedback, the programs enhanced their discipline knowledge and made it easily transmittable to their respective study fields towards a smooth high school-university transition. such are skills and attributes which the asps hoped to develop in asp learners and thus promote academic readiness and success and have successfully done so. emergence of the university of pretoria pre-university academy following several improvements between 2013 and 2018, the after-school programs offered on the mamelodi campus now include those offered by the university itself as well as external partners working in the mamelodi educational ecosystem. in 2019 the campus initiated the mamelodi pre-university academy (pua), which houses all the pre-university programs hosted by itself and other partners on the campus premises. through the pua the campus is able to follow a multi-stakeholder approach to extend its reach from the initial 500 beneficiaries to 30,000 youth in mamelodi. the pua is a signature initiative of the mamelodi campus which is geared toward fostering articulation between the school level initiatives, ecps and the mainstream programs to ensure a seamless transition from secondary school to graduation. the pua has identified three research focus areas as its core business, focusing on college readiness and awareness, teacher professional development, and engendering scientific literary and an interest in science. the first focus area of the pua is two-pronged to cater for the initiatives designed to foster post-secondary school awareness and readiness. the pua ensures that the university strategic goals of access and success and social responsiveness and impact are aligned with the anchor mission strategy, the mamelodi collaborative. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23807 | june 17, 2020 47 university of pretoria’s anchor strategy an assessment of the asps offered by the campus during the conceptualization of the campus’ anchor strategy identified several strengths and weaknesses which informed the redesign of the asps into the pua. the following strengths were identified: • multi-level intervention through structured memoranda of understanding with the different partners such as private business, non-government organizations (ngos). • the collaboration with the gauteng department of education (gde) in both the learner and teacher program with both parties, up and gde, gaining from the partnership with the shared goals of improving student outcomes and pecoordinated coordinated approach including the principals, parents, and learners. • implementation of a group mentor program for the learners. the mentors are former mamelodi mathematics and science program (mmsp) learners that are studying at the university of pretoria. • the success of the model for ecps as a gateway to science technology, engineering, and mathematics (stem) and other careers at the university. • possible further leveraging of funds from other sources including international funders. • the creation of a bursary fund by the alumni of up who started their careers at the up mamelodi campus. • international collaboration with rutgers university-newark and the sharing of methodologies. similarly, challenges identified were as follows: • the lack of a rigorous data-led approach to pre-university provisioning to determine the efficacy of the programs and to track student progression from high school through tertiary studies at the different institutional types, ranging from universities, universities of technology (uots) or technical and vocational education and training (tvet) colleges. • the lack of a structured research program or agenda that can enable the university to measure the impact of the programs on student success. • the lack of articulation agreements with partner institutions of higher learning to strengthen efforts towards broadening educational pathways for post-secondary school attainment, the campus set out to address the above weaknesses while leveraging on the strengths and the university’s infrastructure, capacities, and networks (both internal and external) to build strong educational pathways from early childhood development centers to high school. the campus identified four education networks, the early childhood development (ecd), primary © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23807 | june 17, 2020 48 schools, high schools, and university education networks. the networks address access to quality early childhood education on the one end, and access to tertiary opportunities on the other through targeted community-based projects. a data-led approach: the mamelodi community of learning collaborative (mclc) by the end of 2018, stakeholder participation has increased from the initial five partners that came together in 2015, to more than 20 external stakeholders and six faculties, as well as a number of undergraduate and postgraduate student organizations. in february 2019 the mclc was established, building on the lessons and experiences of our international partner rutgers newark’s city of learning collaborative (nclc). the mclc is a multi-stakeholder partnership between the university of pretoria, mamelodi campus and the gde’s tshwane south district, technical, and vocational education and training colleges, and non-government organizations involved in youth development and the business sector. the aim of this partnership is to address pipeline problems within the educational system and to foster a post-secondary school-going culture in the mamelodi township and surrounding areas. the partnership has been formalized to enable a multi-stakeholder provisioning towards strengthening and broadening educational pathways in all four education networks under the rubric of the mclc. partnership with the key role players enables up, mamelodi campus to consolidate its collaboration with the gauteng department of basic education’s tshwane south district and a network of stakeholders to achieve the goal of broadening educational pathways by using a dataled approach to monitor and measure the impact of all the interventions provided by itself and the mclc partners. work on a data clearing house has already commenced. this work entails exploring establishing a link between the data analytics platform of the department of basic education, sa-sams to the up data platforms. should this be successful, the database will track students from entry into high school right up to the workplace. the campus also envisages extending the mainstream student success initiatives to the ecps by developing a data-led at-risk student identification and referral system. conclusion previously the ecps and asps offered on the mamelodi campus primarily focused on achieving the access and success strategic goal of the up. adoption of an anchor institution strategy broadens the community engagement mandate to broadening educational pathways to postsecondary school attainment and thus achieving not only access but also its social responsiveness mandate through providing access to various institutions of higher learning as well as fostering a college going culture in mamelodi. the alignment of the access and success and the social responsiveness goals of the university with its anchor strategy through the © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23807 | june 17, 2020 49 mamelodi collaborative incorporating a pre-university academy is a major achievement for the role of the university in the community. in ensuring that that the anchor mission is sustainable through the mclc, which is underpinned by measurement and tracking of the impact of partnerships in community engagement, the university can track the outcomes of the community programs and outreach. data collection, measurement, and evaluation of partnerships and programs are of high importance in the anchor institution partnerships (provinzano, riley, levine & grant, 2018). the literature and the work presented in this paper served to highlight the need for more research and more rigorous research methodologies into the impact of anchor mission strategies, more so in the south african context. to address this need the mamelodi campus in partnership with rutgers university newark has developed a more deliberate research agenda, which will entail formulating research projects with methodological rigor around the anchor institution strategy of mamelodi campus. to this end a research unit, unit of access and success for students in transition (uasst) is in the process of being established. the unit will support all inter, multi, and transdisciplinary research related to the anchor mission of the campus. continued tracking and report of the pua and mclc in subsequent studies is therefore of vital importance. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23807 | june 17, 2020 50 references akor, e.u. 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(2019). poverty and inequality: diagnosis, prognosis, response. cape town: human sciences research council press. strydom, b. (2016). south african university history: a historiographical overview. african historical review, 48(1), 56-82. https://doi.org/10.1080/17532523.2016.1236886 original research © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23997 | december 18, 2020 140 the long-haul: buddhist educational strategies to strengthen students’ resilience for lifelong personal transformation and positive community change namdrol m. adams1 and kevin kecskes2 1maitripa college, 2department of public administration, portland state university. cite as: adams, n.m., & kecskes, k. (2020).the long-haul: buddhist educational strategies to strengthen students’ resilience for lifelong personal transformation and positive community change. metropolitan universities, 31(3), 140-162. doi: 10.18060/23997 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract for decades, community engagement scholars have built a robust body of knowledge that explores multiple facets of the higher education community engagement domain. more recently, scholars and practitioners from mainly christian affiliated faith-based institutions have begun to investigate the complex inner world of community-engaged students’ meaningmaking and spiritual development. while most of this fascinating cross-domain effort has been primarily based on “western” influenced judeo-christian traditions, this study explores servicelearning/community engagement themes, approaches, rationale, and strategies from an “eastern” perspective based on the rich tradition of tibetan buddhism. this case study research focuses on curricular approaches, influences, and impacts of buddhist philosophy/spirituality on community engagement endeavors in the context of maitripa college, an urban graduate higher education institution located in portland, or. researchers corroborate key findings from previous faith-based institutional studies as well as extend the literature in two specific areas: 1) providing strategies for and discussing the role of spiritual formation and development in relation to community engagement; and 2) the buddhist view of seeing obstacles as opportunities (thubten zopa rinpoche & ʼjig-med-bstan-paʼi-ñi-ma, rdo grub-chen iii, 2001) as a way to increase effectiveness and harmony in all aspects of life, including academic servicelearning endeavors. keywords: service-learning, buddhist, faith-based, spiritual, formation, community engagement, urban http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23997 | december 18, 2020 141 over the past decades, community engagement scholars have built a robust body of knowledge that explores ways in which engagement with community, writ large, impacts various key stakeholders, including students, community members and organizations, faculty, institutions, and academic departments (clayton et al., 2013; furco & billig, 2002; holland et al., 2001; giles & eyler, 1994; kecskes, 2015). concomitantly, community engagement scholarpractitioners have creatively developed, tested, and disseminated an equally impressive set of strategies to increase pedagogical and community development outcomes (stoecker et al., 2009; longo, 2007; zlotkowski & saltmarsh, 2011). much of this important work has focused on augmenting foundational skills, attitudes, and behaviors associated with democratic or civic principles (johnson, 2017; ehrlich, 2000). however, until a decade ago, the inner world of community-engaged students’ spiritual development was significantly underrepresented in the literature. more recently, due in large part to higher education research institute’s (heri’s) landmark, longitudinal study (astin et al., 2011), scholars, especially those from faith-based institutions, have begun to explore the complex world of students’ spiritual meaning-making (ackerman et al., 2010; dirksen, 2020; kozlowski et al., 2014). welch and koth (2013) specifically connect the domains of service-learning and students’ inner development with their highly useful metatheory of spiritual formation. while most of this fascinating cross-domain effort has been largely based on “western” influenced judeo-christian traditions, this study explores similar themes, approaches, rationale, and strategies from an “eastern” perspective based on the rich tradition of tibetan buddhism. judeo-christian associated institutions have dominated the private higher education landscape since the founding of the country. however, american society remains open to multiple faithbased educational traditions today. in fact, in recent years, a great deal of work has been done in the realm of the interfaith movement in education, especially by the interfaith youth core (ifyc), a national organization founded in the wake of the september 11 attacks on the united states. ifyc is dedicated to interfaith education as part of the college experience, and, ultimately, interfaith cooperation as “a positive force in our society” (interfaith youth core, 2017, mission section, para.1). simultaneously with this more visible appearance, approximately a dozen buddhist-affiliated colleges have entered the higher education milieu. among them is maitripa college, a small tibetan buddhist graduate school offering masters’ degrees in buddhist studies and divinity. the college is a non-residential, urban institution, located in the inner-southeast neighborhood of portland, or, a mid-sized city in the pacific northwest. maitripa college was established in 2006 on the basis of the aspiration to educate students through the framework, or “pillars,” of rigorous scholarship, reflective meditation, and active service in the world. exploring the formation and interconnection between these three pillars and their impact on students, in the context of portland’s urban environment, provides the inspiration for this study. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23997 | december 18, 2020 142 since the 1980s, higher education community engagement scholars have investigated the need and outlined strategies to adequately prepare students for appropriate community interaction (boyer, 1987; garoutte & mccarthy-gilmore, 2014; karasik, 2019). most academic servicelearning/community engagement strategies include some type of orientation to the community or to the hosting community-based organization, often including in-class or in-community visits with key neighborhood or organizational leaders as part of preparation for more active engagement, or service. if the community-engaged work is technically oriented, pre-service strategies may include specialized training in a necessary domain or activity, such as canvassing or phone-banking practice, or perhaps web design, data analysis training, language acquisition, and so forth (kecskes et al., 2016; long et al., 2006). the need for establishing and enacting some type of pre-service orientation or training for students, and more broadly for all participants, before community engagement activities commence is well established in the literature. while some scholars demonstrate the power of students taking charge of their own learning in the community engagement process (diambra & mcclam, 2001; van der ryn, 2007), the literature speaks less to the imperative of developing students’ emotional or behavioral maturity for sustained community-engaged work. scholars have begun to explicate the ties between faith, service, and social justice (dalton, 2007) and the impacts of religious beliefs on civic engagement activities (kozlowski et al., 2014), however, to the best of our knowledge, no studies have explored the proposition of designing integrated curricula to intentionally develop students’ personal-spiritual formation in the context of buddhist higher education community engagement. indeed, our study did not start with that end in mind, either. rather, our intent was to do an exploratory study using a case study methodology (mills et al., 2012) to explore why and how a buddhist higher education institution in north america implements academic servicelearning programs for students. after briefly discussing the literature on faith-based institutions and service-learning, we will present an overview of maitripa college’s curricular approach and underlying rationale, our study design, results and limitations, and a discussion and presentation of potential implications of this work for higher education scholars, curriculum designers, and practitioners, especially those in urban settings. the city block-long series of physical buildings that comprise maitripa college are located at the interface of a light industrial zone with a bustling, independent small business and diverse residential area in inner southeast portland. the internal environment of the college, however, with its ambiance of quiet and respectful activity more akin to a monastery than a traditional college campus, is juxtaposed with the busy streets just outside its doors. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23997 | december 18, 2020 143 faith-based institutions and service learning given the hallowed history of the nexus between clergy education in the americas and the founding of the earliest higher education institutions in the united states (veysey, 1981), it should not be surprising that today’s faith-based institutions continue to provide opportunities for students to explore religion, faith, and service within the context of their unique educational environments and worldviews. many institutions of higher education were, in fact, originally founded upon a faith-based mission in order to propagate that faith, and although that is not necessarily the case in contemporary times, it does follow that faith-based higher education, like all forms of education in our world today, is seeking relevance in an increasingly secularized society (aadland & skjørshammer, 2012). daniels et al. (2016) point to the particular role that faith-based institutions have in the lives of their students and in the contemporary world, often rooted in the very foundations of their missions, in promoting the public good through service. other authors (ackerman et al., 2010; welch & koth, 2013; roso, 2019) speak to specific ways in which service/community engagement can be operationalized through service-learning to bring about spiritual maturity in students, and some authors (smith, 1996; schaffer, 2004) cite an emphasis on the “spiritual development” of students as a distinct characteristic of religious (in these reviewed cases, christian) institutions of higher education. notwithstanding the fact that schaffer’s (2004) study includes only christian affiliated institutions, he suggests that the integration of service and learning is “naturally fostered” in faith-based colleges and universities. schaffer notes that service-learning, in fact, furthers the educational, faith-based missions of these institutions; respondents in his study reported overwhelmingly that “service-learning can be used as a tool for integrating faith and learning” (schaffer, 2004, p.136). each of these aspects point to themes that arose as elements for consideration in our study, directly or indirectly, and will be explored in this treatment, especially: (a) the particular role of faith-based institutions in furthering the public good; (b) the emphasis of the spiritual development of the student as part of an education in a faith-based institution; and (c) the integration of service and learning as a pedagogical method. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23997 | december 18, 2020 144 context of maitripa college figure 1. the maitripa college mission statement and curriculum are indicative of its unique learning environment: the maitripa college curriculum was constructed with the intentional objective of producing graduates that view service/community engagement as a natural extension of their spirituality. the assumption that being of service to others should be grounded in a process of spiritual formation significantly informs this curricular approach. therefore, the maitripa college curriculum is designed to shepherd the student through the study and deep development of their faith using contemplative pedagogy framed around first person experience (simmer-brown, 2019). this approach guides the student through a process of learning to bring their faith to life through active service. through their educational journey, the intention is for students to become not only informed individuals empowered and prepared to work in service with communities, but also equipped with readily accessible internal resources necessary to sustain themselves throughout the day, and throughout life or, for buddhists, for the very long-haul of equipping oneself for lifetimes. for the founders and faculty of maitripa college, this is both a spiritual matter of insight as well as a practical matter of resiliency. engaging others harmoniously with equanimity, especially in a complex, major north american urban environment like the portland metropolitan area, requires training and practice–these key assumptions undergird the maitripa college curriculum. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23997 | december 18, 2020 145 education informed by buddhism as one of only a few buddhist institutions of higher education in the united states, maitripa college has taken inspiration from many sources. rooted historically in the nalanda tradition of indian buddhist scholarship, directly informed by the living example of the 14th dalai lama of tibet and other well-established tibetan buddhist lineage holders, and inspired practically by the rigor of the contemporary academy of the west, maitripa college stands at the intersection of diverse traditions. the college has drawn carefully from each complimentary domain and constructed its educational model in like manner. in particular, the framing of service as a key element of buddhist education and of a life rooted in faith reflects the propensity in some forms of buddhism to incorporate social justice as part of the lived tradition of the faith. in the united states, in particular, the term “(socially) engaged buddhism,” coined by the vietnamese buddhist master thich nhat hanh, refers to the elements of the buddhist tradition that seek to apply the understandings gleaned from (a) meditative practice and (b) the discernment of the world based on the buddhist worldview to salient social, political, environmental, and economic challenges and injustices (hanh, 2017). the maitripa college curriculum embraces this approach and worldview. additionally, three key assumptions inform the buddhist philosophy, education, and formation approaches evident at maitripa college. first, not unlike other spiritual traditions, spiritual formation is viewed as an excellent foundation for a life of service in the world (the making of a jesuit ignatianspirituality.com, 2009). second, an advanced component of the buddhist tradition is the practice of taking obstacles into the path (thubten zopa rinpoche & ʼjig-medbstan-paʼi-ñi-ma, rdo grub-chen iii, 2001). this daily practice refers to the development of a sort of mental dexterity within the individual buddhist practitioner that, over time, allows them to interpret the difficult things that arise in life as obstacles to be embraced on the spiritual path. indeed, rather than responding to life’s challenges with aversion and/or a strong sense of injustice or self-pity, buddhist practitioners are trained to utilize these experiences as opportunities to deepen one’s personal resilience, formation, commitment, resolve, and compassion for others. in the results sections later in this presentation, readers will see subjects’ responses that demonstrate the active presence of this foundational perspective in students’ and alumni worldviews. third, buddhists assume both pragmatic and hopeful views towards challenges and afflictions extant in the world; texts associated with the life and teachings of the historical buddha utilize the word “suffering” when discussing life’s challenges. indeed, suffering is the key subject matter of one of the buddha’s best recognized teachings: the four noble truths (gyatso, 1998). in short, the buddhist perspective on this subject is pragmatic because of the recognition that suffering is present and pervasive in the world. this perspective is equally hopeful because of the belief that suffering can be transformed, even eradicated, at the individual and eventually at the universal level. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23997 | december 18, 2020 146 the elimination of suffering, and the subsequent personal freedom it provides, informs adherents’ approach to engaging with, or serving others. for buddhists, the highest spiritual goal is to help every living being transcend all forms of suffering (gyatso, 1998). therefore, from a buddhist perspective, individuals are highly motivated to work in service to and with others in order to eliminate suffering in the world. this effort is carried out on the basis of faith that suffering can and must be transformed in order for individuals, and all beings, to become fully free. this freedom from suffering and its causes is generally referred to as “enlightenment” (gyatso, 1998). although there are many arguments that attempt to delineate the boundaries of liberation in terms of the individual versus the greater good, there is agreement in all forms of buddhism that suffering can and should be eliminated. these three key assumptions are important as they represent a set of foundational understandings upon which all buddhist philosophy and education approaches depend. thus, for buddhist students and teachers alike, developing one’s ability to embrace all forms of suffering in the world and to enthusiastically work to overcome it by eliminating its causes directly informs the rationale for the inclusion of service as a curricular priority at maitripa college. pedagogical model connects faith and service the maitripa college curricular approach encompasses a pedagogical model that relies on three levels of interaction with the subject matter: philosophical doctrine, meditation, and service. the foundation of buddhist studies in the context of graduate study at maitripa college is the philosophical doctrine of the tradition. this tradition is associated with the indian dialectical approaches of nalanda university in india, which functioned as an important seat of learning in asia from the 5th-13th century (oldest university on earth is reborn after 800 years, 2010). in addition to engaging with traditional academic material that is read, discussed, and key points committed to memory, students at maitripa also learn asian and tibetan history and language. further, contemporary disciplines related to ways in which buddhism functions in the modern world, such as classes on compassionate communication, women in buddhism, race and buddhism, and so forth, are also integrated. this first level of learning corresponds to “foundational knowledge” in fink’s (2013) modern learning taxonomy and to the first level, “knowledge,” in the esteemed educational taxonomy of benjamin bloom (1979). the second level of interaction with the curriculum is based on contemplative practices, or meditation. at this level, faculty at maitripa college seek to deepen the educational approach by focusing more on an integrated level of learning in the mind of the student. animating the meditation pillar, students are guided through the material with the use of a contemplative lens, through introspection and reflection. the dynamics of a contemplative approach to learning have a long and deep history in the tibetan buddhist tradition (dreyfus, 2003). this level of learning © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23997 | december 18, 2020 147 does not have a commonly known historical correlate in mainstream modern western higher education, although contemplative education is an evolving field in the united states today (morgan, 2014). the third level of learning embodied in the maitripa college curricular structure is embodied in the service pillar, or area of study. the service pillar at maitripa college has, from its founding, held a place of significance in the curriculum, with approximately 20% of required credits for a graduate degree at maitripa college fulfilled through the service pillar. the maitripa college service curriculum focuses the first year on developing the students’ internal, or personal, capacity to serve and lead. in year one, these internal capacities are developed primarily via service within the college community, primarily at maitripa college itself. in the second year of study, students’ external service capacity is intentionally developed in more traditional, community-based placements in the portland metropolitan region. this service rationale is depicted in the maitripa college materials as follows: the service pillar is where the “rubber meets the road” within the maitripa college education. exploring relationships outside of college grounds, students are paired with a community partner with whom they dedicate their time and effort in service. working in hospice, in prisons, at schools, with the homeless community, in interfaith environments, or in any number of other volunteer capacities in and around portland, students are guided to develop personal spiritual formation as a basis from which to take their study and practice off the cushion and into the world to benefit others. (make your practice your life ~ the three pillars, 2019) study design research methodology seeking to understand students’ experiences of serving with communities as part of a buddhist graduate degree program is a unique undertaking. dynamics of such an endeavor that were of greatest consequence to the researchers were the elements of investigating their experiences in the context of their role as students of buddhism. according to yin (2014), case study research design is an appropriate research methodology to use when the context in which the phenomena exists is relevant to the phenomena being researched. an exploratory research design is most appropriate when there is no pre-determined outcome for the research, and when there is no hypothesis to be tested (mills et al., 2012). in terms of this exploratory study, the context is the buddhist education of the research subjects, and based on the research question and the frame of the study, is a most relevant consideration. thus, in this case, in addition to the literature and documentary review, human subjects’ approval was obtained and individual semi-structured interviews were conducted, recorded, and © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23997 | december 18, 2020 148 transcribed for the data collection phase. the study was comprised of three cases, the experiences of two maitripa college graduate degree alumni (one with experience doing extensive work in homeless shelters and soup kitchens and the other with significant engagement experience in both maximum and minimum security prisons) and one current second year master of divinity student (whose current community engagement/service effort is in an area hospital). research questions, interview protocol, and participants maitripa college counts learning through service/community engagement as one of its three primary pedagogical methodologies. assessment of traditional scholarship is easily accomplished through readily available evaluation strategies, and maitripa uses both quantitative and qualitative evaluation tools to ascertain academic learning achievement, but the assessment of less traditional pedagogies, such as the meditation and service curricular aspects at maitripa college, pose unique challenges that are beyond the scope of this current effort. however, an intention to begin to establish and record the impact of the service-learning curriculum at maitripa college on students, community partners, and stakeholders, in alignment with the literature of the field (gelmon et al., 2018), led to the development of the following research questions: (1) how does faith influence, shape, and inform community engagement through the service-learning curriculum at maitripa college?; and how does service/community engagement inform faith and spiritual development in maitripa college students? through the use of a semi-structured interview protocol, the researchers began by asking background questions in order to gain basic information from each participant. following this introduction, participants were asked a series of questions relating to: (1) their personal definitions of “faith” and “service”; (2) their understanding of the mission of maitripa college and how faith informs this mission; (3) the place of interfaith initiatives in their education; and, (4) the urban nature of the educational environment. data analysis after discussions about and strategies formulated to attempt to mitigate the impact of interviewers’ positionality on respondents, interviews were conducted with both researchers present at all times. interviews were recorded and transcribed by a third party. complete transcripts were coded independently by the individual researchers. the researchers then met to determine emergent themes in the data; in this way, investigators were attentive to maintaining the validity of the research through ensuring interrater reliability (ravitch & carl, 2019). upon conclusion of this process, four metathemes materialized. the researchers engaged in respondent/member checking with each research participant based on the emergent metathemes which now form the basis of the data analysis herein. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23997 | december 18, 2020 149 results the results of this study demonstrated a strong relationship between students’ education and faith development, with special focus on the integrative function of the service/community engagement aspect of the curriculum. four metathemes that emerged from the data: (1) service functions as a point of integration for students’ faith and faith-based education into their lives; (2) service experience impacts students’ faith and spiritual formation; (3) the urban environment is an important container for such; and (4) obstacles or barriers students encountered while engaging with community were viewed as opportunities for learning and growth. see table 1 for the themes and associated quotes that emerged from the data. table 1. themes and narrative data theme quotations from subjects service functions as a point of integration for students’ faith and faith-based education into their lives “my faith …supports and drives how i engage with the world and why i engage with the world in the way i do…it's kind of all integrated.” “my work and my practice can become indistinguishable. they’re the same to me...learning that part of being a mahayana buddhist is service, is helping others… i don’t distinguish the two, to me they’re the same.” service impacts faith and spiritual formation “just having the desire to benefit others woven into everything we do here is really amazing and makes it all feel a lot more relevant and a lot more—kind of—urgent. others really need to be benefited. there's a lot to do… that's a big part of what we learn here....” “…and that (the service-learning) was again, like the missing piece. the piece i was missing, to help me see the craziness of my own mind, and to have more love and kindness…” “…meditation, working with the mind, retraining it, the view of the mind, karma, © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23997 | december 18, 2020 150 all of these aspects that interrelate to support all the other parts. they kind of all work together…it becomes pretty clear when you reflect back on how you changed over time.…” and finally, “i think that here is a big part of that and it’s an ongoing process of just self-acceptance, self-love, kind of letting go of that self-critic... that practice component in conjunction with working with people in the jail, and the prison, and hospice, and cpe, all of that has been huge… it’s action, reflection, action, reflection, action, just going in this constant loop and keep refining and sharing and growing, and accepting that it’s okay. i’m a process and it’s a good process. the urban environment is an important container for learning “[t]he urban setting…has a potential for more diversity and i think that’s important.” another responded, “[b]eing in a city gives you lots more opportunity to practice than… if you were at a monastery.” connecting to this sub-theme, yet another interviewee mentioned “[p]eople used to come to kopan (a tibetan buddhist monastery located in the kathmandu, nepal valley), and they say this place is so wonderful. how do you practice (here)? and we would all laugh, and we’d say, ‘well, you go to india because india gives you lots of opportunities to practice.’ being in a city gives you lots more opportunity to practice than you would be if you were at a monastery or out at some calm place.” “i think that for service, being in an urban environment is really rich with opportunities because there are so many ways to serve in a city. also, i think probably the kids where i’m serving right now come from all over the place and that’s because we’re in an urban center. so finding a place like that i’m guessing wouldn’t be as likely in estacada.” © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23997 | december 18, 2020 151 “[i]f i’m stuck in traffic and the light is going to turn but then everybody is going so slow and the light turns green, and then it turns yellow and then red and i have to wait for three cycles, then i’ll think ‘somebody else in this is waiting for this light, has to get home or to their kids or to sick relatives or some more important reason than me’, and so then instead of thinking about my own self and how i want to get home i’ll think about them and i just pray that they get there when they need to and i’ll think ‘may they get home quickly, may they have what they need’ and then i feel better. and hopefully they get home.” viewing life’s challenges and obstacles as opportunities. (obstacles or barriers that students encountered while engaging with community were viewed as opportunities for learning and growth). “i do practice a lot, and in the car, stuck in traffic…love and kindness practice…it's such a good time because you get so mad and you have all these horrible feelings when you're driving and (you think) ‘these people are in my way,’ ‘why is everyone driving so slow?’, ‘everyone is bothering me,’ ‘i hate all the people’. but then you can work with that, and that's really helpful. i find it really helpful.” “all the things that felt like barriers… at first especially i would bump up against my ego and all my neuroses and feeling awkward…it felt like an obstacle at the time but it was just part of how i could learn and develop my practice, so it was really fine.” “it's all supportive, even the obstacles or challenges. they're part of what makes it work.” © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23997 | december 18, 2020 152 service functions as a point of integration this theme emerged from each interview. respondents discussed the maitripa college service curriculum and fieldwork in terms of being a point of integration at which the principles of buddhist doctrine and guidelines for conduct were readily applied and more deeply understood in practice. in particular, students spoke about how their faith, as they were exploring it in the maitripa college curriculum and in their lives, was a motivating and influential factor for how they engaged in the world. in particular, all subjects discussed how their faith and faith development provides an important point of integration between their study, practice, and the ways in which they interact with the external environment. service impacts faith and spiritual formation this theme emerged from each interview. all respondents discussed the impact of learning, internalizing, and serving from the perspective of their faith as an experience that was deepened by their service-learning experiences at maitripa college. for aspiring buddhist students, there is an explicit recognition of the central role of one’s mind/mental framework in the development of one’s practice, especially the daily practice of living and positively functioning in the external environment of the world. further, for buddhists, there is an embedded faith-inspired orientation toward cherishing, or serving, others as a way to (a) help alleviate others’ suffering as well as to, (b) decrease one's own mental afflictions. indeed, a basic tenet of tibetan buddhist philosophical thought is that human’s habitual tendencies to think first of themselves, or of one’s individual or personal well-being, is a primary source of individual and global suffering. therefore, quite practically, it follows that activities that support adherents in serve with others would be a great benefit, for all involved. thus, when respondents discuss the “urgency” of service or mention how being in service to others helps them see the “craziness of my own mind” in the context of their community-based learning placement they are exploring the acceleration and deepening of their learning about the connection between themselves and all beings in the world. in terms of integration, one older alumnae respondent discussed their “self-acceptance…letting go of the self-critic…that practice component in conjunction with working with people in the jail, and the prison, and hospice…has been huge.” from a tibetan buddhist perspective, recognizing and internalizing the fact that the outer world is intimately connected to individual interpretations in each person’s inner world is a core (life) learning objective. therefore, integrating the outer world of appearances with the inner world of experiences, in an ongoing and reflective manner, is critically important for both faith and social development. one respondent summed up her experiences of that integration by saying “…it’s action, reflection, action, reflection, action, just going in this constant loop and keep refining and sharing and growing, and accepting that it’s ok.” all respondents spoke to the fact that actively engaging in service as part of their faithbased learning experience helped them to further develop the wish to be of benefit to others, thus simultaneously deepening their faith while informing their community actions. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23997 | december 18, 2020 153 the urban environment this theme emerged from each interview. all students spoke of the effect of living, studying, and engaging in service in an urban environment. diversity and opportunity for enhanced and accelerated learning emerged as sub-themes. to better understand the potential impacts of an urban environment on traditional buddhist education and formation one need not look much further than the many readily-available images of buddhist monasteries on the web. in tibet, these centers of scholarship and meditative practice were traditionally situated in the isolated mountainsides of the himalayas. in contemporary sri lanka, thailand, or vietnam one most often finds monasteries snuggled peacefully on hilltops or other secluded jungle locations that are set apart from the general population. many who study at maitripa college have been to one or more of these types of educational institutions in the east; all students know about them, if only from hearing numerous stories about such places from their peers or teachers. yet, tibetan buddhist educational development is dependent on interaction with others as an opportunity to serve and grow and re-train the human habitual tendency to think first, or primarily, about oneself. in this light, the idea of traffic or parking problems, or noise, or prison populations, houseless individuals, or the hungry all provide promising opportunities to practice patience, kindness and general caring for all being as a primary focus of our day-to-day activities. caring for others becomes the primary venue to develop and express one’s faith. where there are more beings, as is the case of urban environments, then the sheer volume of access increases the student’s abilities to practice and develop and express their faith. lastly, we see connections between this theme of the urban nature of maitripa’s location in portland, or to the final theme of learning how to re-frame life’s challenge. life’s challenges and obstacles as opportunities this theme emerged from each interview. a basis for this is the practice of thought transformation, a well-known philosophical orientation that is presented in traditional buddhism philosophy (gyatso, 1998). given this, all interviewees spoke of strategies that they personally use to increase agility: questioning, challenging, and sometimes changing their perceptions of their experiences. this continual re-framing activity allowed them to question their interpretations of these barriers, in service and in their lives, and provided regular opportunities for them to view them differently. one more mundane example provided was the experience of driving a car in traffic. the respondent described, with significant detail, their internal work to transform their thinking from an egocentric, self-centered attitude to one focused on the wellbeing of others. in their case, the “others” were those who got through the traffic light before them. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23997 | december 18, 2020 154 discussion at maitripa college, each student engages with an extensive community engagement preparation program before the inception of their service experiences. respondents commented that maitripa college’s intentional approach focused on the personal (spiritual) formation of the student was, at times, frustrating, especially in the first year of study. in part because they viewed the service aspect of the curriculum most enthusiastically when originally applying for the program yet found out once formal study began that, in the initial year, students’ engagement activities are focused internally on the maitripa college community exclusively. one respondent remarked, “so there are classes called community service, like 301 or whatever…there is a service component to the class, but a lot of it is studying communication…about different aspects of being in service. which turn out to be just helpful, in the service. but at the time i was kind of like ‘get to the service part!’” students were forced to slow down and begin with internal engagement, beginning with the self, engaging with and eventually learning how to begin to transform one’s mind as a foundation for properly understanding all of life’s activities. building from there, first-year students were incrementally introduced to smaller service projects whose focus was primarily the deepening of their understanding of the nature of reality (known in buddhist studies as “wisdom”) as a necessary precursor to external community engagement/service, which in the buddhist lexicon is referred to as “compassion” or “compassionate action.” without exception, however, respondents discussed how in the second year of study (and in subsequent years since graduation for alumni interviewees) they felt a sense of calm strength that brought greater perspective, meaning, patience, and a sense of perseverance to their community engaged work. respondents discussed their personal resilience in terms of the long-haul. further, they mentioned how the external service activity in prisons, homeless shelters, soup kitchens, and in hospitals of year two informed them about, and increased their appreciation for, the internal service and other spiritual formation activities associated with the first year of curriculum. “service” in buddhism is understood as a two-way street: it is both the activity that naturally occurs when wisdom is deepened and made manifest in the world as well as a recursive activity that further deepens one’s understanding of the challenging (suffering) nature of sentient beings. this growing “wisdom” is also recursive: awareness of the nature of reality inspires aspiring buddhists to serve all the more so as to alleviate their own suffering and that of others. as one respondent mentioned, “service—it’s kind of urgent!” the community engagement (or service activity in the world) then further informs students’ depth of understanding about the nature of reality, or “wisdom.” the cycle of service, study, and contemplation then begins anew. interestingly, in this case, each time the researchers queried subjects about barriers or challenges they encountered in the workplace or service site, the respondents seemed somewhat puzzled. indeed, it seemed that each subject had internalized the idea that barriers/challenges are simply © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23997 | december 18, 2020 155 part of life, or in buddhist terms, pervasive suffering, and therefore not something strange or unexpected. at times, respondents spoke enthusiastically, even humorously, about their own former lack of understanding of this basic point and how they used to view “challenges” negatively, sometimes with impatience or even anger, and how unproductive those thoughts and responses now appear to them. this internalized ability to view all of life’s occurrences as a natural outcome of cause and effect and a natural process of intention and growth was clearly connected to subjects’ sense of responsibility-taking and empowerment to free themselves and all beings, eventually, from the mundane world full of challenges and frustrations most people currently know so well. finally, in terms of the urban location of maitripa college in portland, or, respondents spoke in simple terms about the logistical advantages of urban living, including diversity of individual and organizational opportunities to serve and abundant number of people in proximity all of whom provided daily reminders of the suffering of all beings. when queried about the impact of their buddhist orientation in the service site, none said that it seemed to make much difference. site supervisors, community partners, and community members, they said, all viewed them as student learners who were present to serve and learn. one wonders if this is a regional phenomenon of the west coast, given its proximity to the asian rim and relatively increased familiarity with asian spiritual traditions, or whether this is partially due to portland’s generally progressive citizenry, or even more generally to religious pluralism and freedom that formed part of the original founding of the united states. limitations this is an initial, exploratory study focused on the impact of faith in buddhist higher education. this research is based on the experiences of three current students and alumni from one institution only, which limits the generalizability of these findings. the next phase of this study will be enhanced by a larger and more diverse sample size, perhaps utilizing a mixed-method research approach and, ideally, by gaining insight by interviewing community partners and additional faculty about their perceptions of the students and of their service activity and outcomes. also, increasing the sample size to investigate additional tibetan and non-tibetan buddhist affiliated institutions (i.e., zen or theravadin traditions) would enhance overall understanding. the fact that one author of this study is the dean of education at maitripa college and the other a long-term buddhist practitioner is a potential advantage as well as a limitation. on one hand, familiarity with the philosophical and practice underpinnings of buddhist formation allowed the researchers to be attentive to nuanced responses; however, despite researchers’ tight adherence to appropriate case study protocols, close association with the respondents could be seen to have compromised the distillation of several insights, among other limitations. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23997 | december 18, 2020 156 implications for practice and areas for future research the broader service-learning/community engagement community of scholars and practitioners may find the concept of student formation more intriguing after reading the results of our case study. in particular, the idea of re-framing challenges and barriers endemic to community engagement initiatives into opportunities for growth and learning is particularly promising. more broadly, educators may wish to pay even more attention to students’ predispositions towards faith expressions and orientations to community engagement. for some students, having a spiritual practice or belonging to a faith community may be a facilitator for academic servicelearning; for others, it may be a barrier; and still for the remainder of students in all types of higher education institutions it may not be an issue or area of awareness. regardless, when students enter any learning environment, they bring with them the sum-total of all of their previous experiences. augmenting educator awareness of this powerful fact, as well as increasing the creative application of pedagogical strategies to elicit conversations around students’ familiarity and connection to their faith, may lead to deepening respect for the latent power and place of faith traditions in education, and in community engagement initiatives specifically, among all in the learning environment. more broadly, bringing conversations about students’ past histories associated with faith, faith-in-action, and/or community engagement/service into the classroom thoughtfully, and earlier into the course and curriculum, may open up new avenues for learning and understanding for all involved, over time. experimenting with classroom and community-based strategies that intentionally focus on eliciting discussion about students’ service/community engagement, as well as their faith backgrounds and experiences, may help students situate their service-learning encounters in the larger context of their faith or former service efforts. conducting research about the impacts of, and potential challenges associated with, bringing faith-related discussions more formally into the curriculum could inform the field as well as be helpful to practitioners and students. popular service-learning courses with multiple sections featuring standardized curriculum across sections might be venue for this type of experimentation and research. the researchers also see ample opportunity for future research in the area of faith-based servicelearning in association with transformative learning theory (mezirow, 1991). transformative learning theory focuses on specific learning experiences that result in profound changes in adult learners. in particular, mezirow’s discussions of the construction and deconstruction of “meaning-making structures” and the strong reliance on reflective techniques as part of the learning process would be interesting and potentially insightful to apply to an analysis of faithbased service-learning. in particular, the assertion that transformative learning occurs when our frames of reference, defined as our assumptions and worldviews composed of habits of mind and resulting points of view, shift seems a rich topic for further research and development. an introduction to a service environment that challenges a student’s existing worldview could potentially function as the first step of ten according to transformative learning theory (in mezirow’s terminology, a “disorienting dilemma”) and a carefully constructed reflective process © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23997 | december 18, 2020 157 rooted in and in combination with a faith-based curriculum could demonstrate real change in accordance with this model. conclusion to conclude this research, we return to the metathemes uncovered in the study: (1) service functions as a point of integration for students’ faith and faith-based education into their lives; (2) the urban environment provides diverse opportunities and is therefore an important container for such; (3) service experience positively develops students’ faith and spiritual formation; and (4) obstacles or barriers students encountered while engaging with community were viewed as opportunities for learning and growth. in particular, our study of the tibetan buddhist affiliated maitripa college corroborates two key findings extant in the literature that emerge from predominantly christian associated colleges and universities: (1) faith-based institutions have distinctive opportunities to ensure the fulfillment of their unique missions which generally embody aspirations to both serve the public good and educate the individual through religious education; and, (2) this study also demonstrates the power and promise of service-learning pedagogy for non-christian associated institutions to accomplish similar ends. the study of maitripa college’s philosophical underpinnings and curricular approach also extends the literature on faith-based institutions’ relation to community engagement in two additional areas: (1) “barriers and obstacles” encountered by participants when engaging in service with community may be re-framed or transformed into opportunities for deeper learning; and, (2) focusing 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(2013). transformational learning in ministry. christian education journal: research on educational ministry, 10(2), 322–338. doi: https://doi.org/10.1177/073989131301000205 namdrol m. adams1 and kevin kecskes2 original research © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23360 | february 21, 2020 92 how can we help you? an exploration of what institutional websites reveal about first-generation support services lynell hodge1, amanda wilkerson2, and emmanuela pierre stanislaus3 1housing & residence life, university of central florida, 2college of community innovation and education, university of central florida, and 3career and talent development-college of engineering & computing, florida international university cite as: hodge, l., wilkerson, a. & stanislaus, e.p. (2020). how can we help you?: an exploration of what instutitional websites reveal about first-generation support services. metropolitan universities, 31(1), 92-112. doi: 10.18060/23360 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract institutional websites are powerful tools that communicate wide range of information. providing access to higher education requires institutions to consider how services are communicated with a goal of engaging students from diverse populations. this study utilized a conceptual content analysis to review university and college websites to determine how information about support services for first-generation students is electronically communicated. the researchers constructed an evaluative study to assess 14 institutions to formulate a critique and extend the work of eccles’s expectancy-value theory (1984), which suggests that achievement-related choices are motivated by students’ expectations for success. the results of this study found salient factors to indicate that institutions sought to provide support for first-generation students, but relevant information was not always explicitly conveyed on websites, particularly in ways most likely to engage diverse populations. keywords: first-generation, college students, expectancy-value theory, content analysis, rubric http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23360 | february 21, 2020 93 introduction substantial research is dedicated to understanding first-generation college students with regard to inclusion, transitional experiences, and academic achievement (pike & kuh, 2005; tinto, 2012; toutkoushian, stollberg, & slaton, 2018). as a result, researchers have provided a perspective on descriptions of first-generation college students (saenz, hurtado, barrera, wolf, & yeung, 2007), their rate of college completion (greenwald, 2012), and barriers that might inhibit firstgeneration students’ progress toward degree completion (stephens, fryberg, markus, johnson, & covarrubias, 2012). these key areas of knowledge situate how post-secondary institutions describe axioms of support that are congruent with services provided to first-generation college students (petty, 2004). many studies suggest that first-generation college students are more likely than their counterparts to leave college without a degree (engle, bermeo, & o'brien, 2006; engel & tinto, 2008; mehta, newbold, & o'rourke, 201). similarly, literature has shown the difficulty of defining characteristics which encompass a concrete description of first-generation students (chen, 2005; redford, & hoyer, 2017; warburton, bugarin, & nunez, 2001). what is consistent though, is that the term first-generation student often refers to learners whose parents lack some form of college credentials (cataldi, bennett, & chen, 2018). furthermore, scholarship regarding firstgeneration students robustly accounts for services which fortify college completion to include: scaled multidimensional academic, emotional, and financial support (dennis, phinney, & chuateco, 2005; jenkins, belanger, connally, boals, & durón, 2013; lohfink & paulsen; 2005). moreover, data presented by the national center for education statistics (cataldi, bennett, & chen, 2018) confirmed that first-generation college students account for nearly one-third of students enrolled in u.s. post-secondary institutions. given the necessity of supporting firstgeneration students, other areas of research are devoted to understanding the characteristics and needs of this student population. alongside the existing body of empirical works, research on first-generation students has expanded to also include how collegiate programmatic interventions might assist in progressing through degree completion (engle, bermeo, & o'brien 2006; ishitani, 2006; terenzini, springer, yaeger, pascarella, & nora, 1996). over time, researchers have identified barriers that contribute to conditions that inhibit student success. among those barriers are socioeconomic status, academic preparedness, and/or campus engagement (allen, muragishi, smith, thoman, & brown, 2015; stebleton & soria, 2013). however, the literature has not identified how to disseminate information regarding available support services to first-generation students. relatedly, gordon and berhow suggested that post-secondary websites have the capacity to build dialogic exchanges with student users (2009). moreover, our research on the needs of first-generation students makes clear that it is important to identify and articulate both what services are needed and how students can independently locate these services through an institution’s website. the national college access network report indicates the existence of shrinking options for low-income students nationwide due to growing disparities in college cost © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23360 | february 21, 2020 94 versus student affordability (2019). however, legislative reform efforts through the higher education act (2017), and the aim higher act (2018) have leveraged additional resources to support low-income, first-generation students. the existence of programs designed to ease the financial burden of low-income students makes critical the work of those conducting firstgeneration student research; first, they must begin to critically frame the premise of firstgeneration student support beyond merely identifying such students and itemizing their needs. next, they must account for how to disseminate information about said services. the united states department of education produced a study which clarified the critical issues regarding first-generation college students. in the report, first-generation students (2018), data about college access, persistency, and post-bachelor's outcomes indicated that first-generation undergraduate students were less likely to earn a credential in comparison to their counterparts whose parents did attend college (cataldi, bennett, & chen, 2018). another revealing conclusion was that first-generation data focused on describing the student and providing typologies of student success based on data correlating parental background information with college completion trends. nevertheless, there remains a void in academic literature specifically focused on the trajectory and/or active academic support as it pertains to institutional practices regarding leveraging online spaces to connect first-generation students with information for support services (wilson, 2004). for instance, pascarella, pierson, wolniak, and terenzini’s (2004) discussions on firstgeneration students omits an acknowledgement of how students can locate information about services, instead referencing only what services are needed to successfully progress to and through the college experience. in contrast, embedded into the available body of knowledge is research that focuses on utilizing the internet to counsel students, predict student success, and/or use technology to survey student experiences in the first year (chang, t. & chang, r; 2004; kennedy, judd, churchward, gray, & krause, 2008). in other words, the shared seminal work suggests that first-generation students are an important topic of study. interestingly, this argument serves as a starting point for investigating first-generation college students more broadly. the research team intended to extend the work of previous studies by conducting an examination of universities, to include major metropolitan urban universities, to understand the needs of this population and how to provide pathways for these students to electronically locate helpful academic information. one way to achieve the goal of identifying methods to share information about available support services with first-generation college students is to thoroughly examine information currently provided by colleges and universities. to this end, the research team explored urban metropolitan institutions and examined the extent to which they share support services online with first-generation students seeking information about undergraduate degree offerings. thus, the purpose of this study was to investigate how colleges and universities © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23360 | february 21, 2020 95 aggregate and/or organize academic and nonacademic support for first-generation college students. the research questions for this study were as follows: how does the southeastern region of the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities (cumu) communicate information about first-generation student services on institutional websites? what pathways exist to locate information about first-generation student services on institutional websites? the significance of this study is twofold. first, there continues to be groundbreaking empirical data on first-generation students, their needs, and ways in which universities aid and support their success. second, first-generation scholarship is very much rooted in the academic trajectories of undergraduate post-secondary students. specifically, first-generation students often study at large metropolitan urban institutions (mcgregor, mayleben, buzzanga, & davis, 1991). at the same time, the ways in which institutions provide service information for firstgeneration students online are rarely evaluated. an examination of the existing information on institutional websites will aid in the development of more effective practices associated with supporting first-generation students with information about how they might independently utilize school-based resources to succeed. moreover, this work deconstructed digital discourse as it relates to improve the academy for learners (devine & levin, 2013). literature review college websites are one tool that students use at a high rate to gather information. according to the national association for college admission counseling (2018), email and websites are the primary sources of information for first-time freshmen students. of particular importance is how content is organized and the ease of navigation, which also includes the number of clicks students must take to reach the content they seek (meyers, 2008). poock & lefond (2001) illuminated the elements that are barriers for prospective students, including inefficient search functions, not locating desired information, and too many clicks to reach desired information. given the importance of websites to first year students, it is imperative to analyze how higher education institutions use their websites to communicate resources that would be critical to the success of first-generation students. first-generation students the u.s. department of education defined first-generation students as students whose parents have achieved a high school diploma or less (nunez & cuccaro-alamin, 1998). institutions have adopted varying definitions, to include some college education without receiving a degree, and even encompassing parents who have received a college degree outside of the u.s. (whitley et al., 2018). traditionally, federally-funded programs such as trio, student support services, and ronald e. mcnair post-baccalaureate achievement program have provided much needed support to first-generation and low-income students (engle & tinto, 2008). the importance of © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23360 | february 21, 2020 96 identifying first-generation students lies in institutions’ ability to efficiently monitor and support their academic success (center for first-generation student success, 2017). first-generation students tend to attend higher education institutions that are located close to home and are typically 2-year and 4-year public institutions. the decision to attend these institutions is due in large part to familial financial contribution, parent motivation, student career goals, and academic preparedness (cabrera & la nasa, 2000).. consequently, the factors that influence first-generation students’ college choice is the thesis for this study. cumu is one of the largest organizations of urban metropolitan institutions. the organization was created in 1989 to bring similar organizations together to discuss issues and trends that aligned with the unique mission, challenges, and student make-up of these specific institutions. the cumu is currently made up of over 100 institutions throughout the u.s. as well as international institutions which enroll over two million students. research focused on first-generation students has pointed to several areas to support this group, including college readiness and low self-esteem, financial stability, peer-to-peer support, sense of belonging, and enrollment status (strayhorn, 2008; garriott & nisle, 2018; tym, mcmillion, barone, & webster, 2004). these factors are central to the current study’s analysis and recommendations and will be discussed in the subsequent sections. college readiness/low academic self esteem existing research on first-generation students indicates that this population is typically comprised of students of color from under-resourced k-12 schools (portnoi & kwong, 2019; pascarella et al., 2004). students from under-resourced schools tend to struggle academically in college, which can lead them to question their pursuit of a college education. imposter syndrome is related to self-esteem and can lead to poor performance and even attrition; this phenomenon involves self-doubt in abilities in comparison to the majority (gardner & holley, 2011). lack of confidence impacts how first-generation students approach challenges (ward et al., 2012). financial stability first-generation students seek higher education for the prospects of better employment opportunities. however, insufficient financial resources result in first-generation students taking reduced course loads, seeking more student loans, or discontinuing their attendance altogether (cataldi, bennett, & chen, 2018). financial instability also leads to the increased need for students to work. increased work has shown to negatively impact student involvement in academic pursuits (engle & tinto, 2008). family assets are directly linked to financial resources available to support pursuit of a college degree. first-generation students are typically not able to depend on their parents for financial support; therefore, limited access to finances has led first © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23360 | february 21, 2020 97 generation students to take on more debt than they are comfortable with (gardner & holley, 2011). one recent study revealed that college students graduated with an average of $37,172 worth of debt (friedman, 2018). peer-to-peer support and sense of belonging first-generation undergraduate students work more hours, are less likely to reside on-campus, have less involvement in extracurricular activities, and experience less peer interaction outside of academic environments (pascarella et al., 2004). pascarella et al. (2004) found that involvement positively impacted critical thinking and overall success of those who were engaged. they also found that interactions with peers outside of the classroom helped to grow students’ social capital. both involvement and peer interactions tended to have a greater impact for firstgeneration students’ success compared to that of non-first-generation students. furthermore, peer support has shown to provide vital assistance to first-generation undergraduate students even more so than family support (dennis, phinney, chuateco, 2005; strayhorn, 2008). related to peer-to-peer support is the concept of sense of belonging. specifically, first-generation students experience feelings of not belonging on college campuses (stebleton, soria, & huesman, 2011). garriott and nisle (2018) state that low sense of belonging impacts first-generation students’ ability to locate such resources as counseling, mentorship, and tutoring that can assist them in coping with challenges associated with being the first in their family to attend college. enrollment status/attrition enrollment status has shown to impact the academic success of first-generation students; students who enroll part-time (fewer than 12 credits) tend to take longer to graduate (pascarella et al., 2004). first-generation undergraduate students are more likely than non-first-generation to enroll on a part-time basis (ward et al., 2012). enrollment status and attrition were negatively impacted by delayed enrollment, part-time enrollment, full-time employment, financial dependence, and dependent children (seay et al., 2008). these risks are known to some degree, yet whether and how institutions of higher education support first-generation students in these areas and how they communicate their support remains unknown. expectancy-value theory the current study seeks to explore the communication of support services for first-generation college students at research institutions utilizing the expectancy-value theory as a theoretical framework. the expectancy-value theory is an adaptation of the atkinson’s expectancy-value model (eccles & wigfield, 2002; eccles, adler, & meece, 1984). the modern expectancyvaluetheory is typically used with adolescents to assess gender differences in choosing stem programs. eccles’ modification accounts for both the positive and negative experiences that can © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23360 | february 21, 2020 98 impact the choices students make as determined by the expectancy and values associated with a task. expectancy is tied to the likelihood for success associated with choices as well as to beliefs related to competency. additionally, expectancy is related to how students perceive others’ perception of them and their abilities. furthermore, the model elaborates that expectancies and values are related to performance, persistence, and task choice (eccles & wigfield, 2002). this framework provides a unique lens to critique university websites and is a crucial element for the analysis of this study. methods content analysis is a systematic qualitative research procedure that is a dynamic methodology allowing researchers to corroborate at least two data sources; data sources can be either print or electronic (yin, 1994). an effective analysis data must be examined to create meaning, develop understanding, and advance empirical knowledge (corbin & strauss, 2008). content analysis can be conducted on three types of documents: public records, which are official, ongoing records of an organization’s activities; personal documents, the personal effects of an individual’s actions, experiences, and beliefs; or physical evidence, the objects found within the study setting or artifacts (o’leary, 2014). researchers then code content into themes or categories that emerge from the literature and utilize a rubric to grade or score content they analyze (bowen, 2009). content analysis is particularly applicable to qualitative case studies generating rich explanations for a phenomenon, event, organization, or program (stake, 1995). the use of rubrics in content analysis evaluation can increase transparency in research while decreasing subjectivity in the assessment process (silvestri & oescher, 2006). a rubric is a coherent set of criteria that includes descriptions of characteristic parameters for the criteria. an effective rubric can help organizations identify their strengths and weaknesses and objectively assess their services (chowdhury, 2019). a rubric has three essential features: evaluation criteria, quality definitions, and a scoring strategy (popham, 1997). research indicates that rubrics can provide constructive feedback to enhance the learning and development process. understanding the use of web-based communication, content, and tools is essential in the creation of websites that are indicative of organizational values and beliefs (nacar & burnaz, 2011). because websites enable organizations to create a new, standardized mode of communication whereby end-users can engage with electronic language, their function as a communication vehicle and knowledge organizer requires the institution to facilitate navigational ease of its website (nantel & glaser, 2008). study design with the wealth of information available regarding support services for first-generation students, a rubric was developed to assess institutions in the southeast region of coalition of urban and © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23360 | february 21, 2020 99 metropolitan universities. it was important to select institutions with the propensity to admit and provide support services to first-generation students. the literature suggests that first-generation students tend to be students of color, come from low-income backgrounds, and seek postsecondary education in urban schools that provide access to college (portnoi & kwong, 2019). to narrow the search for this study, the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities (cumu) universities were selected to analyze data. cumu is one of the largest organizations committed to serving and connecting urban and metropolitan universities. it focuses on strengthening institutions that are developing new responses to the contemporary educational, economic, and social issues. these institutions attract first-generation students due to their location, services, and, often, access to support. the 14 selected institutions are cumu member institutions and were evaluated on the basis of the following criteria: 1. how does the southeastern region of the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities (cumu) communicate information about first-generation services on institutional websites? 2. what pathways exist to locate first-generation services on institutional websites? in addition to the above research questions, the research team utilized a rubric criterion, as shown in table 1, to conduct a conceptual content analysis to assess university programs and services of first-generation students. this methodological approach was used to make the assessment process less arbitrary and to specify what data to include/exclude in the review in order to best address the research framework. the scoring provided a baseline to evaluate information listed on institutional websites. table 1. website rubric criteria model (3) developing (2) foundational (1) demonstrates support for first-generation students and clearly states how students are identified to use and access service(s). demonstrates support for first-generation, but vague description of how students are identified to use and access service(s). demonstrates support for students, but no specific language in reference to first-generation student services. the rubric categories were established with areas of first-generation student needs identified by the extensive body of research and by the values of the eccles expectancy-value theory. the research team developed this rubric in order to create a framework to specifically assess the needs of first-generation students as they relate to support services and/or resources available on institutional websites. considerations of reliability and validity depend on the ability of the researcher to explain the data and provide transparent reasoning about the findings as well as their limits. as such, while the rubric provides a standard measure for the review team, the rubric was not tested for validity © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23360 | february 21, 2020 100 or reliability. additionally, this research study is grounded in a qualitative procedures; therefore, the results can be categorized as binominal (yes, this information was found, or no, this information was not found) of the selected cumu institutional websites. the study sample consisted of the southeastern region of the cumu; these institutions represent seven states in the southeastern united states (arkansas, florida, kentucky, north carolina, louisiana, tennessee, and virginia) with diverse student populations. data collection to effectively collect and assess the data, the research team conducted a “first-generation” word search on institutional websites. data was collected from institutional home, about, and financial aid sections. hossler (1999) postulates prospective students are interested in searching for specific characteristics of a campus, such as programs/services offered and financial aid. therefore, websites are critical tools for student research these selections were grounded in the assumption that first-generation students would naturally gravitate to familiar sections of institution websites. data collection occurred from may 2019 through july 2019. collecting the information during this time period, as it follows the spring academic term and precedes the start of the next academic year’s fall term, was helpful because up-to-date and semi-static information about a college/university’s new and existing programs should be, at that time, posted online, as should requirements for aid for the upcoming year. each research team member was assigned to individually assess first-generation support services provided by specific institutions from cumu’s southeastern region list. the analysis was based on the institutional definition of firstgeneration and on services listed, if any. each researcher utilized the constructed rubric for consistency and to ensure the measurements for convergent validity. this method of assessment allowed researchers to compare findings from the selected websites; this evaluator process allowed side-by-side comparison for deeper analysis and discussion. coding and intercoder reliability in order to thoroughly review websites associated with the study, the researchers developed a coding schema utilized for analysis. of the three researchers, each was assigned and submitted initial codes in accordance with the rubric parameters. websites were reviewed based upon the following scales provided in the rubric. during individual scoring, members of the team utilized an excel workbook with different spreadsheets to rate the sites. as a form of trustworthiness, site scores were sent to the study’s first author who merged and compiled the scored data (decuitgunby, marshall, & mcculloch, 2011). during the compiling of the coded data, if a discrepancy emerged the researchers would review the material together and discuss the coding until a consensus was met. to assess percent agreement the research team drew upon the work of © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23360 | february 21, 2020 101 lombard, snyder-duch, and campanella bracken (2006). overall 14 websites were reviewed in five specific areas, as shown in table 2. the researchers’ scores matched 90% of the time and remaining discrepancies were addressed through a consensus (lombard et al, 2006). results because this study was exploratory, the analysis was largely binominal assessment (yes or no) via the rubric. the purpose of this study was to investigate how the selected institutions organize academic and nonacademic support for first-generation college students utilizing the eccles expectancy-value theory, as shown in table 2. the study examined pathways forged or communicated via the website to assist first-generation students, with the understanding that this population is expected to start at a disadvantage. thus, while websites espoused the commitment to assisting first-generation students, relevant information was not always explicitly stated. one major test was to determine whether the institution defined what/who first-generation students are. this simple identifier of a definition provided a baseline for research; in the absence of this information, students may not be aware that they are in fact first-generation. in this case, three of the 14 schools failed to explicitly define first-generation. while this oversight occurred, the majority of the schools received points for their online verbiage, but on average institutions did not explicitly (written on page) discuss services for first-generation students; therefore, on average in the remaining categories received twos. while the rubric provided an opportunity to assess institutional websites, the analysis indicated that websites may provide a touchpoint for access. however, some institutions relied on additional, non-digital, mechanisms to communicate such information, such as orientations or summer intensive programs. the institutions that did arrange information on their websites also shared demographic information about first-generation students, which provided an opportunity for first-generation students to relate to peers in order to cultivate an informal support system. the common pathway institutions used was the about section or some iteration of the campus profile. first-generation students could navigate from this portion of the website to connect with or find first-generation resources. another common pathway from this sample was the financial aid section. of the institutional website sections analyzed by the researchers, financial aid often contributed to the assessment not only a definition of first-generation students, but also eligibility requirements for scholarships and other support services. this pathway resulted in a variation of clicks to access the desired information (i.e. no discernible pattern was identified). © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23360 | february 21, 2020 102 table 2. cumu first-generation rubric results institution definition attainment (college readiness/ low academic self-esteem) intrinsic (peer-topeer support/ sense of belonging) utility (enrollment status) cost (financial stability) florida atlantic university 3 3 3 3 3 florida international university 3 2 2 2 3 louisiana state university-shreveport 1 1 1 1 1 miami dade college 3 3 3 3 3 university of arkansas at little rock 3 2 1 1 2 university of louisville 3 3 3 3 3 university of memphis 1 2 2 3 2 university of north carolina at charlotte 3 2 3 2 1 unc at greensboro 3 3 2 2 2 unc at wilmington 3 2 2 2 2 university of north florida 3 2 3 2 2 university of tennessee at chattanooga 3 2 3 2 1 virginia commonwealth university 3 3 3 3 2 virginia wesleyan university 1 1 1 1 1 note: combined results of research team website content analysis © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23360 | february 21, 2020 103 additionally, the content analysis revealed that institutions that did not make information about first-generation student services readily available on the home, about, or financial aid pages did, however, rely on trio. with this in mind it was helpful for the research team to see themselves as a first-generation student navigating university nomenclature ; higher education may learn that what is clear within the walls of the academe could be confusing for individuals who are unfamiliar to the environment; therefore, institutions should redirect to focus on the end user experience. for instance, the research team were familiar with federally funded programs such as trio, but a first-generation student or family member may not. trio are outreach and student services programs designed to identify and provide services for students from disadvantaged backgrounds. trio programs are intended to assist low-income, first-generation college students, and students with disabilities to progress through the academic pipeline from middle school to post-baccalaureate programs. these programs are federally-funded and require institutions to officially request funding. these programs could also fall under student support services’ national funding. during the analysis, the research team recognized a consistent pattern wherein institutions primarily focused on four areas of the rubric: attainment (college readiness/low academic selfesteem), intrinsic (peer-to-peer support/self of belonging), utility (enrollment status), and cost (financial aid), which further affirmed the rubric’s validity. websites provided several examples of tutoring and academic support via a full-time staff or a team trained specifically to respond to the needs of first-generation students. similarly, institutions showcased peer support opportunities via several strategies, including mentoring, student organizations, and living learning communities. institutions highlighted scholarships and grants specifically funded to assist first-generation students. financial support, a listed vulnerability of this population, was the one area in the rubric most institutions highlighted, and which featured direct language to communicate information about services for first-generation students. discussion to date, research often approached first-generation students through a deficit-model lens and focused on defining characteristics of first-generation students. most research dealing with firstgeneration college students focused on their lack of capital and preparation necessary to succeed in higher education (rubio et al., 2017). in contrast, this study assessed how 14 urban institutions of higher education communicate the support first-generation college students require to be successful. by using the expectancy-value theory, the research team utilized and offered a different strategy for assessing the experience of first-generation students. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23360 | february 21, 2020 104 because many institutions identify first-generation students as a vulnerable population, it is important to effectively communicate to them about resources and services specific to their needs. the institutions in this study showed a great deal of commitment to the student experience and, in many cases, took pride in the services they provided. however, despite the demonstrated need that first-generation students and their families have for information about programs and services critical to their success, our analysis revealed that the information was not always readily present. institution websites are an effective tool that can be used for students to conduct research, connect to offices/departments, and identify additional support that they need to be successful. nonetheless, if institutions say they support first-generation students, their commitment to creating websites that clearly communicate resources is paramount. additionally, websites are fluid media; thus, they are regularly updated; and some of the content on institutional websites changed during the course of our data analysis. using content analysis of institutional websites in this regard limits the generalizability of the research findings. while the research team performed an evaluable study the researchers would remind readers the results sought to answer a phenomenon utilizing a non-validated instrument for analysis. a content analysis for a website may be conducted but should be replicated with a validated tool. practical implications in this era of greater accountability, higher education is constantly responding to the changing educational landscape and to the changing needs of a diverse and dynamic student population. limited resources and funding may prevent institutions from the ability to develop firstgeneration specific offices/departments. notwithstanding the creation of separate services, tapping into the national student success services pipeline may be a strategy to ensure that firstgeneration students are assisted. trio programs are specifically designated to assist this population, and, because this program is nationally established, it provides funding. the first scholars program represents another opportunity for institutions to support first-generation students via scholarships. providing information about scholarship opportunities via websites supports first-generation student transition and retention. additionally, a specific focus on first-generation students highlights the many challenges they may experience. taking into consideration the fact that these challenges suggest first-generation students are underprepared, this narrative is framed as a deficiency model. in the aggregate, however, first-generation students persist at the same rate or similar rates as non-first-generation students (cataldi, bennett, & chen, 2018). for this reason, institutions should consider reframing their approach and the information they provide in order to encompass these students’ unique experience and promote this information via the websites. in as such, schools that considered including families in the orientation process or that provided specific information geared to helping students transition boasted higher retention and persistence rates. in this context, families © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23360 | february 21, 2020 105 should be considered an asset to supporting first-generation students through their college career and should be leveraged for the good of the student. another practical strategy institutions may consider is to conduct annual website reviews to ensure the existence of a seamless pathway to connect first-generation students to resources. marketing research suggests the current consumer, in this case students, becomes more vested in their search when there are minimal clicks. thus, first-generation students need to be able to easily and quickly find and access information. some institutions in this study provided one a page specifically for first-generation students that linked to all relevant resources to; this page included videos and hyperlinks to other resources on campus. this approach allowed firstgeneration students to access information in a single location from which they could draw upon a wealth of resources. such a landing page should take into consideration students’ enrollment status, given that the needs of a prospective first-generation student will vary from those of a current student. for instance, prospective students may need information about the admissions process, while a current student may need such support services as tutoring and reapplying for scholarships. regardless of the first-generation student’s status, retention for this population may increase with efficient access to information about programs and services. the last strategy is probably the simplest. the term “first-generation” is very much higher education nomenclature. institutions must be keenly aware that students and families may not be aware they are a first-generation, or in some cases students may not have the language skills to include “first-generation” in their initial search. schools in this study recognized there could be a language gap and provided a glossary of terms, which was one resource that was used to help families. this simple strategy could have a significant impact on the institution’s effort to connect with the intended user. future research directions this study’s results indicate that there is more work to be done in the area of understanding firstgeneration information collection. the use of websites can indicate an initial strategy to communicate to first-generation students. additionally, the opportunity to assess institutional pathways is critical. the research team makes the case that institutions should utilize their websites to connect with these students. as more such students enter higher education, the social capital in their network could help direct their search. therefore, it is crucial for future researchers to consider where the possible touch points to provide information should be located. one consideration is to arm guidance counselors, clergy, and community centers with information about what services are specifically available to first-generation students. while the literature suggests that first-generation students currently rely on these support systems, more research should be conducted as how are these networks interact with institutional information in order to support first-generation students. © the author 2020. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/23360 | february 21, 2020 106 lastly, first-generations have been described both as underprepared and resilient. the unique experiences of first-generation students indicate this population may have emerging considerations that have yet to be explored. researchers focusing on first-generation students should include them in the conversation. first-generation students are the experts of their experiences and could provide an enriched epistemology or specifically auto ethnographic narrative. this method of collecting experiences can be empowering; it can help researchers identify gaps and, more importantly, to assess the impact and intent. the use of first-generation students’ narratives to ensure services are appropriate is encouraged, because engaging firstgeneration students in the process of identifying their needs demonstrates a commitment to supporting this population and also provides an opportunity for agency. as a result, the lens through which future generations view and assess the effectiveness of institutional websites and resource allocation would provide dynamic and informative narratives. limitations while websites are dynamic tools of communication, the organization of each website was different, which required the research team to be creative in assessing information. for instance, websites may have listed first-generation resources in press releases or presidential state of the university remarks. therefore, the pathway to extract first-generation was not always readily accessible or identifiable. to maintain consistency in the search, it was important for the research team to emulate search functions of first-generation students and take into consideration that students’ search practices may be rudimentary. lastly, while the primary focus of the study was to specifically identify resources via websites, our study did not take into consideration print resources, such as brochures, view books, or pamphlets. first-generation students and their families may not choose to search in this manner. subsequently, budget reductions at many institutions necessitate cutting paper methods of communications and relying more heavily on websites. nonetheless, websites can and should play a crucial role in connecting first-generation students to campus resources. conclusion many universities accept and enroll first-generation students, and they provide support through a variety of targeted and general services. however, whether first-generation students can efficiently access support services information within a few clicks on a given college or university’s website is uncertain. as evidenced by this study, though schools have a wide range of available resources for first-generation students, locating this information sometimes proved to be difficult. furthermore, identifying support services with the characteristics associated with expectancy value theory can 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(1994). case study research: design and methods (2nd ed.). thousand oaks, ca: sage. lynell hodge1, amanda wilkerson2, and emmanuela pierre stanislaus3 abstract keywords: first-generation, college students, expectancy-value theory, content analysis, rubric introduction literature review first-generation students college readiness/low academic self esteem financial stability peer-to-peer support and sense of belonging expectancy-value theory methods study design data collection coding and intercoder reliability results table 2. cumu first-generation rubric results discussion practical implications future research directions limitations conclusion references aim higher act of 2018, u.s.c. §§ 6543 higher education act of 1965, 20 u.s.c. §§ 1096 (2017) microsoft word published_hunter, smith, haines, coakley, & gilliam (2022) .docx original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25530| may 7, 2022 32 embedded inclusive excellence at a southern metropolitan public university andrea g. hunter1, julia mendez smith2, steve j. haines3, tanya m. coakley4, and franklin d. gilliam, jr.5 1department of human development and family studies, chancellor’s fellow for campus climate, unc greensboro, 2department of psychology, chancellor’s fellow for campus climate, unc greensboro, 3department of music, miles davis jazz studies program director, provost faculty fellow, unc greensboro, 4school of nursing, associate dean for diversity, equity and inclusion, ut austin, 5department of political science and chancellor, unc greensboro and department of public policy and political science, ucla cite as: hunter, a.g., mendez smith, j., haines, s.j., coakley, t.m., and gilliam jr, f.d. (2022). embedded inclusive excellence at a southern metropolitan public university. metropolitan public university. 33(2), 32-51. doi: 10.18060/25530 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. guest editors: kevin w. allison, sylvia carey-butler, rosalyn hobson hargraves, tiffany g. townsend, and jeffery wilson editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract unc greensboro’s vision is to be a national model for how a public research university can achieve access and excellence to transform students, the institution, and the community. with origins as the segregated woman’s college (wc), our evolution as a southern metropolitan public university reflects race, place, and intertwined historical legacies. embedded inclusive excellence, as a heuristic, frames the intentional, synergistic, and organic processes we engage in advancing faculty diversity and a more inclusive learning environment. specifically, borrowing a central concept from economics, we illustrate cultural, structural/institutional, and social “embeddedness” that has supported significant and positive changes at our university. keywords: inclusive excellence, higher education, equity, diversity, inclusion, racial equity, unc greensboro © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25530 | may 7, 2022 33 introduction in his 2016 state of the campus address, chancellor franklin d. gilliam, jr. introduced the concept of giant steps, inspired by the great north carolinian john coltrane, whose seminal 1959 composition giant steps was a revelation and set a bold new bar for jazz improvisation. giant steps was, in the chancellor’s words, a “collective call to action to raise our sightlines and be more ambitious as a university across several dimensions, including around equity, diversity, and inclusion.” with notable faculty and student diversity successes, we reflect here on the embedded organizational processes that have supported these outcomes at unc greensboro. the american association of colleges and universities (aacu) conceptualization of inclusive excellence represents a fundamental shift in the approach to diversity in postsecondary education. we complement this framing by incorporating the concept of embeddedness as a heuristic device that points to the intentional, synergistic, and organic processes that have supported increased faculty diversity and a more inclusive learning environment at unc greensboro. moreover, embedded inclusive excellence is a collaborative-participatory project. leadership at the top matters, but so does formal and informal leadership throughout the university. specifically, we illustrate cultural, structural/institutional, and social embeddedness that have supported critical shifts. as a southern metropolitan public university, unc greensboro’s current efforts in equity, diversity, and inclusion cannot be divorced from the contexts of race, place, their historical legacies, and our origins as a women’s college. in 2005, aacu commissioned three reports with an emphasis on integrating diversity and educational quality efforts in higher education and placing them at the center of institutional functioning, with the assumption that educational benefits would accrue for all students if it is “done well and is sustained over time.” (p. iii). inclusive excellence was student success focused and framed as an “alloy [that]…re-envisions both quality and diversity.” (p. iii). this new framing disrupted the diversity vs. quality discourse that characterized much of the previous two decades of diversity and affirmative action debates (strum, 2006), arguing instead that inclusion drives excellence as opposed to being diametric from it. moreover, notions of excellence may and should be expanded. from an institutional perspective, inclusive excellence required “multilayered processes” through which this shift could be achieved. institutional functioning, including administrative structures and processes, and accountability, were also critical. the aacu report toward a model of inclusive excellence and change in postsecondary institutions (2005) brought inclusive excellence squarely within the lexicon of higher education. williams et al. (2005) advanced an organizational change model emphasizing multilayered contexts/processes that focus on “external environment, behavioral dimensions, and organizational culture” (see also schein, 1985) and include targets for impact. since its publication, the aacu inclusive excellence framework has become a clarion call for many universities; however, with respect to racial equity, many fell short of the aims of the framework. victor ray argues (2019:49) that “racial inequality is not merely ‘in’ organizations but ‘of’ them, as racial processes are foundational to organizational formation and continuity.” in practice, he writes that organizations “decouple formal commitments to equity, access, and inclusion from policies and practices that reinforce, or at least do not challenge, existing racial hierarchies…” (p. 42). and, though shifts in the racialization of organizations may occur as a function of © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25530 | may 7, 2022 34 external sources (e.g., social protest), most social equity policies and practices reflect internal sources of change. unc greensboro’s embedded inclusive excellence approach complements the aacu change model. in this paper, following the lead of economics, we highlight the cultural, structural/institutional, and social synergies that support critical shifts which advance our mission of equity, diversity, and inclusion. these shifts, which chancellor gilliam has called “inflection points,” themselves are embedded within the history and context of unc greensboro as a southern metropolitan public university. moreover, race and place, for a southern university, is not just a nexus of challenge, but also of possibility as the struggle for racial equity and justice in the south, in undeniable ways, defines its economic, political, and cultural history (chafe, 1980; roy & floyd, 2019) and, thus, can be a new national model for higher education. from woman’s college to unc greensboro: access, excellence, and change unc greensboro is flourishing as the largest (close to 20,000 students) of the 13 colleges/universities in the piedmont triad region (greensboro, winston-salem, and high point) of central north carolina, where the total estimated population is 1.7m (piedmont triad partnership, 2021), making it the 33rd largest combined statistical population area in the united states. the population of greensboro alone is 299,035, with 57.4% racial-ethnic persons of color (us census, 2020). greensboro has a unique and rich history of access in education, as well as protest traditions from the abolitionist to civil rights movement, and it has long opened its doors to refugee resettlement (center for new north carolinians, 2021). but its history is also rooted in southern racial caste systems and racial segregation (chafe, 1980). these paradoxes shaped the history of unc greensboro and have, in many ways, uniquely positioned it to be a vanguard of change. in september 2015, franklin d. gilliam, jr. became the first black chancellor of a non-historically black college or university in north carolina and kicked off an era where unc greensboro became more intentional with equity, diversity, and inclusion efforts and engagement with its complicated history of place (and race) and educational access, excellence, and change. unc greensboro’s vision is to be a national model for how a public research university can achieve access and excellence to transform students, the institution, and the community. this vision is rooted in its history and the history of greensboro. unc greensboro opened its doors in 1892 to provide access to high-quality liberal arts education for white women. unc greensboro’s first president, dr. charles duncan mciver, was an advocate of higher education for women and was instrumental in lobbying the north carolina legislature for a college for women who were barred from attending the two-state colleges at the time, now unc-chapel hill and north carolina state university. the woman’s college, or wc as it was known, became a part of the original three schools that later formed the consolidated university of north carolina system. greensboro was selected because of its central location in the state; the city’s financial commitment; and its emergence as an educational center: guilford college [religious society of friends (quaker) founded in 1837]; greensboro college (methodist, founded in 1838 as a women’s college); and bennett college (methodist with freedman society, founded 1873 for black women, the first in the nation); and soon to be north carolina © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25530 | may 7, 2022 35 agricultural & technical college, first co-educational, then a college for black men formed from the same legislative act that created unc greensboro (trelease, 2004). the educational center of greensboro was made up of colleges with faith traditions that supported educational access and civil rights. the quakers and united methodist church supported black literacy and education. new garden for friends, founded in 1754, is the oldest quaker congregation in the piedmont triad region of north carolina. as early as 1819, the quakers established an underground railroad station in greensboro, one of the major stops in the south. the quaker’s the greensborough patriot was also the state’s only abolitionist paper (trelease, 2004). more than 100 years later, four black students from north carolina a&t – ezell blair, jr., david richmond, franklin mccain, and joseph mcneil – staged a sit-in at a segregated woolworth’s lunch counter on february 1, 1960. by february 5, 300 students, including students from unc greensboro and other local colleges, joined the protest (nittle, 2020). though a fraught racial history from slavery to jim crow, two of the most transformative movements around race, freedom, and equity in the united states had a strong foothold or genesis in greensboro. greensboro’s rich quaker history, with its tradition of religious tolerance, abolition, and progressivism, played a significant role in jewish settlers establishing themselves in greensboro at the turn of the 20th century. greensboro and guilford county continue this history as an immigrant and refugee settlement site, with over 150 first languages and one hundred forty countries of origin represented, making the county one of the most ethnically diverse in north carolina (center for new north carolinians, 2021). refugees arrive each year from places such as sudan, ethiopia, eritrea, nigeria, burundi, the democratic republic of congo, rwanda, and somalia; greensboro has the largest population of montagnard (ethnic vietnamese) outside of southeast asia (office of refugee resettlement, 2021). the confluence of the desire of greensboro to move beyond its past, the campus’s commitment to engaged scholarship, and the hiring of chancellor gilliam provided the impetus for the campus to become even more involved in the city. as it stood, there was a sentiment among some in greensboro that the university did not robustly engage with the broader community. to become more visible, the university’s diverse leadership team (including the chancellor’s wife, mrs. jacquie gilliam) and student body participated in and led many city-wide initiatives, including developing a master plan for the cultural art and establishment of a cultural commission; cinema in the park; the north carolina folk festival; the development of the technology data institute; and over 600,000 hours of community service in any given year. the university’s well-known commitment to edi, combined with a diverse leadership team and student body, significantly changed the conversation around social justice. although considered the progressive south, the modern black freedom struggle in north carolina and greensboro (1945–1975) would still push against the constraining forces of white, southern civility, and racial segregation (chafe, 1980). indeed, north carolina would be among the last states in the south to desegregate public schools in response to brown v. board of education of topeka (chafe, 1980; roy and ford, 2019). the desegregation of the woman’s college preceded the sit-in movement, first admitting black women in 1956 (though earlier in 1951, with a special chancellor provision, the college admitted a native american woman). in © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25530 | may 7, 2022 36 1964, unc greensboro became a co-educational institution (trelease, 2004), and in fall 2015, the university became federally recognized as a minority-serving institution (msi) and title iii university. by 2020 more than one-half (54%) of the student body identify as people of color, and over 40% are pell-eligible, making it one of the most diverse institutions in north carolina. unc greensboro has been on the vanguard of increased student diversity and closing gaps in retention and graduation. for instance, african american undergraduate students grew from 22.9% in 2010 to 29.4% in 2020, exceeding their proportion in the state, which remained at 22%. latinx undergraduate population has also grown from 4.5% (2010) to 11% (2020), surpassing the latinx population in the state, 9.9% in 2020, and 8.4% in 2010. as a result of latinx enrollment gains, unc greensboro was eligible for membership and joined the hispanic association of colleges and universities, one of two public universities in north carolina to hold such a membership. focusing on black-white achievement rates, the education trust (2017) report notes: “one standout institution is the university of north carolina at greensboro, where the graduation rate for black students exceeds the rate for white students by 3.0 percentage points. not only do black students at this institution complete their degree requirements at rates higher than their white peers, but these students also surpass the average graduation rate of black students at all institutions by 12.1 percentage points (57.7 percent vs. 44.6 percent).” (pp. 4–5) (nichols and evans-bell, 2017). over the last five years, unc greensboro has also made notable strides in faculty diversity and hiring, as noted in the chronicle of higher education’s (2021) report on diversifying your campus: key insights for models for change. from 2016 to 2020, the number of black faculty increased from 80 to 107; and the hispanic faculty increased from 39 to 56. overall, there has been a 30% increase in under-represented faculty over the 5 years, outpacing the total faculty growth (11%) (figure 1). moreover, in a landmark success that has eluded most american universities, unc greensboro has exceeded the national growth rate of underrepresented faculty members at the baccalaureate through doctoral-granting institutions. (vasquez heilig et al., 2019). it should also be noted that perhaps not coincidentally, extramural funding increased by almost 40% over the same period. these successes, chancellor gilliam stated, come from “years of hard work by faculty members working to change their departments and build the foundation, and then leadership that makes a real commitment” with resource allocation and strategic messaging. indeed, “the bus is leaving the station, [a]nd either you’re on it or you’re not” (the chronicle, 2021, pp. 62-63). © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25530 | may 7, 2022 37 figure 1 underrepresented faculty members and growth from 2016 to 2020 this begs the question: “how did you do it”? in what follows, we articulate how unc greensboro has used embedded inclusive excellence as a heuristic device – a discovery guidepost, if you will – to push back against the false dichotomy of access versus excellence. doing so provides a clear signal of how university actors can align their priorities with institutional priorities. embedded inclusive excellence: a heuristic approach as a decentralized campus without a central office of equity, diversity, and inclusion (edi), unc greensboro has engaged in an approach that accommodates multi-tiered formal and informal leadership and change agents, creating multiple pathways for change are intentional but also serendipitous. the embeddedness of our efforts, emphasizing cultural, structural, and social processes, is key, as we will illustrate. and while we like to think that all the strong work is intentional, sometimes successes come because of the unexpected positive by-product of people of good faith working toward a common goal. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25530 | may 7, 2022 38 cultural embeddedness: giant steps, shared fate cultural embeddedness refers to “the role of shared collective understandings in shaping economic strategies and goals” (dequech, 2003, p.462). moreover, dacin and colleagues (1999:328-329) write, “shared understandings and meanings give form to organization activity, structures, and process... and [they] shape organizational strategies and goals, ideologies that prescribe conceptions of the means and ends of individual action,” and to organizational controls. the concept of culture may also be viewed as a mechanism for both producing and measuring values (friedland & alford, 1991). cultural embeddedness suggests that “values” and action are connected via interdependent beliefs, customs, and ways of doing things or conducting business which individual actors may adopt or may resist. without accountability (reward, sanction, oversight), actors may decouple ascendant values from meaningful institutional action as old structural memory or language persists (ray, 2020; whittington, 2015). when chancellor gilliam arrived at unc greensboro, “changing the culture” was one of his top priorities. in one of his first speeches in the community (city of greensboro’s annual martin luther king, jr. day breakfast, 2016), chancellor gilliam framed the conversation around race in terms of values. he stated: values are ways of understanding what an issue is about and why it matters. they are the perceptual lens through which people perceive public issues...values that lead to a different pattern of thinking about how to solve problems like racial disparities. the first is the value of shared fate. in practice this means we must understand that true progress will only be made when we realize that we must lift all boats….this means that we have to think clearly and equitably about how we invest in our communities, who’s at the table, how all of our communities are impacted by decisions, policies, and statutes. “a function of rhetoric is agenda setting—to place or keep certain topics in mind,” dacin et al., 1999 write; and as they note hart’s (1996) caveat that, “rhetoric tells people what to think about, not what to think” (p.1546). in his 2016 state of the campus address, chancellor gilliam introduced the concept of giant steps, inspired by the north carolinian john coltrane’s seminal jazz composition, “to raise our sight lines,” including around equity, diversity, and inclusion. “shared fate,” as he further explains, involves social ties and a sense of common futures. “first, we need to imbue our culture with a clear understanding of shared fate...of community – of being in it together.” but as gilliam noted, “we all need to hold ourselves accountable for the shared fate of our community.” indeed, “we will need this kind of culture if we are going to take “giant steps.” cultural embeddedness is the most elusive of the three domains, as culture and values, when shared, are a kind of institutional paradigm or worldview, it is a university’s “first principles” (guba and lincoln, 1994). culture and values inform and are expressed within the structural/institutional and social domains, as they are drivers of action. moreover, a sense of shared fate (“in this together”), which may galvanize action, is supported by shared meanings. this does not mean there is groupthink. instead, culture informs how individuals are expected to act to serve the institution’s mission. dequesh (2003) notes, “[d]ifferent cultures may imply different ways in which actors, in this case, collective actors as organizations, apply a specific © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25530 | may 7, 2022 39 logic of action…” (p.468). what the efforts at unc greensboro illustrate, too, is that structural/institutional and social embeddedness is necessarily bound to a cultural project and a multipronged one at that. one of the implicit hallmarks of our approach is that power should be distributive. in other words, it is not solely concentrated in the university’s administration. the appropriate entailment, therefore, is accountability. and it is here where the central administration holds downstream actors to clearly stated expectations. perhaps the most important is that searches for faculty and staff must be intentional about ensuring that the applicant pool is diverse across any number of dimensions. how can one find the “best” possible candidates if a search, a priori, exclude or favors certain categories of applicants over others? the result of such a process does not always or necessarily produce a “diverse” finalist. but it surely heightens the odds. these expectations have contributed to a significant increase in black faculty at our university. and just as importantly, we believe it has sustained a more robust conversation about edi at the university. now is this approach fail safe? of course not. the adage that “most politics are local” implies that the greatest challenges to embeddedness occur at the unit level. in this instance, distributed authority can work against edi efforts because oppositional forces are also structurally embedded, and progressive actors rarely have comparable authority over decision-making to displace systemic bias. nonetheless, a small but committed cadre can overcome these things when receiving support and cover from the central administration. this telling has a symbiosis between shared authority, shared governance, and university leadership. rhythms of change: unc greensboro’s jazz education program what has been accomplished at unc greensboro has not all happened overnight. rather, it has resulted from persistent and intentional efforts by faculty and staff in the trenches. as elsa barkley brown (1991) has written, jazz as a metaphor for history is a kind of gumbo ya ya, a creole term meaning everyone talking at once where “multiple rhythms are played out simultaneously” (p.85). jazz education at unc greensboro is an apt illustration of the multiple rhythms and discordance that may occur on the long walk toward change. more than a decade before black students could matriculate, the first jazz band at unc greensboro began in 1942, with a group of white women called the darlinettes. they rehearsed in secret on campus. doris funderburk morgan, the pianist, recalls when caught playing jazz in the practice hall, she was asked by an incensed professor of organ: “what do you think you are doing?!” (ford, 2015). sherrie tucker, the trumpeter, explains, “for white women to play music that was associated with african-americans gets at the very taboos on which the black/white color line is based, and it’s very threatening (ford, 2015). in 1984, 40 years after the darlinettes, a jazz concentration was added to the ba. music degree. after establishing the jazz program, its status, the investment, and student and faculty diversity were incremental. it was not until fall 1999 that jazz was permissible at the students’ weekly convocation performance. the following year, the first jazz scholarships were offered. all eleven of the students enrolled in the jazz concentration were white, with three white faculty. today, the miles davis jazz studies program, named in 1998, has tripled in size, and 50% of the © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25530 | may 7, 2022 40 students are black, indigenous, and people of color. black faculty are 29% of the jazz faculty, and fundraising for a new ella fitzgerald endowed chair in jazz studies is in full swing. after several years of advocacy, this spring (2021), a jazz music education course, jazz for music teachers, now a part of the curriculum, was taught for the first time. the recruitment and hiring of black faculty, performing black american music, scholarships and performance opportunities for students, mentoring, and a reframing of jazz education pedagogy toward authenticity and cultural connectivity (phillips, 2017), and invited world-class musicians, such as branford marsalis and herbie hancock, have created a vibrant and high-quality contribution to the university as well as the broader community. change, whatever its pace, is a concerted journey. equity, diversity, and inclusion engages, like jazz, multiple rhythms, and encourages “each member[to] listen to what the other is doing and know how to respond while each is, at the same time, intent upon her improvisation” (barkley brown, 1991: 85). but even as institutions seek to advance racial equity and edi, the reality is colleges and universities were rarely founded on such principles. yet, the stronghold of countervailing values often goes unnamed and unacknowledged (ray, 2020). thus, to throw structural/ institutional levers in alignment with ascendant values (or culture) is paramount for change, as is engagement in transparent and frank dialogues about anachronistic “logics of action” implicated in systemic inequality. structural/institutional embeddedness: institutional principles, policies, and practices structural embeddedness involves the policies and practices that guide work and, importantly, how policies are implemented via practices such that groups receive equitable treatment. describing the links between structures and individual actors (i.e., structuration), whittington writes, (2015:149) “agents draw on the various rules and resources of their systems; as they do so, they either reproduce or amend the structural principles that organized their activities...” using language as a metaphor, whittington describes the stability of structural principles that encode common knowledge(s) and new words/usages that accommodate changing needs. the policy may be lacking, unclear, or out of compliance with changing regulations or best practices, e.g., as we have seen with title ix and its evolutions. embedded inclusive excellence represents what was once on the margins of taken-for-granted structural principles in higher education. equity, diversity, and inclusion, as well as racial equity frameworks, codify new institutional needs to address vestiges of racial caste and the practices, policies, and discourses through which systemic equities are maintained. with the change, individual actors learn new languages, practices, and policies, but the old comforts are difficult to release. in his 2018 message to the campus, chancellor gilliam wrote about unc greensboro being at an “inflection point” – a turning point after which a dramatic change is expected. inflection points transcend small, incremental day-to-day progress, and their effects are often experienced as a well-known, widespread “sea change.” he telegraphed that a new language (i.e., structural principles) was ahead; but also acknowledged a gathering of innovations, social resources, or new words and ways that must take hold to prime or seed an inflection point. institutional processes are levers of access, opportunity, and resource allocation. inclusive, just, and equitable outcomes are promoted by intentional policies, management of best practices, and © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25530 | may 7, 2022 41 data-driven results. we uncover inconsistencies in policy or lack of standardized policy around edi concerns through evaluation and policy review. an example of this was inconsistencies in unc greensboro’s search and hiring policy and practices. as a result, we focused on greater awareness and monitored how search committees were established, the training they received, and the use of best practices (e.g., fine & handelsman, 2012). upon review, only a few deans used standardized procedures to establish search committees; there was no widespread knowledge about search committee policy among the greater faculty. in response, the provost updated university policy on search committees added a required implicit bias module for search committee members, and emphasized the strong need for diversification among the faculty. we then began engagement in a series of activities (see next section) to standardize our approach across schools, departments, and in some cases, with specific search committees as requested, to provide consultation and support for learning and implementing best practices in accordance with the university policy. recruitment and retention of an excellent, diverse faculty diversity and equity committees across campus engaged in a series of discussions with the faculty and deans about why recruitment of a diverse pool of talent was necessary to pursue excellence, increase faculty diversity, and provide models within the faculty ranks for an increasingly diverse student body. some notable achievements were: a series of “diversity conversations” held in the college of arts and sciences; the college of visual and performing arts revised their internal search handbook and required diversity training for all search committee members; and other departments and units began to explore or require diversity statements as a part of the application process. in addition, department chairs received required training about search committee best practices in hiring and a copy of the best practices manual to share with faculty. these efforts signified the administration’s priority to increase faculty diversity. the examples also illustrate that change is multi-determined; each action by a network of institutional actors committed to edi can create synergistic conditions, leading to structural and long-lasting change among the faculty ranks. put differently, deans, department heads, and search committee chairs recognized that they were to be held accountable and led with their commitments. for instance, the school of education (soe) has a stated commitment to equity and gender diversity equity (school of education, 2021) and has established a diversity fellow, equity and access committees for faculty and staff, and committees on language and internationalization. the soe (2016–2017) developed a strategic plan where equity and diversity became an area of distinction. similar committees have been established across academic units to focus work and move forward in new ways. to support efforts toward faculty diversity, the college of arts and sciences and the college of visual and performing arts have developed best practice manuals for faculty searches. the university’s weatherspoon art museum, with a new director, has developed a racial equity strategic plan for the university’s museum that intentionally incorporates a lens through which to make the museum more accessible and inclusive. the museum’s plan outlines its commitment to institutional change—culturally embedded practices within the museum—as critical to supporting access across the campus and engagement with our local community (weatherspoon art museum, 2021). another prime example is the university of teaching and learning commons (utlc), which has provided clear and stalwart support for faculty mentoring © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25530 | may 7, 2022 42 (including focused efforts on faculty of color), inclusive pedagogy, and edi training for teaching faculty (e.g., including the equity, diversity & inclusion institute, utlc, 2021). we have also received the higher education excellence in diversity award in 2018, 2019, 2020, and again in 2021, noting new programs that emerge from our broad commitments to inclusive excellence each year. institutional embeddedness ensures that units and stakeholders develop edi knowledge across campus and have opportunities to build skills. as there are more opportunities for learning and exchanging ideas, an edi lens will increasingly become part of the university’s language and practice. when these processes unfold and mutually reinforce each other, they further embed these concepts and expectations into the practices of the university. this, of course, is not a seamless process, as one must “keep your foot on the gas.” disruption of what was taken for granted is also difficult for many. unfolding shifts do take hold, however, and pursuing them signals our purpose and commitment to new talent. notably, unc greensboro’s success with a diverse student body attracts equity-minded faculty. thus, a synergy of practice and culture shifts can lead to tipping points in local places (e.g., departments, units) and, ultimately, the university. one notable contextual factor is the importance of the enrollment growth funding model employed by the unc system. this approach allocates extra money when campuses increase their student credit hour production (typically increasing enrollment). unc greensboro relied on a managed growth strategy that saw consistent increases in the student population for four years in a row. as a result, extra resources were allocated to the campus used to hire almost 400 additional faculty [about two-thirds were replacements (departures/retirements), one-third were new]. with clear mandates from the administration and deans both believing in the goals and being held accountable for meeting them, the university made significant strides in diversifying the faculty. diversifying the faculty under financial exigencies makes it much more difficult to implement the approach we used at unc greensboro. challenges remain in folding an edi lens into the university's regular business, which impacts the experiences of faculty from underrepresented groups once they arrive (hunter and mcgill, 2015; hemphill, boyce & james, 2021). faculty retention is impacted by mentoring and investment, campus climate, salary inequities, and evaluative bias; these are talent management and investment matters. racial disparities in faculty retention and career progression persist nationally (kelly, gayles, & williams, 2017; piercy, giddings, allen, dixon, meszaros, & joest, 2005; taylor, beck, lahey, & froyd, 2017; zajac, 2011). furthermore, implicit and evaluative biases are critical to address, as they influence how faculty are engaged and supported and influence high-stakes evaluations such as promotion and tenure (abdul-raheem, 2016; ro & villarreal, 2021). faculty of color are also less likely to be considered for early promotion, are more likely to be discouraged from applying or resigning before a review, and are more likely to feel their scholarship is devalued by department heads and faculty peers than are white faculty (jones, hwang, & bustamante, 2015). an example of edi leadership in faculty governance to address implicit and evaluative bias in promotion and tenure reviews is the school of health and human sciences promotion & tenure committee’s implementation of annual implicit bias training for all continuing and incoming members. the committee also initiated a proposal to develop new training content for edi modules tailored to the promotion and tenure reviews and © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25530 | may 7, 2022 43 evaluations; other unit committees could adopt these. to support faculty and leadership development focused across career life stage, we launched new initiatives, which include funding tenure-track faculty to attend the national center for faculty development and diversity faculty success program, an affinity-based faculty mentoring and support network for underrepresented faculty (developed and led by a senior faculty member), and piloted a faculty leadership program for scholars of color. in addition, the spartan advance grant supports the recruitment, retention, and advancement of mid-career women and faculty of color in stem fields. the national science foundation (nsf) advance grant is led by four women of color. it has a strong advisory board composed of campus faculty leaders, researchers, and administrators committed to equity. the advance team is implementing workshops to create a system of allyship to support underrepresented faculty at unc greensboro and training for department chairs and deans about the importance of retaining minority and female faculty in all areas of study, not just stem fields. (dunn et al., 2019; taylor et al., 2017). as the faculty has diversified, senior ranks have also progressed, including leadership in faculty governance who have advanced an inclusive excellence agenda. these leaders carry forward questions about “what we need to think about.” the chancellor’s fellows for campus climate, established in 2016, is one example of elevating local and informal edi leaders and developing a leadership pipeline. fellows serve as advisors, bridge builders, strategic leaders, and partners, enabling leaders across the institution to identify and execute initiatives to effect lasting institutional change. given the budget and political constraints, the chancellor created the chancellor’s fellows for campus climate in recognition that though unc greensboro was on the vanguard around student diversity and success efforts, it had much work to do around faculty diversity. unlike many edi offices driven by administrative staff, the chancellor wanted edi efforts to be led by tenured faculty members. similarly, provost fellows were established to mentor, develop and support faculty interested in impacting the institution as a whole, broadening their experience, and learning more about administration. they partner with the provost and chancellor’s fellows around specific areas of interest, such as developing a mentoring program for faculty from underrepresented communities, integrated student success, or the university-wide theme on equality. provost and chancellor’s fellows are selected from the senior faculty who have demonstrated university service and leadership potential. they are compensated with stipends, summer salary, and course buyouts. in addition, they are embedded in senior leadership meetings. with enrollment growth and retirements, unc greensboro had an opportunity to reshape the faculty. in campus communications and meetings with the provost and senior leadership, the chancellor had already clarified that leadership would be held accountable around edi. as fellows partnered and collaborated on faculty diversity initiatives, people on campus knew they spoke for and were conduits to the chancellor. the fellows can also elevate and highlight the work being done at the local level and promote a campus-wide approach for systemic action (equity, diversity, and inclusion, 2021; racial equity at uncg, 2021). in sum, the fellows programs at uncg are another intentional way to ensure that expectations for edi would be supported across the campus and would bring people together across rank, department, position, © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25530 | may 7, 2022 44 and discipline in support of edi work, thereby ensuring no one person would be tasked with the execution of these complex initiatives. synergy across edi at uncg was enhanced via investments in the fellows programs. social embeddedness: networks seeding change social embeddedness refers to ongoing networks of social relations between people and individuals as social actors who guide their choices based on past interactions and engage trusted relations (dacin et al., 199; granovetter, 1985; little, 2012). dacin and colleagues (1999:319) also note that granovetter viewed “embeddedness as the contextualization of economic activities in ongoing patterns of social relations,” where institutional, as well as cultural and political contexts, remain relevant, as does the aspects of the individual (e.g., cognition, bias, meaning) (dacin et al., 1999; zukin and dimaggio, 1990). social ties within organizations, which are diverse, nested, channeled, and bound, “provide opportunities for interconnected social actors” (dacin et al., 1999, p. 326). baker and faulkner (2009) further argue that transformational mechanisms explain how the interactions of individuals turn into collective action or outcomes, which may be intended or not (hedstrom & swedberg, 1998). they note (2005:1546) the role of network diffusion as a transformational mechanism, where “[d]iffusion is the spread of ideas, attitudes, values, products, and so on through interpersonal communication and influence...” social embeddedness, thus, can create opportunities to engage, spread, and support values leading to institutional action. we extrapolate the contextualization of activities that promote faculty diversity and inclusive curriculum/pedagogy within ongoing patterns of social relations and organizational activity. network diffusion: best practices for faculty diversity we recognized that if unc greensboro were to recruit and retain a diverse faculty successfully, we would need to create social expectations across potentially interlocked and cross-functional networks. therefore, for almost three years, unc greensboro partnered with a greensborobased firm with national reach and expertise to deliver racial equity training to campus leaders. we ran a series of two-day, all-day training sessions, with invitations to administrators, faculty, staff, and student leaders to participate and ultimately share their learning with their home units or departments and the impact on the work being done at unc greensboro. nearly 100 people participated in the training, and many referred others to participate. this initiative provided a common set of experiences to examine race equity deeply. evaluation data collected from about one-third of all participants indicated they were extremely likely (78%) or somewhat likely (22%) to “apply the information learned at the racial equity institute training regarding racial disparities to your future actions in your workplace or place of learning.” this effort, led by the provost and dean of the libraries, was guided by an interdepartmental committee in partnership with the chancellor’s campus climate fellow. the activities, along with others, provided a basis of trusted relations for campus members with the racial equity training. our sustained dialogue efforts were another example of building networks among staff and faculty members with edi interests and talents. we partnered with sustained dialogue institute to provide training experiences in having difficult conversations about edi and use dialogue © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25530 | may 7, 2022 45 approaches to develop a deeper understanding of racial identity among our community members. our teaching and learning center and our office of intercultural engagement were leaders in these efforts, giving many of our faculty and staff new tools in their toolbox to use when talking with students both inside and outside of the classroom. to this day, the utlc and our oie continue to offer dialogue programs to create a space for learning about edi and to have deep, meaningful conversations about race that help build new relationships and closeness within our student body and our edi faculty and staff networks. double embeddedness: building general education for our times there is an interrelationship between structure and culture within which social ties (i.e., social capital) reside (baker and faulkner, 2009). according to baker and faulkner (2009), this kind of double embeddedness exists when “both networks and culture are bases of action, sometimes working together, impelling people in the same direction, but sometimes in conflict, producing contrary guides to action.” (p.1530). for example, a university’s general education curriculum binds faculty in a shared vision of and mission for student education and success. recently, chancellor gilliam and the provost asked the faculty to deliver a general education program that suited not just where we have been but where we are going. unc greensboro pursued a 3-year process to revise the general education curriculum and implement new approaches, resulting in the university’s new foundational competency-based curriculum. as foundation to this effort, a prior dedicated group of faculty worked to ensure that global and intercultural engagement, already a strong emphasis area on our campus, was the focus of our 2014 2019 quality enhancement plan (qep). the qep is a component of the reaffirmation and accreditation process of the southern association of colleges and schools commission on colleges that aims to enhance the quality of higher education in the region and to focus attention on student learning outcomes. following this step, the general education committee was able to continue the dialogue to add more emphasis on diversity and inclusion within u.s. society. faculty debated, and disagreed, about whether these competencies should be developed within the core curriculum. these engagements among faculty were hard, difficult, and, at times, contentious. all were hardfought, but we believe it is no accident that we endorsed diversity and inclusion as a core student learning competence. ultimately, the diversity and inclusion competency, emphasizing the humanities or the social sciences, would focus on systems of advantage and oppression, structures of power, and institutions while making connections to us or global societies and examining intellectual traditions that address systems of injustice. in this way, our campus commitment to education around diversity, equity, and inclusion had expanded and deepened through the revision to our general education program and is likely the by-product of early efforts in the chancellor’s tenure to build edi networks of faculty and staff to lead during this revision process when it mattered. moving forward, the general education program has led to campus-wide curriculum development (including an infusion of diversity and inclusion competencies) and mentoring and training in inclusive pedagogy with the university learning and teaching center, and more faculty have engaged in online diversity training (diversityedu). together, this builds a network of teacher© the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25530 | may 7, 2022 46 scholars from various backgrounds and across disciplines who are committed to inclusive pedagogy and curriculum. with an increasingly diverse faculty, unc greensboro is ready to prepare the incoming fall 2021 cohort to engage with content and develop competencies that address and navigate some of the most pressing issues of our time. conclusion as a heuristic, embedded inclusive excellence is one framework that integrates diversity, equity, inclusion, and access as actionable values at all levels of an educational institution. inclusive, just, and equitable practices embedded across cultural, structural/institutional, and social domains create access and opportunity and achieve excellence by promoting the management of best practices, policies, and data-driven results. the result is that desired outcomes are sustained, and supporting organizational processes are mutually reinforced across all divisions. as a southern metropolitan university, we have been bolstered and challenged by a place with legacies of racial caste and social movements for racial equity. the new south includes diverse multiracial/ethnic populations, new migrants and immigrants, and an increased global footprint. we are uniquely positioned as a university to be a change agent and address racial and social disparities as a matter of scholarship and in closing racial gaps in equity and social mobility in our local communities and state. gains in faculty diversity and racial equity depend on local leadership (including informal leaders) to engage the emotional and political labor to create change, build alliances, and engage in aspirational dialogue. centralized rhetorical and institutional support gives additional energy (and cover) to leadership in local places to help catalyze the will and urgency to move forward. but, in the main, an over-centralization of a university’s equity efforts may more easily lead to isolation and marginalization. embedding work across and throughout the institution, on the other hand, can create a sense of common identity. this paper offers a different perspective of racial equity, both in theory and practice. we have shown that unc greensboro has both increased diversity and enhanced excellence. for the third year in a row, the campus met or exceeded its annual targets on all five of the priority metrics (low-income enrollment; graduation of low-income students; five-year graduation rates; degree efficiency of underrepresented minorities; and critical workforce credentials) as specified in the unc system strategic plan. indeed, unc greensboro was the only unc system institution to meet all priority goals in 2020 and 2021. in addition to meeting educational access and student success goals, the complete list of metrics includes substantially increasing the number of graduates with critical workforce credentials and expanding the university’s knowledge-creation enterprise. as a research university and national leader in social mobility, unc greensboro is providing students with the knowledge and skills to transform their intellectual and economic lives, make new discoveries that help build our shared future, and work toward a more inclusive and equitable world. leadership at the top matters, but so does formal and informal leadership throughout the university. leadership sets the “rhetoric” to inform values, establishes accountability, and pushes © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25530 | may 7, 2022 47 for best institutional practices. but as “all diversity work, like politics, is local,” deep systemic change requires leadership at all levels and tailored efforts for local change. accordingly, unc greensboro has embraced embedded inclusive excellence as a heuristic that integrates equity, diversity, and inclusion as actionable values such that, as chancellor gilliam has often said, is to be “a part of our dna.” here, we illustrate how an embeddedness heuristic applied at this public southern metropolitan university has led to successes that may also have wider applications across diverse organizational models to address racial equity, equity, diversity, and inclusion across all social differences and identities. although our successes are many and varied, there remains much work to be done in expanding faculty diversity throughout the disciplines, developing a leadership pipeline, and increasing diversity within the administrative ranks. to succeed on these fronts, efforts must be embedded in culture, structures, social relations, and the pull of countervailing values lessened. with final reflections on jazz as a metaphor for equity, 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(1990). structures of capital: the social organization of the economy. cambridge university press. original research © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25242 | september 9, 2021 85 types of anchor institution initiatives: an overview of university urban development literature paul garton1 1 department of education leadership, management and policy, seton hall university cite as: garton, p. (2021).types of anchor institution initiatives: an overview of university urban development literature. metropolitan universities, 32(2), 85-105. doi: 10.18060/25242 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract interest in universities as anchor institutions within their communities and cities is growing as civic leaders search for ways to build local wealth. systematic analysis of the effects of anchor institution initiatives remains difficult due to the disparate nature of anchor initiatives and a relative lack of a shared language describing the work. this article reviews the anchor literature to summarize current understandings of universities and economic development, then develops a typology of anchor institution initiatives based upon the literature. the typology is based upon the type of capital leveraged by initiatives: (a) financial, (b) physical, (c) intellectual, and (d) human. the author then uses the typology to categorize a number of initiatives found within the literature and through a rough sampling process. this typology offers a shared language for scholars to use to guide discussions around universities as anchor institutions, and, more importantly, the typology can frame analyses of the differential effects, costs, and benefits of different anchor strategies. keywords: anchor institutions, community engagement, town-gown, urban universities, urban development https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25242 | september 9, 2021 86 introduction higher education was originally an urban institution in europe (bender, 1988), and though it assumed pastoral ideals in the united states (geiger, 2016), urbanity is once again a defining feature of modern higher education. universities, cities, and economic development are closely connected in a complex political economy that shapes university community relations and molds neighborhood change (etienne, 2012; wiewel & perry, 2008). the specific strategies universities can deploy to build community wealth, however, are still not clearly understood. hodges and dubb (2012) systematically analyzed several universities to categorize overall approaches to economic engagement and what they termed the anchor mission, but anchor institution initiatives, or the targeted projects universities use to leverage their resources for purposes of development, are still not fully understood within the literature. the anchor mission, as developed by hodges and dubb (2012), called for universities to productively leverage their economic footprints to build local wealth in equitable and sustainable ways. this article builds upon their work by including the concept of anchor institution initiatives, the discrete projects and strategies universities use to carry out an anchor mission. this article aims to provide an overview of the current state of literature on anchor institutions and economic development, after which the author develops a typology of anchor institution initiatives. similar to doberneck et al.’s (2010) typology of community engaged scholarship, an anchor institution initiative typology provides a shared language to discuss the merits and costs of different types of anchor work. the typology also allows for richer analyses of economic engagement and the differential effects of anchor institution initiatives on neighborhoods based on the strategy utilized. in understanding universities as anchor institutions and their effects on neighborhoods, this article reviews the anchor institution literature to identify the known economic effects on local communities of universities, posits causal mechanisms connecting anchor institution initiatives and local development, examines the internal and external pressures on universities to adopt these strategies, and clarifies the types of economic activity by universities that constitute an anchor institution initiative. the author develops four types of strategies universities have used based upon the capital they are investing: (a) financial, (b) physical, (c) intellectual, and (d) human and provides examples of different anchor institution initiatives using these strategies. the strategies are not mutually exclusive; in fact, most initiatives use multiple strategies. scholars, university leaders, and policymakers can use this typology to frame their own anchor work and find the combination of strategies that work in their context. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25242 | september 9, 2021 87 anchor institutions and economic development anchor institutions provide reliable capital locally that can be further leveraged in regional development strategies (porter, 1997, 2016). existing studies in economics estimating the effects of universities on local markets generally examine the establishment of new universities. several studies utilized specific historical circumstances resulting in new postsecondary organizations to identify the effects of universities on local economies. cantoni and yuchtman (2014) and liu (2015) drew from particularly dated eras to understand the role of universities and higher education in the economic development and social organization of germany and the united states. cantoni and yuchtman (2014) drew from data on a uniquely feudal political economic system. incorporated cities in the holy roman empire required market grants from the emperor or a lord to host a market or festival. multiple markets or festivals required a corresponding number of grants. the authors used issued-market grants as a proxy for commercial activity and leveraged the papal schism as an exogenous shock in the establishment of universities. prior to the schism, most german scholars and students were in france. the catholic church, however, split in 1309 with france, proclaiming allegiance to one wing and the holy roman empire the other. as german scholars and students returned to germany, the wing to which they were pledged began to relax restrictions on new universities. these coinciding events related directly to the schism resulted in establishing several new universities. cantoni and yuchtman (2014) analyzed these data using a difference-in-differences strategy with the establishment of a new university near an incorporated city as the treatment variable and receipt of market grants as the outcome. the authors found approximately 40 new markets were established due to proximity to new universities, reversing a negative trend in market grant receipt. cantoni and yuchtman (2014) speculate the causal mechanism is universities trained students in law, bolstering local legal institutions and providing merchants with the human capital necessary to navigate increasingly complex organizations. liu (2015) designed a similar study in the united states using an event-study framework. drawing largely on historical census data, liu’s (2015) identification strategy rests on the exogeneity of decision-making related to the morrill act of 1862. the morrill act established land-grant universities in every state, and the location of each university often held a degree of randomness. to address any endogeneity in university location, liu (2015) used a synthetic control rather than a single counterfactual. the establishment of a land-grant university increased local population density by 45% over 80 years. additionally, though the relative size of the manufacturing sector remained unchanged, manufacturing output increased by 57% per worker. this finding is somewhat contrary to cantoni and yuchtman’s (2014) result that markets themselves expanded, not just output, but it intuitively follows from arguments that universities foster innovation and productivity enhancements. in a more contemporary era, andersson, quigley, and wilhelmsson (2009) examined the effects of new universities in sweden. leveraging swedish decentralization of higher education in 1987 © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25242 | september 9, 2021 88 that created new universities across the country, andersson et al. (2009) examined the effect of an increased number of post-graduate researchers and research technicians on local worker productivity and innovations as measured by patents. the authors found new universities increased productivity by approximately 4% per 100 post-graduate researchers and increased patent receipt by 2.3% per 10 research technicians. approximately half of all productivity gains were located within 3 to 5 miles of the university. this supports liu’s (2015) findings of universities as local productivity-enhancing organizations, a claim largely supported by literature on the spillovers of human capital investments (moretti, 2004). though this article focuses specifically on higher education organizations, the economic effects of other types of anchor institutions offer analogous opportunities for understanding universities as actors in local development. the most commonly cited type of anchor institution other than universities are hospitals (dubb & howard, 2012; hodges & dubb, 2012). mandich and dorfman (2017) studied the relationship between hospitals and local labor markets using individual-level census data and county-level hospital employment data, an analysis focused on wage premiums and job growth. the authors calculated wage premiums using multiple regression, regressing log wage on a dummy indicator of whether the individual was employed at a hospital, individual characteristics, and level of education. mandich and dorfman (2017) find hospitals offer high wage premiums for not only doctors but bachelor and associate degree holders as well. the authors also examined the relationship between the number of hospitals and local employment using fixed effects. county employment was regressed on county-level characteristics, the number of hospitals in the county, and year and county-level fixed effects. job growth in non-health related sectors tended to be higher in areas with hospitals (mandich & dorfman, 2017). lacking a strong identification strategy, mandich and dorfman’s (2017) estimates should not be interpreted causally, but their results match the anchor literature broadly. sports stadiums, though lacking the continuous activity of universities or hospitals, have similar spatial footprints. this distinction results in slightly different impacts on the local economy. ahlfeldt and maennig (2009) examined the effects on land values of opening three stadiums in berlin, germany. using block-level data on 376 blocks from 1992 to 2006, the authors isolated the effect using a difference-in-differences method, with treatment being the construction of a stadium. land value growth increased by approximately 2% following the construction of a stadium (ahlfeldt & maennig, 2009). however, evidence on other economic markers is less encouraging. coates and depken (2009) examined monthly sales tax revenue in four cities with major college football teams in texas from 1984 to 2008, combined with information on home games and opponents. including fixed effects and time trends in the models, coates and depken (2009) found no effects on tax revenue of hosting sporting events. lertwachara and cochran (2007) use an event study on city-level data to estimate the effect of professional sports teams on income. again, there was no detectable effect, even with multiple teams. finally, miller (2002) used employment data on construction companies in st. louis for regressions based on lagged © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25242 | september 9, 2021 89 dependent variables. employment levels did not change based on stadium construction. in summation, though stadiums tend to increase rents and land values, there is no evidence of changes in income, employment rates, or tax revenues. military bases also have significant effects on local economies. zou (2018) examined the effects of military personnel contractions using census data, county-level economic data, and base locations from the department of defense. the identification strategy utilized synthetic control groups and instrumented for base personnel contractions. the instrument was composed of the product of the initial personnel-overall population ratio and the nationwide personnel contraction. zou (2018) found eliminating one military worker costs 0.68 civilian jobs in locally traded industries, but only small effects on industries traded globally. anchor institutions thus have powerful and complex effects on their local neighborhoods and economies. incentives for economic engagement though universities and other anchor institutions are not necessarily engaged in activities and initiatives developing their surrounding communities, they face pressure to do such work from various sources. internally, university officials often support initiating or engaging with existing urban development efforts because they recognize the close connection between the city and the university and their intertwined fates (dalton, hajrasouliha, & riggs, 2018; maurrasse, 2007). wittman and crews (2012) and the initiative for a competitive inner city (2011) described this mutual benefit as shared value, or strategies that improve the competitiveness of an organization while also benefiting local communities. much concern is relative to local economic development deal with recruiting and retaining students and faculty (morris et al., 2010; taylor et al., 2018). etienne (2012) described in detail the university of pennsylvania’s anxieties of losing its global prominence due to local conditions of poverty and crime. administrators at the university of pennsylvania feared high quality faculty would choose to work at other universities solely because of surrounding neighborhoods. maurrasse (2007) also transcribed a quote from a university of cincinnati official claiming parents pulled their children from the school after visiting campus. the university began anchor institution initiatives when administrators decided local conditions were affecting admissions. there are also external pressures for universities to economically engage with their cities. federal agencies such as the department of housing and urban development and the small business administration urge universities to adopt development strategies, and the bayh-dole act and small business technology transfer program highly incentivize universities and researchers to translate their results into marketable products for purposes of regional development (kochenkova, grimaldi, & munari, 2016; o’shea, fitzgerald, chugh, & allen, 2014). local governments also exert pressure on universities, though municipalities often lack the strong incentive capabilities of the federal government. despite taking advantage of municipal services such as utilities and fire and police services, universities are largely exempt © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25242 | september 9, 2021 90 from paying property taxes, leading to tensions between municipalities and universities (kenyon & langley, 2010; maurrasse, 2007). the tax exemption is to partially offset the positive externalities of higher education such as lower healthcare costs for graduates and research with societal implications/applications, but these externalities often benefit geographic areas beyond the municipality losing revenue (kenyon & langley, 2010). for example, universities are exempt from paying local property taxes to help subsidize education, but students do not necessarily stay within the same city of the university following graduation, so the city subsidizes a large number of students who do not benefit the city in any way after they leave the university. thus, many local leaders lobby universities to pay payments in lieu of taxes (pilots) or provide other forms of local development aid. beyond official governance structures, community activists also pressure universities to take a leading role in urban development (alperovitz, 2013; hoyt, 2013; wolf-powers, 2010). community benefits agreements leverage universities to invest in negotiated ways, and civic leaders exert influence as they seek methods to improve living standards. additionally, foundations and economic development research groups write extensively about the potential of anchor institutions to facilitate local development, arguing for universities to take central roles in urban growth (ceos for cities with living cities, 2010; crane et al., 2010; initiative for a competitive inner city, 2011; morris et al., 2010). the democracy collaborative, in particular, is one of the leading organizations pushing for universities to adopt anchor institution missions, convening multiple universities to evaluate and discuss their anchor strategies and partnering with the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities to disseminate findings (democracy collaborative, 2018). not all external pressures are supportive of university-led development. community organizers and residents are often suspicious of university intentions as specific projects are emphasized over others or university investments are inconsistent (etienne, 2012; wolf-power, 2010). the concept of shared value may be built on ideas of mutuality, but it does not specify the differential costs or benefits associated with development. there are also tensions inherent to the transitory student model of higher education. as enrollment grows, more students move to be close to campus and live in off-campus housing. residents must deal with the noise, higher rents, and traffic of students (smith, 2008: smith & holt, 2007). conversely, university expansion to accommodate more on-campus housing also meets resistance as people often view universities as greedy, cloistered organizations (maurrasse, 2007; rooney & gittleman, 2003). such concerns rarely receive more than cursory mentions in literature arguing for anchor institutions as key components of economic growth and urban development. anchor institution initiatives © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25242 | september 9, 2021 91 based upon the literature review presented in this article, the author created a typology of anchor institution initiatives based upon the type of capital universities invest: (a) financial capital, (b) physical capital, (c) intellectual capital, and (d) human capital (dalton et al., 2018; maurrasse, 2007; morris et al., 2010; walker & east, 2018). financial capital is a university’s cash or endowment. physical capital is the constructed portions of a university’s holdings, generally thought of as the campus (dalton et al., 2018). intellectual capital is the knowledge held by university affiliates, generally students, faculty, and staff. finally, human capital is university investments in local community well-being, such as education and health (arteaga, 2017; clark & martorell, 2014). along with developing the capital typology using existing anchor literature, the author used the typology to categorize a number of anchor institution initiatives, collected both through the literature and an additional two-step process. first, the author cross-referenced members of the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities (cumu) and the coalition of urban serving universities (usu) with universities that have received the carnegie classification for community engagement or were named to the president’s higher education community service honor roll. after identifying universities that were both members of cumu or usu and had received at least one of the engagement recognitions, the author searched those universities’ websites and media outlets for information on any anchor initiatives from 1970 to 2010. this provides a basic overview of the state of anchor work at different universities across the united states, described using the capital typology. financial capital universities leverage financial capital through three main types of anchor institution initiatives. first, housing programs aim to improve housing stock and raise the market value of homes in a neighborhood (appleseed, 2003; webber & karlström, 2009). strong housing markets are generally used to incentivize higher income residents and faculty to live in specific neighborhoods (etienne, 2012; maurrasse, 2007). the university of pennsylvania (penn) and syracuse university offer mortgages backed by the university to faculty who live in specific neighborhoods, and both universities also purchased and renovated property for resale within those neighborhoods (etienne, 2012; hodges & dubb, 2012; wittman & crews, 2012). second, anchor institutions may prioritize local businesses when purchasing goods and services (hodges & dubb, 2012; initiative for a competitive inner city, 2011; webber and karlström, 2009; wittman & crews, 2012). not only can purchasing have direct impacts on local businesses, housing endowments in local banks can have more indirect effects as local financial institutions gain strength (dubb & howard, 2012). indiana university-purdue university indianapolis, penn, yale university, and lemoyne-owen college all mandate that some percentage of annual purchasing must be local (hodges & dubb, 2012). there is some question, © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25242 | september 9, 2021 92 however, about the degree to which economic gains from purchasing are locally sourced growth versus a transfer of jobs from other regions (appleseed, 2003; dubb & howard, 2012). the final type of anchor institution initiative that utilizes financial capital is establishing and funding community development corporations, or cdcs. cdcs, a non-legal term, are nonprofits with goals related to community and economic development of a targeted neighborhood or constituency. there is no comprehensive national tracking of cdcs as it is not an official designation, but the national alliance of community development associations (naceda) reports at least 3,488 cdcs in current existence (naceda, 2020). universities that leverage cdcs for local development generally provide the initial capital for the cdc, then maintain varying degrees of formal connections to the corporation through dual appointments or funding streams. some university-supported cdcs become increasingly autonomous, while others remain tightly controlled by the university. table 1. initiatives leveraging financial capital. university city description case western reserve university cleveland, oh • employer-assisted housing program • local purchasing clark university worcester, ma • purchasing and renovating buildings for resale • homeownership incentives for faculty/staff duke university durham, nc • created a nonprofit that, using loans from duke, purchases land then resells at cost to affordable housing developers lemoyne-owen college memphis, tn • created a cdc metropolitan state university st. paul, mn • local purchasing ohio state university columbus, oh • homeownership incentives for faculty/staff • purchasing and renovating homes for resale syracuse university syracuse, ny • local purchasing • homeownership grants and mortgages university of arkansas at little rock little rock, ar • created a cdc university of cincinnati cincinnati, oh • created multiple cdcs • money for local police forces to target certain areas © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25242 | september 9, 2021 93 • rehabilitating vacant lots and office space university of pennsylvania philadelphia, pa • homeownership incentives • purchasing and renovating homes for resale xavier university new orleans, la • created a cdc • funded home rehabilitation • promotes cooperative home ownership • seed funding for small businesses youngstown state university youngstown, oh • purchased land, regifted for development physical capital real estate development is perhaps the most visible component of anchor institution initiatives in urban development. campus planning occurs within a complex political economy that is instantiated at the campus, campus-community interface, and campus district levels (dalton et al., 2018). issues such as aesthetics, utility, and sustainability must all be met by the buildings and overall campus design. to incorporate economic development further complicates the decisions to be made, but many campuses are attempting to do so (ceos for cities with living cities, 2010). johns hopkins sold approximately 100 properties to a development nonprofit to be transformed into mixed-use housing and biotechnology labs (initiative for a competitive inner city, 2011). arizona state university and the university of washington both built entirely new campuses and reshaped downtown neighborhoods (ceos for cities with living cities, 2010; dalton et al., 2018). other urban universities are also expanding intentionally to achieve larger goals of economic development, such as georgia state university, clark university, worcester polytechnic institute, and northeastern university (ceos for cities with living cities, 2010; dalton et al., 2018). table 2. initiatives leveraging physical capital. university city description arizona state university phoenix, az • built new campus downtown case western reserve university cleveland, oh • building museum of contemporary art and physical development of a main street • transportation infrastructure clark university worcester, ma • brownfields clean-up • housing developments • new research center © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25242 | september 9, 2021 94 emerson college boston, ma • built mixed-use cultural district georgia state university atlanta, ga • real estate development harvard university boston, ma • mixed-use development indiana university northwest gary, in • new medical center indiana university-purdue university at indianapolis indianapolis, in • campus expansion johns hopkins university baltimore, md • east baltimore mixed use development loyola university chicago chicago, il • off-campus property development and retail partnerships massachusetts institute of technology cambridge, ma • new research park and mixed-used development metropolitan state university st. paul, mn • library in partnership with st. paul to also be a public library missouri state university springfield, mo • urban innovation park northeastern university boston, ma • residence hall with units available for area residents ohio state university columbus, oh • new facilities, including mixed use portland state university portland, or • new academic facility and public square rutgers university newark newark, nj • built new and rehabilitated homes san jose state university san jose, ca • joint university-public library st. louis university st. louis, mo • new arena and research building temple university philadelphia, pa • university expansion • new sports center trinity college hartford, ct • redeveloped bus depot and industrial buildings into mixed use development university of arkansas at little rock little rock, ar • greenway restoration • built new academic space • new intramural fields near student housing university of nevada, las vegas las vegas, nv • mixed use development and pedestrian infrastructure university of north carolina, charlotte charlotte, nc • land-swap to give university-owned land to a developer university of pennsylvania philadelphia, pa • new mixed-use developments university of washington, tacoma tacoma, wa • built new campus downtown youngstown state university youngstown, oh • built new residence halls © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25242 | september 9, 2021 95 intellectual capital some anchor institution initiatives employ the expertise and discovery capabilities of students and faculty to foster competitive business hubs through technology transfer or business incubators (appleseed, 2003; maurrasse, 2007; webber & karlström, 2009; wittman & crews, 2012). technology transfer was historically operationalized as patents for marketable discoveries transferring from faculty and universities to existing firms specializing in the relevant market (etzkowitz, 2014). more recently, however, technology transfer increasingly takes the form of firm creation (etzkowitz, 2014; geiger & sá, 2005). in this model, faculty create new firms based on their discoveries. faculty own and operate their own firms, and universities receive some percentage of royalties or hold some degree of equity (wright, lockett, clarysse, & binks, 2006). productivity gains through university innovation, while dispersed somewhat spatially, are primarily concentrated within several miles of the university (andersson et al., 2009). the economic effects of knowledge generated at universities are not limited to faculty. kantor and whalley (2014) used census data on industries outside of education to explore knowledge spillovers, or the indirect benefits of the teaching and research missions of universities. they found a 10% increase in higher education spending increased noneducation sector wages by 0.8%. the sectors that experienced the highest increases in wages tended to rely on university patents, overlap with university labor markets, or require postsecondary degrees for their positions. entire regional ecosystems benefit from the intellectual capital produced by universities. a strategy to both aid faculty in commercializing their research and help students create new firms is to establish business incubators. business incubators facilitate commercialization and innovation through three main methods (gulbranson & audretsch, 2008). first, they provide seed funding for new firms, helping them survive the early years in which most firms fail. second, incubators serve as an advising resource for students and faculty to overcome knowledge deficits. faculty who hope to commercialize research or students new to the field often are not knowledgeable about the intricacies of the private market. third, incubators connect students and faculty to relevant industry partners, fostering the social capital needed for successful firms. university business incubators can operate using one, all three, or any combination of these strategies (gulbranson & audretsch, 2008). academic engagement can also apply faculty expertise for purposes of community and economic development (hodges & dubb, 2012; initiative for competitive inner cities, 2011; rooney & gittleman, 2003; wittman & crews, 2012). academic engagement is composed of projects usually discussed under the label of community engagement or engaged scholarship (hodges & dubb, 2012). doberneck, glass, and schweitzer (2010) categorize academic engagement into four typologies: (a) service-learning, (b) engaged research, (c) consulting activities, and (d) commercialized research, which encompasses the activities discussed above such as technology © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25242 | september 9, 2021 96 transfer. while academic engagement can be more difficult to coordinate and target to specific neighborhoods due to the reliance on individual faculty-community partnerships, it can be extraordinarily cost effective compared to other anchor institution initiatives (hodges & dubb, 2012). large public universities, particularly land-grants, tend to emphasize this type of engagement, but targeted anchor institution initiatives at schools such as penn or syracuse university use academic engagement to supplement larger projects leveraging financial or physical capital (hodges & dubb, 2012). for example, syracuse university led an anchor institution initiative called the near westside initiative to develop a neighborhood near the university. a substantial portion of the initiative involved buying and renovating vacant homes and warehouses, but more than 350 students also participated in the initiative through servicelearning courses that focused on various aspects of the neighborhood such as designing parks, fundraising for local projects, or identifying potential homes to receive mini-grants from the university (ceos for cities with living cities, 2010). table 3. initiatives leveraging intellectual capital. university city description california state university, monterey bay salinas, ca • student-run garden clark university worcester, ma • biotech incubator georgetown university washington, d.c. • high school courses taught by georgetown law students • free clinic for uninsured families run by med students indiana university-purdue university at indianapolis indianapolis, in • service-learning • faculty engagement loyola university chicago chicago, il • service-learning rutgers university newark newark, nj • start-up incubator san jose state university san jose, ca • service-learning for greenways syracuse university syracuse, ny • service-learning and engaged research in targeted areas the university of utah salt lake city, ut • community engaged scholarship university of louisville louisville, ky • placing student teachers in targeted schools • small business counseling and consulting • youth violence prevent research center • arts and cultural research university of pennsylvania philadelphia, pa • service-learning • engaged research © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25242 | september 9, 2021 97 university of san diego linda vista, ca • community engagement center focused on the linda vista neighborhood wayne state university detroit, mi • business consulting human capital universities invest their own financial, physical, and intellectual capital in anchor institution initiatives for local economic development. universities also invest various resources in local communities’ human capital to achieve the same ends. such investments can include partnerships with health organizations, support for local k-12 school systems, prioritizing local applicants in hiring decisions, crime reduction, or offering public events to foster cultural vitality (appleseed, 2003; hodges & dubb, 2012; initiative for competitive inner cities, 2011; maurrasse, 2007; rooney & gittleman, 2003; webber & karlström, 2009; wittman & crews, 2012). many universities have partnerships with local health organizations or schools, and some even have their own hospitals, clinics, or charter schools (hodges & dubb, 2012). for example, north carolina state university created a community counseling center in 2015, housed in a location off-campus to be more accessible to community members (grimmett, lupton-smith, beckwith, englert, & messinger, 2018). whereas health and k-12 partnerships, local hiring, and cultural events are directly tied to specific actions, crime reduction is often more difficult to achieve for universities, but improved lighting or partnerships between municipal police and campus police are steps taken by universities in the past (etienne, 2012). there are other examples of initiatives to improve human capital in surrounding neighborhoods, but these are the most commonly cited in the anchor literature. table 4. initiatives leveraging human capital. university city description california state university, monterey bay salinas, ca • community learning center case western reserve university cleveland, oh • art and tech after-school activities • job training clark university worcester, ma • 4-year scholarships for residents georgetown university washington, d.c. • tutoring programs • college prep programs • mobile health clinics indiana university-purdue university at indianapolis indianapolis, in • school partnerships metropolitan state university st. paul, mn • education pipelines © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25242 | september 9, 2021 98 rutgers university – newark newark, nj • new high school in a science park san francisco state university san francisco, ca • training and employment center • literacy and writing workshops for children the university of utah salt lake city, ut • education pipelines • community leadership programs trinity college hartford, ct • new community centers, a police substation, and a magnet school university of cincinnati cincinnati, oh • education and healthcare partnerships university of louisville louisville, ky • early child development center • high school partnered with law school • college enrollment programs • parental involvement programs • teen pregnancy prevention programs university of pennsylvania philadelphia, pa • new charter school • expanded university police beyond campus university of san francisco san francisco, ca • literacy programs • transitional programming for youth moving into full-time employment virginia commonwealth university richmond • neighborhood policing • health programs • new elementary school wayne state university detroit, mi • community leadership fellowships xavier university new orleans, la • beautification and public safety partnerships future of anchor institution literature the futures of anchor institution initiatives are far from certain. the title of hodges’ and dubb’s (2012) book is the road half traveled, referring in part to the lack of systematic assessment or sharing of best practices that accompanies other trends in higher education. rutheiser (2012) responded to the book by saying the title was likely overly optimistic, extending the metaphor to claim, “the road ahead exists only as dotted lines on a map charting multiple possible rights of ways” (para. 6). given the complex political economy of universities and cities, rutheiser’s assessment is apt, and it begins to hint at the larger question advocates of university-led urban development must face: are anchor institution initiatives appropriate strategies for democratizing economies (iuviene, stitely, & hoyt, 2010)? © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25242 | september 9, 2021 99 the answer may be more complicated than most anchor literature assumes. morris et al. (2010) are wary of the domineering political and economic influence anchor institutions hold in their cities, and walker and east (2018) are explicitly skeptical anchor institution initiatives are building local capacity as opposed to contributing to gentrification processes. the reality is very little work to date attempts to distinguish whether increases in neighborhood vitality measures are due to improvements in community members’ lives or because community members were replaced by higher income residents. these potential gentrification processes occur at a time when universities and coalitions are searching for ways to assess their impact (democracy collaborative, 2018). as universities develop assessment tools and design anchor institution initiatives, evidence on the effects of prior initiatives on neighborhood change is vital to inform future, equitable development efforts. the typology created here can help frame and guide future studies, identifying which strategies are effective at building local wealth in equitable, sustainable ways. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25242 | september 9, 2021 100 references ahlfeldt, g. & maennig, w. 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(2016). gentrification in three paradoxes. city & community, 15(3), 202 – 207. https://doi.org/10.1111/cico.12184 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f0042098008097108 https://doi.org/10.1068%2fa38476 https://doi.org/10.3390/soc8040106 https://doi.org/10.18060/22342 https://doi.org/10.1080/01944360903490923 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.respol.2006.01.005 https://doi.org/10.1111%2fcico.12184 paul garton1 anchor institutions and economic development original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/27426 | july 2, 2023 1 the essential role of urban and metropolitan universities: an introduction to this special issue rochelle smarr1 and chris nayve2 1 director of experiential learning, university of san diego, 2 associate vice president for community engagement and anchor initiatives, university of san diego cite as: smarr, r. & nayve, c. (2023). the essential role of urban and metropolitan universities: an introduction to this special issue. metropolitan universities, 34(3), 1-4. doi: 10.18060/27426 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. guest editors: rochelle smarr, ed.d. and chris nayve, j.d. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. introduction the 27th annual cumu conference held in san diego, california, in october 2022 was the first in-person conference convened by cumu since the 2019 conference held in philadelphia, pennsylvania. while plans for the 2020 cumu conference in san diego began in 2018, it became clear by the summer of 2020 that the pandemic would not be temporary. adapting to the rapidly evolving social context unfolding in real time requires us to pay close attention. from enduring a global pandemic to witnessing unremitting accounts of racial and systemic inequity as well as an insurrection at the united states capitol–a place once considered an impenetrable symbol of democracy–it became abundantly clear that context must inform content. the global challenges of the past several years created significant headwinds for academic institutions and their community partners. however, the gathering in san diego for the 27th cumu conference reminded us that scholars, students, administrators, and community partners have been building the collective knowledge and practices that best serve society during tumultuous moments for over two decades. the 2022 cumu conference focused on “the essential role of urban and metropolitan universities,” emphasizing how institutions of higher education can ensure a recovery grounded in community, equity, and innovation. not only did the broader conversation of this conference inspire a robust exchange of ideas and visions, it all took place within the geographical boundaries of the san diego/mexico border region situated on the traditional and unceded territories of the kumeyaay, luiseno, cahuilla, cupeno, and northern diegueño. the cumu planning team, along with the conference co-hosts and co-editors, were delighted with the enthusiastic response and willingness of colleagues yearning to gather, learn, and nurture important relationships after years of being unable to gather in person. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/27426 | july 2, 2023 2 the work featured in this issue is thought-provoking and timely starting with how the global pandemic demonstrated the interconnected nature of health and economic ecosystems. unprecedented quarantine orders forced local businesses to shutter, with many never to re-open. the pandemic brought the world to the brink of an economic catastrophe. in collective vision: promoting leadership, partnership, and opportunities to improve health in greater hazelwood, take the economic lessons from a region in the northeast of the united states and detail the role of a faith-based university as an anchor institution. the authors provide a blueprint for leveraging the power of collective action through the efforts of residents, philanthropy, health centers, schools, universities, and community-based organizations committed to accessible and comprehensive quality healthcare. launched just before the pandemic, their collective and community-driven health model is vital in addressing community-identified health priorities, neighborhood health outcomes, and health equity issues. promise parent leadership academy and clemente veterans’ initiative newark: two hyperlocal, anchor institution initiatives to engage the urban community illustrates how large public universities with an anchor mission can intentionally work in a collaborative ecosystem with civic associations and community leaders. through co-creation, intentional design, evaluation, and assessment, the authors illuminate the multiplier effect that anchor institutions and civic associations can have to improve lives and communities. it is important to note that the co-creative framework presented in the article is collective and not hierarchical and that “walking the anchor mission walk sets an example for other universities to be ‘of’ and not merely ‘in’ their cities.” (anderson 2023-page 24 or submision) (not propert citation format but wanted you to know where to draw from) the cumu conference is well known for featuring scholars, administrators, and practitioners at the center of praxis in community engagement, anchor institutions, place-based community engagement, and social innovation. ofem’s article, leveraging university networks in university powered accelerators: best practices and lessons learned offers insights into the praxis of community engagement that cumu is known for featuring at our conferences. by integrating the notion of “collision density” and creative class theory to understand the effectiveness of urban economic development tools, such as accelerators and incubators, to facilitate entrepreneurship, ofem shares the lessons learned of a distinctive university-led incubator as a tool for innovation and equity. the authors of reimagining business education through university-community microenterprise collaborations illuminate how the transformation of a graduate business program can catalyze the evolution of business education. the authors review a partnership between an mba program and a community-based organization that resulted in co-creating a conceptual model that includes overlapping areas: critical reflection, relational paradigms, intersectionality, multilingual communication, and intercultural praxis. analyzing this conceptual model, the authors provide critical insights into how business schools can “reaffirm their commitment to their public purposes and the common good and to leverage their economic resources as anchor institutions.” the field of community engagement has robust scholarship on student learning outcomes measuring the impact of community based-learning on students' academic success, sense of © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/27426 | july 2, 2023 3 belonging, and professional development. however, the assessment and evaluation of universitycommunity partnerships is an emerging area of research by practitioners and scholars seeking to embed inclusive and equitable practices into their reciprocal relationships. the authors of toward a research and practice agenda for evaluation in community-campus partnerships offer a culminating piece centered on the ongoing conversation among cumu’s community engagement evaluation huddle. participants collectively identified six directions to approach campus-community partnership evaluation practices. the six frameworks are introduced through key questions and examples yet leave room for continued research on how best to invite community partners into the evaluation process and create a mutually beneficial assessment. from assessment to research, and program development, covering all of the bases in this work is, at times, a heavy task. many of us in the field of community engagement are multi-hyphenated leaders: scholars-practitioners-administrators-faculty-mentors-trailblazers. given the multiple formal and informal roles each of us can embody on any given day, one of the most influential roles is that of the scholar-administrator. often a faculty member is a contributing author in addition to managing the day-to-day management of community-engagement centers or departments. in addition to those roles, faculty members can also serve externally to secure donor funding and build meaningful local and international partnerships. the role of scholaradministrator is essential to anchor institutions maintaining their commitment to social responsibility, developing change leaders, and reciprocity in campus-community partnerships. to truly understand the layered essence of a scholar-administrator is to know one; dr. patrick green (loyola university chicago) embodies this role as indicated by being the 2022 barbara a. holland scholar-administrator award recipient. through a critical reflection on his experience as a practicing scholar-administrator in community engagement, green’s narrative provides an overview of where the field has been and where we must grow to meet the needs of all constituents: students, community, and university. in doing so, his acceptance speech turned essay provides a call to action for cumu members and community engagement practitioners to build on the momentum of lessons learned and shared at the conference and return to our institutions and neighborhoods with renewed vigor and commitment. over the course of 27 years, the cumu conference has been at the forefront of gathering the most forward-thinking scholars and practitioners representing every type of academic institution and community-based organization. as co-editors, we are grateful to the authors who have contributed their community-engaged knowledge and practices to this conference journal. a common thread in all the frameworks and models this journal shares is community-engaged work's collective and collaborative nature. each author demonstrated the importance of universities not simply being in the community but of the community. lastly, the co-editors would like to share our appreciation for everyone who attended, presented, and/or planned the 27th annual conference in san diego. it was powerful to be together in person again and experience the genuine emotions and energy that often does not translate in the virtual world. being together allowed participants to deeply experience the distinct gifts, expertise, and wisdom of our colleagues in the field. colleagues who role model how © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/27426 | july 2, 2023 4 collaborative and community-engaged scholarship and practice ensure that anchor institutions remain steadfast in their commitment to the public purposes of higher education. the essential role of urban and metropolitan universities: an introduction to this special issue rochelle smarr1 and chris nayve2 introduction original research © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24272 | february 15, 2021 54 integrating international exchange students into local service-learning projects in hong kong maureen yin lee chan1 and robin stanley snell2 1 department of curriculum and instruction, the education university of hong kong, 2 department of management, lingnan university cite as: chan, m.y.l., snell, r.s., (2021). integrating international exchange students into local service-learning projects in hong kong. metrpolitan universities, 32(1), 54-77. doi: 10.18060/24272 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract through qualitative research, which involved qualitative interviews and focus group meetings with members of four student teams, we identified a number of barriers to the development of cohesiveness in teams of local and international exchange (ie) students, who were undertaking service-learning (sl) together. lack of cohesiveness in such teams resulted in the psychological withdrawal of some of the ie students and appeared to reduce opportunities to derive developmental benefits. barriers to cohesiveness identified by the students included language, conflicting priorities, and east-west cultural differences. we also identified how students took action to remove the barriers to cohesiveness. these actions included conducting internal team meetings in english and arranging for local students to provide interpretation in meetings with community stakeholders. students reported that the major developmental benefits associated specifically with working cohesively in a cross-cultural team were improved english language skills, greater interpersonal adaptability, and appreciation of diversity. we offer practical suggestions about how educators can prepare local and ie students to work together effectively on sl projects and about further research. studies of projects undertaken by inter-cultural sl teams at host universities in other jurisdictions would facilitate the generalizability of the findings. keywords: cohesiveness, cultural differences, communication strategies, developmental outcomes https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24272 | february 15, 2021 55 introduction it has become a mainstream educational practice in tertiary education to arrange for students to undertake projects that involve applying academic knowledge to real-life situations beyond the classroom through experiential learning (dicecco et al., 2004; gilbert et al., 2014). such outside-the-classroom learning platforms include service-learning (sl), internships, and workintegrated learning, which typically aim to develop students’ practical and transferable skills (brail, 2016), along with international exchange (ie) programs, which seek to equip students for globalization (chak & makino, 2010; gallarza et al., 2017). both ie and sl programs have been identified as experiential learning platforms with high developmental impact. niehaus and crain (2013) observe that the prevalence of sl opportunities and ie experiences has increased, and that programs combining the two are no longer unusual. in this paper, we shall investigate students’ experience of sl projects that were undertaken by mixed teams of local and ie students. sl requires students to put academic knowledge into practice, along with contributing to community development through collaboration with one or more community service agencies. conway et al. (2009) recommend that educators increase their use of sl, and this view is supported by yorio and ye (2012), who found that sl has a positive effect both on students’ understanding of social issues and on their cognitive development. sl has also been found to give rise to a host of other positive developmental outcomes, including greater sensitivity, relationship and team skills, and self-awareness (conner & erickson, 2017; lau & snell, 2021; snell & lau, 2020; wilson, 2011). globalization has enabled a large number of students to leave their home countries to pursue higher education and has had a profound impact on higher education (chelliah et al., 2018). chak and makino (2010) regard ie programs as involving out-of-classroom experiential learning activities. during ie placements, students can develop communication skills experientially, through interpersonal contact with different yet similarly situated others, and such contact can have deep personal impact (san antonio & ofori-dwumfuo, 2015). engaging in sl in collaboration with local students might therefore appear to have potential to induce additional developmental impact for ie students. however, the quality of the team experience when undertaking sl projects, reflecting team cohesiveness, has a major impact on student development (falk, 2012; snell et al., 2015), but in cross-cultural contexts this may vary considerably, such that undertaking sl may not always be an effective platform for the development of ie students and their local counterparts. prior studies have focused on the role of leadership, culture, structure, and goal clarity in enhancing team cohesiveness (riordan & weatherly, 1999; wendt et al., 2009), but relatively little is known about how students’ behavior can facilitate or impede the development of cohesiveness in crosscultural contexts. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24272 | february 15, 2021 56 the research for this paper is motivated by the view that educators bear some responsibility for fostering cohesiveness within student teams (williams et al., 2006). it is based on interviews with local and ie students, who worked in four culturally mixed sl project teams based at a university in hong kong. we shall draw on intergroup contact theory (allport, 1954; ryan, 2016) as a framework for analyzing cross-cultural interactions in the context of sl. the paper addresses three research questions. first, what are the potential barriers to integrating ie students into sl project teams with local members? second, what are the processes that facilitate the development of inter-cultural cohesiveness within the teams? third, what are the potential benefits arising from inter-cultural team cohesiveness in the context of sl? based on the findings, we shall identify theoretical contributions and suggest practical steps for developing cohesiveness among culturally mixed teams in the context of sl. literature review team cohesiveness and its importance in sl team cohesiveness is experienced as solidarity, harmony, energy, and mutual commitment among members (müceldili & erdil, 2015; quinn & dutton, 2005). it is reflected in members’ mutual attraction (williams et al., 2006) and in their desire to remain on the team (campion et al., 1993). it may be defined as the extent to which a team works in unity toward a common goal while also meeting the emotional needs of the members (carron & brawley, 2000). team cohesiveness may thus be construed as comprising the two dimensions of task cohesiveness and social cohesiveness, which converge when team members form attachment in order to achieve objectives (ötkan et al., 2017). cohesive student teams have strong potential to induce positive developmental outcomes (williams et al., 2006). we consider that team cohesiveness is an important success factor in sl, which unlike other kinds of team assignment requires members to meet frequently and do relatively more of the project work together, and relatively less of it individually as delegated parts. a quote at the beginning of the findings section will illustrate this point. in the context of sl, the nature of both within-team interactions and interactions between student teams and community stakeholders are important processes that govern whether team cohesiveness is achieved. potential barriers to cohesiveness various cross-cultural and other contextual barriers can impede the development of effective team relationships between ie students and local students (barna, 1997; jang & kim, 2010; sato & hodge, 2013; yakuina et al., 2013). we shall identify four domains where barriers may arise. cultural preferences. differences in cultural values and failure to appreciate such differences, may impede ie students’ ability to establish relationships with local students (barna, 1997; wen et al., 2018). studies by hofstede (2001, 2005) have indicated that the majority of cultures © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24272 | february 15, 2021 57 characterized as western, such as those in the united states, western europe, new zealand, and australia, tend toward individualism, whereas most cultures in east asia, africa, and latin america tend toward collectivism. in hong kong, collectivism prevails as a cultural norm (triandis et al.,1988), while many ie students come from western cultures. lefebvre and franke (2013) characterize the core elements of individualism as independence and uniqueness, versus those of collectivism as duty and in-group orientation. individualists tend to focus more on individual responsibility, assertiveness, and competitiveness, whereas collectivists are more inclined to seek advice from others, engage in relationship-building, strive to maintain harmony within the group, and respond to group pressure (lefebvre & franke, 2013). individualists tend to value pleasure, achievement, competition, and autonomy, while collectivists prefer to emphasize security and obedience, and selectively strive to maintain cohesion within those groups with which they identify (nibler & harris, 2003). failure to appreciate differences in cultural value preferences may constitute a barrier to the development of cohesiveness within internationally diverse student teams. language barriers. language barriers constitute another potential barrier to the development of cohesiveness in cross-cultural student teams (barna, 1997; keles, 2013; wen et al., 2018). lack of proficiency among group members in a common language medium is generally acknowledged to impede the development of team involvement and group trust (lagerstrom & andersson, 2003; lauring & selmer, 2010), but appropriate communication strategies may overcome this barrier. contact relationships. empirical studies have demonstrated a tendency for ie students to socialize and develop friendships with one another rather than with local students (brooks et al., 2015; fincher & shaw, 2009; tian, 2019; waters & brooks, 2011). ryan (2016, p.16) infers from the research of ladegaard (2015) that the mere presence of different cultural groups of students on campuses does not naturally lead to positive intercultural interactions with local students but rather that a positive context for such interactions needs to be created by university administrators and instructors. tian (2019) notes that although support by university authorities through policies, regulations, and organizational arrangements to increase the diversity and interaction among students can help to foster cross-cultural friendships, segregation can prevail. in addition, prejudice, stereotyping, and ethnocentricity may impede the development of positive contact relationships within groups characterized by diversity (barna, 1997; hodson & dhont, 2015; keles, 2013). according to intergroup contact theory, while favorable contact leads to cooperation and reduced prejudice, unfavorable contact results in increased tension and hostility (tian, 2019). allport (1954) stipulated four conditions that are needed to be met in order for prejudice to be reduced under increased contact between members of different (cultural) groups: (1) authority support, (2) equal status of the groups in the situation, (3) intergroup cooperation (i.e. working together in a team), and (4) common goals. in the context of sl, the likelihood of favorable contact and cooperation is increased by the adoption of high-quality instructional © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24272 | february 15, 2021 58 methods, and by strong, supportive relationships with site-supervisors or partner organization representatives (pors) (batchelder & root, 1994; conner & erickson, 2017) and potentially, if appropriate actions are taken within cross-cultural teams. intergroup contact potentially increases empathy if members are willing and are able to assume the perspective of the outgroup (pettigrew, 2008). personality factors. when going overseas for study and entering the host environment, ie students are sojourners who may experience culture shock (mckinlay et al, 1996), struggling to adapt to the strange people, tasks, and situations of an unfamiliar culture (kim, 2001; pitts, 2009). in addition to suffering culture shock, an individual ie student may have personality characteristics such as shyness that are relatively socially unattractive to other members, and as a result may experience reduced access to communication within the team, and may even come to be excluded from team discussions (jehn et al., 1999; lauring & selmer, 2010). this phenomenon, besides adversely affecting the marginalized member, may also be a source of discomfort and inconvenience to the other members. methodology background the host university had launched an ie program in the early 2000s. a core component of the program was that undergraduates could choose to undertake studies for one semester at a partner university overseas, while on a reciprocal basis, partner universities arranged for their own degree-seeking students to study at the host university for one semester. by the time of data collection for the current study, the ie program had become popular among local students, such that more than half of them chose to join the program at some point in their studies, while during a given semester there were similar numbers of outgoing and incoming ie students. the host university had begun offering semester long credit-bearing sl courses for undergraduates in the mid 2000s, and like the ie program, this had also become popular among local students, the majority of whom were taking at least one credit-bearing sl course before graduation. as with all undergraduate courses at the host university, the sl courses were open to attendance by incoming ie students, so long as the latter met the stipulated academic prerequisites, if there were any. the current research focuses on students’ experiences on two sl courses, social marketing and leadership and teamwork. the aim of the social marketing course was to equip students with concepts, tools, and strategies of marketing to address selected social issues, while fostering in them a sense of self-responsibility and a desire to care for those around them. each student was required to attend lectures and participate in class discussions, and to conduct an individual project as well as participate in a team-based sl project. the aim of the leadership and © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24272 | february 15, 2021 59 teamwork course was to enable students to learn the skills of communicating effectively in teams, of assuming leadership roles in team activities, and of building effective teams. besides attending lectures and participating in class discussions, debates, games, and experiential exercises, each student was required to participate in a team-based sl project and to write a case study essay based on material distributed by the instructor. both courses tended to attract significant numbers of ie students, possibly because there were no academic prerequisites for them. the respective instructors, both of whom had prior experience of teaching their respective courses, arranged for some of the project teams to be composed of a mixture of local and ie students. as was standard practice at the host university, the various service-learning projects on both courses were arranged by the university’s office of servicelearning (osl) in cooperation with representatives from the respective community organizations, i.e., pors. the following standard practices were also adopted. on both courses, at the beginning of the semester students received briefings in class by a staff member of the osl and a teaching assistant (a student with prior experience of undertaking sl) about the nature, purposes, and developmental goals of sl, and about the various administrative procedures required for registering for the sl component of the course requirements and for receiving official recognition for completing this component. the pors also visited the class to provide background information about the mission and activities of their respective organizations, and the nature and aims of the projects. in addition, the osl arranged a special training workshop lasting three hours with breakout sessions to introduce students to the special needs of different groups of direct service recipients and to prepare students for contact with them. for the students on the social marketing course, this workshop also introduced students to various teamwork skills. however, special training on working in cross-cultural teams was not provided to students on either course. each project team had two or three meetings with their por during the semester to discuss their plans and review their progress. data collection our research was inductive and qualitative (creswell, 1998). data were collected by the first author and a project assistant at the host university at the end of the fall semester of academic year 2013-14. depending on their availability, students volunteering to participate in the research participated in either a focus group (greenbaum, 1998) or in a semi-structured individual interview (kvale, 1996). each of these events lasted around 1 hour and 30 minutes, and followed a critical incident protocol (bitner et al., 1990), which encouraged storytelling (boje, 2001). the focus groups comprised either local students or ie students. the interviews and focus groups were conducted in cantonese with the local students, and in english with the ie students. topics comprised: (a) how students came to understand the service needs of service recipients/host organizations, (b) the challenges and learning experiences associated with team diversity during the project, (c) interpersonal relationship development during the project, (d) developmental outcomes specifically associated with cross-cultural team working, and (e) ideas for the © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24272 | february 15, 2021 60 improvement of sl project preparation and support arrangements for teams comprising both ie and local students. informants and their teams. a total of 9 local students (3 males, 6 females) and 7 ie students (4 males, 3 females) were interviewed. they participated in four teams conducting sl projects, with each team comprising a mixture of local and ie students. table 1 lists the informants, along with the respective home country of each of the ie students, all of whom came from the west. table 1. list of informants from the four sl project teams teams local students ie students (and country) team 1 m18l m19l m20e, france m21e, sweden team 2 f24l f25l m22e, germany m23e, germany team 3 f2l f3l f1e, usa f4e, portugal team 4 m10l f11l f12l f9e, france codename composition: f = female; m = male; l = local; e = ie. team 1 comprised four local and three ie students, who had studied the leadership and teamwork course. four male members of this team, among whom two were local students and two were ie students, participated in the research. the participating ie students were from france and sweden respectively. team 1 had served an organic farm, managed by a small team of social workers and staffed by recovering psychiatric patients, who were working as ecotour guides for members of the public. the sl project had required team 1 to design a set of social games that could be operated by the ecotour guides as part of the program for visitors to the farm. team 1 had also organized a training workshop for the ecotour guides to learn how to operate the games. team 2 comprised four local and two ie students, who had studied the leadership and teamwork course. two female local students, along with the two ie students, both german males, participated in the research. team 2 had served a group of elderly people by providing training workshops for them. the aim of the workshops was to enhance the leadership and teamwork skills of the elderly people and thereby improving the quality of the committee work that the latter were undertaking for a community-based education institute. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24272 | february 15, 2021 61 team 3 comprised five local students and two ie students, who had studied the social marketing course. two female local students and the two ie students, also female, who were from the usa and portugal respectively, participated in the research. team 3 had served groups of primary school students by running two anti-crime promotion workshops, featuring kung fu dance and a drama, on behalf of the community relations department of the local police force. members of team 3 had been taught the dance by some elderly people, who had also supported team 3 in the delivery of the workshops. team 4 comprised six local students and one female ie student, who had studied the social marketing course. one male local student, two female local students, and the one ie student, who came from france, participated in the research. on behalf of the hong kong government’s social welfare department, team 4 had promoted volunteerism to students at a secondary school by means of a video, posters, leaflets, and booths. they had been supported in this endeavor by a selected group of senior secondary students. procedures for data analysis the interviews and focus groups were recorded and then transcribed in english by the first author. we then adopted a form of thematic analysis (terry et el., 2017), which was experientially oriented, focusing on the thoughts, feelings, and reported actions of the students. our basic approach to coding and theme development was qualitative and flexible (braun & clarke, 2006), working bottom-up from the data rather than emphasizing coding reliability. initial codes were developed by the first author. in addition to a theme regarding the relative presence or absence of cross-cultural cohesiveness, three themes corresponding to what emerged as the three research questions were eventually established after revisiting the data and codes several times during extensive discussions and reviews with the second author until consensus was reached. the first theme comprised perceived barriers to the development of cross-cultural cohesiveness. the second included the processes that contributed to the development of crosscultural cohesiveness. the third comprised the perceived beneficial outcomes for students specifically associated with cross-cultural cohesiveness. we analyzed the different perspectives of local and ie students concerning these themes. findings one of the students interviewed in the research pointed out the importance of cohesive teamwork in the context of service-learning: [doing sl] is different from taking a course which requires [traditional] team assignments. for team assignments, we can just divide up an assignment into different parts, and with appropriate allocation of assignment parts to each member, we can then do the parts on our © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24272 | february 15, 2021 62 own. but for an sl project, we really need to come together to have discussions and to express our opinions. [f24l, team 2]. it appeared that as the semester progressed, a sense of cohesiveness among ie and local students developed in teams 2 and 3, and to some extent also in team 1. one positive indication was that many local and ie students mentioned that they intended to meet one another in the future outside hong kong. other indications of cohesiveness included the following: we had a lot of fun. they [local students] really opened up … i think we are good friends now. they really appreciate the time they had with us. [m23e, germany, team 2]. our team fitted very well together as our personalities were complementary with each other. some were quieter, and some were more outgoing. each of us had the chance to express our ideas … i am very lucky that we got an awesome team. [f1e, usa, team 3]. the two [ie] students were willing to share ideas … we all contributed to the development of this project. the feeling was good … every member would contribute. [f3l, team 3]. the people from this team were open and they were not shy but would speak and laugh with us, ask us questions, trying to make conversation. between us there were not a lot of differences. [f4e, portugal, team 3]. in team 4, however, cross-cultural cohesiveness was not achieved as the ie student failed to engage in most parts of the sl project. i felt that i didn’t participate a lot in the project, i couldn’t get involved as much as them [local students]. they were giving me almost nothing to do. it wasn’t a good thing. you should give equal work to everyone involved ... i said give me more, i can do it, but no … i regret that i didn’t work a lot with the local students, a bit sad. [f9e, france, team 4]. perceived barriers to cross-cultural cohesiveness while team 4 was the only one that had failed to achieve cross-cultural cohesiveness, students in all four teams identified barriers to cohesiveness. these comprised (1) competing priorities, (2) cultural differences, (3) lack of socialization for the ie students into common practices at the host university, (4) concern among local students that they bore an extra burden and (5) language barriers. these perceived barriers are explained and illustrated below. competing priorities. some local students perceived that, compared with themselves, the ie students emphasized extra-curricular concerns and had assigned a relatively lower priority to their sl projects. there were two associated differences in the circumstances of local students and ie students. first, grades had a material impact on the grade point average (gpa) scores of the local students but not for the ie students. second, local students perceived that the ie © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24272 | february 15, 2021 63 students regarded a semester-long sojourn in hong kong as an opportunity for socializing and touring. for example: local students would finish their projects first before they would arrange social life. the [ie] students would insist on having social life every night. they had many more social activities than us ... friday nights are party time for them, and they are not willing to have meetings then. we locals always have meetings for project discussion from 2 pm to 8 pm during weekends. but the [ie] students insisted not to come. [m19l, team 1]. comments by the ie students did not contradict such perceptions, and suggested that because of their different priorities, the ie students were relatively less readily available to join meetings of their respective project teams. for example: it is my first time coming to hong kong. in hong kong, it is convenient for me to travel to other asian countries, e.g. china, and it is my first time in asia. [f9e, france, team 4]. cultural differences. local students perceived that cultural differences vis-à-vis ie students along the individualism-collectivism dimension, compounded by competing priorities in scheduling their team meetings, had posed a challenge to developing team cohesiveness. for example: among mainland [china] and local students, if three out of the five members agree to something, due to the team pressure, the remaining two members will accept the opinions … foreign people are different. the [ie] students will insist on their own views. for example, even if four members (locals) agree to have meetings during saturdays, one of the ie students is not willing to make a change. [m19l, team 1]. lack of socialization into common practices at the host university. some students identified instances where ie students found practices commonly adopted at the host university unacceptable. for example, one local student appeared to have been taken aback by the negative reactions of two german students in her team regarding the use of drawings as a means of representing ideas and reflections: during the class, the [ie] students did not like drawing on large flip chart paper to represent our progress to the whole class. these two german students thought that this was a childish activity. we [local students] found that it was a convenient way to bring out our ideas. they [the ie students] thought that as university students we should just use words. [f24l, team 2]. another difference concerned ie students’ insistence on holding meetings during standard working day hours as opposed to local students’ common habit of working long into the night. the local students stay up late a lot doing their homework. i don’t know whether they are procrastinating, or whether they do not want to do their work during the day. during my © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24272 | february 15, 2021 64 project work with the students here, some looked tired and they mentioned doing project work until 4 am. in my home country, i went to sleep at around 10 pm. we think that it is not worth being tired tomorrow. we do more work during the day. i usually had my part done early and i urged them [local students] to have earlier meetings. i could do my part early, but they could only do their parts at the last minute and had their own stress. [f1e, usa, team 3]. concern among local students about bearing an extra burden. comments indicated that there was some reluctance among local students to work with ie students students because of the assumed extra effort entailed by the presence of the latter. it may be that they [locals] are more relaxed when they work with other locals. but with us [ie students], not everyone speaks english easily and they [locals] have to try even harder. [m21e, sweden, team 1]. when forming teams, we [local students] wanted only local students as teammates. this was because our service targets were local school students and we assumed that the [ie] students would not be familiar with the local culture and would make things more difficult for the team. [f3l, team 3]. when i discovered that she [an ie student] came from france ... i assumed that she would act in a more relaxed, slow manner … they may be lazier at work … so i was a bit worried at the beginning. [f11l, team 4]. language barriers. ie students emphasized that there were language barriers to their own integration into their respective teams, reflecting their inability to communicate in cantonese. ironically, some ie students reported that they had chosen hong kong as the place for their exchange because they had assumed that english is widely spoken in hong kong. for example: i had chosen to come to hong kong because i thought people here speak english like they do in singapore. [m20e, france, team 1]. our home university told us that everyone speaks english here in hong kong. [f1e, usa, team 3]. some ie students found it unfortunate that they had targeted an english medium host university for their exchange program but had discovered that local students were reluctant to speak english and that many people from the wider community could not speak english. their comments included the following: not many people speak english here, for example none of the security guards speaks english. i wish my home university could have taught us cantonese before we came here. [f1e, usa, team 3]. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24272 | february 15, 2021 65 the language barrier was especially salient in the context of those sl projects, which required collaboration with locally based external stakeholders who did not speak english. for example: i don’t speak cantonese and when i met with the police, i found that one of the officers did not speak english very well. when my teammates were discussing statistics [in cantonese], i just sat there. and the elderly [service recipients] didn’t speak english very well. that was hard. [f1e, team 3, usa]. the [por] spoke to us in cantonese, and after this orientation meeting, which overran, one ie student asked not to get involved the next time. this member did not show up at the next meeting. the other two ie students joined three out of the six meetings. [m19l, team 1]. a local student mentioned that older members of the local community overwhelmingly preferred to communicate in cantonese rather than in english: only two or three elderly people could understand simple english. most did not understand english. our communication language was mainly cantonese. therefore, the two exchange students did not understand what we were talking about, including the feedback from the elderly people. [f24l, team 2]. although english is the formal medium of instruction at the host university, several informants reported that their local team members initially failed to respond to the ie students’ need for them to speak in english and preferred either to continue speaking in cantonese or to curtail their own contributions. for example: if several times i hadn’t expressed myself well [in english], i preferred to keep silent. at several meetings, i was relatively quiet and would only talk when called upon. i would not initiate to express my opinions actively. [m19l, team 1]. i dislike talking in english and have a fear of speaking english. we [locals] were worried about conversing [with the ie students]. [f24l, team 2]. all meetings were in cantonese and i did not understand the reason why they could not do it in english … from the beginning, most important ideas and decisions were taken in cantonese. [f9e, france, team 4]. some local students mentioned that it was difficult for them to understand the spoken english of the ie students from non-anglo countries because of their distinctive accents. for example: we discovered that we had very different accents. at first, we could not understand the spoken english between us. therefore, communication became a serious issue. [m19l, team 1]. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24272 | february 15, 2021 66 overcoming the barriers local students adopted various methods for overcoming interpersonal barriers vis-à-vis the ie students. these included (a) appreciating the strengths of the ie students, (b) holding premeetings, (c) reaching out to ie students and inviting them to engage, (d) conducting team meetings entirely in english, (e) finding non-verbal roles for the ie students during episodes of direct service, and (f) providing simultaneous interpretation during direct service. ie students contributed to the development of cohesiveness by (a) exercising forbearance and good humor, (b) joining in using electronic media, and (c) compromising when scheduling meetings. these various approaches are illustrated below. appreciating the strengths of ie students. we list two comments, one indicating appreciation for ie students’ perceived creativity, the other appreciating their perceived proactivity and citizenship behavior: if the instructor assigns us a topic to work on, we chinese will focus narrowly on that topic, while ie students will go beyond the frame. if asked for any new methods, chinese will stick with obvious solutions, whereas ie students will think of new methods. [m19l, team 1]. they [ie students] took initiative to express their views about what actions they would take, and they would not wait for us to assign tasks to them. they were nice when we communicated. they were responsible and punctual. they came on time for meetings; we didn’t need to urge and remind them. they would respect the deadlines. we were very lucky. [f25l, team 2]. holding pre-meetings. local students in one team initially sought to overcome the language barrier by holding separate meetings with local students prior to meetings of the whole team: we local students had our own sub-group meeting first before we talked to the [ie] students. there were more things to do when we worked with them. sometimes, we needed to explain several times before they could understand. [l25, team 2]. reaching out to ie students and inviting them to engage. a local student explained that she and the other local students in her team realized that unless they deliberately drew the ie students into team discussions, the latter would continue to engage in withdrawal behavior: we needed to initiate to speak to them [the ie students] to encourage them to work with us. we understood that in a strange and new environment, the [ie] students will tend to gather together. if we had not taken the initiative, it would have been more difficult to cooperate together in our project work. [f2l, team 3]. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24272 | february 15, 2021 67 conducting team meetings entirely in english. in three teams (teams 1-3), those local students, who were initially reluctant to communicate in english during team meetings, eventually joined their peers in doing so. illustrative comments were: i suggested to team members that it would be better for everyone to use english to communicate as we were an international team … in the beginning, the female members did not want to speak in english. i encouraged them to speak more. [eventually]… they improved and became more willing to speak more in english. [m18l, team 1]. when we lapsed into using chinese again sometimes, [m18l] would remind us not to do so. another two local female members and i would sometimes forget to write in english. with prompt reminders by [m18l], we would rewrite again promptly in english. [m19l, team 1]. at first, one of the team members spoke some chinese. we reminded this person to speak more english and eventually we were all speaking english. [f2l, team 3]. finding non-verbal roles for the ie students during direct service. a local student explained: [during the service delivery], the ie students did not need to speak but they could mime the actions to be taken and they were willing to take up this role. [m18l, team 1]. providing simultaneous interpretation during direct service. in at least one team, local students provided simultaneous interpretation during meetings with service recipients: we do not speak cantonese and we had to make our presentation [to elderly people] in english. the female local students had to serve as interpreters. we made powerpoint presentation slides in english for the elderly and the female students translated them into chinese. [m23e, germany, team 2]. the service was not hard for us to deliver, and the elderly people were really nice. we had conversations with them. [m22e, germany, team 2]. we [local students] found that we could perform a translation role effectively between the ie students and the elderly people. we were able to translate clearly as those, who did not understand english could follow us. the elderly people were excited to meet the [ie] students. they said, ‘oh! foreign people! very handsome!’ … those, who could speak english went to speak to them [ie students] in english during the break for a long time and we did not need to translate for them. we even took a video of their conversations. they talked very happily. during the last two workshops, the handouts were bi-lingual. [f24l, team 2]. forbearance and good humor. some ie students were described as having contributed to the building of cohesiveness by being sensitive to local students’ difficulties with spoken english © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24272 | february 15, 2021 68 and being patient and good-humored in trying to ensure that everyone could understand them and feel at ease with them. for example: with local students, i speak more carefully. otherwise you can say something that can offend someone because they misunderstand something you say and something like that. [m20e, france, team 1]. in sweden, i would be more aggressive as you can communicate easier. but here, i try to be more collaborative and be more open. it is a different culture, and everything is different. when you ask locals “what do you think?” they don’t like to respond so much. maybe they don’t know or maybe they don’t want to share their ideas. you really have to persuade them really much to get some answers. [m21e, sweden, team 1]. we would make some jokes, so the whole atmosphere was good. casual and fearless and so on. we showed the local students that we are normal people and don’t harm anyone …we tried to show our best side. [m23e, germany, team 2]. the two exchange students were funny and nice. we gradually came to talk to each other on topics not associated with the project. we would make friendly jokes and also played together. the atmosphere was harmonious. [f24l, team 2]. eventually we found that they [ie students] were nice. we [local students] started to talk more with them and established better relationships. with better relationships, we talked even more. [f25l, team 2]. they [ie students] also worked hard to cooperate with us …we also chatted sometimes about the places that they had visited. they shared photos and we had leisure time together and so the feeling towards them changed. [f3l, team 3]. i tried to slow down the conversation and saw whether they [local students] understood or not. if they didn’t, i tried to explain with simpler words, or asked others to help. [f4e, portugal, team 3]. joining in using electronic media. one ie student mentioned the following: we could communicate in english through facebook and whatsapp. communication was quite good. [m20e, france, team, 1]. compromising on the scheduling of meetings. a typical comment was: the ie students came to accept having meetings after 8:00 p.m. during the week. this was already their maximum adjustment …but they still could not accept having project meetings during weekends. we gave way to them about that. [m19l, team 1]. developmental outcomes associated with cross-cultural cohesiveness © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24272 | february 15, 2021 69 in the three teams where the students had recognized the importance of overcoming barriers to cohesiveness and had apparently overcome them or had made progress in overcoming them, the main developmental outcomes associated with cross-cultural team experience that they reported were improved english, interpersonal adaptability, and appreciation of diversity. improved english. local and ie students (from non-anglo countries) alike reported that their english had improved. for example: now, after more practice in using english to speak to them [ie students], my confidence has increased. in the past, when making presentations, i needed to read out the script. however, during my presentation yesterday, i did not use a script. this is the biggest improvement for me during this semester. [m19l, team 1]. i rarely speak english with anyone in my home country, and so here i have been able to improve my english. i speak english more fluently now than before. [m21e, sweden, team 1]. yes. i have improved my language. since i often talked with the exchange students, my english has improved a lot. [f24l, team 2]. i improved my english a lot here also. [f4e, portugal, team 3]. interpersonal adaptability and appreciation of diversity. in teams 1, 2, and 3, once the ie students had developed a more complete understanding of the service needs and service context associated with their respective sl projects, they could work more effectively with the local students to address shared project objectives. mutual project engagement enabled local and ie students alike to appreciate the insights arising from cross-cultural sharing, decision-making, and problem solving: i benefited from the experience here working with people from a different culture with different working styles and different attributions and everything, and so i learned to adapt even with people not of my style. [m21e, team 1]. after this experience, [i realize that] it is helpful working with [ie] students. we can widen our knowledge horizon through our diversity and different ideas. [f24l, team 2]. i think they [local students] are also much more open-minded. they were so shy in the beginning … they were not good english speakers, but we also were not that self-confident at the beginning. i think nowadays they have no problems to talk to us. no problem. this team was very good. [m22e, germany, team 2]. for us, it is more important to share our cultural experiences. also, we came here to see the hong kong culture, the chinese culture, so it is really nice to talk to them [local students]. [m23e, germany, team 2]. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24272 | february 15, 2021 70 discussion and contributions we found that although language proficiency gaps constituted a major barrier to the development of cross-cultural cohesiveness, these gaps could be offset by adopting appropriate communication strategies within the teams. these findings are comparable with those of imamura et al. (2016), who found that the inclusion of communication variables other than linguistic proficiency may provide a more conclusive picture of how intergroup contact theory works in an intercultural context. they further proposed that future studies should examine intergroup contact theory from the perspective of americans staying in east asian locations as well as east asians’ perceptions of americans staying there with the aim of extending the scope of the theory in an intercultural context. our research has focused on the intercultural experiences of students in hong kong from the perspective of both local students and ie students with an american among the latter. theoretical contributions we shall recap allport’s (1954) four conditions for prejudice reduction, which by implication would be conducive to the reduction of cross-cultural barriers and to the development of team cohesiveness among the local and ie students. these conditions are (1) authority support, (2) equal status, (3) intergroup cooperation, and (4) common goals. as explained next, while the university and/or the instructors sought to provide a supportive framework for these four conditions, the realization thereof depended on communicative initiatives and acts of reciprocation among the team members. regarding the first condition, by opening registration on sl courses to ie students, the university provided legitimation for the community involvement of ie students, but when the teams were working at the community sites, the pors, by speaking cantonese only, left it to the teams themselves to work out how to support the community involvement of the ie students. regarding condition two, by applying the same assignment and grading structure to local and ie students alike, the university may have assumed that both groups of students would be afforded equal status on the sl courses. in practice, however, the ability of the ie students to access project information, and to contribute to project decision making depended upon the willingness of the local students to adopt english as the medium for team discussion. regarding conditions three and four, by arranging for the teams to comprise a mixture of local and ie students, instructors created a framework for cooperation between the two subgroups in working toward common goals including satisfaction of community expectations regarding the sl projects. once again, the ability of ie students to cooperate with the local students depended on the latter’s willingness to communicate in english, while in addition, sustained cooperation depended on the ie students’ willingness to reciprocate by, for example, offering creative ideas, exercising forbearance and good humor, and compromising about the scheduling of meetings. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24272 | february 15, 2021 71 our study thus indicates that the reduction of cross-cultural barriers between local and ie students, and the developmental outcomes arising from team cohesiveness, depend on the emergence of mutual goodwill among the participants, in this case, students, through acts of initiative and reciprocation. practical implications cultural preferences. prior commentators have proposed some university level approaches for preparing ie students for engagement in cross-cultural project teams. almeida et al. (2016) suggested that ie students could be introduced to dimensions of cultural preferences, such as individualism vs collectivism, as a means for understanding potential sources of cross-cultural conflicts. sato and hodge (2015) suggested that ie students should be primed to reframe crosscultural stressors as opportunities for personal and professional growth. we believe that these measures would be constructively reinforced if they were adopted by both home and host universities as part of their programs for both outgoing and incoming ie students. contact relationships. we have some suggestions, based on our research, about building a foundation for high quality contact relationships within mixed sl teams. the host university could include information about the team-related obligations entailed by enrolling in an sl course in its briefing materials and induction programs. at the course level, we suggest that a team building session be provided by a supporting unit (e.g. office of service-learning) early in the semester to alert students to the importance of adopting and practicing skills of reaching out to, listening to, and resolving conflicts with peers. this arrangement may be especially important if teamwork is not the topic of the course. instructors are also advised continually to encourage students to recognize the potential benefits of cultural diversity as a resource for teams. language barriers. we recommend that instructors of sl courses remind students that if they are in cross-culturally mixed teams, it is vital to hold team meetings in a language medium that is well-understood by all team members, which typically would be english. instructors may also encourage local students in mixed teams to provide interpretation services for ie students when their team is interacting with service recipients who do not speak that language. host universities that offer sl courses could incorporate these ideas into their guidelines for instructors. alternatively, or in addition, host universities that offer programs in translation could find ways to arrange for students, who are majoring in translation to provide the necessary translation services as part of their own project work requirements. personality factors. we consider it important that prospective ie students are screened by the home university for their readiness to participate in an ie program. in addition, in view of the apparent marginalization of one of the ie students in our study, we suggest that at the course level, when forming sl teams with local and ie students, where possible it is advisable to avoid having only one ie student in a team, unless that student already appears to have strong © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24272 | february 15, 2021 72 intercultural skills. instructors of sl courses are also advised to monitor the team participation of their ie students and to provide advocational support if it appears that they are being marginalized during team discussions. limitations and further research this research was limited to two courses at a single host university site. there may be different findings with sl courses on other subjects at the same site and at other host universities in hong kong or elsewhere. studies of projects undertaken by inter-cultural sl teams on various courses at host universities in other jurisdictions would facilitate the generalizability of the findings. as the use of social media in education becomes more extensive, it would also be interesting to conduct further investigations into how the use of social media for communication within intercultural sl teams, and even for communication between such teams and their community stakeholders and end-beneficiaries, can facilitate or hinder the development of team cohesiveness. further studies of the development of cohesiveness in intercultural sl teams with differing proportions of local and ie students could also be conducted. longitudinal studies including the post-sojourner stage, covering the period when ie students have returned to their home countries, would reveal their perceptions of the long-term impact on their development of participating in intercultural sl teams with varying degrees of cohesiveness. instruments such as s-loms (lau & snell, 2021; snell & lau, 2020) could be used to compare the self-perceived developmental impact on students of conducting sl in teams comprised entirely of local students versus in intercultural teams. conclusion this study of four cross-cultural teams engaged in sl indicated that although informants identified various barriers to cross-cultural collaboration, in two teams these barriers were overcome, while some progress was made in developing cohesiveness between local and ie students in a third team. breaking down language-related barriers required extra effort from the local students and patience and good-humor on the part of the ie students. in addition, compromises were necessary regarding the arrangement of meeting times and the setting of deadlines for project contributions. resolving scheduling conflicts required team members to express their own needs and concerns openly as well as to appreciate the needs and concerns of others. in the three teams that had made progress in developing cross-cultural cohesiveness, it appeared that cross-cultural diversity became a source of inspiration and fruitful ideas. among members of these teams, ie and local students alike perceived their skills of english communication had been sharpened. some ie students felt that they had acquired deeper understanding of the local culture while some local students stated that they had overcome anxieties associated with interacting with foreigners. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/24272 | february 15, 2021 73 references allport, g. w. 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institutions, including government, media, and news. based on in-depth interviews with organizers and participants, the analysis of posts on facebook group, line messages, and websites of two ongoing ecenrs, we assessed the impact of civic media practice on the democratic process. this article analyzes how social networking sites or applications function in four activities of the democratic process. network building, discussion forums, distributed ownership and persistent input help organizations overcome distrust of institutions and enhance civic media’s ability to foster connections and create more usable interfaces between communities and institutions. keywords: facebook, line, disaster-response communities, social network sites theoretical background civic media and related concepts we live in a digital world with popular technologies such as instant messaging, video sharing, photo sharing, social network sites, podcasting and blogging. with them, we connect with friends, conduct business, study online, entertainment, and much besides. cellphones not only make calls, but also access the internet, create photos and videos, and share them across social network sites/apps. social network sites (sns) emerged as websites where users construct a public or semi-public profile with a list of other users whom they connect and interact within the systems (boyd, 2008,). many sns are part of daily life, such as facebook, linkedin, twitter, myspace, youtube, flickr and others (noor & hendricks, 2012). social network apps (sna) are applications for mobile devices, or website apps, accessible to personal computers, like whatsapp, wechat, line, etc. interestingly, many sna are integral components of sns to strengthen the site’s flexibility and user-friendliness. messenger, for example, is a popular facebook app. sns/sna have been changing the way we communicate, collaborate, share and learn with our friends, family, peers and communities, even in different times and locations. they also enable researchers to engage communities of concerned citizens. 54 with complex technological projects, besides sns/a, organizers use web-based apps which are programs accessed over a network connection, rather than a device’s memory. technologies, designs and practices that produce and reproduce a sense of working toward common goods are known as civic media. according to jenkins (2007) civic media is any medium which fosters or enhances civic engagement and as a bridge connecting community members and make them enable to strive together for common goods, thereby facilitate the democratic process (gordon & mihailidis, 2016). this characteristic is a main distinction from civic technology, or technology that solves a specific civic or organizational problem and emphasizing mainly on solving that civic or organization problem. whereas the core value of civic media is for common goods. the community, by civic media practice, evaluates not only the immediate results that solve a problem but also how the project advances the common good. this means how the project connected people and helped them to maintain, repair and improve its work over the long term (gordon & mihailidis, 2016). therefore, practitioners must balance technological and organizational values, create and use civic media in negotiating power and benefits of stakeholders. democratic process and community-engaged research definitions of democracy vary, but simply put, democracy is “a system in which the government is accountable to the people, who each have roughly equal say” (gordon & mihailidis, 2016, p.30). in a democracy, the people have a free and informed discussion of public issues. this requires at a minimum, freedom of speech. in digital age, according to gilman (2017), for democracy to survive, it requires civic engagement that emphasizes the role of civic media/civic technology in enhancing the democratic process—the way we make democracy happen. however, experience has shown that along with increased citizen engagement in many aspects of life, there is a decreased trust in institutions, including government, media and news (gordon & mugar, 2018). therefore, it is necessary to understand if innovative civic media can counteract this tendency. emphasis on the role of media builds on scholarship in communications and media studies that examines communication patterns and the role of media in democracies (goldberg, 2010; dahlgren, 2009; levine, 2014). in community engaged research (cenr), researchers and citizens share mutual benefits of “a collaborative process between the researcher and community partner that creates and disseminates knowledge and creative expression with the goal of contributing to the academic discipline and strengthening the well-being of the community” (george, 2014, p.3). citizens are empowered to participate, contribute, and make decisions thereby helping to ensure that the research’s results are directly beneficial for the community. in other words, cenr helps to strengthen the democratic process by helping citizens have roughly equal voice in community. normally, the concerned problems of countries around the world are various with common issues like over/under population, environmental pollution and lost biodiversity, global warming, terrorism (friedman, 2008). in taiwan, those issues get into details with many social movements related to human rights, economic policies, public health, environment and so on (hsiao, 2011). 55 the environment is an increasing concern to most taiwanese citizens, and it is increasing as the quality of environment decreases. engaging in environment projects is one way to facilitate the democratic process, in which citizens can participate in evaluating their environment, and contribute to its protection, as well as having voice in decision-making. therefore, environment is one of the topics attracting the attention of cenr. environment is the totality of surrounding conditions in which a person, animal, or plant lives or operates; it comprises natural resources and natural process. economic development and constant population increase lead to the overuse of environment. therefore, research of environment and environmental issues need to be community based, because from the community, scientists will discover existing problems, the causes and effects, and the ways to overcome negative effects. using technology would create more diverse and more effective approaches to the community. ‘‘it is not a new field by any means, but there is definitely new found energy’’ (attygalle, 2015, p. 39). in many cenr projects, researchers use various means to approach, cooperate and collaborate with community through games, speculative design, or digital storytelling, etc. especially the development of sns/sna has made and developed effectively online community engagement. however, increased using of digital tools brings not only opportunities but also challenges to citizen engagement processes. when researchers do not know/listen to their audience the community and abuse of technology in cenr; it is very likely to lead to asymmetry in power, interests and expertise knowledge of both researchers, organizers and communities (gordon & murga, 2018). mismanaged technology in cenr can create conflicts between community members and their expectations and benefits, which makes it hard to reach the consensus in decision-making (attygalle, 2015). furthermore, improved access to information may reduce knowledge differences observed between researchers and the community, which can work against the co-learning process. using civic media also arouses the anxiety of lacking physical co-presence in community, when people coordinate in facebook instead of face-to-face (gordon & mihailidis, 2016). people no longer need to convene together to vote for a decision when they can use facebook to make a poll, they also do not need to gather to have a march for university policy changing when they can collect signatures of students by online petitions. those can impede caring each other and real connection for the long-term benefits and even increase irresponsibility because of its anonymity of virtual connections (gordon & mihailidis, 2016). therefore, this research seeks to answer the question, how does civic media facilitate the democratic process in ecenr in taiwan? knowing this can help organizations enhance engagement with community. in this way, communities can trust in organizers and create more connections between previously separate communities and institutions. background of taiwan democratic process and civic media in taiwan taiwan is a democratic republic state. according to hsiao (2011), since 1980, this country has witnessed about 20 social movements in diverse fields. recently, there are two notable social movements namely anti-media monopoly movement (2012–2013, 反媒體壟斷運動) and the 56 sunflower movement (18 march–10 april 2014, 太陽花學運). the movements have taken place in various aspects from economy, human rights to environment with the effective support of information and communications technologies (icts) (chuang, 2004; hsiao, 2011). according to national communication commission (ncc)'s report in 2016, the percentage of people using cell phones in taiwan is higher than one hundred percent (ncc, 2016). although we cannot assume that every single person has a cellphone, it seems many people have more than one. people can easily access to internet by free wi-fi in public places like an mrt station, on buses, at convenience stores, and other places. among the most-used technology devices, smartphones and their features seem to be exploited as much as possible to connect to vulnerable communities and nature lovers to collect, update and process information. with so many using telecommunication services, great potential exists for citizens to communicate, collaborate, share and learn in environmental community-engaged projects. taiwan ranks 8th in the world for internet penetration. seventy-two percent of taiwanese people use the internet (digital in 2017: global overview). taiwan is also open to social network sites/apps, with the wide usage of social networks like facebook, youtube, and line (figure 1), which create a favorable digital platform for information exchange and the engagement of citizen in governmental/non-governmental projects. figure 1. penetration of leading social networks sites in taiwan as of 3rd quarter 2017 (unit: percentage) (digital in 2017: global overview). 57 the state of community-engaged research in taiwan after the lifting of martial law in 1987 in taiwan, civil society regained freedom of association, which allowed the development of community engaged research in taiwan. in 1994, the council of cultural affairs executive yuan launched a "comprehensive community development" policy. the idea of "community" started to spread to every corner in taiwan (chen, 2018). for example, for the council of agriculture’s forestry bureau, executive yuan turned this idea into a new policy of community forest management (forest bureau, 2002). under this trend, newly established community colleges provided more opportunities for academic institutions to build community partnerships. for example, the national taiwan normal university’s department of adult & continuing education, started their ongoing partnership with wanhua community college in 2008 (hsu, 2015). since 2007, the ministry of education has promoted several pilot projects. in 2017, these projects merged into a “university social responsibility project”. the ministry of science and technology started the humanity innovation and social practice project in 2012. both projects seek to encourage universities to work with local societies on local issues (chen, 2018). since then, cenr in taiwan has spread into many different fields, including nursing (yeh, 2010), natural resource management (chang, 2005), rural development (chung, 2018; hsiao, 2018), disaster resilience, and environmental monitoring. environmental community-engaged research in taiwan, in many different fields, including: ecology, astronomy and meteorology have applied ecenr. ecenrs inform many citizen-science projects that conduct large-scale standardized data collection to raise public awareness and knowledge of specific environmental issues. most often, governments, academic institutions, or ngos initiate projects. (dali, 2018). some are part of international efforts, such as ebirds (https://ebird.org/taiwan/home). taiwanese team (appendix i) initiates many more, beginning with the taiwan amphibian database in 2003, led by prof. yang yi-ju of national dong hwa university. similar projects targeting different species developed from this project. here we examine the most famous citizen science project in taiwan taiwan roadkill observation network (hsu et al., 2018). apart from the citizen-science projects listed above, thousands of community projects emerged in the last 20 years related to disaster mitigation. as taiwan frequently suffers from typhoons, floods and landslides, the government launched programs to help local people build disaster resistant communities. for example, the soil and water conservation bureau helps communities, at high-risk for landslides build a resilient community, while the water resource agency helps communities with high flood potential. with ecenrs, technology such as geographic information systems (gis), or closed circuit television (cctv) also contribute to the research. citizen media, with its capacity for real-time updates, improves taiwan's rapid response to various combined disasters. 58 for this study, we chose projects having certain criteria. first of all, it is community-engaged research which: (a) is for public good; (b) responds to community identified need; (c) involves collaboration of community members, academic researchers and students; (d) is an environment project deployed in taiwan; and (e) applies at least one social network site/app. therefore, we selected two taiwanese ecenrs, one citizen science project and one disaster risk reduction project, to see how civic media enables community members and researchers to collaborate and disseminate knowledge together for the academic goal and the community’s common good. research social networking sites/apps and two selected ecenr cases like all sns/a, facebook (fb) and line blur the line between personal and professional. they share many same functions to build up a platform for social connection, discussion, collaboration, and other civil engagement activities. both offer private and group messages, news feeds, timeline posts, status updates, demographic data, polls and surveys, likes, dislikes, shares and other reactions, comments and discussions, notification, photos & videos, hashtagging support and mood faces (foulk, 2018 & russel, 2016). most importantly, useful and easy interfaces make both fb and line popular with thousands of social media users. fb has some features that line does not, such as friends’ recommendations, livestream, add friends by name or email address, or posting on a friend’s homepage (noor & hendricks, 2012). on the other hand, line is much more convenient for adding friends by id, qr codes, shake it, or cellphone numbers. faster connections and photo sharing makes line a common tool for working group communication. line is also a critical tool in taiwan's disaster prevention for message spreading, emergent contacting, and information collecting. in march of 2018, the national science and technology center for disaster reduction (ncdr), taiwan’s authority for disaster prevention and management research, announced a new collaboration with line's taiwan branch. (ncdr, 2018) they released a new official app line account for taiwan’s emergency information, available to all line users. we chose two typical cases that use social network sites/apps for their ecenr. one case bases its research on fb. the other uses line for its research. case 1: facebook and roadkill reporting back web app in citizen science project taiwan roadkill observation network (tairon) is a citizen science project launched by taiwan's endemic species research institute (esri). this project started from a fb group created in 2011 august, not originally intended for a well-planned citizen-science project. using fb's functions, the group members helped esri's researchers gradually form their research goal, build an operating website, information-collection procedures, and so on (tairon official website, 2018 june 26). community members connect their fb account with the roadkill reporting back web app, using their smart phone, following the four steps to collect data and send it to esri (figure 2). the web app links to the fb group. once a community member sends a datum on the web app, it is instantly shared with the fb group, so that a researcher can 59 instantly check the data with the community member. according to dali lin's in “directory of taiwan citizen science communities” (dali lin, 2018), tairon is one of the earliest citizen science projects using a facebook group to collect its research data. it has become the biggest fb-based citizen science project in taiwan, with more than 14,000 group members and more than 100,000 data points collected. after tairon, many new fb-based citizen science projects emerged, aiming to follow its operational model. therefore, we suppose that tairon is a suitable case for our study on an ecenr relying on fb. figure 2. participating steps for tairon community members to follow. source: tairon official website (https://roadkill.tw) case 2: line and tainan water in-situ mobile app in a disaster resistant community (drc) as one of the water resource agency promotion in the flooding disaster resistant community projects to the high-flooding-potential villages all around taiwan, xin-jia, located in tainan county, is emerging as one of the most successful cases. xin-jia drc project has won the https://roadkill.tw/ 60 premium for 3 years in the competition of flood resistant communities and their flood-mitigation skills are very mature. as other drc projects, the xin-jia assistance team from national cheng kung university disaster prevention research center contacted the community. the team helped community members to set up a disaster-response community team. the team provided training in recording and reporting rainfall and real-time disaster information to researchers. local volunteers found using line groups to inform, connect, and cooperate made emergency response faster and more flexible. as with other drc projects, competent authorities or local governments designed some apps for disaster prevention, for example, tainan water situ app, or landslide disaster prevention app. these apps use instant messaging to inform local residents. other apps enable drc volunteers to report back on an evolving situation. however, unlike the roadkill case, tainan water situ app works independently from social networking sites/apps. stakeholders and the role of scientists in ecenr of two case studies to clarify the stakeholders in these two cases, we analyzed the stakeholder map for each case (figure 3 and figure 4). in both cases, stakeholders cluster into four groups: researchers and/or organizers; community members; governments and/or authorities; students/volunteers. figure 3. stakeholder map in case 1 taiwan roadkill observation network 61 in drc community case, the researchers and the organizer is the assistant team from national cheng kung university disaster prevention research center. the community members are the villagers in xin-jia village, including the community leader. the volunteers are the flood volunteer team in the village. the authorities include the water resource agency and local district office (figure 4). figure 4. stakeholder map in case 2 disaster resistant community (drc) in xin-jia village. the interesting similarity both cases is that they are ongoing research projects that have been lasting for more 7 years. thus, both cases have gone through a period of trial and error. however, while the drc is a government-funded project, tairon was initially a self-funded project. thus, different budget considerations influenced selection of appropriate digital tools. drc chose line, a formal collaboration between national science and technology center for disaster reduction (ncdr) and line's taiwan branch. tairon chose facebook because, 62 “facebook is free. if it fails, we have no loss or stress.” (according to mr. lin, 26 march 2017 in hsu et al, 2018). furthermore, the boundaries among tairon's stakeholders such as people, community, and volunteers often blur, owing to the participants’ initiative and higher willingness to take part. drc’s participants are residents of the disaster-affected village and their participation is not only voluntary but also their responsibility. moreover, the complexity of drc’s apps, coupled with the villagers’ lower education level, require more support and intensive training from project assistants. we compared the two to see how different civic media influence the research's democratic process. the roles of participating scientists are distinct based on each project’s goals and features (see table 1). in tairon, scientists organized stakeholders, raised funds, managed personnel, collected data, wrote reports and hosted conferences (figure 3). the project’s nature is spontaneous and derives from the demands of a specific group—in this case, activists, socialists, and environmentalists who care about environmental issues and desire to raise public awareness. at the same time, in their university roles as teachers or researchers, they inspire, connect and inform other potential participants, and attract attention from government and the general public. drc derived from urgent demand to prevent and mitigate flooding in a specific community. the government acted to organize the project and collaborate with a local university. here, university scientists are participants rather than organizers. they provide knowledge, technical support and skills training for the community (figure 4). they also benefit from data collection and sustaining funds from the government. this project is amply structured, and scientists do no fundraising, but they train communities in data collection and flood prevention. the facts show that in drc the role of scientists has blurred in the last three years, as the local community gained confidence in its ability to gather data and act for themselves. however, in tairon, as more community members engage, the more scientists engage the community. simply put, in tairon, scientists are distinct and respected parts of the community. 63 table 1. basic comparisons between the two cases project name taiwan roadkill observation network (tairon) distance resistance community (drc) type citizen science project disaster resistance community project funding source self-funded on startup with sustaining government funds water resource agency social media facebook – roadkill reporting back web app line – tainan water in situ mobile app focus road-killed animals disaster prevention goals research and education to raise the taiwanese population’s awareness on environmental issues flooding prevention awareness and data collection organization network of independent scientists and activists. government funds with technical and scientific assistance of a local university geography large scale, covering the whole of taiwan small scale, covering xin jia village (tainan) methodology framework for civic media practice evaluation the first step in evaluating civic media practice is plotting the starting point, which is based on social structure (weak or strong relation with community), and the short-term or long-term objectives (gordon & mugar, 2018). thereby, practitioners can evaluate the existing situation and developing process of their project. in this research, we used the technique of plotting the starting point with questions to identify the general process of practicing civic media in two projects from beginning (2011) to current (2018). below are questions using to plot the existing project point: social infrastructure (x axis) • what level of connection do you have to real or perceived end users? • how strong are your current relationships? • have you been working with or in the community for a long time? • if you are new to the community, are there trust brokers in place (ngos, community groups) that can facilitate connections? objectives (y axis) • do organizers intend this particular project to be short-lived or long-term? 64 • will the media or technology developed remain available for an extended period? • is the media or technology designed to capture attention through its novelty? if responses to the first set of questions are generally negative, your starting point will be towards the left. if they are generally affirmative, it will be towards the right. if responses to the second set of questions are generally negative, your starting point will be below the x axis. if affirmative, then it will be above it. figure 5. civic media practice takes place over time across two dimensions (adapted from gordon & mugar, 2018, p.14) in our research, we evaluated the starting point relatively by interviewing organizers of two projects. after that, we assessed progress based on 4 activities. there are 4 activities that represent civic media practice in facilitating democratic process being network building, holding space for discussion, distributing ownership and persistent input (table 2). table 2. activities of civic media practice (gordon & mugar, 2018, p.14) activity definition explanation network building the act of convening either in person or online for the purpose of social connectivity practitioners create online or offline space for stakeholders share experiences knowledge and acknowledge the intersectionality of constituent identity holding space for discussion assuring that there is time and space for discussion that makes room for multiple viewpoints and is tolerant of dissent media can help to hold regular meetings, workshops where the interests and needs of stakeholders can be articulated and increase the responsibility of stakeholders to the issues of the community by supporting work to directly address those issues distributing ownership the designer or convener builds capacity of all to reduce the asymmetric in power and expertise knowledge among stakeholders by sharing and encouraging power 65 stakeholders to reproduce or modify designed activities. dynamic of stakeholders in taking the rein of practices. the participants can have equal opportunities in co-design process and distribute expertise across multiple stakeholders persistent input inputs into products or process from stakeholders continue beyond initial release or implementation. the long-term relationships of practitioners and community which influence the design and entire practice of civic media, building mutual trust and closer proximity to community problems. in our research, based on civic media practice evaluation guidance (gordon & mugar, 2018) and the functions and features of the social media sites used (facebook and line), we selected hypothesized indicators based upon three major criteria: ease of understanding, relationship to the four activities, and data availability (table 3). beyond this, we also added one dimension – digital tool selection. this actually stems from the first four aspects, but we argue that this also can be a significant clue of democratic process in cenr. table 3. adopt civic media practice in facilitating democratic process in two selected projects (adapted from gordon & mugar, 2018, p.25-26) activity framework questions relevant functions of facebook, line & apps questions for each project network building • have you developed new connections in your host community? • do you believe you can form further connections with this community? • would you undertake further projects with this community? a. connect members b. interaction among community members and organizers c. inform, listen, and disseminate information d. stay informed by messages and sharing e. invite people for conferences and events how do you use facebook/line in developing the new connections/ interactions/ inform/ disseminate information in community you are working in? how do you use facebook/ line in calling on community members to make further connections (conferences/events)? how do you use facebook/ line in doing survey/starting a new project in the future with this community? holding space for discussion • do you take steps to engage people outside of your immediate network? a. public/message space for discussion b. admin roles c. topics of discussion d. conflict how does fb or line’s public wall and private inbox help people in the community to engage in the immediate network? 66 • do you ensure nonexpert perspectives or lived experiences are heard? how does the admin decide the topic and facilitate discussion (especially when conflicts occur)? how are the voices of all stakeholders listened in fb/line discussions, polls, or information sharing? distributin g ownership • do you create opportunities for stewardship by members of the community? • do you share the process and outcomes of your work to encourage adoption of your ideas by external stakeholders? • do you address power asymmetries by creating pathways for non-experts to influence the project’s shape and objectives? a. sharing/training knowledge b. learning from each other c. feedback / complain / solution d. empowering e. photo’s responsibility/ownershi p how do you use fb/line for creating opportunities for members in community sharing/training/learning from each other? how do you use fb/line in sharing the process and outcomes of your work to encourage adoption of your ideas by external stakeholders? how do you use fb/line to addressing power asymmetries in feedback/complain/ empowering and photo’s responsibility/ownership? persistent unit • do you keep the feedback loop open after the project’s initial phase? • do you engage in long-term conversations about local issues and challenges? • are you collaborating with people that have long-term relationship with the problem space? a. long-term relationship concerns/ between members, b. connection between virtual platform and reality (activity) c. mutual benefits d. constant support/emergency information to/from community how does the fb/line help in keeping long-term conversation/relationships (constant support/emergency information) between members about local issues and challenges? how does the fb/line help the connection between virtual platform and real activities? how does the fb/line help to collaborate with people that have long-term relationship with the problem space? how does the fb/line help to get further mutual benefits? 67 digital tools’ selection a. function b. budget c. terms & policy (app, facebook) d. convenient to use e. time f. localization • why does your project select fb/line? • what are pros and cons of this tool? • how has it changed since you first used it? why? what were your solutions? data collection and content analysis because the project platforms are social network sites (table 1), it is a favorable condition for collecting data to analyze both projects’ reality, historical development, stakeholders mapping of two projects. based on the framework of civic media practice evaluation (table 2), we modified a list of semi-structured questions (table 3) for in-depth interviews with different stakeholders. firstly, in each project, we collected information from websites, organizations, facebook fan pages, and facebook groups. besides, we also analyzed raw text from messages (line), social media posts (facebook) to evaluate content and interactions between stakeholders. thirdly, after the in-depth interview, we converted the resulting transcript into a verbatim document and coded it to identify starting point and also to analyze it according to the five characteristics of civic media practices listed in our table (table 3). semi-structured interview we used semi-structured interviews with the organizers of the project and volunteers in each project (appendix ii). in the drc case, we attended the disaster-response community exercise and interviewed the village leader and a government official. in our questions we focused on how the civic media (fb, line, apps) help them on their collaboration with the communities and the researchers, and also the limitation and difficulties they have encountered during the project. from the answers and observations, we find the answers that respond to our framework in table 3 and our research questions. results in spite of having different types of civic media practices, both cases achieved a measure of lasting impact in their respective communities. our analysis found that no single sns/sna meets all project demands in terms of functions, effective budget, efficiency, or time. organizers’ flexibility plays an important role in selecting tools or organizing off-line training to operate smoothly in our four activities of civic media practices of network building. 68 plotting starting point of civic media practice in two projects (from 2011-2016) in the tairon project, according to the interview with te-en lin (personal interview, july 5th, 2018) he mentioned 3 milestones of the process based on the breakthroughs in the number and diversity of members, as well as contributions and recognition from communities to projects. in the initial year, 2011, there were about 200 people in roadkill facebook group. these people were in the “ecology circle's stratosphere1,” including biology professors, high school teachers, ecology lecturers, and nature-group participants. this relatively small circle extended their network by inviting their classmates, families, and friends to join. from 2011 to 2012, the number of people in roadkill fb group rose; however, its growth slowed at the end of 2012, because almost all the people in the stratosphere are already in the group, until 2013 when the rabies outbreak in taiwan brought media's attention to tairon. that event made tairon “go viral,” attracting social media attention and public influencers. thus more people joined in. since 2016, about 1,300 people annually join the roadkill data collecting process with strong connections with other nature-groups, for example, the society of wilderness, or wild bird associations around taiwan. today, about fourteen thousand people participate in roadkill facebook group. an average three thousand people per day actively participate2 in discussions. in general, the civic media practice process of tairon shows a positive trend with strong social infrastructure and long-term objectives (figure 6). figure 6. civic media practice takes place over time cross two dimensions in the tairon. in the case of drc, there are no significant milestones in the civic media practice process as in tairon. according to the project organizer, chen-chian li (李鎮, personal interview, july 5, 1 the phrase "in the stratosphere" (在同溫層) is a common phrase in taiwan describing a small group of people sharing similar values and caring about the same issues. it also implies that these people have difficulties explaining or raising concern among people who are "outside of the stratosphere". 2 according to data provided by facebook. the company’s algorithms define "actively participating" by likes, shares and comments. 69 2018), in the project’s initial period, organizers focused on attracting public attention (novelty) by designing a user-friendly app. given the project’s urgency and complexity, stakeholders built strong connections with frequent meetings and trainings. “dpr team members meet volunteers from village at least 1 time/1 month,” chen-chian li told us. since 2016, as xin-jia village improved its disaster prevention practices, almost running the project independently, dpr made plans to work with a new village, spending less time in xin-jia. thus, community-engaged projects gain the highest level of success when communities continue to operate a project independently after the researchers leave. it also reaches the highest level of longevity. therefore, although outwardly the social infrastructure weakens, it is a positive indication of civic media practice in facilitating a democratic process for this project (figure 7). figure 7. drc project at xin-jia village: civic media practice takes place over time, across two dimensions. there is no perfect digital tool selecting the right ecenr tools for any project needs to consider time, budget and data quality as well as ease of use and range of functions. based on each project’s features (fund sources, data features, participants, and common goals), organizers select and build workflows around the functions of their respective digital tools. interestingly, both projects combined digital tools. tairon used facebook and a web app, and drc used line and mobile apps. on the matter of budget, mentioned above, tairon used fb to increase participation and broadly disseminate messages. however, data quality depends on the time the users devote to uploading the photo. this may take time, or users may elect to send lower resolution photos. either choice will influence the timeliness or quality of data. therefore, the web app or mobile app is necessary to deal with the weakness of fb in this regard. the web app in this case benefits from an engineer voluntarily designing and maintaining it. the web app connecting -8 -6 -4 -2 0 2 4 6 8 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 o bjective social infrastructure 2011 2016 longevity novelty strong 70 with facebook can help the researchers improve data quality by checking data with the uploaders on facebook, pick up samples (dead bodies) in time. however, after getting government funding, organizers decided to use it for designing a mobile app, which they believed would be more user-friendly. however, mobile apps depend strongly on the policies of apple and android systems, which are costly to maintain. therefore, because of frequent changes to mobile apps, the organizers decided to use the web app. other users complained and suggested the project should stick to fb. nevertheless, that approach cannot guarantee the quality of data, so the organizers have decided to use fb and web app for now. in the drc project, localized function is important in a disaster-prevention case so that mobile apps for different counties and mobile apps for different disaster-potential areas are provided to the users. because of the support of government for designing and operating mobile apps, the combination of line and 2 mobile apps work very effectively. line is free for users and the change of system policy is not frequent. line is good for instant / emergent contact, and message disseminating in a small group of people. nevertheless, some weaknesses of line are it is not convenient for discussion and the users can miss information in the discussions: for us [the assistant team] if we want to discuss something with the community, we do not discuss it by facebook or line. sometimes we call each other, or we just meet-up. as far as i know, most villages also choose to meet up for discussing things. because for the important online messages, we still need a checking process, to make sure that it is correctly conveyed to our message receivers — chen-chian li (personal interview, may 25, 2018). with mobile apps, the main weakness lies in the changing system policies of apple or android as well as resources for designing and maintaining the system. however, the mobile apps are easy to use and can guarantee data quality (the accuracy and currency). therefore, combination of line and mobile apps helps the project work well especially in special projects like drc. balance the mutual benefits in selecting digital tools is the clear sign of democracy. digital tool selection takes place throughout the whole life of a project with replacement of unsuitable tools and update new ones, in which participants can propose opinions, influence/engage to the decision of using this digital tool not another. to benefit all stakeholders and avoid further conflicts, organizers must listen and learn what is needful, so that participants have equal voice and share of agency. to specify, with the participants, they care the convenience in using tools and the outcome of data to which they contributed: in my survey, yes, you can see some feedback that are negative comments. there are participants who complain of not seeing the research results of this project. in such a case, they will have no willingness to continue their participation. —chia hsuan hsu (personal interview, may 30, 2018). 71 tairon also made changes to its array of digital tools. facebook alone was convenient for participants but not for organizers (data not accurate or timely enough; hard for manage data). facebook and web app yielded more accurate data, and was less expensive, but not very convenient for users. with funding, facebook and mobile app improved data quality and they worked better for organizers and users. however, this solution imposed higher costs. finally, it went back to facebook and web app (cheaper, still convenient for organizers but some users complain about its unfriendliness). tairon addressed the democracy problem by enhancing the quality of outcomes to prove the data effectively improves the environment. it lets citizen scientists know that "your data matters”. therefore, only a small proportion of participants has left the group because they thought their actions did not help on the environment. besides, the organizers with their great effort in keeping facebook open, although it runs the risk of being reported and blocked due to fb’s policy (the bloody dead animal photos may be reported by some fb users as violent message). fb helps tairon broadens to its audiences quickly, those are main reasons make the outstanding success of this project in ecenr in taiwan because tairon is an open facebook group, it is unique. other groups collect beautiful photos, only we collect bloody photos. it attracts many people’s attention. some of them are specialized in information engineering ... actively contacting us, asking us what they can do to help us ... and so that why we insist on keeping it open, although we are considered disgusting by some people.—te-en lin (personal interview, 2018). by comparison, in the drc, participants give two reasons why mobile apps (landslide and flood app) are not user-friendly. firstly, they are digital tools for specialists, which require knowledge and familiarity with disaster phenomena to use effectively. secondly, these apps also need specialized technical skills, so the organizers devote part of their training time to make participants more knowledgeable about natural disasters and improve their technical skill. in brief, the democracy can be trade off by the quality of data. however, to decrease the weakness of digital tools in convenience of using without impacting the quality of data, budget, function and time, the organizers in two ecenrs spend more efforts in maintaining the open platform for member to check the project effectiveness and connecting among members as well as helping the participants in getting familiar and using proficiently the tools. as a result, it can help all stakeholders get their mutual benefits in those ecenrs. civic media facilitates network building networking building is an important step in the democratic process when the organizers “convene members to create the engagement of citizens in projects either in person or online for the purpose of social connectivity” (gordon & mugar, 2018, p. 14). in both projects, digital tools work in diverse ways to connect, inform and disseminate information to citizens. 72 in tairon, facebook connects people from different fields, from real to virtual network and vice versa. chia hsuan hsu, a participant of tairon, is also conducting research about tairon participants’ learning experience: [in my survey] it is clear that many people want to continue engaging into this project because they can make new friends here… actually not many members join tairon’s offline activities. however, it matters a lot that so many people still consider making new friends here. it means that even if you do not attend offline activities, you can still meet new friends in this platform—(personal interview, may 30, 2018). however, organizers focused and condensed the information disseminated in facebook. “we share those messages related to tairon’s purpose. if it is too broad, there will be too many junk messages. the group members… willingness to participate would decline "—te-en lin (personal interview, may 23, 2018)” drc members use line particularly to support a line group that connects people from different communities instantly in disasters and different line groups act to contact or gather different groups of stakeholders. community members in each disaster zone use their line group to report situation to the organizer. therefore, line is an important approach for sharing emergency/disaster information. because the line group’s function is so well defined, there is seldom junk information. this feature makes information more accurate and timely, which is most important to the disaster resistance community (figure 8). however, although the mobile apps used are important devices for community members and the general public to check disaster information, the landslide app does not work well because people seldom know it well enough. the organizers said it was because of too little promotion. 73 figure 8. a representative situation report to the online community during tropical storm, linfa 2015. source: xin-jia village (2014) tainan flood disaster resistant community annual review community autonomy evaluation xin-jia village (chinese) in each project, the level of engagement differs according to segmentation in citizen engagement. in tairon, the interaction depends on their perception of how they benefit, their ability and their available time. chia hsuan hsu (personal interview, may 30, 2018) shared that he did not get involved in tairon deeply until he began his research. most participants have varying levels of interaction, with twenty percent of members who are active and twenty to thirty percent more who interact very little. “frankly, although this facebook group has more than 14 thousand members, i believe deeply engaged people only account for about 10-20%.” — chia hsuan hsu (ibid., 2018).” for the participants, fb is the channel to help them improve knowledge or collect data for their own research”. he also supposed that fb group helps members improve ecological knowledge and most participants agree that join into tairon makes them care more about the environment. most participants agree that join into tairon increases their sense of achievement. “regarding the skill of operating technical devices, we can also see a trend that there is some old people learning to use technical devices after joining into this project.” ( ibid. 74 may 30, 2018).” in other words, facebook is a great channel to meet the needs of most participants’ different levels of engagement, along with the administrators’ open management style that facilitates network building. in drc, the most involved people using digital tools are community representatives and assistance team members, mostly because that is their duty. therefore, personal responsibility is the most important factor deciding their engagement. the community representatives provide information about the real-time disaster situation, report back when there are disasters, and share activities’ information to invite other community members to take part. at the same time, the assistant team will only use line group to convey information. if they need to discuss with the communities, they would gather for discussion, to make the discussions efficient, complete, and avoid misunderstanding. conversely, the community members seldom use line to disseminate information, because they live in the same area and they prefer to gather and share information face-to-face or use the public megaphone system. however, during flooding everyone is busy with his or her own disaster-prevention duties, especially the flood volunteer team. at such times, it is difficult to meet face-to-face because of the bad weather situation, so at this time line creates a good channel for instant contact. in brief, both projects, beyond building an on-line platform, needed to give members clear expectations of what kind of information and discussion would take place, so that they will be willing to continue to follow each group. holding space for discussion both projects minimize anonymity, to make users accountable, and therefore, maintain data quality. accordingly, tairon requires every uploading material to put their real name on record, and in the disaster resistant community, only those who have accounts can reply. however, anonymity “promises freedom and equality” (gordon & mihailidis, 2016, p29), therefore, this practice in some ways inhibits freedom in expressing personal opinions. tairon, in respect to holding space for discussion, they have four main goals which orient the contents of each discussion (figure 9). if anyone discusses problems out of scope or in an aggressive manner, admins have the right to delete comments or posts, and to block members (at present, they have not blocked any members). for organizers, admins represent the best way to guarantee a democratic space where people listen and have a voice. the admin are there to moderate tense exchanges and maintain a friendly discussion environment, i.e. deleting hostile comments. participants also have the "right" to report inappropriate comments/posts. experienced members can guide the discussion and provide necessary knowledge to explain any misunderstanding. 75 figure 9. the four goals of tairon that the admins follow for group management. source: tairon official website (https://roadkill.tw). in addition, certain elements help create a better discussion space among a diverse array of members. for example, discussions between pet-lovers and wild-animals-lovers can help them better understand opposite viewpoints. this quality rarely appears in other animal lover facebook groups in taiwan. the organizers maintain the open discussions and (figure 10). teen lin shared that “conflict can improve the quality of member of knowledge – eliminating some animals stereotype (pet-lovers versus wild animal-lovers, snakes)” (personal interview, may 23, 2018). https://roadkill.tw/ 76 figure 10. a screenshot of tairon participants’ discussion on snake stereotypes. source: collected by the authors. interestingly, in facebook, users can use private message to create a private space for more personal opinions without exposure to other members’ judgement. many participants prefer to privately message the admins or the experienced members to show their respect and avoid unintentional tensions therefore, in tairon fb, although the anonymity is limiting, it helps the information focus, and the discussions occur more effectively and responsibly. by comparison, drc, because of the difference in geographic scale, holds discussions primarily during offline, in-person training. line is not efficient for discussion about the research and projects because messages are often misunderstood. in this case, researchers and community members meet each other face-to-face rather easily, because they are located in the same county. distributed ownership distributed ownership implies that the designer or convener takes time to build capacity of all stakeholders to reproduce or modify designed activities. in these projects, that distribution of ownership emerges from the feedback the organizers acquire to improve the quality of digital tools and respond to the difficulties of participants. in the tairon, facebook provides a good platform for both researchers and participants to collect feedback by surveys such as collecting suggestions for the tairon project, annual meeting themes, speakers, or events. the organizers also contacted other researchers on fb for assistance during the web app development process 77 in 2012, a taiwanese working in new york, whose job was app development, saw us on facebook. s/he thought that the way we collect data was too cumbersome. therefore, s/he contacts us directly, asking what s/he can do to help us. this is how we began the development of our first app. —te-en lin (personal interview, may 23, 2018). although drc organizers do not conduct surveys using line or app, they regularly collect feedback from the mobile apps during training programs. community members use line to learn and ask disaster knowledge. furthermore, after community members are trained in disaster knowledge, they can use the app correctly in checking and reporting on evolving conditions. thus empowered, community members will use the app to provide disaster-related information for the assistance team. in other words, from being a passive receiver, the community member can transform into a supplier of information. this mutual reinforcement is the highest level of community engagement research in general and ecenr in particular. persistent input in both cases, the use social media (facebook and line group) help on the ecenr's persistent input by keeping mutual benefits between participants and the community members in different ways. in tairon, many participants are eco-lovers, through facebook, they can connect their real life and virtual life, learning eco-related knowledge and marking new friends who share same interests in the group. what is more important, they want to know how the data they collect has its policy influence. to maintain the persistent input from the participants, tairon's organizer disseminating research result and research data application to appreciate the participants' contribution in many ways, including through social media, newspapers, delivering lectures and holding annual citizen scientist meetings. facebook is an important channel in this case, because the participants would receive message directly in their facebook group and share this information to their social networks circles. in chia hsuan hsu's survey, a few participants left fb group because “i cannot see my contribution in this project.” more often, participants left because of personal time limitation or technical problems (having difficulties on uploading data). drc community members live in a potential disaster area; therefore, their main concern is mitigating the impact to their village and fellow villagers. that being the case, line has advantages on reporting new conditions and making the right contacts. line can help community members rapidly mobilize and cooperate. it can also help them quickly check messages, asking relevant questions and getting instant replies from the assistance team. for the organizers, they can obtain disaster photos instantly from the communities and can track mobilization in each community, which can help them collect disaster data and better judge the situation (i.e. a potential river breakout or communities most in need) in a very short time. using digital tools in different ways, both projects maintain long-term relationships, aligning a given community’s main concern with the wider community of social media participants. 78 discussion digital tool selection is a dynamic balance between budget, data quality and democracy. maintaining data quality and managing volunteers and community members without wasting their time or labor are among the biggest concerns when choosing digital tools. organizers need to consider not only time, budget, data quality, user convenience, but also the changing policies of digital platform suppliers. by comparison, the community members care whether the group’s benefits directly answer their needs to maintain their participation. in addition, digital tools should be friendly to the users. because there is no perfect tool, it is important to have the broadest possible range of options. however, in each case, we still see disagreements between organizers and participants regarding the choice of online tools. the solution for both became a trade-off between data quality and democratic process. with each request for higher data quality, community members requested and required additional training. social media facilitates democratic processes and apps work towards distributing ownership in both cases, the organizers choose to use apps to maintain data quality. by operating the digital tools in engaging the projects, they learn specific knowledge related to the research topic (in our cases: disaster-related and ecology-related), which improve their knowledge and awareness. training community members to operate the apps, and report scientific data are ways to empower the participants. from the democratic process aspect, it is not only about data accuracy but also about distributing ownership between the researchers and the communities. with the high penetration in taiwan compared to other sns/sna, facebook and line can improve a research's democratic process in diverse ways. for ecenrs that have different features and scope of community members, facebook group is more suitable for projects that collaborates people from different places with dynamic discussions; meanwhile line is more suitable for instant information. both facebook and line group help the community members build their new networks. however, facebook works better for holding space for discussion, especially with cooperation between admins and participants. in the aspects of distributing ownership, both facebook and line are good for members to learn from each other; yet, facebook is a better platform for collecting feedback. finally, yet importantly, facebook and line helped each project's persistent input, responding to concerns, thereby maintaining long-term relationships. conclusion although tairon project started on a shoestring budget, the organizers skillfully used sns to build networks into a stable and strong community worthy of external support. besides creating a good space for discussion where netizens may voice their concerns, a transparent and fair cooperation between admins and participants is necessary. based on the first case, we can conclude that understanding more about the cooperation mechanism would help us to improve the democratic process of a research project. 79 the second project is an object lesson in making use of government supports in training and empowering vulnerable communities. this project succeeded not only in increasing the adaptive capacity of local villagers in the digital era but also transformed them to agents for disaster risk reduction. we observed in each case some disagreements between organizers and community members about using digital tools. it is worthwhile to gather more case studies about this kind of disagreement. further research will help us mitigate the harm to democratic processes and find a better balance for choosing digital tools. 80 references attygalle, l. 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(2010). participatory action research and its utilization. new taipei journal of nursing, 12(2). doi:dx.doi.org/10.6540/ntjn.2010.2.007 (chinese version) 83 author information phan thi loan g206, global change center national taiwan university no.1, sec. 4, roosevelt rd., taipei 10617, taiwan email: loananh.hnue@gmail.com phone: -886-966-062-642 phan thi loan is a phd student at international degree program of climate change and sustainable development, national taiwan university. she plays the role in doing literature review, analyzing the data and corresponding the comments of this paper. her research interests are climate change adaptation, community engaged research, civic media, gender studies, ecotourism and social capital. wan-ting hsu g203, global change center national taiwan university no.1, sec. 4, roosevelt rd., taipei 10617, taiwan email: hope.wantinghsu@gmail.com phone: -886-952-136-007 wan-ting hsu is a master student at international degree program of climate change and sustainable development, national taiwan university. she plays the role in collecting field study data, including contacting the interviewees, doing interview, sorting out data from local newspapers and the local communities' social media, and supporting the leading author on analyzing data. her research interests are climate change adaptation, community engaged research, and sts studies (science, technology and social science, sts). microsoft word allen et al. 2022 special issue intro publish.docx original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26312| june 11, 2022 3 community engagement at academic health centers: an introduction to this special issue joseph a. allen, melissa yack, and sara e. hart1 1university of utah cite as: allen. j. a, yack, m., & hart, s.e. (2022). community engagement at academic health centers: an introduction to this special issue. metropolitan universities, 33(3), 3-9. doi: 10.18060/26312 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. guest editors: joseph a. allen, ph.d., sara hart, ph.d., and melissa yack, ph.d. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract academic health centers are essential in many communities, providing health professions education and patient-focused services. these institutions often serve as anchor institutions for community-engaged efforts to serve underserved populations. during the covid-19 pandemic, the central nature of academic health centers, and the well-being of communities, were on full display. this special issue aims to contribute to and expand our understanding and inform empirically the evidence-based programming, interventions, and policies that strengthen community engagement at academic health centers. keywords: community engagement, academic health centers, anchor institutions © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26312 | june 11, 2022 4 introduction academic health centers, including hospitals, have become anchor institutions for communityengaged work (birch et al, 2013). for example, health professions students (e.g., nursing, medicine, pharmacy, ot/pt, dentistry, etc.) often engage with and support communities, state and local health departments, and nonprofits on mutually beneficial projects that help develop knowledge and skills essential for professional practice while supporting the community partner’s mission. in general, academic health centers tend to include all universities’ healthoriented components. this includes educating the healthcare workforce, providing patient care, serving many underserved populations, and engaging in research (association of academic health centers, 2022). academic health centers also have significant influence as anchor institutions geographically set in local and nearby communities. as anchors, they influence economies and communities through hiring, purchasing, sponsorships, and partnerships. academic health centers also play pivotal roles in addressing health equity and access, social determinants of health, and injustices (as seen in the last three articles of this volume). additionally, academic health centers are positioned to extend their reach through telementoring services (e.g., project echo discussed in this volume) and telehealth. academic health centers engage with communities in various ways ranging from patient education provided by clinicians and staff to community-based participatory research conducted by students and faculty, and everything in between. finally, academic health centers are continually changing with financing and care models that address community benefits and social risk factors. there are 120 academic health centers in the united states, and the vast majority of them are located in urban and metropolitan communities (advisory board, 2015). in the last couple of years, these academic health centers have responded to unprecedented conditions precipitated by the covid-19 pandemic (devoe et al., 2020; kishore & hayden, 2020). however, before, during, and after covid-19, these centers have continued their community engagement efforts in various ways. these community-engaged efforts may be led by single health professions (e.g. nurses) as well as by interprofessional groups. for example, nurses engage in various community-engaged practices as part of their professional development and training. whether they are helping in rural communities, dealing with issues surrounding substance use disorders, or assisting with managing large scale disasters, nurses are often at the forefront of the interface with community members and leaders (kulig et al., 2018; schoch-spana et al., 2007; maina et al., 2017). but other healthcare professions, such as physicians and pharmacists, also engage in communitypartnered activities (shalowitz et al., 2009). further advancing these efforts, academiccommunity partnerships also occur in interprofessional education when health professions students learn with and about each other while gaining skills necessary for effective teams and collaborative practice (meurer et al., 2011). these forms of health professions education can © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26312 | june 11, 2022 5 contribute to professional growth while enhancing community capacity to improve outcomes. although these and many other initiatives continue to occur within and around academic health centers, minimal research and dissemination efforts make it difficult to know the best approaches to academic-community partnerships and community engagement in these settings. this special issue aims to contribute to and expand our understanding and knowledge base, informing empirically the evidence-based programming, interventions, and policies that strengthen community engagement at academic health centers. the contributions contained in this volume help define and operationalize community-engaged efforts in many areas of healthcare. this issue provides a better understanding of the potential for healthcare institutions to serve as anchor institutions. further, some articles identify services offered before, during, and after covid-19 that use academic-community partnership models for community engagement. we are pleased to provide this issue with several compelling cases and studies that embrace the challenges of the covid-19 pandemic and share new insights into a variety of healthcare to community partnerships. articles in this volume the current special issue addresses a wide range of community-engaged efforts initiated between academic health care groups and their communities. the first two articles explore how partnerships between academic health centers and their communities maintained collaboration and engagement during the covid-19 pandemic. chin and co-authors explore learning from their partners not only within the partnership but also during the pandemic, as many people with intellectual and developmental disabilities saw increased social isolation and inequities. the article outlines processes and approaches taken with partners to move in-person meetings and activities to virtual platforms. meanwhile, line, kohlmeier, and mount focused on how community engagement was essential to the success or failure of contact tracing during the covid-19 pandemic. their comprehensive review of the efforts made to initiate and maintain contact tracing by working closely with community partners in a true community-engaged manner provides a template for similar efforts in the future. the next set of articles in this volume discuss the potential of academic health centers to be anchor institutions by initiating and supporting education and research that is of immediate interest to communities. for example, castro and colleagues highlight the effort of an academic health center-based national institutes for occupational safety and health (niosh) education and research centers (erc) to increase worker safety and well-being through community engagement. they demonstrate that the community engagement continuum is a meaningful framework to identify what an academic health center is doing as well as where their efforts may be lacking. kuttner and colleagues then take a comprehensive look at the case of the community research collaborative and their efforts to establish and publish guidelines for community-based © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26312 | june 11, 2022 6 research. they found that storytelling is essential for identifying challenges in the community that need attention, and the work of this community research collaborative can serve as a mechanism for beginning to address those challenges. the last three articles in this special issue focus on the issues of health inequities and how community-engaged efforts between academic health centers and their communities are one important way to address these inequities. for example, vetrovec and fellow authors reflect on the racist practices of academic health centers and the impact these practices have had on marginalized communities and health inequities. they then highlight how they address their own institution’s past through equity, diversity, and inclusion work. larson and medved discuss one method for increasing equitable access and outcomes through a telementoring program. this program offers providers, ranging geographically from rural health settings to urban safety-net clinics, an interactive, real-time experience to problem-solve, innovate, and learn about interventions, treatments, and processes that support patients in their local communities. in other words, mentoring bridges the gaps between what providers know and what they need to know to work with and eliminate health inequities in rural and urban communities. an area of significant inequity that emerged during covid-19 was vaccinations. garmong and colleagues share the story of activating community-academic partnership and interprofessional education to address vaccine equity. by working closely with the local health department, the academic health center could use a local church to provide vaccines and health screenings to traditionally marginalized members of their community. in other words, the community-engaged effort between the institution and the local community provided an immediate impact on health inequities that emerged during the pandemic. the volume offers a meaningful identification of how academic health centers, as anchor institutions, can serve as a hub for engagement with communities to address health inequity and improve educational opportunities in urban and metropolitan areas and beyond. the future of community engagement in academic health centers the various manuscripts in this special issue illustrate a meaningful point; there’s much to be learned from the engagement efforts and partnerships between academic health centers and communities. further, we discovered that much is happening across the board, but little is known about the success or failure of these efforts. for community engagement between communities and academic health centers to improve, more reporting on current efforts is needed, as are welldesigned scientific studies of these efforts. in other words, more needs to be done. what we share here are just a few ideas for consideration. first, many higher education institutions with a healthcare component, large or small, are probably already working with their communities. these efforts may be as simple as practicum © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26312 | june 11, 2022 7 projects for students in various educational programs or as complex as a full-on partnership between a network of nonprofit organizations and the entire healthcare system. so, the first future direction is to dig into these initiatives and report on them—activate rigorous measurement and assessment practices to paint a picture of the successes and challenges of doing these activities and share them with the broader academic community. in general, we cannot expand these efforts effectively without knowing more about what’s happening, what works, and what does not. second, we know academic healthcare centers are anchored in communities. there is growing research on how academic health centers can affect social determinants of health, health equity, access, and injustices. additionally, more academic health centers are embedding equity, diversity, and inclusion work within curricula, staff training, patient care, and hiring and career pathways. as anchors, these institutions should embrace and expand opportunities for impacting community concerns while addressing determinants and equity both in local communities and with partners further afield through telementoring, telehealth, and other expansive partnerships. third, academic health centers have unique opportunities to magnify current and future benefits of community engagement through models of interprofessional education. pedagogical, curricular, and co-curricular practices designed to advance the involvement of health professions students in community engagement may benefit from the use of interprofessional frameworks. when academic-community partnerships include interprofessional education and health professions, students learn with and about each other. still, they also learn valuable skills for cross-sector collaboration and coordination of care for both health and social needs. a final future direction is to seek models and evidence for effective interprofessional academic health centers partnering with communities and multi-sector stakeholders to address social determinants of health. this might include partnerships that aim to integrate an assessment of social needs (housing, transportation, etc.) into healthcare services or ways in which partnerships have produced upstream projects to address social needs led by or supported by the academic health sciences institutions. given all these opportunities and future directions, it’s important to reflect on one truism of academic healthcare and community partnerships. the community enables the academic health center. they provide the students and the patients. in many cases, they also provide the tax dollar appropriations to subsidize the workforce. these academic health centers should also enable the community to be healthier and safer. and doing these things together appears to be the most mutually effective option. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26312 | june 11, 2022 8 references advisory board. 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(2007). community engagement: leadership tool for catastrophic health events. biosecurity and bioterrorism, 5(1), 8-25. http://doi.org/10.1089/bsp.2006.0036 © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26312 | june 11, 2022 9 shalowitz, m. u., isacco, a., barquin, n., clark-kauffman, e., delger, p., nelson, d., ... & wagenaar, k. a. (2009). community-based participatory research: a review of the literature with strategies for community engagement. journal of developmental & behavioral pediatrics, 30(4), 350-361. http://doi.org/10.1097/dbp.0b013e3181b0ef14 microsoft word published vol33_issue1 schaus_larkin.._ (1).docx original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25331 | february 15, 2022 27 all that you can’t leave behind-essential covid-19 technology and pedagogy maynard schaus,1 susan larkin2 and denise wilkinson3 1department of environmental studies, virginia wesleyan university, 2department of english, virginia wesleyan university and 3department of mathematics, virginia wesleyan university cite as: schaus, m., larkin, s. & wilkinson, d. (2022). all that you can’t leave behind-essential covid-19 technology and pedagogy. metropolitan universities, 33(1), 27-36. doi: 10.18060/25331. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract the covid-19 pandemic forced many institutions to adapt quickly and substitute technologybased online or remote instruction in place of in-person instruction. this adaptation caused many faculty to develop new technology fluencies, which can provide more flexibility and innovation moving forward. however, the technological lessons learned from the covid-19 pandemic are somewhat conflicting, as we have also learned that there are places where inperson instruction is extremely valuable. as we move beyond covid-19 protocols, there are many important implications for universities seeking to effectively instruct an increasingly diverse student body in ways that reflect both their mission and core values and also take into account the changing landscape of higher education. this article considers the lessons that virginia wesleyan university (vwu) learned during the pandemic and how these experiences will shape instruction moving forward. through a series of remote technology workshops, reflective collaboration, and focus groups, many faculty identified new approaches using technology that they will continue to incorporate into instruction post-pandemic while still maintaining the face-to-face instruction that is highly valued at institutions like vwu. we will discuss how to balance and bring together the best aspects of both traditional pedagogies and the new practices learned. keywords: higher education, covid-19 pandemic, technology, instructional approach, face-toface instruction, pedagogy © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25331 | february 15, 2022 28 introduction the covid-19 pandemic forced a rapid shift to emergency remote instruction throughout higher education worldwide (crawford et al., 2020; hodges et al., 2020). many institutions had to adapt quickly to substitute technology-based instruction in place of in-person instruction. for universities that relied primarily on face-to-face instruction, this shift was disruptive on two levels. first, it was disruptive on a technical level as individual faculty varied widely in their proficiency with instructional technology. some faculty were forced to become proficient with forms of technology that were previously unfamiliar in order to continue instruction during the spring 2020 term. other faculty were more proficient with technology use, but were impacted by the second disruption: the need for a rapid shift in pedagogical methodology (hodges et al., 2020). these factors set up a situation whereby proficient technology users and instructional designers could help train faculty peers. throughout the pandemic, faculty ultimately became more well-versed in technology usage and gained additional pedagogical tools for use in their courses. this new proficiency has led some authors to call for more widespread use of online (tesar, 2020; mckenzie, 2020), hybrid (benito et al., 2021), or flexible options that allow students to choose how to access the course (petronzi & petronzi, 2020). while the increased use of technology is advantageous in some ways, at many institutions it is less desirable to retain all elements of the remote or online instruction used during covid-19. certainly, increased technology proficiency among faculty is desirable, but many institutions, especially small liberal arts colleges, greatly value in-person instruction and personal interactions between students and faculty. thus, at these institutions, a shift to an online or flexible approach represents, to some degree, a move away from strongly held core institutional values. while faculty can utilize new technology proficiencies to enhance face-to-face instruction, many institutions will shift partially, but not completely back toward the pre-covid-19 status quo. in addition, students have selected these types of institutions because of their preference for face-toface learning (petronzi and petronzi 2020), so there is some obligation to retain this core educational attribute. ideally, aspects of the best of both approaches can become common practice, but ultimately, individual institutions must determine what the new normal will look like on their campus. defining the new normal requires deliberate reflection and discussion, decisions about which of the lessons learned during covid-19 to retain and integrate into future semesters, and also support for continued faculty growth and pedagogical innovation. this report summarizes the process taken at virginia wesleyan university to enhance faculty proficiency with technology during the covid-19 pandemic, followed by meaningful reflection and dialogue on the degree to which technology should or could be retained within individual courses and academic programs. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25331 | february 15, 2022 29 process at virginia wesleyan university virginia wesleyan university (vwu) is a small (~1500 undergraduate and 100 graduate students, 86 full time teaching faculty) primarily residential liberal arts institution that transitioned from a college to a university in 2017, adding selected online and graduate programs in the process. like many other residential liberal arts institutions, vwu prides itself on face-toface instruction and personal interactions. some faculty have been interested in using technology in their pedagogy, and the institution hosted an internal “teaching with technology” series for faculty for many years. the recent addition of online and graduate programs represents a natural outgrowth of that, but highlights the internal tension between faculty and departments willing to embrace technology and those focused primarily on face-to-face instruction. like many institutions, vwu had little time to prepare faculty for the shift to remote instruction during the covid-19 pandemic (crawford et al., 2020; tesar, 2020). there were only two weeks between when faculty were first asked to start thinking about a shift to remote instruction and the full initiation of remote instruction. during this time, academic affairs and the director of instructional technology held several workshops on a variety of technology tools that would facilitate remote instruction. some faculty were comfortable with using certain forms of technology, and they helped to teach their peers. others had never used zoom or blackboard (our learning management system) before, and started with the basics. the workshops promoting technology use were optional and were not financially incentivized, but were still well attended. following the spring intensive workshop week, our director of instructional technology held twice weekly help sessions, and we also held periodic forums where faculty could share what they learned with their colleagues. this technology series continued during the remainder of spring 2020 and throughout the summer, guided by a faculty steering committee, our director of innovative teaching and engaged learning, and our director of instructional technology. these leaders conducted periodic surveys to determine which forms of technology faculty were more interested in learning about, so that we could adapt future presentations accordingly. all of this information helped faculty to plan for the 2020-21 academic year, where courses were a mix of in-person, hybrid, and remote learning. approximately 2/3 of class sections were held in person, with 1/6 held in some type of hybrid format, and 1/6 of fall class sections were held exclusively via remote instruction. in contrast, during semesters prior to 2020, less than 5% of courses were held in a hybrid or online format, with no courses offered remotely. some faculty used summer 2020 to prepare for a hybrid or remote approach during the fall, whereas others went back to their typical in-person approach with masks and social distancing in place. all courses, even those taught entirely face-to-face, had to be able to accommodate a small number of students that were approved for permanent remote instruction or students who temporarily received instruction remotely during isolation or quarantine. fall 2020 and spring 2021 instruction was supported by a workshop series featuring regular presentations and panel © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25331 | february 15, 2022 30 discussions on relevant technology and pedagogical strategies. to ensure that the responsibility for this did not fall solely on the director of instructional technology, our workshops often used an approach where a panel of faculty could present to other faculty to help expand their knowledge of technology. in the early stages of the pandemic (summer and early fall 2020), faculty survey responses focused primarily on technology basics, such as how to use the features of blackboard (69.5%), or zoom/google meet (43.5%), and much less on additional apps and tools (only 3 mentioned these in free comments). in subsequent semesters, faculty reported that blackboard and zoom/google meet were helpful, but additional faculty (66.7%), reported that they found a variety of other apps and tools to be helpful, including technologies to support video recording, editing, annotation applications, polling apps, interactive videos and digital white boards. in our most recent survey after the completion of the spring 2021 semester, a majority of faculty expressed an interest in learning more about one or more specific apps or tools (81.0%) and a much smaller proportion expressed an interest in learning more about blackboard and zoom/google meet break-out rooms. the change in responses between fall 2020 and summer 2021 demonstrates a shift between a need to learn the basics versus a desire to learn more about a range of different applications that could be of use in future terms, even if those courses are taught in a face-to-face modality. we also surveyed students at the end of the fall 2020 semester, asking not for their evaluation of courses, but for their reflections on the shift in methodologies. most of our students (53.8%) reported that they learned better with face-to-face instruction, or that their preferred modality depended on the course content (23.1%). only 14.5% preferred some form of hybrid instruction, while just 8.6% preferred either remote or online coursework. our students’ preferences mirrored the findings of benito et al. (2020), who found that students felt they learned less and felt less engaged in remote classes. we shared these results and specific student feedback about the positives and negatives of each modality to help faculty prepare for the spring 2021 semester. at the end of the spring 2021 semester, one of us (dw) surveyed the faculty on this again, with an eye toward continuing the conversation in fall 2021. additionally, we developed a summer off-campus workshop titled “curriculum of the future” to continue the meaningful dialogue about the lessons learned during covid-19, so that faculty could better reflect on and prepare for the new normal. we are striving to return to the in-person classrooms that are the foundation of what we do, but also to consciously examine our pedagogical strategies to incorporate the positive practices that have emerged during the last year. these reflections and discussions will continue during fall 2021 technology and pedagogy workshops and beyond. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25331 | february 15, 2022 31 reflection prior to covid-19, vwu faculty varied widely in their use of and feelings toward technology in the classroom. covid-19 forced theory into practice and faculty had to quickly incorporate technology in a variety of ways in order to continue instruction (tesar, 2020). remote instruction during spring 2020 was, in effect, an intensive pedagogical workshop that encouraged reflection on what constitutes effective teaching. this critical reflection worked both to reinforce certain institutional values and to offer new directions and technology enhanced approaches. workshops offered opportunities to learn about a variety of tools and apps, stressing both basic concepts for some and more advanced features for others. for many years, we have wanted faculty to become more technology-friendly and offered optional “teaching with technology” and “digital pedagogy” sessions. however, some faculty did not embrace this or our new online program until they were forced to teach remotely during the pandemic. typical workshops prepandemic would have between 5 and 20 attendees. however, as faculty worked to adapt to remote instruction during covid-19, we saw increased attendance and interest from many who had previously not taken advantage of these workshops or had not considered possible uses for technology in their classrooms. we went from 6-10 workshops in a typical year to 28 workshops between march 2020 and may 2021, with higher attendance than was the norm in the past. many faculty identified new approaches using specific forms of technology (i.e., breakout rooms, jamboard, screencast-o-matic, kami, kahoot, okiocam, peardeck, nearpod, etc.) that they will continue to use during face-to-face instruction post-pandemic. these tools helped to encourage annotation and collaboration, facilitate discussion, integrate lecture slides with polls, quizzes, and videos, or aid in video production. in addition, workshops helped faculty better utilize features of blackboard such as discussion boards, rubrics, quizzes, and exams. instructor-developed videos presenting science lab or art studio techniques were embraced by some of our faculty and were widely implemented both during emergency remote instruction and to reduce in-class time, and thus the potential for exposure, during the 2020-21 academic year. these were two of the most challenging areas to adapt to remote and socially distanced instruction, but there was impressive creativity from some faculty members in those areas. video office hours were the preferred mode of faculty availability during the pandemic, even for faculty that taught in person, and advising appointments likewise shifted to a remote mode in most cases. some of the faculty who teach in the online program have expressed a preference for video office hours, as they are otherwise unavailable to their exclusively online students. we suspect that video office hours will continue to be utilized by some of our faculty. some courses found success with certain hybrid approaches. one of us (sl), in her upper level © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25331 | february 15, 2022 32 english course, opted for a hybrid model where the class met in person for one of its scheduled weekly sessions and was online for the other. students engaged both in person and via discussion board. the course flipped some aspects of instruction, providing students with powerpoints and links that covered some material typically delivered through lecture. discussion then began online through the discussion board and continued into the classroom at the next in-person meeting. there were several benefits to this strategy: the discussion boards required students to be able to communicate effectively through their writing, which is always a key goal of an english course. the discussion boards also offered students less comfortable speaking up in class a space where they could offer their ideas. additionally, students working through the powerpoint material could do so at their own pace and research individual aspects as topics caught their interest. the links embedded into the powerpoints encouraged this, but it was surprising when students began to do their own research on content that was especially interesting to them. this method of instruction was more empowering than traditional lectures. in-class meetings were much more productive and had more in depth conversations than was typical of past courses. the blended components resulted in a much richer learning experience. in a math course that was face-to-face but also had remote students, engaging students during lecture became more difficult. one of us (dw) stumbled upon the unexpected benefits of a google annotation application, kami. the application allows the presenter to edit using text, highlights, shapes, equations, and a drawing feature. thus, the instructor was able to edit the document as if writing on a chalkboard. students could either view the lecture on the projector screen or their laptops. this pedagogy helped the class to work out the math problems together. they could see both the steps that the instructor took and their classmates’ approaches. it also allowed the professor to more easily support students and answer questions. based on a survey at the end of the course, more than 84% of students found the kami annotation application to be helpful in supporting engagement and commented positively on its inclusion. the course will continue to include the use of kami in the future. there were many successes such as these that offered positive directions for the future. however, even as we learned how to teach well using technology, we also learned why these pedagogies may not always be the best approach. course evaluations indicated that many students disliked remote instruction. there was a clear preference for in-person instruction and face-to-face learning. the biggest challenge that was faced by all was the dual mode of instruction, with some of the students in person and some of the students accessing the course remotely. this duality often limited instruction to the minimum capabilities of each modality in order to accommodate students accessing the course differently. indeed, many faculty expressed relief that fall 2021 courses would return to fully in person without this dual mode of instruction. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25331 | february 15, 2022 33 conclusion this pandemic year provided many institutions with the opportunity to reimagine teaching and what the new normal will be for higher education (neuwirth et al., 2020; ewing, 2021, benito et al., 2021). while there has been some move toward increased use of technology in the classroom, covid-19 was clearly a catalyst for rapid pedagogical change (ewing 2020). continual faculty usage of technology will depend on the degree to which they find the new approach useful, and whether it fits in with their intended approach post-pandemic. many academic leaders anticipate more online and hybrid courses being taught post-pandemic, which will require expanded support for teaching with technology (jaschik, 2021). however, technology needs to be incorporated purposefully in ways that complement or improve existing pedagogies and align with institutional goals and mission. covid-19 forced theory about online and remote instruction to become praxis almost overnight. coming out of this challenging period, it is crucial that we do not just go back to our previous pedagogies, but reflect on and thoughtfully embrace some of the lessons learned (cesco et al., 2020). a clear message to emerge from many campus constituencies after the pandemic instruction was a reinforced dedication to face-to-face instruction and a preference to avoid dual modes of instruction, which is teaching remote and face-to-face students at the same time. while it was clear that face-to-face instruction is at the heart of what we do at vwu, it was also clear that this instruction may not, and perhaps should not, look the same as it did prior to covid-19. the pandemic experiences, combined with the existing challenges facing higher education, provide incentives to create a new normal moving forward, a normal that blends some of the technologies and strategies learned with the face-to-face instruction that is the cornerstone of our pedagogy (cesco et al., 2020). there are important ways that technology can and should enhance our teaching. as a university, we need to support and encourage faculty to continue to embrace technology purposefully and thoughtfully. there is a clear value to blended pedagogies in terms of improved learning outcomes (means et al., 2009; vallée et al., 2020). however, in developing these blended pedagogies, it is important to remember that technology is a tool, and not an end in and of itself. as kruger-ross and holcomb (2012) astutely note: “the technologies will come and go, but it is the people that make up the classroom, not the laptops. it is the instructors and the students that are most important, not the projectors or ipads. no amount of technology can make up for poor pedagogy – and the integration of technology into poor pedagogy without consideration for the related epistemological and ontological concerns is a recipe for disengaged and disinterested students.” © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25331 | february 15, 2022 34 moving forward, it will be important to cultivate a normal that blends technology with the intimacy and efficacy of in-person instruction (cesco et al., 2021). universities will need to make thoughtful decisions and provide technology support and infrastructure for faculty (moreira, 2016; toquero, 2020). we need to continue meaningful dialogue on the role of technology in our pedagogy (neuwirth et al., 2020) and the places where technology can improve learning outcomes. ultimately, we favor a future of higher education that blends the best elements of technology without losing the personal interactions that are the hallmark of a liberal arts education. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25331 | february 15, 2022 35 references benito, á. yenisey, k.d., khanna, k., masis, m.f., monge, r.m., tugtan, m.a., araya, l.d.v., and vig, r. (2021). changes that should remain in higher education post covid-19: a mixed-methods analysis of the experiences at three universities. higher learning research communications 11: 51–75. https://doi.org/10.18870/hlrc.v11i0.1195 cesco, s., v. zara, a.f. de toni, p. lugli, g. betta, a.c.o. evans, and g. orzes. (2021). higher education in the first year of covid-19: thoughts and perspectives for the future. international journal of higher education 10: 285-294. https://doi.org/10.5430/ijhe.v10n3p285 crawford, j., k. butler-henderson, j. rudolph, b. malkawi, m. glowatz, r. burton, p.a. magni, and s. lam. (2020). covid-19: 20 countries’ higher education intra-period digital pedagogy responses. journal of applied learning & teaching 3: 9-28. https://doi.org/10.37074/jalt.2020.3.1.7 ewing, l.-a. (2021). rethinking higher education post covid-19. in j. lee and s.h. han (eds.), the future of service post-covid-19 pandemic, volume 1, the ict and evolution of work https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-33-4126-5_3 hodges, c., s. moore, b. lockee, t. trust, and a. bond. (2020, mar 27). the difference between emergency remote teaching and online learning. educause review https://er.educause.edu/articles/2020/3/the-difference-between-emergency-remote-teachingand-online-learning jaschik, s. (2021, april 26). provosts face the pandemic. inside higher education https://www.insidehighered.com/news/survey/survey-shows-how-provosts-faced-pandemic kruger-ross, m.j. & holcomb, l.b. (2012). educational technology as a subversive activity: questioning assumptions related to teaching and leading with technology. metropolitan universities, 23(2), 129-141. https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/muj/article/view/20516/20114 mckenzie, l. (2021, april 27). students want online learning options post-pandemic. inside higher education https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2021/04/27/survey-revealspositive-outlook-online-instruction-post-pandemic means, b., toyama, y., murphy, r., bakia, m., and jones, k. (2009). evaluation of evidencebased practices in online learning: a meta-analysis and review of online learning studies. project report. centre for learning technology. http://repository.alt.ac.uk/id/eprint/629 moreira, d. (2016). from on-campus to online: a trajectory of innovation, internationalization and inclusion. international review of research in open and distributed learning 17:186199. https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v17i5.2384 © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25331 | february 15, 2022 36 neuwirth, l.s., s. jović, and b.r. mukherji. (2020). reimagining higher education during and post-covid-19: challenges and opportunities. journal of adult and continuing education https://doi.org/10.1177/1477971420947738 petronzi, r. and d. petronzi. (2020). the online and campus (oac) model as a sustainable blended approach to teaching and learning in higher education: a response to covid-19. journal of pedagogical research 4: 498-507 https://doi.org/10.33902/jpr.2020064475 tesar, m. (2020). towards a post-covid-19 ‘new normalcy?’: physical and social distancing, the move to online and higher education. policy futures in education 18:556-559. https://doi.org/10.1177/1478210320935671 toquero, c.m. (2020). challenges and opportunities for higher education amid the covid-19 pandemic: the philippine context. pedagogical research, 5(4), em0063. https://doi.org/10.29333/pr/7947 vallée a, blacher j, cariou a, sorbets e. (2020). blended learning compared to traditional learning in medical education: systematic review and meta-analysis. j med internet res 2020;22(8):e16504 https://doi.org/10.2196/16504 original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/27203 | march 8, 2023 1 does place actually matter? searching for place-based pedagogy amongst impact and intentionality susan haarman1 and patrick m. green1 1 loyola university chicago cite as: haarman, s. & green, p.m. (2023). does place actually matter? searching for place-based pedagogy amongst impact and intentionality. metropolitan universities, 34(2), 1-12. doi: 10.18060/27203 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. guest editors: patrick m. green, ed.d. and susan haarman editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. introduction the emergence of this special issue of metropolitan universities journal, “the pedagogy of place-based initiatives and anchor institutions,” stems from developing, teaching, and evaluating courses and pedagogical programs at urban/metropolitan institutions. this issue is rooted in scholarly practice and focuses on the intersection of place-based initiatives and pedagogy. it interrogates how place-based initiatives such as hyper-local community-based learning and anchor frameworks impact teaching and learning in the classroom. this framing article for this special issue captures the themes and broader questions that emerged from the articles while proposing a line of inquiry to engage the readers with the special issue focus. within the last two decades, many urban and metropolitan universities have committed to creating and utilizing place-based initiatives (hodges & dubb, 2012). these initiatives can lead to community development and social and economic mobility, as well as transform how we approach teaching and learning (yamakura & koth, 2018). building from gruenewald’s (2003) work on developing and defining a critical pedagogy of place, we identify with the challenge to all educators to recognize the relationship between teaching and learning and the spaces and places we inhabit. our line of inquiry throughout this special issue is whether a distinct pedagogy emerges from place-based initiatives such as anchor institution approaches and hyper-local community-based learning. drawing from practitioner-scholar frameworks (lytle, 2008; salipante & aram, 2003; ravitch, 2014) and community engagement experiences with anchor institution frameworks (hodges & dubb, 2012; yamakura & koth, 2018), this special issue seeks to address a core question: is http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/27203 | march 8, 2023 2 there a pedagogy emerging from place-based initiatives? yamakura and koth (2018) position place-based anchor initiatives within the context of community engagement, identifying the critiques and opportunities to evolve and deepen community engagement priorities of higher education institutions. what is missing from the conversation is how place-based approaches impact the teaching and learning enterprise of the academy, and especially how it impacts what occurs in the classroom. as a result, the authors have utilized a practitioner-scholar approach to place-based work, which applies an inquiry stance that fosters critical reflection on professional practice, theorizes and revisions practice, and generates local knowledge (lytle, 2008; ravitch, 2014). rooted in our professional practice and positionality, our observations and critical reflection led us to theorize more intentionally about how we approached place-based work and where we might find opportunities for it to impact the classroom more directly. we begin by interrogating how placebased initiatives such as anchor institution approaches and highly intentional partnership work do not guarantee a change in classroom instruction and may fail to impact pedagogy long-term. we provide examples of service-learning within our local professional context and draw from themes that emerged from the scholarly articles in this issue. we also noted the intersection of place, institution, and systemic context. we offer a framework for a pedagogy of place with committed approaches to these place-based intersections as we have experienced them in our practice and emerging from the issue’s scholarly articles. impact-based program from an anchor institution framework one common approach to place-based work utilizes the frame of the university as an anchor institution. anchor institutions are long-lasting and ensure organizations and institutions are rooted in their localities (hodges & dubb, 2012). in recent years, many universities have sought to push their anchor identity from a place of simple stability to a force for economic growth and community development (yamakura & koth, 2018). urban colleges and universities can become a massive economic engine for their surrounding neighborhoods and, when approached intentionally, also provide important employment and business opportunities to local neighborhood residents (garton, 2021). their choice of vendors for university events and services, what business they recruit within close proximity to campus, and how they may encourage residency in the local neighborhood through both housing policies and assistance programs are all examples of how these institutions can yield tremendous impact to the places they are located (ehlenz, 2019). as we explore this anchor approach locally, we recognize our positionality at loyola university chicago, an anchor institution in chicago, illinois. as a member of the anchor learning network supported by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities (cumu) and drawing from the anchor institution framework (hodges & dubb, 2012), loyola university © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/27203 | march 8, 2023 3 chicago adapted the framework to include faith as a key element (see figure 1, www.luc.edu/anchormission). an anchor mission task force was formed with representatives from university departments that represented each area of this framework. regular meetings created a dialogue across departments to foster an anchor mission approach to spending, hiring, partnering, and other forms of economic development for our local communities. figure 1. loyola university chicago’s anchor institution framework. in addition, loyola’s commitment to community-engaged teaching and learning is evident through such units as the center for engaged learning, teaching, and scholarship (celts), the center for urban research and learning (curl), the office of community service and action, and the office of neighborhood initiatives provided a natural lens to inquire into place-based pedagogy. the anchor mission task force, including leaders from each of these units, along with the university strategic plan, established a renewed emphasis on the local communities where our campuses were situated, and our students lived. the prioritization of our surrounding geographic communities (neighborhoods) emerged for each of our campuses in the urban setting of chicago. service-learning and place-based impact http://www.luc.edu/anchormission © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/27203 | march 8, 2023 4 the high level of intentionality and emphasis on community engagement through place-based work does not necessarily trickle down to students in their learning and classroom instruction. service-learning initiatives at anchor institutions are sometimes directed specifically in the surrounding neighborhood to amplify the institution’s impact (combrinck & nortjé, 2021). however, unless the sites students engage with are intentionally limited to a particular neighborhood, a service-learning program at an institution may be scattered across the city (or farther), with the focus more on individual partnership or work that best matches course learning outcomes rather than place (germain, 2019; faulconer, 2021). even when the service might be rooted in the hyperlocal community, it does not guarantee that it was well incorporated into the classroom or that community member voice or community history influenced instruction. for example, as co-instructors of a community-based research (servicelearning) course, we critiqued our courses reflecting on applying best practices for communitybased learning but were challenged by how we incorporated the community and place (haarman & green, 2021). in other words, the community’s specific context is often missing in teaching and instruction, even as community influences the learning outcomes and approach to the course. our critique here cautions that place-based approaches may unintentionally only prioritize community impact, without including pedagogy that facilitates student learning and faculty teaching as part of the community impact. intentionality around developing community partnerships intentionality around hyperlocal community partnerships elevates mutually beneficial relationships, reciprocity, and the co-educator role of community partners. focused more on the relationship between the specific community partner and the professional, intentionality models of place-based community engagement emphasize mutual and ethical relationships with community partners. these programs center efforts on listening to community needs and assetbased community development while at the same time recognizing the structural issues that partners negotiate (kretzmann & mcknight, 1993). the intentionality of partnership development takes seriously the conception of community partners as co-educator in the classroom (walker et al., 2021). drawing from our experiences at loyola university chicago, we sought to capture a community partnership approach firmly rooted in our strategic, intentional approach to partner development. after multiple meetings, focus groups with faculty and partners, and structured dialogue sessions, loyola’s center for engaged learning, teaching, and scholarship members developed a community partnership conceptual framework (see https://www.luc.edu/celts/resources/forcommunitypartners/conceptualframeworkofpartnership/). the framework challenged our team to articulate the critical components of a mutually beneficial relationship with community partners and how that was enacted. https://www.luc.edu/celts/resources/forcommunitypartners/conceptualframeworkofpartnership/ © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/27203 | march 8, 2023 5 while this model pushes the field toward better and more equitable relationships with community partners and communities, it can also insulate faculty from those same partners and communities. the less connected a faculty member is to the community context with which their class is engaging, the less likely it is that the approaches to instruction in the classroom will be impacted by the particularity of the place in which it is occurring (george-paschal et al., 2019). when one-to-one relationships between the partner and university professionals are the focus, the partner at the center of this relationship may not represent a prevailing interest or concern of the neighborhood (haarman & green, 2021). by following the relationships where mutuality and deepened relationships can be guaranteed, universities may unintentionally focus their community-based learning work outside of the very community that is meant to be the focus of their place-based work. a framework for a pedagogy of place: responding to the challenge of placebased pedagogy with contextualized commitments and practices our critique here focuses on place-based community engagement models and how they are rooted in impact, and intentional partnership development approaches toward our communities and our universities, recognizing that work may not extend to pedagogical approaches. although we recognize the complexity of the work, we can raise these critiques partly because they are pitfalls we have experienced. practices like anchor institution frameworks and intentional hyperlocal partnership approaches are moving the needle for community-engagement. still, they may have little discernible impact on the classroom experience and instruction – effectively disconnecting place-based approaches from pedagogy. can we really say we are doing placebased work if the teaching in our classrooms looks nothing like the places in which they are rooted? we elevate this inquiry in hopes that deeper critical reflection on place-based work will encourage us to highlight the powerful ways that community voice and community-based learning can deepen student learning through how that instruction occurs. as we considered the challenges of rooting place-based work into our pedagogy, we documented our observations founded upon our experiences with community engagement and servicelearning pedagogy. we noted how place intersects with the community context as we worked with community partners around chicago and beyond and how place intersects with the institutional context as we connected to the anchor mission framework. finally we recognized how place is founded within a systemic context, drawing from the work of gruenewald’s (2003) critical pedagogy of place, which “combines the spatial and ecological awareness of place-based education with the willingness to challenge social assumptions, norms, and practices of education and society as found within critical pedagogies” (bright, 2020, p. 3). upon critical inquiry and reflection rooted in our practices around how place-based work intersected with institutional, community, and structural contexts, we present pedagogical practices rooted in © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/27203 | march 8, 2023 6 place-based work and pointed toward community wisdom and community priorities as catalysts for a different approach to teaching (see figure 2). we contend these are important contextualized pedagogical practices and encourage further inquiry into how place-based pedagogy reflects the unique contexts from which they emerge (haarman & green, 2021). the scholarly articles featured in this special issue will be highlighted, along with their emergent themes, as we discuss the emerging framework that surfaces from this inquiry (figure 2). figure 2. a framework for a pedagogy of place: the intersection of local community, institution, and systemic context. history as place-based pedagogy at the intersection of local community and systems at the intersection of the contexts of local community and systems, place-based pedagogy can manifest through a commitment to include the history of community. the ways in which communities have been impacted by and show resilience to systems and structures of oppression are embedded in memories and lived experiences of the locations of our place-based work. for instance, it shows up in the demographics of communities impacted by decades of redlining or environmental racism. it is highlighted in how local communities understand their economic and social realities and what caused them. in musicant’s piece, detroit as a marker for divorcing place-based education and orthodox history from oppressive pedagogy practices, he © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/27203 | march 8, 2023 7 describes how most detroit residents recognize their city’s thriving and struggles are deeply intertwined with the car industry. the absence of an awareness of a community’s history and how it impacts the community members’ lives can lead to the same “placelessness” that musicant warns against. incorporating historical narratives of a community into courses can be applied to any discipline's place-based work and deepens the learning that occurs. in longo’s putting deliberative pedagogy in place: how colleges and universities can help build a more democratic society, the example of a course at the university of cape town with students from south africa and providence college offers a guide for deliberative pedagogy and the importance of place. longo explores deliberative pedagogy related to place-based education, suggesting the need for public spaces to practice democracy in local communities and recognizing the importance of place. in elevating community voices through place-based education initiatives in chicago, hough shares perspectives from an educational non-profit organization that facilitates place-based education in chicago neighborhoods. his emphasis on first voice pedagogy and place-based immersions situates the community and its history as central to place-based education. hough calls for a paradigm shift in place-based education to prioritize community voices, centering first voices or community-based voices and resources as experts in the community. authentic community as place-based pedagogy at the intersection of local community and institutions as highlighted earlier and supported by many other articles in this issue, the relationship between the surrounding local community and a higher education institution is complex (hodges & dubb, 2012; yamakura & koth, 2018). although a university may be deeply involved in local community issues with its considerable resources, an issue remains with how they exert power in and over the local community and do not allow local residents to express concerns in a way that is truly heard (stoeker et al., 2009). some partnerships exist at the transactional level, but the call for over a decade has been to create authentic community relationships (mitchell, 2008). placebased pedagogy can manifest through a commitment to developing authentic community in this tension of institutions and local communities intersecting needs and priorities. this authentic community comes from creating a space for honest exchange between members of the local community and members of the institution to address mutual priorities and imagine ways to collaborate. this may emerge from community-based undergraduate research projects, where the research questions and agendas originate from the partner, not the faculty instructor or student. in community autonomy and place-based environmental research: recognizing and reducing risks, britton et al. argue that the local community and its needs should drive research rather than being subjected to a research agenda generated by an outside party. authentic community relationships can also help impact pedagogy when community members are © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/27203 | march 8, 2023 8 considered co-educators and invited to co-instruct, bringing their unique wisdom, experience, and community-based education approaches from their context. quan’s article, a framework for justice-centering relationships: implications for place-based pedagogical practice, suggests a framework that guides the “how” of taking a place-based community engagement approach, which may lead to more authentic community relationships. a commitment to an authentic community also invites institutions to consider who they are partnering with and whether it truly reflects the place and demographics of the diverse local community. changes in the institution could shift its needs and desires, especially in how it interacts with the local community. in seeking justice, seeking hope: refugee resettlement campuses and transformative pedagogy in higher education by sapra, matheis, and abdo, the implementation of every campus a refuge shows the commitments of the university to support newcomers impacted both the campus and the local community as well. it invites us to consider how individuals create and impact what we know as place and profoundly impact how we do place-based work. epistemic justice as place-based pedagogy at the intersection of systems and institutions when we consider how institutional context and systemic context overlap in this framework (figure 2), a focus on epistemic justice surfaces as a commitment and practice that may emerge from place-based pedagogy. while anchor frameworks often focus heavily on the economic capacity for development, it may de-emphasize the important contribution the university can make around epistemic justice (boni & velasco, 2020). epistemic justice refers to how people experience oppression or injustice related to 1) access to knowledge and/or 2) their identity as someone who possesses knowledge that is considered valuable (fricker, 2007). kidd et al. (2017) state that experiences epistemic injustice includes silencing or systematically misrepresenting one's contributions, leading to an undervaluing of one's status as a knower. a common inquiry from scholars and practitioners concerned with epistemic justice is who gets to know things and whose knowledge has value (haarman, 2021). at the intersection of institutional context and the systemic context in place-based work, the capacity of the university to work for epistemic justice as a generator and disseminator of knowledge is central. the majors and industries for which an institution offers a degree, the research and scholarship they support, and the students they recruit and enroll are ways universities can disrupt traditional knowledge frames rooted in white supremacy and oppressive systems. place-based work can inform the focus of a university’s efforts at epistemic justice, such as when the primary concerns of the community inform the scholarship through community-based research, in which community members help design the research question(s) and implement methodological approaches (wallerstein et al., 2019; suarez‐balcazar, 2020). © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/27203 | march 8, 2023 9 paying attention to prevailing issues that the local community faces can also influence the educational initiatives undertaken by universities. crossland’s on becoming a people’s college: placemaking as hidden curriculum provides an example highlighting how local communities should drive the offerings and approaches of an institution in its effort to become a “peoples’ college.” in exploring place-based pedagogy as entrepreneurship accelerator by palazzo and devasagayam, the authors propose a small business and entrepreneurship accelerator framework, combining university resources, local community elements, and small business owners, social entrepreneurs, and high school students and activating a critical pedagogy of place. the framework integrates a series of public-private partnerships between the university and stakeholders in a local community’s economic success and sustainability, providing a proposed case of epistemic justice in practice. place-based pedagogy orients knowledge toward an individual's experiences and perspectives (lowe et al., 2023), and the presence of community members as a recognized co-educator with valued knowledge presents a shift toward epistemic justice. the pedagogy of place: the intersection of local community, institution, and systemic contexts emphasizing history, authentic community, and epistemic justice the scholarly themes that emerge in this special issue demonstrate a framework for a pedagogy of place, situating the intersection of local community, institution, and system contexts, and prioritizing history, authentic community, and epistemic justice emerging from those intersections (figure 2). as this emerging framework suggests, the authors intend to foster a dialogue around how place-based work impacts teaching and learning and dynamizes pedagogy. as two community engagement scholar-practitioners, we critically reflected on whether our place-based work substantially impacted the pedagogy as it occurred in the classroom in the service-learning context. we contend that the framework for a pedagogy of place (figure 2) invites us to consider how place-based teaching and learning can surface intersections in the contexts of local communities, institutions, and the systems. this special issue, and the scholarly articles within, have the opportunity to further dialogue and explore how place-based work can spark innovation in our teaching, push pedagogy forward and encourage pedagogy reflective of the knowledge and assets of the community. as community-based scholars continue to examine and reflect on place-based pedagogy working alongside and in their communities, they will also surface more and differing educational practices and commitments. the framework for a pedagogy of place invites future dialogue, building on the research, theory-building, and scholarly work published in this issue. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/27203 | march 8, 2023 10 references boni, a., & velasco, d. (2020). epistemic capabilities and epistemic injustice: what is the role of higher education in fostering epistemic contributions of marginalized knowledge producers? global justice, 12(01), 1—26. https://doi.org/10.21248/gjn.12.01.228 bright, d. j. (2020). place based education as a tool for rural career development. journal of counselor preparation and supervision, 13(3). http://dx.doi.org/10.7729/42.1393 combrinck, c., & nortjé, t. (2021). activating the edge: the university campus as anchor institution. development southern africa. https://doi.org/10.1080/0376835x.2020.1760083 ehlenz, m. m. (2019). the university and its neighborhood: a study of place-making and change. journal of urban affairs, 41(6), 776– 794. https://doi.org/10.1080/07352166.2018.1530568 fricker, m. (2007). epistemic injustice: power and the ethics of knowing. oxford university press. garton, p. (2021).types of anchor institution initiatives: an overview of university urban development literature. metropolitan universities, 32(2), 85-105. doi: 10.18060/25242 george-paschal, l., hawkins, a., & graybeal, l. (2019). investigating the overlapping experiences and impacts of service-learning: juxtaposing perspectives of students, faculty, and community partners. michigan journal of community servicelearning. https://doi.org/10.3998/mjcsloa.3239521.0025.203 germain, m. (2019). integrating service-learning and consulting in distance education. emerald publishing limited. gruenewald, d. (2003). the best of both worlds: a critical pedagogy of place. educational researcher, 32(4), 3–12. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x032004003 haarman, s. (2021). the data should not speak for itself: epistemic injustice and data as rhetoric. philosophical studies in education, 52, 26-36. haarman, s., & green, p. l. 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(2009). the unheard voices: community organizations and service learning. temple university press. walker, a., mercer, j., & freeman, l. (2021). the doors of opportunity: how do community partners experience working as co-educators in a service-learning collaboration?. journal https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315212043 http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ej831374.pdf http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ej1022575.pdf https://doi.org/10.1002/nml.26 https://doi.org/10.1002/ajcp.12414 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/27203 | march 8, 2023 12 of university teaching & learning practice, 18(7), 56-70. https://doi.org/10.53761/1.18.7.5 wallerstein, n., muhammad, m., sanchez-youngman, s., espinosa, p. r., avila, m., baker, e. a., barnett, s., belone, l., golub, m., lucero, j., mahdi, i., noyes, e., nguyen, t. t., roubideaux, y., sigo, r., & duran, b. (2019). power dynamics in community-based participatory research: a multiple–case study analysis of partnering contexts, histories, and practices. health education & behavior, 46(1_suppl), 19s32s. https://doi.org/10.1177/1090198119852998 yamamura, e. k., & koth, k. (2018). place-based community engagement in higher education: a strategy to transform universities and communities. stylus publishing (va). https://doi.org/10.53761/1.18.7.5 susan haarman1 and patrick m. green1 introduction impact-based program from an anchor institution framework service-learning and place-based impact intentionality around developing community partnerships a framework for a pedagogy of place: responding to the challenge of place-based pedagogy with contextualized commitments and practices history as place-based pedagogy at the intersection of local community and systems authentic community as place-based pedagogy at the intersection of local community and institutions epistemic justice as place-based pedagogy at the intersection of systems and institutions the pedagogy of place: the intersection of local community, institution, and systemic contexts emphasizing history, authentic community, and epistemic justice references original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26443| march 8, 2023 13 putting deliberative pedagogy in place: how colleges and universities can help build a more democratic society nicholas v. longo1 1 department of global studies, providence college cite as: longo, n.v. (2023). putting deliberative pedagogy in place: how colleges and universities can help build a more democratic society. metropolitan universities, 34, 13-26. doi: 10.18060/26443 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. guest editors: patrick m. green, ed.d. and susan haarman editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract place-based education makes a compelling case that the pedagogy of colleges and universities must be re-imagined to be more relevant and engaged. this article argues for a specific approach to place-based education—what has been termed deliberative pedagogy—offering an emerging practical philosophy that applies insights from deliberative dialogue towards teaching and learning. the author provides principles and practices, along with examples of this method of civic education. it makes a hopeful case for having democratic practices in education undergirding the connection between anchor institutions and the broader civic mission of higher education. keywords: civic education, deliberative pedagogy, place-based education, anchor institutions http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26443 | march 8, 2023 14 introduction even as polarizing hot-button issues tend to get most of the attention—free speech controversies, pandemic public health policies, and identity politics—a more subterranean transformation is occurring in education: namely, a shift towards a more collaborative, participatory, and inclusive method of teaching and learning. this process creates space for dialogue across differences, weighs tensions and trade-offs, and recognizes local community assets—making real the often unfulfilled connections between learning and public problem-solving. this method of education—known as deliberative pedagogy—offers promise for engaging colleges and universities in building a more democratic society. this civic mission should begin in the communities where campuses are anchored. deliberative pedagogy is a form of place-based education that emphasizes sharing power as a way to promote the full participation of a diverse set of perspectives, especially historically marginalized voices, in constructive dialogue and decision-making. this way of teaching prioritizes meaningfully engaging students in reciprocal and civil discourse with peers in the classroom and with residents in the local community. it de-centers faculty, shifting from sharing knowledge to sharing responsibility, so that instructors become facilitators of the engagement of students and community members in a broader circle of learning. “sharing responsibility involves relinquishing some control,” as nancy thomas (2019) notes, “but if everyone around the table believes they are making discussion work, they may voluntarily curb behaviors that add no value, without inhibiting the robust exchange of ideas” (p. 54). this method of empowering education is rooted in this invitation to encounter. it is an act that requires a mutual response. deliberative pedagogy entails what martin buber (1947) described as “the turning towards the other” (p. 22), where basic trust and reciprocity enable genuine dialogue to occur. it can then become the basis for finding common purpose, co-creating knowledge, and engaging in joint action. auspiciously, we see this nascent educational practice taking shape in settings across the globe (shaffer et al., 2017). cultivating knowledge at the university of cape town one example is how this approach can be seen at the university of cape town (uct) in social infrastructure: engaging with communities for change, a course offered for south african students studying to be engineers. i joined this course with students from providence college as part of a global service-learning course. in the course, led by uct professors janice mcmillan and justice chihota, academic assignments are grounded in place-based experiential activities such as sharing individual stories, mapping community assets and participating in off-campus classes led by community partners (mcmillan, 2017). one class session, in particular, helps illuminate what this approach to education looks like. the session was framed around a perennial question for campus-community partnerships: how do we understand knowledge and power relations in collaborating with communities? as a demonstration of the core issues of knowledge, power, and equity, students in the classroom were invited to come forward to translate the word knowledge on the front chalkboard into a © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26443 | march 8, 2023 15 second, third, or even fourth language they spoke. one-by-one, students stepped forward to share the translated words with the group based on their knowledge of languages (literally and metaphorically): tsebo, kennis, ulwazi, vutivi, and kitso were scribed on the board. conocimiento, sabedoria, ruzivo, and other translations were soon visibly added to the list. after the words were written, authors publicly read their translations aloud to their peers from the front of the classroom. these dozen students shifted roles to teachers as they proudly shared their language contributions. figure 1. course activity demonstrating knowledge among students at the university of cape town. this lesson could have taken place in other learning spaces around the globe, which acknowledge the simple, but powerful idea: “knowledge exists in many spaces.” (longo & mcmillan, 2020). but, significantly, this deliberative practice took place in the context of a south african classroom in the midst of ongoing campus disruptions around historical struggles to address segregation and structural racism. student activists across campus were demanding the decolonization of the curriculum, and institutional transformation through the aftermath of the rhodes must fall protests starting in 2015. the class activity demonstrated how democratic practice in education could tap into the power of a community and unleash its many gifts. civic education becomes about more than introducing content into the curriculum. instead, as janice mcmillan (2017) observes, this deliberative method of education becomes about “building new models of teaching and learning that position educators and learners in new relationships—to each other, to knowledge, and the world beyond the classroom” (p. 161). the language translation exercise and broader approach is taken in the social infrastructures course help illuminate the transformational potential in democratic, place-based education. these spaces make visible the many assets diverse learning communities bring through their backgrounds, experiences, and knowledge. with acts of empowerment, we witness the civic possibilities of deliberative pedagogy. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26443 | march 8, 2023 16 democracy (not) working as it should this is a vital moment for new approaches to education, as alarm bells are ringing with concern about the growing crisis democracy is facing in the united states and across the globe. the global state of democracy 2021 from the international idea shows that more countries than ever are suffering democratic erosion as countries move toward authoritarianism. it also found the largest number of countries undergoing what the report terms “democratic backsliding,” including the united states— which earned the label for the first time. research from a host of studies confirms these trends, documenting a loss of public trust, hyperpolarization, and undemocratic concentrations of power as threats to democracy (international idea, 2021; levine, 2022). these developments force ordinary citizens to be pushed to the sidelines, making it harder to work together to solve public problems or even to feel empowered to try. especially troubling are trends among young people’s views about the future of civic life. according to a recent poll of 18-to 29-year-olds from harvard’s institute of politics (2021), more than half of young americans surveyed feel democracy in the country is under threat, with only 7% viewing the u.s. as a “healthy democracy.” further, the country has become so polarized that over a third of young people surveyed think they may see a civil war within their lifetimes. in response to the crisis of democracy, the kettering foundation has convened a series of diverse, multinational groups of scholars and practitioners exploring “what works” to educate the next generation to be democratic citizens. this method might be summed up as a “devotion to framing questions, engaging everyday citizens in the work of answering those questions, encouraging them to work across lines of difference and disagreement” (davies, 2022). this began by exploring the role of deliberation in teaching and learning, a practice our research team termed “deliberative pedagogy” in a workshop in dayton, oh, in 2011 (shaffer et al., 2017). the deliberative pedagogy research exchanges over the past decade helped unearth the potential for deliberative practices for teaching and learning and democratic renewal (see www.deliberativepedagogy.org). a central finding from this study area is that students learn most about democracy by how it’s practiced—or, more often, not practiced—on campus. as a result, if we want to build a more democratic society, we need to create spaces where students can have genuine experiences with democracy. place-based education young people are not born knowing how to be democratic citizens. and as a result, our institutions of education are responsible for preparing students through real-world experiences with democratic engagement on campus and with community partners. colleges and universities were founded with this sense of civic purpose. as anchor institutions, many colleges and universities continue to play unique roles within their surrounding communities—often having significant influence (both positive and negative) on the educational, economic, cultural, and civic lives of the communities where they are situated. high-profile reports, such as a crucible http://www.deliberativepedagogy.org/ © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26443 | march 8, 2023 17 moment from the national task force on civic learning and democratic engagement (2012), further called for colleges and universities to embrace civic learning as “an undisputed educational priority.” and yet, it’s worth noting that confidence in higher education has decreased more since 2015 than any other u.s. institution that gallup measures (marken, 2019). it seems that colleges and universities remain “bit players in the project of educating a democratic citizenry,” as recently noted by ronald daniels (2021), president of johns hopkins university. given the growing disconnect between higher education and the public, the pedagogy of colleges and universities must be re-imagined to be more relevant and engaged. this means deploying institutional resources toward addressing public problems while simultaneously tapping into the abundance of assets in local communities for learning and knowledge creation through ongoing, reciprocal relationships. as byron white (2021), associate provost at the university of north carolina-charlotte, explains: “perilous trends in higher education can all be addressed by establishing a deeper, tighter interdependence between the purpose of higher education institutions and the economic, social, and cultural well-being of the places where those institutions are located” (p. 8). this insight about the importance of becoming stewards of place has emerged in a growing number of community-based research and practice collaboratives. many higher education institutions recognize their responsibilities as anchor institutions and their unique roles within their surrounding communities—often having a significant influence on the educational, economic, cultural, and civic lives of the communities where they are situated. indeed, the future success of higher education institutions depends on ensuring that these places are healthy and thriving communities—and vice versa. place-based education is one powerful response from higher education. defined by erica yamamura and kent koth (2018) as a “long-term university-wide commitment to partner with local residents, organizations, and other leaders to focus equally on campus and community impact within a clearly defined geographic area” (p. 18), place-based education matters, especially, for our metropolitan campuses. bringing theory to practice’s partnerships for listening and action by communities and educators (place) collaboratory offers the civic experimentation of a group of urban campuses (in the cities of los angeles, greensboro, baltimore, and newark) as examples of place-based education. projects emerging from the collaborative include the university of southern california working with community residents to design a public history and dialogue project about gentrification in boyle heights; the university of maryland, baltimore county, creating undergraduate place fellows to work with community-based organizations; and a consortium of greensboro-area colleges developing a project-based course on reclaiming democracy (longo, 2022). a deliberative turn these efforts to shift the center of learning beyond the campus are significant because communities can make substantial progress on complex problems when residents—as opposed to detached experts—are at the center of decision-making. higher education can learn from the deliberative turn in communities as a growing number of public officials, policymakers, and © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26443 | march 8, 2023 18 other traditional decision-makers realize that public problems are too complex for them to resolve alone. that’s why they are increasingly reaching out and convening diverse groups of community residents and organizations to identify issues and develop and implement strategies to address them. this process of public deliberation is undergirded by open and inclusive processes by which a range of stakeholders come together to share ideas and perspectives. this might involve a leadership team helping to facilitate the engagement of a multitude of voices so that ordinary people can be involved in making collective decisions that form the basis for public action. this method of civil discourse to come to public judgment about difficult issues has been “part of the ongoing development of democracy” (leighninger, 2012, p. 19). more than that, it has for many centuries been at the core of giving communities localized experiences with democracy. this kind of democratic engagement goes beyond voting or asking residents for “input” in decision-making processes. instead, it is intentional about seeing community residents as active and productive partners in all facets of planning, implementing, and assessing efforts to solve problems. right now, a growing number of local experiments in urban, civic, and environmental planning are exploring and advocating citizen-centered approaches to a wide range of public problems, from community revitalization to clean air campaigns. in several states, groups have convened citizen-led deliberations that have produced a set of public priorities that local communities are now taking steps to enact. in addition, participatory budgeting processes are growing as a way to make decisions on the use of funds, spreading to more than 7,000 cities around the world since its inception in the late 1980s in brazil. leading funders, such as the ford foundation, have even begun to develop deliberative processes to involve citizens and stakeholders in every aspect of funding decisions through participatory grantmaking (see www.peoplepowered.org). the efficacy of deliberative approaches in grappling with complex issues has prompted its incorporation into domains beyond public policy or the political sphere. one of the most prominent areas is education, where dialogue-based methods have emerged as a distinct pedagogy (longo & shaffer, 2019). in contrast to deliberative politics, which couples deliberative decision-making with public action, deliberative pedagogy integrates these deliberative processes with teaching and learning—practices that transcend the boundaries of the classroom. what is deliberative pedagogy? deliberative pedagogy is simultaneously a way of engaging in civil discourse about complex and divisive issues, as well as a reflective method of education in which students develop democratic skills by working to address wicked problems. it is an asset-based approach that encourages students to encounter and consider multiple perspectives, weigh trade-offs and tensions, and move towards purposeful action. ultimately, this work of deliberative pedagogy is about spacemaking: creating and holding space for authentic and productive dialogue, a reflective practice that can ultimately be both educational and transformative. http://www.peoplepowered.org/ © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26443 | march 8, 2023 19 some examples of deliberative pedagogy in practice: • colorado state university’s center for public deliberation offers dedicated coursework for undergraduate “student associates” who learn the art of facilitation in deliberative techniques and then serve as facilitators of dialogues on community-identified local issues. • iupui (indiana university-purdue university indianapolis) hosts a democracy plaza. this student-led effort provides prominent physical spaces on campus for what is known as “democracy walls” for civil discourse and social issue programming. • greater good science center’s bridging differences community of practice leads a learning community of faculty, administrators, staff, and students, along with staff from national organizations working in higher education, to teach an evidence-based approach to “bridge differences” on college campuses using civil discourse. • simon fraser university’s centre for dialogue sponsors a semester in dialogue program, in which a cohort of students take an immersive semester-long course that uses dialogue and community engagement on timely topics to engage in problem-solving in collaboration with local community leaders. deliberative pedagogy can be situated within the broader educational movement toward a more collaborative learning paradigm. with this shift, educational institutions recognize their responsibility to “create environments and experiences that allow students to discover and construct knowledge for themselves and to become members of communities of learning that make discoveries and solve problems” (barr & tagg, 1995, p. 15). as such, deliberative practices can serve as touchstones for learning in our adaptive and networked society, where information is no longer the exclusive purview of experts and gatekeepers. deliberative pedagogy can be defined as an underlying set of principles and practices which work towards democratic outcomes in teaching and learning (see table 1). table 1. deliberative pedagogy: principles, practices, and outcomes principles practices outcomes “knowledge is co-created.” choice work public judgement “education should respond to wicked problems.” asset-based purposeful action “active citizenship is learned through practice.” civil discourse democratic skills knowledge creation is not a one-way street. as such, the first principle of deliberative pedagogy is that knowledge is co-created. this epistemology occurs through the sometimes-messy process of engaging with others in a mutual exchange of ideas and perspectives. through these © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26443 | march 8, 2023 20 constructive conversations, students work through differences in respectful and productive dialogue. as educators facilitate civil discourse about contentious issues, they help students learn about the stories and experiences of others, as well as the complexity of difficult public problems. this deliberative process, called “choice work,” involves recognizing competing values, multiple perspectives, and tough trade-offs to potential solutions. it encourages empathy and respect for the views of others, even in the face of disagreement, and leads to better solutions as a community of learners seeks informed public judgment. this method of education further recognizes the connection between learning and social purpose. educational institutions are not islands apart; instead, these places of learning are inextricably linked to the world beyond the walls of our classrooms. thus, the second principle of deliberative pedagogy is that education should respond to society's most pressing problems— from addressing climate change and systemic racism to global poverty and economic inequality. these topics are wicked problems because they are adaptive challenges that can’t be solved with technical solutions or the usual way of doing business. a commitment to addressing wicked problems needs to be built into all aspects of planning and educational decision-making, especially in teaching and learning. this is best done using an asset-based approach, as demonstrated in the opening example from the university of cape town. this shift of mindset is also a practice for engaging with learners inside and outside the classroom. education working on joint problem-solving spends time cultivating assets in the communities most affected by a problem and then using those gifts— which can range from good public spaces to a multitude of languages spoken—to engage in purposeful action to address adaptive challenges. “all change, even very large and powerful change,” meg wheatley (2009) observes, “begins when a few people start talking with one another about something they care about” (p. 13).this process of “turning to one another” in education is grounded in the belief that people learn best not from simply reading books or learning abstract theories but through real-world engagement. as such, the final principle is that active citizenship is learned through practice. a core practice becomes engaging in civil discourse in campus and community settings. when people are invited to engage in productive dialogue, they develop a set of democratic skills, including sharing a public narrative, listening eloquently, naming and framing community issues, collaborating with diverse stakeholders, facilitating constructive conversations, engaging in public work, and reflecting on community practice, as described in table 2. table 2. democratic skills democratic skill practice sharing public narrative crafts stories of self, us, and now, offering insight into identity and values to compel people to act listening eloquently seeks common purpose through encounters with others that embody presence and empathy © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26443 | march 8, 2023 21 naming and framing issues uses language to discuss issues that resonate with people, makes them feel like they belong, and values diverse perspectives for potential solutions collaborating with diverse stakeholders finds mutual interests in working with people to address problems facilitating constructive conversations leads dialogue to bridge differences engaging in public work brings people together to build things of lasting public value reflecting on community practice learns through exploration and analysis of real-world experiences dialogue, inclusion, and democracy at providence college there is an increasing desire to tap into dialogue-based practices—which has only become more pronounced since the pandemic. young people are especially yearning for social connections and building genuine relationships across differences. as described above, this entails engaging in civil discourse, the co-creative process of sharing stories, associating and organizing, learning across differences, participating in decision-making, and planning for collaborative action. the challenge has often been that most people are not sure how to get started on constructive dialogue. and there is too little practical knowledge about creating spaces to bridge differences and make community decisions together. the inability to even discuss complex and divisive issues permeates our public life. we might shy away because we don’t want to offend people or say the wrong thing. or we might be concerned that we don’t have “all the facts,” so we feel unprepared or uninformed. even when we want to engage in these conversations, it’s difficult to know how to get the “right people” in the room or structure deliberative processes when we have so little practice talking across differences. an added challenge is that society is now riddled with partisan sources of information and “alternative facts.” through this disinformation and, in turn, mistrust, interactions can lead to alienating and counterproductive relationships among people on different sides of an issue. and those who do get engaged must grapple with the role of powerful special interest groups and bad actors who deliberately sow the seeds of divisiveness in pursuit of a narrow agenda, further isolating members of a community from working towards a common purpose. the resulting failure to engage in meaningful dialogue or sustained collaborative work means that public challenges go unaddressed. these issues take on real-life relevance at providence college, where i am a professor. as a faith-based institution, we should especially recognize the importance of creating a culture of respectful discourse across areas of disagreement. and yet, the sometimes-competing demands of free speech and the harm caused by hate speech, alongside understandings offered by catholic © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26443 | march 8, 2023 22 social teaching, can lead to complicated tensions. providence college has dealt with the controversy surrounding “hot-button” issues such as gay marriage, racial justice, and gender identity. these experiences make real the need to look more deeply at “problems beneath the problems.” it has also led us to develop a set of practices to ensure sustained dialogue instead of reactionary responses organized as one-time events. as a result, we all see the need to create public spaces for deliberative conversations—on campus and in the community. in 2014, in response to protests around racial injustice, an ad-hoc committee of students, staff, and faculty proposed to create a “democracy wall” with the goal of “helping students develop civic skills and create a culture of civil dialogue.” while the proposal was stalled because of administrative concerns about potential free speech/hate speech controversies, especially in dealing with anonymous comments, the need intensified after a controversy surrounding a posting about gay marriage on a bulletin board in a campus resident hall. as a result, the first democracy wall was launched in the fall of 2018 to create healthy and respectful conversations on campus that go beyond the usual participants. these physical spaces, called dialogue, inclusion, and democracy (did) walls, are designed to “create a safe space that supports the development of well-informed and engaged citizens through civil discourse.” as a practical matter, the did walls pose regular questions on topical issues that are named and framed for constructive community conversations. the did walls use students’ and community members’ lived experiences and localized knowledge to develop timely and relevant questions regarding current events. once a question is posted, any member of the pc community can respond with their personal experiences and opinions. figure 2. dialogue, inclusion, and democracy wall at providence college while conversations on controversial topics are often polarizing, they can also be liberating when facilitated with thoughtfulness and respectfulness. for instance, one question on the did wall quoted frederick douglass saying, “education is emancipation, light, and liberty,” and then asked people to reflect upon their own personal experiences with education by asking, “how is © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26443 | march 8, 2023 23 education your liberty?” one written response helps see why these spaces are so valuable, with someone writing: “education allows me to empathize with those i thought i could not.” further, as an urban campus, we also see the need to create spaces for deliberative conversations in the local community. these experiments began in several courses on civic engagement, along with a signature off-campus site for community members to come together in conversation at the pc-smith hill annex, a 1,000 square ft. storefront property located in the adjacent smith hill neighborhood. the annex was founded to foster “mutual understanding and opportunities for collaboration” between campus and community members. this has created a space of hospitality for a diverse group of people. the annex emphasizes the importance of fostering co-creative conversations between campus and community, not moving toward “predetermined ends, or having one perspective take ownership” (morton & hernandez, 2019, p. 221). with inspiration from leaders such as margaret wheatley, jane addams, and myles horton, the annex points to a particular strategy for learning in community that focuses on sharing stories, building trust, and emphasizing relationships. the annex offers a small-scale, community-based model with a larger vision for higher education in demonstrating the value of creating civic spaces between campus and community where people can share what they care about and learn to work together. figure 3. pc-smith hill annex the did walls and annex re-conceptualize public spaces to give people experiences with connecting learning with deliberative conversations. they provide tangible, civic spaces for what robert livingston describes as “the conversation.” for livingston (2021), we need to start talking with one another, especially those “outside our social circle.” drawing on social science research, he concludes that “conversation, when done the right way, can be a powerful tool for bringing people together and developing support for enduring solutions” (p. xv11). as student © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26443 | march 8, 2023 24 leaders learn the craft of naming and framing issues, asking strategic questions, and exploring how diverse communities can find common ground through deliberative pedagogy on campus and in the community, they gain public participation from a broader and more diverse group of stakeholders. these sites then become small-scale experiments for making democracy work as it should. conclusion to be responsible stewards of democratic change in local communities, higher education must continue to create spaces to facilitate these kinds of campus-community conversations. higher education should also recognize how the many institutional resources within their purview can positively impact communities. this entails seeing the benefit of purchasing local products, investing endowment funds equitably and sustainably, hiring nearby residents, making facilities open and available, creating educational opportunities and pipelines to college for local youth, and being genuinely responsible neighbors around local issues like affordable housing, quality education, and municipal government funding. but good stewardship also includes being intentional about the core educational task of colleges and universities: teaching and learning. civic engagement in higher education should help colleges and universities think more holistically about what and where students learn and how we teach. this means taking insights from place-based initiatives about the rich assets and local wisdom in communities and committing to more democratically doing this mutually educative work. with a deeper commitment to deliberative practice in education, anchor institutions can be the seedbeds for educating the next generation and putting in place a pedagogy that can strengthen democracy. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26443 | march 8, 2023 25 references barr, r. & tagg, j. (1995). from teaching to learning. change. november/december. buber, m. (1947). between man and man. london: routledge. daniels, r. (2021). universities are shunning their responsibilities to democracy. the atlantic, october 3. davies, s. (2022). a few thoughts on democracy. kettering foundation blog post, april 18. educating for american democracy (2021). educating for american democracy: excellence in history and civics for all learners. icivics. harvard university kennedy school's institute of politics (2021). the harvard youth poll. fall. international idea (2021). the global state of democracy: building resilience in a pandemic era. stockholm, sweden: international institute for democracy and electoral assistance. leighninger, m. (2012). mapping deliberative civic engagement: pictures from a (r)evolution. in t. nabatchi, j. gastil, m. leighninger & g. m. weiksner (eds.), democracy in motion: evaluating the practice and impact of deliberative civic engagement. new york: oxford university press. levine, p. (2022). what should we do? a theory of civic life. oxford: oxford university press. livingston, r. (2021). the conversation: how seeking and speaking the truth about racism can radically transform individuals and organizations. new york: currency. longo, n. (2022). does place still matter? the future of higher education depends on vibrant local communities. tiaa institute’s voices of expertise and experience series. longo, n. & mcmillan, j. (2020). knowledge exists in many spaces: civic possibilities through deliberative pedagogy, journal of language & literacy education (march). longo, n. & shaffer, t. (eds.). (2019). creating space for democracy: a primer on dialogue and deliberation in higher education. sterling, va: stylus publishing. marken, s. (2019). a crisis of confidence in higher ed, gallup blog, april 12. mcmillan, j. (2017). i understand that infrastructure affects people’s lives: deliberative pedagogy and community-engaged learning in a south african engineering curriculum,” in shaffer, longo, manosevitch, and thomas (eds.), deliberative pedagogy: teaching and learning for democratic engagement. east lansing, mi: michigan state university press. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26443 | march 8, 2023 26 morton, k. & hernandez, l. (2019). providence college-smith hill annex. in nicholas v. longo & timothy shaffer (eds.) creating space for democracy. sterling, va: stylus publishing. the national task force on civic learning and democratic engagement (2012). a crucible moment: college learning and democracy’s future. washington, dc: association of american colleges and universities. shaffer, t., longo, n., manosevitch, i. & thomas, m. (eds.). (2017). deliberative pedagogy: teaching and learning for democratic engagement. east lansing, mi: michigan state university press. thomas, n. (2019). readiness for discussing democracy in supercharged political times. in n. v. longo & t. j. shaffer (eds.), creating space for democracy: a primer on dialogue and deliberation in higher education. sterling, va: stylus publishing. wheatley m. (2009). turning to one another: simple conversations to restore hope to the future. oakland: berrett-koehler publishers. byron p. white, b. (2021). toward the community-centric university. higher education exchange. yamamura, e. & koth, k. (2018). place-based community engagement in higher education: a strategy to transform universities and communities. sterling, va: stylus publishers. nicholas v. longo1 abstract introduction cultivating knowledge at the university of cape town democracy (not) working as it should place-based education a deliberative turn what is deliberative pedagogy? dialogue, inclusion, and democracy at providence college conclusion references microsoft word published vol33_issue_1pdavidson,+002_clinton_hall_covid (1).docx original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25572 | february 15, 2022 3 pandemic pivots in teacher education: creating and sustaining the new normal christopher g. clinton,1 and maureen p. hall2 1,2department of stem education and teacher development, university of massachusetts dartmouth cite as: clinton, c.g. & hall, m.p. (2022). pandemic pivots in teacher education: creating and sustaining the new normal. metropolitan universities, 33(1), 3-12. doi: 10.18060/25572. this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract this article documents how one teacher preparation program (tpp) at a medium-sized public university in the northeast responded to the needs of their urban partners during the global covid-19 pandemic. the adaptation of this school-university partnership involved improving relationships where the tpp is more responsive to the needs of this urban school district. this article showcases how two colleagues created pandemic pivots in their graduate courses for inservice teachers. these pedagogical examples, or pandemic pivots, knit together technology and social emotional learning (sel) and create a more inclusive and more equitable new normal. moreover, these pandemic pivots leverage programmatic mechanisms to sustain this new normal. the sustainability and success of this partnership makes use of stakeholder feedback loops which are both programmatic and interpersonal. through institutionalizing these feedback loops, we create programmatic sustainability with the ability to dynamically meet the needs of our partners. the integration of sel and technology pedagogical practices illustrated here are the result of programmatic structural changes driven by the voice of our partners, showcasing the design of our tpp. keywords: pandemic pivots, social emotional learning, scarf model, lectio divina, sustainability © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25572 | february 15, 2022 4 introduction as a public research university, the mission of university of massachusetts dartmouth (umassd) is to provide high impact learning experiences and engage in innovative research resulting in personal and lifelong student success. our teacher preparation programs (tpp) are committed to the preparation of urban educators who have a sensitivity toward multicultural issues, an awareness of the needs of schools, and knowledge of the unique needs and styles of individual learners. the tpp at the umassd recently shifted its master’s in teaching (mat) programming to focus strategically on developing urban educators. our primary partner school districts, fall river public schools and new bedford public schools, are the significant stakeholders, and both districts report issues of high teacher turnover rates and student underperformance. the intentional design of the new tpp is a responsive model, one designed to meet our urban partners’ needs and focused on long-term teacher retention and improved student success. almeida and hall (2021a) write about this partnership showing that “the logistical aspects of this innovation school–university partnership and program are responsive to, rather than in competition with, the realities and professional obligations of in-service teachers” (p. 371). moreover, our tpp requires thoughtful and skilled professionals to monitor, analyze, and modify their practices in an ongoing process of reflection and action effectively integrating both theory and practice, being responsive to our school partners’ needs. this model underlines their commitment to reflective practice and developing culturally aware, effective, urban teacher candidates in their content and practice. our initiatives include the teacher education advisory board (teac) at the programmatic level, allowing for continuous two-way communication between our partners and ourselves and the development of instructional consultants positions at the course level. instructional consultants (ic) are a cornerstone to strengthening and growing the partnership between umassd and k-12 partners. district leadership are tasked with identifying qualified district personnel to serve as paid ics collaborate with faculty in the delivery of on-site coursework. ics work alongside university faculty to co-construct course objectives in alignment with the partner district goals. ics also collaborate with university faculty in the delivery of mat courses to ensure course objectives target specific content and pedagogical strategies identified as high impact in the urban classroom. both the teac and the ic roles serve to improve feedback to umassd’s tpp in the development and deployment of the course and program. the teac also act effectively as gatekeepers into the profession by selecting candidates for admission and providing input on standards for program completion (clinton, 2019). the stakeholder composition of the teac is critical its sustainability as a feedback mechanism for the partnership. clinton, (2019) found the greater participation of school-based leadership (teacher leaders) increased the sustainability of the teac when compared to other advisory committees whose composition retained a greater number of central office personnel (superintendents). as a result, at umassd the teac is made up of seven out of 11 members are school-based leaders, one is a central office leader, and three are university faculty. the elevation of agency of school© the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25572 | february 15, 2022 5 based leadership on the teac allows for opportunities to initiate and sustain long-term changes and provide a feedback mechanism evaluating changes in the tpp. as district leadership and central office personnel often change, at rates equivalent to 20% per year in the surrounding partnership districts (clinton, 2019), having an teac who will guide and then benefit from changes in the tpp reinforces a new normal. in this new normal where the traditional power dynamic of the university providing guidance to the school partner, (clinton, 2019) is reversed and the school-based leadership provide goal setting for the faculty of the tpp. finally, both the teac and ics operate as professional networks influencing whether teacher candidates obtain positions in the partner schools. this has a positive impact on retention rates (goldhaber & cowan, 2014; krieg et al., 2016). by leveraging the input from these roles, it provides a feedback loop motivating umassd on maintaining our school partners’ new normal. early in the covid-19 pandemic, a teac meeting was convened to address what changes the tpp should be made to better support urban k-12 partners and address their identified needs. the conversation was structured with a focus on short-term and long-term needs. the short-term needs focused significantly on pedagogical training for both in-service and preservice candidates to specifically meet the diverse needs of students in the new online environment. in addition, the teac discussed long-term issues of disruption between school culture and broader community. students in online environments were feeling disconnected from their learning communities further impeding their academic development. conversations quickly turned to how the tpp could pivot modifying their own curriculum to include pedagogical strategies in the new online learning landscape while also meeting the identified need sel and maintaining community and cultural relevancy. it was these targeted conversations around the district identified goals both long and short-term which drove the development of these strategies and their implementation in the tpp. during the covid-19 pandemic, both the teac and ic roles played essential elements in identifying the changes necessary for the preservice and in-service teachers to be successful in the pandemic classroom. the new normal in this paper represents an ideology of never letting a crisis never letting a crisis pass without consideration of challenges and solutions. the pandemic created new inequities but also significantly underscored pre-existing conditions which had long gone unaddressed by stakeholders. sustainable initiatives such as teac, the ics, and a more robust integration of social emotional learning with technology served to strengthen the university and urban k-12 relationships’ during the pandemic and developed a more supportive and responsive learning community. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25572 | february 15, 2022 6 pandemic pivots: movements for fostering structural change although there were many downsides to the pandemic, there are also new insights which emerged. ailwood and lee’s (2020) insights highlighted that “care is essential to the sustenance of all our lives.” they point out the varied responses to covid-19 lockdowns created significant “educational equity issues” (p. 309). white and mccallum (2021) explored the need for resilience in teaching and learning. during the pandemic, teachers were forced to find new ways to integrate technology, engage their students, continue to develop healthy relationships with their students, and expected to make strides in content learning. the pandemic pivot examples illustrated in this article demonstrate how teacher educators found dynamic ways to inextricably link social emotional learning (sel) with technology. new learning models, integrating sel with technology were needed, and these models also must address equity issues raised during the pandemic. historically, sel and technology have been disconnected. sel, seen as essential to success in teaching and learning, includes self-care, emotion management, and healthy relationship building (jennings, 2015). likewise, technology practices, including presentation, gamification, and exploration were centric to success in the online delivery of content. prior to the pandemic, technology was emerging in importance, but not viewed as critical to instruction. during this pandemic pivot, technology offered the only means to access content and became critical to delivery. sel skills, when integrated with technology delivery in the classroom, became instrumental to success during the pandemic. pandemic pivot examples the pandemic pivots outlined below were designed to help in-service teachers find success in our graduate courses and demonstrate their learning during the pandemic. we modeled teaching approaches as templates that our teachers could try out and replicate in their own k-12 classrooms. though we as teacher educators have different content backgrounds; chris has a doctorate in stem education and taught science in k-12, and maureen has her doctorate in english education and taught english in k-12. we both teach pedagogical courses for our cohorts of urban teachers. what follows are examples of pandemic pivots that each of us innovated over the pandemic in response to the needs of our school partner districts. pandemic pivot 1 our school partners tasked our tpp to embed in our coursework more sel strategies as deployed through technology. what became clear after some discussion with the ics and teac was the need for a framework to allow teacher candidates to be mindful of how different instructional practices impacted students socially and emotionally. the sel framework employed in this strategy was grounded in david rock’s scarf model (rock, 2008). this © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25572 | february 15, 2022 7 model presents five domains which can have an impact on a person’s perception of their own social emotional status within a situation. the domains are status, which refers to one’s sense of importance relative to others; certainty, which refers to one’s need to make clear and accurate predictions about their environment; autonomy, or the sense of independence one gets having control over events or impact on the outcome of a situation; relatedness, defined as having a connection to the material and or others; and fairness, which is the perception of unbiased exchange. these elements, when incorporated into technology and instruction in the classroom, can alleviate most students’ social concerns, allowing them great opportunity for classroom engagement (rock and tang, 2009). for my pandemic pivot, i used the scarf model as my theoretical framework and incorporated the website classcraft into my instructional design for the mat coursework in response to the urban teachers’ needs. classcraft is a gamification of a traditional google classroom site. gamification is a multidisciplinary tool which tries to create a motivating, engaging and emotionally positive context for learning. the simplistic google classroom interface is gamified, embodying elements of the scarf framework. one reason for gamification is research indicating participating in the game and learning are similar neurological mechanisms (lee, and hammer, 2011). the classcraft overlay allows for a culturally responsive narrative integrated with classroom competencies and multiple opportunities for students to exercise control over their experience. many facets of the classcraft experience align with the scarf and an sel framework (elias, 2018). as membrive and armie (2020) point out, the classcraft environment stimulates engagement in activities related to the content of the course. in addition, rozhenko, darzhaniya, bondar, & mirzoian, (2021) found, “psychological climate at the lesson has changed enormously: equanimity, constraint disappeared, interest, ‘sparkle in the eyes’ appeared” (p.463) when classcraft was integrated as part of the google classroom interface. both papers directly reference an increase in students motivation linked to their multiple opportunities to positively augment their status as the game progresses. competencies and classroom assignments scored on game points allow for greater customization and progression also are linked to positive student outcomes. because the classcraft overlay integrates with the existing google classroom, the students and teachers have a sense of certainty around assignments and expectations. student’s progress on various quests within the program allowing for autonomy and differentiated instruction. the narrative of the classcraft experience can be modified by the teacher to create relatedness and integrate cultural competencies (elias, 2018). finally, the expectations and point systems are clear and modifiable to be fair to students who participate. this flexibility and customization of the overlay allows for greater intrinsic motivation of students in the corresponding course materials and fosters increased social engagement over traditional google classroom structures (bonvin & sanchez, 2017). by using the elements of rock’s scarf model, urban educators can predetermine if the technology integration in their course will adequately meet the social emotional needs of their students. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25572 | february 15, 2022 8 the pandemic pivot is the use of the scarf framework as an evaluative tool for technology integration to better understand how students’ social and emotional responses will be engendered with these tools. using the scarf model as a social emotional framework allows practitioners predict how students will interact and potentially respond to the technology tools before their implementation in the classroom. questions practitioners would ask might include, "does the interaction with this technology potentially increase the status of the student?"; "is there significant autonomy in this assignment using this technology tool to allow the students to determine how they reach the outcome? "; "is the content and the integration of technology enhancing the relatedness of the material to the student?"; and "are the outcomes when using this technology either a stretch and within reach or even just beyond reach of the students and considered by the students to be a fair measure of their effort?" the scarf model as a framework serves to allow the practitioner the opportunity to think of points where students would traditionally disconnect from the learning, especially when isolated in an online setting. using the scarf model minimizes potential negative interactions between the pedagogical strategies employed by the teachers with their students. the new normal will be using the scarf framework for multiple pedagogical strategies regardless of the technology employed. pandemic pivot 2 the co-author teaches a course called edu 525 critical literacies, which has four main themes: critical literacies, social emotional learning (sel), place-based learning (pbl), and global citizenship. sel is one of the district goals from our partner school district in fall river, massachusetts. over the pandemic, lectio divina was used as a pedagogical tool in edu 525 over zoom. lectio divina is part of a contemplative pedagogy with ancient roots. lectio divina, as a pandemic pivot, became a conduit for in-service teachers to understand both issues of power and equity, along with how they might modify lectio divina for use with their own students. lectio divina is an ancient tool for understanding texts. with religious roots, it has adapted secular forms for twenty first-century classrooms (dalton, hall, & hoyser, 2019). by choosing short passages for discussion, lectio divina was utilized as a communal reading process and “vehicle” for transformative dialogue. moreover, lectio divina models empathic and dialogic teaching (tan, 2021) and mindful learning through literacy. as dorman (2019) points out, “contemplative practices such as lectio divina implemented in teacher education allow an integrated, embodied approach for learners to unwind the conditioned mental habits of racism, prejudice, white supremacy, colonization, microaggressions, and other forms of oppression that cause harm and suffering” (p. 72). through the lectio divina process, students learned how to do deep listening and open themselves to new understandings of difference and possibilities for social action. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25572 | february 15, 2022 9 more specifically, in fall 2020 the co-author collaborated with two education colleagues from umass lowell and umass boston using lectio divina as an anti-racist pedagogy. in preparation for our session (bifuh-ambe, hall, & lopes-mendes, 2020) in cumu’s learning & sharing virtual series, she invited elizabeth bifuh-ambe of umass lowell and tyra lopes of umass boston each to join one of her edu 525 class sessions when they were using lectio divina as an anti-racist pedagogy. in october 2020, professor bifuh-ambe was a guest and langston hughes’ poem, “a dream deferred '' was used as the text for this pedagogical intervention with lectio divina. together with professor bifuh-ambe, they innovated using lectio divina as both an antiracist pedagogy and a critical literacy pedagogy. as part of the lectio divina step of oratio (response), students were assigned to zoom breakout rooms with a partner. in the breakout rooms, students were instructed to deep listen to their partner’s response. students brainstormed actions they could take to promote anti-racism and help each other to become social justice allies. each partner would then share the other’s response when returning from the breakout rooms. students wrote reflections about this experience, and one student shared: in my experience with using lectio divina to analyze “a dream deferred,” we were encouraged to take our time in reading and hearing a text, letting it wash over us and settle into the cracks of our consciousness. through this, we heard the words differently than before: the symbolism and imagery became richer, more relevant and meaningful as we mapped it onto our own experiences, or imagined how they made others feel…lectio divina allowed for multiple means of expression as well, something that is incredibly important in creating a more inclusive classroom: we listened to the text and our partner's reflections, drew how it made us feel, or sometimes created our own poems in response and read them aloud to the class (serena campbell, personal narrative, october 25, 2020). campbell experienced literacy as a new window into herself and others. through lectio divina as a conduit, she experienced another way to build inclusivity. empathy, as part of sel, is evident. students can step into another’s shoes and understand their perspective. teaching understanding through literacy improves all human relations. leveraging the technology provided by zoom, the breakout rooms allowed for deep listening between partners and helped to model and promote sel for participants. the pandemic pivot of instituting lectio divina and deep listening as a new normal was essential having teachers replicate this process in their classrooms increased student engagement and by using poems by langston hughes and rita dove it created new opportunities to engage in discussions about racism and the possibilities for creating a greater sense of equity in the classroom. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25572 | february 15, 2022 10 conclusion over the pandemic, it was relationships between teachers and students which were critically important. technology was the conduit for creative connection. the separate entities of sel and technology must now be integrated (bonanni et al., 2006). our pandemic pivot examples bring technology together in concert with sel in response to the needs of our urban school partners. responding to the critical needs of students and teachers, our pandemic pivots represent a means to begin answering the call for holistically integrating sel and technology and then maintaining those integrations post pandemic. our integrated tpp stands alongside this conceptual integration of sel and technology. almeida and hall (2021b), write about this same school-university partnership and characterize it as “bidirectional” and symbiotic in the best ways. they add that “together, the university and the school collaboratively design and embed elements that positively impact teacher retention and effectiveness” (p. 172). in responding to our partners call for connecting sel and technology in different pedagogical ways, we demonstrate our progress and visualize next steps. evaluation of the impact of these pandemic pivots and the implementation of this new normal is underway. initial qualitative interviews with ics have determined they have reviewed the performance of the in-service candidates in the tpp and they found that our candidates had a significant impact on their classroom students when compared to ways their peers integrated technology and sel. also, the teac was also surveyed in the summer of 2021 examining the impact of the pivot. responses from the teac indicated overwhelming support for the new normal and where possible, looking for opportunities to expand. quantitatively, in-service teachers in the tpp have asked their students to rate their effectiveness multiple times over the semesters of fall 2020 and spring 2021. using repeated anova analysis, we seek to understand the impact of these practices as perceived by students in urban classrooms. data and study results continue to be measured and readied for publication in 2022. what is not completely clear is whether this pandemic has just shown a light on the persistent inequities or provided unique opportunities to address the root causes of these persistent equities. what is true is that our work with partner schools continues. we strive for innovation in our approaches to teacher education and understand how important it is to deepen our relationships with the schools and our university. we seek dynamic ways to serve as an anchor for our teachers and the larger community. the true pandemic pivot was the centralization of our urban partners’ voices and the new normal is an improved tpp meeting the dynamic needs of those partners. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25572 | february 15, 2022 11 references almeida, t., & hall, m. p. 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(2021). mindful education for a post-pandemic world. in mindful education (pp. 179197). springer. microsoft word kuttner et al. 2022 publish.docx original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25819| june 11, 2022 52 establishing principles for community-based research: story & power in the community research collaborative paul kuttner, ana antunes, adrienne cachelin1, laneta fitesemanu2, melsihna folau,3 sara hart, and anahy salcedo4 1 university neighborhood partners, university of utah, 2 utah pacific islander health coalition, 3united micronesian women, 4 united way of salt lake cite as: kuttner, p., antunes, a., cachelin, a., fitesemanu, l., folau, m., hart, s., & salcedo, a. (2022). establishing principles for community-based research: story & power in the community research collaborative. metropolitan universities, 33(3), 52-68. doi: 10.18060/25819 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. guest editors: joseph a. allen, ph.d., sara hart, ph.d., and melissa yack, ph.d. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract academic health centers and their universities are increasingly encouraged to engage in more community-based and participatory approaches to research. yet, traditional ethics guidelines and regulations are inadequate for addressing the dynamics of community-campus research partnerships. in this article, the authors share stories from the community research collaborative (crc), a collective of community leaders and faculty that published guidelines for community-based research (cbr). the crc offers a case study in how a collaborative process of developing cbr guidelines can create space for partners to wrestle with the historical and present-day harms carried out in indigenous and minoritized communities in the name of science and to imagine alternative ways of working together collectively. this case study highlights the complex power dynamics inherent in community-campus partnerships and how storytelling can play a role in unearthing and addressing them. it positions the work of the crc as incomplete and evolving while offering a foundation on which other institutions could carry out similar processes in their localities. keywords: community-based research, counterstories, research ethics, campus-community partnerships, community engagement © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25819 | june 11, 2022 53 introduction in july 2020, the early days of the covid-19 pandemic, the community research collaborative (crc) gathered on zoom for its first meeting. over the course of the next nine months, this salt lake-based group developed a set of guiding principles for building equitable community-based research (cbr) partnerships. in this article, we use community-based research as an umbrella term for a large family of research methodologies that share some key characteristics: they are focused not only on understanding or exploring an issue but also on implementing solutions; they focus on questions meaningful to a community and engage both professional researchers and community members as experts; and they involve partners sharing power and collaborating to develop and carry out the research together. the cbr principles — along with stories, advice, and tools — were shared in a report titled, in it together: community-based research guidelines for communities and higher education (crc, 2021). the report is now being used as the foundation for developing training, online resources, grants, a community-based review board, and other projects as well as being shared around the country. academic health centers and their universities have been increasingly pushed toward more community-based and participatory approaches to research. some of the forces leading this shift include funding agencies, federal regulations, community pressure to demonstrate value, and paradigm shifts toward focusing on social determinants of health (teufel-shone, 2011; vitale et al., 2018; wilkins & alberti, 2019). however, the path toward implementing cbr in a sustained, ethical, and cross-institutional manner is neither clear-cut nor easy. traditional ethics guidelines and regulations have little to say about the dynamics of equitable research partnerships, which require we ask fundamental questions like: who decides what research questions are important? who benefits from research, and who defines those benefits? what kinds of expertise are valued in research operations, and what kinds are marginalized? who are researchers ultimately accountable to? questions like these cannot be answered by academic institutions alone. this article presents the crc as a case study of how a collaborative process of developing cbr guidelines can create space for academic researchers and community leaders to wrestle with these questions together. the need for the guidelines arose from conversations among university staff, faculty, and community leaders connected to university neighborhood partners (unp), a department of the university of utah that has been carrying out place-based (hodges & dubb, 2012) or hyperlocal (dostilio, 2019) engagement in salt lake city’s west side neighborhoods since 2002. community residents related their frustrations with university-based research and the uncertainties of collaborating with new faculty partners. faculty and staff, meanwhile, noted that many researchers were interested in partnering with community but often did not have a background in cbr methods. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25819 | june 11, 2022 54 we, the authors of this paper, do not represent everyone who took part in the project, but we bring a range of perspectives and positionalities. we are gratified by the guidelines and their development and hope that the report can be helpful to other academic health science centers, universities, and community-based practitioners. however, as with cbr more broadly, the process was as important as the product. as we explore in the sections below, implementing a thoughtful, collaborative, and locally relevant process offered benefits to members and served as a springboard for individual and collective action. along the way, our process provided insights into the complex challenges of power in community-campus partnerships and the role that storytelling can play in unearthing and addressing them. about the collaborative the community research collaborative was convened and facilitated by a group of four, which included two community engagement professionals and two faculty members. we spent several months identifying and inviting members to join the collaborative. we knew that the group could not be too big if we were to conduct meaningful dialogue and relationship building. we also knew that to be seen as legitimate at the university and in local communities, it had to be inclusive of as many perspectives and positionalities as possible and include leaders who could champion the work in a different community and university spaces. including the facilitators, the group had 22 participants. about half of the group comprised people who had leadership roles in local communities through networks, nonprofits, institutions, and community-based organizations. they worked in health and health care, mental health, education, youth work, community organizing, and mutual aid. they were rooted in local pacific islander, african/african american, latinx/hispanic, and native communities. these members all had some experience conducting research or collaborating with academics, and all worked in communities that have long faced extractive and colonizing practices within academic research (smith, 1999). we had a very small budget for this project but offered gift cards to community leaders to honor the fact that they were volunteering time outside of work hours. the other group members were faculty representing the university and academic health science center schools. they came from academic units such as health, education, architecture and planning, nursing, social and behavioral sciences, social work, and cultural and social transformation. they included tenure-track and non-tenure-track faculty at different points in their careers, all with significant community engagement experience. we invited two deans, two directors of community engagement centers, and the vice president for research as ex officio members who lent their institutional support to the effort and offered feedback. these administrators helped disseminate the report in areas of the university that are less familiar with community-based research and highlighted the importance of extending community engagement beyond the departments and colleges already doing this work. to bring in a broader array of © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25819 | june 11, 2022 55 perspectives, we also asked crc members to share a draft of the guidelines with a few people in their communities and elicit feedback — we honored these individuals as reviewers in the final report. this assemblage was the second incarnation of the crc. the first was convened by university neighborhood partners (unp) in 2007. the original crc published the report guidelines for community-based research (crc, 2007), which laid out three core principles for mutually beneficial research partnerships, a description of unp’s role in cbr, guiding questions, and challenges and opportunities for the future of cbr in the area. the report guided unp’s work to facilitate research partnerships and advance cbr at the university level. for example, the report was used to launch an internal cbr seed grant. however, over time the document fell out of heavy use, some parts became out of date, such as the list of publication outlets, and research partnerships began to grow beyond this earlier stage of cbr at the university. by relaunching the crc and generating a new set of guidelines, we had hoped to bring the guidelines up to date and make them more broadly applicable at a time when equity and justice issues were gaining ground in higher education. specifically, we wanted to a) integrate new knowledge generated locally and in the broader field of cbr since 2007; b) broaden beyond unp and put out a report that spoke to groups across the campus and the state; c) build new momentum behind cbr efforts with particular attention to questions of equity and ethics. while unp was still a major driver of the project, this work was carried out in partnership with the lowell bennion service-learning center and other hubs of community-engaged scholarship around campus. we held six full-group meetings facilitated by ana antunes, adrienne cachelin, paul kuttner, and our colleague andi witczak over nine months, along with a series of one-on-one meetings with all members and opportunities for online engagement. in broad strokes, the process began and ended with storytelling. we began by sharing individual stories of our experiences with research; stories that often challenged the dominant narrative of research as an unalloyed good and academic institutions as the main holders of expertise (dutta et al., 2021). we ended with a collective narrative of what research can be when university-based and community-based researchers build equitable, power-sharing partnerships — when they are truly in it together. along the way, we grappled with a dynamic and sometimes messy process of eliciting and combining diverse perspectives, uncovering and challenging assumptions, and learning from one another. reflecting on the crc process in the following sections, we describe key steps in our process. in each section, co-authors share stories and perspectives that shed light on different facets of the work. we offer this collage of © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25819 | june 11, 2022 56 short pieces of writing as an authentic reflection of the multivocality and diversity of experience within our group and as a way to reveal insights embedded in the guideline development process. starting out: relationships, history, and trust we launched our first meeting with a land recognition and song from an indigenous member of the collaborative. we saw this as a way to situate our work within the long history of peoples in utah building and sharing knowledge about the world — a history that began millennia before any college or university was built — and in the kinds of indigenous knowledge bases that have been simultaneously marginalized and extracted by western researchers (smith, 1999). many members did not know one another, so understanding and trust had to be built. this was particularly important with virtual meetings, which do not make space for informal relationship building over food or before and after meetings. so, we ran a one-on-one relationship-building activity near the beginning of each meeting. we had the participants split into pairs to spend a few minutes answering a question that elicited discussions of identity, culture, and life history, including prompts like “what is your name and what does it mean?” and “if you could only eat one food for the rest of your life, what would it be and why?” as we began to work during our first meeting, we had people split up into small break-out groups, a technique we often used to create spaces in which everyone had a chance to engage. we asked people to share what they thought of when they heard the words research and community and to share stories of positive and negative experiences with research. one theme that emerged from these discussions was the history of harm carried out in the name of research and the legitimate distrust many communities have of scientists and experts. melsihna folau, for example, shared how the history of atomic bomb testing near her first home in micronesia has permanently shaped her attitude toward those she calls “important white men.” below, she expands on the story she shared. melsihna folau, united micronesian women “this is one child’s story: one of thousands, too small and invisible to the naked ear to be heard. i live in rose park, utah. it is a desert land dissimilar to my childhood home of pingelap atoll, one of thousands of islands/atolls that dot the massive pacific ocean. yet, in a visceral, sad way, these two places are similar. pingelapese and southern utahns are atomic bomb ‘downwinders.’ they have experienced similar cruel negligence and insensitivity of ‘important white men’ and their actions. “for what? for the good of mankind, it has been argued. southern utahns are still suffering from atomic testing fallouts from the late 1950s. so are the pingelapese, as downwinders from sixty© the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25819 | june 11, 2022 57 seven bombs that were detonated from 1946–1958 on the nearby enewetak atoll and bikini atoll (hezel, 1995). the magnitude of those bombs equates to 1.6 hiroshima bombs every day for 12 years. the massive effects are still creating unexplained health problems among the natives of the marshall islands, the downwinders like us pingelapese, and others that eat from the pacific ocean, generations later. “my dad/pahpa died from colon, thyroid, and brain cancers at the age of 55. i was barely 13. my grandpa ramon passed away from similar cancers four years prior, after years of suffering. (i still remember the wailing and weeping, even from his dogs, that day.) similar cancers killed grandma, three of my four paternal uncles, and one of two aunts. numerous cousins from enewetak atoll never made it to their 50’s, nor 40’s, nor their teens. some never made it out of the womb, known as “jelly babies.” “as a young child, i learned that there had been so much trust put into the ‘important white men’ and their words. these “admirals” promised a lot. as a college student in the early 1980’s, some 25+ years after the last detonation, all i could find on the “enewetak and bikini atolls atomic testing” was empirical data: location selection processes, chemical compositions, half-lives of the elements, etc. also, i learned that the piece of cloth called “bikini” was named from the intense flashing of the atomic bombs on bikini atoll. yet, i didn’t find the devastating human stories behind the vaporizing destruction. i remembered going down from brigham young university-hawaii to university of hawaii-manoa library to do more research. hours of microfilms and microfiches later, i still couldn’t find clear human faces of the natives nor their stories. i asked the librarian if there was more information, and i remembered her saying i needed to pay $50 to do a computer search. that was a lot for a college student. “it has been some time since that college experience. yet, today, as a pingelapese girl/woman, i, similar to some residents of southern utah, lost my whole paternal family from the devastating effects of the atomic testing and fallouts. unlike my elders, i and the younger generation and the survivors of the downwinders, don’t trust the “important white men’s” words, like henry kissinger, who was reported to have said, “there are only 90,000 people out there. who gives a damn?” (pbs hawaii, 2017). it is this arrogant mentality that has created a mistrust that still exists today amongst the downwinders like this pingelapese girl towards “important white men” and their words.” by sharing her story with the collaborative, melsihna offered us a gift. this powerful counterstory undermines the dominant depiction of research as an objective process that inherently leads to human progress. by “centering and attending to situated knowledge that is anchored in lived experiences” (dutta et al., 2021, p. 4), this counterstory names political and racial dynamics that shape who benefits and who is harmed by scientific experimentation. as melsihna explains, stories like hers are often erased within the framework of epistemic violence © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25819 | june 11, 2022 58 (dotson, 2011) that silences the knowledge of marginalized groups while privileging western research practices — the empirical data that melsihna found in the library. bringing this knowledge into the collaborative’s discussions was an important step in building trust. community-campus research partnerships, particularly when carried out across racialized lines, require what vakil, de royston, nasir, and kirshner (2016) call “politicized trust.” they argue: neither trust nor solidarity is gained (nor should it be) by the assertion of good intentions, nor is it accomplished merely once and then set aside. instead, politicized trust calls for ongoing building and cultivation of mutual trust and racial solidarity. it is thus a trust that actively acknowledges the racialized tensions and power dynamics (p. 199). the stories of melsihna and others in the collaborative helped us begin acknowledging these power dynamics and the long history of racist and colonial practices in research, a context with which our work had to contend. learning from the field & engaging students since 2007, when the original crc guidelines were published, many more scholars and organizations have developed core principles or guidelines for different kinds of cbr. rather than starting from scratch, we wanted to learn from these diverse efforts. so, we brought on anahy salcedo, an undergraduate kinesiology student and local grassroots organizer, to conduct a review. anahy read and analyzed 22 different sets of guidelines and presented her findings to the group. we then discussed how the personal stories in the first crc meeting related to common themes in other guidelines. these themes and our responses to them became the foundation of our own set of principles. anahy has since graduated. however, she remains a part of the crc team in her role on the grassroots organizing team with the local united way. below, she reflects on her experience as a health sciences student taking part in the collaborative. anahy salcedo, united way of salt lake “i was still pretty new to cbr when i joined the crc. i was in charge of doing the literature review, and, wow, i learned a lot! there are people doing this everywhere, and everyone is at a different phase of learning how to best do it. “it was not easy to gather folks to attend another zoom call during covid-19, but because it was something the folks cared about and was being led by great folks, people showed up to meetings and had meaningful conversations. i was impressed by the somewhat large community © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25819 | june 11, 2022 59 of people who care about cbr. as a student and a newbie, i was scared i would not be able to connect, but we all cared about working with community members and researchers to redefine and recreate what cbr can look like. folks were incredibly open and welcoming to new folks (like me) to ask questions and share our current experience, and to share theirs about how they came to be engaged into cbr. i loved hearing the stories folks had about their work and what challenges or successes they had. everyone wanted to collaborate and be transparent with the process, which i don’t think is as common as it should be in research. “why does no one talk about community-based research to undergraduates? it is so versatile and can be done in so many fields. i was a student in kinesiology at the college of health, and they only really pushed a traditional kind of lab-based research. i did research in a lab for six months, and i hated it, which made me think i wasn’t fit to do research. then, i was introduced to cbr through a fellowship and got to know crc co-founder ana antunes. she shared about her work with cbr and how it can look so different from traditional research, and i loved it. “finding a time that worked for everyone in the crc was challenging and led to some folks not being able to attend. we met around once a month, and i wonder if we should have met more frequently or met in subgroups to get different parts of the guidelines done. i want us to continue to meet and discuss what we can do next!” anahy’s reflection speaks to the value of engaging undergraduates in conversations about cbr. we may be losing future researchers like anahy when we only present a narrow slice of what research can look like. the collaborative has since built on this idea by launching a cbr course using the guidelines, which brings undergraduates together with community-based organizations to learn side-by-side and develop research projects together. anahy’s story also speaks to how “traditional lab science” and other deductive, scientist-led approaches maintain dominance within much of academia, including the health sciences. other approaches, such as cbr, are marginalized despite groups such as the national institute of health (nih) and the centers for disease control and prevention (cdc) naming communitybased research as “essential to deepening our scientific knowledge of health promotion and disease prevention and reducing racial and ethnic health disparities” (teufel-shone, 2011, p. 118). cbr is systematically devalued and discouraged among faculty through mentorship, publishing, promotion and tenure, and other processes (teufel-shone, 2011). for example, policies disregard the longer timeframe to develop community-based research and expect cbr scholars to publish at the same rate as scholars who are not accountable to community partners. this disregard materializes in the hiring and retention of faculty and trickles down to what opportunities are available to students. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25819 | june 11, 2022 60 facilitating equitable dialogue those of us facilitating the process knew that it was not enough to simply bring together a diverse group of community-based and university-based individuals and expect equitable participation. in fact, we expected that structural power imbalances would inevitably emerge and needed to be explicitly addressed in our discussions and our methods of facilitation (bang & vossoughi, 2016). therefore, we started our second meeting explicitly naming power dynamics related to race, gender, degrees, and other axes of stratification. we challenged ourselves as a group to, as we put it in our opening remarks, “shift power; to value multiple forms of knowledge and expertise rather than privileging degrees; to center the expertise of bipoc communities and communities facing historic marginalization; to hold ourselves accountable.” we also encouraged individuals to reach out one-on-one if things kept them from full participation. then, together, we set shared norms for dialogue: 1. honor all forms of experience, expertise, and knowledge around the table. 2. speak your truth and make space for the truths of others. 3. when things get difficult, turn to wonder. 4. no one person has the whole answer. we are co-creating and learning together. 5. center the task at hand. 6. we are in the sandbox together; have fun! this gave us a foundation for equitable dialogue. however, making sure that everyone’s perspective was fully shared and honored was an ongoing project, and we struggled with it throughout, as co-facilitator ana antunes describes below. ana antunes, gender studies “to say that i felt being a facilitator for the crc was over my head is an understatement. as an immigrant woman of color and a career-line junior scholar, impostor syndrome was real. despite my passion for community-engaged work, i felt like most of the other faculty involved in the crc had more to contribute than me. on top of feelings of inadequacy, there was also the toll of the covid-19 pandemic. in salt lake city and around the world, communities of color are still the most affected by covid-19. despite my position of privilege as a university faculty living in the united states, the meetings started at a time when my family abroad was severely affected by the pandemic. so, i entered my first crc meeting feeling overwhelmed. at the same time, being in a (virtual) room with passionate people who could envision, through the despair of the current realities, building a better, collective future did inspire hope. “i cannot say that the process was always easy. i think it is important that we recognize not only where we succeeded but also where we failed spectacularly. while the discussions and © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25819 | june 11, 2022 61 conversations around community-based work were pretty successful, our attempt to co-write the document brought up new challenges. halfway through our process, it seemed logical that we would use some of the meeting time to write and edit together. because we had spent time working together and building relationships, we naively ignored the fact that for some (especially for those of us whose native languages are not english) having to type live while a bunch of university professors watch is not the most comfortable situation. it was painful to see how a group that was having such lively conversations and important discussions quickly became silent. “after the meeting, the co-facilitators met, and it became pretty evident to all of us that the way we had envisioned the process was not going to work. so, we regrouped. we decided to talk individually with each of the crc members. first, we wanted to make sure that, in our attempt to be as collaborative as possible, we had not caused damage to relationships that had been flourishing. second, we wanted to give people the opportunity to share their thoughts about the emerging principles and document in whatever way felt most appropriate to them. some went methodically through each principle and offered thoughts and feedback. some told stories about past experiences. some focused on what they wanted this document to be used for in the future. not only did this allow for rich, authentic feedback; it also provided counterstories and examples that we used in the final document. “i hope that those who interact with the document learn as much from it as we did through the creation process. the process of creating the guidelines reminded me that community work succeeds when differences are not erased or diminished but rather acknowledged and engaged within the open.” ana’s story speaks to how racial, linguistic, and other power imbalances play out between academics and community leaders, as well as within the academy itself. research has shown that faculty of color are more likely to engage in community-based research and teaching approaches and otherwise connect their scholarship to social change (though recent data is hard to come by) (antonio, 2002). they are often the ones pushing for academia to engage with communities outside the campus meaningfully, and are more likely to dedicate time to work that is not seen as scholarship but rather as service (hirabayashi, 1995). meanwhile, even as faculty diversity has increased, faculty of color are underrepresented in tenure-track positions and overrepresented in career-line positions like ana’s (finkelstein et al., 2016). thus, the issue of how cbr is (under)valued in an academic context is inextricably connected with questions of faculty diversity. in addition, ana points out how chosen communication and dissemination methods can amplify or limit participation from different partners. writing and editing articles and reports in english is part and parcel of being an academic in the united states. yet, this form of collaborative © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25819 | june 11, 2022 62 meaning-making can alienate those whose first language is not english, who are not steeped in academic writing, or whose sensemaking processes are not aligned with linear academic prose (gordin, 2015). community-based partners pushed us to think beyond a report and consider how stories, videos, and online engagement could reach a wider audience. we have since received funding to do this. that said, we acknowledge the value of written documents that can hold legitimacy in academic or policy settings, as well as their potential to alienate or subjugate other forms of communication. therefore, finding multiple ways to give input and feedback on all products is critical (community alliance for research and engagement, 2013). community groups engaging academics members of the collaborative argued that our guidelines needed to speak equally to universitybased and community-based audiences. we worked hard to create something that would support faculty who want to do cbr while also putting cbr tools into the hands of the community groups who could hold researchers accountable to equitable power-sharing. community-based and multilingual members of the collaborative critiqued an early draft of the principles for their inaccessibility, like the use of excessively academic language and an overemphasis on the professional researcher audience. we made improvements toward this balance, and while we are not there yet, we hope we can do more to make the guidelines accessible and relevant through our web-based tools. laneta fitisemanu was an avid advocate for making our work accessible to community groups. below, she describes her experience and what she learned as a community-based member of the collaborative. laneta fitisemanu, utah pacific islander health coalition “the crc meetings were a unique space for community members and university faculty and staff to voice their concerns, experiences, and opinions regarding research. i haven’t experienced a space like that elsewhere. we are usually just approached by researchers to participate or recruit, not to discuss it in this capacity. the meetings were well facilitated, and small groups provided an opportunity for greater participation and discussion. there was a lot of great input and conversations that moved the work forward, especially given that participants were volunteering their time and effort. “from a community perspective, working with university folks can be very intimidating. i wasn’t sure i had much to contribute. i worked for the university for several years, but i still struggle to fully grasp institutional jargon and processes and academic language and references. i sometimes felt like i needed to defer to faculty because they are actual researchers. it took me a while to feel comfortable fully sharing experiences, thoughts, and ideas while trying to not be so © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25819 | june 11, 2022 63 intimidated. another challenge was facilitating such a large group of people over a long period of time. sometimes it was difficult to move discussions forward when people had missed meetings. and i know that my contributions have their own limitations. i would have liked to have more voices from my community contributing. “about half-way through the process, a separate research team reached out to me about a study they were doing with the pacific islander community. a few of our community members met with them because we had concerns and reservations about the study. we felt they didn’t really discuss the study with the community or pay attention to the several initiatives we were already running on the topic. we were told that someone from our community was already involved and would help them recruit and facilitate discussions. we voiced our concerns about the lack of representation and reliance on one person to recruit and facilitate for such a diverse population group. we gave them numerous recommendations on how to better outreach with our community and the need for greater support, especially for groups that need greater assistance for them to participate (like translators). they were supposed to follow up with us on the discussion questions they were going to ask participants, but they never followed up after the meeting. “i really appreciated the conversations we were having in the crc at this time. it reconfirmed the need for more authentic collaboration and care when conducting research with communities. the study was rushed1 and not thoroughly representative. we helped advertise it because we didn’t want our community to miss out. i was able to share this perspective during the crc meetings. last month, i emailed the coordinators that we met with for a follow up on the progress of the study, asking when the results can be shared and what they plan to do with them. our coalition has not received a response. i normally would just let this go, but after participating in the crc, i felt emboldened to email and hold them accountable.” this reflection speaks to the complexity of power relationships between researchers and researched, even within efforts to be collaborative. laneta describes how her community’s concerns with a research project and ongoing work on the topic area were dismissed because of a limited approach to community representation. defining the community in cbr is more difficult than rhetoric suggests, and we can fall into the trap of relying too heavily on individuals as representatives of communities that are highly diverse with multiple interests (carty et al., 2008). laneta’s story shows that the crc was not immune to these unequal power dynamics. we inevitably brought our ideas about expertise and our insecurities into the crc, which shaped our 1 the author of this counterstory chose to not directly name or cite the study, as the purpose of the story is not to shame researchers but to draw attention to the issues from a community perspective. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25819 | june 11, 2022 64 interactions. moreover, laneta worried that her voice would be read as representative of her whole community, suggesting the need for broader inclusion. this counterstory highlights the importance of recognizing the multitude of experiences among individuals who share a similar identity marker. although researchers rationally understand that one person cannot speak for their whole community, this knowledge does not often materialize in the research design. that said, laneta’s increased sense of being emboldened to hold researchers accountable suggests the potentially power-shifting impact of creating spaces that situate community partners and university researchers as equally valued members of a collaborative. fostering institutional change when we carried out one-on-one meetings with all crc members, some university-based members noted that the guidelines focused on what the partners in a research partnership could do but did not speak to the larger structures of academia. if we want to see more and better cbr at our university, they argued, we need to address the structural barriers that often marginalize, discourage, and even dismiss this kind of research (teufel-shone, 2011). below, sara hart speaks about her experience as a faculty member in the health sciences and what it will take to shift the culture and structure of our academic health science centers and universities to support cbr better. sara hart, college of nursing “the conversations we had, the stories we shared, and the guidelines we created within the crc were unlike any i’ve experienced within academia. the goals and values established created a collaborative environment where shared learning and multiple forms of knowledge were embraced. the work of the crc ultimately reflected the six principles for cbr as defined in the guidelines: shared goals and values, community strengths, equitable collaboration, collective benefit, trusting relationships, and shared results. it was a privilege and an opportunity for professional growth to explore, discuss, and challenge research processes with a diverse group of voices representing community partners and academia. i learned much more than i contributed. “our work around terminology, phrasing, and definitions often presented challenges but these conversations ultimately served to promote greater understanding among the participants. learning how words and information are understood and experienced across diverse partners provided each participant with opportunities to deepen their partnership work. the bulk of this work occurred during the covid-19 pandemic, with most in the group subjected to new professional and personal challenges. however, the use of virtual meetings likely increased regular participation and allowed for easy recording and sharing of information. the use of virtual meetings may have also reduced the active participation of some crc members. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25819 | june 11, 2022 65 “the boundaries between academia and community are blurry when the product or outcome is health care. although it shouldn’t surprise me, i am still struck by how challenging it is to define community-based research in the health sciences. in addition to confusion generated by the varied terminology, institutional review boards may not be prepared for the complexity and ambiguity that often exists when our research is conducted in partnership with communities. “my work with the crc served to highlight the many layers and diverse perspectives that exist within communities and across academia. this experience also provided an opportunity to identify elements of academic health science centers that can support or trip up well-planned partnerships. for example, one faculty member’s community-based research partner may be another department’s clinical practice site. community-based clinicians may serve as community partners while also being on faculty at the university. administrators may see established community partnerships as opportunities for revenue generation in ways that change the dynamic between partners. “it is my hope that our next steps can involve creating more structured support for learning and partnering for community-based research. this will increase the quality and volume of cbr in our state and help to achieve buy-in from diverse stakeholders. one of the stakeholder groups who has potential to accelerate this work is university leadership. this will require framing cbr to highlight the specific benefits and opportunities it provides to each subset of this population. for example, leadership in the health sciences would benefit from learning about cbr through a health equity lens with value for the health system highlighted. when leadership recognizes the benefits of cbr for the institution and for the broader community, this work will be more widely resourced and embraced.” like laneta and ana, sara points to language and power as central challenges in cbr. sharing language and definitions across fields, disciplines, and communities is an ongoing process. still, as sara explains, it can be a springboard for valuable dialogue and help people explore how language choices privilege some perspectives over others. sara also names university leadership and the institutional review board as key areas where changes could lead to stronger support for cbr. this aligns with what engagement scholars call the institutionalization of community engagement, which is a process that builds on the work of faculty, students, and community partners with attention to how engagement fits into institutional culture; how campus leaders communicate the value of engagement; and how systemic factors such as hiring and tenure policy shape the capacity of an institution to engage (welch, 2016). institutionalization, at its best, is a system-wide commitment to fulfill institutional responsibilities of working toward a more just future. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25819 | june 11, 2022 66 conclusion the process of developing our cbr guidelines was valuable and gratifying. it was useful in informing higher education and community collaborations and the insights it offered into the nuanced functioning of power in campus-community partnerships and the possibilities for strengthening anti-racist and anti-colonial approaches to research. the process offered a platform for counterstorytelling and pushing back against the epistemic violence that silences the knowledge of marginalized communities. it highlighted the importance of engaging undergraduates in cbr and disrupting taken-for-granted approaches to science that often reinforce inequity and injustice. it reminded us that creating truly collaborative spaces takes ongoing attention to power dynamics and how they are intertwined with questions of language and communication. it challenged simplistic definitions of community and expertise and pointed out the dangers of defining these concepts too narrowly. and the process focused our attention on the idea that the burden of creating equitable partnerships should not fall on individual academics and community leaders alone, but also on the structures and policies of higher education, which can be redesigned to help institutions better fulfill their responsibilities to the creation of a just society both locally and globally. for instance, revising tenure and promotion policies to give equal weight to community-based research as traditional research or committing as many funds to community-based research as traditional research. dutta and colleagues (2021) remind us that “any counterstorytelling project is necessarily incomplete. therefore, even as we envision possibilities, we recognize the situated nature, the fluidity, as well as the limits of the very counterstories we coproduce” (p. 10). similarly, the cbr guidelines we developed are inherently incomplete and will continue to evolve as they are used and reflected in workshops, research projects, and other spaces. by creating a web-based version of the guidelines, we will be able to update regularly and expand upon the original ideas dynamically and collaboratively and create more diverse tools for communication. we encourage other communities and higher education institutions to take what we have created and adapt it to their contexts or, even better, to convene their local collaboratives in which to build relationships, establish shared language and values, and learn from the incredible expertise and insights that exist in all our communities. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | 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(2019). shifting academic health centers from a culture of community service to community engagement and integration. academic medicine: journal of the association of american medical colleges, 94(6), 763-767. doi:10.1097/acm.0000000000002711 original research © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25482 | september 9, 2021 106 an exploratory study of the community impacts of service-learning ka hing lau1, maureen yin lee chan2, cynthia lok sum yeung3, and robin stanley snell4 1,3office of service learning, lingnan university, 2 department of curriculum and instruction, the education university of hong kong, and 4 department of management, the hang seng university of hong kong cite as: lau, k.h., chan, m.y.l., yeung, c.l.s., snell, r.s. (2021). an exploratory study of the community impacts of service-learning. metropolitan universities, 32(2), 106-128. doi: 10.18060/25482 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract research on community impacts from service-learning has been scarce, yet this area is worth exploring in order to understand how and why service-learning can make a difference. the current research sought to validate a conceptual framework (lau & snell, 2020), which categorizes the impacts of service-learning on community partner organizations (cpos) and on end-beneficiaries. under the framework, impacts on end-beneficiaries can arise directly from service-learning interventions, but can also arise indirectly as a result of impacts on cpos. for the research, semi-structured, one-to-one or focus group interviews were conducted with 13 cpo representatives, seeking their perceptions of positive and negative impacts of servicelearning. most described impacts were positive, including, for cpos: achieving project goals to further the cpo’s mission; augmenting resources of the cpo; and gaining knowledge, insights, ideas and techniques. these positive impacts for cpos appear to reflect three factors: alignment between service-learning project goals and the cpo’s mission; mutual recognition of students’ potential for transferring knowledge from universities to cpos; and mutual understanding of students’ status as semi-outsiders, free to challenge existing practices or systems. further studies can explore impacts from the end-beneficiary's perspective, and adopt longitudinal and action research approaches. keywords: service-learning, community impacts, alignment, needs, knowledge transfer https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25482| september 9, 2021 107 introduction service-learning, as “a form of experiential education in which students engage in activities that address human and community needs together with structured opportunities intentionally designed to promote student learning and development” (jacoby, 1996, p. 5), has been widely adopted in higher education across the globe (ma, 2018; shumer, stanton & giles, 2017). many higher education institutions adopting service-learning are urban and metropolitan universities (such as those in hong kong), following the tradition of emphasizing the use of knowledge for the betterment of society and educating students into becoming civic leaders with a sense of social responsibility (bringle & hatcher, 1996; kellogg, 1999). a large body of research has accumulated regarding the beneficial impacts of service-learning on student learning outcomes (e.g. astin, vogelgesang, ikeda, & yee, 2000; elyer, giles, stenson, & gray, 2001; felten & clayton, 2011; ngai, 2006, 2009; shek & chan, 2013; snell, chan, ma, & chan, 2015a), and a number of measurement instruments for capturing these impacts have been developed (e.g. bringle, philips, & hudson, 2004; toncar, reid, burns, anderson, & nguyen, 2006; snell & lau, 2020). however, the impact of service-learning on the community, an equally important stakeholder of this pedagogy, has received much less attention. more than 20 years ago, giles & eyler (1998) identified the community impact of service-learning as one of the “top ten unanswered questions in service-learning research” and until recently the relative neglect of this question was still being criticized (e.g., farahmandpour & shodjaee-zrudlo, 2015). one reason why community impact is important for service-learning is that meeting needs identified by the community predicts students’ personal development through service-learning (eyler & giles, 1999). another, more fundamental reason is that mutually beneficial partnerships between campus and community form the basis of effective and sustainable service-learning (holland & gelmon, 1998). the dearth of research on the community impacts of service-learning may, in part, reflect the methodological challenges of defining the boundaries of the affected community, and of operationalizing measures of community impact (cruz & giles, 2000). moreover, the responses of some potential end-beneficiaries of service-learning, whom this article refers to as those individuals or groups, besides the cpo itself or employees of the cpo, who are perceived to benefit directly or indirectly from the service-learning intervention, may not be readily accessible. most studies of community impact that have taken place have therefore been based on interviews with community partner organization (cpo) representatives as proxies of endbeneficiaries. another difficulty encountered in researching has been the lack of conceptual framework. there are few models in prior literature, and almost all of them consider community impact exclusively © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25482| september 9, 2021 108 from the community partner’s perspective (e.g., clarke, 2003; driscoll, holland, gelmon, & kerrigan, 1996; gelmon, 2003). lau and snell (2020) recently developed a tripartite model comprising three components: the service-learning intervention, the cpo, and the endbeneficiaries (see figure 1). figure 1. a conceptual model for assessing community impact the model in figure 1 identifies three domains of impact on the cpo: (1) increased capacity, (2) furtherance of goals and values, and (3) knowledge/ insights gained. the model also identifies (a) needs fulfillment and (b) quality of life as two broad impact domains for end-beneficiaries. a separate model, derived from max-neef (1991) classifies 36 types of end-beneficiary needs that could be positively impacted, comprising nine types (subsistence, protection, affection, understanding, participation, leisure, creation, identity and freedom) with four satisfiers for each (being, having, doing and interacting). table 1 shows the 36 types of needs. 1. capacity level 2. goals & values realized 3. knowledge/ insights gained community partner servicelearning end-beneficiary a. needs fulfillment b. quality of lifedirect effect indirect effect direct effect © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25482| september 9, 2021 109 table 1. the matrix of needs and satisfiers being having doing interacting subsistence 1. health 2. food, shelter, work 3. feed, procreate, rest, work 4. living and social setting protection 5. care, autonomy 6. social security, health systems, rights, work 7. co-operate, take care of 8. living and social space affection 9. self-esteem, respect, passion 10. partnerships, family 11. take care of, express emotions, share, cultivate 12. privacy, intimacy, space of togetherness understanding 13. curiosity, rationality 14. education, communication 15. investigate, educate, analyze 16. interaction setting, schools participation 17. adaptability, willingness, 18. duties, rights 19. co-operate, interact 20. participation setting leisure 21. imagination, humor, sensuality, tranquility 22. games, peace of mind 23. memories, fantasies, fun 24. privacy, free time, space of closeness creation 25. passion, imagination, inventiveness 26. abilities, skills, methods 27. invent, build, design 28. productive and feedback settings identity 29. sense of belonging, consistency, differentiation 30. language, religions, habits, reference groups, values 31. integrate, know oneself, grow 32. settings which one belongs to freedom 33. autonomy, openmindedness 34. equal rights 35. dissent, choose, disobey 36. plasticity source: max-neef (1991) both figure 1 and table 1 draw attention to the importance of contributing to the fulfillment of end-beneficiaries’ needs. in addition, figure 1 indicates that impacts on end-beneficiaries may arise indirectly as a result of impacts on the cpo, as well as arising directly from the servicelearning intervention. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25482| september 9, 2021 110 on the basis of interviews with representatives from cpos that had been partners of servicelearning projects, the current study had two main goals. the first was to establish whether the model in figure 1 and the taxonomy in table 1 were supported by the accounts provided by the interviewees. the second was to identify any implied modifications to the model and the taxonomy arising from the interviewees’ accounts, before any subsequent quantitative validation. methods interviewees the authors adopted a qualitative approach by interviewing representatives of 13 cpos that had collaborated in service-learning projects with one of four local universities. the latter comprised lingnan university (lu), the hong kong polytechnic university (hkpu), hong kong baptist university (hkbu), and the education university of hong kong (eduhk). the four universities were invited to nominate cpos that they worked with for several years on multiple projects. a quota sampling method was employed in selecting the cpos based on two criteria: the type of service-learning project (i.e., direct, indirect, advocacy, or research), and the type of cpo (e.g., ngo, social enterprise). invitations were sent to 16 local, hong-kong based cpos, and representatives of 11 of them were interviewed (in one case two representatives were interviewed). two overseas cpos were also invited, in order to extend the generalizability of this study to overseas programs (see table 2). as shown in table 3, all interviews referred to the perceived impacts of projects that involved direct and/or indirect service, while some also referred to projects that involved research and/or advocacy. most cpos represented in the current research were ngos or social enterprises, and between them they catered for the needs of a wide range of end-beneficiary groups. moreover, the students who had worked with the cpos on service-learning projects majored in diverse disciplines. the authors, thus, believe the sample was sufficiently diverse to include a wide range of potential community impacts. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25482| september 9, 2021 111 table 2. profile of the interviewees, the cpos represented by them, and the associated collaborations no. cpo type cpo’s service targets interviewees’ profile collaborating university position gender r01 ngo elderly people senior supervisor of social services division female lu r02 ngo low income families project manager male lu r03 social enterprise women general secretary female lu r04 ngo the public including international visitors assistant discovery & education manager male lu r05 social enterprise elderly people senior supervisor of community support centre male lu r06 ngo elderly people (dementia) senior supervisor (counselling and caring service team) female lu r07 ngo primary school children registered social worker/ officer-in-charge female/ male eduhk r08 social enterprise masters of traditional craftsmanship in hong kong senior corporate affairs & marketing manager female hkbu r09 ngo primary school children centre-in-charge female eduhk r10 ngo / social enterprise patients / low income groups senior program manager female hkbu r11 aided school (private) secondary school children vice-principal male hkpu r12 ngo (international) rural families in poverty program manager male hkpu r13 ngo (international) rural families in poverty the founder female hkpu © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25482| september 9, 2021 112 table 3. distribution of types of project across the types of cpo service-learning type* cpo type direct service indirect service research advocacy ngo r1, r2, r4, r5, r7, r9, r10, r11 r2, r4, r11 r2 r2, r5 social enterprise/ private r3, r8 r3, r6, r8, r10 r6 r8, r10 international partners (both are ngos) r12, r13 r13 note: please refer to the definitions provided by the university of minnesota community service-learning center (2020). interview protocol and procedures after cpos accepted the invitation, representatives from them, who carried knowledge about previous service-learning projects were selected for interview. the nominees were contacted by the research team for interview arrangements, and at that time were briefed about the focus of the interview and assured of data confidentiality. with one exception, nominees agreed to a face-toface interview. in the exception case, a combination of telephone and online video conferencing was used. before each interview, the research team obtained consent from the interviewees regarding their voluntary participation and their support of an audio or video recording of the interview. each interview lasted between 60 and 130 minutes and followed an interview protocol that was divided into four sections. first, interviewees were asked to relate critical incidents to their experiences and observations of projects they perceived to have been relatively successful or unsuccessful in terms of impact on their own cpos and/or for their community. second, interviewees were asked to share their perceptions and suggestions about aspects of project management that could enhance community impact. for example, “what do you think could be done before or during a service-learning project in order to facilitate students’ learning in ways that could increase their potential to provide positive community impacts?” third, interviewees were asked to explain their perceptions of the benefits and costs for their cpos and for end-beneficiaries, which had arisen from collaboration in service-learning. for example, “from your experience, what benefits has service-learning brought to your organization/ clients/ service targets? please give me an example.” fourth, interviewees were asked to comment on and provide explanations about any aspects of the service-learning projects and/or the associated collaborations that had been particular sources of satisfaction or dissatisfaction for them and/or other stakeholders. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25482| september 9, 2021 113 data analysis the recordings of the interviews were transcribed by the second and third authors. each transcript was then reviewed and coded by the research team. coding was based on an inductive approach (charmaz, 2006) for creating subcategories within the parameters of figure 1. the emerging category system was compared against the full dataset with iterations, using techniques such as storyline (chun tie, birks, & francis, 2019), until saturation. findings positive impacts for cpos as categorized in table 4a, interviewees indicated that the main benefits that service-learning had brought to the respective cpos comprised: (a) achieving intended project outcomes and thereby contributing to their mission; (b) establishing or enhancing relationships with their stakeholders; (c) obtaining resources to augment service capacity; and (d) gaining new knowledge/ insights/ techniques. next, the authors shall provide illustrations of these various benefits. table 4a. categories and mentions of positive impacts overarching categories frequency of mentions achieving project goals to further the cpo’s mission 87 establishing/ enhancing the cpo’s stakeholder relationships 9 augmenting the resources of the cpo 41 knowledge, insights/ideas, techniques for the cpo 43 positive impacts for end-beneficiaries/ community 75 total 255 © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25482| september 9, 2021 114 achieving project goals to further the cpo’s mission. many interviewees reported that service-learning projects had given rise to valuable outputs, which had enhanced the cpo’s existing services, or had helped the cpo to create new services. table 4b. categories and mentions of positive impacts on achieving project goals to further the cpo’s mission (corresponding to cpo’s goals and values realized in figure 1) positive impact categories frequency of mentions tangible project output/ contribution 27 enhanced the cpo’s service 20 helped to achieve partner goals 15 promoted the cpo’s service 14 enhanced sense of satisfaction 7 more opportunities 4 total 87 for example, students in one service-learning project helped to edit and publish a book about the food recycling service of the cpo, which featured interviews with end-beneficiaries. the respective interviewee indicated that the project achieved the goals of engaging end-beneficiaries in interviews and of promoting the cpo and its food recycling service. i felt impressed with…this book. it was made by the practicum students…we also invited the course’s professor to write the preface…the students interviewed people in the neighborhood and reported their stories… we needed materials like this book, so that we could introduce our services to our residents and show how these have been valued by others… (r2) some interviewees referred to other kinds of contribution by students, which they regarded as having furthered the mission of the cpo by increasing the number of clients that the cpo was able to serve. for example, in one project, students helped to operate booths and conduct games as means to advocate environmental protection, stating, “we really earned a very tangible reward from the program. they [the students] could reach out to several thousands …” (r4) establishing/enhancing the cpo’s stakeholder relationships. nine relevant quotes were collected in this category without further sub-categories being identified. one interviewee explained how students helped to advance the respective cpo’s mission of promoting traditional local craftsmanship by persuading some local artisans to be video recorded while sharing their skills and experience. the students helped to shoot and edit the video for sharing with the public. the interviewee said: © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25482| september 9, 2021 115 the artisans were willing to cooperate with the students for free because they saw this as a one-off commitment to help the students with their assignment. previously, when we tried to enlist the artisans ourselves, some of them had been reluctant, and considered that they should be paid for their participation. (r8) in the above case, the students served as a bridge, enabling the cpo to establish relationships with artisans. an interviewee from another cpo explained that relationships formed with students through service-learning collaboration had helped his organization to connect with customers: a former student visited me and asked if i remembered her. she told me that she once undertook service-learning in our enterprise. she then worked for the human resources department in a company and would like to order some christmas party gifts from our enterprise. some other previous students also told me that they had sent my name card to their bosses… so, students would help open up channels for promoting our social enterprise in the longer term. (r5) augmenting the resources of the cpo. another type of positive impact for cpos entailed gaining temporary resources to augment their normal capacity. table 4c. categories and mentions of positive impacts on augmenting the resources of the cpo (corresponding to cpo’s capacity in figure 1) positive impact sub-categories (where applicable) frequency of mentions more human resources 15 shared/ reduced workload 9 more support 4 more positive work environment 4 more resources generally 3 larger capacity to serve clients 2 manpower development 2 reduced expenses/ costs 2 total 41 the most frequently mentioned factor in this regard referred to human resources, reflecting that interviewees considered that the additional manpower provided by students in undertaking service-learning helped to reduce the workload of regular employees, increase the cpo’s capacity to serve clients, and reduce its expenses. for example: © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25482| september 9, 2021 116 being able to allocate tasks to the university students reduced the workload of the regular tutors... so that each tutor could focus more attention on fewer children when handling their homework issues. (r7) by arranging the service-learning projects, we increase the number of clients, whom we can serve, and we can also provide new activities for them. besides, we improve the quality of the existing activities. (r13) [the university] will provide suitable training for the students. this minimizes the time and administrative cost incurred for our full-time staff. furthermore, the project is easier for me to handle. (r4) i can say that because of the help of students and using the part-time standard rate as a yardstick for what we would otherwise have paid, we have saved hk$100,000 dollars per annum. (r5) interviewees also indicated that besides furnishing the cpos with resourceful partners (students), with whom they could co-create ideas and practices when implementing service-learning projects. such projects served as a channel for identifying, attracting, and recruiting suitable students as employees after their graduation. we can brainstorm together. social enterprises lack human resources…the students are not treated as cheap labor, and we would like to co-create with them. (r8) we plant the seeds in universities and …we can have a stable supply of human resources with those students, who have completed service-learning. (r2) in the context of international service-learning, interviewees explained that financial resources played a crucial role in enabling the respective cpo to achieve better service quality and expand its service scope. the partner university obtained additional funding…and for the trip this year, the number of participants increased to 30, among which were 24 students and three teachers from the university, and another three teachers from [another] university. (r10) we need the resources and we need funds. so, if we don’t have the funds and the resources, we can’t operate. so, with that partnership [with the university], through [service-learning] projects, our organization has been able to reach out to needy people, and therefore, fulfilling the mission. (r12) © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25482| september 9, 2021 117 knowledge, ideas/insights, techniques for the cpo. knowledge: some interviewees explained how students contributed knowledge that was helpful to the respective cpos. table 4d. categories and mentions of positive impacts on knowledge, insights/ideas techniques for the cpo (corresponding to knowledge/insights gained by the cpo in figure 1) positive impact sub-categories (where applicable) frequency of mentions new ideas, insights 21 new knowledge 14 new experience 6 enhanced skills 2 total 43 for example: as an ngo, our knowledge is limited, and the students could fill the gaps. for example, we needed to calculate the weight of the clothes that we collect, and the carbon dioxide emissions associated with our activities, but we didn’t know how to do the calculations. the students informed us about the sources of the formulae from websites. (r11) ideas/ insights. many interviewees reported that students provided new ideas or insights that had not previously been considered. these ideas could sometimes inspire service innovations, as when students suggested applying skills that were being used for the embroidery of traditional chinese shoes to the decoration of a modern luggage tag: the students emphasized new ideas for the product…and the new product for embroidered shoes…the students linked up the shoe embroidery skills and applied it to decorate the luggage tag…for example, they embroidered my name on the tag… it was good for the students to approach the artisan about the “embroidered shoes”…and they had innovative ideas to transform the traditional product. (r8) interviewees observed that students’ imagination was not confined by established structures and practices, and many of them treasured the creativity of students, whom they saw as outsiders with greater freedom to think “out of the box.” for example: i think [the students] have been most helpful with their creative ideas. typically, when we [in this cpo] think of something new, we veto our own ideas. we will worry about where to find the money, where to find the place, what are the techniques? the students © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25482| september 9, 2021 118 don’t seem to have any of this burden, and i treasure this a lot. i just want them to talk about their ideas, even very weird ones. (r5) through discussions between students and experienced staff members, students’ ideas could be tested and modified, and eventually some of them would become valuable assets for cpos and their staff members. most interviewees mentioned similar episodes of synergy, such as the following: most colleagues would be pre-occupied by regular duties and confined to existing ideas and practices. through collaborating with … students, we acquired new stimuli and ideas… [for example], the idea of “aquaponics” impressed me a lot and this was very creative. i had learnt about that idea before but i had never thought that it could be executed in my place. (r6) we may try out an idea if resources are available [in our cpo] or in the market… one example was about upcycling. some manufacturers donate leather samples… we explained to the students that this large pile of leather samples should not be dumped in the landfills… they were outstanding and thought of knitting the leather into a hand strap. you can find that many young people have a leather hand strap, and also a wallet and purse, and many other things. (r10) techniques. several interviewees mentioned gaining techniques based on students’ it abilities, for example: [the students] are good at using excel and powerpoint. through forum and instagram, they help a lot in passing on messages. compared with our staff, the university students have absolute advantages in this aspect…we also learn from the students, for example, the techniques of using the internet and also functions within whatsapp… (r10) positive impacts for end-beneficiaries/ community interviewees identified various kinds of beneficial impacts for end-beneficiaries, comprising some benefits that may have arisen directly from service-learning interventions, and others that may have come about indirectly via the cpos, as a result of positive impacts of service-learning on the latter. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25482| september 9, 2021 119 table 4e. categories and mentions of positive impacts on positive impacts for endbeneficiaries/ community (corresponding to needs fulfilment/ better quality of life for endbeneficiaries in figure 1) positive impact sub-categories (where applicable) frequency of mentions positive impacts on end-beneficiaries generally 47 more participation by end-beneficiaries 7 positive impacts for the community 7 increased income 4 better quality of life 4 meaningful service 3 sustainable contributions received by the community 2 sub-total 75 some interviewees described what they perceived as substantial, positive impacts for endbeneficiaries that they attributed to service-learning projects. for example, one interviewee referred to the impacts for local residents, which arose from an international service-learning project that involved installing solar-powered lighting systems in remote villages in cambodia: [before the installations] when it was dark, the children could not do their homework. but with solar-powered lighting, they can now do their homework between 6 and 8 p.m. that’s something we regard as a major benefit for the education of children. also, because of the lighting, their parents can oversee the surrounding household environment. this is very important for two reasons. first, security can be ensured as nobody can come and steal their property such as animals…second, the parents can continue doing their work during the evening. [before] when it was dark, they stopped and went to bed. (r12) this interviewee also characterized students as intermediaries in the knowledge transfer process from universities, via the cpo, to the community. we worked together with the university and their students to transfer knowledge and skills into community development … it’s the transfer of skills and knowledge that directly benefits the end users. (r12) in this example, the tangible outputs of service-learning were solar power and the associated lighting provided for the local community, but there were also three additional benefits arising from these. the framework derived from max-neef (1991) given in figure 1 can be used to categorize these impacts, as follows. first, enabling children to continue their studies met needs related to understanding-doing; second, improving household security met needs related to protection-having; third, enabling residents to extend working hours into the evening met needs © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25482| september 9, 2021 120 related to subsistence-doing. meeting these needs was perceived as having enhanced the villagers’ quality of life. hong kong based interviewees also provided examples of positive impacts for local endbeneficiaries. one such example involved a regular arrangement, under which cohorts of university students had run a stem education program for junior students from a secondary school: for the first session [of the stem program], our s1 [secondary] students go to the university campus [receipt of education (understanding-having)] … the university students serve as teachers, but the class is more like an interest class [fun (leisure-being)] … [they] lead the s1 students to brainstorm how the technologies of stem can be used to create solutions for problems [engaging in investigating (understanding-doing)] faced by elderly people. in response to the s1 students’ ideas, they teach them [skill acquisition (creation-having)] how to produce prototypes [inventiveness (creation-being)]; [designing (creation-doing)] … and how to present the products to the elderly people [actively participating in an educational setting (understanding-interacting)] … our s1 students, without any prior knowledge, can implement their ideas with the support of the university students [participating in a setting for production (creation-interacting)] … many, with no prior understanding of science, begin developing an interest in science [curiosity (understanding-being)]. when they are promoted to senior forms, they are more likely to choose science subjects … they have extended their horizons… as they become mature, they experiment in s2 and s3 and learn more about science in s4 and s5. last october, a group of our secondary students went overseas, participating in a well-known worldwide science competition, winning the bronze prize. (r11) in the above account, as perceived by r11, the services provided by the university students undertaking service-learning project have not only given rise to immediate satisfaction and knowledge for the s1 students, but have also generated interest that has paved the way for the secondary students’ subsequent participation in further stem educational and project-based activities. as with the previous example, the max-neef (1991) needs fulfilment framework can be used to categorize the perceived impacts. in terms of immediate impacts of the stem education session for the s1 students, the interviewee perceived that the latter had benefitted in terms of fulfilling the needs of curiosity and education. the interviewee also perceived that with the help of the university students, the s1 students had undertaken projects, through which they created simple prototypes, thereby benefitting in terms of skill acquisition and translating it into an inventive and innovative design for inspiring the community members. in addition, the session appeared to the interviewee to be like an interest class, potentially involving a form of leisure for the s1 students. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25482| september 9, 2021 121 furthermore, the interviewee attributed the decision of some secondary students to pursue their interest in science through self-study and to undertake science subjects in subsequent years to the impact of the stem education session provided by the university students, and even hinted that the evolution during years s2-s5 of the secondary students’ sense of belonging within the science community could be attributed to this intervention. discussion the current research indicates that from the perspective of representatives of cpos, servicelearning projects undertaken by students from universities in hong kong were perceived to have had favourable community impacts. moreover, the findings have confirmed the proposed model, paving the way for translating the model into institutional and practitioner guidelines for higher education institutions, including the urban and metropolitan universities. one tangible output of value to both the service-learning research and practitioner communities is that arising from the research, a community impact feedback questionnaire (cifq) has been developed (lau & snell, 2021). the cifq has been designed to capture the community impacts arising from service-learning from the cpo's perspective, and is intended for practical use as a tool for improving service-learning programs. the remainder of this section recaps the main findings regarding community impacts, seeks to explain why these impacts arise from service-learning, relates findings to other recent research, acknowledges limitations, and identifies directions for further research. positive impacts for cpos consistent with the conceptual model in figure 1, the three main types of perceived benefit for cpos were: achieving project goals to further their mission; augmenting their resources; and gaining knowledge/ insights/ ideas/ techniques. the first type of perceived benefit implies the need for alignment between the goals of the respective service-learning project and the cpo’s mission. such alignment requires collaboration between the cpo and the university during both planning and execution stages, as recommended by prior scholars (e.g., mattessich & monsey, 1992; wade, 1997). the second type of perceived benefit reflects that ngos and social enterprises in hong kong tend to face manpower shortages, and that students undertaking service-learning projects have been able to help fill this gap, thereby increasing the capacity of cpos to serve clients without increasing workloads among regular employees. some interviewees pointed out that in such cases the students were regarded as knowledge workers and not merely as “cheap labor” and that it was essential for the students to be fully inducted into the cpo’s mission. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25482| september 9, 2021 122 the third type of perceived benefit involved knowledge-related student contributions. some of these contributions were described by interviewees as involving practical applications of functional expertise not possessed by the cpos, typically within domains such as it, social marketing, and engineering. contributions of this kind could be characterized as involving a form of knowledge transfer from the university via the students to the cpos. other descriptions by interviewees of students’ knowledge-related contributions involved the latter introducing new ideas and fresh perspectives to the cpos that interviewees considered valuable. as compared with regular employees, interviewees characterized students undertaking service-learning projects as semi-outsiders with fewer inhibitions against challenging existing practices or systems, and often expressing the perspective of a different generation vis-à-vis their host managers. while interviewees acknowledged that students’ ideas and suggestions required careful evaluation, and were sometimes impracticable, they indicated that these could point the way toward practical service improvements and innovations. while this finding confirms previous research (barrientos, 2010; driscoll et al., 1996), it is important when assessing community impacts to ascertain whether tangible benefits are perceived to have come to fruition in practice. the authors consider that students can constitute an organic synthesis of extra manpower and a source of new knowledge, skills and techniques for their host cpos, as a result of the unique features of well-designed service-learning. an important design feature involves connecting service and academic content (astin et al., 2000; billig, 2007; eyler & giles, 1999; snell, chan, ma, & chan, 2015b). without this connection, it may be difficult for students to transcend the role of volunteers and harness their knowledge and skills as assets for the community partners. in addition to academic content, students also drew on in their 21st century talents and skills, such as computer literacy, marketing via social media (e.g., forum and instagram), and creativity (e.g., applying the shoe embroidery skills to the luggage tag), as required by their cpos. a welldesigned service-learning project that is in triple alignment with academic content, graduate attributes, and community needs thus creates a uniquely powerful ecosystem that fosters win-win collaboration between students and cpos, instead of merely supplying extra hands to relieve the cpo’s work burden. findings for this paper are compatible with those of two other recent studies. kindred (2020) identified both short-term and long-term benefits of service-learning for community partners in terms of organizational learning and extra capacity. jetter, pelco, and elliot (2017) identified positive impacts from service-learning for a sample of 22 cpos. they found that besides expanding organizational capacity, there were economic benefits arising from enhanced service value and fundraising activities, along with social benefits associated with building connections with the student body and the university, and reflected in the enhanced well-being of community members. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25482| september 9, 2021 123 positive impacts for end-beneficiaries as described by interviewees, some of the positive impacts for end-beneficiaries appeared to have arisen directly and immediately from service-learning projects, as with the bringing of solar-powered lighting to remote villages in cambodia. other positive impacts for endbeneficiaries appeared to have emerged over several years, as with the perceived ripple effects of the stem education program for s1 secondary students at the partner secondary school. the authors may infer that in the latter case, some of the perceived benefits for the secondary school students as end-beneficiaries may have arisen indirectly, as a result of positive impacts of a series of service-learning interventions on the service quality and/or service capacity of the cpo (the secondary school). the authors found that positive impacts for end-beneficiaries could be categorized with the maxneef (1991) typology of needs-fulfilment presented in table 1, and that interviewees perceived needs-fulfilment for end-beneficiaries as being related to the enhancement of their quality of life. limitations and directions for further research into community impacts the current research provided qualitative support for the models of the community impacts of service-learning that are given in table 1 and figure 1, respectively, paving the way for the development of measurement instruments such as the cifq, mentioned above. while the current research has provided pointers toward the likely impacts of service-learning projects on cpos and end-beneficiaries, a major limitation is that it has drawn exclusively on the perspectives of cpo representatives. more complete understanding of the perceived impacts of service-learning projects on end-beneficiaries and other community residents is likely to require additional data collection. this could involve end-beneficiaries reporting their perceptions of the contributions of service-learning interventions to the fulfilment of their own needs and quality of life. such studies could be guided by the max-neef (1991) typology, and might involve initial diagnosis of the most salient areas of need-fulfilment for end-beneficiaries from among the 36 possible domains (see table 1), by first interviewing cpo representatives and/or by observing the service-learning intervention(s). for example, regarding the stem education case described above, r11 had already been interviewed, and expressed perceptions that there were immediate impacts on the s1 secondary school students in terms of their understanding-being, understanding-having, understandingdoing, understanding-interacting, creation-being, creation-having, creation-doing, creationinteracting, and leisure-being. r11 also surmised that there may have been longer-term impacts on the secondary school students in terms of their identity-being vis-à-vis the science community. in a follow-up study of community impacts, current and former s1 students could be © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25482| september 9, 2021 124 interviewed systematically about their corresponding perceptions of such impacts. their perceptions may challenge, corroborate or augment the perceptions of r11, the cpo representative. such studies may be carried out longitudinally, tracing impacts over several years, and may also involve action research, as findings are fed back to inform the design and implementation of subsequent service-learning interventions. studies of community impact from the students’ perspective are notably absent. their perceptions on how service-learning impacts the communities that they serve also warrant attention. finally, this paper has not, until this point, mentioned adverse impacts arising from servicelearning projects. interviewees commented that on occasion, desired outcomes for the respective cpo had not been met and that, associated with this, there had been some perceived wastage of time and resources. the authors consider that such cases could be prevented by thorough and accurate need diagnosis, appropriate student preparation and training, careful management of partner expectations, and due consideration of the workload implications for students. these aspects, along with the incidence of adverse community impacts, are also topics for future research. author note this paper results from a cross-institutional project named “cross-institutional capacity building for service-learning in hong kong higher education institutions (polyu4/t&l/16-19)” which aims to enhance and support the development of service-learning as an effective pedagogical strategy under the collaboration of lingnan university, the hong kong polytechnic university, hong kong baptist university, and the education university of hong kong. the project was launched in 2017 and has been funded by the university grants committee (ugc) of the hong kong special administrative region (hksar) government. the authors wish to thank the ugc for funding the project, and the above institutions for their participation in the process. © the author 2021. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan 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(1997). community service-learning: a guide to including service in the public school curriculum. ny: state university of new york press. https://doi.org/10.18060/23258 https://doi.org/10.2753/mtp1069-6679140304 http://ccel-app.umn.edu/cesp/programdetails/engagement_types.html http://ccel-app.umn.edu/cesp/programdetails/engagement_types.html microsoft word larson et al. 2022 publish.docx original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25689 | june 11, 2022 91 selecting and implementing a telementoring program: case studies of project echo rebecca sam larson and caryn medved 1 diffusion associates, east lansing, mi, 2 department of communication studies, baruch college, city university of new york cite as: larson, r.s. & medved, c. (2022). selecting and implementing a telementoring program: case studies of project echo. metropolitan universities, 33(3), 91-109. doi: 10.18060/25689 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. guest editors: joseph a. allen, ph.d., sara hart, ph.d., and melissa yack, ph.d. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract extension for community healthcare outcomes (project echo) is a telementoring program for health professionals that uses adult learning techniques and interactive video technology to connect distal community providers with specialist and multidisciplinary teams in real-time collaborative sessions. we examine the adoption, implementation, and sustainability of echo programs at four academic medical centers through case studies based on structured interviews. the study and its analysis are informed by the diffusion of innovation theory and the exploration, preparation, implementation, sustainment (epis) framework. we found that early adopters became aware of echo by chance and were persuaded through observations to adopt echo. finding a home for echo was an important initial adoption decision. five context factors influence the implementation of echo: funding, networks, staffing processes, leadership, and individual characteristics of staff. sustainability requires ongoing funding, which itself may rely on evidence of outcomes. findings from this study can inform the implementation of project echo at other academic medical centers and extend to decisions to adopt, implement, and sustain similar telementoring programs designed to close the researchpractice care gap between communities and academic medical centers. keywords: telementoring, project echo, implementation science, diffusion of innovations original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25689 | june 11, 2022 92 introduction dr. sanjeev arora, a hepatitis c specialist at the university of new mexico health sciences center, walked into his clinic to find a 43-year-old woman with hepatitis c seeking treatment for the first time after her initial diagnosis eight years earlier. when asked why she delayed treatment, she said she could not afford to take time off of work to make the five-hour trip to albuquerque. she finally sought help when her abdominal pain began interfering with her ability to work. now it was too late. the untreated hepatitis c had caused advanced liver cancer that was not suited for surgery or liver transplantation. guidelines and medicine to treat this patient’s illness were available, but the doctor in her community did not have the expertise required to treat her disease. she died six months later (ajmctv, 2018). the knowledge-practice gap in medicine is often described as a twofold challenge: clinicians are required to learn new knowledge and evidence-based practices and learn how to use those practices in their day-to-day work (price, 2005). but the challenge is three-fold in academic medical centers seeking to fill this gap. educational interventions are typically the means to address the knowledge-practice gap. selecting and implementing an educational intervention is an additional challenge. how do staff at academic medical centers find educational interventions designed to close the research-practice gap in distal communities of care? what factors influence the implementation of these interventions? how are such interventions sustained? these are the research questions we explore in this paper by looking at four case studies of one telementoring intervention – project echo. this paper first describes project echo, then discusses the conceptual framework that guided our work, and details how we conducted this study. next, we present findings and conclude with a discussion of how these findings transfer to other academic medical centers seeking to implement project echo and similar telementoring programs designed to close the researchpractice care gap. project echo dr. arora recognized that rural health care providers could help their patients with complex conditions if they had additional support from specialists such as himself. as a result, he created the telementoring program extension for community healthcare outcomes (project echo). project echo uses adult learning techniques and video technology (e.g., zoom) to connect distal community health providers with medical specialists and multidisciplinary teams in real-time collaborative sessions. the echo idea is straightforward. the knowledge traditionally held by original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25689 | june 11, 2022 93 specialty care providers moves out to the community to uptrain generalist providers so they can maximize treatment before a patient needs to be referred to a specialist, if at all. echo allows patients to get the care they need from their local provider, who they regularly seek care from and who knows them, and the local context. as a result, care is more timely and more personal. it also frees up specialists’ time to focus on more complex patients. each echo site has an operational hub from which virtual telementoring programs are created, advertised, managed, and evaluated. echo hubs can be situated in an academic medical center, like those we profile in this paper. hubs also reside in health care systems, national associations, state agencies, and nonprofit organizations. a hub can be a free-standing unit that focuses only on echo programs. hubs can also be embedded within a unit, such as a continuing education office, where echo is one of several “tools in the toolbox.” hubs can also comprise a loose collection of individuals who coordinate their resources to provide echo programs. a hub, then, consists of a team of people who offer echo programs to participants. the hub team may include one or several specialists or experts who are physicians, medical researchers, advanced care nurses, clinical pharmacists, or other persons with specialized knowledge. it also includes administrative staff who provide operational support for the program. those attending echo sessions are typically individual providers—family physicians, nurses, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, social workers, and others. participants are seeking to learn more about a condition, treatment, process, or policy to better meet the needs of their patients in local communities. participants are recruited through emails, hub websites, listservs, flyers, and professional networks. participants may be grouped as cohorts and participate in the same sessions. alternatively, participation may be open and fluid, with participants coming and going at will. participants can often accrue free continuing education credits through participation. echo programs focus on health conditions (e.g., chronic pain, hepatitis c, hiv/aids) and healthcare (e.g., quality improvement, nursing homes, community health workers). topics are selected to reflect the interests of the participants as identified through focus groups, literature, surveys, and personal knowledge. echo programs consist of telementoring sessions facilitated by hub experts or specialists. sessions are designed to encourage “all teach, all learn” (arora et al., 2017), where learning is the process of constructing new knowledge on the foundation of existing knowledge (mukhalalati & taylor, 2019). this is achieved through brief expert-led didactics and a case presented by a participant or an expert. patients are commonly the subject of cases, but patients are not participants. policies and procedures may also be subjects of cases. cases may be submitted in advance or constructed through discussions. after a case is presented, the session facilitator first invites participants to comment or ask clarifying questions and then original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25689 | june 11, 2022 94 asks for recommendations and impressions. at the close of the discussion, the facilitator and other experts or specialists offer their impressions. the facilitator summarizes the discussion. echo refers to this learning design as “telementoring.” the goal of project echo is a “democratization of knowledge” so that patients anywhere can receive the best care from the doctor or health care practitioner they can easily access. project echo moves knowledge, not people (arora et al., 2017). by creating environments where “all teach, all learn,” participants learn about new evidence and recommended practices from specialists and peers who may have similar challenges. specialists at academic medical centers learn about patients they may never see and local conditions that shape how, or if, care is delivered. project echo began in 2003 with a hepatitis-c program at the university of new mexico. currently, there are more than 370 echo hubs and more than 2,600 programs offered in the united states and canada. worldwide, echo has spread to more than 650 hubs in 58 countries (project echo, 2022). several studies find that the echo approach enhances access to medical treatments by helping primary care providers in underserved areas (dearing et al., 2019; tran et al., 2021). much of echo’s growth in the united states is due to its adoption and implementation in academic medical centers. project echo is well suited to academic medical centers. education is a primary mission of academic medical centers as they educate the next generation of physicians and provide continuing education for current providers. physicians in these centers have expertise based on research and caring for complex patients. academic medical centers are also deeply embedded in their communities and may serve as a safety-net provider. as can happen with a fast-spreading innovation, the state of everyday practice may go undescribed. that is, what we confidently know about how the innovation is being implemented and sustained is delayed as science needs to catch up. funded by the robert wood johnson foundation, we conducted interviews in late 2020 to study project echo's adoption, implementation, and sustainment across multiple sites intending to fill this knowledge gap. specifically, we explored factors that influence decision-making about echo. findings from this study can inform the adoption of project echo at other academic medical centers and extend to similar telementoring programs for community-based health care providers. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25689 | june 11, 2022 95 conceptual foundation we frame the decision to adopt, implement, and sustain project echo using diffusion of innovation theory and implementation science literature. diffusion is how an innovation, such as echo, is communicated through certain channels over time among the members of a social system (rogers, 2003). for an innovation perceived to be important, an individual’s decision to adopt an innovation is not an instantaneous act; it is a process that occurs over time (rogers, 2003). typically, the adoption decision process begins when potential adopters become aware of the innovation; they gain knowledge through exposure to descriptive information about what problem the innovation addresses and how it functions. knowledge may come from passive or accidental exposure or through an intentional effort to seek out a solution to a known problem. potential adopters may seek information on using the innovation or the principles that underlie it. if the knowledge is perceived as relevant and adequate, adopters reach a persuasion stage where they seek evaluative information to reduce uncertainty about the consequences of the innovation. they want to understand better the advantages and disadvantages of the innovation and, often, who else has already adopted it. the next stage is the decision to adopt or reject the innovation. potential adopters may try out the innovation during this phase or observe trial adoption by a peer (rogers, 2003). if a decision is made to adopt, implementation begins as the innovation is used. failed implementation efforts are often the underlying reason that best or promising practices are ineffective in health and social care systems and organizations (moullin et al., 2019) and educational settings (nordstrum et al., 2017). implementation science is the study of methods to promote an understanding of and find solutions to the cause of variation in program outcomes to improve the quality and effectiveness of interventions (eccles & mittman, 2006). the goal of implementation science is not to establish the impact of an innovation but to identify the factors that affect its uptake into routine use (bauer & kirchner, 2020). most research about the organizational implementation of this type has occurred in healthcare settings such as clinics and hospitals. many implementation science frameworks have been proposed and tested, such as the consolidated framework for implementation research (cfir) to identify and categorize independent variables that affect the implementation of evidence-based practices (damschroder et al., 2009) and the promoting action on research implementation in health services (parihs) framework to predict why implementation will or will not be effective (harvey & kitson, 2016). we use the exploration, preparation, implementation, sustainment (epis) framework (aarons et al., 2011) to guide our study. the epis framework was developed based on implementing innovations in public sector social and allied health services and has been applied in educational settings (moullin et al., 2019; movsisyan et al., 2019). the epis original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25689 | june 11, 2022 96 framework organizes factors that influence implementation into four constructs: outer and inner context factors, bridging factors, and innovation factors. outer context factors describe the environment external to the organization. in contrast, inner context factors refer to characteristics within an organization. bridging factors cross between outer and inner contexts, and innovation factors focus on the characteristics of the innovation (aarons et al., 2011). in this study, we were particularly interested in outer and inner context factors that influence implementation. we did not look for all epis inner and outer factors as some did not fit with this study (e.g., patient characteristics). we chose not to focus on innovation factors because the echo model is not prescriptive but based on principles and adaptation is anticipated as contexts are different. the factors we looked for in this study are defined in table 1. table 1. study definitions of epis outer and inner context factors context epis factor study definition outer context funding fiscal support provided by the system in which echo occurs inter-organizational environment and networks relationships through which knowledge of echo is shared and/or implementation goals are established service environment state and federal sociopolitical and economic contexts that influence the implementation of echo inner context organizational staffing processes the processes or procedures related to the hiring, training, and retention of staff involved in echo implementation leadership characteristics and behaviors of individuals involved in oversight and/or decision-making related to echo implementation within an organization individual characteristics of staff characteristics of individuals that influence the process of echo implementation quality and fidelity monitoring/support processes or procedures to ensure adherence to active delivery of the echo original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25689 | june 11, 2022 97 organizational characteristics structures or processes in an organization that may influence the process of echo implementation note: this table is drawn from factors and definitions in aarons et al., 2011 and moullin et al., 2019. study design and analysis procedures we conducted case studies that describe the adoption, implementation, and sustainability of echo programs at four academic medical centers. using a qualitative case study design (stake, 1995), at each site, we interviewed 2-3 people associated with the echo hub and 2-4 people associated with two separate echo programs. programs at each hub were selected based on how they were different. a most-different approach to selection maximizes structural differences and attends to similarities in observation despite the inherent differences across cases (przeworski & teune, 1970). as is typical of case study research, we primarily collected information about each case through an interview protocol (brewer & hunter, 1989). interviews followed a structured protocol, and all respondents were asked the same open-ended questions designed to learn how the hub came to adopt project echo and the contextual factors that shape program implementation and sustainability. respondents included medical and administrative leaders who are part of the echo hub at each site. we also interviewed medical experts and administrative coordinators for each echo program. interviews were conducted via zoom, recorded, and transcribed. case studies were constructed through an iterative process of comparing and contrasting responses from each site based on guiding questions (miles et al., 2014). each case was reviewed by respondents who validated the content. next, the authors conducted a cross-case comparison. according to miles et al. (2014), one of the key reasons to conduct cross-case analysis is to “deepen understanding and explanation” (p. 101). using roger’s (2003) innovation decisionmaking model and epis factors (aarons et al., 2011) as sensitizing concepts (charmaz, 2003), authors individually compared and contrasted data across these four cases and then came together to discuss insights that emerged from the cross-case analysis. the sites we include in this study are as follows: echo colorado, university of colorado anschutz medical campus; echo utah, university of utah health; echo nevada, university of nevada, reno school of medicine; echo chicago, university of chicago medicine. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25689 | june 11, 2022 98 findings echo model adoption-decision process in this section, we discuss how adopters of the echo model gained knowledge of echo, what influenced their decision to adopt it, and where they implemented it in the organization. in each of the four academic medical centers we studied, awareness of project echo came from serendipitous exposure. dr. box at the university of utah health first learned of project echo in 2010 from a colleague who had been informed about the development of echo by a pharmaceutical representative. dr. johnson, who was instrumental in bringing echo to the university of chicago, learned about echo in 2009 from a colleague who had learned about echo through a friend who worked at the university of new mexico. at the annual american academy of medical colleges meeting in 2014, the president of the university of new mexico asked the chancellor of the university of colorado, “why don’t you have an echo?” in 2012, two physicians at the university of nevada, reno school of medicine, read about echo in an article in the new england journal of medicine written by dr. arora. in each of these cases, the adopters were not specifically searching for a telementoring intervention to address a practicecare gap. this is not an uncommon occurrence. needs may be developed after one becomes aware of an innovation (rogers, 2003). upon learning about echo, leaders from each academic medical center independently visited the echo institute at the university of new mexico. there was limited training and support infrastructure during these early years of the project echo movement, so much was learned directly from dr. arora and his team, including observing an echo session led by dr. arora. these site visits were highly impactful. one physician stated, “i saw what was going on, including the tele-clinic. i got the introduction to the philosophy and the platform and the full potential impact. i returned determined to recreate it.” leaders returned from visits to the echo institute ready to implement project echo. one of their first implementation decisions was where to locate echo within their respective academic medical center. project echo presents a bit of a dilemma in terms of organizational fit. it is an educational intervention. it is a form of community engagement. it involves technology. it may involve a single specialty or engage a multidisciplinary team across departments or even colleges. it is not surprising then to find that echo programs did not share a common location with an academic medical center – or that these homes may change over time. below we describe where echo fits within each case study site. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25689 | june 11, 2022 99 echo nevada is housed within the office of statewide initiatives at the university of nevada, reno school of medicine. the office of statewide initiatives is charged with improving access to quality health care for rural nevada by providing collaborative leadership and resources to health care and community organizations. the fit, then, is with the mission of an office within the school of medicine. echo chicago is situated within the university of chicago’s biological sciences division in the department of pediatrics. within this department, the hub is part of the academic pediatrics section, one of two sections led by dr. johnson – who brought echo to the university of chicago and continues to provide leadership. echo chicago also aligns with dr. johnson’s work with an urban health initiative focused on improving the delivery of care in urban, underserved communities. fit coalesces around dr. johnson’s expertise and interests. in colorado and utah, the location of echo work has changed over time. at both sites, echo work initially aligned with the interests of the adopter. in colorado echo, the initial physician leader had an appointment in the school of public health, and echo was initially located there. this leader retired, and the echo programs shifted to be more clinically focused, which enabled echo colorado to diversify its funding. eventually, the echo work merged with the campus econsult program. this led to echo colorado transitioning from the school of public health to the school of medicine. this shift in location is pragmatic and, at least in part, based on funding opportunities. at the university of utah health, echo utah was initially supported by the senior vice president for health science and the departments of medicine and surgery chairs. the initial framing of echo utah was as an educational intervention and as a business growth opportunity. dr. box, who brought echo to utah, defined echo as an educational program, and echo was aligned with his work in the transplant service line. several years later, the echo portfolio of programs was moved to the office of network development and telehealth and placed within the education team. the shift in utah is similar to colorado in that it reflects a pragmatic need to find alignment not just with the mission or an individual’s interests but also with funding. returning to the innovation-decision process model (rogers, 2003), what we learn across these four cases is that initial awareness of echo was serendipitous and generated a perceived need to learn more about it. a critical incident at the stage of persuasion for these early-adopting sites was meeting with dr. arora and his staff at the echo institute. once the decision to adopt echo was made, leaders had to choose where to initially place an echo hub within the academic medical center. across these four case studies, decisions about placement were shaped original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25689 | june 11, 2022 100 by three factors: the adopter’s expertise, the alignment of echo with the mission of a particular unit, and/or funding opportunities. project echo implementation and sustainability factors the epis framework identifies outer (system) factors and inner (organizational) factors that have been found in previous studies to impact the implementation and sustainability of innovations (aarons et al., 2011). no two academic medical centers describe the same set of factors as influencing the implementation of echo. still, they do coalesce around five factors: funding, inter-organizational environment and networks, organizational staffing processes, leadership, and individual characteristics of staff. funding is the single factor that consistently surfaced related to the sustainability of project echo. below we illustrate how each of these factors influences the implementation and sustainability of echo at each study site. implementation factors funding a key characteristic of the echo model is that participants do not pay to attend echo programs. offering the program at no cost to participants facilitates the democratization of knowledge as participation is not contingent on an ability to pay. echo hubs and programs must secure financial resources to support their work, and this is an ongoing challenge that influences how or if an echo program can be offered. at echo colorado, the funding model was described as “braided… a very diversified funding model.” this comment well characterizes the funding at all four echo sites. funding for echo typically came from five sources. pass-through funds were issued by a federal agency to a state agency or institution who then awarded these funds to an academic medical center for echo work. pass-through funds came as grants with a programmatic focus, such as opioid use disorder or covid, and were made on an annual or bi-annual basis, though they may last for several years. the second source of funds was from or tied to medicaid. like pass-through funds, medicaid-related funds came tied to a specific focus or condition. a third type of funds came from research grants where echo was typically not the primary focus but part of a bundle of interventions. again, these funds were associated with a specific topic or workstream and were for a limited period. these three sources of external funds were a critical part of the budget but seldom supported all of the ongoing operations of an echo hub. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25689 | june 11, 2022 101 institutional funds from the academic medical center or the university can bring a much-needed cushion to programs. these internal funds may function as recurring funds, even if they are not, and provide support for program development, marketing, evaluation, and research. institutional support was common, but it was seldom in abundance. for example, echo utah received institutional funds, but these funds were “just enough” to keep current programs running. a final source of funds was foundations grants or gifts. foundation funds were fewer in number, but they had significant impact. for example, the colorado health foundation invested more than $3 million to jump-start echo colorado. this investment allowed for a thoughtful approach to the role of echo colorado and hiring an experienced director, coordinators, and learning specialists. looking for funding to support programmatic and operational needs was “exhausting.” one respondent summed up the experience described at each study site: “a critical part of the job is looking for money. we all know that, eventually, this kind of money dries up because you’re no longer as innovative as you once were, and so people don’t always want to keep funding you.” funding was critical to implement echo. academic medical centers had unique funding “braids” and sought to diversify their funding sources. inter-organizational environment and networks academic medical centers operated echo in a network of professional relationships, and these relationships influenced the implementation of echo. physician leaders reached out to safety net organizations, primary care groups, and state hospital associations, among other medical groups, to identify community needs, share information about echo, and recruit participants. dr. johnson at echo chicago explained that he went to a care collaborative to “identify the safety net organizations that would be interested in hearing about echo, and then leveraged my relationships with fqhcs [federally qualified health centers] to launch echo.” echo hubs at these four academic medical centers worked with state health and related services departments. state officials played multiple roles – funder, expert, connector, certifier, and thought partner. respondents at three academic medical centers mentioned having advisory boards that include members from external organizational partners. community-based organizations were also frequent partners. these organizations – some of which provided health and some of which offered safety nets for underserved populations – helped to identify community needs, connected the echo programs to participants, and sometimes provided experts to deliver the didactic portion of an echo session. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25689 | june 11, 2022 102 echo hubs were also reaching across their respective academic medical centers to identify faculty who could serve as facilitators, team members, or presenters. echo hub directors partnered with campus marketing, communication, and evaluation offices. several respondents reported that echo program collaborations led to new partnerships and multidisciplinary research proposals. in a couple of situations, the echo hubs partnered with outreach and external affairs offices and were profiled as key outreach programs for the academic medical center. organizational staffing processes professional training in implementing the echo model was an essential factor identified at each of the four case sites. nearly all of the echo hubs and programs staff attended a three-day “immersion” training provided by the echo institute at the university of new mexico. the immersion training provided an opportunity to see an echo program in action, making the process more tangible. dr. thomas at echo colorado attended immersion training multiple times. each time he traveled to new mexico, he looked at echo from a unique perspective; “i went to look at it [echo] from an entrepreneurial perspective, i went from a technology perspective, i went from a healthcare delivery perspective. i tried to listen to it differently and interact with different people at different times.” staff were encouraged to attend in teams, which many did. at echo nevada, sending teams improved knowledge of how to implement echo and also created buy-in to the purpose of echo. the impact of the training extended beyond learning “how” to do echo. respondents referenced “drinking the kool-aid” and finding camaraderie and shared purpose with attendees from their own and other institutions. at echo utah, one respondent described immersion in a way similar to what we heard at other sites: “when you go to immersion and get fully immersed in everything echo, it gives you a different drive and a different understanding of what’s going to work and what’s not going to work.” respondents, and especially physicians, shared that working in clinics and their professional training influenced how they approached echo implementation. experience as health practitioners in low-resource settings, community settings, and telehealth guided many physicians in their approach to echo programs. physicians also relied on their substantive knowledge and expertise in the topic of the echo program. some staff, though not all staff, drew on experiences in quality improvement training and their education in public health. training, especially immersion training at the echo institute, was important to adhere to the model's fidelity. but the impact of immersion training went beyond “how to do” echo, it inculcated a shared sense of “why to do” echo. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25689 | june 11, 2022 103 leadership institutional leadership strongly influenced the decision to adopt project echo and influenced where echo was located, at least initially, in each academic medical center. leadership continued to be important during the implementation phase though leaders changed and how they influenced implementation varied. at echo nevada, the hub’s medical director provided leadership of day-to-day operations and quality improvement. at the other three academic medical centers, medical directors continued to champion the work but much, if not all, of the leadership of operations, fell to administrative leaders. in echo colorado and echo chicago, the administrative leaders had a broad scope of responsibilities with upwards of ten direct reports. leadership was also evident at the program level, where medical experts facilitated sessions that encouraged a learning environment where “all teach, all learn.” program leaders were described as “modeling” openness and vulnerability. at echo nevada, facilitators sometimes presented their patient cases and asked participants for review and consultation. this method showed that even subject matter experts did not have all the answers and can use input from others. respondents at echo colorado talked about the importance of the echo medical leader in mentoring facilitators, experts, and staff in developing a culture where everyone feels safe to share their challenges. at echo chicago, one program facilitator talked about his role in setting “the tone” of the echo so that it was “about respect and seeing the people on the other end as equals. we’re all doing this together.” echo implementation required leaders of hubs to champion the work to other parts of the academic medical center and the university. however, they did not need to provide day-to-day leadership of operations. at the program level, leadership was expressed as an ability and willingness to model behaviors that build a safe space where participants were comfortable sharing their cases, asking questions of their peers, and providing advice to their peers and the subject matter experts. individual characteristics of staff successful implementation of echo programs relied on the commitment and knowledge of program coordinators. echo coordinators often supported four or more echo programs and worked closely with program facilitators. at echo chicago, one program facilitator stated, “the most important person for all of this has been our project coordinator. that is somebody that can do the type of outreach that she’s done, run the sessions, and make sure that everything original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25689 | june 11, 2022 104 happens. it just doesn’t work otherwise.” facilitators relied on coordinators as mentors who gave a sense of “here’s the to-dos and not to-dos. here’s how you talk about it. here’s what’s helpful. here’s how to brand it. those basics really helped us get off to a confident, good start.” coordinators also often linked the program team with the larger echo community or other stakeholder groups. they shared organizational knowledge about echo, its practices, values, and ethos. across these four sites, facilitators and coordinators described close working relationships and respect for each other. coordinators did more than administrative work; they were mentors to the facilitators, guiding them on how to work most effectively with participants and prepare for sessions. funding as a sustainability factor the echo hubs and programs we studied anticipated growing their echo work over the next five years. growth was often focused on increasing the number of participants attending programs and expanding into new geographic areas, delving into new topics (including moving outside of traditional medical areas), or increasing the number of cases from participants. growth is not possible, nor is maintaining the status quo, if programs cannot be sustained over time. funding was the one factor that emerged across these four sites as essential to maintain current and future echo work. each site was searching for ways to expand its financial base and gain greater financial stability. three sites specifically mentioned working with the state to secure dedicated funds for echo. all sites were writing proposals for funds, often in response to a request from the state for passthrough funds, and to local and national foundations. sites were looking for funds that extended beyond specific topics so that they were free to evolve their echo programming. they were looking for more “protected time” for academic center medical staff to work on echo to offset costs and increase dedication. financial stability could lead to longer-term commitments for administrative staff and investments in strategic planning, evaluation, and research. sustainable funding was dependent, to some extent, on showing the value of echo to the university, the state, and others. dr. thomas at echo colorado said, “we have to publish more than feel-good related articles, that we’ve done something with echo that is meaningful to our different partners.” a program leader at echo colorado said, “we’re getting real results. people are doing things they weren’t doing before that align with best practices. if someone could study the program and show the evidence, then i could expand it.” echo utah shared a similar sentiment, saying that they need to deliver a message to the state about “why we exist, why we matter, and how we’re making an impact for citizens across the state and region.” some sites original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25689 | june 11, 2022 105 were encouraging academic faculty to include echo in research grant proposals which could increase the likelihood that echo outcomes are being measured. each echo hub collected routine process and outcome data as required by the echo institute or continuing medical education credits. these data, however, fell short of showing impacts. being part of an academic medical center did not guarantee access to researchers or evaluators. finding staff who could conduct evaluations or analyze existing data was a need expressed by three echo hubs. a strategy to obtain longer-term funding is to invest in research that provides evidence that echo work is reducing health care disparities and or reducing health care costs. conclusions and recommendations echo hubs were well established in these four academic medical centers. awareness of echo came from serendipitous encounters. observations and conversations led to adoption. finding a home for echo was an important initial implementation decision. implementation of echo programs was shaped by funding, networks, training, leadership, and individual characteristics of staff. sustainability is a consistent concern and focus. attendees do not pay to participate in echo programs; thus, funding must come from elsewhere. echo hub leaders seeking funds from their respective states, foundations, and within their institution would be well served by having evidence of the impact of their work. what can we learn from these four echo hubs that can inform the adoption and implementation of echo at other academic medical centers? for one, those curious should attend immersion training to see firsthand how echo programs and sessions are organized and delivered. these immersive trainings are very impactful and could lead to adoption or non-adoption decisions. second, there is no one ideal place where echo should be housed within an academic medical center, which is not surprising as each center has a unique organizing structure. fit is important with a faculty-physician-researcher’s work or with the mission of a larger division or office, and fit may change over time. third, echo programs are a form of community engagement as they cultivate partnerships with and respond to the needs of the larger community as well as within the organization. fourth, the staff in the echo hubs are as critical as the medical experts. they are the glue that keeps programs moving forward. beyond their administrative and coordination roles, they also train specialists in an “all teach, all learn” model of learning. lastly, and most importantly, funding for these programs has to be addressed from the beginning. echo programs are not revenue-generating and require external and internal funding sources to implement and sustain them. some programs have been discontinued at these successful echo original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25689 | june 11, 2022 106 hubs due to a lack of funding or shifts in funding priorities. providing “protected time” for academic center medical staff to work on echo is one way to offset costs. much of what we are learning from the implementation of echo hubs at these four academic medical centers can apply to the adoption, implementation, and sustainability of other telementoring programs. one key translational finding is the role of serendipity. what if these physicians had not had the one-off conversation or happened across a journal article? we can be more intentional in finding effective innovative solutions to enduring problems. for example, we can provide medical experts and staff with time and support to attend conferences or events, especially those outside of their disciplinary expertise. academic medical centers can also designate offices or individuals with systematic scanning of literature and conferences proceedings to identify promising interventions. another translational finding is that the factors identified in this study that influence implementation and sustainability are not novel or unique to echo – we find these factors influencing program implementation in many health systems (aarons et al., 2011). if an academic medical center – or other organization – adopts a similar educational program, it should be attending to these factors from the start. for example, if a program is not revenuegenerating or doesn’t generate sufficient revenue to sustain the staff and other programmatic costs, finding stable funding should be a primary focus. as another example, when teams are going to implement a new program, having the opportunity to train together can foster fidelity to the model. related, training should focus on “know why” and not only “know how.” in addition, embedding programs in professional and community networks can strengthen the ties between medical experts and those in practice who are serving diverse populations. networks also help with recruiting participants and guest speakers. another point to consider is that before covid-19, the use of video technology such as zoom was novel or at least unique in medical education. that is no longer the case. project echo has kept from being just another webinar because of its continued focus on “all teach, all learn.” facilitating technology-based learning requires a new set of skills for many physicians and staff in academic medical centers. in addition to medical specialty knowledge, skills are needed in adult learning, facilitation, case-based learning, and peer-based collaboration. finally, while project echo draws on partnerships and has generated new collaborations, the reach across the university to colleges in social science, business, and education, among others, and lifelong learning units is weak and should be strengthened. the social determinants of health that create the conditions that foment health disparities need a wide-angle lens to solve them. inviting other disciplines to the work of project echo could strengthen its impact. too, lifelong original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25689 | june 11, 2022 107 learning efforts across campus could benefit from more knowledge about project echo’s highly elastic model for sharing best practices and mastering complex knowledge. we believe that the echo model could be widely used across disciplines. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan 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(2021). association of the extension for community healthcare outcomes project with use of direct-acting antiviral treatment among us adults with hepatitis c. jama open, 4(7): e2115523. https://doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.15523 original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26786 | july 2, 2023 82 toward a research and practice agenda for evaluation in community-campus partnerships paul j. kuttner,1 lisa rawlings, 2 and marcie r. washington3 1 university neighborhood partners, associate director, university of utah, 2 office of community engagement, director umb workforce initiatives, university of maryland, baltimore, and 3 department of politics and international relations, associate teaching professor, florida international university cite as: kuttner, p.j., rawlings, l., & washington, m.r. (2023). toward a research and practice agenda for evaluation in community-campus partnerships. metropolitan universities, 34(4), 82-88. doi: 10.18060/26786 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. guest editors: rochelle smarr, ed.d. and chris nayve, j.d. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract evaluation of community-campus partnerships is a contested topic and, in many ways, is still at an early stage of development. with growing momentum behind community-university collaboration and increased pressure to document the positive impact of universities, there is a pressing need for research and innovation in this area. many community engagement professionals are looking for new and creative approaches to evaluating partnership work — approaches that capture the work's depth, complexity, and values and can be used to foster learning, community accountability, collaboration, and systems change. this article proposes six promising directions for research and practice related to evaluating campus-community partnerships. they emerged as themes from an interactive cumu community engagement evaluation huddle session at the annual cumu conference. drawing on the collective knowledge of huddle participants, we identified the following directions: 1. evaluating systemic racism, 2. community-driven evaluation, 3. community impact and benefit, 4. evaluating relationships, 5. alignment of stakeholders, and 6. blended approaches. we offer these directions, key questions, and examples from the field as a first step toward a field-wide agenda for advancing evaluation in a critical, participatory, community-based spirit. keywords: community-campus partnerships, community engagement, assessment and evaluation, anti-racism, participatory evaluation http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26786 | july 2, 2023 83 introduction evaluation is a contested concept within the field of community-campus partnerships. evaluation is a largely unquestioned good for some community engagement professionals (ceps). they see it as a critical ingredient in collective learning and data-driven decision-making that improves the work and ensures accountability to community and university stakeholders. for others, evaluation is, at best, a necessary evil. it is an external mandate that burdens partners, diverts limited resources, and imposes irrelevant or harmful conceptualizations of measurement and accountability. many ceps find themselves somewhere in the middle. they may see the potential value of evaluation but are frustrated or disappointed with how it has traditionally been carried out. few would disagree that it is helpful to understand how partnerships are going, what has been accomplished, and how things could be improved. tensions arise when you dig deeper into questions such as: who decides what is measured and assessed? what kinds of outcomes are privileged over others? through what lenses are the data analyzed? how are the results framed and shared? questions like these are important because evaluation sits in the liminal space where community partnerships meet the larger social, economic, and political systems that shape higher education and urban life. evaluation is put to work in efforts to attract and retain funders, to make a case for engagement to administrators and politicians, to burnish the university’s reputation and rankings, and to make decisions about resource allocations. these goals can conflict with using evaluation to foster dialogue, learning, reflection, and accountability within partnerships, particularly when metrics are defined externally. it is difficult, if not impossible, to separate evaluation from higher education’s historical links to colonization and white supremacy, the slow public disinvestment from higher education, increased skepticism about the value of postsecondary education, and the decades-long neoliberal movement that has reshaped the discourse of accountability (brackmann, 2015; harris et al., 2019; lee & ahtone, 2020; tatone, 2021). evaluation of community-campus partnerships is still at a nascent stage (plummer et al., 2021), though, over the past two decades, there has been significant progress in some areas. for example, evaluating student civic outcomes through community-engaged learning now has a substantial history and an array of available tools (e.g., liu et al., 2018; moely et al., 2002; rhodes, 2008). several widely used methods of evaluating a university’s institutional commitment to community engagement exist, such as the carnegie classification for community engagement and the national assessment of service and community engagement (driscoll, 2008; sienna college research institute, n.d.). other areas are far less developed, such as the evaluation of community or societal impact (borron et al., 2019). existing research on original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26786 | july 2, 2023 84 impact tends to be qualitative, focused on individual partnerships, and often conducted by partners (janke et al., 2022). given the growing momentum behind community-university collaboration and the ever-increasing pressure to document and demonstrate the “societal impact” of universities, there is a pressing need and many possibilities for research and innovation in this area. the cumu community engagement evaluation huddle in this context, the coalition for urban and metropolitan universities (cumu) launched a professional learning community focused on evaluating community-campus partnerships. the group began meeting virtually in late 2020, every other month, to explore best and next practices (prahalad, 2010) in evaluation through guest speakers and dialogues. in 2021, cumu reorganized its virtual offerings, relaunching the learning community as one of four topicspecific “huddles” and reaching a larger group of members. in both incarnations, the group was co-facilitated by paul kuttner and cumu’s successive directors of programming, paul davidson and anthony medina. it is now being led by dr. emily janke from unc greensboro. after two years of online dialogues, the huddle held an in-person session at the 2022 cumu conference in san diego, ca. upwards of 30 people attended from institutions across the u.s. and canada. the group was composed of faculty, staff, administrators, a few community partners, and a few graduate students. the session was designed using the tools of open space technology (owen, 2008) and world café (brown & isaacs, 2005). participants began by individually writing down discussion questions relevant to them and posting them along the back wall. notably, all but five of the questions proposed by participants began with the word how. participants asked questions like, “how does one evaluate/measure relationship/trust building?” “how have others evaluated university-wide initiatives in the formative stages?” and “how will evaluation help partnerships in strategic planning?” this emphasis on the practice of evaluation is strongly reflected in the themes we explore below. the group read the questions during a “gallery walk” along the back wall. then, individuals were encouraged to select one they wanted to discuss — their own or someone else’s — and place it on a table. once six people had done so, the rest of the group chose one of the six tables to join, where they would discuss that question. participants were free to get up and switch tables when they felt inspired. notepads and pens were available on each table, and participants were asked to take notes on interesting ideas or resources they learned about during the discussions. after 30 minutes, five new questions were selected, and there was another round of dialogues. at the end, there was a full group discussion in which participants shared some of the key themes, original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26786 | july 2, 2023 85 learnings, and ideas they would take away with them from the session. these were recorded visually on the wall (see figure 1). through this two-hour process, the group identified and explored key challenges and possibilities in the work of community engagement evaluation. in this article, we — the facilitator and two participants in the session — present the outcomes of these dialogues as a research and practice agenda for advancing evaluation across community-campus partnerships. these six “promising directions” were developed primarily based on the themes identified by participants, along with session notes and the full list of participant questions, many of which are woven through this article. the themes have been further fleshed out with information from previous huddle meetings and the existing literature. participants’ comments during the dialogue illustrated that evaluating community-campus partnerships is extremely complex and multi-layered. as participants noted, partnership types vary widely, with an array of goals such as promoting community-led initiatives, improving academic research, increasing student learning, and enhancing community partner capacity. in addition, partnerships can be evaluated at multiple levels. for example, we can look at the impact of an individual partnership, a collection of partnerships across an academic unit, or an institution-wide community engagement strategy. outcomes and impacts are likewise multilayered and include individual impacts like student civic development, organizational impacts like increased organizational capacity, institutional impacts on the university, and community impacts beyond the specific community partners. while the sections below may lean toward one level of evaluation or another — for example, the section on evaluating systemic racism is heavily focused on institution-level evaluation — we believe all six are relevant across levels of implementation and impact. figure 1. visual notes from the 2022 cumu conference huddle. original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26786 | july 2, 2023 86 promising directions below, we outline six promising directions for research and practice that would enhance the work of evaluating campus-community partnerships. these are not meant to be exhaustive but to be added to and further developed by others. when relevant, we have linked discussion themes to existing tools and research. promising direction 1: evaluating system racism amid increased discussions about what it means to engage in anti-racist and decolonizing community-campus partnerships (hall et al., 2021; levkoe & kepkiewicz, 2016), conference huddle members identified a need for metrics to document and track changes in indicators of systemic racism. this discussion echoes a recent call by smith, medlin, and wendling (2022) in the pages of this journal. through dialogues with 250 participants about the intersection between engagement and anti-racism, the authors identified a pressing need for qualitative and quantitative measures “that can be used to better understand and assess anti-racist community engagement…assessment, as it relates to anti-racist community engagement can no longer be an afterthought. we must develop formative and summative assessments so we can determine how we are doing and how we can improve” (smith, medlin, & wendling, 2022, p. 122). huddle members noted the inherent difficulty of evaluating the true breadth and depth of systemic racism embedded in the very foundations of higher education (harris et al., 2019; wilder, 2013). at the same time, they spoke about the possibilities of using evaluation tools to interrogate systems and how they sustain and center white supremacy. this includes using data to document racialized inequities, institutional cultures, tenure and promotion policies, and the systemic structural and cultural violence that takes place on and off our campuses. members also discussed how disaggregating data can increase clarity and ensure that what is being measured is meaningful. this can help limit false results and reveal how what looks like a positive impact can hide racist outcomes. for example, student and faculty recruitment efforts can increase the number of bipoc students and faculty while obscuring a failure to retain, support, and promote those already at the institution. in recent years, several rubrics and questionnaires have been designed for institutions to selfassess the extent of systemic racism at their institution and progress toward diversity, inclusion, and anti-racist goals (griffin et al., 2020; national association of colleges and employers, 2022; new england resource center for higher education, n.d.). of particular relevance to this conversation is the work of the badger anti-racist coalition at the university of wisconsin original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26786 | july 2, 2023 87 madison. this collaborative of ceps developed an in-depth anti-racist rubric for units, including funding, staffing, responses to student activism, and community accountability (https://barcuw.wordpress.com/). meanwhile, smith, medlin, and wendling (2022) are building on their research to develop an anti-racist community engagement scorecard with a mixedmethods design. promising direction 2: community-driven evaluation in their classic article, different worlds and common ground: community partner perspectives on campus-community partnerships, sandy and holland (2006) confronted the dearth of community partner voices in the field-wide discourse around engagement. over fifteen years later, this continues to be a major concern, as several of our members pointed out. they asked questions about how to engage community partners in evaluation and center communitydefined goals and measurements. this approach has the potential to make evaluation more rigorous and relevant and to align evaluation practices with the principles and goals of community-campus partnerships. related calls have been made by others in the field. in the report principles of community engagement, sufian and colleagues (2011) point the field toward two approaches to evaluation that include stakeholders: participatory evaluation, which engages key stakeholders in designing, carrying out, acting on, and building capacity through the evaluation process (burke, 1998; patton, 2008) and empowerment evaluation, which supports stakeholders in building their capacity to conduct their evaluations (fetterman, 1994). relatedly, borron and colleagues (2019) argue that social impacts are usually measured in an outside-in model in which metrics are based on a program’s predefined goals. they propose an inside-out model that starts with what is happening in the community and fosters interactions between communities and institutions. since sandy and holland (2006) published their article, there has been an increase in efforts to listen to and gather feedback from community partners, as evidenced by the proliferation of community partner surveys and questionnaires (e.g., carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching, n.d.; waters et al., 2014). in addition, ceps have developed tools that bring community and campus-based partners together to reflect on partnerships and their impacts collaboratively. for example, at one virtual huddle, gavin luter of the univercity alliance at uw-madison presented on ripple effect mapping (chazdon et al., 2017), a method from the university of minnesota in which partners visually map their partnerships and the impacts that ripple out from them, like a pebble in a pond. at the conference huddle, susan mide kiss, vice president for community engagement at the university of the fraser valley, shared her experiences implementing the reap approach at the university of calgary. developed by the original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26786 | july 2, 2023 88 university of bradford, reap — an acronym for reciprocity, externalities, access, and partnership — is a framework for guiding community and university partners through an ongoing process of “self-assessment, planning, monitoring and reviewing of community engagement activities” (pearce et al., 2008). other collaborative methods can be found in the literature, such as outcome harvesting (better evaluation, n.d.). there is still much work to do to understand the best ways to truly co-create evaluation systems with communities, as some of our huddle members called for. for example, how can universities collaborate on evaluation with formal organizational partners and non-affiliated residents and neighbors in impacted communities? what kinds of capacity-building efforts would assist in ensuring that collaboration is accessible and beneficial to participants? how can we take our evaluation work “on the road” to where communities are at? how do we compensate community residents and partners for their valuable work to define and track impact? many forces inside and outside our institutions discourage efforts to fully center the community in evaluation. we could benefit from imagining america's democratically engaged assessment to keep ourselves focused on this and other evaluation goals. this rubric evaluates an evaluation tool on, among other things, participation, and co-creation (bandy et al., 2018). promising direction 3: community impact and benefit one of the less developed areas in community-campus partnership evaluation is the measurement of community impacts (borron et al., 2019; smith et al., 2019). how do we know that partnerships have a desired impact beyond student learning and research? what is the overall impact of multiple partnerships on a particular community, geographic area, or issue? what kinds of community impacts are meaningful to community partners, and how do we work together to track them consistently over time? while many are working on this, they face significant challenges — not the least of which is that partnerships work on a large array of social issues and an even more staggering number of goals. in the past, the question of community impact was largely left to community partners. if a partner saw the partnership as beneficial to their mission, that was good enough. but many ceps are looking to do more to hold partnerships accountable to, as one huddle member put it, “what impact means to our community partners.” at the same time, there is increasing pressure from legislatures and political leaders to demonstrate the collective results of multiple engagement and anchor initiatives across the institution in the name of demonstrating public value. this level of inquiry can be useful in documenting both the positive and negative impacts that anchor institutions have on the communities around them, offering a broader lens to understand what ethical community engagement looks like (baldwin, 2021; ehlenz, 2016). original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26786 | july 2, 2023 89 ensuring that evaluation metrics align with community priorities is critical because what is measured shapes what is valued, funded, and supported (rossi & rosli, 2015; wanjiru & xiaoguang, 2021). but research into such indicators is still in its infancy (wanjiru & xiaoguang, 2021). during our virtual and in-person huddle sessions, members shared some of the tools that helped them identify community impact indicators. one resource is the community capitals framework, a tool to analyze partnership impacts from a systems perspective, looking at a change in different “capitals” such as human capital, natural capital, cultural capital, and built capital (beaulieu, 2014). another is the urban institute’s outcomes indicators project, a comprehensive set of tools created for nonprofit organizations to assess outcomes on an array of issues, from health risk reduction and employment training to affordable housing and youth mentoring (urban institute, n.d.). as discussed above, huddle members feel it is critical to identify community impacts in collaboration with the communities impacted, suggesting we combine impact frameworks with the participatory processes described above. for example, ripple effects mapping utilizes the community capitals framework, while the reap tool facilitates a collaborative process of identifying partnership “externalities” — impacts of partnership work beyond the partners themselves that “contribute to building social trust and social networks …and through these to enhanced sustainability, well-being and local cohesion, and ultimately to contribute to the building of a learningand knowledge-based society” (pearce et al., 2008, p. 82). this, again, raises new questions about how universities can offer financial and capacity-building support for community partners to track community outcomes. promising direction 4: evaluating relationships relationships are widely understood as being core to all aspects of campus-community partnerships. at the same time, their ubiquity can make them slippery and difficult things to measure. in a traditional logic model, relationships can be understood as an input, an activity, a short-term outcome, and a long-term impact. conference huddle participants raised questions about what it looks like to assess the strengths of relationships between university and community partners, and particularly the concept of trust. as participants noted, trust is often judged by what is “not seen” — the absence of distrust and division — and is challenging to quantify. however, the impact of trust or its lack is material. in one example discussed in the huddle, participants noted vaccination rates are a barometer of trust in communities with real consequences. recent research has found “trust in public institutions involved in vaccine production and distribution” is a major factor in vaccine refusal and original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26786 | july 2, 2023 90 hesitancy (bagasra et al., 2021, p. 1). when american indians controlled vaccine distribution in their communities, they used established cultural customs, including respect for elders and a “community first” ethos. the existing intra-community trust likely led to the native americans and alaskan natives having higher vaccination rates than other demographic groups — 47.5% of american indians and alaska natives vs. 41.8% for asians, 37.8% for white americans, and 29.9% of african americans (silberner, 2021). recent years have seen the dissemination of several tools for assessing the quality or health of relationships between university and community-based partners. these include the characteristics of effective partnerships (mcnall et al., 2009), the loyola community partnerships rubric (brotzman et al., 2014), and the rhode island partnerships for success (2014) partnership rubric, among others. the transformational relationship evaluation scale (tres), now in its second iteration, is being used by several institutions to assess partnerships on a scale from exploitative to transactional to transformational (kniffin et al., 2020). the tres tool stands out for its use of the sofar model of relationships, which breaks down the simplified community-university binary by attending to the multi-directional relationships among community organizations, community residents, administrators, faculty, and students (kniffin et al., 2020). a less developed but promising area for evaluating relationships is social network analysis (sufian et al., 2011). mapping relational networks can serve many purposes, from critically analyzing the makeup of partnerships to documenting the impact of partnerships on collective social capital. trotter and colleagues (2015) describe the benefits of using social network analysis to map the structure of a partnership focused on native american cancer prevention. mary price and colleagues (2016) at iupui developed collaborative relationships mapping (colrm), which engages partners in a participatory process of graphical mapping and evaluating relationships within a partnership. university neighborhood partners at the university of utah has for several years used the online kumu platform to map the size and density of its network of partners and partnerships (kuttner et al., 2021), and the university of washington—tacoma created a custom network map using data from collaboratory software (see below for more on collaboratory) (uw-tacoma, n.d.). promising direction 5: alignment of stakeholders how do we foster stronger alignment among stakeholders regarding how we talk about, evaluate, and use data for community engagement? this umbrella question covers a range of questions from huddle members, such as: how can we prepare faculty and staff to practice evaluation in their programs and courses that align with broader institutional/community goals? how can we original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26786 | july 2, 2023 91 build stronger alignment in discussing and leveraging data, particularly between our communityfacing staff, community partners, and university assessment/eval teams? how do we present community engagement work in a way that fosters greater collaboration between stakeholders? what do administrators and funders care about, and where are the spots where their priorities and community engagement overlap? these questions indicate that evaluation sits at the intersection of multiple stakeholders, each bringing different lenses, values, priorities, and accountability pressures. this makes alignment challenging. at the same time, as these questions suggest, evaluation can be a tool for aligning stakeholders around shared language, goals, and values. conference huddle members noted that university-based ceps are well suited to this work because of their experience convening diverse partners to work toward shared priorities. they also discussed some key issues to address in the process of stakeholder alignment, such as: ● engaging community members beyond traditional public and nonprofit partners, including politicians, pastors, advocates, community elders, and residents. ● educating funders and administrators who are not engaged in the work to understand “what impact looks like” in campus-community partnerships. ● creating training and capacity-building opportunities for non-affiliated residents to support their engagement, i.e., “train the neighbors as key stakeholders.” ● be attentive to power relationships because large-scale goal-setting at a university can easily shunt aside or overshadow the goals of community partners. ● recognize that there are divisions within neighborhoods and communities that need to be bridged, alongside divisions between communities and higher education. an increasing number of institutions appear to be moving in this direction — engaging diverse stakeholders in developing high-level strategic plans for community engagement that transcend individual partnerships or units and that situate evaluation benchmarks within a long-term strategy. this was the goal, for example, of campus compact’s (2015) push for institutions to develop civic action plans. several huddle members have shared their institutions’ high-level strategic efforts. for example, jamilah ducar presented to the huddle about the university of pittsburgh’s process for developing its campus-wide community engagement agenda. rooted in the “our purpose” section of the university’s strategic plan, this agenda encompasses “placebased engagement efforts, engaged scholarship, strategic partnership development, and community affairs” (university of pittsburgh, 2022) with an impact framework that attends the cross-university outcomes related to economy, people, place, and equity. in another presentation at the 2022 cumu conference, presenters from the university of utah shared their multi-year effort to engage all stakeholders — especially residents — in the process of establishing a new hospital, campus, and anchor strategy, including the development of resident-defined key original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26786 | july 2, 2023 92 performance indicators (clouse et al., 2022). there is much to be learned from studying, evaluating, and reflecting on these efforts to see what works where, how, and for whom. promising direction 6: blended approaches participants asked several questions about which evaluation tools and approaches are best suited to evaluating community engagement and how to combine them effectively. participants noted that surveys, perhaps the most common data collection tool in the field, are not always the right instruments. their overuse has led to survey fatigue in many communities. there are a growing number of evaluation tools in the community engagement literature and many more in the evaluation literature writ large. the difficulty comes from the need to adapt evaluation to a wide range of institutional contexts (e.g., urban, rural, suburban), audiences (e.g., administrators, communities, funders), partner types (e.g., schools, community-based organizations, agencies), and stages of partnership (e.g., emerging, established, finished). this led participants to discuss blended approaches that combine methods to assess different facets of a partnership. for example, combining formative evaluation to support the development of partnerships, process evaluation to document partnership progress, and summative and impact evaluations to look at the end goals of partnerships (cdc, 2012). at the conference huddle, participants remarked on the importance of including narrative evaluation methods alongside more traditional quantitative metrics. “telling the story” was discussed as a valuable qualitative way to document the importance and impact of communityuniversity partnerships. two examples were discussed. lisa rawlings from university of maryland, baltimore (umb), talked about their use of collaboratory, a platform developed by the institute for community and economic engagement at the university of north carolina greensboro. its software allows for capturing the narrative content relevant to a specific community engagement activity and tracking and collecting quantitative data. this tracking feature is especially relevant to brian sturdivant, director of strategic initiatives and community partnerships at umb, who has been using collaboratory for about a year. per sturdivant, “collaboratory enables us to develop partnerships with the knowledge of who else on our campus might be pursuing the same partners so we can be better coordinated.” cumu and collaboratory recently announced a collaboration to advance research on community partnerships using collaboratory’s dataset of over 5,000 community engagement and public service activities from 43 institutions across the united states, opening up exciting avenues for further research. similarly, susan mide kiss shared how the university of calgary’s knowledge engagement impact assessment toolkit — based, as explained above, on the reap tool — incorporates original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26786 | july 2, 2023 93 narrative. quantitative metrics are coupled with an exploration of the story of the activity, initiative, or program. their guide leads the assessors through an exploration of the reciprocity, externalities, access, and partnership stories, emphasizing which stakeholders, partners, influencers, and others have been impacted. the university’s website boasts that its approach offers “data and storytelling rolled into one toolkit.” participants also spoke of the need to evaluate across different time spans, the short-term and the long-term or, as one put it, “quick vs. important.” as this quote suggests, participants see much of the value of engagement coming from its “long, slow, deep work,” suggesting a need for more longitudinal analysis. however, timelines for showing impact to stakeholders are often shorter. so, as one participant asked, how do we evaluate this long-term work in the short term? this tension was fleshed out a bit as it relates to measuring the impact of service learning on students. faculty have long integrated course-specific goals into their class assessments, and there are a number of published scales, questionnaires, and rubrics for assessing intellectual, personal, and civic development (bandy et al., 2018). however, this work is usually short-term, often based on pre-and post-semester outcomes (pak, 2020). huddle participants raised questions about how to expand this work to track long-term impacts on students. there are many intriguing questions to explore, such as do students engaged in partnerships show higher levels of retention and graduation? to what extent do students continue to demonstrate impacts throughout their higher education experience? to what extent do these experiences lead to further engagement after graduation? questions like this have begun to be studied more over the past decade, and results are mixed, pointing us toward more nuanced questions about which types of partnerships carried out with which students in which ways lead to which kinds of student impacts (smith et al., 2019)? conclusion whether we are excited, reluctant, or ambivalent about the increasing focus on the evaluation and measurement of community engagement’s impact, it is happening. if we are going to avoid externally imposed, neoliberal metrics that over-simplify, over-quantify, and are ill-suited to the messy human work of partnerships, then we would do well to get ahead of it. we, as a field, can take the lead in defining what evaluation can and should look like, as many ceps across our countries are already doing. this article suggests six areas where more research and innovation are needed. we also highlight a number of rubrics, scorecards, frameworks, tools, and platforms that support ceps’ evaluation practice in ways relevant to the six areas (see table 1). we wrap up our discussion by noting a few cross-cutting ideas. original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26786 | july 2, 2023 82 table 1. community engagement evaluation tools promising direction name of the tool website developer 1. evaluating systemic racism an anti-racist rubric for our campus units https://barcuw.wordpress.com/ the badger anti-racist coalition at the university of wisconsin-madison anti-racist community engagement scorecard in development prairie view a&m university and collaboratory 2. communitydriven evaluation ripple effects mapping https://extension.umn.edu/communitydevelopment/ripple-effect-mapping university of minnesota knowledge engagement impact assessment toolkit https://research.ucalgary.ca/engageresearch/knowledge-engagement/ketoolkit university of calgary using framework developed by university of bradford democratically engaged assessment rubric https://scholarworks.iupui.edu/bitstream/ handle/1805/17756/deaai_preconhandoutsrev.pdf?sequence= 1&isallowed=y imagining america’s assessing practices of public scholarship research group 3. community impact & benefit community capitals framework https://mediaspace.itap.purdue.edu/media /usda+rd+training+serieswebinar+5+community+capitals+fram ework/0_f5it0d9l/32400731 purdue university outcomes indicators project https://www.urban.org/policycenters/cross-centerinitiatives/performance-managementurban institute https://barcuw.wordpress.com/ https://extension.umn.edu/community-development/ripple-effect-mapping https://extension.umn.edu/community-development/ripple-effect-mapping https://research.ucalgary.ca/engage-research/knowledge-engagement/ke-toolkit https://research.ucalgary.ca/engage-research/knowledge-engagement/ke-toolkit https://research.ucalgary.ca/engage-research/knowledge-engagement/ke-toolkit https://scholarworks.iupui.edu/bitstream/handle/1805/17756/dea-ai_preconhandoutsrev.pdf?sequence=1&isallowed=y https://scholarworks.iupui.edu/bitstream/handle/1805/17756/dea-ai_preconhandoutsrev.pdf?sequence=1&isallowed=y https://scholarworks.iupui.edu/bitstream/handle/1805/17756/dea-ai_preconhandoutsrev.pdf?sequence=1&isallowed=y https://scholarworks.iupui.edu/bitstream/handle/1805/17756/dea-ai_preconhandoutsrev.pdf?sequence=1&isallowed=y https://mediaspace.itap.purdue.edu/media/usda+rd+training+series-webinar+5+community+capitals+framework/0_f5it0d9l/32400731 https://mediaspace.itap.purdue.edu/media/usda+rd+training+series-webinar+5+community+capitals+framework/0_f5it0d9l/32400731 https://mediaspace.itap.purdue.edu/media/usda+rd+training+series-webinar+5+community+capitals+framework/0_f5it0d9l/32400731 https://mediaspace.itap.purdue.edu/media/usda+rd+training+series-webinar+5+community+capitals+framework/0_f5it0d9l/32400731 https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiatives/performance-management-measurement/projects/nonprofit-organizations/projects-focused-nonprofit-organizations/outcome-indicators-project https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiatives/performance-management-measurement/projects/nonprofit-organizations/projects-focused-nonprofit-organizations/outcome-indicators-project https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiatives/performance-management-measurement/projects/nonprofit-organizations/projects-focused-nonprofit-organizations/outcome-indicators-project original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26786 | july 2, 2023 83 table 1. community engagement evaluation tools promising direction name of the tool website developer measurement/projects/nonprofitorganizations/projects-focused-nonprofitorganizations/outcome-indicators-project 4. evaluating relationships community engagement partnership rubric https://www.aals.org/wpcontent/uploads/2016/05/heather-mackcp-rubric-final-2015.pdf loyola university new orleans characteristics of effective partnerships see article mcnall et al., 2009 partnership rubric https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/c gi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1038&context =mu rhode island partnerships for success collaborative relationships mapping https://csl.iupui.edu/teachingresearch/curriculum/communityplanning/colrm/index.html indiana university-purdue university indianapolis transformational relationship evaluation scale see article kniffin et al., 2020 kumu mapping platform https://kumu.io/ kumu, inc. collaboratory https://cecollaboratory.com/ collaboratory https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiatives/performance-management-measurement/projects/nonprofit-organizations/projects-focused-nonprofit-organizations/outcome-indicators-project https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiatives/performance-management-measurement/projects/nonprofit-organizations/projects-focused-nonprofit-organizations/outcome-indicators-project https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiatives/performance-management-measurement/projects/nonprofit-organizations/projects-focused-nonprofit-organizations/outcome-indicators-project https://www.aals.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/heather-mack-cp-rubric-final-2015.pdf https://www.aals.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/heather-mack-cp-rubric-final-2015.pdf https://www.aals.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/heather-mack-cp-rubric-final-2015.pdf https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1038&context=mu https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1038&context=mu https://digitalcommons.usm.maine.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1038&context=mu https://csl.iupui.edu/teaching-research/curriculum/community-planning/colrm/index.html https://csl.iupui.edu/teaching-research/curriculum/community-planning/colrm/index.html https://csl.iupui.edu/teaching-research/curriculum/community-planning/colrm/index.html https://kumu.io/ https://cecollaboratory.com/ original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26786 | july 2, 2023 84 table 1. community engagement evaluation tools promising direction name of the tool website developer 6. blended approaches knowledge engagement impact assessment toolkit https://research.ucalgary.ca/engageresearch/knowledge-engagement/ketoolkit university of calgary using framework developed by university of bradford collaboratory https://cecollaboratory.com/ collaboratory https://cecollaboratory.com/ original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26786 | july 2, 2023 82 first, it was clear in our discussion that meaningful evaluation starts with the sustained commitment of the university to community-engaged work. all six promising directions — from evaluating systemic racism to incorporating narrative feedback — rely on consistent, mutually beneficial engagement by the university with community stakeholders. this continues to be a key area of focus — one that, in turn, is strengthened by improving how we assess, evaluate, and tell stories about partnership work. when university commitment and evaluation are worked on simultaneously, they can be mutually reinforcing. second, huddle members’ insights suggest a cumulative, value-added effect using multiple high-impact practices for evaluating communitycampus partnerships. one of the reasons the conversation jumped across different levels of evaluation — from individual to institution, from community to university — is that they are inherently intertwined. the strongest approaches to evaluation, participants suggest, align efforts across levels. finally, while tools and approaches developed elsewhere can be helpful, it was clear from the discussion that effective evaluation is rooted in a local context. this means that a robust evaluation of partnership work requires all stakeholders to be involved in the process. evaluation must be a partnership that incorporates equal participation in decision-making, regular communication, and mutual accountability. determining the indicators and measures that are most relevant to assess performance and accountability will come from a combination of campus and community perspectives rather than a top-down approach. in the context of such collaborative, locally-rooted efforts, with university investment and a multi-layered approach, we hope the directions highlighted in this article support and perhaps even inspire others to move our knowledge and practice forward in a critical, participatory, community-based spirit. original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26786 | july 2, 2023 83 references bagasra, a. b., doan, s., & allen, c. t. 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(n.d.) outcome indicators project. https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/crosscenter-initiatives/performance-management-measurement/projects/nonprofitorganizations/projects-focused-nonprofit-organizations/outcome-indicators-project wanjiru, i. r., & xiaoguang, l. (2021). evaluating university-community engagement through a community-based lens: what indicators are suitable?. journal of higher education outreach and engagement, 25(4), 133–151. https://openjournals.libs.uga.edu/jheoe/article/view/1495 waters, s. e., & brigden, j. j. c. (2013). assessing the community partner in academic servicelearning: a strategy for capacity-building. prism: a journal of regional engagement, 2(2), 99–116. https://encompass.eku.edu/prism/vol2/iss2/1 wilder, c. s. (2013). ebony and ivy: race, slavery, and the troubled history of america's universities. bloomsbury publishing usa. https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiatives/performance-management-measurement/projects/nonprofit-organizations/projects-focused-nonprofit-organizations/outcome-indicators-project https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiatives/performance-management-measurement/projects/nonprofit-organizations/projects-focused-nonprofit-organizations/outcome-indicators-project https://www.urban.org/policy-centers/cross-center-initiatives/performance-management-measurement/projects/nonprofit-organizations/projects-focused-nonprofit-organizations/outcome-indicators-project paul j. kuttner,1 lisa rawlings, 2 and marcie r. washington3 abstract introduction the cumu community engagement evaluation huddle promising directions promising direction 1: evaluating system racism promising direction 2: community-driven evaluation promising direction 3: community impact and benefit promising direction 4: evaluating relationships promising direction 5: alignment of stakeholders promising direction 6: blended approaches conclusion references original research © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26448| march 8, 2023 87 detroit as a marker for divorcing place-based education and orthodox history from oppressive pedagogy practices joshua musicant1 1 global urban studies at rutgers-newark cite as: musicant, j. (2023). detroit as a marker for divorcing place-based education and orthodox history from oppressive pedagogy practices. metropolitan universities, 34(2), 87-101. doi: 10.18060/26448 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. guest editors: patrick m. green, ed.d. and susan haarman editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract in this essay, place-based education is discussed within a social theoretical context. in particular, place-based education in social studies is advanced as a panacea for the depoliticization of the u.s. populace at “the end of history.” the argument is twofold. first, it suggests politicizing potential in place-based social studies education as students explicitly contextualize their lives and experiences within history. second, it suggests the radical potential for the social imaginary, as classroom spaces are reconstituted for knowledge production that defies positivist orthodoxy. finally, the author’s experiences as a place-based educator in detroit are offered as inspiration and as a curriculum prototype for prospective place-based educators at large. keywords: place-based education, detroit, the end of history, political education, youth power, students of color, social studies, history education, facilitation http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26448 | march 8, 2023 88 introduction place-based education (pbe) is a broad concept, often associated with pedagogical techniques that connect students with local ecology and provide them space to execute projects that address local ecological issues (greenwood, 2003; greenwood & smith, 2008). in this conception of pbe, student learning is generally focused on science, technology, and engineering fields (placebased education evaluation collaboration, 2010; powers, 2004). broadly, however, pbe can be defined as any form of education that uses place, location; current events; lived experiences; classroom dynamics; or local action to facilitate student learning (sobel, 2005). pbe’s institution is supported by the theory that people, on the whole, learn better by doing than by listening (getting smart, 2017; powers, 2004). in what follows, i present the practice (or lack thereof) of pbe in the context of social studies, rooting the discussion in a social-theoretical context that deliberately locates the place of young people in a lived, contestable history. last, i trace these practices to a pbe-infused social studies pedagogy model from my experience in detroit classrooms, including examples from challenges and the resulting opportunities that arose from the infusion of place into those classrooms. in detroit, i worked in several roles for a place-based education nonprofit organization based in the city’s public schools. our practice married the traditional conception of pbe with the broader one. our organizationin collaboration with researchers and practitioners from eastern michigan universitywas mandated to facilitate youth-led projects addressing community sustainability and climate resilience issues. as such, the first half of the school year is spent building context with youth: defining community and sustainability; locating neighborhoods within the city, state, and national contexts; and identifying the sustainability issues most pertinent to the community. in the second half of the school year, the students learn by doing: using democracy and consensus-based tactics to make decisions; interacting with local decision-makers; drafting and approving a budget; and completing a locally relevant project. while the projects are meant to address a community need and therefore be valuable in and of themselves, the primary aim of these place-based projects is to facilitate student learning. in theory, the second half of the school year---the learning by project execution portion--incorporates pbe in its narrower conception, facilitating stem learning via direct engagement in the local ecology. the first half of the school year---the portion in which practitioner facilitation actuates context-building for students---incorporates pbe in its broader sense in which student expertise, experience, and curiosity are mobilized to engender new learning and challenges. the first portion, incorporating pbe in a broader sense, is often the most challenging for practitioners. while the project-execution phase involves much practical leg work, the context-building phase generally requires more lesson planning and sometimes invites contested, uncomfortable circumstances, particularly as the historical picture necessarily compiled through © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26448 | march 8, 2023 89 investigations of detroit is not always settled and, given the history of racism in the city, is often ugly. our program’s theory is that, compared to orthodox education practices, our pbe model is particularly effective in detroit because it addresses the more significant burden on educators to win students’ attention and interest in detroit compared to more affluent places. this is, of course, not because students in places like detroit are less capable or disciplined as learners but because it is disproportionately the case that student focus and attention on school must compete with other burdens and responsibilities that often come to young people experiencing poverty or living adjacent to poverty. according to the theory, it is neither fair nor sensible to expect young people confronting the day-to-day challenges that come with racial and economic injustice to be particularly interested in environmental issues from day one. to account for this, the program uses a robust context-building phase to demonstrate the relevance of environmental issues in our students’ lives. executed properly, this phase operates as a defense against the possibility of gentrifying environmental action, as this grounds the projects in issues relevant to the students and their communities, as determined by the students and their communities. most importantly to orthodox educational objectives, however, it wins students’ attention and opens them up to new learning potentials. these are potentials that, given the profound systemic challenges most young detroiters face in overcoming poverty, we believe must be realized. to serve students as citizens, place-based educators must harness students’ ability to think structurally and critically about the world around them. as is, detroit has instituted---though perhaps unevenly---inquiry-based pedagogy akin to the one detailed before the conclusion. however, it has tended to limit such pedagogy to science classrooms, where it has been shown to improve scores on standardized science tests for the city’s middle schoolers (geier, blumenfeld, marx, krajcik, fishman, soloway, & claychambers, 2008). without such structural and critical learning, place is removed from the pedagogical process, a development i problematize below through a social-theoretical contextualization of place---namely, its lack---in our postmodern times. place at the end of history in this section, i plead for educators to recognize the urgency of broad pbe in social studies pedagogy. first, i will argue that orthodox social studies education is fatalistic in its absolute separation of place from history. second, i present a social-theoretical perspective on the end of history that theorizes contemporary citizenship as generally removed from political action, an ethos fostered in part by the predominance of pedagogies---especially in social studies---that lack place, stressing instead the rote attainment of knowledge, therefore divorcing young people from the political initiative. © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26448 | march 8, 2023 90 as donaldo macedo (2019) has argued, orthodox history education harnesses an oppressive role that subtly depresses consciousness. scholars have pointed to both an active and a passive avenue through which consciousness is depressed in orthodox history education. the active avenue perpetuates nationalistic and capitalistic narratives as evinced by predominant concepts in orthodox history education that ostensibly anticipate subjects of social critique (zinn, 2017; rosenzweig & lichtenstein, 2008; loewen, 2007). concepts such as manifest destiny and the singularity of american democracy justify the u.s.’s existence and dubious beginnings. units focused on immigration, which generally presents the nation as one of unique tolerance and equality, address the country’s deeply racist roots and structures and can position equality as an ideal already achieved or even inherent in the nation’s core. the same units provide the framework of the infamous “bootstraps myth,” a narrative supported by the idea of the country as a unique location of economic freedom and prosperity, ideas tied up in the curation of the nation’s democratic singularity. establishing such narratives is particularly important for capital in a place like detroit, where racial and economic injustice is rampant, to produce a particular risk to capital’s legitimacy and power. to execute a universalized national ethic of capital production, it helps to present individual responsibility as the primary barrier to economic achievement. without this, impoverished communities would be liable to blame their plight on external structures, jeopardizing the stability of the system in place. the passive avenue of oppression in orthodox history education is the implicit discouragement of dissent, mainly through the minimization of critical thought (macedo, 2018; kumashiro, 2000). such discouragement is partly a byproduct of history education that lacks a basis in place by failing to draw connections between the past and the present and by neglecting attention to local relevance. these failures of orthodox history education occur in the context of the body politic’s increasing separation from place, as our political culture has trended against historical consciousness. this trend is noted by some political and social theorists, who suggest that our contemporary, postmodern condition is characterized by its lack of historical consciousness. jean baudrillard (1995) argued that since the end of the cold war, capitalist society, through its triumph over communism, had ascended from the narratives of history. baudrillard asserted that the end of this dialectical tension foments universalist narratives of progress beyond the reach of historical struggle. simply, baudrillard cautioned that the world had come to be seen as a procession, beyond reproach, towards inevitable progress. baudrillard’s theory echoes that of francis fukuyama (1992), who theorized---corrupting marxist theory---that the end of the cold war would mark a conclusion to historical struggle. fukuyama posits, presciently, that the world’s procession would reach apotheosis in a “universal consumer culture” (1992, p. 65). though the end of history concerns baudrillard, fukuyama commends it. © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26448 | march 8, 2023 91 paulo freire’s (1970) writings on the intellectual tools of oppression demonstrate capital’s interest in separating oppressed peoples from non-neutral subjectivities. this separation suppresses the possibility of dissent by obfuscating contextual connections between people of shared subjugations. to freire, “the more the alienated culture is uncovered, the more the oppressive reality in which it originates is exposed,” incentivizing oppressors to foster a “culture of silence” (p. 2) through prescribing knowledge for their subjects that frame social possibilities in favor of the status quo, precisely the processionary futures on which baudrillard and fukuyama reflect this top-down culture of dehistoricization contextualizes and curates students’ separation from history as presented to them in conventional classrooms. this removal from history is necessarily an elimination of place from pedagogy as students, dehistoricized, lose connection to their locations in time and history. paradoxically, such issues are exacerbated by youth connection to historical information in our hyper-digital era. orthodox history, through its focus on the mere attainment of factual knowledge, is veering towards obsolescence as many students no longer require their history teachers or history textbooks to locate facts of history. sam wineburg (2018) explores this jeopardy in why learn history (when it’s already on your phone). wineburg points to benjamin samuel bloom’s (1984) taxonomy of educational objectives to remind history educators that attaining knowledge is only one of several broad learning objectives. students should gain knowledge of historical information but also learn to understand the information, apply the information, analyze the information, synthesize the information, and ultimately evaluate the information. history educators must ground their curricula in this process because of how accessible simple knowledge attainment has become for many young people, but also because of the unprecedented degree of false and harmful information now readily available. young people must learn to evaluate the information for its application to the present and its degree of truth. the knowledge that can be procured directly from one’s phone is very much the same sort emphasized in pedagogy and curricula that stress the rote attainment of facts. pedagogy dependent on rote processes deemphasizes the kinds of deep engagement and challenge that engender critical learning positioned to orient young people as historical actors capable of making change. it is a critical engagement with place that can promote such imperative orientations for young people. the place-based context of detroit history pedagogy infused with place directly addresses these challenges through its aims to draw out content relevance and help students learn to critique, apply, and evaluate information. pbe positions student experiences, opinions, and discussions as loci of knowledge production, © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26448 | march 8, 2023 92 actively facilitating students’ progress through learning objectives beyond the basic attainment of knowledge, the priority of orthodox history education, as evinced by its reliance on summative testing measures of student achievement and the competitive significance of these tests for all parties involved. history pbe positions young people as critical thinkers and evaluators of present, local conditions, discouraging the historical passivity redolent of the basic fact-finding young people may be able to do on their phones. such active, historical thinking can break the historically passive trend noted by baudrillard and celebrated by fukuyama. history pbe is especially integral in impoverished places like detroit, where the reifying powers of the status quo are apparent. in detroit, critical thought and evaluations of present, local conditions are not likely to tend toward national and capital interests. detroit is the poorest city in the u.s., positioning detroiters as perhaps the largest collected example of economic injustice in the country. detroit is also the blackest city in the u.s., positioning detroiters as perhaps the largest collected group of victims of anti-black racism in the u.s. the vast majority of detroit’s non-black population is either latinx or muslim, two identity groups with their own uniquely challenging experiences of american injustice. despite the unacceptability of the status quo economic apparatus in detroit, my experiences as a practitioner suggest that detroit’s youth tend to attribute blame inwardly and not towards the external apparatus. nearly across the board, detroit high schoolers identified individual and community responsibility as the primary causes of the city’s plight. it seems to be widely accepted, at least amongst the city’s youth, that a critical mass of detroiters is so lazy as to depress the city’s financial health and that individual acts of irresponsibility, such as littering and house disrepair, contribute significantly to the inability of the city and its residents to prosper financially. these responses suggest that, on some level, students have adopted national mythologies---personal responsibility, economic opportunity, fairness, etc.---which manifest in detroit as a form of internalized racism. these same students seldom identify white flight (a term and phenomenon they have usually been unaware of), the u.s. manufacturing industry's disintegration, or policies of austerity as significant contributors to the city’s plight. such attributions of blame are redolent of paulo freire’s (1970) description of myth-making, which he characterizes as an “effort to identify as diabolical all thought-language that uses such words as alienation, domination, oppression, liberation, humanization, and autonomy” (p. 2). instead of “diabolical” explanations that would point to a relationship to capital structures, the students place blame inwardly, reflecting the mythologization of capitalism as established through orthodox u.s. history education. fukuyama (1992) builds out his theory of a depoliticized historical procession in the end of history and the last man, arguing that capitalism is the natural order of democracy, in part: © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26448 | march 8, 2023 93 because it has a tremendous leveling effect through its need for universal education. old class barriers are broken down in favor of a general condition of equality of opportunity. while new classes arise based on economic status or education, there is an inherently greater mobility in society that promotes the spread of egalitarian ideas. the economy thus creates a kind of de facto equality before such equality arises de jure. (p. 205-206) here, fukuyama demonstrates that orthodox “universal education” imbues complacency in oppressed communities, primarily via the purported meritocratic nature of the u.s. economic system, a fundamental american credo, the adoption of which places blame for economic plight inward, thereby pacifying impoverished communities into acquiescence. this internalization of blame is perhaps also a reflection of the absence of place in orthodox history pedagogy. a lack of place generally removed relevance to students from the pedagogic equation, rendering students disengaged without the immediate capacity to connect their own lived contexts to the structural causes that define those contexts. in our program’s work, social studies are generally used to demonstrate the relevance of environmental issues to support its efforts in stem education. for example, it might be drawn out that, in detroit, extreme heat and cold events are among the most relevant challenges to local climate resilience, that such events are so challenging to many detroiters because of the city’s lack of adequate public transit, and that this lack is defined and caused by a bit of local history that every high schooler in detroit knows: that the city has lived by the automobile. building out this context and relevance is a process of weeks that often spills over into the second half of the school year. still, we make this investment because it engages students in environmental work and encourages them to see their eventual project as connected to the material conditions of their community. in short, we add place to the pedagogic equation. it is to the details of a place-infused pedagogy for social studies that i turn to next. inquiry and place-based social studies pedagogy educators who are tied to an orthodox curriculum can institute an encumbered version of history pbe in their classroom without sacrificing mainstream credibility, perhaps even while teaching a summative exam. such educators might work through history backward to support students as they draw connections between experiential knowledge and the prescribed learning content. this process allows students to use place---albeit in a somewhat narrow sense---as a point of reference as they locate themselves historically and come to see their lives and their city as products of history. a new civics initiative for detroit’s 10th graders appears to fall within an encumbered version of pbe. the initiative is a module in which students engage with local protest histories, especially by black detroiters and other detroiters of color. the initiative's publicity emphasizes the © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26448 | march 8, 2023 94 importance of having practitioners of color at the helm of this process (the 74, 2022; michigan advance, 2022; yahoo, 2022). while the effectiveness of educators of color, especially students of color, is supported by a robust body of literature. there is reason to believe, however, that much of the benefit provided by educators of color can be attributed to pedagogical techniques that engage radically with place, which i will detail below in my experiences in detroit classrooms. the above pedagogy, again, is distinguished from a complete place pedagogy as it still adheres to paulo freire’s (2012) “banking concept” of education in which educators deposit prescribed “knowledge” onto static students. pedagogy infused more robustly with place responds to the banking concept by adding the classroom, the people in it, and the dynamics therein as integral parts of “place.” proper history pbe works against the exploitation and domination of the banking method through the institution of freire’s conception of a “problem-posing” educator. such a facilitator should draw out student experience, which in a place like detroit would contextualize experiences for students as they use space to note shared material conditions and causes of those conditions. the “problem-posing” educator is well represented in newer conceptions of place-based pedagogy. the conceptions detailed below accentuate not only the classroom as a critical place but the teacher/educator as a pivotal aspect of the unique place of every classroom. cochransmith and lytle (2009) conceive of educators as practitioners, more than simply teachers. practitioners, to them, work in practice to optimize their trade, echoing donald schön’s (1994) work on the role of reflection in professional pedagogical practice. such a conception, moreover, responds to the banking concept by marking the community or classroom as a location of inquiry in which all participants---students and educators alike---are holders of knowledge and work as collaborating practitioners. lytle (2008) and ravitch (2014) build on the role of the educator in place, demonstrating the positivist removal of the educator in summative learning processes such as those stressed in the standards embedded in no child left behind and the common core. in detroit, our model highlights the role of both facilitators and learners through two straightforward facilitation techniques, both of which emphasize inquiry. the first technique is grounding work from the beginning by asking students what is important to you? instead of discussing sustainability unsolicited on day one, such an inquiry builds out relevance by ensuring that each topic discussed and activity facilitated is tied directly to what the students determine is important to them at the outset, thereby making meaning through connecting to students’ lives. the second technique uses root cause analysis. such analysis hones critical thinking, underscores preexisting knowledge in students, and resists oppression by concentrating on systems rather than symptoms. so, if a student shares that blight in their community is an important issue to them, a facilitator might ask why is there blight in your community? if a student responds because people left, a facilitator might ask why did people leave? if a student responds because © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26448 | march 8, 2023 95 they were kicked out/foreclosed on, a facilitator might ask why were they foreclosed on? if a student responds because they could not afford the bank payments, a facilitator might ask why couldn’t they afford the bank payments? and so on. inquiry in such root cause analysis is a pedagogy that underscores complex thinking here, as students relate events to each other and learn to see events as results of multivalent, contingent processes. students can be primed for this new dynamic by restructuring the physical classroom. the program clears out the furniture in the center of the room and places chairs in a large circle. educators should place themselves on the circle’s perimeter along with the rest of the class. this undoes part of the teacher-student/oppressor-oppressed dynamic (bowles & gintis, 1976) and positions students more naturally, opening them up to dialogue and conversation, particularly as students are challenged as complex thinkers. such a restructuring is essential in places like detroit, where students are discouraged from openness and dialogue through extreme disciplining and policing (u.s. department of education office for civil rights, 2016), underscoring again the need for broadly conceived place-based pedagogies in such locales. grounding the process through having students identify the issues most relevant to them at the outset and then facilitating investigations of these issues through root cause analyses will necessarily point to the histories that shape the lives of the oppressed. participants would attain knowledge of the power structures that exploit and dominate while also reconsidering their relationship to those oppressive powers as they recognize their knowledge and create new knowledge, a product of critical engagement between teacher practitioners and student practitioners whose collaboration defines the critical, unique place of every class, replete with its dynamics and expertise. practical place in detroit for me, curating such a class was attained through three deliberate measures established in the first session with students. first, i outlined who i was, what organization i was coming from, and what our goals would be. in so doing, i distinguished our work from the typical summative process of a k-12 classroom with prescribed learning objectives, underscoring our upcoming collective process as one in which there should be disagreements about our learning objectives. second, i consciously shared myself with students. this included presenting my background to students on the first day. such sharing included being explicit about the obvious: my socioeconomic privilege relative to students. i saw this difference not as a weakness but as an opportunity, embracing a humility commensurate to a lack of experience and, explicitly, the myriad positionalities within each group. facilitators, here, can ground the process in their lack of omniscience, inviting students to embrace roles as learners, imperfect, curious, and growing. beyond these first session tactics, i shared my personal life with students and treated them the same as i treated my peers. one method through which this was accomplished was weekly © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26448 | march 8, 2023 96 “roses, buds, and thorns” share sessions. perhaps as a result, my work with students was not always clean and i was directly involved in interpersonal conflicts on two or three occasions. working in place is fluid and reflexive, and students, in my view, benefitted from my vulnerability. such conflicts could be resolved with the help of a third process facilitated with students during the opening session, “norma,” which helps mark the class as a unique place. norma, a neutral, human-like figure, is a conceit through which students and facilitators can set expectations for themselves and others, establishing the space as contested and shared, demonstrating a contrast from the typical relationships between students and educators, and other students. though the above tools threatened boundaries and could be psychically challenging, they played to my interpersonal strengths and could be managed within my mental health capacity. critically, the place-establishing tactics described herein double as antiracist, as emerging scholarship connects building relational trust (siddle walker & snarey, 2004, 77), hosting open discussions (roegman et al., 2020), centering questions of equity (roegman et al., 2020), and connecting learning to broader systems (jackson, 2011, 144-65), culturally responsive tactics that are generally equalizing, particularly effective for students of color, and accessible to teachers of all backgrounds. here and elsewhere, the role of the facilitator hinges on a contrast with the formal pedagogies and discipline to which studentsespecially in places like detroitare accustomed. the space, through both the facilitators’ investment of self and the shared establishment of norms, becomes a safe one in which students can expect to be supported when sharing personal anecdotes or embracing facets of their identity, while students who may offend others can expect to be “called in” and not deposited into disciplinary or carceral processes for their transgressions. facilitators might view transgressions not as threats but as opportunities for students to share their perspectives on why something might be wrong, especially to promote systems thinking. in detroit, a relatively diverse and segregated city, high schoolers are prone---as they are most anywhere---to denigrating others, especially those from different economic and cultural backgrounds. in one case, a student in a predominantly black school denigrated students' english proficiency at a high school in a predominantly latinx portion of the city. this was an opportunity to promote systems thinking, tying the migration of mostly mexican immigrants to detroit to the great migrations that brought many black detroiters to the city, both of which are tied to industrialization and the car. during my next week with the class, i came prepared with a short presentation on the imposition of the standard american dialect in the u.s. educational system, suggesting that the imposition privileges learners from white and affluent backgrounds and can jeopardize the scholastic achievement of those from different backgrounds who are not given credit for linguistic achievements within their dialects and who must do the extra work of code-switching in much of their learning. here, students could gain critical perspectives on the education system at large and the system of capital that catalyzes uneven development and © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26448 | march 8, 2023 97 migration. imperatively, my objective was to problematize notions against political solidarity in the city, promoting possibilities for young people as historical actors in place and encouraging the systems thinking required to recognize the hierarchical nature of imposed language standards. in another instance at one of the city’s poorer high schools, i took a risk whose success depended greatly on the trust i had gained by sharing myself fully with students over a protracted period. after one student made fun of another for being poor, i shared honestly that when i first started working with the class (which was the first i ever worked with in general), i was unable to distinguish the subtle differences in the students’ economic situations and that, even after i could grasp such subtle differences, it was still jarring to me that, from my outside, affluent perspective, a young detroiter from their neighborhood, a disproportionately impoverished one even compared to the rest of the city, would cast their economic situation so different from that of another young detroiter from the neighborhood. for the next session with the class, i came prepared with some data on race and income/wealth in the u.s. here, i used a root cause facilitation process in the hopes of promoting the type of systems thinking whose general lack facilitates the belief in many young detroiters that detroiters themselves are at fault for their economic plight and for the city’s, a depoliticized notion that critiques the individual rather than the political. though a couple of students pushed back on my opinion---explicitly stated as my opinion---of systemic economic fault, i took it as a reflection of the space’s relative safety and fluidity. conclusion though such dialogue risked ruffling some feathers, clarifying the process’s rootedness in our particular place from the outset imbued a mutual understanding that our work would be fluid, that it would not always be tidy, that we could trust each other through disagreement, and that a shared goal of community sustainability would uphold us. critically, i considered my status as an outsider as more an opportunity than a vulnerability. my lack of personal expertise on detroit’s history and much of what young detroiters experience was itself a manifestation of our place, with my relative humility as a facilitator communicating that detroit’s politics are contested just as my physical person in the classroom communicated that detroit’s history is contested. the acknowledgment of place in these classrooms underscored that people like me---affluent outsiders---have had an outsized impact on what has come to be seen as knowledge about detroit. the acknowledgment also underscores that detroit’s politics and history were not knowable in absolute terms. ultimately, our task is not simply changing the inputs to knowledge but changing how we conceive of knowledge itself. after all, each unique conception of a group’s epistemological processes defines the place of every classroom in detroit and beyond. © the author 2019. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26448 | march 8, 2023 98 references baudrillard, j., & turner, c. 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(2017). a people's history of the united states. harper. https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trump-is-working-to-ensure-all-americans-have-access-to-stem-education/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/president-donald-j-trump-is-working-to-ensure-all-americans-have-access-to-stem-education/ https://www.ecs.org/advanced-placement-access-and-success-how-do-rural-schools-stack-up/ https://www.ecs.org/advanced-placement-access-and-success-how-do-rural-schools-stack-up/ joshua musicant1 abstract introduction place at the end of history the place-based context of detroit inquiry and place-based social studies pedagogy practical place in detroit conclusion references original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26467| march 8, 2023 43 seeking justice, seeking hope: refugee resettlement campuses and transformative pedagogy in higher education sonalini sapra,1 christian matheis,2 and diya abdo3 1 center for principled problem solving and excellence in teaching, guildford college, 2 community and justice studies program, guildford college, 3 every campus a refuge (ecar) and department of english, guildford, college cite as: sapra, s., matheis, c., & abdo, d. (2023). seeking justice, seeking hope: refugee resettlement campuses and transformative pedagogy in higher education. metropolitan universities, 34(2), 43-69. doi: 10.18060/26467 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. guest editors: patrick m. green, ph.d. and susan haarman editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract this article provides an exploratory case study of place-based pedagogy developed in partnership with every campus a refuge (ecar) at guilford college. ecar is the first initiative of its kind to mobilize college and university campus resources to provide housing and other forms of assistance to refugees seeking resettlement in the institution’s local area (within and beyond the institution’s physical borders). ecar is transforming refugee resettlement in the united states as it also transforms our understanding and teaching about the issues faced by these communities and the role of post-secondary educational institutions. through ecar’s commitment to “compassionate hospitality and radical accountability” (every campus a refuge, n.d.), campuses undergo transformations that blur the boundaries between campus and community and redefine the notion of “place” for students and community members. this article examines how place-based initiatives at resettlement campuses, such as ecar in greensboro, impact student experiences and learning. we present an analysis of survey data collected from students who participated in the ecar minor and analyze their responses. this data indicates that the academic program’s place-based pedagogy 1) provides students opportunities to learn about what forced displacement is and why it happens; 2) centralizes the voice, agency, and perspectives of the individuals who experience forced migration and resettlement; 3) emphasizes how we can collectively organize and advocate to address the problems of forced displacement and resettlement. in this way, the minor is helping students engage in the work of principled problem-solving in refugee resettlement through specialized http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26467| march 8, 2023 44 course offerings and place-based pedagogy. the paper concludes with challenges and opportunities for campuses interested in adopting this place-based refugee resettlement program for their colleges/universities. it also discusses pathways for further research and pedagogical innovation. keywords: refugee resettlement, equity, diversity, inclusion, place-based pedagogy, higher education, resettlement campus © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26467| march 8, 2023 45 place-based pedagogy and every campus of refuge place-based pedagogy is a form of experiential education that utilizes the local community and environment to teach relevant concepts in subjects across the curriculum (greenwood, 2003). it has roots in environmental education, critical pedagogy, and collaborative learning and arose in tandem with the larger community engagement movement in higher education to respond to concerns about the alienating impact most traditional educational practices have on systemically marginalized groups (shannon & galle, 2017). connected to place-based pedagogy is the rise of place-based community engagement – a specialized type of community engagement defined as “a long-term, university-wide commitment to partner with local residents, organizations, and other leaders to focus equally oncampus and community impact within a clearly defined area” (yamamura & koth, 2019, p. 184). place-based initiatives typically aspire to include a) a geographically defined focus; b) an equal emphasis on campus and community; c) long-term vision and commitment; d) university-wide engagement that animates the mission and develops the institution; and e) draws on collective impact (yamamura & koth, 2018). in this article, we highlight an innovative place-based initiative focused on refugee resettlement that seeks to redefine how higher education institutions understand “place” and their role as anchor institutions in their local, national, and global communities. as exploratory research, this article offers the groundwork for both praxis and ongoing research at the intersections of place-based pedagogy and a growing wave of efforts to transform higher education using the “resettlement campus” model (appendix a). historically, there have been three main ways higher education institutions have engaged with teaching and learning about refugee resettlement (matheis, abdo, & sapra 2022; for full typology, see appendix a). the first, or type 1, follows a traditional service-learning model where the institution sends student volunteers to off-campus sites to volunteer with a refugee resettlement agency for 15-20 hours a week. this typically includes a facilitated critical reflection component that students complete on-site or in the classroom (jones, 2016). the second type 2 approach is refugee student/scholar support services, where universities support forcibly displaced faculty and students through scholarships, enrollment opportunities, and special academic appointments (cantat et al., 2022). in the third version, type 3, higher education staff/faculty/students visit refugee camps overseas to provide service-learning opportunities and/or conduct research in or near refugee camps and resettlement areas while refugees await the outcome of asylum claims and settlement applications (duff-brown, 2013; ruecker, 2017). in this paper, we highlight and focus on a fourth approach, type 4: resettlement campuses, which seeks to transform the landscape of place-based education regarding refugee resettlement in the united states, where colleges and universities welcome, house, and provide support to © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26467| march 8, 2023 46 refugee families on their campuses in the early phases of arrival and resettlement. type 4 differs from and complements the first three types of engagement by engaging campuses directly as a hosting site of resettlement and community integration. as mentioned above, while colleges and universities support student volunteers (i.e., internship, practicum, service-learning opportunities, etc.) to do work in the community and by traveling off-site (away from campuses) to engage in research and experiential learning, very rarely are their physical spaces and their material and human resources leveraged to foster a sense of belonging for refugee newcomer residents, especially through inter-group interaction and sustained access. ecar serves as the first “prototype” program designed to support campuses that wish to engage in type 4 resettlement activities. inspired by pope francis’ call in 2015 for every european parish to host a refugee family, ecar connects refugees and supportive community stakeholders to provide integration support to newcomers. colleges and universities have the necessary physical facilities, inter-institutional partnerships with various social organizations and government agencies, and internal human resources to provide housing and community support to welcome refugees. under the ecar model, a local refugee resettlement agency assigns a refugee case (singles, couples, or families) to a college or university and supervises their experiences. refugees then avail of free housing and utilities and access to campus facilities and amenities. as ecar was built around the a) needs, b) agency and c) dignity of new arrivals, the program creates partnerships between universities, local organizations, and communities to facilitate refugees’ access to education, health, social, and cultural services. students, faculty, staff, and community members are vetted and trained as culturally responsive volunteers to provide childcare, interpretation, career services, and other support at no cost to guest families (funded in various ways relative to the revenue and budget model of a given campus). in the ecar model, once refugees are financially ready (usually after 5-8 months), they transition to safe off-campus housing but continue to access ecar support. since 2015, ecar at guilford has hosted 86 refugees, 38 of whom have been children. as of december 2022, twelve campuses have joined as official ecar chapters. of the total number of resettlement campuses using the ecar model, four are public colleges/universities, and eight are private. the notion of place that ecar asks us to consider is unique. this distinction is partly because the ecar resettlement campus model disrupts “place” as only a geographically bounded category to instead account for and respond to place as ideological, affective, interdependent, and relational. ecar socializes students to be mindful of how individuals, particularly refugees, experience place, culture, and identities in multi-dimensional ways. further, the program helps students understand that the forced migration journeys many refugees experience can include multiple geographic and transnational spaces and times (bennett, 2022). in this conceptualization, “place” becomes a liminal space, and one need not necessarily leave campus to investigate global migration flows and attendant power relations. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26467| march 8, 2023 47 connections to this form of place-based pedagogy also sensitize students to the degree of dislocations that one can experience in life. for example, students experience one type of dislocation when they leave home to move to a residential campus like guilford. this can profoundly impact their sense of belonging and ability to engage in deep learning experiences. coming to belong happens in myriad ways, but exposure to ecar can aid in shifting their gaze from the individual to systemic issues of global inequity. these exposures prime students to learn more about the ecosystem in which we are all embedded, as well as give them skills to be advocates for change in their communities. in the next section, we describe guilford college’s principled problem-solving program that continues to serve as the programmatic home for the ecar minor and detail the courses and pedagogy developed from this place-based model. place-based engagement and the principles problem-solving experience (ppse) minor recently, multiple universities and colleges have come to understand and take ownership of their missions to serve the public good and to do so with an equity lens (guarasci, 2022; green et al., 2020). as a quaker-founded institution, place-based education and principled problem solving are harmonious with guilford college’s mission, to provide a transformative, practical, and excellent liberal arts education that produces critical thinkers in an inclusive, diverse environment, guided by quaker testimonies of community, equality, integrity, peace, and simplicity and emphasizing the creative problem-solving skills, experience, enthusiasm and international perspectives necessary to promote positive change in the world. (guilford college, n.d) following this mission, guilford college has a long history of place-based engagement centered on social justice. the principled problem-solving experience (ppse) minor, housed at the center for principled problem solving and excellence in teaching (cppset), is a curricular innovation that began over a decade ago at guilford college. the model enables individual faculty members to join interdisciplinary teams to develop a minor focused on an important community-identified topic or theme, emphasizing place-based engagement and pedagogy. over the years, faculty have developed several ppse programs that use the physical, environmental, and cultural landscapes around greensboro to enable students to see the world in new ways. one example is the forced migration and refugee resettlement minor started in 2017. the minor engages students minor in principled problem-solving in refugee resettlement through intentional course offerings. courses in the minor complement one another by 1) providing students opportunities to learn about what forced displacement is and why it happens; 2) centralizing the voice, agency, and perspectives of the individuals who experience forced migration and resettlement; 3) emphasizing how we can collectively organize and advocate to address the problems of forced displacement and resettlement. for details on the forced © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26467| march 8, 2023 48 migration and refugee resettlement minor, including assignments and course readings, please see appendices c, d, & e. place is not geographically bounded, and at the same time, the unique features of a particular location do influence local pedagogy. the history and cultural contours of greensboro as a “gateway city” that has long been a resettlement hub and is home to many refugee and immigrant communities, including the largest montagnard community outside of vietnam (bailey et al., n.d.), has influenced how students experience their learning and environment. the wealth of cultural, ethnic, and religious diversity brought about by immigration, and refugee resettlement in the triad has enriched the community in countless tangible and intangible ways. some students in the minor choose refugee resettlement as their career and take on opportunities before graduation, like interning with resettlement agencies or serving refugee communities through americorps. students are also using and honing their disciplinary skills to support ecar, and some have gone on to work professionally in refugee resettlement support and immigrant rights fields. finally, other courses at guilford that are not part of the minor partner with ecar as a site for conducting community-based participatory research, which could be considered a project-based type of place-based education. for example, the 2022-2023 community and justice studies research and capstone cohort worked in two complementary teams to design a preliminary study proposal in partnership with ecar. early in 2022, ecar received a substantial grant to support the creation of a resettlement campus manual (forthcoming in 2023), an open-access document designed to guide campuses to resettle refugees more directly (type 4 explained above). the grant funding supported the fall 2022 ecar gathering. this three-day event brings stakeholders from refugee communities, k-12 youth, faculty and other representatives from colleges and universities, personnel from resettlement nonprofits, public agencies, local government, businesses, and others. one student team designed a survey and focus group interview protocols on gathering data from stakeholder attendees. another student team developed survey and interview strategies for broad national outreach to post-secondary educational institutions to get a clearer picture of common and best practices related to refugee resettlement activities by colleges and universities. following a grounded theory approach, these proposals underwent revision and modification with feedback from ecar during a six-month-long planning process for the gathering. research question and our positionality as teacher-scholars our broad research question in this project was: how do place-based initiatives at resettlement campuses, such as ecar in greensboro, impact student experiences and learning? it is important to note that all three of us identify as teachers/scholar-activists and bring ethical and political commitments to our teaching and research. we detail below several aspects of our identities as teacher-researchers that inform our commitments and are relevant to our experiences teaching about refugee and immigrant experiences, especially at a predominantly white institution (pwi). © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26467| march 8, 2023 49 i (author 1) am a punjabi sikh, a first-generation immigrant female born in saudi arabia into a dalit (considered “low-caste/untouchable”) family. i came to the united states in 2004 on an f-1 visa for graduate studies in political science. i earned tenure at a faith-based liberal arts college in 2016 but decided, for personal and professional reasons, to move into the field of educational development. in early 2018, i joined guilford’s center for principled problem solving and excellence in teaching, working as a “third-space professional” (whitchurch, 2012). in my role, i help build capacity and support for inclusive teaching, and i also teach courses in political science and the forced migration and resettlement minor. i was drawn to work at guilford college because of the ecar program. i (author 2) grew up in the united states in both texas and oregon. i identify as white, queer, intergenerationally low-income, and a first-generation u.s. citizen and child of a refugee (my father). i joined the community and justice studies faculty at guilford in 2018, where i teach courses in areas such as public policy, direct-action organizing, and immigration justice. like author 1, i was particularly drawn to guilford college for the opportunity to work with ecar. i (author 3) am a second-generation palestinian refugee born and raised in jordan. i came to the u.s. on an f1 international student visa in 1996 to continue my graduate education at a small liberal arts university in new jersey. in 2003, i returned to jordan after challenging experiences in post-9/11 america. after a violation of my academic freedom at my university in jordan, i decided to leave for the u.s. again. i joined the faculty of guilford college in 2008. in 2015, i founded ecar, and in 2017 developed the minor every campus a refuge and then the forced migration and resettlement studies in 2019. as we reflect, one common thread in our teaching is how little our current pedagogies center (i.e., to prioritize rather than place at the center with the dangerous potential of tokenizing and objectifying) black peoples, indigenous peoples, people(s) of color (bipoc) students in our classrooms. while our teaching has always been student-centered, it has become apparent to us, from the feedback we have received from our bipoc students as well as their increased activism on campuses, that our pedagogies and systems center a particular kind of student whose universalized gaze has typically dictated the tenor and arc of our curricula. as a result, teaching subject matter that is personally relevant to bipoc students in the classroom happens at their expense, even if the lofty goal of uplifting and amplifying their experiences and voices is achieved. holding ourselves accountable to our bipoc students’ experiences in our classroom (a pedagogy of accountability) allows us to prioritize their community relationships and mental health over the more representational goal of amplifying oppressed voices (pedagogy of the oppressed). the ecar minor seeks to achieve such accountability to refugee-hosted guests by centering and prioritizing their dignity, agency, and privacy above the other pedagogical goals of the class. for example, ecar minor students are not allowed to interview hosted guests formally or informally; students are vetted/background checked and sign confidentiality agreements before interacting with guests. their final projects must meaningfully serve refugee populations in greensboro, responding to the identified needs of the local community. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26467| march 8, 2023 50 findings data were analyzed using an open-coding procedure that primarily applied in vivo codes (charmaz, 2006). we began by coding the data from the online survey responses and written reflection papers/assignments and conducted our thematic analysis. we then met to discuss our themes and categories, which we found to be primarily synergistic. these thematic clusters – groupings of themes that appear together several times throughout responses – allow us to portray themes in relatively close, co-constitutive relationships with one another as clusters. the strategy involves showing that themes interrelate, rather than a conventional approach of presenting themes individually as isolated concepts. theme cluster 1: career development, social justice commitments, and skillbuilding respondents described the benefits of the ecar minor, including a positive impact on their career development through internships that allow them to explore and grow their commitments to social justice while building skills by engaging with systematically marginalized communities. some illustrative comments from survey respondents: i have an internship and part-time job with a nonprofit [and] i need to be up to date on the definitions and precise meaning of words such as refugee. so professionally, this class has been significant because i can use my skills and knowledge to educate voters and build meaningful, lasting support for refugee resettlement in tennessee. … this class aided in my ability to do my job. in a personal sense, i can use this information to talk to people in my life who may not be convinced of the need to accept more refugees. this class is probably one of the most important classes i have taken. immigration has many issues that need to be brought to light. with this course, i learned … correct terminology and history on migrants and refugees. i will definitely be carrying this work with me. it is something i hold close and in high value. i wish to work with immigrant children or juvenile detention centers. with these paths ahead of me, this class has definitely given me a lot more knowledge. i am applying what i have learned in many of the courses i took at guilford on community problem-solving. looking at issues in the lens of equity, how to include people who’s not in the room, and how to center community voices in my workplace. since leaving guilford i have worked as a private english tutor for several clients in the greensboro area, most of whom were non-native english speakers. several of my clients have been older students, and thus many of the sessions are structured more as conversations rather than instructions or activities. i find myself using a lot of the same discussion prompts and active listening strategies that i used while i was working with the ecar clients to garner fruitful, relevant conversation. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26467| march 8, 2023 51 these data indicate that place-based pedagogy studied in this article enhances student learning and experiential opportunities in ways they consider deeply relevant to their commitments to social justice and long-term career goals and in ways that are based on building skills they can apply in future jobs and community engagement in their broader social lives. theme cluster 2: enhanced working understanding of causes of global refugee crises, experiential knowledge of the long-term impacts on individuals and families the second theme cluster indicates that student respondents gained a working understanding of different macro-level factors driving the global refugee crisis and how those large-scale forces impact specific individuals and families over the long term. some sample responses in this theme cluster include the following: i learned a lot in the ecar class. i … came away from it feeling connected and prepared. also, i think refugees, immigrants, and american-born people all have much to learn from each other and developing meaningful relationships. the u.s. government also creates instability in other countries which leads to refugee situations. allowing refugees into the u.s. helps to an extent, but there are big problems that need digging into. there was a publication that we read as part of the ecar minor that was simply aimed to break down refugee theory and provide some beginner-friendly info and stats about what refugeedom entailed. i really enjoyed this because it dispelled many myths and misunderstandings about the nature of refugeedom and reinforced the notion that refugees have always existed. i also appreciated how it discussed the de-humanization of refugees; it is very easy to talk about large groups of people as just numbers, but it is more difficult, albeit necessary, to recognize that each of those numbers is an individual with their own story and their own set of skills and beliefs. i helped tutor the children of a refugee family that were once living in the ecar house, but had since relocated. with another tutor, i learned that the little girl was barely scraping by, because she had missed some learning milestones. she was in first or second grade. among thousands of other issues refugees face, lost time for education and experiencing childhood is incredibly harrowing. the topics of immigration and asylum seekers/refugees has remained prevalent within my sphere since graduating college. i keep up with policy changes and news regarding these topics. i have enjoyed explaining matters concerning refugees entering into the u.s. with those in my community who are less knowledgeable and more skeptical of accepting “outsiders” than the community at guilford generally was. there have been many instances in which others have divulged ignorant perspectives concerning refugees to me, and i have eagerly attempted to dispel their fears and parroted lies. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26467| march 8, 2023 52 theme cluster 3: improved social imagination and strategic understanding of what post-secondary educational institutions can immediately do and become concerning resettlement throughout their experiences with place-based resettlement efforts in partnership with ecar, students developed a broader understanding and vision of what colleges and universities can do as resettlement campuses. this includes local, immediate actions related to the resettlement of individuals and families as well as a broader national and long-term vision for transforming the social role of post-secondary educational institutions. i think it’s really amazing that certain colleges and universities care about serving community needs and using their resources to support migrants. collaborations can come out of colleges and universities in partnerships with local organizations in the case of both the immigrant justice lab as well as ecar. deeply engaged academia gives students an opportunity to investigate place-based experiences and displacement while actively challenging the systems that create displacement while using their resources to help immigrants and refugees resettle in greensboro. this shows a mutually beneficial community partnership, but i also wonder how the dynamics of pain narratives, saviorism, and using student labor may complicate this community partnership. guilford college can be more actively engaged in campus and deepen relationships in the college and outside of the college by applying radical hospitality to other spaces in the college. communicating with ecar chapters outside of guilford and collecting their unique stories gave me insight into community engagement that went beyond my normal scope. it was enlightening to collaborate with such a wide array of people who, nevertheless, shared many of the same ideals, hopes, and concerns. by engaging with multiple chapters, i was able to see how community engagement can take different forms depending on the people/resources available, as well as how many core principles remain the same. reaching out to people with whom i was not familiar also helped me to become more confident and outgoing within our own ecar chapter. as a result of participation in the minor, students demonstrate that they are rethinking the role of post-secondary institutions, baccalaureate degrees, and their potential efficacy as change agents. they directly reference how these place-based academic and co-curricular experiences prepare and motivate them to apply their newly-gained skills to refugee communities’ best interests. in addition, they indirectly point to the tools they gained to dismantle social inequities they see in other arenas. lessons learned applying and adapting place-based pedagogy within the context of a resettlement campus in a city that is a major resettlement hub affords opportunities to investigate some of the challenges © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26467| march 8, 2023 53 and opportunities of curricular and teaching strategies. generally, these courses allowed students to increase their working, experiential knowledge of the place of their higher education and one locality, among many, of refugee resettlement, e.g., greensboro, guilford county, and the regional ecosystem of resettlement organizations. place-based pedagogy also helped students learn and practice their skills at thinking critically about hegemonic narratives and prompted students to grapple with their social location/positionality in the context of community engagement. the courses and pedagogy analyzed in this study also indicated that place-based pedagogy has multiple applications. creating strong learning communities as many community-engaged professionals and faculty are aware, courses that foster connections between systematically marginalized communities (e.g., refugees in the case of this research) and campus communities can generate substantial benefits for all involved. however, these connections can and often do take on more transactional interactions that primarily benefit those associated with educational institutions and then wane easily once the semester ends. once students and faculty bring a community-engaged course to a close, there may not be any deliberate continuation of the relationship that benefits refugee communities. alternatively, curricular engagement through ecar greatly increases the likelihood that students will be engaged over a sustained period of time beyond the time of a given academic course, as evidenced by students engaged in the ecar and cppset curricula who maintained engagements with refugee resettlement support beyond the formal courses. course offerings that productively orient students to the systemic oppression refugees face like these can significantly enhance curricular and co-curricular student learning experiences. work against fetishizing the refugee experience the ecar minor is carefully designed to work against fetishization by highlighting structural racism and institutional accountability, decentering the student learning experience, and recentering the needs and lived experiences of the hosted guests as they decide for themselves. “fetishizing” refers here to the use of a person as a means to some economic and/or political end, to treating persons as commodities/currencies, the sole value of which is to get someone what they want at another person’s expense (marx, k. 1867). all too often, seemingly principled and ethical campus engagement with refugee communities nonetheless prioritizes the interests of faculty and students in ways that fetishize refugees, treating resettling persons as transactional resources in an academic economy. ecar maintains an emphasis on structural racism and institutional accountability by placing academic virtues such as intellectual curiosity and novel experiences, which are undoubtedly important, at a lower priority than the ability of refugees to feasibly refuse engagement while still retaining access to support services (matheis, 2016). that is, ecar fosters institutional accountability by seeking to make sure refugees have access to support whether or not they choose to engage with academic and co-curricular programs at a resettlement campus, and ecar deliberately educates students about this approach as a means of challenging structural racism. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26467| march 8, 2023 54 foster a culture of impact evaluation ecar has established best practices, workshops/trainings, and a published impact study (abdo & craven 2018) that shows how campus-based support increases financial stability and sense of integration, and a greater sense of belonging for refugees. this is important because most research in this area tends to emphasize student learning with too little attention paid to community impact. importantly, findings from a research study showed that participation in the program provided a deeper and more meaningful education for all students, with the experience for non-immigrant students being especially transformative. the study showed that student volunteers experienced greater opportunities to build working knowledge of forced migration, refugee experiences, and refugee resettlement in the u.s., as well as an initial understanding of national policies and practices impacting refugees. they stated they would be more likely to advocate for and with refugees and immigrants due to their participation (abdo and craven, 2018). challenges our approach to place-based pedagogy also revealed different challenges at both the institutional and structural levels as well as in terms of pedagogy. concerning the institutional and structural challenges, we found the following: 1. curriculum and course design parameters can limit or enhance the efficacy of place-based pedagogy. guilford’s new academic calendar with its three-week “intensives” allowed for extended time for off-campus field trips, film screenings, and discussions, the truncated time for each course means that ongoing, longer-term projects are not easily or effectively completed. during the three-week sessions, students also tend to prioritize courses required for their major. thus they are less likely to take a course for the minor or as an elective. 2. institutional commitment to offer housing and auxiliary support services is pivotal to ensure fair partnership among refugees and course participants. to be leveraged to its fullest extent, the minor benefits from institutional support for refugee resettlement through the offer of temporary housing, campus community integration support, and access to campus facilities and amenities. working with refugees hosted on campus allows students to experience their campus as a place for resettlement. likewise, students can achieve similar learning outcomes by working with refugees off-campus in the community. still, it does not allow them to see how their institutions can function as resettlement sites within the ecosystem. pedagogical challenges © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26467| march 8, 2023 55 instructors who wish to use place-based pedagogy for courses that engage directly with refugee resettlement must carefully prepare for the unique needs of different refugee families. further, it is necessary to commit to ongoing reflection and refocusing of priorities to help ground academic courses in ways that balance the course’s learning objectives with refugees' real and immediate wants and needs. some specific commitments in practice include: 1. dedicate time to foster relationships. instructors will need to plan and for and dedicate additional time before, during, and after a course (i.e., time in addition to the traditional semester schedule) to foster and maintain relationships among refugees and students, community partners, and higher education institutions. course start and end dates are insufficient guidelines for holistic, place-based pedagogy. the time required to build and maintain critical relationships must be considered early, persistently, and for the long-term. 2. commit substantial time for debriefing and processing. instructors need to build debriefing and processing time into class meetings and discussion forums so that students can discuss and reflect on what they are experiencing and gain greater individual and collective insight into those experiences while simultaneously reflecting on course materials. 3. de-center the dominant paradigm and norms of overrepresented and privileged identities. instructors will need to conscientiously prioritize identities and experiences that suffer systemic marginalization while also addressing the relative lack of understanding (i.e., ignorance and lack of insight) expressed by those from socially dominant identities. put more directly: those who suffer marginalization will express pain and experiences that, without instructor interventions, will not be understood as coherent or legitimate by those from dominant identities. likewise, those from socially dominant identities will likely express their ignorance and lack of understanding about pain and marginalization in abstract, unempathetic, and even hostile ways. those who lack knowledge and experience cannot easily interpret the pain of marginalized people. instructors will need to centralize and prioritize the voices of marginalized identities, attending to the ignorance expressed by those with dominant identities, yet without using the suffering of “others” to educate the ignorant and dominant. conclusion: implications for further research and practice the survey data and documents we analyzed and presented alongside our experiences as instructors provide an initial indication of the positive impact and challenges of the ecar course model and the place-based pedagogy used throughout the program. further research into two specific areas of this work would help us better understand the positive, long-term impacts for students and the broader implications of partnering with refugee communities. we know from our ongoing communication with students that those who completed the ecar minor have benefited from the international attention and visibility that the ecar model has received. for example, three groups of students in the minor (january and june 2018 and then again in january 2019) represented ecar and guilford college at a united nations conference on refugees at the u.n. headquarters in new york. additionally, one of the students presented © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26467| march 8, 2023 56 on the ecar minor at a u.n. panel session at the conference. students from other campuses in the united states have also benefited from learning about place-based refugee resettlement happening at ecar. in march 2020, 10 students from hamilton college in clinton, new york, spent their alternate spring break at guilford college learning about ecar at guilford college, it is local (on and off campus ecosystem), and worked with ecar hosted guests and local community-based organizations supporting refugees. hamilton students learned about what a resettlement campus looks like, how refugee resettlement in greensboro compares to refugee resettlement in utica, ny (another small city/refugee resettlement hub), and how to begin an ecar chapter on their campus. still, a more comprehensive longitudinal study of the impact of the ecar minor on participating students would allow for a better understanding of the strengths and limitations of our use of place-based pedagogy. it is of the utmost importance to engage with systemically vulnerable refugee populations in ways that share power, centralize their voices and experiences, and provide compensation for engagement with educational programs. a more robust and institutionally supported longitudinal study, designed and carried out in partnership with partnering refugee communities, would also give us a better understanding of the benefits and limitations of place-based pedagogy from the perspectives of refugees and additional guidance for institutions seeking to become resettlement campuses. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26467| march 8, 2023 57 references abdo, d., & craven, k. 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(2022). underground railroad in guilford college woods. hege library & learning commons. https://library.guilford.edu/c.php?g=656676&p=5029507 https://doi.org/10.3167/arms.2018.010112 https://cnnc.uncg.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/montagnards.pdf https://doi.org/10.3167/9781800733114 https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/news/stanford_students_visit_refugee_camps_in_ethiopia_on_design_project_20130315 https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/news/stanford_students_visit_refugee_camps_in_ethiopia_on_design_project_20130315 http://everycampusarefuge.net/ https://doi.org/10.18060/24784 https://catalog.guilford.edu/student-handbook/mission-statement/ https://library.guilford.edu/c.php?g=656676&p=5029507 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26467| march 8, 2023 58 jones, s. (2016). stealth radicalism: teaching refugee rights as human rights. radical teacher, 104, 62-72. https://doi.org/10.5195/rt.2016.258 marx, k. (1867). capital: a critique of political economy. volume i: the process of capitalist production. charles h. kerr and company. matheis, c. (2016). refuge and refusal: credibility assessment, status determination and making it feasible for refugees to say “no.” in h. bauder & c. matheis (eds.), migration policy and practice: interventions and solutions (pp. 17-35). palgrave macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137503817 matheis, c., abdo, d., & sapra, s. (2022). “resettlement and higher education: a typology. every campus a refuge. http://everycampusarefuge.net/higher-education-andresettlement-a-typology// miles, m. b., huberman, a. m., & saldäna, j. (2020). qualitative data analysis: a methods sourcebook (fourth edition.). sage publications, inc. rueckert, p. (2017, april 20). this college student visited refugee camps in greece. then, she decided to take action. global citizen. https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/college-student-michigan-refugees-migrantsstories/ shannon, d. & galle, j, eds. (2017). interdisciplinary approaches to pedagogy and place-based education: from the abstract to the quotidian. basingstoke, u.k.: palgrave macmillan. yamamura, e. k., & koth, k. (2018). place-based community engagement in higher education: a strategy to transform universities and communities (1st ed.). stylus publishing, llc. yamamura, e. k., & koth, k. (2019). leadership practices for place-based community engagement initiatives. journal of higher education outreach and engagement, 23(1), 181-196. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ej1212504.pdf yin, r. k. (2018). case study research and applications: design and methods (6th ed.). sage. https://doi.org/10.5195/rt.2016.258 https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137503817 http://everycampusarefuge.net/higher-education-and-resettlement-a-typology/ http://everycampusarefuge.net/higher-education-and-resettlement-a-typology/ https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/college-student-michigan-refugees-migrants-stories/ https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/college-student-michigan-refugees-migrants-stories/ https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ej1212504.pdf © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26467| march 8, 2023 59 appendices appendix a: types of campus engagement with refugee/immigrant communities type description type 1: services/ service-learning campus personnel send volunteers to resettlement sites to do off-campus work with refugees and/or invite refugees on campus to access limited services. type 2: student integration campus personnel provide support services for enrolled students who were resettled as refugees; campus personnel facilitate educational access for refugees who have not (yet) been resettled. type 3: campuses to camps and temporary accommodation sites campus personnel send faculty, staff, and students to refugee camps and/or temporary accommodation sites to provide services and/or conduct research where refugees are located while awaiting permanent resettlement. type 4: resettlement campuses campuses provide housing and personnel, and serve as sponsor sites for initial and medium-term resettlement (e.g. ecar). © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26467| march 8, 2023 60 appendix b: minor phases iteration minor title timeframe 1 every campus a refuge (ecar) fall 2017 spring 2019 2 forced migration and resettlement studies fall 2019 spring 2021 3 forced migration and resettlement studies fall 2022 spring 2024 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26467| march 8, 2023 61 appendix c: required courses code course title pps 150 or 151 forced migration and resettlement studies i pps 250 or 251 forced migration and resettlement studies ii varies one course focused on understanding the causes for forced displacement and (im)migration (many choices from offerings across the college). varies one course focused on the voice, agency and perspectives of (im)migrants and displaced individuals (many choices from offerings across the college). varies one course focused on building community, advocacy, organizing (many choices from offerings across the college). © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26467| march 8, 2023 62 appendix d: readings included in ecar minor author title publisher date peter gatrell the making of the modern refugee oxford university press 2015 zygmunt bauman strangers at our door polity 2016 linda rabben sanctuary and asylum: a social and political history washington press 2016 michel agier on the margins of the world: the refugee experience today polity 2008 mary pipher the middle of everywhere: helping refugees enter the american community mariner 2003 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26467| march 8, 2023 63 appendix e: assignments included in required courses assignment type description of assignment assignment objective weekly 750word journal entries analyze and examine the most salient aspects of what they have learned that week from the readings, guest lectures and skype conversations about refugeeism and resettlement. explore the ways this information can be used towards building an ecar community. conversation partner through natakallam students connect virtually with displaced individuals all over the world for language practice and conversations. the natakallam fee was paid by cpps. students were required to engage in 13 conversational hours, ideally one hour a week. natakallam matched students with conversation partners according to their interest and the focus of the course. as natakallam conversation partners, displaced individuals gain access to an income, staff training and marketable skills. the platform offers language instruction and both students and their conversation partners engage in a powerful intercultural exchange, frequently developing friendships between worlds often polarized in the media and political spheres. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26467| march 8, 2023 64 2,000-word project paper identify and describe one aspect of refugee advocacy or resettlement practices that needs improvement and design (and possibly begin implementing) a project that improves that aspect. the project paper should address the following: a) what have they identified as an aspect of refugee advocacy and resettlement that needs improvement and what has led them to see this as a gap. in this section they need to describe the problem and explain where and how you see it manifesting. b) why is addressing this gap, solving this problem, important. what will addressing it achieve? how can it improve refugee and resettlement issues? which ones? c) what is their project? describe in detail how they will be doing it and how they will go about accomplishing it. d) how does this project contribute to creating an ecar community, especially as it connects to the college’s core values of community, diversity, justice, stewardship and integrity? e) who will they talk to and whose expertise will you engage and research to strengthen their project? f) have they begun the project? what have they done so far? what do they hope to do this project should build on their disciplinary skills and contribute to the building of an ecar community as it connects to the college’s core values most related to this course. our readings, guest lecturers and conversations will open up possibilities for engaging and selecting a project. indeed, some of our guest lecturers would suggest and/or invite students to participate in particular projects. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26467| march 8, 2023 65 next semester to implement and complete it? g) how can future students build on their project? © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26467| march 8, 2023 66 final project based on their final paper, students generate and create the project they identified as a solution to a refugee advocacy or resettlement problem. students must present on their topic at the guilford undergraduate symposium (gus) which takes place in the last week of every spring semester. students were also provided with guidelines to follow for their gus presentation: a. what is it? describe what you did and provide documentation of your project. b. what aspect of refugee advocacy and resettlement does it improve and how? c. how does this project contribute to creating an ecar community? d. how can future students build on your project? e. which disciplinary and interdisciplinary skills did you use to create and implement this project? f. what did you learn from creating this project? students can create public narratives, build on best practices, generate social media, participate in research and impact studies, outreach about ecar/public policy issues, advocate for refugee and immigrant rights, fundraise, build/organize community partnerships, organize and hold educational events, etc. the problemsolving project must be one on which future students can build and which connects to one of the college’s core values of community, diversity, justice, stewardship, and integrity. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26467| march 8, 2023 67 appendix f: student learning survey questionnaire 1. what is your class year? (drop down or open entry) 2. what are your majors and minors (if applicable)? 3. how much do you think you understood about refugees and refugee resettlement before you completed a course on the subject? (likert ranked responses) 4. describe a learning experience in or out of class you had throughout the year that impacted your view of refugee issues. 5. describe a learning experience in or out of class you had throughout the year that impacted your view of community engagement. 6. describe a learning experience in or out of class you had throughout the year that impacted your view of citizenship. 7. describe a time when you applied a concept from the course or minor to your personal, professional, or school life. 8. how would you describe your nationality / citizenship status and experience with immigration, refuge, and/or asylum? (e.g. citizen, permanent resident, refugee, asylumseeker, etc.). please provide as much or as little descriptive detail as you would like. 9. is there anything else you would like to share about your experiences taking courses (s) in the forced migration and refugee resettlement/ecar minor? 10. please add your email address here, if you’d like to receive a $10 amazon e-gift card for completing this survey. optional demographics please provide any demographic information you are willing to share. demographic information is entirely optional. the information helps the research team better analyze and understand the experiences of people from different backgrounds. primary affiliation (check all that apply) university/college undergraduate student university/college graduate student university/college post-doctoral associate practitioner / working primarily in industry university/college staff university/college faculty university/college administrator government employee / national laboratory staff prefer not to disclose other: age range © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26467| march 8, 2023 68 18-24 25-34 35-44 45-54 55-64 65-74 75-84 85-94 95 or older prefer not to disclose racial/ethnic backgrounds (check all that apply) asian black/african american latina/latino/latinx/hispanic native/indigenous/first nations pacific islander middle eastern/arab south asian white/caucasian prefer not to disclose other: sexual/affectional orientation (check all that apply) aromantic asexual bisexual demisexual gay heterosexual / straight lesbian pansexual queer questioning prefer not to disclose other: gender identity/expression (check all that apply) agender © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26467| march 8, 2023 69 cisgender genderfluid genderqueer man non-binary third gender trans two-spirit woman prefer not to disclose other: disabilities (check all that apply) yes visible disability yes invisible disability no prefer not to disclose other: religious / spiritual affiliations: [open-ended] veteran status veteran not a veteran prefer not to disclose sonalini sapra,1 christian matheis,2 and diya abdo3 abstract place-based pedagogy and every campus of refuge place-based engagement and the principles problem-solving experience (ppse) minor research question and our positionality as teacher-scholars as we reflect, one common thread in our teaching is how little our current pedagogies center (i.e., to prioritize rather than place at the center with the dangerous potential of tokenizing and objectifying) black peoples, indigenous peoples, people(s)... findings theme cluster 1: career development, social justice commitments, and skill-building theme cluster 2: enhanced working understanding of causes of global refugee crises, experiential knowledge of the long-term impacts on individuals and families theme cluster 3: improved social imagination and strategic understanding of what post-secondary educational institutions can immediately do and become concerning resettlement lessons learned creating strong learning communities work against fetishizing the refugee experience foster a culture of impact evaluation challenges pedagogical challenges conclusion: implications for further research and practice references appendices appendix a: types of campus engagement with refugee/immigrant communities appendix b: minor phases appendix c: required courses appendix d: readings included in ecar minor appendix e: assignments included in required courses appendix f: student learning survey questionnaire microsoft word vetrovec et al. 2022 publish.docx original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25731 | june 11, 2022 69 reckoning with our racist past: an academic health center’s engagement with history and health logan vetrovec, anne massey1, sally a. santen2, cherie edwards3, kathleen o’kane kreutzer4, and kevin harris5 1office of health equity, virginia commonwealth university, 2emergency medicine and medical education, virginia commonwealth university, 3school of medicine office of assessment, evaluation, and scholarship, virginia commonwealth university, 4school of medicine special projects, virginia commonwealth university, 5school of medicine diversity, equity, and inclusion, virginia commonwealth university cite as: vetrovec, l., massey, a., santen, s.a., edwards, c., kane kreutzer. k.o., and harris, k. (2022). reckoning with our racist past: an academic health center’s engagement with history and health. metropolitan universities, 33(3), 69-88. doi: 10.18060/25731 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. guest editors: joseph a. allen, ph.d., sara hart, ph.d., and melissa yack editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract academic health centers (ahc) both contribute to and are influenced by the communities they serve. as part of a central commitment to improving human health, there is a need for ahcs to acknowledge their history related to race and racism, the resulting impact on current health disparities, and the disparate treatment of racial and minoritized communities. as ahc’s care for black and brown communities, they have a unique responsibility to redress their respective legacies of bias, discriminatory practices, and experimentation without consent. one way to achieve this is to provide learning opportunities for in-depth engagement with students, faculty, staff, health care providers, and community members in conversations regarding racial equity, which are essential to shaping and impacting change at an individual and institutional level. virginia commonwealth university in richmond, virginia, launched a new initiative, history, and health; racial equity, designed to (a) increase awareness of our institution’s history, impact, identity, and culture, and (b) support meaningful conversations around history, health equity, structural racism, and health sciences education. urban and metropolitan universities may learn from and replicate this program and encourage such conversations in their communities. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25731 | june 11, 2022 70 keywords: health inequities, diversity, equity and inclusion, racism, health sciences education, racial equity introduction: the challenge structural racism and health sciences race and racism influence healthcare and health sciences education. structural racism, including historical, cultural, institutional, and interpersonal – routinely advantages whites while producing cumulative and chronic adverse outcomes for people of color. it is a key source of racial inequities and a driver of poor health outcomes for african americans (the aspen institute, 2016). dorothy roberts (2011) positions race as a social and political construct to perpetuate the system of racism. the emerging body of research on the impact of racism on health inequities has fueled downstream efforts to reframe policies, practices, and education programs to better serve an increasingly diverse patient population. as such, education programs should convey shared definitions of race as a social construct and racism as the hierarchical system that advantages certain racial groups and disadvantages others (haeny et al., 2021). the discourse on race and racism is evolving in health education and healthcare policies. some high-profile universities have initiated their respective reckoning with past discriminatory practices or activities. brown university’s formal acknowledgment in 2002 of its history of involvement in slavery is arguably the most notable institution; however, other institutions engaged in this process earlier and more have done so over time. major medical associations representing clinicians and medical educators have adopted guidelines calling for action to address racist policies and practices in medicine and medical education. in june 2021, the american medical association (ama) voted to adopt guidelines addressing systemic racism in medicine, recommending that health care organizations and systems establish institutional policies that promote positive cultural change and ensure a safe, discrimination-free work environment. the ama has also publicly acknowledged its discriminatory practices concerning the treatment of african american physicians and vows to redress that period with organizational policies that foster inclusion and confront systemic racism (american medical association, 2021). the association of american medical colleges (aamc), a prominent organization in medical education, released a framework for action in october 2020, designed to “guide and inspire the academic medicine community to begin addressing decades of structural racism within medicine” (association of american medical colleges, 2020). in doing so, the aamc is original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25731 | june 11, 2022 71 leveraging its national voice and position by strengthening policies and accreditation standards, equipping medical schools with tools to implement anti-racist practices, and integrating principles of health equity in route to achieving its goal of eliminating systemic racism in medical education (mckinney et al., 2021). while these national organizations represent their stakeholders, academic health centers (ahcs) are characterized by medical centers associated with health-related components of universities, which usually include a medical school, one or more health professions schools, and a health system. ahcs provide a wide range of medical services to the community, especially for the medically underserved. responsibilities of academic health centers and universities ahcs include hospitals and clinics. they often serve as safety-net providers that are health care entities who deliver healthcare services to patients regardless of their ability to pay. their missions cross clinical care, education, and research. similarly, urban and metropolitan universities serve as anchor institutions, respond to community needs, and their missions integrate teaching, research, experiential learning, and public service. metropolitan universities and ahcs both contribute to and are influenced by the communities they serve. this is even more impactful for the large number deeply embedded in black and brown communities. with the onset of the covid-19 pandemic in march 2020, many in these communities were retraumatized as pre-existing disparities in the type and quality of healthcare provided to racially and ethnically marginalized and minoritized groups became amplified (sim et al., 2021). working amid the pandemic and racial justice movements, community engagement scholarpractitioners critically examined and are now advocating for an engagement of hope concept as an equity-centered theory of action that higher education institutions should utilize as a framework for community engagement. a foundational principle of an engagement of hope is challenging unjust structures, which “requires us to acknowledge institutional racism and inequity, to accept our role within the unjust systems in which we participate, and then to challenge them in practice, policy, and position.” (green et al., 2021). thus, higher education and healthcare advocate for their institutions to examine their histories and the disparate treatment of racial and minoritized communities to move forward in a more just and equitable way. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25731 | june 11, 2022 72 evolution of academic health centers the traditional function of ahcs in their symbiotic relationships with communities is to provide a well-educated workforce, transformative research, and safe, high-quality clinical care. while laudable, the tripartite mission of ahcs must now expand to meet the clarion call from the communities they serve to step outside of their walls to address the social determinants impacting the health and well-being of members of those communities (park et al., 2019). the institute of medicine (iom) seminal report, “unequal treatment: confronting racial and ethnic disparities in health care” (2003), provides a comprehensive treatise on the sources of inequities in healthcare occurring at the patient, clinical, and systems levels. an analysis of this report by bentancourt and maina (2004) identified specific areas that could inform the work of ahcs to increase awareness of inequities among racial and ethnic populations, recommending; (a) health sciences curriculum transformation, (b) strengthening linguistic support for patients, (c) workforce diversification, and (d) data collection and reporting. initiatives taken by individual ahcs to address institutionalized racism include (a) a reexamination and acknowledgment of institutional history, (b) initiating open, safe, and ongoing dialogues around inequity in medical care, education, and research, (c) training to recognize implicit bias, and (d) community partnerships to address social needs of marginalized patients (karanja et al., 2020; mateo & williams, 2020; morse & loscalzo, 2020; peek et al., 2020; wilkins et al., 2021). indigenous, african american, and hispanic/latino persons are less represented in the health care workforce not by chance but due to long-standing formal and informal discrimination. as part of recognizing its history and supporting institutional selfexamination, vanderbilt university medical center has begun to address institutional climate and barriers to upward mobility for all workers in the ahc (wilkins et al., 2021). likewise, johns hopkins medicine, notorious for kidnapping black children for medical experiments and taking tissue cells from henrietta lacks without consent, is re-examining and acknowledging its past (woodruff, 2016). this includes an educational initiative that examines johns hopkins’ history of discrimination and reinforcement and another initiative that strengthens anti-racist and inclusion training and tools (hub, 2020). ahcs have a unique responsibility to redress their respective legacies of bias, discriminatory practices, and experimentation without consent. this racist history with respect to the disparate treatment of minority communities has effectively raised the ante and places ahcs at the tip of the spear of efforts to dismantle racism in healthcare (adkins-jackson et al., 2021). ahcs should wield their influence more broadly in advancing diversity (nivet, 2015) and advance social justice and equality to heal humanity (alberti et al., 2018). one way to achieve this is to provide original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25731 | june 11, 2022 73 learning opportunities with an open, safe, and ongoing dialogue regarding racial equity, which is essential to shaping and impacting change at an individual and institutional level. history of vcu from the lens of race and racism as in other parts of the country, racist practices have played a role in richmond and virginia commonwealth university (vcu) history. like many organizations established in the mid1800s, the medical college of virginia (mcv), which became part of vcu in 1968, exercised discriminatory clinical care, research, and education practices and procedures that disrespected marginalized citizens. in 1994, construction workers digging the foundation for the vcu kontos medical research building found human remains and other artifacts in what was later determined to be an abandoned well utilized to dispose of body parts used for educational and research purposes. scientists at the smithsonian national museum of natural history identified the human remains as having belonged to people primarily of african or african american ancestry. the well’s contents are believed to have been discarded in the 1800s by mcv medical staff. the discovery of these human remains did not receive widespread public attention until almost 20 years later, when awareness of the well’s history was included in dr. shawn utsey’s 2011 documentary film until the well runs dry, which examined the issue of grave robbing and use of illicitly-obtained black cadavers in medical education during the 19th century. public awareness of these human remains led to a community-driven, multi-year process of identification, internment, and memorialization under the auspices of the east marshall street well project (emswp). after the civil war, few hospitals in richmond provided medical treatment for black americans. mcv did provide services to this population in segregated facilities. in 1920, mcv opened st. philip hospital to serve black citizens, and the hospital included a school of nursing for black women. overcrowding at st. philip hospital was common, and a 1959 mcv report concluded, “hospital facilities for negro patients are not yet adequate” (dabney, 1987). during the jim crow era of the mid-20th century, black citizens continued to experience differential medical treatment throughout the united states. in may 1968, vcu surgeons performed the first heart transplant in virginia. the surgeons implanted the heart of a 53-yearold african american man, bruce tucker, into a 54-year-old white man, without obtaining consent from tucker’s family. the hospital violated state statute, as the concept of “brain death” had not yet been established. a subsequent legal proceeding found the hospital not guilty (washington, 2020). nevertheless, mr. tucker’s fate aligned with stories circulated among original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25731 | june 11, 2022 74 richmond’s african american communities for decades regarding mcv’s (vcu) use of african american cadavers for research (koste, 2012). the history of slavery, segregation, and race-based discrimination has often been omitted from the popular history of medicine and health care. the story of how these two histories intersect to create the roots of structural racism in u.s. health care has been largely untold. vcu, an academic health center and an urban and metropolitan university, recognizes the need to address those intersections, the resulting unjust structures, and disparities and tell the story of our institution and our city through the history and health; racial equity program. the intersection of history and our community the murder of george floyd amplified ongoing calls for racial justice during the spring and summer of 2020. during this period, vcu recommitted to its ideals of diversity, equity, and inclusion and expanded its infrastructure (both human capital and finances) to be more forthright in providing an inclusive work and learning environment for all. concurrently, the university and health system were undergoing an internal reckoning as elements of its past revealed a history of racial discrimination that made it indistinguishable from the practices of many other organizations of that time. during this period of self-examination, leadership realized that many within the healthcare teams, students, and professionals were greatly impacted by the unrest in the community and the media; however, there was also a recognition that many were also not sufficiently aware of vcu’s history of structural racism and the discrimination towards the black community. through the confluence of these inflection points, the history and health; racial equity program was born. history and health; racial equity is an intentional approach to address substantial knowledge gaps in understanding the health system’s history and facilitate an effective interface between the fortification of diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts and the burgeoning engagement of our past. in essence, the program provides a place to have the necessary conversations about the historical practices of the institution and reflect upon how that history has influenced and shaped us while being mindful to avoid having that same history define or confine us moving forward. like vcu, johns hopkins university acknowledges this need and, as shared by its president, is developing initiatives to “more deeply understand and reconcile the university’s history of discrimination, both overt and subtle, from its founding to the present day” (hub, 2020). original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25731 | june 11, 2022 75 both ahcs recognize this critical need to understand and learn from history because it will inform what to do going forward. it will be important to shape policies, practices, and culture. the hope is that team members, students, faculty, staff, and community members will learn and become more sensitized to the fact that this history is influencing their experiences today and will motivate them to cultivate change in their own lives and the organization (brogan, 2021). potential impacts of the history and health program ahcs, like urban and metropolitan universities, have a responsibility to trainees, team members, and the patients and communities they serve to understand and address the effects of racism. while the responsibility is an extension of ahc’s central commitment to improving human health, it is more so grounded in the historical role ahcs have played in facilitating, if not fostering, racial inequities in healthcare and research involving african americans and other historically disenfranchised communities. the history and health; racial equity program is intended to impact change in several ways. first, this program aims to build awareness of our institutional past, enabling us to understand how our organization’s culture, climate, and identity came to be. understanding our history also allows us to understand better how we have affected, and been affected by, our surrounding communities. second, history and health; racial equity programming should build an understanding of our particular institutional past within the broader context of social justice. there is a focus on learning about healthcare’s role and exploring how vcu students, faculty, staff, and team members can become more culturally sensitive healthcare providers, teammates, and community partners. even though we might not fully appreciate the importance of our history, our patients do. we must take the time to listen, reflect on what we hear, and then incorporate those reflections to provide better care for our patients and community members (brogan, 2021). third, the history and health; racial equity program aims to inform future actions and provides a ready platform for identifying and processing the likely emergence of other historical facts that may shine an unfavorable light on vcu’s past practices of outward discrimination and racism in the treatment of black and brown people. the goal is to utilize this program as vcu’s framework for ensuring intentional progress toward achieving health equity and fostering a greater commitment toward racial equality. initiatives such as history and health; racial equity are not without controversy and are influenced greatly by societal context. the january 6, 2021 insurrection in support of overturning the results of the 2020 election is a stark reminder of the divisions among americans along racial original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25731 | june 11, 2022 76 and political lines. violent crimes have risen in minneapolis and other areas across the country in the year following the murder of george floyd as cries of “wokism” and over liberalization, experience growing traction. thus, it is prudent for ahcs to factor in an inevitable backlash toward any attempt to socialize deep and honest conversations regarding race and racism. to withstand potential headwinds to efforts that confront a racial past, institutions such as ahcs must ground the work in their existing organizational value system and equally embed the work within the organization’s mission. methods this section begins with an overview of strategies and innovations for approaching and executing the new initiative, including the objectives, events, and online learning modules. it concludes with measures, outcomes and lessons learned that could be replicated by other institutions that seek to create opportunities for learning, reflection, and engagement about difficult topics. developing a new initiative in august 2020, a planning team composed of a senior leader from the health system, a senior leader from the health sciences campus, and their two directors, began discussing the need for educational activities designed to utilize a diversity, equity, and inclusion (dei) lens. as a result, a dei educational framework was created to develop activities and events that could support learning and engagement opportunities. during this planning phase, the team decided to narrow the broad dei focus to history and health by closely examining the racist history of our institution and our city and, ultimately, their impact on health outcomes. to set this historical foundation, virtual sessions and companion online, learning modules provided overviews of the history of vcu and how the historical practices, laws, and culture in the south impacted the shaping of the medical school and health system. the planning team intentionally leveraged existing expertise at vcu to develop program content, drawing on subject matter experts like a head archivist with vcu libraries. the planning team also wanted to align with the east marshall street well project (emswp), and their family representative council, which encourages learning about the history of 19th-century human remains discovered in an abandoned well on campus. the history and health; racial equity planning approach can be translated to different settings and adapted to specific interests and needs. general steps in the program development process are noted in figure 1. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25731 | june 11, 2022 77 figure 1. steps to program development 1. elevate an idea that the team is excited about 2. create a framework that gives an overview, outlines the objectives and proposed activities, and highlights what is new and different about this initiative 3. vet the idea with senior leadership and key stakeholders 4. modify (i.e., narrow the scope) 5. convene an advisory committee of key stakeholders and subject matter experts 6. involve the communications team and create an outreach strategy 7. identify the implementation team and outline each person’s roles and responsibilities 8. develop an evaluation plan, including learning objectives and metrics 9. advertise and launch! 10. analyze the findings after each event, adjust the overall learning objectives for the inaugural series aim to help participants learn, reflect, and enable change. for example, what part did vcu and its predecessor organizations play in a city with a history so intertwined with slavery, the confederacy, and jim crow segregation? why do predominantly black residents of some census tracts in richmond have adult life expectancies 20 years shorter than nearby, predominantly white census tracts? what role can and should vcu play to change the trajectory of this trend? based on historical precedents, how can we learn and earn the trust of those in our community with legitimate skepticism? there were three sessions (once a month, march-may, 2021) and three online learning modules launched. the two virtual sessions were held within the first 45 minutes of the presentation, followed by optional time (45 minutes) for processing (let’s talk). the third session was a virtual panel discussion, followed by school-specific breakout sessions, which included the school of dentistry, the school of medicine, the school of nursing, the school of pharmacy, and the college of health professions. the planning team understood that the topics could be difficult to hear and that some people might be learning this information for the first time, so including a way to foster an open dialogue and offer space for participants’ reflections became integral to the planning process. to provide this opportunity for processing and peer support, the university counseling center was engaged to facilitate debriefing “let’s talk” sessions immediately after the presentations. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25731 | june 11, 2022 78 activities and analysis the three self-paced, asynchronous online learning modules, all available on a publicly accessible website, are designed to take about an hour to complete. additional information about each session and module is found in table 1. each virtual event was recorded and posted on the history and health; racial equity website. quantitative and qualitative evaluation metrics were incorporated in the required reflection for the online modules and in surveys given at the end of each virtual session. table 1. event specific learning objectives and evaluation metrics date event purpose learning objectives and evaluation metrics march the roots of institutional racism presenter: jodi koste, head archivist at vcu libraries history of mcv (vcu) health system reflecting on how the historical practices, laws, and culture in the south impacted the shaping of the medical school and health system 1. attendees will report increased awareness of the impact of slavery and segregation on the early years of mcv (vcu). march st. philip hospital and school of nursing online module an online learning module and reflection space that orients learners to the history of st. philip hospital and school of nursing 1. learners will recognize the relevance and importance of the history of st. philip hospital and the school of nursing for healthcare providers today. 2. learners will report increased awareness of the ways in which structural racism has continued to harm people of color living in the city of richmond. april housing, history & health online module an online learning module and reflection space that orients learners to the connections between 1. learners will report increased awareness of the role that housing segregation in richmond has played on race-based health disparities. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25731 | june 11, 2022 79 housing, history and health outcomes. 2. learners will report increased awareness of how structural racism has played a role in health disparities in richmond. april amplifying voices: experiences in health sciences education and clinical practice moderator: dr. carlos smith, director of diversity, equity, and inclusion at the vcu school of dentistry alumni panelists of diverse backgrounds share their stories and experiences as students and practitioners, reflecting on the strategies they have used to thrive as health care professionals despite racial inequities. 1. attendees will report increased awareness of how racial inequities have impacted health professionals at vcu and vcu health. may medical dissection and the east marshall street well online module an online learning module and reflection space that orients learners to the emswp, including the 2019 memorialization ceremony. the module also examines the role of illegal grave robbing and the use of black cadavers in medical education at mcv during the 19th century. 1. learners will be able to recognize the history of grave robbing and the use of black cadavers in 19th-century medical education at mcv (vcu). 2. learners will recognize the relevance and importance of vcu’s east marshall street well project and vcu health’s understanding of structural racism. 3. learners will report increased awareness of how structural racism has played a role in health disparities in richmond. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25731 | june 11, 2022 80 may the east marshall street well project; a story of our ancestral remains presenter: dr. jen early, project manager at vcu health and member of the family representative council history of human remains found in the east marshall street well, exploring the practice of 19th-century grave robbing to procure cadavers for medical study and how this practice is only one contributor to institutional racism in health care. 1. attendees will report increased awareness of the history of the east marshall street well. to address the question, “what’s in it for me?” the program provides an opportunity for participants to earn a free, verifiable badge through the vcu office of continuing and professional education. the badge is a digital version of credentials representing achievement in foundational dei awareness. badge earners are encouraged to share this accomplishment on linkedin, facebook, twitter, and their personal website(s) and resume and thus be recognized in real-time for their expertise in dei. to earn a badge, learners are required to attend a minimum of four events, choosing from a menu of the three 45-minute virtual events and the two 45minute let’s talk reflection sessions affiliated with those events. if attendance at four presentations was not possible, individuals could substitute an online learning module for an event. the estimated completion time for this badge is four to five hours. to date, nineteen individuals have earned a badge. a communications strategy was also developed to raise awareness, educate, and provide details about the series. the vcu university relations department created a communications plan that included draft emails to target audiences and a brand-new webpage as the information hub for audiences. the tone of all messaging was inclusive, informative, thought-provoking, and clear. the kickoff message was an email from the senior vice president for health sciences and ceo of vcu health system. to reach both vcu and the health system constituents, the email was sent via vcu internal communications channels and vcu health intranet. select community partner organizations and media outlets/community calendars were targeted to reach community members. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25731 | june 11, 2022 81 measures and outcomes evaluation of the program included mixed-methods analysis. evaluations from three sessions were analyzed statistically with frequency analysis. a total of 395 participants attended across the three virtual programs, and 87 completed post-session surveys, representing a 22% response rate. the survey link for a six-question google form, consisting of three closed and three openended questions, was dropped in the chatbox at the end of the virtual sessions and also sent in an email after the event. in the analysis, post-session responses were calculated for each of the three sessions to calculate attendee understanding and learning in two primary areas; (a) awareness of the role of structural racism in health service provision in richmond and (b) increased awareness of the impact of slavery and segregation on the early years of mcv (vcu). the research team coded open-ended responses from the post-session evaluations to identify emerging themes in respondent responses. these comments were first coded through a stage of initial coding, then organized into focused codes to better identify thematic categories emerging from participant feedback. overall, the participants found the sessions to increase their awareness in these areas effectively. more specifically, 76.4% of respondents strongly agreed that participating in one of the three sessions increased their awareness of the impact of slavery and segregation on the early years of mcv (vcu). 72.2 % of respondents (see figure 2) strongly agreed that their participation in the sessions increased their awareness of the impact of structural racism in health provision in richmond. additionally, this analysis suggests that attendees found the experience to be an effective learning tool regardless of their role in the vcu community. table 2 outlines the roles of the respondents present at the training sessions. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25731 | june 11, 2022 82 figure 2. participants’ feedback note: percentages are based on the total number of respondents to the post-session evaluations, n=87. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25731 | june 11, 2022 83 table 2. demographics of respondents by role self-reported roles of attendees role percentage of respondents (n) community member 1% (1) faculty 17% (15) health 32% (28) staff/administration 46% (40) student 2 % (2) other 1% (1) total 87 note: table reflects the roles of survey respondents n=87. the table does not reflect the roles of all session attendees. multiple themes discussed below emerged from three open-ended questions: (a) what inspired you to attend this event?; (b) please describe one new thing you learned from this event?; and (c) how will you use the information you learned from this event moving forward? what inspired you to attend this event? an analysis of participant feedback across all three sessions illuminated five key categories addressing participant motivation for attending these sessions. participants communicated their desires: (a) to support anti-racism efforts; (b) to engage in anti-racism initiatives; (c) to learn more about the history; (d) an interest in the topics discussed during the sessions; and (e) to address inequalities in the country as primary reasons for attending the sessions. the most prevalent of these categories were participants’ desires to learn more about the history of vcu and the community. this was illustrated in the following statement made by one of the participants, “i’m interested in local history, and i think this session was very relevant to conversations we’re having today.” building on this sentiment, another participant wrote, “need to learn history to understand the present and improve the future” as their inspiration for attending the sessions. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25731 | june 11, 2022 84 please describe one new thing you learned from this event? an analysis of participant feedback to this question illustrated that a majority of the participants learned historical facts about the vcu/richmond health community. while this was the most prevalent category to emerge from the analysis, the historical facts listed in the responses highlighted various events that resonated with participants. more specifically, a range of historical events like the “urban renewal,” “segregation of faculty,” and “medical scandals generally at mcv” were noted as memorable facts learned from the sessions. how will you use the information you learned from this event moving forward? four key themes emerged from the analysis of responses related to this question. participants communicated that they would use the information gained from the sessions: (a) for selfapplication, (b) to help transition discussion to action, (c) as a teaching resource, and/or (d) to increase knowledge and empathy. the most common response from participants was that they intended to use what they learned in their own lives. for example, one participant stated, “this information adds to my knowledge fabric and helps me to learn and see this perspective of what the black community has suffered here in richmond.” another participant made a similar statement in saying they would “continue my personal and professional work to learn and retell an accurate history of our city and true contributors to societal inequities that continue to exist and are beginning to be understood by many who had not previously.” in addition, multiple respondents indicated that learning modules should be required for all incoming students and staff. lessons learned and future directions academic health centers and universities that want to foster a sense of equity, justice, and inclusivity through confronting past racist practices should consider the following key learnings from the history and health; racial equity program. our findings are similar to those from portland state university, which incorporated an equity lens into its strategic planning process (zapata et al., 2018). guidance and commitment support from senior leadership is paramount. likewise, a steering committee composed of crosscampus experts and community members should provide guidance and inform the work. our steering committee includes the emswp director, a family representative council member, and the appointed or formally hired diversity, equity, and inclusion directors in the five health original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25731 | june 11, 2022 85 sciences schools, the health system, and massey cancer center. also represented are faculty experts in race theory, history of medicine, humanities, the office of institutional equity, effectiveness, and success, and vcu libraries. the steering committee meets monthly, offering feedback and identifying strategic, operational, and structural intersections between health sciences schools and the health system related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. to encourage community attendance, we are creating a listserv that includes all registrants across all programs, increasing community members as presenters in virtual events, and partnering with vcu health public relations to publish history and health stories shared outside the university. subject matter experts and partnership program planning cannot occur in a vacuum. in may 2021, the history and health summer faculty fellows program was launched to outline an educational framework and create content for the continuation of history and health: racial equity. nine faculty members from across the university, representing new partnerships with the humanities research center and the committee on racial equity, created seven online learning modules, in addition to the three that were included in the inaugural series, for a total of ten modules. the faculty fellows emphasized the importance of increasing student and community engagement, recommending that future series move away from presentations in favor of moderated panels that include community members, subject matter experts, and healthcare providers. each module that is created will have an accompanying panel presentation moderated by the author of the module. each module will also be submitted for approval to receive continuing medical education credits, which should help to increase reach. student voice students demand change and programs are created in response. we experienced low student engagement, so a student advisory committee (sac), composed of undergraduate and graduate students, has been initiated. their charge is to help pilot online modules, provide feedback, offer suggestions for future topics, pursue the digital badge opportunity, and help increase student participation in events. the sac will be asked to help promote events and online modules within their schools and social networks. data informs decision-making a robust evaluation plan is needed for all programming. although 395 participants attended the three virtual programs, only 87 completed evaluations after the presentations or let’s talk original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25731 | june 11, 2022 86 sessions. additional strategies are needed to increase response rates. we will continue to investigate other methods for participant feedback, such as focus groups. similar to vcu, in 2020, students at emory university sent a list of demands to address racial and social justice issues. their efforts led to a 2021 symposium, “in the wake of slavery and dispossession,” that focused on the legacy of racism and its enduring effects. in his opening remarks, the university president conveyed the opportunity to “explore emory’s history, find answers to the pressing questions of our time and examine the ongoing impact of slavery and racism.” in reviewing emory’s planning process, they also had support from senior leadership, a steering committee with subject matter experts and students, and a short survey (smith, 2021). the history and health; racial equity program continues to receive key stakeholder support, and we have not encountered substantial opposition. quantitative data suggests that we are meeting our goals of building awareness of our institutional past in the context of social justice, and qualitative data indicate that participants are inspired to make changes in their professional and personal lives. our next steps will focus on aligning with the clinical learning environment review program for resident and fellow physicians, incorporating a focus on healthcare access and quality, and planning an annual symposium. risks to others wishing to replicate such a program could include resentment and pushback from constituents, a lack of support from senior leadership, and low engagement from stakeholder groups. building upon the lessons learned will enable ahcs and universities to create a solid foundation to be prepared for the next stage of implementationintegrating program resources into curriculum, university and health system onboarding procedures, and faculty development initiatives. the history and health; racial equity program utilized resources readily available to most institutions. the steps in the development of this project are generalizable, as all will have their unique history. the intended outcome is that all learners will develop an awareness of an institution’s history, impact, identity, and culture. sharing institutional histories of racism and discriminatory acts assists the community, including students, in acquiring “specific knowledge, skills, and attitudes to have the ability to influence the worlds in which they live. they need knowledge of their social, political, and economic worlds, the skills to influence their environments, and humane values that will motivate them to participate in social change to help create a more just society and world.” (banks, 1991, p.125). original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25731 | june 11, 2022 87 conclusion the opportunity exists for academic health centers and universities to deepen their institutional commitment to serving all community members by critically examining the history of slavery, segregation, and race-based discrimination and the resulting impact on health disparities. these institutions must acknowledge the influence they yield and join with their communities in conversations to understand the current moment better and work towards a more just future. the diverse narratives and experiences of the voices of students, patients, and communities are fueling calls for substantive, systemic, and sustained change. vcu is a metropolitan university and an ahc located in an area that once served as the capital of the confederacy. effectively, we sit at the nexus of diversity, equity, and inclusion work. through the history and health; racial equity program, we examine our racism and use this as a teaching tool. if and when we successfully build upon this initiative, we will create a template that will strengthen us and inform the national discourse shaping policies and culture committed to furthering racial equality. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org 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(2018). strategic planning to advance equity on campus: a case study at portland state university. metropolitan universities, 29(1), 2845. https://doi.org/10.18060/22179 original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26222| april 18, 2023 underrepresentation of hispanic faculty at hispanic serving metropolitan research universities douglas l. robertson, ph.d.1 1 florida international university cite as: robertson, d.l.. (2023). underrepresentation of hispanic faculty at hispanic serving metropolitan research universities. metropolitan universities, 34(4). doi: 10.18060/26222 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract research indicates that students benefit from working with faculty with whom they can identify. do hispanic students find hispanic faculty with whom to work at hispanic serving institutions? to answer that question, this study builds on a 13-year line of research that has focused on engaged, public, metropolitan research universities. from a national sample of 35 such universities, this study examines the eight r1 hispanic serving institutions (hsis). these eight hsis serve as important anchor institutions in their respective metropolitan regions: (a) florida international university (miami, fl); (b) university of california, riverside (los angeles, ca); (c) university of houston, houston (houston, tx); (d) university of illinois, chicago (chicago, il); (e) university of new mexico (albuquerque, nm); (f) university of north texas, denton (dallas, tx); and (g) university of texas, arlington (dallas, tx). using ipeds data, this study examines the proportional representation (ratio) of faculty to students in 18 intersectional gender-race/ethnicity categories for each hsi over the 10-year period, 2011 to 2020. the central statistic is the percentage of full-time faculty in a gender-race/ethnicity category (e.g., female hispanic/latino full-time faculty) is subtracted by the percentage of 12month unduplicated student headcount in that same category (e.g., female hispanic/latino students). when the outcome of this operation is positive, the faculty in that category are said to be overrepresented; when negative, underrepresented. the study’s findings demonstrate the underrepresentation of female hispanic/latino faculty at these hsis and the overrepresentation of male white faculty. details of each university’s dynamics are discussed, as well as their overall pattern. 9 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26222| april 18, 2023 keywords: metropolitan universities, hispanic serving institutions, intersectionality, latina faculty and students, role models resumen las investigaciones indican que los estudiantes se benefician al trabajar con profesores con quienes pueden identificarse. ¿pueden los estudiantes hispanos encontrar profesores hispanos con quien trabajar en las instituciones al servicio de los hispanos (hsis)? para responder a esta pregunta, este estudio se basa en una línea de investigación de 13 años que se ha centrado en universidades públicas en zonas metropolitanas dedicadas a la investigación. a partir de una muestra nacional de 35 universidades de este tipo, este estudio examina ocho instituciones de servicio hispano r1 (hsi). estas ocho hsis sirven como instituciones importantes de apoyo en sus respectivas regiones metropolitanas: (a) universidad internacional de florida (miami, fl); (b) universidad de california, riverside (los ángeles, ca); (c) universidad de houston, houston ( houston, tx); (d) universidad de illinois, chicago (chicago, il); (e) universidad de nuevo méxico (albuquerque, nm); (f) universidad del norte de texas, denton (dallas, tx); y (g ) universidad de texas, arlington (dallas, tx). usando la base de datos de ipeds (spell out in both), este estudio examina en cada una de las hsi la representación proporcional de docentes a estudiantes en 18 categorías interseccionales de género-raza/etnicidad durante el período de 10 años, del 2011 al 2020. la estadística central es sincilla: el porcentaje de profesores de tiempo completo en una categoría de género-raza/etnicidad (por ejemplo, profesoras hispanas/latinas de tiempo completo) se resta por el porcentaje de los estudiantes no duplicados de 12 meses en esa misma categoría (por ejemplo, estudiantes mujeres hispanas/latinas). cuando el resultado de esta operación es positivo, se dice que los profesores de esa categoría están sobrerrepresentados; cuando es negativo, subrepresentado. los hallazgos del estudio demuestran claramente la subrepresentación de profesoras latinas en las hsis y la sobrerrepresentación de profesores de género masculino blancos. se discuten los detalles de la dinámica de cada universidad, así como su patrón general. palabras clave: universidades metropolitanas, instituciones al servicio de los hispanos, interseccionalidad, profesoras y estudiantes latinas, modelos a seguir 10 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26222| april 18, 2023 introduction research indicates that students’ collegiate educational success, particularly for female and minoritized students, benefits from the presence of faculty with whom they can identify (e.g., bañuelos & flores, 2021; fuesting, bichsel, & schmidt, 2022; kim, kalev, & deutsch, 2021; o’meara, culpepper, & templeton, 2020; ramos & yi, 2020; stout, archie, cross, & carman, 2018; vargas, 2018; vargas, saetermoe, & chavira, 2021). this research calls into question the phenomenon at scale of white male faculty--in contrast to female and minoritized faculty-teaching, advising, and mentoring female and minoritized students, particularly at minority serving institutions. this article’s specific research question is, according to ipeds 2011 and 2020 data (integrated postsecondary educational data system, 2021), what are the proportional relationships (relative overrepresentation, underrepresentation, equal representation) in eight public, metropolitan, research i, hispanic serving institutions between faculty (percentage of total full-time faculty) and students (percentage of total 12-month, unduplicated headcount) by intersectional gender-race/ethnicity categories? this article extends a 13-year line of research on intentional systemic change in large organizations, specifically public, metropolitan research universities (e.g., robertson, 2019, 2020, 2022; robertson & pelaez, 2016, 2018; robertson et al., 2021; also relevant as context, robertson, 1992). this study’s sample derives from four previous studies in this line of research (robertson, 2019, 2020, 2022; robertson et al., 2021, under review). first, an initial national study (robertson, 2019) was conducted with a sample of the 35 member institutions 2018 of the presidents-led coalition of urban serving universities (usu: www.usucoalition.org), a partner organization of the association of public and land grant universities (aplu; www.aplu.org) (robertson, 2019, pp. 88-92). these usus are primarily large, public, metropolitan doctoral research universities and serve as engaged anchor institutions in many american cities (robertson, 1992). the combined populations of the sample’s metropolitan regions comprised two-thirds (63.4%) of the u. s. population in 2017 (206,621,336 of 325,719,178; united states census bureau, 2018). in this initial study of the usu sample, the researcher distinguished between improvement (change in variables over the study period, 20082016) and excellence (sum of variables over the study period, 2008-2016). the researcher focused on improvement in a derived variable called student success (retention and on-time graduation) with access (pell and minorities). increasing student success metrics and access metrics can sometimes be considered competing goals. in this study, universities in the sample were identified that improved the most on both goals simultaneously. the second study (robertson, 2020) selected the 18 research i (r1) universities (carnegie highest research activity; indiana university center for postsecondary research, 2018) in the 35 usus national sample and continued investigating rapid, intentional, metric-centered improvement (2011-2017) in potentially competing goals—specifically, student success with access (retention, on-time 11 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26222| april 18, 2023 graduation, pell, and minorities) and research preeminence (research doctorates and research expenditures). institutions of this type have been called “new universities” and are important in serving underrepresented students (hamilton & nielsen, 2021). the third (robertson, 2022) and fourth (robertson et al., 2021, under review) studies examined the three top-performing universities from the second study. the third and fourth studies focused on the relationship between metric-centric policy and faculty appointment types (contingent and permanent) with regard to faculty hiring, the third study being an examination of all three universities, and the fourth study being a case study of one of the three universities. faculty equity concerns regarding female and minoritized faculty emerged from these two studies. the analysis of these two studies demonstrated that at one of the universities, florida international university, a hispanic serving university, the latinx faculty were dramatically underrepresented relative to the latinx students (in 2020, latinx, 65% of students, 21% of full-time faculty; ipeds, 2021) while white faculty were significantly overrepresented (in 2020, whites, 10% of students, 51% of full-time faculty; ipeds, 2021). this line of research has led to this study of the proportional relationship of faculty and students in intersectional gender-race/ethnicity categories at the eight public, metropolitan, r1, and hispanic serving universities from the original sample of 35 urban serving universities. method the sample, data, and analysis of this study are described below. sample this study’s sample of eight public, metropolitan, r1, hispanic serving institutions comprises the following universities (alpha-ordered): (a) florida international university; (b) university of california, riverside; (c) university of central, florida; (d) university of houston, houston; (e) university of illinois, chicago; (f) university of new mexico, albuquerque; (g) university of north texas, denton; and (h) university of texas, arlington. see robertson (2019, pp. 88–92) for detailed descriptions of these institutions and their contexts (graduate and undergraduate enrollments, population of metropolitan region, system governance, and regional accreditation association). data and analysis the data source for the eight universities that comprised the sample was the integrated postsecondary educational data system (ipeds, 2021). the most recent ipeds reporting year was 2020, and data from that year were used. as 10-year contrast, data from 2011 were also examined. 12 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26222| april 18, 2023 the fundamental variables came from 18 intersectional gender-race/ethnicity categories (the names of the categories come from ipeds): (a) female nonresident alien, (b) male nonresident alien, (c) female hispanic/latino, (d) male hispanic/latino, (e) female american indian or alaska native, (f) male american indian or alaska native, (g) female asian, (h) male asian, (i) female black or african american, (j) male black or african american, (k) female native hawaiian or other pacific islander, (l) male native hawaiian or other pacific islander, (m) female white, (n) female white, (o) female two or more races, (p) male two or more races, (q) female race and ethnicity unknown, and (s) male race and ethnicity unknown. the ninerace/ethnicity categories are the categories in which ipeds reports its data, as are the binary gender categories. the resulting 18 categories are discrete. regardless of racial identification, individuals who identify as hispanic/latino are reported as hispanic/latino. race is reported only for individuals who identify as non-hispanic/latino. data for the 18 intersectional categories were collected for the following: (a) full-time faculty (tenured, tenure-earning, and non-tenured), and (b) students (12-month unduplicated headcount, undergraduate and graduate) (table 1). regarding students, an unduplicated headcount is a more appropriate measure than a full-time equivalent (fte) for metropolitan universities. many nontraditional students at metropolitan universitiescommuter students, transfer students, parttime students, and adult studentsmay be more likely to follow a wider variety of paths than traditional students on residential campuses (e.g., robertson, 1991a, 1991b, 1992). table 1. facultya and studentb percentages (and numbers) of totals, by intersectional categories of gender-race/ethnicity and year ye ar facu lty and stud ents faculty and student percentages (and number) of totals tot al %( n) nonreside nt aliens hispanic/ latino american indian or alaska native asian black or african american native hawaiian or other pacific islander white two or more races race and ethnicity unknown fem ale %(n ) male %(n ) fema le %(n) male %(n) fem ale %(n ) ma le %( n) fem ale %(n ) male %(n ) fem ale %(n ) male %(n ) fem ale %( n) ma le %( n) fema le %(n) male %(n) fem ale %(n ) male %n) fem ale %(n ) ma le %( n) florida international university 20 11 facu lty 3.0 % (29) 4.0 % (39) 7.0 % (68) 8.1 % (78) 0.1 % (1) 0.1 % (1) 3.4 % (33) 9.9 % (96) 2.1 % (20) 3.3 % (32) 0.0 % (0) 0.0 % (0) 22.1 % (213 ) 35.6 % (344 ) 0.0 % (0) 0.0 % (0) 0.0 % (0) 0.0 % (0) 100 % (965 ) stud ents 3.6 % (2,0 34) 3.2 % (1,8 11) 33.6 % (18, 900) 24.1 % (13, 553) 0.1 % (36) 0.0 % (2 5) 1.7 % (95 3) 1.4 % (81 4) 8.0 % (4,4 82) 5.2 % (2,9 44) 0.0 % (17 ) 0.0 % (1 9) 7.8 % (4,3 90) 6.5 % (3,6 41) 0.5 % (30 8) 0.4 % (19 8) 1.1 % (64 7) 0.9 % (5 16 ) 100 % (56, 288) 20 20 facu lty 2.5 % (35) 4.1 % (58) 10.4 % (145 ) 10.4 % (146 ) 0.1 % (1) 0.4 % (5) 4.1 % (58) 9.6 % (13 4) 4.4 % (62) 2.9 % (41) 0.0 % (0) 0.1 % (1) 22.0 % (307 ) 29.0 % (405 ) 0.4 % (6) 0.3 % (4) 0.0 % (0) 0.0 % (0) 100 % (1,3 98) stud ents 3.9 % (2,9 21) 3.8 % (2,8 46) 36.6 % (27, 067) 27.0 % (19, 943) 0.0 % (32) 0.0 % (1 5) 1.4 % (1,0 22) 1.2 % (91 7) 7.9 % (5,8 55) 4.8 % (3,5 23) 0.0 % (30 ) 0.0 % (1 7) 5.8 % (4,3 21) 4.5 % (3,3 17) 1.3 % (93 9) 0.9 % (67 3) 0.4 % (28 8) 0.3 % (2 44 ) 100 % (73, 970) university of california, riverside 13 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26222| april 18, 2023 20 11 facu lty 0.4 % (3) 0.4 % (3) 2.8 % (20) 2.9 % (21) 0.3 % (2) 0.6 % (4) 6.9 % (49) 12.9 % (92) 1.1 % (8) 2.0 % (14) 0.0 % (0) 0.0 % (0) 21.2 % (151 ) 45.6 % (325 ) 0.1 % (1) 0.0 % (0) 1.4 % (10) 1.3 % (9) 100 % (712 ) stud ents 1.9 % (42 6) 2.7 % (58 9) 16.5 (3,6 34) 11.4 % (2,5 13) 0.2 % (36) 1.8 % (3 9) 16.1 % (3,5 58) 19.1 % (4,2 14) 4.3 % (95 2) 2.5 % (55 1) 0.2 % (47 ) 0.2 % (4 0) 8.2 % (1,7 99) 9.7 % (2,1 32) 0.5 % (10 6) 0.5 % (11 8) 2.8 % (61 1) 3.2 % (7 02 ) 100 % (22, 067) 20 20 facu lty 5.1 % (54) 7.9 % (83) 3.1 % (33) 4.3 % (45) 0.4 % (4) 0.5 % (5) 7.4 % (78) 12.0 % (12 6) 2.4 % (25) 0.6 % (6) 0.0 % (0) 0.0 % (0) 16.9 % (177 ) 32.2 % (338 ) 0.8 % (8) 0.8 % (8) 1.8 % (19) 2.9 % (3 0) 100 % (1,0 49) stud ents 3.1 % (85 3) 4.9 % (1,3 42) 24.1 % (6,6 33) 14.7 % (4,0 30) 0.1 % (29) 0.1 % (2 7) 14.9 % (4,1 07) 15.8 % (4,3 45) 2.2 % (61 6) 1.3 % (37 1) 0.2 % (47 ) 0.2 % (4 7) 6.3 % (1,7 44) 7.3 % (2,0 20) 2.0 % (55 1) 1.9 % (52 2) 1.2 % (31 7) 1.1 % (3 06 ) 100 % (27, 507) university of central florida 20 11 facu lty 2.1 % (29) 3.9 % (55) 3.0 % (42) 4.1 % (58) 0.1 % (1) 0.2 % (3) 2.3 % (32) 7.8 % (11 0) 1.6 % (22) 2.2 % (31) 0.0 % (0) 0.0 % (0) 31.2 % (439 ) 42.3 % (592 ) 0.0 % (2) ).2 % (3) 0.0 % (0) 0.0 % (0) 100 % (1,4 06) stud ents 1.1 % (72 1) 1.4 % (93 8) 9.1 % (6,0 40) 6.8 % (4,5 25) 0.2 % (15 8) 0.1 % (7 9) 2.7 % (1,7 67) 2.6 % (1,7 42) 6.2 % (22) 3.6 % (2,4 02) 0.1 % (58 ) 0.0 % (7 2) 34.4 % (22, 769) 28.5 % (18, 894) 0.5 % (33 5) 0.4 % (25 1) 1.2 % (79 7) 1.0 % (6 67 ) 100 % (66, 273) 20 20 facu lty 1.1 % (18) 2.5 % (40) 4.3 % (68) 3.5 % (55) 0.0 % (0) 0.3 % (4) 4.7 % (74) 10.3 % (16 2) 2.5 % (40) 1.8 % (28) 0.0 % (0) 0.0 % (0) 29.3 % (462 ) 38.2 % (603 ) 0.4 % (7) 0.4 % (6) 0.0 % (0) 0.0 % (0) 100 % (1,5 77) stud ents 1.9 % (1,5 34) 2.6 % (2,1 09) 15.3 % (12, 439) 11.5 % (9,2 96) 0.1 % (68) 0.1 % (6 0) 3.2 % (2,5 90) 3.1 % (2,4 82) 7.1 % (5,7 20) 3.9 % (3,2 01) 0.1 % (74 ) 0.1 % (5 1) 25.6 % (20, 765) 20.8 % (16, 847) 2.1 % (1,7 07) 1.6 % (1,2 89) 0.5 % (42 9) 0.5 % (4 21 ) 100 % (81, 082) university of houston, houston 20 11 facu lty 1.3 % (14) 1.7 % (19) 3.2 % (36) 3.5 % (39) 0.0 % (0) 0.4 % (4) 5.3 % (59) 9.8 % (10 9) 1.3 % (15) 1.9 % (21) 0.0 % (0) 0.0 % (0) 23.4 % (261 ) 41.0 % (457 ) 0.1 % (1) 0.4 % (5) 0.0 % (0) 0.0 % (0) 100 % (1,1 14) stud ents 3.7 % (1,6 84) 5.0 % (2,2 30) 11.7 % (5,2 69) 10.5 % (4,7 44) 0.1 % (59) 0.2 % (8 1) 9.2 % (4,1 24) 9.7 % (4,3 48) 7.4 % (3,3 26) 5.1 % (2,2 95) 0.2 % (68 ) 0.2 % (7 1) 16.2 % (7,2 94) 18.3 % (8,2 22) 1.0 % (46 6) 0.8 % (36 0) 0.4 % (17 9) 0.4 % (1 83 ) 100 % (45, 001) 20 20 facu lty 1.5 % (28) 2.1 % (27) 4.4 % (57) 4.8 % (62) 0.0 % (0) 0.2 % (2) 7.0 % (91) 13.7 % (17 9) 2.7 % (35) 2.3 % (30) 0.0 % (0) 0.0 % (0) 22.5 % (293 ) 36.9 % (481 ) 0.3 % (4) 0.7 % (9) 0.2 % (2) 0.3 % (4) 100 % (1,3 04) stud ents 3.2 % (1,6 50) 4.3 % (2,2 21) 17.3 % (8,8 62) 15.1 % (7,7 13) 0.1 % (42) 0.1 % (3 3) 10.2 % (5,2 47) 10.4 % (5,3 18) 5.7 % (2,9 16) 4.3 % (2,2 10) 0.0 % (21 ) 0.0 % (2 1) 11.7 % (5,9 80) 12.4 % (6,3 29) 1.5 % (78 6) 1.4 % (73 4) 1.2 % (60 6) 1.0 % (5 25 ) 100 % (51, 217) university of illinois, chicago 20 11 fac ulty 2.3 % (45) 3.6 % (70) 3.0 % (58) 3.0 % (57) 0.1 % (2) 0.0 % (0) 6.3 % (12 2) 11.1 % (21 4) 2.6 % (50) 2.0 % (38) 0.0 % (0) 0.0 % (0) 26.8 % (515 ) 36.3 % (698 ) 0.4 % (8) 0.2 % (4) 1.2 % (23) 0.9 % (1 8) 100 % (1,9 22) stud ents 3.4 % (1,0 70) 3.5 % (1,1 02) 8.8 % (2,7 35) 6.5 % (2,0 29) 0.1 % (24) 0.1 % (2 0) 8.9 % (2,7 72) 8.6 % (2,6 73) 5.9 % (1,8 41) 2.8 % (87 2) 0.2 % (60 ) 0.1 % (4 5) 25.6 % (7,9 81) 21.3 % (6,6 45) 1.0 % (30 9) 0.8 % (24 6) 1.3 % (40 6) 1.3 % (3 91 ) 100 % (31, 221) 20 20 facu lty 1.6 % (36) 2.4 % (53) 3.9 % (87) 3.4 % (76) 0.0 % (1) 0.0 % (0) 8.8 % (19 7) 10.8 % (24 3) 2.9 % (66) 2.4 % (54) 0.1 % (2) 0.0 % (0) 28.7 % (645 ) 31.5 % (708 ) 0.8 % (19) 0.4 % (8) 1.2 % (26) 1.2 % (2 8) 100 % (2,2 49) stud ents 4.9 % 7.1 % 15.0 % 10.9 % 0.0 % (11) 0.1 % 9.2 % 9.0 % 5.3 % 2.7 % 0.0 % (7) 0.0 % (9) 17.0 % 14.0 % 1.5 % 1.2 % 1.3 % 1.1 % 100 % 14 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26222| april 18, 2023 (1,7 15) (2,5 10) (5,2 97) (3,8 22) (1 8) (3,3 51) (3,1 62) (1,8 77) (94 1) (5,9 74) (4,9 28) (51 3) (43 2) (46 9) (3 75 ) (35, 210) university of new mexico, albuquerque 20 11 facu lty 1.0 % (18) 1.8 % (33) 6.8 % (121 ) 5.4 % (96) 1.3 % (24) 0.0 % (1 1) 2.9 % (52) 4.9 % (88) 0.9 % (16) 1.1 % (19) 0.1 % (1) 0.0 % (0) 29.8 % (533 ) 38.7 % (693 ) 0.1 % (2) 0.3 % (5) 1.8 % (33) 2.5 % (4 4) 100 % (1,7 89) stud ents 1.6 % (51 9) 1.9 % (63 5) 20.5 % (6,8 37) 14.7 % (4,8 89) 3.8 % (1,2 67) 2.1 % (6 86 ) 1.6 % (54 6) 1.5 % (50 4) 1.3 % (44 4) 1.4 % (47 2) 0.1 % (27 ) 0.1 % (2 4) 24.4 % (8,1 19) 19.6 % (6,5 35) 0.9 % (31 5) 0.6 % (21 3) 1.9 % (64 0) 1.9 % (6 32 ) 100 % (33, 304) 20 20 facu lty 2.5 % (48) 3.7 % (71) 9.7 % (187 ) 6.0 % (116 ) 1.2 % (24) 0.7 % (1 3) 4.0 % (77) 5.6 % (10 8) 1.1 % (21) 0.4 % (8) 0.0 % (0) 0.0 % (0) 29.1 % (563 ) 30.5 % (591 ) 0.7 % (13) 0.6 % (11) 2.3 % (44) 2.1 % (4 0) 100 % (1,9 35) stud ents 2.2 % (56 9) 2.9 % (74 2) 25.9 % (6,5 90) 17.9 % (4,5 42) 3.5 % (88 9) 2.0 % (4 97 ) 2.4 % (60 0) 1.7 % (43 7) 1.2 % (30 1) 1.2 % (31 1) 0.1 % (25 ) 0.1 % (2 5) 18.6 % (4,7 40) 15.3 % (3,8 79) 1.9 % (47 2) 1.5 % (37 1) 0.8 % (19 1) 0.9 % (2 39 ) 100 % (25, 420) university of north texas, denton 20 11 facu lty 2.5 % (27) 3.7 % (39) 3.2 % (34) 2.7 % (29) 0.3 % (3) 0.2 % (2) 2.6 % (28) 6.7 % (71) 2.1 % (22) 1.7 % (18) 0.0 % (0) 0.1 % (1) 29.5 % (315 ) 40.9 % (436 ) 0.8 % (9) 0.5 % (5) 0.8 % (8) 1.9 % (2 0) 100 % (1,0 66) stud ents 2.6 % (1,1 27) 2.8 % (1,2 54) 8.1 % (3,5 64) 6.0 % (2,6 45) 0.3 % (13 1) 0.3 % (1 25 ) 2.5 % (1,1 19) 2.3 % (1,0 14) 8.1 % (3,5 62) 5.0 % (2,2 27) 0.1 % (23 ) 0.0 % (1 3) 31.9 % (14, 083) 26.8 % (11, 831) 0.8 % (34 3) 1.2 % (52 0) 0.6 % (27 9) 0.7 % (3 20 ) 100 % (44, 140) 20 22 facu lty 1.1 % (12) 1.0 % (11) 3.4 % (37) 3.2 % (34) 0.0 % (0) 0.1 % (1) 7.8 % (84) 10.6 % (11 4) 3.2 % (34) 1.9 % (21) 0.1 % (1) 0.0 % (0) 26.5 % (285 ) 37.0 % (398 ) 0.8 % (9) 0.4 % (4) 1.4 % (15) 1.6 % (1 7) 100 % (1,0 74) stud ents 3.6 % (1,6 29) 3.9 % (1,7 59) 13.2 % (5,9 97) 10.6 % (4,7 93) 0.2 % (75) 0.1 % (4 0) 3.4 % (1,5 55) 3.2 % (1,4 34) 7.4 % (3,3 54) 5.4 % (2,4 25) 0.0 % (14 ) 0.0 % (1 7) 23.3 % (10, 567) 20.0 % (9,0 61) 2.7 % (1,2 36) 0.2 % (89 8) 0.4 % (19 3) 0.5 % (2 29 ) 100 % (45, 298) university of texas, arlington 20 11 facu lty 0.0 % (0) 0.0 % (0) 2.1 % (18) 3.4 % (29) 0.6 % (5) 0.0 % (0) 3.5 % (30) 13.0 % (11 1) 2.2 % (19) 2.2 % (19) 0.4 % (3) 1.5 % (1 3) 32.1 % (273 ) 39.1 % (333 ) 0.0 % (0) 0.0 % (0) 0.0 % (0) 0.0 % (0) 100 % (851 ) stud ents 3.2 % (1,4 47) 5.2 % (2,3 71) 9.5 % (4,3 05) 6.6 % (2,9 85) 0.3 % (12 2) 0.2 % (7 1) 4.4 % (1,9 90) 4.1 % (1,8 54) 10.2 % (4,6 37) 4.4 % (2,0 26) 0.1 % (51 ) 0.1 % (3 6) 26.9 % (12, 245) 18.4 % (8,3 79) 1.1 % (50 6) 0.8 % (35 8) 3.0 % (1,3 44) 1.8 % (8 06 ) 100 % (45, 533) 20 22 facu lty 1.5 % (12) 1.7 % (14) 2.6 % (21) 3.8 % (31) 0.0 % (2) 0.0 % (0) 7.8 % (64) 16.9 % (13 8) 4.6 % (38) 1.5 % (12) 0.0 % (0) 0.0 % (0) 22.9 % (187 ) 33.3 % (272 ) 0.4 % (3) 0.6 % (5) 2.6 % (21) 3.1 % (2 5) 100 % (818 ) stud ents 3.1 % (1,8 76) 5.8 % (3,5 66) 17.3 % (10, 640) 8.7 % (5,3 26) 0.2 % (2) 0.1 % (3 6) 5.9 % (3,6 37) 4.3 % (2,6 56) 11.0 % (6,7 75) 3.6 % (2,2 37) 0.1 % (57 ) 0.0 % (2 1) 24.1 % (14, 790) 10.5 % (6,4 76) 2.1 % (1,3 00) 1.1 % (65 5) 1.4 % (84 2) 0.7 % (4 46 ) 100 % (61, 457) source: integrated postsecondary educational data system (ipeds), retrieved december 5, 2021. afull-time faculty. btwelve-month unduplicated headcount. 15 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26222| april 18, 2023 derived variables included the percentage that each intersectional faculty and student category constituted of total faculty and students, respectively, for 2011 and 2020. the numerator is the number of intersectional faculty (or students) in a specific category, and the denominator is the total number of faculty (or students) overall. in addition, a proportional representation variable for each intersectional category was derived by subtracting the proportional percentage of students in each intersectional category (intersectional students in a specific category divided by the total students) from the proportional percentage of faculty (intersectional faculty in the same specific category divided by the total faculty) (table 2). this variable indicates over, under, or essentially equal representation of faculty to students by intersectional category for 2011 and 2020. the values for the proportional representation variable were rank ordered, from high to low, for 2011 and 2020, separately, for each of the eight universities. this operation produced 16 rank orderings (8 universities, for two periods, 2011 and 2020). this ranking procedure and these 16 rank orderings allowed a visual inspection of the distribution of values and the identification of a significant break in all universities’ distributions (for 2011 and 2020, separately) at plus or minus 5 points difference between faculty and students: (a) > +5.0, faculty were overrepresented relative to students in that intersectional category; (b) < -5.0, faculty were underrepresented; and (c) values in between, faculty were designated as equally represented. the number of overrepresentation and underrepresentation occurrences for each intersectional category was combined across all universities (table 3). the derived variable that compares the proportional representation of students and faculty in intersectional categories has face validity, particularly related to the positive effect of homophily concerning faculty and students (e.g., minoritized students having faculty who look like them). the researcher is unaware of quantitative research using this derived variable, notwithstanding its simplicity and a firm grounding in the homophily literature. table 2. points differential of facultya and studentb percentages of total, by intersectional categories of gender-race/ethnicity and yearc ye ar faculty-students percentage points differential nonresiden t aliens hispanic/l atino american indian or alaska native asian black or african american native hawaiian or other pacific islander white two or more races race and ethnicity unknown fem ale ma le fem ale ma le fem ale ma le fem ale ma le fem ale ma le fem ale ma le fem ale ma le fem ale ma le fem ale ma le florida international university 20 11 -0.6 +0. 8 26.6 16. 0 0.0 +1. 0 +1.7 +8. 5 -5.9 1.9 0.0 0.0 +14. 3 +29 .1 -0.5 0.4 -1.1 0.9 20 20 -1.4 +.0 .3 26.2 16. 6 +0.1 +0. 4 +2.7 +8. 4 -3.5 1.9 0.0 +0. 1 +16. 2 +24 .5 -0.9 0.6 -0.4 0.3 university of california, riverside 20 11 -1.5 2.3 13.7 8.5 +0.1 1.2 -9.2 -6.2 -3.2 0.5 -0.2 0.2 +13. 0 +35 .9 -0.4 0.5 -1.4 1.9 16 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26222| april 18, 2023 20 20 +2.0 +3. 0 21.0 10. 4 +0.3 +0. 4 -7.5 -3.8 -0.2 0.7 -0.2 0.2 +10. 6 +24 .9 -1.2 1.1 +0.6 +1. 8 university of central florida 20 11 +1.0 +2. 5 -6.1 2.7 -0.1 +0. 1 -0.4 +5. 2 -4.6 1.4 -0.1 0.0 -3.2 +13 .8 -0.5 0.2 -1.2 1.0 20 20 -0.8 0.1 11.0 8.0 -0.1 +0. 2 +1.5 +7. 2 -4.6 2.1 -0.1 0.1 +3.7 +17 .4 -1.7 1.2 -0.5 0.5 university of houston, houston 20 11 -2.4 3.3 -8.5 7.0 -0.1 +0. 2 -3.9 +0. 1 -6.1 3.2 -0.2 0.2 +7.2 +22 .7 -0.9 0.4 -0.4 0.4 20 20 -1.7 2.2 12.9 10. 3 -0.1 +0. 1 -3.2 +3. 3 -3.0 2.0 0.0 0.0 +10. 8 +24 .5 -1.2 0.7 -1.0 0.7 university of illinois, chicago 20 11 -1.1 +0. 1 -5.8 3.5 0.0 0.1 -2.6 +2. 5 -3.3 0.8 -0.2 0.1 +1.2 +15 .0 -0.6 0.6 -0.1 0.4 20 20 -3.3 4.7 11.1 7.5 0.0 0.1 -0.4 +1. 8 -2.4 0.3 0.0 0.0 +11. 7 +17 .5 -0.7 0.8 -0.1 +0. 1 university of new mexico, albuquerque 20 11 -0.6 0.1 13.7 9.3 -2.5 2.1 +1.3 +3. 4 -0.4 0.3 0.0 0.1 +5.4 +19 .1 -0.8 0.3 -0.1 +0. 6 20 20 +0.3 +0. 8 16.2 11. 9 -2.3 1.3 +1.6 +3. 9 -0.1 0.8 -0.1 0.1 +10. 5 +15 .2 -1.2 0.9 +1.5 +1. 2 university of north texas, denton 20 11 -0.1 +0. 9 -4.9 3.3 0.0 0.1 +0.1 +4. 4 -6.0 3.3 -0.1 +0. 1 -2.4 +14 .1 0.0 0.7 +0.2 +1. 2 20 20 -2.5 2.9 -9.8 7.4 -0.2 0.0 +4.4 +7. 4 -4.2 3.5 +0.1 0.0 +3.2 +17 .0 -1.9 1.6 +1.0 +1. 1 university of texas, arlington 20 11 -3.2 5.2 -7.4 3.2 +0.3 0.2 -0.9 +8. 9 -8.0 2.2 +0.3 + 1.4 +5.2 +20 .7 -1.1 0.8 -3.0 1.8 20 20 -1.6 4.1 14.7 4.9 -0.2 0.1 +1.9 +12 .6 -6.4 2.1 -0.1 00. 0 -1.2 +22 .8 -1.7 0.5 +1.2 +2. 4 source: integrated postsecondary educational data system (ipeds), retrieved december 5, 2021. afull-time faculty. btwelve-month unduplicated headcount. cdark gray indicates overrepresentation where the points differential of faculty and student percentages of total is > +5.0; light gray indicates underrepresentation where the points differential of faculty and student percentages of total is < -5.0. table 3. number of occurrences of overrepresentationa and underrepresentationb for facultyc relative to studentsd at all eight hsis, by intersectional gender-race/ethnicity categories and year 2011 2020 gender-race/ethnicity occurrences gender-race/ethnicity occurrences overrepresentation male white 8 male white 8 female white 5 female white 5 male asian 3 male asian 4 underrepresentation female hispanic/latino 7 female hispanic/latino 8 male hispanic/latino 4 male hispanic/latino 7 17 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26222| april 18, 2023 female black 4 female black 1 female asian 1 female asian 1 male asian 1 male nonresident alien 1 source: integrated postsecondary educational data system (ipeds), retrieved december 5, 2021. aoverrepresentation: points differential of faculty and student percentages of total is > +5.0. bunderrepresentation: points differential of faculty and student percentages of total is < -5.0. cfull-time faculty. dtwelve-month unduplicated headcount. results and discussion this section presents the results for each of the eight hispanic-serving institutions, followed by a discussion of the findings for the universities combined. florida international university in 2011, at florida international university (fiu), the most underrepresented intersectional faculty category was female hispanic/latina (-26.6; table 2). over the ten years, from 2011 to 2020, the fiu full-time faculty increased by 44.9%, and the 12-month unduplicated student headcount rose by 31.4%. however, in 2020, the pattern of underrepresentation persisted: still, the most underrepresented intersectional faculty category was female hispanic/latina by virtually the same percentage-point differential (-26.2; table 2). the second most underrepresented category for 2011 and 2020 (with nearly identical results) was male hispanic/latino (2011, -16.0; 2020, -16.6; table 2). at fiu, in 2011 and 2020, the most overrepresented intersectional faculty category, also by dramatic margins, was male white (2011, +29.1; 2020, +24.5; table 2). the second most overrepresented faculty category for both and 2020 was female white (2011, +14.3; 2020, +16.2; table 2). university of california, riverside between 2011 and 2020, the university of california, riverside (ucr) experienced tremendous growth in the number of female hispanic/latina students: from 3,634, in 2011, to 6,633, in 2020, an 82.5% increase (table 1). of all students, the percentage who identified as female hispanic/latina rose from 16.5%, in 2011, to 24.1%, in 2020 (table 1). the magnitude of this increase in female hispanic/latina students was not mirrored in the growth of female hispanic/latina full-time faculty neither in number (2011, 20; 2020, 33; table 1) nor in the percentage of all faculty (2011, 2.8%; 2020, 3.1%; table 1). the most underrepresented intersectional faculty category by far was female hispanic/latina (2011, -13.7; 2020, -21.0; 18 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26222| april 18, 2023 table 2). the most overrepresented full-time faculty category also by a substantial margin in 2011 and 2020 was male white (2011, +35.9, and 2020, +24.9; table 2). university of central florida like ucr (above), the university of central florida (ucf) demonstrated a large increase in female hispanic/latina students between 2011 and 2020: up 106.0%, from 6,040, in 2011, to 12,439, in 2020; table 1). the percentage of all students who identified as female hispanic/latina grew from 16.5%, in 2011, to 24.1%, in 2020 (table 1). a commensurate increase in female hispanic/latina faculty did not follow: a 61.9% increase, from 42, in 2011, to 68, in 2020 (table 1). the percentage of all full-time faculty remained low: 3.0% in 2011, and 4.3%, in 2020 (table 1). in b011 and 2020, the most underrepresented intersectional faculty category was female hispanic/latina: in 2011, -6.1; and in 2020, -11.0 (table 2). in 2011 and 2020, the most overrepresented faculty category by a margin was male white: in 2011, +13.8; and in 2020, +17.4 (table 2). university of houston, houston the overrepresentation of male white full-time faculty at the university of houston, houston (uhh) is substantial (the largest overor underrepresented uhh faculty category): in 2011, +22.7; and growing in 2020, to +24.5 (table 2). the next closest category among the overrepresented and the only other category in the overrepresented was female white: in 2011, +7.2, and in 2020, increasing to +10.8 (table 2). again, the most underrepresented category was female hispanic/latina: in 2011, -8.5; in 2020, -12.3 (table 2). the second most underrepresented full-time faculty category was male hispanic/latino: in 2011, -7.0, and in 20 10.3 (table 2). in 2011 (but not in 2020), a third underrepresented category at uhh was female black (-6.1, table 2). university of illinois, chicago over the course of the 10-year period from 2011-2020, the number of 12-month unduplicated students at the university of illinois, chicago (uic) increased by 12.8% (2011, 31,221; 2020, 35,210; table 1); the number of full-time faculty increased similarly by 17.0% (2011, 1,922; 2020, 2,249; table 1). in contrast to these modest overall increases, during this same 10-year period, the number of female hispanic/latina students nearly doubled, increasing 93.7% (2011, 2,735; 2020, 5,297; table 1). the full-time female hispanic/latina full-time faculty increased also but not nearly as much, 50.0% (2011, 58; 2020, 87; table 1). the most underrepresented faculty category was female hispanic/latina in both 2011 (-5.8) and 2020 (-11.1), with the increase in underrepresentation being related to the much greater increase over the 10-year period in female hispanic/latina students compared to female hispanic/latina faculty. 19 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26222| april 18, 2023 university of new mexico, albuquerque between 2011-2020, the university of new mexico, albuquerque (unm) was the only institution of the eight hsis to decrease in students: -23.7%, from 33,304, in 2011, to 25,420, in 2020 (table 1). during the same period, faculty increased: +8.2%, from 1,789, 2011, to 1,935, 2020 (table 1). regarding these dynamic increases and decreases, this analysis focuses on the ratio of faculty to students by intersectional gender-race/ethnicity categories. four categories are of interest (> 5.0 or < 5.0) with regard to overand underrepresentation of faculty to students (table 2): (a) male white is the most overrepresented, +19.1 in 2011, and +15.2 in 2020; (b) female white is the second most overrepresented, +5.4, in 2011, and +10.5, in 2020; (c) female hispanic/latino is the most underrepresented, -13.7, in 2011, and -16.2, in 2020; and (d) male hispanic/latino is the second most underrepresented, -9.3, in 2011, and -11.9, in 2020. university of north texas, denton the university of north texas, denton, was the only institution among the eight whose number of faculty and students remained essentially the same in the 10-year study period (table 1): (a) faculty, 1,066 (2011), and 1,074 (2020); and (b) students, 44,140 (2011), and 45,298 (2020). however, some movement occurred among the intersectional gender-race/ethnicity categories regarding the ratios of faculty and students. in 2011, the most and only significantly overrepresented category (> +5.0) was male white (+14.1); the most and only significantly underrepresented category (< -5.0) was female black (-6.0) (table 2). this 2011 underrepresentation result is one of only two instances among all eight hsis for both 2011 and 2020 (16 possible rank ordering instances, or 8 universities x 2 data point years) where female hispanic was not the most underrepresented category and the only instance where female hispanic was not among the significantly underrepresented categories (faculty-student percentage point differential < -5.0). however, it is worth noting that in 2011, the underrepresentation of female hispanic/latino was -4.9, or 0.1 from the significant underrepresentation threshold of -5.0. in 2020, among the significantly overrepresented categories (> +5.0), the most overrepresented was male white (+17.0); the second most overrepresented category was male asian (+7.7) (table 2). for 2020, the significantly underrepresented intersectional categories demonstrated the sample’s familiar pattern: (a) the most underrepresented category was female hispanic/latino (-9.8), and (b) the second most underrepresented category was male hispanic/latino (-7.4) (table 2). university of texas, arlington with a few exceptions previously noted, the sample’s pattern is for the number of both faculty and students to rise during the 10-year study period. the university of texas, arlington (uta), 20 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26222| april 18, 2023 was the only institution where the number of faculty fell: 851, in 2011; and 818, in 2020 (table 1). the number of students rose significantly: 45,533, in 2011; and 61,457, in 2020 (table 1). these changes in numbers rippled through the overand underrepresentation percentage point differentials between faculty and student ratios. in 2011, the significantly overrepresented categories (> 5.0) were as follows: (a) male white, +20.7; (b) male asian, +8.9; and (c) female white +5.2 (table 2). in 2020, the significantly overrepresented categories were: (a) male white, +22.8; and (b) male asian, +12.6 (table 2). in 2011, the significantly underrepresented categories (< -5.0) were as follows: (a) female black, -8.0; (b) female hispanic/latino, -7.4; and (c) male nonresident alien, -5.2 (table 2). in 2020, the significantly underrepresented categories were: (a) female hispanic/latino, -14.7; and (b) female black, -6.4 (table 2). conclusion the sample’s overall pattern is clear and concerning. at these hispanic serving institutions, latinx faculty (particularly females) were consistently underrepresented, and white faculty (especially males) were consistently overrepresented (tables 2 and 3). for both 2011 and 2020, at all eight universities, male white faculty were the most overrepresented intersectional category by high margins over the next most overrepresented category (which in the majority of cases was female white faculty; tables 2 and 3), ranging in 2011, in percentage point differences (most overrepresented to next most) between 8.6 and 22.9 (m = 13.7), and in 2020, between 4.7 and 14.3 (m = 9.6) (table 2). regarding underrepresentation, for 2011, at 6 of the 8 hsis, female hispanic/latino was the most underrepresented faculty category, ranging in percentage point differences over the next most underrepresented category (which in the majority of cases was male hispanic/latino) from 1.5 to 10.6 (m = 4.1) (table 2). in 2020, at all eight hsis, female hispanic/latino was the most underrepresented faculty category, ranging in percentage point differences over the next most underrepresented category (which in all but one hsi was male hispanic/latino) from 2.0 to 10.6 (m = 5.8) (table 2). in most cases, the female and male hispanic/latino categories separated themselves from the other intersectional categories as most underrepresented (tables 2 and 3). overall, between 2011 and 2020, the number of hispanic/latino students increased markedly, but growth in hispanic/latino faculty did not keep pace. this research uses a simple yet revealing variable for the rigorous empirical study of hsis: the ratio of faculty to students for intersectional gender-race/ethnicity categories. although the empirical research of hsis have no comparable studies using this intersectional ratio, the literature does contain research that comments on how complexly important same gender and same race/ethnicity faculty are to the experience of both undergraduate and graduate students (e.g., bañuelos & flores, 2021; stout, archie, cross, & carman, 2018). identifying why this underrepresentation persists can point to how to remedy it. the literature points to causes that are found at the system level (e.g., pipeline issues broadly) and the individual level (e.g., 21 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26222| april 18, 2023 microaggressions in the hiring process and in the promotion and tenure process) (e.g., fuesting, bichsel, & schmidt, 2022; kim, kalev, dobbin, & deutsch, 2021; o’meara, culpepper, & templeton, 2020). 22 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26222| april 18, 2023 references bañuelos, m., & flores, g. m. 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(under review). metric-centric policy, practice, and faculty equity issues. stout, r. archie, c., cross, d., & carman, c. a. (2018). the relationship between faculty diversity and graduation rates in higher education. intercultural education, 29(3), 399417. https://doi.org/10.1080/14675986.2018.1437997 united states census bureau (2018). retrieved from https://doi.org/https://www.census.gov/ vargas, n. (2018). racial expropriation in higher education: are whiter hispanic serving institutions more likely to receive minority serving institution funds? socius, 4, 1-12. https://doi.org/10.1177/2378023118794077 vargas, j. h., saetermoe, c. l., & chavira, g. (2021). using critical race theory to reframe mentor training: theoretical considerations regarding the ecological systems of mentorship. higher education, 81, 1043-1062. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-02000598-z 25 https://doi.org/10.1080/14675986.2018.1437997 https://doi.org/https:/www.census.gov/ https://doi.org/10.1177/2378023118794077 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-020-00598-z https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-020-00598-z https://doi.org/10.1080/14675986.2018.1437997 https://doi.org/https://www.census.gov/ https://doi.org/10.1177/2378023118794077 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-020-00598-z https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-020-00598-z underrepresentation of hispanic faculty at hispanic serving metropolitan research universities douglas l. robertson, ph.d.1 abstract introduction method sample data and analysis results and discussion florida international university university of california, riverside university of central florida university of houston, houston university of illinois, chicago university of new mexico, albuquerque university of north texas, denton university of texas, arlington conclusion references microsoft word published_ sweet et al. 2022.docx original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25286| may 19, 2022 68 social-cultural quantum optics at a predominantly white university: refusing, rebuffing, and undoing racism through collective experiential observation elizabeth l. sweet1, kimmika williams-witherspoon2, karen m. turner3, and elisabeth g. fornero4 1 department of urban planning & community development and the department of africana studies, university of massachusetts boston 2school of theater, film, and media arts, temple university 3department of journalism, temple university 4 urban education program, temple university cite as: sweet, e.l., williams-witherspoon, k., turner, k.m., & fornero, e.g. (2022). social-cultural quantum optics at a predominantly white university: refusing, rebuffing, and undoing racism through collective experiential observation. metropolitan universities, 33(2), 68-91. doi: 10.18060/25286 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. guest editors: kevin w. allison, sylvia carey-butler, rosalyn hobson hargraves, tiffany g. townsend, and jeffery wilson editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract racism is commonly defined as prejudice plus power, but in some contexts it can be practiced as a lack of diversity, equity and inclusion. these issues have been at the forefront of popular culture and academic research for some time now, but one could argue, interest has exploded in the u.s. consciousness since may of 2020 and the video recording of the extrajudicial killing of george floyd in minneapolis, mirroring that of philando castile four years earlier in the same city. in this paper we document the ways diversity, equity and inclusion are perceived, and how those perceptions render racism (un)visible. within this context, we introduce a framework we are calling social-cultural quantum optics (sqo). with data from two large diversity symposia at a university on the east coast that is more diverse than many coupled with our experiences at three art exhibits, we begin to construct a path unlocking small scale, quantum, determinants of racism. we argue that understanding sqo can undo its links to racism on everyday life in cities and communities where universities are located, © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25286 | may 19, 2022 69 while at the same time urging the use collective experiential observation of artistic expression to aid in data analysis. keywords: racial optics, visceral methods, speakout, undoing racism, urban university. in may 2016, the dartmouth college republicans put up a display on campus in honor of national police week. they co-opted the nationally recognized hashtag “black lives matter” with “blue lives matter” (benjamin & qian, 2016). in 2016 s.b. nation published an article humanizing daniel holtzclaw, convicted of raping 13 african american women in oklahoma city. after hundreds of complaints, the editor was forced to retract it and acknowledged: “...an organization cannot afford to wait to be diverse, particularly if that organization is one that wants to tell stories” (bellware, 2016). “some students decided they had had enough.” in november 2019, #notagainsu, a newly formed coalition of students of color and white student allies, staged a sit-in for more than seven days to protest the university’s slow response to racist and hateful incidents, “flawed handling of the situation and failure to recognize the seriousness of the unfolding events” (anderson, 2019). introduction racism is commonly defined as prejudice plus power, and in many contexts, the practice of racism results in a lack of diversity, equity, and inclusion. racism in urban education and society has been at the forefront of popular culture and academic research for some time now. still, interest has exploded in the u.s. consciousness since may of 2020 with the video recording of the extra-judicial killing of george floyd in minneapolis, mirroring that of philando castile four years earlier and less than one year after the police killing of daunte wright in the same city. as the u.s. grapples with the continuing murders of black and brown people by law enforcement, coupled with protests, not just nationally but internationally, demanding more diversity, the broad, long-term, and deep impacts of racism have ironically come into full view for many who have been blinded by a cultural parallax and/or binoculars of privilege (dyson, 2016; nabhan, 1995). the idea that it has taken 400-plus years to see the social, political, economic, and bodily harm of structural racism is astounding. reams of paper printed with articles, books, and, most recently, websites and social media posts documenting these harms are broad, long-term, and hard-hitting. unfortunately, as mckittrick would say, these harms have been (un)visible to many © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25286 | may 19, 2022 70 for far too long. (un)visible is the state of being covered up or the absence of presence (mckittrick, 2006). an important area that we know impacts the nodes of truth and reconciliation regarding race and anti-racism in our educational system, specifically within urban higher education institutions. racial violence on college campuses, college students choosing inappropriate halloween costumes appropriating racial identity, promoting parties that stereotype and malign individual groups and/or affiliations, or creating businesses and media where people of color are (un)visible are, unfortunately, still common on campuses across the country (freisleben, 2016; friedersdorf, 2015; harwood et al., 2012; neville et al., 2010). following the 2016 election of president donald trump, muslim and immigrant students were targeted at universities, hate group paraphernalia and broadsides appeared on bulletin boards and telephone poles in public spaces, and students of color were murdered (arriaga, 2017; moyer, 2017; quintana, 2017; zirin, 2017). more recently, in the context of the pandemic, asian communities have been increasingly targeted by hate crimes. murder and assault of asian students and pacific islanders are on the rise, and the murdered and missing native women and girls continue to be invisibilized in popular media. unresolved assaults on black, native, latino/a/x, and asian groups, along with muslims and other marginalized communities, struggle against discrimination and racism outside of the academy. too often, their group experiences are mirrored inside the academy. racism in the academy takes on many forms. still, one key aspect that contributes to it is the lack of diversity on college campuses, particularly at faculty and higher administration levels. even though it is widely recognized that increasing such diversity positively impacts key aspects of faculty-student interaction and pedagogy (mayhew & grunwald, 2006; umbach, 2006) and can support anti-racist work to dismantle racism actively, diversity is still elusive on many campuses.1 without encountering real diversity in their lived experiences on campuses, both inclass and outside, students’ ability to see and dismantle racism is diminished. as beth mcmurtrie (2016) writes, “if [universities] continue to fall short on diversity efforts, colleges risk disconnecting from the larger culture.” by using data from two campus-wide diversity symposia at a large east coast urban university, coupled with our collective experiential observation of three black art exhibits, we begin to construct a pathway to unlocking small scale, quantum2, determinants of racism. first, we look at 1 while our work is not targeted to white students in particular, it is notable that research shows when students lack varied experiences at predominantly white institutions of higher learning—only interacting with faculty and administrators who look like them—they miss an opportunity to engage fully with the multi-faceted and multicultural world in which we live, as well as lose opportunities to challenge anti-black and brown racial ideologies. 2 quantum refers to the smallest piece, particle, minutest building block of something. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25286 | may 19, 2022 71 the perceptions and realities of diversity at this large east coast urban university by referencing the work on “cultural parallax” (nabhan, 1995) and the “binoculars” of privilege (dyson, 2016). while analyzing and discussing this data, some research team members attended three black art exhibits, which led to theory building and a framework we are calling social-cultural quantum optics (sqo). this paper documents the variety of ways diversity, equity, and inclusion are perceived, along with how those perceptions render racism (un)visible. we argue that by understanding how sqo functions, we can undo its impact on racism in everyday life in urban institutions and disrupt racism nationwide. in this paper, we first review how diversity, equity, and inclusion (dei) are framed in the literature and pay particular attention to how they are understood or not by different campus community members. while dei does not end racism, we cannot imagine ending racism without dei nor without an understanding of it. we then provide a brief description of our methods, including content analysis of data from two symposia on dei and racism and a method we are calling collective experiential observation. following a description of these methods, we share our analysis of perceptions of diversity and racism from the symposia and theory-building, based on our collective visits to three art exhibits that led to the formation of social-cultural quantum optics. our goal is to understand how racism works at a predominately white urban institution of higher education, how diversity, equity, and inclusion are interpreted, and most importantly, to document how, through social-cultural quantum optics, two people can look at the same situation and see or experience something completely different. we argue anti-racist work on campuses must understand the mechanism by which we learn to see, or not see, diversity, equity, inclusion and race. social-cultural quantum optics, along with collective experiential observation, provide building blocks for refusing, rebuffing, and undoing racism. framing diversity equity and inclusion framing diversity, equity, and inclusion in the context of higher education is aided by several interrelated themes: student activism about diversity, why/how diversity matters, and attempts to be more sensitive or reflective about diversity, equity, and inclusion through diversity courses. additionally, and essential for our work, is the research documenting administrators too often lack understanding regarding the state of diversity, equity, and inclusion climate on their campuses (gasmen, 2014). our data show that not only administrators but also students, staff, and faculty frequently have difficulty seeing the lack of diversity, equity, and inclusion that raises barriers to enacting anti-racist work. student activism for more diversity with the emergence of such movements as occupy wall street, black lives matter, sanctuary cities, and #metoo, universities have seen a rise in student activism focused on diversity, © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25286 | may 19, 2022 72 equity, and inclusion (brown et al., 2016; schmidt, 2016), and even more after the murder of michael brown in ferguson, missouri at the hands of police in 2014. nationwide, students have called for increased student diversity but have also challenged administrators to take a closer look at university climates and faculty diversity as they relate to students’ experiences (espinsoa et al., 2016). these concerns are echoed by the supreme court fisher ii decision, which reaffirmed the notion that “obtaining the educational benefits of a diverse student body is [a]compelling government interest” (espinosa & mcdonough, 2016). espinosa and mcdonough (2016) argue that: “the court also signaled, during a time of deep unrest and debate regarding diversity and inclusion on college campuses nationwide, something salient and undeniable: race matters” (p. 1). why/how race and diversity matters race, as well as other aspects of student diversity, do indeed matter for reasons of equality, but additionally because there are documented educational benefits inherent in diverse environments (sweet & ortiz escalante, 2010). if students from dominant groups do not experience inclusion and social equity with all groups in the college setting, upon graduation, they will be woefully underprepared to do the anti-racist work necessary for social transformation. hoover (2017) asserts that while the physical presence of diversity is important, the numbers themselves do not guarantee inclusiveness nor necessarily represent a diverse population. institutions need a critical mass of diverse individuals sitting at the table helping to make policy decisions to say they have a diverse environment. in such settings, there also must be diversity, equity, and inclusion in pedagogy to ensure “. . . all students are reaping the benefits of the diversity colleges strive to deliver” (hoover, 2017, p. 1). in fact, the fisher supreme court case affirmed that colleges must be attentive to all student success, satisfaction, and belonging (hoover, 2017). sensitivity and reflection through cultural humility cultural competency has been championed as part of the process of promoting more sensitivity and understanding regarding diversity, but it only prescribes an outward-looking, one-way production of knowledge (sweet, 2018). on the other hand, as articulated by melanie tervalon and jann murray garcia (1998), cultural humility encourages individuals to challenge their own hidden biases and ethnocentrism, recognizing that they can never know all but can learn to be sensitive to others. there is merit in trying to learn about others, but individuals should examine their own culture and reflect on their own biases and assumptions of others as well (sweet, 2018). using a cultural humility approach (as opposed to a cultural competence lens, to facilitating, and requiring interactions in and outside the classroom) gives students opportunities to listen to and engage with multiple perspectives and experiential knowledge, which increases their openness to engaging and embracing diversity, along with their confidence in effectively communicating with individuals from diverse backgrounds (lee et al., 2012). cultural humility attempts to stop domination and exploitation in relationships between groups with power © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25286 | may 19, 2022 73 differentials, such as social workers and clients and professors and students, law enforcement and the community. cultural humility requires constant self-reflection and demands that power imbalances be reduced. the goal of cultural humility is to develop “nonpaternalistic” collaboration with communities (tervalon & murray-garcia, 1998, p.117). it encourages practitioners to “relinquish” their position as experts (ross, 2010, p.318). institutional accountability through cultural humility is also an important component of system change (tervalon & murray-garcia, 1998, p.122). therefore, cultural humility is helping in stopping the academy's perpetual cycle of privileged thinking. again, simply increasing the diversity of an institution is not enough. we need to abolish the power imbalances that enable racism to thrive. how administrators see (or not) diversity, equity, and inclusion even while progress has been made, administrators’ understanding of the state of the diversity, equity, and inclusion climate related to racism has been elusive. marybeth gasman documents that “most college and university presidents don’t think …racial tension is [even] happening on their campuses” (gasman, 2014). some administrations might not have an accurate read of the reality of the climate for diversity at their institution. for example, despite the release of the 2016 yale college climate assessment for learning, living and working, the research indicates, “there is a troubling disconnect between the ideals of its educational mission and the varieties of exclusion that students, faculty and staff variously experience” (greenwood et al., 2016, p. 3). yet, a national online survey by the american council on education (ace) center for policy research and strategy (cprs) suggests the racial climate is a priority for college and university presidents (espinosa et al., 2016). these studies suggest a lack of awareness but a concern for improvement, demonstrating a disconnect regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion. in the wake of the george floyd murder in may 2020 and many other violent behaviors toward black people by police, many instagram accounts have emerged, such as @blackat___ (university or high school name) (moore, 2020). these sites have thousands of followers and contain horrific first-person narratives of black experiences of racism in u.s. elite schools and colleges. many of them described inaction by administrators and faculty when students filed complaints. the accounts confirm a gallup survey that found most college graduates said they are not confident their institution would have “fully” investigated charges of discrimination (anderson, 2020). motivated by current protests and the disconnects that they illustrate, institutions of higher education across the country are rethinking past policies and evaluating their campus climate for diversity, along with recommitting their respective brands to a more equitable representation on college campuses and setting faculty hiring goals (arnett, 2015). there are conflicting perceptions of and ideas about the scope of the problem and how best to address it. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25286 | may 19, 2022 74 much as we have seen in u.s. society in the wake of the trump administration, when the people at the top either agree with or are silent in and around racial tension and racial violence, that silence and/or indifference only magnifies or intensifies the violence (wang, 2017). on college campuses where administrators have failed to address discrimination publicly and racial tension, for example, at the university of illinois urbana-champaign, the university of maryland, and delaware state, those campuses, unfortunately, became embroiled in bitter controversies that spilled into surrounding cities and town communities (castillo, 2016; mosendz, 2015; zirin, 2017). while it is clear that peoples’ social experiences over time result in particular racial understandings, the inability to see the lack of diversity, equity, and inclusion, when the reality is so stark, is less well understood. we are interested in how racism works, how diversity, equity, and inclusion are interpreted, and how two people can look at the same situation and see or experience something completely different. these are our driving research questions. additionally, we are interested in ways to see better and more clearly to advance anti-racist work. our experiment with collective experiential observation also proved to be an important catalyst for seeing and analyzing our data more clearly. positionality the four authors of this paper include one native woman in urban planning & community development and africana studies, two black women, one in theater and one in journalism, and one white woman in urban education. our transdisciplinary approach adds to, informs, and complements existing literature. we worked together from our different disciplinary positions on campus to deal with the racism three of us experienced firsthand. based on reviewers’ comments on our submission to this journal, we saw how we had, at some level bought into the discourse of diversifying diversity. even though we had a black provost for part of our work, we were told we should not speak about race per se but to couch it as diversity since that is/was more palatable. we could not be black/native and proud in a sense. we had to do things quietly behind the scenes. including international faculty as diversity is watering down for us, but it is part and parcel of a strategy to move forward, however imperfectly. the issues facing asian faculty are also complex. while asian faculty are overrepresented in the academy, they too are facing racism, and some groups within the category asian are less well represented. as noted above, anti-asian hate has escalated in the context of the covid-19 pandemic. for us as black/native and white women in the academy, our goal is to end racism, but we recognize our susceptibility to social, cultural, and political pressure to walk on eggshells as we seek tenure and promotions. we hope the steps taken in the article are heavy enough to break some of those eggshells. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25286 | may 19, 2022 75 methods and data to answer our research questions, we engaged in two distinct processes. one is the co-creation of data that documents the phenomenon of distinct but generalized perceptions of diversity, equity, and inclusion as a proxy for how racism is evident on the campus. symposia activities (detailed below) combined individual responses to questions regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion through a speak out, group discussions, and workshops focused on various groups, including people of color, lgbtqia+, women, and international community members. these co-created data constitute the information that informs the context of racism on our campus. the second process is what we call collective experiential observation, a kind of “shared sensory spatial experience” (sweet & ortiz escalante, 2015) that enables us to view several art exhibits communally and to be inspired by the space and optics, all while thinking together about what we were viewing and how it informed our analysis of the data, driven by our research questions. the collective experiential observation was important for helping us interpret data that was not making sense to us. we saw racism, but some of the data points from respondents suggested no racism existed. through interacting with art, we analyzed the data in new ways. symposia during two diversity symposia, one in 2014 and one in 2017, students, faculty, staff, and administrators were invited to reflect on prompts about diversity on campus. at each event, participants were asked to respond to the queries indicated in table 1. the first symposium participants responded by writing individually or having a listener write down their answers on individualized index cards. each handwritten comment was randomly given an i.d. number, scanned, transcribed, and coded using a two-tier coding process in dedoose 8.0.35. participants were asked to respond to the same prompts via surveymonkey during the second symposium. respondents’ answers from the second symposium were downloaded from surveymonkey and uploaded to dedoose. for this paper, we focus on the results from the prompts regarding faculty diversity. literature reveals that universities need diverse individuals “sitting at the table” along with diversity, equity, and inclusion in pedagogy (hoover, 2016). many universities focus on setting faculty hiring goals (arnett, 2015) and should also be working toward developing a broad embrace of cultural humility. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25286 | may 19, 2022 76 from the first symposium, a total of 1823 cards were collected. the second symposium yielded a significantly lower participation rate3 via surveymonkey. coding was an iterative process table 1. prompts for symposium participants and numbers of responses speak out themes prompts symposium 1 responses (1823) symposium 2 response (584) diversity overall for me, “diversity” means… my own dream for diversity at x university is a place where… 363 134 improving student diversity we can improve student diversity at x university by… some of my insights/experiences about the challenges and opportunities regarding student diversity at x are… 367 126 improving faculty diversity we can improve faculty diversity at x university by… some of my insights/experiences about the challenges and opportunities regarding faculty diversity at x are… 352 114 improving the workplace/ space for a diverse workforce at x university we can improve the environment for a diverse workforce at x university by… some of my insights/experiences about the challenges and opportunities regarding diversity in the workforce at x are… 366 94 improving x university’s connections to the neighborhood some of the important issues for the neighborhoods surrounding x are… we as a university can contribute to addressing some of these issues and strengthen healthy community connections by… 375 116 (creswell, 2012; lichtman, 2013). to establish a reliable code frame, each research team member individually coded cards one through 50 of the first symposium faculty cards. the 3 the lower number of participants may have been the result of several circumstances including severe weather on the morning of the symposium, limited advance time for outreach and advertising of the event related to the contestations over which university organization would take the lead in organizing the symposium, whether the digital format was more or less accessible, and a changing university-wide commitment to diversity as a result of messaging and evolving policies of the trump administration. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25286 | may 19, 2022 77 research team met to review and refine the list, compare and discuss findings and then work to develop a working list of 24 first and second-tier codes. additionally, we developed conceptual maps to help facilitate a rich and dependable code frame. we used this code frame with the data from the first symposium in dedoose, coding each response. we then applied the same code frame to the data from the second symposium. any codes that emerged from the second symposium data were added to the codebook. throughout the coding process, the research team modified the working list of codes and categories as necessary and returned to the first symposium data to check for additional coding opportunities based on new codes from the second symposium. right away, common issues emerged from the first symposium transcripts. first-tier codes included a broad array of themes: individual characteristics of faculty; composition of faculty, staff, administrators, and students; already very diverse; a need for more diversity in faculty, staff, and administration, which would include more diverse others in administration and executive committees; a need for increased sensitivity, and better community relations. secondtier coding searched for more abstract commonalities such as combinations of factors and clusters of first-tier codes that indicated emergent patterns and factor relationships, i.e., race, gender, national origin, and linguistic competence; a need for faculty training and a desire for representation reflecting the current student body; a desire for increased diverse interactions among students; and administrative action to facilitate better community relations. the coded data were then translated into themes during research team meetings. specifically, the team looked for evidence contrary to the already developed themes (creswell, 2012). finally, the research team developed concepts to then frame the analysis of this data. the process was repeated for the analysis of the second symposium data. procedurally, having cards for the first set of data and electronic submission for participants may limit the comparability of the two data sets. likewise, starting the coding process with only the data regarding the faculty diversity may have impacted our data analysis. we encountered challenges in coding the data because opposing realities emerged, i.e. great diversity and lack of diversity. additionally, in the group of people, noting a lack of diversity, diversity meant different things. for some, race was the defining characteristic, and for others, it was country of origin or gender. statistics showed that racial diversity among faculty at x university has been decreasing over 20 years, while there has been a significant increase in international faculty. engaging with art helped us address the challenge of contradicting perceptions of race and racism in the data. collective experiential observation during the summer of 2019, several of the authors attended three art exhibits: the colored girls museum: “search for the colored girl”; the center for emerging visual artists: “black © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25286 | may 19, 2022 78 quantum futures,” and the new york exhibit by visual artist karis salmon: “we have made these lands what they are: the architecture of slavery.” we were inspired to think critically about scale, time, and space during and after these visits. the act of viewing and hearing these exhibits about blackness together, of having our bodies present and seeing these exhibits conjointly pushed us to think more about the minute details of everyday life and how they impact brain function and change brains. these exhibits sparked thinking and suggested that engaging in the visceral sensations of sharing visual, audio, and emotional stories of blackness changed our thinking and made us revisit diversity and racism with a new understanding. for us, collective experiential observation added significantly to our more typical processes for analysis, which includes meetings in office spaces, often devoid of art. by including art, film, audio, and visual descriptions in our process, our analysis was redirected and opened through our engagement with different senses; hearing, seeing, and touching. before these research activities, we struggled to explain what was happening; why were people seeing the same thing but seeing differently? why, for instance, do university presidents have difficulty seeing the reality of race climates on their campuses? the authors' collective process of experiencing art generated new thinking and collaborative theory building. art exhibit theory building the colored girls museum some of the research team members attended a docent-led tour of the colored girls museum’s exhibit in search of the colored girl, in philadelphia, pa, in may of 2019. the exhibit focused on the everyday, ordinary and extraordinary lives of colored girls in the broader context of (un)visibility in popular culture and quotidian life. we use (un)visibility following mckittrick (2006). as mentioned earlier, she suggests what has happened is an intentional covering up and covering over black people’s lives, something very visible has been made (un)visible, a purposeful act ratified by a culture of white supremacy. the in search of the colored girl exhibit allowed us to think about the small, everyday, ordinary aspects of race and culture that often are ignored and overlooked. we began talking about how we are taught to see and not see, interpret and not interpret, unpack versus accept. researchers are taught to look for the big, overarching theories, explanations, trends, and phenomena, but we are finding that the small, minute details strongly impact our daily experiences of race and racism—death by a thousand paper cuts—many small and accumulating harms or microaggressions. but the exhibit also had a mission: to search for the colored girl, that is, each group tour was like a search party looking for the colored girl. even though the hard-core statistics, social and cultural imaginaries, as well as everyday life for the colored girl is dismal and depressing, the search goes on. through it, new information is uncovered, and new realities are constructed. for example, one part of the exhibit was about hair. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25286 | may 19, 2022 79 there were several kinds of products colored girls historically used on their hair, tools used to take care of their hair, and photographs of many different hairstyles used by colored girls. this was a celebration of colored girls’ hair, not a covering-up. the curator’s intentional intervention to find the colored girl was carried out in each room of the exhibit, and for each group that joined the search party, change was made both internally and externally, as all of those who participated in the search left with a charge to search for the ordinary, everyday. black quantum futurism this gallery space, the center for emerging visual artists, is in the heart of rittenhouse square in downtown philadelphia and regularly features work by emerging local artists. one of the exhibits in the summer of 2019 was the black quantum futures. the temporal disruptors, as they call themselves, used a collection of watches, specially re-crafted by black quantum futurists to embody the temporal features of black women and black quantum futurist times(s). the exhibit also included images of african americans in space suits floating in space, and a video of reverend leon h. sullivan, the late civil rights leader and minister at philadelphia’s zion baptist church, talking with president nixon about the establishment of progress aerospace enterprises (pae), one of the first black-owned aerospace companies. the exhibit used an afrofuturism lens that engages oral histories and futures to produce black spatialtemporal autonomy. part of our interpretation of this work is their use of quantum in the context of all-weather is local, all politics is local, all time is local. the artists seemed to be saying there is value in looking at the quantum or small local phenomenon. additionally, there was a very positive visual of black people as astronauts. the optics, the social-cultural message being taken in by the observer, was of black astronauts being black scientists. these images were juxtaposed to some police officers’ use of mugshots of black men for target practice (shepard & torres 2015), in which the optic is of blacks as criminals with targets on their faces. through that process, the brains of the police officers are trained to see black men as those to be killed, not as scientists or astronauts. during our visit, we were reminded of how one of our team members uses quantum physics in her qualitative methods classes to show the fallacy that is objectivity. many students come into the classroom inherently suspicious of qualitative research because of their learned desire for and belief in the objectivity of hard science and quantitative research. she described how the act of observing and tracking electrons requires scientists to move the electron to observe it. in that way, the researchers are not just observers, but participants and subjects in science. their participation prevents them from being objective observers. even quantum physicists are making things happen by moving electrons themselves to make them observable. our colleague’s use of quantum physics suggests that even in the observation of electrons, protons, and neutrons, the researcher actively participated in the experiments, questioning the possibility of their objectivity. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25286 | may 19, 2022 80 the black quantum futures exhibit promoted a great deal of conversation and reflection among the authors, along with protracted thinking about the assertion that everything is local, politics is local, time is local. that discussion led one of our team members to interrogate theories in quantum physics—eventually, repurposing theories in quantum optics (on how protons and minute particles of light are observable) to help further explain some of our thoughts on sociocultural theory. that interrogation coupled with the documentary of how black astronaut leland melvin, (who would ultimately spend 24 days in space aboard the space station) lost his hearing during a training accident. after weeks of believing he would never get a chance to fly to the space station or hear music again, his brain developed new pathways to register sound, and ever so slowly, melvin (2018) reported how he relearned to hear. we have made these lands what they are: the architecture of slavery the new york exhibit by karis salmon was titled we have made these lands what they are: the architecture of slavery and once again, the idea of the ordinary, the overlooked, the small details of life tells a powerful story, which was very much a part of salmon’s project. she photographed simple structures and household items on former slave plantations, magnifying their importance and juxtaposing them with first-person narratives culled from memoirs of formerly enslaved africans. one of the photographs is of the hinge on a door. it is a very small part of a structure of a huge institution—like slavery—so salmon was asking her viewers to deal with the quantum aspects of a larger problem hinged on racism and discrimination. another photograph is of a huge plantation house. the inscription below described how an enslaved woman would go to the river to get a handful of mud used as one brick and put on top of another to construct the “big house.” here again, salmon is forcing us, as viewers, to focus on and consider the minute parts of this overarching system of oppression. another of salmon’s photographs is of a banister that curved, that was functional and yet artistic, ordinary, and futuristic. in that image, salmon captured one piece of wood that enslaved africans found a way to turn symmetrically into support for those going up the stairs. they made it arched—a symbol of a structure of the past, but in its futuristic design in our minds, it was somehow linked to the black quantum futures. here, enslaved individuals who were considered valueless and disposable, created art and utility that projected themselves into a future that still stands today. salmon uncovered the (un)visible life of enslaved black people, the ordinary and everyday. her intervention was part of unlearning racism and discarding white supremacy. through her photographs, we can see differently–understand differently. we build on the experience of the exhibitions to inform and shape our analysis of the qualitative data. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25286 | may 19, 2022 81 analysis of symposia data about faculty diversity one-third of participants from the inaugural symposium suggested that x university needs to hire more diverse faculty. for example, one participant felt that faculty diversity needed to increase to mirror that of the student body: “some of my insights regarding faculty diversity at x university are that it could be more diverse. as the student population increasingly grows diverse, so should the faculty.” symposia participants urged the university to hire more diverse faculty: we can improve the diversity in the faculty at x university by trying to hire new professors who come [from] different backgrounds. we need to make a more conscious effort in making sure that we’re not hiring all of the same type of people because x university is so diverse, and we all deserve a professor we can relate to on a personal level. interestingly, this participant perceives that “x university is so diverse,” when over the last 30 years, the number of black students has declined significantly. but one-third of participants from the first symposium and 38 of 114 in the second, mentioned a need to hire more diverse faculty. specifically, symposia participants indicated that racial diversity was their major concern. “all of my teachers throughout my education have been white, which isn’t a problem at all, but it makes me wonder why there aren’t any more african american teachers.” symposia participants spoke of a need for racial diversity, specifically in tenure track positions. one participant stated: improve faculty diversity by recruiting, hiring, and retaining full-time and qualified faculty of color into tenure-track positions campus-wide with explicit focus and strategic intent of academic leadership. participants also pointed to seeing “mostly white male professors.” this speaks to the lack of racial diversity in the professoriate and the need for gender diversity. as one participant noted: our student body is very diverse (not as much as it could be-but pretty good). however, i think that faculty diversity could be much improved uponhaving more professors of color, female professors, etc., would foster better learning through exposing students to a wider variety of voices. we found this comment particularly telling regarding the privileging of white male faculty members on u.s. college campuses. the social imaginary of professors is dominated by normalizing the illusion of whiteness and maleness as legitimate holders of power and knowledge: © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25286 | may 19, 2022 82 i think a simple answer to this question is to hire more diverse faculty, but we have to consider why we previously hired exclusively white men for teaching and consider our cultural values and ways of thought that have contributed to our view that only white men are capable of teaching. the call for racial and gender diversity among faculty, particularly in the tenure tracks, is often repeated. one participant noted: “outspoken women and people of color are less likely to be fulltime tenured professors than their similarly minded white coworkers.” a second highlighted the bias students can bring to their evaluations: i do know there is a huge issue with bias related to student evaluations. clear evidence that women and people of color receive lower ratings than men and white faculty. this can lead to a particularly toxic environment for women of color. nationally, women are underrepresented in the academy and women of color even more so (abdul-raheem, 2016). indeed, in 2017-2018, x university’s adjunct, non-tenure track, tenure track, and tenured faculty was 58.49% male and 67.11% white (x university fact book). a less frequent concern that emerged from the first symposium data was the need for more international and regionally diverse faculty. students often evaluate international faculty lower, especially if they have an accent or are seen to have lower levels of english proficiency. in light of this tendency, it is interesting that some respondents specifically noted the need for more globally diverse faculty. as an example: hiring people with varying opinions and viewpoints not just people from different countries. although hiring people from different countries certainly increases diversity at x university. this is not always feasible, but even hiring people from different cities or states that have had different life experiences will add diversity to the faculty. one respondent called for increased diverse representation from southeast asia and the middle east in the staff that would mirror the growth in students from those areas. “i’ve only seen two, maybe three races represented in the staff. i’ve seen very few asian, indian, middle eastern people. fewer women than men, etc.” these divergent assessments of diversity point to a need for new theories about diversity and racism. how do we reconcile these contradictory points of view—these different ways of seeing the same thing? theory building with art a cultural parallax, as described by nabhan (1995), documents a phenomenon where dominant group perceptions and realities are limited by a narrow vision (i.e. the parallax) of their © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25286 | may 19, 2022 83 experiences and belief systems. those “binoculars of privilege” (dyson, 2016) can either be a legitimate naiveté or a strong inclination to justify one’s expectations and/or justifications for bias outcomes (williams-witherspoon, 2011, 2013a, 2013b). nonetheless, the results of these impediments to seeing reality are similar, a generalizable and broad grouping of knowledge about others and their realities and activities (gandy, 1998; said, 1979). the parallax can be likened to a lens narrowing your field of view. we use cultural parallax to explain the continued varied apprehension of diversity—to show the chasm between reality and perceptions of faculty diversity (nabhan, 1995). the way we see things or the limitations of our social/visual space influences how we interpret, understand, and respond to diversity. reality and perceptions of diversity are sometimes similar and sometimes widely dissimilar. we are expanding these ideas of cultural parallax and binoculars of privilege by introducing the concept of socio-cultural quantum optics (sqo) to explain further the ways in which we see and interpret otherness. sqo is a framework that uses semi-classical and quantum mechanics theories and lexifiers from physics to investigate socio-cultural phenomena around race, racism, bias, and privilege, based on how upbringing and environment teach the brain to see and develop specific expectations others. for us, sqo is the quest to measure how much we see based on our social-cultural positionality. in physics and biological sciences, we already know that with most human senses (sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch) our hands, ears, and eyes work in tandem with our brains. we can touch fire, listen to classical or new world music, or lookout and appreciate a sunset with our hands, ears, and eyes but unless the electrons, firing neuropathways in the brain, tell us what we see, hear, and touch is what it is, we cannot know it. sqo suggests that those raised by systems of bias or privilege are taught to see with expectations of otherness based on stereotypes and schema in ways that limit their understanding of diversity, equity, and inclusion. while cultural parallax and binoculars of privilege describe how our experiences limit our view, sqo goes further to show how not only is our vision shaped by experiences but that these quanta, minute experiences collectively train our brains to respond to stimuli like race in particular ways and, over time, put barriers in place that prevent us from seeing racialized reality. we posit that with a positionality steeped in negatively “raced” sqo, individuals readily develop an implicit bias. since sqo is theoretically learned, it can be unlearned. racist expectations can be unlearned, and building blocks for diversity, equity, and inclusion can also be learned, but it requires many minute opportunities to relearn how we see others, along with repetition and intentionality. our brains learn, remember, and codify (gandy, 1998). living in a country where racism has existed since the beginning means everyone has the responsibility to recognize what has been done and then work to refuse it, rebuff it, and undo it. we argue that self-reflection and broader systems analysis through the historiography of race and racism, along with interrogating how those systems are linked to the political economy, can provide a strategy to examine the micro and © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25286 | may 19, 2022 84 macro processes that contribute to prejudice, racism and discrimination and unravel the would-be hard wiring of sqo and replace those old ways of seeing and knowing (foucault, 1972, p. 224) with a much more socially and culturally nuanced and discerning sight. the current efforts by state legislators and others to ban even a nuanced conversation relating to critical race theory (crt), an effort to not expose students to factual history, undermines the effort to undo the rhizomatic structure of sqo. implications for anti-racist work in this paper, we have presented an analysis of data from two diversity symposia at x university in 2014 and 2017, using content analysis. we document in both symposia, there were two general impressions regarding the diversity of faculty, one of very limited diversity and one of much diversity. in reality, the diversity of faculty is minimal and decreasing. in our efforts to understand these divergent observations of the same situation, we engaged in what we call collective experiential observation. viewing three art exhibits: in search of the colored girl, black quantum futurism, and we have made these lands what they are: the architecture of slavery made us see differently. our collective experiential observation led us to describe the disparate views of the same situation regarding diversity, race, and racism due to social-cultural quantum optics (sqo). we argue that sqo explains, to some degree, how some groups see the same situation/circumstances, particularly around race and diversity but describe that situation very differently. this helps to explain how university presidents are disconnected from the realities of diversity, equity, and inclusion on their college campuses and how, often, they are deficient in seeing race and racism. a classic example of this is how blacks and whites saw the o.j. simpson trial. “whites assume that if there were enough accusations, that simpson would be convicted. blacks assume that here’s another black man drawn into the criminal justice system” (ogletree jr., 2005). as a result of the convergence of the arts and cultural events that the research team participated in, using a collective experiential observation method for analysis, the subsequent discussions led us to examine the multiplicity of expressions and resistance strategies across times and geographies. it was the confluence of these events that helped us develop the concept of sqo, which, again, addresses the way we, as individuals, are taught to see from the micro to the macro and vice versa. comparing the two sets of data from the symposia, we expected to see differences and even references to the larger political climate and the rise in hate crimes and violent attacks—that the “binoculars” of privilege would have been clearer. but they seem to be cloudy, seemingly, having normalized more egregious experiences of systemic racism and an even higher tendency to discriminate on college campuses noted throughout the paper. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25286 | may 19, 2022 85 our goal during the symposia was to understand how faculty, students, administrators, and staff perceive and judge diversity at an urban research 1 university. we started this research during the obama administration. three years later, moving through the 2016 presidential campaign, and into the trump administration, despite the change in the political climate, there was surprisingly little difference in how respondents perceived diversity and inclusion at x university. despite the pendulum swing from president obama’s administration to president trump’s, most people’s perception of race and diversity in our study remained the same. this enduring perception led us to develop a framework for analysis that considers how we are taught to see sqo. because people are socialized into perceptions of race from a very young age with many minute experiences, our analysis using sqo suggests that ways of perceiving stay with them, thereby guiding the ways they see race, racism, and diversity. it will take a conscious, intentional effort to change or alter sqo, to be able to see race and racism, even though instances of bias and discrimination may not impact them directly. the dominant sqo buys into the stereotypes that we are frequently fed through media and the educational system. we assert that sqo can only be altered and/or improved on the quantum level, through frequent purposeful and intentional action and interventions that slowly refuse, rebuff and undo racism. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25286 | may 19, 2022 86 references abdul-raheem, j. 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(2017). a lynching on the university of maryland campus. the nation. retrieved from https://www.thenation.com/article/lynching-university-marylandcampus/. original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26586 | july 2, 202 36 leveraging university networks in university powered accelerators: best practices and lessons learned brandon ofem,1 joan m. phillips, 2 dan lauer, 3 and john c. palmer4 1 global leadership and management department, university of missouri-st. louis, 2 marketing and entrepreneurship department, university of missouri-st. louis, 3 lauer toys incorporated cite as: ofem, b., phillips, j.m., lauer, d., & palmer, j.c. (2023). leveraging university networks in university powered accelerators: best practices and lessons learned. metropolitan universities, 34(4), 36-55. doi: 10.18060/26586 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. guest editors: rochelle smarr, ed.d. and chris nayve, j.d.. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract co-location tools of urban economic development, such as accelerators and incubators, can facilitate entrepreneurship. of these tools, accelerators have proliferated in number and variety over the past couple of decades. however, growing evidence suggests that these programs are not equally effective, varying in form and function with disparate outcomes. initial evidence indicates that the effectiveness of accelerators varies by entrepreneurial ecosystem features, such as density and university involvement. current scholarship is limited, however, in that it doesn't provide an adequate explanation for why that is the case. this paper uses creative class theory to explain the distinct advantages of an accelerator powered by an urban, metropolitan research university. among these advantages are the dense and diverse networks comprising urban research universities and the value each network participant contributes. in addition, we posit that amplifying these collective contributions is critical to startup success and the overall vitality of the entrepreneurial ecosystem within the region. we support our logic by profiling the best practices, design features, and lessons learned of an accelerator powered by a public, metropolitan research university serving as an anchor institution for the st. louis region. keywords: accelerators, anchor institution, creative class theory, entrepreneurship http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26586 | july 2, 202 37 introduction it is widely recognized that entrepreneurship is essential to local economic development, often serving as an engine of wealth creation (audretsch, belitski, & desai, 2015; blakely & bradshaw, 2002; bruton, ketchen, & ireland, 2013). as such, promoting entrepreneurship has become increasingly attractive to university administrators and leaders of all kinds, and several entrepreneurship programs have been established at universities around the world to better capitalize on the potential of entrepreneurship as a lever for promoting local economic vitality (garcia & ustymchuck, 2020; tekula & jhamb, 2015; valerio, parton, & robb, 2014). of the ways to spark entrepreneurship, co-location programs, such as business accelerators, incubators, and science parks, have become key tools (madaleno et al., 2022). governments, corporations, foundations, private investors, and universities have all participated in their formation, hoping to serve as catalysts in promoting local and/or regional economic growth. of these tools, accelerators and programs of limited duration that aid select cohorts of startups, have grown significantly in number and variety over the past couple of decades (see crișan et al., 2021 for a recent review). they are more structured, denser, and selective than the other colocation programs (madaleno et al., 2022) and provide early-stage ventures with resources, contacts, and entrepreneurial guidance. however, a recent study suggests that these programs are not equally effective, varying in form and function with disparate outcomes (chan et al., 2020). initial evidence indicates that the effectiveness of accelerators may vary based on entrepreneurial ecosystem features, such as density and university involvement (madaleno et al., 2022). current scholarship is limited, however, in that it doesn't provide an adequate explanation for why that's the case. given the potentially instrumental role these economic development tools play in facilitating new entrepreneurial activity in urban and other regions, this is an important gap in our knowledge. the more knowledge we have of accelerators' contextually dependent functioning and performance, the better we can design such programs for optimal effectiveness and impact. this article advances scholarship along this line of inquiry by addressing the following research question: what are the distinct advantages of an accelerator powered by a metropolitan research university? to address this question, we use creative class theory (florida, 2014) to profile a first-of-its-kind, university-powered accelerator that has successfully implemented three different accelerator programs. our guiding theory is that among the advantages is the diverse set of interconnected actors comprising urban research universities and the value that each network participant contributes. in addition, we posit that amplifying these collective contributions is critical to startup success and the overall vitality of the entrepreneurial ecosystem within the original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26586 | july 2, 202 38 region. in doing so, we contribute to the urban economic development literature more broadly and the business accelerator literature more specifically by highlighting a novel form of organizing to foster entrepreneurship and innovation in a university-based, metropolitan setting. theoretical background creative class theory a basic tenet of the creative class theory is the notion of creativity, “an underlying construct or skill that links what were thought of as separate and distinct fields of science and technology, business management and the professions, and art, design, and entertainment” (florida, 2014, p. 197). the assumption is that it is not the technology we build or the knowledge we gain that are our key economic resources but our shared creativity—a collective resource that, unlike land, capital, and labor, is constantly renewed and improved by education, on-the-job experience, and the stimulation that accompanies human interaction. this renewable resource cuts across all social categories and is a unifying theme tied to social and commercial achievement across all fields (florida, 2014). creativity is central to creative class theory because it is the modus operandi through which some places obtain better economic development gains than others. rather than focusing strictly on firms and industry, creative class theory shifts attention to the people that make the place, the locus of innovation. its core hypothesis is that place itself is supplanting firms as our time's primary social and economic organizing unit and that occupations provide an alternative and more precise measure of human capital or talent (florida, 2014; mathur, 1999). the logic is that by better understanding the occupational composition of a local economy, we can gain greater insights into its workings, developmental trajectory, and various economic outcomes. moreover, the extent to which the occupational composition of a local economy consists of the creative class—jobs in knowledge-intensive industries that involve the production of new ideas and products or that engage in creative problem-solving—is likely to be a key predictor of local economic phenomena. as a statistical testament to its importance, the creative class makes up around one third of the u.s. workforce but accounts for about half of all u.s. wages and salaries (florida, 2014). in promoting economic development, an implication of the creative class theory is that regions should compete to attract and retain more individuals working in creative occupations. according to this lens, a citizenry’s collective creativity is the paramount and enduring wellspring of economic growth instead of competing for companies or securing raw materials. original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26586 | july 2, 202 39 indeed, to be successful in our creative age, regions must develop, attract and retain talented and creative people to generate innovations and develop technology-intensive industries that power economic growth (gertler et al., 2002). in his analysis of the drivers of creativity within regions, florida (2003, p. 10) writes: the key to understanding the new economic geography of creativity and its effects on economic outcomes lies in what i call the 3ts of economic development: technology, talent, and tolerance. creativity and members of the creative class take root in places that possess all three of these critical factors. each is a necessary but by itself insufficient condition. to attract creative people, generate innovation, and stimulate economic development, a place must have all three. i define tolerance as openness, inclusiveness, and diversity to all ethnicities, races, and walks of life. talent is defined as those with a bachelor’s degree and above. and technology is a function of both innovation and hightechnology concentrations in a region. thus, in analyzing a city’s capacity for economic growth, it is imperative to consider the 3ts of technology, talent, and tolerance, which synergistically create the conditions for a vibrant and productive creative class. closely related, and perhaps implicit, to this theory (and the 3ts) is the idea of collision density, defined as the potential frequency of interdisciplinary interactions (nylund & cohen, 2017). the term originates in physics to capture the rate of interactions among atoms in a physical system. applied to the study of local economies, it helps explain the urban advantage in promoting innovation and entrepreneurship. urban regions have denser and more diverse sets of economic actors to spark new ideas and commercialization efforts (cohen, 2016). we theorize in this paper that collision density, tied to a creative class theory, may be a key mechanism linking the programmatic features of co-location programs with their functioning and performance. it may help explain why such programs are more effective in urban settings and with university involvement (madaleno et al., 2022). they increase the likelihood of “creative collisions,” productive interactions between diverse creative actors that can lead to innovation and value creation. co-location tools creative class theory, and the notion of collision density, provide a useful framework for understanding the functioning and performance of co-location tools, such as industrial estates, science parks, coworking spaces, serviced offices, incubators, and accelerators. figure 1 below, adapted from madaleno et al. (2022), presents a typology for thinking about these tools based on original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26586 | july 2, 202 40 three strategic dimensions: the density of tenants, the level of program curation, and the number of actors involved. figure 1. a typology of co-location tools (adapted from madaleno et al., 2022). as seen in figure 1, accelerators are distinct from the other forms in that they are more structured, have a higher level of curation, and have a greater number of actors involved (i.e., denser). these programs are aptly described by madaleno et al. (2022): accelerators use competitive entry and intensive support for early-stage firms, typically over 3-6 months. while increasingly funded by governments, universities or philanthropy, the best known are operated by venture capitalists or big corporates who take equity stakes in participating companies (beauhurst, 2018; bone et al., 2019). participants are usually provided with an on-site workplace, business skills training, and intensive mentoring and networking activity, culminating in a demo day where companies pitch to investors, program alumni and other industry figures. entry is typically highly competitive (p. 285). they aim to “accelerate” the entrepreneurial process by reducing trial and error and speeding up discovery (hallen et al., 2020). madaleno et al. (2022) also argue that two connected forces help explain the growth of accelerators, especially in urban areas. first, the number of entrepreneurs has increased due to original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26586 | july 2, 202 41 lower company formation and running costs (ewens et al., 2018). this has increased the demand for information, advice, and entrepreneurial support. second, there has been increased competition for space, especially residential versus commercial uses in large cities. coworking spaces, since they increase the tenant density of a given building, help lessen such competition and provide shared access to central city neighborhoods. in addition, long-term shifts from manufacturing to services have increased employment in activities for which co-sharing spaces are relevant (madaleno et al., 2022; moretti, 2012). from the lens of creative class theory, these accelerators bring diverse and creative individuals (i.e., talent) together in social and physical space, are often technology-centric (i.e., technology), and foster dense, spontaneous collisions among the diverse accelerator cohort and entrepreneurial ecosystem members (i.e., tolerance). these dense interactions build social capital, promote knowledge spillovers, provide diverse inputs for creative recombination, and foster an entrepreneurial culture that all contribute to overall levels of entrepreneurship within a given region. however, research indicates that the effectiveness of these programs may vary based on ecosystem features, such as entrepreneurial ecosystem density and university involvement (madaleno et al., 2022). so, returning to the guiding research question of this paper, what are the distinct advantages of an accelerator powered by a metropolitan research university? using the lens of creative class theory and the mechanism of collision density, we now explain the unique network advantages of a first-of-its-kind accelerator powered by a public, metropolitan research university that serves as an anchor institution for the st. louis region. illustrative case st. louis metro area st. louis, the 20th largest u.s. metro by population with more than 2.8 million residents, has a complex economic history with a range of factors shaping its structure and development over time. racial segregation and discrimination have profoundly impacted its economic development, creating barriers to employment, education, and housing among african american residents for many years and limiting their economic opportunities. however, the metro area is working to address those disparities. the metro’s economic development collaborative, greater st. louis, inc., is implementing its 2030 jobs plan, which is rooted in inclusive growth and racial equity. the metro’s economic development strategy aims to boost economic growth, increase the volume of high-quality, well-paying jobs, and create broadly shared prosperity that substantially original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26586 | july 2, 202 42 reduces the racial and spatial disparities in income, health, and wealth. the plan calls for five actionable strategies: 1) steward an inclusive economy, 2) restore the core as the vibrant jobs and cultural center of the metro, 3) build a world-class ecosystem for small businesses and entrepreneurs, 4) become a talent engine and magnet, and 5) make the st. louis metro a hub for next-generation industries and technologies. thus, leveraging the metro’s core strengths, attracting and developing diverse talent, and promoting entrepreneurship are critical elements of the metro’s approach to economic development (jobs plan, 2022). umsl accelerate anchor institutions are long-lasting and ensure organizations and institutions are rooted in their localities (hodges & dubb, 2012). as natural anchor institutions in communities, universities may be ideal for organizing and operating entrepreneurship and accelerator programs (palazzolo & devasagayam, 2023). the university of missouri – st. louis (umsl) is an anchor institution in the st. louis region that has a critical role to play in the city’s economic development. this paper focuses on umsl accelerate, an initiative to foster entrepreneurship and innovation in the umsl community and the broader st. louis entrepreneurial ecosystem. umsl accelerate was founded in 2016 by a 1983 business graduate of umsl. the founding director was an experienced and successful entrepreneur and a champion of promoting entrepreneurship in the university setting. he was motivated to start umsl accelerate after reaching out to the thendean of the college of business administration, a fellow umsl alumnus, to inquire about what they were doing in technology transfer. the conversation evolved into a broader discussion about entrepreneurship, which they both agreed had to be interdisciplinary to be successful. taking a multidisciplinary approach was based on recognizing that innovation can come from anywhere, whether it be a new surgical device from a nursing student, a new pipe design from an engineering student, or a new creative work from an art student. so, they began consulting with deans across the university and established the dean’s network, where they met regularly and discussed opportunities to advance entrepreneurship with an interdisciplinary lens. they observed that while there were already great initiatives around entrepreneurship, they were siloed without a centralized mechanism for coordination. furthermore, the existing efforts were not optimally branded or focused. seeing an opportunity, the founding director, as a distinguished alumnus, volunteered, with the dean’s encouragement, to help build something new around entrepreneurship on campus. but they both realized they needed a doer, someone to spend six months to see about implementation. they identified a previous corporate gift not being utilized as a possible funding source for a new position to support their efforts. umsl’s leadership team then approached the corporate donor to use it for a new entrepreneurship program, and the company loved it. this original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26586 | july 2, 202 43 enabled umsl to hire the founding director part-time as a consultant to spearhead the entrepreneurship initiative. he had a whiteboard to work from, allowing for a brand-new model that did not have to compete with old programs or mindsets. as a seasoned entrepreneur, the founding director knew he would take a pragmatic approach to build an entrepreneurship and innovation center that would help cultivate a safe place to learn (e.g., fail fast and learn fast) by de-risking endeavors using entrepreneurial tools and knowledge. a few principles guided dan’s design of the new initiative. first, it had to accelerate student success. as a student-centered educational institution, the initiative had to prioritize the student journey. second, it had to differentiate from the stl ecosystem, which was already robust and mature. it had to offer a unique value proposition and not duplicate and/or cannibalize other entrepreneurial efforts within the ecosystem. third, it should be led by the goal of umsl becoming the first choice for entrepreneurially minded students in the region or the country within five years, a big goal to motivate and steer action. fourth, and in alignment with umsl’s mission to “transform lives,” it had to aim to disrupt higher education. it would do so by positioning the university as a thought leader in entrepreneurship. these values and design features, coupled with the support of umsl’s leadership, led to the creation of umsl accelerate, which has become a central node in the university’s efforts around entrepreneurship. this relatively new organization is built around three interlocking pillars: educate, innovate, and collaborate. figure 2 below is the logo that illustrates these reinforcing elements. together, these three pillars and the systems and structures built around them naturally fit with creative class theory and the 3ts. they engender inclusion and diversity, advance technological innovation, and build and mobilize entrepreneurial talent. we consider them “best practices” and a model for peer institutions to consider when strategizing to promote entrepreneurship better. through the mechanism of fostering increased collision density, they bring diverse people and resources together in novel ways to spur innovation and entrepreneurship. indeed, the mission of umsl accelerate is to “foster a community of thought leaders by providing a vibrant ecosystem to educate, innovate, and collaborate.” original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26586 | july 2, 202 44 figure 2. umsl accelerate logo. the educate pillar is rooted in the university’s mission to transform lives. through the advanced curriculum, expertise, mentorship, and experiences, its evolving curriculum focuses on design thinking and innovation systems to develop insightful leaders with skills to bring ideas to market, start and grow new endeavors and solve problems creatively. the courses are designed to help students overcome the barriers to entrepreneurship (e.g., money, time, mindset, and process) by providing resources (e.g., role models, entrepreneurial knowledge, opportunities to practice entrepreneurship, potential collaborators, and startup funding and scholarships for entrepreneurial study) to build and scale market-centric ideas. the curriculum is also designed to be interdisciplinary. in developing the curriculum, umsl accelerate brought together individuals from across campus, including scholars from the college of business administration, the college of education, the college of arts and sciences, and umsl global. an important objective of this interdisciplinary entrepreneurship curriculum committee was to develop interactivity among the three pillars to cultivate a “culture of entrepreneurship” at umsl. aside from class experiences and interactions, umsl accelerate would serve as the centerpiece of this culture. the interdisciplinary entrepreneurship curriculum committee created a “be-do” framework to guide subsequent curriculum development. figure 3 below emphasizes helping students be entrepreneurial by cultivating an entrepreneurial mindset that is other-focused, problem-centric, purpose-oriented, and resilient. it also emphasizes assisting students to do the work of entrepreneurship by practicing the skills of collaboration, disruption, value creation, and overcoming obstacles. the be-do framework is undergirded with a bias toward action, where students are encouraged not to let fear or self-doubt constrain the actualization of their professional potential. original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26586 | july 2, 202 45 figure 3. be/do framework. the curriculum also emphasizes customer discovery as the starting point of the entrepreneurial process, as opposed to starting with a business plan (i.e., a grassroots approach versus a traditional top-down approach). it is heavily experiential, with a focus on learning by doing. it includes substantial hands-on and collaborative experiences in courses and ample opportunities to work directly with mentors and practicing entrepreneurs. for example, students can develop a venture idea and then implement and scale it across multiple courses in the curriculum (e.g., the capstone course is an actual 8-week business accelerator), continually engage in co-curricular activities, work directly with umsl accelerate as interns for accelerator cohort companies, and compete in venture pitch competitions sponsored by umsl accelerate and university of missouri system. through these “educate” experiences, umsl plays a key role in creating entrepreneurial talent for the st. louis entrepreneurial ecosystem. in addition, its differentiated “hands-on” model serves as a recruiting tool for attracting entrepreneurially-minded students within and beyond the region. the innovate pillar is rooted in the desire to inspire a culture of innovation and support groundbreaking research through various co-curricular activities. it includes a physical entrepreneurship and innovation center, an entrepreneur in residence, a legal clinic, an accounting clinic, an entrepreneurship club, and a student accelerator. they are designed to encourage student, faculty, and community engagement with the region's growing ecosystem of original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26586 | july 2, 202 46 entrepreneurial resources, with a focus on real-world applications, training, and opportunities. in accordance with the mission of this pillar, umsl accelerate also initiated, with the financial support of another umsl business alumnus and entrepreneur, “entrepreneur of the year” awards to recognize and encourage entrepreneurial efforts. together, these elements of the innovate pillar reinforce those of the educate pillar by creating an ecosystem of resources and opportunities that enhance the classroom experience. the collaborate pillar reinforces and ties all the pillars together. it focuses on inclusive partnering with existing organizations to bring technologies and founding companies to market through collaboration, capital formation, and mentorship. this pillar aims to provide umsl students with immersion into the business world through experiential learning, robust and diverse networking opportunities within the region’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, and hands-on experience through active engagement with a variety of new ventures and stakeholders of their success. more specifically, the collaborate pillar offers students a “real world” experience by offering a paid internship opportunity as part of one of the corporate or purpose-driven accelerators. this completes the loop of the educate pillar with its in-class experiences, the innovate pillar with its peer-led and peer-learning out-of-classroom experiences, and the collaborate pillar with its opportunities for students to get paid to learn. interning for a startup allows students to apply what has been learned and explore if they have an entrepreneurial future. this third pillar, focused on experientially engaging students with the startup community, is the guiding principle and impetus of the three accelerator programs that umsl accelerate has successfully implemented: a student accelerator, a diversity equity and inclusion (dei) accelerator, and the ameren accelerator (based on a corporate “powered by” model). so, what sets umsl accelerate apart, as a university-led accelerator, in administering acceleration programs? we believe the diverse and dense network of actors supports the programs and the cohorts. the network is organized around a shared mission to help the selected founders. it’s facilitated by the 3-pillar structure that promotes “creative collisions” among the network participants, who operate in a dense, metropolitan region that increases the frequency of such collisions. as shown in figure 4 below, participants include the cohort of founders (i.e., entrepreneurs) selected for the accelerators; students and student interns; faculty experts and faculty-led research; the vast network of alumni who serve as mentors, investors, consultants, and subject matter experts; and established relationships with universityand communityengaged corporate partners. as a public university in a diverse metropolitan region, umsl has a diverse mixture of talented individuals from all backgrounds giving the institution a unique competitive advantage. "creative collisions" can be maximized in this type of environment. it is a differentiator. original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26586 | july 2, 202 47 figure 4. network of participants. overall vitality of the entrepreneurial ecosystem within the region. our thesis is simple: metropolitan universities that house accelerator programs can “amplify” collision density through the systems, structures, and initiatives they put in place. they have potentially denser and richer networks of complementary resources, synergistic ideas, and market opportunities that can all be capitalized on through “creative collisions” that bring them together. the theory guides the 3ts and the 3 pillars of umsl accelerate that cultivating inclusivity, technology, and talent are key local economic development tools. they enable creative people to come together to create. programmatic design features that increase the number of “creative collisions,” therefore, should be considered best practice. we see umsl accelerate as one promising example. early evidence of success for the participating startup companies and students abounds. for example, several of st. louis’ most notable startups have participated in a umsl accelerate program. the fattened caf, a filipino restaurant and packaged foods line, started as a pop-up concept with prepared meals in nine schnucks markets stores. thanks to the accelerator, they have introduced regular hours at their restaurant and packaged four flavors of their now-famous longganisa and four signature sauces, which are available in several local retailers, including most schnuck markets in the st. louis region, fresh thyme city foundry, and old north provisions. they were also named to ian froeb’s iconic top 100 list in the st louis post original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26586 | july 2, 202 48 dispatch and cited as one reason st. louis is a top food city by food & wine. flipstik, another inaugural founder, went from direct-selling their product at kiosks in area malls to lining the shelves of over 600 target stores nationwide. founder akeem shannon raised more than $1.2m in 2022, hired five employees, and moved the production of promotional items to st. louis county. demiblue natural nail polish hit $1 million in sales allowing founder michelle robinson to expand her retail footprint significantly. nebula media group, a startup focused on increasing digital accessibility, is on a waitlist for new clients, positioning the agency on the cusp of significant scaling. pop pop hurray’s tony davis landed two new locations – a retail shop in st. charles and inside busch stadium. all these founders credit umsl accelerate for helping grow their companies through tailored mentorship, funding, and network access. indeed, as akeem shannon, founder of flipstick, once shared: “the umsl dei accelerator opened doors that i could not have opened on my own. $50,000 is nice, but opening doors that lead to millions is even better: that’s what umsl dei is all about!” his umsl student intern also found value from experience: “i can safely say that my experience working for flipstik through the umsl dei accelerator was the most enriching professional experience of my life thus far. the skills, tools, strategies, and advice that i have learned from akeem and everyone else on the flipstik team will be something that i carry with me into all of my future endeavors.” similar testimonials have been shared across the accelerator programs. in addition, over 1,000 entrepreneurs have applied to participate in the dei accelerator since it started. this results from a broad and inclusive marketing strategy to recruit and engage with the broader entrepreneurial community to ensure diverse representation among program participants. lessons learned we draw some lessons from our experiences as observers and builders of umsl accelerate. first, we see a tremendous opportunity for cumu members to engage their entrepreneurial ecosystems with a university-powered accelerator. the dense and diverse set of creative actors associated with urban, metropolitan research universities gives them a potential competitive advantage in the accelerator space. anchor institutions have the reputational resources and network capabilities to instill a shared mission among diverse creative actors that support the startup cohorts. they can foster an innovation ecosystem by bringing diverse and creative actors to exchange ideas, resources, and strategies for new venture growth. relatedly, and as depicted through umsl accelerate’s 3-pillar structure, these accelerators can enrich the classroom experience by immersing students in the programs and helping establish a campus culture that prizes entrepreneurship. original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26586 | july 2, 202 49 second, the diversity, equity, and inclusion (dei) accelerator seems especially promising in addressing economic inequality. providing access to mentorship, networks, and capital for underrepresented founders, can help reduce the systemic barriers that often hinder the entrepreneurial efforts of women, people with disabilities, and people of color. these dei accelerators have been recognized in national and regional news media (cnbc and the st. louis business journal (horch, 2022; meinzer, 2022). the first two dei accelerators (held in 2020 and 2021) have given a non-dilutive capital injection of $50,000, funded through corporate and foundation gifts, to 11 founders, all of which are still in business and thriving. this dei accelerator model creates a win-win scenario since the underrepresented founders get critical resources, expertise, and entrepreneurial guidance for their businesses; investors get notoriety for promoting corporate social responsibility; and the university gets to leverage its faculty, staff, students, and vast network of alumni (lauer et al., 2022). third, the corporate model seems especially promising in advancing technological innovation within established companies. the first run of this was with ameren corporation, an american energy company interested in new ways to innovate. powered by umsl accelerate, the university of missouri system, and capital innovators (i.e., an accomplished private accelerator ranked consistently among the top 10 u.s. accelerators), this program leveraged university resources to better match the entrepreneurial needs of promising new ventures in ways that support the corporate investor’s long-term strategic interests. this is a valuable model that also creates a win-win scenario: the corporate investor gets a window into emerging technology, along with an equity stake; the founders get access to the resources and capabilities of a large firm and a university; and, once again, the university gets to creatively leverage its faculty, staff, students, and vast network of alumni to foster entrepreneurship and innovation. this corporate model, too, has attracted significant news coverage (bell, 2017; nicklaus, 2018). fourth, the alumni network was critical in building, funding, and administering the accelerator programs. umsl has the largest alumni network in the st. louis region and regularly hosts engagements that draw alumni back to campus. many alumni also sit on academic program boards and thus have direct input into academic programs and curricula. a distinguished alumnus founded umsl accelerate itself, and the dean who helped him was also a distinguished alumnus. in addition, the alumni network included corporate partners and subject matter experts eager to help with various aspects of the accelerators. thus, alumni networks can be a wonderful source of leadership and talent for university-led entrepreneurial efforts, and metropolitan universities have a great opportunity to leverage them to pursue their missions. this requires intentionality in forging, maintaining, and leveraging those university ties (haarman & green, 2023). original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26586 | july 2, 202 50 fifth, our experience has revealed the importance of having a champion to lead the entrepreneurial effort, a supportive administration, committed interdisciplinary faculty involvement, and ongoing input and support from external constituents (e.g., mentors, alumni, members of the broader entrepreneurial ecosystem, etc.). being a highly successful entrepreneur in the region for over 25 years, the founding director had the requisite skills and experience to launch accelerate successfully. from the beginning, he enlisted the support of the university administration, alumni, and business constituents. he also garnered the support of faculty members from across campus to aid in developing the educate pillar and to serve as subject matter experts to entrepreneurs in accelerate cohorts. sixth, we have encountered several challenges. for example, emerging and increased competition in the accelerator market means we face greater competition from other accelerators for the most promising startup companies. we also face challenges in securing sustained funding since we rely on the generous support of our corporate partners and donors. other challenges include the following: the university not having the best physical location within the ecosystem; competing staff resource and facility needs; declining enrollments and budgets; hiring faculty experts; achieving buy-in across the university and region; and developing outcome measures for students, faculty, and entrepreneur success. the covid-19 pandemic period was particularly challenging. however, umsl accelerate quickly transitioned to virtual and maintained continual operations throughout this period. finally, we agree with the work of byrd et al. (2017, p. 360-362), who offer five nuggets of wisdom for universities seeking to start their accelerator programs: 1) use other programs as templates and customize where needed to reduce startup time and cost. universities aiming to create an accelerator program do not need to recreate the wheel and can use other models, such as the program profiled in this article, to shorten the timeline for launch. in addition, those models can and should be adapted to meet the university-specific needs, opportunities, and overall objectives. 2) results will not be immediately or objectively measurable; team testimonials can help. the timeline for accurately measuring the success of entrepreneurial ventures is long. this makes it more difficult to demonstrate near-term economic development as the result of accelerator programming. many important results are intangibles, such as learning and reputational benefits, that are not easily quantifiable. however, team testimonials, post-participation surveys, and openly soliciting feedback from the team can help pinpoint the key sources of the accelerator’s value and provide useful feedback on what the accelerator is doing well and what areas it could improve on. in addition, data on student perception original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26586 | july 2, 202 51 and demographic breakdowns would help demonstrate that the program is providing an equitable, inclusive, and valuable experience for all change agents involved. 3) project funding is often largely a carrot, while the real value lies in the education and other resources provided. funding is an incentive for teams to apply but not the only or main source of the accelerator’s value. low-cost education programs, the creation of mentor networks, and connections to existing local resources all benefit the cohort companies. the accelerator can also help them fail fast and fine-tine their business models in order make critical, market-centric pivots. 4) a supportive ecosystem for startups is equally important as launching the startups. as mentioned throughout this article, urban universities have access to vast networks of institutional and community stakeholders. the benefit a universitypowered accelerator can bring to startups, therefore, is a function of the supportiveness of those networks, which should be strategically cultivated and leveraged in ways that foster a more vibrant entrepreneurial ecosystem. accelerator programs can bring together previously unconnected resources from those networks to offer tailored resource provisions to advance the startups’ interests. 5) challenges always emerge. look to other programs to exchange solutions and discuss how to collectively be more effective. we agree that transparency in sharing problems and solutions pertaining to various aspects of universitypowered accelerator functioning will help all urban universities better accomplish their accelerator goals. we encourage cumu members to join forces and collaborate to advance university-powered accelerator best practice. doing so will help each university more deliberately foster entrepreneurship, innovation, and economic development in their metropolitan communities. conclusion universities fuel the economy by being magnets for talent and are an essential element of the creative economy (florida, 2005). this article presents creative class theory as a useful lens to understand the urban and university-based advantages associated with accelerator functioning and performance. we theorize that accelerators that operate in such contexts benefit from a higher collision density, defined as the potential frequency of interdisciplinary interactions. in these settings, the diverse and dense network of creative actors is more likely to facilitate “creative collisions,” network participants purposefully and/or serendipitously interact to make new connections, spark new ideas, and/or grow new ventures. furthermore, we posit that amplifying these collective contributions and interactions is critical to startup success and the original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26586 | july 2, 202 52 overall vitality of the entrepreneurial ecosystem within the region. the higher frequency of “creative collisions” that characterizes a denser, metropolitan, and university-led network broadens the idea pool and elevates shared creativity, the wellspring of enduring economic growth. by profiling umsl accelerate, a first-of-its-kind accelerator powered by a public, metropolitan research university, we translate the 3ts of creative class theory into actionable design features that foster innovation and entrepreneurship. our key takeaway is that this novel form of organizing (i.e., the university “powered 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(2023). exploring place-based pedagogy as entrepreneurship accelerator. metropolitan universities, 34(2). https://doi.org/10.18060/26459 stl jobs plan (2022). stl2030 jobs plan: driving a decade of inclusive growth. https://greaterstlinc.com/sites/default/files/2022-11/2030-jobs-plan_2.pdf tekula, r., & jhamb, j. (2015). universities as intermediaries: impact investing and social entrepreneurship. metropolitan universities, 26(1), 35-52. https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/muj/article/download/20987/20414/ valerio, a., parton, b., and robb, a. (2014). entrepreneurship education and training programs around the world: dimensions for success. new york: world bank publications. https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/bitstream/handle/10986/18031/9781464802027.pd f https://doi.org/10.18060/26459 https://greaterstlinc.com/sites/default/files/2022-11/2030-jobs-plan_2.pdf https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/muj/article/download/20987/20414/ brandon ofem,1 joan m. phillips, 2 dan lauer, 3 and john c. palmer4 abstract introduction theoretical background creative class theory co-location tools illustrative case st. louis metro area umsl accelerate lessons learned conclusion references © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26401 | may 25, 2023 64 lessons from an urban teacher residency partnership nancy morris1 and leighann s. forbes2 1 assistant professor, school of education, gannon university, 2 associate professor, school of education, gannon university cite as: morris, n., & forbes, l.s. (2023). lessons from an urban teacher residency partnership. metropolitan universities, 34(4), 64-87. doi: 10.18060/26401 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract facing teacher shortages, urban teacher frustration, and a lack of bipoc representation in the teacher workforce, two urban institutions, a school district, and a university partnered to design, develop and implement a year-long clinical teacher residency program. throughout the pilot and one subsequent year, data was collected through observation and open-ended questionnaires as three resident-mentor pairs engaged with students in two of the district’s elementary schools. the technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge (tpack) development model (mishra & koehler, 2006) and moir’s (1990) phases of first-year teachers’ attitudes toward teaching were used to inform program design and examine the success of program implementation. while the program did not meet the goal of increasing bipoc representation, teachers skilled in urban education successfully entered the workforce. valuable lessons were learned about designing residency programs that foster a sense of belonging and optimize mentor and resident development. the authors conclude clinical teacher residency shows promise as an avenue for providing novice and experienced teachers responsive support as they engage with the complex process of teacher development. keywords: teacher residency, urban education, partnership, bipoc http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26401 | may 25, 2023 65 author note this pilot study was sponsored by the pennsylvania department of education innovative teacher and principal residency programs planning grant, 2019-2020. portions of this paper were presented at the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities learning & sharing virtual series, 2021. we have no conflicts of interest to disclose. introduction publications in the united states frequently sound an alarm about the increasing difficulty recruiting teachers and the dwindling representation of bipoc and other marginalized populations in the teacher workforce (shaw-amoah et al., 2020; turner, 2022; young et al., 2022). for example, a report released by the national center for education statistics in 2017 revealed this decline across the united states (mcfarland et al., 2017). the report also documents an enrollment decline in traditional undergraduate programs, an increase in graduate enrollments, and changes in the racial/ethnic composition of pk-12 public schools and the number of students eligible for special education services (mcfarland et al., 2017). in response, some call for investigations of racial and cultural differences as factors related to attracting and retaining teachers, especially bipoc teachers, to urban and underperforming schools (french, 2018; young et al., 2022). others call for teacher preparation programs to intentionally design systems for monitoring and supporting the development of teachers, particularly when they transition from teacher candidate to teacher of record (french, 2018, p. 15). gannon university is situated in the poorest zip code in the united states and has seen a decline in teacher preparation enrollment as well as representation of marginalized populations (forbes, 2019, 2021). erie’s public schools have also seen a mismatch between students and teachers (gould, 2019). to combat the situation, gannon university and erie’s public schools, two urban institutions with a long-standing partnership focused on improving educational opportunities for the community, agreed to investigate solutions that might mitigate shortage and representation issues. during their investigation, representatives from the partnership learned about the yearlong clinical teacher residency program (ctrp) model. they decided to examine this approach to improve the teacher pipeline. a team of representatives from each institution was assembled to research ctrps and, based on initial research, the team determined that a ctrp could offer many benefits to both the district and the university (heck & bacharach, 2015/2016). gannon university has consistently provided diverse certification programs requiring extensive field experience before student teaching. using this foundation, the team began envisioning a ctrp to support teacher candidates through a year-long experience connected to a single classroom instead of field placements at one or more sites, followed by a semester-long student teaching experience at another. this extended experience appeared effective in urban ctrps throughout the united states. research revealed that such a program would need to have a dual © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26401 | may 25, 2023 66 focus on the interests of both parties, the school district and the university, through targeted support for teacher candidates and their mentor teachers to realize the greatest benefit (young et al., 2022). during the project's research phase, research for action, a nonprofit education research organization, released a policy brief specific to the teacher pipeline in pennsylvania (stohr et al., 2018). the paper called for innovative strategies targeting the “leaky pipeline” in pennsylvania. according to carver-thomas and darling-hammond (2017), quality residency experiences are effective in urban districts with high teacher turnover and have been shown to increase teacher retention. the pennsylvania department of education (pde), aware of this research finding, also investigated strategies for recruiting and retaining teachers, particularly those who would increase bipoc representation in the teacher workforce. pde subsequently announced the innovative teacher and principal residency (itpr) grant program with a goal of developing a pipeline of professionals well prepared for employment in urban environments and representative of the bipoc population in urban centers across pennsylvania. the gannon university-erie’s public schools team formalized their commitment to designing a teacher residency program and submitted a proposal. after being awarded a $75,000 planning grant, the gannon university-erie's public schools clinical teacher residency program (gu-eps ctrp) was developed. due to the covid-19 pandemic, pde did not offer anticipated funds to implement the gu-eps ctrp. the team was, however, permitted to use funds remaining from the planning grant to support the pilot year of implementation. the gu-eps ctrp, targeting bipoc and other marginalized populations, was designed to support residents and their mentor teachers holistically through coursework, supervision, and professional development. the program was implemented in the 2020 fall semester alongside masking, social distancing, and remote instruction. during the implementation phase, the team sought to determine whether the program effectively supported residents and their mentor teachers. review of literature in 2019, the pennsylvania department of education (pde) opened the door for obtaining grant funds through the innovative teacher and principal residency grant program. the grant program called for creating innovative programs, like a clinical teacher residency, to increase the pipeline of well-prepared candidates and included an emphasis on diversifying the bipoc teacher workforce. the preexisting partnership between university and school district provided the foundation for a successful grant application, written collaboratively by representatives from both institutions, and provided a shared focus on increased enrollment in teacher preparation, increased retention in the teacher workforce, and diversification of representation in both institutions. the literature review revealed several important considerations for supporting teacher development over a year-long residency. as suggested by young and colleagues (2022), © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26401 | may 25, 2023 67 results of the literature review were shared with all members of the design and development teams to keep all members of the partnership well-informed. preexisting supports prior to developing the residency program, the team evaluated current resources to determine what support was already in place. this review discovered preexisting services and financial support for teacher candidates. first, students graduating from a high school in erie’s public schools and immediately enrolling in gannon’s teacher preparation program are eligible to receive the archbishop gannon scholars full tuition scholarship. this scholarship supports the entirety of an undergraduate’s academic program, defraying the cost of completing a four-year degree program. second, undergraduate students may be eligible for gannon’s diversity and service leadership award, a financial award for bipoc high school students planning to attend gannon full-time. in addition to financial support provided by the university, students who plan to enter the residency program are provided with assistance applying for the federal teach grant, which provides a tuition assistance program. faculty also provide teacher candidates with assistance obtaining fee waivers for certification tests. finally, teacher candidates can receive payment for substitute teaching outside of the university semester. these preexisting supports meet the pennsylvania educator diversity consortium (pedc) recommendation for reducing the cost for teacher preparation programs (2022) and allowed the partnership to quickly move forward with designing a year-long residency program culminating in a pennsylvania instructional i certificate. elements of effective clinical teacher residency programs the planning team identified three areas requiring a review of research to support program planning. these areas were broadly defined, and teams proceeded to develop components of the ctrp based on research recommendations. the three areas encompassed curriculum design, design of the mentoring component, and effective marketing strategies. unfortunately, the working group responsible for marketing the residency program was not able to fully develop a marketing plan. this was primarily due to the shift of marketing and communication to messaging about the covid-19 pandemic. curriculum design research reviewing the literature on ctrps, it was ascertained that residency programs intentionally provided traditional instruction paired with on-the-job practice to develop the teacher's knowledge base and ability to put theory into practice. literature guiding curriculum design was aligned with shulman’s (1987) description of the fundamental elements of the teacher knowledge base. he described the development of teacher expertise as dependent on © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26401 | may 25, 2023 68 development of both pedagogical knowledge (pk) and content knowledge (ck). a high level of teacher expertise results from expertise in pc, ck, and a unique form of knowledge called pedagogical content knowledge (pck). he noted that pk and ck develop independently and together to impact the development of pck. however, because the development of pk and ck does not necessarily occur simultaneously, pck develops unevenly. this framework has subsequently been used to guide teacher preparation curriculum and programming for in-service teachers, emphasizing the development of pk and ck (young et al., 2022). to assess teacher knowledge development, literature on teacher performance assessment was consulted. the review found that nearly a decade later, danielson (1996) enhanced shulman’s pck framework by developing criteria for observing and measuring the development of teacher knowledge. in pennsylvania, danielson’s framework for teaching (1996, 2008) was adapted to create a statewide tool for evaluating student teachers and residents. known as form 430 pennsylvania statewide evaluation form for student professional knowledge and practice (pde 430), this evaluation is used a minimum of two times during the culminating classroom experience to recognize the developmental nature of the multiple types of teacher knowledge (pennsylvania department of education, 2003). in addition, this form requires feedback from university supervisors at multiple points throughout clinical placements. institutions use the pde 430, or a modified version, to collect evaluation input from classroom cooperating teachers and, in some cases, self-assessment and reflection data from teacher candidates. an expansion of pck was later suggested by pierson (2001) and championed by mishra and koehler (2006). these authors suggested pck should be broadened to recognize technological knowledge (tk), a form of teacher knowledge focused on using technologies to meet instructional goals. according to these scholars, tk develops independently and alongside other elements of shulman’s model to form technological pedagogical content knowledge (tpack), a highly specialized type of knowledge. this type of teacher knowledge develops as teachers increase knowledge, skills, and attitudes toward instructional technology, teaching practices, and disciplinary content. mentoring design research while many studies of mentoring programs focus on professional development topics and delivery modes (feaster, 2020; slovik, 2012; stansbury & zimmerman, 2000; warsame & valles, 2018), varney (2009) suggested a humanistic approach to the task of mentoring is more important than mentoring topics or delivery modes. according to the literature, this approach is responsive and allows flexibility based on individual needs (varney, 2009; young et al., 2022). aguilar (2018) conducted a further study on emotional resilience in educators and similarly suggested the importance of flexible support structures in the development of educators. moir (1990, 1999) suggested novice teachers experience six phases over the course of their first year. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26401 | may 25, 2023 69 according to moir’s model, novice teachers experience emotional turmoil as they move from a high of anticipation in august and september to an emotional low in november and december and then back to an emotional high as the state of anticipation returns in may and june (paulsen et al., 2015). research has confirmed these stages are experienced by teacher candidates and student teachers as well as first-year teachers (paulsen et al., 2015; young et al., 2022). this initial review of literature suggested mentoring needs would change throughout the gueps ctrp year-long experience yet follow a predictable model, allowing for the identification of mentoring supports across the continuum of development (losser & leavitt, 2013; moir, 1990, 1999). a deeper dive into the literature revealed potential topics for use in the design of the mentoring component of the ctrp. according to several studies, residents and mentors would be equally well served by developing communication skills such as feedback (reilly, 2015/2016; schlacter, 2013; wiggins, 2012) and reflective practice (conderman et al., 2014; rieger et al., 2013). additional topics noted in research findings included growth mindset (mcminn, 2019), universal design for learning (delisio, 2018), and coteaching (conderman & bresnahan, 2007). studies of mentoring programs further advocated developing mentor-teacher coaching skills (knight, 2011; podsen & denmark, 2013; zugelder, 2019). this need was echoed by the school district strategic plan, which called for shared leadership (erie's public schools, 2018). although much of the literature is related to teacher knowledge and skill development, a smaller number of studies examined the mode of professional development delivery. several described the use of structured mentoring modules, provided either online or in person (clark & goebel, 2007; dooley et al., 2012; louisiana department of education, 2018; nyu steinhardt school of culture, education, and human development, 2019; ohio department of education, n.d). while the importance of professional development for mentors and residents in ctrps was suggested in multiple publications, professional development during teacher residency has not been thoroughly studied (duval county public schools, 2020; guha et al., 2016; dooley et al., 2012; torrez & krebs, 2019). theoretical framework as revealed through the literature review, teacher preparation programs must provide support as teacher candidates transition to teacher of record. this requires an extended mentoring period as new teachers develop their professional knowledge base and pass through the stages of emotional development typically associated with the first year of full-time teaching. in addition, it was expected that professional growth would occur for mentors, both overtly through professional development sessions and covertly through the expansion of their professional learning network to include gannon’s teacher educators as well as previously unfamiliar district administrators and other mentor teachers. french (2018). this approach fits well with erie’s © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26401 | may 25, 2023 70 public schools strategic plan, which includes a section focused on teacher development & efficacy (erie’s public schools, 2018). the theoretical framework used for this study guided development, implementation, and evaluation of the gu-eps ctrp. the framework acknowledged three elements: the developmental nature of the teacher knowledge base as described by the pck and tpack frameworks (mishra & koehler, 2006; shulman, 1987), the developmental trajectory described by the phases of first-year teachers’ attitudes toward teaching model (moir, 1990, 1999), and the need for a humanistic approach when supporting new teacher development (varney, 2009; young et al., 2022; aguilar, 2018). with these frameworks as guidance, the curriculum for the ctrp and professional development programming were designed. methodology context of the study located in pennsylvania’s fourth largest city, erie’s public schools serves approximately 11,500 students across the 15 public schools encompassed in the district (erie's public schools, n.d.). according to a jefferson educational society report for 2019-2020, the district has a mismatch between the percentage of bipoc teachers (4%) and bipoc students (61%) (gould, 2021). research for action reports that this situation mirrors the numbers across pennsylvania, where there are “109,102 students of color and 521,442 white students enrolled in pa schools that have zero teachers of color” (shaw-amoah et al., 2020, p. 11). many students in this urban setting are economically disadvantaged (74.3%), eligible for special education services (17.6%), or nonnative speakers of english (8.3%) (erie's public schools, 2018). the district has been a reliable partner to gannon’s teacher preparation programs and, on average, accepts 40 students for field and student teaching placements each year. with the publication of the 2018-2024 strategic plan for erie's public schools (eps), the district made a commitment to recruit high-quality teachers and increase bipoc representation in the teacher workforce. participants in the fall of 2020, two female undergraduate teacher candidates enrolled in the pilot year of the gu-eps ctrp. the candidates were traditional undergraduates, and each had completed three years of a pennsylvania instructional i certification program as dual majors in pk-4 early childhood education and pk-12 special education. the candidates were each assigned a mentor in one of the district elementary schools. the mentors were both female and possessed prior experience with urban elementary students. students in both elementary classrooms exhibited a variety of needs. after determining suitable placements and mentor pairs, the pilot year of the residency program commenced in the 2020-2021 academic year. grant funds provided each © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26401 | may 25, 2023 71 mentor with a $1,200 stipend, reimbursed the expenses of the university supervisor and defrayed the cost of a professional development coordinator. program design the planning team, composed of faculty, teacher candidates, and administrators from both entities contributed equally to the development of the gu-eps ctrp. the literature review was supplemented by the expertise of university faculty alongside the wisdom of practice among teacher candidates and eps teachers. higher education faculty and administration could use their skills in program design, assessment, and supervision, while school district personnel provided expertise in mentoring, induction, and successful practices in urban environments. in the spring 2020 semester, planning temporarily halted as the covid-19 pandemic shifted education to the various modes of remote instruction. upon resuming program design, the curriculum working group created residency programs leading to initial certification for undergraduate, postbaccalaureate, and graduate students. for undergraduate and post-baccalaureate students, preexisting educator preparation programs were revised to accommodate creating an urban education course. this course was added to support residents as they developed knowledge of urban learners and investigated effective pedagogical approaches. regardless of the type of residency program, each was designed to accommodate two developmental stages during which candidates experience the high-to-low emotional trajectory followed by the low-to-high emotional trajectory. in residency i, a fall semester experience, residents are enrolled in the urban education course while simultaneously engaged with their mentor teacher in authentic classroom experiences. residents are active in the classroom on a full-time basis (i.e., no less than 40 hours per week) as they observe and follow the lead of their mentor by planning, providing small group and individual interventions, coteaching, and grading during and outside of the school day. throughout residency i, residents explicitly work on developing general and content-specific pedagogy. throughout this experience, residents and mentors meet at least three days a week from august to december for communication, feedback, and planning for success. these meetings increase to five days a week during residency ii, which runs from january through april. during this phase, the resident is no longer enrolled in a concurrent course and, instead, is present at the school site and follows the mentor’s schedule, gradually taking on the mentor teacher’s responsibilities to become the lead teacher in the classroom. in addition, the resident attends a required evening seminar course without the mentor teacher during residency ii. this culminating experience facilitates the transition from resident to competent and caring professional educator. residency i and ii begin after mandatory orientation sessions in august and january. the mentor teacher attends the august session and emphasizes community building through education and engagement activities. the january session is attended by residents alone and emphasizes greater © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26401 | may 25, 2023 72 release of responsibilities and improvement in knowledge and skill assessments. upon completing the residency program, residents may perform as substitute teachers during may and june, and unless unanticipated circumstances arise, residents expect to receive an offer for fulltime employment from the district for the year following residency. the gu-eps ctrp has been designed to include continued mentoring and professional development throughout residency i and ii. in addition, the program calls for a continuation of support through the district induction program, known as the urban institute, required of all new teachers during their first years of employment. developing the teacher knowledge base the gu-eps ctrp, built on preexisting programs of study, built ck through content-specific coursework and pk through a combination of coursework and scaffolded field experiences. while some tk had been developed during the preparation program, it was expected that residents would learn district-specific technologies through hands-on experiences using the technologies. during residency i and ii, monthly professional development sessions were provided to further support development of the teacher knowledge base. throughout the yearlong residency, mentor teachers were provided with supplemental professional development to enhance their leadership and prevent teacher attrition. supporting emotional development the team designing the mentoring and professional development component of the gu-eps ctrp identified a coordinator of professional development activities to create a cohesive, shared experience. for mentor teachers, the experience included professional development in tandem with residents as well as individual sessions to strengthen their personal ability to support residents and adopt innovative approaches in professional practice. mentors were expected to devote a significant amount of time and energy to developing coaching skills, engaging with residents, and attending professional development sessions, often going beyond expectations for a traditional cooperating teacher. in addition, professional development topics were selected based on the developmental stages expected in the year-long residency (moir. 1990, 1999) and the work of losser and leavitt (2013), who further identified types of support appropriate for each stage. although the topics were selected, the professional development sessions addressed them “as needed,” based on input from the mentor teachers, residents, and university supervisor. the work of the mentor teachers called for engagement with residents during summer professional development sessions, where they began the critical process of relationship building. summer orientation served as a mechanism for establishing a shared understanding of roles, responsibilities, and timelines for mentors, residents, school administration, and university faculty. monthly professional development sessions provided an opportunity for ongoing support © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26401 | may 25, 2023 73 for both mentors and residents. although topics, strategies, and training dates were identified, the professional development program used a responsive approach, selecting topics from the menu of options depending on mentor and resident needs. these sessions consistently began with time for discussion of emotions and ended with reflection as a way of gauging emotional state. between monthly sessions, the school district included residents in both instructional and noninstructional duties of the teaching staff and welcomed them to in-service workshops and trainings throughout the year-long residency. in addition, mentors were provided with podsen and denmark’s (2013) coaching & mentoring first-year and student teachers to support development of coaching skills. specific chapters were selected for mentors to read and implement throughout the residency. likewise, residents were provided the beginning teacher’s field guide: embarking on your first years by boogren (2018) for use throughout the year under the guidance of the professional development coordinator. mentoring sessions, therefore, provided intentional attention to the experiences and emotions of residents and mentors as individuals and to resident-mentor pairs throughout the residency. data collection and analysis due to the small number of participants in the pilot study, data were collected from multiple sources to better understand the factors contributing to the success or failure of the residency program. qualitative data were collected through observations, open-ended questionnaires, interviews of residents and mentors, and narrative feedback from performance evaluations. quantitative data was collected in the form of licensure exam scores and performance ratings. this mixed methods approach allowed analysis of participants' experiences and achievements as they transitioned from teacher candidates to fully credentialled teachers. instruments used for collecting data are described in table 1, which includes when each instrument was deployed, the type of data collected and from whom, and the source of each instrument. data collection points aligned with the expected development stages, as moir (1990) outlined. the first collection point was in august, before the start of the gu-eps ctrp, and the last was in may, at the end of the program. additional data were collected by the professional development coordinator each month and by the university supervisor every two weeks. the university supervisor collected observational data through observations and the pde 430 form, which was used at the midpoint of residency i, the midpoint of residency ii, and the end of residency ii. the professional development coordinator used a worksheet from do2learn.com (2010) to prompt, recognize, and categorize emotional language used by mentors and residents at the beginning and end of each monthly mentoring session. text from all qualitative data sources was compiled, coded, and examined to identify themes about the gu-eps ctrp implementation. in addition, the school of education director provided the team with scores from each resident’s portfolio presentation and their licensure exam attempts. scores were used © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26401 | may 25, 2023 74 to assess resident success or failure with university and state-required assessments of the teacher knowledge base, not degrees of success. table 1. data collection instruments instrument deployment qualitative or quantitative type target source development plan pre-residency and transition from residency i to residency ii qualitative narrative response from residents resident boogren, 2018 supervisor observation every two weeks qualitative narrative response from university supervisor resident mentor supervisor record professional development coordinator observation once monthly qualitative narrative response from professional development coordinator resident mentor professional development coordinator record* pde 430 once in residency i twice in residency ii qualitative narrative entries from university supervisor resident pde, 2003 exit interview post-residency qualitative interview with school of education director resident gu school of education exit questionnaire post-residency qualitative narrative response to questionnaire from university supervisor mentor gu school of education portfolio score post-residency quantitative rating from school of resident gu school of education © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26401 | may 25, 2023 75 education director instrument deployment qualitative or quantitative type target source licensure exams post-residency quantitative achievement score from electronic assessment system resident pect pde 430 once in residency i twice in residency ii quantitative rating from university supervisor resident pde, 2003 the professional development coordinator’s response was based on a do2learn (2010) worksheet and losser and leavitt’s (2013) extension of the new teacher development model. findings resident development quantitative data from licensure exam scores revealed residents were proficient in the pck required of both early education and special education teachers in the state of pennsylvania as both residents passed the exams on their first attempt. this result is supported by ratings on the pde 430, which also indicated residents were proficient in pck. although tk is a component of the pde 430 form, it is not a stand-alone score which can be easily used to determine proficiency. instead, the technology sub-score on the exit portfolio was reviewed. this measure showed proficient performance by each resident in the domain of tk. these findings were supported by qualitative data collected from both residents and mentors. mentor development mentor development was assessed using only qualitative data. according to data analysis, mentors were less likely to explicitly identify growth in their professional knowledge, skills, and attitudes and unlikely to attribute growth to the professional development curriculum. neither mentor teacher reported advancement in their professional ck or pk. this was somewhat expected based on french’s (2018) finding that mentors may not be aware of their changes, even © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26401 | may 25, 2023 76 though changes have occurred. using data beyond the self-reports showed that mentors and residents frequently remarked upon pedagogical issues as they transitioned to remote learning and later to hybrid learning, all while under covid-19 restrictions. these discussions frequently resulted in problem-solving and adoption of new pedagogical strategies. similarly, although only one mentor teacher recognized a shift in tk, qualitative data analysis revealed that both demonstrated growth in tk as they shared strategies for using the zoom and schoology platforms for remote instruction. observations from monthly mentoring sessions documented continuous sharing of instruction and management tools and techniques as mentors and residents improved their tk. based on this comprehensive data analysis, professional development programming contributed to new pk and tk development among mentor teachers. implementation of differentiated supports data collection about implementation of the mentoring program took place throughout the yearlong experience and was assessed using qualitative means. data analysis examined the impact of professional development supports with the stages of new teacher development (moir, 1990). findings from the pilot year of the gu-eps ctrp revealed three primary themes. first, participants expressed a deep sense of belonging to the professional learning community created by the residency program. second, the year-long experience was highly valued by participants. third, participants benefitted from the ability to seek just-in-time support from the learning community during coursework and professional development. data analysis further revealed that the anticipated series of developmental stages was impacted by the school district’s decision to change instructional modes in the middle of the school year. mentors and residents began the semester by providing remote instruction to all learners. in this mode, participants went through the stages of anticipation, survival, and disillusionment. in the second half of the school year, the school district switched to hybrid instruction where some students were in person, and some were remote. due to this change in mode, participants moved through the three phases again, although more quickly, and then progressed to rejuvenation and reflection. under these unfamiliar modes of instruction, mentors experienced the development stages alongside residents as they collaborated to adopt these new forms of instruction under covid restrictions. sense of belonging by the end of the year-long experience, residents and mentors felt connected to their schools, the district, and the teaching profession. each participant, in their way, repeated the importance of residency in generating a sense of belonging. this sense of belonging was important as it directly influenced the “resident’s ability to engage in reflective practice and move from novice to expert in various domains of the teaching profession” (marshall et al., 2020, p. 1). mentors frequently expressed pride in the growth and development of the residents, not just as classroom teachers, © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26401 | may 25, 2023 77 but in their status as members of the school instructional team. one of the mentors recognized her impact on the developing resident stating, “the experience of having a teacher resident with me was very valuable. i enjoyed being a cooperating teacher and mentoring my resident through the year, watching her grow as a teacher.” interactions resulted in sharing procedures and strategies among participants and supported mentor's understanding of their importance within the district. likewise, residents grew in their connection to the district, although they recognized differences in school culture between buildings. participants expressed this sense of belonging to a professional learning community individually and together. social and emotional support appeared equally important to mentor teachers and residents. this theme echoes french’s (2018) finding that social interactions are critical in changing the knowledge and behaviors of both novices and their more experienced counterparts. value of year-long growth and development a second theme emerged around the value of the year-long residency experience. participants highly valued the extended experience in supporting the development of knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary to successfully navigate an entire school year. as one of the residents noted, “i really benefited greatly from being an integral part of the classroom from beginning to end of the school year.” another resident expanded on this thought, saying she “felt more prepared to enter the teaching profession than if i had completed a traditional student teaching experience.” the extended period of feedback and guidance provided extra time “on the job” for residents to learn the nuances of every moment of the school year and the many technologies used in the district and develop an understanding of the scope and sequence of the curriculum. these findings echo research findings about the benefits of increasing the length of student teaching to increase student-teacher preparedness levels (ronfeldt et al., 2020). mentors also interacted during professional development sessions and grew in their understanding of how district initiatives were implemented differently from building to building. throughout the year, they shared information about school-level implementation of initiatives and engaged in brainstorming to support each other and the residents. in this way, they engaged in curriculum leadership roles. although mentors didn’t always recognize their growth and development, mentor development was recognized in the themes extracted from the data. finally, while extended time did not create a successful program alone, the extended time frame was a significant support in the growth and development of all participants. responsive support the final theme to emerge was a desire among participants for responsive support. the gu-eps ctrp anticipated this need and was intentionally designed to be responsive to participants. seminar courses during both residency i and ii allowed time for discussion based on questions © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26401 | may 25, 2023 78 from residents. one of the residents specifically commented, “having the urban education seminar was also helpful to discuss issues we saw in the classroom.” she valued opportunities to connect her classroom experiences to the coursework topics. in addition, the residency program allotted time to participant concerns and “on-demand” needs during each monthly mentoring session. early in the ctrp, participants requested assistance navigating zoom and schoology platforms, creating structure within the remote environment, and monitoring student attendance. as the school year progressed, participants transitioned to seeking solutions about challenges faced in the technology platforms, innovative ways to deliver instruction, and strategies for managing student engagement and groupings. near the end of the residency, discussions moved away from technologies and centered on district-wide programs for math and reading and implementation in hybrid environments. additionally, feedback to the university, the school site and district, the residency supervisor, and the professional development coordinator, throughout the residency period, ensured the process was continually improving and responsive to the voices of participants and stakeholders. using evaluative thinking and reflection throughout the pilot year of residency was one of the hallmarks of its success (earl & timperley, 2015). monitoring feedback continuously allowed program leaders to recognize issues early on and quickly find solutions. this ability to solve problems was critical during the implementation of this new and innovative program and prevented frustration, failure, and potentially unsuccessful subsequent years. lessons learned gannon university and erie’s public schools agreed to investigate a clinical teacher residency program to mitigate teacher shortage and representation issues while increasing enrollment, diversity, and persistence among teacher candidates enrolled in gannon’s teacher preparation programs. results showed the gu-eps ctrp not only strengthened the teacher knowledge base in residents and mentors, it also promoted belonging and persistence through the difficult stages of the new teacher development model. although a small number of residents were involved in the program, the school district immediately offered employment to each upon completion of the residency. employment was first offered as substitute teaching positions prior to official certification. subsequently, both residents were offered full-time, permanent positions with erie’s public schools. while one of the residents accepted the offer, the other returned to her hometown for a position in an urban classroom. developing the teacher knowledge base the growth and development of participants can best be described as the holistic development of technological pedagogical and content knowledge (tpack) as participants developed integrated knowledge of content, pedagogy, and technology to effectively provide instruction © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26401 | may 25, 2023 79 that met district expectations. the shift in tk due to covid-19 contributed to this outcome as mentor expertise declined while learning new technologies and instructional approaches. although ck remained intact, mentors engaged in professional development, research, discussion, and trial-and-error with tk and pk throughout the year. they participated in the professional learning community provided by the residency and developed new knowledge alongside the residents. residents, themselves, developed all areas of the teacher knowledge base. although mentors did not recognize their growth, their teaching repertoire increased as they adopted new teaching strategies demonstrated by residents and adopted them based on strategies demonstrated in professional development and residents. professional development sessions were customized to meet the needs of residents and mentors. sessions impacted development, especially in areas of technology and pedagogy. the monthly sessions supported growth while other teachers grew frustrated, stagnated, and burned out as they, too, experienced a gap in technology and pedagogy without additional support. the pandemic similarly impacted resident development. however, the social support and guidance provided by the university supervisor and professional development coordinator allowed them to take risks more easily than their mentors, likely due to preexisting trust. in addition, their ability to quickly establish themselves as active learning community members accelerated rapport with the mentor teachers. in this way, the residency reduced residents’ anxiety in the role of teacher and strengthened their confidence in pursuing a career in an urban setting. role distinction prior studies suggest resident success relies upon mentor effectiveness, relationship building, and social interactions (goldhaber et al., 2018; young et al., 2022). however, at the height of the covid-19 pandemic, the residency program could not implement the protocol for creating a pool of mentor applicants who could be interviewed, observed, and ranked in these areas. in lieu of the formal application procedure, mentors were strategically and specifically chosen by the assistant superintendent and director of the school of education. the selection was based on years of experience, teacher effectiveness ratings, sustained excellence in classroom performance, and prior performance as cooperating teachers. thus, they were assigned residents in the same manner that cooperating teachers are assigned, student teachers. the roles and responsibilities of residents, mentors, administrators, supervisors, and the professional development coordinator were outlined in the gu-eps clinical teacher residency handbook. this document was designed to provide a shared understanding of the residency program. it was reviewed with participants during the summer pre-residency orientation. according to the document, mentors were selected based on an application, interview, and observation procedure. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26401 | may 25, 2023 80 the change in mentor selection may have impacted the mentor's understanding of the role as distinctly different from that of cooperating teacher. mentors viewed the shared professional development requirements as unnecessary for them. they continued to refer to residents as student teachers, even though mentors were assigned for a full year and compensated a greater amount than cooperating teachers. this suggests that additional attention to communicating the role of a mentor and how it differs from a cooperating teacher should be shared early on and reinforced throughout the residency. understanding the mentor’s role, responsibilities, and expected development may help future mentors recognize and value their progress as leaders. supporting stages of development the emotional check-in conducted at the beginning and end of each professional development session allowed for self-assessment of needs and barriers to success. it also prompted discussion among mentors and residents as they grappled with each stage of development and the emotional, instructional, and logistical needs encountered (losser & leavitt, 2013). it also allowed the professional development coordinator to be responsive and devote a portion of the mentoring session to meeting emerging needs each month. the activity helped build a safe space for sharing and fostered a sense of belonging among participants. this level of interaction and engagement created a professional learning community. according to french (2018), behavioral changes are more likely to occur during the survival and disillusionment stages. perception of their preparedness for moving into roles as a teacher of record. the current study suggests a sense of belonging was critical to resident persistence and supported change during difficult times. it also led to less time spent in the survival and disillusionment stages when the mode of instruction changed in the residency ii semester. this suggests the importance of the learning community and sense of belonging prior to challenging times. it also suggests practice prior to difficult times may provide important rehearsal time. mode switching due to the unusual conditions created by pandemic teaching restrictions, participants experienced repeated changes in instructional delivery mode or “mode switching.” the school district adopted remote instruction at the beginning of the school year. the timeframe for this mode switch provided little time for training either residents or mentors. midway through the year, the district switched to a hybrid mode of instruction, again with little or no training. mode switching resulted in mentors becoming learners alongside residents as their tpack mastery declined even though they maintained ck expertise. thus, mentors needed assistance with technology and remote instruction strategies throughout the year. as a result of mode switching, both mentors experienced a roller coaster of emotions alongside residents and took equal advantage of the support provided by the ctrp. although pandemic-induced mode switching was an obstacle, it provided an opportunity for residents to personally experience remote © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26401 | may 25, 2023 81 instruction in the role of teacher and develop tpack expertise in a way not otherwise possible. in addition, because they experienced survival and disillusionment twice, their development may be enhanced compared to residencies completed during non-pandemic conditions. emerging needs the professional development program, created with the new teacher development stages in mind, included pre-determined, research-based topics and activities to meet the anticipated needs of participants at each stage. to maintain a responsive program, time was also scheduled to discuss emerging needs. in an interesting twist, however, the pandemic unexpectedly influenced the needs associated with the developmental stages. the pandemic produced a greater need for self-directed conversations, allowing less time for pre-planned developmental activities. in the end, sessions included the anticipated topics, although with less depth, and provided more time for technology support and opportunities to brainstorm about challenges. in addition, with greater needs for development in areas not previously anticipated, residents and mentors moved from the excited anticipation stage to survival mode and on to disillusionment more quickly than anticipated (moir, 1990, 1999). residency i became an exercise in taking risks, getting comfortable tackling new challenges, and “failing forward” (maxwell, 2007). both mentors and residents spent a great deal of time in disillusionment as they grappled with the rapid learning necessitated during pandemic teaching. the responsive approach to development needs successfully supported the persistence of residents and mentors during the repeated disillusionment stages produced by mode switching. responsive became the operative word for the pilot year of residency, as it did for all educators during the initial year of covid-19 instruction. participants in the pilot year had to pivot, be flexible, and accept change. as mentors and residents became acclimated to their “new normal,” residents assumed greater responsibility than originally planned as they provided coaching in remote instruction to their mentors and building colleagues. in many ways, the emerging needs produced by the pandemic allowed residents to mentor their mentors. this was another unanticipated opportunity provided by the covid-19 pandemic. late in residency ii, residents finally entered the rejuvenation stage near the end of the residency year. during this stage, the confidence developed through their pandemic experiences allowed them to anticipate their first teaching positions excitedly. conclusion residents participating in the pilot year of the ctrp reaffirmed their commitment to urban school environments. the residency program strengthened preparation, promoted a sense of belonging, and provided opportunities for growth and development for both the mentors and residents. residents felt a sense of community and belonging in their schools and became © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26401 | may 25, 2023 82 invested members of their teams, forming strong relationships with their mentors. they used extensive feedback in the development of their teacher identities and expertise. although the residency contributed to the increased quality of teachers in urban schools, representation remains an issue. when reviewing the gu-eps ctrp against the pennsylvania educator diversity consortium 2022-23 policy agenda targets (pennsylvania educator diversity consortium, 2022), however, gannon appears slightly ahead of other institutions in the collaborative development of a clinical teacher residency program meant to engage and sustain minoritized populations. based on the success of this partnership, the team is further considering the development of internship and apprentice programs as additional pathways to the profession. these pathways would allow interns and apprentices to “earn while they learn” and can use many of the same structures and supports developed for the residency program. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26401 | may 25, 2023 83 references aguilar, e. 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effective clinical teacher residency programs curriculum design research mentoring design research theoretical framework methodology context of the study participants program design developing the teacher knowledge base supporting emotional development data collection and analysis findings resident development mentor development implementation of differentiated supports sense of belonging value of year-long growth and development responsive support lessons learned developing the teacher knowledge base role distinction supporting stages of development mode switching emerging needs conclusion references © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | 10.18060/26112 | february 17, 2023 1 original research the development of the community impact feedback questionnaire for service-learning: a delphi study ka hing lau1 and robin stanley snell2 1 assistant manager, general education office, center for innovative service-learning, hong kong baptist university, 2 visiting professor, department of management, hang seng university of hong kong cite as: lau, k.h., & snell, r.s. (2023). the development of the community impact feedback questionnaire for service-learning: a delphi study. metropolitan universities, 34(1), 1-27. doi: 10.18060/26112 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract community impacts of service-learning have gone largely unexamined by researchers, partly because of the absence of a well-established feedback tool. this study is a step toward filling this research gap by developing and validating the community impact feedback questionnaire (cifq) as a means for collecting feedback from partner organization representatives (pors) on the impacts of particular service-learning projects on community partner organizations (cpos) and, where applicable, end-beneficiaries. the cifq contains items about three categories of impact on cpos, corresponding to a conceptual model developed by snell & lau (2022). these are: a) achieving project goals to further the cpo’s mission; b) augmenting resources of the cpo; and c) acquiring knowledge, insights, ideas, and techniques. there are also items on impacts for end-beneficiaries, overall impact evaluations, and future engagement. the cifq was validated with the delphi method by inviting 16 practitioner panelists, mainly from cpos, with prior involvement in service-learning. three delphi survey rounds helped refine the cifq as a tool for capturing the community impacts on cpos and end beneficiaries arising from servicelearning. possible reasons for controversy and non-retention are discussed. keywords: service-learning, community impact, questionnaire development, community partner organization (cpos), the delphi method http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26112 | february 17, 2023 2 introduction service-learning is an experiential pedagogy that can greatly impact the community through the collaboration between different stakeholders, including students, instructors, educational institutions, community partner organizations (cpos), and community members (wade, 1997). given that service-learning is “a form of experiential education in which students engage in activities that address human and community needs together with structured opportunities intentionally designed to promote student learning and development” (jacoby, 1996, p. 5), its success also relies on the involvement of the community and cpos. while a large body of research studies has accumulated to document the student developmental outcomes of servicelearning (see snell & lau, 2020), investigating its community impact remains limited (cruz & giles, 2000; farahmandpour & shodjaee-zrudlo, 2015; sandy & holland, 2006). this phenomenon can be attributed to several factors, including inattention among academia, diversity of and lack of consensus about definitions of community impact, operational difficulties regarding data collection, and the multiplicity of confounding variables. yet, calls for assessing community impacts have persisted over decades (see snell & lau, 2022). previous models of community impact arising from service-learning other authors have proposed conceptual frameworks for assessing community impacts arising from service learning. we shall discuss three of them. the first was developed by driscoll et al. (1996), which assesses community impact in relation to a number of factors. these include the university-cpo partnership and interaction; community involvement, social and economic benefits created; and capacity advancement and new insights arising for cpos. the factors can be assessed through interviews, focus groups, and surveys. second, clarke (2003) recommended a “3-i” model for evaluating community impact based on utilization-focused evaluation and a theory of change principles. the three is include initiators (usually universities and cpos), initiative (the community service), and impacts (created by the service). clarke (2003) proposed that impacts should be examined from both the cpos and the university’s (i.e., the initiators) perspectives and that salient indicators should include value and resources obtained, as well as the degree of community satisfaction. clarke (2003) also recommended collecting data from multiple stakeholders using a mosaic of methods, including interviews, focus groups, on-site observation, data reviews, and surveys. third, gelmon (2003) proposed a list of indicators for capturing community impacts. the chief ones comprised: social and economic benefits created; capacity advancement for the organization; community-university partnership and interaction, and satisfaction with that partnership. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26112 | february 17, 2023 3 based on a review of those prior frameworks, snell & lau (2022) proposed a conceptual framework for accommodating the perspectives of cpos and end-beneficiaries (the latter comprising those recipients receiving direct service from students and the cpo via a servicelearning project) in assessing the impacts of service-learning on the community. from the cpo’s perspective, three main types of community impacts can be summarized from the previous literature. these comprise: a) increased capacity, such as more resources available for service; b) furtherance of organizational goals and mission; and c) knowledge and insights gained. from the end beneficiary’s perspective, community impacts are conceptualized as the extent to which a service-learning project can fulfil various needs. such fulfilment will eventually lead to the enhancement of the quality of life for end-beneficiaries. snell & lau (2022) also envisaged that in terms of community impact there could be indirect effects for end-beneficiaries through the agency of the cpo. a qualitative study was conducted by lau et al. (2021) to collect accounts from partner organization representatives (pors) from various cpos about the community impacts that they had observed arising from service-learning projects in which they had previously collaborated. the findings largely confirmed snell & lau’s (2022) conceptual framework, which construed that positive community impacts fell into three categories, comprising: a) achieving project goals to further the cpo’s mission; b) augmenting the resources of the cpo; and c) gaining knowledge, insights, ideas, and techniques. these broadly matched the three types of impact for the cpo within the framework of snell and lau (2022). furthermore, the pors in the study by lau et al. (2021) also indicated the possibility that service-learning could indirectly impact community members from service improvements by the cpo serving them. moreover, the study revealed that service-learning might have adverse impacts on cpos and end-beneficiaries, arising if the intended project outcomes are compromised or absent if the extra workload is created for cpos with little perceived benefit, and/or if cpos’ manpower and resources are considered wasted. review of previous instruments despite there being plenty of measurement scales assessing satisfaction levels from the community’s or service client’s perspective in the social welfare area and community research (see fraser & wu, 2016; ohmer et al., 2019), similar tools for the service-learning context are scarce (shek et al., 2020). there are some sample survey and questionnaire items provided by previous researchers (e.g., clarke, 2003; gelmon et al., 2001) and some survey questions for inhouse evaluation (e.g., barrientos, 2010). however, we have thus far only been able to identify one complete tool, namely the community impact scale (cis) by srinivas et al. (2015). the cis aims to systematically assess community impacts arising from service-learning from the cpo’s perspective, based on rigorous scale development and validation. it measures service-learning impacts for cpos by means of 46 items under eight major domains, namely: overall experience; © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26112 | february 17, 2023 4 social capital; skills and competencies; motivations and commitments; personal growth and selfconcept; knowledge; organizational operations (including fundraising); and organizational resources. initial themes within the cis were based on content analysis of in-depth interviews with members of eight pors of cpos. this was followed by scale validation with cronbach’s alpha values obtained from a sample of members of around 30 pors. one potential limitation of the cis is that although its items were systematically generated and validated, it was developed based on responses from cpos partnering with a single university in the u.s., which may limit its applicability to other service-learning environments. a second limitation is that most of its 46 items are about the benefits specifically for the cpo’s por, while less than ten are about benefits for the cpo as a whole and may not capture a comprehensive picture of the latter. third, the 46-item scale may be lengthy, particularly when administrated alongside other measures, and respondents may find it difficult to complete the whole scale. fourth, we consider that the cis does not appear to tap into the experiences of the end beneficiaries of service-learning. snell & lau (2022) argued that pors are likely to have insights into their clients' experiences, i.e., end-beneficiaries in service-learning, and that, therefore, a feedback tool about community impacts could seek to obtain such information via the cpo as a proxy. considering the above factors, we argue that a relatively concise feedback tool was needed to obtain information from cpos about the community impacts of servicelearning. the current study the current study sought to establish an instrument based on the conceptual framework of snell & lau (2022) and the findings of lau et al. (2021). the resulting instrument is called the community impact feedback questionnaire (cifq), which, although mainly designed to engage the cpo’s perspective, also seeks to capture information about impacts for end-beneficiaries. in the remainder of this article, we shall report how the cifq was developed and validated using the delphi method. methods the proposed instrument the initially proposed version of the cifq, which was subsequently refined through the research reported in the findings section, consisted of two sections. the first section contained 24 items designed to be rated by pors on behalf of their cpos on a 10-point likert scale. the first five items assessed the extent to which the service-learning project has helped to achieve project goals to further the cpo’s mission. the following six items assessed the extent to which the service-learning project has augmented the resources of the cpo. the following five items asked © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26112 | february 17, 2023 5 about the cpo's acquisition of knowledge, insights, ideas, and techniques through the servicelearning project. there were then two items about the perceived impacts of the service-learning project on end-beneficiaries. the last six rated items asked for overall assessments, including the inclination to continue collaboration and to recommend collaboration in service-learning to others. the first 18 items in section one were designed to be rated from 1 “very little” through 5/6 with an optional mid-way label of “to some extent” to 10 “very much.” the last six items in section one were designed to be rated from 1 “strongly disagree” to 10 “strongly agree.” the second section of the cifq invited the por to write down any other comments, if any, as auxiliary data to researchers. the delphi method the current study aimed to validate the cifq by adopting the delphi method. the delphi method has been used in many disciplines, especially for topics with limited prior research and lack of clarity or where there has been controversy and debate. it involves collating ideas generated by a knowledgeable participant pool (known as “panelists”) and typically involves two to three rounds of instrument completion and idea consolidation (iqbal & pipon-young, 2009). the delphi method has been commonly employed to build consensus, articulate frameworks, and develop measurement scales. it has been used in many disciplines, including medical research, business studies, public opinion surveys, and information technology (e.g., hepworth & rowe, 2017; mengual-andrés et al., 2016; skulmoski et al., 2007; okoli & pawlowski, 2004). it has also been employed in prior research studies on service-learning. for example, shumer (1993) conducted a delphi study to portray and understand the nature of service-learning by inviting a group of experts, including practitioners and researchers, to describe existing servicelearning models and the characteristics differentiating service-learning from other types of programs. it appears that the delphi method has not previously been used for instrument development in service-learning. service-learning in hong kong since the cifq development and validation were conducted in the hong kong service-learning context, we shall, therefore, briefly introduce the current situation of hong kong servicelearning [see also snell and lau (2020) and lau & snell (2021)]. hong kong can be regarded as a pioneer of service-learning in asia, where it is a relatively new pedagogy compared to the u.s., where service-learning originated. since its introduction to hong kong at the dawn of the 21st century, service-learning has been substantially developed over the last two decades. nowadays, all hong kong public universities, as well as some private universities, have adopted servicelearning. some universities in hong kong have even made service-learning mandatory as an undergraduate graduation requirement. while retaining the essential pedagogical aspects of its western counterpart, hong kong service-learning has evolved several local emphases. first, it © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26112 | february 17, 2023 6 tends to be more oriented toward vocational preparation. second, greatly influenced by confucianism, it tends to seek to enhance students’ sense of moral values and social responsibility rather than deepening their engagement in participatory democracy and furtherance of social justice, which are major emphases in the west, especially the u.s. third, there tends to be less emphasis on student self-initiation and choice-making, and more emphasis on operating within frameworks set up by instructors and cpos, reflecting cultural assumptions about the need for top-down classroom management. procedure a delphi method comprising three rounds was employed for the current study. in the first round, we sought four types of responses from 16 practitioner panellists (p.p.s). to start the process, we sent an online survey invitation email to each p.p. for data collection. apart from the online survey link, the email also contained an overview of the current study and the expected tasks for the p.p.s. the online survey directed the p.p.s who accepted the invitation to evaluate the cifq. first, we asked them to answer a survey about the perceived relevance to community stakeholders of the proposed items for the cifq on a rating scale with four options (not relevant at all, somewhat irrelevant, somewhat relevant, very relevant). second, we asked the p.p.s for additional comments about each proposed item, such as suggested rewordings. third, we invited them to suggest new items. fourth, we asked them to rate on a scale with four options (strongly disagree, somewhat disagree, somewhat agree, strongly agree) as to whether we should retain an open-ended section at the end of the tool to invite respondents to express additional opinions. after collecting the first-round responses from the p.p.s, we met with another panel, which we shall refer to as the questionnaire development panel (qdp). the qdp comprised a group of experienced service-learning practitioners and researchers employed by four local universities (lingnan university, hong kong baptist university, the hong kong polytechnic university, and the education university of hong kong). the qdp helped design the proposed cifq, analyze the data from the first round of the delphi study, and revise it based on the responses of the p.p.s. the revisions to the cifq involved removing items deemed irrelevant or redundant, revising item wordings, and adding new items. standards for item retention and removal were explicitly set out in advance and are described later. the modified cifq was then presented to the p.p.s in the second round of the delphi study, adopting a similar approach in the first round. the data collected from the second round were then discussed by the qdp, who helped to make any further modifications deemed appropriate. in cases where an item remained controversial among the p.p.s in the second round, the qdp arrived at its judgment on whether to keep, drop, or modify it, resulting in a revised version of the cifq. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26112 | february 17, 2023 7 three items, which remained controversial after the second round and had been modified by the qdp, were presented to the p.p.s in a third supplementary round of the delphi study. membership of the practitioner panel since the delphi method strongly relies on the knowledge and judgment of the participants, i.e., the panelists, the quality of their recruitment process is pivotal to its success (iqbal & piponyoung, 2009). the recruitment of the p.p.s was conducted in accordance with four criteria recommended by adler and ziglio (1996). in our study, these criteria were applied as a) having knowledge of and experience with service-learning as a por, service-learning instructor, or service-learning coordinator; b) being willing to participate; c) sufficiently available to participate; and d) being able to communicate effectively in the language medium of the study, which was english. altogether, 16 p.p.s were recruited, slightly outside the range of 10 and 15 recommended by turoff (2002). the 16 p.p.s were obtained through nominations by the qdp from among the pors of cpos that had long collaboration history with the qdp’s universities in service-learning. they were from various organizations, including educational institutions, non-profit organizations, and social enterprises, with services covering elderly care, youth service, education, and training (see table 1). we believe they represented the cpos typically partnering in hong kong-based service-learning. table 1. the list of panelists and their profile code type of organization type of main service position role in service learning gender nominated by* c1 university tertiary education associate professor service-learning instructor female lu c2 cpo ngo: social service chief supervisor former servicelearning instructor, community partner female lu c3 cpo ngo: elderly service manager former servicelearning coordinator, community partner female lu c4 cpo social enterprise in start-up incubation and job matching impact catalyst community partner male lu c5 cpo ngo: youth service person in charge community partner male lu © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26112 | february 17, 2023 8 c6 cpo ngo: inclusive education person in charge community partner male hkbu c7 cpo ngo: hunger & poverty relief person in charge community partner male hkbu c8 cpo elderly service person in charge community partner male hkbu c9 cpo primary education teacher community partner male hkpu c10 university tertiary education teaching fellow service-learning instructor female hkpu c11 cpo primary education teacher community partner female hkpu c12 university tertiary education associate professor service-learning instructor female hkpu c13 cpo children & youth service office-in-charge community partner male eduhk c14 cpo children service office-in-charge community partner male eduhk c15 cpo youth service unit-in-charge community partner male eduhk c16 cpo youth service youth work officer community partner male eduhk note: lu: lingnan university; hkbu: hong kong baptist university; hkpu: the hong kong polytechnic university; eduhk: the education university of hong kong standards for item retention and removal consensus for retention was defined as there is 70% or more of the p.p.s rating an item as “relevant” (choosing the option of “somewhat relevant” or “very relevant”) or, in the case of the open-ended section of the proposed cifq consensus for retention was defined as there is 70% or more of the p.p.s choosing the option of “somewhat agree” or “strongly agree.” consensus for removal was defined as there is 70% or more of the p.p.s rating an item as “not relevant” (options of “somewhat irrelevant” and “not relevant at all”) or similar patterns for the level of agreement options as mentioned above. non-consensus was deemed to have occurred in cases where other scoring patterns were obtained from the p.p.s. where items remained in the category of non-consensus after the two rounds, the qdp arrived at decisions to either keep or remove items, taking into consideration the comments and suggestions from the p.p.s as well as the patterns of their ratings. results © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26112 | february 17, 2023 9 the results of the first round all 16 p.p.s responded to the first round of the delphi survey. table 2 displays the results in terms of relevancy rates (options of “somewhat relevant” and “very relevant”; or “somewhat agree” and “strongly agree”) derived from the p.p.s’ responses to each item in the cifq. in the first round, 15 of 24 proposed items achieved a relevancy rate above 70%, indicating that consensus for retention was achieved for those items. these items comprised: four out of five in the category of “achieving project goals to further the cpo’s mission,” two out of six in the category of “augmenting resources of the cpo,” three out of five in the category of “acquiring knowledge, insights, ideas and techniques,” both items in the category of “impact on the endbeneficiaries,” and four out of six in the category of “overall assessment.” original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | 10.18060/26112 | february 17, 2023 10 table 2. the results of the three rounds of the delphi survey round 1 (n = 16) round 2 (n = 15) round 3 (n=13) no. draft item relevancy rate/ level of agreement answer dist* revised item relevancy rate/ level of agreement answer dist* finalized item relevancy rate/ level of agreement answer dist* p01 the service-learning project furthered my organization's mission 94% nr(0); si(1); sr(8); vr(7) the service-learning project advanced my organization's mission 93% nr(1); si(0); sr(12); vr(2) no change n/a n/a p02 the service-learning project provided tangible outputs (e.g. books, curriculum, new service, etc.) to help my organization 88% nr(1); si(1); sr(8); vr(6) the service-learning project provided helpful outputs (e.g., books, curriculum, new service, etc.) for my organization 100% nr(0); si(0); sr(7); vr(8) no change n/a n/a p03 the service-learning project enhanced the service quality of my organization 88% nr(1); si(1); sr(10); vr(4) no change 93% nr(0); si(1); sr(10); vr(4) no change n/a n/a p04 the service-learning project promoted the image of my organization 81% nr(0); si(3); sr(6); vr(7) the service-learning project helped promote the image of my organization 100% nr(0); si(0); sr(7); vr(8) no change n/a n/a p05 the service-learning project increased the 69% nr(0); si(5); no change 73% nr(1); si(3); the service-learning project enabled my n/a n/a © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26112 | february 17, 2023 11 round 1 (n = 16) round 2 (n = 15) round 3 (n=13) no. draft item relevancy rate/ level of agreement answer dist* revised item relevancy rate/ level of agreement answer dist* finalized item relevancy rate/ level of agreement answer dist* number of clients that my organization could serve sr(6); vr(5) sr(8); vr(3) organization to serve more clients p06 the service-learning project obtained financial resources for my organization 50% nr(5); si(3); sr(7); vr(1) the service-learning project provided extra financial resources for my organization 53% nr(2); si(5); sr(7); vr(1) the service-learning project created economic benefits (e.g., savings, extra revenue) for my organization 77% nr(0); si(3); sr(6); vr(4) p07 the service-learning project provided extra manpower for my organization 75% nr(2); si(2); sr(5); vr(7) the service-learning project provided extra human resources for my organization 100% nr(0); si(0); sr(11); vr(4) no change n/a n/a p08 the service-learning project reduced the workload of regular employees or volunteers in my organization 50% nr(2); si(6); sr(3); vr(5) the service-learning project increased the workload of employees in my organization 80% nr(0); si(3); sr(10); vr(2) the service-learning project was worth the effort that my organization put into it 92% nr(0); si(1); sr(8); vr(4) p09 the service-learning project helped create a positive work environment 63% nr(2); si(4); sr(5); vr(5) the service-learning project helped create a positive work culture in my organization 93% nr(1); si(0); sr(12); vr(2) the service-learning project helped promote a positive work culture in my organization n/a n/a © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26112 | february 17, 2023 12 round 1 (n = 16) round 2 (n = 15) round 3 (n=13) no. draft item relevancy rate/ level of agreement answer dist* revised item relevancy rate/ level of agreement answer dist* finalized item relevancy rate/ level of agreement answer dist* p10 the service-learning project served as a channel for recruiting talent for my organization 50% nr(2); si(6); sr(4); vr(4) no change 60% nr(4); si(2); sr(6); vr(3) dropped n/a n/a p11 the service-learning project expanded my organization's network 94% nr(0); si(1); sr(8); vr(7) no change 93% nr(0); si(1); sr(5); vr(9) no change n/a n/a p12 the service-learning project inspired us with new ideas and insights 100% nr(0); si(0); sr(8); vr(8) the service-learning project inspired us with new ideas, insights and/or strategies 93% nr(0); si(1); sr(5); vr(9) no change n/a n/a p13 the service-learning project challenged the usual work practices in my organization 63% nr(2); si(4); sr(8); vr(2) the service-learning project stimulated us to review the usual work practices in my organization 100% nr(0); si(0); sr(11); vr(4) the service-learning project stimulated my organization to review our usual work practices n/a n/a p14 the service-learning project transferred new knowledge from university to my organization 94% nr(0); si(1); sr(7); vr(8) no change 100% nr(0); si(0); sr(9); vr(6) no change n/a n/a © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26112 | february 17, 2023 13 round 1 (n = 16) round 2 (n = 15) round 3 (n=13) no. draft item relevancy rate/ level of agreement answer dist* revised item relevancy rate/ level of agreement answer dist* finalized item relevancy rate/ level of agreement answer dist* p15 the service-learning project enabled us to gain new experience 100% nr(0); si(0); sr(5); vr(11) no change 100% nr(0); si(0); sr(6); vr(9) no change n/a n/a p16 the service-learning project enhanced our work techniques 63% nr(0); si(6); sr(9); vr(1) the service-learning project helped enhance our work techniques 80% nr(0); si(3); sr(10); vr(2) no change n/a n/a b01 overall, the servicelearning project brought benefits to the recipients of the service 100% nr(0); si(0); sr(5); vr(11) overall, the servicelearning project brought benefits to service recipients 100% nr(0); si(0); sr(3); vr(12) no change n/a n/a b02 overall, the servicelearning project improved the quality of life of the recipients of the service 100% nr(0); si(0); sr(10); vr(6) overall, the servicelearning project improved the wellbeing of servicerecipients 100% nr(0); si(0); sr(6); vr(9) no change n/a n/a o0 1 overall, the servicelearning project was a waste of time for my organization 25% nr(10) ; si(2); sr(1); vr(3) overall, the servicelearning project was not useful for my organization 40% nr(5); si(4); sr(2); vr(4) dropped, and created in the open-ended section the question: "what changes could be made, if any, to 77% std(0); sd(3); sa(7); sta(3) © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26112 | february 17, 2023 14 round 1 (n = 16) round 2 (n = 15) round 3 (n=13) no. draft item relevancy rate/ level of agreement answer dist* revised item relevancy rate/ level of agreement answer dist* finalized item relevancy rate/ level of agreement answer dist* make the service learning project more useful in the future?" o0 2 overall, the servicelearning project was a waste of resources for my organization 25% nr(10) ; si(2); sr(1); vr(3) ditto n/a ditto n/a n/a o0 3 overall, the servicelearning project created positive impact for my organization 100% nr(0); si(0); sr(7); vr(9) no change 100% nr(0); si(0); sr(7); vr(8) no change n/a n/a o0 4 overall, i am satisfied with the service-learning project 100% nr(0); si(0); sr(6); vr(10) dropped n/a n/a dropped n/a n/a o0 5 the project increased the likelihood that my organization will collaborate in service-learning in the future 100% nr(0); si(0); sr(7); vr(9) the project made us want to continue partnering in servicelearning in the future 100% nr(0); si(0); sr(5); vr(10) no change n/a n/a © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26112 | february 17, 2023 15 round 1 (n = 16) round 2 (n = 15) round 3 (n=13) no. draft item relevancy rate/ level of agreement answer dist* revised item relevancy rate/ level of agreement answer dist* finalized item relevancy rate/ level of agreement answer dist* o0 6 i will recommend collaboration in service-learning to other community organizations 100% nr(0); si(0); sr(6); vr(10) i will recommend collaboration in service-learning to other community organizations 100% nr(0); si(0); sr(5); vr(10) no change n/a n/a oe the necessity of including an openended section 94% std(0); sd(1); sa(9); sta(6) no change 100% std(0); sd(0); sa(10); sta(5) no change n/a n/a na n/a n/a n/a added an option of "n/a" for each item 87% std(0); sd(2); sa(7); sta(6) added the option of "n/a" for each item n/a n/a dk n/a n/a n/a added an option of "don't know" for each item 73% std(2); sd(2); sa(8); sta(3) dropped the option of "don't know" 77% std(1); sd(2); sa(6); sta(4) note: nr: not relevant at all; si: somewhat irrelevant; sr: somewhat relevant; vr: very relevant; std: strongly disagree; sd: somewhat disagree; sa: somewhat agree; sta: strongly agree. original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | 10.18060/26112 | february 17, 2023 16 some items were deemed controversial because there was non-consensus among the p.p.s. this was observed for items about finance (e.g., the service-learning project obtained financial resources for my organization; 50% relevancy rate), manpower (e.g., the service-learning project served as a channel for recruiting talent for my organization, 50% relevancy rate), and work practices (e.g., the service-learning project challenged the usual work practices in my organization, 63% relevancy rate). two “negative” items in the overall assessment category, namely “overall, the service-learning project was a waste of time for my organization” and “overall, the service-learning project was a waste of resources for my organization,” achieved consensus for removal with a 25% relevancy rate. the p.p.s indicated with 100% agreement that the section collecting open-ended comments at the end of the cifq was necessary, the qdp reviewed the quantitative results for each item, together with other comments made by the p.p.s. discussion with the qdp led to several modifications to the proposed cifq before the second round. the wording of 15 items was changed. we shall provide some illustrations. some items were changed to convey their meaning more clearly. thus, for proposed item p01, “the service-learning project furthered my organization's mission,” the wording was changed to “the service-learning project advanced my organization's mission,” for proposed item p09, “the service-learning project helped create a positive work environment” the wording was changed to “the service-learning project helped create a positive work culture in my organization.” some items were changed to widen their coverage of potential impacts. thus, proposed item p12, “the service-learning project inspired us with new ideas and insights,” was modified to “the service-learning project inspired us with new ideas, insights and/or strategies.” some items with a relevancy rate lower than 70% but above 30% were modified to increase their relevancy rate. for example, proposed item p08, “the service-learning project reduced the workload of regular employees or volunteers in my organization,” was transformed into “the service-learning project increased the workload of employees in my organization.” two items with a consensus for removal were combined. these comprised proposed item o01, “overall, the service-learning project was a waste of time for my organization,” and proposed item o02, “overall, the service-learning project was a waste of resources for my organization.” © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26112 | february 17, 2023 17 they were combined into one proposed item: "overall, the service-learning project was not useful for my organization.” finally, although the p.p.s indicated consensus for retention of item o04, "overall, i am satisfied with the service-learning project," the qdp decided to drop it because they deemed that satisfaction is not conceptually related to community impact. the results of the second round the modified cifq was then presented to the p.p.s for the second round of the delphi survey adopting the same procedure as in the first round. among p.p.s, 15 out of 16 responded (response rate: 94%). among the 22 proposed items, 19 reached a consensus for retention (see table 2). moreover, a consensus was reached for adding the "n/a" (87%) and "don't know" (73%) options for each item. three items (p06, p10, & o01) remained controversial despite improving their relevancy rates. regarding these proposed items, the qdp arrived at the following decisions. first, proposed item p10, "the service-learning project served as a channel for recruiting talent for my organization," was dropped. second, proposed item p06, "the service-learning project provided extra financial resources for my organization," was changed into "the service-learning project created economic benefits (e.g., savings, increased extra revenue) for my organization.” third, proposed item o01, "overall, the service-learning project was not useful for my organization," was dropped and replaced by a proposed open-ended question, "what changes could be made, if any, to make the service-learning project more useful in the future?" moreover, based on the comments provided by the p.p.s, the wordings of three items, namely p05, p08, and p09, were modified. finally, despite the consensus for retention of the "don't know" response option (agreement rate: 73%), the qdp deemed that including only the "not applicable" option (agreement rate: 87%) would suffice. as a result of the qdp’s deliberations and decisions, the number of items for the cifq was reduced to 20 rated items plus two open-ended questions. since the proposed items p06, p08 and o01 had undergone major modifications, the delphi survey's third (supplementary) round was conducted, focusing only on these three items. the results of the third round in the third round of the delphi survey, 13 out of the 16 p.p.s (response rate: 81%) provided their responses. all items agreed on the relevancy rate or level of agreement for the proposed changes. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26112 | february 17, 2023 18 specifically, the p.p.s indicated a high relevancy rating (77%) for item p06, "the service-learning project created economic benefits (e.g., savings, increased extra revenue) for my organization." for item p08 (92%), "the service-learning project was worth the effort that my organization put into it." the p.p.s also indicated high agreement (77%) to drop item o01, "overall, the servicelearning project was not useful for my organization" and replace it with an open-ended question, "what changes could be made, if any, to make the service-learning project more useful in the future?" in a final review session, the qdp made minor modifications to some items to further fine-tune the language. the finalized version of the cifq is given in appendix a. discussion the current study developed and validated the cifq from the cpo’s perspective by employing the delphi method through three survey rounds. using the delphi method distinguishes our study from previous instrument development studies, which have mainly adopted scale conceptualization based on literature reviews and mass validation through large samples. the delphi method allowed us to establish satisfactory content validity for the scale from experts’ perspectives as an alternative to seeking mass validation from a large sample of cpos (i.e., the target respondents), which is not easily obtained. compared with the cis (srinivas et al., 2015), the cifq is much more concise, with only 20 items. yet, it provides comprehensive coverage of the community impact domains that interest service-learning practitioner-partners and researchers. the cifq is also easily administrated, and we consider that it is conducive both to a high response rate and to gathering rich information. the validation results indicated consensus for the retention of most items about 1) achieving project goals to further the cpo’s mission; 2) augmenting resources of the cpo; 3) acquiring knowledge, insights, ideas, and techniques for the cpo. there was also consensus for retaining two items about impacts for end-beneficiaries. these four sets of items closely match the conceptual framework proposed by snell and lau (2022). also, the p.p.s indicated consensus for removal of the unfavorable overall assessment items, such as, in the second round, “overall the service-learning project was not useful for my organization.” furthermore, the p.p.s indicated consensus for retaining favorable overall assessment items such as “the service-learning project created positive impacts for my organization.” the above results support previous studies indicating that service-learning benefits cpos by transferring new knowledge, insights, and ideas (e.g., driscoll et al., 1996) and advancing the cpos’ mission (e.g., gelmon, 2003). the validation results also dovetailed with two of the measurement domains in the framework for community research proposed by ohmer et al. (2019). thus, the domain of community amenities and resources and that of community well© the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26112 | february 17, 2023 19 being in the ohmer et al. (2019) framework appear cognate to the cifq theme of augmenting resources for the cpo and the cifq item of well-being for end-beneficiaries (referred to as “service recipients” in the cifq). moreover, although the cifq items about the impact on endbeneficiaries were not designed to capture any particular impact area, the high relevancy rates for these items suggest that pors are not only aware of the favorable direct impacts that servicelearning has for end-beneficiaries but are also aware of the indirect path of impacts from servicelearning, via cpos as the mediator, for end-beneficiaries. this finding offers further support for the conceptual framework proposed by snell & lau (2022) and findings obtained from interviews with cpos (lau et al., 2021). however, there was some controversy regarding the three types of items. these concerns: are 1) impacts on organizational operations, such as work practices and techniques; 2) impacts relating to organizational resources, such as finance, manpower, and client base; and 3) other impacts not easily altered within a short time, such as workload reduction. although the sufficient consensus among the p.p.s or the retention of these items was eventually achieved, the initial controversy may reflect three factors. first, most service-learning projects are short-lived, typically taking place in a single semester (tyron et al., 2008), and may not be able to tackle the abovementioned aspects. second, because of the short span of engagement, many service-learning projects are designed in a “supportive” way, through which extra manpower is provided to deliver the cpos’ current services and initiatives rather than involving students as consultants in designing changes to organizational operations. even with servicelearning internship programs, which afford intensive interactions between interns and members of the cpos, student interns may still find that as outsiders, but without “expert” status, it is not easy for them to initiate changes in work practices and organizational culture. third, although prior literature (e.g., barrientos, 2010) has reported that service-learning can have long-term impacts on the community, such as obtaining grant funding and increased quality and quantity of services, it is not easy to attribute such impacts to any particular service-learning projects. such impacts may be cumulative, reflecting in a series of service-learning projects combined with other initiatives by the university and/or cpos across many years. this study also found that among the p.p.s, there was a consensus for removing the two items referring to unfavorable impacts, namely wasting time and resources. this does not match the findings of previous research, which has indicated that service learning can negatively impact cpos and the wider community, especially if the associated project management processes and arrangements are inadequate (e.g., lau et al., 2021; tryon et al., 2015). two factors may account for the p.p.s’ consensus for removing the unfavorable item. first, past studies have indicated that community impacts of service-learning tend to be positive. for example, in the interview study by lau et al. (2021), unfavorable mentions concerning impacts comprised around one-sixth of the total number of comments provided by cpos, and some referred to the absence of positive © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26112 | february 17, 2023 20 impacts than negative impacts per se. second, the consensus for removing unfavorable items may reflect sampling bias if there had been some tendency for pors with negative experiences of service-learning not to be nominated by the qdp or for only those with unfavorable perceptions of service-learning to agree to be nominated. limitations and further studies the current study employed the delphi method instead of seeking to obtain a large sample of cpos in hong kong. the method was used with three rounds required to refine the cifq to achieve consensus by the p.p.s regarding the relevance of its constituent items to their experience and observations of the impacts of service-learning. the next step in the validation of the cifq would involve its actual administration to collect feedback from pors regarding the impacts of particular service-learning projects conducted with a larger sample of a variety of types of cpos in terms of industry, size, mission, and ownership, and in conjunction with a variety of types of service-learning project. widespread administration of the cifq, on the lines suggested above, could feed the establishment of a centralized database, making possible “big data” analysis and identification of underlying impact factors. we suggest that in chinese-speaking communities such as hong kong, the chinese version of the cifq (see lau & snell, 2021) may be more accessible to pors, and should be validated with empirical data. moreover, further studies could be conducted involving triangulating the community impact perceptions obtained from the cifq with data obtained from other stakeholders in servicelearning, such as self-perceived student development outcomes and the opinions of endbeneficiaries in the community, to cast further light on the mutual benefits for, and mutual contributions by the various stakeholders in service-learning projects. author note this paper results from a cross-institutional project named “cross-institutional capacity building for service-learning in hong kong higher education institutions (polyu4/t&l/16-19)” which aims to enhance and support the development of service-learning as an effective pedagogical strategy under the collaboration of lingnan university, hong kong baptist university, the hong kong polytechnic university, and the education university of hong kong. the project was launched in 2017 and has been funded by the university grants committee (ugc) of the hong kong special administrative region (hksar) government. the authors wish to thank the ugc for funding the project, and the above institutions for their participation in the process. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26112 | february 17, 2023 21 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26112 | february 17, 2023 22 references adler, m. & ziglio. e. 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(2020). the development of a service-learning outcomes measurement scale (s-loms). metropolitan universities, 31(1), 44-77. https://doi.org/ 10.18060/23258 https://doi.org/10.18060/25482 https://doi.org/10.3998/mjcsloa.3239521.0027.204 https://doi.org/10.1186/s41239-016-0009-y http://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/slceslgen/146 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26112 | february 17, 2023 24 snell, r. s., & lau, k. h. (2022). assessing community impact after service-learning: a conceptual framework. in ngai, g., & shek, d. t. (eds.), service-learning capacity enhancement in hong kong higher education. quality of life in asia, vol 14. springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-2437-8_16 turoff, m. 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(1997). community service-learning: a guide to including service in the public school curriculum. state university of new york press. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-19-2437-8_16 https://web.njit.edu/%7eturoff/pubs/delphibook/delphibook.pdf © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26112 | february 17, 2023 25 appendix a the finalized version of the community impact feedback questionnaire please choose the appropriate scores (1 = very little; 10= very much) to indicate the extent to which you think the service-learning project has created the impact described in the following statements. please choose the option "n/a" if the impact described in the statement did not apply to the service-learning project. domain 1: achieving project goals to further the cpo’s mission to what extent has the service-learning project... very little to some extent very much n/a cv6_p01 advanced my organization's mission 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 88 cv6_p02 provided helpful outputs (e.g., books, curriculum, new service, etc.) for my organization 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 88 cv6_p03 enhanced the service quality of my organization 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 88 cv6_p04 helped promote the image of my organization 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 88 cv6_p05 enabled my organization to serve more clients 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 88 domain 2: augmenting resources of the cpo to what extent has the service-learning project... very little to some extent very much n/a cv6_p06 created economic benefits (e.g., savings, extra revenue) for my organization 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 88 cv6_p07 provided extra human resources for my organization 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 88 cv6_p08 been worth the effort that my organization put into it 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 88 cv6_p09 helped promote a positive work culture in my organization 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 88 cv6_p11 expanded my organization's network 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 88 domain 3: acquiring knowledge, insights, ideas and techniques for the cpo to what extent has the service-learning project... very little to some extent very much n/a cv6_p12 inspired us with new ideas, insights and/or strategies 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 88 cv6_p13 stimulated my organization to review our usual work practices 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 88 cv6_p14 transferred new knowledge from 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 88 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26112 | february 17, 2023 26 to what extent has the service-learning project... very little to some extent very much n/a university to my organization cv6_p15 enabled us to gain new experience 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 88 cv6_p16 helped enhance our work techniques 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 88 impact for service recipients (if the service-learning project had not involved any service recipients, please skip this part) to what extent has the service-learning project... very little to some extent very much n/a cv6_b01 brought benefits to service recipients 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 88 cv6_b02 improved the wellbeing of service recipients 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 88 overall assessment (1= strongly disagree; 10=strongly agree) strongly disagree strongly agree cv6_o03 overall, the service-learning project created positive impact for my organization 1  2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 cv6_o05 overall, the service-learning project made us want to continue partnering in service-learning in the future 1  2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 cv6_o06 i will recommend collaboration in servicelearning to other community organizations 1  2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 what changes could be made, if any, to make the service-learning project more useful in the future? ___________________________________________________________________________ any other comments, please specify: ___________________________________________________________________________ ~ end of the questionnaire ~ ka hing lau1 and robin stanley snell2 abstract introduction previous models of community impact arising from service-learning review of previous instruments the current study methods the proposed instrument the delphi method service-learning in hong kong procedure membership of the practitioner panel standards for item retention and removal results the results of the first round the results of the second round the results of the third round discussion limitations and further studies author note references appendix a the finalized version of the community impact feedback questionnaire invited commentary © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/27325 | april 21, 2023 1 championing social mobility ellen neufeldt, ed.d.1 1 president, california state university san marcos cite as: neufeldt, e. (2023). championing social mobility. metropolitan universities, 34(4), 1-8. doi: 10.18060/ 27325 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. introduction when i became president of california state university san marcos (csusm) during the summer of 2019, i was excited to launch a listening and learning tour to get to know the campus community, which includes just over 16,000 students and nearly 60,000 alumni. as a former vice president for student engagement and enrollment services at old dominion university (odu), i was drawn to csusm because of its diverse and multicultural community as well as its established track record of student success. i was eager to meet our students and hear their stories – why did they choose csusm? what has their educational journey been like? what are their hopes and dreams for the future? of course, no two students provided the same answer. some told me about the pride of being first in their families to go to college but the uncertainty that went along with that as they navigated the financial aid and admissions applications without parental support. others told me about the challenges of going to school while juggling part-time or full-time jobs and/or parenting responsibilities. and still, others shared stories from their previous military experience or their desire to make a career change/enhance their career trajectory. while almost universally, our students share their excitement to make progress toward their degrees, many also imparted complex combinations of family responsibilities, employment, and financial pressures which required constant time and energy to navigate. as leaders in cumu institutions, you know these stories – the individual details are different, but themes of students striving to overcome financial, geographic, and socioeconomic challenges are surely familiar. institutions like ours proudly embrace our regional role to serve as strongholds of the american dream, serving an outsized share of historically underserved http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/27325 | april 21, 2023 2 populations (such as low-income, minority and first-generation students) and offering programs and services that meet them where they are, fitting into the reality of their lives with opportunities to engage in real-world learning that will launch them into meaningful careers and a lifetime of success. now, as we emerge from the depths of the covid-19 pandemic the effects of which we will surely feel for years to come – coupled with rising income inequality and economic recession, our role as elevators of social mobility for the students and communities we serve is more important than ever. but what is social mobility? when i began sponsoring conversations on this topic at my former institution, where i co-founded a national center on social mobility, i noted that there was not always a clear understanding of the definition. at its core, social mobility is the movement of individuals from one socioeconomic status to another, and higher education is one of the most important drivers of an individual’s upward mobility in society. at csusm, we recognize that the education we provide helps our students transcend barriers faced by earlier generations, unlocking their potential for lifelong success. this isn’t only key for individuals and families but organizations, industries and society which benefit from a broadened talent pipeline, innovation, greater social equity and economic mobility across all sectors. however, historically, higher education in the united states has contributed to the socioeconomic divide rather than solved it. national college rankings have exasperated the situation further, lauding exclusivity in admissions rather than scrutinizing the ways colleges actually create broad access. while organizations like collegenet have published a social mobility index (on which csusm was proud to rank no. 1 in fall 2022) for about a decade, it was only in 2018 that us news added a social mobility factor its rankings – a direct outcome of those early conversations i just mentioned. another exciting and promising marker – a new carnegie classification will measure how institutions contribute to social and economic mobility while serving a diverse student population. today, i am so proud to be a part of cumu, an organization that recognizes not only that “place does matter” but that we are uniquely positioned to impact social mobility and inclusive regional growth – economic growth that is distributed fairly across society and creates opportunities for all. collectively, we represent over 52 metropolitan areas; and 33% of our institutions are designated minority-serving institutions. at csusm, 55% of our students are first generation, about 50% are hispanic/latinx, 40% are 23 years or older, 40% are pell-eligible, and over 10% are veterans or military affiliated. because of all these factors, the majority of our © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/27325 | april 21, 2023 3 students are considered “nontraditional” – although i would argue that nontraditional is the new tradition. as we look to the immediate future, as leaders and practitioners in our respective organizations, it’s an economic and social imperative that we develop and share new strategies which can fuel social mobility and inclusive regional growth. providing access in an affordable way, broadening the educational pipeline, committing to student success, and graduating students into high-quality jobs will have a transformational ripple effect in our communities. individually and collectively, we can leverage these practices to support our students and communities by: • promoting integrative & hands on-learning • expanding access & prioritizing student success • eliminating barriers and advocating for affordability promoting integrative and hands-on learning by intentionally connecting our work on campus with the local community, we can help students integrate their learning and ultimately prepare them to be future leaders who are able to address the complex and novel challenges of society. integration of learning is how students learn across contexts and is a skill that will aid in career success throughout their lifetimes. this ability to integrate learning has practical, real-world applications, for example: • coordinating what students are doing in internship or work experience with what they are learning in their major. • aligning educational opportunities in the local urban and metro area with curriculum oncampus. • linking current learning with prior knowledge, work experiences, and skills. creating connections across experiences and knowledge can aid students as they prepare to enter the 21st century economy (barber, 2020). cumu leaders can help make college a set of connected experiences, which requires a level of intentionality. pairing hands-on experiential learning on top of in-class curriculum has been proven to be more effective for students’ learning (selznick, dahl, youngerman, & mayhew, 2022). at csusm our 10-week summer scholars program provides undergraduate scholars firsthand experience in faculty science research labs. this integrative learning opportunity acknowledges that while science is both communal and diverse, even today women and people of color still make up a minority of the stem workforce. through hands-on research experience, networking opportunities and enrichment opportunities such as career panels, workshops aimed at soft skills such as scientific communication, and field trips to local employers, the program promotes a sense of community and exposes students to future opportunities. in fact, more than 40% of our © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/27325 | april 21, 2023 4 summer scholars alumni go on to earn advanced degrees. taking this a step further, we have partnered with donors and grant funders to ensure participating students receive a stipend to help cover their living expenses because we never want a student to have to opt out of a transformative learning experience because of lack of funds. another hands-on learning example at csusm is our innovation hub which serves as a conduit to connect the local region with the campus community and provides opportunities for partnerships. uniquely, our hub asks our students and partners to consider innovation and entrepreneurship at the intersection of diversity and social change. this is key as we know that preparing students for current and future industry needs means fostering their innovation and entrepreneurship capacities (selznick, dahl, youngerman, & mayhew, 2022). partnering with faculty and industry leaders to provide hands-on learning and research opportunities as well as mentorship for our students has a lasting positive impact. for example, each semester, the hub hosts a “quick pitch” competition where students from all disciplines are invited to pitch their ideas for a business. multiple successful student-run business ventures have resulted. just as important as getting students into the educational pipeline is creating educational experiences that prepare them for future careers. as educators, it is critical that we know what skills employers believe our graduates need when they enter the workforce. the 2021 report employer views on what matters most from the american association of colleges and universities in partnership with hanover research, asserts that over half of employers (56%) view application of knowledge/skills in real-world settings and (53%) view creative thinking as very important (finley, 2021). thus, intentionality in preparing our students for post-graduation success is imperative. expanding access and prioritizing student success social mobility requires a commitment to making a college education attainable for more students. this specifically includes efforts to expand access to higher education for students who may not have previously considered college as an option. one way to expand access is through innovative partnerships. building on an initiative that csusm forged with over a dozen k-12 school districts to offer guaranteed admission to qualifying students, we created a new partnership with the coalition of black and african american education – a group of about a dozen leaders that serve and are a part of our regional black and african american community. an outcome of our black student success initiative, the mou with the coalition further aligns our efforts related to enrollment, retention, and bolstering our campus climate that support students of all backgrounds. however, we know that access to an institution is not enough. providing holistic wrap around student resources and support are additional elements of a multipronged approach designed to unlock the potential of youth in our service area. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/27325 | april 21, 2023 5 for example, student success coaching is another social mobility student success initiative, which has transformed how we support our diverse and talented students in reaching the finish line. in my experience at odu and now at csusm, i have witnessed how student success coaching can support students’ successful transition to the university. what is most remarkable are the positive outcomes for coached students including increased retention and higher gpas. success coaches help students learning how to network, connect, as well as identify obstacles (e.g., finances, time-management, etc.) and persistence strategies. this isn’t just important for our individual students and their families, but for our entire regional economy! in san diego county where csusm is situated, 100% of job growth in the past five years was in careers that required either a degree or higher education credential (san diego regional edc, 2022). our urban and metropolitan areas have unique assets, and it is critical that our institutions produce graduates to meet the current and future needs of our regional economies. at csusm, 75% of graduates remain in the region and these graduates fuel our local economy and fill many high need areas including engineering and stem. however, in my metro area there are many stem and engineering jobs that remain unfilled. finding ways to increase the talent pipeline by closing equity gaps is of utmost importance. data from the pew research center illuminates that black and latinx workers remain underrepresented in stem jobs (kennedy, fry, & funk, 2021). to address this challenge, we must start before college, by exposing k-12 students to stem and inviting them on-campus to experience hands-on learning, we can positively impact the higher education pipeline. we must think big and apply a futurist lens which includes partnerships between k-12 and higher education to meet the economic needs of our service region. eliminating barriers and advocating for affordability cumu leaders are uniquely placed to be the champions of the social mobility initiatives and can take the lead on their campuses in student success initiatives that dismantle barriers and work to close opportunity gaps. as we go about this work, it is imperative that we look internally at our own policies, practices and even communications to see how we may be unintentionally contributing to equity gaps by our own doing. for example, we must look at our higher ed lingo, acronyms and language with fresh eyes and a student audience in mind. we also need to turn a critical eye to some of our long-standing processes and policies to see if the end-users – our students – can be better served by them. for example, we often create deadlines that are, in actuality, quite arbitrary. and what’s worse, because of dense, jargony communications, students are surprised to learn when they have missed deadlines – and sometimes the impact is devastating to their academic career. if we step back and look critically at all our “business as usual” policies and practices across the student life © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/27325 | april 21, 2023 6 cycle – from first point of contact to graduation day – we may see improvement across the board on student access, retention and graduation. in addition, we recently launched a workgroup that is reviewing our institutional policies with a diversity, equity and inclusion lens. one of the largest barriers for students is affordability, and the rising cost of living is a significant financial hurdle for many students, particularly those who have children or dependents. in fact, in csusm’s region, it has been estimated that to be self-sufficient, a family of four needs to earn a minimum of $118,000 (san diego childcare and development planning council, 2022). and yet via self-reported data, we know that 52% of our student population have family incomes below $60,000. as just one example of how we are striving to address financial barriers, at csusm we examined the fee structure of our on-campus childcare center. although initially established in 2007 to support our student parents, we’ve learned that even the discounted student rate can be too costly for many student parents who are also juggling the costs of tuition, fees, transportation, housing, and other basic needs. to that end, we were glad to create a grant-funded child care access program that will increase utilization of our childcare center, covering the associated fees on a sliding scale based on their financial aid eligibility. advancing social mobility also means intentional university efforts to reengage students, specifically creating pathways for degree completers and providing the needed support. a commitment to student success requires identifying and providing needed wraparound services (e.g., tutoring, childcare, transportation, etc.) as students re-enroll. this recommitment to our students is a must if we are going to support them to the finish line and prepare them to flourish in careers in the twenty-first-century economy. to colleagues in my home state of california, as well as texas, new york, and illinois, we account for approximately one-third of stop-outs, and the time is now to make strides for the students and communities we serve. to meet the demands of companies in our urban and metropolitan areas, cumu institutions need to ensure that first-in-family, traditionally underserved, active-duty military and veterans, working adults, transfer students, and degree completers are in the equation to meet the demand. since we know that affordability is a large concern for students, our current discussions of doubling pell grants are timely; projections show that the pell grant may cover as little as 20% of attendance cost in 2028 (reich, 2018). this is a drastic drop from the 1980s when the maximum pell grant covered nearly 75% of costs at a 4-year public higher education institution. there is great social and economic benefit if we collectively advocate for pell funding increases with legislative officials in our region. this year, we celebrate 50 years since the creation of the pell grant, and closing the gap between the cost of college attendance and pell grant award is a © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/27325 | april 21, 2023 7 tangible way to advocate for our students who need it most. for many of our first-in-first family and low-income students, the ability to finance higher education is as important as academic ability in college persistence. the finish line cumu is committed to empowering students to reach the finish line, and we are proud of the work we do to champion social mobility and inclusive economic growth. i challenge you to strategize ways to advocate for the role our institutions play in social mobility. now is the time to embrace unexplored approaches that can benefit our students and the surrounding urban and metropolitan areas. in today’s evolving environment, we must support student social mobility and the inclusive economic growth of the communities we serve. our collective work matters, and together we will chart a course that will positively impact our students and our service communities. social mobility and inclusive economic growth are important topics worthy of intense discussion, and i know, individually and collectively, cumu can do amazing things! © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/27325 | april 21, 2023 8 references barber, j. p. (2020). facilitating the integration of learning: five research-based practices to help students connect learning across disciplines and lived experience. stylus. https://styluspub.presswarehouse.com/browse/book/9781620367483/facilitating-theintegration-of-learning finley, a. (2021). how college contributes to workforce success: employer views on what matters most. aac&u & hanover research. https://www.aacu.org/research/howcollege-contributes-to-workforce-success kennedy, b., fry, r., & funk, c. (2021, april 14). 6 facts about america’s stem workforce and those training for it. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/04/14/6-factsabout-americas-stem-workforce-and-those-training-for-it/ national student clearinghouse research center. (2022, may 10). some college, no credential student outcomes annual progress report – academic year 2020/21 https://nscresearchcenter.org/some-college-nocredential/?hilite=degree+completers+and+drop+outs reich, d. (2018, february 12). 2018 funding bill should boost pell grants. center on budget and policy priorities. https://www.cbpp.org/blog/2018-funding-bill-should-boost-pell-grants san diego regional edc. (april 2022). smart economic development is inclusive economic development. https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/970be612bbc2416eaff22548b54ddc74 selznick, b. s., dahl, l. s., youngerman, e. & mayhew, m. (2022) equitably linking integrative learning and students’ innovation capacities. innovative higher education, 47, 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-021-09570-w https://styluspub.presswarehouse.com/browse/book/9781620367483/facilitating-the-integration-of-learning https://styluspub.presswarehouse.com/browse/book/9781620367483/facilitating-the-integration-of-learning https://www.aacu.org/research/how-college-contributes-to-workforce-success https://www.aacu.org/research/how-college-contributes-to-workforce-success https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/04/14/6-facts-about-americas-stem-workforce-and-those-training-for-it/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/04/14/6-facts-about-americas-stem-workforce-and-those-training-for-it/ https://nscresearchcenter.org/some-college-no-credential/?hilite=degree+completers+and+drop+outs https://nscresearchcenter.org/some-college-no-credential/?hilite=degree+completers+and+drop+outs https://www.cbpp.org/blog/2018-funding-bill-should-boost-pell-grants https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/970be612bbc2416eaff22548b54ddc74 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-021-09570-w https://styluspub.presswarehouse.com/browse/book/9781620367483/facilitating-the-integration-of-learning https://styluspub.presswarehouse.com/browse/book/9781620367483/facilitating-the-integration-of-learning https://www.aacu.org/research/how-college-contributes-to-workforce-success https://www.aacu.org/research/how-college-contributes-to-workforce-success https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/04/14/6-facts-about-americas-stem-workforce-and-those-training-for-it/ https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/04/14/6-facts-about-americas-stem-workforce-and-those-training-for-it/ https://nscresearchcenter.org/some-college-no-credential/?hilite=degree+completers+and+drop+outs https://nscresearchcenter.org/some-college-no-credential/?hilite=degree+completers+and+drop+outs https://www.cbpp.org/blog/2018-funding-bill-should-boost-pell-grants https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/970be612bbc2416eaff22548b54ddc74 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-021-09570-w championing social mobility ellen neufeldt, ed.d.1 introduction promoting integrative and hands-on learning expanding access and prioritizing student success eliminating barriers and advocating for affordability the finish line references original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26369 | october 17, 2022 developing equitable and mutually beneficial virtual community-engaged learning opportunities casey a. knifsend1 and chong u. choe-smith2 1department of psychology, california state university, sacramento, 2department of philosophy, california state university, sacramento cite as: knifsend, c.a, & chloe-smith, c.u. (2022). developing equitable and mutually beneficial virtual communityengaged learning opportunities. metropolitan universities. 33(4). doi 10.18060/26369 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract the covid-19 pandemic necessitated an abrupt shift to virtual community-university partnerships for many community partners, instructors teaching community-engaged learning courses, and students. this shift exacerbated challenges to fostering mutually beneficial, equitable community-university partnerships, potentially affecting access to and participation in programs benefiting k-12 and college students. this paper discusses the writing partners letter exchange program, highlighting how challenges were considered and addressed and ways we could improve in future semesters of community-engaged learning. assessment data using surveys suggested challenges related to exchanging letters virtually and using videos instead of an in-person university campus tour. solutions included partnership meetings and early planning for future virtual events. we then discuss lessons learned and future directions for mutually beneficial and equitable community-university partnerships that could involve virtual work for various reasons. this paper adds to emerging literature that shares experiences related to virtual community-engaged learning. sharing our experiences and lessons learned through the writing partners program will inform educators and administrators interested in implementing similar letter exchange programs and those interested in learning more about community-university partnerships in the virtual space. keywords: community partnerships; community-engaged learning; pandemic response; equity; mutual benefit; assessment http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26369 | october 17, 2022 introduction the abrupt transition to online learning during the covid-19 pandemic necessitated shifts in community-university partnerships. in many cases, in-person engagement opportunities traditionally pivoted to the virtual space within weeks or months. this transition presented new considerations and challenges for working towards mutually beneficial and equitable community-university partnerships (ohmer et al., 2022). as defined in greater detail below, community-university partnerships are mutually beneficial when the interaction enriches both the community and the university, and they are equitable when the opportunities are fair and open to all and address any barriers to equitable participation (e.g., orellana & chaitanya, 2020; ruch & trani, 1990). the focus of this paper is on strategies for collaboration with these values in mind, with a discussion of a case study of sacramento state’s writing partners program (i.e., a letter writing program between k-12 and college students) and challenges and opportunities moving forward during later phases of the pandemic. this paper extends an earlier presentation in the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities (cumu) learning & sharing virtual series on this topic (august & knifsend, 2020). as we transition to a new normal with many community partners still relying on entirely virtual or hybrid opportunities, whether due to preference (e.g., youth crisis line deciding virtual operations suit their work best) or necessity (e.g., a surge in covid-19 cases or closures due to wildfire smoke, or other events), we can learn from the experiences of the past two years and think ahead to envision community engagement for our students that continues to be mutually beneficial and equitable. we focus on two main questions in this article: how do we continue to support mutually beneficial practices for community partners, instructors, and students? how do we ensure equitable opportunities for all students? defining mutually beneficial and equitable community-engaged learning the community engagement center (center) at california state university, sacramento (sacramento state), as with similar centers at other colleges and universities, pivoted in various ways to accommodate the changes at our institution and community partner sites during the covid-19 pandemic. sacramento state is a large, diverse regional university, with more than 10 percent of our students participating in community-engaged learning (reid, 2020). the center aims to meet the demands of the moment while also advancing our institutional priorities, including mutually beneficial community-engaged learning as expressed in our anchor university initiative (sacramento state’s anchor university task force, 2019), and equity and inclusion as described in our antiracism and inclusive campus plan (california state university, sacramento, 2021). our anchor university initiative centers on long-term, mutually beneficial partnerships in its aims for community-engaged learning. as an anchor university, “the university [is] on course to align our resources and efforts so that we cultivate and develop long-term and mutually beneficial relationships with our community partners in pioneering endeavors to address our original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26369 | october 17, 2022 community’s priorities” (sacramento state’s anchor university task force, 2019). the center for community engagement of california state university also recently provided a system-wide definition for community-engaged learning, which highlights the importance of collaboration: “the collaboration between institutions of higher education and community partners (entities, organizations, or groups with whom a relationship can be developed) in which students learn and develop through participation in the collaboration; the outcomes of which benefit the common good” (cocce, 2022). elements of community-engaged learning include reciprocal partnerships, benefits to the common good, academically relevant community involvement, civic learning goals, critical reflection activities, and integrated assessment of discipline-based and civic learning goals (cocce, 2022). common to different conceptions of community-engaged learning, including ours, is the essential element of mutually beneficial community-university partnerships (bringle & hatcher, 1996; ruch & trani, 1990; waldner et al., 2012). extending these definitions, partnerships are mutually beneficial when the partnership enriches both the community partner and the university through enhanced student learning and student participation in service to the broader community (bringle & hatcher, 1996; ruch & trani, 1990; waldner et al., 2012). such partnerships are characterized by a sense of trust (de la garza & kuri, 2014), collaboration, reciprocity, and democratic decision-making (ohmer et al., 2022). mutually beneficial partnerships sometimes involve formal (e.g., survey) and/or informal (e.g., conversations) data gathering to understand community priorities, as well as strategies that are responsive to these priorities and the interests of the groups that are served (saw et al., 2021). during the earlier stages of the covid-19 pandemic, maintaining mutually beneficial partnerships was possible with certain community partners engaged in essential services, such as education and health, but more difficult with those who had to curtail their services entirely or significantly. much of the continued community-engaged learning was done virtually, and some partners maintained virtual work a few years later. regardless of modality or form, consistent with our institutional commitment to mutually beneficial community engagement, interaction with the community should advance student learning and address a particular community need or interest. at sacramento state, community engagement is also influenced and shaped by our other institutional priorities, including a commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, and justice. in particular, according to the antiracism and inclusive campus plan (california state university, sacramento, 2021), equity is defined as “the presence of structures that recognize the impact of systemic bias and discrimination and work to ensure opportunities and fairness for all.” the center aims explicitly to provide learning opportunities that are equitable, inclusive, and accessible to all students and that address important social justice issues relevant to our broader community. community partners include those oriented towards advocacy, human rights, diversity, equity, inclusion, social justice, food, and housing security, and education (including our writing partners letter exchange program, as described below). fostering equity-minded community-university partnerships entails ensuring shared power in the partnership, employing a strengths-based approach, co-developing learning and projects with the expertise of community original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26369 | october 17, 2022 partners, and centering opportunities for marginalized groups of community members, instructors, and students (orellana & chaitanya, 2020). consistent with empirical findings (francom et al., 2021; frank et al., 2021; kiebler & stewart, 2021; lai & widmar, 2020; sanders & scanlon, 2021), the covid-19 pandemic exacerbated existing inequities in community-engaged learning, particularly with unequal access to technology within the home. structural inequality in access to technology, including computer ownership and high-speed internet access, disproportionately affects low-income households and minoritized ethnic-racial groups (kim et al., 2021; sanders & scanlon, 2021), thereby affecting the nature and quality of participation for community partners, instructors, and students. for example, k-12 teachers in mississippi and south dakota reported difficulties related to unreliable internet and computer access, difficulty contacting and communicating with students, and limited knowledge of strategies for online learning during the covid-19 pandemic (francom et al., 2021), and these types of difficulties disproportionately affect under-resourced schools (ma, 2021). similarly, we observed these challenges within our writing partners program (as described below) and at other sites collaborating with k-12 schools. with these added demands, collaboration is critical to reduce any additional burden of virtual community engagement and maximize the involvement and enrichment of all parties involved in the partnership. although the covid-19 pandemic and the shift to online work made the center’s job more challenging, it also opened opportunities for greater collaboration with community partners and the effective use of technology in creative, responsive ways. collaboration on alternatives to face-to-face interaction should continue to enhance student learning, serve the broader community, and ensure opportunities and fairness to all involved, particularly those disproportionately affected by the shift to virtual community-engaged learning. collectively, mutually beneficial and equitable community-university partnerships enrich collaboration for all involved, as described below in a case study of our writing partners program. writing partners case study focusing on mutually beneficial and equitable community engagement, we turn to a case study of writing partners at sacramento state, a letter exchange program for elementary school and college students initiated by sacramento state’s community engagement center. traditionally, in this semester-long service learning program, 5th and 6th-grade students and college students exchange approximately three hand-written letters. the letters focus on a range of topics, including those relevant to the course (e.g., in a course on child psychology, discussing issues related to self-concept and identity) and the college experience in general (e.g., what a college class is like). the culminating event is a visit to the university campus, with elementary school and college students meeting in person for a campus tour. for elementary school students, the program aims to provide a sense of connection and community and cultivate a college-going identity while providing a forum for practicing reading and writing skills. the program fosters a original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26369 | october 17, 2022 sense of connection and community for college students, deepens learning through real-world connections with course content, and provides practice writing for different audiences. the writing partners program shifted to a virtual format during the covid-19 pandemic, changing the nature of the program substantially. instead of hand-written trading letters, letters were exchanged virtually through a google drive link unique to each pair of elementary school and university instructors. the culminating event consisted of a zoom call with a customized virtual tour of the university. rates of participation in the program declined during the pandemic, likely due to various factors. although the same number of college instructors engaged with the writing partners program in fall 2019 and fall 2020 (13 instructors), the program served fewer elementary school students (fall 2019: 691 students; fall 2020: 540 students) and engaged fewer college students (fall 2019: 638 students; fall 2020: 529 students) during the earlier months of the pandemic. given stressors in shifting online for both elementary school and university instructors, a key focus on ensuring a mutually beneficial and equitable experience regarded an understanding of the extra burden on both elementary school and university partners. the platform on which letters were exchanged was one important area to consider in the fall 2020. due to their familiarity and expertise with google, elementary school instructors preferred a different platform (google sheets and folders) than the university (microsoft teams). in collaboration with sacramento state’s community engagement center, information resources and technology office, and risk management office, a unique google drive link was generated for each pair of elementary school and university instructors to upload and download letters. feedback from all partners was considered when structuring these procedures, reflecting democratic decision-making, shared power, collaboration, and co-development of the platform with the expertise of elementary school teachers, characteristic of mutually beneficial and equitable partnerships (ohmer et al., 2022; orellana & chaitanya, 2020). despite these changes to the program, virtual programming presented additional issues regarding mutual benefit and equity for the writing partners program. notably, technological issues affected all parties. many students at sacramento state report unmet basic needs. seventy-six percent of students receive financial aid (university communications, 2020), 12.6% report having experienced homelessness at some point in their academic careers, and approximately 47% experience food insecurity (crutchfield & maguire, 2019; reid, 2018). accordingly, having institutional support for reliable broadband internet, access to a laptop or computer, and adequate processing speed for the culminating event was essential to college students participating in this program. through financial support from various sources (e.g., higher education emergency relief fund), sacramento state loaned students laptops and internet hotspots, providing some students with the necessary equipment for this program (ruble, 2020). elementary school students likely faced similar challenges, given research on the digital divide affecting youth from minoritized ethnic-racial backgrounds and lower-income families disproportionately (francom et al., 2021; frank et al., 2021; kiebler & stewart, 2021; lai & widmar, 2020; sanders & scanlon, 2021), although we did not collect data on this topic. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26369 | october 17, 2022 ongoing efforts were revised to assess the elementary school and university instructors’ and college students’ perspectives on the program in fall 2020, consistent with data collection to inform partnerships (saw et al., 2021). for instance, elementary school teachers (n = 6 completing survey) reported positive experiences in terms of perceived support, compromise, and communication but challenges in terms of time spent and difficulty with uploading and downloading letters. teachers also expressed both positive sentiments and challenges regarding the virtual campus tour. of the four teachers who participated in the virtual campus tour, three reported that their students learned key academic information about sacramento state ‘to a great extent’ (a ‘4’, rated on a 1 = not at all to 5 = to a very great extent scale). challenges included difficulty playing campus tour videos initially and feedback on the content, including that the videos lacked perspective on what a college classroom looks like. similarly, college instructors (n = 5 completing survey) reported both positives (e.g., enthusiasm of elementary school partners and a forum for sharing struggles during the pandemic) and challenges (e.g., time shifting to virtual format and difficulties with the culminating event). although these small n’s limit generalizability, these accounts gave us an idea of the instructors' perspectives in our program. while college students’ qualitative responses generally reflected positive experiences in the program, independent-samples post-test data collected in fall 2019 (n = 68) and in fall 2020 (n = 83) reflected that fall 2020 students (m = 3.50, sd = .87, rated on a scale from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree) reported less agreement with the statement “i wish to seek out service learning classes” at sacramento state than fall 2019 students (m = 3.90, sd = .96; t(150) = 2.663, p = .009). while other cohort effects could explain these differences (e.g., number of letters exchanged or experience within the university classroom), the shift to virtual learning may have affected students’ intent to connect with the community through future service-learning courses. these data helped us better understand the experiences and priorities of multiple parties involved in the program, including instructors and college students, ultimately informing future iterations of the program (saw et al., 2021). quantitative and qualitative feedback was incorporated into program modifications beginning in spring 2021. in considering both formal (i.e., evaluation surveys) and informal (i.e., feedback provided in meetings) feedback (e.g., saw et al., 2021), the community engagement center, elementary school teachers, and university instructors were able to adjust the program to meet the needs of all parties involved better. community engagement center staff provided an orientation to the virtual program at the beginning of the term, demonstrating the virtual letter exchange to help demystify the process. discussion of and planning for the culminating event began at this meeting to assist with coordination and propose using breakout rooms for students to meet. the community engagement center also hosted check-in meetings throughout the semester, including one for elementary school teachers to discuss how the program was going. overall, these efforts consistently fostered a mutually beneficial and equitable partnership. efforts like collaborating on the platform for letter exchange minimized the burden on any one partner through collaboration (ohmer et al., 2022) and responding to partners’ expressed needs and feedback (saw et al., 2022), and ensured that interested school sites were able to participate in the program effectively (california state university, sacramento, 2021). original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26369 | october 17, 2022 in sum, the writing partners program shifted to a virtual format abruptly in fall 2020, continuing its aims to build and/or strengthen literacy and writing, connect k-12 and college students, and reinforce college-related identities. shifting to the virtual format, however, presented challenges, including those related to ensuring mutually beneficial and equitable community-engaged learning. we could respond to some of these challenges creatively and effectively through collaboration with community partners. with the possibility of partial or entirely virtual community-university partnerships and community-engaged learning in the future, additional challenges and opportunities should be considered, as discussed in the following section. other community-engaged learning challenges and opportunities continued reliance on online or hybrid learning during the ongoing pandemic has raised challenges and opportunities for maintaining mutually beneficial and equitable community engagement. for community partnerships that continued during the pandemic through virtual and hybrid modalities, instructors and community partners had to be creative in developing new ways to stay connected and new hands-on learning opportunities for their students. for community partnerships unable to offer opportunities during the pandemic, the unintended break effectively provides faculty opportunities to rebuild stronger connections with community partners and reassess current needs and interests. considering the challenges and opportunities of virtual community engagement and lessons learned over the past few years, whether due to preference or necessity, is critical to consider the possibility of continued fully or partial virtual operations. below, we review data on remote and face-to-face operations from spring 2021 to spring 2022 before discussing community engagement in the future. community engagement from spring 2021 to spring 2022 the data on community engagement suggests that, during the last two years, many community partners shuttered their face-to-face operations and transitioned to virtual services or suspended their operations entirely in compliance with state or local rules. the data also suggest that community partners continue to rely on entirely virtual services, or a combination of virtual and face-to-face services, even as they resume some face-to-face operations. according to college student surveys collected by the center in fall 2021 (n = 80), 35.3% of students reported being physically present at a community partner site; 64.7% of students reported that their service-learning course did not involve them being physically present at a community partner site. when asked how often they were physically present at a community partner site, student responses were as follows: 11.8% less than once a month; 5.9% once a month; 35.3% once a week; 47.1% 2-3 times a week, and 0% 4-5 times a week. although opportunities for students to volunteer on-site varied depending on the community partner and the nature of their services, sometimes involving frequent face-to-face interaction, the data suggest that most (64.7%) service-learning opportunities did not involve physical presence at a community partner site in fall 2021. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26369 | october 17, 2022 according to community partner survey data collected from participating community partners in spring 2021, with responses from 61 community partners that offer either service learning or academic internship opportunities, about 66.7% of respondents anticipated offering either remote services or a combination of remote and face-to-face services in fall 2021. only 33.3% anticipated offering only face-to-face services, which is consistent with the student survey data. according to community partner survey data collected from participating community partners in spring 2022 with 57 responses, by that time, about 60% of respondents offered face-to-face services, and about 40% offered either remote or a combination of remote and face-to-face services. the survey responses also indicated that 66.7% of respondents anticipated offering only face-to-face services in fall 2022, while 33.3% anticipated offering a combination of face-toface and remote services. despite this dramatic, though not surprising, the turnaround in face-toface operations, only 36 of 57 respondents indicated that they could envision a role for students in assisting with their services in fall 2022. the data indicate that community-engaged learning continued on a smaller scale during the covid-19 pandemic. some community partners continued to welcome student volunteers or interns but relied more heavily on remote or a combination of remote and face-to-face modalities. although beyond the scope of this article, it would be interesting to look more closely at the specific ways that student volunteers and interns continued to serve during the pandemic. for instance, did remote work involve virtual engagement or some other type of remote work (e.g., phone calls to clients)? for our purposes, the data confirmed that communityengaged learning courses continued through remote or hybrid modalities through fall 2021 and then opened up considerably by spring 2022. even during and after spring 2022, community partner operations and their ability or willingness to offer community-engaged learning opportunities continued to be affected by the covid-19 pandemic and relied on a combination of remote and face-to-face modalities. thus, while looking to the future, it is especially critical to reflect on lessons learned from the past few years and how we can ensure mutually beneficial, equitable community engagement with continued remote and/or virtual community engagement. community engagement in the future we do not have or do not yet have data on whether community partners will resume face-to-face operations fully in future semesters. still, the covid-19 pandemic may have lasting effects on community partnerships, at least in the near future, including continued reliance on virtual and face-to-face modalities. as we consider the future of community-engaged learning, this offers those who recognize the benefits of experiential learning the to embrace these changes and reenvision community engagement that is mutually beneficial and equitable. community engagement during the ongoing pandemic and beyond needs to be equitable for all parties. as discussed in our writing partners case study, greater reliance on technology raises the additional challenge of ensuring equitable access to equipment and broadband internet. as others have noted, the pandemic exacerbated existing inequities, particularly with regard to already original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26369 | october 17, 2022 underserved populations. certain populations, particularly minoritized, low-income, and/or rural households, are the most impacted with the least access to their own devices and broadband internet (e.g., frank et al., 2021; sanders & scanlon, 2021). while children in more affluent areas had ready access to technology to make the transition smoother, other children experienced long delays in accessing technology and resuming instruction (see kim et al., 2021). now in the later stages of the pandemic, community partners (even those providing essential services) are limiting face-to-face interaction with the public to varying degrees, relying on virtual or hybrid modalities. for successful community-engaged learning courses, faculty and community partners must ensure that student volunteers or interns and the community groups they serve have access to technology and that any other necessary precautions are in place to proceed equitably and responsibly. sacramento state and its community partners also adapted their operations to address the changing circumstances and comply with state and local rules. with little advance notice, sacramento state paused face-to-face instruction in march 2020, required all courses to be taught online later that same month, continued predominately online instruction in fall 2020 and spring 2021, and began resuming face-to-face instruction with online and hybrid options in fall 2021 (california state university, office of the chancellor, 2022). in response to the pandemic, by october 2020, california state university campuses had distributed more than $18 million in new equipment, including more than 21,000 laptops and other devices and 10,000 mobile hotspots (ruble, 2020). as mentioned previously, these efforts were essential to greater equity in community-engaged learning experiences, including participation in the writing partners program. although it may be impossible to prepare for every contingency, we are now better equipped with the technology necessary to pivot to online and hybrid modalities through such efforts. community engagement during a pandemic also must be mutually beneficial for students, instructors, and community partners. as faculty connect or reconnect with community partners, new opportunities are available for greater collaboration on continuing the partnership in an emergency and developing innovative alternative plans that provide reciprocal benefits for students and the community. implementing innovative online teaching tools and resources in service-learning courses could allow students to continue having meaningful and impactful interactions with the community. for example, depaul university’s online community engagement program developed and offered self-directed modules, each of which culminated in an event featuring a community activist guest speaker from depaul and chicago communities (baron et al., 2022). through thoughtful collaborations between the university and community partners, communities also could continue to benefit in different but substantial ways. examples during the pandemic included college students creating storybooks and educational videos (schmidt, 2021), developing engaging and interactive online learning opportunities for latinx children (kim et al., 2021), organizing a book drive to promote agricultural literacy (jones & disberger, 2021), and offering virtual services including skill sharing, writing letters to healthcare workers, seniors, children, and people experiencing homelessness, and organizing small donations (tian & noel, 2020). as discussed above, through thoughtful collaboration, the original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26369 | october 17, 2022 writing partners program also offered an example of how faculty participating in the program and its elementary school partners could transition to a virtual letter exchange program by using tailored google drive links and a culminating event consisting of a virtual campus tour. moving forward, assessment efforts should continue to align with values of mutually beneficial, equitable community-university partnerships. overall, engaging in community-based research where community partners’ knowledge and expertise are centered in the design and implementation of assessment efforts is critical (dodge & pawaskar, 2020; kuttner et al., 2022). thus, future efforts should involve further partnerships in assessment and programming. from our perspective, one significant addition is to include elementary school students in the writing partners program in assessment efforts. although data collection with children involves added considerations (e.g., need for parent/guardian consent and child assent; use of age-appropriate measures), having children’s voices represented in the design and implementation of the program would help ensure it is meeting their needs. potentially, surveying parents/guardians may help us understand technological barriers and inequities faced by families. lastly, although we surveyed college students’ experiences with the program, we did not ask about technical issues or other obstacles faced. we also do not have data reflecting the experiences of those who do not participate in community-engaged learning. for example, it would be critical to know if some students self-select from optional service-learning courses due to challenges or inequities. adding these questions would inform support and resources aimed toward equity. as many universities and community partners transition from virtual programming back to faceto-face, the lessons learned over the last two years have taught us that community-engaged learning can continue amid unanticipated events or crises in mutually beneficial and equitable ways. while some have suggested that online service learning opportunities, in general, may be more or equally effective compared to face-to-face experiences (mcgorry, 2012; waldner, 2015), the current article only addresses the need to plan for alternatives for mutually beneficial community engagement when face-to-face engagement is limited or impossible. moving into the future, as faculty and community partners are committed to providing high-quality experiential learning opportunities, they have more opportunities to collaborate to identify and address current needs and interests to decide if face-to-face, virtual, or a combination of each best suits their programs and courses (schaus et al., 2022), and to develop robust contingency plans in case of a disruption to operations. such contingency planning may allow the continuation of community-engaged learning opportunities in times of crisis. contingency planning also may provide opportunities to learn more about the clients served and the community partner’s most urgent needs and interests, such as access to technology at home or basic services and essential medical care. ohmer et al. (2022), for example, describe how their community-university partnership responded to an urgent need for seniors to be vaccinated and, specifically, support two large-scale vaccination clinics. others have emphasized the need and significance of continuing service learning during a crisis because service learning cultivates moral development in students while also serving underserved or marginalized populations whose needs may be greater in crises (kim et al., 2021; tian & noel, 2020). there is not less, but possibly more learning for all those involved with community-engaged learning in times of crisis. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26369 | october 17, 2022 conclusion together, a review of the literature and our experiences with our writing partners program during the covid-19 pandemic suggest challenges and opportunities in virtual communityengaged learning. use of technology allowed community partners to continue providing critical services and opportunities for student and university engagement during this time. in many ways, however, the pandemic (and related shifts to virtual programming) exacerbated existing inequities, including those related to the digital divide (e.g., sanders & scanlon, 2021) for community and university partners. to maintain values of mutually beneficial and equitable community-engaged learning, engaging in collaboration and co-development of programming with an intentional sharing of power was critical. in many places, an assessment supported us in understanding when partnerships were mutually beneficial and equitable, as well as places we could improve. we advance several recommendations for community-engaged learning during subsequent stages of the pandemic and beyond, including ensuring all parties are still afforded institutional support for technology and contingency planning for future crises. at the time of writing this paper, covid-19 infection rates are increasing steadily, and federal health officials recommend masking indoors in several california counties. in addition, drought conditions in california and related fires, as well as other extreme weather events across the nation and world, may necessitate pivoting fully or partially virtual for community-engaged learning in the future. thus, it is prudent and necessary to reflect on lessons learned during the pandemic and to plan for future virtual community-university partnerships and community-engaged learning. original research © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26369 | october 17, 2022 references august, r. a., & knifsend, c. a. 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[fact book]. https://www.csus.edu/experience/fact-book/_internal/_documents/fact-book2020_vfinal_revised.pdf waldner, l. s., mcgorry, s. y., & widener, m. c. (2012). e-service-learning: the evolution of service-learning to engage a growing online student population. journal of higher education outreach and engagement, 16(2), 123-150. https://openjournals.libs.uga.edu/jheoe/article/view/936 waldner, l. (2015). eservice-learning: breaking through the barrier. in j. r. strait, k. nordyke, & a. furco (eds.), eservice-learning: creating experiential learning and civil engagement through online and hybrid courses (pp. 20-39). stylus publishing. https://www.csus.edu/experience/fact-book/_internal/_documents/fact-book-2020_vfinal_revised.pdf https://www.csus.edu/experience/fact-book/_internal/_documents/fact-book-2020_vfinal_revised.pdf https://openjournals.libs.uga.edu/jheoe/article/view/936 casey a. knifsend1 and chong u. choe-smith2 1department of psychology, california state university, sacramento, 2department of philosophy, california state university, sacramento © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi: 10.18060/25334| september 12, 2022 129 exploring the impact of diversity training on the development and application of cultural competence skills in higher education professionals kendra cabler,1 rosalyn hobson hargraves,2 and holly jackson 1 cook ross inc., 2 college of engineering, virginia commonwealth university, 3school of education, virginia commonwealth university cite as: cabler, k., hobson hargraves, r., & jackson, h. (2022). exploring the impact of diversity training on the development and application of cultural competence skills in higher education professionals. metropolitan universities, 33(2), 129-164. doi: 10.18060/25334 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. guest editors: kevin allison, ph.d., sylvia carey-butler, ph.d. rosalyn hobson hargraves, ph.d., tiffany g. townsend, ph.d. and jeffery wilson, ph.d. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract this study explores how higher education professionals develop and demonstrate cultural competence in their professional roles. through a mixed methods case-study approach, the study investigates how perceived levels of cultural competence in higher education professionals are shaped by participation in an extended diversity training program. additionally, this study explores implications for individual career trajectories as a result of program completion and implementation of new learning. study findings indicate that participants anticipate lasting effects from the training experience. the training introduced and ignited a reconfiguration of what it means to engage and work in spaces where institutional and organizational commitments are aligned with personal commitments. following training, all participants expressed deep commitment to intentionally and actively cultivating a sense of belonging and inclusion in the workplace through shared language, shifts in policy, and more thoughtful interpersonal interactions with colleagues and peers. keywords: higher education, cultural competence, diversity training, professional development, diversity in the workplace, inclusion in organizations http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi: 10.18060/25334| september 12, 2022 130 introduction in recent years, diversity, equity, and inclusion (dei) have become a significant focus across industries and fields of study. within the field of education broadly, and higher education, in particular, a shifting student demographic can be seen across the country (pew research center). furthermore, racial equity issues have become central for present-day educational strategists, and organizations committed to cultivating a culture of inclusion must do so with intentionality. there has been a great deal of research concerning the development of cultural competence in traditional-aged college students, but far fewer studies address development in higher education professionals. this study investigates higher education professionals’ individual professional development, personal capacity to engage in inclusive practices, and ability to understand, appreciate and interact with people from different cultures or belief systems after having completed extensive cultural competency training. this study attempts to address this gap while adding value to the field and expanding the body of work investigating cultural competence. rapid growth and demographic shifts have become a defining feature of higher education (gurrosenbilt et al., 2007). such changes are evident amongst student populations, while the diversification of higher education professionals is moving at a much slower pace (nces). the diversification of college and university campuses has led to a proliferation of high-priority diversity and inclusion initiatives. however, “diversification by itself does not suffice for providing equality of opportunity in higher education” (guri-rosenbilt et al., 2007, p. 20). if equity is the goal, newly developed diversity initiatives must be grounded in institutional strategy and commitment. higher education institutions must assume an inclusive excellence stance, as evidenced by the restructuring of institutional policy, procedures, and practice, to account for the varied needs of community members. notably, these structural changes are often only possible due to a more enhanced individual understanding of the roles racial equity and inclusion play in a diverse community’s success, career satisfaction, and institutional evolution. historically, diversity initiatives more broadly have focused on affirmative action and race. likewise, diversity training has consistently focused on aspects of race and gender and their implications for recruitment, hiring, and promotion [within businesses and corporations] (kulik et al., 2007). however, present-day conceptualizations of diversity training are often expanded, considering various dimensions of diversity and emphasizing individual development as a result of the training experience (kulik et al., 2007). still, within individual institutions, the practicality and value of diversity programming are often framed through the lens of institutional culture and climate rather than the impact on individual community members. as a result, the effects and implications of these developmental opportunities for higher education professionals are not heavily reflected in higher education literature. (hayat & walton, 2013, p. 304). university © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi: 10.18060/25334| september 12, 2022 131 faculty, staff, and administrators are positioned to impact the institution at every level; thus, their development in areas of cultural competence can reach far and wide. roughly 67% of u.s. organizations have instituted diversity training as a core component of their diversity initiatives (esen, 2005). yet, a gap in the research literature still requires thoughtful exploration of this population. “despite the priority higher education institutions have given to multicultural initiatives, little attention has been given to examining the multicultural experiences and other life events that influence those charged with developing and facilitating these initiatives” (landreman et al., 2007, p. 275). regarding higher education, university faculty, staff, and administration are charged with developing and equipping students with the tools necessary to engage diversity. in essence, landreman et al. (2007) highlight that research on diversity programs in higher education is primarily focused on solutions and student experience, rarely addressing the faculty, staff, and administrators involved in program development, facilitation, or even participation. this study addresses the intersection of career and professional identity with developing cultural competence skills to enhance institutional culture. the present study explores how diversity training influences individual development and interpersonal interactions among higher education professionals. more specifically, this study explores the experiences of higher education professionals through their participation in a thirteen-month “train-the-trainer” diversity training program. as a result, this study focused on participant application of skills or performance based on new knowledge. utilizing the social cognitive career theory framework, the researchers explored participants’ perceived, self-reported accounts of self-actualization in application and their careers. the research questions which guided this study include: (a) how are perceived levels of cultural competence in higher education professionals impacted by participation in an extended diversity training program; (b) how has participation in extended diversity training affected participants’ efforts to engage in inclusive practices and behaviors; (c) how do participants utilize the skills and tools developed through extended diversity training in their roles as higher education professionals; and (d) how do participants anticipate the skills and tools developed through extended diversity training will impact their career paths and career progression? study setting and ethical considerations a cultural awareness building (cab) training program was conducted at a large, urban, fouryear research institution. the cab training program consisted of training modules and activities that instructed participants on how to communicate effectively across differences, identify unconscious biases and misinformation in themselves, others, and organizations, and recognize personal, interpersonal, institutional, and cultural barriers to inclusion. the training also explored © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi: 10.18060/25334| september 12, 2022 132 the effects of historical and contemporary exclusion and oppression and examined group identity development and its impacts on cross-cultural interactions. in addition, participants could develop and practice facilitation skills and intervention strategies throughout the training. the cab was designed in response to student protests surrounding perceived shortcomings in applying cultural competence skills displayed by university faculty, staff, and administrators. the cab was established to build a cadre of university professionals who could lead diversity training workshops at the institution. the program was the first of its kind at the institution and served as part of a greater effort toward institutional change. program participants included a cohort of 26 faculty, staff, and administrators from across the university. the cohort participated in a 13-month “train the trainer” program to enhance their ability to engage in matters of diversity, equity, and inclusion in their workplaces. candidates applied and were interviewed to participate in the initial cohort; they were ultimately selected by a team of university leaders. after completing the training, participants then served as facilitators conducting cultural competency workshops at the institution. however, within a year after the cab training program was completed, there was a change in leadership at the institution, and the program was terminated. theoretical framework the framework of the current study is situated within the confines of lent, brown, and hackett’s (2002) social cognitive career theory (scct). the three basic building blocks of the general social cognitive theory are self-efficacy, outcome expectations, and personal goals (lent et al., 2002). each building block creates the foundation from which individuals build their professional identities. as defined by bandura (1997), self-efficacy is most often developed through four primary sources: personal performance and accomplishments, vicarious learning, social persuasion, and one’s physiological and affective states. that is to say, an individual’s past experiences and current understanding of those experiences give shape to their beliefs about their potential for success. these building blocks provide context for individual interests, the decision to pursue said interests, and ultimately the individual’s performance or application of whatever skills have been developed. scct is a tri-part model that reviews an individual’s progression through interest development, choices, and performance as it relates to their career. the scct model encompasses the participant’s experiences in a cultural awareness building program (cab) in their entirety. it considers participants’ initial interests or introduction to diversity within the context of their profession, their choice or decision to pursue professional development in areas of diversity, equity, and inclusion more intentionally, and ultimately their application of skills or performance based on new knowledge. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi: 10.18060/25334| september 12, 2022 133 the framework of the current study is based on three assumptions. the first assumption is an assumed desire of cohort members to develop some level of cultural competence based on previously identified interest development. the second assumption is that cohort members chose to pursue cultural awareness building as the vehicle through which they would pursue cultural competence. the third and final assumption is that cohort members intend to implement new learning within the workplace, thereby performing new skills. scct models the interest model the interest model, as shown in figure 1, focuses on individual interests’ role in motivating behavior and skill acquisition choices. this model fits a more general understanding of selfefficacy and outcome expectations. for instance, it could be assumed that diversity training participants each possessed some interest in learning more about diversity and inclusion before program participation. further, participants likely held an interest in developing the skills necessary to converse with their peers about matters of diversity and inclusion. “scct asserts that people form enduring interest in an activity when they view themselves as competent and when they anticipate performing it will produce valued outcomes” (lent et al., 2002, p. 265). these interests potentially influenced participants’ decisions or choices to pursue participation in the diversity training program. as it relates to the present study, figure 2 depicts an adapted interest model that explores the development of diversity and inclusion interests and commitments that ultimately lead to participation in diversity training. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi: 10.18060/25334| september 12, 2022 134 figure 1. interest development model reprinted from lent et al. (1994) social cognitive career theory. figure 2. cab interest model. the choice model in figure 3, the choice model depicts individual goals and the actions required to achieve them. since personal interests influence behaviors and decision-making within the context of this study, participation in diversity training results from an individual choice to pursue a desired goal. “scct’s model of career choice holds that interests are typically related to the choices that people make and to the action they take to implement their choices” (lent et al., 2002, p. 276). © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi: 10.18060/25334| september 12, 2022 135 figure 3. reprinted from lent et al. (1994) social cognitive career theory choice model. as it relates to career, individual goals must, at times, be configured or reconfigured within the norms and guidelines of the larger organization or institution. for professionals committed to equity and inclusion, participation in diversity training as professional development is a conscious choice (within the context of this study). similarly, some professionals may forego professional development in exchange for alternative opportunities for skill development. acknowledging that choice may, at times, require the negotiation of barriers is a critical component of this model. although diversity training is common practice within many colleges and universities, some institutions may opt for alternatives, providing different or additional choices for development. as it relates to the present study, the participant’s decision to pursue professional development through cab is depicted in the adapted choice model in figure 4. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi: 10.18060/25334| september 12, 2022 136 figure 4. cab choice model. the performance model the performance model (figure 5) is concerned with the persistent pursuit of individual accomplishments. within the bounds of this study, the mere completion of an extended diversity training program could be considered a factor in personal performance. however, the application of skills and new knowledge after program completion is more critical to participants’ individual development. these factors more adequately reflect individual performance. for instance, the performance model can understand participants’ perceptions of their ability to better engage peers or colleagues as a result of program completion. the creation and implementation of transfer strategies (roberson et al., 2009; noe et al., 1990), though employed at the individual level, are primarily influenced by external factors or what burke and baldwin (1999) referred to as transfer climates (roberson et al., 2009). transfer climates are reflected in the work environments program participants re-enter at the program’s close. these environments may or may not mirror the larger atmosphere of a particular campus or university. individual interpretation of experiences within a given climate could influence the implementation of a transfer strategy or an opportunity for program participants to put new learning to use. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi: 10.18060/25334| september 12, 2022 137 figure 5. reprinted from s.d. brown et al. (2011). figure 6 presents an adapted performance model for the present study; it represents opportunities for application among cab program participants. although this process is rooted in individual transformation, it is essential to note that learning cannot be genuinely transformative in isolation, much like career progression. in essence, diversity training can act as a mode of capacity building. an institution’s capacity to engage its community and its commitment to diversity, inclusion, and equity simultaneously encourage individual community members’ joint development (taylor et al., 2013). © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi: 10.18060/25334| september 12, 2022 138 figure 6. cab performance model. methodology a case study design was the most appropriate methodology for this study. the program of interest was bounded; therefore, a finite number of possible study participants were available for data collection. specifically, this study followed a mixed methods, convergent case study design (creswell & plano clark, 2011) conducted in two phases, as outlined in figure 7. the first phase employed qualitative methods, collecting data through one-on-one interviews of cab training program participants. the second phase included a secondary analysis of quantitative data collected via self-assessment before, during, and after participation in cab. quantitative evidence gathered from self-assessments allowed the researcher to understand better how cab program participants perceive their levels of cultural competence as a result of the training program, while qualitative evidence explained the feasibility of applying newly developed skills in the long term and the inherent impact of such applications. notably, the qualitative data component was the primary focus of this study. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi: 10.18060/25334| september 12, 2022 139 figure 7. research design of the study: convergent mixed methods design. through secondary data analysis, the researchers were positioned to explore factors impacting the development and application of skills throughout the training experience. further exploration of the impact of cab training on professional identity development and career is best accounted for through participant narrative; hence, the selection of a mixed methods research design. as a pragmatic research inquiry, the present study is framed through a theoretical and practical lens (paul, 2005). as a result, exploring participants’ personal beliefs and constructing, questioning, refining, and reframing those beliefs are vital components in developing new knowledge and understanding cultural competence. phase 1: qualitative data collection and analysis purposive sampling was used in the recruitment of interview participants. twenty-six potential interviewees were invited to participate in the study via email (one of the researchers was a cohort member and therefore left out of the invitations). a total of 11 participants opted to participate in the interview portion of the study, representing 44% of the total cohort. selfidentified participant demographics are as follows: six white women, two white men, two black women, and one black man. participants represent various roles across the institution, including faculty, staff, and administrators. the semi-structured interview questions can be found in appendix a, but it is important to note that five goals (and corresponding research questions) shaped this protocol (table 1). table 1. study goals and corresponding research questions goal corresponding research question goal 1. to understand how participation in cultural awareness building (cab) training has impacted participants’ professional identity and career paths research question (d) goal 2. to understand from the participant’s perspective their experience (from a socialresearch question (b) © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi: 10.18060/25334| september 12, 2022 140 interpersonal perspective) navigating workspaces before and after cab program participation) goal 3. to understand perceived levels of self-efficacy amongst participants research questions (b) and (c) goal 4. to understand whether or not the skills taught within the cab program transferred to the workplace research question (c) goal 5. to understand the connection between selfreported levels of cultural competence and participation in cab research question (a) to improve the trustworthiness of the qualitative data, participants were notified at the end of each interview of an opportunity to review the interview transcript (merriam, 2009); however, all participants declined. as a result, the researchers moved forward with the coding process using atlas.ti software. one interview transcript was selected for initial coding using five a priori codes based on the study’s research questions: (a) perceived level of cultural competence, (b) inclusive engagement, (c) skill application, (d) professional identity, and (e) career progression. before data collection for this study began, cab program participants were notified of the immediate termination of the cab training program and any pending training experiences. interview questions for the study were not adjusted as a result of program termination; however, all study participants discussed the impact of the abrupt conclusion of the program on their skill application and willingness to engage in future programs. this shift facilitated what emerged as in vivo codes and thematic areas for analysis, revealing seven additional codes: (a) community seeking, (b) a desire for structured learning/training, (c) the training experience, (d) conflict resolution, (e) ending of the cab program, (f) trust/institutional commitment, and (g) language. as themes emerged, they were added to a comprehensive coding guide that listed each code, its associated definition, and decision trees for assigning codes. the remaining transcripts were coded using the guide. as codes and themes emerged, they were subsequently categorized and grouped according to their relevance to the interest, choice, or performance model of social cognitive career theory (lent et al., 2002). this study’s research questions provided direction for codes and models most closely aligned. during analysis, some codes were combined to give a more well-rounded depiction of the participant experience. table 2 provides a snapshot of qualitative findings explored within the context of scct (lent et al., 2002), and a thorough explanation can be found in the following sections. phase 2: quantitative data collection and analysis © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi: 10.18060/25334| september 12, 2022 141 cab participants were asked to complete a 34-item multicultural skills self-assessment at the beginning, middle, and end of the 13-month training experience (see appendix b). the assessment was selected for use through the collaborative efforts of the university and external consultants brought in to facilitate the train-the-trainer program. the assessment was intended to gauge participants’ perceived proficiency level involving many skills related to multiculturalism and cultural competence. notably, the developers of the self-assessment tool acknowledge the use of the modern racism scale (mcconahay, 1986), as well as elements of established organizational environment scales for assessment of attitude change over time, as influencers in the development of this tool. as a result, many of the items were specifically derived from and linked to the goals of the training. assessment items addressed elements of learning, communication, application of skills, and comfort in receiving feedback. the interval-scaled, likert-type assessment captured a wide range of ability levels. items for the tool were crafted and developed based on expertise. still, neither instrument items nor pilot test scores were analyzed for validity or reliability as part of the developmental process. likewise, while this tool was not developed for use as a pre-post assessment, the first and final self-evaluations taken at the beginning and end of cab training were included in secondary data analysis. therefore, this method was chosen as the data pairing provided the most relevant information for the present study. specifically, secondary data analysis was conducted using selfevaluation data completed by cab participants on the first and last day of the 13-month training program. the university granted the researchers access to de-identified self-assessment data per the direction of the institutional review board (irb). though data for secondary analysis was deidentified, the researchers requested that evaluations be paired using numerical sequencing before receiving the data so that each participant’s responses could be compared over time. this allowed the researchers to maximize data usage and adhere to anonymity requirements. at the time of the conclusion of the training, there were 21 participants, all of whom completed the final self-assessment. the data set was cleaned and reviewed for missing values and invalid responses; as a result, some cases were removed pairwise during analysis via spss software. only 18 surveys were used in secondary data analysis based on completing the twelve items analyzed. due to the de-identification of the data, there was no way to remove the one involved researcher’s self-assessments from the group. this did not negatively impact data analysis, as it allowed for a richer understanding of all participants’ perceptions. the researchers analyzed data using spss software. quantitative data analysis consisted of descriptive statistical analyses of the data, exploratory factor analysis to assess the internal structure of the instrument and measurement validity, and a series of paired sample t-tests. due © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi: 10.18060/25334| september 12, 2022 142 to the nature of the research questions and the small sample size, inferential statistics were not appropriate. the self-assessment was a pre-established tool, and all items were not relevant for this study; thus, specific items from the self-assessment were selected based on their alignment with the scct model and this study for further review. selected items address skills and outcomes that focus on interpersonal interactions, as opposed to personal attitudes and beliefs concerning equity and inclusion, in support of the researchers’ interest in participants’ perceptions of skill development over time. these items were grouped into the following categories (factors) for exploratory factor analysis: opportunities for exposure, opportunities for engagement, and opportunities for implementation. merging the data in preparation for data merging, the researchers considered threats to internal validity in qualitative and quantitative analyses. threats of maturation, social desirability, instrumentation, and researcher bias were possible during the qualitative data collection phase, just as statistical regression and pretesting were potential threats to internal validity related to secondary data analysis. maturation was considered as participants are all employed by a single institution; new jobs, relocation, etc. may cause participants to leave the institution, making them ineligible for study participation. the researchers engaged in reflective journaling to bracket assumptions and biases (merriam, 2009). during this final stage of analysis, the merging of the two forms of data, interview transcript data and self-assessment data, were triangulated using factors associated with scct to explore participants’ perceptions and experiences through parallel databases (creswell & plano clark, 2011). two strategies were implemented to merge the data. the first strategy was to identify themes in both quantitative and qualitative findings and compare, contrast, and synthesize results. the second strategy focused on shared themes by conducting further analyses to relate the data. upon completion, the merged results are explored in the discussion to address differences, similarities, and ultimately a more thorough understanding of study implications. results throughout the interview process, the cyclical nature of the social cognitive career theory (lent et al., 2002) and participant progression through each phase of the model was revealed. the scct framework focuses on the interest, choice, and performance models. within the context of this study, the application of this framework is intended to shape participants’ interest in cultural competence, their decision to pursue development in this area, and the opportunity to apply and perform new skills as a result of their learning. applied in this way, the scct model encompasses the participant’s experiences in a cultural awareness building program (cab) in © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi: 10.18060/25334| september 12, 2022 143 their entirety. it considers participants’ initial interests or introduction to diversity within the context of their profession, their choice or decision to pursue professional development in areas of diversity, equity, and inclusion more intentionally, and ultimately their application of skills or performance based on new knowledge. therefore, the results presented in table 2 and the following sub-sections reflect participants’ journeys through initial interest development, decision making, and performance and then back into more refined interest development with shifted focus and commitment. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi: 10.18060/25334| september 12, 2022 144 table 2. snapshot of qualitative thematic results scct model analytic code/thematic area influencers the interest model perceived cultural competence • personal commitments • personal experience • isolated strengths • previous exposure community seeking • long-term commitment • connection to the institution • connection to peers structured learning • traditional learning opportunities • perceived added value to the institution the choice model professional identity • external perceptions • visibility as a cab cohort member • sense of responsibility career progression • reconsider, reconfigure, reframe career options • use of voice/acting as an advocate • behavior shifts • stronger connections with students and peers • more intentional job searches the performance model skill application/inclusive engagement/ language • day-to-day unit/departmental function • modeling • shared language termination of cab • feelings of abandonment • feelings of powerlessness • lack of clarity for next steps institutional commitment • new opportunities • lack of trust • shifted personal and professional investments the interest model the interest model focuses on the role of individual interests and motivations affecting specific choices intended to enhance inclusive behavior and skill acquisition. within the context of participant interviews, these interests are explored through the lens of three codes: perceived cultural competence, community seeking, and a desire for structured learning experiences and opportunities related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. their perceived level of cultural © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi: 10.18060/25334| september 12, 2022 145 competence influenced participants’ desire for a community experience through structured learning opportunities. participants’ perceived cultural competence cab program participants entered the training program with varied experiences and levels of expertise. participants reporting higher levels of cultural competence opted to participate in cab to enhance pre-existing skills. participants who reported lower levels of cultural competence were drawn to cab primarily by personal experience, family structure, and professional exposure. chloe stated, everything that i had run into up to that point felt like i needed to be an expert, and it felt like i had to have this deep content knowledge and expertise. i knew that there were only pieces of my identity where i could offer that from a different perspective, so i didn’t feel skilled enough, and i didn’t feel like i had enough of an access point to generally go into that and be accepted and be valuable. (personal communication, november 2018) for some participants, their perceived levels of competence can be understood as an outcome of their commitments to diversity and inclusion. they described these commitments as ongoing and blossoming elements of their core worldview, developed from personal experiences. however, a clear sense of isolated strengths was evident among many participants. moreover, these perceived strengths were often tied to some aspect of identity; race, gender, ability status, sexual orientation, and lived experiences more broadly. community seeking a vested interest in becoming part of something greater emerged throughout the interview. what followed the development of initial participant interests in diversity, equity, and inclusion for some was a desire for camaraderie as an element of their learning. an opportunity to engage in long-term development with a defined group of people played a fundamental role in their decision to pursue cab. this was especially important for participants who pursued cab partly due to their lack of familiarity with the institution. for participants who had recently joined the university, the perceived institutional commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion influenced their decision to pursue cab to understand better and become more connected to the institution. “having been new, [the institution] obviously challenges and values, the diversity and inclusion aspect of identity, and being new, i figured one of the best ways to understand the whole organization is to get involved with something that’s quick to heart...” (veronica, personal communication, november 2018) © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi: 10.18060/25334| september 12, 2022 146 desire for structured learning individual interests often led participants to more isolated learning through the informal pursuit of knowledge, without the added benefits of more formal or traditional learning methods. equally valued among participants was the prospect of an opportunity to engage in leadership and skill-building opportunities recognized by the institution. “i was kind of flying by the seat of my pants in a lot of instances...it would be nice to be able to say i’ve been trained in a method…” (alexis, personal communication, november 2018). still, the structure of the experience and their interest in cab was less critical for participants than their perceived level of cultural competence before the training experience and their desire to identify a community of practice within the campus community. the choice model the choice model focuses on individual goals and the actions required to achieve them. participants’ decisions or choices to pursue cab training to achieve their goals of increased and demonstrable cultural competence are explored through the lens of two themes: professional identity and career progression. these themes examine elements of the training experience and participants’ voices. participants’ perceived and labeled professional identities served as indicators for engagement and interaction with peers and career progression and transition. professional identity individual perceptions and labels proposed and espoused by supervisors and colleagues were critical components of participants’ sense of self and embodied their roles as learners and practitioners of diversity, equity, and inclusion. at varying degrees, each participant shared keen insights regarding how they viewed themselves before, during, and after the training experience and how those perceptions were propelled and impacted by those around them. as a result, the impact of external influencers was experienced at multiple levels of professional identity. these experiences include revelations of increased visibility and an impending responsibility as a result, as well as the unanticipated development of an institutional subculture of ownership. the visibility that accompanied membership in the cab training cohort impacted not only the experiences of participants during the training program but continued to play a vital role in their identity upon reentry to the workplace following program completion and its eventual termination. overall, participants expressed an emboldened willingness and desire to “ask the tough questions”, to “get the group to think…to reconsider.” this sense of self and repositioning © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi: 10.18060/25334| september 12, 2022 147 of identity carried weight for many participants. assuming the role of cab facilitator came with a responsibility and an acknowledgment that cultivating an inclusive and equitable culture was everyone’s job. the intersection of personal and institutional responsibility became increasingly apparent. active responsibility required more than a passive understanding of this concept. it required participants to perform the responsibility through skill application and intentional engagement. for example, dianna (personal communication, november 2018) shared the following: “it’s put me out there as somebody who does that work…” and “when you put yourself into a role, and you’re doing the thing, then you’re putting yourself out there as a person who does that work and who others could come to if they had a question. and so, when others see you a certain way, then you start to see yourself that way, too…” owning the space and the notion of cultivating a culture of ownership emerged as participants reflected on their experiences and the work they’ve been able to do as a result of cab program participation. for many participants, the aforementioned merging of personal and institutional responsibility in creating a deep-rooted culture that values, promotes, and actively pursues equity and inclusion was taken on as an added element of professional identity. for many participants, an urge to become more intentionally engaged across the university surfaced during the program. career progression reconsidering, reconfiguring, and reframing professional identity and engagement were consistently highlighted as participants reflected on how cab has impacted their day-to-day professional experience and where they may look to go in the future. for anne, cab provided an opportunity for development as a facilitator and workshop designer, a career path she hopes to return to at some point. for others, the process restored and, in some instances, helped them find their voice, modeling and normalizing for peers and colleagues. many participants attributed a newfound voice or willingness to speak up in public and private spaces to the training experience. the openness of a training experience that did not allow for expressions of blame and shame empowered participants to learn out loud by way of personal and authentic engagement. noticeable differences in behavior and engagement were everyday experiences for many participants. whether or not participants intend to remain at the university, their choice to participate in cab has already impacted how they view themselves as professionals and the role they will hold in moving their workplaces toward inclusion and equity. “my supervisor says it all the time... “ever since you started that process, i’ve noticed a difference in the way that you approach the work and in the way that you talk to other people.” (chloe, personal communication, november 2018) © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi: 10.18060/25334| september 12, 2022 148 the performance model the performance model is concerned with the persistent pursuit of individual accomplishments. critical to the personal development of participants is the application of skills and new knowledge following program completion. participants’ pursuit of professional achievements is explored through; skill application and inclusive engagement, language, perceptions of institutional commitment, and the eventual termination of the cab program. as participants’ interests and commitments increased, cab skills were applied more intentionally. likewise, as participants’ perceptions of institutional commitment shifted with the ending of the cab training program, so did their professional obligations to the institution. skill application, inclusive engagement, and language participants have chosen to enact newly developed skills in many ways. for some, elements of the cab training experience have been implemented in the routine functioning of their unit or department. conversely, some participants remain in a state of personal development, continuing to be mindful of patience with others and themselves. interview data revealed new levels of understanding regarding the nuance of identity, both personal and professional, in the interactions of cab program participants and their peers who had not gone through the training experience. what emerged was the critical value of a shared language, the importance of modeling espoused behaviors in real-time, and shifted perspective concerning the conflict in the workplace. participants’ awareness of their levels of cultural competence continued to influence their comfort level in engaging with peers on matters related to diversity, equity, and inclusion. as their perceived levels of cultural competence continued to develop, so did their comfort level. notably, participants overall were more comfortable engaging with other cab participants, partially due to the development of a shared language and an established level of trust within the cohort. following the cab experience, no participants perceived themselves as an expert. instead, many participants conceived of the most effective application of their abilities through the lens of a normalizer. “...when i model those behaviors that [cab]taught me, from all the questioning, the noticing, the appreciating, and all of that, that it can help ... it will help normalize that for other people who maybe look like me or belong to a similar category to me.” (dianna, personal communication, november 2018) © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi: 10.18060/25334| september 12, 2022 149 participants view themselves as learners and practitioners simultaneously, influencing the culture by modeling behavior that will ideally become normalized and, therefore, accessible to their colleagues and peers. for many participants, these strategies have facilitated career advancement and opportunities to reconsider, reconfigure, and reframe their self-identified and perceived professional identity. shifted thought processes had led many participants to be more mindful of the impact of language. language is one of the most common tools participants have been able to apply to expand personal, professional, and institutional commitments. as a cohort, participants share a common language, the result of which has been an intentional integration of this shared language within the workplace. termination of cab a change in leadership and vision led to the abrupt termination of the program. this unplanned shift meant that many participants had not considered what their next steps might be toward these efforts. participants entered into the cab program under the premise of a three-year institutional commitment. now comfortable to begin engaging the campus community through training and facilitation, some expressed concern about their newly developed skills. “i do feel like, i feel a little more emboldened to speak up., but i don’t think i sit in a place of power. so i don’t know if i’m really able to do as much as i would like at a big university level” (alexis, personal communication, november 2018). institutional commitment with fewer opportunities to engage in the same kinds of work on the same grand scale at the university, many participants have chosen to disengage and seek opportunities to do the work elsewhere. the institution’s forward-facing commitments to equity and inclusion were in question for many participants, largely due to the experience of program termination. though perceptions of institutional commitment shifted for many participants, their commitment to actively engaging issues of equity and inclusion remained intact. quantitative data analysis results from the quantitative data analysis represented participants’ perceptions of their abilities, knowledge, and skills during the cab training experience. program entry self-assessment © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi: 10.18060/25334| september 12, 2022 150 items from the self-evaluation were grouped into the following categories for factor analysis: opportunities for exposure, engagement, and implementation opportunities. these factors are framed within the context of scct to highlight the interest model (exposure), the choice model (engagement), and the performance model (implementation) (table 3). cronbach’s alpha was selected as the most appropriate measure of scale reliability to assess internal consistency. alpha scores indicate high levels of reliability and a strong internal structure concerning the instrument items selected for analysis. the interval-scaled, 5-point likert-type assessment captured a wide range of ability levels from inexperienced (0) to expert (5) (appendix b). descriptive statistics were gathered for program entry data. overall, items classified as opportunities for exposure (m = 3.6) were scored highest, followed by opportunities for engagement (m = 3.3) and then opportunities for implementation (m = 3). descriptive statistics can be found in table 3. mean scores suggest that, on average, upon entry to the training experience, participants ranked their ability to respond to encounters with or recognize opportunities for exposure to matters of diversity, equity, and inclusion as intermediate or advanced. coming into the training experience, participants’ greatest strength was in “asking questions to increase my understanding of another person’s experience and point of view.” participants struggled to conceptualize large-scale, institutional responses to bias and exclusion. this is not surprising, as many participants point to cab as their first entry point into formal diversity training, particularly as an element of professional development. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi: 10.18060/25334| september 12, 2022 151 table 3. snapshot of quantitative results program exit self-assessment conversely, descriptive statistics for the final self-evaluation (table 3) highlight growth among participants in all areas. overall ability levels for items classified as opportunities for exposure (m = 4.4) were equal to opportunities for engagement (m = 4.4), and opportunities for implementation (m = 4.3) were similar. these mean scores suggest that, on average, upon reentry to the workplace, participants’ perceived ability to respond to and recognize opportunities for exposure, engagement, and skill implementation are consistently elevated compared to participant perceptions entering the training experience. an analysis of internal consistency was repeated with the post-training data set. notably, alpha levels decreased significantly (table 3). cronbach’s alpha level scores for the interest and performance models were moderate, but the alpha score for the choice model was of concern. scores indicate a more varied range of participant responses in their final evaluation, likely leading to lower reliability measures. entering the training experience, many participants did not have a baseline of comparison. they were unaccustomed to considering their cultural competence level or ability to apply skills that reflect any of the competencies being assessed in the evaluation tool. furthermore, participants may have a more nuanced understanding of the questions after completing the training. additionally, the use of a single instrument three times throughout the © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi: 10.18060/25334| september 12, 2022 152 training experience likely may have resulted in participant fatigue. descriptive statistics from post-training data reveal mean increases compared to pre-training mean scores, an indicator that participants’ perceived level of competence in these areas increased, despite a wider range of scores. comparative quantitative analysis a series of paired-samples t-tests were run to analyze changes in reported ability levels from the beginning to the end of the cab training program (table 3). notably, however, the paired samples correlation reveals small to medium effect sizes for each item pair. third variables may influence these results, as other measured or unmeasured variables affect participants’ responses. additionally, limitations of instrumentation may be in effect. increased self-evaluation scores from the first to the final evaluation indicate a positive shift in perceived ability among participants. for both pre and post-training data, participants perceived their skills to be lower in the performance model, especially regarding their ability to respond to institutional challenges. quantitative data results are aligned with participant reports throughout the interview process. of note is the time element; self-evaluation data was collected during the training experience, while interviews were conducted one year after training concluded. this separation suggests that participants experienced increased skill development within the training process and could sustain that development through an application over time, one year later. review of findings study findings indicate that participants anticipate lasting effects from the cab training experience. they routinely highlight how they can incorporate new learning into their current professional role and pursue new opportunities. for some participants, the training experience introduced new professional opportunities and organizational expectations. for participants, cab introduced a reconfiguration of what it means to engage and work in spaces where institutional and organizational commitments are aligned with personal commitments. cab participants sought tangible evidence of this through policy, procedure, and practice. the second goal of this study was to understand from the participant’s perspective their experience (through a social-interpersonal lens) navigating workspaces before and after cab program participation. in response to the research question (b), how has participation in extended diversity training affected participants’ efforts to engage in inclusive practices and behaviors? findings revealed that participants practiced varied levels of engagement before cab training. simply by virtue of their professional role, some participants were more actively engaged in discussions and change-making. for others, conversations on equity and inclusion were isolated and infrequent; despite professed institutional commitments. participants with roles © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi: 10.18060/25334| september 12, 2022 153 requiring consistent interaction with students at any level were more accustomed to the traditional diversity dialogue than those who did not engage with students regularly. following cab training, all participants expressed deep commitment to intentionally and actively cultivating a sense of belonging and inclusion in the workplace through shared language, shifts in policy, and more thoughtful interpersonal interactions with colleagues and peers. inherent to this shift are opportunities to clarify commitments and expectations. in alignment with this study’s third goal: to understand perceived levels of self-efficacy amongst participants and research question (c), how do participants utilize the skills and tools developed through extended diversity training in their roles as higher education professionals? participants’ perceived level of self-efficacy increased as a result of the training program. self-evaluation data further supports changes in participants’ perceptions and skills as they develop throughout the training experience. participants reported opportunities for skill application in a multitude of ways, the most critical and frequent of which being matters of conflict resolution. though not anticipated as a critical outcome for participants, conflict resolution was repeatedly labeled as one of the greatest areas for skill application. participants pointed to their ability to recognize the intersection of personal identity and working relationships as a critical component in their ability to consider what factors are at play in workplace disputes; and, more importantly, their ability to consider various and sometimes conflicting perspectives to reach resolve. the fourth goal of the study was to understand whether the skills taught within the cab training program transferred to the workplace; it was also aligned with the research question (c). participant results indicated that skills taught within the program were easily transferred to the workplace, and their implementation has had a noticeable impact. many participants highlighted the guidelines used to facilitate their interaction within the training as their baseline for workplace interaction. some participants keep the guidelines visible in their office space; others have shared them with friends and colleagues. the final goal of this study was to understand the connection between self-reported levels of cultural competence and participation in cab, in collaboration with the research question (a) how are perceived levels of cultural competence in higher education professionals impacted by participation in an extended diversity training program? the personal nature of their decision to pursue the cab training program emerged most clearly from participant data. when asked to describe their commitment to diversity and inclusion, participants described deeply rooted hurt and personal commitments to friends, family, and self as influencers. access to resources and a community of peers engaged in this work has enhanced and increased perceived levels of competence among all participants. as indicated in self-evaluation data, participants’ matched © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi: 10.18060/25334| september 12, 2022 154 responses revealed elevated levels of skill and understanding. all participants point to cab as a key part of that development. ultimately, the study findings revealed critical opportunities for application and understanding. a continuously evolving student demographic and even the slowest diversification of university professionals should lead institutions to anticipate increases in engagement. institutions can anticipate a desire for increased opportunities to engage in diversity-related work and elevated expectations of institutional commitment as the campus community diversifies. for study participants, access to resources and a community of peers engaged in this work enhanced and increased perceived levels of competence. as a result, institutions looking to cultivate a sense of belonging must recognize the value of a multi-dimensional, equity-based skill set in their endeavors. when professionals are more attuned to the perspectives and worldviews of those around them, they are better equipped to respond to the unique needs of peers and colleagues. what does this mean for higher education? as frequently identified intended outcomes of diversity training, especially within professional development, skill development and application are critical in establishing sustainable shifts in campus climate and culture. as a result, institutions anticipate a desire for increased opportunities to engage in the work and elevated expectations of institutional commitment. though that expectation was not met through the experience of study participants, the desire for follow-up and follow-through was apparent. when professionals commit to engaging in matters of diversity on their campus, they assume that the university will match that commitment and leverage their efforts through institutional change. a secondary intended outcome of many diversity training is to assist in cultivating a sense of belonging. in applying their newly developed skills, participants realized the multi-dimensional nature of their equity-focused skill set. for instance, though a participant may have set out to be more inclusive in their language, the dual outcome of this skill implementation is that it can be used to resolve conflict while simultaneously cultivating a sense of belonging. study results suggest that the most frequently reported opportunity for skill application was in matters of conflict resolution. participants’ newly developed or enhanced equity-based skill set further equipped them to respond and provide feedback in a way that colleagues and peers received well because it was connected to the essence of who they are, personally and professionally. furthermore, a new lens and perspective on what it means to give and receive feedback within a workplace setting meant that participants were better equipped with the tools to engage in diversity and inclusion and more intentionally engage the core needs and requirements of basic communication. as a result, a skill set developed with equity and inclusion reflected and responded to broader requirements of effective communication and leadership. participant © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi: 10.18060/25334| september 12, 2022 155 reflections of interactions with supervisors and peers following the cab training experience support this notion. the tools acquired through participation in diversity training can enhance engagement with matters of equity and inclusion in support of more authentic interpersonal interaction. this is particularly important as university demographics become more reflective of a global campus community. these tools should represent the core of professional development experiences moving forward. study results point to the effects of diversity training as a holistic professional development experience by addressing the humanistic nature of higher education and the work of professionals engaging and navigating the campus communities of which they are a part. in this study, whether cultural competence is developed and demonstrated in professional roles via cab participation is not functionally examined. therefore, this could be an area of future research encouraged by this study’s results. limitations five significant limitations impacted this study: generalizability, instrumentation, participant bias/fatigue, researcher bias, and reliability. the generalizability of the study is low given the very small and non-replicable sample; however, it is anticipated that general study findings can be applied to various educational institutions. limitations on instrumentation were present, as the self-evaluation used in secondary data analysis was not analyzed for validity or reliability before its use with the sample. further, participant bias and fatigue were likely, as participants were asked to complete the self-evaluation three times following long training experiences. the validity and reliability of qualitative data were impacted by participants’ decision not to review their transcripts. as a result, transcripts were reviewed by a single researcher. though efforts were taken to bracket researcher bias, it is possible that the researcher’s relationship with participants impacted what they were and were not willing to share in the interview process. likewise, as the single reviewer of interview data, it is possible that the researcher analyzed and evaluated data with added knowledge and context despite bracketing attempts. as a member of the cab training cohort, the researcher possessed a network of established connections and a nuanced understanding of contextual experiences. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan 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(2010). the relationship between diversity training, organizational commitment, and career satisfaction. journal of european industrial training, 34(6), 519-538. about:blank about:blank © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi: 10.18060/25334| september 12, 2022 160 yin, r. k. (2017). case study research and applications: design and methods. sage publications. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi: 10.18060/25334| june 19, 2022 160 appendix a interview questions: 1. how would you describe your personal commitment to diversity and inclusion? 2. what led you to get involved with diversity and inclusion efforts on campus? a. with bic specifically? 3. describe what was it like walking into that first day of the bic training process 4. how do you see issues of equity and inclusion related to your professional role? 5. how has your participation in bic impacted the way you engage and interact with colleagues? 6. how would you describe your level of knowledge or skills in areas of diversity, equity, and inclusion prior to the bic workshop? 7. how has the program impacted your knowledge or skills related to areas of diversity, equity and inclusion? 8. describe a time when you experienced or witnessed mistreatment vcu related to some aspect of diversity and inclusion since getting involved in bic. a. what role did bic play in your response to that scenario? 9. how has participating in bic impacted how you view your role at vcu? a. describe a time when you’ve incorporated the skills and tools you’ve learned in your professional role. 10. how would you describe the overall impact bic has had on you as an individual? 11. how do you see the skills and tools you developed from bic impacting your career in the long term? © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25334 | sept 12, 2022 161 appendix b multicultural skills self-assessment based on the visions inc. multicultural skills self-assessment by cooper thompson & angela bryant, visions inc. the following assessment is to gauge your perceived proficiency level of the following skills. we recognize that some terminology used in the assessment may not be familiar, but please answer to the best of your ability. we also recognize that people have multiple and intersecting identities1; thus, when answering these questions, it may help if you consider the identities you believe are relevant. we are asking that you share your name on this survey so that we can return it to you later, allowing you to reflect on your pre-training answers as you progress through the building inclusive communities visions training. please note these surveys will only be viewed/reviewed by visions staff and the [redacted] division for inclusive excellence bic training staff. aggregate data of the survey results will be presented to the division for inclusive excellence leadership. please use the following scale in this self-assessment. the scale captures a wide range of ability levels from no awareness to expert. 0 inexperienced no awareness or understanding about this concept, skill or technique 1 awareness –basic knowledge of these skills and techniques 2 novice –basic knowledge plus limited experience with using these skills and techniques 3 intermediate have used these skills occasionally or able to perform these techniques in various settings on occasion 4 advanced – regularly use these skills or able to perform these techniques in various settings 5 expert –recognized as an authority in the use of these skills and techniques in a myriad of situations or settings _______1. learning about the impact of oppression on members of historically -excluded groups _______2. learning about the impact of oppression on members of historicallyincluded groups _______3. listening for information about other’s experiences and truths _______4. asking questions to increase my understanding of another person’s experience and point of view 1 identities can be a variety of things: profession, socioeconomic status, race, gender, class, orientation, status, generation/age, religion, etc. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25334 | sept 12, 2022 162 _______5. (a) affirming other people’s experiences even though they are different from my experiences _______5. (b) gaining perspective on other people’s interpretations of their experiences, even though their interpretation may differ from my interpretation of them _______6. moving at another person’s pace _______7. recognizing the presence of institutional barriers that prevent members of historically-excluded groups from having equal access to power and authority _______8. recognizing how institutional barriers maintain the power of members of historicallyincluded groups ______9. appreciating my contributions to the culture and climate at vcu ______10. appreciating others’ contributions to the culture and climate at vcu ______11. noticing what could be, or are, cultural differences between myself and others ______12. valuing the culturally different ways that other people express themselves ______13. possessing the capacity to identify, understand and respond to emotions in myself in a healthy manner ______14. possessing the capacity to identify, understand and respond to emotions in others in a healthy manner ______15. using feelings as data to influence my thoughts and behaviors ______16. exploring and admitting my cultural mistakes ______17. exploring and admitting my prejudices ______18. identifying and exploring the meaning of my historically-excluded group memberships © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25334 | sept 12, 2022 163 ______19. identifying and exploring the meaning of my historically-included group memberships ______20. exploring the impact of oppression on the historicallyexcluded group(s) to which i belong ______21. exploring the impact of oppression on the historicallyincluded group(s) to which i belong ______22. (a) examining the messages i learned as a child about my own and other cultural groups ______22. (b) updating these cultural messages from my childhood based on new information. ______23. (a) supporting members of my own historically-excluded group(s) to overcome isms2 ______23. (b) challenging members of my own historically-excluded group(s) to overcome isms ______23. (c) engaging members of my own historically-excluded group(s) in inclusive and equitable alternatives ______24. (a) supporting members of my own historically-included group(s) to overcome isms ______24. (b) challenging members of my own historically-included group(s) to overcome isms ______24. (c) engaging members of my own historically-included group(s) in inclusive and equitable alternatives ______25. as a member of an historically-excluded group, knowing and saying what i want and need from members of the corresponding historicallyincluded group ______26. as a member of an historically-included group, supporting members of the corresponding historically-excluded group, based on the type of support they have explicitly asked of me, not what i think they need ______27. supporting members of historically-excluded groups in meeting with and getting support from others in their historically-excluded groups 2 the term “isms” used in this context encompasses doctrines, practices, behaviors, philosophies, theories, etc. that are typically oppressive, biased, or exclusive; for example racism, sexism, ageism, ableism, classism, etc. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25334 | sept 12, 2022 164 ______28. accepting explicit, formal leadership from members of historically-excluded group(s) when i am in the corresponding historically-included group(s) ______29. (a) accepting and supporting explicit, formal leadership from members of the historically--excluded group(s) to which i belong ______29. (b)confronting formal leadership of historically-excluded group(s) to which i belong when differences emerge and problem solving to address these differences ______30. supporting leaders from historically-excluded group(s) when they are challenged by members of an historically-included group to which i belong ______31. receiving feedback on my behavior that others experience as insensitive or oppressive ______32. asking for feedback on my behavior to learn if others experience it as insensitive or oppressive ______33. exploring potential institutional responses to oppression and the ism ______34. using the personal and institutional power i have to challenge institutionalized oppression and the isms original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26444| march 8, 2023 102 elevating community voices through place-based education initiatives in chicago tyler l. hough1 1 executive director, the chicago center for urban life and culture cite as: hough, t. (2023). elevating community voices through place-based education initiatives in chicago. metropolitan universities, 34, 102-117. doi: 10.18060/26444 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. guest editors: patrick m. green, ph.d. and susan haarmon editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract the chicago center for urban life and culture is a non-profit organization that has been developing place-based education models since it was established in 1970. situated in an urban environment, the chicago center operates at the intersection of higher education and placebased education with a pedagogical approach that centers and elevates community voices. place-based education initiatives provide students with educational opportunities emphasizing active, experiential learning by immersing the participant in local communities and critically examining their context. the chicago center enriches place-based education by using a firstperson instructional approach—first voice pedagogy—to expand the traditional classroom and link liberal arts education to applied learning through exposure to community-based leaders and organizations. in this article, i review relevant literature that centers on place-based education and propose a paradigm shift in place-based education that draws on critical service learning. the article grapples with several questions on the relationship between place, urban environments, and more inclusive approaches. it concludes by offering encouraging practices to establish more inclusive place-based initiatives. keywords: place-based learning, community engagement, internships, community voices, chicago, critical service-learning http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26444 | march 8, 2023 103 introduction experiential and applied learning has been growing areas within higher education over the last 50 years (antioch university, 2022; butler & sinclair, 2020; johnson, 2012; langran & dewitt, 2020; sobol, 2004), and this type of community engagement enables colleges to build connections between learning inside and outside of the classroom. urban colleges and universities can more easily integrate place-based education initiatives into their curriculum. place-based education, a more focused type of experiential learning, provides students with educational opportunities emphasizing active, experiential learning by immersing the participant in local communities. this article proposes a paradigm shift in place-based education and uses the chicago center for urban life and culture’s model to illustrate opportunities to create inclusive and critical place-based education initiatives. john dewey, kurt lewin, and david kolb are theoretical anchors for experiential learning. kolb’s experiential learning theory (kolb, 1984) provided a provocative and transformative understanding of the experiential learning process that undergirds core elements in the community engagement field to this day. more recently, the field has witnessed a growth in place-based education initiatives that engage and transform community-engaged teaching and learning. place-based initiatives have been widely adopted across many higher education institutions (bringle & hatcher, 1996; lau et al., 2021; hague, 2020). however, research and literature on place-based education initiatives within higher education are limited. over the last 40 years, place-based education has emerged from a foundation of environmental education initiatives and programs that integrated learning into local communities (powers, 2004). research on place-based education initiatives that focuses on the education of younger learners (kindergarten through high school students) implies that the power of place has been transformative in helping students learn to act in their local communities and improve environmental vitality (place-based education evaluation collaborative, 2010; gruenwald, 2003a, 2003b). place-based education locates a learner in a specific, physical location outside the classroom that can be rural, urban, or in-between and is linked to learning outcomes (langran & de witt, 2020; israel, 2012; center for place-based education, n.d.). as a community-based non-profit, the chicago center uses this placed-based experiential education approach to learning and partners with private liberal arts colleges, primarily in the midwest and great plains, to deliver culturally immersive experiences. the chicago center’s model incorporates critical reflection into its pedagogical approach. informed by more than 50 years rooted in communities in chicago, the chicago center prioritizes places and learning in an urban context to elevate community voices. findings from several studies (powers, 2004; israel, 2012) demonstrate the important link between geographical location and its transformative impact on how students interact with their world. this link underscores the value of place-based © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26444 | march 8, 2023 104 education initiatives in helping students “develop stronger ties to their community and a heightened commitment to serving as active contributing citizens” (sobel, 2004, 11). literature (gruenewald, 2003b; sobol, 2004; powers, 2004; sobol, 2004) indicates that placebased education originates in environmental studies and often with high school or younger students. more contemporary literature focuses on place as it relates to critical service learning (latta & mitchell, 2020; mitchell, 2008) or place as a factor in student learning, as johnson et al. (2020) suggest with on-campus learning communities. mckenzie & tuck (2015), butler & sinclair (2020), and flynn et al. (2009) argue place is valuable for student success and posit critical place theory is essential to understanding colonization. however, the role of place and its relationship with topics such as power and privilege with an overlay of race, social, and economic status in an urban context is largely understudied. the limited research on this topic creates the need to better understand place-based initiatives that intentionally elevate community voices and assist students in understanding these interlinked topics. the gap in literature raises key questions: • how can a non-profit organization focused on place-based learning and urban education elevate community voices? • how can colleges and universities partner with local organizations and resources to build effective place-based education programs? • how can the chicago center’s history as community-based non-profit offer examples for colleges and universities seeking approaches to critical place-based education? place-based education and its relationship with critical service-learning place has always been a core element of powerful learning and is vital to different experiential education pedagogies, such as place-based and service learning. this section presents an overview of the theoretical foundations of place-based learning and argues that critical service learning is a supportive example of a shift to critical place-based education. before classrooms, students would learn from their families and communities. shortly after, learning became more closely linked to what happened inside the classroom, and for the next several decades, power shifted considerably to learning in the traditional classroom. john dewey’s educational philosophy, where teachers were encouraged to become intimately familiar with the environment of the “local community, physical, historical, economic, and occupational, etc., to utilize them as educational resources” (dewey, 1938, p. 40), challenged the traditional pedagogy of the time. dewey (1938), paolo freire (2011), and david sobel (2004) suggest the critical importance of place-based education and learning play in prompting students to apply their lessons from school to daily life. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26444 | march 8, 2023 105 freire (1968) more specifically focused on the role that power and privilege play in shaping students’ world views that critiques traditional place-based education within the class-based analysis. notably, and divergent from dewey and sobel, freire critiques the educational system that values certain types of knowledge and skills, particularly those voices and communities oppressed by the power and policy of systematic education. freire’s observations shape our understanding of how students experience learning inside and outside the classroom and provide a foundation for a class-based examination. freire is perhaps one of the best-known and most influential theorists closely attributed to service learning. the chicago center’s model does not include service; however, the pedagogical connections to service learning and critical service learning are essential. reflection is one of the critical links between place-based education, service learning, and critical-service learning pedagogy. “critical community service-learning (ccsl) incorporates an explicit acknowledgment of power and systemic inequality in the classroom through critical pedagogy by uncovering the political nature of education, providing deeper reflection on and critique of the supposed neutrality of education and its complicity with structural oppression” (santiago-ortiz, 2019, p 43). part of this article's proposed paradigm shift is that place-based education does not use strong enough critical reflection and examination in its traditional approach. therefore, a contextual understanding of systemic education is necessary to situation place-based education and the paradigm shift. systemic education focuses little on the demographic specificities of the author of the text—who often hold knowledge and power. textual validity is accepted by the fact a reputable press publishes the text and that the professor assigned it. the traditional campus places the instructor at the center of all learning (i.e., they’re the sole source of truth) and is historically often white, cisgender, and male. for many students, moving from their hometown to campus is one of the most diverse environments they have been in. at the same time, campus-based education intentionally removes students from possible “distractions” in a pedagogy that focuses the student’s attention on lectures and discussions led by an instructor, complemented by a library or laboratory-based research. critical place-based education begins to address the power imbalance that occurs in the traditional classroom. in contrast to the conventional classroom with a focus on distant events and standardized knowledge, place-based education “systematically inducts students with knowledge and patterns of behavior associated with responsible community engagement” (gruenewald & smith, 2008). each student approaches learning through their unique perspective, which is primarily built on their previous experiences, stories, and affiliation with different communities (langran & dewitt, 2020; smith, 2002). when the classroom is extended into communities, specifically communities of color, through a first voice pedagogy (fvp), the © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26444 | march 8, 2023 106 power arrangements in the learning environment changes. this situation often intensifies students' feelings about these immersive and diverse experiences. that leads to a required understanding of the power of place. we have all experienced the remarkable power of place – from times with new sights, smells, or sounds; place adds context to foreign yet familiar surroundings; place sparks curiosity and wonder; place crystalizes learning in new ways. place is always present in life. place shapes our identities, our surroundings, our relationships with ours, and, unquestionably, our view of others, communities, and political dimensions. place provides a context in which we learn about ourselves and make sense of and connect to our natural and cultural surroundings (langran & dewitt, 2020; vander ark et al., 2020; butler & sinclair, 2020). place begins to wrap context around traditional learning and is especially effective in delivering students examples of agency, equity (often inequity), and learning from the community. place-based education requires the classroom to be more permeable, allowing information and experience to support and challenge traditional learning. the new text and instruction are people, culture, and communities when the classroom is expanded into a community or place. critical place-based education incorporates the “acknowledgment of power and systemic inequality” (santiago-ortiz, 2019, p.43) to go beyond the traditional use of place to evoke new understandings of oppression. communities of color are often marginalized in urban environments, and because of economic, social, and political dimensions, people within those communities are rarely validated by the traditional academy. the chicago center is an illustrative example of this paradigm shift. our approach incorporates critical place-based education pedagogy in the model as part of an intentional effort to integrate and elevate community voices. the following section offers a deeper look into the chicago center’s model. case study: the chicago center founded in the hyde park neighborhood of chicago in 1970, the chicago center for urban life and culture has extended the college classroom walls by providing professional practicum opportunities and urban seminars for students of all academic majors through place-based learning and first voice pedagogy (fvp). an fvp enriches place-based education by using a first-person instructional approach to position community leaders—also known as “first voices”—as experts. this supports the chicago center’s and place-based education’s overarching goals: to leverage the power of place and people to create transformative student learning experiences. additionally, the pedagogy challenges students to grapple with multidimensional approaches to diversity and inequity. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26444 | march 8, 2023 107 as part of this central aim, the chicago center equips college students and other participants to learn from diverse urban communities through innovative programs, seminars, and internships. fvp is at the core of this work and prepares students for greater self-awareness and global citizenship. the chicago center’s three-pronged approach to place-based education includes: (1) academic texts, (2) first voices, and (3) place-based immersive experiences. as an independent non-profit, the chicago center contracts with nearly 30 us colleges and universities to provide immersive, residential education programs focused on student learning through pre-professional, applied learning experiences. students spend one semester in chicago and enroll in one of three chicago center programs—student teaching, social work, or urban internship. then, through the student’s home institution, they receive academic credit for their semester at the chicago center and earn professional competencies through their professional placements that better prepare them for careers in those professions. the chicago center is intentionally located in hyde park, which allows for exposure to one of chicago’s most racially and culturally diverse yet integrated communities. students easily access public transportation and chicago’s north and south side communities. for many students, this experience is their final step between life as a college student and graduate living independently. all students in the program live together in residential apartments in one building, which functions as a living and learning space for students. students spend three to five days per week in their placement and participate in guided discussions with an instructor, guest lecturers, field experts, community-based resources, or “first voices.” the chicago center’s instructional approach and goals are intimately linked with the primary aim to build on a traditional liberal arts education and equip students with academic skills and tools for learning from urban resources and contexts. the chicago center experience compliments liberal arts disciplines for critical thinking, civic engagement, and global citizenship. inspired by the work of freire (1968), which elevated the knowledge base inherent in intentional experience, student personal development theories (chickering & reisser, 1993), and kolb (1984), the chicago center has been a leading place-based education partner for colleges and universities for more than fifty years. with these foundational theories, the chicago center’s integrated approach equips students with the ability to apply their knowledge from their seminar, placement, and city experiences to application during and beyond their time in chicago. the curriculum is designed to stitch together the experience of living in an urban community, working in an internship, and engaging in critical reflection and analysis in academic seminars. the systematic integration of community-based educational resources (e.g., community leaders, artists, scholars) across the chicago center’s programs is vital to the layered learning approach. chicago center’s programs utilize fvp to strip away as many layers as possible between the learner and the source of knowledge. students enrolled in the internship program take the © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26444 | march 8, 2023 108 chicago cultures and communities course and experience a mix of traditional pedagogical models. this model elevates community-based voices by positioning them as subject-matter experts. the chicago center's innovative approach to utilizing the resources of a city as complex, diverse, and artistically vibrant as chicago provides ideas for liberal arts students, educators, and administrators to engage with issues facing american society. fvp utilizes three key instructional elements to provide students with immersive experiences to consider context, community, and power and elevate community voices. 1. academic texts: students are assigned written texts to provide a historical background and academic framework for the community-based component of the course. 2. community voices: fvp emphasizes sources of knowledge not officially recognized by the traditional notion of text, which is often marginalized in systematic education. 3. place-based immersion: students are exposed to communities by physically visiting the neighborhoods and learning about different cultures and communities through walking tours, conversations with residents, and cuisine. built into the seminar is direct engagement with community-based resources in chicago’s patchwork quilt of neighborhoods that reflect historical and more recent migrant and immigrant populations. these components link the content of liberal arts to the real-world interests of the student by constructing a real-world dialogue with the student and these topics. a liberal arts education is enduring because it introduces and grounds the student in the cultural and historical traditions which are the foundation of the modern western world. fvp prompts the student to take an active role in their learning versus a traditional pedagogy that encourages a more passive role of the student. it also invites students to observe, reflect, and act on their experiences. given these tools, students can begin to discern knowledge that serves their interests and take ownership of the learning process. students begin to develop these life-long learning skills. each of the three instructional elements is described below. academic texts/traditional for chicago center students, these written texts link community-based resources and established disciplines within the liberal arts. the course uses texts written by authors with first-hand experience and expertise of the community they’re part of (e.g., i am not your perfect mexican daughter for the unit on latinx communities). students are expected to use the texts as a framework and expand upon what they are learning from the experiential components of the course. this is accomplished through an analytical and reflection journal, written responses to assigned readings, and individual and group projects. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26444 | march 8, 2023 109 community voices a central part of the chicago center’s model is the ways a non-profit can intentionally situate first voices, or community-based resources, as leading experts in their communities. students will first encounter first voices in the first week of the term during o-week and then throughout their courses and immersive programming. this section overviews the selection and importance of community voices as essential elements to a proposed paradigm shift in place-based education. first voices are chosen as intentionally as are written materials for a traditional college course and must meet three criteria to be considered: someone (1) whose life work is noteworthy for its recognition in the city or community; (2) who has gained the trust of the community for whose experience they speak; (3) whose work demonstrates a critical reflection and understanding of the experience base from which they speak. community-based resources are drawn from various life experiences and identity groups that ensure information and relationships do not exploit the communities. the chicago center integrates first voices with academic and student life experiences throughout the term. each term, through a carefully selected set of programs, students will meet with first voices who identify with one of these communities: mexican, puerto rican, african american, lgbtq+, south asian, east asian, muslim, christian, and jewish. instructors and staff at chicago center act as the course architect, guides, and bridge-builder. rather than being the repository and primary source of course content, instructors provide an avenue into the city and guide students toward an expanded understanding of nontraditional sources of knowledge. whether it is a mural tour in pilsen with luis tubens during the students’ first week, a trip to services at rainbow push, or hearing from victor salvo with the legacy project, experiences with first voices are integrated throughout a student’s experience at the chicago center. regardless of the timing of the semester, a student will experience key first voices. two examples include diane latiker, where students learn about the impact that systemic racism has on black youth today, and latiker’s organization, kids off the block, a youth program that “promotes good health, educational achievement, and personal and social growth.” students also learn from chicago artist and historian luis tubens, who uses murals and community art to explore mexican immigration through political and social lenses. place-based immersion © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26444 | march 8, 2023 110 an extension of community voices is the use of place-based, immersive learning that occurs when students visit, experience, and have the ability further contextualize the first two primary instructional elements. the chicago center’s approach to place-based education centers freire’s work on education (1968). through the praxis, we “unveil the world of the oppressed” (freire, 1968, p. 54) and empower our students to be part of its transformation. while missing the service element, mitchell (2008) and santiago-ortiz (2019) provide moving and contemporary approaches similar to critical reflection's role in this process for our students. experiences begin on day one for our students. orientation events are designed to shift students out of their comfort zone and into the city's discourse. chicago's racial and cultural diversity is more foreign to many white suburban and small-town students than spending a semester in an international setting where they are required to learn a foreign language. being a stranger in their own country is a disconcerting experience for many white students who choose to study at the chicago center. with the fvp, the role of the traditional text and its place in the learning process is not so much displaced but rather expanded. the notion of text is extended to include sources of knowledge that are not typically recognized in systematic education. the proposed paradigm shift encourages a dialogue between the student and the marginalized voice whose experience has been objectified in the traditional text and which is represented by the instructor in the weekly seminar. this pedagogy empowers both the learner and source of knowledge, where the subject uses their voice, and the student enters into the dialogue in an active rather than a passive role. student reflection and action are vital elements to this model and evaluating learning, student development, and program outcomes. students are expected to 1) maintain a sense of curiosity and openness about the cultural forces that shape chicagoans’ experiences, neighborhoods, and social worlds, 2) actively reflect on and engage with the readings and community resources/residents that are part of the seminar, and 3) participate in classroom discussions regarding their exposure and experiences with the material and community resources. students attend each weekly immersive experience and complete written and oral journals throughout the term that provide opportunities for critical reflection and writing. the program is also assessed through two student assignments: a group mural project and an individual research project. students draw on their new experiences in chicago and placement in these projects. for the group mural project, students work in groups to select a mural in chicago, interview the artist and residents, research the history and other details on the neighborhood that culminates in a group presentation. the research project challenges students to make connections between their seminar, placement, and active life in chicago. with guidance from our instructors, students develop a research question implemented through a research design and field study component. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26444 | march 8, 2023 111 students make first-hand observations, analyze data, and deliver a written and oral presentation of their research at the end of the term. using the chicago center model as a case study, i propose examples that allow educators to create more inclusive and critical place-based education initiatives in the next section. implications for practice and recommendations for elevating community voices an array of opportunities exist for students to gain experiential and applied learning experiences through avenues such as service learning, internships, and research within place-based initiatives. the chicago center model provides colleges and universities with an example of how to develop and expand place-based education initiatives within urban environments. the following recommendations build on these critical questions and the chicago center’s 50+ years of elevating community voices through its work. these implications for practice also offer practitioners strategies that elevate community voices through more inclusive program design. questions to consider when designing a place-based initiative 1. how can you account for your students’ previous experiences? at the chicago center, we prompt our students to begin noticing all that is around them. at the beginning of each term, we ask students to describe the diversity of their high school. students univariable default to talking about race in their hometown, where it is common for our students to come from homogenous racial communities. a 2019 pew research study supports our internal reporting: 79% of white students went to school where 50%+ of their peers were also white. this opens the conversation with our staff and instructors to discuss the racial dichotomy between a student’s hometown or campus community and their new urban home. in this first conversation, we intentionally introduce the connection between power, race, and privilege in an urban environment. 2. how can you connect students to learning instead of being the source of learning? it takes very active choices in developing programs to turn over instruction to a community leader and an openness to where the conversation may go, even if in direct conflict with you, your style, or your institution. 3. who does a place-based experience serve, and what does it hope to achieve? critical engagement in these questions allows for the ability to prompt our students to take a more active role in their learning. we often use these questions in our cultures and communities seminar course when discussing a specific racial, ethnic, or geographic community in chicago. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26444 | march 8, 2023 112 program recommendations 1. explore the consideration of living-learning experiences that integrate place across academic, residential, and experiential life. through the fvp, the chicago center provides students access to community leaders that are intentionally selected to support learning outcomes. all of our students live in one building to provide a seamless, integrated home experience that compliments the social and academic components of students’ time at the chicago center. 2. consider the role of local cuisine when designing a place-based education experience. a great opportunity for community education is to eat at local neighborhood restaurants. restaurants provide an opportunity to observe and meet the residents who influence the neighborhood directly at its meeting places. sometimes the place a community coalesces is a coffee shop or a local eatery. 3. elevate diverse voices in this process by considering these recommendations: a. develop criteria to select and compensate the individual(s) part of the program. this is the first step to making sure educators aren’t exploiting individuals and begin to develop a multidirectional relationship. b. identify individuals with multiple connections to the community (e.g., familial, cultural, professional). the chicago center partners with luis tubens to explore mexican american history and culture in the pilsen neighborhood of chicago. tubens has lived in pilsen for nearly two decades, lead community outreach for an elected official in that district, and led education at the national museum of mexican art. c. in addition to learning outcomes specific to the initiative, develop goals for each community voice (e.g., how can i uniquely engage this individual that is best for their experiences and my program?). this allows educators the ability to approach community voices thoughtfully and appropriately. 4. understand and integrate the interconnectedness of social, political, or economic power structures across many dimensions. a deeper understanding of these elements can help educators design a more integrated experience, such as how power locates certain racial communities and their access to resources. 5. investigate and discuss dominant institutions' disproportionate impact on people of color, policy, and land. conclusion in this article, i presented important questions that challenge the pedagogy of traditional placebased education models, and i called for a paradigm shift in how place-based education pedagogy can be more critical and inclusive. when place is leveraged effectively in student © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26444 | march 8, 2023 113 learning, community voices are represented and deepen community-engaged learning. this paradigm shift invites students to a table where many voices are represented, and those marginalized voices carry equal weight to the voices the academy has validated. through the discussion, immersion in communities, and a curious mindset, they gain a new understanding of their participation in society and greater confidence in their ability to contribute to our rapidly changing world. the chicago center’s first voice pedagogical approach allows educators to integrate critical reflection into their programs. additionally, these implications for practice enable educators to move beyond traditional place-based education by presenting students with community voices who can speak directly to race and gender-based inequity issues. langran and dewitt’s (2020) concepts of situationality describe an ideal outcome for this paradigm shift in place-based education. in pedagogy of the oppressed, freire observed the transformative moment in learning when students take an active role in their education. they recognize their place in the world and the social, political, and economic dimensions that contribute to the world around them. they also realize that they can influence the world and are empowered to act. future considerations the chicago center’s model has found success working with colleges, universities, and their students in rural, often homogeneous communities that share common characteristics. on occasion, we’ve had students from chicago that study at one of these colleges, and these students often take away different skills and experiences than their peers. while a college’s location is not a requirement, our program has often been able to add to the campus’s fabric uniquely and student experiences with colleges in non-urban communities. we leverage place-based education and chicago as our canvas to provide robust student experiences. partnering with urban universities would shift our model to focus more specifically on chicago and reshape the program. this is a key opportunity for us to consider moving forward. while friere will remain woven throughout the chicago center’s dna, we are currently investigating new, more contemporary theorists that exist and may support the model’s evolution. while we are still in the development process, i believe the chicago center’s model is built on a strong critical pedagogy informed by kolb and friere, and infused elements of critical place-based education, the reflection, and flow of processing elements mitchell (2008) illustrates. the practical and professional experience students earn in their internship and practicum placements. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26444 | march 8, 2023 114 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26444 | march 8, 2023 115 references bringle, r. g., & hatcher, j. a. (1996). implementing service learning in higher education. journal of higher education, 67(2), 221-239. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2943981 butler, a., & sinclair, k. a. (2020). place matters: a critical review of place inquiry and spatial methods in education research. review of research in education, 44(1), 64-96. https://doi.org/10.3102/0091732x20903303 center for place-based education ' antioch university. antioch university ' win one for humanity. (n.d.). retrieved july 31, 2022, from https://www.antioch.edu/centersinstitutes/center-place-based-education. chickering, a. w., & reisser, l. (1994). education and identity. hoboken, nj: wiley press. dewey, j. (1938). experience and education. new york, ny: touchstone books. flynn, j., kemp, a. t., perez, d. c. (2009). you can’t teach where you don’t know: fusing place-based education and whiteness studies for social justice. curriculum and teaching dialogue, 12(1 &2), 137-151. friere, p. (1984). the pedagogy of the oppressed. new york, ny: continuum international publishing group. gruenewald, d. a., & smith, g. a. (2008). place-based education in the global age. london, uk: routledge books. gruenewald, d. (2003a). the best of both worlds: a critical pedagogy of place. educational researcher, 32(4), 3–12. https://doi.org/10.3102/0013189x032004003 gruenewald, d. (2003b). foundations of place: a multidisciplinary framework for place conscious education. american educational research journal. 40(3), 619–654. https://doi.org/10.3102/00028312040003619 hague, e. (2020). connecting courses, curriculum, and community in chicago. metropolitan universities, 31(2), 7-17 doi: 10.18060/23923 johnson, j. (2012). place-based learning and knowing: critical pedagogies grounded in indigeneity. geojournal, 77(6), 829–836. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-010-9379-1 https://doi.org/10.3102/0091732x20903303 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-010-9379-1 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26444 | march 8, 2023 116 johnson, m. d., sprowles, a. e., goldenberg, k. r., margell, s. t., castellino, l. (2020). effect of a place-based learning community on belonging, persistence, and equity gaps for first-year stem students. innovative higher education, 45, 509-531. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10755-020-09519-5 kolb, d.a. (1984). experiential learning: experience as a source for learning and development. englewood cliffs, nj: prentice hall. langran, e., & dewitt, j. (2020). navigating place-based learning: mapping for a better world. london, uk: palgrave macmillan. latta, m., & mitchell, t. d. (2020). from critical community services to critical services learning and futures we must (still) imagine. journal of community engagement and higher education, 12(1), 3-6. lau, k.h., chan, m.y.l., yeung, c.l.s., snell, r.s. (2021). an exploratory study of the community impacts of service-learning. metropolitan universities, 32(2), 106-128. doi: 10.18060/25482 mckenzie, m., & tuck, e. (2015). relational validity and the “where” of inquiry: place and land in qualitative research. qualitative inquiry, 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800414563809 mitchell, t. d. (2007). critical service-learning as social justice education: a case study of the citizen scholars program. equity & excellence in education, 40, 101-112. https://doi.org/10.1080/10665680701228797 mitchell, t. d. (2008). traditional vs. critical service-learning: engaging the literature to differentiate two models. michigan journal of community service, 50-65. mitchell, t. d., & rost-banik, c. (2019). how sustained service-learning experiences inform career pathways. michigan journal of community services learning, 18-29. place-based education evaluation collaborative. 2010. benefits of place-based education: a report from the place-based education evaluation collaborative (second edition). retrieved july 25, 2022 from http://tinyurl.com/peecbrochure. powers, a. l. (2004). an evaluation of four place-based education programs. the journal of environmental education, 35(4). https://doi.org/10.3200/joee.35.4.17-32 https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800414563809 https://doi.org/10.1080/10665680701228797 http://tinyurl.com/peecbrochure https://doi.org/10.3200/joee.35.4.17-32 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26444 | march 8, 2023 117 santiago-ortiz, a. (2019). from critical to decolonizing service-learning: limits and possibilities of social justice-based approaches to community services-learning. michigan journal of community services learning, 2019, 43-54. sobol, d. (2004). place-based education: connecting classrooms and communities. great barrington, ma: orion publishing. smith, g. a. (2002). place-based education: learning to be where we are. phi delta kappan, 83(8), 584–594. https://doi.org/10.1177/003172170208300806 vander ark, t., liebtag, e., & mcclennen, n. (2020). the power of place: authentic learning through place-based education. alexandria, va: ascd. https://doi.org/10.1177/003172170208300806 tyler l. hough1 abstract introduction place-based education and its relationship with critical service-learning case study: the chicago center academic texts/traditional community voices place-based immersion implications for practice and recommendations for elevating community voices questions to consider when designing a place-based initiative program recommendations conclusion future considerations references © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25833| february 23, 2023 55 original research covid-19 reflections of hyperlocal, placed-based engagement daren a. ellerbee, john kirby, paul kuttner, lorna schwartzentruber, ashley valis, and lina dostilio cite as: ellerbee, d.a., kirby, j., kuttner, p., schwartzentruber, l., valis, a. & dostilio, l. (2023). covid-19 reflections of hyperlocal, place-based engagement. metropolitan universities, 34(1), 55-66. doi: 10.18060/25833 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract the degree to which universities could nimbly and effectively respond to the impacts of the covid-19 crisis on their local communities depended upon the structure and orientation of their community engagement infrastructure. institutions that support a hyperlocal form of place-based engagement were uniquely positioned to harness their extensive place-based organizational networks, intimate knowledge of community assets, and existing paths to leverage institutional resources to work alongside neighbors, residents, organizational leaders, elected officials, elders, youth and families committed to everyone’s thriving through the covid-19 crises. hyperlocal, place-based engagement describes an engagement approach within higher education in which a university’s community engagement efforts are focused on a bounded area, such as a neighborhood, within a larger city or metropolitan region, and are aligned with that community’s development goals (dostilio, ohmer, mcfadden, mathew, & finkelstein, 2019). these efforts typically advance two goals: to a) position the institution to partner with, and add value to, community building efforts undertaken by the neighborhood being engaged and b) to enhance and accelerate the institution’s ability to forge mutually-beneficial alliances and mobilize knowledge production. because these efforts are long-term, they create unique conditions for engagement that proved to accelerate community-campus engagements to address covid-19 impacts. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25833 | february 23, 2023 56 the community engagement professionals (dostilio, 2017) who lead hyperlocal engagement activities were particularly crucial to their institution’s covid-19 community responses. at the time of the pandemic, a group of such professionals had been meeting as a learning community to exchange promising practices of hyperlocal engagement. this article is written from the perspective of these professionals, endeavoring to reflect on how their work to steward hyperlocal approaches was challenged and affirmed through the covid-19 pandemic. as a group of directors committed to social change, we share a common desire to make a difference by acknowledging the power and privilege of the universities we represent. making evident the expressed commitments of each cumu member institution who contributed to this article, we aim to share insight into our unique position within the university and community which permitted us to be responsive during covid in ways that both strengthen our relationships and challenged them. we pivoted and found new ways to remain impactful as neighbors supporting neighbors. we acted to steer partners through institutional systems to access resources. dedicated program staff remained familiar faces who were able to identify needs and mobilize quickly to address them. hyperlocal, neighborhood-based centers remained trusted pipelines to partners interested in finding ways to support residents, and more. as this new reality shaped by covid-19 emerges, we reflect on how the pandemic affected, refined, and changed the way we carry out our missions, recognizing through this experience that the real work exists beyond our centers’ walls. keywords: university-community, collaboration, multidisciplinary, institutional structure © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25833 | february 23, 2023 57 daren a. ellerbee university of pittsburgh community engagement center in homewood the university of pittsburgh (pitt) community engagement center (cec) in homewood is one of a number of hyperlocal engagement efforts at pitt that advance a place-based engagement frame. the homewood cec links and leverages engagement assets across all 16 schools to be of sustainable impact within homewood. the university has dedicated staff who lead our placebased work and a neighborhood advisory council comprised of residents, business owners, elected officials, faith leaders, and representatives of community-based institutions and organizations. the cecs are welcoming spaces for university-community collaborations which are mutually beneficial and aligned with each community’s goals. relationships built in homewood enabled us to pivot quickly during the onset of the pandemic. internally, our senior engagement leader mobilized the covid-19 community repsonse task force, which met weekly to assess, share, and act on emerging community and university challenges as a result of the pandemic. the pitt pandemic service initiative emerged to expand staff, faculty, and student service opportunities to help or neighbors and to shape impactful partnerships. our community collaborators – the organizational leadership, staff, and residents looped us in as neighbors to strategize and fill gaps related to digital access for families, exacerbated learning loss for students, and the need for additional educational supports, covid19 vaccines, and more. one program, the community care callers, aligned faculty, staff, and student personpower with partner organizations making telephone calls and wellvisits to the constituencies they served. they would connect those constituents with resources at the sponsoring organizations, providing information about covid-19 testing (and later vaccination), access to basic needs supports, and connection back to the region’s essential community services hotline. as a convener, the cec also helped to coordinate and make available technology that enabled community networks to meet virtually. the homewood cec convened many online community meetings and events for existing partners like the homewood community development collaborative (the collaborative), and new partners like the united black book clubs of pittsburgh, leveraging pitt's enterprise zoom account and tech-savvy students, we ensured that our community collaborators felt just as supported online as they would at the cec. pitt’s hill district community engagement center convened a network of more than 20 community-based organizations weekly to develop coordinated services for the hill district neighborhood. the most rewarding collaboration proved to be our most challenging. in early 2021 when covid-19 vaccine supplies were scarce, especially within african american communities, the homewood and hill district cecs supported first and second-dose vaccination clinics led by a http://www.cec.pitt.edu/ https://www.pitt.edu/pittwire/features-articles/acts-kindness-pandemic-service-initiative-engages-pitt-community https://homewood-collaborative.org/ https://homewood-collaborative.org/ © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25833 | february 23, 2023 58 coalition of community partners across two communities, homewood and the hill district. with the goal at that time to vaccinate two thousand residents aged 65 old and older, both cecs acted as conveners coordinated pitt supports from the school of pharmacy and other health sciences schools and units, along with community partners to collaborate on this effort. the allegheny county health department supplied us with the vaccine. the greater pittsburgh ymca permitted free use of their branch in homewood. the homewood children’s village created and led the registration process ensuring that appointments were protected and went to residents from both neighborhoods. primary care health services, inc. – alma illery medical center was an instrumental partner who continues to ensure community members have access to vaccinations. the challenge emerged with the second dose clinic. vaccination clinics all over the country, including ours, were impacted by shortages causing delays. residents were concerned about not getting their second dose within the required timeframe and rightfully angry. many questioned if we had forgotten about the black community and whether they would indeed get their second dose at all. organizations throughout the community, including the cec, began to get calls from residents driven who were fearful. many calls were fielded by community care callers and some of the volunteers were student workers of the cec. we convened with our collaborative partners to outline the informational available to us and to devise a second-dose schedule that accounted for the possibility of just-in-time supply. i encouraged students to remain empathic, respectful, and kind. the calls proved to be tough for everyone to follow and we all had to sit with it and accept responsibility. the following week we received word that vaccine pipelines had improved and we could reschedule the clinics within the necessary time frame. the tone of residents had shifted during return calls to schedule their second appointments. callers reported uplifted spirits and relief from residents and their families as we hastily worked to fill slots. i am proud to report that we fully vaccinated 100% of residents from the first dose clinic. all partners, including pitt, rallied together, exhausting numerous organizational resources to address vaccine inequity within minoritized communities while ensuring that our neighborhoods’ most vulnerable residents were protected. all of these intentional, collaborative efforts ensured that the majority of vaccines stayed in the community. as we look ahead, the cec will continue to lean in and work alongside pitt faculty, staff, and students, and our community collaborators to ensure thriving for all! john kirby drexel university dornsife center for neighborhood partnerships © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25833 | february 23, 2023 59 in 2014, drexel opened the dornsife center for neighborhood partnerships, a universitysponsored resource center, in mantua, a neighborhood in the heart of the federally designated west philadelphia promise zone. inspired by the tradition of cooperative extension, the dornsife center hosts creative, collaborative activities, and services that bring the university's academic and administrative resources together with the ambitions and interests of residents. the offerings are richly connected to drexel's distinctive strengths and are often provided by university faculty and students. having now welcomed over 27,000 participants and visitors since opening, individuals engage in a range of activities. for example: • the kline school of law hosts the andy and gwen stern community lawyering clinic (clc); • the westphal college of media arts & design offers classes in dance, theater, music, and music production; with the potential for courses in graphic design, gaming, music production, fashion design, animation, and other creative fields; • through writers room, faculty from the english department in the college of arts and sciences lead writing programs for local high school students, drexel students, and local seniors; • students and faculty from the college of nursing and health professions through its community wellness hub provide a range of health, wellness, and nutrition programs and educational opportunities; • and the beachell family learning center (bflc) creates pathways to career entry and advancement, wealth building, and entrepreneurship. as it did for most institutions, the pandemic forced us to change quickly. closing our doors to the public on march 13th was difficult as in-person activity has been core to our mission. our staff and partners were torn because we understood that for many, the dornsife center provides the most convenient access to health, legal, workforce development, and community arts programs and services. our partners didn't waste time as the student lawyers in the clc began scheduling appointments with their clients to resolve any outstanding cases before the center closed and assuring others that the work would continue virtually. as a trusted location for many, though we were closed, our physical space allowed us to find new ways to support families in west philadelphia. we partnered with civic leaders and our colleagues from the west philadelphia promise neighborhood education initiative and their action for early learning program, to collect, store, and distribute cleaning supplies, masks, food, and remote learning tools for families. our on-site operations team remained working throughout the crisis, which made this possible. the quick-change also challenged us to think differently about how we engaged our community and utilized the skills of the university. like many, we transitioned to remote work and programming. we made our community dinner "to-go", teaming with civic and faith leaders to https://drexel.edu/dornsifecenter/ https://www.phila.gov/programs/west-philadelphia-promise-zone/ https://drexel.edu/law/academics/kline-difference/clinics/community-lawyering-clinic/ https://drexel.edu/law/academics/kline-difference/clinics/community-lawyering-clinic/ https://www.writersroomdrexel.org/ https://drexel.edu/dornsifecenter/programs/health-and-wellness/community-wellness-hub/ https://drexel.edu/dornsifecenter/programs/beachell-family-learning-center/ https://westphillypn.org/ https://westphillypn.org/early-childhood-education-action-for-early-learning © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25833 | february 23, 2023 60 deliver 250 dinners monthly to families and seniors in 6 neighborhoods. our arts and culture program partners designed remote engagements that would allow participants to continue their progress. as our most regularly utilized resource, the bflc, which hosts one of the two local public-access, free computer labs, understood that the loss of services and access were devastating for those seeking opportunities to earn for themselves and their families and connect to essential services online, including claiming unemployment benefits. the team developed youtube lessons, surveyed participants about their home internet capacity, and provided virtual career workshops with local employers. we believe that the future will continue to be offered in a hybrid capacity as these engagements have created diverse access points to the activities and support provided. as we returned in february we first reactivated our outdoor spaces teaming with our partners from trellis for tomorrow and student group drexel urban growers (dug) to host activities in our newly rebuilt 14 raised bed community garden; and our bflc partners to host outdoor computer labs. as a covid testing and vaccination location since late may, we have provided covid testing for over 110 people and administered over 450 vaccine shots. with our buildings now reopened, this summer we hosted three youth programs, often welcoming over 100 young people on days throughout the week. we have had the privilege of continuing to have the trust of our community partners and the support of our university colleagues and students, which has allowed us to identify new opportunities to bring the university into a deeper relationship with our neighbors. we know that we need to find more creative ways of hearing from our neighbors, staying true to the proven methods of connecting face-to-face, while also making better use of the remote engagement tools to hear the voices of the many with diverse ideas, perspectives, needs, and interests. with anticipation, we are looking forward to what is to come. paul kutner university of utah university neighborhood partners university neighborhood partners (unp) was created in 2001 as a long-term collaboration between the university of utah and west side of salt lake city neighborhoods. the west side, as it is familiarly known, is a vibrant and leader-full community. it is a major resettlement area for immigrants and refugees and home to the majority of the city's residents of color. it has also faced decades of segregation and disinvestment, separated physically, economically, and culturally from the wealthier east side where the university is located. https://trellis4tomorrow.org/ https://drexel.campuslabs.com/engage/organization/drexelurbangrowers © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25833 | february 23, 2023 61 unp’s mission is to “bring together university and west side people and resources in reciprocal learning, action, and benefit — a community coming together.” it is a university department with a staff of 16, many from the neighborhoods in which unp works. its main office is in the west side neighborhood of glendale. unp also oversees the unp hartland partnership center, a 10,000 square foot building that houses a walk-in center, youth center, startup incubator, classrooms, and community meeting spaces.  unp is first and foremost a convener. unp brings together west side residents, higher education, and local organizations and institutions and supports them in identifying shared goals and working together. unp is proactive in amplifying the voices of people who have historically been marginalized in decision-making spaces, investing heavily in relationship building and leadership development. at any one time, unp staff are supporting between 40 and 70 partnerships focused on resident-identified priorities such as education, leadership, capacity building, employment, and health. 20 years of partnership work have established unp as a trusted entity in the west side, with a broad web of relationships with community leaders and grassroots organizations. this social capital placed unp in a unique position at the start of the pandemic. we were one of the few entities that had a direct relationship with grassroots organizations, service providers, higher education, local government, and, most importantly, families impacted by the pandemic. the early months of the pandemic were an extraordinary time in unp. the first thing we did, after checking on the well-being of our staff, was to reach out to hundreds of our partners to ask, "how are you doing? is there anything you need?" this way, we were quickly able to identify needs for direct aid and who was in a position to help. we shifted our budgets to create a direct support fund and began handing out gift cards to families who were ineligible for federal aid because of citizenship status — an effort we eventually helped our city to take on themselves. many agencies and nonprofits were caught flat-footed by covid, without plans for communicating or connecting with multilingual communities. they quickly recognized unp and our partners as important bridges. suddenly, the historically underappreciated work of cultural navigation and partnership building was in high demand. we were working with our partners to disseminate information to the neighborhood's inaccessible and multilingual formats, while simultaneously speaking back to systems about what resources were needed, what approaches were culturally responsive, and what questions needed to be answered through research. as systems recognized the importance of cultural navigators/brokers, they began hiring some of our long-time resident partners. while we were glad that these residents found employment, it depleted some of the human resources of local organizations. in the end, however, our partners were pushed to reach deeper into the community, including a new generation of younger © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25833 | february 23, 2023 62 leaders, which strengthened the work. meanwhile, with relief funds coming into the state, we used some to hire a team of local leaders as multilingual resource navigators, and supported partners in accessing the funds for their ongoing work. many of our traditional activities had to change, of course. partners had to quickly adapt to new crises and learn to offer education, enrichment, mental health, and other services online. one example of an initiative that was adapted was our flagship partners in the park event, traditionally a tabling event where our partners convened in local parks in the hundreds. just a month after lockdowns, over 50 people joined a zoom call to reimagine the event. the result was partners in the park(ing lot), which included a car parade (with lowriders and car clubs), as well as a drive-thru event where we handed out hundreds of bags of resources, activities, information, and food. this event pulled in many new volunteers and reinvigorated ongoing partnerships. the results reflected the strength and resilience of our communities and the importance of creating spaces of belonging and mutual aid. on an internal level, unp staff become more attuned to one another. we began checking in daily on zoom, and staff appreciated the feeling of not being alone in the pandemic. we learned new things about one another and got a peek into the lives of the people on the screen. covid was rough on everyone, and the meetings were a time to express empathy and compassion. unp became a critical support system, strengthening our relationships, even as the increased work risked staff and partner burnout.  lorna schwartzentruber york university td community engagement center the york university-td community engagement centre (cec) is located off-campus in the heart of the black creek/jane finch community of northwest toronto, canada. this community has a long history of deep economic and social marginalization and is home to many newcomers to canada. many families face systemic barriers to education and/or employment opportunities such as lack of childcare, transportation, and quality housing. historically, the pursuit of higher education was low, and the university was viewed as a self-contained island, interested more in its own development than its neighbors in the community. the community is currently undergoing heavily disruptive redevelopment. since 2008 york u has sponsored the cec and has developed a "hyper-local” approach. the cec provides drop-in consultation regarding education and community resources, collaboration with various community organizing tables, school partnerships to encourage increased access to pse, bridging university and community interests in research and experiential education, and © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25833 | february 23, 2023 63 developing partnerships for increased economic inclusion. these priorities are determined by ongoing consultation with the community over more than 15 years. when the pandemic took hold, the cec didn’t take long to adjust its way of doing community work as we were already tapped into community tables and networks. we heard from the community perspective what the real-time impacts were which allowed us to waste no time in seeing where we might have the most impact. because of the direct connection to resident groups, i.e. seniors through our free income tax program, we had networks in place and could reach out to them and inform them of the status of pandemic activity (testing sites, programs) and share other resources and information. initially, there were a lot of challenges with access to technology and platforms. we were able to provide electronic meeting hosting to help grassroots organizations stay in contact with residents and each other. many did not have this technology at the beginning, so it helped them transition. the cec is a community space of congregation and meetings. however, being part of a large institution, we were one of the first organizations to close. this created a bit of tension at first, with the community not having moved as quickly to pivot to a virtual world. there were also programmatic challenges. for example, we work closely with the local high schools, so no longer being embedded in the schools was hard. larger bureaucracies and systems required more readjustment time, i.e. schools figuring out issues of privacy/consent/safety. helping the community navigate these bigger systems became a role the cec staff could assist due to the two worlds (institution/community) these staff inhabit. the benefit in the end though was more flexibility. while we had more participation, we felt the relationships weren't as deep as when in person. initially, engagement went up as barriers of time, travel, childcare was less. over time, however, zoom fatigue and lack of physical action kicked in and reduced participation. we saw firsthand that it was a difficult year to start something new as colleagues in less community embedded spaces had a harder time. because we had an open door and relationships that are ongoing, our colleagues became more dependent on the cec to help during this time. in the community, there was distrust of new relationships during this health crisis, so trusting relationships were relied on. in some ways, the work of the community engagement centre was seamless despite the in-person shutdowns. we were able to re-strategize quickly and even build new partnerships. through the pandemic, we valued, even more, the importance of human connection. our joint reflective practice, the work that happens when you are together, over lunch, in the hall, after meetings, etc, was missed. but learning new ways to be flexible and innovative will serve us well. we have © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25833 | february 23, 2023 64 created new engagement points. we will ensure spaces are equipped with the technology to ensure a variety of ways to participate. what we learned is that the university relies heavily on us and the community has its expectations of us – especially during a crisis – and expectations are raised. managing amid these two worlds will always be our challenge. ashley valis university maryland, baltimore community engagement center the university of maryland, baltimore (umb) community engagement center (cec) in poppleton, a neighborhood in west baltimore, is where local residents partner with umb on mutually beneficial goals. the cec serves adults and children and offers a variety of programs that leverage the university resources to meet community-identified needs such as exercise, food, employment, afterschool and educational programming. originally in a small storefront location, in 2019, umb purchased and renovated a 20,000 st ft blighted property across the street from the pilot storefront site and opened the newly expanded cec in july of 2020, during the peak of covid. having the umb cec embedded in the west baltimore community, with a staff dedicated to working in the neighborhood every day, allowed us to use our workday during the pandemic to immediately identify and meet a variety of urgent community needs. for instance, when food became a concern, we were able to use the back parking lot of our building as a food distribution site, a known location in the community where people already knew to come for help. we then were able to erect a large tent on that parking lot and it became an outdoor distribution site for household items, masks, hand sanitizer, laundry detergent, and many other giveaway items we felt our neighbors could use. when access to reliable internet and the digital divide surfaced as the most pressing need, we partnered with a small community internet provider and walked the neighborhood to install wifi antennas on row homes and buildings nearby to get more families online as fast as possible. we also were able to gather donations to buy and distribute new computers to families and seniors in nearby apartments. because we offered the community some level of service throughout covid without ever closing our doors (even when we had to move operations outside), that has allowed us to shift back to in-person very easily. we never lost touch with our neighbors because we maintained programs like our community lunch, albeit outside with grab-and-go meals and masks, we still had that physical presence in the community that people could count on. another reflection of note is the new relationship we forged with the arrabber preservation society (aps). an arabber is a street vendor (hawker) selling fruits and vegetables from a colorful, horse-drawn cart. once a common sight in american east coast cities, only a handful © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25833 | february 23, 2023 65 of arabbers still walk the streets of baltimore. they rely on street cries to attract the attention of their customers. during the height of the pandemic, the umb cec connected with the vice president of the aps and teamed up to enlist the arabbers, trusted messengers in west baltimore neighborhoods, to take covid 19 health information out with them while they were selling fruits and vegetables to city residents. we were also able to receive donations of bread and frozen poultry that the arabbers were able to distribute to neighbors along their routes all summer long in 2020 when families were facing high food insecurities. this partnership turned into a creative public health intervention. we worked with the arabbers to use the horse-drawn carts and travel routes as a way to get the word out in underserved and disconnected communities about cov19 and how to stay safe and healthy. now that we have built this relationship with the arabbers, we hope to continue to partner with them on other initiatives in the future. all of these things were able to be offered because we have a “home base” in the community that even though we couldn't be indoorswe still were able to shift and serve our community outside, safely and visibly. not to mention, all of the relationships that we have built over the years with neighbor's were valuable at identifying other community needs, and then we were able to use the umb network to call on partners to provide those things. we even turned our tented parking lot into a christmas toy store so that families could still have a place to shop for deeply discounted toys for their kids, in a safe outdoor venue that felt comfortable shopping in. the fact that we never really "closed" made all of the difference, and for that, we are particularly proud. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/25833 | february 23, 2023 66 references dostilio, l. (2017). the community engagement professional in higher education: a competency model for an emerging field. boston: campus compact. dostilio, l., ohmer, m., mcfadden, k., mathew, s., & finkelstein, c. (2019). building community capacity via place-based hyperlocal engagement. the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. yamamura, e., & koth, k. (2018). place-base community engagement in higher education. sterling: stylus publishing, llc. daren a. ellerbee, john kirby, paul kuttner, lorna schwartzentruber, ashley valis, and lina dostilio abstract daren a. ellerbee university of pittsburgh community engagement center in homewood john kirby drexel university dornsife center for neighborhood partnerships paul kutner university of utah university neighborhood partners lorna schwartzentruber york university td community engagement center ashley valis university maryland, baltimore community engagement center references microsoft word clayton_pederson_antiracism_issue.docx invited commentary © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26227 | march 30, 2022 23 examining the challenges making excellence inclusive alma r. clayton-pedersen1 1emeritus consulting group cite as: clayton-pedersen, a. r. (2022). examining the challenges making excellence inclusive. metropolitan universities journal, 33 (2), 18-24. doi: 10.18060/26227 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. guest editors: kevin w. allison, sylvia carey-butler, rosalyn hobson hargraves, tiffany g. townsend, and jeffery wilson editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract the term inclusive excellence (ie) is being applied to many efforts in higher education to address past exclusionary practices. ie is more than a term, it is a vision of what could be. it is a deliberate set of actions to ensure that all students, especially those who have historically been underserved by the fragmented attempts in higher education to address the disparities in student learning outcomes. readers are expected to learn about strategies to genuinely make excellence inclusive to address existing inequities in education. keywords: inclusive, excellence; collaboration, equity, broad © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26227 | march 30, 2022 24 introduction following the national news makes it clear that discrimination and injustice are alive and well in the united states. witnessing these disturbing trends should raise concerns about the contradictions between our ideals of being one nation and the barriers experienced by many that seek to fully achieving that dream. the stratification of students in our education systems based on race, ethnicity, and gender identity is especially troubling. many racialized and poor students are too often not afforded a high-quality education, while white and affluent students most often have access to the best. yet, both are considered public education. this stratified k-12 system of quality is particularly stark due to housing segregation and district-level tax revenues that vary by level of affluence. such stratification at the postsecondary level is partially a result of limited access to and affordability of quality pre-school education and often lower quality k-12 education. the reality of continued disparities—that cut along racial, ethnic, gender, and economic lines— denies these communities equitable educational opportunities and outcomes. researchers have examined the juxtaposition of institutional statements and the lived realities of underserved and marginalized students, faculty, staff, and community members. it will continue to be difficult for people who are marginalized to realize the american dream unless they are equitably afforded a quality education. moving the nation closer to making educational excellence inclusive requires experimentation with proven and promising pedagogies that demonstrate effectiveness, robust analysis of efforts made, and examination of implemented pedagogies’ breadth, depth, fidelity, and outcomes. consistent documentation of the elements of equitable practices that produce the positive results observed must then be broadly documented, replicated, and assessed in various institutional contexts. the overall impact of efforts to make excellence inclusive requires examining the depth of our most effective institutional practices and reward structures that broadly entice faculty and professional staff participation. pockets of excellence exist in institutions, but not often missing is the broad implementation of practices known to have a positive impact on learning, nor aligned and supported with individual, group, and institutional resources. this requires a strong commitment to achieving equitable learning outcomes for all students. inattention to such action will keep us stuck in the existing paradigm of high-quality k-12 education reserved for those who can afford the best colleges. it is paramount to acknowledge and effectively address the educational disparities that have been normalized in the united states over decades. if we truly live the liberty and justice for all rhetoric, we must work consistently to overcome these threats to our precious and currently fragile democracy. when we fall short of a full assault on all forms of preconceptions and discrimination that undergirds educational inequities, it fosters continued denial that disparities exist, or worse yet, blame those victimized for their plight. successfully creating a more perfect © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26227 | march 30, 2022 25 union requires the advantaged to be engaged and to thoughtfully dialogue with those who are historically marginalized. such engagement requires listening to understand the differences in their lived experiences and working together to address the reality of discrimination of all kinds. only then can we collectively and equitably ensure the long-term vitality of our nation. this also requires that all who call this nation home have equitable access and opportunities for educational success. the sustainability of our unique democracy depends on having a broadly well-educated citizenry. implementing these actions requires that faculty, administrators, and professional staff institution-wide to possess requisite understandings and capabilities to employ practices known to maximize all students’ learning. it is common to identify places that engage in the practices listed above. yet, too often, such practices are only provided to those who have had such advantages throughout their pre-k-12 education. limiting such practices only widens existing disparities between students from more and less affluent communities and circumstances. deepening our collective understanding of this dilemma requires a bit of history about how we arrived where we are today regarding examining potential action steps. as the 21st-century began, the association of american colleges and universities (aac&u)1 was an 87-year-old organization. while primarily focused on liberal arts colleges, aac&u purposefully broadened its efforts to expand its reach to include all colleges and universities. it also amplified the need to focus on essential learning outcomes across all student populations, regardless of institutional type. with funding from several enlightened and committed philanthropies, aac&u began this farsighted endeavor that continues today. it started its work by convening a 25-member panel to examine how to instill greater expectations of student learning outcomes across the spectrum of higher education institutions. as the national panel identified issues critical to raising expectations of faculty and their leaders and students, the disparities across populations were laid bare and screamed to be addressed. the initiative resulted in a 2002 publication greater expectations: a new vision for learning as a nation goes to college2. the publication guided the entire education community to raise our collective expectations of all students and offered a foundational plan of action. as we discussed the next steps to address the observed disparities in student success, we focused on the crisis of broad exclusion of historically underrepresented and underserved students in high-quality learning experiences. we agreed that college learning must be more inclusive of realizing the learning goals for all students articulated in the report. this publication, and many 1 on january 10, 2022 aac&u announced a change in its name from the association of american colleges and universities to the american association of colleges and universities, and retained the acronym aac&u. the rationale is explained on its website. 2 this meeting of colleagues included dr. caryn musil, then vice president for the office of diversity, equity, and global initiatives; dr. edgar beckham who was then an aac&u senior scholar, but previously a program officer at the ford foundation; and the dr. clayton-pedersen, then vice president for the office of education and institutional renewal. the ford foundation grant also enabled us to explore what inclusive excellence might look like in practice with hundreds of individuals and dozens of campus teams. we engaged attendees in exploring the possibilities at aac&u regional and annual conferences, summer institutes, and meetings of other projects funded under the greater expectations initiative. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26227 | march 30, 2022 26 aac&u publications and periodicals that have followed, have had an impact on higher education that remains more than two decades later. several attempts were made to broaden our vision of what could be and to understand and articulate that inclusion alone is not enough. we needed to focus on enhancing learning outcomes for those who were being left behind and consistently excluded, especially based on race and ethnicity, but also based on gender/gender identity, class, and other dimensions where they were assumed less capable. after debating approaches, i eventually shouted exuberantly, “what we need is inclusive excellence.” i was excited about both the sound of the phase and the vision of achieving it. yet, my colleagues initially argued that excellence was the highest bar and unreasonable to believe that everyone could achieve academically at that level. after an extensive discussion about the term’s appropriateness, i conceded that inclusive excellence appropriately could and should be seen as the learning facilitators’3 aspiration for and contributions to all students’ learning outcomes. stating explicitly that those guiding students’ learning and development should conduct high-quality observations, provide appropriate resources, and put forth the best teaching practices to engage and advance all students’ knowledge development. such an effort requires institutions to hold their leaders, faculty, and staff who have a role in guiding student learning, to strive steadfastly to help all learners strive for excellent learning outcomes. this should be viewed with an understanding that this is a pipedream unless there is a significant mindset-shift among administrators, educators, and professional personnel in all spheres of institutional functioning and their students. i had previously considered how best to increase student learning outcomes during my time at vanderbilt university by studying student outcomes in a variety of roles: dean of student affairs office, assistant director at its institute for public policy studies (vipps), and associate dean for undergraduate academic affairs at peabody college. studies conducted at peabody’s learning technology center were groundbreaking and yielded the publication how people learn: bridging research and practice. this and subsequent work on the learning process has been highly influential in the remainder of my work in higher education. we titled the aac&u work making excellence inclusive (mei). yet, we underscored that inclusive excellence is a striving versus an end goal because future research was likely to indicate the need for changes, as we learned more from identifying and implementing effective structural and educational strategies. as such, striving for excellence requires ongoing shifts in our understanding of learning processes and determining the changes that need to be made for all students to achieve at higher levels. inclusion requires being mindful of the reality that people learn in many different ways. as such, the title serves three functions: 1) focusing on the actions of institutional leaders and all learning facilitators; 3 the reference to learning facilitators include all institutional personnel who interact with students and contribute to their learning. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26227 | march 30, 2022 27 2) emphasizing the end goal of ie to spark the imagination of faculty and learners and reject assumptions that only certain students can achieve excellence; and 3) adopting and multiplying teaching practices that are known to assist all students in achieving learning success. the exploration of setting the bar high for all learners continues today and is persuasively expressed in the articles within this edition of metropolitan universities journal. each piece offers multiple approaches to making excellence inclusive (mei). inclusive excellence (ie) focuses broadly on inequities in educational inputs and their outcomes. it is important to point out the disproportionate harm of racial and ethnic discrimination. the pieces in this edition of the metropolitan universities journal focus on processes and practices that seek to address and eliminate racism at all levels of education. the varied approaches provide evidence that there are multiple avenues to eliminate racism by implementing mei efforts, while also retaining the essential elements of institutional culture that serve as a foundation for their ie goals. each piece uses different approaches to achieve its mei vision, and they do so based on research evidence, as well as individual and institutional strategies. the beauty of the chapters is that the authors offer different approaches to mei. still, all have the same end goal: to evaluate and examine persistently the strategies undertaken, illuminate their outcomes, and indicate how efforts succeed and fail. with such knowledge, implementers can consistently refine promising structures and processes and do so based on robust assessments of the process elements and student learning outcomes. to pursue the goal of inclusive excellence robustly, it must be recognized that it is an evolutionary process that we must continue to pursue. progress toward inclusive excellence requires institutional and curriculum-wide approaches that better ensure that all students have access to learning that prepares them for an increasingly complex, 21st-century world. this is particularly relevant in light of what we as a nation have witnessed in the aftermath of the 2020 election and the fight against covid-19 and its variants. this includes: 1. effectively adopting teaching practices known to have a positive impact on learning outcomes (e.g., high impact practices [hips4]); 2. broadly implementing equitable teaching practices5 (i.e., providing faculty and staff professional development focused on equity-minded approaches that support all students’ desire to learn) 4 high-impact practices, or hips, are active learning practices that promote deep learning by promoting student engagement as measured by the national survey on student engagement (nsse). to be a high-impact practice, the experience must satisfy the definition established by george kuh, 2008 and kuh & o'donnell, 2013 and colleagues at the association of american colleges and universities (aac&u): achievement of deep learning, significant engagement gains, and positive differential impact on historically underserved student populations. 5 it should be recognized that co-curricular activities such as student council service and athletics are also opportunities to make excellence inclusive and should be included in assessing student learning outcomes. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26227 | march 30, 2022 28 3. robustly assessing student learning outcomes (e.g. examining student learning outcomes disaggregated by students’ entering characteristics such as race/ethnicity, gender, and socio-economic status, previous learning versus solely reviewing grades); and 4. intentionally identifying and exploiting students’ previous successes, recognizing and addressing the gaps in their learning because both strategies are needed to build new knowledge (i.e. leverage students’ strengths and identify means to overcome the weaknesses). conclusion this volume of the metropolitan universities journal offers the education community strategies that advance practices that develop effective learning environments and guide efforts to make excellence inclusive for all students. these pieces provide guidance about the institutional capacities needed to support all students achieving desired learning outcomes at high levels, which positions them for success in their chosen profession. while there is no specific focus on the tenure advancement processes in this edition, the research presented will inform how teaching is evaluated as part of the steps towards inclusive excellence. the research may advance the teaching component of tenured/tenure-line faculty assessment, particularly at medium to high research institutions. these institutions tend to focus more on research productivity, publications, and presentations at conferences. such processes focus less on faculty teaching practices and any disparities in impact on student learning outcomes disaggregated by race. yet, excellence in teaching practices that address disparities in student learning outcomes across racial lines has not historically played a significant role in determining tenure. serious attention to effective teaching practices that enhance learning outcomes for all students could expand the collective capacity of the faculty and the institution to graduate a greater number of well-educated students that are better able to demonstrate they are effective critical thinkers, leaders, and life-long learners. when students are exposed to multiple high impact practices (hips), research shows a demonstrable impact on student learning outcomes (kuh, 2008). students exposed to multiple hips will become better-prepared professionals, and they are more likely to be grateful and engaged alumni. institutional leaders should expect excellence in both teaching and research. this can signal an expectation of equity-mindedness6 in research on teaching and learning, and place appropriate value on such skills for promotion at each level. staff evaluations tend to focus on the number and types of engagements with students, and outcomes are related to retention. when equity-mindedness is applied to both the curriculum and co-curriculum, we can expect more equitable learning outcomes across the diversity of student 6 the center for urban education, defines “equity-mindedness” refers to “the perspective or mode of thinking exhibited by practitioners who call attention to patterns of inequity in student outcomes. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26227 | march 30, 2022 29 populations. the articles offer individuals and institutions guidance about achieving these ends through cultural, structural, and social embeddedness of equity-minded practices that support such changes. embeddedness necessarily requires the engagement of a diverse faculty, staff, administration, and student body. as indicated in this issue, the work to move us closer to inclusive excellence requires experimentation, robust analysis of efforts made, and examination of the breadth, depth, and fidelity of implementation. efforts to evaluate the overall depth of individual, group, and institutional embeddedness of our efforts require us to document equitable practices robustly and consistently. while many strides have been made to recognize the contradictions between our espoused ideals of being one nation and the realities of exclusion for many, such exclusion from high-quality education hurts individual students and the nation. the realities of continued disparities that cut along racial, ethnic, gender, and economic lines deny many citizens equal protections and educational opportunities. it is difficult for people who have been marginalized to realize the american dream when these disparities are apparent in higher education. authors have examined the juxtaposition of institutional statements, and the lived realities of underserved and marginalized students, faculty, staff, and community members. fully realizing the american dream requires current and future citizens to develop cultural competence7. a nation that deemed itself the united states must do more to make its title an equitably lived reality for all who call it home. we must commit to developing cultural competence across our pre k-graduate school education systems and make these cognitive and interpersonal skills pervasive–least we run the risk that individuals will fight to have their group’s ideas and ideals dominate. this will create an epidemic of multiple, self-interested groups that may undermine the very ideals of our united states -one indivisible nation with liberty and justice for all. we can only promote and sustain such an ideal if we understand that we are a nation of native americans and people from all other nations. to thrive in such a multicultural environment, we need to recognize, understand, and respect one another’s cultural complexities. while doing so, we must also provide means for embracing the differences we each bring to the learning enterprise. academic research on inter-racial/cultural interaction has helped us better understand one another and view our differences as important and relevant to our effort to sustain our fragile democracy. such research has become especially important in light of the existing disparities across various groups and the tensions accompanying them. this requires a better understanding of why caucasians/whites feel threatened by the many racial and ethnic groups that make up our nation and view demands for equity and equal opportunity as a zero-sum endeavor. the fact is that we must work towards a collective endeavor to protect the best ideals of our nation as a 7 while there are several ways to define cultural competence, the author most often offers the following definition which was adapted from the university of southern california’s center for urban education. cultural competence is the state of having and applying knowledge and skill in four areas: a) awareness of one’s own cultural worldview; b)recognition of one’s attitude toward cultural differences; c) a realization of diverse cultural practices and worldviews; and thoughtfulness in cross-cultural interaction. over an extended period of time individuals and organizations develop the wisdom and capability to: examine critically how cultural worldviews influence perceptions of power, dominance and inequity; and behave honorable within the complex dynamics of differences and commonalities among humans, groups and systems. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26227 | march 30, 2022 30 whole. this requires that we all understand the drivers for feelings of being robbed because the nation is becoming more racially and ethnically diverse. instead, we should all see one another as assets to make our nation stronger. this means we must all understand the positions of others and work to bridge these differences among all who claim the united states as their home. to accomplish the national goals previously outlined, we must understand our diverse population and ensure equitable access to the resources to achieve success in learning, life, and work. doing so means we must better understand how to address the ills of racism by understanding it indepth, developing coalitions to challenge the premise that one racial group is better than another based solely on their physicality. we must all work to understand others who are different from ourselves if our goal is to flourish as individuals and as a nation made up of all the nations of the world under one banner of americans. again, this requires us to know the cultures that make up our nation, so we have the potential to live prosperously and in peace with one another. the pieces in this edition of the metropolitan universities journal articulates and provides evidence of the racism that exists in our education systems. the pieces also offer strategies that explain various actions we might undertake to make a true reality of the american dream versus the one that exists for some and not others. the journal also offers a description of “what is equity-minded competence” developed by the center for urban education at the university of southern california. finally, the pieces offer ways to measure progress toward achieving these ideals. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26227 | march 30, 2022 31 references donovan, m.s., bransford, j.d., $ pellegrino, j.w. (1999). how you learn: bridging research and practice. national academies press. kuh, g. d. (2008). high-impact educational practices: what are they, who has access to them and why they matter. association of american colleges & universities. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26508| september 12, 2022 i anti-racism, equity, and inclusion at urban institutions: an introduction to the special topic issue jeffery l. wilson1, tiffany townsend2, rosalyn hobson hargraves3, sylvia carey butler4, and kevin w. allison5 1 the graduate school, virginia commonwealth university, 2 office of diversity and inclusion, augusta university, 3 undergraduate education, virginia commonwealth university, 4 international equity and diversity, brown university, 5 office of the president, virginia commonwealth university cite as: wilson, j.l., townsend, t., hobson, r.h., butler, s.c., allison, w. (2022). anti-racism, equity, and inclusion at urban institutions: an introduction to the special topic issue. metropolitan universities, 33(2), i-xiv. doi: 10.18060/26508 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. guest editors: kevin allison, ph.d., sylvia carey-butler, ph.d. rosalyn hobson hargraves, ph.d., tiffany g. townsend, ph.d. and jeffery wilson, ph.d. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. keywords: anti-racism, equity, inclusion, urban, higher education, institutional racism, race, social justice introduction in the wake of 2020’s double pandemic (i.e., the ongoing, egregious racial injustice in law enforcement, increased awareness of disparate treatment within the judicial system, and related escalations in civil unrest, against the backdrop of an ongoing global health crisis that is disproportionately impacting people of color), many universities have been forced to grapple with the changing landscape of higher education. the united states continues to be fundamentally characterized by economic, educational, and social disparities grounded in the legacies of slavery, legal segregation, varying degrees of discrimination, and institutional racism. american higher education has been formed and shaped within this historical and cultural context and is not exempt from the practices and structures undergirding social systems which support and replicate racial injustice. institutions across the country have a long distance to travel in creating environments where the lived experiences of faculty, staff, and students from underrepresented populations on college and university campuses are free of the everyday microaggressions and slights, as well as the structural barriers that impede advancement, progress, and the ability to thrive within the american academy. despite pandemic-related http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26508| september 12, 2022 ii declines in enrollment, the national center on education statistics (nces) reports an undergraduate enrollment of 15.9 million students, down from 17.5 million in 2009. notable in examining the enrollment of students across time is the increasing presence of students from underrepresented and minoritized communities, most notably increases in the enrollment of latinx/latine students, individuals of two or more ‘races,’ and individuals characterized as ‘nonresident aliens’ (national center for education statistics, 2022a; u. s. department of education, national center for education statistics, 2021). as might be expected, these higher education enrollment numbers, coupled with increasing diversity and polarization across the country, have colleges and universities struggling to implement programs and initiatives that effectively address the cultural competencies of campus stakeholders. we each bring our broader cultural socialization regarding racial differences to the gates of academia. as we review data from the past two decades, we note elevations in hate crimes reported on college campuses, perhaps reflecting campuses as a microcosm of the larger polarized society (national center for education statistics, 2022b; u.s. department of education, 2022; wang et al., 2020). as urban-serving universities continue to blur the lines between “town and gown,” many more students from traditionally underrepresented groups are arriving on campus from the surrounding communities, seeking education and commanding equitable access to opportunity. institutions of higher education must consider the needs and expectations of their well-informed, socially conscious, and equity-demanding students. universities facing declining student enrollment across the country must educate or minimally maintain the enrollment of a broader range of students effectively to remain competitive at best or at least to survive fiscally, requiring a paradigm shift in our educational institutions. instead of demanding that students conform to a narrowly defined notion of an “ideal” or “traditional” student, colleges and universities are called to reimagine education and craft the educational environment with the diverse needs of all students in mind. this necessitates that universities reimagine and rebuild higher education from the ground up, inviting voices not historically included in the institution’s design to have a say in how higher education is structured and functions. to achieve this vision, urban universities have the beneficial opportunities to strengthen collaborative relationships with key stakeholders and community organizations who can speak to the priorities and needs of the communities they serve. unfortunately, university administrators, faculty, and researchers who wish to develop these community partnerships often face challenges in gaining acceptance in these communities. certainly, the complex history of abuse (e.g., tuskegee experiment, henrietta lacks, etc.) between academic research institutions and marginalized communities, particularly communities of color, makes it difficult for many of these communities to trust academia (ellis & abdi, 2017). an equally challenging barrier to developing these collaborative partnerships is the frequently unidirectional benefits of community-academic relationships, favoring the university, leaving marginalized communities feeling exploited and further disenfranchised. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26508| september 12, 2022 iii amid the broader landscape of the more than five thousand american colleges and universities, urbanand metropolitan-located institutions of higher education are afforded a particular and unique set of possibilities and potential demands within this current context. urban institutions are notable for their location and vibrant culture. often centered in the heart of a metropolis, these institutions are within proximity of robust activity that is diverse and creative. the demographic diversity and expressionism that is present within the city often spill over into the institution itself through its students, faculty, and staff. creating a sense of belonging, where every member of the campus community can be an active player in the growth and success of the institution, should be of high importance for every administrator, particularly those in senior leadership. perhaps this sentiment is as important now as in previous years as postsecondary institutions are at a critical point of delivering a pertinent and high-caliber degree while being attentive and responsive to the surrounding community’s needs. those institutions that accept the call to serve the communities in which they are located must find ways effectively to 1) recruit and educate diverse students from local communities, 2) leverage research knowledge and skills to respectfully partner with communities in collaboratively learning about ways to leverage community assets, and 3) address challenges faced by local neighborhoods, communities, and jurisdictions. as noted with substantial changes in the demographic profiles of the traditional-aged youth college attending population, the cohort changes in the professoriate (e.g., davis and fry, 2019), universities have increasing assets and human capital that may bring informed perspectives and experience in engaging with local communities. still, these institutions must also consider how they can most effectively support the development, participation, and success of students, faculty, staff, and administrators from minoritized communities who work and learn at campuses in metropolitan areas. the lingering presence of colorblindness and subtle acts of racial microaggressions poses a barrier to progress toward aspirations of campus harmony and any chance of true acceptance for members of underrepresented groups, particularly for persons of color in higher education. this is attributed to a failure to recognize racial inequities and dismiss their disadvantages (bell, 2004; bonilla-silva, 2010). a culture that is inattentive to the plight of those from marginalized backgrounds can stifle the contributions and creativity of these individuals and restrict them from being their truest authentic selves. for metropolitan institutions, this type of dismissive practice is unacceptable. historically, institutional racism has been a barrier to progress in the u.s. (crenshaw, 1995; delgado & stefanic, 2000). for the metropolitan university, there can be no compromise to ensure the campus culture and climate is accepting and free from intolerance and negativity. if an institution is going to be a true working and learning ecosystem for knowledge and discourse, © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26508| september 12, 2022 iv then the people, environment, and policies within must not threaten that aspirational feat by being restrictive, oppressive, and flat-out racist. leadership at the senior level can play a crucial role in urban institutional culture and climate. cox (2001) noted that leaders must become aware of their diversity incompetence and commit to change for diversity change efforts to succeed within an organization. if a commitment to institutional diversity, equity, and inclusion is to be realized, it must come from the top. today’s leaders at metropolitan institutions must not only be steeped in a simple appreciation for diversity but also possess the passion and skill required to drive that diversity throughout all corners of the institution. a carefully worded statement of support whenever a race-related issue or event occurs will no longer suffice. words have to turn to action, and subsequent action must yield results. if college campuses have diversity initiatives that address culture and climate, our leaders must answer this call to lead. a simple convening of a committee or the hire of a cabinetlevel diversity official is the cherry on top of tackling diversity. it is a start, but certainly not the end. the aftermath of the tragic death of george floyd still resounds. there is a growing appreciation for the necessity of advancing inclusive communities in a substantive and meaningful way on college campuses. the attitudes of many students, faculty, and staff who support diversity initiatives are increasing. let’s not miss the moment to be great in doing diversity. in the current issue, we use the lens of ‘anti-racism’ to explore opportunities for urban and metropolitan universities to inform and provide a perspective on efforts to support social justice and equitable outcomes for students, faculty, and communities. anti-racism is a perspective and practice that is intentional and action-oriented in focusing on dismantling systems built on cultures within which racism is structurally embedded. “anti-racism is the active process of identifying and eliminating racism by changing systems, organizational structures, policies and practices and attitudes, so that power is redistributed and shared equitably” (nac international perspectives: women and global solidarity). according to kendi (2019), we consider that “the opposite of racist isn’t ‘not racist.’ it is ‘antiracist’… one endorses either the idea of racial hierarchy as racist or racial equality as an antiracist. one either believes problems are rooted in groups of people as a racist or locates the roots of problems in power and policies as an antiracist. one either allows racial inequities to persevere as a racist or confronts racial inequities as an antiracist. there is no in-between safe space of ‘not racist’” (p. 9). from a conceptual perspective, anti-racism extends beyond efforts to pursue the increased inclusion of individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds by addressing and dismantling systems and processes that support and replicate racist practices and outcomes. previous © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26508| september 12, 2022 v perspectives have explicitly or implicitly supported the assimilation of campus community members from underrepresented groups or sought to focus solely or primarily on the representative diversity of the campus community. an antiracist perspective acknowledges and understands the specific history of the united states and the tensions between the pluralistic aspirations of the country and the many universities within it. the goal of the antiracist perspective is to effectively integrate multiculturalism and intentional efforts to leverage inclusion and diversity as assets fundamental to the success and performance of the academy and all members of the academic community. recent ‘majority’ cultural opposition and associated political performance, rhetoric, and bombast, such as efforts targeting critical race theory, ironically underline the need for perspectives that wholly take into account the american history of race and understand the role of race in the construction of social practices and institutional structures. the following sections provide some essential background and framing considerations for examining the emerging literature on antiracist perspectives. barriers to effective programming and practices addressing racism in pursuing the goal of antiracist urban institutions, there is the need to develop organizational cultures in higher education that 1) support informed practices in identifying and engaging students and faculty, 2) support antiracist curriculum and classrooms, 3) support practices that are equitable in the career development of minoritized faculty and administrators, as well as 4) support the equitable and informed development of knowledge through effective engagement with local communities. in admitting students and hiring faculty and staff, institutional leaders are morally obligated to create environments that lead to greater inclusivity. this can only be achieved when there is a shared understanding of what’s required. research has shown that cultural shifts can take place within an institution when there is an opportunity to develop a deeper understanding of inclusive excellence, develop cultural competencies, and connect and engage with colleagues who are committed to the same end (chun & evans, 2018; claytonpedersen and clayton-pedersen, 2008). much follows from the affirmation and values that stem from appreciating and celebrating our differences. as our nation, communities, and campuses grapple with covid-19 and ongoing racial unrest, we must be intentional in efforts to develop cultural competencies and awareness of differences to mitigate against explicit and implicit bias and discrimination. on april 21, 2015, in an article for the chronicle of higher education, peter schmidt noted: “college presidents are willing to address the racist, but rarely the racism.” over the last few years, because of national unrest, a national dialogue has ensued as colleges and universities struggle with how to “manage” campus discord while progressive students and faculty call for justice. the tension created by this © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26508| september 12, 2022 vi dichotomy has required academic leaders to identify and alleviate barriers to access and equity. nevertheless, barriers still exist and are often insurmountable. we are all too familiar with the barriers even amid campus crises, national unrest, or a visible and vocal call for redress by activist faculty, staff, and students. the key obstructions that can and will impede and interrupt real change and progress towards more inclusive campuses include: • institutional leaders who are reluctant to move beyond diversity statements to action plans and who only offer a performative commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. • leadership’s failure to dedicate adequate and appropriate levels of fiscal and human resources to address access and equity. • institutional failure to embed inclusive excellence best practices in the organizational structure. • campus reluctance to engage in uncomfortable conversations directly addressing discord related to social justice, privilege, and racism. • institutional postures of reactive responses to unrest versus proactive work and planning to address ongoing sociocultural challenges. to facilitate the development of cultural competencies, which includes the meaningful and sustained personal and professional growth among faculty, staff, and administrators so they better understand the role they each individually and collectively can play in creating an affirming, inclusive and supportive environment, there must be an institutional commitment and will to provide relevant and effective learning opportunities. cultural shifts will not happen on their own. mitigating against bias, microaggressions and discrimination must be deliberate, ongoing, sustained, supported, and celebrated by leadership to garner the desired goal of broad buy-in to ensure adherence to appropriate behaviors and practices within boundaries and limits. otherwise, colleges and universities will continue to be marred with discrimination, mistrust, and revolving doors for urm students, faculty, staff, and administrators. programming diversity training is commonplace in organizations today. equality and diversity training has grown in importance in recent years across the higher education sector. universities are increasingly accountable and responsible for ensuring good practices around equality and diversity. effective diversity awareness training programs need to be in place in many organizations that want to be seen championing and effectively mainstreaming equality and diversity (hayat & walton, 2013, p. 304). © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26508| september 12, 2022 vii the objectives of these training vary. however, yap et al. (2010) identify three primary objectives: (1) increased awareness, (2) reduced bias, and (3) changed behavior. training varies from online short courses to multi-day year-long training programs. while online diversity training is prevalent in the workplace today, present-day conceptualizations of diversity training are often expanded; emphasizing individual development and considering various dimensions of diversity (kulik et al., 2007). a recent study (chang et al., 2019) found evidence of attitude change and limited behavior change because of a one-hour online inclusive leadership training module. despite results suggesting that the one-off diversity training has some utility, such approaches are not solutions for achieving equity in the workplace. consequently, effective training designs consider the challenges that coincide with diverse learning environments and the value added to individual development and organizational transformation (tan et al., 1996). that said, the practicality and value of diversity programming are often framed through the lens of institutional culture and climate rather than the impact on individual community members, even though both are necessary conditions to achieve equity. in ideal circumstances, diversity training becomes a joint effort to shift behavior, exhibit commitment, and dismantle structural barriers experienced by institutional members. diversity training is often implemented in hopes of establishing or affirming a shift in individual behavior (roberson et al., 2009). supporting mutually beneficial collaborations with the community community collaborative approaches, such as community based participatory research (cbpr), provide useful strategies that may inform campus efforts to pursue antiracist engagement with local communities. cbpr ensures collaborative and equitable community involvement in decision-making and throughout the research process. these approaches provide a model for community-academic partnerships that can empower communities to affect change (florin & wandersman, 1990). specifically, cbpr provides a framework that regards community members as true partners in a mutual learning process between academics and community members (minkler, 2000). in this approach, research is done collaboratively with communities, affirming the value of the community’s knowledge and the co-creation of knowledge by the community and the academy (leung et al., 2004). established cbpr principles include mutuality and equality among all partners, an open and transparent process, and the development of community-informed research/intervention strategies that build on the strengths of all partners (israel et al., 2005; seifer & maurana, 2000). mutuality and equity serve to foster ownership and empowerment among all partners. they can be established using several strategies, which include: 1) developing a shared mission among the community and academic partners, 2) ensuring shared power through mutual decision-making, and 3) fostering capacity building through learning exchanges that capitalize on the strengths of © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26508| september 12, 2022 viii each partner (coker-appiah et al., 2013). while these principles appear to have wide acceptance among researchers (wells et al., 2004), putting them into practice can be challenging. to ensure true mutuality and equity in a community-academic partnership, each partner must feel validated, respected, and understood. in other words, partners must develop shared knowledge and a common framework for working together. furthermore, this shared knowledge must include a nuanced understanding and appreciation of the complex history between the university and the community in which it is embedded, including the sociopolitical and structural realities of that history. if done effectively, community-academic partnerships that foster strong community involvement, as described above, can be instrumental in helping to prompt a transformational shift in higher education, a shift in which all universities substantively embrace anti-racism, actively advance social justice, and work to promote inclusive excellence. about the current issue in the current issue, we leverage the anti-racism lens to share articles that can support our understanding and efforts to address multiple levels of discrimination and bias within american urban colleges and universities. we have the opportunity to ask critical questions, including: • what are the most effective ways to define, operationalize, and measure indicators of success in addressing relevant dimensions of equity, inclusion, and anti-racism at the individual, classroom, or institutional level? • what are the most promising efforts addressing and measuring the impact of representation among the student body, among faculty as well as in university administration and leadership for urban institutions (e.g., how does representation impact critical outcomes such as student success? campus climate? enrollment growth or other key institutional goals?) • how effective are education, training, and professional development initiatives for students, faculty, staff, and university leadership at urban and community-engaged institutions, including efforts and programs addressing urban institutions’ racial culture and climate? what are we learning about community engagement that addresses systemic racism and inequality in the communities where urban institutions are located? • what are emerging practices that support equitable relationships and mutually beneficial collaborations with the community? we also note that the current context begs questions related to efforts focusing on the disproportionate impact of covid-19 on communities of color within urban institutions, including the opportunities and challenges offered by our expanded use of technology and access to these tools and the need to consider cultural disparities in mental health programming and © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26508| september 12, 2022 ix access which have been addressed in other special topics issues (e.g., see metropolitan universities journal, vol 33, no. 1: covid-19 innovations through crises). in the current issue, we share a series of empirical articles and commentaries that provide perspective on the achievements of cultural competence programming, the role of demographic representation, and institutional approaches to pursuing antiracist urban campuses. among articles in the current issue ratcliff (2022) discusses the findings of a quantitative, causalcomparative study that sought to determine if a statistically significant difference existed between two geographically-similar, demographically-different universities in terms of their white american male students’ perceptions of whiteness as ontological expansiveness as it relates to the tenets of critical whiteness theory (cabrera et al., 2016). the study found that the white american male students’ awareness and understanding of white racial identity and its relationship with physical and metaphorical space are greater in surroundings that have more diverse populations. this work helps us better understand how the context, urban location, and racial composition of college campuses may be associated with the greater understanding and salience of racial identity. work by sweet et al. (2022) helps us better understand how perceptions and ‘optics’ of the experience of race, culture, and racism on an urban college campus are shaped by social position. the authors leverage their experience of work at three art exhibits to inform their qualitative analysis of data from campus diversity symposia. cabler et al. (2022) present work that speaks to the role and impact of a diversity training program in the perception of cultural competence among higher education professionals on an urban college campus. using mixed methods within a case study, the authors consider implications for individual career development and work at the organizational level. smith et al. (2022) explore how community engagement is a strategy available to urban institutions to address, through partnership, goals pursuing anti-racism intentionally. in addition, potential means of assessing and measuring progress relative to these goals are also discussed. gilliam et al. (2022) present a critical historical review and analysis of the experiences of a southern urban university, unc greensboro, in pursuing ‘embedded inclusive excellence’ as a perspective on the advancement and pursuit of anti-racism at the institutional level. accompanying these articles, this special topic issue also includes three commentaries. contributions by daryl smith and alma clayton-pedersen, two national leaders in work on diversity, inclusion, and equity on american college and university campuses, provide the broader historical and national context in which to understand better and consider opportunities and efforts pursuing the goals of creating antiracist urban campuses. in addition, the issue includes a commentary by graduate students at an urban public institution, which presents student perspectives on the experiences of racism and the possibilities for antiracist work on college campuses. this piece provides a critical perspective for university administrators and © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26508| september 12, 2022 x higher education researchers to consider as they attempt to gain a deeper understanding of the issues important to the next generation of scholars educated and trained on their campuses (parker et al., 2022). although these pieces make a significant contribution, we understand that there is still much work to be done to deepen our understanding of effective policy and practice, including a better understanding of the impact of financial investments in anti-racism, equity, and inclusion work and barriers to effective programming and practices addressing racism on urban college and university campuses. however, we believe these pieces make a substantive and important contribution to our knowledge base and our pursuit of urban campuses that are working to intentionally engage in practices that address and dismantle the ongoing dysfunctional legacies of racism within the academy. © the author 2022. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26508| september 12, 2022 xi references bell, d. 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(2010). the relationship between diversity training, organizational commitment, and career satisfaction. journal of european industrial training, 34(6), 519-538. https://doi.org/10.1177/1059601108329732 https://ope.ed.gov/campussafety/trend/public/#/answer/2/201/trend/-1/-1/-1/-1 https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.161.6.955                                               original research    online modules for community-engaged learning during  a global pandemic    alexander lancaster1, barrett bonella1, becky jo gesteland1, patrick tadlock2, and  richard fry1    1 weber state university, 2 university of oklahoma    cite as: lancaster, a., bonella, b., gesteland, b.j., tadlock, p., & fry, r. (2023). online modules for community-engaged  learning during a global pandemic. metropolitan universities, 34(1), 87-100. doi: 10.18060/26403    this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license.    editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d.    abstract    in the summer of 2020, our team created virtual community-engaged learning (vcel) modules in  response to the need to move classes to online and hybrid delivery styles during the height of the  covid-19 pandemic. these modules addressed engaged learning concepts and were designed  with faculty, students, and community partner organizations in mind. this paper explores the  challenges of creating and beta testing these vcel modules, as well as the creative methods taken  to produce high-quality content that would continue to serve students in the wake of the  pandemic. what emerged from this project is a unique set of self-contained learning modules in  canvas commons that include built-in assessments, allowing students to demonstrate learning,  and allowing faculty members to review engaged-learning theory and strategies and integrate the  virtual content into their online classes seamlessly. our beta test findings indicate that students  generally had a positive experience with the content and spent approximately two hours, on  average, engaging with the material. in this reflective analysis of our process, we offer an  explanation of the replicable process of creating vcel modules and a description of the outcomes  associated with producing and testing the content therein.    keywords: virtual community engagement, community-engaged learning, online service learning,  e-service learning    http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26403| march 2, 2023    88  introduction    due to the covid-19 pandemic, our campus closed on march 17, 2020. and while we hoped for  life to return to normal, we scrambled to find ways to fulfill our mission in case it did not. in early  summer, we received an internal grant to develop several modules, which we made available to  faculty in canvas commons. here we provide thumbnail sketches of each module, explain what  we learned from the time-critical process of creating this content, describe our adjustments to the  ever-evolving parameters of covid-19 policies, and outline efforts to improve our responses to  community needs continually.    context    in 2007, our engaged learning institution was at a midsize public university in the western u.s.  developed a national reputation for connecting constituencies across campus and investing in our  local community. in 2020, despite the pandemic, we partnered with 74 community organizations;  engaged almost 5000 students in the community; and supported over 200 faculty members, who  taught 283 community-engaged learning (cel)-designated classes.    after the conclusion of the spring 2020 semester, members of the engaged-learning institution  began to consider the long-lasting implications of virtual meeting-based education and the  complementary need to address questions and concerns about community engagement in situations  precluding participants’ physical presence. our team faced an unprecedented challenge (i.e.,  developing alternative community-engagement strategies). we turned to the literature, sister  institutions, students, faculty, and staff associated with the engaged learning institution to find an  answer.    fortunately, research was available on how to do community-engaged learning at a distance, based  on the growth of online teaching from the late 2000s (hervani et al., 2015). faculty in small  numbers nationwide were interested in e-service learning to bridge service gaps to students and  communities in rural or hard-to-reach areas. while this did not seem to make its way into the  mainstream of community engagement practice, there was enough literature on some models of eservice learning that proved useful to our task.    the best model we found is based on a literature review by walder, mcgory, and widener (2012),  which describes four types of service learning based on cases available in the literature. the first  type is traditional service learning, in which classes and engagement opportunities are face-to-face,  and, at most, the learning management system (lms) is used to manage classes.    © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26403| march 2, 2023    89  this is by far the most popular approach to service learning at our university and appears to be the  primary modality employed across the united states. the second type is a hybrid model where  classes are held online, but service remains face-to-face with the community partners. the third  type, yet another hybrid model, uses face-to-face instruction with online service components, such  as building a website or marketing plan for an organization that faculty and students do not have  direct, face-to-face access. the fourth type of service learning--called extreme e-service learning  by the authors--describes the scenario we faced in 2020: all classes are delivered, and all services  are provided online. at the beginning of the pandemic, this service learning model was the one our  institution, and we were forced to use and adapt to most quickly.    walder et al. (2012) also identify potential best practices for e-service learning focused on three  primary areas: technology, communication, and course design. here we review those areas and  how they influenced our thinking on preparing our students, faculty, and community partners for  the new world of e-service learning.    technology    for community-engaged learning to continue at our institution, we knew technology would be an  integral part of our methodology. strait and sauer (2004) note that many faculty would not be  familiar with the necessary technology to conduct online learning efficiently and would benefit  from additional training on what was necessary. while the familiarity with technology has certainly  improved at our campus since 2004, programs such as zoom and teams were suddenly ubiquitous,  and learning how to use them became a priority. as such, we recognized training for these new  tools would be essential for faculty, students, and community partners. we also recognized the  need to make such training easy to access, consume, and retain. this meant using resources on our  website as well as potentially creating modules that could easily be imported into our learning  management system (canvas). we were fortunate that canvas commons was implemented at our  university just a year or so before the pandemic hit. we recognized this as a crucial tool for us and  set about designing training with the help of our instructional designers.    access to sufficient technology remained a challenge for both students and community partners.  one of the benefits of the early pandemic was the “we’re all in this together” mentality, which  facilitated drawing on local resources to ensure students would have access to adequate internet  and technology through our library system. providing community partners with adequate  bandwidth and technology became more difficult as resources varied wildly between agencies.  although facing similar challenges due to shortages, our center did what we could with the  resources we had on hand during this time for our staff and partners. we were able to acquire  hotspots, web cameras, and access to zoom for partners in need.    © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26403| march 2, 2023    90  communication    we had to adjust quickly to the environment of the pandemic, making communication about plans  essential at every level essential. faculty, students, and community partners would have to  communicate more frequently and clearly with each other. mous needed to be adjusted, and  faculty would need to be trained in maintaining a regular presence in the new environment.  community partners would need to adjust their availability to ensure regular communication with  students who could no longer visit them face-to-face. such training and adjustments would be  necessary to maintain best practices in community engagement practices already difficult to meet  before the pandemic. we worried that the new technology could hinder forming relationships since  it was unfamiliar and lacked the richness of face-to-face communication. therefore, we prioritized  instructing our stakeholders on the necessity of frequent and flexible communication.    course design    in terms of course design, we recognized that while some of the practices of e-service learning  would need to be adapted, the core principles of service learning would need to remain, such as  using the seven-principle design developed by imperial, perry, and katula (2007). this design  includes explicit connections between the service activity and learning goals; reflection;  appropriate time commitment; student input; faculty commitment; perceptible impacts; and  feedback loops. while many of these principles were well known to our faculty, we determined  that the pandemic offered an opportunity to provide more basic education on what community  engagement is and is not. such basics could be beneficial to faculty, who participate in community  engagement but aren’t familiar with the pedagogy, and students, who might not entirely grasp the  concepts of community engagement other than being a class “where i have to volunteer.”    we recognized that all of this would be extra work for faculty, students, and community partners,  so as an organization within the university, we sought to do much of the groundwork to make the  transition easier for our stakeholders. we reached out to sister institutions, read the literature on eservice learning, and attended webinars provided by other cel organizations across the country,  all of which recognized the difficult challenge we were all up against and just how little everyone  knew. this collaboration led us to create centralized training on how to best do virtual community  engagement in the form of exportable modules that could easily be accessed on our website and  imported into individual classes using canvas. we saw this approach as one of the best ways to get  many resources out in a sustainable, reusable system that could benefit our stakeholders and us  beyond the reach of the pandemic.    much in the way our team was guided by the goal to produce content for our colleagues and  students, we were guided by the following research question for this paper: what can be learned  from the experience of creating and testing virtual community-engaged learning modules?  © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26403| march 2, 2023    91    product    based on the constituent groups participating in the engaged learning institution’s projects and  ventures, we focused our project on faculty, students, and community partners.  faculty members needed to know how to provide engagement opportunities to their students who  could not meet in person. students needed to know how to access opportunities and resources that  would guide them through virtual community-engaged projects. community partners needed to  know how their needs could still be met. to meet the needs of our on-campus  constituents, we  created three virtual community engaged learning (vcel) modules.    figure 1. overview of modules in canvas commons.    faculty and staff associated with the engaged learning institution planned and created the modules,  including videos and linked resources. as part of the project, our team invited a group of students to  beta test and provided feedback on each module. in the following sections, we recount our journey  through the three modules (faculty, student, and community partner).    building the modules    during the summer of 2020, the vcel team met several times between may and august, focusing  on how to divide the work of creating the modules. we began by exploring the constituent groups  needing access to the content, ultimately deciding on three modules focusing on three groups:  faculty, students, and community partners. several faculty members worked on the faculty module,  while faculty and staff worked on the student and community partner modules. our team decided  each module should include resources and content to help faculty members create meaningful  virtual experiences and opportunities for students and community partners. thus, we separated the  larger team into small subgroups that focused on creating content for each module and bringing the  © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26403| march 2, 2023    92  larger team together, as needed, to update one another on our progress and review the content in  each module.    faculty    in response to the covid-19 pandemic, members of the engaged learning institution wanted to  help faculty members find creative solutions to the problems associated with teaching communityengaged classes virtually. prior to the pandemic, most cel-designated classes included an engaged  service project, which required students to work with community partner organizations to complete  an assigned task. beginning in march 2020, most community partner organizations stopped asking  for and/or needing students to be physically present, and new policies and laws forbade students  from attending classes and events in person. faculty members faced a yet-unseen challenge:  teaching community engagement components in their classes without having the opportunity to  meet with students face-to-face or to send them out in the community to serve partner  organizations.    to keep faculty interested in cel, we created a learning module for faculty to explore and discuss  “virtual” opportunities for them and their students. we created several pages of information-gathered from various resources--and developed nineteen videos, quizzes, assignments, and  discussions. videos were recorded and edited in “interview style,” where the facilitator would ask  the “experts” questions: to share anecdotal experiences and make suggestions for integrating cel  in a virtual environment. several resources were consolidated, and faculty were invited to  contribute and discuss.    ultimately, the vcel team created a module in canvas commons that offered faculty members  resources on community-engaged learning, as well as a sample assignment that focused on  community-engaged research and democratic engagement, which could replace the typical  engaged-service project. the team wanted to make this content accessible and easily integrated into  the existing lms used at our university. once all components were integrated into the module, we  exported it to canvas commons, which could be imported into any existing canvas class. we also  invited feedback from engaged learning institution-affiliated members of the campus community.  eventually, a full course was created, with assignments and quizzes for faculty to complete as part  of a community of practice cohort. the images below are snapshots of the overview and layout  for the faculty module.   © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26403| march 2, 2023    93    figure 2. overview of faculty module.     figure 3. layout of faculty module.  in response to a call for beta testing, four students spent between one and two hours reviewing the  content in the faculty module. these testers were instructed to review the entire module, access all  content, and provide feedback on the integrated quizzes and a reflection survey at the end of their  beta test. feedback on the module was largely positive. testers indicated that the content was  easily accessible and valuable for teachers looking to integrate community engagement materials  (e.g., engaged-learning theory and terminology) into their classes.  © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26403| march 2, 2023    94    students    the subgroup that focused on building the student module wanted to create a resource that would  allow students to learn community-engaged theory and terminology, as well as how to create a  piece of reflective writing. moreover, the subgroup wanted students to learn about community  engagement and community research opportunities that did not require physical participation and  were offered in various classes. the student module was designed to be dropped into any existing  canvas class and to offer students access to theory and key terms that they would need to use in  any cel-designated class, as well as practice and learning resources surrounding reflective writing  and engagement opportunities. the images below are snapshots of the overview and layout for the  student module.     figure 4. overview of student module.  © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26403| march 2, 2023    95    figure 5. layout of student module.  within the student module, faculty members prepared lessons on professional communication and  foundational elements of community engagement. these lessons were designed to aid students in  presenting themselves as knowledgeable and credible in their written and spoken communication. in  addition, and especially geared toward general education and/or introductory courses, the modules  presented students with short, fundamental lessons in community engagement. these lessons  broached topics such as what community engagement is, why we engage with the community, and  how it fits within higher education. the team hoped that this module would aid students and faculty  in teaching community engagement in virtual spaces. we, therefore, turned to students to beta test  this module.    three undergraduate students served as the beta testers for this vcel module. they spent one to two  hours going through the content and completing the associated quizzes and assignments. the beta  testers reported that the student module contained content useful for any student going through a  cel-designated class and also helped them learn key terminology and discover engagement  opportunities. the team was pleased that the student beta testers’ findings were consistent with our  objectives for the student module.  © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26403| march 2, 2023    96    community partners    we designed our community partners module for faculty and students to better understand the  community partner needs during the pandemic. this module showcased five community partners  and included a recorded town hall meeting and discussion of their most pressing needs. this  module was unique in providing an insight into community needs by directly asking partners what  the university and its students could do to help during the pandemic. due to the pandemic’s  ongoing impact on the community--most of our partners were still trying to figure out what was  next and how to adapt--this module was the most difficult for us to produce. many of the partners  we spoke with still did not have the appropriate technology even to participate. this gave our team  a look into what would be needed for vcel to happen and for community engagement to continue  during the pandemic. the images below are snapshots of the overview and layout for the  community partner module.      figure 6. overview of community partner module.    figure 7. layout of community partner module.    © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26403| march 2, 2023    97  as with the faculty and student modules, we asked three students to beta-test the module. after  spending between one and two hours (on average) reviewing the content, the students reported that  the module was easy to understand and helped show them our community partners' needs. we  found this feedback particularly useful because students are the primary audience to whom this  module is directed.    results    our pilot program to produce the vcel modules led to several outcomes: growing our university's  engaged learning institution resources, providing instructional materials to our faculty, and creating  new opportunities for community engagement during the covid-19 pandemic. we approached  this project with one guiding question: what could be learned from the experience of creating and  testing vcel content? to address this question, we provided a reflective narrative of our  experiences and the beta testing done by students, who reported on their experiences in each of the  modules. our summarized findings from this project follow.    the primary finding from our work is that it is possible to develop content that effectively provides  virtual community engagement opportunities for students, which faculty can implement in their  classes and which addresses community partner needs. to succeed in creating this content, we had  to reimagine how faculty could effectively create engagement opportunities for students who could  not meet in a physical classroom or have face-to-face meetings to provide engaged service. one  example of this reimagining is a democratic engagement project that a cel-designated  communication class used to replace the long-standing engaged service project required of  students enrolled in the class. the new assignment required students to choose an issue of  importance in their community, research the issue, and write a letter to elected officials requesting  that they put into action a plan to ameliorate the problem identified by students. this assignment  effectively utilized the resources provided in the faculty modules and exemplified how instructors  can augment their engaged service projects to allow students to work virtually with community  partners.    another result of this study has to do with the viability of virtual community-engaged learning  modules for integration into lms classes. specifically, based on the assessments provided by beta  testers, we found that the vcel modules would be valuable resources for faculty, students, and  community partners, giving each of these groups information and ideas for conducting communityengaged projects in a virtual environment. as our team worked interdependently to create these  modules, we found that our individual and shared experiences allowed us to create a novel  approach to community engagement, focusing on opportunities that would benefit our students and  serve community partners’ needs without requiring drastic changes to course content and  curriculum. thus, our team’s success in creating these viable modules is a testament to the  flexibility and creativity required to address the challenges of the covid-19 pandemic.  © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26403| march 2, 2023    98    discussion    our experience creating and testing the vcel modules complements existing literature concerning  online community-engaged learning and provides several meaningful, practical applications for  researchers and practitioners alike. in many ways, our challenge mirrored that of mejia (2020),  who stated, “those of us teaching community-engaged scholarship are being asked to figure out,  most often by those who do not teach, how students can ‘answer the challenge that covid-19 has  put in front of us’ using the skills learned in our classes” (p. 2). we focus on each of these areas  separately yet acknowledge that the two are still very much interdependent, as scholarship informs  community engagement, and community engagement informs engaged scholarship.    beginning with scholarly implications, the present study provides a direct application of the work  that engaged scholars have conducted since, and even before, the onset of the covid-19  pandemic. the vcel modules directly reimagine community engagement (see veyvoda & van  cleave, 2020) in connecting and executing projects in a virtual space. indeed, much like ream  (2003) described the risks that lead faculty to question community engagement for their students,  our team explored the need to adapt to the novel risks associated with the pandemic and the  governmental restrictions that remained in place for much of 2020 and 2021. the resulting online  modules answered the challenge presented by revere and kovach (2011), as they provided content  that faculty could import into online cel-designated classes, thereby standing as an example of the  “...opportunity for educators to design courses that engage students through the use of technology”  (p. 123).    before addressing the practical applications associated with our work, we want to discuss two  internal applications that grew out of our beta test program. first, members of the team used  the information created as part of the vcel modules to update the community engagement  training required of all students who engage in direct service projects. integrating this content into  the training modules allowed us to move the vcel content to a larger group of students across the  university. it expanded the team's original purpose when we planned and created this content. we  turn now to suggested external applications of our findings for other engaged learning practitioners.    our team’s work led to two practical applications for online education and community  engagement. first, the successful creation of vcel modules shows that it is possible to move from  traditional, in-person community-engaged learning to a virtual form of engagement that still serves  the needs of community partners and their constituents. it is reassuring to faculty, students, and  community partners that students can continue to learn and provide service even when they cannot  meet with one another or work with partners in person. second, our team was gladdened by the  extremely positive response from student beta testers. we believe that future iterations of vcel  modules will provide increasingly desirable and necessary tools for students to succeed in their  © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26403| march 2, 2023    99  community-engaged classes. specifically, our work indicates that students can learn imperative  community engagement terminology and theory by navigating well-designed virtual modules that  supplement online instruction. in short, the vcel modules will hopefully serve as valuable  materials for instructors to utilize in their online and virtual community-engaged learning  curriculum.    discussion    our team’s efforts to create usable modules for instructors to integrate into their online and hybrid  classes were successful. although the project was reactive since our team had never considered  needing to transition community-engaged learning to a completely online or hybrid style, we  nonetheless created content that addressed the need to fill the gap created by the covid-19  pandemic. our team learned that we could supplement traditional online instruction  strategies with  content that students and faculty members would find engaging and useful.    as with any undertaking, this project suffered from a limitation that can be addressed in  future  studies on online community-engaged learning. specifically, our beta-testing program was  limited  by the fact that we could find only four students to test all of the modules. although the  team had  wanted a larger group of students, faculty members, and community partners to serve  as beta  testers, the timing surrounding our creation and pre-deployment of the modules was not  conducive  to finding faculty members or community partners who would be able to assist as beta  testers.  specifically, we were working during the height of the covid-19 pandemic, at a time  when  faculty members were experiencing extreme burnout, and community partners were struggling to  serve their constituents and maintain their organizations. this historical effect was unavoidable, but  it explains why our team was limited in the number of individuals  who could serve as beta testers.    overall, our team found that it is possible to integrate cel terminology, theory, and principles into  online classes through modules, thereby meeting the needs of students, faculty,  and community  partners. we hope that these materials will continue to be useful in the wake  of the covid-19  pandemic and that our team can continuously improve them as we return to  in-person communityengaged learning opportunities in the new normal.        © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org  metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26403| march 2, 2023    100  references  hervani, a. a., helms, m. m., raina, m. r., labonte, j., & sarkarat, s. (2015). service learning  projects in online courses: delivery strategies. journal of learning in higher  education,  11(1), 35–41.  imperial, m. t., perry, j. l., & katula, m. c. (2007). incorporating service learning into public  affairs programs: lessons from the literature. journal of public affairs education, 13(2),  243–264.  mejia, a. p. (2020). community-engaged learning in times of covid-19, or, why i’m not  prepared to transition my class into an online environment. public philosophy journal, 3,  1-6. https://doi.org/10.25335/ppj.3.1-3  ream, r. k. (2003). counterfeit social capital and mexican-american underachievement.  educational evaluation and policy analysis, 25, 237-262.  https://doi.org/10.3102/0162373702500237  revere, l., & kovach, j. v. (2011). online technologies for engaged learning: a meaningful  synthesis for educators. quarterly review of distance education, 12, 113-124.  https://doi.org/10.4236/jss.2014.21006  strait, j., & sauer, t. (2004). constructing experiential learning for online courses: the birth of  eservice. retrieved july 7, 2022 from https://er.educause.edu/articles/2004/2/constructingexperiential-learning-for-online-  courses-the-birth-of-eservice  veyvoda, m. a., & van cleave, t. j. (2020). reimagining community-engaged learning servicelearning in communication sciences and disorders courses during and after covid-19.  perspectives of the asha special interest groups, 5, 1542-1551.  https://doi.org/10.1044/2020_persp.20.00146  walder, l., mcgory, s., & widener, m. c. (2012). e-service learning: the evolution of service  learning to engage a growing online student population. journal of higher education  outreach and engagement, 16, 123-150.      https://doi.org/10.25335/ppj.3.1-3 https://doi.org/10.3102/0162373702500237 https://doi.org/10.4236/jss.2014.21006 https://er.educause.edu/articles/2004/2/constructing-experiential-learning-for-online-courses-the-birth-of-eservice https://er.educause.edu/articles/2004/2/constructing-experiential-learning-for-online-courses-the-birth-of-eservice https://er.educause.edu/articles/2004/2/constructing-experiential-learning-for-online-courses-the-birth-of-eservice https://doi.org/10.1044/2020_persp.20.00146 online modules for community-engaged learning during a global pandemic alexander lancaster1, barrett bonella1, becky jo gesteland1, patrick tadlock2, and richard fry1 abstract context technology communication course design product building the modules faculty students community partners results discussion original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26450 | march 8, 2023 138 a framework for justice-centering relationships: implications for place-based pedagogical practice melissa quan1 1 center for social impact, director, fairfield university cite as: quan, m. (2023). a framework for justice-centering relationships: implications for place-based pedagogical practice. metropolitan universities, 34(2), 138-157. doi: 10.18060/26450 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. guest editors: patrick m. green, ph.d. and susan haarmon editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract community engagement in higher education has been promoted as critical to fulfilling higher education’s responsibility to the public good through teaching, learning, and knowledge generation. reciprocity and mutual benefit are key principles of community engagement that connote a two-way exchange of knowledge and outcomes. however, it is not clear from existing literature whether community engagement positively impacts communities. this paper presents findings from a dissertation study focused on how campus-community partnership stakeholders define impact and discusses implications for place-based pedagogy. using grounded theory, the ways community and campus partners defined community impact in a diverse set of campus-community partnerships at two u.s. urban, jesuit universities that employ a place-based approach to community engagement were explored. relationships as facilitators of impact and as impacts in and of themselves emerged as central themes that led to the development of the justice-centering relationships framework. the framework includes two paradigms for understanding community impact in higher education community engagement – plug-and-play and justice-centering relationships – that are bridged by a reframing process. the framework contributes to and informs the “how” of taking a placebased community engagement approach that leads to positive benefits for community impact, student learning, and institutional change. keywords: community engagement, community impact, campus-community partnerships, community-engaged learning, community-engaged research, pedagogy, higher education http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26450 | march 8, 2023 139 introduction community engagement is “collaboration between institutions of higher education and their larger communities… for the mutually beneficial exchange of knowledge and resources in a context of partnership and reciprocity” (carnegie foundation for the advancement of teaching, 2015, p. 2). community partners are valued as co-educators, co-researchers, and co-constructors of knowledge. institutions benefit from improved town-gown relations; faculty benefit from enhanced teaching and research opportunities; and students benefit from opportunities to apply knowledge and skills to real-world challenges (eyler et al., 2001). while there are volumes of research on the benefits of community engagement to higher education, particularly student learning, and development, there is little empirical research documenting benefits to communities (butin, 2003; cruz & giles, 2000; rubin, 2000; sandy & holland, 2006; stoecker et al., 2009; weerts & sandmann, 2008). most community impact research focuses on group dynamics or the partnering process (sandoval et al., 2012; wallerstein et al., 2011). research on the partnership unit and relational dynamics have led to critical insights about promising practices but have fallen short of making a connection to community impact. the challenges that community partners and higher education practitioners experience in pursuing positive community impact are rooted in an epistemological problem, originating with the dominant epistemology in higher education that privileges university expertise. this expert paradigm places a higher value on academic knowledge over community-based knowledge. it reflects a one-way flow of knowledge “from inside the boundaries of the university outward to its place of need” (saltmarsh et al., 2009, p. 8). within this paradigm, community knowledge is not valued as an asset for constructing new knowledge. thus the values of collaboration, reciprocity, and mutual benefit are not prioritized or embedded within the culture, policies, and practices of higher education, including pedagogy. further, a lack of appreciation for the knowledge assets in the community contributes to only focusing on the faculty's knowledge expertise and the way it is translated into learning outcomes for students, making the outcomes of community engagement predominantly about students. the dominance of the expert model has contributed to a historical relationship between higher education and communities that has been largely exploitive, with colleges and universities using communities to extract knowledge for the benefit of research and teaching rather than coconstructing knowledge for the benefit of higher education and community well-being (stoecker, 2016; minkler & wallerstein, 2008). further, it can be argued that an expert epistemology also short-changes student learning. in a 2017 lecture, nadinne cruz asked, “to prepare students to be capable of solving urgent social problems, is what we teach them up to the task?” ultimately, cruz argued that if we continue to see the university as the center or only source of knowledge, © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26450 | march 8, 2023 140 we are not providing an education that prepares students to address the wicked problems impacting communities today. rather than view the university as the center and/or the entirety of knowledge, cruz argued that we need to claim the whole circle of knowledge by recognizing diverse ways of knowing that include community contributions, as well as the knowledge and experiences the students bring to their courses. this requires a fundamental redesign of the pedagogical approach. changing the relationship between campus and community will require new epistemologies that value the knowledge assets of the community and lead to a better alignment and integration of the central role of higher education – the generation and dissemination of knowledge – with community outcomes (saltmarsh et al., 2009). the problem the dissertation study aimed to address was how campus-community partnership stakeholders define impact (author, 2021). to achieve the democratic aims of the community engagement movement and contribute to the public good, a shift in epistemology is needed, and voices that have been traditionally excluded will need to be engaged in defining and coconstructing a shared vision for change. thus, this grounded theory study aimed to explore how campus-community partnership stakeholders (university faculty, staff, and community partners) defined, measured, and understood community impact in a diverse set of community-campus partnership initiatives at two u.s. urban jesuit universities. both universities participating in this study have earned the carnegie community engagement classification and employ place-based approaches to community engagement. place-based community engagement (pbce) focuses on community-campus engagement efforts within a specific geographic area, places equal importance on campus and community impact, is driven by community-identified needs, and seeks to engage the entire campus (yamamura & koth, 2018). although this study was not explicitly focused on pedagogy, it does have implications for teaching and learning as it draws direct connections between community impact and student learning. current research on academic community engagement calls for a recentering to focus on community impact (green et al., 2021). findings from this study and the resulting framework can help guide and facilitate the recentering called for by green et al. by situating community impact as the starting point for the design of place-based pedagogy. the guiding research questions for this study included: 1) how do campus-community partnership stakeholders define impact and what types/forms of impact do they value; and 2) in what ways do the similarities and differences between how campus and community partners define, measure, and understand impact contribute to our theoretical understanding of how campus-community engagement activities can be designed to achieve positive community benefit? the justice-centering relationship framework created through this study includes two paradigms for understanding community impact in higher education community engagement – © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26450 | march 8, 2023 141 plug-and-play and justice-centering relationships – that are bridged by a reframing process. data from this study pointed to the interrelatedness of community impact and student learning outcomes and the potential for enhancing both through pedagogical practices that center community impact and a broader organizational posture that values and centers relationships with the community. sensitizing concepts: elements of a conceptual framework a review of the literature on community impact led to the identification of three sensitizing concepts: 1) campus-community partnership structures and processes, 2) epistemology, and 3) power. these broad concepts informed the research design and data analysis. sensitizing concepts are broad notions drawn from disciplinary perspectives, prior research, and practical experiences that serve as starting points for inquiry and “give researchers initial but tentative ideas to pursue” (charmaz, 2014, p. 30). they can be larger units of analysis that help contextualize research, inform and shape research questions, and analyze and organize data (bowen, 2006; charmaz, 2014). campus-community partnership structures and processes extensive research has informed a set of promising practices related to campus-community partnerships that include shared vision among partners, mutual benefit, trusting relationships, a shared process for decision-making, a focus on assets and strengths as well as needs, and practice of evaluation and assessment (ccph, 1998; jacoby, 2003; ramaley, 2000; torres & schaffer, 2000). additional research identifies partnership theories and typologies that distinguish between technocratic partnerships focused on exchanging goods and transformative partnerships characterized by shared power and institutional change (enos & morton, 2003; jameson et al., 2011). an underlying assumption of the study was that positive outcomes would not be achieved without intentional, evidenced-based practices in campus-community relations, which informed the research design and participant selection. pbce is built on these evidence-based practices and attempts to expand the growing edges with its specific geographical focus, emphasis on broad institutional engagement, intentional centering of community impact, and long-term vision (yakamura & koth, 2018). epistemology epistemology is the study of knowledge and what qualifies as or is justified as knowledge. the norms and traditions of higher education privilege an expert epistemology – the idea that all of the knowledge, resources, and expertise emanates from the academy. this is problematic for community engagement because the expert epistemology does not value community knowledge, © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26450 | march 8, 2023 142 leading to the prioritization of higher education benefits over community benefits. this can lead to the exploitation of communities rather than the betterment of communities. ironically, as cruz (2017) asserts, the exclusion of community knowledge limits student learning by not exposing them to the whole circle of knowledge. the dominance of the expert paradigm in higher education community engagement leads to epistemic injustice, defined by catala (2015) as “a type of injustice that an individual suffers specifically in her capacity as a knower, as a result of her unequal social position” (p. 426). in the context of higher education community engagement, epistemic injustice leads to the oppression of community knowledge, which is not recognized or valued in the expert paradigm. to achieve epistemic justice in higher education community engagement, there needs to be an intentional commitment to engaging community knowledge and co-creating knowledge and meaning. bringing community knowledge into the classroom involves a shift in pedagogy such that knowledge expertise is shared and community knowledge is brought forth from community partners and students. the knowledge of everyone in the classroom space contributes to collective learning. power ensuring that power is shared between higher education and community stakeholders in partnerships is critical to democratic community engagement. simpson (2014) identifies different ways that power factors into community-campus partnerships, including the social, economic, and political contexts; organizational structures, policies, and cultures; and the historical and current relationships between campuses and communities. simpson argues that: change efforts that do not explicitly attend to unjust systems will generally align with a liberal focus on attitudes and beliefs and will serve to recenter and privilege those already in power… efforts directed towards change that overlook power may offer surface-level alterations to a specific issue but will fail to bring about lasting transformation (p. 73). ignoring the role and impact of power in community engagement has contributed to what saltmarsh, hartley, and clayton (2009) characterize as a stalled movement. the higher education community engagement movement has grown to include more activities and programs on college campuses; however, the prevailing structures, policies, and cultures stem from the dominant epistemology of university as an expert have not been transformed. pbce, with its emphasis on long-term commitments to specific geographical places, centering community impact, and shifting from individual projects (activities and programs) to a full university commitment (process), can be a force for jumpstarting the higher education community engagement movement. place-based pedagogy, as a counter-normative pedagogy that places equal value on © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26450 | march 8, 2023 143 student learning and community outcomes and challenges students to consider their interconnectedness with the place they inhabit, is an essential component of the success of pbce. this interconnectedness requires the consideration of relationships and power. placebased pedagogy contributes to higher education’s responsibility to the public good by challenging students and faculty to “work from the assumption that to be human is to be embedded, practice a willingness to critically analyze one’s location, and routinely inhabit the demands and pleasures of a ‘we’” (simpson, 2012, p. 212). research methods the research questions that guided the dissertation study were: 1. how do campus-community partnership stakeholders define impact, and what types/forms of impact do they value? a. in community-campus partnerships, who has a voice in defining impact? b. who is accountable for ensuring that community impact is achieved? c. what elements of community-campus partnerships contribute to impact? d. how do contextual factors such as historical relations, racial and socioeconomic differences, and organizational supports and policies influence or inform how stakeholders understand and experience impact? e. what negative impacts have emanated from community-campus partnerships, and what were the implications? 2. in what ways do the similarities and differences between how campus and community partners define, measure, and understand impact contribute to our theoretical understanding of how campus-community partnerships and engagement activities can be designed to achieve positive community benefit? constructivist grounded theory was chosen for this study because it accounts for the varied contexts in which campus-community partnerships are often situated and focuses on participants' experiences, perspectives, and viewpoints. further, constructivist grounded theory recognizes the researcher and research participants as co-constructing the theory (charmaz, 2014). the intent of grounded theory to “move beyond description and to generate or discover a theory” (creswell, 2013, p.83), along with its focus on individuals, processes, interactions, and relationships, made it an ideal approach for studying the dynamic phenomenon of community engagement. data sources © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26450 | march 8, 2023 144 data collection methods included document analysis, a survey, and semi-structured interviews. initial sampling was based on criteria that reflected where the phenomenon of interest was most likely to be observed. site and participant selection ideal participants in grounded theory studies are those who are “experts in the experience” and “representative of the experience” (p. 230). these characteristics of grounded theory informed the selection of sites and interview participants. study participants were individuals involved with campus-community partnerships active at two, four-year, urban, jesuit universities in the united states. the purpose of focusing on jesuit colleges and universities was multi-fold. they share a common mission that emphasizes academic excellence and the formation of “men and women for and with others;” all 27 campuses, referred to collectively as the association of jesuit colleges and universities, have service-learning programs, and more than half hold the carnegie community engagement classification (ccec). to select from among the 27 u.s. jesuit colleges and universities, several criteria were applied: 1) having received the ccec in 2010 or reclassification in 2015; 2) the size and structure of their community engagement centers, prioritizing those with three or more full-time staff; 3) evidence that community impact is prioritized based on models employed (e.g., pbce) and mission statements; and their general carnegie classification, eliminating those classified as higher or highest research. the two universities selected are referred to in the study as kolvenbach university (ku) and ellacuria university (eu), after two prominent jesuits who have influenced contemporary understandings and manifestations of the social justice mission of jesuit higher education. both are mid-sized, predominately white urban jesuit catholic universities. both have wellestablished community engagement centers with a staff of ten or more and facilitate a range of programs, including pbce, service-learning, student leadership, service immersions, and social justice advocacy. eu’s pbce initiative is described as “an intentional, systematic, and transformative university-community initiative that will achieve community-identified outcomes supporting children, youth, and families in the [community] through student learning, research, and teaching consistent with [eu’s] mission and vision.” the mission of ku’s pbce initiative is to “collaborate with neighbors and partners to produce positive change for all residents in the community that improves the area education and youth development, builds civic capacity and strengthens the [community’s] commercial corridor.” study participants included ku and eu faculty and staff and community partner representatives involved in active community-campus partnerships that had been in place for a minimum of two years. consistent with grounded theory, experience rather than demographic representation drove sampling. there were 25 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26450 | march 8, 2023 145 participants overall, 13 at eu (including seven community partners and six faculty/staff) and 12 at ku (including six community partners and six faculty/staff). document analysis the first data collection phase focused on document analysis which provided insight into the context in which community engagement and campus-community partnerships were situated. the artifacts included the ccec applications, websites and mission statements, annual reports, documents describing partnership activities, and university promotion and tenure policies. documents were reviewed before each site visit and referred back to them several times during data analysis to help deepen the researcher’s understanding of the contexts in which communitycampus partnerships operated. surveys before the interviews, participants completed a brief online survey. responses helped inform the semi-structured interview protocol and provided insight into the community-campus partnership practices being employed and how participants perceived the benefits of the partnership. site visits and interviews a total of three site visits were made: two to eu and one to ku. during the site visits, observation opportunities included staff meetings, a campus-community book club meeting, and a community walking tour. semi-structured interviews conducted during the site visits were the primary source of data. interview questions focused on partnership processes, roles and responsibilities, sense of power, and how participants defined, understood, and valued impact. during the second visit to eu, follow-up interviews were held with 6 participants to explore emerging themes and gain feedback on how the themes resonated with participants. data analysis nvivo qualitative data analysis software was used to code and analyze data, including interview transcripts, interview notes and memos, and open-ended survey responses. an iterative coding process was employed by close-coding the first eight interviews, analyzing data for themes, merging codes to capture the phenomenon's essence best, and dropping codes that did not hold up. this process was repeated, leading to the identification of 30 codes. from these codes, nine themes emerged as particularly salient: 1) lack of mutual accountability; 2) risk and resilience; 3) relationship as a facilitator of impact; 4) repairing and rebuilding trust; 5) access and inclusion; © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26450 | march 8, 2023 146 6) power dynamics; 7) relationship as impact; 8) challenges defining and measuring impact; 9) engaging community knowledge. findings community and campus partners described impact in terms of broad purposes rather than specific outcomes and emphasized narrative, context, and process as opposed to quantifiable measures. they identified challenges to achieving impact as well as their vision for what could be. together, the themes created a core storyline of subversion – that a primary goal of community-campus partnerships is to subvert the socio-historical relationship between campus and communities by disrupting the dominant narrative, one characterized by power, distrust, and exclusion, and to construct a new one characterized by mutual respect, valuing community knowledge, trusting relationships, and marshaling power for change. this reflects the values of place-based community engagement to shift engagement from isolated actions to a universitywide strategy, to understand and engage a local context, to center community knowledge, and place equal importance on community and university impact – which, in turn, has implications for place-based pedagogy (yakamura & koth, 2018). lack of mutual accountability among the challenges of achieving positive community impact that participants described was a mutually exclusive approach to identifying and tracking outcomes. in other words, desired outcomes for partnership activities existed, but rather than being mutual, they were often mutually exclusive, with some focused on student learning and others on community outcomes. community partners understood their goals but had no knowledge of student learning outcomes, and vice versa; faculty were aware of student learning outcomes but not community goals. at the end of the project, there was often no follow-up communication where partners discussed progress toward their respective goals. kamal, a community partner, said: we have outcomes for our programs. we want to bring in people and get them exposure and match them up with mentors, and then they have theirs. i'm sure they want their students to get community service and to better understand the community and build those relationships, but coming up with those things together, i think, is something that we could probably do a better job at. a contrast to the lack of mutual accountability that surfaced in the data were efforts and aspirations to shift pedagogy and design courses with community impact as the starting point. long-term partnerships, strategic course design, and connections to research were key factors in © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26450 | march 8, 2023 147 supporting this shift. for example, one faculty member described looking at the lifespan of a multi-year project with a community partner and designing courses and assignments based on the early (research), mid-term (grant-writing), and longer-term (resource development) needs of the project. e’rika, a community partner, described the cumulative impact of community-engaged learning courses over time: “we have grown the home libraries of our youth and provided them with over 25,000 books, backpacks, and supplies. we increased student motivation towards reading [and] increased interest in going to college.” faculty discussed the importance of connecting research with teaching as a strategy for sustaining partnerships and a means for a deeper understanding of community needs to align course design and student learning outcomes better to meet those needs. in response to a survey question asking what is necessary to enhance community impact, a community-engagement professional said, “the university needs to look at curricular commitments…oneto twoyear commitments, supervised by faculty or staff, that are created together with the community partner. community engagement needs to be part of a broader curriculum, not an individual class.” indeed, this is consistent with how yakamura and koth (2018) distinguish place-based pedagogy from service learning, saying, “place-based community engagement moves servicelearning from isolated individual actions to an institution-wide strategy embracing long-term reciprocal community partnerships” (p. 12). risk another challenge to achieving a positive impact on community goals and student learning was an unwillingness to take risks. community and university stakeholders acknowledged that they often shy away from learning experiences with the potential for greater impact because the trust is not there. for example, julie, a community partner, reflected: i don't often give students full autonomy over anything important… yeah, it's a trust issue, and it's a student bandwidth issue, and my bandwidth to be able to facilitate all the time. so, if it's not going to be a successful unless it’s done on my timeline, and not when your teacher says that you should have your project done by, i will tend to veer away from those. likewise, faculty were looking for community partners to “put more skin in the game” and to be more open to planning experiences that better align student skills and learning outcomes with community needs, which sometimes requires moving beyond the scope of set programming that volunteers are slotted into. community partners conveyed a correlation between levels of trust, risk, and impact, indicating a willingness to take greater risks – meaning invest more time, collaborate on more important © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26450 | march 8, 2023 148 projects, share more power, etc. – when they trusted that their university partners were centering community needs and outcomes. collaborations that are riskier, in this sense, are likely to have a more meaningful impact on student learning as well as community outcomes. the absence of trust often leads partners to default to plugging students into pre-existing volunteer programs instead of a more thoughtful co-planning or co-designing of learning experiences that could benefit students and the community. place-based pedagogy emphasizes a long-term commitment to a defined geographic place and is conducive to building the trust needed to support impactful collaborations. relationship as a facilitator of impact relationship was an important theme that showed up in two ways – as a facilitator of impact and as an impact in and of itself. the interaction between relationships and other themes brought nuance to how relationships showed up as necessary. repairing and rebuilding trust when talking with community partners about defining impact, many discussed the importance of presence and developing trusting relationships. for example, many of ku’s community partners mentioned the importance of ku’s consistent presence within the community. attention to relationship building was essential to overcoming distrust between both campuses and their communities. rodney, a community center director and life-long member of the community shared by eu, said, “i think it takes time and, you know…, there’s trust that needs to be rebuilt. sometimes you can’t just jump all in, right, until those things happen.” shah (2020) refers to this relational aspect of community engagement as “building a stronger relational environment for knowledge exchange” (p. 58). to create the conditions for impactful knowledge exchange through place-based pedagogy, it may be necessary to initially decenter student learning to make room for listening, understanding, and centering community impact. a ku communityengagement professional, for example, described a year-long listening period during which she intentionally did not enter community conversations looking for teaching, learning, and research opportunities but rather entered with a complete openness to listening, learning from the community, and building trusting relationships. relationship and trust-building strategies used by the campuses in this study included listening projects, learning community history, creating leadershipand decision-making roles for community partners on university committees, and bringing greater balance between the prioritization of community needs and academic structures and practices. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26450 | march 8, 2023 149 access and inclusion the value community partners placed on having access to the university was present in nearly all interviews with community partners. they were interested in professional development for themselves, and many talked about the importance of exposing young people in the community to campus life. they appreciated opportunities to bring youth to campus and wanted more. they also described times when they and their youth were questioned or made to feel suspect on campus. community partners expressed a desire to impact change on campus in hopes that it would benefit their young people. practical ways to facilitate access through place-based pedagogy could be to open relevant courses and campus-based professional development to community partners; compensate community partners as co-educators and provide them access to university resources such as the library or recreational facilities; and engage with the community on campus, as opposed to always thinking that engagement needs to happen in the community. power dynamics sam, a community partner, shared the following reflection on how power and privilege manifest in campus-community engagement: an element of privilege that does not get analyzed is the privilege to come and go. to be in a long-term relationship with the community, the university needs to care that people are dying on the streets in a paramount way. the fact that communities operate on time frames that transcend university calendars and shortterm community engagement is limited in the scope of impact are widely recognized challenges within higher education community engagement. these differences are often discussed as logistical hurdles that hinder achieving impact. however, sam’s comment reflects something much deeper than a logistical hurdle. in their framing of the choice to engage as a privilege with life and death implications, sam identifies an ontological divergence in how communities and universities understand their sense of belonging and responsibility to one another. sam believed that if colleges and universities operated as part of the community – such that the community's well-being was tied to that of the university – and applied their resources and power to working alongside community members to solve community problems, change could occur. the sharing of power through place-based pedagogy can start small, for example, by inviting community partners to co-design a course or intentionally trying to center community outcomes and align student learning outcomes to them. the sharing of power can also be enacted through © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26450 | march 8, 2023 150 broader place-based pedagogical strategies that move beyond singular courses toward curricular alignment – within departments or even across schools – that partners its resources for the betterment of the community. as simpson (2014) writes: in sum, curriculum is a central departmental resource when considering higher education’s obligations to public life and the primary response in regard to the aims and consequences of undergraduate education. curriculum is the avenue through which structural bodies such as departments demonstrate their commitments to the questions of the “we.” (p. 226) relationship as impact in addition to being a vital stepping-stone and facilitator of positive impact, higher education and community partners saw relationships as the impact they were ultimately seeking. challenges defining and measuring impact when posed with the question, “how do you define impact?” nearly all community partners defaulted to tracking quantitative data. yet, community partners also lamented that quantitative measures do not tell the story of what is changing due to their work. this is reflected in e’rika’s comment, “so, understanding that, when there's layers of trauma, you can't get caught up in the quantitative. i like to have quality, and i think that looking at the changing narrative that helps to give you that quality.” the importance and value of qualitative storytelling had resonance with community and campus partners. place-based pedagogical strategies could include developing courses focused on the art of storytelling and qualitative research that could help community partners better communicate the impact of their work. engaging community knowledge the ideal impact described by many community partners was a transformed relationship between higher education and the community, such that colleges and universities recognize their place, roles, and responsibilities as part of the community rather than apart from it. community partners characterized this transformed relationship as one in which campus partners see the community for its strengths and “appreciate their chance to be a part of our community,” one that involves the whole university rather than a single entity, like a community engagement center; and one that leads to more permeable boundaries such that the community begins to see itself reflected on the campus. higher education partners also expressed interest in a new narrative, one in which the university recognized the importance of the work and put resources behind it, one where © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26450 | march 8, 2023 151 faculty, staff, and students were more involved in the life of the community and not confined by academic calendars and traditional measures of success and impact; and one where the full university invested in community engagement, not just centers. community and higher education partners alike talked about marshaling their collective power for change – change in the community and change in higher education. pbce has great promise for facilitating this transformed relationship described by community partners. pbce’s focus on a geographically defined place, often a neighborhood as opposed to an entire city, can facilitate a sustained immersion of faculty, students, and staff in that place and, vice versa, to invite residents to be a part of the campus. many campuses employing pbce are located in or immediately next to the communities where their efforts are focused. as part of their pbce initiatives, some campuses build infrastructure, offices, or even campuses to facilitate their sustained presence in the communities to which they are committed. an intentional geographic focus can potentially concentrate resources and unite the entire campus in the study of a place. eu, for example, had numerous projects aimed toward understanding and telling the history of their place, illuminating past injustices to inform a path toward more just relationships. constructivist grounded theory: the justice-centering relationship framework the themes that emerged from the data, particularly community partner voices, led to the development of the justice-centering relationships framework (see figure 1). using the sensitizing concepts – partnership characteristics and practices, power, and epistemology – to organize and analyze the data, two distinct paradigms for understanding community impact in higher education community engagement were identified as plug-and-play and justice-centering relationships that are bridged by a process referred to as reframing. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26450 | march 8, 2023 152 figure 1. justice-centering relationships framework. a critical difference between the framework’s paradigms is campus and community relationships. in the plug-and-play paradigm, campus-community partnerships function as individual units. the impact is focused on, defined as, and limited by individual behaviors and commitments and short-term, quantifiable outputs. within this paradigm, the university is seen as separate from the community, and its investment in and commitment to the community is minimal. in the justice-centering relationships paradigm, campus-community partnerships are understood as part of a broader institutional commitment and collective effort. impacts are longer-term and defined as ever-evolving relationships that contribute to institutional and social change. the university recognizes its position as part of the community within this paradigm. through the process of reframing, institutions can begin to change and create the conditions for justice-centering relationships. the justice-centering relationships framework depicts a broader understanding of how issues like power and dominant beliefs about how knowledge is generated and who has the capacity to generate knowledge (epistemology) influence community engagement practices that often fall short of generating the positive community benefit that we imagine and desire. the framework also highlights ways that higher education and community partners can shift practice and change plug-and-play reframing justice-centering relationships s en si tiz in g co nc ep ts partnership characteristics & practices • service • emphasis on activity, place, & logistics • unexamined assumptions • transactional • consistent university presence in community • mutuality shapes relationships • deep listening • examine assumptions • emphasis on process & purpose • full university engagement • equality and respect shape relationships • community-building power • opt-in/opt-out • relationship defined more by exclusion than inclusion • limited by university calendar • directed toward separate ends • un-acknowledged • de-center the university • increase community voice • repairing and rebuilding trust • acknowledging power leads to examination of inclusion and exclusion • opt-in • access & inclusion • centering power with community shapes a focus on equity and justice • marshalling power for change epistemology • deficitoriented • university as expert • community knowledge valued • asset oriented • democratic • equity and justice orientation • democratic impacts • quantifiable • outputs as outcomes • separate, not shared • student focused • relationship as facilitator • supporting resident capacity • increased access • trust • outcomes difficult to measure • relationship as impact • institutional change • co-constructed narrative of universitycommunity relationship © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26450 | march 8, 2023 153 systems to achieve transformative relationships that lead to positive community impact and more substantial student learning and formation. the framework contributes to the field of higher education community engagement by addressing the “how” of integrating change across the varied dimensions of the system that community-campus partnerships operate within to center and achieve positive community impact. key to this change is acknowledging how dominant epistemologies and arrangements of power center the focus of positive impact on students and university outcomes and inhibit the possibilities of achieving just outcomes for the community. service learning, an experiential approach to teaching and learning that links academic study and community-engaged work so that each is strengthened and both are transformed, has been referred to as a movement. swords and kiely (2010) describe a “movement-building approach to service learning” as one that moves “beyond pedagogical innovation” to a “more robust approach including pedagogy, research, organizational learning, and community development” (p. 148). the justice-centering relationships framework could help inform what a movement-building place-based pedagogy could look like – one that transcends individuals and individual courses and partnerships to include a full institutional strategy and commitment characterized by a hyperlocal focus, the centering of relationships and community outcomes, attention to the dynamics of power, and striving for inclusion and equity. using the framework as a guide, practitioners can move their community-engaged work from the plug-and-play frame to the justice-centering frame. implications for place-based pedagogy although this study's primary purpose was to better understand community impact on higher education community engagement, the findings point to the intricate link between community and student learning outcomes. giving more attention to enhancing community outcomes will lead to a positive impact on student learning. for example, the link between trust and risk-taking findings suggests that building trust in community-campus partnerships may lead to the development of higher-stakes projects, which, in turn, are linked to higher-impact learning experiences and community outcomes. additionally, educators can improve practice at the level of individual partnerships and courses by developing a practice of building conversations about impact at the start of community engagement. engaging in discussions with community partners about their goals and how they define impact will likely lead to new opportunities and ways of working with community partners. these conversations will also lead to meaningful learning outcomes for students that will reflect and be directly linked to community outcomes. as murray (2020) asserts: © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26450 | march 8, 2023 154 emphasizing community outcomes as learning objectives for students is one of the more innovative ways to maximize both simultaneously. and while this is definitely stepping “outside the box” of normative teaching, it also begins to teach students that… they themselves have a real stake in what is best for the community. further, as referenced earlier in this article, by incorporating community knowledge, educators can expand the expertise, experience, and overall knowledge resources that can inform student learning (cruz, 2017). the ideals of pbce cannot be achieved if practice remains located in the plug-and-play paradigm. to realize the full potential of pbce requires moving toward the justice-centering relationships paradigm. the framework can serve as a guide and resource for how to shift practice, relationships, and pedagogy, moving from individual initiatives to full university engagement. drawing on the justice-centering relationships paradigm can lead to systems changes that create better conditions for impactful community and student learning outcomes. as murray (2020) points out: animating the mission through place-based learning means that it cannot be confined to a singular class or project, but that it must become a part of the fabric of the university itself, ideally offering students opportunities for research, volunteerism, co-curricular projects, and service learning. placed-based and other collective impact and systemic approaches to community engagement can create pathways for students, beyond singular experiences, to grow their capacity to be agents of change. systemic change can feel overwhelming, but participants in this study demonstrated ways to chip away at change by dismantling structures and/or practices that serve as barriers to justice-centering community engagement (tuck, 2018) and “experimenting in the ideal,” as cruz (2017) encourages, to see what works. conclusion to achieve the democratic aims of higher education and fulfill its obligation to the public good will require colleges and universities to, as simpson (2014) states, “inhabit ethical, ontological, and epistemological frameworks that acknowledge our relational embeddedness, the significance of power, the inevitability of interests and consequences, and the importance of justice (p. 207).” a place-based pedagogical movement that transcends individuals and individual courses and partnerships to include a full institutional strategy and commitment characterized by a hyperlocal focus, the centering of relationships and community outcomes, attention to the dynamics of power, and striving for inclusion and equity has great promise for helping higher education meet © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26450 | march 8, 2023 155 its obligation to the public good. the justice-centering relationships framework, which affirms what many community engagement practitioners and scholars within higher education and the community know from their experience and inquiry that relationships are essential to positive, sustained community impact, can help pbce practitioners make the necessary shifts in epistemology, practice, pedagogy, and institutional posture to achieve the vision and goals of pbce. references bowen, g. a. 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(2011). what predicts outcomes in cbpr. in m. minkler & n. wallerstein (eds.), community-based participatory research for health: from process to outcomes, (pp. 371-388). san francisco, ca: jossey-bass. weerts, d. j., & sandmann, l. r. (2008). building a two-way street: challenges and opportunities for community engagement at research universities. the review of higher education, 32(1), 73-106. https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.0.0027 yamamura, e., & koth, k. (2018). place-based community engagement in higher education: a strategy to transform universities and communities. sterling, va: stylus. https://doi.org/10.3138/9781442619661 https://doi.org/10.36366/frontiers.v30i3.429 https://doi.org/10.1080/10705422.2010.487253 https://doi.org/10.1353/rhe.0.0027 melissa quan1 abstract introduction sensitizing concepts: elements of a conceptual framework campus-community partnership structures and processes epistemology power research methods data sources site and participant selection document analysis surveys site visits and interviews data analysis findings lack of mutual accountability risk relationship as a facilitator of impact repairing and rebuilding trust access and inclusion power dynamics relationship as impact challenges defining and measuring impact engaging community knowledge constructivist grounded theory: the justice-centering relationship framework implications for place-based pedagogy conclusion references original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26842 | july 2, 2023 56 reimagining business education through universitycommunity microenterprise collaborations kevin g. guerrieri,1 aarti s. ivanic, 2 diana hannasch-haag, 3 and julieta gonzalez4 1 professor of spanish, department of languages, cultures, and literature, university of san diego, 2 dean and associate professor of marketing, nicolais school of business, wagner college, 3 director of retention, online programs, professional and continuing education, university of san diego, 4 small business project manager, access inc. cite as: guerrieri, k.g., ivanic, a.s., hannasch-haag, d., & gonzalez, j. (2023). reimagining business education through university-community microenterprise collaborations. metropolitan universities, 34(4), 56-81. doi: 10.18060/26842 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. guest editors: rochelle smarr, ed.d. and chris nayve, j.d. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract business education must evolve. traditionally, it has been narrowly focused, siloed, and often reflective of the transactional nature of business through the lens of maximizing shareholder wealth. the triumph of market fundamentalism over the last five decades has coincided with increasing social inequality, the concentration of corporate power, and a weakening of many forms of social solidarity. there are calls for higher education institutions to reaffirm their commitment to their public purposes and the common good and to leverage their economic resources as anchor institutions. schools of business have enormous potential to contribute to these efforts by integrating into the curriculum a broader and deeper focus on universitycommunity collaboration, civic engagement, and solidarity with community partners to address social and economic inequities. this review of a partnership between an mba program and a community center’s microenterprise program highlights the key role that community engagement can play in graduate business education. the study includes a conceptual model incorporating four overlapping areas: critical reflection, relational paradigms, intersectionality, multilingual communication, and intercultural praxis. structural barriers and challenges are discussed in the study, but also opportunities for building upon program strengths and a flexible framework for implementation at other institutions. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26842 | july 2, 2023 57 keywords: business education, community partnerships, microenterprise, mba programs, microentrepreneurs, community engagement, critical reflection, intersectionality, multilingualism resumen la educación empresarial debe evolucionar, puesto que, tradicionalmente, ha tenido un acercamiento estrecho y aislado que refleja la naturaleza transaccional de los negocios con un objetivo de maximizar la riqueza de los accionistas. el triunfo del fundamentalismo del mercado a lo largo de las últimas cinco décadas ha coincidido con un aumento de desigualdad social, la concentración del poder corporativo y un debilitamiento de muchas formas de solidaridad social. hay llamamientos a instituciones de educación superior para reafirmar el compromiso a sus propósitos públicos y el bien común y para hacer uso de sus recursos económicos como “instituciones ancla”. en su plan de estudios, las facultades de administración empresarial tienen un gran potencial para contribuir a estos esfuerzos integando un enfoque más amplio y profundo en la colaboración con la comunidad, el compromiso cívico y la solidaridad con asociaciones comunitarias con el fin de afrontar las inequidades sociales y económicas. este análisis de una colaboración entre un programa de maestría en administración (mba) y el programa de microempresas de un centro comunitario resalta el papel fundamental que la colaboración comunitaria puede desempeñar en la educación empresarial superior. el estudio incluye un modelo conceptual que incorpora cuatro áreas interrelacionadas: la reflexión crítica, los paradigmas relacionales, la interseccionalidad y la comunicación multilingüe y la praxis intercultural. en el estudio se examinan barreras estructurales y desafíos, pero también oportunidades para construir a partir de los puntos fuertes del programa, así como un marco flexible para su implementación en otras instituciones. palabras clave: educación empresial, asociaciones comunitarias, microempresas, maestría en administración (mba), microemprendedores, colaboración comunitaria, reflexión crítica, interseccionalidad, multilinguismo original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26842 | july 2, 2023 58 introduction colleges and universities provide students with experiential learning opportunities through many different modalities. within business education, these experiences often entail placing students in businesses or nonprofit organizations through internships, externships, or practicums, for example, so that they can apply knowledge and concepts in a real-world setting. experiential learning also occurs through community service, service-learning, community engagement, pro bono clinics, and other frameworks that explicitly aim to contribute to the public good, foster community development, and address disparities and inequities. the present article focuses on a program framed as community engagement in which graduate business students in the university’s full-time and part-time mba programs work directly with microentrepreneurs who participate in a microenterprise program managed at a local community center. during the first few semesters following the program’s inception in 2017, some issues arose as the students began collaborating with the microentrepreneurs. some students had difficulties determining how to help guide their assigned microentrepreneurs or explaining the concepts and ideas they had learned in their mba courses, while others felt that they did not possess the skillset and knowledge that the microentrepreneurs needed. in some cases, the program participants were frustrated due to a perceived lack of progress in the development of the business over the course of the academic term. on one occasion, a student suggested that the person they were working with simply did not have what it took to be an entrepreneur. overall, some students viewed the program through a transactional lens in that they put in the mandatory service hours solely to fulfill the degree requirement. in light of these concerning issues and other apparent disconnects, the leadership team articulated a series of guiding questions for program review and improvement: 1. how does the specialized business knowledge in accounting, management, finance, marketing, and other areas, gained in the classroom align with the needs and challenges faced by low-income microentrepreneurs? 2. what is the nature of the interaction between the students and the business owners, how is it framed, and how are students and community members prepared for the interaction? 3. how does the collaboration address social and racial justice issues, inequalities and inequities, and power differentials? 4. what type of relationship is established between the university and the community partner, and to what degree are principles of reciprocity, mutual benefit, and equity truly enacted? original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26842 | july 2, 2023 59 5. how can this collaboration with the community center form part of the university’s broader anchor institution mission that strives to achieve collective impact through place-based initiatives aimed at economic development and capacity building? upon reflection, it became apparent that some challenges were symptomatic of systemic and epistemological issues requiring a broader paradigm shift. as researchers directly involved in the program, we examined the practices and protocols involved in the collaboration as well as the related literature in multiple disciplines. the questions posed are far-reaching and call for exploration from the individual and interpersonal to the institutional and societal levels, with the ultimate objective of deepening the commitment to the public purposes of the university, fostering economic growth in communities of urban and metropolitan settings while simultaneously strengthening partnerships through antiracist, reciprocal, and equitable practices. the present article constitutes a scholar-practitioner theoretical reflection organized into five sections. the first consists of a brief overview of university-community collaboration in business education for the public good. the second is a description of the micro-enterprise collaboration and the authors’ positionality. the third presents the business education-community collaboration conceptual model developed by the leadership team. the fourth summarizes the program implementation of the model. finally, the fifth section focuses on the aspirational engaged school of business, with a discussion of benefits and challenges as well as areas of future exploration and research. university-community collaboration in business education for the public good recent phenomena found in the corporate world and business education curricula have a stated focus—partially or completely—on the public good or the creation of social value, some as mainstream practices and others as growing alternative approaches. the united nationssupported initiative on the principles for responsible management education (prme, n.d.), for example, “engages business and management schools to ensure they provide future leaders with the skills needed to balance economic and sustainability goals while drawing attention to the sustainable development goals (sdgs) and aligning academic institutions with the work of the un global compact” (para. 2). since the founding of prme in 2007, more business schools worldwide have been incorporating the sdgs into their programs. similarly, other topics such as environment, social governance (esg) (henisz et al., 2019), social entrepreneurship (brooks, 2009; bornstein & davis, 2010), “bottom of the pyramid” (bop) (prahalad & hammond, 2002), the b-corp movement (marquis, 2020), the “triple bottom line” (elkington 1994), fair trade (cichos, 2019), and small business accelerator initiatives (palazzolo & devagayam, 2023), among others, are also incorporated into mba curricula. original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26842 | july 2, 2023 60 a cursory examination of the literature reveals a number of initiatives over the last two decades aimed at enhancing the integration of community service-learning and community engagement projects into the mba curriculum (kolb and kolb, 2005). for example, johnson (2013) described a project in a graduate research methods course where graduate students worked with a nonprofit performing arts center that needed assistance increasing attendance. students worked in teams and the client, and at the end of the project, they had the opportunity to reflect on their experience. godfrey, illes, and berry (2005) described a group of mba students in an ethics course who worked with a local chapter of an international ngo to develop an internal accounting system. while they faced challenges during the project, the students learned handson, powerful lessons on real-world organizational ethics. davis and michel (2000) had a group of mba strategy students help a religious association develop a plan to increase membership. friedman (1996) had mba leadership students design, organize, and implement service experience to apply leadership skills in an ambiguous and complex environment. community-based experiences are also incorporated into graduate-level business education through a direct-service paradigm, but these are less common. a cursory examination of mba program websites from the top five benchmark institutions identified by the current institution showed that while many had an office for community engagement and social awareness, none of the mba programs formally required any volunteer hours to be completed as part of a graduation requirement. at one aspirational school, mba students complete 20 hours of community service, while at another, the full-time and flexmba students participate in a friendly competition during the month of volunteerism, and those who complete 100 hours receive a special designation. this brief overview—from national and international efforts to the handful of examples of community service-learning, community engagement, and direct service projects—serves as a snapshot of the wide range of initiatives to create social value and address economic disparities that have been integrated into business education. however, as studies have indicated over the years, the mba curriculum remains predominantly focused on maximizing shareholder wealth through hard skills embedded into the core function-based mba courses and discussion of mainstream case studies of for-profit businesses. for example, godfrey et al. (2005) criticized four aspects of business education: being too narrowly focused; not incorporating crossfunctional and holistic knowledge; the transactionality of human interactions; and the supremacy of shareholder wealth. several authors (e.g., mintzberg & gosling, 2000; syed et al., 2009) have argued that business schools focus more on the functions of business rather than the process of managing people or processes. mba education heavily emphasizes analytical tools, which has hindered developing managers to face ambiguous situations (thomas et al., 2013). pfeffer and fong (2002) stated that while a narrow focus can help students find a job, it may not help them original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26842 | july 2, 2023 61 succeed. across two studies, shantz et al. (2021) found that mba curricula are siloed, focused on financial gain and maximizing shareholder value, and fail to prepare students to lead through global crises. it is imperative to examine business education, in general, in relation to the current hegemonic economic paradigm constituted by neoliberalism, which enshrines individual freedoms based on the “interests of private property owners, businesses, multinational corporations, and financial capital” (harvey, 2005, p. 7). these individual freedoms are subject to the logic of the market, and “the sovereign market requires individuals to adjust themselves to its imperatives, which means sacrificing egalitarianism and eschewing the project of collective freedom” (whyte, 2019, p. 23). as harvey (2005) indicates in the history of neoliberalism, since its emergence in the 1970s, there has been a shift towards increasing social inequality, the restoration of economic power to the upper class, the concentration of corporate power, and a weakening of many different forms of social solidarity. within this overall climate, there have been powerful calls for institutions of higher education to reaffirm their commitment to their public purposes and the common good (campus compact, 2016; cumu, 2010) and to leverage their economic resources as anchor institutions in their communities (birch et al., 2013; cumu, 2018; hodges & dubb, 2012). these calls for integrating a broader and deeper focus on collaboration, civic engagement, and solidarity with communities to address social and economic inequities into the curriculum can be seen as both key responsibilities and transformative opportunities. the present article constitutes a call for such curricular transformation in business education involving deeper and wider integration of university-community collaborations based on a community-engagement relational paradigm, multilingual communication, intercultural praxis, intersectionality, and critical reflection that interrogates the hegemonic assumptions undergirding neoliberalism. the following sections illustrate a praxis of action and reflection with the program description and conceptual model. program description and scholar-practitioner positionality the present article focuses on a collaboration designed in partnership between the university of san diego—with faculty from the knauss school of business and a faculty liaison from the mulvaney center for community, awareness, and social action—and the microenterprise program at access inc., a local community center. hereafter, the acronym aumec will be used to designate the access-usd microenterprise collaboration, which was inaugurated in the spring semester of 2017. at this university, students in both the full-time mba and part-time mba programs must complete 12-15 hours of community service as a graduation requirement in the business school. the students volunteer with a nonprofit organization and utilize their original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26842 | july 2, 2023 62 business knowledge acumen to help the nonprofit. this requirement is formally framed within a direct-service paradigm as giving back to the community. it can be seen as mission-aligned, given that fostering a dedication to compassionate service is part of the university’s formal mission statement. students are offered the aumec collaboration as an option to fulfill this degree requirement. since aumec’s inception in 2017, some 138 mba students have participated and worked with over 60 microentrepreneurs. the requirements for participation in the microenterprise program at the community center include being low to moderate-income and county residents. many of the participants are new to the united states and/or members of underrepresented populations and have a wide range of microenterprises such as cleaning services, food, retail, construction, and personal care, among many others. through aumec, the mba students work individually or in teams of two to help microentrepreneurs with their business-related needs, such as business plans, accounting/bookkeeping, marketing, legal questions, and employee-related issues. this collaboration provides a structured option for the mba students to fulfill their communityservice requirement while the microentrepreneurs simultaneously obtain assistance to start or expand a small business. the aumec collaboration continues with a new cohort every semester of the academic year. the aumec leadership team comprises a diverse group of individuals, all co-authors on this paper. two of the authors are faculty members, one in the school of business—and who has moved to another anchor-institution college—and one in the humanities at usd. one author is a microenterprise developer supervisor at the local community center, access inc. finally, the fourth author was in an administrative position as a student professional development manager at usd. we are mindful of our positionality as participants in and leaders of collaboration and, simultaneously, as scholar-practitioners who are examining the same collaboration both for program improvement and to make contributions to the broader field. our approach has been guided by an “imperative of reflexivity,” as described by morrison (2015)—in relation to global service-learning but very relevant in other scholarship of engagement contexts—and the following questions: "which values and beliefs are we consciously or unconsciously bringing to our [...] research? how might these values (axiology) and beliefs (ontology, epistemology) shape the process (method) and the language (rhetoric) that we will use in our research?" (p. 64). these questions inform the present theoretical reflection and guide our work with the students and business owners. we are aware of our different positionalities and the power dynamics in which we are all immersed. conceptual model original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26842 | july 2, 2023 63 following the inception of the aumec collaboration, the leadership team began a reflection cycle wherein we drew from our own experiences and those of the microentrepreneurs and mba students and the literature and theory included in the present work. our open and evolving conceptual model for this collaboration, emerging from reflection and action in a freirean (1970) sense of praxis, comprises four overlapping areas, as illustrated in figure 1: community engagement and relational paradigms, critical reflection, intersectionality, and multilingual communication and intercultural praxis. figure 1. business education-community collaboration conceptual model. community engagement and relational paradigms a range of relational paradigms can manifest themselves in university-community collaborations in business education framed as community service-learning, volunteerism, and direct service, among others, as well as other experiential learning modalities such as field projects and internships. participation in the aumec program fulfills a “community service” degree requirement for mba students at usd, but this label is a misnomer with important implications. the discourse and related actions, together, create the relationship and inform the implicit and explicit values that become attached to it. students who enter a community-service or directservice program often begin to conceptualize the relationship as unilineal in which they are “giving back to the community” as they share university-centered knowledge and skills with the “(under)served.” accordingly, there is an ongoing imperative for universities to develop a clear definition and understanding of community engagement at the institutional level and how it is distinct from other community collaborations. the aumec collaboration is framed as community engagement (ce) based on the carnegie foundation definition (as cited in noel & earwicker, 2015, p. 35) and understood through the lens of the community engagement institutional assessment (ceia) rubric (sgoutas-emch et original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26842 | july 2, 2023 64 al., 2021). the ceia rubric aims at engaging faculty in a critical evaluation of their collaborations in the community and forging a collective understanding of ce, organized into four primary areas: (a) democratic, reciprocal, and mutually beneficial partnerships; (b) societal issues and the common good; (c) critical reflection; and (d) civic learning, citizenship, and democratic values (p. 8). this approach is informed by a broader, long-term social justice turn in ce, as described by grain and lund (2016), as well as earlier frameworks, such as the “democratic civic engagement” framework proposed by saltmarsh et al. (2009), and more recent ones, such as quan’s (2023), which argues for the reframing of “plug-and-play” relationships in a bridge to “justice-centering relationships.” collectively, these studies provide key guiding principles in relation to partnerships, knowledge production, power and decisionmaking, outcomes and impacts, and other vital areas. the aumec collaboration is built upon these relational paradigms. the semester-long work of each team contributes to the long-term multi-year collaboration between the business school and the community center, which the leadership team continually strives to deepen as an equitable, democratic, and mutually beneficial partnership (bringle et al., 2013; clayton et al., 2009; davis & nicolaides, 2017; hidayat et al., 2009; martin & crossland, 2017; sgoutas-emch & guerrieri, 2020). in the present conceptual model, we underscore the multiple levels on which relational paradigms should be examined and the principles of critical, justice-focused ce enacted. for example, the students’ work with the small business owners is explicitly framed as a partnership—as opposed to a mentor-mentee or consultant-client relationship—in which they are co-educators and co-creators of the microenterprise. similarly, students are asked to interrogate the different relational paradigms found in the business world outside this particular collaboration such that they explore how the paradigms entail sets of common-sense assumptions, epistemologies, and power dynamics that inform the relations among the participants that may led to greater equity and social justice or the opposite. critical reflection brookfield (2009) affirms that—from a critical theory perspective—for “reflection to be considered critical it must have as its explicit focus uncovering, and challenging, the power dynamics that frame practice and uncovering and challenging hegemonic assumptions” (p. 298). from this perspective, brookfield (2009) argues that critical reflection does not focus on “how to work more effectively or productively within an existing system, but on calling the foundations and imperatives of the system itself into question, assessing their morality, and considering alternatives” (297), as well as analyzing “commonly held ideas and practices for the extent to which they perpetuate economic inequity, deny compassion, foster a culture of silence and prevent people from realising a sense of common connectedness” (p. 298). this notion of critical original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26842 | july 2, 2023 65 reflection builds upon previous work (e.g., freire, 1970; mezirow, 1990) and appears in later studies (e.g., kiely, 2015; norris et al., 2017), conceptualized more specifically in the context of community engagement and civic-mindedness. reflection is an essential component of service learning and community engagement, and ample approaches, frameworks, and models have been developed over the years to implement effective and deep reflection in ways that can be linked to disciplinary notions of critical thinking (ash & clayton, 2009; eyler, 2002; hatcher et al., 2004; welch, 1999). however, the present conceptual model emphasizes the transformative potential of critical reflection, following brookfield (2009), “when it fosters challenges to hegemony, when it prompts counter-hegemonic practices” (p. 301), specifically focused here on business education and the business world. as baillie et al. (2012) affirm, “professions each have their own hegemonic values, which need to be exposed, articulated, owned and even transformed, if professionals are to act in a socially just manner” (p. 74), and their study poses a key question: what does a socially just profession look like? while their study is focused on engineering, it applies to any profession or field. based on young’s (1990) five categories of oppression, the approach seeks to create an engineering heterotopia—a counter-hegemonic, alternative space—that “1) avoids any form of exploitation (benefiting at the expense of others)”; “2) avoids or reduces marginalisation (being pushed away from participation in social life)”; “3) reduces powerlessness (being unable to make one’s voice heard due to lack of status or respect)”; “4) eliminates cultural imperialism (the dominant culture becomes the way of interpreting social life)”; and “5) reduces violence (the risk and reality of being targeted with acts of violence)” (baillie et al., 2012, pp. 86–89). finally, we would integrate an essential sixth category here in which the profession avoids or reduces any harm to the environment and natural world, given that social justice issues are inextricably intertwined with climate, environmental, and ecological justice questions. figure 1’s use of dashed lines throughout and “critical reflection” as the largest conceptual field represent the expansive nature of this component that seeks to develop a reflexive habit in participants that goes beyond the direct circumstances of the aumec collaboration, questioning everyday situations and practices, deconstructing professional practices, and examining ideologies embedded in systems. intersectionality over the last three decades, since the publication of two key essays by crenshaw (1989, 1991), the notion of intersectionality has become widely employed and debated. intersectionality is “an integrated approach to analyzing the complex, matrix-like interconnections among patterns of discrimination based on race, gender, and other social identities, with the goal of highlighting original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26842 | july 2, 2023 66 how resulting inequalities are experienced” (butler, 2017, p. 38). as goodman (2014) indicates, people’s social locations “within hierarchical oppressive structures affect their access to power, resources, and opportunities, which shapes how they see and experience themselves and the world” (p. 100). intersectionality explores “the ways in which social identities and the experiences of domination and subordination interweave and interplay” at different times and in different contexts (goodman, 2014, p. 101). however, it is essential not to freeze intersectionality within overly static definitions, to not view identity merely as an additive, nor to reduce this concept to questions of identity. in this sense, jones underscores that “intersectionality is only about identity when structures of inequality are foregrounded and identities considered in light of social issues and power dynamics” (p.xii). in sum, intersectionality provides an approach to exploring the complexity and tensions involved in community engagement, especially within a business-related context in which questions of identity, social (in)justice and (in)equity, and privilege and oppression are not necessarily in the curriculum—undergraduate or graduate—nor addressed in experiential learning settings. the intent here is not to resolve the tensions or reconcile opposing values but to engage participants in deconstructing values, attitudes, and common-sense assumptions. following carbado et al. (2013), the goal must not be “simply to understand social relations of power, nor to limit intersectionality’s gaze to the relations that [are] interrogated therein, but to bring the often hidden dynamics forward in order to transform them” (p. 9). intersectionality forms part of the present conceptual model, as “a powerful tool for understanding, constructing, and deconstructing: the experience of identity, the complex and mutually constituting nature of social identities, the relationships between identity and larger social systems, and the interwoven nature of manifestations of social oppression” (wijeyesinghe & jones, 2014, p. 17). jones (2014) emphasizes that “at the heart of intersectionality is the integration of theory, research, and praxis” (p. xiii). ultimately, as moradi and grzanka (2017) affirm, upon outlining a set of guidelines for reflection and action, intersectionality’s primary aim is to challenge and transform structures/systems of power, privilege, and oppression” (p. 510). multilingual communication and intercultural praxis communication between the students and the microentrepreneurs in the aumec collaboration occurs across various languages. in some cases, the microentrepreneurs’ primary language is spanish, and they work with the mba student through a translator, either a family member or a staff member from the community center. in addition, the first language of many mba students—particularly international students—is not english, although the graduate program instruction is in english. however, even when a given student-microentrepreneur team shares a common language such as spanish, for example, their communication is still mediated through original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26842 | july 2, 2023 67 regional differences—e.g., a student from spain or costa rica with a microentrepreneur originally from mexico or a student from mexico city with a latinx microentrepreneur—in addition to diverse educational backgrounds and worldviews; socio-economic and cultural differences; the axes and intersections of inequalities and power in their lives, and a myriad of other factors related to and beyond the actual language spoken. the collaboration involves many other types of languages. telecommunications technology, for instance, such as e-mail, text messaging, and videoconferencing, among others, constitute not only media through which to communicate but also practices and skills that must be aligned. furthermore, the differences among in-person encounters, videoconferencing, voice communications, and written texts can be significant. likewise, the participants may have varying degrees of computer skills to carry out functions such as spreadsheets, word processing, and presentation programs, among others. additional skill development is required for specifically business-related technology, software, and applications. it must be noted that some participants have limited access to technology in general. finally, the specialized terminology of accounting, finance, marketing, and other business areas represents another language that comes into play. the notion of the proposed multilingual communication is informed here by concepts such as symbolic competence (kramsch, 2011, 2014), multiliteracies (lópez-sánchez, 2009, new london group, 1996; warner & dupuy, 2018), intercultural communication (halualani & nakayama, 2010; sekimoto & sorrells, 2016), and intercultural education (aman, 2013). through an asset-based approach, all the participants in the collaboration utilize the languages and literacies they already possess, and the learning and skill development is bi-directional. there is an emphasis on the ability to move among different languages and continually negotiate meaning and nuances. this also entails recognizing that the interlocutors may not have the same assumptions and expectations for each communicative situation or collaboration. this component also includes the notion of “intercultural praxis.” as aman (2013) indicates, the discourse on interculturality—and its implementation in “intercultural educational” practices— can lead to the construction of otherness and the reproduction of coloniality. accordingly, it is vital to contextualize the notion as different from apolitical multiculturalism that can essentialize cultural identities or homogenize intragroup differences. that being said, as a tool for developing a critical perspective, sekimoto and sorrells (2016) proposed an “intercultural praxis” that explicitly seeks to integrate a social justice approach with intercultural communication through six dimensions: “(a) being willing to ask questions and suspend judgment (inquiry); (b) clarifying cultural frames of reference and shifting frames from micro to meso to macro levels (framing); (c) examining who/where you are in relation to others in terms of power relations original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26842 | july 2, 2023 68 (positioning); (d) engaging in open exchange of ideas (dialogue); (e) looking back and accessing your thoughts and action (reflection); and (f) taking informed and ethical actions toward a more just and equitable society” (p. 4). program implementation of the conceptual model the implementation of the conceptual model is conceived of as a praxis of continual reflection and action, with seven phases organized into three groups: (1) application, selection, and orientations; (2) collaboration, check-in, final reflection; and (3) celebration and showcase. in this section, we provide examples of activities and characteristics of the phases, not as a detailed roadmap for implementation but rather as a path for guidance. application, selection, and orientations through the application process, key information is gathered from the mba students: language skills; program concentration (business analytics, finance, organizational leadership, marketing, real estate, supply chain management); other areas of knowledge and experience (accounting, bookkeeping, business plans, financial statements, human resources, social media marketing, website design, etc.); and proposed contributions to this collaboration, among other elements. similarly, the microentrepreneurs provide information on their business: basic description (name, type of business, time in operation, current status); short and long-term goals for business; specific needs and objectives to be addressed; language skills; computer, telecommunications, and internet skills; among other data. utilizing all this information collectively, the program leadership team collaborates, pairing each student with a microentrepreneur. two orientations are held, one each for microentrepreneurs and students, and all participants collectively gather. each microentrepreneur-student pair meets for the first time, discusses the business, and establishes a meeting schedule for the remainder of the semester. in the student orientation, in addition to learning about the community center and details on the program, the students are introduced to some of the critical aspects of the conceptual model. they discuss a modified version of the democratic civic engagement framework (saltmarsh et al., 2009, p. 11), comparing a “thin” paradigm and a “critical” paradigm of community engagement, and a brief article by goodman (2014): “the tapestry model: exploring social identities, privilege, and oppression from an intersectional perspective.” building upon previous scholarship by kimberlé crenshaw, cherríe moraga, gloria anzaldúa, and others, goodman’s (2014) tapestry model (tm) uses the metaphor of weaving a tapestry to explain some of the main tenets of an original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26842 | july 2, 2023 69 intersectional framework—focused on understanding how different social categories simultaneously interact, shaping people’s identities and lived experiences—within larger systems of structural inequality. as goodman points out, “privilege and oppression operate and interact simultaneously. the intersections of identities with different social statuses can increase or mitigate experiences of advantage and disadvantage” (p. 102). in this orientation, we seek to embark the students on reflection around these questions as they consider their social locations and explore their expectations and assumptions about microentrepreneurs. collaborations, check-in, and final reflection prior to initiating their work with the microentrepreneurs, the leadership team asks the students to study a bilingual (spanish-english) business plan template—distributed in the orientation— which they can use to guide the initial conversations about the microenterprise. in addition to being a practical tool for any business start-up, the business plan template serves an essential epistemological function: the hyper-specialization of knowledge that can take place in graduate programs, especially as students select concentrations or dissertation topics, is shifted to a more relational, localized, and contextual approach to knowledge production. the template provides a basic structure for deliberations while opening multiple directions for the microentrepreneurstudent team to explore as they co-create. during the semester, two formal reflections are held with the students, check-in after 2-3 weeks of collaboration and a final reflection near the end of the term. the participants in this program have a wide range of experiences due to the vast differences between the microenterprises and the participants. some are established small businesses with years of operation and clearly defined needs and opportunities for growth, while others are nascent projects, sometimes barely more than an idea or a dream. accordingly, identifying the projected outcomes for each team varies greatly. in addition, challenges frequently arise, some of which are logistical but very real: finding the time and place to meet; completing the determined tasks from one meeting to the next; dealing with unexpected emergencies and contingencies, among many other issues. the formal reflections—as well as the additional support provided to individuals by the leadership team—are vital and tend to involve guiding participants in adjusting their desired outcomes and managing expectations, given that collaboration is rarely linear, continually raising their awareness about different factors related to multilingual communication; and exercising teamwork and collectively sharing knowledge, experience, and ideas among the different enterprises. original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26842 | july 2, 2023 70 celebration, showcase, and continuity at the end of the semester, an event is held with all participants and guests in which each student-microentrepreneur team gives a brief presentation on their microenterprise and the completed work. it is important to point out that, unlike common business concept challenges, pitches for venture capitalists, and even social innovation and social entrepreneurship contests— see auch and meyskens (2014)—this event is not a competition with prizes or seed funding; on the contrary, the focus is on showcasing the small businesses and celebrating the collaboration, the learning, and the relationships formed. importantly, the businesses are not only showcased on the screen in presentations; they are also embodied in the organization of the event through the food vendors and others who bring samples of their products and services to share with attendees. several continuity mechanisms are built into the program. the students submit summaries of the work carried out, the materials produced for the microenterprises, and the community center provides ongoing support to the microentrepreneurs after the collaboration ends. in some cases, the students continue to work with the business owners after completing their degree requirements. likewise, the leadership team's end-of-semester holistic assessment of the program serves to identify necessary adjustments for program improvement. the leadership team continually compiles resources to guide, support, and inform the students. likewise, over the years, the students have also contributed to this knowledge base and bank of resources–along with the completed deliverables submitted–which are shared among cohorts from semester to semester. this captures the progress that is made and informs the next student who works with the microentrepreneur, as many microentrepreneurs participate in the program over the course of multiple terms. the continuity and relationality that characterizes this collaboration extends beyond this specific program as aumec constitutes one part of the overall work that the university seeks to carry out in alignment with its mission as an anchor institution (birch et al., 2013; hodges & dubb, 2012), leveraging its economic capacity in addition to other resources for the common good of and alongside the broader community. the interplay and alignment among these multiple levels–interpersonal, programmatic, institutional, and societal–are sought through continual reflection, adjustments, and action. the aspirational engaged school of business benefits and challenges original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26842 | july 2, 2023 71 the mba students who participate have opportunities to deepen their learning and develop a broader range of crucial skills that align with industry and employer demand. at the same time, they also directly contribute to microenterprise growth through collaborative and reciprocal relationships with microentrepreneurs. the epistemological shift in which the teams interact and work as co-creators of knowledge around and for the development of the small businesses takes place within a democratic civic engagement framework that seeks to resist and reconfigure preconceived notions that separate “civic duty” and the “public good” from individuals’ economic interests and enterprises, a separation promoted within the predominant neoliberal paradigm. working with microentrepreneurs with minimal resources on ambiguous business problems helps move students from a purely functional and analytical-based learning style to one that prepares them for success in uncertain environments. this echoes the renewed calls for a reevaluation of the mba curriculum whereby students are challenged to develop skills outside their functional siloes to solve broader problems. additionally, through their interactions with microentrepreneurs who are low-income, underrepresented minorities, students are challenged to think about business problems and resources through a social justice lens. some microentrepreneurs have reported increased levels of self-esteem and confidence gained from participating in the collaboration, and others expressed satisfaction that they could share their knowledge with the students in addition to receiving information from them. this highlights the reciprocal nature of this collaboration and the co-creation of knowledge. this intended outcome goes beyond economic success metrics and speaks to key values held in the program. the aumec collaboration also faces several interrelated challenges, which are common in community engagement work in general, the first of which is the time of interaction between participants, which is formally set for the students at a 12–15-hour service requirement over the course of the semester. the depth of engagement is limited, and the relationships formed risk becoming transactional: transformational engagement requires more time. additionally, there are challenges to the long-term sustainability of aumec. currently, the program is not formally integrated into the business school. the faculty members and administrators who help manage and lead the program do so without its formal recognition as part of their professional responsibilities. the sustainability is further stressed when there is turnover among the leadership team members. in short, the challenge here consists of institutional investment in creating long-term structures, such as resource allocation and program involvement as part of job descriptions, to strengthen continuity and program growth. program integration constitutes another multifaceted challenge for aumec. aumec is one option for mba students to complete their community service requirements. the program is not a formal part of the curriculum, and participation is not mandatory, as students may choose to original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26842 | july 2, 2023 72 find another nonprofit organization to serve. this can be problematic for meeting the needs of the microenterprise program at the community center. in addition to the question of curricular integration, there is a challenge to achieve deeper and more meaningful integration and alignment of aumec into the mission and vision of the school of business to expand these types of community engagement possibilities in teaching, learning, and research and to foster the university’s mission as an anchor institution. areas to explore there are several areas for future research and avenues to explore to strengthen this collaboration model, one of which revolves around how best to integrate aumec and other similar programs into the mba curriculum. transforming the collaboration into a course-based component might make student participation more consistent and enhance how this program—and critical community engagement work in general—are valued as a part of business education. there are pros and cons to offering this type of unit-bearing course, either as a degree requirement or as an elective, and the nuances must be examined. this question could also be articulated compared to other experiential learning modalities and types of community-based projects. there are several assessment-related areas to explore. it would be beneficial to conduct a longitudinal study of student learning and positive impacts on community organizations and participants in a microenterprise collaboration such as aumec. the current program depends on a limited temporal model whereby the students and microentrepreneurs work together until the end of the semester, and most teams then cease collaboration shortly after that. a study could be designed to examine measurable outcomes: such as knowledge acquired and produced; different types of skills developed; self-efficacy; real-world problem-solving; intercultural and symbolic competence; and civic engagement learning, among others. regarding small businesses, tangible metrics might include implementing a business plan; financial and economic inputs and outputs; securing grants or other funds for start-up; future growth, and stability; among others. universities have tremendous potential to stimulate growth and help confront economic inequities by creating or expanding local and minority-owned vendor initiatives through their procurement processes. microenterprise collaborations can serve as pipelines for these initiatives explicitly designed to work with underrepresented populations and address economic, educational, and social disparities. similarly, participatory action research projects focused on business-related issues can be co-created and carried out in collaboration with community residents and microentrepreneurs, leveraging their knowledge and community assets combined with university resources. original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26842 | july 2, 2023 73 conclusion there is a call to reimagine business education, building upon existing resources, models, and tendencies already within our institutions that are based on striving to enact social justice, dismantle racist and oppressive systems and structures, and achieve equitable outcomes in active collaboration between universities and community partners. business schools are called to challenge the existing lens of maximizing shareholder value and the narrow focus in the mba curriculum and to consider a more holistic, interdisciplinary approach to reframe the purpose of business. more profound 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(eds.), intersectionality & higher education: theory, research, & praxis (pp. 9-19). peter lang publishing. https://doi.org/10.3726/b15089 https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/globalizing-intercultural-communication/book240695 https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/globalizing-intercultural-communication/book240695 https://doi.org/10.37333/001c.18786 https://discovery.indstate.edu/jcehe/index.php/joce/article/view/625 https://doi.org/10.1017/cbo9781139012119 https://doi.org/10.1111/flan.12316 https://digitalcommons.unomaha.edu/slceeval/16/ https://www.versobooks.com/books/3087-the-morals-of-the-market https://doi.org/10.3726/b15089 original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26842 | july 2, 2023 81 young, i. m. (1990). justice and the politics of difference. princeton, nj: princeton university press. https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691235165/justice-and-thepolitics-of-difference kevin g. guerrieri,1 aarti s. ivanic, 2 diana hannasch-haag, 3 and julieta gonzalez4 abstract resumen introduction university-community collaboration in business education for the public good program description and scholar-practitioner positionality conceptual model community engagement and relational paradigms critical reflection intersectionality multilingual communication and intercultural praxis program implementation of the conceptual model application, selection, and orientations collaborations, check-in, and final reflection celebration, showcase, and continuity the aspirational engaged school of business benefits and challenges areas to explore conclusion references original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26592| july 2, 2023 16 promise parent leadership academy (ppla) and clemente veterans’ initiative (cvi) newark: two hyperlocal, anchor institution initiatives to engage the urban community charity anderson1 and marcus anthony2 1 joseph c. cornwall center for metropolitan studies, senior research associate, rutgers university-newark, 2 joseph c. cornwall center for metropolitan studies, senior program director, rutgers university -newark cite as: anderson, c., & anthony, m. (2023). promise parent leadership academy (ppla) and clemente veterans’ initiative (cvi) newark: two hyperlocal, anchor institution initiatives to engage the urban community . metropolitan universities, 34(4), 16-35. doi: 10.18060/26592 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. guest editors: rochelle smarr, ed.d. and chris nayve, j.d. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract urban and metropolitan colleges and universities can play an important role in innovative, equitable community revitalization. this is especially true for universities that also function as anchor institutions; there is both a challenge and an opportunity for such urban anchors to conduct their work in a manner that engages the community proximate to campus and improves the lives of its residents. this paper presents the promise parent leadership academy (ppla) and clemente veterans’ initiative (cvi) newark as two examples of how an urban, postsecondary anchor institution can establish and nurture hyperlocal initiatives to improve outcomes for underserved residents. ppla and cvi newark, established in 2017 and 2019, respectively, have emerged as novel, impactful, and scalable initiatives that move beyond the typical one-way flow of intellectual capital generated within the confines of a university. instead, ppla and cvi newark actively engage community members in meaningful, intellectually rigorous work that adds value to the institution, program participants, and greater newark. data from program evaluations indicate that participants of both programs—most of whom are adults of color from low-income households—gain personal and professional skills that bolster their confidence, critical thinking, and quality of life. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26592| july 2, 2023 17 keywords: adult education, anchor institution, community engagement, parent engagement, urban schools, university-community partnerships original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26592| july 2, 2023 18 introduction colleges and universities can play an essential role in urban revitalization grounded in community, equity, and innovation. those that also act as anchor instructions—that is, placebased, mission-driven organizations—can play a particularly crucial part by conducting their work in ways that explicitly improve the lives of vulnerable children, families, and communities that are often proximate to campuses. indeed, this role is both a challenge and an opportunity for urban and metropolitan universities. rutgers university-newark (ru-n), an anchor institution in new jersey’s most populous city, is committed to integrating its strengths with those of public, private, and nonprofit sector partners to bolster the social and economic fabric of the city, region, and state (ru-n, 2014). this paper presents two of ru-n’s place-based, hyperlocal community engagement projects centered, in large part, on building k-16 student success and support in newark. the promise parent leadership academy (ppla) and the clemente veterans’ initiative (cvi) newark, housed within the joseph c. cornwall center for metropolitan studies at ru-n, are innovative, impactful initiatives that move beyond the typical one-way flow of intellectual capital generated within academia’s ivory tower and imposed upon communities (cantor et al., 2013; scobey, 2002). instead, ppla and cvi newark actively engage community members in meaningful, intellectually rigorous work that adds value to the institution, program participants, and greater newark. rutgers university-newark’s role as an anchor institution anchor institutions universities have held various roles throughout history: as centers of knowledge, innovation, experimentation, and critical discussion and as major employers and landholders, contributing to the physical character of neighborhoods and the economic footprint of cities. their contributions have not always been positive, though. universities have often exacerbated, rather than reduced, the problems of urban areas. for far too long, many urban and metropolitan universities amassed contiguous property to co-exist with, rather than engage with, the cities around them (cantor et al., 2013). in the twenty-first century, however, some universities, like ru-n, are pursuing a role as anchor institutions with a vested interest in surrounding communities (ehlenz, 2018). the aspen institute first used the term “anchor institution” in a 2001 study, defining it as an urban institution with “significant infrastructure in a specific community [that is] therefore unlikely to move,” but the concept grew out of the 1960s when some institutions remained “anchored” in cities while corporations and industries fled for the suburbs (fulbright-anderson original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26592| july 2, 2023 19 et al., 2001, p. 2; taylor & luter, 2013). anchor institutions consist of “sticky capital,” with fixed investments, like facilities, real estate, and infrastructure, and are typically large employers with significant economic assets (maurrasse, 2001, p. 4). the literature has mainly identified universities and hospitals—“eds and meds”—as anchors, though nonprofits such as churches, cultural institutions, public libraries, and sports teams are increasingly included (hodges & dubb, 2012; taylor & luter, 2013). academic literature often points to universities as institutions capable of fostering social cohesion and economic development in urban areas by mooring, or anchoring, various kinds of capital in place (adams, 2003; birch et al., 2013; ehlenz, 2018). rutgers university-newark: in and of newark in 2014, ru-n developed a strategic plan focused on an anchor institution agenda, underscoring its essential role in newark’s revitalization and development. the agenda involves the integration of ru-n’s academic and economic resources to address six impact areas: (1) equitable growth; (2) building educational pathways; (3) stem in the public interest; (4) safe and just cities; (5) arts and culture for social change; and (6) leveraging diversity (harkavy, 2016; ru-n, 2022). with its goal to “improve life and create opportunities for all residents,” ru-n’s agenda exemplifies a clear “social purpose mission,” which introduces communityfocused values into institutional missions (taylor & luter, 2013, p. 14). ru-n’s discourse on its anchor institution status makes its mission clear: since the 19th century, a key element of the mission of american universities has been to engage with the public in identifying and solving problems. … we reject traditional models of “public service” in which faculty and students do things for a public that is regarded as passive and needy. our work is deeply collaborative. we know that the talent and potential within newark, and its legacy of social justice activism, which stretches back to the 1600s, is key to transforming the city and the nation—as well as transforming our university. (ru-n, 2022, n.p.) to this end, ira harkavy, associate vice president, and founding director of the netter center for community partnerships at the university of pennsylvania, argues that there is an ethical imperative for universities to contribute to their local communities: “universities are among the most powerful institutions in advanced society. … why do universities exist? they exist to improve the world” (oldach, 2021, n.p.). the primary motivator for urban and metropolitan universities like ru-n to engage in the hard work of building social cohesion and fostering community development may well be founding higher education principles, such as john dewey’s nineteenth-century call for universities to embrace civic engagement, or the motivator may be a sort of enlightened self-interest, or, perhaps more likely, some combination (harris & holley, 2016; hodges & dubb, 2012). regardless of the motivation, ru-n’s discourse tied to original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26592| july 2, 2023 20 the production of human capital and social mobility and its commitment to being “not just in newark; … [but] of newark” are explicit and evidenced by initiatives like ppla and cvi newark (addie, 2020). newark, new jersey: the place in ru-n’s place-based mission we would be remiss not to contextualize the place in ru-n’s place-based mission. higher education began as an urban institution in europe but assumed “pastoral ideals” in america (garton, 2021, p. 86). with time, however, urbanicity has re-emerged as a defining feature of postsecondary education in the u.s. (garton, 2021). urban-serving institutions like ru-n represent 68% of colleges and universities in the u.s. and serve 20 million students, making their campuses essential for implementing transformative change (aplu, 2022). urban and metropolitan areas, once anathema to the american ideal of higher education, are increasingly recognized as rich environments for contemporary postsecondary education—what the founders of the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities (cumu) saw as the “urban advantage” (cumu, 2022, n.p.). with an estimated 2021 population of 307,220, newark is the most populous city in new jersey and the second largest in the greater new york city region after new york city (united states census, 2021). newark occupies a paradoxical position in the metropolitan region: it is home to thriving arts and cultural institutions, fortune 500 companies, colleges and universities, hospitals, real estate development, and transportation hubs, but the poverty rate (26.3%) is over twice the national average (11.6%), and newark’s median household income in 2020 dollars— just $20,924—was well below that of the rest of essex county ($63,959) and the u.s. as a whole ($71,186) (semega & kollar, 2022; united states census, 2021). employment in newark is highly inequitable. while most residents are black and latinx, 60% of the people employed in newark are white. this disparity cannot be explained by residents not wanting to work or being unqualified for employment (new jersey institute for social justice, 2017). the educational landscape is likewise concerning. segregation in new jersey’s schools is among the worst in the nation. it is worse than any state in the american south (o’dea, 2018). to illustrate: asian and white students make up about 55% of all students in n.j. but 87% of students in low-poverty schools. forty percent of n.j. students are black or latinx but comprise 80% of students in high-poverty schools, with low academic achievement and graduation rates and high dropout rates (tractenberg et al., 2019; tractenberg & coughlan, 2018). just 15.5% of newark residents aged 24 and older hold an associate’s degree or higher in a state where nearly 41% of residents do (united states census, 2021). original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26592| july 2, 2023 21 newark has experienced both the consequences of systemic discrimination and the emergence of substantial investment, particularly in the city’s downtown corridor. newark has many established anchor institutions, such as ru-n, as well as a network of community-based organizations and a long history of activism (marga, 2022). nancy cantor, chancellor of ru-n since 2014, and colleagues (2019) argue that “the challenge is how to create … an architecture of participation and inclusion that lays the groundwork for inequality to be supplanted by equitable prosperity and growth, rather than the counter-narrative we see so frequently of gentrification and displacement,” (p. 28), concluding, “there is no doubt that newark, though in the early stages of transformative change, has moved beyond the stage of mere ideas and conversations” (p. 35). joseph c. cornwall center for metropolitan studies: a signature component of ru-n’s anchor mission ppla and cvi newark are housed within the joseph c. cornwall center for metropolitan studies, a signature component of ru-n’s commitment as an anchor institution for the metropolitan area. since it was established in 2000, the cornwall center—named after the late joseph c. cornwall, a widely respected civic leader in n.j.—has brought the campus’s intellectual talent and other resources to bear on the challenges of revitalizing newark and similar urban communities in the state. specifically, cornwall’s work falls into three categories: (1) research to increase knowledge about what works in urban and regional policy development and how; (2) public informing to ensure stakeholders and decision-makers are armed with the best possible information and have opportunities to discuss it with one another; and (3) demonstration projects that show how research can be translated into impactful social interventions. cornwall’s role is to incubate projects by staffing them, helping to develop a resource base, and, with community partners, building capacity to ensure long-term viability. ppla and cvi newark are examples of such demonstration projects. hyperlocal engagement: two anchor institution initiatives in newark promise parent leadership academy (ppla) background the promise parent leadership academy (ppla) draws on several parent engagement models. one of them is the logan square neighborhood association’s parent mentor program, a grassroots organization that partners with schools to improve academic outcomes and school climate in chicago, illinois. established in 1995, the parent mentor program has grown to original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26592| july 2, 2023 22 include more than 600 mentors across illinois. research suggests notable impacts: schools have reported significant reductions in the numbers of students scoring in the bottom category of readers, and being a parent mentor is associated with improvements in students’ reading outcomes and the numbers of parent mentors who regularly read with their children at home (palenque lsna, 2022). at the core of ppla is the idea of developing parents—who are also newark community residents—with the skills to help schools reach important academic goals. ppla parents serve as liaisons between other parents and community partners, work as thought partners by identifying needs within schools, and serve as leaders in the community. overview of ppla established in 2017, ppla is a collaboration among rutgers university-newark, newark public schools (nps), and the fairmount heights neighborhood association—a largely african american neighborhood in the city’s west ward. through our collaboration, we seek to leverage the intellectual talent of our stakeholders and fulfill ppla’s mission: to build strong, reciprocal relationships between families and schools throughout newark. ppla is a two-generation program that supports parents and caregivers and is designed to provide literacy support for struggling readers in the early grades while concurrently providing parents with personal and workforce development. ppla prioritizes working with students who perform at the bottom quartile of literacy benchmark assessments in high-need elementary schools. since the program’s inception, parent participants have served as tutors and attendance improvement specialists in newark’s west ward. ppla was started with a chancellor’s seed grant from ru-n, plus additional funding from the chancellor’s office. ppla members are compensated for their work and devote most of their time to supporting literacy instruction in the early grades. prior to working with children, parents receive extensive training to equip them with skills to provide adequate academic support to children. the training introduces ppla members to components of k-2 literacy and benchmark assessments such as letter identification, reading comprehension and fluency, sight word recognition, and spelling. parents also receive ongoing training that includes on-the-spot coaching, feedback, and strategies to best meet students’ individual educational needs. strategies include independent and shared reading, supporting mini-lessons, working on a specific reading intervention provided by the teacher, and helping students select texts based on their instructional levels. once onboarded, parents provide approximately 25 hours/week of in-person and virtual academic assistance to students in kindergarten, first, and second grades throughout the academic year. at each location, parents provide academic support to approximately 60 students both during class time and after school, as well as individually and in small groups. students reside in underserved newark communities, attend hypersegregated schools with over 90% black and original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26592| july 2, 2023 23 latino student populations, and score in the bottom quartile on the fall english language arts benchmark assessment. the program aims to improve students’ academic outcomes and attitudes toward reading. in addition to initial onboarding training, ppla members receive academic and nonacademic professional development delivered by staff from rutgers, nps, and various agencies throughout greater newark. we integrate pillars of the community school movement in our professional development: integrated student support, expanded learning time and opportunities, family and community engagement, and collaborative leadership. integrated student supports include learning about available health and social service supports, the importance of early identification of health and learning disabilities, using newark’s cultural resources, limiting screen time, and developing a library habit. expanded learning time and opportunities refer to supporting tutoring, mentoring, and after-school programs. family and community engagement includes learning about organizations and resources in the community. under collaborative leadership, parents learn about strengthening relationships, including parent-teacher relationships, and developing leadership skills. thirty-eight parents have participated in ppla, 33 of whom are women. the age range for members is between 21 and 70 years old. thirty-six participants selfidentified as african american, while the remaining two self-identified as latinx or hispanic. outcomes to date ppla is committed to continuous improvement. we conduct semi-structured interviews with participants so that they can reflect on their experiences, and the program can make course corrections based on participants’ feedback. additionally, we review weekly reflections, journals, and other program artifacts that participants submit to describe their successes, challenges, surprises, and expectations. in this section, we present our findings to date, demonstrating seven ppla participants’ wide range of experiences in the program. results are divided into “promises” (i.e., perceived positive experiences and effective aspects) and “challenges” (i.e., perceived difficulties experienced in the program). pseudonyms were used to protect participants’ identities. emergent themes were established after analyzing the textual data. new themes were created after similar emergent themes were consolidated through reduction, and new clusters of themes, defined as superordinate themes, were established. superordinate themes that emerged from interview transcripts, notes, and parent reflections included: transforming self, strong bonds, and programmatic challenges. “transforming self” includes parents’ perceived personal changes, including increased confidence, self-control, and advocacy. “strong bonds” include close connections parents established with children and their relationships with fellow community original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26592| july 2, 2023 24 members. “programmatic challenges” include attendance and academic support, changing initiatives, and institutional barriers parents faced as members of ppla. table 1 illustrates recurring superordinate themes for each program participant and indicates if that theme was present in more than half of the cases. table 1. recurrent superordinate themes themes taffy maria mercedes olivia keon jackie rhonda transforming self yes yes yes yes yes yes yes strong bonds no yes yes no yes no yes programmatic challenges yes no no yes yes yes yes promises: transforming self “transforming self” is defined as those changes in a person that allow them to positively modify their behaviors, actions, or thoughts, resulting in higher selfconfidence or positive beliefs about oneself. the results indicated that ppla members experienced professional growth, increased self-control and confidence, and developed leadership and advocacy skills. for example, taffy described instances where she could transform herself by developing professional skills. she described her experiences participating in impromptu meetings with community leaders, university officials, and nonprofit executives as part of her work in ppla: they used to just throw us in meetings in front of these big people, and you just got to talk, and it’s like, it was one of my biggest fears cause i’m like tongue-tied, i don’t know what the words to say, and he [ppla director] would just throw us out there, so i came accustomed to it. so now it’s like it comes naturally now. similarly, rhonda believed that her experiences allowed her to understand the importance of comprehending multiple perspectives while completing projects. by participating in ppla initiatives, rhonda stated that she learned to “see things from both sides, the board of education, working as a parent and staff and learn[ing] how to move, talk, and be understood.” maria stated that ppla allowed her to modulate her temper, learn patience, and walk away from tense situations: when we first started, my temper, i would go from a zero to a thousand real quick. i mean, i still speak my mind, so that doesn’t hold me back. but now i just learned to have patience, not every action needs a reaction, and sometimes it’s just better to walk away. original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26592| july 2, 2023 25 likewise, jackie articulated how she transformed from being quiet to becoming more vocal about addressing school and community issues: but i can honestly say before being in promise parent, i was a mute. i would just observe and just sit quietly the first year, um, the first year prior to being in promise parents, i would just observe. they can’t shut me up when it’s a problem. like jackie, olivia mentioned that her experiences helped her become a leader and a strong advocate. when asked about the program’s benefits, she stated, “it actually helps parents to realize their potential.” olivia discussed how she learned to express her opinions and frustrations: “i’m more vocal about what i like, what i don’t like, where i can improve.” olivia also asserted that participating in the program motivated her to develop as a person: “ppla definitely encouraged me to broaden my horizons as a mother-educator, you know, um, to learn more myself and read more.” promises: strong bonds ppla members share similar demographics to the students with whom they work. the results indicate that ppla members strongly bonded with the children and fellow parents. ppla members reported building trusting relationships with children in school or the community. members indicated they could build strong bonds with children, see them smile, work through students’ challenges, provide academic assistance, mentor students, and lead community events. keon mentioned building strong bonds with students through his experiences providing attendance support to chronically absent children: “i created a very good bond because i was going into class, um, pulling the kids out of class for about 45 minutes each.” like keon, mercedes described how her love for students sustained her interest in working in a challenging environment. after experiencing high frustration with the program and school policies, she focused on her students: “i’m here for those kids. i’m not here for newark public schools anymore. i’m here for those kids.” challenges: programmatic challenges ppla program initiatives provide parents opportunities to participate in school-based activities and events aimed at improving educational or social outcomes for school community members. the results indicated that ppla members implemented attendance and academic initiatives but also experienced issues when program priorities shifted between the first and second years of the program. participants reported difficulties such as implementing attendance initiatives for chronically absent students and providing academic support to students who performed significantly behind grade level. challenges: implementing attendance initiatives the implementation of attendance initiatives included members’ participation in activities to decrease chronic absenteeism. olivia mentioned original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26592| july 2, 2023 26 that while participating in an attendance improvement program, she experienced challenges contacting parents and families because ppla members did not have adequate space or a dedicated phone to call parents who had chronically absent children. consequently, she felt that she was not able to maximize her ability to provide adequate support. like olivia, jackie mentioned challenges in working to improve student attendance. she stated, “it was a struggle at first because they [ppla administrators] wanted it done a specific way, but we didn’t understand exactly what to do. we’re constantly told, like, you’re not doing the tracking sheet correctly.” rhonda recalled a conversation with a frustrated parent of a chronically absent student: “you said you were going to help me with transportation. i need bus tickets. my kid’s been absent for three days now. i have no way to get the child there.” while rhonda believed that she was able to identify the reason for the child’s absences, university policies and bureaucratic challenges prevented her from implementing the initiative. summary all participants reported that experiences in ppla were transformative. ppla members stated that their experiences allowed them to develop professional and personal skills, partly by interfacing with middle-class professionals from various institutions within the school. parents developed leadership skills, collaborated to create tailored workshops for families, established trusting relationships with children and other ppla members, and collaborated with seasoned professionals who had the skills, knowledge, and resources to help ppla participants complete member-led initiatives. future ppla was established under an initiative that allowed ru-n to allocate significant resources to launch the program. expanding ppla will require long-term investments and commitments from private foundations, government grants, university resources, and buy-in from local schools. planning ahead, we will request funding and are attempting to become a partner with president biden’s student support initiative, which aims to help underserved communities recover from the covid-19 pandemic. to date, we have secured financial and human resource commitments for the 2022-2023 academic year and have requested funds from private foundations, ru-n, and the state of new jersey for future years. clemente veterans’ initiative (cvi) newark background original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26592| july 2, 2023 27 clemente veterans’ initiative (cvi) newark is a free, college-level humanities course for veterans and military-connected civilians. cvi is part of a broader humanities initiative under the academic aegis of bard college: the clemente course in the humanities (cch). cch was established in 1995 by the writer and social critic earl shorris (1936-2012), who was inspired to start the course while researching a book on poverty and its causes. shorris visited a maximumsecurity women’s prison in new york as part of his research. there, he asked an inmate, viniece walker, why she believed people were poor. “because they don’t have the moral life of downtown,” walker replied. puzzled, shorris (2013) asked walker what she meant by the “moral life.” “you got to begin with the children...” she said. “you’ve got to teach the moral life of downtown to the children. and the way you do that, earl, is by taking them downtown to plays, museums, concerts, lectures.” shorris, seeking clarification, asked walker if she meant the humanities. looking at him as if he were, as shorris put it, “the stupidest man on earth,” walker replied: “yes, earl, the humanities” (p. 5). ameliorating poverty and its effects, shorris concluded, required more than employment or money. beginning with a class of about 25 adults, shorris, along with several professors he had recruited, established a free humanities course at the roberto clemente family guidance center—the social service agency for which the course is named—in new york city. clemente is based on the idea that by studying the humanities, individuals who have been denied access to cultural, economic, and social opportunities develop the skills to improve their lives and those of their families and communities. one way that the humanities can help disenfranchised adults, according to shorris (2000), is by engaging them to be more “political,” but not “political” in the sense of voting: the humanities are a foundation for getting along in the world, for thinking, for learning to reflect on the world instead of just reacting to whatever force is turned against you. i think the humanities are one of the ways to become political ... in the broad sense: the way pericles … used “politics” to mean activity with other people at every level, from the family to the neighborhood to the broader community to the city/state in which he lived. (p. 127). since 1995, clemente has grown to over 30 sites—all urban with one exception—in the u.s. and puerto rico and has reached over 10,000 adults (cch, 2022). a standard clemente course is nine months long; covers literature, philosophy, art and u.s. history, and critical thinking and writing; meets weekly for four hours; and, for students who successfully complete the course, culminates in six transferable credits from bard college. because cch strives to remove barriers, the course is free, and there are minimal requirements for admission: prospective students should live under 200% of the federal poverty level, be able to read a newspaper in english, and be over 17 years old. the course is designed to be rigorous—as a college course should be—but accessible to motivated and engaged adult learners. original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26592| july 2, 2023 28 overview of cvi newark in 2013, cch received a call from a gold star mother whose son had committed suicide after serving in iraq. she had recently read the art of freedom, the last book written by shorris, and was convinced that if her son had been able to attend a clemente course, he would still be alive. when this call was mentioned at the annual meeting of clemente’s academic directors, they shared stories of veterans who had enrolled in their courses across the country. what academic directors saw and heard from these students was that the course was often a lifesaver; it had helped many veterans step out of their despair and isolation to re-engage in their communities with a renewed sense of hope and purpose. with this in mind, cch launched the clemente veterans’ initiative (cvi) in 2014 to provide a humanities-focused intellectual community for veterans struggling to adapt to civilian life. like a traditional clemente course, cvi is free and open to all veterans, as well as military-connected civilians. unlike a traditional clemente course, though, cvi courses are a semester-long, award three transferable credits from bard college, and focus specifically on themes of war, reconciliation, duty, and sacrifice through literature, history, philosophy, and art. by removing major obstacles to participation, the course provides a low-risk, high-reward opportunity for adults who are interested in pursuing education but may feel intimidated by the process of formally enrolling in college, have negative experiences in prior educational settings, are unfamiliar with higher education culture, and/or are unable, or unwilling, to navigate the bureaucracy of postsecondary education. cvi differs from other programs serving veterans and nontraditional adult learners in several ways. first, cvi is open to all veterans, regardless of discharge status. veterans with less than honorable discharges are stigmatized and are at higher risk for untreated mental health conditions, homelessness, criminal justice system involvement, and suicide than honorably discharged veterans. at cvi, we accept that the circumstances of a veteran’s service and discharge are complicated and believe that affordable, intellectually challenging, and supportive educational opportunities should be accessible to all. the course is also unique in that it does not require veterans to use g.i. benefits. under the post9/11 g.i. bill, the v.a. will pay for up to 36 months of educational benefits, meaning benefits can run out before completion. cvi offers those considering furthering their education an opportunity to enroll in a college course without starting the 36-month clock (u.s. department of veterans affairs, 2022). lastly, cvi is not focused on vocational training or discrete skillbuilding. the course rests on believing that all adults can learn and deserve access to a rigorous original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26592| july 2, 2023 29 education typically reserved for society’s elite. it is often assumed that studying the humanities isn’t “useful,” but recent studies show that the humanities provide a path to lifelong learning; push students to think creatively and critically, to reason, and to ask questions; encourage greater civic participation; and help people feel more connected to their history, society, and community. the joseph c. cornwall center for metropolitan studies successfully piloted two cvi courses during spring/summer 2020 and spring/summer 2021 with funding from the national endowment for the humanities’ “dialogues on the experience of war” grant, the purpose of which is to foster “the study and discussion of important humanities sources about war, in the belief that these sources can help u.s. military veterans and others think more deeply about the issues raised by war and military service” (neh, 2022, n.p.). whereas the national cch model is focused on low-income adult learners broadly conceived, the neh funding dictated that newark’s course be explicitly geared toward veterans and their close friends and/or family. according to the most recent data from the u.s. department of veterans affairs (2019), 5.4% of new jersey’s veterans live below the poverty line. as a whole, the state’s veterans are older and have a higher unemployment rate than the national average. within essex county, of which newark is a part, about 3% of residents are veterans, slightly below the state average of 4.4% and the national average of 6.8% (u.s. department of veterans affairs, 2019). newark was largely chosen as a site for a cvi course because of the academic director’s multi-year experience researching clemente at sites across the country and her familiarity with, and advocacy for, the course. although newark is the state’s most populous city, there are few data available on the city’s veterans. indeed, the dearth of information about newark-area vets is lamentable given that veterans are at increased risk for homelessness, suicide, physical and mental illness, and substance use disorders than the general population and, thus, in need of targeted services (thurston, 2022). cornwall’s first cvi course, which began as a traditional, in-person course, moved to zoom as the covid-19 pandemic unfolded. the second course was held entirely online and experienced no attrition. cvi newark students reported that the class felt like a “community” and a “family,” which likely contributed to our success with retention. retaining nontraditional students in higher education is typically a challenge due in part to students’ complex lives. similar clemente courses expect an attrition rate of 40%. learning opportunities are not distributed equally among adults, especially in urban areas. cvi newark is dedicated to increasing access, believing that education can promote a more reflective and active citizenry and enhance students’ social and economic stability. the fact that cvi is entirely free to students and there is no minimum education requirement for enrollment is by original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26592| july 2, 2023 30 design—precisely to increase access for marginalized adults interested in re-entering the educational pipeline. cvi newark’s commitment to open access draws a variety of adults into a learning community—young and old, vets and civilians, and myriad races and ethnicities. unlike many college courses, ours mirrors newark’s rich diversity. together, cornwall’s cvi courses have reached nearly 30 adult learners aged 19 to 76. our students—62% women, 38% men—have largely been people of color who identify as black and latinx, but our courses have also served students who are chinese, brazilian, multiracial, and white. students have been veterans of the air force, army, navy, reserves, and national guard with military experience throughout the world, including the u.s., middle east, germany, japan, and libya. civilian students have been friends, family members, and spouses of veterans. outcomes to date evaluation is central to the course’s success. we utilize a pre-/post-test design in which participants complete validated scales: the groningen reflection ability scale (gras), the de jong gierveld loneliness scale, and the social network satisfaction scale. the surveys are designed to measure the social and reflective benefits of participating as well as outcomes key to the cvi model: increased civic engagement, increased critical thinking and writing skills, improvements in overall functioning, and the social and emotional benefits of being a part of a learning community. participants are asked, in part, to reflect on how they feel about higher education, as well as their confidence levels to achieve; their opinions of the course and the extent to which they believed it impacted them academically and personally; and their participation in community groups, volunteering, and voting. findings from evaluations of our two cohorts to date demonstrate that cvi newark (1) provides opportunities to explore the diverse experiences of veterans (“the class brought veterans with other people from the community together. this gave them the opportunity to share their experience of war with others.”); (2) invites participants to reflect on and share personal experiences (“i learned that we don’t always know everything about war. it was a great experience learning from others. i learn[ed] that people can view situations in a number of ways, and we must respect everyone’s opinions and views because people see things through many lens [sic].”; (3) fosters an understanding of and appreciation for the humanities (“the humanities expand your horizons in all aspects of life. the arts are a necessary part of a good life.”); (4) helps participants develop humanistic skills for inquiry and discussion (“i really liked describing different paintings and analyzing poems. now i have the ability to connect with paintings, drawings, poems, and break it all down.”); (5) creates a supportive environment and encourages a cohort to form (“we [the class] were like family. ... i really enjoyed seeing them every week. original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26592| july 2, 2023 31 and with this pandemic amongst us, it really made a difference. not being able to mingle, it [cvi] helped me so much living alone.”); (6) promotes personal development and continued learning (“i learned from everyone. we all had a story to tell. i am glad i was accepted into the class. it makes me want to enroll in school again. i am eager to learn more about history, art, music, and literature.”); and (7) connects students to resources. cvi newark relies heavily on qualitative data, like student voices, to gauge the program’s success and areas for improvement. graduates consistently report that the course represents a “turning point” in their lives, expands their worldviews, cultivates critical thinkers and stronger writers, and deepens students’ tolerance and respect for others’ opinions. students report being more likely to vote and volunteer and feeling more confident in their ability to ensure a better future for themselves and their families—effects reverberating through communities. as one graduate stated, “my mind is not only open now, but it’s open all the time.” future cvi newark advances ru-n’s strategic priorities: investing in anchor institution collaboration, leveraging our diversity, and building civic dialogue. one major area that captures much of the scholarly expertise and civic-oriented interests in anchor institution work involves k-20 educational pipelines and pathways; cvi may act as one such pathway to postsecondary education. nationwide, we see the imperative to increase college completion for lower-income and working-class students, especially in communities of color. covid-19 has further disrupted the postsecondary pipeline, and students have borne the brunt of this disruption with fewer resources and more responsibilities. cvi seeks to address this. graduates have routinely expressed a desire to continue with cvi, and we plan to offer additional courses for them. “i hope there are more courses like this one,” a navy veteran and 2020 graduate wrote on her course evaluation. similarly, a 2021 graduate who served in the air force during vietnam said he’s on “pins and needles” waiting for the next class. civilian students expressed the same wish: “i’m so glad that i have taken this class,” said a 65-year-old civilian student in our 2021 cohort. “i would take it again if it was available. this was the best class i have ever taken.” cvi newark began with two years of funding from the neh, and we intend to sustain the course over time. the new jersey council for the humanities (njch) has committed three years of funding to the project, and cch continues to lend its expertise and technical support. compared to other interventions, creative and intellectual engagement through cvi is relatively inexpensive and scalable. at roughly $20,000 for a semester-long course serving 15-20 students and $60,000 original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26592| july 2, 2023 32 for a yearlong course, the classes are sustainable over the long term with adequate funding streams. final thoughts this paper aims to present ppla and cvi newark as two examples of how ru-n conducts its work as an anchor institution to improve community members’ lives and suggests that other urban universities can similarly establish and nurture hyperlocal initiatives to improve outcomes for underserved residents. ru-n has endeavored to fully integrate its mission into its operations and partnerships, as evidenced through ppla and cvi. both programs seek to expand underserved newark residents’ capacity and intellectual talent. cvi does this by engaging veterans and military-connected civilians in humanistic inquiry, and ppla develops parents as literacy specialists to serve under-performing students—a benefit to students, who reap the rewards of individualized and small-group instruction, and parent participants, who hone new skills, interface with other adults, and are exposed to new job pathways. as such, both programs are examples of how a university can strategically implement projects aimed at improving individual and collective well-being. establishing these programs helps urban universities like ru-n break down long-standing barriers between the institution and its surrounding communities. walking the anchor mission walk sets an example for other universities to be “of” and not merely “in” their cities. initiatives like ppla and cvi newark build stronger university-community relationships and offer opportunities for practitioners, researchers, and community members to work collaboratively to solve problems and present the campus as a place open and welcoming to the public—a place where everyone belongs, whether enrolled as a student or not. in closing, cultivating and sustaining positive relationships between universities and communities is extremely valuable yet complex work. ppla and cvi newark are not without challenges. both require steady funding streams to operate, and the ever-changing winds of private philanthropy can sometimes act as obstacles to long-term sustainability. recruitment and retention are also obstacles that both programs face, and both have to work continuously to build, maintain, and improve relationships with community members who may harbor distrust for large institutions generally and ru-n specifically. like most institutions of higher education, ru-n has to be mindful of operating in silos. while both programs are housed within the cornwall center, they largely operate in isolation, despite having broadly similar overall goals and serving similar local populations. we hope that ppla parents will participate in cvi or smaller humanities-based topical workshops, discussions, or, perhaps, one-credit offerings. cvi may act original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26592| july 2, 2023 33 as a low-risk opportunity for parent participants to try a college class for free in the familiar environment of the cornwall center, perhaps acting as a pipeline to further education. original research © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26592| july 2, 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(2019). state summaries. https://www.data.va.gov/stories/s/bn2v-jbm5 https://buildingoneamerica.org/sites/default/files/attachments/2018_the_new_promise_of_school_integration_and_the_old_problem_of_extreme_segregation_full_report_1.pdf https://buildingoneamerica.org/sites/default/files/attachments/2018_the_new_promise_of_school_integration_and_the_old_problem_of_extreme_segregation_full_report_1.pdf https://buildingoneamerica.org/sites/default/files/attachments/2018_the_new_promise_of_school_integration_and_the_old_problem_of_extreme_segregation_full_report_1.pdf https://buildingoneamerica.org/sites/default/files/attachments/2018_the_new_promise_of_school_integration_and_the_old_problem_of_extreme_segregation_full_report_1.pdf https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/newarkcitynewjersey/pst045221 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/newarkcitynewjersey/pst045221 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/newarkcitynewjersey/pst045221 https://www.va.gov/education/about-gi-bill-benefits/post-9-11/ https://www.va.gov/education/about-gi-bill-benefits/post-9-11/ https://www.va.gov/education/about-gi-bill-benefits/post-9-11/ https://www.data.va.gov/stories/s/bn2v-jbm5 charity anderson1 and marcus anthony2 abstract introduction rutgers university-newark’s role as an anchor institution anchor institutions rutgers university-newark: in and of newark newark, new jersey: the place in ru-n’s place-based mission joseph c. cornwall center for metropolitan studies: a signature component of ru-n’s anchor mission hyperlocal engagement: two anchor institution initiatives in newark promise parent leadership academy (ppla) background overview of ppla outcomes to date future clemente veterans’ initiative (cvi) newark background overview of cvi newark outcomes to date future final thoughts references © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26113| february 20, 2023 28 original research reflections by community partners of hong kong-based universities on key process variables in servicelearning: an exploratory study ka hing lau1, robin stanley snell2, maureen yin-lee chan3, and cynthia lok sum yeung4 1 assistant manager, general education office, centre for innovative service-learning, hong kong baptist university, 2 visiting professor, department of management, hang seng university of hong kong, 3 part-time lecturer, department of management, lingnan university, 4research assistant, office of service-learning, lingnan university cite as: lau, k.h., snell, r.s., chan, m.y., & yeung, c.l. (2023). reflections by community partners of hong kongbased universities on key process variables in service-learning: an exploratory study. metropolitan universities, 34(1), 28-54. doi: 10.18060/26113 this is an open access article distributed under the terms of the creative commons attribution license. editor: valerie l. holton, ph.d. abstract this research study aims to validate the typology of process variables salient in service-learning projects proposed by snell and lau (2022) with empirical evidence. the study employed a qualitative approach by interviewing partner organization representatives (pors) from 11 local and two international community partner organizations (cpos), which had a history of collaboration in various service-learning projects with four universities based in hong kong. our analysis identified five key factors that were perceived to be conducive to the success of servicelearning projects. these positive factors were: student ownership and initiative, positive roles for pors and their staff; an established collaborative relationship between the cpo and university; university unit-provided support and preparation for students; and instructor commitment. these factors confirmed several variables in the snell and lau (2022) typology, and relationships among these factors were identified. interviewees also identified factors impeding effective service, including the absence of some success factors, failure to align community/cpo needs and instructor requirements, and insufficient time parameters for the service. in our discussion of the findings, we infer some possible causal relationships among the positive factors. limitations of the present study are discussed, and directions for further research are suggested. keywords: service-learning, process variables, project effectiveness, evaluation http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26113| february 20, 2023 29 introduction service-learning has been defined as “a form of experiential education in which students engage in activities that address human and community needs together with structured opportunities intentionally designed to promote student learning and development” (jacoby, 1996, p. 5). the first two decades of the 21st century have seen the adoption of service-learning by all government-funded universities and some private universities in hong kong. this has accompanied major educational reforms, extending the curriculum beyond traditional academic achievement to incorporate general education and whole-person development (see ma, 2018; snell & lau, 2020b; xing & ma, 2010). it is generally considered that effective service-learning requires a foundation of collaboration between students, instructors, community partner organizations (cpos), and the university to achieve its goals of fostering student development and giving rise to positive impacts for cpos and the wider community (wade, 1997). the developmental outcomes for students from service-learning have been widely documented (e.g., astin et al., 2000; celio et al., 2011; conway et al., 2009; eyler et al., 2001; warren, 2012; yorio & ye, 2012). by contrast, relatively few research studies have investigated community impacts (clarke, 2003; driscoll et al., 1996; gelmon, 2003; lau et al., 2021) or the cpos’ experience (block et al., 2018). the salient process variables perceived by cpos to lead to successful outcomes of service-learning have not been systematically investigated. some researchers have pointed out that assessing process variables and community impacts in university-community projects is difficult due to a lack of time and resources (e.g., block et al., 2018). to fill this research gap, snell and lau (2022) developed a typology comprising the process ingredients considered conducive to effective service-learning. we chose that typology as a reference point because it was based on a comprehensive review of past literature encompassing four source types. the first was the classic service-learning literature (e.g., eyler & giles, 1999; godfrey et al., 2005; mintz & hesser, 1996). the second source type was subsequent literature on proposed good service-learning practices in k-12 and youth leadership education (e.g., billig, 2007; youth service california, 2006). the third comprised studies that identified critical ingredients of service-learning in hong kong (e.g., chen et al., 2018; snell et al., 2015). the fourth source type was a set of papers reporting large-scale survey research on crucial process variables in service-learning (astin et al., 2000; billig et al., 2005; ngai et al., 2018). the review article of snell and lau (2022) identified six major ingredients for successful service-learning. the first is the experience of undertaking meaningful service. for students, this entails addressing authentic problems and meeting community needs while having opportunities to encounter diversity and listen to community voices (godfrey et al., 2005; mintz & hesser, 1996; snell et al., 2015). the second ingredient involves the partner organization representatives (pors) of cpos playing a constructive role, acting as co-educators and providing ongoing consultation, feedback, and guidance for students. prior research has identified the importance of pors being responsive to other stakeholders and committed to service-learning (chen et al., 2018; snell et al., 2015). the third is effective preparation and student support through training and orientation (chen et al., 2018; mintz & hesser, 1996; snell et al., 2015). the fourth is an © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26113| february 20, 2023 30 effective reflection by the students as a process for connecting their service-learning experience with academic knowledge (eyler & giles, 1999; godfrey et al., 2005). the fifth is an effective course design that aligns the service-learning projects with the course curriculum and coursework assessments (eyler & giles, 1999; mintz & hesser, 1996; snell et al., 2015). the sixth is stakeholder synergy, arising from close collaboration between pors and instructors and reflecting a sense of co-ownership and reciprocity, along with mutual openness to learning (godfrey et al., 2005; mintz & hesser, 1996). before the research, we presumed that although these six ingredients are closely related, they did not form a hierarchy of causation. however, in discussing our findings later in this paper, we have inferred some possible causal relationships. snell and lau (2022) provide a further literature review. table 1, taken from snell and lau (2020a), an earlier version of snell & lau (2022), lists the six ingredients. table 1. a summary analysis of six key process ingredients in service learning key ingredients reference sources meaningful service 1. meaningful action (mintz & hesser, 1996) 2. addressing authentic problems (snell et al., 2015) 3. reality (godfrey et al., 2005) 4. project efficacy belief (chen et al., 2018) 5. community voices are included (jacoby, 1996) 6. influence of community voices (eyler & giles, 1999) 7. service quality, diversity in service (eyler & giles, 1999) por plays a constructive role 1. por responsiveness (chen et al., 2018) 2. por commitment (snell et al., 2015) effective preparation and support provided to students 1. sufficient support, coordination, orientation, and training (mintz & hesser, 1996) 2. project experiences (chen et al., 2018) 3. in-class project consultation (snell et al., 2015) effective reflection 1. effective reflective activities (mintz & hesser, 1996) 2. effective student reflection (eyler & giles, 1999) 3. reflection (godfrey et al., 2005) 4. measures to enhance student reflection (snell et al., 2015) effective course design 1. service aligning with course curriculum (snell et al., 2015) © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26113| february 20, 2023 31 source: snell & lau (2020a) snell and lau (2022) suggested that a multi-stakeholder approach should be adopted to evaluate the extent to which these process variables are present. under this approach, quantitative data, such as ratings of service experience and service quality, would be collected from students, instructors, and the por, supplemented by in-depth qualitative interviews and focus groups. the current study examines whether this typology can accommodate qualitative data provided through interviews with pors about the factors behind the relative success or failure of servicelearning projects completed under the cpo-university collaboration. methods participants qualitative in-depth interviews were conducted with pors from 13 cpos that had a history of collaboration in service-learning projects in conjunction with any one of four local universities (comprising lingnan university (lu), the hong kong polytechnic university (hkpu), hong kong baptist university (hkbu), and the education university of hong kong (eduhk)). hong kong universities design and implement a wide range of service-learning programs, which involve direct, indirect, research, and advocacy service (for their definitions, please refer to university of minnesota center for community-engaged learning, 2022). there are, nonetheless, broad similarities in provision across the hong kong universities (lau & snell, 2021). most service-learning experiences are incorporated into credit-bearing courses. they are brokered and set up by a central coordinating unit in the partnering university, such as an office of service-learning. students are typically required to receive briefings about service-learning, 2. quality of knowledge application (eyler & giles, 1999) 3. effective evaluation (mintz & hesser, 1996) 4. crediting students for demonstrating their learning (mintz & hesser, 1996) 5. grading service-learning project reports (snell et al., 2015) stakeholder synergy 1. common goals, purposes, responsibility, and resources (mintz & hesser, 1996) 2. reciprocity (godfrey et al., 2005) 3. inter-institutional commitment and trust (snell et al., 2015) © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26113| february 20, 2023 32 engage in pre-service preparatory training, and attend agency orientations before service. during the service period, there will be consultation sessions for students to reflect on and review their service experiences, jointly facilitated by instructors, pors, and service-learning coordinators. service proposals, written project reports, oral presentations, and reflective journals are commonly used for academic performance assessment. in terms of service duration, universities have various requirements, ranging between 10 and 40 hours. while many service-learning projects are undertaken during a standard semester, some service-learning projects arranged by hong kong universities involve student internships during the summer term. these are creditbearing and are designed and administered similarly to the semester-based service-learning projects described above. for example, students must participate in reflection-based sessions, submit reflective essays on their internship experience, and relate this to curricular content. therefore, we regard them as service-learning projects. readers can refer to snell et al. (2019) for details of a typical arrangement for service-learning internships in hong kong. the final point is that service-learning projects, even if they involve students studying professional major subjects such as education, accountancy, or medicine, emphasize community outreach and are differentiated from institutionalized professional practice. the 13 cpos were selected through quota sampling, with reference to two criteria: the type of service-learning project collaboration (i.e., direct, indirect, advocacy, or research) and the institutional nature of the cpo (e.g., ngo, social enterprise). invitations had been accepted by 11 hong kong-based cpos (out of 16 invited) and two overseas cpos. table 2 lists the profiles of the cpos and their service nature, along with details of the interviewed pors. table 3 indicates the type of service-learning projects referred to in the interviews. these projects mainly involved direct and/or indirect service, but some also applied research and/or advocacy. since the interviews were conducted on a cpo basis, each cpo had typically partnered with their collaborating universities over several years in conjunction with multiple service-learning projects, and interviewees typically referred to their experiences with multiple projects. for an exploratory study to validate the typology proposed by snell and lau (2022), we consider that accounts referring to multiple service-learning projects were conducive to the validity of our analyses and conclusions. table 2. profile of the partner organizations, interviewees, and collaborations no. cpo type cpo’s service targets interviewees’ position partner university cpo’s service nature first year of collaboration r01 ngo elderly people senior supervisor lu providing services such as emotional 2015 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26113| february 20, 2023 33 of social services division assistance, enhancement of parenting skills, and helping youth develop their talents, potential, and sense of social responsibility. r02 ngo lowincome families project manager lu providing food collection and recycling in five local districts through collaborating with local organizations and schools, and redistributing to local families in need. 2013 r03 social enterprise women general secretary lu providing opportunities for otherwise lowincome women to work in selffinanced restaurants, operated by the ngo 2010 r04 ngo general public includeng international visitors assistant discovery an education manager lu a major amusement park in hong kong run on an ngo basis with a government subsidy, focusing on education, conservation, and entertainment. 2018 r05 social enterprise elderly people senior supervisor of communit lu assisting with financial, material, and service support for families facing 2011 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26113| february 20, 2023 34 y support center hardship arising from emergency situations such as accidents. r06 ngo elderly people with dementia senior supervisor (counselin g and caring service team) lu providing miscellaneous services for the elderly in the community, so as to improve the wellbeing of them and their families. 2015 r07 ngo school children , youths, and their parents registered social worker/of ficer-incharge eduhk providing services such as emotional assistance, enhancement of parenting skills, and helping youth develop their talents, potential, and sense of social responsibility. prior to 2015 r08 social enterprise elderly masters of tradition -nal crafts based in hong kong senior corporate affairs & marketing manager hkbu maintaining the viability of traditional handicraft skills such as paper cutting, jewelry, and printing by promoting them to the local and international communities 2017 r09 ngo school children and youths center-incharge eduhk providing services to promote the health of children and youth; collaborating with community stakeholders to create an inclusive 2015 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26113| february 20, 2023 35 environment that is conducive for the young to address various life challenges. r10 ngo/ social enterprise patients /lowincome groups senior program manager hkbu providing various supporting social services to people who are disadvantaged, marginalized, displaced or abandoned; operating various social enterprise initiatives. 2015 r11 aided school (private) secondary school children vice principal hkbu providing education to students aged between 12 and 19 approximately 2015 r12 ngo rural families in poverty program manager hkbu working with local communities and their children, youths, and families to address poverty and its root causes through holistic and sustainable transformation. prior to 2015 r13 ngo rural families in poverty the founder hkbu providing services to the local communities to empower the young and address local issues, such as poverty, power supply, and health promotion. prior to 2016 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26113| february 20, 2023 36 note: lu denotes lingnan university; eduhk denotes the education university of hong kong; hkbu denotes hong kong baptist university; and hkpu denotes the hong kong polytechnic university. table 3. distribution of types of projects across the types of cpo service-learning type* cpo type direct service indirect service research advocacy ngo r01, r02, r04, r05, r07, r09, r10, r11 r02, r04, r11 r02 r02, r05 social enterprise/ private r03, r08 r03, r06, r08, r10 r06 r08, r10 international partners (both are ngos) r12, r13 r13 note: please refer to the definitions provided by the university of minnesota community service-learning center (2020). interview protocol and procedures after the cpos had accepted the invitation, they were asked to nominate a por with involvement in one or more completed service-learning projects for the interview. nominated pors typically had close involvement with multiple projects. before the interviews, the pors were briefed by a research team member about the interview’s goals and assured data confidentiality. all pors consented to the interview recording (audio or video). most of the interviews were face-to-face, but a minority were over the telephone or via skype. the language medium for the interviews with local pors was cantonese, while the interviews with pors based overseas were conducted in english. a protocol guided each interview to ensure that they were conducted consistently. the protocol consisted of four sections. first, the pors were asked to relate stories (boje, 2001; gabriel, 2000) about critical incidents (bitner et al., 1994), i.e., specific events or occasions that were of significance to them, during completed service-learning projects that they considered had been particularly successful or unsuccessful from the cpo’s perspective. second, they were asked to explain the respective projects’ relative success (or lack of success), thereby identifying factors that they considered important in determining project effectiveness, such as the extent to which the service-learning projects had achieved their service objectives and goals. third, they were invited to offer further suggestions for increasing the likelihood of project effectiveness. fourth, © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26113| february 20, 2023 37 interviewees were asked to indicate and account for their overall satisfaction with the servicelearning projects. interviews lasted between 60 and 130 minutes. data analysis recordings of the english-medium interviews were transcribed verbatim. at the same time, those conducted in cantonese were translated into english by the fourth author in accordance with a set of guidelines and were checked by the first and third authors. the research team then coded and reviewed the transcripts using an inductive approach (charmaz, 2006). each instance of the emergent categories was then compared and provisionally aligned with the typology of snell and lau (2022). the comparison process continued until it was established that the matches between the emergent categories and the snell and lau (2022) typology were stable and provided a foundation for a clear storyline about each critical incident referred to in the interviews (chun tie et al., 2019). findings the data analysis identified 87 mentions of perceived success factors in service-learning and 81 mentions of factors that were perceived to have detracted from the success of service-learning projects. these factors are summarized in tables 4 and 5, respectively. perceived success factors in service-learning as shown in table 4, interviewees mentioned five types of success factors at least nine times. these were: student ownership and initiative; positive roles for the por and their staff; an established collaborative relationship between cpo and university; university unit-provided support and preparation for the students; and instructor commitment. below, we shall provide illustrations of each success factor. table 4. categories and mentions of success factors categories category descriptions no. of mentions student ownership and initiative students care about the people they are serving; they act responsibly; they take initiatives 28 positive roles for pors and their staff pors make contributions such as orientation, training, coaching and facilitating process reviews and reflection sessions for students 19 an established collaborative long-term collaborative relationships; open communication, mutual understanding between the partners; collaboration leads to continuous improvement 16 © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26113| february 20, 2023 38 categories category descriptions no. of mentions relationship between cpo and university university unitprovided support and preparation for students the university, through an office of service-learning, arranges orientation and provides supervision, training, and support for the students. subsuming service-learning under a credit-bearing system may increase student motivation and the commitment of resources by the university 13 instructor commitment instructors respect the por’s goals for the servicelearning project and contribute to related training and coaching for students 9 others n/a 2 total 87 student ownership and initiative many interviewees also attributed the success of their service-learning projects to the positive roles taken up by themselves and their colleagues. such contributions included: providing timely training, coaching, supervision, and feedback, being responsive and available, and joining in regular process reviews. they considered that such active involvement could help improve the quality of students’ service and increase the likelihood of achieving the intended outcomes. “we would provide training for the students… we offered factual information and explained to them the theories behind the operational work … there was also a mid-term sharing session.” (r04) “we would give comments for the students … those with queries about the operations or other matters could call us or consult us in our office.” (r08) “we had a review meeting after each event to identify areas for improvement … the students would also voice their opinions.” (r10) “if the students do not perform to our expectations, we need to communicate with them one-by-one.” (r09) some pors highlighted the importance of their role and that of their staff in supporting student reflection, resulting in continuous and substantial improvement of their performance during their service-learning projects. the comments of these pors, given below, lend support to the claim (eyler & giles, 1999) that reflection sessions held by pors can generate insights that the © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26113| february 20, 2023 39 university and instructor are unable to provide: “conducting reflection sessions in the community with community partners can be a powerful tool” (p. 184). “we talked [with the students] about the factors leading to them taking initiative ... we would discuss their expectations during the internship program … the alignment of our expectations could be attained in this way.” (r10) “there were several learning occasions... first, our staff would go there to supervise them. when we spotted any problem, we would ask them to observe how other helpers handled the customers ... more often, it was the students who realized the difference through their observation. they found out there were different ways [to engage clients] … they would try out different methods and evaluated what kinds of approach would engage the children the best.” (r04) an established collaborative relationship between cpo and university some interviewees indicated the importance of building a long-term oriented, collaborative relationship between the cpo and the university based on reciprocity and open communication. they explained that service-learning projects could have a more significant community impact if they are undertaken in the context of an ongoing collaboration with the university instead of being regarded as one-off efforts. they pointed out that long-term collaboration could facilitate the development of mutual understanding, a clearer grasp of the project objectives, and better planning, enabling the quality of service-learning projects to be improved over time. “for a service-learning project, i like the two-way interactions.” (r07) “after several years’ cooperation with [the university], we understand more about the learning objectives of their academic lessons ... gradually, i have come to know how to accommodate the learning objectives … i am more confident in supporting the learning requirements … the coordination has become better.” (r09) “we treat [the university] as a collaborating party, a stakeholder in serving the community. i believe that each collaboration is good for future collaboration. if there had been no prior collaboration between us, an important visit [of community members to the campus] might not have been possible.” (r07) “with effective prior communication, we [the cpo and university] do not need to talk frequently … we have arrived at a common understanding. (r11) “i think that the success of this camp was due to our previous collaborations so that people could be called upon to give support afterwards, leading to a win-win outcome.” (r01) university unit-provided support and preparation for students © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26113| february 20, 2023 40 although interviewees might not have been able to observe the complete set of support and preparation activities provided by university-based stakeholders, they believed that such support was an essential means for ensuring that the student’s ability, motivation, and performance were of the requisite standard for achieving the intended outcomes. they expressed appreciation for university-provided support in the form of training, coaching, and supervision by staff of service learning offices or units offering similar support. examples included the following. “the office of service-learning (osl) has been very helpful … by providing suitable training for the students. this minimized the costs in terms of time and administration effort incurred by a full-time staff member. furthermore, this made the project easier for me to handle.” (r04) “we have to thank osl as … they helped to monitor the students’ work … they appear to have talked to students about their service work and have even used various means to remind those under-performing students … i believe that they had ensured the quality of the students’ work before submitting (their reports) to us ... this quality assurance process has enhanced our collaboration relationship.” (r06) “the role of field instructor [from the university unit] is also important in monitoring [the students] to ensure that they submit service proposals on time. this relieves the workload of our colleagues. it is appropriate [for the instructor] to follow up later in monitoring academic assignment submission. it would be embarrassing for our own staff to monitor the students on this academic aspect as the students may not appreciate this, and they might get the impression that we do not like them.” (r07) some interviewees pointed out the positive impact of subsuming service learning courses under the university’s credit-bearing system. they saw this as a means for increasing students’ motivation (since the quality of their service-learning projects would affect their gpa) and ensuring that a sufficient workforce from the university would be deployed to provide support and preparation for the students. “under the credit-bearing system, i find that (students) are more attentive in presentations and doing their assignment, as well as being eager to meet my colleagues more often … i can sense that there are more colleagues from (osl) to provide support when it has become credit-bearing, and with more colleagues, the quality is a little better.” (r01) instructor commitment some interviewees identified instructor commitment as a key success factor, reflected in their direct involvement in providing project-specific training to prepare students for the service and in providing consultation during the service: “amidst their busy schedule [the instructor] and his colleagues have the heart to help the secondary schools.” (r11) © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26113| february 20, 2023 41 “the instructors would ask the students to provide the design and implementation plan of the project … the instructors would also read and comment on their ideas.” (r08) “the instructors would coach students on how to present [their ideas] well.” (r11) factors perceived to have detracted from the success of service-learning projects the interviewees also identified five main factors that detracted from the success of a servicelearning project. these are listed in table 5. they comprise the following: lack of student commitment or initiative; failure to align community/cpo needs and instructor requirements; insufficient university-provided support and preparation for students; insufficient time parameters for the service; and failure to build a collaborative relationship with the por/cpo. table 5. categories and mentions of causes of failure. overarching categories category descriptions freq. of mentions lack of student commitment or initiative students lack commitment to the service; they engage superficially; they are late; they are inattentive; they are passive 24 failure to align community/cpo needs and instructor requirements the project does not address end-beneficiary needs; the project output is impractical; the goals of the cpo and the instructor are incompatible. 17 insufficient university-provided support and preparation for students students appear insufficiently prepared to provide the service; the por considers that the university/ instructor should have provided more thorough orientation, training, and support for students before and/or during the project 19 insufficient time parameters for the service service is impeded because the duration of the servicelearning is too short, or the service-hours are fragmented 14 failure to build a collaborative relationship with the por/cpo lack of communication between instructor and por; superficial instructor involvement; lack of continuity on the university side 5 others n/a 2 total 81 lack of student commitment or initiative © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26113| february 20, 2023 42 just as student commitment and initiative were perceived as constituting a success factor, as mentioned above, some interviewees referred to the absence of this as a factor that detracted from effective service. “when the students found out that the promotion was inadequate, they could have helped with approaching target customers. but they didn’t do so. i think this would not have been difficult for them to do.” (r03) “some students were not adequately committed to serve, engaged only at a superficial level, and provided simplistic solutions.” (r03) “some students were inattentive or were just too tired after attending their lessons or lacked spirit or even appeared to ignore their service recipients. they were physically present but did not seem to engage.” (r01) “service quality was all about the quality of the students’ engagement, and the issues detracting from this included them playing with cell phones and their insufficient willingness to handle the classroom disciplinary issues.” (r07) “a typical problem with the students has been their lack of punctuality. they would promise quickly but, in the end, they give various excuses for being late.” (r10). insufficient university-provided support and preparation for students some interviewees lamented that for some projects, the necessary levels of support from the instructor and/or the university in terms of training, coaching, consultation, and supervision for the students appeared to have been insufficient. the following comments thus reflected the perceived absence of another critical success factor that was mentioned earlier: “the students did not seem to know how to design the questionnaire that we wanted, and the instructor did not allocate any time to comment on this questionnaire. the students designed the questionnaire without the instructor’s help, and the instructor did not follow up ... i feel deeply that the overall support level from the university has declined in recent years, and … the needs of cpos have not been well taken care of ... the service from students would sometimes add pressure to us. some students appeared to have been instructed to come to do service without being clear of what to do.” (r02) “sometimes the year two or year three students are not really sure about the service content, and they are not clear themselves about the knowledge required to provide the service.” (r13) failure to align community/cpo needs and instructor requirements some interviewees complained that the service needs, as they perceived them, were poorly aligned with the project requirements, as set by the respective instructors. for example: © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26113| february 20, 2023 43 “the whole report was rather superficial, just like secondary students, who just do a paper ... in order to provide value for me, the students really needed to work out something practical and evaluate whether it works or not.” (r03) “what we are expecting, which is what the local people in the slum community (endbeneficiaries) perceive they need, is different from what the instructors are envisaging. the local people do not understand how the project can benefit them.” (r13) “the students wasted their time in developing this product … there appeared to be no community demand for the product.” (r02) “although many community members responded to the services provided under the project, they may have done so out of courtesy but not for real benefit.” (r06) in one case, the por perceived that there had even been a direct conflict between the requirements of the cpo and the instructor, which appeared to have compromised the quality of the service provided. “the instructor requested the students to work on one questionnaire, and i told them that i also needed them to work on another questionnaire … therefore, the residents had to complete two questionnaires. it appeared that the students were not so committed to administering my questionnaire … the instructor’s questionnaire was part of a research study that was quite different from our expectations, which were to understand the needs of the residents.” (r02) insufficient time parameters for the service some interviewees explained that the typical duration of a service-learning project was too short for the intended service to be adequately completed. for example, some of them stated that the standard requirement of one of the universities, i.e., 30 service hours for a project conducted as part of a semester-long course, was insufficient. furthermore, in such cases, they perceived that the time shortage problem was compounded by the university’s practice of including training hours in calculating students’ total service hours. even in the special case of a summer practicum course, where students were expected to work full-time on their projects, an interviewee considered that the total service time requirement that had been set by the university, which in that case was 200 hours, was still insufficient to meet the project goals. such comments, further illustrated below, are consistent with previous research findings (sandy & holland, 2006; tryon et al., 2008). “a key problem is the time limit for a service-learning project, which is run semester by semester. their semester will end even if the s-l project has not been completed.” (r01) © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26113| february 20, 2023 44 “the schedule is too tight. there is too little time for the students and the por to get to know each other and build rapport, especially when there are also overseas students.” (r06) “for a social enterprise like us … there are too few service hours. to achieve the intended outcomes, 200 hours are not enough ... the students also claimed that the internship duration was too short.” (r10) “we expect well-trained staff and the training may take two days. the service hours for the project also included the training time ... the training we provided was therefore highly condensed and omitted some material ... a couple of students gave feedback that the training was too rushed and that they had too much information to remember, making them confused.” (r04) additional time-related problems that were perceived to have detracted from service quality concerned the fragmentation of the service hours and /or difficulties in matching students’ classroom timetables with service time slots. “the students were from different academic disciplines and were struggling to match different timetables. they found it difficult to agree on common time slots for the service. some students would just attend the service session alone and for only an hour or so. then they had to come 20 times to fulfill the service hours’ requirement.” (r09) failure to build a collaborative relationship with the por/cpo interviewees indicated that the failure to build a collaborative relationship between the university/instructor and the por/cpo had impeded the quality of the service provided by the students or had constituted a missed opportunity for service improvement, reflecting the absence of a key success factor discussed above. “the instructor did not sit down with me to discuss the project, barely acknowledged the service-learning requirement, and delegated the entire task of setting up and implementing the project to an administrator. the instructor only paid attention to the academic requirements and neglected the service needs of the cpo. all the service responsibility on the university side was shifted to the osl. however, without the involvement of the instructor, osl lacked authority to intervene when there were conflicts between the instructor’s requirements and the service needs.” (r02) “sometimes i can see that the instructors had changed something, but sometimes they just allow the same problem to repeat the following year, and the year after.” (r13) discussion © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26113| february 20, 2023 45 the current study identified some process variables that interviewees perceived to impact the outcomes of service-learning projects, either positively or negatively. therefore, the commentary immediately below is best read in conjunction with table 6, which maps the inductive categories, taken from tables 4 and 5, against the snell and lau (2022) typology. table 6. mapping the inductive categories identified by interviewees onto the typology of snell and lau (2020a; 2023). inductive categories correspondence to the sub-categories and categories of snell & lau (2020a; 2023) student ownership & initiative versus lack of this the student commitment and meaningful action components of meaningful service established collaborative relationship between cpos and universities versus failure to build this inter-institutional commitment and trust as an aspect of stakeholder synergy instructor commitment versus noncommitment sufficient support, coordination, orientation, and training and in-class project consultation as aspects of effective preparation and support for the students university unit-provided support and preparation for students/ versus lack of this positive roles for pors and their staff under an established collaborative relationship between cpo and university por responsiveness and por commitment as components of por plays a constructive role guiding reflection sessions for students as one of the por’s positive roles effective reflection failure to align community/cpo needs with instructor requirements negatively related to service aligning with course curriculum as an aspect of effective course design insufficient time parameters for the service negatively related to appropriate service duration as a new sub-category of effective course design. student ownership and initiative as a success factor versus its converse, lack of student commitment and initiative, appeared to match the student commitment and significant action components of meaningful service in snell and lau’s (2022) typology. however, regarding meaningful service, the interviewees appeared to focus on the importance of student commitment and meaningful action concerning delivering the service aspects of the project content. they did not refer explicitly to the inclusion of community voices or student encounters with diversity when interacting with service beneficiaries during service delivery. we believe that there are two different reasons for these omissions. first, regarding community voices, we consider it likely that pors would have based their projects on ideas expressed to them by members of communities served by the respective cpos. they may not have said so because they were not © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26113| february 20, 2023 46 specifically asked about the processes through which the cpo’s service needs had been identified. second, regarding student encounters with diversity, we suspect that pors regarded this as an incidental element while focusing more on what students were doing to create benefits for the cpo and/or its end-beneficiaries. a compound inductive continuum emerging in this study comprised established collaborative relationships between cpos and universities combined with instructor commitment versus failure to build a collaborative relationship and lack of instructor commitment. this continuum matches inter-institutional commitment and trust as an aspect of stakeholder synergy in snell and lau’s (2022) typology. interviewees strongly valued the existence or prospect of a collaborative, win-win, long-term oriented relationship between the cpo and its partner university through the agency of the por on the cpo side and the instructor and osl on the university side. the importance of this kind of stakeholder synergy has been identified by previous researchers (e.g., wade, 1997). another compound inductive continuum comprised university unit-provided support and preparation for students along with instructor commitment versus failure to provide sufficient support of this kind combined with lack of instructor commitment. this continuum appears to correspond to a similarly labeled aspect of adequate preparation and support for the students in snell and lau’s (2022) typology. an additional compound inductive continuum included positive roles for pors and their staff under an established collaborative cpo-university relationship versus failure in this respect. this continuum matches por responsiveness and por commitment as aspects of the por’s constructive role, as indicated in snell and lau’s (2022) typology. also, associated with positive roles for pors, some interviewees confirmed the importance of the process variable of effective reflection by students in the snell and lau (2022) typology. however, they emphasized their role in facilitating student reflection to improve the services provided by the students rather than connecting the service-learning experience with academic knowledge. the two remaining inductive factors, both negative, were failure to align community/cpo needs with instructor requirements, along with insufficient time parameters for the service. these factors can be mapped against the converse of specific aspects of effective course design in snell and lau’s (2022) typology, although time parameters were not mentioned in snell and lau (2020a). for reasons discussed below, the interviewees refrained from commenting on curricular matters regarding academic content and its delivery. however, they were very concerned that every service-learning project should be realistically designed to address community needs. it is crucial, therefore, that the cpo and the university, through the agency of the por, instructor, and osl staff, should jointly establish service-learning project objectives and plans, which are closely aligned with the course content, and which envisage a degree of student effort and involvement that is commensurate with the service-hours that the university requires for its students. we may also infer two underlying patterns of interrelationships among the process variables. the first pattern is that the high levels of student ownership and initiative appear to reflect the relative presence of three other success factors, i.e., positive roles for pors and their staff, university © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26113| february 20, 2023 47 unit-provided support and preparation for students, and instructor commitment; along with the absence of two other key impediments, i.e., failure to align community/cpo needs and instructor requirements, and insufficient time parameters for the service (see figure 1). thus, a combination of requisite preparation, training, coaching, and ongoing support; alignment of por and instructor inputs and requirements; and enough time to meet project requirements are likely to ensure requisite levels of student motivation, commitment, and ownership. furthermore, recognition of this pattern leads us to the issue of reciprocity between cpos and their partner universities underpinning the provision of effective preparation and support for students undertaking service-learning projects. note: underlined text denotes negative factors. figure 1. an inferred underlying pattern of how student ownership and initiative are affected by other inductive categories. interviewees acknowledged that they and their staff have an essential role to play in supporting and preparing the students but perceived, in addition, that the effectiveness of universityand/or instructor-provided support and preparation is also a key success factor. however, they appeared hesitant about voicing suggestions about what should be done on the “teacher side” and to regard making such suggestions as not their prerogative. although many of them had participated in inclass consultation sessions and had seen course outline documents, the delivery of the bulk of the respective courses constituted a “black box” for them. they had no other opportunities to observe the instructor’s classroom-based input and may not have considered themselves sufficiently informed to evaluate and influence instructor contributions. while responding to students’ requests for help, they appeared to confine themselves to operating within the parameters set by instructors. as one interviewee stated, “we [the pors] are not here to teach the students the things to do in the course” (r02). therefore, it is vital that course instructors, relevant university committees, and units shoulder responsibility for ensuring that students are © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26113| february 20, 2023 48 adequately prepared for and supported in undertaking the service-learning projects agreed upon with the cpos. the second underlying pattern is that the extent to which a collaborative relationship between the university and the cpo has been established is reflected in positive roles for pors and their staff, effective university unit-provided support and preparation, and instructor commitment (see figure 2). in addition, interviewees implied that cpo-university service-learning collaborations should be based on co-ownership and reciprocity, mutual openness to learning, and reciprocity in terms of sharing resources, ideas, and knowledge. in turn, a collaborative relationship would also exert a positive influence as a feedback loop, as depicted in figure 2. figure 2. an inferred underlying pattern of how the development of a collaborative relationship between cpo and university is established through other inductive categories. overall, we consider that there is a good match between the success factors and impediments identified by interviewees and the typology of key process variables identified by snell and lau (2022), noting that some elements of that typology are not invoked, possibly because the perspectives of instructors, service-learning coordinating units, and students were not examined in this study. limitations and directions for further research the current research offered some qualitative support for the typology proposed by snell and lau (2022) regarding the process variables salient for successful service-learning projects but also indicated the need for some augmentation and refinement of it, thus paving the way for the development of quantitative measurement instruments for use in future studies. the current study has some limitations. first, we only interviewed pors and did not reach out to students, instructors, representatives of satellite community organizations, other communitybased contributors, or end-beneficiaries. as noted above, stakeholders may emphasize different criteria when evaluating the processes entailed in designing and implementing service-learning projects. notably, none of the interviewees mentioned that the behavior of the pors themselves could detract from the quality of a service-learning project. © the author 2023. published by the coalition of urban and metropolitan universities. www.cumuonline.org metropolitan universities | doi 10.18060/26113| february 20, 2023 49 accordingly, we consider that studies collecting the views of multiple stakeholders in servicelearning are necessary. second, as noted above, interviewees were not asked how they initially identified the topics and related needs of the service-learning projects that formed the basis of their collaboration with the respective partner universities. third, a complete set of records about each cpo’s service-learning collaborations, including a list of project titles, project types, associated courses, and the semesters/summers of their occurrence, was unavailable from all the universities that cpos in this study partnered with. this limitation was partly offset during the interviews with pors, who referred to specific projects and offered recollections of when these had taken place. further research could perform deeper analysis based on a complete set of information about the history of the cpos’ service-learning collaborations with their school partners. fourth, the pors in the current study were either from ngos or social enterprises, and there were no pors from private enterprises. future studies could seek to overcome this limitation of the generalizability of our findings by involving pors from this sector. that said, communications with the service-learning coordinating units of the four hong kong-based universities indicated that the cpos featured in this study were representative of the sectors that have thus far collaborated in service-learning with them and that there had been few if any, partnerships with private organizations. fifth, the current study was based on a small sample. although we interviewed pors with experience in multiple service-learning projects, who were working for cpos serving a diverse clientele, there may be some limitations to the representativeness of the findings. based on the foundation laid out by the current study, future research can seek to draw on a larger and more diverse set of respondents to establish instruments for evaluating the key process variables for effective service learning. author note this paper results from a cross-institutional project named “cross-institutional capacity building for service-learning in hong kong higher education institutions (polyu4/t&l/16-19)” which aims to enhance and support the development of service-learning as an effective pedagogical strategy under the collaboration of lingnan university, hong kong baptist university, the hong kong polytechnic university, and the education university of hong kong. the project was launched 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(2006). seven elements of high quality service-learning. retrieved 12 aug 2021 from https://usm.maine.edu/sites/default/files/service-learningvolunteering/7%20elements%20of%20high%20quality%20service%20learning.pdf https://usm.maine.edu/sites/default/files/service-learning-volunteering/7%20elements%20of%20high%20quality%20service%20learning.pdf https://usm.maine.edu/sites/default/files/service-learning-volunteering/7%20elements%20of%20high%20quality%20service%20learning.pdf reflections by community partners of hong kong-based universities on key process variables in service-learning: an exploratory study ka hing lau1, robin stanley snell2, maureen yin-lee chan3, and cynthia lok sum yeung4 abstract introduction methods participants interview protocol and procedures data analysis findings perceived success factors in service-learning student ownership and initiative an established collaborative relationship between cpo and university university unit-provided support and preparation for students instructor commitment lack of student commitment or initiative insufficient university-provided support and preparation for students failure to align community/cpo needs and instructor requirements insufficient time parameters for the service failure to build a collaborative relationship with the por/cpo discussion limitations and directions for further research author note references